#this has been in draft forever but I wanted to read over it a couple of times | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

forlix · 1 year

Text

𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐞・l.f.

— five times you want to tell your best friend you love him and the time you finally do.

words・7.7k

pairing・idol!felix x gn!reader

genres・fluff, angst, hurt/comfort, best friends to lovers, mutual pining, slow burn w/a happy ending, 5 + 1 trope, idiots in love who are also afraid of love, you do the math

warnings・alcohol consumption, discussions of anxiety, lots of emotional vulnerability, like a surprising amount of crying icl

playlist・jazz bar by dreamcatcher・spring day by bts・through the night by iu・eight by iu ft. suga・house song by searows・not mine by day6

a/n・i borrowed the title of this beautiful day6 song for this fic; give it a listen if you can (especially while reading part four). happy late birthday, lix <333 thank you for being you

One. The door to the café opens with a soft jingle, bringing a chilly draft into the room and causing you to draw your scarf tighter around your shoulders.

Theoretically, you come here to study—but people-watching has become a simultaneous pastime. There was that couple with a pair of samoyeds, so fluffy that they looked like walking clouds; a mother and son, hunched over their croissants, arguing in a classic “don’t cause a scene in public” tone; an elderly woman in bicycle shorts asking for extra shots of espresso in the menu’s most caffeinated item.

And now, there is him.

“Hello,” the ashy-haired stranger says to the barista with a quick, polite bow. “May I have a medium caramel latte? Hot, with sweetener, please. Thank you.”

His voice reminds you of the notes of a cello, of the feeling of running your fingers through tufted velvet. When he turns away from the counter, he’s slipping a card back into his wallet, and you catch a glimpse of long lashes and a scattering of freckles. You cannot see his face, as it’s covered by a black mask, but that only propels the question further: who are you?

And perhaps it is destiny herself who hooks a gentle finger beneath the stranger’s chin and tilts his head upwards, because when he inadvertently steps into a patch of sunlight, his brown irises illuminate like molten amber, and they are fixed upon you.

You feel your lips part, your stomach turn. You don’t know if your cheeks are so warm because of your piping hot tea (your third one today) or because of the newfound eye contact with someone so ethereal.

But you are sure that the corners of the stranger’s eyes crinkle ever so slightly, as if his lips have just curved into a smile beneath his mask.

“Felix,” the barista calls, and you turn the name silently on your tongue.

Maybe you are exhausted from work and not thinking straight. Maybe you are more starved for change than you’ve ever been. Or maybe you’re just prophetic. But you think you sense forever in this man, with his freckled cheeks and pretty eyes.

That is the first time you want to tell Lee Felix you love him.

Two. The second Felix comes into your line of vision, you sense that something is wrong.

You hold up a hand in greeting, and the smile he returns is sincere but muted, as if it pains him to move, to breathe. He sounded weary on the phone earlier—can I see you tonight? Just for a bit—but only now that he’s in front of you do you see the extent of his fatigue, seeping into his sunken shoulders and lightless eyes.

“Hi,” he says once he’s close enough.

“Hey, you,” you answer, rising out of your seat. Instinctively, he extends his arms toward you, and you draw him into a hug that is fleeting and familiar. He smells faintly of laundry detergent and vanilla, and it makes something within you ache, like an oyster searching for its absent pearl.

When you pull away, your hands move to your best friend’s cheeks, cocooning his face so you can get a better look at him. Even under the sparse streetlights, you see that his eyes are slightly bloodshot, the shadows beneath them deep and sullen. Has he been crying?

“Bad day?” You ask, your hands falling back to your sides.

“The worst,” he returns with a weak smile.

“Wanna take a walk?”

“Yes, please. How long do I have you for?”

This is what you do when your schedules are too packed for you to make real plans: take strolls wherever is most convenient, for however long either of you can spare. Sometimes that’s five minutes, sometimes five hours. But you know that you need to be here for him tonight.

“As long as you need me,” you say.

You turn around to pick up your drinks (a decaf caramel latte for Felix and a black milk tea for yourself), and you don't see the way his smile comes back a little bigger the second time, the way his cheeks warm slightly under the moonlight.

There’s a small park a few blocks behind your apartment. Granted, it's not a very good park, with only a tiny, sad playground and very little foliage, but it is an excellent stargazing spot, due to it being so dark and desolate. You and Felix decide to head there now, your arms touching as you walk through the quiet residential area.

Ten minutes later, blades of grass are poking the back of your head, and directly above you is a sea of scattered stars, flickering like millions of faulty flashlights. Felix’s voice is leaden when he starts to speak, breaking the park’s fragile silence. He tells you about his fears, about how earlier today they overwhelmed him so much that he wanted to lock himself away from the world and throw away the key. He tells you about his dreams, about how even in his relentless pursuit of them they sometimes still feel as amorphous and unattainable as fragments of mist.

The way he always does when he’s around you, Felix spills parts of himself that he never thought he could entrust to anyone. And you don’t say a word, your knee leaning against his, listening, understanding. (But you wish you could tell him a lot of things: that you care for him more than you ever believed yourself capable; that you hope for his happiness more than your own; that you don’t have the words to heal him, but you would give anything to find them.)

By the time the two of you leave the park, it’s almost midnight, and the streets have fallen silent save for the occasional whoosh of car wheels on cement and the distant lamentations of cricket choirs. You’re making small talk now, and Felix is smiling a little easier. It seems your conversation worked in cheering him up; a temporary fix, you’re sure, like a bandaid where stitches should be, but seeing his eyes crinkle and hearing his laugh again is enough to soothe your worry for the rest of the night, at the very least.

“You’re sure you’ll be okay going back yourself?” You ask once the two of you reach the entrance to your apartment building.

“Yeah, of course.” Felix touches the back of his neck apologetically. “I’m sorry I kept you out so late.”

“Nonsense, Lix. I’m always here for you.”

Felix averts his eyes to his shoes, and you’re caught off guard by his facial expression: exhausted but contemplative, and possessing a sense of tenderness. It is a look that you don’t think you’ve seen before, and you feel your heartstrings pull at its unfamiliarity, its strange softness.

You say your goodbyes, but your "let me know when you get home safe" is cut short when you feel a hand catch your wrist, just as you’re entering the building.

How Felix doesn’t notice your frantic pulse beneath his touch is beyond you, but instead he parts his lips, and his next words resound in your mind as you try and fail to fall asleep that night.

“I can’t explain why, or how—but I feel braver when I’m with you, Y/N. I meant to tell you that earlier.”

And those three words rush to your mind fleetingly, like saltwater crashing against the shores of your mind. Even when the tide has subsided, they remain on the sand, waiting to be read aloud.

“Thank you,” Felix mumbles, “for everything.”

You don’t read out those words, of course. Instead, you reach up to squish Felix’s face and call him a sentimental dork, to which he rolls his eyes affectionately and bats you away, and the moment is over. But when you turn to go, your heart is pounding so loudly that your reply may as well have been a confession.

Three. You sink into your mattress, careful to keep your tea within your mug’s rim, and let out a hybrid of a groan and a sigh that is strikingly reminiscent of an old man lowering himself into a worn armchair.

You can’t remember the last time you had a cold this terrible. It feels as if your lungs took a plunge in a vat of wet cement and then rolled around in gravel immediately afterward. And it’s got you in the mood to do nothing but listen to the heavy drops of rain knocking against your window, curl up with a good show and a hot drink, and bask in your own congestion.

But then your phone, which you left in the bathroom, emits four deafening notification sounds, and you haul yourself back out of bed with a groan-sigh that’s twice as anguished as the last.

When you reach the hellish device, your best friend’s name greets you, and your ire dissipates momentarily.

From: Lix 🐣 Hey hey From: Lix 🐣 We still on for dinner tonight? From: Lix 🐣 Just gonna be me, Minho, Seungmin. Jeongin has a vocal lesson From: Lix 🐣 Please don’t play the “if Jeongin doesn’t go neither do I” card again I’ve had enough of it!!! ENOUGH

You let out a throaty laugh that sounds like one of Minho’s cats battling a hairball, heading back to bed.

From: Y/N 🌙 ahhhh i meant to text you earlier, but i have the worst cold From: Y/N 🌙 no clue how or why i caught it but i feel like fucking shit. it’d be a bad idea for me to come over right now From: Y/N 🌙 sorry :( can we raincheck in a few days? From: Y/N 🌙 (that way jeongin can come too!!!)

Felix dislikes this last text, and you snort into your tea.

From: Lix 🐣 Yeah, of course. Don’t apologize From: Lix 🐣 Do you need anything? You’re eating and sleeping well, yeah? From: Y/N 🌙 sleeping, YES. From: Y/N 🌙 eating, not really 😅 but i don’t have much of an appetite anyways From: Y/N 🌙 don’t worry about me. i’ll be raring to go in a day or two

Felix starts to type a response, but the gray dots disappear after a bit, and you set your phone face-down on your nightstand. He probably has to get back to work, and you have to get back to your episode.

Slowly, the soporific fragrance of chamomile and the lull of relentless rain start to weigh on your eyelids, and you slump unconsciously into your makeshift fortress of blankets, your show playing to nobody.

Night has fallen by the time the door of your apartment clicks open, and Felix pokes a head into your dark kitchen, cautiously calling out your name. When you don’t respond, he slips inside and moves to your kitchen counter, where he unloads the bags in his arms. A spare key to your place dangles from the opening of his hoodie pocket.

There’s a quiet knock on your bedroom door, another call of your name—infinitely softer this time, like how one would speak to a dove. But Felix finds you out like a light, even when he closes your laptop and puts it on your desk, checks your temperature with a gentle hand to your forehead. It feels normal enough to let you sleep, but warm enough that he brings a glass of water and two pills of ibuprofen to your nightstand, placed within your reach, should you wake up in the middle of the night needing them.

Using only the slivers of light coming in from the hallway, Felix allows himself to look at your sleeping form. Your breathing is callous but steady; your face pallid but peaceful. And if only you'd seen see the tiny, helpless smile that pulls at his lips; if only you'd heard the pulse protesting against his skin, yelling at him “do something about this, you fucking idiot, and do it soon."

But you don’t see or hear anything; you just speak, instead.

“Stay with me,” you whisper, and Felix’s hand freezes on your doorknob, his eyes widening in the darkness. “Please?”

There is a lengthy period of nothing, during which neither of you makes another noise; there is only the sound of your clock ticking, raindrops rushing against the windows, and Felix’s heart in his ears.

And then he moves.

“C'mere,” Felix murmurs once he’s lying down next to you, and you nestle into his embrace as easily as if you've always belonged there, your face burrowing into the crook of his neck, your arms winding around his waist, searching for him, asking for him.

Felix has always expressed his affection for people through touch, and you’ve gotten used to his constant hand on your shoulder, his leg resting against yours. But he thinks this is the first time you’ve initiated physicality outright, and he feels a concerned pang in his chest at your unexpected vulnerability. He lifts a hand to cradle the back of your head, running his fingers through your hair.

“Gonna get you sick,” you say with a wet sniffle, your voice muffled against him. And Felix presses a kiss to the top of your head, perhaps without thinking as much as he should have; but who can blame him for forgetting to think when he’s holding you the way he is?

“Don’t care,” he answers readily. “I'm not going anywhere.”

At some point before you fall back asleep, you think your mouth actually forms the words I love you, subtly and silently and into the fabric of his hoodie. But you resume your slumber before you can think more of it. (Felix waits until your breathing is steady again, checks your temperature one more time; and only afterward does he allow his eyes to close.)

The next morning, you wake to an empty bed and a Post-It note explaining that Felix had to run to a recording session: Check your kitchen! See u soon x. Accompanied by a small, messy doodle of a baby chick popping out of its egg.

Your face melts into a smile when you see that the fridge is chock-full of fresh groceries and the pantry has been restocked with your favorite snacks, including a batch of Felix’s world-famous sea salt brownies—accompanied by another note with another doodle, this time a crescent moon wearing your sneakers. Sugar is prolly bad for you rn. Pls have in moderation!

When you pull out your phone to thank him for everything, you see his remaining texts from yesterday—and you feel momentarily empty, as if only then noticing that you've been missing a fraction of your soul your whole life.

From: Lix 🐣 I’ll drop by tonight to check on you From: Lix 🐣 Wait for me, okay?

And he is right in front of you, just out of reach.

Four. “This isn’t a bad idea, right?” Chan asks under his breath.

“Nah, they’ll be fine,” Minho replies, clapping a hand on the leader’s shoulder. “Y/N will take care of him.”

A loud yelp comes from up ahead, and the men whip around quickly enough to crack a joint—only to realize that the noise was the opening note of DAY6’s “Not Mine,” and you and Felix have just launched into song so terribly and so loudly that it’s probably awoken the entirety of Seoul.

“And who’s gonna take care of Y/N?”

The two men look at each other for a moment before deciding they’re not interested in talking the two of you out of a disorderly intoxication charge.

“Let me know when you get back!” Chan hollers after you, and they reenter the karaoke bar in a hurry.

The members decided to go out for karaoke after finishing promotions earlier that week, and Felix invited you to come along. And you might've gone a little overboard with the mango sake, but your level of tipsy is nothing compared to that of the blue-haired boy draped over you.

Felix is rather prone to hangovers, you’ve discovered from past experiences, so the moment he started speaking in some kind of nonsensical Korean-English mutation that not even Chan could understand, the members tasked you with taking him home early. Now, Felix has his arm around your neck, less out of affection and more out of a genuine requirement for support, doing his best to walk in a straight line. He hasn't stopped grinning for the last hour, and it doesn’t seem like he’s going to run out of energy anytime soon, not as long as there’s more of DAY6’s discography to butcher.

In spite of your foggy mind, you're well aware that your best friend has never been prettier. He sets the bar high as it is, but then you throw in the flushed lips and cheeks, the lopsided, ditzy grin, the wine-kissed complexion, and life becomes terribly difficult for you. It doesn’t help that alcohol amplifies his proclivity for physical contact—he's been attached to your hip all night, holding your waist, pulling you into incidental hugs.

Needless to say, your current situation is a bit precarious; but you don't know that. Not yet.

The two of you finish your disrespectful rendition of “Not Mine” just as you pass the apartment’s front desk, and it is only when you see the deadly look that the receptionist gives you over the brim of his glasses that you finally feel sober again. You have the sense to incline your head in apology. Felix, however, launches into “You Were Beautiful” without a care in the world.

You dig a pointed elbow into his ribs as you hit the up button, and his singing abruptly falters with a pained huff. "Ow."

“Take an intermission, superstar,” you say. “The receptionist looks like he’s ready to throttle us.”

“Ah, he would never. We’re tight,” he returns, and before you can stop him he’s lifting his head, raising his voice. “Have a good night, Mr. Seo!”

Your nose scrunches into an apprehensive wince—but instead, you think you hear a hint of a smile in the man's cool reply.

“You too, Mr. Lee. Keep your voices down, please.”

“Yes, sir!” You and Felix reply in unison. Felix gives you a smile that says I told you so before he nestles his cheek against your shoulder, and you shake your head. Nobody is immune to the boy’s brightness.

Entering the building seemed to be effective in calming Felix down. The elevator ride up is silent save for a bit of quiet humming, and you finally see a bit of sleep on his face when you open the door of his dorm and turn on the living room lights. He lets you escort him to his bathroom without a word.

“I’ll be here if you need me,” you say, reaching to pat his cheeks a couple times. “Be careful in there.”

“M’kay. Thank you," he says with a drowsy smile, and closes the door.

You pull out your phone and open up your messages with Chan, remembering his parting request.

To: Chan 🐺 we got back safe!! To: Chan 🐺 lix is gonna be okay. i'll take care of him

A few minutes later, a notification appears at the top of your screen; Chan left hearts on both of your messages and sent two in response.

From: Chan 🐺 Thanks, good to hear :) you get some rest too, okay? From: Chan 🐺 Bro tore that sake UP

You begin to type back a retort—give me a break it was basically JUICE—when you hear Felix call your name, his voice muffled through the bathroom door.

“What's up?” You answer.

“I think I’m...stuck.”

Now what the hell does that mean?

“Can I come in?”

“Mhm.”

You open the door, and your attempt to suppress your laughter fails with flying colors. Felix is well and truly stuck in his crewneck, the gray material swathed around his head, his arms positioned in some kind of advanced pretzel formation.

“You are a hot mess, Lee Yongbok," you sing, moving toward him, and he whines from inside his cotton prison.

“Please don’t kick me while I’m down.”

Grinning, you bring your fingers to the hem of his top and attempt to lift it over his head. He’s managed to tangle himself quite impressively, and the next few minutes are spent with you trying to extract him, like he’s that one nose hair that your tweezers have never been able to reach, all while he's moaning and groaning about the fabric catching on his earrings, about his joints not being able to handle this kind of pressure anymore.

He emerges from the crewneck a while later looking positively disgruntled. You toss the gray mass onto the counter, proud of your handiwork.

“So maybe I‘m a hot mess,” he concedes. “A little bit.”

“That's alright. We all have our moments,” you giggle. “Come on, let me help you with your jewelry.”

For a second, he looks like he’s about to protest—but the look you give him reminds him that his motor functions are currently on strike.

“Okay,” he mumbles adorably.

You position yourself a little closer to Felix and lift your hands to the nape of his neck, where the clasp of his chain lies. It takes you a few tries to undo it, and you end up having to use the mirror above the sink for guidance. Soon, there is a soft click. You set the chain down next to the crewneck before your hands return to the sides of his face, this time to tuck long, light blue strands behind the cuffs of his ears. Your fingers run over the curves of his silver earrings.

“Are these bothering you at all?” You ask nonchalantly. “I forgot you had so many piercings.”

In your peripheral vision, you see Felix’s lips move, but no sound comes out. Puzzled, you move your eyes to meet his, and it takes you one blink’s worth of time to understand the source of his speechlessness.

Somewhere between your reaching up to touch his necklace and the present moment, you’ve come incredibly, dangerously close to him. Close enough that you can count the freckles that speckle his skin like fallen stars, that you can feel the heat of his body against your own, that Felix’s eyes are nearly crossed trying to maintain eye contact with you.

Your heartbeat lodges itself firmly in your throat, and your thoughts evaporate into complete and utter disarray. There are three differently-worded apologies on the tip of your tongue within seconds. You immediately start to pray that he won’t remember this tomorrow morning. And your strongest impulse is to move; to get as far away from him as possible, before either of you does anything you'll regret.

But there is something that overwhelms your every instinct, and stops you from budging an inch. And that is the way Felix is looking at you, unblinking brown eyes filled with something that doesn’t have a name. It is the same tender expression that’d surprised you the first time you saw it, and it is with a spiraling stomach that you finally realize what that expression is.

You reach your conclusion a second after he does.

Felix’s hand lifts to cradle your jaw, his face moving closer to yours. Your foreheads touch, wisps of his hair falling over the bridge of your nose, your senses engulfed by the vanilla of his cologne and the touch of sweet wine on his breath. The scene is as delicate as a dragonfly’s tail dipping into a pond’s surface; even a minuscule disturbance would shatter this limbo instantaneously.

A part of you wishes that it would, but nothing does. There is only his pulse, perceptible through the thin cloth of his tank top, vehement beneath your fingertips—and your heart, naked and frail, sitting upon the palm of his hand.

Felix doesn’t push you away; he doesn’t kiss you. He does something far worse.

“I love you,” he whispers.

A few seconds. That is how long you stand there for, with every word of every language you know inaccessible, every qualm and doubt and source of anxiety that plagued your mind moments before now distant memories, every ounce of your energy channeled into keeping yourself upright.

But the few seconds feel like forever. The same way he has always felt like forever to you. The same way you imagined you would spend forever loving him, close enough for him to love you back, but far enough that he’ll never know the true nature of your affection: greater and truer than anything anyone would ever call friendship.

An urgent question suddenly surfaces in your mind: is he still drunk? He was falling up, down, and sideways minutes ago. Surely this was an intoxicated slip of the tongue. But you discern the slight tremble to Felix’s breathing and the intensity in his heavy-lidded gaze, all far too intentional, far too conscious to be wine-induced—leaving behind one impossible possibility.

You should be having your happy tears kissed from your face right now. You should be over the moon, relishing in the sensation of two stars aligning at long fucking last, the way you’ve dreamed of since the very first time you laid eyes on Felix.

But instead, you just feel inexplicably and profusely afraid.

You won’t remember the specifics of the next few minutes. You think you stumble away from him and whisper I’m sorry through watering eyes, though you don’t really know what for. He sputters something in return, his tone so desperate and confused that you feel your heart break to pieces on the spot. You apologize again, leave the bathroom, and move towards the apartment door as if your life depends on it. In your peripheral vision, you notice the crease of concern on Mr. Seo’s face when you stalk past him, tears now flying freely down your cheeks. You run into Minho and Jeongin when you step out of the building, and you see the worry that creases their faces, hear their voices calling your name. Jeongin's hand closes around your wrist—are you okay?! What the fuck happened?—but you do not, can not say anything, not right now.

And then you are alone again, and you briskly walk the two miles back to your apartment. Your mind and heart are every bit as foggy as the somber night sky that hangs over your head.

Five. When the two of you step out of the restaurant and into the evening, Felix turns around to face you, launching into his best tour guide walk.

“And, with that,” he says with a glowing smile, “we are nearing the end of our tour of Sydney.”

“Noooo,” you lament, reaching your arm out. Felix falls back into step beside you and links it with his, the movement like clockwork. Your jackets scrunch up together where your elbows bend. “Already?”

“Okay, the tour’s been going on for two days and you haven’t paid a cent for my toil. Don’t push your luck.”

Your laughter spills into the otherwise quiet avenue, the setting sun throwing shadows across the cement, but it always feels like midday when you have the brightest man in the world by your side.

When the two of you discovered you had a free weekend on the same days, Felix conjured up the idea of going home—and suggested that you go with him. You’d freaked out for a bit, but then Felix reminded you that his mom texts you on your birthday and that you’re on multiple different subscription plans with his sisters, and you collected yourself quite quickly. There was a lot of cheering over the phone when Felix informed his family that they’d finally get to meet you in person.

But such a fast trip to the other side of the world proved to be no easy feat. Felix took on the task of piecing together a travel plan that would cover most of his favorite spots in forty-eight hours. The last two weeks were filled with him fretting over the details and you fretting over him, asking time and time again if you could help with anything, only for him to shoo you away with a single hand and a pointed “you are my guest. Now leave me.”

With assistance from every other resource at his disposal, though, he pulled it off, and the weekend has been wonderful thus far.

“I think that was some of the best food I’ve ever had, seriously,” you hum. “I’ll be dreaming about those appetizers for the rest of my life.”

“I'm glad. It took a Socratic seminar to choose the place, after all."

(The Socratic seminar in question: a two-hour FaceTime call and an intense match of rock-paper-scissors between him and his siblings, aimed to decide on where Felix would take you for dinner the second night. Only for his mom to ignore all of their efforts and insist upon her own choice of restaurant instead—no ifs, ands, or buts.)

“We have to try your sisters’ recommendations the next time I visit, don’t we?”

“Yes," he returns, shuddering. "I think my family is done for if we don’t."

He has one place left to take you, and the two of you head there now, shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm.

A month has passed since that night.

You’ve tried with every fiber of your being to put the whole thing from your mind, of course to no avail. You see Felix’s flushed lips and gentle gaze every time you blink; you hear his “I love you” every time you’re alone, the words whispered in the wind and dragged over the earth, in tandem with your footsteps.

You wanted to fucking die of awkwardness in the few days following, but it was never an option for you to avoid Felix for long. The two of you still went on convenience store runs together; still met up for coffee before work; still continued your business as usual, against all odds. And you owed it all to Felix and how he knows you better than you know yourself. He didn’t try to talk to you when he sensed that you had nothing to say; nor did he try to bring you back when you felt miles away. He would just silently slip a pack of your favorite cookies into your grocery basket or order your drink on your behalf.

Felix had questions and wanted answers; there was no doubt about that. But he held his tongue, granted you as much space as you needed to come back to him. And you did, in your gradual, meticulous way.

You’re finally going to bring it up tonight. You’ve planned to since the day you confirmed the trip, and you hope that the final stop of the tour will be the perfect place to bite the bullet.

“We’re here,” Felix says.

The two of you have arrived at the bank of a wide river, and you’re at a temporary loss for words. To your right is a bridge that spans the distance of the water, and to your left is a stunning, panoramic view of the city of Sydney. Twilight has turned the buildings into dark silhouettes against the autumn sunset, and the water reminds you of a palette of oil paints with how it reflects the pinks and oranges in the sky.

Felix feels you tighten your hold around his arm, and he smiles when he sees the wonder in your eyes. He wishes he could see this place for the first time again.

“Not bad, huh?”

“No,” you murmur. “Not at all.”

“C’mon.”

Felix leads you to the center of the bridge, where he props his elbows atop the metal railing and looks over the water. You join him and pull out your phone, but no settings or adjustments render your camera capable of capturing the landscape's beauty.

(Until Felix throws up a peace sign and pokes his head into the corner of your frame. Then it stands a fighting chance.)

“What is this place?” You ask, your shoulder touching his when you also lean over the railing. “Why are we the only ones here?”

“Crazy, right?” Felix says proudly. “I dunno. I think it might be private property, or something. But it’s only a few blocks away from my house and on the way I used to take to school, so I used to come here all the time, always around this time of day.”

Felix’s gaze moves over the sky, oblivious to the fact that his eyes hold whole rainbows of their own.

“There was never anyone around, but I could still hear the birds chirping and the wind in the leaves. It felt like a corner of the world had been sealed off just for me. I’m glad to see that nothing’s changed.”

Some time passes, and Felix tells you more stories about this peculiar bridge: how he asked someone to formal and got rejected and came here to reflect on his actions; how he had to take two different buses every day because his school was so far away from his house, but he always stopped here to feed the families of mallards that came out to swim in the mornings, even if it meant he’d be late; how this was the last place he went to before moving to South Korea, because he knew he’d miss this nook of Sydney most.

Of all the places you've visited, you think this one will remain with you longest. As time elapses, the colors of the sunset augment and deepen, dyeing the world in ways that remind you of the aurora. And then there is the man, wearing a gentle smile to match his softened features, his voice to your ears what honey is to a sore throat, telling you about his past, letting you into yet another chamber of his soul.

You are in no way prepared to butcher the sanctity of this moment, but you know that you can only run for so long and so far. You owe it to him. You owe it to yourself.

When the sun’s final rays are clinging the faraway mountaintops, Felix lifts himself off the railing and stands up straight. “Ready to go home?"

And your hand finds his, the pads of your fingers cold against his skin. Felix is surprised at first, but then he sees the hint of sadness in your eyes and the tension in your shoulders, and he understands what’s coming.

“I want to talk to you about that night,” you say.

Felix doesn’t respond for a few seconds. But when he does, his voice is so soft and so infuriatingly kind that hearing it makes you want to sob.

“...you don’t have to, Y/N.”

“No. I do,” you return, startling even yourself with the firmness in your voice, "I don’t want to keep dancing around the topic, not when you’ve been waiting for as long as you have.”

You feel Felix’s gaze on your face, as if he’s trying to read between your lines, and then he yields with a slight incline of his head.

“Okay.” And the stage is yours.

You don't start talking right away, your mind reeling with the effort to organize everything you feel and verbalize everything you want to tell him. It isn’t until Felix gives your hand a gentle squeeze—you’ve forgotten that you’re still holding his—that you feel rooted in the moment again.

It’s Felix you’re talking to; your soulmate, your sunlight. Nothing you are about to say will ever change that. This, you believe with every fiber of your being.

So you take a deep breath.

“When you said those words,” you begin, and the words sound alien in your voice, despite how many times you’ve rehearsed this conversation in your head, “I couldn’t process a thing. I was so happy, but I was so, so scared. I’ve spent the last month trying to figure out why I was so scared, and I can’t say that I know for sure yet, but I have a much better idea now, and—it’s a lot of things.

“For as long as I can remember, I have only ever been able to love profoundly and deeply, with everything in me. And over time, I led myself to believe that nobody would ever be able to understand or reciprocate my love, not in the manner I want most.”

You feel yourself starting to waver, but you find strength in his touch.

“But you changed that, Felix. You walked into that café that afternoon with your voice and your smile, and suddenly I’d found you—someone who experiences life the way I do, who loves the way I love. And every day since, I’ve been surrounded by you and your effortless warmth and your beautiful soul. It was only a matter of time before I started hoping, constantly and stupidly, that you would one day love me, the same way that I—”

Your voice catches in your throat like a heel slamming into car brakes, “love you” hanging so dangerously from the tip of your tongue that you’re stunned it doesn’t fall out right away.

“But that’s why I’m fucking terrified,” you go on. “When you told me you loved me, I felt like I could fly. But I also felt like I was falling—and maybe this is because I was still tipsy, I'm not really sure—but in that moment I saw a world where we weren't there to catch each other, where something had gone horribly wrong and I'd wake up one morning and you’d—you’d just be a distant memory.

“And that was the thought that shook me so badly: losing you. Leaving you.” You’re crying now, tears paving golden trails against your cheeks. “For whatever reason, that was the first thing that came to mind, and it broke me.”

You need to wrap it up, and fast, if your faltering voice and racing heart are any indication.

“I meant it when I apologized to you that night. I’m sorry, Lix. I’m sorry I made everything so fucking complicated. I’m sorry that I ran away. I’m sorry that I hurt you, or worried you. But I want you to know that I feel more for you than you will ever understand; I just need a little more time to put it into words. So, wait for me—”

Your eyes squeeze shut, and you finally cave, your last word coming out in a shattered rasp.

“—please.”

And the syllable has barely left your mouth when Felix lets go of your hand, only to bring his arms around you and pull you to his chest with such urgency that the breath momentarily leaves your lungs.

When you fall against him, you fall entirely apart. You have no idea where all the feelings are coming from, only that they’re suddenly overwhelming your every sense. And you start to cry, really cry, your fingers seeking refuge in his jacket, in his hair.

The sun departs at last, and night starts to fall. You lose track of how long you remain in this position, shaking with hushed sobs, fighting to regain control of your emotions. But Felix stays with you through it all, muted tears of his own intermingling with yours in the material of his scarf. He holds you carefully yet fiercely, like you really will crumble if he lets go.

And he waits, because of course he does. He would wait lifetimes for you.

One. The way you thaw is like melting snow.

It happens under your nose for the most part, but it is slow, sure, and irreversible, and you open your eyes one morning only to realize that the world outside has changed—and so have you.

You roll over and pick up your phone. There are unread messages from Felix sitting in your notifications, probably confirming the plans you made to get coffee before work today, but you put them on hold for now. Instead, you open up your camera roll and find an album, labeled with a sun emoji and yellow heart.

You made this a few months after you met Felix, and you’ve doted on it since, in the sense that you update it almost every day. Funnily enough, though, you’ve never looked through the album just to look through it. Maybe because you’ve never had the time or felt the impulse, but more likely because you know that the album is a visual time capsule of your relationship with the most important person in your life—which has never been purely platonic for you, despite how hard you’ve tried to change your heart.

Looking through it would mean acknowledging your true emotions, something you’ve never felt ready for.

Now, you open the album without a second thought, a preemptive smile on your lips. And you find yourself swept out of your bed and thrown back inside each of the pictures you see, reliving the moments as vividly as if you’re watching them on film.

This is one of your favorites, taken during a late-night tteokbokki run to a small restaurant behind Felix's company building. Felix was laughing so hard at one of your stories that he could only take bites of his meal every five minutes. His face had broken into a dazzling grin, his figure blurring as he lurched forward in his seat, trying to pull his hood over his face in secondhand embarrassment. Snap. He is always handsome, extraordinarily so, but you think you love the way he looks here most of all: every guard of his lowered, carefree, happy.

Another is from the first time you met Chan. Nowadays, your interactions with the boys consist mostly of running into them at Felix's dorm and making friendly small talk. But it's always been different with the oldest member. The first time Felix introduced the two of you, you clicked straightaway, and you had to have spent four hours after dinner just talking, scouring the city for something cold to eat. By the end of the sweltering summer night, the three of you were perched atop a short stone barrier in a secluded corner of Seoul, right outside the best bingsu place in all of South Korea. Felix had leaned over to steal the last cube of mango from Chan’s bowl, to Chan's dramatic protest. Snap. And Chan is like a brother to you now; you will never be able to fathom how much light Felix has brought to your life, be it through him or the people he loves.

A computer screen displaying a League of Legends scoreboard, in which Felix has died more times than there were minutes of the game. Snap. You (not sober) in the center of Felix's living room, your body poised in what is supposed to be the chorus of “Queencard," Felix and Bin completely losing their shit on the couch. Snap. His head bowed in anguish over a bowl of brownie batter after he mistakes salt for sugar. Snap. A low-quality, tiny Felix on stage, the brightest grin on his face when he finally manages to spot you in the nosebleeds. Snap. Your dining table creaking under the weight of all the gifts he got you for your last birthday. Snap. Him and one of your best friends from home, arms around each other, peace signs thrown up, beaming. Snap.

There are countless more, and they are all so incredibly near and dear to you, all thanks to the freckled boy in each.

You respond to Felix's messages (“be there soon!”), and then move to get dressed. There is a new sense of certainty in your gait when you emerge from your building and into the quiet morning.

The weather is lovely, the fresh sunlight cream-colored against a cloudless sky, the light breeze shuffling the new leaves about. A hound’s ears twitch when you hurry past its home; it is too drowsy to investigate your presence further. The only sounds in the air are the chattering of sparrows in the branches above you and the soles of your shoes, moving quickly across the sidewalk. The wonder in the world is more palpable to you today than it’s ever been.

Soon, the chalk-written menu and hand-carved wooden sign of your favorite café come into view, and you open the door. There are only a few customers inside, and you spot your person right away: his long, dark hair partially pinned back, his figure flattered by a black long sleeve and jeans. He has a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, as well as two drinks on the table before him: one caramel latte and one black milk tea.

When he hears the door jingle, he looks up, and the smile that melts across his face is so fond that you can’t believe there was ever a time when you doubted his feelings for you.

The way his loving smile mirrors onto your face is as inevitable and involuntary as destiny herself.

“Hi,” Felix says, rising from his seat.

“Hey, you,” you answer. “Wanna take a walk?”

And so you do.

You link arms, as always; you try each other’s drinks, as always; you manage to talk about everything and nothing all at once, as always. But when his company building comes into view, your footsteps come to a halt, and your hand fastens around the cuff of his sleeve.

“Hey, Lix—"

When his eyes meet yours, the sun hits them just right, and you have not known anything as clearly and certainly as you do right then.

“—I love you.”

Felix can only stare, his eyes so wide that you can see the whites of them all around, his straw falling from his parted lips.

Then, a smile starts to creep across his face like spilt syrup.

“Say it again.”

“I love you, Lee Yongbok.”

He sets his bag and drink down on the pavement. “Again, please.”

“I love you,” you repeat, starting to laugh. “I love you, I love you, god, I love you, Felix, so fucking much—”

Felix brings his hands to either side of your face, leaning his forehead against your own. And this time, there is no hesitation, no fear—only starlight when he tilts your chin up and finally, finally presses his lips to yours.

Butterflies erupt in your stomach, hordes of them flapping so fervently you feel as though you might take off into the air, but you seek out his elbows, then his shoulders, and then the back of his neck, anchoring yourself to the earth, to him. Felix kisses you like he will never be able to again, and it is all you can do to savor how the curve of his smile feels against your own; how he murmurs the words “I love you, too” in between breaths. He tastes like sugar and smells like shampoo. He feels like forever.

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81folklore · 1 year

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new years day - HS

pairings: harry styles x gn!reader (fc: none)

summary: harrys partner reminisces on instagram over the past 2 years of love on tour before the final show

authors note: i was listening to my sleepy taylor playlist and this song started playing and it took me back to all the love on tour edits so i had to create a smau for it.. i promise im working on the drafts i put on that poll!!

authors note 2: i used they/them pronouns when writing because nothing ever really specified readers gender so please imagine as you will!!

masterlist

yourusername has added to their story

*text on first photo reads: a couple of my favorite love on tour fits over the years💙*

seen by harrystyles, gemmastyles and 637,572 others

yourusername

liked by harrystyles, harry_lambert and 826,891 others

its going to be impossible to not miss this☹️

view comments

harrystyles: ❤️❤️

user7: oh i love them so much

user18: the support you show for harry is so lovely :’)

user73: im going to miss guessing what the styles will be wearing every night☹️

harry_lambert: so many outfits! so many fun nights!

yourusername: ahh ill miss seeing what youve put together for h

annetwist: ill miss seeing you so often darling!!

yourusername: you wont be able to get rid of us, promise🤍

yourusername added to their story

*text on first photo reads: and with that my final love on tour outfit is done💗* *text on second photo reads: bring on the finale🥹*

seen by harrystyles, annetwist and 752,174 others

yourusername

liked by harrystyles, lloyddddddddddddddddd and 1,118,592 others

tagged: harrystyles

theres glitter on the floor after the party, girls carrying their shoes down in the lobby…

i have never been as sad as i am right now writing that love on tour is officially over! this has honestly been one of the craziest experiences for everyone; myself, the fans and for you harry. being able to watch you grow as an artist and an individual on and off stage for the past two years has been an honor and i cannot thank you enough for bringing me on this incredible journey with you

the love i feel for you is one i struggle to describe, its a feeling of joy when i see you on stage, its a feeling of hurt when i see you at your lows, its a feeling of pure happiness when i see you being who you are. loving you is something so genuinely special and i cannot believe i am the one who gets to witness all of you, all of your life

love on tour is truly something that is one of a kind and the family you were able to create with it will be something that lasts forever along with the memories created these past years

i dont think i will ever get over being the one to see you achieve everything you have ever wanted, getting to be the one you come to after a show and just hug until your hearts content, getting to be the person you cry on after a show like slane or wembley where you just felt so overwhelmed by the love and support you received

i will thank you everyday for choosing me to be that person, to be the person you love, to be the person you have join you in this life youve created for yourself

thank you love on tour and thank you harry

i will love you both forever and ever❤️‍🩹

view comments

capitalofficial: im not crying you are🥲

harryflorals: we love you both💐

gemmastyles: 😭😭😭🤍🤍

harrystyles: 💗💗

user6: i need harry to learn how to use instagram properly i NEED to see his response😭

user89: sobbing and screaming

user35: they love him so much😭😭

harrystyles: baby the love i have for you is endless, thank you for coming with me on this journey and thank you for letting me love you. i love you so so much

user35: and HE LOVES THEM SO MUCH😭😭

user62: i feel sick they love eachother so much❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

yourusername added to their story

seen by user56, user77 and 916,473 others

*first story has the song ‘new years day’ by taylor swift attached* *second story text reads: 🏠*

#harry styles x reader #social media au #harry styles social media au #harry styles social media #harry styles fake instagram #smau #harry styles smau #harry styles instagram #harry styles instagram au #harry styles x male reader #harry styles x fem reader #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles

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ikroah · 9 months

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A girl can get somewhere in spite of stringy hair or even just a bit bowed at the knees if she can show a faultless…personality! —“Personality,” Johnny Mercer and the Pied Pipers (1946)

It Keeps Right On a-Hurtin’ #26 - Ring-a-Ding-Ding V

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Read IKROAH on Archive of Our Own

Notes / Original Pencils / Transcript:

Notes:

ohhhhh my god why did i make this script so long my hand hurts this took forever aaaaagh

Welcome to the Lucky 38! This is a script that has remained basically the same for a long time but went through COUNTLESS extremely small rewrites over the course of production just to really nail Mr. House's dialogue. He's a long-winded guy, this whole issue is basically just him doing monologues, and I wanted to make sure it was all interesting and non-repetitive. I think I took out at least three uses of "merely" from the first draft.

One of the biggest production decisions of this issue was whether or not to cut the scene with Agnes and Cass and Victor, which immediately follows the end of the previous issue. The reason to include it was because it very necessarily established the change in location from the Vegas Strip to the Lucky 38 penthouse, which would have been jarring otherwise; the reason to exclude it was that it the issue was already extremely long and I thought opening right on Mr. House would have been more impactful. Ultimately, I did keep it, which was a good decision, but only because of the literally issue-saving idea to convey it as closed-circuit television footage instead of actual panels. Every single attempt at overlaying them with the lead-in to Mr. House was way too busy, but that idea really tied the page together like a nice rug.

And lastly, the framing device of the tarantula and the tarantula hawk was actually an extremely late addition to the comic. I had already finished the first three pages when I thought of it. My problem was that Mr. House's constant monologuing and Agnes' sad expressions got pretty repetitive. I needed something to break the action up while adding thematic heft and artistic variety. I've become a real enthusiast for wasps and tarantulas over the last couple months, so this one really was just a stroke of luck. It took only minimal revisions to make room for the framing device, with the most dramatic change being the complete replacement of the last page (which was originally just a splash page of the Lucky 38 in Vegas; bookending the first and last pages is so much better). So you see, the only reason for weaving a scene into this issue of a skittish desert-wanderer getting paralyzed and dragged toward a certain demise by a predator almost perfectly evolved to destroy it was just that I like bugs a lot. That's the only reason, yep.

Original Pencils:

Due to all of the photo-collage in the final version of the comic, there's a lot of panels and details that I (thankfully!) didn't have to draw myself. Sorry that the pencil isn't blue on the last three pages, I've been on the move for the holidays so they got scanned in grayscale by accident.

I did experiment with drawing the tarantula framing device myself, but ultimately went with the photo-collage method because the artistic juxtaposition actually made it much more readable when interspersed with the proceedings in the Lucky 38.

Transcript:

EXT. DESERT OUTSIDE OF NEW VEGAS. The city glitters in the distance, nestled between the shadows of mountains, with the spire of the LUCKY 38 towering above all else.

In the wilderness, a TARANTULA emerges from its burrow.

EXT. THE NEW VEGAS STRIP. On closed-circuit television monitors, a SECURITRON ROBOT approaches AGNES SANDS and ROSE OF SHARON CASSIDY, saying

VICTOR: Well howdy, partner! Fancy meetin' again here in Vegas!

CASS: What the fuck?

AGNES: Victor?

Unlike the usual police units, VICTOR's robotic "face" is that of a cowboy.

VICTOR: And heck, ya clean up nice! Sure lookin' a lot better now than when I rustled ya outta the bone orchard back in Goodsprings*--

CAP: *As was explained to Agnes way back in IKROAH #2. --Lou

VICTOR: --so how's about ol' Vic skips the rigamarole, huh? 'Fore all my yappin' makes ya want to go back, heh-heh-heh! I'm the welcome wagon, see. I'm to come and collect ya.

CASS: Agnes--

VICTOR: Boss wants t'see you, is what I'm sayin'.

AGNES: Boss?

VICTOR: Only of all of Vegas, friend!

CASS: Agnes.

MEANWHILE, the TARANTULA crawls beneath the starlight.

VICTOR: So why don't we mosey on over to the Lucky 38? And your good pal can come along, too!

CASS: I need to know what the fuck is going on, right now.

AGNES: I...I don't know.

VICTOR: And y'know, boss ain't ever let a soul inside before, least for not as long as I've been rollin' around on my spurs, so this ain't just an everyday social call, mind...

On the closed-circuit television monitors, VICTOR escorts AGNES and CASS to the entryway of the LUCKY 38.

VICTOR: ...but heck, I reckon ya'll oughta get along like franks on a fire! So come on! Lift's in the lobby here, and up to the top floor--and we can get the formalities out of the way before ya'll get [cut off]

INT. THE LUCKY 38 PENTHOUSE.

AGNES stands awestruck, looking upward, bathed in electronic green light. With horror, she ekes out a single question.

AGNES: ...what are you?

???: A "Hello" would have been preferable, but it'll take more than a crude faux pas to tarnish this moment. Who I am, Agnes--

What AGNES is looking at is a gigantic SUPERCOMPUTER and terminal, flanked by closed-circuit television monitors and guarded on both sides by SECURITRON police units. On the supercomputer's massive screen is the green-lit image of a face. The face

MR. HOUSE: --is ROBERT EDWIN HOUSE. The President, CEO, and sole proprietor of New Vegas--and more to the point, the intended recipient of a long delayed package.

AGNES: Oh, you...you mean the platinum chip?

MR. HOUSE: Correct. It's a...very precious artifact of the old world.

MR. HOUSE: My world, once.

In the back of the room, beyond AGNES, is an oil painting of MR. HOUSE, standing outside in front of what must have been a very large robot.

MR. HOUSE: In that world, I was the founder of RobCo Industries--a titan of innovation. We created a litany of robotic solutions for diverse markets, such as the Securitrons that you see here, and even a line of consumer-grade devices like the wrist-mounted Pip-Boy. But the platinum chip was, more than any other, my design. It was my vision.

MR. HOUSE: But it never left the factory in which it was originally made. Before it could even cool off from its assembly...we had the Great War. An international, thermonuclear bombardment of unimaginable power that annihilated the world in all of two hours.

MR. HOUSE: But not the entire world. Not Vegas. Not my Paradise. From my fortress of the Lucky 38, I saw to that. But as for the rest of the world, and my platinum chip--it took generations.

MR. HOUSE: First for the scarce remnants of humanity to crawl out from under their rocks, and for the world to at least resemble a functioning society again in which to do trade. And then for the work itself--of countless scavengers, treasure-seekers, and the like, all contracted to comb over the wreckage of Sunnyvale. It cost millions of caps, and later, New California dollars. And a not insignificant piece of my pre-war fortune as well. I, quite literally, moved mountains.

MR. HOUSE: I do not believe in providence, Agnes, but I do believe in destiny. How else to explain it? It was pristine when it was found. Neither the bombs nor the passage of time had so much as scuffed its sheen. But still...its value far transcended the mere market price of pure platinum.

MR. HOUSE: Amusingly, despite the discovery, I was still only as close to acquiring the chip as I had been originally in 2077. A final ordeal remained for me: how to ensure the safety of the platinum chip en route to its destination, from Sunnyvale to Vegas, without broadcasting its preciousness to thieves, armies, and raiders--or worse, to heavily armed fetishists for pre-war technology like the Brotherhood of Steel?

MR. HOUSE: Misdirection. Through a network of anonymous liaisons, I contracted the Mojave Express for a batch of deliveries, all superficially similar knick-knacks, to various intermediaries of myself. All but one of the orders were totally worthless decoys. But your identity as the carrier of the one genuine item was somehow compromised, leading to you getting attacked, and to the second disappearance of the chip.

MR. HOUSE: But look around you. Look where you are. You've made it, haven't you?

AGNES, still staring up at the visage of MR. HOUSE on-screen, doesn't respond. She frowns, nervous. The SECURITRONS guarding MR. HOUSE observe her stoically.

MR. HOUSE: Let me clarify: I had nothing to do with Benny's ambush. Heavens no! It goes completely against my interests. It would have been a perfectly quotidian day's work for you if not for his, and I stress, unexpected involvement. The platinum chip...belies its significance. For Benny to have not only discovered its delivery route but possibly enough of that significance to motivate such an act, this constituted a very troubling breach of my security. And I had been looking into it...but in a way, the issue seems to have resolved itself. Hm?

MR. HOUSE: A wild card. Now removed from the deck.

AGNES' gaze sinks to the floor.

MEANWHILE, a small shadow blots out the starlight in the desert outside of Vegas. It flies over the exploring TARANTULA.

AGNES looks back up at MR. HOUSE.

AGNES: I killed him.

HOUSE: So you did. I only wish that we could have spoken before you went rogue on my former protégé: if this story breaks, I can grant you amnesty, but not without controversy. And your infamy as an assassin could make our further arrangements quite difficult.

AGNES: Um...I didn't think there would be more to it than delivering the--

MR. HOUSE: Oh! Of course, of course! My apologies. Two hundred years of anticipation and yet I'm still getting ahead of myself. Well--would you mind? I've been waiting a long time for my mail.

The SECURITRON closest to AGNES wheels forward with its claw outstretched. AGNES reaches her fingers into a pocket beneath the belt of her dress to produce it: the PLATINUM CHIP. She holds it in her hand for a brief moment.

MEANWHILE, the shadow descends; the TARANTULA HAWK engages the TARANTULA.

AGNES relinquishes the PLATINUM CHIP to the SECURITRON.

MR. HOUSE: Thank you--it's a relief to pay for this chip for the final time.

The SECURITRON inserts the PLATINUM CHIP into a slot in MR. HOUSE'S supercomputer, feeding it into the drive with a CLIK.

MEANWHILE, the TARANTULA is fighting the TARANTULA HAWK.

From behind AGNES, another SECURITRON presents her with a stack of NEW CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC DOLLARS, which she gingerly takes in her hand and looks over.

MR. HOUSE: And I trust that you're satisfied with the agreed-upon compensation from the delivery contract, yes?

AGNES: Yeah, it's...it's fine...I'll be going now. Thanks.

MR. HOUSE: Oh? But you've only just arrived. I insist that you make yourself at home.

SFX: KZZSZZZTTT

The faces on the screens of the SECURITRONS in MR. HOUSE'S penthouse suddenly change from policemen to soldiers. AGNES recoils and tries to step away.

AGNES: H-hey, uh--

MEANWHILE, the TARANTULA HAWK pierces the underbelly of the TARANTULA with its stinger.

SECURITRONS surround AGNES.

MR. HOUSE: You are the first guest ever through the doors of the Lucky 38, you know. Nobody has so much as checked a coat inside since the war, so this meeting confers you a significant level of privilege...and inevitable celebrity. The people of Vegas have always gossiped, after all. Many have even clawed at the door desperately with dreams of being where you now stand. Surely you can comprehend how this compulsion to leave after such a deliberate and remarkable invitation risks considerable insult--to both myself and my citizenry? And very deliberate this invitation was. Don't you realize: if handing off my package was all for which you were needed, why wouldn't I have just had Victor relieve you of the chip outside? No, no, you see, as necessary as its acquisition was, the chip is ultimately just a key, for unlocking a new frontier...of possibilities.

MR. HOUSE: Possibilities for prosperity, peace, and technological advancement that haven't been seen in two hundred years. Possibilities greater than anything the New California Republic or Caesar's Legion could dream of, let alone achieve, by playing pretend in the clothes of their forebearers and convincing everyone else that it's statecraft. Possibilities--which if they key is turned by human hands--become certainties.

AGNES (a whisper): Are you not human?

MR. HOUSE: Don't let the video screens and computer terminals fool you: I am a living human. No less so than you. I just live with a particular set of, well...handicaps.

AGNES: You said you'd waited hundreds of years to--

MR. HOUSE: One could argue that the world has been waiting hundreds of years for this moment. Waiting for me. For the chip. For the long-dormant doors of the Lucky 38 to finally open, to a single and specially ordained individual: you, Agnes. And there are tremendous things waiting for us, waiting for us to accomplish them, together. I certainly couldn't do them with Benny. What do you say?

MEANWHILE, the TARANTULA has become completely paralyzed by the TARANTULA HAWK'S venom. The TARANTULA HAWK seizes its prey.

AGNES: ...no.

MR. HOUSE: I'm sorry--"No?"

AGNES: Yes--I mean, no. No! I don't want to help you! I...

Tears well in AGNES' eye.

AGNES: ...I just want to go back home.

MR. HOUSE: ...I see. Hmm.

MR. HOUSE: How do I put this in a way you'll understand?

MR. HOUSE: The die is cast.

AGNES, crying, looks up at MR. HOUSE again. Fear bulges on her face.

MR. HOUSE: Throughout the long delivery of this chip, several precise plans and fortuitous coincidences have aligned in just such a way as to make you, you specifically at this exact juncture, an irreplaceable asset in the ongoing endeavor of this wounded world's recovery from otherwise hopeless ruin.

MR. HOUSE: Your cooperation going forward is not merely crucial to this endeavor's success, but it's utterly non-negotiable. Should you entertain the moral issue of what's at stake, it's obligatory, even. It's why your refusal comes as such a...genuine surprise. Can't you see?

MR. HOUSE: I'm not a fascist, Agnes--I would never force you. But given the circumstances, I'm entitled, wouldn't you agree, to at least a brief demonstration of my vision? The vision that the platinum chip promises? Victor has surely seen your companion to the presidential suite by now--my other Securitrons can escort you to the basement, where I'm sure you can make a...properly informed decision.

The SECURITRONS close in on AGNES, who screams in protest.

AGNES: No! I said no! I already delivered your chip, I--I killed Benny! I-- I-- ...what do you want with me!?

MR. HOUSE: Haven't you been listening? I want what's best for you--for us. I know it's a lot, but bear with me for one moment longer, and I can assure you--that this is the beginning of something very incredible.

MEANWHILE, the TARANTULA HAWK has dragged the paralyzed TARANTULA back to the entrance of its own burrow.

The TARANTULA HAWK shoves its helpless prey into the hole, and then crawls in after it.

The TARANTULA is not seen again.

#fallout #fallout new vegas #fnv #courier six #rose of sharon cassidy #victor #mr. house #agnes sands #ikroah archive #volume 02 #26

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mishaandthebrits · 2 years

Text

The best things in life are better with you - (Pierre Gasly x Reader) ⭐️

This has been in my drafts forever and I just found it again 😅 so please enjoy 😂🙈

Pairing: Pierre Gasly x Reader

Word Count: 941

Summary: Pierre and you have a little secret.

Warnings: Teeth rotting fluff, Cute Pierre, might make you feel incredibly lonely

Pierre and you went way back. Your mothers had been friends, so the two of you grew up best friends as well. It was quite usual to find one in the others house when you grew up and even now it was unusual for you two to be far from each other. Well, unless he was in the car of course.

"I'm back.", you heard Pierre speak as he entered the room of his driver room after the media duties of the day. With a smile you locked your iPad and looked up at him.

"How was it? Did they have rumors again?", you laughed referring to the enormous amount of times the press had speculated that the both of you were in an intimate relationship.

"None this time.", he chuckled and sat down on his bed. "What're you watching? Please tell me its not that weird crime show again..."

"Excuse you?! Criminal Minds is a wonderful show and Dr. Spencer Reid is really hot!", you gasped jokingly. This was a recurring topic for you two, he jokingly bullied you for your taste in television shows and you returned the favor with his hobbies.

He rolled his eyes but had a grin on his face still. "Have you done anything nice today?", he then questioned kicking his feet up to get a little more relaxed after standing around for long doing interviews.

"Not really. Edited a few photos, scheduled some posts, replied to comments, you know, the usual.", you shrugged and got up to sit beside him. "Oh! I did read a new joke! What lies on the bottom of the ocean and twitches?"

"I don't know Y/N, but I'm sure you will tell me soon.", your best friend tilted his head watching you.

"A nervous wreck.", you replied with a giggle. It took a moment but Pierre did grin after a bit.

"Where do you always find those?", he laughed and shook his head.

"Online.", you grinned and pulled on his shoulder so his head landed in your lap. Raising your hands you started gently playing with his hair. You knew he loved that and it always helped him calm down.

"You really have to sleep more.", you mumbled and shook your head.

"I know I know... But you know I always sleep better with you beside me.", Pierre whispered back and looked at you out of the corner of his eyes.

"Text me then, I'll come over! You know, for purely selfish reasons... After all I don't want your mum to hate me if you have an accident because you're too tired.", you smiled and kept stroking his hair.

"Of course, we do wanna keep my mum happy.", he smiled knowing you way too well to believe your reasoning.

Ever since you were teenagers both of your mums hoped you would end up as a couple and well, it slowly did start to look that way.

"They tease me, you know? Daniel, Lando, even Lewis.", Pierre whispered after a while. You had actually thought he was asleep, but apparently he still had something on his chest.

"About what?", you frowned after he didn't continue speaking.

"You.", he laughed quietly confusing you even more. "You and me to be exact. They think we should be together by now and I obviously didn't tell them the truth. They would never let us hear the end of it."

"Do you think so? I think they would be happy for you. For us. Plus, I really just want to hold your hand and kiss you when we are around our friends.", you smiled softly making him look at you wide eyed. So far it had always been you that was against telling everyone of your friends, excluding Charles. Both of you just couldn't hide anything from him.

"Are you sure?", he asked with a small smile that widened further once he saw your nod.

"If you want, I'm ready to share us with the world. I love you and I know you love me too, so whenever you are ready.", you explained and gave him a gentle kiss.

"Do you think our mums will hate us if I post yesterdays photo on Instagram and don't tell them first?", he chuckled pulling his phone out of his pocket.

"I don't think so. I'm pretty certain they've known for months.", you laughed and kept stroking his hair while he typed on his phone.

Liked by y/n_dubois and 287.409 others

pierregasly: Two years, five months and 27 days. Not like I'm counting. I love you y/n_dubois

y/n_dubois: I love you so much mon amour <3

danielricciardo: I KNEW IT! HA! FINALLY!

-> landonorris: Mate! Read the caption!

-> danielricciardo: WAIT! What the hell?! You fooled us!

yukitsunoda0511: Couple goals! All the best for you two!

-> y/n_dubois: Thank you Yukino <3

-> yukitsunoda0511: You spend too much time with him.

charlesleclerc: My ship has sailed! pierregasly y/n_dubois

lewishamilton: Aww! All the best for you both! You are so cute together!

pyry.salmela: Congrats! This is no excuse to miss training though.

and 598 other comments

"Okay yeah, from the comments they are absolutely not going to let us see the end of this.", you chuckled while he still laid there with his head on your legs.

"Probably not, but at least we can show everyone how happy we are now.", Pierre smiled and gave you a soft kiss when the both of you heard a knock on the door. "Come in."

"Hey you two lovebirds.", Charles spoke as he entered the room with a grin and sat down on one of the chairs. "So, finally public hm?"

"I guess so.", Pierre laughed without sitting up and looked at his best friend.

"Charlotte was really excited when she saw the post.", Charles smiled and pulled his phone out of his pocket to show you the messages she had sent him earlier.

"Awww, this is so cute! You two really are our number one supporters.", you giggled after reading the texts and handed the phone back. "Should I also post something? What do you think?"

"That would be so cute ma petit fleur.", Pierre smiled only to hear Charles fake throw up besides the both of you.

"Disgusting.", he laughed only for you and Pierre to join right away.

Liked by pierregasly and 4.731 others

y/n_dubois: You are the people that have made me who I am today. The best things in life are better with you by my side. pierregasly Charles_leclerc charlottesiine

danielricciardo: I don't know which post is cuter. Your's or pierres

landonorris: How the heck were you able to hide this for so long when you are this cute?!

->y/n_dubois: Crazy right? I wonder myself honestly

charles_leclerc: disgusting.

->charlottesiine: 😂

->y/n_dubois: 😂

-> pierregasly: We love you too mate

lewishamilton: You two are really sweet together. Cant wait to see you more often!

#f1 imagines #f1 imagine #pierregasly #pierre gasly #GAS10 #pierre gasly x reader #pierre x reader #x reader #f1 imagine x reader #fluff #fluffy #fluffy imagine #fluff x reader #x reader fluff #pierre gasly fluff #social media imagine #social media imagines #f1 social media

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spinningwebsandtales · 1 year

Text

Imagine Mirage Introducing You To The Other Autobots

Mirage X Human FemReader

Rating: None

Warnings: None

Word Count: 1.3k

Requested by Anonymous

Part 1 here

(A/N:) This was a request I had gotten a little bit ago and the requester has asked to remain anonymous. Which I can 100% respect and it shall stay that way. I wanted to get this done while I am on hiatus and after this is posted I will still remain on hiatus as I have so many things to do in time for next month plus several ideas that I need to get done. I have over 50 things in my drafts and a certain story I need to finish as well. My requests will still remain closed and my posting will still be few and far between. My family and I are still taking the loss of our cat we had over 16 years rough so please bear with me. I’m working as fast and much as I can. But anyway I really enjoyed this request and I hope the requester finds it everything they hoped for. Thank you for requesting and considering me worthy enough to do it. I really enjoyed writing this and I hope to see more Mirage requests in the future when I open them back up! Until next time happy reading! ~Countess

Mirage had been gone for a little while and you never realized how big of a part he had become in your life until he no longer came around. For a couple weeks you would go back to the usual meeting spot only for him to not show up. You would stay for a couple hours hoping that he would show up while keeping yourself busy by sketching the scenery, but you couldn’t wait forever. At first you worried something horrible happened to him, until you started to think that maybe you had made him mad and he no longer wanted to see you. The thought made you a little depressed as you couldn’t stand the thought of never seeing the goofy Autobot ever again. You stopped going for about a month now, as the disappointment at not seeing him was too much to stand anymore. But your heart longed to go once again, just to see if he had started to coming back again. You never realized how much those little moments (and even the stupid heart pounding joy rides) meant to you.

Despite telling yourself that it was stupid, that possibly you were just delusional. That it was all just a dream and that it was a possibility that you were beginning to go crazy. But despite telling yourself these things mentally, you found yourself at the same spot gazing out at the scenery with your sketchbook on your lap. Despite the surrounding noises echoing through the air, you focused on the scratching of your pencil against the paper. Losing yourself in a fantasy that you could hear the rumble of Mirage’s familiar engine mixing in with the noisy bustle of strangers’ lives. Until you swore you heard it again, but this time closer. The movement of your pencil stopped and hit the paper as a mismatched Porsche of different colored and rusty parts skidded around the curve. A welcome honk piercing the air before the Porsche began to transform kicking up dust before revealing the mech you missed so dearly.

“Mirage,” you shouted tossing everything to the ground before racing towards him. He beamed brightly giving you a guilty wave until you clung to him tightly. Despite promising you wouldn’t cry if this day ever came, your emotions betrayed you as tears stung your eyes.

“Miss me,” he teased poking at your wet cheek.

“Shut up,” you growled not really in the mood for his teasing. Maybe you were dreaming or maybe this was just wishful thinking? You didn’t care at the moment nor did you want to think about it too hard. Mirage patiently waited for you to finish your moment of emotional release. You sniffed loudly, wiping at your eyes before stepping away. He still had that smug grin on his face which made you stick out your tongue in defiance.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he snorted. “I missed you too.”

“Stupid mech,” you muttered. “Where were you? Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?”

He rubbed the back of his head, the human like gesture not lost on you, as he seemed to move anxiously with guilt on his face.

“It’s a long story,” he replied. “One that I promise to tell you in full later, but there’s something I have to do first.”

“Are you leaving again,” you mumbled as you felt the sorrow of him leaving beginning to drown you.

“Technically yes,” Mirage replied. “But you’re coming with me this time.”

“Really?!”

“Yep,” Mirage grinned. “Got some friends I’d like you to meet. Starting with my best bud! C’mon out Noah!”

You glanced at Mirage in confusion before movement caught your eye. A young man rounded the corner sheepishly waving before he glared up at the mech. He awkwardly walked towards you before offering his hand for you to shake.

“If it wasn’t for Noah here I wouldn’t be standing at all honestly. Despite the terrible paint job.”

“Shut up man,” Noah retorted.

That gave you some explanation on Mirage’s new less sleek look. After a little further explanation from Mirage, you and Noah were sitting inside Mirage’s cab cruising down the highway to a place that Mirage was being a little too secretive about. You scratched at the nylon of the seat belt while you watched the scenery go by.

“Mirage is a bit much ain’t he,” Noah spoke up causing you to jump at the sudden break in the quiet.

“Just a little bit,” you answered, causing the mech to scoff.

“I am a joy and you two know it,” he retorted.

“Hush,” you slapped his dash, “ the grown-ups are talking. Autobots need to keep quiet and watch the road.”

Said Autobot grumbled his displeasure but blessedly remained silent while you and Noah talked. Conversing eased you back into a sense of calm as you couldn’t help but be nervous while Mirage was being vague. When Mirage finally screeched to a halt in front of an abandoned warehouse you really began to get nervous. Why could he possibly want to bring you to such a place? You hadn’t seen him in forever and he brings a new friend and takes you to a place that could easily be seen as a crime scene. You began to wonder if this mech you were with was even Mirage. Which seemed silly how many talking, living, transforming robots were even on Earth let alone this city? That question was answered quickly as vehicles of all makes and colors began to drive out of the warehouse.

“Meet my fellow Autobots,” Mirage gestured. You stood there stiffly watching the vehicles transform just like Mirage. The biggest one that happened to be a semi scared you the most as you felt a tense aura surrounding him.

“This is Optimus Prime, the leader,” Mirage gestured to the bigger mech. “Here is Bumblebee, Arcee, and Wheeljack.”

“Hi,” you spoke timidly the whole group of transformers causing you to panic just a little bit.

“Okay,” Mirage sat down roughly before patting the concrete beside him. “I owe you a huge explanation.”

You plopped down right beside him, “Yes you do.”

Your mind whirled at all the information pouring forth. So far the only thing you could keep straight was something named Unicron had tried to destroy Earth and the Autobots stopped him with another team that transformed into animals and basically Mirage gave up his life. It was only because of Noah that he was here today. The other Autobots put in a few other details they thought Mirage had missed and by the end you were ready to take a nap. It was a lot but the one thing you weren’t confused was the sense of gratitude for Mirage and his fellow Autobots. If it hadn’t been for them, you wouldn’t even had a life to miss Mirage and you were glad that you finally got to meet the rest of them.

“It’s a lot to process,” Arcee spoke.

“It is,” you agreed before standing up. “But one thing that is easy to understand is thank you. Thank you all so much. I had no idea and none of you had to, but you saved our world anyway.”

“It’s the least we can do,” Optimus spoke, “while we live on your planet.”

“Hey,” you laughed, “stay as long as you want to. Sounds like we could use some protectors like you.”

Optimus nodded and Mirage’s optics began to gleam brighter in glee. He scooped you up pressing you against his metal cheek. You chuckled pressing against him in your version of a hug. Despite everything you were so glad that you met Mirage and you were glad he brought you here. You found yourself realizing that you wanted to remain here and get to know the others better. It wouldn’t take long for you to consider the other Autobots a friend as well as Mirage set you down in the middle of all of them. This was your life now and you couldn’t bring yourself to regret one moment of it.

#Mirage X Reader #Mirage / Reader #Transformers Rise Of The Beasts #Transformers Imagine #Mirage Imagine #Imagine #Not My Gif #My Writing #Request

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love-strike · 1 year

Text

un-clueless | boo seungkwan

title: un-clueless pairing: boo seungkwan x afab reader rating: explicit (18+) word count: ~2.3k genres: pwp, smut, friend!kwan summary: sure, Seungkwan isn't a virgin — but there are some things you can help him with. warnings: smut (some kissing, oral sex [f receiving]) a/n: this was sitting in my drafts for… months. the wip title was literally "virgin BFF kwan help" because that was my initial idea but it evolved!! please enjoy as always ~

Seungkwan is NOT a virgin.

It’s a running joke within your friend group — someone (usually Soonyoung) will make a smart remark about how inexperienced the younger man is, which leads to said man launching into an explanation of how totally experienced and knowledgeable he is about sex. You can’t help but sit back and laugh when this happens, knowing that it’s just a tactic they use to rile him up.

In fact, you’ve always found Seungkwan really charming. You could easily say that you have a small crush on him.

But you would never admit that to anyone.

You wonder if it’s a twist of fate when you end up hanging out alone with Seungkwan. Everyone else has already left his apartment, but he invites you to stay so the two of you can drink more and catch up.

“You haven’t been on a date in that long?” he asks incredulously, tipping the wine bottle to pour you a glass. You look over with a playful grin and see his bangs fall into his eyes as he tilts his head. You’re not totally sure how the conversation ended up in this direction.

“It’s been a bust,” you reply with a small sigh before taking a sip. “I think I’m giving up on people forever. I’ll just get a cat.”

He laughs and pushes his blonde hair back with one hand. You watch him curiously before setting your glass down.

“And what about you?” you ask in retaliation. You wonder, just for a moment, if he’s been hiding his dating life from his friends. His eyes dart over to yours as if he’s shocked that you care.

“Oh, uh…” he begins but quickly trails off. “Same situation.”

You hum and take another sip of your wine. Seungkwan swirls his glass a bit and then does the same. You see him grab a remote from the table and turn the television on.

“Let’s watch a movie,” he says as he scrolls through the Netflix categories. “You said you haven’t had any time to watch movies lately, right?”

You swear you can feel your heart swell at his words. You nod, more to yourself than to him.

“Oh, I heard that one is good,” you point as he stops on a film selection. It’s some artsy movie you read a good review about. His eyebrow raises a bit as he looks over to you.

“Looks pretentious, but I trust you,” he says before hitting the play button. You laugh and make yourself comfortable.

The both of you watch the movie intently while you sip on your wine, only getting distracted when the other makes a funny comment. Everything is fine until you reach the halfway mark of the film.

The couple onscreen begins kissing, which leads to an aggressive make out session. You can’t help but notice Seungkwan shifting around in his seat. You smirk to yourself, thinking that he must be feeling awkward. Your eyes are glued to the screen as the main character in the film slips a woman’s underwear off, and then begins moving down her body to settle between her legs…

And then the movie pauses.

“Sorry, I can change the movie if you want. I didn’t realize how explicit this one is,” you hear the man beside you say with a small laugh.

“I was enjoying it,” you reply with a pout, only half joking. “You don’t like it?”

“It’s not that!” he says quickly with a panicked wave of his hands. “It’s just… awkward. Right?”

You laugh at the unsure tone of his voice.

“It’s not awkward. It’s just a sex scene,” you reply and pat his arm. “Since when are you shy?”

Seungkwan narrows his eyes at you and shrugs. You decide that you need to push his buttons more to get him to open up.

“You’re acting like you’ve never given someone head before,” you say teasingly before crossing your legs and taking a drink of wine. You watch the paused screen, assuming that he’ll give up and hit play on the movie. After a few more beats of silence, you let out a huff and whip your head to the side to glare at him.

“That has nothing to do with this,” he replies quickly after you meet his eyes.

The gears in your brain click together and you realize what’s going on. You try not to outwardly gawk at him, but his pained expression tells you that you are.

“Oh,” you say flatly. “Why haven’t you?”

If you were fully sober, you would have cringed at the way your mouth moves too fast for your brain to catch up. You instead decide to blame your frankness on the little amount of wine you’ve had. He gulps loudly and sinks even further into the couch.

“Just hasn’t happened. Can we finish the movie?” he looks at you with an expression you can’t read. “You can make fun of me later.”

Your eyebrows furrow and you grab his arm without thinking.

“I’m not making fun of you,” you say seriously, hoping that he can see how honest you’re being. His eyes immediately go to the grip you have on his arm, causing you to slowly let go. “I was just curious.”

“So you’re just being nosy as usual,” Seungkwan replies with a cocky grin, turning away from you to pick up his wine glass. Your stomach flips in response to his playful attitude as you roll your eyes at him.

“Haven’t you ever wanted to try it?” you ask in an attempt to fluster him again, secretly satiating your own curiosity. You watch his Adam’s apple slowly move as he swallows.

“Of course I have,” he replies, voice so quiet that it’s almost a whisper. His hands fall to his lap as he twiddles with his thumbs. The burn of arousal that runs through your body is hard to ignore — your mind immediately falling into the gutter as you sit and watch him.

“Let’s finish the movie, shall we?” you clear your throat and hit play on the remote. You’re a bit worried that your resolve is quickly crumbling. You find yourself unable to focus completely on the movie, instead hyperaware of the movements of the man next to you. In your peripheral vision, you see Seungkwan shifting around in his seat. A loud moan from the television draws your attention back to the screen.

“Oh,” you say out loud before letting out a nervous laugh. “This is explicit.”

“A bit,” he murmurs. You anxiously pick at the fabric of your shirt in an attempt to distract yourself from the sudden tension in the room. You continue watching until your self control snaps.

“Um,” you begin as you quickly grab the remote again and pause the movie. Seungkwan looks over at you suddenly, his eyes shining in the darkness.

“If this is weird, just ignore me. But, as a friend, do… do you wanna practice on me?” You can practically feel your palms beginning to sweat as you force out your words.

His eyes widen so much you’re scared that they might pop out. You quickly look away in embarrassment.

“Nevermind, please forget I just said that. Sorry, I can show myself out,” you spit out as you hurriedly try to gather your things to make a quick exit.

“Wait,” Seungkwan says as he grabs your hand. You look down, hand feeling like it’s caught aflame.

“You didn’t even let me answer your question before trying to run away,” he says with the tiniest pout that makes your heart sing. How is he not freaking out? you think to yourself.

“Oh?” is the only word you can muster up in response. He slowly loosens his grip on you, and you let your arm fall back to your side. You’re awkwardly positioned — still standing up in the middle of his apartment and in the midst of grabbing your bag. You wait for him to continue.

“I was gonna say yes,” he says quietly, keeping his gaze on yours. “I want that.”

After finally hearing the words you’ve secretly been waiting for, you feel your heart almost stop.

“You want to,” you swallow, “give me head?”

Letting those words leave your mouth feels surreal. You watch as Seungkwan’s mouth drops open a little in surprise. He keeps his eyes on you as he nods.

“You’re the one who offered and now you’re bashful?” he asks with a teasing tone that makes your insides flare with warmth. You sit back down on the couch next to him, this time a little closer. He boldly leans forward, gazing at you and using a hand to push your hair behind your ear.

“I’m not a virgin, remember?” he leans forward and whispers. “I still have some experience.”

You nod a bit breathlessly, already feeling dazed. He smiles sweetly and plants a kiss on your lips. Before you can sneak another kiss from him, he pulls away.

“Can I eat you out right here? On my sofa?” he asks in a hushed voice. “I want you to teach me.”

Your eyebrows raise and you giggle in disbelief.

“Holy shit, what happened to the Seungkwan I used to know?”

His eyes squeeze shut as he lets out a huge laugh and rests his head in the crook of your neck. You lift your hand up to run your fingers through his blonde hair.

“I’ll lay down, and you can take my pants and underwear off,” you tell him, regaining your confidence. He pulls back and you spot a smirk on his flushed face.

You shift your body on the couch so that your body is laying down and your head is propped up on the armrest. Seungkwan shuffles down to settle between your legs, hurriedly pulling your pants and panties off. His eagerness makes you smile to yourself.

“Oh,” he breathes out when you open your legs in front of him. You feel a wave of arousal hit you at the thought of him staring at your wetness.

“Can I touch you?” he asks with a careful glance as he chews on his lip. You nod eagerly and spread your legs even more.

“Do whatever feels natural, and I’ll help you, okay?” you reply gently, excited to feel him finally touch you. You hear him take a deep breath and watch him move his fingers to your stroke your pussy, pulling a gasp out of you. It looks as if he’s just testing the waters; he pulls his hand away and quickly shifts to lay down between your legs.

You can’t take your eyes off the way he cautiously licks once from your entrance to your clit, causing you to moan.

“That feels good,” you tell him and he licks his lips, repeating the move more confidently. You hum pleasantly as your arousal spreads quickly throughout your body. Your hand roams down to gently stroke through Seungkwan’s hair, his eyes fluttering closed at the feeling.

After a few more licks, he experimentally attaches his lips around your clit and sucks on it.

“Seungkwan…” you moan his name as a form of praise. You practically feel him smirk as he continues his action, alternating between sucking and licking all over your bud.

He’s a natural, you think to yourself.

“It’s good to spit on it, too,” you mention, trying to keep your composure as his supposed instructor.

He instantly raises his head to follow your words, locking darkened eyes with you and lewdly spitting directly onto your entrance. You feel your pussy twitch involuntarily at the sight of his face.

“Just like that,” you whisper, voice suddenly shy. He nods seriously and moves back down, keeping eye contact with you.

“Can I try something?” he questions and you nod eagerly, curious as to what he could do.

Before you can think of any possible ideas, you feel his tongue slide into your entrance and your body jolts.

A loud exclamation of fuck leaves your mouth before you can stop it. This time you both moan in unison as he moves his tongue back and forth, all while rubbing your clit with his thumb.

“That feels amazing, Seungkwan,” you gasp loudly, “You’re doing so well.”

His groans get exponentially louder as you continue to praise him. After he’s satisfied with tongue fucking you, he fervently begins sloppily making out with your cunt. Your hand instinctively tightens on his blonde locks as you absentmindedly thrust your hips towards his mouth. Your pleasure escalates quickly before you can realize.

“Oh, I’m about to cum,” you whine, almost sounding like you’re pleading. “Keep going, please, make me cum Seungkwan.”

Luckily, he does what he’s told and continues madly sucking on your sensitive clit.

In the heat of the moment, you feel Seungkwan take your lone hand in his and squeeze softly. It feels so comforting that it almost brings tears to your eyes as you climax loudly, letting out a wild flurry of curses and moans. You feel as if your orgasm lasted minutes long as you finally catch your breath and gather yourself.

While you lay there, Seungkwan’s hands gently run over your legs as if he’s trying to lull you to sleep. No words are exchanged as you both rest, and the silence you sit in is comforting. Once you finally inch back up the couch and lift your head to look at him, your friend's eyes are already on yours.

Without thinking for a second, you pull him forward by the arms and kiss him. It just feels right.

“Sorry that I left a wet spot on your sofa,” you whisper into his lips and he looks down, letting out a tired laugh. He shakes his head and rubs his eyes.

“You’re gonna get a neck cramp, let’s go get in bed,” he says conclusively and intertwines fingers with you. You smile at him, and feel the creeping urge to kiss him again.

You wonder if it’s an urge that you’ll have to get used to.

#yay op finally used a title that isnt from a song #also felt good to finally post this. its been sitting in purgatory too long #boo seungkwan x reader #seungkwan x reader #svt x reader #boo seungkwan smut #seungkwan smut #svt smut

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roomwithanopenfire · 4 months

Text

Six Sentence Sunday

Happy Sunday everyone!! Thanks for the tags @blackberrysummerblog and @artsyunderstudy!!

This week I’ve done the big three: writing, editing, and ignoring my wips, with perhaps a bit more of the last one than I’d like. Most of my writing this week has been for an exchange fic for a different fandom, which I finally finished the rough draft of. Cue the celebration. However, even if I wanted to share anything from that, I can’t, it must remain hush-hush, but I am getting pretty excited to share it (and way more excited about receiving my own exchange fic back, this whole thing is very fun).

I’ve written less than 300 words on my COBB this week, and none of them are good, but I have gotten some editing done of Proof of Life. I can’t share any more snippets of the next chapter though because I’ve shared too much already. So instead, I figured I’d do a bit of a process post this time around, because I always love reading those. Check that out under the cut! (and i'm sorry this is long, i still have not learned brevity)

So my editing process isn’t too crazy, and is brought to you almost entirely by google docs comments. I also use the word ‘editing’ very loosely to encompass rewriting, revising, and proofreading. Sometimes editing means completely rewriting a scene/section, sometimes it just means switching around a couple of words or cleaning up a sentence.

Mostly, I try not to take everything so seriously, because I know that I could edit something forever and ever and never post it if I let myself get too carried away. So I try to keep everything pretty chill. So here’s my steps I go through for each chapter that I edit.

Step One: Reread the whole chapter. While I do this, I’ll leave comments on big picture things. “Maybe move this scene into the next chapter” or “The dialogue in this scene feels stilted” but I don’t add a lot of comments at this point. Once I’m done with this I’ll copy over any comments I had on the first draft or the beta reader copy over into the ‘draft two’ document.

Step Two: COMMENTS. Again, my fics are brought to you by google doc comments. I like to go through from the bottom up, reading scene by scene and leaving comments on pretty much every single sentence.

A lot of the time (read: most of the time) these are really vague like:

And sometimes these are more detailed like:

And occasionally these are compliments

Step Three: Once the whole chapter is filled with comments, I go through scene by scene (in whatever order speaks to me), and rewrite, edit, or fix sections. This part I find really fun, because I’m taking parts that aren’t good yet and I’m making them better. I love fixing things and getting rid of all the comments. It typically ends up being a lot of rewriting, but I always finish a scene feeling better about it then when I started.

For example, here’s the draft one vs. draft two version of a snippet from the first chapter of Proof of Life. This is one of the scenes I pretty much rewrote. Others look a lot more similar to their original versions.

Original:

Edited:

Step Four: Then before I post a chapter, I’ll read through the whole thing and sometimes find smaller bits to fix. Then I’ll run it through a grammar checker and ignore half of their suggestions in the name of ✨style ✨.

Overall, I feel like I have a pretty basic editing strategy and I’m really pleased with it. Even though sometimes I feel like more robust edits would make everything way better, it’s a good mix of fixing things but not spending too much time on it. I remember I spent like a month on editing the very first fic I posted at that was only 6k words. If I kept doing that for everything, I'd never post anything at all. With fanfiction, I know that y'all will be nice to me even though it's never perfect <333

Tags and Hellos!! (I'm unsure if we still need the spaces, but i've been burned too many times lol)

@you-remind-me-of-the-babe @m1ndwinder @facewithoutheart @run-for-chamo-miles @raenestee

@onepintobean @prettygoododds @noblecorgi @hushed-chorus @angelsfalling16

@thewholelemon @monbons @shrekgogurt @brendughh @hertragedyconnoisseur

@beastmonstertitan @valeffelees @horsesarenotdeer @drowninginships @supercutedinosaurs

@fiend-for-culture @rimeswithpurple @cutestkilla @alexalexinii @ileadacharmedlife

@arthurkko @rbkzz @skeedelvee @bookish-bogwitch @brilla-brilla-estrellita

#one day i will make a short wipsday post #today is not the day #listen to all my ramblings everyone #look at my screenshots #i just love the sound of my voice #proof of life #my writing #editing #six sentence sunday #carry on fanfiction #snowbaz

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jupitersrising · 3 months

Text

The next chapter of Survival of the Fittest is taking forever so I thought I'd include some fun facts about how the fic has changed over time. Because I like to talk about it but it doesn't feel necessary to put in the end notes.

Spoilers for all chapters of Survival of the Fittest

***

Originally, Yasmina wasn't going to be in a coma-like state until far later in the fic. I had a comphet lesbian storyline planned (which you can see hints of in earlier chapters) before S5 came out. After it felt wrong to go through with since she was confirmed bi, so I moved the other storyline up and gave her another conflict that will affect her soon!

The fic only had 20 planned chapters for the first couple months and was going to end when Ben reunited with the others. But I got so, so much support and love for it that I decided to continue a full series rewrite.

I always knew I wanted a character to lose a limb. But it's changed so much since the beginning. Originally, Kenji was going to lose his leg but that storyline got replaced with his addiction. (A story that I personally think was better for his character.) Then I decided on Darius. Still, he was going to lose his arm at the shoulder, then the elbow, before I finally moved it down to just losing his hand.

Ben was only going to kill Toro in the first draft and never any other dinosaur but as the rewrite got darker I wanted to include the other dinosaurs.

A few things that haven't changed since the first draft of the outline:

Sammy always killed someone, it's a really big part of her character arc throughout the story.

Darius always nearly drowns (though the setting has changed twice since the first outline).

The Beach (tm) scenes between Kenji and Ben. That's been planned since the beginning and some of the sections were written months in advance.

There's more little things too but those ones are the most fun. Most of the mental health issues, family issues, disorders, and injuries were planned since the beginning too.

Ben was really estranged from everyone in the first few drafts and it took him twice as long to interact fully with the others. The introduction of Brooklynn's friendship actually had me switching up the group dynamics a lot.

I have an (short, unfinished) unreleased snippet of Kye and Kenji's relationship before camp. Basically what happened the night he might have died and the fallout of it right up until camp starts.

There's a throw away line about a controversy Brooklynn was in just before camp, if you can remember, this will come back later. I'm so excited about it!

In the worst version of this story, Bumpy was going to die and truly make Ben go feral. Then I decided against any main character death, so no, she won't die. But it was a thought for a while.

Despite spending the so little time together in the show, Brooklynn and Ben's friendship is one of my favorites to write. Along with Sammy and Ben getting closer since Yaz's illness. I intended for Ben and Darius to have the closest friendship but they haven't gotten there yet. There's a lot of stuff they have to work out. (Yaz is still is platonic soulmate tho, don't worry).

Sorry the next update may take a bit to get out but I hope you enjoyed reading some random notes I never included!

#survival of the fittest fanfic #sotf universe #sotf updates #ben pincus #jwcc #camp cretaceous #jurassic world camp cretaceous #ao3 fanfic #fanfic

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utilitycaster · 1 year

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The wildest part about people being mad on Imogen's behalf is Imogen herself understood Keyleth's position in spite of her own wishful thinking, helps acquire the blue flowers for her, was the first to acknowledge the Changebringer's help, and the first to say "I'm sorry" to Orym losing more of his people. I'm really baffled to read these "Orym is manipulative" takes and that it was dangerous of Keyleth to validate his anger. Do you think it goes back to the god stuff, or is it just Imodna?

I think a little of column A, little of column B, little of several other things. Since I've been on the "hey could we consider that Imogen and Laudna are adult women who are responsible for their own actions" train for over a year, the specific "Imogen can be mean-spirited as well as unintentionally insensitive" train since at least this past February, and the "Orym is correct and Bor'Dor signed his own death warrant by casting Vitriolic Sphere at a group of people who were not violent towards him" train for a month, let's break it down.

There are a small handful of people in the fandom who just really hate Liam. Per a very salty rant I put into my drafts shortly after 3x63 to describe this type of person, it is a small, scattered, bizarre group of people who for no apparent reason have decided to be foaming-at-the-mouth levels of furious because, as far as I can tell, a nerdy Gen X-er dad who went to Tisch is kind of corny sometimes. Anyway nothing he does will ever sit well with them so we can ignore them forever. Moving on.

Some is Imodna; I thought the whole issue of Imogen and Laudna as agency-less infants against a cruel world would have been ameliorated by them entering a canon relationship (one currently compatible with the 2013 Pinterest board vibes of fanon no less) but it appears to have not been the case. For more on this, see this still relevant post and, while I personally haven't ever written something up, there's just, again, a complete black hole of empathy from a segment of the fandom when it comes to any of the other characters; my post from this morning about Imogen as compared to Caleb touches upon it. You know the Far Side cartoon where a guy is talking to his dog and the dog only recognizes a small handful of words? I feel this is similar, like, they see that Imogen wanted one thing and Orym and Keyleth wanted another thing that wasn't even, as you point out, terribly incompatible, and then the "well if not thing Imogen wants and not 100% deferential to her then BAD BAD BAD" attitude kicked in.

But I do think, in the end, a lot of it does come back to if not the gods exactly, the idea that the Vanguard is, unmistakably, the enemy. They are not the revolution here to usher in a new era of rule by the people. Keyleth is not here to raze Vasselheim to the ground but to have a diplomatic discussion; neither is she here to grant any leniency to the woman who attacked Vax regardless of her connection to Imogen. And she finds the idea of a world without the gods, regardless of her own personal feelings, to be one to be avoided. [sidebar: I hope we get Matt on 4SD; I am wondering, after the one-two-three punch of Hevestro, the Raven Queen, and Keyleth all placing a heavy thumb on the scale opposing the Vanguard if he did not expect the party to be as conflicted about the role of the gods and is trying to wind up an argument that I think as of last episode reached the end of its useful life.] When you couple that with Orym's positive attitude towards the gods, that explains the animosity towards him.

The undermining of Orym's position over the past few episodes has always been one of emotion. First he was not objective - as if anyone else was objective! As if any moral decision is ever 100% objective! We all have biases! What kind of early 2000s atheist forum shit are you on to claim perfect rationality that conveniently matches the ideas that apparently came to you in a godless vision? It's insane. Then it was his grief; grief makes you irrational (unless you're Imogen grieving Laudna, in which case you are objectively right at all times, even as you shout down every other suggestion, beseech Laudna's first murderer, not a month later consider the potential validity of the her second, and try to to undo her immutable past) and remember, moral decisions must be made by the rational. Then it was his impatience (nevermind that Imogen has absolutely no patience). And now it's his anger, and he's apparently been manipulating the party the whole time by...having suggestions for the group which he mentions, and openly stating what he was feeling and what he wanted, and not intuiting that Laudna reawoke Delilah with his approximately no magical ability and then encouraging her to finish a job she had started herself. Because god Rational Objective Conceptual Being forbid women do anything; it is the role of the man to protect their fragile souls from all consequences.

Even more generally I think a lot of people- not just in this fandom, though certainly within this fandom - are terrified of anger. Like, they think they like it - they say they love barbarians (though rage is its own beast and I think very different from the anger Orym and Keyleth exhibit) but most of the discussion of them tends to veer more into angst, and most players of barbarians are often exploring emotions like grief, self-pity (as Ashton says), or frustration just as much if not more so than anger. I think a lot of people perceive anger as this awful thing inside them to be controlled and denied, or alternately to only be let out for whatever they think is a sufficiently righteous cause, and instead sit in an increasingly toxic stew of simmering resentment and conflict avoidance until they begin to think this is not just normal but aspirational - anything but that awful beast they call anger. It's not new in discussions of Keyleth, and it's not limited to her and Orym; I can point to nearly every single character who has had even the slightest of outbursts - even something as mild and controlled as Orym's whispered profanity or less - and I promise you there's been pearl-clutching for every single one of them.

Anyway, you make great points! One of the things that struck me about this episode and prompted my frustration and my post earlier today is that Imogen has changed. I think she's been mulling over Liliana since her appeals to her during the Key's activation were unsuccessful; she hesitantly told Chetney when he asked in Uthodurn that yes, if Liliana's death is necessary, she understands; and I think seeing the utter devastation and pain that was inflicted on Keyleth brought it into focus. She was much more open to FCG and the coin as well. And, you know, if one had embraced Imogen's moral ambiguity in the leadup to the solstice, and the possibility that she could betray the party, instead of shouting that down? Then one could see this as a beautiful moment of growth for Imogen. One could, in fact, if one was so inclined, attribute it to her new sense of ease thanks to her circlet, or even to her nascent romantic relationship. If one, of course, had wholeheartedly embraced Imogen's past moral ambiguity and the possibility of her betrayal.

#answered #Anonymous #critical role spoilers #critical role #long post

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jakeluppin · 3 months

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a couple asks ago, you said "whenever I start working on my novel, the first song I listen to is Pin" and now i'm super curious about your novel!! care to share any details??

okay so i have two (well, i have like twenty i've done bits on since i started writing but two that are still somewhat being worked on now) but one of them is barely anything beyond a rough idea so i'll focus on the one that's more legit

i wrote about 90% of a first draft (about 60K) and then realized there were some fundamental issues with it so i started over

i have about 16K done of my new draft, some of which is brand new and some of which is revised from the first

it's a ya romance because that's where my heart has always been

for main characters we have (which as i'm writing these i realize i am So Bad at describing characters in this way whoops):

jake - jewish trans guys who is only out to his older sister (rachel). at this point, their parents are gone/dead (i've been back and forth on exactly what went down) so rachel's raising him. he's been in love with his best friend (caleb) since basically forever. he does stage crew for his school's theater department.

caleb - jake's best friend. he's gay. he has a crush on their mutual friend peter. he's one of those people who are just so loving that it's so easily to just get lost in. but also a total dick at the same time?

peter - he's really into theater, always in every production, which is how jake and peter met. just before the story starts peter and caleb were running lines for something and peter kisses caleb. described by other characters as being the nicest person you've ever met.

and then there's asher - his family just moved to town as his mom is the new cantor at jake's synagogue. he's also into theater and auditions for the fall musical, alongside peter. jake and caleb are there watching and jake hears him sing and is like. oh. shit. i'm in love. it's not revealed until midway through the book but asher is also a trans guy.

it's basically just a coming of age love story where jake finds himself and love and it's just really gay and jewish and probably very self indulgent but who cares?

oh also i have switched which musical they do multiple times for various reasons and right now it's Newsies but it may change again. but obviously asher, my beloved, is cast as davey jacobs so it is pretty perfect in that regard

gonna just throw some random lines/short scenes from draft two under the cut because i can. feel free to not read them haha

“You can’t seriously be doing homework now,” Caleb scoffs a moment later.

I look up from my assignment and just shrug. “I’m simply not as invested in this as you are,” I offer.

“But you should be. For me. This is an important moment in my love life.”

I chuckle. “I love you, Caleb, but I think overall if I was as invested in your love life as you are, that would be a little weird.”

“Nope. I’m pretty sure it’s in the best friend manual that you’re supposed to care about it as much as I do. Sometimes maybe even more.”

“Can I have a copy of this best friend manual? I want to check the exact wording on that.”

“Sorry, only one copy was made and I keep it under lock and key.” Caleb smiles bright, and I roll my eyes in response.

“But seriously, you were amazing at your audition. I’m not just saying that or anything.”

“Thanks. I grew up singing. I think my mom might have disowned me if I didn’t end up with a good voice.”

“Really?”

Asher laughs again. “Wow, you are gullible or I am not as funny as I think I am. But no, my mom would not have disowned me if I didn’t have a good voice.”

It’s this moment that Rabbi Finkle steps out of her office and says, “Asher, don’t lie. No self respecting cantor could stand to have unmusical children, just like I couldn’t stand to have children who do anything but read torah all day.” She smiles at us both, light in her eyes.

“Isn’t your oldest an atheist?” I ask.

“Yes, but he still reads torah ever day.” She laughs.

“So how was it?” I ask, sliding in Caleb’s car. He smiles wide as he turns to face me.

“Peter was amazing. Obviously. There’s something just, sexy about watching a guy dance.” He pauses, sighing, and then says, “I’m really gay.”

I laugh. “Really? I had no idea!”

“Yeah, not like I told you for the first time when we were like, nine or something.”

“Oh yeah, that definitely never happened.”

Caleb chuckles and drives off.

I can vividly remember when Caleb came out, the emotions so strong they stay pressed in mind. I can remember his fear, his hesitation, as he told me in a small voice that he liked boys. I can remember the confusion, not understanding what he meant, not sure what that meant for me. I can remember the happiness and his smile when I said there was nothing wrong with him “like liking” boys. I remember the ache I felt, when after telling him I like boys too, he told me “girls are supposed to like boys.” That ache I didn’t understand, that ache I couldn’t place for years, that ache that would come when Caleb would refer to me as a girl.

“Were you scared telling me?” I ask a few minutes later, even though I know the fundamental answer.

“Of course,” he says. “I was nine. I was gay. And you were my best friend. Why wouldn’t I be afraid?”

I nod in agreement. It’s something that, of course, I can understand. Just the thought of it causes anxiety to crawl up skin, pulling tight at my throat. It stops me from saying the things I want to say, things I know I need to say. The things I can’t imagine ever actually telling him.

Like: I’m in love with you.

Like: I’m trans.

Like: Yes. That means I’m guy. Which, if you remember the I love you part, would make me gay too. Or bi. Not totally sure about that yet.

Like: Main point being, I want to be with you and date you and I know you probably don’t or won’t ever see me as anything but your girl best friend but maybe you could.

Yeah. Probably a good thing I’m not saying any of that.

“...Honestly, the challah was so good and reminded me of mom’s that I had a breakdown. Standard stuff, ya know. Who doesn’t have breakdowns over delicious Jewish foods?”

“Are you even Jewish if you don’t have breakdowns over delicious Jewish food?” Asher counters.

#ezra.txt #renninflight #bet ur sorry you asked now haha

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protect-daniel-james · 3 months

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I have been writing! There is so much inspiration out there, and my life has been - surprisingly? - going so well lately! I just want to finish some fics before I go on holiday (Netherlands and Belgium) in two weeks.

So, what's in store? Please note that the names are not the real names, they are the names of the files I write the fics in (yes, I am no longer writing directly in drafts of AO3, it was a bit too brave and backfired a couple of times)

Daddy A in the army - this one is taking forever because it is....tough. I got the Zinky Boys book from my local library, and I will probably have to go through that for some more inspiration

His uncle was more pragmatic. “God helps those who help themselves," he said when Roman Arkadyevich brought up the topic of young men returning from their two-year service with wives, kids, apartments, and a bumaga entitling them to vacation in Bulgaria. With that in mind, Roman Arkadyevich bought the three lucky packets of cigarettes; ready to meet Lady Luck halfway. Naturally, his packets of cigarettes were confiscated on the first day.

Pippo's wedding - this should be a short lemon-y smut because we all know the Inzaghis and we know what they are.

It’s not even ten in the morning and Simone is on his second glass of wine - it’s not a big deal, everyone around the house has already had something, right after their morning coffees, toasting to the groom’s health and happiness, but Simone stayed sober throughout the season, pedantic and precise as ever, wanting to always keep his mind clear throughout the season. Now even the small amount of alcohol, combined with the heavy humid air before the rain that was forecasted for the day, made his head swim.

Numa numa iei - because what's not to love about random EURO pairing

“Nikoushek.” Now he’s mocking him. Nikoushek is a specific memory that not everyone knew about. “Nikoushku,” he corrects him, burying his fingers in the dark roots of his hair. He wishes Adrian kept it longer, all over his head, and didn’t shave the area around his ears and nape. “You use the vocative case when addressing someone.” “Vocative case, what is that. Nikoushku,” Adrian repeats, and his eyes shine brighter than before. “I can’t even speak Romanian properly,” he jokes, before laying his head down on his captain’s bare chest. He can’t resist, and places a quick peck on the skin. He likes the contrast between the bare, hairless chest and the arms covered in tattoos of significant memories from Nicolae’s eventful life. The arms are for the world to see, to learn Nico’s birth date, see the image of his grandmother, admire the colors of the flag, read the names of his children, and get to know the sources of his motivation, Biblical, fictional, inspirational – but the chest is only for him to see.

Juicy - finally putting on "paper" the food kink Ange/Poch fic that celebrates juiciness in all forms, good food, loving good food, loving yourself, and all the good summer Greek-Aussie-and-Argentine stereotypes together.

Juicy. He couldn’t think of a better word. There was so much under his skin - so much to touch and knead and hold onto and rub - and the excess of everything about Ange, his body, his hair, his deep voice, the smile that usually played in the corner of his lip, it all filled Mauricio’s head with a soothing sense that everything will be alright.

Lentemente - it is called this because of the Django Reinhardt song Lentemente mademoiselle, no idea *why* though. It's the Unai x Andoni bookstore!librarian!AU, it's fun and sweet and soft and pointless

“I’m sorry – I noticed you have been standing here with this specific book – “ He quickly glanced at the book’s cover, just to quench his private and nosy curiosity over the book that seemed to have captured the customer’s full attention. It looked like one of those cheap paperbacks dedicated to sensationalistic retelling of history, politics, or anything else – but the cover was nicely done in a clean, aesthetically pleasing way, showing a traditional house façade. Que disent les maisons basques? He had to smile; it didn’t seem like the most thrilling read. “ – and there is a line outside,” he finished his sentence, trying not to seem too judgemental of the book of choice. He made some calculations in his head already – he’d never seen anyone even just remotely interested in buying this book, and he certainly never sold a single copy of it. It was one of those volumes that was always there during the physical inventory and yet Andoni wanted to keep it – if nothing else, it had a nice cover and looked professionally made, which wasn’t the case for some of the faster-selling ones. It was a French-language book, which added a sense of internationalism – and it concerned a local theme, the traditional inscriptions on the lintels of rural houses. It was exactly the kind of book he liked to keep in the shop, even if it wasn’t selling well – it added a sense of rootedness to the place.

#myfics

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thunderous-wolf · 5 months

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L.O.V.E#

Installment 3 of my series of "Thoughtz"

Note: "Thoughtz" is a compilation of drafts of fanfic that I've had in my notes for a while. They're unedited and most are unfinished. Since I do not feel motivated enough to finish them, I'm posting them all for you to read. Enjoy~

Pairing: Rock singer Minho × fem!reader (no relationship as of yet). Strangers to Lovers trope

Plot: Your friend drags you to a concert of some stupid band that you've never heard of - except, it's not so stupid if the lead singer is hot...

Warnings: none

Word count: I don't know, but probably somewhere between 500-1k

a/n: I lost interest in this story pretty quick, so it stops early on. HOWEVER, if this gets enough attention, I may be persuaded to complete it.

And as always, feel free to comment.

Please DO NOT copy, translate, or steal my works.

It was the last few weeks before school started up again, and you wanted to enjoy every last bit of it. You were planning to go out of state and visit some old friends since 1: you haven't seen them in what feels like forever, and 2: you're single, so there's nobody (other than you're friends who were almost all on vacation somewhere) holding you back from going anywhere. You had this all planned out and were already preparing for the trip when Jennie, you're one friend who is not on vacation, texts you.

Jennie: Hey! I need a favor...

You: What did you do?

Jennie: I didn't do anything this time, I swear! I just need you to come with me to the VENOM concert at JYPark next Saturday. Everyone else is on vacation, and I don't want to go alone! You HAVE to come with, I don't know what could happen if I went alone!

You: I was planning on leaving to go out of state next week to visit some friends. I don't think I'll be back by next Saturday. Plus, I don't even listen to VENOM's music, or know who they are

Jennie: It doesn't matter, I just need someone with meee! PLEASE come with! I'll owe you a favor!

You: ...

You: Fine.

Jennie has been your friend since you could remember. You had to admit, she did have a somewhat selfish side, but she'd been with you through the thick and thin, and you've developed a soft spot for her. You hastily texted your friends that you'd have to cut the trip a little short because something popped up. They understood and were happy that they'd atleast get to see you.

~TIME SKIP~

You arrived back home the Thursday before the concert. You spent the next days until the concert unpacking, relaxing, and getting settled back in to your schedule. Jennie was filling you in on some basic info about VENOM over texts, and you could tell she was very passionate about them. From what you've gathered, VENOM is a rock band boy group with four members. Chan, the eldest, was the bass player. He apparently had an accent that was "super sexy". Minho was the main singer and keyboardist with "amazing dancing skills that aways captured your attention like a magnet". Changbin was the drummer and was "absolutely stunning and totally kissable" as Jennie had said. Last but not least was Hyunjin, the youngest, who was their guitarist and a "complete heartthrob".

You didn't know exactly how accurate Jennie's descriptions were, but atleast you knew some names. They started the band a couple years ago - was it 2? 3? You hadn't really cared enough to remember - and they've been playing at bars, parties, and small festivals ever since then. They weren't outstandingly popular, but they did have enough popularity to have all of their concerts packed. Their music had to be pretty good then, right?

When the day of the concert came, Jennie excitedly appeared at your door at 8 am. She was already dressed up in as flamboyant of a outfit that you have ever seen. You could tell she took her time on her look. She must have woke up early, but she certainly didn't show it. She had more energy than you.

"You look like you just slept for two days in the luggage compartment of an airplane! Go grab a cup of coffee to wake you up and quickly get back here! We need to get you ready to go by 11!" She said, almost talking a mile a minute. It was hard for your half asleep brain to keep up with her.

"11 o'clock?! The concert isn't until 2!" You said, alarmed. She shooed you into the kitchen towards the coffee machine.

"We're going to the sound check, dummy." She said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Instead of replying, you directed all of your focus (and energy) to making that cup of coffee.

When you came back to your room with the mug in your hand, you found her ruffling through your closet with one hand while the other held an array of clothing.

"Ah, there you are. Are you feeling more green or purple...?" She said, more to herself than to you as she held the clothes up at you. After looking between you and the clothes for what felt like an hour (it was really only a minute), she nodded her head with a huff and got back to ruffling through your closet.

Seeing as she's distracted, you go find your phone to see if you got any messages from your friends. Almost as if sensing your presence, your phone dings from a notification. You pick it up to see that Felix, who also like Jennie, has been your friend since childhood. You used to hang out with him all of the time before you and Jennie went to a different school/college than the rest of your friends.

Felix: Thank you once again for visiting us! The cookies we baked together are already gone... I've got to keep Jisung from eating them all ;) Is everything going alright with you, Sunflower? I know you had to leave early but, I just never got to ask why.

You: I told you you should've hid them from Jisung! I'm doing all right. I had to with Jennie to some concert - she's just being high maintenance as usual, lol

Felix: That's sounds like her. Whose concert is it?

You: Some band called VENOM apparently. I've never heard of them before.

Felix: VENOM? From what I've heard, they're pretty good. My sister went to one of their concerts once with her friends. She actually enjoyed it and she doesn't even like rock music

You: They must be pretty good then

You found yourself saying that quite a bit lately. You didn't know how much faith you had in Jennie's words, but Felix's comforting texts made you feel a little better. He had an incredible skill for soothing people, and that was what you missed most during your school here, along with his warm smile that seemed to light up the whole room. Jennie's voice broke you from your reverie.

"You took a shower last night, right? Well, just put the clothes on that I laid out on your bed and use that perfume I gave you. Be quick too! It's already 8:15 and I have to have enough time to perfect your makeup!" She shouted from presumably the bathroom, where all of your makeup was kept.

She picked out quite the outfit for you. It had a mix of greens and black with silver accents and it gave off the "single and ready to mingle" vibe. It was surprising how she pulled it together, as it was definitely not your style and your clothes closet reflected that. Reluctantly, you put it on and once you looked in the mirror, you had to admit, you did look pretty hot in it.

Jennie was already waiting for you when you made it to the bathroom. She had the counter set up as her workplace, with an assortment of products placed about. She looked at you with your hairbrush in one hand and curling iron in the other.

"Are you just going to stand there and stare like a goldfish or what? Get over here." She said and immediately got to work.

After quite some time, she finally let you look at your final look on the mirror. You were very shocked. You didn't quite look like you, but you looked good - and you liked it. Your now slightly wavy hair framed your face perfectly, and your eyeshadow perfectly complemented your outfit. It was a job well done by Jennie.

"Watcha think?" She said, a smirk tugging at her lips.

"I can't even... wow, just wow. You're incredible, you know that?" You respond, still in awe.

"Oh, I know. You'll thank me later." She said. "Now we've got to go, it's 11:05."

Before you could respond, she hurriedly walked down the hallway to your door and put her shoes on. You followed her and did the same. You felt a little sick to the stomach and you couldn't tell if it was from nervousness or excitement.

Having finally made it to JYPark, you see why she insisted on leaving an hour early. The traffic to get here was out of this world, and the park was crowded with VENOM fans - known as "Oddinary" or "Odds" for short, according to Jennie. *She's got that right. They all are odd. * You thought to yourself. Gazing out at the crowd that surrounded the stage, there was what felt like hundreds of people, each adorned with some piece of VENOM merch paired with brightly colored hair or makeup. For a rock group, their fans looked more like modern pop stars gone wrong.

The concert was set at a plaza in the middle of the park, with trees and well taken care of flowers circling the plaza as far as you could see. Above you was the large expanse of sky that had to be breathtaking at night. Despite the rowdy crowd and stage lights, it felt peaceful here, putting your mind at ease. That peace was short lived.

A commotion broke you out of your stupor, drawing your attention - like many other's- to the stage once more. By the screaming of the fans closer to the stage, you could infer that the band was going on stage for their sound check, whatever that was. You had no clue why Jennie insisted on coming early for it when she was already going to their two and a half hour long concert, but you were just along for the ride.

One by one, four figures appeared on stage. The first crossed to the back of the stage and went up a ramp that led to a higher platform which held the drum set. You tell from here that he was no stranger to the gym. You could see why Jennie called him "absolutely stunning and totally kissable". By the way her face lit up, you figured she had a thing for this drummer. While he was adjusting the drum set, the next figure crossed to the far right of the stage. He picked up the bass that was sitting on its stand behind him and plugged it into the machine on the floor infront of him that held an array of buttons and pedals that did who knows what. The next person caught your eye the moment he came on stage. It wasn't because he had outrageously dyed hair, or an overly bedazzled outfit, but his stage presence seemed to allure you. He had a confidence that made it seem as if he'd been doing this his whole life - and maybe he has. Jennie didn't give you much background information on them, so you had no clue. He truly looked like a professional up there, with each movement purposeful and graceful. He had this charm about him that you couldn't quite put your finger on.

You were so enraptured with him that you didn't notice the fourth member get on stage. His hair drew your attention from - what was his name, Min.. Minho? The guitarist's hair was blonde, much like Felix's, and you suddenly felt keenly aware of how much you missed your good friend. He used to take you to all sorts of new places around town, and it feels almost wrong not to have him here with you even though it's been several years since you had an outing with him. Just the two of you, in a sea of new faces, facing it together. It made you miss your carefree middle school days (even though they may have been embarrassing) where you would explore the city together, sometimes getting in trouble, but never truly facing many repercussions.

#stray kids #skz #thoughtz #bang chan #bangchan #skz x reader #skz bang chan #skz minho #skz lee know #lee know #stray kids lee know #stray kids lee minho #hyunjin #changbin #rock band au #strangers to lovers

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many-but-one · 6 months

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This is a poem written by Dorian nearly couple years ago now. He never ended up posting it because he intended to post the audio with it but we never finished captioning the audio. Going through our drafts, we found it. Since we’re on a poetry sharing kick tonight, I’ll post it now. This poem should probably be updated eventually since Dori knows more now, but we will keep it as-is for now.

Written by Dori:

I want to note that this poem is HEAVILY inspired by a slam poem by Patrick Roche. He came up with the idea of moving backwards in the timeline, which I felt was just...genius. Especially in the realm of DID, where if you know at the first age you have DID, you know it will only get progressively worse. And in my case, things do get worse, but then you get to see the real things that were believed back then. I discussed this poem with several parts in our system, not only asking for their help, but also asking if it was okay for me to share.

Lastly, here are the trigger warnings. This poem is HEAVY. It is graphic, it alludes and blatantly states some very disturbing things. I am tired of being silent.

TW: Alcohol, CSA, adulthood/teen SA, intense religious imagery, blasphemy, unalive attempt, drugs/pills, medical/hospital/doctors, self harm, domestic violence, parents, violence in general, car crashes, AFAB menstruation, neglect, death of a family member, a lot of cursing, BIG mentions of grooming from the POV of the child, brief mentions of abortions.

Haha. The gods really put every single TW they could think of in my life huh. Realizing that my entire life is essentially a trigger warning is 😅 Oof.

Anyway, here is the poem. Read with caution.

24 years and counting.

24, going on 25. I wake up each morning not knowing who I am and this is normal now. I have realized that this will be my normal forever, or at least until I process the layers upon layers of trauma, hidden underneath layers and layers of amnesia that I slowly peel back like onion skins, each layer getting more and more terrifying, more and more worrisome. The deeper I dig into this hole of unknown the harder my heart beats, and I realize my heart beats like a war drum. I have always been at war, with myself, with this body of mine. Of ours.

Mid 24, I come to terms with a diagnosis called DID. I start to learn more about the different versions of myself, where they all intersect, where it melds together and where it stands apart. I think I know everything but 24 going on 25 version of me laughs at how naive I am. Perhaps 25 year old me will laugh at 24 going on 25 me. Maybe I’ll realize the depths of the hell I crawled out of called childhood was worse than I know even now. I don’t look forward to it.

Early 24, I got married this year, my wife married three of me, three of me love her dearly. Things feel right and good again, I feel like I am on a happy path. My brain makes about as much sense at it always has, but at least I somewhat understand the pieces of the puzzle I’ve been given. Or at least, so I thought.

23, this year is a blur, the only thing that stands out is that I quit my job I’ve had for five years. I loved that job. I quit that job because one of my past abusers walked in with no warning, and the sirens in my head went off like there was a nuclear bomb incoming. I still tell myself he didn’t see me but I know I’m lying to myself. I quit that very day and I realized that he still has control over me to this very day, 17 years after the trauma ended.

22, Two months before I am set to graduate college with my degree I get the diagnosis that changes my life. Not that my life is any different afterwards, at least not yet, so I try to continue forward regardless. How badly I wish to return to this moment and take my own face in my hands and look myself deep in the eyes and tell the 22 year old me that they have a storm coming. I think I already know, despite not really knowing, because I find myself getting drunk after work almost every night. I hide the bottles from my fiancée. I don’t want her to think I am my father.

21, I am old enough to drink! I barely drink. Every time I drink and it tastes too much like alcohol I am reminded of my father’s breath. I...don't know why. I stick to fruity drinks that taste good so that I can stop feeling things. Maybe I really am my father’s daughter.

20, I finally start making friends in college, which is strange. Some people talk to me and I’ve never met them before, but they act like we’ve been friends since forever. Sometimes I attend lectures and I don’t remember what they are about. Sometimes I ask questions and I can hear my voice speaking and feel my mouth moving and I don’t know what I am saying. This is normal. The competent version of me sometimes does stuff when I get overwhelmed, that’s normal. That’s always happened! Everyone does that, right?

19, I wake up on the floor of my mother’s bathroom one afternoon, I smell my own stench I have been rotting in, I peek my eyes open and see pill bottles all around me, but no pills to be seen. The burn of bile on my throat and in my mouth makes me gag. I look in the toilet and see the pills. I won’t remember this moment until I am 24. I will learn it was not me that tried to kill themselves. I will also learn it was not me that saved me.

18, I have my first of many mental hospital stays. The doctors watch me stare at the other kids in the ward, nearly catatonic. They said they’d never seen a patient that never smiled. “Most kids get out of here within a couple of days!” They assured my mother and I. Two weeks later and I am still rotting on the plastic bedsheets. I lie and tell them I’m okay but I am not okay, I just want to live a life that involves shoelaces and doesn’t have nurses yelling at me to brush my teeth. I go back to school like nothing happened and almost all of my friends are gone. They never really cared.

18, pre-mental hospital, I am dating a boy that I don’t love. I am dating him because that’s what girls do even though I am not a girl. He is my best friend and it just seemed right. I really only dated him because sometimes I felt like I really loved him, but most of the time his lips on mine and his hands on my waist felt wrong. Something in my head feels like it’s buzzing like a beehive every time I go to his apartment. It’s almost like a spidey sense, except I ignore it and when I find myself back home, I don’t remember anything that happened at his house, nor how I ended up back home. I don’t think about it too hard.

17, My dad punched a wall again. He screamed until I cried again. I can’t do this anymore, I can’t do this anymore. I hurt myself with sharp objects because it feels like that’s what I’m supposed to do. I never feel the pain, I only ever clean up the mess. I try to make myself as ugly as possible. To me(?) it makes sense. Obviously, if I am hideous, people will leave me alone. They won’t hurt me anymore, right? ...right?

17, suddenly an angry version of myself appears and I realize I am SICK and TIRED of mistreatment. I fight back, I fight back with teeth and claws and words that are even sharper than both of those combined. I don’t remember these times very well. I certainly don’t remember the time this angry version of me YANKED the largest knife out of the butcher block and threatened the very man who ruined my life with it. I LOVE this version of myself. She’s intensity, with veins full of gasoline, ready and waiting for someone to ignite her. She bares her teeth in a grin and laughs, she says “I dare you, set me aflame, I will burn you with me.” Thanks, Alice.

16, I nearly crash my car while I’m zoned out. Haha! I always zone out. Sometimes I zone out so hard that I forget big chunks of time, but everyone does that!

15, my friend shows me his self harm scars and is trying to gain sympathy but I have none to give. I wonder if maybe doing the same will help me learn to have sympathy. Thus starts an addiction to pain that lasts for nearly a decade.

14, I don’t remember this year very well but someone does.

13, I started my period and I was told that I’m just a late bloomer. Everyone always said I was a late bloomer since forever. I didn’t hit my growth spurt until I was 14 either, and I didn’t stop wetting the bed until I was 9. Weird, but I didn’t put that much thought into it.

12, I wrote a detailed story that I no longer have a single copy of that talks about the structure of my inner world. Traces of the DID that I can actually remember. I don’t remember most of this year because I wasn’t the one who lived it.

11, My dad is neglecting me to party with his girlfriend. The one who lives some of next year lives this year too. Too much going on for fragile little me, someone stronger has to deal with this mess. She does.

10, My brother died this year and this is the exact moment I stopped caring about God. Everything he ever gave to me he took away. I won’t understand the heaviness of such a statement for another decade and a half. This is when my depression started and when I lost my faith in humanity. I thought I gained it back for a while but I never did. I also stopped crying. Nobody heard me anyway. Someone in my head did it for me.

9, I don’t remember this year and I don’t want to.

8, I don’t remember this year and I don’t want to.

7, I am remembering this year and I don’t want to.

7, I am remembering this year and it is the year that I well and truly shattered, the year I learned of the depravity of men, the year I learned that I was just holes to fuck, an actress in a sick film, a faerie, a demon, a screaming little cunt, and that’s all I would ever be seen as. This is the year I learned why I liked demons more than angels, and why God was my enemy. This is the year I realized for real that I was alone in this cruel fucking world and no amount of crying or talking or begging will ever make them hear me. They smile and laugh. They smile and laugh. They smile and laugh. :)

6, late stages, My Sunday school teacher is so nice to me! He has a fun secret that only him and I share! I love him, he takes good care of me. He makes me feel good and special inside. I think deep down…I know it’s not okay. But I can’t help it. Actually, I am really scared because I see the way he looks at me and I feel queasy. I know this is wrong but I am scared he’ll hurt me if I say no. He said that God will tell him if I tell anyone what he does, and if God knows I am bad then I will go to hell. I don’t want to go to hell!! I’ll do whatever you say! I promise. I’m a good little girl. I’m an angel!

6, early stages, my mommy and daddy broke up. They are fighting in court for me, and I don’t really know what that means. Mommy said the church is helping dad pay for good lawyers so she probably won’t get custody of me. I don’t know what that means. Mommy says daddy is bad and evil. Daddy says mommy is bad and evil. I don’t know who is telling the truth. Or maybe they both are. Or maybe I am the bad and evil one?

5, My dad visits me every night and calls me his little angel. :) I am his sweet angel! His breath smells funny though. And his fingers hurt me a lot, and I don’t like the way he tastes. But he said since I am a good angel it’s okay, so he must be right.

4, Daddy and mommy fight a lot, my daddy has bottles in his hands a lot. He breaks them a lot. He hits mommy a lot. I am scared so I go hide. I am a being of terror.

3, I am a toddler but there’s a version of me that remembers that he started existing at this age. He did everything he could to protect me. Even though he didn’t really know why. Thank you, Deimos.

0. I am just a twinkle in my mother’s eye, she’s just a teen and she’s scared out of her mind. This baby is saving her life, though. She didn’t want to keep going but now she has to. If only she knew that 25 years from now this baby would be a shattered and broken mess of themself, because of things desperately out of their control. They were just a baby. You failed them. They all failed them. They all failed US. Too bad you were a Christian. Maybe instead we could have been aborted. Or, rather, maybe we wouldn’t have step foot in that fucking church in the first place.

#my poetry

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brybryby · 1 year

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VERY LONG POST IM SORRY. DONT FEEL OBLIGED TO READ

HI. Alrighty, this has been on my mind for a while (ever since promotional content for Trials started being released).

I have a TON of analyses in the drafts, but I want to make this post before I release them for public viewing.

I know that I like to make goofy, light-hearted little fan animations and fan art of Outlast, but I think I need to start changing how I navigate through the content. After spending so much of my time deep diving and writing up these analyses, my eyes have been opened to just how much the franchise revolves around fucked up historical events. I feel that some of the stuff I've posted is tone deaf, or at least the way I posted about it is. And I think—for the most part—there's an understanding that I don't intend to be harmful, but I fear that the way I go about it **is**. (And obviously, action takes precedence over intent.)

For contextualization, when I initially got into Outlast at the age of 12, I was enthralled by the horror aesthetics and found a lot of the angsty gore to be cathartic. I felt so “taboo” and “scandalous” lol (especially as a developing child trying to understand myself amidst my puberty stage). I was young and—for lack of a better word—braindead in how I navigated the media. I was naive, mindless, ignorant, etc etc… Now that I have a deeper understanding of the narratives and historical implications/influences, I need to do better in how I interact with the franchise.

What am I getting at?

Pretty much, I'm working on being more careful with how I interact with the media. At the same time, I want the analyses that I post to be educational. And most importantly, please message me if I ever say some bullshit. Seriously. All I ever want to do with my life is to be a positive impact. I genuinely get upset if I cause harm to someone else. (One time I literally cried at a high school football game as a freshman because I thought I hurt someone else's feelings. It turned out they were faking it lmao. Then they started feeling bad and then that made me feel bad for crying and yea yea).

Seriously though. I know that my posts can get public outreach, and anything that has public outreach can be influential and have a good or bad impact. So please let me know if I do or say anything harmful or ignorant. I won't be offended. I don’t want to spread harmful stuff. There are many instances in my life where people sit me down to have meaningful conversations about shit I've said or done and how I can improve myself.

That said, I'll be posting more analyses and making my own syntheses of historical events. My next analysis post will be about Waylon's Asian-coding (specifically Korean-coding), how Trials actually supports this (using themes of US immigration), and why it is apparent to many Asian fans (including me, hehe).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's pretty much it. But if you wanna stick around a bit further, I'll tell you my (excruciatingly long) story about how I got into Outlast :) along with how much it has invaded my brain and life :') and maybe get a little ~personal~ hehe

STORYTIME:

So, the game came out in 2013. Nearly 10 years ago. I was 12 at the time of its release. Let me tell you…this game was a HUGE impact in the horror community. HOLY. SHIT. It changed the way I looked at lockers and beds. I remember it being critically acclaimed (and rightfully so). It may have not been the most technical video game, but it certainly was a piece of art.

I remember commercials being shown everywhere. The trailer of beta Miles Upshur running and parkouring through Mount Massive while being chased by the tiny beta model of Chris Walker will forever be canonized as part my childhood. I remember specifically heading to the bathroom from my living room and my dad interrupting me to say “Hey! Check this out!” and then proceeding to play the trailer for my 12-year-old eyes. I was scared shitless.

Couple weeks later, Conan O'Brien featured Outlast in one of his segments of “Clueless Gamer” (yeah, my family and I used to watch Conan lol). I was very familiar with Slender and Amnesia, which were the 2 other games featured in this Halloween special, but this was the first time I REALLY got to check out Outlast.

Now, let me preface that during this time, internet culture was very interesting and even less safe than it is today. I had a ton of bad experiences on the internet during my childhood. But oddly (and embarrassingly), the emo/scene/horror/creepypasta culture was what brought me comfort amongst a sea of awful things you could find on the internet. It was probably unhealthy for my developing brain, but I indulged in a lot of angst that was presented with heavy gore and violence. And to be honest, looking at this kind of stuff at a young age helped me process a lot of my own personal shit that I experienced outside of the internet realm. (To be clear, I don't endorse this type of violence, and I don't endorse exploring the internet in the same way I did as a child—it was probably very unhealthy and I think it caused some early development issues.)

But nothing—and I mean NOTHING—scratched that itch more than the way Outlast did. I watched the finger cutting scene in Conan's “Clueless Gamer” and was fucking mortified. I was scared of the dark for weeks. But I remember spending that night in my bedroom looking at more Outlast content to get that cathartic fix to fill my emotional hole of…I don't know…morbid curiosity? I definitely felt shame at the time. I don't know. In recent years, I've been on this journey to process stuff I experienced during my childhood and I struggle to go about my middle-school/junior-high stage because…I don't know…puberty? Access to the internet? I once got bullied by a forum of adult men for posting fan art LMAO. I was 12 years old—I forgot what the fan art even was. ANYWAYS, yea. That was only one instance of my conglomeration of internet experiences. (Like many other peeps, I had to hide my gender & racial identity to preserve my sanity). Indulging in gore art was therapeutic and helped me release negative emotions in a non-harmful way. Horror-genre communities online have been mostly friendly and welcoming towards me. That's probably why I fell in love with Outlast as an art rather than a video game.

I wasn't in the fandom straight off the bat. I had other hyper fixations at times but I navigated through these other fixations with this personal “Outlast standard” where the art and fiction I consumed needed to be horror-themed, gorey, or angsty. And Outlast isn't solely to blame. I was into gore and angst before the game came out. It just so happened that it came out at such a perfect time in my life. (Horror made my queer self feel accepted)

This whole “Outlast standard” stuck with me throughout high school. Uh… this next bit of information may get a little personal. During my sophomore year, someone really important in my life passed away. Then I had this life-impacting thing happen during my junior year that changed how I perceived things forever (lol, this sounds so dramatic). I turned to art to help me process and yada yada… but y'know what really helped? You know what I turned to when I needed to “scratch the itch”? (I bet you'll never guess)

I finally considered myself a part of the Outlast fandom in 2018-2019. I was a high school junior/senior and I posted the Outlast-Outkast animation that got retweeted by Red Barrels. Had a lot of fun in the fandom during that time and it helped get my mind off of things. Also, I loved the fact that Waylon graduated from Berkeley. I was applying to colleges during this time and it made me romanticize Berkeley, lol. I ended up getting accepted. Had an awesome time. I recently graduated and got my Bachelor's. I'm very privileged and gracious for my experience. I spent a lot of grueling time and energy dedicated towards my education.

During my college years, a lot of the unprocessed shit from my childhood started resurfacing and it was becoming hard to navigate through life. I became really disconnected with people who were close to me. Art started to fall out of my life. Stuff happened. Got in touch with psychiatrists thanks to my college's free health services. I don't mean to downplay or normalize what happened, but I'll bring up that many college students deal with mental illness and depression (and this could be attributed to many things: moving away from family, student-life, financial pressure, pressure to secure jobs/internships, living alone for the first time, maturing into an adult, etc. etc.).

But I remember sitting alone in my studio apartment one weekend and started surfing Tumblr. I came across new Outlast fan art and it sparked my hyper fixation all over again. I re-read the comics and—OKAY THIS IS GONNA SOUND FUCKING RIDICULOUS—but I started jogging because Miles went on jogs LMAOOAKJDGHJAHKGFL. I finally picked up the pencil and started drawing again (after like…months) and drew Miles and Waylon flipping off Murkoff. And THAT was when I realized what the narratives of Outlast were actually about—FUCKIN' CAPITALISM AAUGGGHHH. MY LITTLE POOPOO BRAIN AT AGE 12 NEVER UNDERSTOOD THAT. AND NOW THAT I'M AN ADULT—NOW THAT I CAN BLATANTLY SEE MYSELF AND MY PEERS AS VICTIMS/PRODUCTS OF CAPITALISM—CAN FINALLY FIND SO MUCH VALUE AND MEANING IN THIS GAME HHHRHRJGHKSDKFGLAJKDG SAY W H A T IM GONNA *explodes*

Then a year later, I started drawing more and more again. Trials' promotional marketing was becoming more prominent. I started posting my fan art on Tumblr. Then I made the fanimation (thank you Mr. Baichoo, you're so awesome, I will forever be a fan of yours) and now here I am. Still fixated on this silly little game for nearly 10 years. WHEW.

I FEEL LIKE A SHRIMP CHIP. Anyways, thanks. I much needed to get this off my chest.

Also, hey! Just wanted to say thanks for the friendly and welcoming interactions in this space. It feels so much safer and more comforting than previous internet experiences I've had. Since 2013, the fandom has evolved a lot. In my opinion, it has evolved for the better. The resurgence of new fans bring such refreshing perspectives and fields of knowledge that haven't been influenced by some of the harmful internet culture that I grew up in. So truly, many thanks to y'all for making the fandom space a nicer place (especially for such a heavy game). Also, what the heck, everyone in the fandom is seriously so talented and artistic

Uh… fan art time? (old stuff/sketches I haven’t posted)

But seriously if you got this far, thank you

#outlast video essay #brybryby text

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