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studioghibelli · 5 months

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lonely like me- joel miller x reader series

— ;; chapter one, tombstone

summary: joel miller has wrapped himself in an impenetrable wall of thorns, where nothing of seriousness can ever get to him. you have spent the last five years running from a bloody, violent past, thirsty for revenge. when two unstoppable, stubborn, roughed up forces meet, something soft and unspoken begins to ensue.

warnings: no use of y/n, some original characters, sort of enemies (the bickering type) to lovers, cowboyjoel!au, wild west!au, orphaned reader, bounty hunter!reader, hefty age gap (20s/50s), female reader, I am basically taking so many creative liberties this is pretty much my own story with joel miller in it i am so sorry people, probably going to be a slow burn, tragic backstory, will update as i go <3 lmk if i missed anything!

rating: r, 18+ mdni

word count: 4.2k

note: i will be making a spotify playlist for this eventually. this is my first series pretty much ever, so any comments, recommendations, feedback, critiques are all welcome- so please feel free to comment them! thank you kindly my friends.

The wind was howling, like a pack of grieving wolves.

Beneath the canopy of Texas' barren wasteland, the night sky was aflame with twinkling slivers of white, perfectly painted atop the canvas of navy as the promise of winter soon approached.

You couldn’t remember the last time your back wasn’t aching. With the sudden chill that had blanketed itself over the land, your bones cried out for help more and more with each passing day. You were too young to hurt like this, too young to know a pain like this.

But life was a brutal teacher, and you knew there was no other way through it but to hurt with no respite. A desert with no oasis.

Your horse whinnied beneath you, the leather saddle cool to the touch of your naked hands.

“It’s alright, boy. Only got a day of ridin' left. Just a bit longer and you’ll get all the barley you want.” He liked this answer, sweeping his head to the right with a deep huff out of his nostrils. His heavy hooves continued imprinting against the soft brown earth of the ground beneath.

Fritz was your father’s horse, before the attack. Before you were left with nothing but a wad of cash, a fading Stetson, and an old, stubborn steed. Despite his head strong nature and aging body, Fritz was still a beautiful sight to behold. A buckskin American Quarter with white socks on each leg, accompanied by a thick, luscious black mane and a matching tail that was always brushed out and braided- courtesy of you. Your daddy had, supposedly, wrestled him in the deserts of New Mexico when the both of them were just two young bucks, taming him then and there. A bond was formed, a silent sort of partnership that only a gun slinger and their horse can have.

Well, that's how the story goes, anyway. You were never too sure how true it was.

He still had a wild streak in him, after all these years, after all this suffering. Just like you.

You looked up at the moon. It hung from its dainty piece of silver twine, twinkling against the backdrop of dusk. It had always been a sight to behold in your eyes, a celestial entity so unobtainable, yet one you loved so dearly, so deeply.

An owl hooted to your left, and you heard the leaves of the surrounding vegetation dance against the smoothing rhythm of the harmonic gale.

"We've been out on our own for too long, boy." You whispered to Fritz. He pulled against the leather reigns slightly, and you saw where his head was turning. About two miles south you saw lights flickering. A town. A town much closer than your original stopping point.

"Always were the ones with brains, weren't ya?" You patted his head, steering him in a new direction. "A few days off track won't hurt." Fritz was silent at the sound of your voice, clopping quietly and huffing every so often towards the vibrant town.

As you drew closer you could hear buildings bustling with music, women singing songs and men slamming their cups of beer together, frothy foam clinging to the sides. A sign was posted above the entrance:

TOMBSTONE

Something about this place sounded awfully familiar, but you just swallowed it down, eyes hellbent and searching for the nearest stable. Out there, far off in the distance, stood a creaking barn you figured Fritz would be safe resting in.

Clopping and clacking to the entrance, you saw a tubby man with a newsboy cap on, a cigar hanging beneath a thick, red moustache.

"What can I do ya' fer, ma'am?"

"Need to board him. Got any room?" You asked, pulling yourself off your worn saddle with a hefty sigh. Oh, how your body ached.

"Yeah, I got room." He eyed you and your horse, sniffing. "It'll be $15 dollars for the week."

With an eyebrow slowly raised, you pointed towards the sign. "Says right there it's $10. You tryna bleed me dry?"

His eyes, aged and graying atop the leathery mask of skin he wore, widened with surprise. "Now I ain't never met a girl on her own that can read."

"Now you have. I'll settle on giving you $8, since you tried to play me."

He gave a thick shrug of his shoulders, giving in to your offer. "Fair 'nuff. He gets barley twice a day, dollar extra fer some apples. Fresh hay every two days, can throw in a saddle at the end, for twenty extra, if ya' want."

"Sounds good. Hear that, boy?" You turned to Fritz, gently running your fingers down his dusty muzzle. "Just like I said. All the barley you want." Your loyal steed nudged against your chest, before a thinning, weakly looking stableboy took him in to the darkening barn.

"What's your name anyway, miss?" The old man asked, sitting back down in his chair as you grabbed your bag.

"Don't got one anymore." You mumbled, thumbing through your satchel.

"Everybody's got one."

You ignored him.

"This should cover it. Take care of my boy. I'll give you enough for an apple a day." Stuffing the cash in his hand you turned on your heel, before sweeping back to look at him. "And, trust me, I will know if you're skimpin' on those damn apples." You rested your hand on the holster to your side, fingers brushing the pearlescent handle of your Colt. It was a threat, not a warning.

The man tilted his cap, nodding. "I ain't got no doubt about it, miss."

You walked down the dirty road, the thick air burning your nostrils. It smelled like manure, liquor, and lumber. The streets were nearly barren, except the occasional prostitute smoking outside a door, or a fight in a dark alley you had no business standing around to watch.

Just to the corner, you saw the swinging doors of a decaying saloon, falling apart at the corners, and made your way inside. There was an empty seat at the bar that you made a straight B line for. Beside the empty chair sat a broad man in a leather jacket, head bowed, black rim of his Stetson covering a brow you figured was laced tight, thinking about whatever guilt and bad blood inevitably plagued him.

Your eyes raked down his back, his jacket stretched tightly against it. Clearing your throat, ignoring the feeling which stirred within you just at the sight of this man's backside, you sat beside him, ushering the bartender over.

The smell of cigarette smoke, smooth whiskey, and warm, nutty oak seeped in through your nostrils. You realized it was him. The nameless, faceless man who had not so much as looked to the side, despite feeling your body shift beside his into the seat.

"Well hello there, pretty lady. What can I getcha' this fine Thursday?"

"It's Thursday?" You asked incredulously, studying the bottles behind him.

The bartender, a boy about your age with slicked back blonde locks and a thin patch of hair on his chin laughed at your surprise, nodding. "Yes ma'am. Been out on the road for long?"

You scoffed to yourself. The man beside you twitched his chin a bit, but his face stayed covered by his thick shoulder, eyes still behind the darkness of the shadow his well-fitted, worn, aged hat provided.

"How'd you tell I've been out on my own?" Your words were laced with sarcasm.

You had seen better, brighter days.

When your skin wasn't caked by the thick, dry southern dust, when you wore handmade, tailored dresses the color of lilies and sea foam, when your hair was always clean and curled courtesy of your mama, when you were young and alive and pure and clean. A life you felt was more of a theory, a concept, rather than a memory. A story you had never lived, not for many years. Not since you were a young, naive little girl, forced to live out on her own. Forced to witness the bloody walls, dripping knives, rippling gun shots. Forced to live a waking nightmare.

Now here you were. Cotton trousers stained by mud and tea, vest tearing away at the seams. You barely recognized yourself, whenever you caught a glimpse in a flowing stream or dirty window. You didn't think you were pretty anymore, not like you used to be. But you'd rather take the toughness you had acquired, the grit and the anger you held, over being pretty, soft, feminine.

Well, you were still trying to convince yourself of that.

"You okay?" The bartenders voice snapped you out, and you looked up at him.

"Just a whiskey and sarsaparilla. I like mixing 'em." You explained, and the boy nodded once, turning on his heel to work whatever magic he knew.

The shrouded figure beside you scoffed. "Cowboys don't mix their shit." He grunted out.

Your voice caught in your throat before you could throw back an insult, an explanation, anything. He sounded..... delicious. Angry, tough, worn by life, raspy and rough and.... and your eyes dropped down to his hand, wrapped around the glass of his double shot of what you could only assume was Jim Beam or Maker's. His nails were caked with dirt, palms wide and rough, leathered up by what you figured were decades of hard work. You couldn't see his face, but you knew by his hands that whatever was beneath must have been real nice to look at.

For what felt like the hundredth time, you cleared your throat. "I ain't no cowboy." You finally mumbled, voice tired like a petulant child's.

He chuckled sweetly, lifting his cup up to his lips and downing it in one thick gulp. "Sure do look like one."

"Well, I'm not."

"Just playin' dress up then?"

You rolled your eyes, the bartender handing you an open glass bottle of sarsaparilla and a shot of amber hued liquid. "It's all I had."

And that's when he looked up. You glanced over, not expecting to see that.

Tanned skin, dark eyes, perfect lips. A thick moustache, surrounded by scruffy, graying facial hair. You saw a stray curl fall from the brim of his hat, brown and laced with salty white streaks. His jaw was sharp and tempting, lips wet from his tongue, and his gaze was steady, confident. He was the most attractive man you had ever laid eyes on. Time had done him well, the clock had been good to him. He was old, much older than you, no doubt about it, but still so alluring, mysterious, delicious,

"Holy shit." You found yourself whispering.

"Yeah," he grunted while flicking his fingers, ordering another round, "I have that effect on women."

"I'm not a woman. I'm a cowboy, remember?"

"Does this cowboy have a name?" He asked, eyeing you slowly.

"Not one she plans on tellin' you."

He gave a deep shrug of his shoulders, twirling the new cup of liquid between his fingers, before nursing a slow sip. "Mine's Joel." He grunted after a long moment of turning something or another over in his head.

"You said you stole?" You asked, the music of the live band behind your backs playing up louder.

The man rolled his dark eyes, the orbs dripping with honeyed amber, before looking at you. "J-O-E-L. My name is Joel."

"Oh." You said in a moment of understanding. You brought the cup of your mixed liquid towards your mouth, slowly sipping at it. "Well now I just feel like I'm being rude, not telling you mine."

"You are pretty rude, yeah." He agreed, a burning smirk planted on top of his thin lips.

"Well, just for that, I'm not telling you now. You ruined it." Your arms crossed over your stomach, eyebrows stitched together in a grimace.

"Only agreein' with ya. I guess I'll have to come up with my own name then."

"For me?"

He nodded.

"Like what? Just pull one outta your ass? Kate? Jane?"

Joel laughed a deep laugh from his chest. "You're dumber than a bag of rocks, aint'cha?"

Your cheeks heated up, out of embarrassment or anger, you were unsure. "Could be. Not as dumb as you though. J-O-E-L."

"I was thinkin'.... hmmm." He studied your face, and you felt that foreign stir brewing back inside your belly. He traced your features. You wondered what he was thinking. Joel had a light smirk dancing across his mouth, eyes darkening ever so slightly with every new inch of skin on your face he discovered. He poked and prodded you with his gaze, and you suddenly had the urge to cover up. It was like he was undressing you, slithering deep into your soul, unearthing and unlocking secrets you had never confessed to anyone before.

"Yeah, those names'll suit you for now."

"What will?"

"Just have to wait and see."

"Well you don't have much longer to confess. I'm heading out tomorrow." You lied.

Joel nodded. "I am too. Where you headed?"

"West."

"What's West?" He asked, stirring the remaining liquid in his cup.

"Work."

"'S that so? What you do for work?"

You stared at the ridges in the wooden table, white knuckling the edge. Memories you wished to repress came swimming up to the surface of your mind. The metallic taste of blood, the smell of salty tears. Begs and pleas and I'll give you anything you wants and please, just give me some times. Your jaw clenched. Joel took notice.

"I hunt." You finally answered. It wasn't exactly a lie.

"Hunt what?" Joel asked, curiosity sparking within him.

You pointed to a few torn posters on the wall with your head.

One, yellowing at the edges with browning letters stood out amongst them all.

HARVEY JONES, 58 YEARS OLD

WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE FOR:

MURDER, ARSON, KIDNAPPING.

$5,000 REWARD

"People like that." You muttered, staring at his picture.

Harvey had an old and scarred face, tanned and rough. His right cheek looked like a dog had gotten ahold of him, covered by patchy, gnarled facial hair, and his eyes were cruel, painted through with rage by the steady hand of time, no doubt a victim to the tempestuous waves of life. You swallowed, and Joel watched your eyes gloss over with something he had become well acquainted with: Rage.

"You think he's campin' out West, too?" Joel asked, eyes cemented to the side profile of your face. God damn, were you pretty, he thought. A firecracker.

You nodded slowly. "Wyoming."

"That's where I'm headed."

"What're you running from, Joel?"

"Not runnin' from nothing. Searchin' for my brother, 's all."

You shook your head, eyes meeting his. "Everybody's running from something."

Joel sat in silence, finishing his drink. "I have a proposition for you."

"I'm not sleepin' with you." You grumbled into your cup, staring at him from behind the rim.

"Not what I was gonna ask. Nice to know that's where your pretty little head went." He snickered, waving for another drink. Poor bartender, you thought, he must be five drinks in already. You saw the cups piling around him. Damn, could he hold his liquor. The mark of a real man, your pops always used to say.

"What's this proposition then, Cowboy Joel?"

"I go with you, out West. Keep you safe, help you find that Harvey man. I get half the reward for takin' care of you."

"I don't need some disgusting, stinky man takin' care of me."

Joel laughed, that chesty, deep, gorgeous laugh once again, his neck falling back. "Now I know I ain't stinky, darlin'."

Darlin'. That must have been the name. Your cheeks lit with the flame of.... well, something you didn't quite have the name for.

"And you know I ain't no fool." He continued, his voice settling into a sturdy sort of seriousness. "But you don't look like you've been too well out there on your own. How old are those clothes? Four months? Five? Covered in dirt, even though you wash them weekly. Right? Am I gettin' somewhere with this? Your cheeks are covered in scratches. It's rough out there. Rough for any man on his own, not jus' you." Joel raised an eyebrow, waiting for you to nod. And nod you did. You could feel bitter hot tears stinging at the corners of your eyes, but you quickly blinked them away, continuing your silent sitting.

"Now, let me see you there safe, make sure you get that man for whatever he did to you, and we can go our separate ways. Like nothin' ever happened. Hell, I'd settle for less than half- If I end up likin' you some."

"Okay." You whispered. "Okay." You repeated, louder this time.

"You got a room here for the night?"

You shook your head no. "I just got here, 'n hour or so ago."

"Want to join me in mine?"

"I said I'm not going to sleep with you-"

Joel cut you off. "That's not what I'm askin'. I don't want to see you naked." You narrowed your eyes, for some reason feeling a bit deflated by that comment. "Just figured it'll give you someplace to wash off. Got a tub in mine, you can go up there and get some of that dirt off. I'll stay down here, if it'd make you feel any better."

You saw him pull a key from his back pocket, pushing it towards you. You stared at the little piece of metal before taking it, glancing up at him.

"Do you... do you know if any clothes shops are open 'round here?" You finally asked, almost sheepishly.

"Think there's one down the road, to the left. Could still be open."

You stuffed the key in your bra. "What's the room number?"

"Twelve."

You gave him a nod, pushing your way out of the saloon, feeling the fresh night air hit your cheeks. You gasped for breath, taking in the sensation of the earth soaking its way into your lungs, filling you to the brim with the crisp night. You hadn't realized how hot it was in there, how stifled your chest had become.

"Dammit." You grunted to yourself, leaning the palms of your hands on your knees as you bent over. These weird feelings? Yeah. Not good. "Dammit. Dammit!" You snapped again, this time louder. Your worn boot kicked a pebble across the street, hearing it clang against the metal of a water trough. "Fuckin' stupid asshole."

You walked the directions he had given you, finding a little clothes shop with the lights still on. You ratted your knuckled against the door as you walked in. A pretty lady, about the age of this Joel you had just met, smiled at you from behind the counter, not deterred by your appearance.

"Howdy! Looking for some new clothes?" She chirped, a sweet song-like quality tugging at her words.

"Yes ma'am. Something nice."

"You a rider?" She asked.

"I am, yes ma'am I'm on the road a lot. Need something that lets me move freely." You explained curtly, not meaning to seem so standoffish.

"Have you ever tried a riding skirt? Just got a new shipment in, made from the finest cow hide." She guided you towards a mannequin, showing you the skirt.

It was ankle length and looked heavy, but you felt a shimmer in your eyes once you saw it. The hide was light brown, patches of white and black spots littered throughout. Must have been a pretty cow. You'd look like a proper lady wearing one of these, you thought, a bit like you used to. You shook the thought away. No. You needed tough. Rough.

"I, uh-" You rubbed the back of your neck. "I think I'll just settle for some pants."

"Sure! These are new." She held up a pair of trousers, simple and black, a pair you knew would fit you nice and well.

"Those'll do." You smiled, gently grabbing them from her. She caught your eye, grinning.

"Good! Now we're gettin' somewhere. I think this would look great together." The pretty lady held up a long sleeved white shirt with a black bow, reminiscent of a bolo tie, around the collar. Alongside it, there stood a nice, deep maroon vest, silver embellished buttons lining the middle, a pretty frill at the hems.

"That's pretty." You admitted, grabbing it from her.

"You need a new holster? Boots? Belt?"

"Well, might as well just get it all." You joked, eliciting a laugh from her.

You settled on a thick belt that matched the vest, a silver buckle in the middle with deep florals carved into the material, a real piece of turquoise jutting out in the middle. Your holster was falling apart, so you grabbed on that matched the belt, and a pair of new leather boots that ached when you tried them on. All good boots have to be worn in, you thought, it'll be worth the blisters.

"How about a hat-"

"No!" You rushed out, a bit too brutally, and she took a step back with her hands raised defensively. You coughed a bit, repeating yourself much softer. "No. No thank you, I mean. This hat was my-... it's a, uh, it's a family hat."

There was a long sort of silence, thick and awkward, the kind you hated the most. "Oh, do you have some sort of, like... sleeping shirt?"

"I've got a nightgown."

Grudgingly, you accepted, taking the soft, feminine fabric from her. It was white, with a dainty bow at the low collar. It was... cute. Something the old you would have worn. Something that sweet, pretty little thing of a girl you once were would have swooned over. It filled you with a twinge of pain.

"Thank you." You spoke earnestly.

She smiled, nodding a bit, before taking you to the register. "It'll be $80."

"$80?" You repeated.

"A bit too much for you?"

You thumbed through the wad of cash in your satchel, handing her $100. "No, it isn't enough. You could be making bank in here, lady." You scooped up the bag your new clothes were in, turning to walk towards the door. "Keep the change."

She giggled a giddy laugh, bidding you a sweet and meaningful farewell, before you made your way to the inn, searching for this mysterious door 12.

Once you finally found it, you unlocked it with ease, the lamp on the beside table soon flickering awake with golden life as you flipped it on. The room smelled like Joel. Like wood, smoke, whiskey. It smelled good. You felt your skin prick with goosebumps, and you shook it out of your head. A man has never had this sort of effect on you. You groaned, stuffing your face in the palms of your hot hands.

This was business. Business. Business. Business. That's all it was. All it ever would be. All you would ever let it be.

The bath in the corner was already full with water, untouched, a bar of soap on the table beside it. You stripped, allowing the cold water to soon engulf you as you let out a little yelp, the temperature making your bones ache even more. Your nipples hardened painfully, and you gave one a twist, feeling some odd sort of relief inside of you, caused by that stupid oaf down at the bar.

"God damned fucking water." You grumbled as it sloshed against your face, directing your energy towards being annoyed, before reaching for the bar of soap. You must have scrubbed every inch of your skin, for at least an hour, before you felt clean enough to get out. The water was swirling with dirt and soap suds, and you winced at the sight. Were you really that dirty? You felt embarrassed.

There was a knock at the door. Joel.

You rushed to dry off and threw the nightgown over your head, before he stepped in with a hand over his eyes.

"Now, I ain't tryna' get a peak if you're still naked." He felt around with his free hand, closing the door with a kick of his leg. Something about that made you feel.... some sort of way.

"I'm not naked." You grumbled, and he let his hand drop.

"Well, I didn't take you for the nightgown type. Did you buy that for me?" He asked smugly, his fingers moving to the buttons of his vest.

You rolled your eyes. "No, I didn't." You spat matter-of-factly, taking every ounce of willpower to turn your back to him as he unclothed himself.

"Mhm. Well, better get a good sleep tonight, darlin'. Got a long day ahead of us tomorrow."

You shuffled your way to bed, refusing to look his way, trying to ignore the new name he had brandished you with, and climbed under the wool blankets, keeping as many feet away from him as possible. You felt his weight shifting against the hard mattress beneath you once he was undressed, the blanket shuffling. You knew his back was turned to yours, obliging your unspoken wish for space. As you stared at the wall, you felt yourself begin feeling silently thankful for a change of pace from the cold, hard ground.

You fell asleep to the lullaby of his snores.

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jooniperbonsai · 2 months

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Thanks for the Sub (ksj) | Chapter Three

Pairing: Camboy!Seokjin x Gamer!Reader (afab)

Rating: 18+

Word Count: 14.9k

Release date: March 24, 2024

Genre: Smut, fluff, angst, camboy au, gamer au, comedy, crack, slow burn (?), coworkers/boss/friends to lovers, an exploration of adults in their late 20s/early 30s

Summary: Now that Seokjin has agreed to come over and help you practice for your streams, you find there's a lot more you want to do with him than actually prepare for this stream.

Chapter Warnings: Anxiety and panic attacks HEAVILY referenced in this chapter, familial verbal and emotional abuse that might be triggering to some (slamming of doors, manipulative behaviors), references to puberty, implied chubby/fat reader, references to disordered eating (not main characters), references to oral (f), mention of sub drop, Seokjin is STRONG and the king of consent, lots of little domestic moments idk let's hope I didn't forget anything

a/n: Ahh finally, I'm so sorry it took so long to get to you. I have been very busy in my little corner of reality so I haven't had a chance to really dive back in for a while. I hope you enjoy more of the backstory to the characters in this one, I found pulling away from the spicy bits a little necessary so I could learn more about my characters as they grow.

I'll be in South Korea these next few weeks for my birthday, so I might be mostly offline but I'll enjoy looking at your comments, tags, questions, etc, while I'm away! Thanks for your patience. Enjoy! -h

This, she thinks, is goodbye. Her body sprawled in the silk sheets of August’s chamber, head thrust back onto the plush pillows. Never again in her life did she think she would see the dark beams of his ceiling again, yet now, her legs bent and open for him, his lips eagerly suckling her inner thigh, she couldn’t imagine life any other way.

How many times had she counted each knot in the wood above her, her eyes tracing the swirl and swell of the grain while August swirled the swell of her sex? Perfectly matched in this way, as if he were reading her like a map he’d crafted himself. He knew her. Knew all of her, how the heady moan leaving her throat now was a sign she was becoming impatient with his thorough ministrations.

She dared to risk a glance down, only to see him watching her intently, devilishly choosing that moment to latch himself onto her, a wicked smirk flashing across his face as she elicited a hearty gasp.

“August,” she breathed, instinctively tangling her fingers through his newly-raven hair, dyed dark now to comply with his family’s request. While his once-bleached locks were the definite sign of his rebellion, a sign that he would fight against the ruling state and their convoluted and asinine laws that prevented royalty from marrying a commoner, she admitted his natural hair suited him more. He looked less harsh this way, his delicate skin creamy and soft as she skimmed her fingertips across his cheek.

“No,” he breathed into her sex, sending a delightful shiver down her spine.

Something about the glint in his eye as he feasted upon her spelled out more than simple lust. No, she forbade herself to think that this was more than a parting gift, a transaction before she would be cast aside for his betrothed.

“Please,” she begged, though she knew she was asking for many things in that request. Please end the hunger between her legs, please end his engagement. Please take her to bed tonight and tomorrow and every night after. Please love me.

“Say my name,” he growled, sitting up to wipe his mouth with the back of his robe sleeve.

“August,” she called but he only chuckled darkly, the cool blue of the fabric cascading around him.

She felt so exposed. Here she was, completely naked, and yet he hadn’t even begun to undress. It felt cold, final, and sickening. Her eyes roved his body, looking for more skin, anything to keep her close to him at this moment, but he was so carefully tucked away.

“August,” she said again and he shook his head.

“That’s not my name,” he argued.

Her eyebrows knit together, and she reached forward, needing now more than ever to touch him. She was drowning fast in the night, the blue robes sweeping over both their bodies as he leaned closer, finally letting her grip his forearm as she groped around. He was drifting from her in one way or another, his body a boat on the water that was capsizing her under his waves.

“I–I can’t. I can’t see you. I–.” A rush of white hot panic surged into her throat, constricting her words. As she began drowning, August moved quickly, disrobing himself and pulling her into his embrace. She gasped for air as she wrenched out a heavy sob, her nipples stroking the soft hairs on his chest, yet she ignored the sensation instead for the thing she needed more: his heartbeat.

There, in his chest, was the melodic thrum that sought to calm her erratic one, calling her home to him in the cold night air.

“Breathe, Petal,” he commanded, and she felt a rush of air fall from her lungs as she remembered once more to do the most simple of human tendencies. His arms laced around her back, where the soft tracing of his fingers along her spine brought her back into herself.

“I’m sorry,” she cried, a prick of tears falling despite her best efforts to appear unaffected.

He hummed in response.

“Stay with me,” he whispered, and she felt her joints loosen as she molded herself further into his embrace.

“I want to,” she replied, voice unsteady. “Sugar, please just hold me.”

He melted into her, a pool of warmth overtaking him as he absorbed her nickname. He kissed her forehead, her temples, everywhere his mouth could spread some of the sweetness.

After long, she hummed a satisfied sound through her lips, and her hips began rocking against him. He laid her back down, his eyes searching hers before the corner of his mouth ticked into a smirk.

“You with me?” he asked, his smirk becoming a full grin as she bucked further toward him, desperate and wanting. He was back, the ever-changing prince who within a blink of an eye could transform the room into his sensual paradise.

August’s hand skimmed up her calf and back between her thighs, resting up against her heat.

“August,” she panted, and he chuckled darkly, the scar over his eye almost glowing in the moonlight.

“I told you that’s not my name,” he warned, sliding his fingers into her wet folds.

“Seokjin,” you said, his name caught in your throat as he continued moving.

“Good girl,” he coaxed, two of his fingers covering the edges of your clit as he began rolling it under his touch.

“Fuck.”

The wooden beams were gone. Now it was the familiar white plaster that you often looked at, trying to remember what constellations were above during what season, though you could never see the stars anyway in this part of the city.

Seokjin pulled himself up off the chamber bed, though the chamber was hazy, almost pixelated as you realized around you it was not the chamber of August and his beloved, but your small bedroom.

“Focus,” he commanded, and your eyes flashed over to Seokjin, who was naked and sweaty, his chest flush like it was when you’d seen him before. His fingers roamed over your calf and he lifted you leg at an angle, exposing your pussy to the cool air.

Seokjin licked his lips and began swirling his fingers around your clit, sending a jolt of pleasure through your body.

“You gonna be good for me?” he asked and you moaned an affirmative as you felt the first of his fingers tip into you.

“Nuh uh, use your words, Y/N.”

You opened your mouth to beg but found no words could come out. He cocked his head, confused. Seokjin reached over to touch your face. You felt nothing.

“What–”

The plop of the book hitting the floor jars you awake. At some point in reading, you must’ve dozed off, your world and the book world merging into a hot, overwhelming dream that has your heart racing.

He’s in your mind again, Seokjin. And it really is all your fault. Because you’ve spent the rest of your weekend and the first half of this week texting him with a plan to put this After Dark stream into place, an idea that you hadn’t really thought through before proposing to him.

You know you want this, to feel at ease in your body and confident to hold your own on streams. Especially since the option to quit is becoming less and less of an option. This week, your university confirmed your withdrawal, meaning that for the next few months you’ll be focusing on streaming and working more shifts at the restaurant to try and replenish your income for the summer term.

And that also means you’ll be seeing Seokjin a lot more often. Your stomach does a tiny flip just thinking about it.

Now with him being around you everywhere, all the time, your subconscious has been drifting to dreams of him, and every waking thought is somehow finding a way to wiggle him in. At the market this morning, you were walking through the produce section where you noticed a large pile of mangoes on sale. Does Seokjin like mangoes? you’d wondered. That shirt on the mannequin would look good on Seokjin. That dog looks like the one in the old picture in Seokjin’s office. What would Seokjin think about this recurring ad?

It’s becoming relentless. So much so that you also find yourself asking him random questions to take the edge off.

Me 1:47PM: Thoughts about fruit on pizza.

Seokjin 1:50PM: Are you asking because we are having pizza later?

Me 1:51PM: No I was just wondering

Me 1:51PM: Unless you want that later? I can get us some

Me 1:51PM: I’ll pay

Seokjin 1:51PM: No you will not! I’ll pay

Seokjin 1:53PM: Also depends on the kind of fruit

Seokjin 1:53PM: Never had blueberries on pizza.

Seokjin 1:54PM: But I would maybe try it. Pineapple is fine though.

Seokjin 1:55PM: I’ll pick up the pizza on the way over. Be there at 6.

Seokjin agreed to stop by today to do some roleplay exercises for you to practice before your stream later tonight. He thought it was important that you run through the full scale of situations you might be presented with so you could say no firmly but without risking losing your viewership, two things equally at odds with each other for you most of the time.

You look for your phone in the mess of your couch cushions, assuming that at some point in your impromptu nap, it slunk down between the crack. Sure enough, you find it nestled between two cushions, the comfort of its weight in your hand dismissing some of the panic when you see it’s only 4:30. He hasn’t texted, which means he hasn’t canceled.

You remember from his stream last week that he maintains a tempered persona, never giving too much or too little away to his viewers. He’d exuded such self control. Is he always like that?

You know he mostly keeps it together at work, but that amount of restraint shocks you. You’re always wondering what it is that will make him snap. Sure, you’ve seen him annoyed, or occasionally yelling at your coworkers, but never rageful. Never out of control. That just isn’t Seokjin.

Determined to keep your hands busy while you wait for him to arrive, you busy yourself tidying, though your apartment is scarily clear because you’ve been frantically cleaning all day. You walk into the kitchen, a small, narrow room that has never been very welcoming as a cooking space. Your old, banged up fridge has dents from where the door has opened too quickly and rocketed into the oven handle, leaving a jagged, metal scar on the surface.

When you’d first moved in, you didn’t understand how something could be so damaged, but within the first week, it became apparent how heavy and quickly the door swung into it, probably because the floors, and thus everything else, doesn’t sit exactly level in the space, meaning that everything that you bake comes out at an angle, and everything else always falls to one side of the pan, making things uneven. Every time you use your rolling pin, you have to place it on an oven mitt or else you risk it rolling into the large gap between the countertop and the wall.

Your apartment is one that you’ve done your best to uplift. While your kitchen is somewhat of a hellhole, with a buzzing fluorescent light that sounds almost like it’s mocking you when you dare to cook anything in it, the rest of your space has some sense of charm to it.

There’s a large window facing the back parking lot of the building, which some may find less exciting because it isn’t exuding some Instagram-worthy backdrop of urban living, but you benefit from the fact that there’s a large, undeveloped lot in your view, with some plum trees that will bloom in the next few weeks, and the soft chartreuse green that ushers in the early spring grasses is slowly starting to brighten in hue.

Some summer nights, you crack your window and hear the loud chattering of cicadas and birds as they rustle through the trees, and it helps to distract from the usual traffic noises that ricochet off the other buildings around you.

You have some small herbs growing on the windowsill, as well as some salvaged green onion ends you’d tossed into an empty yogurt pot with soil and let take off. A sad excuse for a dining table is propped against it with two mismatched chairs.

An oversized, well-loved, brown couch you got for a steal from one of those local posting groups takes up a large chunk of your living room, which will probably have to be sawed in half to get out of your space if you ever move. It weighs a ton and you can’t even shuffle it into a better angle toward your television, which has resulted in one side of the couch being further worn-down and frumpy from the creases of you sitting in the same spot day after day. The other side usually houses a variety of character plushies and a large pink knit blanket you swaddle yourself in regularly. Today, everything is given a place, and the blanket is folded and resting on the back of the couch.

The rest of your apartment is a collection of stuff: some mismatched bookshelves shoved into one corner with all your smutty reads and figurines, postcards and repurposed mailers you’ve collaged into some type of wall art, and Barry, your Big Mouth Bass that knows one song and one song only: “Take Me to the River”.

Due to your lack of space in your cozy apartment, your desk and gaming set-up are in your room. During streams, you tote out a collapsible green screen to give yourself at least some privacy, but behind the screen is your bed you’ve cluttered with some throw pillows, a dresser whose drawers are so warped they don’t fully close, the nightstand which hides your collection of sex toys, and that’s about it. As the months have progressed, your schoolwork has moved from being the main event on the desk to now being crammed into the shallow drawers beneath. Beyond that, your PC and streaming supplies take up the rest of the space in your room.

After fussing with everything for a whole ten minutes, you retreat from your bedroom, heading into the hellscape kitchen to stare at the groceries you’ve just bought.

A jar of kimchi, some beets, and a comically large bag of carrots you impulse bought greet you. You sigh. Yes, this is what you’ll have to do to make time pass. Pulling the items from the fridge, you shuffle around to gather your cutting board from its slot next to the microwave, and find your good knife set in the drawer.

One of the conditions you were given upon being hired at the restaurant was to purchase your own set of knives. “It teaches you how to respect the tools before you. Having pride in your knives ensures you’ll serve food with pride,” Mr. Kim had told you.

When you shared that knowledge with Seokjin he snorted. “It ensures you’ll not damage our own knives that he’s too cheap to replace is what he means.”

Regardless, you now own a decent quality set of cutting knives, perfect for what you need them for. You scrub and lightly peel the carrots to trim away the dirt and uneven shapes adorning the outside.

Then, you begin your setup, placing your cutting board with a kitchen towel near the end to catch any rollaway carrots you’re bound to encounter during your task. You snag a large bowl, a rubber jar grip to keep the cutting board in place, and your Chef’s knife from your knife set. You chop up the kimchi and beets, doing a tiny bit of prep by cutting those for later in the week. Then, you begin with the carrots.

You pull from the washed pile and grip your knife, and remember what Seokjin taught you: cut the rounded edge off the carrot so it sits flat on the board. You slice again, then again, stacking the pieces before cutting in the next direction until a pile of neat matchsticks lay before you.

No chaos erupting in the kitchen, no pieces flinging to the floor or a semi-concussion. Just you, the yellow glow of the humming light, and your carrots. You begin the next one. Then again. It’s almost addicting, like the affirmation that you are capable of this, of anything, has started to warm something inside of you.

When was the last time you felt this confident and assured? Felt like you were growing in the right direction? In school, you were used to doing fairly well and understanding the material, but this is different somehow. This is you seeing the results as they pile higher into the bowl. You reach for another and another, washing the rest of the carrots and scrubbing them before continuing. Your hands are now properly stained, the beet juice, gochugaru, and carrot juice making your hands look like you are bleeding, but you don’t care. The ache from your grip, the loud thumping at the door, they don’t mean anything in this moment when it’s you feeling the give of the vegetable as it splits into finer pieces.

“Y/N?!! HELLO ARE YOU OKAY?”

A familiar voice bellows from the hall, another sharp thunk hitting the metal door. Seokjin.

Your eyes rip to the clock on the oven. It’s already five minutes past six. You’ve been cutting carrots for about an hour.

Hastily, you rinse your hands, ignoring the sting as the cold water spurts from the faucet. You grab the kitchen towel off the oven handle, and rush to the door.

You barely have it unlocked before Seokjin barges in, two large pizza boxes and a six pack of beer in his hands as he steps over the threshold. He smells faintly of mint and eucalyptus.

Seokjin whips in your direction, scanning his eyes over your face and down your body.

“Are you hurt? Are you okay?” His eyes are wide, his pupils blown out as he fervently looks you up and down, gasping as he takes in your hands. “What happened?”

“What? No, no I’m fine!” You hold one hand up in his direction, taking the kitchen towel and rubbing it into your palm for good measure. “They’re stained. Um, I was cutting vegetables.”

His eyes flit to the direction of the kitchen, where the light is still on and buzzing, and you can just make out the chopping board on the counter. Now assured you’re not injured, Seokjin recovers, stepping out of his shoes and padding into the kitchen.

“Whoa, you really were going to town in here with the carrots weren’t you? I thought I could smell it on you.”

Your cheeks flood with heat. “Well, you said I had to practice.”

Seokjin chuckles, shaking his head in amusement before holding up the six pack. “Uh, I brought beer. I don’t know if you like it or not but I feel like it goes really well with pizza.”

You smile. “I’m not sure if getting me wasted is the solution to setting boundaries with my stream. Doesn’t alcohol lower your inhibitions?”

He cocks an eyebrow. “Are you planning on finishing off this entire six pack by yourself and getting trashed? Much less beer that is…” He squints at the packaging. “...four percent alcohol?”

You laugh. “No, I suppose not. Thank you.” You take the case from his hands and pluck two bottles from the cardboard before putting the rest in the fridge. Holding the cold bottle in your hands, you grimace.

“What’s wrong? Do you not like this brand?” Seokjin asks.

You shake your head. “No, it’s not that. Um, I don’t really drink often so I don’t actually own a bottle opener.”

Seokjin frowns and looks around your kitchen, grazing his hand along the chipped laminate counters. Then he takes the bottle in his hand and whacks it down on the counter edge on an angle. The cap pops off, a subtle wisp of fog puffing from the top. He smirks, proud. He gestures for you to hand him your bottle.

With ease, he pops off the second cap and deposits it back into your hands.

Your jaw hangs slack. “Wh-how did you do that?” you ask.

He chuckles. “There’s a science to it, angles. I’m just glad I didn’t take a chunk of the counter with me. I’ve done that before.”

“And you risked my counter top just now?”

He snorts. “Come on, did anything happen? A little bit of trust would be nice, Y/N.” He glances at the giant bowl of cut carrots. “Well, you’ve certainly improved. What are you going to make with all those?”

You pull your lips into a thin line. You hadn’t thought about it. Your silence seems to tip Seokjin off to that as well, because after a sip of beer, he sets his bottle on the back end of the counter, rolling up his sleeves and scooting over to the sink to wash his hands.

“What are you doing?” you ask.

“Cooking,” he replies simply. “Do you have flour? Green onions?”

You nod. “Okay, get those. I’ll also need some soybean paste if you have it, vegetable oil, salt, and sugar.”

You furrow your brows. You know this recipe from the restaurant. “You’re making jeon? But, we already have pizza.”

“We can have the pizza as an appetizer. Jeon will be the main course.”

You laugh. “How much do you think I eat?”

“Not much. But you see, I am very hungry.” Heat shoots to your core. You glance over at Seokjin, who is looking at you amused as he squeezes the carrots between his hands to wring out the excess juice.

You didn’t really notice before, but Seokjin looks effortlessly cool, a loose pink linen button down framing his broad shoulders. He’s left the top two buttons undone, exposing the white t-shirt he wears underneath. Lighter wash jeans cover his strong thighs. If a stranger ever passed him on the street, they might think he’s too cool for them, too serious or vain.

But, there are notes of him everywhere in this outfit that suggests the break in the persona. One of the buttons in the middle of his shirt has popped open, a few hairs on the back of his head are cowlicked out of place, and on his feet are a pair of neon green Chikorita Pokemon socks. You find it impossible to hide your amusement.

“Ah, got it. Nice socks by the way,” you joke, trying to distract from the singing heat and close proximity. You can’t help but think about the last time you and Seokjin were in such confined spaces and how that ended up. “Didn’t know you were going to use your feet later to guide an airplane into landing.”

“Well, I figured it was a necessary backup in case your hands weren’t bright enough.” He nods toward you. You laugh.

“Touché.”

You open your upper cabinet. The paper bag of flour sits on the middle shelf, which you usually climb onto the counter to reach, but with Seokjin in the kitchen, there’s even less space than usual. You stretch, lifting onto your tiptoes. Your fingertips brush the bag, but it’s not enough to move it. As you try to angle yourself better, you see two large hands come above yours, Seokjin easily grabbing the flour off the shelf to set down onto the counter.

You feel his body heat behind you, his shirt brushing the small of your back from where your own rode up during your stretch, and a swell of goosebumps rise on your arms from the gentle tickle.

“There,” Seokjin says softly into your ear, almost breathless. “Don’t want to have any more kitchen related incidents, do we?” Too soon, he moves away, his warmth, the subtle note of his cologne fading into the smell of the green onions he’s set next to your not-so-glorious prep space.

Suddenly, he scoffs. You turn toward him. “What?”

“Really, Y/N? Have you learned nothing?” The heat in your core immediately dissipates, welcoming a familiar sour stroke of shame as you try to put together what you’ve missed. How did you fuck this up? What haven’t you learned? When you focus on what he’s pointing at, you realize he isn’t angry. He’s teasing you.

Your knife is unsheathed on the cutting board, abandoned in your haste to let him in. “When are you ever going to learn basic kitchen safety?” he laughs. The prick of embarrassment dissolves, Seokjin’s laugh soothing the ache.

You smile and shrug. “In my defense, I didn’t have the time to put it away or in the sink because you were disturbing the peace by practically breaking my door down.”

He rolls his eyes and sighs. “Well excuse me for wanting to ensure your safety. Now where’s that soybean paste?”

Seokjin had been sitting on, or practically in your couch for the last twenty minutes as you ran through various scenarios and questions you were likely to experience while streaming. Your old couch was comfy, but as you’d practiced longer, he felt he was shrinking, the cushions settling further and further down. That, he thought, was probably going to hurt to climb out when the time came.

Despite the size and outdated condition your apartment was in, he was fascinated with how you’d chosen to decorate it, as if everything had its own place. You had an impressive collection of colorful books on a bookshelf, framed in with little knick-knacks and figurines of your favorite characters or collectibles. One large sunny window was decorated with stickers that acted as prisms, sending rainbow beams across your floor at a certain point in the day. A photo of a very young you and two people he assumed were your parents leaning against a guard rail over a canyon was framed and hung next to a giant plastic fish.

No, you didn’t have much. It was clear you’d thrifted or trash picked most of the furniture in your apartment, with the exception of your computer setup. You’d taken him into your bedroom to show him what system you used, how you’d built your system based on the specifications of your mod, who Seokjin now knew, was also your best friend Wonwoo.

But Seokjin couldn’t help but revel in how well cared for and cozy this small place was, so different from the cold floors of his own apartment. It reminded him of the tiny place he used to live in with his parents. It was familiar, safe.

When he’d come in, he did worry something was wrong. You weren’t one to not answer, attentive in the restaurant to everyone, often whipping your head in someone’s direction the second you heard the first sound of your name slip through someone’s lips. When you didn’t answer, he’d wondered if you’d been injured or worse. As much as he tried not to judge your building, he was a little concerned about the safety precautions put in place. He’d walked straight in, no lock on the front door, no door man. Everyone’s names were blatantly listed on their mailboxes. If anyone wanted to find you, it wouldn’t be hard to do so.

But you were fine, and the acrid worry that had bloomed in him during those five minutes of you not answering had dissolved once he saw your bright smile, and the even brighter colored stains on your hands.

They were still blotchy, though a few runs under the sink with dish soap was helping them fade. As you feathered a hand through your hair, he found himself grinning. The fact that you had acquired a bulk bag of carrots and used them for practice was so endearing to him. He never doubted your dedication to work, but the fact that you were using the techniques he taught you in your kitchen had brightened something in Seokjin he hadn’t even known felt dark.

And he also couldn’t ignore the sense of pride he had as you practically moaned into the jeon you two had made together, the crispy texture and roll of hot oil over your tongue invoking something in you Seokjin couldn’t help but be drawn to. You loved to eat. It was one of the first things he noticed about you, and as creepy as it sounded, also what stoked those first wisps of attraction.

You loved food the way he did, without care, or at least without care the way most people who he was raised around cared. No, you didn’t eat a lot, but when you did, you were all in, bare hands sticky after eating peaches, their juice dribbling down your chin and forearms, joyful hums when you bit into your favorite crunchy snacks from the convenience store.

He remembered growing up the ways in which women, even his mother, were almost afraid of food, afraid of how they would spend hours in the kitchen making heaps of it, pounds of fresh kimchi, grilled fish, decadent soups with tofu and mushrooms and packets of ramyeon, and yet when it was time to eat, they were too busy too or suddenly not hungry, or they would eat a few bites and excuse themselves from the table to clean up.

It was sad, really. Because Seokjin ate and ate fully, and maybe because he wasn’t a woman he didn’t need to worry about his body that way, or maybe because he always had some insane metabolism that didn’t impose weight like it did with others, but it never hit him the same. He loved food.

And clearly so did you, delighted in the meal he gave you, even eliciting a groan as you washed down a bite with your beer. It was like you were grateful for every bite of food that ever entered your mouth.

“You were right. This does taste better together,” you said. He was practically beaming.

He glanced down at the pile of jeon. They weren’t bad, but they were a little uneven. While cooking, he’d noticed that something was a bit off about your kitchen. Your oven and everything else were a bit titled, and it pooled the jeon batter toward one end, making them thicker on one side and harder to cook properly. Your fridge door also was dented, having the similar issue of the weight pushing things to one side. He made a mental note to shove some cardboard under the floor pegs later to help level the appliances.

Your counter situation, though, he couldn’t help. You would just have to keep with your barricade at the end to avoid rolling. But you seemed to be savvy in how you solved the various erroneous features of your apartment, making the best of what you had.

In fact, as Seokjin sat in the crook of your massive couch, he noticed why this side was so sunken; it was the only spot you could actually see the TV from this angle. He wondered if he could shuffle it a little bit more in a better view while you were streaming later, or if you would even notice.

You hovered next to the couch, your bottom lip worried between your teeth. You were nervous about something.

“What is it?” He asked. The time for your stream was growing nearer, and he’d promised he would stay for at least the first half, setting up his laptop in your living room.

“What am I doing?” you groaned and flopped down on the floor, a frustrated wail muffling into the carpet.

“Testing yourself and growing. Listen, Y/N, you know you don’t have to do this, but we’ve been over it daily at this point. You want more money and this is what you’ve decided is the most viable option. After-Dark type streams do make a lot more money, you want to exercise more freedom with yourself, do I need to go on?”

You shook your head. Seokjin chuckled.

“Okay, so–yah, sit up!” You bolted off the carpet and folded your legs underneath you.

“So, you know I’m going to be out here if you need anything. If you need me, I’m just on the other side of that door. Also, we’ve been practicing, right?”

“I know, I just…I’m not like you. I’m not confident, I’m not really easygoing or likable like you are. I can’t dom–command a room or everyone’s attention with my charisma how you can. I’m worried that if I don’t give people what they ask for, they’re just going to leave.”

Seokjin scoffed. He knew that on the outside, in the context of work that you were used to seeing him in, he appeared in charge and control at all times. It was part of the job, to be well tempered and fair and even, maintain a sense of friendliness but firmness, it was common sense. But much of his advice today wasn’t coming from that version of him you knew. A lot of this was insight and experience he’d gained as Jin, who he needed to be to ensure he was meeting his tip goals, or needing to remind everyone he was the one in charge, not them.

Even at work last week, when Seokjin needed to call the distributor because there was some issue with a shipment of produce, it was Jin he was channeling to make the call. If it were Seokjin, he would have been a sweaty, nervous mess. Jin was business, Jin was the one who laid down the law. Seokjin himself?

He was the youngest Kim son, the one who, when his parents’ friends and family members thought he wasn’t listening, gossiped about. Why wasn’t he married? Didn’t he have that fiancée for a while? Oh she had a baby with another man? His boss? Well surely that has been long enough now, right? He had another girlfriend, or found some other salaryman career. At 30, it would be kind of sad if his life wasn’t going anywhere.

And that’s where Seokjin was, after all. Single, a sex worker, or temporary restaurant manager. This morning he’d received a text in the family group chat from his brother with a photo of his nephew kissing his sister-in-law’s bump. He loved his nephew, he loved his brother and was happy for their little family. But he also felt hollow as he opened that picture, like some part of him knew he was never going to truly get to have that for himself.

“Hey,” he said, and your eyes flitted from the floor back to him. “First of all, if they leave they leave, right? Those aren’t the people you want to be on your streams because their energy sucks and they’ll just keep asking more of you. Second,” he cleared his throat, “you are likable. Otherwise you wouldn’t be in this position in the first place, having viewers and subscribers. There has to be a part of you that is genuine there, otherwise everyone will know you’re lying and move away from you. Don’t they say something about how all the best lies are rooted in truth?”

“But I’m not trying to lie to them,” you said meekly.

Seokjin internally kicked himself for saying that. Perhaps suggesting that you lie to everyone wasn’t the best move.

“I know, I mean, that you don’t offer all of yourself, but offer the parts of you that you know are there that are stable. And for the rest of it, fake it until you make it. Until you can feel confident as a streamer, able to set boundaries. Pretend you’re someone else. The person you want to be.” he amended.

Jin was some of the best parts of Seokjin. Maybe even better. Self-assured, knowledgeable about sex and sexuality in ways he hadn’t been when he was with Soon Yi, he could say no to things he’d never been able to say no to his boss about, and things he couldn’t say no to now because the restaurant wasn’t technically his. There were things he could do, ways he could slip some power in there or make decisions, but nothing was really his. Not the way streaming was. That was all for him. And while yes, his friends knew he did it and supported him in their own way (thankfully most of them did not tune in but on occasion Jungkook and Taehyung would hop on when completely wasted to goad him to “release the beast”), it was still a success that couldn’t be shared publicly, even though he didn’t really want to share it anyway, and didn’t really feel successful.

“Is that what you did? Faked it until you made it? Until you were the person you wanted to be?”

His blood ran cold. Were you reading his thoughts? Did you know?

“W-what?”

Oh god, what if you knew? Seokjin would rush out into the night and dig his own grave. Because if anyone else knew what he did, if his parents found out or his brother or you, he was sure he would become the worst parts of himself. A failure again. Once more someone to be quietly gossiped about in rooms when he was in full range of hearing what they had to say. He couldn’t imagine anything more humiliating than you seeing him, your own boss, with a bright pink dildo shoved up his ass as he pandered to thousands of people with whimpers and cries. Especially when he just spent the better half of an hour telling you that you didn’t need to pander to anyone.

Would you think less of him for it? Would you ask him why he was doing gay streaming of all things? His face flushed, probably turning incredibly red with embarrassment.

“With the restaurant,” you said.

He swallowed the thick lump that had formed in his throat and coughed.

“Y-yes,” he stammered. “What you see there. It’s not really me all the time. I’m not always all that confident. But I want to be.”

You nodded quietly and stretched your arms over your head. “That makes sense,” you said as you began to pace. “Okay.”

You still had another two hours before your stream was set to start, and Seokjin could tell you were still on edge. He took a deep breath when you turned away, letting the rush of air into his lungs help cool his face.

“Seokjin?” you asked.

“Yeah?”

“Will you stay until it’s over? I know it’ll be late, and it’s a big ask, but maybe we can eat leftover pizza and debrief?”

He smiled. “Of course.”

He couldn’t imagine a better way to spend his night, and probably early morning if he was honest. Your streams could go well into the wee hours of the morning, and while tomorrow while opening he’d probably be kicking himself for this, right now he didn’t care about anything except the warm tug he felt in his chest as he imagined the two of you sitting on the floor with cold pizza and laughter at 3a.m.

“Thank you. Also, do you think we could have another beer or something? I need to take the edge off. I know I’m overthinking it but I need something to distract me before this stream or I might not show up.”

You didn’t wait for his permission, probably because you weren’t asking for it. You slid into the kitchen and back out with two more cold beers.

“Will you show me how to open these again? I want to try.”

Seokjin struggled a bit against the dip of your couch, but eventually found himself level and close to you, so close in fact that the soft scent of your shampoo was once again permeating his nostrils.

You were intoxicating to him, honestly, and he found himself unable to help himself as he squeezed behind you in your tiny kitchen, inhaling partially into your hair as he walked you through the process.

You fiddled with the bottle for a second, holding yourself at an awkward angle.

“Like this?”

If you did it at this angle, you would be sure to cause the beer to explode, the cap wouldn’t get enough traction to pop off easily.

“Not unless you want to participate in a wet t-shirt contest,” he joked before he even realized how sexually charged that comment was.

You inhaled a little sharply.

He cleared his throat. “Anyway, you’re a little stiff here.” Then, very carefully, he rested his hands onto your hips, gently maneuvering you so you were able to prop your arm up and out of his way so you wouldn’t elbow him in the ribs when you slammed the bottle down.

He kind of hated himself when he had to let go of your waist. His fingers were tingling simply from brushing them along the seam of your shirt, from feeling the warm curve of your hip under his fingers. Why did his hands feel so at home on your body?

Your sharp movement pushed him out of his reverie as you launched the bottle down onto the counter top, the soft plink and your sparkling eyes confirming you were successful.

That’s my girl, he thought. Only you weren’t his girl. You couldn’t be further from his. And as soon as he thought it, he also felt the soft ache in his chest knowing that you would probably never be his. Because you couldn’t. Because you were without a doubt too good for him, and Seokjin knew all that stood between you and the right guy was time. An opportunity. You walk into the right place some day and then boom, there he will be.

He fucking hated that guy already.

You popped the second cap from the bottle and turned around, shoving your body directly into him as you beamed with pride. “See! I did it!” You looked so adorable, your eyelashes long and fluttering as you gazed up at him.

A smile cracked through his gloom. You were like a little sunbeam to him.

“You did,” he acknowledged, and he took the bottle you offered, taking a swig. He waited for you to make the next move, to dislodge your body from the cramped corner of the kitchen, for the magnetic pull of your body to signal it was too close, too intimate so one of you would break away.

But neither of you did. In fact you sighed and moved closer to him, forcing the small of Seokjin’s back to rest up against the handle bar of the oven. It wasn’t comfortable at all, but he didn’t dare move.

“Can I ask you something?” You asked quietly after a while, staring down at the bottle.

“Sure,” he responded.

You nibbled your bottom lip then sighed again, unsure. He felt your warm exhale hit his forearms. Did you really not realize how close you were to him? The smell of you, even that tiny hit of beer breath, was starting to drive him insane.

You shifted yourself even closer.

“Um, it’s going to sound embarrassing to ask this but I just have to.”

Your voice was low now, a tiny whisper coming out of you. Fuck, you were perfect.

“Go ahead,” he whispered back, smirking. “I won’t judge you.”

“Okay, um. Are you…are you bi?”

“Am I by what?”

You fidgeted uncomfortably and pulled back slightly. You raised your eyebrows.

“No, not by as in near, I mean bi as in like, you know, bisexual?” You shifted your gaze away, and then Seokjin felt the question sink in.

He was such a fucking idiot.

God, this is one of the most awkward interactions you’ve ever had in your life and you feel yourself getting hotter and more embarrassed by the second.

Standing in your tiny cramped kitchen, you decided now for no good reason was the best time to ask Seokjin if he’s bisexual. Or really if he’s gay. Because you need to know. Need answers. Or a confirmation that will help kill this crush for good because as of tonight? It’s much, much worse.

Something about watching him cook earlier, specifically in your kitchen, did something to you. The way he touched your hips to show you how to do that beer opening trick, how he looked slumped into your couch, the way he hovered over your bookshelves and belongings with curiosity, and laughed hysterically over Barry once he pressed the button.

He fits here. In your apartment. It isn’t just some stupid fantasy version of him you could imagine. He is real and beautiful and fits into this corner of your life like a perfect puzzle piece.

And if he’s gay, if there’s no chance that he can give you even the fantasy of this, then it all needs to stop. But it’s also so unfair for you to ask this of him. What if he’s not out? What if you’re forcing him to come out and no one knows and all because your insatiable horniness led you to a gay streaming site where you found him now his livelihood and privacy are technically in jeopardy?

Fuck. You can’t do that to him. And suddenly you’re aware of what you just did, how uncool this was for you to just out and ask. Heat claws into your throat as you sit in this shock of silence, clamping down on your airway and leaving your voice in a reedy wheeze as you try to take back your inquiry.

“I–I’m sorry, you don’t need to answer! I’m out of line. Really, I shouldn’t have even asked. Jesus, I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” you splutter, heart beating erratically, a line of perspiration beginning to form at the back of your neck at an insane speed. How humiliating.

“Whoa, whoa, it’s okay. Relax. Breathe,” Seokjin says. You force a ragged inhale but find yourself coughing, gasping to try to find air in this room that is too small and a million degrees warmer.

You are standing in the hallway outside of the bathroom, rasping for air into your lungs. Your mother has just come home from work, shouting about how you haven’t remembered to take the chicken out of the freezer or done any of the chores she’d asked you to while she was gone.

The day has gotten away from you, a hot summer that is so oppressive no one even wants to go outside. You would get all she asked of you done and more before she returned home. The chicken would be thawed, you’d vacuum and mop the floors, would even wipe down the bathroom sink from all the hair she and your father left in it during his morning shave.

And then you would go to your friend’s house tonight, for the sleepover you’ve been dreaming of, eat lots of candy that her father would bring home from work that yours never let you have. You could tell her about the boy whose parents own the convenience store at the end of the street, and how all summer you’ve been finding an excuse to run up to the shop with your allowance to get a pack of gum or snacks or a can of iced tea you would have to chug outside before you even walked home anyway.

You start junior high this fall. Your period started this spring. Everything around you is changing. Your legs are stocky and getting fuller. Hair is starting to grow everywhere. Your breasts are no longer flat on your chest and while you know all of this is happening, you know why and what is going to happen, that doesn’t change how awful all this feels. Your baby fat isn’t baby fat anymore, and the oils of your skin, your hair, your smell? It all is changing so fast and you hate it. You want to hide. And at least having this boy down the street to talk to, Wonwoo, who makes you feel less like you want to crawl outside of yourself.

Him, and all the books you’ve been reading. Ones where they’re older, girls who you’ll be like soon. Who go to school, and date and have families with problems just like your family has problems. Who run into the woods and fall in love with other families. Who find belonging. There’s comfort there, and that’s why despite all your promises to make the house clean for your mom this morning, you forgot. Because you’d fallen into the world of your book.

And now, your mother has told you that you can’t go to your sleepover anymore. Can’t get away from the house and the heat and your body and the ongoing argument you know your parents are having about finances that they shout about when you’re in the shower and they think you can’t hear them. You can’t eat fun secret snacks or talk about boys or pretend for a second that this isn’t your life. Because it is.

Your throat closes up, the dim lights of the hallway outside the bathroom feel like they’re flickering.

“I told you. I reminded you multiple times! Now we don’t have dinner. Unless you’d like to think of something?” She strips off her stockings, balling them up in her fist. “Unless you want to go out there and buy some expensive meal for us tonight?”

Shame. This is it in its purest form. How wrong you are for not helping. For spending the whole day in your fantasy world with your new friends, ones who aren’t real. All your mother asked for was such simple things, and yet you are unable to just do what she asks.

“When your father gets home, you can tell him why there’s no dinner ready.”

Hot tears sting your eyes and you gasp for air. Your father? If he’s having a hard day today, if his boss or his co-workers didn’t recognize him for that presentation he spent all those late nights at the dinner table preparing, you know how this will end. Your father is a fair man, but even he has his limits.

And sometimes that means that the things you love, the things that you covet, they go missing. Precious dolls that you’ve had over the years have disappeared when you were being careless with them, leaving them around in the hallway for him to step on. Once, you left your birthday gift from your aunt, a purple Skip-It, on the sidewalk during a Spring rain shower and when you went to bring it in, it had vanished.

You’d found it in the garbage bin, the ankle loop and cord snapped into pieces.

When your father gets home, he’ll go for your book. He knows just which one it is. You had started it last night and he asked you about it.

You push off the wall of the hallway, swallowing the bile down your throat. You have to hide it, to take it somewhere.

You want to leave. Your eyes dart around the room. Anywhere but here, you can’t let him see how much more embarrassing it is now that he knows you’re anxious. A lump in your throat continues to constrain the air. You can feel your pulse in it, pulling acid up from the depths of your stomach.

You rip another breath from your chest and try to propel yourself across the room, across the universe, but your feet won’t budge. Your muscles are locked in this bump of panic, leaden and unyielding.

Somewhere in the fuzziness, Seokjin has moved but already returned, and you feel a set of cool hands on your cheeks as he comes into focus, gently stroking behind your ears and saying something to you.

“–ow that it’s hard but I need you to breathe, Y/N. Breathe with me. Can you do that?”

His face is concerned, and it twists your stomach even further. He shouldn’t be doing this. You should remember how to fucking breathe on your own. But then again, isn’t that why he’s here anyway? Because you can’t do shit on your own? Can’t hold boundaries, can’t stay in school or keep it together. Can’t live somewhere nicer where you don’t smell the stomach-turning stench of the sink’s old plumbing next to you, metallic and stale. And definitely can’t even remember how to mind your business or breathe like a person.

You rush down the hall, into the living room, snapping the book off the couch. You shove it behind a cushion.

Your father walks in the door, and from the look on his face, you can tell the presentation didn’t go well.

“What’s all this?” he snaps, and gestures to the left-out vacuum and the bucket of water you’d gathered earlier. All the bubbles from the soap have long popped, leaving a heavy, sickening floral scent in the room from the solution.

“I, oh–”

“Your daughter spent all day reading instead of doing her chores. So unless you have a McDonald’s hamburger in your briefcase, we have nothing for dinner.” Your mother interjects, huffing as she heads into your parents bedroom and slams the door behind her.

Your father’s eyes narrow, and this is how it begins. He and your mother slamming, stomping, hitting, and crashing in every interaction they have with an inanimate object around you.

He chucks his suitcase onto the table of the small dining area, then whips open the fridge door a few feet away.

“Y/N, come here.”

You tiptoe in behind him, needing desperately to do the opposite of him, to show that you aren’t mad that they’re mad. That you understand exactly what you did wrong.

But it doesn’t matter, does it? They’re going to show you anyway. He moves aside and you peer into the fridge.

“What do you see in there?” he asks, restrained.

“Um, some celery, lettuce, dressing, milk…”

He growls, indicating that this isn’t the right answer. You’re wrong again. “Food, Y/N. This is food. That your mother and I work hard to put on the table so you can sit around and read your books. Food that needs to be eaten. Do you understand?”

You say nothing. You know the question is rhetorical.

“So, when we ask so little of you to simply take the food out of the freezer or fridge and thaw it, how can it be so hard? Hm? Here let me show you.”

He reaches in, and begins pulling and pulling the veggies, marinades, dressings, milk, eggs, cheeses and meats, and crowding the counter top. You’re frozen, unable to walk away, to ask him to stop.

When he’s done, he looks at you.

“See? Not so hard, huh? And if you were helpful to us, none of this would have happened. Honestly, your selfishness sometimes,” he says. “Now, go get me that book of yours. I think you know you haven’t earned it right now.”

You should go peel it out from under the couch cushions. Should hand it to him, then put all the groceries back away, because you know he’s not going to do it with you here. You should apologize. Accept punishment.

But instead, you’re nauseous and shaking and sobbing.

He waits expectedly. And then he shoves past you to your room, beginning to hunt through your clothes on the floor, under your bed.

“Where is it Y/N?”

You don’t follow him. Instead, you run. You grab the book from behind the cushion, shove your shoes onto your feet and run into the heat of the ending day with it in your hands, the heat from the sidewalk still boiling up underneath you.

Your parents don’t run out the door or into the street behind you. They stay in your home, possibly putting it back together. But you don’t care. You run, until you see the light of the convenience store and your lungs feel like they’re going to collapse.

Inside the cool air, Wonwoo is helping his father place drinks from their crates into the refrigerator. His eyes are wide as you plow in.

You have so much you want to tell him, so much worry in your chest. Your cheeks are hot and your body is sweaty. Nothing is coming out. Just the hum of the fridges, and Wonwoo’s father rushing to get his mother.

“Are you okay?” Wonwoo asks, and you can’t do anything to answer, just stare at his soft face as you well up with tears. You shove the book toward him wordlessly.

“Y/N, what’s going on?” he asks again, and you inhale steeply but choke on the air. A bubble of saliva clods your tongue.

“Please, take this. Hide it,” you urge. He holds his hands out and takes the book.

“Um, okay. Tuck Everlasting, I’ve never read this one.” He looks back up at you and winces.

“Hey, hey, breathe Y/N. You need to breathe.”

Seokjin is standing in front of you, coaxing breaths from you, wasting his time after cooking you dinner like it’s something you deserve. Like you’re not just doing all of this anyway because you can’t control yourself to not have feelings for him. Tears singe your eyes and you gasp another shallow breath.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay. I’m not mad. I promise I’m not mad.” Seokjin breaks through your thoughts, his voice gentle, and almost like he hears you in this silent exchange, some constant that is numbing this spiral. You feel yourself inhale a little more fully as you understand he’s not upset or annoyed. “Good, you’re doing good. Let’s breathe another breath, okay?”

You can’t look away. Even if you wanted to, Seokjin’s touch is keeping you focused completely on him, his soft and kind eyes, his plush lips that he’s holding in a slight frown that won’t shake. One that you can tell is worry.

“Another breath, sweetheart. Good, good girl. That’s really good, Y/N. Okay, keep doing that for a second okay?” One hand releases from your cheek, and you find yourself pressing harder into the other, needing him to touch you and keep guiding you back, needing that security of him.

He doesn’t move it away, in fact he pushes himself closer, holds the weight of you in his palm tenderly, and then you see in your periphery what he moved to get: a glass of water.

“I want you to take three small sips of this for me, okay? Slowly.” He holds the rim of the cup up to your lips, tilting it slightly. You open your mouth slightly, letting a trickle of cold water flood into the hot cavern of your mouth, extinguishing so much of the tight, fiery panic that moves through the rest of your body.

You do as he says, sipping and swallowing slowly until he pulls the glass away and sets it down behind you.

“You with me?” he whispers, and you breathe.

“Yes,” you say.

“Can I touch your arm?”

You’re not sure why he’s asking, so you knit your brow and gaze up at him, confused.

“What?”

“Can I touch your arm? I want to move us out of the kitchen and into your bedroom if that’s okay?” His voice is still quiet, and you realize that the hum of the light is so loud it’s almost drowning him out, almost drowning you again.

Your eyes flash wide and you nod. You see him relax a little, and slowly Seokjin untangles the web of your bodies away from the kitchen, into the cool air of your living room. Why is it so cold?

Seokjin guides you through it, and through the doorway to your bedroom. Before you even realize it, he’s unbuttoning his pink shirt and draping it over you.

“Is this okay? You’re shaking.”

You go to tell him yes, of course it’s okay, and then notice your teeth are gritted tight from trying not to chatter.

You take another breath. “Yes,” you squeak.

He pulls down the duvet and gestures for you to sit. “I’m going to put this blanket on you so I can help you warm up.” You feel the soft, heavy weight and start to feel a little better. But without Seokjin holding you, tethering you back into your body, you feel like you might float away any second. You shoot him a panicked look and he seems to understand, drawing the blanket back so he is also swaddled in it, the two of you knee to knee as he pinches the blanket closed with his fist.

“You can touch me if you’d like,” he says, and this, you realize, is what you need.

You immediately shift forward, putting your face into his white t-shirt, inhaling that minty, fresh cologne he wears. You can feel his chest rising and falling slowly, evenly, and you match your breathing to his, hoping soon your heartbeat slows to the same rate. Your hands twist into his shirt but it’s not enough. You find one of his hands and take it, lacing your fingers together and resting them in your lap.

The heaviness is nice, stabilizing, but you know you still need something more.

“Seokjin?” Your voice sounds foreign to you.

“Yeah?”

“Will you hold me for a minute?”

His hand untangles from yours and he moves to place it around your back, but with you two cross legged and facing each other, it’s an awkward embrace.

“I’m sorry, this is such a weird position. If you’re okay with it, you can sit in my lap? If you want? And then I can just hold you for a second?”

You nod and sit up, unfolding your legs and wiggling yourself up so you are on his lap. You wrap your legs around his back, then your arms. And then you feel his arms around you, his fingers lazily tracing the length of your spine.

You feel yourself sinking deeper back into the safety of your body.

You both sit like this for a long time. So long that you feel yourself starting to grow hazy and sleepy. Seokjin is warm and soft and so soothing. You feel like you’re untangling from a sharp web that has been trapping you for a long time. And when your alarm for your stream goes off, you turn off your phone.

“You okay?” Seokjin asks and you huff out a sigh.

“Yeah, I’m sorry for all the dramatics.” You slide yourself out of his grip and flop back onto your bed, propping yourself up on your elbow.

“What do you mean? You weren’t being dramatic, Y/N, you had a panic attack.”

“Yeah, over asking you a highly personal question I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry for that too.”

“I’m not-it’s-look. Panic attacks aren’t ever just one thing. It’s always a compounding of stress and anxiety and other thoughts and feelings. You just came across the one thought or feeling that forced everything to collapse. And I can guess based on how much you’re apologizing, it was probably you doing that shit inside and beating yourself up that knocked all the rest of this stuff down. I told you, I’m not mad. Or insulted that you asked.”

He goes on. “Which, by the way, I’m not bi or gay. I’m very straight. But that’s not the point. The point is, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You asked me a question. I have a right to choose to answer it or not. So there’s your answer. And also, you are never dramatic to me. Panic attacks are fucking scary; you felt like you were dying, right?”

You nod. “Drowning, yeah.”

He gives you a sympathetic smile. “Yeah, those things are no joke. But you came out on the other side of it.”

“Not without your help though. You seem like you know a lot about these when they happen. Do you get them too?”

He flushes. “Uh, no, I don’t personally. My friend Yoongi has them sometimes. He taught me a lot about how to help him with them. The cold water trick really is from him. And then also when Soon Yi and I were together, she would have them, but those were a bit different.” He looks down at his hands.

Soon Yi. So that’s her. The person Seokjin has often stopped himself talking about. The one who his parents would occasionally refer to as “that woman” during shifts when he wasn’t around. No one ever said her name, almost like she was some kind of curse and you always were curious why. You assumed she must be the devil incarnate the way his mother would sling a bunch of insults after she was mentioned, but the way Seokjin now says her name so casually, so personally, you aren’t entirely sure if he sees her that way.

Parents usually carry a greater grudge than their child who was hurt. Your own father has told you on various occasions that the guy you dated for one summer in undergrad, who coincidentally is his barber’s nephew, will never be allowed in his house ever again. Forget the fact that there’s no reason he would be invited over in the first place. Whenever you’re catching up with your parents on the phone, if he has recently visited his barber, he’s sure to bring it up. “Scum is never allowed in my house! He will just drag his filth in with him!”

Thinking of your father and mother right now forces you to wince. Maybe it’s the freshness of these memories, of you realizing now that what happened to you that day as a child wasn’t you being dramatic, as they had insisted even after you’d gotten home. Everything had been put back into place when you’d returned after the sunset, even the bucket and vacuums put away. Your parents never apologized or talked about it again.

And your friend, she didn’t talk to you after that either, claiming you were flaky and rude for blowing her off.

Your father doesn’t even refer to your ex by name, similar to Seokjin’s mother. “That Woman”. “Scum”. If there was ever a name tied to these people, it’s clearly gone in the haze of whatever angry frenzy your parents carry. “Scum” also didn’t even do anything wrong. You broke things off with him, but because you came home crying after the breakup, now that is his legacy.

But Seokjin’s mother, how she behaves, you’re not sure that it’s for the same reasons. You’ve seen firsthand how much she adores her children, and “adoration” is a word you aren’t so sure applies to your family.

Soon Yi, too, it’s clear she was not just a blip on the screen in Seokjin’s life. The hushed, angry chatter between his parents, the way his mother would often get so worked up she would start punching her shoulder and clicking her tongue, saying she needed to go sit down. That’s not a Scum-level relationship. You wonder how close she was to Seokjin. Closer than you two are becoming, clearly.

“Soon Yi,” you repeat to yourself, still lost in the haze of putting things together.

“Um, my ex.” Seokjin says, and you feel heat rise in your cheeks as you realize he heard you. “We were engaged. For a while.”

“Oh.”

You want to ask how long he means by a while? Did they break up right before you joined the restaurant? Or was this from many years ago? It’s odd in a way to think of how Seokjin has lived a completely different life from the time before you knew him. He loved someone, enough to marry them, to start a life together, to know she had panic attacks and how to help her.

Did he place her in his lap the same way he did with you? Did he sit with her in the dull winter light of their bedroom and talk like this?

He had to have. Why wouldn’t he? Your stomach dips. Were you under some impression that this thing you’re experiencing–the closeness of his body, the soft thrum of his heart, that tiny whistle in his throat that breaks through the room as he speaks–would be special?

The dim light of the lamp on your bedside table makes the deep browns of his eyes look even darker, and he watches you as you stretch your legs out in front of you, your foot shifting a bit to rest up against his thigh. His eyes flicker toward it and then back to you.

“How, when did you guys break up? I didn’t know you were engaged,” you ask gently. He sighs, and then slumps a bit, the careful, rigid posture he was holding for so long finally loosening a bit with his exhale. He bends his knees and pulls his legs up, glancing to the other side of your bed.

You pat the spot next to you, turning over so he knows it’s no imposition.

And it’s not, not in the slightest. If you weren’t so fried and exhausted after that panic attack, your brain might try to imbue some innuendo into this moment, but for now, this is all you can do, and you want that ache in your stomach to go away. You want to feel like this is special.

Seokjin flops down into the pile of oddball plushies and pillows next to you and you snort, smiling as he carefully tucks the plushie he smashed in his landing into his arms.

“I’m sure my parents have talked about her enough times for you to know everything,” he scoffs.

“Not really. I didn’t know her name. I just thought she was some girlfriend you had that she hated because she was keeping you away from her. You know, the same way your mother also says that the really old lady down the road who sells flowers keeps your dad away from her.”

He smirks at this, and his fingers rove over the marble eyes of the plushie.

“My mother would blame the sun if it kept her family away from her. She’s been messaging the group chat nonstop for updates from my hyung’s wife about the pregnancy. And she’s supposed to be somewhere in Iceland right now on a cruise. Honestly I wish she would just enjoy herself.”

“Well, she cares. About you especially. Which is maybe why she didn’t air all of your business to me when I was mopping the floors and she counted down the drawers. She just would say that I would be better than “That Woman” but I think she might think anyone would be better than her.”

“She said that to you? Ugh, eomma.”

She did, one late night, when Seokjin left early for “something urgent”. His mother alleged that he was dating a secret new girlfriend that he kept under wraps.

“Honestly, he acts as if I’m going to eat her alive or something. Tsk. That son of mine, both he and his brother are going to send me to an early grave. Behind my back like this when I’m getting older by the minute. Ever since he and that woman broke up, he shut down. I tried to set him up with someone and he kept saying no! That he would find someone. But if she was any better than the others, wouldn’t he have brought her around by now,” she’d said.

She slammed some coins back into the register. You jumped at the sound.

She sighed. “You know what he needs? Someone like you. Someone with vision! That woman never had any of that. So much more focused on status. You’re not like that Y/N. I can tell. And that’s exactly why I hired you. You can’t teach someone that as an adult. They either have it or don’t, and you. You’ve got exactly it.”

You didn’t really know what “it” was, but you didn’t argue, and soon she moved on to complain about something else.

Now, knowing Seokjin’s secret, you think you know where he went that night, and it definitely wasn’t to go hide in his lover’s house. Chances were, he was streaming. And that also would explain why he shut down on her so quickly. You can’t imagine Mrs. Kim’s reaction if she found out Seokjin was a gay cam streamer. Despite being straight.

It dawns on you. You’d been so distracted with that panic attack that you forgot already that Seokjin is in fact interested in women. Solely. Enough to have been engaged to one.

“But, back to your story,” you prod, trying to distract yourself from the fact that now none of this feels like just friends sharing. Seokjin hisses in some air as if he agrees.

“Right. Well, Soon Yi and I were together really in college and on. We started dating really young. Just two kids. And then we just kind of stuck together? She and I were together for a long time before I got the nerve to propose. And then…” He trails off, his face now a deeper blush. Is he embarrassed?

You lick your lips, ready to tell him he doesn’t have to share, but he waves his hand to quiet you.

“She cheated on me. With my boss. We were in the midst of planning the wedding and everything. I was supposed to get this big promotion at the end of some large conferences. But, I don’t know. We had grown apart. Suddenly we didn’t see eye-to-eye on anything.”

Your jaw drops, caught on that larger detail. “She cheated on you with your boss? After all that time? God, Seokjin, I'm so sorry. That’s awful.”

He smiles and nods. “That’s not even the worst part,” he says. His smile grows bigger, like this is some huge joke. “She cheated on me multiple times with him while I was away. And I caught them. Uh, you know. On my dining room table when I came back early to surprise her. I did not get the promotion by the way. But, she actually has a baby, or I guess a toddler, with him now. I heard she’s pregnant again, they’re married. It’s all some surreal life. And now I’m here.”

“Um, you’re right, it was worse than that.” You’re really not sure what to say. Seokjin’s becoming harder to read by the second, turning this conversation into some big joke when it’s not really funny to you on your end. Maybe he’s processed it enough by now, but based on how tightly he’s now squeezing your alpaca plushie, you would wager that he doesn’t really find it funny either.

“Is this,” you take a breath. “Is this why the other night you said you were a failure? Because of what happened with Soon Yi?”

“Partly. I mean, it’s not like I did too great of a job keeping her satisfied. She clearly found other ways to do that.” He laughs darkly.

“That’s not how that works you know,” you say. His eyebrows lift.

“What do you mean?”

“What you just said. Keeping her satisfied. Isn’t it the job of being a human to keep ourselves satisfied? Find things with meaning and joy? It’s not your fault that she chose to do that. To cheat on you, to not be honest when she started feeling differently. She could have told you at any point. Did she?”

He sighs. “Not really, no. Soon Yi wasn’t great at communicating with me about things like that. For so long, we just knew what the other person needed. Because we’d been together since we were so young, we had come up with some other kind of language. And my friends, too, they were in on it. She was not always going to tell someone how she felt but she would show them. For Jungkook’s 21st birthday she threw him an “American Stereotype” themed birthday which he was always obsessing over from the videos. Bought a bunch of red solo cups, they played that Miley Cyrus song and bought a bunch of discounted Fourth of July partyware. She was one of us.”

Even now, despite everything, Seokjin is speaking so kindly about someone who hurt him. And honestly, it throws you. You are so used to the men you’ve been around talking so poorly of their exes that you didn’t know someone could experience such a negative thing and not immediately resort to extreme name calling.

That’s just how good Seokjin is. Enough to not be mad at you for asking questions, for panicking. Enough to speak kindly about others even if it might be eating at him.

“That doesn’t mean it was your fault though,” you stifle a yawn. He cocks an eyebrow.

“Maybe we should shelve this conversation for another time,” he says.

“No, no, I want to hear. I want to know all of it.”

“You were supposed to start your scheduled stream an hour ago.”

“Change of plans. I’m not streaming tonight.”

“Do your subs know that?”

“Don’t call them that. They’re subscribers not subs. Sub is something you do.”

Jesus. Please don’t let him cling to that. Please don’t let that give away that I know.

“Pfft. Okay, do your subscribers know you’re not streaming anymore?”

You roll your eyes, knowing he’s created this distance on purpose and now the moment has passed.

Fine, you’ll get more from him about this eventually. You need to understand how Soon Yi impacted him. You don’t really know why, but you can’t help but feel like knowing more might make you feel less uneasy about all of this. About you and Seokjin and what this could all maybe mean someday.

“I can post about it,” you say softly and he nods.

“That might be a good idea. You’ve had a big day. A big panic attack, you probably need some sleep.”

Your stomach sinks at the idea that he might leave after this, and you’re still not sure you want to be alone. You chew your lip.“What I really need is some pizza,” you say.

Seokjin smirks. “Good thing for you, I know exactly where we can find some.”

“Thank you again for the pizza,” you said, nibbling on the edge of one crust. “I didn’t think I could be that hungry after eating so much earlier.”

Seokjin took another swig of beer, shrugging. “Well, you’ve had a big day, and you burned energy and probably calories earlier.”

Your panic attack may have seemed to you like it was coming out of nowhere, but to Seokjin, it wasn’t. He had noticed your embarrassment the second after you asked him that question, saw you spiral inside yourself as you tried to huff air. He wasn’t sure what really triggered it, but he also knew he didn’t want to leave you after that.

He wasn’t unfamiliar to them. Yes, Yoongi had his share, and it took a little while to learn what ways he could be soothed. Soon Yi’s were different, though. A lot more similar to yours.

When they had started experimenting sexually, there would be times in which she would fall so quickly into panic, like she couldn’t give up control. And from that point on, sometimes she would spiral deeper, into some pit of shame where whatever they were doing, even if it wasn’t super kinky, led to these shaking, sub-drop-like breakdowns. They were more rare, but they did happen, especially earlier in their relationship.

At the time, Seokjin didn’t understand what was going on, and neither did Soon Yi. Just that she sometimes would flip on him during foreplay when he would get a little more confident and dominant, or if he started falling into a scene that she had asked them to do, using the script the way she asked, it would happen anyway. Almost like she was fighting between what she wanted and who she expected herself to be.

And that’s in a way how you seemed to be too. Maybe you weren’t like this sexually, and he would unpack that idea later. But in this intimate space of your home, it was like Seokjin was experiencing some type of whiplash as you went from being so uncomfortable about asking about his sexuality to you lying next to him in your bed talking about his ex.

He wasn’t mad, not in the slightest. He understood that especially after a panic attack, people were desperate for closeness and intimacy, and whatever reaction he had to your panic, you felt soothed and safe with him. He was being let into your world little by little, even if you were fighting yourself to let it happen.

He wanted that. He wanted this: you two eating cold pizza on the floor of your living room, you chewing happily and Seokjin warm and full of life watching you do it.

You even let him make adjustments to your space, laughing and applauding him after he ripped some of the clean cardboard from one of the pizza boxes and made shims to prop up and balance your oven and fridge. He found if he scooted the couch slightly to the left and your entertainment system got turned a few inches, you could completely see the TV from anywhere on the couch. You dove to the other side almost immediately, whooping when you realized you wouldn’t have to strain yourself to see anymore.

You were comfortable. He made you comfortable.

“Yeah, I guess that’s true,” you said, your hand caressing over the soft roll of your stomach to demonstrate how full you were. Then, a deep burp echoed into the room. Your eyes widened. “Oh, wow, sorry. Excuse me,” you said suppressing a chuckle.

But Seokjin was already laughing, his body shaking at the sound. “So polite for someone who made that noise.”

The tenseness in your shoulders fell and you gave in, laughing next to him. “Listen! It was good, and the carbonation of the beer is making me have to burp!”

“Sure, sure. That’s what it is. You know I’ve seen those memes about how women don’t fart or burp or poop and I’m onto you! You have one strike. If you fart or shit I’m going to prove that meme false.”

You scoff, tears leaking out the side of your eyes. “Well good thing for you, I will not deny those allegations. I don’t just poop, I shit.”

Seokjin choked on his next sip of beer, spluttering some of it out of his nose. “Oh shit.” Tears flowed from his eyes from the sting, and he grasped for some napkins near the pizza.

You weren’t much better off, coughing heavily into your shirt as you tried to recover. This, this was everything he could ever want. Afterward, you both cleaned up the kitchen and pizza together, finishing off the six-pack of beer until your yawns were impossible to ignore.

“It’s really late, Y/N. You should go to sleep,” he said. He hated himself for suggesting it, almost wishing that you would extend the invitation to stay. Even then, though, he would have to decline.

“Or we could, I don’t know, play a game or something?” As you said this, you stifled another yawn.

He chuckled. You were stalling, he could tell. And he wasn’t strong enough to say no. “Hm, okay how about this. We can hang out in your room and I’ll tell you more about me. But you have to get ready for bed first, otherwise it’s no deal.”

Your eyelids were heavy, but you beamed anyway. “Yeah, okay.”

You went into your room, grabbing some clothes before shutting yourself into the bathroom to get ready. Seokjin paced your living room, scanning the book shelves, a variety of titles he’d never seen before in the stacks. But there was one, a smaller and thinner book that had more wear and tear than the rest. He slid it out carefully and held it in his hands. Tuck Everlasting, a book he’d read in elementary school about a teenager who met a family that drank from a tree’s magical spring and lived forever.

Based on your copy, he could tell it was well-loved and read many times. How old were you when you read it, he wondered. Did you want to run away into the woods like he did afterward, trying to find a magical spring of your own?

The bathroom door opened, and he carefully slotted the book back onto the shelf before turning to you. You were wearing an oversized T-shirt and some very, very short pajama shorts. Your legs looked so soft to touch. His hand twitched.

“Okay,” you said, “I’m ready.”

Seokjin wasn’t. But he followed you into the darkness of your room anyway, laid himself down next to you on the bed as you tucked yourself under the blankets. Your eyes shimmered as you looked at him, now way more awake than you had appeared just ten minutes ago.

Were you hustling him?

“You need to crawl under the blankets too. Otherwise they’ll constrict me and I will absolutely not fall asleep like you have clearly planned,” you tease.

You were hustling him. He liked it.

He chuckled and obeyed, folding back the comforter and sheets to get in. But in doing so, he revealed you with your shorts already bunched up on your thighs, exposing your lacy panties at your hip. Your shirt was riding up, and he could see a tiny bit of your stomach peeking out.

God fucking help him. He managed a deep breath, begging himself not to get hard, or for his body to at least wait until you wouldn’t see him getting hard and he was under the covers. This wasn’t the time. Not after all the emotionality of the day. But his dick didn’t know that.

Your covers smelled like you, soft and even a little sweet and you really had to be fucking with him because you shoved yourself even closer to him under the covers, so that there were just a few inches between you two. He felt your body heat radiating from you.

“There,” you sighed, and he smelled a hint of your mint toothpaste. His mouth watered. “Now, where were we?”

No, but where were you really? He didn’t remember, didn’t know where to start. And then it clicked.

“Mmm, you were going to go to sleep I think,” he said.

You frowned, your nose wrinkling. “No, that’s not true. Or it was. I’m not tired now.”

“Give it a minute, I’m sure soon your eyelids won’t be able to stay open.”

“Sure, but yours are heavy now too. So you must be tired. Now it’s a competition.” You were right. His eyelids were heavy, and he was tired. But he knew his body, especially as keyed up as he was getting, wasn’t about to let him fall asleep any time soon.

“I think I’ll win that one,” he laughed lightly.

“Doubt it,” you challenged, and you shifted your legs, now a little less comfy and more antsy. You slowly released a breath.

“Are you sure you want to do this right now?” He asked, and you didn’t hesitate to nod.

“I want to know more about you. It’s nice to put the puzzle pieces of you together in my head.” Your voice was growing husky.

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay,” you replied. A beat passed. Neither of you moved to say anything, just looked at each other.

Shouldn’t this be awkward? Shouldn’t all of this feel wrong? Somewhere in his mind, the logical response was yes, this is weird and he should leave. But then he would be leaving you after a hard day, when you clearly were trying to avoid him leaving by going so far as to keep yourself awake to stare at him. To try to get to know him. And that’s what rooted him now. He couldn’t leave even if he wanted to. Maybe you were only being needy. But he also felt needy right now. And for the moment, logic could fuck off.

So he pushed it away, letting the parts of him he liked most bubble to the surface, the parts that led without overthinking and just acted on what he wanted.

He moved slightly closer to you, and you blanched, a little taken aback, but you recovered quickly. “

I’m cold,” you said. He knew it was a lie. He could feel the heat of you.

“Here,” he replied, and he pulled the blanket open slightly so you could wiggle forward, resting yourself against his chest.

He angled himself carefully, trying so hard to avoid the rest of your bodies touching, but it was impossible, so he pulled you closer, letting every part of you rest against him.

“Tell me,” you muttered.

“What should I tell you?” he whispered back.

“I don’t know. Anything.” You were fading quickly, and he was relieved. Sad that he would have to go soon, but relieved that you were finally resting.

“Okay,” he said, even softer. “I think if I ever drank from a magical spring, I would do a better job hiding it than the Tuck family did.”

You hummed in response, and then he felt your head nod into his chest as you fell fully asleep.

#bts smut #seokjin smut #seokjin #seokjin x reader #bts fanfic #kim seokjin #thanks for the sub

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kunikame · 2 years

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the stars are prettier. - scaramouche

entry for @versadies 's event farewell love !

warnings : gender neutral. angst. major character death. injury. slight spoilers for scaras backstory & use of his real name. spoilers for the aftermath of 3.2 archon quest. traveler is not specified. english is not my first language.

w/c : 1883

the inazuman night flowers have always been beautiful to kunikuzushi.

yet, as you sit there with him, their beauty dims in comparison with yours. the same could be said for you, as to you, he's the most beautiful creature you've laid your eyes on.

"hey, kuni, i sliced some lavender melons. would you like some?"

he nods eagerly and scooches closer to you so you can share the sweet fruit slices. a gust of wind rustles the leaves of chinju forests' trees and pushes the young boys' veil to his shoulders, at which you chuckle.

reaching out to help fix it for him, he pauses his munching and looks at you with a startled look in his eyes. you finish your actions and glance over at his face, smiling softly when you catch him staring.

"you're very pretty, you know that? it's slightly unfair. how am i supposed to compete?"

the location warps then and he's no longer sitting in the night flower fields of chinju forest; he now finds himself side by side with you, under the night sky at one of the many cliffs in kannazuka.

"look, that's the ursa minor over there! and that's the orion! and-"

you point out the many constellations to him eagerly, not even taking notice of him losing all interest in the sky. the stars you speak so highly of reflect so well in your eyes already, why should he look at the sky? you're way more ethereal than the stars could ever be.

when you receive no response to your inquiries, you turn your head sideways and catch him looking at you with a gentle and content look in his eyes. his eyes widen and he falters, only to turn away quickly.

you pout, "you're so hard to impress, kuni. how will you ever find a lover?"

just when he's about to respond saying he doesn't need anyone else when he has you, the location warps around him again.

suddenly he finds himself on the familiar plains of yashiori island, collecting some crystal marrow and firewood so you can continue on your journey while you entertain yourself not too far away.

when he thinks he has enough, he makes his way over to you where you sat on a tree stump. when you hear his footsteps approaching, you look up at him joyfully and your eyes seemingly sparkle.

"kuni, kuni! look what i made!"

you run up to him with a blindingly beautiful grin and plop something soft and light on his hair. he drops his satchel to inspect the item only to falter when he finds a flower crown woven of beautiful flowers. the color combination fits his aesthetic perfectly.

"is this.. for me?"

"of course it is, dummy! who else would it be for?" you smile at him, oh, so gently and he swore he could cry. he would do anything for you. if you wanted the moon, he would steal it for you.

".. but why?"

"i thought you'd look even prettier with it. and also, i made one for myself as well, so we match! it's like a promise."

"a promise? of what?" he tilts his head to the side in confusion, a habit, you notice. you find it funny when the flower crown tilts with his head and he reaches up to fix it.

"to stay together as long as we live, naturally. i promise i won't leave you!"

you shouldn't make promises you can't keep, he thinks. yet instead of verbalizing his thoughts, he only smiles at you. the gentlest smile you've ever seen from him. he carefully takes your flower crown from your hands and places it on your head, "it's a promise."

"it's a promise."

time and space warps around the boy again.

nahida has seen many people dream, and has given many people happy dreams when the creations of their own minds haunted their nights.

never has she seen someone given a happy dream cry in their sleep.

until him; the balladeer.

after he fell out of his giant robot and knocked out, she decided she'd take care of him. patched up his wounds and gave him happy dreams to have until he wakes up on his own accord.

so then, why is he shedding tears with the softest smile?

seirai island.

the last warp took him to seirai island.

he remembers this memory. no matter how many centuries have passed, how many times he's told himself he has forgotten; it will always remain in the back of his mind, haunting him as long as he walks these cursed lands– as long as he's breathing. the worst betrayal he's had the misfortune to experience; the betrayal of a lover.

there you were, walking ahead peacefully, not knowing what was about to happen to you. no matter how he kept ordering his body to move, to run forward, to sacrifice himself to save you– even if just in an archon damned dream– his body wouldn't move, because the kunikuzushi back then didn't know any better.

an arrow was shot and you screamed in pain.

the younger kunikuzushi looked around in a panic and ran towards you to pull your body towards his. his eyes zeroed in on the culprit, yet he couldn't do anything. the younger kunikuzushi barely had any fighting skills, he couldn't protect you back then.

so he ran. he hoisted you up into his arms and ran the way you came. he remembers seeing a cave on the way, maybe he could patch you up and you'd be alright after a couple days of rest, right?

he arrived at the cave entrance and gently set you down on the ground, panting from the speed at which he ran. inspecting the wound, he cringed.

it went in pretty deep… i shouldn't pull it out or they'll bleed out. what to do.. what to do… i could tie my veil around the wound to stop the bleeding..? yeah, that's better than nothing.

he moved to remove his veil, only to be stopped by your trembling hand.

"kuni.."

"shut up, i'll patch you up, okay? you'll be fine, just don't talk, alright?"

"..kuni.. i think-"

"i told you to stay silent," he ripped his veil, "let me help you for once."

you struggled to get any air into your lungs, but you had to stop him, so you mustered all your strength to raise your voice.

"kuni, i think.. i think i just got poisoned.. you.. you can't save me anymore.."

he paused then, his wide and panicked eyes snapping to your half shut ones. his lips wobbled and he shook his head in denial, his silky hair flying every which way.

you slowly raised your hand and placed it against his cheek, which is now the warmest you ever remember it being. his hand, which he placed against yours in a hurry, was also radiating a gentle warmth. one you never remembered it having. his body was always cold.

ironic, wasn't it? you were the cold one now.

"no.. no, no you didn't, y/n.. it's just an arrow, okay? i'll just get it out and tie my veil around you to stop the bleeding, alright? i can save you, i can. i can. i have to."

you shook your head, and no matter how hard he tried to deny it, he knew. deep down, he knew.

his head hung low, his bangs covering his eyes, yet the tears streaming down your hand were a clear sign.

".. why did you lie to me? you promised.. you promised we would be together forever.. i gave you my entire being. i lived for you.. i loved you.. you gave me a purpose– gave the heart i thought i would never need again a second chance. i thought i could trust you.. yet you're leaving me as well."

with your remaining strength you wiped his tears and smiled at him one last time.

"you're.. so mean, kuni.. you've gotta work.. work on your attitude so you.. can make more friends, okay?.. promise me.. i'll die with.. with regrets if i know i left.. you all alone again.." you gave a weak chuckle, "i don't.. want this to happen either, kuni.. i love you more.. than you'll ever know.."

the hand on his cheek weakened and very nearly slipped out of his hold, had he not caught it in time. his already panicked eyes widened even further, ".. y/n?"

silence.

he scrambled closer to you, yet you didn't even flinch. "y/n?!"

deafening silence.

he wishes he could blame you for what happened. maybe then it would be easier to let go, but there's nothing to blame on you. it's all his fault. he's the one who couldn't protect you. and perhaps, that's what makes it worse.

his pupils wide, he holds your cold hand to his chest, where his heart should be, had you not ripped it out of his chest and taken it with you wherever you went. he sits there, gaping, as silent tears stream down his cheeks.

he lets out a sound. of desperation? grief? rage? sadness? he's not quite sure, it could be all of them as one. and suddenly he's screaming at the top of his lungs.

call them desperate cries for help, a promise of revenge, perhaps even a lover's oath.

he awoke with a start.

purple eyes snapping open to see the concerned dendro archon standing above him.

nahida somehow convinced the traveler to take scaramouche– now wanderer– with themself when they go back to inazuma.

so now here he is, on a ship with the blond traveler and their flying companion. and the 'crux fleet', if he's not mistaken. he's staring over the railings with empty eyes when he hears footsteps approaching.

"so, why is it you wished to go to inazuma with me?" the traveler asks.

he's about to retort, but then he's struck with a sharp pain in his temple and the words "you're.. so mean, kuni.. you've gotta work.. work on your attitude so you.. can make more friends, okay?.. promise me" echo in his mind.

so he sighs and looks down at the ocean.

"i.. wish to pay someone a visit. on seirai island."

the traveler falters, "seirai island? i thought no one lived there anymore."

the boy doesn't respond.

he hasn't set foot on seirai island in so long. the corruption is no longer there all over the island, thanks to the traveler– not that it would affect him.

he fixes his hat and walks down a familiar path, picking some purple and white flowers on his way, the traveler following close behind.

they take a couple turns and reach a familiar cliff with a shrine. the traveler pauses and puts an arm out to make paimon do the same, finally realizing what the eternal wanderer wished to do– who he wished to visit.

the boy keeps walking until he reaches the shrine and kneels down, placing the flowers in a vase he bought in sumeru.

he mutters a short prayer.

it's silent for a moment, only the sounds of the eternal lightning, wind and waves crashing can be heard. until he opens his mouth to speak.

"i'm home, y/n."

ੈ✩₊˚TAGLIST : @sscarchiyo @gumiresque @meiquipo @ibaraluvr @thesapphirecake @yakshalea @kazemiya @haitanni @beljisuke @sugokawata @nazukisser @mikctp @ichipd //ask/comment to be added/removed! (if you're in bold i can't tag you)

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helluva-shit-show · 9 months

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I swear I don't hate the show, I don't even hate any of the ladies above, not even Stella, it's just insanely unfair how the women get treated in Helluva.

And no, I don't need the creators of any given media to hold my hand and walk me through every tiny choice made by every character in said media.

Of course I can infer that Stella grew up in the same pre-determined mold Stolas was forced into. Of course I can infer that she learned tantrum behavior and violence probably got her what she wanted so her royal parents didn't have to hear it.

I can infer that Barbie self harms bc a tiny thin scar doesn't form a perfect circle around your forearm by accident, and an "X" doesn't perfectly cross out a tattoo that probably causes you great trauma to look at every day, on accident. Her tail scars are deeply concerning and saddening to think about, bc again, why do they PERFECTLY match her twin brother's natural markings? I can infer that his actions, intentional or not, deeply traumatized her, and her response was to remove a piece of herself that reminded her of him. It's dark, it's mature, it's compelling and it makes sense. The issue is, it will probably never be touched on.

I adore Millie, I adored her before season two was even announced. To the contrary, I actually don't care if she ever gets a deep deep dive at her backstory. There have been PLENTY of male characters across all kinds of media that are simply psychotic little murder gremlins, and no one ever bats an eye at it. I adore her as the murder gremlin queen she is. But as she's main cast, it's incredibly unfair by comparison how she gets utilized and how she doesn't. One minute she can take down a 60 meter tall fish monster single handedly, the next minute, because the plot wants this to be about the bois, a single hit breaks her arm to the point that BONE IS PIERCING THROUGH HER SKIN, and she just happens to get thrown directly into the world's MOST CONVENIENTLY PLACED AND ARMED bear-trap ever. It doesn't snag her face, her hair, or her hand or arm or torso or back, she falls just perfectly that her leg is just perfectly in its jaws. No arteries got caught? There's not an excess of blood, she's by the show's own dialogue, "fine." But she's benched for the rest of the episode.

And maybe it wouldn't be so bad from the critical eye if the excuse given for it wasn't SO hollow. "Helluva is more male focused and Hazbin is more female focused." Ma'am. Who do you think you're fooling out here. Angel Dust and Alastor built the HH fandom. Do you expect me to believe Mimzy or Niffty are going to be treated any better than the Helluva gals? Mimzy is literally already on the wiki as a "minor character".

It's truly ok to focus your story on males. There is literally a whole genre of anime focused on mostly male stories. But if someone, or a lot of someones, feel your female cast is lacking in substance, I find it insulting to dismiss them and say they're misreading the media and nitpicking. They care about the show, YOUR show, they care about YOUR characters, if you can remember back when you were a smaller creator HERE on tumblr, ppl love when you ask them about their OCs. And you don't have to spit out a quick bs backstory to your character if you haven't given it much thought, that's not what anyone is asking for. (Cough, Unhappy Campers, COUGH).

Idk how to wrap this critique up, so I'm just gonna say, Moxxie's mom is too badass to be Mrs. Knofirstname Knolastname. 🤡

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3motionally3xhausted · 7 months

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Kiss Kiss Fall into another old hyperfixation

Anyway, I randomly wanted to redesign the main cast of Ouran in my style/ with headcanons and my own embellishments

Here's a screenshot redraw, I'll put all the redesigns below the break bc I did all the main characters & wanna talk about the choices I made. Also I made up that uniform redesign on the spot bc I when I was doing the characters I just put them in casual clothes lmao

(I might do some others later, like Renge, Kasanoda, Yasuchika, Benibara, etc.)

Going in order of my least favorite to top favorite. And dont mind that I didn't color the clothes, that's not whats important here lmao

Mori is only at the bottom because I don't like the drawing that much, I still think the design is pretty good. Though, like right when I finished coloring, I decided a bun/top-knot would look better so it's a bit disappointing there. In my head, Mori is kind of struggling to figure out who he is & what he wants to do, which is why he follows Honey around and doesn't talk much. He does genuinely like being around the other hosts though.

Also, the undercut because A) he has the reputation for being the scary one & it kinda suits that, B) uh do I even have to say it? ...its hot He does lowkey look like Sokka from Avatar tho, especially with the blue accents

(edit: I accidentally deleted Mori's file so now this is the only copy so 😭)

Honey is next because again I think the drawing itself is a little off and the design is pretty close to Basil from Omori, which i didn't notice until it was too late lmao. One of the main things I didn't like about his character in the show was obviously how childlike he was & how girls still flirted with him even though he looked and acted 6; So now he still acts a bit childish but doesn't play it up as much & definitely has a more normal voice, not a fckn child's.

Haruhi! I definitely had to keep her glasses cuz they were really cute and kinda sold the whole 'commoner' thing in a way. But other than that I mainly wanted to balance out her femininity and masculinity to make her more androgynous/nonbinary/gender-fluid since she definitely has some of that going on in the show as is. I also gave her dark circles under her eyes to kinda show that she worked really hard to get into Ouran with low status.

Next up is Tamaki of course, getting into the characters I'm most happy with the designs of. One small thing I tried to do for each of them was give them varying hair tones; so even though Honey and Tamaki are both blond, I went very platinum-blond with him. When I started drawing him, my only real thought was "he has to be a pretty boy" so I dont have much to say about my choices, but i do think I succeeded. Don't mind the modern mullet thing, I can't stop it

Kyouya is definitely one of my favorite characters as is, seeing as he has one of the more fleshed out & heart-wrenching backstories in the show. I think the only thing I really wanted to change was getting rid of the Anime Bangs, so I just gave him this kinda sleek, kinda messy pushed-back look with a blue tint. Even though it's simple, I really struggled to come up with anything, until I found a page from the author saying smth like "I don't like the idea of him wearing neat clothes" with a picture of him in like a track suit so I did kinda the same outfit

My absolute #1 favorites, Hikaru & Kauru. They're honestly the ones that started it all because Kauru has been my favorite since I first saw the halloween episode (iykyk).

I don't know why, but I wanted their hair to be fluffier/curly and more of a natural(?) ginger color. I knew I wanted Kauru's to be redder and Hikaru's a bit lighter/blonder, but only subtly. I also gave Kauru a scar on his cheek from that time in Karuizawa, but most notably, I gave them blue and pink eyes as their signature colors. Lastly, their expressions are slightly different, because no matter how much they are in sync and try to match each other perfectly, Kauru's a much gentler soul than Hikaru, so I made Hikaru's smile a bit more snarky while Kauru's is soft.

Thank you for looking at my art/ reading my thoughts, here's an extra little design edit & comparison

(lol, I think they're mimicking Kyouya in this panel idek) (Also here you can see I tried the bun hairstyle w Mori, I think it looks good, but this is a really simple drawing so.)

#ouran high school host club #ouran hshc #haruhi fujioka #tamaki suoh #kyouya ootori #mitskuni haninozuka #takashi morinozuka #hikaru hitachiin #Kauru hitachiin #character redesign #my fanart #my art #screenshot redraw #im hyperfixating again #ouran redesigns #33xhausted art

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raifuujin · 2 months

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M27 Spoilers

Okay, so. My thoughts.

First off, the cousins thing. I'll be honest, I fully thought the movie was going to go with a common ancestor route instead of the more direct dad's being brothers. Obviously that didn't turn out, but considering they also brought in Okita and his face, it would have made a lot more sense to just go further back and also leave explanation for the other same-face Gosho boys that are scattered around. But I guess that wouldn't have been dramatic enough, so oh well.

I'd still probably ship KaiShin. The cousins thing really doesn't bother me when they don't even know (because nobody in this series talks about any family until it has maximum audience whammy). I see some people who are lamenting, because it makes things uncomfortable for them, and that's fair. I don't see it quite as bad as like. Leia and Luke from Star Wars, or the more personal Layton and Descole from PL, both pairs being direct siblings instead of first cousins, but plenty of people still probably view it as too close. Also, if anyone is familiar with the hiimdaisy Ace Attorney comic with Apollo and Trucy and Phoenix is supposed to tell them they're related and Does Not time it well. -finger guns- It would make a great parody comic idea for this KaiShin situation. (I might do it myself if no one else does, but would Not be soon.)

Other people bring up that Gosho mentioned much, much earlier that there was a reason Kaito and Shinichi look alike. Which I did remember, but the thing about that is. That I don't trust Gosho in the slightest. Like, did he actually plan out Yuusaku and Toichi's separated twins backstory at that time, or did he have a general idea that he'd be making them familial related somewhere in their tree? Some people truly thought Kaito and Shinichi could be the brothers, with the Kuroba's adopting for some various fandom-created reasons. Or other, far more dramatic direct relation. Could Gosho's comment have just been him making a joke that the 'reason' was him thinking about them having the same inspiration? How serious was he meant to be taken 20 years ago?

Many people saying 'of course they're related, they look exactly alike':

1) Sameface syndrome with characters goes well beyond Kaito and Shinichi. There were so many protoypes of characters, or just matching looks to character types, of course not everyone is gonna hop on the 'well duh, they must be related' train. It's nice to feel vindication for headcanoning them as family, but don't make it sound like people are stupid for being upset. There's very little to tell what's lampshading and teasing vs 'no, really, they're gonna be related to each other'.

2) The common ancestor explanation would have worked perfectly fine, and honestly, the fact that Toichi and Yuusaku are twin brothers separated through divorce who happen to both have stayed in the Tokyo area (mostly) while both being internationally famous and maintaining contact with each other and sending gifts even when one of them is publicly dead. Sounds goddamn stupid. (The brothers idea would probably have been fine and plausible, it was all that Extra that pushed it into 'okay just stop, this sounds like a load of contrived bullshit'. How did no one during the 'reveal' of that go 'um, I know this is how you want this connection to go, but can we make it sound more plausible/real?')

Because, Gosho clearly didn't plan on them being related all along. That's probably what actually bothers be about the contrived connection (since the real impact to KaiShin is relatively small). It's very obvious that he just drew his male protags for quite a few stories looking very similar. (Usually in his image, to an extent, though that's usually just mentioned for Kaito, specifically.) It was also clear that when he had Kid make a surprise appearance in DC, there really wasn't supposed to be a connection. Did he come up with it on his own? Only after people asked about it? Did he go 'you know, I might could connect the two for fun'? I don't know. I don't trust a man who created Sera's concept based on a cool female detective and wrapped her up with Akai and made the whole stupid family thing, and who changed Amuro's planned role as a bad guy on a whim because he was too cool to be bad, to have actually planned out this family connection all along.

And even with all that, there's also the issue of revealing this information in a movie. People have had arguments about movie canonicity for years, and yet this all gets mentioned for cinema shock value. I don't mind the using extra characters, or making things more action packed than the manga would allow, or even stupid things like Kidnichi 200 times. But this? This is asking for chaos. It feels like a big clusterfuck of yes, no, maybe, for how important this is going to be going forward, because we don't even know if Gosho means to make use of this info for the mangas at all, or if it's going to remain background information from a movie that may or may not even be relevant to know. Except as a wink to the audience and a middle finger to shippers, I guess.

(There are pluses to this, which is general thinking about the implications of this family dynamic and how chaotic things could actually get or how things got to be how they are already. I'd like to know what exactly Yuusaku knows about his brother's status and if his 'friend from interpol' could be used to connect to Toichi's whole. Legally died but is still alive and being an a-hole to his son by letting him go into the profession that was trying to kill him.) ((Yes, we're still gonna murder Toi, especially since his amnesia out is clearly off the table. We don't know enough about what Yuusaku knows, but I can't even say he's on thin ice because the chances of him knowing a lot about Kaito's situation is too damn high to let him off the hook.))

...Anyway, that's obviously the main drama, but side note that I'm also mad because movie being canon or not aside (I adopt movies as canon, especially newer ones, but people can also ignore them without loosing manga compliance really), the issue I have is the further blurring of MK and DC connection. At this point, it literally is just Akako being the crux of the 'are they the same universe or aren't they' argument, and it's literally never gonna get answered because Gosho refuses to even let her show up in DC for anything. You truly can argue either way when she's just not shown. And even though it won't happen, it's to a point where they feel so obviously the same universe that I hope Gosho just let's Akako do a cameo at the end of DC just to mess with people. But regardless, making MK only characters directly related to DC characters is. Maddening for that whole argument. (Sure, Toichi has appeared in DC before, however, the movie goes out of the way to add that extra 'fuck you' to the audience by revealing not just Toichi being alive and texting Yuusaku casually, but the reveal is in his fucking. Corbeau outfit. Which. Corbeau is 1000% MK only knowledge, so there's not getting around that no one would know that character unless they've read MK.)

And last note, the one other spoiler I've seen mentioned is the failed Heizuha confession and just. The reasons for failing get dumber and dumber and just add to the mess of spoilers coming from this movie. Oh no, Iori, the former government agent dude working for the rich girl love rival for Heiji's affection, dropped a flashbomb at the exact time Heiji confessed, so Kazuha never heard it. I don't think the spoilers I saw ever clarified if he was doing something and it was coincidence, or if it was intentional, but. God the fails being turned into elaborate jokes is getting. Ridiculous. I don't even care if they get together in canon, I'm not super invested in the ship, but I feel like even if I did want them to get together, there's. Literally zero hope for any build ups at this point. You can't keep leading up to it and pulling it away, people are gonna stop caring. At this point, half the people invested are just going to give an exasperated 'finally' when it happens, instead of actually being excited at this point, it's just tiring.

I hope the rest of the movie is at least entertaining. Fun action packed eye-candy fluff to help numb the stupid 'important' scenes. Spoilers might feel ick, but it's in a vacuum of reading words about scenes on their own. (Which probably won't change the Yuusaku scene at all, but Heiji's confession is. Probably an 'okay, here we go, what happens this time' thing that's better if you're already just there for entertainment.)

Edit: Someone has now basically confirmed with their own watch that the movie is fun, and the bombshell of lore is at the very end.

#dc spoilers #That's one post V:#Maybe I'll wait until all the MK chapters are out to make a post about. The thing going on there #I also am not a fan of that writing for being a lazy made-up-when-people-showed-interest-in-something. Thing

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silv3rswirls · 7 months

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Halloween costumes with stray kids

🎃Chan🎃

Killer + Final girl

He embodies his costume well with the look of a masked killer oddly suits him well and of course; your cute final girl getup compliments him perfectly for the night. The two of you get into it, a whole movie plot and storyline for your costumes came to mind easily, fake blood and witty one-liners.

🎃Minho🎃

Cat + Dog

Minho said he wanted simple costumes, something he didn’t have to invest too much time or thought into. After shooting down your first few ideas, he suggested going as each other's favorite animals. He chose a cat for you, while you giggled and decided he should go as a fish. Despite the jokes, suppressing giggles as you painted scales on his face and taped fins to his head- he rocked the costume.

🎃Changbin🎃

Red Riding Hood + Big Bad Wolf

He suggested a couple costumes and you were 100% on board. You ran through a few ideas but decided on Red Riding Hood and the Wolf after seeing a cute DIY one online. It was a whole project buying and making them together and they came together great the night of your friend's party.

🎃Hyunjin🎃

Prince and Princess

The two of you put together an amazing costume. He made a gorgeous prince, matching colors and pretty details with your dress. He helped make sure your crown looked perfect on our head, and you did the same for him. You were probably the cutest couple hanging around, and it seemed you were in competition to compliment and dote on the other all night.

🎃Jisung🎃

Bella + Edward

It started as a joke suggestion, which kept going until you were nearly out of time and had no other ideas than to dress up as Bella and Edward; and since Jisung had egged it on so much you made him be Bella while you pulled off your moodiest Edward. Honestly, the two of you killed it and had a ton of fun acting in character at the party.

🎃Felix🎃

Angel + Devil

The two of you went back and forth on who would be which, but ultimately settled on Felix being the angel since he was, as you like to say, the “sunshine of your life.” You were a cute pair at the function, playing the angel and devil on your friend's shoulders and doting on one another through the night.

🎃Seungmin🎃

Onesies

You were simple people, wanting to take the easiest approach to dress up for a party while still being comfortable. You picked up a cute pair of animal-themed onesies, simple and not too eye-catching but enough to pop into the party for a bit and then go home and enjoy a dreary night in.

🎃Jeongin🎃

Vampire + Bride

You did each other's makeup and had fun choosing elegant jewelry and making up little backstories. He thought you looked breathtaking in your costume, making sure to tell you throughout the night. The two of you dance together all night, taking cute pictures together and going home to end the night with a movie and falling asleep together on the sofa.

#stray kids reaction #stray kids imagine #stray kids x reader #stray kids fluff #Bang Chan #Lee Minho #Seo Changbin #Hwang Hyunjin #Han Jisung #Lee Felix #Kim Seungmin #Yang Jeongin

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daresplaining · 9 months

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Mike Murdock's Sunglasses: On Character Design and Autonomy

I've written a little in the past about character design in regards to the translation of zany alter ego 1960s Mike Murdock into slightly-more-grounded, at least 85% more real 21st century Mike Murdock. Specifically, I talked with artist Phil Noto about Mike's outfits in Daredevil #606-612, and analyzed the clothing choices made by the creative team in the 2020 Annual. However, one specific detail that I find interesting in Mike's transformation from Matt's hyperactive id to his own autonomous person that I haven't really written about yet is his sunglasses-- when he wears them, when he stops, and how this shift may or may not align with his journey.

Matt: "Let's see now-- I'll just muss up the mop, to give myself that carefree tousled look! A fella like Mike wouldn't be caught dead with a simple Ivy-League hair comb! And, I'll have to give my specs a coffee break for a while, as I cover my sightless eyes in a more colorful way-- If the attorney-at-law business ever gets slow, I might just decide to open a school of method acting! Yessir! Stanislavsky had nothing on me! Now, all I've gotta do is change my personality! I figure a clown like Mike Murdock is sure to be on all the time!" Daredevil vol. 1 #26 by Stan Lee, Gene Colan, Frank Giacoia, and Artie Simek

Matt and his dark glasses were inseparable in the 60s-- literally, to the point that he even apparently wore them under his Daredevil mask (fortunately, he doesn't do that anymore). The clear hesitance of DD artists in this period to draw their blind protagonist's uncovered eyes is likely one of the reasons that when it came time for Matt to invent himself a fake sighted twin, the sunglasses stayed on. This has not always been the case. In the years since, Matt has taken on several sighted identities in which he does not wear glasses at all-- notably, con artist Jack Batlin in the 90s. Of the two approaches, the former makes slightly more in-universe sense. As someone with no vision at all, who was blinded in a physically damaging accident, logic suggests that Matt's eyes would look different from those of a sighted person-- most likely due to chemical burns/scarring, but at the very least from things like a lack of eye contact. Thus, the choice for Matt to simply switch up his style of shades for the Mike look, rather than taking the risk of foregoing them entirely, feels logical (even if it doesn't always match up with the way Matt's eyes are actually depicted, but that's a topic for another post).

As it turned out, the oversized, colorful shades ended up tying perfectly into the loudness of the rest of "Mike's" outfits, becoming a memorable staple of the look that Matt crafted for his fake twin-- a look that was as distant from the classic Matt Murdock suit and tie (and simple, dignified shades) as he could manage. These shades were iconically, undeniably Mike's. However, they were still born from the use of sunglasses as a visual shorthand for-- and Matt's in-character response to-- his blindness. A Daredevil reader in 1968 might have looked at ol' Loudmouth Mike and asked the question: If this guy were a real person, independent of Matt, with his own backstory and reasons for dressing the way he does-- would he still choose to wear dark glasses?

Mike: "Well, as I live and breathe! You're Daredevil, right? Friend of my brother, if I don't miss my guess. Real pleasure to meet you at last." Daredevil vol. 5 #606 by Charles Soule, Phil Noto, and Clayton Cowles ("As I live and breathe" is such a funny thing for him to say in this scene.)

Enter: Fragment-Boy Mike, and the beginnings of an answer.

When it came to transforming the concept of Mike Murdock into a fully realized character of his own -- not to mention pulling him out of the 1960s and into the 2010s-- some core Mike Murdock elements were dropped by the creative team, both for the sake of streamlining the narrative and in order to match the tone of the contemporary comic. Fragment Mike is no longer Daredevil's alter ego; in fact, he claims in his first appearance in Daredevil #606 that he has never even met DD before. Gone are the loud clothes, the primary colors, the waistcoats, the fedora with the feather in it. Curiously, all that remains of his original Look(TM)...is the sunglasses.

Foggy: "That is...correct. How did you...?" Mike: "Because I ain't him. I'm me. And now, Foggy...you need to call my brother." Daredevil vol. 5 #608 by Charles Soule, Phil Noto, and Clayton Cowles

Fragment Mike existed in a kind of limbo that neither he, nor Matt, nor even his "creator" Reader really understood-- a tortuous state of both being and non-being, in which he believed himself to be real and then had his worldview shattered by learning that no one else saw him that way. Mike claimed his autonomy and fought for his right to live throughout that story arc, but the simple truth was that he was born out of Matt-- specifically, out of Matt's case files, from which Reader accidentally spawned him-- and the memories he possessed of being anyone/anything else were false. He was nothing but a twisted, reanimated echo of an identity his brother had created, dark glasses included; Matt but not Matt, physically separate but still bound to his brother.

Mike: "I'm Matt Murdock's twin brother, but...but I'm not. I've got some fake memories. I'm like a shell of a thing...but inside...I can tell I didn't live through anything...and I think...I think it's driving me crazy." Daredevil vol. 6 Annual #1 by Chip Zdarsky, Manuel Garcia, Le Beau Underwood, Chris Mooneyham, Rachelle Rosenberg, and Clayton Cowles

But! Fragment Mike, just like Matt, maybe because of Matt, is a fighter. He does not take being fake lying down. Through some Norn Stone magic, our fragment became a Real Boy, with real memories of a real backstory. And if we take a look through that backstory, we finally receive an answer to that 1968 DD fan's hypothetical question, because...

Daredevil vol. 6 Annual #1 by Chip Zdarsky, Manuel Garcia, Le Beau Underwood, Chris Mooneyham, Rachelle Rosenberg, and Clayton Cowles

The moment Mike Murdock becomes a real person, the sunglasses vanish.

Look back through Daredevil volume 6. Once he is officially, cosmically real, the only time we ever see Mike wearing dark glasses is when he is dressed up as Matt (ohhh, the poetry of it all!). He is wearing them, standing in Matt's apartment, when he dies in Matt's place-- fated, in the end, to never entirely escape his brother's gravitational pull-- but what matters is that the sunglasses tied Mike to his origins as his twin in a costume, and the loss of them indicates fully and utterly that Mike has broken away and become his own person. We even get this fascinating scene at the beginning of volume 7:

Matt: "...It was Matt. He came back from rehab, went to his apartment... I don't know what the #$@% Fisk was thinking, but I know they've got history and... Ah, Butch. He killed my brother." Daredevil vol. 7 #1 by Chip Zdarsky, Marco Checchetto, Matthew Wilson, and Clayton Cowles

This is Matt Murdock, in the year 2022, once more pretending to be Mike...post-Norn Stone reality rewrite. And this time? No sunglasses. In fact, Matt claims that the key to a foolproof Mike Murdock disguise is in the eyes: "Not just making sure they faced the right direction...but that no matter what, he had kindness in them..."

Do I love Mike Murdock wearing smarmy shades? Of course I do. But I love a good piece-of-clothing-as-allegory just as much, and I love peeling back the layers of identity to discover who Mike really is when he is not his brother.

#Mike-ing like I've never Miked before here...#Daredevil #Matt Murdock #Mike Murdock #Mike Murdockalypse #Adventures in Continuity #ID in alt text

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shoechoe · 3 months

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Hey, this may seem like a random ask, but what do you think of the fan theory of Diavolo being possessed by a demon instead of having actual DID. In a world where vampires exist, zombies exist, the Pillar Men exist and aliens are implied to exist, having demons exist makes perfect sense to me.

To be honest with you, anon, I don't like that theory. I think it flattens a lot of Diavolo's intrigue as well as the depth between him and Doppio. I think the fact that it's a fairly popular fan theory only speaks to the unfortunately ableist and demonizing way their DID was written and handled in canon.

Personally, I don't believe it's an intentional implication- not in the manga, at least. It's definitely suggested something supernatural is going on with their mysterious birth circumstances, but I don't believe that's supposed to mean that Diavolo and Doppio are actually something completely different from a person with DID. Polnareff's description of how DID works in Jojo (one soul splits and develops into two souls due to childhood trauma) matches Diavolo and Doppio's situation seemingly perfectly; they are pretty consistently shown as one human soul that was split into two due to childhood trauma.

Sans the weird birth, Diavolo doesn't show any traits of a definitively non-human soul (unlike Jojo's vampires, zombies, and implied aliens), and in fact, he's often referred to as the "true form" and the body's "true nature"; if he were a demon possessing Doppio, how would he be the body's "true nature"? I also feel like it's suggested that Diavolo not only was always there, but holds childhood trauma with the way he was raised by a priest who named him "Devil" and Doppio seemingly lacking most of his past memories. It doesn't match up with the "Diavolo is actually an evil demon hijacking some guy's body" concept to me.

I do not like it when people frame Diavolo as a "born evil" character. I think it's much more interesting to consider him as "evil as hell and hard to pick out his intentionally-obscured feelings, but feelings are there". I much prefer thinking about Diavolo and Doppio through the lens of severe festering trauma combined with the goal of cutting out your humanity for power and empire. I think Diavolo is far more interesting as a human corrupted by greed, hurting himself in the process, than a demon doing evil for demon reasons.

With that being said, I wouldn't be surprised if the anime adaptation was trying to suggest Diavolo was something inhuman. They change the baby's eyes to Doppio's and have them flash red for no explainable reason, and their backstory is altered to be far more Doppio-centric, including deleting the mention of their legal name actually being "Diavolo". I suspect that the anime was a big boost to the demon possession fan theory (and I've expressed before that I dislike many of the anime changes).

Diavolo as a character is definitely left very open for speculation, but those are my general thoughts on that idea in particular.

#asks #diavolo jjba #doppio jjba #shoe talks a lot #vento aureo #vento aureo spoilers

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prettyinpwn-blog · 1 year

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Ford Pines: A Masterclass in Writing a Good Flawed Character

(Title disclaimer: his brother Stan is also fantastically written and deserves as much praise, but we’ll be focusing on Ford in this post).

It’s no secret that Ford is my favorite character in Gravity Falls. The reason why boils down to this: he is a perfect example of a character that is A. flawed, and B. goes through a character arc that addresses both his core want and need, and it successfully punishes him for seeking that want and rewards him for pursuing his need.

His flaws perfectly match his character want and backstory, and despite the fact that he does make mistakes, you understand exactly why Ford makes them. Not only that, you actually might root for him even though he’s not a flawless hero, because you understand the good intentions/character virtues and backstory driving his actions.

Lastly, his flaws are justified, but not excused by the writing, and he works to make up for them, which in my opinion is the key to creating a hero that is also realistic.

For those of you who read the above two paragraphs and are asking, “Wha...? Core want? Need? What do you mean?”, here’s a quick summary:

When I took writing classes in college (and over years of writing in general and drooling over writing advice podcasts and blogs), I found that the best method for me, personally, when it comes to crafting characters is to focus on two major things:

1. Their want.

2. Their need. On the surface, these look like the same things, but in character writing, they can be vastly different. For example, say that you have a character that greatly desires fame and recognition. They want these things.

But what’s the real reason behind it? Is it because they had a parent that was famous and want to live up to their example? Is it because they want to be adored by people? Is it because they were told they’d never amount to anything by someone and want to prove them wrong?

This real reason behind it all is the core need. Yes, they want fame and recognition, but they need it because, say, they have low self-esteem and need copious amounts of outside validation to boost it.

Tied to this need is usually a backstory reason (sometimes called their wound). Say your hypothetical character was bullied a lot as a child. Or abused by a parent. Etc. Whatever the wound was, it caused a big, painful hole in their heart that they try to fill and fix with their want.

So they go on a journey. The want is often the external journey. The need is often the core journey / character arc. Our example character seeks fame and recognition on an external journey, but deep inside, they realize they need something else, which is to understand that their past trauma/wound doesn’t define them, and fame and recognition will not be the balm they expect it will be. Often, they realize they had what they needed all along. They grow past their flaws associated with their seeking this want through understanding and instead pursuing the need.

Alright, Writing 101 lecture aside, Ford is a perfect example of a character that has all of the above. He has a want, a need, flaws related to pursuing his want, a backstory that justifies it but doesn’t forgive it completely, and a character arc that makes him realize he had that need all along, and he acknowledges his flaws and tries to grow past them. Let’s begin with some analysis to prove my point:

Ford’s Backstory: Protecting/Providing for Family > Everything Else

Ford was born in Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey, to a Jewish family in what is jokingly referred to as the “lead paint district”. His father owned a pawn shop, and his mother was a phone psychic in an era where not many women worked. Their social class is never strictly pointed out, but through context clues we can tell that they were not rich by any means.

Their small house was an addition atop their family shop and had mismatched furniture and peeling wallpaper; enough to keep a roof over their heads, but not enough to upkeep things for aesthetic/fashionable decor reasons. That, combined with a family conflict later that surrounds money that could have - as their father put it - “been their ticket outta this dump”, tells us quite plainly that Ford grew up poor, likely lower to lower middle class.

(I want to preface this next part about Filbrick, Ford’s father, with a note that yes, I personally consider what he did to Stan in A Tale of Two Stans abusive, but I will explain why he threw Stan out, or at least how he justified it from his perspective. Filbrick isn’t perfect, and no well-written character is. What he did makes total sense for his character, even if we as an audience don’t view it in a positive light.)

Ford’s father was a very strict, unemotional man. He provided for his family and worked hard, but he likely was the sort to have never told his children that he loved them verbally. Action > words to Filbrick, and everything he took issue with, were things he perceived as threats to his family. In the comic Lost Legends, released after the show ended, we see Filbrick take issue with Ford’s twin brother, Stan, who he accuses of stealing a gold chain from his pawn shop (and it turns out, Stan actually did, though purely for good reasons).

Filbrick gets upset with Stan because he’s protecting his family. He’s protecting his son from making the wrong decisions in life, because he wants what’s best for Stan. While it may hurt Stan to feel so picked on by his father compared to Ford, Ford explains why in this way:

(Also, can we talk about the symbolism in Stan looking at his reflection here? Throughout the series, we learn that Stan looking at his reflection = him thinking about his brother. Stan looking at his reflection while wondering if his father hates him? Translation: “Why does Pa love you and not me, Ford?” and/or “Why doesn’t my reflection match Ford, would my Pa love me if it did?” /cue heartbreak).

Anyways, it turns out, Filbrick was right. Not just about Stan - who later nearly ends the whole universe trying to get Ford back home - but also about Ford. Ford also takes shortcuts later on in life, namely with Bill, and they become his biggest regrets. But we’ll get to those later. All in all, both Filbrick, Stan, and Ford do things for benevolent reasons - usually for their family - but their flaws often come into play in the manner they try to achieve that.

Filbrick throwing Stan out is a great example. Stan’s breaking of Ford’s project was the breaking of Ford’s future as a millionaire, which would have lifted the Pines family out of poverty. Filbrick should have understood that his children are not tickets to wealth, talked it out with Stan and Ford to get Stan’s side of the story and helped them patch their relationship wound, and tried his best to help Ford find a different college to go to, but... instead, he throws out Stan, and tells him that until he makes millions, he’s not welcome back in the family. Ouch.

Like I said, I’m not justifying what Filbrick did in any way. That was straight up abusive. But Filbrick is a character where family security/stability > everything else, and so when Stan threatens that security/stability, it crosses the line for Filbrick. To him, Stan hurt him, their mother/wife, and his own twin brother, and Filbrick punished him for it.

But the irony is, is that in throwing Stan out, he was threatening the security/stability of his family, because Stan was his own son. Greek tragedy right there, folks. Often the things we do to avoid something, make us cause that thing to happen anyways, at least in stories. Sometimes it’s throwing your son out because there was a prophecy that he’d kill you and marry your wife/his mother, and later finding out he only could have done that if you’d thrown him out, so... oops? Other times, it’s trying to protect your family by throwing your son out, and yikes, you just hurt your family by throwing your son out, not just that son, but the happiness of both of your twin sons for decades to come.

Yes, I just compared Gravity Falls to Oedipus Rex minus the weird mother-son parts, deal with it.

Another factor is how they were treated as children. Ford was obviously the golden child. Stan was not.

I mean, literally, a golden child:

Heh, I see what you did there, writing team...

Anyways, a golden child is often described as, “held responsible for the family's success. Parents appreciate and adore them and, in a way, reinforces them to become better in whatever they are doing. A golden child is an example for others to follow. Even the siblings of the golden child are compared with them to create continuous pressure on their performance; to ensure that they shouldn't fail or fall short in their good behavior and accomplishments."

And also, “Their main purpose in life is to satisfy their parents' needs and procure success, name, and fame for their family from outsiders. Parents consider [them] an asset to the family and always make them appear superior in front of others.” (Source).

Often, you can tell a golden child by:

-An overwhelming need to please / a people pleaser. Notice how when his principal tells him about West Coast Tech, Ford only gets especially excited when he hears about how it might make him a millionaire, and when his father says he’s impressed. Once again, to Ford: providing/protecting for family and approval from his father > everything else.

-Required to grow up faster or contribute to the household at a younger age than siblings. “Your brother was gonna be our ticket outta this dump!”.

-Super high achieving, especially with grades.

-Fear of failure. His rejection from West Coast Tech he considered a massive failure, even though A. it wasn’t his fault, and B. he did just fine at the university he went to instead.

-Attachment to those that praise them / low self-esteem / a need for excessive validation from relationships AKA the exact flaw that Bill took advantage of to manipulate Ford.

-Sensitive to criticism. In Journal 3, when the Tarot reader tells him his flaws, and Fiddleford asks him to maybe reconsider finishing the portal, Ford gets angry. Whenever people make fun of his hands, he hides them.

So, getting back to the character writing lesson I explained above, how does this lead to Ford’s core want and need? Alright, friends, let’s summarize Ford with a few sentences:

“I want to find where I am accepted/loved and I want to protect those I care about, but what I need is to realize I had that acceptance all along, and often times the things I did to protect those I care about, I actually instead hurt them. This stems from a wound from my childhood where I was a golden child placed under high pressure to succeed, and simultaneously was outcast for my six fingers.”

And as I said, Ford had his need all along. Stan always accepts him from Day 1. Fiddleford McGucket also accepts him in the events of Journal 3. When these relationships break for Ford, is when an event happens that threatens his core want: to be accepted. But on a superficial level, when he’s rejected or criticized, an especially sensitive matter for Ford, someone who has been outcast for his hands and treated as a perfect golden child his entire life.

He has acceptance from both these characters, but the moment he gets rejected from West Coast Tech, and the moment Fiddleford criticizes his portal project... we see Ford at his worst. Both Stan and Fiddleford accepted Ford despite his flaws, but when reminded he wasn’t perfect... all hell breaks loose internally for his character. He says nothing to defend Stan when he gets kicked out, and he gets upset at Fiddleford and risks his health and the universe to finish the portal project. Because for Ford, not being perfect means he is failing to be that golden child.

Cue Ford’s Dark Night of the Soul, or the biggest mistake he makes and he tells Dipper later on was his biggest regret: trusting Bill Cipher. Someone who told him he was perfect, fed his ego and insecurity like cheese in a mouse trap, then snapped the lever when Ford realized he was being used and lied to. When Ford realized that his fears were true: he was not perfect, and in trying to attain perfection, his flaws were only made that much clearer.

He had made a giant mistake trying to attain the one thing he had all along, but feared he never would get, so traded real acceptance that acknowledged his flaws for false acceptance that told him he was the perfect golden child he’d been trained to be.

This is why Ford is a well-written character. He has flaws and suffers for them until he makes up for his mistakes. They are understandable flaws, but like in real life, just because it’s understandable why we act poorly at times - be it because of trauma or upbringing - it doesn’t mean we’re justified in continuing to hurt others or ourselves because of those flaws. We must acknowledge them, grow past them, and do our best to do better in the future, as well as apologize to those we hurt along the way.

This is also what separates Ford from his father. His father - as far as was shown in canon - never tried to make up for his mistakes. Ford does. This is why Ford is a hero and Filbrick is not, despite Filbrick thinking from his POV that he had good intentions for what he did. Additionally, Ford is also an example of breaking generational trauma because of this.

How it Plays Out

So Ford is deeply flawed, realizes those flaws almost got himself and the universe destroyed, and what’s the first thing he does? Whine? Complain? No, this vengeful, nerdy BAMF goes on a thirty year redemption arc to stop Bill, knowing that he could spend the time getting home, but instead choosing to use that time to redeem himself at the expense of his own life and freedom.

See? That’s the thing. While Ford is flawed at times for acting out what his father taught him to be, he also has virtues we can root for him for based on these same teachings.

He’s protective of his family at the expense of himself:

He’s protective of the universe at the expense of himself:

He doesn’t hide from his mistakes, he tries to confront them head on:

He often isolates himself to be a lone hero shielding against danger AKA “Dipper, you shouldn’t be down here because my work is far too dangerous for a living soul to spend even one second down here!”, whereas... like, Ford, you’re a living, human soul, too. Doesn’t your safety and the chance to receive familial love you’ve missed out on for three decades matter? Think about how long he must have ached to see his family and home again? And his first inclination isn’t to bask in that love and warmth, it’s to act as Cerberus guarding the gates of the underworld, all alone. Because to Ford, that’s his purpose: to protect and prop up his world like Atlas, all alone:

“You risked the universe for worthless old me? Why would you do that, Stanley?” AKA “I’m the sacrificial golden child meant to prop up our family and further mankind through science, why didn’t you let me sacrifice myself and bear this burden all alone, you idiot?” *CUE RIGHT HOOK*

“Oh, there are children down here? Let me put away my thirty-years-festering gripe with my brother for a second to protect their comfort and stable environment with maturity because I am an adult. Also, let me kneel to their eye level and praise them for their weirdness.”:

“Oh, my brother is cheating off of me in class?” *Smiles.*:

“My brother gets called the dumb one who will never amount to anything?” *Frowns and looks guilty.*:

“There is a mere suggestion that Stan and I should hug and I’m the one who looks back to see if Stan will go for it?”:

“Stan, you broke my trust and chance to provide for our family years ago, but I’m now giving you another chance to earn my trust again by asking you to do the most important thing I’ve ever asked anyone to do while I stay by this portal and likely get turned into a demon snack and/or get mentally tortured here alone.”:

“Hey bro, I know you just broke my trust a second time by threatening to burn this book, and I just burned you, but I trust you still to save me and/or at least still take the book far away so that Bill is stopped even though it might sacrifice me.”

“I am shameless in my love of nerdy things, and don’t tease my nephew for them, either. I make him feel accepted and like he belongs, because I know what it feels like to be outcast.”

“I invent things for my family as soon as they need something, and go above and beyond what is necessary for it.”

“I was a big old dumby dumb and trusted Bill, and you were, too, Dipper, but we can still defeat Bill. Also here, Dipper, I got you a soda.”

“Mabel, you did that family protection thing that has been my core drive and/or wound my entire life, I will entirely ignore the wealth you just heaped in front of me and appreciate only the unicorn hair that will protect said family, you’re a good person.”

“I am the world’s nerdiest, most badass old man.” Okay, this doesn’t really stem from a flaw, but it needs to be said...

“Dipper, wouldn’t you also like to use your smarts to improve humanity selflessly and have the reason you’re an outcast become your strength, too?” also the way he dorkily poses in front of this like Ford you ain’t Alexander the Great or Luke Skywalker calm down you chicken nugget

“Fiddleford, I’m the reason you live in a dump and married a raccoon. I was a stubborn, self-centered, insecure owl shit and I am sorry.”

But all these good things go out the window when Ford’s central flaw comes screaming back:

“Hey Stan, I am the golden child, you must be perfect like me, I am very smart, you are not, and you are not like me, you know that one thing our father always faulted you for and you spent decades trying to make up for even though you shouldn’t have had to, because grammar, Stanley.”

But then his redemption comes in this single, heartbreaking shot (’scuse the pun):

“Stanley, I know all our life that father wanted you to be like me and not yourself. How fitting that my character arc redemption comes when you are dressed like me and I have to erase you, Stanley Pines, and I can’t even look as I take away who you are because who you are has value, even if you’re not me like father said.” AKA “I want you to be Stanley and not just my reflection.”.

And:

“I had somewhere I belonged. Somewhere where I was accepted and not outcast. Somewhere where someone appreciates me but doesn’t put pressure on me to be perfect or because they just want something from me. Someone who wanted us to sail around the world finding the supernatural and having fun because he promised it to me all those years ago, right after I complained that I just wanted somewhere where I fit in. Stan was where I fit in, and after decades of pushing him away, I realized that. I had my need - acceptance and protecting my family and familial love - all along. And because I often hurt Stan Greek tragedy style in my quest to find those things, I now will make it up to him as a thanks for being the one who never used or outcast me, no matter what.”

TL;DR: Ford wanted love and acceptance, but he needed to learn to stop rejecting that love and acceptance that people like Stan gave him from the get go. Also, daddy issues, I guess.

In Conclusion

So, is Ford an egotistical, insecure assbrain sometimes? Yes. Does he treat people like garbage at times? Yes. Does he treat himself like a tool to be used and is he self-sacrificial to a fault at times? Yes. Does he let himself get used like a tool for the sake of praise and ego-feeding? Yes.

Is Bill Cipher tricking him like that a metaphor for how his father treated him because “Ford I will praise you as long as you are useful to me” type sentiments? You decide.

But we understand why he does what he does because of his backstory. We know why he has these flaws: his upbringing.

What elevates his writing even more, though, is A. the writers were not afraid to show these flaws in all their grisly light, B. even though they justify his flaws, they never excuse them. Ford suffers for the above qualities. Those he cares about suffer for them, too. And there’s no easy path for him to fix them.

Like people in real life, it takes him decades to identify and solve these flaws from childhood issues and apologize to those he hurt. But he does it because he is a good person. A flawed, but good person at heart, who will do everything he can to make up for his mistakes and protect his family. Just like Stan.

Perfectly written character. 100%. Fantastic job, GF team.

#gravity falls #stanford pines #gravity falls analysis

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