#this is a reference to the meme that is the exact same text but about bread | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

geoffrard · 2 years

Text

My Chemical Romance, Hardcore Sexual Repression, and the Lemon Stealing Whore

[Content warning for non-graphic references to pornography, sex, sexual violence, and negative attitudes towards sex work. There is no explicit nudity but you might not want to read this in front of your boss. All images have descriptions in alt text. See sources here. Read this essay on my Dreamwidth here.]

It’s the setup of a joke: Gerard Way, Mikey Way, Frank Iero, Matt Pelissier, and a porn actress huddle around a leather couch in a dingy room as a camera rolls. The actress, a young and bright-eyed Joanna Angel, asks each member of My Chemical Romance in the room, “Do you guys watch porn?”

Most of us have seen the interview. If not, stop and watch it now, because nothing else I say will make sense otherwise. (And here, just for you, I’ve reuploaded the video with at least 10% more pixels. Watch below, or read a transcript here.)

youtube

The fact that My Chemical Romance, whose faces have decorated shirts at Hot Topic for over fifteen years, whose songs have saved lives and inspired memes, who all have wives and children, would end up associated with an alt porn website like Burning Angel often baffles fans watching the interview for the first time.

For example, see these comments left on the original video uploaded to YouTube:

These comments, though more than a few years old, generally represent how a lot fans understand the interview. Other people think it’s funny and perhaps a little out of left field, but don’t question how four members wound up on a porn site like Burning Angel. Both attitudes are a pretty typical example of the MCR fandom’s ignorance about the New Jersey hardcore scene, as well reflecting general weirdness about sex work.

Since I cannot turn my historian brain off, I wanted to provide some of the extremely interesting historical context behind the video. The post I had originally planned to make very, very briefly outlined how MCR ended up being interviewed by Joanna Angel, founder and longtime CEO of Burning Angel. But the more I looked into it, the more I fell down a rabbit hole. This eventually turned into something of a mammoth manifesto about women and sexuality in the late 90s hardcore scene that gave My Chemical Romance and Joanna Angel careers. I will warn you: this is long. But it’s also important historical background information that rarely gets discussed at all—especially by MCR fans.

(So, with all that said, please feel free to ask any questions about anything I say here! Sources for will be posted on a different post which I will link at the end, and I have been quite thorough, though not as thorough as I could have been.)

Tl;dr: Joanna Angel came up in the exact same scene as My Chemical Romance, Thursday, and Midtown, a scene which stigmatized open sexual expression, at the expense of women and queer people—especially those involved in sex work. When she started her porn site, Burning Angel, she applied the same DIY values that her peers did to their own bands, but faced violence and ostracization from a subculture much too repressed to embrace such blatant expression of female sexuality. In this context, the My Chemical Romance interview with Burning Angel in 2004 was not only a group of guys doing a favor for someone they had probably known for years at that point; it can also be read as a somewhat controversial act that pushed back against this aversion to sexuality, and that helped legitimize and popularize both the site and Joanna Angel’s career.

Burning Angel: the Movie (2005)

Say you’re a diehard My Chemical Romance fan in 2005—if you really want to watch your favorite band discuss their porn-viewing habits, you’ll have to travel to either your local adult entertainment store or go to the hardcore porn site BurningAngel.com and order their first DVD, appropriately titled Burning Angel: The Movie. Once you have the disc, you’ll have to fast forward through several sex scenes and interviews with other bands before you arrive at what you wanted: the actress who you’ve just seen in hardcore sex scenes asking Gerard, Frank, Mikey and Otter questions about their preferences in adult entertainment.

The DVD was Burning Angel’s first attempt at more professional pornography, and Joanna’s first foray into full participation in filmed, live-action sex. Joanna Angel would later go on to be one of the most well-known porn stars of our time—in Virgin Territory (2006), for example, she played a lemon stealing whore; you might have seen the video—and Burning Angel would be credited with the popularization of the “alt” porn genre, which broke from the exploitative mainstream porn model and typically featured models representative of subcultures.

But in 2005 her alt porn empire was still in its infancy, and Joanna was still struggling to rectify her recent full expulsion from the local New Jersey hardcore social scene with her enduring devotion to DIY values—and the fact that members of the sexually repressed subculture that had ostracized Joanna were her site’s target audience.

Joanna Angel on the Scene

Any thoughts of a future career in adult entertainment and the last name Angel were far from her mind when Joanna Mostov enrolled in Rutgers University in 1998.

Though she often pushed back against the wishes of her religious orthodox Jewish family, the extent of her adolescent rebellion had ended at sneaking out to punk shows and getting piercings her mother wouldn’t approve of. At Rutgers, Joanna quickly became enmeshed in the New Brunswick hardcore scene, putting her in the same circles as a host of people whose names you might recognize: Geoff Rickly of Thursday (who ran hundreds of shows out of his basement), Gabe Saporta of Midtown and Cobra Starship, and Alex Saavedra of Eyeball Records.

Geoff Rickly: Well, you know, the funny thing is that, at the time, Joanna, who would later go on to form Burning Angel and become a famous porn star in her own right, was playing in her goth bands with chelsea haircuts and the basement shows. Like, her local goth band would play. And they’d bring out people and stuff, and I’d put touring bands on that show, and so it’s funny to me how, weirdly, DIY punk hardcore scenes and porn had weird associations then. [source: Going Off Track: Geoff Rickly, 2012]

The NJ hardcore scene was close-knit enough that while she only has documented friendships with some of these people, she had to have crossed paths with most of them multiple times (for example, Joanna was at the show on December 31, 1998 where Thursday and Midtown played their first real sets). She went to every show she could and hosted some in her own basement.

While we don’t necessarily have a written record of her friendship with Frank Iero and Mikey Way of My Chemical Romance, the fact that Joanna attended plenty of shows in the North Jersey area and also spent a lot of time at the Eyeball House (Alex was a close friend; and Pencey Prep was on his label) suggests that, at the the very least, Joanna, Frank, and Mikey were aware of each other’s presence in these early years. They were peers in the same scene, just as they were with everyone else who frequented the same venues or played in the same basements.

For years, the hardcore scene mattered to her more than anything else; it was her social life and what she based her values upon.

Those hardcore values and a growing curiosity about her own sexuality lead Joanna to sex-positive feminist activism and a writing internship with Nerve.com, an online magazine which explored topics related to sex and romantic relationships. From there, her interest in expressing her own sexuality continued to develop.

[Suicidegirls in 2001]

So, in 2002, when her roommate and friend asked her if she wanted to start a porn site that offered more explicit content than sites like SuicideGirls, which featured punk aesthetics and band interviews but stayed away from anything more than simple nudity, Joanna agreed.

BurningAngel.com went live in April 2002. It wanted to do things differently than other porn sites. While not necessarily pushing the boundaries of beauty standards, the site used models who were beautiful but in a more approachable, average sense. Joanna has said that since she had little experience even watching porn prior to starting the site, she wanted the site to mimic the kind of sex she was having with actors who looked like the people she was having sex with.

Joanna: When we started the website, it was a reflection of ourselves. It still is to this day. There's band interviews on the website, the style of girl that we use is not your average typical porn star and the personality on the website is a little bit different. All the members interact with each other, all of the girls have blogs and profiles, and people become friends with each other. It's more of a community and a reflection of a subculture rather than just being a website with content to jerk-off to and never think about again. [source: Complex: Interview: Joanna Angel Talks Alt Porn, Piracy, And Her Blow-Up Doll, 2011]

[Burning Angel’s homepage in June 2002]

Hardcore Punk Reacts to Hardcore Porn

Her longtime involvement in the scene and her application of DIY ethics to her porn business did not mean that the hardcore culture actively nurtured Joanna Angel’s career in porn. In reality, many parts of the scene were actively hostile towards Joanna and the site once Burning Angel went live.

This backlash isn’t incredibly surprising within the context of late 90s hardcore, a subculture that by and large refused to acknowledge sexuality of any kind.

The sexual repression in hardcore reflected several different aspects of its culture: a negative perception of women active in the scene; a reaction against the violence of tristate hardcore in the early 90s; and, more than anything else, the general privilege of those involved in the underground.

Like Joanna, Geoff Rickly, and Frank Iero, most people involved in New Brunswick hardcore were enrolled at Rutgers, and white, middle-class male college students dominated the scene. For many of them, applying DIY values to their own lives meant distancing themselves from their socioeconomic upper-hand. Consequently, the scene as a whole developed an attitude of asceticism, rejecting anything that served no purpose beyond pleasure or personal enjoyment. (Of course, it was easy for them to reject their social privileges, especially when they could just as easily cast off their aesthetic of poverty and self-denial for an adulthood of relative comfort.)

To do anything just because you enjoyed it, or because it brought you happiness in the moment, was seen to be a betrayal of hardcore’s higher intellectual goals—and that included sex. You can see this trend, for example, in lyrics from NJ hardcore bands, which focused on things like political issues or childhood traumas instead of the common themes of sexual and romantic desire found in mainstream music.

Joanna spoke about finding comfort in the general sexual repression of the scene because of her own adolescent insecurities:

Joanna: Me being very sexually not advanced and insecure, [90s hardcore] was the perfect place for me, because I could ignore [sexuality]. I was getting older, I don’t know, I wanted to explore myself more. So I began to write these graphic sex stories. My roommate, Mitch, knew about it, and I remember him getting a kick out of it. [source: Turned Out A Punk #127: Joanna Angel (Burning Angel)]

For another salient example, Geoff Rickly of Thursday has spoken about his own struggles with the hardcore scene’s repression, especially in regards to the shame he felt about writing sexually explicit stories for pay:

Geoff Rickly: You have to think, this is the 90s punk scene. It's not now. Nobody would openly talk about sex in DIY punk. It was such a repressed PC time, where — I mean, a lot of that stuff is my heart, like the political activism that was still such a part of punk, and actually just giving a shit about things that matter, and modes of how you're doing what you're doing. Those things seemed to matter back then, and I appreciated that side, but it was also so uptight. So repressed. [source: Going Off Track: Geoff Rickly, 2012]

While its general aversion to sexuality might have been born out of an initial desire to reform the violent misogyny of other hardcore cultures, it created the conditions for certain social problems to go completely unaddressed. After all, how can you address the rampant misogyny, homophobia, and sexual violence in your community if any acknowledgement of sexuality is taboo?

(For a brief but interesting perspective on the impact of hardcore sexual repression upon queer people in the scene, check out Episode #4 of Geoff Rickly’s podcast Dark Blue, in which Steve Pedulla and Norman Brannon discuss their experiences as gay musicians in the scene.)

Of course, these issues aren’t confined to the New Jersey hardcore, nor were they unique to the late 1990s. This particular brand of sex-averse misogyny reflects important threads within the feminism of the time which villainized open female sexuality—especially when it concerned sex work. Left-leaning spaces like music undergrounds adopted this sex-negative, misogynistic attitude as a part of their feminism—not in opposition to it.

In particular, the Riot Grrrl movement of the late 80s/early 90s pushed back against a culture (and a subculture) that shamed women for publicly expressing their sexuality. Following that, early fanzines and performance practices addressed the mistreatment of sex workers in hardcore as one way that female bodily autonomy was limited and women’s bodies were policed. Bikini Kill frontwoman and Riot Grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna has spoken about her past in sex work, the hostility she endured for openly discussing it, and the importance of that experience in shaping the form of Riot Grrrl’s protest.

Kathleen Hanna: “Whenever we were written about in the press, I wanted my sex-work history to be part of the description, because I wanted other women whom I danced at clubs with (and who never knew my real name) to see themselves reflected in some way. A lot of women who are doing music now have been sex-trade workers, prostitutes, dancers; I thought it was really important that I didn’t hide that. But I also didn’t want to glamorize that experience in being a super-cool thing in itself. I just wanted other women who work in the sex industry to remember that we can be sex-trade workers and be philosophers, writers, musicians, artists, or whatever. [Andrea Juno, Angry Women in Rock (1996)]

Riot Grrrl gained significant traction and nation-wide attention. In the decade or so after Kathleen Hanna and her peers catalyzed the movement, bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile remained incredibly popular, and likely contributed a lot to shifting attitudes towards sexuality in music subcultures.

Still, these sex-negative attitudes prevailed among enough people involved in local underground scenes that, when Burning Angel launched in 2002 and Joanna started marketing it in local hardcore spaces, the site received a lot of attention—both good and bad. The positive attention fueled the site and allowed it to expand beyond just photographs, text interviews, and low-budget personal sex tapes that characterized its early content.

However, the negative attention Joanna and her site received was vocal, targeted, and occasionally involved literal physical violence. As Kathleen Hanna had faced moral condemnation for her time in sex work, Joanna Angel faced criticism from fellow members of her subculture who thought sex work to be completely antithetical to their social justice goals. She has spoken about how difficult it was to see a community she had cared about for years turn her back on her completely for engaging in a type of work that she found enjoyable, and that she thought could be done with moral integrity.

Joanna Angel: People were calling me ugly, calling me all sorts of mean shit, how [Burning Angel was] making a profit, [we were] exploiting women, blah blah blah. And I was so bummed. I was like, you know, this isn’t fair! I always support every fucking band in the punk scene. Even if I don’t like the band, I support them—I go to their shows, I would hand out fliers for their shows. I thought it was like a code, in the punk scene, that it doesn’t matter whether you like it or not. If this is part of the scene, you accept it, and you help it, and you love it—and I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. I remember being very hurt, you know? I was like, dude, I didn’t violate any punk laws by starting this. My friend from my computer class is the one who put it online. All the other girls on the site—all three of them— were punk chicks and part of the scene. And I felt really bad; people were insulting the other girls, and I really thought I was starting this cool thing where girls could just explore their sexuality. And mind you, at the time, the beginning of Burning Angel was just photos, not even videos. People were getting all up in this upheaval because of a handful of naked photos on the internet. It’s crazy to think about now. [source: Turned Out A Punk #127: Joanna Angel (Burning Angel)]

Amidst the mounting antagonism and after an incident at Hellfest 2004, Joanna officially decided to leave the hardcore scene that she’d been involved with for over five years.

Joanna Angel: I remember going to Hellfest one year. Maybe it was like 2004?…these girls were throwing water balloons at us because we had a booth there. Because we used to get booths at some of these shows and sell tshirts. We didn’t even have any DVDs—we’d literally get in a booth and sell tshirts and hand out fliers and stickers. And these other girls were throwing water balloons at us and calling us sluts. I was like, “Hey, that sucks, can you stop doing that?” And one of my friends—he owned a record label. He owned Eyeball Records, Alex…he saw the girls picking on us, and he went over to the girls, and said, “Hey, can you cool it? They have a booth here—let them do their thing. They’re not gonna get in your way.” And then those girls and their boyfriends beat him up, and he wound up in the hospital. He almost died. It was terrible. And I was like, we have to get out here. Let’s just stay away. If we’re a porn site, let’s just be a porn site. Let’s promote ourselves with other porn companies; let’s step away for a little while. Everyone in the punk scene knows who we are. They’ve made their decision about if they like us or not. I’m still gonna interview bands, still gonna do that thing—but I’m done. [source: Turned Out A Punk #127: Joanna Angel (Burning Angel)]

Joanna and Burning Angel’s separation from the NJ hardcore scene in 2004 finally brings me to Burning Angel: The Movie, My Chemical Romance, and that interview.

So, 2004: after over two years spent largely behind the camera and slowly expanding her porn site, Joanna finally decided to get in front of the camera and produce a more intentionally crafted alt porn video that retained the feel of the website. Thus Burning Angel: the Movie was born.

As Joanna explains in the interview, the general idea of the DVD was that different self-contained pornographic scenes would be interspersed with band interviews. One of the key features of Burning Angel, like Suicide Girls before it, was the band interviews subscribers could access alongside the porn, so it made sense to preserve this aspect of the site on the DVD experience. Joanna interviewed five bands in early 2005: Killswitch Engage, Eighteen Visions, Shadows Fall, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and, of course, My Chemical Romance—all bands that Joanna admired, and who had been involved in the same scene that she had recently left because of very real threats to her emotional and physical well-being.

Within this context, My Chemical Romance’s decision to participate in the Burning Angel interview was a statement, as they put their support behind an enterprise that was highly controversial within the social circle most immediately relevant to them.

Fresh off the 2004 Warped Tour and promoted Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, My Chemical Romance might have appeared to be largely divorced from their scene of origin, but they still acted in response to those politics—politics that impacted American culture at large more than you’d think—in both intentional and incidental ways.

That is not to say that MCR was being overtly political; they’ve made a clear effort to distance themselves from the clear-cut political imagery and goals of some of their peers in hardcore. Still, the band (Gerard especially) very obviously cared a lot about using their music and stage presence to express shades of sexuality that they perceived to be lacking from some forms of music.

Gerard: I also wanted, at the same time, [for] the record to be a testament to self-expression, and putting stuff in there like that, while not being a homosexual myself, but expressing myself in a homosexual way, is either going to push your buttons in a negative way or you’re going to identify with it. [AP: Well, this whole scene wants you to be sensitive, but not too sensitive.] It is extremely homoerotic, especially the whole emo-sensitive thing. Everyone’s wearing women’s pants; everyone’s got women’s haircuts; everyone’s wearing youth-medium shirts. I don’t want to come out and say it. It’s blatantly obvious. Wearing a leather jacket is an extremely masculine thing to do in this scene. Even the hardcore bands, the really hard ones, you see them in makeup and stuff. I like that. I think it keeps it dangerous. It keeps it exciting. In a way, sex has really been missing from rock, especially because of all the sensitivity. That’s what I really wanted to convey on the record, too. I wanted the record to be very dangerous and sexy at the same time. There’s such a lack of sex in music. It’s been more about getting in touch with your feelings and being there for each other, which is great, but it’s definitely lacking this sexual duality. [Source: Alternative Press #193, Aug 2004; emphasis mine]

Additionally, many of their moments of explicit sexuality on stage were designed to be somewhat incendiary and polarizing.

But it’s important to remember that, just as late 90s New Jersey hardcore was not the first subculture with issues of sexual repression, My Chemical Romance does not represent the first attempt to push back at this asexual culture and definitely weren’t leading that particular conversation. Gerard took inspiration from artists already pushing those boundaries and incorporating sexual expression into their art. He has spoken, for example, about the impact of Riot Grrrl acts upon his music and stage presence (Joanna Angel has similarly pointed to bands like Bikini Kill as significant influences). These bands had already incorporated resistance against harmful sexual repression, values which Gerard and his band mates took on when they adopted their styles into My Chemical Romance.

(I also want to mention briefly that other significant people in the hardcore world have spoken out against pornography, such as Ian MacKaye of the formative post-hardcore band Fugazi. MacKaye owned Dischord Records, the definitive underground music label, to which a young Frank Iero unsuccessfully attempted to get his band Sector 12 signed. The matter of pornography and its role within the hardcore world was not one upon which you could maintain a neutral stance after, say, appearing on a porn DVD.)

As shitty as it was that they needed approval from the men in the scene, My Chemical Romance, along with other bands, supported Burning Angel, a new kind of porn, and helped legitimize Joanna Angel’s claim that what she was doing was not backwards or exploitative but had integrity.

Have you had an issue with people you grew up with when they find out you're in the adult industry? Joanna: At first people had problem[s], but not anymore. Once the cool kids in bands said, "I think what she's doing is cool" all the others turned around. Everyone I ever respected didn't have an issue with it and all the stupid, annoying hardcore kids had a problem. For as much shit as I got, I also got a lot of support. [Source: Hustlerworld Interview: Joanna Angel]

I don’t mean to glamorize the porn industry or to depict Joanna Angel as some savior of female sexuality in the early 2000s. But, as Kathleen Hanna points out, sex work is legitimate work, and sex workers deserve to have workplaces that treat them with dignity and communities that recognize their humanity. The reality was that NJ hardcore as a community did not support sex workers. Fundamentally, these were the barriers that caused Joanna and Burning Angel to make an exodus from the local hardcore scene—and they are the attitudes we risk reproducing when we express discomfort that a band we admire has interacted with a sex worker.

My intentions with this post (which turned out longer than I had ever anticipated, so Jesus, thank you for reading) were to shed light on the historical context of one moment in My Chemical Romance’s history. I’ve found that the average MCR fan, even those with a specific fondness for their early years, doesn’t actually know much at all about it—so I hope this has given some clarity.

I’ll end on this note: Without bands supporting Burning Angel, who knows—we might have never seen the lemon stealing whore. At the very least, the culture surrounding porn would look a lot different. That might not mean it would look better or worse—though you can’t deny the role that Joanna Angel played, nor the role that bands from the New Jersey Hardcore scene like My Chemical Romance played in shaping the American culture of pornography.

Find sources for this post here.

[acknowledgements: thank you so much for reading! my forever thanks, as always, to nic @raytorosaurus, sophia @sendmyresignation, vyn @bringmoreknives, and maddy @8thnotes for their continued cheerleading as i spent over a month writing this long, long post. additional thanks to wes @killrockstar for very kindly offering some incredibly helpful guidance about riot grrrl and sending me resources about kathleen hanna. and much gratitude to merlin @void-flesh and @transmascfrankiero for their feedback on the final draft of this essay.]

#mcr #my chemical romance #joanna angel #mcr meta #my post

2K notes · View notes

kikokus · 1 month

Text

Lucci and Kaku: An Analysis

I haven’t done long analysis/meta/essay-style posts in a while, but after seeing a comment that amounted to “every time Lucci’s shown an interest in something that doesn’t have to do with killing, Kaku’s involved” it made me think about whether or not that's true and, more specifically, whether or not there’s been sufficient build-up to justify what happens in Chapter 1111.

So let’s explore, shall we?

First of all, basic disclaimer that I’ve been heavily into One Piece since 2008 and Water 7 has been my favorite arc since the first time I read it that summer. Kaku, in turn, has always been one of my top characters in the entire series for various reasons…but this isn’t about him (at least, not entirely), so all of that is just to say that I’ve thought about these characters a lot over the years.

And I think what always struck me about them is that not only are they so fundamentally different, but that realistically Lucci should not tolerate Kaku at all. He’s pretty much everything Lucci’s not, and they’re more-or-less a perfect example of the ‘someone will die…of fun!’ meme in a lot of ways (and honestly it’s what I think of every time I see this card, but I digress):

At the same time, what happened in the latest chapter didn’t surprise me, because there’s been hints all along, and I’ve personally been waiting years for it to pay off…even though part of me thought it never would, or at least not in the way it did!

Still, how did we get here?

But First, A Bit About 相棒

So. Why is the fact that Lucci calls Kaku his “相棒” (aibou) so significant? Mostly because of the…individualistic meaning of the word. It literally translates to ‘partner’, but not in a romantic/life-partner way (not to say that it has never been used like that, but it’s not the inherent meaning of the word).

Unlike words such as 友人 (yuujin), 友達 (tomodachi), and of course, with Luffy, 仲間 (nakama), aibou generally only refers to one person. You can have many friends, teammates, crew members…but only one aibou. So by calling Kaku that, Lucci’s already placing him on a different level to anyone else in CP9 or CP0 and acknowledging openly that Kaku’s important enough to him to have earned that distinction.

Which is why a lot of us were very excited about it, since this is not a common occurrence where Lucci’s concerned.

That aside, let’s get to the actual canon content.

Water 7

Obviously at the beginning we find out they both work at the shipyard, but that in and of itself isn’t entirely significant…until you consider that, since Kalifa is pretty much with Iceburg all the time and Blueno’s running the bar, the two of them are working in much closer proximity to each other than to the other CP9 members in the city.

The first real indication we get regarding their comfort level with each other comes in chapter 327 when Kaku gets back from examining the Merry and goes to sit down to explain what he’s discovered. Paulie’s the closest to him, but he actually ends up stepping past both him and Lucci in order to sit directly beside Lucci on the same level.

It’s quite a while before we see the two of them alone again, and it doesn’t happen until chapter 339 when they’re speaking with Robin. Of course at the time we’re not supposed to know it’s them, but there’s really nobody else it can be since this is happening at the exact same time that Blueno’s talking with Franky and Kokoro at the bar. So, as will become fairly common, the two of them are again acting as a unit of their own within the larger group.

And then, of course, we get the infiltration of the mansion prior to The Big Reveal (which I’ve spoken about before because for me it’s still the single greatest reveal in the entire manga because of how carefully crafted it is, right down to Kaku’s limited dialogue in this section being completely devoid of his usual speech quirks in the original Japanese text). Once again, Blueno and Kalifa are doing their own things while these two are working together.

This panel has always been interesting to me because immediately prior to this Lucci says he can’t let Paulie live, and then he decides to just restrain him instead. In Luffy’s case it makes sense because they gave their word to Robin not to harm the Strawhats, but he has absolutely no reason to spare Paulie, and the little lines of shock/surprise beside Kaku imply that he hadn’t expected Lucci to do that, either. The ‘why’ is still unclear, but it’s interesting nonetheless, and it’s also…noteworthy that it’s the only thing Lucci asks Kaku to do. All of the actual damage Paulie takes comes from Lucci and he never asks for or expects Kaku to harm him.

I never connected these two panels before but it’s obviously very deliberate to have Lucci telling Iceburg that feeling emotions is a sign of humanity followed immediately by Kaku…demonstrating exactly that and thanking Iceburg. It’s important to establish that part of Kaku’s character, but keep in mind Lucci’s lack of a reaction here because it’ll come back later.

Again, very tiny moment, but there’s a lot of examples of Lucci deferring to Kaku or letting him take the lead without any hesitation, and I like this because Kaku’s noticed something that Lucci hasn’t and Lucci just goes with it immediately.

I’d forgotten about this but Kaku’s also the one that decides to take Usopp with them, first by recognizing him as one of the Strawhats and then going through with it even after finding out he doesn’t consider himself a part of them anymore. And Lucci just…stands back and lets him give out orders to the others while doing so.

Okay so this is what I was referencing earlier. Kaku shows actual emotions with Iceburg and Lucci’s silent, but the moment Kalifa gets even slightly happy about completing the mission he’s berating her instantly. Kaku’s expression here is interesting too because he looks absolutely haunted and it’s very telling.

And also another visual representation of Lucci and Kaku being equal to/on the same level as each other.

I didn’t include the panel but Kaku was ‘sleeping’ when Corgi was giving them all of the information about Nero while Lucci was (seemingly) wide awake, and yet Lucci has no idea who he is and relies on Kaku to have all the information. Which he does.

Kaku being the one to take charge again and direct the others even though Lucci’s standing right there. They do this more than I’d realized at first, especially since Lucci always seems to be looked at as the unofficial ‘leader’ of CP9.

Enies Lobby

We’ve made it to Enies Lobby, which is the first glimpse we get of these two interacting with the full CP9 group outside of any sort of ‘mission’ environment.

Mostly it entails Lucci being more combative (especially with Jabra) and Kaku being more annoyed, but again I can’t really imagine anyone else taking this tone with Lucci and getting away with it while Kaku does it fairly often and Lucci never retorts or gets angry with him.

And while Kaku’s not immune to taking Jabra’s bait in the right circumstances, his typical tendency is to de-escalate situations if he can and here he’s refusing to engage despite being deliberately called out…and Lucci, without being asked, immediately takes his side and defends his choice.

This is practically the next panel and while both Lucci and Jabra are kind of equally at fault for this little display, Kaku only berates Jabra for it while Kalifa’s directing her comments at both of them.

Now that I’m actually looking for these sorts of things it’s becoming more obvious, but again we have Lucci and Kaku in an equal position to each other at the front of CP9.

This isn’t just to Kaku since Kalifa’s there as well, but Lucci’s still encouraging them to eat the fruits and I have to believe it’s coming from a place of good faith because he’d know whether or not being able to swim is that big an issue in their profession. I also want to note that Kaku echoes Lucci’s ‘it’ll be fun’ line when he actually does eat his fruit, so obviously that resonated with him.

I’ve put these two together because they both highlight the same thing, that being in both of these sequences we get almost all of CP9 giving out their individual thoughts/comments on what’s happening but Kaku’s statement both times is a direct reply to what Lucci says, so again the two of them are paired off in a way that doesn’t include anyone else there.

The only other thing of note in this section is that while Robin’s talking about what happened during the Buster Call on Ohara, Kaku and Lucci are the only CP9 members to kind of…break formation and actually look at her while she’s speaking, which is interesting.

And for the rest of Enies Lobby they aren’t together so there’s not too much more to say here other than Kaku of course being the one to have the actual key to Robin’s cuffs, but it’s never made explicit who came up with that plan or handed out the keys so…if I ever actually do the thing and write a full analysis of Kaku’s character we can talk about it then Lark you’ve been saying you’ll do this for years IF I EVER--

Interlude - CP9’s Independent Report

Besides the fact that this is still one of my favorite cover stories, there’s a couple of noteworthy things here, the first of which is that Kaku again is taking the lead. Even though he’s the only other CP9 member other than Lucci to be injured badly enough that he can’t walk on his own, he’s still the one directing them where to go.

Other than that, I love seeing all of them just…interacting like friends and being very relaxed and casual, and pretty much every panel where Kaku and Lucci are together they’re directly beside each other so I’ve included a bunch of those here.

Dressrosa & Egghead

The next time we see Lucci and Kaku is at the end of Dressrosa, where they’ve been promoted to CP0 Oda can we please get some explanation of how this happened and let me tell you, I remember this vividly because the spoilers at the time just said that Lucci was talking to ‘someone’ and when the raws came out you can bet I went right to the dialogue to see if it was Kaku because his way of speaking is so telling.

But even in this little scene, we can see they’re having an equal conversation and there’s a major difference between how Lucci’s speaking with Kaku and how he addresses Spandam mere seconds later.

After this we have the Reverie/Levely/what-even-is-this-thing-called arc where they get all of a single panel together and while it’s the first time we actually ‘see’ Kaku after the time-skip, nothing really interesting regarding their relationship happens, so let’s move on to…

The end of the colored manga! And Egghead.

We start with a very familiar situation: Lucci asking Kaku what’s going on, and while Kaku this entire arc seems more outwardly annoyed with Lucci than he ever was in the past (which is never really explained but then again, Lucci spends a lot of the arc doing things he’s specifically been told not to do, so maybe it’s understandable…), he still has all the information and relays it.

Though Kaku’s also much more comfortable letting his real personality show despite them being on a mission while before he was always completely serious after the Water 7 reveal, especially around Lucci. It came through with Zoro and Jabra but during the cover story he’s smiling and laughing a lot with Lucci right there so it makes sense he’d be more willing to let his guard down even ‘on the job’ by now.

So here’s the first real instance of Lucci showing concern for Kaku, something which escalates pretty quickly throughout the arc. It’s subtle, and though he’s framing it as a suggestion to Stussy, if he didn’t care at all he wouldn’t have said anything.

At this point it’s fairly obvious that Lucci and Kaku don’t really have any authority difference between them and Kaku spends a lot of time in this chapter especially telling Lucci to Not Do The Thing. Anyone that’s ever lived with a cat knows how well this works.

I’ve always found this bit of dialogue particularly interesting because Kaku’s very openly…praising Sentomaru for choosing his loyalty to Vegapunk over assisting the government, and there’s no way Lucci doesn’t hear him say this but he doesn’t say anything in return. There’s no real evidence that Lucci knows about Kaku willingly giving up the key to Zoro or how conflicted he was about Paulie and everyone else, but this seems to imply that at the very least, even if he doesn’t share those sentiments, he wouldn’t think less of Kaku because of it.

Putting these two together since they’re in the same scene but at this point it’s not even subtle concern anymore, Lucci’s genuinely worried for Kaku and you can tell this caught him off-guard.

Kaku’s the first one to suggest working together but Lucci immediately backs him up and goes with the idea. It’s logical in the sense that it’ll give them the biggest chance to survive, but willingly working with pirates isn’t exactly the sort of thing that Lucci, especially in the past, would have so easily done regardless of the situation.

So at this point it’s becoming clear that this whole 4-v-2 section is supposed to be the most…light-hearted thing going on right now and a lot of it is played to be comedic, including Lucci’s inability to lie, but yet again there’s almost nobody else that could get away with scolding him the way Kaku’s doing here.

…And then we skip ahead a day and things happen that I really hope get explained at some point because they seem important, but while Lucci’s never going to have impeccable bedside manner, he’s very concerned with getting Kaku to rest and while Kaku’s trying to justify what happened Lucci really doesn’t seem to care about that. It’s a big departure from him being willing to write off anyone he deems ‘too weak’ and it’s a nice character moment.

I’d mentioned on my liveblog that some of the things Lucci was doing after this point were confusing, but if you look at them through the lens of him wanting to protect Kaku, it makes a lot more sense. Yes, he’s deliberately keeping him out of the loop, but Lucci I think has decided that he’s going to throw caution to the wind and act alone since if Kaku can’t prove he knew about the plan, he’s probably safer being left with the Strawhats, and if the Marines show up he should be safe anyway or so Lucci thinks…

When this chapter came out, I’d said something about Lucci being a hypocrite considering what the rest of CP9 did for him when they could have easily just left him at Enies Lobby, but given what happens almost directly after and likely what he’s trying to do with this entire fight, these words feel even less genuine…

And that brings us to this. The moment that I’ve been thinking about for almost an entire week now. The moment that, looking back at…oh, wow…almost 3000 words of analysis maybe shouldn’t be as surprising as it was for most of us, but it does feel like the payoff for a long, long buildup that’s taken nearly twenty years to reach. Because really, there’s no other way to describe them other than ‘partners’, and probably hasn’t been for a long time…and I’m so glad that Lucci acknowledged it.

To summarize, I think what surprised me most about re-visiting all of this is how much the manga has framed them as equals since the beginning even though it was never explicitly stated between the characters themselves. Lucci’s always been far more lenient with Kaku than with anyone else, and Kaku in turn has never had any fear of Lucci even if he wasn’t really expressing his true self with him for a long time.

The cover story being the turning point makes perfect sense, and the progression throughout Egghead of Lucci being more outwardly willing to show his concern and Kaku not hiding his emotions at all seems like a natural progression of their relationship and their level of comfort around each other.

And the fact that Oda is never really…hitting us over the head with any of it until that final moment when Lucci says everything so plainly because Kaku’s life is the most important thing to him even when faced with a literal monster… It’s so effective.

I don’t know where we go from here. To be honest, I’m kind of scared of where we go from here. But regardless of the outcome, I hope this little essay has been at the very least interesting and perhaps allowed you to look at these two in a different light.

Thanks for reading.

#one piece #opspoilers #rob lucci #kaku #meta #analysis #i forgot about the 30 photo limit so I had to get creative here but #3k words of me examining their relationship sure happened

132 notes · View notes

blues824 · 1 year

Note

Reader with the first year having friendship love? like they could flirt or call each other a 'slut' or whatever and just laugh about, not having any romantic feelings!

Let’s play a little “Bro’s the Type”, shall we?

Ace Trappola

Bro’s the type to respond positively to being called ‘slut’

Bro’s the type to call you ‘hoe’ in response

Bro’s the type you call at 1 am just to annoy

Bro’s the type to call you in the morning to say “What up baby?” in the raspy morning voice just to make you laugh

Bro’s the type to quote different Magicam memes with you

Bro’s the type to have a ‘girly middle school’ sleepover with you just because

Bro’s the type to pull pranks on you at every single chance he gets

Bro’s the type to egg your ex’s house/dorm if the douche canoe cheats on you

Bro’s the type to send you memes even if you are both in class

Bro’s the type to give you a look of panic when you have a test, but that panic doubles when you’re giving him the same exact look

Deuce Spade

Bro’s the type to not react positively to being called ‘slut’

Bro’s the type to not come up with a nickname for you and just call you by your name

Bro’s the type to be there for you

Bro’s the type you would call in the case that there’s a creep

Bro’s the type who you could put down as a reference to anything

Bro’s the type to try and help you on homework, but not know what the fuck he’s talking about

Bro’s the type to not let you do all the work but rather divide it evenly

Bro’s the type to consult you whenever he’s uncertain about something (PTSD from the egg situation)

Bro’s the type to leave you on delivered for hours and even days on-end

Bro’s the type to say ‘oops. didn’t see this until now’ as an apology smh

Jack Howl

Bro’s the type to not react at all to being called ‘slut’

Bro’s the type to roll his eyes at any corny pun you throw at him

Bro’s the type to partner up with you if you want to start working out and exercising and hold you accountable

Bro’s the type to be a gym bro

Bro’s the type to push you far so you can discover your true potential

Bro’s the type to actually accidentally leave you on delivered, and has a valid excuse

Bro’s the type you call when you can’t sleep and he’ll tell you a story about his siblings

Bro’s the type to text you before he puts his phone on silent

Bro’s the type to roll his eyes when he sees that he still has 69 missed calls and 420 unread texts from you

Bro’s the type to prefer texts rather than calls

Epel Felmier

Bro’s the type to shout at you when you do something stupid

Bro’s the type to scratch the back of his neck when he does something stupid

Bro’s the type to throw hands when you call him ‘shawty’

Bro’s the type to throw hands that you can’t catch when you show up to his dorm and say ‘SURPRISE SHAWTY’

Bro’s the type to do the late-night workouts to try and get stronger and taller

Bro’s the type to try and prank you

Bro’s the type to fail in pranking you, and scream when you rat him out to Vil just for trying to prank you

Bro’s the type to let out his Southern drawl around you because he’s comfortable

Bro’s the type to ask you to help him reach a balance between masculine and feminine because Pomefiore has made its impression on him

Bro’s the type to ask you ‘if I was a worm, would you still be my friend?’

Ortho Shroud

Bro’s the type to act like a kinder younger brother

Bro’s the type to watch Big Hero 6 with you and take inspiration from Baymax

Bro’s the type to go around waiting for you to get hurt just to ask you to rate your pain on a 1-10 scale

Bro’s the type to be confused when you say ‘I like the pain’

Bro’s the type to research memes so he can understand what you’re saying

Bro’s the type to help you with your homework, but not give you the answers

Bro’s the type to try and recruit you in a huge plot to try and get his older brother to walk outside for an hour at least

Bro’s the type to not be surprised when you end up chucking Idia outside and yelling ‘THIS BITCH EMPTY. YEET’

Bro’s the type to ask Idia ‘how would you rate your pain’

Bro’s the type to greet you with a ‘smile’

Sebek Zigvolt

Bro’s the type to yell at you for calling him ‘slut’

Bro’s the type to yell at you in general

Bro’s the type to not know how to be a good friend

Bro’s the type you have to teach about friendship because he has dedicated his entire life to worshiping Malleus and therefore never had the time for normal friendships

Bro’s the type to ditch you for Malleus

Bro’s the type to leave you on read, and for days at a time

Bro’s the type to have the Twisted Wonderland equivalent of an Android (no hate, it’s just that blue>green in my not-so-humble opinion)

Bro’s the type to not see the problem with the green text messages

Bro’s the type to yell at you for being unprofessional when you were ‘flirting’ (platonically) with him

And finally, bro’s the type to really cherish your friendship, even if it doesn’t seem like it.

424 notes · View notes

itzaltwins · 3 months

Text

Y'know those agent profiles that are seen in TGC when Charlie hacks into the Kingsman database? I made these near the time I got into the franchise (late 2021), but I never shared them anywhere, mostly because I doubted the film makers really cared about their accuracy (and most viewers don't care either). I've never been hooked on any film franchise unlike video games, so I was shocked no one overanalyzed the images and shared it for the fandom to see. Well, here they are (with accompanying alt-text):

James is in there too - he deserves it.

Some of the text I couldn't make out from the film, so if you can fill in the blanks, please share. Fortunately, thanks to these tweets, I could read some parts better.

Explanations and thoughts under the cut:

I decided to mix Eggsy's profile from the one we see in TSS when he visits Harry at the infirmary and TGC. Why? He's apparently 5'9" IRL (so I went with TSS's 5'10" over the 6'00") and he couldn't be born in 1985 because he would be 29 in TSS, which is wrong. Same thing with Roxy's DOB. Changed their admission dates to 2014 instead of 2012.

Speaking of incorrect heights, I'm pretty sure they just threw in some random numbers: Colin Firth is 6'1½". In TSS, after the train test, you can see him and Alastair (Percival, 6'4") on the same plane. Alastair appears just slightly taller, so I assume 6'2". In this particular photo of Colin alongside Alastair and Carlos (Bedivere, 6'3"), they're all roughly the same height. However, they're not standing side-by-side so it's a bit difficult to determine the exact difference. They're like a variation of that three-headed dragon meme. Then there's this other photo with Chester (Lamorak, 6'5"), Carlos, Bimbo (Gawain, 6'3"), and Percival. Chester is clearly taller than all three. If Carlos and Alastair are 6'2", he's probably 6'4". Bimbo looks just slightly shorter, so he's 6'1". Oh and Jack Davenport (Lancelot/James) is also 6'2", not 6'1". Not a big deal overall, but I really like accuracy when it comes to heights.

Some things that may be of interest: Lamorak and Bedivere share admission dates. Next of kin for filler agents are actually those of the film crew in TGC (yes, I looked at the credits too much). Arthur (good) and Lancelot (James) share the same next of kin.

As for the notes sections: With The King's Man, it's impossible for Arthur to have served in all British special forces before Kingsman formed - he was born 1940. Bedivere is referred to as Percival. Percival is referred to as Kay (!), who doesn't have a profile. Finally, the section after Geraint's hair colour is covered by other profiles the entire time.

So yeah, do whatever you want with this info.

Who do you have as the last unnamed agent? I was hoping they'd officially confirm all the codenames in TKM, but then they only listed names we already knew plus Bedivere. They'll do it in TBB, right? Right?

#kingsman #kingsman agents #arthur #lamorak #bedivere #lancelot #geraint #kay #gawain #percival #feels weird to post an analysis that isn't video game related lol

25 notes · View notes

makuzume · 4 months

Text

Genshin Men Texting Their s/o Headcannons (Part 2)

Characters: Alhaitam, Zhongli, Cyno, Thoma, Lyney

Content: Gn! Reader; Genshin AU; established relationship

[Masterlist] [Part 1]

💚Alhaitam💚

Surprisingly, he's not as cold and distant as how he's often made out to be. In texts, his feelings and exact thoughts (positive or negative) are always expressed clearly and straightforward. 'I surprisingly found it really fun, we can go back again next time' or 'it could've been better, but I honestly didn't mind. We can try somewhere else you like next time' Still, he's not much of a texter in general, so he doesn't message much, though he always replies with his full attention when you send him a text.

His replies always come to you within just a few minutes: not too quick to respond but not long too either, just the right amount of time.

Alhaitam isn't one to talk much about his day in texts, he's just not much of a fan of texting in general and he mostly focuses on work during his office hours.

He most definitely prefers to talk in person once he comes home to you, so he can see/hear you express your thoughts better and more efficiently. Though if he can't see you that night, he would still let you know about his day through texts after work or, preferably, a call.

If you send him some video links you'd have to wait by the end of the day/during his break before he goes back to it. Alhaitam would prefer to view the things you send him when he's in his 'relaxed mode'. He also takes mental notes on the things you send as a reference to understanding more about the things you like or things you'd find interesting.

Though, he might get a bit overwhelmed if you send your entire feed of 100 links a day, so make sure to not send too many at a time.

Alhaitam can easily pick up on your texting patterns and know when you're feeling down. He'll ask about what's wrong right away 'is there something wrong? It seems like your mood's a little down. You can tell me, what's been bothering you?' though if you just say 'it's nothing' after he kept asking, he'll just say 'okay, I'll see you later when I get home then.' But then he'll find the time to leave work early to take you to your favorite food place, saying that it's because he didn't want you to have an upset feeling before you sleep.

🧡Zhongli🧡

He texts in the exact same way on how you would expect him to speak in person: refined but friendly. Though, when it comes to you, of course there would be a touch of sweetness to his tone when he messages you. (only you) Actually a bit of a boomer in texting.

Though there's nothing special that he specifically does to his messages, there just seems to always be this delightful tone when you read his texts. You don't know how to describe it, it's just his overall vibe.

He absolutely enjoys reading your messages as you endlessly babble about practically anything. Zhongli would definitely find anything you do to be endearing.

Though if you're less on the chatty side, don't worry, Zhongli can definitely pack up endless stories for you. Ranging from mundane events to grand, historical ones- Zhongli would know which ones you would definitely find interesting. (And would know the right amount to share which wouldn't feel too intimidating or overwhelming for you)

Typically replies quickly since he's taking it easy in the retired life, now only working as a simple consultant. (He has all day)

If you send him links to videos, memes, and articles, he would be very much excited to engage a conversation with the things you sent him. It doesn't matter how much you send, Zhongli would find them very interesting and enthusiastically respond with his thoughts on every single one of it. 'A picnic by the lake sounds like a splendid idea indeed, my dearest. I'll prepare the necessary arrangements needed for a trip to the mountains. And you needn't worry about the snacks, my expertise don't just simply lie within understanding history and antiques.' Afterall, these are things that describe you and your interests.

💜Cyno💜

Only one way to describe this man: a millenial dad with broken humor. He will text with you a lot of his dad jokes, and sometimes, he takes it so far as to planning exactly when he'll send you that text.

His texts look dry and serious, but don't get him wrong, he absolutely loves it when you text him, you're his favorite person to talk and listen to. He is just naturally monotone-sounding. He's actually not even serious at all. (More unserious than any of these men)

Random texting about things he's up to, gossip, or random facts he learned about practically anything. (Similar to Itto but a different flavor)

Might use emojis every now and then but they don't match his statement. It's amusing to read though, as it sort of matches the spontaneous personality he has under that serious facade 'im hungry and craving tacos so much that i will resort to eating my own hand by 1pm🦧'

When it comes to explaining some lore from a series or mechanics about a game (basically anything he could geek about) expect the longest paragraphs you'll ever recieve from anyone, ever. I'm talking about an in-depth thesis essay about why his deck of Sucrose, Mona, and Jean are the best for his TCG tournament and how he will use them during battle- all sent into a single message. (It took him an hour to reply because of this)

Easily picks up if you're not in high spirits and instantly gives you all of his attention and concern. Will ask how you feel and comfort you, asking what he can do to help make you feel better.

When this happens, he will be texting you the entire time, listening to you and comforting you as you talk, but then all of a sudden you get a random reply from him 'you locked your door. I mean thats a good thing that you do but can you please open it. Its raining really hard right now im soaked.' You open the door to see him drenched with a straight face on, holding a plastic bag 'I got you some chips'

He sends you memes a lot. His instict is to immediately send you anything he finds remotely funny.

In random times of the day, you'll get an out of context message that confuses you, only to realize it was actually a joke.

'Where are you?'

'I'm at home, why?'

'Theres a poster of you here and i thought someone reported you missing'

'Huh?? I'm not? I'm where you last saw me. What poster??

*sends you his low quality drawing*

'I'm blocking you.'

'You get it? Its hillarious right? You see i purposefully held back from explaining my first statement right away so that it would leave you in a state of confusion. Then after that i further timed to-'

❤️Thoma❤️

Absolutely expressive in texts. Definitely screaming golden retriever vibes. Even calls you all sorts of cute pet names. The sweetest cutie-patotie.

He often uses emojis, exclamation marks, stickers, and even loves customizing your nicknames and chat backgrounds.

Loves to type verbal expressions like 'awww' 'hehe' 'huhu'. Definitely expressive in how he feels.

Always a man of reassurance and feeding you with constant words of affirmation about his affection and appreciation towards you. And it's not just hollow words, he expresses them through his actions too.

Thoma bookmarks everything you send to him and will think it would be a good idea to do for the future. (For your birthday, christmas, monthsary, or any special ocassion) and he actually keeps everything you mentioned you like or mention in his notes app (he doesn't let you take a peep at it, but you just know it's more organized than anything in your drawer)

The type to always be ready to send you a long, sweet message at 12:00 AM when it's a special date for you/the both of you.

Always asks how you're doing and checking in on your well-being. The sweetest boy to have ever existed.

Eventually develops the same texting pattern and humor as you overtime. Especially based on the memes and other things you send him.

Will ask you where you are every now and then before lunch time saying: 'Hey love, where are you right now? I brought you some lunch, i hope I'm not late, am I?? You haven't gone out to eat yet? Huhu. I cooked you a bento meal filled with your favoritess~😊❤️'

❤️Lyney❤️

Always cheerful and enthusiastic. He definitely always has a bit of a flirty tone when he texts you, hoping to make you smile and giddy because of him.

Even though he often uses his charismatic facade to charm everybody (since it's common for a magician), you know his flirtatious tone towards you is Lyney actually being flirty with you. Genuinely. He loves being all romantic with you.

Often talks about his siblings either like a proud or concerned father. (They are practically the same age)

Likes to send you some tricks that can be done through the phone/over a call since he can't perform new magic tricks for you in person, that time.

Lyney loves showing off his charm to woo you, it makes him feel happy to know if his efforts to make you giddy are successful, so please acknowledge it, and don't tell him it's not working or it's cringe through texts (it's harder for him to read your tone and expression), it'll make him really embarassed and lose his confidence, might make the poor thing a tiny bit insecure.

Once you mention you're feeling down or if you encounter a problem, he'd immeditely turn into concern and drop everything he's doing, only being able to think about you and how to help you. Though he tries not to show it, his concern for you grows big enough as if it became even his problem. (Sometimes it ended up that Lyney became the one who was more worried). He just grew up having to strongly care about his family, and to him, you are like family too (a partner sort of family)

'Where are you right now?? Do you still feel a bit upset??'

'Don't worry, I'll come to you right away. Please just give me a few minutes, I promise I'll be quick.'

'Do you want some ice cream or some snacks? I'll buy some on the way'

'Nevermind, I just bought both of it and a few other things you might want. I hope you're alright over there.'

'Hey, I'm sorry I'm taking so long, the road was blocked so I took the other way, I'm hurrying right now.'

'I know it's only been 10 minutes but I can't help but worry for you okay? I'm really close by now. I'll see you in a bit.'

[Note: Slowly, my works are finally escaping the drafts >:D]

Check out my other works [Masterlist]

#genshin #genshin impact #genshin impact headcanons #genshin impact imagines #genshin imagines #genshin headcannons #genshin impact au #genshin au #alhaitham #zhongli #cyno #thoma #lyney #imagines #text

43 notes · View notes

perhaps-in-anotherdream · 1 year

Text

The calls contain important references from Victor’s Glacier Date. So, please make sure you read the date first! ♡

⌚ This post contains detailed spoilers for content yet to be released on the global server! ⌚

•─────⋅◍♡◍⋅─────•

–

[1st Call]

Victor: I was in a video conference just now and couldn’t pick up your call.

Victor: Anyway, I’d really like to know what on earth is it that happened to a certain someone?

Victor: Why did I receive a bunch of crying and rolling around memes the second I turned on my phone?

MC: That… it’s actually not that big a deal.

MC: It’s just that I really don’t want to come to work anymore, sob sob sob sob––!

Victor: …

Victor: I seem to have heard the exact words more than once.

Victor: Why is it that every time a vacation ends, a certain someone always adheres to making this complaint without exception?

MC: Because every time I come back to work on the first day, it feels like being in hell!

MC: And especially since we were away for so long this time, it’s really like I’ve returned to the hell inside the hell!

MC: We received feedback on the previous works, and now we have to do follow-ups on them. At the same time, we also have to prepare for new projects.

MC: We still haven’t landed on a schedule regarding when I’ve to go to LFG to submit the quarterly report, so I still have to check with Goldman…

MC: By the way, the report I missed before the vacation, I’ll email it to you later at…

Victor: I remember it’s supposed to be the lunch break at [MC’s Company Name] right now.

MC: Eh?

Victor: I mean, how come a certain someone who says she doesn’t want to work is calling me and still talking about work?

MC: …!!

MC: In fact, there are, of course, also other things outside of work that I want to talk to you about~

MC: For instance… uhh… for instance, I think the sky doesn’t look good today, and there’s a good chance that it might rain!

Victor: It will indeed rain, but it’s gonna stop around 7 pm.

Victor: Have you forgotten? You put the umbrella in my bag in the morning.

MC: Sob sob, it turns out that I already reminded you… I’m dizzy from all the work rush.

MC: …by the way, Pudding hasn’t been eating very actively lately. So, I opened a can for it in the morning, and its appetite seemed to have improved a little~

Victor: That’s just its habitual trick, and it does the same thing every time it gets a craving for canned food.

Victor: And you are the only one it still manages to fool every time.

MC: …that’s because it calls out so pitifully every time! Oh, there’s also…

Victor: All right, no need to rack your brain to divert the subject.

Victor: Just now, I simply wanted to remind you to not get bogged down in work all day long. Occasionally, you should also hop around a little bit and let your mind rest for a while.

Victor: Let’s end the chat here for now. My next meeting is about to start.

Victor: Do you still have to work overtime tonight?

MC: Mm, I need to work over…

Victor: Remember to text me when you’re almost finished. Don’t worry, I’ll bring late-night snacks as comfort.

–

[2nd Call]

Starts at – 2:07

–

Victor: Are you working overtime tonight?

MC: No. It just happens that I can get off work on schedule. Just need five more minutes, and I’ll be able to sneak out of here~

Victor: That’s good. Come with me when you’re done, and we’ll go together to pick up the car.

Victor: The 4S store contacted me in the afternoon and said that the maintenance has been done and it’s good to be received today.

MC: Okay!

MC: It drove us through the desert and onto the glaciers. It was indeed time for it to take proper rest.

MC: By the way, has the scratch on the front of the car been repaired too?

Victor: It’s fixed. That was especially taken care of to make it exactly the same as before.

Victor: Or perhaps we could leave it as it was. You know, as a commemoration of a certain dummy’s driving skills.

MC: Victor! There’s no need for this kind of commemoration!

MC: Besides, I got it scruffed just that one time… all my parallel parking was perfect after that!

Victor: It was indeed perfect. It’s just that the duration became directly proportional to the result.

Victor: I had finished reading several emails, and a certain someone was still staring into the rearview mirror, meticulously adjusting the steering wheel.

MC: I was just being cautious, that’s all! Haven’t you heard of the saying, “it is better to be late in this world than to be early in the next”~

Victor: I’ve indeed heard of it. But if I remember correctly, this is a slogan to exhort drivers against running red lights.

Victor: A certain someone trying to use that as a justification for dilly-dallying while parking doesn’t seem very convincing.

MC: CEO Victor, you don’t need to poke holes into such small, insignificant details.

MC: How come you happen to notice all my occasional mistakes... my driving skills clearly aren’t that bad.

MC: You probably don’t know. You were so comfortable that you were actually snoring when we were on the highway~

Victor: ...okay, let’s assume that you’re telling the truth.

MC: What assume... what I said is exactly what happened! I’ll most definitely be the driver next time and wipe clean the “bad” impression you have of me.

MC: But calculating the time, it’ll be quite a while before we go on our next trip...

Victor: It doesn’t need to be quite a while. You can experience that one more time today.

MC: What?

Victor: It doesn’t only have to be the self-drive tours. You can also practice your skill on the route to when we go to work and return home.

Victor: I didn’t drive up here today, all so to give a certain someone the opportunity to “prove herself.”

Victor: All right, five minutes have passed. Come to LFG now. I’ll be waiting for you downstairs.

—

#merry christmas everyone~ 🎄⛄❤️#hhhhhgnnn i can’t with their all married couple talks akskfjsjk #their phone calls are always like this lol all married couple talks 😂😭🫠💘#mlqc victor #mlqc li zeyan #mlqc #mr love victor #mr love queen's choice #恋与制作人 #李泽言 #love and producer #mlqc cn #mlqc spoilers #mlqc translations

77 notes · View notes

steveharrington · 1 year

Note

can u elaborate abt s4 not feeling like st? i don't disagree but i'm curious what ur thoughts are. i also felt s3 really didn't feel like st, like it's such a tonal shift from the first two seasons (and it has a LOT of issues) but i kind of love it anyway so.

before i try to put it into words i have to issue a disclaimer so here we go: i’m not trying to suggest that stranger things was ever like an indie show or underground or had a small fanbase at all, i know that it’s been insanely popular ever since s1 like i fully acknowledge that. however. s4, to me, feels like it was written to maximize online buzz instead of prioritizing the story, more so than any other season, and it worked which makes the fanbase feel different.

the first three seasons were obviously insanely popular and they did have these big moments that became referenced to death. i mean s1 alone spurred the whole barb obsession, the pink dress blonde wig el halloween costumes, the recreations of joyce’s light wall, the eggo jokes, plus people just went crazy like inviting david harbour to their weddings and shit. but that was all…natural. prettymuchit’s eric striffler talked about this in their stranger things commentary track so i’m ripping from him but he essentially said, in reference to s1, it’s insanely impressive how effortlessly the show managed to create iconic imagery that feels like it’s from an 80s movie in 2016. the duffers know that, so every season they ramp it up more and more to try to capitalize off that success. and sometimes i don’t mind it! i know people took issue with steve & dustin in s3, complained that their dynamic was being strung along just for memes or whatever, but to me their bond still felt genuine and authentic in that season so i personally was cool with it.

s4 just feels…rushed. which is insane because they had 3 years to work on it. purely speculating here, i think perhaps the duffers and netflix knew that it’d been forever and people were starting to forget stranger things, so all those rewrites and added content were kinda written with the idea of maximizing viewership in mind. that’s how we get ideas like: creating a fan favorite character whose imminent death is shoved down your throat so hard that the actual moment just rings hollow, shock killing and then un-killing max, bringing stancy back out of nowhere, starting and then dropping multiple storylines as the season progressed, giving el and hopper the exact same storylines they had in season two, having brenner take up insane amounts of screen time, etc etc etc. just…bad choices! and bad choices that you can tell were manufactured to either go viral (eddie and max) or start debate (stancy) while basically forfeiting the quality of the show in the process.

okay here’s where i’m gonna get bitchy. again i know the shows always been popular, and i like eddie, but eddie….took away a lot of the fun of the fanbase. and this is coming from someone who writes eddie fic!! i love him!! but i hate when any one specific character just completely monopolizes all content and conversation about a show, and among casual fans eddie completely 100% did this. you cannot see a single tweet about ST without thousands of replies all being like “is eddie coming back??? is eddie alive?????” and it just annoys me! i don’t like it! it makes the fan reaction and aftermath of this season just…different than the others and a lot less fun.

i think for me the different vibe all comes down to the fact that i didn’t like season 4. i was really disappointed after i finished it and honestly very sad i remember texting em being like “i don’t want to admit i’m disappointed because then that makes it real” but it’s been 5 months now and i can fully say: i was disappointed. it wasn’t what i was expecting, it wasn’t what i wanted, it was just not the quality of the show i know and love! which again is all subjective! and there’s a lot of good moments from it, but s4 just doesn’t hold a candle to the other 3 and it’s somehow impossibly made me …. not excited for s5. which i didn’t think was something that could happen!!

#answered #anon #long post

77 notes · View notes

mariacallous · 3 months

Text

ATTENDING THE INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CONFERENCE in Munich over the weekend, J.D. Vance continued his criticism of Ukraine’s defensive war against Russia (“there’s no clear end point,” Vance said). Fully embracing his role as a MAGAer-than-thou Republican, the junior senator from Ohio has repeatedly made headlines in recent months for his militant opposition to military aid for Ukraine—and, in particular, for a blatantly misleading memo he sent to every Senate Republican last week asserting that the Ukraine aid bill contained a provision that could lead to a new Trump impeachment in 2025 for trying to negotiate peace. Vance also earned plaudits from Sputnik, the Russian propaganda network, for telling Tucker Carlson that Ukraine needed to be defunded for its own good, since Democrats “want to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian drop of blood.”

Given his stance and his prominence on U.S. policy toward Ukraine, it’s worth taking a moment to look back on a Vance tweet from February 9 riffing on Carlson’s much-hyped interview with Vladimir Putin:

If you read this tweet and come away bewildered because you’ve never heard of “Duglas Makki” and because Vance appears to be criticizing the Putin regime and Carlson, you’re not the crazy one. The tweet is a troll job. And if you dig into what it means, you’ll better understand why this MAGA senator is parroting vile Kremlin talking points about Ukraine.

THERE IS NO “DUGLAS MAKKI.” The reference is to Douglass Mackey, whose alter ego “Ricky Vaughn” was a notorious alt-right social media figure during the 2016 presidential campaign. In January 2021, shortly after Joe Biden’s inauguration, Mackey was prosecuted for election interference. The charges stemmed from posts on Twitter—where he had 58,000 followers and was rated a major election “influencer” by MIT Media Labs—urging Hillary Clinton supporters to vote by text message. (There is, of course, no such option.) What’s more, the tweets were specifically geared to black and Latino voters. In March of last year, Mackey was convicted by a federal jury in Brooklyn.

Why does Vance know or care about Mackey? Because he’s a cause célèbre on the right.The narrative pushed by Carlson, erstwhile presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, and many others is that Mackey’s prosecution was not only a dangerous assault on free speech but an outrageous demonstration of double standards. He was punished, his defenders say, for mocking Clinton supporters by inviting them to vote by text message and implying that they’re stupid enough to fall for such a scheme—while a left-wing Chinese-American comedian, Christina Wong, got away with the exact same joke mocking Trump supporters.

But in fact, it wasn’t even close to “the exact same joke.” Wong’s tweet, with a clearly humorous video clip in which she claimed to be “coming out” as a Trump supporter, did tell Trump voters to “skip poll lines” and “TEXT in your vote,” but gave no number to which votes could supposedly be texted. By contrast, Mackey clearly went to some trouble to make the memes he posted look like real campaign ads—complete with the Hillary for America campaign logo and “Paid for by Hillary for President 2016” fine print—and urged people to text “Hillary” to a specific number. Carlson asserted last March that “of course, in real life, no one did believe” that they could text their vote. But in fact, according to the Justice Department, nearly 5,000 people did text “Hillary” or some variation to the number in the fake ad, though we don’t know how many were actually tricked out of voting. Lastly, there was strong evidence that Mackey discussed strategies to suppress the black vote in private Twitter groups and mocked black people as dumb and “gullible.” (It’s also worth mentioning that Mackey’s “Ricky Vaughn” Twitter account was overtly white nationalist and filled with racist and antisemitic vitriol, and Mackey admitted at the trial that those were his genuine opinions at the time; in his later interview with Carlson, he described his content as merely “pro-Trump memes [and] jokes.”)

Obviously, Mackey’s repulsive speech is protected under the First Amendment. There are also some legitimate differences of opinion about his election interference case; UCLA law professor and First Amendment expert Eugene Volokh has expressed some reservations about it, partly because the federal statute under which Mackey was convicted (unlike some similar state laws) mentions violence, threats, and intimidation but not deception. For what it’s worth, Mackey’s First Amendment defense was considered by the federal court which heard the case, and was rejected in a carefully argued 56-page opinion.

One may have misgivings about Mackey’s conviction. But it’s abundantly clear that Vance’s summary of the story is extremely misleading. To say that Mackey was arrested for “making memes” is like saying that a person prosecuted for terroristic threats made by phone was arrested for making phone calls. And if Mackey is an “independent journalist,” then Alex Jones is Walter Cronkite.

THERE ARE A FEW THINGS that stand out about Vance’s “Duglas Makki” tweet.

For starters, it shows how deeply the senator is embedded in the far-right fringe. The Mackey case is so obscure outside MAGA and MAGA-adjacent circles that many of Vance’s own followers didn’t get the joke and took the story at face value.

But the context of Carlson’s trip to Russia and interview with Putin makes Vance’s reference to the Mackey case particularly repellent.

The tweet was presumably a sarcastic rejoinder to those who criticized Carlson for failing to bring up Russian political prisoners, including journalists, during his two-hour interview with Putin. See, Vance is saying, here’s a case of a journalist being persecuted for speech in an outrageous way that you’d think happens only under a dictatorship like the one in Russia—but actually, it’s right here in the USA, he’s being persecuted by the “Biden regime,” and none of the journalists dismissing Carlson as not being a “real journalist” are interested.

But to see how despicable the moral equivalency is, one need only look at some of the real cases of people persecuted and imprisoned in Russia for speech critical of the war against Ukraine or of the Putin regime.

Exactly a year ago, Maria Ponomarenko, a journalist and mother of two in Barnaul, Siberia, was convicted of spreading “fake news”—that is, posting the truth about the Russian bombing of the Mariupol Drama Theater in the spring of 2022, in which hundreds of people sheltering inside, including children, were killed. Ponomarenko’s sentence was six and a half years in a penal colony. Years, not months. Contrast to Mackey’s seven-month sentence for “memes” that evidence showed, and the jury believed, were intended to keep at least some black and Latino voters out of the voting booth.

And just four days after Vance’s tweet, Russian academic and magazine editor Boris Kagarlitsky was given a five-year sentence for a video in which he discussed Ukrainian strikes at the Kerch Strait Bridge connecting Russia to Crimea and suggested that the bridge was a legitimate military target. Convicted of “justifying terrorism,” Kagarlitsky had been initially sentenced to a 609,000-ruble fine (about $6,700) with no prison time, but the prosecution appealed the sentence as unduly lenient, which the Russian legal system allows. The court obliged. Such harsh sentences for social media posts and other expressions of dissent are no longer the exception but the rule in Putin’s Russia.

Another victim of these draconian repressions is an American journalist—a dual Russian-American citizen, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty editor Alsu Kurmasheva. She was arrested in October for failing to register as a “foreign agent,” a designation she and RFE/RL dispute. In December, the authorities filed additional charges of spreading “false news” about the Russian military. Kurmasheva, whose offense was the distribution of a book about Russians who oppose the war in Ukraine, may face as much as fifteen years in prison. While Carlson brought up the case of the other detained American journalist, Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, during his interview with Putin—and even, for once, pushed back on Putin’s evasive replies—he did not say a word about Kurmasheva. But that doesn’t seem to bother Vance, who clearly thinks this issue is a good occasion to troll “the libs.”

Back in the late Cold War, obnoxious leftists used to respond to critiques of the Soviet regime and its gulag with claims that the United States, too, had “political prisoners”—offering as examples the likes of Leonard Peltier, the Native American activist serving a life sentence for the 1975 murder of two FBI agents, and Mumia Abu-Jamal, the black activist and journalist sentenced to life without parole for the 1981 murder of a Philadelphia police officer. But now we have seen a stunning role reversal: It’s the MAGA right, including a sitting senator, that excuses and defends the Kremlin’s political repressions by trotting out faux “political prisoners” in America, be it Mackey or the January 6th rioters. The America-hating shoe is solidly on the other foot.

3 notes · View notes

xtruss · 1 year

Text

A.I. Pop Culture Is Already Here

We’re living in a world in which every style, every idea, and every possible remix can be generated as fast and frictionlessly as possible.

— By Kyle Chayka | April 7, 2023

Illustration by Nicholas Konrad/The New Yorker

Last month, a YouTube user named demonflyingfox uploaded a video titled “Harry Potter by Balenciaga.” It showed characters from the Harry Potter films—Hagrid, Ron, Hermione, Snape, McGonagall, Dobby—as gaunt models with aggressive cheekbones (slightly yassified), dressed in gothic capes and leather jackets. Set against a catwalk-worthy electronica beat, the actors blink, nod, and speak lines from the books which have been remixed with fashion references. “You are Balenciaga, Harry,” Hagrid says, instead of breaking the news that Harry is a wizard. The video is strange and hilariously sinister. In three weeks, it has received almost five million views; a sequel, released less than a week ago, has netted more than a million and a half. Pop-culture mashups of one famous thing with another are an archetype of Internet meme-making. What’s unusual about “Harry Potter by Balenciaga” is that it was generated with artificial-intelligence tools. As the video’s creator, the Berlin-based photographer Alexander Niklass, who made the demonflyingfox channel, told me, the video demonstrates a newfound ability of A.I. to “create filmlike moments.”

A.I. tools were involved in each step of Niklass’s process, and in each element of the video. He created the basic static images with Midjourney, evoking the Harry Potter actors and outfits through text prompts such as “male model, grotesque, balenciaga commercial.” Then he used ElevenLabs—a “voice-cloning” tool—to create models of the actors’ voices based on previously recorded audio. Finally, he fed the images into a service called D-ID, which is used to make “avatar videos”—subtly animated portraits, not so far off from those that appear in the newspapers of the Potter world. D-ID added the signature lip synchs and head nods, which Niklass explained were a reference to fashion models tilting their chins for the cameras. The combination of child-friendly film and adult luxury fashion held no particular symbolism nor expressed an artistic intent. It’s “entertainment,” Niklass said. Yet the video’s most compelling aspect might be its vacuity, a meaningless collision of cultural symbols. The nonsense is the point.

A.I. tools may have been able to replicate actors’ faces and generate fashionable outfits, but only Niklass could have come up with the concept, which required keen observation of both high fashion and the wizarding world—and also a very specific, extremely online sense of humor. With tools like Midjourney publicly available to anyone online, “everybody can create something visually appealing now,” he said. “But A.I. can’t generate taste yet,” he continued. By “taste,” he meant “a good aesthetic judgment”—background knowledge of what you’re generating and a sense for what looks good, without falling too far into the uncanny valley. To put it another way, execution may have been democratized by generative A.I., but ideas have not. The human is still the originator, editor, and curator of A.I.’s effects. Proof of Niklass’s taste can be found in the many copycats of his videos now on YouTube: Anyone can access the same technology and attempt a replica following the formula he set. (A video tutorial made by an A.I.-education channel called PromptJungle shows the exact process.) There are “Matrix by Gucci,” “Star Wars by Balenciaga,” and “The Office by Balenciaga” videos, but none of them are as appealingly odd as the original.

While no one would mistake “Harry Potter by Balenciaga” for real footage—except, perhaps, as a real fashion-advertising campaign—another A.I.-generated image recently made news headlines because so many thought it was real. It was, or appeared to be, a photo of Pope Francis walking on the street wearing a baroque version of a puffer jacket, silken white, with a high collar and a hood. A cross necklace swung from his neck and he carried a to-go coffee. “Swagged out” would be an appropriate description. The detail and texture of the image made it appear utterly realistic. When I first encountered it, while quickly scrolling by, I thought it was real and almost unremarkable—of course the Pope has fancy clothes. The model and actor Chrissy Teigen tweeted that she “didnt give it a second thought.” But it was created using Midjourney by a Chicago man who identified himself as Pablo Xavier when he was, as he told the Chicago Tribune, high on mushrooms. He used prompts with phrases such as “Catholic Pope Francis. Balenciaga puffy coat. Streets of Paris.” (Perhaps the fashion brand is primed for A.I., or it comes easily to mind as a signifier of avant-garde luxury.) “I just thought it was funny to see the Pope in a funny jacket,” Xavier told BuzzFeed News.

Created without much intention besides an imaginative whim, the images were so potent because they were made to look so photographic, a capability now in the hands of anyone online, not just highly skilled human photo retouchers. A.I. automates creative impulses, negating the labor involved in producing an image or a video. (A real version of the “Harry Potter by Balenciaga” videos would likely have cost millions of dollars in talent alone.) Mulling over this discrepancy between input and output, I had a dialogue with ChatGPT. It was more Socratic than an actual discussion, a bit like talking to the mirror. But it helped me elucidate my own reactions. I asked how A.I.-generated imagery was changing our perceptions. It responded that there has been a “blurring of the lines between real and artificial.” Then I asked, Isn’t it true that even an A.I.-generated, “artificial” image is also a “real” thing, because some human caused it to be made, as a kind of cultural wish fulfillment? The robot responded that the realism of A.I. images “is often designed to be illusory.” This idea of “illusory realism” struck me as apt. The A.I. content has the appearance of realism, without actual reality—reality solely as a style.

In a 2022 interview, David Holz, the founder of Midjourney, used the phrase “aesthetic accelerationism” to describe the profusion of generated imagery enabled by public A.I. tools. It evokes a world in which every style, every idea, and every possible remix is generated as fast and frictionlessly as possible, and the successful ones stick and get attention, like “Harry Potter by Balenciaga” and the swagged-out Pope. It may be less because they are artistically great than because they solved some formula of attention. Perhaps the successful creation is unimaginably bizarre, the seamless merging of two unrelated things. Or it’s driven by the fascination of the perfect replica, something that we know isn’t real but which is easy to see or briefly perceive as such, like a trompe-l’oeil painting.

For the past few days, I’ve been looping a new hip-hop track over and over. It’s called “Savages,” by the French outfit AllttA. The song is sweetly nostalgic, with synthesized strings and a snare backbeat; it features what sounds like Jay-Z trading verses with AllttA’s Mr. J. Medeiros in a throwback style. But, of course, it’s not Jay-Z; it’s an A.I. model of his voice, used, presumably, without the artist’s permission. It’s another example of illusory realism. The human-written song is good on its own, and would be perfectly fine without the fake Jay-Z, but the familiar voice adds something ineffably compelling to the track, making it sound like an unreleased B-side from the nineteen-nineties. It has more than two hundred thousand plays on YouTube. “The thought of enjoying this and it’s AI is beyond me,” one user wrote in the comments. I feel the same kind of existential confusion. It sticks in my brain like an unsolved puzzle. I don’t care that it’s not actually Jay-Z, in large part because the A.I. quality is good enough that I, a non-expert, can barely tell the difference. But it seems that a Rubicon has been crossed: It doesn’t matter that these artifacts are generated by A.I.; we can just enjoy them for what they are. It happened faster than I thought possible, but now that A.I.-generated pop culture has entered the mainstream, it seems unlikely that we’ll ever get rid of it. ♦

2 notes · View notes

joonary · 1 year

Note

Finished Maybe so… I have some thoughts so I’ll share them here, this is also my first real review so take it easy on me 😅

“This party is boring, do you wanna leave together? W-what?” Yoongi chokes on his water. Y’know, the one where you’re supposed to respond by saying ‘this is my birthday party…’. Yeah, that was it.”

Man do I feel old cause I have no clue what meme was being referenced either…

“you slip your hand into his

you reach out and grab his hand in yours. Well now he’s nervous too, just for a completely different reason.”

I often think that when someone you like holds your hand it’s both a win/lose situation because on one hand (no pun intended 😂) you get to feel the warmth of their smaller hand in yours but to act unfazed is brutal and I don’t wish that on anyone lmao

“He wonders if you’re as comfortable as he is right now.”

You don’t understand how often this thought crosses my mind whenever I’m on the phone or texting a girl I like, just the thought of her, comfortably in bed with all of her attention on me drives me insane.

Reading Maybe so takes me back to when I was younger, specifically when I was a teenager and how often I would get in my own head, trying to satisfy my family with how I was living life, who I surrounded myself with and how I would grow as a person. All of that is not to say that I’m now perfect, cause if anything I’m still flawed, hopefully less from when I was a teen but continuing to learn and grow is the goal yknow but man does Yoongi have to take it easy on himself and having reader by his side, hopefully allows him to see that he shouldn’t dictate his life decisions on what his family thinks of him— heck even “dating” reader is contradictory on its own but we make mistakes to learn.

Well, I’m off to bed now 😴

oh my god you actually read it DAWG WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU 💀

i mean that in the most positive way possible i’m sorry HAHAHAH seriously thank you for reading! i still can’t fully bring myself to reread the entire thing still so i just skimmed over my old notes and the scenes that you quoted here 🥴

Man do I feel old cause I have no clue what meme was being referenced either…

THIS IS SO FUCKING EMBARRASING i remember i wrote this scene because of how often i would reference a meme irl and people wouldn’t get it only for the exact same thing to happen here 💀 art imitates life i guess

this is the meme btw LMAO it circulated around a lot in 2019 kpoptwt i’m pretty sure?? i literally scoured the left side of the internet to find a reference for it but i couldn’t find the specific bts one that i saw but yeah this was the format

THIS IS SO HWJHEJHEWJHSHW I’M LITERALLY PACING AROUND THE ROOM RN. you have no idea how much this commentary means to me like. reading/writing from the guy’s pov has always appealed to me in a fic because it’s fun, a little bit easier to envision than an oc that’s supposed to be all-around relatable, and a good writing exercise.

when doing that i usually ask myself “is this how i would want to be thought of/treated by someone?”, which turns into “shit is this even realistic or am i just writing him how i personally would feel/act in that situation?” HAHA. but yeah you saying that got me embarrassed as hell i feel like drake

thank you for saying that! literally that’s the time and headspace i was in when i was writing this, so that was kinda the goal. and also i totally agree with that thing you said about continuing to learn and grow. i like to think that i’ve grown past that mindset as well, but it really just ebbs and flows and the only thing we can do is improve what we can for the time being and that’s enough :)

all jokes aside, thank you so much for reading. first real review or not, i feel really lucky to be on the receiving end of such good commentary, and from a guy’s pov at that LMAO. i’m 100% sure that other writers on here would adore the sentiment just as much, so i hope you have fun with it!

#commitment to the bit ill give you that I GUESS #also btw im not ignoring your dms LOL i havent been home all day and i just compiled everything into a playlist and im listening rn :)#im like halfway through and so far the book lovers and the boy have been my favorites #ask #s169r66a #fic: maybe so #also mb i got rambly a lil bit HAHAHA #i love writing fic reviews but receiving them makes me want to curl up into a ball and freeze to death

2 notes · View notes

animaniacsartmuseum · 1 year

Text

General Tags, i-z

Tags a-h

#kiss- Art that features a character kissing another, romantically or platonically, and on the lips or not. Further differentiated in the tags "#romantic kiss" and "#family kiss"

#laughing- Art where a character is shown laughing

#lgbtq- See the main post for an explanation on LGBTQ tags (near the bottom)

#mallet- Art with a mallet in it, specifically an oversized cartoon mallet

#meme- Art that is based on or references a popular meme, or just feels kind of memey

#murder- Art that features violence, the implication of violence, realistic dangerous weapons, threats of violence, etc. Mostly a joke tag, does not depict actual murder (usually)

#music- A video with music

#neurodivergent- Art that features neurodivergency, a character behaving in a non-neurotypical way

#parents- Art about parents or parental themes, usually the Warner parents

#protective siblings- Art where a sibling is shown being protective of or actively defending another sibling

#robe- Art showing a character in a bathrobe, usually the Warners based on their reboot season 1 looks

#romantic kiss- Art that shows a character kissing another in a romantic way (as opposed to a family or platonic kiss)

#sad- Art that's sad, something that might make you cry. Slightly different from angst

#screenshot redraw- Art that is directly based on a screenshot

#ship- Art featuring a non-canon romantic pairing between characters

#siblings- Art that's especially focused on sibling relationships or emotional moments between siblings

#singing- Art where a character sings. Could be regular art where a character is shown or implied to be singing, or could be a video with actual sound of a character singing

#sketch- Art that the author stated was a sketch, or that looks like a sketch (not colored, not extensively shaded, drawn with a pencil/pen, etc.)

#skirt wakko- Art that shows Wakko wearing a skirt. "#dress wakko" is a similar tag for art showing Wakko in a dress. "#skirt yakko" also exists.

#sleeping- Art where a character is shown sleeping

#small- Art depicting characters being smaller than they usually are

#stimming- Art featuring a character stimming (moving their appendages in a stimulating way)

#story- Art that tells a story. This can take many forms- the only requirement is that there is some sort of progression of plot. Art that references a meme or other media word-for-word (like a redraw of a scene from Lilo & Stitch with Animaniacs characters) may not be included.

#swimming- Art that features characters swimming or wearing swimwear

#tail wag- Art that features a wagging tail

#text- Art with text of any kind, not counting watermarks

#tutorial- Art that shows/teaches how to draw a character. This art on its own is not generally reblogged here, but may be included if it's in the same post as other art pieces.

#video- Animation in the form of a video (not a gif). In other words, animation where you have to press "play" and have a scrubbing bar.

#wakko's wish- Art from the world of Wakko's Wish

#warner mom- Art featuring the Warner siblings' theoretical mom. May not always be the exact same incarnation/interpretation of the character.

#yakko forehead- Art focusing on Yakko's gigantic forehead

#yax or #yakko x max- Art featuring a romantic relationship between Yakko and Max Goof from Disney

0 notes

rajeshkuofficial · 2 years

Link

#BAE #Acronym

1 note · View note

buckybarnesowl · 2 years

Text

Friends, for now - Part 3

Pairings: Bucky x fem!reader (Quentin Beck x fem!reader to start)

Chapter summary: Steve and Bucky find out the reason for your ghosting them. Peter gets the support he needs. And you and Bucky get the ending you deserve.

Word count: 4.8k

Chapter warnings: reference to violent hazing; reference to childhood abandonment; reference to parental death; light smut (the loving consensual kind)

A/n: Here’s the last of this three-part mini-series. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure where this story was going, but I think I’m happy with how it turned out. To everyone who reads and comments and reblogs: it means the world to know you’re enjoying these as much as I enjoy writing them.

Part I // Part II // Masterlist

Bucky was seated at his desk, attempting to catch up on some end of term reading when his phone buzzed.

Before you, he would let notifications go. It’s not that he was anti-social. Okay, maybe a little. But that's besides the point. The point was that he was already doing what he wanted to be doing at any given moment. So unless he was waiting on a message from someone, he’d get to whatever the person wanted whenever he was ready. On his terms.

Then you came crashing into his life.

Well, you had always been there, at least for as long as he knew Steve. Though much to his friend’s chagrin, you two just never seemed to click. You were opinionated and strong-willed while Bucky generally tried to avoid conflict. A path of least resistance type of guy. Steve gave up trying to force you and Bucky to be friends. You and Bucky loved Steve enough to tolerate each other, and that was good enough for him.

But ever since that night when Bucky stormed out of the bar, followed by Steve socking Quentin in the jaw, followed by you showing up at their dorm a bundle of feelings that you didn’t know what to do with. Well, ever since then Bucky started checking his phone the second it buzzed. He loved getting messages from you. You sent him silly selfies. Memes and gifs that made him laugh. You were an added light to a life that hadn’t always been bright. It’s like you knocked down walls and turned his world into an open concept space. Everything was softer. Brighter. Easier.

Noting where he was in his chapter, he tapped his phone to open the message. His face crumpled as he read your text to the group chat between him and you and Steve that you were cancelling dinner. He tried to call you immediately, but you didn’t answer. He sent you a few texts privately asking if everything was okay. If you needed anything. To just call.

No reply.

Bucky left his room to find Steve who was seated on the sofa in their shared living room.

“So Y/n cancelled,” Steve said, his voice laced with concern.

“It’s not just me, right? It seems weird for her to just bail like that?”

“Yeaaah,” Steve dragged out, “it’s a bit odd.” He sat with his thoughts for a moment while Bucky huffed, joining him on their shared couch.

“Do… do you think I pushed too soon? Should I have waited to ask her out? It’s too soon, wasn’t it? Shit…”

Bucky dragged his hands over his face, dropping them only when he felt his friend's palm on his shoulder.

“Buck, stop. I’ve known Y/n since we were kids. I’ve seen her with all sorts of people and I can safely say she has never looked at anyone the way she looks at you.”

The apples of Bucky’s cheeks flushed immediately and he could feel his ears burning.

“I… I don’t—”

“Don’t play dumb with me. It’s the exact same look you give her. You’re head over heels for each other and I’m frankly shocked it took you both this long to figure it out. I had shipped you both during first year, but I wasn’t about to get involved. Then Quentin happened and… well, not like anything I could have said would have changed Y/n’s mind.”

Bucky’s mouth opened and closed a few times, Steve’s abrupt summation of their entire coming together knocking the wind (and words) out of Bucky’s lungs.

He somehow found his language again. “You’re a punk, you know that?”

“Only to you, jerk.”

Bucky shook his head with a chuckle, a grin replacing the shock that had frozen his face for a moment.

“I’ve got an idea.”

“Lay it on me.”

The brunette walked Steve through his suggestion that they make the dinner as planned. Then pack up a serving for you and deliver it to your dorm. They could rain check on their “family” dinner, but Bucky wasn’t going to let you not eat—especially if you had an assignment you forgot about that you needed to power through. Steve agreed, sharing Bucky’s concern for your tendency to work through meal times when you got focused on projects.

The two friends started prepping after Steve sent a quick message letting you know that they would be by with dinner in a few hours. Bucky added that they promised not to bother you, they would just do a drop off and let you work in peace.

Then Steve’s phone rang.

“Hey Y/n, sorry for all the messages. We just were worried and—”

Bucky’s ears perked as soon as he heard Steve say your name. Something in his gut twinged at the thought of you calling Steve over him, but he ignored it. He stopped chopping and turned to look at his friend, knife still in hand.

Steve's facial expression had gone blank as soon as his sentence was cut.

“…Peter and Tony’s? When?”

Bucky’s breath hitched. He scoured Steve’s for clues, but his eyes came up empty.

“I understand. We’ll head out— … oh, just me?”

Bucky’s stomach was suddenly writhing itself into a rat’s nest of knots. He could barely make out the tone of your voice through the speaker. He had never wanted to hear the comforting warmth of your cadence as he did in that moment.

“Are you sure? If Peter just wants me, that’s—… okay, we’ll both be there soon. Bye.”

Bucky released the breath he had been holding, his shoulders dropping as soon as he heard Steve say the word “both.” The relief was short-lived. The blonde’s face was pale as he dropped his hand still holding the phone.

“What’s goin’ on, Stevie?”

“I don’t know. It’s Peter. He wants to tell me somethin’. When Y/n said it should just be me, I heard him in the background say the whole team would find out soon enough and to let you come.”

“The whole team? What… why the hell is Y/n there?”

“I have no idea, Buck.”

An entire bar of silence passed as the two friends looked at each other, trying to wrap their heads around what could be happening to Peter that would involve Y/n.

“Well, guess it’s a take-out night then,” Bucky said, looking at their barely started prep work for the dinner.

“Guess so. Let’s not keep ‘em waiting. We’ll sort this out later.”

Bucky nodded and followed Steve as he turned to their entrance hallway. They grabbed their coats, slipped into shoes, and were out the door within a minute. There was no exchange of words as they walked two buildings over to where Tony and Peter’s shared dorm was. Steve had switched into team captain mode, his mind running all of the different scenarios in which Peter might need to share something with the team—that would also have involved you in some way. Bucky was even more pensive than usual, locked into worry mode and wondering the exact same thing.

Steve had barely rapped on the door when you opened it.

“Hey,” you half-smiled as you greeted two of them. “I’m really sorry for cancelling dinner without an explanation,” you added quietly, stepping out into the hall and allowing the door to semi-close behind you.

“Are you ok?” Bucky’s eyes were wide, mouth tight as he stepped towards you.

“I’m fine, really.” You grabbed his hand and gave a reassuring squeeze.

“How’s Peter?” Steve pressed.

“He’s… he’s got something he needs to share with you. But… just, be patient. Promise me—both of you—” you paused, directing a pointed finger from the blonde to the brunette, “that you won’t blow up or react. Just let him take his time and then… just be there for him.”

“Fuck, this sounds…”

“Heavy,” you admitted, finishing Bucky’s thought.

“We promise,” Steve assured, Bucky nodding in confirmation.

“C’mon, he’s waiting.”

You let Steve lead the way, hanging back so you could hold Bucky’s hand as you re-entered the dorm. The captain toed off his sneakers and made his way to the couch where Peter was still sitting with Tony. You let him take the plush chair you had been seated in earlier, while you and Bucky hung back to sit at the dining table off to the side of the open common area.

“Hiya, Pete,” Steve said with a soft warmth. “Y/n says you got something you wanna share with me?”

“Y-yeah. I, I’m sorry cap, for dragging you here on a weekend and—”

“Pete, you didn’t drag me anywhere. I’m your captain, on and off the field. You need me, and I’m there. So take your time. We’ve got nowhere to be.”

Peter sighed, leaning into Tony slightly.

“Gosh, a bunch of boring seniors we are, nowhere to be on a Saturday night.” Tony knew Peter appreciated the comedic relief, garnering further affirmation of that fact when the freshman let out a wavering exhale of a chuckle.

“I… so, you’re probably wondering why Y/n is here.”

If Bucky was about to open his mouth about that exact concern bubbling inside of him since Steve hung up the phone with you, the words were suppressed as soon as you shot him a don’t you dare say a word look. Though you squeezed his hand tighter before returning your gaze back towards the couch.

“Well, I needed to ask her about… uh…”

Peter cleared his throat before saying his teammate’s name, his voice lowered to barely above a whisper. If there had been any background noise—a television, dishwasher, party next door—they might have missed it. But you all could have heard a pindrop with the muted anticipation that filled the room.

“... about… Quentin.”

You felt Bucky tense beside you as soon as he heard the name. You saw Steve flinch.

“Take your time, kid. You’re doing great,” Tony assured, rubbing his hand between Peter’s shoulder blades.

Peter took a long slow inhale, followed by an even longer and slower exhale. And then he told them. Every painstaking detail. The forced stripping. The mocking. The ice water. The paddling. He was sobbing into Tony’s chest by the end of it.

Steve was struggling to not break the promise he had made to you the moment before entering the dorm. The levee had broken that night at the bar when he lost his patience with Beck. And now? Now there were full on class VI white water rapids of rage gushing through him. His hands were twitching. His jaw was clenched.

Bucky and you looked at each other, a silent conversation concluding with a nod as you unclasped your hand from his so you could make your way over to Steve to try and put the pin back in him before he exploded. You placed a firm hand on his shoulder and squeezed twice. His eyes shot up to you, suddenly aware of his surroundings again. He shook his head, then patted your hand with grateful acknowledgement.

“I want to thank you for trusting me with this, Peter. You’ve done such a brave thing coming forward with this. I’m so proud of you.”

Peter sniffed hard as he wiped his eyes with the back of his sleeve. “Th-thanks,” he managed to mutter between hiccups.

“And I want to remind you that we have a zero tolerance policy against hazing. For the past two years now.”

Peter nodded, still leaning into Tony.

“I won’t pressure you, but if you want to make a formal complaint, you have my full support. I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

“Th-thanks. I… I want to. Report it... I don’t want others t-to…” the tears started again and you swore you heard the fissures as they cracked though everyone’s hearts.

“Then that’s what we’ll do, Pete. The whole team’ll be behind you on this. I promise, you won’t be alone.”

Peter smiled through his wet eyes at his captain, then at Bucky and you. “Thank you. All of you.”

It wasn’t over by a longshot. But it was a start.

—

Steve was right about the zero tolerance policy. Not only was Quentin kicked off the team, effective immediately. Not only did he lose his scholarship. He was expelled from the university, and banned from contacting any of the players on the team again. The university had just been through a slew of sexual assault cases that somehow made it into the media. The last thing they needed was their athletics department to come under fire for hazing.

Regardless of the reasoning, it was a relief for more than just Peter.

Steve would never again have to deal with Beck’s drunken antics at post game celebrations.

You felt like you could fully breathe again, knowing that you would never run into him on campus.

And Bucky? Well he was mostly excited that he might actually be able to ask you to be his girl. But first things first: the date.

“Buuuuck, where are you taking me?” You groaned. He had checked that you didn’t get carsick before making you wear a blindfold as he drove you down what you guessed was some back road out of town in Tony’s car that he had loaned Bucky for the day.

“If I told ya, it wouldn’t be a surprise now, would it?” he quipped back with a chuckle. You could practically hear his eyes rolling.

“Are we almost there, then?”

“Almost. I promise.”

You sighed, but really you were loving every second of suspense. Summer had settled in without any hesitation. All the windows were rolled down and the constant rush of wind cooled your skin. Your hand rested on Bucky’s thigh, his hand on top of yours.

The smooth sound of pavement shifted to gravel and you felt the ride become bumpier. You squeezed Bucky’s leg on instinct.

“Don’t worry, doll, I gotcha.” His velvety drawl always eased your worst anxieties.

After several more jolts—which Bucky apologized for—and a few more turns, you felt the car slow until you came to a full stop. The ignition turned off, and suddenly the scarf was being lifted from over your eyes. You had to blink a few times to adjust to the sunlight.

“Oh my god…” you exclaimed under your breath, reeling from the shock of the view before you. Bucky had parked the car next to a clearing that opened up to golden sand stretching about a hundred feet along the side of a crystal clear lake that continued further than you could make out. A mix of pine and cedar and various deciduous trees made up the dense forest on the other side of the water.

“Whaddya think?”

“I…” you couldn’t find the words to describe what you were feeling at that moment. Your heart felt like it might beat out of your chest and fly onto the dash of Tony’s car. Something about this spot seemed special. Sacred almost.

“It’s beautiful, Buck.” You turned to meet his gaze, the sparkle in his eyes matching the sunlight reflecting off the surface of the lake.

“Sorry about the bumpy ride for that last part. It’s an old abandoned logging road.” He quieted for a moment and his eyes were suddenly looking past you, as if he was watching a reel of something only he could see. You were about to ask if everything was okay when he cleared his throat, a small smile coming back to his lips as his eyes met yours again.

“My dad and I used to come up here fishing every summer. It’s… it’s a good memory.”

You grabbed his hand and brought them to your lips, placing a chaste kiss to each set of knuckles, before leaning into his cheek.

“Thank you for sharing this with me. It’s perfect.”

He turned his head so that his mouth met yours. You sucked in a breath at the surprise before immediately melting into the gesture. It was lazy and warm and wet, your tongues quickly finding each other as he pulled a hand from yours so he could move you closer to deepen the kiss.

“Buck… let's… get out first…” you managed to get out while his lips stumbled over yours.

He sighed and broke the kiss reluctantly, pressing his forehead against yours. “Fine, but only because you’re cute and I want to see you in that swimsuit.”

“Oh, so you think I’m cute, do you?”

“D’you even gotta ask that?”

“No, but I like hearing it,” you replied, grinning wide as you leaned back into your seat before opening the door to step out into the midday heat.

Bucky laughed as he followed your move, making his way to the trunk. “You know I’ll tell you you're beautiful every chance I get. It’s my new favourite hobby.”

“Is that so?” you probed.

“You think I’m lying?” he questioned as he handed you a few bags before lifting out a big red cooler.

“Nah, I just like watching you get all hot and bothered when I question you,” you grinned, closing the trunk. “Lead the way, you charmer.”

—

“I think that is the nicest lake I’ve ever swam in,” you admitted with excitement as you dried yourself off.

You had spent the afternoon getting in and out of the water between bouts of suntanning and chatting and snacking on the thoughtfully planned picnic Bucky had packed for you both.

“It really is the best. I haven’t been up here since…”

You saw Bucky bite his lip and close his eyes. You slowly took a seat next to him on the blanket, shoulders brushing just enough so he knew you were there, but not too much in case he needed a minute.

He released a shaky breath then turned to face you. His eyes were glistening at the corners, and a bittersweet smile formed to match. “He would have loved you, my pops.”

You leaned into his shoulder a bit more. “What was he like?”

“He was stoic. A man of few words. But he showed us he cared in other ways. Coming up here with him. The planning he put into those trips, creating those moments just for the two of us. That’s how I knew.”

Bucky paused for a moment, casting his gaze towards the lake. As if he might see something more than the reflection of the trees dancing on the water. He shook his head, a warmer grin filling out his cheeks.

“I wish I could have met him,” you offered sincerely, leaning your head on his shoulder.

“Me too,” he said softly, pressing his head to yours in return.

Your silence was filled by the sporadic lapping of the water against the beach. Various birds echoing through the trees. The cycle of wind rustling the pine and birch. It was a peace you had never known until now. Until Bucky.

Sure this may have been your first date. But with the fallout from Beck, then everything that happened with Peter, then finals, this day trip felt more like a confirmation of what you already knew.

You and Bucky had been more or less inseparable for three months now. And maybe that was too soon in some people’s books, but nothing about Bucky felt rushed. You just hoped you would have the courage to tell him. You had never struggled with words before. Always so sure of yourself, able to speak what was on your mind at the drop of a dime. But suddenly here on this beach, no witnesses save for the trees and the birds, the phrase you kept repeating to yourself was stuck in your throat.

“Y/n, I…”

“Bucky…”

You both started at once, breaking out into the same nervous chuckle at your simultaneous attempt at breaking the silence.

“You first,” you offered.

“No you, sweetheart.”

A heat flooded your cheeks that wasn’t from the sun. “I…”

You trailed off before you had even begun. Why was this so hard?

The more real you feel about someone, the greater the risk, your counselor had told you last week. At first it had scared you, that they meant you were only with Bucky as another attempt at avoiding loneliness. You realized that’s why you had stayed with Beck for as long as you did. But the longer you thought about it, the more you came to the conclusion that you weren’t scared of being alone anymore. It was that you were scared of losing Bucky. You had learned falsely at a young age that the people you loved left you. So it was easier to let in people you didn’t really care about—and who didn’t really care about you—than to let in people you love.

“I love you.”

Before you could sift through your thoughts, the words fell out of Bucky’s mouth so hushed and quickly that you nearly missed them.

“W-what?”

“I love you,” he said again, with more commitment, as if the first time he was just testing it out to see how it sounded. “And you don’t have to say it back. I know it’s still early, and I know this might just be a rebound for you and I’m ok with that. Won’t change how I feel. I just needed to say it. Needed you to hear it.”

The chorus of your surroundings filled the heavy silence that hung between you. Then a sigh that sounded like disappointment came from Bucky as he lifted his head from yours and began to inch away. You grabbed his wrist with a desperation that frightened even yourself.

Eyes wide, you turned to face him, though unable to make eye contact. You focused on the St. George pendant around his neck, taking in a big gulp of air before finally finding your words.

“I love you too. And I’m terrified that now I’ve said it out loud I’m going to lose you, because the people I love don’t seem to want to stick around.”

Your confession tumbled out of you in a whisper. But you barely had time to take a breath before you felt Bucky’s warmth wrapped around you.

“I ain’t goin’ anywhere. I promise,” he whispered back into your neck.

“Please don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Bucky pushed away from you, only slightly, so he could nudge your chin up and force you to make eye contact with him.

“I need you to hear me, ‘kay sweetheart?”

You nodded.

“I love you. All of you. So unless you plan on leaving, you’re stuck with me. You got that?”

You nodded again, the motion sending a single tear streaming down your cheek. Bucky caught it with his thumb.

“You’re the strongest, sharpest, sweetest woman I’ve ever met. I ain’t about to let that go. My ma would kill me if I did.”

You laughed, sniffling and wiping your eyes. “It’s scary how much I love you,” you said shakily, finally looking into his cold blue eyes.

“I know the feelin’, doll,” he shot back.

You licked your lips, his eyes darting down to the motion before shifting back up to meet your gaze.

“Show me,” you whispered.

His breath hitched. His pupils suddenly blown wide, encroaching on the ice blue that encircled them. “You sure?”

“More than sure.”

Bucky didn’t need to hear you say it twice. In one fell swoop, he had you on your back, the large beach blanket spread out beneath you. Your towel fell off your shoulders and you watched as Bucky drank you in.

His eyes danced over you like the shadows from the branches above, casting dappled sunlight across your body.

“So fucking beautiful,” he muttered, more to himself than as praise to you. He placed a hand on either side of your head and leaned down to meet your mouth. But he never connected. His lips hovered over yours, his breath hot and shallow. He all but grazed over the curve of the smile that had formed on your face, moving down to your chin, to your neck, and just behind your ear with a painfully slow pace.

You tilted your head back, the anticipation mixed with the tickle of his breath on your skin was crossing all of your wires. Chills spread through your body while a burning warmth rushed to your core.

You felt his smirk as he registered your reaction. His barely there touch inched from the nape of your neck to your collarbone as he traced his way to the valley between your breasts. Instinctually you squeezed your thighs together as his lips brushed against the fabric of your bathing suit top, easily reaching the peaks that were poking through.

“Oh my god, James.” His name fell off your tongue in a whisper as you suddenly felt a rush of desire pooling between your legs. “Feels so good,” you followed with a moan, arching your back as your body tried to connect with his mouth. Anything to get closer.

A soft moan echoed from his chest and suddenly his fingers slipped behind you. You helped him slide your bathing suit top off, leaving your breasts bare. It was then that his lips finally made contact. The warmth of his tongue over your nipple sent a pulsing heat just below your belly. His fingers finally arrived, allowing his mouth to travel with steady assurance down into your chest’s valley and up the other side to explore the other peak.

Bucky had barely touched you and you already felt the coil tightening dangerously close to release.

“Buck… if you don’t stop… I’m gonna…” You trailed off, overcome by the sensation.

His lips never left your skin. Now that he’d made contact it was as if he couldn’t pull away, even if he wanted to. The synchronized circling of his lips and fingers was suddenly not enough and too much all at once and the warmth burst inside you without warning. You keened uncontrollably as the waves of pleasure crashed through you over and over.

Your chest heaved as you struggled to make sense of the satisfaction Bucky had just sent coursing through your body. No partner had ever made you cum without barely touching you, let alone without working on your lower half. If you were being perfectly honest, more often than not they finished before you and that was that.

You pulled Bucky down onto you, crashing your lips into his. The need to have as much of him touching you was overwhelming.

“That was… I…”

Bucky chuckled at your speechlessness. “We’re just getting started, sweetheart.”

You and Bucky spent the rest of the afternoon exploring every curve and vale of each other’s bodies. Your limbs tangled like the roots of the trees that lined the edge of the beach. Your skin slick with sweat, glistening like the afternoon sun on the lake. Your fingers mapped the lines of each other as if your survival depended on it. You lost yourselves in the rhythm of your breath and the rocking of your hips, ascending together until you reached the final climax, wrapped in each other’s arms, your bodies pressed as close as you could manage.

You dozed in the late afternoon sun, neither of you eager to break your embrace. Even the sounds of the lake and the trees and the birds had taken a lazy turn, the heat of the day lulling everything to a slowed hush.

You awoke to Bucky’s soft lips on your forehead.

“Mmmmm… not time to wake up yet,” you groaned groggily.

Bucky laughed at your protest. “Sun’s about to set. Come for one last swim with me?”

His request was so innocent and boyish, sending a flutter to your chest. You nodded in response, your mind still reeling from the blissful afternoon.

You watched as he pushed himself off the blanket and, without hesitation, walked straight into the lake—bare bum and all. A mile-wide smile stretched across your face, making your cheeks hurt. This man. This quiet, sensitive man whose care for his teammates and his family knew no bounds. You were a part of that circle now. With a promise, both through his words and his touch, that there would always be space for you. If you wanted it.

“Y’comin’ doll? The water’s perfect.”

You wanted it. Every word shared. Every look. Every touch. Every kiss. You were ready to jump head first into his ocean and trust his current to guide you both. Through calm and storm. Ebb and flow.

“Yeah, Buck, I’m coming.”

You jumped up and ran into the water, splashing as you crashed into his arms.

“Please don’t let go,” you whispered into his neck, clinging onto him for warmth as the cool water chilled your skin.

He pressed a kiss into your temple as his arms tightened their hold around you. “Wasn’t planning on it, sweetheart.”

la fin

81 notes · View notes

taeyongdoyoung · 3 years

Photo

summary: as someone who’s been tormented for being a nerd, you’ve never viewed your friendly teasing towards your best friend seonghwa as bullying. but that is until he completely changes his style and image in school, confronting you about your past behaviour, so you have no choice but to admit the real reason why you’ve been making fun of him...

pairing: popular boy!seonghwa x nerd!reader

genre: high school!AU (the characters are 18 for the spicy parts huehehe), best friends to fake dating to lovers, angst, romance, smut, fluff

warnings: friendly teasing, clichéd/unrealistic portrayal of high school dynamics, hwa does kabedon on yn like once, seonghwa’s a bit of a tsundere, fake dating, hints of possessiveness, slightly problematic remarks, yn is briefly hwa’s slave?! (no, i will not elaborate), bullying, mean girls, insults, hair-pulling, kicking, death threats, some swearing, self-blame, power play, overuse of pet names (princess, baby, little girl, etc.), sir kink (i won’t apologize lol), begging, yunho being nosy (yes, that’s a warning), mention of hypothetical collars, insecurities, making out, loss of virginities, lots of kissing, soft dom!hwa, eating out, fingering, blowjob, consensual protected sex, dirty talk, praising, aftercare, crying, hurt&comfort, a lot of dorky references (cuz that’s me, after all), jumping off a balcony (don’t try this at home!), happy ending

author’s note: will i ever stop bullying poor hwa’s kermit hoodie? no. jk, i lov him so much, he’s so talented & gorgeous no matter what he wears ;-;

disclaimer: all jokes aside, i do not in any way condone bullying and this work is entirely fictional for entertainment purposes! i’ve been physically and emotionally tormented in school and though i have not talked much about it, i do not wish such an experience to anyone! treating people with kindness is cool and i hope everyone spreads more love! ❤️

word count: 9.4k

Having been best friends with Seonghwa for four years now (ever since your first year in high school), you couldn’t help but making fun of every little adorable thing he did. And honestly, you admired his patience when it came to putting up with your incessant teasing. Diligently cleaning up everything after him? You’d call him a neat freak. Not being able to drink coffee? You’d call him a teacup loser.

So, when he started wearing that green hoodie of his to school, you couldn’t resist the temptation to call him Kermit the frog. And at first, it all started as a joke. But then the nickname kinda stuck and you just kept addressing him as Kermit, even if he wasn’t wearing the delectable green hoodie. And at one point, you could tell that poor Seonghwa was not a huge fan of the whole thing. But he never called you out on it or told you to stop. He never teased you back for being a hopeless nerd who studied 24/7 and read books for fun. So, you kept going.

Until the summer before your last year in high school arrived. Sadly, Seonghwa was going to be out of the country for the whole vacation. You were going to miss him terribly, you realized. You had become so used to seeing him everyday that you couldn’t imagine how you’d last three months without being able to see his pretty face all the time. You’d occasionally text him memes and ask him what he was up to. But as the summer was coming to an end, his replies became less and less frequent, more and more concise. You kept wondering if you’d done something wrong. It couldn’t be the Kermit thing, you began telling yourself. After all, it was normal to tease your best friend every once in a while. Right?

When the first day of your last year in high school came, you were nervously anticipating the moment when you’d see Seonghwa again. Summer without him had been so boring and you couldn’t wait to hug him again and find a new thing to joke about.

The second you saw him, you instinctively knew there would be no more joking around. Seonghwa practically walked into the school hallway like he owned the place. He’d completely changed his style and overall image. Gone were the dorky hoodies you secretly loved so much. Instead, they were replaced by a black leather jacket. Gone were the casual sweatpants he looked so good in. In their place were dark jeans that made him look kinda dangerous. And the whole confidence with which he carried himself was just totally different.

If you had known that a summer abroad could change a person so much, you would have tried harder at convincing him to stay in the country. On top of it all, he was now hanging out with a bunch of popular a-holes that you had never talked to before. Honestly, you couldn’t even gather the courage to approach your best friend. He looked so distant and unfamiliar that you couldn’t help but feel a little hurt. Especially when you heard him laughing at the cool kids’ jokes. That should have been you...

You remembered when you were the one making him giggle, as if it was a century ago, when in reality it was just a couple of months. You kept sighing during the whole day, not daring to even talk to him. If he wanted to still hang out with you after his sudden “change in status”, he would, you kept convincing yourself. But he didn’t. In fact, he ignored you the whole day, making you feel like shit.

Just as you were leaving the school building in a hurry, mentally prepared for an evening of crying your eyes out and eating ice cream, you felt a hand grabbing you tightly. Turning around, you were surprised to find Seonghwa’s eyes staring back at you.

“Hi, princess,” he greeted you calmly.

“H-hi, S-seonghwa,” you responded dumbly.

“What? No witty comeback?” Seonghwa scoffed, smirking.

“What are you talking about?”

“Aren’t you gonna bully me and call me names again? Kermit? Teacup loser? Neat freak? What’s it gonna be this time?” he spat out, pushing you against the school wall and extending his arms to touch the cold bricks so that you would feel trapped.

“Bully you?” you whispered in disbelief. “H-hwa, I wasn’t...I didn’t m-mean...”

“Oh, yeah?” he mocked your stuttering self. “Then, why did you say all these things, huh?”

“You know why,” you replied.

“No, I don’t. So, tell me right now or I swear, I can make your existence a living hell,” Seonghwa threatened.

“Because I like you, you idiot!” you cried out. “I like you so that’s why I’ve been teasing you. Because if I didn’t, I would have to admit how attractive I find all your habits. How adorable it is when you used to tidy your desk and how sexy you looked in that damned green hoodie. There, I said it. Are you happy now?”

You were so frustrated with the way he ignored you all day only to accuse you of bullying him that you ducked your head swiftly beneath his arm, simultaneously bending your knees, and, thus, successfully escaping from Seonghwa’s ambush.

“Y/N, wait!” he called after you, but you were running too fast and luck was on your side, as the bus arrived at that exact same moment, allowing you to get on it, before he could.

You couldn’t sleep much that night, tormented by the fact Seonghwa had confused your friendly jokes with bullying and how foolishly you’d confessed your feelings for him. You were certain that your affections were unrequited and now that he had this whole new position in the school hierarchy, he would undoubtedly make fun of you for them. You were even considering transferring to another school to avoid the potential embarrassment.

In the morning, no sooner had you finished breakfast in the comfort of your room than you heard loud honks. They were unlike the ones in your dad’s car so you couldn’t help but wonder what jerk had decided to park in front of your house and make your day even worse.

“Sweetie,” your mom informed you a bit after. “Your friend Seonghwa is here. He said he’ll drive you to school today. As promised.”

“He did?” you mumbled in confusion. But maybe because you weren’t ready to talk to your mom yet about what happened yesterday, you lied. “Ah, that’s right, I almost forgot.”

Hurriedly, you grabbed your bag and practically sprinted downstairs. You were curious to see what he wanted. And that’s exactly what you asked the minute you entered his car.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Aw, no good morning for me, princess?” Seonghwa pouted and God, you hated how cute you found him after the way he’d treated you the previous day. “What does it look like I’m doing?” he rolled his eyes, starting the engine. “I’m driving you to school.”

“I can see that. But why?” you hissed.

“Well, someone got up on the wrong side of the bed,” he groaned. “If you’re so insistent on finding out, I’ll tell you. Ever since you told me how you felt yesterday, I’ve been thinking...And I’ve come to the conclusion that you have two options. Option number one is to enjoy your hellish last year of high school. You’ve had your fair share of teasing me so I’m definitely going to enjoy telling everyone about your little crush on me. It’s going to be so much fun to embarrass you in front of the whole school.”

What the fuck was wrong with him? Seonghwa was supposed to be your best friend! Why was he suddenly acting like you were worth less than a dirty rug? Was it possible that he had changed so much in the span of three months? Or was he always like that? Had you been blinded by his good looks? No, that definitely wasn’t the case. Seonghwa was the sweetest guy you’d ever known. How did he get so...cold? Cold enough to chill your bones.

“And what’s option number two?” you grunted, already anticipating the worst.

“So, there’s this annoying girl in our class I want to avoid at all costs. Just because her parents are doing business with mine does not mean I’m into her. Option number two is for us to pretend we’re dating in school. Considering how much you like me, I’m assuming it won’t be very difficult for you to pretend. If you agree, that is.”

What a jerk...You shared your sincere feelings with your best friend and that’s the first thing that crossed his mind? To use you in order to avoid some random girl? If it was any other guy, you would have said no. If you weren’t desperate for even a fraction of Seonghwa’s time and attention, you would have said no. If you weren’t so pathetically whipped for him, you would have said no.

“I’ll do it,” you said. “For how long do you need me to be your fake girlfriend?”

“Just until graduation. Then, we’ll fake break up and each go our separate ways. How does that sound?”

It sounded terrible! You wanted Seonghwa to be a part of your life forever. But with the way he was treating you, you weren’t confident he felt the same way anymore.

“Sounds great,” you lied, because you couldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing your thoughts. You’d never be perceived as weak again.

The second you walked into school, Seonghwa’s arm wrapped possessively around your shoulder, everyone’s eyes were on you. It was like high-schoolers had no better thing to occupy their time with but to gossip around the latest dating news. If you weren’t enjoying his company so much, you would have found their reactions pathetic. And somewhat unnerving.

“When did you two lovebirds start seeing each other?” one of Seonghwa’s popular friends Yunho asked.

“Oh, you know what they say. A girl and a guy can’t stay just friends for long,” Seonghwa responded.

You internally rolled your eyes. Your best friend before the summer would have never said such a thing. Whatever the reason for his current behaviour was, you would get to the bottom of it. And right now, you felt like going along with this whole fake dating thing was your best chance at unraveling the mystery.

For the first day of your little arrangement, everything seemed to be going fine. Everyone was staring at you two but you didn’t mind. All you cared about was him. However, soon enough Seonghwa started asking you for weird things.

“Carry my bag for me.” / “Get me a drink from the vending machine, will you?” / “Bring me a snack from the supermarket across the street.” / “Oh, and for my friends, too, doll.”

Seriously, it was getting infuriating. You no longer felt like you were his bestie. You didn’t even feel like you were his fake girlfriend. At this point, you had practically become his slave! Running any errand and carrying his stuff for him. But what was the alternative? If you refused to play your part in this pretend dating scheme, he could easily turn against you and make fun of you in front of the whole school. So, you kept your mouth shut and swallowed your pride.

One evening, around a month after the fake dating agreement had started, you had stayed in the library a bit longer to prepare for an upcoming assignment. By the time you were out of the school building, you supposed that Seonghwa had already gone home. Frankly, the only nice thing he was intent on doing for you was driving you to school and back to your place most of the days.

As you were making your way towards the bus stop, you had the strangest suspicion you were being followed. Not daring to turn around, you started walking faster. But unfortunately, your attackers also sped up and soon enough, you were surrounded by a group of angry faces. Their leader was obviously Eunhee, the most popular girl in the whole school. And coincidentally, this was also the girl whose parents were doing business with Seonghwa’s parents. The very reason you were fake dating your best friend in the first place.

“Well, if it isn’t the little bookshrimp,” she mocked you, sticking a sharp nail into your chest. You didn’t bother correcting her that the right term was bookworm. You were already in enough trouble as it was. For some reason, teasing Seonghwa had been easy because you meant well and you were sure he wouldn’t hurt you. Not really. Because he knew how badly you’d been bullied in middle school. But now that you were met with so many threatening figures, you froze rightaway, unable to defend yourself.

“Just l-leave me alone,” you stammered.

“Aw, aren’t you a little pathetic shrimpie?” Eunhee cooed and started pulling your hair harshly and kicking you onto the ground. The other girls were holding you down so that you wouldn’t fight back. “Did you seriously believe you can steal Seonghwa from me? We’re meant to be together and if you stand in our way, I will fucking kill you!”

“S-stop, you’re hurting me!” you exclaimed sorrowfully. You tried your best to shield yourself and push her away but her loyal minions were preventing you from doing so. Just as Eunhee was about to slap you across the face, you witnessed as her threatening hand was stopped mid-air by the interloper whose features you couldn’t quite discern in the dark. But whose voice you would recognize anywhere.

“You think you’re so brave?” Seonghwa yelled at Eunhee and her friends. “Ganging up on her like that? Six against one? You’re the pathetic ones.”

“Hwa, we were just trying to teach her a lesson. She should learn her place, after all,” Eunhee tried to explain.

“A lesson?” he scoffed. “You dumbasses can’t even pass Calculus and you want to teach the smartest girl in our school a lesson?” your heart melted with warmth at how highly he thought of you. “Oh, that’s rich.”

“You won’t tell my dad, right?” Eunhee was suddenly on the defensive. She’d probably be in big trouble if he found out how his precious daughter was behaving in school.

“Get out of my sight right now or I’ll tell the whole country,” Seonghwa threatened through gritted teeth. (Later on, he actually did tell her dad about the incident and Eunhee, along with her followers, were suspended from school for two weeks. Oh, and their rich parents cut off their money, which was pretty impressive an accomplishment). And so, the vicious girls scattered like roaches in daylight. Pulling you onto your feet, Seonghwa grabbed your hand and started walking towards his car which you somehow hadn’t noticed parked nearby. Getting inside, he started the engine immediately but his hands were clutching the steering wheel so hard you were feeling a bit scared. You had never seen your best friend so angry. Well, maybe the only other time that came close was when you were telling him about your past experiences with bullying...

“Are you mad at me?” you asked sheepishly.

“At you?” he chuckled harshly. “Why would I be mad at you? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I don’t know...”

“Why didn’t you fight them back?” Seonghwa inquired.

“I tried, but I was reminded of middle school and just...froze. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright, I’m not blaming you,” he replied calmly. “I was just wondering. Cause I know you’ve been going to self-defense classes. And I thought you were making progress. I mean, the last time I came to watch, you were pretty good.”

That was before the summer. Of course it was. Still, you were touched by the fact that he remembered. Despite acting like he didn’t care, you instinctively knew he did.

“I mean, I was,” you said. “But I panicked.”

Seonghwa let go of the wheel with one hand and placed it on your bare knee, rubbing calming circles around it. You two were alone so you were certain this was no longer the fake dating thing. This was just your best friend being there for you when you needed him the most.

“If anyone tries that shit again, just tell them you’re my girlfriend, alright? They have to be idiots to mess with you,” he spoke angrily.

“Fake girlfriend,” you reminded him sadly.

“That’s none of their business,” he replied, but didn’t correct you. Oh, how badly you wished to be his real girlfriend. To show him how much you cared for him.

“Why did you change so much over the summer?” you suddenly asked, while Seonghwa was driving you home.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Seonghwa responded harshly. “You don’t like my green hoodie and you also don’t like my leather jacket? There’s really no satisfying you, is there?”

“I didn’t mean your clothes,” you mumbled. “Just...your overall attitude towards me. Before the summer you used to let me squeeze your cheeks and sit in your lap and now you seem so...unapproachable. I’m just saying, we were closer when I was your best friend than we are now that I’m your fake girlfriend.”

Seonghwa stopped the car abruptly, making you blink in shock.

“I changed because I was sick of you treating me like a little boy and I wanted you to start seeing me as a man,” he admitted but without looking into your eyes.

“W-what are you saying?” you swallowed nervously.

“Nevermind.”

“No, you have to talk to me, Hwa!” you insisted desperately. “If you still consider me your best friend, be honest with me. Please.”

“This,” he gestured vaguely at you as he finally met your gaze. “This is exactly why I changed so much, Y/N. I don’t want to be your best friend anymore.”

His cruel words hurt you more than anything you’d ever experienced in your life. More than all the bullying, the slapping and getting pushed against a wall. Losing your best friend was your worst fear. But you had promised yourself to never be weak again. So the second he said that, you pulled the handle of the side door, attempting to get out of his car. Before you could do that, Seonghwa grabbed your hand, effectively keeping you in place.

“I want to be your boyfriend. For real this time,” he elaborated.

You stared at him in utter confusion.

“But...when I confessed, you acted like you didn’t care. Like I meant nothing to you.”

“Forget how I acted. I only offered the fake dating shit because I wanted to get closer to you again. Make up for the lost time during the summer. Do you honestly think I give a fuck about what Eunhee thinks or says about me? I just used that as an excuse. I’ve told her I’m not into her hundreds of times. And yes, maybe I have changed. Not because I don’t care about you. But because I do. You used to gush about Count Dracula and Darth Vader so much that I thought if I became the bad guy, you’d finally notice me. I wanted so terribly to impress you and make you stop seeing me as your adorable best friend that I got too lost in the feeling of holding power over you...Too lost to notice you liked me all along, didn’t you?”

“I did,” you whispered teary-eyed. “I do,” correcting yourself. “H-hwa, I’m so sorry to break it to you but-”

“If you reject me, I won’t be responsible for attempted murder,” Seonghwa interrupted you jokingly.

“I’m so sorry to break it to you,” you repeated with a sly smirk. “But no matter how hard you try to change, I will always see you as my adorable best friend. And though I have to admit I did stop teasing you temporarily, that was only because you suddenly started behaving like the dangerously sexy king of the high school. Can you blame me for feeling a little intimidated? I know I’ve said this before but I didn’t think me teasingly calling you Kermit would go this far. I never meant to hurt you, Hwa.”

“I know you didn’t, princess,” Seonghwa whispered, gently stroking your cheeks.

“And yes,” you smiled shyly, leaning into his touch.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I want to be your real girlfriend. It would be a dream come true.”

“Yeah?” he chuckled, as if the very idea seemed amusing to him. “How badly do you want it?”

“So badly, I would do anything for you, sir,” you uttered the last word without thinking much, your brain somehow recalling a time when you two had discussed how you’d enjoy being called by a potential significant other. In retrospect, that wasn’t really a thing best friends generally talked about.

“Sir?” Seonghwa grinned, leaning his head against your forehead. “Keep that up and your real girlfriend status will be confirmed.”

“I want to kiss you so much,” you were on the verge of begging. Oh, screw it. “Please, please, let me kiss you.”

He didn’t respond, just connected your lips with his own softly, taking his time with you. It was pure magic. You had thought about kissing your best friend thousands of times. But nothing compared to the reality. Parting your lips further to let his tongue in, you physically couldn’t prevent yourself from moaning into his mouth, overwhelmed by how good it felt. How insanely intoxicating he tasted. How you were burning alive and it would be the sweetest death imaginable.

“Not if I kiss you first,” Seonghwa said once he broke the kiss apart. “Oh, wait, I just did.”

What the hell...had just happened? Sneaking a peak at the time, you were suddenly panicking by how late it was.

“Holy shit, my parents are going to kill me!” you exclaimed. “Can you please drive me home?”

“Sure thing, princess,” he laughed, increasingly amused by your flustered self. “That’s exactly what I was intending to do anyways. I’m not in the habit of keeping little girls past their bed time.”

“Shut up, I’m not a little girl!” you complained. “I’m just a few months younger than you. Asshole.”

“Hey! Is that any way to speak to your devoted boyfriend?” Seonghwa scolded you teasingly.

Oh, God. You loved the sound of that. Your best friend was now your boyfriend. It still felt unreal.

“I’m sorry, sir,” you mewled apologetically, already knowing how to make him weak for you with just one tiny word. “And thank you for taking me home.”

“Anytime,” Seonghwa smiled. “See you tomorrow, baby.”

You could get used to it. Reaching forward to open the door for you, he whispered in your ear:

“I’m taking you out on our first date. Doll yourself up for me, will you?”

You nodded, your heart beating too fast to actually manage a verbal response. After you got inside and suffered a brief interrogation from your parents (using the library+extra assignments excuse), you hurried up the stairs, took a quick shower and then went to bed. No sooner had you closed your eyes than your phone buzzed with notifications.

Kermit the Frog: You still up?

Kermit the Frog: For fear of sounding lame, I moss you already

Kermit the Frog: *Miss...damn autocorrect

You chuckled upon seeing his messages. Whatever demon possessed you to still keep that nickname in your chat, you knew you had to change it immediately. If he saw it on your first date tomorrow, you would never hear the end of it.

You: I’m awake, yes

You: And I moss you too 😉

You purposefully misspelled the word to tease him. After all, it was only in order.

Boyfie 🐸: That obnoxious Kermit nickname better be gone by tomorrow

He texted as if he’d read your mind and you gasped in surprise.

Boyfie 🐸: Or we’re having our first couple fight!!

You: How did you know?!?

Boyfie 🐸: Not my fault you keep your phone unlocked sometimes

Boyfie 🐸: I’m not kidding, change it right now 😡

You: Changed it already

You texted him back quickly, sending him a screenshot.

You: Can I at least keep the frog emoji? 🥺

Boyfie 🐸: NO!!! REMOVE IT OR WE BREAK UP 😡😡😡

You: Damnit, Hwa, your angery Aries is showing...okay, fineee

You sent another screenshot of the now changed emoji.

You: Happy now?

Boyfie ❤️🖤💙: Much better, princess 🤗🤗🤗

Boyfie ❤️🖤💙: Now go to sleep, we have early classes tomorrow

You: Wow, so bossy. Okay, sir, I’m going

Boyfie ❤️🖤💙: Good night, my baby 😘

You: Staaahp, ohmygosh. And good night, Hwa 🥺

The next morning you ran outside faster than The Flash as soon as you heard the oh-so-familiar honks. When you saw Seonghwa waiting there to pick you up, your heart did a backflip as you excitedly took the passenger seat.

“Good morning, boyfriend,” you greeted him and kissed his cheek. “This still feels so strange.”

“Well, you better get used to it, doll. Wow, you really cleaned up nicely today,” he complimented your pastel pink dress. “Not that you usually don’t! You’re always gorgeous, I just meant that you’re especially gorgeous and...nope, that also sounds wrong. Okay, I shut up now.”

“Relax,” you giggled. “It’s fine. I appreciate the effort. You don’t look so bad yourself. Oh, who am I kidding? You’re practically sex on legs 24/7. I think it’s time for me to shut up now.”

“You’re so cute when you get flustered. Anyone ever tell you that?”

“Just you,” you admitted.

Once you walked into the school, it was like everyone noticed the subtle change in your dynamic. Because Seonghwa did something he never did before. He carried your bag and gave you his leather jacket! And Hwa’s friends were immediately onto you like bees to honey.

“I mean, I knew you guys were dating,” Seonghwa’s friend Yunho observed. “But I never saw the chemistry before, to be honest. Until now. I mean, come on, Y/N was like a loyal puppy, always following Hwa around.”

“Hey, don’t give him any ideas!” you joked.

“Too late. Already ordered the collar,” Seonghwa winked.

“Kinky. Can’t tell if I’m into it or want to cut off my ears,” Yunho grinned. “Probably both.”

“Nice chat, but we gotta head to class, Yu,” Seonghwa said because his friend was in a different class.

“See you for lunch?” Yunho suggested.

“Can’t. Already made plans with this little girl,” Hwa tilted his head towards you.

“Whoo, enjoy, then!”

“It’s not what it sounds like!” you groaned, feeling uncharacteristically embarassed.

“Isn’t it?” Seonghwa smirked mysteriously and pulled you towards the room you had class in.

“Nothing involving collars and puppies, I assure you!” you yelled (perhaps a little too loudly), twisting your head, not wanting to give Yunho and the rest of Seonghwa’s friends the wrong idea.

When your classes for the day were over, Seonghwa led you towards his car once again. You were a bit nervous to make a good impression on your first date. Even though it was silly. Your best friend of four years had surely made a first impression a long time ago.

“Where are we going?” you asked to break the awkward silence.

“It’s a surprise, princess. Can you be patient for me?”

“I can,” you promised dutifully and placed your tiny hand on top of his. “Anything for you, sir.”

Seonghwa lost focus on the road for the briefest of moments in order to give you a warning look. One look and that was all you needed to keep you quiet and obedient. Eventually, you realized where he was taking you. Though you hadn’t been to his place for a couple of months now, you couldn’t forget how the drive to Seonghwa’s home looked.

“I dressed myself up and we’re just going to your place?” you hmphed in playful annoyance. “So much for our glamorous first date.”

“Don’t underestimate the power of my cooking skills. Shit, I sorta ruined the surprise, didn’t I?”

“Aww, you were planning to cook for me on our first date? Hwaaa, I’ve only had you as a boyfriend for less than 24 hours and you’re already pulling out the big guns! I don’t mean to push my luck but if you’re cooking now, I’m trembling to witness our one month anniversary.”

Seonghwa rolled his eyes.

“You’re very ambitious to think you can put up with me for an entire month.”

”Hwa, sweetie, I’ve put up with you for four years.”

“Not as your boyfriend, you haven’t.”

“We’ll talk again in 30 days,” you vowed enigmatically.

“Here we are,” Seonghwa announced once he parked in front of his home. “My parents are currently at work so you don’t need to worry about...well, anything, really.”

“What’s the supposed to mean?” for some reason his words made you even more worried.

“Nothing, I just meant you can...like, be yourself. There’s no one to impress.”

“There’s you,” you pointed out. “Don’t forget your parents already know me. And besides, you’re the only person I care about impressing.”

“Not to stroke your ego, but you’ve already impressed me. After all, you’re the only one who’s had the audacity to compare me to a freaking muppet and survived.”

“Point taken,” you chuckled.

“Come on, let’s get inside,” Seonghwa suggested and the two of you entered his house. No matter how much you begged him to let you help with the cooking, he was insistent that he would do all the work. Said something about making up to you for the times you had to carry his bag or buy snacks to him and his friends. When you argued that you also had some making up to do for all the times you teased him a little too insensitively, he said that you agreeing to be his real girlfriend was enough to satisfy his wounded heart. Seeing that there was no point in arguing, you gave up and occupied yourself by mindlessly scrolling through social media. About an hour later, Seonghwa finally deemed his culinary masterpieces ready to be eaten. He allowed you to at least help set the table which you considered a small victory. The second you tried the first meal, you were so overwhelmed by the exquisite tastes that you spoke without thinking much.

“God, I wanna marry you.”

Seonghwa simply chuckled, amused by your unexpected reaction.

“Did I say that out loud?” you whispered, completely mortified, covering your mouth in embarassment.

“I’m afraid so.”

“Shit, I’m such a mess,” you mumbled.

“No, it’s fine. I take it as a compliment. Now, eat up before it gets cold. If my wicked plan works, you’ll have bought me a wedding ring by the time dessert arrives.”

“Truly wicked. I’m in danger,” you laughed and kept enjoying the various meals Seonghwa had prepared.

Once the plates were empty, you felt so full and warm you couldn’t possibly move. And no, that wasn’t an exaggeration. Seonghwa had to physically carry you to the couch so that you two would re-watch Star Wars: Return of the Jedi together, warmly cuddled up under a blanket.

Suddenly, you were possessed by the urge to speak your mind and be as honest with him as possible. After hiding your true feelings for four years, now that you were finally given the chance to be yourself, you were feeling uncharacteristically brave.

“You know, even though I was messing around earlier, I had indeed daydreamed about marrying you back in our first year of high school. You were the first boy who ever treated me like I wasn’t the walking joke of the universe. The first who ever hung out with me not as a prank but because you actually saw me as a friend. When I started teasing you about your cute habits, I hope you know I never wished to hurt you. I just wanted to show you that I notice and appreciate every single detail about you. So, yeah, I really like you, Hwa. Have liked you for a long time.”

Seonghwa had paused the movie the second you started talking. And now that you were done sharing your thoughts, he seemed unable to say anything. The silence was a bit awkward so you interrupted it once again.

“I’m sorry, that was silly. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable so early in our re-”

This time, he interrupted you with a kiss, pulling you into his lap, just like the good old days. You smiled into his mouth, wrapping your arms around him.

“It wasn’t silly. I appreciate you saying all that,” Seonghwa reassured you. “And for the record, I know you meant well with all the teasing. In a sense, a part of me even suspected that you liked me back. But I was also feeling a bit insecure. I kept thinking that you could do so much better than go out with dorky Kermit guy who has an obsession with tidying up, you know? That you deserved someone else. But I couldn’t allow anyone else to be that someone. So, I changed myself.”

“Maybe you did change a little. But in my heart, you’re always going to be my Frog Prince Hwa.”

“I hate you so much,” he rolled his eyes.

“Naw, you don’t.”

“Fine. I hate that you’re right.”

Things between you and Seonghwa were going great. It had been three months since you two started dating for real. He was super attentive and caring towards you. However, you were a bit bummed out since not much changed compared to his behaviour as your best friend and as your boyfriend. Sure, you did start kissing each other and occasionally making out (which wasn’t exactly a best friend activity). But there was one thing that still had not happened. And the more time passed, the more anxious you felt to bring it up.

One evening, you had miraculously convinced your parents to let you have a sleepover at Seonghwa’s place. After insisting that nothing out of the ordinary was going on between you two and even if something unusual did happen (which you highly doubted but secretly hoped for), you were going to use protection (and no, you were certainly not referring to Seonghwa’s collection of action figures who carried weapons).

As you and your boyfriend were enjoying your snacks while watching TV from the comfort of his bed, you couldn’t help but finally raise the question that had been tormenting your mind for a while now.

“S-seonghwa...do you not find me attractive?”

“What the hell are you asking me that for? Would you be my girlfriend if I didn’t find you attractive?”

“Well, I don’t know. I’ve never dated anyone before so...I was just wondering if there’s a particular reason why we still haven’t...taken things to the next level?”

“The next level?” he chuckled. “Relationships aren’t video games. And to answer your question, the reason’s actually the exact opposite of your concerns. We haven’t done anything more than making out because I find you ridiculously attractive. And it’s taking every last inch of my self-restraint to not pressure you into something you’re not comfortable with. I just wanted to wait until you’re ready.”

“Ready? So you knew that I haven’t...with anyone...yet?” you purposefully left out some words because you were feeling incredibly shy discussing this with Seonghwa.

“Of course I knew, princess. You’re my best friend. And my girlfriend.”

“Well, that’s a relief, at least. That you’re not repulsed by my...inexperience.”

“Why would I be when we’re in the same boat?”

“We are?” you whispered in shock.

“Why do you look so surprised?” Seonghwa laughed. “I’ve had the biggest crush on you since forever. Did you honestly think I would just screw anyone else?”

“Well, it’s not like you didn’t have options,” you pointed out, referring to all the potential love interests swarming around him like bees. “Unlike me.”

“Are you regretful, little girl?” he inquired, running a lazy finger across your cheek. “Jealous?”

“No, I just...want to be the best for you, sir,” you confessed nervously.

“You’re already the best I could hope for,” Seonghwa responded and kissed you hungrily, burying his hands into your hair.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” you curiously needed to know. “That you haven’t either...”

“It’s not something that comes up in everyday conversation?” he pointed out. “What was I supposed to say? Hi, bestie, let’s have lunch together. Oh and by the way, I’m a hopeless virgin pining over you?”

“You’re right,” you laughed. “It would have made things awkward.”

“Now, unless you have any other pressing issues, I suggest we go back to kissing.”

And without giving you the time to argue, Seonghwa devoured your lips rightaway, gently pushing you down so that your back hit the sheets. Then, he started slowly taking off your jeans. Anxiously trembling under his vigorous touch, you placed a hand against his chest. He immediately noticed and put a temporary halt to his ministrations.

“We don’t have to do this right now,” he comforted you with all the seriousness in his voice.

“No, I want to, I swear,” you nodded eagerly.

“Princess, you’re literally shaking,” Seonghwa remarked.

“What’s wrong with me?” you sighed.

“There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re perfect. Tell me to stop if you feel even the slightest hint of hesitation or discomfort and I will, I promise.”

“I know you would, Hwa. I trust you. But even if I’m a bit nervous, I want to do this with you. Please?”

“Well, I can’t deny you since you’re asking so nicely,” he grinned and continued where he left off. “Can I get rid of these?” Seonghwa inquired, carefully pushing your panties to the side.

“Yes, you can do anything to me.”

“Oh, sweetheart, you really shouldn’t have said that,” he chuckled darkly and tore your underwear savagely. You couldn’t even gather the energy to complain about the ruination of your new pair, you were far too turned on by Seonghwa’s aggressive nature to care. He didn’t waste any more time, grabbing your thighs to hold them in place, he began licking your pussy with his tongue and stimulating it with his long fingers. It didn’t take long for you to start squirming beneath his touch, helplessly moaning his name. He didn’t cease his merciless movements until you reached your orgasm. When your breathing finally eased, you gathered the energy to speak again:

“I thought you said you’ve never done this before? How were you so...so...”

“So good?” Seonghwa smirked confidently and bit his lower lip. “I mean...I’ve seen videos. Read some things here and there.”

“Honestly? I think you’re a god.”

“You’ll have to stop complimenting me so much or I’ll develop a god complex,” he joked. “What do you want to do next, baby?”

“I want to suck you off,” you mumbled.

“Who taught you such dirty language?”

“Hey! I read, too,” you pouted and assuredly made your way towards the carpet next to his bed.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Seonghwa asked.

“Aren’t I supposed to kneel in order to pleasure you, sir?”

“Princesses never kneel,” he instructed and got up from the bed, urging you to lie down with your head hanging from the very edge of the bed and make yourself comfortable. “Open up that pretty little mouth for me, will you?”

You did as he asked obediently and even went the extra mile to stick your tongue out. Unbuckling his belt and throwing it to the side, Seonghwa was quick to follow your wishes and let his cock spring free from his jeans. Your mouth went dry at the sight of his monstrous size. Seeing your worries if it will fit reflected in your eyes, he expressed his concern for you:

“Are you sure about this?”

“Please, please, I need you,” you whimpered without thinking, eager to have a taste. Without making you wait any longer, Seonghwa pushed the tip of his cock inside, gently letting your cheeks get used to the unfamiliar feeling. Slowly, he went deeper, allowing you to acquaint yourself with the stretch. When you kept blinking at him in anticipation, he realized you were ready for more and began moving faster, fucking into your mouth at a steady pace. As he neared his high, his motions became less controlled you were sucking more intently, impatient to swallow every last drop of him.

“Shit, I’m going to-” he attempted to break away, but you managed to wrap your hands at the back of his legs in order to keep his cock inside your mouth.

Seconds later, he released his cum and you began drinking it thirstily. When you had made certain that no drop was wasted, you finally let go of his legs, allowing your boyfriend’s dick to dangle freely outside of your mouth.

“You’re fucking incredible,” Seonghwa praised you and placed a soft kiss on the top of your head. “My incredible girl.”

“I’m only yours, sir,” you mumbled, way too affected by him.

“You like this, don’t you?” he mocked you teasingly.

“Yes, sir, I want to belong to you,” you whimpered and turned around to pull him back into bed.

“Your wish is my command, princess,” Seonghwa smiled fondly and took a mysterious package out of the back pocket of his jeans. Soon enough, you realized what it was, as he started lining up the condom on his cock.

“Oooh, I brought one of those, as well!” you exclaimed in surprise.

“You came here on a mission, didn’t you? Wicked little thing,” he tsked in fake disapproval.

“It’s not my fault you’re walking around like an Adonis,” you defended yourself boldly.

“You’re one to speak. Freaking goddess,” Seonghwa complimented you and slowly began unbuttoning your shirt you had somehow forgotten you were still wearing. “Is this okay?” he asked softly, always making sure you were feeling safe.

“More than okay,” you consented. Left in nothing but your baby pink bra, you unintentionally shivered at the sudden cold air surrounding you. Soon after that, Seonghwa undid the clasps and you were now only wearing your birthday suit. Feeling a bit timid, you self-consciously covered your breasts and broke eye contact with your boyfriend.

“Hey, hey, look at me,” he pressed the palm of his hand against your cheek. “Do you want to stop?”

You weakly shook your head and somehow managed to gather the strength to look into his beautifully dark eyes once again.

“Then, let me see you, yeah?” Seonghwa nudged your hands away gently. “You’re so beautiful, baby.”

You blushed at his sudden praise and allowed him to have a look. But seconds later, you were getting a bit impatient.

“Please, Hwa, I want you so much.”

“Anything for my princess,” he chuckled and coaxed his tip at your entrance slowly. When you gave him a sign he could go deeper, his movements became bolder. “Fuck, you’re taking me so well.”

“M-more, sir, I swear I can do this,” you begged as you were beginning to unravel beneath him. As he fucked you faster into oblivion, you were no longer thinking straight and his name was the only word you were capable of uttering. Over and over again. Until you both came, blissfully lost in each other’s arms.

“Here, let me clean you up,” Seonghwa offered sweetly, picking you up with little effort and carrying you to the bathtub.

When he started shampooing your hair, rubbing body lotion into your sensitive skin and covering your neck with soft kisses, you couldn’t stop your tears from falling, touched by his infinite tenderness and by the sheer intimacy of the gesture.

“Darling, are you crying?” he questioned you upon hearing your hiccups.

“N-no,” you lied but it was useless, because it was quite obvious you were, in fact, bawling your eyes out.

“Did I hurt you, my sweet princess?” Seonghwa asked in concern.

“How...how could you think that?” you whimpered. “You’ve been nothing but kind and caring towards me. It’s just that...this is the first time I’ve felt so...special, so worthy, so...”

“Loved?” he offered the word you had been seeking for but had been too scared to utter out loud.

“Y-yeah,” you confirmed shyly. “Is it too early to say this? I’m sorry if it is but...I love you, Seonghwa.”

He simply stared at you in disbelief for a couple of seconds. This time, you were once again the one to break the deafening silence.

“You don’t have to say it back. I just...I wanted you to know. It’s okay if you don’t feel the same way but-”

“I love you too, baby. Of course I do,” Seonghwa reassured you. “And I’m not just saying it, I don’t feel obliged to say it. As my best friend, you know me better than anyone else. And you know I don’t do things unless I want to. So, believe me when I say this.”

“Fuck,” you uttered and only started crying harder in his arms.

“Shhh, you’re safe with me, sweetheart. I would never harm you,” he comforted you and stroked your hair lovingly, putting all your worries and self-doubts at the very back of your head.

After you were all dried up from the bath and had put on your boyfriend’s shirt while he was still in the shower, you were feeling uncharacteristically confident. Confident enough to look for something you hadn’t seen for a while. You had been wondering if he had it hanging around somewhere in his wardrobe. And after a short period of rummaging you found your treasure. The green hoodie. The Kermit hoodie. You smiled mischievously as you changed into it. It still smelled like him, you beamed. Back when he was simply your best friend, the amount of times you had fantasized about him lending it to you should have been illegal. So now that you had been promoted to his girlfriend, you simply couldn’t let such an opportunity pass you by.

Once Seonghwa got out of the shower, water droplets running down the divine skin on his bare chest, you were too busy staring at him in all his beauty and glory to notice the angry look on his face.

“How did you even find this? It was hidden so well in my wardrobe,” he scowled.

“Don’t be mad,” you pouted adorably. “I look so cute in it, right?”

“Cuter than me, that’s for sure,” Seonghwa rolled his eyes and tickled your belly.

“That’s impossible, you make the cutest Kermit,” you giggled, enjoying how easy it was to get on his nerves.

“You’ll never let me live this down, will you?” he groaned.

“Never ever, my stunning Frog Prince,” you vowed and kissed him quickly, taking him by surprise. His eyes widened in shock and he seemed too flustered to continue scolding you.

“You’re in luck today. Nothing can ruin my good mood,” Seonghwa was determined.

“Great,” you grinned gleefully. “Cause from now on, I intend on making all your days filled with joy.”

“From now on?” he chuckled sarcastically. “Oh, princess, my days have been filled with nothing but joy ever since I met you.”

And indeed, both Seonghwa’s days and yours were nothing but pure happiness ever since you decided to make your relationship real. And despite his foolish statement that he no longer wanted to be your best friend, you had somehow managed to convince him that he was both your boyfriend and bestie and that was perfectly okay. As if in the blink of an eye, spring came which meant that the whole school was in nervous excitement about the upcoming prom. Generally, you weren’t the type to get overwhelmed about such a trivial topic. But now that you were dating Seonghwa, the most popular guy in the school, you couldn’t help but worry a little. What if he wanted to go with someone else? Someone equal in “status”? Your worries and insecurities further intensified when he started asking questions in a weird way.

“I need your help,” Seonghwa blurted out over lunch.

“Shoot.”

“Okay, so, I have this friend. And he really likes this girl and wants to ask her to prom. What do you think would make her happy?”

You blinked in surprise. You knew that when people pulled the “I’m just asking for a friend” card, they were most likely talking about themselves. Was he seriously thinking of inviting another girl to prom? You tensed a little but tried really hard to remain neutral in your answer and actually make an attempt to help your bestie.

“I mean, all girls are different,” you reasoned. “If you describe her to me, maybe I’ll be able to give a more appropriate suggestion.”

“She’s a bit like you. You know, kinda bookish and-”

“It’s alright, Seonghwa, you can say it. I’m a nerd.”

“Well, yes, but...”

“It’s not exactly a slur,” you chuckled coldly.

“I know, but that’s what your bullies in middle school called you. I didn’t mean to sound insensitive,” Hwa put his hand on top of yours in a gentle, comforting manner.

“It’s fine when if you say it,” you smiled. “I won’t get offended.”

“I was going to say my friend’s crush is intelligent like you but, oh well.”

“That does sound better, I admit,” you giggled.

“She’s also a bit shy and introverted so maybe she wouldn’t enjoy a public promposal. Crowds tend to make her nervous,” Seonghwa observed.

“Seems like you didn’t need my help after all,” you scoffed playfully.

“No, I do! I still haven’t come up with an actual way to propose. I mean, for my friend.”

“Right. Your friend. Well, he can’t go wrong with some poetry under her balcony. If she has one, that is.”

“I’m pretty sure she does.” Seonghwa smirked. “Alright, thanks.”

He jumped from his seat, not even having finished his lunch.

“Wait, where are you going?”

“I gotta prepare my friend’s promposal,” he shrugged and disappeared from your sight, leaving you a bit crest-fallen. If he was intending on asking you, he wouldn’t have turned to you for help, right? That would sorta ruin the element of surprise, wouldn’t it? And yet, you knew that Seonghwa wasn’t the type to care about people’s opinions and randomly ask a more popular girl out because of public demand. And he definitely wasn’t the kind of person to just date you for kicks and then ditch you at prom. Despite those very logical reasons, you couldn’t help but feel a little anxious.

A week later, you realized all your worries had been for nothing. It was a Sunday morning and you had just finished having breakfast with your family. You were leisurely reading on your bed when you heard some suspicious noises coming from your window. You looked up from your book and you could swear you saw tiny rocks hitting the glass! You jumped up angrily, half-expecting to find a bunch of neighbour kids pulling a prank. But you were surprised when you spotted your boyfriend standing under your balcony. Wearing his iconic green hoodie.

“What are you doing here?” you whispered, though a hopeful part of you already knew the answer.

“But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,” he recited diligently in a song-like manner.

You couldn’t help but chuckle at his overdramatic acting but it was the effort that touched you immensely.

“And none but fools do wear it; cast it off. It is my lady, O, it is my love! O, that she knew she were!” he continued sweetly.

You were so in love with this man it was insane.

“Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, Having some business, do entreat her eyes To twinkle in their spheres till they return,” Seonghwa kept going.

You couldn’t resist the urge to leap off the balcony. It was just the second floor so what could possibly go wrong? Other than a scraped knee and a bit of a limp. God, you were such an idiot.

“Shit, are you okay?” Seonghwa asked in terror and wrapped his arms around you.

“The excruciating pain is worth it if I get to hug you like this,” you grinned, leaning against him for support.

“Why couldn’t you just walk down the stairs like a normal person?”

“And what’s romantic about that?” you joked. “Jumping off a balcony makes for a much better story.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Only for you, my sweet Frogmeo!” you teased and kissed his cheek.

“Wait, I wasn’t finished!” Seonghwa exclaimed excitedly, not bothering to act offended about your obsession with him and that Kermit hoodie. “There was something about cheeks, I swear.”

“See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!” you helped him out dutifully.

“O, that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek!” he finished proudly and placed his palm against your cheek.

“Only you could possibly mix Romeo and Juliet with The Frog Prince and somehow make it work,” you praised him.

“Does that mean you’ll go to prom with me?” Seonghwa tilted his head to the side adorably.

“Of course I will, baby,” you responded happily.

“Thank God, ‘cause learning that monologue drained my soul and brain,” he whistled playfully.

“You know, you had me worried there for a second,” you confessed reluctantly, because you didn’t want to keep any secrets from your doting boyfriend.

“When?” Seonghwa asked in confusion.

“Lunchtime. A week ago. When you asked me for advice. I thought that...”

“That I would ask someone else?” he correctly guessed your suspicions. And you nodded. “Have I ever given you a reason to doubt me?”

“No, you’re perfect. In fact, too perfect. It makes me feel like I don’t deserve you.”

Seonghwa smiled sadly and kissed the top of your head. But he wasn’t angry with you. Just wanted to erase those silly thoughts from your mind.

“You deserve so much more, princess. But I’ll try my best to give you all I can.”

“As will I,” you promised and mischievously pulled the drawstrings on his hoodie, making his face squished adorably.

“If this is the best you’re capable of, I dread to see your worst,” he shook his head in amusement.

“Prince Frogmeo and the Nerdy Princess,” you sighed wistfully. “That would make a hell of a fairy tale, wouldn’t it?”

“How about Kermit the Frog whoops the Princess’s ass for being a brat?” Seonghwa threatened jokingly.

“You know what? I wouldn’t say no to that,” you giggled and started running away from him. “If you catch me first!”

Prom night arrived and despite all the preparations and excitements around it, it was nothing special in itself. What made it special, however, were the moments you spent with Seonghwa. Just dancing and talking seemed to be enough to make your heart leap with joy. And the smile never left your face the entire night.

“School’s really ending, huh?” you spoke aloud without thinking, while you were swaying slightly to the music in your boyfriend’s arms.

“This isn’t the end of us. We’ll go to college, we’ll grow up. The best is yet to come, darling.”

“You know what I meant,” you replied, a hint of sadness tinging your tone. “In college, I’ll study Literature, you’ll study Music. We’ll no longer be able to sit next to each other in class or exchange notes or hold hands under the desk.”

“We’ll do all sorts of other things,” Seonghwa responded cheerfully, trying to think positive. “We’ll have study dates in college, we’ll visit new restaurants and make more memories together. Just because high school is over, doesn’t mean we are. I’m not giving up on my best friend ever.”

“Your girlfriend,” you corrected him playfully.

“My best friend,” he repeated. “You were right. Being in love with each other doesn’t nullify our friendship. Both are equally important to me. You are the most important to me.”

“God, Hwa, how can you say such things so easily?”

“Is your heart fluttering?” your boyfriend and best friend teased you, swirling you around while dancing. You were met with his beautiful dark gaze again as he murmured: “Hi, princess.”

“H-hi, S-seonghwa,” you chuckled in response.

And you were finally home.

The End

#ateez #seonghwa #ateez smut #seonghwa smut #ateez fluff #seonghwa fluff #ateez fic #seonghwa fic #park seonghwa #ateez x reader #seonghwa x reader #ateez imagines #seonghwa angst #writing

323 notes · View notes

absolutepokemontrash · 3 years

Text

MC is Half Demon and Blah Blah Blah-

Time for the Group Retreat!

Part 1 Part 2 Lessons 1-5 Lessons 5-6 Lessons 10-12 Lessons 13-15 Part 3 Part 4

I’m quite hyped for this one, ladies, gents, and esteemed readers! For simplicity’s sake, since this is before M!MC and A!MC arrive, L!MC will go back to being referred to as just MC. Enjoy the Headcanons!

Since the previous Underground Tomb incident ended much less violently, Lucifer is now more worried than angry about MC’s rampant shennaniganery.

Like... his kid was poking holes in his totally foolproof “Your cow-uncle went to live on a farm in the human world” story. What if MC somehow got into the attic and got hurt?!

It didn’t help that they were still in this weird phase of their father/child relationship. On one hand, Lucifer obviously cares for his kid, and his kid likes him... but it’s also only been less than three months and we all know how emotionally constipated Lucifer is.

MC’s also getting REAL sus of all the secrets their dear old dad is keeping... doesn’t help that they STILL haven’t went up into the attic.

Anyhoo~ the announcement for the retreat was a barrel of laughs.

“I’m proposing, a group retreat!”

Everyone met Diavolo’s announcement with the exact same confused reaction. It’s like the entire assembly hall was doing the ‘Guy Blinking’ meme.

“A... group retreat?” Lucifer repeated slowly. “For what reason exactly, Lord Diavolo?”

The Crown Prince was giddy with excitement as he explained. “MC told me about their middle school overnight trip and it sounded like it would be quite fun!”

Simeon, Luke, MC, and Solomon were all seated next to each other in the ‘exchange student seats of less importance’. Luke leaned over and whispered a question to MC.

“Why are you so friendly with the crown prince?”

MC smirked and shrugged. “Lucifer had the Demon-Flu and couldn’t go meet with Lord Diavolo last week so I went for him. Lord Diavolo’s surprisingly bad at Connect Four but has really good luck in Snakes and Ladders.”

Luke’s jaw dropped in complete and utter shock and horror.

“We’re playing CandyLand and the Game of Life next time, want to come?” MC added.

“Play CandyLand... with him..?” Luke looked at Diavolo, who was still explaining his plan for the retreat, then looked back at MC. “I’ll only go to shield you from his corrupting influence.”

“Yeah... Corrupting...” MC had to hold back a laugh at the thought of Diavolo, who during MC’s visit lit up like a Christmas tree upon being called ‘Dia’ and believed that Mood Rings were the greatest human invention ever, being a corrupting influence.

“MC! Torture dungeon or no!?” MC was snapped out of their conversation by Mammon shouting at them from his seat.

“What?”

“Do ya think there’s a torture dungeon under the castle, or not?”

“I’m not sure,” MC turned to Diavolo. “Lord Diavolo, is there a torture dungeon under the Demon Lord’s Castle?”

There is in fact, no torture dungeon. Presumably...

Everyone packed up and headed out to the Demon Lord’s Castle!

The fabulous seven all broke several speed limits and traffic laws in order to be there early. Listen, they had to get there before Purgatory Hall, it was a matter of pride.

Besides, what’s the Royal guard going to do? Arrest six of the seven rulers of hell and a kid? Ha. No. Not when Diavolo controls their paychecks.

The rooming situation remained the same, Asmo, Simeon, and MC were roomed together, and MC got to watch Asmo get psychologically profiled by Simeon. It was truly a sight to behold.

MC was nice enough to assure Asmo that they really liked him and thought he was very sweet.

Asmo, not used to being complimented on his personality, almost started openly weeping.

So, the tour of the Demon Lord’s Castle began! Asmo got yelled at by his ex in the painting and the usual batch of idiots got sucked into the catacombs under the castle.

Lucifer wasn’t terribly sure how or if he should express his concern for MC being stuck in the labyrinth.

All these new fatherly feelings of worry are very very odd. He didn’t worry this much for Satan, mainly because Satan was usually the threat.

Even as a baby...

Lucifer found himself checking his DDD every few minutes to see if MC had texted or called from wherever the painting dragged them to, never mind that if they did text he’d hear the phone ding.

“Lucifer, don’t worry too much,” Diavolo patted Lucifer on the shoulder, a bright smile on his face. “Your brothers and MC will be perfectly fine! There’s nothing too dangerous in the catacombs that they wouldn’t be able to take care of.”

Resigning himself to the fact that MC was under the care of his last choices for babysitting, Lucifer put away his DDD. “I know they’ll be fine, but I’m not overly pleased with the situation.” He shot a glare at Helene in the portrait, who rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.

“Lucifer worrying about someone, I’m truly, genuinely shocked.” Hearing Satan’s attempt at goading him, Lucifer, flawless demon that he is, resisted the urge to throw his DDD at his brother.

“Quiet, Satan.”

————

“WHY THE FUCK IS A SNAKE DOWN HERE?!”

“ITS HENRY 1.0!”

“YEAH THAT REALLY CLEARS STUFF UP, LEVI!”

MC and Levi continued their screaming match as the group ran for dear life from a giant snake.

Yeah... nothing the brothers couldn’t handle... sure, Lord Diavolo...

They made it out of the scary catacombs... don’t worry.

Lucifer did that parent-thing where he cleaned the catacomb dust off MC’s face with a napkin.

Yay! Parenting!

Failed pillow fight attempt #1 happened that evening. Because Mammon was obsessed with being the fun-uncle and saw his brothers encroaching on his place as favourite uncle.

MC doesn’t know how to break it to him that he’ll probably always be the favourite uncle and he doesn’t have to be such a dumbass to keep his spot.

Scavenger hunt went on as canon dictates.

Asmo had his diva tantrum and stormed off, but MC also wanted to win so they didn’t go after him.

Clearly expecting someone to go beg him to come back, Asmo was very annoyed when no one went after him.

“Um, helloooo? Anyone going to comfort me~?”

“Nope.”

“Well I don’t want your comfort anyway, SOLOMON.”

It was very close, L!MC insisted their loss came from sabotage. No evidence was found but just LOOK at Satan’s face.

Time for the Formal Dance~

If you’re wondering why Luke didn’t say anything when MC was suddenly poofed into their demon form, you’re assuming that Mammon wasn’t in on the “let’s prank the chihuahua” plan.

“Mammon..? Is MC behind you?”

“Nope! Why?”

MC was able to get to the other side of the ballroom with Luke none the wiser! Hell yeah, nothing like screwing with your friend!

So it’s canon that Lucifer is like, a solid 20/10, therefore MC is ADORABLE. What I’m saying is, some of the younger demons asked them to dance.

Asmo was also being MC’s hype man, which was very nice of him. Mammon also tried to give advice on how to be cool and suave. Beel was there for moral support.

“Alright kiddo, you need to be aloof and mysterious! People love aloof and mysterious, that’s why I’m so popular.”

“Don’t listen to him, MC. He flew into a wall as a kid and it killed all his brain cells. Just be proper but not snooty, sweet but not saccharine, friendly but not annoying,”

“Ask them if they want to share some of the hors d’oeuvres.”

“Okay, first, aloof and mysterious are the last words I would ever use to describe you, Mammon. Second, Asmo I have no clue what you’re asking me to do. Third... Beel that’s the best advice I’ve received in recent memory.”

None of that mattered anyway because MC got swarmed with dance offers.

“Well,” MC smirked and held out their hand at the demon that was bold enough to ask them to dance first. “I admire the confidence.”

The demon’s smile brightened, then dropped completely when their gaze drifted behind MC. “I uh... on second thought... I’m gonna...”

MC’s potential dance partners all quickly scattered to the snack table. The half demon growled and turned around to see their father acting like he didn’t just scare away MC’s groupies.

“Father! What was that for?!” MC huffed, Lucifer rolled his eyes and grabbed MC’s wrist and began to pull them away from the dance floor.

“You’re too young to dance.”

“That’s crazy! They looked like they were my age.” MC protested, their wings fluttering in annoyance.

“Even if they looked to be your age, MC, they’re hundreds of years older.” Lucifer said calmly.

“What about that equivalent age stuff you told me about? Like how Luke is hundreds of years old but by angel/human standards he’s technically younger than me?”

“That doesn’t matter right now.” Lucifer lightly pushed MC towards the hallway that led back to their room.

“But I want to dance with someone!” MC felt their wings involuntarily fluff up.

Lucifer turned and smiled at his dear little brat, crouching slightly to get to their level. “Not on my watch.”

MC’s face was literally this: >:0

Lucifer is out here being the dad in every comedy that involves someone bringing home their partner to meet their parents.

MC was banished to their room, they spent their time angrily reading the manga they had packed.

When Levi escaped the party slightly later MC grilled him for details of what went on after they left.

“Nothing too interesting... except... um...”

“Spit it out, Levi!”

“...lrddiavlondlucferdnced”

“I can’t understand you, stop mumbling.”

“Lord Diavolo and Lucifer danced together...”

“...”

“I MISSED THAT?!”

So yes, MC’s desire to get a picture of Lucifer sleeping stems from VENGEANCE!

How DARE their father send MC up to their room and make them miss their OTP dancing together!?

So they call up their troupe of idiots and get ready to go be menaces to society.

MC also invites along Asmo because he seemed like he could use the adventure.

And because MC couldn’t plan the prank without Asmo noticing so it was better to just implicate him as well...

“Grrr...”

MC brightened and clapped their hands. “I know that growl!”

“It’s not my stomach, I packed snacks.” MC couldn’t see this, considering the room was pitch black (it must’ve been some kind of magic because demons have excellent night vision), but Beel waved a bag of chips in the air and got to eating.

“No, I’m not talking about your stomach, Beel.” MC skipped towards the source of the growling despite Mammon and Levi’s pleas for them to stop.

Ah! There he was!

“Cerberus!” MC cooed, the three headed dog stopped growling and barked happily. “Whose a good boy? Is it you?”

Cerberus let lose a bark that would probably make anyone crap their pants, but MC giggled and kept petting him. “Yeah! You’re the good boy! You like cuddles! Yes you do! Yes you do!”

A flash of light from a camera caused MC to drop their baby talk voice and stare angrily in the direction where the light came from.

“Whoever took that picture better delete it or I’m going to feed you to the dog.”

Cerberus growled in agreement. What a good boy.

“Well, as nice as this is...” Asmo huffed. “We’ve clearly been duped because this is not Lucifer and Diavolo’s room.”

“Oh well!” MC chirped and continued to pet the three headed dog. “Look at the doggy!”

“MC, you’re crazy. Dontcha ever forget that.” Mammon whimpered as Cerberus growled at him.

So yeah, they couldn’t get out of the room, so they ended up opening up the other door and falling into the catacombs like a bunch of lemmings.

Asmo charmed Henry, and they got out of the labyrinth no problem.

Yay! No consequences! Oh no- hi Lucifer.

Lucifer gave them all the mother of all lectures. Satan showed up with the rest of the gang and brought popcorn.

Belphie wasn’t there, okay? Satan needed to be a little shit for him.

Ah yes, the pillow fight... Mammon’s crusade to be the best uncle culminated in a massive pillow fight that ended with MC, Lucifer, and Diavolo standing over everyone’s unconscious bodies.

So they uh... won the pillow fight.

MC couldn’t sleep. They legitimately couldn’t. As exhausting as the pillow fight victory had been, everyone was snoring, and MC was bleary eyed and awake at one in the morning.

They eventually sat up and looked around, Asmo was passed out in a very unflattering position, Solomon was chanting god knows what in his sleep, Levi was half hanging off Simeon’s bed, Simeon and Luke were sleeping like angels (hehehehe-), Beel was in the middle of eating his pillow in his sleep, Mammon appeared to be dreaming about winning the lottery, and Satan was... suspiciously absent.

He was there a minute ago... weird.

Deciding that this wasn’t worth it and they should just go sleep somewhere else, MC got out of bed and avoided stepping on anyone as they vacated the room.

The Demon Lord’s Castle at night could rival the House of Lamentation in terms of overall creepiness. MC had gotten used to the spirits and curses that littered their home, but they had only been to the Demon Lord’s Castle once before, so they were extra careful not to accidentally touch anything. Their stomach rumbled and they frowned.

Damn, they had the midnight munchies... they needed a snack.

MC made their way to the kitchen and on there way, noticed a peculiar room through a half open door. Taking a few steps back to peek into it, they noticed... doors. A lot of doors. And ivy covered steps. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to any of the placements, and the room was... weirdly chilly.

“You can come in if you’d like, MC.”

Barbatos’ voice nearly caused MC to hit a high note that they hadn’t been able to hit since their voice began to change. They straightened out their wrinkled pyjamas and stepped inside.

The butler himself was walking down one of the flights of stairs.

“Um...” Quickly remembering their manners, MC straightened their posture and cleared their throat. “Good evening Barbatos.”

Barbatos smiled and inclined his head in turn. “Good evening to you as well, MC.”

“How did you know it was me outside? You were up there a second ago.” MC asked.

“It’s a part of my powers. I can see possible futures, and I foresaw you passing by my room and getting curious.” Barbatos explained.

“Oh,” MC said, half nodding and continuing to look around. A the sound of a door closing out of MC’s vision made them squeak and look around for the source of the noise. “What was that?!”

“It’s nothing to be worried about.” Barbatos raised his hands in a placating gesture. “These doors in my room are gateways to different timelines and some are gateways into the past of this particular timeline. That was another version of me passing by.”

“Does this... happen often?” MC knitted their eyebrows.

Barbatos hesitated before answering. “Not really. It’s quite rare. Lord Diavolo has expressly forbidden me from using my full powers freely.”

“Ah... makes sense...”

“Now, I believe you came down for snacks?”

MC blinked in surprise. “How did you- oh... the time magic...”

“Yes, the time magic. Now, would you prefer yogurt and fruit, or apples and peanut butter?”

“Yogurt and fruit please!”

I’m sure MC’s knowledge of how Barbie’s room works will totally not come into play later. I’m sure.

Solomon and MC graced the brunch table with their cooking. I think you can guess how it would have turned out if Barbatos hadn’t intervened.

Rest In Peace to Beel’s tastebuds.

Anyway, the rest of the retreat was all fun and good.

MC may or may not have slipped up and called Diavolo ‘Dia’ in front of Lucifer. It would’ve sparked a lecture if Dia’s puppy-like excitement wasn’t so damn adorable.

Lucifer’s got a heart... somewhere... it’s probably all shrivelled up and tiny, but I’m sure it’s there.

Everyone went back home, brought closer together through... pillow fights and surviving Solomon’s cooking I guess..?

Anyway, MC got home, unpacked their stuff, watched Kakegurui with Levi and Mammon, let Asmo paint their nails, made and ate dinner with Beel, continued their piano lessons with Lucifer, and received a 100% fake smile from Satan.

It was a nice day with their new family, MC curled up in their bed and prepared to go to sleep.

“Help me!”

MC lurched upwards in their bed, whipping their head from side to side, trying to find the source of the voice. Their room was completely empty, the perks of being half demon extended to being able to see in the dark. No new smells either, they were alone in the room.

Auditory hallucinations were common before falling asleep after being sleep deprived, creepy, but not too unusual.

“MC!”

Okay- that one couldn’t be ignored. It was common knowledge that the House of Lamentation was definitely haunted in some capacity, but the ghosts never really bothered the demons living inside, MC was partly convinced that some of the ghosts didn’t even notice that the demons were there. So it couldn’t have been a ghost calling their name.

“MC! I need help!”

The voice reverberated through their head, like it was trying to hit every part of their skull to make sure it was at least felt if MC couldn’t hear it. MC massaged their scalp and got out of bed.

The House of Lamentation at night truly lived up to its haunted reputation. Cold, clammy, dark, even by demon standards. No spooky old house was going to scare MC though, they walked down the hall with their head held high.

They walked closer to walls and furniture, knowing that the floor was less likely to creak in those areas. How did they know that? Mammon had told them it worked like a charm. Well, it’d work better for him if he stopped tripping over the furniture and alerting Lucifer.

MC was much more nimble and careful, stepping slowly and lightly around the hallways until they reached the door to the attic. They reached out to clasp their hand around the doorknob, then froze. It smelled like…

Oh no.

MC leapt away from the door like it was rigged to explode if they touched it and practically dove for cover into an alcove. The all too-recent smell of Lucifer’s fancy cologne and the increasing sound of someone coming down the stairs made them clamp their hand over their mouth and crouch down.

What was their father doing up there?

He had said the attic was full of old junk and there was no reason to go up there, so why exactly did he-

The door slammed open and Lucifer stomped down the hallway back towards his room, MC presumed. They were about to let out a sigh of relief when the footsteps paused. MC felt their heart drop right into their gut when they heard the footsteps coming back in their direction.

What were they going to say to him when he found them? ‘Sorry! This isn’t where the bathrooms are!’ The last thing MC wanted was to add to their father’s ever growing list of stresses. MC was totally responsible and grown-up, their father didn’t need to worry.

MC clamped their eyes shut and tried to slow their heart rate. Demons were beings of darkness and shadow, they could blend in quite easily. They took a deep breath, cleared their head, and felt the shadows of the hallway shift and cover them like a blanket.

Lucifer’s footsteps stopped, MC heard a tired sigh, then the footsteps started up again, this time in the direction of his room.

They allowed themselves a sigh of relief before relieving themselves of their hiding space and opening the door leading to the attic staircase.

If the rest of the House of Lamentation was considered clammy, cold, and foreboding, the attic staircase was that multiplied by a factor of twelve. MC felt themselves shudder involuntarily when they stepped closer to the staircase. Every primal part of their brain was telling them to turn around and walk away, but one tiny part was holding them back. They placed their foot on the first step, waiting for any kind of resistance, nothing other than the feeling of passing through invisible cobwebs.

“MC?”

Upon hearing their name, MC craned their neck to try and get a look at what could be waiting for them at the top of the stairs.

“Are you coming, or not?”

The cascade of warning sirens that began to blare in MC’s head went ignored as they continued to scale the staircase.

When they reached the final step, they were met with a long hallway, with a single door on the right side of the wall.

“H-hello?” MC tried to instill some force into their voice, but it still ended up quavering a little.

“Down here.” Someone knocked on the wall next to the door, almost causing MC to jump.

Oh. Oh no. MC stood straight in front of the door, and when they saw who was looking back at them they nearly passed out.

“Belphegor..?”

Belphegor’s eyes flashed as he gave MC a once over. His eyes narrowed when his gaze snapped to MC’s. The analytical expression melted into a lazy grin.

“That’s me,” he said softly. “Nice to finally meet you, MC.”

243 notes · View notes