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#just in case you didn't want to be Known. but know that I have internet kissed you on the mouth for commenting
genia-caliber · 1 month
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Hello everyone, I posted a new fic! (tw death from old age)
It's a bit angstier than usual but I really enjoyed writing it.
The early reviews are in and it seems people liked it 😌
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if you also think being sad can be fun, I hope you'll read it and enjoy!
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dbphantom · 1 year
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Me when I'm at the old parking garage by the abandoned mall taking selfies on film
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#I literally can't draw the biohazard symbol to save my life but anyway imagine that's there instead of the black circles of void#Caleb might not show it 100% but he is easily embarrassed#In case you're wondering what Cord's hybrid outfit is it's a cartoony thief getup to match his magic#That is to say his magic is cartoon physics (in the protection sense)#WHICH HE DID IN FACT HAVE BEFORE G5 DROPPED. JUST TO MAKE IT KNOWN.#Yes I'm still giddy about it one year later. I did the thing. I did the thing and then the thing was proven to be a good thing. Eeeeeee#Anyway. Caleb's magic is being able to enter and exit screens like they're portals#And also control connected electronics while he's doing it#Caleb is the reason you do not want an internet of things.#But in veneer-verse everything is suuuuper over tech-ified and so he is like. One of the most op characters lol#Shhhh#Listen. He's my favorite let me have this one#But yeah I think the main point is to be like. Look at all this cool stuff. Look how helpful it could be. Now look at how corrupted it is#By this megacorporation playing god. Let's kill and eat the ceo!!!!#Oh I didn't explain the thief part of cords outfit. He stole a LOT of stuff from that megacorp while he worked there#In prep of screwing them over. Hence the cartoony thief outfit. He even stole two prototypes of his own stuff.#Because like. *he's* the one who built the wings and the first portal device#But because he was working under crestfall when he made them they're legally not his. So he stole them by taking them back#''stole'' ... you know.#Veneer#Caleb Oroitz#Cord Motus#Btw if you're wondering why specifically physical selfies... Because in universe every photo taken on a recently made device is uploaded to#A mega cloud owned by crestfall where every photo/video/document is stored. So the gang all take physical photos and share them around :)#No information given to crestfall (and therefore the government) about them vibing in the abandoned industrial district#Because they don't need to know they're there. And they ESPECIALLY don't need to know where Caleb ran off to.#Or that Cord is actually alive.#Jerric helped Cord fake his death and got him a job as a physics professor... It's a whole thing.#Caleb was essentially being held hostage by them 4 20 years (nice) until Bing and Chase broke him out to help their friend Sarah DiAngelo#Anyway it's almost 5am and I REALLY should be sleeping good night sorry for the oc posting it will happen again
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star-sim · 3 months
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hello kitty meets batman (real not clickbait!) ☆ jake sim
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☆ youtuber! super down bad! bf! jake x youtuber! fem! reader ☆summary: jake sim was youtube's cut-throat, horror creator, known for his dark video style. meanwhile, you were the cutesy beauty vlogger, lighting up every algorithmically generated home page you touched. no one would have expected you two vastly different people to know each other, let alone be in a long-term relationship. ☆ genre: fluff, youtuber! au, secret dating! au, established relationship, suggestive, im sorry im never letting the ytber au go, cutesy!reader, jake is SO down bad its kinda painful #patheticmen ☆warning(s): no, just fluffy, also reader is really feminine and girly in this ☆ word count: 13.4k words ☆ wrote half of this in spanish class so im sorry if there are mistakes, first time writing established relationship in full, kinda nervy
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Jake Sim was many things.
One of the most popular and well-respected content creators on Youtube was one of them.
As Jake's nimble fingers darted across his keyboard, his other hand rested firmly on his mouth, he thought that the blue light emitting from his computer screen should burn his eyes. Except, it didn't. Despite what most people thought, 90% of being Youtuber was just simply staring at a computer screen, rather than being in front of a camera lens. The man felt his nose prickle before he let out a soundless, but satisfying, yawn. He leaned back against his office chair, stretching his neck and arms before he rubbed his eyes.
There was a reason that he was an extremely respected creator on Youtube.
For one, the production quality of his videos were high. Down to the Closed Captions or his camera's grain, Jake's attention to detail was immaculate. Not to mention, the content itself was magnificent. 
Whenever people asked Jake what he did for work, it was hard for him to answer.
He'd said that he made horror content, but he'd only earned incredulous looks, like he was a madman. Even then, "horror" content wasn't the correct description.
In short, Jake liked to make videos about obscure things. Which just so happened to be a little spooky. Sketchy true crime cases, searches for lost media, strange Internet phenomena, government cover-ups— Name anything a little bit eerie and Jake probably already covered something of that sort on his channel. Given the nature of his content, Jake almost always maintained a serious tone, but when the opportunity came to offer his opinion, he liked to relay it in a straightforward way. 
Another reason why he was so regarded was because of his content style. He preferred using darker colors, having a crisp microphone that picked up every rasp of his deeper voice. When he had camera shots, Jake liked to be in a dimly lit room. Unfortunately, his room was dark, too. 
This all combined together to create a singular image for Jake: the cool, high-quality, but a little bit scary, guy that likes to make videos about scary topics.
Now cracking his knuckles, Jake sucked in a sharp breath. Although he could easily export his upcoming video now and upload it, garnering millions of views, he refused to. There was something missing from it; it needed a little umph, a little embellishment to really pull things together. If there was one thing about Jake, it was that he'd put quality over quantity any day.
Jake is torn out of his thoughts when his phone, long forgotten next to his mouse, lit up. Usually, when he worked long afternoons like this, he silenced his phones in order to maintain focus.
However, there was always one exception.
You.
pretty girl: hi babe, do you think you can help me take promo pictures later?
The moment that Jake saw your contact show up, he picked up his phone immediately. His fingers tapped his screen, quickly responding to you.
me: yeah i can do it rn if you want
pretty girl: if youre busy, it doesn't need to be today, it can be tomorrow or something
pretty girl: oh
pretty girl: are you sure?
Of course he was.
Jake was already shutting off his monitor, grabbing his keys and shoving his feet into his shoes at your first message.
me: yeah i'll come over right now
You were Jake Sim's girlfriend. But other than the people in your personal life, no one else knew that.
Not that either of you minded.
Like Jake, you were a Youtuber. Except, your community was the complete opposite from his.
Your niche was cute makeup and lifestyle. Your videos had cute, blushy sets, characterized by cute plushies in the background and pretty, pink decorations. When you weren't making makeup tutorials or "get ready with me's," you were giving your viewers small sneak-peeks into your life. Whether it be your rosy morning skincare, or your sunny afternoon cooking attempts, or your illuminated late night thoughts, your content was light-hearted, soft, and personable. 
And if you weren't doing any of those things, you were modeling.
You were a beauty influencer, so you had sponsors from different makeup companies and such. What was most distinguishable from your personal brand was that you were one of Sanrio's biggest ambassadors. If there was someone that was the living embodiment of Hello Kitty, it was you.
Your personability, and your ability to feel authentic to your viewers, was a key factor in your large viewerbase. And what contributed to that the most was the fact that you had no idea how to use a camera. One would think that a content creator would know how to use a camera, but you were somehow the exception.
Not a problem!
Because you had your boyfriend, Jake!
Who was basically the master of content creation and film, in your opinion.
"Jakey!" you pounced on your boyfriend the moment he appeared at your apartment doorway. You threw your arms around his neck, immediately peppering his neck and cheeks with kisses. You heard him let out a few chuckles, feeling the rumble of his strong chest as he did. 
"Geez, babe, let me take my shoes off first," Jake teased you, taking in your sweet strawberry perfume. You immediately peeled yourself off of him, your lips forming a cute frown. 
"Shut up," you murmured, punching him on the arm while you jutted your bottom lip out. The lip tint and gloss on them shined, which made Jake grin. And when you noticed that he was staring at your lips, you gave him a gentle shove before saying again, “Shut up, Jakey.”
There it was, his favorite thing about you.
You were so, very, really, undeniably, mean to him.
Okay, that sounded weird.
But it was the truth.
Your relationship could be summed up in a few words—
You were just the cutest, and could barely contain your feelings for Jake, so you'd get all cuddly and affectionate with him. He'd tease you about it, so you'd get all shy and flustered, and you would begin to be mean to him. You'd call him stupid or annoying, and you'd tell him to go away but make no effort to resist his arms wrapping around your waist, pulling you against his chest. And then he would get to tease you more, until you were so embarrassed that you relented and let him kiss you.
How could he not resist teasing you?
You were always so pretty, with makeup or not, and it was easy to tease you since you got embarrassed so easily.
Even if he was holding his most expensive camera in his hands, he'd still let you pounce on him, if it meant that he got one extra kiss from you.
You led him to your bedroom. It had the same sweet, strawberry scent as you. Your room was pink, and along the walls were shelves, all filled with the many, many plushies that Jake bought you. Plopping onto your bed, Jake watched as you dug around your filming desk.
"Sooo," he started, "You're gonna do a promotional post on Instagram?"
You hummed. Sanrio recently launched a new line of lip tints, and they sent you their newest ones to review and promote. 
"I already made a review, and it's going to go up later," you said, digging through your drawers. "I want to make a promo post, too, y'know?"
You let out an 'a-ha!' as you found what you were looking for. It was a tube of lip-tint, the newest one from the collection. You then touched up your makeup a little more. 
Jake watched you in awe. The way you applied lip gloss and brushed setting powder (or was it blush? he didn't know anything about makeup) onto your cheeks was so mesmerizing, as you weren't already so captivating to him.
Finally, you stood up, straightening out your outfit. You puckered your lips, and when you noticed Jake staring at you, you gave him a little twirl.
"How do I look?" you asked. 
Jake, with his camera in hand, pointed the lens at you. He looked through the viewfinder.
"Beautiful." 
As always.
The shoot went smoothly. As you always did when Jake was your photographer, the two of you drove to the film studio, renting out a room for a good hour. Jake was a pro with the camera and you were an even bigger pro at modeling. Other than a few compositional edits or changes in exposure, you and Jake were done as soon as you started. The two of you decided that you’d go back to your place, cook dinner together, and maybe watch a movie.
Except that got delayed.
“Y-You’re so annoying, Jake,” you struggled out. You were in the back seat of your car, legs thrown over your boyfriend’s hips, his soft lips connected to your neck. Your fingers gently tugged on his hair, you yourself pressing soft pecks against his forehead and temples. It started because you gave Jake a kiss on the cheek as a ‘thank you,’ which spiraled into a makeout session in your car.
“What,” he breathed against your skin, dark eyes flickering up to yours. “You said you’d do anything to express your thanks for me.”
Jake kissed your neck again, before trailing up your throat to your jaw. Your fingers raked through his soft hair, pushing his dark locks out of his face so that you could see his face clearly. Jake reached up, took your hand out of his hair, and instead held your palm against his cheek, nuzzling into your warm hand. The way your eyes widened into saucers, lips parting, in response made the man’s lips curve upward.
“W-Well I thought you’d ask me to hug you… or something,” you said sheepishly, your voice soft as your boyfriend’s actions flustered you.
Jake grinned to himself internally before pulling away from you altogether. 
“Then do you want to stop?” Your eyes widened a fraction. “Then, let’s go hom—“
“No!” you cut him off, your hands squeezing his shoulders. “Let’s not!”
You stared at him, brows furrowed, for a few moments, before you noticed the growing grin on your boyfriend’s face. That look you knew too well, the one that said that he was going to tease the everlasting fuck out of you.
Jake pulled you in by the waist, close enough so that your chests touched, noses almost brushing against each other. He could feel the heat radiating off your face, and you could hear the smile in his voice.
“You sure you don’t wanna stop?” His voice was teasing, but you knew better. The earnest look in his eyes, you stared into yours, was filled with sincerity. He gave your waist a squeeze, almost as if to ask, “Do you actually want this?”
“Yes, Jakey,” you breathed against his lips, matter-of-factly. “I don’t wanna stop.”
The corner of his lips begin to lift.
“So you better kiss me,” you quipped, gripping his shoulders.
“Thought you’d never ask,” he rasped back, before attacking your lips.
(Later, when you were done, you two went home and went about your plan for the night. Except, you had to yell at Jake to go wash his face, because the sight of your lipstick at the corner of his lips was too much for you to take.)
"Hi, everyone!" you greeted the camera, folding your hands in your lap. With your thick, pink, knit sweater's sleeves falling over your wrists, you shot the lens a pretty smile. It was another normal day on the job of making content.
"As you guys know, VidCon is coming up soon." You pulled your makeup pouch toward your chest, leaning against the edge of your filming desk. "So, let's pack with me!"
Vidcon was an event for people to meet all of their favorite Youtubers. This year, you were invited to be one of the featured creators, given your popularity. As you filmed your "Pack with Me!" vlog, surrounded by ring lights aided by your windows cracked open, you recalled the email you had sent earlier, squeezing your eyes shut.
You see, Jake and you were both invited to VidCon. Since no one else, not even Youtube the corporation or your fellow Youtubers, knew that you guys were dating, Jake and you were given vastly different things. Youtube booked an entire hotel complex for all of its creators, and unfortunately, your room was located 10 floors below Jake's room. And worse, your booths and events were so far apart from each other that you probably wouldn't even see your boyfriend even if he decided to traverse the Convention. 
That's what you got for being vastly different content creators.
This year would be the first year that you and Jake got invited to VidCon, and you two wanted to share this experience with each other as much as possible.
Which is why you just shot Youtube one of the most embarrassing emails of your life.
"Hi, Youtube. The hotel complex you booked has a bar, and it is much closer to the top than the bottom. I really want to visit that bar. Can I request a room change so that my room is maybe on the 15th or 16th floors?" except add more formalities and much more discreet language, and that was the email you sent to your employers. You knew that it wouldn't be hard, and that the Youtube PR manager wouldn't reject your request. After all, you were the Sanrio beauty girl. Regardless, you'd gotten a response about an hour ago, and your request was approved, luckily. 
As you continued talking to your camera, folding your clothes neatly while chatting to your viewers about updates in your life, you thought about what you and Jake should do at VidCon. It was in the LA area, but you definitely wanted to visit other places in Southern California. 
It was no surprise that you and Jake had been more than touchy and close to each other. You were dating. Still, butterflies formed in your stomach as you thought about what you would do with him. Your face heated up at the thought of you and him spending time together in the hotel's rooftop hot-tub. The idea of him sneaking in your room at night, warming you up and pepperinging your cheeks with kisses, made your heart rate speed up, and you could only relish in the thought of exploring LA, Irvine, or wherever Jake wanted to take you with him.
You were a grown woman with a job and responsibilities, but the mere thought of your boyfriend being within the same vicinity as you made you nervous.
Just as you finished folding your clothes, you heard your front door crack open.
"Babe?" you hear Jake's voice call out your name. You turn off your camera to greet him, swearing to forget all of the thoughts you just had. Except, the moment that you locked eyes with him, all determination to not be teased left your body. Your lips wobbled, trying to bite back that stupid, bashful, and lovesick smile that made its way onto your face when you thought about Jake, but your eyes gave it all away. Instead of throwing yourself at him like you usually did, you only reached for the hem of his black T-shirt, playing with it sheepishly. 
You mumbled a small, "Hi."
You could feel Jake staring at you, and you could hear the way his lips curve into a smug, shit-eating grin.
"Shut up," you told him, your eyebrows crashing together.
"Baby, I didn't even say anything," Jake said, his hands finding their place on your lower back.
You felt shy and exposed before him. "Well, I know you're going to say something."
Jake grasped your chin, gently making you look at him. You tried to avoid his eyes, but it was impossible to avoid those dreamy, caramel eyes. Then, he took your face with both his hands, leaning in.
Was he going to kiss you? Oh my god, he was! Quick! What do you do? You felt like you were going to melt.
Instinctively, your hands tightened on the hem of his shirt, the black fabric scrunching in your fists. You closed your eyes, your lips softly puckering. You could feel him coming closer and closer, until his breath fanned your cheek.
As if he hadn't kissed you a million times before, your heart felt like it was going to fall out of your chest. 
Jake ghosted his lips over yours, inching just close enough that he could brush his lip against yours. 
And then, he pulled away from you. He took off his shoes, placed down his keys, and made his way into your bedroom, leaving you there standing alone.
Heat spread across your face and neck and ears as you realized your boyfriend had just teased you once again. You hid your face in your palms, letting out a small whine of embarrassment, before recollecting yourself and joining your boyfriend.
"Woah, what's going on here, babe?" Jake asked, standing at your bedroom doorway. 
"Oh." There was clothes and film equipment sprawled across your floor and bed. "I was filming a video."
You saw Jake's expression twitch, before he took your hands in his.
"My bad, was I interrupting something?" He was sincere in how his face showed a small drop of guilt for disrupting your filming. How could someone be such a tease one moment yet be so genuine the next?
"No, it's okay, Jakey," you said. "I mean, I need to finish my video, but I don't mind if you're around."
And that's how you found yourself trying not to burst out laughing as you filmed your video. Jake kept making funny faces at you, that goofy grin growing on his face as he wiggled his eyebrows at you.
"Jake, stop making faces!" you laughed, throwing a shirt at him.
He dodged it, throwing his head back into one of the plushies that he bought you. "I'm not doing anything!"
You threw another shirt at him, this time hitting him square in the face. Instead of admitting defeat, Jake only grabbed your shirt, pulling the fabric to his nose and taking a long, dramatic, sniff. 
"You smell sooooo good, babe," he said, ignoring your contorted expression, "I think I'm gonna keep this. You won't mind, right?"
"Ugh, Jaaaaakee!"
You plopped on top of him in bed. You felt his chest rumble as chuckles left his lips, rolling your eyes at him. You gave his chest a smack, a pout forming on your lips.
"You're so annoying," you mumbled as his hands slithered up to your hips. He gave your ass a pat, gesturing you to adjust your position. You did, sitting up so that you straddled your boyfriend's hips.
"And you're so pretty," he said, squeezing your hipbone.
"Let go of me," you poked him in the chest, but made no attempt to get off of him. 
"No."
"I need to finish my video," you pouted, still not moving to get off of him. 
"I don't care." Jake instead sat up on his elbows, his hands sliding down to your lower back, his face getting suspiciously close to your boobs. "Just lay with me."
Your fingers ran through his dark locks, before giving them a tug towards your chest. Jake laid his cheek against your boobs like they were pillows, arms wrapped around your waist. You could feel his hot breath against your skin and neck. The next thing you knew, he was pressing sticky kisses against your chest and neck, soft gasps escaping your lips.
"Sorry, babe," he muttered against the shell of your ear, "I just can't resist you."
You let out a soft "ahhh!" when he bit down on your skin, his teeth brushing against the nape of your neck. Jake briefly pulled away, a smirk making its way onto his face as he admired the red-purple mark on your neck. 
"You're just too addicting."
Long story short, your video was still finished and uploaded. As Jake edited his video, he let yours play in the background, your bright voice illuminating his dark room. Somehow, your voice was the only thing that made him focus. 
However, when he heard a familiar laugh— his laugh— in your video, Jake stopped in his tracks.
His mind flashed back to what happened the other day in your apartment, when he interrupted you during your filming.
"I don't know if I turned off my camera, Jake," you had purred as Jake's tongue dipped into your collarbone. At that point, both you and him were shirtless, hair disheveled and pupils blown out with desire. Jake remembered the electricity that ran through him as those words left your lips.
"Am I supposed to care?" he had muttered, trailing kisses down your chest. "If they hear us, that's not my problem."
It was almost like you, who edited your video, added that clip to tease him. 
Immediately, his cheeks began turning the brightest shade of red possible. If you were here, he would have only coughed and looked away shyly, but since he was alone, his embarrassment spread across his face like a wildfire. Jake almost never showed it when he was flustered, at least when he was around you. 
He hid his face in his palms, sucking in a sharp breath. He squeezed his eyes shut, warmth prickling his skin. You were going to be the death of him. He let out a small, lovesick giggle, one that his friends would flame him for. He couldn't help it, not if it was you. 
When he read the comments, still flustered out of his mind, he felt a twinge of disappointment when no one seemed to notice him. 
For some reason, Jake couldn’t help but want people to know that you were his. He knew that you and him kept your relationship private to preserve it, but he still wanted to show you off.
Except, one comment caught his eye.
“Wait, does [Name] have a boyfriend? Who laughed at 6:34?” it read. Jake’s heart skipped a beat in his chest. The warmth that spread across his chest as his lips pulled upwards. He almost wanted to jump on his bed and roll around while giggling like a schoolgirl, but he contained himself.
At the corner of his eye, Jake spotted a certain plushie. 
As you were a partner of Sanrio, for a time there was a Limited Edition [Name] plushie, clad in pink with a cute, ruffle-lace bow to top it all off. Of course he bought one the moment it launched. Jake preferred his room to be completely dark and black, but he liked to keep that plushie on his bed, and although he’d never admit it, he hugged it when he slept if you weren’t with him.
Would it be wrong of him to tease you back? After all, Jake still had to film the brand deal for his new video. 
Would it hurt to position the plushie just enough so that it was in frame? 
So that maybe someone would see it.
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Vidcon came crashing on you and Jake like a meteor, and before the two of you knew it, you were in the venue, wringing your fingers as the event commenced.
Sometimes, it was difficult for you to comprehend the level of your popularity. Sure, the numbers that Youtube loved to display for you told you that you had millions watching you, but mere numerical figures were simply not enough for you to wrap your mind around.
Your schedule that day was simple: you were going to have a booth that you'd tend to for an hour or two, where your fans could take pictures with you and take a few freebies with them. Then, you'd go to your main event, which was in a smaller venue.
At your booth, where you sat currently, your personal table was set up in a very special way: your table was pink, and covered in a lacy, white tablecloth. Even the wall behind you was specifically painted pink and decorated with various Sanrio-esque decorations. You had stickers that you'd give out, as well as a Limited Edition Vidcon Sanrio plushie of you that people could buy. The pink polaroid decorated with Hello Kitty stickers hung around your neck with a pink lanyard. You genuinely looked like Sanrio and Hello Kitty vomited all over you, but you didn't mind. And plus, that didn't matter, because you were cute either way.
You were hit with pure surprise as multiple groups of fans came your way. The amount of people that came to you, rambling nervously about how much they loved you, how much they looked up to you, how much you inspired them and made their days better, made you feel light-headed. And very warm inside.
Jake was the one that did the talking for you (thank goodness!), but for some reason, you pushed through your usual shyness, instead wanting for people to come up to you and talk.
Your face lit up as one of your fans, a girl that looked around your age, maybe only a few years younger than you, approached you. You could tell by the Sanrio sticker of you on her phone case that she was most definitely here for you.
"Oh my gosh, hi [Name]!" She gazed at you with wide, glimmering eyes. 
Your initial reaction was surprise, but then you broke out into a smile. You cocked your head, fingers gripping the hem of your dress, both nervous and excited. "Hi, there."
You fan took one look at your face, and squealed. The way that she giggled, bouncing on her feet as she fangirled over you made warmth spread across your cheeks, getting shy and looking down briefly.
"I'm sorry, [Name]!" Your fan couldn't stop giggling, which you thought was very cute. It was now that you noticed the camera in your hand. "I just really love your content, and I'm just so excited to meet you in real life!"
You blinked at her a few times, before you smile only widened. 
"Don't worry about it!" you said, taking her free hand in yours. Your shyness melted away as your fan squealed again. "It really means a lot to me that you came out here to personally see me."
Your eyes flickered over to her camera, squeezing her hand and motioning to it with your other. "Can I...?"
She nodded enthusiastically, so you took her camera. Turn on the 'photo' setting, you posed for the camera, taking multiple pictures of yourself for her. You hoped that that would make up for your shyness. The two of you hugged, and you took many polaroids for her.
Almost immediately, after she left, you were tagged in a Twitter thread. It was that fan, reporting her experience with you.
"She was so much prettier in real life, I thought I was in heaven," her tweets detailed, "And [Name] was so sweet! It felt like I was meeting the real life Hello Kitty."
She posted the pictures you took on her camera, and then the videos. You couldn't help but grin like an idiot, especially at the comments (and the rapidly-accumulating likes and retweets).
"The way [Name] gets so shy is so cute!"
"I don't really watch beauty content but I love [Name] so much."
"She's like an actual Disney Princess."
You loved your fans, you really did. You were grateful for them, and you thought they were very cute. 
You were excited to see how Vidcon would treat you.
Jake was fighting.
He was fighting demons, wars, the little voices in his head.
Did you have to look so pretty today?
Jake's own event was an entire venue away from yours. He had a few events, so after his first one, he took a small break, where he looked through his notifications. 
Of course, the first thing he looked at was your texts. They were from a while ago, during his show when he didn't have his phone on him, so he responded to them now. He smiled at your cute texts, expressing how excited and happy you were. His heart jumped out of his chest when he saw the selfie you sent him: there you were, in all your cutesy Sanrio glory, smiling so prettily for him. Jake had to clasp his face to hide the stupid, love-struck grin that bled onto his face. 
"Oi, what're you giggling about?" Jake was interrupted by Jay, another one of his fellow horror Youtubers.
Jake immediately wiped his expression clean. "Nothing."
When he glanced back at his phone, that dumb grin began to form again.
Jay groaned. "This is so weird. It's like watching Batman smile."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jake scoffed.
"I'm sayin' that you're basically Youtube's Batman," Jay scrunched his nose, "And it's weird seein' you all... smiley and stuff."
"I literally smiled earlier!"
"Not in the way that you did just now. I have a bad feeling about it."
"Shut up!"
Jake really tried his best to swallow back his pure admiration for you as he opened his phone screen again, but he failed miserably.
He wished he could see you right now. He loved to see his fans, he loved to talk to them about their shared interest: all things horror and obscure.
But Jake missed you right now.
His heart plummeted to his stomach, however, when he logged onto Twitter, and saw the worst hashtag he could ever think of: #[Name]isSoCute.
He agreed with it. No, he embraced that sentiment with every molecule in his being.
Just... he wished that he could see you right now. When he checked the tag and saw all the cute pictures that people took of you and the sweet experiences they had with you, he frowned— That should be him!
However, Jake actually saw the worst thing to ever materialize when he saw the top video under the tag.
It was a shaky video, starting off with a teenage boy walking up to you. In the background, he could hear your pretty voice in the background, exchanging small greetings and words with the poster. Jake was almost lost in his sheer love for you when his eyes narrowed. The boy in the video let out a little chuckle, before dropping a cheesy pick-up line on you.
"[Name], if you were a vegetable, you'd be a cute-cumber." What made it worse was that you only giggled, leading the boy to drop a few other dumb pick-up lines. The camera panned up to you, showing you all smiley and bashful. Then, you and the boy hugged, before taking a few polaroids together.
Jake almost snapped his phone in half.
He understood better than anyone that you were a content creator just like him. It was part of the job to interact with fans, and given your character, of course you were sweet to them. He could tell that you were perfectly comfortable in the video, and that the kid probably was just joking around with his favorite Youtuber.
But did that stop Jake from mentally lambasting every single aspect of the video? Absolutely not.
Shaky camera, probably filmed on a phone, Jake's hands balled into fists, Fucked up aperture, exposure to low, bad mic.
Was he being a little immature? Yes, and Jake knew that. 
Though, Jake would admit that he agreed with a lot of comments and retweets under that post, hearting many of them in agreement.
"[Name] is such a cutie!" one read.
Absolutely.
"I love her so much," another read.
Me too, Jake thought.
"I want her so bad."
Just as Jake's finger hovered over the 'heart' button, he let out a small hmph. Did it annoy him that other people wanted you? Yes. But did he disagree with the comment? Nope. He pressed the "like" button.
He wanted to see you so bad. As Jake was queued up on stage, ready for his second event, he hoped that he could see you soon.
And his wish came true a few hours later.
It was now past noon, and Vidcon was in its (unofficial) intermission period, where a lot of the creators were now taking breaks. As Jake traversed the convention, he texted you trying to find a spot where the two of you could meet.
He passed the many booths and venues of his fellow Youtubers. The layout was unique in the way that Youtubers of similar genres were placed in similar areas. So when he started seeing Youtubers with bright makeup and problematic pasts, Jake knew that he was near you.
And lo and behold, soon he found you. Under the fluorescent light, you still glowed. There was some kind of halo around you as you turned over your shoulder, your face instantly brightening up as you spotted your boyfriend. You had a few fans that you were talking to at the moment, so you tended to them first, while Jake made his way over to you.
You and Jake agreed that you wouldn't make your relationship too obvious at Vidcon, but all of that was left forgotten the moment that Jake saw you. 
However, as you ran up to him, people couldn't help but stop and stare.
Why wouldn't they? You were the living embodiment of Sanrio, that one Hello Kitty girl, whereas Jake was that one guy that made scary content and was often shrouded in darkness, dubbed as Youtube's personal Batman. Absolutely no one would have expected to see the two of you interacting with one another, let alone be within the same vicinity.
"Hi, Jakey," you smiled up at him, and Jake thought that he could die right there. With the amount of people staring, Jake had to restrain himself from throwing his arms around you and hugging you.
"Hey, baby," he grinned. 
Before either of you could do anything, you and Jake were interrupted by a shrill squeal. You whipped your heads around to see a young girl and her older brother, who still looked relatively young. They explained nervously that the girl liked your content, while the brother liked Jake's content. They were expecting to scour in order for each of them to meet either of you, but were surprised to see you and Jake in one place.
You and Jake took a few pictures with them, both individually. Though, the two of them requested a picture with both you and Jake in the same frame, which you happily did.
When they left, you and Jake shared a look, before going off together.
Vidcon Day 1: Over.
Jake returned to his hotel room, too tired to do anything other than wash up and order room service. 
As Jake laid in his half-hard hotel mattress, he scrolled through his phone. He was tagged in a lot of pictures and tweets, and he found himself grinning at a lot of the sweet words his fans left. Although he was tired, he could definitely do this a few more times, feeling invigorated by his fans.
As he scrolled, the trending Twitter hashtag caught his eye.
#HelloKittyMeetsBatman.
Interesting name, he thought as he clicked on it.
Jake's heart skipped a beat as he saw what came up.
Apparently, people were extremely surprised to see you and Jake so close to each other. 
There were so many pictures of you and him taken together from afar just from that one instance earlier, from multiple different angles and distances. Jake would admit, the way he was dressed in all black while you were dressed in cute pinks and whites was almost laughable.
What truly caught his attention were the captions of all these pictures.
"Craziest crossover of 2024."
"I'm crying they legitimately look like Hello Kitty and Batman."
"Jake Sim and [Name] interacting was not on my Vidcon 2024 bingo card."
"This is like seeing two worlds collide, absolutely wild but I'm pleasantly surprised."
For the most part, it seemed like everyone just thought that you and Jake were friends, but it was still a little funny how taken aback the entire internet was.
Then, he saw the picture of you, him, and those two kids together. 
"They look like a family," was one of the most popular retweets under that post. 
Family.
That word rang through Jake's head, before he buried his face in one of the pillows, giggling to himself. He felt a little ridiculous getting so excited over such a small comment, but he couldn't help it. He felt so giddy inside at the thought of having a family with you, and felt even giddier knowing that people could see it, too.
Suddenly, his phone rang. Jake wasn't going to answer it, too caught up in his flustered-ness, but when he realized that it was you, he quickly cleared his throat, instinctively straightening out his hair (because what if he accidentally turns on his camera?-- he needed to look good for you!).
"Baby," he greeted suavely, as if he wasn't just giggling like a schoolgirl seconds ago.
Maybe it was the fact that it was already getting late, or the fact that Jake barely saw you today, or the fact that you were just so goddamn perfect, but your voice sounded so attractive in that moment.
"Jakeyyy," you whined. "Come over."
His chest was already throbbing but Jake played it cool.
He chuckled. "What for?"
"I miss you," he could hear the pout in your voice. "And I want your attention."
It was rare for you to be so direct with him, and while Jake wanted to melt on the spot, he wanted to tease you a bit longer.
"What's wrong with just being on the phone with me?" Jake's lips pulled into a smirk. "You can just talk to me like this."
"Noooo," you said. "I want— I want you."
Jake tried his best to not crumble then and there, but it was too hard.
"Fuck," he muttered under his breath. "Okay then, baby. I'll come over right now."
He didn't miss the cute little "yay!" you let out before you hung up.
You were going to be the death of him.
"Eep! Jake, what are you doing here—?!”
You’re cut off when you realized that you were, in fact, backstage of one of your events. Today was the second day of Vidcon, and you had just finished up your first event. As you went backstage, carrying the little bags of gifts that your fans got you, you didn’t expect your own boyfriend to be waiting back there for you.
“Hey there, Princess,” he said cheekily, sprawled across the backstage couch. "Miss me?"
He opened his arms up, and you instinctively crawled into them, sitting on his lap and sliding your arms around his neck. 
As you did, you eyed him up and down.
Clad in black as always, he wore a black button-up, paired with black slacks, a black belt, and a loose, black tie. That's right: today, Jake was going to have a panel with a whole bunch of other horror creators, ones that transcended the internet— authors, authors that Jake spent his whole life reading and looking up to, which explained why he was dressed significantly more proper today than yesterday.
The way his shirt fit his chest and hugged his shoulders made it hard for you to not stare, and the way that it wasn't buttoned at the top, revealing his honey-tan collarbones, mixed with the scent of his rich cologne, made you feel dizzy.
"Ay, are you checkin' me out?"
On any other day, you'd be embarrassed, maybe even pushing him away, but today, you only nodded your head, humming mindlessly in agreement.
Jake blinked at you, before he pulled you in by the waist so that you were flushed against his chest completely.
"Kiss me," you mumbled, pushing his dark bangs away from his face.
Jake chuckled, rubbing your cheek with his knuckles. "What's with you these days? Getting so bold."
You only leaned into his touch. Maybe it was sometime in the LA air, or maybe it was the vigor that your fans gave you earlier, but all you could do was look at your boyfriend with glossy, wide eyes innocently, watching the way that his resolve trembled.
"Shit," Jake cursed under his breath. "Hold on—"
He grabbed your hips, then tilted your chin so that he could have a better angle. Your lips crashed into one another. Not in the way that a meteor would crash into Earth's delicate atmosphere, but in the way that gentle sea waves crashed onto themselves, dark folds of blue creasing over each other, only to brush up against the foamy seashore, none the wiser. 
Jake liked the taste of your lip gloss; it tasted sweet, but not nearly as sweet as you, hungrily squeezing your hips in his hands. He swiped his tongue over your bottom lip, earning a squeal from you, who tugged on his hair. 
When you pulled away from each other, you were breathless, chests heaving not for air, but for each other. You stared at each other for a few moments, losing time in each other's eyes, when your eyes trailed down.
God, the button-up and tie were going to drive you crazy.
Without thought, your fingers twirled around his tie, slinking up his chest before you yanked him harshly, jerking Jake toward you abruptly. 
In a moment of pure, unadulterated boldness, you attacked his neck, laying sticky kisses all across his skin. One hand laced itself in Jake's hair, keeping a firm hold of his tilted head, while your other hand crept around the buttons of his shirt. 
Each soft sigh that Jake let out made you only press more kisses on him. When he let out one particularly loud whine, his arm jerking up to grab at the couch's armrest, you knew that you found the sensitive spot on his neck. You pressed another kiss on that spot, this time sinking your teeth into his skin. The hickey was dark and purple, and when you ran your tongue over it, Jake's hands shot to your hips again.
"Shit, [Name], wait a sec—"
Skillfully, your fingers began to slowly unbutton Jake's shirt, just enough that you could see more of his chest. 
Your head was feeling fuzzy now, drunk off your desire for him. The way he threw his head back, his Adam's apple bobbing with each gulp of air he took in, curses falling from his lips, sent electricity coursing through your body.
When you unbuttoned the last button, you noticed the way Jake's eyes were squeezed shut, his other arm resting over them, hands balled into fists as his desperation for you increased.
"Jakey," you said. Jake was going to go mad, the way your voice was so soft and innocent as it said his name, all the while you were kissing and touching him in ways that made him go light-headed. He squeezed his eyes shut, another whimper escaping his lips. If he looked you in the eye right now, he was sure that he'd burst. "I want you to look at me."
He couldn't refuse you. Immediately, he opened his eyes, the arm strewn over his face dropping back to its position on your hips.
If he didn't die by combustion, Jake was certain that he'd die now— Your pupils were blown out, eyes lidded and staring at him like he was your prey to be slaughtered. He'd seen you wrought with desire so many times before, but the way you gazed at him like he was a piece of meat, like you were going to absolutely ruin him, made him feel weak.
"Watch me, Jakey," your voice sounded so sweet, but your actions said otherwise. You abruptly got up from your seat on his lap, Jake frowning at the loss of your touch. You dug through your purse thrown across the room, returning with a tube of lipstick.
You plopped back onto Jake's lap, making sure that he was watching as you applied it to your pretty, swollen lips. 
Then, you discarded it, throwing your lipstick to the side as you snatched his tie again. You brought the black fabric to your lips, staring your boyfriend down as you pressed kisses on his tie. You kissed it a few times, making sure that the color of your lipstick, as well as the shape of your lips, was well-imprinted on it.
Then, you yanked his shirt's collar toward you, pressing a harsh kiss on the fabric, making sure that the shape of your lips was once again imprinted on the fabric.
You looked back up at his face, unable to hide your smugness as his entire expression was painted with red.
"You're so hot—" Jake attempted to force out of his throat, but you only cut him off with a rough kiss to his lips. Without a word, you covered his face, from his forehead to his jaw, with kisses.
You pulled back to admire your work, before you pulled away from him.
"I have to be on stage in a few minutes," you said quietly, your back turned to him as you straightened out your skirt. Dumbfounded, Jake could only stare at you, but when you turned over your shoulder, flashing him a bright, but terribly cheeky, grin, Jake's heart fell out of chest. "I can't be late, right?"
With that, you left your boyfriend, all hot and bothered, on the couch, running off to prepare for your next event.
Almost immediately, Jake melted. He threw an arm over his eyes as he leaned back, letting out a groan.
Was this how you felt when he teased you?
Was he now sexually frustrated? Absolutely. But now he wanted you even more.
After mulling over it for a few minutes, Jake began to go back to his venue. But, as he passed the backstage vanity, he caught sight of himself in the mirror.
Some of it was obvious to him already: disheveled hair, messed up shirt. But what made Jake want to evaporate was the sight of his entire face and neck covered in lipstick marks. The corner of his lip had a big lipstick smudge, the hickey that you gave him earlier was so dark now, and he couldn't even dare to forget your lip imprints on his shirt and tie.
You little tease.
Jake's last straw was.... right now.
After the backstage fiasco, he didn't get to see you all day. That night, you had a PR event to attend with your fellow beauty creators, so he didn't get to see you at night either.
Which was why Jake was practically glowing with a dark and negative storm cloud as he pranced around the third day of Vidcon. It didn't help that he saw so many pictures of you and fans all across platforms. Poor guy almost lost it when one of your fans' vlogs blew up, the most replayed part being when you let out the most angelic and sweet laughs he'd ever heard in his life.
That should be him!
Meanwhile, Jake sat in the convention room at a panel. Lined up along the table were other horror creators, from authors to Youtubers to filmmakers, similar to yesterday. The way that this specific event operated was simple: fans got to ask anyone on the panel questions and they'd answer, which the entire room got to hear, and later there would be one-on-ones along the panel.
Jake was pulled out of his thoughts when one of the fans said that they had a question for him.
"Jake, your videos take a long time to make, how do you balance work and your personal life?"
Good question. He had a simple principle when it came to how to balance everything. Jake thought about it for a moment, before reaching for his microphone.
"I don't have any outright method," he began. Jake's mind flashed with your image: all the cute messages you'd send him throughout the day, all the times where after hours of rotting in front of his computer screen he could always count on your loving embrace to give him life, all times that he'd tune into your Spotify playlist so that he could be listening to what you were listening. It was easy to balance work and life, if it was you. "But I always put my life before the screen."
The room was quiet, intently listening to what Jake had to say. After all, he was renowned all across the Internet.
The room was quiet, intently listening to what Jake had to say. After all, he was renowned all across the Internet.
"To be clear, I understand the privilege of getting to work in a profession like mine," Jake continued. "I don't expect everyone to be able to follow my advice exactly, but the more I live, the more I realize that what happens before my very eyes will endlessly matter so much more than what happens in my own little Youtube bubble."
Jake's mouth jumped to you faster than his mind could stop him.
"My beautiful girlfriend is everything to me," he unconsciously began to grin stupidly to himself, "I'd put her above work any day if I had to."
The moment that those words left his lips, the room erupted with gasps and whispers.
"Wait, you have a girlfriend?!" one of Jake's Youtuber friends asked, leading the room to laugh.
Oh.
Shit.
Jake's eyes visibly widened. He clutched his microphone, bringing it up to his mouth, but no words came out.
There was no way in hell that he'd outright deny you, not even in a million years.
"I.... Well..." Jake stammered, trying his best to generate any words at all. He sucked in a sharp breath, a bashful expression making its way onto his face. "That's..."
The room filled with more laughter, alongside the teasing grins and pats on the back that Jake got from his colleagues.
"Oh, so that's what you were giggling about yesterday, lover boy..." Jay, also on the panel, quipped, his brows raised so high on his forehead that it could have touched his hairline.
"Sh-Shut up, Jay!"
Jake's chest felt fizzy. In a weird way.
A part of him felt on-edge. You and him always wanted to keep your relationship secret, for the sake of preserving it. He'd seen what the Internet did to relationships: it tore them apart. It wasn't like he name-dropped you, but he felt so... exposed, so vulnerable.
But at the same time, Jake felt his chest also swell with pride. That's right. He had a girlfriend (a hot girlfriend at that), a girlfriend that he was nefariously down bad for. He hoped everyone knew that, that he was taken and that if there was anyone that he'd spend the rest of his life with, it would be you.
Jake huffed. "Yeah, I have a girlfriend. What about it?"
No one questioned him further. Probably out of fear.
You were in the middle of trying your best to get through a conversation with some beauty guru that you knew one thing about: their personal makeup line launch failed horribly and they gave everyone hairy lipsticks. It was difficult, to say the least.
Exchanging your final regards, you quickly rushed back to your booth.
The first thing you saw when you checked your phone was a viral video, in which Jake admitted that he had a girlfriend. Your heart plummeted to your stomach when you initially read the caption, but when you watched the video, you had a difficult time processing your feelings.
Did you hate that Jake admitted that he had a girlfriend? … No, you didn’t. You didn’t at all. At a certain point, seeing the way that your boyfriend smiled so earnestly made your heart jump out of your chest. The way he was so giddy and smiley (of course, only you could tell that that was how he was feeling— to everyone else it probably looked like he was brooding) made your neck and cheeks warm up.
But, the way that the room erupted with voices and laughter, combined with the quirked brows of everyone on the panel, made you quiver.
You weren’t prepared for it, for how vulnerable you felt as a chorus of “ooh’s” filled the room.
Frankly, there were too many things that you had to focus on at the moment. You'd rather enjoy Vidcon now, and address it later, when things settle down. 
Pushing it to the back of your mind, you tucked your phone away, greeting another wave of fans. Though, not without taking an extra second to "heart" the post, adding it to your favorites folder, and rewatching the video one more time, feeling warmth and giddiness filling your chest.
As the cool night air kissed your cheeks, you fought the shy smile that seeped onto your face. It was late now, late enough that you could see all the city lights gleaming, lighting up the dark sky with blotches of all different colors.
There was a Vidcon party for creators, to celebrate the end of the event. Everyone was going. Although it was meant for any creator, there was a very exclusive VIP section; only those of high prestige could get in. Both you and Jake were invited, but upon realizing that nearly the entire hotel complex would be empty due to the popularity of the party, the two of you ditched it.
You'd been wanting to go to the rooftop hottub for a while now, but you never went because you wanted to go with Jake, and it was always too crowded for the two of you to go there comfortably. But now that everyone was gone, it was the perfect time.
Your boyfriend was already waiting for you up there, towel thrown over his shoulder with a shirt and swim trunks. His face lit up the moment he saw yours emerging from the elevator doors, rushing over to you to take your hands.
He paused for a moment. His dark eyes peered at yours, licking his lips before sucking in a sharp breath. Jake gave your forehead a peck, before saying a small "C'mon" and pulling you over to the hottub.
Jake took your towel for you, folding it next to his and perching it on a sunchair.
"They're gonna get off fireworks soon— Oh, damn," he cut himself off as you pulled your shirt over your head, revealing a bikini top. Your face scrunched up, squirming under his gaze. It's not like Jake has never seen you like this (in fact, he'd seen you in much more compromising positions), and it wasn't like he never complimented you, but as the hottub bubbled, the rosy scent of the water filling the air, you felt shy.
Jake slinked toward you, taking his own shirt off. 
"Hey there, Gorgeous," he said, his fingers playing with the hem of your shorts that had yet to be taken off. Your heart pounded in your chest, fighting the urge to squeeze your eyes shut and groan in embarrassment. You kept your eyes glued to the ground. Jake chuckled softly, before clutching your chin gently, making you look up at him.
"Don't get shy on me now, babe," Jake grinned when your lips pressed into an unconscious pout. He squished your cheek, relishing in the look of confusion painted across your face. Then, his hands fell to your hips, pulling them toward his. "You look so beautiful."
Jake's fingers hooked onto the hem of your shorts, meeting your eyes for permission before pulling them down himself, revealing your bikini bottoms.
Jake's eyes glazed over your figure, taking his bottom lip in between his teeth.
"Jaaakee," you whined, squeezing his hands.
"Sorry," Jake's eyes flickered up to your face. "I can't help it. You're just so hot, baby."
You rolled your eyes, biting back shyness, before you pulled him toward the hottub.
You rolled your eyes, biting back shyness, before you pulled him toward the hottub. 
The two of you got into the tub, sinking into the warm water, you felt your limbs relax. 
Vidcon was very fun, some of the most fun you've had in a while. But, it was very tiring, having to be around so many people at a time. And plus, it was hard not seeing your boyfriend whenever you wanted.
You pulled your knees to your chest. You could hear the loud techno music a few blocks away, probably coming from the club nearby. The bright night lights of LA was something that you could only imagine sleeping under.
Other than the sound of the city bustles, the hot tub’s jet system, and the occasional ripple of water, the night was silent.
“How was your day?” Jake broke the calm silence. The way the blueish water reflected off his skin made you dizzy.
“Good,” You cursed your voice for being so small. You swallowed the lump in your throat. You didn’t know why you felt so nervous. It was your boyfriend, for goodness’s sake!
Jake loved it when you were shy, but sometimes he was genuinely worried about you. Part of why he loved you was the game that was trying to figure out what was going on in that pretty head of yours.
He reached out for you, clutching your knee. "Baby, what's wrong?"
Your stomach churned. For a second, you thought about that video of him admitting that he had a girlfriend. It made your skin crawl, but when your boyfriend squeezed your knee, it all stopped.
"Nothing," you said simply.
There's a few pulses of silence, before Jake clicked his tongue.
"H-Hey—!"
Jake got up from the water, wrapping his hands around your waist, and hoisted you up so that your legs were thrown on either side of the body, before sitting back down so that you were perched right on top of his lap.
Your chest, nearly bare, pressed against his own bare chest in a way that made your heart race. The warmth of his skin as it contacted yours was an addicting feeling, enhanced only by the warm water surrounding you. Either it was the steam from the tub, or the heat collecting between the two of your bodies, that rose to your cheeks.
You rested your hands on his chest, your fingertips barely reaching his broad shoulders, while Jake’s hands stayed in their spot around your waist.
"C'mon," you could feel Jake's warm, strong chest rumble beneath you. "Tell me what's wrong."
Under the sky, his eyes gleamed, like two gems. For the flirt that he was, Jake was too genuine and pure of a person. The sincere worry in his eyes made you feel warm, even warmer than you felt right now. And sometimes that was enough for you.
You leaned into him, your hands coming up to cup his face. You rubbed your thumbs against his cheeks, to which he let his eyelids fall shut, relishing in the comfort that was your presence. Every time your thumb pressed against his lips, he kissed them, unable to hide the smile growing on his lips when you giggled softly.
At the corner of your eye, you spotted the purple hickey you left on him the other day. That combined with his wet hair, the water droplets temptingly running down his chest, and the fact that you were right on top of him made you feel light-headed.
Your hands left his face, and Jake opened his mouth to whine about it, but was shut up when your fingers tangled in his damp hair, pulling him in for a kiss.
It was a soft, innocent kiss, the type you gave when you just wanted to be close to him. Jake hummed against your lips, squeezing your thighs. You pulled away first, but Jake gently guided the back of your head back to his, pecking your lips.
"I just missed you," you said. You kissed his cheek. "I really missed you."
"It's only been a day," Jake teased you, but he knew better than anyone that he had absolutely no right to say that to you: he was practically dying each moment he couldn't see you.
The two of you sat in silence for a moment, staring into each other's eyes. You held onto his strong shoulders, eyes glued to his lips. You were feeling needy, needy in the way that you simply wanted to be close to Jake. You were already close to him, but you wanted to be even closer. Your heart thirsted for it.
Then, you heard a rustle, whipping your head around toward the sound.
"Nuh-uh," Jake whispered in your ear, gently holding your face and guiding it to look at him. "I want you to look at me."
It wasn't until a few seconds later that you understood why Jake's tone sounded so teasing: he was referencing you and him the other day backstage. 
"Stoppp," you whined, pushing your face into his neck. "You're so annoying."
Jake laughed, his chest rumbling. He stopped to admire the way you were all pressed up against him. He could feel every curve of your body, and he could feel the way your cheeks puffed with air, your lips forming a pout. He poked your cheek.
"You're so cute, baby."
"I know."
"What's with you getting so bold?"
"You're annoying me."
"Awww, you love me so—"
Fireworks fired off in the distance, painting the gray-blue sky with bright colors. 
You stayed in your position, only your eyes moving upward to admire the show. However, Jake stayed staring straight at you, practically ignoring the fiery flowers forming in the sky. He gazed into your eyes, watching the reflection in them.
"It's so pretty," you murmur.
"Yeah," Jake felt like he was falling into your eyes, "So pretty."
Just as another round of fireworks shot up into the sky, Jake grabbed your face, crashing his lips onto yours. Your lips fit into each other well, like puzzle pieces, in a way that was so satisfying, almost like you were made for kissing Jake. But for all of the desire and roughness that the kiss was filled with, it was a soft one. 
Jake swiped his tongue over your bottom lip, making you squeal and giving him the opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth. His hands kneaded your body, roaming all over you with no intention of leaving a single part of your skin untouched. Likewise, you gripped his biceps, digging your nails into his skin to keep yourself grounded.
"Fuck—" Jake mumbled against your lips, only to get cut off by your lips attacking his— "Wait—"
Jake tasted sweet, like candy. He tasted like home, like love, like everything was going to be okay no matter what. How could you pull away now? 
"B-Baby, wait—"
"Stop talking, Jakey," you pulled away briefly, only to bite his lip, pulling on the pink flesh with your teeth. You let your tongue roam his mouth, feeling the warmth as your own hands began to wander his toned chest. 
"Just kiss me," you breathed.
You kept Jake like this for a few more minutes, trapping him in the heaven that was your lips. But when your bikini top began to untie at the back, something that Jake noticed immediately, he ripped away from you.
Something in his eyes had changed.
Quietly, he tied your bikini top back for you, ignoring your confused (and very breathless) gaze.
"If you keep doing what you do to me," he began into your ear, "I don't know if I'll be able to control myself."
With that, Jake threw you over his shoulder as he hoisted himself up to his feet. He grabbed everything that you brought to the rooftop, throwing your towel over you and ignoring you fussing.
"W-Where are we goin—?!"
"Back to my room."
You were in for a night.
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You and Jake were going to stay in LA for a little while longer after Vidcon, so you extended your stay in the same hotel rooms.
After last night, Jake and you fell asleep in his bed. 
It was going to be the best, Jake thought. Neither of you had anywhere to be, anyone to put on a show for. The two of you could sleep in for as long as you'd like. It didn't really matter to him, as long as he could wake up with you in his arms, he'd be all right.
Which is why Jake's heart dropped to his stomach when he woke up to you already dressed, pacing around the room nervously.
"Baby?" Jake was alarmed, even as he rubbed his sleepy eyes. "Baby, what happened?"
You whipped your head over to him, your expression pinch and painted with anxiety. 
"Check your phone," you muttered as you chewed your lip.
Jake did as you said. The moment he opened up his phone, his screen was filled with text messages from everyone: his colleagues, his friends, heck even his own mother. He was tagged in about a thousand posts all across his social media accounts, and his Youtube home page was plastered with his face. But not only his face. Your face too.
What caught his eye was an article from a major Internet news source that made its round across every platform.
Its headline?
Jake Sim and [Name] [Last Name] are reported to be dating.
The worst part was the cover page.
It was a photo of you and Jake, together in the hottub last night, with your arms thrown around his neck with your lips connected. When he read more into it, the photo evidence got more and more specific. Close-up pictures of Jake's neck to reveal a hickey and lipstick mark on his shirt, your smudged lipstick, a screenshot of the Sanrio plush in one of his videos, even that clip of his laugh in the background of one of your videos. Of course, the most crucial one was that clip of Jake admitting that he had a girlfriend.
This was what he wanted, wasn't it? For everyone to know about you, to be able to show you off.
Objectively, this was bound to happen.
But as Jake watched you pace around, your hands shaking as you looked like you were about to cry, he didn't feel the pride that he thought he would feel if everyone knew. He didn't feel happy, he didn't feel excited that he got to show you off. All he felt was a mix of guilt and anger.
And before he could reach out to hold your hand and pull you close, you quietly said that you were going to go on a walk, and left the hotel room.
The quiet that filled the hotel room was piercing. Jake stilled in his spot, still groggy and disheveled.
Had he always been like this?
He swore that at the beginning of your relationship, he took every measure to keep it private. Because you asked him to. Because he respected you.
Why did he throw it all away? 
He agreed to keep things private. 
But now he put you in an uncomfortable position and an even more vulnerable position than you'd ever been in before. 
Was he a bad boyfriend? Were you going to break up with him? Would your relationship with him ever be the same? That made Jake's heart palpitate. He couldn't lose you. No, he'd die. But then again, he fucked up, he knew that.
Jake ran a hand through his hair. This was an asshole move.
But he couldn't help feeling his fingers twitch for his phone when it ding'd.
The first thing he saw when he opened up Twitter were tweets at him.
And they were surprisingly... supportive?
"Emo boyfriend, cute girlfriend, the best combo!"
"Sending love to both of you. Hope you're doing well. We support you."
"I'm very pleasantly surprised."
"This is literally like Hello Kitty and Batman meeting this is crazy"
But as he scrolled deeper, he found more obscure comments.
"Feel so bad for [Name]. Her boyfriend is a freak."
"He doesn't deserve her."
And the nail in the coffin:
"No wonder they kept it a secret. I'd hide it too if someone like that was my boyfriend."
Why did you keep your relationship with him secret? Jake knew the answer to that: you just wanted to keep your personal life private.
But as Jake plunged himself deeper and deeper into the hole that was the media, he could only imagine alternative answers, and one stuck out.
Were you ashamed of him? 
Of course you would be.
You were beautiful in every capacity and just the most perfect person in the world. And Jake was just himself. You were always cute, and sometimes, Jake felt like he couldn't keep up with you. You were far out of his league. His content was considered "niche" and "obscure," of course people, maybe even you, considered him a freak.
He was a bastard, and you were a princess. He didn't blame you for being embarrassed about him.
That's why you were so anxious and against your relationship being exposed, right?
No, no, no!
Shut up, shut up, shut up, Jake thought, his hands balling into fists. You wouldn't. He knew you better than anyone, and he knew that you would never be embarrassed about him. You weren't like that, and he was a fool for even thinking of you in that way. He was being insecure and stupid.
But even so, as Jake let all the guilt, shame, anger, and anxiety settle in while he thought of an apology to you, he couldn't help but feel his insecurity seeping in.
You knew that you were overreacting. You shouldn't have left Jake in there all alone, you should have sat down and talked to him about it.
But there was something scary about having everybody's eyes on you at once, scorning you. You were a Youtuber, of course you knew what it felt like to be watched, but to have the entire internet so hellbent about your personal life made you jump into your own skin.
You just took a walk along the early city streets, you reflected upon yourself.
Why did you keep your relationship with Jake secret? 
Part of it was privacy. You didn't want the internet to interfere with your personal life, of course. 
But it wasn't like you wanted to hide your love for your boyfriend forever. It wasn't like you wanted to stow him away somewhere no one could find him. You were both adults, and you had to start living at some point.
You'd be lying if you said that you never thought about making a cute video with him, if you said you never wanted to post a cheesy anniversary picture on Instagram with a long caption just for him, if you said you never wanted the world to know that Jake Sim was yours.
You remembered the first time you and Jake talked about keeping it private. He was unsure, but because he cared so much about you, he agreed. Had you ever stopped to think about how he felt? You may have wanted to keep your relationship quiet, but did he? To a degree, there was something selfish about you, both now and in the past. You wanted to preserve yourself and your feelings, but you never even considered how Jake felt.
You were afraid, you felt vulnerable and too exposed to the world. But you cared far more about Jake than those fleeting emotions. Desire outweighed fear, you had to see him now.
But as you marched back to your hotel, your mind racing as you came up with paragraphs of words that you'd spill to Jake, you began to notice your worst nightmare.
A group of men, each with massive cameras that had even bigger microphones. 
They called themselves the paparazzi, but they were really only middle-aged men that made money off of being invasive towards people half their age.
Maybe you should have worn a hat, or something, as you were in a camera-infested area that was even more infested with celebrities and influencers. As they approached you, you quickened your steps, trying to get as far as you could from them. You tried your best not to make eye-contact, but alas, they got to you before you could escape.
"[Name]?" one of them called out your name, practically running to you.
Oh my god, you thought, ignoring them as you sped up. Please not right now.
"[Name], are you dating Jake Sim?" The sound of your boyfriend's name out of their mouths made your stomach churn. You kept walking, but you could feel them pointing their massive cameras at you, taking any measure to make a buck off of you.
You had a few choices.
You could make a run for it. Though, you had about six men double your age who would probably chase you down.
You could also give in to them, and give very vague answers. That would require a lot of patience, and simply, you wanted to go kiss your boyfriend, not talk to these so-called paparazzis.
Your last option was the one that seemed the most appealing, but could stir the pot of the media even more and it would give the tabloids what they wanted: you could tell them off and shut them down completely. The only issue was that you were the cutesy, sweet, Sanrio Hello Kitty girl. You've talked about adult topics before, but for you to be hostile and mean to another person? That was completely unheard of to anyone on the Internet. It would also be very reactive, and the media could twist that into something more.
But you wanted to get out of there.
You wanted to go see Jake. If you had to throw a few curse words at people if it meant that you could go home to Jake, then you'd use every curse under the sun.
"[Name], everyone is saying that your relationship with Jake Sim is real and not a publicity stunt. Any comment on that-?"
You were getting irritated.
You stopped in your tracks, turning over your shoulder.
"Will you fuck off?" Your gaze hardened on the group of men shoving cameras in your faces. You didn't even bother looking into the lens. "It's 10 in the morning, I don't have time for this."
"We didn't mean to offend you, [Name], we just wanted to know your relationship with Jake Si—"
You huffed to yourself, rolling your eyes. They loved acting polite only to violate your privacy. 
"Cut the bullshit, okay?" you narrowed your eyes. You were only a few meters from the hotel entrance, and they were still stalking you with their massive cameras. How shameless. 
Your anger was bubbling up inside you. It was rising, rising so much that you could feel it attempting to spill out of your mouth.
"You want to make a quick buck off of me so bad?" You stepped through the hotel doorway.
If the media was so curious about your life, and if they wanted to go so far as to try to disrupt your relationship, you wouldn't give them that satisfaction.
Everyone loved seeing what you were doing, everyone loved to watch you. It was your job to put on a show, to give people what they wanted. If you wanted to live, then you'd have to accept that.
You were an influencer, a micro-celebrity. You could make tides move if you wanted to. Why be so fearful of the eyes of so many?
But more than anything, you were a performer. And if that's what they wanted from you, that's what they'll get.
"Fine," you huffed. "I'll give you a story: me and Jake have been together for six years. In fact, we met each other in high school when he was my Physics lab partner. Go investigate that, won't you?"
With that, you slammed the hotel entrance door in their faces.
Jake swore he heard the trumpets of heaven when the hotel room door cracked open, revealing you.
He'd been waiting in front of it for a while now, and he jerked up immediately as he saw your face. He jumped right to his feet, ready to spill every word he thought of on you. You deserved an explanation.
But all you did was raise your hand, silencing him instantly. Instead, you took off your shoes, took his arm, and pulled him with you to the bed. You motioned for him to lay down, and did so yourself.
Jake stared at you like you were insane. Were you not going to yell at him? Why weren't you hitting him or telling him that you wanted to break up with him? Should he be on his knees begging you to stay at this point? But he complied (because of course he did, it was you).
You laid on his chest in silence, pressing your cheek up against him. 
That made his mind wander.
Maybe you were trying to ease him into a hard conversation. Maybe you were going to forget this until later.
He didn't want that. No, you deserved to hear what he had to say. If you were going to leave him, Jake wanted to say everything that he wanted to.
"I'm sorry," Jake blurted. The silence was deafening, before you took a deep breath, turning over onto your stomach so that your chin laid on his chest.
"What for?"
The gentle look in your eye as you looked at him made Jake choke up himself. He had to hold back or he'd start sobbing.
"For going against your wishes a-and..." Jake searched through his mind for all the words he practiced, but nothing came to mind. Not with you looking at him like you still loved him. "And for telling people about our relationship. I—I shouldn't have done that and I'm sorry for disrespecting the promise w-we made.... And... And—"
Jake sucked in a loud, sharp breath. His eyes were getting watery. He took your hands in his, squeezing them. 
"And I know that you're ash—ashamed of me, and I know that y-you won't— you won't want to be with me anymore, but—"
"Wait what?" you interrupted him, squeezing hands back. "I'm not ashamed of you, Jakey."
Jake stared at you.
Jakey.
"I'm not breaking up with you either. What makes you think that?"
The gate that was holding back Jake's emotions broke.
Jake let the tears that he tried so hard to hold back roll down his face. He let out a sob before he clamped a hand over his mouth.
You didn't hate him? You still wanted to be with him?
You instantly threw your leg over his hips, straddling him as you pulled his head to your chest. He melted into your touch, his wet face hiding in the crook of your neck. You pet his hair, pressing kisses to the crown of his head.
"Baby," you whispered into his ear gently. "Why are you crying?"
Jake's crying only got louder, and you couldn't help but giggle. He was a total softie. The way his hold around you tightened told you enough.
Jake sniffled through his words, cutting himself off every now and then with a hiccup and more sobs. "Th-Thought you were gonna l-leave me."
Your fingers stopped in his hair. "Leave you? Why would I?"
Jake pushed his face back into your shoulder, shaking his head.
You let him cry like that for a little while longer, whispering sweet reassurances in his ear as you patted his back. 
And when he was ready, the two of you talked it out, because that's what people did when they loved each other. You exchanged apologies, explained to each other your thought processes, and created an agreement: start anew, and you both didn’t mind that your relationship was now public, and if either of you disagreed, you had to voice it immediately. You ended it with a kiss.
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You clicked the camera on, checking in the viewfinder that you were in-frame. You were back at home, the pink Hello Kitty decorations in your room, as well as the scent of strawberries, surrounding you. 
“Hi, everyone!” you smiled brightly, clasping your hands together. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you all. How are you?”
You chatted about a few updates since Vidcon, telling about your wonderful experience there and how you were so happy to meet all your fans.
“Now, onto the video!”
You peered to the side, where you spotted Jake sitting at the edge of your bed, waiting intently for your cue.
“Oh, Jakey!” you said in a sing-songy voice. “Come out now!”
With that, Jake popped into frame, dorkily saying a quick hi before plopping down onto the chair beside you.
“Today, I will be doing my boyfriend’s makeup!” you chirped happily. “Are you ready, boyfriend?”
The two of you shared a grin.
“Of course, girlfriend.”
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2K notes · View notes
btsgotjams27 · 9 months
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things you don't know | jjk
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summary: it’s been seven years since you last saw the boy that broke your heart. after moving back home, you try everything you can to avoid seeing him around town, but destiny has a wicked way of doing the opposite.
✨ title: things you don't know | one shot ✨ pairing: jungkook x f!reader | ✨ rating: M/17+ ✨ genre/au: angst | ex best friends!au | ✨ word count: 4.3k ✨ warnings: language, drinking, light kisses, miscommunication, reader jokes about unaliving her other best friend, mentions of throwing up ✨ prompt: “i thought i’d never see you again” ✨ a/n: heyoooo. so this is loosely based off a friendship i had in high school and in case you're wondering (irl) i haven't seen this man in over 17 years (oh gawd i'm old). anyway, thank you to @shina913 for being my beta.
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✨ mini-series masterlist ✨
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You were a fool to believe nothing could tear you and your best friend apart. Just like in the movies you'd watch for hours, you realized you were not the main character; he was. You were only part of the supporting cast, the best friend–not the one he wanted. Someone else had been occupying his mind, his thoughts, and you guessed you weren't privy to know all of him.
You wondered if you became the villain in his story. Were you the other woman? How could you have known if he never told you? He was your best friend. The one you shared everything with–your hopes, dreams, and even the dumbest little details of your life.
And maybe you expected too much. Maybe you had built a world of sunshine and rainbows and believed no storms could ever weather through. Maybe you cared too much, thinking he felt the same.
But at long last, you had become the girl jealous of Josie–the person who took away your best friend.
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The city you lived in had grown vastly the last time you were here. Multiple lanes were added to the highways, and fields of land were cleared out for new homes, shops, and restaurants to try. Though the only thing on your mind was not bumping into him.
His was the only face you didn't want to run into in a city that felt familiar and unfamiliar. It felt silly. You're a grown woman with a car and an apartment–had bills to pay, and running into one person shouldn't haunt you as it did.
You might have done some detective work, going through old high school friends lists on Facebook and Instagram, lurking to see if he would show up. But as you suspected, he didn't exist on social media, so your chances of seeing him increased in your weird little mind.
The old hangout places were on your no-go list. Remember, you're trying to avoid him. He has not been on your mind every waking second, minute and hour. You weren't wondering how he was doing or if he was okay. He didn't deserve to occupy your mind, take all your energy.
But if you were to bump into him, you had a monologue ready to tell him how he had fucked up your mind, spiked all your insecurities, and hoped he and his stupid little girlfriend lived unhappily ever after. He deserved that, at least.
"Did you see Lillie's Instagram post? The one where a bunch of them were out celebrating Josie's birthday?" Lana asked, sipping on her iced vanilla latte. Lana was another high school best friend who didn't stomp all over your heart.
And regarding Lillie's post, it was hard not to see it when everyone you knew was tagged. Some things never change, you guessed. The same circle of friends, the same drama, the same gossip, but then again, you were sitting with one of your oldest friends.
"Yeah, I saw it."
And you also noticed how Jungkook wasn't in any photos. After doing your detective research and scouring through the internet. He was a ghost, not even showing up in tagged photos. You were hoping to get a glimpse of him in the background, but you hadn't seen a picture of him in years, so you had no idea if he had grown into that big 'ol nose of his or if he had gotten those piercings and tattoos he's always wanted. There was no trace of this man, not even in Josie's pictures.
Last you heard, they were still together, and you always rolled your eyes hard, remembering what Jeon Jungkook did to you. Didn't even have the fucking balls to say it to your face, but in a letter instead.
You suspected it was all Josie's fault. Probably afraid you'd steal him away, or he'd prefer to hang out with you. And you understood, he wasn't your boyfriend or anything, just a friend. Ex-best friend, that is. So you supposed any girl that did like Jungkook would be intimidated by your friendship.
"Have you seen Jungkook at all?"
Lana knew what went down–dropping you like a fly, like you didn't exist. She had teased you like a madwoman because you were crushing hard on his friend, Jimin, and somehow ended up befriending Jungkook.
"Nope," you said flatly.
"So, you know how we always talk about Jungkook being untraceable? I think I found him," she said, pulling out her phone.
Your jaw clenched before huffing out a breath. Lana liked to poke the bear when it came to Jungkook. You knew it wasn't intentional, and there was a part that held onto those painful memories because you weren't over what he did to you. Countless nights of questions and if you could've done anything to save your friendship. Wondering what you did wrong and why he picked Josie instead of you. You thought he had feelings and just didn’t want to act on it.
Lana slid the phone over, her two fingers zooming in on a brightened photo. "It's definitely Jungkook," she pointed to a figure in the background.
You narrowed your eyes as she moved the photo around. Your heart skipped a beat. You'd recognize that nose anywhere. It was him. He wasn't a ghost. There was actual evidence that he existed.
"I searched for more photos, but nothing else came up."
You chuckled. "Of course not. Jeon Jungkook doesn't exist on social media. It was never his thing anyway. It was always Josie who liked the attention."
"As a couple, they make no sense to me. What does he see in her anyway?" Lana pondered, sucking up the last of her latte.
Josie was popular and pretty and did every extracurricular activity known to man. Jungkook was quite the opposite: introverted, kept to himself, played games day and night, yet somehow they still ended up together.
"I don't know. Maybe she has a great personality or something," you answered.
She had everything and could’ve had anyone in the senior class, and something always bothered you about their relationship. You just couldn’t put your finger on it.
Lana could see your despair and decided to change the subject. "What are you doing tonight? Jimin is having a small party and was super excited when I told him you moved back."
You narrowed your eyes, your lips thinned. "What are we? In high school again?"
"Come on, babe. It'll be just like old times. I'll even pick you up. I know you hate driving."
It's only been a week since you've moved back. You didn't even know where all of your cute clothes were. "I have nothing to wear." It was the best excuse you could come up with at the moment.
"I got you. Don't worry about it!"
Fuck—you should've opted for a different excuse.
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"I thought you said this was a small party," you said, wearing a dress that was barely covering your ass. You'd get Lana back for putting you in the tightest dress.
"Trust me, this is small." Lana hooked her arm with yours, dragging you to the kitchen, where Jimin poured several soju bottles and sodas into a pitcher. It was quite the concoction.
“How can he afford this place?” you whispered as you stared at the fancy marbled island and large commercial refrigerator.
Lana shrugged. “I don’t think he lives by himself. Probably has roommates or something.”
"Ladies! You're here!" Jimin squealed, setting down the soju bottle. He hugged Lana before greeting you warmly. "Oh—it's so good to see you!" He wrapped his arms around you, moving you from side to side, digging his chin into your shoulder.
"It's good to see you too, Jimin. You're, um, still quite the host." His parties were all the rage in high school, and now that you look back, you're unsure what you saw in Jimin. He was a good guy, a great dancer, but he partied too much for your taste. Maybe you were shallow and just liked him for his looks.
"I have a reputation to uphold." He wiggled his eyebrows, handing you a shot glass. "I call this little drink 'Soju Sunrise.'" He held his glass, waiting for you to clink it against his.
"Here goes nothing." The glasses clack together, and the mixed liquids go down your throat as smooth as silk. Surprisingly, the cocktail is rather tasty, and you hold out your glass for another round.
"Yes! That's my girl!"
After multiple rounds of Jimin's Soju Sunrise, your body loosened up along with your tongue, being quite the chatterbox to everyone hanging around. The alcohol coursing through your veins made catching up with old friends less dull. Though you wish you could've had a sign plastered to you stating your job, why you were back, and what you've been up to. It would've made your life simpler.
As you exited the bathroom, Lana immediately pulled you into an empty bedroom, closing the door behind her.
"What the fuck, Lana?"
"He's here!" she exclaimed out of breath.
"Who?" Confusion sets on your face.
“He-who-must-not-be-named!”
"Voldemort?" You raised a brow, pouting your lips together.
She struck your head. You scowled, rubbing the spot. Still confused, you think back to the crowded room.
A lightbulb finally goes off. You blame the Soju Sunrise for making you an airhead. "You've got to be kidding me."
"She's here too."
Oh, how you'd rather be clawing your eyes out right now. It would hurt less than facing Jungkook and Josie after all these years.
You had your little monologue prepared and ready to go, but you didn't think you'd have to recite it. Did you even remember what you wanted to say?
You looked around the room and sprinted when you saw a window. Your hands fumbled with the lock, but it was too hard to open.
"What are you doing?" Lana asked, her eyebrows knitted together, watching you struggle.
"I'm gonna climb out the window." It was the only sensible thing to do.
"You're so fucking dramatic."
"It's the only way to avoid them."
Lana grabbed your arms and made you look at her. "You are a grown-ass woman. Put on your big girl panties and walk out that door with your head held high."
"But I don't wanna," you pout. "And I'm wearing granny panties." You lowered your head, staring at your dress, picturing the blush-colored panties with a little bow on the front.
"Granny panties with this dress?"
"What? I couldn't find other ones and I like full coverage." Curse you for not unpacking like you should've been doing.
"Would've been better if you went commando."
"Lana! I have some dignity."
"Do you, though? You won't even leave this room and face the one person who broke your heart."
"Thanks, Lana," you said flatly.
"You're welcome!" she smiled, shaking your body. "Come on. You can do this. I believe in you." You rolled your eyes, staring blankly at her. She scanned you from head to toe, then back up to your chest. "Sweetie, we gotta make sure your tits are stunning." She dragged down the top of the dress, ensuring the swells of your breasts were peeking through.
"Lana, I'm not trying to seduce the guy." Okay—maybe you developed a crush on him, but it's not like you were going to make a move, he had a girlfriend for fuck’s sake.
"Yeah, who cares? We're trying to make Josie jealous."
"This is so high school," you comment, digging through your purse for your lipstick.
"Your point is?" Lana blinked.
You huffed. Okay—fine. If this were the only time you'd see Jeon Jungkook and Kim Josie, then fuck it. You could pretend everything was great for five minutes. Your hand went underneath your dress, tugging off your granny panties and tossing them on the ground.
"Holy shit—going commando too?" Lana squealed and clapped excitedly.
Hiking your dress up just a smidge, you were ready to smile and lie through whatever this dreaded conversation would bring up, probably old feelings of hurt and regret.
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You hooked your arm through Lana's, with your shoulders back and head held high. This was it. After all this time, you would face the son-of-a-bitch who broke your heart and the cruel witch who took him away.
You had class—at least, you hoped you did. So, you'd play it cool, be calm and collected. Pretend like you had your shit together.
That is until you turned the corner and immediately spotted them snuggled up in the corner. Josie looked like a lovesick puppy all over him. Jungkook, not so much.
You clutched Lana's arm tighter and came to a halt. You repeated your short monologue in your brain from the bedroom to the living room, but it was as if your mind had wiped everything and your brain's connectors were short-circuiting.
Your eyes glistened as you watched the two. Josie sat on his lap, arms wrapped around his neck, kissing him. Your lower lip quivered, and your stomach sank. You weren't sure if you needed to hurl because of them or because of the soju. Perhaps both.
Jungkook pulled away from her grasp, seemingly annoyed by her show of affection. As soon as he turned away from her, his eyes landed on you.
You flashed a small smile and a wave of your hand. Who knew seeing Jungkook would make you feel the complete opposite of the narrative you had created? In your head, he was a heartless best friend who left you for a wicked witch, but here he was in the flesh and was just that big-nosed, doe-eyed boy whom you shared everything with. You missed him so much and wanted to catch up on life like no time had passed.
Lana turned to you. "Hey, what happened to the bad bitch persona? Aren't you gonna tell him off?"
"I'm so stupid, Lana. I can't do this." So much anger had been building up within the last seven years, but underneath that anger was just a girl who was heartbroken.
Lana nudged you in the ribs. You two watched as he pushed Josie off his lap, causing her to frown. You attempted to let go, but she pulled you in as Jungkook beelined toward you.
"Oh, my god! Jeon Jungkook in the flesh?" Lana said in a dramatic tone. "You do exist! I can't believe it. Well, I'm going to find myself another drink! Have fun catching up with your bestie!" She punched Jungkook's shoulder hard, and he scowled and flinched, massaging the spot.
You pressed your lips together, unsure what to say to him. It's been seven years since you last saw him. Once you graduated from high school, you were out of each other's hair. You were off to college a few hours away, and he stayed in town to attend a local university.
Jungkook cut off all forms of communication. It was like your friendship ceased to exist, which hurt you the most. The last thing you received from him was a measly little letter explaining that he was with Josie and that she didn't want you coming in between their relationship.
You couldn't understand why Jungkook couldn't just talk to you. Josie was never mentioned in conversations, nor did you see him with her, so it felt out of left field. If Jungkook told you he liked someone, you'd never stand in the way of his happiness. You thought he knew you better than that, but maybe you were wrong. Maybe you didn't know each other at all.
"I thought I'd never see you again," Jungkook said, the corners of his mouth curving into a warm smile.
You only paid attention to the glow-up Jungkook had. He did get the lip piercings he wanted, along with the tattoos. You could see them peeking through underneath his gray hoodie hanging off his shoulder. The white tank top defined his taut chest, letting you know he liked to work out. His damp hair curled in all the right places against the nape of his neck and his forehead. The silver chain adorning his neck looked pretty enough to tug on.
"You look great, by the way," Jungkook added, breaking you out of your daze.
"Oh, thanks. So do you." You manage to squeak out finally; then you remember how provocative you looked in your dress compared to sweet, innocent, looking Josie in her pink floral sundress, who was making their way toward you.
"Jungkook, can we please get a drink?" Josie whined, giving you the once over before latching onto Jungkook like the leech she was.
"You remember—"
Josie interrupted, "Yeah–don't remind me. Can we go?"
Josie stormed off toward the kitchen, leaving you and Jungkook behind. Did he have any say in their relationship, or did she tug him around like a puppy on a short leash?
You're stunned but not surprised by her remark. Once a bitch, always a bitch.
Turning your attention back to him, you realize you have nothing to say. The scars from this friendship were carved deeply into your heart; not even the monologue you rehearsed could dissipate the pain he caused.
"I—I gotta go," you said, taking off toward the bedroom because you couldn't fucking leave your underwear on a random stranger's floor. You had to save whatever dignity you had left.
"Wait—" He tried to grab your attention and followed you, walking through the hallway toward a room. He watched you go from one end of the room to the other, searching for something. "What are you doing in my room?"
You straighten your posture, slowly turning to him. "This is your room?"
"Yeah, Jimin and I share this place along with another friend.”
Oh, now you were going to fucking kill Lana. She knew. She must have! That's why she wanted to bring you here. And out of all the rooms, you had to pick Jeon Jungkook’s to leave your underwear in?
"Great," you said in exasperation. You turned back around in search of your panties. "Where the fuck is it?" It could only be in so many places.
"Where's what?"
You got down on your hands and knees, tugging your dress down, looking underneath the bed for your granny panties. "Nothing," you grumbled. "Fuck it. Forget it." You stood, walking past Jungkook. He could have your underwear as a keepsake, you suppose.
"Hey—" He gripped your arm. "Come on. This is how you greet me after all this time?"
You scoffed, glaring at him. "You're fucking kidding me, right? You're lucky I'm even speaking to you. You don't even deserve that."
He lets go of your arm. "We kind of ended on a sour note, but it wasn't my fault."
He couldn't see it, but smoke was fuming from your ears, and you wished your death glare could burn through him and maybe even through Josie. How fucking dare he put all the blame on you? And for what exactly? You might add that you did nothing but be his friend, and he ghosted you like you meant nothing to him.
"So it's my fault?" You assumed he was placing the blame on you. "How is it my fault? Please enlighten me, Jungkook."
He quieted down, cowering his head.
"You showed up holding hands with Josie, then proceeded to not talk to me like a human being and instead wrote me a fucking letter like the coward you are. A letter, for fucks sake. You could've had the common decency to say it to my face."
You walked out of language class, and there they were, hand in hand as you idly watched from behind. And he didn’t even hand you the letter. He had stuffed it in your locker.
Your words took him aback. His recount of how everything went down was different from yours. "I'm sorry," he said. His eyes flicked to yours before looking away.
"Well, it's too fucking late for apologies."
Jungkook called out to you, and you didn't look back, storming away from him. You passed by Lana, telling her you were leaving and that you'd talk to her later.
You ran out the front door, stopping at the sidewalk's edge, remembering that Lana drove. "Fuck," you grumbled, pulling out your phone to grab an Uber.
You were stupid to think Jeon Jungkook wouldn't affect you after all these years. Maybe it's because you haven't dealt with feeling abandoned by him. Maybe you wished you did more for your friendship. Whatever the reason, you knew moving back wasn't a good idea because you’d have to deal with this.
"Hey!" Jungkook called out. You looked over your shoulder and continued walking. He ran in front of you to grab your attention. "Can you talk to me?" he asked, stuffing his hands in the pocket of his hoodie.
"Why don't you fucking write me a letter? Since you're so good at that," you mocked as you shuffled around him. He was a shitty writer who could barely pass Creative Writing without your help.
"That's not fair."
You scoffed, stopping in your tracks to turn back to him. "Run back to your little girlfriend. Don’t you have to get her approval first before talking to me?"
"She's not my girlfriend."
You tut. "Yeah–okay." That was hard to believe, considering she was all over him.
"She's not. We haven't been together for a while now," Jungkook explained.
"You looked pretty cozy earlier."
Jungkook looks at the ground, kicking around an invisible rock. "It's complicated."
"That's great, Jungkook, but I really don't want to hear about your relationship problems. Good luck with Josie and in life. You two deserve each other." You pulled out your phone to see if the Uber was arriving.
Crossing your arms, you walked back toward Jimin's place. You wish you pinned the pick-up location somewhere else, but you'd have to endure his presence longer.
Jungkook followed, giving you some space, stopping when you did. His eyes raked over you. His dimple appeared and disappeared as he licked his lips and chewed on the inside of his cheek.
"When you got your acceptance letter to college, and you decided you were leaving, you didn't bother to ask about what I thought," he said, hands still in his pocket, staring at the ground. Your eyes flickered to him before looking away. He softly chuckled, "I thought to myself, what would I do without my best friend? I had nothing going for me, didn't even know what I wanted to do—still don't know what I want to do. And as much as you make me out to be the bad guy in your story, there are a lot of things you don't know."
You turned away from him as your eyes began to well up. You didn't want to cry before him, rehashing things from so long ago. You let out a shaky breath, trying to contain your emotions.
"Why didn't you say anything?" you asked, using the back of your hand to wipe away the snot threatening to fall.
He shrugged. "I don't know. I would never want to keep you from something that made you happy," he admitted.
You were always open with each other, so you're unsure why this one thing made it seem like he couldn't be honest with you.
"Tell me one thing."
Jungkook hummed.
"Why didn't you tell me about Josie?" It was the one question that lingered since you received his letter.
His lips thinned. "Honestly?" You nodded. "It all happened so quickly. Jimin was throwing a party that night when you told me about going off to college, and I was in my head, overthinking everything. And Josie was there, being sweet and comforting me, and I don't know what came over me. I just kissed her to make myself feel better. Then, the next day at school, she took my hand and told everyone we were together."
"So, let me get this straight? I told you I'm going off to college. You get upset, kiss Josie because you were mad about me leaving, and then end up in a relationship with her?"
"Well, when you put it that way, it sounds ridiculous."
You turned to him, hitting him across the chest several times. He held his hands up to block you. "Because Jeon Jungkook, it is ridiculous! God–you're such—a—" you groaned. "Do you know how much you hurt me? We could've avoided all this if you had just talked to me. Life could've been different for us. You could've come with me, and then we could've been together."
"Together?" He stared at you with his starry brown eyes.
"Yes, you dummy! I liked you, if you couldn't tell. I was going to tell you, but then you and Josie happened, and well, you know how the rest of the story goes."
You closed your eyes and let out a long-awaited breath. It felt like a weight was lifted off your shoulders, getting all this out in the open. You weren't expecting Jungkook to do anything to make you feel better, but at least he could hear what you wanted to say after all these years.
Your uber pulled up and you opened the door, holding onto it as you looked at Jungkook. A glimpse of the boy you once knew still lingered in his eyes. If you could go back and do it all over again, you would've fought harder for him, fought for what the two of you had. It was too precious of a friendship to let go just like that. Unfortunately, life didn't work that way.
There were no forms of time travel or alternate dimensions where the two of you could've lived happily ever after, and there were only the choices you made here and now.
"Bye, Jungkook."
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✨ read part two | read part three ✨
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neil-gaiman · 11 months
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Hi Neil!
I don't want to sound like a killjoy, but I'm concerned about David Tennant's family being involved in the second season of Good Omens (or Michael Sheen's partner Anna Lundberg in a future season three). I absolutely have nothing against them, I loved Staged just like everyone else, but this is exactly the matter for me: casting them in the series would automatically make me think about Staged or something else while I'm watching GO, and it would distract me from the plot and the magic of it. It would feel somehow like a family reunion, no matter how talented they are as actors (not to mention that there would be nepotism accusations, above all against David. I hope this won't affect the popularity rating, since season three is still hypothetical). I'm not the only one who thinks this might be an issue, from what I read on blogs here on Tumblr (and on the Internet in general) but I feel like there's a sort of tension, like people are scared to say it out loud, because some fans get the wrong idea and accuse them of hating Georgia or Anna or Ty (and that's why I'm asking this anonymously, I don't want to start a fight). I hope you get what I'm saying, it only felt fair to me to let you know whatever concerns some fans might have, and maybe even give you a perspective you weren't considering? Of course you have the last word on this, and if you think this is not a big deal, I trust your judgement.
I wish you a fantastic day! (And sorry for my English, I'm not native, I tried my best!)
Yeah. So, I find that a little creepy, not very creepy, but definitely a bit.
I thought we were lucky to get Peter Davison in Good Omens 2. (He didn't audition. We offered him the part, as I've been a fan of his since 1978, and All Creatures Great and Small. He crushes it, and is heartbreaking, funny, and still somehow the moral compass of the episode he's in.) Ty Tennant auditioned, along with a number of other actors, and got the part because he did it best. (I didn't know who his family was when we cast him. I just liked the audition tape.)
If you're hunting down family connections, David's mother-in-law, Ty's grandmother, Sandra Dickinson, is in the Audible Sandman, too, as one of the Three Witches/Fates/Eumenides etc. And she was cast in it two years before David Tennant (although probably around the same time Michael Sheen was asked to be Lucifer). (I've been a fan of Sandra's since she was Trillian in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in 1981.)
Anyway, I'm sorry you're worried about Peter and Ty's performances, although I promise you have nothing to worry about, and I'm sorry that you worry that our possibly casting Georgia and Anna in a hypothetical and not-yet actually a real thing Season 3 might make people think of Staged and make them not able to enjoy Good Omens any longer. (Had I known people were this easily shaken I wouldn't have appeared in Staged either, in case my name at the front of Good Omens shattered the fragile illusion and revealed to people that the David Tennant and Michael Sheen who play Crowley and Aziraphale are actors.)
Starting in 2017 I was the recipient of mind-mangling quantities of Tumblr abuse for casting David Tennant and Michael Sheen as Aziraphale and Crowley, which was, many people made very clear to me, the worst casting in the whole entire utter history of casting, and something that Good Omens would never recover from, because for a start neither of them looked like the versions in people's heads, and I'd also miscast them badly because everyone knew that if you had to cast Sheen and Tennant, Michael had to play Crowley and David had to put on some weight and play Aziraphale. (It wasn't until May 2019 that people stopped grumbling.) So people worrying I'm going to cast Anna and Georgia in a season that hasn't even been commissioned in parts that haven't been written just makes me smile.
I hope this helps.
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veeluvss · 10 months
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we'll get them
>1k
emily prentiss x daughter!reader
tw : nudes and sexual abuse
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i pulled up outside the bau, feeling sick. garcia was in here and i was praying she could help me. i hadn't been able to show my face at school for months and mum had no idea. i couldn't tell her. i couldn't dare - what would she think of me? would she call me a whore? a slag? like the rest of them. i knew my mum was usually understanding but at the same time, this was serious.
i left the elevator with my visitor badge on and tried to stay out of sight. i knew mum was on a case and not in town but i didn't know about anyone else. i was well known at the bau, people loved me but i didn't want to be recognised now. i felt ashamed looking at my reflection.
i knocked on the door to garcia's computers and heard her little chime from inside 'two seconds my love'. she didn't know who it was but she called everyone the sweetest names. she just radiated love and positivity, i could already feel myself feeling better. to my shock, jj opened the door. "y/n!" she cheered, smiling widely. "y/n?" garcia said, spinning on her chair. "emily's on a case, did she not tell you?" jj said, concerned. "oh erm," i muttered and lowered my head. "i came to see garcia." "oh come in sweet cheeks!" garcia said, standing up and welcoming me in. "do you want me to leave you to it?" jj asked sweetly but something compelled me to shake my head. i needed her support too. "sit down baby, are you okay?" garcia asked. i felt sick. "i can't tell you so i'm going to show you," i mumbled. "okay," garcia said. i tapped away on my phone til i found the twitter post. i handed it to garcia and she looked at it. jj peering over her shoulder. "oh sugar plum," garcia mumbled. "does emily know?" jj asked me, sadness in her voice. i shook my head rapidly. "please don't tell her!" "y/n," jj sighed. she crouched down beside me and i felt tears welling up in my eyes. "babe, this was posted over a month ago, why didn't you come to me sooner?" "i couldn't leave my house." i buried my head in my hands and jj held me.
"i didn't take them," i whispered. "you didn't?" jj asked, putting some hair behind my ear. penelope was already looking at how to get rid of them, although it was hard. she was going to find the origin at least because then we know who posted them. "some guy," i began explaining. "we got drunk one night when mum was away and he - he forced me too. he used a polaroid and , and his phone but i didn't know he used his phone." "that's okay," jj muttered, stroking my hair. "right, i've got the person who posted it," garcia said. "however, it is one of them cases where it's on the internet and anyone can have them - especially after a month." i nodded, understanding. when she showed me the guy who posted them i felt even more violated as i didn't even know him. "baby, can we ring emily?" jj asked. "no! no you can't!" "she'll understand, she really will." "no, she can't see them." "she doesn't have to see them, we'll just be able to arrest him and get him put away for it. we can also get talking to the people who shared it." i began to cry. i wanted my mum, so bad. i just began to nod. jj and garcia were decent cuddles but nothing beat my mum. jj held me whilst garcia rang emily.
"what've you got for me garcia?" mum asked down the phone. "emily, are you alone?" garcia asked. "this is personal." "i don't really have time for personal-..." she began. "it's about your daughter so yes you do," penelope said. i smiled at that. we heard mum mumble a quick 'excuse me' to whoever she was with. "what's happened?" her voice was panicked. "JJ and i got a little unprompted visit from your baby today," garcia began. i hugged jj and she pulled me closer to her. "is she okay?" emily asked. "emily you can't judge, she's already hurt enough by it and she just needs her mum. okay?" "garcia, what is going on?" "someone posted pictures of her online, erm, not clothed." i hid in jj, not wanting to hear her response. there was silence for a minute. "do you know who?" she asked. "i tracked down the ip address." "does she know them?" garcia looked at me and i shook my head. "she does not." "i'm coming home," she hung up then. i couldn't tell if she was mad or upset or angry or disappointed. i felt sick. i just clung to jj, hoping she'd understand.
a few hours later, mum charged into garcia's office. i was sat on one of the desks, coffee in my hand and apple in the other. i gulped seeing her. she looked at me, between garcia and jj. "i need to see them." she said, holding out her hand. "no!" i said suddenly, getting down. "no mum, please." i begged. "y/n i need to see what they did to you." "emily," jj whispered as i shook my head over and over. "we've seen them. you don't need to see." "it's nothing i haven't seen before for christ sake!" she groaned, throwing up her hands. i began to cry then, she was angry. so so angry with me. "it's not the same em and you know it." jj said, putting a supportive hand on my back. "we have the IP address and we know who posted them online. we just need your orders to send someone to the house and get him arrested." "get him arrested and sent down. and anyone else who distributed it. no one is getting away with this," she said. i looked at her between my fingers and saw her expression soften at the sight of me. she sighed before pulling me into her arms.
"we'll get them," she said. "mum i'm sorry," i cried. "sorry? why on earth are you sorry?" she asked me, genuinely surprised. "i didn't know he was taking them, i didn't know they'd be posted. i dragged you away from a case," i explained, clinging to her blazer. "sweetheart," she whispered, caressing my hair. "this isn't your fault. at all." she pushed me away slightly and put her fingers under my chin so i looked at her. "i'm not mad or disappointed at you. baby i love you and i'd never judge you." she whispered and my heart swelled with love. "i'm just really fucking mad at the people who hurt my baby." i chuckled a little and she pulled me back into my arms. "what did i tell you eh," jj said, rubbing my back. i only nodded, clinging to my mum. i'd needed this. i'd needed her.
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the-milk-monarch · 5 months
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Aquarium Date HCs for Connor and Ralph (separately) I love sea life so I love the idea of pointing out different fish to my fictional crushes :0 (maybe just date hcs in general tho??)
☣︎ hell yeah phish and first dbh ask 👏🙌 Sorry in case they're OOC or I got some fish trivia wrong. I'm not an expert lol btw I love to do the same, just with dog breeds ✌ I wanted to write general dating headcanons as well, but I didn't want the post to be too all over the place, so feel free to ask for more if you liked this rendition of the boys
【 AQUARIUM DATE 】 ☢︎ | gender-neutral reader ☢︎ | Detroit Become Human ☢︎ | Connor | Ralph
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【 Connor 】
Since he used to be a working android and didn't have a lot free will while not being a deviant, Connor liked going out with you a lot.
He was never interested in fish, but when you mentioned going to the aquarium he was a bit curious.
"Hm, the aquarium? Yeah, I'd like to go." He said as he looked at you with attentiveness in his eyes.
You were excited to point out each and every fish to him, although you were a bit worried Connor would be able to just- search the internet and get to know everything about them from the start.
He was a grade A android and detective after all.
You hoped he wouldn't get bored of you rambling about it.
As you arrived to the fancy building, Connor took notice of the big glass tunnel.
He didn't comment anything, but you could see that he looked at the fish that swam above his head with curiosity
"That's a nurse shark." You pointed out with a slightly excited smile as you noticed the creature swim behind the glass. Connor looked the way you pointed, raising his brow with calm interest. "Ginglymostoma cirratum. The elasmobranch fish in the family Ginglymostomatidae." He came up with the info on the spot. He knew you were interested in the topic, so he wanted to impress and relate to you. You chuckled softly at his "knowledge" as you lightly punched him in the shoulder. "Hey- I'm supposed to be the fish expert here." You lightheartedly pointed out. "Right. Of course, tell me more then. I'd love to listen." He quickly let you take the scene. You smiled at his mindfulness. "This one's a pilchard. But more commonly known as, well, sardine. The same one you can buy at the market." You came up with more information as you observed Connor listening to you diligently. "It's interesting to actually see them swim in their natural habitat. At least, as natural as you can get." He mentioned lightheartedly. "Yeah. Like, people eat those." You said playfully, watching him smile at your comment.
Time went by quick as you pointed out a lot of fancy and regular fish that appeared near you, excited with each new one that showed on your radar.
Connor loved listening to you express yourself about the thing you were passionate about.
You previously had some worries about him getting bored while you were there, but he never shown a sign of annoyance.
But it couldn't be further from the truth, he was looking at you with never ending curiosity.
Time came for you to visit the touchpool.
"Can you actually touch the fish?" Connor looked at the pool, raising his brow calmly. You chuckled slightly. "Yes. That's what it's for. Go on. Touch the starfish." Connor looked at the water one more time before gently placing his hand inside. You could see the flow of emotions on his face as the invertebrate made contact with his cyberskin. It showed curiosity, then confusion, then a bit of- disgust? He took his hand out slowly, but you could see a bit of aversion in his movement. "Did you not like it?" You asked with a silly smile on your face. "It was- interesting. But i'd rather not touch it again." He commented with fake professionalism, trying to hide his distaste towards the feeling. It made you giggle. "Really? That bad? Aren't you used to touching dead bodies and stuff?" You asked amused. "I am. But that's different. Somehow, this creature seems to- somehow get me. In a bad way." He explained. The fact that Connor, the android who was used to far much worse things than you could survive through, was disgusted by the little starfish made you giggle. "Alright, you don't gotta touch it. But I'll tell you some interesting facts about it instead." You suggested, smiling at him. "Yeah, that sounds good." The corners of his lips turned up as he reciprocated the calm smile.
Connor spent rest of the day with you talking his ear off, but he didn't mind in the slightest, and even asked you for elaboration and more facts on some fish he found interesting with.
He reminisces the trip with you there very fondly, although he gets a bit annoyed when you sometimes tease him about the starfish incident.
In a lighthearted way of course.
【 Ralph 】
He was a bit hesitant to go somewhere where there's a lot of people at first.
His fear of humans still persisted, but it was greatly lessened when he got you in your life.
Although he's still shy and a bit anxious in public.
Nonetheless, when you told him what an aquarium is, he was a bit curious.
You reassured him that if anything happens, you will leave.
He nodded a bit unsure, but he trusted you'd make the right call, so he agreed.
He was very fidgety and anxious at first, but his demeanor changed once he saw the colorful creatures.
Ralph was never in a place with so many different kinds of fish before!
He was probably even more excited than you when he got into the zone.
You tried to pick the rooms with less or zero people around so Ralph would feel more comfortable.
But after he got mesmerized by the fishies, his fear was kinda skimmed over.
He did get scared by a moray eel though.
"Ralph does not like that fish!" He pointed out, upset at the scary monster behind the glass. You laughed softly. "It's a moray eel." "Ralph does not like moray eels." He repeated with a frown, although he was still slightly curious about it. In like a car-crash type of way. You looked around the tank, wanting to find some "nicer" fish to show him. "How about this one?" You pointed out at the sea horse. He looked at it with interest, tilting his head a little, which you thought was very adorable. "Hm... Ralph likes this one better." He said with conviction with made you chuckle slightly. "The males actually carry the eggs." You came up with a random trivia about them. It was actually a decently known fact about them, but Ralph being Ralph obviously didn't know it. "Huh?" He tilted his head once more. "It's to ensure their survival. Both mom and dad work together." You pointed out some more nerdy facts with a smile as you observed his reaction. "Hm... Ralph thinks the seahorses are nice." He came up to the glass, putting his hands on it to get a better view. "And interesting!"
After he got a bit more comfortable being t the aquarium, he would run around the place, following the fishes that swam above his head in the tunnel and ask you about them.
"What's that fish called? And that? And those small ones? Oh, what about that big one!" He pointed out lots of different types, making you a bit lost with answering as his questions were so quickly coming.
He's the type to just- poke the glass.
He's curious, you can't blame him.
He'll stop if you tell him to, though.
If there's a petting pool he must see it.
Tell him how to interact with it beforehand though, as he might get a bit- rough with his touches.
"Ralph put that stingray down!" You were horrified when you noticed him holding the poor creature by the tail. He flinched and dropped it back into the water. "Ralph is sorry- Ralph was just curious-" He said apologetically, putting hands closer to his chest in a nervous manner. "It's- It's okay Ralph, you can try just- petting it. Like that." You reached out your hand to touch the stingray that was swimming by. Ralph looked at you and tried to do the same. "O-okay, Ralph will try." He giggled when his sensors felt the skin of the animal brush against his fingers.
You didn't know what to expect at the aquarium, whether Ralph would like it at all, but you were positively surprised when he wanted to stick around more, even after the workers told you it's gonna close soon.
Overall, he was very excited, and wouldn't mind going there again.
Please tell him more fish facts at home.
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mintsuwu · 2 months
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please how did you come up with her design I've been trying to make a design for my poppy playtime oc but it always ends up looking like rubbish please give tips😭😭
Hello, thank you for asking! Truth be told is that it took me a bit to figure out how to do LoolaLamb in general, she didn't come out too well on the first try xD I had to tweak a couple of things in her like the hair, colors or snout.
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Initially, I wasn't quite sure of what animal picking for her, but then I went with the lamb idea for a few reasons:
- When I was little, I used to have a lamb plush I used to love dearly. Sadly I don't have any pictures to show since I no longer have it with me so I tried to look for one that looked similar on the Internet- But that was the main inspiration for her character. And since the Smiling Critters have their own plushies as well, I thought it would be interesting to make one of them after a real toy. I also took reference from other characters in media that were based on sheeps, like in Pokémon (Flaaffy & Whimsicott).
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I would always recommend using references if you ever don't know where to start with a design. And in the case of a Poppy Playtime OC, you can look for references if you desire as well, or even turn a beloved toy of yours into a character, anything works!
In many cultures, the lamb is a revered symbol of innocence, purity, and sacrifice. It is often associated with religious connotations, particularly in Christianity, where it symbolizes the embodiment of Christ's innocence and the sacrificial lamb offering redemption and atonement for humanity's sins. I simply liked the symbology of this because I'm always a sucker for that when it comes to creating characters;;
This was mainly due to lore reasons, her association with Catnap, a follower of an entity, the Prototype, whom he workships and would do anything to get its blessing. LoolaLamb "sacrified" her voice for the Prototype (well, it actually was that Catnap took away her voicebox with that excuse).
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Her name "LoolaLamb" is a word play for "lullaby", given the role she was going to have in the Smiling Critters line, a replacement for Catnap who would have a similar role as his, except that instead of using a gas to make people fall asleep, she would use her voice. Sheeps and lambs are also heavily associated with sleep and dreams, given the advice: if you can't get to sleep, just “count sheep” until you drift off into a peaceful slumber.
Sheep are wanderers. It's their nature. Even in the best and safest of places, places that provide protection, water, and food, sheep are known to wander off, get lost, and sometimes eaten by predators.
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Her color pick was mainly because even if the smiling critters have more or less the colors of the rainbow and there are already two blue colored critters (Bubba Bubbaphant being more of a neutral blue or azure and Craftycorn cyan or aquamarine), I noticed that there were no dark blue or indigo colored ones. My first idea for LoolaLamb was to give her more violet colors, given her correlation to Catnap, but at the same time I wanted her to stand out amongst the others, being a little more of her own character, so that´s why I ended up picking a different color pallete for her.
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And those are pretty much the basic things I had in mind when creating LoolaLamb! Of course it doesn't always have to be so elaborated with all characters, but I'd always recommend to find references, information, symbolism, anything that might help you with the creation of your character in case you don't know where to start or are simply stuck!
I might not be the best when it comes to explaining things but I hope this has helped you and I wish you the best in your creative process, anon! 🙏🏻💖
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triflesandparsnips · 6 months
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Lot of takes going around the internets about certain "deaths" in the ofmd season finale, so, uh-- guess it's time for me to try and lose some followers on tumblr dot com with
Some Thoughts on Why I Am Not Particularly Bothered or Concerned about Izzy's Apparent "Death"
Laying the groundwork first...
1. Narratively speaking, Izzy's been a dead man walking since the start of the season. Babe shot himself and got a rebirth-- but he still definitely intended to die. Every minute he was still around was borrowed time.
Did he have to die? Maybe not. I know I could've written a version of the show where he didn't. But then that would be my show-- not theirs. I can't know exactly what themes, bugbears, bête noires, catharsis, or artistic Vibes are driving that writers' room, and until the credits run on the finale of the third season, none of the rest of us can either.
2. Izzy spent the season being in a liminal state-- and there's nothing in the story saying that he can't continue doing that. Izzy spent the season having one foot in one space, one hoof in the other, and himself halfway through the door, a chimera of mirrored things right up to his "death": pirate and ship, hard and soft, old ways and new, etc etc. But "the gravy basket" is a weird little liminal space between life and death, a place that both Ed and Buttons have found (and returned from) before. We don't know where Izzy "is" right now-- he could be there.
(tbh, I wonder how much poor feeling we'd be having about all this if we'd gotten a final tag of a blue-washed Izzy staring down at a bowl of soup while helplessly saying "but this isn't gravy, what the fu--")
3. I think there is an unfortunate belief that "it's not real unless you see the body" is a universal -- or perhaps inarguable -- "fact" of storytelling. But it's not. It's just a bit of narrative shorthand that got popular, and now we're too ready to fall into the trap of believing the inverse is true too-- that if there is a body, then there must therefore have been a "real" death.
This season has spent quite a lot of narrative time and effort telling us that its story is using a different model, with different shorthands; specifically, that magic is real, that there is at least some kind of existence after death, and that the dead can be resurrected.
And that brings me to the meat of why I'm not particularly bothered or concerned about what, at this stage of the story, could still very well be just a minor setback--
4. This whole show, and particularly this season, is a fairy tale. It's a story that works with fairy tale logic and tropes, and it's in conversation with other fairy tales too, ones that the OFMD audience is likely to know well enough to spot their narrative beats in action. So "Pinocchio" gets mentioned a lot? Cool-- the audience applies what is commonly known of that story to this one ("a real boy", the mirror-opposite being a puppet with no nose, etc), and finds some Cool Shit. Then they're primed to keep looking for fairy tales, even unnamed ones, in case there's another little nugget of reward-dopamine for finding a connection.
So the fact that we saw a mermaid? Suddenly, I personally am noticing "Little Mermaid" motifs all over the place. That Ed was in a "sleep like death" -- after fucking around with a spinning wheel -- until his prince came to wake him? Well fuck, man, that's Blackbeard playing "Sleeping Beauty" for us all.
And bringing it all back to a "dead" Izzy Hands... when I add up a "dead" body surrounded by a bunch of laborers mourning the person who nominally kept their living space nice AND who was wanted dead by an authority figure for the crime of being the "better" version of what that figure wanted to be...
...well fuck, idk about the rest of you, but to me that all adds up to Izzy's story being Snow fucking White. Waiting for someone to come pull the bullet poisoned apple from his body so he can live again.
5. This is a second season. Of three. And Izzy Hands is the writer's favorite chewtoy, so there is lots of time, space, and incentive to bring him back. If there's a third season, we have a pile of ways he could be brought back over the course of hours of literal viewing time and possibly months of in-narrative time. That's ages.
And the solutions don't have to be difficult! For instance, we still have canonical hallucinations from Stede-- that's one route. Or fuck it, we could have Izzy's (very solid-looking) ghost be the embodiment of their being haunted by the Sea, that would work too.
And even barring all that-- his grave is right there with our heroes. The ship is out there hunting down his murderer. Even if you're happy he's dead... bad news, friend. He's all over the third season landscape. (uh oh, it's GNU Izzy Hands)
But those are just a few options that leave his body rotting but his character still alive. I happen to think we could all dream a little bigger, darlings. For instance:
A. You cannot tell me that these writers, on this show, with these actors, would not absolutely go all in on a zombie-esque hand thrusting out of the dirt mere hours after burial. Look me in the eyes and tell me Con O'Neill wouldn't pull off an entire digging-out scene only to end with himself panting beside the hole, looking around, hearing Ed and Stede being weird in their haunted hut, and wearily say, "Are you fucking kidding me."
B. Don't like zombies? Want to stay closer to the Snow White vibe AND introduce a love interest for him? One hyphenated word: body-snatcher. Gotta dig those bodies up fresh for the Definitely Historically Accurate anatomists of the time! But oh, says this New Guy, this corpse is-- wow, it's weird that they buried him with a rose and really amazing makeup and a truly extraordinary number of whittled whales, plus what's with that horsey leg grave marker, this guy must've been fucking fascinating, man, I wish I could've met him-- --at which point Izzy's hand shoots out and chokes the guy half to death and the lads come tumbling out of the house and ta da, mission accomplished, Izzy resurrected in 5 minutes or less with his horsey leg conveniently beside him and an entire season for himself and everyone else to Deal With It, amazing, fantastic, no notes from me.
C. Come to think of it, there is genuinely a non-zero chance that the crew just. Fucked up the burial. I mean... even though I was just arguing why we shouldn't see it as Law, we didn't actually see the body. We saw a grave. What did they bury him in? Was it a box? Was it some canvas? Did they definitely pick up the right one when it was time to bury him? Or did they maybe carefully make him an ahistorical safety coffin just in case a cat demon came to bother him and his corpse wanted to make a fuss about it, y'know, very common, could happen to anyone, and Frenchie just so happens to have Blackbeard's old collar bell right here--
6. Here's the bottom line, imo: The only thing that would keep Izzy really actually dead and completely removed from the story is a lack of narrative time and space-- and we have plenty of both. Stories are like Lego. If you've got enough time and you're willing to play with pieces from a whole lotta different sets, it's not hard to put the same elements together in different ways to get new, exciting configurations. It's why I'm actually rubbish at predicting exact details of stuff-- there are a lot of ways something could go, there are infinite doors out of problems the narrative seems to throw at us, and no two people will come up with the same thing because we're all different.
That, to me, is one of the big ways I personally enjoy and engage with stories. And it's why I genuinely can't be fussed about Izzy's death, not when we're only two-thirds through the story as a whole; observing someone setup and then try and execute a complicated narrative trick is my jam.
But my way of engaging with all this is by no means the best or only way. How we all interact with art, and what speaks to us, is extremely personal. If how this season and Izzy's death went just didn't work for you, that's okay. I'm sorry it wasn't the story you wanted it to be. That blows.
I just know I can't say yet that it didn't work for me. I won't know until I can take in the entire picture, just as I can't judge a finished Lego set by the one piece I step on midway through construction. I can see different ways Izzy's death/rebirth could absolutely work, but will the writer manage it? I dunno.
But I'm willing to wait and see if the stupid puppet can pull it off.
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violetrainbow412-blog · 11 months
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Memories [S. R]
Spencer Reid x fem!reader
word count: 4k
summary: the case of the self-appointed Fisher King comes with too many sentimental implications and you discover that you and Spencer had more in common than you imagined.
warnings: mention of mental illness and some trauma
A/N: directly based on 2x01 of the series "The Fisher King" part 2
people who might be interested: @c-m-stuff @no-soy-fer @synthsescape @bella-fics @cynbx (if you want to be removed or added tell me!)
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To say that you were worried about the case was an understatement, you were actually terrified of what might happen. An unsub holding a hostage, who was also her daughter, and who knew so much about each member of the team, was worrying in itself. But Elle being in a hospital dying, the case being so tied to Reid's life, and you being so stupidly far from knowing where Randall Garner was, was what made you want to throw up everything you'd eaten during your interrupted vacation.
The team, as always, had split up and throughout the investigation you had stayed with Spencer and Garcia to try to crack the riddle, using the man's brain, the woman's internet find-anything skills, and your vast knowledge of the world of codes and literature. During that period you never believed that the doctor's mother would be involved, much less did you think that she would find herself in the… condition she was in. Throughout the time she was there, he treated her sweetly and calmly, but you couldn't help noticing the discomfort that was palpable in the environment. Not that he was ashamed of her, of course, although you figured he didn't visit her very often and it was obviously not her intention for the entire BAU to find out that her mother was a schizophrenic who was in a sanatorium.
You remembered, hours ago, asking Garcia to let you tell the man that his mother was fine when he requested a plane to bring her to Virginia, and all day you had that conversation etched in your mind like a tattoo on your skin.
"Your mom it's ok" you had said, approaching her desk and leaning on it to look at it "Agents picked her up. She's flying here right now” you completed, although he seemed too amused with the piece of evidence that he had in his hand and then you felt the need to say something else “How are you?”
"I feel kind of dumb, to tell you the truth," he replied. Most of the time he avoided looking at you, but you had already gotten used to it “I forgot she used to always read me this poem. And I think that I should have realized sooner than that”
"Why?"
“Nobody knows things like the fact that JJ collects butterflies except for me,” he said, with a guilt-tinged shrug. “People tell me their secrets all the time. Think it's because they know I don't have anyone to betray them to… except… my mother. I... I tell her pretty much everything”
"It’s fine”
“Do you know that I write her a letter every day?”
"That's very nice," you said sincerely, for the idea of the man carefully writing a letter to tell his mother about the day was a sweet image to imagine.
“It depends on why I write her”
"What do you mean?"
“I write her letters so I won't feel so guilty about not visiting her,” Reid added. If it hadn't been for that case, probably you, or anyone, would have known that his mother was hospitalized and you thought it was completely logical that he didn't want others to find out about that part of his life about him, including that he didn’t visit her. Spencer was always available for everything, always working, always alone in his apartment and now that you knew about Diana you understood why. He waited a moment and then finally made eye contact with you, looking somewhat fearful “Did you know that schizophrenia is genetically passed?”
And when he mentioned that your world fell apart. You understood that this was the reason why he didn't go with her; because he was afraid. You didn't know how to react, at least not at that moment, and you just looked at him sadly, feeling your own heart tighten a little at unfortunate memories.
Although, for work reasons, the talk hadn't gone any further than that, you'd thought about it all along, even now that you were all gathered to put the last pieces together of what you hoped would be a successful puzzle.
"Nevada? So we don't even know what state he's in?” Hotch muttered, already quite frustrated at how fruitless the search was turning out. There was little time left and you all knew it.
“I'll search the tax records, see if he owns any property”
"Excuse me," Diana Reid intervened from the chair next to the blackboard and her son practically jumped to try and stop her.
"Mom, do you know we're..."
“Just before the agents got me from the hospital, a man delivered this to me” she continued, ignoring “It's a photo of a house with an address on the back”
After showing her direction she turned the image and you saw what was a house that looked just like a castle, with illuminated windows, trees around, and a night sky.
“Shiloh, Virginia?”
“That's only 10 miles from here”
"Well, there's no time to waste. Morgan and Reid are coming with me”
"I want to go too," you said immediately. Something about the whole thing gave you a very bad feeling and you wished you could help in any way you could, but you were surprised to see that Spencer was the first to oppose your request.
“We don't want anyone else to get hurt, Y/N,” Morgan added, his voice almost pleading for you to obey Hotch's orders. You were in no position to demand a ride and only agreed because you knew that an argument would only take away valuable time. “We have to get ready. Reid, let's go.”
"I'll be back soon, mom"
"I'll stay with her" you suggested, hastening to take a step towards him, in an attempt to continue your mission to help.
"Are you sure?"
"Of course," you said to reassure him. Diana already seemed quite satisfied with the fact that you were going to accompany her and you still didn't know why “Go. And be careful, please."
"I will" he nodded and immediately went after Morgan and Hotch, the three of them leaving the room to carry out the rescue mission. You had your heart in your hand for thinking about what could happen to them and only the woman's voice brought you back to reality.
"I'm glad you're the one who stays"
"Really?" you asked, somewhat flattered to think that she had liked you within a couple of hours of knowing you. 
"Spencer talks to me about you all the time" she confessed and both you and the other two women present widened their eyes in surprise “He said you like literature"
"Yeah, I'd say so," you muttered, trying to smile at her to hide the nervous wreck you were, partly because of concern for your partners and partly because of what she had just told you.
"He's going to be fine, right?"
By God you hoped so. You didn't know what you would do if he got hurt or… he just didn't come back from there.
"Yes, I promise" you managed to say, as serenely as possible to try to keep your companion calm "And if you tell me about your favorite book? I imagine it will be a good one,” you said kindly, taking her arm and leading her to a couch where the two of you could sit. You knew that part of suggesting the talk was to distract yourself from the bleak outlook and thus kill time until the team returned.
Waiting was all you could do.
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Diana had talked to you for a while until she ended up finding it more interesting to write in her notebook so you decided not to bother her, although she left you silent and ready for anxiety to grip you tight. After about an hour JJ herself had come to tell you that Elle was safe after surgery and you swore you could have cried with happiness when you found out. So, the pain that stayed in your chest was just from waiting for news from the three remaining agents and when what felt like an eternity passed without receiving any reports you couldn't take it anymore and apologized to Diana to leave the room. with the excuse that you needed to go to the bathroom. You were confident that she would not be a suicidal or aggressive patient, but you still wanted to hurry to get back to her as soon as possible, and when you had barely walked a section of the corridor you met a gangly figure who was already on his way to look for you.
"Rebeca?"
“She's safe” was the first thing you said, making the knot in your stomach finally dissolve “But Randall died. He blew himself up,” he continued, and you thought you wished you had heard a better outcome, even if the man was a criminal “And my mom?”
"Calm. Writing” you assured him, taking a few steps towards him to get a better look at him. He was dirty and what would later be a bruise could be seen on the left side of his face, but other than that he seemed to be safe and sound. "Is everyone there okay?"
"Yes," he breathed out. It was a relief to know that, it was a relief that things were finally over and that no one had been lost.
“I'm so grateful to hear that, Reid,” you said. You stretched your fingers up to his side and ran the tips over the mark that was beginning to form. "Does it hurt a lot?"
"No," he assured you, with a tight-lipped smile.
"Your mother. It will make her happy to know that you're back" you murmured immediately, and tried to go back the way you had come to go tell him, but he held out a hand to stop you "What's wrong?"
"Do you think I could take a moment before going with her?" he asked you and you retraced your steps to face him, still not letting go of his hand. You nodded and he sat on the floor with his legs drawn up and his back leaning against the wall in an attempt to calm down a bit from the adrenaline rush of all the previous events. You dropped down next to him in the same position and looked at his profile, thinking that if you had something to say, now was the time to talk.
“She told me you talk about me all the time,” you ventured, and he bit back an embarrassed smile.
"You weren't supposed to have found out about that"
"So you say bad things about me?"
"She didn't tell you?"
"No" you answered kindly.
"It's a relief"
“So these are definitely bad things, huh,” you teased, pushing your shoulder against his and seeing him shake his head slightly, too embarrassed to admit what he had written to his mother about you. You were silent for a moment as it didn’t seem that he had any intention of getting up to cross to the meeting room, you spoke again "Do you really not want to see her?"
“It's not that I don't want to see her, it's just that dealing with everything sometimes is so… so hard. You wouldn't understand,” he told you, his voice threatening to crack at any moment. You took a deep breath before opening your mouth to reply and the lonely hallway muffled your words, which were barely a whisper.
"What do you know about Alzheimer, Reid?" saying this, he turned a little to look at you, just in case he had misheard, but he realized that now it was you who wasn't looking at him.
"Excuse me?"
"Alzheimer" you repeated.
"Huh, it's a type of dementia that causes problems with memory, thinking, and behavior," he replied, still not quite sure why you were asking, “It is progressive, which means dementia symptoms gradually worsen over the years, and it is also the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. Live an average of eight years after symptoms become apparent, but survival can range from four to 20 years, depending on age and other health conditions. There is currently no cure."
“Have you ever lived with someone who has it?” you exclaimed and he shook his head. It was easier to look directly at you when you were the one who looked away “There are experimental treatments that reduce symptoms, but none are totally effective, appearing early in life in only about 5% to 6% of people. Although there is no defined cause, the genetic factor can affect you if you had a direct relative who suffered from early Alzheimer's” you exclaimed. He wanted to ask you why you were doing this exchange of information, but he thought it impolite to do so, so he just kept quiet "You said earlier that people tell you their secrets because you have no one to tell them to, but I'm sure it's not because that. We trust you because you are kind, understanding, but above all a good friend who we know will never judge us" you took a moment to take a deep breath again, feeling the nervousness running from the tip of your feet to your head and also to gather something of courage "I personally tell you because I am very afraid of starting to forget them"
It all clicked in Spencer's mind in a split second and he wished he was misreading things, searching your gaze so he could identify something that indicated you didn't mean what he was assuming.
"You…?” he started to say, but the question died on the tip of his tongue.
“It was my father. He was barely 35 years old when it all started, it was with the time he forgot to come to his birthday party. I remember it perfectly, he hadn't been feeling well for weeks due to the stress of work and the company decided to run all kinds of tests on him, without finding anything to worry about, so we just ignored it. But the symptoms recurred: he was disoriented, discouraged, sometimes he became aggressive with the family and forgot plans or things that we had told him. When he almost crushed one of his colleagues with a machine that he forgot that he was working, the company decided to give him a permanent break and we began to worry.
»By 36 it was already a fact that it was the beginnings of dementia. The doctors were surprised by the diagnosis because it is not very common to find the disease in patients of his age and for more explanations that we tried to find, we didn’t find any other. They prescribed a treatment that only kept him calm and it got to a point where it felt inhuman to drug him daily, and about two years after he got the diagnosis my mom decided it was better to put him in a mental hospital.
I was only fifteen years old at the time, but I already understood everything perfectly. I went to see him every day, after school, talked to him, read my homework to him, and we watched movies together, which to a certain extent made his illness feel tolerable. The worst thing at that point was that he asked me to watch the same movie as the day before or that he asked me if I was nervous about the exam I had done a week ago" you looked at the man just to make sure he was following the story, which that you verified with the way he was looking at you; fully attentive.
“Anyway, the years went by and it got more and more complicated. Sometimes a nurse had to remind her of my name and at some point my mother just gave up, probably when my father completely disowned her and started yelling all over the hospital that a woman was harassing him in her room. I continued to visit him, but when I grew up and entered the FBI academy my hours were cut down considerably, so in recent years I only went to see him once a week.
»At 42 my father no longer knew that I was his daughter, he thought that I was a nurse doing social service by keeping him company. He talked to me all the time about his family and sadly told me that neither his wife nor his daughter had been to see him for a long time, but I assured him that they had both asked me to tell him that they loved him very much and that they would go soon” silent for a moment, careful not to burst into tears, and prepared to finish the story “He died during my first year as a BAU agent. I saw his decline over the years and even at the end I think he left thinking that his family had abandoned him. I don't talk to my mother anymore, because I think she feels very guilty about me for having left me all the burden of taking care of my father. But every day I feel at peace with myself because despite how painful it was to see him, I never left him.
»Many times I cried before entering the hospital and when leaving, thinking that I had to pretend to be able to spend a moment with the person I loved the most and who was now only a ghost of what my father once was. And it was terrible to look at it and think that this was my future, even to this day. They say that reading is a good exercise to reduce risk and that's why I always carry a book wherever I go, that's why I always want to do new things and that's why I strive every day to solve our cases because I don't know when the last. I have gone to specialists who have told me that there is nothing to worry about and that, if I have it, Alzheimer's could last until I am an old woman, but even so I am afraid every day.
If I really get sick and manage to get old, the most likely thing is that I will end up in a sanatorium, but right now what is worth it are the things I do every day. I'm scared, yes, but it's worth fighting for if I can help people in this job and especially if I can live with people like you.
I know you said that I wouldn't understand, but the truth is that of all the people in this building I can assure you that I am the one who can do it best. I know that you can't bear to see her because you are afraid of ending up with her like her and that at the same time you are so worried that you take the time to write everything about your life to her. I'm probably boring you with all this stuff that you never asked me to tell you, but I just wanted to tell you how important it is that you be with your mom. And more than doing it for her, do it for you.
I would only give you one piece of advice, which you can decide to take or not: don't waste your time, Spencer. Your mother loves you very much, go and talk to her, accompany her, listen to everything she has to tell you and forgive her faults if there are any. Because you don't know about her when it may be the last time you see her, either for your health or for hers”
There was total silence. You hadn't noticed until that moment that your cheeks were already wet from crying and you still didn't dare to look at his face. No person knew that part of you, because after your father got worse you had decided not to talk about it with anyone, so you could say that you were practically giving your heart to that man bruised by the mission a few hours ago. Suddenly you thought that perhaps you had talked for too long or that for him it had no relevance and he had only stayed to listen to you because he was not rude enough to leave you talking to yourself. But while your head was drawing the wrong conclusions, something you never expected happened: Spencer extended his hands to you and wrapped you in a hug.
It only took a bit of effort to make their bodies fit perfectly and he clenched the fabric of your knitted sweater in his fists, tucking his head into the crook of your neck to allow you to lean yours against his golden hair. It was as if all the time you had been destined for that particular moment, fused in that embrace that communicated everything that words could no longer express.
He wasn't the person who loved physical contact the most, all of you had noticed that, so hugging him was totally new to you. The feeling of peace that this brought you had no comparison point and the softness of his body covered you completely.
“I had no idea,” he murmured, the sound of his voice muffled by your skin. And Spencer was being completely honest, because he didn't even imagine that you could fully understand him after having lived through such a tragic story. He had understood many things thanks to your story and he was eternally grateful that he had felt the confidence to tell him something like this, so he also thought that maybe it was his turn to be honest with you "What my mom said is true, I always talk to her about you. I tell her that you are the sweetest companion I have ever had, that you always pay attention to me, and that you make sure that I feel comfortable wherever we go. I tell her that you are strong, that I want to be half as brave as you, and I also tell her that I have never felt affection and gratitude for someone as I feel for you, because you have made these two years different from any other time in my life” his words, whispered so close to you and drenched in so much love, only intensified your tears "And as long as my conscience remains intact, I assure you that if I need to remind you of all the secrets you have told me, I will do it"
That, more than a proposal, was a declaration of pure love that promised to reach many years into the future.
"Maybe we'll even end up in the same sanitarium, you and me, huh?" you exclaimed, with a slightly joking tone "And so I will have the opportunity to know your wonders again every day"
You felt on your neck that you managed to get a smile out of him and that made you smile too. That's when he pulled away so he could look at you.
“I think that… I will go with my mother back to Nevada. I guess we both deserve it, don't you think?" he told you and you nodded with a small smile. He didn't want to leave your side, but you got up first and held out your hand to help him do the same.
“She still has enough lucidity to tell me what your favorite food is. Maybe you should eat with her on the plane” you suggested. You didn't want to rob him of any more time he could spend with his mother, so you just wished him luck and started walking in another direction.
"Y/N, before you go" he called out to you. You were already a fair distance away, but it was enough for you to still speak in a small voice. "You know you're not alone, right?"
You smiled as he looked at you with those eyes that only showed sincerity, and you wished you could encapsulate that moment for eternity.
"I know" you replied calmly "And I trust that now you know it too"
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nyxvuxoa-writes · 9 months
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𝙳𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚆𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚊𝚖 𝚁𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚜 -- 𝙰𝚄
William Rollins x Fem!Reader
◢ Genre: AU, Dark Fic, Smut, Plot Bunny — Suitable For Adults Only
◢ Warnings: darkfic, alternative universe, sexualization of a bad guy, toxic relationship, mentions of stalking behavior, manipulation, mentions of being institutionalized, mental health talk, keeping secrets, possessive!William, use of petname: kitten, exploring kink with William, body marking, knife kink, pain play, Dacryphilia (turned on by crying), katoptronophilia (sexual acts in front of mirrors), sexually recording the reader. Proceed with caution in case I missed something.
◢ A/N: This is an AU headcanon style fic list where William didn't die, but instead had been institutionalized for his behavior, and later released. It's based off William and his personality, though in a non-canon setting. Keep in mind, William is a psychopath, so don't always expect fluffy stuff with him. If you want a more direct x fem!reader insert with him based off this concept, let me know. Gif credit goes to myself.
◢ I do not consent to my work being post anywhere else.
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The first time you had talked to William, it had been in a chat room.
Old habits die hard, and the internet has progressed so much.
You wanted to vent to a stranger about life and he was willing to listen.
He's charismatic, knowing exactly what to say to make you feel like you are on top of the world.
It was his way of learning you. He wanted to know what made you tick.
You found yourself confiding in him, telling him your secrets, fears, and insecurities.
Naturally, he knew how to use these things to his advantage.
To make sure you trusted him back, he started to confide in you.
But not the whole truth.
He's only told you bits and pieces of things.
Like that his mental health had declined as a teenager.
That he ended up institutionalized because of it.
It was just enough to make you feel sorry for him.
But not so much so that it would scare you away from him.
And it was likely a little warped in perspective.
That doesn't matter to him, so long as he has you at this point.
As far as you know, he's okay now and you are the reason he keeps going.
And that might not be a whole lie, he's actually become rather attached to you.
Maybe more so than you realize.
Dangerously so.
You might even have some darker things in common.
Which, if you do, he's going to find out one way or another.
After establishing yourselves, you finally agree to meet.
When you first met William, he had come off as perfect.
He flashed you that charming smile and batted the lashes on those pretty blue eyes which naturally caused you to bring your guard down.
He makes you feel safe, wanted, desired.
He's forward, but not overly so.
It's his way of testing the waters a little more.
But when you let him, he gives you these soft and sweet kisses.
The kind where his lips hover over yours after, and he simply smiles against them before he kisses you again.
You are his now.
He has his claws in you, and has no intention of letting go.
But being away from you doesn't exactly sit well with him.
He starts to keep an eye on your social media. He watches where you post from or what you are posting.
He checks on who you are talking to and who interacts with your page.
If he feels that someone is getting a little too close to what is his, William won't hesitate to make his presence known.
He'll leave little comments here or there to show you that he's paying attention.
At first, it's not going to come off overly possessive, but as time goes on it will start to become more clear in his wording that 'what's his, is his.'
Depending on the type of girl you are, this is either good or bad.
It will either turn you on, or it won't.
Let's assume that it does.
You like feeling that sense of being desired so badly.
In a way, he makes you crave it.
Even through a screen, this man a way of making you feel different things and deep emotions.
But with that being said, he has a way of convincing you of things.
Be it, he's trying to get you to change your opinion about something or someone.
Or he's trying to convince you to do something.
It doesn't take too much at times, and he's able to have you doing things that you don't quite realize is bad right off the bat.
You are blinded by love to really notice the bigger picture.
But even than, you might not care.
You might accept him for how he is.
And depending on the type of friends or family you might have, they could see right through him.
There will be people that will try and warn you about him, but that doesn't mean you will listen.
And if he keeps having it his way, he'd prefer it if you didn't listen to them.
"They are full of shit, Kitten. I'm always doing what's best for you. What's best for us."
Eventually you find yourself defending him at times.
His own little shield that he will head-pat and tell you that you're a good girl.
Eventually things will start to sexually escalate.
It had been a mutual starting on both parts, with some light flirting texts that headed into a round of sexting.
Which had left both of you craving more and it starts to become an almost daily thing until you see each other again.
You can rest assured that the first moment you got the chance, clothes were stripped off and William was pressing himself roughly into you.
He learns what gets you wet. Be it fast or slow, a little bit of both.
He'll get a little dirty in his language if he knows it's going to make you tighter around him.
And he's a moaner.
Soft at first, but the more he presses and the closer he gets, the louder he can get.
"Fuck! Kitten you feel so good."
"Keep going Kitten, you're gonna make me cum."
"That's my girl."
If you're the kinky type, William is willing to explore.
He may have a particular fondness for more edgeplay related kinks.
He would also enjoy marking your body.
Hicky marks in various spots.
Maybe he'd drag a knife against your skin from time to time. Leaving little cuts here and there.
The more things continue the more he develops an enjoyment of pain play.
Be it spankings or simply manhandling you, William knows that you belong to him and he will use you as he pleases.
If he can make you cry during this, he gets even more turned on.
There is something about seeing you in that moment of being particularly vulnerable that he enjoys.
There is added bonus if you happen to have a full body mirror around.
He likes to watch himself with you, and he particularly enjoys watching you.
This will eventually progress into him wanting to record you.
Even if he isn't involved in what you are doing.
He'll get you to play with yourself and it won't be long before his phone is out and pointed right at you.
He'll take pictures of you while you're naked. He'll even take pictures of you when you aren't even aware of it.
The stalking, no matter how long you are together, it won't stop. Which means, some of those photos are of you through out the day, or on your video calls with him.
He actually starts to enjoy the type of control that he has over you.
It's a different type of control than what he's used to having over people. But it's satisfying in it's own way.
This doesn't mean he stops manipulating you, or others at that. He wouldn't be William if he didn't try and manipulate you, or those around you.
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May consider doing a part two and expand on this more. I'm not sure yet. Tagging: @voxmortuus @earth-elemental18 @bettytaylorversion @liveandbreathesmut
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shadyvoxtruth · 4 months
Text
How ShadyVox Threatened Myself & Others For Years
My name is Martin Billany but I am also known as LittleKuriboh in the YouTube sphere/Yu-Gi-Oh fandom.
I am posting this here for posterity in case all of my other posts elsewhere about it are removed. Also because there has never been a single unified place to find all of this information presented in sequence.
Patrick, also known by his pseudonyms of ShadyVox or Scratch21's Matt Robinson or Blake Swift, spent the better part of 2019-2023 both threatening me and manipulating a group of real victims.
A brief history - for those who don't know, Patrick/ShadyVox and myself were heavily involved in the "abridged series" world in the late 2000s/mid 2010s. I myself started the whole abridged parody nonsense with Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged, and Patrick would follow suit by doing a Yu-Gi-Oh GX Abridged. We met through content creation and formed a friendship through it. Not best friends or anything, but friendly enough.
Patrick would later leave the abridged series stuff behind and start over making music, working in original animation for popular internet channels, etc. Stuff he was genuinely very good at. It was a strong choice to move away from parody content, as it likely would have held him back at some point.
At a certain point in 2018, I received a communication from him that requested I remove certain YouTube comments on my videos that featured him. These comments were demanding to know why Patrick was following various right wing channels and were calling him alt-right, etc.
I agreed to remove the comments because I considered him a friend and automatically assumed there was some big misunderstanding. As it turned out, he was subscribed to a few channels that caused me to confront him.
I was emotional and upset, admittedly. Things politically were at a fever pitch and I had been swept up by it. I have included screencaps of our conversation.
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Later I would apologize to him for my outburst and try to make amends. You're probably wondering why I would include this since it doesn't seem to involve Patrick threatening me, and it seems if anything to suggest I got upset at him.
That is because I truly believe this is the moment Patrick decided he was going to find some way to come after me. I believe that Patrick had spent a lot of time creating a mask for himself, and had worn it very well, and the moment someone saw through it for even a moment he decided I had to be dealt with somehow.
At this point - mid 2018 - Patrick and I were not close. We hadn't worked on anything together in half a decade. We really only kept in touch in a cursory fashion. So I imagine this interaction stuck in Patrick's craw something awful.
I was, however, closer with the person Patrick had worked in conjunction with on his abridged series, X. These days X is my best friend. Back then, I don't know how close we were. But definitely closer than either of us were with Patrick.
One day in 2019, entirely out of the blue, Patrick messages me privately to inform me that X once slept with a girl who was 17 when he was in his early 20s.
My own spouse was sexually assaulted before I met them, and as a result I have a no tolerance policy on anything that even could resemble assault. So I immediately ended my friendship with X.
And as I was doing so, Patrick told me repeatedly that I was overreacting.
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As you can see, by Patrick/Shady's own words, this was a long time ago. Just under a decade or so, by my count.
And most importantly, Patrick had been aware of this for the whole decade or so and chose this very moment to tell me that this happened.
I want you to keep that in mind, especially the fact that when I said I was ending my friendship with X, Patrick's actual response was "it was a long time ago, he's gotten better."
It was painful to end my friendship with X, but I did. I told him that if he could provide satisfactory proof that what Patrick had said didn't represent the facts of the situation, I could be his friend again. Until then, I cut off all communication from X.
A week or so later I received specific evidence that pointed to a situation wherein Patrick was intentionally misrepresenting what happened, or the alleged victim's story. The alleged victim VERY specifically disagreed with Patrick.
You'll note that I'm not including screen caps of these conversations - that is because the alleged victim, and other involved parties, DO NOT WANT to be part of any of this and have needed actual therapy because of Patrick's behavior in the past. Not just here.
Anyway.
I returned to Patrick/Shady and told him there had been a misunderstanding. I wanted to clear the air and give him a chance to say something along the lines of "oh okay, obviously I had my facts wrong." I mean, as you yourself have just read - he said himself that this was a long time ago. Maybe he got some wires crossed.
This is how Patrick actually responded:
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The screenshots were taken on different dates, hence why his twitter icon looks different suddenly.
But yes. His response to me explaining that the alleged victim disagreed with his stance, was to insist that the alleged victim must be lying and that I should be absolutely infuriated.
After he'd tried to tell me that there was no point in being upset about this information that he had sat on for the better part of a decade.
Patrick continued to scream at me via dm, repeatedly requesting that I give him my phone number so we could talk about this. I assume this is because he didn't want any kind of text evidence of what he was going to say to me, or what he was doing.
He would later, mid-conversation, tell me that he was deleting all of his dms to me. Not sure why. It doesn't remove them from my side of the conversation, so I still have access to all of them. I have not shared the entire private message thread yet, because it's sensitive and involves people beyond just myself. But if the dms ever do need to be made public entirely, I have them.
I ended up blocking Patrick during this very conversation because he had begun screaming at me, behaving extremely unhinged and in a frightening manner. I honestly think he had hoped that I would initially try to defend my friend from his accusation, in which case he was going to fly off the handle then. But because I had genuinely believed him and removed my friend from my life, only to then learn Patrick's story didn't hold water, he had no choice but to lash out now. When it didn't make any sense to suddenly be irate about a thing he had told me about, and had literally just said "it was a long time ago."
Within 24 hours, Patrick had sent me a threatening email saying he was going to expose me for everything I was doing. I have attached the highlights of the email, parts that don't involve other people's names.
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Some of the references in this email - specifically about how I've associated with others and ignored people calling me out for it - are related to a podcast I was on, alongside Patrick. Until recently I had indeed tried to move on with my life after a number of the people involved had revealed themselves to be toxic. I had made efforts to separate myself from those people. It had been years since I'd really had any direct connection to any of them.
I do indeed regret not speaking out about it sooner.
Having said this, Patrick himself was equally as guilty for not speaking out - and had in fact spent a significantly larger amount of time talking to/working with the people in question.
As such, I believe a lot of this is some form of bizarre projection on his part.
I ignored the email because I was a) worried that he had suddenly snapped, and b) I didn't think any of the content warranted a response.
A day later, I received this email from Patrick where his tone has changed entirely:
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As you can see, this is more in line with the reality of the situation. He is apologizing profusely and insisting I didn't actually do anything wrong, and that he was the one in the wrong.
You'll also note that he signs this particular email "Patrick." That is because it is his real name, and I believe he was possibly appealing to my humanity and the part of me that might still have seen a friendship worth salvaging. Otherwise I could not tell you why he signed his real name - he typically hates using it.
I still did not reply because at this point I was confused and scared and wanted him to leave me alone. And to that point, he had specifically stated at the end of his email that he was the problem and he would not "involve himself in my life any longer."
The police were contacted and they told him to stop. I had hoped that my part in all of this was over.
Later that very month, Patrick announced on his ShadyVox twitter account that a new GX Abridged was coming out for April Fools.
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When it is posted on April 1st - less than a month after he had sent his email saying he would remove himself from my life, and not long after the police have visited him - the video contains many references to our conversations, and specifically the fact that the police got involved.
Yes, after being told by the police to stop - and after writing an email that insisted he knew he was the real problem and would be getting help - he decides to make a mockery of the situation publicly, in a manner that nobody else will understand. Except the people it is targeting.
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The tweets about this video are the only thing remaining on Patrick's twitter account, as he had purged it some time ago.
(An aside - I do recall someone attempting to call Patrick out for being toxic previously on twitter, and his response was to spam them with the words "PROVE IT. PROVE IT. PROVE IT." until they gave up. I would include screenshots of this, but like I said - he purged his entire twitter except for this specific GX Abridged video he'd thrown together in a week to respond to the fact that the authorities had intervened to get him to stop)
One other important element of this video - which is where, I believe, this whole thing veers into genuinely disturbing territory - is that it is interspersed with garbled footage intended to look like some sort of creepypasta/vhs effect. At the end of the GX Abridged video, it is clear that Patrick is using this video to allude to some upcoming song tracks he is producing.
Songs that are tailored to threaten me in cryptic, indirect ways that very few people pick up on.
But I'll get to those later.
During 2019, Patrick reaches out to actual victims of the toxic individuals from the podcast I used to be on more than half a decade before any of the stuff chronologized in this post. He tells them lies, and demonizes me to the point that it convinces them that I am still both defending/supporting the toxic individuals, and actively mocking their victims in private.
I am aware of this because Patrick tweets about it - before deleting the tweets entirely. He even attempts to throw popular abridging group TeamFourStar under the bus, which I assume was merely out of spite because they had absolutely nothing to do with any of this.
I wish I had screengrabbed the tweets when they were still up, but there is still remaining evidence that they did exist.
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Here is someone posting on Reddit about it - he only references one tweet, but this was around the time Patrick was posting and then immediately deleting what he'd said. I honestly can only assume - but I think he was fishing for people to latch on to what he was saying and contact him privately.
Not to mention the fact that the police had specifically told him to stop, so that was likely in the back of his mind also.
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Here is someone replying to a since suspended twitter account that was discussing what Patrick was saying about TeamFourStar. Obviously I have no clear way to prove it, but please know that I have no reason to make that much up and point to a random ass tweet.
I imagine Patrick (not the suspended person in the above screencap) realized the best way to not seem directly to blame or involved at all was to remove any and all posts he'd made. Admittedly it would have worked if I didn't have the dms and these emails.
Speaking of emails, I received a third one in late 2019 - as you can see, Patrick's promise of leaving me alone forever didn't even last a year.
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You'll note that he's speaking as though the second email never even happened. He's also just plain lying through his teeth for a significant part of it, but I think it's most important to note that this email requires you to assume the second email never got written.
He has gone from pages and pages of "of course it wasn't your fault, I'm the problem, you're good, I'm bad" to "I told you..."
Also, I think the words "You tried to damage me" should be highlighted here as it reinforces my theory that all of this was about me insulting him for all the right wing channels he'd subscribed to. Which, to me, was barely even a thought in my mind at this point.
So I choose to ignore this email also. Because y'know, why would I even humor responding to the guy at this point? I decide that I will only speak on any of this if it becomes public conversation. Until then, anything that happens would be because of Patrick's actions.
I do let my friends know about all of this - including TeamFourStar, who through this entire thing have been blameless and didn't even do anything to Patrick to begin with. And every time Patrick does something, I make sure people in my circle are aware and to be cautious.
Meanwhile Patrick alludes to all of this indirectly in the songs he posts to his YouTube channel. Yes, a situation that involves actual victims and one alleged victim that Patrick hadn't spoken to in years. He chose to make reference to all of this in videos where he raps, amongst other things.
There are a number of songs that feature references to this, it's mainly these two that I want to focus on
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Birdy Boy is a song that is explicitly referencing Patrick's issues with me, without actually going into any details about what the issue is.
It is so clearly about me that people pick up on it - and rather than confront the issue or have a dialogue, Patrick decides to pin the comment about it to the top of the comments page.
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Of course, if Patrick made any attempt to directly describe the issue or explain himself, it would likely result in the police becoming involved once again.
So he sticks to singing about the whole thing.
This next song is the most upsetting one.
Patrick/Shady writes a song called "Joker" about a psychotic individual murdering someone who "used to be funny." This is, specifically, the song that he teases at the end of the GX Abridged Episode 21 video he posted earlier in 2019 for april fools.
He has teased it multiple times on his twitter, and elsewhere, with the words "Coming Soon." The very same words he used to title his third threatening email.
Here is the email, placed next to some lyrics from the song Joker.
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He is seemingly very specifically trying to threaten me without anyone noticing, in plain sight. I was unable to watch the video in full until after all of this stuff came out into the public. It was only through reading people's responses and the lyrics that I realized what he was doing.
Again, at this point I am doing and saying nothing publicly. Just watching this behavior and waiting.
Meanwhile in 2021, a videogame based on the web series TOME gets fully funded and Christopher Niosi - the creator of TOME - reaches out to the voice cast to see if they'll return. I myself was the voice of Nylocke, one of the main characters, and Patrick was the voice of THE main character.
As such, I told Christopher no and explained my reasons.
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And here is Christopher's response.
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Please pay careful attention to the fact that Christopher Niosi flat out says he already knew Patrick was doing this stuff - it isn't just me imagining it.
As a result of this interaction, I do not reprise my role as Nylocke and Christopher Niosi chooses to just recast every single character. Please note that he could have just recast Patrick, but did not. As a result, I feel responsible for all of the original cast losing out on work. It hurts to think about. But at least I feel like I did the right thing.
One member of the TOME production staff takes it upon themselves to reach out to Patrick personally. They discover that he is planning to write more songs/raps that target me. They ask him nicely to stop. He insists that he has to do this. Y'know, make vague allusions to extremely sensitive topics that he lied about in the form of song. Has to do it.
The member of production staff tells Patrick he should seek professional help.
Patrick ignores them.
Patrick continues to engage in behavior that, while not openly hostile or even specifically targeting anyone, is very clearly intended as mockery at best and a threat at worst until 2023 when all of this comes to a head.
In August of 2023, the real victims that Patrick has manipulated make a callout post aimed at myself and TeamFourStar. It specifically cites Patrick's testimony and the songs he has posted. They have been misled, but their anger is understandable.
Within a week, it becomes apparent to all sides that this is Patrick's fault. The person who posted the callout takes it down and apologizes to everyone. Not just me. They apologize to TeamFourStar, and to X.
And only then do I speak publicly about what Patrick has been doing.
I share all of the screencaps I've posted here, and give context. It's all a little muddled as at the time, my cat was dying of terminal cancer and so all of my posts are somewhat scatterbrained and aren't in chronological order. But it's still remarkably clear to everyone that Patrick has manipulated this whole thing, starting in 2019.
And that's only the stuff I feel comfortable sharing.
Since the callout post first dropped in 2023 and I began pointing people's attention toward Patrick, Patrick himself has been entirely silent. He has dropped off the internet with nary a word in defense. Not a single person directly associated with what happened has attempted to dispute my description of events.
This isn't my word versus his. It is my word versus silence.
I have it on good authority that Patrick is alive and well. I am grateful for that much. My attempts have not been to hurt him, but to defend myself. My efforts have not been to hunt him down and crucify him, but to make people aware of what transpired - and what could have easily been undone by Patrick/Shady just choosing to stop.
Instead a number of victims, and people who never did a thing, experienced a considerable amount of trauma as a result of his thoughtless and spiteful actions.
Patrick is a remarkably talented individual, and it makes me sad I have to be the one to show people who he is. I genuinely think all of this could have been avoided. It's so meaningless. It's just pain on top of pain.
And Patrick stood in the center of it all, not just pulling people's strings but practically uprooting them and then acting like he didn't do a thing.
I'm not expecting an apology, and I'm not asking for his cancelation, whatever shape that would take. But I do think it's important that people know this happened, that he chose this.
He did this for almost no reason to a person he considered a friend, who worked on videos with him.
It just seems like the responsible thing, to make sure people are somewhat aware that he could do this to them if they aren't cautious and careful and super aware.
I'm sorry to anyone disappointed and hurt by all of this information.
Believe me, I understand.
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mayfieldss · 1 year
Text
I don't know - Spencer Reid
Description: both Y/N and Spencer are unsure if their feelings for each other are reciprocated. Based on the song 'same boat' by Lizzy McAlpine (:
Warnings: fluff, slight angst, mentions of fire, not spellchecked :(
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Spencer Reid was the smartest man you had ever met. He knew things that you never thought could be possible, he memorized things you thought nobody cared about, and he remembered things about you that made your heart ache. Your favorite color, the foods you loved and the ones you hated, the way you loved the idea of love but were too afraid to pursue it. He knew these things about you and more, and you knew just as much about him. Spencer wasn't perfect, he was anxious and troubled, and he cared so much that it might one day kill him. He was human and, as much as you had tried to deny it, you loved him.
You hadn't intended to fall so heavily, but Spencer had a tendency to captivate you, and pay close attention to how you felt, making it almost impossible to stay on the ledge and keep your balance without toppling off the edge. You had lasted a while, avoiding the inevitable drop, but eventually, you found yourself falling into the deep end for the man. From then on, the idea of Spencer wanting you just as much was something that would linger in the back of your mind like a song stuck in your head. The idea of him came to you as you watched tv or read your favorite books. The thought of him consumed you as you listened to music or prepared your dinner. You loved him, or at least you thought you did, but given the chance, you weren't sure you would have the courage to tell him. To ask him if he felt the same.
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Spencer was head over heels for you. He had always found that phrase, 'head over heels' rather confusing and mindless, but that was before he truly understood it. The first time he felt it, the emotion of it all, he could hardly breathe. It had been after a case, and all you'd done was hug him, a tight hug that told him without words that you were glad he was safe. That one moment had left him holding his breath as if keeping the air inside him would make those few seconds last forever. Breathing would have disturbed the peace, he thought. You had let go anyway, but that was the moment he knew. His mind was racing, his heart beating fast and at that moment he was head over heels in love. As cliché as it sounded, he found it to be true.
He'd done research on the feeling that night, reading hundreds of articles about coping with love, the words instructing him on how to tell you how he felt. Spencer knew you couldn't trust everything you read on the internet, and he didn't know if the information he was receiving was something he should trust, but one article, in particular, was telling the truth. Spencer knew it was because he couldn't have written it better himself. The piece described everything Spencer felt for you in perfect detail, one line specifically holding more accuracy than others. 'Every time that I think of home, I can picture you.'
Something about the words struck him, and he sat thinking them over for far too long. Spencer had never really thought of home as one place, partly because what people called home had so many definitions that it couldn't be defined by one single thing. Spencer considered his apartment and though it was comforting, it held little importance compared to how fondly he thought of you. He had never thought of home as one specific place, but it had never occurred to him that it could be a person.
He thought of you on Christmas day a year ago, standing in the snow with so many layers that he could hardly see you underneath. The one piece of you he could see was your face, cheeks flushed from the cold wind that rushed against them. He had felt something for you then too, though he hadn't known what it was at the time. Now he did. Spencer found himself never wanting to let go of the feeling, the warmth that filled him even as he remembered you standing in the cold on that winter's day.
But one problem still arose from the memory. How did he tell you?
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The BAU was quiet that morning as you made your coffee. You'd come into work early, hoping to catch a few moments of peace before you were forced to work on another gut-wrenching case, and so far, the quiet building was giving you just that. You were never one to show up late to work, but you had never been this early before and you supposed that was the reason behind Spencer's surprise when he saw you.
He was standing in the middle of the bullpen when you finally saw him, a nervous smile on his lips as you carried your coffee to your desk.
"Good morning to you too Spence" You laughed, the man snapping out of his state of bewilderment just enough to wave at you. His silence was deafening for the short moments it lasted, Spencer Reid always being the one between you who knew what to say. It brought worries to mind, that perhaps Spencer wasn't as fond of you as you thought.
"You're not usually here this early" His voice is soft as he makes his way to his own desk, placing down his satchel as he sits
"I thought I'd get a head start for a change. It's peaceful here in the morning, I like it". You take a sip of your coffee, trying not to cringe at the taste. You had never been a fan of the drink, but it was nessacary for your daily function. Spencer knew this, he'd asked you once why you drink it if you think it tastes so foul and smiled when you gave him the answer, before listing the benefits and drawbacks of caffeine. A few times he had brought you back coffee when he went to get lunch. He brought you mochas and Frappuccino's of the sweeter variety in the hopes you would enjoy the drinks more. You loved that he took into consideration what you enjoyed and what you didn't. It was sweet.
"I don't know how you can get here this early every morning," you muttered as your gaze drifted around the bullpen, taking in everything in its quiet glory. "I've never been good at rising early".
"You know," Spencer begins, and you’re sure he's about to race into a statistical tangent. "Studies have shown that succus is linked to getting up early."
"Are you saying I'm not successful?"
Spencer shakes his head "No, not at all. It's just that waking up early is proven to lead to higher wages and better grades for students."
You cut him off before he can continue. "I had great grades as a kid" It's not exactly true, Spencer knows it and smiles. "I wake up early when I have to, working here robs me of sleep so much as it is. If I can get an extra hour in, I'm taking it."
Spencer nods in understanding. Sleeping on the jet on the way back from a case is not the same as sleeping in a comfortable bed. Everyone at the BAU knows that.
Soon the rest of your colleagues file in, first Rossi, then Prentiss and JJ, until finally, everyone is ready to begin another day. You miss the quiet as soon as it's gone, but you've got work to do.
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Spencer is going mad. He'd had a chance to tell you how he felt, and he'd almost said it. He had been alone with you in the early hours of the morning, and he'd almost got up the guts to tell you how much he cared. Well, not exactly. He had thought about asking you out to lunch or maybe bringing up that winter's day that replayed in his mind when he looked at you, but with every passing second, it became harder and harder to do. He was terrified that if he told you everything, he would ruin what you already had. He was worried that maybe you wouldn't feel the same, that you wouldn't give him a chance.
Spencer had never been good at expressing how he felt and now at a time when he needed his words the most, he couldn't find the right ones to say. He also couldn't find the right time to say them. Right now, the BAU was on a case, and that meant that every ounce of focus from the team had to be put into saving lives. Spencer had great focus, for the most part. He could put his head down and work without distraction from anyone or anything for hours. Unless the distraction was you.
You were sipping your coffee quietly across from him, shuffling through stacks of eyewitness reports when he looked up at you. He couldn't help himself from stealing a glance, but once he did, his thoughts went racing. He wanted to talk to you, say anything just so that he could hear your voice, but you had work to do and so did he. Catching this unsub was the top priority, so he forced himself to look away. Not that doing so helped him at all. Spencer had committed you to memory, every detail of you that he had ever seen, was now used to paint a picture of you. Every freckle, no matter how faint. The lines that formed under your eyes when you smiled, and the way your lips tilted when you laughed. Once again it came to him, the idea of picturing home as a person rather than a place. He couldn't help it, even in a situation as serious and dark as the one the BAU was dealing with, he smiled.
"What's so great over there?"
Your voice startled him, and Spencer could feel the blood rushing to his cheeks as he looked up at you. You had one brow raised in his direction, a small, tired smile finding residence on your face. It made Spencer's stomach flip.
"Nothing."
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You swear if only for a moment, that your heart stopped. The explosion was loud and left a ringing in your ears, and even though you were nowhere near the flames, the smoke brought tears to your eyes. Or maybe the tears were for Spencer and JJ who were still inside the building.
You could hear Prentiss shouting into her earpiece, trying to get in contact with your two friends, as the smoke was carried by the wind to the air above you, where it loomed like the boogieman to a child. Your gaze followed the lines of smoke to the sky and then back down toward the now-burning building, to which your friends had yet to emerge. It was painful, to stand and watch. You were used to saving lives, running into flames whether metaphorical or not. Now all you could do was stand and stare, under strict orders to stay put. Not that you could have moved if you wanted to. The shock froze you on the spot, hand over your mouth to stop yourself from screaming.
And then there they were, covered in soot, coughing as they stumbled from the flames, but JJ and Spencer were alive, and you couldn't be happier. You could feel the tears of relief escape you as JJ approached, and before anyone else could get in first, you raced to hug her. She coughed as you squeezed her tight and with great reluctance you let her go over to the medics standing by. And then there was Spencer. He stood there watching you, unmoving as paramedics tried to move him toward the ambulances and your body shook with a sob as you moved forward to meet him.
You had always been the one to initiate the hugs in your relationship but this time, before you could even lean in to grab him, Spencer pulled you close. You gripped him back just as tightly, holding him to you with such force that he might just break. "I thought you didn't make it".
Spencer shook his head, chin on your shoulder. "Still here".
You released something between a laugh and a sob and soon Spencer was doing the same until you were both shaking so heavily that you could hardly breathe.
It turned out Spencer had inhaled a lot of smoke and JJ had done the same, but overall, they were going to be okay. It just meant that for the next few days they had time off work, and you were left to think about what would have happened if they hadn't made it out of that building alive. It left you to wonder about all the missed opportunities you had to tell Spencer how you felt, and how you had almost lost the chance to tell him at all. Even with this information, the thought of telling him and being rejected, embarrassing yourself in front of him was horrifying. You didn't want to have to excuse yourself, only to go and cry in the bathroom over wild feelings that you were stupid enough to believe Spencer shared with you. You were scared, unknowing that you and Spencer were in the same boat.
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Spencer was going to tell you. The way you'd hugged him back that day, held onto him when he had needed you most, held onto him as if you needed him more, had pushed him to breaking point. He was going to tell you everything, even if it hurt.
It was the end of the day, nearly, and Spencer was standing outside your apartment waiting for you. You and the team had just got back from a case, and Spencer knew you would be tired. He felt bad for bombarding you when most likely all you wanted to do was fall asleep, but he couldn't wait any longer. He had to tell you before he changed his mind. Spencer had written something down, some kind of speech of everything he wanted to say. An organized format of words that he planned to tell you in a specific order. Even with his masterful memory, Spencer was worried he would screw this up. The edges of the paper were ripped, Spencer tearing at the corners as his nerves took over, time ticking down, until finally, there you were.
You held your bag in one hand, and your keys in the other paused in the middle of the hallway at the sight of Spencer before you. He tried for a smile, though it was tense, his nerves swallowing him whole.
"Spencer, Hi." The way you said his name made Spencer's stomach knot, and he thought about you on that Christmas day once again. If home was a person, if Spencer's home was a person, it would be you.
"Hi," Spencer raised a hand to wave, an instant wave of regret washing over him at the action. "I have some things I need to say to you, things I've been meaning to say for a while."
You opened your mouth and closed it again. Then you nodded. "I have some things I need to say to you too."
You took a few steps toward him, and Spencer thought about running away. Maybe he could back out now and keep all his feelings inside. But then you smiled, and Spencer knew he had to tell you everything. He crumbled the paper in his hands and threw it behind him, dangerously opting to improvise as he took your hands in his. You frowned at the paper flung over his shoulder, but he spoke first before you could question it.
"Y/N, I don't know how to say this, but I think about you a lot more than I should." He could feel himself shaking, Spencer's anxiety shifting his whole body as he spoke "I think about you so much that I feel like I'm going crazy."
Your eyes were wide as he spoke, and Spencer wondered if that was a bad or good sign. Perhaps he had startled you so much that you were frozen in time. "Nothing I do can explain how I feel, but I think I could be in love with you, Y/N. I'm in love with you".
Your mouth dropped open just slightly and you let out a breath that was something between a laugh and a sigh of relief. "You love me?"
Spencer couldn't believe you would question the fact, but he was so nervous he couldn't explain how he felt with any other word. "I just need to know if you and I are in the same boat." Spencer stuttered all throughout the sentence, but as he said it you started to smile, and with your spreading grin, his confidence began to grow.
"Spencer Reid, are you asking me if I love you?"
"Only if your answer is yes."
You laughed at that, and Spencer went to follow suit, but before he could your lips were on his. It was a short kiss, polite and sweet, and when you pulled back the hallway lights reflected like stars in your eyes. "I do love you. Way more than I should."
Spencer got his chance to chuckle at that, mostly out of disbelief that it had been so easy. He hadn't thought you would ever feel the same, but here he was, in this moment with you. Spencer kissed you again, slowly to savor the feeling. Something about kissing you was calming, like a piece of a puzzle long lost that had finally been slipped into place. You were in the same boat after all.
-
GENERAL TAGLIST: @heliads @candywh0r3 @caplanreads
CRIMINAL MINDS TAGLIST: @reidsbookclub
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baronessblixen · 5 months
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O Holy No (1/10)
Using the last ten prompts from the 24 Days of the X-Mas Files Challenge to write a multi-chapter fic with angst, humor, and fluff in an alternate season 7.
Today's prompt is: sexy santa costume
Summary: It's Christmas time and Mulder and Scully are getting closer - or are they? And as a special gift for the season, Diana is around to wreak havoc, too. Only one thing is certain: it's going to be a Christmas to remember.
(Chapter one, wc: 1,103)
Tagging @today-in-fic
Four days til Christmas Eve and Scully feels giddy with excitement from head to toe. They closed their latest case, neither of them got injured or sick, and there’s nothing else to do until after the holidays. A rare moment in time and one she appreciates.
Mulder promised her that this year, he’d not even check any internet forums, and wouldn’t pick up the phone if anyone were to call him with a lead. She hasn’t asked him what he’s doing for Christmas yet this year and knows that if she invited him to her family Christmas, he’d decline. It's the same every year.
And this Christmas, she wouldn't just invite him to her mother's house. This time, they're celebrating in San Diego. If he were to come with her, it would mean more. And she’s not sure they’re ready for that particular more yet. As much as she wants to be. She’s caught herself daydreaming about catching Mulder under the mistletoe and fulfilling a fantasy she’s had for years.
Kissing him.
They’re getting closer. It’s as much in the air as the scent of fresh pine and gingerbread. Her heart pitter-pattered when Mulder asked her if she was busy after they got home. Said he wanted to exchange Christmas presents before she left for San Diego. She said yes. They’re not even pretending they didn't get each other anything for Christmas this time like they did last year. This year they’re unabashedly honest. At least about the fact that they got each other gifts. She’s been carrying one of his gifts with her for a while. It’s nothing special, just something she thought funny, and that she hopes he’ll appreciate.
“After exchanging gifts,” Mulder says, fetching his keys from his coat pocket and glancing at her. “Would you like to stay and watch a movie?” The way he blushes makes her smile. They’ve known each other for seven years, and they’ve spent countless hours together, and yet, he blushes asking her this.
“I’d like that,” she replies with a soft smile. Mulder unlocks his door with his eyes still fixated on her face. He’s grinning from ear to ear and Scully has to stop herself from not just skipping a few steps and jumping his bones. She’s the rational one here, after all.
“I think I know what- what the fuck.”
Scully doesn’t register right away what made Mulder stop dead in his tracks as she’s about to take off her coat. She stops with her arms mid-air when she sees what Mulder is seeing too. There, in front of his desk, surrounded by soft glowing Christmas lights, stands Diana. Wearing a tiny Santa costume, a smile, and not much else.
“There you are,” she says sounding chipper. There’s not a hint of discomfort on her face or in her behavior. She glances at Scully and blinks, but then her attention is back on Mulder. “You should have called and said you’d be late.” She throws herself at him and he catches her – much to Scully’s chagrin.
“Did you drive Fox home?” Diana asks Scully with raised eyebrows. Up close, she can get a good look at the other woman. Who isn’t at all shy, despite Scully’s presence. As if, as Mulder’s partner, she was of no consequence to Diana. The other woman is waiting for her to say something. But what? Scully’s mouth is dry. She fears that if she does open her mouth, she will be sick.
What she knows for sure is that this sight will haunt her for years to come. Diana’s dress clings to her, revealing every curve the woman has. Except where the dress ends mid-thigh. Scully wishes she could close her eyes, cover her ears, and run out of here. Her heart tightens, and so does her throat, when she realizes what this means.
The way Diana is acting, the way she’s not as all taken aback, she knew when Mulder was coming home. Meaning he must have told her. Which also means he knew she would be here. Diana is still hanging from his neck, and while Mulder looks pale and surprised, Scully doesn’t think it’s because of Diana. It’s because he forgot she was here and he invited her in. She was never supposed to see this, or know about this.
Her fantasy crumbles like a dry piece of cake. There’s not going to be a kiss under the mistletoe for her and Mulder. There’s not going to be a shift in their relationship. All these little moments she’s accumulated over the months amount to nothing. His touches weren’t lingering, his smiles weren’t brighter. Or if they were, it was because of Diana. Knowing she was waiting for him at home. Knowing he had someone to come home to. Who knew Mulder would get out of the car before she did – and with someone else, too.
“I’m just- I’m gonna go,” she says, falling over her words as much as her feet.
“Good idea,” Diana says sweetly. There’s bloody red lipstick on her teeth when she gives Scully a devilish smile. All the fight has gone out of Scully and she finds herself walking backward towards the door.
“Scully, wait,” Mulder says, shaking a clingy Diana off, who pouts at him. For a moment, though, his full attention is on Scully. There’s a haunted look in his eyes and he’s pleading with his words, and his gestures, but Scully barely hears him. She backs away, needing the distance between them.
“This is not what it looks like,” he says.
“Don’t lie to her, Fox.”
“I’m not lying.” His voice is menacing when he turns back around, addressing Diana. “I don’t even know how you got in here.”
“You gave me your key last time, remember?” It’s that last blow. Her words feel like a slap and Scully gasps. Tears sting her eyes, and she knows that if she doesn’t leave right away, she will break down in front of Diana, and she refuses to give the other woman that satisfaction.
“I’m leaving,” she says so quietly she’s not sure either Diana or Mulder hear. And if she’s honest, she doesn’t even care. She needs to get away and lick her wounds. Alone.
“Scully, please.” But she just keeps going, the clack of her heels her only companion because Mulder isn’t running after her. She keeps the tears at bay until she’s in a cab on her way back home.
How could she have read these last few months so wrong?
And when, she can’t help but wonder, did Mulder and Diana start dating?
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Helllooo there!! I wanna rq a ingo & Emmett with a s/o who has a legendary? like any legendary (victini, dialga, palkia, articuno etc..) idrc what legendary I just want s/o to be very op :D
Ingo and Emmet x Champion!Reader w/ a Legendary
thank you for your patience mikki!! i love making the reader character OP so i’ll take every opportunity to do so…so in that case you now have a mega evolving legendary AND you’re the champion of a region :D (if anyone says that diancie is a mythical and not a legendary, i’ll go off istg) also, by writing this, i fell in love with diancie so tysm for making me appreciate a new pokemon!!
word count: ~1.3k for Ingo, ~1.6k for Emmet
//
Ingo ▲
Ingo wasn’t expecting an invitation to the Pokémon World Tournament. Usually only gym leaders were invited, but he received a notice with his name on it all the same.
Turns out, Roxie had an amazing opportunity to play a gig in Galar, so she had to pull out of her spot and they needed a replacement. While they couldn’t find another poison-type specialist, Ingo had a Garbodor. Apparently that was good enough for the tournament’s board.
Looking at the bracket, Ingo recognized many of the names: Marlon, Cheren, Lenora…but there was a name that stood out. It was the name of the trainer he’d be facing in the first round.
The name bounced around his head, never landing on a face or a title. He didn’t have the opportunity to search the internet to find out who it was because his team was prodding him, anxious to battle.
Before he knew it, Ingo was walking onto the stage, surrounded by screaming fans.
He was a Unovan native, and the proximity between Driftveil and Nimbasa meant he was very well known here. The crowd cheered him on during his entrance.
But the crowd deafened him for yours.
There you stood across from him, the lights shimmering around your form. A steely frown sat on your face, eyes unwavering from his. It was as if you were trying to intimidate him.
It was working.
Of course, how could he forget your name? You were the infamous Champion of Kalos, the one who breezed through the region in two weeks. You had flown through all eight gyms in twelve days, taking a day’s rest before fighting the Elite Four and Champion back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back.
Turns out, you trained for years before ascending to Champion’s status. You were an Ekans lying in the grass, waiting for the perfect time to snap.
And so, the second you pulled out Diancie, the famed bejeweled legendary, Ingo knew this would be difficult.
Fairy types weren’t common in Unova, but Ingo was smart enough to know that Poison was super effective against it. He summoned Garbodor from its capsule, thinking he could get the upper hand.
However, after seeing Diancie Mega Evolve, Ingo knew he was mistaken.
Diancie ended the battle in three turns—one attack for each of his Pokémon. He didn’t stand a chance.
When Ingo tried to approach you in the center of the field to congratulate you, you just gave a simple nod at him and walked away. He was so busy staring at your legendary that he didn’t notice that your expression hadn’t changed. You looked practically emotionless.
Ingo ended up staying the rest of the tournament despite his epic crash-and-burn in the first round. You won the tournament soundly.
Now that he thought of it, he doesn’t know if he saw you use a single Pokémon other than Diancie. She was just that strong.
He wanted to approach you and ask about your team and how you trained them to take Kalos by storm, but there was so much commotion afterwards around your presence that he didn't bother.
Was he disappointed he didn't get to speak to you? Yes, but you were a revered Champion. Trainers like you don’t bother with people like him.
He should consider himself lucky to even have battled you—especially since it was under such odd circumstances.
As Ingo walked across Driftveil Drawbridge back to Nimbasa, he heard the shuffling of footsteps behind him.
“Diancie, please wait—!”
Ingo turned around to see you and Diancie running at him. Well, in all honesty, Diancie levitated quickly in his direction and pulled you along.
From the looks of it, you seemed to have no say in this action.
Upon reaching him, Diancie released your sleeve and spun behind Ingo. Her small hands then shoved him forward with a surprising amount of strength.
He’s sent stumbling into you, hands gripping your shoulder while yours found the fabric of his coat in an attempt to stay upright.
“Ah, dear Champion! I give you my sincerest apologies. Are you alright?”
Ingo’s silver eyes landed on your flustered expression. Your mouth quivered in embarrassment and you struggled to form a sentence.
“I, umm…I tried, well—Diancie, she, I didn’t mean…I’m so sorry!”
You released Ingo and stepped back. Heat flowed through your cheeks, completely embarrassed at the situation.
After hearing a soft cry from Diancie, you whip your head towards your legendary Pokémon. She’s holding onto Ingo’s arm and trying to tug him closer to you. You feel mortified.
“Diancie, what are you doing?”
You hissed the words through your teeth, but Diancie paid no mind to your scolding. Instead, she grinned at you brightly.
‘Trainer, look at this one! He’s perfect for you, trust me!’
Sometimes you loved Diancie’s telepathy, sometimes you didn’t. This was the latter.
Diancie had tried to set you up on dates in the past, but you were never good with people. Every one of these interactions left you red and flustered.
“Do not worry over this, Champion. I am very grateful to be in the presence of you and such a powerful and illustrious Pokémon.”
You nearly do a double take. How long has it been since someone put up with your stammering? Put up with your lack of charisma?
“Oh…I, well…”
“I am also very glad you came here. I was intimidated by your silence before, and then I didn’t get the opportunity to speak with you.”
Diancie laughed at Ingo’s words and your stomach successfully performed a summersault.
‘Intimidating? You’re mistaken, Subway Boss Ingo! My trainer here just isn’t as good at talking as they are at battling.’
Ingo should’ve questioned the fact that Diancie was speaking to him in his head, but he didn’t. There were always rumors that legendaries had abilities like this, and Ingo didn’t want to scare you both away by asking needless questions.
“You…run the Battle Subway in Nimbasa, right?”
You struggled to make eye contact with Ingo while speaking, but it was your only way to get him focused on you again. You could tell Diancie spoke to him, but you couldn’t hear what she said.
Surprised at your knowledge, Ingo stiffened and grabbed his cap.
“Ah, yes! My twin brother and I are the engines of Nimbasa’s Battle Subway. I am shocked someone of your stature knows about it and us.”
Your arms wrapped around your stomach and your eyes landed on Diancie, your beloved Pokémon brought you comfort. It was hard to make conversation with someone so attractive.
“I…I really love all the world’s battle facilities. I, um, I grew up in Kalos’ Kiloude’s city—”
“That’s where the Battle Maison is!”
Excitement filled your chest and you stared Ingo right in the eyes.
“Yes! Yes it is!”
You lit up at Ingo’s recognition. The Battle Maison wasn’t one of the world’s most well-known battle facilities like Sinnoh’s Battle Tower or Hoenn’s Battle Frontier. It felt amazing to be noticed.
“It would be an honor to have you battle in our subway, dear Champion.”
Your and Ingo’s hands are swept up by Diancie like a child between two parents. The Pokémon then pulled you and the Subway Boss towards Nimbasa City.
‘What are we waiting for? To the Battle Subway we go!’
Ingo wanted to tell you that Diancie is actually banned from participating in the battles at the subway, but your brilliant smile made him forget.
You looked much more relaxed now then you did at the tournament, and Ingo relaxes beside you.
People tended to judge your abilities as Champion after having a conversation with you, but you felt none of that criticism from Ingo.
Okay, maybe Diancie was right about this one…
Emmet ▽
Team Plasma was worse this time around.
Two years ago, when they spread their word through speeches and rarely acted with outward violence, it was easy to counteract them.
But now, things were not so easy.
This time, they were not held back by the members who truly cared about Pokémon, they did not hide behind a false and kind façade, and they did not follow a victimized and manipulated king.
Without their shackles, the rejuvenated Team Plasma pillaged and stole wherever they saw fit. They were feared across the region, and nobody knew where they would strike next.
Under Alder, the previous Champion, Emmet, Ingo, and countless other prevalent trainers in Unova were collected to form a coalition against Team Plasma.
But Plasma’s unpredictability allowed them to continuously slip through the cracks of the region.
Every day, their grunts grew stronger alongside the Seven Sages, who always seemed to have an escape plan. Even if someone on the Anti Plasma Coalition had anyone backed into a corner, the Shadow Triad was there to save them. Without Brycen’s expertise, they were impossible to see and track.
As much as Emmet tried to help, he was tied to Nimbasa City with his brother and Elesa. The other gym leaders had their responsibilities too. So, despite Alder’s efforts of uniting Unova’s strongest trainers, there was no result.
But then Team Plasma’s Frigate escaped Driftveil’s harbor, and Alder knew he had to call in backup.
Emmet was excited when Alder personally reached out to him to assign him to watch Opelucid City. Alder had explained that he believed Plasma was looking for the DNA Splicers and that he wanted a few extra trainers in the vicinity in case anything went awry.
While Emmet was eventually informed that he was chosen only because he wasn’t a gym leader and that Ingo could run Gear Station by himself, he was a little saddened. But, nevertheless, Emmet traveled to Opelucid.
Emmet was asked to patrol the city and keep an eye out for anything odd. He had Archeops in the sky and Eelektross by his side.
While Emmet could admire the mix of old and new skyscrapers of the city, he still couldn't help but think how much he missed Nimbasa.
Then, storms of Team Plasma grunts started marching out of side-streets in droves. From all directions, people clad in black with Pokémon by their side swarmed the center street.
Simultaneously, Emmet heard the deafening squawk of Archeops. Her voice carried clear through the chaos, making Emmet’s eyes turn to the sky.
A very familiar airship loomed in the distance, approaching the city at an alarming rate. It was Plasma’s Frigate again.
There were two events that needed his attention: Plasma’s oncoming airship and their marching wave of grunts. Emmet could only choose one. Without his twin by his side, Emmet started to stall.
Eelektross moved late, due to a lack of a command from his trainer, but still managed to shield Emmet from the oncoming sludge bomb from an opposing Garbodor. Emmet hadn’t even seen it coming.
Luckily, Eelektross didn't need to take a hit at all.
Within the time it took Emmet to blink, two floating figures stood between the sea of Plasma grunts and Eelektross. A shield of purple wavy light shimmered when hit by the sludge, but the attack fizzled out uselessly afterwards.
“You’re lucky we showed up when we did, or your partner would’ve been decommissioned before the battle even started.”
Emmet’s attention was dragged to the two levitating figures in front of him.
One of them was a lavender and orchid shaded Pokémon with deadly red eyes. Emmet was taken aback by how soulless they looked. It looked like a Pokémon he knew, but not quite.
Next to it, surrounded in an aura of pale pink, floated you.
Suddenly everything clicked.
Was Emmet informed that there would be another trainer in the city with him as backup sent by Alder? Yes, yes he was.
Was he informed that the backup trainer would be you, the acclaimed Champion of Kanto? No, no he was not.
“I am Emmet, one of the Bosses of Nimbasa Subway. And you are the Champion of Ka—“
“This is no time for conversation! Mewtwo, psystrike!”
Your voice cut him off before you ordered your legendary to summon pulsing energy into its palms.
Mewtwo sent his signature attack towards the swarm of grunts without remorse, carving the group down the middle like the Mauville Sea.
The explosion that followed deafened his ears, and the scared screams of the villains pierced his brain. You and your partner didn’t even waver.
There had been countless rumors over the past decade about Mewtwo’s existence and nature. After being mistreated by the scientists who created it, Mewtwo is said to have the most savage heart of all Pokémon.
And, from what he has just seen, Emmet doesn’t find it within himself to outwardly oppose that sentiment.
“You handle this crowd here, Emmet. We’ll take the airship.”
Mewtwo and you flew off towards the Frigate at breakneck pace, the path you took through the clouds is the only remnant of you Emmet is left with.
Revitalized by your powerful presence, Emmet unleashed all four of his partners on the oncoming Plasma grunts.
Halfway through the grunts, Emmet eventually realized that he wasn’t alone.
Five Pokémon autonomously fought Plasma grunt after Plasma grunt. They worked side by side with his own team.
A Venusaur took hits and healed itself back up time after time, providing support to a nearby Ninetales who held back any rogue trainers with flamethrower.
Then, back to back, a Kabutops and Nidoking slashed and swiped anyone in their way. They moved in sync and took everything down in one hit. Nothing more, nothing less.
And, only because he was trained to see it, Emmet saw a Jolteon who flashed through the field, sparking enemies left, right, and center. Emmet even saw it nuzzle his Eelektross and Galvantula to give itself a boost before it headed back out into the wave of Team Plasma.
Other than him, there was no trainer in sight. They all acted on sheer instinct. Emmet was smart enough to put together who they belonged to.
A siren pulsated through the air and all of Team Plasma turned tail and retreated. While Emmet could have pursued them, his goal was to protect Drayden and the DNA splicers, not follow Team Plasma.
In a moment of respite, Emmet started to treat his Pokémon with potions and snacks. However, before he knew it, the Subway Boss was feeding nine Pokémon, yours included.
“How did it go, Emmet?”
Emmet nearly jumped out of his shoes at the sound of your voice behind him. You watched him with careful, but kind, eyes as he was caught red-handed hugging your Kabutops.
“Hello, Champion! It is nice to see you again. Team Plasma was not a problem. Your Pokémon were verrrry helpful as well.”
You moved close to Emmet, grabbing his hands without words and positioning them on Kabutops in the places you know he liked to be petted. Kabutops sharpened his scythes together in glee.
As you situated Emmet with your fossil, Emmet’s fossil Pokémon perches on your shoulders. Archeops rubbed her cheeks against the top of your head. She let out a hum of content when you reached up and scratched under her chin.
After he noticed a few of Archeops’ feathers become dislodged from her wings and land in your hair, Emmet grinned even brighter than normal. You looked radiant, and he couldn’t help but notice how comfortable his Pokémon already were in your presence.
Your forwardness with contact before spurred Emmet onward as he stepped up to you. His fingers reached to untangle the colorful feathers.
‘Get your hands off my trainer.’
Emmet was stunned by two things. 
One, your Mewtwo, now back in its original state, spoke to him in his mind. 
And two, your Mewtwo threatened him. 
The Pokémon’s tone was generally neutral, but it was clipped with a small amount of malice.
However, Mewtwo didn’t know Emmet never backed away from a challenge.
“Well, Mewtwo, your trainer here seems to be enjoying it.”
You acted quickly after you noticed the way Mewtwo started to snarl. You scooped up Emmet’s hands into your own and held them in front of you while you maneuvered in between your legendary Pokémon and the Subway Boss.
“Please don’t provoke him, Emmet! Nothing good will come of it.”
Mewtwo gripped your shoulders and pulled you back from Emmet’s grasp.
‘We do not know who you are. Stay away from my trainer.’
You strained a laugh. Mewtwo took a long time to trust you and your team, so you are not surprised to see that he doesn’t trust Emmet.
However, Mewtwo was right. You didn’t know Emmet, but you would really like to.
“If you would like to see more of me, please visit the Nimbasa Battle Subway! I would be verrrry happy to see you and your team there.”
“We’ll take you up on that, thanks!”
Everyone on your team made noises of happiness, except Mewtwo of course.
‘I will crush you in your small, metal tube.’
Emmet laughed mockingly, smile becoming sharp as his eyes narrowed at your legendary.
“Funnily enough, you cannot! Legendaries are banned from Subway. So I’ll be seeing your lovely little trainer here all alone.”
The mega stone on your wrist warmed with Mewtwo’s growing anger and desire to fight.
Yeah, this relationship is going to be a work in progress…
//
y’all idk why but i started writing this in the past tense and once i realized it i was too far gone omg present tense my beloved i’m sorry i betrayed you this was so difficult for me. this is totally not beta read so if you see any mistakes, pls ignore them for my sanity. anyways, hope you liked it!! <33
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cupcake-torture · 7 days
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Things people (and canon) seem to forget about Captain America (Steve Rogers) (an old ass man)
Facts
• Dude was born in 1918
• Time alive (not including ice bucket challenge) = 1918-1943 [INSERT 68 YEAR GAP] 2011-2023
What he missed
• The atom bomb
• The cold war
• Civil rights movement
• Anything space travel
• Women's rights
• Lgbt rights
• Really anything to do with a computer and the internet
• Rise of neo-nazis
Based on this. He is like your grandfather's father. Imagine teaching that old bugger the new world WITHOUT him seeing its evolution.
Based on the list above he would (at least for a good long while after being out of the ice.)
Be racist
• Black and coloured people did not have rights when he was iced. Them having rights would at the VERY LEAST confuse the fuck outta him
• The N-word was commonly used before the civil rights movement. It was not known to be a bad thing to say. It was more a statement of fact.
• Also black people were not seen to really be PEOPLE during the time so take that as you will.
Be sexist
• Women didn't have rights at this time. Sure they had more than black people but at the time when Steve got iced they were still fighting for the right to vote.
• It would be almost natural for Steve to not take women seriously. (Although I imagine Peggy took some of this out of him, but we're being realistic).
• He would also probably be very Victorian man being shown an ankle about how women can dress today. (God imagine him seeing a bikini for the first time)
• He also wasn't around for the lobotomy so I like to imagine him being fucking repulsed about the medical negligence and endangerment of American lobotomies (shokingly European ones weren't as bad. I REPEAT: WERENT *AS BAD*)
be homophobic
gay people didn't really 'exist' at this point in time so I doubt steve would be all the knowledgeable in all of it
that is to say, he is Christian, being gay is quite openly a sin in most Christian interpretations, and my boy wants to do right by God.
he also wouldn't get all this gender stuff. it was never a thing for him. at least 'queer' was a word when he was around.
be fucking useless with technology
I can clearly envision steve giving tony multiple aneurysms as he shows him his inevitably virus-filled computer ("HOW? HOW DO YOU HAVE MORE VIRUSES THAN ACTUAL PROGRAMS???" "but this man said he needed to fix my email...")
the most this man used was a typewriter (so he would be infinitely better at typing on a computer than a phone)
he also was iced before modern calculators, so he would have used an adding machine at most
yet again this man is 100 and missed most of technology being made. this is not his fault, but it will still happen.
not be all that book smart
so this guy would've been... *counts on fingers* 11 when the great depression hit. so maybe 5-6 years of schooling before he would have dropped out to work because great depression
also anything he learnt in school would probably be false by now (even maths has changed since then)
I am NOT saying he's not smart. i know he's smart with military stuff and all that, but he's more a wisdom guy than an intelligence guy y'know?
would not swear
swearing wasn't really a thing in the '20s - '30s so yeah...
he would have some weird ass slang tho, and I do not doubt that tony would give him all the shit for it
(from knowledge acquired by reading the great gatsby) he would use the words probably, but more literal (like 'bitch' for female dog)
honestly be shamed for america allowing nazis to continue to exist
half of dude's life in the military was punching hitler. i think this would be pretty self-explanatory.
i think he would like how germany goes about having it all be against the law tho. he'd support that 100%.
I WANT TO SAY THIS JUST IN CASE ANYONE MISUNDERSTOOD ME. i do not believe that steve would be a bad person on purpose. he is simply a product of his time. i thoroughly believe that when pointed out, he would do his best to become better, to learn more, and to be accepting. what I am saying is that it will take time, and many trip ups, and honestly, I think that would have been a really cool thing to bring up about how much culture has changes in less than 100 years. the MCU really only brought up the technological differences and I think it would have been cool to explore this. (I am aware some things can't happen because slurs are age restricted, but still, cool concept.)
anyways, if you got this far, thanks for reading this unintentional essay. have a nice day.
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