#like there's intended to be a lot of Implied Stuff

[beybuniki]

I have a dumb question as someone who doesn’t know anything about mha but has been enjoying cute bakudeku stuff over the past few weeks:

How much stuff is there in canon that is anything like all the fanart? I imagine that quite a few liberties are taken and that’s totally okay, love the art, it’s cute and yummy, but I’m just wondering how much of a foundation it has if that is understandable?

hmmmm, i PERSONALLY don't read anything romantic in it because i simply don't see a romance between them in canon. however, deku is very fixated on bakugo and i think younger deku is written like he definitely had a crush on little bakugo

and they are protagonist - deuteragonsit & foils & bakugo does kind of fill the role of the damsel in distress to deku's role of the hero on multiple occasions it is a bit funny that they do partly conform to a romantic trope i guess

anyway i don't think horikoshi ever intended to imply anything romantic between these two boys, but i think he nevertheless put a lot of thought and care into their dynamic :) <3 i think their charm is that they feel like two authentic teenagers, the good, the bad , the messy, and a lot of the mess stems from their weird fixation on each other. I don't think bakugo's intense irritation stems from suppressed romantic feelings but again, there are a lot of feelings to unpack in canon and they do tackle that several times and it's nice to follow this journey

also deku is a very very affectionate boy, he rlly does love bakugo a lot! which scares bakugo away idk they're both so emblematic of being 16, idk if this answers your question sorry. short answer no, long answer there are nevertheless a lot of feelings to unpack and the whole story hinges on that

#i don't ship them im not interested in the possibility of them loving each other i think their present dynamic in canon is already so loaded #i kind of focus on that #but i think there's def parts in the manga where deku is shown as someone whose crush isn't reciprocated lmao #i think romantic readings of them can be really cute and based in good points but a lot of people reduce them to weird yaoi tropes #beybunaski

[glimmeringtwilight]

After Hours

Modern AU Zhongli fic for the follower celebration! Took me fucken long enough... Not edited (or at least not as much as I'd like).

CW: Implied drugging but not explicit, light yandere themes, heavily implied imprisonment, unhealthy relationship dynamics, boss/worker relationship. Overall this one's actually pretty tame, all things considered.

Word count: 3.4k

There’s something weird about the look in your boss’s eyes when you come in to deliver him his coffee. 

It’s a little ritual you’d started, something you thought would be nice (and maybe you want to suck up to him, just a little bit), bringing coffee to your boss. You made sure to bring coffee to some of the coworkers you liked as well so they didn’t tease you for your harmless habit, and if you were in a really generous mood, you’d bring some to the coworkers you didn’t always get along that well with. It was nice seeing them smile at you for once, even if it came from coffee bribes. 

It didn’t stop all the teasing, though. Appeasing your coworkers with coffee only goes so far. Still, they were careful to only tease you about your little crush whenever Zhongli wasn’t in the office, out on business trips or important meetings. 

You stopped arguing with them. You were a terrible liar, anyway, and it’s not like you’re the only one in the office with a crush on him. He’s handsome. You’re sure even some of your married coworkers have a crush on him. 

And bringing him coffee is harmless, anyway. His assistant used to do it every morning too, before he’d delegated her to something (assistant stuff, you don’t know what it is she does, exactly) that demanded her attention each morning and she no longer had the time. 

But lately, your boss has been giving you odd looks whenever you step into his office, coffee in hand, setting it on his desk in front of him before wishing him a good morning and returning to your own duties. 

You wonder if you did something wrong. Does he not actually like coffee? You assumed he did, asking his assistant for his coffee order so you could surprise him. He seemed pleased with it, at first. He always smiled and thanked you… What changed?

Maybe he was just humoring you before. Maybe you got his order wrong. Or you mixed up his drink with someone else’s… But nobody else complained about the coffee you’d bring them.

Today was another one of those days. 

Zhongli’s already poring over the reports from yesterday when you come into his office, pen quietly scratching against the paper as he writes. 

You set the coffee against his desk and he glances up from the papers to you, then to the warm cup. 

“Oh, thank you.” His tone is polite, but there’s that look again. You wish you knew what it meant. It’s not… anger. Or annoyance. If it were either of those, at least you’d know. You’d quit while you’re ahead, and stop this silly routine. 

But it’s not. And you don’t know what it is, so until he says something, you’ll pretend it isn’t there. 

“You’re welcome, sir.” You’re careful to keep your voice pleasant, avoiding his eyes. 

He doesn’t say anything else. He’s still staring at you. 

“...Well. I should get to work.” It’s awkward, like the smile you force before you turn on your heel to leave his office.

Zhongli calls your name and you stop dead in your tracks. Oh fuck. 

“Before you leave for the day, would you mind stopping by my office to help me with some of these reports? I’d like to borrow your eyes, if you don’t mind.” Oh. That’s it? Your shoulders slump with relief, and you don’t know when you’d hitched them up. You’d briefly wondered if he’d fire you over coffee, as silly as the worry seemed. 

“Sure thing, sir.”

You look over your shoulder to see a small smile on his handsome face, and you wonder if he knows this– knows how handsome he is, knows it’s part of the reason you’d started bringing him coffee every morning as an excuse to linger around his office longer than a simple “good morning” would permit. 

“Thank you.” He looks like he’s about to say something more, hesitating on the word resting still on his tongue. Then, he blinks, looking back down at the papers on his desk, and it’s gone. 

You turn and leave without another word. 

The rest of the day drags on, dulled by the prospect of getting to spend time after work with your boss. Sure, it’s for work stuff, but still! 

It drags on, but eventually 5:00 rolls around and you get up from your desk, not bothering to collect your stuff just yet before making your way to Zhongli’s office, knocking on the door. 

“Come in,” His voice rumbles from behind the door, and you step inside quickly, shutting the door behind you as you do. 

Zhongli’s sat at his desk like this morning, except now his coat is draped over the arm of his chair, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. You try not to gawk at his arms, pointedly looking at everything but him until you stop in front of his desk. 

He takes two stacks of papers, handing them to you. “I’ve already finished with these, I just want you to look over them and make sure I haven’t missed anything.”

You nod. “Sounds easy enough.”

He smiles, motioning toward the seat beside his desk, and you try not to linger on how close it seems to him, even if there’s a few feet between that chair and his own. You take a seat, thumbing through each stack of papers. It’s just reports. Nothing interesting. 

Zhongli goes back to work, and so do you.

You fall into a routine with him. Every day, when you come into work, he asks you to stay late again and help double-check his work. It’s a little odd, you realize. Why you? Why not his assistant? Your job description doesn’t even cover this. You just work in IT. 

Still, you don’t complain. You get the opportunity to spend time with your hot boss after work. You’re not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

It still unnerves you, the odd look on his face when you deliver his coffee. And sometimes you catch him staring at you out of the corner of your eye. But whenever you look over at him to catch him in the act, he’s poring over paperwork as usual. 

You don’t mind the routine, but… It eats into your social life. You find yourself only having time to spend with your friends on your days off, and even then, not always that. Work starts calling you in on your days off. You have to cancel plans more and more often. Your friends begin to drift away. 

It goes on like this for a month before you confront your boss about it, stepping into his office  like any other morning, coffee in hand. 

Your hand shakes when you set it down. He notices. 

Zhongli sets down his pen, focusing his attention on you and frowning when you shrink anxiously away. You know you need to have this conversation. You need to set boundaries, let him know he can’t work you to death like this, but…

It still makes you nervous. You’re scared he’ll fire you if you put your foot down, and you really, really need this job. No other employer pays as much as he does, and with the cost of rent where you live now…

“What’s wrong?”

“I..” Your throat dries up, and you swallow. “I wanted to talk to you. About my hours.”

He raises a brow, motioning for you to continue.

“I don’t mind staying a little bit after to help you look over reports and all, but I need my days off. I can’t keep doing this without a break.”

Zhongli looks confused. “I wasn’t aware. I noticed you’ve been here on a few of your days off, but I didn’t realize it was becoming a frequent occurrence.” 

You nod. “Well, it has.”

“Your department manager is the one who’s been calling you in, correct?” You nod again. “I’ll speak with him.”

Your shoulders slump in relief, thanking him as you slip quickly out of his office to let him go back to work. It’s a relief to know that he’s understanding, and a bigger one to know that he wasn’t aware you were so overworked. Even if he was the reason you were being called in (and not… whatever it was your manager was calling you in for. You’ll have to speak to him about it later), it probably wouldn’t have come from a place of malice. Everyone knows the boss is a workaholic. He probably doesn’t realize that not everyone practically lives in the office.

You get your days off that week, no calls from work. 

The next week, as you’re doing your daily routine with Zhongli and poring over papers beside him (at some point the chair you’ve been using was moved next to his own so you could share the desk, not that you’re complaining), Zhongli abruptly looks up from his work, setting down his pen. You look up from your own stack of papers, curious. 

“I’d like to take you to dinner.” What. You stare at him, dumbfounded, so he continues, “As thanks for your help these past few weeks.”

Ah. So not as a date. You try not to deflate. Still, it’s not like you’d want to pass this up. Free food is free food. And besides, it’s not a good idea to date your boss, no matter how handsome he is. 

“Sure!”

It’s harmless. Just dinner with your boss, a small “thank you” for your hard work. You see nothing wrong with it. So when he makes a habit of inviting you to dinner, you don’t think anything of it. 

You try, at least, not to drink any alcohol on these dinners, wanting to avoid making a fool of yourself in front of your boss. It’s not that you have a particularly low tolerance to it, you just… Never learned to take small sips, instead downing your drinks as quickly as possible. Besides, agreeing to these outings was questionable enough, you don’t want to get drunk around him too and end up doing something you regret. 

But after a few weeks of this routine and a particularly stressful day of work, you give in and order some wine for the two of you. 

“I didn’t know we shared the same taste in wine,” Zhongli remarks, examining the label after the waiter sets it down on the table and leaves. “This is my favorite kind.”

You try to look surprised, as though you totally didn’t interrogate his assistant earlier that day. “Oh, really?” 

It’s not creepy. You only really chose his favorite wine so you’d feel less guilty for spending his money on it– even though he insisted on paying for these dinners. You were also curious to know what it tasted like, anyway, having never tried it yourself before. 

There’s a knowing look in Zhongli’s eyes, and you feel an embarrassed blush creeping up. “...I just thought it sounded interesting, honestly.” A half-truth. 

He pours you a glass and you drink it quicker than you probably should. Hey, at least then you can pretend the flush is just from the alcohol. 

You’re three glasses in when you realize that you’re definitely drinking way too quickly. Zhongli’s hardly made a dent in his own drink, making you wonder if it’s a stronger wine than you first thought. 

It was.

Those three glasses hit you hard, and even drunk, you still have the mind to feel ashamed. Ashamed isn’t the only thing you feel though, as Zhongli leads you back to his car and you take the opportunity to hold onto his bicep perhaps a little less innocently than you should. 

He’s unusually silent, so you assume you’re being slick when you squeeze his arm a little, feeling the firm muscle through his dress shirt. You’re being helped into the passenger seat, a little reluctant to let go of his arm, but you forget your reluctance when he has to lean across you to buckle you in. 

He smells like sandalwood, and… something else you’re too drunk to place right now. You’re not even sure if he actually smells like sandalwood, only placing the scent from candles you remember liking the smell of in bookshops. 

The car rumbles to life. Zhongli must have gotten into the driver’s seat while you were busy trying to dredge through your memories of scented candles and soap shops and bookstores to place what his cologne smells like. 

His car smells like him, you think absently. The radio plays at a quiet drone, too soft to really act as more than just background noise. Your eyes flutter shut. 

You open them again when you feel something jostling you. Zhongli murmurs an apology to you as he lifts you out of the car into his arms. You can hear his heart beating steadily against one ear, and the warmth of his arms paired with the gentle thump of his heart lulls you back to sleep. 

The next day, you wake up in a bed that’s not your own. 

You panic, sitting up. A sharp pain throbs behind your eyes at the motion, making you wince, but you force yourself to stand and step out into the hall. The marble tile is fucking freezing against your feet, biting through your socks, and you wonder what happened to your shoes. 

Hopefully, waking up alone means that nothing happened last night. That you just fell asleep drunk. That you didn’t fuck your boss, effectively throwing your career away in one fell swoop. 

You find Zhongli in the kitchen (after a few minutes of wandering around the halls– his house is fucking huge), already nursing a cup of coffee. It’s bizarre seeing him in such a domestic setting, dress shirt swapped for a black turtleneck. 

“Good morning.” 

“Good morning,” You glance around. “Um… Where are my shoes?” Smooth. You should write a book. Social Etiquette for Dummies. 

Zhongli, at least, doesn’t seem offended by your half-awake brusqueness. If anything, he looks understanding.

"In the foyer. I set them by the door." He pushes another mug your way, filled halfway with plain black coffee. “I’ll admit, I don’t know how you take it, so I figured it best to leave to you.”

Your hangover is both a blessing and a curse, distracting you from the awkwardness, but the throbbing of your head is killer. The light hurts your eyes, you feel nauseous… you regret waking up. 

“...How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” You mumble, taking a sip of the black coffee he gave you, too hungover to care about the bitterness. At least it tastes like it’s quality coffee instead of whatever ungodly imitation of coffee seems to manifest in the breakroom at work. You’re convinced your coworkers just restock the breakroom with the worst “coffee” known to man as a prank.

Zhongli stands up, rummaging through some cabinets before you hear the rattle of a pill bottle. He comes back with two pills in hand, dropping them into your palm and returning to his seat. “Take the day off.”

“Sure.” Like hell you’ll look that gift horse in the mouth. You take the pills offered to you, downing the rest of your coffee with it and praying it kicks in soon so you stop feeling nausea swelling in your gut with every sudden movement. 

The two of you sit in comfortable silence as he finishes his own coffee, and you feel the pain slowly ebbing. When he finishes his cup, he takes yours and sets both in the sink before turning to you. 

“Do you remember when you first joined the company, what I’d said to you then?” He asks suddenly. 

You try to blink the lingering tiredness from your expression. “Er… no?”

Zhongli’s gaze turns distant, tipping his head up to look at the ceiling as he recalls, “‘You are a cut above the rest.’ Even then, I’d known you would do well at the company. Your past spoke for itself, and you’ve more than proved yourself enough with your work ethic.”

Where is this coming from? Why is he talking about this now? 

“I was a little disappointed when you turned down my offer of making you my assistant. I realize the job description is a little… lackluster, but it paid more than the position you applied for, and with your set of skills I thought you were perfect for the position.” Ah. You’d forgotten about that. He’d only offered once, but he looked understanding when you turned him down. You thought he’d forgotten too, honestly. 

“I remember,” You start, unsure of where this conversation is headed, “I just didn’t want to change my mind at the last minute and end up with a job I’m not motivated to do… No offense. I just… I had my heart set on the position I applied for.”

“I see.” He looks like he’s weighing your words carefully as he chooses his next ones. “And is it what you wanted? Is it your dream job, as it were?”

You laugh. “Well. No, honestly.”

“Then, what is your dream job?” There’s a slight bit of dread beginning to form in the pit of your stomach. It’s like he’s fishing for something, trying to coax a certain response out of you, but you don’t know what or why he’s doing it. 

“Well…” You humor him. You ignore the trepidation beginning to pluck at your nerves. He’s just asking simple questions, he’s not doing anything wrong… “To be honest, nothing. I’d rather spend my time traveling, seeing the world, learning new skills. I guess I could technically be a freelancer in that sense…?” 

“And are you happy, working with the company?” 

You should lie. You should lie and say yes, beyond the shadow of a doubt. What spills from your lips instead, is: “It has its ups and downs.”

Zhongli motions for you to continue.

“It…” You feel hot. “It’s… boring. But it pays well. And my coworkers are nice enough. Mostly.”

“Mm.” He taps his fingers against the countertop. “But are you happy?”

“I’m not unhappy. My job is fine.” 

Zhongli stares at you. You can’t bring yourself to meet his gaze. It’s sweltering in here suddenly, and his sudden strange line of questioning is not helping. His eyes hone in on the way you shift uncomfortably, tugging at your collar. 

“Are you feeling alright? You look… unwell.” That look again. The one he’d give you when you bring him coffee in the mornings, but it’s gone again when you blink. 

“I- I’m just a little warm, is all.” You excuse quickly, moving to stand. The room spins concerningly at the movement. 

He’s at your side the second you sway unsteadily, taking ahold of your shoulders to steady you and placing the back of his hand against your forehead. “You’re running a fever.” 

You interrupt him as he begins to guide you back to the room you woke up in by digging your heels against the tile (as ineffective as it is). “S-sir, I should really be heading home now.”

“... I’m afraid I’ve been pushing you too hard, lately. Please, just humor me and rest here a while until I can get you something to help you with that fever.” Zhongli’s stopped almost dragging you back now, but he gives an insistent squeeze to your shoulder. 

It feels less and less like a request as his grip on you tightens with your silence. 

You concede. “I suppose that’s alright…” 

“Wonderful.” You’re practically swept back up into the bed once he guides you into the room, toeing the line between appropriate and… something else. Zhongli’s expression is neutral, unreadable, and he pulls away when you settle back against the sheets. “I’ll have to run to the store to pick up something to help with the fever, just rest here until then.”

You… feel like you’re sat in the mouth of a predator, its jaws slowly closing around you. You nod. The room spins with the motion. 

Zhongli casts one last glance over his shoulder at you before shutting the door, and you belatedly realize what the look in his eyes was. Obsession. 

The lock on the door clicks, the jaws snapping shut.

#yandere #zhongli/reader #zhongli x reader #yandere zhongli #genshin impact #yandere genshin impact #yandere genshin #yandere zhongli x reader #yandere zhongli/reader #zhongli/you #my writing #dead dove do not eat #modern au #follower celebration #banging my head against the table on this one lads #i feel like this is super boring :sobs: #i also didn't explain half the things i wanted to #like there's intended to be a lot of Implied Stuff #and it's intended to be more yandere undertones thru/out the buildup than outright yandere #ugh. just. if it's confusing send an ask and i'll elaborate #i also have no experience with office environments myself so like. teehee i might be way off on certain details

[chimaerakitten]

I think one of the big strengths of fanfiction as a medium is that it can, on average, assume the reader has a way higher degree of familiarity with canon than like…canon can. If you’re in the Star Wars AO3 tag you probably like Star Wars enough to remember more things about it than the average Star Wars-enjoying-ten-year-old. Which makes it way easier for fanwriter a to get to the juicy stuff and really engage with the worldbuilding or minor characters without having to spell out like. Who Wedge Antilles is for everyone who forgot or never noticed him in the first place. You could write a book about Wedge in the old EU because EU readers could also be assumed to be serious fans, but you can’t make a new canon Disney+ show about him. Those cost money to make and are intended for a broader audience.

And all this means that like. A good fic writer can and often will surpass canon when it comes to like. Thematic resonance and stuff, because they can really dig into something. Star Trek 2009 gave Kirk a new, more generic tragic backstory because it couldn’t expect the average moviegoer to be familiar with Kirk’s old, way more interesting tragic backstory. (Frankly, I’m not sure jj abrams knew about TOS Kirk’s backstory) whereas I have read a LOT of well-written, interesting, deeply resonant fanfic examinations of Tarsus IV, and what it means for Kirk’s character that he’s a genocide survivor. Star Trek 2009 answers the question “why did Kirk cheat on the kobayashi maru?” With “‘cause his dad crashed a spaceship when he was a baby.” A close examination of TOS canon implies the answer is “because he lived through a real-life Kobayashi that did have a win option, but which wasn’t taken.” BUT—and this is significant—even the TOS canon movies can’t really assume knowledge of the full TOS tv show, so that implication is never examined or made explicit. Instead it’s fanfic (and maybe spin off novels? Idk I’ve only read 2 trek books, if there’s one out there that covers this that would be really cool) where we get dives into that thread, where Kirk gets a commendation for original thinking because he can look a testing board in the eye and say “I’ve seen what happens when someone is entrenched in this kind of thinking, and I cannot let it happen to me. I understand the lesson, but it’s not hypothetical anymore and it never will be. I did what I had to do.” And that’s interesting! That’s meaningful! That can’t happen in a summer blockbuster. But it can happen in fic, easily, and that’s a strength of fic, I think.

#summer blockbusters are better at being summer blockbusters than the fic about them #but the fic gets to get into the weeds #in a way a movie can’t and shouldn’t #fic can accomplish different things #Star Trek #Star Wars #just used as illustrative examples lol

[mr-walkingrainbow]

CALLING ALL MONSTER HIGH FANS. I JUST MET GARRETT. AND I WAS ABLE TO SCAVENGE SO MUCH LORE AND CONFIRMED HEADCANONS TO YOU. THIS IS ALL SAID BY GARRET OR CONFIRMED. I HAVE SPOKEN TO GOD AND HE HAS SPOKEN BACK

#1. Robecca and Venus were implied and ARE dating!!! He said it was like. Just like other monsters they had tried putting hints and characteristics into monsters that we could see and relate too. (He also said it outright down here. Lol I got all the proof guys!)

2. They never actually came up with Jane Boolittles Origins. And yes Dr. Morou and Dr. Boolittle raised her. But it was always a thing to them they'd say ‘oh well get back to this’. And then they never did. When asked; he genuinely doesn’t remember what they had planned for her.

3. a REALLY big mystery solved and lore dump guys. This one’s juicy. I KNOW HOW SPECTRA DIED. I KNOW HOW SHE DIED. AND WHAT THE TRAUMATIC STORY WAS FOR HER. I ACTUALLY FUCKING KNOW! Y’all ready? Drumroll…. It was, a, CAR CRASH! Yes you heard me. THE VONDERGEIST FAMILY ALL DIED IN A CAR CRASH. I think he said he she just came with her family off skirts and they got into an accident. I’ll reblog this with the video of him saying it!

4. Toralei lives in a monster high housing/boarding building when she is not attending school. This place is used for kids who do not have a place to go too, or if their home is too far to return to easily. I think there was an error somewhere where she mentioned parents? I mentioned that to him and he was very confused/didn’t remember. Reconfirmed that if she wasn’t in the monster high housing area. She would have been in either Jail or The streets.

5. Robecca was not rebuilt for 100 years due to Misogyny. Also because it had to go into the lines of her ‘mysteriously’ disappearing for her to have her comeback. I asked about how it was low key such a dark story, and he mentioned that since technically Monster high was the ‘horror’ genre. He was able to get away with things like that.

6. the Vampire Heart mystery! So remember how in Friday night frights we all see Ghoulia place a Robot Heart into Robeccas chest. Something that is very clearly not the Vampires heart? But then suddenly in Frights camera action it’s there? Well, technically that’s an official Error by the crew. He actually said he noticed it, and told management and stuff like ‘won’t people notice it?’ And they were all like ‘nah it will be fine no one will notice’. But then we all clearly did lol. He also said that because if this, he came up with the idea that the Vampires heart was ENCASED in the Robot heart we saw in Friday night frights. Ergo, explaining how Robecca had two hearts in one body! (It’s also confirmed Hexiciah placed the Vampires heart into her while he was building her. Which would explain why she didn’t remember it was their).

#7. Gooliope Jellingtons Origins. I asked what her origins were. And basically, she DOES NOT have any parents. She was CREATED IN A LAB. Which apparently didn’t treat her right. So she ESCAPED the lab and ran away to the circus! (Or blobbed away?) because he also confirmed, she was the blob. Or based off the blob. She wasn’t actually like. The daughter of the blob. She WAS the blob itself.

#8. Kiyomi Haunterly is Gay! I know this is was already somewhat canon and said before. But I asked and he confirmed it that she was in fact, Gay. And he tried to show it in her diary.

#9. We’re reaching some only implied/supported things. Not fully confirmed or intended. But Kala Mer’ri has BPD. I asked about if she has anything like BPD cause I relate and saw that a lot in her. He replied that he did try to make attributes for each Character specifically so we could related to them like that. And that it was to also make sure every character wasn’t a carbon copy of another. Basically. He didn’t like. Outright say ‘yes. She has bpd’. But he also didn’t disprove it. And he reacted positively to the idea and supported it.

#10. Robecca Steam has ADHD. It’s basically the same as above. Although he did like the note that I (someone with adhd) specifically had the same traits with Robecca, even more specifically, that we both are ALWAYS late. And can never keep track of time to save our unlife.

11. Dedyet DeNile Origins. He actually completely forgot about Cleo’s Mother eventually being reunited. I had asked how she had ended up in that same weird time loop Tomb thag Hexiciah was stuck in. (Which they were eventually freed by Robecca in her SDCC diary). He said he completely forgot about that. And genuinely didn’t remember anything about it. I basically re-explained the whole thing and he was very interested. Unfortunately. Not to much origins to go on.

11. here’s a canon one! What happened to Aamanita Nightshade after she left the DeNiles in the tomb. It was kinda funny, but he basically was like ‘Amanita went up and was just like ‘Peace!’’ And then never came back.’ She goofed around a bit, buuut it wasn’t entirely like her fault? She quickly went back to sleep after breaching the surface. So yeah. She was not awake for long. She quickly went back into flower mode until she woke up again at the Gloom and Bloom party.

12. He’s working on another one of his Monster prints! He sells them on his online shop here

He’s currently working on Toralei!!!!! He said he was working on her on the way over. And that he was trying to go in Order of the G1 doll releases. He mentioned he had only done Skelita out of Order because she was like ‘that one’ who was INSANELY popular with fans when she came out. Especially in Mexico. It’s also why she was the only Funko pop made who was not part of the main ghouls.

13. Random. But he actually didn’t create each backstory individually by himself. In the beginning he did A LOT. Like Frankie was the first backstory he ever created. And it got more help and divided as more and more characters were introduced.

14. he has read every single diary for every monster. Cool little fact cause DAMN theirs a whole bunch of them.

15. everything in the Ghoulfriends book series is CANON in the monster verse.

And that is ALL FOLKS! I had held those questions in for about 7-8 years. So it was everything to me to have them answered and confirmed! I really tried to ask everything that was a huge mystery to us monster folks. And I hope you guys are excited to see all these new CANON facts!!!

I’m sorry if this is not everything. Just like Robecca. I forget stuff pretty easily. I’m wracking my brain for every little detail. Unfortunately my father didn’t record as much as I would have liked. But he did get some perfect key moments! And I’ll make sure to reblog with those moments as proof of confirmation!

I love y’all! Make sure this goes viral so every monster high fan gets to hear the news!

Signing out, I’m Tumblr Spectra Vondergeist, and I report the news.

#monster high #clawdeen wolf #toralei stripe #cleo de nile #draculaura #frankie stein #draculaura monster high #lagoona blue #abby bominable #deuce gorgan #amanita nightshade #robecca steam #robecca x venus #robecca monster high #venus mcflytrap #kiyomi haunterly #draculaura x clawdeen #deuce x cleo #Cleuce #gooliope jellington #Dedyet DeNile #spectra vondergeist #monster high spectra #jane boolittle #kala mer’ri #frankie x jackson #jackson jeckyll #holt hyde #skelita calaveras #BPD

[unikhroma]

i got the idea to make a bingo thing for spamton fan designs after my friend showed me some bingos for other deltarune fan stuff :] basically i gathered a bunch of canon-divergent/not confirmed/otherwise notable* design aspects i've noticed in spamton fan art these past years and put them in. feel free to fill it out if you want!

addendum: this is mostly intended for your interpretation of spamton during or post ch2, which is why some things like "not even a puppet" are in there (it's p heavily implied that he wasn't a puppet at some point but is now)

*under the read more cause i'm trying to keep this section brief

filled out card + a lot of rambling below:

*obviously there's nothing wrong with being canon-divergent and putting your own spin/interpretation on a character, i draw spamton buff and with huge tits it's fine lol. i may have my opinions but it's whatever; i'm not an authority i'm just some guy. also i put in trans/gq in as a design thing since that often does factor into a person's presentation/looks

----

also here's my filled out card:

(i guess i should've put some images of him at first whoopsie)

----

did i rig it so i can win? technically yes but technically no

i wanted to arrange the card to have common traits that i saw together in bingo-winning lines, but i soon realized that it was impossible to get everything to fit together that way. especially with contradictory squares like tall and microscopic or puppet-exclusive features being in a line with the "not even a puppet" square

i couldn't fit in everything i thought of either. i actually wanted to have "100% canon compliant" on here cause i thought it would be fun. i think the people who stick really close to his canon design are just as interesting as everyone who does their own spin

idk i think this is all interesting! the deltarune fandom is unique in that everyone has to interpret character designs from a small size, so people almost Have to diverge from whatever may have been intended for a character, and that results in a lot of different interpretations. it's definitely helped me strengthen my own sense of character design as someone who used to be kind of a hardass about fan art accuracy

#my art and things #deltarune #spamton

[from-the-clouds]

texas sun - joel miller x f!reader - vol. ii

series masterlist | series playlist | writing masterlist | previous chapter

chapter summary: Joel tries, and fails, to keep Sarah away from you, and you get to know the family across the street a little bit better. It’s a slow burn, so let the yearning begin, baby! pairing: pre-outbreak!joel miller x f!reader words: 7.7k chapter warnings: some light angst, alcohol use, references to marijuana use, parental neglect. divorce mention, implied age gap. reader has daddy issues - shocker! a/n: Was absolutely floored by the love on part one. Seriously you all are the best. I hate doing chapter summaries because I don't like giving away too much info, so I'd suggest just reading this. This story might end up being a longer than six parts, because I don't want to rush anything and it's been really fun to write these relationships as they form! Let me know what you think :)

-March 25th, 2003- 

Joel cannot keep Sarah away from you. 

Unfortunately, he can’t blame her. Unlike him, she doesn’t need an excuse to show up on your doorstep after school and on the weekends to be in your company. Still, he doesn’t technically know you that well, and he imagines you didn’t intend to see her as often as you did after extending some kindness to his family for one night. 

Despite the two of you having not spoken since you helped him with the Tommy situation, Joel feels like he knows you, or is getting to know you, just from the snippets of information Sarah drops to him, which is then followed by a barrage of questions.

“Do you know she grew up in New York City? Have you ever been there?” 

“She gave me her old tennis racket. Do you think I could start taking lessons?”

“She says her brother got her front-row tickets to The Strokes last year. You like them, don’t you?”

Joel decides to give Sarah a talking to about her tendency to wander over to your house whenever she sees your car in the driveway. Perhaps you are just being friendly, and feel bad saying no each time she’s asked to come in. He tries to broach the subject with her one morning in the kitchen while she’s eating breakfast. They’re already running behind, her for school, himself for work, but neither of them are in a rush. If you’re already late, what’s an extra ten minutes?

“Take it easy, alright? She might not want company after a long day at work,” Joel leans over the countertop, hand wrapped around a mug of hot coffee, watching her shovel cereal in her mouth.  

“Dad, she said I could come over whenever,” It’s accompanied by an eye roll, which is a new thing that had started about six months back. Teenagers. Well, almost teenagers. She’s still the sweet kid he’s always known, he’s just playing with fire trying to talk to her at seven in the morning, an indent on the side of her face still fading from where she slept on a crumpled pillow. 

Joel was at least grateful that she did have occasional company on nights when he was working late. It made him feel better to know Sarah wasn’t alone.

“What do you even do over there?”

“Homework, reading….watching TV.”

“So the same thing you do here?”

Sarah thinks about it. “Well, no, because she’s teaching me to knit.”

“And what does she do while you do your homework?”

“She works too. Or makes calls.” Sarah smiles a little. “It sounds like people ask her for advice a lot. She does give good advice.”

“Better than mine?” Joel holds his hand over his heart with mock offense.

Sarah groans. “Relax, don’t get jealous…there’s just stuff I can talk to her about and not you. Girl stuff.”

“Girl stuff? What like, boys?”

“No, you wouldn’t get it.”

“I was a boy once.”

“Ew, dad, gross.”

“How is that gross?”

“Just- not everything is about boys, okay?”

Joel isn’t going to argue with that, and Sarah eventually goes back to finishing her cereal.

“Alright babygirl,” he raps his knuckles on the counter after he’s finished his coffee. “I’ve gotta load up the truck, and you better get going, or I’m gonna get an earful from Miss Davis.” He grabs his keys and his wallet, then yanks a baseball cap over his mess of hair that’s long overdue for a haircut.

“Oh, I bet she would love an excuse to talk to you,” Sarah slides out of her seat with her empty bowl and marches towards the sink to rinse it out, grabbing his empty mug on the way.

“What do you mean?” 

“Don’t you remember how giggly she was at parent-teacher conferences?” Sarah says. “I’ve never seen her so happy before.”

It’s Joel’s turn to roll his eyes. He’d pegged it as unusual, but never considered it was because Miss Davis was into him. He wishes Sarah isn’t so….observant. 

Over the years, Joel has basically kept his head down, doing his best to keep things together. Because of that, he feels like he’s sort of lost his ability to pick up on when women are interested in him. And it’s safe to say, in general, he’s had a pretty uneventful love life since Sarah’s mom left. 

For the most part, he got by on flings — one night stands, casual no-strings-attached arrangements that always fizzled out. Joel had never been a man who liked that sort of thing, and ultimately craved a deeper level of intimacy, companionship, but he had trouble sustaining anything more. And even when he thinks of the more serious relationships he’d had over the years, those were also never completely satisfying. 

The fact of the matter was that when you had a kid, you weren’t just looking for someone for yourself anymore. For most people, introducing their partner to their parents is always a big deal. But for Joel, it was always introducing girlfriends to Sarah. Over the last decade he’d only ever introduced her to three different women, and at that point he had usually been dating them secretly for several months before deciding that it was serious enough. It always felt like he was trying so desperately to ensure they liked each other. But he could tell that Sarah was never quite comfortable with any of them. And when they’d start asking about moving in, marriage, and babies — he’d always panic. It was reasonable for them to want those things, hell, he wanted those things. But it had to be the right person. He knew he couldn’t bring someone into his life, forever, that didn’t love Sarah like a parent should. Like he did. No one ever would, and because of that, he knows there’s a good chance it’ll just be the two of them forever.

So, even if Sarah’s teacher, as cute as she was, were to ask him out, he would never be able to go. But less for the latter reasons, and more because he knows he’d never hear the end of it from her. 

“Alright, that’s enough. I’m leaving in five minutes…with or without you.”

“Nooo!” Sarah screams in mock panic, scrambling upstairs to brush her teeth. 

Joel exits through the garage, grabbing a few extra tools from his workbench that he needs for the job today and a saw. 

When he opens the garage door, the harsh sunlight is the first thing to greet him, and then he sees you. 

You’re in your driveway across the street, barefoot and in a short, black silk robe that’s cinched at the smallest part of your waist. Next to you is a man in a suit, holding a briefcase and trying to straighten his tie. He can’t do both at the same time, though, so he pauses and turns to you, murmurs something, and you slow to help him, your fingers wrapping around the tie, tightening where it’s looped around his neck and tucking it into place, straightening his lapel before stepping away. The type of domesticity that doesn’t happen with a one-night-stand.

It makes sense, he thinks. That you’re with someone like that. It’s the world you’re in all day. And even though he’s standing in his own fucking driveway, Joel feels like he’s seeing something he’s not supposed to. Or maybe, he just doesn’t want to be seeing it. 

Joel tears his eyes away, putting his stuff in the back of the truck – the toolkit, the saw, glancing over to see the man kiss you on the lips and mutter something unintelligible before getting in a shiny, blue sports car. You nod, offer an easy smile, and stoop to pick up the newspaper. The car's engine roars to life, and you cross your arms, looking after it until it peels out of the cul-de-sac.

The bashful smile you’re wearing drops instantly once it’s out of sight, and he watches you pinch the bridge of your nose, and tilt your head back to the sky.

He turns before he gets caught, and slams the back of the truck shut, which is a little ignorant in hindsight. Joel looks over his shoulder to see your attention has shifted, and you’re shielding your eyes and squinting at him. 

Great.

“Hey Joel,” you wave, your opposite hand pulling at the bottom of your robe, in a futile attempt to cover yourself. You look good, obviously, but it makes Joel feel a little guilty to make the observation because it’s clear you didn’t actually intend to be seen like this.

“Morning,” he answers. 

“Where’ve you been?” you ask, crossing your arms across your chest. 

“Busy. Work.”

“That’s no fun but…same here, I guess,” You shuffle forward hesitantly. 

Joel takes a beat to think about what he’s supposed to say in response, but doesn’t get the chance, because you speak up again.

“Hey uh, not to put you on the spot, but were you actually serious about fixing my step the other night?” you ask. 

Before he can answer, you continue. 

“It’s okay if you weren’t, but I twisted my ankle on it the other day, so I need to get it fixed before that happens to someone else. I was thinking maybe I’d just call-”

“No-”

“It’s no big deal if you can’t-”

“No,” Joel cuts you off. He had been biding his time, waiting for the right opportunity to bring it up to you, not realizing that taking said time probably made him look like an asshole. “Don’t call anyone else, I can do it. How about Friday night? Will you be around?” 

“Friday?” you answer, pondering. “Yeah, that works. I have a friend from out of town coming to visit, so I’ll be home early because I’ve gotta pick her up from the airport.” 

“Alright, I’ll try to cut out early, too.”

“And also I can pay-”

“Stop it, I”ve got you, don’t worry,” he waves his hand. 

You smile at Joel. He’s sure it means nothing, but he gets some satisfaction from how sincere it is compared to the one you’d given the guy you had been escorting out of your home. 

He feels himself grinning back, and you open your mouth to speak, but are cut off by the sound of his screen door slamming. Sarah stumbles down the steps, backpack hanging off one shoulder, headphones to her walkman around her ears, holding her bright pink windbreaker in one hand and a book in the other. She looks at Joel, then you, standing in your driveway, and her face lights up as she calls your name. 

“Hey, Sarah,” you wave. 

Sarah opens her mouth to speak, and Joel knows whatever she’s going to say will start a much longer conversation that unfortunately they just don’t have the time for.

“She’s gotta get to school,” Joel tilts his head in the direction of his daughter before she can say anything. “But I’ll get that done Friday.”

“See you then!” You turn on your heel, and he looks away for a second to Sarah before glancing back in your direction, and you’re already gone, the only evidence you were there being your front door slamming shut. 

Joel waits until he and Sarah are in the car on their way to school before he speaks again. 

“She’s never mentioned a boyfriend or anything, has she?”

Sarah doesn’t even look up from her book. “No.”

Joel nods, and it’s quiet for a moment.

He hears Sarah’s book shut. “Why?” she turns to him, and she’s got her eyes narrowed, like she’s trying to figure out what the question really meant. He’s never seen her make that face before, and it’s a little terrifying, because it looks like she could see right through him.

Joel wracks his brain for a good enough excuse. “If she has people over, I don’t want you hangin’ around adults I don’t know.”

That seems to satisfy Sarah, and the skeptical look on her face disappears. If anything, she seems slightly annoyed by the comment, which is definitely preferable. “Well, you don’t have to worry about that because it’s never happened.” Sarah plays with the dials on the radio, changing the station until it lands on one playing The Chicks, her favorite group. She hums along to the song, filling in the gaps whenever the radio cuts out, and looks out the window. 

“Alright.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

-March 28th, 2003-

“Oh, I wanna come!” Sarah jumps up from the couch and joins Joel in the entryway. It’s Friday evening, and he’s about to head out the door to your place.

“You’re stayin’ in tonight.”

“What? Why?”

“Well first of all, you’re grounded, in case you don’t remember.”

“You don’t even know what that means, though.”

Joel shakes his head, because she’s right. He’s never had to ground Sarah before, but when he’d gotten a call from her teacher that she had failed her last math quiz, and was close to not passing the class, he figured it was an appropriate punishment. “I’m pretty sure it means you can’t leave the house.”

“But this is barely leaving the h-”

“Second of all,” he cuts her off. “She told me earlier this week she’s got a friend visiting, so it’d be rude to intrude if that’s the case.”

Sarah groans, throws her head back, and falls onto the couch dramatically. “But I’m so bored.”

“You could study. Practice dribbling, clean your room, clean your bathroom-”

“Dad, it’s literally Friday night.”

“And?”

“All that stuff is so boring.”

Joel can’t help but chuckle. “Look, when I get back we can watch a movie. This won’t take long.”

She sits up a little, placated. “Okay, but it’s my turn to pick.”

“Deal. I’ll be home in an hour or so,” he steps out onto the porch. 

There’s a special kind of glow in Texas about an hour before the sun sets. Warm light filters behind the trees, casting the leaves and anything else it catches in a golden halo. Joel takes in the view for a moment as he walks across the street, skipping the rotten step and knocking on your front door. 

You answer it quickly. “Hey, you wanna come in?”

Joel supposes he doesn’t have to, and could just let you know he’s here, stay out on the front porch and just get the job done, but he accepts your invitation anyway.

There’s another woman sitting cross-legged on the couch, two half-full glasses of wine on your coffee table, music playing low on some speakers in the corner. The front windows are open, despite the chill of the evening, and your sheer curtains billow in the breeze. 

“Claire, this is my neighbor, Joel,” you say. “He’s helping me out with the steps. His daughter’s Sarah, the one I was telling you about. ”

“Oh, yeah.” Claire’s face lights up in recognition. “Joel. Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” he nods.

“Claire’s visiting from New York. We grew up together,” you explain. 

“Oh, yeah?” 

“Her and I were roommates at boarding school,” Claire explains, finishing off a glass of wine. “We got into a lot of trouble together.”

“Hmmm, if I recall, it was more like you got me into trouble, but sure,” you say. 

“You were bad, if not worse, than I was.”

Joel smirks, and you turn to him, changing the subject. “She’s jetlagged, so we’re just staying in for the night.”

“But…we’re still getting drunk, obviously.”

“Oh yeah, that too,” you say flatly, although to Joel, you don’t seem drunk at all. Luckily, your friend answers his question with her next sentence.

“This one isn’t very good at keeping up, though,” Claire tilts her head in your direction, then finishes off the glass of wine in her hand.

“You sound like Vincent,” you roll your eyes.

“Oh, how is Vincent?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” you cross your arms and look at Joel. “She always had the biggest crush on my brother, and it was dis-gus-ting.”

“To be fair,” Claire clears her throat. “At the time, he was pretty dreamy. And if we’re being honest….he still is…too bad he’s married.”

“Divorced, actually. But still…” You wrinkle your nose. “Gross.”

“Divorced?” Claire sits up, jaw dropping. “When? Why didn’t you tell me? What happened?”

You raise your hands and shake your head, like it’s too much to get into. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you about it later. Sorry, we’re being rude,” you turn back to Joel. “Can I get you anything? Want some wine?”

“I would, but it doesn’t usually mix well with power tools,” Joel answers. “I should be good, though, I brought everything I need.”

“Great well… I’ll let you get to it, then.” you pad across the floor to return to your friend on the couch. “We’ll be in here if you need anything.”

“Sounds good,” Joel nods at you and your friend before stepping back out onto the porch.

The screen door shuts behind him, and the birds are quieting down for the night. He only has a little bit of sunlight left, but this shouldn’t take him long. Just as he is about to get started, he hears your friend’s voice, muffled, from inside the house. 

“Okay, I thought you were lying because your taste in men is usually questionable, but you’re right, he is really cute.”

“Dude,” you interject, and Joel hears a sound of impact, like a smack on the arm. “Lower your voice the fucking windows are open.” Claire starts giggling, and you continue. “You know you don’t have to say, like, every thought that comes into your head.”

He hears your friend laugh even harder, and eventually you join her. Joel shakes his head, but even after he starts working, can’t keep the grin off his face.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

-April 5th, 2003-

It has been the longest week of your life. Work had been hectic – you’d spent the last five days going to so many meetings and dinners with potential clients that you had almost no time to do your actual job. Plus, your visit from Claire had already wiped out nearly all your energy, since you had spent the whole last weekend showing her around Austin, entertaining.

Normally, on a Saturday like today, you’d do a number of things – the first of which would be to sleep the fuck in. The ideal schedule would go something like this: You’d get out of bed in the early afternoon and immediately order some kind of takeout – most likely pho, or ramen, or some other type of soup. You’d get high, eat the takeout, and then watch TV until you’re tired enough to go back to bed in the early evening. If you’re feeling motivated at all, you might change into a fresh pair of pajamas before you crash again. It would be the ultimate lazy day, and you had desperately wanted it.

However, the past version of yourself had made plans to play tennis in the morning with some friends, and then check out a new breakfast place in the city. Sometimes you hated how optimistic she was about your ability to wake up before 10 a.m. While you weren’t excited to play tennis, you were excited that there was, at some point, going to be food involved. 

So you dragged your ass out of bed, rifled through a box of clothing in your garage (one that you still had yet to unpack) to find a tennis skirt and visor, and then got in your car to go play all before 8 a.m. Then, you’d had your ass handed to you by your friends on the court. It was a little humbling to realize that you weren’t very good at tennis anymore. The last time you’d seriously played was when you were still in school, and you’d originally started because your father had wanted you to be involved in an extracurricular activity. According to him at the time, anything involving the arts – music, dance, drama – didn’t count. You had challenged this idea, and it had escalated to become one of the top ten worst fights you’d ever had with him. After that, you had learned that it was better to just do as you were told. 

You’d joined the tennis team, and started to pick up on how intrigued your father was by the trophies and ribbons you’d bring home when you did well. He started to ask you questions when he saw them, pat you on the head and say things like ‘that’s my girl’. Regardless of whether or not you liked playing, you had finally found a way to earn his attention. So, you got better. One time, he even came to your school to watch one of your matches. Of course, when you lost that one, it all kind of crumbled. But you still stuck to the sport since that’s what all your friends were doing, even if it didn't get you what you wanted. 

On the drive home from your morning out, belly full of breakfast and ready for a nap, thinking of your family brings about a terrifying realization. 

You look at your phone. Shit.

April 5th. 

Immediately, you dial a number on your cell. You’re aware of the dangers of talking while driving but you know if you don’t make this call, you’ll never hear the end of it. The line only rings twice before it’s picked up.

“Hello?” 

“Vincenzo!” you say with your best – but probably horrible – attempt at an Italian accent. 

“Well, well, well….if it isn’t the estranged daughter…” the familiar timbre of your brother's voice answers. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

You roll your eyes. “Well first of all, fuck off…” We're off to a great start. “...and second of all…Happy Birthday.”

You hear your brother’s chuckle on the other end of the line, a noise that you’d been on the wrong side of –  laughing at you, not with you – more than once, but your heart aches a little at the sound of it now. I miss you, you wish you could say, but you keep it to yourself. 

“Thanks, I’m surprised you remembered,” he says, lightly.

“I’ve never forgotten.”

“There was that one year-”

“Oh my god, I was like twelve.”

“You were fourteen.”

“Okay, well, sorry…It’s been over ten years and it hasn’t happened since.”

“It feels like you’ve forgotten more than once, but that might just be because it’s pretty much the only time you ever call me these days,” Vincent says, and if you were with him, in person, you’d be able to tell by the look in his eyes whether or not he was joking. But over a cell, you’re not sure at all. 

“That’s not true,” you say, turning your car into your neighborhood. “But I mean, the phone does work both ways.” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” you catch something flippant in his tone. 

“Do you want this to be a nice conversation or are you gonna be an asshole?” you ask, maybe a little too matter-of-factly, but at least you can determine whether or not it’ll be a waste of your time to try and be cordial. If he’s in a bad mood, you know it’s pointless.

“Relax,” he says, and you hear a hint of the teenage boy you once knew. “You’re always so ready to argue with me, I’m joking.”

“Very funny,” you say, and try to be nice about it, because deep down, you know Vincent is right. You don’t talk to your brother enough to argue with him when you do speak. You take a deep breath to steady yourself. “So what are you doing on your big day? Anything special?”

“Nothing really special, I worked out, had lunch with a friend, and I think I’m having dinner with Elizabeth tonight.”

“Oh…really? Elizabeth?” At the mention of his soon-to-be ex-wife – or maybe current ex-wife? You’re not sure – you’re surprised.

“Yeah she and I are uh….talking still, I guess. For Ethan, mostly, but…I don’t know…the divorce isn’t finalized, and I think now that I’m seeing a therapist and shit, maybe we can work something out. We’ll see.”

“And do you want to work something out?”

“I mean, she’s only the love of my life so yeah, it’d be great.”

“I think so, too. How is Ethan, by the way?”

“Oh he’s great,” you hear your brother’s smile over the phone. “Just a big ball of energy, and so fucking smart. He told me he misses you the other day.”

Your heart lurches at the mention of your sweet, five-year-old nephew. “You’ll have to tell him I said hi, and that I love him.”

“Yeah, yeah, I will,” he answers. “You know, next weekend I’m having a proper birthday party.  We’re all going to the Hamptons. I could fly you out here, you could tell him in person.”

“I can’t, I got shit to do,” you answer a little too quickly, turning the car into your cul-de-sac.

“What uh, your little corporate gig keeping you busy?”

There’s a subtle dig in there, little. 

“Maybe.”

“I’m telling you, all I have to do is phone a friend, and we’ll find you something here that’ll pay a thousand times better and won’t have you working weekends.”

“I don’t work weekends,” you say, pulling into your driveway.  “And I’m not interested.”

“You like making yourself miserable, don’t you?”

“Vinny,” you say, exasperated, putting your car in park. “I’m happy here.”

“In Texas? I don’t believe it,” he says. “And you know, at this point, you’ve proven whatever you wanted to dad. After everything you’ve done, he probably respects you. Like, you did it. You cut yourself off, you made a name for yourself, you don’t need us anymore. Congratulations, amazing. I get it. But you should come home now.”

“Vincent,” you repeat yourself. “I’m not going back. You know what it was like for me. For you.”

“You’re my fucking family too, you know? You can’t just let him control every decision you make,” he says, and he’s not quite yelling at you, but he is sounding a lot more stern than he was before. “And by the way, it wasn’t so bad. You and I always got along.”

“Even if I move back, things will never be like they were.”

“You don’t know that.” he says it with such a deep sadness in his voice that you want to take back every cruel thing you’d ever said to him – not just from today, from forever. And then he speaks again. “You know, you used to be so sweet when we were kids….I don’t know what happened.”

I do, you think. “I had to look out for myself.”

Before he can respond, you change the subject. “Anyways, you should move out here instead,” it’s only halfway a joke.

“I’m not leaving New York.”

“Well, I’m not leaving Austin.”

“Well…” he says, clicks his tongue. “Then I guess things’ll just stay this way.” 

“I guess so.”

You wish you could offer more. But he has never understood. The silence on the other line is so loud, your ears are ringing.

“Look, I just pulled in my driveway, I gotta get going.”

“Yeah.”

“But have a nice day, okay?” you’ve gotta turn this conversation around because it went so far off the rails. “Tell Elizabeth I say hi, and I hope you do work things out with her because you know I think she’s great. And give Ethan a kiss for me.”

“I know, and I will,” you can see him closing his eyes, fingers pinching between his eyebrows.

“I love you.” 

“Yeah…okay,” he says, like he doesn’t believe you, and it’s a punch to the gut. As usual, you weren’t able to say the right thing. Tears start pricking the back of your eyes, guilt twisting deep in the pit of your stomach.

“Goodbye,” in one swift movement, you end the call and get out of the car, slamming the door shut. You’re sad now, but it’s only a matter of time before you become angry, which is always easier to deal with, so you just gotta suck it up until it passes.

Trying not to be upset is such a high priority that you don’t hear your name being called right away, and when you turn around, it’s too late.

“Hey!” Sarah Miller is skidding to a stop in front of you, wearing boots that look a size too small for her feet, dressed in athletic clothes with her hair pulled back. “My dad says I’m not grounded anymore so I can-” she falters when she sees your face. “Are you okay?” she asks. 

Clearing your throat, you fix your expression and try to shake away the lingering disappointment like dirt off a kitchen rug. “Yeah I’m fine,” you lie. “So does that mean you passed math?”

Since that night you let her stay when she was locked out, you’d seen quite a bit of Sarah. It was a little unconventional, and you probably needed to find friends in the community that were more age appropriate, but you enjoyed her company. She would hang out and do homework at your house while she waited for her dad to get home from work. You had always valued your independence, and told yourself you preferred to be on your own, but whenever she left, your house always felt a little emptier than you remembered. Maybe you needed to get a fish or something, since Martini’s appearances were few and far between. 

“Not yet, but I did get an A on my last test. I hate to say it but my dad was right…studying actually helps.”

“Yeah, that tends to be true,” you say, relieved at how easy the smile comes, and you glance over your shoulder to see Joel standing at the edge of his driveway with his hands on his hips. He looks fucking good, and you’re almost sort of mad about it, or it’s hopefully just the irritation kicking in after the conversation with your brother. 

Does Joel know? He has to. It’s like having whatever the male version of a siren is living across the street from you – working with his hands, being a doting father, and mowing the lawn shirtless when it’s hot out. And apparently this was a record-breakingly hot spring, because you’d seen that more than once. Not that you minded, though it only made you want a closer look. Years ago, you probably would’ve scoffed at what sounded like a suburban mom’s wet dream, but actually experiencing it, you felt differently. There was just something about him. 

You give Joel a wave, and he waves back, shifting his weight from foot to foot like he’s trying to decide if he wants to come over and talk. As usual, he seems like he’s got somewhere to be, but he’s too polite to tell you to fuck off. 

“How have you been? I’ve hardly seen you,” Sarah says. “Did you play tennis today?” she pokes at the racket that’s hung over your shoulder. “Were you serious about teachin’ me to play this summer?”

It’s hard not to be amused at the barrage of requests. You admire her ability to be so enthusiastic, so open, something that most people are unable to do, but for her, is effortless. She’s older than your nephew, but you get the same kind of relief from interacting with both of them. The kids are alright. At least, some of them are. 

“Of course,” you answer, and notice that Joel is slowly and hesitantly making his way up your driveway. It’s upsetting that everytime you run into him, you conveniently look like shit – like last Tuesday when you’d just rolled out of bed and were still in your robe. Or right now, after spending the whole morning chasing after balls on a clay court, scuffed knees and hair slick with sweat. But you suppose that’s sort of what neighbors are for.

“Hey, how’s it going?” you ask Joel. 

“It’s goin’,” you take him in as he gets closer, notice the way the arms of his t-shirt are just a little too tight because of his biceps, and feel like you need to take a cold shower to wash yourself of this morning. “Babygirl, we should probably get going.”

He calls his daughter babygirl? There’s no way he was being serious, that it isn’t some ironic joke, or part of an act. You always assumed that was just something you saw in movies.

“Because I did so well on my test my dad is takin’ me on a hike,” Sarah says, and then her face lights up. “Wait….you should come with us! Dad, can she come?” Sarah whirls around to face her father.

Joel looks down at Sarah, and then up at you, and then at Sarah again. “I mean, that’s fine, but…she might have other things going on.” 

It’s hard to tell if he’s trying to give you an out, or if he’s hinting that you shouldn’t come. And you probably normally wouldn’t want to go, but the alternative is moping around your house and thinking of all the things you could’ve said differently to your brother to ensure the conversation would have gone better than it did. You’re always desperate for a second chance to do things over, and do them right. 

You look between the two of them, back and forth. “I mean I would totally, I just…don’t want to interrupt a father-daughter activity-”

“You aren’t,” Sarah says so quickly that Joel looks offended. “I couldn’t leave the house this week so we’ve been spending too much time together.”

Joel frowns. “That’s rude.”

“What?” she says. “It’s true.”

Joel sighs. “She’s right, though. You wouldn’t be interruptin’.”

“Please?” Sarah begs, and you realize you can’t say no even if you want to. You wonder how Joel was even able to ground her for a week, looking in those big, innocent eyes. 

“Yeah, just…uh, could I put my stuff inside and maybe change?” you ask, gesturing towards the house. 

Joel nods, and Sarah rocks back and forth on her heels. “Yes, yes! Take as long as you need.”

“I’ll be fast,” you assure her, and duck inside. 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Halfway into the hike with Sarah and Joel, and you’ve decided you’re out of shape. You try to tell yourself there could be another reason you are so out of breath – you already worked out once today while playing tennis. But that doesn’t seem like a good enough excuse. Of course, you’re trying to play it cool, because you’re not about to embarrass yourself. Sarah is entertaining you with all kinds of talk about school, and soccer, and sleepaway camp she gets to go to for two weeks once school's out. And you suppose the pain you’re in right now is also  welcome distraction from thinking about Vincent. 

However, you can’t dip away from the group to rest for a second, because Joel is already trailing behind, and he’d catch on. However, his distance – several paces back from where you and Sarah walk – is not because he’s out of shape. On the contrary, he seems to be putting almost no effort into the steep climb. He’s on his own, head on a swivel, kind of like a brooding security guard, and you wonder if he feels left out. 

You steal a glance over your shoulder to take him in, shrouded by the verdant foliage. He looks at home in this environment, sun-kissed and rugged, a finger hooked behind the strap of a leather bag he carries over one shoulder, his gait measured. Aloof, but there’s a quiet confidence to him that draws you in, causes your stare to linger just a touch too long, so when he turns his head straight, his eyes catch yours. You focus back on the trail ahead. 

He hasn’t said much since you’ve started hiking, or in the car, even. Most men are easy to read, but so far, Joel has kind of stumped you. There were times, during the night that you’d helped him bail his brother Tommy out of jail, that you had thought maybe he was- no. He’d been pretty tense in every other interaction you had, so you still couldn’t decide if he had been flirting with you.

And he was older than you, you were pretty sure. Not so old that it wouldn’t be out of the question for him to be interested, but enough that, depending on the type of person he was, might see you as a little too young for him. And he had a kid, responsibilities. 

You were a-single woman with a high-powered career, one cat and a fish on the way. You slept in on the weekends, refused to learn to cook for one, and got violently stoned on your back porch a minimum of three times a week. In suburban Texas, most of the women your age were long since settled, and you were an outlier. It was fair to imagine that Joel probably didn’t see any real promising future when he looked your way…. or maybe he was more of a one-night stand kind of guy, and didn’t care about that at all. This was not necessarily information you needed – but you wanted it anyway.

Not feeling like an outsider would be one upside of moving back to New York – you could be exactly yourself, and still blend right in. It was one of the parts you missed most, besides Vincent. Your heart sinks, and you realize that the hill you’ve been climbing has flattened out, and so you’re able to think clearly again, which is why you’re thinking of your brother. 

Sarah has pulled away, and is wandering towards a clearing. Your eyes are on her form, bounding up ahead on the pathway, the sunlight peeking through the leaves dancing on her skin, when your foot lands on a loose rock, and slips out from beneath you. 

Please, God, n- You don’t even get the chance to plead yourself out of humiliation, because there’s a steady hand on your hip and your back collides with a broad chest. 

“Gotcha,” Joel’s voice is right in your ear — when did he get that close?  

He’s solid, strong, and for the shortest, sweetest moment, you’re overwhelmed by him – get notes of his bar soap (pine, cedar, mint)  mixed with whatever laundry detergent he used, and just the faintest bit of - Fuck. In one swift movement, he brings you upright like you’d never slipped at all, then pulls back. The skin on your hip smarts even after his hand drops away.

“You alright?” Joel steps beside you, watching Sarah, who stands with her hands on her hips, her back turned to you both.

“Yeah,” you nod. He looks back over at you. “Come on,’ he tilts his head towards his daughter, and you walk beside him to where she’s standing.

The whole hike you’d been so occupied with bullshit. Trying not to think about your brother. Trying not to act too out of breath. Trying to not let Joel catch you staring, although you’d already failed at that. But now, you wish you wouldn’t have been in your head, because what you’d come to see made worrying about all that seem stupid.

Stretched out in front of you was a wide creek with moss-colored water that flowed down over layered slabs of rock, and crashed into the waterfall’s churning basin. The sun hits the mist in just the right light, and casts a series of rainbows midair, which move and shift as you turn your head to study the lush, tree-lined shore across the river. 

You’re standing with one hand on your hip, and out of the corner of your eye Sarah shuffles back a few steps to stand beside you, looping her arm through yours, her cheek on your shoulder while you both enjoy the view. 

“I’m glad you got to see this,” she says, and you can just make it out over the sound of the falls. “Isn’t it pretty?”

“It’s beautiful.”

Joel’s hands land on Sarah’s shoulders as he steps close behind you both. She straightens, leans back against him until he wraps his forearm across the front of her in an easy embrace, and she grabs for his wrist with both of her hands, tucking them beneath her chin. A pang of familiar grief stirs inside you at the sight, and you turn away, back towards the view.

“This is the only time of year it’s worth seeing,'' Joel says to you. “It dries up in the summer.” 

“It’s still pretty in the summer,” Sarah pipes up.

“Not as pretty.”

“Can you get me the water?” she asks. Joel grunts an affirmation and a moment later you hear the sound of a zipper.

When you’ve had a considerable amount of time to contemplate life while looking at the water swirling across the granite, you turn to find Sarah sitting on a rock, struggling to peel an orange, and dropping each tiny piece of skin she can get off into Joel’s begrudgingly outstretched hand.

You use the opportunity to stretch your calves against a nearby tree.

“Have you hiked before?” Sarah asks.

“Here and there,” you say. “But not often.”

“Why not?”

“Well this is basically a workout. I don’t like working out, I’m pretty unathletic.”

You’re surprised when that draws a smile from Joel.

“But you play tennis.”

You shrug. “Eh, kinda.”

“Me and my dad go hiking a lot.”

“That’s sweet,” your eyes flicker from hers to Joel’s, because they are both staring at you, and you’re pretty sure, though it’s hard to tell from this distance, that their eyes are the identical shade of caramel. Sarah finishes peeling her orange and Joel pockets the scraps of skin. She eats a slice before offering you both your own, and you step closer to accept it.

Sarah’s taking her last bite of orange when Joel speaks up. 

“Should we head back?”

Sarah turns to take one last look. It’s mid afternoon, the slant of light from the sun as intense as it can be, and you squint when it reflects back off the water and into your eyes. 

“Yeah, we can,” Sarah decides, and it’s clear that Joel would have stayed there for as long as she wanted. It wasn’t up to him. 

The hike back isn’t nearly as difficult. It’s all downhill, and Joel leads. Sarah stays behind with you, and clings to your arm while she teaches you how to navigate the trail without slipping. Back at the trailhead is one steep step that drops off into a puddle of stagnant water. 

Joel jumps down first, and turns to offer his hand to Sarah, who takes it and leaps lightly, landing on two feet on the other side. You aren’t sure what you’re expecting, but it’s not for Joel to offer you his hand to you as well. But he does.

“Careful,” he murmurs. And of course, you could’ve easily done this yourself, with no help. It’s a two foot drop and an inch of water. But you accept it anyways, putting some of your weight against his hand as you hop down, noticing how he doesn’t waver.

By the time you’re long since settled in the car, pulling into Joel’s driveway, you can feel sleep tugging down your eyelids. A steaming shower and a pair of pajama pants is imminent, and it’s like your body knows. Surely, you will still probably feel guilty about your brother, but you’re convinced that you won’t lose sleep over it, which you consider a win.

Sarah, who insisted that you both sit in the back together on the way home – leaving Joel in the front alone – gives you a quick hug after you’ve gotten out of the car, and then plucks the car keys from her father.

“Sorry, I drank a lot of water and I have to pee!” she says, before jogging up the walkway and unlocking her front door. 

Joel lets out an exasperated sigh, but turns back look at you with startling warmth. 

“Thanks for having me, I really needed that,” you tell him, and you’re not sure why you feel compelled to be honest with him, but continue on. “My brother and I got into it on the phone this morning, so if I didn’t go I probably would’ve spent all afternoon moping in bed.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, voice soft. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, it’ll be fine,” you say, quickly, brushing it off. “Siblings, you know?”

“Yeah,” he nods, but you can tell he isn’t convinced. “I know.”

“How’s Tommy, by the way?” you ask. “Staying out of trouble, I hope?”

“He is,” Joel answers. “We actually have a big project we might be about to book. Pays well, and will keep us employed for the next year.”

“Oh that’s exciting,” you nod. “So what I’m hearing  is…if my step rots again, you wouldn’t have time to come fix it?”

“No,” Joel chuckles again, and you’re dizzy after hearing it. “I’d make time.”

You take a deep breath. “Good to know,” you shuffle a few steps backwards. “I better get going, though.” He doesn’t answer right away, and just as you’re turning to walk across the street, Joel calls out to you again.

“Hey,” and you pause, facing him again. “I wanted to ask you if…” he hesitates, blinks and shakes his head once before continuing. “If Sarah is coming over too much. If you want, I can tell her to cool it.”

“Are you kidding?” you ask. “I don’t mind at all. She’s great company, really.”

“You sure you’re not just sayin’ that to be nice?”

You sniff, look at the ground, then back up to him. “I’m not actually very nice.”

He studies you. “I’m not sure I believe that.” 

“You hardly know me,” you shrug, and his eyebrows pinch together very briefly before his expression neutralizes. “I’m just saying….if I didn’t like having her around, you would know.”

He bobs his head slowly, and you turn back around to walk to your house, glancing at him from over your shoulder. 

“I’ll see you around.”

- - - - - - - - - -

taglist: @yaskna @venomous-ko @lomljigg @yeehawbitchs @ay0nha @eldahae @lol-im-done @melancholicmelanin @reggies-floatie @omniscientqueer @superflymaterial @mikkorantanev @zbeez-outlet (i'm sorry if i missed anyone, i didn't tag anyone that didn't explicitly ask!).

part iii

#are we surprised that reader has daddy issues? odds are if you are reading this fic about the video game/TV DILF of the century you do too #i mean i certainly do #Joel Miller x reader #Joel Miller #Joel Miller x f!reader #joel Miller imagine #Joel Miller series #joel miller the last of us #the last of us #the last of us fanfiction #Pedro pascal #TLOU HBO #TLOU fanfic #TLOU series #texas sun

[visorforavisor]

i’ve seen a post or two pointing out how the “benoit blanc has a male romantic partner” moment is not as explicit as it could have been about it, but i don’t think it’s right to compare it to all the classic implied queer characters who turn out to be bait.

to me personally the difference is the intention.

if you look at interviews of rian johnson, he’s very very unapolagetic and clear about blanc being gay. while, yes, he could have made it a bit more explicit in the film itself (seriously, dude, all it needed was a quick pet name exchanged between them), i do firmly believe he intended hugh grant’s character to be read as a romantic partner. i don’t think he wanted it to be ambiguous — hell, he said blanc was “obviously” queer. (he was wrong about it being obvious, but the fact that he said it shows a lot.)

let’s be real here, if that character had been a woman nobody would be having any confusion about whether that was a romantic partner.

to me it very much seems like well-intentioned, slightly fumbling, and really sweet representation. especially because it’s not like he ever really tells us anything about blanc. it’s not like he goes into loads of depth about everything else and then leaves the sexuality all without detail.

also, hugh grant is more or less synonymous with romance at this point. you don’t have hugh grant playing a character who lives with your main character and expect people not to assume they’re romantic. rian johnson seems to have put that in, assuming people would know what was up between those two characters. and, yep, he was wrong on that, but he’s not doing it for brownie points. he’s actually, if you look at the interviews, really specifically not doing that. he said “i think it makes sense that he’s… that blanc is gay”, and daniel craig said “the less of a song and dance we make about that, the better, really, for me, because it just made sense”. it’s so small because they’re trying not to be all “aren’t we good people for making him gay” about it.

it was done a little clumsily, but it was done with fantastic intent and fantastic thought behind it and it was done with other moments like blanc’s clear discomfort when birdie flirted with him (and phillip letting blanc’s friends know that blanc’s spending too much time in the bath — i mean come on, that’s romance).

i think that rian johnson just underestimated an audience’s confidence in people actually putting queer characters in stuff. we question everything because we have to. but, once again, if that had been a woman nobody would have questioned the romance. so i don’t fault rian johnson for thinking it would be more than clear.

i’m frustrated at how little the moment was, but i’m sure as hell not angry at rian johnson for it. (but please give us more next time.)

#knives out #knives out glass onion #benoit blanc #gay #queer #daniel craig #hugh grant #glass onion

[alien-slushie]

Hazbin Hotel/Angel Dust AU that I can't stop thinking about! This is not completely thought out, kinda just jumbled thought threads.

Warning: The usual stuff that's talked about/discussed/implied when it comes to Angel Dust's line of work

Takes place years before before Charlie Opens the hotel but the timeline isn't super important other than that.

Another extermination has come and gone and Angel Dust is expecting another grueling year trapped under Valintino's thumb, with a higher probability of it sucking even more since the sleez has solidified himself as an overlord. But then, he gets to the studio and Valintino is nowhere to be found. That's not nessicarrily an odd thing, the stronger Valintino got the less he showed up. But then the news spreads; Valintino got extermated.

Valintino is gone and dead, meaning Angel's contract is null and void. And Angel...Angel doesn't know what to do. He's worked for Valintino for so long, and sure he hated the dick but he never expected that he would actually be free. What did he do now? What could he do now?

He still needed a job, money, to take care of himslef so he wouldn't end up exterminated next year, so he stuck to stripping and porn(maybe a few singing gigs if he could get them), it's kinda all he knew in terms of making money, and no way in Hell(pun intended) was he going to crawl back to his father. Luckily he had Cherri to rely a bit on, so he wasn't completely alone in such a sudden change. He refused to sign another contract, but because he was still so well known the people he worked with were fine with that as long as they got a taste of the business Angel brought in.

Things changed when he saw a John getting handsy and aggressive with another demon, and stepped in. He didn't need to step in, but seeing the demon getting ab*sed and hurt like he used to snapped something in him. From then on, Whever he saw something like that happen, Angel would step in, even if he had to shoot up the f*ckers.

Before long he was known for more than just a Pornstar, he made a name for himself as the Pornstar who took care of others in the buisness, and soon demons were coming to him. They wanted his protection, even willing to sign a contract to him.

At first, Angel was vehemently against it. He didn't want to be like Val and dealing in sould never sounded all that interesting to him. But, eventually, after one too many demons came to him bruised up, and beaten, he agreed. His contracts were pretty simple, he got a percentage of their earnings, not a lot mind you, like 10-20%, and in exchange he'd beat the shit out of anyone that tried to hurt them. Biggest of all, they could pull out of the contract whenever they wanted, and If he hurt them, the contract would immediately be void.

When word got out that Angel was taking contracts, more and more s*x workers came in droves.

His own income, on top of what he got from the contracts, allowed Angel to buy an entire apartment building, which many of his contractors took up residence in. From rent and working hard Angel was able to buy Val's old studio, gut it, burn it down, and rebuild it from the brimstone up! He started making his own movies(P*rn and nonp*rn alike) in the studio and more people would come, wanting fame and fortune.

Slowly, Angel was started building his own territory, filling the power gap that Val left, except stronger since his employees actually liked him.

After years of hard work, and shooting *ssholes, Angel became an Overlord.

Basically:

-Angel Dust pulling himself up and protecting others in the industry from what he went through

-Slow Burn Angel unintentionally becoming an Overlord(Maybe making a pact with Cherri and them working together similarly to the Vees' situation?)

-Angel is a good boss and people love working with/for him

-Angel still works in porn and such, but hes calling the shots now, and even acts in nonporny stuff because he loves acting, singing, and dancing(love a Creative King)

-Eventually Charlie does seek Angel out to be her first patron to the Happy/Hazbin Hotel. Since he already has a reputation for protecting those under him, she thought he'd be the best option, and his position as a Overlord is also a big selling point.

-Angel also having a preexisting connection to Alastor and/or Husk sounds hilarious

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel au #angel dust #hazbin hotel angel dust #alternate universe #overlord angel dust #didnt mean to post this cause i was toying with the idea of writing it myself but oh well #guess we're here now

[maochira]

Noa, Chris and Lavinho becoming your father figure

Basically, you're part of a team of younger players for Bastard München/Manshine City/FC Barcha, your coach gets sick/injured so Noa/Chris/Lavinho become your coach for a while (separate headcanons for each character btw)

Tags: gn!reader, hurt/comfort(?), implied child neglect by reader's parents/father or them not having a father figure in their life, reader is a teenager

This was requested by this anon and lucky you I thought about a scenario like this for my Blue Lock OC and Noa a lot last week, so I already had stuff for this in my silly little brain. Also this is probably my favourite thing I've written for this blog so far!!

Requests are open!

Series masterlist

Noel Noa

-you were quite excited when you heard Noa would be your coach for a while

-and to your surprise, he was very impressed with your skill, so one day after training he asks you to stay longer to talk to you

-he didn't intend it to go like this, but your conversation ends up going a little deeper and you reveal stuff about your home life to him and let's just say Noa,,,, some sort of fatherly instinct kicks in very quickly

-he already acts a bit like a father figure to the entire team during training, but man, hearing about your home situation just makes him feel more fatherly about you

-after talking to you, he can't stop thinking about that conversation. He has a hard time falling asleep that night

-after that, he starts treating you as if you were his own child. He always asks if you ate enough that day, and in case you didn't, he's already prepared because guess what? He got some food for you

-during training, he treats you exactly like the rest of the team. But before practice, during breaks and after training? He's so fatherly towards you, some of your teammates started asking if you're related

-at first, it's a bit confusing for you, but you quickly start seeing him as more of a father figure as well

-when your usual coach recovers and returns, Noa stays in contact with you. He knows the times when you're at practice, so whenever he has the time, he will stop by to ask how you're doing

-if it rains, he will INSIST on driving you home. In no circumstance will he let you walk home/to the bus or train stop in the rain. He'd be way too worried about you getting sick

-also, he gave you his phone number and made it very clear that no matter for what, you can call him at any time

Chris Prince

-he's super excited when he gets to be your team's coach and wants to get to know every member, so during your first practice with him he lets the entire team play minigames and takes aside one player to talk to them a bit

-you're the last one to talk to him, and you actually talk so much, practice is already over but you stay because talking to him is so much fun and it's the most comfortable you've felt in a while

-but the lighthearted tone of the conversation changes immediately when you mention your home situation. You stay in your lighthearted tone because honestly, you're not that concerned about it. You're doing well, considering your circumstances. But Chris changes to a more serious tone, while you attempt to keep everything lighthearted

-and because of this, Chris gets so fatherly towards you. Like Noa, he doesn't treat you any differently from the rest of your team during training, but whenever he gets the chance to talk to you, you just notice he acts like a father would

-he's upset when he finds out your usual coach has recovered so he soon wouldn't be your coach anymore

-even when he's not your coach anymore, he comes to almost every single match of your team. And whenever you're not on the field, he will passive-aggressively ask your coach why he benched you. No matter what the answer is, he will insist that you should be playing because he genuinely thinks you're one of the best players in your team

-you have each other's phone numbers, so every now and then he texts you and asks how your day or week has been, if everything is okay at home and if you need his help with anything

Lavinho

-he's literally a huge bundle of joy when he's asked to temporarily be the coach of your team

-always joking and messing around with you and your teammates

-one day, when he walks past your team's locker room, he overhears you venting about something from your home life. He knows he shouldn't, but he stays to listen for a minute or two

-and then the realisation hits him. He notices how neither of your parents ever came to drive you to training, pick you up after it, or even watch your matches. No one ever came.

-he waits at the exit for you to leave the building, and when you do he asks to talk to you

-you're so nervous. You've never seen Lavinho as serious as this, so automatically you think you've done something wrong or you're gonna be benched for the next match

-but to your surprise, he admits he heard you venting to your teammates. He apologises for listening and explains he's concerned about you

-he tells you how it's okay if you don't want to tell him more than what he's heard already, but he really wants you to know that because he's your coach for the time being, he'll also be a safe person to talk to about anything

-you really appreciate his concern and offer, but you plan to keep your home life away from your soccer life as much as possible

-well, at first you do. As time passes on, you find yourself asking Lavinho to talk after practices more and more often

-he very soon becomes a father figure to you, and he treats you as if you were his child

-also stays in contact with you after your usual coach returns, he really tries to come to every match you play in and cheers for you the loudest

-he probably gets happy tears in his eyes every time you score a goal

#BLUE LOCK FATHER HEADCANONS YEAAHHH #man I love them sm #blue lock #blue lock headcanons #blue lock x you #blue lock x reader #bllk #bllk headcanons #bllk x reader #bllk x you #chris prince #chris prince headcanons #noel noa #chris prince x you #chris prince x reader #noel noa x you #noel noa x reader #blue lock noel noa #blue lock lavinho #lavinho #lavinho x reader #lavinho x you

[walrus150915]

Nimona headcanons part 3 bc I'm insane (out of order and disorganized so like- be ready) and bc it's my new year gift for y'all

• Nimona mostly talks like a normal teen but sometimes she'd use words that show her real age. "Sonorous", "vapidity" n stuff like that. Her vocabulary is INSANELY huge

• Ambrosius tries not to swear so he uses a lot of silly replacements instead. "HOLY S- golly!!", "You son of a b- bishop". Like I'm sorry but he's the type of guy to say fricking instead of, yknow, the intended word. Ballister finds it endearing; Nimona finds it stupid

• Yes yes he does replace sex with lovemaking. Yes he purely refers to him and Bal going at it as "making love". Yes he's a fellow like that

• Ballister doesn't drink alcohol. I know that's implied in the movie that he drinks (although I thought he drank, like, soda?? On the other hand he is a wholeass thirty years old man who's seen some shit so I wouldn't be surprised) but idk he strikes me as a type to refuse drinking out of moral code. He doesn't eat pork for the same reasons (pushing my cultural Muslim Ballister agenda)

• Ambrosius drinks only during celebrations or parties. Not much because he's a light drinker😭 one cup and he's already lying on the floor, crying and hyperanalyzing his life

• after Nimona came back Ambrosius was not safe from her jokes. Neither of them despised each other (not after Nimona saved the whole Kingdom and not after Ambrosius proved he really isn't a jerk) but boy does Nimona make fun of him on any given occasion. Ambrosius was taken aback by this at first but then he just got used to it

• Ambrosius is being kinda petty and jealous when Ballister spends more time with Nimona than him ("Although now apparently he's got a new best friend, what's that about?!"), not in a way that'd make it unhealthy ofc but still😭. Him and Ballister were tied to the hip for like the most of their lives and now there's someone ELSE Ballister likes to hang out with? Ugh🙄

• Ambrosius had a diary when he was a teen, he didn't write much there (one or two sentences a day). Once he became an adult he kind of forgot about it but after the whole... Hunting stuff started happening he found himself writing a ton of sentences there again

• when him and Bal started dating Ambrosius had a whole page in that diary filled with "Ambrosius Boldheart" HE'S A GUY LIKE THAT OKAY

• Ambrosius likes to attack Ballister's face with quick little kisses. If he pecked his forehead he must peck his cheeks and nose and eyelids and cheekbones etc etc

• Nimona sometimes speaks in rhymes. She doesn't know how she's doing it but her tongue just does it on its own. ("Let's go dunk on the punk in the trunk")

• Ballister has actually been a year older than everyone in his class, another reason why he was the black sheep™

• Ambrosius can play the flute and the piano due to his noble upbringing he HATES whenever someone brings it up tho

• Nimona and Ballister have those nights where they recall historical facts and situations and Nimona shows her perspective of the things. "The guy claimed to be a war criminal was the biggest sweetheart in the world what are you onnn". Ballister wrecks his brain trying to understand if she's serious or not

• Ballister doesn't get a lot of the jokes, they just fly over his head. Only after some time he starts getting them, like in the middle of the night randomly going "ohhhh that's what she meant"

• first time Ambrosius and Ballister made out Ambrosius threw his hands in the air and said "yayy :D"

• Ballister's haircare routine is better than you think it is he's just casual about it. Yes he uses coconut oil like his life depends on it

• Ambrosius's complexion is leaner but Bal's is broader. So when they exchange clothes it doesn't fit because Bal's shirts are too loose on Ambrosius but also kinda short and Ambrosius's are kinda long but too tight in the shoulders for Bal. They still think it's sweet to swap their clothes sometimes

#this one is kinda short #but still #nimona #ambrosius goldenloin #ballister boldheart #goldenheart #nimona headcanons

[jooniperbonsai]

Thanks For The Sub (ksj) | Chapter One

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

Rating: 18+

Chapter One length: 11-14k 18,371 (OOPS LOL)

Release date: Fri. January 19, 2024.

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

Summary: After a clip of you sucking at video games goes viral, you've become somewhat famous, with thousands of subscribers now tuning in each week to see you play. Overnight, you've gone from a sexually frustrated grad student who reads smut in her room to a gamer girl (or rather, a not-gamer girl). This would have been the perfect job, except it was never the job you wanted. Desperate for money to pay for grad school, you bounce between your new gig and working at a local restaurant to pay the bills, where your hot coworker-now-boss Seokjin plays many of the lead roles in your sexual fantasies.

Seokjin, two years post losing his fiancé and job within the same day, is tired of the rut he's dug himself into and wants to start over. Now 30 years old, he's stuck managing his family's restaurant where he harbors an insanely inappropriate crush on you on top of carrying one hell of a secret: Seokjin is also known as Jin, a successful gay-for-pay camboy on the streaming site Worldwide Handsome.

When the stress of the upcoming semester and the pressure to stream becomes more than you can handle, you seek out some much-needed stress relief online, only to discover a man who looks a little too much like your boss is staring right back at you.

Warnings for Chapter One: Swearing, cheating (not between main characters), big age gap between lesser characters that can be uncomfy, sex work, gay sex work when the worker is actually not gay (but everyone is chill about it), <- allusions to queer fetishization bc of this, feelings of shame and guilt, feelings of failure/depression, improper restaurant safety procedures, the existential crisis of your late-20s/30s that we all seem to go through, off-handed references to kpop culture including fanfics because I'm a clown and need to call us out sometimes, silly literary tropes, references to pregnancy (NOT reeader), boss-employee power dynamics, allusions to queer BTS members or relationships, cameos of au Seventeen Members (Wonwoo and y/n are besties). NSFW sex stuff: big dick Seokjin (of course), Seokjin with rolled shirt sleeves and cutting things in a kitchen, Daddy Dom Seokjin makes himself known, blindfolds, camming (obviously), f/m masturbation, lots of dirty talk, sex toys, degradation kink, praise kink, sexual fantasies at the worst moment, kink exploration, a lot cum (sorry), I mention the omegaverse as a joke, a sparkly pink dildo, seokjin has a massive collection of toys and he intends to use them, seokjin and reader are constantly horny, reader is kind of inexperienced, implied exhibitionism kink, implied voyeurism, implied public sex.

a/n: it's here (and longer than I intended but oh well!) this fic is inspired by a combination of fics from the lovely writing community on here, the copious amounts of smut I read, a dabble of my friends or my own experience, & the high drama of kdramas. I felt really compelled to write this fic after rereading "tip 143 (for ∞ seconds of love)" by minilouvre on ao3. I feel like the camboy/person trope is so fun to explore and I wanted to try my own take on it with our Seokjin, who doesn't seem to get as many fics written about him but absolutely deserves it. I also wanted to create space for a fic that explores the weird transition of late 20s-30s that both BTS and I (and maybe many of you) have experienced in the last few years. I hope you enjoy! I keep my inbox open, so lmk your thoughts!

xo - h

That’s it baby cum for me. 

Such a good little slut for Daddy.

Wish that dildo was my cock. 

Fuck this is so hot.

The tip jar was going wild. The mute button tapped long ago, tonight was by far the most successful night camming Seokjin had ever had. He would definitely be able to afford that new gaming PC after this. 

Thank god. After three hours streaming, he was getting tired of riding the glittery pink dildo. It was cute–a Christmas gift from one of his loyal subscribers– but admittedly, he hadn’t prepped well enough before putting it in an hour ago, and when he let out a pained groan as he sank down on it, he immediately knew he would be feeling it tomorrow, and maybe the next day. 

His only consolation was the five new top-tier subscriptions he’d received while experiencing searing hot pain. He’d clearly appealed to someone’s kink. Well, there was always something for everyone. 

Seokjin knew this well. Today was his two-year anniversary since his first livestream on Worldwide Handsome, an international gay live cam site. During those two years he had seen just about every kink requested, from wax play to autoerotic asphyxiation to something called the omegaverse; he’d sifted through the internet and researched enough on each request to decide which ones he’d be willing to perform, and which kinks were too much outside of his comfort zone. 

Now, with an apartment full of gifted costumes and drawers full of just about every type of sex toy known to the human population (and perhaps even some aliens if those toys held any accuracy), it was obvious that Seokjin was a knowledgeable and successful camboy who could fulfill so many men’s fantasies.

Except for the fact that Seokjin wasn’t actually gay. 

Which is, as it turns out, also something people are into. 

Two Years Ago

It wasn’t that Seokjin ever intended to be a gay sex cam worker, much less a camboy at all, but two years, four months, three weeks, and twelve hours ago, Seokjin hopped on a plane after finishing a week-long conference in Los Angeles. He’d booked the first flight out, eager to come home to his fiancé. 

During the week, he hadn’t heard much from her. He understood, of course. She’d mentioned before he left that during that week she would be busy catching up on work and finalizing a really important project with a looming deadline. She’d been stressed about it the morning he left, practically shoving him out the door with his suitcase. 

But he missed her desperately, especially with the distance between them, and he was hoping he could regain some of that intimacy by trying phone sex. They’d been having less sex recently, probably from the stress of work, but he still craved her every single day, just like he did when they were in college. 

For most of his and Soon Yi’s relationship, they were insatiable. In college, they were known for being embarrassingly public in their displays of affection, with Yoongi once catching them in the kitchen at a party with Soon Yi’s hand down Seokjin’s pants and Seokjin’s hands up Soon Yi’s shirt. At first, Seokjin wondered if he always felt so horny because of his raging hormones and the fact that Soon Yi was the first person he’d had sex with. But even three years later, on the night he’d proposed, they had to leave the restaurant he rented out so they could have sex in the car. 

Soon Yi was charming. She matched Seokjin’s wit, always ready to keep up with a joke and take it to the next level. She fit in effortlessly with his group of friends, remembering their birthdays and always showing up with a tiny treat for them, even if they hated celebrating. His parents adored her the moment they met her. She was frequently fawned over when she visited his work to bring him lunch or to just stop by and say hello. 

When his boss, Mr. Choi met her during the company’s annual gala, he told Seokjin she was enchanting, she was the moon that lit up the evening sky. Mr. Choi was also incredibly drunk when he said this, but he wasn’t wrong. 

Soon Yi glowed through Seokjin’s darkest nights like the moon. 

That’s why when she denied every video call request he made during his trip, Seokjin knew something was wrong. He felt desperate and needy, something he’d never experienced during their relationship. 

As he laid in his hotel bed, touching himself to their memories, a strange need overtook him: he wanted to remind her that despite all the work stress, they always got through everything together and ultimately, being intimate might help with reconnection. 

So at the end of his boring conference, he flew back, planning on surprising her when she got home with a delicious meal and sexy massage. Maybe he’d even use those silly novelty heart-shaped handcuffs Jungkook got him as a gag gift. 

He was ready to rekindle his love for the moon. 

What Seokjin wasn’t ready for was the fact that when he walked through the door of his house, the only moon he saw was that of Mr. Choi’s naked ass as he thrust into Soon Yi on the dining room table. 

As it became immediately apparent, Soon Yi’s “work project” was clearly what was playing out before him as he watched the only woman he’d ever been in love with writhe in ecstasy underneath his much older work superior. 

It would have been one thing to lose his fiancé, but in witnessing this entanglement, Seokjin also knew he’d lost his job. Due to the blur of his memory, his brain trying to erase what he’d seen, he wasn’t entirely sure when they realized he was home. However, by the time he had grabbed another duffel with some fresh, non work-related clothes from his dresser–after he breezed past his unmade bed that probably didn’t smell like him anymore–Soon Yi and Mr. Choi were half dressed and sheepishly waiting for him near the entry.

Seokjin couldn’t bring himself to look either of them in the eyes as he stated his resignation letter would be on Mr. Choi’s desk the following morning. 

When he arrived at Jimin and Jungkook’s apartment to crash, that’s when reality set in. What would he do now? He had no house to live in, no job to make money from, and he just lost the love of his life. 

His head was splitting from the idea of car payments, a mortgage under his name for a place he wouldn’t be living in, having to tell his parents, calling the wedding venue and paying that awful cancellation fee on top of not getting his deposit back. The extra zeros in his bank account were depleting fast and it wasn’t like he would be able to sleep on Jimin and Jungkook’s couch forever. 

After two weeks of dodging family phone calls, desperately applying to every job that didn’t sound like a scam, waking up in the middle of the night from the lumpiness of the couch or Jungkook’s horrible snoring, Seokjin felt like he was out of options. 

“I’m going to call my parents and tell them. Maybe I can work at the restaurant for the time being while I wait for callbacks. I have some money in my savings for my own apartment. I just can’t keep doing this,” he said. 

“Hyung, are you sure? You know that we don’t mind you being here as long as you need. Really, it’s not an issue.” Jimin was gentle as always, the concern on his face knitting his eyebrows together. 

But Seokjin knew he was avoiding the inevitable, so when he nodded and then called his parents, their warm voices on the other end felt like a sign he’d made the right decision after all.  

The next week, Seokjin began working at his family’s restaurant, filling in for shifts that were short, typically in the kitchen. Chopping and prepping the food for the chefs, dish washing, and anything that kept his hands busy were welcome distractions from the painful reminder of what awaited him outside of the restaurant. 

Soon Yi was pregnant. Seokjin found out one day when he stopped by to grab a load of his things to bring to his new apartment. While both he and Soon Yi agreed to sell the house, it appeared she was taking longer than him to pack. He figured this was because she would be moving in with Mr. Choi, who lived in the penthouse of a luxury apartment complex downtown. 

During their meeting with the real estate agent, Soon Yi had scribbled her new contact information and mailing address onto some forms with Mr. Choi’s details. Wealthy people always operated on their own timeline, one where they could hire a moving company to have everything neatly packed and stored within hours. 

Seokjin, however, was limited to an ongoing loop of back and forth where he crammed his car full of silverware, lamps, and his MapleStory figure collection Soon Yi once mocked him for collecting. As Seokjin continued to pack away his belongings, he saw it. In the guest bathroom outside of the kitchen, there were two positive pregnancy tests in the garbage can. 

Soon Yi was pregnant and the father wasn’t him. The last time they’d had sex was three months ago. She would have known by now if that were the case. 

A wave of nausea rushed over him, and somewhere between bouts of gagging and wiping tears from his eyes, Seokjin realized that things were truly over. 

Two months passed, and still he couldn’t find a job. While the restaurant gig was taking care of some of his bills, it was only a matter of time before Seokjin would be unable to take care of himself. At 28 years old, he’d have to move back in with his parents, which was next to impossible in terms of space, not to mention the fact that his brother and wife were living with them while their apartment was being renovated to better accommodate a life transition of their own: they were expecting their first child.  

Given his semi-recent discovery, being around a pregnant woman was something Seokjin didn’t particularly want a reminder of. 

“I don’t know what to do. Something has to give,” he said one day as he sat in Yoongi’s living room. A thick coat of snow was covering the earth outside, though from the sweat running down the back of Seokjin’s neck, you would never be able to tell. Yoongi always kept his home at the exact opposite of the climate outside, trying to quell the possibility he would have to experience any physical discomfort if he dared to ever leave his house, which he rarely did.

His friends all sat around him, quietly sipping their whisky or beer while the flashing light from the TV casted a kaleidoscope of colors across the coffee table. Hoseok nudged Taehyung, who’d fallen asleep at some point between the long pauses in conversation. Seokjin couldn’t blame him. 

It was late, much later than the invitation Yoongi extended typically lasted, but this meetup was different. Everyone had always known Seokjin to be optimistic. From a goofy dad-joke-making 18 year old until now, he’d consistently been a source of light. When Taehyung’s grandmother died a few years back, it was Seokjin who made him first smile again with a spot-on impression of his own halmoni as they slurped bowls of naengmyeon.

His hair was shaggy and unkempt, his smile fading quickly from his face after cracking a joke. His jokes were also darker, less silly and eye-rolling and more self-deprecating and sarcastic. It was like his life was draining from him before their eyes, and it was becoming nearly impossible to stomach. 

But concern doesn’t always lead to action, which is why they were sitting around in Yoongi’s living room hoping the whisky would give them some inspiration to find a solution to Seokjin’s problem that he wouldn’t immediately turn down. They’d scoured job sites together earlier, and anything in Seokjin’s former profession only led to him suggesting his next boss better be a woman or else he might have to keep his future girlfriend away from corporate events or dining tables. Other careers in his field were met with similar disdain. 

Seokjin wasn’t always this way. In college, he didn’t know what kind of job he wanted or where he wanted to end up, so he majored in acting, hoping that it would lead him where he would eventually develop some sense of passion. 

In a sense it did. During an internship with an entertainment company shortly after he graduated, his attention to detail, natural charisma, and flexibility showcased a skillset he didn’t even know he had, which resulted in him being offered a position in their corporate headquarters the following fall. He’d been there ever since. 

But Seokjin didn’t want to return to the same life he’d had. So much of his life up to this point had been the same, and it clearly didn’t work out for him, so why continue on? The only issue was that he once again felt like he was 18, trying to decide on a path to follow when he didn’t even know who he was anymore. Nothing was appealing to him. 

“What about video game streaming?” Namjoon suggested. “You love games, and you have all the equipment. You used to talk about doing that all the time.” 

“Yeah, hyung. You’re also really good at talking and stuff, so it would be fun to watch you do it!” Taehyung perked up at this suggestion, shaking off his sleepiness to contribute to the conversation. “I’ve seen how much streamers make with all their sponsorships and stuff, they don’t even have to work another job!”

The energy in the room picked up slightly as they waited expectantly for an answer. 

Seokjin grunted. “Okay, look. I would love to do that. That’s my dream job. But you’re forgetting something important. Those streamers didn’t just jump on the internet one day and then got thousands of subscribers and sponsorships to pay their bills overnight. Some of them took years to build up their following before they even started making money off of it. A lot of people actually lose money from game streaming. And I need money now. I don’t have that kind of time!”

Taehyung deflated, settling himself back into the couch next to Hoseok, who gave him a tender pat on his thigh. 

“But what if…what if you did a kind of streaming that made you money pretty much right away?” Jungkook offered quietly. 

Seokjin glanced over at his youngest friend, who was holding his empty whisky glass in his hands instead of looking at him. 

“What do you mean? Is there some kind of gaming livestream service that does that?” Now Seojkin was curious. 

“Um, well, not for gaming, exactly. I was just thinking. Um, you could always do like an OnlyFans or something? I have a friend who does it and she sometimes makes $1000 a night. And that would take care of–”

“You mean being a camboy? Jungkook, seriously? Listen I know we’ve all had a bit to drink, but that’s a ridiculous idea.” Seokjin snorted. “Besides, the market is flooded with people doing their own sex work. Maybe your friend is just really pretty or something to make that much from it, but I highly doubt I would make any money off OnlyFans because no one would even see me!” 

Jungkook nursed his bottom lip between his teeth as he was dismissed, his body mirroring Taehyung as he fell back into the couch cushions. 

“Hyung is right,” Jimin added finally, having spent most of the night settled quietly next to an even quieter Yoongi. “He wouldn’t make much money on OnlyFans. All the men on there are either ugly or buff, and Seokjin-hyung looks way too gay to appeal to that market.” 

Yoongi, who was sipping his whisky as Jimin spoke, spluttered into the glass as he lost his composure, falling into a fit of laughter. From the other side of the room, Hoseok joined in, clapping and gasping for air between laughs.

“Excuse me? What the hell does that even mean? Yah, stop laughing! It’s not funny!” Seokjin fought the smile that was trying to form on his lips. Okay, it was a little funny.

“Well, hyung, isn’t it obvious? Remember that one time we went to a gay bar and all those guys I tried to pick up tried to pick you up instead?” Jimin sighed as he glanced at Seokjin before reaching across the coffee table to grab a handful of cheese balls. 

“We’ve been over this. They weren’t trying to pick me up. They just told me I was really handsome and had fuckable lips. And they’re not wrong!” 

“Wait when did you guys go to a gay bar? Where was I?” Yoongi cleared his throat, finally recovering from his laughing fit. 

“You didn’t want to come, remember? I don’t know why you’re asking this, you never want to go anywhere. Anyway that’s besides the point. Seokjin-hyung and I went to the gay bar and he stole all of the guys I was hitting on because they wanted to make him their baby girl!”

Hoseok wiped a tear from his eye and chuckled. “Yeah, no, hyung I’m sorry but if Jimin is being passed up at a gay bar for you, you clearly give off that vibe. I can see it. You look all soft and plushy and like you would be the perfect bottom.” 

Seokjin tried to fight off the heat that was creeping up his neck into his ears, but after a few glasses of whisky, and the ungodly temperature of the room,  it was a failed mission to avoid being flushed.

Jimin shot a glare at Hoseok, who shrugged. “What? I meant it as a compliment!” 

“Well, thanks I guess. Now I know I look like I’m gay. That doesn’t seem to solve my problem here!” Seokjin looked over at Namjoon for backup, but all Namjoon seemed to be able to do was give him an apologetic smile.

 “No, I know, I know. We got off topic.” Jimin said, “Sort of. Listen, like I said before you wouldn’t be successful on OnlyFans, just because of what they market. But you could always market yourself differently. And I’m thinking, if you really need to make money fast, you could always work with what you’ve got going for you.”

The entire room went silent. 

“Wait,” Namjoon said, “you don’t mean…” His eyes flitted to Seokjin and widened in alarm. 

Slowly, everyone shifted as they realized what Jimin was suggesting, Seokjin evidently being the last one. 

How was he supposed to work with what he had when what he had was apparently drawing a different crowd of people from the one he was interested in? What did Jimin mean by marketing himself differently? Was he supposed to just stream on websites that were exclusively for gay men? 

Oh. That’s exactly what Jimin was saying. 

“Wh-Jimin what the fuck? You mean I should be a gay camboy? I know we just talked about me being attractive to men, but I’m not interested in them that way!”

Jimin huffed. “Well obviously I know you’re not gay. Otherwise we might not be in this situation.” 

Seokjin winced. 

“Sorry, that was unfair. It’s just…hyung, you’ve been so not like yourself lately. And you’re right, something needs to change. I know you’re not gay, but this still could help. Haven’t you heard of gay for pay? Like in porn and stuff a bunch of straight actors will fuck each other or some gay guy because it pays more than straight porn. It’s the same thing.”

“Only you don’t have to actually fuck anyone. Maybe you should remind him of that,” Yoongi added. 

“Right, exactly! Look, you don’t have to do it. But it could help you get by and pay bills in the meantime until you find something else that you want to do. And there’s a lot of sites where you can stream even once and get a direct payout the next day. It might be worth a shot.”

Seokjin thought about it for a moment. It didn’t sound completely awful. From what he’d seen from the times he saw cam sites out of curiosity, most of what happened was masturbating and talking to people. And he didn’t hate people. But something about it made him nervous. 

“I don’t know if I’d be okay with being watched. That seems embarrassing.” 

“Oh please, the number of times you and Soon Yi fucked basically in public is astronomical. You’re practically an exhibitionist,” Hoseok teased. 

“That was different! I was with her! Now it would be everyone watching just me up close and personal. Namjoon-ah, talk some sense into them. This is crazy, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know if it actually is, hyung,” Namjoon said lightly. “Jimin-ah and Hobi have made some good points. And I think…I think if you weren’t even just a little bit curious you would have immediately said no instead of going back and forth with them over it like how you flat out said no to the other stuff. Maybe you’re feeling a bit shy because it’s been a little while and you are trying to heal through the breakup and stuff, but you also don’t have to do it or you can do it once and change your mind after if you want. 

“It just doesn’t seem to me like this is the worst option for you. You get to talk to people, you can maybe have fun. You don’t see the people on the other side anyway, so if you wanted to pretend they were girls instead of guys you could, or turn off the comments probably? It’s not real sex though. And even if it was, is that so wrong? It’s not like you would be cheating on Soon Yi for doing this. I mean-”

“Thanks Hyung! I think we get it!” Jimin interjected, raising his eyebrows at Namjoon as if to say shut the fuck up. 

Seokjin felt his stomach sink. Is this why he was panicked at the thought? It wasn’t real sex, but it almost felt like he would be doing something wrong by doing this. Not morally against himself, but someone else. Maybe he was still hanging on to Soon Yi in ways he didn’t fully realize. 

He felt almost like a heavy weight was pressing on his chest and forbidding him from moving on. What would happen then if he tried doing this for himself? Would the weight still feel the same? He wanted to know. 

“Ah, fine, I’ll think about it.” He looked over at Yoongi, who looked relieved that the conversation was nearing its end. “You have anything to add to this? A final voice of reason?” 

Yoongi snorted as he jumped up to stretch. “Nah. Except, as your former roommate, ‘Seok’s got a point about the exhibitionism thing. You were way too into showing me your dick all the time and walking around naked when we roomed together.” 

The room erupted into laughter, Seokjin himself joining. This time his smile didn’t immediately fall from his face. 

Slowly, everyone else stood, bodies unwinding from furniture and each other. While Jimin ordered Jungkook and himself a taxi, Seokjin waited with him. 

“My only issue is, how do I pretend to be gay? Won’t they know I’m not?” 

Jimin scoffed as he nudged a sleepy and tipsy Jungkook into his shoes. “I don’t know hyung. You have an acting degree. Use it.”

A few weeks later, Seokjin held his first stream, nervously engaging with the handful of viewers trickling in and tried to deflect the discomfort he felt in his new spotlight.

“Um, hi everyone. My name’s Jin. Thanks for coming. You can probably tell, but this is my first time and I’m really nervous. I hope you enjoy the show.” 

Seokjin decided to shorten his name for his streams to help him feel like he was embodying a different persona, someone named Jin who may actually be gay. It wasn’t a big change, but it was nice to give himself some separation from Seokjin, the guy who was doing gay for pay to afford a new life.

Unfortunately, Jimin’s suggestion for Seokjin to act wasn’t as easy to implement as he’d hoped. Within the first half hour, viewers of his stream had noticed he was still nervous, and started asking him questions to get him to unwind, and hopefully undress. 

“Ah, yeah, uh, anal. I’ve done it once or twice, it’s nice.” It wasn’t a lie, he’d tried anal a few times with Soon Yi and did find it nice, but he also knew that this wasn’t what the question was asking. 

“Do I have a boyfriend? No, I’m single.” 

Slowly he began undressing, the heat of his half-truths causing him to feel like he was burning up. 

“Are you really gay? Well, what kind of question is that? I’m here aren’t I?” 

That question seemed to satisfy his audience for another half hour, until a new thread of people trickled in, asking him the same questions. He was running out of ways to answer.

I don’t care if you’re straight. You’re still hot. 

When he read this comment, he exhaled deeply. And from that one reaction, a flurry of others joined in. 

Yeah, idc either. You’re still so pretty. 

So hot if u were straight. Maybe I’d convert u. ;)

I’d let you put it into my ass and let you pretend it was a pussy.

For some reason, these comments began to fuel him. The attention was kind of nice. It reminded him of how he used to feel. 

Maybe he didn’t need to act gay to get what he wanted. Maybe he could just enjoy the pleasure of the compliments and company and see what happened from there? The weight he had been carrying around in his chest was feeling a bit lighter, and the comments were helping distract him from the pinches of guilt that he was doing something wrong. Because he wasn’t. 

Here, he was Jin, a sexy, flirty guy who could shine in the sky of his own making. 

Jin, the moon. 

That’s it. He was the moon.

Present

“That’s it, give it to me. Please, I’m gonna cum.” Seokjin hoped the words he moaned at his camera were true. He was so tired, and he wanted to be free from the stupid dildo.  

Lately, Seojkin has been having a hard time cumming on stream. He wasn’t sure why. For so long it had never been an issue, but streaming had begun feeling less like a fun way to relieve stress and more like an actual job. 

Never before was he so popular with his stream, and while it’s nice to see a larger deposit being made into his bank account each week, every time he came home from the restaurant and knew he was scheduled to do a cam show, his stomach knotted up with dread. 

The last time he felt this feeling was a little over two years ago, when hopping on planes to fly to mundane conferences or sitting in board rooms for morning meetings consumed all his time. Even during the period he was jobless, there was a tiny part of him relishing the fact that the work-related dread was over. 

And it returned with a vengeance. Seokjin tried everything, ventured into new kinks and even the game features of the website with the hope that he would feel the rush he used to love from streaming. But nothing really worked. It was now just his job.

He didn’t even want to stream for so long tonight, but because it was his anniversary, he wanted to make sure he ended on a good note to thank his viewers. 

One thing Seokjin’s viewers loved was seeing him cum. It was the part of his stream when he always earned the most tips. Jimin had been right. 

If Seokjin knew anything now, it’s that he had many assets worth using to finance his life, and his pretty face coupled with his big dick seemed to work for him.

But even as he stroked himself, precum dripping down the head of his cock, and even though he was riding the dildo in a way that would hit his prostate and finally give him an easy out, he could feel the edge pulling away.

“Fuck,” he grunted. He was losing it. He doubled down, rocking his hips to see if hitting a different sweet spot would do the trick. But it was to no avail; his cock was softening.

On his nightstand, his phone pinged, which only could mean one thing. Seokjin always turned his do not disturb mode on during his work hours, only allowing phone calls from his family or one alert from an app to pierce through the silence. This one was the alert.

It meant Y/N was online and you had just started a live stream of your own. 

You were one of this month’s top gaming streamers, bringing in more viewers than Seokjin had ever received during his top months of streaming. You were popular not because you were good, but because you were the exact opposite.

You were awful at most games you played, jolting at jumpscares over and over, losing in first rounds of Fall Guys or Dead by Daylight. One time you jumped into a game of Fortnite and were eliminated by a potty-mouthed child the second you landed. Your jaw hung open as the tiny, high pitched voice called you a bitchass before falling into a fit of laughter that had Seokjin himself in tears. 

You were inspiring. Sexy. You received dozens of comments every stream about how pretty you were or how great your laugh was, which you often didn’t read out loud but always offered a humble nod and show of thanks when you did. There was something about you that hit up the world around you, and though he wouldn’t so much as utter it out loud, Seokjin had a massive crush on you.

But Seokjin was also sort-of-not-really your manager. Unlike all the people pining over you in your comment section wishing they knew you in real life, Seokjin actually did. He saw you three times a week at his family’s restaurant that he was strong-armed into managing while his parents took the opportunity to finally travel and see other parts of the world. 

Seokjin stayed, not because he needed the money. Not that his pay was all that much anyway. 

Camming was incredibly lucrative for him, cementing his income in a way that allowed him to pay rent in a very nice apartment downtown. Seokjin was also someone who had always been smart with his finances and knew how to invest in the best trends. 

When his house with Yoon Si finally sold (after four months of her taking her sweet time to gather her last belongings and sign off on him putting it on the market), Seokjin took his cut and applied it toward a better streaming setup and some lower level stocks…and a special edition MapleStory figurine to celebrate the new chapter in his life. 

Seokjin’s family never seemed to question how he was able to afford his fancy apartment given how much money he made at their business. Well, they did ask once, but Seokjin orchestrated some simple lie saying he worked in cryptocurrency, and that seemed to be enough of an explanation for his family. No one wants to know how crypto works, which in the end worked in his favor. 

He’d planned to leave the restaurant about 8 months ago, but then you showed up one day asking about a job. The restaurant was within walking distance to your university, where you were getting your master’s degree in early childhood education. While the program you were enrolled in had some funding, you’d told Seokjin’s mother you were a student and in need of work. The following Monday, Seokjin walked in and found you with an apron tied around your waist, your bright eyes and smile shining back at him. He couldn’t bring himself to leave after that. 

A few months after you’d started working there, Seokjin and you had become somewhat friends, sharing stories about past jobs (minus some key details on Seokjin’s part), student observations you had to do for school, and your interests. You mentioned casually you were a livestreamer for gaming, never alluding to how popular you actually were.

Eventually, Seokjin convinced you to give him your username, batting his eyelashes dramatically and promising he would be your cheerleader. For some reason, that seemed to work, and later that night, Seokjin tuned in to your stream, one man among the thousands. From that moment on he let his crush become a safe thing where, like his own viewers, he could fantasize from behind a screen. Maybe soon he would actually ask you out on a date, taking your coworker relationship and transforming it into something more.

And then a month ago his parents left, leaving him with the roles and responsibility of manager. Which meant he was an authority figure who could arguably do whatever he wanted. Similar to how his boss in a way was an authority figure who could get whatever he wanted. That idea turned Seokjin’s stomach sour. He could never do anything about this crush now, not while you worked underneath him. It was too familiar and distorted, and he never wanted you to be in the position he was once in. It was completely inappropriate.

But try telling his dick that.  

Two days ago, Seokjin witnessed you in the kitchen bending over to pick up onion peels that had fallen to the ground. You definitely weren’t aware, but your skirt had ridden up a bit while you were working, and that meant he could see a tiniest delicate trim of lace on your blush colored panties. 

And despite the fact that Seokjin was 30 years old and had believed he’d gotten past his boner-in-public-just-from-seeing-underwear era during his teen years, he was evidently wrong. Because those panties and soft looking curve of ass didn’t just belong to anyone; they belonged to you.

This wasn’t the only time he got hard for you at work. Sometimes on days when there were no customers, he would watch you study at one of the tables, where you were prone to stretching your body after long periods of staring down, trying to unknot the tense muscles caused by sitting almost completely still as you tried to comprehend what you were reading. 

During those stretches, you would often let out the most sexual moans and sighs as you felt relief and it was enough to have Seokjin tucking himself under his belt like a horny school boy. God, what he would do to hear you moan underneath him, because of him. 

He thought about recording you stretching. He was addicted to your voice, your soft sighs. It would be so easy to just “leave” his phone in the booth behind you. Then he could hear it forever while he imagined what else made you moan. Did you like your nipples sucked? Did you sigh when you were being stretched open and felt full? How did you taste? 

And then Seokjin pulled himself together and realized how sickeningly perverted he was to be thinking about you like this as he stood hard and aching in the middle of his parents’ fucking restaurant.

He wanted you. So much so that now as he worked his cock in his fist, he let himself fall more into fantasy, one where you were watching, curious about the many toys and gifts around his apartment, wondering how you could reach the limits of what you wanted and needed to make you scream. He imagined that across town, you weren’t firing up your computer for a night of cozy games, but rubbing your pussy at the same speed he was stroking himself, wet and begging for him to cum all over those gorgeous tits, that wet tongue–

Seokjin groaned as he came, his entire body trembling as a thick load erupted all over his hands, chin, and chest. Normally he could control the direction to minimize the mess but this orgasm caught him a bit off guard, almost completely lost until it crept up with a burning need and coated him. He hadn’t felt that good in a while. 

As he panted and focused his eyes back onto the screen, his comments were flooded with praise and tips, viewers exclaiming how this might have been his best orgasm they’ve ever seen, which was saying a lot considering some of his subscribers had been with him from the very beginning, and there had been some pretty fantastic orgasms. 

He wouldn’t deny it, though. He felt looser in his joints, calm washing over him and breaking apart the bitterness that was in his gut from how lackluster streaming had been recently. He wiped his chin with a grin and reached for the towel next to him, ready to wrap up his show. As he delivered his thank yous, one comment drifting through the chat stopped him dead in his tracks. His post-orgasmic high was crashing as panic flittered into his stomach. 

Did you guys hear him moaning a name as he came? Who the fuck is Y/N?

She had to leave. If the king couldn’t overcome his malice, she knew she couldn’t stay. No amount of love she had for his son was going to make him see that. She’d told him she loved him despite the scar that ran over his left eye and down his soft cheek. She vowed to be good enough to marry him, do whatever it took. Yet the king and queen had laughed at her, had their guard hold his foot on her back so she couldn't stand up from her deep bow. 

Laughed as they stood from their thrones to welcome the guest’s arrival: the consort for their son. The prince stood with them, silent as he followed them through the open doors. Quiet like how he used to be back in the first days of when she met him last summer. In memory, she couldn’t even fathom how he was anything like the man she’d grown to love. Yet, looking up from the pulp of the floor, she’d seen him return to that man. 

Hadn’t the days she’d spent walking those palace gardens with him been enough? They’d stood together under the plum blossom tree in the middle of winter and he’d promised that he would love her even while the buds were hibernating. 

“We can watch them become flowers together in the spring,” he’d said. 

He had taken her to his bed that night. Used his sensuous tongue to lap at her sweet nectar. He devoured her heart and soul. Climaxed with her and held her through the heavy snow.

Where was that man now? She didn’t know.

She waited until well after nightfall, when even the latest bird twitterings were silenced by the call of sleep. She knew she couldn’t bring much, but she managed to slip into the kitchen after dinner to pull together a few scraps for the road. Where would she even go? The nearest village was at least a two-day walk and if he sent his men for her, she knew word would spread before she’d even arrived. 

Unless he didn’t send anyone for her, she realized, her stomach dropping with nausea. He wouldn’t send anyone for her. She knew this. It’s why Prince August stood in the throne room, lethal as ever, even with no sword in his belt. August. Sugar. Whichever person he decided he was in the moment. Her nickname for him didn’t matter anymore. He wasn’t sweet. His desire for power showed the bitterness in his heart. He had given in to his parents’ wishes, despite the times he swore he would never give them the satisfaction.

He was cruel. But even worse, she believed he wouldn’t be. She was a fool.

It was the darkest part of the night when she left the servant’s quarters. She’d miss the ladies and all their kindness, but she knew she couldn’t serve August his breakfast in his bedchamber after this. After knowing that the sheets she once laid in with him were now being laid in by someone else. 

She took the back route, near the interior of the garden, ducking behind the ornamental shrubs and skirting past the watchpost the guards usually abandoned at this hour with ease. All that was left was to make it through the courtyard and she would be free. 

She padded her way along the path. A light breeze of the pre-dawn was catching, fluttering the branches of the newly blossoming trees around her and blowing petals in their wake. She caught one in her fingertips and fought a sob. Plum blossoms.

Should she take one with her? For the memory? So that she could always have a part of him with her? 

No, she decided. It would be too much to remember this. Once she passed through those gates, she would not be the same woman she was. Holding her breath, she let the petal go, hoping wherever the wind carried it, it would find the peace she too was looking for. It swept to the end of the courtyard, over the gate that was now her future. 

This was a sign, she mourned. Not all promises were meant to be kept.

With a final look at the place she’d learned to call home, the man she’d learned to call home, she opened the gate, ready to forge into the unknown. 

“Petal,” she thought she heard his call, his nickname for her. Though when she turned around, he was nowhere to be found. 

She must’ve imagined it, wished for the impossible. As she took steps through the gate, she looked out at the world around her, the plum petal a few feet in front of her. Maybe she would take a piece of him with her, after all. It was too tempting not to. 

She moved, trying to ignore the tug she felt back toward the palace, the invisible string of fate she thought that tied her to August trying to tangle her back in. She wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t go back. 

She bent down, clutching the petal tenderly in her palms and letting the first tears fall. 

“So that’s it, hm? After all that, you weren’t even going to wish me goodbye.” 

She rose swiftly, whipping around to the voice’s owner. 

There, leaning against the outer palace wall, was August. 

The alarm on your phone chimes, pulling you from the book in your lap. You’ve been reading all afternoon, the sun now taking its final bow before plunging the world into darkness. Soon you’ll have to turn the lights on, then it will be time for work. On your only day off. 

You groan, stretching your neck as you allow yourself to come back to reality. 

To some, it would be hard to call your job “work”. Many people dreamed of being professional game streamers. Who wouldn’t want to be paid to sit online, play games, and talk to people? 

You don’t. That’s the problem. 

Your ascent into gaming stardom was a fluke. About 9 months ago, you were in between semesters for your grad program and looking for ways to unwind. Your oldest friend, Wonwoo, was a pretty successful streamer who often hosted game nights to play with his viewers and friends. 

You frequently watched his streams, letting his soft voice be the perfect background noise as you studied and formulated the next lesson plan or behavioral assessment. You’d known Wonwoo for what felt like forever at this point, being his first subscriber, first moderator, and first kiss (not in that order). But your middle school kiss outside of the convenience store never led to anything more than that, as desperately as you’d wanted it to. 

Once he moved across the country, you let your crush die with the distance. The years turned faster and your twenties were spinning by with the revolving door of lovers you’d watch him pine over, cry over, and in one case, almost marry. Streaming then became one of your main forms of connection, and your role as his moderator tied some part of you to him out of loyalty. To imagine him as anything other than a friend now feels ridiculous. 

But that loyalty you have is also to a fault. When Wonwoo’s usual streaming friends bailed one night during a tournament, you subbed in…for a game you didn’t even know how to play. 

And to make matters worse, this was a game that required talking to each other on-stream, which meant you not only sucked major ass at this game, but Wonwoo’s 700 viewers that day were also subjected to your constant frustrated squeaks, swears, and embarrassed maws as you tried to key-smash your way to victory but ended up throwing the entire team’s game with your incompetence. 

Wonwoo wasn’t mad, though many others were. He knew what he was getting into when he agreed, and his streams operated with very few rules: no hate, no spam, and we are in this to have fun. And he did have fun. By the time the first round was over, he and most of the chat were losing it over your commentary. 

As he wiped tears from eyes and took in a breath, he read his comments. “‘Damn, I never heard a chick threaten someone with a plunger like that before’. Yeah, I’ll give it to you, Y/N, you got really creative with your insults in that. Hey, PartyShitty thanks for the sub! ‘I can’t BREATHE’, yeah I’m still trying to get it together. W00000000000000000ziiiiii–damn that’s a lot of zeros in that username–thanks for the 5000 points! ‘Is she hot’ uh, I mean, I don’t— 

“Oh shit, LetsGetIt15, thank you for gifting twenty subs! ‘Please, Y/N, start your own channel. I’ll be the first subscriber.’ Actually, no, I’ll be. But really, that's not a bad idea.”

Wonwoo navigated the rest of his stream with ease that night, but after it was over, he called you to try to convince you to start your own channel. 

“It could help with school at least! Or you could get that special edition of that one book you like with the dragons or the blue alien porn stars or whatever it is.”

“They’re neither of those things, they’re actually–”

“Whatever they are! The book that has people fucking nonstop and some plot. You know, the special edition cover that you keep talking about in your close friend story that you won’t buy?” Wonwoo said. “The point is, if you start streaming you could finally buy it and then stop talking about it and I won’t need to see sections about how hot you think their alien or fairytale or demon whatever cocks are.” 

You couldn’t help but laugh at his exasperation. “That won’t stop with me getting that book, just so you know. And if it bothers you so much, I can take you out of the close friend story. I didn’t even know you looked at my stories that much.” You didn’t know he still used Instagram at all actually. He very rarely posted. He mostly lived on his Discord channel talking about games with his subscribers or other friends.

Regardless, it was nice to know that he was trying to be aware of your interests, even if it was incredibly embarrassing. Although the copious amount of smut you read wasn’t something you always wanted to broadcast to the public, you’d still made some friends from online book communities over the last few years and enjoyed keeping them in the loop of your reading list.

Also, Wonwoo had a point. Streaming could help paying some of your school expenses…or get you more books. You told him you’d think about it, and while you weren’t completely in love with the idea of streaming, it did provide you with some steady income until you landed your job at the restaurant.  

After that conversation, you haven’t discussed smut or cocks since, and you’re honestly relieved, not because Wonwoo is hard to talk to about things, but because you are. Which is why streaming always feels a little uncomfortable and your position ironic, because you can barely have conversations successfully unless you really know the person to ramble about your interests to, or you can occasionally eke by with small talk. 

But streaming requires the spotlight being on you in some way at all times. It’s your face that is fixed to the corner of the screen, monitoring your every reaction. It’s your voice that echoes into the mic and responds to your chat. Sure, you have mods and some streamers don’t interact with their chat at all, but you don’t want to be like that. You’ve been on the other side before, and know that most people are just lonely and looking for connection. . 

From the moment you decided to do this, you were aware that because you were now a “gamer girl” you would be subjected to the three extremes of the comment section: chronic oversharers who tell strangers all their personal baggage perhaps in the hope that you will assume some role of therapist to them, people coming to insult your gaming (which is the point so that can’t impact you) or physical appearance, or sexually explicit comments. 

Over the months, you’ve seen many things flitting by on the screen, deleted in haste by your trusty mod squad, but it doesn’t stop the fact that you still see them. 

Those things you can handle. They are impersonal and a direct copy-paste of the same thing.

But when people compliment you? That makes you want to bury yourself under your covers and never come out. Because the compliments are always personal and touching a part of you that is authentic.

The people in your chat want to know you. They want to know what kind of music you like, your favorite foods and books. They ask if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend or partner, compliment your hair or the shirt you’re wearing or your gaming setup. It feels intimate. Almost like you could find these people and touch them and let them know you. 

But they can’t. Because the only thing that drew them to you, the part where you’re this funny, positive gamer chick who sucks at video games but is down for whatever, isn’t real. 

Spring Day Streams Y/N is a persona. You don’t stream because you’re her. You stream because you have to be her in order to survive.  

And now she’s taking up more time. Last month’s streams landed you Streamer of the Month, which thanks to the exposure, brought dozens of new subscribers and thousands of points, and that helped take care of some of your expenses for the new semester. Some. You’re still behind on your credit card bill. 

Also, more people means more expectations for streaming. So you’ve kicked up your streaming schedule from twice weekly to three times a week, with you occasionally hopping onto Wonwoo’s channel even if you aren’t streaming to mod. 

When you aren’t glued to your computer, you’re usually at the restaurant, in a cramped kitchen where you do the prep work, often alongside him, your sexy coworker-but-now-boss, Seokjin. 

The man you are quietly obsessed with. You can’t think about Kim Seokjin without thinking about all the positions you want him to fuck you in. 

Which is also why you’ve been devouring books lately. When you’re home, you throw all your energy into the escapism they provide, especially ones where you can get yourself off to whatever fantasy Seokjin effortlessly slips into. 

For every hot mob boss, corrupt CEO, longterm best friend, dragon-rider, fairy, demon, alien, ghost, or hockey playing love interest you can find, Seokjin is sure to fill the role. A hot merman looking for someone to help him grow legs and something else? Seokjin. A Grinch who inherits his family’s Christmas tree farm and discovers how much he loves to ho ho ho? Seokjin. A god who tears apart the underworld to find his lost lover, and then during the reunion fucks her on the throne of Satan while she wears the crown? All Seokjin. 

Unfortunately, his transition from co worker to boss has made your fantasies all the more dirty. 

It’s been incredibly difficult for you to handle the fact that any flirtation you two previously shared in the months before he was your boss can no longer continue. But it’s also incredibly hot.

Fantasies of him eating you out on the counter have been replaced with the fantasy of him shoving you in the back office and fucking you on the desk while wearing one of those perfect-fitting dress shirts he often parades around in. 

And when he rolls up the sleeves to help in the kitchen? Fuck, it’s humiliating how wet you get.

The entire thing is pathetic really. He’s just standing there half the time, lecturing everyone on proper kitchen hygiene and ensuring one of the cooks doesn’t use expired seasonings for his eomma’s secret sauce. 

And you’re standing next to him clenching your thighs together because when you’re this close, you can just make out the freshness of his cologne and feel the heat of his body close to yours. 

When someone fucks up, he has a tendency to take over, chopping with unmatched precision and self assurance, trying to keep his voice even and usually failing as everything builds in intensity until he’s accidentally speaking at a million miles an hour and lecturing until his face turns red. 

If someone were to pass by the shop, they’d probably mistake his shouting for anger, but you’ve come to understand Seokjin is just passionate about things. Usually when he comes down from his tangent, he’s embarrassed and apologizes, and not long after the entire staff is laughing along with him as he cracks a joke at himself for his inability to tone it down.

Which to you makes him even hotter. Seokjin is able to see his faults and work with them, not against them. He holds himself accountable. He’s nothing like the haughty men you’ve gone on brief dinners with after downloading dating apps for the hundredth time while you’re drunk. He’s actually funny, knowing the right way to use humor and tell jokes, never at someone else’s expense, and definitely without being disgustingly crude. 

All those clowns you suffered through drinks with always made comments and digs at other women or referenced their cock like they were setting up some goofy scene from porn and you would find it hilarious and endearing. 

Seokjin isn’t like that at all. He probably refers to his dick as a penis and would blush to high heavens if he knew how horny you are for him. He’s unwound you, and he has no clue. Maybe if it hadn’t been literal years since you’ve last had sex you could tone it down. 

With working all the time and going to school, it’s already been hard to even go on singular dates here and there. And since the prospects were frankly awful, sex is just something that has had to go onto the back burner for a bit, but you seemed to scorch the fucking pan by forgetting to turn the heat off and now you are burning and hungry. 

With a final sigh, you put the book down, annoyed that you didn’t have time to finish it today or at least get to a good part where you could insert yourself into the role of the palace servant and Seokjin as the Prince. Based on the reviews, there’s sure to be a hot sex scene coming up involving using a sword in a particular way that has piqued your curiosity. 

In a moment of depravity earlier, you’d snaked one hand down the front of your panties to rub a few damp fingers around your clit to take the edge off. 

You check the time on your phone, already aware that you don’t have time to cum before streaming. You already hit the snooze button twice. The spicy stuff will have to wait. 

Defeated, you stand up, turning on the lights in your apartment as the sun finally fades away and the dark creeps in. You eat a bowl of cereal while doing your makeup, what little of it you want to put on. Finally, you fire up your PC, trying to ignore the irritation you’re already experiencing from being so high strung and unsatisfied.

The second this stream is over, you’re going to make sure you cum until you pass out. Until then, it’s time for work.

“At what point am I supposed to become good at this again?” You ask Seokjin as you attempt (and fail) to julienne carrots. 

When you arrived at work at an ungodly hour this morning to prep for the weekend rush, Seokjin had already started the coffee. 

Your empty cup now idles next to your scrap pile of too-wide carrot blocks that’ll have to be pulverized by the blender and repurposed in another recipe. 

Seokjin chuckles as he buzzes about the kitchen, reaching tenderly around you to grab your mug for a refill. 

“That all depends on how much you practice.”

“So should I expect a large carton of carrots to be delivered to my home this evening with the instructions to have them julienned by Monday?” You tease, as you split another carrot down the center, half of it flinging off the prep counter and onto the floor. 

Seokjin smirks and bends down. He picks up the carrot and deposits it into the garbage bin. “Two cartons, actually. Given how many carrots we’ve lost already today, I need to make sure at least some of our inventory lands on the customer’s plate and not just into the trash.”

“How considerate of you,” you chide, and put down the knife, reaching out to accept your newly filled coffee mug. Seokjin’s hands are red from the constant washing and chopping of potatoes, which you recently learned he’s allergic to. 

As well as garlic, and you’ve already voluntarily peeled and minced that for the day. That much you can do without guidance, but anything besides your imprecise chopping is on the list of knife skills Seokjin wants you to improve upon. 

This is fair, given how dangerous your previous cutting methods have been. Once Seokjin saw the way you tried to stab at a watermelon, it was over. Now you often come in an hour and a half early before each shift to practice. 

And to also be alone with Seokjin before he is forced from the kitchen to deal with other duties. 

“Thank you,” you say, as you take the first warm sip and shiver. It’s freezing outside, and it’s only supposed to get worse. 

There’s snow forecasted for the weekend, which could mean one of two things: everyone stays home and avoids driving, or they all leave the house in one show of silent agreement and fill every nook and cranny of the restaurant to order bowls of sundubu jjigae or crisp and hot pajeon. 

Seokjin predicts that because a warm front is moving in afterward, people will utilize one of the only days of snow you’ll likely get this winter to gather together.

Valentine’s Day is soon, and the city has started to prepare. Storefronts have begun switching out new year sale signs for pink and red heart motifs, with spas and restaurants offering couple specials. The perfumeries have moved from campaigns advertising the perfect Christmas gift to ones of sexy, decadent colognes sure to transform a man into his inner beast. 

And then there’s the chocolate. It’s like the air in the neighborhood the restaurant resides in smells different, less greasy and grimy and more sweet. Everywhere you turn there’s pastries, cakes, bonbons, crepes, chocolate dipped nuts and other confections that just looking at makes your teeth sore. 

With the district washing itself in a pink glow, more and more couples have been braving the cold, landing in the restaurant after weighing themselves down with shopping bags. 

You’ve seen what’s in them, often tripping over or kicking at least one bag each shift while you attempt to bring an order to the table and spilling the contents. This year seems to be popular for matching couple outfits. You’ve seen a lot of pairs in their early twenties wearing or recently acquiring sweaters that have the same characters or color combinations. With the temperatures dipping into a bitter chill this week, some have elected to wear cute but inconvenient sets of mittens that allow them to hold hands as they stroll. 

When it snows in the city, the world gets quieter, cleaner. Even if people shuffle around in the bustle of novelty experiences, how they show their love, from brushing the snow off each other’s coats or taking kissing selfies in front of snow fallen trees, it always makes you feel a little softer, a little more at peace. 

Snow is really romantic.

“What?” Seokjin asks, which alerts you to the fact that you’ve been staring at him as you let your thoughts run, a dopey grin splattered across your face. 

“Oh, sorry, I was just thinking about how much I love the snow.” You break eye contact, feeling the heat of embarrassment flood your cheeks. 

“Ah, yeah. It’s supposed to start soon,” he looks at you thoughtfully before looking back down at the tofu blocks he’s draining. 

A silence falls on you, the once normal pause now becoming a bit awkward. 

“What do–”

“I just–”

You both stumble over each other, trying to fill the unnatural pause you’ve reached, which has you laughing and Seokjin cracking a wide grin. 

“What were you going to say?” he asks, and then motions for you to get back to your carrot desecrating. 

“Ah nothing. You were going to ask something?”

You slice a carrot, this time less match stick and more shaved. Damn. 

“Oh, um. I was going to ask you what you like about the snow. That thought kind of came from nowhere and I was trying to follow.” His voice is careful, as if he’s trying not to offend you. Is he nervous?

Your mouth draws into a thin line. Can you risk saying what you were just thinking? Is it inappropriate to talk about romance in front of your boss, who you’ve thought about kissing in the snow at least three times a day? You don’t want to make him uncomfortable. You’re aware of the ways in which Seokjin’s new position of authority weighs on him. 

While he’s always had more authority due to being the owners’ son, it isn’t like Seokjin walked around the place with a power complex before his promotion. You two had become something akin to friends in the months you’ve worked together, falling into occasional flirty banter as you shuffled around each other to mop floors or wash dishes. 

You know he used to work for a large company a few years ago but quit to help his family with their restaurant. You also know he loves MapleStory and is always showing you his newest splurge from their online shop or the latest piece to his collection. 

He doesn’t have any pets, but sometimes debates getting a dog and then when shown support, he dismisses it with boisterous laughter, talking about how he doesn’t have the time and if he ever wants to get a dog, he will have to buy a house. Usually once he lands on discussions of a house, he gets a little more quiet, perhaps a bit sad.  

He has an older brother who has one child and another on the way, a major reason for his parents’ decision to travel now, before the new baby arrives. His brother and brother’s wife have visited a few times while you were working, but Seokjin’s mother had mentioned that her son and his wife recently moved into a new house outside of the city, and with the new addition joining sometime in the spring, it can be a bit exhausting to pack up the car for a few hours of visiting time. 

While you haven’t experienced Seokjin as an uncle, you know how much he loves being one, excusing himself from the front of the shop to Facetime with his nephew from the back office, where you can hear his voice carry with high pitched impressions and jokes or random songs he babbles to the youngest Kim. 

Knowing him in this way feels a bit awkward now that he’s the one signing your paychecks. Since his transition, he’s been a bit more formal with you, you assume trying to be respectful and professional. 

You understand where he’s coming from, but you miss the past connection you two had formed. And that seems to dictate your response. 

“I like how romantic snow is. How it not only makes the lights twinkle more, but how people do cute things in it. Snowball fights, drinking hot chocolate, building snowmen. They change their behaviors for the snow. To celebrate love in it. Last time it snowed here, I saw one girl push her boyfriend into a snowbank.”

Seokjin laughs as he begins popping the tofu blocks into containers. “That sounds awful,” he says. 

Your heart plummets. “Oh,” you squeak. 

His head darts up to catch your expression and his eyes flash. “Oh, no no! Not like that. I mean, being pushed into the snowbank. That poor guy was probably soaking wet and freezing after that!” He waves his knife in his hand wildly with his gesture and then quickly deposits it into a sheath before stepping over to your workstation. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out that way.” 

You recover. “Oh he was. He also got his revenge by pulling her in with him. And she wasn’t even wearing a coat.”

You watch Seokjin’s tense shoulders relax. His broad frame is so close now, towering over you. He smells a little like the earthy starch of potatoes, but you like it. 

“I, uh,” he says, his voice becoming more raw. “I like the snow too. You’re right, it is romantic in a way. The snowflakes getting caught in your hair, you huddle closer to someone to share body heat, it’s nice.”

As if on cue, your bodies inch a little closer to each other. Seokjin reaches his arm forward, brushing along yours as he grasps one edge of the workstation to lean in. 

“Yeah,” you reply lamely. 

You blink up at him and he smiles back. You both sit there for a moment, neither of you moving, just studying the other’s expression. 

Then, he leans in.

Your breath catches, and his other arm lifts up above you on the other side, caging you to the workstation.

Your eyes close from the intensity. He’s so close that you feel the fabric of his rolled shirt sleeve graze against your cheek. 

All it would take is him leaning in and searing his lips onto yours and you would fold for him. You know this.  

This is what you often fantasize about, the two of you in this position. That’s the power he has over you, his smooth seduction, your willingness. 

If he asked you right now, you would strip down and bend over this workstation, let him fuck you with your nipples brushing against the cold steel of the counter, carrot shavings squishing against your face as he impales you with his cock. 

It would be so easy, he just needs to ask you. 

“Y/N,” he says, a bit more distant now, but you shudder at how roughly he says your name. 

“Mm?” you hum, forcing your eyes to reopen. Seokjin has pulled away from you. How long has he been just looking at you standing here with your eyes closed?  

“Turn around,” he says. 

Wait, what? 

You stare back at him blankly. Is he reading your mind? 

Seokjin rolls his eyes and laughs, holding up the package of dried seaweed that was above you on the shelf. He tosses it on the counter behind him.

“Are you still here or did I lose you? I said turn around.” You freeze, confused. 

He did all that to reach above you for some seaweed? Is he fucking with you? And what does he want you to turn around for? 

“Wha–”

You open your mouth to ask but Seokjin moves in, his hands on your wrists as he takes you and spins you around so you’re up against your workstation, his stomach resting on your back as you stand sandwiched against him and the cold counter. You clench your thighs, suddenly aware that you are wet. 

Fuck.  

“You need to focus,” he says low in your ear. You take a shaky breath. 

Focus. How are you supposed to focus when you imagined this exact scenario exactly one minute ago? 

“I, what?” Your words fail you as you stand there, stunned and aroused but also completely confused about what he wants from you. This entire situation is a mindfuck. 

Seokjin’s hands leave your wrists and make their way to your hands as he moves you like a puppet. 

“Y/N, were you even paying attention? We just went over this. God, I swear, I’ve told you. You need to be present in the kitchen space. You’re lucky I resheathed the knife for you while you were on another planet. You could have easily gotten hurt.” Seokjin scolds you overhead. 

Oh. You look to the right and see the kitchen knife you were using back in its protective shell and not where you left it, which, come to think of it, was incredibly close to where your hands were now on the counter under Seokjin’s. Yikes. 

“Sorry,” you mutter, feeling a prick of shame seeping through the fog. Seokjin isn’t trying to fuck you against the counter; he’s trying to make sure you don’t cut your finger off. 

He tuts above you, his grip still firm as he directs you to the uncut carrots and chopping board. 

“Tsk, honestly. You’re ridiculous. What am I going to do if my best girl is hospitalized after losing her hand because she’s too busy daydreaming about snow storms instead of having basic kitchen awareness? You know, I could send you home over this. Make you unable to come back until you rewatch those kitchen safety videos with the fake blood and awful actors. Seriously.” 

You shiver at his words. He’s so busy setting up for a rant, you almost miss it. 

“Your best girl?” You ask lightly. 

Seokjin stills, your joined hands hovering over the cutting board. “Oh, uh. You know what I mean. You’re the best….girl we have on staff. You know.”

You don’t. You’re far from the best girl on staff. Seha has a degree in culinary arts. She’s usually the one who has everything prepped days ahead with perfectly formed cuts. She manages the kitchen cleanliness with rigidness. She even barks orders at Seokjin when he’s in the kitchen because he isn’t as clean as her. 

If she wasn’t out with the flu, none of this work would even need to be done. Maybe Seokjin is getting sick too. He’s been feverish looking and a little uneasy around you all morning, and clearly he’s now being delusional.

“Ah,” you concede, and give your hands a shake to urge him to continue. 

“Right, anyway. You’re getting better at your cuts, but I’m losing money quickly with all your sacrifices to the floor goblins. And we don’t have much time left before the others start coming in, so let’s finish this up.” 

You let Seokjin guide you, literally hand-over-hand, as he restructures your positioning on the knife and angle of the blade to slice through the carrots a lot more cleanly and easily. 

“That’s it, good. You’re doing such a good job,” he breathes. 

You feel his exhale along your spine. God, you’re a pervert. He’s just trying to help you better yourself, and all you’re thinking about is how dominating he seems right now and how much you want to please him. 

God, if he calls you a good girl you know you’re going to moan audibly. That’s how bad he’s got you.

You keep working, and once you get the hang of it, Seokjin’s grip loosens, allowing you to finish the bag by yourself. But his hands are still on yours, even if you’re the one in control. 

After a while though, it’s becoming too much to handle. Him bent over you like this is limiting your range of motion, making it hard to wipe the sweat on your hands or move your scrap pile further down the counter. 

He’s also a human furnace, the space between you still so limited that you’ve begun sweating under him. 

In one particular cut of carrot, the sweat caused by the joint heat of your hands causes you to lose your grip, shooting it down onto the floor. 

Reflexively, you reach down to grab it, but with Seokjin still attached to you, it proves to be an immediate disaster. 

You throw your body into a bend, which forces you back, your ass grinding directly into Seokjin and being met with something very large. 

You gasp and Seokjin grunts, swiftly releasing your hands, which are actually balancing you in your bend. 

You fall forward, smacking your head into the edge of the counter as you go down. 

The kitchen echoes with an embarrassing clang as your forehead ricochets off the metal. 

“Fuck,” you groan, a sharp pain shooting through you.. 

You scramble to recover, one hand going to your head as you steady yourself, rubbing the soreness. Seokjin flails above you, panicked. 

“Oh shit! Y/N I’m so sorry! Oh my god. Are you okay? I shouldn’t have let go, I just was–” Seokjin rambles as you stare up at him, trying to get him to steel himself. 

“No, fuck, ouch, it’s okay! I’m okay. Seokjin, can you please just get me some ice and help me up?” You aren’t sure you can get yourself up as your vision swirls from the heat of the pain. You really went down hard. 

Seokjin ceases his flailing and shouting, leaning down and picking your body up off the floor with impressive strength and carrying you to a clean workstation in the center of the room. He sits you on top of it, making you now almost his height. 

Holy shit.

Once sure you’re not at risk of flopping over, he walks over to the ice maker with a clean kitchen cloth and folds some ice cubes inside. 

You reach for the cloth, but he refuses to hand it over. 

“Yah! No. Please let me do this, I can see the bump forming already. I’m the one who caused your injury.” He gingerly lays the cold cloth against your head. You wince. 

“‘Snot your fault,” you pout, trying to ignore the pain. “It was an accident. No one caused it.” 

Seokjin sighs and places his free hand behind your head, discouraging you from angling away like you’ve subconsciously been doing. 

“It is my fault. I let go of you. After just lecturing you about kitchen safety. God, what kind of example am I setting? I’m really sucking at this boss thing.” 

You reach up, placing your hand on Seokjin’s wrist to remove it from the ice. But he doesn’t relent. You keep your hold. 

“Seokjin, you’re not a bad boss. God you’re literally the opposite. Everyone here loves you. You’ve only been the manager for a little while. Give yourself some time. And keep in mind both of your parents ran this place, and now it’s down to just you.” 

You feel the tendons under his wrist adjust, his grip a little looser. Seokjin’s wrists are soft and tan, a thin coating of hair trailing up his forearms and under his sleeve. Your grip loosens too, and you let your thumb brush back and forth through the hair. 

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t supposed to be the manager. My brother was supposed to manage the restaurant when my parents were ready to retire. That was always the plan, anyway. But things change. When they were getting their apartment ready for my nephew to arrive, I think they realized how tight space can be living in the city. We grew up in an apartment complex not too far from here and it always felt like we were on top of each other. 

“Which, we kind of were. My brother and I shared this tiny room that had bunk beds, and we lived that way until he went away to college. I used to always smack my head against the ceiling when I was a teenager and woke up in the middle of the night. My forehead would get huge bruises on it, probably a lot like the one you’re going to have on your head.” He frowns. 

“I guess my brother didn’t want to see his kids living like that either. I never minded it so much, but maybe that’s because I was the younger one. Not having any privacy during puberty or dealing with me during puberty was probably a nightmare for him.”

You shoot him a sympathetic smile. “It was nice of you to take over on his behalf then. I know you used to work for major companies in the business district downtown. This must have felt like a sacrifice.” 

Seokjin’s arm falls away from your head, your soft caress pulling away with it. He sets the cloth down next to you. He worries his bottom lip into his mouth and then shakes his head. 

“No, it was never like that. I’m sure eomma filled everyone and their brother’s ears with stuff about me. ‘Seokjin is our business minded son! He’ll make a great leader!’ ‘Seokjin is talented in the kitchen and spent his whole life working for us. We trained him well!’ ‘Don’t worry about him abusing his power. He knows exactly how it is for everyone!’” Seokjin’s says, his voice inotating the same pattern of his mother. 

“Well, she wasn’t wrong. You are all those things,” you argue, lacing your fingers in his. You know it’s not necessarily appropriate behavior between a boss and his employee, but at this moment, you’d argue Seokjin needs a friend more than anything. 

“I’m not, though, Y/N. I didn’t sacrifice anything to do this. It wasn’t some great act of loyalty where the son with a promising future gives up his dream for his family business. In fact I had to beg my parents to let me work here! Because I, their failure of a son, lost everything and had nowhere else to go! And the shit I ended up doing to even keep myself afloat…I’m not a great leader. I’m nothing more than a fraud.”

Seokjin rakes his free hand through his hair. 

“I had a good life before this Y/N. A good job, a nice house, a fi-...just..I was living a dream that I no longer have for myself is all. But at the time I was on top of the world and now I feel like such a fucking failure.” 

Seokjin looks like he’s falling apart, eyes darting madly as he shifts around, suddenly transforming into nothing like his usual cool, goofy self. 

You need to stop this from getting worse. To distract him and stop him from talking himself into a pit of despair. If Seokjin’s mouth is occupied somehow, he can’t continue with all the negative self-talk. 

A stupid idea flashes in your head. You don’t even think before you roll with it. 

“Jesus, I can’t even manage properly. I messed up Mino’s paycheck a few weeks ago and I’m still not sure how it happened. I’m just not–”

Your lips connect with Seokjin’s, your legs wrapping around his waist to tug him closer as you move your body against his. Seokjin returns the kiss in earnest, parting his mouth to welcome your tongue as you lap the words out of his mouth. 

His plush lips feel so soft against yours, his taste a bit bitter from the coffee you both drank earlier, but you find yourself craving more of it, sucking his bottom lip into your mouth with the hope that maybe you can absorb it. 

Seokjin groans in response, gripping your hand tighter, his other settling on your lower back as he pulls you closer. If you didn’t know any better, you’d swear every atom in your body is vibrating at a higher frequency from his touch. You want to feel him everywhere. 

You break the kiss, and see Seokjin’s eyelids are heavy, almost like he’s drunk. You’re about to move back in, to tongue along his sweaty, long neck, suck on his protruding Adam’s apple. 

That’s when you hear it. The slam of the back door as your coworkers arrive.

Seokjin jolts back, breaking the hold you have around his waist with your legs. 

His mouth looks a little red and swollen. And his eyes are wide, panic flashing across his face. 

“I–I’m sorry!” 

Before you can reassure him, tell him that you’re the one who should be sorry, you started this, who crossed this line between boss and employee by kissing him, Seokjin bolts from the kitchen. 

You sit for a minute, stunned, and then look around, taking in the scene around you. The carrot shavings all over the counter, the discarded one still on the floor. Your knife is unsheathed again. There’s containers of tofu and seaweed just abandoned in a pile next to a large pot. 

And you can feel the puddle forming under you from where the ice has begun to melt. What the fuck just happened? What mess did you just get yourself into? 

The rest of your shift, you’re anxious. Especially because you’re short-staffed due to the weather forecast, which has led to three call-outs from people who commute from across town. That means you’re performing multiple roles: taking orders, bussing tables, seating customers, and getting appetizers, drinks, and side dishes ready for each group of people coming through the door. 

Seokjin was right in his prediction; you guys are slammed. And because there’s less staff, that means Seokjin is orbiting around you, following behind with cleaning rags as you finish bussing or running into you in the narrow doorway as you both attempt to fetch an order from the kitchen. You’re both flushed and sweating, the hairs on the back of your neck now matted down. 

Your mind is swirling around that kiss and its consequences, but you don’t have time to lose focus; the minute you finish one thing, you’re pulled into another task for a temporary distraction.

Only to be thrust back into the reminder of this morning when Seokjin lightly caresses the small of your back as he squeezes behind you to grab more plates. 

If either of you ever need a break, you don’t say so, only pausing in between rushes to pee, take a bite of something, and chug water before you’re thrown back out into the mess. 

Finally, after you elect to work a double, it’s closing time.

“Y/N!” Seokjin calls you from the front as you scrub the grime off a stack of dirty dishes.

Your pulse quickens. You’re the last one here. The storm kicked up an hour ago, and since you live the closest, you shoved your coworkers out the door so they could get home before the roads were a mess. 

You dry your hands on your messy apron, pulling out your phone and wincing at the slew of missed calls, texts and notifications. You were supposed to stream again tonight with a bunch of other girl gamers as a part of a “Galentine's Day” collab, playing dating simulation games as a warm up before jumping into some first person shooters. 

You’d reached out to cancel once you saw the stress tugging at Seokjin’s face, his jaw set, his brow constantly furrowed. While the other streamers were completely understanding, you still have a ton of notifications from your social channels asking if you are okay and some texts from Wonwoo and a few other friends asking the same. 

You’ll fill them in later. But now, you have to face Seokjin. 

He’s sitting at a freshly wiped-down table, counting the drawers and preparing the deposit slip. 

He ushers you over and gestures at the stack of cash, silently asking you to verify his numbers. You comply, the room silent less the shuffling of bills or coins under your fingertips and your habitual mouthing of the numbers to ensure you don’t lose count. 

He nods at your final calculation, jotting the number down on the sheet and placing the bills together. You turn and begin to head back to the kitchen. 

“Wait,” he says, and you freeze. 

Your stomach is quickly turning into a bundle of knots. You suck your lips into your mouth as you spin back around, Seokjin’s eyes meeting yours. 

“I…” Seokjin takes a deep breath before continuing. “Listen. I’m really sorry about this morning. Today’s just been a whole mess and I really shouldn’t have been airing my frustrations to an employee like that. It was inappropriate and immature. I know better than to behave this way.”

Did you say your stomach was in knots? You mean it’s filled with heavy, sickening lead. “Oh, right. Uh, don’t. I mean, I started it. I just…you were panicking and I didn’t know what to do and I thought maybe this would help.” 

Seokjin’s brow furrows, a frown on his face. “Why are you apologizing when I’m clearly the one in the wrong here? Ah, no let me finish! I’ve always prided myself on my professionalism and ability to keep personal matters out of my work. And I failed in doing so, which takes advantage of you since I’m your superior. You not only felt a need to comfort me but also stop me from spinning out. I’m truly sorry Y/N, about the oversharing and the um, kiss. I definitely gave into my emotions in a moment of weakness. Please forgive me, I promise I will never touch you again. This won’t happen again.” 

His head droops and he looks down, clearly ashamed.

Oh. So he doesn’t want this. Which, why would he? He’s right in that he’s your boss, and clearly Seokjin values his reputation and his job because they’re a reflection of not just him, but his family. Why risk that with someone like you?

You swallow the lump in your throat along with any response. There is the boundary, you know better than to cross it. 

As you move again, Seokjin rises from the table. “Y/N…you know what? You go home. The storm is really coming down.”

“But, there’s still mopping and all those dishes left,” you croak. Your voice is so hoarse from being dehydrated and talking all day that you barely recognize it as your own. 

“Don’t worry about those. You look and sound exhausted. It’s not your job to take care of everything. Go home, enjoy your romantic snowy trek,” he smirks, “and get some much needed rest. You’ve more than earned it.”

When you arrive home, your body slugs onto your bed, finally giving into the fatigue you’ve ignored all day. Your feet ache, your stomach now settled enough from your walk that you are starving. And you smell awful. 

As much as you want to fall asleep, you know that you at the very least need to eat something. 

With a groan, you rise, hobbling to your kitchen to make some instant ramyeon. The collab stream is now over, you learned this while finally checking your phone on your way home and seeing a thank you message blasted out by one of the streamers. Oh well. 

You suppose you could get back to your book, see what Prince August and his lover are getting up to in their reunion, but that seems like more brain power than you’re willing to give. 

You elect to eat, then take a shower, rinsing the grime of the day off you. When you step out of the shower, you see an ugly looking bump and purple bruise on your forehead. 

That’s right, you’d already forgotten about your injury from earlier. You touch it lightly and recoil from the sharp pain. Damn, maybe you should’ve checked to see if you were concussed earlier. You didn’t realize you hit your head that hard. 

You decide to ice it before bed, crawling under your covers and trying to rest while you play back your day. 

How you started is so significantly different from where you are now. When you woke up, you were eager and excited to be around Seokjin, to learn new skills and feel light and warm in his presence. Now, the idea of going back to work in a few days, to have to muddle through the rejection you got tonight and try to get back to a baseline makes you feel nauseous. 

Seokjin wants to make this all water under the bridge, and you want to do that for him. But it’s nearly impossible when he’s, well, him. He doesn’t understand how much more difficult it’s going to be to look at him because you’re not walking around with a face like that: perfectly balanced and delicate features and a full, delicious set of lips. 

God, he really did taste fantastic. You wonder what would’ve happened if you two weren’t interrupted. Would giving into his emotional need for comfort have given you more? You know it’s wrong to think about, because you're the one who took advantage of him, not the other way around. 

He can say he took advantage of you with his power imbalance or whatever, but you’re the one who was seconds away from licking down that thick neck or grinding back onto that massive cock. 

Fuck, that’s right, Seokjin is huge under all those clothes and your ass got to experience rubbing against it today. And maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but he seemed like he was a little hard. 

If Mino and the others had been just a little later, you might have seen it. They might have walked in on you on your knees as you choked on it, Seokjin’s moans and whines echoing in the kitchen. 

Because now from kissing him, you got a taste of those little noises he makes. And the memory has you becoming slick and needy. 

It’s late. Too late to read your smutty book, especially since you’re not at the next smutty scene yet. August and his beloved are just reuniting. You’re sure it’s bound to be good, but you don’t have that kind of patience right now. You need to cum, to get your ideas about Seokjin and what he firmly set as a boundary out of your head once and for all. 

Which means you need to give your fantasy of him out of your head too. You shove the ice pack you’ve been holding to your head aside, ready to relieve some tension. 

You reach under your shirt and gasp when the chill of your icy hand plucks at one of your nipples. Yes, you need more of this. 

You touch the other one with your other hand, disappointed that it’s warm. And then you get a fantastic idea. You grope around for a moment until you feel the cold cloth housing the ice cubes from your freezer and pluck one out. It melts quickly in your hand, but the cold water is stimulating as you feel it run down your forearms, a droplet or two rushing down and reaching the heat of your armpit. You pull the large shirt you use as pajamas  up further with your other hand, fully exposing your chest and stomach to the chilly air of your apartment.  

The ice cube drips over your navel. You hiss as the new sensation floods your core with warmth. Some of the water pools in your belly button, a satisfying dampness taking over your body. Then, you drip the melting ice cube onto each nipple and relish how erect and sensitive they’ve become from your arousal. 

Your breasts are plush, something you love to grab and tug as you play with yourself. They’re heavy, the weight of gravity tugging them down instead of staying up as porn once made you believe was possible. 

You can understand why people sometimes get caught up playing with tits all the time. They’re arguably fun to play with. 

As the ice cube warms and shrinks, you become more curious, taking it between your fingers and swirling it directly over each nipple, a shock of cold hitting them and your hips bucking in pleasure. More. Whatever you’re feeling right now, you need more of it. 

You rip your sleep shorts and panties off in desperation, splaying your legs open and aiming yourself up so the last drips of the ice cube can fall directly onto the folds of your pussy, a few dribbles landing right on your aching clit. 

Heat, that’s what you actually feel. Fire and ice swirling together in a decadent and hot pleasure. You reach over and grab another cube, this time skipping the teasing and touching the ice right to your clit. It’s a lot. Too much. Not enough. The pain shooting through your clit is also full of so much pleasure and you don’t want to stop. 

You rock against your hand, rubbing your clit with your fingers as the ice melts, mixing the wetness of the water with your own, getting you messier, hotter, hungrier. 

The memory of Seokjin holding the ice pack flits through your head, how cold his one hand was as it held yours, similar to the chill of your own hand as you grind it against your pussy. You need something inside of you. Now. 

And unfortunately for you, all your toys are currently dirty. When you finished streaming last night, you made good on your promise to fuck yourself until you passed out, which means your collection of dildos and vibrators are now discarded in a pile next to your bed that you’d intended to wash after work today. 

You insert a finger and sigh. It’s not enough. The angle is too awkward and you can’t get far enough in. Seokjin’s hands are much larger than yours, capable of pumping his long fingers deep within you, to get to the part of your core that is aching. If he were here right now, he could be itching that scratch, a smug look on his face as he comments on how soaking wet you are for him and commands you to cum. 

Ugh. You said you wouldn’t think of him, yet here he is again, stirring up inside your fantasies. You can’t give in, you need to distract yourself, look at another face so you can feel motivation. 

You remove your fingers, wipe them on the damp washcloth next to you, and reach over on your side table for your laptop. 

You don’t watch a lot of porn, finding the videos often too fake, but you’re desperate. You scroll through the website, quickly losing some of your arousal as you click through pages of straight porn, the ones you know that will have some awful plot, or the woman has some nasal and fake moan that kills your buzz. Or the guys are so ugly, proving that porn always has the male gaze in mind. 

You just need to cum. Today has been awful enough, and knowing you have to stream tomorrow again is already causing you to wind up. No, this is necessary stress relief. An unwinding. Make it dirty and to the point. 

You click over into the other categories. You need just a man, someone else who isn’t Seokjin. You hover over the male masturbation tag, still disappointed. Then you see a banner ad for a camming site: Worldwide Handsome, Hunks From Around the Globe. That, you think, seems more promising. 

Live cams are interactive, more with immediacy. Usually the guys on them are hot or gay or both and just ready to jack off for money and give in to some dirty talk. Even the gay camboys don’t always care if women are viewing. Money is money. 

You click the banner, praying this doesn’t immediately give your computer a hundred viruses that will delete all your coursework you’ve saved to the harddrive. 

Luckily, it’s a legitimate website, much like OnlyFans, just with the emphasis on queer men from every country. You might just be saved. 

There are so many categories to choose from: couples, kinks, trans, bisexual, furries, just chatting, BDSM, interactive games, private rooms. It’s a little overwhelming. You select the “solo” tab, which, of course, has the most videos under it, and begin exploring. 

You click on one that seems promising, but quickly exit out because the user has fallen asleep and it feels too intimate. 

In another, the streamer is yelling at his chat for outting him to his parents, and you exit out of that as well. 

You’re about to give up when you refresh the page, but then a recently started stream catches your eye. It’s quickly gaining views, and has a little “1” next to it, probably to indicate that this streamer is the most popular one in his category. 

The title for the stream is Unwind with me. Late night play with Daddy which makes your core throb a little with promise. The thumbnail is black, which is a little odd, but you’re curious who this “Daddy” is and how he plans on helping his viewers unwind. Because that is exactly what you need. In his associated tags, there’s a tiny banner at the bottom that urges you forward “all genders welcome”. 

You click the link, and the video itself is black, but there’s still hundreds of comments fluttering through the chat. Is your stream broken? This sometimes happens when you stream too, but after a quick refresh you realize that the screen isn’t black. There’s a little bit of light pouring through whatever is covering the camera, detecting some movement through the veil. 

“You don’t know how stressed I am today,” a low voice groans. 

Whoa. You lean closer, tapping the volume button on your laptop to the max and leaning back. God, whoever this guy is, he sounds hot. This might actually work to get you off and get over Seokjin.

You balance your laptop on your knees and roll your hand down your stomach and between your legs, finding your aching clit and sighing as you delight in your touch. 

“I know we don’t always play games like this baby. I know you usually like it when I beg. But I can’t play like that today. It’s been so long since I got to fall back into what I desperately, absolutely need.”

His voice is so seductive yet also comforting in a way that’s familiar. You feel more of your arousal dripping out of you, and you scoop it up to swirl it around your clit, feeling a little twinge of that white hot pleasure return to you. 

“And what I need is to take the edge off, to remind all of you who is in charge. Some of you have been very, very bad lately. Haven’t I given you enough? A two-year anniversary stream? I gave you all my cum didn’t I? All of it.” 

The chat is going nuts, comments replying with “yes Daddy” accompanying tips that vary from twenty bucks to one thousand dollars spilling in. You check his timestamp. He’s only been live for five minutes and he’s already getting this much? Even your most successful streams take hours to reach a little over a thousand after royalty cuts. 

To his credit, though, if you had a grand to drop on him, you just might, and that’s going by his sexy voice alone.

“I let you watch me spill from my cock, let you see me touch myself. And you were greedy. Don’t think I don’t know what you did. I saw your questioning comments, trying to shame me for muttering someone’s name in pleasure. But I’m not ashamed. I’m proud.”

Fuck, what you would do to have this guy moan your name. You feel your orgasm approaching and rub yourself harder, a soft squelch echoing through your room.

“You took what I gave you for granted, you fucking whores. And now, you need to be punished.” 

You’re so close, the little peaks of pleasure starting to build up higher in intensity. 

The mystery man stops talking, and you along with the chat, begging for more. 

“Please,” you moan at your screen. 

Suddenly, you hear it, a wet, slick sound. Fuck, is he touching himself? 

“It’s been a long day. All day, I was working and I was so horny because some people in this world can’t stop fucking teasing me, tempting me to punish them, just like you.”

You feel the tremor of your first orgasm, but it’s not as sharp, more like a hint of what is to come. You pinch your clit between your fingers, sighing a little bit at the relief of pressure.

“You’ve all been very bad. And until you show me you can be good, I’m going to pump my cock and not let any of you see. You think you can do that? You think you can be my good little subs and prove to me you’ll behave?”

Oh god. Fuck. He’s insane, he’s so hot and insane, and you’re also insane, nodding along. The condescension is so hot, and it reminds you of earlier in the kitchen, when Seokjin scolded you for not being safe with the knife. His voice got rough just like this guy. And it makes you feel so needy and desperate. 

Please, you beg silently, just like how you did this morning. I’ll do anything. 

Almost as if he knows this, you hear a moan carry through your speakers. You assume he’s reading the comments and tips with promises to behave. You clench around nothing, really wishing at least one of your toys was clean for you to use to feel less empty. You’re never falling asleep without washing them again. 

“Good, that’s what I like to see. Now remember, you don’t get to cum until I get to cum. Go ahead and play with yourself for me, get yourself all worked up. And then be good and listen. I’ll tell you what to do next.” 

Whoops. Well, the first one didn’t count. You aren’t satisfied. 

He groans, signaling that he’s stroking himself again, rough jerks you can hear from the way his hands are sliding over his (you assume) lubed cock. 

“You want to see me cum? You want to earn it all over you? You know what you have to do, my pretty little subs. Work for it. And not a penny less.” 

In a frenzy, the tip jar continues to buzz in the bottom corner, the graphic of coins depositing into it glitching out a bit as it fails to keep up with the volume of tips. While he’s the most popular streamer on this site, it’s not as though the website is the only one of its kind, and that means that his couple hundred viewers are putting in the work and the cash. 

You watch the numbers rise next to the tip jar as his subs showcase their double entendre: both his subscriber count soars and his comments flood with loyal submissives.

Please, Daddy. Please let me cum. 

I’m sorry Daddy. I’ll be good, I swear. 

Remove the blindfold please! I need to see your big cock! 

Ah, it’s a blindfold. Of course. 

The graphic of the jar changes, exploding and sending animated dollars and coins across the screen. This is wild. His viewers have already met the milestone. They’ve just raised ten grand in less than 15 minutes. That has to be some kind of record. 

He tuts and the sound of it punches your gut. Why does he sound so familiar?  “Tsk, that wasn’t so hard, was it? I knew you could do it. You want my forgiveness that badly, huh? Okay, I’ll give you what you need. I’ll forgive you.” 

Your pussy is throbbing. You’ve had to scale back the touching, feeling a weird sense of obedience to this camboy that you can’t describe. 

There’s a ruffling sound and the camera jolts before light pours into view, a blur of shapes and colors you can’t make out greeting you until it comes into focus and you’re met with a massive, leaking cock. 

“Holy shit,” you moan, finding your footing on your bed and moving your resting hand from your inner thigh back to your clit. 

The camera is framed from the user’s toned abs down to just the top of his thighs, showing off his heavy, tight balls and red, angry tip. 

“Is this what you’re begging for?” 

Yes, you shudder a breath. Yes. 

Large hands with long knobby fingers run along his thighs, one sweeping under to cup his balls while the other works his shaft, thumb sliding over his slit to rub precum around the tip. 

“Alright, then.” He begins pumping, smooth, tight jerks that have him squeezing his length and encouraging more strands of precum to leak out. He falls into a steady rhythm and you mirror the pace on your clit, gasping for breaths as you become all the more sensitive now that you have a visual to follow. 

“My face? Oh, no. You didn’t earn the right to see that. Don’t start with me. If you want to see my face when I cum, you have to reach the next milestone. You know the rules.” 

You don’t know the rules, but you hope someone else will be desperate enough to reach it for you. You’re dying to know what he looks like. 

Almost instantly, the money animation explodes on the screen again. A $5000 tip. Jesus Christ.

“Ah, of course mapl3stor33, I should’ve known it was you. Always so good to me.  Because of you I got to get that new collector figurine. Thank you. Well everyone, because of mapl3’s generosity and mmm…loyalty…fuck. I guess I’ll let you get your full fantasy. Let you see my face as you imagine you get to make a mess of me, milk my fucking cock all over you and let me make a mess of you.” He’s moaning as he speaks, pausing between sentences to pump himself harder as he gives “Maple” a proper shout out. 

Your cheeks heat in embarrassment. It’s one thing for you to create the fantasy, but him acknowledging it with some judgment, as though you’re not good enough to even fantasize about him, it’s leading you quicker to your undoing. 

His pace builds to a heavy, slick rut. His hands are slightly red, almost like how yours looked after washing the dishes before Seokjin kicked you out. 

Wait. Red hands. His look similar to Seokjin’s, with the same knobby long fingers. And the figurine and Maple…like, MapleStory? 

There’s no way. No, you’re clearly just losing it with your fantasies. This one is taking it too far. 

“Fuck, yeah that’s it baby. Touch yourself. Be good for me. Where do you want my cum? Oh, you dirty slut, fuck, yes. Okay, I’ll cum all over myself. Just for you. Shit. Almost, come on.”

Your fingers are still following his lead, unable to stop, so close to finishing, to the release. 

He moans, his hands blurring as he strokes fast and hard, jerking into himself. And that’s when you know. You heard that moan. You caused that moan. 

With a final solid, slightly whiny grunt, he backs up. His face coming into frame, and the first strands of thick white release cascades across Seokjin’s chest as you focus in on the pure bliss washing over him, his head thrown back and mouth shaped into a delicious “o”. 

“Oh, fuck. Take it, take my cum. Yes, that’s it. That’s my best girl, so good for me. Such a good girl.” 

The second you hear the praising fall from Seokjin’s mouth, he takes you over the edge with him. Your body rockets into your orgasm with a heavy clench of your core, feet losing their solid hold below you as you begin to shake and succumb to the feeling. 

You’ve unwound, the tension of your body unfurling as you’re cast out to sea, your body bobbing along each wave with a newfound euphoria. Out here on the water, the world is silent except the ring in your ears. You bask in the peaceful ebb until you feel a tingling in your fingertips and toes calling you back, forcing breath back into your lungs with a heavy pant. 

Once you recenter, you gaze back at the stream, confirming that this is the smiling and grateful Seokjin you just saw three hours ago. 

He called you a good girl. He came all over his sweaty chest. And he’s the top streamer on a gay sex cam site. 

©2024 by jooniperbonsai

#seokjin smut #bts smut #jin smut #ksj #seokjin x reader #jin x reader #kim seokjin

[three--rings]

God that David Jenkins interview collection post I just reblogged...

I hadn't read the Paste interview and my god David I have to just...marvel at some of this.

In particular:

"But I think him becoming a father figure to Ed in the last episode didn't really dawn on us until we were breaking the last episode. Asking what would this man say to Ed at the end because they've been together through everything? He went from a troubled and downtrodden employee to a jilted lover to a discarded employee, to someone that is just trying to find his footing again—no pun intended—to actually becoming this guy's parental figure on some level. And he's one person who kind of raised Ed right, because Blackbeard usually kills his parental figures. So, it felt right and it felt like that's how the mentor dies. The mentor in a story usually dies in the second act and then our hero has to go on and try to do it without them. It felt like the right journey for Izzy and a gratifying one for Con."

Like, okay we, the writers, hadn't considered him a father figure or mentor at all until the very last episode where we killed him. But we came up with it as we were writing it.

And then we didn't put anything about it into the episode at all, and then we talk about it in interviews about how obvious it is as a mentor relationship and like...I'm sorry. Yeah it was surprising to all of us as well, because you may have suddenly thought of it like that when you were DESPERATELY trying to justify this death to yourself as NECESSARY because you'd decided it WAS, but you also

DIDN'T PUT ANY OF THAT ON THE SCREEN.

So no, the audience is not on the same page, cause we weren't a part of those discussions you had. That only came up in the last episode. You can't in like 4 minutes of a 25 minute episode, the very last episode of 18, introduce a character dynamic when one of the characters is dying.

That's not how writing for TV works! Does he really think he put the Izzy is a father figure stuff on screen somehow in that death scene? Cause like, sure Izzy is showing AFFECTION for Ed in that scene, but there's nothing there that is PARENTAL. And family, which Ed says, doesn't mean that either. The ship is family. Queer family is different. IDK IDK.

And like it reminds me of something else he said in another interview, about Jim and Oluwande and how "in the writer's room we always thought of them as a friend relationship that got romantic" and that's why they got other partners. But like, okay, if your intent was they were more friends than romantic (which, I'm not sure that's what you mean, but if you're using it to say that's why they are now into other people, okay?) then did you convey that to THE ACTORS? Because it feels like the actors were definitely playing ROMANCE in S1.

That's what ended up on the screen. Two friends falling in love, sure, but actually falling in love and not just two friends who sleep together, as S2 tries to imply.

IDK but I really want to be like, dude sometimes it's not about writer intent. Sometimes it's about what ends up on the screen and you need to step back and look at what your audience is seeing. Because your actors are doing a lot of things that may take things to different places.

#ofmd #ofmd s2 #ofmd meta #my meta #david jenkins

[the-seas-incarnadine]

TCOAAL - Metaphysics Theory

Okay so we've seen some interesting stuff in the most recent tcoaal progress report, and I'm SO ready to read a lot of stuff into it.

Some observations:

People have souls. There are also a number of Entities whose natures are more or less mysterious.

This lil guy is generally referred to as The Entity. It has a greater or lesser degree of difficulty finding summoning circles in the human world from its usual residence on the other side of the dream borderlands. It makes a pact with Ashley. It seems to want to collect or consume human souls. Its name is unknown, its dialogue is displayed as being spoken by "? ? ?".

The Entity notes that Ashley has a "tar-colored soul", and it refers to her as "tar soul". It implies that this is why it does not want to take her soul. It further indicates that this is not just a nickname but a preexisting phenomenon, the nature of which is unclear.

Ashley seems to be much better at summoning entities than the cultists we encounter, despite proceeding fairly haphazardly and without much background knowledge.

While in the dream borderlands, Ashley sometimes encounters what seem to be human souls. Normal souls appear like this.

During her vision in the Decay route, Ashley encounters a soul that looks like this. It is part of a group of four souls in a small room, hovering near The Entity. If Ashley tries to speak to it, a heart pops up between it and another (normal) soul. The Entity describes it as "a Tar Soul to be" that never "hatched", and remarks that Ashley's soul looks similar but darker.

That is, a Tar Soul proper, like Ashley, is either a "hatched" version of this, or has the potential to "hatch" into... something.

Given that the number of souls in this area corresponds to the number of souls The Entity has taken, and the Tar Soul To Be is part of a couple, it is sometimes theorized that this is Ms. Graves's soul.

This is Lord Unknown, to whom the Cult seems to be dedicated, and who our heroes are able to summon (but not communicate with) in the cult building.

Lord Unknown shares some imagery with The Entity, but they seem to be distinct.

In the Burial route, during the second summoning / the sacrifice of the Graves parents, Ashley says that The Entity can't have Andrew's soul, because it belongs to her. The Entity tells her it intends to summon her again, and instructs her to bring Andrew with her.

In the Burial / Sane route, during her vision, Ashley encounters a number of souls and must capture them in bottles. Afterward, she encounters this lil guy, who is referred to as "an entity". When she makes her way to it, she seems to recognize it, threatens to put it into a bottle (as a joke), and then says "let's get out of here before it finds us". Additionally, though its name is displayed as "? ? ?" (like The Entity" and it does not speak any words, the ellipses in its dialogue boxes are displayed in green. This seems to suggest that this is Andrew's soul.

From its appearance, we might conclude that this is a Tar Soul that has Hatched or that is closer to Hatching than the Tar Soul To Be encountered earlier.

Additionally, it seems to be taking a shape more similar to that of Lord Unknown (scale aside) than the human souls we've encountered.

All of that suggests that what a Tar Soul is is a soul on the path towards becoming an Entity like Lord Unknown - or, colloquially, a nascent demon.

The newest progress report gives us a few new images, but we're going to be focusing on these two in particular:

Hmm!! Interesting!!

Let's zoom in on that second one:

Here's what I'm seeing:

A Hatched / Hatching Tar Soul appears to be the playable character in this scene.

The other image seems to depict this same entity catching some red flowers (associated with The Entity and with the dream borderlands), with some trepidation.

This entity has lost track of "time."

Given what we saw of the Hatched / Hatching Tar Soul in chapter 2, and given that it seems to be a playable character, it seems reasonable to conclude that this is either Andrew or Ashley - given what we've observed above, Ashley's soul likely looks something like this, or will at some point, or did at some point.

The rest of this is way more speculative, and I'm unsure what direction it might go in chapter 3:

After the Burial / Sane vision (which Ashley seems to have brought Andrew's soul into), Andrew tells us that he was unable to sleep during that time.

Andrew often has trouble sleeping, and Ashley's presence helps.

In these new screenshots, the Hatched / Hatching Tar Soul seems to be confused about time, suggesting it's been in a strange state outside of the normal world for a long, ah, time.

This suggests that there is something unusual about the entanglement of Andrew and Ashley's souls. Does she literally have his soul in some way? Was she able to remove it from his body when she had this vision? How are their souls connected? Is the proximity of his own soul affecting his ability to sleep?

I'm not sure this is anything, but my curiosity has been piqued.

Anyway. That's just some thoughts, based on my current understanding of things! I hope people find it interesting, I'd love to hear what others think of these speculations.

#tcoaal

[cellarspider]

14/?? Gnosis, and lack thereof

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

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We return to the movie that could’ve been a contender, Prometheus. In this episode, a two-year-old poisons a man.

I’m not alone in thinking David is the most well-realized character in this movie. Michael Fassbender was given the most space to act through expression and reaction to others and his environment, which helps create an android character that has much more inner life than his human castmates. He also gets what I’d call the Data bonus: android characters can more easily get away with screamingly clunky exposition or explicitly stating the meaning of a scene. You can give them absolute gibberish if you want to, and it sounds perfectly logical when they say it.

[Video description: A small selection of technobabble from Star Trek: The Next Generation, mostly featuring Data.]

David is also the easiest to be sympathetic to, because people keep being assholes to him.

Yes, David has received mysterious orders from a mysterious man who’s still in stasis. It’s Peter Weyland. It’s obviously Peter Weyland, this is why David has the dream-reading helmet thing that felt so out of place at the start of the movie. This is also why Guy Pierce, a 45-year-old, was hired to play an infinity-year-old man. Weyland was going to appear as his ideal self in one of these dream sequences, but it was cut from the movie. So instead, we just have Vickers demanding to know what “he” wants, and the answer is “Try harder”.

Peter Weyland, beginning a trend for the company bearing his name, has an obsession with this alien stuff. …This trend was actually begun by Charles Bishop Weyland in a completely different continuity that also featured ancient alien contact with Earth, but hey, details. This Weyland wants results, damn it, and David gets an excuse to kill one of the crew.

Although it’s not quite that simple. The movie indicates that David can’t go against orders from the company, especially from Weyland. He has to “try harder”, and he’s brought back one of those alien urns that apparently nobody cares to examine but him. 

It’s got a goth lava lamp in it.

While we don’t get much indication David knows why this stuff is dangerous to organic life, I’ll give the movie a very tiny pass: it’s implied that David has figured out how to read the Engineer’s cuneiform script. He decants a droplet of Menacing Black Goo onto his (Weyland-branded) fingertip, and sets off to find a test subject.

Thank god, he chooses Holloway.

I don’t like not liking characters. I don’t generally anticipate seeing someone’s comeuppance, but this movie gets me damn close to that feeling. In the movie’s partial defense, some of this was probably intended. Mainstream American fiction sets a high bar for what a bigot looks like, and Holloway’s been clearing that. I’m less certain the movie knows everyone’s behaving like a bigot, but we’ll get to that eventually. But Holloway? Definitely. 

This creates a fairly interesting scene. One that even reaches towards good. David has the means to kill Holloway. The audience knows this. And we get to watch when he makes the decision to commit to it, and why. And, blessedly, it actually ties into an intentional theme of this movie.

Holloway’s still drunk and miserable–he’d previously muttered that the alien structure on the planet was “just another tomb.”

I, speaking hyperbolically, would consider that grounds enough to off him. He’s an archaeologist who can be sent into a drinking binge by finding a thing made by dead people. An archaeologist. That in itself is such a ridiculous indicator of how unfit this character is for his role.

But no, he wanted to meet his maker, “To get answers.” Sure, lots of people have existential questions they feel are important to them. That is understandable. Even clueless assholes can wonder about that. But it takes an especially hubristic asshole to decide they’re the one worthy of asking someone who might have the answer. 

Did anybody notice they didn’t bring any diplomats or orators on this trip? They didn’t bring any cultural exchange gifts with them when they approached the alien structure? They weren’t treating the Engineers as people, just something to discover.

David, someone else they’re not treating like people, asks Holloway “Why do you think your people made me?”, and the answer he gets is “Because we could.” David is quietly but openly disappointed in that.

This is the whiplash of this movie. We have the biggest bunch of shambolic assholes klutzing around, waiting to get killed off by the plot, and then we have David expressing the horror of Valentinian gnosticism.

In brief, because even the wikipedia page says “The theology [...] is extremely complicated and difficult to follow”, the strain of Christian gnosticism expressed by the 2nd century theologian Valentinus believes that the world was created by an ignorant being. They believed there was a benevolent god out there which was/produced Jesus, but the “demiurge” (lit. “craftsman”) who created the world was not this deity. The demiurge was an imperfect, lesser being, that believed itself to be the supreme god of the universe. In Valentinianism, as with other gnostic schools, to be born into the world was to be trapped within a creation of a creature that was prone to fits of abusive behavior.

Gnostic christianity was, at the time, an attempt to square a number of contradictory ideas: the incredibly influential ideas of Plato on the formation of the universe, the growing theology of the new Christian movement, and the examples of divine wrath and jealousy in Jewish scripture, that were hard to square with what early Christians saw as a less violent deity they wanted to worship. There were probably also some anti-Jewish Egyptian myths thrown in as well, depicting their god as a donkey-headed incarnation of the malevolent deity Set. Some may recognize that particular slander from its deployment against early Christians, including our first-ever depiction of Jesus’ crucifixion: a rude bit of graffiti.

In our time, there’s only one remaining gnostic (non-christian) religion with direct continuity to the period, the Mandaeans. Christian gnosticism was deemed heretical, when one of the many different gospels circulating at the time was selected as orthodox in the 4th century, along with an attendant theology. But it remains a fertile ground for philosophers, fiction-writers, and every once in a while someone reinvents bits of it when they hit upon contradictions in christian thought.

The latter seems to be the case with Ridley Scott. He’s sometimes described as an atheist, but his actual statements on the matter show he’s either casually gnostic or a deist, very much influenced by christian doctrine: 

“If we looked at the whole thing practically speaking, the Big Bang occurred and then we go through this evolution of millions, billions of years where, by coincidence, all the right biological accidents came out the right way. To an extent, that doesn't make sense unless there was a controlling decider or mediator in all of that. So who was that? Or what was that? Are we one big grand experiment in the basic overall blink of the universe, or the galaxy? In which case, who is behind it?”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/films/callingtheshots/ridley_scott.shtml

Tangent: that question came right after he’s quoted as saying “I think there's no originality [in modern films]. I think everyone is stealing from everyone else and going back to the originals. I usually go in for 20 minutes and then get up and leave.” This interview was back in 2006. The next year he’d direct American Gangster (loosely based on a biography), then Body of Lies (Roger Ebert called it "a James Bond plot"), then Robin Hood (it’s Robin Hood), then Prometheus, the movie I only watched because it seemed to be in dialog with a film he directed in 1979. Buddy, if that was your problem, you were part of the problem.

But anyway. We have a director who had stated interest in a christian-influenced cosmogony: he seems to state a belief that we exist because we are supposed to exist, rather than being a random event. This is a movie where he does seem to be trying to do something with that. He is beginning with that premise, and using Alien as the shared language to express it. He doesn’t know why we exist, but he can imagine why we would make someone exist.

Placing that in amongst these characters is bleak to the point of puerility, frankly. Why would we create a being like us? Well, this one asshole doesn’t know.

David, at this point in Prometheus, has already determined that humans are fallible creators. Hell, he’s decided the Engineers were also failable. He, y’know, witnessed how gooey one of their corpses was. But he’s yet to decide on whether humans are just ignorant, trying and failing to be good–as per Valentinus–or if they’re actively malevolent.

The fact that David doesn’t poison Holloway’s drink until just before handing it over does neatly show that he was quietly given a chance to answer that question. Holloway continues to be a jackass and, when asked what he’d do to answer the existential question he wanted to pose to the Engineers, he says he’d do “anything and everything”.

The movie eventually treats Peter Weyland as especially deluded in his self-serving quest to get the Engineers to answer his more selfish questions, but I don’t think his ego was unique in this movie.

On our journey into the movie this time, Prometheus has attempted to grapple with subjects its script hasn’t earned. Next time, it incorporates imagery it hasn’t earned. It’s worse than this scene, but in a far more subtle way.

If you want a neat look on european and middle eastern mysticism from an academic standpoint, Esoterica is a pretty damn good channel, put together by a self-described “dialectical materialist in the tradition of Structural Marxism”. I’ll happily take recommendations on other academic sources aimed at the general audience.

https://youtu.be/7EwRD6SzXws

https://st-takla.org/Feastes-&-Special-Events/Coptic-Nativity-of-Jesus-Christ-Milad-El-Masih/Coptic-Jesus-Incarnation-Christmas-03-Incarnation-of-the-Word-Book.html 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masbuta 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drabsha 

https://www.deviantart.com/pretty--kittie/art/Prometheus-Engineer-407322241 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archon_(Gnosticism) 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sethianism

⛬

(Previous) | (Index) | (Next)

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#Prometheus 2012 #Prometheus (2012) #I've been threatening to go on a ramble about gnostic philosophy since the start of this movie #it's finally happened #I'm not a scholar of this stuff #but neither is Ridley Scott

[factual-fantasy]

25 ASKS! THANK YOU!! :DD 🚲

Thank you! And welcome back!! :DD Though what a poor time to come back around to the dumpster fire that is Tumblr--

If you haven't heard the news, we got a bunch of A.I. crap goin on. You'd best go into all your blogs settings individually to "opt out of 3rd party something something". Gotta protect your artwork and reblogs from being A.I. data scraped!

@fnaf-smilingcritters0

Thank you!! :DD

That, and also I think they would get more brittle as they age.. :(

Oh yeah for sure! :D Though Seafoam's beard/hair is made of actual seafoam. So its not that tasty- <XDD

That sounds deliciously dangerous! XDD 😋

I do know that Jam is their blood at least! :0 ..at least I think so-

@tallchest13-blog

XDD I give you an E for effort!

@astaherussy (Referencing this post)

XDD I can almost see him doing that as a social experiment of sorts. Just to see that everyone else would say.

Its all fun and games until everyone starts responding with "Oh absolutely" "Everyday matey.." "Oh yeah, all the time!" Peso would be shocked- XDD

He does not handle the separation well <XD

Well "ship" usually refers to head-cannoning/wanting two characters to be romantically involved. Even if they are not in canon. Blue and Seafoam aren't a ship, they just are.. well, together. Its written into the canon that they are together. So its not a ship and its feels a lot different than a ship would..

As for Peach and Mario, a quick google search says they are canonically mutually romantically interested in each other. Same with Luigi and Daisy. I only tagged my posts as "Mario x Peach" and "Luigi x Daisy".. because that's what people search for when they wanted to see romantic content of those characters-

And even if google straight up lied/is wrong and it turns out not to be confirmed? Those two pairings are so strongly suggested/implied in canon, that I don't get any of negative feelings I associate with ships.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I just don't like ships. It really isn't my thing for a lot of reasons. There's a loooot of not great feelings associated with them. None of my own characters make me feel that way becuase I created them. And their relationships are written into the story..

And the Mario pairings are canon. Or at the very least, they are soooo strongly implied, that I don't get any of the negative feelings associate with ships even if they weren't canonically a thing.. I hope that made sense..?

@citrusfruitman

DUDE THAT SOUNDS LIKE A NIGHTMARE- IM TERRIFIED OF SPIDERS-- <XDD

Huh, the more you know! :0

(Link in question)

XDD Oh yeah absolutely

She will flatten that cake in under 5 minutes. And suffer absolutely no consequences what so ever. Lucky gal <XD

THESE ARE ALL SO GOOD! :DD Rainbow cobbler sounds like it would fit the best considering the ships colors.. But I want the name to relate to coral in some way.. hmm..

@blackcatzcandraw

Uhg.. yeah, I'm aware.. its a good thing I don't plan to post Octonauts content much anymore-

I don't like to think of my OCs as drinkers.. but if anyone did drink, it would be Louis. He's a jolly character that just likes to have a good time with his crew. :)

I do intend for them to raid other ships. :0 But they usually go for ships that can defend themselves to some extent and have loot. You're not gonna see them raid a ship full of orphans and steal their biscuits and pennies-

@yourstrulylightstar283

Sorry, I don't take requests!.. Also considering how tough my DK is, and the fact that he's the alpha- I don't think he would ever get bloody and bruised-

If I remember correctly, the cookie run version of cake creatures are dogs..?

XDD wait doesn't mild dissolve cookies though?-

Hmm.. I'm not sure. I know that there are other cookies in the game that work with metal and stuff. So an electronic toy wouldn't be impossible. If it was small they'd probably assume it was a toy. If it was huge..? Mayyybe they'd think its some kind of malicious machine..? <:0

ALWKNS XDD OH YEAH!

I think Spidercrab is the smart cookie and Louis is the tough cookie XDD

@beryl-shade

Going off of the games.. I thiiiink an "oven" would be like a birthplace..?

#my response #cookie run #cookie run kingdom #cookie run ocs #my ocs #octonauts #fnaf security breach #super mario bros

[gibbearish]

wanted to throw my hat into the ring specifically in regards to james responding to the bigotry claims bc i havent seen anyone address the aspects i wanna talk abt in full yet, it kinda got long as fuck for a p short excerpt so putting it under a readmore

so here's the section (text from @storagebay29 's v helpful transcript):

"I never ever intended to hurt anybody. I never thought that that's what I was doing. Before I went- before I went to the hospital,¹ I read a lot of stuff from people who were really hurt, not just authors and stuff but people who watched my videos who were hurt by stuff in them. People think that I hate ace people and women and bisexual people and lesbians and that's not true. It's really- it's just- it’s not true. And I’m sorry that stuff made it into videos² that just shouldn’t have been there: misinformation and lies... But I promise you I did not write that stuff.³

I should have been a lot more exacting when Nick and I would be editing scripts but I promise you that those are not- I don't think those things.⁴ I specifically want to apologise to asexual people who feel⁵ that I just completed delegitimised you. Nick being ace, I- I know that it's kinda like you know, no two gay people are exactly the same, no two ace people are exactly the same, but I kind of, when it came to that I just kind of ran with Nick's judgement⁶ and his observations and stuff like that. And I’m not trying to throw Nick under the bus,⁷ which a bunch of people are saying that I was setting him up as doing, which is not true…"

so! let's break this down

¹ "Before I went- before I went to the hospital" - firstly i want to be clear of my position with the "did he actually attempt" question bc ive seen some people being absolutely vile already, which is that while i understand doubting his story considering his history of lying and manipulation and obviously skewed moral compass, i also feel like it is VERY much plausible enough that publically speculating abt whether it's true or not is shitty, especially telling HIM you think he's lying. best case scenario you're right, worst case scenario you're crossing a hell of a line, and he's obviously done enough stuff that the situation can be addressed pretty comprehensively without risking getting that coin flip wrong. i think we should proceed under the assumption that lying about that is one line he wouldn't cross, and if proof comes along that he was lying then obviously fuck him, but otherwise i think that aspect should be off limits. and having said all that, even under the assumption he is telling the truth, the way he brings it up in this apology is still manipulative, as many have already pointed out, and this is an excellent example. by bringing it up right before addressing his bigotry, he a) implies to the audience that these comments in particular are a notable part of what sent him there, and therefore plants the idea that if they continue to address it while knowing how badly it's already affecting him, they'd be deliberately trying to hurt him or push him to attempt again, and b) tries to distract the audience from the fact that he's addressing his bigotry and get them to go easy on him, since clearly he's already punished himself over it enough. but harming yourself does not actually make up for harm caused to others, and even if it did, unlearning the bigotry that caused the harm in the first place doesnt end at "feel really bad about it," that's actually step one. and as i'm sure you're already aware and i'll get into more in points 4 and 5, whether he's even at step one yet is doubtful!

² "And I’m sorry that stuff made it into videos" - others have covered his passive voice the whole way through so i won't dwell too long beyond pointing it out, it's mostly just highlighted here bc of how it ties into the next point

³ "But I promise you I did not write that stuff." - just, beautiful in so many ways. performance art, even. firstly, the fact that one of the closest places he comes to calling it plagiarism is in defense against a second allegation? just lmao. and secondly, this is about the most solid proof you could get that he indeed did not watch hbomberguy's video (or at least the whole thing) because hbomb very conclusively showed that if there are /any/ original thoughts of James' in his scripts, it is the bigotry, because he showed multiple examples of James /specifically/ rewording things he plagiarized to ADD IN the bigotry. so then tying back to point 2, his passive voice then becomes about ten times funnier here because he was just. blissfully unaware we all already knew exactly how it "made it into" the script and that his next statement would be a lie. just incredible

⁴ "I don't think those things." - notice the lack of specificity here, the most he can say is "people think i hate these groups" and "i don't think those things" and not "this is exactly what i said that was harmful, here's how it was harmful, here's the correct version of it, and here's how to avoid similar pitfalls in the future", yknow, like what people do when they actually accidentally say bigoted things bc they don't know any better? and again this point ties into the next one:

⁵ "I specifically want to apologise to asexual people who feel that I just completed delegitimised you." - ah yes, nothing says apology like "i'm sorry you felt like what i said was hurtful," where the message is less "i did something wrong and hurt you, i regret this and want to fix it," and more "you were too sensitive and got your feelings hurt by something i didn't intend to be hurtful, but i GUESS i'll be the bigger person and say sorry even though i didn't actually do anything wrong🙄". and see again 4, if he actually had looked into it and learned why it was wrong, he wouldn't be saying people "felt" delegitimised. he would be explaining why people reacted that way ie what it was a reaction to, why this reaction was correct, and providing actual information about asexual people. but he doesnt, because he didnt, because he doesnt care. which is all ESPECIALLY fucked because in saying it this way he's. delegitimising what they were saying. like some kind of fuckin aphobia ouroboros

⁶ "when it came to that I just kind of ran with Nick's judgement" + ⁷ "And I’m not trying to throw Nick under the bus" - here we are, the crown jewels. so obviously ppl are already talking abt the performative allyship of "but my best friend is minority and they said it was fine!!1!" which is fucked up on its own, but then the fact that he immediately jumps to "and also i'm not throwing nick under the bus" shows us that within the greater context, point 6 did indeed mean "the bigotry in the scripts that i am currently apologizing for and explaining the presence of in this section is there because i repeated the things nick told me were true, these ideas originate from him." aka blame nick, not me. but then he remembered that scapegoating nick is also something people are accusing him of so he had to backtrack over it, which if it was actually an innocent statement, it yknow. wouldn't need to be backtracked over? it's like he thinks just because he doesn't outright say "nick has bigoted ideas that i parroted so basically its his fault" that no one can pick up on the subtext? and frankly i don't know much about nick (or james beyond this whole thing tbf so obv take everything i say with the whole shaker of salt) so this very well could be the truth to a degree, but if nick does hold bigoted views too, that's TOO. not instead. for james to repeat them without question to the camera means he doesn't disagree. even if hbomb hadn't proven the bigotry did originate from him, it would still be meaningless, because if it came from nick then that would just mean james decided to stay close working friends with a shitbag and repeat all of his garbage to his fans uncritically!

so in summary, in just this one chunk he: reminds you to be extra niceys to him because hes delicate right now, immediately lies about where the bigotry came from, talks around what he actually said wrong or that he was in the drivers seat for it, then blames nick for it before hearing himself say it out loud reminds him people are picking up on that now too and has to walk it back.

to spoof the roblox oof video: when we look at the sum collective of all of his claims regarding his bigotry, and we put it in context with. the fucking everything about him. when james says the bigotry didn't come from him, this might just be me. but I don't believe him!

#james somerton #i shouldve gone to bed like an hour ago cause ive got a doctors appointment tomorrow but my sleep schedules fucked #so instead this happens #hbomberguy #tw suicide attempt #tw suicide attempt mention #also to be fair hbomb only proved the bigotry /often/ came from him and specifically misogyny #but again given the everything of it . lol. lmao even.