#this character has gone through A LOT of changes since I first thought of her

[strangersteddierthings]

No Regrets - Part One

Content Warning: mentions of main character deaths but these are temporary because this is a time travel two-to-four-shot and so, they start dead but then get better :3 Also maybe a whiplash warning? In that it starts off kind of dark for a story that's pretty light-hearted in the end.

Here's the first part of the threatened season 4 AU time travel fic where Steve gets thrown back to the moment in family video when Dustin and Max show up demanding the phones. Previously he was 5 years into a grueling apocalypse.

Part One🦇 Part Two🦇Part Three🦇Part Four🦇Part Five🦇Part Six

Steve has lived his life in regret. Replaying scenarios in his head over and over late at night when sleep eludes him. And sleep is always eluding him these days, weeks, past five years. Steve hasn't known a day without regret since the day they failed to kill Vecna, the day Max almost died. The day Eddie did.

It's five years to the day today.

Steve spends endless nights thinking about how he'd change that spring break. It was the start of the end of everything. Eddie's death wasn't world ending for Steve. It was the end of a what-if. A maybe. But for Dustin. Oh God, Dustin. Who had blamed himself for Eddie's death, who was broken and then never able to get time to recover. To grieve.

Dustin, who pulled away from everyone, from Steve, because of it.

He's not dead, Steve knows, because he still hears his voice on the radio. Separated from the group but vital to their survival. He spread intel on Demo-creature movements, where safe spaces are, news from across the broken and destroyed America, and how to survive the hellscape.

There have been losses. Terrible, tragic losses.

Murray Baughman. Lucas Sinclair. Karen and Holly Wheeler. Will Byers. And those are just the ones he knows. A lot of people scattered to the wind when Hawkins became overran with the Upside Down and its creatures.

He's still two days out on this supply run. Two more days and he'll get to know who is still around. Who they lost this time. It's not always someone they know, but the horrors never cease, and Steve's been gone a total of three weeks.

"Hey," Robin breaks him from his thoughts as she leans over to whisper in his ear, "since you're gonna daydream, you might as well actually dream. Scouts say it'll be a while before we can continue moving."

"I'm not daydreaming, I'm thinking."

"Well, be sleeping instead. You'll be more useful with some rest," Robin pats her shoulder, inviting him to lean his head against it.

"Don't use my weakness against me. You know I love being useful," Steve sighs as he drops his head onto her shoulder.

"I know. It makes you easy to manipulate," Robin teases. He can hear the smile in her voice. "Now, shut up and sleep."

Steve grumbles under his breath. No real words, just grumpy noises as he does shift and get as comfortable as he can leaned against Robin. He is tired, and with nothing else he can be doing, he won't feel too guilty about it.

He closes his eyes.

He opens his eyes, blinking rapidly at the sudden brightness of the sun shining through the glass storefront of Family Video. Usually when he dreams of the past, the sun's never this bright. It's been years since he's seen the sun at all, with the red-black sky of the Upside Down looming above them constantly.

He takes a deep breath, basking in the fresh(ish) air of Family Video. How long has it been since he's taken a breath without his mouth covered by a mask, bandana, some cloth or another? Well, he's not really breathing without a mask on, his conscious self has one on, but it still feels good to fill his lungs and release. He has half a mind to jump the counter and go outside to repeat that; see if his unconscious mind will provide a difference in the air, if it remembers enough to do so.

"Hey Steve," Dustin says as he is stepping through the doors with Max at his side. It's then that Steve takes in where the dream has started. The doors have just opened, and Steve's looking partially over his shoulder, towards the doors instead of the TV as it plays the news of Chrissy's death on the screen. The world fades back into motion, instead of the slowness the beginning of his dream started as Dustin finishes his question, "how many phones do you have?"

"Are you seeing this?" Steve asks on autopilot, playing out the scene he knows, but he holds off from stating the someone was murdered part. He's tired of saying it.

"How many phones do you have?" Dustin asks with more urgency.

Steve takes in Dustin and Max while Robin explains the phone situation. It's been so fucking long since he's seen Dustin. Since Max was able to see him. God. He can't let this play out like normal. It's not going to fix reality, he knows that logically, but what would it hurt to live out his fantasy of getting a re-do while he dreams? Wasn't that what he was thinking about while awake?

He tunes back into the conversation when Dustin shoves his backpack across the counter, and then himself. Instead of whining about the tapes, he reaches for the pen and notepad they keep close to the till. "Hey, what's this about?"

"Max, fill them in while I do this," Dustin replies.

Max turns to him and Robin, who is eyeing both Steve and Max but listening. Max explains what Steve already knows. The lights going crazy, Eddie fleeing his own home, and that it might be Upside Down related.

There's a script here. Responses he has memorized because of how often he dreams this moment over and over. An answer Steve usually gives, but this time he finds he can hold his tongue. He doesn't have to speak. Doesn't have to follow the script.

"Okay," Steve says instead. "Dustin, what's the number for the Byers now?

Surprisingly, that actually pulls Dustin from the computer. He spins on the stool to give Steve a confused look. "What? Why?"

If he's being honest with himself, he's never really had this much control over his dreams before. Having this control makes him want to do all the things he's daydreamed about. To change the choices that fill him with regret and guilt. "I want to leave a message for Jonathan," Steve lies, "or talk to him if he's home. Give him a heads up that Upside Down shit might be going on again."

Dustin narrows his eyes at Steve, suspicious, "Jonathan?"

"Yeah. Jonathan," Steve says in his bitchiest voice. "Number, dude."

He can tell Dustin doesn't fully believe the lie, but he recites the number anyway.

"Thanks," Steve says as he scoots around Robin and heads to Keith's office to use the phone there. The first thing he does is call the police station and let them know that he saw Eddie Munson at Rick Lipton's place, up by Lover's Lake on Holland Road. The lady who answered starts to ask questions, Steve just says he recognized the trailer on TV as the Munson's and hangs up. He'll swing by later once everyone else has pieced together the Rick Lipton part of this all themselves. If Eddie's still there, he'll drag him to the station himself.

'Cause the thing is, Steve has thought of many scenarios. So many. And even if nothing else changes, this is the bit that will. Eddie cannot be killed in the Upside Down if he is in a jail cell instead. And if the police do follow up on his tip, then they'll take Eddie in for questioning before Fred dies. And that's.

Well.

Steve's living through the end of the world and that changes people. It's changed Steve. Once there would have been a time when allowing someone to die, knowing it was going to happen and not stopping it, would have filled Steve with guilt, regret, maybe even some self-loathing. But Steve's made enough sacrifices for this town. Lost enough of the people he loves to be jaded. Maybe even cruel. If Fred has to die to prove that Eddie didn't do it, then that's what will happen.

His next step is to call the Byers. It surprises him that Joyce actually answers with a hesitant hello. That never happens in the dreams.

"Joyce. I mean, Ms. Byers. It's Steve. Uhh, Steve Harrington," he says.

"Oh. Hello Steve. What, uh, what can I do for you?" Joyce's voice is still hesitant.

"Listen, the Upside Down is back. Or, like, it was never gone? I don't know. But I needed to tell you."

"Oh my God," Joyce sounds horrified, and Steve can hear Murray in the background asking questions. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely. Vec- sorry, it has already killed a girl. Max was a witness. Well, of the aftermath. But that's not important. What I need is for you to tell El that she's never been a monster and never will be. That everything has been the fault of One. And I think you should tell her Hopper is alive and you're going to rescue him."

There's not an immediate answer. A rustling sound and then faint voices he can't make out. She must be covering the phone with her hand as she and Murray talk. Or argue, knowing Murray. After a moment, Murray's voice comes through the line, "How do we know you are who you say you are?"

It's followed by Joyce shouting, "How do you know about Hopper?" and Murray quickly shushing her and some shuffling noises before Joyce says, "Okay. We're both listening."

"Look, I know you have no reason to believe me so I'll give you something that might serve as proof that I know things I shouldn't. When everyone gets back from the roller rink, be there for El. She's going to- to have a bad night, because of a girl that's been, like, bullying her at school. Then, I need you to get them headed this way tomorrow morning, because you gotta be gone then, too, but like. Be there for El tonight. There will be an incident involving a roller skate. So, if you believe me, call me back after that."

"How do we know you're who you claim to be, Steve?" Murray questions again, while Joyce says, horrified, "El's been being bullied?"

"I can't exactly prove I'm me. But call my house tonight after you've spoken to El and I'll answer. That's the best I can do. I... I don't know if Jonathan or Mike have my number, but Mike can call home and get my number from Nancy. That'll be proof, right? Or Will can get it from Dustin. Whichever."

"And how do you know about something happening tonight at the roller rink?" Joyce demands.

"I know more than I should. So, if the roller rink thing holds up, and you decide to at least hear me all the way out, call my house," Steve hangs up then, not wanting to get into a loop of explanation.

"Steve! Hurry up and come help people while I help Thing One and Thing Two!" Robin calls through the door and Steve takes a step towards the closed door to comply but he stops, hand hanging just above the doorknob. That's how the dream goes. That's what 19-year-old Steve would have done.

But that's a Steve that died five years ago, when the world ended, when the apocalypse started. Steve's not 19 anymore, though he must look it, a master of his own puppet. He's never sought himself out in a mirror when he dreams; he's too busy taking in everyone who has been lost to him in his waking life to bother with himself.

What does he want to do this time?

What does he want to do right now?

He leaves Keith's office to beeline to Dustin, pausing only to pat Robin on the shoulder. He slides around Max and comes to a stop beside Dustin.

"I already told you, I need this for-" Dustin starts to speak but cuts off with a squawk that sounds like a mixture of indignation and confusion as Steve just reaching out and bodily turns Dustin towards him. "Steve, this is important!"

"I know," Steve says and then hugs Dustin. Dustin doesn't hug back, but neither does he pull away. Steve knows he's missed Dustin, felt his loss for many years now, but holding Dustin now, feeling him solid and here feels Steve what he can only equate to grief.

Dustin lets himself be hugged for what is, undoubtedly, an awkward amount of time for him before he thumps Steve's back twice and says, "okay... You can stop now."

Steve lets go and turns to Max, who immediately puts her hands up, "No. Absolutely not."

He chuckles and steps around her. He won't force his affection on her.

Then he takes off the family video vest and sets it on the counter.

"Steve?" Robin asks.

"Sorry, Robs, I can't stay and help customers. I have some things I got to do."

"Steve, you cannot abandon me on a Saturday!"

He can't quite bring himself to feel bad for abandoning her. It is a shit thing to do but right now saving Eddie and Max from Vecna is more important. He's already wasting daylight, so instead of answering his gives her his best 'I'm so sorry' face and bolts out the door. All three of them shout after him but he doesn't slow.

He's got a list of regrets to change.

-

Tagging the besties and all the people that expressed interest when I posted the lil blurb about this. Sorry if I missed you!

@i-less-than-three-you @nburkhardt @afewproblems @skepsiss @music9009 @apomaro-mellow @soaringornithopter @reighnofdreams @eddie-munsons-lunchbox @sirsnacksalot @livelifeliketheresnotomorow @sageclipse @schnukiputz @mbloggotdeletedsothisismybackup @lumoschildextra @vampirestevie @alex-axolotl @juleswashere3 @yet-still-more-banched

#steddie #my fic #it's a late birthday fic to myself #not at light-hearted as I wanted #but I'm in a less light-hearted place now than when I first wanted to write this. So my mood has changed the story a bit

[sehodreams]

Pathetic people also fall in love

WC: 7.3K (I’m so sorry it feels like with every fic I write more)

S: Eunseok is busy enough with his life, he has an 8-year-old daughter and is overworked at his job, he didn’t need to add another thing to that list, so when he puts the unused room in his house for rent, he expects his life to become easier, not to wonder why his tenant is so hot!

TW and Tags: Singledad!Landlord!Eunseok x Tenant!Plussize!reader, aged up Eunseok for the story, all consensual, mutual pining, smut, p in v, use of condom (poor Eunseok is traumatized after his first daughter), fingering, mentions of dacryphilia, fluff (I think near the end, if you don’t think so please let me know and I’ll erase it from here), they’re just two losers falling in love.

Comment: Hey guys, sorry for not having post much lately, this was actually first a Sungchan fic because an anon asked me for a Singledad!Sungchan, but while writing I thought wth this is my baby Eunseok and changed it. I want to clarify that this is not dark at all, so be careful if you go through my other fics because most of them are, I’m all soft since 119, still hope you like it!

You were the best tenant anyone could ask for, and Eunseok knew that, so why was he acting as if he was desperate to drive you away?

When you moved to the room next to him in his house he had his doubts, you were younger than him, which usually meant problems, like drunk boys out of his house throwing up on his flowers at midnight, or loud music when he tried to work, but he needed the money and the extra help, and when he interviewed you, you were relatively fine, a young girl that moved away for school and was more than eager to help around for a significant discount on her rent.

You were so fresh, a 22 year old student with the character of an older sister, and he liked that, you always paid your rent on time and made cookies on friday night instead of going out, you also took care of his daughter when he needed to go out in an emergency at work, only asking for some food when he came back, so you were a good girl and the best tenant.

He couldn't lie to himself, he liked you a lot, which made him feel pretty much guilty, because you were just a sweet young thing who hadn't discovered how the world worked, while he, even if he was still young at his 27 years, had gone through everything in a rush, from heartbreak to disappointment and frustration, perfectly knowing he shouldn't look at you the way he did.

He had too many responsibilities to let himself be swayed your way, he had an 8 year old daughter, an overworking job and too many things on his shoulders, and your presence had started to bring him problems, especially at night, when he dreamed of fingering you in the kitchen before breakfast to thank you for making his coffee, or you receiving him in the entrance wearing nothing but an apron with flour stains, and after you gave him a taste of your freshly baked cookies, he dropped to his knees to taste something even better.

He dreamed all that and woke up feeling more tired than when he went to sleep, and with a painful boner that wouldn't leave him alone until he came over the bathroom titles when he took his quick morning shower, thinking of you with him there, taking his length like the good girl you were.

He couldn't look at your face when you said good morning, the guilt making him blush to his ears, wishing he could go back in time and not let his impulses win over him, because he was sure you would feel repulsed if you ever found out what he thought about you.

For you, he was just your landlord, the older guy with a daughter that worked in a restaurant and brought you leftover pasta every now and then, nothing more, and he had to come around that.

But you made it so hard, making breakfast with your pajama shorts and the thin t-shirts that showed your beautiful nipples, bending down with that gorgeous ass when you pulled the tray out of the oven, or with the sound of you vibrator that woke him up at 2 am, with your little moans going through his wall and making him gulp before he decided to wait for you to cum to go back to sleep.

He could help you, he thought that every time he heard you, he could walk the five steps to your room and fuck you like you deserved, nasty and rough, telling you how good you acted that day, making his favorite dish for breakfast, or playing with his daughter until he came back home, "Such a good girl, don't you want to be my little wife? Such a sweet thing should cum over a real dick every night".

His cheeks became red, he shouldn't be thinking that, not before work where he could do nothing to soothe the need.

He rushed to the door, with his coffee cup in one hand and his daughter backpack in the other, she was already waiting for him in the entrance when you ran to them, were you going to give him a goodbye kiss? He wished.

"I made too many of them yesterday, take them for lunch" you gave him a paper bag with two muffins, he felt the sweet aroma of them through the bag and his eyes followed your lips when you talked again, "I already put one in her lunchbox, these are just for you".

He wanted to kiss you so bad, he didn't care that your hair was still ruffled from your night, or that you weren't wearing any makeup at all, he thought you looked fucking gorgeous in that moment, and he wanted to kiss you to say thank you, thank you for being so good, thank you for treating his daughter with care, thank you for everything you do for him even when you didn't need to.

"Okay" he said, and left.

"Okay?" Sungchan asked when he arrived at work and told him what he did.

"Okay" Eunseok passed his hand through his hair, exhausted with everything, with his 10-hour shift, his daughter telling him she missed him, and his body not being able to sleep properly because it needed his tenant.

"What an asshole, that sweet thing just gave you two of the best muffins in the world for free, she made your coffee and helped you get your daughter ready for school, and you say 'okay', not even a 'thank you'? Man, if I was her, I'd leave your pathetic ass immediately, doesn't matter how cheap the rent is" he grabbed one of the little pastries and was about to eat it when Eunseok snatched it from his hand.

"Mine" he said and walked away, making Sungchan scoff.

He didn't meant to be so cold, it was like his body was in survival mode, trying to save his feelings from getting hurt before he even got a chance to do something about them, it'd be too uncomfortable if things didn't work out, you were precious for him, and he didn't want to lose you, but if he kept acting like that, he wasn't just going to drive you off, but you'd hate him in the process, and he couldn't deal with the thought of you hating him, not like that.

That night, when he arrived from his shift, he brought pizza and your favorite drink.

He left them in the counter and walked to his daughter's room, the house was in silence, his daughter already sleeping in her bed and after giving her a good night kiss, he searched for you, you were nowhere sight, so you must be in your room, right?

When he knocked no one answered, where could you be?

You came out of the bathroom seconds later, with just a towel wrapping your body, your tits were overflowing from the grip it did to not fall and he couldn't help but watch you from head to toe, your uncovered shoulders, your soft thighs, even your pretty feet with red nail polish.

"Hey Eunseok, you're early today" you proceeded to tell him about what his daughter had for dinner and how she was sleeping already, and that you were waiting for him before you went out. Almost everything got lost in his ear, he was too busy watching your back and the drops falling down your neck.

"I brought pizza" was the only thing he could say.

"Thank you, I'll eat it after I come back" you closed your door before he could say anything more and, not knowing what else to do, walked to his room.

He looked himself in his mirror, his boner was showing in the reflection and his face was red, he really had a problem, so he took care of it while listening your soft voice singing on the other side of the wall, feeling like a pervert when he finished over his hand.

He changed his clothes for something more comfortable and went to the kitchen to eat a slice of pizza before bed, he was tired and even if he came back earlier than normal, his body was exhausted from all the nights without sleeping well.

He was just finishing his portion when you walked down, looking like a fucking angel ready to take him to the afterlife.

You were wearing a white flowy short dress, showing your beautiful curves and the full of your chest through the cleavage that made you look even more angelic.

But where were you going dressed like that? It couldn't possibly be...

Your phone sounded before he could ask and you ran to open the door, a skinny boy with long black hair was there, waiting for you with the worst resting bitch face he had ever seen, so different from your excited ear to ear grin, "Hi Wonbin" you said with your pretty smile, and he only gave an acknowledged nod in response. Asshole, he thought.

He couldn't say anything to stop you from going out, to scream how you were his and how that lanky boy couldn't give you what he could, he wouldn't appreciate you like he already did, because he didn't know how special and amazing you really were.

Eunseok, still in the same place, heard the door close and then a car starting outside, driving away.

He felt fucking pathetic looking at you smile to another man and leaving the house with someone like him, but maybe that little boy was better than him, even if he didn't like the thought, he could be younger than him, and not have a daughter, just a normal boy for his age, without the weight of thinking about the future, because he didn't have anyone who depended on his actions, just himself.

He closed the pizza box and grabbed a beer, such a pathetic loser, he told himself, having the girl he wanted so close and stopping himself from getting her, blaming his circumstances instead of the reality of him being a coward.

The night felt longer than usual, he used to think that nights didn't have enough hours to rest, and now, with you outside, he thought it felt endless.

He just needed you back home, to know where you were, and what you were doing, with him steps away, to know you were safe.

Hours passed and when the eleven-news started and some traffic accident showed on the screen, he heard a car park out of his place, recognizing your steps to the door. When you opened the door he saw you alone, with a sad look and your pretty hair different from when you went out, as if you tried to brush it with your fingers to look put together before you walked in. His blood wanted to boil at the thought of him touching a single strand of your hair, but he was too preoccupied with your face, what could've happened in your date for you to arrive like that? Was he the jerk he appeared to be? He knew that boy didn't deserve you, but at the same time he wished he was wrong.

"Welcome back" Eunseok said, giving you a small smile. You dropped your purse to the floor when you saw him, looking too exhausted to reciprocate the awkward greeting smile. He felt bad for you, you continued with the disappointed air all over you and he didn't know what to do to cheer you up, "there's still pizza in the kitchen".

You denied his offer, walking to the couch he was sitting, letting your body fall on the other side of it, leaving a big space between you.

You watched the news together for a couple of minutes, in total silence. He understood you didn't feel like talking, you went out after such a long time, getting all dolled up with a dress he had never seen you wear before and such uncomfortable shoes. You almost never went out like that, more into comfortable loose clothes, and around the house you never used make up. He still saw you gorgeous though, but Eunseok was different, he thought that when you had your hair up in a ponytail while cooking, or when you left his daughter use her toy makeup on you, and he loved to see you wearing that swimsuit when you played on the child pool with her, your tummy showing through the clothing and your full chest covered with a top that wasn't your size, it couldn't be your size, he swore that because every time you used it your tits were too much for it and the fabric was hanging on for its life over your body, which to be honest, was incredible hot for him.

And you did all that for a boy that couldn't even walk you to your door at the end of the date, he can't imagine what else did he do that night to make you come back home with such a disappointed look.

"How was the date?" He asked and sipped his can of beer, trying to appear nonchalant, like he didn't care, but he was dying to hear about it.

"It wasn't what I expected" you answered while taking off your high heels, he saw a little blister forming on your feet and he wanted to grab them and give them a well-deserved massage, he was dying to do something for you, but he shouldn't, so he did the only thing he thought would comfort you without him touching you, he passed you his beer for you to take a sip, which you did, you grabbed it and drank a big gulp of it, looking a bit more refreshed after, making him feel good with his choice. "He made me pay for the movie tickets" you continued.

Eunseok opened his mouth, not believing what you told him, he knew the boy was going to be a jerk, but to such extent?

"Yeah, I know" you said when you saw his surprised expression, making you laugh but from embarrassment. "I... I didn't know how to say no, we were already in the que, and I thought that maybe it wouldn't be that bad, maybe it was going to be just that and then he'd pay for the popcorn, I-I don't know what I was thinking"

Of course you knew what you were thinking. You didn't go out with him for the movie, you wanted to get laid, and he was the only one who had offered to go out with you after so long, you didn't have another choice.

You weren't an easy girl, you knew you deserved more, but since you had moved to Eunseok's house you felt more and more needy, praying every day for him to not notice how your thighs clenched when he was around you, or how you touched yourself when he took care of his flowers under the sun, the sweaty look of him was too much for you to contain himself, and you had fallen for various reasons, how he always took a few of his precious creations to decorate your room, how he always brought you your favorite pasta when it was on the daily menu of his restaurant, even how he made sure you were always comfortable around him and his daughter.

How could you not fall for a guy like that? So caring and sweet, and you lived with him, it was like torture to have his smell around you, his body, his warmth, and not be embraced by him.

The only reason you accepted to go out with Wonbin was because your friends told you he was going to be a good fuck, but the only nearly good thing that night were his guitarist fingers playing with your pussy during the movie, "for the ticket" he had said, but you honestly would've preferred the money. It felt good for a second, the teasing was hot, and you told yourself it'd get better, but when he took you to his car and to that dark place instead of a nice room and a comfortable bed, fucking you in his backseat and coming after a few thrust, all that after he asked you to give him head, pushing his fingers on your well braided hair, making a mess of it even when you told him you didn't feel like it, everything got boring for him and he drove you home in an uncomfortable silence.

You felt disgusting when he dropped you off and immediately drove away, leaving you there in front of the house, not even checking if you walked in safely.

The only thing you could think while walking those few steps to the house was Eunseok would've never treated me like that.

So, when you opened your door and saw him sitting in the couch, in front of the tv, when he should be asleep after a long work day, waiting for you, you wanted to cry, because he hates the news, and he would never watch them willingly when he could use that time to sleep instead.

You contained yourself and sighed, biting back your lip from quivering and showing how weak you felt at that moment, you were a big girl, and you couldn't cry every time something went wrong.

But you couldn't deny that you were also more vulnerable because of him those days, and how he was pushing you away when you tried to get closer, just that morning, when you gave him those muffins, it hurt you to hear the 'okay' came out of his mouth, it felt like you were being too much for him and he didn't know what to say to your advances anymore, and perhaps that's why those days he seemed in a worse mood, troubled with your presence near him.

When he offered you his beer you feel slightly comforted, how pathetic, you thought, a girl feeling comforted just because the guy who was rejecting her gave her a sip of his beer.

Some pop star was in a dating scandal and you couldn't care less, but you didn't want to leave, you wanted to be with him for more time, as long as he allowed you.

"Did you want to go out with him?" He asked after a couple minutes. You denied with your head.

He finished his beer, so he got up and walked to the kitchen, coming back with two cans and opening one for you, sitting slightly closer this time.

"Then why did you accept?" Some politician was talking about being honest on his campaign, what a bullshit, he would lie, just like you, a normal human being, has being done since you came to that house, acting like you didn't feel anything for Eunseok, and that everything you did was out of your heart, it partly was, but you did it more eagerly because you wanted him to look your way, to maybe see you different, not the young girl that rented the room next to his in his house, and if not an equal partner, at least some kind of comfort from his daily life, something to come back after his tedious routine and that could give him the peace he needed, just like he and his home did for you.

You decided to not lie anymore, if he asked you something, the least you could do was to be honest with yourself and with him, you didn't have long until everything spilled out of the glass already full of your feelings, and it would kill you to move away from him, his daughter, his house, and everything that had become familiar to you those months, but if you were still going to get hurt, you should be honest before everything went to hell.

You drank another big gulp of your beer before talking again, to feel more confident, "I wanted to get laid". He almost choked with his drink, coughing and looking at your direction to try to find out if you were making a really bad joke or you were telling him the truth.

You didn't look at his direction, some festivity was about to start in a few days and the city was getting ready for a festival, it looks pretty, I should go with his daughter before I move out, you thought.

Every day you had contained yourself from going to his arms, kissing his lips and asking for him to pay you attention had come to that, and you had resigned to leaving when he asked you to, because if before he was uncomfortable, now he was going to find you unbearable, and it would kill you to stay and see the place you called home crumble in front of your eyes.

Still, you had never felt so free.

He saw the decision written all over your face, you knew what was going to happen next, and he was afraid of the outcome, of what was going to happen if you ever left him, what would he do without your coffee? Without your laugh filling his house, without the smell of your shampoo all over the room after you took a long shower, or with the way his daughter had started to depend on you for certain questions, just, what would he do without you?

He wanted to come home after his shift to be welcomed by his two favorite girls all over the world, and he was an adult, he would get over it with time, but he didn't want to, he had already compromised with many things, with leaving college, with not going to friend's parties anymore, with only drinking beer once a week, with not being the first place in his life never again, he had already accepted too many things, and you leaving wasn't one of them.

"Well, you didn't have to ask another man when you have me right here" he couldn't process what he said, he just said it, his lips moving before he could think twice. You stared at him taken aback from his words, you expected him to call you dumbass or anything along that, but he was making clear you had permission to see him not like your landlord or just an older guy, but like a man.

Your eyes interlocked and the tension got thicker, both of you were closer without any of you noticing, shoulders touching, and when you moved your face slowly towards him, waiting for him to tell you he didn't mean what he just said, he tenderly grabbed your face and made you kiss him, erasing all distance between you, finally.

Your eyes shut and you kissed softly at first, tasting the lingering bitter flavor of his cheap beer, enjoying every second of it, until you whimpered on his lips, and he, reacting to it, tapped twice with the palm of his hand over one of your thighs, to signal you that he wanted you to be over his lap.

You let your weight fall over him and he loved the way he felt your ass flushing with his knees, his hands roamed all the way from your waist to the softness of your legs and followed the same trail back, addicted to the way your body, even being bigger than normal and nothing like he ever had in the past, felt perfect on his hands, as if you had been designed for him and only him to touch and indulge in.

The hem of your dress had rolled with your movements and his hands didn't help neither, trying to lift it up as much as he could to feel the plump of your ass.

"To the movies with a dress like this one? Tell me the truth, did he finger you with people around? don't you feel any shame?" He asked, making you rock your hips over his boner. You sighed on his neck, not daring to look at him in the face, shame creeping your red cheeks.

"Why do you say that?" You asked curious of his remarks, they were true, but how did he know?

"Because he's no better than me, and I'd have done it too", he made you look at him, one of his hands still over your ass and the other on your jaw, admiring you over him, his glossy eyes were all over your face, from your flushing cheeks to your lips with the mild cherry color of your lipstick that was almost completely removed by his kisses "you're too pretty, no one would be able to resist" he said, lips finding your again, kissing you deeper, wanting to satisfy the part of him that had been screaming for your mouth every day until now, as if it was possible to ever calm it.

You started to blush even more, embracing him with your arms around his neck to kiss him better, and after a couple of seconds, when he let you breath and hide your face on his neck again, licking his lips and still making you bounce with the strength of his hands on your waist, moving you to his liking, his bulge perfectly touching your clit under your panties, you nodded to his past question, Wonbin did finger you, and you did feel shame, but with him, with Eunseok, you were sure you'd have let him take you right there in front of everyone and you'd have said thank you when he finished with you.

"I'm sure he fucked you, did he fuck you in his car? He doesn't look like the kind of boy who takes you to a nice room to give you what you deserve, I'm sure you couldn't even cum once with him, this sweet thing needs to be taken care of by someone who can handle it, someone like me" he whispered that to your ear, biting back his groans and making fun of you trying to hide your soft moans, adding to that the way you nodded to everything he said, he felt exhilarating, wanting to tease you even more, wondering what would happen, would you cry for him to stop? Or even better, would you cry for him to not stop?

The thought did things in him, and as a result, his thumb touched your pussy over the fabric of your panties, fumbling around it to feel how wet you were getting, making you moan louder than you expected, sensitive after being teased before but not finding the satisfaction you needed.

You supposed it was that, how Wonbin played with your pussy just hours before, you didn't think it was probably from all you went through for months, hiding the way you needed him, or how you played with yourself thinking of him behind your door, everything accumulating and being too much for you in this moment, the cathartic minute in which you finally were feeling his body against you, his aroma as close as you begged past nights, and his hands prying the place that suffered his absence the most.

"It hurts" you cried, begging for him to touch you directly with his hands. The air in the room was hotter and your untouched skin was burning. Your hips moved perfectly over him and he imagined himself making you lie on the couch to fuck you until you screamed, he was in pain too to be honest, too many nights needing you almost made him weak, but he wanted to enjoy it as much as he could, in case it was the only night he'd have the privilege of having you, to never forget you in case what you had decided for tomorrow didn't include him.

He kissed you again, he couldn't take you there, on his ugly old couch, he had to take you properly, like you should be treated, "I know baby, I know" he said, eyebrows frowning and breath hitching from getting closer to his orgasm, he had been too painfully untouched and sure you were the same, asking for each other at midnight, each of you in their own rooms, praying for the other to do something about their desire, "let's go to my room, okay? I know you can do it for me, I need to touch you more, and for you to be comfortable in every moment of it, my precious baby"

You wanted to tear up of how good he talked to you, giving and asking for compassion at the same time. For him, you had earned the right to be treated like that, to demand it from him, working hard and giving parts of you he didn't ask for and hadn't realized he needed until you came into the picture of his dull and exhausting life, making it brighter and more bearable every day you spent together.

You didn't want to move, so close of your first orgasm over his lap, but he clapped his hand over your thighs, telling you to move away from him "come on angel, I know you're a good girl, you heard me, let's go" you were a good girl, his good girl, so with the pain of your heart, and your clit, you moved out of his lap, letting him drag you by the hand to his room. The path was short, just the staircase and a couple steps to his room, but the way he was showing you his back, making you walk as fast as him to get to his bed, made your pussy throb. This was happening, really happening, and you smiled feeling content.

When both of you arrived to his room, a secret place you had never been able to set a foot in before, door always closed, you sensed the last line between you both blurring, because nothing, not even an earthquake, would make you get out of his bed tonight, you'd receive everything you had been yearning for, and you'd be grateful at the end, in case he only accepted you one time.

He kissed you again against his door, making you stand on your tip toes to meet his mouth. Your chest was touching his and you were dying for them to touch directly, without any fabric stopping your nipples from feeling his hard chest, even if he didn't train that much anymore, you had seen him come back sweating after a morning jog every sunday, waking up at 6 AM to come back with your favorite bread freshly baked.

While kissing he made you walk back to the bed, pushing you over it and taking off his shirt to then go back to his duty over you.

His mouth couldn't leave you alone, and groping everything he could with his hands and rutting his erection over your pussy, he made sure your lips, and your tongue, were focused on him.

"Please, I need more" you told him, tired of not feeling him on your skin.

He didn't answer you, two of his fingers found your clothed pussy and pressed your underwear, sensing how wet you were under his fingers, a big warm spot was formed, and he decided to not tease you anymore over it. His palm went under your panties, and if over your panties he felt you wet, now you were dripping. His hand was quickly covered on your juices immediately, making him groan, how could he tease his baby so much when she was suffering like that?

"Fuck, I’m sorry angel", two of his fingers found your hole and started to play with you, fucking you without problem because of how wet you were, and you received him like all the time, making him feel welcome with your warmth.

Your body was shaking under him, hands on his chest touching his skin, trying to grasp as much of him as you could, slightly pushing him away of how good he was working you with just with his fingers, but without the force to actually do it, it was just your body reacting to him, because you really wanted him to be closer.

"Wait-" strangled words wanted to come out of your mouth, he was so good with his hands your eyelids were fluttering and the only think you could see in the dark room, with the little light coming through his curtains, was his grin watching your pussy take his fingers, and his arm making that possible.

Two fingers became three and his hand started to fuck you more, like trying to find something inside you, fingers in and out on scissoring movements, until you started to cry louder and leak over his hand, making him feel proud of his work, "that's right baby, come on, cum all over my hand".

You had your first orgasm, making a mess on his hand and your panties, it was uncomfortable to keep wearing them, wet and sticking to you, so he took them off, making you lift your legs to take them. You didn't know if he could see you in that darkness, but he could, your pussy glistening was impossible to ignore, and the image in front of him was everything he had been dreaming of for months.

He took of your dress too, enjoying the view even more, you weren't wearing a bra, and your tits jumped in front of him, gravity making them fall a bit to each side of how big they were, so fucking hot.

His mouth went to your little buds, tongue flicking over one and grabbing the other, and exchanging the work between each of them after he thought it was enough attention to one. They were so soft under his hand, skin overflowing his grip and making him think maybe I should die here, because there was no place more comfortable than there over your beautiful chest.

"Eunseok, please don't tease me" You cried under him, you had watched him so concentrated on your chest you didn't want to distract him, but the pain on your pussy was becoming too much for you, and you were still leaking all over his grey sweatpants.

"Such a crybaby" He smiled, pulling down his sweatpants and his boxers, just enough to free his cock and put the condom he had on his nightstand, he wanted to fuck you, but he had already learnt his lesson, he wanted to take care of you for a long time, to fuck you many more times. He slapped your pretty cunt with his length, enjoying your little jolts. "Sorry, it's because you're the prettiest girl, I couldn't contain myself" he said, pushing his dick over you, simulating the way his cock was going to fuck you in just a second, you opening your legs even more without you intending to, all so he could be closer to you "I'll give you what you want, don't worry" he kissed your forehead to take your attention away from the tip of his dick sliding through your hole, but it was so long he still had you squirming under him, even with all the preparation, you felt him stretching you like no one had done before, "You're dripping all over my bed, it's because of me or him?" He asked after his cock made a wet sound when he finished pushing it into you.

"Uh?" You couldn't process his words, too lost into the sensation of his cock inside you, fucking your guts, so deed the only thing that went through your mind was fuck me, fuck me.

"Who made you like this, me or him?" He repeated his question and you realized who he was talking about, Wonbin, and even if he had fucked you, he was nowhere near Eunseok.

"You, Eunseok, just you" you cried, his hips had stopped for a second to hear your answer, and when he heard the desperation on your voice, he understood you weren't telling him just what he wanted to hear, but the truth. Your nails started to mark his back and he, because of the intensity of the moment, didn't feel it, too concentrated on the sensation of your walls accepting him so easily, something uncommon for him since his length was bigger than normal, but of course his little angel would do it without problem, you were made for him, and he had no intention of ever sharing you again.

His hips moved again, pulling as far as he could to dive all in, making your tears drop one by one of how good you were feeling, you felt high, like touching the sky, and with each trust he took you back to earth, to that room, demonstrating you how the only thing you needed to feel complete was him.

Your heart was racing, you could hear it beating on your ears, but you didn't know what was that you were hearing, his cock making you ignore anything else that wasn't him and his groans.

"Fuck, so tight, has no one been taking care of you since you came here? I'm sure your little toy doesn't compare" he asked and the rhythm of his hips increased, his cock pushing deeper with each thrust. "Were you thinking of me when you used it? Did you want me to hear it so I could go to your room and fuck you?" You shook your head, you used it because you were too horny after spending time with him, and just the image of him coming back home with his white shirt and his ruffled hair made you crazy, he always looked so stressed you had to resist the temptation of dropping to your knees to suck his cock when he told you your daily good night, your mind only repeated I'm here, please use me!, and without being able to receive anything from him, you had to rely on your toy.

You wanted to talk and tell him everything, but no coherent sound came out of your mouth, your insides were being so fucked any function in your mind had shut down, focusing only on your pussy and the pleasure he was giving you.

You couldn't talk and that frustrated you, making multiple tears fall down your cheeks, sobbing at this point. Your hands didn't want to let him go and you tried to hug him and get him closer to you, but you were crying so loud he had to stop to check on you one second, to make sure you were okay.

He looked at you worried "what's wrong baby? Am I being too much?" He caressed your cheek with his thumb and cleaned the strand of tears.

You denied, focusing all your mind into talking again "feels so good, please don't stop". He stared at you for a long time, appreciating your face and your body, trying to get all into his memory to never forget how beautiful you looked at that moment, crying for him and his cock, begging for him to not stop.

He didn't know what he would do if he couldn't fuck you again, if before he was deep into you, now he was in a place that had no escape.

You moved your body under him, trying to get the same feeling from seconds ago, making you forget everything again, making you forget who he was, who you were, and what would happen after you both finished.

"You have no idea of how much I fucking like you" you wanted to say me too when he talked, but his hips had started to work you again and you could only moan loudly when you tried to talk, so you decided to bite your lip to stop being too noisy instead. "I'm sorry baby, I know you want to be loud, but we'll get in trouble" you nodded, understanding why he said that. He put his hand over your mouth and kissed your temple while fucking you, pushing you to the same abyss he was in, needing more of your juices to make a mess over his bedsheets, to let your smell linger around him for more time.

The way he was looking at you was something you'll never be able to forget, something you had never seen before, no one, in all your life, had stared at you with such intensity, full of need and possession, like screaming mine, mine, mine, and you couldn't correct him, he was right, you were his.

Your walls clenched around him and he let your mouth free to kiss you again, his tongue had intruded into your mouth, stealing the little air you had and making you even more dizzy, mind scattered all around the room like your clothes, pushing his dick in a more erratic way, not calculating so much how and what to push, just feeling.

"I'm so close, cum with me angel, fuck" his hips were practically punching yours, making the sound of both skins clapping so dirty you felt yourself tightening just with it. You nodded, both of his arms were on each side of your head and your hands held onto them, trying to not fall wherever you felt you were about to, as if he was going to push you, with him, into some state of clarity you had never experienced before.

He did push you into something new, the orgasm was so hard you lost yourself for a second, mind becoming black and eyes rolling for a long moment, your heart and breath completely stopping and toes curling into the bed, feeling his cock throb inside you while some liquid leaked out of your used pussy.

He brought you back to reality with soft kisses. His hair was sweating over your forehead, and you felt his skin sticky against yours, but you felt complete, after so much time, you were where you should be, in his room, on his bed, with him and only him.

He let his body fall over yours, squishing you with his size, his cock was still inside you, and you didn't want him to move, he could stay like that all night if he wanted, you'd never ask him to move.

Sadly, he moved apart minutes later, when both of you had regained their breaths and your hand was caressing his broad back. He lifted himself, still between your legs, pulling his dick out of you to remove the condom, making you whimper a protest. He laughed quietly, looking down at you, such a needy baby.

He walked out of the room and you started to get doubtful, was he going to regret everything you had done? You loved every second of it, you didn't want to be apart from him ever again, but maybe... Maybe he just needed some release.

Your eyes started to get wet, you always thought you would be satisfied with one time, but you became greedy after feeling his touch, and one time would never be enough again.

He came back minutes after, you heard his steps, but you didn't turn back to him, afraid of what he would tell you.

"Angel, I brought you your tea, have some before you sleep" he touched your shoulder and made you look at him, when you did, he gave you the softest smile and moved a strand of your hair out of your face. You wanted to cry again, touched by his treatment.

You drank some of it, still fresh and cold, while he cleaned you with a wet towel between your legs, so you could sleep more comfortable.

Then, when you gave him the cup, he tossed the used towel away, and, after leaving your cup over a couple of his gardening magazines on his nightstand, he made you cover yourself under his bedsheet, lying next to you, accepting your hug into his arms and giving you a goodnight kiss on your forehead, erasing all doubts from your head, because he'd never be able to give up on his little angel again.

#riize x plus size reader #riize x reader #riize smut #eunseok x reader #eunseok smut #eunseok scenarios #riize imagines #riize scenarios #plus size reader #chubby reader

[sparklecarehospital]

been reflecting on my year a bit, and i was thinking about something. i think i know what the best thing i did for myself this year was.

making cometcare public. making the ask blog.

ive had this AU stirring in my brain since 2019, ever since i got really attached to doomi during the haunted arc. one reason i went so long without revealing pollarrydoomi as a ship to readers was because doom's crush wasn't public information until late 2021.

i had kept his crush a mystery for 3 years, but revealed it after a fun experience where people figured out who it was through guessing. i'm pretty sure i did a poll about it? asking people to guess who they thought it was, and uni won the vote, meaning everyone had already figured it out.

after pollarrydoomi was revealed and i started drawing art for it and people made fanart for it, i still couldn't post any of my AU art because ally wasn't public and she and howie were in the AU. in july 2022, for the comic's birthday, i revealed ally as a character to the readers. others around the time had started to notice characters i had in pfps and i ended up telling everyone i did have pollarrydoomi ship kids, but i didn't make them public.

in november 2022, i revealed eve on toyhouse. after her reveal, i would soon reveal sly as well in december 2022 on my birthday (revealing sly as a birthday present to myself is such a funny gesture now that you guys know how important he is to me). over the next few weeks i revealed cream, frosty, and marco as well. all of the main cometkids except chem.

then one day someone out there suggested that i make an ask blog for the cometcare AU. it was such a spontaneous decision, and i didn't even really know what i was gonna do with it at first. i was just kinda messing around. but when i made the blog i realized that if i wanted this AU to be experienced in complete authenticity, i couldn't make uni cis.

so i revealed uni being trans through the blog, despite the fact i'd gone so many years without ever revealing her identity. why did i do it? there's a lot of reasons. not wanting to make her a "dad" in the AU contributed, but also i felt like it wouldn't be detrimental to the story to confirm a character being trans. it also made me (and the crew in general) a lot more comfortable being able to properly refer to uni with her actual pronouns.

making the ask blog really changed me, because finally i could share this little family and comfort story i'd built in my brain with the world and make it real and make content for it and let people consume it.

but what stopped me most of all?

i've said it many times before... but i felt like it was cringey.

i felt like making an AU with 93985893844 fankids in a ridiculous complicated polycule wasn't something a Serious content creator should do, and i was really worried the reception would be negative or people would think it was stupid or something. i did NOT expect it to become as popular as it is. the blog actually has more followers than the MAIN ASK BLOG for the canon comic. it was received SO POSITIVELY and the fact it was just kind of blows me away.

it means so much to me. being able to share the most special thing in my life with people and for people to actually like it and have fun with me and want to see it, and for me to be able to not have to follow strict professionalism about spoilers and chronological storytelling, and being able to change and add in things whenever i felt like it. it's such a freeing experience.

when i was a kid, i used to make stories and OCs and i didn't take them as seriously as i do the sparklecare reboot. this kind of turned into my entire life and career kinda, so i had to take it more seriously. but making this AU honestly just makes me feel like i'm a kid again, it makes me feel like i can have fun and literally do whatever the fuck i want without worrying what people think or if it's realistic or if it makes any sense.

i know though, that some people don't like pollarrydoomi. and i know why. whether it's because of being attached to barruni (of course, they're the canon ship and main characters, i get it) or just having discomfort with the idea of shipping doom with anyone when canonically he hasn't experienced a redemption arc... i get it. i know not everyone likes it.

and that's okay! people are entitled to having their own feelings about content. i understand it. and i've come to accept that's always going to be the case with anything i do with these characters.

but i'm still going to do this for myself. i do this because it makes me happy to just have fun and not worry about being serious all the time. it feels good, especially when it's with characters that are really really important to me.

cometcare is genuinely the most special and important thing i've ever made for myself, it's such a huge piece of my identity and it makes me who i am. and being able to make this story public and share it with people and share these things that have been in my brain for so long with others means so much to me.

that's why i think it was the best thing i've done this year. it's kind of literally changed my life to be able to talk about them. it's made me happier than i've ever been making content. i'm not just making it to entertain myself alone anymore, i'm making it to entertain others like i do with other stuff. and the fact people actually like it still is unbelievable to me.

so, i guess my outlook for next year as it comes is to continue to stop taking everything so seriously. i can tell my stories however i want to. i hope others can realize they can do this too.

please make whatever you want, whenever you what, as much as you want, even if it doesn't make sense or if it's "cringe". you will be so much happier when you realize as a creator you DON'T have to take all of this so seriously. the comic still exists and people read it even if i'm doing this. You Can Do Whatever You Want And Nobody Can Ever Stop You. the only person who can stop you is yourself when you let your inhibitions get in the way of your ability to create things for yourself.

have fun! life is too short to take everything you do seriously

#text #cometcare au #pollarrydoomi #long post

[byunpum]

EXPERIMENT 56 [your time is coming] sequel

AVATAR MASTERLIST | EXPERIMENT 56 masterlist

PAIR: Neteyam x Human reader. ( a mix of human and Navi )

Other pairs: Quaritch x reader (platonic) , sully fam x reader.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

SUMMARY: Y/N thinks she has a peaceful life with her new family. But a sudden visitor is about to change her life and her family's life.

WARNINGS: 18+, the characters are aged up 20's, a little violence, don't worry no one dies, Y/N and neteyam being parents , Bestie stuff, Family moments, jealousy,

Note: Ok, I thought a lot about posting this sequel, but since I love my own story, I wanted to continue it. I recommend everyone to read the first part of "experiment 56" so you can understand everything. Still, I hope you like this pilot a lot. If this post is well-received, I will continue the story.

"Are you sure you want to go alone?" asks neteyam holding noah't to his chest. "Yes, don't worry I'll be fine" you say as you continue getting ready to go out to pick some fruits. It wasn't just any fruit, it was a very special fruit that bore its fruits a bit far from the village. This made neteyam a little nervous, but it made you excited. It had been a long time since you had gone adventuring alone and the simple fact of searching for a fruit excited you.

Since you had become a mother, all your time and space was for noah't. It wasn't like neteyam wasn't there. He was always helping you, taking care of you and the baby. But noah't had a very strong attachment to you. Neytiri told you that this was normal, she commented how loak was very attached to her when he was a baby, this was transitory. You knew this was the best time to go out, as noah't was taking his midday nap. "He's already eaten, he's clean…so I'll leave you two alone" you say going over to give neteyam a kiss. You knew he was worried, he still hadn't gotten over the previous events of your loss. And knowing that you were going to be alone in the jungle terrified him.

"What if someone goes with you? Why don't you tell loak" neteyam stops and thinks a little clearly. " No, loak no…but if you tell kiri or spider to accompany you?" neteyam has his hand holding you, gently stroking your fingers, you give him a grumpy look. You hated it when he got like this, nothing was going to happen to you. Everything had gotten better, the altercations with the RDA had lessened, they were in their zone and you were in yours. Also, you weren't going to get too far away. "Neteyam… kiri is busy with mo'at. Spider is eywa know where. I'll be fine" you give her a quick kiss, and run out of your hut.

Neteyam stayed quiet watching you run out of the hut. Yes he was worried, but he knew you were going to be fine. You were a strong woman and you knew how to defend yourself, maybe you were right. He was being a little overprotective. So he decided to lie down for a while with his son, it was one of the few days he didn't have to do anything. He walked over to the bed, this was a large hammock, which you insisted on having and which neteyam was forced to put up. He climbed up carefully, and placed his little baby next to him and close to his chest. He snuggled further into the bed and slowly zeroed his eyes.

Meanwhile, not far away you are walking peacefully through the jungle of Pandora. Enjoying the feel of the grass on your feet, the clean air and the coolness of the forest. Wow, you missed this… to be preoccupied for at least several hours. You knew you had to go back, noah't was going to get up and get hungry. That baby ate too much. And you couldn't stand to be away from him for more than 3 hours. You knew neytiri would calm him down, but you knew you had a curfew anyway. But enjoying your free time, you started running, faster and faster.

You picked up some fruits, and put them in a bag that you had hung on your waist. You also took the opportunity to take some feathers that some animals had left behind, these were perfect for the new outfit you were making for noah't. You were in your little bubble, until your ears heard a strange noise, it was familiar but strange. You crawl along the floor, trying to hide from whatever was making that noise. You took your time to analyze the noise, it was loud breathing and cursing that you could hear softly. Ok, it was something you could recognize, whatever it was was speaking one of your languages.

You got closer, hiding in the branches trying to see what creature was making that noise. As you got closer you could see the figure of a navi, it had military clothes, and it was not similar to the scientist's navis and it was kneeling on the ground… it seemed to be searching for something. You hide more in the bushes. What were the recoms doing near the village. This was worrying you… They weren't supposed to be around, that was the deal. You didn't think long and took your bow and pointed it at the target. You weren't going to risk it, this avatar could be dangerous for you and your family. The only ones who knew where you were was… wait.

You were standing there, with the bow ready to shoot the arrow, when you remembered who you had told about your location. Of course, he had to be the only one. Quaritch?…it couldn't be. The last time you communicated with him was seven months ago. That's when he saw your baby for the first time, after that encounter…you didn't hear from him. Why was he here? Were there more of them in the area? Was he going to betray you?

You lower the bow and start to look at the situation, the man was so into what he was doing that he didn't realize that you were just 6 feet away. "He's a dummy" you think to yourself, as you watch him get up. And you see how one of his hands is stuck to his chest and you can see blood. You could analyze the expression of pain on his face, and you can see how other parts of his body were hurt. They were like burns. You stop in your tracks… you had an inner fight, your instinct was telling you to stay away. But on the other hand you wanted to help him. What's the worst that could happen if you got caught again? He wasn't going to hurt himself just for the fun of it?

So you move a little closer and speak softly, but with worry. "Quaritch? Is that you?" you speak, this makes the man turn around quickly looking for the location of the voice. And there you could confirm that he did not have any kind of weapon, he is very hurt. His eyes were pained, worried, lost. "Y/N?" Quaritch, he spoke with a broken voice… he was about to cry. You slowly came out of your hiding place, and as soon as your figure was in sight. The man took several steps and was on the floor on his knees in front of you. You didn't know what was happening, you had never seen him like this.

"Finally I find you!!!" he let out a gasp. "What is happening to you? Why are you like this?" you ask, lifting his face in your hands. You were analyzing his wounds, how his clothes were full of blood. "They… they got rid of us" he speaks, as you watch his eyes fill with tears. He was scared, harmless and hurt. You could even guess that he was dehydrated. "But who did this? Why are you here?" you want to stay calm, but it was almost impossible. You watch as he collapses completely on the ground, he is sitting with his head down. He groans in pain. "Everyone…Y/N, everyone is dead" Quaritch looks up. You sit down in front of him, you didn't want to touch him too much.

"Hey, why don't we go to a safe area…get you all patched up and drink some water" you invite him, taking his free hand. Making him get up from the ground. Quaritch just looked you in the eyes, and nodded. You couldn't leave him here. He was your friend, he was hurt and you knew that if you left him here in the condition he was in he would die in less than 4 hours. He was in a very bad condition. Of course, you couldn't take him to the village. Neteyam would be furious and so would your father. And your mother…she was going to kill him. So as you slowly walk through the forest holding his hand making sure he was okay. You decide to take him to the beach, it wasn't too far and there you had a little shelter.

It was a refuge that you used from time to time. You used to go there with neteyam and noah't, it was also your space to go and take care of your ilu and spend time with him. No one used to go to your seaside shelter, so it was perfect for Quaritch to take refuge. While you were thinking of a better plan. They were getting closer and you could hear his breathing and how exhausted he was feeling. "We're close…hang in for a little while." As you reached the beach, you pulled him inside the small hut. You could see your ilu, poking his head out to greet you. You signaled with your hands for him to look for a type of sea clam, which was used to heal wounds. This had been taught to you by Tsireya, to train your ilu to follow command and even to know how to search.

Quaritch sat on a kind of bed. You approached him and lifted his face. "Hey…have some water?" you offer him water from a clay jar. He took it in a hurry, you could tell he had been like this for days. "Now…take off that dirty shirt, while I go prepare everything to heal those wounds" you speak, while you see that the man only obeys you. This was a new behavior for you, the Quaritch you knew was a strong, intimidating man, but now he was so vulnerable. You took some herbs that you had nearby. You had them here, in case an accident happened, you would be ready. All that was left was for your ilu, to shred the clams you needed.

"Hi'i will be back soon" you say. "Who is Hi'i?" asks Quaritch, he had finally spoken. "It's my ilu" you say. "And cupcake?" he asks, looking you in the eye. You move closer and wipe some blood from between his eyebrows with a tissue. "He's in the village, with the other ikran. It's okay…but you" there is silence and you can see his eyes fill with tears. Before he speaks, you hear Hi'i's roar. You run out to the coast, and see that Hi'i had several shells in his mouth. "Ahhh thank you precious… thank you very much" you thank him. Running back to prepare the medicinal paste that mo'at had taught you. Quaritch watches you work quietly. And then you stand up and begin to place the paste on her injured skin. "I don't want to clean it too much, because it has already created its own layer…but this will help with the inflammation and remove bacteria," your hands dab at the skin. And you listen as Quaritch moans, but you notice how he is relaxing.

"It hurts…but it feels good" you say, watching as you carefully place more on his arm. You find some cloths and wrap them up. "Now…tell me what happened? Why are you here…you know one of the warriors could have killed you" you speak, as you continue to work on other wounds. "They have decided against us…we are no longer useful to them. They sent us on a routine 'mission'…it was all right, my squad is fine. I got a message from General Ardmore saying that our service was good, but they needed new equipment. Out of nowhere the helicopter exploded" Quaritch speaks, while you are sitting in front of him you couldn't believe what you were hearing. "When I got up… they were all dead. Everything was destroyed" he lowers his head, you can see the tears fall to the floor. "And Lyle?" you ask. You didn't know the others in the group. But you did know Lyle, he was a great friend of yours. "He didn't survive…" Quaritch can see your hand go to your mouth, looking to calm you down. You get up and give him a hug. "I'm so sorry…" you are crying.

"That's why I came looking for you… you are the only person I have left alive, the one I can trust" Quaritch says, you hug him again. You couldn't hold back your tears. Your mother is right, humans can be so cruel, how they can kill living creatures for no reason. "And what are you going to do next?" you look up, you were already picking up some things. "I don't know… if I go near the base they will kill me" he speaks, you can see how confused he is. "Why don't you spend the night here, here…it's some fruit" you take out the fruit you had picked from your bag. "I'll come tomorrow and we'll talk about everything" you explain. "But no one will come here" Quaritch stands up, he is scared and defensive. You take his hand and calm him down a little, making him sit down again. "No, this place is secret…it's mine" you say, looking for some clothes for Quaritch to change and make him more comfortable. "Won't you stay?" he asks. " I can't…neteyam and noah't are waiting for me" you laugh a little, you see how his ears perk up with surprise. "It's true…you have a family. I bet the baby is precious" Quaritch says while playing with his hands. He did that when he was nervous. "Yes…it's gigantic. Literally gigantic" you say.

Before you leave the hut, you give him one last hug. "See you tomorrow…I'll be back" you say, as you leave the hut. You see that the sky is getting dark, how long you have been there. It was very late… it doesn't take you long to get to the village. You run quickly to the hut you shared with neteyam, when you enter you see jake playing with noah't while neteyam is preparing the dinner. "Honey you're finally here" says Jake, he was lying on the floor letting his grandson play on top of him. "H-hello dad…what are you doing here?" you ask nervously. If anyone found out that you were helping one of the clan's greatest enemies, in your hut on the coast, they would kill you. They were going to kill you.

"I came to visit you…I can't?" asks Jake, he noticed how nervous you were. After all…he was your father, he raised you. He knew your every moves. You walk over to neteyam, who is cutting up various foods. He is sitting down, so you hug him from behind. Trying to change the subject. "Of course you can dad, I was just asking," you say, as you continue to hug Neteyam. Neteyam moves his head, to kiss your hand which is hugging his neck. "Love…you smell blood, did you get hurt?" everyone stops what they are doing, even jake holds noah't so he can look at you. "It's nothing…it's a scratch. Look…I didn't get any fruit" you lift your shoulders, while giving neteyam a kiss on the back. "Well… but you're okay, right?" he looks up to study you. You give him a small smile and lean in to kiss him on the lips. "Love, I'm fine…just a little tired. I've been looking for the fruit all day and nothing" you pull away from neteyam, moving closer to take noah't in your arms.

"My baby…you must be very very hungry" you say, settling Noah't on your chest, so that he can feed. Jake watches you, he knows you are hiding something. "Honey, is everything okay?" Jake asks again. "Yes daddy…" you look away quickly. "Well…I'll leave you two alone. Rest kids" jake says as he gets up, gives you a kiss on the forehead and a squeeze on the shoulder to his oldest son. Jake was so proud of you guys, you had grown up so much, you already had a family.

Neteyam gets up and walks a little bit to be in front of you. Your gaze was lost, you had noah't suckling you, while you were rocking from side to side. Neteyam comes closer to kiss you on your forehead. "Y/N do you have something to tell me?" neteyam asks, he knows you were not well. First you didn't come with fruits, second... you smelled like another man.

I hope you guys don't mind me putting you on the taglist, since you were always supporting the first part of 'experiment 56'. I think it's only fair that you know about the sequel, first of all.

Neytiri babies: @st4rrry @valeriinee @inutheangel @gielrmn @sloppierjewel @purple7theparty @itscheybaby @ssc7514 @namorslit @ducks118 @tpwkstiles @elli-aesthetics @nao-cchi @uselessbutinteresting @msjae @austynparksandpizza @gamorxa @andyyy4444 @itssomeonereading @meivap @barbii04 @mm-nope @dorck26 @nessrin @purple7theparty @ssc7514 @sloppierjewel @yeosxxx @legendleopard100 @pandoragalora @jayzes-blog @ducks118 @kyriekurokami @heesoftiefreak @teamanime @d4rno @dumb-fawkin-bitch-bitch @burdeningbitch @allsouls-emma @aceofheartzzz @famousbagelhandspurse @fanficblogs @lilyofthetigers @mjnij @laylasbunbunny

@cherrywinesab @sloppierjewel @bubbleguppy0315 @ellielovesrobinarellano @mrs-sullys-blog @lovekeeho @vectoriscommitingcrimes @kimtaehussy @bimbotinkerbell  @aceofheartzzz @d4rno @3okutos-3ig-toe @bxnnywriting @anarcoirisgatuno @allsouls-emma @luna-ann @vivendominhahistorias @neteyamsgirll @yeosxxx @naynay2808

@neytirisgf @meivap @gamorxa @nuttyrebelflower @lovelyygirl8

#avatar the way of water #avatar 2022 #avatar x reader #avatar x you #avatar x y/n #neteyam sully #neteyam #neteyam x reader #neteyam x you #neteyam x y/n #neteyam x human reader #neteyam x fem reader #neteyam x mate reader #neteyam imagine #human reader #human y/n #female y/n #quaritch x human reader #miles quaritch x reader #recom quaritch #spider x reader #spider socorro #jake sully x reader #kiri x reader #loak x reader #neytiri x reader #neytiri x human reader

[blossom-hwa]

a yellow scarf in winter | w.jh

pairing: Jun x gender neutral!reader genre: fluff, angst, magical realism warnings: mentions of minor character death (offscreen) word count: 7.3k notes: this is a rewrite of something from maybe a year ago - it's gone through extensive edits and while the original premise is the same, it's changed a lot, so even if you read it before I hope you find something new :) When your grandmother passes, a spirit arrives on the sun and the snow, asking for a place to stay. As the years pass, you learn grief, love, and the complicated art of letting go. 

Original Ver. | Seventeen Masterlist

When he arrives on your doorstep, hands cold from the snow and eyes warm as the sun, the moon has already been dim for a year. 

The knock comes gentle against the worn wood of the old inn’s door—so gentle at first that once, twice it sounds before you truly hear it. By the time you’ve put down the pile of pale yellow wool turning into the beginnings of a scarf or a shirt or something in between, it has sounded a third time, and when you finally open the door, his hand is raised like he was bracing for a fourth. 

You stare. He is the first to have approached your grandmother’s inn in the weeks since you moved in, and you do not recognize him from the town. Brown eyes stare back at yours, slanted almost mischievously at the tips yet deep and soft and sweet, while pale blond hair the color of your wool seems to sparkle like the sun on the snow outside. Light pink lips curve in an awkward smile, showing a hint of white teeth, and it’s not so much that he glows himself but that sunlight glints off the pale skin of his face, reflecting a soft sparkle around him that only makes it seem brighter. About your age, perhaps—late twenties, early thirties. Maybe a little younger. His eyes look like they have seen many more years than he seems, though. 

It’s been too long, this silence, but still you have to look for a moment more. For it feels like you know him, even though you’ve never seen him before. 

—Hello, you finally say, cautious, quiet. 

—Hello, he replies, lowering the hand he had raised. The gesture, awkward and almost bashful, brings a curve to your own lips. Someone in town told me I could some here for a place to stay.

Words rise in your memory, unbidden. Never turn a stranger away from your door, child. A wink, with one wrinkle-lined eye. They just might be a god in disguise.

Your hand tightens around the worn doorknob. The inn has been closed since your grandmother left it to you, and locked inside you’ve kept the stories she told—of deities who once walked this plane, spirits who left remnants of magic in the earth beneath your feet. In the weeks since her death you didn’t allow yourself to remember, didn’t allow yourself to acknowledge the sparkles of magic that she used to point out to you day after day—the bright green laughing grass now covered by the snow, the howl of the wind whirling in the breeze. 

You haven’t reopened. You’re still not sure you will, not when the ache of her absence continues to fill every room. Those of the town should know the news by now, but perhaps they thought this might still be all right. 

Part of you urges to shake your head, give an apologetic smile, and close the door. He’s a strange man in a strange place, and where exactly could that go? But as a chilly wind whips through the tall stranger’s hair, his long fingers fidgeting quietly as fading sunlight catches on the single silver earring in his left ear, you wonder if, after all these years, a spirit has finally made its way to your grandmother’s inn once more. 

Stories and legends, tales you could never tell were true or not. You fight back a tear as a thought surfaces—that your grandmother sent this spirit to you, to make sure you would be all right.

—Of course. What is your name?

When he smiles, it seems as though the rising moon regains a touch of its original shine. 

—Thank you. My name is Jun. 

. . . . .

And—that’s it. For a time. It’s all he tells you about himself anyway, just his name and nothing else. What you learn in passing comes from casual action and conversation, things he lets slip as he accompanies you on your wanderings through the many rooms of your grandmother’s old, empty inn. It’s not so much him letting things slip, though, as you noticing the way he simply falls into place like the last pieces of a puzzle you never realized was unfinished—the shyness of his laugh sparkling through the dust motes spinning through the air, his long fingers drawing back the heavy drapes that once covered the lobby windows. He takes the room across from yours on the first floor, and when you open the door the next morning to see him stumbling out of his, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, it feels like you are only saying good morning to an old friend when you smile.

Which makes no sense, of course. Because you don’t know him. You’ve never seen this man once in your life before he showed up at the inn’s front door. What could you know about a man as enigmatic as the moon, who reflects all the light in the room and makes it brighter all on his own? But as the days go by, as you learn his shyness, his gentleness, the way his crescent smiles come soft and slow, a waxing and waning curve of his lips that reflects the sunlight streaming through the inn’s large windows and cuts through the dark chill that had seemed to fill the inn before, it doesn’t feel like you’re learning much at all. More like…remembering. Settling. Reacquainting yourself with the characteristics of a good friend you haven’t seen in ages. Somehow, though he is only one person sleeping in the same one room every night, the stately old place your grandmother left you doesn’t feel nearly as empty as it once did, not with his comfortable presence around. 

He’s quiet. Calm. Prone to confusion when you use a phrase he doesn’t seem to know, and giggling fits when he sees something he deems cute or strange. He’s eager to help when you slowly rouse yourself to sweep the dust from the rooms, and he doesn’t ask when you pause in front of a larger door on the top floor, then turn away without a word. He has a lovely little laugh that sounds like the first spring flowers coming into bloom, bringing warmth to the silent hallways you’d long forgotten how to walk, and joy etches itself in the tiny wrinkles around his eyes that appear when he smiles. You find he has a special affinity for the cats that sometimes show up on the inn grounds and perhaps, you think, it’s because he’s a little like them himself—closed off and skittish at first, but soft, and sweet, and so, so warm when he finally turns to you with his truest smile. 

In the cold remnants of winter, you learn his favorite tea, how he drinks it slow, sip by tiny sip. The long fingers that twist and fidget and eventually like to tangle with your own become still when he wraps them around his favorite mug of yours, white porcelain with the figures of three kittens playing around the edges. Those same fingers lift up the lid of the lobby grand piano one day, untouched since your grandmother last played, and begin to dance on their own across the yellowing keys, spinning starlit melodies into the air. His hands always seem to be cold, or at least take a while to warm up after being outside, but the tea helps. So does playing scales. And, eventually, holding your own hands that he always says are so much warmer than his. 

When spring tints the air and flowers begin to bloom, you almost wonder if Jun’s warmth will fade, somewhat, in a season marked by the sun, by the blue sky, by the days that grow longer at the expense of the moon’s soft glow. It doesn’t, though—grows, even, as you walk with him through the soft grass on the outskirts of the town, his smile tossing sunlight kind, carefree, into the air around him. On walks like these you come to learn his favorite blossom, the pale jasmine he settles gently behind your ear, and how he never picks them, only gathers up the blooms that have already fallen on the ground to create lovely bouquets you set at the dining table later in the night. When summer hangs cheerful in the sky you begin to leave the lobby windows open, the heavy curtains brushed to the sides by Jun’s delicate hands, and you learn how far the cheer of his laugh can carry and how his voice accompanies the piano as he sings, melodic threads twining sweetly in the air. You show him midnight recipes—cold noodles, cookies, cool milk that you share with the cats milling about outside—and his hand in yours is always warm, but somehow, despite the heat of the sun on your skin, you can’t find it in yourself to pull away, not when he reflects the sun’s glow in his waxing and waning smiles, not when he squeezes your hand tighter and pulls you closer to him. 

Finally, when the last dregs of autumn begin to pass and the first year winds to a close, you learn how Jun’s laugh softens with the fading sun, how, no matter the biting chill in the air, he still reflects the sun’s quiet glow until he seems to be the one who warms the room (and perhaps he is, with his moonlit melodies and starlit smile). Under the gentle rays of the sky’s fading light, the fast-growing chill of the billowing wind, the curve of Jun’s enigmatic crescent smile steadies you as dead leaves crunch beneath your feet. And as the first snows begin to swirl through the wind, mimicking the dust motes Jun helped you sweep away, you look outside at the moon that had faded, and you can’t help but think that perhaps, over the year, its smile has finally grown a little brighter. 

. . . . .

And so the first year comes and goes, and when the chill of winter fully returns, you don’t worry as much about the empty rooms, the once-faded moon, the memories of your grandmother that still fill the air. There is Jun, and there is his warmth, and for now that is all you need. 

But then he disappears. For a few hours, first. Then a few days. Until twice a month he leaves without notice, and with such irregularity that it slowly becomes regular. 

He always returns, you learn. But the first morning you wake up and he doesn’t greet you with sleepy eyes smiling as he opens his door, you panic. Because what happened to him and where did he go and does he need help and what if he left, left you alone, left you in this  empty house to cope again with the memories just like your grandmother did when she died—

—Where were you? you ask when he returns the next night and you can finally speak without wanting to cry? Where did you go? Why didn’t you let me know?

—I’m sorry, he replies, his long fingers fidgeting again. The dimness of the barely crescent moon outside casts dark shadows across his face, only a thin sliver of his cheek illuminated by starlight. I didn’t realize you would worry this much. 

—How could I not?

—I don’t know. No one really has, before. 

Candlelight flickering, silence hanging oppressive in the air. 

—I was worried. 

When he smiles, heavy and tragic, it is as though the moon’s darkness never left. 

—I know. 

(That night, when you crawl under the covers in a room too big for you and the questions you don’t have answers to, you remember where you live, where Jun came. And you remember something your grandmother told you when you were old enough to know, to understand. 

No one stays forever at an inn. 

No one.)

. . . . .

You think—hope—that might be the end of it. Or that, at least, he’ll tell you before he next goes. But despite his apologies, he still leaves a second time, and a third, and then a fourth and fifth, all without warning. And though you never truly grow used to the way each room echoes with a renewed emptiness in the hours and days he is gone, you force yourself to accept it. That his irregularity is his regularity. That he cannot—or will not—fight against what drives him to leave. 

(Acceptance doesn’t stem the fear that someday he will go, and there will be no warning, and when that day comes, he will not return.)

So winter fades with its ice and snow, and spring comes, then summer, with their warmth and flowers. And on a night where Jun isn’t here, where the faded moon shines fully in the dark sky, you find yourself in front of a room on the top floor that you ignored when you two cleaned the inn the first time. The room where you stopped. Thought. Passed without a word, where Jun didn’t pry. 

This time, you open the door. 

Your grandmother’s presence folds around you like a warm cloak of boxes and drapes, warped wooden floorboards and old furniture sitting on top. Almost immediately your knees give out. You catch yourself on the floor, sending up a cloud of dust, but for all your watering eyes you don’t really notice because she is so strong here. So warm. So comfortable. As though you could reach out a hand to the air and she would materialize before you, her fingers clutching yours, her eyes already wrinkling into a mischievous smile. 

For a long time, you only sit. Stare. Take in the things she amassed during life, the things she packed away that were never the inn’s but hers, and hers only. An old, moth-eaten armchair. A couple of trunks tied with dusty rope. Boxes with spidery handwriting on the sides labeling things you can’t quite read through the tears bubbling in your eyes, a few tarps draped over it all. 

—Did you send him? you ask the dust swirling through the air. 

(And if you did, why did you send someone who had to leave? Who couldn’t stay?)

She doesn’t answer, of course. But you sit there, waiting as though she will, until the gray light of dawn begins to peek through the folds of curtains you didn’t part, and you finally pick yourself up from the floor to return downstairs and wait for Jun to return. 

. . . . .

He returns that evening amidst summer showers, rain glittering on his face like little diamonds pressed to his skin. You’re back in the room on the top floor, sitting, staring, and only when a soft knock sounds at the cusp of afternoon-evening do you find it in yourself to move again. 

—Hi. 

Jun’s eyes, deep brown and cratered wide. His graceful nose, his pale face, his thin lips, still covered with the thin diamond sheen of rain. You can hear droplets pattering against the window from where you still haven’t managed to push the drapes away. 

—You’re shivering. 

You hadn’t realized you were, but when he says it, you become aware of the slight tremble in your shoulders, at the vague chill in the air from the day’s confusion as to whether it is still summer, or if the winter will be coming soon. At the concern on his face you try to smile. 

—I’m all right.

You don’t expect him to believe you. But you also don’t expect him to take a step closer and fold you into his arms.

He’s warm and cool at the same time—peaceful, a tiny respite from the overwhelming presence of your grandmother in all the boxes and drapes in this old room. His long fingers tap soft rhythms into your back, his breath quiet against your ear, and when you finally pull away, your eyes are wet not just with the remnants of rain but with tears again, too. 

Jun smiles quietly. That little silver earring that has never left his ear glints in the evening darkness, a piece of light reflected in his eyes. Outside, you think the moon has begun to rise, faint light pooling right where he stands. 

—Do you want help?

. . . . .

It takes several long days to bring the room to a semblance of cleanliness, dust swept from the corners until your nose no longer itches, the floor mopped until you no longer fear tracking grime into the halls when you and Jun leave. But one night, it is done. Mostly. The boxes remain unopened, the tarps not yet pushed away, but the floor is clean and you can breathe a little better. 

Jun rubs his nose, which is red from sneezing. His eyes follow you as you kneel in front of one of the trunks, reaching for the knot in the rope tying it shut. For a moment you fumble with the tie. Then it falls away, and your hand grazes the edge of the lid. Ready to open. Not ready to open. 

You pull the lid up. 

A cloud of dust wafts up and you whip around, coughing into your arm as Jun laughs from a few feet away. When you stop choking you find that he has come to you, his eyes bright and cheerful, and for all you wanted to scowl at him when he started laughing, you find you can only smile. 

—What’s all this?

You hold up a candle carefully, squinting into the trunk’s contents. Immediately you know, though you’ve never seen any of the books before. 

Music. 

Jun’s sharp intake of breath brings you back to earth. When you look at him his eyes are shining bright with wonder, and you think to his hands waltzing across the lobby piano’s yellow keys, drawing sounds from its depths the way only your grandmother had been able to, years before. 

—Let’s take them. You pick up a few books of your own, their dusty paper covers rough against your skin as you smile. I want to hear you play. 

He plays piece after piece that night, some that you recall from childhood, others you remember having learned yourself, even more you have never once heard in your life but that your grandmother must once have known, learned, and cherished when she lived. And after you see Jun to his room that night, you take the stairs softly up to the room again. Take in the sight of the dusty, empty trunk still sitting where you left it. 

It feels a little easier to breathe.

. . . . .

As summer winds to a close, as the slight chill of fall begins to take to the air, you slowly empty the boxes and trunks in the old storage room, airing out their dust, unearthing the bits and pieces of your grandmother that she left behind for you to find. Pictures of her and your grandfather, who died before you were born. Small trinkets from travels she told you about when you were little. Financial papers yellowed with age, letters bound in ribbon that you can’t find it in yourself to read, novels with worn covers and crinkled pages. And music. Not quite as much as the stacks of books you found in the first trunk, but sheets scattered here and there that Jun happily picks up, adding to the miniature concerts he plays for you in the evening to ward away the chill.

He helps you through it all—works at the knots in the ropes with you, folds up the tarps you lift away, sweeps up the dust that falls from newly opened boxes and trunks, holds you when the memories overwhelm and you find it hard to breathe. And in those moments when he is there, you almost forget that this is an inn, and that he must leave. But he always does. New moon. Full moon. New moon. Full moon. And as the moon grows brighter when he is gone, like it is happier without you, you begin closing your window against the light that still permeates your room anyway. 

The words slip out on a night when it is more fall than summer, after the remnants of dinner have been cleared away and only the stars are awake to hear you speak. Bravery or stupidity, courage or fear, you don’t know—a desperate bid for something, anything to hang on to when Jun next leaves and you’re left to cope with the memories, music haunting your ears, ghosts tracing the walls. 

—Where do you go when you’re gone?

He pauses at the piano, long, pale fingers stopping between the turning pages of his music. Silence reigns for a while, long enough for you to nearly backtrack and say never mind, never mind, despite the need to know curdling in your veins. 

—I go to a place I once called home. 

Your throat threatens to close, but you get the next words out, somehow.

—Do you not still call it home?

In response, he takes a single sheet of music from the piano, one he just played—a soft melody that barely lasted two minutes, but that resonated through the room, deep, heavy nostalgia that had drawn the question from your throat. Every piece he plays is beautiful beneath his fingertips but for some reason, the echoes of this piece stay with you, merging into your breath, tickling its way through your ears, as he hands the score to you. 

—The composer was far from home when he wrote this, Jun says quietly as you trace the black notes on the worn, yellow page. He needed to run. To escape. He never saw it again after he had to move, but…in the end, he only ever wanted to go home. 

Dark eyes flicker to the window, pale skin reflecting the starlight and the glow of the full moon. It’s your turn to watch him, this time, as the faint moonlight lends a familiar golden tinge to his face that you have never seen but that you know, anyway. 

Only a few physical feet separate the two of you in this moment, the distance between Jun’s piano bench and your armchair easily traversable in just one step, maybe two. For all the look in his eyes right now, though, you could be centuries apart. 

—I once wanted to escape. I was so lonely. I wanted to find someone who could care for me. Who could make me feel worth something. 

—Did you?

He looks at you now. Traps you in the moment, his blond hair illuminated by the moon, pooling around his feet. An enigmatic smile dances on his lips. 

—I did. 

Silence falls gentle, heavy, the leftover notes from the melody fading softly into the air, the dust of the old sheet music settling on the floor. Against your will, you stare at the piano with its worn and yellowing keys that your grandmother once showed you to play. You were never as good as she, though Jun would have been a match. 

What might she have thought of Jun if they’d met now, in the physical plane? She would have liked him, you think—liked his soft-spoken voice, his sweet, awkward nature, and the way he seems to amplify the warmth and light of the room with his cratered eyes and waxing-waning crescent smile. Their musical styles are different, from what you remember of hers, but she would have enjoyed his interpretations of the same pieces she loved.

Tears nearly spring into your eyes. Yes, she would have liked him. She would have liked him very much.

A question burns on your tongue as he stands, as you stand, as you both walk to your rooms and bid each other goodnight. You don’t ask. But he must hear it anyway, lingering in your eyes and on your tongue even as you shut your door.

(Where is your home?)

You’re not sure if you can hear his answer, not when you don’t have one yourself. Because while you’re still trying to escape, Jun has already made peace. 

He knows his home, even if you don’t.

. . . . .

Still, though, he stays. For you or for something else, you’re not sure. But through the end of summer and the billows of fall, still he comes and he goes, wanders and returns, and though his presence comforts, something about it—you’re not sure what—has begun to hurt. 

He’s playing the same piece when autumn has begun to give way to winter, when you find a familiar pile of yellow wool in the drawer of one of the little tables beside the lobby couches. Part of it has been knit into some shape, but only barely—easy enough for you to decide it will be a scarf, a decision you didn’t get to make two years ago, and easy enough for you to pick up the needles from where the universe left them and for their gentle clicking to accompany Jun’s music flowing about the room. Not so easy anymore when the cat Jun let inside begins batting at the pile of yarn, little claws catching on the wool, but easy enough. Easy enough.

The night before, when Jun was gone, you went up to the storage room yourself. Though the room has been mostly cleared, boxes opened and some things rearranged around the inn, others pushed in neater piles against the walls, your grandmother’s presence still wrapped around you the second you entered. Something in the walls, you suppose, in the notes of dust that still flicker, magical, in the air. The fact that this room was hers, the way the rest of the inn was and wasn’t. 

You didn’t open the curtains. You thought about it, even touched the heavy cloth with a single hand, felt it fold beneath your palm. But the moon was so bright then, so full. It hurt so much. So you kept it closed. The memory of those closed curtains, unable to shield you from the glowing contentment of the moon, helps you meet his eyes as his hands leave the piano, the knitting needles flashing between your fingers, their rhythmic clicking steadying your heart.

—Where is your home, Jun?

The lobby echoes with the silence after your question, broken only by the kitten batting at your wool. Her little head butts against your hand and you stroke it gently, eyes still trained on the spirit sitting in front of you. 

He draws breath. Sighs. Looks down at his hands, down at yours, and looks back at you. 

—Wherever I am not lonely.

The clicking between your fingers stops. Silver needles bury themselves in the yellow yarn like the cat’s claws, the cat that now detaches itself from the wool to jump into Jun’s lap instead, purring softly. You stare at it, at the yarn, at the empty spot on the couch it used to occupy. The spot someone else used to occupy, once, smiling fondly as you played with her own yarn on her knee. Someone who belonged here far more than you. 

—Where have you been lonely?

—Many places. Jun’s smile turns small, wan. Not all are as welcoming as you have been. 

Your mind returns to the first time he disappeared, the first time he returned and you couldn’t speak for several hours without crying. 

I didn’t realize you would worry this much, he had said. And you had found it so hard to believe no one would—that no one would worry about this lovely spirit disappearing without a word. But it’s true. Not all are kind. And perhaps, before your inn, Jun had encountered more unkindness than you were willing to believe at the time. 

You swallow. 

—Are you lonely here?

—No. The answer is quick, certain. So is his next question. Are you?

His eyes won’t allow yours to flicker away, moonlight holding you captive as it flows around the two of you, encasing you in pale light. The cat purrs in Jun’s arms, but he only looks at you. 

It hurts to admit it, but you do. 

—Yes. When you’re not here. 

He nods. Nods again. And then he sets the old page back on top of the piano, and you speak no more until the music has stopped for the night and he asks a final question to you. 

—Who’s that for?

You look down at the half-finished scarf, and the needles you’ve just stuck into the rest of the unknit pile. I’m not sure. 

But as you lie awake in bed that night, staring out of your window at the full moon and its familiar golden tinge, you realize it was a dumb question, with an even dumber answer. Because it’s obvious. Even though the universe had you begin the scarf with no thought of its future owner, as it grows longer and longer under nights of soft music warmed by the reflection of sunlight on Jun’s lovely face, when you look at the man whose smile waxes and wanes with the phases of the moon, you know, and the world knows. 

Of course the scarf is for him. 

. . . . .

In the days after, as the scarf grows longer, as the wind turns colder, as the moon fades to black and Jun disappears again, you think. Ponder. Try to confront the fear in your heart that sprang fully formed when you realized who the scarf was for, because as the woolen links drape across your lap and the cushions of the lobby armchair, you can’t shake the feeling that giving him this yellow scarf, this warmth woven of sunlight reflecting off of sparkling snow feels…final, almost. Like something ends with the tying of the last knot, something you’re not ready to give up just yet. 

Jun is ready. You know that, and it hurts and terrifies you. Because he must have suffered—must have gone from home to home, begging, pleading for someone to recognize the lonely spirit he was, and found nothing but a frosty chill instead—but he found the strength to continue. And eventually, he found you, who would love him. Who would cherish him. And somehow, that is enough for him—enough that he no longer feels lonely, even when he is away from you. Enough for him to pull away, because he knows this is not the plane on which he belongs, even though it is yours.

But you’re not ready. You still—you still need him. Need his warmth, need the moonlight reflectance of his smile to guide you through the day. Without him, how do you return to the emptiness of the inn where everyone leaves and no one stays, where the polished wooden floors and walls echo with the silence of your footsteps, memories haunting everywhere you look? 

Deep inside, you know he cannot stay. That the spirit plane, however it may intersect with the mortal world, is separate from yours. And it makes you laugh, a little, when you remember how you felt you had learned Jun during the first year of his stay—because you will never know the moon. Will never understand his enigmatic smiles, never parse the way his fingers trace so cool and so warm against the skin of your cheek, never dissect how he can stand to be so selfless, returning to you from each of his trips home because he knows you cannot live without him. 

—How do you continue, Jun? you force yourself to ask under a waning gibbous moon, three days after his last foray to a place he once called home. The autumn-fading-winter wind blows crisp through the air, ruffling Jun’s hair where he sits beside you in front of the inn, petting one of the stray cats that has settled on his lap. You trace the lines of the cracked stone on the ground, ripples of time rough and bitter beneath your fingertips, hoping he knows what you mean from the five brittle words you managed to speak.

(How do you move on? How do you make peace with the memories? How do you let go of the grief, how do you remember someone as who they were and forget about how they left you, forget how they will never be able to stay?)

He’s quiet for a moment. When he looks at you, you brace yourself. 

—I cannot answer for you, he says, and your heart plummets. That is for you to find in yourself. 

He takes your hand, though. Presses it between his own, and even through the despair closing up your throat, you find it in yourself to take comfort in his moonlit warmth. 

—But I will tell you this, he says quietly. To me, to know that there is someone who I love, and who loves me—that is enough. Even if I am not with them. Because my home is in the memories we share. 

His smile is blinding, bright as the moon and more. And through the gnarled desperation twisting in your heart, you allow a piece of that brightness to prick its way into the brambles. 

. . . . .

Letting go, you decide, is an art. A painful art, disentangling the nettles from the brambled wall you’ve built around your heart to shield you from the pain of reminiscence, but an art all the same in the way you carefully examine each thorn, stinging your fingertips and palms as you pull the branches apart, pinpricks of blood scattering across the canvas of your pain, your grief, the loss you feel every time you look up at the dim sky and the empty rooms around you, your grandmother’s presence lingering in every corner and crevice. 

Some days, when Jun is gone, you nearly give up. Nearly decide the thorns in your hands aren’t worth it, that the brambles prevent more pain than they bring, that letting go is an art you will never master—because you can’t, and you won’t. You can’t give up the only person, spirit, who’s brought you comfort in this time, you can’t willingly give up what you have now because you need him here or you’ll drown in the emptiness of these large, quiet rooms. 

But that’s unfair. Because the moon doesn’t belong on earth, and the earth doesn’t belong on the moon. For all the semblance of home Jun has found with you, you are not the only home he carries with him. Where he lives—what he is—it’s not here. It’s not here, not in this old, empty inn, with you, because an inn is never a permanent home for anyone but the owner. For anyone else, it is rest, respite, temporary comfort. More temporary for some than others, but it is a place of letting go.

Nights pass. The scarf grows longer, the storage room cleaner. And though the pain of Jun’s absence still aches in your chest, the cool silver needles and the heavy window curtains begin to soothe more of the sting. When you look up at him on the days he is here, his own fingers gliding across old piano keys, you breathe, and you remember, and you let yourself into the thorns and nettles of memory once more. Because what is Jun’s home cannot be yours. 

And so you will find your own, in a place where you once never felt lonely.

It’s slow work, slower than you would have liked. In what world does anyone not want to dash the pain away quickly, strip off the bandages in one fell swoop and find the skin and tissue already unscarred and whole beneath? But with every disappearance you’re running out of time so you work at the thorns, slowly and slowly and slowly, and as Jun’s enigmatic smile grows a little wider every time the scarf grows a little longer, as a hint of something soft begins to chase away the aching sympathy in his eyes when he looks at you under the faded night sky, you find in his smile a quiet balm for the pain in your fingers, in your palms, in your heart. 

When you pull the final branches away, there are scars etched in your chest that will never fully heal, patterns of time to mimic the lines carved on your skin. Memories of thorns still prick your palms and something aches awful in your heart as you stare at the mess you have made of yourself in forcing memories out of their old home to avoid the pain you thought they would bring, but then you look at the moon as you tie off the final knot on the pale yellow woolen scarf and when you do he smiles back, something akin to pride, and maybe gratitude, in his eyes. 

That night, after seeing Jun off to bed, you walk upstairs to the room where your grandmother stored her memories. The moon is almost full and its light shines bright, strong enough to just barely filter through the heavy curtains still draped across the glass. 

Taking a deep breath, you take one curtain in each stinging, thorn-wounded hand. Push them aside. Let the moon’s smile bathe the room pale light.

No blood stains the fabric, even as your heart aches at the sight.

. . . . . 

You give him the scarf the next day, a night where winter is stronger than fall, loop it around his neck when he leaves the piano to sit at your side. He played that piece again, the composer’s reminiscence of home, and its notes still linger in your ears as you settle the scarf at his throat. 

Jun doesn’t react at first, only touches a finger to the wool, the color of the sun on the snow the day he first knocked on your door. It’s as though he knew it was made for him, even before you did. The way you knew his crescent smile, the wax and wane of the brightness in his eyes, the reflection of the sun off his skin, before he even arrived. 

He stops you before you go to bed that night, puts a hand on your shoulder and gently turns you around. For a moment you only look at each other, candlelight reflecting off your faces, a glow that joins the pale moonlight pooling on the ground. 

Thank you for the scarf, he says quietly, his fingers tangling with yours. His breath ghosts past your cheek, eyes crinkling at the corners into a soft, slow smile. And for letting me stay. 

You go back to the storage room when he closes his door, sit on the moth-eaten armchair and stare out the window at the full, full moon. Sometime later the first snow begins to fall, floating pitter-patter against the glass, and, lulled by its soft rhythm, you allow yourself to sleep. 

When morning comes with the shimmering sun on ice, Jun is gone. 

This time, he doesn’t come back. 

Reality seems to blur as the days go by, one without Jun, two without Jun, three, four, six, ten. Sometimes you sit in the inn’s empty lobby and squint at the grand piano still standing in the middle of the floor and for a moment, you can’t quite recall whether it’s always been there, or if it simply came into existence when Jun’s music followed him into your home. Everything feels dim, faded, like the shadow that had settled over the moon for so long, and sometimes you debate leaving. Leaving the inn and memories of a loving grandmother and laughing spirit that lie here, burying what you had with those you loved and running away from the remnants that chase you. 

But where would you go? There’s nothing in the world you have except this inn and those memories, and for all remembering hurts, they were treasures. Treasures that sparkle with a happiness that hurts a little too much right now, but that you wouldn’t trade for anything in the world. Treasures that will be a balm, in time, to the scars they left behind. 

Treasures that tell you, someday, you will have your home. 

Sometimes, sitting at the old piano, you wonder if he was real. If he really existed, the spirit with cratered eyes and hair the color of the sun on icy snow. But it doesn’t matter, really. Because you remember him—the sleepy eyes, the wide smile, the soft voice that waltzed with long fingers across ivory keys and spun music to life, tapestries of notes that settled gentle, ephemeral in the night air before a single breath blew them away. You remember him, and you remember an album of pastel memories and watercolor laughs, pages left to dry under winter sunshine, the color of a pale yellow scarf that a laughing man wears around his neck, its ends fluttering in the breeze. 

An album leaf. A page of memory. Loved in the moment that it was there, and someday, later on, turned over and smoothed with care. Remembered. 

And when you look out of the window at the full moon glowing brightly in the sky, you know the memory will be treasured, too. 

One evening, when the seasons have passed and winter has come to your inn once more, you sift through the music you had unearthed from that trunk so many months ago, the music now stacked around the piano in haphazard piles. You pull a single yellow sheet from the depths. The few guests who have settled at your inn since its opening retired to bed hours ago, leaving you alone to sit on a restored armchair pulled out of storage and trace black notes printed on old, crinkled paper, letting their melodies shiver through your skin, your ears, your memory.

That night, you take a walk along the streets of the town. Lamps light the way, but you follow the path of the full moon on powdered snow, not a single shadow draped across its cratered surface. There’s music in the wind and you walk with it, fingers tapping where they rest in the pockets of your coat. 

A flash of movement catches your eye. You turn and there’s a little cat slinking through the powdery white streets, moonlight glinting off its smooth, pale fur. It looks at you, and you look at it, and then you crouch down and extend a hand as it shyly pads closer through the snow. 

You smile, remembering a shy man twisting his fingers at your door. Hair blond, not white, but gentle and sweet just like this creature cautiously butting its head against your palm. 

—Hello there, you murmur. The moon looks lovely tonight, doesn’t it?

The cat purrs, like it agrees. Like it also knows the man you knew, and knows that he is where he needs to be, like you. 

Smiling softly, you glance up at the moon and its reflective glow. It seems to brighten as you stare at it, moonlight pooling softly on the glittering snow. 

The cat purrs again and you turn back, soft with the moon and the memories. Sweet laughter, dark eyes. A crescent bright smile, an album leaf. 

A gentle melody humming through the air, and a yellow scarf rippling in the wind. 

Reblogs and comments are deeply appreciated! Hope you enjoyed this, and have a lovely day :)

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[rollinouttahere-writes]

I wanted to write out the character dynamics between Lucky and the Straw Hats because I have fallen deep into the Little Lucky AU. At first it was just gonna be a series of one shots with little to no plot for funsies but now I’ve gone and fleshed it out into its own fully developed AU and I feel compelled to share my thoughts on it.

Since I have this happening right after Arlong Park, I realized that at most, they’ve known her for like a week and some change with Sanji only knowing her for a couple of days. I think that this would make adjusting to her becoming a child much easier because ultimately, none of them really knew her. Hell, with her amnesia Lucky barely knew herself. 

It would take about a week for everyone to accept that this is how it is now. The devil fruit user tried to warn them that the effects were permanent (meaning that she’s not going to suddenly switch back, not that she’s permanently 4 she is still going to age normally), but they thought this person was bluffing in order to get mercy or something. As time passes and Lucky is showing no signs of turning back, everyone begins to feel some regret about punting the user into the sea, but now it’s too late.

In Lucky Break, she doesn’t come clean about the truth of where she came from until after Enel is defeated in Skypeia, but in this AU she would tell them the truth during the Alabasta arc. After Drum Island when Nami is recovered because she felt bad for keeping it a secret when Nami was sick.

Luffy’s relationship with Lucky has by far been my favorite to develop, I find it super interesting. Despite not knowing the adult Lucky for very long, Luffy’s emotional intelligence being sky high helped him to understand her better than she probably even understood herself. There was something off about her, and he knew it within their first conversation. The way she had a tendency to shrink in on herself and physically close herself off, and the fact that her smile never once reaches her eyes told him a lot. He doesn’t know where she came from or what it’s like, but he can’t imagine it’s all that great if this is how she acts. He still wants to go there, but now it’s because he needs to throw hands with whoever made her that way. After she’s turned into a child, he immediately notices that she now has that spark that was missing from her eyes before, and he’s bound and determined to fan that spark into a flame so that he doesn’t see that same look when she becomes an adult again.

Having a small child on board does ever so slightly mature him. At first he’s like “Oh there’s a little kid here now? Fun!” but then it evolves into “Hang on I’m responsible for her”. He realizes that this little kid is going to depend on him for everything. Sure, he has his other crewmates to help, but as captain he feels the weight on his shoulder more.

After the Enel situation happens he becomes more noticeably mature and goes out of his way to hover around her more and make her happy. He’s more prone to involving himself in the actual childcare aspects of her life instead of just being ‘the fun best friend’ to her. He sits in on her appointments with Chopper and helps as much as Chopper will allow, both because he wants to help and also as a way for him to see what she had to go through in the moment that he wasn’t there to protect her. He also tries to give advice, mostly about following her dreams and understanding how valuable the freedom to do so is. He’s still her best friend at the end of the day, but there is an air of seriousness to it now.

Lucky idolizes Luffy intensely, he is her Shanks pretty much. Between him being her best friend and saving her, she wants to be just like him when she grows up. He’s the best person ever in her book and she will fight anyone who tries to trash talk him (much to the horror of everyone else who is rushing to stop her).

Zoro naively thought he would be escaping Lucky fussing over him now that she’s a little kid, but he was very wrong. She’s still trailing behind and yelling at him to sit down so she can “make it better”, but now she’s just got a box of colorful kid band-aids instead of actual bandages. Zoro is covered in a rainbow of band-aids at any given moment and he can’t even take them off because she’ll put more on there while scolding him. 

There’s a post where I talk about their interactions a little bit here. With the part about sword fighting, he is very serious about it, but if you look closely you can see small smiles here and there as she makes more progress. He is very proud. He wishes Kuina could have met her, he thinks she would have liked Lucky. Tries to shield her from the idea that she will only be able to go so far because of being a woman, he doesn’t want that stupid mentality weighing her down.

If someone asks him what his relationship to her is, he would state that he’s her teacher. If you asked Lucky, she would say he’s her big brother. Zoro feels like he’s going into cardiac arrest but keeps a straight face and says “that’s fine too”. Lucky looks up to him too, but she also lowkey likes to bully him in true sibling fashion. Like telling him to put his boobs away, running off with his sake, pulling pranks on him when he’s trying to nap, that kind of stuff.

Right after Arlong Park, Nami was feeling very attached to Lucky (tbh she’s the first to start showing yandere tendencies in Lucky Break), so she was honestly a little disappointed at first when they realized Lucky wasn’t turning back into an adult. She would never admit this out loud, but she did feel that way. She snaps out of it pretty quick though and declares herself ‘big sister Nami’. She gets very into it, and likes being the big sister for a change.

As far as she’s concerned, she’s the only responsible adult on board (until Robin comes in). As such, she’s constantly trying to keep Lucky attached to her hip because she’s worried that the others are going to hurt her by doing something stupid. This doesn’t work all that well because there are other people on the ship that are more fun and goofy than she is, so Nami spends most of her day running after Lucky. Lucky is the only person that she doesn’t have a tab for. She’s a little kid, and as adults, it’s everyone’s job on board to take care of her and that includes buying her stuff like clothes/toys/etc. Nami does teach her the value of money and how to be responsible with it for when she’s old enough to have some money of her own, but Lucky isn’t indebted to her or anything.

Lucky finds it a little odd at first when some woman she barely knows insists that she’s her big sister, but she goes with it. Nami can be a little bit of a stick in the mud, but Lucky knows that she can go to her when she needs help. Since they sleep in the same room (sometimes at least, there are lots of sleepovers in the guys’ room), Nami is usually the person she goes to when she has a nightmare.

Usopp is great with kids, and that includes Lucky. He found adult Lucky a little intimidating (for reasons we will get to soon enough), so he honestly gets along with child Lucky more. He loves having a gullible little kid around that he can tell his tall tales to, given that she’s too young to be able to immediately call bullshit. However, he doesn’t anticipate how many questions she’s going to ask about the story. He wasn’t ready for the constant flow of why’s, how come’s, and what’s that’s that get thrown his way. On the bright side, his improvisational skills skyrocket from this.

His job in regards to Lucky is to grab her in a dangerous situation and run away as fast as he can, a role he chose for himself. He does fall victim to being roasted by a tot over this because she will call him a big baby for screaming and crying (lessens post Enel). As a sniper, he is supposed to be further from the battle than others, so he typically is the best choice for her to be with. Like Zoro, he wants to teach her how to use his own weapon of choice and even makes her a tiny slingshot. This backfires because now she’s terrorizing him and Zoro with it (and also takes cracks at marines sometimes).

Usopp is her friend. He doesn’t have the title of best friend or big brother which hurts a bit, but he learns to cope. Lucky does spend a lot of time with him since she thinks he’s funny and fun to play with. He only helped her prank Zoro once because she immediately played innocent and threw him under the bus. That being said, only she can bully him, Franky better sleep with one eye open for beating him up!

Sanji is her dad now, and no one can rob him of that, he will kill for this title. He held off for a week tops after she was turned to make sure that she wasn’t just going to go back to normal, but after that he took a page out of Zeff’s book and adopted her. He wants to go back to the Baratie long enough to let Zeff know he’s a grandpa, but for now will have to wait. He’s always trying to get her to call him “papa” to varying levels of success. She doesn’t cooperate at first because she really doesn’t know him, but she’ll warm up eventually and start calling him that. Though she does sometimes switch back to using Sanji just to mess with him.

Lucky is his entire world basically. You thought he was obsessed with women? That pales in comparison to his devotion to his little princess! His wallet has more pictures of her in it than it has actual money. What money isn’t spent on getting food gets spent on her. If she looks at something for too long, she’s getting it. Nami gets on him frequently about spoiling her too much, even though he says there’s no such thing. Ironically, he has better luck with women now because he’s more toned down around them and it’s just cute to see a doting dad, but he is completely oblivious to it. He genuinely believes that the women are only approaching him because they think Lucky is cute and doesn’t even pick up on them flirting with him because he’s too busy showing off the pictures in his wallet. Nami thinks this is hysterical and won’t point it out.

He wants to cook with her so much, he’s always trying to involve her in the kitchen (with age appropriate things of course). There are limits to what she can safely do, but he’s happy just to have her in the kitchen as a taste tester if that’s all she can do. She doesn’t need to become a chef or anything, but he wants her to know the basics at the very least. If she wants to have a tea party, he’ll get her to help make the little treats to go with it and show her how to perfectly steep the tea. No imaginary tea parties on his watch. The one thing he’s strict on is her eating habits, she needs to stay healthy and that’s not up for debate. If she just genuinely doesn’t like something, that’s understandable, but she can’t just feed Luffy under the table to get dessert faster.

Lucky’s actual father was very emotionally and physically distant, so it takes very little time for her to latch onto Sanji as her new dad. When she does, she basically becomes a daddy’s girl overnight. Sanji gets pulled into playtime whenever he isn’t in the kitchen, whether it be including him in the tea parties, “styling” his hair with dozens of colorful barrettes, or simply making him get in on the games she was playing with the others. With how god awful his childhood was, it’s honestly a little healing for him. He’s happy that he can give someone else the childhood he didn’t get to have. 

Chopper doesn’t get to be the baby of the crew anymore. Lucky would probably be the first to be able to really get close to him on Drum Island, because even Chopper isn’t going to be scared of a four year old. Wary, but not scared. However, after seeing that she isn’t afraid of him and is genuinely trying to befriend him, he comes around. It’s shocking to him to learn that she’s part of a pirate crew, but also inspiring. If someone so young can do it, he can too! They’re fast friends and become thick as thieves. 

Lucky thinks all of his doctor stuff is super interesting and likes to watch when he’s making medicine. She asks lots of questions and also gives out compliments easily. Chopper even shows her how to do some very basic first aid since that’s a good thing to know in emergencies. He also goes over what plants are poisonous and to not eat anything she doesn’t know for a fact is safe. Besides the medical stuff, Lucky enjoys hanging out with him lots because she thinks he’s around her age (and does not believe him when he insists that he’s 15). 

Lucky keeps referring to him as her little brother and it’s driving him insane. No amount of “I told you I’m 15!” will stop her. She thinks he’s lying because they’re both the same height give or take so obviously that means they must be the same age. He can’t even grow into a bigger form because she’ll just say that it doesn’t count since it’s not permanent. Like Luffy, being responsible for the safety of a child does make Chopper slightly more mature. Don’t get me wrong, he will still run away if Lucky is already safe, but if she isn’t then he will square up. Maybe if she sees him protect her, she’ll start calling him big brother! She doesn’t.

Robin feels so conflicted when they first meet. It’s one thing to be taking on grown adults that knew what they were getting into by taking on Baroque Works, it’s another to see a small child being dragged into by association. She intentionally leaves Lucky out of reports to Crocodile. She keeps hoping that Lucky will be dropped off somewhere else and be off the radar, and feels sicker and sicker as they keep getting closer to Alabasta. She’s just a little kid and doesn’t deserve to be dragged into something like this.

After joining the Straw Hats, she finds herself drawn to Lucky, and even uses her name. She does some mental gymnastics to justify this by telling herself that technically it’s a nickname so she’s in the clear. She’s totally not getting attached, she tells herself as she tucks Lucky into bed and reads her a bedtime story. It doesn’t help that Lucky follows her around like a duckling because she finds her very mysterious and cool. Having Lucky think that her devil fruit and all her knowledge is awesome really warms her heart.

It takes a while for her to be called it (post Enies Lobby), but she becomes the mom of the group. Unlike with Sanji, Lucky came to call her this entirely on her own. Robin needs a minute after she gets called that for the first time. That being said, she fills the role well. She’s got that calm and caring vibe to her, while also being a total mama bear. If anyone looks at Lucky the wrong way, she’s eliminating the threat on the spot. Her baby is not about to be punished for existing with what the government deems to be “bad people”. She’s harsh towards anyone she sees as a threat, but especially with marines/government agents. 

Franky is definitely surprised to see a little kid with the Straw Hats, but it also earns some respect from him. He appreciates seeing pirates that don’t just abandon their children, thank you very much. Franky has an energy to him that kids love, and Lucky isn’t immune to it. Granted, at first she just wants to fight him and he can expect to be pelted with pebbles from her slingshot until she’s forgiven him for the Usopp incident. He doesn’t take this personally. In fact, he encourages it. Hell yeah kid! You stick up for your friends! Show me who’s boss! His attitude makes it very hard for her to stay mad for long, especially with Usopp telling her that it’s okay they already made up.

His goofball personality and eccentric behavior make him a lot of fun to be around. On top of that, Lucky likes to sometimes watch him work. He’s very quick to engage her in it, too. He’ll explain what he’s doing and why in great detail, and is happy to answer any questions she has. He’ll even let her hold a flashlight for him even though he has his own built in. Very supportive if she wants to learn more from him, but won’t push it either.

After Lucky comes around on him, she calls him uncle Franky. He’s just got those fun uncle vibes to her. He truly loves the title and is proud of it. He gets a bit cocky and asks if he’s her favorite uncle only to get humbled by her saying no with zero hesitation. Sorry, Franky, you’re no competition for uncle Ace. Despite the devastating blow to his ego, he is a very fun uncle and is insanely protective. 

#lucky break #little lucky au #monkey d luffy #luffy #roronoa zoro #nami #cat burglar nami #one piece nami #usopp #sanji #black leg sanji #tony tony chopper #nico robin #franky the cyborg #cyborg franky

[merp-blerp]

A Gaylor interpretation of "The Prophecy" because if Taylor never sleeps why should I?

TW: I tried to keep it mostly light, but ended up veering into brief talk of self-destructive behavior and suicide near the end.

Overblown Analysis Under the Cut ↓

"Hand on the throttle / Thought I caught lightning in a bottle / Oh, but it's gone again"

I think this song is about failed coming outs and closeting. Of course, many in this community know of the Lover failed coming out, but God only knows if that was really the only attempt. I think she tried to at least subtly come out several times. But during Lover, she and many others thought she would finally make it out of the closet, a once-in-a-lifetime chance, fully ready to go and take control, but plans were foiled. If it wasn't the first or last attempt, the chance was gone again.

"And it was written / I got cursed like Eve got bitten / Oh, was it punishment?"

Taylor begins to question if her coming out plan(s?) fell short because she's cursed for being who she is. Was she cursed like Eve was for biting the forbidden fruit? Eve in some interpretations of Christianity is often seen as the blame for all the world's sins, with Mother Mary being seen as God's Eve "do-over", since Mary stayed obedient to God's wishes. Sometimes Eve is even depicted as tempting or tricking Adam into eating the fruit, it being her fault he fell, rather than his own choices ruining him. Whether or not Eve is actually to blame could be debated forever, not unlike how Christians debate similarly about whether the bible is okay with queerness or not. Taylor wonders if never being seen as who she is by the general public is a punishment for her simply being. Interestingly, Taylor changes Eve's story, saying Eve was bitten, rather than the biter, possibly by the serpent/Devil in the garden gate of Eden. Being bitten by a snake actually reminds me more of Cleopatra more than Eve, but I'll elaborate more on that later.

"Pad around when I get home / I guess a lesser woman would've lost hope / A greater woman wouldn't beg / But I looked to the sky and said / Please / I've been on my knees / Change the prophecy / Don't want money / Just someone who wants my company / Let it once be me / Who do I have to speak to / About if they can redo the prophecy?"

Somewhat self-explanatory. Taylor anxiously paces as she asks God if her fate can change. If she can just get free. She doesn't want the money that comes from the beardings and closeting any longer. She just wants to be seen for who she is. She wants someone who wants the real Taylor's company, not the showmanship Taylor. She wonders what God or entity she has to ask to be freed from the cage.

"Cards on the table / Mine play out like fools in a fable"

Taylor has used card games as imagery before, usually in situations where she feels like someone isn't being honest with her, playing her. Most significantly for this reading, in "Foolish One" she speaks about how her cards were on the table, or that she was being open and vulnerable, while that song's muse wasn't showing theirs, as they weren't being clear, leading her on. In this situation, Taylor is once again laying all her cards out for the world to see, but it's foolish because the world never sees it, whether it's from not knowing how to or not wanting to. Fables are very similar to folklore or folktales, characterized as short, clear, fictional stories, often featuring animals. Taylor is saying that while her cards are clear, her stories must be told through vague, or "fool" characters that distance her from them, fictionalized. Both Gaylors and general Swifties seem to currently agree that her album Folklore has truth in it and isn't fully fictionalized, but exactly how much is fiction, and who represents who seems to be where opinions differ. And then there's a lot of infighting between the sides of the fandoms, so Taylor stays mostly unseen and caged.

"Oh, it was sinking in (Sinking in, oh) / Slow is the quicksand / Poison blood from the wound of the pricked hand / Oh, still I dream of him"

The feeling that she'll never be free sinks in, slowly over time, like sinking into quicksand is slow, or poison through your body from a small prick. She dreams of someone. One way to look at this is that she's dreaming of someone she loves, the muse of this album. I, however, for now at least, get this feeling that the dream is actually more of a nightmare. I mentioned in my makeshift theory on "The Manuscript" that I believed "The Professor/He" was a personification of the music industry or an industry boss. Taylor's said before that she's had nightmares about the crummier aspects of the industry, like unwanted photos and videos of herself. Maybe she still does (as a slight sidenote, I feel like this could be connected to Kissgate, as that was filmed without her wishes, and arguably when the closeting and bearding amped up heavily). She even mentions nightmares in "Cassandra".

"And I sound like an infant / Feeling like the very last drops of an ink pen / A greater woman stays cool / But I howl like a wolf at the moon / And I look unstable / Gathered with a coven 'round a sorceress' table / A greater woman has faith / But even statues crumble if they're made to wait"

The ink pen feels like Taylor's saying that she's slowly burning out, down to the last drop in her, tired of writing letters addressed to the fire and sending signals, as she runs out of ways to say her truth just for it to fall upon deaf ears. A more stable woman wouldn't show her pain, but she's so loud about her truth like a wolf, yet soundless. She gets more desperate like a helpless child as she continues to wait, still grappling with the guilt that can come from being queer and a Christian at the same time, like she's a witch with a coven. She knows she's supposed to keep her faith by staying in the unseen shade of the closet, after all, "There's no such thing as bad thoughts / Only your actions talk (from "Guilty as Sin?")". But waiting to be free for however long is taking its toll. At the Spotify TTPD pop-up library, Taylor featured what's seemingly a bust of Artemis/Diana, the Greek/Roman goddess of the, most significant to Taylor, archery. (Yes, the name Diana is very curious for Gaylors, but—unpopular opinion—maybe—I don't think it actually means too much to the song itself) After hearing about an Artemis statue being destroyed in regards to that symbolism, when digging, I found a few stories about Artemis/Diana's statues or temples being destroyed, whether it's half of Diana of the Tower burning and the other half being lost or the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus being the victim of arson in 4th century BCE. Just like Artemis/Diana, Taylor gets destroyed unexpectedly. (I've also heard of an Artemis/Diana statue that was destroyed by time, but I can't find a source for that story that doesn't connect to the Taylor pop-up).

"I'm so afraid I sealed my fate / No sign of soulmates / I'm just a paperweight in shades of greige / Spending my last coin so someone will tell me it'll be okay"

Taylor fears that her fate to never be seen is her fault, as she willingly participated in the closeting and beardings, so she's cursed to stay that way forever, never getting to mingle with other queers as one of them, like a soulmate, but an "ally", as she's too big to hang out with them. In slang, a paperweight is a useless object; Taylor probably knows that her coming out could mean a lot for queer people and the movement, but since she hasn't been able to come out, at least not in a way that is universally recognized, she feels useless compared to what she could be. Greige is a combo of grey and beige, much like the sepia aesthetic of this album. It's almost colorless, as she is forced to be grey rather than a rainbow with all of the colors due to closeting. The use of sepia or greige could symbolize that this album still has a thin coat of bearding and closeting attached to it, even though it could also be seen as a big step into the daylight. She tried to see daylight times before, "but the woman who sits by the window has turned out the light" (from "Peter"), at least for now. After her "postmortem", Taylor spends what I interpret as an obol, a coin a shade, or ghost, given to them before burial, that's paid to Charon, the underworld ferryman in Greek mythology; the fee would let a shade cross the river Styx to get to Hades. But Taylor pays only in the hopes of being comforted by someone after her "death". To be told that everything will be okay after the grey fallout. An obol would be the last thing a person would own from their time on earth, so it's her last coin. Taylor being a shade could call back to lyrics like, "Shade never made anybody less gay", in "YNTCD", having the double meaning of shade as in vitriol and the dark shade of the closet, and "Sit quiet by my side in the shade" in "Paris", where her private lover quietly sits in the closet with her. In "The Archer", Taylor mentions "And all of my heroes die all alone", interpretively due to them being queer and not getting to have a privileged life in that sense. Maybe in the afterlife, Taylor hopes to find and be comforted by one of these heroes.

I mentioned Cleopatra earlier, and while as far as I know Cleopatra wasn't queer, she is treated similarly to Eve, often blamed for the temptation of men; Cleopatra allegedly self-inflicted a snake bite to end her life, like how Taylor's Eve was bitten. Taylor has similarly been treated like Eve and Cleopatra, seen as "going through men like potato chips (a real fucking quote I found while researching for this post)" whether that's the exact case or not. Taylor's also illuded to self-inflicting harmful actions that could kill her in several songs, like "Hoax", and including on TTPD: "Love left me like this and I don't want to exist" from "Florida!!!" Even quicksand and poison mentioned in this song are ways to die. Whatever the reason behind these lines might be, I hate that she may feel that way and I worry that it's a somewhat ignored aspect of her music, brushed off as dramatic. It makes the asylum theme of TTPD much more tragic. I wish nothing but the best for Taylor. 🤍

I make a part 2 part to this

#tinkered with this instead of sleeping hope you like it ✌️ #i love this album it's ruining my life #taylor swift #the tortured poets department #the prophecy #gaylor #gaylor swift #friend of dorothea #lgbetty #gaylor theory #song analysis

[rosiesdisneydrama]

Funny thought I had at work:

What if Donald's family (mostly his sister/cousins) did notice him grieving after Uno was shut down?

Donald is upset about something but very tight-lipped about what and why. Up until one of them manages to get him to talk a little bit about it. (maybe Feathery? He seems like the sort who'd try to comfort someone without judging them or promising to listen no matter what) And then they all extrapolate/misinterpret the reason from the crumbs they worm out of him.

Donald, obviously, doesn't want to tell them that Ducklair shut down his AI friend, and kicked him out of the tower without giving him the chance to say goodbye. And he doesn't know if he'll ever see them again (if Ducklair ever reactivates Uno). It's something that he really doesn't know how to fix it or make it better.

What his family gets out of him are:

There was a secret floor to Ducklair Tower that Donald had a friend living in.

The friend couldn't leave the tower, or even that specific floor. They could only see the world outside through windows and cameras.

Donald's friend had a lot of respect/a previously very good relationship with Ducklair himself.

His friend is now "gone" and Donald doesn't think he'll ever see them again.

Ducklair's comments/behavior were really out of character compared to the previous times Donald had seen or spoken to them. Shockingly harsh/cold.

And, considering the wildness of their family, these facts get twisted in a really interesting way.

Eventually, after the rest of the family (I'm mostly picturing Della, Gladstone, and Fethry. Maybe Abner, for funsies) do some serious debating to piece it all together without upsetting Donald even more, they make a loose frame of what they think the core issue is.

The end result?

They think Uno is a secret son that Ducklair was hiding because he had serious health issues that meant he couldn't leave the tower. Potentially because whatever health equipment he needed was there and couldn't be moved. The specific tower he'd lived in had potentially been sold by accident and when Donald was registered as the caretaker of the tower the security system let him onto the floor that Uno had lived in.

Potentially, Uno was also the reason Donald kept bailing on them while he worked there. Because the super-sick heir lived in a super high-tech building made by a mad genius, so there was a non-zero chance that their cousin was beating back crooks and wannabe villains who thought they could steal stuff to attack the city there. They wish he had brought them in on it to help more if that was the case.

And, finally, that friend had likely passed away and Ducklair's mood change was potentially due to poorly handled grief. There is a small chance that Ducklair had pulled a plug due to not being able to find a cure but it's hard to imagine because the man never seemed the sort.

(Also, since they have no idea if Ducklair has ever been married, there is the possibility that his son was actually a clone because the man was a Mad Scientist and anything was possible with those types. Which could also explain why no one knew the son existed in the first place.)

But this is the Duck family, so this also played like it's a soap opera/telenovela. It gets wild, especially when Gladstone's luck brings Layla in and she fights to keep her laughter internal as she watches the trainwreck of errors from the cousins trying to piece together Donald's secret life.

Oh, and they also think Uno was Donald's boyfriend, and one of the reasons he never told them was to hide him from Scrooge.

#ducktales #donald duck #duck avenger #paperinik #disney duckverse #uno ducklair #everett ducklair #della duck #gladstone gander #fethry duck #lyla lay #duno

[desertdollranch]

Earlier this month, American Girl re-released a whole lot of long-retired stuff from Kit Kittredge’s collection. 

Kit herself never actually went anywhere. There was just nothing to buy for her. Doll, book, and that was it. But it’s the 20′s now, and AG is slowly turning the focus back to the historical characters. They’ve finally acknowledged that Kit is an icon and deserves to have the nice things that we all so desperately want to give her.

I was looking at the new stuff on the Wiki because I was curious to see if there were any changes made to anything. It’s part of the “homework” I do for the purposes of doll blogging. While doing that, I noticed that the page for each product mentions how much each item originally cost, alongside what it costs now. 

For example: Kit’s school outfit.

This was first sold for $22 when it was released in 2000, along with the first half of Kit’s debut collection. Now they’re charging $38 for it, an increase of $16 or 72%. I thought that sounded a little excessive, even if 2000 really and truly was more than twenty years ago and inflation has gone wild since the pandemic began three years ago.

So I ran the numbers through the inflation calculator operated by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Look at that. It’s basically spot on. $22 in 2000, adjusted for inflation, is equivalent to $38.23 in 2023. I’ve been proven wrong.

I did the same calculation for her birthday dress and her pajamas, and those were both pretty much the same, since they were and still are similar in cost to the school outfit. 

Now for her cute little scooter, made from a box of California oranges.

This was a later addition to her collection, coming along in 2006 for the price of $24. In 2023 it is now being sold for $50, a $26 or 108% increase. Let’s see how that tracks when adjusted for inflation. 

Ooof. $24 in 2006 should only be $35.70 in today’s money, or $14.30 less than what it’s actually being sold for. So if this one feels a little overpriced, then it probably is, assuming that the materials and quality are the same. Both versions are made of faux wood, which means that the recently skyrocketing price of wood won’t affect this. Maybe there’s another increased cost somewhere that I’m not aware of. Or maybe AG has added a small nostalgia tax, a sort of “buy it from us or pay big bucks to someone selling it secondhand” reminder.

Another accessory that was brought back was Kit’s school lunch.

This set includes her metal lunchbox, an embroidered napkin, a cheese sandwich, an oatmeal raisin cookie, apple slices, and for some reason.... three whole entire raw carrots. (There’s nothing wrong with carrots, but like. When’s the last time you’ve even seen an adult eat three whole carrots for lunch. Carrots are huge.)

Anyway. It was sold for $16 when it was released in 2000, and now they’re selling it for $36, a $20 or 125% increase.

$16 in 2000 would be equivalent to $27.80, so her lunch set is overpriced by $8.20, assuming the cost of materials/labor have risen proportionally. 

And finally, Grace the dog. Named for her distinct lack of grace and adorable clumsiness. Sold for $16 when she was released with the second half of Kit’s debut collection. Now selling for $28 which is an increase of $12 or 75%.

A 75% increase is very similar to Kit’s school outfit selling at a $72% increase, so my guess was that this is going to be a more reasonable price hike.

Adjusted for inflation, $16 in 2001 is now equivalent to $27.30, so Grace is in fact underpriced by 70 cents! Personally I think AG charges a bit too much for all of their doll pets, but that’s just me.

All of this was really surprising to me. Inflation happens so quietly in everyday life. It’s only been really noticeable in the last three years, when it seems like everything has shot up in price. 

The inflation calculator goes all the way back to 1913. Now if you really want to see what those small changes look like after 90 years, check out how much a $150 doll like Kit herself would have cost in 1932, when her stories began: 

You’d only need $6.71 in your pocket to bring Kit home. Imagine that. 

#kit kittredge #numbers #data #<---see these tags for more posts like this #I love running the numbers when it comes to doll stuff

[exouniverse]

(My) Home

Pairing: kyungsoo x gn reader

Genre: fluff, established relationship, non-idol au, chef!kyungsoo au

Warnings: although it is very fluffy, there are small conversations regarding some sensible topics such as the mention of a dead parent, and tough moments during enlistment; however, they’re touched from a healing perspective and not explicitly detailed.

Summary: since the moment Kyungsoo met you, he has felt that being by your side is just like finding solace in the warmth of home. With this realization, he has meticulously arranged a surprise to propose the transformation of that comforting sense of home into a tangible reality.

Word count: 8.7K+

A/N: it’s finally here! My heart needed this fluffy fic so I indulged, the characters took me in ways I didn’t see coming so it took me a little bit longer to post (this was supposed to be the first fic I posted here, but inspiration hit with the birthday fics lol.) I didn’t want any angst but still, some happy tears are shared between them.

MOODBOARD

Some vocabulary insights I think I didn’t get to explain:

Bujubangjang - 부주방장: sous-chef | Dulce de leche: caramelized milk spread, also named arequipe, manjar, or cajeta | Gyeran-mari - 계란말이: rolled omelette | Seoleim - 설레임: Korean ice cream brand | Yeobo - 여보: honey, darling, sweetheart (commonly used between married or engaged couples) | Yeobobangjang: word play term from yeobo (여보) and bujubangjang (부주방장), created for the story’s purpose | Yukgaejang - 육개장: it is a spicy shredded beef soup.

The memories imprinted on the photo albums never failed to bring a genuine smile to his face and make him reminisce; not even the dust that tickled his nose could ruin these types of moments. He flipped through the well-worn pages, letting memories wash over him. He knows he has changed a lot through the years, but his essence is still palpable somehow; nonetheless, he doesn’t feel the need to alter anything about his personality. He’s loved by the people around him and, for once, he is comfortable and happy with the person—he has come to admit—he has surrendered his heart to.

He smiled, wondering how it would have been if they had met as toddlers, maybe at kindergarten or at school, and gone on beach trips with friends during the summer. His smile would have brightened even more just by seeing you posing beside him, poking his dimples as you are already so used to doing. Kyungsoo just knows deep in his heart that you would love what he’s been planning; he can’t let that little evil voice of doubt and insecurity win this one. You are clueless so far about his plans, but hints from you have also been received and thought through, so that’s what moved him to plan his proposal for moving in together.

“Kyungsoo, son.” He heard his mother’s voice calling from the kitchen, snapping him out of his daydream.

He followed the sound of her voice, appearing quicker than she had expected, causing her to jump in surprise. “Sorry, mom!” he exclaimed, letting out a chuckle as he approached, eager to taste the Yukgaejang, whose enticing aroma had already made his stomach growl.

“Hands off!” his mother scolded him. “I can’t let you get creative with Yukgaejang; your father likes it this way.”

He only continued to chuckle at his mother’s expression as he remembered the last time he tried and failed, earning him a week of an indescribable, odd-tasting soup. Teenager Kyungsoo would have likely tricked you into tasting it as a prank, just to have an excuse to be together in the nurse’s office, but he would have completely regretted his antics the moment he came to realize he liked you.

“Do Kyungsoo, did you hear what I said?”

“Oh, sorry, mom, need any help? Sorry, what did you say?”

Because of his giggles and daydreaming, he could have been doomed at that moment had his mom not been aware of the reason why he was behaving that way, so she only continued to give him the banchan she had served for him to set on the table.

“Have you decided which photos to take with you already?” his mom wondered, noticing the albums on the sofa before she sat down to eat with her youngest son, who was visiting for the day with a peculiar excuse.

“There are a lot. You can tell me which ones you want to keep, and I’ll choose from the rest.”

“It’s okay, you can take as many as you want.” She paused to think. “But do leave me the one from kindergarten where you have that big smile of yours; I don’t get to see it often.”

“Mom, I do smile!” Kyungsoo protested, perplexed at his mother’s bluntness but still amused.

“I know, I know,” she giggled. “It’s only directed to a specific someone nowadays.” And just like that, she delivered her last joke, playfully teasing her son just a bit more.

“Mom!”

The way his eyes widened in surprise amused her so much that she couldn’t help but burst into laughter. “I love Y/N! I truly do, but you don’t visit us as frequently as you used to,” she revealed, honestly.

Kyungsoo put a piece of haemul-pajeon on his mother’s rice at the same time that he offered her the smile she missed. “Ok, I’ll try visiting you more.”

Content with her son’s actions, she continued to eat the seafood pancake with a smile on her face. “Bring Y/N with you too; I miss our drama marathons,” she encouraged.

“I’ll sure do, mom.”

“Oh, they’re here!” You glanced toward the front door, leaving the cookie dough unattended as you rushed to the entrance to let your little guests in.

Kyungsoo chuckled as he witnessed your surprising speed. He went to check on the dough to see if he could help you in any way; he is the one that’s mostly in the kitchen, whether it’s yours or his, but you specifically told him not to do anything since you wanted to share this new recipe with him.

“Uncle Kyungsoo!” your older niece shouted out as soon as she saw him. He waved at her and she ran to embraced him. “Are you making cookies? Can you make them blue like you did last time?”

The shower of questions gave him away, so he tried to plead innocence by giving you an honest smile, which only grew bigger as he saw your two adorable twin nephews next to you. They both happily ran to hug Kyungsoo’s legs.

“I swear I didn’t change or touch anything.”

His ears could have burned to the touch, even when he was telling half the truth, because he indeed didn’t do anything—only thought about it, and got very close to tasting the cookie dough.

“I know those eyes, what are you hiding?” You squinted at him.

“Is it safe to leave my kids with you two?” your sister joked as she closed the door at a dramatically slow pace.

“Ari, he’s hiding something, right?” you kept teasing.

“I’m not.” Kyungsoo couldn’t stop his laugh. It could have given him away, but you know the nuances in his expressions too well. Also, it’s a given that he wouldn’t have had enough time to change anything.

“I’ll give you one chance; you can add one ingredient that you think could make it better.” His smile was like a reward. “He’s been pretending to keep himself busy while I’m making cookies,” you explained the context of the situation before you.

“Kyungsoo-ssi, you’re a chef, and isn’t today your free day?” your sister asked.

He only giggled and proceeded to taste the dough as everyone in the room expected his feedback; even your twin nephews paid attention, probably expecting a taste too.

He surprised himself; it was hard to tell, but there was some kind of ingredient that his palate was enjoying but couldn’t quite figure out because of the sweetness of the sugar and the distinctiveness of the vanilla extract present in the mixture.

“Are these chocolate chips?” he asked once he realized where the new flavor came from. There was a sweet flavor there that just didn’t taste quite like chocolate.

“Nope, they are dulce de leche chips; Ari’s friend makes them.”

Kyungsoo was incredulous but mostly confused. “Uncle, you don’t know what dulce de leche is?” your niece asked even more incredulously than him, making everyone laugh.

At that moment, your nephews started to build up energy and tried to climb up to Kyungsoo’s arms to see what he was eating. It had taken a long time for them to turn hyperactive, but they had been too entertained with his bunny slippers before. Kyungsoo managed to lift both of them to help them grab some chips from the bag that your niece pointed at and let her grab a bunch first.

“Remember the Latin American Festival we went to a couple of weeks ago? We tried dulce de leche with those small crumbly cookies.”

“Oh oh oh, yeah, I remember now. Mhmm, this is good, so good. I’m not doing anything; you even added sea salt, right?”

“Yeah, of course I did!”

“Well, I’m sorry to be a party pooper, but I must leave now,” your sister announced.

“Come kiddos, say goodbye to your mom!” Kyungsoo took them to their mom, but the older one started crying, realizing his mom was leaving. He jumped on his mother as soon as he was close, and it wasn’t long before the little one started crying too.

Your niece approached to try to calm her brothers, but you remembered you had just the thing to distract them so your sister could leave.

“Let’s go play in the camping tent; there are tons of balls to play with,” you told your niece so she could help you convince her brothers since they follow her lead all the time.

“Yes! And can we have ice cream?” She got all of the adults to laugh yet another time, but at least she managed to lessen the crying and desperation so your sister could talk to them and remind them that she needed to go for a while and that she was coming to get them later.

“I’ll go get the ice cream,” Kyungsoo offered. “I can accompany you downstairs.”

“Thank you, Kyungsoo-ssi. You’re so kind.” Your sister accepted his help as she put your nephew on the floor so you could take them to the camping tent you set for them to play in.

Kyungsoo led your sister outside after he took his wallet to go buy ice cream for everyone staying in your apartment.

In the elevator, silence fell, but for the generic music coming from the speakers. Kyungsoo spoke first, "thank you in advance. This means a lot to me."

“You’re so sweet; nobody has ever done anything like this. Y/N loves you like crazy, I can assure you of that, it would totally be the best surprise.” She searched in her bag for an envelope and handed it to him. “This should help with your plans.”

“In exchange, I will take good care of your kids, I promise,” he assured her as he held the envelope and handled it with so much care.

“Of course, you two are a great team. You always do a great job!”

While Kyungsoo went for ice cream, you were doing your best to distract the kids. The twins were like the moon and the sun, so the easier task was to leave your niece to play with the youngest in the tent while you tried to control the middle one, who was throwing the balls and even the toys at your sofa. The space in your living room where you placed the tent expanded to the whole house in about two minutes; all of the toys and balls were all over the place.

Luckily, you had finished the dough and were able to refrigerate it before the baking process, ensuring the mixture remained untouched by the Poké Balls flying about. This allowed you to attend to the children on your own until your boyfriend returned from the store.

You didn’t even need to get your camera to recollect the evidence for your sister because she knew her kids. However, you still took some pictures with your phone to send them to her, as you caught the kids’ enjoyment when they started playing together.

As you were writing to her, your phone rang with a video call from Kyungsoo, and as soon as the kids heard his voice, they all came running to say hi to him. He let out a quick giggle while his cheeks turned red. He hadn’t expected to have so much noise coming from his phone at the convenience store; he even bowed at some people behind the camera, apologizing.

“You can turn it to just a voice call if you feel more comfortable that way,” you suggested once the kids went quiet, expecting to see what their uncle was going to show.

“It’s okay; it’s quick. Just wanted to show these two options I had in mind for the kids.”

“They love the cookies and cream Seoleim—“

“Oh, but I want the banana one,” your niece expressed, creating a double echo from the little ones.

“Uncle, banana,” said the youngest, making Kyungsoo giggle.

“I can bring both, and do you want some vanilla ice cream to eat with the cookies?”

“You’re a genius!” you smiled. “Thank you, jagi.”

Kyungsoo mirrored your smile and waved goodbye. “See ya all soon!”

It didn’t take long for him to come back, so he got to see the chaos you got caught in again when he arrived. He ran to the kitchen before he was trapped by the kids at the entrance, and he gave them their ice cream fast enough for them to run back to you. Kyungsoo quickly hid the envelope in his jacket and put the vanilla ice cream in the fridge to eat later with the cookies. Since it was relay time, it was easier for him to hide the surprise with his belongings when you came to the kitchen to finally start to bake.

Taking care of your niece and nephews was challenging; Kyungsoo couldn’t even lie to himself that it wasn’t, but they were quite adorable and funny. You’ve been doing this for longer than he has, so it seemed to be so easy for you when he first saw you interact with the kids. However, he has worked on it and gotten to improve fast. Such as when your nephew started a tantrum because he wanted to go out to play but Kyungsoo saw it was about to rain. You came into the room to help, but he waved off your help, determined to handle it himself.

With them, he had learned to let loose and have fun, even if he had to act cute or like a clown. Who would have thought he could pull out some moves? Singing was easier, and karaoke rooms were witnesses to that, but he learned to accept that dancing was also fun, and he really wasn’t bad at it. It could be that or the opposite, but your nephew’s laugh was a reward either way.

For you, it was not just the little one’s laugh but Kyungsoo’s enjoyment. His face shone so much when he smiled, and his big eyes turned into little half-moons of joy. You instinctively grabbed your camera and caught as many of those moments as you could. The peace and comfort that he transmitted were priceless. You were happy that it didn’t take too long for you to finish setting the cookie dough to bake because you got to join them just in time, joyful to be able to catch more of Kyungsoo’s dancing and silliness with the kids.

At the end of the day, once you bid farewell to your sister and her children, reality hit you in every cell of your body. The exhaustion from playing all day, cleaning ice cream from the floor and carpet, cooking, and feeding left your muscles aching. You knew you now had to clean up your apartment, but leaving it all for the next day seemed more appealing than tiring yourself more by tidying it up.

While you were going back up to your apartment, Kyungsoo was picking up the toys that the kids left unorganized. Your sister had tried to get them to pick up everything they played with before they left, but you let them go easily since they seemed to be about to fall asleep in seconds.

You contemplated him once you entered your apartment; he was only bringing up smiles from you lately. “I can clean up tomorrow. I’m too exhausted now, aren’t you too?” you asked.

“I am,” he giggled, but he kept picking toys up from the ground. “I wanted to help.��

“You work tomorrow; rest up,” you said gently as you approached him, until you wrapped your arms around him from behind and rested part of your weight on him.

He stopped, feeling your energy drop. “I’m okay; I’m used to being tired from running the restaurant all day.”

“It was your free day today, though. I made you work too much. Kids and food are not the same.”

“Yeah, they’re not,” he recognized and looked back at you from his shoulder.

You smiled at him and managed to grab his hand. “See, just come with me. Let’s just chill for now. Let’s watch some variety shows and rest,” you suggested as you guided him to the couch and then grabbed the remote to turn the TV on.

You found a traveling variety show you hadn’t seen before, and it got you interested. The hosts were indulging in many unfamiliar and mouthwatering dishes, catching Kyungsoo’s attention. It didn’t take long for you both to get lost in the scenery and seemingly delicious food they showcased, and your exhaustion finally kicked in as you started to feel your eyelids getting heavy.

“Come closer; you can rest your head on my shoulder,” Kyungsoo whispered, and you followed his instructions. He was too content and expectant already. His smile, if only you could see it, might have given something away. His eyes, illuminated by the light of the TV, were incredibly expressive. “You did well today; I enjoyed every single minute,” he continued whispering, gently stroking your hair. All the while, he purposefully concealed that smile and look from you.

“I did too.” You gently grabbed his hand, and he squeezed lightly.

“You can sleep,” he giggled softly. “I can feel you drifting away.”

“No, I’m okay. Got to be here with you until you have to go.”

Kyungsoo knew you were tired, but he was sure something in the tone of your voice sounded different, and he couldn’t ignore the sense of urgency it conveyed. Although he had already planned to stay to surprise you, the change in the way you talked made him more determined to be there for you.

“I can stay; take the day off tomorrow and stay with you,” he offered, without giving much away.

“You’re leaving the kitchen unsupervised?”

It seemed you were still trying to keep your humor up and that nostalgia or melancholy unnoticed, so Kyungsoo tried to keep it up too, saying, “yeah, I can. I’m the chef.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He giggled, seemingly more amused than he is used to, and planted a gentle kiss on the top of your head. “Believe me now?” he asked, his voice filled with playful affection.

“Don’t buy me with your sweetness!”

Like a defiant toddler, he didn’t listen and instead shifted his body to cuddle and have you wrapped in his arms. “I just want to cheer you up,” he murmured tenderly.

There was a pause in your reaction, and suddenly, you held onto his hand again. “How…” you began, your voice barely audible as it caught in your throat. The word trembled on your lips, reflecting a mix of curiosity, surprise, and perhaps even a touch of vulnerability.

“You don’t have to say it if you are not ready.”

“Soo—“

“Rest. I’ll get you to your room and leave if you fall asleep.”

That smell was familiar—the pungent, savory scent of kimchi fried rice—paradoxically evoking only good memories with the people you love. You even smiled before you could open your eyes, but curiosity quickly appeared when you realized you were supposed to be alone in your house at this hour in the morning. Your sister couldn’t have possibly come today after the news she got yesterday. It was the low humming accompanying the sizzling sound of the kimchi rice that made you jump out of bed. The bedsheets fell on the ground, almost making you fall, and the door made such a sound when it hit the wall that it made Kyungsoo jump. The mixture of emotions was a tiny bit overwhelming, but your smile gave away the happiness you felt by seeing him in your kitchen making breakfast.

“You’re awake.”

“You’re here!”

His shoulders slightly went up and down as he silently laughed, connecting his gaze with yours in a way only he could. Your feet were smarter than you, taking you to him to yet again hug him from the back, but this time sharing your happy morning energy with him.

“Careful, you can burn your hand,” he cautioned, moving you both away from the heat.

You pressed your head against his back, inhaling the lingering scent of his perfume on his shirt. “I have you here, so I don’t mind.”

“How can you not mind?” He was surprised by your reply. “It’s painful, and I don’t want you to get hurt. You might even get me to burn the rice, so move, please," he insisted.

You looked at him, squinting, because of his unbelievable-expected, hot and cold reply. His teasing was cruel sometimes, but it really only added to his adorableness. He also said please, so he is forgiven.

“So is this the kitchen you’ll run today?” You had your wits too, and you used them wisely.

“My yeobobangjang, help me out, please?”

“Yeobo?” you chuckled. You were amused by his accidental play with the words bujubangjang and yeobo. He can’t just deny his cuteness, and you couldn't help but be charmed by his playful antics.

"Yeah yeah... I did say that," he giggled, realizing that he had let it slip without much thought. He rarely calls you jagi or jagiya, but yeobo is a whole different level of endearment that you still didn’t expect to hear.

With your help, breakfast was ready a lot faster, allowing you both to sit down and eat together peacefully. It was not a special occasion to celebrate anything in particular, but simply having him there in front of you was enough to make you feel grateful and happy. You also knew that he needed an explanation about yesterday. He wouldn’t ask unless you took too long to say anything, but he would subtly check in to see if you were ready to let him know.

"Thank you, Soo," you said, offering a warm smile and a piece of gyeran-mari. "About last night—"

"Y/N, I don't want you to feel pressured into saying anything," he interrupted gently, his voice filled with understanding. "It's okay if you don't want to tell me. Just… just know that I'm here for you."

You shook your head slightly, trying to show him that you still wanted to share. That’s all you wanted to do last night when you went back to your apartment and saw him. “I’m okay. I was feeling just a bit… I don’t know, sad? Nostalgic, perhaps?” you explained, and you noticed how his eyes were focused on you and whatever you needed to say.

"When we were getting the kids into the car, Ari received a call. Jongseung's mom is sick and was taken to the hospital," you explained, pausing briefly. "I wanted to go with her, but she asked me not to. I felt so powerless in that moment. I think..." you trailed off. Sensing your pain, Kyungsoo reached for your hand across the table, offering as much comfort and support as he could.

"I was sad because it reminded me of mom. I hadn't even thought about her in so long," you confessed, as the emotions were building up inside you. "And then, I also thought about how much Ari took care of me after mom died. I always feel like I should repay her for all that she's done. So, I wanted to comfort her and go with her, or at least help her with the kids... but she just told me to go back home. She said she would update me when necessary."

Kyungsoo jumped off his seat to take the one next to you. He brought his bowl and chopsticks and placed them next to yours. As he settled down, he gently turned you to face him, taking hold of both of your hands. With a small smile and caring eyes, he said, “you do more than enough for your sister; she knows that. You are incredible, Y/N. I bet your mom would be so proud of the person you have grown into.”

The light in his eyes—you swear, it could warm you up for days with just one look. Being loved by him feels like peace and comfort; it’s exciting, and there’s fire and playfulness all at the same time. His kindness fills your heart with so much joy. The tears coming out were not just because of sadness but happiness because of having the best boyfriend in the world. You couldn’t even feel the cheesiness of that statement in that very moment, not when he was holding your every sorrow in the warmest embrace.

“Do you want to do anything today?” he whispered once you seemed calmer. “We can stay in, but if you want to go out, I will be more than happy to take you anywhere.”

“Did you really take the day off?”

Your curious question made him giggle. “Why so surprised? I’ve done it before,” he reminded you in his best attempt to hide his nervousness. Not that he is a workaholic or anything, but it was more due to the whole plan for the day and that he already wanted to tell you all about it.

You slowly let go of each other, and you just smiled at him, knowing how much he has done to schedule both of your lives so you can spend the most time together and never miss anything. It has also taken a lot of effort from you because both of your jobs have always been complicated with free time. “Let’s maybe go for something to eat for lunch; we can just cuddle until then,” you suggested while you held his cheeks and poked his dimples.

“What an adventurer, my love,” he joked at the same time that he carefully dried a couple of tears from your cheek, but he was the only one laughing when you playfully punched his arm. “I love it, I love it, I love you.”

“I love you, dumpling,” you exclaimed as you poked the dimple forming on his face.

“What?” His laugh echoed all over your apartment. “I haven’t heard you say that to me in so long!”

“What? Love you? Yeah… it’s been so long!” you said cheekily, but his antics still moved you, and you fought a smile by pouting.

“You dumb head!”

Your eyes widened at the audacity. “What did you just say?”

“You dumpling!” He also poked at your cheek.

“You didn’t sa—“ He cut you off with a kiss. You relaxed into it even when you wanted to just laugh out loud, but that translated into a smile, one that he mirrored while kissing you.

“We were eating,” he casually whispered while taking a small breath.

“We should probably keep doing so,” you whispered back, stopping him from getting any closer.

“Are you feeling any better?”

“Yeah, thank you.”

“Well, then you can do the dishes when we finish.”

“Yah! Do Kyungsoo!” You crossed your arms, pretending to be mad. “I’m only laughing because you are too. I love seeing you laugh. Also, thank you for cleaning yesterday’s mess, how’d you like to be rewarded?” you asked, teasingly moving closer, noticing your apartment being clean and all in order.

“Ahh stop,” he blushed, holding a giggle. You noticed him clearing his throat. “Let’s finish our breakfast.”

You often find yourself yearning for more mornings like this, with Kyungsoo playfully teasing you and your laughter filling the room. The idea of living together with him has crossed your mind from time to time, but you’re too hesitant sometimes, thinking too much if you’re in the right moment to take that step. You’re also guilty of letting other people own a place in your mind that tells you that it might be too soon, that you should possibly think about marriage first, and that settling down could mean risking your job and whatnot. Those voices really need to be quiet because you don’t see anything wrong with what you two have. Your job couldn’t possibly be jeopardized; two years of relationship is enough for you, and you’ve known him for almost five years already, so you might as well dive right in there and then.

It’s even funny how Kyungsoo is not worried about what to wear to go outside since he has at least five outfits in your apartment, even for someone who is quite simple when it comes to clothing. He even has one of his chef jackets and an apron for his uniform.

All of the getting ready went so smoothly that you could easily picture it all far ahead, but you were easily brought back to the present when you connected the dots of Kyungsoo wearing his faux leather jacket and gloves. You were seconds away from grabbing your camera from your bag and capturing that moment forever. It made sense in a way since you ended up cuddling and doing nothing for so long that you two ended up deciding to go on a picnic in the afternoon, so the jacket would serve well for the cold night, but the combination was surely making your heart flutter.

“What?” He turned around with a smirk on his face after grabbing his helmet. “Got yours too,” he said handing you the other helmet that was next to his.

“For a second, I don’t know why, I forgot you own a bike—a motorcycle type of bike.”

“You make no sense.”

“Never mind, let’s go.” Your thoughts were better kept inside your head, so you just put your helmet on and hopped on the bike. You felt the chuckle in his belly while you were trying to hold on tight. You always enjoy how comfortable he gets, but at the same time, he has made you blush way too much in just one day.

The change from summer to autumn felt more present in the past few days. The ride on the motorcycle exposed you even more to the change, as the weather was feeling nicer and you were not feeling like your head could burn from the heat inside the helmet. You held on even tighter and closer to Kyungsoo as you felt more comfortable along the ride. Somehow, you suddenly had flashbacks to the very first time you hopped on his motorcycle. You were just friends then, but now that you realize it, the feelings were catching up to you, and that was one of the first times that you thought about him differently.

You reached the first stop, which was his house, so he could leave his motorcycle parked. You had nothing really planned for the picnic, but you decided you were having it at Yeouido Hangang Park, so you would take the bus instead of worrying about parking. Kyungsoo had suggested the picnic and going to the Yeouido Bamdokkaebi Night Market, which surprised you a little, but it sounded great since you two hadn’t really had a cute romantic date in a while.

“Could you go pick up Meokmul and Hoochoo at the daycare?” Kyungsoo asked once he took his helmet off. You got lost in his eyes for a second, but then you noticed the ends of his hair were slightly damp and his nose was a little bit sweaty. He looked like his dogs, so you giggled.

“Y/N?”

“Oh, sure! Yeah, I’ll go.”

He shook his hair, hypnotizing you once more. You were completely lost and hadn’t even thought of fixing your own hair, but his hand found the rebellious lock on your left side and patted it back down. The proximity made you shiver, which made him giggle.

“Wait for me there; I’ll just go for my bus card and some stuff for the picnic.”

He dared to approach and give you a kiss on your forehead. Kyungsoo might have suspected it, but there was no denying that he had you eating from his palm from the moment you realized he had gone all bad-boy-look with his outfit today, just to match his motorcycle, just to tease you, just because—you wouldn’t know, but you’re more than grateful for the blessed view.

Haeun was at the reception today, so she waved at you with a wide smile on her face.

“Hey, Y/N! How have you been? Are you here to pick Hoochoo and Meokmul?”

You nodded happily, and when you reached the reception desk, you gave her your ID. “Haeun! It’s so nice to see you again. We’re taking them for a walk.”

Haeun’s eyes widened. She really was like a puppy taking care of a lot of other puppies. “Oh, they’ll be so happy! Come with me,” she invited, handing you your ID back after processing the discharge and calling a coworker in to take her place at the reception while you two went to get the dogs.

You trailed behind her as she led you down the hallway to the seating room, where the dogs' belongings were securely stored. "Hoochoo has been asleep for about twenty minutes now," she informed you, searching for the dogs' leashes. "Meokmul has been playing with Toben and Vivi," she added, providing you with an update on the dogs' activities.

“Oh, they’re here too?”

“Yes, she was lucky to have them here to play with. They’re really the best of friends.”

“Did Hoochoo have fun too?”

“Yeah, she played for a while but got sleepy after eating,” she giggled and pointed towards the playroom to let you know she was going in.

It was nice to hear that they were having the greatest time while you kept their dad away for a while. When you met them, there was an instant connection between the three of you. It had only taken a few seconds, and Meokmul was the first one to like you. Hoochoo was initially shy, requiring Kyungsoo’s gentle intervention to help the little puppy open up.

Funny enough, Haeun was the one who had introduced you to Kyungsoo when you coincidentally arrived at the same time to pick up your dogs. The three of them were harmoniously playing since they had already been friends for weeks. It just so happened that the owners hadn’t met yet. The bond that you all created was so strong that the loss of your dog two years ago was truly felt by them, but that only brought you closer to Kyungsoo and his dogs.

Meokmul had possibly smelled you or heard you because the barks in the distance were definitely too familiar. The little one ran towards you, making Haeun struggle a little with the leash, and the special treat you had taken from their bag didn’t help either. You showed it, and she ate it before you picked her up.

“I’ll go get Hoochoo with the carrier in case she’s still asleep.”

“Yes, thank you, Haeun!”

“Meokmul-ie, how are you? Hello, little sunshine!” You heard a chuckle behind you after cutely talking to the hyperactive dog on your lap. It was Kyungsoo, showing his most joyful smile. He was holding a little picnic basket, which made you wonder just how impromptu it would actually end up being. Knowing him, it probably didn’t even reach one percent.

“She woke up; she’s energized now, so—“ Haeun entered and stopped when she caught sight of Kyungsoo. “Oh, Kyungsoo-ssi! The two parents coming for their little girls; how cute!”

The both of you giggled and smiled at each other before bowing your heads to Haeun. “Thank you, Haeun-ah,” you said as you grabbed the double carrier and Kyungsoo took Hoochoo’s leash. “Let’s have a coffee together soon, yeah?”

“Welcome! We definitely should, just text me when you’re free. Have a nice day!”

“Enjoy your day, Haeun-ah!” Kyungsoo waved goodbye before he held your hand and led you outside.

The afternoon skyline was gorgeous, looking like the sunset was beginning soon enough. You contemplated it and squeezed Kyungsoo’s hand, to which he reacted with a chuckle. The reason was not important; just hearing that low, sweet chuckle of his was enough to make you feel all cozy and calm. You strolled along the sidewalk with your two beautiful dogs until you reached the bus stop, where you had to get the pups in the double carrier.

Kyungsoo scratched Meokmul behind her ear as she looked a little anxious. “It’s okay, it’s okay. Promise it won’t be long, little one.” He talked soothingly to calm her down.

He kept scratching her ear on the bus ride so she wouldn’t start barking nervously, and you gave her some treats to entertain her. Hoochoo received some too, but she was at ease in the carrier, all warmed up and happy with the company of Meokmul. The ride was indeed short, but Meokmul calmed down easily thanks to both of your calming attentiveness.

Once at Yeouido Park, you got both of them out of the carrier so they could walk along with you. Kyungsoo smiled at them and then at you. The picnic basket was on the floor next to the carrier, so the two little dogs couldn’t help but inspect it with their noses. “Ready for our date, little ones?” he chuckled.

Meokmul and Hoochoo barked as if they were answering him, waving their tails expectantly. You managed to take a picture of the three of them right in that moment, and when Kyungsoo looked back up, realizing you just took a candid photo, you said, “they know something’s up. What have you got planned, Soo?”

Kyungsoo’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “Ah, it wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you. For now, let’s walk; we’ve got some food to gather for our picnic.”

“So there’s nothing in the basket,” you commented suspiciously.

Kyungsoo only laughed, shaking his head as he took the dogs strollers in one hand while the other searched for yours. He squeezed once he held it gently, looking for something in your eyes that made him smile so brightly. You were curious now, but you decided it would be even more entertaining if you waited for whatever he planned for the night.

You set off down the busy lane with one pup each, Kyungsoo not letting go of the picnic basket, and you holding the carrier. The street food market bustled with delicious aromas and a lively atmosphere filled with people’s laughter and small chatter.

You stopped at a tteokbokki stand once the scent translated into flavor in your mind. The draw was so strong thanks to the warm feeling it gave you just thinking about the taste of the soft rice cakes in your mouth. You asked the vendor for a medium serving to take away, and Kyungsoo put it inside the picnic basket. It was hard not to peek, but he was too fast at closing the cover, nervously giggling.

A dumpling stand caught Kyungsoo’s attention; he approached and looked back at you, smiling knowingly. You immediately poked his cheek. “What do you think about these dumplings, Chef Do?”

“They look delicious, right?”

You marveled at his expression, reminiscing on your requested class all those years ago to your newfound friend, who looked at you amused at your concentration with his cheek full of dumpling flour. Kyungsoo’s weakness was food. “I do see one delicious dumpling,” you teased, holding his gaze with fire in your eyes.

The words caught up in his throat, so he swallowed thickly before his voice could come out shaky. His ears heated up, and he tried to look anywhere else. He still giggled, knowing you were taking your chance at teasing him, just like he did earlier when he knew you were staring at him with those dreamy eyes because of his choice of clothing.

Luckily, the woman serving the dumplings caught his wandering gaze and asked for his order; otherwise, he would have melted in front of you. After ordering two servings of dumplings, one steamed and the other fried, he managed to pull off a playful smile at your teasing words once his heart settled. He found your gaze still lingering, your eyes glowing with glee and something deeper; he could only hope it wasn’t just his longing playing tricks on him. All of the surrounding noise drifted away, and he found himself present with only you there in that moment.

He wished to reach for you and confess everything he had planned for the night, but his question still weighed with uncertainty and insecurities, so he needed a moment of complete confidence and the setting he had already pictured. The crowd would make him nervous even when no one paid the minimum attention to them. There were still some more steps to take to reach that longed-for destination.

Kyungsoo was more than reassured when he felt your hand on his arm. You didn’t have to say a word; the slight scrunch of your nose when you smiled and the warmth of your gaze calmed his anxieties. With you, he felt not only seen but understood—a comfort that had been hard to find all those years before you came into his life.

Too soon, the order was ready. With a kind smile and a bow to the sellers, he thanked them and packed away the dumplings. Hand in hand, you continued your wandering stroll along the market, picking whatever snack you desired. Since you found some fried chicken and already had tteokbokki, you two decided to pass by the convenience store and buy some ramyeon for the perfect food setting.

It didn’t take too long to reach the camping and picnic area once you had all of your food. Kyungsoo found a great spot near a tree, where you managed to settle before the last bits of light from the sun touched the sky. He had come prepared, as you had expected.

“Let me rearrange everything; close your eyes,” he asked you as you finished getting the little ones in their carrier since both of them were tired from playing all day and walking along the market with you two.

You were surprised to hear that since you two had already set the blankets on the grass, and he had taken out his wooden house-shaped lamp and put it next to the picnic basket. You still carried on, hopeful for his surprise.

After setting the folding table and carefully displaying the indulgently selected feast with flickering candle lanterns and fresh strawberries he had brought from home, he asked you to open your eyes again.

You swiftly opened your eyes, and they mirrored the light coming out of Kyungsoo’s as you traced over all of the little details and felt your heart warming up. “Soo, jagi, it’s beautiful,” you breathed. “It looks even more appealing now.”

Hoochoo’s head popped out of the carrier, hearing the both of you laugh together. She now looked hungry, so before you started on with your meal, you gave her some of hers. Meokmul was fast asleep, it seemed, but halfway through your dinner, she woke up asking for food.

With full bellies and hearts lighter, conversation turned reminiscent, noticing how many moments you had referenced from your friends to lovers relationship beginnings. Although short and recent, you managed to get enough closeness that led you to develop such strong feelings for one another. Kyungsoo knew it was time now that the momentum was clear with your talk being about you two.

The sweet and careful touch of his hand over your cheek soothed you into a pleasant mood, interrupting your giggles with his gesture. Whatever he needed to say or was thinking about, you lovingly gave him all of your attention.

“Y/N,” he started. “I have a surprise for you,” he smiled.

“Another one?” you genuinely asked, immediately interested in all of the possibilities.

He nodded. “You could say so, yeah.” His hand lingered on your cheek, but with a light stroke on your cheekbone, he shifted towards the picnic basket.

From an outside bottom compartment, Kyungsoo reached for a gift box, carefully handing it to you. He looked expectant as you grabbed it, the corners of his lips forming a slowly growing, hopeful smile. His features were divine, lighted up by the candle lanterns, and you couldn’t wait long to see what he was gifting you.

You looked at the photo on the cover; you captured that moment just a few weeks ago at Kyungsoo’s house. It had been such an ordinary day, but you had matched sweaters on, completely unintentional. Meokmul was on his lap, and you were holding Hoochoo, who licked Kyungsoo’s chin and made you laugh. The view of such a lighthearted moment, as well as your guess at what could be inside the book, brought happy tears to your eyes almost immediately. As you looked back at him, you caught a watery shine in his.

“Why am I crying? This is just the first look at your gift,” you sniffled.

Kyungsoo chuckled, amused at your reaction, but he embraced you to try and soothe your crying. “It’s okay if you cry; just promise it is out of happiness. My intentions were never to make you hurt.”

“It’s happiness; I’m excited to know what’s inside.”

Kyungsoo was already beaming at seeing you so moved by just the cover alone. He dried your tears and planted two kisses on your forehead. “Open it,” he urged softly. “I hope you like it. I tried to do the most I could within my creative possibilities.”

You giggled softly. “You are creative, mostly in the kitchen. You’re a genius chef, and I’m so lucky to have befriended you,” you advocated for him, honestly.

“Befriended,” he simply repeated and chuckled.

You continued to open the photo album, still wrapped in his arms. He wasn’t stopping his surprises, it seemed. The first two pages of the book had photos of both of you as kids; you could see why he chose those pictures, and the caption soothed you and filled you with so much gratitude and love for him.

Were we destined to find each other? Our connection seemed to exist earlier than we could imagine, no matter where we were.

His sweet smile was timeless. You could see yourself meeting Kyungsoo as a kid at that beach, running around and playing on the shore where small waves washed over your feet. It wasn’t the same one, but something in the pictures looked as if they were taken at the same place, day, and time.

“I saw that picture at Ari’s house a couple of months ago. Undeniably so, I knew I had seen something similar before. I had my picture at home, so when I returned that day and searched for it, I could only think about how many more could show such similarities,” Kyungsoo explained, talking near your ear.

You lifted your hand to caress his cheek. “You’ve been crafting this since then?” you asked.

“Not right then, but I had been looking for pictures, and then the idea came. Mom and Ari helped quite a lot,” he chuckled. “Just yesterday, I finally got your childhood pictures so I could add them.”

You kissed his cheek and continued to flip through the pages. Pictures of you two at different schools but with similar smiles, different cities but the same colors in the sky, different dogs but the same pose. Your lives seemed somehow planned and destined to blend; your eyes kept pouring down tears of joy when you reached the page where your early encounters started to appear—all those pictures you took.

A picture of you two at the first New Year’s party with his parents specially moved you. You were still just friends then, but he invited you over since he was also carrying out the first celebration at his new apartment.

You told me about your mom two days before, and I wished with you that she was there with us. But you must be her mirror; I can see her in you from the little details you’ve shared with me.

Kyungsoo held you tighter. He hadn’t anticipated in the planning and crafting of this gift that you could be sensitive about your mom on this day, so he consciously kept you wrapped in his arms. He felt how you squeezed back, embracing the reassurance he was trying to give you.

“Thank you, Soo,” you managed to say, but while it’d be easy for you to find words to express your feelings, this time there were not enough.

“Turn the page,” he said, his voice cracking. You moved to face him, and he smiled through the tears. “I have something to say,” he managed to speak calmly, in spite of his rushing emotions.

You followed through and flipped the page. A carefully crafted collage portrayed the photos you sent him—while you took care of Hoochoo and Meokmul, or just a nice picture of a sunset you saw—along with letters while he was enlisted and some of the ones you took on his day offs.

Kyungsoo took a deep breath, and you carefully held his hand. “I…” he started but stopped when he felt his tears coming down; you cleared them carefully and softly smiled. “That time of my life was hard to get through. I don’t think I thanked you enough for being there and all that you did for me.” He finally found the right words as he brushed his thumb over your hand.

“All those letters, all those pictures, all those moments you shared with me—you gave me the hope I lacked. I told you many times that I had fallen for you slowly and carefully, but it was on my mind every day,” he smiled tenderly. “You have no idea how much I love you. I learned to say whatever is on my mind because of you; if I hadn’t said those words to you, I probably would have lost you.”

You slowly shook your head. “No, I was too head over heels for you already. I wouldn’t have let you lose me.”

He giggled and kissed you softly, taking his time to marvel at this moment with you and trying to release the last of his nerves. “Could you take a look at the last page?” he asked, breaking away for a moment.

Eager to know what that last page offered you, you turned it over and smiled. The last picture, a copy of one of your photography class projects where you captured the concept of “home,” greeted you; it was Kyungsoo’s side profile while cooking in his restaurant’s kitchen. Next to it was a photo he had taken of the two of you when you visited his friends in Busan.

You looked up at him, wondering, searching for the answers in his joyful gaze. Kyungsoo held your hand at the same time that the two little pups woke up. Both of you couldn’t help but giggle, thinking they must have wanted to be a part of your moment, so you grabbed Meokmul, and he put Hoochoo on his lap.

Clearing his throat, he began, “Y/N, I’ve been thinking about this for awhile. Whenever I’m with you, no matter where we are, I feel at home. You are my home and safe place, and I want to have you as close as I can… would you like to start living together?”

He was a mind reader; you couldn’t help but reach to lovingly cup his face. Meokmul wanted her space with the two of you, so she started licking your hands and Kyungsoo’s cheek in the process. The both of you laughed while Hoochoo wagged her tail. “Of course, Soo!” you exclaimed between giggles.

When you could breathe easily and the pups calmed down a bit, you ran your fingers through his hair. “You’re also my home. You’ve loved every part of me, just as I have loved every part of you. Would you believe me if I told you I have also been thinking about it?”

His eyes widened, and a silly laugh escaped him. “I would actually believe it, but how are we so in sync?”

“I don’t want an answer; I just want us to keep working this way,” you admitted.

“You’re so wise,” he kissed your cheek. “Thank you; you’ve made all of my dreams come true just by being you. I can’t wait to wake up each day and see your beautiful eyes and fall asleep staring at them too.”

You pulled him close, softly brushing your lips against his; he placed his hand on your neck, his thumb slightly brushing your earlobe. Your lips met softly and slowly, making you feel at ease, like coming home—him—your home. “Thank you for loving me; it’s the greatest gift I’ve ever known.”

#kyungsoo #kyungsoo x reader #kyungsoo fluff #kyungsoo fanfic #d.o. kyungsoo #do kyung soo #chef Kyungsoo #exo #exo fanfic #exo fanfiction #exouniverse

[possiblylando]

Chainsaw Man 123 'Early' Analsys.

This chapter gives us a lot to chew on unlike the previous ones which where just fully mystery. Which is why I'm not really sure where we start. I guess at the beginning of the chapter? Yeah.

So this chapter we meet the falling devil. I can't say I was expecting this but I was right about this current body she's using being made from the corpses of the people that jumped off the apartment complex. She's got rather weird theming as she's a Primal Fear who is also a Chef despite it not really fitting with her fear. I guess Primal Fears can have hobbies?

"Hor D'oeuvre, La Root Vonla" is french for something. Someone who speaks french probably has a better translation (If you speak French lemme know the correct translation in the comment or reblogs) but I have to use google translate which was really shitting itself on this one. So the rough translation is: "Appetizers, The Will Route" It being an Appetizer means that this is probably the weakest of her attacks. Things are gonna get a lot worse from here on out. "The Will Route" is clearly in reference to the attack's affects.

It appears the way to overcome this first attack is to come to terms with your past Trauma so that it doesn't weigh on you as much if at all. Falling says "A word of warning- Those who don't finish their food will taste death." which seems like it's directly referring to the way to escape the attack Then we get a flashback of Asa's life soon after the Typhoon Devil attack. This probably only takes place a few Days-Weeks after the event due to Asa's hair still being about the same length as it was in the original flashback.

Left 102 Flashback, Right 123 Flashback. It's pretty clear that Asa has been using the Cat (Crambon) as a substitute for her mother. She's become anti-social and solitary only spending time with Crambon. (Which is fair by the way). At this point Crambon and her School Uniform are the only things she has left of her mother. Then we get this evil fucking bitch

She is easily one of, If not the most evil human character we've ever met.

Up until this point everything seems fine. Asa is willing to try to move on from her mother's death for the good of those around her by letting Crambon move on as well. It's a moment of personal growth.

This bastard could've easily said "Yes, Crambon's fine" even if it was a lie. But instead:

I don't know if this is Asa's mind making the situation worse than it actually was. She might not have even said this but the way Chainsaw Man does it's flashback they're rarely if ever wrong due to human memory being at fault. This demon of a person was so upset about Asa having literally anything to find comfort in that she killed Crambon. Back to the real world we get some more information on the attack.

Reading through this chapter I thought they this was going to be a literal falling attack. Where Falling just lifts up a bunch of people and drops them to die. But the reality is much worse. Anyone who is unable to deal with their Trauma is dragged straight into hell. This is a Therapy Session by Fire. You WILL overcome your emotional baggage or die. Which is why it's important it's Asa in control of the body right now. Since Asa is the one who has to overcome her Trauma to escape this situation. Thats the end of 123. Time to the-- Uh.. I don't know what to call this section. Post-Chapter analyses? Whatever. Now I think the solution to Falling's attack has already been revealed. Chapter 102 was when we got the flashback of Asa's Mother's Death. In the same chapter we get a flashback of Yuko giving Asa her shoes. It's the same chapter when Asa resolves to try and be better.

Even if Yuko is gone now she'll still have an affect on Asa. I hope this is the case cause that'd be nice. Here's what I think we're gonna be seeing in the coming chapter(s) 1. Asa is able to accept that her past Trauma can't be changed and that it wasn't her fault. (Hopefully we get that Yuko mention in some way cmon) 2. Denji shows up and has to deal with his own issues fully (Unless the attack has ended by then) This last one I'm not confident will happen but it'd be cool. We see the first death of a Primal Fear at the hands of Denji & Asa/Yoru. Additionally I wanna know what the deal with Falling is. Her whole theming is rather weird. She's the falling devil yet she's a chef? It doesn't quite seem like something a Primal Fear would do. But I guess they can have hobbies as well? That's all I've got for now. 123 End Question:

Would you?

#chainsaw man #chainsaw man 123 #csm #csm manga #csm 123 #falling devil #asa mitaka

[sokkastyles]

How do you feel about the live action so far? Personally, I like some of the changes they made but I miss Katara’s whole character and I don’t think Ozai’s characterization works very well.

I'm enjoying it as an adaptation. There are also things that disappoint me about it as an adaptation, but I still think I am enjoying it as an adaptation more than i would have if I had just watched it as if were an original story, with no knowledge of the original series. It lacks a lot of the things that made the original series stand out. It kind of pains me to say it, because they tried, they really did. They tried with the bending, and a lot of it is impressive and clearly inspired by the original. But it still is not as impressive as the original. Part of that is because of the fact that it's not new, part of it is the change in medium. Part of it is just that the magic isn't there.

I keep thinking about, for example, Aang's fight scenes. Don't get me wrong, the LA does a great job. They clearly thought everything out. Gordon is great. The martial arts moves are nicely choreographed and clearly inspired by the original. The effects are nice. But Aang still doesn't feel like an airbender the way he did in the original. A large part of this is that they are working with real people and a more realistic medium. The actors just can't be as naturally dynamic as animated characters. Every airbending move Aang does has to be done with special effects and deliberate shots and there's just so much work that needs to go into it that a lot of the casual airbending Aang does in the original is gone. And this isn't so much a criticism because I recognize that this has to come with the change of medium. But, as I said, it does diminish some of the magic of the original. The same reason we don't get, for example, Zuko blowing smoke through his nostrils. The side effect is that he doesn't feel as connected to his element.

I'm a big fan of animation as an art form, and the things I mentioned about the original ATLA? That is animation as an art form at its essence. We get a sense of who a character is just by their stance, or how they move, and the artist uses their medium to convey it without words. The actors do a lot to try and make up for it, but you're still inevitably going to lose something in the translation.

See my previous post for my thoughts about Ozai based on the first four episodes I've seen. Katara is another sore point for me. She feels like such a non-character here, there's nothing really memorable about her. She's not offensive, but she's not anything special, either, and it is a shame since she's such an iconic character for the series as a whole. I'm not here for discourse about how she needs to be more feminine or more angry or more etc. etc. etc. But what they've given us is just so bland that if I didn't already know the character I probably would think nothing of her at all.

As an original story, the live action series seems to lack direction. As I said, if I hadn't watched the original show I would probably have gotten bored by now because of having no real sense of who a lot of these characters are or where they are going or what the stakes of this story are.

I'm mostly enjoying the show as an adaptation that can bring me some new perspectives on these characters, the way I would a fanfic that has its hit or miss moments. Then I can take those things and add them to my own fanfics and metas and thoughts about these characters and this world.

#atla live action

[whinlatter]

obviously ginny always holds a candle for harry and her feelings for him never really go away, but what do you think is the point when her feelings change from a childhood crush to realised actual adult feelings?

(I love this question so here I am, back on my bullshit with another Hinny meta not a single soul asked for)

“— how she didn’t think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her…” “She thought you might take a bit more notice if I was a bit more — myself.”” 

There’s a huge gulf from the Ginny being talked about in that first quote and the Ginny speaking in the second. When and how Ginny gets from one to the other - both a new way of seeing herself, and holding a new, healthier set of feelings for Harry that he will return and deeply value - is tricky to parse out because of how much Ginny’s growth clearly happens off-stage (and is… criminally underwritten). But I do think it’s clear that that this shift does happen but I actually hadn't ever really thought about it properly before lol sooo I have been scratching my head over this one since you sent this ask.

The headline is: I basically think Ginny’s crush dies in the chamber. As early as Ginny’s second year, in PoA, she’s made a decision to cope with Harry’s inevitable presence in her life, and that’s to have her feelings be less about revering him, and more about making him feel supported and loved, both by her and by her family. She makes her feelings less about who she is relative to him, and much less about an immediate hope of reciprocation, and more about reinforcing in Harry a sense of his own worth and value as something that need not be a comment on her own. As they both grow up, and she gets to know him better, I think she starts to understand that they are fundamentally incredibly similar people. She learns that she has a unique understanding of him that other characters don’t, someone who she can help be better, and ultimately someone she knows how to love well and someone who knows how to be loved by him. And that in part is a testament to how much work she does - with the help of good guidance - to like herself and like what she brings to the table, both in seeing the parts of her that are similar to Harry and liking them, and in being confident that the parts of her that are different to Harry can be ways of understanding him and loving him in ways he really needs. Basically, when Ginny starts to see herself as somebody worthy of love and similar to Harry, not someone unworthy and defined by their inadequacy relative to Harry, that’s when the crush is gone and the real feelings emerge. I think that level of self growth starts to happen much earlier in canon for Ginny than it does for lots of her peer characters, especially Harry, Ron, and Hermione. 

Full reasoning is below the cut, and I am using the word reasoning loosely, because there is absolutely no rhyme or reason why I have written as many words on this question as I have. Ask me a Ginny question and I will act up, apparently

The crush

What’s really significant about Ginny’s crush on Harry (and is imo quite overlooked) is that it’s defined by an incredibly low sense of self-worth and a terrible loneliness on little Ginny’s part. Riddle tells Harry how Ginny feels about herself, and tbh it’s absolutely fucking heartbreaking. Obviously, this version of Ginny’s sense of self is refracted through Riddle’s most uncharitable telling, but I think we should take it as containing at least an element of truth (because what makes Riddle such a master manipulator is his capacity to understand people’s fears and anxieties, and to play to them):

‘Little Ginny’s been writing in it for months and months, telling me all her pitiful worries and woes — how her brothers tease her, how she had to come to school with secondhand robes and books, how —” Riddle’s eyes glinted “— how she didn’t think famous, good, great Harry Potter would ever like her…” ‘No one’s ever understood me like you, Tom… I’m so glad I’ve got this diary to confide in… It’s like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket…”

The Ginny we get a sense of in these lines is of someone who thinks very little of themselves, who is defined by friendlessness, and has so deep a sense of isolated inadequacy she very easily becomes dependent on someone who shows her the first bit of genuine interest and makes her feel worth listening to. Obviously, Ginny is very loved at this stage, by both her parents and her brothers, but she’s not really seen, and she clearly feels both alone and deeply insecure. Unlike Ron’s way of dealing with his own sense of inadequacy, which is expressed, at various stages, through jealousy and resentment, Ginny feels her inadequacy into a crush that isn’t just about how great Harry is, but how great Harry is compared to her, and how unworthy she is of his attention. She doesn’t seem to have close friends, she has no-one who sees her as an equal, no emotional support that meets her where she’s at, and she is deeply doubtful that she deserves more. (I don’t want to say Ginny/Snape parallels but uhhh well........ you know)

There are elements of the crush that will remain a constant in Ginny’s feelings towards Harry throughout the series. She'll remain extremely protective of him ("Leave him alone, he didn't want all that"), she'll continue to admire him a great deal, and obvs she … fancies him. But the crush and her later feelings for Harry are clearly pretty distinct. When we see glimpses of her crush in other scenes - at the Burrow, in Diagon Alley, in the Valentine’s incident - it’s an endearing but ultimately juvenile, all-consuming view of Harry, in that way that crushes often are when you’re very young, but also one that speaks to her inability to see Harry as a real person and, especially, a person who is not better than her. Her crush isn’t empowering, but humiliating. It's something over which she has no control, and experiences publicly and very bodily (the whole-body blush, the physical clumsiness of knocking everything over, hiding behind doors and watching him at the Burrow). When she writes and commissions the Valentine, she talks about his appearance and his legacy in such a telling way. ‘I wish he was mine, he’s really divine’ isn’t the line of a confident person shooting their shot - it’s hero worship from someone who very much does not think themselves worthy of worship, and therefore direct adoration upwards at the person they’ve put on a pedestal. Although she’s not exactly asking Harry out directly with the Valentine (it’s supposed to be anonymous, and it’s only outed as Ginny by Malfoy), she pitches herself to Harry as someone who is in awe of him and really fancies him, but gives no sign of a capacity for great mutual understanding, no demonstration of their (many) similarities, no sign of deep care and no kind of pitch for her self as someone great who deserves love, someone funny, clever, and attractive, the traits that will later define the Ginny Harry falls for.  

Leaving the crush behind

I think the aftermath of the Chamber is really significant for Ginny’s changing feelings for Harry. Leaving aside the lingering trauma of possession and her near-death experience, it’s hard to overstate how absolutely fucking awful it would be to interact with Harry after that.  It’s not just that Riddle reveals the depth of little Ginny’s clearly intense feelings for him to Harry - mortifying enough - it’s that Riddle told Harry that Ginny’s obsession with him meant she inadvertently fed Riddle information that would render Lily Potter’s sacrifice moot, cost Harry his life and bring Voldemort to some form of power again. Though of course what Ginny reveals to Riddle isn’t an active betrayal of the Pettigrew vein, there are few consequences of having a crush that would be worse than the person you have a crush on nearly being killed because of it. A very reasonable response would have been to avoid Harry forever, and try and put that whole episode, and her feelings for him, to bed. 

But she… doesn’t do that. Of course, Harry’s in her life whether she likes it or not. But she doesn’t have to become who she does become to him by OotP, and it’s clear then that she actively makes a series of choices to turn her feelings for him into something that is useful and kind for Harry: something that helps him and improves him, rather than starting at a point of thinking he’s perfect. Her appearances in GoF and even PoA lay the groundwork for the approach to him that she’s mastered by OotP. In PoA - so in the aftermath of this experience where Harry is the person who serves as the biggest reminder of her ordeal, and also Riddle’s chief victim - other than her awkward hello in Diagon Alley, the only reminder of Ginny’s feelings for Harry come when she leaves him the get well card she makes for him in the hospital wing. Harry’s narration implies the get well soon card is an expression of Ginny’s crush: he describes her as “blushing furiously”. But both making and delivering the card takes a huge amount of courage, and it’s a fundamentally selfless gesture - it’s literally a wish for him to get better, to make him feel like someone cares about his welfare, and a sign she is already starting to try and channel her feelings for him into something kind and supportive.(Obviously he… hates that the card sings so, you know, swing and a miss on execution, but she’s trying). Other than that, she only pops up to briefly share a private laugh with Harry over Percy (the first one-on-one injection of humour to their relationship), and to console Ron and reprimand the twins when Scabbers ‘dies’, establishing her as someone who acts with love and kindness, even if not directed at Harry himself.

In GoF, Ginny comes closer to honing this approach. She blushes when she sees Harry again at the Burrow, but she also then talks with confidence and humour in front of him with relatively little effort. She really reaches a crossroads over the Yule Ball, where she sets herself on the path away from validation from Harry and towards a stronger sense of who she is and what she believes in. She doesn’t ask Harry to the Yule Ball, even though several other characters do ask him out. She doesn’t chance rejection, but nor does she risk mortifying him. When Ron suggests she go with Harry, she turns him down and honours her commitment to Neville, something she finds difficult but is her choosing who the person she wants to be: someone who does the right thing, the selfless thing, who doesn’t ask Harry to validate her, but also who won’t accept the idea of being an afterthought last-option invite for Harry Potter. Because we’ll later be told, by Hermione, that Ginny met Michael Corner at the Yule Ball, I think we’re supposed to take Christmas 1994 as the period where Ginny starts to actively turned a corner in her feelings for Harry. With Hermione’s help (and I think it is this Christmas where Hermione advises Ginny on this), Ginny resolves to seek out romantic companionship elsewhere, where she will be able to be herself - something that might attract Harry in the long-run, but that will have its own value, too. The time where Ginny's sense of her own worth was calibrated around how much better than her she thought Harry was is increasingly in the rear-view mirror.

After the crush

By the time we get to the summer of OotP, something really big has shifted in Ginny’s mind about how she is going to be around Harry and what he is to her. The depth of Ginny’s growth, self-improvement and self-knowledge is on full display here, and she’s clearly reached a relative peace with herself. She has a confidence she didn’t have before; she’s got clear skills and abilities that mark her out as talented and assured (including Quidditch, but also her sense of humour and magical abilities); she’s actually shown herself capable not just of controlling her bodily and emotional responses to Harry, and also become an incredibly sophisticated liar (lol); and, crucially, she’s no longer lonely but surrounded by friends and in a romantic relationship that seems to be stable and healthy enough for a fourteen year old relationship, a real fuck-you to Tom Riddle. From the very start of OotP (“I thought I’d heard your voice”, “We know, Harry”), she can see what she’s become towards Harry: a shrewd reader of him, empathetic, supportive, forgiving, someone rooting for him, wanting good things for him and for him to grow and mature in happy, healthy ways, unafraid to call him out or help him grow when he’s displaying destructive coping mechanisms, lashing out or craving the approval of unworthy peers, and, crucially, someone who has pushed any thought of reciprocation to the back of her mind.

She also really understands who Sirius is to Harry in such a deep and profound way. Over the prefects issue, she’s the one who instigates of the conversation that consoles him over the Prefects issue - she’s the one who draws Sirius in as someone whose example (as a person who clearly was not a Prefect) will be a comfort to him (as well as just like, giving him valuable bonding moment with his godfather and knowledge of his father at school):

“What about you, Sirius?” Ginny asked, thumping Hermione on the back. Sirius, who was right beside Harry, let out his usual barklike laugh. “No one would have made me a prefect, I spent too much time in detention with James. Lupin was the good boy, he got the badge.”

On the train, when Ron and Hermione go to the Prefects carriage and Harry feels suddenly bereft, it’s Ginny alone who stays with him and agrees to sit with him on the train, finding the carriage with Neville and Luna to sit with, even though she’s with Michael at this point. Does Ginny still hold a torch for him? Sure, but she’s still holding a torch in sixth year, and she’s happy to leave him on his own on the train then. She decides in this moment Harry’s need is great, and wants him to not feel alone on his first train ride without Ron. She also shows here that she’s matured and grown up a lot more than he is in some significant ways. She doesn’t share his acute embarrassment about Neville and Luna, and she sorts him out after the Stinksap debacle, helping his embarrassment in front of Cho. Obviously there’s the ‘lucky you’ scene (side note: I love Ginny’s at his side on the tube as soon as they leave St Mungo’s after the conversation about possession). The ‘lucky you’ scene does not scream ‘please love me I’m so in love with you’. It’s a sign of deep care for a person, but it’s the behaviour of a person who no longer gives much of a fuck about being thought well of - they want to be helpful, it’s a very selfless kind of love, but she’s sort of over expecting things of him. 

The Easter egg scene is another case in point of someone who clearly has some level of deep feelings for someone else - as evidenced by their obvious close knowledge of that person developed through watching them closely and generously - but who has turned them into something directed and selflessly productive. We can see that Ginny’s approach has meant something to Harry even if he hasn’t really clocked it. That he gets upset over the Easter egg certainly speaks to how much distress he’s in, but it also speaks to a subconscious feeling of being in the presence of someone who allows him to let his guard down, even if he's baffled as to why his body has behaved like this. Fifteen year old Harry sits, despairing over his fifteen year old father’s failings, grappling with his doubts about his parents’ path to romantic love, consoled by the thought that “his mother had been decent” - when Ginny enters, reaching through fifteen year old Harry’s own failings (irascibility, self-isolation) and gets through to what he needs. Selflessly, she suggests he tries to talk to Cho. She demonstrates strong emotional intelligence towards him, she delivers him a path to getting what Harry really wants - a conversation with the one person he sees as family, about his dad. That Ginny is the person who makes possible Harry’s one conversation about James with Remus and Sirius is so significant (and why I’ll always be mad that JKR cut the plan to have Harry literally confess the James memory to Ginny in the library and then mention Ginny’s advice to Sirius and Remus. The cut “That’s what Ginny said” line that Harry was supposed to say to Sirius and Remus from the JKR OotP planning notes lives in my head not just rent free but claiming full squatters’ rights). 

Even more significantly in OotP, Harry quietly shows her that, while there’s a lot to admire about him, and lots of empathise with, there’s also a lot to be disappointed with him in. I think this only cements Ginny’s sense that her approach is the right one, and avoids setting herself up for further disappointment. The truth is that Harry lets her down several points in OotP, not just in the ‘lucky you’ scene. On the train, he is at least a bit embarrassed by her - not as much as he is of Neville and Luna, but certainly doesn’t think of her as a “very cool person”. Harry spends the whole book screaming at everyone for information, feeling frustrated about being patronised and deemed too young, but does the same thing to Ginny four times: once, at Grimmauld Place, where he lets Molly remove her from the room and makes no case for her entitlement to knowledge, and then three separate times after he's had the vision of Sirius being tortured:

“Hi,” said Ginny uncertainly. “We recognised Harry’s voice — what are you yelling about?”  “Never you mind,” said Harry roughly. Ginny raised her eyebrows. “There’s no need to take that tone with me,” she said coolly. “I was only wondering whether I could help.”  “Well, you can’t,” said Harry shortly. “You’re being rather rude, you know,” said Luna serenely.

And then again a few pages later in the Forest: 

“I’ve got a broom!” said Ginny. “Yeah, but you’re not coming,” said Ron angrily. “Excuse me, but I care what happens to Sirius as much as you do!” said Ginny, her jaw set so that her resemblance to Fred and George was suddenly striking. “You’re too —” Harry began. “I’m three years older than you were when you fought You-KnowWho over the Sorcerer’s Stone,” she said fiercely, “and it’s because of me Malfoy’s stuck back in Umbridge’s office with giant flying bogeys attacking him —” “Yeah, but —”

One more time for emphasis, Harry, there's not enough salt in that wound:

“Look, you three” — he pointed at Neville, Ginny, and Luna — “you’re not involved in this, you’re not — ”

I think this is in part why Ginny moves onto Dean so quickly at the end of the OotP year and doesn’t wait around to see if post-Cho Harry is interested in something. Obviously, she would see and respect the enormity of Harry’s grief. But she has just spent a year receiving confirmation that Harry doesn't see her as an equal and doesn't seem to intend to meet her emotional needs in any of the ways she has learned to meet his. She dumps Michael because she knows what she’s worth, and though she’s briefly single she fills Michael’s space with someone else who clearly admires and values her, something Harry has shown no sign he is capable of doing (yet). She leaves OotP having found a way of being around Harry that works for her, that offers him meaningful friendship and support, and that both sees him and sees through him. She’s not about to ask for more, out of respect for him but also out of self-preservation. (I think she is also beginning to grasp that if anything ever did happen with Harry, it would be temporary, in ways that colour her approach to it, too.) 

All this is to say, by the time we get to HBP, Ginny has five years post-crush under her belt of overcoming the unhealthy and toxic aspects of her feelings for Harry, honing who she is to Harry and living with her feelings for him, and also just... becoming someone she herself likes and who she believes deserves love and respect. Her feelings aren’t gone, but she’s built a life that doesn't centre them, and she’s happy with who she is to Harry, and how she can make him feel loved without asking for romantic love in return. The trouble for her is that Harry’s about to have an absolute shocker and realise their significance to one another in ways that threaten the equilibrium she’s found. But that's the trouble when you have a massive sense-of-self glow-up Gin! Sometimes people clock them and go: wow wait. So sorry baby you did this to yourself! 

#hinny #meta #what am i like #a nightmare #apparently! #i know it's annoying to say 'no-one talks about this' but no-one talks about how low ginny's self worth was at the start of CoS! #ron and percy: i'm the most insecure weasley #ginny age 11: hold my cup full of rooster blood #thank you anon! ❤️

[acourtofthought]

I know sjm puts her characters through a lot before setting them up in relationships, but I feel like with everything Lucien and Gwyn have gone through, she won't make them suffer an e/riel affair too just for added "drama". Plus she already did this to an extent with Rhys and Cassian that it just feels needless to me? With everyone knowing El and Luc are mates, making him deal with THIS to boot just feels like a bridge too far to me when there are so many other interesting ways for Elucien to end up together.

I'm cheering on your anon.

Say for arguments sake E/riel is happening.

I truly, with 100% conviction do not think Gwyn would be drug into their situation in any way that would be harmful to her. There is no chance that SJM is going to take Nesta's new found friend and put her in the middle of a love triangle with her sister and her mates best friend. That is a recipe for disaster beyond just Gwyn, Elain and Az.

It would be extremely odd for SJM to backtrack on something sparking in Az's chest for Gwyn and I do think she shows curiosity / flirtation towards him so SJM would have to twist that a bit but, I don't think as of SF Az or Gwyn are too deep in terms of their feelings for one another. Which is a GOOD thing because he's clearly not 100% over Mor and he's really messed up in the head about not getting a mating bond like his brothers so he's obsessing on Elain for the wrong reasons (or at least was through Solstice). And in SF, Gwyn just started to dip her toes into the idea of sex / dating? so it's not like she's pining for Az or is (I think) under the impression he's got a thing for her. Right now it's just playful rather than deep.

So at this point if she absolutely had to, SJM could write a new LI interest for Gwyn and I don't think Gwyn would suffer as a result. (again, completely hypothetical scenario if E/riel was happening).

But Lucien.......he already lost the female he thought was mated to (and was in love with) centuries ago. That's been a burden he's carried around for hundreds of years. Then he discovers his real mate is Elain in ACOMAF and we see the torment that causes him. First because he's trying to reign in his instincts, making him feel out of control which he rarely is. Then because it's the first time since Jesminda he's ever put emotional effort into another female. He's thinking about her, showing no interest in dalliances because of her, wanting to make sure she's safe. Then he finds out his mate is in love with / engaged to someone else which is another emotional blow. Then we see him in a room with Elain for the first time feeling bothered because he knows Elain wants to go back to Graysen (remember, he heard her tell Feyre that she wanted to go home and that Graysen would be looking for her) so he already knows she's not going to want him and can't understand how the one who did want him didn't end up being his mate. Then he looks at Elain for the first time since Hybern and suffers extreme guilt because he thinks she's the most beautiful female he'd ever seen.

And even though he knows it's not him that she wants, he stays to help her through her depression. Stays for Elain, surrounded by people who he thought were enemies and around Nesta who is nasty towards him. Then when he finally reaches out through their bond and sees / feels something that causes him to blush it changes something for him. When he volunteers to leave for Vassa, you know he doesn't want to go, he bows his head which hides the longing and sadness he has but he knows Elain needs time and he walks away so she can figure out what she wants.

He has a little bit of hope when she invites him back to Velaris after the war but something happens so that their two steps forward turned into many steps back by the time the novella rolled around (really, it seems like it was SJMs way of rebooting things so she could keep them apart until their story). He ends up staying in the human lands with Vassa and Jurian but you know it's still upsetting him that she doesn't want to interact. It's not that he doesn't want to spend time with her, it's that he's completely aware that she's been ignoring him. In SF, it's entirely possible he's also aware of the "glances" between Elain and Az, just like Cassian was aware of the fact that Nesta was sleeping with other males. But even after nearly 2 years, with first knowing that Elain was engaged to someone else, then not being ready to explore their bond then flirting with someone else, he STILL looks at her with longing.

There is no male in the series who has put that much effort into showing Elain she means something to him.

So does it honestly make any sense at all to have put Lucien through all that only to have her end up with Az?

I'm sorry but if he couldn't have the female he desperately loved because she was murdered by his father then also loses his mate to a guy who is kind of a jerk when it comes to him (like, if Az was a good guy about all this, maybe it wouldn't be so bad but he is not looking like the better male in this situation)......there is not going to be someone that makes that pain magically disappear for Lucien. If it took a mating bond for him to move on from Jesminda than what exactly is going to help him move on from a mating bond that will trail him for the rest of his life? He didn't even have a bond with Jesminda yet he struggled for hundreds of years. People really think Vassa is going to be the one that is his truest love after Jesminda's death and not getting his mate? Vassa who spends more time bickering with Jurian than paying attention to Lucien? That Vassa?

And that's just Lucien's love life! We didn't even address all the other trauma's he's got going on throughout the series.

Lucien has put in the time and the suffering. Just like Rhys did, just like Cassian did. Graysen didn't fight for Elain. He didn't pine for Elain. Az has been in love with Mor pretty much the entire time Elain has been on page with him (all those four books of buildup have consisted of him loving Mor) and then when it came down to laying out his truth, he couldn't give Rhys one decent reason why he actually wanted Elain because of who she is. And moments later, he was already curious about another female.

This sounds possessive but these are fictional characters who have no real agency outside of what the author wants them to have so I'm going to say it. Az has not earned the right to be with Elain. Lucien has though, he's put in the time and the suffering. Lucien's head has not been turned by any other female romantically (sexual or otherwise) since Elain came onto the page and he was aware of their bond. Again, he is FRIENDS with Vassa and his blush was not over any feelings for Vassa, it was embarrassment at Feyre saying what she did in front of his mate. Azriel blushed at Nesta for gods sakes.

It is SJMs thing. She likes her males to suffer once they suspect they have a bond with the female (especially the humans turned fae who are adjusting to this new world), seeing only her once they suspect there is a bond while she fights it, only to have the female finally choose them in the end.

E/riels love shouting about "Elain's choice" but I think they forget she is only 50% of this equation. It is Lucien's bond too, Lucien who would suffer with it's rejection and Lucien who SJM has been building up since book 1 (Lucien who was always supposed to end up with an Archeron but SJM was surprised to find she had the wrong one at first), Lucien who has always been one of her favorite characters, Lucien who she constantly writes about being broad, sculpted, handsome, intelligent, cunning, well mannered, well dressed, and soon to be a High Lords heir. Lucien is MMC energy full stop and MMC don't lose their mates to guys who throw a temper tantrum because they didn't get a bond like their brothers did.

Whew. Sorry about all that but I had a glass of wine and apparently I got into Lucien defense mode with alcohol. 😂

But yeah, neither Gwyn or Lucien are going to suffer because of an E/riel endgame. Since they all have main character energy, SJM is not going to write a story where any of the main characters have to suffer an unfulfilled bond because another main character ended up with someone else. She's a HEA romance author and like it or not, all the main characters are ending up with their mates. SJM already told us a well matched bond is the best it gets (at least with heterosexual couples with a heterosexual bond, it's possible an LGBQT character would happily break a hetero bond) so you can't really backtrack on that and give your main characters a regular love while having a bond with someone else that trails them forever.

#elucien #pro elucien #lucien vanserra #elain archeron #pro lucien vanserra #elucien bond

[pollyaunt]

My thoughts on HOFAS

-> First and foremost, only SJM can make me violently react towards books even though it's been years since I've started reading and got into the Maasverse.

-> Ch 99 broke me. Literally. I was downright bawling so hard to the point I couldnt breathe especially with the Danika, Lele and Pack of Devils scene. And ofc, Jesiba. I love you sm.

-> Bryce is an absolute badass and I would agree that her and Hunt's relationship wasnt portrayed the best in this book in comparison to the first, but well, the first also focused on the Kristallos as the danger whereas in this book they were the allies. Suffice to say, the degree of change was ought to happen and supposed to be vast. I'm nonetheless very much happy with how both of them turned out to be in the end.

-> Lidia. She's more Aelin than Aelin herself. In this house, we absolutely ADORE LIDIA CERVOS. And her sons and ofc Ruhn. They carried the book most definitely.

-> The ACOTAR x CC crossover was done immaculately and Maas so not deserves the disappointment shes receiving over it especially because be for fuckin real, it had to be more about CC than ACOTAR itself. And I'm honestly very happy with how she portrayed those scenes while remaining true to the characters (besides the bonus chapter which was kinda meh)

-> Tharion Ketos most certainly made decisions that were not the best but dude, you've got to recognise that he was the most selfless one in the entire book all the while trying to keep himself alive. His determination and ambition were honourable. And ps: I havent forgotten how open ended his story has been left especially with Sathia gone abruptly (whom I LOVED) and I think it's kinda pointing at how he and Ithan might get their own novella or book after the next ACOTAR.

-> Last but not the least, Ithan. That dude was trying to the best always yall and lets be honest without him, I highly doubt they'd been able to 1. Get out of the Viper Queen's lair. 2. Been able to defeat the Asteri without that bullet. And they way Maas has left his story along with Ketos' incomplete for now has surely not escaped my notice. After all, we still gotta know what happened to Sigrid really and Sathia 👀

In conclusion, the two things that felt off to me throughout the book was:

-> Firstly, how the Quinlar relationship was written in certain scenes but also, to an extent I also sympathized with both of them given the extent of trauma both of them had been through. It was understandable but comforting myself with the thought that once stuff on Midgard got better, both of them must've discussed it at length cuz, that's what our Quinlar is really. So, I'm not that unhappy with their portrayal and love them equally.

-> Secondly, this one has bugged me a lot in the series: the wasted potential that was Fury Axtar. She could've been SUCH a vital asset to them and all over, one of the most badass character. But instead of explaining and exploring her, SJM made quite a mistake by off writing her mostly from the books. That could've been done better.

#sarah j maas #sjm #hofas #hoeab #hosab #house of flame and shadow #house of sky and breath #house of earth and blood #hunt athalar #bryce quinlan #danika fendyr #ruhn danaan #lidia cervos #ithan holstrom #tharion ketos #hypaxia enador #cc3 #cc2 #cc #crescent city #goodbye CC (for now) thankyou for bringing me into the Maasverse <3 #maasverse #baxian argos #fury axtar

[bonnefeta]

I recently saw a tiktok talking about which of the Fallout protagonists people most prefer, in light of the fact the Fallout show is coming out soon ish.

Perhaps unsurprisingly the most popular answer was the courier, which makes sense because New Vegas is a masterpiece, but also a lot of people talked about liking their backstory being less scripted.

Like compared to the lone wanderer or the sole survivor there isn’t like a cut scened backstory about your family or anything, the courier just pops up with a blank slate you can imagine however you want.

I totally get that, don’t get me wrong I love New Vegas, but having thought about it I do find the journey of the sole survivor and the lone wanderer effected me a lot more.

Especially the lone wanderer who I reckon is probably my favourite.

The characters I remember from New Vegas often have very little to do with my character. Like I remember the NPCs I met but the courier is basically just my eyes and ears, a much more blank slate.

With Fallout 3 I remember feeling gut punched by a lot of those moments, leaving the vault for the first time, finding your father and then loosing him, they really hit emotionally because I’m invested in the story of my player character.

But the main one I want to focus on is one of the moments I’ve found most impactful across all the games I’ve played,

Leaving the vault for the 2nd time.

Now not everyone might have done this quest, I’m pretty sure I missed it on my first playthrough, but if you haven’t ever done it you absolutely need too.

After your father dies if you return to Megaton you can pick up a distress frequency from the Vault where you hear Amata (your old bff and one of my favourite minor characters) asking for your help specifically. Something has gone wrong back home and you need to came back to fix it.

So you toddle off back home, and either help (or hinder) the vault get through a mini civil war. For the purposes of this post we’ll go with help.

So you save the vault, Amata is now in charge and everyone is safe and sound again, thanks to you. You’ve managed to save your home.

But you can’t stay.

Amata breaks the news to you that even after everything you’ve done there’s too much bad blood for you to stay. People blame you for the chaos, the change it’s brought. Amata can lead them into a better future but you can’t be at her side while it happens.

So you leave.

You walk out the vault door again, and as it closes behind you and you head back out into the wasteland you’re alone again.

The first time I played it (and honestly every time since) I was hit with such a strange grief. Like a hollow sad feeling I wasn’t expecting. Loosing your father is sad but this felt more impactful to me for some reason.

Maybe it’s the one-two punch of it, like lose your father and lose your home. But I for me it’s always reminds of the quote “you can never go home again” by Thomas Wolfe.

I don’t know exactly why this concept has always stuck with me, like it’s just stuck in my brain and it never really leaves. Maybe it’s from moving inter-state when I was a kid, and a few times since. But that idea of wishing to go back to a place where things were better, where you were happier, only to go there and realise it’s not how you remembered, and that you don’t belong any more, I guess it hits home.

You’ve been cast out into the wasteland, gone from your relatively comfortable and happy home into a world of violence and chaos and horror, only to lose your father. You fail, your defeated by the enclave, you’re starting again after a devastating setback, and when you’re at your lowest you get just a crumb of hope.

You get to go home, back to that place, but it’s not the same. Even when you ‘fix it’, you end the violence, there’s still no place for you there.

You just don’t fit any more.

And so you leave, you’re alone again. There’s no going back to when things were better, and the road ahead is more than hard, it’s probably impossible and even if you do succeed life will still probably never be easy.

But the vault door is sealed behind you, there’s no where to go but forward.

I know this is reading so deeply into a very minor side quest from a game from 15 years ago, but I honestly think it’s some of Bethesda’s best storytelling and kind of criminally overlooked in all the new Fallout talk.

#fallout #fallout 3 #the lone wanderer #fallout show #my brain cannot ever put this quest down #like a rabid dog with a bone #I’m also unbelievably excited about the show #Ella Purnell is a gift to humanity and I’m so excited to see her in it