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luveline · 9 months

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𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐞 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐬 | 𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐫 𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐝

spencer comforts you with facts and affection alike when you worry you aren't as pretty as the girls on his team. requested here. fem!reader, 1.6k

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Photographs can't accurately capture how beautiful Emily Prentiss is. JJ and Penelope are both gorgeous too, but it's Emily who startles you. Her hair a cool black colour and curled around her demure face, the line of her nose and her deep, dark eyes. Her lips, picture perfect and painted a soft pink.

The prettier you find her, the more your heart sinks.

Spencer squeezes your shoulder. It's bold for him to do so in front of his friends (his family, really), he can barely show you affection in the grocery store without turning rosy. You preen at the touch, but the feeling of insecurity remains like an irksome gnat zipping around your head.

"We didn't think we'd ever get to meet you!" Derek is saying, a casual arm thrown around Penelope's shoulders, a drink in hand.

Rossi couldn't attend and JJ felt too pregnant, bringing your party to a solid six. It still feels like a lot of people to meet at once.

You hold the flute of your glass in a nervous hand, fingers stickied by condensation. You have a feeling that you're in trouble, all these profilers assessing your behaviour, nowhere to hide. "No, I'm," —you raise your voice to hide the funny tremor that's taken hold— "so happy to meet you all, I promise I've been trying!"

"Whenever she gets time off, we're on a case," Spencer says.

Emily smiles widely at your statement. It's such an open, friendly look, it floors you. You look down at your drink and blink.

You don't know it, but the team exchanges glances at your behaviour.

"So, do you enjoy your work?" Emily asks. "Or hate it, like us?"

Hotch laughs and moves his pint glass onto a coaster. "I think it's safe to say that none of us hate our jobs."

"I wouldn't blame you if you did. I can't imagine how hard it is, how hard you all work," you say. Spencer's hand drifts down your back. "But you have each other."

Emily does this thing with her eyes and if you weren't in a happy relationship, you'd probably be a puddle at her feet. "Too much of each other," she says jokingly.

She's gorgeous, and Spencer sees her every single day? You're nothing compared to her. Not smart, not strong, and nowhere near as pretty. You could never measure up.

"Would you, um, excuse me?" you ask, moving your purse from your lap and onto the table.

"You okay?" Spencer asks, looking up as you stand.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just gonna use the bathroom," you say quietly. You aren't, but if you were, you wouldn't really want to broadcast that anyhow.

You try not to wobble on the way to the bathroom. The weight of five pairs of eyes follows you as you leave, four of which are trained in the art of spotting lies. Everything isn't okay, and they know that, and by extension —all the effort you made tonight? Getting your hair done, your nicest clothes, your makeup and your perfume? It might as well be a huge blinking neon sign that says you're trying really hard, and it doesn't make a lick of difference.

You sidle into a stall, pulling the lid of the toilet down with a tissue and sitting on it heavily. Elbows on your knees, you hunch your back and hide your face in your hands, breathing in the smell of bleach through quick breaths. Water drips somewhere near the sinks, the cacophony of the restaurant hushed.

You've never felt naturally pretty. With Spencer, it hasn't ever mattered. He's never given any indication that he cares. But…

"Loser," you mutter to yourself.

"Hey, Y/N?" Spencer asks, his voice bouncing off of the tile.

You freeze. "Two seconds!"

"You're not really using the bathroom," he says incredulously.

"Says who?"

Spencer laughs, his tone wry, "I know you really well, you realise? Like, better than I know anyone else on the planet."

"Then you know I'm having an authentic pee and need my privacy."

"Come on out."

The ringing of the lock slotting free is like an announcement of your embarrassment. Spencer's standing a half a foot from the doorway, keeping his distance from the no man's land that is the ladies room. You're going to use it to your advantage, only he holds out his hand expectantly. When you take it, he pulls you out of the bathroom and firmly into the restaurant hallway.

You can't escape his concern, nor his hands as they cup your face unexpectedly.

They feel as nice as they look, deft fingers pressed to your skin like you're one of his puzzles to decipher.

"What upset you?" he asks.

"Nothing your friends did, I promise."

"But something." He smooths a hand down to your shoulders. He's not quite frenetic but certainly close to it, searching for a problem he won't find on the surface. "You're insecure about something," he deduces.

You cringe bodily. "I'm not."

"What is it? Is it your necklace? It really is nice, the colour goes with your skin. It's understated."

"It's not my necklace, Spence."

"Then what is it?"

"I just…" You pull his hands from your neck and collar to hold them, looking up into his melty brown eyes wishing he weren't so hard to say no to. "Feel like you could do better."

He frowns. It's a pout, and endearing, but not what you want to see.

"I love being with you, I just think, you know, you're so handsome, and you have all these pretty friends," you say.

"You think you're not pretty?" he asks. He sounds gutted, if a little confused.

"Not like her." Your voice quivers.

The first time you got upset in front of Spencer, he wasn't sure what to do. He ended up putting an arm around your shoulder, your brand new boyfriend out of his depth. You've both had some practice at comforting one another now, and any hesitance Spencer held is gone. He wraps his arms around you like he's afraid you'll fall over, the crease of his stressed brow smushing against the side of your face.

"Don't think that. Why would you think that?" he asks quietly.

"I know I'm not pretty like some girls," you say, surprised by the ferocity of his reaction.

"You don't know that, because it's not true. You're beautiful." He squeezes your side between his fingers, something contemplative about the way his thumb curls upward. "Do you know how many books I've read?"

"Thousands."

He hums. A hand grasps at the back of your neck. "Thousands of books. I know so much, especially about the human body. I know that falling in love can make some people feel the same effects as cocaine. Staring into their eyes can synchronise your heartbeats." He encourages your head back. "Butterflies are adrenaline and when I look at you I can't get them to stop, even if I know it's chemical." Spencer's eyes are lit with something you don't often see directed at you, a furious conviction. "What we think we know isn't always fact, so if you think you're not pretty…" He nods his head gently to the left. "There's only really one thing left to do."

Your heart feels like it's being juiced. "What's that?" you ask.

He grabs your hand and puts it on his chest. Fingertips to his breastbone, he holds it flat. Sure enough, even through the thin fabric of his t-shirt, you can feel the rapid capering of his pulse.

"It's like that pretty much any time I look at you."

"Spence…"

"I know it's bad," he says.

"Are you messing with me?"

"Yeah, I did a lap before I came to find you– No!" He laughs, giving you an admonishing look. "Why would I mess with you? How could I?"

"I don't know."

He dips in to kiss your frown. "You're so pretty," he whispers. "So, so pretty. You're the prettiest girl I've ever seen, no matter what you think."

You don't believe that you're the prettiest girl he's ever seen, but you believe that he believes it. He has no reason to lie to you, nothing to gain. He could've said, Hey, you're pretty, and left it at that. He could've been angry with you for leaving the table for something some people would say was superficial. But Spencer's your sweetheart.

"Do you want to go home, angel?" he asks, looking at you worriedly.

"No." You don't even have to think about it —you've done enough thinking. "I don't want to go home. Sorry, Spencer. I feel better." And you'll stay out all night if he's going to call you angel again.

"Well, let me know if you need me to tell you again."

The chances of you surviving such an ardent speech a second time are low. "I won't be doing that."

Spencer shrugs. "You'll let me know, even if you don't think so. You have a tell when you're upset."

You spend the rest of the night making up for your disruption (which Spencer's friends immediately dismiss without questioning), shepherding the crisper curly fries on to Spencer's plate because he likes them that way, and begging him to tell you what your tell is with subtle pleading glances and a hand on his knee. Nothing inappropriate, but affectionate nonetheless.

He doesn't tell you no matter how much you ask, and maybe it's the drinks or the way the scone light kisses his cheeks in a warm buttery light, you can't find it in you to be mad.

"Keep your secrets," you say, chin tilted upward. You're failing to glare at him, too much love in your eyes for it to be believable.

"You're beautiful," he says back, mirroring your expression playfully, before leaning down for a chaste kiss.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed!! if you did, please consider reblogging, it makes a big difference to me<3 have a good day!

#spencer reid #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x fem!reader #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid oneshot #spencer reid scenario #spencer reid drabble #spencer reid fic #spencer reid fanfiction #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #criminal minds x reader

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thottybrucewayne · 5 months

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Another James Somerton lie that's super egregious to me is his lying about Janelle Monáe having to come out of the closet when Pynk came out because "Everyone got confused and thought the song was a girl power anthem when it was really Janelle's coming out song." and making a big deal about erasure and what not but it's like A. None of that is true the second that music video came out everybody and they mama said, "Janelle Monáe gay?????????????????" That was the primary reading of the music video, and it's very well-documented B. It could be argued that the music is somewhat of a "girl power" anthem too and I doubt Janelle would have an issue with that interpretation given that Pynk has a very "owning your sexuality and taking up space" message. C. Funny that James Somerton would make such an impassioned defense of an artist being "forced" to come out because he literally lied on a bisexual writer who was forced to come out after people assumed that she was some gross straight woman obsessed with gay men. James, who supposedly did alllllllll this research, lumped that author in with the "Straight woman who writes gay men's stories." in his video and proceeded to get pissy with her when she left a pretty mild comment of "Hey, after a whole harassment campaign against me forcing me to come out of the closet it kinda sucks that people are still calling me straight." Then, after very gently being called out over him erasing her sexuality to fit his narrative, he proceeded to omit the title of that author's work in his later videos and make up a lie about her being mean to him on Twitter when his audience questioned him on it. LITERALLY TALKIN OUTTA BOTH SIDES OF HIS MOUTH

This whole situation reminds me of a TikTok creator who's been called out for stealing from Black women all the time and how every time it's brought up, it's met with silence. Once, He just straight-up read out a Black trans femme's tweets without properly crediting her or asking her for permission to use her work. Making the excuse of "Well, I screenshotted the tweets and put them on the screen so..." then his fans spent days bashing her for calling him out on using the work of other creators without asking and making fun of her for having a donation up which I don't think he ever addressed outside of the occasional stray comment.

This way of "building a progressive brand" through stealing the work of marginalized writers is actually common in left circles and academia and has been an issue, particularly for Black trans femme essayists, for a while. Black MaGes (people of marginalized genders) will come out and say, "Hey! This really popular essayist ripped me off word for word bar for bar" and get paid dust because their platform isn't large enough to speak out and because their platforms are smaller, people are less inclined to care when they get ripped off. Like, it's easy for us to point at James and say, "Omg? How could he get away with stealing this much for so long?" when the answer is simple, nobody cares what you have to say if you don't have a big platform, thus nobody cares if you get stolen from and unfortunately, we're all complicit. Look at how much this situation has blown up just because a super-popular guy brought it up. If Hbomb and Todd in the shadows didn't speak on this story and these small creators made a bigger stink about James biting their shit, yall would have ignored them at best or crucified them and accused them of trying to tear down the body of work of a gay man and probably throw in something about them secretly being a kiwi farms troll trying to sew discord in the community (I know how yall get down...) at worst. To address this issue more substantially, WE have to be better about learning slowly and taking time to pour over materials ourselves and not fall into the trap of letting whatever video essayist we like the best at the moment shape how we think and feel about whatever topic they're covering. Ismatu Gwendolyn and their threadings essays on substack have really helped me personally start removing myself from the "quick learner" rat race and the need to digest as much information as possible that video essays fulfill and reintroduced me to learning slowly and with intention and reading sources for myself first without depending on the thoughts and feelings of a creator I like and agree with to color my view of things. If we work towards getting used to treating video essayists like essayists and not our parasocial besties being our beginning and end to learning on a topic, we can A. Mitigate the amount of misinformation and plagiarized work circulating by being able to identify them easier and B. Improve our personal relationship to learning so we don't have to rely on some stranger with "bisexual lighting" to make us feel smart.

Edit: Please rb the typo-less version,,,,

#thotty speaks #thotty rants #I linked Ismatu's substack because I cite my sources and am not a fawkin HACK #sorry had to get one more dig in <3

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nexusnyx · 1 year

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imagine being loved by me

#NightSkyChallenge: Prompt 6 — The night we said goodbye. [“This is harder than I thought it’d be.”] [2.5k]

— joel miller x f!reader — a/n: this is mostly fluff and angst, hence the lack of warnings. i hope you guys enjoy this even though there's no smut. there are a lot of feelings to make up for that? anyway, i just wanted to imagine being loved by Joel (in the given canon circumstances) and this is what I came up with. enjoy <3

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤmasterlist | part two →

"Eternal tourists of ourselves, there is no landscape but what we are. We possess nothing, for we don't even possess ourselves. We have nothing because we are nothing. What hand will I reach out, and to what universe? The universe isn't mine: it's me," you stop there, uncertain and nervous for more than one reason. "You want me to go on?"

Joel only grunts beneath you, and the palm he has wrapped around your calf starts rubbing there. He's a man of very few words — always has been — but you recognize his cues. Go on, the circles on your skin say. And — "I like it a lot when you read," he speaks, startling you for a second. "'s nice."

Three years since you've been doing this — years, and this is the night Joel chooses to speak his mind.

You grit your teeth and put on a smile, no matter how much it aches to do so. "Look at you, borrowing Pessoa's ability to use words 'n all," you tease.

Joel pinches your inner thigh — a warning.

You take one of your hands out of the book to poke his side — I'm not scared of you. Never was. Never could be.

Even if he's about to break your heart.

You continue reading.

He keeps on drinking it in, and you wonder not for the first time if Joel hears a word that comes out of his mouth or if this is just white noise for him.

I like it a lot when you read.

Inside your chest there's a special place saved only for the things Joel gives you as a gift.

There's no space for material things in the world you live in now. Being a man of very few words, you learned how to read Joel Miller from the moment you met him — a useful skill, one that came in handy over the past few years. People misread him a lot. Mostly because he allowed them to; sometimes because he wanted it that way.

They thought Joel was gruff. Callused.

You knew better.

Joel's body language never lied.

He gifted you things that way — a shrug of his shoulders that hid the fathom of a smile creeping up his face. His furrowed brows pierced together whenever someone spoke in louder tones in your presence. The ghost of his hand hovering over your back in between meetings, or the way he never looked you in the eye before kissing you.

All of them signs. All of them a way for him to communicate.

That was funny. I don't like their tone. I've got your six.

I can't let you see within me.

Joel might as well be an open book.

When Tess introduced the both of you, she said, "Just don't gain expectations. He's like us — lost everything. But he's a decent man, which is more than we can say about half of the people that made it."

A decent man was an understatement.

He was everything and then some in between.

Joel kept it simple when telling you that he and Tess had to leave.

Neither one of them owed you explanations, but they gave you one either way. The three of you ran something together — an illegal, dangerous, and fragile something, but it was yours. Built it from your hands.

They claimed you were the brains.

"You gotta stay," Joel stated. Not a request, and nothing in his eyes that said this is open for conversation. "Marlene gave us very little info. We'll try to make it back as soon as we can."

The implicate we don't know if we'll make it back was there.

You never missed the unspoken words.

"Okay," you agreed, because there was nothing else for you to do.

Tess had left with the kid. She hugged you, giving you the full list of contacts that would be seeing you for things, and said, "Take care of yourself" in the way she always did.

Joel stayed behind to collect what he needed, and because he said a day wouldn't make a difference.

Was it over-confident on your part to allow the fluttering in your chest to take full form after seeing him drop his things on your hardwood floor and ask you to go for a walk? Was it wishful thinking to know he was stealing moments?

The familiar sight of his back gives you comfort as you follow him.

That's the way it's always been — you always knew that one day, you'd see this for the last time.

Maybe it's a small mercy that they're leaving.

It's been years—much longer than you initially thought you'd have, much longer than you prayed for after the first night Joel knocked on your bedroom door seeking the comfort he saw in your eyes you were dying to give him, much longer than you dreamed you would have amidst all the chaos.

He walks through the broken gate and keeps the wire lifted for you to pass.

Those things — the little things no one pays attention to.

"Thanks," you smile at him.

He hums as an answer and keeps walking by your side until you're both on the open field. After checking the area, Joel lays down with a grunt, patting the grass next to him.

That's when you started reading.

He just pulls out the book from his backpack and hands it to you.

Read for me, please.

"From where we left off, or you want me to go back a few?" Sometimes, Joel fell asleep mid-chapter. He liked when you went back a few so he never missed a thing.

He shakes his head. "I was listenin'," he lets you adjust yourself on the tree, and lays with his head on his backpack, pulling your legs over his body. Cradling your calf in his palms. "Go on."

So you do.

The sky is losing its light by the time Joel takes his arm out of his eyes, and puts a hand in front of the pages.

You bookmark it, even if he'll never hear the end of it.

For some reason, you stay quiet with him.

Usually, the silence is filled with you — your ramblings, questions about the world from before, silly musings that he indulges in listening to.

There's something tragic about being alive nowadays.

It's not really living — it's this. Reading between the lines, and claiming your stomach is satisfied because of the crumbs.

Joel's hand caressing your skin was a whole meal.

His eyes on you, above everything else, were like water.

When he speaks, it's gruff. "You gonna take care of yourself while I'm gone, right?"

If one day you held back, today is not it. "I will. Can't undo all your hard work."

He frowns, "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, c'mon, Joel. It's just us. You and I both know I'd never be alive if it weren't for you and Tess."

"Bullshit. You're the—"

"Brains, I know," you interrupt. "But without the brawn, the brains can't make it that far."

He scoffs at that, and you realize your mistake only when the words are out. "Think we both know nature said that ain't the case anymore."

"Stupid nature," you curse without any heat, and it works. Joel's lip twitches, itching for a smile. "All it's good for is being gorgeous."

"Hm. That'd be you."

Well. They aren't the first nice words Joel's ever said to you, but they make up an even bigger space than everything else. The little box in your chest engraved with J.M. is blanketed in those three little words, and judging by the way he ducks his chin and looks down, Joel noticed his slip up a heartbeat too late.

"Are you gonna take care of yourself?" you ask, nudging his side.

Joel sits up before he answers, taking the place next to you. Then, he spreads his legs and pats the ground between them, and you take the invitation.

Sitting with your back to his chest and his arms around you is your favorite place to be, and something clutches at your throat at the realization this might be the last time.

"I always do," he finally answers.

Your throat is tight, so you place both hands over his arms and pull them tighter around you. "Good," your voice drops to a whisper. "Can't let stupid nature have you."

"She gets us all in the end."

"I know that. I meant before your due time," you insist.

Joel's only half-listening. When he starts rubbing his nose on your hair, tracing the outline of your ears, that means his attention is divided. "How d'you know when's one's due time?"

"Hell if I know. But I know it's not now."

"Yes, ma'am," he plants a kiss on your neck, and you forget words for a while.

Joel always knew how to do that.

He kissed you awake, and sometimes, he kissed you to sleep.

It was common for the two of you to just sit and exist in silence. In a world where there wasn't much space for anything — not for words, or feelings, or relationships, or growth — having this was out of the curve. Having comfort.

He never tensed around you.

When it's just the two of you, Joel's body is the most relaxed; whether it's due to your hands squeezing his muscles or the way you run your palms through his skin to bring him back to himself—he's at ease.

Laid back, shoulders slack. He keeps on leaving kisses across your neck and nape, and you keep your eyes closed, enjoying the proximity. Your nails run through his forearms, and eventually, Joel just stops there in the crook of your neck, breathing slowly.

He asks, "D'you mind if I take your bandana? The purple one?"

Your favorite bandana. His 'lucky charm', as he'd called it once. "No, you can have it."

"You ain't gonna miss it?"

I'll miss you, Joel. A piece of cloth makes no difference in my life. "You need the good luck charm more than me."

"Is that so?"

You scoff, "I'm not the one walking head-first into danger." Craning your neck to look at his face, you lean your head on his shoulder. Joel's face is impassive as always, aside from the little pinch between his brows. "It's your good luck charm, isn't it?"

"It is," he replies, faster than you're used to. A smile grows back on your face. "What?"

"Nothing," you shake your head. "Just — didn't think you'd ever say that again."

He shrugs his shoulders. "'s the truth."

"What made it lucky?"

Joel takes a second with that one. His hand around your upper body finds the collar of your shirt, and he plays with it. He's nervous, and you have no idea why. He shrugs as he says, "Dunno."

Bullshit. "Hmm — something tells me you do."

"Yeah?" he's smiling now.

"Yup," you press, popping the 'p'. Joel stops fighting his smile, and you want to kiss him, so you do. Most of the time, you use restraints around him. Now is not the time for restraint. "Tell me," you plea.

He sighs, the smile still on his face. "That first time I was trying to find alternative routes in and out of the QZ, remember?"

"Yeah."

"So — I'd lost my way. Some Clickers found me and I had to run. Lost my shit—dropped some of the stuff in my bag. I only found my way back 'cause two days later I tried the bridge over the place I got lost at initially and — there it was." Joel's fingertips are tracing your collarbones, and you realize now his body around you is the only thing keeping you from a collapse. "I saw that ugly thing from far, far away."

It makes you laugh — of course he's going to play it cool, make it less of what it is.

You get it. If you had to talk about the things that brought you a sense of home, the only thing that came to mind was the smell of Joel's deodorant mixed with the innate smell of him.

You hide your laugh in his chest, and Joel's hands come up to your nape and the back of your head.

The hurt bubbles up with his touch — you want to drown in your own tears, but he's still here and that would be going before your due time.

"Please be safe." It's rare for you to use the space between the lines, but sometimes you have to.

Please be safe because I need you. Because you've grown inside me. Because the smell of you are vines covering every inch of my ribcages, because every time I wake up and you're lying next to me I remember why we're humans, because Fernando Pessoa might have been right that we possess nothing, but what I am is someone who still knows love.

"I will." Joel heard it all. He pulls your head back to look into your eyes and you see it in his — through the guarded walls of his soul, you get a peak at the man who worries. Who always brings you coffee, who never allowed you to go on dangerous runs, who trusts you to keep his radio codes in case his brother calls for him. You're the lighthouse, he once said. Joel's hand keeps making a mess of your hair, and he looks like he wants to say something, but ultimately, he huffs. "This is harder than I thought it'd be."

"Of course it is," you laugh. "I'm the only one that knows how to make a decent cup of coffee. Or at least, one that you like."

That's when he kisses you.

Because it's true. Not the cup of coffee — Tess can do that as well, even if she never does, but the reality that you're the only one that can and wants to.

The only one who's allowed it.

Living in a world that has no space for living is difficult, but Joel manages to fit the whole human experience in the span of a kiss and some touches.

He's kept you safe, and guarded, and gave you blinks and pieces of the man he once was in return for all that you've given him.

He loves quietly, and kisses hard, and protects with every cell in his body — Joel still loves, even if the word's been burned out of his tongue when he held the most precious life known to him in his arms.

He loves, and you feel it, and you'll miss it.

Joel pulls back with a promise in his eyes that he will be back.

If he isn't, you'll be a moving lighthouse. You'll find him.

☆ join my writing challenge ☆

#usernexusnyx #joel miller imagine #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fic #joel miller fluff #joel miller angst #joel miller one shot #joel miller fanfic #joel miller x you #joel miller x y/n #joel miller drabble #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x reader #tlou fanfic #tlou fanfiction #tlou fic #tlou imagine #nightskychallenge #joel miller au

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skamenglishsubs · 9 days

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Subtext and Culture, Young Royals, Season 3, Episode 5

Episode 5 starts sometime after August dropped the bombshell about Erik at the end of last episode, and Wilhelm decides for some reason to visit the party palace, in order to make himself feel extra shit? I don't know what's going on here.

Blink and you miss it: Hey, that's one of the clown masks they used for Wilhelm's initiation back in season 1.

Blink and you miss it: Henry and Valter are doing a class presentation on rhetorical analysis, and for some reason they chose former US president George W. Bush as their subject, which is pretty hilarious given that he was a notoriously bad public speaker.

Blink and you miss it: Instead of asking Wilhelm, who is sitting right next to Simon, how he's feeling, he writes the question in his notebook and slides it over.

Subtext: Gotta keep up that facade and bottle all the negative feelings inside!

Lost in translation: Vincent uses the word "nyanländ", "newly arrived", which is the current politically correct way of saying immigrant.

Subtext: ...but in typical bully fashion he asks the target of the racist "joke" if it was funny, and Marwan obviously lies about it as to not upset Vincent.

Subtext: Felice tries to play it off as no big deal, but she actually wants this opportunity to spend time with Sara without her other friends, in order to rebuild the friendship.

Subtext: Sara is right to be suspicious of her dad, because he is a lot more energetic than usual, and excuses his behaviour by him simply being in a good mood. It's probably his new medication that kicked in, though.

Subtext: Speaking of having a hard time showing weakness, that's exactly what Wilhelm's been struggling with by not telling Simon how upset he is about having learned that Erik took part in the gay porn initiation.

Subtext: So the whole subplot of the past four episodes was that the school locked up all the phones, and Wilhelm joined the little strike to get them back, pissing Simon off in the meantime, and now that they have their phones back he's not picking up when Simon is calling him? Not cool.

Culture: The choir is practising "En vänlig grönskas rika dräkt", a Swedish hymnal with text from 1889, but this version of the melody is from the 1930's and composed by Waldemar Åhlén. It's a very well-known summer song that pretty much every Swedish schoolkid has sung at some end-of-schoolyear summer assembly.

Cinematography: We're in the cursed music room, and this time the lighting is harsh and sharp, Wilhelm is in stark contrast to the rest of the room, there's no soft golden light smoothing things out, so we're gonna have an argument!

Subtext: Yeah, no, Wilhelm, sweetie, that's projection, that's what you are thinking about your brother. Simon isn't doing anything wrong here, he's just concerned about you being a moody asshole.

Cinematography: To illustrate how the relationship is going south, the music room which used to be full of instruments, is just getting emptier and emptier, and Simon is left standing alone at the piano.

Subtext: No, he's not feeling ok, and no, he's not interested in making up with Sara right now, because he's still angry at her.

Subtext: There are different kinds of homophobia, for example, there are people who talk loudly about how accepting they are of The Gays, but who react negatively when someone close to them comes out, because they were only fine with it at a distance. And then there are people who are ignorantly homophobic in general, but who turn out to be supportive of anyone close to them who comes out, because they know that that person isn't like The Other Gays. Shitty, but less shitty than the first group, and I think that's how Erik would have reacted had he known about Wilhelm.

Culture: In Sweden, you do the practical driving test in a car provided by the testing centre to make it fair and equal for everyone. These cars all have a red sticker saying they're for driving tests.

Subtext: Micke is failing exactly how he described it in an earlier episode. He's on new medication, it made him feel good and like he was in control, so he thought he could take just one beer with his friends.

Subtext: No, it fits horribly, and you can clearly see that it was on sale and that the price tag is still on it. But this is what Linda can afford.

Lost in translation: Simon actually says "jag vet", "I know", when Sara tells him that their dad let her down and that she is sad and upset about it.

Subtext: Unlike Simon who got a cheap suit on sale, Wilhelm just has his perfectly tailored suit delivered to him by his bodyguards.

Subtext: Last episode Wilhelm picked a sport charity or something that he doesn't actually care about, because he thought it would best fit the narrative the royal court is going for. So now his internal homophobia is screaming at him to remove the nail polish, because it doesn't fit that image.

I don't know what this is: This has got to be an editing goof? This sequence of events doesn't work. Everyone else is up and about, preparing the third year's dinner with the teachers and they're even cooking the food with a chef, but it's early morning and Wilhelm is still sleeping in? Anyway, the whole thing is yet another example of how the school teaches hierarchy. As a younger student you service the older students, and when it's your turn to graduate, someone younger will service you.

Throwback: Aww, Simon made Wilhelm a sandwich, just like Wilhelm made one for Simon a bunch of times in previous seasons.

Culture: Man, early summer in Sweden is beautiful, isn't it? This was shot at Åkeshofs Slott in Stockholm, and if you do a 180 turn on that path, you'll see the subway station Åkeshov, and if you go through the tunnel under the road and then up to your right, you'll end up at a sports centre where I went twice a week as a kid for fencing training!

This tumblr is now about French school fencing! Doublé! Riposte!

Subtext: Time and time again the show has shown us how much August loves this shit, and that he wasn't lying when he said he knew everyone, because clearly he does!

Subtext: And to show how much Wilhelm dislikes this shit, he is so stiff when talking to the invited kids who are actually benefitting from his charity foundation, while August just immediately jokes around with them and is much more comfortable.

Culture: I've seen how a lot of fans think that the flower Wilhelm is wearing is a green carnation, which is a symbol for being gay, popularized by Oscar Wilde. I don't think so, that's not a thing in Sweden as far as I know. Instead, I think it's an alternate version of a Majblomma, which is an actual Swedish charity thing, where you can buy these plastic lapel flowers from schoolkids to show your support around this time of year.

Subtext: Even though Simon is there, he's being shoved to the back, because his presence doesn't fit the narrative. If Wilhelm instead had chosen to start some kind of LGBT charity, Simon would have had a much more prominent role. Oh, and poison or not, that Princess Cake looks delicious!

Subtext: Farima is expertly letting August down, who of course pretends that he's not the least bit disappointed at being excluded from having dinner at the royal palace.

Blink and you miss it: IT'S LISA! HI LISA!

Culture: Kalle Stropp och Grodan Boll are two characters from a radio show for kids from the 1940's, but they've also been featured in books, comic books, a live action movie, and animated cartoons. It's about the two titular characters, a cricket and a frog, and their adventures. The last movie was made in the 1990's though, so I'm not so sure kids these days knows who these characters are. Personally, I can't hear this song without hearing their silly character voices.

Subtext: The Queen is still keeping up appearances and lying through her teeth about how she's actually feeling.

Culture: In real world Sweden, Victoriadagen is celebrated in mid July when Crown Princess Victoria has her birthday, she hands out a sports award, there's a concert, some charity stuff, and you can sort of meet the royals or sing her happy birthday or something.

Subtext: August is repeating the excuse Farima used on him as to why he didn't attend the birthday dinner.

Blink and you miss it: That's a Rolex Oyster Perpetual GMT-Master II. It's only about $10,000 and change.

Subtext: Simon, sweetie, I don't think the royals have any clue as to what "the usual" means when you're describing how regular people celebrate birthdays.

Culture: Simon actually says Laserdome, which is a company in Sweden that has been running laser tag arenas since the 1990's. I had no idea they still existed!

Culture: They're singing Lambo, a drinking song for students. It's a challenge song, so while the rest of the table sings, the target has to finish their glass, correctly sing the response lines, and turn the glass upside down over their head. If you fail, like August does in this scene, you have to do a penalty round and chug another glass.

Subtext: ...before her parents heaped all of their family's expectations on her. But maybe if Felice can break free she could pursue her actual dreams?

Throwback: Remember the scene in S1E3 when Simon is practising the Hillerska song in the music room?

Subtext: Queenie, sweetie, you're not looking Wilhelm in the eyes, you're not engaging in the discussion, and the only thing you do is to talk about Erik every chance you get. No wonder Wilhelm has had enough and explodes at his parents.

Blink and you miss it: Vincent won the "Daddy pays" award. Pappa betalar.

Subtext: In this context the award just means that he's the image of a bad boy, a player. But throughout the season, August has been struggling with whether or not he's actually a bad person, which is why he's not exactly happy with the award.

Cinematography: Fuck me that's a pretty shot of a typical summer sunset. In late May in the Stockholm area, sunset happens at around 9:30 in the evenings.

Subtext: One more explanation for August's body dysmorphia is that he got bullied for being weak and scrawny when he first started at Hillerska, so he decided to start working out more.

Blink and you miss it: The reason Fredrika is outside and happens to see Sara and August kiss, is because she's trying to sneak away the bottle of wine she stole earlier from the kitchen.

Subtext: And the reason Felice looks upset when Fredrika tells her what she saw is because she truly thought Sara was over August, and that's a condition of them reconciling.

Blink and you miss it: Wilhelm plays the first few notes of the original Hillerska song.

Subtext: And to cap off this terrible no-good horrible cliffhanger episode, Simon breaks up with Wilhelm by repeating the words his mom said to him earlier in the episode.

#young royals #young royals subtext #young royals analysis #young royals season 3

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bloggingboutburgers · 2 months

Note

Hey, allo anon with an ace partner here. I wanted to say thank you so much for the well wishes! I figured I would send this in here again, so anyone else who is curious about what this experience looks like from the other side can see it.

My girlfriend came out to me a little over 2 years into our relationship. At the time it surprised me a lot, because she'd never given me any signs that she wasn't enjoying what we were doing. After we talked more I understood that she wasn't repulsed by sex and she didn't hate it, but she didn't really love it either and wanted to stop doing it for a while (so a sex-neutral ace).

Honestly, at the time, I did get anxious about it. Not just because of social conventions, but because I had viewed sex as an important bonding part of our relationship. I don't do well with change, and I was super worried about how a lack of sex would change our dynamic. I also had some insecurities about my own body, and my girlfriend admitting that she didn't see me as sexy was upsetting. But after speaking to my therapist, I realized that I was projecting my own issues on to the relationship. So I spoke with her again, and she reassured me that she wanted to be with me, and that she was confiding these feelings because she trusted me. She likes how I look, she just doesn't have the same sexual impulses I do.

So, I realized this was pretty much like cuddling. I love physical touch a lot, and I want to cuddle for a much longer time than she does. I like it when someone lies on top of me. She doesn't want me on top of her chest during cuddling. She still cuddles with me, but she tells me when she's satisfied, and we stop.

A few months went by, and I noticed that she wasn't spending any less time with me; she was actually spending more. We would still call every evening when we didn't meet up in person, we would still joke around, and she still told me she loved me and did everything she could to show it to me. We also began trying out new stuff together, and playing games and watching stuff more often. We also still had plenty of physical intimacy with things like cuddling and kissing, which made me really happy.

I realized that I didn't feel like anything was missing from the relationship. I just needed her to show and tell me she loved me in the ways she normally did. Sure, I am still attracted to her that way, but it wasn't something that would make or break the relationship.

It's been years since she came out, and at this point, I never expect anything sexual. It happens rarely, and I always check in with her multiple times before and during. We stop at any point she tells me. There are quite a few hard boundaries about what is and isn't off limits, and I always keep them in mind. I would rather satisfy myself forever than make her uncomfortable, and she knows it.

It's been over 5 years and we are still going strong. I am hoping to ask her to marry me in the next few years, because honestly, I can't picture wanting anyone else by my side. She is kind, funny, beautiful, intelligent, and treats me well. I could never ask for anything more from a partner.

Thank you SO MUCH for sharing. I myself definitely lack knowledge of what it feels like from an allo's perspective, so this was very educational for me, but beyond that... You have no idea how much hope this gives me.

From you being aware of how much sex meant to you in the context of your relationship and still being fine without it, to just... Heck, even your therapist for not blaming her for the situation. Therapy is still very much, in my country at least, an area where the absence or lower levels of sexual attraction will be hastily labelled as something wrong physically or mentally, so... Yeah, the amount of relief I felt reading that, you have no idea. And I can only imagine how much your partner appreciates it too.

Honestly I teared up a bit reading this - I sincerely wish you guys all the best and I hope you have a bright future ahead! (Also fun fact, seems you guys have been together as long as my partner and I have, it's nice to be able to relate to that too hehe^^)

#anon #asexual #ace #allosexual #thank you so much for sharing

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hwaightme · 9 months

Text

Bonnie on the side

THIS IS 18+ ONLY MINORS DNI FOR STAR'S SAKE (nsfw tags under the cut)

(masterlist) (perma-taglist)

🏩 pairing: businessman!cheater!seonghwa x fem!reader 🏩 genre: smut, pwp, angst, slight fluff? ish? 🏩 summary: you could never escape park seonghwa, every business trip turning into an excuse to fall deeper, leading you to consider a role laden with sacrifice, lies and one that you never in a million years thought you would, nor could take. 🏩 wordcount: 4.7k 🏩 warnings/tags: language, edited? funny, explicit cheating, secret-keeping, grey line between lust and love, hwa has a female fiancée (she/her pronouns), rich businessman hwa with a black card, hotel manager!reader, lmk if anything 🏩 a/n: this in no way represents seonghwa <3 i just over-listened to the song 'sad girl'. i appreciate you all, any and all reblogs, notes, thoughts appreciated, much love! 🏩 playlist: sad girl by lana del rey, illicit affairs by taylor swift, fine line by harry styles, say yes to heaven by lana del rey, love is a bitch by two feet, salvatore by lana del rey, midnight love by girl in red

🏩 nsfw tags: soft dom!hwa, sub-leaning!reader, mention of multiple rounds, no protection (wrap before you tap), mention of the pill, hwa is rough but verbally loving, sweat (and other fluids), cumshot inside, overstim implied, intimate sex, needy as hell, mention of tears and begging, petnames (darling, love, good girl), praise, fucks the love into reader, implied cheating as a possible turn on

When you locked eyes with the owner of the black card, you knew that there was no easy way out. His eyes, fiery, sharp, alluring bore into your flesh and burned the man’s features into your brain. It was obvious that he would haunt you, be it in the waking world or as soon as you would succumb to a turbulent and short-lived slumber. He would be there. Always. Try as you might, there was no escaping him; in the end, even prey was honoured to be a sacrifice to the beast.

“All done, Mister Park Seonghwa, we hope you enjoy your stay with us at Hotel Horizon. My colleague here shall guide you to your room, and your bags will be following suit.”

You bowed, the angle and positioning of your shoulders and arms having been drilled into you after years of practice and execution. In the early days, the gesture would have given you strain; now it was not even second, but primary and central nature. And a method of avoiding his gaze, much to your fortune. Both hands outstretched and holding the card by its very edge so as to not make contact and maintain utmost respect, you waited for the businessman to retrieve it. It seemed that he was waiting for something, but you did not dare check. Not until you could rid yourself of the pesky item and move on to giving him the pass to his room. This was going to be a long morning. After what felt like minutes of motionlessness, you lifted your head slightly, only to see that he had not ceased his observations, still trained on you, though without a hint of malice nor lewdness. Merely more present than anyone else in the hall, or the city, for that matter. The scrutiny reminded you more of how one would study a painting or a statue in a museum, without much of an opinion nor goal in mind. Simply existing in the same space, convincing you that you were existing to be perceived by him. The thought sent a chill down your spine which you only just managed to suppress, though it appeared that the minute pursing of your lips was enough of a reaction for Seonghwa to take the cursed card from your now weak hold, and give you a dazzling, albeit slightly tired smile.

“Thank you, Miss… L/N Y/N. I really appreciate it,” the timbre of his voice caused the phrase to reverberate in your head, making your name sound much more important than it had ever been. Even on your own passport. You gave him a grin - one that was approved by your employer and by the common standards of high end hotels, and refused the gratitude. Just like you had to. Just like you wouldn’t behind closed doors.

The uniform shirt felt tight, the tie was transforming into a noose around your neck, and the air conditioning was doing nothing to help combat the rising heat. Hellfire surrounded you, and was beginning to consume you. Your fellow hotel staff were somewhere far away and ignorant of the inferno, though physically close. Like clockwork, they were little soldiers parading and doing exactly what had to be done. Nothing more, but most importantly, nothing less. Such was the standard at Hotel Horizon, and it was something that you had always been proud of when you were at your best and most professional. But now you were crumbling, and with every visit by the same temptation, you were losing yourself more and more. If only you could return to being that bright-eyed and bushy-tailed new joiner who still knew nothing about the world, building castles in the sky and making the hotel life your everything. It was easier then, without the harsh reality of wanting more, and wishing for the most beautiful bird flying close to the heavens, rather than holding your own little sparrow dear in your hands and nurturing it. You let go of your soul’s freedom so thoughtlessly, and sinfully loved every second of it. Would you do it again? Most certainly. You knew you were going to do it again. That same night.

You adjusted your vest discreetly, pulling on the bottom edges until you felt a light friction against your chest. In a fraction of a second, you were back to your removed self, dutifully completing your tasks until the pass, and the spare pass were both on their journey into the breast pocket of Seonghwa’s suit jacket. He tilted his head as he gazed into your orbs. It was not too challenging to read him, judging by the expectation written all over his features. He was rehearsing how he would ‘dispose of’ the spare key. Both of you had done this before, and the shared secret was another sweet taboo that you missed when Seonghwa was not around. After his visit to the rooftop bar where he would get his usual mocktail, it would be left in the large floral arrangement, in the statement vase down the corridor from Seonghwa’s room where the cameras did not reach - you had checked on multiple occasions, and never brought up the issue even though it was a security risk. It was a guarantee of safety for you and for him, and that made it more than worth it.

“Not a problem. If you require any assistance or room service, do not hesitate to call the numbers provided in the pamphlet,” it was a struggle to not chuckle at your choice of words - room service. Were you going to be room service? Have you always been?

Seonghwa, however, did not appear to find your approach comical, instead taking it literally, remaining immersed in his role. He had always been a brilliant actor, or so you were partial to believing. You had the chance to witness his mastery when his fiancée had called on a couple of occasions some time ago, normally when she was somewhere abroad, and had a total disregard for time zones. Most likely, should anyone ever ask her, Seonghwa had insomnia and incredible stress, and ‘had meetings early the next day so he had to hang up to catch at least a couple of hours of sleep’. According to you, it was when he was tangled in the sheets at Horizon that he was himself, and he could let go of at least a fraction of the dulling pressures of his otherwise daily catastrophe. And no, he did not have meetings. At least not until a much more reasonable hour. And if he did, he was perfectly fine tuning in from the comfort of the hotel. The rolling of the eyes, the tightening of his lower jaw right before he answered the phone call with a ‘sweetie’; it made you want to laugh hysterically, loudly, right in her face - one which was at the forefront of your mind ever since you finally figured out her full name.

“Thank you. Have a lovely evening, Miss Y/N.”

“Thank you,” you were practically shivering as he turned on his heels, following one of your colleagues towards the elevators. Though he was not directly inspecting you anymore, his glances still haunted you, littering your skin with burns.

All you could hear was how the rubber soles of his chunky dress shoes hit the marble floors, and all you could bear to witness was the swaying of his hips, the delicate curve that marked his phenomenal waistline that you were dying to grab, concealed only by the onyx jacket, along with a black shirt that was teasingly semi-translucent, with cutouts hinting at your favourite body, at the most angelic, yet downright sinful being who was a repeating graceful fall in your life. When Seonghwa turned to wait by the elevator doors for the familiar ‘ding’, making idle chat with the bellboy, he did not hesitate to look back at you and give you a nod, accompanied with the ghost of a smile - forever yours, Park Seonghwa. You pulled at your vest again, longing to be out of it, ablaze. Time was cruel, seconds trickling like lazy grains of sand in an hourglass, as many as there were buttons on your lover’s shirt, and yet it was still too long. So much for living in the now, when all you wanted was for the clocks to speed on ahead, and then freeze only when you commanded them. Mid-tryst, mid-secret. That way, there surely would no risk of anyone finding out why Seonghwa picked this hotel every time he visited, how by some mysterious coincidence, you were at front desk on the day he would register, and how, every time, you appeared to be pleasantly surprised, though not nearly enough to be total strangers.

With danger came a different kind of high, you had realised as you guided yourself back to your responsibilities, hiding behind a facade, and once you had gotten a taste of the concept of ‘getting away’ and not being caught, you were addicted to it just as much as you were to the one you blamed. When you got a moment to yourself, with another staff member who had been tasked with checking guests in bidding you farewell to have a quick break, you immediately shut your eyes and massaged your temples. It was going to be a long night. You tilted your head side to side, not exactly needing to stretch but making an appearance - for others except one you were void of ardent emotion; for others except one you did not think, operating exclusively by the work manual, impeccably executing every action down to the tiniest detail. Just like you would stealthily make your journey to take your place as his one and only for the night. Check in. Check out.

He liked to bear witness to the disaster he caused. That was how you found yourself pinned against the bed, with Seonghwa having intertwined his hands with yours, knuckles turning white, cotton fabric imprinting itself to decorate scalding hot skin. He set a languid, but lethal pace that made the chunky silver necklace he wore slap against his neck. Each thrust was deeper than the previous one, ruining what piece of dignity you had left. He muffled your whines and ecstasy-driven cries with his plush lips, kissing away the tiny traces of the waking day. With him, you were the night itself, biting into the forbidden fruit without hesitation. Seonghwa was the serpent, Seonghwa was the angel. In the throes of passion, the visions blended into one and all you were left with was the ability to stare back at his face, glistening with sweat, and even that was failing you. The world was a blur, and you wanted to be absorbed by it.

The beautiful, albeit troubled man could not get enough. He never could. Greedy, gluttonous, lustful, you spun threads out of his demons and made them all rise to the surface, possessing him for as long as you were around. Seonghwa could sense that you would be his undoing from the first time you had captured his attention - and he was not wrong. Before you, something like an affair was out of the question. Now, it felt as though it was you he was betraying every time he had to leave. A bead of moisture travelled down from his forehead, disappearing into his dark tresses that flew to and fro as he rolled his hips, guiding his throbbing member in and out of your wetness with practised mastery. When he leaned back to admire your tearful expression, entirely given up for him and only him, he could not help but leave a trail of feverish pecks across your jawline, to your ear, giving it a couple of nips before whispering:

“I missed you so much, darling.”

You could only mewl in response as he angled himself to directly hit your sweet spot, in turn making him groan when your walls clenched, begging for Seonghwa’s release. The rising stimulation made you even more vocal, and you were struggling to find support with how he pushed you into the sheets. He sensed your wriggling and let go of your hands, nudging you with his nose. The sweet aroma of sex and Black Opium filled your clouded mind, and you threw your arms around your lover, crying out his name. The action made him speed up, pistoning his cock into your dripping cunt as best as he could in the intimate position. In these moments he wondered how he possibly could ever look away from you, from your presence in his life, only to return to a palette of low contrast greys and a numbing dullness.

You bucked upwards when he thrusted into you with particularly satisfying aggression, prompted by a building anticipation of a carnal collapse. Sweet nothings blended with rage, filth with innocent musings as strained whines became your new, and his favourite language. A strand of hair, almost the length of his impeccable face stuck to his temple, the dampness, prompted by animalistic exertion turning into an accessory fitting of a divine performer, actor, demigod. While you could only just make out his shameless regard, the concealed emotionality consumed the last of your inhibitions. When you were connected, body and soul, he wanted to take this as a chance to reveal every inch, every thought that had ever passed by him. You read each one, praying for this exchange to last forever.

“Hwa-a-” you forced out, one hand falling to grasp the bedsheets while the finger dug into his flesh, careful not to turn inwards lest your nails leave a mark.

How you mumbled his name as though it was the only thing you knew for certain, the syllable transforming into a universe you two had constructed for yourselves in the walls of The Horizon, sent its owner into overdrive. He could never escape you, nor would he ever wish to. You were his Garden of Eden, his beginning. Initially, he had been attracted to your cold resolve, your reserved nature, your resistance. Now, he would give up the world, sell his assets, become no one for the opportunity to see you at your most free. He was lost in your glossy eyes, wanted to worship how your lashes fluttered as you took him so terrifically. After meeting you, he had no challenges in understanding what ‘being made for another’ meant.

Seonghwa’s pants were your favourite music, and as more and more began to escape his reddened lips, overwhelming heat rushed to your core, causing you to throw your head back onto the messy pillows. Because of how he was hovering close to you, motion a sensory bliss, every stroke brushed against your aching clit before fading into unparalleled pleasure that you were floating in. You were breathless, on the verge of giving out, and judging by Seonghwa’s carnal grunts, and a string of curses moaned low, barely audible, he was in the same state. Together, as you always wished.

The velocity at which his high was approaching turned him to ruin. Roughly, he lifted your lower half by hooking you under the thighs and pulled you impossibly close. You let out a choked yelp when his hips pressed flush against yours, his length swallowed up by your hole.

“Fuck, so perfect, baby, just for- ah, me-”

“Yes, yes, yes-” you chanted, voice high-pitched and airy as you accelerated towards your undoing.

“Wrap your legs around me, darling, I want to see you- shit yeah, just like that-”

You obeyed, shuffling to satisfy your lover. A hand landed on your lower abdomen as he began violently jackhammering into you, intoxicated from the feeling of the moving bulge. Lifting it, Seonghwa could not take his gaze off the sight, instead pulling you lower until he could sense his dick rubbing against your walls with even greater intensity. He moaned and doubled over, going faster, wishing nothing more than to permanently claim you. You could no longer make a sound, mouth opening and closing mutely, echoes of a name, unspoken worship caught in your throat.

“Sounds, darling, let me hear those pr- ah- pretty sounds,” he instructed, flying to hold onto your thighs as he relished in the squelching of your nectar leaking around him.

“Fu- I- I am-”

“About to?”

“Uh-huh-”

“Such a good girl, Y/N, that’s right, come for me-”

You did not need to be told twice; you shuddered, your body almost giving out and limbs turning into nothing more than a melted mass. The electricity that had been building within you crackled repeatedly, igniting your every muscle and leaving you a shaking mess, at the mercy of Seonghwa’s every gesture, every move. Suspended in oblivious bliss you listened to the lewd symphony of the bed’s swaying, Seonghwa’s balls slapping against you, and the sensation of your cunt pulsating around him, begging for more despite you being sure you could not take it. Arousal coated his cock and squirted out of you as the stunning man continued to chase his own orgasm, running down his toned thighs and onto the sheets below. You wailed, legs shaking with more vigour as he mercilessly pounded into you.

“Baby, I’m so close-”

“Inside,” you moaned, met with a particularly deep thrust and a searching expression. Using one hand Seonghwa cupped your chin, struggling to maintain a steady rhythm. Evidently, he was already holding back, rather than accumulating.

“W-what did you say?”

“I said, I wa-ant you to come inside me, Hwa,”

“Are you sure?”

“Y-yes I am on the pill,”

“Oh, darling-” he could not help but kiss you, his hair tickling your cheeks. When he moved back, letting you arch back into a more comfortable position, you could help but notice how much darker his orbs seemed to have gotten, “...fuck you so full with my cum you’ll be leaking until I can do this again, baby, is that what you want?”

“Y-ye-s-” you ignored the pang of melancholia that the phrase arose within your heart, biting hard on your lip when Seonghwa collided with you.

A guttural moan, more gorgeous than anything you had ever heard filled your ears, reverberated in your cranium. Hot, viscous fluid coated your inner walls, painting them a delicious white and mixing with your slick. After a few more stuttering drives of his softening length into your sopping pussy, Seonghwa threw his head back, a few tiny beads of sweat - like diamonds, launching themselves into the darkness. It was then and there that you were sure you had witnessed divinity.

Gently removing himself - the soothing nature of his actions so astonishingly far removed from his earlier treatment, he sighed in delight at how the ropes of cum leaked out of your used hole, coating your folds, claiming you as exclusively his for the night. Seonghwa ran two fingers over the masterpiece, watching how the sticky juices formed strings of translucent white as he spread them apart. He climbed over to you, gesturing for you to open your mouth and smiling when you did without question.

“This is us, darling, care to give it a taste?”

As he watched you take his digits and suck on them with an adorable diligence, he realised it was doing little to abate his lust and longing for you. More, he always needed more, he concluded, pushing his tip against your stimulated bud with a sigh.

“Stay.”

“You know I can’t,” as soon as the words left your mouth, you were taken aback by the comical nature of the exchange. How funny it was that the two simple phrases held so much gravity, and could be said by either of you. Rearrangement of the variables still brought the same result.

You continued to roll your tights up your legs which were tired after a spontaneous second round, careful to not tear at the material, while Seonghwa pierced your back with his searing stare. There was no need in turning to check on how he was positioned - the visage was intoxicating enough that you could draw it from memory. Hair, a hint of wave in otherwise impeccably smooth strands was styled by passion itself - a tousled fantasy. Glint of the necklace - a refined detail of the artwork that was he. Permanently sunkissed skin of his bare torso and toned arms was exposed to you, a last attempt of luring you back into the devil’s soothing grasp - one that you were sure that if you were to come back to, you would never leave. It would be a lapse of judgement to overstay your lack of welcome if you were hoping, at least partially, to see Seonghwa again. He was propping himself up, elbow digging into the mattress while the other rested on the waist that you adored to embrace, but could do only under the cover of the night that graciously chose to remain oblivious to your amorous ruses. His plush lips, still slightly reddened after the hungry kisses that made them all the more appealing. His nose - regal, elegant, that brushed against you sending electric shock after shock over your body. His eyes - deathly afraid to say goodbye, and yet never failed to contain the melancholy of parting. In these moments when you were tugging on your uniform, each article of clothing being a step closer to a mundane grayscale existence made from routines and systems in which you were nothing more than a pawn, you despised them, and had to mentally shake yourself and hurl yourself towards the life you were supposed to be leading.

“I think about you always,” he stated so casually that you almost paid it no mind, until a rustling preoccupied your senses. Seonghwa was moving, and from the dipping of the mattress, you could only conclude that he was stalking towards you. You needed to disappear, and fast.

This was a constant game between you and him, except a couple of ‘times’ ago, you stopped believing that there was to ever be a winner. It was clear as day that you were two broken hearted people, with your own paths, your own wounds, searching for an escape in whatever form you could encounter. You knew that Seonghwa was seeking a reciprocation, a ‘likewise’ or an ‘I think about you too’ spilling over the edge and into the intimate, illicit abyss. Who did not want to feel wanted? You smiled to yourself as you finally finished with the tights and took to buttoning up your shirt.

A hand rushed to grab yours, prying your fingers away and reducing your instructions to nil, while the other pulled at the closest shirt sleeve to expose your shoulder. With a sigh, Seonghwa peppered kisses over you, over every curve and edge, upwards towards your neck, paying special attention to the area that would let him earn his most wanted response from you. You bit your lower lip and froze, resisting the urge to turn around, grab a fistful of his hair and sink back into a forbidden paradise. He was not giving up, noticing that you were no longer dressing nor pushing him away, and snaked an arm around you, forcing you to lean back into him. His breath was hot against you, the only thing you could feel aside from the dizzying taste of his lips, his teeth, the tip of his tongue grazing supple and sensitive skin.

“Hwa…” you whispered, stifling a moan as your deviant lover sucked at the base of your neck, insatiable.

“Hm?” his hum was sweet, sweet music, and you tilted your head back only to fall into him.

“There’s no time,” you tried, and made an honest rock forwards, only for your motion to be blocked, and for Seonghwa’s fervour to climb. Trepidation and inklings of a craving sparked behind your ribs, and you gripped the bedsheets exposed between your legs to retain the last ounce of sanity.

“There’s always time,”

“Not for us,”

“Then this can be our forever,” he twisted you more, kissing away your retorts and anguish.

Cutting it close, you skillfully made an exit before early inspections and rounds, perfectly filling your role as manager once more and occupying the same spot by registrations thanks to convenient scheduling manipulations and falsified benevolence towards some colleagues who were not too fond of the task. Your goal was simple - you wanted to be the one to greet one particular guest.

It took longer than expected, and check in was almost over for the day when you saw the figure, and then the face of the person who you had been looking forward to meeting with a twisted, borderline disturbing excitement. She was all that you had assumed you would encounter based on the brief mentions and your less than brief perusal of social media and articles that described the financially prompted engagement, arranged to complete a function that was above any kind of love. You did not exist for her, just like Seonghwa ensured that she did not exist for you. It was comfortable, searching for her gaze which could not settle on any one place - unlike the man you had been making love to only a few hours ago. The fluttering wings of a seasonal butterfly, all yammer, no substance. It was impossible to discover an apology within your tainted inner world, let alone guilt. You added her name to the relevant number, issuing a pass and saying the same phrases with robotic politeness. She could not care less. Not for the strained smile, nor for the way in which you met Seonghwa’s look that hinted at an irritated desperation as he strode down the foyer towards the one who was supposed to be his beloved, and consequently, towards you. At least to one of you he was not lying. You had never seen a colder greeting, and that sent an arousing tinge of victory to your stomach. He held his stare over the woman’s shoulder while giving her a quick embrace with one arm. This time, you returned it in its entirety.

As the fiancée finally decided to resume her check in, accepting the pass and explaining that ‘even if Seonghwa dear was to leave early, she should not be disturbed until eleven in the morning with breakfast that had been specified in her booking’, you nonchalantly nodded along with a refreshing coolness. The boost of confidence that Seonghwa’s barely contained pride in your professionalism gave you was dizzying, and you were happy to bask in it and show off all your best sides. Yes, ma’am. Of course, ma’am. Always, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am. It was easy. She was an easy one to read. Such was normally the case with the clients who were the most demanding. How simple it must be, you mused as you watched her spin around to find a bored Seonghwa, asking him something in a shrill tone. You had no right to despise, in fact, if there was anyone who should receive the label of a monster it should be you, and yet, a revelation was bestowed upon you. If your rewards consisted of Seonghwa’s devotion, you did not mind being the villain.

You knew more than she ever could, and that made things all the more easy. While it did hurt to be aware that the bed you had shared earlier would be occupied by another, the hope that in Seonghwa’s mind, it was always you was far too strong to remain pessimistic. And with that, you let them go. Enter their day as a couple, while you, as a passing face. Making sure to pay little attention to either of them, you returned to typing something on the computer, yourself not quite sure if anything appearing on the screen even made sense. He was due to check out in a couple of days. So close, but so, so far away. In a land called his own life, not meant to exist with yours. A mere couple of minutes later, your phone dinged, jolting you from your pondering.

> ps i cannot wait

You blinked multiple times to confirm that what you were seeing was indeed a message from none other than the man who had just raised his hand to point and was guiding his fiancée to the elevators. Park Seonghwa - ‘ps’, a little code you and he had devised for the rare occasions that he would need to notify you. You never knew his number, but you knew that whichever address the letters would come from, it was him, and could only be him. Lifting your head, you encountered a lingering regard, masked as a general study of the surroundings while she was trying to start an argument with one of the staff over their treatment of her suitcases. Baseless - but that was on brand.

> next time?

You typed out as quickly as your typing under the desk would allow you.

> is this ‘le chat noir’?

Silent at the mention of the high class restaurant, you could only respond with a curious agreement.

> yes.

> i’d like to make a booking for 8pm tonight.

Your hands were shaking. You could feel that gaze on you again, setting you alight. You had a second to decide, a lifetime to repent.

> booking at ‘le chat noir’ for 8pm tonight confirmed.

There was no way out. But at least you could enjoy the labyrinth that you were trapped in, and be his Bonnie on the side.

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m1ckeyb3rry · 2 months

Text

── THE GLASS PRINCESS // FOUR

Series Synopsis: You wake up in a strange room with no memories, broken glass at your bedside, and a prince named Zuko as your only chance at figuring out who you really are.

Chapter Synopsis: You go to the zoo with Ty Lee. Later, you and Jia-Li watch a brutal confrontation between Kaho and an underclassman.

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Zuko x Reader

Chapter Word Count: 5.3k

Content Warnings: complicated relationships (strangers to friends to lovers to enemies to strangers to lovers to enemies to lovers), amnesia, alternate universe, lots of secrets and lying and mystery

A/N: big reveal HAHA jia-li is ruon-jian’s sister and kaho is chan’s!! idk if that was what people were expecting or not but i thought it was funny so here we are

To Zuko,

I suppose that, if you really are set on it, it would not hurt me to think of you as my friend. I hope that you are prepared for what that may entail.

I jest. I do not think I am a particularly difficult person to have as a friend, though you might get a more honest review from Ty Lee or Jia-Li. At least in my own opinion (which one might find to be unfairly high), I am agreeable enough to get along with most people — at least those who are agreeable in return (so, not Kaho).

Ty Lee and I went to the zoo. It was entertaining. I am fond of animals, and I found I enjoyed myself more at the zoo than in the academy. At least the birds sound pretty when they screech! The same cannot be said for my dear classmates, who are of the disposition to speak quite incessantly but without anything of substance or value to contribute.

My classes have been going well. I am already at the top of the year, which is partially due to how much I study and partially due to a different factor. I will not call it memory, because it is nothing that that is personal to me, but it is true that at times I will understand something before our teacher has even taught it. I must have been a very learned Fire Nation soldier, indeed.

I had to watch an Agni Kai. One of the girls in the year below us fought Kaho. Of course, she lost. It is such a brutal custom, you know…though of course I understand the cultural significance, it is not a joy to watch. Certainly, I don’t understand how some of the girls were eating snacks and placing bets on the outcome. Luckily, the girl who went against Kaho is alright. Kaho let her off with only a small burn, but it could’ve been much worse.

In better news, Jia-Li has invited me to spend the next break at her house on Ember Island! So I will go there instead of taking up space at the palace. I am excited — I am not sure if I’ve ever been to the ocean or not. It will be exciting to see it for the first time; or, if not for the first time in my life, then for the first time that I will remember. Of course, I will continue to write to you even on vacation, and Jia-Li has already said that I can borrow her clothes and things, so there should be no strain put upon you. If there were, then I would not even suggest it.

The next time I shall see you in person will be after the term is properly over, then. I look forward to it will hopefully be the Fire Nation lady you want me to be by then.

From, Your friend Ursa

P.S. You should not be surprised by what I am about to say: I still don’t remember anything.

“Wow,” Ty Lee said, chewing on a piece of candy as the two of you walked down a gravel pathway together. “I still can’t believe we got free admission!”

“Apparently, all students do,” you said, holding out your hand. She dropped the small, round, fruit-flavored disks in your palm, and you popped it in your mouth, smiling at the burst of flavor. “Though it makes sense they don’t advertise that.”

The Strategy Mistress was sick, so you all had been given leave to spend the afternoon as you pleased. Ty Lee had offered to take you to the zoo with her, remembering that you had mentioned wanting to go when you had woken up in the palace, and you had jumped at the chance to not be in the suffocating dormitory for a little while.

At the moment, you and her were standing in front of the dragon moose enclosure, watching as they grazed. One of the dragon moose had a calf, and it was a sweet looking animal, somehow adorable in its awkward ugliness. As you watched, it had a spurt of energy, jumping and bucking through the pasture, racing along the fence line and only skidding to a stop when it realized it was being ignored. Its ears drooped as it trotted back to its mother’s side, lowering its head to the grass once again.

“These dragon moose look a little different than the ones that pull the carriages,” Ty Lee said.

“Oh, I know why that is,” you said, eager to prove your competence. “Dragon moose are actually only native to one small part of the Fire Nation. The ones that pull our carriages are the offspring of ones that were domesticated many centuries ago. They’ve been selectively bred to best fit our purposes almost since the day our ancestors first tamed them, so they’ve evolved into very different looking animals. The wild dragon moose, such as these ones, never had that push to evolve and optimize to our needs, so they look the same as they have for all of those centuries.”

“You sure do know a lot, Ursa,” Ty Lee said gamely. “Was that school knowledge, book knowledge, or past knowledge?”

“Book knowledge,” you said. “I don’t know if I was that interested in the convergent evolution of domestic and wild dragon moose in my previous life.”

Ever since the first day of your classes, when you had discovered a mysterious aptitude and innate understanding of the rules of etiquette, you and Ty Lee had come up with three categories: school knowledge, book knowledge, and past knowledge. School knowledge referred to the things that you learned in your lessons, the offhand comments and the droning lectures that you remembered better than anyone else in your year. Book knowledge was the summation of the many pages upon pages you had committed to memory, encompassing everything from the political structures of the Fire Nation to the fauna of the Northern Water Tribe. Finally, past knowledge was the most mysterious and ambiguous category, because it meant the random things you just knew in your mind, even though you had no real reason to.

More things than you were really comfortable with fell into that latter category. It really didn’t feel fair — why was it that you could recall the pillars of etiquette and the different battle formations of the Soldiers of Agni, but not anything about who you had been in the past? Why was your identity, which you wanted to know the most, the only thing you could not remember?

In the middle of the zoo was a large, artificial lake. You and Ty Lee stopped at the fence and leaned over to watch the flying dolphin fish leap through the air before diving back into the water with great splashes. A little ways away from you, a child raced up to the fence and gripped it, staring at the flying dolphin fish in awe. One of the fish noticed him and swam over towards him before slamming its tail against the surface of the lake, bowling the child over in a great deluge of salty brine.

You and Ty Lee exchanged looks, neither of you laughing until you saw the other’s face, whereupon you burst into fits of giggles, unable to hold them in any longer.

“Should we go help him?” you gasped out, wiping away the tears gathering in the corners of your eyes. Ty Lee, who was doubled over at this point, shook her head.

“I think — I think his mother’s got him,” she said breathlessly. True to her word, an adult woman was yelling at the boy as he wailed, still face-down and drenched to the bone.

“He should’ve just stayed with the turtle ducks,” you said, shaking your head and pointing at the small flock floating placidly along, far from the mischievous flying dolphin fish. “They’re so cute!”

“From what I remember, there’s a petting zoo area somewhere in the zoo, if you want to try feeding turtle ducks,” Ty Lee said. “I wasn’t able to see it when I came with Azula and Mai, though, because Azula hates turtle ducks.”

“Hates turtle ducks? How could someone hate them? They’re so sweet and guileless,” you said. “Was she wronged by one as a child?”

“You could say that,” Ty Lee said. She didn’t offer further explanation, but considering you had never even met Princess Azula, you didn’t blame her. Whatever her past with the turtle ducks was, it was the princess’s own secret to keep or share at her own discretion.

It took you a while to find the petting zoo, as they had no signs, so you had to ask people to point you in the correct direction. Unfortunately, most of the people that you asked were other visitors, and by the time you finally found a staff member to take you there, you had all but given up on the prospect of going at all.

“Mostly, the people who come to the petting zoo are kids, or at least have some of their own,” the zookeeper said. Ty Lee scowled at her.

“Some of us are young at heart!” she snapped, earning a snort from you and a bewildered look from the zookeeper, who raised her hands in the air and back away.

“I cannot believe that was your response to her,” you said as you reached the counter where a different zookeeper handed you little bags of food to give to the animals.

“I panicked,” Ty Lee admitted. “But really, she had no reason to be judging us! It’s her own job that relies on visitors like us. Who cares about how old we are?”

“Quite right, Ty Lee, and anyways it can be argued that I have about as much life experience as a child, in one way, so she really has no ground to stand on,” you said.

“I wouldn’t say you’re all too childlike,” Ty Lee said. “You act like most anyone else our age would. Maybe more mature, even, but certainly not less, even though you have no memories.”

“Of course, it isn’t as if the effects of my formative experiences on my psyche have been erased just because I can’t remember them,” you said. “They still shaped my spirit, even if I cannot recall how they did so.”

Unfurling your fingers and offering your hand to one of the dragon moose — which was of the domesticated variety, not one of the wild ones from earlier — you used your other hand to rub its forehead.

“Ew! It slobbered all over me!” Ty Lee said as the dragon moose she was feeding swiped its long tongue over her now-empty palm and then across her cheek, ignoring her attempts to shove it off of her.

“That must mean it likes you,” you said. She stopped trying to shove it away, her expression growing contemplative as the dragon moose used its lips to play with her long braid.

“Aw,” she said. “Now I feel kinda bad for being so mean.”

“I don’t think it’s offended, but maybe you should get your braid out of its mouth before it chews it off,” you said. Ty Lee yelped and yanked her braid out of the dragon moose’s grasp, jumping away to stand behind you.

“As soon as we get back to the academy, I’m going to have to shower,” she said, shuddering.

“You do smell somewhat like dragon moose,” you said, sniffing her delicately and then wrinkling your nose. “Wanna go back to the flying dolphin fish? I’m sure they’d be happy to rinse you off.”

“Very funny!” she said.

“It feels like you don’t think it’s that funny,” you said, snickering. “Which is a shame, because I do.”

“Let’s just go see the turtle ducks. They’re the whole reason we came here,” she said, stomping off.

“You don’t want to visit the hippo cow?” you said, pointing at the enormous beast that was allowing toddlers to clamber over it as it dozed with one eye open.

“I don’t even want to think about how things could go wrong if I go near that,” Ty Lee said. “Turtle ducks are nice and safe and little. As I said, let’s go there.”

These turtle ducks were kept in a pond which had no fence, allowing them to wander about as they pleased, swimming amongst the lilies blooming in the water and hiding in the bulrushes on the part of the bank further from the path.

Crouching, you broke off pieces of lettuce and threw them towards the turtle ducks. They paddled over and began to squabble amongst themselves, racing to snag the treats before their companions.

Ty Lee joined you, and for a little bit, the two of you were quiet, tossing lettuce at the turtle ducks and observing them eat. Only once all of your lettuce had run out did Ty Lee speak again.

“I thought turtle ducks ate bread,” she said.

“They do,” you said. “They love it a lot, which is why people give it to them. But it’s bad for them. Makes their stomachs upset.”

“Then why do they love it?” she said. “If it makes them sick, why do they keep eating it?”

“I don’t know,” you said. “It must taste very nice. Sometimes, it’s like that, I guess. You do things that you know are bad for you because you think that they are good.”

Ty Lee glanced at you out of the corner of her eye. “School knowledge or book knowledge?”

“Neither,” you said. “Past knowledge, I think.”

You couldn’t explain it, but then again, when had you ever been able to explain your past knowledge? Ty Lee exhaled but did not question you, which you were grateful for. You doubted you could’ve explained further, anyways.

“There you are!” Jia-Li hissed when you and Ty Lee walked into the dormitory building together. The light mood of the outing had faded after you had fed the turtle ducks, a pensive melancholy settling over you both in place of the earlier humor as the two of you considered your own respective thoughts.

“What’s wrong?” you said.

“Where have you guys been?” she said.

“We were at the zoo,” Ty Lee said.

“Didn’t I tell you before we left? Did something happen? Oh no, did the Strategy Mistress suddenly feel better and decide to hold class after all?” you said. “We have an exam coming up. If I missed a class, then I’m going to have to double down on my studying.”

“Those are words I never want to hear from your mouth again,” Ty Lee said. “How can you ‘double down’ on your studying when you already spend almost every waking moment doing exactly that? I mean, there’s only so many hours in a day, you know!”

“Never mind all of that!” Jia-Li said. “No, the Strategy Mistress is still sick, so you didn’t miss anything — at least, nothing academic.”

“Good,” you said. “I don’t mind missing anything else. Which I’m assuming we did, considering you look near to fainting, Jia-Li.”

“One of those idiots in the class below us has been spending the entire afternoon antagonizing Kaho! I’m afraid she’s going to blow up, and sooner rather than later,” Jia-Li explained.

“That sounds like something I’d like to be far away from,” you said. “We should’ve stayed at the zoo a bit longer, Ty Lee.”

“Mhm,” Ty Lee said emphatically. “I’d take dragon moose slobber any day!”

“I don’t think this girl realizes what she’s getting into,” Jia-Li said. “See, the thing is, whenever you’re around, Ursa, Kaho’s too busy hating you to get annoyed by anyone else. But since you were gone all afternoon, she’s had nowhere to channel her inner anger.”

You made a face. “So? Are you suggesting that I should’ve stayed around and let her be rude to me or something?”

“Not at all,” Jia-Li reassured you. “It’s more that she’s seemed downright gentle recently — or, I guess, gentler. That’s why that girl thinks she has a chance, but the truth is in terms of Firebending, Kaho is probably the most talented student in the entire academy at the present moment. And when you mix that talent together with an ill temper, it’s a bad combination.”

“Has she challenged her yet?” Ty Lee said.

“Not yet,” Jia-Li said.

“It’s only a matter of time,” Ty Lee said, sighing. “Ugh. This is all so ridiculous! We should all just get along.”

“Let’s just avoid them all for as long as we can and hope everything has smoothed over by the time we go down to eat dinner,” you said. “Ty Lee, you can stay in our room, as long as Jia-Li is okay with it.”

“Of course,” Jia-Li said. “I wouldn’t send you into the dragon’s maw like that.”

“I can handle her if it comes down to it,” Ty Lee said. “And I really need to shower — bad run in with a dragon moose’s tongue, Jia-Li, it’s a bit of a long story. But thanks for offering!”

“What can she do against someone like Kaho?” Jia-Li asked you. You shrugged.

“I have no idea, but she is one of Princess Azula’s closest friends, so she must know a thing or two,” you said.

“That’s true,” Jia-Li said. “Let’s stop talking about Kaho and her idiocy now, though. There’s no point in letting her spoil our time together. Did you have fun at the zoo?”

“I did!” you said. “It was nice to see all the animals, and we got to feed some of them at the petting zoo, which was nice. They were all very friendly.”

Jia-Li smiled fondly. “That’s good. I used to love going to the zoo as a kid. My brother and I used to visit together — his favorite exhibit was the flying dolphin fish, but I always liked going to see the koala sheep.”

“Were you and your brother close?” you said, feeling a pang in your stomach. You had no idea if you had a brother or a sister or any siblings at all. What if you did? Would they be missing you right now, or would they have moved on from you already? Would they resemble you, or would you look completely different? Would they have cared for you in your youth, or would you have cared for them in theirs?

“We used to be,” Jia-Li said. “When we were very young, that is. He was my best friend.”

“What happened?” you said.

“We grew up,” she said, undoing the ribbon tying her hair back and beginning to comb through her long locks. “I came here, and he went to the school for boys. Then I suppose we just learnt to have different interests. He preferred hanging out with his other boy friends, and so I was left to find my own entertainment.”

“That’s sad,” you said. She set down the comb and retied her hair.

“It is,” she said. “What I wouldn’t give to go to the zoo with him again, or some other such activity. Actually, I just wish we were children again…but we are grown now, aren’t we? It’s fine. That’s how life is.”

“Is he much older than us?” you said.

“Only by a couple of years,” she said before brightening. “You should come meet him!”

“Uh,” you said. “Where would we do that, exactly? And why?”

“Our next break is soon. My family has a house on Ember Island; you can come stay with us! Unless you have other plans already or something, of course,” she said.

“I don’t have any plans,” you said. “I probably would’ve ended up going to the palace again, but visiting this Ember Island place sounds a little more appealing, in truth. As long as you and your family are alright with it.”

“My family won’t care,” Jia-Li said, waving you off dismissively. “My father will probably be delighted to have the girl sponsored by the royal family staying in his home, and my mother will just be happy that I’m bringing a friend home. As for my brother…nobody cares about his opinion, anyways! If he wants to complain, then he can just run along and stay at his best friend’s house. They’re going to be on Ember Island then, too.”

“Then I would really love to do that,” you said. “Thank you for inviting me, Jia-Li.”

“Sure, you’re a great roommate, so it’s not an issue,” she said. “I was a little sad about having to leave you during break, but now I’m just excited! You’ll love Ember Island, I promise. It’s so beautiful there.”

“I’m excited, too,” you said. “Actually, I was a little scared about the break — I wasn’t sure if I had a place in the palace or not, and either way, there’s something a little intimidating about staying there. It’ll be much more fun to be with you the whole time, in a place that I can feel somewhat wanted.”

“Of course!” Jia-Li said, growing starry-eyed. “And I can take you to the ocean for the first time! Do you know how to swim? Wait, you probably wouldn’t know if you do or don’t. Well, if you don’t, I’ll teach you, and if you do, we can swim together! You can borrow my things, I think we’re probably close in size.”

“Alright,” you said, overwhelmed by the many plans she was already coming with. “I’ll leave all of that to you. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

“You can count on me,” Jia-Li said, giving you a thumbs up. “I promise it’ll be the best break ever!”

Since Ty Lee had apparently gone to her room after showering, you and Jia-Li decided to make your way to dinner together in the hopes that you’d find her in the dining hall. Both of you were hungry by that point, though, and you unanimously agreed to just eat, even if she wasn’t there.

“I’m surprised,” you said when you walked in and found no traces of Ty Lee anywhere. “She’s normally so timely when it comes to dinner.”

“Yeah, but remember how long it takes her to wash and dry her hair? She probably won’t be down for a while,” Jia-Li reminded you.

“Right, I forgot about that,” you said. Ty Lee took a lot of pride in her personal appearance — rightfully so, of course, given how lovely she was — so her pre and post-shower routines were quite extensive, to say nothing of the actual shower itself. And especially because she had gotten covered in dragon moose saliva at the zoo, Jia-Li was correct to assume that Ty Lee might not be out for quite some time.

“Uh-oh,” Jia-Li said as you two sat down with your dinners. She nodded at the end of the table, where a girl you vaguely remembered being in the year below you was smirking at Kaho, whose jaw muscles were twitching with every word the girl spoke.

“Someone should stop her,” you said, though you made no move to get up, wanting to stay far away from the disaster zone that was about to emerge. Jia-Li hummed in assent, but she obviously had the same idea, remaining firmly put beside you. “It’s like she has a death wish.”

“She’s just trying to prove her superiority,” Jia-Li said. “There’s a clear hierarchy in this school, and right now, Kaho is at the top. She doesn’t like when people come for her spot, but of course, everyone wants to be there, to be number one, so they’re always trying to best her. It’s why she doesn’t like you — you’re beating her in terms of academics, which she hates, because she’s supposed to be the best. At least with you, though, you’re not a bender, so she can console herself with the fact that you’ll never be able to compete with her in any way that matters on that front. This girl, though, is challenging everything that Kaho is. She wants to be the most respected girl in the academy, but to do that, she needs to prove that Kaho isn’t worthy of that place any longer.”

“Can she do it?” you said.

“No,” Jia-Li said bluntly. “Plenty of people have tried. None of them have succeeded, except for Princess Azula, and she’s a special case in that she already was afforded a different status than the rest of us because of her bloodline.”

“Then she’s a fool,” you said.

“There’s more fools in this world than not,” Jia-Li said.

The girl continued to tease Kaho, who was obviously doing her level best to ignore her, not even affording her the dignity of looking at her. One could argue that it was maturity, but you understood it for what it really was: a way to demean her opponent, to prove that the other’s existence was meaningless to her, that she was so insignificant it was as if she truly did not exist in Kaho’s eyes.

“Honestly,” the girl said, voice lilting impishly, “I feel for you, Kaho. I mean, you used to be the top student, and then a girl with amnesia took your spot! It must’ve been embarrassing, losing to someone who doesn’t even have any memories. And to make matters worse, the prince really does seem to favor that girl, and we all know what he thinks of you…”

“What is she talking about?” you whispered under your breath to Jia-Li. “Why is she bringing me into this? What does Prince Zuko have to do with anything?”

“You’d do well to shut up now,” Kaho said, though it was the wrong thing to do, for her reaction was proof that the girl had struck a nerve.

“It’s like I told you,” Jia-Li whispered back. “Kaho is used to being at the top. When we were younger, before everything with the, ah, banishment, she tried very desperately to befriend the royal family. She was never able to endear herself to Princess Azula, but her sights were always on the prince, anyways, so that mattered little to her. It was marriage she sought; the prospect of being Fire Lady was too appealing.”

“I’m assuming she was unsuccessful,” you said. Jia-Li nodded.

“Extremely. It wasn’t even her fault, really; Prince Zuko was always kind, but unattainable for all of us. He had no interest in dallying with girls that went to school with his sister, so Kaho was never able to gain his approval in the way she wanted. Perhaps it might’ve been different if he hadn’t been…you know. They might have grown closer as they grew older simply due to her sheer persistence, but we’ll never know,” she said.

“For being the supposed best of us, you’re not the best at a lot of things,” the girl said. “I mean, I bet you’re not even that good at Firebending!”

Kaho slammed her fist on the table, standing to face the girl and glaring at her.

“Is that the game you want to play?” she said. “Fine. I’ll go along with it. I challenge you to an Agni Kai!”

“I’m assuming that’s not a good outcome,” you said.

“Nope,” Jia-Li said grimly. “Let’s just say that things have gone from bad to worse. Come on.”

“We’re going to watch?” you said.

“It’s all but mandated. I don’t like it, either, but we kind of have to,” Jia-Li said. “Hopefully, it’s over soon. Sometimes, Kaho can be inventive.”

You and Jia-Li stood in the very back of the crowd, though your view was still perfectly unobstructed. You almost wished there was something blocking your vision, though, something in between you and what was surely going to turn out to be a grotesque sight, one way or another.

“Want some?” the girl in front of you said, turning around and proffering a bag of candy to you and Jia-Li.

“No, thank you,” you said, for you were already queasy and knew that sweets would only worsen the effect.

“I’m okay,” Jia-Li said.

“I’m betting on Kaho,” the girl said, grabbing a handful of candy and dropping it all in her mouth. “Wanna join the pool? One of my friends is running it.”

“Like a betting pool?” you said.

“Yup! It’s how I could afford to buy this candy — I won last time,” the girl explained.

“No way,” you said.

“We’re good,” Jia-Li said when the girl looked offended at your short response.

“I can’t believe they’re betting on something like this!” you said.

“It’s common, believe it or not,” Jia-Li said.

“I believe it, sadly, but I wish I didn’t,” you said. “It’s so heartless.”

“That’s just how things are here,” Jia-Li said. You pursed your lips as the fight between the girl and Kaho began, deciding to keep silent, because your words would be wasted when your argument was not even with Jia-Li in the first place.

Even though the girl was no slouch in terms of Firebending, the fight was over almost as soon as it started. Kaho’s power was too much for her opponent, and she seemed bored as she coated her palm in fire and slapped it against the girl’s bicep.

“I got the first burn,” she said, miming a yawn. “So I guess that means I win. Why are you crying like that? Honestly. Just shut up. Why’d you agree to fight me if you couldn’t accept defeat like an adult?”

The skin on the girl’s arm was red and angry, already beginning to blister, but you could tell even without an explanation from Jia-Li that Kaho had been merciful. She could’ve done worse, but she had chosen to let that girl off with a warning. A reminder to never be so daring again.

There was something odd about it all, though. Despite the fact that her opponent was standing across from her, you noticed that it was not the burnt, sobbing girl that Kaho was scowling at so darkly.

It was you.

Ursa,

I’m glad you were able to make it to the zoo. I know you mentioned wanting to go a while back, so it makes me happy to know that that desire of yours was fulfilled. I wish I could’ve been there. Did you get to feed the turtle ducks? I remember doing that when I went, though of course I only visited once, with my mother, and that was a long time ago, so maybe things have changed and they don’t let people do that anymore.

I wish you hadn’t had to see an Agni Kai. They are definitely a darker part of Fire Nation culture. But, then again, for a nation that values honor so greatly, they are just a natural consequence. I hope you haven’t been frightened too terribly. Mai says that Kaho isn’t always so generous with her opponents, so there’s something to be grateful for: at least it was only a small burn. You’re entirely right — it could’ve been worse.

You shouldn’t worry about taking up space at the palace. It would be my our pleasure to host you once again. But Ember Island is a nice place. You will have fun there, I’m sure. The ocean is very, very beautiful. It’s the bluest thing you’ll ever see, and it goes on for what seems to be forever. The Fire Nation is lucky in that our ocean is warm, and the tides are not so vicious — nothing like the poles, where it is so treacherous and cold.

It is nice to know that you are enjoying yourself so thoroughly. That is what I am really concerned with; it matters little to me if you ever become a proper Fire Nation lady or anything along those lines. I would even prefer it if you didn’t. It’s more important that you are happy.

Yours, Zuko

P.S. Perhaps I am not surprised, but I am still disappointed on your behalf.

#zuko x reader #zuko x you #zuko x y/n #zuko #avatar the last airbender #atla #reader insert #canon au #the glass princess #m1ckeyb3rry writes

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critterbitter · 4 months

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Ooooo I like your ideas on Legendaries! I think its neat and putting an emphasis on the fact that these are gods puts a much greater weight on them! (specifically how you described them as uncomprehensible bc That is a take on legendaries I havent seen before. Reshiram can and WILL burn anyone who has a hint of lies in their heart. Which, given how N is been lied to thoroughly and has their worldview crumble around them makes me a tad bit worried for them.) Though the Idea of a feral 10 year old just causally running around with one is funny, what is any of the adults going to do about it. Make them release it?

Also your Elsa looks like she has and will again bite someone and Her blitsle will join in and I love that. Its in the eyes. You do eyes really well!

Honestly, I like to think there’s a Prime Legendary which is the eldritch horror (and usually always the box legendary), and secondary legendaries (minor deities that patrol specific areas, like the legendary bird trio and the lati flocks).

Prime legendaries are so powerful they leave behind fragments and echoes of themselves, which could be caught via pokeballs. This is why the red chain in sinnoh is so important— it can subjugate the gods of time and space in their majority, instead of capturing just their echo. (Otherwise Cyrus really would have just tossed like a hundred greatballs and called it a day).

(The echoes of legends bit is inspired by the pokemon movie where an entei was created by a flock of uknown. That’s some fuckery that still lived in my psych, a decade later.)

But also a ten year old catching ANY embodiment of, say, time (dialga) would be,,, mm. The adults of the pokemon world have their work cut for them.

((ALSO TY FOR THE LOVE! The nimbasa trio as kids are full of shenanigans. Heh!))

#answering this ask publicly cause i love ranting about world building #hot take on legendary pokemon dropped!#critterbitter screams into the void #ask #mailbox #pokemon #world building

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taexual · 5 months

Text

sleepwalking ● 11 | jjk

pairing: jungkook x fem!reader

summary: due to unfortunate circumstances, you ended up managing your ex-boyfriend’s band. you thought you’ve both made peace with it, but suddenly he’s very eager to prove to you that first love never dies.

genre: rockstar!jungkook / exes to lovers

warnings: explicit language, ANGST, PENT-UP FEELINGS, SLOW BURN

words: 7.8k

read from the beginning ○ masterlist

chapter 11 ► i can hear your heartbeat i’ve tried so hard to forget, i’m being buried under the memory of all of my regrets

On the flight to Amsterdam in the morning, you ended up sitting next to Luna. That wasn’t particularly unusual as your entire team—apart from the roadies who drove the bus with the equipment over from Oslo, bless them—tended to change seats as they pleased.

Normally, though, Luna sat next to her boyfriend. So, the fact that she was sitting next to you this time was unusual.

“Funny thing,” she said to you once the plane was in the air and everyone around you began to slowly move around. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

You looked at her. “How is that funny?”

“It’s funny because when I woke up to get a bottle of water from the mini fridge,” she said, “the curtains on your bunk were drawn.”

You swallowed, suspecting what she was getting at, but refusing to give in. “That doesn’t sound very funny, either.”

“No, I agree,” she said, grinning as she got to the best part, “but as I went back, I noticed that Jungkook wasn’t in his bunk.”

You looked down at your tablet, the e-book you had opened already forgotten as the lines on the screen blurred together. “Huh.”

“Yeah,” Luna said. The more you evaded her, the happier she seemed. She had come to her own conclusions that, honestly, weren’t very far from the truth, but you couldn’t admit that, not even to her. “Any clue what’s that about?”

“None,” you lied with a nonchalant expression. “But I’m sure the explanation would be funny.”

She continued to grin at you. “I’m sure it would be. I’d love to hear it.”

You swallowed and pretended to be busy reading, even though the words on the screen might as well have been gibberish, given how little sense they made.

“I’m sure you would,” you mumbled.

Luna groaned. She wanted to know, and it was hard not to push when you were right there, and the truth of what had happened was on the tip of your tongue.

“Come on!” she pleaded, nudging her shoulder against yours. “Don’t make me wake Maggie.”

You knew Maggie was settled in the seat behind you, sleep mask, earpods and neck pillow in tow. She wasn’t the interrogator out of the two of them, but if she and Luna teamed up, they would either get you to admit everything, or they’d come to their own—probably exaggerated—version of what happened which you’d have to deny, thus confirming their initial suspicions anyway.

“What do you want me to say?” you asked, stalling.

“Just confirm what I already suspect,” Luna said, knowing better than to ask for the whole story.

You looked away instead of answering, but there was a warmth in your eyes that wasn’t there before; Luna’s questions had evidently brought back the memories of last night.

“Alright!” your friend cheered at the sight of it, relentless. “That’s confirmation enough.”

You shook your head, trying to suppress the smile that was tugging at your lips, but Luna still saw the corners of your mouth lift.

“How about you tell me why you weren’t sleeping tonight instead,” you said—only partially because you wanted to change the subject. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. That just happens sometimes, maybe too much adrenaline.” She shrugged, letting you drift off topic for the moment. “Should’ve jumped less at the concert last night. But hey, that was the reason I got to witness that very funny thing last night.” She snickered then, and, in response to your glare, said, “but I’m really fine.”

You knew the band would have three days off in Amsterdam before the next show, so Luna could reasonably get enough sleep in that time, but you still asked, “you sure?”

“Yes,” she repeated, then ran her fingers over her eyes, “and no third degree, please. I’m sitting with you because my boyfriend,” she emphasised the word as she sat up straight to look over the several rows of seats behind her where Taehyung sat, “as much as I love him, he won’t stop asking me if I’m fine every two seconds.”

“And here I thought you were sitting with me because you loved me,” you teased.

“I do love you,” she said. “But I also feel bad for him. I told him to sit with Yoongi, because Yoongi always naps on flights, and I knew that was the only way Tae would get any sleep.”

“Wait, so he didn’t sleep tonight, either?” you asked.

“He did at first,” Luna said, “but then he saw that I was awake, and he ended up staying awake, too.”

You smiled despite yourself. “You guys sicken me.”

Suddenly, someone grabbed the back of your seat—you felt fingers brush gently past your tied-back hair—and you heard Maggie moan behind you.

“You guys,” she muttered, sliding the mask from her eyes and leaning into the gap between your seat and Luna’s, “sicken me, too.”

“I thought you were asleep,” Luna said.

“How can I sleep? My earpods died a minute ago,” Maggie explained her own logic before directing her attention to you. “So, anyway. What happened between you and Jungkook?”

The continued ambush made you stutter, “wh-why do you keep asking that? Nothing happ—”

“Luna,” Maggie turned to your friend. “What happened? You and Taehyung were awake. I trust your words.”

You raised your eyebrows while Luna chuckled.

“Don’t worry,” she said to you. “I was the one who drew these conclusions. Taehyung didn’t see anything, he only heard Jungkook climb into his bunk.”

At first, you hadn’t even realised that Taehyung staying awake when Luna couldn’t sleep meant that he was not only a great boyfriend to her, but also that half the bus was awake when Jungkook snuck into your bunk.

“Jolly,” you said dryly as your eyes immediately left your friend’s face.

She smiled automatically, and, urged by your flustered state, turned to Maggie to tell her the facts: her lack of sleep and the search for a water bottle that led to the discovery of your drawn curtains and Jungkook’s empty bunk.

“And if you must know,” Luna said to you then, “my original plan was to make sure you were alone on the plane, so someone could take the seat next to you. But I ruined it by exiling my boyfriend to the back and finding you myself.”

“Clever plan,” you commented. “Thanks for sabotaging it.”

She snickered, not losing her optimism despite your sarcasm.

“More flights in the future,” Maggie remarked, prompting Luna to nod in eager agreement. “Maybe it’ll work out then.”

“Mmhmm. Fingers crossed,” you deadpanned.

“So, um, not to ruin the happy conversation,” Maggie said before she ruined the happy conversation, “but have you made a decision about Reconnaissance?”

“Oh.” You slumped in your chair. “No. My decision is to think about it as little as possible, so I can call Nick next month and tell him I’m not doing it. Because I’m afraid that if I do start thinking about it, I’ll end up… you know, wavering.”

Maggie regarded you from the gap between the seats. “And that’s bad?”

“That’s bad,” you confirmed. “I know I want to stay here.”

“Have you told the guys?” Luna asked.

“No. I haven’t had the chance yet.” You looked down, twisting the decorative silver-coloured ring on your index finger. “I kind of want this to come up naturally. I mean, as naturally as possible. So that it doesn’t seem like such a big deal.”

Luna nodded sympathetically, while Maggie’s grin widened behind you.

“Yeah,” she said. “And, obviously, you and Jungkook are busy with other things for this to come up naturally.”

You saw Luna start to laugh as your eyes widened and your lips formed the first excuse that came to mind. “Okay, that’s not even true, we were just—”

The two girls were snickering too hard to hear you, but it was Maggie’s considerate tap on your shoulder—as if to tell you to stop talking because they knew better—that made you close your mouth and roll your eyes at the two of them.

“So.” Luna shifted in her seat, looking for a more comfortable position. Even though she had the window seat, she didn’t look out once, focusing on you instead. “Now that we’re back on the subject—”

“There was no subj—”

“—you and Jungkook,” she persisted, undeterred by your attempt to return your attention to the tablet on your lap. “What does this mean?”

You sighed, realising you needed to say something. Luna and Maggie weren’t questioning you to be mean, they just wanted to know. And it was fair, considering you shared almost everything with each other, especially now that Luna joined Rated Riot for some of their tour dates.

And yet this particular topic was difficult. Just the mention of Jungkook’s name blocked something in your throat, as if there were only certain things you could say about him, and what had happened on the bus last night was not one of them.

“Nothing,” you said sincerely, because those five minutes with him were truly not supposed to hold any significance. “It wasn’t—it’s nothing.”

“Okay,” Luna said, lowering her eyebrows and her voice. “And if we’re serious, then what does it mean?”

You closed your eyes. “It—”

“Hey.” Unexpectedly, Jungkook’s voice rang from the aisle next to you. “Am I interrupting?”

This forced your eyes to shoot open in surprise.

“Oh, speak of the devil,” Maggie muttered with a half-smirk as she pulled back, retreating deeper into her seat. Her eyes were still shining from this seemingly top-secret information that she had to squeeze out of you.

“Huh?” Jungkook looked at the girl behind you. Then, beaming as he realised what she was getting at, he asked, “oh, were you talking about me?”

“Not at all,” you said, locking your tablet and putting it in the back pocket of the seat in front of you. Jungkook wasn’t sure which of his questions you were answering. You asked, “what’s up?”

“It’s Hoseok,” he said. “He’s had a headache since before we boarded. He says he’s fine, but the veins on his temples are very prominent, so I think he could use some medicine.”

You grew visibly alarmed as he spoke, your mind racing through scenarios of what to do. There weren’t a lot of options, considering you were thousands of feet in the air right now.

“He hasn’t taken any?” you asked slowly.

“No,” Jungkook replied. He reminded you, “he says he’s fine.”

You nodded – this was Hoseok in a nutshell. Unless he collapsed abruptly, he was in perfect health.

“Of course,” you said. “Give me a moment, I have Advil in my bag.”

Jungkook patiently waited while you stood up from your aisle seat and grabbed your backpack from the overhead compartment. He was completely unaware of the big grins on Luna and Maggie’s faces as the girls watched him watch you.

They didn’t know why they bothered asking you anything. You were both painfully obvious.

“Here,” you said, handing him the package of medicine. “Maybe I should go over there—”

“I got it. Thanks,” he said with a good-natured smile. After a beat of silence, during which the two of you just watched each other and Luna had to bite her lip to stay quiet, Jungkook added, “get some rest. We have big plans in Amsterdam.”

You raised your eyebrows. “We? As in, you and me?”

You could see Luna through your peripherals, pretending to scratch something near her eye to hide her ridiculous beaming.

“Yes. I made a promise, remember?” Jungkook said.

You didn’t, not right away. Then the taxi ride in Paris returned to your memory.

“Oh, the bikes?” you asked, feeling almost ridiculous now. You had mentioned Amsterdam as a dream destination back then, but you didn’t think he’d consider it important enough to remember. “We don’t have to—”

“We’ll do it,” he cut you off. “I’ll come pick you up from your room when we get to the hotel.”

He made sure to leave you no option to disagree, so, you swallowed and nodded your head. “Okay. Sure.”

He gave Luna a quick smile, nodded at Maggie, then winked at you, and walked past, intentionally bringing his hand over your waist as you stood in the aisle.

You sat down, your skin on fire, but you naively hoped it did not show on your face. Really, it didn’t have to. Luna was, on a certain level, a psychic. Or, at least, hyper-aware of her surroundings. Maggie, on the other hand, just reacted to social cues, albeit not always quickly unless they were obvious. And, this time, they were obvious.

“Romantic,” Luna commented.

“Why bikes?” was Maggie’s addition to the conversation. “I say rent out a carriage. With white horses.”

Luna jumped in, “and white doves!”

“Alright, shut up,” you shot back, shaking your head to fight off another smile as the two girls nodded at each other conspiratorially.

This was ridiculous. But as Luna and Maggie chuckled next to you, you found yourself relaxing as well. They hadn’t scolded you for being unreasonable or evading a decision about Reconnaissance, or behaving stupidly altogether—even though you thought you deserved that. Instead, the girls just seemed excited for you.

Because of their good mood, you couldn’t bring yourself to worry about the meaningfulness of going bike riding after all that had happened on the bus last night.

And, in all truth, you felt excited as well.

As Jungkook unzipped his suitcase in the hotel room he shared with Yoongi—who had already finished unpacking his equipment and had successfully occupied the only desk in the room—he realised two things.

The first was that he hadn’t packed enough black shirts and would have to wear white today, like a—he didn’t even know what. He always wore black.

And the second was that he felt a newfound motivation. Last night, as he returned to his bunk, stumbling over his own feet and thoughts of you, he had felt, simply, deflated. But today was different. He decided that if he were to take anything from last night, it would be this: you didn’t push him away.

And now he couldn’t give up on you.

So, groaning, he changed into a white shirt and glanced at the mirror by the door before leaving. He saw no difference in his appearance as he brought a hand through his hair, letting it fall in shaggy curls over his face. But then as he reached for the bottle of cologne in his toiletry bag, he saw that his hands were shaking. He was nervous.

He could remember an almost identical moment seven years ago when he took you out on your first date, not knowing back then that it would lead to a three-year relationship with a very bitter end.

To be clear, it was the bitter end that he hadn’t foreseen. Because even seven years ago, as he frantically double-checked your dinner reservations with a carefulness that was very unlike him, he knew he wouldn’t go on another first date after that night.

It was funny how he managed to be wrong and right at the same time.

This felt like a first date again. But it was still with you.

Seven years ago, you two had ended up missing your dinner reservations after all, because you’d gone to see a movie first—some romantic drama with a tragic end that you both pretended not to have cried at—and by the time it was over, it had started to rain.

You had tried to run, but you never made it past the park across from the restaurant. You had ended up in a gazebo in a clearing surrounded by willow trees and spent that night listening to the rain and falling in love.

“You okay over there?” Yoongi called out, bringing Jungkook back down from his memories.

“Hmm?” he turned to look at the older member. “Yeah. Why?”

“Been staring at your reflection for the past five minutes,” Yoongi said, taking off his headphones and resting them around his neck. “Is this an existential crisis or something I shouldn’t even bother asking about?”

Jungkook smiled softly. “Probably a little bit of both.”

“Alright.” Yoongi felt himself smile in response. “Stay safe.”

The younger boy nodded, took a deep breath, and glanced at his reflection one last time. Unconsciously, he brought his lip ring between his teeth and held it there for a second, before finally exiting the room.

He walked two doors down and knocked on yours. You opened it almost right away, but his heart still managed to do twelve and a half somersaults while he waited.

And then, as soon as you smiled and opened the door wider, inviting him inside, he could tell he was so fucked that he wasn’t sure if he could even fully grasp the extent of it.

You were wearing a loose pale blue shirt with a dark blue sports bra peeking through, paired with black biker shorts. The outfit seemed fitting for the occasion, but it made him lean against the door frame to avoid losing his balance. His mind was overflowing with thoughts and memories of you, to the point where he was sure they would start leaking if he opened his mouth.

Thankfully, you spoke up first as you went over to grab your backpack—smaller than the one you carried your belongings in during flights—from your bed. He found himself wondering how many bags you’d brought to Europe in a desperate attempt to distract himself from his pestilent memories.

“How’s Hoseok?” you asked.

Somewhere deep in his mind, Jungkook recalled walking the older member to his room when they got to the hotel, because as soon as Hoseok’s headache subsided, he really struggled to stay awake. But now, as he watched you move around the room—literally not doing anything other than gathering your phone and the hotel keycard—Jungkook found himself unable to form a single coherent sentence.

You paused and looked at him questionably.

He figured he’d better speak up instead of standing here like a complete idiot.

“He, uh—he’s—you know, he’s, uh, taking a nap,” he managed to say, mentally kicking himself. He sounded more composed when he wasn’t speaking. He cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his chest to get it together. “He said he’s fine. I think he meant it this time. Some colour returned to his face.”

“That’s good,” you said with a thoughtful nod. “He’s probably tired now. I’ll text him to let me know when he’s awake.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook agreed, listening to you but only half-hearing everything as you walked around your room, looking for something.

You weren’t sharing this room with anyone, but not by choice. Your room happened to be used to store everything that was too dangerous to keep on the bus for several nights during the stop in Amsterdam. 75% of the space here was filled with boxes of instruments and stage clothes.

Now you stood in the very centre of the room and somehow managed to look so effortlessly captivating that Jungkook wouldn’t have noticed if a robber jumped in and carried all the furniture out in comic slow-motion. He brought his hands over his face while you weren’t looking, but it did little to slow his heartbeat down.

“So, anyway,” he said with a strained voice, “are you ready?”

You bit your lip—why, why, why, had he not died enough times since he came here?—as you hesitated. “Yeah, but, as I’ve said before—”

“Then let’s go, please,” he cut you off shakily before you could assure him that he didn’t have to do this.

He thought he did. Although not to win the bet.

He had to do this because he knew you wanted this, and he’d rather throw himself into one of the canals than miss the chance to make at least one of your dreams come true.

He also had to get out of your hotel room, because being in control of himself was starting to seem like a theoretical idea more than an actual mechanism that he could use.

While you locked your room behind you, Jungkook turned to see Sid and Jude exit the elevator at the end of the hallway. Sid noticed him and stopped, punching Jude on the chest to get his attention. Already in the process of swinging back at him, Jude lifted his eyes and caught sight of Jungkook, too. Even from across the hall, Jungkook could see the impressed smiles on their faces when they noticed you next to him.

He looked away immediately, but still felt a sobering sensation in his chest. Once again, he repeated to himself that he wasn’t doing this for the bet.

However, he couldn’t help but doubt if that made any difference. What he was doing now still counted towards winning the bet.

But he knew he didn’t have the strength to avoid you or to justify the bet to himself in any other way. He’d given in last night. And he was barely holding himself together right now.

This was it. He’d made a choice.

It was a choice he should have made four years ago, instead of watching you walk away. Instead of thinking he could drown out the bitterness of you leaving with drinks that Sid, Jude, and Minjun served him.

It was you. It should have always been you.

Fortunately, his friends had already gone to their hotel room when you looked up, so you didn’t have to see them.

And, when the two of you found yourselves alone in the elevator, Sid and Jude were the last thing on Jungkook’s mind.

He felt you glance at him, but avoided meeting your eyes. He kept biting his lip, acutely aware of how long the ride down from the tenth floor should take and all the things that you could do during it.

“White looks good on you,” you commented, looking away from him.

Reflexively, he looked down at his shirt. “You think so?”

“Yeah,” you said. Then, glancing at him again, you added, “somehow brings out your eyes.”

This made his smile ridiculously big, the reaction amplified by the casual tone of your voice. You sounded like you’d just pointed out to someone that their shoes were untied – a helpful observation, nothing more.

“Ah,” he said, unable to resist. “Brings out my eyes, does it?”

You shot him a glare from the corner of your eye.

“I take it back,” you said. “White looks awful on you, never wear it again.”

He laughed, but did not lose his footing as he teased, “well, if it bothers you that much, I can take it off.”

You started to smile—an automatic reaction when you heard him laugh—but then widened your eyes instead.

“Please don’t do that in such a public place,” you said.

The alarm in your voice amused him endlessly. In your defence, you knew him well enough to know that he would actually do it if you challenged him.

“Oh?” he inquired, leaning closer with a playful grin. “Where would you like me to undress for you, then?”

You glanced at him and then very ceremoniously looked away. “That’s n-not what I meant.”

He laughed again and you were relieved when the elevator doors opened in the lobby a moment later, because you were certain that the warmth in your chest was starting to radiate off of you.

Jungkook wanted to rent bicycles for the whole day, but you convinced him that you’d both already be tired after a few hours. He knew you had a point, but he wanted to spend as much time with you as possible and he was fine if bikes were, really, the reason for it.

In the end, you agreed on three hours, which was already too much as both of you began to complain about your thighs hurting after the first hour and a half.

But Amsterdam was beautiful, and it made the ache worth it.

Subtle tinges of decay and dampness, along with the stunning trees, still in miraculous full bloom despite it being mid-September, all tickled your senses as you and Jungkook rode your bikes through the streets of Amsterdam. The canals sparkled on your left while beautiful buildings lined the street on your right, tourists coursing back and forth down the pavement.

The wheel of the bike felt rough against your palms, and you wished you had brought gloves, but the sights, the smells, and even the noise of the crowds made it easier to endure the slight discomfort.

When you caught up to Jungkook, the two of you exchanged a glance. Both of your eyes were glittering, smiles widening, your hair blowing in the wind.

You realised that the sights here looked remarkably like the postcards your uncle had brought you. But being here felt completely different from what you’d expected when you looked at the cards.

Wordlessly, Jungkook smirked and challenged you to a race. Laughing as you sped up to catch up to him again, you took a deep breath and closed your eyes for just a second, savouring it all.

The feeling in your chest right now was something you could never capture in a postcard to bring home.

Another hour later, the two of you returned your bicycles and Jungkook persuaded you to get some ice cream. You had to agree. At that point, you were tired and a little dizzy, and the sun was too bright to do anything but attempt to cool yourselves down.

You sat down on a bench by the canal and Jungkook noticed the almost constant smile on your face. He felt a surge of ideas of all that he could do in hopes of making you smile like this again.

“Did you ever think we’d be here?” he asked after a minute, looking back at the canal. “You and me.”

You looked at him. “What do you mean? In Amsterdam?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Back in university. When you used to look at those postcards above your desk, did you ever imagine us being here?”

You blinked, surprised once again by how much of your conversation in Paris and how much of your life from four years ago he remembered.

“You remember the postcards,” you said softly.

“Of course,” he said, suddenly turning solemn. “I’m sorry I never asked what they meant to you.”

“No, it’s—” you stopped in the middle of shaking your head. Then chose to just answer his previous question instead, “I don’t know. Back then, I think I imagined us everywhere.”

He smiled as he adjusted to the irregular beating of his heart. It was a new constant when he was with you. And it was a health hazard, he knew. And still, he’d missed it.

“Was I in a band in your imagination?” he asked.

“Absolutely not,” you said, pausing while he laughed so hard that he nearly doubled over. You didn’t think your response deserved this reaction, but it drew a smile from you regardless. “And I wasn’t your manager. We were normal people, doing normal things.”

He stopped laughing and looked at you, a slight furrow in his brow. “Wait. Are we not?”

You gave him a look. “Are we?”

“Why not?” he asked with a shrug as he took a bite of his waffle cone before the ice cream could fully melt. “Who’s to say what’s normal?”

You continued to watch him, several classes of statistics and standard deviation under your belt. “Do you want an honest answer?”

“No,” Jungkook said without hesitation. He looked ahead as he spoke, “I like to think that ‘being normal’ is just a construct.”

“Well, it is, but—”

“Don’t do it,” he interrupted. “If you mention statistics, I will—respectfully—toss you right into that canal.” He was the one who paused here as your smile widened at his threat. After a moment, he continued, “let me romanticise this. In my head, we are normal people.”

You agreed with a noncommittal shake of your head. “Okay, sure.”

“To be honest,” he said then, “I never imagined us here.”

“No?”

“In my mind, we were always in our little world. The campus, our dorms, our family homes,” he explained, gesturing with his hand as he listed the places that the two of you had spent years in. “That’s as far as I imagined us.”

You swallowed an unexpected lump in your throat and felt it go down heavily, catching on your trachea, stumbling around your lungs, and forcing you to clear your throat as you still tasted something bitter on your tongue.

It was a nice day. You didn’t want to rip open old wounds and pour salt on them just to see what would happen.

“Well, you’re not far off,” you said, brushing invisible dust off your shorts and focusing on your ice cream for a moment before you added, “that’s as far as we went.”

Jungkook sensed the discomfort in your words, but did not understand the cause.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “We’re here, aren’t we? The furthest I imagined us was, maybe, 100 kilometres south of your mum’s house. By the sea. And now we’re in fucking Amsterdam.”

He was right, you’d made it so far. But even though you felt your shoulders relax a little, you still insisted, “it’s different now.”

“How is it different?” he questioned further.

“Well, for one, we’re not in university anymore,” you said obviously enough. “No campus to come back to.”

“Bless that. I wouldn’t want to go back now.”

“And we’re not together anymore.”

Cringing at the unnecessary addition, Jungkook managed to say, “but we are.”

You looked down as you finished your ice cream and kicked some pebbles with the soles of your sneakers. “You know what I mean.”

“I know,” he replied, not giving up as he looked at you for a moment before stumbling a bit quietly, a bit awkwardly, “but, um. We are together. Still.”

You lifted your eyes to meet his, but looked away after barely a minute, frightened by how much of your shared history you could see there.

You couldn’t do this. Five minutes in the dark bus, with no one but the two of you in your bunk, was one thing. You could pretend it didn’t mean anything, even though his taste still lingered in your mouth.

But this conversation was not something that you could pretend to forget in five minutes. This was four years of silence. Of locked doors, deleted pictures, and wet pillowcases.

Four years of forced solitude, tall, thick walls, and strict boundaries.

Some of them you’d crossed.

But now you were here. And you couldn’t cross this one. You couldn’t reminisce with him while ignoring the weight of your break-up.

Exhaling, you pursed your lips. “You know what? You’re right. We’re as together now as we were back then.”

Jungkook felt his muscles stiffen. The last bites of his ice cream were completely tasteless.

“What—what is that supposed to mean?” he asked, not blinking as he watched you.

He was cold all of a sudden, he realised. Sitting right under the warm sun of September, and shivering. He suspected that ice cream had very little to do with this.

“You know what it means,” you replied, unaware of how much your vague response affected him because you did not look at him.

It felt like he was speeding down the streets of Amsterdam on his bicycle, and suddenly, someone poked a stick into the wheel, forcing him to fly off the bike and land on something very sharp. Something very confusing. Very painful.

“No,” he said slowly. “I don’t think I do.”

You looked up finally, more out of confusion than anything else. You weren’t sure if he was pretending, playing another stupid game, or if he genuinely did not understand.

He was watching you with a frown, clenching his jaw harder with each passing second that you did not respond. He genuinely did not understand.

“It means,” you said, “that this was what our dates used to be like. Like two co-workers trying to have a meaningful conversation.”

Jungkook didn’t know which word to react to first: ‘co-workers’ or ‘trying’, so he just went quiet.

“And, at what point in our relationship,” he asked after a minute, “did you figure that was how you felt?”

You heard the bitterness in his voice and felt your irritation grow. He had some audacity to question you like this after the way your relationship ended.

“It wasn’t how I felt,” you said, nearly spitting the word out. “It’s how it was.”

He scoffed. “Don’t try to make this objective. It’s clearly just your own perception.”

Your eyebrows rose involuntarily, your heart reacting to his words before your mind could.

“How could it be?” you argued, clearly in disbelief that he had a different point of view. “We barely talked. The longest conversation we had, at that point, was when you had to describe the fucking police station that you were in after you got arrested.”

“At what point?” he asked again, frustration even more evident in his voice.

“I don’t know,” you shot back, exasperated. “A few months before we broke up, maybe? We weren’t spending any time together anymore. And if we were, then your asshole friends were there with us. Everyone who knew us could tell we were going to break up eventually.”

Looking away, Jungkook squeezed his lips together, running his tongue over the inside of his teeth. His entire body seemed to go numb and then suddenly tense up again.

He didn’t know how you got here, how you reached this conversation, but he had a vague feeling that you were meant to talk about this sooner or later.

It wasn’t easy, though. He had to force himself to keep looking at you, force himself to speak, to say the things he’d only managed to put into song lyrics until this point.

“I couldn’t,” he finally said.

You frowned. “What?”

“I couldn’t tell,” he said, a self-deprecating expression on his face. He continued speaking while intentionally gazing into the distance, “you may find that shocking to believe, but until the day you said we shouldn’t be together anymore, I thought we were in love.”

“You literally just said that you could barely imagine us outside of my mum’s house,” you retorted.

“That’s because I never wanted us to be anywhere else!” he snapped, looking at you with a level of anger that you’d never seen in all the years you’d known him. “I liked what we had.”

“We had nothing!” you argued, your hands in the air. Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed some tourists doing double-takes as they walked by. You were far too engrossed in the conversation to control your volume. “You went out every night and caused a scene every time you brought your friends over. You went along with them when they tried to kill themselves drag racing, despite my protests. You didn’t even—”

“I named my car after you!” Jungkook interjected, even though the car wasn’t, technically, his. It had been a gift from Sid, so all of his friends could race together, but he thought his point still stood. He used the car, and he wanted it to have your name.

“Right,” you acknowledged his—largely pointless—interruption, “and I’m sure that would have been very meaningful if you hadn’t crashed it on your first fucking drive. Like I told you that you would.”

“Yeah, well.” He moved his jaw, poking his cheek with his tongue. “At least I loved you until the very end.”

That was a lie, the past tense he’d used. But he looked at you and the fire in your eyes intimidated him. He knew you wouldn’t believe him if he told you he’d never stopped being in love with you.

“For your information, I didn’t break up with you because I stopped loving you,” you said with an angry huff. Your following explanation seemed to rip the bandages you’d carefully glued on the gaping wounds in your chest. “I broke up with you because I felt like you stopped loving me.”

He felt a sudden chill, and—immediately—frostbite. As though he’d gone out dancing in a blizzard the night before, and the blood in his veins had frozen, a bewildering cold gripping his chest.

You thought he had stopped loving you.

Jungkook swallowed hard as he listened and couldn’t open his mouth to reply. Couldn’t lift his eyes off the ground.

He didn’t know how long he stayed completely still, alternating between seemingly looking at himself from the outside, and listening to the deafening screeching inside of his mind.

He was paralysed when he felt you stand up from the bench. When he saw your shadow move away and, eventually, disappear.

You hadn’t said another word and he remembered how familiar this feeling was.

He remembered standing in his dorm room, speechless and angry with himself, after you stormed out because he had told you he already had plans; he was going out with Sid, Jude, and Minjun again—racing. Or drinking. Or one after the other, not necessarily in the same order.

Maybe you were right.

He had stopped acting like your boyfriend long before he actually stopped being one.

Because the two of you had wordlessly agreed to never discuss your relationship or your break-up again, four years have passed without any closure whatsoever—and only now he realised that he wasn’t the one who was hurt.

He realised how much he’d hurt you.

All this time, he was insecure about the end of your relationship because you were the one who broke up with him. You were the one who left.

He never looked for reasons within himself. He stupidly, blindly, thought he hadn’t done anything that warranted this. He thought you just didn’t want him anymore. He thought these things happened sometimes.

He never thought he was the one who made that happen.

He didn’t know what he was doing now.

How could he even attempt to get back together with you without making up for his mistakes? Making up for his unforgivable ignorance?

He’d apologise—he’d have to, he could feel his entire skin itching the longer he sat there, not looking for you—but would it mean anything, if you didn’t believe that he changed?

Had he changed?

He was sitting here, alone, after all. Because of a bet that he’d made with the same people who broke you up the first time.

Suddenly, Jungkook looked up. He knew how to answer all of his questions.

He had to act, first of all, instead of passively regretting everything he’d done and hadn’t done.

“The bet is over,” Jungkook declared as soon as he threw open the door of Sid’s hotel room, not bothering to knock.

He wanted to get back together with you, without any underlying conditions, secrets, or bets.

Just you and him.

All three of his friends were here and they were, understandably, surprised. Although Minjun’s shock quickly turned into pride—and Jungkook felt his heart flutter. He needed this.

“What?” Jude asked, poking his head out of Sid’s bathroom and sniffling before he brought his hand over his nose. “You’re back together?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jungkook replied firmly. “I’m not doing this anymore.”

Sid walked out of the bathroom next—Jungkook had no interest in what they were doing in there—with some sort of a mix of a smirk and a scowl on his face.

“Well, you can’t just decide that,” he said, wiping his hands on a towel even though they seemed dry, “can you?”

“Uh, yes, I can,” Jungkook argued, feeling foolish to be having this conversation. It seemed as silly now as it had before, when he had returned from Paris and Sid forcefully prolonged the bet. “I made the bet—”

“We made it, too,” Sid cut him off, his voice stern. He treated this like a legitimate deal, a legally binding contract almost. “And we don’t think it can be over just because you’re afraid of losing.”

“I’m not afraid of losing,” he said and for a moment, he was surprised to realise that he truly meant it. His bike seemed so trivial when compared to all that he could lose if he won it back. “I’m just not fucking doing this with you anymore.”

“Well, then you lose by default,” Sid shrugged. “I keep the bike.”

“Actually, we keep the—” Jude was interjecting, but Jungkook took a large step towards Sid, stopping just inches from his face. It caused Jude to stop talking immediately.

“You don’t keep anything,” Jungkook snarled, emphasising every syllable, despite seeing how little it meant to Sid. “If the bet is over, there’s no winners or losers.”

“But the bet isn’t over,” Sid countered with a self-assured grin. “Not unless all involved parties agree to it. Right, Minjun?”

Jungkook glanced at the only remaining person in this room.

Minjun sounded uncomfortable as he began, “well, to be honest—”

“Careful now,” Sid cut in sharply. “You’re supposed to enforce the rules of the bet.”

Of course, what he really meant was, you’re supposed to obey me.

Jungkook saw Minjun hesitate.

“Look, man, it’s a bet,” he said. Jungkook felt himself exhale in immeasurable relief. He had someone on his side. He had a friend. Minjun continued, “it’s literally just a game. If he doesn’t want to do it anymore, then—”

“Then tough shit, isn’t it?” Sid’s tone was menacing. “Considering he’s going to have to do it anyway.”

“It was stupid—”

Sid was so indecently unfazed that he was practically inviting a punch in the face as he replied, “he shouldn’t have agreed to it if it was stupid.”

His sneer made Jungkook perk up.

“I didn’t agree to shit. It was you—” he started to say, then cut himself off. He did agree to it. But he couldn’t help but still feel manipulated. Tricked.

Likely for the first time in his life, Jungkook could see—with bitter clarity—that these people were bad for him. But he’d called them friends for so long, he’d done so much with them, never really facing any long-term consequences, that he never even questioned it.

Until now.

Until he realised that there was a long-term consequence to his friendship with Sid: your break-up.

“I’m not doing this,” Jungkook finally finished.

“Not doing what?” Sid asked with a laugh that seemed louder than usual, strengthened by whatever he’d done in the bathroom before he got interrupted. “If you back out, you lose. The bike goes to me—”

“And me,” Jude interjected. Jungkook was this close to knocking them both out, but he knew it’d bring him exactly zero extra points with his band or with you.

“—what’s not clear to you about this?” Sid finished, ignoring Jude and the glare on Jungkook’s face.

“I won the first bet,” Jungkook hissed, “so the bike is, technically, mine, but that’s—”

“Technically, you didn’t,” Sid interrupted, pouting to convey fake-pity. “And you won’t win this one, either. That’s clearly why you’re trying so hard to get out of this. It’s what you do. You never fight if you see that you won’t immediately succeed.”

It stung – because he knew that Sid was right. But it also felt unfair, because Sid was the one who made it impossible for Jungkook to succeed at anything unless he excelled at it on the first try. Sid simply couldn’t voluntarily surround himself with people who were better than him, so he put in great effort to make sure they weren’t.

“I’m not—I’m just realising how fucking immature you are,” Jungkook retorted, trying to control the volume of his voice as he knew his frustration only benefitted Sid.

Sid laughed and leaned in even closer—his nose nearly brushed against Jungkook. Once again, he felt irritated that despite barely being shorter than Sid, he was still treated like the last living hobbit.

“Oh, the little baby thinks I’m immature because he realises that we’re not here to cater to his wishes,” Sid taunted. If the edges of Jungkook’s vision weren’t so red, he might have pointed out the irony to him; Sid was the one who made a living by forcing people to favour him. “Maybe you should have considered that before making the bet. You’ve never won against me. And you never will.”

“Sid,” Minjun cut in again. “Let it go. You can have your fun at someone else’s expense.”

He pulled something out of his pocket, and Jungkook’s breath caught in his throat when he recognised the keys to his Katana. Sid had a similar reaction, except his surprise quickly turned to disdain.

Who does he think he is, Sid’s scorn seemed to be asking, to defy me?

“You might want to think twice about it, Minjun,” Sid said out loud, his voice dangerously calm. He pulled away from Jungkook to give Minjun a warning look. “You think this is a funny little game, but I bet it won’t be so funny when it has very real consequences.”

Jungkook turned his head in time to witness Minjun’s face drain of colour, but he couldn’t comprehend this reaction—not in a way that made sense, at least. His only assumption was outrageous.

Would Sid really take this so far? Would he really exaggerate the significance of this bet so much?

“What—what is he talking about?” Jungkook asked Minjun. “Your parents?”

Minjun simply hung his head, his knuckles turning white from the force of his grip on the keys in his hand. He didn’t say anything, and Jungkook knew it was true.

Sid was threatening Minjun’s family—the jobs of his parents, both of whom depended on Sid’s mother. Without her, they would still have enough money to survive, even keep and maintain all of their real estate, but Sid’s mother had the power to blacklist them from the industry. And she would, Jungkook knew. She’d do anything for her only child.

Sid was using Minjun’s parents as leverage for something as stupid as a fucking bet that Minjun did not even make. A bet that was never supposed to even get this far.

That was the point he was proving.

Jungkook narrowed his eyes. He recognised what this was really about, these tireless attempts to establish superiority.

Sid was the great-grandson of one of the top conglomerates in the country. The only downside to his life was that his inheritance came from his mother’s side of the family. As a result, he was taken less seriously among his family—because the Old Money world that he lived in functioned only within their favourite -isms: sexism and racism.

Sid was no one in the eyes of his relatives. So, he was going to do everything to make sure he was someone here.

“That’s what I thought,” Sid barked at Minjun’s submissive silence. He turned to Jungkook. “So, what��s it going to be? You admit your defeat now, or do you want to delay it? I’m generous enough to wait. I know I’ll win in the end. I always do.”

He always had a point to prove to an audience that listened. And his audience was here, in this room.

But Jungkook was done listening.

“You know what?” he said. He glanced at Minjun—who stood there helplessly and miserably—before looking back at Sid and spitting, “I’m not going to fucking entertain you anymore. Fuck you.”

Without waiting for either of them to respond, Jungkook stormed out of Sid’s room, slamming the door behind him. He didn’t even consider the possible complaints from other hotel guests who probably heard him throw the door open fifteen minutes ago, and then leave again in an equally furious manner.

Blind to everything around him, he marched over to your room and knocked on your door before he lost the angry courage.

He needed you. He’d always had.

You appeared surprised when you opened the door and saw him in the hall.

“Hey,” he said, looking somehow very small, despite his frame filling the entire doorway. “Can I come in? We should talk.”

You watched him for a minute.

The two of you had just had your first fight about your relationship since you started working together and decided to leave everything that had happened between you in the past.

Neither of you knew if this argument was a good thing (closure?) or a bad thing (a final fight in your long list of fights).

But maybe today had to be the day you found out.

“Yeah,” you decided, stepping aside to let him in. “We should.”

chapter title credits: bad omens, “the letdown”

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#jungkook x reader #jungkook angst #jungkook fluff #jungkook smut #jungkook fanfiction #jungkook fanfic #jungkook fic #bts x reader #bts fanfiction #bts angst #bts fluff #rockstar jungkook #rockstar bts #jungkook au #bts au #jungkook x you #bts fanfic #bts fic #bts x you

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victoriadallonfan · 28 days

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I saw a really funny meme about Victoria’s interaction with Gong, and it made me think…

There’s probably a LOT of unexplored potential in bias and prejudice against Cauldron capes, right?

What kind of micro aggressions can form due to this? How does it interact with capes in the same team, politically?

For context:

- Dying 15.3

Victoria gives a pretty well explained summary of Shaker-Movers, helping to explain why the cape is acting like she has PTSD (which is why Vic’s orders work and Gong’s didn’t), and Gong’s simple response is that she is a Cauldron cape.

Ergo, she wouldn’t have these issues like “real” capes. Right? Victoria wants to argue against it, but she has no real proof of this. She has theories but that’s all they are. Theories.

But WE know the truth. Victoria is correct in that vial capes get powers based off of their personality and mental states!

Battery was a passionate and fiery person who uses memories of staying calm, using breathing techniques from her past to help her manage her fear and pain, which gave her the power to become untouchable so long as she forces herself to remain calm and unmoving to charge up.

Newter was insensate with pain, delirious, and his body torn apart when given his vial, and he gained a body that deals with damage, heals, and induces delirium in others.

Sveta was trapped, torn to shreds, skin peeling off in ribbons and trapped metaphorically in a body that wasn’t right for her. She was given ribbons that could get her out of danger, that would provide and protect her with minds of their own, and a body that was what she wanted while still not being hers.

And WB did a great breakdown of the travelers:

There’s more to explore like how Alexandria had a desire to remain young, a mind foggy from drugs and a body sensitive to pain etc etc, but the gist is that cauldron capes DO have power issues related to what they can do. And according to Battery, they experience mind boggling amounts of pain with each drink of a vial.

However…

Would non-cauldron capes even care?

When Taylor learns about cauldron capes, her first reaction is disgust that these people didn’t earn their powers. That they didn’t suffer like REAL Parahumans did.

Even Victoria is offended when she learns Dean was a cauldron cape, as the intimacy of sharing their trigger events was seen as the next step of their relationship.

When Legend explains how they all should have had trigger events, but didn’t, it falls on deaf ears. No one responds to him and Taylor doesn’t give his words much thought at all.

And why should they? Cauldron capes are liars. They’ve been lying all this time. Nothing they say could be taken at face value. Eidolon could give a huge public speech about being born disabled, suffering from seizures, and his suicide attempts… and it would mean nothing.

He LIED to them about his origins. An unspoken rule has been broken. He didn’t suffer enough to earn his powers.

It’s interesting to me that the Undersiders nor Breakthrough had someone who was a voluntary cauldron cape. Sveta was an advocate for C53’s and hated Legend for being part of Cauldron, but we don’t hear her thoughts on people who simply bought powers. Taylor never knew Accord and Citrine were Cauldron until the very end.

I don’t know how to end this, but his line sticks out to me:

- Blinding 11.5

#parahumans #wildbow #ward #ward web serial #worm #wardblr #victoria dallon #antares #glory girl #wormblr #worm web serial

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heliocharis · 2 years

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Left My Friend’s Body Outside the Mithraeum: One New Zealander’s account of the New Zealand stuff in Nona the Ninth

A few points before we begin:

I’ve quoted everything out of context, but probably don’t read this if you don’t want to be spoiled for the book.

I’m just one person (a Pākehā North Islander millennial, for context), but hopefully I caught most of it. Please tell me if you see anything I missed!

If you see something and think, ‘Tumblr user junozeta, why have you included this piece of information when it is very easily Google-able,’ it’s for the sake of completeness.

Kia ora!

Dramatis personae

Stop It, name assumed, lies under counter at dairy, red colour, big sized, four legs

Dairy: A corner store.

John 20:8

Dilworth. Otago. Auckland. Overseas to Corpus. (She likes the word corpus; it sounds nice and fat.) Then another year abroad, where he got the grant and met the men who would make things happen. Special pleading with the New Zealand government and Asia-Pacific Environmental, at his suggestion, then back to the facility outside Greytown.

Here John is reciting his credentials. Dilworth is a private boys’ boarding school in Auckland. (ETA: Please see this reblog by sixth-light for better context.) Auckland and Otago will be referring to the universities, which are notably the only two in NZ with medical schools. I will add that having studied more in NZ than overseas does not afford you a lot of prestige.

Greytown is a small town (population 2,720 as of 2021) in the lower North Island, near Wellington. (I note here that Trentham, the presumptive namesake of the Second House’s Trentham, is also near Wellington, as is Maymorn, which Tamsyn Muir has said Mercymorn was originally named after.)

Chapter 1

“Is that pikelet mix?” she said.

Pikelet: Like a pancake, but smaller and denser.

Palamedes stood like he was playing a game of Hot Chocolate and the tagger was looking right at him. Hot Chocolate was in fashion with her friends at the moment and Nona wanted to get really good at it.

Putting this here to state for the record that I’m not familiar with Hot Chocolate as a name for a game of that kind. (ETA: An anon was, though, as a different name for Red Light, Green Light. See, not all of NZ is the same.)

I’ve met leaders like Unjust Hope before.

“Unjust Hope” could be from “The Ikons” by James K. Baxter, a famous New Zealand poet.

John 5:20

He said, It was the last one that was getting to me. I knew all those bodies by name. Funny to say, but they were my mates, you know? I’d worked on them for such a long time, and they’d given us so much, and now they were going to get dumped in some concrete skip because after what we’d done to them they couldn’t be cremated or buried safely. I hated that.

Mates: Friends. Classic Kiwi.

Skip: A dumpster.

I didn’t have to worry about the public or the media—we had a pet cop, P—. She’d made detective by that point; was going on to big things in the MoD.

MoD: Probably self-explanatory, but Ministry of Defence.

We only had the demo cans; the mass-produced ones were made in a Five Eyes factory in Shenzhen.

Five Eyes: A surveillance alliance between NZ, Australia, the UK, the US, and Canada. As of 2022, not actively military, nor ostensibly involved with China. Much to think about.

I went around to everyone, talking to my favourites—I know it was weird having favourites, but let’s bloody face it, I’d gone weird—not even saying goodbye, just saying it’ll be fine, hang on for me, kia kaha, kia māia.

Kia kaha, kia māia: Well-known Māori phrase meaning “be strong, be brave”.

John 15:23

You wouldn’t believe how stupid guys get over compliments on our looks, I was vain as.

Vain as: “[adjective] as” is a classic Kiwi way to say that something is extremely [adjective].

P— said I looked like a Māori TV Pink Panther.

Māori TV: Worth noting here that this is a TV channel, and not a generic reference.

Someone’s Honda. Someone’s Mazda. Someone’s four-wheel drive. Someone’s shed. A Macca’s sign.

Shed: A garage.

Macca’s: McDonald’s.

A— and M— moved in with me, and G— set up outside; he was sleeping in his ute. C— was staying with N—, long days. She left us early in the morning and came back the next day with sausage rolls for breakfast.

Ute: A pickup truck. (Short for “utility vehicle”.)

Sausage rolls: A classic NZ food.

You hear all the cicadas in the grass, you hear the dogs in the next town over barking. You hear the moreporks in the trees and the possums skittering over shed roofs.

Morepork: A native owl (Ninox novaeseelandiae).

Possums: Worth noting that NZ has the Australian kind (Trichosurus vulpecula).

He was the bravest dog I’d ever met. Half Chihuahua, half pug. Nan called him Ulysses S. Grunt.

Maybe worth noting here that “Grant” and “Grunt” are pronounced much more alike in an NZ accent than they would be in a North American one.

Chapter 9

Cam ducked into a bakery and came out with a warm and probably radioactive paper bag of pastries that had been under the bakery light the whole time.

Almost certainly a reference to this iconic cultural moment.

She had already got her towel and the old shirt she used to swim in—much easier to go naked, but the others had all objected to this, and Cam had said it would make her a sniper target—and her jandals, and then after masks were tied and hats put on they walked to the beach in the low dusk.

Jandals: Flip-flops. Classic Kiwi.

“I’d give Palamedes the hiding of his fucking life if he wasn’t renting an ass with you.”

Hiding: A beating.

John 5:18

They were lying head-to-head, their eyes aimed at the right part of the sky to see, or in this case not see, the Southern Cross.

Southern Cross: The constellation on the NZ flag. Known formally as, of course, Crux.

There was so much to figure out. But I’d got a dream team on tap, eh? People who could think. C—’s N—, she was on board. C— was still pretending they weren’t dating—she was an artist, so that was cool. If you have two scientists and an engineer and a detective and a lawyer and an artist you’re pretty much sweet as.

Eh: We tend to end sentences with this quite a lot (though of course it’s not just us).

Sweet as: “all good”. Classic Kiwi.

Back then we thought maybe there was something about the ground, something about our particular patch in the Wairarapas, but if we loaded up the ute with a bunch of bodies and looked out for the cops we could do the same thing anywhere else.

The Wairarapas: The region of NZ where Greytown is located. This is an informal way to refer to it, its proper name being the Wairarapa.

“Is that pikelets, Pyrrha? You’re a legend.”

Calling someone a legend to express approval, while not new, has become deeply entrenched in the local consciousness over the last decade or so, thanks to a recognisable anti-drink driving campaign. (If you’ve heard of the “ghost chips” ad, it’s one of those.)

Chapter 12

Crown Him with Many Crowns Thy Full Gallant Legions He Found It in Him to Forgive

He Found It in Him to Forgive: Lyrics from a classic NZ song, “Dominion Road” by The Mutton Birds.

“Why does Pash hate us so much?”

Worth noting here that “pash” (both a noun and a verb) is slang for making out.

John 8:1

You’ve got a wizard out in the wop-wops who’s now got blanket bans from nearly every video upload site and a whole bunch of people have entered the country because of his YouTube channel, the government isn’t all, Love that small-business entrepreneur spirit.

The wop-wops: The middle of nowhere. Often just “the wops”.

Didn’t mention that I’d only gone to Parachute ’cause of the underage drinking.

Parachute: A Christian music festival that existed from 1992 to 2014.

She’d won medals for competition shooting back north in Hamilton, but we’re not talking Jesse James. We’re talking Hamilton.

Hamilton: A city in the North Island (it’s the next city south of Auckland) which it is nationally popular to disparage, especially if you’re from Auckland (this is mutual).

Chapter 16

Crown Prince Kiriona Gaia

Kiriona: Transliteration of “Gideon” into te reo Māori.

“It can’t be my blood. It must be someone else’s. Maybe it’s tomato sauce.”

Pretty throwaway, this one, but when she says tomato sauce this is the kind I think of.

Chapter 18

“Whew!” said Nona. “Is the classroom munted?”

Munted: Busted, fucked up.

John 5:1

There was a lot of it, but we had a lot of people who needed a feed. We sat there with the window cracked so G— could hear us while he manned the barbie, which in the dark gets unwholesome as hell, and we ate off paper plates, and I told them …

A feed: A meal.

Barbie: I think this one should be easy.

He said, Which just goes to show that only getting to NCEA Level 2 isn’t going to stop you making waves in life, right. You can still eat steak, talk to wizards, and take down the government.

NCEA Level 2: This is the qualification you get in your second-to-last year of high school (typically at age 16, which is the age at which you can leave school), and has historically been the minimum you need for university entrance.

This is fairly easy to infer anyway, but John et al. being young enough to have done NCEA (it was introduced in the early 2000s) and old enough to have gone to Parachute to underage drink tells you pretty soundly that they’re millennials.

John 3:20

He said, So I went to the governments that were still sympathetic, sort of, like ours, and all the Trans-Pacifics, and we threw down our evidence.

Probably referring to the TPP.

Not only that, they looked at us and were like, We were going to put you fellas in jail, weren’t we?

Pronounce this as “fullas”, with the U as in “up”.

John 9:22

A bunch of the guys were her old coworkers—guys she’d gone through training with in Porirua, beer buddies.

Porirua: A small city near Wellington.

John 1:20

He said, So here’s us, planning to meet these agents in neutral territory, across the ditch, over in the huddle where the Territory refugees were.

The ditch: The Tasman Sea.

But they weren’t only aggro about G—, they were aggro that a nuke might go off and kill a couple million people. I was like, Guys, it’s fine, they’re Australian.

There’s a rivalry.

John 5:4

Like those old power-washing ads. Spray and walk away, right?

A very recognisable series of ads.

(End of post! If you have learned anything, I’ll be stoked.)

#this is what i was put on earth for #nona the ninth #nona the ninth spoilers #the locked tomb #locked tomb originals

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almostwisegalaxy · 1 year

Text

The glory

Ha Do Young x reader

Part 1

Year 2019

three years before the series

"Don't you want to get revenge too?"

Moon Dong Eun and I have known each other for eight years now. At that time, I had lied about my age to work in the factory and have a roof over my head. When she found out, she didn't try to tell the manager as I feared.

She looked at me with her usual look and said, "It's brave for someone your age to work in a factory, but this is not a game. Make yourself small and work hard to leave this place.

After that, I started to like her. She never approached me, but she would stand up for me when I got in trouble. And for the 14 year old I was admirable

Because of her reserved personality, I didn't want to stick to her and bother her. Instead, when I noticed that she was starving herself, I would steal some bread and canned salmon from the storeroom and leave it next to her whenever she was studying late. The day she left, she had left me a note that said < when you get out of here, come see me and I did. Today, we have grown so close that I call her big sister.

"While I was away, they set their sights on you. There are no causes without consequences y/n . I will make jeon jae joon pay for what he did to you but for that you must give me your help.

"Dong Eun you know that I don't want to see him or his gang again. I just want to be away from all this.

"Don't you want to avenge your son? How can you tell him to walk with his head high in the streets if his own mother is always walking with the fear of running into her criminals again? "

After hesitating at first, he replied, "What should I do?

"I will give you an identity thing and you have to seduce Park Yeon Jin's husband.

2022

Ha Do Young pov

I walk in the newly opened Go park. My first goal was to play with someone who would like to play with me, but given the early hour I quickly drop the idea. Instead I decide to take a walk and soon I'm rambling about my problems.

Lately I have more and more suspicions that ye-sol might not be my daughter but jeon jae joon's. No matter how many times I think about it, I can't bring myself to do it. I love this child too much to give her away.

So I continue in my devaluations without really taking notice of what is happening around me until I hit a person and felt an intense burning in my stomach.

"Excuse me. Being in a hurry I wasn't really looking where I was going and you were in my way. It's nothing your fault of course".

Look at the agitated young woman in front of me who was trying to make amends as best she could

"The tea must be burning you sorry. Wipe yourself with this" she said, handing me a pocket towel. I gladly took it.

"It's early and I've already ruined your blouse. I apologize for that.

"It's nothing.

"Please send the dry cleaning bill to this address. "

She handed me a card which I took before continuing

"Excuse me again but I have to go or I'll be late" she said bowing in politeness and left

Funny woman. I threw the card and went to change. Fortunately I have a change of clothes.

Y/n pov

Yeon jin what will you feel when you see the burn on your dear husband's belly. The same place where your and jae joon marked me with oil?

________________

It was my lunch break so I went out of the hospital in which I work at the general medicine station to have some tea and sushi and change the air. The tea here is much better than the one in the hospital.

I wonder what my son is doing at this hour. I would like to spend lunch with him but it is impossible. I take a sip of my drink when someone calls out to me

"I nodded too quickly to see who it was.

"I apologize for disturbing you during your meal.

Ah Ha Do Young. How surprising that my prey comes to me alone

"You are the man from Go Park, I recognize you. Sorry again about your shirt.

"About that you told me to send you the bill but I misplaced your card.

Aren't you rich enough to pay for the dry cleaning yourself?

"Oh, I see," I said as I slid a new business card towards him.

"When you didn't contact me I thought you had forgotten about me.

"Oh no. It's not every day that people with such an atypical appearance as you have in Samyong.

This comment I received a ton of times for good or bad. Being a black skinned woman with frizzy blond hair is not easy in Korea (of course you can change the appearance of y/n)

"Don't take it the wrong way of course".

When I didn't react he must have thought I was offended

"Not at all. Being Melanesian in Korea sometimes has these advantages I stand out easily in a crowd".

"But I guess you didn't take your time just to talk to me about money, did you?"

"You're right. I realized that I didn't know the name of the one who had me throw away a new shirt early in the morning.

I'm kidding of course."

"Yu In-soon" I said and held out my hand.

"Ha Do Young" and he'll hold my hand in return.

"My pose is ending soon. See you again Mr. Ha".

"Likewise Miss Yu"

Part2:

#the glory #lee do hyun #kdrama #park yeon jin #Ju Yeo-jeong #Moon Dong Eun #Ha Do Young #Ha Do Young x reader #the glory x reader #netflix #the glory kdrama

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maxwell-grant · 7 months

Note

Any thoughts on AKI in SF6?

I haven't had a chance to play the game yet and I might do a more thorough look into the newcomers after I do sit through World Tour, but yeah I got some AKI thoughts. Holy shit what a design. Top 15-20 in the series, it is one hell of a different thing to watch it animated by the character's personality and moveset and vibe. We expected some FANG-isms, some Juri-isms, but certainly not that. We expected a cold, even generic assassin, not someone who merrily treats the penal code like a list of chores.

It was pretty funny seeing the reaction to her develop from "oh she's FANG's apprentice, okay I guess, not sure anyone was asking for that", to "is she the new Juri, she's got a really similar vibe", to "holy shit Juri's got NOTHING on her". In reaction to her popularity, SF6 had been doing a lot of great character work on Juri that, while making her much more developed and entertaining as a character (cringe failgirl Juri was such a revelation) and dramatically more interesting as a person, also really limits the extent to which she can be a straight-up villain anymore. Much like how FANG was designed to fill the void left by Sagat, AKI here crashed the scene to fill the void left by Juri, and so she gets to be not just completely 100% horrible (where as Juri is like, 70-80% horrible), but also SCARY in a way Juri never could be. She gets so, so much out of not being designed for sex appeal and coolness first and foremost, she's like the D'Vorah to Juri's Mileena.

She's a horrible, predatory character, and much like Marisa, I don't think she would have been allowed at all to exist the way she does had she debuted prior (you just know they would have not given her those sick ass pants or given her a different haircut or a cleavage window or something stupid like that). The development team for V repeteadly stated that there were ideas for a new assassin apprentice character related to Gen thrown around and that some of those made their way into FANG and Seth, and AKI is the end result of that very long refinement process. She's the resident freakshow character in the tradition started by Blanka and Dhalsim, and she's the outrageous over-the-top counterpoint to the more traditional martial arts like Chun-Li or even Jamie (much like Adon, or Necro). She's the understudy of the kung fu assassin villain, and in a way akin to Menat she's the young new apprentice of a prior character who acts as a stand-in for that character on the roster and driven to prove her worth before said character, while also being a modern do-over of said character.

(And for the record I actually like FANG quite a bit, a lot more than most of the other V characters. He played like garbage and his execution was lacking and couldn't make up for a terrible first impression in the fanbase, but the design and character and concept I thought were very solid and I'm glad AKI shows they didn't give up on it but took steps to improve on it, I'm glad to see him again in 6).

She breaks new ground for the series by leaning strongly into a horror wraith vibe no other character had before, and she's the Street Fighter equivalent to characters like Voldo, a horrible contortionist slasher villain who doesn't fight you so much as she just passionately and exquisitely butchers you while getting off on it. Her moves are incredible, superbly characterized, she feels vicious and oppressive to watch but still hits that note on FANG's where the playstyle is meant to be tricky but overspecialized and beatable at close range. And while she's designed to be a much more explicitly serious and deadly-looking character than FANG, they even give her goofy little flourishes like blowing bubbles shaped like FANG (and getting pissed if you pop them), his propensity for bird-like arms flapping, and an uncharacteristically childish victory dance akin to Chun-Li's.

She is as cadaverous as Juri is tempestuous, openly referring to herself as a ghost, and when she isn't losing her shit in contorting fits of laughter over success, she has a remarkably chill, upbeat disposition when spouting horrible things to the protagonist or fake poisoning them for laughs. She has an incredibly distinct personality more so than any especially developed inner life, and that's kinda the point: that she has wholly and completely sublimated herself to her role as FANG's tool, by choice and intent of her own, and that's part of why she's a real deal villain.

She was raised by him, she likes what he likes, she is obsessed with everything he is and has done and will do, hates everyone that isn't him, considers him her master and teacher and father and husband all in one, and her romantic fixation and love for him is meant to be deeply disturbing in every way imaginable (and only not a total dealbreaker for me because FANG in no way reciprocates or encourages it or is able to do so, even AKI understands as much), and that they may eventually have to kill each other doesn't deter her one bit.

Despite those surface similarities, there is quite a lot that sets AKI apart from Juri, chief of those being that Juri was victimized by Shadaloo and in response fashioned herself into an instrument of vengeance and turned monstrous as a result, where as AKI actively chose her life and chose being molded by someone else, running away from home and following FANG every step of the way without any regret. Even FANG himself had little choice in his own life, kidnapped as a child and forced to partake in horrible training under which every day could be his last, raised to value nothing but survival at all costs.

Perhaps this in itself is the strength that FANG saw in AKI, that she gets to choose and does so with far greater intent than even himself. That she's someone who could fully understand the horribleness of the Nguuhao methods and lifestyle and want for that and nothing else, to consciously partake in such grueling torture of mind and body and lovingly decide that she can't get enough of it.

And in itself this pairs interestingly with the very idea of giving FANG a dedicated protege sidekick, a character beat that the series has come back to again and again, and takes on an entirely different tone here. I think a lot of what makes AKI's obsession interesting to me in a way these usually aren't, is not just because it's creepy, but because it's ultimately sad and pathetic, and parallels FANG's own craven worship of Bison. It's such a great dynamic, a miserable cycle perpetuated by miserable people caught on the wrong side of that glorification of self-improvement, inner strength and the great heroes and masters who can pass it onto others that the series uses so frequently, and it makes AKI even greater as a character for it: because now we have a true dark mirror for the driving motivation of many of our characters. We have our fucked-up toxic counterpart to every Sakura, Mika, Menat, and Sean out there.

She sees him as he saw Bison and more, and the fact that she is much more threatening and overtly competent and scary than FANG is offset by the fact that worshipping Bison is a wholly different thing than worshipping, y'know, FANG. We comprehend, on some level, FANG's worship, because M.Bison is supposed to be, at minimum, a cool imposing megavillain we're meant to like on some level, which is certainly not true for FANG. SF6 has been very clear on that, that even though he's been given a much slicker outfit, and is keeping a low profile to plot from behind the scenes, this is still very much FANG, every bit the conniving, petty control freak from before.

AKI is a cool, hypercompetent death machine able to scare the pants off the main villain, and she labors desperately day and night, to the point of crying if she fails, to meet the approval of a ridiculous, pathetic man who, no matter how deceptively cunning or dangerous he may be, is only cool to her. Much of why I think FANG worked and was necessary in the first place was because he was designed around the vacuum left by the Four Kings and to contrast them, as what kind of man would it take to work himself ragged running Bison's schemes and being unfailingly loyal to him and Shadaloo, opposite Vega and Balrog's sporadic barely-there alliances and Sagat's outright betrayal. We needed an anti-Sagat, a proper bastard of a Number 2 to run the show in secret. And AKI adds a lot of poignancy to that in that she is much of what FANG can't be, even as she wants nothing more than to be like him.

It's one thing to have somebody who really looks up to and makes an effort to imitate the cool and impressive and heroic World Warriors, or someone influenced by imposing villains like Balrog or Sagat but ultimately decides to carve their own path. It's another thing entirely for maybe THE most obsessive protege character in the series, someone who actively has no identity outside of servitude to her master, to revolve around FANG, the dastardly bird man, who made his debut in a story by hunting down and melting an innocent woman, and grossly and animastically licking her ashen remains off his fingers. What kind of person would decide that this sickening, vile creep is deserving of worship and following until the ends of the Earth?

(art by @remy2fang)

Well, maybe the same kind of person who would consciously look at the likes of M.Bison in the first place, someone they intuitively understand "will reign death on all living beings", and upends their life on the spot towards becoming that man's eternal servant. Someone who seeks self-fulfillment through no other means than the pursuit of strength and knowledge as tools to subjugate others and appease their master. The darkest corruption of the master-student dynamic that defines so much of the series. You couldn't ask for anything more fitting, for the poison specialists.

#replies tag #street fighter #fighting games #capcom #a.k.i.#f.a.n.g #aki street fighter #aki sf6 #fang #sf6 #street fighter 6

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