#Live At General Motors Place

[seat-safety-switch]

The Property Brothers are on the radio telling me it's too dangerous to do my own electrical, roofing, or structure. I'm done listening to those boys, these children. I'm going to drive this fucking 1996 Dodge Dakota right through my living room.

Home renovation used to be a thing that was only accomplished by your drunkest uncle, at the absolute peak of his powers. Folks would move into a house and they'd just be fine with things. New wallpaper, new paint, maybe re-do the bathroom when one of the kids leaves the tap on over the weekend. You'd have the occasional eager beaver who would really go nuts and put a shonky extension on the place, but in general houses stayed the way they were.

Then, reality TV started. It turns out one of the things all people want to do – all people – is to knock down a wall and really "open up" a living area. Throw a sledgehammer into that tile you hate in the kitchen. Rip out the bathtub and put in a soaker. Make the neighbours watch as you slowly fill up an orange rental dumpster over the course of two years with the former interior of your home. Slap in some new stuff, and repeat in ten years.

This just happened to coincide with wage deflation, and a massive increase in the popularity of financing your home reno. It's cool, just put it on the charge card. You're worth the $2500 countertops that don't match your appliances. You can throw those in the trash, too. Really rock and roll. Dream home, baby.

Now, I'm not one of those prudes who says to never do things yourself. In fact, I am doing something right now. I am picking some surprisingly sharp chunks of a once-perfectly-good Chesterfield out of the air-conditioning condenser of my Dakota. It is essential, however, that you understand my renovation was started from a place of rage, and not any kind of misplaced urge to "keep up with the Joneses." The Joneses are probably who did this to me in the first place. And now I've got lots more covered parking for motor vehicles.

Probably improve the property value too, come to think of it. I really opened up the space.

[mediumgayitalian]

fic masterlist

place to link my independent fics (under the cut). these are generally between one and ten thousand words and stand on their own. tumblr & ao3 links included.

well mother look what the war (did to my legs and to my tongue) [ao3]

i would sing you to sleep (never let them take the light behind your eyes) [ao3]

gimme, gimme (some of that vampire money) [ao3]

they both say things like "ciao bella" (while they kiss you on both cheeks) [ao3]

because i'm big, blonde, and beautiful (face the fact, the simply irrefutable) [ao3]

i love you for this day (we keep falling down) [ao3]

when the lights go out (will you take me with you) [ao3]

i'm just the worst kind of guy (to argue with) [ao3]

running away and hiding with you (i never thought they'd get me here) [ao3]

pray none of my enemies hold me captive (i grieve different) [ao3]

tonight (we are young) [ao3]

just sleep (the hardest part's the awful things i've seen) [ao3]

a thousand bodies piled up (i never thought i would be enough) [ao3]

how can i help it (if i think you're funny when you're mad) [ao3]

this one's for all you rock 'n rollers (all you crash queens and motor babies) [ao3] ART

who gives a damn (if we lose the war?) [ao3]

wipe off that makeup (what's in is despair) [ao3]

i've never had someone that knows me like you do (the way you do) [ao3]

try to keep it hidden (honey we can see right through you) [ao3]

it feels real to me now (it felt real to me then) [ao3]

the broken, the beaten (and the damned) [ao3] ART

what a choice (to choose to be held) pt. 2 [ao3] ART

just sleep (the hardest part is letting go of your dreams) [ao3]

royal au:

i fall out of grace (i did it all) so maybe i'd live this every day [ao3]

the doctors and the nurses (they adore me so) [ao3]

#masterlist #links #my writing #fic

[eoieopda]

foresight (myg)

It all started with a bad joke and a bottle of Tanqueray.

Pairing: Min Yoongi x Fem!Reader | Darksided AU Type: One-Shot / Prequel to darksided (no. 2) & blindsided (no. 3,) but can be read as a stand-alone fic. Word Count: 11.3K 😳 Content: SPICY FLUFF (18+ or else - oral (m receiving) and penetrative, protected sex (p in v)); strangers to lovers au; POV switches; discussion of anxiety and negative self-talk; alcohol consumption (primary setting is a bar); tteokbokki; and just the cutest fucking duo. ft. Seokjin and a surprise cameo by reader's cat. A/N: The origin story for my beloved babies, which takes place in 2016 (and uses Korean age, fyi.) I found this photo after I finished writing and nearly fell tf over because this was the Yoongi in my brain; jacket and all, omfg. My actual note (and tags) will be at the end! 💕 Listen to the playlist here. Read Interlude: Sunrise drabble here.

Min Yoongi wanted it on record that he tried.

When Seokjin pushed, and pushed, and pushed Yoongi to ask out that girl, he did. She was someone Seokjin knew from somewhere, and she seemed nice enough. All Yoongi really knew about her was that she was pretty, though he hoped to learn that this was the least interesting thing about her.

If nothing else, Yoongi proceeded out of spite. He wanted nothing more than to shove it in Seokjin’s face that he was capable of being a normal, twenty-four-year-old man. He wanted to prove to Seokjin — and to himself, if he were being honest — that he wasn’t a borderline-reclusive workaholic.

Or, at the very least, he wasn’t exclusively a borderline-reclusive workaholic. He did want to get out and meet new people; just in negligible and infrequent doses.

It had been so long since Yoongi last went on a date that three (3) generations of iPhones had come and gone. Children who hadn’t yet been born were now entering pre-kindergarten, making macaroni art with the motor skills they’d obtained during his romantic sabbatical. It was embarrassing; it was depressing; and it all piled up at his doorstep, barricading him inside his apartment.

There was a vicious cycle at play, making matters worse. It casted Yoongi as the lone sock, swirling and drowning inside his washing machine brain. The plot was as stupid as it was repetitive:

Relentless schedule aside, Yoongi didn’t date because it made him anxious. Then, he’d become more anxious because he wasn’t dating. Ultimately, he’d end up too anxious about his anxiety to address the thing that caused it in the first place. And around and around and around he went.

Why the fuck did people subject themselves to this on purpose?

Asking her out was the simplest part. With a quick text and an emoji — the latter of which Yoongi deliberated over for far too long — he’d knocked the ball into her court. She’d responded within minutes, which he assumed was a good sign. Saturday night, they’d decided, at eight o’clock.

Unfortunately, no part of what came next was easy.

Yoongi had spent the four subsequent days in a tailspin. Spiraling over where to take her, what to wear, and what the fuck to talk to her about. In the few interactions they’d had before, all she seemed to do was pepper him with questions about his career. Like everyone else, she was fascinated by Yoongi: the Concept.

Whether or not she cared about Yoongi: the Person was yet to be determined.

Worse, after three years in the public eye, Yoongi worried that he’d lost track of what once made him relatable. That boy from Daegu — with a chip on his shoulder and a fire in his belly — was traded in for a luxury model. He no longer had to debate between purchasing a meal or a bus ticket home from work because he was now loaded and living in Hannam-fucking-dong.

Ugh.

People looked at him with stars in their eyes, but he could never tell if anyone truly saw him. And even if someone did, what was left to see, anyway? Yoongi doubted that he could pick himself out of a lineup now.

Eventually, after three nights of tossing and turning, Yoongi had landed on something that felt meaningful. He would take this girl to a hole-in-the-wall that he loved dearly, which sat relatively unnoticed in a lesser-traveled pocket of Seoul. It was quiet and unassuming, but had a life of its own.

As far as Yoongi could see, it was the perfect place to find the parts of himself that’d dropped on his rapid, record-breaking ascent. Decidedly unremarkable but worth it, nonetheless. There, she could get to know the person behind the persona. Maybe she’d even come to like who he actually was.

Before heading out, Yoongi had pitched his plan to Seokjin and received a thumbs up in response. Unfortunately, her reaction came from two knuckles down. Her departure followed less than sixty seconds after her arrival. She’d fled so quickly, in fact, that she managed to flag down the very same cab before it could clear the block.

Through her window, she’d shouted out her scathing review: Yoongi was cheap; she would never drink bottom-shelf liquor with him in a glorified dumpster; and she both expected and deserved better because he could access better. Yoongi had stood stunned on the sidewalk as she disappeared — likely forever — in a cloud of exhaust.

Somehow, it felt like that cab had run him over as it peeled out.

To be clear, none of this was painful because Yoongi was disappointed; he wasn’t, not in the slightest. Good fucking riddance. It was worse than that. He felt validated, and he knew exactly how fucking sad that was.

See? Told you so, he’d thought bitterly to himself. Then, immediately, Yoongi criticized himself for being too critical. Hypocrite.

So, there he stood.

If Yoongi followed his instinct and went home, he could rebuild his barricade and watch several episodes of Chopped before passing out alone in his bed. A productive night, despite its fruitless start. But then, he realized, he’d have to answer when Seokjin inevitably called to ask what the fuck went wrong.

Fuck it.

Yoongi shrugged to no one but himself. He then slipped from the sidewalk, through the dumpster’s front door, and straight to the bar. Slumping down onto a leather-topped stool, he rested his elbows against the mahogany countertop and dropped his dejected chin in his hand.

Is this rock bottom? He wondered, Drinking in a bar alone on a Saturday night?

Within seconds, there was a loud crash several meters away. Yoongi jerked his head towards the source of the sound, but he saw nothing. His brows furrowed. All was quiet until a whine erupted from the doorway to the back room.

“Shit, shit, shit!"

Upon standing, Yoongi pressed his hands against the bar and leaned forward to investigate; equal parts concerned and nosy.

On the ground in the doorway, he found shattered remnants of what was once a bottle of Tanqueray. Crouching above the pine-scented wreckage, plucking chunks of glass off the hardwood, he found you.

Yoongi immediately grimaced at your chosen method of disaster clean-up. There was already a bandage wrapped around your finger — with a Hello Kitty pattern, he noted — that confirmed your ongoing battle with clumsiness.

You didn’t need to add to that collection and he couldn’t watch in good conscience while you made that outcome more and more likely.

Mind made up, he crossed quickly to the side of the bar he had no authorization to be on. As soon as Yoongi reached you, he saw the nearby bucket labeled “broken shit.” Then, he clocked the small hand-brush and dustpan resting against it. Wasting no time, he grabbed all three; and without a word, you allowed him to carefully usher you out of the way.

Crouching down the way you had, he began to sweep the broken shit into the dustpan. Too preoccupied to glance up, he asked without looking, “Are you okay?”

When you didn’t immediately respond, Yoongi’s eyes quickly rose to find you with strawberry-pink cheeks and wide, vaguely horrified eyes, and —Shit, was he staring?

Say something. Say anything. For fuck’s sake, Yoongi, at least smile so she knows you’re not angry.

What he landed on looked more like a grimace, he was sure of it, and it didn’t seem to fix that look on your face.

“I’m so sorry,” you squeaked once he finished dumping the glass into its designated receptacle.

You didn’t give him a chance to tell you that an apology wasn’t necessary, opting instead to rattle off your perceived sins at an alarming rate:

“I think I’m the only bartender in Seoul that’s this bad at tending bar. I mean, I didn’t even know anyone else was here — because I wasn’t paying attention — and now you, the patron I’m supposed to be serving, are cleaning up after me. It’s definitely supposed to be the other way around —“

A smile was twitching at the corner of his mouth that he couldn’t prevent. Without a door into the so far one-sided conversation, Yoongi had to jump through the window you created when you finally drew a breath. “Have you got a mop?”

Based on the way your eyebrows knit together, you’d been thrown entirely for a loop. You re-opened your mouth, likely to apologize for not following the sudden twist. Yoongi refused to allow further self-flagellation, though.

Classic Yoongi: demonstrating more compassion for strangers than he ever shows himself.

“For the gin,” He chuckled softly as he gestured down to the puddle at his feet. Suddenly and baselessly bold, he shot you a playful look and tacked on, “And for all the words you just spilled.”

The aforementioned eyebrows shot up as your jaw dropped further. Thankfully, it was amusement and not offense glittering in your eyes. Pretty. As you crossed your arms over your chest, you tilted your head and sized him up with a quick glance.

If this was a test, he was determined to pass.

“Maybe,” you hummed.

Yoongi wanted to volley your nonchalant tone, but he couldn’t swallow the laughter bubbling up from his chest. He was grinning like an idiot; there was no denying it. “Maybe?”

Your eyebrow twitched ever so slightly, the perfect overture to the mischief on your lips. When you replied, that microscopic smirk never faltered: “Let’s say, for arguments’ sake, that there is a mop.”

A manicured finger was held up to stop Yoongi from interjecting.

Mystified, his poor brain tried to crunch the numbers. Statically, it made no sense that — out of the thousands of people he’d met in his life — he’d never come across someone quite like you. In a matter of minutes, you’d pirouetted from adorable, to self-depreciating, to coy and confident.

All-encompassing, all electric, you moved through tone shifts far more gracefully than you did through the bar.

And if he’d done the math right, this was the first interaction he’d had in recent memory that didn’t deplete his energy. In fact, it had the opposite effect. Gazing at you, Yoongi began to wonder if this was how extroverts got to feel as they moved through the world. Like it gave back more than it took. Lucky bastards.

Once Yoongi was thoroughly disarmed, you continued breezily, “Hypothetically speaking, would you let me be the one to use said mop? After all, it’s both my job and my mess.”

“Hypothetically?” He repeated, sucking in a breath through his teeth. Your eyes narrowed further as he paused to formulate a counterpoint. Meanwhile, Yoongi’s involuntary smile spread in a straight line across his face.

You’re a goddamn delight, full stop.

“Assuming, for the sake of this argument, that I do concede the mop in question —” Yoongi raised an eyebrow, “— How could I be sure that you wouldn’t hurt yourself? After all, you did just try to clean up broken glass with your hands.”

If this had been a gun fight and not banter behind a bar, you would’ve shot him dead. Like lightning, you quickly unraveled your arms and held your hands at the ready. That effervescent grin of yours might be his undoing instead.

Eyes alight, you threw down the gauntlet: “Gawi, bawi, bo?”

Never before in your life had you played rock, paper, scissors, and lost at every single turn. You’d also never requested a rematch for every loss before, continuing the game into perpetuity; but you had a hypothesis to prove and a perfectly unique smile to make wider.

No matter what you threw, he’d offered a gesture to counter it. If his eyes hadn’t gotten wider and wider with shock as it just — kept — happening, you would’ve simply decided that he was psychic. A mind-reader, predicting your every move before you’d even settled on it yourself.

Spooky.

At the start, his amusement had been more or less concealed. Withheld, even, like it was dangerous to grin with every single one of his teeth. Eventually, though, his shoulders shook the way yours did; and mirth pooled in the corners of his eyes as he wheezed through laughter with you.

You didn’t know him, but still, you couldn’t help thinking: there he is.

At some point during your unending match, he doubled over to catch his breath. Seizing the element of surprise, you’d darted into the storage room before he could’ve stopped you. When you reappeared with a mop and bucket in tow, you’d immediately begun to address the mess you made. It took a few moments of buffering for him to realize what you’d done.

That time around, he hadn’t shouldered your burden for you and thank god for that. First impressions were never your strong suit, and you were already starting from behind. Always too much, you couldn’t be useless, too.

Instead, he’d simply resigned himself to swapped names and spiked blood pressure as you struggled — stubbornly and independently — to dump the contents of that yellow, wheeled mop bucket into the utility sink. Standing quietly out of your way, Yoongi had looked close to proud when you managed to do it all without spilling a drop.

See, you’d thought, I’m verifiably Not Useless!

Once the evidence of your clumsy crime had been disposed of, you’d returned the cleaning supplies to their rightful space in the storage room’s closet. Similarly, you and your patron returned to your rightful places: him on his stool at the front of the bar; you, finally fixing him a drink behind it.

Ardbeg, single malt, neat.

After sliding the glass across the mahagony to his waiting hand, you glanced towards the front entrance. As usual, there were no pedestrians wandering this way; no cars on the street, either. The only quiet part of Seoul — especially on a Saturday night.

The bar routinely bordered on empty, but it had some magical quality to it: Nobody you saw inside for the first time seemed to be there for the first time. This was especially odd because it wasn’t a place anyone went to, just a place they ended up. Nobody’s first choice, it was a last resort only visible to people who knew where to look for it.

Yoongi was the first one to speak, unknowingly putting an end to your mythologizing. You just barely flinched at the surprise of his voice, but he managed to catch it. Then, he conducted a brief yet careful study of your face to determine whether you were simply jumpy, or experiencing some sort of medical event.

A gesture like that, done in passing, shouldn’t have meant so much to you. Really, all he did was look at you. It felt like more than that, though, because it was the second-kindest thing anyone had done for you in months — and it occurred merely twenty minutes after the first-place winner.

Now, that’s depressing.

“I haven’t seen you in here before,” He hummed, “I only ever run into Yang Daehyun-nim, though it’s been a minute. Honestly, I don’t even know if he’s still around. You know him?”

“Yes, absolutely. He’s my husband.” You deadpanned and Yoongi nearly choked to death on his drink.

You were, of course, fucking with him. The man in question was swiftly approaching ninety, but he looked twice as old. You successfully maintained your ruse until Yoongi’s tongue breached the barrier of his lips and gathered his runaway whiskey.

Where am I? Who am I? Is that legal?

Yoongi simultaneously picked up the joke and his glass. He raised both with pure amusement on his face, “Cheers to the happy couple, then.”

Never one to raise a toast empty-handed, you quickly dumped what little remained of a nearby soju bottle into a shot glass. His eyes sparkled as he watched you race to catch up; even more so when you leaned in to clink your glass against his.

Oh, so he’s pretty pretty.

“To the happy couple,” you echoed.

With both of your drinks dispatched, you grabbed the bottle of Ardbeg to top him up. Expensive taste, you noted, not the low-rent version you were destined for.

If Yoongi hadn’t shown up to order it, that bottle would’ve continued to gather dust on the top shelf. Like you, none of your regulars had the capital to even glance that high. Granted, the sample size was abysmally small at only three (3) people, but the point still stood.

Until Yoongi mentioned Daehyun, you couldn’t think of a single reason why your employer bothered to keep anything like that in stock. Now, that piece seemed to fit. Still, you were puzzled as to why Yoongi would come to a dive like this to drink liquor like that.

Clearly, the man sitting in front of you contained multitudes.

At the exact moment you asked how long he’d been coming here, Yoongi wondered when you joined the staff. Your respective answers came simultaneously, too. His six years easily dwarfed your eight months.

True to form, you joked that he was more qualified to tend bar here than you were. He said his only relevant skill was cleaning broken glass.

It made you sad in some stupid way to realize that you could’ve met a hundred times over by now. Had more conversations like this, haunted the joint jointly rather than on your own. Truthfully, though, you were at least semi-soothed by the timing.

You were a horrible bartender now, but you’d been even worse before. He might not have survived this long.

Once again, Yoongi set your runaway train-of-thought back on track. “Eight months ago.” He took a sip, then he asked, “Is that when you moved to Korea?”

It was a simple question, certainly not an offensive one. The reason it nearly bowled you over was that no one had ever bothered to ask. Nobody seemed to notice the non-native accent that occasionally appeared when you spoke — not unless you referenced its existence first, that is.

Even then, people forgot. You wished you were confident that they simply got used to it, but you had the sneaking suspicion that nobody really listened when you spoke. After all, no one had a reason to give a shit about you, so long as you kept their glasses full.

The weight of your curiosity caused your head to tilt to the side. You allowed a tiny smile to spread as you asked, “What gave me away?”

“Don’t get me wrong —” He held up his hands to prevent a reaction you’d never dream of giving. “It’s not obvious. You’ve got a better grasp than some of my friends do — which is kind of sad, actually. They’ve lived here their whole lives.”

He gifted you a reassuring smile, then came the true prize: he licked his lips absently before speaking again. You had to clench every single muscle in your body to keep from swooning.

That cannot be legal.

“I noticed it earlier, but you were already embarrassed. I didn’t want to risk making it worse.” Yoongi still looked like he was afraid to hurt your feelings. “When you word-vomit — like you did earlier — your consonants sound like they would in English.”

This linguistic assessment didn’t surprise you; it was dead-on. It didn’t embarrass you, either, but you blushed nonetheless. Without thinking, you mused, “Makes sense that you’re the first to say something. You spend more time overseas than most, right?”

For a split second, you swore you saw Yoongi frown. A little twinge, one you would’ve missed if you weren’t so fixated on his every micro-expression. If you could have, you would’ve hit the rewind button and reverted back thirty seconds.

Was it off-limits, finally acknowledging that you knew who you were dealing with? Did it bother him that you did know, and proceeded to speak to him like the glaring disparity between the two of you didn’t matter? Did it matter?

“You mean to tell me —” He started quietly with a flex of his eyebrow. You feared the worst, even though Yoongi didn’t strike you as the type to make your failure to fawn a problem. “— That the place you lived before wasn’t under a rock?”

As soon as he saw your expression morph from panic to blatant relief, his eyes crinkled until every one of his facial features contributed to his smile. It was difficult to process how an expression that gentle hit you like a punch, but it did, and you felt a bit dizzy.

Professionalism be damned, you cracked open another bottle of soju and filled not one, but two glasses. Yoongi smirked — likely unsurprised by your willingness to drink with him on the clock — and easily accepted the shot you slid his way.

“To the worst bartender in Seoul,” You cheered as you raised it.

He rolled his eyes at your self-depreciation, but followed your lead without any meaningful resistance. Like it was choreographed, you both downed your shots in unison. Straight, no chaser. Just the slight burn in the back of your throat and the very first thing your scrambled brain could think to say:

“Do you want to hear a joke?”

Yoongi was clearly stunned by your sudden maneuver, but you didn’t wait for him to co-sign your antics. You cleared your throat like you were about to say something worth hearing, then you warbled, “Knock, knock!”

You expected him to pause again; or worse, to leave you hanging entirely. It was, frankly, stupid how much of an effect the latter always had on you. You were a demented scientist and your bad joke was a litmus test, ready to reveal on the front-end what kind of person Yoongi really was.

Translation: Tell me now if I’m too much. I’m always too much.

“Who’s there?”

He didn’t hesitate. There was no blink of an eye, no breath taken in between your call and his response. This time, it was you who needed a split-second to buffer.

When your brain finally reloaded, you peeped, “Cargo.”

“Cargo who?” Yoongi asked slowly, growing visibly suspicious about where this stupid, stupid road was leading. Somehow, he looked as amused by you as he did continually bewildered.

Springing the trap, you accentuated your shitty punchline with a sing-song tone and pantomime for emphasis, “Car go beep beep!”

Nobody had ever — ever — looked at you the way Yoongi did when you concluded your comedy routine. As if your teary-eyed grin and raucous laughter were something beautiful; and your presence alone wasn’t killing off one, sorry brain cell for every minute that passed.

“Knock, knock,” Yoongi volleyed with a soft chuckle, and without breaking eye contact.

As if you weren’t too much.

Yoongi needed a minute to take inventory.

When he left his apartment at a quarter-til-eight, he was headed out for his first date in a long damn time. It was Seokjin’s setup and that girl’s letdown. For Yoongi, it was another drop in the bucket; one final reason to commit to life as a hermit.

Troll that he was, Yoongi was ready to crawl back under his bridge; emerging only to pose impossible riddles to passersby who didn’t know to stay away.

His brain had given him an out, but for once, he didn’t take it. So, what did he end up with instead?

You, sitting on the bar, going shot-for-shot with him; and telling your self-titled villain origin story with award-worthy narration.

Equally as enthralling as the story itself was the tangential webs you weaved along the way. As he’d already learned to expect, you apologized frequently for the way one thought trailed off in a direction you didn’t intend. He wished you didn’t; he had no trouble following wherever your mind led you.

You, born here but not raised here, returning to claim a master’s degree in photography and to reclaim what you felt you missed out on. Yoongi loved your foreign take on local foods, even if you hadn’t yet acquired a taste for pickled vegetables.

We’ll get you there, he’d promised.

You, gesturing with hand movements so impassioned they nearly knocked you off balance; right off the bar. He was down to listen to you talk about whatever — for any amount of time — because he could feel how much you cared about — well, everything.

Animated, fully alive, and so fucking refreshing.

Him, with one hand on his drink and the other hovering on the bar top near your hip — just in case your full-body laugh did, in fact, provoke a fall.

Yoongi, who do you think you’re fooling?

So, maybe it was never exclusively about concern for your safety — even though you’d demonstrated from the jump that it was warranted. Yoongi was quickly coming to realize that, when it came down to it, he simply liked having you close. He liked you, full stop.

Every now and then, you’d wiggle where you sat, and the denim of your jeans would brush against his knuckles. It was as innocent as contact could be, but for someone so secretly touch-starved, it was bliss. Is this the kind of feeling he gave up, locked away in his tower? It sure as shit made leaving feel worth it.

He was buzzed, sure, but not drunk enough to blame the warmth he was feeling on the liquor. Any flush on his cheeks would only be partly genetic. The rest of it was all you — and the way you talked with your whole body, and that giggle.

Seriously, what the fuck is that giggle? A wind-chime made out of stars?

“Yoongi?”

It didn’t dawn on him that he was staring until you called his name. Then, it dawned on him that he didn’t care if he’d been caught — not even a little bit. Red-handed, all Yoongi could do was smile up at you as you blinked down at him.

He’d thought it before and now he was thinking it again: You are goddamn delight.

You threw your head back and laughed. Maybe it was the soju, or how fucking obvious he made it that he was infatuated with you. Whatever the cause, the effect was music to his ears. He’d record it, if he could, and play it on loop to appease the butterflies going wild in his stomach.

Unfortunately, he was accurate in his prediction. The sudden movement of your laughter sent you reeling, but before you could fall, Yoongi was quick to intervene. He stood abruptly from his stool to secure you; one hand on your hip and the other — unintentionally — on your thigh.

“Shit — Sorry,” Yoongi muttered, though he was very much still holding you. Oh, fuck, his brain screamed as he glanced down at his hand on your thigh. Heart pounding, his gaze flitted from his touch to your face.

Your mouth was still slightly open, but that could’ve easily been attributed to the fact that you’d so narrowly avoided launching yourself headfirst at the ground. If it wasn’t that, then you were looking for the words to yell to get him to back off.

Those were the only possible explanations; and any minute now, his hand would accept his brain’s signal to pull away.

Any minute now. Any —

Yoongi watched it all happen in slow motion and he still couldn’t believe it when you leaned in. Or when your hair slipped over your shoulder and brushed against his. Or when you kissed him quick and pulled back just to smile from mere centimeters away.

“Impressive reflexes.” You were breathless but you still managed to sigh. Have you had freckles this whole time? “What’s that saying? Not all heroes wear Lewis Leathers?”

Your playful tug at his jacket had no force behind it, but even with his feet firmly planted, Yoongi knew that he was falling. His stomach fluttered from the pinnacle of that emotional rollercoaster and, for once, he wasn’t afraid of heights. He’d kiss you again and follow that thrill all the way down.

Or, he would have, if the bell above the door didn’t chime.

Just as quickly as you’d kissed him, you spun around and prepared to dismount from your perch on the bar. Yoongi’s hand still seemed to vibrate, even when you slipped out from underneath. It was absolutely ridiculous that his body missed you already — automatically — but he couldn’t think of any other explanation.

He wasn’t a violent person by any means, but he was suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to throw the incoming patron out on their ass and lock the door behind them.

The audacity. Who does this clown think they are, coming into a place of business during their business hours? For fuck’s —

“Finally!” You squeaked as you stuck your landing. Then, you skipped around the edge of the bar and continued on your way towards the door.

Jesus Christ. Even the way you walk is cute.

Yoongi was initially too preoccupied with watching you to notice the intruder, but when he did, he couldn’t force the exasperated look off his face. That is, until he saw the panicked look on the prepubescent face of the delivery boy.

The poor kid’s eyes bugged out at Yoongi from under the brim of his uniform cap. Immediately, Yoongi felt inclined to atone, to bow. Instead, he offered a mildly apologetic grimace for the heart attack he didn’t mean to cause.

You accepted the bags of food into your arms, beaming like the fucking sun as you glanced over your shoulder to Yoongi. “You said you liked Hongdae Dakgalbi, right?”

Yes. Yes, he did. But his brain was spinning its wheels in the mud because —

What he finally said wasn’t a question, but it certainly sounded like one: “You ordered food.”

Clearly, Yoongi was missing something. He glanced around and confirmed that there was, in fact, an operational kitchen still situated at the far end of the room. He pointed to the small window carved out for taking and producing orders. “What about —?”

“Binna called off,” you shrugged through your explanation. Then, you tilted your head with a coy smile, “Were we supposed to starve?”

Yoongi had questions. A lot of them.

First and foremost: When did you summon takeout and how did you manage to go unnoticed in the process? He was certainly staring at you for long enough to catch it. Or maybe his heart-eyes were getting foggy with age.

Also, we? As in, you ordered food with the intention of sharing it with him? And you paid for it?

When his broken brain snapped back to attention, it registered the fact that you’d settled on top of the stool next to his. You either didn’t notice the smoke flying out of Yoongi’s ears, or you accepted his brain damage for what it was. Either way, you were too excited about the piping hot tteokbokki in front of you to notice the way he still lingered by the door.

The delivery boy was long gone by now; he took the first opportunity to get as much distance between himself and the visibly annoyed person he’d interrupted. Looking at it now, Yoongi’s fingers twitched with a desire to engage the deadbolt. But he didn’t — he, a coward, wouldn’t — so he simply reclaimed the spot next to you.

You immediately held up a pair of chopsticks as you fished out napkins with your other hand. Yoongi stared at them for too long, prompting you to look quizzically up at him. You asked no questions, and he couldn’t think of a single reason why he said it, but he blurted out:

“I’m supposed to be on a date.”

Unfazed by the lack of context, you gently tucked that pair of chopsticks into his useless hand. Yoongi blinked down at them like he didn’t know what to do with them. You went back to unpacking your takeout.

“And I’m supposed to be working,” You chirped, as if what he just said — unprompted — wasn’t completely idiotic. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

Yoongi shook his head, praying it would knock his trapped thoughts loose. “I meant that I was supposed to be the one buying dinner.” He frowned down at the spread you’d provided. “If I knew you were hungry, I would’ve —“

“Taken a bite by now?” You teased with wiggling eyebrows. “Come on, Min Yoongi, you know the rules. The eldest eats first.”

Stunned wasn’t adequate. Entranced? His mouth hung open, primed to speak, without a single, coherent response on the horizon. Mystified, at the very least. You were always one step ahead of Yoongi, dancing off in a brand new direction.

How on Earth did you do it so easily? How were you so effortlessly bold when he couldn’t even blink without deliberating over the idea for days?

Yoongi wasn’t even jealous the way he would’ve expected to be, meeting his non-neurotic foil. He didn’t want to steal that spark for himself, or try to mimic your fearlessness. If he could just continue to witness it, that would be enough.

You threw him off again when you plucked a small piece of tteokbokki from one of the cardboard containers below and gently maneuvered it into his unwitting, waiting mouth.

Game over. Min Yoongi is done for.

“There we go,” You cooed with a smirk. Then, those chopsticks grabbed a piece of tteokbokki of your very own. You smiled adoringly down at it, winked up at him, and said, “Now we’re off to the races.”

After several minutes of deeply contented, quiet chewing, you turned slightly to gaze at him. You didn’t say anything at first; you simply watched and let your lips curve slightly into an understated smile. Yoongi didn’t care if that was all you did because — for once — he felt seen.

Eventually, you did speak. Your voice was soft, barely casting a ripple through the silence. “Can I ask?”

Your eyes scanned over his face for permission. Yoongi had no idea what your question was, but he doubted that he was capable of saying no to you. Fire at will.

“About the date you’re not on,” You clarified.

The one I was supposed to be on, or the one I might be on instead?

“Why aren’t you on it?”

He didn’t know how to explain any of it without sounding pathetic. He knew he’d rather die than have to relay his earlier misfortune to Seokjin; somehow, though, Yoongi didn’t hesitate to respond to you. Like everything else about the past few hours, it felt laughably easy.

“She’s a friend of a friend,” He began as soon as he wiped excess gochujang from the corner of his mouth.

“He basically harassed me into asking her out because I, uh — I don’t get out much. And I know a lot of people say that, but I really do mean it. You can probably guess as much from my frighteningly translucent complexion.”

Your mouth hitched up at the corner when he joked, but you didn’t laugh. In some odd way, he was grateful that you didn’t — not just because you didn’t enable his self-depreciation, but because you seemed too invested in what he was saying to interrupt him.

Nobody had ever looked at him quite like that before.

He cleared his throat, then he pressed on, “So, I did — and that part was fine. After that, though, I don’t think I slept at all. For, like, days. Now, I think I was just dreading the whole thing, but while it was happening, I figured I was nervous. Rusty, you know?”

Yoongi looked down at his hands, which fidgeted autonomously with his chopsticks. “I put way too much thought into the whole thing — I always do — even though I had this feeling that nothing was going to happen the way I planned.”

He paused, poked mindlessly at a lump of rice, and exhaled a breath he hadn’t intentionally held. Nothing had happened the way he planned, but if it did, who would’ve hand-fed him tteokbokki because they were too impatient to wait?

You dropped your chin in your hand as you continued to watch him. Wordlessly, you reached out with your other hand. Yoongi noticed just in time as you gently removed a piece of lint that had stuck to the tip of his jacket collar. Your eyes followed it as it floated off towards the floor.

Yoongi couldn’t see anything but you.

“You picked this place,” you murmured. Slowly, your eyes drifted back up to his face; he froze solid. The only thing moving was the pounding heart in his chest. “Must mean a lot to you.”

He wanted to be brave and tell you that it meant even more now. He wasn’t brave, though, so he swallowed that thought down with a mouthful of soju.

“She was not a fan, as it turns out. Hated it so much, just from the sidewalk, that she jumped right back in her taxi — yelled at me through the window that she deserved better than to drink bottom-shelf liquor in a dumpster with me.”

You furrowed your eyebrows and he wondered which part of that statement bothered you the most. Having your place of employment referred to as a dumpster would be a reasonable sore spot; one he probably should’ve avoided. Fuck. Could he rewind thirty seconds and omit that part?

“Well,” you frowned, “Joke’s on her. This dumpster has exactly one bottle on its top shelf, and it was apparently reserved just for you.”

He could kiss you. He really, really could.

You shifted on your stool, though, and stared out into the middle-distance at nothing in particular. Deep in thought, too, judging by the way your frown curved even further.

“It’s kind of funny, in a shitty sort of way. She more or less told you that you’re not enough, and people love to tell me that I’m too much.”

It was Yoongi’s turn to frown. Who in their right mind could look at you, experience the goddamn magnet that you are, and willingly detach themselves from you? The thought alone made his jaw clench.

There hadn’t been a single second since he met you — albeit, not that long ago — where he didn’t want to see and know more of you. Where he didn’t beg those seconds to slow the fuck down because the night kept moving faster than he wanted it to.

So far, no amount of time felt like enough.

“You’d think it would be nice, being everyone’s favorite new toy,” You laughed, to Yoongi’s surprise.

Looking genuinely amused, you glanced over your shoulder at him. “And I guess, for a minute, it really is. You do your silly song and dance; and everyone loves you — until they don’t anymore. Eventually, your tricks get boring; you burn them out; then they take out your batteries. You get shelved pretty quickly.”

There was a flicker of genuine hurt in your eyes, but you were smiling when you picked your glass up off the bar and raised it. “To always being the wrong amount!” You giggled.

“Nah.” Yoongi shook his head. He grabbed his drink, touched his glass to yours, and winked, “To being just right.”

One way or another, you spent most nights watching the clock, holding your breath, and waiting for midnight.

On New Year’s Eve, it was hope that bloomed bright in your chest like fireworks. When those final seconds dissolved, it meant closing one chapter and opening another. Something bigger, something better, something blank for you to fill in. A year in fresh white paper, with every color at your disposal.

Ten — nine —

For the rest of your midnights, it was relief that finally allowed you to unclench your jaw and drop your stiff shoulders. Closing time. Freedom to clean up, clear out, and drag your tired, little body back up to your apartment.

Thankfully, when your work hours were over, there were only three flights of stairs separating you from your bed, your cat, and your Netflix subscription.

Eight — seven —

Tonight was an outlier, a statistical anomaly. As the short hand inched closer and closer to twelve, your pulse picked up its pace. For once, it wasn’t relief and it certainly wasn’t hope. It was distinctively dread forming a pit in your stomach.

Even more than that, it was a telepathic plea shooting out from your brain that begged, and begged, and begged for more time. Five more minutes, just five more minutes.

Six — five —

You felt stupid, of course, because you knew that neither of you would turn into a pumpkin when the clock struck midnight. There was no spell, just two strangers who happened to be in the same bar at the same time, with bad jokes and a bottle of Tanqueray.

No bomb would detonate, no one would drop dead. When it was over, you’d simply go home, and Yoongi would go home and then…

Four —

That “and then what?” had you frantic. What if this moment ended and nothing followed? What if the magic didn’t survive the night?

You couldn’t take that disappointment; you knew that much. Gripping tight to your last first night, you tore your eyes away from the clock and looked at Yoongi.

He didn’t notice you staring because he had also become fixated on the clock ahead. His brow furrowed just slightly as he observed it, and you wondered what it meant.

Three —

You knew what you hoped it meant.

For all you knew, though, he might’ve been begging that hand to move faster. The end all, be all of justifications to say goodnight and go. To drop the moment in the bin with the spent, citrus garnishes on the way out; and then crawl back into that bed he spoke so fondly of.

The way you did whenever four zeroes lined up in a row like cartoon cherries on a slot machine. A personal jackpot any other midnight, but the farthest thing from a prize now.

Two —

No. You refused to believe that.

In the reality you’d chosen, he was strapped into that rollercoaster car beside you. He felt his stomach flip the way yours did as you stared down at the path ahead. You didn’t know how you knew it, but you were sure that you weren’t up there alone.

So, when the countdown was over, you took a deep breath and stated, “I’m calling a time-out.”

In actuality, it was more than a statement. It was a shout and it startled him so badly that he flinched.

As soon as he resettled on his stool, Yoongi’s neck could’ve snapped with how quickly he turned to look at you. His eyes were wider than you’d seen them at any point in the last four hours. Those once-knitted brows shot up to kiss the blonde strands brushing against his forehead.

You envied them, as stupid as that was.

“You’re — what?” He peeped.

Even louder than before, you blurted out your explanation. “I’m stopping the clock!”

You might’ve been the sole American in the entire neighborhood, but you could guarantee that you still knew less about football than Yoongi did. Knowing all of that didn’t stop you from making your worst attempt at a metaphor, or throwing your hand out to mime your way through it.

“Flag on the play — or whatever, I don’t know.”

At first, his expression didn’t change and you began to panic. Maybe you could duck down behind the bar and he’d eventually forget that you were hiding there. Then he wouldn’t see how pink your cheeks were; how the hope in your eyes bordered on desperate.

Shockingly, you weren’t delusional. You’d simply underestimated him.

Yoongi glanced down at his watch — already two minutes into Sunday — and then back to you. “Wow. Would you look at that? Only a minute til midnight.”

You could kiss him; you really, really could.

“Do you want to, uh, hang out? With me? Like, not here?”

Yoongi was smirking slightly at your stammering, just enough for you to notice, but you didn’t faint the way your body wanted you to. Instead, you doubled down.

“I live in the apartment upstairs, and this isn’t a proposition — it’s also not, not a proposition — but I need to lock-up here, and I still want you with me when I’m done.”

He blinked rapidly like you’d once again shook him off your tail. You watched in slow motion as his smirk dropped, and his brows dipped back into thoughtful wrinkles at the lowest part of his forehead. It hurt, physically somehow, that there was something to consider.

Were you really this egregiously wrong in your conclusions, or had he finally hit his quota with you and decided that you — this — were too much, too soon?

You wanted to explain yourself, to say that you were just offering for him to come up and sit on your couch with you. Because you wanted to keep this night alive and keep talking for as long as you could. Because this was something and you knew it.

You opened your mouth to do so, but he was the quicker draw.

Yoongi looked genuinely conflicted and you believed him when he said, “I don’t think I can. I have to be up in four hours to —”

“It’s okay!” You chirped. Stupid little bird, flying headlong into a window. You smiled and prayed it looked genuine, but Yoongi didn’t look convinced. Still, you breezed, “Raincheck, then — maybe.”

Maybe when you take the trash out later, you can heave yourself into the dumpster with it.

Deciding that your disappointment shouldn’t be his burden, you grabbed the takeout containers from the counter and whisked yourself over to the trash bin to discard them.

In a magnificent showing of restraint, you didn’t stuff yourself inside it, too. Instead, your tidy tornado kept spinning, picking up every glass you encountered and shoving them hurriedly into the dishwasher below the bar.

Are you suddenly Employee of the Month? Why is this the moment you choose to actually do your job?

With your hip, you nudged the dishwasher door closed much more clumsily than usual. Then, you began wiping down the counter at warp speed; damn near scrubbing a hole straight though the wood.

Why are you so frazzled? Are you really this sensitive after being politely turned down by someone you just met? This is what they mean when they say you’re “too much,” and you know what? They’re right.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Yoongi asked because he was lovely.

You were, as it turned out, as bad an actor as you were a bartender. Your reassuring smile was more unsettling than anything else, but you hoped that — maybe — the shake of your head was enough to dispel the concern from his face.

In case it wasn’t, you quipped, “You’ve already done more than your fair share of cleaning tonight, I think. Thanks again for that, by the way. I ran out bandages, so…”

Your sentence petered out when you finally looked up and locked eyes with Yoongi. His expression was indecipherable and, only for a moment, it made your hurried hands stop moving.

“So, I’m glad you came in,” You finished through an exhale, quiet to the point that it was hardly audible. You hoped he heard you, though, as loudly and clearly as you meant it.

Straightening up, you dropped your bar rag into the “dirty shit” bucket underneath the counter. You quickly wiped your hands against your jeans, laughed with no real joy behind it, and hid your wobbling voice behind a poorly imitated French accent, “Et voilà.”

Yoongi was still staring, still unreadable. For a few moments, you simply looked at one another. Neither one of you made a sound — at least, nobody spoke. There were gears grinding in his head, judging by the look on his face, and you swore you could hear them from across the bar.

“I guess I should — um,” Yoongi eventually muttered as he gestured to the door. He briefly glanced at it, but you doubted that he registered what he was looking at.

Oddly, it wasn’t awkwardness that seemed to have him short-circuiting — not as far as you could tell. It was like his brain was moving faster than it could form words, leaving his mouth open with nothing to say.

You nodded. You knew where he was going with this, and you didn’t want to prolong whatever he was so visibly toiling with.

“Yeah, of course,” You squeaked. Somewhere, the world’s tiniest violin began to play as the corner of your mouth hitched up. “I’ll see you around, I hope?”

Then, Yoongi’s gaze dropped to the phone in his hand. If he heard your question, he didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, deep in thought, he mumbled, “I need to — fuck, okay —” Urgently, he looked back up at you and said firmly, “I’ll call.”

He dashed out the door before you realized the problem with his plan: he had no way to call you.

You’d been so caught up in each other that you never thought to exchange phone numbers. Not only was he now gone, but he hadn’t actually said goodbye.

Seems kind of fitting that yours is the only fairytale without a happy ending, huh?

You occupied the borderline between being a hopeless romantic and a masochist, so you immediately decided that, if you ran, you might catch him before he was truly gone.

Kiss him or kick him, it didn’t matter — you just couldn’t let it end like this.

You skirted around the bar and darted to the door, throwing it open and shocking the bell above it. You were already out on the sidewalk before it had the chance to chime. It was the only sound, and it echoed through otherwise dead air.

Similarly, you were the only person on the street. Judging by the dark windows lining the road, you were the only proof of life in that little corner of Seoul. The lack of visible stars was likely due to light pollution, but you wouldn’t be surprised if they dipped out on you, too.

No matter how many times you looked up and down the street, Yoongi didn’t appear. So, you closed your eyes like an idiot, and wished on a star you couldn’t see that he’d be there when you re-opened them. Standing on the other side of the street, laughing, and asking how you’d missed him on your thirty previous scans.

But he wasn’t.

Yoongi had disappeared like smoke right through your fingers; exiting your night as abruptly as he’d entered it.

You weren’t inclined to stand on the sidewalk all night, stunned by your complete failure to see the plot for what it was. You slipped from the sidewalk, through the front door, and locked it behind you. And once you did, you stood there with your hand on the deadbolt for several moments — just in case.

When no one came to knock, you turned all the lights out and flipped the sign in the front window from open to closed. From there, you made your way to the back of the storage room. Finally reaching the stairwell door in the far corner, you unlocked it slowly like the wait would make a difference.

As you climbed the three flights to your apartment’s entrance, the night’s events formed a whirlpool in your mind. The playback settled it: there was simply no way that you were this wrong — not about this.

Clearly, you weren’t clairvoyant to the extent that Yoongi seemed to be. You hadn’t seen it coming when you nearly fell backwards off the bar, but he did. He’d kept his hand close all night like he sensed you’d need it. Just like he sensed every rock, paper, and scissor.

Even still, it felt like a premonition every time you turned to look at him at the same time he did; and you couldn’t put a finger on it.

That something was more than simply chatting with a person stuck in your close proximity — more than commiserating and drinking simultaneously. That was the nature of your job: circumstantial friendship. Not uncommon, not designed to last beyond last call.

This, though? Cosmic interfere or craziness, maybe, but not nothing. You weren’t superstitious and you didn’t necessarily believe in fate, but the odds of all of this had to be shockingly low.

It felt cinematic, in a way, or straight out of a dream. You would have believed it either way if the pinch of your fingers on your forearm didn’t debunk both theories. It was all too perfectly timed to be a coincidence, though, you knew that much.

Out of all the nights you’d worked at this bar — and all the years he’d been a customer — this was the one time your paths had crossed. And when they finally did, he found you right when you needed him. The same, you hoped, could be said for him.

Too Much meeting Not Enough, proving perfect balance. It was just right, but the ending didn’t fit.

Sure, he knew where to find you — but that was assuming he wanted to. With his quick and wordless departure, your confidence in that assumption wavered as you unlocked your apartment door and stepped inside.

The ball’s over, Cinderella. Sorry about your shoe.

When his third call went to voicemail, Yoongi was ready to launch his phone down the alley.  

There was no fucking way that Seokjin — of all people — was asleep already. This could not be the night that he turned off whatever game he was playing and went to bed at a reasonable hour. Seokjin was rarely reasonable. As it turned out, he wasn’t reachable, either. 

Yoongi growled, kicking the nearby dumpster. He thought that some explosion of physical activity might take the focus off his anxiety, but it didn’t — it just made his foot hurt. 

“Fuck!”

He didn’t even want to make the plans he was now trying desperately to reschedule. He didn’t like fishing; he liked his friend, and his friend liked fishing. So, Yoongi agreed to share the cost of renting a boat that he would have to leave at five o’clock in the morning to catch.

If it's 00:17 now, I have three hours and forty-three minutes until —

The unexpected chiming of his phone stopped Yoongi’s pacing before he could wear a trench into the concrete. “Finally!” 

“Do you always yell at people instead of greeting them?” Seokjin scoffed. As expected, Yoongi could hear some sort of video game blaring in the background.

Typical.

“Hyung, I’m so sorry, but I'm not going to make it back in time. Can we re-schedule this fishing thing?”

Yoongi felt awful for having to ask in the first place, but he felt even worse as he anticipated Seokjin’s reaction. Yoongi swallowed disappointment and stewed in it. Seokjin was quite the opposite, and Yoongi didn’t want to ruin his night. 

To Yoongi’s surprise, he did not get yelled at the way he expected to. Instead, he got Seokjin’s juvenile, sing-song voice directed right into his ear, “Ooh, staying with Hyunjoo, are we?” 

Yoongi, having completely lost the plot, paused for a moment before asking, “Who?” 

“What?” 

Oh, fuck, was that her name? It’d slid out of his brain the second that abuse slid out of her mouth.

Quick to avoid that conversation, Yoongi sputtered, “I’ll give you the story tomorrow, hyung, but I really need to go. Can we push the fishing thing to another day?"

“Oh, I forgot to book the boat, so don’t worry about it!” Seokjin cheered and Yoongi was this close to following through with chucking his phone like a grenade. “Have fun with —” 

Not inclined to wait another second, Yoongi hung up and turned to sprint up the alley towards the bar’s entrance. When he reached it and found the lights out, he skidded to a stop so forcefully that he almost fell over. What the fuck? He tugged at the door handle just to make sure he wasn’t missing something. 

Didn’t he tell you he was going to make a phone call? 

Fuck! He'd said I'll call. He didn't say that he was going to call Seokjin, and he sure as shit hadn't clarified that he was going to do so right that second. There'd been no explanation, no “please wait because I promise I’m coming right back for you" — just a mad dash out the door to get rid of the only thing standing between him and more time with you. 

Shit, shit, shit. 

Yoongi never indulged in unadulterated rage because he decided a long time ago that it took more effort than it was worth. In that moment, though, he felt the overwhelming urge to punch himself right in the face. How did he fuck it all up this badly?

Instead, Yoongi scrubbed his hands over his face and begged his brain to figure out a better plan. He couldn’t just call you because he was too busy making googly eyes at you to ask for your number. He couldn’t pick the lock because it was illegal — and because he didn’t know how.

Unable to do anything else, Yoongi threw his head back with every intention of screaming at the sky. But before he could let his frustration rip out of his mouth, he saw it: his saving grace. 

Mere moments after he sprinted up the alley, Yoongi was tearing back down it like his life depended on it. The end of the iron emergency ladder sat too high off the ground for him to comfortably reach it, but — thankfully — he had garbage at his disposal. Without a second thought, he stacked whatever semi-sturdy trash he could find to bridge the gap between him and your fire escape. 

With all the strength and recklessness of a lovestruck teenager, Yoongi threw his twenty-four-year-old body upwards and grabbed hold of the nearest rung.

Maybe you overestimated that strength a little bit, eh, Yoongi?

He gritted his teeth and pulled himself up enough to swing a leg up, too. Groaning triumphantly, he hooked the bottom of his shoe on the lowest rung. 

From there, it was easy enough to reach the first landing. When it came time for Yoongi to tackle the other two, he picked up the pace — and he didn’t give a shit about how sore he’d be tomorrow. 

Finally, finally, finally, he reached his destination. Unfortunately, that fleeting moment of relief was replaced by fear as he stooped down to knock on your window. Staring back at him through the darkness was a pair of big, yellow eyes.

Yoongi shouted as he stumbled away from the window. He knocked over a planter on his way down, landing on his ass with a crash and a grunt. Adding insult to injury, that black cat looked positively smug as it stared down at him.  

It was quiet when you called out — in English — from another room. “Toph, did you break something? I thought we talked about this, bub." As your voice grew closer, you switched to Korean, "You can't ruin my stuff until you start contributing to this household.”

What's the incubation period for lovesickness?

Yoongi heard footsteps headed towards whatever room he’d failed to break and enter. He saw the light as it flicked on, and then he saw you — wearing a fluffy, tan headband with little, round ears at the top —with a bare face glistening as if you’d just finished tending to it.

Oh, fuck. Is lovesickness terminal? 

If your eyes opened any wider, they might’ve fallen right out of your skull. They would’ve landed where Yoongi did — in the mass grave of pepper sprouts he’d just outright annihilated. But they stayed beautiful where they belonged, and you simply gawked at each other. 

Yoongi spoke first despite not thinking first. “Toph? Like, Beifong?” 

Your shock gave way to the biggest, brightest smile and Yoongi was thankful it didn’t blind him. If it did, he would’ve missed the way your cheeks went pink to match the tips of your ears. Whatever the shade, it was his new favorite color.

Just bury me in this potting soil, doll. I'm dead. 

“Yoongi,” You started with a giggle that turned into a hum when you pursed your lips and tilted your head. Your eyes narrowed and then you asked, “Any reason why you chose the fire escape over the door?” 

The what? 

Sensing his confusion, you leaned out the window and pointed. Yoongi’s eyes followed the invisible line from your fingertip until they located an awning, which sat mere meters away from his impromptu stepstool made of trash.  

Inwardly, he winced. Outwardly, he turned to you with a lopsided smile. “I was checking out your little garden."

Yoongi cleared his throat, now wincing outwardly, “And, uh — then I killed it, a little bit. I promise I’ll replace everything as soon as the shops open. I am so —” 

“Cold? I bet,” You interrupted with a smirk, “Come inside then, Min Yoongi. Just don’t break the window too, alright?” 

You didn’t have to tell him twice.

Immediately, he was on his feet, furiously dusting potting soil off the back of his legs. When he suspected that he’d gotten it all, Yoongi turned around and glanced at you over his shoulder. Even without a question, you knew what he was asking; you signaled okay with your fingers and a giggle. 

With more care than he’d ever shown in his life, Yoongi crawled through the gap you created when you ducked back through the window. Once he had his feet underneath him again, he quickly toed off his shoes and plucked them off the tile.

As soon as he was upright again, you took his wrist in your hand — oh god, your skin is so criminally soft — and led him through your kitchen to the living room. 

Gently, you set his shoes down on the mat beside your front door. Then, you turned back around to gaze up at him. Looking at that face of yours, Yoongi forgot every word he’d ever learned. It was just his hammering heart beating in time with yours, until: 

“So, this is where I live.”

You were close enough that Yoongi could smell the toothpaste on your breath when you spoke, but still too far. You must’ve thought so, too, because you shifted your weight to your other foot and wound up slightly nearer to him. 

Yoongi hummed in reply, though he could barely hear it over his pulse pounding in his ears, “It’s nice.”

He didn’t actually know if that was the case because he’d spent every second so far staring at you, but he had faith that you’d prove him right.

More quiet, more anticipation disguised as quickening breaths.

Like a magnet, you drew him in. Yoongi echoed every tiny move you made towards him until the distance was gone; and he could feel the heat of your body mere centimeters from his.

This close, he could see flecks of gold in your irises that he hadn’t noticed before. Yoongi knew he shouldn't have been surprised. If he'd learned a single thing tonight it was that hidden treasures were par for the course with you.

“Yoongi.” 

It was baffling how you could sound so shy, even with desire blowing your pupils wide. Just as confounding was the fact that Yoongi knew, without question, that you felt it, too — that this new and perfect something was the start of everything.

“Please, just kiss me already.” 

That wasn’t an opportunity he’d ever expect to turn down. 

You were already breathless, weightless, and floating in fucking space when you finally crossed over the threshold into your bedroom.

Because, fuck, that man took your oxygen with him whenever his lips left yours. Without even trying, he’d fashioned himself into a ventilator that you really might suffocate without.  

Thankfully, whenever he pulled away, he didn’t stray far. Even as you both stumbled towards your unmade bed, tripping over obstacles — up to and including Toph, whose favorite spot was between your ankles — there was always one hand on your hip and another lacing fingers through your hair. 

As you moved, you couldn’t help thinking of the leftovers you’d brought home from work before. All single-use encounters, wastes of time that you normally didn’t care to recall. Though he may end up being the last, Yoongi wasn’t the first person to have you in this position.

He was, however, the only person to rescind his tongue just to comment on the tiny, design details of your shit-box apartment. 

“How did you —” He paused to moan into your mouth when your teeth gently claimed his bottom lip. “Find a place with — oh, fuck, you taste like spearmint – original crown-molding in this —” The back of his knees bumped into the edge of your mattress and suddenly, he was sitting. “Neighborhood?” 

There was no way you could ever explain Min Yoongi’s duality. He was unequivocally, fatally hot — and simultaneously, he was the most endearing, grandfatherly person you’d ever encountered. Somehow, this mind-boggling man turned architectural factoids into dirty talk.

You might orgasm on the spot if he brought up your built-ins, and you didn’t know or care what that said about you as a person. 

“I’ll show you the blueprints later if you want,” you giggled while Yoongi ‘s cheeks flushed. Before he could find a reason to feel embarrassed, you tilted his chin up in order to kiss him properly. As you did, you murmured against his lips, “But if you take those jeans off, there’s something else I’d like to show you first.” 

Your little finger was near to his throat as you held his chin captive, so you felt it when it when he growled. Against your knuckle, in your chest, and in that growing ache in between your thighs. There was roughness in him that you’d only seen snippets of, but you’d bet that you could pull it out if you tried.  

Maybe not now while you were both masking nerves, but eventually. 

When Yoongi made to stand, you backed up to give him room to do so. You were already on your knees when his belt came off, unbuttoning his jeans before the leather even hit the floor. As you pulled that zipper down — slowly and carefully — you glanced up at him from under your lashes and watched the breath catch in his chest. 

It wasn’t the first time you noticed how fucking beautiful he was; in fact, that thought had been looping through your mind all night. But there was something new in his expression as he observed you taking his cock into your hand.

Something reverent, like he believed he should be the one on their knees.

A few languid, kitten licks at the tip, and his eyelids fluttered. They screwed shut entirely as you ran the flat of your tongue along the vein underneath. When your mouth finally enveloped him fully, his head drooped backwards as he groaned. 

Your name would never sound better than it did exhaled from Yoongi’s chest. 

More often than not, fellatio felt like an obligation. A quid pro quo, you always figured, though none of them kept up their end of the deal. But with Yoongi buried in the wet heat of your mouth, it was a gift you might never get tired of giving. Every breathy moan and involuntary twitch felt like a prize — and still, neither came close to the way it felt when he looked at you. 

In those fleeting moments when he could focus, of course. 

“I’m fucking dreaming,” Yoongi groaned, bringing his hands up and scrubbing them over his face. “Shit. Perfect figment of my imagination, that’s the only explanation for you. Where the fuck have you been my whole life?” 

You hummed as you let him slip out of your mouth. In turn, it prompted a flurry of expletives to slip out of his. Tracing a feather-light line from hilt to head, you smirked up at him, “Waiting at a bar for you to show up, Min Yoongi. You sure did take your time.” 

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” He laughed, “I already plan to regret that for the next — I don't know — forever?”

He dropped his hands from over his eyes and held them out to you. “Come here, angel. You’re too far away.” 

As soon as you were back on your feet, Yoongi enveloped you in the warmth of his arms. You were halfway to melting when he kissed you; dead and gone when he laid you back against the mattress; and downright astral projecting when the weight of his body was added to yours.  

Not to be dramatic, but is heaven a place on Earth? 

With your head resting comfortably on the pillow, you gazed up at Yoongi as he addressed the tied waistband of your sweatpants. It wasn’t until that knot came undone that you realized: if he’d come home with you earlier — before you’d swapped out your street clothes for shapeless knits — he would’ve had a prettier present to unwrap.  

Lace over your hip bones instead of cotton briefs. A black, balconette bra that made your tits into something worth looking at; not lackluster bareness that barely registered under your paint-stained t-shirt.  

Unintentionally mimicking him, you covered your face with your hands to conceal the way you were blushing. You didn’t even dare to peek through your fingers at him while he dragged your sweatpants down over your legs.

That is, not until you heard the world’s softest chuckle and it hit you like a bus. 

“Pretty girl,” Yoongi hummed. He left a chaste kiss on the top of your left thigh, and you whimpered. So sweet, so brief that your skin still tingled when he moved to mirror that kiss on your right thigh. “Where’d you go, baby?” 

Baby.  

That settled it. Min Yoongi was trying to kill you.

Nobody kissed you that carefully, not ever. No man, no woman, no one in between or beyond spoke to you that softly; turned you to putty in their hands with gentleness alone. Not like he did.

You were going to love him — you already knew it — and that stupid, four-letter word just sealed your fate. There wasn’t a single thing that you could do to prevent it, even if you wanted to. So, your options were limited to one:

Leaning into the fall. 

You reached out with the hand that once covered your face and grabbed him by the shirt to pull him closer. Once he was within range, with the tip of his nose bumping into yours, you stared him dead in the eye and told him just how badly you needed him inside of you. 

It took no time at all for the two of you to cast aside what remained of your clothing. Hand-me-downs mingled with designer items that exceeded the cost of your rent, and you didn’t give a fuck. You discarded your inhibitions in that heap, too, sitting up on your knees as he rolled a condom down his length. 

Yoongi’s return to you was marked by his hands cupping your face. He kissed you until you were no longer breathless, until you felt the rush of air filling your lungs. You followed his lead back down to the mattress where he rested on his side; and without any need for instruction, you draped your right leg over his hip. 

It was the closet you’d been to him, but it still wasn’t close enough 

“Is this okay?” Yoongi broke the kiss just to look at you.  

The fondness in his eyes was competing with concern, but that didn’t surprise you. Considerate to a fault, he’d no doubt been thrown for a loop when you went from zero to one hundred in merely half a second. “I can —” 

Oh, I bet you can.  

But you couldn’t wait. Impatient, through and through — and thoroughly dripping — you shook your head.

Your hand left its place on his bare bicep and dipped down to wrap around his cock. There were two individual heartbeats hammering in sync as you guided him to your cunt, though it sounded a lot like one. 

“Like you said earlier,” You sighed as he pushed into you. “Just right.” 

Six years later...

tagging: @mgthecat @jihopesjoint @jaejoontrashpanda @taebaelove @cyanide-mustard @xjoonchildx @borahae-k @i-purple-buff-bunni @pamzn @myimaginationsrunningwild @nonbinary-demonbrat @yoongiphoria @sstarryoong @xcherrywaltz @btschimeyplanet @persphonesorchid @take-u-2-an0ther-w0r1d @goodsoop @jkoofier (couldn't tag)

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likes are always appreciated, but it's feedback that means the most — whether that's in a comment below, PM, reblog, tags, etc. tysm for reading ✨

a/n: holy shit. just, holy shit. i've spent less time on literal thesis papers than i did on this. i'm so thankful for everyone who blew up darksided and blindsided — i really hope this provides context for how these two got together, and how tf they love each other that much. i will not apologize for the sexual cliffhanger because this smut wasn't going to be included, initially! this was going to end at the bar, lol.

also, this is an ode to those very special (very impermanent) nights with someone new that feel like perfect lifetimes in just the span of a few hours. in my experience, they never went anywhere (which i think made them more special, in hindsight) but i wanted to write a fic where things didn't stop there.

anyways, i'm very tired of writing words now, so please enjoy and let me know what you think 🫶🏻

#myg #min yoongi #yoongi #suga #bts #bts fanfiction #bts fanfic #bts fic #bts fluff #bts smut #yoongi fanfiction #yoongi fanfic #yoongi fic #yoongi fluff #yoongi smut #yoongi x reader #yoongi x you #yoongi x y/n #min yoongi fluff #min yoongi smut #min yoongi x reader #min yoongi x you #min yoongi x y/n #re: darksided #re: blindsided #re: foresight #suga fluff #suga smut #bts suga #jade writes

[lunastrophe]

What kind of education do young drow receive in the underdark? I imagine the noble houses employ their own tutors, but what kind of schooling can those of lesser means expect? What is life like for drow children in general?

🕷️ Early Education - as for the education of young Lolth-sworn drow from noble houses, there is some information about it in R. A. Salvatore's Homeland, in chapters about Drizzt's childhood. For young drow from families of lower station, things are probably somewhat similar.

Drow children, especially sons, are not raised by their mothers, unless probably the family is very small and poor, or the mother has low social status. The child is typically raised by weanmother - usually older sister or other female relative. Daughters, especially the first daughter, most likely receive more attention from their mothers.

For the first ten years or so, the child learns basic things about living in drow society and about Way of Lolth:

"For five long years Vierna devoted almost every waking moment to the care of baby Drizzt. In drow society, this was not so much a nurturing time as an indoctrinating time. The child had to learn basic motor and language skills, as did children of all the intelligent races, but a drow elf also had to be grilled on the precepts that bound the chaotic society together. In the case of a male child such as Drizzt, Vierna spent hour after endless hour reminding him that he was inferior to the drow females. Since almost all of this portion of Drizzt’s life was spent in the family chapel, he encountered no males except during times of communal worship. Even when all in the house gathered for the unholy ceremonies, Drizzt remained silent at Vierna’s side, with his gaze obediently on the floor. When Drizzt was old enough to follow commands, Vierna’s workload lessened. Still, she spent many hours teaching her younger brother - presently they were working on the intricate facial, hand, and body movements of the silent code. Often, though, she just set Drizzt about the endless task of cleaning the domed chapel." (R. A. Salvatore, Homeland)

In commoner's house, a child is most likely expected to help in household chores, but does not live as secluded life as a child of noble family and has more contact with other children.

🕷️ Indoctrination - "Beyond the supremacy of female drow (a lesson always accentuated by the wicked snake-headed whip), the most compelling lessons were those concerning the surface elves, the faeries. Evil empires often bound themselves in webs of hate toward fabricated enemies, and none in the history of the world were better at it than the drow. From the first day they were able to understand the spoken word, drow children were taught that whatever was wrong in their lives could be blamed on the surface elves."

Drow education often involves beatings - male children typically receive beatings more often, "to be taught their place".

🕷️ Free Time - drow children are allowed to play in their free time. Toddlers play, for example, on the floor with deep rothé bones (mentioned in Archmage). Female children often play together - some popular girls' games are called Stalking Spider and Flay the Slave (mentioned in The Lady Penitent, don't remember which book though).

Sources rarely mention drow children and what they do in their free time, though.

🕷️ Serving The Household - after ten years, the weanmother relinquishes care of the child. It is also the time when drow child is typically considered old enough to be given a bit more serious duties. In case of male children, including sons of noble houses, that usually involves serving the household.

Children of noble houses usually start their lessons in using their innate magic abilities when they are around ten.

🕷️ Training - this period of servitude / early education ends when a young drow is sixteen. Then mother officially accepts her child as a member of the house. In noble houses, it involves a formal family meeting in the chapel and a ceremony during which the young drow receives the house piwafwi. In families of lower station, there is probably also some kind of a ceremony for that occassion, but not as grand.

It is also the moment when the mother makes decisions about the child's future - what training the youg drow is going to receive and how she or he is going to serve the family. In noble houses, sons are typically trained to be warriors or wizards, and daughters - to be priestesses. They are students of house weapon master, house wizard or first priestess until they are old enough to start their education in the Academy.

In families of lower station, it is most likely the time when a young drow officially starts apprenticeship.

#drow #dnd lore #drow lore #lolth sworn drow #dark elves #drow culture

[doctordeathawaits]

Hello, apologies if you have already given tips for this before, I looked but I could not find it. Do you have any transition tips for transschizophrenia? (If that is too broad then transhallucination tips are also appreciated.) Thanks in advance if you decide to do it.

Hello ! I shall try my best ( I feel like trans-delusions can also be good tips to check out with this one ! :) )

TRANS - SCHIZOPHRENIA ...

It's said you need to have at least two of the following symptoms ; delusions , hallucinations , disorganized speech and thinking , abnormal motor behaviour , negative symptoms .

Hallucination - there is visual and auditory , you can choose whichever you desire . For visual , imagining shadows in the corner of your eye is a good place to start - convincing yourself that it disappears or hides as soon as you try to look at it . As time goes on , believing that there are things everywhere , always at the corner of your eyes , can cause Sleep Paralysis ( paired with sleep deprivation ofc ) , Sleep Paralysis can actually help with hallucinations ! While for auditory , I suggest listening to asmr or any sort of whispering sound when trying to go to sleep . We generally expect sounds to happen after we notice a cycle , so you will start to think that you heard a whisper anytime you are getting ready for bed .

Letting yourself have ' nonsensical ' beliefs . ( example from my schizo friend lmao ; He once believed that Jesus was 2.5 of a person and that he was the 0.5 - why ? because someone mistook him for Jesus once , so now he believed he was living just to find the body he was supposed to be in and in order to be one again they would need to cannibalize each other at the highest point on earth ... ) YEAH SO JUST LET YOUR IMAGINATION RUN WILD LMAO .

Disorganized speech - allow yourself to have ' word salads ' , allow yourself to stutter when trying to explain one of your beliefs to someone , let it not make sense , let it sound like the most monstrous thing ever .

Let yourself be emotional - being paranoid all the time can lead to emotion spikes , when you're angry - feel rage , when you're happy - feel euphoric .

Be erratic when experiencing slight upset / distress . Completely freak out , never make sense when trying to explain what is freaking you out .

Hope these helped even just a little bit ! Happy transitioning < 3

#.ᐟ my dear corpse .. #radqueer #rq 🌈🍓 #rqc🌈🍓 #rq #pro radqueer #pro rq 🌈🍓 #pro radq #radqueer safe #pro transx #transid #radqueer coining #radqueer community #pro rad inclus #radqueers please interact #pro rq #rq 🍓🌈 #rq safe #rq community #rqc 🌈🍓 #rqc 🍓🌈 #rq coining #pro transid #pro para #🍓🌈 safe #transid safe #paraphile safe #transid please interact #transx #🍓🌈

[silliestsims]

The ERAS Legacy Challenge

Hello! I am an avid sims player AND a swiftie! So I thought, why not make the best of both worlds! So this legacy challenge will kind of be like the 'Not So Berry Challenge' made by Lilsimsie and Alwayssimming.

A few notes before you get into the challenge

The generations gender does not matter! Play as a boy or girl, it makes no difference!

The sims(mostly debut) are not meant to be played as Taylor! (ex: for debut I named my sim Mary from "Mary's Song" and Her love interest (who I made, but you do not have to and can be with a townie) is named Drew from "Teardrops on my Guitar."

I made the albums that are not yet Taylor's Version (as of the time writing this out) be unmarried(still in relationships or not it's your decision!)

I have specific colors taken from the album colors that should be used in most of the sim's house! You do not have to have the whole house this way though!

I had my debut sim start out as a young adult, but you can start them as an adult if you'd like!

If a like has -insert pack here- beside it, that like can only be found if you have that pack! So if you don't have that pack, don't sweat it!

This is mostly base-game friendly, but if you tweak it a bit to fit some of your favorite mods and packs, feel free to!

And that is it, so let's get on with the challenge!

DEBUT

This sim was born in a small town and knew when they were young they had wanted to pursue a career in the music world! They begin their career in the music industry hoping to find a place in this world.

Aspiration: Musical Genius

Traits: Creative, Cheerful, and Music Lover

Color: Green/Blue(possibly teal as well)

Likes: (Color) Green & Blue, (Music) Blues-base game-and Ranch-Horse Ranch Pack-, Guitar, Writing, Piano-base game- and singing-City Living-

Career: Musician

Rules: Complete the Musical Genius Aspiration, Max Musician Career, Max Guitar skill, Max Piano skill, Max singing skill-City Living-, Have at least one child to become the heir, be 'good friends' with their children.

FEARLESS

Watching their parent(s) treat them with such kindness and love, this sim knew that they wanted to share these feelings with the world. They have much love to give, but their love life has been rocky. This sim is ready to settle down and give their child(or children) the best childhood.

Aspiration: Friend of The World

Traits: Outgoing, Loyal, and Ambitious

Color: Yellow

Likes: (Color) Yellow, (Music) Hip-Hop,(Activities)Writing and Baking.

Career: Chef

Rules: Complete the Friend of the World Aspiration, Max Chef Career, Max Writing skill, Max Baking skill, Have at least 2 relationships before finding the significant other, Have kids while an adult, Have at least one child to become the heir, have next heir have the max motor skill.

SPEAK NOW

This sim's parents loved them a lot, and they knew that. They were raised to believe that they would grow up and get a practical job like a writer or techie, but this sim has always looked to the stars for comfort. They simply were enchanted by the stars, would they be the foolish one to want to be among them? They love their parents, but will they still love this sim if they take on their dreams of reaching the stars?

Aspiration: Serial Romantic

Traits: Goofball, Perfectionist, Good

Color: Purple

Likes: (Color) Purple, (Music) Easy Listening-Get to Work-and Singer-Songwriter-Cats and Dogs Pack-(Activities) Fitness and Rocket Science.

Career: Space Ranger

Rules: Have max motor skill as a child, Complete the Serial Romantic Aspiration, Max Astronaut Career, Max Fitness skill, Max Rocket Science skill, Date at least 8 people before settling down, Have a child to one of your exes, Have the child born to one of their exes become the heir.

RED

Growing up and seeing this sim's mother/father date many people before finally settling down made them realize that maybe they weren't exactly sure if true love was real. The only true loves this sim had? Alcohol and working. They were young, only feeling 22! They knew all too well how much love could hurt, they'd seen one of their parents go through it plenty of times, but when they meet another sim at a bar? Maybe everything has changed for this sim and their views on love.

Aspiration: Master Mixologist

Traits: Gloomy, Self-Assured, Foodie

Color: Red

Likes: (Color) Red, (Music) Pop, (Activities) Mixology and Cooking

Career: Mixologist

Rules: Complete the Master Mixologist Aspiration, Max Mixologist Career, Max Mixology skill, Max Cooking skill, Date no one until meeting significant other, Meet significant other in a bar, Finish work tasks as quickly as possible, Have a child as an adult, Have at least one child to become the heir.

1989

Having parents who didn't have a child until much later in their lives made this sim cherish what little time people actually had in life. They decided that living a boring, unfulfilling life just wasn't their style. When they had turned into a teen, they threw parties with friends every weekend. This sim falls in love with one of their high school friends, but once they grow up they fade apart. Now that they don't talk, this sim is forced to move on, but their heart is stuck on them. They take this chance and fall in love with other sims, but when they meet back up with their high school sweetheart, are they still in love?

Aspiration: Renaissance Sim

Traits: Jealous, Loyal, Clumsy

Color: Blue and White

Likes: (Color) Blue and White, (Music) Pop and Electronica, (Activities) Gaming and Comedy

Career: Trendsetter

Rules: Throw parties every weekend in high school, Have a high school sweetheart, Break up with high school sweetheart, Date two other people before getting back with high school sweetheart, Get back together with high school sweetheart, Complete the Renaissance Sim Aspiration, Max Trendsetter Career, Max Gaming skill, Max Comedy skill, Have at least two children, Choose whichever child you wish to be the heir.

REPUTATION

This sim knew growing up that no one would love them like everyone seemed to love their mother/father(last generation) When they were a teen, the only person who knew them was their high school boyfriend/girlfriend- someone that their parents didn't like. They could call it what they want, This sim was in love and no one could tell them any different. Their relationship with their parents began to worsen and when they became a young adult they moved into a house far away from their parents with their high school sweetheart. Basically leaving in a getaway car made this sim realize that maybe doing something bad felt so good. Maybe they'd never see their parents again, but they could make a new family...a crime family.

Aspiration: Public Enemy

Traits: Loner, Romantic, and Genius

Color: Black, Gray, and White

Likes: (Color) Black, Gray, and White , (Music) Pop and Alternative, (Activities) Mischief and Fitness

Career: Criminal Boss

Rules: Have a high school sweetheart, Have parents dislike the significant other, Have a bad relationship with parents, Move into a house with significant other immediately after becoming a young adult, Complete the Public Enemy Aspiration, Max Criminal Career, Max Mischief skill, Max Fitness skill, Have at least one child to be the heir.

LOVER

Growing up, this sim was always told about their parents love story. High school sweethearts who ran away with each other? That was the best love story that anyone could ever ask for! This sim grew up without being around their grandparents, they never asked, so they were never told why. Being raised in a chill and laidback family made this sim think that everyone just needs to calm down! As a teen, they dated a few of their friends, trying to find a love like her parents, but ultimately all of those relationships failed. They decided to put aside their lover heart and go onto business in their young adult life, but what happens when they accidentally become woohoo partners with someone they work with?

Aspiration: Successful Lineage

Traits: Childish, Art Lover, Family Oriented

Color: Pink, Yellow, and Blue

Likes: (Color) Pink, Yellow, and Blue, (Music) Pop and Romance, (Activities) Writing, Painting, and Guitar

Career: Business (management branch)

Rules: Date at least 2 friends in high school, Breakup with the high school relationships, Don't date anyone until halfway through the sims young adulthood, become woohoo partners with a coworker, Complete the Renaissance Sim Aspiration, Max Business Career, Max Writing skill, Max Painting skill, Max guitar skill, Have at least two children, Have the first child be the heir.

FOLKLORE

Having outgoing parents that seemed to always have something else going on seemed fun...in theory. In reality, however, this sim grew up closed off and playing make believe by themselves. They had read books on the last great American dynasties to distract themselves and found peace in day dreaming and making up stories. When this sim was a teen, they worked hard in school so they could keep their parents eyes off of them and keep the attention on their sibling(s). This sim became a young adult and moved into a small house and began writing the stories they had once dreamt up- mostly romance. They began selling these books and met "the one" at a library/museum, finding the love that they had only written about.

Aspiration: Bestselling Author

Traits: Loner, Bookworm, and Loyal

Color: Gray and White

Likes: (Color) Gray and White, (Music) Blues, (Activities) Writing and Guitar

Career: Author

Rules: Stay to self while a child and teenager, Be an A student in high school, Meet significant other in a library/museum as a young adult, Complete the Bestselling Author Aspiration, Max Author Career, Max Writing skill, Max Guitar skill, Have any amount of children, Choose whichever child you wish to be the heir.

EVERMORE

Growing up in a small, cozy house that was filled with love made this sim enjoy life, but still find the faults within it charming. This sim was born into a house of creativity and enjoyed the nature aspect and loved beautiful scenery. As a child they had a best friend that went into high school with them, but they had gotten into a fight and had become enemies with them. They had a high school relationship that went into young adulthood and was engaged, but the significant other cheated on this sim- ending the relationship. This sim had moved on relatively quick, why tolerate cheating then cry over it? They had spent their nights at clubs and flirted with many people and found one really attractive sim- "that's my man." this sim was dead set on this. They finally found the love they had been searching for. Long story short...they survived.

Aspiration: Painter

Traits: Creative, Perfectionist, and Art Lover

Color: Orange and Brown

Likes: (Color) Orange and Brown, (Music) Alternative and Classical, (Activities) Panting and Piano

Career: Painter

Rules: Throw parties every weekend in high school, Have a high school sweetheart, Break up with high school sweetheart, Date two other people before getting back with high school sweetheart, Get back together with high school sweetheart, Complete the Renaissance Sim Aspiration, Max Trendsetter Career, Max Gaming skill, Max Comedy skill, Have at least two children, Choose whichever child you wish to be the heir.

MIDNIGHTS

This sim's family had many lives lived, they could go back to their great great great great great great great grandma and never truly understand their whole family. That didn't stop this sim from being interested in everything and anything that they could get their hands on. This led them to be kleptomaniac, karma surely wouldn't track them down. When they had been a teen, this sim enjoyed working out as a way to stay active and busy their mind away from the urge to steal. In their eyes, they were an anti-hero who was trying so hard to push back what they hated about themself. This sim became a young adult and still was curious about everything they could know, so they became a secret agent. This sim met their significant other, but they were worried because this sim was good while they were a klepto. Their significant other didn't mind, though, and let this sim be bejewled.

Aspiration: Renaissance Sim

Traits: Ambitious, Kleptomaniac, and Neat

Color: Blue, White, Navy Blue, Purple

Likes: (Color) Blue, Purple, and White, (Music) World Music, (Activities) Guitar, Piano, and Fitness

Career: Secret Agent

Rules: Begin working out as a teen, Marry a sim that is good, Complete the Renaissance Sim Aspiration, Max Secret Agent Career, Max Guitar skill, Max Piano skill, Max Fitness skill, Have any or none children. thank you for completing the challenge :)

You're on your own kid, you always have been.

#sims 4 #sims 4 gameplay #the sims community #sims 4 legacy #sims 4 legacy challenge #taylor swift #fearless taylor’s version #midnights #reputation #1989 tv #swifties #lover #speak now #red taylor’s version #taylor swift debut #folklore #evermore #sims challenge #simblr #silliestsims

[palestinian-fundraising]

PLEASE READ AND REBLOG🇵🇸

Helping a disabled child to leave Gaza

Message from creator:

My name is Mohammad, I am 27 years old, a language student, and a Palestinian refugee residing in Belgium.

I am writing to you with a heavy heart, asking for your urgent help to save my dear sister Soha and her family from the horrific conditions they are living in in Gaza.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/JSmCIYjnBYw

Suha, her husband Khalil, their son Yamen, Ammar, and their daughter Rahma live in constant fear amid the continuous bombing and chaos of war. The situation has become more serious as their son, Yamen, suffers from a motor disability, and the family faces enormous challenges due to the lack of physical therapy and massage devices for the muscles and the inability to obtain an opportunity for treatment.

A picture of the Suha family living on the beach after they were forced to leave their home for the third time due to mass bombing and nearby explosions.

I ask for your generous support to evacuate Suha and her family members from the dangerous conditions they are currently living in in Gaza and transfer them to a safe place in Egypt.

Soha and Khalil, both devoted parents, struggle to protect their children from the overwhelming sounds of explosions that surround them. The child, already burdened with mobility challenges, now lives in a state of constant fear, unwilling to endure the terror any longer.

Suha's house after the mass bombing of the neighborhood.

Case summary:

In October 2023, my sister Suha’s family was trapped in a relentless nightmare of bombing, forced from their homes to the UNRWA school in Khan Yunis where more than 40 people live in each classroom, with no refuge from hunger, drought, displacement and disease. And continuous bombings.

-Since the beginning of January 2024, the family has been forced to move again, but to another city, the city of Rafah, where the living conditions are disastrous, and the family lives in a handmade tent on the beach, and now the family is suffering from cold weather and winds and they are still suffering from a very dangerous nearby bombing.

Your support is important:

It is imperative that we come together to evacuate Soha and her family to a safer environment where they can find peace and security. They deserve to live without the constant threat of violence and fear of what tomorrow may bring.

Financial details:

To cross the border between Gaza and Egypt in Rafah, you are required to pay for permits known as the “crossing list.” Coordinators in Egypt informed us that adding family names would cost between $5 and $5,500 per person. Your generous contributions will go towards:

$25,000 for a permit for the Rafah crossing for all members of the Hamdan family.

$1000 travel and transportation fees from Gaza to Egypt.

US$5,000 to rent a shelter/house in Egypt, resettlement, purchase of clothes, urgent healthcare and other humanitarian needs for a few months up to one year.

How you can help:

Please consider donating and sharing widely with people and friends. Every second in Gaza is a candle, your support can be life-saving.

Your support is important in this effort. We must act quickly to ensure the safety of Suha, Khalil, Yamen, Ammar, and Rahma. Please donate generously and share this appeal with your networks to help us reach our stretch goal of providing a better future for this deserving family.

You can contact Soha and kahleel on Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/yamin_khaleel?igsh=bjJjanc1Y295Zjkx

He is not available at all times due to poor communications.

Thank you for your kindness and compassion during this time period.

sincerely,

Muhammad T

#gofundme #mutual aid #fundraiser #donations #signal boost #palestine #Gaza #Rafah #free rafah #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #free palestine #free gaza #all eyes on rafah #urgent #donation #donate #save gaza #save rafah #save palestine #aid #palestine aid #humanitarian aid #financial aid #palestine charity #charity #ceasfire now #ceasefire #actually disabled #disability #eurovision

[resident-gay-bitch]

kinda a niche au concept but i think a lot of people will get it but also it’s so random lol: corroded coffin friendship / steddie / buckingham / more lol

okay, my dad watches car shows all the time like the car sos shit, and i don’t really like them, but i’ve always enjoyed one: Counting Cars. the main mechanic is like a metalhead and they’re all kinda punky and alternative and just a bunch of metalhead dads pimping out old cars and shit.

henceforth, the au idea: how are you seeing how our beloved eddie might fit into this?

SO say CC got big enough to be known kinda western globally or whatever, maybe bigger idk i don’t care but anyway. maybe they were a one hit wonder in the 80/90’s or whatever.

but they stopped playing because they all kinda wanted to settle down and stop partying and wanted to buy houses and not have to tour all the time or whatever right. say gareth met a girl and got married to her and they had a kid on the way, jeff and grant wanted to settle down and live a cosy steady life together, eddie was just so fucking tired of being front man idol or whatver. and they all just wanted to get back into the mechanic shop - maybe they all apprenticed at thatcher tyers or whatever in hawkins when they were younger.

whatever the reason, they’re ex-famous band who are pretty ficking rich and love working on cars and shit. so they open a shop and start fixing up cars. they get a lot of rapport because of their name; the shops called corroded cars or something similar to the band name. eddie runs the place because it’s mostly his passion and he impulse bought the shop himself whilst drunk one night and then they were all just like okay yeah let’s do this lol.

maybe one night they’re all chilling at gareth’s place for “family” dinner and after dinner they’re just watching telly and a car show comes on and then they get the idea to start a show!!! so they do!!!

eddie’s the main guy, obviously. he’s always been the drama queen confident one so he runs it all, and it’s His shop anyway. eddie is the idiotic, loveable, idiot but he’s also just a cool down to earth alternative guy who headbangs whilst working on engines and REFUSES to cut his hair.

i think jeff would be the head painter, graphic artist,. i feel such an arty vibe from him ya know? i think that would be his area of expertise. the audience would love his general calm vibe but also adore how easily he puts everyone in their place in a second and is so secretly sassy.

i think argyle would be the airbrush guy and also works in paint / design. he’s Definitely not always high and is just funny like that… definitely. his niche opinions and random curiosities keep the audience captivated.

gareth would be the detailer i think. he’s got a sort of perfectionist vibe and he’d always have a go when eddie brings in a car or a bike he’s just been fixing the motor of or whatever and there’s grease stains all over the doors and shit. the audience would love their banter.

grant would be the bike shop manager, he’s got a strong interest in motorbikes and that’s his area of expertise. he’ll spend hours perfecting one part of the body of a bike and eddie adores his dedication every fuckinf time.

jonothan would be the tech guy. he finds ways to update old cars to help them run smoothly whilst feeling authentic in the drive. some of the tech he pulls out is next level and everyone in the shop will spend an entire episode gushing about this one feature in a car he added that makes it feel like a spy car or something.

Nancy!! she’d be the behind the scenes manager. eddie hired her about one month into the buisiness when he realised none of the CC guys could / or wanted to do the books and shit. she’s smart as hell and a total hard ass when it comes to their aloof attitude and carelessness, but she’s also good fun and a total girlboss. eddie relies on her to keep the shop afloat, he’d be lost without her. she’s a fan favorite because she’s the only one who can attempt to put eddie in his place and acctually succeed. anyone goes and tells eddie he needs to think about the budget before he goes spending, he won’t even listen, she gives him one look and tells him no and suddenly he’s sheepish and nodding and walking away like a child who was told they can’t have a cookie. she’s in charge of all the books / finance / accounts / all that stuff!

(also, people are having a hard time figuring out if she’s dating john or argyle, or weather those guys are dating eachotjer, or if they’re all dating, or if None of them are dating)

Chrissy!! she’s adorable. a total fan favorite. she’s their receptionist and is currently taking an engineering course part time in college, finally taking the initiative to do something She actually wants to do. her sweet demeanour pulls customers and watchers in, and her determined attitude is what makes them stay. she’s like pure sugar, but so insanely smart. sometimes she’ll come and watch everyone as they work and if it’s not busy they’ll teach her different things and let her try. everyone loves the episodes where chrissy gets to try and fix things or paint things or learn things!

ROBIN!!! my girl! ugh! she’s TOTALLY an iconic mean lesbian okay. she’s always got banter with the guys, and she’s so cool calm and clllected, insulting them all the time. the girls in the audience go crazy when she’s onscreen in just a wife beater tank and got them gay girl muscles out! she works close with eddie on motors and shit but she’s also the project scout. she looks for new things for them to try and brings these ideas / cars / bikes / whatever else over to eddie to get out into the show! but the audience loves her even more when they see her totally awkward dorky side come out the first episode where chrissy comes over and watches robin work. they’ve never seen robin drop a spanner so much! chrissy is the only one who can fluster robin like that. the audience is rooting for their romance.

and the steddie! so robins totally uber rich best friend likes collecting old cars. and she’s been trying to get him on the show for a while because he has Such cool cars but he’s never needed fixing or pimping. until he goes and buys another one and it just won’t run and it’s all beaten down but he just HAD to buy it because it was his dream car as a little kid or something. so he comes on the show with his car and - well, the main reason he’s been avoiding it because he actually used to crush on lead guitarist and vocalist eddie munson back in the 90’s - eddie obviously being the face of the show greets him with nancy and robin and they talk about his car and eddie gets Flustered!

robin has a totally hot best friend whos So ficking queer And knows heaps about cars and is standing so close, shoulders touching with eddie as he shows pictures of his collection on his phone and eddie pretends he’s looking at the cars and not steve’s ring adorned hands.

steve is also highly protective of his cars and so he hangs around whilst they work on his ride. he and robin are so chatty and bitchy together and the audience love it. and eddie can’t stop Staring!!

by episode three of steve being featured in it people are posting shit trying to notify steve and robin that eddie is so gay for steve!

and then steve’s car is done and done and then he leaves the show. and then a couple of episodes later robin approaches eddie and whispers - but the cameras are right there - to eddie asking if he has been perving on her best friend and it’s So funny to everyone cause eddie’s kinda terrified and she’s threading to burry him alive if he hurts her steve and- eddie goes red when he realises that robin just confirmed he had a chance with steve.

anyway. suddenly steve has Many more appearances on the show :)

and obviously robin and chrissy get together!!’

and no one ever finds out about the love triangle between nancy jon and argyle (they’re all polly)

anyway. i just think that’s cute.

#fic idea #steddie au #mechanic eddie #buckingham #corroded coffin #fluff #counting cars #modern au #eddie munson #stranger things #steddie #stranger things 4 #jay writes #jay talks #steve harrington #robin buckley #jeff stranger things #grant stranger things #gareth emerson #nancy wheeler #chrissy cunningham #jonothan byers #argyle stranger things #mechanic robin #rockstar eddie #car guy steve #car guy eddie

[cantsayidont]

I am generally fond of the Peter Jackson LORD OF THE RINGS movies (much more so than THE HOBBIT trilogy, which is an unmitigated disaster from start to finish), but I still feel that it was a tremendous error to remove "The Scouring of the Shire" from the ending of RETURN OF THE KING. I think I understand the rationale for omitting it — it further complicates what's already a protracted finale, and it is kind of a downer — but I suspect it's one of the changes to which Tolkien himself would have most objected.

First, it's an essential element in the arc of Frodo. Frodo has already been wounded in a way that even Elrond and Gandalf can't entirely fix, even after they remove the notch of the Morgul-knife. After enduring an impossible ordeal, he returns to the Shire to find that the war has come home in a way that, at least for him, can't be fully set right even after Saruman is dead and much of the immediate damage repaired. Frodo's original conflicts have been seemingly resolved: At the beginning of the book, he's seen in Hobbiton as an irresponsible youth of dubious background who grows into another suspicious eccentric like Bilbo, but by the end, they want to make him the mayor (to which Frodo only very reluctantly and temporarily agrees), and even his feud with the Sackville-Bagginses is ended. Even so, Frodo is left far more alienated than he ever was to start with, which is why he finally chooses to go over Sea rather than live out his life in the Shire.

Second, while it is superficially rather grim, I think Tolkien might have argued that it's actually his most hopeful chapter. Tolkien says in the introduction to the second edition that "The Scouring of the Shire" had its roots in his own childhood:

The country in which I lived in childhood [in Warwickshire] was being shabbily destroyed before I was ten, in days when motor-cars were rare objects (I had never seen one) and men were still building suburban railways. Recently I saw in a paper a picture of the last decrepitude of the once thriving corn-mill beside its pool that long ago seemed to me so important.

Thus, it seems significant that the shabby destruction of the Shire at the hands of Saruman and his men is actually set right remarkably quickly. As soon as Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin return, they're able to rouse the other hobbits to action and drive out the ruffians within a matter of days, and Sam is even able to use Galadriel's gift to replace most of the trees that have been carelessly destroyed, with a magnificent mallorn-tree in place of the beloved Party Tree. The Shire hasn't wholly escaped the scars of industrialization, but the hobbits have come to their senses and turned back before it was too late.

That is really the most optimistic element of the story's finale. Aragorn's coronation means a restoration of order to the West, but magic and wonder are fading away or departing over Sea. Arwen has made the choice of Luthien and is doomed to eventually fade and leave the world; in the Appendices, after Aragorn's death, she returns to Lórien, now deserted, and essentially lies down and dies. Tolkien did not feel the Ents would ever find the Ent-wives, so they too will probably never flourish again. However, the Shire endures, in a way that the country where Tolkien grew up did not — not by remaining completely aloof from the world, but by rejecting the new mill and the smokestacks, and by "thousands of willing hands of all ages" deliberately tearing down everything built by Saruman and using the bricks "to repair many an old hole, to make it snugger and drier."

#movies #books #lord of the rings #lotr #peter jackson #return of the king #jrr tolkien #the scouring of the shire #frodo baggins #saruman #tolkien's ecological imaginings are not above criticism #they're still rooted in a kind of pastoral fantasy #but it is somehow heartening to imagine #that the horrors of industrialization aren't irreparable

[seat-safety-switch]

Sometimes, when I look up from my studies (gearbox re-assembly) I like to stare out the window. There, on the power lines outside my house, are a whole bunch of black-billed magpies. I'm told by the ever-present voice in my skull that I am in fact looking at a Parliament of magpies, but this is no doubt a holdover from the era when Parliament existed. It might even be from when the monarchy existed.

Birds have it really easy. They fly around a lot, play their songs whenever they want, and maybe threaten the local hot dog cart owner into surrendering some merchandise. Their lives have a downside too, though: dangerous predators like house-cats and hawks, and the existence of motorized vehicle traffic. Plus, they have to try and get food in the winter, and that's exactly what those magpies were doing this one weekend in January.

When all the goodies are covered in snow, or worse, frozen by one of the howling ice storms that periodically blow through this area and knock out civilization for a week or two, the birds can't get at their vittles. Once, years ago, a nice lady down the street would put out peanuts for them, and they would sup greedily. Perhaps these magpies are simply a much later generation, raised on the legends of their ancestors as this being A Good Place where Sometimes You Get Peanuts. No such luck now: she pulled up stakes and left for somewhere she didn't have to live next to a guy who tried to Prius-swap a Celica with a natural-gas-fired jet turbine on the roof for batteries. Boring.

Still, I decided that I would also do my part to make life easier for these wild scavengers. That night, when I backed out of my driveway, I made sure to rip the handbrake a little early, knocking my next-door neighbour's compost bin over, where it immediately disgorged its contents of spoiled theatre popcorn and government-issued Nature Valley® Extreme Environment Survival Bars onto the road. The birds would eat well tonight, they wouldn't expect another handout from what was clearly a miracle, and I would enjoy some karma in having made another living thing's life better, if only momentarily.

[kybercrystals94]

Redolence

By KyberCrystals94

Find here on Ao3!

Whumptober 2023 | Day 1 | Alternative Prompt: Lab Rats

Bad Things Happen Bingo | Prompt: Homesickness

Rating:G

Words: 1,070

Summary: Omega and Echo have a conversation about their pasts.

Omega presses her face between Lula’s long ears and breathes deeply the scent of her brothers: stale sweat, blaster residue, motor oil, aftershave, regulation soap, and a few other things she can’t quite place. Lula is like a sponge, soaking up the redolence of the soldiers she lives with. While the stuffed tooka doesn’t smell pleasant , Lula smells of love and safety and comfort. Therefore, she smells wonderful, and Omega gives the creature an extra tight squeeze as she tries to hold in the tears that threaten to spill. She should be happy. She is happy. She is. She is.

“Omega, are you alright?”

Omega is surprised by the generic reg voice. She would have expected Hunter or Wrecker to check on her...maybe even Tech. Not Echo. He isn’t unkind, but he is distant, almost unsure of her. Like he doesn’t want to get attached. Omega understands, even though it makes her heart hurt a little.

“I’m fine,” Omega lies easily, lifting her face so that her voice isn’t muffled against Lula’s soft stuffing.

There is a pause, but Omega knows the cyborg clone hasn’t walked away. After an uncomfortable stretch of silence, Echo clears his throat. “Are you sure? Hunter – uh – sent me to check on you.”

Omega forces a smile and carefully blinks back the tears that have been forming before she pulls back the curtain, letting Lula topple from her arms. “I’m okay, Echo,” she assures him.

The shadows on Echo’s face in the warm glow of her strung lights accentuate his gaunt features, and Omega suppresses the shudder that reflexively comes. Nala Se had Omega study Echo’s medical files as part of her training. The horrors he suffered at the hands of the Techno Union still haunt Omega’s imagination, and the cool, professional terminology she poured over in the files did not do his tragedy justice. It must’ve been hard for him to join the Batch too, starting over after all he’d been through. She admires him endlessly for it, but she isn’t sure how she could ever tell him without also admitting to having read his files. Not that she’d had a choice, or was snooping, but...

Echo matches her striving grin with one of his own. “Alright. If you say so,” he says, shrugging one shoulder, telling her without telling her that he knows she’s lying.

He starts to turn away when Omega bites out, “Wait, Echo...”

“Yeah?” he asks, the familiar gruff of his voice catching on the edge of the word.

Omega swallows, hoping he isn’t annoyed with her indecisiveness. “I just...can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, kid,” he says, and leans his weight against the wall casually.

“When you first joined Clone Force 99, did you – or do you – ever feel...” Omega searches for the right word, pressing her lips together before saying in a whisper, “homesick? For what you had before?”

Echo looks startled by the question, his eyes widening a little. However, the expression is brief, and his face returns to his normal air in a blink. To Omega’s dismay, he answers her question with one of his own, “Do you feel homesick for Kamino?”

“Sometimes,” Omega admits, pinching one of Lula’s ears between her fingers, “but I don’t want to go back. I’m happy here, with all of you. But if I’m happy here, why do I miss what I don’t want?”

Echo’s face softens. “Because you miss what is familiar, even if it wasn’t better.”

“Is that bad?” Omega asks.

“Of course not,” Echo says, “I missed living with my reg brothers. It’s all I knew most of my life. Doesn’t mean I care about my enhanced brothers any less.” He rolls his eyes good naturedly at the terminology adopted from the Batch, and it makes Omega giggle.

“I guess you and me are kind of the same,” Omega says softly, wistfully. “Taken in by the Bad Batch when..." Echo visibly stiffens, and Omega clamps her mouth shut, now gripping Lula’s ear in a fist. She shouldn’t have said that. She knew the moment the words left her mouth. She and Echo are nothing alike. Not really. Not at all.

But they are. In some ways.

Right?

To her surprise, Echo leans forward, folding his arms and resting them on the floor of her gunner’s mount room. “Nala Se,” he says, his voice softer and gentler than she’s ever heard it, “she experimented on you, didn’t she.” Not a question.

Omega bites down on the inside of her cheek. She has never wanted to tell any of them about that. But Echo knows, because she told him in a roundabout way. In the medical wing, after his accident in the mess hall. He woke up in a panic, and she’d comforted him. I don’t like being hooked up to their machines either.

She didn’t think he’d remember that, but why wouldn’t he?

So, she nods a small, jerky affirmative.

“I don’t remember much about the Techno Union,” Echo says, his voice still low, almost a whisper. Like his words are just for her ears. “I mean...I know what they did. And I live with what they did everyday...but it’s what the Kaminoans did that I remember well. They had to see that I was fit for duty, and their tests...” Echo falters, his words dropping off in an expanse of hidden emotions. He blinks, looking a little lost.

She isn’t sure why she does it, but she reaches out and rests a hand on Echo’s face, her thumb brushing over the sharp edge of his cheekbone. “I know,” she whispers, because she does. She was Nala Se’s “assistant” from her earliest memories. She saw the tests firsthand. Experienced some of them herself.

“You shouldn’t though,” Echo says, “No kid should know that.”

“Maybe,” Omega shrugs, “But we’re safe from them now...the Kaminoans, I mean.”

Echo’s eyes find hers and he smiles sadly. “Yeah, we are.”

Omega’s touch lingers a moment longer before she pulls away and hugs Lula close to her chest. “I’m not homesick for the Kaminoans. I’m homesick for Kamino...for AZI and helping with the babies. I hope they’re alright.”

“I hope so too,” Echo says, and he gives her knee a squeeze with his flesh hand. “You’re a good kid, Omega. I’m glad the Batch found...both of us.”

Omega smiles at her brother who understands. “Me too.”

END

#Whumptober 2023 #Day 1 #alternative prompt #Lab Rats #bad things happen bingo #homesickness #star wars #fanfiction #the bad batch #ao3 fanfic #ao3 writer #the clone wars #tbb omega #tbb echo #clone trooper echo #echo #arc trooper echo #fics by kyber

[gyarubloodbath]

circles on the water

character: sanzu haruchiyo & muto (mucho) yasuhiro tw: canon scene, murder, tragedy, death. synopsis: the traitor must be punished. sanzu haruchiyo did this independently of everyone else. art by @hogu2_08

with the blade of a traditional sword, a natural wound was inflicted by a former comrade and "faithful friend". cold steel, the same as the hearts of all teenagers who are faced with obvious weakness — such a genuine temptation in their young years for someone to mix all their organs, and rattle their bones like on taiko drums, under the deafening motor of cars and the roar of bikes, headlights blinding the unprotected retina of the virgin eyes — dissects from solid the collarbone, crossing the adam's ribs under the chest, to the heavy pelvis of a seemingly strong body. two bodies are circling in a dance hated by both of them. soaked in the anger and heat of two different worlds of hidden minds — undisclosed thoughts, so sophisticated that they are capable of sins that there is no point in begging for — flashes with stolen prometheus fire in equally different rhythms (tandavas and lasyas).

blood flows down from yasuhiro's body in hellish streams, falling to the asphalt with a dull sound. weakness enveloped his whole body, — he shudders, — covering it with a huge palm, but he manages to continue to stand on his feet, cursing his demon, his personal executioner, the wayward servant of the king — invented by the same employee. the mask flies off haruchiyo's face, bares his smile, shines with his teeth, just like in childhood, hits on the spot, making another swing — a second incision — larger than the previous one, unknowingly leaving the X mark. «is this the punishment for betrayal?» everything ends in this world. mucho's life also ended, flashing a silver blade for the last time, reflecting the whole truth and the truth of all life.

the katana fell with a clang next to the body of the once still living commander, comrade, traitor. sanzu twisted his face — he looked at the corpse with disgust — but not from the very fact of a dead body under sapphire feet, but from the realization of finding a seditious person next to the person to whom he was ready to devote his life, sacrifice himself… frowning, sanzu clenched his jaw to the point of gnashing his teeth, checking his tongue for at least one drop of blood, hitting it once against the palate. casually, he pushed the body with his foot, making sure that yasuhiro was really dead. the wounds spread out like stars in wrinkles from a light, but such an evil smile. the dark puddle flowing from yasuhiro's body, like a wave somewhere on the shores of brazil, sparkled at sunset, quickly running away.

the uneven trail of blood continued to the very end of the port, where the last judgment had previously taken place, the allegorical main characters of which were yasuhiro mucho — the archangel michael with copper scales at the throne of the prepared one — and sanzu haruchiyo — the devil, one cup of which he is trying to outweigh.

the angry silence was interrupted by a splash of water, forcing the birds to leave the port in fright. if yasuhiro had been alive, the first thing he would have encountered was a feeling of panic: the oldest instinct of self-preservation tells him to hold his breath and for the first few minutes it works. however, do not despair. deprived of consciousness and life in general, mucho goes under water without any hesitation: the lungs of the corpse fill with water without obstacles, abruptly, instantly, as if burning from the inside. water completely fills the lifeless body: blood, stomach and even the skull. sanzu squinted, watching as the long-darkened red water escorted haruchiyo far away, taking yasuhiro into his arms, agitated and swaying. the guy chuckled and left, taking the edged weapon, on the way to the car only shaking off drops of blood on the asphalt, putting the katana back in its sheath. «it's not up to that right now». like a fish, yasuhiro calmly floats with the flow and the process of emphysema goes four times faster, unlike decomposition on land. gases accumulate under the skin and in internal organs, which allows the seemingly mute body to squeak and noisily regurgitate gray foam. passing fish circled around the "drowned man" with interest, poking at him with blunt muzzles and ruffling the skin with their mouths. the smallest of them enter all the openings of the body — the mouth and nostrils — in order to get into the stomach and eat from the inside. the clothes, all tattered and torn at the site of the wound, got wet, and pieces, along with the jerks of the fish, remain to litter the tokyo river. unable to control itself, the body succumbs to invisible nymphs, dirty, scary, and traces of feces and sperm remain on the underwear.

it took less than three weeks for the body to take on the consistency of soap, covered with fat, glistening in the sun with a greasy gray color, a cheesy smell, rotten and inviting animal minds. port workers — a stevedore and a docker — quickly discovered a corpse floating on the water surface, which was slowly being carried ashore, at first confusing it with garbage, and reported it to the police. in gloves, law enforcement agencies pulled out the dead man, removing foam and excess debris from his face so that all nearby passers — by could give a hint who this young man was. however, everyone looks around in horror, shrugging their shoulders.

«the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing and there is no reward for them. that's why their memory is forgotten».

#tokrev #tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers sanzu #tokrev sanzu #sanzu haruchiyo #muto yasuhiro

[writersmorgue]

Febuwhump Day 21 - Unresponsive

TWs in tags || read on Ao3 || wc: 1332

◈━◈━◈━◈━◈

Time-activated quirks are rare. Izuku knows, he’s studied many. He was fascinated by the logistics the first time he read about one in the news. The quirk usually being transferred by some physical touch or substance from the user- slowly dissolving into the victim like a pill. 

Pro hero Buzzkill has a quirk that gives its victim a bee sting-like welt every four and a half minutes. The vigilante Combo Breaker has a quirk that breaks one of its victim's fingers every two minutes. 

And apparently, the villain he’d been fighting on patrol also shared this unique quirk factor. 

The debrief had said the guy was quirkless, but one look at the shoes on his feet told Izuku otherwise. 

Now, four hours and twenty-five minutes later, he’s lying on the floor of his kitchen unable to move. 

His nose is pressed at an uncomfortable angle, mere inches from where his coffee mug was smashed to pieces when he dropped it. 

He’d felt this odd pain in the base of his spine when he got off of patrol, and after his post-shift nap, it had only been higher up on his back and twice as intense. 

Apparently, when it got to his head, he was due to lose all motor functions. Great!

The good news is that Katsuki should be home any minute, and he can pull Izuku out of this cold, black coffee puddle. Maybe he’ll even put him back in bed if he’s feeling generous. 

He’s not sure how long he waits. His eyelids have drooped close, though he couldn’t open them if he wanted. He spends a while trying to determine if he’s breathing or not, but his whole body is so uncomfortably numb that he gives up. 

Soon enough, the door opens and Katsuki’s gym shoes are kicked off into their cubby. 

“‘M home.” He grumbles, probably not expecting an answer because Izuku is usually still napping when Katsuki gets back from his morning gym run. 

Izuku isn’t sure what Katsuki notices first, maybe his socked feet lying on the ground, or the bits of red, blue, and yellow ceramic that probably skidded across the room. 

“Deku? Did you fuckin’ fall?” His husband scoffs, rounding the corner to see Izuku sprawled on the floor, “Oi, get up dumbass.” 

Izuku mentally winces, not prepared for the absolute earful Katsuki is going to give him later. 

Katsuki walks closer, nudging the broken pieces of mug away, “Izuku?” 

Ah, he’s anxious. 

Izuku might’ve predicted this issue if he had thought a little harder. He’s not in any real danger, so there’s no need to worry-

“Izuku?!”

But he doesn’t know that. 

“No come on,” Katsuki mumbles out loud, trying to reason logically like Izuku knows he does when he’s scared, “he hit his head and passed out- no, there’s no blood. He was tired? Maybe he wanted to sleep on the floor…”

Katsuki comes up behind him and drops to his knees, rolling Izuku over. 

Light flashes in front of his eyes, but he’s powerless to blink at the sudden flash. Katsuki curses when his head flops back and smacks the tile. Stars fly across the black of his eyelids. 

“Izuku, wake up.” Katsuki presses his fingers under Izuku’s jaw and curses. 

There’s no way this quirk stopped his heartbeat- right?!

Katsuki pries one of his eyelids open. The cool air burns but he doesn’t flinch. 

His pupil must not react either, because before he knows it Katsuki is tugging him into his arms with a frantic whimper and launching himself across their living room. 

Katsuki places a leg in between Izuku’s own and wraps one of his arms under Izuku’s shoulders so he can use the other to propel them into the sky. 

The wind whistles by Izuku’s ears as Katsuki wastes no time getting them to what he can only assume is the hospital a few blocks away. 

The strain his arm must feel right now can only be extremely painful but Katsuki makes no sign of it. 

Izuku can feel them descending, just as Katsuki’s grip on him begins to slip. Katsuki stumbles a bit on the ground, lurching forward but being sure to keep Izuku’s body in his solid grip. 

“HEY!” He shouts as soon as they step through the sliding doors of the emergency bay, “I NEED A DOCTOR NOW!”

“Sir please don’t-”

“Pro hero Dynamight!” Another nurse interrupts the first, rushing towards them, “What are his vitals?”

Izuku feels himself get flipped onto a gurney, lying face up on the cold, thin fabric. He can feel everything down to his hair follicles itching to form goosebumps. 

He hears the nurse gasp as soon as his hair falls out of his face. 

I might be wearing pajamas, but I’m still the number one hero, he figures. I’d recognize All Might in his pajamas.

“Is that-”

“Someone who needs a fucking doctor?!” Katsuki growls, “YES.” 

The nurse barks a few orders at her coworkers and, from what Izuku can tell, sprints with him down the hallway. 

“Vitals?”

“No.”

The cart shudders when she briefly trips, “N-No? What do you mean-”

“I mean he wasn’t fucking responsive. I came home and he was on the fucking floor. No pulse, no breathing, no pupil dilation.” Katsuki’s voice moves to his other side, and there’s more movement before Izuku is lifted over to a different bed. 

The nurse hooks a machine up to him to start pumping his chest while she darts around him, checking various other vitals. 

“Shit.” She whispers to herself, pressing her warm hands into his wrist harder. 

Someone slams open the door, running to Izuku’s side. His hearing blurs while they yell orders at each other, pricking Izuku with various needles. 

“C’mon.” A new, higher-pitched male voice grunts in his ear as what he can assume is a shot of adrenaline is pumped into his fresh IV. 

“You said you found him like this?” Another female voice asks, farther in the corner of the room where he figures Katsuki is watching. 

“He passed out, there’s no obvious trauma. I have no fucking idea why.” Katsuki grunts, voice warbling. “He was on patrol a few hours ago but there was nothing in the report that would warrant this.”

“It’s not looking…” She pauses, “It’s not ideal, but we can’t rule out the possibility of it being a quirk.”

“Nothing is rousing him. We can keep the compressions going, but his body isn’t showing postmortem symptoms. I think, truly, if he comes back it will be regardless of what we do.”

Katsuki sighs, “I’m going to call his mom. Take the machine off him, she shouldn’t see him like this.”

Izuku’s head jostles as they remove the machine, his chest already feeling the ache and forming bruises. 

The nurse clamps a heart rate monitor onto his finger and leaves his side, rolling whatever monstrosity of a contraption they had waiting for him on a cart out of the room. 

It’s completely silent for a few minutes, not even the usual steady beep of his heart that he associates with the hospital to keep him company. 

The door swings open and footsteps move towards his side. 

He knows it’s Katsuki as soon as their hands touch. 

His husband’s warm hands cup his own, rubbing circles into his skin. 

“If you die on a random ass fucking Thursday morning when you’re not even working I’ll make sure they send you to whatever hell exists for idiots like you.” 

Izuku laughs inwardly, enjoying Katsuki’s touch. 

“Shitty prank. You broke your favorite mug.”

Ah damn, he forgot about that. 

Katsuki’s hair tickles his forearm as the man presumably leans down, pressing his lips to Izuku’s inner wrist, “If you leave me I’ll never forgive you.” He stretches a hand over Izuku’s stomach, resting it on his soft sleep shirt. “I love you, I don’t tell you nearly enough.”

“Come back to me, Izuku.”

And Izuku wishes more than anything that he knew how.

#bkdk #coma #angst #whump #hospitals #character death #effectively. idk #u figure it out i'm tired #ambiguous ending #febuwhump #needles #febuwhump 2024 #febuwhumpday21 #unresponsive #bakudeku #bakugo katsuki #midoriya izuku #bnha #mha #bnha fic #mha fic #llyn writes shit #morgue's febuwhump 2024

[britsyankswheels24]

🇬🇧 Embark on a journey through time with the iconic MG MGB —a classic car that has captured the hearts of enthusiasts around the world! Since its introduction in the 1960s, the MGB Roadster has been synonymous with British motoring heritage, combining timeless design with exhilarating performance.

👉 The story of the MG MGB begins in 1962 when it made its debut as the successor to the popular MGA. Designed to appeal to a new generation of drivers, the MGB featured sleek lines, a convertible top, and a powerful engine, making it an instant hit among sports car enthusiasts.

🚘 Under the hood, the MGB was powered by a range of inline-four engines, delivering lively performance and agile handling. Its lightweight construction and responsive steering made it a joy to drive, whether cruising along winding country roads or tackling hairpin turns on the racetrack.

💡 The MGB quickly gained a reputation for its reliability and affordability, earning it a dedicated fanbase that continues to grow to this day. With its timeless design and spirited performance, the MGB remains a sought-after classic car among collectors and enthusiasts worldwide.

⚙️ Over the years, the MGB underwent various updates and revisions, reflecting advancements in automotive technology and design. Despite changes in the automotive landscape, its enduring appeal and iconic status have cemented its place in automotive history.

🌟 Whether admired for its elegant lines, spirited performance, or rich heritage, the MG MGB Roadster continues to captivate drivers and enthusiasts with its timeless charm and undeniable charisma.

#brits and yanks on wheels #retro cars #transatlantic torque #vehicle #cars #old cars #brands #companies #automobile #american cars #mg #mg motor #mg rover group #british automotive #british motor corporation #british cars #british leyland #english cars #old car #classic car #cool cars #race car #sport cars #sports cars #vintage cars #history #morris garage #classic cars #automotive #industry

[slasher-male-wife]

What Horror characters smell like

Ok do I have requests to do? Yes. Am I doing this instead? Yes. Also this is my opinion for what I assume they smell like. Also I feel Lost boys brain rot coming on so please send in requests for them. Spoiler alert, most of them need a bath

Includes: The Sinclair brothers, The Lost Boys, Martin Mathias, and Billy Lenz

Warnings: Mentions of blood, murder and smoking

Bo Sinclair: He smokes and works on cars all day and smokes so he's going to smell like that. I feel like he has a constant cloud of cigarette smoke around him. That or motor oil. I feel like he's good at masking the blood scent he gets on him when he's been killing people.

Vincent Sinclair: I used to paint as a hobby for like five years so I know what paint smells like so I can be confident when I say that Vincent smells like paint water that's been sitting out for a few days mixed with the generic wax smell. If you're lucky enough to have never smelled paint water that's been brewing in a basement for days it's a sour smell that low key smells like alcohol.

Lester Sinclair: Like Bo he also smokes and being around roadkill all day doesn't help at all when it comes to his scent. He really just smells like rotting meat, sweat and cigarette smoke most of the time. He does clean up nice when he needs to. I can see him as a man who has some kind of nice cologne he wears from time to time.

Paul tlb: So vampires and drugs are a little tricky to figure out in my opinion. Like vampires still get high and stuff, but not as high as humans get. This being said Paul smells like weed half the time. When he doesn't smell like weed he smells like hairspray or just both at the same time. Paul single handily burned a big hole in the ozone layer with the amount of hairspray he uses.

Marko tlb: He also smells like weed but he keeps the smell off of him better. He has a small trace of hairspray from being around Paul all of the time. But on his own he just smells like gasoline from being around his bike all of the time.

Dwayne tlb: He's the only one who really keeps himself somewhat clean, which is hard when you're living in a literal cave. But he just smells kind of dusty most of the time. I can see him stealing cologne sometimes just because, but he's not too bad.

David tlb: He obviously bleaches his hair so I'm assuming half the time he smells like bleach. Not cheap hair bleach but like higher end bleach that he probably steals from beauty supply stores and stuff. He smokes too so if not bleach then most definitely cigarette smoke.

Martin Mathias: I forget the name of the guy he lives with but he probably burns lots of incense for like religious reasons and whatnot so Martin often smells like that, which isn't a horrible smell to be around if you're not sensitive to that kind of stuff.

Billy Lenz: He's one musty bitch. Like he's been living in attics and just random ass places for however long so he smells like dust and just musty all over. But never leave him around perfume of cologne because he will spray way too much of it on himself.

#bo sinclair #vincent sinclair #lester sinclair #paul the lost boys #marko the lost boys #dwayne the lost boys #david the lost boys #martin mathias #billy lenz #slashers

[freckliedan]

real talk then-if gender is made up than aren't we all on some level both conforming and defying gender?

i mean, yes and no? man i'm going to get lengthy with this one again. WAIT SIKE. (not fully sike, but imagine this easily twice as long and now you know why i said sike). i was four paragraphs in and remembered the 'no such thing as fish' gender post which expresses those 4 paragraphs way more concisely than I can.

we all know what a fish is even though there's no single universally applicable definition of fish. the same is true of gender. because it is impossible to define with any type of specifics, it is impossible to get a 100% in conforming to gender.

so like. there's a window of tolerence. because man and woman are such broad categories, successful & more complete conformity to a binary gender doesn't mean getting it right all the time. it means displaying nonconformity rarely enough that it's understood as an exception to your usual behavior, sometimes even an exception that further reinforces your status as correctly gender compliant.

so, the closest it gets to a yes is the fact that yes, most people perform gender in ways that are both conforming to and out of alignment with the way that their gender is defined by the collective.

but even in that scenario i have to say most people, because intersex people exist! and different intersex conditions result in development of different primary and secondary sex traits so there's no universal intersex experience but like. some of us never had the option of fitting into either binary/sex gender category to start with.

& the other reason that's a "most people" is because there are plenty of nonbinary people whose gender expression categorically removes us from passing effectively as either gender.

there's no gender FOR me to conform to. if i tried performing womanhood like my sister or manhood like my cousins both options would come across as draglike. i'm not the only person living life like this, either—that's what makes an all statement like yours inaccurate/impossible.

& the other reason for my no in my original yes and no? that's largely something that comes down to semantics for me. not everyone intentionally defies gender, though everyone does definitely fail to conform to gender at times.

wearing makeup is a common form of gender conformity for women. in this example, not wearing makeup is unintentional nonconformity, whether it's because you can't afford it, or were running late and didn't have time, or because you're disabled and lack the motor control to apply it, etc etc. for a woman to choose not to ever wear makeup because of a refusal to opt in is gender defiance.

defiance isn't passive, it's active.

(of makeup: i said common form of gender conformity, because there's definitely contexts in which excess displays of femininity are not rewarded. i'm not expressing this well as it's the middle of the night but @drdemonprince has an excellent article i reccomend reading & is someone whose work i reccomend in general).

the umbrella of gender nonconformity covers both unintentional nonconformity and active defiance, when it's used in discussions. it's a useful umbrella, because it's important to be able to discuss the way gender nonconformity is responded to by those who uphold cishetero patriarchal ideals of gender. because they're not going to ask whether or not it comes from a place of defiance before treating people differently for our gender failures.

(i've used the phrase gender failure multiple times tonight. i can pinpoint the exact reason i use that phrase! the book gender failure by ivan coyote & rae spoon, which i read last year after top surgery. i consider myself someone who has failed at gender, and that's something i think of myself with love and pride).

so: a little bit yes, but mostly no. to say yes feels reductive, but to resoundingly say no to your ask is unfair, considering how long it took me to explain my thoughts in detail, & how much of that no is tied up in semantic disagreement.

#jam replies #anon #my autism also factors in to my inability to succesfully conform to any gender. i'm just already talking for such a long time #it's something i'd love to elaborate on though #gender #jam posts