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littlemisskookie · 4 years

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Piss Off Your Parents

Piss Off Your Parents Ship: BadBoy!Jungkook | RichGirl!Reader Description: Roommates!AU | BadBoy!AU | FakeDating!AU | In an effort to piss off your parents you move in with their worst nightmare- a boy with tattoos, a rock band, and an irresistible charm. Warnings: Dom!JK, Daddy Kink, D/S Themes, Spanking, Pussy Spanking, Intercourse, Rough Sex, Dirty Talk, Creampie, Fingering, Oral, Multiple Orgasms, Squirting, Size Kink, Hair Pulling, Praise Kink, Lots of Pet Names, Angst, Fluff, Drug Use (it’s just weed) Word Count: 16,411 A/N: Based on the song 18 by Anarbor! This ends my hiatus! I’ve been writing this for literal months so I hope you guys like it. Happy Early 3rd Year Anniversary!

"Oh, you must visit us in Morocco! We got a summer home there not too long ago, and it's absolutely divine!"

"You don't say? We were thinking about visiting there! It was between there and Budapest."

"I went to Budapest not too long ago, actually. Remember when I was telling you about Belgium?"

"Belgium? I remember Prague..."

"Oh yes! Prague, that's it. Well, it was the trip after-"

You rolled your eyes, internally groaning as you listened to your mother speak with the Senator's wife. You hated going to these. The senator loved to host "intimate" parties, which mainly compromised of the 1%. Everyone knew it was because the next election was coming up, and he wanted to raise funding. As if he needed it, you mused to yourself, admiring the interior of the mansion. Spilling wine on a nearby couch would cost as much as some student loans.

Still, you were the daughter of a wealthy family, trust fund baby among other things. Your college was paid for, not including the bribing, and you were the darling among many. Daddy's little jewel, and one of the few brats who wasn't forced under the scapel at 16.

You couldn't stand the boys in that circle. They were all the same, figuring that a man of their "status" should have a trophy equally worthy. Or perhaps they wanted an arranged marriage, no bullshit, simply in hopes of linking the family businesses together and gaining your father's support. Often times they were just men who had never heard the word "no", and didn't like hearing it, wealth be damned.

You feel sick to your stomach, seeing one of your "suitors" eyeing you when he enters. He's different from the others, no suit adorning his figure. Instead of a suit and tie, he wears all black, leather jacket and combat boots. The graphic tee is tucked into his ripped jeans, accentuating his tiny waist. You peak at the tattoos on his hands, and the jewelry he wears. Lots of rings, some earrings, and a chain necklace, with a matching one on his pants. He had long hair that hung around his ears, making it where he had to flip his hair to see what was in front of him.

You felt as though the world had stopped, holding your breath as you simply stare at him. He gives you a charming smile, surprisingly cute dimples showing up on either cheek. It felt as though the breath had been knocked out of your lungs, and your stomach was doing flips.

"Oh, that boy! I told him to dress for the occasion," the Senator's wife scowled. She smiles towards you and your mother. "If you'll excuse me."

As soon as she scurries away, you turn to your mother, eyes wide with wonder. "Who's that?"

Your mother gives a judgemental stare to the boy as he's approached. "The Senator's son- Jungkook. You grew up with him when you were about toddlers."

"The Jeons created that?" You couldn't believe it. Those two had sticks shoved so far up their asses you were sure you could see the end whenever they opened their mouths. You would've remembered growing up with a specimen like that. "How come I haven't seen him until now?"

"His parents sent him off to boarding school in Switzerland, hoping it would whip him into shape. It didn't. After he got his degree in college he decided to make some rock band. Apparently he's back in town to work with this new record label- or was it to own his own guitar shop?"

"So he's some baddie rock star?"

"Dear, I told you to speak properly. Like a lady." Your mother sighs. "But in other words, yes. Figures the Senator would make the living embodiment of teenage rebellion- though I'm surprised it's lasted this long."

"I'll say." You hadn't been able to do anything of the sort. Your parents were strict to whip you into the shape, not allowing any form of rebellion, though you have your tiny ways. You learned to appreciate the little things. So when you looked at the Senator's son, in all his indie-rock glory, you couldn't help but admire him.

"I'll see you in a bit, Mother. I do believe I have to acquaint myself," you say, sliding away with ease.

"Y/N!"

You're long gone, though, the lecture Jungkook was surely hearing now over as his mother stomps away, shaking her head. You combed your fingers through your hair, hoping you looked good. You wore a tight red dress, though it wasn't too revealing, as well as a matching set of diamond earrings. Don't even mention the carats on your necklace.

"Hey," you say, giving the coy smile you had mastered so long ago. "Jungkook, right?"

"That's me," he says, taking your hand to bring it up to his lips, winking at you. "And who do I have the pleasure of meeting?"

"Meeting?" You feign slight offense. "Don't you remember me? Y/N. We grew up together as toddlers." Before he has time to take it seriously, you let your expressions melt back into a smile. "Though I wouldn't worry too much about it- it was long ago."

"I don't think I'll be forgetting you again any time soon," he says, a smirk on his lips.

You giggle at that. "So what brings you here? Doesn't seem to be your kind of scene."

He shrugged. "My dad's the senator, as I'm sure you already know. He figured I'd be able to bring in a few dollars with promoting to our 'friends', along with getting me on the 'right track'. AKA his track. Y'know, politics and that sort of stuff."

"I get that," you nod. "My parents have been pushing me most of tonight to find myself some new boyfriend here."

"And why haven't you? I'd figure a gorgeous girl such as yourself would have no problem."

"The problem isn't with me, mind you," you say, sighing. "Let's just say that most of these guys aren't exactly my-" You nod to the suitor who had been eyeing you the entire time, though he now glares at Jungkook. "-type."

"They aren't my type either," Jungkook jokes, waving in acknowledgment to the man. He leans in close to whisper in your ear, and you can't help but feel your knees go weak at his scent. Was that cologne or did he naturally smell good? "What exactly is your type then, hm?"

"I'm talking to him."

He smiles at that. "Good move, princess."

"Who do you think you're calling princess?"

"Oh? What would you like to be called, then?"

"Wouldn't you like to know? You already have too much power over me. That would just be my one-way ticket to doom." You let your fingers twirl around a lock of his hair, admiring how soft it was. "My name will do for now."

"Fair enough," he chuckles. "Do you want to get some fresh air on the balcony? It's just that wonderbread over there seems like he wants to pick a fight, and I'd rather not get blood on that white shirt of his."

"Is that why you're wearing black? So the blood won't show up?"

"You're wearing red- it'll do just as well."

"Touché. No fighting tonight, though. Wonderbread can't even handle a nosebleed."

"Lead the way then, Y/N."

You're happy to do so but already find yourself cringing as Wonderbread catches up with you before you can leave. "Hey! Y/N! Where are you going off to? The party's just started"

"Jungkook and I are just going to get some fresh air," you assure him, trying to smother the rising feelings of annoyance as well as the urge to groan.

"Jungkook, huh?" Wonderbread looks him up and down, eyes squinted, glaring at his appearance. "The senator's son?"

"That's me," Jungkook says in response.

"You don't look like the type," Wonderbread mutters.

"You mean boring?" Jungkook snorts, giving his own dirty glance up and down Wonderbread's form.

"What are you insinuating?" Wonderbread's face was already getting red. It was always so easy to offend these sorts of guys. They could dish it, but not take it.

"I mean black is slimming. You should dress in a way that flatters you, y'know?" Jungkook plasters on a fake smile that could rival your own. He reaches for Wonderbread's tie, toying with it between his fingers for a few moments. "But judging from your choice of baby blue, I don't think you do."

"Why I oughta-"

"I think now's a good time to get that fresh air!" you say, pushing Jungkook off in the direction of the balcony. "Right, Jungkook?"

He simply shrugs, taking the hint before stalking off in that direction. You're about to follow him when Wonderbread yanks on your arm, a scowl on his face. "I thought you had better taste, Y/N. That you were smart."

"Let go of me, please."

His grip tightens. "Didn't your parents tell you to stay away from guys like that? He'll just get you into trouble- they always do. What with their piercings and tattoos and drugs- stay away from that. He had a choice and could've been like that, but it's clear he wants to be a rebel and get himself in jail."

"I said let go of me." You try to pull your arm back, but he stays firm.

"Why don't you just listen to me and stop for a second. Guys like that will just hurt you. They hurt everyone around them, including themselves. They're scum-"

"I said-"

"Don't be an idiot and stick with your own kind."

"If you don't let go of me right now, I'll scream. I don't care," you grit.

Wonderbread scowls again, muttering to himself as he finally lets go of you. You rub your sore arm, glaring at him. He simply scoffs. "You'll be the laughing stock when you go crying back to your parents."

"Have you ever considered I don't want to be like you people? Like us? Look around, Wonderbread. None of us are happy. You clearly aren't because you can't get laid, at least not by 'your own kind'. I haven't done anything with Jungkook, I just met him tonight and we're getting air, and even if I did, it'd be none of your business. So stop staring at my rack like you have been for the past hour and get a life."

You turn on your heel, marching over to the balcony, leaving Wonderbread far behind you. Jungkook's waiting for you, leaning on the railing.

"Are you ok? I saw some of that back there. I wanted to help, but I didn't want to go all 'Alpha Douchebag' like other guys. Besides you seemed to be able to handle yourself at the end."

You huff, brushing your hands through your hair. "I'm able to defend myself once in a while. I'm not some damsel in distress."

"Never said you were, princess. And trust me when I say I'm no white knight."

"That's why I'm here with you instead of Wonderbread."

"No one with a personality spicier than flour would want to stick around with Wonderbread," he responds.

"You've got a point," you huff. "Guys like him are hard to shake off."

"It's not hard to see why. You're gorgeous and rich, double whammy," Jungkook winks.

You groan. "God, not you too. Besides, you're one to talk. You waltz in here, dressing like sin, son of the senator no less, and you don't expect girls to fawn over you?"

"Who said I didn't expect it?"

"Plus, it's different for guys and girls. In this sort of society guys just want a trophy wife. The girls want a trophy too, though. The hottest guy, the richest guy- a provider," you state. "The gender roles of the high class still stay in the 50s, I'm afraid."

"So you followed me out here because you see me as a provider, huh?"

"Did you invite me out because you saw me as a trophy?"

"No." He shakes his head, his locks bouncing as he did so. It was strangely attractive.

"Well if I just wanted a provider I'd stick with Wonderbread. He'd be more than willing to 'provide' for me."

"The only thing softies like that can't provide is an orgasm," he bluntly says.

You burst out laughing at that. "Oh my god, don't-"

"I'm just saying," he chuckles. "Besides, it's not all that bad. So you're hot and rich- boohoo. First world problems, am I right?"

"I know, I know, I'm privileged but- God, it's annoying."

"It's just a few guys who want to marry you- what's the big deal?"

"What's the big deal?" You hold out your hand, tallying off the reasons. "My parents are pressuring me to marry young, wanting to trust their wealth to a man they don't even know rather than the daughter they raised. I'm constantly sexually harassed, and most of the time when I reject the guy he either doesn't take the hint or just says I was fat or ugly to ease his bruising ego. Everything I do is perceived as a ploy to get a man, and the other chicks go as far as to slut-shame me or say I think I'm better than everyone else because I'm some SJW who doesn't want to get boob surgery to please a man, despite the fact he'll probably be sleeping with an 18-year-old when we're 50 and hating ourselves."

"If it helps, I think your tits are great as they are."

"Did you listen to anything I said?"

"Of course I did, baby. But you have to keep in mind when a guy hears the words 'boob surgery' he tends to tune in more," he jokes. "But yes, I get your struggles. I grew up in the same environment, for the most part."

"Why aren't you out here trying to win a trophy, anyway?"

"Didn't you hear? I was sent off to boarding school. It's good to see an outside world that doesn't cater to your every need," he shrugs. "You know, a world where women are more than trophies and guys are more than the thickness of their wallets."

"Instead the thickness of their cocks?"

He winks. "Now you're thinking like me."

"So you got outside perspective and chose to follow that instead of a life that would've provided you with everything?"

"What can I say? I've got passion for things outside of elections and sexism."

"Let me guess- you're in a rock band, ride a motorcycle, and play guitar," you roll your eyes. "Color me impressed."

There's a moment of silence, and you turn to him, finding him bashfully stunned. "No shit! You're actually all of those things?"

"I'll have you know I own a guitar shop along with the band. Have to pay the bills somehow."

"Oh my god- you're like every teen girl's wet dream! The living embodiment of a Harry Styles fanfiction but without the toxicity!" You guffaw. "I can't believe this. I should've known. Leather jackets, long hair, tattoos- fuck!"

"Yeah yeah, you've made your point, princess."

"I mean, I thought I was a bit of a parent's worse nightmare when it came to youthful rebellion but you're the icing on the cake," you continue. "Fuck, you'd piss my parents off."

"Getting turned on by the thought of it, little girl?" he teases, trying to get you to back down, quirking a brow at your amusement.

"You know it," you flirt back, tugging at his belt, fueled further. "I love nothing more than showing them I'm more grown-up than they realize."

"Oh?" He starts to take you seriously, gulping. "I would've figured a Daddy's girl like you would've loved pleasing her parents."

"I guess you could say I'm a different kind of Daddy's girl," you wink. You laugh at his serious expression, knowing your little joke was in full effect. "Calm down, Jeon. I'm not going to fuck you on the balcony- despite how my type you are."

"I'm your type?"

"Haven't I made it obvious?" you snicker. "I told you I loved nothing more than to piss my parents off- and you're the embodiment of that. I could see my dad's face going red already! I mean, motorcycles, rock band, tattoos, leather, guitars- already my type, but it's the cherry on top."

"You're weird about that, huh? I knew some girls were into this whole look, but I wouldn't have figured it was for the same reason as you."

"All girls who are attracted to guys like you are attracted for the same reasons," you muse. "Daddy issues."

"Makes sense," he hums. "But I'm not all that dreamy, princess."

"Oh? Explain."

"I drink."

"Vodka I hope."

"I also smoke. Weed."

"Better than vaping like the 'cool kids'."

"I'm broke."

That's the one that takes you by surprise. "How's that? You're the senator's son."

He shrugs. "My parents cut me off after I came back from boarding school and told them I wanted to join a rock band and make a guitar shop. They hate my look as much as your parents would- though they brought me here in hopes that those my age could rub off on me in time for the election. I make enough to live in my apartment and provide for myself, but I don't think I'd be able to be the same kind of 'provider' as Wonderbread over there."

"Well, what do you think I'd use Daddy's card for?" you say. "It has been gathering dust..."

"God, you're serious about this," he laughs. "I'm on a fast track of getting a rich girlfriend and I didn't even have to lift a finger. I'll have to start calling off my other girls soon enough."

"Not quite," you say, pressing your finger against his lips. "There's one thing that'll prevent me from dating a guy like you- no matter how appealing you may seem."

His brows furrow in a state of confusion. "And what's that, princess?"

"There's one thing that's very consistent about men like you- what, with your 'bad boy with a heart of gold' persona," you say, tilting his chin up a bit. "Heart breakers. All of you. In all of the stories, fiction or reality, it ends the same. A broken heart one way or another, even temporarily. I'm guessing with you it'd be those other girls you mentioned. If not that, arguments because of how different we are. Or perhaps it'd be my parents saying enough's enough and taking me away or something- I don't know. It's the only thing that my parents and Wonderbread get right, though."

"So what does that boil down to?"

"It boils down to the fact that I wouldn't fall for someone like you."

"Charming?"

"Sleazy."

"Handsome?"

"Generic."

"Dangerous?"

"Extremely."

Jungkook chuckles at that. "I don't think you'd be able to choose whether or not you fall for someone, princess. I've been told I'm quite irresistible."

"I'm sure you are- but I made my choice the moment you stepped through those double doors," you smile, tapping his nose. "I'm not going to be another broken heart. That I guarantee."

"Oh, you read too much fanfiction. What Harry Styles fanfiction gave you this mindset? The Bad Boy's Rich Girl?" He laughs. "I see it now. I assure you, baby, I'm a lover, not a fighter."

"I can handle fighting. I was raised in it. A lover like you isn't what I need."

"Are you sure? I'm confident in my loving abilities."

"Ha," you flatly say. "Sure you are. Choke me, baby."

"Give me the safe word first, baby."

You roll your eyes. "You're no good for me."

"Poison."

"You'd break my heart."

"Like so many others'."

"You'll call me?"

"At 2 AM."

"God, you're sleazy."

"You love it, baby."

"Shut up and put your number in my phone so I can wait two days to text back."

You and Jungkook had been texting non-stop since the senator's party. Surprisingly enough, between the banter and flirting, he was a very genuine person. He was caring and sent the same memes, though you were considering unfollowing meme accounts so that you'd be pleasantly surprised. Damn him for having the same sense of humor as you.

You were in the middle of spamming the skull emoji when your mother called for you. You rolled your eyes, huffing as you put down your phone, checking your appearance once more in the mirror. Your parents told you to get dolled up for the evening, and you could only hope they were taking you to see the musical that was in town.

Once you glided down the stairs, however, you were supremely disappointed.

"Y/N," your mother beamed, "this is Jin. He's a doctor, and he's involved in-"

"Non-invasive surgery," Jin interrupted, already pissing you off. "Pleasure to meet you- your parents told me all about you."

"Pleasure's all mine," you say through gritted teeth, already absolutely pissed. You turn towards your mother. "May I talk to you for a moment?"

"Of course, sweetheart." You see her internally roll her eyes as she escorts you to the kitchen, where you immediately turn on your heel.

"This is the fifth boy you've brought home for me to date! How many more do you need to bring for you to realize I'm not interested in them?"

"Sweetheart, you have to understand-"

"Understand what? No means no. I don't like any of them. The fact you won't stop pressuring me into dating strangers isn't helping, either."

"We just want to see you settled down with a proper gentleman-"

"Settled down!? I'm in my young 20s! I'm nowhere near menopause, for your information. I've got my whole life ahead of me before I even have to think about marriage."

"Don't raise your voice at me, young lady," she fumes. "What, would you rather we bring... bring a Jeon Jungkook?!"

"Is that what this is about?"

"We know you've become affiliated with him, yes. We're trying to get you on the right path."

"To hell with that noise!" you burst. "Jungkook is no less- no, more of a man than those dweebs that walk in! You want to know why? Because he's honest! I know these guys better than you. They might act all nice and charming to you guys, but that's just because they're after your money. You can't seem to see that, however, because it's not your tits they're staring at! It's not you who's the trophy. It's not you who is sexually harassed and seen as a prize to be won!"

"Young lady, I won't stand for such behavior!"

"I'm a grown adult, and I'll date bastards like Jeon Jungkook if I so please," you huff, turning away. "Tell Jin it was so nice to meet him, but unfortunately another 'proper gentleman' is keeping me occupied."

You stomp away before she can grab you and force you on your date, and by the time you're in a secluded area, you burst into tears. You simply wish your parents could see you as an adult who is capable of making her own decisions. That you're allowed to live your life and you're different from them and that's ok. They couldn't seem to get it through their thick heads, however.

You were sick of it. Absolutely sick of it. Over 20 years of this bullshit, and now it was worse, what with them pressuring you to jump into marriage with someone 'respectable'.

There had to be some way to get back at them. To get it through to them. To get back at them for their bullshit or get them to see you're not some naive 16-year-old or something.

With a shaky hand, you pick up your phone, dialing the number to call your friend.

"Jungkook? Yeah... yeah, I've been crying. Can you, uh, do you think you could do me a massive favor?"

Jungkook had to admit, it came as a surprise when you asked to move in with him.

It really didn't register with him, however, until you pulled up in front of his building in your luxury convertible, boxes filling up every inch of space.

He had no problem with you becoming his roommate- after all, you promised you wouldn't bother interfering with his bachelor lifestyle. In fact, he was quite amused.

Fake dating. Your deep-rooted frustration for your parents was quite apparent, but he didn't think it'd go this far. You'd live with him for a while under the guise of boyfriend/girlfriend, at least to your parents. He didn't quite understand the revenge scheme or how it worked, but he understood enough. Between your choked up sobs, you had explained the plethora of men your parents have brought to your house under the guise of a date when in reality they were trying to pressure her into marriage.

Even if that hadn't been happening, Jungkook would've let you come in. You two were friends. You had insisted that you would pay your half of the rent and wouldn't become his actual girlfriend, and admittedly, Jungkook liked the thought of a roommate.

"What happens if your parents cut you off?" Jungkook had questioned you, knowing how rough it had been for him when it happened.

"Unbeknownst to my parents, I have a job," you explained.

"What? You said you just used your father's credit card when we first met!"

"I barely knew you! Now that I know you're not some creep I can tell you. If you must know, I'm the assistant to some chief executive for a fashion company."

"The Devil Wears Chanel?"

"It's The Devil Wears Prada, but close enough."

Still, he couldn't help but feel a bit worried for you, especially now that he saw you again. You lifted your designer sunglasses to reveal tired, worn eyes, a look only achieved through crying. He greeted you with a smile, however, hugging you once you stepped out of your car.

"How you holding up, princess?" he questioned, giving you a warm embrace.

"God, better now, thank you." You melted into his hug. "Thank you for doing this. It means a lot."

"Hey, I promised to piss off your parents, didn't I? I'm a man of my word," he chuckled. He stepped back, combing over your hair affectionately. "Now, here's the deal, oh precious fake girlfriend of mine. As roommates, we've got a few rules. Rule number one: No fucking after 3 AM. Despite my many escapades, I have a bedtime. Rule number two: when one person cooks, the other washes the dishes. Simple. Rule number three: Be honest. We're living together, so we've got to be honest. Lying, secrets- none of that. You've got something on your mind, you say it. We'll yell at each other for a few minutes and settle it. Sound good?"

You nod. "Sounds like a plan."

"Alright. And the fake dating rules, baby?"

"Nothing much. Drive with me once or twice to visit my parents, to show we're 'serious'. We can go into details about our story if need be. Keep up the act around rich brats."

"Sounds good," he chuckles. "Already turning into a Wattpad fanfiction, isn't it?"

You smile weakly, a light giggle escaping your lips. "Oh god, it really is, isn't it?"

"Hey, there's a reason they're popular. We've just got to do it better." He looks back towards your car filled with boxes. "Here, let me help you with your things, Your Highness."

"Why thank you, my humble servant," you say, getting a box yourself. "I sure do love a big strong man!"

"If only I weren't a peasant boy who worked at the stables."

"Indeed. You're filthy- I shouldn't even let you touch my valuables," you snicker, "but I suppose you'll have to do."

"You're right about the filthy part," Jungkook winks.

Being roommates with Jungkook wasn't what you expected.

Your work was getting more hectic, so you were arriving later than usual. It absolutely exhausted you, and you'd be stumbling in, kicking your heels off at the front door only to collapse into Jungkook's arms, who would wait for you. Every. Single. Night.

You had told him that he didn't have to wait for you. His work ended at 6, and even the nights when he'd play with his band wouldn't go too late, as they play until midnight for their usual gigs.

Still, he had insisted. Something about not wanting you to feel alone. You'd never tell him how much you appreciated it. Instead of the vast, empty mansion, you lived in, where the only thing that would embrace you was dust, you lived in a small, messy apartment and collapsed into a pair of warm arms.

On the few days you were off you were able to properly spend time with your roommate. Every other Friday would be movie night, where one of you would pick the movie for the two of you to watch, all because you believed the other was "tasteless". Nevertheless, it was time you truly enjoyed, and you were genuinely disappointed whenever you had to miss it because of your job.

Living with him was domestic in a good way. It was a friendly face to come home to every day, a warm hug to embrace you whenever you kicked off your heels. It was burnt bacon on some mornings and lazy Sunday clothing to borrow whenever you felt like it.

Sure, it wasn't always the greatest. Often times you guys would bicker over some basic chores and neatness. Jungkook left his clothes everywhere in the living room, and you'd leave all your heels in a heap in front of the door. However, you thought it'd be worse.

You were suspecting people over every other night, all as tatted and pierced as he was. Weekly bong parties where they'd try to hotbox the apartment, maybe. Women draping themselves over him every other morning, wanting to stay for the day, glaring at you because they saw you as a threat.

There was some of that, but not really. Jungkook, when it came down to it, was just another ordinary guy. Human. He'd have some of his bandmates and friends come over once in a while, and they were just as handsome and tatted as he was. They were polite and friendly, though, and didn't even leave much of a mess behind. Jungkook would get weed for the two of you to smoke once in a while. As for the women? Well, there was only one woman you had encountered.

It was a Friday night and you were able to come home at the usual hour, kicking your heels off and letting out the high ponytail you had in your hair. You massaged your scalp, making eye contact with Jungkook from his position on the couch. You strut over, plopping yourself down by his side and positioning yourself where you can lay your head in his lap.

"How was your day at work, princess?"

"Exhausting," you groaned. You'd never admit it to Jungkook, but you had warmed up to the nickname as of late. It made you feel warm inside. Special. You weren't a princess. You were his princess.

His fingers start running through your hair, giving you a gentle massage as he hums in understanding. "Want to talk about it?"

"Just the same old shit, honestly. You'd figure I'd be used to it by now."

"You'd figure," he chuckles. "Well, I'm glad you're working hard. It might be difficult, and the boss may be a bitch, and the pay lower than it should be..."

"But?"

He smiles. "But... if it makes you happy, then I'll support you."

"God, I think you're halfway to fixing my daddy issues already," you grin. You look up at him, noticing his long hair was styled, and a leather jacket adorning him. Typically when he was in the apartment he'd simply lounge around with uncombed curls and glasses, one of his baggy white shirts revealing the tatted sleeves you loved. "Hey, what're you all dressed up for?"

"Oh? This? I've got a date tonight," he shrugs, eyes back up on the TV.

"Oh," was all you could manage to say. He had said it so bluntly like it wasn't a big deal. Well, it wasn't. He was your roommate. Why should you care whether or not he's got a date? It's not like you had feelings for him or anything. That would be ridiculous. It would only complicate things.

Jungkook was your friend. He let you move in with him and comforted you in your time of need. Sure, you guys flirted a lot, and there was a lot of physical affection, from combing through each other's hair, cuddling on the couch during movie night, or tight hugs on especially rough days. But none of those meant that he liked you. Maybe you just kept thinking back to the air of mutual attraction, the first night you met. Maybe you had lulled yourself in a false sense of comfort, thinking of him as a boyfriend.

But he wasn't. You guys didn't kiss. You guys didn't have sex. You guys didn't even say anything about liking one another. For all you knew, he saw you as a sister at this point. The two of you knew each other like the back of your hand at this point.

Besides, the worst thing you could do was fall for your roommate.

Not an option.

Still, there was a feeling in the pit of your stomach that made you squirm in discomfort. You felt... unsettled, by the thought of Jungkook with another girl.

Was she pretty? Was she like you? Or was she more like him? Was she covered in tattoos and a cute septum piercing to go along with it? Did she have brightly colored hair and like punk rock? Yeah, you could picture Jungkook with a girl like that. They'd make an aesthetically pleasing couple.

"So, tell me about her," you say, realizing the two of you had been silent since you got lost in thought.

He shrugged again. "Not much to say. She's nice. She's been visiting my shop a lot recently. She's got some old guitar that she refuses to let go of, so she visits me for repairs. She visits so often I started to think she was breaking it on purpose. Eventually, she asked for my number and... well, now I've got a date."

"Cool," you nod. "What time do you have to leave?"

"I'll probably leave to pick her up in about 15 minutes," Jungkook says, looking down at his phone. "Actually... I think I have to leave now. I lost track of time."

You raise your head to let him up, and he checks himself once more in the reflection of the microwave in the kitchen. You chuckle, walking up to him and straightening out his clothes, fixing his hair a bit.

"There we go, now you look... maybe presentable," you smile.

He laughs a bit at that, ruffling your hair. "I promise we can have movie night tomorrow. If not, you can pick. We can even watch that god awful Fifty Shades movie you've been bugging me to watch."

"It's for the irony! We'll be watching it to make fun of it!" you exclaim, part of your usual banter about the series.

"Uh-huh. Just don't get horny based on that garbage, or I'll have half the mind to kick you out," he jokes. He grabs the key to his motorcycle and grabs the extra hot pink helmet- the one the two of you had picked out together once you started riding with him. "Don't bother staying up for me, ok? You need your beauty sleep."

"Is that your way of saying I'm ugly?" you say, quirking a brow in a comical manner.

"Absolutely hideous," he grins, kissing the top of your forehead. "Sweet dreams, princess."

He shut the door behind him, and you felt your heart sink in your chest.

Maybe you did feel something for Jungkook.

She wasn't exactly what you were expecting.

To be fair though, there was no way for you to expect waking up to a nude woman in your kitchen.

Typically you would've ignored Jungkook's suggestion for you to go to sleep, instead opting to head to bed once he left. You had been completely wiped from the workday, and could barely keep your eyes open. Maybe your body simply had pity on you, choosing to put you in REM sleep before you had to hear the two of them having sex.

Maybe you thought Jungkook was the type to do it at the girl's place. Maybe you thought he was the type to kick the girl out as soon as the deed was done. However, he was neither.

You had woken up to go to the kitchen, prepared to make your morning cereal when you heard the sizzling of bacon on a pan. Ah, Jungkook must be making breakfast. No doubt he's burned it again by now- something about not liking the bacon to be too fatty. The two of you really knew it was because he couldn't cook anything other than ramen.

"Jungkook, are you- oh shit!"

Instead of your edgy roommate, you were greeted by a woman wearing nothing but an apron. Literally nothing. She had been turned away from you, and you had gotten a full view of her ass and sideboob through the apron.

Out of instinct, you cover your eyes, hearing her shriek.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't know someone else lived here. You're not his girlfriend, are you? He told me he was single!"

"What? No, no! I'm his roommate, Y/N," you say, slowly peaking through your fingers. She was facing you now, and though she couldn't change at that moment, the apron covered up everything. You let out a sigh, lowering your hands.

"Oh, well nice to meet you, Y/N!" She smiled brightly, offering an awkward hand. "I didn't know Jungkook had a female roommate."

You shake her hand, quirking a brow. "You didn't see all the shoes by the door?"

"I was a bit... preoccupied, so to say," she chuckled awkwardly. "I'm Solji."

"Nice to meet you, um, Solji," you say. "You're Jungkook's date from last night, right?"

"Yeah." Solji tucks a piece of her hair behind her ear, and at that moment you completely get it. She's pretty in that natural kind of way. The kind of pretty that looks gorgeous without makeup, but would probably look good either way. Anything she did could be done with grace.

Jungkook walks into the kitchen in only a t-shirt and briefs. "What was that scream about- oh."

"Hi, Jungkook." Solji's voice is breathy, as though even seeing Jungkook again made her dizzy. You knew that feeling all too well. "I-I'm sorry. You were asleep and I couldn't bear to wake you up, but I thought it'd be rude to leave, so I thought I'd make breakfast! And then your roommate..."

"Y/N," you help, noticing she had forgotten your name already.

"Y/N! Right, sorry." She smiles apologetically. "And then Y/N walked in..."

"We're good now though, I think we were both just startled," you say. You look between the two awkwardly, an air of silence hanging over the three of you. "I, um, need to... pee."

You exit the situation as quickly as you could, holing yourself up in your room for the majority of the day. It isn't until later that day, when you lounge in the kitchen, stuffing your face with pop tarts after doing your best to avoid social interaction that you see Jungkook.

"Hey, Kook," you say, wiping the crumbs off your face. You probably looked like a mess right now, from lounging in your sweats. You couldn't care less, though. You were starving, and Jungkook had seen you worse. "Where's Solji?"

"Hm? Oh, she left."

"She left? But she seemed so happy to be here."

"Well, then I guess a more blunt way to put it is that I kicked her out," Jungkook shrugged.

You're stunned by his clarification.

As though sensing your shock or judgment, Jungkook quickly changes the topic. "So, movie night tonight? Since we missed it last night? I can make the ramen."

"I... yeah. Let's do it."

He grinned. "Great! I'll get alcohol too, and we can take a shot every time they say some cringy dirty talk."

You rolled your eyes, unable to hold back the smile that tugged at your lips. "You really want to destroy my liver, don't you?"

The two of you didn't speak of Solji again.

You still hug on tightly to Jungkook's waist as he rolls up to your parents' mansion, clinging even after his motorcycle comes to a complete halt.

"You know, I'm pretty sure your waist is smaller than mine," you note, finally loosening your grip. You had seen Jungkook shirtless plenty of times- the man child had a tendency to prance around the apartment half-naked. Still, his abs were rock hard- and you felt so squishy in comparison.

"That's just because I work out, baby," he chuckles, taking off his helmet and giving his locks a dramatic swoosh of freedom. He grins boyishly at you, helping you take your helmet off as well. "It wouldn't kill you to get out of the apartment for something other than work, you know."

"Excuse you! I work out plenty in the confines of my room," you fume.

"Sure- like those little girl weights do anything," he jokes.

"Well, I oughta-"

"Miss Y/N."

The two of you look up at the front door, the butler looking at you with that usual scornful expression of his. He glowers at you and your fake boyfriend, giving a sneer. You'd figure after all these years the man would show a little warmth towards you- but then you remembered it was your parents who were paying him, not you.

"I do believe your parents are expecting you and your... boyfriend, miss," he says, eyes scanning over Jungkook with clear disdain.

Jungkook only grins in response, putting the helmets up and helping you hop off, wrapping his arm around your shoulders. "Lead the way, chump."

The butler scoffs at that, turning on his heel to follow Jungkook's orders as the younger man giggles. One of Jungkook's favorite hobbies, as it turns out, was pissing off rich people. Must be the socialist in him.

"Chump?" you question, raising a brow. "What century are you from?"

"Oh, don't say that. Besides, I highly doubt I would've been let in if I had called him a cuck."

"I'm surprised we even got this far."

Jungkook, determined to help you piss off your parents, had decided to wear a plain black t-shirt that revealed as many tattoos as possible, as well as chains and hoop earrings. His jeans were ripped, his sneakers were scuffed, and he was the most handsome man to walk the earth.

Your parents had insisted that you finally visit them. You had never been away from home for this long, and they had suspected you'd be on your knees groveling by the first week. Still, you held your own and seemed to be doing well for yourself. So naturally, they had to see the boy who agreed to take you in, who they were sure would break your heart by this point. Perhaps they'd beg for you back while they were at it.

They didn't do that, however, instead greeting you with a hug.

"Darling," your mother says, giving you that familiar tight embrace that left you unable to breathe. "We've missed you."

"Missed you too," you grunt. "How have you two been?"

"Fine, fine, the usual," she says. Her eyes glance over the two of you, and Jungkook quickly locks his hand with yours, fingers interlocked as he gives a tight squeeze of support. "And... you two?"

"Thriving," Jungkook interjects. "She really takes care of me. I don't know how I got along without her."

"I don't do much- he's the one who usually stays up to make sure I'm home safe, as well as help me with the dishes... Or at least tries." The two of you exchange a small smile at that.

"I see..." Your mother's mouth goes small, and at that moment you have a hard time reading her. Or maybe she was having a hard time reading you. Maybe she could sense something was off. That the two of you weren't real.

Your heart started racing in your chest, and you silently prayed to yourself that she wouldn't be able to see through your ruse.

Before you could overthink further, however, she smiled. "Lunch, then?"

Your father claps his hands in delight. "Dear, you'll be glad to know we have your favorite! We had the cooks make it especially for you."

The four of you walk to the dining room to eat, and Jungkook leans in. "Wait, what's your favorite?"

"It's literally just spaghetti."

Surprisingly, lunch went better than expected. Your parents asked you and Jungkook exactly how you two came to be, and you had your story under lock. Most of it was the truth- you had reunited at the Senator's party and gotten to know each other through becoming friends. Eventually, the two of you began to form feelings, dating a bit before you decided to leave your parents and move in with him. You explained a lot about the living arrangements between you two, aside from the fact you two were just roommates. You'd explain small things like movie night and how you'd leave your shoes by the door, or how he'd burn anything that wasn't ramen and how he'd wait for you to get home every night without fail.

Before you knew it the lunch was over and you had to leave. Jungkook was getting the motorcycle started, making sure everything was in order while you hung back to speak to your parents at the front door.

"So..." You trailed off, unable to start.

"So?" Your mother looked at you quizzically. "Dear, remember what I told you about finishing everything you start. That includes sentences."

You take a deep breath. "So you're not going to insist I move out of Jungkook's apartment?"

Your parents exchanged looks before turning back to you.

"That was our original plan, however," your father sighs, "it appears that this isn't a situation we can put in our own hands. We'll let you two stay together."

You furrow your brows, confused. "Wait, what? You're letting me stay with him?"

"Of course, darling. We know you may think of us as evil capitalists, or whatever the liberals try to convince you of-"

"Father."

"-but we aren't evil enough to stand in the way of love."

"...Love?"

"Yes, love," your mother sighs. "We were prepared to demand you move out the moment you got to the door, but you look at that boy the same way I look at your father, and the way he looks at me. I suppose you reminded me of how we were in the old days."

"Besides, you do seem very comfortable with the boy. More sure of yourself. Perhaps it is beneficial for you to be living away from your parents- after all, we won't be here forever," your father says.

"Don't say that," you say, frowning.

"It's true, dear. Not that we want it to happen any time soon, or to be morbid, but we're simply glad there's going to be someone to take care of you after we're gone." Your mother looks back to Jungkook, who is now looking at the three of you with curiosity. "He might not be the most dignified boy, despite the fact that he comes from such a prestigious family. However, he loves you, I can say that much. I don't think he'll break your heart any time soon."

"If he does though, I'll kill him," your father threatens.

"You won't be killing anyone," you assure him. "Jungkook treats me well."

"That's all we ask." Your mother gives you a kiss on the forehead. "Love like that can't be faked, my dear. Who are we to step in the way?"

You give the two of them a tight hug, tears springing in the corners of your eyes. You wipe them away quickly before looking back at Jungkook, who was still waiting for you patiently. "Well... I should get going."

"Remember we love you."

"Love you, too."

You put down the hot pink helmet, silent. You and Jungkook had just arrived back at the apartment, and neither of you had said a word about your parents.

"So..." Jungkook trails off. "What'd your parents say? Right before we left? It seemed pretty serious."

You were silent as Jungkook continued.

"Let me guess- 'You can't go out with that boy! He's a good for nothing, disgrace-'"

"They said they liked you- us." You cut his impression short. "They said love like ours couldn't be faked. They're letting me continue to live with you."

"...Oh." Jungkook clearly didn't know how to respond to that. He was stunned, a deer in the headlights.

The two of you are silent, awkwardness hanging between you two.

"Ridiculous, isn't it?" you say with a nervous chuckle.

Please say it isn't.

"Yeah, totally," Jungkook laughed along, his smile matching yours. "Must mean we did a good job of faking it, huh?"

I wasn't faking it.

"Maybe we should go into acting," you smiled. "Prepared to have me live with you forever?"

"Always, princess," he grins, ruffling your hair. "You know I can't have a moment go by without you by my side."

"If only my parents could've heard that."

"Yeah," he chuckled. "Love like that can't be faked- little do they know."

"Yeah." You wave it off with a laugh, putting an end to the awkward discussion.

Little do they know.

Tonight was the night you were finally going to see Jungkook's band, Obsidian Chaos, perform.

Sure, he had many other performances, but you were never able to make them because of work. Your boss, however, seemed to have an extreme case of the swine flu, and therefore was unable to perform her duties. Code: Day off.

So here you were, in a bar that would have any other girl of your social standing shriek in horror. Everyone here looked something like a freak show in a conservative's book, and the place reeked of weed and liquor. You were living for it.

You were singing along to one of the band's newest songs. You knew the words already, having listened to the songs on repeat using your Spotify Premium.

Jungkook looked good on stage- his skin shiny with sweat as he poured his heart out into the songs. He was really revving it up on the guitar, the bassist and drummer both keeping up in stride. They were truly something special, and you found yourself glad that they were a bit more underground. It made you feel like you could keep them to yourself.

It wasn't until they finished you were able to meet the bandmates.

You had never met them before, as they were always practicing in the drummer's garage. They didn't have much need to go to Jungkook's apartment.

They were similar to him, though, also dressed in dark clothing with piercings and tattoos. Equally as hot, in your opinion.

The drummer greets you. "So you're the girl our precious guitarist is going on about!" He picks you up and gives you a hug, twirling as he did so. "I'm the drummer, Jimin!"

"Hey, Jimin!" You didn't even mind how affectionate the guy was, as it didn't seem perverted in the slightest. Perverted hugs were something you had to get used to at a young age, sadly. You shuddered to think back to your father's friends who would give you tight, lingering hugs at 14, all in hopes to feel your developing breasts against their chests.

"Ignore him, he always acts like a puppy whenever there's a pretty girl," the bassist says, extending his hand for you to shake. You did. "I'm Yoongi, the bassist. If I had known Jungkook's roommate was so gorgeous, I would've smoked some of his weed a long time ago."

"I could've just brought it to you, dude," Jungkook says, rolling his eyes.

"I don't trust your shit, man."

"You guys were great up there," you compliment, grinning. "I seriously think Obsidian Chaos is my most played artist on Spotify. The name's pretty neat too- both pretentious and edgy."

"Well, thank you. Jungkook here wanted our name to be ReBex- but luckily seniority rules. We've got a new album coming up soon- Jungkook's gotten a lot of inspiration to write, as of late," Yoongi says. "I wouldn't have thought a girl like you would be into our music, though."

"What's that supposed to mean?" you say teasingly, feigning offense.

"You don't exactly fit in here, sweetheart. You stand out," he chuckles.

"How could she not, though? She's hot!" Jimin exclaims.

"So I'd blend in a bit more in something like this?" You yank Yoongi's beanie off, messing up your hair before sliding it on. You pose in it, wiggling your brows as though to get under Yoongi's skin. "I think I look better in this than you do."

"I agree," Jimin says, smiling.

Yoongi only smirks at that. "I agree too- but I think you'd look better in nothing at all, personally."

"Is that so?"

"Hey hey hey!" Jungkook jumps in before the sexual tension can jump further. "Rule number four! I'm adding this now- no fucking the members of Obsidian Chaos!"

"Wouldn't that include you too?" Jimin questions.

Jungkook thinks for a moment. "Revision! No fucking my bandmates."

You all laugh at that.

Jungkook wasn't sure what was keeping you so late.

Today you were supposed to be out clubbing with a few of your friends. You definitely deserved a night of fun, and seeing as you weren't lounging around a mansion anymore, your preppy friends hardly got to see you. Jungkook told you he thought it was a good idea for you to be dragged out, and despite the fact he wished he could've come with you- just to keep an eye on you, of course- he had to tend to the shop and write songs with Obsidian Chaos.

Still, this was a ridiculous hour. He had gotten used to staying up this late for you- your job was an abhorrent one, in his opinion. No one should have to stay at work for that long.

The only thing that was keeping him awake was the worry that wracked his brain. Even he didn't club this late- and he had been to quite a number of clubs.

His heavy lids stayed pried open as he wondered where you were. Were you all right? Was everything ok?

What if you were hurt?

What if you had gotten into an accident on the way there? Or the way back home?

What if some creep roofied you? What if your friends had left you at the club?

He shook his head, running his hands through his hair. No, he had to stay optimistic. You were a grown woman, you could care for yourself.

Right?

He began biting his nails as he read his messages to you, asking when you were coming home. It was a nervous habit he had picked up as a kid. He couldn't believe he was regressing back to these habits, yet, here he was.

He huffed, grabbing a jacket, on his way to the club, when suddenly he heard the rattle of the doorknob.

You burst through the door.

With someone else.

The stranger was all over you, his hands roaming up and down your skimpy dress. You awkwardly kicked the door shut, your eyes firmly shut and mouth pressed against his. You moaned when he pinned you against the door, your wrists trapped in his large hands as his mouth began to travel to the nape of your neck, leaving marks in his wake.

Jungkook was frozen, immobile as he watched you hook your leg around the stranger, drawing him closer, pressing his body impossibly closer to your own. The stranger let out a husky growl that had you shuddering beneath him.

There was something oddly familiar about the stranger, though Jungkook knew he had never seen him before in his life. Maybe it was the tattoos that peaked out from beneath the sleeves of his leather jacket. Maybe it was the combat boots or the multiple ear piercings, or even his shaggy hair.

Jungkook couldn't help but realize the man's alternative style was eerily familiar to his own.

It was at that moment you finally opened your eyes from the pure bliss, only to come face to face with Jungkook.

You gasped in surprise, quickly pushing against the stranger's shoulders to pry him off you. "Taehyung," you said in a serious tone, though you sounded breathless.

The man grunted, confused as to why you wanted to stop. He got off of you, turning around to lock eyes with Jungkook.

"Oh, sorry man, didn't see you there," Taehyung chuckled. "Was occupied, you know?"

Jungkook finally found the words to speak, though his mouth felt dry. It felt as though his tongue were too big. "I- yeah, no worries, dude. I'll leave you two to it."

"I- Jungkook," you said.

"Shit, is she your girl?" Taehyung questioned.

"No, my roommate," Jungkook answered. "I was just waiting for her to get home- make sure she's safe and all."

"So you wouldn't mind if we...?"

"Just, um, keep it down. I'll be heading to bed."

"Sweet, bro," Taehyung grinned, turning back to you, leaning in to give you a kiss.

Jungkook finally unfroze, quick to turn on his heel and retreat to his room. He could go to bed now, seeing that you were home safe and sound. He should have no problem falling asleep, what with the anxiety and worry no longer plaguing him.

Despite this, however, as well as the soundproof headphones he had on his ears, he wasn't able to get a wink of sleep.

It was probably apparent the following morning. He had bags under his eyes and kept looking as though he'd faceplant into his cereal.

"You look like shit this morning," you remarked, reaching over to tousle his hair.

Jungkook noted that your new boyfriend was nowhere to be found. You seemed well put together. Your hair was pulled up in a bun instead of the bed head he had been expecting, and you wore the same pajamas as always. Maybe it was the post-sex glow that made you seem so lively.

"Don't worry about me," he yawned, stirring his spoon around in the cereal. He usually loved Lucky Charms, but he found his appetite... absent. Addressing the elephant in the room, he sighs. "So, where's your boyfriend?"

"Boyfriend?" You looked at him quizzically before a look of realization painted your features. "Oh! You mean Taehyung?"

"That's the fucker."

"I kicked him out once you went to bed," you shrug.

"Huh?"

"We... Well, we didn't do anything. I wasn't in the mood to have sex last night, I guess," you clarified.

"I... um..." Jungkook didn't know what to say.

"Yeah, so... sorry if you put on those bulky headphones of yours. Knowing you, you just played Waterparks at full blast in an attempt to block out noises that weren't being made," you chuckled nervously.

"You didn't have to kick him out on my account," Jungkook said, scratching the back of his neck. "It's still a bit before 3. It's not against the roommate agreement."

"No, no, don't worry. I wanted to," you said, offering a weak smile. "I was just... tired."

"You sure? I mean it- you don't have to stay abstinent on my account. I've brought someone home before. It'd be hypocritical of me being upset with you doing the same."

"I mean it, Jungkook, I wanted to. I just wasn't in the mood."

You seemed to be in the mood before, Jungkook thought. Had he not walked in, he had no doubt the two of you would've gotten more hot and heavy than earlier.

Jungkook felt guilty for ruining your potential hook up. "Alright, well, if that's what you wanted, my guy."

Your smile faltered a little. "No princess?"

Jungkook chuckled warmly at that, reaching forward to pull you in. "My bad, princess," he said properly, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. "I was just relieved that you were here and safe. I won't lie when I say I wasn't worried- I was just about to head out to look for you."

"Thank you for staying up so late for me."

"Anything for my princess."

"I'm pretty sure your father would send a SWAT team on my ass if he found out I was letting his little girl do this," Jungkook laughed, watching as you coughed after taking a hit.

"Shut-" cough "-the fuck up, Jungkook."

The two of you were sitting on his couch, smoking weed. It was the first time you had ever smoked pot with Jungkook, as the moment you got home after a long day at work, you asked whether or not you two could smoke together. Well, demanded was a more accurate term. Jungkook didn't question it though, instead giving you that same, obnoxious, amused smirk.

"Is this your first time smoking weed, baby?"

"I haven't smoked since I was 16," you say, taking another hit, letting it settle deep into your lungs before coughing numerous times. "It was only twice with some guy who thought I'd blow him if I got high enough. My first time I didn't feel anything despite four hits. The second time I took 6, but his weed was so weak I didn't feel much. Man, was he pissed."

"A guy like Wonderbread, I'm guessing?"

You laugh. "Alas, even commoners feel privileged. I'll let you know though I didn't even touch his little cheesedick."

"You just used his pot and took advantage of him, huh?"

"Oh please! That's not it at all. Either I take advantage of him than the other way around. His intentions were totally sketchy, hoping I'd become inebriated enough to fulfill the lewd fantasies he had garnered. If he was willing to waste weed on a girl, he should've left it at that. I didn't owe him anything. No matter how much shit guys give, whether it's weed or Lamborghinis, you don't owe them anything. You don't owe them love, sex, or a relationship. It's their choice whether or not they want to buy your affections, but those feelings cannot be owed. Women are not in debt to men because they fool themselves into thinking that they deserve blowjobs because they're 'nice' or 'waste shit' on the woman."

Jungkook whistled. "I sense a lot of pent up anger today. I gotta say, I never expected you to demand my stash. Wait, no, I did. But I expected it sooner."

"My boss is a bitch," you mutter. "She's great at her job, and I admire her, but God, she's a cunt."

"What'd she do?"

"She's just-" You let out a frustrated groan, taking a deep inhale from the blunt before puffing it out. "She's so condescending and demanding. She expects me to be little miss perfect and thinks I'm lazy because I'm privileged. It's like no matter how hard I work and prove myself she still can't see me as anything other than a spoiled rich brat. Every tiny mistake I make confirms it, and every big accomplishment goes ignored."

"Are you unhappy enough to quit?"

You sigh, taking another hit. You could feel it setting in now. Your limbs felt lighter, but your head a little heavier. One thing was for sure- this shit was a lot stronger than what you had at 16. "No. I love my job, and I still respect and admire her. I may complain about it a lot, but I still love it."

"You complain about me a lot, though, princess," he laughed, nudging his thigh against yours. "Does that mean you love me?"

"Well, yeah."

Jungkook tenses up at that. "You do?"

If your head wasn't as cloudy as it was now, you wouldn't have opened your trap. You felt uncaring, however, speaking freely as you took another hit. "Yeah, I do. I love you. We've lived together for months, Jungkook. You're one of the people I'm closest to. You mean the world to me."

You lean your head against his shoulder, fluttering your lids as you shut them, concentrating on his breathing. The rise and fall of his shoulders lift your head along with them, and he lets out a chuckle. His fingers comb through your hair, doting. "I love you too."

You take a hit, playfully blowing some of the smoke in his face. "I'll always be your princess, right?"

He smiles again. "Didn't figure you as the affectionate stoner. Usually, you're acting like a brat, y'know."

"What can I say," you hum, nuzzling your nose into the crook of his neck, planting a small kiss there. "Pot gets my panties wet."

Jungkook freezes underneath you, and you continue, sucking lightly on the skin to leave small pink and red marks, nipping a bit. You put your blunt in a nearby ashtray and find yourself climbing into his lap, his blown-out pupils locked with your own.

You wouldn't be doing this if you were sober. But right now you were releasing every pent up frustration you had- whether it was anger towards your boss or the sexual attraction you felt to Jungkook.

Jungkook's silent, only staring at you, waiting for your next move. You place your hands on his chest, feeling how quickly his heartbeat raced. You wondered for a moment if yours was doing the same.

And then you stopped thinking.

Your hands slid up from his chest and around his neck, tangling into his long locks as you close your eyes and kiss him. He kisses you back after a few seconds reaching behind you to put out his blunt before gripping onto your thighs, tugging you closer to his body.

You two were completely intertwined, wrapped around one another like ivy, a small, intimate moment that felt so grand in the scheme of things.

And then it stopped.

Jungkook pulled back, gripping your arms to push your chest a few inches from his, ending the kiss. "We can't."

"Why not?" You weren't angry, but rather curious. Your voice didn't even show a hint of confusion, instead instantly accepting it. Maybe it was the sober part of you that knew what you two were doing shouldn't be happening.

"I just... We're roommates."

"I don't remember not hooking up being one of the rules."

"It's an unwritten rule not to sleep with your roommate, I think," Jungkook says, his cheeks turning red. It was as though he were admitting he wanted to sleep with you.

"But you flirt with me all the time and act like you want to..."

"Fuck, I do, princess, I do." Jungkook brushed your hair out of your face, looking into your eyes with as much sincerity as he could muster. "But I don't want to be like that asshole you met at 16, or Wonderbread, or any other asshole you met. I don't want you to think I had ulterior motives or I'm trying to take advantage of you in this state. For all you know I'm exactly like the asshole before but with better shit."

"But you're not, Jungkook. You respect me, I know that."

"Just trust me on this, ok? Nothing changes between us." He presses a kiss against your forehead, as though to further confirm it. "I still love you, of course. You're my roommate, after all. It makes living together a lot easier. I just don't want you to wake up and see me as another douche who saw you as nothing more than a status symbol."

Your voice is quiet, like a child who's parents were disappointed in them. "Ok."

"You did nothing wrong, Y/N."

You nod your head. "Mhm."

Jungkook sighs, gripping onto you tightly before standing up, walking you to your room. "C'mon. Let's get you to bed, princess."

Usually, when something was up between you and Jungkook, you'd resolve it quickly.

You guys had been roommates for what felt like forever, now. Of course, you had issues. Of course, you've gotten into arguments. Typically you'd resolve it quickly.

After the encounters with Solji and Taehyung you guys talked about it immediately. Even the smaller things. One time Jungkook accused you of hating a new song he was working on, and you guys argued about it then and there. Another time he had been lazy and forgot to do the dishes, and you had been in a bad mood and lashed out over the small detail. Another time you were just looking to fight for the sake of fighting, and Jungkook called you out on it, resulting in, what do you know, more fighting.

This time, however, was different.

The two of you were barely talking, mainly speaking in grunts and noncommital nods of the head. Neither of you really even used the living room anymore, simply going into the kitchen to make food and eating in isolation in your rooms.

Jungkook still waited for you to get home, though. He wouldn't greet you, however.

You two still kept up with your dishes and cooking, sometimes leaving the food for the other on the countertop.

You started lining up your shoes instead of kicking them to the side, as though to be more mindful.

Both of you hated it, though.

A week without interacting with the person you lived with? Who treated you as a best friend? Agony.

Jungkook was the one who acted on it.

He knocked on your door before opening it. "We need to talk."

Clearly he had just gotten back from hanging out with his bandmates, what with the slight sheen of sweat on his forehead and his locks looking particularly unruly. He hadn't even bothered taking off his leather jacket. You could only guess that he marched directly from the front door to your room. It was such a stark contrast from you, who was only wearing pajama shorts and a tank top.

"Why?" You felt shame and embarrassment, your cheeks burning red. Every time you looked at him you could only think of when he pushed you away. When you had made a fool of yourself and climbed all over him. When you made him uncomfortable and overstepped your boundaries. When you ruined everything.

"You know why." It was clear Jungkook was in a confrontational, no-nonsense mood now, having finally mustered up the courage to face this head-on. "We need to talk about that night."

"We were high-"

"No, it was more than that. Otherwise, we wouldn't be in this... this funk."

You could feel tears springing up in your eyes. "Yeah? So?"

"What do you mean so?"

"I mean so?" You let out an exasperated sigh, still unable to meet his eye. "Who cares?"

"I care!"

"I don't want to have this conversation."

"Well, I do." He kicked the door behind him, crossing his arms. "Why're you acting so weird?"

"What? I'm not the only one acting weird, you know. It's a two-way street," you seethe.

"I've been making attempts! I have," he insisted. "I tried talking to you just yesterday in the kitchen when you were washing dishes. You just ran away to hole yourself up in your room. We need to move past this."

"I'm sorry, ok!" You fume, crying out the words. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"Sorry for avoiding me?"

"Yes- No-" You bury your face in your hands. "I'm just... I'm embarrassed, ok? You wouldn't understand."

"You're embarrassed because of that night? Because- what, it's me?" Jungkook tilted his head, as though wanting you to meet his eye. "Any other guy and you wouldn't be acting this way."

"Yes, partially because it's you. You said nothing would change between us but clearly it has," you sighed. "I fucked everything up, Jungkook."

"No, you didn't. I told you that you didn't do anything wrong."

"But I did! You respected me at least, and stopped it from going further because you knew that I wasn't in the right mindset or wasn't capable- I don't know, but the point is that you put in my feelings and thoughts for if I'd be sober and such, especially with that big monologue I had given. But..."

"But what? I don't get it. Did I do something wrong?"

"No, you didn't. I'm glad you respected me. But I didn't respect you." You wiped at your eyes, frustrated with yourself. "You were also smoking that night. Yet you thought of me and if I was in the right headspace to consent or think about things, but I didn't think about you. I of all people should've been able to realize that."

"Oh." Jungkook seemed stunned, as though that wasn't the answer he was expecting. "Y/N, it's ok. I've got a lot more resistance than you do, and I'm a lot bigger. I wasn't nearly as affected as you were."

"It still doesn't take away the embarrassment of climbing all over you. I feel stupid," you huffed.

"You're not stupid-" Jungkook stood in front of you and reached out, only to have his hand slapped away.

"Shut up," you hissed. "You're not the one who made a fool of themself."

"Don't lash out at me, princess. You didn't come off as stupid or anything else- you're just overthinking as always."

"As always?!" you mimic. "You're full of it, you know that? God, I hate you sometimes."

You try to push at his chest out of annoyance, but it grabs your hand, keeping it there. "Say that again, I dare you," he growled.

You gulped, able to feel the deep vibrations against the palm of your hand.

You were quiet, whimpering as he towered over you, with you still sitting on the bed and him standing before you. Your eyes lock with his, finally, his hard glare making you cave in on yourself, all of the rage dying within you, leaving something else in its wake. Sensing your submission and the shift in the air, Jungkook only lets out a dark chuckle, leaning in.

You lean back, falling onto the bed as he climbs over you, one leg between your own. You brace yourself, feeling your muscles get tight as he hovers over you, not touching you. You feel the anticipation build as his nose grazes the side of your neck, similarly to how you did that night. His scent overwhelmed you, despite the fact you should've gone nose blind to it after all this time. Still, his cologne and natural scent overpowered you, enveloping you completely.

"You know, I'm getting real tired of your attitude, little girl."

You stiffen at that, his hot breath sending shivers down your spine.

"Have you had any alcohol, or smoked anything, or taken anything that might affect your senses?"

"Huh? No?"

"Do you want me to touch you, princess?"

"I..."

"Be a big girl and tell me what you want, baby."

Baby. Princess. Little girl. All names he had called you before, but tonight they hit differently.

"Yes."

"Do you want me?"

"Jungkook..."

"I want to hear you say it, Y/N."

You took in a deep breath. "I want you, Jungkook."

He smirked at that. "That's a good girl."

Before you had time to process anything, he was positioning you where you were lying on your stomach beneath him, with his knees on either side of you as he straddled the backs of your thighs.

"Jungkook-"

He yanked down your shorts, exposing your panties before giving a sharp spank to your ass.

"You know, it's really unfair that I call you so many pet names and don't have a special one of my own," he says, his voice hot in your ear. "Don't you think so, princess?"

You shuddered beneath him. "Yes."

"Yes, what?" Another spank.

You groaned at the sensation, burying your face into the mattress as you muttered the words.

He pulled your hair, lifting your head so you couldn't hide your face. "What was that? I don't think I heard you. What did I say about using your big girl words?" There was a rain of spanks with those last few words. You could feel your ass start to warm up now.

"Yes, Daddy," you said, biting on your lip from the pain of the slaps. The pure irony of the daddy kink being used, no doubt because of your daddy issues. Your revenge against your parents using Jungkook had finally come full circle.

Jungkook grinned, giving you two more slaps, this time as a reward. "Now was that so hard?"

You feel his fingers go down to the wet spot on your panties, now sticking to your folds, evident from your arousal. You shook your head, gripping the sheets. "No, Daddy."

"Mm, I think my princess liked her spanking," Jungkook hummed, twirling the pads of his digits around your clit, watching you squirm beneath him. "Did you like being put in your place for being such a brat?"

"Fffffucckkk." You couldn't think straight, your hips raising from the bed to buck at his hand, needing more friction.

"Such language, princess." He gives a quick swat to your pussy, watching you twitch and yelp in surprise. "I would've thought a little rich girl like you was taught to avoid such language."

Jungkook was generous as always, giving you what you needed as he continued to pet your folds and rub your clit. He seemed to know exactly how to touch you, drawing small circles as he admired how you squirmed and panted into the sheets. You'd wiggle beneath him, your skin still red from his earlier ministrations.

"I-I'm gonna-" You bit into the sheets. You've never cum this fast with anyone before, and over such a small thing. Jungkook was just rubbing you over your panties and you were losing it. You'd never live this down.

"Oh? Gonna cum in your panties like the disgusting little girl you are?" Jungkook let out a dark, sinister chuckle, leaning down so his lips could be felt at the shell of your ear. "Go ahead and cum, dirty girl."

You felt yourself come undone, thighs shaking as you moaned into the sheets, knuckles turning white from how hard you were gripping them. Jungkook rubbed you through it, letting you see the orgasm until its end.

You panted as he flipped you onto your back, petting your hair as you came down from your high. He pressed his hand against your cheek, letting you feel the cool metal of his rings against your hot skin. "How're you doing, baby?"

"I-I'm good," you murmur, eyes drooping and fluttering. "Thank you, Daddy." You turn your head to the side, capturing his thumb in your mouth, sucking on it lightly as you twirled your thumb around it, tasting the metal against your buds.

"Fuck," Jungkook groaned. "You're gonna be the death of me."

Slipping his hand away, he pulls your clothes off, one by one, until you were completely bare beneath him. Your panties are the last to go.

"I think you've ruined these," he chuckles, pulling on the waistband of your underwear to let it snap back against you. "Now it's your turn."

You don't bother covering up, comfortable with him and in your own body. Jungkook grins, leaving a trail of kisses down your chest as he descends further down.

He spreads your legs, arriving at his destination. You let your fingers gravitate to his silky hair, tugging to bring him closer to your goal. He chuckles at the action, answering your request as he lets his mouth finally meet your folds, laving his tongue over the area to help you relax.

You gasp at the feeling, arching as he gets quick to work spreading you open with two fingers so he could have easier access to the area. Your thighs twitch as his tongue finally brushes against your clit, and upon noticing how sensitive you still were, he runs his tongue over it, again and again, a smile evident as you let your thighs tense with every movement.

It wasn't until his lips finally suctioned around it that you felt his finger slip into your entrance as well. It was easy, no friction necessary from your copious arousal, and the feeling overwhelmed you. He crooked his finger up as he pumped into you, finding the bundle of nerves with ease as you found it harder and harder to contain your moans. Before long he had to insert another finger, scissoring the digits to stretch you out.

"So fucking tight," he panted, breathless as he continued to place sloppy kisses against you, rubbing your g-spot in an effort to see you squirm. "Gotta stretch you out to take me. You're so small, I'll probably break you."

"I want you to break me," you reply immediately. "Please, please, please, Daddy!"

Jungkook let out a smirk at that. "Seems like that bitchy attitude is finally replaced with manners. Since you asked so nicely..."

His mouth returns to your cunt, french kissing and sucking harshly on your clit has his hand hammers into you, rough and sloppy thrusts helping catapult you towards your high. Before long your eyes were rolling back, hips rising into the air as you feel your high overpower you, and you were cumming against Jungkook's tongue.

He eased his ministrations, slipping his fingers out despite your whine at being empty. He let his tongue run over your folds, soothing them before he came up for air, lips meeting yours with a sloppy kiss. You realized the two of you hadn't kissed at all since this whole ordeal, and you pulled him closer between your legs, pulling him closer as you let your tongues dance together.

He breaks away again, but keeps his forehead against yours, as though to assure you he doesn't intend on ending it just yet. "How're you holding up, baby?"

"Mm good," you hum, still high on bliss. You reached down to his crotch, palming it, pleased to feel the stiffness beneath the material of his pants. "Want Daddy's cock."

"How can I say no to that? You just can't get enough, can you? C'mon then, take me out so I can get inside that dirty cunt."

You do as you're told, finally able to get his cock free as you hook the waistband of both his pants and boxers around his thighs. As you do so he takes off his leather jacket, tossing it to the corner of the room.

He pumps himself, jerking off into his hand as you watch. He was about as big as you expected- then again you always fantasized about Jungkook having a big cock. One by one he was fulfilling all of your fantasies, and creating even more.

He pressed the head of his cock against your pussy, rubbing up and down the slit for lubrication. You ogled his size, wondering how much the stretch of his girth would burn. As though reading your mind, or just the expressions on your face, Jungkook stops. "Are you sure you want me in this messy cunt of yours, baby?" he questions. "We can wait. I can eat you out some more if you want."

"No, I need you inside me," you immediately respond.

He can't help but grin at that, cooing at you with a condescending, sickly sweet voice. "No please? So demanding. Spoiled little princess, used to getting what she wants." He pushes inside of you inch by inch, and you hiss at the stretch, loving the slight burn.

When he bottoms out inside of you your foreheads are pressed together, hot and sweaty, but oddly intimate. A single tear runs down your cheek, and he reaches up to wipe it away, cradling your cheek.

"Look at me, Y/N."

You do so, eyes locking with his. "I'm ok," you confirm before he can ask. You were able to read his expressions as easily as he could read yours. "Move, please."

He nods, doing so, starting a slow rhythmic pace as he pumps into you. You groan at the feeling. You couldn't remember the last time you had been intimate with someone, especially someone who fills you up so completely, unable to even avoid the sensitive parts within you.

Soon Jungkook was picking up the pace, the thrusts becoming harder and quicker, more precise as he lifted himself up onto his arms to look at you, admiring how your eyes would roll back every now and then. He reached between you two, spreading your lips apart with two fingers to properly look at how well you were taking him.

"Fuck, you're just sucking me in baby," he hissed, doing his best to compose himself. "This pussy was made for me, wasn't it? No one else."

You moaned at that, biting your lip. "D-Daddy..."

"That's right- Daddy. This pussy was made for Daddy, all for him," Jungkook went on, now beginning to rub your clit with your thumb, feeling you clenching down on him with his words."Remember that. Who am I again?"

"My Daddy."

"That's right. Yours. Who's the only person who can fuck you this way?"

"You. Fuck, Daddy, I'm gonna cum. Let me cum for you?"

"Good girl. And who are you going to cum for?"

"You Da-Daddy- ffffffuck-"

"That's right, cum for me. Give me one more, I know you can. Be a good little girl and cream on my cock. Get me as nice and messy as your dirty little cunt."

Your eyes rolled back as your third orgasm shook through you, more powerful than the first two. Droplets of cum sprayed out, getting all over both you and Jungkook. You moaned, shaking as Jungkook groaned in satisfaction.

"Fuck, you just squirted everywhere," Jungkook said, his thrusts getting sloppy. "You're so perfect."

"Cum in me, Daddy. Use me," you asked, looking up at him with pleading eyes. "Use my body."

"Shit, shit, shit-" Jungkook grabbed your wrists, roughly pinning them to either side of you as he thrust into you like a mad man, using your body to jerk off before finally, he was erupting inside of you, filling you to the brim as he bottomed out inside of you. He panted, hands squeezing your little wrists like a vice. You were positive there would be bruises by the morning.

Soon he collapsed on top of you, sweaty and out of breath. He rolled over, chest heaving as he stared at you, grabbing you and tugging you close so he could bury his face in the juncture of your neck, acting as the big spoon as you two cuddled.

You slowly regained your breath, reaching back to comb through his hair.

"Just stay like this for a minute," he said, eyes closed and voice soft, a stark contrast to his dominating demeanor before. "Let me just hold you for a few minutes and then we can go take a bath, ok? I'll take care of you."

You let him do exactly that.

The morning after didn't feel as awkward as you had expected, Instead of the uncomfortable air that had been left after the two of you made out, it was oddly comfortable. Not the kind of comfortable that was there before, with you two bickering and joking with each other, but rather a far more affectionate one.

The two of you had been waiting for months to be able to touch each other how you wanted, and now you had the opportunity. You weren't able to keep your hands off of Jungkook, and not even in a sexual way. You'd let your hands roam freely over his body, whether it was combing through his fluffy hair or feeling the broad expanse of his chest, and the hard muscles beneath his band tees.

Jungkook wasn't much better. You'd be doing as simple as making yourself a bowl of ramen and he'd press up behind you, wrapping his arms around you and burying his face in your hair, breathing in your scent. It was like nothing was between you anymore, and it felt so right. Jungkook was your best friend, your roommate. The man you had lusted and pined after for what felt like forever. He just got you.

Or that's what you thought at least.

The two of you were watching a movie again, as always, but instead of the casual arm draped around your shoulders you two were completely intertwined, ignoring the movie as you two shared small, slow kisses. You let yourself melt in the moment, the taste of him addictive.

He gives you that look that you love, the one where his gaze is deceptively soft and solely focused on you.

"You know," he says between pecks, "I meant what I said before."

"Meant what?" you smile.

"That I love you." He pushes a lock of hair behind your ear, staring at you. "I think I've been in love with you since my father's little party."

You stiffened.

In love?

That was very different from the love you had interpreted.

You plaster on a fake smile, hoping he didn't notice how you had tensed up. "Is that so?"

"Mhm," he hums, pressing a small kiss on the tip of your nose. "Did you mean it when you said you loved me?"

"I did," you tell him, burying your face into his chest to avoid looking at him, focusing on the vibrations of his chest as he hummed with delight, wrapping his arms tighter around you as he pressed his lips against the top of your head.

That night you slept in his bed, his arm wrapped tightly around your middle. You didn't get a wink of sleep that night, and the moment he rolled over to his side, you knew what to do.

When Jungkook woke up, you were gone.

You had seemingly left no traces. Your bed was neatly made, your dresser drawers were empty. It was like you didn't exist.

Jungkook was absolutely distraught. He had the shop closed down for a bit, instead choosing to lay around in the apartment you once shared, playing the same few chords on his guitar.

He was angry. He was sad. He was pissed and frustrated and miserable and confused. He felt so stupid for fucking everything up. He wondered if what you said was a lie. Was everything between you a lie? It had to be. How else could you just cast him to the side like that? Like he meant nothing to you?

In the end, it seemed you truly were just using him. He should've known any affections you had for him were just some phase. You were just indirectly lashing out at your parents and using what you knew would piss them off. He knew that since the beginning, and still let himself get fooled.

That didn't stop him from sulking, however.

It wasn't until Yoongi barged into his apartment that Jungkook was forced to do something.

"What the hell man? You've been skipping out on practices- where have you been?" Yoongi looked around, seeing the apartment a mess. Jungkook didn't look much better, sitting upside down on his couch in sweats and greasy hair, strumming on his guitar. "Jesus Christ, dude. I got you were a mess from the lyrics you've been sending me, but this takes the cake."

"What do you want, Yoongs?"

"I want you to pick your ass up and get out of this funk! I've noticed you haven't been running your shop for a little bit, and it seems clear to me that you've just been sulking around. Where's that roommate of yours? I would've thought she'd tell you to get over whatever it is you're sobbing about and do something about it."

"I don't want to talk about her," Jungkook muttered, striking a chord that had many of the notes clashing.

Yoongi winced at the sound. "I always thought that you two weren't just roommates. She always looked at you how a puppy looks at their owner- and you weren't much better."

"Well, she's gone now," Jungkook said bitterly.

"What happened?"

"She didn't love me, simple as that."

Yoongi shook his head. "That's a lie, dude. That girl was crazy about you."

"Well, that's what happened. I told her I was in love with her and the next thing I know, I wake up and she's gone."

"Maybe it was something else," Yoongi shrugged. "Then again, you knew her better than me. But you can't let some girl keep you cooped up in your apartment. Sulking isn't going to bring her back. Obsidian Chaos is going to be releasing the next album in just a month- you need to have your shit together by then. Don't tell me that you want to quit the band."

"No," Jungkook sighed. "It's just... I miss her. And I feel confused and-"

"You feel about a million emotions, my man, I know. And none of them are exactly helping to motivate you," Yoongi finished. "Do you really want her to see you in this state, though, when she comes back? If she comes back?"

"No," he admitted.

"You can't expect her to come and save you. You've got to save yourself first. She was never responsible for your happiness- remember that. Pick yourself back up and who knows, maybe she'll be waiting for you."

Jungkook did pick himself back up after that. He took a shower and opened the shop, going day by day, and though he still felt heartache and longing for you, he was able to pull himself together a bit more with each passing moment.

Obsidian Chaos released their next album, Oblivion, shortly after. Jungkook wrote most of the lyrics, and every single one was about you. Maybe it was like a siren call, trying to call you back to him. Luckily for them one of the title tracks blew up on a few websites and apps, giving them a lot of coverage and publicity. Their popularity had blown up overnight, radios constantly playing the hit song, making it impossible to escape their sound.

It was a rainy day, about a week after the release of Oblivion when there was a knock at the door. Jungkook thought it was a bit too early for him to have stalkers, but he was precautious, looking through the peephole.

To his surprise, it was you. Your hair was soaking wet, your designer clothes sticking to your skin. Your makeup seemed to be running a little.

Jungkook immediately swung the door open, shocked. You were here. You were really here.

"Hi," you said, your voice meek and small. "Can I come in?"

Jungkook stepped aside to let you in, closing the door behind him. He was speechless. There were so many things he had wanted to say to you, weeks of planning some long monologue for nothing. It felt strange seeing you in his apartment, despite the fact you had been there countless times before and lived there yourself. You seemed foreign, out of place, even though it hadn't been that long.

"Congrats on your success, by the way," you said, filling the silence. "Oblivion seems to be a big hit."

"You heard it?"

"I stayed up all night waiting for the release. Besides, your song plays everywhere I go. People love it. I couldn't escape your voice even if I wanted to."

"The song was about you."

"Yeah... I know." You wiped your wet face, taking in a deep breath.

"Y/N, what are you doing here?" Jungkook finally asked.

Your breathing was shaky. "I came to apologize. I know I don't deserve your forgiveness but... It was wrong for me to flake out like that, to leave without explanation."

"Why did you?"

You seemed unable to look him in the eye. "Every time a guy told me he loved me, that he was in love with me, it turned out to just be to use me. It was a way to get on my good side and use me for... Well, ulterior motives. When you said you loved me, I had spent so much time convincing myself that you didn't see me that way that I assumed you only meant platonically. Even if I wanted it to be in a romantic sense. When you confirmed, though, that you were in love with me, it just sparked so many memories of guys before. I was stupid. You've proven time and time again that you're honest and genuine, and that you respect me in a way those boys never could, but I couldn't handle it. I needed time away to figure my shit out. So I left and went to my parents', and I told them everything. The fake dating, the roommate situation, the job, that you were in love with me- all of it.

"My parents have been wrong about a lot of things. About what I should be, about what kind of guy would make a suitable husband, but they were right about one thing." Your eyes finally locked with his. "I was stupid to let you go, especially when I'm as head over heels over you as you are for me."

"So..." Jungkook didn't know what to say, overwhelmed with your speech. "What does this mean?"

"It means I love you too, Jungkook. I'm in love with you. I meant it when I said it back then, the same way you meant it. I took a taxi and ran over here as soon as I realized that. I've been in love with you for God knows how long, and I want to be with you, for real this time. That is... if you'll take me back."

Jungkook couldn't help but melt at that, smiling as he pulled you into a tight embrace, despite how your wet form began to dampen his clothes. "Always, princess."

#jeon jungkook #bts jungkook #bts #bangtan #jungkook #jeongguk #bts jeongguk #jeongguk smut #jungkook smut #bts smut #jeon jeongguk #smut #bts fanfiction #bts scenarios #jeongguk fanfiction #jeongguk scenarios #jungkook scenarios #jungkook fanfiction

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thisweekingundamwing · 3 years

Text

This Week in Gundam Wing (August 22-28, 2021)

Hey Gundam Wing fandom! Here’s your weekly roll-up. Show your fellow fans some love.

--Mod LAM

EDIT (August 29): have removed tags for richardarmititty per their request (and for evan-wins for good measure). Please do not submit posts by either party going forward. I will also be BLOCKING both accounts to avoid future inadvertent inclusion (again, per their request to not be associated with the content captured in this roll-up).

Fanfiction

The Life of the Immortal Jellyfish (CH.14/35) by @lemontrash

Pairings: Duo x Wufei

Characters: 5 pilots + Relena, Hilde, Noin, Une

Rating: MATURE

Tags / Warnings: post-canon, post-Endless Waltz, UST, roommates, Preventers, slow burn, insomnia, friendship

Summary: Is it chance that lands Duo and Wufei in the same university dorm room? They're not stupid enough to believe that but too tired to fight it. Duo's dragged himself back from the brink of going too far and remains teetering on the edge while Wufei's doggedly trying to prove himself to the 'good guys' in the aftermath of the Eve Wars. Sleep and normalcy eludes them both. As they become increasingly aware how damaged they are, they start to edge towards friendship, or something more, but all too soon the peace seems jeopardised by a new and manipulative threat.

Thrash (welcome to the gutter) by @gemstonecircles for @noirangetrois

Pairings: Duo x Relena, implied Heero x Trowa

Characters: Heero, Duo, Trowa, Relena, Hilde

Rating: EXPLICIT

Tags / Warnings: safehouses, friends to lovers, unresolved (and eventually resolved) sexual tension, graphic sexual situations,

Summary: “Not that it’s not a pretty bitchin’ look,” Duo said, his words slightly distorted by the key-pin hanging from his mouth, both his hands engaged with the grocery bags from the pick-up location in the city outside, “And OverKill is an excellent choice, but don’t you have your own clothes?”Relena and Duo are pent up in a safehouse and something’s gotta give. Eventually.

Lucerne by katopiyo

Pairings: Duo x Quatre

Characters: Duo, Quatre

Rating: General

Tags / Warnings: canon insert, dancing

Summary: Duo and Quatre catch up in the Peacemillion's break room.

The Empresses’ Third by @tziganecaffiends and @zaganthi

Pairings: Wufei x Treize x Meilan

Characters: Wufei, Treize, Melian

Rating: EXPLICIT

Tags / Warnings: threesome, alternate universe - everyone lives, fix-it, happy ending, love, prisoner of war, coercion, Light Dom/sub, pegging, Porn with Feelings, families of choice, implied/referenced child abuse and suicide

Summary: Out of a war, she had secured the safety of her husband, obtained a third, and had a daughter. They had managed to fix their colony, and they now had viable economic gains that were steady and sufficient to support their people because she had felt greedy, angry, horny, and petty, yes. Because her husband had been fascinated by the man who was now showing Mei-Xing the parts of a rose bloom, and stumbling for a moment as Wufei gave him the right words in Mandarin.

Warmth by @noirangetrois for Purdys aka Diane

Pairings: Heero x Relena

Characters: Heero, Relena

Rating: MATURE

Tags / Warnings: huddle for warmth, only one blanket, resolved sexual tension, sexual situations, Heero’s an idiot

Summary: The front door opened and Relena heard the sound of rain pelting down outside. Heero entered and shut the door behind him, dripping water everywhere.“You didn’t wear a jacket!” She had been asleep when he’d left to scout the perimeter and hadn’t realized. “It wasn’t raining when I left,” he replied.

Stand Without Flinching (CH.46/?) by @angelselene

Pairings: Heero x Duo, Trowa x Quatre, Wufei x Sally, Steve x Tony, Wanda x Vision

Characters: GW and MCU cast

Rating: MATURE

Tags / Warnings: GW-MCU crossover, alternate universe, canon divergent, fix-it, romance, Preventers, PTSD, moral ambiguity, family reunification, slow burn, found family

Summary: Wufei wasn’t sure what to expect when Maxwell came back in by himself.

With Open Arms by @bryony-rebb

Pairings: Zechs x Noin

Characters: Zechs, Noin

Rating: EXPLICIT

Tags / Warnings: post-canon, post-Endless Waltz, reconciliation, emotional hurt/comfort, semi-public sex, porn with feelings

Summary: In the immediate aftermath of Endless Waltz, Zechs and Noin (ahem) reunite.When he looked back at her, there was a slight furrow between Noin's brows, a downward twist to her lips; her eyes seemingly stuck on the slim leather fold of his wallet. "The dead man carries cash," she quietly observed.

The Art of Making a Machine by @the-reanimated-bhg

Pairings: N/A

Characters: Dr. J, Professor G

Rating: General

Tags / Warnings: two brilliant minds bickering incessantly, failed NaNoWriMoFic, humor

Summary: A Story of Love, Friendship and Fisticuffs

Fanart

Heero Smoking by @bettertasting

No Sleep (Heero x Duo) by @bettertasting

Heero and Relena by @alphaikaros

Heero and Relena Halloween by @alphaikaros

Halloween Relena by @noromax

Wufei by @farshootingstar

Quatre by @darksharinganz

Other Fanwork

Cosplay and Gunpla

(RG) XXXG-01W Wing Gundam review by @reversemoon255

Custom EW Heavyarms 1/100 HG by @the-reanimated-bhg

Heavyarms by @christianmswanson

Sandrock and Deathscythe by @christianmswanson

Shenlong by @christianmswanson

Discussion and Headcanons

@kittykatz took and online survey and found 8w7 is Une’s enneatype according to PDB. Try it yourself over here!

Gundam Fuel Source by @meggie-stardust

@kittykatz is sharing some scans of GoL and their thoughts on the scenes

Wufei and Treize’s fight and the immediate aftermath

Miscommunication at its finest

The Lightning Count

Singapore base + more Treize and Zechs

Heading to outer space

Heero’s freak out

Duo and Hilde

Other Fun Stuff

@incorrectgundamwingquotes is still making us laugh

It’s Always Sunny in Gundam Wing by @incorrectgundamwingquotes

Skeletons by @the-reanimated-bhg

Make it happen by @the-reanimated-bhg

Helmet-ception by @the-reanimated-bhg

Too hot to handle by @vegalume and @janaverse

Calendar Events

@gwcocktailfriday is back with this week’s prompt! Be sure to post your responses on Friday (September 3) between 3-5PM EST!

@/ficwip (Twitter) is hosting a "Rise of the Dead Fandoms" event. Contributor sign-ups end on Monday (August 30), so be sure to register soon! Creation period runs September-October; posting will be in November. More info at their FAQ.

September is National Prostate Awareness Month and @expewrites and @boxofhatebrains are hosting a GW Prostate Health Event at @prostatehealth-gundamwing beginning September 1. More info is available on the Event AO3 Page but in brief, options are to (1) create something or (2) donate to your prostate health organization of choice.

@gundamzine has opened up the mailing list, so be sure to register to get your FREE PDF on October 1! In the mean time, be sure to follow the account so that you can learn about the stellar 2021 Zine Crew members. Also consider donating to the team’s chosen charity, World Literacy Foundation (donations are optional, but encouraged).

The @weedgrandpacookbook is a go! The project will be an homage to the fanon of Howard as the Gundam Wing’s chillest Weed Grandpa. Yes, this includes content that promotes/celebrates/normalizes the consumption of marijuana and adjacent substances recreationally. The FREE digital zine would be presented like a cookbook, with room for meta, fic, general advice, art, graphics, crafts (Gundam-themed pipes anyone?), and of course, dank recipes. More info to come this month, with sign-ups planned for October.

NOTE: Due to the nature of the theme, this zine will be considered 18+ NSFW. Be mindful of your local laws regarding creating and engaging with content of this nature.

Spooky prompt idea generation for the GW Hallows Event will kick off mid-September, and posting period will happen in October. Stay tuned to @thisweekingundamevents!

Keep an eye on @gwoc-october while you’re at it for news on the GW Original Character (OC) October Event. You can expect a prompt calendar to go live in September with posting in October...but you can also just use the month to showcase works with your original GW characters!

Also, @thisweekingundamevents will be opening sign-ups for the 2021 Holiday Gift Exchange in September! Participants will get their assignments in October, followed by the creation period November-December and finally posting in early January 2022.

Got an event you want us to showcase? Let us know!

#gundam wing

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hypocrisyofandrewdobson · 3 years

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Dobson's Patreon: An Addendum to His Monument of Sins

(The following is a submission from @soyouareandrewdobson, meant to be an addendum to the multi-post submission @ripsinfest made a while back. Ironically, this one also had issues when being submitted, so I’ll be copypasting it here with all the images and links originally intended.)

In 2018, user @ripsinfest wrote a multipart series of posts for THOAD, recounting Dobson’s attempt to establish a patreon in 2015 and how it resulted in failure on a massive scale, to the point that his patreon is arguably “a monument to all his sins”.

Personally I think the post series is extremely well researched, rather “neutral” in terms of tone (letting the posts provided as evidence speak more for themselves than the opinion of the writer) and gives a detailed but quick rundown on what went wrong. Primarily that Dobson overestimated his own “value” as an artist and did NOT attempt to give his few supporters what they wanted through his artwork posted around the time.

I do however want to use the opportunity to also point out at certain obvious things that in my opinion (and likely the opinions of others) added to the failure of the patreon account, that were not accounted for in detail and are primarily related to how the internet perceives popularity and Dobson’s inability to understand, how to “sell” and make himself look good to the public.

To begin with, let’s just point out a certain truth about making money via Patreon: To do so, depends a lot on your popularity as a content creator online. That is simply because the more popular you are, the bigger your fanbase is and as such the more likely a certain percentage of people may be willing to donate money to you and your work in hopes they get something out of it, even if it is just the altruistic feeling of having helped someone they “like”. It doesn’t take a genius to see, how e.g. internet reviewers such as Linkara or moviebob (around 2800 and 4400$ earnings via patreon each month respectively) can make quite some money, while other, more obscure content creator or artists barely make money to go by, earning essentially pocket money at best.

In addition, popularity is fleeting. A few years ago e.g. internet personality Noah Antweiler aka The SpoonyOne managed to earn 5000$ a month via patreon, just shortly after establishing his account. But his lack of content over the years AND his toxic behavior online resulted in a decline of popularity and with it people jumping off his Patreon. As such, Antweiler only earns nowadays around 290$ a month via Patreon and most of that money is likely form people who have forgotten they donate to him in the first place anyway.

And Noah is not the only one who over the course of the last couple of years lost earnings. Brianna Wu makes barely more than he does, despite having once been the “darling” of the internet when the Gamergate controversy was at its peak. Many Bronies who once made more than 2k via video reviews on a show about little horses at the peak of its popularity (2013-15) earn less than 300-800 on average nowadays because interest on the show as well as people talking about it has declined.

Heck, in preparation of writing this piece I found out, that one of the highest grossing patreons nowadays is “The last podcast on the left”, a podcast that earns more than 67k a month by making recordings on obscure and macabre subjects on a regular basis.

So there you have it folks: As the interests of the internet users change, so does the popularity of certain people online and -in case they have a patreon account or similar plattforms- their chances of making money via their content.

Which now brings us back to Dobson, who was not popular at all at that particular time and managed to become even less popular as the months and years passed by.

Sure, Dobson had his fans via deviantart, people knew who he was. But the later was more because of “infamy” than popularity and the number of fans he had accumulated online were representing people interested in him at least since 2005 and did not quite represent his actual present day numbers of supporters at the time.

And mind you, the number of supporters was less than 100k, most of them likely underaged deviantart users. And if my research indicates something, then that most content creators with a halfway decent patreon earning need at least 100k+ followers in total. Because of those fans, only around 1-3% will on average then spend money on you, if you actually create content they enjoy and on a regular basis.

Which brings up the next major problem: Dobson did not create content people enjoyed and that in more than one meaning of the word.

On one hand, as pointed out by ripsinfest, he barely released any content at all over 2015 after a few initial months, despite the fact that he was obviously active online a lot, as shown by his presence on twitter. On the other hand, the few things he did create were not the stuff people wanted.

As an example: If you go to a restaurant and pay for a pizza, you expect the cook to give you a pizza. If however for some reason he just gives you a soda, you get ripped off and never come back. In Dobson’s case, the thing people wanted was not pizza but comic pages. But what he delivered was mostly bland fanart, such as of Disney and Marvel characters crossing over or KorraSami. Sure, a few strips of “So…you are a cartoonist” were still released at the time, but not really many.

To give an overview: Taking the release dates on Dobson’s official SYAC site into account, he released around 16 strips of it between March and August of 2015, the last two being “No Leia” being titled “Zip line”

Afterwards, the next official strip released was “Anything at all” in October of 2016.

Now to be fair, there was at least one more strip at the time Dobson released via patreon, that is also save to see on kiwifarms and other plattforms, which has not been uploaded to his official SYAC page. Likely because he simply forgot about it.

But I think that in itself should tell you something about Dobson’s work ethics when it comes to his webcomics. He promoted his patreon in his own video as a way to ensure he can make comics in a timely fashion again for others to enjoy, but in an environment where certain artists are capable to create multiple strips per week at minimum, Dobson could overall not manage to produce more than 16 over a course of six months, which means an average production of 3 strips per month.

For comparison, Tatsuya Ishida of the infamous sinfest webcomic (a garbage fire of epic proportions from a TERF who I think should be put on a watch list) has produced on average 4 strips per week, including full page Sunday strips, for years and nowadays even releases stuff on a daily basis to pass the covid crisis. So a mad man who wants to see trnas people die, has better work ethics than Dobson.

In other words, people expected Dobson to actually get back into creating comics (with some even expecting a return of Alex ze Pirate), but he got in fact even lazier than before, releasing only SYAC strips and random fanart as a product. Which he then also tried to justify as his choice to make because a) he had mental health issues and b) no one can tell him what to do.

And sure, people do not need to tell you what to do. But when people pay/donate money to you expecting to get a certain product in return, they should get the product. Linkara e.g. by all means doesn’t NEED to review comics to have a fullfilling life, but he got famous for his reviews, people want to see his reviews and they pay him for those reviews. So obviously, he will continue those things.

Then there is also the fact that despite Dobson’s claims how he wants to create comics for everone to enjoy and that he aims to keep his artwork online for free so anyone can view it…(his exact words in his promotional video AND text on his patreon once upon a time)

youtube

…the reality was, that he wanted to use patreon as a paywall. Something I actually kinda pointed out at on my own account (shameless self promotion) once, but want now to elaborate a bit. Basically at the time Dobson opened up his patreon, he also was on the verge of leaving deviantart as a platform people could look at his work behind. Which he eventually did.

Meaning that the only major platforms for people to watch any “new” stuff by him were his patreon or art sites such as the SYAC homepage or andysartwork. Which granted, he did EVENTUALLY put his stuff on.

But unlike other content creators who would put “patreon exclusive” new content up on more public plattforms often within a few days, weeks or a month after making them “patreon only” at first, Dobson waited longer and did barely anything to promote his sites as places to look his stuff up for a public audience. In doing so creating a “bubble” for himself that hurt him more than it helped, as Dobson made himself essentially come off as a snob.

A snob who did not create content for everybody to enjoy, but ONLY for those willing to pay him at least one dollar per month. As evident e.g. by the fact that as time went by, certain content was never released outside of his patreon at all, such as a SYAC strip involving Dobbear screaming at the computer because he saw a piece of art that featured tumblr nose.

Lastly, there is the issue of his patreon perks and stretch goals.

See, his perks were essentially non existent. Aside of the beggars reward of “my eternal thank you if you donate 1 dollar”, two other perks that come to my mind were the following: If you donated up to 5$ at minimum, you got your name thrown into a lottery to potentially win buttons and postcards of his artwork. Unsold cheap merch from years prior he failed to sell at conventions basically. There was just a problem with that thing: That lottery thing, which he also was only going to initiate when he reached a stretch goal of 150 dollar a month? It was illegal!

Patreon itself has in their user agreement a rule that forbids people from offering perks that essentially boil down to “earning” something via gambling, which this lottery by Dobson was.

(THOAD chiming in here to add that, in addition to all this, he fully admitted he would be excluding Patrons that he “knew were clearly trolls” from the lottery. Which made the already illegal lottery also fixed, so...yeah.)

The next thing coming to mind was his “discount” on previous books of his he offered online, if you donated at least 10 bucks per month to him. Or to translate it: You would get a bare minimum discount at pdf files of books such as Alex ze Pirate and Formera (you know, the permanently cancelled Dobson comics) if you paid up 50-75% of their original price on Patreon already. And considering the quality of his early works, he should have given you at least a book per month for free if you dared to donate him that much.

As for the stretch goals… lets go through them, shall we:

100$: A wallpaper per month. Something he did provide with eventually, but barely. And after less than five of those he stopped to make them overall

150$: Monthly Gift basket Lottery, which as I stated, was illegal and almost got him into serious trouble with his account. Also not an initial stretch goal he made up but instead came up with a few months into his accounts existence. Finally it got temporarily replaced by Dobson playing with the idea to use 150$ per month to open up a server and art site where people could upload stuff for free similar to deviantart, but under his administration. Promising a “safe space” for other artists. Which considering Dobson’s ego and inability to accept criticism or delegate responsibilities would have likely ended like this:

175$: Establishing a Minecraft server for him and his fans to play on. Meaning Dobson would have just wasted time he could spend on creating comics to endulge in his Minecraft obsession.

200$: Writing a Skyrim children book. Aside of the legal nightmare that this could have been (I doubt Valve would have been happy of someone else profiting of their property) I have to ask, who was even interested in Skyrim by 2015 anymore? Sure, Skyrim was a popular game and it had its qualities, but it was also a trend that had passed by that time. So in other words, there was not a market to cater towards here.

300$: A strip per week guaranteed.

… are you fucking kidding me? 75$ per strip essentially? Something people expect you to produce anyway if you want to be considered a “prolific” creator worth supporting online? Imagine if certain internet reviewers would do that, telling you that if they do not earn at least a certain amount of money, they will not produce anything, period, or less than usual. And Dobson had already proven that he can release more than just one comic within a few days, if he is motivated by enough spite.

600$: Starting a podcast with his friends to talk about nerd culture. In my opinion could only work under the assumption that people even like the idea of listening to Dobson and his opinions. Which considering how very little people like talking to him sounds doubtful. Also, considering how Dobson tends to be late to the party when it comes to nerd culture, likely tending to be out of date faster than he could upload. Finally... what friends?

700$: Returning the love, as he says it, by donating some of the money patreon users gave him to other content creators. This in my opinion is the most self defeating cause possible. On one hand sure, being generous and all that. But essentially Dobson admits here he would blow the money people give him to support HIS art on others, essentially defeating the purpose of HIS own account. He also does not clarify how much of that money he would donate, meaning there was a high chance that he would spend less than 10% of it on other creators, only creating the illusion of support while putting the actual earnings/donations into his own pocket.

2000$: A massive jump ahead. 2000$ per month would result in him getting better equipment (as in a new computer e.g.) and as such “potentially” make more comics. Mind you, only potentially.

This goal in my opinion is also the most fucked up one. Primarily for the following reasons:

Lets say Dobson would have achieved the goal and actually earned over 2000$ per month for at least a year. His annual earning would have been 24k, minus whatever he had to pay as taxes and payment for using the patreon service. And what would he do with this money? Get himself a better computer and equipment by paying a minor fraction of it once. Then he could use that computer for years to come while still having over 10k in his account, plus his monthly earnings. And he may still just produce 3-4 comics a month of a series that has as much depth to it than Peppa Pig if not less.

Sure, many patreon users have 2k+ as a stretch goal on their accounts to signify that if they could make that much monthly, they could have the necessary financial security to focus their time primarily on their content instead of a regular job. And if the content they create is actually well made, many people would support that or be okay with it.

But 2000 dollars to buy ONE computer and not account for how this money will add up over time? And that in light of such profits people may actually expect you to create more than you barely do already? That is either a case of narcissism, plain stupidity because you can't look further than 5 feet or just shows how Dobson did not understand at all the tool he had at his disposal.

Bottom line: Dobson, like many times before, fucked it up. He overestimated the potential support and resulting profits he could make, he expected that his name alone would be enough to assure gainings instead of creating content to justify support and he was unwilling to really give his supporters anything worthwhile back.

And while I am sure that there were also many other factors guaranteeing his failure, those at least to me, were his "common" mistakes most other people familiar even with the basics of internet popularity would ahve avoided.

#long post #patreon #syac #submission #very long post #andrew dobson #adobsonartworks #tom preston #adobsonart #soyouareandrewdobson #ripsinfest

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j10kkuno · 3 years

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Park Ranger Headcanons

I’ve just been mulling it over for months, like why are the Park Rangers who should be focused on wildlife stuff so obsessed with bank robbers. Like, I get that in game and game mechanics and not a ton of people hunt but like how can I transfer that into writing and it finally clicked yesterday. The Nopixel lore is that Ziggy and Conan created the Park Ranger Department and RPed it’s exsistance until it finally existed as an actual department(still a very small forgotten about department). But what if I twist it so like the department was failing and their superiors were jumping ship and regular rangers were being cross trained as cops and they were the ones that you know, stayed and saved the department.

So the San Andreas Park Ranger Department was once something to be proud of. Their state parks were beautiful, their wildlife thriving. But they never got back on their feet after some massive budget cuts. When Ziggy joined the department, it was the first year Kael Soze, leader of the State Troopers was testing crosstraining rangers as regular state police officers. All of Ziggy’s coworkers told him it was only a matter of time before the rangers got shut down completely. Still, policing was no interest for him and he devoted his time to anything he could that was park ranger ish, from paperwork to patrolling the mountains in the jeep that was liable to break down at least once a week. He alone got promoted to senior ranger over the next two years.

Two years later, Conan Clarkson arrives in Los Santos from Liberty City, having already been accepted into the Police Academy. He’s confused why the police academy leads to park rangers but he’s heard the department is having issues. Nothing could have prepared him for what he finds, a single senior ranger, and one captain who will ne leaving in three months for some cushy execustive position in Florida. , and a couple regular rangers. But the senior ranger is kind and passionate and devoted and Ziggy sees his passion reflected in Conan when Conan the junior ranger follows him around doing tasks to learn and then quickly starting to do it himself, even if he clearly also loves the thrill of policing.

When the captain leaves, he appoints Ziggy the new Captain of the Park Rangers. While there’s others, Conan proves to be his right hand man. They become very close, working late nights, or getting burgers after shifts and wondering how their department became a disaster, late nights under the stars and wondering how the fuck do they fix the Park Rangers. This breaks lore, but over the next year and a half Tessa Lamb and Ellis Pinzon are the only two people to join the Park Rangers, because they care and become trusted friends. They both join in 3.0 in canon but they’re the only current senior officers but I think they’re both cool and to buildup their rank. It’s. Incredibly hard, but they do start fixing things. The department, while small, is looking up. But at the end of the day, it’s Conan and Ziggy, and so, one day, Ziggy asks Conan to be co captain with him because they were the only reason the department stayed alive. It’s their baby.

By the time two and a half years after Conan joins(aka 3.0 start time) the Rangers are a small but once again respected department. They’re closeknit, especially Conan, Ziggy, Tessa, and Ellis. They hang out as a quartet multiple times a month, going out to nice resturaunts once a month but also having nights in with pizza and games. Whenever it may be that they have children, those babies will get spoiled with stuffed animalls, enogh to fill the entirety of the woods their dad, aunt, and uncles protect.

(I like that photo a lot. Just a chill meeting. )

#nopixel #nopixel headcanons #sa park rangers #ziggy buggs #conan clarkson #the transformation of nopixel video game to writing is so interesting #because irl a park ranger department would already exist for San Andreas #so it’s like how does the lore of it being just Conan and Ziggy translate #and why are wildlife protectors mostly just cops #game mechanics don’t always translate well #this might be backstory for a part in Nothing Safe is Worth the Drive #(it is)

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chemicalarospec · 4 years

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A Look At Dan’s Recent Branding

AKA I Make Up a Bunch of Stuff About Media and Perception and Promotion and Branding and Say the Same Things Over and Over

I’m so sorry this is actually horrendously long. I’m a loquacious a$$hole.

So I started rambling in the tags of this post began thinking about Dan’s presence recently. The reason so many of us fell for the red chairing was because it actually seemed possible -- perhaps not a proper joint video, but a cameo or side role.

Now that the video’s out, I can see it has very strong Solo Phil vibes, but I can still imagine a few different ways Dan could have been in it if he wanted to be. (Side note: It also feels like a run-of-the-mill, everyday, video, though seasonal, and not a festive special, despite the content. idk, I blame it on the lack of decoration and boring grey wall. cue clowning for more spoopy content though.) Dan is not in the video, so he must not have wanted to be in it. Why?

Before I talk more, let’s just talk about “branding” for a bit. I use it interchangeably with “image”/”public image”/”public persona”/”common connotations”/”associations” here (kinda wrongly), but I default to “branding” because it’s what the phandom (possibly even Dan and Phil themselves?) use the most frequently -- “image” is perhaps the best-fitting term. Regardless, in a very general example, if Stephen King wrote a fluffy teenage romance book, it would be “off-brand” for him. That’s what we’re talking about here. Except with Dan and smaller differences.

It’s also worth noting that Dan and Phil were not always Dan-and-Phil -- I remember seeing an early liveshow clip where Dan says they’re not a double act. I’m pretty sure the radio show in 2013/early 2014 followed by the launch of the gaming channel in 2014 is when they became a “double act” -- the BBC absolutely billed them as such.

You can see what I’m getting at here: Dan is trying to drop the “and Phil” in a softer way than he dropped the “isnotonfire” back in 2017. However, it’s definitely worth noting that he had already distanced himself quite a bit from it before the official name change, with first the shorter fringe and then the curls being a visual representation of that. And it’s probably just a mental thing on my part, but curly Dan now looks different from curly Dan-with-Phil.

Okay so first, why is he trying to change his image? Like his first evolution, a major component is being more mature -- llamas and malteasers didn’t simply not represent Dan anymore, they represented a younger, less mature Dan. He didn’t like it anymore. Does Dan not like who we view him as now? My first instinct is “no,” because his current connotations are fairly empty, but I don’t really know, so I’ll just move on.

What do we associate with Dan right now? i. e. what’s “on brand” for him? Well, again, there’s not a lot of strong specifics, at least for me. After two years for being nearly absent from the internet and very clearly growing a lot as a person, Daniel hasn’t talked enough for there to be only the basics left: tall, British, memes, and gay.

Okay, but the gay. Dan and Phil have been out for one year, but being part of The Gays is a pretty big part of their branding. This is because of their already long-standing reputation, more specifically their attachments to the community -- all those teenage girls turning out to be lesbians and, of course, the shipping.

The Gay is also an answer to the next question: What different aspects of his image is he pushing? Again, that he’s more mature and serious -- the UN talk, for example. I’m not counting the book here because that’s the product of the changes, not content being used to create a shift.

The big thing I want to focus on is the attitude video series. I’m very curious as to how this came about to be and don’t know enough details to say some things, but one thing I can note is that the plug for You Will Get Through This Night is a really small part of it. It’s literally the last thing he says, and they don’t even show the cover. It’s so skippable, and while it’s good that means they all really care about the important content of the series, it does create some questions.

To be honest, all of the attitude/This Night content is kind of strange to me. For example, the quote they used to promote it doesn’t mention the book, which just looks bad. This Night isn’t really the center of the collab -- it’s more general mental health awareness and activism.

So that’s the first thing Dan’s trying to put into his image. The podcast (Get Britain Talking or something like that) is, I feel, more directly part of marketing This Night, though of course, like with the video series, the content itself is emphasized and important and I should treat it as such.

Back to attitude. attitude is “the UK’s best selling gay magazine.” Why is Dan trying to build connotations to things he already is? No, but actually this gives insight on how he’s trying to be perceived: he’s a confident gay man. This magazine with its connotations (formal media, queer, well-established) will come up should someone new search up Dan -- obviously that’s not the direct reason; it’s a representation of his public image.

Why is he trying to create this image? Right now, us in the phandom are probably 90% of the people tuned into Daniel’s actions. We’ve already built up a lot about him, and though we don’t want to admit it, we do like Dan-and-Phil, the double act. Overall, I do think Dan will not change our image of him as much as he’d like, but he has changed it more than we might think -- for example, people talking about how “mature” and “grown-up” he is in new photos.

I think I’m just stupid, but these pushes don’t seem to be needed for You Will Get Through This Night. Okay so the problem here is “how do you get people to buy a book?” An author’s broader public persona doesn’t really impact this. I’m not going to hear about a mental health book written by an ex-Youtuber and search up the author. I’m not going to hear about a mental health book written by an ex-Youtuber in my normal book searching, period.

You know where I could see myself finding out about a book like this, and what would get people to buy the book? Doing mainstream interviews specifically about it; I’ll read TIME interviews with anyone, so long as it seems mildly interesting. But Dan’s not doing that, not a lot, not yet. (I bet he will later.)

I guess what I’m saying is the attitude video series is periphery media that impacts his branding but does not reach a large audience; it’s impact is atmospheric, not promotional.

(Dude it’s 10:30 at this point I’m not sure what I’m saying.) (also I rearranged these paragraphs sorry if it reads poorly)

Dan is a private person. He has made this extensively clear throughout the years and in the most recent content. What this means is I don’t believe he wants to update his branding just for the sake of accuracy to self.

So it’s (partially) for something else, but the public framing clearly goes beyond This Night. The obvious answer is that Dan’s just trying to return to the public eye, but then I still ask why???

The attitude series is not an end goal -- i. e. it is a building block for something. I mean, I just don’t think Dan’s like “yeah I want to create content again and this is the content I want to create,” simply because it started out seeming like an extension of the interview and now it’s clearly more than that, but it’s still like, for the magazine. It’s not his.

So what’s Dan going to do with this status of being a queer content creater and mental health advocate he’s curating? So remember how there’s a 99% chance he’s doing something w/ television but there’s been no official announcement? Yeah, that.

I had a few paragraphs talking about book-adjacent media (interviews, reviews, ect.) vs television-adjacent media but all of it was me 100% making stuff up so it’s gone now. Basically, I *think* if he were to make a show, fiction or non-fiction, people would search him up and write a small description of him, and I *think* this is less likely for You Will Get Through This Night, so I *think* this reputation-building is in preparation of the former, not the latter.

Isabelle, you spent over an hour on this, do you actually have anything interesting to say?

Freaking *waves hands* promotional-- social dynamics-- what the heck actually is branding at this point-- Dan show.

TL;DR: It might just be the French in me (or just *my* French relatives?), but life is manipulation and Dan is trying to drop “and Phil” from his name and is manipulating his public image to be more mature, with a focus on being one of The Gays and a mental health advocate. Because it’s not vibin’ as This Night promotion/set-up, it is likely setup for promotion for another project, probably the TV one.

TL;DR 2: Just read the tags on the original post I literally didn’t have to say any of this except for “television theory”.

#dnp #dan howell #daniel howell #you will get through this night #dan and phil #sorry dan #but i know our people lol #u can't escape i apologize #I said this #things I've said #my writing #god why the frik i hae al;flkajdsf;lkj acan't type 100 million tags #dan #dan book #this night #hey actually just reaidng the bolded parts and skimming the rest words well #that was a smart move on my part #for readability

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recentanimenews · 3 years

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FEATURE: Every Thing You Need to Know About That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Before Season 2

*Season 2 of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime kicks off on January 12, 2021, so be sure to catch up on all of the previous episodes here.*

Whether you prefer your “reincarnated in a parallel world” fantasy adventures in light novel, manga, or anime form, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime has got you covered, and since the TV anime adaptation is returning to Japanese TV (and Crunchyroll) for a second season soon, there's no slime-time like the present to absorb a quick refresher on what makes the series such a fantastic, comedic, and dramatic success.

**Take heed, gentle readers, there are MASSIVE SPOILERS ahead, so read on at your own discretion.**

The Story So Far

During a random act of violence, Mikami Satoru, a humble office worker, is fatally stabbed and his dying thoughts are interpreted as wishes for his next incarnation. He reincarnates in another world in a body that matches these wishes: a lowly slime, one of the weakest monsters around. However, with his two Unique Skills (Great Sage and Predator), he begins exploring his environment, absorbing other monsters and gaining their Skills, and quietly growing stronger.

The humble slime meets Veldora the Storm Dragon, a primordial being of immense power. The two strike up a friendship and exchange Names. Newly dubbed “Rimuru Tempest,” the slime agrees to help Veldora escape his centuries-long imprisonment by absorbing the dragon and studying the magical seal, Unlimited Imprisonment, that was placed upon Veldora by the Hero.

Veldora's disappearance sparks huge consequences because the Storm Dragon is no longer able to protect the Great Forest of Jura, which he claimed as his territory. The monsters of the forest scramble to establish a new pecking order while neighboring nations investigate, and Rimuru — through random acts of kindness — finds himself responsible for protecting a growing new nation of demihumans such as Goblins, Ogres, Orcs, and Lizardmen.

Along the way, Rimuru befriends Humans and Dwarves and draws the attention of the powerful Demon Lords. The humble slime also comforts a dying hero, Shizue Izawa, and inherits her will and the ability to mimic a human form. After foiling the Demon Lords' plots to unleash the Orc Disaster and Charybdis — beings of world-shaking power — the first season concludes with Rimuru rescuing Shizue's students from certain death and returning home to lead the fledgling nation known as the Jura Tempest Federation.

The Ways of Another World

Magic and Magicules

The world of That Time That I Got Reincarnated as a Slime is a high fantasy setting in which magic is ever-present, powered by microscopic magical particles known as “magicules.” Beings of great power — such as Demon Lords, human Heroes, and Veldora — also possess intense concentrations of magicules, and using their Skills depletes their magicule reserves, which take time to replenish.

Names and Skills

The inhabitants of this magical world (including Rimuru) demonstrate uncanny abilities known as Skills, which allow them to perform magical feats that defy the conventional laws of physics. Extra Skills and Unique Skills are more powerful, and different Skills can be combined into new Skills with greater potency.

For monsters, possessing a Name conveys great power, potentially granting new Skills and/or causing the monster to evolve into a new form. For example, when he receives the name of “Geld” from the majin Gelmud, the leader of the Orcs is promoted to Orc King and gains the “Starved” skill.

Demon Lords

Towering above most other beings are the Demon Lords, a group of inscrutable beings of immense physical and magical power. Some Demon Lords are malevolent, while others are less openly hostile, but all of them possess strength that is capable of re-shaping the world. It is possible for a less powerful being to become a Demon Lord, a process which Ramiris describes as a “fall from grace,” although the exact process of creating a new Demon Lord has not yet been fully revealed.

Dramatis Personae

Heroes

Rimuru Tempest – the protagonist of the show, a humble general contractor turned super-humanly powerful slime. Rimuru's “Great Sage” and “Predator” Unique Skills allow him to absorb and analyze practically anything.

Veldora Tempest – a primordial Storm Dragon, Veldora Tempest is currently tucked safely within a pocket dimension inside Rimuru's stomach while the two of them attempt to undo the Unlimited Imprisonment seal that was placed upon the dragon. Veldora's absence from the material world kicks off the events that eventually lead to the formation of the Jura Tempest Federation.

Shizue Izawa, aka Shizu – a hero known as the “Conqueror of Flames”, Shizue was summoned to this world by the Demon Lord Leon Cromwell and bonded with the superior spirit, Ifrit, granting her the power to control flames. Shizue eventually dies of old age, but she passes on her will, memories, and appearance to Rimuru, who absorbs her as her final request.

Ranga – formerly a Direwolf, Ranga evolves into a Star Tempest Wolf through his service to Rimuru. Ranga leads his pack and serves as Rimuru's primary bodyguard, and he is a very good boy, yes he is.

The Goblins – After being granted names and evolving into Hobgoblins and Goblinas, the inhabitants of Goblin Village along with their Direwolf companions are the first ones to band together under Rimuru, eventually transforming their humble rural village into a mighty nation.

The Ogres – Although few in number after their village is slaughtered during the Orc invasion, when granted names the Ogres evolve into Kijin and voluntarily choose to serve under Rimuru, finding a strong sense of purpose in their new roles as warriors, spies, and court advisors.

The Lizardmen – A proud, swamp-dwelling people, the Lizardmen evolve into Dragonewts after Rimuru saves them from the Orc invasion and grants them names. They use their fishing, hunting, and gathering skills to provide food-stuffs for the Jura Tempest Federation, and key members such as Gabiru and his sister Soka also help with research and espionage, respectively.

The Dwarves – Led by the Hero King Gazel Dwargo, the Dwarves of the kingdom of Dwargon are a sturdy and industrious people. After an initial misunderstanding, Rimuru gains the aid of Kaijin, a master craftsman, and Vesta, a brilliant researcher, as well as the three brother artisans Garm, Dold, and Myrd, who all take prestigious positions in Rimuru's capital city.

The Orcs – After Rimuru brings the Orc invasion to an end by absorbing the Orc Disaster Geld, the Orcs are allowed to join the Jura Tempest Federation under the leadership of Geld's son, who inherits his father's name. With their great strength and physical endurance, the Orcs provide an excellent labor force, building roads and aqueducts for the Jura Tempest Federation.

Demon Lord Milim – One of the most physically strong Demon Lords in existence, Milim surveys the Jura Tempest Federation out of idle curiosity and ends up befriending Rimuru, who keeps her volatile, childish personality mollified with snacks, sweets, and plenty of praise.

The Free Union Guild – An organization of adventurers based in the neighboring country of Ingrassia, the Free Union Guild is led by Grandmaster Yuuki Kagurazaka, another transplant from Japan. Rimuru wins Yuuki over with the power of pop culture: an unlimited supply of manga drawn from Rimuru's memories, and so the Jura Tempest Federation and the Free Union Guild remain on good terms.

Shizue's Students – Kenya Misaki, Ryota Sekiguchi, Gale Gibson, Alice Rondo, and Chloe Aubert are children who were summoned to this world from Earth, but their small bodies can't contain the magical energies bonded to their souls by the summoning process. With the help of Demon Lord Ramiris, Rimuru saves their lives by encouraging superior spirits to dwell within the children, allowing them to regulate their powers and fulfilling Shizue's dream of protecting them.

Villains

Demon Lord Leon Cromwell – Formerly a human summoned to this world to act as a Hero, Demon Lord Leon Cromwell is in turn responsible for summoning Shizue Izawa and bonding her with Ifrit. His current whereabouts and plans are unknown, although he and Rimuru seem destined to clash.

Demon Lord Clayman – A manipulative schemer responsible for unleashing the Orc Disaster on the Great Forest of Jura, Clayman's current plans have been foiled by the intervention of Rimuru, but the Demon Lord seems unconcerned with this defeat and has plenty of other plots at his disposal.

The Moderate Harlequin Alliance – Mysterious masked beings that claim to be an independent faction, the Moderate Harlequin Alliance were last seen doing Clayman's bidding and manipulating Phobio, an underling of Demon Lord Carrion, into unleashing Charybdis upon the world. Never trust a clown in a face mask.

The Orc Disaster – A tragic figure driven by unquenchable hunger, Geld the Orc Disaster was an Orc King who was manipulated into invading the Great Forest of Jura in an effort to artificially create a new Demon Lord. When Rimuru defeats and absorbs the Orc Disaster, the intrepid slime also agrees to take on the responsibility of looking after the Orcish people.

Charybdis – A Calamity-class monster resurrected by Phobio at the urging of the Moderate Harlequin Alliance, this flying creature seemed unstoppable when it challenged the combined forces of the Jura Tempest Federation and a contingent of pegasus riders on loan from Dwargon...that is, it seemed unstoppable until Demon Lord Milim took it out with a single hit.

Rimuru's Skills

Black Flame (Extra Skill)

Black Lightning

Body Armor (from absorbing an Armorsaurus)

Body Double (from absorbing Ifrit)

Drain (from absorbing a Giant Bat)

Degenerate (from absorbing Shizue)

Electric Current Resistance

Great Sage (Extra, Unique Skill)

Magic Sense (Extra Skill)

Mimic > Human (from absorbing Shizue)

Pain Nullification

Paralysis Breath (from absorbing an Evil Centipede)

Paralysis Resistance

Physical Attack Resistance

Poisonous Breath (from absorbing a Black Serpent)

Predator (Unique Skill)

Self-Regeneration (Species Skill)

Sense Heat Source (from absorbing a Black Serpent)

Stab Resistance

Steel Thread (from absorbing a Black Spider)

Sticky Thread (from absorbing a Black Spider)

Thermal Fluctuation Resistance (combined from Heat and Cold Resistances)

Ultrasonic Wave (from absorbing a Giant Bat)

Water Manipulation (Extra Skill, combined from Water Blade, Water Movement, and Water Pressure Propulsion skills)

And there you have it, a primer for the first season of That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime that would make even Great Sage envious. In a genre full of angsty anti-heroes, Rimuru's cheerful nature, their humbleness and humility despite their overwhelming strength, and their desire to solve conflicts through cooperation and kindness are a welcome change of pace. We're happy to have a second helping soon!

Are you ready for another round of Rimuru gobbling up the competition and generally proving that they are “not a bad slime?” Be sure to let us know in the comment section below!

Paul Chapman is the host of The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast and GME! Anime Fun Time.

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: Paul Chapman

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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enough-bleach · 3 years

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Jump gave Bleach a time slot at Jump Festa and even invited Kubo, but all of this was made only to promote Kubo's new blog for donators - Klub Outside. Chief editor clearly overrates Kubo too much by making him create a blog with paywall, as if he thinks that Kubo is a super elite artist or something. Many popular mangaka and artists with better reputations than Kubo's have their personal blogs where they share drawings for free. It actually looks haughty from Kubo's side to ask for money from fans after he ruined Bleach and shitted himself pathetically. Jump knows that retarded kubofags are always ready to spend a lot of money on Kubo's stuff. So they decided to milk them good again, just like they did it before with Bleach Jet aka the shitty excuse for an artbook. It's obvious that main reason for making the blog have restricted access is Kubo's fear of readers hate and inappropriate questions. Jump wants to create a safe garden of ass-lickers around Kubo and maybe use their money for funding Bleach anime. Kubo's current art style is trash compared to good times of Arrancars arc. It degraded badly during TYBW arc and isn't worth a cent nowadays. Ninny and Noel's seiyus were invited to stream too. They clearly got wrong impression of Kubo and reacted to him like a pair of thirsty and horny fangirls. Once there were rumors about Kubo molesting Orihime cosplayer. It won't be a surprise if those two female seiyus end up in a scandal around perverted Kubo or even in his bed, ewww.

#kubo tite #tite kubo #jump festa 2021 #klub outside

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akechicrimes · 5 years

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i’ve been thinking about the nature of the velvet room and what that means for goro akechi and also sae’s promise at the end of the game for adults to do better by the younger generations. by this i mean that i work in student services, and i have a headache.

there’s a pretty strong conclusion in the field of education that students do not succeed alone. they’re constantly being guided, assisted, and advocated for by adults. parents go into schools to argue for their child’s rights. they call the school to change grades. they help children at school with their homework--it’s an expectation that parents have the time and education to do so. learning disability staff work with teachers to help the students in the teacher’s class receive appropriate accommodations. college guidance counselors are in fact critical for the jump to college, because admissions officers don’t have the time to meet every single student in the world, and rely on college counselors to introduce them which students are worth speaking to. coaches guide students through athletics, but athletics is socialization, character-building, and sometimes also therapy. coaches in turn also function in the same way that college counselors do, because they also will promote and advocate for certain student-athletes to talk to recruiters.

on and on and on. adults at every single turn are helping children. it’s advocating, evaluating, assisting, and guiding all rolled into one.

i work in student services right now, which is an entire industry that’s popped up in higher ed under the assumption that the higher education system on a structural level is a) too complicated for one teenager to go through alone, and b) that left to their own devices, students are unlikely to succeed alone. when in need of help, student services is an entire office dedicated to providing adults as a resource for students, so that students can come in, speak to someone with administrative power, and get help. in the office that i work in specifically right now, these students have committed some sort of infraction or are reporting another student’s infraction, and are seeking to get through the university’s disciplinary system, hopefully unscathed.

there’s something that relieves the tedium of being a desk jockey by thinking about the place as a real life velvet room, but the more i think about the comparison, the more i feel like it’s not a silly, surface-level comparison. the underlying assumption of student services, and the velvet room, is that you cannot succeed alone. you cannot succeed without a significant amount of help, either from your peers, local adults, or long-nosed men who never give you a straight answer.

the reason why student services, and family/coach help, is so emphasized in student success is because this support network can and often IS the difference between failure and success for a student. student success is so often correlated with how much money the parent has to fund their education, how much free time they have to do their homework, whether or not they have reliable transportation, whether or not they had an adult to walk them through their lowest emotional moments, whether or not they had someone who believed they could succeed, whether or not they had someone to tell them to shoot higher and farther, whether or not they had a benefactor to give them the resources to do that.

now that i type this out. i would like to propose that most of navigating schools, systems, and life depends on your benefactors.

ok. benefactors, so i can get my own story straight, are defined by advocating, evaluating, assisting, and guiding. i would say that this is very similar to a lawyer. (the french word for lawyer is “l’avocat,” by the by.) the main distinction that i think a benefactor has from a lawyer is that a benefactor is also supposed to provide resources for the person they’re advocating for, and that the benefactee is supposed to, yknow, be able to do things for themselves, and actually use the resources they’re given, rather than just sitting pretty and having the lawyer do everything.

and now i’m going to shift this entire essay to be about benefactors, but i just figured out that that’s what shido is, but i’m also too lazy to go back and restructure the stuff that i’ve already written to reflect this discovery. so i’m typing this paragraph instead. i have a headache and i can’t sleep. fuck you

what’s compelling to me about akechi--and adachi, since we’re on the topic--is the ways that he’s set up as “he could have been the main character if not for X.” for adachi, the statement goes “he could have been the main character if he hadn’t self-isolated and blamed other people (specifically women) for his ensuing loneliness.” for akechi, it’s “he could have been the main character if adults in his life hadn’t consistently let him down, put him in the worst possible situations, given him very few resources to work with, and refused to advocate for him in any way, shape, or form, leaving him to do all of this himself.” that is to say, the phrase goes it takes a village to raise a child, and akechi was forced to do the work of what should have been fifty-something different people.

the shorter version of this is “akechi could have been the main character if he’d had a benefactor,” aka someone who actually took interest in his life success, gave him the resources to do it, and guided him on how to use those resources.

which brings me back to the velvet room.

akira, like most of the persona protagonists, loses parental and adult support in the beginning of the game. minato’s parents are dead, and his mental health seems to reflect the fact that he’s got very little adult support in his life. souji’s parents don’t call him once during his year in inaba, and dojima is, how do we say, not exactly much of a functioning adult himself. akira being cut off from adults in his life is more explicit in that his parents literally try to get rid of him.

but from the beginning of the game, from literally the first thing that happens in the game, akira gets a benefactor. the game starts off with finding sojiro sakura. it is the first thing the game asks you to do.

the thing about sojiro is that the game starts off presenting him as a manifestation of adults further driving akira into the dirt, but the fact of the matter is that sojiro is akira’s first benefactor. sojiro complains and whines and vaguely threatens akira in several different ways, but (1) sojiro’s threats for akira to stay in line are actually him taking an investment in akira’s success, because he’s telling akira to not get in trouble. they just don’t look like it, because he’s being gruff and hard-assed about it. (2) sojiro gives akira a place to stay, a physical and very fucking important resource for akira. akira doesn’t have to worry about being homeless, and akira doesnt have to worry about rent. the game would be very different if akira was homeless. (3) sojiro, again, complains and whines and threatens akira in several different ways, but he goes to shujin, where three adults (the principal, kawakami, and sojiro) all get together to, theoretically, talk about how to help akira succeed at that school. (this doesnt happen, but that’s what the talk was supposed to be. again, it’s an example of the ways that kobayakawa isnt doing his job as well as he should, and the ways that kawakami in particular is not being a good benefactor/advocate for her new student for whom she’s responsible for. kobayakawa tells akira he expects good behavior; kawakami says in front of akira and everyone and also god that she’d rather him transferred to another class. as a teacher, her entire JOB is to help him succeed, and the first thing she says is that she’d rather not do it. in comparison, sojiro IS doing his job as a parent, especially by asian-father standards, by showing up at the school, telling his charge to stay in line, demonstrating investment in akira’s educational success, providing transportation, etc, etc.)

the game would be very different if sojiro were not here. akira would be homeless or paying rent, and making rent would be consuming most of his time. akira would not have the time to be a phantom thief, and probably not even the time to maintain good standing in competitive academics. he’d get through his probation, i’m sure, but with great difficulty, and also despite great odds. being underfunded and under-resourced would only create greater incentive for akira to look into illegal activity, potentially falling prey to someone like kaneshiro who promises quick cash. like lavenza pointed out, the game is rigged and unfair, and it’s remarkable how we don’t find it supremely fucked up that the people most in need of support are those who are denied it and told to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” to “work hard and deserve your success,” to “keep your head down and do as you’re told.”

not to say that sojiro was THE deciding factor that determined akira’s life trajectory, but sojiro was really really really really really really fucking important, is what i’m trying to say.

literally like forty-eight hours after this, akira gets a whole bunch of new benefactors, including:

1) caroline/justine, providing resources and access to personas

2) yaldabaoth, providing a stable link to the metaverse (and if i can elaborate on this for a second, consider: rejection syndrome, that fun thing where shinjiro’s persona goes fuckin wild and tries to kill you, occurred in persona 3 but not in persona 4 or persona 5. persona 3 is the game in which people just sort of come by their ability to manifest a persona and wind up in the dark hour by accident. persona 4 and persona 5 has izanami and yaldabaoth, respectively, ensuring that persona-users get in and out of the TV world/metaverse safely, aka acting as a benefactor and providing a resource for persona-users. there’s a more stable link by far. this is, of course, complicated by the fact that izanami and yaldabaoth are also the gods that are proposing the harsh conditions for which usage of personas is required, but i would also like to point out that izanami and yaldabaoth are both beholden to the collective unconscious of humanity, and that yaldabaoth himself was born from that, and both of them actually have very little choice in the matter as a manifestation of humanity’s will.)

3) igor, even if igor is not igor, in that igor provides general guidance, the third eye, and encourages akira to pursue healthy relationships and support networks

4) MORGANA.

LITERALLY THE ENTIRE CONCEPT OF MORGANA IS SO FUCKING WILD TO ME.

LIKE.

THINK ABOUT IT.

morgana being a literal manifestation of humanity’s hope and then condensed into a fucking CAT and then sent out with a mission to help AKIRA SPECIFICALLY is like. a FUCKLOAD of aid. hypeswap pointed out that morgana is basically kind of a minor deity, in that morgana (like yaldabaoth) is a manifestation of some aspect of humanity’s subconscious, and then morgana is MADE TO HELP AKIRA SPECIFICALLY. morgana doesn’t even LEAVE akira at the end of the game!!!!!! morgana was SO PERFECTLY TAILOR-MADE TO BELONG TO AKIRA that morgana STAYS with him!!!!!!!!! LIKE!!!!!!! imagine having a fucking SMALL GOD HAND-MADE FOR YOU, TO HELP YOU THROUGH YOUR DAILY LIFE, BEAT UP SHADOWS, TALK TO YOU ABOUT YOUR ACADEMICS, POINT OUT WHICH FRIENDS YOU SHOULD MAKE (LEGITIMATELY HALF OF MORGANA IS JUST HANGING OUT IN AKIRA’S DUFFEL BAG AND SAYING “HEY YOU SHOULD TALK TO TORANOSUKE NOW”), AND ENFORCING A HEALTHY SLEEP SCHEDULE. ON GOD. literally anyone who complains about morgana enforcing a healthy sleep schedule better be some ungodly motherfucker who gets nine hours of sleep EVERY DAY because i REFUSE to have yall discounting the importance of a healthy sleep schedule for a growing teenage boy

and as more than a few akechi-centric fanfics have pointed out, morgana is like, THE singular reason that akira and the phantom thieves even KNOW about stealing hearts in the first place. they don’t know anything!!!! ryuji and akira wouldnt have even made it out of kamoshida’s palace without morgana!!!! it was because morgana specifically told them about finding treasures, removing it, and leaving the shadows alive that they knew THE FIRST THING about pulling off a heist.

okay, so, akira had help. so what. why am i telling you this.

the reason why im telling u this is because traditional morality tells us that people do things because they are bad, and that circumstance is an excuse, not a reason, and that everyone always has a choice when it comes to doing bad things.

AND THAT’S TRUE. that’s super true. that’s very extremely true. correct. absolutely. especially when it comes to doing harm to other people, everyone has a choice to either cause harm, or not cause harm. period.

WHAT IS ALSO TRUE is that from a macro-scale, odds are NOT in certain people’s favors when it comes to succeeding. (and again, persona 5 would like us to look at things from a macro-scale, because it keeps referencing the rigged game and how odds are not in akira’s favor.) the rules are set up to have certain people lose, and keep losing.

bringing this back to akechi, akechi lost from the literal moment he was born, because he was the son of (a) wedlock, (b) political scandal, (c) and non-consensual sex, apparently. literally the only way he could have been any more disadvantaged by nature of his birth would have been some extremely dramatic birth-related complication, or a genetic birth disorder, or some other medical complication. so he’s already lost.

the part about “keeps losing” comes from his mother’s difficulties in raising a son alone while supporting herself, further underfunding her to do a task that should be done by at MINIMUM two people. her mental health suffers because of the strain, the lack of resources, the sheer fact that she’s raising a son she didn’t ask for and also didn’t consent to conceiving, resulting in her death. things get worse. akechi’s shoved into the foster care system. more adults who don’t care about him who do not invest in his success or well-being. more schools full of more teachers that are in themselves under-funded and under-resourced, meaning that akechi, amongst a bunch of other under-funded and under-resourced kids who by this point probably have a shitload of emotional and mental trauma, are all stuck together in an environment that is in itself increasingly less equipped to support these students.

the great irony of education is that schools receive more funding if the students in the school do well. hilarious, right? a school produces good students, and suddenly they have alumni funding, stakeholders, donations, so on and so forth. a school starts failing, and people pull out. students in struggling schools get even less help when, arguably, they’re the students who need more help.

like i said. rigged game. you lose, and you keep losing.

in comparison to akira, akira “loses” his skirmish with the justice system, and everything in his life sets him up to keep losing--and literally sojiro is THE ONE PERSON standing in between akira and continuing, successive losses, that would have piled up and compounded upon each other.

all this in mind, i’d like to propose that one of the reasons why akechi is so attached to shido is because shido is akechi’s benefactor. shido provides equipment for akechi, likely provides cash, most certainly gave akechi the gun he uses, probably had a hand in akechi attending whatever school he attends.

and to further complicate this, i’d like to mention that benefactors can and do come in terrible types: madarame, for example, was yusuke’s benefactor. i’ve mentioned yaldabaoth is a type of benefactor. kaneshiro is arguably a type of benefactor, although a particularly malicious and overtly parasitic type. as i’ve pointed out before, kobayakawa is a type of benefactor for makoto, in that kobayakawa offers explicit aid to makoto’s educational career.

having a benefactor puts you at their mercy. again, not to draw parallels between yusuke and akechi, but yusuke’s entire social link revolves around potentially getting a new benefactor post-madarame. yusuke ultimately declines for a variety of reasons, but i’d like to point out that one of the reasons is arguably that yusuke is hesitant to put himself at the mercy of a new benefactor’s wishes. if yusuke accepts that money, he’ll be beholden to please whoever’s funding him, and this greatly restricts his artistic freedom.

this is also part of the reason why it’s so fucking funny that you can mouth off to sojiro and sojiro, apparently, gives not a single shit. you tell sojiro that you’ve been a criminal for eight months and he helps you. you tell sojiro that you’ve gotten his adopted daughter involved in criminal activity and he’s just like “well it’s good futaba has friends i guess.”

sojiro is a type of benefactor whose help is... probably not unconditional, but hilariously close. morgana is the same way. caroline and justine are the same way. notably, morgana and caroline/justine were, yknow, made to help akira, and likely cannot do anything else. akira has a lot of benefactors who will help him regardless of what he chooses and how he utilizes their help.

a lot of the abusers we see in persona 5 are benefactors using their pull to make the benefactee behave in a way they want--people who can threaten to stop sponsoring, people who can threaten to leave if the benefactee doesn’t do as they like. this puts the benefactee in a precarious position of having to behave in a certain way in order to continue to receive aid.

circle back to shido: shido is akechi’s benefactor.

but akechi’s plan is to become shido’s benefactor.

NO IM SO SERIOUS. THAT’S WHAT AKECHI’S PLAN BOILS DOWN TO.

as some people have pointed out, akechi’s plan isn’t actually to kill shido. akechi’s plan is to make shido dependent on him. akechi is trying to position himself as having a valuable resource that shido cannot do without (access to the metaverse). what akechi’s trying to do is to position himself in such a way that shido gets a taste of his own medicine.

(which, personally, amuses me greatly, because akechi’s plan boils down to “oh well you abused me? i’ll abuse you back,” which is just. so fucking stupid and also very much exactly what anti-goro fans do 99% of the time, so the entire thing is just an endless source of schadenfreude.)

but as we know, this doesn’t really work out. first of all, shido likely operates as akechi’s benefactor in financial ways, and the fact that akechi requires shido alive and in power in order for his STUPID fucking plan to work means that shido has akechi by the throat. even if both of them are benefactoring each other, this means that, at best, they’ve come to a situation in which both of them are an equal threat to each other, so it’s really no surprise shido wanted to cut akechi loose.

and i think it’s important to note that shido is probably one of the very few adults in akechi’s life who actually helps akechi--again, in the same way that madarame helps yusuke (with a lot of fine print, coercion, and other hidden knives involved). people have pointed out that akechi did rely on shido’s praise--the value of emotional stability and improved mental health, no matter how slim, cannot be understated. (there’s a reason why people wind up in self-destructive behaviors; the behavior itself fulfills some need that the person has.) i’m not sure that akechi would even have a job at the police force if shido had not pulled strings to get him there. i’m not sure akechi would have the grades that he does at the school he attends if shido had not helped him get there. like any other employer relationship, when akechi proposed to help shido by utilizing the metaverse, shido is expected to provide the funds to ensure akechi can actually do that job, and those funds would have made a remarkable difference in akechi’s life. and all of these are conditional on akechi killing people.

when sojiro decided to invest in akira, sojiro drastically changed akira’s life trajectory, and protected akira from a lot of future misfortune, all at basically no cost to akira and without any strings. shido investing in akechi does the same, not only stopping akechi’s “losing streak,” but reversing it altogether into a winning streak.

suddenly, akechi’s in a school that actually gives him schoolwork that pushes him intellectually, actually prepares him for college, actually teaches him things. the better akechi does, the more he’s rewarded for it, because there’s actually teachers who are there who will notice. he gets paid for working with the police, which means better pay, better hours, better living conditions, more free time. people take note of his success. people start talking about him. all of a sudden, he’s getting interviews for being so remarkably young and still so adept as his job. and again, it’s all conditional on akechi fulfilling his deal with shido.

compare and contrast to akira, who has sojiro, morgana, and the velvet room all acting as his benefactor. the entire POINT of the velvet room is to be an unconditional, no-strings source of aid. meanwhile, akechi only has shido, whose help is highly conditional. the difference is remarkable. the difference between akira and akechi comes down primarily to the adults and other forces who took the time to invest in their success, future, and well-being.

all this in mind, persona 5 (although it has very little backbone in a lot of its execution and doesn’t like following through on its own train of logic) has the audacity to say: maybe people doing bad things is not certain people’s faults. it’s the fault of the rigged game itself.

so the question becomes: who’s setting up the game?

this is usually answered by “who’s the shitty benefactor?”

who has more resources and more ability than someone else, and provides those resources/abilities on a conditional basis? who has power over someone else and is using that power not to help, but to harm the person with less power? who’s using what they have in order to make someone else act according to their needs? who’s rigging someone else’s life circumstances?

the plot of persona 5 is the phantom thieves seeking “who’s setting up the game,” which turns into a sort of matryoshka nesting-doll escalation as they move further and further up the chain to find bigger and more comprehensive sets of games. start with kamoshida, who’s setting up unfair conditions and a rigged game in which ann, shiho, ryuji, mishima, and akira are at his whims in an increasingly-unfair situation. kamoshida, as the rule-maker of the game, needs to go. but kamoshida is ALSO part of a different game, which is shujin itself, which is being funded by (apparently) shido’s conspiracy to some extent. kamoshida is an olympic medalist who has no other prospects in his life and is stuck in a job he doesn’t really like because shujn has a deep investment in providing a competitive athletics program, because competitive athletics programs is a mark of a good school, and there’s a lot of money involved in making shujin a good school. kobayakawa is the next chain up, in that he’s strongarming makoto to catch the phantom thieves, but even kobayakawa is not the person making the rules; kobayakawa is at the whims of an even larger game. so on and so forth.

which brings me back to shido.

(for the record. it was this point that i realized that this essay had gotten out of control. because i’d started a whole other meta essay one other time, so i already had a bunch of thoughts about loki and the importance of akechi’s plan to take down shido in the way that akechi was hoping to, and i realized that this entire train of thought was rapidly taking me into “norse mythos analysis hours,” and i was like. fuck. fuck. god fucking dammit. i started this essay as a way to pass the time and cure my headache and now we’re doing this??? we’re really doing this????? fuck me)

“who’s setting up the game” is a neat observation that systems of oppression are intangible and operate without humans, but at the same time, are maintained and composed of humans simultaneously. (i know. it doesn’t make sense. it sucks.) palace rulers, then, are an attempt to locate intangible systems of oppression into a single human person.

in reality this doesn’t happen quite so neatly, but masayoshi shido is a nice fantasy that maybe, a very large portion of systemic corruption can be boiled down to one bald man with ugly glasses. he embodies literally EVERYTHING wrong in the world: corruption, misogyny, embezzlement, gross adults, manipulation and blackmail, murder, child abuse--basically everything you can think of. and from akechi’s point of view, shido is not only at the heart of government corruption, but also most of akechi’s personal hurts as well.

watch closely this very cool narrative trick that persona 5 forgot to capitalize on: you store all the shitty things in the world in one person, and then you take him out, destroying him and all the world’s sins all at once. if you locate all the sins in one place, you don’t have to worry about the fact that systemic injustice is permeated throughout every aspect of the fabric of our world, from the policies in place to the ways that we think to the ways that our imaginations are arrested from imagining new possibilities (the prevalence of anti-goro fans who insist that he’s scum of the earth being fair evidence of the ways that traditional morality prevents people from re-imagining a kinder world in which people can be held accountable for their actions in conjunction with empathy).

akechi, in particular, would like us to think that all the sins of the entire world are stored in the masayoshi shido--again, from his perspective, it certainly looks that way. but i don’t think we should underestimate the degree to which akechi engineered his own shitty situation with shido, and the degree to which akechi is a highly unreliable narrator of his own circumstances.

the SECOND after shido goes down, the PT are wondering why very little has changed. it turns out that shido is not the source of all the world’s evils.

shido was a symptom of the world’s evils, that’s for sure. shido is a uniquely-perfect piece of garbage that, by some freak accident, was a well-placed and well-timed fit for the government system’s flaws. the fact that shido got as far as he did is a symptom of the situation, but he isn’t the cause, or the source.

okay, now the phantom thieves have to go one level higher. they’ve got to kill yaldabaoth. yaldabaoth is the cause of everything, isn’t he?

also no. yaldabaoth is also a symptom of humanity’s desires. yaldabaoth was made by the human subconscious and, despite yaldabaoth being a bitchass motherfucker, yaldabaoth wasn’t just being a shit to the phantom thieves when he said that ultimately he’s just fulfilling humanity’s own wishes.

well, akira takes down this fucker too, but by this time the damage is done. we’ve realized that corruption cannot be contained in a single person. one person alone cannot be conceptualized as the Source Of All Evil. we’re forced to confront the fact that corruption is widespread, everywhere, and exists within individuals as well as in the relations between individuals.

compare and contrast this with the ending of persona 3, in which humanity calls down nyx to enact the end of the world out of some mass collective suicide drive. since nyx cannot be killed, and humanity cannot be stopped from wishing to die, minato becomes the seal to prevent humanity from calling out to nyx. in killing yaldabaoth, akira destroys the manifestation of humanity’s desire to be controlled and kept apathetic, but in both of these situations, the enemy is still humanity itself.

so as it turns out, despite the phantom thieves’ desire to take down shitty individuals in order to dismantle large-scale systems of injustice, the game would have us turn to the fact that this is not enough. the solution is always in the mass population--in everyone everywhere, and that our responsibility as individuals works in conjunction with the fact that everyone is collectively responsible simultaneously.

which brings us back to sae niijima.

i know, i know. i talk about akechi and the velvet room and shido and akira and sojiro for howeverthefuckmany words, and now i’m going to talk about sae.

sae is the center of persona 5. or at least, she should be.

all the threads that persona 5 has been tracking (or at least has been attempting to track) ultimately boil down to sae and her decision to become a defense attorney. sae takes up the idea of being a benefactor and makes it her profession. and sae, very specifically, tells akira that she, as an adult, will start taking responsibility for the younger generation.

sae says: we might be collectively responsible, and the injustices of the world may be a product of everyone everywhere. but it’s also true that the actions of the collective start with individuals. and that individual is going to be me.

persona 5 begins and ends with an adult saying that the game might be unfair, but i’m going to take it upon myself specifically to do what i can to try and stop that. i will be the benefactor that this kid needs. i will be the difference in someone else’s life. i will stop unfortunate events like akechi and shido from happening.

the truth is that benefactors can and do make a meaningful difference in someone else’s life. that’s the entire reason why they’re so critical to a child’s success in life. as it turns out, people cannot and do not succeed alone. and that it’s not unusual for a child to seek out adult help in any way that they can, and that in fact they should, and it’s normal and understandable, and that adults should seek to help children in any way that they can, lest situations like shido occur.

this is part of the reason why i really like that the velvet room has become such a staple in the persona series. the entire premise of the velvet room is based on the idea that people do need help, and that it’s not a moral failing if you aren’t able to succeed without someone in your corner.

anyway. say thank you sae, sojiro, and igor.

#meta #mine

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missmalice202 · 4 years

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Designing Your Melody: Chapter 06 - Cherry

Chapter 01 - Chapter 05

“DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!” Marinette screamed into her headset as she tapped the buttons on her controller as fast as her fingers would let her.

“Dang, girl. Leave some for the rest of us.” Alya’s chuckle filtered though her headphones over the sound of gunfire. Her orange mecha that had been built for speed and precision performed a deadly dance as she picked off the few stragglers that Ladybug’s mecha had left behind. “You’re out for blood tonight, aren’t ya? Tough week?”

‘Tough’ didn’t begin to cover how frenzied the last week had been for Marinette. After hemming and embroidering and sewing THOUSANDS OF FREAKING SEQUINS, Jagged Stone’s new ensemble was finally finished. Why she had agreed to undertake such a herculean task at the last minute, she had no idea. Well, that’s not entirely true. She knew exactly why she accepted the job: she loved Jagged Stone and she loved a challenge.

Still, the fact that she was stressed out and sleep deprived remained. However, she was still too jittery from the numerous cups of coffee she’d sucked down over the past few days to go to sleep yet, so she figured she’d meet up with her clanmates and play for a little while until she finally came down from her caffeine high.

“Rena, I haven’t slept in 36 hours, I’ve stabbed myself a dozens of times sewing on all those stupid sequins that I thought would be such a good idea to add to his design, and I’ve had enough coffee over the past week that Papa could probably use my blood to make some of his famous tiramisu, so even though I’m freaking exhausted, there’s no way I can fall asleep just yet. I need something to relax me, so here I am..”

“Seriously, dude,” Nino added, “When you told us what you were doing, I thought you’d finally fallen off the deep end. I mean, you’ve got to be crazy to try to design and sew a photoshoot ready outfit for one of the biggest rock and roll stars in the world in just a week!” His avatar, a bright green design with black goggles covering the cockpit, threw up a translucent energy shield over his clanmates that glowed with an ethereal green light, easily blocking the incoming attack of an enemy captain.

“Hey!” Marinette yelled at her friend as she rushed toward the mini-boss, swords flashing as her cherry red mecha closed the distance and she engaged with the enemy. “You make it sound like you didn’t think I could do it.”

“It’s not that, my lady,” soothed Adrien, aka Chat Noir. “We all had faith that you’d get the job done purrfectly.” His onyx mecha landed next to Ladybug, his staff whirling, performing a perfectly choreographed combo attack with his partner in battle. “Fur real, we were just concerned that purrhaps you had kitten off more than you could chew and ended up burning yourself out.”

She closed her eyes for a moment to collect herself. She could literally hear how smug Chat Noir was through her headphones. “For the sake of what little sanity I have left after this week, please don’t start with the cat puns, Chat.”

“Why, I’m feline a little offended here, bugaboo,” he teased. “I’m just saying that there’s no one else who clawed pull what you did off.”

“That last one was a bit of a stretch, kitty.” She should just ignore him, she knew that. You’d think she would have learned by now that when she responded to his bad jokes and ridiculous puns, he layed it on even thicker, just to annoy her. “Seriously though, I didn’t have much of a choice! You should have seen what the stylist wanted Jagged to wear. It was just,” she shuddered just thinking about it, “terrible.”

Rena asked, “How bad? Come on, girl, gimme some details!”

“Ugh, it makes me sick just thinking about it. Imagine Jagged Stone, wearing a powder blue, see-through lace romper..” Her three friends howled with laughter at the mental image she conjured, so she continued to describe the nightmare she had seen in full detail. “Just picture it: THE Jagged Stone, clad in skintight lace booty shorts, white fishnet stockings, and silver glitter loafers. They wanted to stuff him into a silver speedo underneath that ridiculous romper. That’s all! Nothing but a silver speedo and translucent baby blue lace!” she snorted with laughter as she remembered how utterly uncomfortable the poor singer had been when he showed her what the record label wanted him to wear for his promotional photo shoot. “Oh my god, it was awful! I wish I could unsee that sight, but it’s now burned into my memory to haunt me until the day I die. I couldn’t very well say no to his pleading after I saw that abomination.”

“Ladybug,” Chat Noir tried to calm down enough to talk, but he was obviously having a hard time since he had let his guard down and had been killed in the battle. He used his respawn time to finally compose himself enough to continue. “As a life long Jagged Stone fan, you have my eternal gratitude for sparing the public from that visual crime against humanity.” He dissolved into another fit of giggles, causing a chain reaction among their friends once again and distracting them from the battle currently underway.

“I know.” Marinette took a deep breath. “And here I thought that they couldn’t possibly come up with a worse marketing strategy after that whole “perfume ad album cover” debacle. Yeah, I was wrong. This was much, MUCH worse,” she scoffed.

They all laughed hysterically for a few more minutes before they were able to calm themselves enough to carry on their conversation.

“By the way, milady, are you going to be participating in Fashion Week next month?” Chat asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “I’ve finally garnered enough of a reputation as a legitimate designer for my collection to be allowed to participate in the newcomer designer showcase on the last day. I’ve got my collection finalized, so all I need to do is sit down at my machine and make the pieces.” Her fingers flew over the buttons of her controller, sowing a path of destruction in her avatar’s wake onscreen as a new wave of enemies arrived to back up their leader. “Now that I’m done with the Jagged Stone’s request, I’ve got the time to work on my showcase designs.” With a final flourish, she and Chat Noir defeated the enemy captain, leaving Rena Rouge and Carapace to deal with the reinforcements.

The gathered the mission rewards and traveled back to their base.

“Hey, Ladybug,” Rena began, “have you selected the models you’d like to walk in your show? I’m sure Kitty Noir over here would be more than happy to help you out if you need.”

While Alya understood that Adrien and Marinette would probably only be “just good friends”, once a shipper, always a shipper. Over the years, she still created opportunities for her two friends to be alone together in the hopes that something would spark between them and her OTP ship could set sail. Was it wrong to ship your friends? She didn’t think so. Nino disapproved of her antics at times, but she just couldn’t help it. She wanted her friends to be happy and in her mind, they were made for each other.

Marinette had tried convincing her friend that she was more than happy with the relationship she had with the handsome, blond model. She was more at ease with him now and he could be himself around her, even if that did include his utterly atrocious sense of humor. Seriously, the guy’s obsession with puns was borderline unhealthy.

“I’d love to wear your designs again, My Lady,” he purred.

“Won’t you be busy walking in your father’s show?”

“The Agreste show is on the first day. I’ll have plenty of free time after that. All you’ll have to do is get me some of your dad’s famous macaroons as payment.”

She was ecstatic. Having a famous model like Adrien Agreste would bring people flocking to her show, even if it was to see him, not her designs. But since he’d be the one wearing her clothes, it’d be like killing two birds with one stone. “You have a deal!” she squealed.

His chuckle echoed in her ears. “Honestly, I’m getting the better end of the deal. Don’t underestimate the power your family’s bakery has.”

“Awesome,” Alya cheered. “You’ve got your male model. Do you need a female model too or have you found one already?”

“Actually, I texted Juleka Couffaine and asked her if she’d be interested and she said that she’d do it,” she said. “I haven’t really spoken to her since high school since we kind of lost touch with each other, but I’ve seen some of the ads she’s sone and I think she’d be a good fit for the theme of my collection. She’s out of the country at the moment on a job, but she should be back sometime next week, so until then I can get started on what you’ll be wearing, Kitty.”

“Sounds good, Bugga-boo. I can’t wait to see what you’ve come up with. Your designs are always so pawsome. I can’t wait to wear them for you on the catwalk.”

She shook her head once more at his antics. “I’ll give you the last one, since that’s a legitimate pun.” Alya and Nino’s laughter rang in her ears as they laughed at their friends’ banter.

“You know, we were wondering if you’d be online tonight, Ladybug, since you’ve been MIA all week.” Alya said. “The others were asking about you since they hadn’t heard from you, but I told them you’d be on when you were done with your work.” There was a brief silence before she teased, “Viperion was especially worried about you. He said how you guys had done some grinding the other night wondered where you had disappeared to since you’re usually on every night..”

The idea of Viperion worrying about her caused warmth to blossom in her chest. To be honest, she had missed the calming effect his presence had on her. “Speaking of which, where is he? Did he say he was going to be playing tonight?”

Nino told her that he had spoken to him earlier in the day and that he would probably be on much later, if at all because he would be working late on a project that he had to completely redo.

A little disappointed that she wouldn’t get to play with her online friend, Marinette decided to call it a night and logged out, finally ready to get some much needed sleep.

Chapter 07

*Sorry for the delay on posting. This chapter is just kind of a transition chapter, so unfortunately, not much is going on, but I really wanted cat puns and mental images of hard rockers in blue lace rompers hahaha. Next chapter will pick up and our sweet boi will get some screen time. I might even stop torturing him and throw him a bone ;D Until next time, Lovelies XOXO*

#lukanette #lukanette february #mlvalentines2k20 #luka couffaine #marinette dupain cheng #lukanette fic #ml fanfic

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fantasyinvader · 4 years

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I kinda want to do a post on heel-face turns with regards to Edelgard. Specifically, those done by Kamen Rider over the last few years.

Let’s start with this year’s model, Gai Amatsu or as I like to call him Bitchboy.

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What did he do? Well, in addition to owning an extremely punchable face when he got to work with his idol on creating a city where man and robots live together, Gai sabotagued the project because (due to his upbringing) he couldn’t accept the idealistic goals of the project. Instead, he only viewed it as a matter of profits. So, he showed the satellite that was supposed to oversee the city the worst of humanity. This taught the machine to hate humanity, believing they should go extinct, causing the city to end up at the bottom of a lake. However, some robots survived and went to form a terrorist cell...which Gai covertly aided.

Gai is the cause of everything that happens in the series, and once he’s introduced he proceeds to challenge Hiden Intelligence to a contest in order to take them over. The robots they create versus humans equipped with his Zaia Spec, a pair of glasses that allows hooks a person’s mind up to a computer. Gai initially talks about humanism and how the robots are just tools. However, he’s shown to cheat, drive the robots berserk in order to have an excuse to kill them, corrupt the hero’s belt so all he has is a transformation that sends him into a berserk rampage, reveals that he has chips in the brains of Fuwa and Yaiba to control them (in addition to wiping Fuwa’s memories and implanting traumatic ones to turn him against the robots) and does everything to turn people against the robots so he can sell both Zaia specs and weapons.

How does he turn into a hero? Well, after he won the contest and took over Hiden Intelligence, the show basically shat all over him. He lost time and time again, to weaker riders who were discovering their own dreams. His victory was all for nothing, but then when it was revealed the terrorist robots could hack not only Zaia specs but also Raidraisers and send people berserk, Gai decided to promote Raidraisers as a means to protect yourself. Even arranging to corrupt the code of the Zaia specs to make them even more hackable in order to drive up sales. The people working under him have enough and collect evidence of his wrongdoings to get him kicked out of his position.

At his lowest point, Gai reveals his backstory of having a father who told him he had to strive for not 100% but 1000%. He also gets reunited with the only friend he had, the AI of a toy dog he owned as a child. This dog acts as his morality pet and saw Gai turn to the heroes side...which everyone feels is just super weird, out of character, and still hold him accountable for all the shit he’s caused. The show doesn’t drop what he did, it just acknowledges there’s a bigger threat now.

Next up is Gentoku Himuro, from Kamen Rider Build.

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Gentoku was present when an alien artifact from Mars activated, creating walls that split Japan into three countries as well as having an effect on his mind. He became more aggressive as a result. Wanting Japan reunified under his pacifist father, Gentoku founded Faust, a secret organization that created weapons in addition to human experimentation. He does a lot of scummy things, including triggering the war to reunify Japan, before he is exposed and his father disowns him.

In an attempt for more power, he is further experimented on. However, this clear up the effects of the alien light, causing him to return to his normal state of mind. He continues to fight because he is forced to due to a bomb planted in his head, and feels guilt over what he has done. Though he also still believes he’s doing this in the name of the greater good. It’s even in his Rider catchphrase.

"Be a sacrifice for the greater good!"

He eventually wises up to what’s really going on, and leaks information to the heroes. Eventually, the bomb is removed but his father ends up taking a attack for him, dying as a result. Since everything he did was to give Japan to the one person he believed should govern it, he falls into depression and ends up joining the heroes seeking atonement for all he’s done. He eventually begins to understand what his father believed, that the power of the leader comes from his people, and in the end sacrifices himself in order to weaken the final boss (see above).

Next up is everyone’s favorite meme, Kuroto Dan.

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As a teenage game designer hailed as a genius, Dan discovered a version of the Y2K bug that could infect human beings through exposure, digitalizing them if they succumb to it. This included his mother. However, at the time a young boy sent fanmail to him, which included a few suggestions for what he’d like to see in the next game. This enraged Dan to the point of sending a game with the virus to the boy, turning him into Patient Zero to spread it among the population. This boy ended up being the series lead, Emu.

People ended up being digitalized because of this, in addition to some committing suicide. Dan made it a point to appear to fight this problem in addition to the video game characters coming to life and attacking people, creating the Kamen Riders. But in reality, it was all a ploy for him to collect data to make the greatest video game ever, Kamen Rider Chronicle. He also wanted to see Emu suffer, and killed/digitalized Kiriya (Kamen Rider Lazer), who was investigating what was going on, during the Christmas episode. Eventually, he was stopped by Emu using what amounted to a game shark, but the data was enough for the video game characters to begin Kamen Rider Chronicle so that they could kill humans in revenge for them being killed in their games.

Kamen Rider Chronicle saw people turn into pseudo-riders, able to fight the Bugsters. When one of them defeated all of the bosses, the final boss would appear and the player would be able to transform into Kamen Rider Cronus with more powerful abilities to defeat them. When the game is cleared, that player would be the hero of mankind and all the digitalized people would be released. However, once you start playing you end up infected with the virus, needing to seek out the bosses to keep yourself alive. If you lose, you end up digitalized. Tough, but Kuroto intended for the game to be clearable.

That is until his father came in, and attempted to use it to assert control over the world in addition to claiming Cronus for himself. This led to the heroes searching for and finding a backup of Dan’s data, allowing him to return and aide them (giving Emu his final form based off the stars in Mario along with a save option to stop Cronus from resetting things). This coincided with him declaring himself a genius and a fucking god, and his control freak tenancies made it so that he wanted the game to be cleared as it was intended.

However, they still held him accountable for what he did and at the end of the series was shown in digital jail for his crimes.

Finally, the former owner of the title of Bitchboy. Mitsuzane “Micchy” Kureshima

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Micchy actually starts off on the Heroes side, as Kamen Rider Ryugen. A rich kid dancing with Kouta’s old group, Micchy looked up to Kouta and when Kouta was unsure if he wanted to continue as Gaim after nearly dying, Micchy used his family name to become Ryugen and aide him.

However, as time went on a dark side of Micchy emerged. He wanted Kouta to do as he wanted while Kouta was more prone to heroic actions. Micchy also discovered that one of the monsters Kouta killed was the leader of their dance group as he ends up under the wing of his brother, Takatora aka Kamen Rider Zagetsu. Following his brother’s belief that they would have to make hard decisions in order to survive, Micchy ends up undermining Kouta and the other’s attempts to deal with the threat of Helheim.

However, when Kouta reveals to Takatora there may be an alternative to solving the problem rather than leaving most of humanity to die, Takatora wants to work with him on this. This angers Micchy as once again Kouta isn’t doing what he wants, and now his brother is as well. This leads to him attempting to kill his brother, assuming his identity and Zangetsu Shin, and attacking Kouta in disguise. As time passes, Micchy is shown to try and save those he wants, including the girl he likes.

He eventually gains even more power and seemingly kills his brother yet again. Then he attempts to kill Kouta, whose power is slowly turning him into a Overlord of Helheim. The girl he likes is killed from having her heart removed by the guy who told Micchy to kill Kouta, though she ends up gaining god-like powers from the McGuffin that was implanted in her heart.

In the end, Micchy has lost his friends, the girl he likes, Kouta and her go off to be gods on some distant planet while also saving Earth. Micchy has lost nearly everything, with the exception of his brother who barely survived the last fight. His brother helps him cope with what he’s done, and as the last person able to fight and transform Micchy resolves himself to be the hero Kouta was in atonement for his actions.

Trust me, Micchy’s fall to villainy is gradual and very well done.

These are characters who all, to varying degrees, go from villains to heroes. And these are all in children’s shows. But how does Edelgard make the transition? Simple.

She doesn’t.

Crimson Flower isn’t a route about Edelgard redeeming herself. Fuck no. Instead it’s about the player, after seeing all that she’s been a party to during the first half, deciding to join her. There’s no atonement from her, instead it’s all based on the idea that everything she’s done was right, while she argues some form fo the greater good. You absolved her of the events of part 1 by joining her, while part 2 implies there’s a whole bunch of shady stuff she’s keeping from you. You endorsed her actions during White Clouds, believing she wasn’t the heel but rather the face.

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pitayatea · 5 years

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Talk is Jericho: The Emancipation of Jon Moxley

(i highly recommend listening to the episode if you have time, its a great listen and it goes a lot into jons thought process behind his leaving and the timeline from august until he left. if you dont have time or just want a rundown before you listen to see if youd be interested, i complied a list of points in the episode,,, i guess? idk.)

(none of these are in order im horrible at listing things but all of this was discussed at some point):

- mox started the podcast saying he harbors no ill will for wwe, how grateful he is for the time he spent there, how they helped him grow as a person, etc. he also talks fondly of the make a wish program and the fans and everything.

- there's a good bit of him talking about renee and describing her as his best friend, his soulmate, and how even if they had nothing it was fine bc they had each other. prime otp shit we stan. im sorry i love their relationship.

- jon describes a time where he was approached about a promo describing him doing stupid stuff that an idiot would do (riding a unicycle backwards, sharing pizza with a homeless dude, etc), and asking that it be changed because he doesnt want his character to be seen as an idiot. the line was taken out and readded by vince. when he confronted vince, vince didnt see the issue and described the segment as good shit and thought it described the dean character perfectly, which jon took as being described as an idiot.

- jon hated his heel turn, and defined it as being heavily micromanaged and told numerous stories of fighting with scripts and writers and vince because they wanted to do joke shit that he didnt want to do. he hated the germaphobe angle, he despised the vaccine promo, and it was all stuff pushed by vince.

- he also talks about other promos he hated before his heel turn, and a lot of it started as early as the 2014 feud with seth (the hotdog cart, seth mannequin, etc.)

- i actually remember an older tij episode where he goes into detail about how it was vince who pushed the mannequin thing, and how he once walked into vinces office and found vince sitting in his chair, facing the mannequin, with weapons laid out, verbally describing what he wanted to do to the mannequin... do with that what you will.

- (aka vince is senile which,,, we been knew)

- both of the stories he told are extremely interesting: one describes the time he knew for sure he was gone and started counting the days, and the other describes the time he almost walked out.

- there was numerous lines during his heel turn that he refused to use and demanded to be changed.

- one of which was a joke about a pooper-scooper that got changed to the gas mask line. he describes literally having to go behind vinces back and rushing with writers to get a copy of the script without the joke onto vinces desk before the one with the joke got there because vince wouldve forced him to do it.

- he describes all the promos he did that night as confusing and not telling stories, and remarked that "if we didnt need to run around and try to not look like idiots, we could focus on telling stories", which flustered a writer he was with at the time.

- the writers and jon got a note from vince which stated "dean needs to understand why he needs to insult the audience. dean needs to read his promos verbatim and not try to rewrite them." jon remembers feeling like he got punched in the gut and lashed out in frustration at a writer (in retrospect, he admitted it wasnt the writer's fault and he was just emotional).

- "why do i work here? im a professional wrestler, who can tell stories and come up with promos and i believe i have the ability to talk people into buildings, i learned those skills years ago, and i wanted bring them to the wwe, and you just want me to say your stupid lines. if you want someone to stay your stupid lines, hire an actor because theyll probably do a better job of it than me. im not interested in doing it."

- he spoke frankly about the fact that wwe is a billion dollar company, run by an alleged genius, filled with adults, and they were talking about pooper-scoopers, and how ridiculous it sounds.

- after the pooper-scooper joke was removed, vince took the gas mask comment literally and tried to make jon go out with a surgical match. eventually, it was talked down to the hankerchief that made it into the final cut of the promo.

- vince once mentioned how jon had so much creative license, to which jon remarks: "what creative license? what creative license do I have? i do exactly what you tell me and its terrible crap. thats not creative license."

- he booked it immediately after the show, got into the hotel, and immediately thought (after thinking that he needed a drink) that the entire segment was a waste of time because they got nothing done, and he didnt get why everyone was celebrating afterwards. he remarked that after doing six promos in one night, he couldnt say what the story was, who the characters were, and that the angle was dead, if it wasnt already.

- jericho agreed that the creative process of going through vince is awful and that it burns you out and that, at the end of the night, the match was the easy part.

- jon was never scared of getting fired for being outspoken, because he still did the work. if he couldnt convince vince that it wasnt a good idea, hed go out and try hard to make it good.

- jon woke up to a text from a writer describing the vaccine segment, and he responded that he "fucking hated it" and the writer texted back "yeah, i know".

- by the time he showed up to the building, word had gotten out that he wasnt happy with the vaccine promo. vince knew jon wasnt happy and called him to his office to reassure him that the bit wasnt comedic, and that its good stuff and its well written and would get him so much heat. he explains all of this while laughing, immediately proving that it is comedic, and said there was no props involved, to which jon replied "then whats with the actor we hired to play the doctor or the giant syringe? are those not props?"

- jon was ***EXTREMELY*** uncomfortable making comments about romans leukemia, and didnt even want to say the lines that got on tv, and sounded audibly pissed off when talking about it. when he confronted vince, vince said that roman needs to be in the story, that dean turned on both roman and seth, and that roman is a key part of the story.

- both jericho and jon then talk briefly about the 'vince jedi mind trick', where he makes things seem better than they actually are, and jon fell victim to it in that promo despite considering himself to be immune. he immediately regretted the lines as soon as he said them.

- there was a line in a promo talking about romans cancer that jon refused outright to say, and wouldnt even say it on the episode. all he said is that the wwe wouldve lost sponsors (esp the susan g. komen sponsorship) and someone (likely him) wouldve gotten fired. vince tried to convince him to say the lines but he absolutely refused and it was a matter of "ok i guess youre not comfy bc its roman" and not "its extremely offensive" with vince agreeing to not force the promo. jon then said it wouldnt have mattered to vince anyways bc he wouldnt have been blamed for it, and it wouldve been jon who took all of the heat. he then makes a comment in case whoever was responsible for the promo was listening:

- jons wanted to leave wwe since july 2018, and almost walked out after an episode of raw during his heel turn due to creative frustrations.

- jon wanted to return from injury as a completely new heel character. he brought this up to vince twice - once in february, when they thought hed be cleared for wrestlemania 34, and once in july, before his actual return.

- in february, vince had stated that they could do what jon wanted to do. the story changed by july due to them advertising the shield for the aus super showdown and not wanting to take them off the billing.

- they then wanted him to return as seths buddy in his corner for summerslam. jon wanted to return at summerslam as a surprise, and vince had an original plan for him to show up at the go home show for summerslam and just,,, be there, but agreed to go with jons plan.

- the week of summerslam, a writer contacted jon while he was training with joey mercury and cody hawk in cincinnati that he was, in fact, showing up at the go home show for vinces original plan. essentially, vince lied to him to sedate him because jon says he was extremely outspoken about everything. he managed to talk vince and the writers into putting a little bit of action into the go home show.

- jon hated the line that seth said to announce his return ("since you have a scottish psycopath, i ought to have a lunatic in mine"), which was entirely a line planted by the creative team and wasnt the fault of jon or seth. he felt like it muddled the crowd reaction and the pop bc everyone was reacting in different ways and he thought they shouldve just played the music because "how can you screw that up?"

- hes been creatively frustrated since 2016 on smackdown.

- by the time he left the company, he hated the character of dean ambrose and couldnt look at himself in the mirror.

- they tried burying dean with the nia storyline and squash matches, but fans loved him so much that vince saw dollar signs and pushed for the shield reunion tour. if it wasnt for fans being behind him, jon wouldve been mercilessly buried.

- aew was not his main reason for leaving. originally, he wanted to go back to czw or the indies. he wouldve left the company no matter what - even if no other promotions existed, he wouldve left and created his own promotion.

- jon described feeling severe symptoms of depression during his last few months, to the point where he couldnt motivate himself to get out of bed or go to the gym or do anything. he even looked up symptoms on webMD to confirm what he was feeling - jericho also confirmed it the second jon started talking about it.

- he outright stated that vince and the creative process and the shit vince had built around the wwe since 2002 is killing the company.

- he does not want to compete with wwe, he just wants to try and push them to improve the product and try and get vince to step back slightly and not micromanage so heavily.

- jon only got paid 500 bucks for the shields final chapter special, which is the same price that extras get on main shows and the same price that unused roster members get for just showing up and sitting in catering. jericho then brought up that during a house show street fight between him and ambrose, they both only got paid 750. 500 and 750 are bare minimum prices for just showing up - so they barely got paid for a dangerous gimmick match on a house show.

- jon and cody have been friends since before cody left wwe, and used to sit backstage and watch old wcw matches while getting ready for matches.

- he considers codys experience to be similar to his, and that they both experienced the same frustrations at different times.

- jon and jericho both agree that tony khan (CEO of aew) is the exact opposite of vince, and is a bigger wrestling fan than vince is. jericho then brings up that he doesnt see how vince can be a fan any longer because hes been doing it so long without a break. jon agreed and stated that vince is never gonna retire and is def gonna die in the chair, and how he just needs to step back a little bit.

- jericho brought up how jon broke the internet and jon practically jumped at the chance to tell the story.

- "king of social media, mic drop bitches." that is the line of the century im sorry.

- the inspo for the original mox teaser released on may first was inspired by the first venom teaser trailer.

- double or nothing was already planned to be moxs first appearance when the teaser dropped, and he had to keep it on the dl to make sure no dirtsheets reported it and no one advertised him to be there. he admitted he isnt tech-savvy and everyone who hes friends with who is belong to wwe, and the dude who helped him film the teaser was sick nick mondo.

- the trailer took two days to film and cost eight grand, but jon admits he wanted it to be quality and didnt care.

- while filming the trailer, vince texted him to try and extend his contract for the europe tour bc shield money. his response was that he was committed to a film project, which vince took as him filming a movie and not him filming the trailer.

- jon didnt tweet the trailer, he had a social media expert time it to where it released at exactly midnight through some techno shit with twitter.

- roman and seth knew how unhappy jon was in wwe and they were understandably sad to see him go but they wanted him to be happy.

- he talks about how he told seth he was leaving: seth had responded that he was super bummed out, and jon told him that he "is a wild animal, babe" and has been contained for too long. seth immediately agreed, saying it was the perfect analogy.

- the way he describes it kinda describes seth being more broken about jon leaving than roman, which also correlates with seths responses to questions about him leaving. do with that what you will, shippers.

- from now on, nothing is driven by money for him. everything is driven by trying to be the best he can be. he wants that for everyone: he wants his friends to be the best they can be, he wants his wife to be the best she can be, he wants the fans to be happy and everything, but his happiness is the most important thing.

- he feels more passionate about wrestling now, and describes it as his first love and his only love besides renee. the way he describes it reminds me of cm punk losing his passion due to wwe, and i feel like he wouldve ended up exactly like punk if he stayed any longer.

- his favorite part of the business is promos, and the scripted promos made him loathe it. aew gave him his passion for promos and wrestling back.

- he compares himself to the dentist elf from rudolph. his closing line is "if you're an elf and you wanna be a dentist, be a dentist." jericho edits in an audio clip from rudolph at the end and its great.

- jon is looking forward to working with legitimately everyone in aew and thinks of it as helping draw eyes to the product and to other lesser known talent, similar to jericho.

- he doesnt want a war, no matter how much he jokes about it. he just wants to show vince that the way he runs his show isnt the only way and it definitely isnt the right way.

- jon, speaking directly to vince: "your creative process sucks. fix it."

(i listened to the podcast in full three times, and i repeatedly replayed segments to confirm everything. if i missed something, lmk.)

#wwe #aew #all elite wrestling #jon moxley #dean ambrose #jonathan good #chris jericho #talk is jericho #mentions of #vince mcmahon #renee young #roman reigns #seth rollins #cody rhodes

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littlemisskookie · 5 years

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i’ve been working on this bad boy!JK fanfiction based off of a song I love and this is what I have so far. Tell me your thoughts so far. I already have it storyboarded.

"Oh, you must visit us in Morocco! We got a summer home there not too long ago, and it's absolutely divine!"

"You don't say? We were thinking about visiting there! It was between there and Budapest."

"I went to Budapest not too long ago, actually. Remember when I was telling you about Belgium?"

"Belgium? I remember Prague..."

"Oh yes! Prague, that's it. Well, it was the trip after-"

"Oh, that boy! I told him to dress for the occasion," the Senator's wife scowled. She smiles towards you and your mother. "If you'll excuse me."

As soon as she scurries away, you turn to your mother, eyes wide with wonder. "Who's that?"

Your mother gives a judgemental stare to the boy as he's approached. "The Senator's son- Jungkook. You grew up with him when you were about toddlers."

"So he's some baddie rock star?"

"I'll see you in a bit, Mother. I do believe I have to acquaint myself," you say, sliding away with ease.

"Y/N!"

"Hey," you say, giving the coy smile you had mastered so long ago. "Jungkook, right?"

"That's me," he says, taking your hand to bring it up to his lips, winking at you. "And who do I have the pleasure of meeting?"

"I don't think I'll be forgetting you again any time soon," he says, a smirk on his lips.

You giggle at that. "So what brings you here? Doesn't seem to be your kind of scene."

"I get that," you nod. "My parents have been pushing me most of tonight to find myself some new boyfriend here."

"And why haven't you? I'd figure a gorgeous girl such as yourself would have no problem."

"I'm talking to him."

He smiles at that. "Good move, princess."

"Who do you think you're calling princess?"

"Oh? What would you like to be called, then?"

"Is that why you're wearing black? So the blood won't show up?"

"You're wearing red- it'll do just as well."

"Touche. No fighting tonight, though. Wonderbread can't even handle a nosebleed."

"Lead the way then, Y/N."

You're happy to do so but already find yourself cringing as Wonderbread catches up with you before you can leave. "Hey! Y/N! Where are you going off to? The party's just started"

"Jungkook and I are just going to get some fresh air," you assure him, trying to smother the rising feelings of annoyance as well as the urge to groan.

"Jungkook, huh?" Wonderbread looks him up and down, eyes squinted, glaring at his appearance. "The senator's son?"

"That's me," Jungkook says in response.

"You don't look like the type," Wonderbread mutters.

"You mean boring?" Jungkook snorts, giving his own dirty glance up and down Wonderbread's form.

"What are you insinuating?" Wonderbread's face was already getting red. It was always so easy to offend these sorts of guys. They could dish it, but not take it.

"Why I oughta-"

"I think now's a good time to get that fresh air!" you say, pushing Jungkook off in the direction of the balcony. "Right, Jungkook?"

"Let go of me, please."

"I said let go of me." You try to pull your arm back, but he stays firm.

"Why don't you just listen to me and stop for a second. Guys like that will just hurt you. They hurt everyone around them, including themselves. They're scum-"

"I said-"

"Don't be an idiot and stick with your own kind."

"If you don't let go of me right now, I'll scream. I don't care," you grit.

You turn on your heel, marching over to the balcony, leaving Wonderbread far behind you. Jungkook's waiting for you, leaning on the railing.

"Are you ok? I saw some of that back there. I wanted to help, but I didn't want to go all 'Alpha Douchebag' like other guys. Besides you seemed to be able to handle yourself at the end."

You huff, brushing your hands through your hair. "I'm able to defend myself once in a while. I'm not some damsel in distress."

"Never said you were, princess. And trust me when I say I'm no white knight."

"That's why I'm here with you instead of Wonderbread."

"No one with a personality spicier than flour would want to stick around with Wonderbread," he responds.

"You've got a point," you huff. "Guys like him are hard to shake off."

"It's not hard to see why. You're gorgeous and rich, double whammy," Jungkook winks.

You groan. "God, not you too. Besides, you're one to talk. You waltz in here, dressing like sin, son of the senator no less, and you don't expect girls to fawn over you?"

"Who said I didn't expect it?"

"So you followed me out here because you see me as a provider, huh?"

"Did you invite me out because you saw me as a trophy?"

"No." He shakes his head, his locks bouncing as he did so. It was strangely attractive.

"Well if I just wanted a provider I'd stick with Wonderbread. He'd be more than willing to 'provide' for me."

"The only thing softies like that can't provide is an orgasm," he bluntly says.

You burst out laughing at that. "Oh my god, don't-"

"I'm just saying," he chuckles. "Besides, it's not all that bad. So you're hot and rich- boohoo. First world problems, am I right?"

"I know, I know, I'm privileged but- God, it's annoying."

"It's just a few guys who want to marry you- what's the big deal?"

"If it helps, I think your tits are great as they are."

"Did you listen to anything I said?"

"Why aren't you out here trying to win a trophy, anyway?"

"Instead the thickness of their cocks?"

He winks. "Now you're thinking like me."

"So you got outside perspective and chose to follow that instead of a life that would've provided you with everything?"

"What can I say? I've got passion for things outside of elections and sexism."

"Let me guess- you're in a rock band, ride a motorcycle, and play guitar," you roll your eyes. "Color me impressed."

There's a moment of silence, and you turn to him, finding him bashfully stunned. "No shit! You're actually all of those things?"

"I'll have you know I own a guitar shop along with the band. Have to pay the bills somehow."

"Yeah yeah, you've made your point, princess."

"I mean, I thought I was a bit of a parent's worse nightmare when it came to youthful rebellion but you're the icing on the cake," you continue. "Fuck, you'd piss my parents off."

"Getting turned on by the thought of it, little girl?" he teases, trying to get you to back down, quirking a brow at your amusement.

"You know it," you flirt back, tugging at his belt, fueled further. "I love nothing more than showing them I'm more grown-up than they realize."

"Oh?" He starts to take you seriously, gulping. "I would've figured a Daddy's girl like you would've loved pleasing her parents."

"I'm your type?"

"You're weird about that, huh? I knew some girls were into this whole look, but I wouldn't have figured it was for the same reason as you."

"All girls who are attracted to guys like you are attracted for the same reasons," you muse. "Daddy issues."

"Makes sense," he hums. "But I'm not all that dreamy, princess."

"Oh? Explain."

"I drink."

"Vodka I hope."

"I also smoke. Weed."

"Better than vaping like the 'cool kids'."

"I'm broke."

That's the one that takes you by surprise. "How's that? You're the senator's son?"

"Well, what do you think I'd use Daddy's card for?" you say. "It has been gathering dust..."

"God, you're serious about this," he laughs. "I'm on a fast track of getting a rich girlfriend and I didn't even have to lift a girlfriend. I'll have to start calling off my other girls soon enough."

"Not quite," you say, pressing your finger against his lips. "There's one thing that'll prevent me from dating a guy like you- no matter how appealing you may seem."

His brows furrow in a state of confusion. "And what's that, princess?"

"So what does that boil down to?"

"It boils down to the fact that I wouldn't fall for someone like you."

"Charming?"

"Sleazy."

"Handsome?"

"Generic."

"Dangerous?"

"Extremely."

Jungkook chuckles at that. "I don't think you'd be able to choose whether or not you fall for someone, princess. I've been told I'm quite irresistible."

"I'm sure you are- but I made my choice the moment you stepped through those double doors," you smile, tapping his nose. "I'm not going to be another broken heart. That I guarantee."

"Oh, you read too much fanfiction. What Harry Styles fanfiction gave you this mindset? The Bad Boy's Rich Girl?" He laughs. "I see it now. I assure you, baby, I'm a lover, not a fighter."

"I can handle fighting. I was raised in it. A lover like you isn't what I need."

"Are you sure? I'm confident in my loving abilities."

"Ha," you flatly say. "Sure you are. Choke me, baby."

"Give me the safe word first, baby."

You roll your eyes. "You're no good for me."

"Poison."

"You'd break my heart."

"Like so many others'."

"You'll call me?"

"At 2 AM."

"God, you're sleazy."

"You love it, baby."

"Shut up and put your number in my phone so I can wait two days to text back."

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