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snowydaffodils · 3 years

Text

Flustered

3501 words | 2nd Person POV

A Yoon Jeonghan fluff, prompt, how you met, how you (hinted) eventually dated, where you're an actress and he's the other lead actor. Enjoy your new years! 🎉

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Yoon Jeonghan is very rarely flustered. If anything, he's usually the cause of all the flustering - twelve boys can back you up on that. He'd make fun of your height, poke your cheeks, comment cutesy compliments as you work together, flirt playfully, and make fun of how stupid your character sounds.

Indeed, you accepted this role fully aware of the awfully pure and slow-witted character the scriptwriter had written down. Throughout your years in acting, even if this was your very first lead role, you had never gone easy on the rest of the roles you had received. You live and understand them, think like them, and every single character you've performed have now become a part of you. But of course, the closest character to you now is this easily distracted girl who just blushes all the time.

So for the course of eight months, you've acted with all your might, and this is the you that Jeonghan knew. You weren't exactly innocent and slow-witted just like the character, but a bit of the character influenced your own personal traits. The fun to tease, cute, and adorably likable girl. Just like you, it was his first lead role in a drama, and the first one in Seventeen to land on one, too, even if he wasn't the first one to be in one. He had curiously accepted a side role before, right after his military release, and just as the group were exploring their own careers whilst waiting to reunite again as a whole. That side role, with the help of his previous acting lessons, drowned him into the world of acting once more, and he fell in love with the art of the screen more than he ever did before.

Your first impression on him during the first cast meeting was that he looked heavenly. It was like his cheekbones were sculpted to perfection and no one could tell you otherwise. You were incredibly starstruck and in awe that you stuttered in making your first introductions. It didn't help that he was smooth with his words, too, making you sound incredibly nervous as opposed to him.

"Hi, I'm Jeonghan from Seventeen, and I'll be taking the lead role in this drama. Please take care of me."

"Hi, I'm play, uh, playing the lead gull, I mean g-girl."

Had he smiled politely and continued the conversation like nothing had happened, maybe you wouldn't have been too embarrassed, but also maybe you wouldn't have let your guards down to know and befriend him personally. Instead, he had laughed at you with all the stomach power he had. He never lets you forget that you stuttered so badly as you introduced yourself for the first time the entire day. He even made his own reasons (you wouldn't admit them, but they couldn't have been more true) as to why you stuttered.

"Nervous? I'm super charming, aren't I?" his ego is surely out of bounds as he said that, a smirk donning his lips. "I know, I'm surprised at myself, too sometimes."

You hit him on the arm, your cheeks growing in color. "I'm a big fan of Seventeen, but I didn't realize that you're this cheeky."

He laughed, so genuinely and purely, and you smiled, already warmed up to him. He made friends with you quickly, and from all the behind the scenes footage, he was quick to melt his awkward-i-just-met-you exterior and interacted with you as he would with his members. Jeonghan was this tall, built, and handsome man, and he owned unreal facial features that made everyone wonder if he was indeed human just like everyone else. He was perfect for his role: the cold, sly, and dominating lead in the series. It was the complete opposite of your character, and with his friendliness, it was easy for you to quickly build up chemistry and work well with him, but as you two get closer, the more playful he became.

"You're the love of my life," he recited his lines, cheesy as it is, to which you became shy to and shrank as he got closer and closed his lips to yours.

He was quick to tease your blushes after the director's "Cut!" in each kissing scene, and would tease you easily at other romantic or heart fluttering scenes you had to do.

"Aww, that's cute, you're blushing again! I can hear your heart fluttering," he would say. "Then again, I am charming."

And in each time, you were always caught in his trap, stuck in the moment, and your heart follows his lead, ignoring all the other self-restraining signals your head was screaming about. He'd laugh right after he got a reaction out of you, and the grin he'd give you would linger in your head for the rest of the day.

There was another day when one of his members - Joshua - came to support as a cameo, and it felt like Jeonghan was on booster or something. He introduced you to Joshua, who was sweet, polite, and a perfect gentleman, but then Jeonghan continued to tease you the entire day Joshua was there. He made sure to remind Joshua how cute you were so many times throughout the day. At that point you were actually getting used to Jeonghan's antics, but him teasing you in front of a new person puts you on another level of flustered.

"Hey Josh, meet the love of my life," Jeonghan said, using his scripted lines.

Joshua, while he was nicer than Jeonghan, still played along sometimes. "Then I'll call you member-in-law!" He said.

Your birthday was on a filming day, and he managed to fool you to think that you had hurt his feelings by giving him comments on his acting as per usual (you were sure you weren't saying anything bad, but he kept directing it to be a negative one). He started showing acts of distaste and, at one point, even yelled at you and left the room.

It was heart-wrenching to watch him leave - you never wanted to hurt his feelings, you just wanted to help and support him and the drama entirely. Guilt washed over you quickly, and tears piled in your eyes. The crew was looking at you so judgmentally, and all you wanted to do was go home, lock the doors, and hide under your covers. You didn't know what to do, and some of the crew even went to you to convince you that he just needed to blow off steam and he'll be back and you can apologize when he gets back.

You wanted to scream and rip his hair off when he came back with a cake, singing Happy Birthday like nothing happened. Your tears flowed like a river though, because you genuinely thought that Yoon Jeonghan, this man, was actually angry at you to the point that he put it to display to everyone who was present and even yelled at you.

"Don't cry!" he laughed at you, taking the cream from the cake and swiping your cheeks with his finger. "You'll look ugly. We have to take a picture with this cake!"

You cursed at him for the first time since you've known him, but he only chuckled and patted your back to calm down your sniffles (you glared at his finger until he wiped the cream away first, though). He gave you a friendly hug and you hit him to prove the point that you were upset, and it was a loud slap in the back that everyone was surprised but laughed at. Apparently, a behind-the-scenes camera was on and recording the entire surprise; Jeonghan remembered this and went to the camera to tell on you. He complained really loudly, "Carats, she hit me!" he pointed at you playfully.

You were still sniffling, snots everywhere and you eyes still bawling with tears. "Y-you deserve it!" you screamed.

On the last day of filming, you had laughed everything off, remembering everything that happened during the course of filming and engraving every memory to your heart. It was surely an indescribable experience. The crew had been super nice, and they felt like a second family to you. The cast members became your best friends, including the one and only Yoon Jeonghan. You thanked Jeonghan, the rest of the cast, and the entire crew for all their hard work, hugged your co-stars tightly, and told Jeonghan to stay in contact with you even after it all ended because you'd miss him.

"Hey, but don't be a stranger," you told him. "I think I'm too used to having you around, its gonna be hard to live peacefully, now."

He smiled, pinched your cheeks and said, "Did you think I'm gonna stop just because the drama ended? You should've seen me annoy my members even from the military base."

You rolled your eyes at him, "I wouldn't dare to assume you'd do anything less."

And he kept to his word. Though there hadn't been any opportunities for both of you to meet each other again (variety shows and interview promotions were done during the course of filming), he still contacts you day-to-day, even if only to send a meme he found of you and laugh at you through text.

"You really DO look like you've got a frog in your mouth! Hahahaha!"

This went on through the rest of the year until the Award Shows started to busy every single celebrity available, finally announcing the invites, MCs, performances, and nominees to each award they have. Your drama with Jeonghan had hit it big as fans were so happy to watch both of you interact (also, maybe because Woozi sang the main OST, and Scoups' rap on the OST was fire), and you were invited to almost every single one of them as a nominee for multiple awards.

It was first assumed, then implied, but it was also because he was actually sweet enough to ask you personally, that you were officially his date to every one of the award shows your drama was nominated in. You agreed, not because he was your co-star, but because he was a genuinely nice and fun person to spend time with. You were also very excited, not just because you were nominated, but also because this time you were going to finally present your original and true self to Yoon Jeonghan and the world. The other characters within you screamed in delight as you excitement rose, and you had planned everything out, determined to show that you are not just a simple easily teased girl that Yoon Jeonghan bullies on.

On the very first show you wore a white gown - the top part was gold glitter with a heart neckline, and it corseted your figure, highlighting all the important curves in your body. Down your dress, the fabric flowed in an A-line skirt, transparency growing in a gradient as it reached the bottom, your strapped golden heels visible within your skirt. You put your half your hair into a braid and curled the rest. With curtain-like gold earrings and white diamonds shining out of the strands, Jeonghan was stunned when he saw you for the first time. Your make up was different from what he was used to, and a mature-like pureness aura radiates from you. He didn't know what to say, muted to say the least. He had never seen you like that, and once both of you reached the red carpet, his hand on your back as a gentlemanly support to guide you through the reporters, he noticed how straight you walked, and how you carried yourself so gracefully. The reporters were asking questions, but he left the answering to you as he continued to stay stunned through the red carpet. It was only when you both had finally taken your seats when he finally relaxed and converse normally again.

The minimum movements you emitted, just enough to be polite and to please your audience were not missed by the man, and he observed the details of your interactions to the utmost adoration. Your gracefulness had struck a chord in his heart and he was awed to say the least.

He ended the night with a shy smile and an "Oh, and by the way, you were absolutely beautiful tonight." The sincerity of his tone didn't go unnoticed and you didn't forget to thank him before going separate ways. It was oddly out of character of him to do, but you liked the new side of him you have yet to explore.

The next show, you opted for a bright red designer's gown. This one, fitting to its price tag, created this absolutely stunning silhouette, and while it did not sparkle or glitter, its muted red still create a distinction of you and made you shine. The designed folds in your dress accented your figure even more, and with a looser fabric, the skirt of your dress was made longer so it could trail behind you as you walk. Your hair was gathered up into one straight ponytail, a pretty simple hairdo to gather attention to your striking gown for the night.

Jeonghan didn't recognize you when he first was led to your changing room. You didn't just look like a different person, you feel like one, too. He didn't even realize that he held his breath as he looked at you. The stylist were so proud of their efforts and Jeonghan's reaction had them giggling and teasing him. "She's incredibly beautiful, isn't she?"

He barely managed a "yes" before you could chuckle and said to him, "Well look who's being shy, now."

At this, he returned a laughter of his own. He didn't bother hiding his surprised expression. "You got me. You look incredible."

Your outfit and style of the day, added with your elegance and poise as you conducted yourself in front of the reporters and other celebrities had Jeonghan staring at you for a while, and quite numerous whiles. He absolutely adored you. There was a surging feeling of wholesome pride as he stood beside you, his hand on your back as he escorted you through the venue. Even as he teased you as he answered the reporters' questions, you had retained your poise as you held it within yourself not to be flustered easily by this man. You had a year worth of practice for that.

"Isn't she beautiful? I'm such a fan of hers," Jeonghan whispered to the reporters, his playful grins and chuckles evident as he interacted happily. "She doesn't look like her character now, does she?"

You chuckled along with him, but dragged him to stop him from acting like a fan on the red carpet. He laughed and after a few tries of refusing your urges to move on, eventually let it go and allowed you to pull him forwards. As you moved on, he placed his hand on your back just like how he usually does, as a sign that he was right there walking with you.

The third time though, Jeonghan was speechless. He barely spoke through the course of the night, and his eyes never left you.

You wore a black designer's gown this time, with sequinned patterned Qs coming from your neck down to your knees before the skirt spreads out to hide your silver heels. It was a mermaid gown and it hugged your figure nicely. The skirt was actually more flowy that you thought, but it added a nice touch. You wore silver earrings and diamond hair pieces as you put your hair up in the most elegant updo Jeonghan had ever seen. He was already stunned when he saw you for the first time, but he almost choked when you turned around only for him to realize that your gown was completely backless.

Now, where is he supposed to place his hand again?

His face was flushed and when you turned to finally go out the door, you see his face filled with more red than you've ever seen. While his face was kind of salvaged by the foundation he used, the makeup couldn't help his neck from turning red as well.

"Yoon Jeonghan, are you sick?" you asked aloud, gaining the attention of all staff members present, all their eyes pointed at the man in question. "Or are you actually blushing?"

Your second question snapped him out of his haze (and had many of the stylists and make up artists giggling) as he looked at you for a few seconds, and you were starting to actually worry, before he eventually puts his hand on his forehead, covering his face.

"God, you'll be the death of me. Let's go before I embarrass myself any further."

He was indeed blushing, and his statement confirmed that for you. You laughed, but you can't help but feel you cheeks tinting a little pink from his confession. He linked your arm with his and went out together.

The first few minutes into the red carpet, Jeonghan did his best not to have direct contact with your back. He was blushing the entire time, had to ask the interviewers to repeat themselves a couple of times, and his hand was going to unsure places like your shoulder or your waist, which he was also not confident about, and eventually just lingers a few inches away from your back, like in mid-air. The so-called manner hands.

It wasn't as reassuring as having his hand on your back like the previous times you both had gone through this. His focus was also off as he tried to avoid the contact, and just moved his hand when you moved as well. You sighed and just pulled his hand to slightly slap your back, and you pointed a look at Jeonghan's direction, telling him to stop fidgeting through your eyes.

He blushed.

"Jeonghan, are you not feeling well?" one of the reporters asked.

He seemed to click then and there. His honest self couldn't help himself as he answered, "Oh yeah, she just looks gorgeous tonight, I can't take my eyes off of her."

When he finally comprehended his own words, he fumbled and stuttered. "I-I mean," he tried to reason, but the stars in the reporters' eyes were showing that they heard everything he said, and some of them squealed in delight.

"Why, thank you," you turned to face him, your smile directed for him.

He was stunned - again.

"Oh, let's just go," he said shyly, one of his hands reaching to his neck to feel just how warm he had gotten.

That night, both of you had received a daesang award, but Jeonghan kind of added a few more elements to his acceptance speech.

"Hi, this is Seventeen's Jeonghan. This acting experience was truly incredible and there's so many people who should know that they are the reason for this award. I want to thank Carats, who have always been there for me through thick and thin, and my members who have been watching and supporting me, especially to Joshua who became a cameo, my parents and my family members who had been with me from the very start, the staff members, Pledis, directors, pd-nim, and all the crew members. This is not possible without any of you. And special thanks to," Jeonghan moved his eyes on you, and he didn't know why then and there, your name disappeared from his head and instead replaced with that one line that had caught all the viewers' heart as they watched the drama.

"The love of my life - " he stopped when he realized what he just said, and realized he had kind of just confessed on national TV. "I mean, M-my co-star."

You stood there surprised at how flustered Yoon Jeonghan could be, and stunned that you were the main reason that he was fumbling on the stage and his ears redder than ever. He caught himself before he did anything else and finished his speech nicely.

"Anyways, uh, thank you for this award, I'll work even harder to be a better actor and come back with more for you all. Thankyou!"

It was your turn after him to deliver your speech, and suddenly the trophy on your hands became heavier than it actually was. Jeonghan turned his back to walk back to the spot beside you as you move forward, and you can see a small smile tugging the corners of his lips. When you were brushing against each other before you took the mic, he whispered, just loud for you to hear, and short enough to go unnoticed.

"Yes, that was my confession to you. Will you go out with me?"

All eyes were on you and all lights were on you when you felt like you bit your tongue and couldn't speak.

The MCs were waiting for your speech, and nudged you to start when you seem lost.

"Ah, yes, I mean, no, I mean yes!"

Yoon Jeonghan really knows how to fluster you, even in his most flustering moments.

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#yoon jeonghan #jeonghan #jeonghan fic #seventeen imagines #fanfiction #fluff #jeonghan fluff #jeonghan scenario #seventeen #svt #seventeen fic

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succubusphan · 3 years

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Not Just Any Fan.

Summary: Dan and Phil meet for coffee and something more...

Sequel to OnlyPhans

Rating: E

Tags: Phil is a YouTuber with an OnlyFans, Dan is one of his best clients. Dan has been Phil's fanboy for years and years and finally gets to live his dream, Shameless smut, buttplugs, blowjobs, anal sex, riding.

Word Count: 1.9k

A/n: This is part of my project 100 fics: I'm posting 7 fics before April 22nd so that my OSPBB fic can be my 100th story posted. I don't have them written so this could fail but I'm pretty set on it, so I hope to do it. PS: I wrote in an hour and a half so I'm sure there are mistakes but I'll catch them later. Only one more fic to complete project 100!

Read on ao3

Dan arrived at Trafalgar square second-guessing his choice already. He was over the moon about meeting Phil, but at the same time, he was terrified that Phil wouldn’t like him back or that he’d be disappointed. What if he stopped sending his best content to Dan or chatting with him. Maybe this was a bad idea, maybe he should just leave and -

“Hi,” Phil said softly. His incredibly blue eyes shining in the sunlight.

Dan’s mouth hung open at the sight in front of him. God, he was so fucked. “Hi,” he said, a stupid smile appearing on his face.

“So, are we going for a coffee first?”

“First?”

“Yeah. I was under the impression that you wanted to come to mine after, Did I get that wrong?”

“No, I would never say no to you. It’s just - you are you , and I’m just... me.”

“Yeah and that’s who I want to get to know. Ready?” Phil said, extending his elbow to Dan.

“Thank you,” Dan smiled and linked their arms together. He didn’t know what sort of cosmic karma he was getting but he’d take it.

They settled for the Starbucks closest to them and sat in a booth by the windows with their coffee cups, and started a bit of an awkward conversation. Dan was too nervous to try to flirt but Phil was flirting for both of them.

“I can’t believe we are finally speaking face to face. I’m so used to our little conversations and your comments on my socials. I feel like we’ve known each other for a while even though we haven’t.” Phil smiled excitedly and placed his hand on the table closer to Dan, almost like an open invitation.

“I didn’t think you took notice of my comments. I had hoped but, I figured your OnlyFans was the place where you could really see who I was and have some sense of familiarity. I know it’s stupid to think like that about internet personalities or famous people, but I’ve always felt a connection to you,” Dan admitted before realizing that he probably sounded deranged. “Is that creepy? I hope it’s not creepy, I just wanted to get to know you because your videos have always made me smile. I - I mean, the youtube ones.” He could feel the blush creeping on his cheeks.

Phil shook his head, his lips curling into a wide smile. “I don’t think it’s stupid or creepy. We have known each other in some capacity for a very long time.”

Dan’s eyes widened as he wondered what Phil meant exactly.”

“Are you the guy with a cute profile picture who has been chatting with me in my OnlyFans for months? The one who has been watching my youtube videos for years and years and leaving supportive comments? The one who likes all my twits and has @ replied me saying they have a crush on me?”

“Fuck. You traced all of my accounts back to me? You must think that I’m a fucking stalker.” Dan’s stomach sank. He had planned on coming clean to Phil soon but it turned out he knew it all already.

“No, I think that you felt lonely and saw some part of yourself reflected in me so you tried to make a friend. I wished I had replied sooner but, while I was in the closet it didn’t feel safe to date anyone who knew who I was and about my online presence, but now I am free to do as I see fit. I even post explicit content with my face on it and promote it in my youtube description box. What is anyone going to do to me now? Post my nudes? I do that myself.”

Dan snorted. “True. Maybe you are right. Maybe my 18 year old closeted self saw the pretty emo guy who was incredibly funny and clever and wished we could be friends - or something more.”

Phil turned his hand around and looked him in the eye. “I think that can be arranged. Maybe I did notice how cute you were and I was waiting for the perfect opportunity to ask you out since you didn’t ask me out.

“I didn’t think you’d be interested. I don’t have much to offer.”

“We like all the same things, and you get my jokes, you are super supportive and hot … and you have a pretty cock.”

Dan choked on the coffee he had been sipping on, his cock twitching in his pants as if it knew it was being complimented.

Phil laughed and it made Dan’s heart sing. “You are so adorable when you blush.”

That comment brought Phil’s offer to the forefront of his mind. “Did you mean what you said before?”

“About taking you home?”

Dan nodded.

“If you want to. Yes, please. But if you are not interested in sex, that’s completely ok. I will respect that.”

“What if I say yes?”

“Then I would ask if you are already done with that coffee because we can be there in 10 minutes if we take a taxi.”

Dan downed the rest of his drink, Phil’s eyes widening before he did the same. “Let’s go,” Dan said, his hand finally reaching for Phil’s and linking their fingers.

It was perhaps a bit weird. Dan hadn’t done casual hookups in years. He had forgotten how it was to just casually walk into someone’s house and things escalating immediately. The version of them that existed outside Phil’s flat forgotten the moment the door closed. Phil pinning him to the wall and kissing him deeply. It was a bit amusing to think that they hadn’t kissed before, or maybe not. Maybe it was for the best since fans were bound to spot them together and take pictures. Phil was very particular about what he liked to share and what he didn’t, and he didn’t do public relationships.

Phil broke the kiss. “Stop thinking so hard, Jesus!” he said, before pressing another kiss to his lips. This time Dan gave it his all, parting his lips for Phil, using his tongue expertly, letting his hands wander down Phil’s body, popping button after button of Phil’s plaid shirt and rubbing circles on his nipples.

A moan escaped Phil’s lips, followed by a gasp and Dan smiled evilly. It was time to let Phil know what he was actually good about. His hands played with the buttons on Phil’s jeans before mumbling against his lips. “May I?”

“Yeah,” Phil said leaning back against the wall and letting Dan go to town.

Dan opened Phil’s jeans and pulled them down along with his underwear just enough to let his cock spring free. Then, he moaned and unceremoniously wrapped his lips around it, swirling his tongue around the head before taking it as deeply as he could and bobbed his head in a steady rhythm, his eyes never leaving Phil’s. He got some sense of satisfaction when Phil groaned loudly and buried his fingers in Dan’s curls, watching raptly as Dan tried to swallow him whole but couldn’t, soft choking noises coming from his throat.

A shiver ran through Dan when his eyes watered and he had to pull back to cough for a bit, his cock twitching at how humiliated he felt in failing to deep throat Phil.

“Aw, baby. You don’t have to do that. Let me help you,” Phil cooed. “Here, open up for me,” he said, holding his cock in front of Dan’s lips until Dan opened wide for him. Phil thrust into his mouth, with high pitched moans, the ones Dan knew meant he was close to the edge.

Dan was not going to admit defeat, just when he felt Phil’s balls drawing up, he took a deep breath and met one of Phil's thrusts, holding him in place as he took more and more of his cock until his nose was firmly pressed against the base.

Phil let out a surprise whine before holding him in place gently as he came down his throat, his legs shaking with pleasure. Then, he pulled out watching a stream of come drool out of Dan’s mouth. “Fuck! You are so hot. Do you want to fuck me?”

“Yeah,” Dan croaked. His throat felt a bit raw and that made him smile.

Phil helped him up and led him to his bedroom, rushing to remove his sweaty clothes as Dan did the same. “Get comfy, I’m going to ride you, ok?”

“Fuck! Yes!” Dan eyes almost rolled to the back of his head with the mental image but he scrambles to settle down against a surprising amount of pillows.

As Phil got the lube and a condom from his nightstand Dan couldn’t help but stare at his perfect ass and his eyebrows shot up when he thought he saw the edge of a butt plug nestled between his cheeks. “Did you go out for coffee with me with a butt plug?” Dan giggled.

Phil turned around with a smile. “Hey, shut up. I don’t have patience for stretching myself when I’m horny so I figured it was better to be safe than sorry.”

“I’m not complaining, don’t worry.”

“Great, because I’ll be riding you in like 15 seconds,” Phil smirked.

He rolled the condom on Dan’s cock, lubed him up and let Dan remove the butt plug.

Feeling a bit playful, Dan watched Phil’s hole stretch around the plug as he pulled it halfway out before he pressed it in experimentally.

Phil moaned and gave him a bewildered look. “Hey! That’s not a toy,” he laughed. “Or it is, but take it out so I can ride you.”

Dan laughed and did as he was told.

Bouncing like an excited puppy, Phil straddled him and sank down on his cock, throwing his head back with a moan, his own cock almost back to full hardness. “Yesss,” he hissed. “You feel so good inside me!” he babbled, rolling his hips before starting to really get into the motions, rising to his knees until only the tip remained inside him and sinking down again.

Dan found that unlike in his videos, Phil was messy yet enthusiastic about sex. He could tell the moment Phil let his guard down and stopped trying to impress him, babbling about how he used his thickest dildo earlier thinking of him, of the picture Dan sent him and him how long he’s been wanting to meet him.

With a huge smile on his face, Dan held onto Phil’s hips and thrust up into Phil, making him moan but effectively ruining his rhythm. Phil laughed and smacked him on the chest before everything turned into a frenzy of moving limbs and uncoordinated thrusts, soon reaching their highs amidst high pitched laughs and tickles, rolling down the bed and thrusting a little more despite the oversensitivity.

When Phil bit Dan’s neck it was all over. “I yield! I yield!” he laughed. “No more!”

Phil smiled fondly and pressed a kiss to his lips before cuddling up to him. “Hey Dan, Do you wanna stay over? We could order pizza.”

“I mean, yeah,” Dan snorted. “But it’s 3 pm, isn’t it a bit early to plan a sleepover?”

“Not when I know I want to flip you over and fuck you after dinner,” Phil smirked.

Dan let out a loud laugh that made him sound like a hyena. “Hmm, Alright. I guess I’ll stay.”

#phanfiction #phanfic #succubusphan fics #project 100

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221bshrlocked · 4 years

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Plant Your Seeds

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Words: 1604

Warnings: Swearing. Awkwardness. Sweet Fluff!

A/N: I have an entire biblical/theological story to write for one of my classes and I have no motivation and it’s due next week and I have three other projects and I am just not in the mood to do anything. I saw this prompt and had to write it. Hopefully you like it.

The ringing of the door bell broke the hours of silence you’ve remained in since you opened. It was a quiet Friday afternoon and a part of you hoped you wouldn’t get any customers so you’d spend more time planting the new Hydrangea seeds you just bought. You looked up and couldn’t see who just entered, deciding to just wait until the familiar bell rang or someone asked for help. Another ten minutes passed and you realized whoever entered never exited and wasn’t making much noise.

Quickly wiping your hands of dirt, you walked away from your working station to check on the customer. Turning a corner, you found an incredibly well-dressed man standing in front of the Lavender and Sunflowers. You hated to break whatever trance he was in, mostly because he looked focused and confused at the same time. It was kind of cute.

“Hello, can I-”

You didn’t realize how focused he was and jumped when he frantically turned around and grabbed his chest, swearing under his breath before stepping back and almost knocking over the few Marigolds left in the bucket.

“God I am so sorry I didn’t mean to-” The words died in your throat when he finally looked at you, and you realized you really wanted to know what shade of blue his breathtaking eyes were in that moment.

“Oh n-no that’s my bad I’m,” he seemed to be trapped in the same haze you were in for a second before clearing his throat and continuing, “so sorry I almost knocked those over.” He leaned down and put the bucket back in its place before standing up and pushing the glasses up his nose.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ve been meaning to put those somewhere else. People keep tripping over them.” You smiled and looked away when you found his eyes too intense to maintain contact with. “Umm, is there anything I can help with?”

He continued to stare at you before turning towards the sunflowers, his eyebrows immediately furrowing from the long and vibrant colors of the plant. “Would you like me to make you a bouquet of sunflowers?”

“NO!” You didn’t expect the sudden and quiet loud response but you nodded and took a deep breath.

“S-sorry I didn’t mean to- it’s just that I…umm, I’m not here for the sunflowers. Not anymore at least.”

“I see, well I’ll be back there so if you need any help with anything, just holler.” You were about to turn around when you heard him step forward.

“Wait, wait…I do need help actually.” He stood there for a moment and you waited for him to ask but he never did and you immediately knew. He wasn’t the first one to walk into your flower shop feeling this way. The great thing about flower shops was that you always had a glimpse into other people’s lives, sometimes managing to help them out without even knowing.

“Listen, whatever happened, you’ll be okay. Whatever it is you’re feeling right now, it’ll pass. Perhaps not as quickly as you want it to but you’ll keep going. Life keeps going! That’s why I have that sign outside. Flowers can’t solve all your problems but they’re a great way to start. Please, take your time. I’m not going anywhere and you don’t need to rush.” You tapped his shoulder twice before smiling at him and you thought you saw something shift in his gaze but you ignored it.

You let go and walked to the counter to give him some space. A couple of minutes later, you were balancing something on the check book when you heard him clear his throat to grab your attention.

He looked much more relaxed than earlier and you were glad he managed to deal with whatever he was thinking of.

“How do I passive-aggressively say “fuck you” in flowers?”

He was super calm and collected when he asked the question which frankly you never expected to hear from him. And you couldn’t hold back the laugh even if you tried before you realized he was dead serious. You quickly apologized before asking him what he meant.

“I don’t wish to bore you with my sob story because you probably hear many a day than I ever will in a lifetime, and mine is probably extremely low on that scale, but long story short, my girl…my ex-girlfriend cheated on me, in my own apartment, and laughed in my face when I found out it was with one of my closest friends. She just got a promotion and I would love to send her a passive-aggressive bouquet of flowers except I also want it to be delivered to her boss “by accident” because frankly, she deserves it.”

He hesitated when he saw your lack of a response and he was about to apologize when you cut him off.

“Yeah alright! Sounds like a plan, a great one if I am being honest. And I know just what to get you. Come with me.” You walked to his side and went to one of the back corners of the shop, sliding one of the glass doors to walk inside and telling him it was okay for him to enter. You leaned down and pulled a few of the pink flowers beneath the roses.

“Here are some geraniums which showcase her stupidity for leaving you, and…” you kneeled down to grab another bucket that was slightly out of reach, “some foxglove for her extreme insincerity.” He took them from your hands and studied them before noticing you were already walking away.

“Here is meadowsweet and yellow carnations so she knows how fucking useless she is and how incredibly disappointed you are or were in her actions.” He grabbed the beautiful flowers and sighed, knowing he would never buy these flowers again even though they were among the prettiest in the shop.

“And last but not least, some lovely orange lilies so she knows how much you hate her…and him.” Shutting the door behind the two of you, you walked behind the counter and grabbed some green leaves to fill the bouquet, taking your time rearranging the flowers so they balanced each other.

“Would you like to write a card? It’s free.” You said to him as you tied the bow around the plastic, gently pulling up some flowers to bring out the colors of some of the others.

“W-what do I even write?”

“I mean the flowers are passive and she’s probably too stupid to understand, no offense.”

“Non taken.”

“But the card can be aggressive. Here let me write it in calligraphy.”

“Oh wow you don’t have to.”

“Please, I don’t have ‘100% satisfaction’ written on the window for no reason. How about, ‘Go deep throat a cactus. Sincerely,” sorry I didn’t catch your name?” You laughed at the blush forming on his cheeks and he seemed to notice his surprised reaction when he heard you giggle.

“It’s James. James Barnes. But my friends call me Bucky.”

So not only was the man the definition of beauty but his name rolled off the tongue easily as well. Great.

“So would you like me to sign it as James Barnes or Bucky Barnes?” He was quiet for a moment before he looked up and nodded at you.

“Definitely James Barnes.” The two of you said in unison and something twisted in your stomach when you heard his sweet laughter ring in your ears.

“Now just write me the address and the name of her boss and I will deliver them myself. When do you want her to see them?”

“Oh I don’t want to waste your time, I could just-”

“The great thing about owning a flower shop is that you can open and close it at any time.” You took the flowers from him and placed them in a vase already filled with water.

“She works until six so anytime before that. Thank you so much. You didn’t have to go out of your way to do any of this.” He took out his wallet and decided to focus on the money and not the gorgeous smile staring right back at him.

“Please it’s nothing. Flowers make me happy, well, plants in general. And if the plants can help out with anything then I don’t mind at all.”

“So how much for the passive-aggressive bouquet?”

“It’s on the house.” You responded immediately, taking the small paper he wrote the address and the names on before placing it in your front pocket.

“No no please I couldn’t.”

“Please, I insist.”

“Fine, but on one condition. Can I take you out for coffee sometime tomorrow? Just so you could tell me what her reaction was.” Bucky smiled at you, readjusting his glasses god knows what time that day and you couldn’t help but mirror the joy etched on his face as you nodded.

“I’d like that a lot actually.”

“Great, it’s a date!” He took out something else from his pocket and gave it to you as he picked up a business card from the counter.

“See you tomorrow sweetheart,” your eyes widened at the pet name before waving to him.

“Bye Bucky.”

You watched him as he walked out of the shop, his steps picking up a bit as opposed to when he was lazily following you around not fifteen minutes ago. You couldn’t wait until you saw him tomorrow but you certainly couldn’t wait until you saw his ex-girlfriend’s expression when she saw the flowers and the note.

Yup, flowers were definitely problem solvers. And your wingmen apparently.

#bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky #bucky barnes #plant your seeds #flower shop au #professor bucky #professor barnes #professor bucky barnes #go deep throat a cactus #fluff #sebastian stan #sebastian #sebstan #james bucky barnes

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radramblog · 3 years

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Shameless self-promotion (kinda)

I’ve kinda been meaning to talk about other things what I do, so here’s a bit of that, I guess. I should probably get used to talking myself up, seeing as I am actively on the job hunt at the moment.

It’s worth noting that even as this post is titled “self-promotion”, this blog is really the only public content I am making that is just me, myself, and I. The things I’m going to be discussing have me contributing, but I’m not like a lead organisational entity or what have you.

It’s also worth noting that these are some instances of some Niche Nerd Shit. So keep that in mind. If you don’t like Magic: The Gathering or Pokemon, I’ve got bad news for you.

Might as well go in the order I just put up.

Commander’s Herald is a website that I believe was formed kind of as an offshoot in part to EDHREC’s Articles section, as a hub for deck techs and columns about MTG’s Most Popular Format (it’s official!). I’m not sure how well this is going to go for them, but it’s been chugging along since the start of the year without having the backup EDHREC has of, you know, being attached to an incredibly useful database, so fair enough.

I am not a writer for Commander’s Herald, to be clear. I don’t know if I play enough of the format to really contribute something useful on a weekly/fortnightly basis, even though I do talk about the game weekly on this very blog.

What I was a part of was the CUT! series run by one Travis Stanley on the site. It’s effectively a contest about creative deckbuilding under tight-ish restrictions- as an example, the first round required a deck with only Standard cards, 10+ Artifacts, and a Commander (or pair) from Commander Legends. It’s been really interesting how these have turned out so far, and the concept sounded really fun to me, so I put myself down to be part of the…show?

Many months later, I got my shot in as part of the fifth heat (though I think each round is completely separate), tying in to the release of D&D: Adventures in the Forgotten Realms- thus I had to build a deck with a commander built around that. I’m not going to go into it that deeply, since part of the contest is writing up a 800-900ish word dech teck to go with the list, but you can find the article here.

My Drizzt Do’Urden list did, in fact, make me go to the finals, for which the post (and new decklist and post) can be found here. It’s probably too early to tell at time of writing, but it looks like I have a solidly commanding (heh) lead to win that too with my Minn list, so that’s pretty sick.

I do enjoy this sort of creative build challenge a lot. It’s reminding me of my first Cube build, where my options were heavily restricted because of, well, myself (and yet it ended up not being cheap), and it gives me a great excuse to strut my particular brand of deckbuilding. In this case, to a somewhat larger audience than this blog gets.

Speaking of slightly larger audiences, I suppose I should talk about the podcast I’ve been on, The Writer’s Locke.

While I’ve mentioned the Nuzlocke Forums multiple times on this blog, I haven’t really gone into the weeds of it- I’m thinking of making a much grander post about it in future. But I am a longtime lurker of said forums, and due to the marginally increased presence of Aussie dorks, gravitated towards the writers/storylockes corners of the site’s membership.

In case it wasn’t obvious from me maintaining a very silly blog for a decently long time, I’ve felt for a while that writing was probably my most viable creative outlet, and as a result, I’ve felt for a while that I should contribute something to this corner of the internet, considering how much it means to me. Unfortunately, I’m about as confident in my creative writing skills as I am my saxophone skills (in that it’s been a very long while since I tried and I’m not sure I had any promise then), I’m terrible at starting and committing to projects, and I’m pretty shy, so I haven’t really gotten anywhere on that front.

However, an opportunity arose when some of said Aussie Dorks started to organise a podcast by and for the membership of this community. A half-audiobook half-discussion series that is utterly and extremely devoted to niche Pokemon fanfiction. For the first season, I ended up in the latter (discussion) half of that spectrum for three episodes, bringing somewhat of an outsider’s perspective to the whole thing- after all, even if I have been part of the community for many years now, that doesn’t mean I know jack or shit about how to write things and what makes stories good. (I mean, I know a bit, but yknow). I’ll link the forum posts for those episodes here, though they should be available on most podcast-based platforms:

-Episode 8, where we discussed Protagonists,

-Episode 9, where the topic was, of all things, Gijinkas,

-and Episode 10, which was about Worldbuilding.

The second season of the cast is still ongoing, albeit after a bit of a hiatus (life happens, baby), and for this one I’m signed up not as a discusser but as a reader for one of the fics that makes up the audiobook section of the podcast. In particular, I’m reading Carousel, a very low-Pokemon high-feelings, nonstandard sort of piece, and I believe the one that headlines every episode in the season. Like, for some they’ll just do a couple chapters and leave the rest for you to go through, such that we can show off multiple people’s voices and multiple people’s writing in one season of podcast, but seeing as Carousel has relatively short chapters and neatly fits one per planned episode of the cast, we’ve just got me doing the whole thing of it.

Being on a podcast, even one as ultimately low-key as this one, has been a bit of an interesting experience. Recording those discussion segments with Rainey and Garchomp (who also happens to be Carousel’s writer) was a lot of fun, and though it’s a bit more stressful, I am having a good time lending my voice to the story. If nothing else, it’s decent practice for D&D and the like, though I’m still convinced that my voice for Suicune (iirc she’s supposed to sound, like, “smoky”, which is not a thing my voice does) is pretty terrible. Considering how awkward the protagonist is, though, I think I’m a good fit for that at the very least.

I wouldn’t actually know, though. I haven’t listened to any of the episodes with my voice work in them. I know not liking the sound of your own voice is fairly common, since you don’t sound how you think you do, but I find hearing my own voice bloody abrasive. I was thinking about writing a whole post about it, actually, but I guess this is that. I was kind of hoping that this whole process would get me more used to it, but that hasn’t happened so far, obviously. I would like to be on a more casual podcast at some point, it seems like a lot of fun, although adding to the legion of white_dude_with_podcast.wav feeds isn’t really something I’m the most interested in.

Oh right here’s some links.

-Episode 1, where I read chapter 1,

-Episode 2, chapter 2,

-etc, etc. We’re currently up to the 6th episode of the 10-episode season, for reference.

I guess that’s it, there’s only really the two of them so far. Ultimately, while I’m much lower on free time than I used to be, I would like to be producing more I the realm of #content. As long as it keeps being fun and interesting, I want to be doing it. I guess it’s just a question of how long that ends up being, and how I find myself doing it.

But I think that’s a problem for future me.

#ramble #self-promotion #nuzforums #(i guess)#idk if i should be tagging like EDH and stuff when that's not even half the post

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salamandersofftheclock · 3 years

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Principles You Can Use From Rowling’s Philosophy of Writing

by Ruthanne Reid

If you’re like me, you loved the Harry Potter series. Maybe you watched the movies or even visited the theme park, and you wondered about JK Rowling’s writing process and the strategy she uses to write her best-selling books. If you’re like me, though, you’ve also been deeply hurt by things Rowling herself has said. On Twitter, on her website, in interviews, and more, Rowling has promoted harmful views of trans people, and you might be one of her many readers who find it painful, or even impossible, to return to the Harry Potter books you once loved.I understand. Before I dive into the wisdom we can draw from Rowling’s writing process in order to write our first draft (or others), allow me to share a principle with you. Death of the Author: Or, How to Love the Book, Not the Author In 1967, a French literary critic named Roland Barthes wrote an essay called La mort de l’auteur, or Death of the Author, in which he states that any piece of writing should be separated from the author that wrote it. In other words, he believed in judging the written work completely on its own merits, without involving personal beliefs or actions of the author in question. Sometimes, this is possible to do. Sometimes, it isn’t, and we readers have to apply discernment to what we read and the lens in which we view things.I have two examples for you. HP Lovecraft First, HP Lovecraft, whose incredible work literally created today’s modern horror genre. Do you enjoy any kind of tale with Elder Ones, or chaos gods, or even just good old Cthulhu? (I know I do!) His work was so creative, so new, that you’d be hard-pressed to find any horror story that doesn’t show at least some of his influence.Unfortunately, Lovecraft was also an extremely xenophobic racist. Now, I enjoy a good chaos god, and I’ve made the decision to separate his xenophobia from his writing. That means, of course, that I must view critically anything he wrote that implies white English people are somehow the pinnacle of humanity.It means I purposely do not allow his racism to infect my way of thinking. By doing so, I am practicing la mort de l’auteur. JRR Tolkien Here’s a second example: JRR Tolkien, whose work defined modern fantasy. Do you enjoy anything with elves and dwarves or made-up languages? We owe Tolkien for that. He redefined and polished the fantasy genre so well that everything from movies to MMORPGs still use his templates. Unfortunately, he also described his orcs as “squat, broad, flat-nosed, sallow-skinned, with wide mouths and slant eyes: in fact degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types.” Yowza. Now, was Tolkien a racist? Not exactly. In fact, according to the standards of the time, he was absolutely liberal and anti-racist. So then what do we do with this bizarro and racially horrifying description? We see it and choose to discard it. Generations of artists and authors have done exactly that, turning orcs into anything but“least lovely Mongol-types,” and aiding this genre.Again, it’s important to see the problem so you can avoid letting it influence your work. We enjoy the good parts while consciously discarding the bad, rather than being influenced by it. So What About JK Rowling? She’s not dead. In fact, she’s still saying harmful things, even as we speak. Instead of listening to her readers, who (at least initially) approached her in love, trying to help her understand, she doubled down, rejected their experience and their words, and in the process, caused an unbelievable amount of pain. Here’s the thing about la mort de l’auteur: it is entirely up to you whether to apply it to what you read, or to simply discard the whole thing and find less troublesome authors. Both roads are valid. In no way do I condone her attacks on the trans community, or her persistent sharing of misinformation. I choose to apply la mort de l’auteur for the simple reason that I benefited from the good things she’s written, and I wanted to share them with you. However, if you aren’t comfortable doing that, you are absolutely welcome to walk away. In fact, I’d suggest these writing articles instead: Neil Gaiman’s rules of writing, or how to create your own rules of writing. Okay. Awkward stuff done. Ready to dive into the process stuff instead? Let’s go! 9 Rules From JK Rowling’s Writing Process Over the course of her writing career, Rowling shared a lot of solid writing wisdom, and in my opinion, eight writing rules stand out—along with a ninth we can apply from her choices since. Whether or not you’re writing your first book like Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone) or last book in a series (like Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), I think these rules speak to Ms. Joanne Rowling’s philosophy on writing.They are great writing tips for you to reflect on in your spare moments and then apply to your writing process, for short stories, novels, bestsellers, or even the first time you’ve ever attempted a book. Rule One: Protect your writing time “Be ruthless about protecting writing days, i.e., do not cave in to endless requests to have “essential” and “long overdue” meetings on those days. The funny thing is that, although writing has been my actual job for several years now, I still seem to have to fight for time in which to do it.” This is especially hard for those of us with family. Our loved ones come first, and while that is important, our loved ones also need to understand that we need time to write. Setting reasonable boundaries is a crucial step for a writer—even if they’re as simple as, “Mommy needs fifteen minutes of quiet time, okay?” If you have trouble setting boundaries with loved ones, try setting a reasonable boundary for one week. See how it goes. If it’s too much time or too little, tweak it. Establish a routine that signals to others that it’s your writing time, but also lets them know that outside of your writing space, you’re there for them. Not only will this teach the importance of flexibility and discipline to others, but also that your writing is valuable. It’s your work, and your dream! Needing quiet time to write doesn’t mean that you don’t love your family. Your writing deserves your time, too. Open communication about this can help everyone understand and respect that. Rule Two: Treat your writing like a job “You’ve got to work. It’s about structure. It’s about discipline.” It’s easy to forget that writing is a job. We don’t always feel like doing our job. We certainly don’t always feel inspired. To be writers, we must train ourselves to sit down and write even when we don’t feel like it. Those moments are the ones that really matter, even more than the shining, flying, muse-kissed moments.Writing when we don’t feel like it is what turn amateurs into professionals and rough drafts into polished manuscripts. “The muse works for you. You don’t write at her beck and call—you train her to show up when you’re writing. “ Rule Three: Believe you ARE a writer “I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.” Yes, writing is possible with another job. Yes, writing is possible with other responsibilities. Are you a writer? (I know your inner critic snarled no, but I also know a tiny candle-flicker of unquenchable hope in you whispered yes with so much longing you could cry.) You ARE a writer. That means you write. A runner runs. A painter paints. A cook cooks. You are a writer. You write. Accept this, fight to believe it, and be amazed at how far that takes you. Rule Four: Write what you know “Write what you know: your own interests, feelings, beliefs, friends, family and even pets will be your raw materials when you start writing.” This doesn’t mean you need to experience aliens in order to write about them. It means that all good stories have universal application. A great example is this Google Doodle. (Trust me. I’m going somewhere with this.) Take two minutes and thirty-six seconds to watch this: Halloween 2017 Google Doodle: Jinx’s Night Out It’s adorable, right? Without a single word, this video told an effective story. You felt for the little ghost, both when it was sad and when it was happy, right? News flash: you’re not a ghost. That was universal application. It doesn’t matter what culture you’re from or what language you speak; all human beings know what it is to be lonely, to feel left out, to be frustrated, determined, and to finally be with friends. That story works because the creators used their interests, feelings, beliefs, friends, family and even pets to tell this story. (I’m fond of the kitty, myself.) I’m greatly oversimplifying, but here’s the gist: you already know how to tell a moving story because you live one. If you’ve ever had emotions, ever responded to anything, then you already know what universal application looks like. Listen to the people around you, and apply empathy. You don’t have to be a ghost to write a good ghost story. Rule Five: Read “I always advise children who ask me for tips on being a writer to read as much as they possibly can. Jane Austen gave a young friend the same advice, so I’m in good company there.” Read. Read. Read some more! The more you read, the bigger your arsenal of words will be. The more you read, the better your grasp of metaphor, poetry, beauty, passion, and empathy will be. The more you read, the greater you will be as a writer (and probably human being). It’s like learning more dance moves or impressively difficult notes on an instrument. The more you learn, the better you’ll be. So read in your genre. Read outside your genre. Get in the habit of finding time to pick up a book instead of your phone (unless it’s to open up another book.) You DO have the time to read. Even if that’s just ten minutes a day. Any time counts. And the more stories you read, the more likely you’ll start to implicitly develop the skills you need to become a great writer. Rule Six: Persevere “Perseverance is absolutely essential, not just to produce all those words, but to survive rejection and criticism.” This is one of those unpleasant truths about publishing: you’re gonna get rejected. A lot. I wish there were a way around this. Harry Potter was turned down again and again because that’s just the way it goes sometimes. And it isn’t only publishers: when you get published, and your work is out there, you’ll get bad reviews, too. Mostly, they’ll just be people who don’t understand what you’re doing. Intellectually, you’ll know that. Your heart, on the other hand, is going to break into a thousand pieces. But here’s the secret: you can’t stop writing because of push-back. You MUST NOT stop writing because of push-back. Keep going. Don’t stop. When you get rejected, pick up your pen and keep going (and use the way you feel to put more universal application into your work). And when you’re feeling really discouraged? Remember that when someone doesn’t like your book, they might also just not be your ideal reader. That person just wasn’t your target audience.If your book isn’t to someone’s taste, that’s all right. It will be to someone else’s.Keep writing your book, because your ideal readers need it. Rule Seven: Bring your whole self to the page “What you write becomes who you are … So make sure you love what you write!” Writing is a little like a Mobius strip, in a way: Your beliefs and experiences and feelings all help craft your writing. However, your writing clarifies, corrects, and often reveals your beliefs, experiences, and feelings. As you write, you’ll discover things about yourself. You’ll clarify things, too, because it’s only as you come to write them that you realize they needed clarification in the first place. Now, understand: this means that if you haven’t given yourself a good look to find your biases (we all have them), you will bring those to the page, too. It’s important to see who you are as you bring your whole self to the page. Writing is a brave, bold venture, and life-altering discovery is part of the journey. Rule Eight: Accept that failure is part of the process “Failure is inevitable—make it a strength. You have to resign yourself to the fact that you waste a lot of trees before you write anything you really like, and that’s just the way it is. It’s like learning an instrument, you’ve got to be prepared for hitting wrong notes occasionally, or quite a lot. I wrote an awful lot before I wrote anything I was really happy with.” Failure is normal. Also, it is okay. You’re going to write a lot of crap. You’re going to push past those things and write more crap. It may take you twelve years. It may take you a million words. If it does, then you’re on the right path—the same one your favorite authors walk. Accept that it will take time, and that sometimes, your pencil won’t be your friend. If you accept it, then when it happens, you won’t throw in the towel and set the house on fire. Instead, you’ll be able to go, “Well, dang; that sucked, didn’t it? Knew it would happen. Time to write some more.” Rule Nine: Respect Your Reader Sadly, this rule doesn’t come from writing advice she’s given, but in a way, it’s the final conclusion of the previous eight. This involves bringing your whole self to the page. This involves empathy and universal application. This involves perseverance, never quitting, and willingness to tackle your writing troubles. If your readers value what you created, they will listen to what you say. Your words have the power to uplift or hurt others. None of us can ever really know where someone else is coming from, and it’s essential that both our stories and our interactions reflect respect. Respect yourself enough to be a better person. Respect your readers enough to hear what they have to say. This sounds scary, I know, but I promise you, it’s worth it.

#how to write #writing advice #writing #tw jk rowling #jkr #jk rowling #tw long post #long post #long text post #top writing advice #rules for writing

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elvendara · 4 years

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MM Fluff Week 2020 day 4

Day 4: Accomplishments ♡ Mysme Friendships

For @mmfluffweek

This one seemed a bit clunky, but IDK, hope you like it anyway!

Yoosung straightened his yellow bowtie yet again and ran fingers through his hair. He went back and forth on whether he should wear his hair clips. In the end, he put them on, after all, Saeran liked them and that’s all that mattered. They were silver with small diamond stars on them. A gift from the twins on his last birthday. Saeran had designed them and helped Saeyoung craft them. If he was honest, they were probably his most prized possession. Taking a deep breath and one final look at himself he nodded and walked out.

This was his only suit, but it had held up well. The sleeves might be a bit small now, he must have grown some, but otherwise fit properly. It was a deep blue that Saeran liked on him, which was a big plus. He was excited and a bit nervous, but he supposed tonight was probably not much different than an RFA party where there would be some wealthy and famous guests. Of course, Yoosung never actually had to mingle with those guests. His duties were more the backstage variety.

He stepped out of his apartment building to a waiting limo. The chauffeur nodded to him as he opened the door.

“Thank you.” Yoosung said.

“My pleasure sir.” The man closed the door as Yoosung settled onto the seat. He’d been in limos before, while accompanying Jumin, but never had one all to himself. It felt silly and wasteful, but Saeran had insisted. It took about fifteen minutes to get to their next destination. The chauffeur once more opened the door, this time to let Saeran in. The man looked stunning, taking Yoosung’s breath away. His red hair was slicked back, his mint colored eyes noticeably not hiding behind the fringe. The black eyeliner was expertly applied, as always, and his studded choker was around his neck. He wore a red Tshirt under a black coat, black jeans and his biker boots. How long since he’d dressed that way? Yoosung had to resist an urge to reach over and ruffle his hair.

Yoosung scooted over to make room for the man next to him, which he took. He turned to him and grinned, green eyes gleaming, but a little terrified as well.

“You look amazing.” He said.

“So do you, I’m glad you decided for this look.” Yoosung admired his boyfriend.

“Uh, yeah…not sure how it will go over though.” Saeran swallowed. Yoosung reached for his hand, it was sweaty.

“Nervous?”

“Shit yeah!” Saeran answered honestly. Yoosung laughed and lay his head on the other man’s shoulder.

“Don’t be, it’s going to be incredible, you’ll see.”

“I…I’m just afraid I’ll let everyone down.”

“You won’t.”

“I wish I could be as confident as you.”

“You don’t have to be, all of us are cheering you on, and even if nobody else likes it, we all love it!” Yoosung turned Searan’s face towards him and kissed him lightly. This was Saeran’s night and he was going to do everything in his power to make it a great one.

Saeran smiled, the tension in his body eased and he reached for the hair clips in Yoosung’s blonde hair. “You wore them.”

“Of course! They’re my lucky charm!” he giggled.

“I’m glad. And grateful for you, being here with me. I can’t imagine having done this by myself without you by my side.”

“You just needed a little push is all.”

“I don’t know. The man I used to be…well…”

“But that wasn’t the real you, it just took you a while to realize who you really are, without all that…uh…”

“It’s OK. I know you’re right. And I know that it will probably be a lifelong journey for me. But I hope you stay by my side.”

“Always.” They exchanged several more kisses before the limo stopped once more. When the door opened, Saeran stepped out into a few lightbulb flashes. He held out his hand for Yoosung, who took it eagerly. There was some media and some onlookers who looked more confused than anything, wondering if they were celebrities of some sort. His amethyst eyes blinked at the crowd, but Saeran only had eyes for him, placing his arm around his waist and leading them inside the art gallery.

The rest of the RFA was already inside, Jaehee and MC in stunning gowns fit for the Oscars. Jumin and Zen both handsome in their tails, Jumin in black, Zen in white, making an ethereal pair. Saeyoung on the other hand, wore a white buttoned long sleeved dress shirt with his regular black and orange hoodie, his hair in it’s usual disarray. Yoosung simply shook his head.

“Little bro! Making the fashionable entrance huh?” Saeyoung hugged him, and the others followed after. Saeran looked a bit awkward and uncomfortable but he handled it well.

“Mr. Choi. I’m so pleased you have arrived, there are several people who have been asking for you. May I take you from your friends?” The woman wore a black cocktail dress, her dark hair in a high tight ponytail, her grey eyes alert and determined.

“Uh…” Saeran stuttered.

“It’s OK, I think we’ll manage.” Yoosung shooed him away. Saeran nodded and let the woman lead him away like a trapped animal.

“He seems to barely be holding on.” Zen laughed sipping from his champagne goblet.

“Give him time, he’ll grow into it. V never much cared for the personal attention either.” Jumin said.

“But V used his charm effectively, I’m not sure Saeran has that same ability.” Jaehee said.

“No, but I think this really has helped him come out of his shell a bit more with other people. Although, I think he enjoys taking photographs because it allows him hide behind the camera.” Yoosung answered.

“Yep, but now he can’t!” Saeyoung laughed. “Can you believe my little brother has his own gallery showing? Not to mention all that social media blowing up over his photos! He’s going to be bigger than V ever was!”

“And I wonder who made that happen.” MC arched her eyebrow at her husband.

“Is it wrong of me to promote my little bro?” Saeyoung asked offended.

“No, but it might be to do it by hacking.” Zen laughed.

“Is that so? Hmm, remind me again, who reblogged onto all his own social media sites?” Saeyoung said.

Zen looked away without answering.

“It was something I never thought I would see, Zen posting something that wasn’t his face or body.” Jumin smirked. Zen slapped his arm but Jumin only laughed and pulled the man close, giving him a peck on the cheek.

“He did take some photos of me as well! I was only trying to help him.” Zen pouted.

“Absolutely my love.” Jumin nodded and went silent.

Yoosung was barely paying any attention as his eyes were on Saeran. In the last few years he’d come leaps and bounds from the man he used to be. There was still that hard shell, but once inside, there was a soft gooey center that was still so very fragile and vulnerable. He cherished the man, the good and the bad, and he was overwhelmingly happy that things were looking up for him. The photos he took were stunning. You couldn’t help but feel something when you saw them. Saeyoung was right, V was incredible, but there was a different perspective to the way Saeran saw the world. The truth of it. That while there was great beauty, there was also great sorrow.

After an hour Saeran finally made his way back to Yoosung.

“Can we go now?” he whispered in desperation.

“No, you promised you’d stay at least until ten.” Yoosung answered.

“What time is it now?”

“Just after nine.”

“Ugh…”

“Come on, why don’t you take me on a tour?”

“You’ve already seen them all.”

“Yes, but, I’d love to hear your perspective on them, you know, explain it to me as if I’ve never seen it before. Besides, it will give you an excuse to stay with me and ignore all these people.” Yoosung grinned.

“True!” Saeran’s eyes lit up. “OK, let’s start over there.” He took Yoosung’s hand and headed towards the center of the gallery. Yoosung didn’t move. “What?”

“I’m so proud of you Saeran.” Yoosung said, eyes glittering with happiness.

Saeran blushed and looked away, but there was a small smile playing around his lips. “You don’t have to say that.” He mumbled.

“I know I don’t have to. I want to. And I am, so very proud. And happy to be here with you. What you’ve done in incredible Saeran. You should be proud of yourself too.”

Saeran sighed and pulled the man closer. Yoosung was sure now, he had definitely grown, he was almost eye to eye with Saeran, if he hadn’t been wearing those biker boots, he might even be taller than the red head now. They embraced and kissed. Flashes exploded around them, but they were oblivious.

#my posts #mmfluffweek2020 #day 4 #accomplishments #Yoosung Kim #Saeran Choi #Saeyoung #Jumin #MC #Jaehee #Zen #JuZen #YOORAN #clunky #uh...not sure about the end #mysme #mystic messenger #sexy emo Saeran

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obviouslyelementary · 4 years

Text

Confessions over Ice Cream

Am I going to supply the Nog/Jake fandom with all teh fanfics I can muster? Absolutely.

I hope my old followers don’t mind.

(MIght make a dirty follow up if it comes up)

Tags: first kiss; confessions; the ds9 crew being annoying; mentions of oo-mox

-------------------------

Another dangerous mission. Another set of nights without sleep, drifting off one or two hours before waking up on a rush with any sound that made its way to his ears. More and more he felt sympathy over misses O'Brien, having to stay aware of her husband through subspace communications or his father's own words. It was quite difficult, he understood it now. And Nog wasn't even his husband!

He was his friend.

Only his friend.

Jake caught himself thinking about that way more often than he would like to admit. They had been friends for years now, way too long, and it didn't seem to get any simpler. In fact, everything was turning out to be more and more complicated. He realized his feelings for Nog when he was what, fourteen? Fifteen maybe? Now he was past his twenties and that god damn feeling never left, in fact, it became stronger. One look at him and his heart jumped, his lungs squeezed and his stomach turned. Well, not anymore, but it used to do that. Now seeing Nog meant he was safe, and sound, and it brought a nice warmth to Jake's chest.

Julian and Dax knew about it, and wondered time and time again when he would open up the game. He insisted to them he would, eventually, when the time was right, but it never seemed quite right. In fact, he hadn't even summoned up courage to ask Rom or Quark about Ferengis and, well, same gender relationships. He did his research, and nothing he looked through seemed to point out any resistance against it, but who knew? And besides, every time he believed the timing was right, either he or Nog were in a relationship with someone else, and that always stopped him in his tracks.

But now, oh, he was regretting his cowardness. Nog had been away in a dangerous mission into the Gama quadrant for weeks, and hadn't returned yet. It was a mission supposed to last two weeks total, but they were coming around to the fourth with barely no contact between him and his team and the station. Last time they had contact had been two days prior, and everything seemed fine, but Jake couldn't shake away the feeling that something wasn't right.

It could be his anxiety talking, but still.

He was so nervous in fact that even his books weren't being touched. He hadn't written a single word since Nog didn't return on schedule, so there were seven days and counting without any progress. He didn't like it, he didn't like standing still and waiting, but he had to. He couldn't grab a vessel and run after him.

But he could pray, and hope, that Nog would be back soon. And indeed, someone in the vast universe heard him, because on the next day his father said that Nog and his ship would be back in three days. Apparently the delay was caused by a phenomenon they wanted to investigate before returning, not that Jake understood or cared about that space crap. Nog was coming back, and that was all that mattered.

On the day they were scheduled to arrive, Jake didn't sleep a single second, and he was right at the doors together with the senior officers to greet the ship's personal. As the officers left the ship and got into the station, Jake did his best to greet them without seeming too disinterested, but there was only one pair of ears he was waiting for.

Nog was one of the last ones to leave, luckily for the rest, because Jake grinned at him and hugged the Ferengi without caring about leaving the passageway open for the rest. Nog was quick to hug him back, finally having learned that some human affection didn't hurt, and even though Odo tried to tell them to leave, he had a heart not to bother them too much.

And after Nog finally greeted Kira, Dax, Julian and his father, they were finally free to leave and have a more private talk.

"really Jake it was incredible! The formation of a nebula right in front of our eyes?! I have never seen anything so beautiful!" Nog said, ranting on and on about the trip, something Jake didn't care at all, specially over some delicious betazoid ice cream. "I-I'm sorry, I'm making this all about myself again... how were your days here at the station?"

"You have all the right to make this about yourself, my days here were as boring as ever" Jake chuckled, getting a spoonful of ice cream into his mouth. The bar was quiet, empty. It early still for movement, and Quark and Rom were looking over the profits of the morning while preparing for the night shift. The station had an air of calmness around it, and they were pretty much alone, and Jake felt it. Like he felt the other times.

Maybe it was time to just... spill it out.

"Jake-"

"Nog-"

They stopped and looked at each other, before Nog snorted and Jake chuckled, shaking his head.

"Go ahead" Nog said, but Jake shook his head and nodded to him.

"No please, be my guest. What is it?"

"Alright alright" Nog grinned. "Jake, something amazing happened. I have to tell you. I'm so excited."

"Oh now I'm curious. What is it?" he asked, eyes widening as he leaned closer. Nog did it too, their noses almost touch.

"Jake... I got promoted" he said, giggling loudly, and Jake's eyes widened before he laughed and reached out for his friend, holding his shoulder.

"Oh my god Nog that's amazing! Congratulations!" he said, smiling at his friend's excitement. "Should I call you captain now?"

"Come on" he groaned, pushing Jake despite having a smile on his face. "You know I'm not even close to captain. But now I am a junior officer. Isn't that cool?!"

"It's cooler than cool! Ice cold" Jake exclaimed, and Nog grinned widely, tapping his shoulder. "I bet you are going to be captain in record time!"

"I wish" he chuckled, shaking his head and returning his attention to the ice cream. "So, what did you want to tell me?"

"Oh... yeah that, it's not half as exciting as a promotion" Jake chuckled, weakly, feeling as if the moment was already gone. Nog frowned and shook his head.

"Jake, no! I bet whatever it is will be very exciting! Let me guess... you finished your book?" he asked, and Jake shook his head. "No, I see I see... you started a new one? No? Okay you... you got a girlfriend?!"

"No Nog! Oh my, not even close!" Jake laughed because what else would he do. "No no no, none of that... it's just... it's nothing really."

"Nothing? Jake you never hid anything from me. Spill it out" Nog insisted, frowning at Jake, who felt bad for both of them. He sighed, nervously, and then nodded.

"Alright. Alright I will tell you. I love you" Jake said, like a band aid. Ripping it off. He looked down at his ice cream for a moment and then at Nog, who seemed to be waiting, and then became confused.

"Okay? I love you too. Now tell me what's up" he said, looking honestly concerned now, but Jake felt his cheeks warming up and shook his head.

"No Nog. That's it. I love you. I'm in love with you" he said, slowly, and Nog narrowed his eyes before they widened, his mouth opening slightly. "I told you, way less cool than being promoted."

"I..." Nog started, while Jake played with his ice cream, not really knowing how to make this easier. "Jake... What..."

"Yeah, I know it's a bit out of the blue, but it's the truth" he said, shrugging and looking at Nog with an awkward smile. "No hard feelings, I hope?"

"Jake... this... is this serious?" he asked, as if he didn't believe him, and Jake nodded as patiently as ever. "I... I don't know what to say..."

"Then don't say anything" Jake said, shaking his head. "You don't have to say anything. If you don't want to. Or you can say what's in your mind. Whatever that may be."

"In... my mind" Nog said, softly, and looked down at his dessert. "I mean... Ferengis don't really... have relationships with other species' males..." he tried, but jake shook his head.

"Okay don't... say what's in your head, say what's in your heart... unless your heart wants to punch me. Please don't punch me" he said, making Nog chuckle weakly despite his utterly confused face.

"I am not... going to punch you" he assured, in a way that didn't make Jake too confidant of the promise. "I just... don't... know."

"It's... it's fine if you don't know, I just don't want it to ruin our friendship. I just can't keep it to myself anymore. I was so worried about you during this mission and I was tired of being a coward that never... told you the truth" Jake admitted, sighing to himself. "At least this way, if something happens to you... you will know-"

"That you love me?" Nog finished, and Jake swallowed thickly before nodding. "Okay... I think... I think I have an answer for you."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah but it's not... verbal."

"It's not punching me, is it?"

Nog chuckled again, and despite that, Jake was still nervous, not really knowing what Nog was going to do. Then he shook his head, seeming a little calmer.

"No, I'm not going to punch you" he said, and leaned closer to Jake. "Do you trust me?"

Oh, Jake did. He trusted him with his life.

With a nod, he watched as Nog sighed, leaning over the table and getting closer and closer to Jake, tilting his head and gently, very delicately pressing their lips together. Jake's eyes fluttered closed, and he held the spoon tightly in his hand, never expecting but also wishing he could kiss Nog like this every day. Their first kiss after a childhood of hidden and repressed feelings, it sure felt much better than any girl or guy he had kissed before.

However, it didn't last long, because both of them heard a quite loud 'YES' coming from behind a set of flowers, and they pulled away to see no one other than Dax there, looking over at them, somewhat embarrassed.

"Yes, I just won... on tabo... yes" she tried, and then sighed. "They are not gonna fall for it, are they?"

"Absolutely not" Jake heard his father say, his head popping from behind the flowers next to Dax.

"Dad?!" Jake squealed, feeling even more embarrassed, but he wasn't alone. Julian appeared from Dax's other side, looking over.

"Well, at least we were able to capture this unique moment" he said, and Benjamin looked at him unamused, before Kira looked over with O'Brien.

"Can we please leave? This was such a waste of time" she complained, and Dax showed her the tongue just before the flower stand transformed into goo and then into Odo, who was shaking his head.

"Odo? Even you?!" Nog asked, clearly embarrassed out of his mind, but the shapeshifter just grunted.

"I was the only one supposed to be here. I don't trust you two together" he said, and then looked at the others. "They just decided to come with me, for a change."

"Alright alright could you all just leave or ask for something to drink? The boys are having a moment here, shoo" Quark complained from the bar, waving his hands at them while Jake let his head fall over the table and Nog shook his head, blushing up to his ears.

"This is the worst" Jake mumbled, and looked up at Nog as the others continued their discussion, accusing Quark of also being there to spy on his nephew. "We should probably get out of here."

"Could we go... somewhere we can continue what we stopped?" Nog suggested, seeming to blush even brighter, and Jake smiled at him before nodding, reaching for his hand and standing up.

"I know a place" he said, and pulled Nog out of the bar, heading to the lift so they could be alone while the... adults kept talking. "So... you like me back?"

"I did say I love you too, didn't I?" Nog smiled, more relaxed and almost softer than Jake had ever seen him. "Although... I never expected you to like me back."

"I never expected you to like me" Jake said, and then leaned closer, smiling down at his... friend? Partner? Lover? Boyfriend? He didn’t know yet. "But now that I know you do... I've always been curious to try out some of that oo-mox your uncle talks so much about."

"Oh my merchants Jake!" Nog squealed, pushing him away and getting a laugh out of him. "That is so inappropriate!"

"Not for a Ferengi is not. They do it all the time!"

"It's a business strategy and yes, my uncles does it too much. It is very intimate, no matter what he says."

"Has anyone ever-"

"NO! And I'm not like other Ferengi, I'm a star fleet officer!"

"Oh come on, just lemme touch it?"

"No!"

"Please?"

"M-maybe but when we are alone!"

"Like in our quarters?"

"... p-perhaps."

"Nice."

#my fanfic #jake sisko #nog #nohjay #noh-jay #jake/nog #nog/jake #ds9 #deep space nine #my favorite boys #first kiss #confessions #they are both 20 something and stupid #oo-mox #mention only

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fics-of-my-mind · 4 years

Text

Trust - Chapter VII.

'Nick, just leave me alone,' I said answering the phone. My voice was way too whiny for my liking.

'Talk to me, please,' he replied sounding tense and a bit worried. 'I know that I didn't have time to talk, since Priyanka interrupted us, but...'

'Yeah, and now that you have, do you expect me to just be on standby and jump into a conversation when you give me the honor of talking to me?!' I asked, my bitter self trying to push him as far away as possible.

'No, but...'

'I'm not just someone that you can go to whenever you feel like it, then don't give a shit about for days.' I know that I was overreacting, yet I couldn't stop myself. I was irritated and having period cramps and the two together didn't lead to any good.

'I'm sorry that I made you feel like that,' he said calmly, and I hated that only from hearing his voice I was already feeling calmer. 'I just couldn't get away, Priyanka knows that something is up.'

'And what is that?' I asked quietly, biting my lip. Not that I was in the mood for this conversation but we might as well did it now. 'What are we doing?'

He was quiet for a while. Then I could hear him sigh deeply.

'I don't know.' His voice was uneasy and unsure.

Warnings: mature content, BDSM content Pairing: Nick Jonas / Other Female Character This fanfiction can also be found on Wattpad by fnntth

I don’t own Nick Jonas or any other recognizable characters. This fanfiction is completely fictional, its only purpose is entertainment.

Chapter VII. - Play me your guitar, that song I love

Nick’s texts are bold

Milla’s texts are italic

'What have you been doing today?' Nick asked. We've been on the phone for the past twenty minutes, the mood between us extremely flirty and light. I guess that's what FaceTime sex does to you. I would've expected it to be awkward, but we weren't at that phase yet, I guess. We were avoiding talking about last night like real mature adults.

'Not much,' I shrugged. 'I've been fangirling,' I brought up the topic. Truth is, I wanted to talk to him about some recent discoveries I've made in the past few hours, just didn't know how to bring up the topic.

'Oh, really?' he asked cheekily. 'I thought as a great Jonas Brothers fan for life there is nothing new for you,' he noted, and I could almost see the conceited smirk on his face.

'There is barely anything about you that could surprise me, but...' I started, biting my lip.

'I'm not going to like this, am I?' Nick asked, his senses working perfectly.

'Probably no.' There was a pretty big chance that he is no going to like the topic, but after everything I've read on Tumblr and Wattpad for the past few hours – really, I could still be surprised of how easy it was to get lost in the sea of information and theories -, I needed to know what was true. 'Demi Lovato,' I said her name, having a feeling that he'd get the idea of my recent reads.

'I had a feeling you weren't just going to let that go,' he noted, sounding a bit frustrated. I didn't care. Nick knew almost everything about me and my life, it was only fair if I got to take a glance in his.

'Well, I mean, she is one of my teenage idols. I love her voice, I've loved her songs.'

'Yeah, so did I,' he sighed deeply. I imagine this must've been an uncomfortable topic for him, but wasn't the point of this whole 'friendship' to be open with each other? Most of the things I've told Nick made me very uncomfortable too, but I still did it.

'Something happened between you two,' I started.

'What do you think exactly happened between us?' he asked. I wasn't even surprised that he didn't just start to share the story right away, but rather made me tell him that I think went down. He could've just shot me down, saying that he wasn't going to talk about it, but for whatever reason he didn't. Maybe he presumed that if he wasn't going to share, I wasn't going to share either.

'You want to know how much the fans could see of it?' I asked. It was kind of interesting, talking with him about this. We got a basis of comparison about how much the outside world could actually guess about the events between two celebrities.

'I do,' he replied. 'I promise I'll tell you what actually happened, I'd just like to hear how the outside world perceived it.'

I could understand where he was coming from. This could give him an insight on how to do things if he actually wanted to keep his private life private. I felt so touched that he didn't even try to deny answering my question. I had no idea why he trusted me this much. I mean, yes, I've told him some of my deepest darkest fears and concerns, but I was a no one compared to him. My private life getting out in the open didn't matter, while his private life being leaked could lead to serious troubles. Not that I had any intention of betraying his trust, but the mere fact of Nick not being concerned about me selling him out, had me in awe. I don't think anyone has ever laid such trust in me.

'You and Demi were best friends. First your success as Jonas Brothers boosted hers, then after the band broke up, her success boosted your solo career. You did interviews together, mutually promoted each other, went on tour together.'

'Everything you've said is correct,' he replied carefully, waiting for me to continue.

'Somewhere along the line you started to have feelings for each other. You had the question whether or not ruining the friendship between you two was worth it, whether it could become something serious. I imagine you were the one that didn't want to risk it, since Demi wrote those songs about you.'

'I was,' he nodded. 'I'm not sure they were romantic feelings in the beginning anyway. Maybe it was just pure lust, I mean, we were both sexy, both single, maybe something just brought our attraction towards each other to the surface.'

'I think you were extremely annoyed about the songs,' I chuckled, continuing my presumptions. I loved those songs by the way, I always thought that Demi was an incredible artist and both Only Forever and Ruin The Friendship were amazing songs.

'Why would you think that?' he asked, sounding a bit amused.

'Because you're a control freak,' I shrugged. At this point of our acquaintance it wasn't an assumption, it was more of a fact. He didn't even try to deny it. 'And Demi just wrote a song with not only some hints, but your initials in the lyrics. Everybody knew it was about you, and, well, Ruin The Friendship was also kind of candid,' I explained. 'But I guess the songs did the trick in the end, didn't they?'

'I was so mad at her,' he said, reminiscing. 'I always tried to keep my personal life, most of my feelings under wraps, until at least I was sure of where things were going. Yet here comes Demi and tells the world about what was going on between us.'

'What is the 'you're only brave in the moonlight' thing about? Did you two sleep together earlier, or...?'

'No,' he replied instantly. 'But we did talk about crossing the line a few times, usually when we were both drained or tired or emotional and not thinking clearly.'

'So when did you two cross the line?' I asked, the fangirl in me being on her peak. This was amazing, I was getting details that I never thought I'd hear.

'Last night of tour,' Nick sighed. 'It would've been stupid to try anything until we had to constantly work together.'

'And what happened?' I continued the questioning. 'I mean, the girl was so clearly in love with you.' Not that I could blame her.

I didn't want to assume what exactly went down between them, I was hoping that Nick would tell me. Sure, I've read fan theories, even some fanfictions, but hearing the tale of two friends becoming more from the first hand seemed like the most reliable source.

'Yeah, she was.' His voice sounded sad, and I suddenly felt guilty from bringing up old scars just because I was curious. 'I wasn't. For me it turned out to be only lust and extremely deep love for my best friend. I'm not saying that it couldn't have worked, but... I was young and didn't think that a relationship I needed to work hard for, even if it was with someone as amazing as Demi was worth my time. I wanted to concentrate on my career and...' he stopped.

'And the friendship was ruined?' I guessed quietly. It was a sad story, something I really felt bad about.

'Exactly. We were stupid to ruin something great in our lives.'

'Did you try to fix it?'

'Sure. But Demi said she couldn't be my friend, that she needed time, then she started getting into bad crowds and using again, and...'

He didn't have to finish the story. Demi Lovato overdosed and almost died. The media was full of that story, and Demi was gone for a long time after that. I'm sure that there were parts that I could've asked about, like if Joe and his past relationship with Demi was a factor in all this, but I felt like this information was already much more that I could expect from Nick.

'I'm sorry,' I said. 'For asking, and bringing it up.'

'Don't apologize for wanting to get to know the real me, Milla,' he said quietly. He's said this countless times before, but I still felt like I was intruding in the private life he's worked so hard for to keep private. 'I don't apologize from asking about your life either.'

'It wasn't your fault, you know,' I said carefully, sensing that Nick was partly blaming himself for Demi's overdose. I mean, they were friends, then they did something stupid that they couldn't fix and the she almost died. I've known Nick for long enough to know that it couldn't be something that he took so lightly.

'Thank you, but—' his answer was suddenly cut into half, when another voice joined in our very private conversation.

'Nick? What are you doing? Why aren't you in bed?'

Even if I didn't know the voice, I could've guessed. It was Priyanka.

My heart instantly started racing faster, and my breath caught up in my throat. Nick was also startled, judging from his lack of answer for a minute.

'I'll be right there, Pri,' he said uneasily, his voice a trembling a little, before disconnecting the call without another word.

This was more than enough to make me feel like a dirty mistress, someone that could be just shaken off when the wife entered the scene. Nick's 'I'm so sorry' text a few seconds later didn't exactly help ease my thoughts.

We've barely talked the next day. Or the day after that. Or the day after that. It was all making me crazy and surprisingly sad.

So, I'm watching Camp Rock

I sent the text biting my lip. It was four days later and I had no idea where we stood. We went four days with not speaking more than some basic 'how was your day' texts and it was making me go crazy in my head. At least I've had work to take my mind off things, but it wasn't really helping.

After partly getting over the event of hearing Priyanka calling Nick to bed, my mind kept racing around that night. How aroused I was, how sexy Nick looked. How he had control over me, even though he was far, far away. How sensitive I was and what unknown things I've felt.

Not that I could fully let go of the wife thing. Feeling guilty was something I've never expected to come. Yet, as I kept thinking about Nick, about how much I wanted him, how he's been acting, the constant texts, phone calls, face times and opening up to each other, I couldn't help but feel guilt crawling into my bones.

He was married. Married to an amazing and beautiful woman. A woman loved by millions, fans shipping them all around the world. He's had a very public relationship, engagement and wedding to that woman. His family's welcomed her into their circle. Even though everything we've been doing seemed harmless, somehow I didn't feel like it was anymore. Not with sex being on the table, even if just as a conversation topic.

It clearly wasn't just a fan crush anymore. It started to turn into something real, with real things happening between us, even if just online, 6000 miles apart. I didn't know what to expect, what to hope, everything was making me feel crazy, especially the fact that we went days without a normal conversation.

I've missed his voice, his texts and it scared the shit out of me. I've never felt this about anyone, especially not someone like Nick. I don't know if it was the sex talk part of our relationship, or just the fact that for two months we were constantly connected to each other via our phones, but I missed him bad. So, I dug up my old fangirling ways and started watching one of the earliest programs I ever laid eyes on him: Camp Rock.

I or II?

You started to be hot in this one.

started to?

I know you hate to hear it, but Joe was hotter than you back then

He didn't answer for minutes and I just started thinking that I shouldn't have said that when my phone buzzed again.

the only thing that matters is I'm hotter now

been hotter ever since the band went on a hiatus

I smiled at him not saying that the Jonas Brothers ended, but putting it as if it was just a hiatus. I knew he blamed himself, it was clear from interviews, even though he tried to play it cool. Always said that at least he got the band back together. But whenever we've talked about it, I could feel his guilt that was still there.

I don't know about that

Joe was so hot in See No More

is this a hint to give you my brother's number so you can stalk him?

I rolled my eyes at him. Even though I'd probably go into fangirl mode if he sent me Joe's number, he wasn't the Jonas I wanted to be connected to.

Don't worry

that damn shirtless selfie made you hotter

C'mon, we all know which selfie I was talking about.

I'm glad

Okay.

His answers were kind of short and emotionless. It's like he didn't want to talk, or he tried to keep the texting as short as possible. Any other time I would've assumed that he was with Priyanka, but now, thanks to us barely talking for days and what happened between us a few nights ago, plus almost getting caught, my mind was heading towards darker places.

Maybe this was it.

Maybe this should be it.

Maybe this was all he wanted. Some fun with a girl he was never going to see again.

Maybe now that it was risky for us to talk, he didn't want to do it anymore.

I wasn't going to push myself on him – not that I could really. If he wanted to talk, he'd text or call me. Otherwise I had to try and let this go. Not that this was going anywhere. He had a wife. We lived 6000 miles away from each other. He was Nick Jonas. Our lives weren't compatible, not at all.

I was just some girl, someone he passed the time while he was closed in his own home. Getting to know a stranger, that was interesting for the both of us. Maybe we mutually used each other to keep our minds off the current situation.

Anyway, I was a winner in this situation. I've gotten to know the Nick Jonas, the man that I've been a fan of since I was twelve. I got to learn things. I also understood better now who he was. And it wasn't just the 'Nick Jonas factor', it was also the fact that I've been talking to Nick. Just Nick. A regular boy. An amazing person. It was so worth it, even if this is it.

My stomach clenched when thinking about this being the end.

I didn't want that, I've gotten used to having him talk to me.

We went another three days with barely texting, and I was already mourning the relationship we've never even really had. I was like this at times, overthinking, letting go of things way too suddenly. I just couldn't really handle the feelings I was experiencing.

Being on my period didn't really help the case. It made my bad mood a thousand times worse.

By the time the weekend came, I was curling into fetal position on my couch, wallowing in my self-pity and thinking about how I've never truly appreciated that this was happening between us. It was like a shock, all happened so quickly and I just had to go with the flow. I was really thinking about letting go of Nick completely, like being so over-dramatic and unfollowing him on Instagram, but I couldn't make myself hit the 'unfollow' button. And, really, it was too much.

I was watching Gossip Girl, trying to get some comfort in my pain – both emotional and physical. Maybe it was a little exaggeration, but I was actually in a lot of pain. I felt more alone than ever, I wanted this coronavirus situation to finally be over, I wanted to see my friends and I wanted Nick. I would've given anything for a chance to hug him, or even, just to see his pretty face.

Yet, the moment my phone's screen lit up with his name, notifying me of an incoming call, I hit the decline button. Two minutes later, when he was calling again, I just let it ring.

I was cranky, I was whiny, I was hurting, and as much as I missed Nick, I was mad at him for ignoring me for so long.

The third time, it was a FaceTime call that I decided to ignore.

are you ignoring me?

I opened the text but left it on read. I just didn't feel it in me to communicate with him in any way. Not in my period pain, or the tiredness of the week. Not when my mind was in dark places.

so yes

Came the next text.

I won't leave you alone until you talk to me

I knew it wasn't just an empty threat. Nick definitely was the person to always get what he wants. This made me angry.

Not in the mood, Nick

what's wrong?

I scoffed and turned the phone facing down.

Nothing should've been wrong, yet I felt like everything was. I was having opposite feelings, part of me dying to hear Nick's voice and feel a bit better, the other part wanting to ignore him and let him go before he got even closer to me. He was already way too close.

My mobile buzzed with a few more text messages that I didn't even read, before he was calling me again.

'Nick, just leave me alone,' I said answering the phone. My voice was way too whiny for my liking.

'Talk to me, please,' he replied sounding tense and a bit worried. 'I know that I didn't have time to talk, since Priyanka interrupted us, but...'

'No, but...'

'I'm sorry that I made you feel like that,' he said calmly, and I hated that only from hearing his voice I was already feeling calmer. 'I just couldn't get away, Priyanka knows that something is up.'

'And what is that?' I asked quietly, biting my lip. Not that I was in the mood for this conversation but we might as well did it now. 'What are we doing?'

He was quiet for a while. Then I could hear him sigh deeply.

'I don't know.' His voice was uneasy and unsure.

'I need an answer Nick,' I shook my head. Hormones were making me go crazy, so the next moment I was on the verge of tears. 'Is it just fun for you? Just making this whole quarantine shit go away faster? I...'

'No, of course not. You know that I'm not someone who just plays around with people,' he replied instantly, almost as if he was shocked that I'd even imply that he was just using this whole thing for fun. 'C'mon, I've told you things about me that I never told anyone.'

'Then wh—, you're married,' I said. Saying the word 'married' caused me to wince. 'Whatever this is, it isn't right.' We both knew it wasn't. Even if it just started off as innocent texting, getting to know each other, when the sex talks and constant flirting began, it stopped being harmless. 'Maybe we shouldn't talk anymore.' One teardrop made its way down my cheek.

'Don't say that,' Nick said quickly. 'You don't mean that.'

I stayed quiet. I really wanted to mean it, I should've. It would've been the right thing to do. I bit my bottom lip as more and more tears started following the first one.

'Tell me what's wrong,' he asked after a few minutes of silence on the line. His voice was deep, caring, and I almost felt better as he spoke the words.

'I'm just so... alone,. I've just realized how much, when you didn't have time to talk to me, I guess,' I shrugged, drying some of my tears off. These last few days showed me how lonely I exactly was. I felt stupid, not realizing it earlier that just because we were talking with Nick, he still wasn't with me. 'Whatever, Nick, I don't want to burden you with this, you have more important prob—'

'Hey, hey, hey,' he cut into my words. 'You are never burdening me, okay? I want to know how you're feeling. What you're feeling.'

'Lonely. And... guilty.'

'Don't,' he said, and I could almost see how frustrated he was. 'Out of the two of us, you shouldn't be the one to feel guilty.'

'Do you?' I asked in a small voice.

'Yes. All the time.' His voice was firm, hones, yet somehow sensitive. 'But I also feel happy when I'm talking to you. Free. Like I can finally breath. You're like coming up for fresh air after almost drowning.'

Words. He was good with them. And they were just what my sensitive and tired soul needed to hear.

'That's very poetic, Jonas,' I said sarcastically, with a tiny smile playing on my lips. 'Almost like you're a songwriter or something.' I could her a soft chuckle from the other end of the line, and it made my heart melt. 'You know what would make me feel better?'

'What?' he asked instantly, his voice so soft.

'If my favorite Jonas Brother sang to me,' I asked sheepishly. Honestly, I have no idea why I haven't asked him before.

'I knew I was your favorite.'

A/N: Thank you so much for your feedback on the last chapter! I’m so glad that I’m not the only person liking this story.

Please share your thoughts with me! Where do you think it is going? Do you like it?

#nick jonas fanfiction #nick jonas imagine #nick jonas fic #nick x reader #jonas brothers #jonas brothers fanfiction #jonas brothers imagine #fanfiction #Nick Jonas

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consummate-deviant · 4 years

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Why I Think Entrapdak is Pretty Neat

Hello! How’s the family? Cat treating you okay? Isn’t autumn just...like… the best? Anyway, so, my Hordak thing turned out to be kinda popular. I’m flattered, really! If there are people out there willing to reward me writing stuff with positive attention, then I’ll just have to write more stuff. I mentioned back then that I had a similar write-up about Entrapdak, as a ship… and there seemed to be a little bit of interest in hearing my thoughts on the subject. So, here ya go! I’m Lancer, by the by. Not a lot to me. I’m a guy who likes things, and who enjoys articulating why I like things. I don’t really do it for any particular reason. I’m not trying to pwn haters or convert nonbelievers… As you may recall, though you might have missed it (I tend to be very lowkey and subtle about it), I’m not your dad and have no interest in the position… unless it pays. I just feel like the internet doesn’t have enough positivity, and the best way to remedy that is to produce some of my own.

As fate would have it, I like Entrapdak. A lot. I don’t ship often... a relationship has to really sync with me on a profound level to make me invested enough in it to want to write about it, but this one did it. Now, I’m not really promising originality here. As someone who explores the tag frequently, I know that plenty have expressed feelings I’m going to share with you here, many of whom did so better than I ever could, but sometimes you want to share your perspective, even if others whose opinions mirror yours have done so in the past, y’know? It’s a human thing! The relationship is a little… polarizing with people, though, I’ve noticed. A lot of people hate it, and have various reasons for doing so. Again, I ain’t here to convert you if you feel that way, but I did feel like the best way to kick things off would be to look at some of the major reasons other people tend to react to the ship like it were horseradish on a hotdog, and why those reasons don’t really bother me. A part that I, in my infinite wit and adorned in my clever pants, have dubbed:

Part 1: Entrapdak- Why I don’t hate it

***EXAMPLE THE FIRST: “HORDAK, THE AGED”***

By now it’s fairly well known that Entrapta is somewhere in the range of her late 20s to her early 30s. Now a few people refuse to accept this, citing her behavior as childish and accusing the creators of lying. I’m not really going to engage with that perspective. Hordak and Entrapta have appeared together in creator works and concept art dating back to 2017. Their interactions were intended to be a part of the show from the early stages of its creation. If you have so little faith in Noelle that you believe she planned for her story to have a romantic-coded relationship between an adult and a minor… I don’t know what I can even tell you.

Rather, the perspective that interests me comes from people who accept Entrapta being in the stated age range, but who still find themselves repulsed by the relationship on grounds of age. ‘She’s an adult, sure, but how old is Hordak? He could be in his fifties or sixties, or even be hundreds of years old.’ This point of view is at least interesting to think about, so I reckon I can share why this deal-breaker for some doesn’t really bother me.

To begin, assigning human ages, and the stigmas thereof, to an alien bat clone just feels strange to me. The Horde doesn’t seem like the type of place to want to waste resources on alien bat clone daycare... was Hordak born as an infant, or was he artificially developed to his current age? If it’s the later, do we consider him 0 years old at the moment of his birth, or already an adult? We don’t have a timescale provided to accurately determine his age, so investing too heavily in trying to learn it seems somewhat tedious and a lotofwhat pointless.

If we do, though, my next question is: what is the element of an age gap that makes it inappropriate? Now, that’s a personal question, of course. Morality isn’t something that really lends itself to objective declarations, but there are a few answers you can offer. ‘Morality’ isn’t really the operative word here anyway... since it has more to do with taste, though this particular taste does come from what you believe… Y’know, it just occurred to me, but… People who believe that their taste in ships makes them morally superior, and that ships they dislike are supported by moral degenerates, seem like people who just aren’t a lot of fun to be around or think about… but that’s a digression, I’ll refocus my thought-lazer.

For me, with age gaps, it comes down to two things:

1.) Both parties being on the same side of the child/adult divide- I should hope this one sounds reasonable, right? The ships that really powdered sugar my poptart are the ones that feel like equal partnerships, and relationships that try to cross this line tend to not be especially equal.

2.) What stage in their lives they’re at- It’s difficult for even a wizard of self expression like myself to state plainly, so let me give an example: If I saw a 25 year old dating a 50 year old, the 25-year age difference isn’t so much what makes it off-putting, but rather what those 25 years represent in this circumstance. At age 25, people are still struggling to find themselves. They’re adjusting to independence, gaining an identity, maybe finally finding an entryway into a career path that suits them. By 50, a person is already established. They likely have a career, they have a firm grasp on who they are as a person and what they want to be, and they almost certainly have a greater degree of financial stability. Thus, if they enter a relationship, which is supposed to be equal, it doesn’t feel that way. One side has a stronger position than the other, and over time that could become power they use to sway and control the other.

I don’t see Hordak as being in a more advanced stage of his life than Entrapta. They seem to be at about the same place when it comes to self actualization. In fact, Hordak is a bit more arrested in his development than Entrapta is, simply because he’s never really thought to question what would make him happy or why. Hordak rules the Horde, which Entrapta is a part of… which could lead to an imbalance, if Entrapta, like, could be bothered to give even the slightest toss of a salad about status or promotion, but she doesn’t. Neither of them holds higher ground over the other in a way that’s significant to the two of them. In terms of life stage, they’re perfectly equal. The fact that Hordak might be physically older than her by some unspecified amount is, by itself, completely arbitrary and meaningless.

*** EXAMPLE THE SECOND: ‘ENTRAPTA, THE MANIPULATED’***

A second, rarer discussion point for those who are unfond of the ship is that it’s unhealthy, on the grounds that Hordak is manipulating Entrapta. Taking advantage of her naivete to coerce her into aiding the forces of darkness despite not caring for her at all. Now, as I mentioned above, I ain’t writing this to change anyone’s mind. If you’re reading this, and this is a viewpoint you hold as valid, do what makes you happy, homie. That said, the issue I ran into when I tried to think of why this perspective didn’t bother me was a vexing one. See, I like to fancy myself an empathetic dude. I try really hard to consider other people’s perspectives when I have a disagreement, and avoid judging anyone too harshly if I don’t know their full circumstance… but even with all that alleged empathy at my disposal… this hot take about Entrapdak is… kinda completely incomprehensible to me? Like, I have no idea how anyone could have seen the interactions between the two and draw this conclusion?

Part of it has to do with how Entrapta is written. She’s both ADHD-coded and Autistic-coded, and there’s a tendency to perceive the behaviors of both those groups of people as childish. People who see that ‘childishness’ extrapolate it further to a general innocence/stupidity, and assume the character in question lacks the faculties to engage with other people evenly.

Look, I don’t have ADHD, but I am super, duper autistic. Having lived with myself for a lifetime, let me just say, I kind of get why this happens. We get extremely focused on our hobbies, we’re bad at reading social nuance, we have very simplistic body language, we tend to express our emotions in a very blunt and straightforward manner… I get that, for most neurotypical people, the only other group they ever encounter who shares these traits are children, and thus they tend to subconsciously connect the two. I understand why it happens, even if I do find it awkward and condescending.

…but y’all are underestimating Entrapta. She’s not helping the horde because she’s helpless and being manipulated. She’s helping them because she has no moral compass to speak of, and will eagerly assist with any scientific endeavor she finds interesting, without care for its ultimate application. In season 1, she knew well in advance the damage her actions would have on the world, and followed through with them anyway. In season 2, she happily assisted in the creation of a portal, knowing full-well that its opening would invite a colonialist military force into the vicinity of her home, and only withdrew her support for the project… hesitantly… when it became clearly evident that activating it would eradicate all life on the planet. At no point is she ever acting while the applications of her actions are being hidden from her by Hordak. She’s not an innocent child.

The thing is, though, I agree that Entrapta would be incredibly easy to manipulate… if someone knew what buttons to push. She is very self conscious of how difficult it is for her to form lasting emotional bonds with other people. She tends to blame herself when she feels she’s been abandoned by others, and feels that her inability make friends is a sign that she’s a defective failure. If someone wanted to manipulate her into doing something she didn’t want to do, they would probably find success if they offered her friendship and then fed into that self loathing, emotionally abusing her by implying that she was indeed a failure, and would be abandoned again if she didn’t obey. That is totally something someone could do to her, and I would absolutely not enjoy any ship between her and such a person. Good thing Hordak… y’know… did literally the opposite of that.

***EXAMPLE THE THIRD- “ENTRAPDAK, THE PLATONIC”***

A nice short one to balance out the longer examples above. Quite a few people just deny that there are romantic implications behind their interactions, and see them as a friendship instead. I do disagree with this assessment, but honestly, even if it were true, this would still be my favorite relationship in the show.

Something that has always boggled me about people on the internet is their tendency to treat friendship like some ‘equal but opposite’ force to romance… a status independent of a romantic relationship rather than literally the foundation upon which all successful romantic relationships are built. Genuine friendship is a beautiful, underrated thing, and acting as though the bond of friendship is inherently less worthy of appreciation than romance is silly.

So… yeah… platonic Entrapdak… I disagree, but even if you’re right and I’m wrong in the end… I’ll be pretty okay with that, too. Movin’ on.

***EXAMPLE THE FOURTH: ‘HORDAK, THE IRREDEEMABLE’***

For the last dealbreaker I want to consider today, I figured I’d bring one up that’s a lot like the platonic argument, in my eyes: that an evil guy like Hordak can’t change his ways, even with the power of love. Thus, the relationship is bust, because what’s the point of of a villain x heroine ship, if not to redeem the villain?

...

So, recently I wrote this whole big thing about Hordak, where I argued in favor of his redemption, and why I felt like that was where the story is going… I stand by the opinions expressed there, but I’d like to ask any who read that to push it out of their mind for now. Hordak’s redemptive potential is largely irrelevant to my feelings about this ship. When it comes to entrapdak, when confronted by the possibility that Hordak may remain a villain, my reaction is the most intense and passionate of shrugs.

...I just don’t care.

There’s a tendency to assume that redemption is the aim of a villain ship, and I suppose I can see why that is. There’s a bit of a stereotype for female fantasies where they fix a broken man with the power of their love, and when people ship villains, that’s probably the first assumption an outsider will make as to why. I cannot speak for others, but that’s just not a factor in the appeal of their relationship for me.

When you allow yourself to be vulnerable in front of another person, you open yourself up to the risk of being completely devastated by them. When you show vulnerability to another person, and they accept that side of you, and express vulnerability of their own, you establish a genuine connection with that person, and those connections are kiiiinda one of the most important elements of the human experience.

That Hordak was a villain who did terrible things was always kinda aside from the point of what really makes Entrapta and Hordak such a bewitching pairing for me. It was always the serendipity of two people who privately believe they’re alone in the world realizing they resonate with one another in a meaningful way. Resonance is the appeal of Entrapdak, not redemption.

I tend to hope for Hordak’s redemption, I won’t lie, and I do think it’s likely, but I don’t think it’ll be love that redeems him, nor would I want it to be… not entirely. I like seeing flawed, morally dark/gray characters overcome the obstacles that deny them self actualization, and watching them grow as a result.

That’s got nothing to do with him and Entrapta, though. Whether the story ends with the pair of them riding into the sunset to collect data and invent shit, or with the pair of them leading the Horde in the name of galactic conquest and terror… I’m down with it either way, dude. In the context of the ship, I care that Hordak is an evil overlord… about as much as Entrapta does.

However, pseudo-responding to naysayers is a bit negative for my tastes. I prefer to focus on the positive in life, like the smell of soil and rain on a crisp autumn morning. I… I’m in a very fall mood, okay? Sue me. Y’know what else I like, though? Entrapdak. Lemme wax poetic for a bit longer, and I’ll tell ya why this ship is, like, the peanut butter on my blueberry pancakes.

Part 2: Entrapdak- Why I love it

So, uh… If brevity is the soul of wit, I may be something of an idiot. I’ve made my peace with that, of course, I’m just sayin’: I’m many things, but I’m not pithy. If someone were to put a gun to my head, though, and demand that I describe the shipping aesthetic I love the most in life in a single sentence… I would probably respond with this:

My favorite ships are ones in which awkward, lonely people bond over a shared fondness of nerdy hobbies.

Now, that sounds super narrow, and it totally is… I don’t get new OTPs very often… but hearing that, I imagine you can see why Entrapta and Hordak immediately appealed to me. It goes a bit deeper, though.

The bonds between people are a major part of the story of She-ra. We see how characters are changed, positively or negatively, by the connection they share with other characters. Just like in real life, these connections are a mixed bag; some of them are positive, and some are negative. Some characters, like Hordak and Catra, resonate strongly with one another, but the resonance is a negative force in their lives, which draws them deeper into darkness, and for many of the characters in the show, their character journeys are about breaking free of such toxic relationships and forming healthy bonds.

The bond between Entrapta and Hordak is unique among all bonds in the show though, in that it is the only one that isn’t mixed. It is an unambiguous positive influence on both of them. Let’s break it down a little bit.

***ENTRAPTA***

Entrapta, at first, seems like the kind of person who isn’t super connected to other people. At the princess prom, she mentions that she finds observing the relationships of others far more fascinating than forging relationships of her own, and she spends much of the early seasons working alone with her robots, buried in whichever task happens to have her interest in that particular moment.

Later seasons gradually tear this facade away, though, and reveal a fairly tragic truth hidden behind it. I mentioned above that she internalizes her failures to form lasting bonds with other people, and is genuinely distraught about it. When she’s exiled to Beast Island, her frustration at her inability to make friends was the driving force that chained her there, even more so than her love of technology and invention. It becomes clear that, to some degree, she buries herself in her work to escape her feelings of inadequacy.

This is a relatable and sad thing to realize about a character, but it also has the unpleasant effect of making events that were played for laughs earlier in the show somewhat tragic in hindsight. Seeing the way she interacted with the Princess Alliance, you could see how she would have come to a very soul-crushing misunderstanding: That, among other people, she was someone whose presence was… tolerated- at times even appreciated- but never seemed to be enjoyed by anyone. She was the friend everyone sought out when they needed her help, then forgot about.

This wasn’t the case, of course, and clarifying her value to the group was what ultimately helped her escape the vines in season four, but from her perspective that was how it appeared, and likely how all her previous interactions with other people had gone before that. Some people complained about how easily Entrapta was able to believe that the princesses had left her behind, but it’s the same reason Hordak was so easily able to believe that Entrapta had betrayed him: In the eyes of someone who hates themselves, it’s only a matter of time before others abandon them.

That said, it also goes to show why Hordak became so special to her. For the first time in her life, she had a friend who joined her in her workspace, instead of leaving her to a task after giving it to her. Someone able to converse equally with her about subjects she was interested in. The elements of herself that made it so difficult to draw closer to others were the very same elements that caused her to get so close to him. Her intelligence and hyper-focus upon science made her the intellectual peer of a space-faring alien, her lack of awareness of social subtext helped her to see beyond the barriers he put up to keep other people away, and her past experience with failure and rejection helped her to empathize with his pain.

It’s perfectly pleasant to find someone who accepts you and enjoys your company despite not understanding the idiosyncratic elements of your personality, but that pales in comparison to how it feels to find someone who accepts you precisely because they understand those elements.

***Hordak***

Hordak didn’t really have ‘peers’, per se, for most of his life. We don’t know the level of autonomy the average clone has in the Horde… but I feel comfortable assuming that the level isn’t very high. Thus, his circumstance differs quite a bit from Entrapta, in that, rather than trying to form bonds with others, and feeling like he failed, for much of his life he never had the chance to try to form them in the first place.

He is, at first, deeply dismissive of the people of Etheria, whom he regards as primitives who are beneath his acknowledgment. Much of this, as with much of everything that dictates how he treats others, is born of projection… dude has some pretty major self-loathing issues… but regardless of cause, it results in a kind of self-imposed isolation.

Unlike Entrapta, who knew, on some level, that her lack of ability to bond with others troubled her, Hordak kept most of his emotions bottled up... Locked so deeply inside him that not even he really bothered to try to understand them. That was where her disposition and his meshed perfectly for him. Because Entrapta was defined by her curiosity, and her lackluster awareness of his attempts to keep her at bay, she was able to metaphorically crack him open, forcing him to vocalize and confront his own motivations.

Sometimes you need someone to just… like... grab you with their hair, push you up against a vat, and demand you tell them everything, man.

I’ve already discussed Hordak fairly extensively in my first blog blurb thingy, and while I repeat myself by accident quite frequently, I’m loathe to repeat myself on purpose. I just wanted to take the opportunity to marvel at how well their personalities fit together. Perhaps I’m just high on this feeling: I’ve never actually shipped something a creator so clearly intended to be there, before!

*** In Conclusion***

We’re all born imperfect, and we’ll all die imperfect. Our imperfections are similar, but never uniform. Each of us bears jagged cuts and missing sections of many shapes and sizes. Humans are social creatures, and it’s in our nature to constantly seek one another out. We keep trying to find people who are strong where we are weak; someone whose missing sections happen to lie in a pattern compatible with our own.

We’ll resonate with many in our lifetime. Sometimes, the melody will be harmonious, and guide all involved higher and higher into the light of self actualization. Other times the sound will be discordant, and pull us down into self destruction. Sadly, from our perspective in the middle, it will always be difficult to tell which is which.

I love the relationship between Entrapta and Hordak because it’s a dynamic that elevates both of them. Not in a moral sense, but in a personal one. In a series defined by toxic and uneven relationships that wear others down and tear them apart, these two have a dynamic that shelters and reinforces them. Giving them an opportunity to be glad they were born the way they were, instead of cursing their misfortune.

It’s the kind of relationship that makes me muse about how imperfection really is beautiful. It’s because we’re imperfect that we never stop trying to harmonize with other people, and if there’s one theme I can’t help but feel that the show itself is building toward, it’s this: Two in harmony surpass one in perfection.

*** So hey! Thanks for reading all of that! Sorry if it was a bit of a mess. Saying nothing with a great deal of words is a talent of mine, but I really do love these guys, and if you love ‘em too, don’t let anyone grind you down over it!

Let me know if you enjoyed my work, though! If so, I’ll be happy to share my thoughts on other things, since I’ll be stuck with this series on my brain until I see how my new obsession plays out. In the meantime take care of yourselves! If you do heavy lifting, make sure to do so with your knees, not your back. Tell someone who makes your day a little brighter how much you appreciate them. Then, take some time to savor the greatest of all winter beverages: hot apple cider.

#entrapdak #liking things #Entrapta #hordak #you try killing 8 hours at this job

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butterflydm · 5 years

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The Untamed | Chen Qing Ling | Mo Dao Zu Shi

Continue to Rewatch posts: Episode 1 | Index

I am officially finished with all fifty episodes of the live-action drama version of Mo Dao Zu Shi and having finished it, I now immediately want to experience the story all over again. There were twists (some I accidentally spoiled myself over the course of my first viewing and others that stayed surprises) that will definitely affect the way I feel when rewatching, and I suspect the emotional character and relationship work will be even more impressive on a rewatch. …also, I’m gonna watch it on viki.com next time instead of the Tencent youtube channel, because I hear that viki has better (less awkward?) translations.

Non-spoilery summary: Chaotic bisexual disaster dies in the first five minutes of the show but then the story really begins when he gets resurrected years later. It’s a love story amidst a backdrop of magic and politics and family and mystery. The love story itself is one of my favorite kinds — between two people who share a similar moral foundation but express it in very different ways. The love story is… technically (?) subtext due to very real censorship concerns but, um. It’s more than emotionally satisfying. It’s epic and tender and funny and sweet and heartbreaking and ultimately rewarding. I feel emotionally healed by this story in ways that I really needed.

Vaguely spoilery warning: There is a flashback that literally lasts just about thirty episodes (this is not a typo). So, if you feel like that might be confusing or strange for your viewing experience, start at episode three. When you get to the part mentioned at the start of the other summary, go watch the first two episodes. I actually went back and rewatched the first two episodes about halfway through the flashback episodes and it was already a whole new experience at that point. I imagine it will be even more so when I rewatch again now having seen the whole show.

Spoilery glee under the read more (this is all specific to the live-action drama, as I haven’t read the original or watched the other version yet).

An Incomplete List of Things I Loved:

The love story, of course. I was very impressed with how honest and emotional and deep it was. The heartbreak we see Lan Zhan suffer during Wei Ying’s downward spiral and then his death brought me to tears on multiple occasions. But the story also made me smile and cover my mouth with my hands because I was giggling over how sweet it all was. It’s a love story with so many dimensions — a schoolboy crush, a growing admiration, deep fear and concern, heartbreak, and then the incredible softness and joy of getting back a love feared lost forever.

Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian. Wow. Honestly, he’s gonna end up on my list of favorite fictional characters ever, I feel like. Seeing his journey was heartbreaking and then heart-healing. Redemptive death is a subject that I am personally not as interested in exploring, so having this story begin at the death and then BRING HIM BACK to actually deal with everything that his choices created make it a very compelling story for me. And one that dealt with trauma and revenge and morality in complex ways.

Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji. What is this literal angel from the heavens we have been gifted with here. Just. He is. so wonderful. And he gets some great character development and I’m very impressed with the tiny expressions that say so much. Joking aside, he’s not perfect, and that’s part of why he’s such a great character. He has his public face that covers up his private feelings, and his public face is stone (one of the Jades of Lan) but he has so much intense emotion whirring around underneath. He’s incredibly controlled, which is both good and bad. He grows in reaction to adversity, and we also see how deeply his grief has marked him in the future. Lan Zhan after Wei Ying’s resurrection is so incredibly soft with Wei Ying pretty much at all times? He’s gotten the most amazing gift in the world, after all, and he is gonna fucking treasure it. And so much of his stoicism comes from having a difficult time finding the right words, not from any kind of arrogance on his part.

The family relationships, both good and bad. The brothers Lan. The three Jiangs. The Nie brothers. THE WEN SIBS (my heart, please take it). The destructive fallout that Jin Guangshan caused by being a cheating dickhole.

Going back to WWX for a moment (I Really Love Him) — specifically the exploration of trauma and how it has the potential to create horrible people and how to avoid that. Because there are a lot of similarities between WWX and several antagonists — all of whom put on a slightly different version of false face to distract from the complexities underneath. Xue Yang and Jin Guangyao aren’t born into privilege, they fight to become more than what they were born to be. The question of revenge and what we owe to the people who lift us up — another good example is not the main Wen villains but Wen Zhuliu, whose morality WWX directly confronts and challenges. When Wen Zhuliu says he kills in order to honor the promotion/trust given to him by the Wens, WWX points out that he’s sacrificing other people for his honor. And this is the biggest difference, of course, between WWX and the antagonists — WWX also ‘owes’ the Jiangs for taking him in, but he doesn’t murder innocent people for that, instead he does things like sacrificing his golden core. WWX has a sense of perspective, not taking fifty lives in exchange for a crushed finger like Xue Yang does. And he doesn’t murder other people to cover up his mistakes like Jin Guangyao does. One of the heartbreaking things about WWX after his time in the burial mounds is how clearly traumatized he is, yet how much he tries to cover up that trauma by playacting as the Wei Ying that he used to be. The smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes anymore. Flinching away from Nie Huaisang touching his shoulder. He’s damaged and only the people paying the most attention to his mental state (Jiang Yanli and Lan Zhan) really notice how bad it is but neither of them are able to do more than soothe him in the moment. It’s so painful to watch.

Wen Yuan | Lan Sizhui. All the junior disciples are darlings but omg his story touched me so much. Because one of the heartrending things that WWX is experiencing before he dies is that all his sacrifices for the Wen survivors appear to have come to nothing. He sees their dead bodies; hears their deaths being talked about with glee. For this child to have survived means his time as the Yiling Patriarch was NOT in vain. He wasn’t able to save most of them, but he (and Lan Zhan) saved this child, who we get to see as a nearly-grown young man and he is a sweetheart of a boy. Seeing him reconnect with Wen Ning and then WWX was… very emotional.

Complex morality in terms of what love means. This is a topic that is only briefly touched on verbally but resonates throughout the story, because, both Wei Ying and Lan Zhan do, at various points, see love as something that cages (though from opposing perspectives). The story of Lan Zhan’s mother, locked away by his father; Wei Ying worrying that love would be a yoke around his neck. This is something they both worry at and struggle over at various points. Is love a leash? Is it love to put your beloved in a cage, no matter how golden? How do you prevent your love from becoming a suffocating and controlling thing? Lan Zhan talks about this with his brother, Lan Xichen, describing his affection for Wei Ying in the only terms he ever saw as an example for love — that he wants to bring Wei Ying home and hide him away. That’s the struggle he goes through during the years of Wei Ying’s darkest emotional times. Lan Zhan can see that things are bad (though Wei Ying never admits it until after his resurrection, when they go back to the burial mounds and he says how hard those years were for him and the Wens) but he doesn’t have a toolkit to address the problem in a way that would be acceptable to Wei Ying. This is something Lan Zhan takes HUGE steps to overcome once Wei Ying is back. Like i mentioned above, he is So Soft. He has regrets and now this most painful regret is something he has the chance to address and fix. To make his love into a partnership instead of a cage (and they make such good partners!). In terms of this specific theme (and I don’t know how important it is in the book, relatively speaking), the temporary separation of the characters at the almost-end of the last episode really worked for me. Lan Xichen was shellshocked after what happened with Jin Guangyao, and there was a reaction shot of Lan Zhan looking at him that made me go “oh, yeah, he needs to take care of some things on the home front” and I think he also needed to prove to himself that he was capable of letting Wei Ying go, to prove to himself he’s not his father. Because his father abandoned all his sect responsibilities to seclude himself inside his… idea of love. So, in terms of the themes the show leaned on, I liked that separation with the promise of reunion. And then the last shot of the series, which brings that promise to life.

Overall, the story feels very compassionate. It wants you to love the majority of the characters and it sympathizes with the audience’s pain when those characters suffer. It rewards deeper thought. It rewards the viewer for caring about the characters, which is something I’ve really needed this year specifically, when it feels like so many shows have been punishing their audience for caring about the characters.

One last thing (there are tons of other amazing parts! But this is the last for right now): I have such a complicated love for Wei Ying in episode 32, specifically when he calls out the sect leaders on their hypocrisy in coveting his power while condemning him for creating it. Everything about his scene on the rooftop breaks my heart — he’s laughing and crying at the same time and he almost looks like a corpse himself, pale skin and purple lips. Everything about him screams that he’s on the knife’s edge of just fucking losing it over all the trauma he’s suffered and how lonely and scared he feels. It’s a stunning performance.

Continue to Rewatch posts: Episode 1 | Index

#wangxian #the untamed | chen qing ling #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wei wuxian | wei ying #lan wangji | lan zhan #long post #text post #i have seen all the episodes of the drama but only once #except for the first two which i watched again part of the way into the flashbacks #once i felt like i would have a better grasp of the characters #the show has some things are not perfect #but this post is about how the show made me feel overall at the end #which was very positive #anyway if there are any factual errors i apologize!#and i loved so many more characters than just the ones i mentioned here!#mdzs meta #adding that tag so it will show up when i do personal tag searches in my own blog

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yoonjinkooked · 5 years

Text

lockdown | (m) - Chapter 2

moodboard by @flajka

pairing; jungkook/female OC genre; college au, strangers to lovers, smut and tiny bit of fluff too, humor ofc rating; explicit words; 6.209

— synopsis; Eunhee is in trouble and facing a deadline - in comes curly haired jungkook to save her life, make her laugh and maybe, just maybe, fuck her brains out. When the two end up locked in a building overnight, who knows what will happen?

warnings (for this chapter): cursing, OC still really wants to murder Tae, banter, cute Kook, slightly cocky Kook, an abundance of sexual tension, mentions of sex, drinking, mentiones of an ex (Seokjin)

A/N: I didn’t think I’d finish this this fast. Next chapter will be more challenging but i’m ready for it - i’m not sure if you are. Next chapter will be pure smut.

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

“So, this folder is basically… Your paparazzi photos?”

I have tried to rationalize it and sure, the guy does have a reason behind it but at the end of the day, he’s just a guy with a camera, taking photos of people who are not aware of it, more often than not.

He shakes his head at my words and chuckles. “You are making it sound a lot creepier than it actually is. I am the official photographer. Whenever a student enrolls our college they need to sign a bunch of papers. It has a clause about campus promotional photos or something like that, which makes this very much legal,” he explains.

“True, very true. Doesn’t make it any less creepy through,” I joke, mentally high-fiving myself when he actually laughs this time around. I needed this comfort prize after my miserable attempt from earlier.

“You know, boss lady, these are the only photos you have,” the stupid hood is covering his face too much for me to see his expression but he sounds… cocky. “I wouldn’t complain about them too much if I were you,” he adds.

“I’m not complaining,” I lift my hands up in surrender. “I’m just saying it like it is. Paparazzi.”

“Art.”

“Whatever floats your boat,” I say, laughing in relief when I realized he did not take me seriously. I was walking a dangerous line between joking with him and genuinely making fun of his profession, which is not something I want to do. The same way I wouldn’t enjoy being called a tabloid internet researcher instead of a journalist-to-be, I doubt he would enjoy being called a paparazzi. I did it in good humor and despite the earlier awkwardness, he was going along with it now.

“On a more serious note, I’m not sure how many of these can be usable,” he points at the monitor. “I hope you will have enough. You can just go through them and select the ones you deem usable.”

“That was supposed to be your job!”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?”

Bless him for turning around. If only for a few seconds, I have a chance to actually see him properly. He is very good looking, that was obvious from the get-go. His facial features are either childlike or very manly. His jaw is as sharp as one of the knives I bought recently and yet his nose looks beyond boop-able. Jeongguk, with a hood covering his face and all, is a ridiculously good looking man.

He’s looking directly at me too and it feels like this is the first time tonight he had done so. It doesn’t last long enough for me to actually feel uncomfortable or alert but my heart went berserk once again.

Calm down, woman. He’s here and he’s hot and it’s not the end of the world.

“Let’s do this then,” I nod towards the monitor.

Jeongguk could not specify how many photos he has to offer but the folder told me it carries 3000 photos. Of course, some of them are far from perfect but with 3000 photos at our disposal, I can only hope we can select 100 or so decent ones, to go with the 24 he brought to me earlier.

Without much commotion, Jeongguk and I start working. He starts his laptop as I transfer all the photos to Hobi’s PC. Then, he transfers them as well and one by one, we go over them. As soon as I find one that I think can be usable, I read out the number, he finds it and goes down to editing. Soon enough, he is unable to keep up with me and I need to write down the numbers as he manipulates the photos to perfection. We work in silence and in about half an hour, we have 10 photos ready to go.

Knowing that my ass is most likely saved, I have a chance to relax and actually pay attention to his work. He truly does have an eye for it, that much is painfully obvious. Guilt takes over me as I realize I have never paid much attention to photography. It’s simply not something I would focus on unless it is closely related to my work. I’ve always known Taehyung and Jeongguk, or as he was known before this, G.C.F guy, were good but this truly is something else.

He has a talent to capture people in that moment, that one moment, when no masks are worn and no fake smiles are shared. Looking at photos of random students, some of whom are vaguely familiar, some of whom are my friends and others I am sure I’ve never even seen before… It’s almost scary how he can capture that one moment with such precision. I could never do that, I just know it.

“What?” Jeongguk’s voice startles me. I look at him in confusion and he points at the photo. “You have been staring at it for like a whole minute. What’s wrong with it?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I shake my head. “It’s perfect. I mean, look at her – she looks tired but genuine. The smile she has is genuine. No matter how little sleep she had the night before, no matter how many tests she had that day, she cracked a genuine smile and you caught it,” I keep my eyes on the girl in the photo. I know her face but her name escapes me – I doubt I’ve ever even talked to her. A complete stranger to me, yet I can imagine her entire story in this photo, this one photo, because Jeongguk was at the right place, at the right time. He is, very literally, capturing perfect little moments.

“Sounds like you understand photography better than you think.”

I turn to him, already expecting my heart to do its thing and sure enough, when I see barely a hint of a smile on his face, the bastard betrays me and starts beating faster.

This is what happens when the only men you communicate with on a daily basis are either teachers or friends whom you could never be attracted to, despite them being ridiculously attractive. It is high time I get laid. Maybe then my heart would stop overreacting.

After this particular moment, I decide it might be better to be quiet. Does that make everything awkward? Sure it does. But it’s pretty darn better than actually giving myself the chance to talk, only to end up blurting out something along the lines of ‘I think you’re hot’. My ‘for work’ spotify playlist is good enough to make the entire situation bearable, as we nod our heads to the rhythm.

On and on we go, until I am suddenly looking at myself.

“Oh.”

It’s a photo of me and Seokjin. I can’t be sure when it was taken, but my short sleeves and the fact we haven’t been together for months now tells me that it was probably at the start of the school year. We are walking hand in hand, both smiling. Jeongguk captured a beautiful, genuine moment.

“Well, you are the ‘it couple’ of our campus,” Jeongguk shrugs.

“Were,” I correct him. “This is obviously an old photo. Seokjin and I are no longer together. Haven’t been for months,” I explain and watch as he nods in understanding.

“That explains the recent lack of photos of the ‘it couple’,” he jokes and I roll my eyes, knowing that unfortunately, he isn’t the first person to give us that title.

Seokjin and I spent two good years together. We were in the same circle of friends. Both focused on our studies and not so much about party life. As a couple, we made sense. But time passes and feelings fade, one thing led to another and suddenly, after two years of being in a solid relationship, I was single. There was no drama, no hard feelings and no bad words. Just two people going their separate ways.

“Keep an eye on Namjoon,” I give him a knowing look. “If he plays his cards right, maybe, just maybe, he has a chance with Hyejin. They could take Seokjin and me any day.”

“Debatable, but I’ll keep that in mind,” he tells me. For reasons unknown to my sanity, I find this incredibly funny and of course, I let out the most embarrassing snort laughter I could have possibly mustered. I don’t even bow my head in shame – that ship had sailed a while ago. “Okay, I’m starving. I’m gonna go and buy us a pizza. While I’m away, you can keep on selecting the photos you want,” he tells me as he flings the backpack onto his back.

“Can you like… promise me you’ll come back and not just run away?” I ask. It’s stupid, I know it is. Even if he is planning to leave me to fend for myself, he obviously isn’t going to say it to my face. Sadly, I am the kind of person who needs reassurance more often than not. I really need it now.

“Of course I won’t run away,” Jeongguk laughs and finally, for the first time tonight, he pulls the hood away from his face. Despite the office’s shitty lighting, I can finally see him well. His face is stunning, absolutely stunning. Clear skin, beautiful round eyes, cutest nose ever, cheeks that puff up when he smiles, like he is doing right now. “Here. I’ll even offer this. Pinky promise,” he lifts his right hand and offers me his extended pinky.

“Shit just got real,” I deadpan and I think I melted a little bit on the inside when he started laughing. “Pinky promise for life,” I link my pinky with his own before remembering an important detail I have overlooked. “What kind of pizza are you getting?”

“Pepperoni with extra cheese, duh,” he says it like that is the most obvious thing in the world.

“I like you more with each passing minute, Jeongguk,” I conclude.

“Right back at you,” he smiles for what feels like the tenth time in the last minute. “I’ll be right back. Get those photos ready so we can fix this shit,” he tells me, let’s go of my pinky and off he goes.

I am left giddy, smiling like a fool and fighting an overwhelming urge to giggle. Tonight is making me feel like a teenager with a dumb crush and strangely enough, I don’t think that I dislike the feeling. I haven’t truly focused on an attractive male since Seokjin and I were in the flirting phase. Jeongguk is… interesting. Very good looking and nice enough to catch my attention. I don’t know more than that but I wouldn’t mind finding out. Or maybe we could end up taking a different direction, with him giving me a decent fuck before we forget all about each other. Would that be a shame or would it be worth it?

For the love of everything Eunhee, focus on your work. There will be time for flirting and fucking later.

“Hey,” Jeongguk startles me when he walks back inside the office.

“There is no way you are Flash.”

“No, the door is locked,” he laughs. “Could you give me your keys?”

“What door?” I frown, confused. He literally just walked through a very much unlocked door.

“This part of the building. The big glass door? Eunhee, why are you looking at me like that?” he asks, but I am already on my feet and running out the office.

“I don’t have a key Jeongguk,” I yell back as I run towards the door. I get to it and I try to open – nope, locked. I try to jiggle it open, which is as stupid as it is useless. The door remains there, unopened, as if it is mocking me, us. I don’t have the strength in me to ride out another wave of panic.

“It’s not the end of the world,” Jeongguk tells me. “We can’t get pizza but we have the vending machine. And by the time we are done, we can call Namjoon or Tae. They’re at Jimin’s party, so they will definitely be awake. They can come and get us out in no time when we are done,” he reassures me.

“Jeongguk, Namjoon doesn’t have this key either,” I sigh in defeat as I turn my back to the door to face him. “And seeing as none of us who work here all the time have the keys, I doubt Taehyung has them either. I suppose we can try to call campus security, maybe they have a spare key but if they don’t, we’re stuck here until the cleaners stop by.”

“When do the cleaners stop by?” he asks.

“Last time I pulled an all-nighter here, they showed up around 6AM,” I tell him before looking at the clock hanging on the wall right behind him. “That means we are stuck here for… seven hours.”

“Not the end of the world,” Jeongguk shrugs casually. “We have a lot of work to do anyways. A pizza would have been nice but we won’t starve in six hours. I say we focus on getting the magazine ready for printing and then just like… nap or something.”

If I wasn’t running low on energy already, I would have taken this situation seriously. If I were my usual self, the campus security guards would already be on their way here to lock us out. But at this point, at with Jeongguk being so casual about it, I no longer have any shits left to give. Besides, as he had pointed out, we have hours of work ahead of us. Chances are we would have been stuck here with or without the door being locked.

And maybe, just maybe, somewhere in the back of my mind is the thought that this might be the only chance I will ever have to spend an extended amount of time with this guy who is making me into a nervous, giddy teenage girl. Not the worst way to spend a few spare hours.

“I agree,” I sigh and force a smile at Jeongguk. “Let’s get back to work and then we’ll figure it out.”

Until 1AM, we are working mostly in silence, listening to music and occasionally chatting about casual things – usually the people in our selected photos, whether we know them or not and how if we do.

“What made you chose photography?” I ask him. I am slowly growing bored, seeing as my work was already done – I am now waiting for him to edit the selected photos. Of course, I’m not just sitting around doing nothing. Hobi’s design still needs to be finished and one by one, I am transferring the done photos as soon as he finishes them. Right now, however, I am waiting for the next one.

“I don’t know, really,” he shrugs, not even bothering to look away from the monitor as he does his editing magic. “I suppose getting a solid camera for my twelfth birthday was a turning point. Back then, I wasn’t so attached to it but I remember my parents insisting that I should be the one to take photos whenever we would travel somewhere. They said my photos always turn out the best. Then as I got older, I discovered work by other photographers. I suppose that was it.

“Are there any photographers in particular that have peaked your interest?” I ask.

“Well, Ansel Adams is an obvious answer,” he chuckles. “It depends on the genre. Testino is the best when it comes to fashion photography but that was never my thing – doesn’t make him any less brilliant. Annie Leibovitz too. I can throw out a few names but I doubt you’d know them – same way I don’t know if I could name a handful of journalists. Adams, Robert Frank and Cartier Bresson would be my favorites.”

“I feel uneducated,” I admit. “I know so little about it.”

“Hey, I just told you I doubt I could be able to name a few journalists,” he chuckles. “We all know the things we are interested in – that is very normal. But what about you? Why this? Why editing, journalism, writing?”

“I wanted to be a novelist for the longest time,” I confess. “Before I could really get into it, I realized that maybe journalism might be my thing. My dad is a journalist. It would be idiotic of me to say that I wasn’t influenced by that in some ways. I saw the good and bad sides of it and decided to go through with it anyways.”

“What are the bad sides?” he asks.

“Well, it depends on what one chooses to focus on. If you are an investigative journalist and dedicate your life to uncovering corruption and crime, it can range from death threats to actually being murdered in cold blood. My dad’s an expert in analytic journalism, which means no death threats but he was away a lot. It was never ideal but it could always be worse.”

“And what about you? Which area do you want to go in?” Jeongguk asks. It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen someone take a genuine interest in my soon-to-be profession. I feel flattered.

“Honestly, I have no idea,” I admit. “Ideally, I’d like to work in investigative journalism but the side effects of it sometimes just seem like too much for me. Not to mention that with how the media is evolving, I’m not sure that would put the bread on my table. By the looks of it, I am bound to end up working as a blogger for a fashion magazine or something like that. Maybe I’ll end up being an editor, if I work hard and have luck on my side.”

“You never know,” Jeongguk tells me. “Hard work will get you places. You seem dedicated and intelligent. Although your music taste is slightly questionable,” he adds. I am about to ask why he would diss my music taste but to my horror, I recognize the song that is playing – I can’t remember the name, don’t know the artist but the singer is singing about how she is horny, horny, horny, horny tonight.

I just close my eyes, trying hard not to laugh when I hear him laughing at my reaction. I struggle to keep a poker face, but I manage. “Let’s just pretend this did not happen.”

“Nah, I will remind you of it whenever I see you in the years to come,” he jokes.

“Whatever, it’s a solid song,” I roll my eyes jokingly, enjoying this kind of teasing. He’s getting more and more comfortable around me and I am enjoying it. The more he talks, the more I realize how funny he really is. “You’ve heard my spotify playlists – you know me better than most people do.”

“True, music can tell you a lot about somebody,” he agrees. “But if I’m being honest here, your playlists only raise more questions.”

“Such as?”

“Well, it went from heavy emotional damage with Lana Del Rey,” he starts counting on his fingers. “We had a callback to teenage emo phase with ‘Fall Out Boy’, took a quick turn with ‘Whitesnake’ and now we ended up with 90s dance music about horniness. The question that is practically jumping out is what the hell you were smoking when you created such a mess of a playlist?” he asks through laughter.

“Shut up,” I jokingly punch him on the shoulder. “I was running on coffee and a lack of sleep.”

“Whatever you say, boss lady,” he grins at me. “You’re weird but likeable.”

Cue the butterflies. I say nothing but I know, I just know, he can see the stupid grin stretching on my face. I am flattered and he knows it. We are inches away to full-blown flirting and honestly, I love it.

“Done?” he looks over at me, eyebrows raised.

“Done,” I confirm, leaning back in my chair. “Four years of studying this shit only to have to finish my career as the school paper editor literally 30 minutes before the printing deadline.”

“You’re at the finish line, that’s all that matters,” he shrugs, looking like the textbook definition of the word casual as he makes himself more comfortable on the chair, folding and sitting on his legs. “I’m the only one who knows just how nuts you went these last couple of hours and I’ll never tell.”

“No way I trust you,” I roll my eyes. “We’ve met just hours ago – I’m going to need more than just puppy dog eyes to make me believe you?”

“Puppy dog eyes?” he questions but I just shake my head, positive that the blush in my cheeks speaks for itself.

“I just have one more thing to finish,” I mumble as I scroll down to the credits page, finding the photography section. “What’s your full name?”

“Jeon Jeongguk. Why?”

“Because all the photos we have used tonight are yours,” I tell him as I highlight Taehyung’s name and backspace it into oblivion – that’s the price he pays for nearly sabotaging me inadvertently. And also, I am allowed to do that, since none of the photos are actually his. So, I type Jeon Jeongguk, G.C. F.

“You don’t have to do that,” he shakes his head, suddenly switching back to the shy guy he was when he first knocked on the office door. “I’m okay with it remaining the same.”

“I’m not – it’s your work,” I say as I attach the file to the email addressed to our printers, who will probably murder me for doing this last minute. “And done,” I click send.

“Now we nap?” he suggests.

“Or we can just… I don’t know? Talk?” I suggest.

I don’t know how to say that I want to get to know him better, maybe flirt with him and set the foundation for a chance of a good fuck later down the road, without actually saying it.

“We can talk,” he nods and I could swear there’s a hint of a smirk on his face, but it disappears before I can confirm that it’s not just a product of my imagination and wishful thinking.

There is just something about him, something I couldn’t voice, even if I wanted to. A strange kind of appeal, the golden middle between shy and cute on one side and cocky and hot on the other. The changes between the two make my interest in him grow with each passing minute.

It’s been a while since I simply wanted someone to grab me and kiss me, hard.

And I can’t say it like that because so far, he hasn’t given me a single sign that he’d be up for it. That’s exactly why I want to talk. I want to talk and see where this can go and if I have to pull out some liquid courage to make it happen, I will not hesitate.

“You know, Namjoon has an emergency stash,” I smile when I see how he looks up at me in interest. “In normal circumstances, I wouldn’t dare touch it,” I say as I stand up and head for Joon’s desk, eyes on the bottom drawer. I crouch down; jiggle the drawer two times, like he always does. It’s still a little bit stuck but with one solid pull, I manage to open in. A grin grows on my face – there lies an unopened bottle of Absolut Citron – my safety net for tonight. “I don’t think these are normal circumstances,” I add, waving the bottle and giving Jeongguk a suggestive look. “You up for it?”

“Hell yeah.”

Half a mug of vodka later, I find myself laughing at Jeongguk’s fairly stupid story about how Taehyung once almost set fire to the apartment the two of them share.

“That guy is such a hazard,” I laugh.

“Maybe, but he’s also my best friend,” he comments. “You take the risks.”

“Tell me about it,” I snort. “Try being friends with Kim Namjoon. Not a month goes by without me driving him to the hospital because he injured himself in the stupidest way possible.”

“I always thought the two of you were a thing,” Jeongguk tells me, catching me completely by surprise because that’s just about the last think I expected to hear. “I mean, before I realized that Seokjin and you are a thing. Were a thing,” he corrects himself.

“Namjoon is the last person on this planet that would want to have anything other than friendship with me,” I laugh. “It goes both ways but I have a feeling the guy would rather walk barefoot on legos than have a fling or a relationship with me.”

“Why?” he asks. Simple question, complicated answer.

“He knows me too well,” I shrug.

“Oh no,” Jeongguk laughs. “No way I’m gonna let you cop out of that one. The conversation is finally turning interesting.”

“Thanks.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he laughs. “Now elaborate. Why not?”

Is this a can of worms I want to open? Probably not. “How honest do you want me to be?” I ask anyways.

“As honest as vodka can make you at 4AM,” he smiles and for the hundredth time tonight, I have to fight the urge to coo at him.

“Joon always calls me an overachiever,” I sigh before pausing to think about how to explain what’s fundamentally wrong with me as a person. Sadly, that’s not an easy task. “Even as a teenager, I’d always know what I wanted, I would aim for it and I’d get it. Dedicated, hardworking, obsessive – call it whatever. The problem occurs whenever I realize that I can’t have it all. No one can, it’s normal, right? Not for me. I still go for it, I hit the brick wall repeatedly but I make a crack in it, I pull the bricks out and I knock it down enough for me to pass.”

“That’s admirable, not bad,” Jeongguk interrupts me. “I wish I was more like that.”

“No, you don’t,” I chuckle, pausing to chug some vodka down because I am absolutely not drunk enough for this. “The problem starts when other aspects of your life start paying the price. For example, Seokjin. I could never put him before my work. Never, ever.”

“Isn’t that normal?” he asks, looking confused as he changes his position so that he is leaning on the wall. He is also a solid foot closer to me now and I am not complaining. “I don’t know how the two of you have functioned but isn’t it ridiculous to think that one’s romantic partner should be the center of one’s life?” he asks.

“Thank you,” I nod my head. “I tried to justify it like that. I still believe in that, too.”

“Is that why you and Seokjin are no longer together?” he asks.

“That’s even more complicated,” I let out a chuckle. “It just… it ran beyond the expiration date. I can’t explain it without sounding like a bitch because I was with him for two years and he really is an amazing guy but that just… that wasn’t me. He wanted me to invest more in the relationship and while that is completely fair, it’s not what I wanted to do. That is what made me realize that we were heading nowhere. When you don’t want to make the extra effort, that’s alarming.”

“It’s also the way life goes,” he shrugs. I am impressed and envious of how casual he sees the things that were absolutely not casual to me. “If you think about it, every relationship in your life will either end in a break up or with a happily ever after. Literally, every relationship.”

Shit, he’s right. “I never thought about it like that.”

“I have,” he chuckles. “Whenever I realize it’s going nowhere and it’s not my happily ever after, I end it. That’s why I’m single. It’s easier to just… not date anyone than to tell every single person that yeah, that’s not it. Sorry. Thanks for the time,” he adds and I laugh.

“True, that does sound wrong,” I agree. “I’ve been fighting the feeling that Seokjin’s not for me for a long time.”

“Not good enough?”

“More like too good,” I correct him. “He really is a great guy. Kind, smart, funny. He’s genuinely a good guy and I’d sing his praises for hours but it was just too… I guess boring is the word I’m looking for.”

“He’s a boring guy?” he asks. Wow, he is really interested in this.

“Kind of. Don’t get me wrong, I’m hardly the life of the party myself. But it was all just so… proper with him. Movie dates with an obligatory hand over the shoulder, flowers for birthdays, always red roses. Paying for everything, nice restaurants. If we had stayed together, it would go graduation, engagement, marriage, house in the suburbs and two kids – a boy and a girl. It wasn’t boring, not really. But it was just so… proper. Excitement-less. Always blockbusters, never indie movies. Always seats at concerts, never the pit. Dull conversations – about politics and the economy, never about conspiracy theories or the supernatural. The sex,” I suddenly stop, realizing I may have taken my rant too far.

“A bit boring too?” Jeongguk asks, a grimace mixed with compassion taking over his face.

“Yeah,” I nod my head. “Good but… same. All that I mentioned before, it’s fun, it’s nice but after a while you just… want something that will keep you on your toes a little bit. Not a fuckboy or anything like that but just a guy who can actually say something that might surprise me.”

“I like your way of thinking,” he mumbles, looking away from me and keeping his eyes directly in front of him. “You’re not wrong, about anything. And even if you were, on paper, you don’t need to follow the paper – you need to follow yourself. Yeah, many girls want exactly what you’ve just described but you’re not one of those girls and that’s okay. I have a feeling that you are looking at it as a flaw but it’s really not. If something doesn’t make you feel happy or content, it’s absolutely normal to walk away from it.”

“Thanks,” is all I can mumble, knowing that any other words may not be safe. This is not the direction I hoped our conversation would take but I can’t complain – it’s oddly therapeutic.

“You’re so hard to judge,” he chuckles and turns around to offer me a smirk. “I thought I had you all figured out even before we met. Then tonight, I realized I was wrong. And an hour later, I realized I was wrong again. And just now, I have to admit that I am wrong again. You don’t fit in the typical groups.”

“Okay, you gotta elaborate that,” he chuckles as I urge him to explain. “Come on. Elaborate.”

“Overachiever. I thought that too, at first,” he tells me. “A perfect girl, with perfect grades and a perfect boyfriend. Then I get here and see you panicking and hear your playlist and I figure you’re one of those ‘inner turmoil’ kind of girl who thinks the world doesn’t get her and listens to ‘The 1975’ and Banks and hates men and most women too and just wants to be left alone.”

“Hey,” I reach over quite a bit to hit him on the shoulder. “Don’t diss ‘The 1975’.”

“My point is,” he laughs as he rubs his shoulder jokingly. “You’re not one of those groups. You’re not any of the other groups either. You are… a healthy mix of a few of them. I can’t name them all – I don’t know you well enough. I can’t label you either and that’s kind of cool.”

“Okay, give me an unpopular opinion,” I change the topic in the speed of light, realizing that if he refers to me as ‘cool’ I will pull down his pants and give him the suck of his life. While that is something I would very much like to do, I still haven’t received any signs of him sharing the thought.

“Are you really at a concert if you’re not in the pit?” he laughs and I hit him on the shoulder again, this time simply scooting closer to do that and remaining in the same position.

“Yes, you are,” I laugh. “Pit is better but you can still enjoy a concert if you’re seated. Besides, that’s not an unpopular opinion. Give me something controversial.”

“Androids are better than Iphones,” he tells me and I gasp in fake shock.

“Oh no you didn’t,” he laughs at me. “How dare you diss the apple?”

“Your turn,” he nudges me with his arm.

“Flavored drinks suck,” I mumble as I look at my mug of vodka, my precious koala mug being used for such a shitty drink. “I’m not a drinker. I’m very much a lightweight but if I do drink, I want to taste the drink, not artificial aroma and sugar.”

“Not to mention it tricks you into thinking you’re not drinking much,” he adds.

“Next thing you know, you’re standing up and the world is spinning.”

“Eunhee, I hate to break it to you, but the world is spinning,” he tells me. Another hit on the shoulder and I realize that I am about two hits away from being considered extremely violent.

“Shut up. Your turn.”

“Mint chocolate chip ice cream is awesome.”

“YES!” I startle him with a yell. “Yes! Yes! Mint chocolate chip enthusiasts will rule the world.”

“Wow, if we keep this up you will probably start a revolution,” he laughs. “Do you want to continue with the unpopular opinions talk or do something else?”

Well, what I really want is to grind on him until he has tear in his eyes and is begging me to let him cum in his pants. Or for him to bend me over a desk and fuck me until I see stars – both works for me, really, but it’s not exactly something I can say. I don’t have enough vodka in my system.

“I have a shocking one for you – foreplay is better than sex,” I announce.

“Oh, that is an unpopular opinion,” he nods his head, looking pensive. “May I ask why?”

“Because people, and when I say people, I mean men, underestimate the value of it for a woman,” I tell him. “Some enjoy it very much, of course. But in most cases, they just wanna slide it in and get it over with and that’s not how it works for us, at least not for me. I need that kind of… mutual attention. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy or extensive but like… just making out. Just making out is such a fundamental part of foreplay and sex. It’s not that special – just a kiss with the passion amped up. But god, isn’t it important? Nothing beats that moment of lazy kissing, body to body, gentle touches and squeezes and subtle grinds, all while all the words are left unsaid between the two because they are too busy moving their tongues and biting lips and struggling to breathe properly because a good make out needs to leave your breath hitched and mouth open and… a moan stuck in your throat. A good, solid make out session is a preview into what kind of lover you will have and I’ll be damned but sometimes the trailer is more enjoyable than the actual movie, if done well.”

I stop talking with my mouth hanging open. I have no idea where that came from but I do know vodka fueled it. I stop my rant and struggle to think of a sudden change of topic, trying to ignore the slightly wide-eyed look on Jeongguk’s face that my rant had caused.

It sounded more like a political discussion than make out talk. I need to learn when to shut up.

“Yeah, that’s enough of unpopular opinions,” he lets out an awkward chuckle and I know that this is another moment I will regret in the years to come. “Don’t get me wrong, it was fun,” he chuckles when he notices the look on my face. “But I’d much rather make out with you right now.”

Oh. Oh. Okay. That’s… very convenient.

The tiniest of smirks that graced his face evaporates before my eyes and turns into a frown, caused by my initial lack of response – it’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that I wasn’t expecting the suggestion. “If you want to, that is,” he mumbles, turning into a nervous mess, nowhere near the hot, straight-to-the-point guy he was literally seconds ago. “If you don’t, that’s totally fine and we can just talk about music and-“

“I want to,” I interrupt him. “I… really want to,” I emphasize the really, knowing that looking a bit desperate is not only honest, but will also work in my favor.

“Get over here,” he chuckles as he grabs my hand and pulls me towards him.

#jungkook smut #jungkook series #bts smut #jungkook fanfiction #bts #bangtan #bts jungkook #jjk #jeon jungkook #bangtan smut #jungkook scenarios #jungkook fanfics #jeon jeongguk #jeongguk

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secretgamergirl · 4 years

Text

“What shouldn’t I do to avoid making things worse?”

Just a day or two after I wrote this post, I happened to find myself in a position that did quite the job of reminding me I need to write this one. Someone randomly decided to say something positive about a person I know, and encourage people to check out their creative output. Almost immediately, someone else chimed in to inform them that the person they were giving that plug to is A Bad Person Who You Should Not Promote. When confronted about this, this was of course followed up with That One Link that people always give out when people speak positively about this person, and after a bit of back and forth, the whole post saying the person I know was cool and promoting their stuff was removed.

It's pretty typical for people, particular the farther they are from being a cis allistic abled straight white dude, to have That One Link that "proves" they are A Bad Person Who You Should Not Promote, and they basically all follow the same pattern. It's either a blog post or a dedicated forum thread, it's the length of a novella, it has roughly 200 links to or embedded screenshots of random posts from forums and social media, all of which are old and lacking context, and whenever it’s linked to, there is an unspoken assertion that it is the work of a detective so thorough in their research and uncompromised in their ethics that only a complete monster would question the legitimacy of anything contained within. Also being the sort who routinely does double check, I’ve found the actual contents of such to more or less invariably be a mix of misinformation and petty grievances nobody should care about. The best known example of one of these is probably “The Zoe Post,” and I’m really not the frst person to talk about this sort of crap.

In this particular bit of recent context, the person I know essentially stands accused of getting... into a nasty fight with someone marginalized along significantly fewer axes and far more established in their shared field, using something like a dozen different user names. Setting aside the incredibly skewed power dynamic there and the lack of verification on whether all of those names belong to the same person, and just taking the whole accusation at face value... I don’t particularly understand why I should care. Mind you, when this person first began interacting with me and I immediately got the all the warnings and That One Link, I took a very cautious approach, did a lot of independent research, and really did not at all see the person described in the person talking to me. Not particularly relevant whether that’s due to the whole thing being BS or personal growth happening in the... decade or so that elapsed since That One Post was written.

For some reason though, people consistently get their wires crossed about this sort of thing. Even the people you’d really think would have their heads on straight. I can’t count the number of people I know who constantly sit around pontificating about white supremacy and the patriarchy and the way marginalized people can never make a single mistake or be perceived to, who then constantly play purity police, actively and vocally making sure anyone who gets That One Post written about them is completely cut out of life to the maximum possible extent, until the end of time.

Now mind you, there are totally situations where advocating that everyone shun someone is totally called for. Nazis exist, nazis should totally be exposed as such and treated like garbage. I’d explain who George Zimmerman is if I saw someone pal-ing around with him. Monsters like these. These are pretty good examples of people to badmouth. But you don’t spread the word to everyone you can not to even mention someone just because you don’t like them/had an argument, or have a friend whose behalf you’re acting on, or a celebrity.

All that said, my original plan was to list all the crap like this I personally have to deal with, so let me get to that. Presented here is a partial list, roughly in chronological order, of the many absurd lies people have come up with to rationalize doing everything they can to keep me from ever interacting with anyone. Not one item on this list has ever blown over, nor been too ridiculous to be believed by people I was very close to before they started shunning me over it:

- All the standard smears against trans women are a given. I’m an evil seductrice, I want to sneak into women’s restrooms, turn all the children in the world trans, and am of course a big ugly bearded man in a dress.

- My opposition to murderous nazis and pedophiles is the result of me being paid vast sums of money by George Soros.

- I am a wealthy heiress.

- I have some completely irrational, possibly racially motivated hatred for some random woman I have never interacted with, have no mutual point of contact with, and have never seen anything written or spoken by of any sort.

- I am a dangerous terrorist ringleader trying to murder a long-time friend I constantly speak positively about and defend from various attacks.

- I am not actually a trans woman but in fact a man whose entire life is a vast web of lies.

- I am not actually trans but in fact a cis woman.

- I am secretly a nazi.

- I am an undercover cop from Brazil trying to bring down comumnist revolutionaries by blocking people who send me violent threats on Twitter (and have long conversations with said people despite neither party being able to see the other’s messages).

- I am part of some sort of elite club of pretty popular girls who all eat lunch together at the Cool Kids table or something.

- I am a horrible scolding prude.

- I am a huge slut.

- I am straight.

- Any woman I have ever been friends with I am actually trying to seduce.

- I used to be and maybe still am a member of Something Awful’s forums, and probably also an oldschool 4chan poster.

- I am attempting to destroy Patreon.

- I am running some sort of elaborate scam through Patreon.

- I have longstanding vendettas against an additional 30 or so people whose first names I am supposed to recognize, absolutely no other context apparently needed.

- Name a cause, I’m vocally against it.

- I run a vast media empire.

- I slept with a famous bigot.

- I refused to sleep with a famous bigot.

- I paid a king’s ransom to a famous bigot in exchange for something or other.

- I’m friends with untold numbers of people I’ve never heard of but have been assured are all quite vile and repugnant.

- I am a “pedophile defender,” shouted with no explanation as to what that even means.

Again, there is not an item on that list which, when randomly shouted and blindly repeated, did not cause at least one person I care quite a lot about to cut off all contact with me, without a word of explanation, forever. And there are people who actively scour for anyone ever interacting with me in any way, even as minor as liking a post on twitter, making sure to hit them with as much of this as it takes to keep them from ever having the slightest thing to do with me.

This has, in fact, driven away every friend I ever had (though people let me know if there’s any exceptions who just haven’t checked in in a while), destroyed all my career prospects, has me constantly dealing with dangerous stalkers, violent threats, and violent actions and if I’m really quite honest, when buying a new stopper for my bathtub recently the thought was definitely going through my head that apparently slitting one’s wrists when submerged in warm water is the most painless way to stop being alive.

It’s entirely possible it’s too late for me, but again, people attack people with this sort of garbage constantly, and people who should really know better constantly perpetuate it. So just try to internalize this, and in the future whenever you see someone talking about how someone is A Bad Person Who You Should Not Promote, loudly confront them about it. Make a scene. Everyone should be feeling really awkward when you’re done, and whoever’s giving out the “warning” should be reconsidering their approach to life.

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majicmarker · 4 years

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why did you dislike 'the hating game?' (haven't read it; i'm just curious)

AAAUURGGHH okay. OKAY. it’s been a hot minute since i read it, so i’m going off strictly memory here — i am thinking of doing a reread, for the record, but chances are high that’s just going to remind me of/reinforce my initial bad impressions — BUT —

(oh god, this became an essay so fast, but to be fair to myself i’m coming off a depressive episode and almost everything in this world pisses me off, so this is just where we’re at. and, yeah, i’m really picking this shit apart, no doubt, but I've always owned up to being an enormously picky reader, so we’re off to the races here, i said what i said, etc., etc, ad nauseam)

you know what, i’m gonna preface this with the One Thing I remember above all else about this book. i am 100% sure this wasn’t the intention but, oh my god, the one thing i will always remember is how lucy (the heroine) refers to one of her superiors as “Fat Little Dick.” dude’s actual name is richard, he’s short and annoying, blah blah. this is supposed to be funny, and i — much as i’m a fan of vulgar humor, lord, i’ll tell you about my favorite shows and movies sometime — find it so incredibly off-putting, that it’s the first thing I think of whenever i see this book mentioned. the immaturity of the nickname doesn’t bother me so much but it’s like, the fact that it’s meant to be clever that irks me. it’s just... gross, to me. this is really individualistic, but i can’t talk about this book without bringing this up because, for me, it set the whole tone for what i was about to read. this is the humor of the whole book, it falls cringingly flat to me, and that means a lot when it comes to a romantic comedy.

in that vein... look, there is seldom an occasion in which i enjoy first person. this is completely a personal preference, so it’s not a point i hold against this book in particular, but i just... i really gave this book a shot, despite being immediately turned off by the style. first person runs rampant in romance and like, that’s fine, i do have a couple i enjoy and, anyway, it’s not a dealbreaker for me and overall it doesn’t actually speak to the quality of the work. like i said, total personal preference — but. but. it depends on how you write it, and i just didn’t see the merit of it here. I think we would have benefitted from dual pov, even if both sides were written in first person.

a nitpick, perhaps! and tbh this particular detail might be suited to a larger discussion of narrative structure dependent on genre, but! in this case i just don’t like it and we can go from there.

MOVING ON.

lucy has no friends. what the fuck is that? she’s twenty-something and, as far as her character reads, quite sociable. even if she was some awkward mess (like, hey, me too, y’all should’ve seen me in my twenties), she’d probably still have, like, one person she could confide in, and yet... nada. (this is what i recall, anyway. as i said, it’s been at least a year since i tried this book out, so maybe i’m forgetting someone, but from what i remember, this fact stood out to me almost as plainly, painfully, as the “Fat Little Dick” gag.) i’m pretty sure all she has in this world is her job, her weird crush on josh, and her smurfs collection. also, she’s short. that’s cool, but it’s not a personality, and any which way i don’t need to be reminded of it every page.

on a broader scale, i, personally, find lucy and josh both profoundly unlikeable. lucy is irritating and, if she were a friend of mine, i’d tell her to her face that she needs to get her shit together because this is ridiculous. and josh is just, an asshole? imo. he’s every other guy i’ve met at a bar who pretends he’s really into his personal development but at the same time he won’t go to a therapist. so, like, what’s the point? he’s dull at best, and i’m not surprised robbie amell’s been cast for the film adaptation (last i knew of, that is). and the thing is, like, in romance, the characters need to be likeable. you’re rooting for their personal lives; there is no “greater good” or whatever else at play here. all i care about are these people and, in this case… i can’t deal with them. if this was YA, absolutely, yes, i’m here for it. but, again, these characters are whole-ass adults. i don’t necessarily expect your life to be together at this point — mine certainly isn’t — but have some self-awareness, for the love of god.

ON THAT NOTE, the book’s focus is on these twenty-something romantic leads, but it reads so juvenile. meg cabot’s high school romances have more self-awareness and depth than these career-oriented Adults. don’t get me wrong — i’m all for relatable, for insecure, for the identity struggles that really shape your twenties, because oh my god, do I Get That, but this was just all so… god, it reminds me of the stuff i’d write in junior high. it’s like what i imagined it was gonna be like to be a grown-up. this is probably personal preference all over again, but it doesn’t read authentic to me. it’s shallow, and sexual without being really, actually emotional. i’m seeing the lust, but i’m being force-fed the love.

and, before i drop without precedent the whole “career-oriented” thing that the plot itself seems to have done — the professional, essential, conflict is never resolved. spoiler alert, i guess, but the conflict hinges on the love interests being up for the same promotion, but we end the book with the male lead quitting and taking a job elsewhere — so his career is stable, right, but the job that’s been waiting in the wings this whole time? your guess is as good as mine as to who gets it. much as i disliked this whole Thing, by the end i still hoped lucy would be offered some professional satisfaction, but we never actually find out.

and, listen, i don’t remember any of the sex scenes. i know they’re in there, but i have zero recollection because they’re boring. gratuitous, maybe, but that’s only if you believe some of the book’s naysayers. i guess i’m a naysayer, too, but it’s not because the sex stuff made me take up a confessional booth for ten minutes (no shame, i’m just saying, from experience, most priests don’t care if you read erotica, okay, they’ve heard it before and frankly they just wanna go home because it’s ten A.M. on a saturday and already they could use a shot of jack in their coffee),

but if y’all know me, you know i love a good sex scene. what i’m getting at here is that, like, these ones just slid off my radar like melted butter. not good melted butter, either. (this is a bad metaphor, maybe. but the point is that i don’t remember them and i don’t even care.)

i guess, on the whole, the tone here doesn’t land for me. it’s just not real, it feels so forced, so wannabe funny and edgy and relatable, but none of those hit quite right. when i first read it, i recall thinking sometimes that “alright, this isn’t bad,” but then i had to deal with “Fat Little Dick” again, or i was constantly reminded of other things — lucy is short, josh is hot, they hate each other, no scenery is described in a way that i can actually picture it, yadda yadda — or else i was subject to quite a bit of body-shaming. that shit was casually sprinkled all over the place, which was both irrelevant to the story, to the characters, and it was just obnoxious. this sort of casual bigotry happens in romance all the time and, like, i’m over it, so i’m gonna point it out every time i try something new and it crops up.

when this book was rec’d to me, when i saw all the accolades, i thought i was in for some new, fresh, revolutionary read — but then it wasn’t actually… anything. “sometimes it was sort of funny” is the best thing i can say about it, and that’s the best thing i can usually say about most other romances i’ve tried in the last couple years, so i’m not seeing the distinction here, i don't see anything special. i legitimately do not know why this book in particular is so popular. like, there are romances out there that i Hate, poetically, with the fire of a thousand suns, but at the same time i understand why they hit the bestseller list (yet another Discussion all on its own). but this one? i’ve got nothing.

i’m tentatively considering doing a reread. as i mentioned earlier, but this is probably only going to reinforce everything i don’t like about it, which means eventually i could perhaps give you a more comprehensive answer as to why i so thoroughly Did Not enjoy this book. but, like, who even wants to read that shit? ireally don’t mean to be an asshole about this, but I Don’t Get It, and some of it legitimately pissed me off (the body-shaming, lucy having no friends, both of which are entire Essays onto themselves) — and it’s that second thing i’m not gonna apologize for. in case anyone wanted an apology, but… too bad.

anyway, in the meantime, i hope this answers your question well enough. it’s actually probably Too Much. but i’m bored and lonely, so i’m gonna go off like a firework best i can, whoops.

#long post #y'all I am legit sorry if the read more link doesn't cut it #anonymous #ask

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