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oro-e-diamanti · 3 years

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The one with Victoria’s boobs

Description | Victoria needs help taping her boobs for an upcoming performance. You get more than you bargained for.

Content | fluff

Pairing | Victoria x gn!Reader

Word Count | 2420

Some situations in life simply could not be dealt with without a strong cup of coffee. Heading out to an exam, waking up to a text from that ex who still grinds your gears, missing your train, and being late for work ... You, however, thought you were doing fine today, mood high and excited for the day ahead. You had slept in and left the hotel at a reasonable time. You’d do what you loved - make-up - and then watch the band play a kickass show. No additional kick needed to pump you up or help you deal with the hours ahead. You changed your mind the second you opened the dressing room door and came face to face with Victoria's tits. Actually - scratch that - you would need a drink to deal with this.

"Y/n! Finally! I need you, come here." While Victoria's face brightened up considerably as her eyes met yours, a smile spreading on her gorgeous lips, you could feel your cheeks heating up. She didn't seem to notice or mind, instead grabbing your hand and dragging you further into the room. Your bag slid off your shoulder, unceremoniously hitting the ground and staying there, forgotten and in the way. "If Damiano keeps ripping off the tape one more time to readjust, he's going to take my nipple off."

"Hey!" He objected. "I'm just trying to improve your boobs, lady!"

"You can't improve perfection, Damiano."

The bickering gave you a moment to evaluate the scene before you. The dressing room was a mess, clothes everywhere and a stylist bustling around, trying to keep the damage to a minimum. Ethan was currently admiring his reflection in the mirror, hands running through his hair, while Thomas kept rummaging around the chaos. And right before your eyes, Victoria, in satin trousers but topless, with Damiano still trying to fix the cross he had put across her left nipple, as Vic kept slapping his hand away.

"Honestly, babe, I need you," she pleaded as your eyes managed to remove themselves from her bare chest and met hers instead. "I can't do it myself because when I try to do it in the mirror it looks weird when I put my arms down. And Damiano just about managed one cross that doesn't look wonky as hell after about 43 attempts."

"I did not need 43 attempts! I was just trying to -"

"Stop it!" Vic slapped his hand away once more, harshly enough for the sound to echo. "Go gel your hair or something, I've got Y/n now."

"I'm your make-up artist, not -" You didn't quite know how to finish your sentence. You weren't what? Victoria's personal boob inspector? Professional nipple-taper?

"Exactly, which means you've got an eye for aesthetic, so please put this tape on me."

You couldn't refuse Vic either way. Not when she was staring at you with those impossibly blue eyes, silently begging for your help. With a sigh, you grabbed the tape out of her hand, slowly unrolling a bit. You had only known her for a little while, but well enough to be aware that she wouldn't back down. Vic was already reaching for a pair of scissors, but you were quicker, tearing the piece of tape off with your teeth.

"Sexy, but scary," Victoria concluded. "But mainly sexy."

You didn't have the mental capacity to deal with what she had just said. Actually, you didn't have the capacity to deal with what you were about to do, but that was a pill you'd simply have to swallow. You hoped your shaky fingers weren't giving you away, as you crouched to eye-level with Vic's boob.

You had never much thought about the feminine beauty of a naked woman's chest before, but your current angle was making you question all your past convictions.

Maybe you were into girls after all.

Maybe you were just into Victoria. It was a thought that had been lingering in the back of your mind for a while now.

As your fingers lightly touched her skin, careful to get the placement just right, she flinched. You looked up, gazes meeting, and for a second there was something in her eyes you couldn't quite pinpoint, but it was gone before you had a chance to reflect on it. Instead, she giggled, "It's way too hot for your hands to be this cold."

Way too hot indeed.

You tried to make quick work of the task ahead and not to stare at her breasts too intently. Not to touch her soft skin too obviously. Not to let your beating heart get the better of you.

"I knew you'd get it perfectly!" Victoria exclaimed, turning towards the mirror and examining her now partly covered boobs. "You just got that kind of eye, Y/n. Thank you so much."

She had thrown her arms around you before you could react. It shouldn't have come as much of a surprise, Vic always being a rather touchy person by nature, but this time she was half-naked, her chest pressed against your shirt. Your arms carefully wrapped around her back, briefly letting yourself enjoy the feeling of silk-like skin under your fingertips, then quickly letting go and taking a step back. Your heart had gone from beating to straight-up racing. You were in so much trouble.

"I'll just put on the rest of my outfit and then you can do my make-up, yeah?" Her eyes shone at you in gradients you hadn't seen before. All you could do was nod dumbly, knowing that nothing was ever going to be the same again.

***

You hadn't meant to go out drinking with the band, you really really hadn't, yet here you were, sitting in a dark corner of some trendy bar in the middle of Berlin, trying to duck out of every video they filmed for Instagram and sipping on your drink. The mood was euphoric and everyone kept singing along to the songs playing in the background, but you kept to yourself. Your mind was still spinning with images of Victoria, memories of her skin on yours, and the fact that she was standing in front of you right now didn’t help. She was beauty personified.

“Y/n! Dance with me!” Victoria pulled you out of my thoughts as she pulled you up into a standing position.

“Vic, no one is dancing in this bar.”

“So?”

She had never been much impressed with what other people were doing. You quickly downed the rest of your drink, handing the glass to Damiano, who sent you a conspicuous wink. Whatever that was supposed to mean. You were still standing a little awkwardly when Victoria took your hand and twirled you around, a heavy slap to the bum hitting you while your back was towards her.

“Come on, Y/n, let loose!”

The shock of her actions only lasted a split second, before you broke out into giggles and let her pull you further into her. Her arms wrapped around your neck, trying to move you to a beat that was much too fast to be this close and entangled. You didn’t mind. Hell, you decided, you would never mind anything she did to you ever again. You didn’t even take notice of Damiano, Ethan, and Thomas dancing along around you, too focused on the way Vic was holding you and pressing you against herself. You couldn’t tell anymore if the elation you were feeling was because of the drink you’ve had or because she was looking at you the way she was. In the heat of the moment, you pushed a strand of her from her face, fingers lightly trailing along her cheek. Her mouth was on yours in an instant, pressing a bold kiss against your lips, but it was over before it started and suddenly her body wasn’t pushed up against yours anymore and you felt lost and cold. Victoria was now slinging her arms around Thomas’ neck instead, leaving a similar kiss on him, before giving Ethan and Damiano the same treatment.

Your heart couldn’t decide if it wanted to keep beating or start breaking.

***

The next days were pure torture. It didn’t help that Victoria had developed a newfound love for going bra-less - and an appreciation for you taping her up. Her behaviour wasn’t much better. You bent over to pick something up? Slap on the butt. She walked by you? No way she wasn’t going to brush past you in some way. Sitting on the couch? She was cuddled up to you in a heartbeat, face mushed into your neck, her breath softly tickling your skin.

Pure torture.

It all came crashing down the night Victoria decided to shake up the hotel room arrangement. She would usually room with Damiano, while you shared with other members of the team that worked behind the scenes. Until you were all gathered in the lobby of your hotel for the night and she loudly announced she was sick of listening to Damiano snore every night - “What the hell, I’ve never snored in my life?!” - and instead was going to sleep with you. Sleep with you. You didn’t miss the looks and snickers of the others as she phrased it exactly like that.

You didn’t have a choice, really. You simply weren’t the type of person to protest - and Vic knew. So you followed her up in the elevator, down the corridor, and into the room like a lovesick puppy, internally debating whether you were dreading this or looking forward to it. As soon as you had both dropped your luggage, she disappeared into the bathroom without another word. You didn’t miss the fact that she did not even attempt to close the door.

Two single beds. You breathed a sigh of relief. No awkward there-was-only-one-bed situation. Or maybe you felt a bit of disappointment. Maybe- No. This needed to stop. You were going crazy. You were supposed to do a job on this promo tour, be professional, maybe make friends with the band if you were lucky, but instead, you were falling deeper and deeper and it all ended with the fact that you had never felt this way about anyone else. It pained you to think that Victoria wasn’t feeling the same. And she definitely wasn’t - you were sure of that. She was a flirty person, she liked to touch and kiss those around her, but none of it went deeper than that. And you were going to have to accept it for what it was.

You were still in the middle of convincing yourself of not feeling anything more than friendship for Victoria when she emerged from the bathroom. Wearing nothing but a pair of panties. It was in that moment you knew you would never get over her.

“VIc, you need to stop doing this.”

Her face fell immediately, going from overly cheeky - which seemed to be her default expression these days - to genuinely concerned. Concerned, and confused. She was by your side in an instant, holding you by your upper arms, seemingly searching your face for answers.

“Do what?”

The direct question was filled with a softness that almost brought tears to your eyes. For a second you contemplated taking it back, changing the topic, and ignoring how emotionally draining the past days had been, but one look into her eyes told you that you needed to be honest with her. Now or never.

“You need to stop touching me. You need to stop riling me up at every opportunity, you need to stop teasing me and brushing up against me because-” The words seemed trapped in your throat. Victoria had moved away, immediately adhering to your request to stop touching you and you hated it. You wanted her hands back on you, you wanted all of her on you. One more deep breath. “Because I cannot stop thinking about kissing you. And I’m not talking about a little friendly peck. I’m talking about kissing the ever-loving shit out of you now and forever.”

It happened so fast. Victoria was on you before you had even finished your last words, lips pressed to yours in a heated and hurried manner, arms wrapping around you to press her body against yours. You reacted as if on autopilot, as if your body knew what to do simply because it had been waiting for it. Your hands tangled themselves in her hair as you responded eagerly to her kiss, before running them down her cheeks and to her neck.

This was nothing like the time she kissed you in the bar in Berlin. That time didn’t even come close to what was happening now. If your heart had been beating before, it was pounding out of your chest now. You thought that for as long as she promised to put her mouth on yours anytime you asked, you would be invincible.

The kiss ended rather slowly. A few pecks and staying close, breath fanning on each other’s faces, eyes still shut for a while until you two managed to separate. Victoria’s smirk was back, tenfold and you couldn’t help but giggle.

“Imagined anything like that?”

“You know I did,” you admitted, feeling slightly shy all of a sudden.

“Honestly, though,” Vic said, brushing your hair from your face in the most tender motion. “I’m sorry I put you in a weird position. I think my way of flirting just didn’t work on you.”

“Oh, it worked alright,” you laughed. “I just wasn’t sure you meant it that way. Especially when you kissed me that night and then proceeded to kiss everyone.”

“Yeah, that wasn’t clever. I think I was just scared because you didn’t react so I tried to play it off.”

Victoria pushed another kiss onto your lips, sweet and short and full of reassurance, then promptly hugging you with a force that sent both of you tumbling onto one of the beds. Laughing with all your heart, you pushed her off you but made sure she never strayed too far. You couldn’t help but be amused at the state you were both in, faces heated up and giggly, you fully clothed while Victoria was still lounging in nothing but a pair of black panties.

“For God’s sake, Victoria put some clothes on,” you mocked her, even though you both knew there was no reason for you to mind it anymore.

“You know, I think it’s quite fitting,” she contemplated instead. “It started and ended with my boobs out.”

#maneskin #victoria de angelis #maneskin imagine #maneskin fiction #victoria de angelis x reader #victoria de angelis x you #maneskin x reader #maneskin x you #victoria de angelis fiction #victoria de angelis imagine #my writings

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binniesthighs · 3 years

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call me babydoll | reader x chan

soooo shhhh this actually a part one shhhh but i’m just trying out writing out different things and getting out some of my ideas outta my head that i’m really excited about, this one being one of them!! for now...just pretend that this is just a regular ol’ drabble hehehehe. this part is the set-up chapter (shhh i mean drabble)

One

Pairing: self insert, female reader x bang chan

Genre: fluff, smut, and angst

Tags: (overall) bodyguard au, moderndayprince!chan, bodyguard!reader, secret agent au, royal au, action and peril, plot driven, running out of time, slow-ish burn, growing feelings, softswitch!chan, hardswitch!reader, some skz side characters, jeongin third wheel and comedic relief LOL, travelling, chan being expensive and having a lil bit of a superiority complex, flirtyyyy chan, bits of mystery, explicit language, mentions of food and alcohol, idk think like 007 vibes hehe

CWs: guns and gun violence, a shooting in a ballroom, mentions of blood

Word count: 4.6k

Parts

ONE | TWO

“I wasn’t expecting to see you here early.”

“Well, expect the unexpected.”

“Don’t turn the motto back at me. I’m sick of hearing it so many damn times.”

“What? You and I both know that it’s true. You’re here early too, so, technically you don’t get to say anything.”

Jeongin straightened his bow tie, then patted down the sides of his perfectly ironed tux with not a crinkle to be found. Knowing him, it was a miracle that he hadn’t messed it up in some form yet. He promptly took out his pocket square to clean off his glasses.

“You’re looking nice. Seems like they don’t mind spending money now on you these days.” He blew off the flecks of dust on his lenses.

“They know that they get their return on their investment. And thank you.”

You smoothed down the sides of your dusty pink dress that nearly went all the way down to your ankles. Had you any other choice, it would’ve been something different, but, dresses were really good at hiding your thigh holster compared to the slacks you usually favored. You didn’t mind the times that you would have to put on a pretty dress, it somewhat reminded you that there was normal life outside of your job. Not to mention, they had started sending you jewelry as well. You always had liked the look of a diamond necklace.

“You do your research for tonight?”

Jeongin nodded, then took from his pocket his phone to read over the details.

“I’ve done a background check on everyone attending, we shouldn’t have any issues. It’s already a low risk event anyway. Charity is never something to get too worked up over, but, you never know with the detail that some of these people come with...who they might be tied to...”

“--The only people we can trust is ourselves.” You nodded with arms crossed.

“Expect the unexpected, I know.” He slid his phone back into his inside suit pocket to adjust his cufflinks.

“--Nervous?” You took note of his fidgeting actions.

“Nervous? No. I’ve been through this before. You know that.”

You flicked your partner right on his forehead strung with his white hair. You had really wished that he had picked a less conspicuous color, but he had strings to pull that you didn’t.

Jeongin cleared his throat, “You do your once over?”

“Do you even need to ask? I did it hours ago and when we arrived. You know that I’ve done this before too.”

“I know. I know.”

Jeongin looked out at the vast circular atrium that made up the center of the hotel. Several stories down under the glass rooftop, you could hear the faint sprinkling of the intricate fountain which smelled of copper. A bit further down, you could see the tips of the tree branches from the indoor landscaping. Across the way, a door slammed with residents tucking in their ties. The two men you had recognized from the roster: a simple thing which made you feel at ease. Your young partner must’ve started to have an effect on you. A sense of unease seemed to quell in your neck. You always listened to your hunches.

“W-what do you think he thinks of us?” Jeongin broke the silence.

“Well,” From inside the room you had waited outside, you could hear his distant murmuring, so you lowered your tone. “I think that he has yet to trust us. It’s only been a few weeks. He doesn’t seem like the kind to give himself up easy. That, and I’m sure his resentment of his father must have some influence.”

“You think he hates us?”

“I think he hates his father for hiring us. I mean, wouldn’t you? His old security detail, he had them for years.”

“I guess so. But, we’re not like his old detail.”

“No. We’re not. I don’t think he gets that yet. I think he sees us as one more way his father has a hold on him.”

“It’s not like he can do much else about it when his dad’s a kin--”

“--No, no, thank you, really, it’s lovely. Some of your best work. Thank you.”

Chan swung open the door to his room, stopping Jeongin right in his sentence.

“Ah. You’re here already. That’s...punctual.”

As dazzling and showy as ever, Chan looking nothing short of a magazine model. For a prince, he had certain...appearances that he had to maintain. Today, it was a velvety and maroon suit jacket with a white button up. On the collar, two matching brooches had been perfectly placed, and they were silver like moonlight in the shape of English ivy and adorned with diamonds. On his lapel, he wore the royal insignia of the lion and the wolf. Behind him, you could see his slew of stylists cleaning up their makeup kits and obscene assortment of designer dress shoes for him to pick from. You had thought before that he even smelled like royalty: stuffy white roses with a hint of priceless cognac.

Jeongin bowed his head respectfully. “Everything has been prepared for tonight. The rest of your guards are surrounding the building, and I’ll be corresponding with them as needed, your Highness.” He tapped at his earpiece.

Chan drew his attention over to you, giving you a rather lusty glare. Over the past couple weeks, you had gotten used to it. He was a prince to every extent of the word. If there was anything that he had wanted, he simply had to ask. It drove him insane that all he could do was merely look at you. You had wondered if he harbored anything else for you besides the way that he would devour the curves of your shoulders and hips.

“Fox. Bee. You look nice tonight. I like seeing you dressed up. Makes me feel less out of place.”

You couldn’t help but let out a little sound of discontentment over his rather affectionate nickname for you. You and your partner had been introduced to him as F and B. Quickly he had figured out Jeongin’s codename as Fox, considering that he had done a poor job picking out one that wasn’t related to him at all. Anyone could tell that boy was fox-like, and he also just wasn’t that creative when it came to picking out a name for himself. B, or Bee as he had decided, was your name; as in bumblebee. After learning about Fox, he figured that there was an animal theme going, so Bee seemed to fit best in his oponion.

You tested his glare with your best, “Thank you, your Highness.”

Jeongin gulped. “Your assistant should be waiting downstairs with your itinerary. She told me that you should meet her first off.”

“You work too hard F. Have some fun tonight, hm? But don’t...drink too much. You’re responsible for my life remember?” Chan clapped his bodyguard on the back.

Your partner nervously laughed and adjusted his glasses once more: his preferred tic.

“And Bee?” Chan rose a brow to lean into close and whisper. “Stay close, alright?”

“Of course, your Highness.”

Chan let out a little scoff after getting one more proper look at your frame. “Damn. You really are stunning. Just a little too dangerous for me though.”

You rolled your eyes, dishing him outa, “Whatever you say, your Highness.”

Jeongin threw you and annoyed glare before tracing after Chan as he sauntered down the hall to the glass elevator.

“Bee? You coming? Or do you have something better to do?” Chan’s voice called down the hall with an echo and a little teasing gesture of his hand.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

It had been seven years since you had chosen this line of work, and each time that you had to go to one of these things, you hated them more and more. Not because they were hard to control--they were easy--but you just hated how many superficial and self-absorbed people that they could fit into one room.

The air was filled with the scent of champagne bubbles and too much Chanel No. 5. From corner to corner of the room, and even next to the ice sculpture of the lion and the wolf crest, silk, satin; velvet and the best cotton could be found. Long gloves covered the arms of ladies with wrinkling skin, and tweed vests held in the guts of men who indulged in their food just as much as their mistresses. All this effort just to appear as if they had given one care about the philanthropic efforts of the royalty.

Several neatly dressed waiters passed you with golden platters of hors d'oeuvres made of ingredients so expensive, they would’ve cost the same amount as the generous donations made by the attendees. If you could’ve, you would’ve scooped up as many of them as you could, just to eat all of their copious amounts of money yourself, but, there was somewhere a rule that you had to keep your hand to yourself when you were on duty. The best that you had to look forward too was take-out to eat at 3 in the morning with Jeongin later.

Buzzing chatter filled your earpiece while each of the additional guards gave their hourly report.

“Damn. It’s fucking colder out here than I thought. It’s fucking summer.” One of them joked to the tune of the other guards laughter.

“Stay focused.” Jeongin scolded over the line. “Don’t leave your posts until your shifts change.”

While he was a timid man, Jeongin was not one to mess around. Son of the director, he knew that he had big shoes to fill. After pleading for years for her to admit him into the academy, she had agreed. Everyone knew the reason why she didn’t want him in this line of work. Too many dead. Too many missing. In some ways, he was also yours to look after.

You trailed after Chan who was busy talking to his assistant and his publicist. While he nodded at their words, you knew that he must’ve been barely listening. Chan never really was one for formality, but much rather enjoyed simplicity and pleasure. Jeongin and you had somewhat of a bet going: out of all the guests, you had liked to bet which one he would take with him to his bedroom. Since you had all the profiles of the guests, you liked to bet a little money on which one it would be.

Jeongin had guessed it to be the heiress and daughter of a tycoon who had made a multi-million won donation in the name of his company. It was ironic; his very company was a big-scale pollutor who liked to make nice with the crown. She was conventionally very pretty: long legs, a thin frame, she was educated and looked as if she could hold somewhat of a conversation...not like that mattered to him.

You had predicted it to be the foreign CEO who had just started business dealings with the crown. While she might’ve looked a bit stuck-up and prim, she was intimidating, and a challenge. Chan loved challenges. Chan also had a pension for pretty boys with a bit too much money on their hands--usually inherited--and with nothing much else to do other than dote on him. There were plenty of those attending the gala tonight.

Chan snaked through the crowd, bowing his head at all of the Good evening, your Highnesses and the It’s a pleasure to meet you, your Highnesses. Every few moments or so he would take a bite from a golden plate and then pop it into his mouth. The whole night long, he would hold his glass with him and it would get refilled for him without him even needing to ask. You sometimes liked to pretend that in some places, they must’ve assigned someone to watch him from afar to make sure that he would never need anything before it was given to him. It wouldn’t have surprised you.

“Having fun Bee?” Chan languidly rolled his head back, swirling his glass.

“As much fun as you are.” You quipped.

“Anything that I should be concerned about?”

“Nothing of concern.” You stated matter-of-factly. Had you matched his flirting tone, you knew that you wouldn’t hear the end of it for the rest of the night. “Fox. Report?”

“Nothing that I can see. No one has been tagging you.” Jeongin had staked himself up on the upper balcony of the banquet hall room, and had been watching for as long as you had been following after the prince. “You sensing anything strange?” His voice tickled in your in-ear.

“Just a bunch of the normal crowd.” You kept your tone down low. “He’s rubbing noses with the usual. You’ve seen too?”

He chuckled. “Yeah. I know what you mean.”

You followed Chan to his seat nearest the front of the room which had been fashioned into a stage with a clear glass podium in the center. Right in front there was one more crest decorating it. Chan had ensured it to be so: he had wanted everyone to know that this was all for his charity.

“It seems like our bets aren’t working out. He hasn’t talked to either of the...suspects.” Your partner changed his choice of words knowing that the other guards were listening.

From the opposite side of the room both the heiress and the CEO stood with thin glasses of wine in their lithe hands. Chan had in fact walked right past them, and didn’t even notice.

“Tonight is going to be a long night.” Jeongin sighed over the line.

You politely pushed past attendees with a raised hand and a sweet smile. You had found that when you smiled, you had appeared less intimidating.

“Oh wait...what’s this?”

“What?” You whipped your head around after Jeongin’s interjection. “What? Do you see something? What’s the call?”

“Relax! It just looks like he’s approaching someone he wants to talk to. I think both of us are about to be proven wrong.”

“Ah, shit.” You sighed. “Don’t put me on edge like that.”

“I’m only trying to entertain myself.”

“Name. Who is it? You’ve got the roster.”

You partner was quiet for a minute, and you watched from a distance as Chan approached the man leaned over a martini seated at one of the perfectly decorated tables.

“Uh, I think that he’s Lee Minho. Some kind of royalty from somewhere else. Pretty low ranking from the looks of it. I think that he made a donation himself...and it’s...damn, larger than you would expect.”

“Should we be concerned?”

“No. Seems harmless.”

“Thank you for coming,” You made out the words that Chan had mouthed. He drew a chair next to the unknown man.

From what you could tell, Lee Minho was handsome to the full extent of the word: nearly all of his physical features were exemplary and his suit appeared to have been fitted to perfect for him; likely one of a kind. He too wore an insignia on his lapel, but it was one that you hadn’t recognized before. He had immaculately styled hair that had some kind of rebellious and boyish charm to it. The man had a kind of mystery about him too: you had been able to pride yourself in being able to read people, and it had saved your life on more than one occasion. But with him, there was something that you couldn’t place.

“Do they know eachother?” You asked Jeongin.

“Not that I know of. School friend maybe? Seems like all the royals send their kids to the same schools.”

“Hm. That would make sense.”

“Enjoying yourself?” Chan said.

Lee Minho nodded, and rose his glass to clink it with the prince’s.

“Do we think that he’s our...suspect?”

The stranger dipped his head into his hand as he listened to Chan speak. A flirty gesture that you had seen a hundred times or more. Still, the way that he inspected Chan, it wasn’t adoring. Or at least, you didn’t think that it was.

“No. I don’t think so.”

“What the hell are you yapping about?” One of the other guards snapped over the line.

“Um, classified stuff.” Jeongin quickly explained. “Above your paygrade. Don’t worry about it.”

“Fox. Watch out for him tonight.” You snuck over to a corner of the room where you could watch the two of them more discreetly.

“Affirmative....” Your partner paused. “Babydoll.”

“Pffff--Babydoll??” The same guard stifled his laughter. “You call her Babydoll, Fox? Damn, you all must be closer than I thought. Didn’t know that I was missing out on some of the action--”

“--Ever heard of a codename, Three?”

“Babydoll’s her codename.”

A grin crept over your lips. “Expect the unexpected.”

You had almost gotten distracted enough to miss how Lee Minho had leaned over to whisper something into the prince’s ear. After he had done so, Chan laughed out a little, then reached his arm around the other man’s chair comfortably.

“They’re...cozy.” You updated your partner.

“I’m trying to cross-check where he might know him from.”

Chan’s assistant and publicist finally slipped away with giddy little smiles. In many ways, you were jealous of them. They could leave whenever the wanted, eat what they wanted...

Jeongin scoffed. “Well, turns out...nothing. I can’t find anything.”

“Nothing?”

“Negative. I’m not seeing any crossover.”

“So they really are strangers?”

Your partner sighed. “Looks like neither of us are cashing ou--I mean--finding the suspect.”

Under your breath, you wondered aloud, “Who are you...Lee Minho?”

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

The night drew on longer with the rest of the formalities: the formal dinner, followed by several speeches from important people while dessert was being served. It all led up to the final act: His Royal Highness, Prince Chan’s speech. On several neat notecards marked with the crest, he held them in front of him while he ate his last bits of Mont Blanc Chocolate Pavlova. Even the name of the sweet itself sounded pretentious. Granted, it smelled delicious--as many expensive things did.

You stifled a yawn from your little set up on the edge of the room. At least you should’ve been able to sit, but it turns out that sitting is also against the rules in this line of work. A couple other security and bodyguards had joined you at the edge: some of their heads nodded with sleep, and the others looked as if they had taken one too many energy shots. Luckily, your stamina had been well crafted.

A fancily dressed MC made his way up to the podium and the room filled with applause after the last speaker had said all of their correct mandatory words.

“It is my honor to introduce to the stage, our wonderful head benefactor of this organization, His Royal Highness, Prince Chan of the Crown.

Applause tenfold of before erupted through the whole room and it wasn’t even an afterthought for the every attendee to stand up from their seats in an ovation. It was a force of habit for you, but you found yourself clapping as well.

Chan rose with grace, and re-buttoned his jacket with finesse. A blinding spotlight found him and it made the diamonds adorning his beck wink brilliantly. Even more blinding was his pearl white, and perfectly trained smile accompanied by his wave.

Thank you. Thank you. He mouthed.

“It’s like he’s a frickin’ movie star.” Jeongin groaned.

“Might as well be with the way that they treat him. You know deep down they’re all just terrified.”

Chan made his way up to the stage in all of his regality, and the applause didn’t stop until he cleared his throat. A collective groaning of a couple hundred chairs squeaked when everyone sat back down.

“Thank you everyone, really. I wanted to thank you all for your generous support in your donations to this organization, as well as your association with the crown. I’m sure that all the beneficiaries of your donations are beyond thankful compared to me. Without you, this would not be possible.” Chan spoke with grandiose gestures, as usual, but this time, he had found you on the side of the room. “Listen, aside from being a prince, I’m also just a person. A person who knows what it means to struggle, to--”

“--I can’t listen to this anymore.” You whispered into the quiet room, and to your partner.

“Just a few more hours.” He droned. “I almost wish that something would happen so that we don’t have to sit though much else of this.”

“Be careful what you wish for.”

In the corner of your eye, Lee Minho shifted in his seat, but still kept his undivided attention to the stage. You figured he must’ve been just like the rest of them: enamored by the flashiness of the crown--and Chan. He had a way of putting a spell on people: it was the kind of spell that a prince of deception had crafted after years of being kept under lock and key.

“--Anyway, what I’m trying to say, royal or fanciful we all might be, in the simplest way, we’re all just people, therefore this is what connects us all. Thank you.”

Chan was gifted yet another standing ovation that was somehow even more thunderous than before.

“Yeah right.” You scoffed. “People born into money. There’s a difference.”

Chan gave his last waves, then a clamor echoed from the back of the room. At first, it had just sounded like the same raucous laughter you had heard all night, but then it shifted to something different. The sound of laugher turned into shouting, then screams: high pitched and piercing. You had seconds to respond, head whipping around the room to catch sight of the confused prince. In your in-ears, the the sound of gunshots echoed with rapid-fire speed. Machine guns. Shouting commands barked in your ear, and muddled with Jeongin’s string of demands and questions.

“WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OUT THERE? REPORT! REPORT!”

Your heart instantly started beating into hyperdrive, and your legs sprinted as fast has physically possible

“THEY’VE GOT GUNS!” A shrill and cracked voice of an older woman wailed from the back of the room.

Immediately after she had said so, shots fired into the darkened room with sparks, and the metallic sound of bullets hitting the marbled ground followed.

Chan looked around in his panic for you, petrified on the stage. You slung your gun out from your thigh holster and latched onto him with all of your might.

“TH-THEY JUST CAME OUT OF NOWHERE IN THESE VANS. THEY’RE ARMOURED, WE CAN’T--”

“Get the fuck down there and secure the exists!” Jeongin growled into his mic. “B--is the prince secure??”

“Secure!” You yelled back. Using your body as a barrier, you led the cowering prince through the mass hysteria of the crowd.

“Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Shit.” Chan shook under your iron grip.

More shots fired into the room and bodies parted like the sea and fell over each other.

From the balcony, you had caught Jeongin aiming his own gun at the chaos below.

“I’ll cover you! Fuck! There’s so many of them! Get him to the car out back--Three, Six, meet B out there! Three!? Six!? Report!”

“Three and Six are down F!” One of the guards panted. “I can provide cover out back!!”

“Who’s speaking??” Jeongin bellowed, then aimed from above at one of the intruders. Your only focus was on weaving you and Chan out of there, but you had seen one of them in a blur. Each of the men with guns wore dark grey suits with black ties and leather gloves. Each of them wore their own crest: and it was all red.

“Bee?? Bee???” Chan shouted out for you, and jumped every time the crack of a shot echoed in the ballroom.

“I’ve got you, your Highness. We’ll be out soon. Keep your head down and listen to me.” Your arm held to him tightly, and you soon found the exit nearest. There was no telling if there would be more of them outside, but you loaded your gun quickly just in case, and pointed it out.

“Jeongin, get your ass down here!”

“Jeongin? Who the fuck is that??” Chan ducked down to hide himself behind your frame.

His name had slipped on your tongue, but that hardly mattered.

“I’ll be down in a second!!!”

“Don’t fucking waste time up there when I need you down here!!”

“Two! Two Reporting!!” A man suddenly yelled in your in-ear. “I’ve made it out back and I’ve secured the exit. The car is safe!!”

“FOX! Now!”

Your partner heaved, “I’m coming, I’m coming!!”

You kicked open the exit door, gun’s still blazing, however one one else could be found on the other side.

“Thank God,” You sighed.

“Oh shit, I’m gonna be sick.” Chan had turned paler than white, then stumbled in your arms.

“Hey, HEY!” You held him upright. “It’s gonna be alright. I’ve got you. You’re safe. You need to trust me. Your life is in my hands and I’m not giving it up easy, got it?”

“O-okay.” He stammered, then attempted to straighten himself.

“The Prince is outside, repeat, The Prince is outside. Two, are you in position?”

“Yes. Yes, I am.”

Other than the fact that you had just escaped absolute peril, the evening was unbearably pleasant. Crickets chirped in the summer evening, and the humidity of the night smelled gorgeously of the lake that was near-by as well as the vast array of flowers that had been purposefully landscaped around the hotel. Chan’s uneven steps scraped at the gravel walkway.

Since you had canvassed the whole building well, you had known exactly where the getaway car was, but you were still careful.

“Bee. Bee!” Chan blabbered. “Have-have I told you yet that I-I’m in love with you?”

“No, you haven’t Your Highness.”

“I fucking am. If I die tonight, I want you to know that I am ridiculously in love with you, and fuck, I wanna--”

“--I’m sorry, Your Highness, respectfully, but now is not the time for this and you are not dying on my watch.”

Somewhere off in the distance, frogs croaked, and the splashing of fish in the lake plopped at the surface waters. You turned a corner to finally see Two waiting his his gun raised. He was a bit of a shorter and scrawnier man, but something about him told you that where he lacked in strength, he must’ve made up for in agility.

“I’m out! I’m out!” Your partner gasped, and over the in-ear you could hear his running footsteps. “I’m almost there! I’ll be there in a second!”

“Your Highness,” Two bowed and opened the car door. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. You can call me Two or J. Either you prefer.”

Jeongin came bounding around the corner with heaving breaths and his clothes askew. His glasses which just barely held onto his face had a crack on them and his knuckles were covered in blood.

“Let’s go.” The younger man prompted.

“In the car you go, Your Highness.” You motioned for him to do so.

Chan whimpered like a toddler.

You shoved his body in, “Stop that. Get in the car.”

“I’m in love with you Bee!” He yelled out, “I’M FUCKING IN LOVE WITH YOU BEE!”

Jeongin slammed the door in his face with a bit of a chuckle.

“He’s delirious.”

“Mm.” your partner smiled. “Sure.”

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thiswaycomessomethingwicked · 2 years

Note

Ooooh, so that’s why reading your prose is so fun! Thank you for explaining your process! It does help :D English isn’t my native lg, so, aside from figuring out why I enjoy reading what I read, I also have to figure out how to translate that into another language (and because I am absurdly bad at naming and understanding the mechanics behind any and all techniques and the like, I’d probably be just playing around blind for long enough, to stumble into something that will echo what I enjoy in other people’s writings and then run with it). Now, knowing that you edit prose like one would poetry, gives me the pointer where to look, to make the flow better and and to see, if the reason I enjoy authors in my native lg is also similar :D (also, somehow, it never occured to me to read prose aloud, to see if the rhythm is right. now, I have to try doing so) so, again, thank you! :D ❤❤❤

I'm always happy to talk writing process! It's been something I've been thinking about lately, so I love having an excuse to natter on about it.

I totally understand the groping around trying to understand the mechanics of something - especially when you know what works but not why it works and in order to play with it, and subvert it (or not), successfully the why needs to be understood.

And yeah, it's always interesting to take an author you like, and start picking through their work and see how they do things.

Like, how do they use space on the page? How do they use paragraph breaks? Enjambment (more in poetry than prose, but it shows up from time to time in poetic prose)?

I personally *love* enjambment - the purposeful breaking of syntax in the middle of a sentence to start a new line:

example:

in her hair / is a pearl

gowns of women / not yet married

dog drowns / in your grandmother's crystal glass

her gift / to a bride

The word or image or feeling that is landed on at the end of the sentence before the break is what packs a punch.

It also allows for double meaning "a girl and her lover are drowning in her hair" and "in her hair is a pearl and a green velvet ribbon" are both true statements.

Then there's the less technical and more sensual part which is word-feel. A lot of this is language and culture dependent, so I'll speak for English as it's my first language - and in a broadly "western" context.

If you use a lot of "s" sounds or "th" sounds, in English, this is snakey. It's slithering. It makes someone feel a specific way when they say these words aloud. Or the harshness of k and t and b/p sounds. If you want something to be angry or powerful, use those sounds in your word choice. ‘the glass clattered across tile floor’ then you want the feeling of all those pieces that can hurt your feet which would be bite sized “ch” sounds or even some “st” sounds.

Another quick example:

... greater heat than sun in August on a bare back bent in fields.

The b-b-b with the k and t endings of back and bent are hard sounds, they're forceful. So when you say it, your mouth is that sun beating against the backs in those imagined fields.

And reading work aloud catches a lot of these things, just instinctually you will know when you're butting up against something awkward.

But also - not everything is going to do all of that. It’s about picking and choosing what stylistic elements work for the piece.

If you’re writing noir, that’s a stylistic choice that will be rendered in a specific manner in order to be satisfactory to the reader. I tend to write very dreamy, Borges-esque, weaving stories where that poetic flow works. If I was doing a Michael Crichton-style thriller, it’d be different.

ok I'm sorry - I will stop now.

I want to thank you again for your very very kind asks! I really appreciate them.

❤❤❤❤

#writing #I AM SO SORRY FOR THE LECTURES #I JUST GET EXCITED ABOUT WORDS #writer's craft #ask #reply #anon #my writing

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wolfstarlibrarian · 4 years

Text

How to Beta Fanfic

The Librarian has been doing a few help posts, and this one on beta work has been in high demand! Hopefully authors and those looking to beta find this useful. Happy writing!

What is a beta?

A beta reader is someone who looks over a story before the author posts it publicly, checking it for some combination of spelling, grammar, cohesiveness, flow, plot holes, characterization, etc.

Why use a beta?

Authors can get so caught up in the story that it becomes difficult for their brain to focus in on the tiny typos. If you’re writing a story, your brain will make leaps around typos since it knows what you’re trying to say. A beta reader, someone from the outside, is a great help because every single word is new and fresh to their brain.

What makes a good beta?

Communicating with the author: Ask what they’re looking for since some authors only want help with spelling and grammar, while others want feedback on their story and style.

Correct typos and grammar within an author’s style. Instead of rewriting whole sentences, try to fix what is obvious and only suggest what could be considered “stylistic choices”. Maybe the author loves commas for spacing, so don’t get hung up on changing their style or flow.

Offer them a deadline. If you agree to beta 5k words, let the author know when you could have it done.

Think about pacing, flow, POV, and tense. Are you left confused after the scene? Does the tense switch from past to present? Does the POV switch characters or from first to third? All of these aspects are options for you to review.

Good beta feedback examples

“I’m confused about the choreography in this scene. Whose arm is going around the back?”

“I loved this joke!”

“Looks like you use a mix of present and past tense. Is there one you’d prefer I correct to?”

“There are six sentences in this paragraph that all start with the word “He”. It might read better with some variety.”

“This part is confusing because he acts like he knows this woman, but it’s the first time we’re seeing her.”

Poor beta examples

Nitpicking or arguing with an author. This is THEIR fic, and while your help should be appreciated, remember that this is not a collaboration.

Being vague and negative. “I don’t like this part” is of no help to an author. Be specific with reasons like, “You had Sirius acting very confident and then he’s suddenly very weak here, which confuses me without knowing the motivation for his change”.

It shouldn’t have to be said, but do not copy an author’s ideas, plot, or lines when you are given the privilege of an early read.

Authors: How to work with a beta

Make sure to thank them! Beta’s are volunteers that deserve praise too!

Run through spell check and reread it yourself FIRST.

Use multiple betas! The more help you get, the better your fic can be!

Do not assume that a beta knows what you want without talking to them. If you’re only looking for help with typos, say so upfront.

Do not assume a beta can correct an endless amount of words or is interested in reviewing the same piece multiple times after many changes. Ask for help with each chapter and version. This gives someone the chance to say no, since everyone who does this is only volunteering in their free time.

Do not ask a minor to beta explicit content.

Do not rush a beta. If you waited until the last minute to finish your fic before a festival, do not assume that a beta reader can drop everything to help.

Offer to reciprocate! Most betas are also authors, so if someone takes time to offer you help, please return the favor.

Where to find a beta/authors who need a beta

Festivals with servers are a great way to meet new people in the fandom, and find someone to beta/someone to beta for.

Tumblr! If you have a mutual who’s activity you’ve noticed in your dash, start a conversation! You can also make a post or put it in your profile header.

Join the beta discord server! This is great place to meet authors and betas! Message @museinabsentia for an invite link!

Alternatives to a beta

If you use Google Docs, click Tools and select “check spelling and grammar” for additional grammar suggestions on your fic.

Grammarly is a great online tool and browser extension that will allow you to set your style and country’s language.

Betas are NOT Sensitivity readers

A sensitivity reader is someone who is hired to read and assess a manuscript with a particular issue of representation in mind, one that they have personal experience with.

Just because you and a beta enjoy your fic, does not mean it is not potentially misrepresenting the people it portrays. As much as we talk about fiction being fantasy, when you write about people as if they’re real, it’s important to not push harmful stereotypes.

Make sure you stay open to critique from those you represent so you can grow as a writer and not further harmful words.

Note to Non-betas

Do not comment on published fics with corrections. Many, many fics have seemingly obvious mistakes, but remember that you do not know the author’s mental state, native language, education level, or desires. At most, thank the author with a detailed comment, and offer yourself as a beta for future works if you truly love their style.

Other helpful posts:

How To Tag Your Fic

How to Write Fanfic Summaries

How to gain friends & fans writing fanfic

#beta #fanfic #writing help #librarian update #wolfstar #hp fanfic

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yungidreamer · 3 years

Text

Made Up

Summary: Our threesome is back again learning and growing. Yunho, Mingi, and their girl try their first day of being out and find the reactions of those around them to be difficult to anticipate.

Wordcount: 7.3k

Content warnings: Some cute moments and humor followed by some less happy moments. Angry sex that is a little rough, some coitus interruptus, and a little resolution.

They stepped through the doors to the third floor salon. It was the second place they had called yesterday, after deciding to move up their day of prissying themselves up, and had thankfully had space for both of the boys, and even her. It had been years since she had let anyone else do something to her hair. She took care of it, mostly kept it up and out of the way, so it was in decent condition. Still, she had some split ends and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get a trim. In the end with all the changes the boys were thinking of making, maybe it was time for her to do a little something as well.

They checked in at the counter and waited for each of their names to be called. None of them had told the others what it was they had decided to get done, wanting it to be a surprise. Yunho was brought back first, then their girl, and finally Mingi.

“Mingi,” said the chipper lean man with well cared for skin and a stylish long undercut. Mingi nodded and stood up, following him back along the long but narrow area where the stylists worked. He could see their girl in the back at a sink getting her hair washed. Yunho was in his chair, chuckling and chatting with the woman foiling his hair to bleach it a little lighter, especially the roots. Yunho met his eyes as he passed, offering a little wave as he went by. They stopped a few seats down, and Mingi flopped himself in the chair, looking at the man behind him through the mirror.

“My name is Jonny,” the man greeted as he started to examine Mingi’s hair. “It’s lovely to meet you today Mingi. So tell me, what are we doing today?”

“I want to go lighter,” Mingi started, running his fingers through his hair noting the dark roots he had developed as it had grown out. “And want to clean up the undercut, but keep the top longer.”

“That is a great choice, hun,” Jonny complemented. “With your long face, it would look really good. Let’s start lightening the color and then we will work on the cut.”

“Okay,” Mingi nodded, letting him throw the apron around him and set the chair at the right height.

“So is this for an occasion or something special,” Jonny asked, not really looking at him as he started to get some things ready to get started on bleaching his hair.

“Yeah, kinda,” Mingi hedged for a moment, trying to decide how to answer. He doubted either Yunho or their girl were near enough to hear, but overcoming the fear of being judged wasn’t about them hearing it was it? “The three of us are having a late Christmas gift. Our girlfriend got us reservations at a nice restaurant in the city.”

“Our girlfriend?” Jonny asked, flashing a slightly confused look at him as he started mixing the toner.

“Ye-yeah,” Mingi cleared his throat and tried to put on the air of confidence he used to hide behind as a kid. “The pretty one over there,” he pointed at their girl who was currently having a section of hair on one side of her head bleached. “And the cute guy we walked by,” he pointed at Yunho a few seats away. “We’re all together. Almost two years now, actually.” The last sentence came almost as a realization to himself. Had they really been together that long? It didn’t seem like it, and yet, at the same time, it felt like they had already been together forever.

“All three of you?” Jonny asked, looking between all of them, a little surprise filling his eyes. “Pfft, so unfair. Even at your age all the cute ones are taken.” Relief flooded Mingi. He had been a little surprised but nothing more, and his comment that all the cute ones were taken, yeah, that felt good to hear. They continued their chitchat, talking about a lot of nothing, with lots of laughter, making the time pass like a flash. Honestly, he had been so caught up in chatting with Jonny, and watching him do his work, that he hadn’t even remembered to try and sneak a peek at either Yunho or their girl.

When he finally remembered to try, the hairdressers kept being in the way. He was impatient and curious, now that it had crossed his mind. Jonny laughed as he saw Mingi crane his neck as he turned to try and get a peek.

“Hun, we are almost done,” he gave a high nasally laugh. “Just don’t move while I have the clippers. We don’t want any accidents.”

“Sorry,” Mingi gave a chagrined smile and stayed looking in the direction the man guided his head. He dutifully sat as Jonny expertly buzzed around him, trimming and shaping the lower part of Mingi’s hair. He had really needed this cut. They had been so busy with school that both he and Yunho had let their hair just grow out over the last few months. He didn’t mind, but it had started to look more and more messy rather than, as he had told himself, carefree. But for the dinner, he wanted to look good, he wanted to look like someone they could be proud of.

Jonny turned him, giving him a few final checks to make sure that he had everything just right, before he brushed the last of the stray hairs off his neck and took off the apron. With a wink he told him, “Okay, hun, go see your loves.”

Mingi jumped off his seat and moved down the length of the room to see what everyone else looked like. He found their girl first getting some last instructions about how to keep the color in her hair and a few tips about keeping her hair up and healthy. Most of her hair didn’t look too different, pulled back in a braided bun at the back of her head with the silver comb. But a section on the right side of her forehead had been left down and was now a vibrant violet that flowed down one side of her face.

“Whaaa,” Mingi breathed, drawing up behind them. “You look so good, babe.”

“You like it?” She asked, smiling at him through the mirror. “It’s not too much?”

“It’s perfect,” Mingi grinned as he reached out to touch her shoulder. “You’re gorgeous with that color.”

“Thank you,” she held his hand on her shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “You are looking pretty good yourself. I like the light color...actually...you look a little like a Viking. Hot.”

“Should I go and plunder something,” he straightened up and put on a tough face. “Bring you home some treasure from distant lands?”

“Oh honey,” she giggled. “I’d love that, but you and boats are not always a great mix.”

“Hey now,” he protested, hands on hips. “I’ve only had a few chances with boats and like, at least 50% of them have not ended up with all of us in the water.”

“Let’s get that percentage up to like...90% before you take a boat off to war,” her voice quivered with a barely suppressed snicker.

“You gonna teach me?” Mingi pressed a kiss to her cheek, using his hand on her chest and neck to hold her there for it. Her eyes widened at the gesture but she recovered quickly, leaning into his soft lips.

“Anything you’d like, my love,” she agreed.

“What do we have here,” Yunho chuckled as he joined them, running his fingers through his shock of blue-green hair, somewhere between teal and turquoise. The color looked amazing on him, the cheery yet calm color matched his personality so well, it felt like he should have been born with it.

“Wow,” she breathed, starting to turn towards him as Mingi straightened up. “I love it.”

“You look… so good,” Mingi’s eyes went a little wide and he shook his head a little as if it would help clear the fuzz from his mind.

“You like it?” Yunho questioned, looking at both of them. Mingi nodded, his eyes falling to Yunho’s quirked, perfect Cupid’s bow lips. The other boy noticed, and butterflies burst to life in his chest in the second before Mingi leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. Yunho froze, shock momentarily stopping his body from functioning. Mingi had made a move, reaching for Yunho while the eyes of strangers were on them. When the surprise had finished washing through him, Yunho happily leaned into the kiss, putting his hands on Mingi’s jean covered hips.

“Awww,” said the girl who had done their girls hair. “You two are super cute.”

“Aren’t they?” Their girl said, grinning up at them.

“They are all together,” Jonny said, coming up behind her to hang off the other stylists shoulder. “Isn’t it cute… and completely unfair. I can’t even find one person who will put up with me, and they all have two.”

“How do you… okay, I think I shouldn’t ask what almost came out of my mouth there,” the stylist said, her voice petering out as the sentence went on.

“I can’t promise we’ll answer but,” their girl shrugged as she stood up and joined her boys. “You can ask if you are curious.”

“Just… is it like everything all together?” She skirted, trying to be tactful as she asked.

“Pretty much,” their girl nodded. “It works out pretty well when you figure it out. And it really helps when it all sort of started that way. It’s always been the three of us with most everything.”

“And again, I weep,” Jonny said dramatically. “I can’t find that with even one person.”

“You will,” Mingi assured him. “You’re really nice and funny.” He smiled and gave him a reassuring thumbs up as he kept one arm around Yunho’s waist.

“You… are… so cute,” Jonny put a hand to his heart and giggled. “If you ever break up, come back and track me down. Not that I’m holding my breath, okay?”

“Mmm,” Yunho narrowed his eyes at Jonny mostly jokingly but somewhere behind his eyes was a little spark of he’s mine. “I definitely suggest not holding your breath on that.” Leaning in to kiss the side of Mingi’s neck, even as he kept his eyes on the other man. Mingi blushed and giggled, a wide grin spreading across his face.

“Don’t you ever, get jealous?” Her stylist asked, looking between her and the two boys.

Their girl paused to think before answering. “No… well not really. I mean, sometimes I wonder if they really need me around, but I’m going to do better about saying something when I get those doubts.”

“She is the very best person,” Mingi said, going to her, leaning down to kiss the top of her head.

“Our girl is the glue,” Yunho agreed, hugging the both of them with his long arms. “And the smartest.”

“Pfft,” she rolled her eyes. “Please. Liiiieeees!”

“No, it’s true,” Mingi nodded fervently. “You are so good to both of us. We probably don’t deserve you.”

“You do,” she assured him. “I’m lucky to have both of you.”

“Come on loves,” Yunho said as he touched them both gently. “We have more to do today.” With a last few thanks, they headed to the front of the shop to pay and head off to their next stop. With their dinner upcoming Mingi wanted to get a new suit and she needed a dress. They’d had places in mind before coming, having found shops only a couple of blocks apart. She would slip into her shop to get a little something she could wear, keeping it a little surprise for the night of the reservation, while the boys went together to get a suit fitted for Mingi.

Yunho and Mingi dropped their girl off at her shop and made their way to the suit and tailoring shop Mingi had decided to get his suit at. When they stepped into the shop they were immediately greeted by a very well dressed man who came to ask, in a slightly obsequious voice, how he could help them today. Slightly startled, Mingi stepped a little closer to Yunho at the man’s sudden appearance.

“We need to get a suit for my friend here,” Yunho answered, putting a steadying hand on Mingi’s lower back. “We have a special event on Friday and we were hoping to get something that was at least fitted for him, if not made for him.”

“Oh wonderful,” he said with a nod. “We should be able to get something made for you in a couple of days if we get it off to the team soon. Let’s get started. Please follow me.”

Both the boys looked at each other, excited about getting something new and fancy for Mingi to wear for the dinner. They were led towards the back of the store where the man set Mingi on a round built in step in front of a set of mirrors. While Mingi took off his extra layers to let the man measure him, Yunho took a seat in a cushy leather armchair a little off to the side.

“What were you thinking of for looks?” The man asked as he expertly whipped his measuring tape around Mingi’s outstretched limbs.

“I don’t know,” Mingi admitted, watching the man through the mirror. “I think I want something in light grey since Yunho’s suit is light grey.”

“Yunho?” The man questioned, without looking up from his work.

“Me,” Yunho replied from his seat in the chair. The man only nodded, kneeling down to measure Mingi’s inseam.

“Alright,” he stood up and tucked his notebook into his pocket. “Let’s look at some fabric.” They wandered over to a wall of gray fabric all gathered together along one section of a wall. The number of options felt overwhelming. Yes, they were all grey, but there were so many different shades, patterns, and textures. He had never seen such a sea of gray.

“What looks good to you?” The man asked, clasping his hands in front of him with a smile.

“I think something simple,” Mingi began. “Ummm, maybe not a strong pattern at least.”

“Good, maybe something classic?” The man nodded, touching the first knuckle of his finger to his chin before pulling a couple of choices off the shelf for a closer look. While the man and Mingi looked at a few more options in the light gray, some checked, some heathers, and a few that were almost solid, Yunho stepped over a few shelves, drawn to a charcoal gray fabric sitting among the darker colors. It was a sort of heather, almost solid, with a fine grain to the fabric which almost gave it a sheen when the light hit it.

“Hey Mingi,” Yunho called as he looked at it on the shelf. “What about this one, I really like it. I think the color would be really good on you.”

“You think so? More than the light gray like yours?” Mingi asked, coming up beside him.

“I think this,” he tapped on the fabric as the man came near to see for himself. “Would be an amazing color on you.”

“You think it’s okay if we don’t, sort of match?” An insecurity tinged Mingi’s voice. He wanted to look like he was with both of them, he didn’t want to seem like he was standing apart anymore.

“I think this is the perfect color for you.” Yunho agreed. “Matching isn’t the only thing that will say you’re with us, you know.”

“I think this color would be great on you,” the man agreed as he pulled it off over the shelf. “It would be great on your skin. Maybe with something bold like red or dark blue?”

“Red,” Mingi said excitedly. “Like a dark red.”

“Come with me,” The man said with a satisfied grin. He led them to a part of the room with shelves and shelves of button down shirts. From one of the top shelves, he pulled down a shirt of deep red, somewhere near the shade of a garnet, deep and rich. “What do you think?”

“Yes, that, I want that.” Mingi nodded eagerly.

“Good, good,” the man nodded with a pleased face. “Now let’s build your suit.”

The three of them sat down and picked out all the customizable elements of Mingi’s suit. They chose notch lapels and minimal padding in his shoulders, given how broad and well shaped he was already. They kept the profile smooth, opting for a welted pocket at the chest and no flaps on his waist pockets. Mingi chose to have two vents on his back since it gave a little sleeker look for his shape. For his lining, he picked a red paisley that felt fun and classic, even if no one was going to see it. At the prompting of the man who had measured him, he chose to get a matching vest with tightly set buttons down the center and a slightly rounded neckline.

“You are going to look so good in this,” Yunho said eagerly as they finalized the details. “I’m even more excited for dinner now. You’re sure you can get this done in a few days?”

“Yes, absolutely, you can pick it up in the early afternoon Friday,” He nodded confidently. “Was there anything else you needed?”

“Actually,” Yunho looked a little shy as he decided to bring it up. “Do you happen to have a tie and pocket square that is something close to my hair color?”

“Hmmm, let’s see what we have,” the man walked confidently to a back corner of the store where ties in more colors than either of the boys thought was possible. With a quick assessing glance at Yunho’s freshly colored head, he turned to the section filled with blues and greens and pulled out three or four in the turquoise to sea green section. Standing Yunho in front of a mirror, he draped them over his shoulders to let him see them on himself.

“Do you like this color?” He asked, holding up a tealish turquoise.

Yunho nodded, then added, “Is there something like this but maybe not quite so bright?”

“How about this?” The man picked up one with a plaid pattern to it in shades of teal and very fine shots of black which accented the pattern. The mix of shades, leaning heavily towards teals and not overly saturated.

“Yes,” Yunho replied firmly. “I love this. It’s perfect. What about a pocket square?”

“I have just the thing to go with this,” the man grinned excitedly before leaning down to open one of the drawers below, pulling out a little box with a pleased flourish. He opened it revealing the same tie, a pocket square in the same pattern and a set of button cufflinks capped with the same material.

“Perfect,” Mingi grabbed his arm excitedly from beside him, giving him a quick kiss to his cheek and bouncing slightly. Yunho laughed and leaned his head towards the other boy.

“What about for you, young man?” He directed the question to Mingi.

“Yes, maybe something that is the same color as the suit?” Mingi suggested, eyes scanning the wall. The man nodded and pulled out a few recommendations from the selection for them to look at. After a few tries, they settled on a dark grey tie with a barely there floral pattern woven into it, which was also a full set with a pocket square and cufflinks. The man cleared his throat and took the boxes with him to the register where Mingi’s shirt and suit order were waiting for them. He took a number for Mingi, to let him know when everything was done or to call if they had any issues, checked them out at the register and wished them a very good day before heading back to the employee only area behind a solid wooden door at the back of the shop.

Mingi and Yunho exited the shop and headed out on the street with their large paper bags hooked around their wrists. Just as Yunho was about to call their girl to check in on her, he noticed her relaxing against the brick wall of the building, entertaining herself by scrolling through her phone as she stood quietly, holding a bag of her own.

“Hey, love,” He greeted, coming close to her. “You should have said you were done, you could have joined us.”

“I know,” she smiled, tucking her phone into her bag. “I want Mingi’s look to be a surprise though.”

“Okay, as long as you know we would have been happy to have you,�� Yunho told her, leaning in to kiss the top of her head before lifting her up into a big hug.

“What’s left?” Mingi asked, holding her and rocking slightly as her feet dangled off the ground.

“Makeup, sweetheart,” she replied, smiling into his shoulder.

“How are you doing that today?” Mingi asked, slightly confused.

“I have a look in mind and I need to buy some new makeup to do it with,” she explained. “Plus if we go to a proper counter, I can get some tips and see what the stuff looks like on me.”

“Can I get some too?” Mingi asked as the idea flitted through his mind that… he wanted to look pretty too.

“Do you want to?” She pulled back to look at him, a little surprise showing in the angle of her eyebrows.

“I don’t know,” Mingi suddenly felt a little self conscious. “Would it look bad on me?”

“No babe,” Yunho said, stepping in. “You’d look amazing. I think we should all get it done.”

“No that’s a good idea,” she agreed. “I haven’t done anything on someone else, but maybe I can watch when they do yours and help you with it on Friday.”

“Okay,” Mingi grinned. “Let’s go then.”

“Alright then, just a final touch,” the woman said as she leaned in to brush a last little bit of eye shadow on Mingi’s lid as their girl hovered nearby, taking mental notes. Yunho already had his look, a light natural one that really just made his eyes pop and with a light gloss that made his lips look just that shade more kissable.

When she pulled back, Mingi opened his eyes and gave a few blinks before turning to their girl for her approval. She gave him a smile and a big thumbs up as she looked at him and his finished look. Mingi felt relief even before he looked at himself in the mirror offered to him by the makeup artist. Looking at himself, he liked the way the eyeshadow accented his long smooth eyelids, making them feel a little deeper set. It wasn’t a lot but he felt like his eyes were a little brighter and a little prettier.

“Here are your things,” she passed him the shadow set and eyeliner pencil. “Em over there can help you get the brushes you need. You look so good. It’s so nice to see guys who are confident enough to try on some makeup.”

“My boys are really awesome,” she lifted her chin proudly as she looked at both of them.

“Aww, you’re a good friend,” the woman cooed, cleaning her brushes in the pause between them. Their girl didn’t really reply, just gave a smile as she took the seat, watching Mingi and Yunho get the last of the things they needed.

“Would you mind waiting to do my look until I can shoo them off?” She asked the makeup artist quietly.

“You don’t want them to see you?” She asked, giving her a slightly surprised flash as she looked up at her.

“I want to be able to surprise them for dinner on Friday,” their girl shrugged.

“Oh you’re all having a celebration dinner together?” The woman asked. “I somehow thought it was their anniversary or something.”

“Well, it sort of is,” their girl shrugged, giving Mingi a wave as he held up a bundle of brushes the other person was selling him. “But it’s all of ours.”

“Like…as friends?” She asked, looking between them.

“Like as lovers and friends and partners,” she filled in slowly. She could see a myriad of questions flicker behind her eyes.

“Hey, babe,” Mingi greeted, proudly holding his bag full of goodies along with his bag from the suit shop. “You haven’t started yet.”

“Nope, I want it to be a surprise still,” she gave him a chagrined smile. “Would you mind if I message you when I’m done?”

“Awww I want to see how you do it.” Mingi pinched his lips together and frowned. “Will you show me later at least?”

“Of course,” she rushed to promise him. “How about I promise to teach you how to put the look on me when we get home?”

“Really?” He was actually excited by the idea. “Okay, if you promise. I’ll take Yunho with me.”

“Thank you, my love,” she told him, reaching out to give his hand a squeeze. Leaning in, he pressed a kiss to her cheek before practically skipping off to grab Yunho and take him to look around the store as they waited for her.

“Okay, let’s get started,” the woman said as she saw the two boys disappear around a corner. “First, tell me what you want, let’s get a good idea of what you are looking for.”

“I really want something sort of art deco.” Reaching for her shopping bag, she pulled out a little of her dress, revealing the color and texture of the fabric. “The cut is somewhere similar to something from the 1920s or 30s.”

“I think I have the perfect idea,” the woman nodded. “Something with gold accents and very 1920s and Gatsby-ish, without going in the vamp direction. Sound good?”

“That sounds like exactly what I want,” she replied eagerly.

“Do you mind if I ask you a couple of things?” The makeup artist asked, as she pulled a couple of things out of the drawer.

“Uh, why not… Meredith?” she said, reading the tag on the woman’s shirt.

“Call me Mer,” the woman laughed. “I’m going to start with some foundation, first.”

As Mer pulled out a couple of shades to test out the best one for her, the younger woman looked at her assessingly, wondering why it was she seemed so curious. She was pretty, maybe in her late 20s or her early 30s, with shoulder length blond hair, the top half of which was held back in a clip on the back of her head. Her eyes were a bright green leaning hazel and she had smattering of light freckles over her cheeks and nose that were barely visible under her expertly done makeup.

“Okay, chin up like this,” Mer said, lifting her chin with one finger to angle her face into the light.

“Right, yes,” she angled her face and closed her eyes with a sigh.

“So,” Mer said quietly as she began to use the sponge to put a layer of foundation on. “Two boyfriends, huh? How did that happen?”

“Uh, well we all met in high school,” she answered, purposely staying slightly vague. “We just sort of decided we all fit together and we’ve been together since then.”

“Really?” The older woman asked with interest. “So it wasn’t like two of you were dating and you just sort of integrated someone else?”

“No, it was always all of us together,” she shrugged. “Since the start.” They lapsed into silence minus Mer explaining what she was doing and making notes for her on the order and application of the makeup she was putting on her. The woman really was a good teacher, going through things in a very step by step way, including how things should feel when you are getting the placement correct.

Her lips were the very last thing they worked on, trying a couple of different colors before they settled on a deep bluish red that was just a shade more pigmented than her dress. Her eyes couldn’t help but watch the woman as she concentrated on lining her lips with the smooth pencil. Meredith bit her lip and her eyes flicked up to meet her eyes as she finished lining her lips. She would have sworn she saw a blush spread over the makeup artist's cheeks under the fine powder as she turned away to look for the lip brush she was going to use to apply the lovely new lipstick.

“Okay so when you do your lips,” Meredith explained as she brushed the first layer of color on. “Color your lips completely with a brush and then you want to blot with a tissue. After that, reapply and you can also put on a little powder over it if you really want it to stay. And here, let’s look at the final look.”

Turning the mirror toward her, Meredith let her look at herself. She felt beautiful and it was the perfect look for her dinner celebration with the boys. She turned and gave the woman who had done it a warm smile and caught that same faint pink on her cheeks as she smiled back. Pulling her phone out of her pocket, she took a couple of pictures to help her remember and then send a message to the boys that she was done.

“I really hate to ruin your amazing work,” she gave the older woman an apologetic look. “But I still want this all to be a surprise for them.”

“Oh of course,” Meredith quickly nodded and reached for the makeup wipes she kept on the little counter. She packed up new versions of all the makeup she had used on the younger woman as she left her to clean off her face. Sealing them nicely in a bag, she gave her coworker the total so that she could ring the girl up as soon as she was done.

“These things really work well,” she commented when she noticed the makeup artist coming back towards her.

“I know, they are real lifesavers when you need them,” Meredith agreed with a smile as she looked at the other woman’s bare face. She really was just so pretty. “Hey, what if I just put the lipstick on? It is such a good color on you.”

“Sure,” she nodded. “I suppose that really isn’t a spoiler and the color makes me feel really cute.”

“You look beautiful in it,” Meredith admitted quietly as she pulled out the lip pencil again. She lined the lips and put on the first layer of lipstick before she had gathered up the courage to ask the question she had been wanting to ask for the past 45 minutes. “Umm, have you guys ever considered, you know… adding a fourth?”

Her eyes widened slightly as she looked up at the makeup artist who was very diligently swiping her lower lip with the brush. Now she was sure she had been seeing a blush just there under her makeup. Surprise flickered through her at the realization the older woman had a… crush, she couldn’t think of a better word for it, on her… on them. However, that surprise was nothing compared to the level of shock that spiked through her a moment later when, after a second’s hesitation, the woman cupped her cheeks and leaned in to press a very warm, close-mouthed kiss to the lips she had just finished coloring in for a second time.

For a brief moment that seemed to stretch for an eternity, she froze. Even as the woman had asked if they had ever considered adding more people to their mix, she hadn’t thought she would be so forward. It could have been embarrassed curiosity, or that she had an interest in one of the boys. There were a million things that she might have guessed before she would have thought this would happen.

When she finally moved past the shock, she pushed the woman away with a gentle hand on her shoulder, still more surprised than angry. That, however, was not the case for Yunho who had rounded the corner of the area containing the shop just in time to see the woman lift their girls face into a kiss. Time froze and the din of people shopping and chatting was suddenly lost to a buzzing that filled his ears. That moment of their lips pressed together seemed to last forever until their girl finally, FINALLY, pushed her away, the dark lipstick now smudged on both their lips.

A hot anger prickled over his skin and he strode forward, grabbing their girl by the wrist and pulling her none too gently off the high chair she was perched on. He grabbed her shopping bag with his free hand and started to move out of the store.

“Mingi, pay for all her stuff and come outside,” he said to the other boy through gritted teeth. “I’m going to get a cab and then we are going back to the room.”

Mingi nodded, eyes slightly wide at the barely contained venom in Yunho’s voice, moving quickly to pay for the bag of things already waiting at the counter. He had noticed what was happening only after Yunho, when the boy suddenly stopped in his tracks, standing silent as his eyes burned. Mingi turned to look in the direction of whatever had caused Yunho to react like that, wanting to know what he saw. He caught only the last of the kiss, that last half second before she pushed the other woman away. The sight had caused a knot in his stomach and pain lanced through him. But maybe I deserve it, the thought briefly whispered through his head just before Yunho stepped forward and grabbed their girl.

He paid for the makeup, barely looking up at either of the people working there, before he jogged out of the store after the other two. The woman, the one who had done their makeup, tried to apologize or explain, but Mingi just shrugged her off, wanting to get out of there more than anything. He found Yunho on the curb, holding open the door of a cab that already had their girl waiting inside. He met Yunho’s eyes and jogged around the other side of the car to get in as Yunho ducked inside the door he was standing at.

Yunho gave the driver the address of their bed and breakfast then fell into a tense silence. His hand came to rest on her thigh as she sat quietly between them. He couldn’t look at her right now, but he needed to touch her. His grip slowly tightened to an almost bruising level just above her knee as he kept his eyes out the window on the city as they passed it all by.

On the other side, Mingi held her hand in both of his, nervously squeezing and petting her much smaller hand. He didn’t say anything, instead offered her sad half smiles when their eyes happened to meet. Unable to bring herself to say anything, she leaned her head into his upper arm, half apology, half hoping to find some sympathy there.

Pulling up outside where they were staying, Yunho pulled out a few bills, more than enough to pay for the ride and got out without waiting for change. Their girl slipped out quickly behind him, accepting as he grabbed her wrist and led her up to the room without a word.

As soon as they were inside Yunho slammed the door closed behind them, the sound filling the silence like a gunshot. Both Mingi and their girl stood frozen as Yunho leaned against the wall, his head leaning against his balled fists.

“Yunho, I’m sorry,” she tried to start, only to have his eyes turn on her with a dark flash, catching the words in her throat.

“Are we not enough?” Yunho choked out.

“What? No, I mean, yes! Yunho I didn’t—” she started only to have his lips crash into hers. His hands were yanking at her clothes to pull them off. Her shirt was pulled off over her head carelessly, pulling her hair and smearing her lipstick even more, then her jeans as he backed her closer to the bed. He turned her to face the bed, his fingers fumbling with the clasp of her bra.

“Do you want me,” he asked from behind her, his voice a hoarse growl.

“Y-yes,” she stuttered, holding her bra against the front of her body.

“Lie down,” Yunho ordered harshly. She crawled onto the bed and started to turn over only to be stopped by a sharp, “No,” from Yunho who was still stripping behind her. It took her a second to figure out that he didn’t want her on her back. Laying down on her stomach, she turned her face to the side and waited.

“Yunho,” Mingi touched his arm gently. “Don’t do this because you’re mad.”

“She needs to be reminded that she’s ours,” Yunho replied, a chill to his voice.

“It’s okay Mingi,” she said quietly from the bed. “Yuyu wouldn’t… he just needs to let it out.” Mingi let it drop and sat down on the foot of the bed. Crawling up over her on the bed Yunho spread her thighs before reaching for the lube and covering himself. Angling himself to enter her, he took her wrists and pinned them next to her shoulders.

“You love me, you love us,” he said as he slid his head inside and leaned more of his weight onto his hands that held her.

“I love both my boys,” she nodded, feeling the heat of his skin pressing against her. “They are the only ones for me.”

“I don’t believe you,” Yunho growled, his voice quavering as he made the accusation. “Convince me.” With a jerk he thrust into her completely and she stiffened beneath him, but didn’t protest. He was being rough and she hadn’t been completely ready for it, her body protesting at the stretch. Despite his anger and his need to punish her for the pain she had caused him, he paused, gripping her wrists as he waited to feel her relax under him.

“I love you, Yuyu,” she said, forcing herself to relax and turning her face more into the pillows beneath it.

“I don’t--” Yunho exhaled and clenched his jaw. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe either of you.” He closed his eyes and started moving inside her. She didn’t reply but moved to give him a better angle inside her. Letting go, Yunho moved with all the frustration that had pent up in him over the past few days.

Mingi turned to look at them over his shoulder more than a little conflicted as he felt a pang of arousal at seeing their girl nearly hidden beneath Yunho as he moved roughly in her. Needing a little more space, he moved to sit in the arm chair in the corner of the room. He couldn’t watch, but he couldn’t really bring himself not to at the same time. The bed creaked under his movements and he could hear both of their breathing increase, neither of them speaking.

Yunho pressed his face into the pillows near her head as he moved, taking the comfort of her body. His heart hurt and there didn’t seem to be any words that could explain the tempest of emotions moving through him. The doubts that had come up over the last few days… he had never had them gnawing at the edge of his mind like they were now. He was angry that they were making him doubt things he had never doubted before.

“Yuyu,” she said softly. “I’m not gonna leave. I don’t want anyone else. You’re it. I’m not going to go. It doesn’t matter what anyone else does. It’s only you.”

Yunho squeezed his eyes shut as a prickle of tears filled them. He let go of her wrists and lifted himself up. She didn’t move even when his weight lifted off her, just waiting for whatever he wanted, what he needed. With a far more gentle touch, he coaxed her to turn over and a wave of guilt and hurt hit him in the chest. Her hair was a mess and the lipstick was smeared across her cheek and chin and on the pillow that had been under her face. Even so, she still reached for him, pulled him back to her, wanting to comfort him.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, moving back to her.

“It’s okay,” she soothed, cradling him with her hips and wrapping her arms around his neck.

He curled around her, sliding himself back inside her as he kissed her temple. “I shouldn’t have touched you like that.”

“I’m always here,” she promised, leaning her forehead into his shoulder. “I’ll never turn you away.”

“You should have,” he shook his head.

“You needed me,” she replied softly.

“I always need you,” he admitted. “I feel like I don’t know who I am anymore if I don’t have you two.”

“You’re Yunho,” Mingi said, sitting on the bed beside them. “Best boy, reliable rock, and one of the loves of my life.”

Yunho reached out, taking Mingi’s hand and kissing his knuckles. He entwined his fingers with Mingi’s as the other boy lay down beside them, still wearing his clothes. Reaching out with his other hand, he pressed his palm against Yunho’s broad back. Yunho leaned over and kissed Mingi’s cheek before he looked down at their girl again.

“I like the color of the lipstick,” Yunho observed with a self deprecating laugh. “I just wish it didn’t remind me of…”

“I know,” she agreed, stroking his cheek. “But we can build new memories with it. Someday you won’t even think of it. Or I can just go buy another color.”

“No, I… it’s really pretty on you,” he shrugged and smiled down at her. “Do you mind if we stop? It… I’m not really in the right mood.”

“No, it’s okay,” she easily agreed. “Do you maybe just want us to hold you for a little?”

“Please,” he nodded, his eyes watering. “I just… I just want to be close.” When he rolled off her, she turned on her side, and cuddled up against him, one leg thrown over his hips.

“We’ve really been a fucking mess this trip, haven’t we?” She asked, resting her head against his shoulder as she wrapped an arm around his chest.

“Yeah,” Mingi agreed. “Can we promise to do something actually fun tomorrow? No tears, no running away, no strangers?”

“Yes please,” she said, feeling a couple of tears leak out of the corner of her eye and onto Yunho’s warm chest.

“Can I ask what happened?” Mingi asked, putting a hand over hers as he cuddled closer along the other side of Yunho.

“I’m not completely sure,” she shook her head. “She mostly seemed really curious and then she asked if we had ever considered adding a fourth just before she kissed me. I should have pushed her away faster but I just never expected her to do that.”

“I never thought that would be a possible downside to being out,” Yunho admitted, staring up at the ceiling.

“Me neither,” she agreed. “Promise we can do everything together tomorrow. I’m tired of accidentally ending up alone on this trip.”

“Everything,” Yunho promised.

“Maybe not going to the bathroom,” Mingi added after a second. “But everything else.”

“Fair, yes,” she laughed. “I can generally pee on my own. But if that changes, I’ll let you know.”

“Okay,” Yunho kissed the top of her head. “I’m getting hungry, but I want to lay here just a little longer.”

Masterlist

#ateez smut #ateez angst #yunho smut #mingi smut #song mingi #jeong yunho #kpop smut #kpop angst #mingi #Yunho #YunGi #mingi x reader #yunho x reader

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waterspoutskies · 2 years

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4 and 18 puh-lease! :3 I'd put 7 here too, but you've pretty much already answered that one earlier haha. I wouldn't object to some elaboration though!

Ohi Rav. Let’s get to it!

Asks are from this fun little meta asks for writers post here!

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

“There is a silent agreement that should they ever pass each other in the Minish Woods, the subject will remain tucked away in the soft, loamy earth, with the kinstones and the tunics and the bright eyes that will never open again.”

I am slightly proud of this one, just slightly. It has spawned artwork and many frustrated comments alike, which is of course what I live for as a generally terrible human being. If you ever want me to encapsulate tragic moments really dramatically, I can do that.

Honestly, in general, I'm pretty proud of getting down the technique for establishing a significant emotional punch. It comes fairly naturally to me, I think!

7. What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?

So as you mentioned I did partially answer this, even if I was being just a wee bit facetious about it (I would describe my personal writing style as "write the words and pray it's coherent") but I am going to try and do a bit of a technical breakdown on my writing style!

Sentence structure- I would like to think I've developed a pretty varied sentence structure over time, and I have! But I know I am rather partial to complex and compound-complex sentences. For some reason, I tend to prefer dependent clauses, and it shows! To that end, I also know my writing is absolutely riddled with stylistic fragments and run-on sentences. Sometimes too much so. Should I fix that, yes, am I going to, ehhhhhhhhh probably not.

Word choice- My word choice tends to be varied and fairly high level! Over time I've tried to develop the skill of changing the use of words and styles of thoughts based on who the POV character is. Not certain how good I am at that, but I am trying. It's subtle, anyway.

References- Speaking of subtlety. I love references. I love hiding them everywhere. If you couldn't tell, here is my reply to Aza which may help in demonstrating what I mean. I don't think most people catch them to be honest, BUT THAT WILL NOT STOP ME.

Character driven story- I'm not really sure how well I achieve this, but I intend very much for this to be the case when I write. I hope people can connect with the characters even when they're nothing like them, and understand them even when they don't want to work with the plot.

Do others agree? Uh well, I hope so? Maybe someone else has something different? I do not know!

18. Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations?) Tell us about them.

Why yes. There may be a few.

In my DMs with Ruby is a whole multi part set of discussions about what would happen if Four and/or Shadow touched Twi's crystal. Most of those have entertaining results. I'm going to hoard those like the tiny goblin demon I am until they eventually see the light of day, but rest assured, they are amusing. You are welcome to theorize with me.

My favorite, by far, originally a spinoff of the above set of discussions sometime last year, is Downfall Shadow. This is the resulting sequence of events wherein Dot and Shadow have to follow through on their engagement for political reasons and eventually down the line, it ends up with shadow magic in the royal family and... I think that led to Legend? Somehow? It's a hot mess with the timeline. I just enjoy the political commentary from the fallout of Dot's mother passing away and Dot and Shadow having to do something they really don't want to do for the good of the public because they are the princess and the "hero."

There was an early (very early) plotline for Beneath the Skin that had Vio stuck on the other side of the mirror (referring to the "exchange" of magic as a result of Vio using his sword to shred the mirror and free Shadow that Shadow described in the first chapter) which was very angsty and made no sense when I was killing all of the colors, so I abandoned it pretty quick. Was definitely a fun concept though.

There was a period where Wild was the one who ran from the chain, not Hyrule, and a brief variation where Flora and Wild hiked it to Hebra when the chain showed up, which went over as well as you can imagine. There’s also some good Flora and Wild dialogue I ended up cutting out that had more about their parents and their expectations, especially Rhoam, the bastard. Flora had some great lines in there.

“I always wished I had stood up to him sooner,” Zelda admitted. “No use now, but… Oh, who am I kidding, it wouldn’t have changed anything! Forget it. Fathers are clearly nothing but trouble, heroes and princesses be damned. Who needs any of this mess?! We’ll just make our own path, let’s go! Take me on one of your stupid solo adventures and we’ll get lost in Hebra or something! See if I care, Father!” She jumped up, shouting it defiantly to the sky, and he snorted. “I don’t think he can hear you.” “I hope he can. I hope he thinks I’m a disgrace to the royal family!”

Good stuff.

I’ve also run through close to a dozen versions of Hyrule’s backstory in about a month trying to figure out what I was doing for Where We Are. He’s had just about every possible explanation for his magic and family and how and when he got to Hyrule in the first place. It was kind of ridiculous, honestly, but it’s all settled now! Damn children appearing randomly out of the woods in Hyrule...

There’s other messy characterizations and abandoned attempts at the boys all over the place in my files as I worked to get various narratives nailed down and learn how to write each of the characters (still working on Time and Wind)... Oh, there’s also a version of Four where Shadow is already back and hiding in his shadow during LU! You’ll see that one eventually though, so no spoilers.

Ok, I think that's everything answered! I am so sorry that took so long, midterms and other fun things got in the way. Thank you Rav! This was fun!

#Question Paloma #Is anybody listening?#You heard? No.#my writing #about my writing #ask game #Thank you Rav!!#I hope this was completely unhelpful <3

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deobitchxx · 4 years

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Hi~ Can I request a fluff with Changmin and prompt #32 and #33 pls?

[ 16:34 // 26.09.2020 // R.FLUFF ] “When are you getting off work?” His silvery voice was a mixture of concerns and exhaustion combined through the other line. You shrugged your shoulders off, as if the latter would see the action. “Not sure, I’ll be done after sweeping this floor.” “Alright, wait for me there.” “But Ji Ch-” Before you could even block him from coming, he already ended the call, knowing the fact that you won’t allow him to visit you. He usually only had 2 hours of sleep on the moderate schedule and if his team’s comeback is around the corner, he might stay up for almost 2 days straight without any proper sleep. It was not like you weren’t excited to meet him but you wanted him to use the break time for resting. In addition, the cafe shop that you are working at is in the center of Seoul, so it is not impossible to have his fans wandering around the big city. Sighing, you shoved your phone into the pocket of the apron and continued to sweep the floor.

“I’m sorry I’m late, traffic problem.” The heavy breath of his clearly showed that he hurried to your workplace. You were waiting for him outside the cafe shop after locking down all the doors and windows. “It’s fine, how’s work today?” You asked him as he held your tote bag, wrapping the strap on his shoulder and accompanied you to the bus stop. He let out a deep breath, “Don’t even let me start it. It was so tiring, more tired than our previous comeback.” Your chuckling sounds pleasantly rang to his ears, “You guys earn a lot of fans after Road to Kingdom. I’m sure you guys are working hard for them.” You gave a pat on his shoulder and added, “Cheer up, Ji Changmin. I know you can do it,” he looked at you, who was smiling flawlessly to the latter. Oh, how bad he wanted to own that smile of yours. He beamed along and casually put his arm over your shoulder, pulling you close, “Then may I get a free cake tomorrow?” You nudged him on the side and stuck your tongue, “Pay for the cake if you wanted to, I’m not your factory to provide free cakes.”

The sounds of glasses clinking and loud music were dominating the entire space of the underground bar. You were not a big fan for parties, but this one was an exception. All of your and Changmin’s friends gathered at the bar to celebrate his team’s comeback. The owner of the bar was Changmin’s closest friend and he wanted to appreciate his efforts in preparing for the comeback. To be honest, the party didn’t sound exciting enough to you because the person you wanted to see the most wasn’t around to be seen. You let out a groan, leaning your back against the wooden chair. “Missing your sweetheart huh?” The owner of the bar, Jaehyuk, asked you across the table. “Shut up,” you rolled your eyes, not in the mood to joke around. “Oh come on, we all know how whipped you are for our Changmin.” It was true though, you like Changmin a lot. You just got the chance to meet him last year and it felt like you’ve liked him for years. You wanted him by yourself but the nightmare of him rejecting you haunted you a lot. You are afraid that your confession might make the friendship worsen. However, little that you didn’t know, Changmin feels the same way too. That’s the reason why your friends are frustrated because none of you are willing to take the first move.

“Just shut up,” you threw the snack towards Jaehyuk, who apparently saw it coming and dodged. The others laughed, having fun teasing you when it’s about Changmin. You decided to ignore their childish behaviours and paid more attention on your phone, reading all the comments for Changmin’s team and mostly him. ‘Changmin is so handsome,’ ‘Oppa be mine’, ‘Changmin I love you!!!’ all of these comments seemed to be very common for you to read. When you were just about to scroll down to read more, someone called you and it turned out to be no other than the latter. You excused yourself and headed to the toilet, the only safest place in the bar. “Hello?” “Y/N~ What are you doing now?” “Nothing much, just waiting for the showcase to be aired. How about you?” You kicked imaginary stones on the air, walking front and to the back while talking with him over the phone. “I’m nervous, I don’t think I can do well. Maybe a free cake would be a great choice to cheer me up?” You giggled over the line, “How am I going to give you that? I’m not even allowed to enter the building.” A smile escaped from his lips, “It’s okay, your voice is enough. Thank you.” You hummed in response as silence suddenly creeped into the conversation. “Make sure to watch the showcase, hm? I’ll go to the bar after I finish, wait for me.”

The smile on your face can’t seem to find its way to escape as your eyes fixed on the huge screen that displayed the showcase of the team. However, it didn’t last that long when you have to wait for another hour to see Changmin’s face. Some of your friends already got drunk after drinking the combination of soju and wine, some even dozed off on the sofa. “I’m sorry that I’m late, we had a short meeting with the CEO after the showcase.” Your ears perked and your eyes lit up once you heard your favourite voice, turning around to face the young man entering the bar and took a seat next to you. “You should’ve come earlier, Y/N refused to drink with us because you’re not around.” Jaehyuk groaned and glared at Changmin, “You are so lucky that someone actually waited for you.” He laughed a bit and turned to face you, “Is it true?” Pinkish blushes appeared on your cheeks as you quietly nodded, leading the latter to caress the top of your head softly while whispering just for you to hear, “Thank you.” “S-Stop looking at me, I probably look like a tomato now.” You tried to avoid his glances, trying to busy yourself with pouring the alcoholic drink into your cup. Seeing you flustered next to him is one of his favourite sights, chortled as he turned to focus on his other friends.

“Why didn’t you drink? You’re the only one that’s sober now,” You puffed your lower lips and about to offer another drink for Changmin, but he was quick enough to hold your wrists and stopped you. “I can’t drink a lot, I have schedules tomorrow.” “Humph,” you looked away, sulked that he wasn’t accompanying you to drink together. “Come on, I will drink with you another time.” He held your shoulders and turned you to lock his eyes with yours. “Y/N,” he called you out but the drunk state of yours can’t hear him properly. He sighed and called you again, “Y/N.” “Yes?” You lazily opened your heavy lids, trying to look into his eyes. He took a deep breath, still debating if he should do it or not. You lost your patience as your hands went to cup his cheeks, puffing his lips out like a duck, “What is it? Do you have something to share with me?” “Well actually I..” he held your hands into his grips, pulling down to his thighs while not breaking any eye contact. “I..” “What is it?” “I.. I c-can’t say it here,” his cheeks now were red due to the embarrassment that he was going to face soon.

“Why? Is it because it’s in public? Do you want to talk privately?” You shot him questions, afraid that he might actually have some serious topic to talk about with you. “We can go to the toilet and talk there,” you stood up and about to drag him along with you to the restroom. However, his reflexes got him and quickly stopped you by grabbing your wrist and pulled you back to the chair. “N-No..” He shook his head and mumbled under his breath, “I m-might lose self control if I’m alone there with you.” “You what?! Stop mumbling around and straight to the point,” you groaned, the way he was stuttering and speaking so quietly annoyed the shit out of you. He looked at you with a surprised expression, shocked that you suddenly raised your voice on him. You sighed and ran your fingers through your hair, “Say what you want to say while I’m trying my best to be sober.” He stayed quiet for a while, the drunk you were really frightening him. He mustered up all his courage, “Okay, I might say this once so feel free to forget it if you found it uncomfortable.” You nodded and paid your full attention to the latter, “Go on, Ji Changmin. I’m waiting.”

“Well actually I.. I think I.. Y-You know.. The l word..” He fumbled his fingers, eyes dropped down to his thighs as he was not daring enough to look into your eyes. “What l word?” You asked him and earned nothing but silence from the latter. “Come on, it’s only the two of us that are still up. All of them passed out, what’s holding you from saying it?” Again, silence replied to you. “Ji Changmin, I told you I didn’t have enough time to play with your sh-” “I love you okay?” He confessed in his most bravest voice, almost loud enough to wake the rest. “I love you. It’s crazy how I can’t stop thinking about you ever since you helped me during my darkest time. The questions that related to you keep on repeating in my mind. ‘Have she eaten yet?’ ‘Will she wait for me again today?’ ‘If I confess now, will she accept me?’ ‘What is she doing now?’ All of these are taking turns running in my mind.” Changmin added, “The sight of you smiling at your male customer annoyed me but I can’t complain because that’s a basic manner in your workplace and besides, you’re not mine to begin with. I’m just- I just can’t stop thinking about you and it drove me crazy. Even while the stylists help me with my tie, I’m imagining you are the one that does it for me.”

“I-” His sentence got cut off as soon as he felt your plump lips against his. You were closing your eyes, braving yourself to lean for a peck. You moved to the back after a while, biting your lower lips as you dared yourself to look him in the eyes. “Y.. You speak too much. It’s hurting my mind.” He noticed the sudden red blushes on your cheeks as he was sure that it wasn’t because you were drunk, instead it was because you were equally flustered as he did. He leaned in to place a soft peck back on yours and rested his forehead on yours, “I love you.” His soft voice was enough to drive you crazy and bring him to places, but you restrained yourself from doing so and caressed his cheek. “I.. I love you too.” The way he beamed was so beautiful, as he held your hand that was on his cheek and planted a peck on the back of your hand. “I wanted to say ‘I love you’ for the first time without stuttering, but that failed. Guess I’m a failure when it comes to you.”

“Oh please, I might do worse than you if I was the one that confessed first,” you snorted and leaned your side against the chair, not wanting to look away from the beautiful eyes of his. “So what are we now? Are we still friends?” You asked him as he playfully shrugged his shoulders off, playing dumb, “I don’t know, are you up for friends with benefits?” You laughed it off and hit him on the chest, “Stop playing around, Changmin.” The corner of his lips raised to form a quick grin and caressed your hand, “Uh uh, I think you might have to change the way you called me.” You raised an eyebrow out of curiosity as he added, “You have to call me ‘my boyfriend’ starting from now on.” His finger reached to bop your nose and you tried to bite his finger off like a cat, “Cutie.” He said and ruffled your hair, “Wanna know something?” “What is it?” You asked while your head rested on the chair as Changmin caressed your hand with his thumb in circles, “Apparently all our friends have a bet going that we end up together, guess Jaehyuk gonna get all the money.” You giggled over the ridiculous sentence and fixed your eyes on your hand inside his grip, “You must be kidding.” “I’m saying the truth though! Jaehyuk accidentally spilled the bean to me and it seems like they can’t wait any longer for the result, so I braved myself to take the first step.” “No, even if they didn’t start the bet, I somehow will make a time to confess to you.” His hand laid on your right cheek as you leaned against his touch, “Because I’m starting to love you more than I could imagine.”

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dogmascutie · 3 years

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3, 4 and 7 for the fic asks! 😊

-@mandaloriandin

me, reading these asks and suddenly forgetting my entire writing process 👁👄👁 JK

3. Do you write fics from start or finish, or jump around?

generally i’m most successful going start to finish. occasionally i’ll jump around if a certain scene is clear in my head and i want to get it down, but in general i like to start, vibe and hope for the best, and then finish.

4. Do you outline before you start writing? If so, how far do you stray from that outline?

occasionally! if i ever write long fics i at least try to have some semblance of an outline. i don’t really outline individual chapters, though, i mostly just jot down important plot points and ideas. so, like for be quiet, babygirl, in my notes i had “dogma and babygirl hook up in the barracks bc of exterminators, dogma sneaks into babygirl’s office, fox walks in and catches them (?)”. i ended up changing things around a little, but that was how brief and vague my outline was lol

7. Which part of writing do you struggle with most?

not putting in too much detail so that it slogs on or gets repetitive, and setting description in general. i’m a very visual person, but when it comes to describing, say, a bedroom, i feel like i end up writing “the plant was in the right corner. the bookcase, in the left.” i think that’s part of why i write in present tense so much - that type of description sounds especially clunky in present tense, and it prevents me from getting too boring.

i also use way too many run-on sentences, but at this point i’ve decided to claim those as a stylistic choice and just vibe with them 😎

love you kylie 💞

fanfic ask game

#these were so fun to answer fr #it really made me think about how i write #mandaloriandin #ask dee

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cilldaracailin · 4 years

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Don’t Stop Me Now

Hello all my lovely Tumblr’s. Here is the next part to this story. Hope you all enjoy. Thanks for the likes on the previous part and the comments too.

“To conquer frustration, one must remain intensely focused on the outcome, not the obstacles.”

“I just cannot say sorry enough Taron. I really can’t.”

“Robyn it is ok.”

“No Taron it really isn’t. I just cannot explain to you how much I was looking forward to it and that is the God’s honest truth. I have my bloody case out and packed ready to go too.”

“Robyn, I swear it is ok. I understand.”

“And the dress.” Robyn stared at the dress Stella had sent back to her house three days after she had tried it on with a note that said ‘you’ll knock him dead’ attached. Robyn had hung it on the closer door ready to take on the plane with her on Saturday.

“It’s just a dress chicken. You can still wear it when you get home from your training on Saturday and walk around your sitting room and sit in my corner with cwtch.”

“Taron…”

“Robyn, please don’t say it again. I understand that sometimes these things happen.”

Robyn had been sitting at her desk in work on Wednesday when an email came into her work account for a training course that was happening for all management within her catchment area by the local childcare committee on the weekend of Elton’s charity auction. Compulsory training. Robyn had rang the committee to ask about the training and complain about the short notice but had no choice but to accept the fact that it was training that was now part of the childcare regulations and all management staff within each centre had to attend and their centres training was the coming Saturday. Robyn had asked if the training was available on another day but it wasn’t. She pleaded with them for another weekend but there was no leeway. With Emma away for a few days, Robyn was in charge of the creche and had no other option but to accept their places on the training course which started at eight am and finished at six. Then she had to call Taron and explain that she wouldn’t be able to come and see him and be by his side.

“I just feel like I am letting you down.”

“Robyn you could never let me down. Never. I can’t say I am not disappointed because I am but that’s because I would never lie to you. I understand how important your job is to you and how hard you have worked to get to where you are. We will get to see each other again.” Even though Taron was taking her news well, she could still hear the hurt in his voice. “You will definitely have to send me a picture of the dress now.”

“Taron I am so so sorry.”

“Robyn stop.”

“I promise the next weekend I have free; I am on my way over to you.”

“You do know I am back filming Kingsman next weekend, right? You will have to fly to New York to see me.”

“I am willing to do that Taron. I have some holidays left over.” He laughed a little. “I just can’t explain to you how mad I am because of all of this. I was looking forward to a squishy hug. What a fucking shit way to email about training. Apparently, they had emailed about it three weeks ago but we never got the bloody email and now there’s no choice but to go.”

“Robyn please stop beating yourself up over it.”

“I just so fucking annoyed over it.”

“Hey Robyn don’t start getting upset.” Taron could hear the emotion in her voice and he was working very hard to keep himself together with how disappointed she sounded .

“I really wanted to see you.”

“I know chicken. I wanted to see you too. I was looking forward to a head massage.” He was glad to hear Robyn laugh. “Look it is just one of those shit things that happen. We will make up for it.”

Robyn sighed. “I know. Could have been this weekend though.”

It was a sad goodbye, Taron promising he would ring her later on when she was finished work, both feeling utterly devastated that their reunion had been cancelled.

On Saturday, Emma had noticed how quiet but exasperated Robyn had been during their first three hours of learning about the new curriculum framework that was being introduced to early years education, Robyn almost hitting her head with frustration off the table she was sitting at. It was something herself and Emma were already trained in and both were blue in the face talking about with their staff and parents and Robyn knew the manual for the curriculum inside out and could not for the life of her figure out why the training was mandatory when she could have lectured on the topic herself.

“What has your knickers in a twist?” Asked Emma as they took a break for some tea and coffee. “No offense but you are in a fowl humour.”

Robyn crossed her arms over her chest, looking down at the shirt she was wearing, Taron’s shirt she had stolen. She might not have been able to see him over the weekend but she was going to do what she could to keep him in her thoughts for the whole day.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry Robyn. Jesus everyone has bad days but I haven’t seen you in a mood like this since you came home from Florida.” Emma took a drink from her cup. “What is up with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Look I know you are annoyed over the training. I completely understand that this has been your first weekend off in weeks and sitting here listening to it, I know I can read your mind: why on earth are we here when we practise this every day in work? I have been asking myself the same question but even though we know it back to front, it looks good to make an appearance especially after they gave us the funding for the garden.”

Robyn huffed and puffed, running her hands through her hair. “Yeah I know Emma. I know that it’s just... ugh fuck it. It doesn’t matter.”

Emma put her cup down and turned to her supervisor. “No Robyn it does matter. Something is seriously bothering you.” She watched as the blonde stared at the ground. “Robyn seriously, what on earth is going on.” She frowned when her heard muttering. “Ok use your words properly please.”

Robyn signed and looked up. “Taron.”

“Taron. Gorgeously handsome man who shared your bed for two weeks?” Robyn rolled her eyes. “Yeah ok Taron and what about him?”

Robyn uncrossed her arms. “I was supposed to be seeing him this weekend.”

“Wait, what?”

“He invited me, well no that’s a lie, well a half lie because I know he was heavily involved but I was invited to a charity auction held by Elton John in London this weekend and I was going to see Taron again. I got myself a beautiful fancy dress to wear too.”

“Sorry what?”

“You heard me. Taron and I were going to see each other again. Actually…” Robyn looked at her watch. “We should have been reuniting with each other about now.”

Emma held her hands up. “Ok wait. You were supposed to be meeting Taron this weekend, a man who you haven’t shut up about since you dropped him off at the airport and were invited to a party at Elton John’s house and you were going to wear a fabulous dress but yet you are here doing training? Fucks sakes Robyn!”

“It is mandatory training Emma!”

“It’s Taron!” Replied Emma.

“Yeah I bloody know that! But here I am and there he is across the pond.”

“Why the hell aren’t you with him!”

“Man-da-tor-ry training.” Repeated Robyn.

“For one of us Robyn.”

“What?” She asked. “I rang the lady who sent the email and she said that all management staff had to attend the training.”

“Robyn you could have gone to another weekend of training.”

“I asked that and I couldn’t. Only this one.”

Emma frowned. “Then why was I speaking to a manger from another creche earlier and she was telling me that the manger of their sister creche had a wedding this weekend and was scheduled to attend the training a different day.”

“What?” Robyn exclaimed, feeling tears start to pool in her eyes. “I double checked. I told Taron I couldn’t go with him.”

“You stay here.”

Robyn ran her hands down her tired face as Emma walked away from her, heading straight for the woman who was giving the training course. She couldn’t believe this was happening. The last three days had been torture for her and this morning had been painfully horrible as she got ready to go a training course rather than the airport. She had sent Taron a quick text of a rocket and a man and got her usual chicken and heart emoji back along with a shamrock too. She felt absolutely terrible that she had let him down and even though he had been so understanding, she knew he was hiding the hurt he felt.

“Right get out of here.” Emma walked back to her quickly.

“What?”

“I didn’t say this to you but that stupid bitch has no problem with rearranging the training for you.”

“What the fuck? I asked her on the phone…”

“And yes, I know this Robyn and I have already explained to her that this will not be the end of the conversation about it but you need to go.” Emma looked at Robyn’s slightly blank face. “Go to Taron!”

Robyn leant back against the table. “I cancelled my flights.”

“You did what? Robyn!”

“Well didn’t think I was able to go, did I?”

“What time is this big event at tonight?” Asked Emma as she pulled out her phone.

“It starts at seven. I was supposed to get getting ready with Stella at Elton’s house and then Taron and I were going to walk the red carpet together. It’s his first public appearance since Florida.”

“Jesus Robyn, you need to be there for that for him and Stella is?”

“His stylist? She helped me with my dress.”

Emma looked at her before she went back to her phone. “Right I can get you a flight at three thirty.”

“Emma is there any…”

“Don’t you even finish that sentence Robyn Quinn. Taron wanted you there for a reason and you are going to be there even if it is a little bit late. You can make an entrance. Let’s book you on this flight for three thirty. It will get you into London for four thirty and then you can make your way to Elton’s to get ready.”

“It will be too late by then Emma.”

“How much do you want to see Taron?”

“More than I can explain.”

“Then let me book the flight for you and go and see him. Do you have your dress?”

“Yes.”

“Ok then let’s book you a hotel room and you can get ready there and hop in a taxi to Elton’s. I can’t even believe I am saying that. What time had you booked home for Sunday?”

“It was around seven.”

“Ok I have one for eight. I am booking these flights for you Robyn and you are going to London to see him. You can go home and pack and be at the airport in time to catch the flight and still make the party.”

“It’s actually an auction for his charity.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Whatever Robyn. I am booking these for you now and you are going and then we are booking a hotel room for you to get ready in. Ok so you won’t have a celebrity stylist to dress you but I am sure you can do your hair and make-up. I don’t even think Taron will care. He will just want to see you. Look up hotel rooms Robyn. Come on. Then you call Taron and tell him you will be there, but shall arrive fashionably late.”

Robyn took her own phone from her pocket and googled hotel rooms in London. She looked up the Premier Inn as she had stayed in many before and found a room in the one in Holborn. “I can get a room.”

“Well book it now. I am just through with your flights. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this Robyn.”

“I was told the training was mandatory Emma.”

“Not the training but your trip to London. I know how much Taron means to you.”

“I just wanted to keep it quiet. It was going to be splashed all over the newspapers anyway.” Robyn choose the option to pay at the hotel and confirmed her stay for the night, even though she wasn’t going to be using the room to sleep.

“Flights confirmed. I used your email so the confirmation will come to you and I included a bag for you too.”

“I will pay you back every cent.” Said Robyn as she screen-shot her room confirmation.

“We can talk about that on Monday. Now get your arse out of here and home so you can pack and give him a call to tell him the good news.”

“He is going to have a heart attack and my case is already packed. I never unpacked it.”

“Then go Robyn.”

“Thank you so much Emma and I will make up the training.”

“Forget the training. You could teach this training yourself and thank me on Monday with stories of your glorious celebrity weekend.” Emma gave Robyn a hug. “And make sure you get as many of those hugs in as you can.”

With another hug, Robyn let her friend go and grinned. “I am going to see him.”

“Only if you make the flight. Now go!”

Robyn ran down the stairs of the building and to her car. It was half an hour’s drive back to Kilcreen and it gave her about ten minutes to grab what she needed before she had to drive to the airport. She promised herself, the next time she needed to get to an airport, it was not going to be a rushed journey but here she was racing against the clock again. Knowing she had to concentrate on driving home safely and get to the airport in once piece, Robyn decided that she would wait until she was actually sitting in the terminal to call Taron because she knew he would keep talking with his excitement and she needed to make use of the time she had to ensure she made the flight. Her mood had done a complete one eighty and as she drove, her smile grew. She was going to see Taron and get the squishy hug she had been so looking forward too since he had left her.

#taron egerton #Taron Egerton Fanfiction #Taron Egerton Fanfic #Taron Fanfic #Dissapointment #Excitment #Friends #Together #Nerves #Fancy Dress

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queenangst · 4 years

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How would you describe your writing style? Do you think it has developed organically over time or were there specific techniques you implemented to achieve a specific flow/texture/mood/vocab? Thanks! Love your work.

Nonnie, this is such a packed question. And it’s so hard to answer, but I’m going to do my best—I think actually it’s harder to describe your own work than it is others so. Well, I’m going to try!

Part one: how would I describe my writing style?

One of the words I like to associate with my writing is poetic. I try to keep a really nice flow, and I’m always trying to evoke an emotional response. I’m always using metaphors/comparisons to try to convey one specific moment, or feeling. Very descriptive. Wordier sentences than not. I like to use run-ons, and I also like to use fragments a lot to create a continuous flow, or to break one. And rich in imagery; I’m an artist, and I really like trying to describe with words how something might appear to a reader. Anaphoras (where sentences start with the same word) I also use quite a bit, to be specific.

Here’s some examples, see if you can tell what I mean:

“Hey,” Midoriya says, when Shouto turns to leave, “are you… um, feeling okay?”

Shouto hums. He opens his mouth to say no. But this is— it isn’t monumental, it isn’t fighting villains or protecting someone who cannot protect themselves. It is not a hurricane. It is much rather like walking through rainwater in the streets—every step slow, shoes filling with cold water; but Shouto can still walk, so he does.

It is a choice and it isn’t. It is what he chooses somehow. It is a weight he put on his own shoulders. It’s because there’s something broken and wrong inside of him, and he pretended that was Deku until he couldn’t anymore and the rift between them is gaping; and Deku is still trying, always, continuously trying to cross it. It’s because he’s made this for himself. He was taken; he was taken because he could have been a villain. He was saved; he was saved because All Might thought he might be a hero, and Katsuki keeps going because he’s desperate to prove that right.

"As long as you need," he said again, and lapsed into a quiet. In it Izuku could hear himself breathing slowly and steadily, and unafraid. And Aizawa-sensei did stay—a long, long time—until Izuku's hand lowered from his chest, and he could take a full breath, and the fear and hurt following him had subsided and gone as easy as disappearing air.

As far as describing my stories themselves (which tie into style, sort of): character-driven. I’m most interested in writing about characters, about feelings, about how different characters interact and have complex dynamics.

Style is something you develop organically. It comes from writing, and writing a lot—and reading a lot. Consciously I never worked on my writing style, but I developed it writing and trying different things and incorporating (unconsciously) the things I liked from other writers. I can’t say there is one particular author [style] that influenced me directly, though.

If you are looking to actively shape your writing though, here’s a little advice. (Some of it is adopted from this advice post I made in response to how to write good body horror.)

do your research. find writers whose styles that you really like. pick your favorite works. i’d pick maybe two or three. then grab a notebook or open a document and start analyzing.

ask yourself: what is it that these writers do that you like? is it their descriptions? what do they emphasize, and what do they not? how do they narrate a sequence of events? what information do they give the reader, and the characters? how do other characters react? what writing techniques do they use?

study. i mean it. study literature, and actually study literature and writing. learn the craft. you don’t have to remember all the vocab (i learned anaphora from class, but i only remembered the technique and not the term. had to look it up for this ask) but remember the concepts. there’s a reason we have literature and writing and all of that (besides communication skills, empathy through lit, critical thinking.... besides all that).

read and write. you’re going to get better and more distinct. you’re going to develop a wide vocabulary. the more you put in, the more you put out. build your mental library. how do i come up with ten billion different metaphors for the same 3 feelings? it’s bc i can continue to come up with ways to describe things, to capture feelings, to get to the heart of something by describing something else. you need to read a lot and write a lot. it’s going to take years. i’m going to be honest—i personally don’t think my writing was distinct, stylistically in a way that is identifiable as me, until around 2016. and that was when it was beginning to be recognizable as Annie’s Writing Style. style is always changing of course as we grow as writers, but i think in the past few years i’ve grown and reached a point where my style is consistent and identifiable. i’d been writing since 2012. it takes time!

would love to hear what other people think about my writing though, if you’d describe it. if anyone’s willing to share!

#asks #writing #writing advice #i guess?#its more about me #anonymous

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thecloserkin · 4 years

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book review: Meg Rosoff, How I Live Now (2004)

Genre: Young Adult

Is it the main pairing: yes

Is it canon: yes

Is it explicit: no

Is it endgame: yes

Is it shippable: yes

Bottom line: It finally happened, I broke my own “no cousincest—in this house we turn the TABOO dial up to eleven” rule. In my defense this book is gobsmackingly good.

Lately I’ve been mulling on the difference between books about teenagers and books for teenagers. This one is the former, and a joy to reread as an adult. Our American heroine Daisy is sent across the pond to live with her British cousins; a war breaks out; details are scant but who cares about the war, she starts fucking one of the cousins. She describes it as “falling into sexual and emotional thrall” she said THRALL I am living for it. On a scale from “pure” to “problematic” this ship is almost all light and no darkness—what darkness menaces our protagonists emanates from outside the charmed circle of their big ol’ farmhouse and their sheepdogs and their goat:

The real truth is that the war didn’t have much to do with it except that it provided a perfect limbo in which two people who were too young and too related could start kissing without anything or anyone making us stop. There were no parents, no teachers, no schedules. There was no where to go and nothing to do that would remind us that this sort of thing didn’t happen in the Real World. There no longer was any Real World.

The notion of carving out an idyll where you & the object of your desire spend all day doing nothing but drink each other up? It’s attractive even for those of us conducting mundane relationships in the “real” world. Maybe especially for those of us in the real world, where we compartmentalize our relationships and no one person can fill every filament in our universe. Daisy’s cousins live a cloistered life in the countryside and within a week she’s saying stuff like “I felt like I’d belonged to this house for centuries.” Which is an awfully dramatic way of saying she never felt like she belonged in New York. She doesn’t just fall for Cousin Edmond; she falls for the whole telepathic dog-whispering cousinly clan and their big anarchist energy. When Daisy, an only child, says “I had about as much experience with sex and boyfriends as I did with brothers and sisters,” she is intentionally conflating romantic and familial relationships and I am 1000% here for it. Sure it’s technically cousincest but it feels claustrophobic and codependent and everything I want out of an incest ship.

Every step of Daisy’s obsessive infatuation is chronicled with agonizing tenderness:

I wondered if that’s the feeling you’re supposed to have when your cousin touches a totally innocent part of your anatomy that’s fully clothed.

that’s right it’s the thought and the intention and the pining behind the touch, not the bare fact of physical contact.

Things were so intense I was sure that other people could hear the hum coming off of us.

Imagine desire rising like mist from the surface of one’s skin. And the “other people” part of the equation is important, because it’s the sneaking around behind the other kids’ backs that gives urgency to their coupling:

we started sleeping most of the daylight hours so we could be awake at night when everyone else was in bed … Then we would sleep for a little while and eventually reappear and try to act normal

But what is “normal”? There are no adults and no rules; nothing is forbidden save that they themselves deem it so. What then explains Daisy’s conviction that this is “not a good idea”? Why shroud their affair in secrecy if the most powerful reaction they provoke from smol!cousin who learns about Daisy/Edmond is “Well I’m glad you love him because I do too”? That’s pretty anticlimactic given the lengths Daisy & Edmond have gone to be stealthy. It also emphasizes (in case we’ve forgotten that Daisy has both no siblings and no boyfriends) how romantic & familial attachments spring from a common source. I think what the text is getting at here is that it’s dangerous to put all your eggs in one basket the way Daisy puts all hers in Edmond. It’s dangerous and unhealthy to make one person your whole world, as we see later when Daisy comes to much grief. At no point, however, does she regret her decision.

we could try and try to get enough of each other but it was llike some witch’s curse where the more we tried to stop being hungry the more starving we got.

That’s a hard-hitting simile right there. The thing about curses in fairy tales is they don’t always do what they’re designed to do; frequently they accomplish different ends entirely. If we look at what Daisy’s insatiable hunger for Edmond is displacing we note that Daisy is no stranger to the feeling of constant, gnawing, unsatiated hunger because Daisy has an eating disorder. In her own words:

at first not wanting to get poisoned by my stepmother and how much it annoyed her and how after a while I discovered I liked the feeling of being hungry and the fact that it drove everyone stark raving mad and cost my father a fortune in shrinks and also it was something I was good at.

…which is just about the world’s most cogent account of eating disorders as quests for control & autonomy. By the end of the novel she no longer experiences hunger as “a punishment or a crime or a weapon or a mode of self-destruction” and that's something, anyway.

Y’all know I’m a big skimmer right? I mention this because I want you to take my full meaning when I say I read every single word of this (very short) novel. The syntax helped—most sentences are structured like so: “… and …. and … and then …” but it was engrossing af and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone use Ironic Capitalization to such devastating effect. The stylistic choice to use zero dialogue brackets means Daisy’s thoughts and Edmond’s thoughts (Edmond’s a telepath) and external action and internal commentary all run together. I didn’t find this confusing btw I just found it extremely effective.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Daisy and Edmond are separated at about the one-third mark and she spends the remainder of the book trying to get back to him, traversing a war-torn countryside with Edmond’s smol!sister and his dog in tow (since Daisy is a city girl who can’t even read a compass, maybe it’s more accurate to say smol!cousin + dog have Daisy in tow):

I guess the difference between Gin and me is that when Gin got shut in the barn she thought Edmond didn’t love her anymore but because I could feel Edmond out there somewhere always loving me I didn’t have to howl all night.

The parallel between Edmond’s girl and Edmond’s dog is not an idle one. There’s consistent strain of anticapitalist sentiment that runs through this book, that comes out most strongly in the relationships between Daisy’s cousins and their animals. Some military junta appropriates the farmhouse and displaces Daisy, her cousins, and the menagerie of animals that depend on them—that’s how Edmond and Daisy become separated, they’re “relocated.” The army is hierarchal and in wartime, the army is in charge. By contrast, Daisy’s cousins model a nonhierarchical kind of relationship with their animals, a relationship based on reciprocal obligations rather than dominating other people. “At times,” professes Daisy, “I thought I was more animal than human.” In other words, human beings live under an absolutely barbaric system, and it’s often more “humane” to behave like animals. It’s Edmond’s sheepdog who proves key to Daisy’s successful escape. City girl Daisy still can’t wrap her head around it:

one of the things I most dislike about nature, namely that the rules are not at all precise. Like when Piper says I’m pretty sure that mushrooms aren’t poisonous.

But nature’s strength lies precisely in the fuzziness of its rules! It encourages interdependence & reliance on others, rather than trying to go it alone as an atomized individual. So surviving on the run actually forces one to prioritize community (however you define it) over individual, which has salutary effects on Daisy, who reports “Somewhere along the way I’d lost the will not to eat.” She’s defeated her eating disorder, that’s good news. Unfortunately, Edmond and Daisy are not even reunited before she’s expelled from England and shipped back to America for Reasons. Dw she comes back! As soon as the borders reopen she comes back:

The soldier had stamped my passport FAMILY in heavy black capital letters and I checked it now for reassurance because I liked how fierce the word looked.

Very powerful passage but now for the ending. Let’s not talk about that ending. I don’t know why I called this a good book I am still incredulous we got THAT ending after everything we went through brb I’m suing Meg Rosoff for emotional damages

#book review #how i live now

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