#(shrek voice) they don’t even sing

[the-nameless-wacky-inventor]

chappell roan really does spoil me because I listen to her stuff and then have to come back to reality and engage with just average popular stuff and it’s like. this is so boring where are the gay people

[cogentranting]

Rating Non-Disney Animated Horse Designs

I’m back by popular demand/well not really but my optimism’s grand

A sequel to my Disney horse Rating post for all the other random non-Disney horses. Dreamworks, Bluesky, random cartoons, anything I could find. Featuring: Altivo, Spirit, some Barbie horses, and a few abominations.

Horse (Sing)

6/10 I don’t hate it and I feel like I should because it’s really hard to anthropomorphize horses that much without making them into the stuff of nightmares.

Shadowfax (The Lord of the Rings) 

5/10 There’s nothing WRONG with him per se, but it’s SHADOWFAX. Lord of all horses. He should wow me, and he doesn’t. Check out Gandalf’s weird sock-boots though. 

Hervé (Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper) 

-6/10 Horses' mouths don’t look like that. Horses’ mouths should not look like that. This thing wants to eat human flesh but can’t because it has two solid curved huge teeth with no physical  relationship with its jaw. Also this horse has the beginnings of male-pattern baldness. 

Princess Brietta (Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus)

1/10 Her eyes are flat like they’ve been painted onto her socketless skull. And there’s something very off-putting about this shade of pink. 

Beauty, Merry Legs, Ginger (Black Beauty) 

4/10 Ginger isn’t ginger. That is not a sorrel horse. There’s ONE requirement. Beauty’s the best of the three which is I guess what counts. 

Hans, Klaus and Greta (Ferdinand) 

2/10 I hate them so much. The core design isn’t that bad but the way they move and pose is. No horse should make that face. The one on the left is stretched putty.

The Grand Chawhee (All Dogs Go to Heaven)

I know what you’re thinking-- “isn’t that a mule or a donkey of some sort?” No. He’s a racehorse. Maybe a thoroughbred. And it’s his birthday so the other horses let him win. 

9/10

Stella (All Dogs Go to Heaven)

1/10 She gets one point for being nice to Chawhee. But she’s clearly some sort of alien giraffe hybrid. 

Odette’s horse (Swan Princess) 

7/10 Just a nice little palomino design.  

That little shaggy pony (The Quest for Camelot)

12/10 Amazing. Look at the determination.

Buck (Barnyard) 

2/10 See this is what that horse from Sing COULD have looked like. 

The Horse in the Back, Not Klaus But I Couldn’t FInd a Better Picture (Klaus)

9/10 He matches his owner and I respect that

Leah (The Star) 

4/10 This is horse is voiced by Kelly Clarkson. That has nothing to do with her rating, I just thought you should know. 

(Starchaser: The Legend of Orin) 

8/10 for both. I have questions but I do not want answers. It’s better this way. 

Fred (Over the Garden Wall)

7/10 don’t love that his head is a different color than his body in a weird way but he looks neurotic and fun. 

The Chariot Horses (Prince of Egypt)

8/10 I’ve just always liked these guys with their square faces and fun hats. 

Altivo (The Road to El Dorado)

7/10 Look at the little curl in his mane. Good personality. A little too much “Dreamworks Face” 

Donkey in Horse Form (Shrek 2? one of the Shreks) 

3/10 Look at his face. I DREAD what he might have to say. 

Esmeralda, Esperanza, Ernestina (Madgascar 3)

2/10 They’re coming for you. Coming to drag you into the Abyss. 

Police Horse (Madagascar)

7/10 I like his face shape. Compare him to the Madgascar 3 horses-- look how much more identifiable as a horse he is. 

Melvin (The Lorax)

10/10 He’s not a horse, but he’s so fluffy I love him. 

Babieca (Puss in Boots)

4/10 This horse has dead eyes. 

Onyx (Rise of the Guardians) 

13/10 She’s the leader of the nightmares and I would fully support her terrorizing the dreams of children. I’m pretty sure she and her mares ate the boogie man. A true Girlboss.

Yi Min (Kung Fu Panda but I think just an online game) 

-20/10 Just from a design perspective there’s far too much going on so it’s hard to even make it all out. Also I would have zero idea that this was a horse if the wiki page didn’t tell me it was. It has split hooves? 

Spirit Jr. (Spirit: Riding Free) 

8/10 Objectively I know the design is good  but my heart rebels against this show’s existence. 

Boomerang Thomas Stone (Spirit: Riding Free) 

8/10 I’m not doing all the horses from this show but I had to throw him in because he’s cute and he has a middle and last name for some reason.

Horse (Centaurworld) 

Why are there two distinctly different designs for her? This one gets a 9/10. The round one is like... a 5. All the other creatures in this show are eldritch abominations that will haunt me in my sleep now. 

Esperanza and all the other horses from this movie (Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron) 

10/10 No notes. Perfect horses. 

Rain (Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron) 

15/10 I don’t have a joke here I just really like the way they differentiated her and made her pretty without too much anthropomorphizing. I like that she has a roman nose.  I like her feather. 

Spirit (Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron)

100/10 He’s everything. He shaped me as a person. No other animated horse can compare. 

[peachesofteal]

Sour

Same pairing as Cupcakes. Fifth installment of the Sweet series. This fic has mature themes that include death.

Joel Miller/female reader 1.8k words - AO3 Warnings/tags: 18+ Minors DNI, character death, blood, violence, tenderness, mentions of sex, Joel bathes you, he sings to you, hurt no comfort, angst. No HEA. please read with caution. Joel never told you.

The little house is cold. The fire in the hearth has long gone out, and the kitchen table sits alone with its two rickety chairs, pack of cards left next to a half-empty bottle of liquor. The wood creaks and groans under his feet, but it’s the only sound left here, besides the occasional whistle from the howling wind. There’s no sound of your voice echoing from the kitchen as you tell the kid the plot of Shrek for the hundredth time, no sound of glassware clinking together when you refill his whiskey, and then yours. No sound of you slapping the table with your palm in glee or anger, depending on if you were winning or losing the hand. No scrape of your knife against stone, the telltale sound of you sharpening the blade in the early morning before a run, no echo of your laughter or your slightly off-key singing voice.

There’s nothing.

“I’m not sure it’s a good idea.” You sigh before shaking your flashlight, shining it onto the floor and clicking it on and off a few times. Once you’re satisfied, you fasten it to the shoulder strap before setting the backpack down.  

“He has to learn some time; he lives in this world. Besides, it’s just a half day, and he really wants to go. He won’t stop asking me.” 

“I know but, maybe you should wait, until I can go. He’s just… a handful sometimes.” He chose the word handful, instead of pain in the ass, because that would have earned him a glare, and he really wants to kiss you before you leave for the day. 

“I can’t. I have to make this run or I won’t be able to complete the trade, and John is waiting on my end.” Your hands slide around his neck, fingers kneading into the knot at the top of his spine. “We’ll be fine, Joel. I wouldn’t be taking him if it wasn’t the most routine route out there. Plus, I survived a long time before you came along, ya know.” You tease, before stepping onto your toes and planting a kiss on the corner of his mouth. When he leans into it, you open for him, your lips sticky and sweet, and he loses himself in the feeling of your body pressed to his. “Don’t forget,” you whisper when you pull away. “you owe me a game tonight.”

Your room is barren, even though you left it nearly the same. Your sheets stretch perfectly across the bed, pillows stacked neatly side by side. There’s still a small collection of your clothes folded in the closet, and the old paperback you’ve been reading sits abandoned on the floor. His fingers trace over the worn edge of your favorite blanket, the one you used to ferry back and forth between his place and yours, and the gun he always forced you to carry sits on the crate that you used for a nightstand, polished, and unloaded. If he focuses, he can still smell you, the light scent of your bar soap living in the linens, in the walls. When he sits on the mattress, he can still feel the weight of your body on the other side, the warmth of your skin, can still hear the soft lilt of your voice in the dark when you whisper.

It’s almost like if he sat here long enough, you’d come through the front door, boots scuffing along the floorboards, calling his name.

“They’re a little late.” John says and Joel nods. He’s not worried, he has no doubt that the kid has slowed you down, either with his non-stop questions or his turtle-like, six-year-old pace. He waits on the steps of his place, casual conversation flowing between the two of them before John nods towards a small figure, walking in the distance. 

When you turn the corner, he sits up, eyes fixed on your every step. You’re holding the kid and he scoffs. No wonder you’re so late, you’re carrying a sleeping six-year-old and a backpack full of scrap. You stumble a little bit, and he notices how stiff your back is. How slow your steps are. The kid’s neck is limp, tipped backwards like he’s looking at the sky. 

Then he sees the blood. On your hands. On your coat, your face. 

“Oh shit.” John says, but it barely registers before he’s running towards you, his heart beating wildly, the icy grip of panic rapidly spreading through his veins. When he gets closer, he yells your name, voice hoarse and frantic, but you don’t respond. Your feet are heavy, face vacant, eyes glazed over, and his hands tremble, a fissure of fear cracking wide in his chest.

“Sweetheart?” He reaches for you, but you shake your head. The kid is pressed to your body, bloody arms wrapped around his back. Red drips from the hem of your jacket. 

“Joel.” It’s a broken whisper. A full hymn of grief, in one syllable. “I made a mistake.” The words are hollow. You’re looking at him now, but not truly seeing him. “Joel. I…” Your hands are holding the kid together, he realizes, and he gently tries to pull Grey away. You step backwards, voice pitched in hysteria, eyes wide. “No, no, no. I can’t, I have to-“ 

“Give him to me, baby. I got him.” There are tears on your cheeks, wet tracks that slide down towards your neck, where he can see the beat of your pulse beneath your jaw, it’s pace erratic and desperate. When he finally pries the kid out of your arms, you frantically try to wipe the blood from your clothes, but the red has already turned brown on your barn coat, and there won’t be any washing it out now.

Sometimes, when he wakes in the middle of the night, he reaches for you before he realizes you’re not there, rolling over to pull your body into his, to press his lips along your jaw until you’re twitching awake, sleepy smile scrawled across your face. He wants to trace his fingers across your ribs and up, over the hardened peak of your nipple to ghost his thumb along your scar before putting it between your lips. He wants to feel the wet heat of your mouth enveloping him whole as he works his other hand down to where you’re wet for him. Sometimes, if he closes his eyes, he can still hear you moaning his name, he can still feel heat of your body, can still remember how it felt to be inside you.

It's all a dream, or a nightmare. His bed is empty, and you’re not there.

You don’t say a word when Joel brings you to Sophia’s place. He gives her a quiet thank you as she locks the door on her way out, leaving the two of you alone in the only house with a tub. 

You shiver in his hold as he strips your clothes off, tossing your crusted shirt and pants out of sight, dried flakes of blood floating to the floor. His mind is screaming, it all feels too close, too familiar, too much, but he forces it away, shoves it down so he can take care of you. 

Your body is stiff as he lowers you into the bath, your spine like a metal rod in his hand, but you let him lean you back, and he submerges you in as much water as possible, desperate to clean the stain of blood from your skin. He washes you with a bar of soap, the one he brought from your place in hopes it would bring you back to yourself, making sure to get the spots of red and brown out from your scalp, and as much of it from underneath your fingernails as he could manage. You sit quietly the whole time, body growing limp in his hold, until you turn your face up to his, eyes heavy and sad. 

When you speak, the words are ragged. Your voice is not your own. 

“I killed him.” 

“No, baby.” Your throat bobs. 

“I took him with me. Even after you told me not to.” He lets out a sharp exhale. “They were tearing him apart, Joel and I- I couldn’t save him.” you break into a sob, and he holds you closer and closer until he’s in the tub with you, water soaking through his jeans, your body trembling in his arms. 

That night, you lay in bed and cling to him, fingers pressed to his flesh in a punishing grip, like you’re afraid to let go. Your eyes stay wide open, burning a hole into nothing, until you’re whispering to him that your mind is too loud, and you think you should be dead. 

He doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what to say, so he pulls you into his chest, lips above your ear, and sings until you fall into an uneasy sleep.

He doesn’t watch the road for you, anymore. Doesn’t slip into your bed in the middle of the night, and his arms don’t find you and hold you tight. He doesn’t get to sit at the kitchen table with you and play cards or pass a bottle of whiskey back and forth. He can’t hear your laugh, or your moans, or the excited pitch of your voice when you find something good in an already picked over warehouse. He wonders, if there will be a time when he forgets what your smile looked like, or how your voice sounded whenever you said his name.

He wonders if he should have told you. If he should have held your face in between his hands and given you those three words, that meant so much and so little in a world like this. He wonders if you knew anyway.

It’s not your fault, everyone tried to tell you. You did everything right, they said. You’d nod robotically, staring off at something he couldn’t see.  

He tries to keep the guilt from consuming you whole, but it rots you from the inside out, and it steals his breath to watch you drown, even while he’s holding your head above water.

No one else but him could see the path that you were walking, the direction your mind was taking you. He knew it all too well.

Now, he doesn’t even know where you are. The Marshall girl’s mom says you went to Chicago. John thinks you went west, back to Idaho, or further. Sophia swears on her life that you went to Boston. None of it matters, you’re gone, and this world is unkind, particularly cruel to those who dared to love others, vindictive in it's attempt to break even the sweetest souls, always ending with the sour. 

He doesn’t think he’ll ever see you again.

Still, he keeps the pack of cards in his bag, just in case.

[broadwaybalogna]

I don’t think I ever made a post specifically talking about my theatre background even though I’m a raging theatre kid. So here’s a list of fun facts regarding me and theatre

1. I quite literally grew up in a theater. My dad and stepmom were always performing and I performed on stage for the first time when I was 5(or maybe 7?) and sang the opening of “Do You Hear the People Sing” from Lés Miserable at my parents summer stock.

2. My first role in an actually production was as Gingy for my elementary schools production of Shrek Jr. I was in 3rd grade and had an amazing character voice if I do say so myself.

3. Even though I’m an absolute ass dancer, I’m somehow always in the ensemble for productions. Some things don’t seem to add up.

4. Next year, I will be mentoring theatre kids at my school two years younger than me

5. I’m an actor first1️⃣1️⃣1️⃣

[danganronpa96]

Oh, this is very interesting. I assume you mean like from the DR3 anime, so (rubs hands together)

DR69:

Luigi - going into a room with the lights on (as no. 2, isn’t it your duty to be in the dark? Also this could stir up some interesting situations in the dark)

Mario - running or jumping (can’t yahoo his way out of this one)

Peter - talking (yep not a peep outta funny family moments guy, no cutaway gags no nothing, what will tiktoks use for footage now)

Brian - reading or writing (no books, no laptops, no pens. He won’t be needing them)

Miku - speaking in English (as an idol, it’s her goal to spread her voice to everyone around the world, so what if it was limited? She can still speak Japanese, and Chinese, but only a select few will understand her. Sure, it’s fine for those who can translate, but what if she was in a dire situation with someone who couldn’t…?)

Teto - Hatsune Miku dying (since she loves her so much, she’ll do anything to protect her, even if that goes for protecting her own life too)

Nagito - telling the truth (kinda like his despair disease, seems he can only lie or keep quiet… How can someone who hardly has any trust here gain any now?)

Sans - telling a joke/pun (at first this was gonna be a joke answer, but… it would be tough for him to remain serious in situations where he’d rather not be)

Parappa - crying (he really has to keep believing now, or else he’ll be clawing not to let all those emotions spill out)

Fluttershy - touching another animal participant that isn’t herself (therefore she cannot tend to any of them if the time comes)

Ashley - being more than a room apart from another person (ultimately forcing her to stick around people rather than isolate herself)

Ayano - not killing anyone in 20 days (this would really challenge her “yandere” persona, and reluctance to kill here)

2D - listening to music (this goes for music out of speakers, hearing someone sing, and even humming a tune. Man loves music so what if no song machine /album ref)

Mr. Krabs - giving or accepting a bargain (not just with money, but favours, requests, and payback all count too)

Dedede - fighting with another participant (whether physically or verbally)

The Conductor - witnessing any act of violence (since he is usually is very disregarding of other’s safety, especially during filming his own movies, perhaps now he has a chance to redeem himself with preventing danger)

DR96:

Hayasaka - giving the poison antidote he was provided to someone else (he can save someone else who triggered their action, at the cost of his own life…. (I smile deviously))

Kurumada - flirting with Hayasaka /JJJ ok but actually using his physical strength to protect someone (this goes for violent acts such as punching, or manual labour such as catching heavy objects from falling)

Mai - making eye contact with anyone (she’s such an outgoing, bubbly gal… so what if she could never meet someone eye to eye ever again? Never being able to look at the ones she loves properly… oh my)

Walter - telling a lie (cue a Walter White version of the Pinnochio scene from Shrek 3)

Jesse - swearing (Jesse don’t say “bitch” challenge impossible 5 dead 20 injured)

Saiki - using his telepathy to communicate (either open your mouth or say nothing, Saiki, your choice)

Kaidou - daydreaming (this includes roleplaying as the Jet Black wings and wearing his bandages and blazer over his shoulders, no more fantasies grow up boy /jjj)

Retsuko - raising her voice (this goes for her heavy metal screaming as well, she can’t stand up for herself anymore seeing as she mostly did it on her own in private)

Natsuki - being called “cute” (I think this would be simple but effective, cue her attempting to never share her forbidden action, and doing all she can to never be called such a thing, even going so far to be as rude as possible even if she doesn’t want to be)

Yuri - everyone does not die in 30 days (if she really wants everyone to die, she’ll do all that she can to make sure it happens before it’s too late for her. Whether she utilises their forbidden actions to do the trick or not is up for thought…)

Hiroshi - touching white objects (such as plates, paper, his own scarf… how practical can one practical boy be now?)

Brian - witnessing spiritual or supernatural activity (this could be talk of religion, going to the Shrine, reading books about such things, and anything to do with Mr. Devil…)

Bojack - participating in the consumption of alcohol (rip this guy IMMEDIATELY)

Latte - verbally conversing with a student (she can be around them, and use body language, but speaking is a no-no, so much for being a professor huh-)

L - performing any of his usual quirks (includes sitting with his knees up, eating sweets, holding things with his index finger and thumb etc., L be normal challenge)

Ena - changing emotional states (meaning they can’t go into their sad, drunk, depressed etc. states. Oh boy get ready for a challenge folks)

[bnha-more-like-bnh-gay]

Izuku with a quirk like Snow White (but the Shrek Snow White) and he can sing to conjure up animals from everywhere and they would respond to how he sounds when singing.

Y E S S S S S S

Sorry this took me so long to respond to 🥹

Izuku singing angry songs and the animals just >:(

Koda and izuku being besties part 2

Unironically though, koda and izuku being such good friends 😭

They found out when he was just singing a little nursery rhyme as a kid and all the animals in the park just came running

Izuku hums a note and a goddamn flock of birds just appears out of nowhere and inko is just watching her son live the life of a Disney princess

All I can see though, is him going into a fight with a villain and singing/screaming “Immigrant Song” and a fleet of animals just appearing

Bless

Mina asks him how he gets his hair so fluffy and his curls so nice and he, with a straight face, tells her that he sings to birds and they help him do his hair like a goddamn Disney princess and she isn’t even sure if he’s joking around or not

I’m trying to think of specific songs he could sing and what they could do

Does he have to have specific intentions with each song? Does the song have to mean a specific thing? If he sings a song including the breed of an animal, does mostly that breed show up?

He always makes sure to take care of the animals that help him though

If they get injured while helping him, he patches them up and works with koda to try and nurse them back to health

Aizawa has found him keeping several animals in his dorm. At this point, he doesn’t even say anything about it, he’s just tired of walking in on a fox in the class A dorms

“Don’t worry! Alfred won’t hurt you!”

Aizawa: -_-

Aizawa: anyway-

Izuku gets mad and isn’t thinking much about his quirk, but he starts singing and the animals try to avenge him

This is such a fun quirk, because it’s the sound of his voice you said, which I love, he can just sing the angriest songs in the happiest of voices while getting ready in the morning and his animal friends walk with him to class

Do people really want to go to the zoo with him or do they never want to go to the zoo with him? because it’s one or the other and no in between

When he’s a popular hero, he starts a charity for animal rights and animal safety

Koda and him work together for the charity a lot

Sorry this is kind of short and might be incomprehensible, I haven’t slept in two days! But I hope you liked it!!!!!!!! I love this prompt! Stay safe and have a good day!!!!

[invaderarizona]

My Unpopular opinion: Velvet and Veneer are Vexy and Hackus that done right and better than them

The one thing that Vexy and Hackus have something in common with Velvet and Veneer is that they’re both villainous twins in the franchises that involves the small happy little creatures that are almost like Santa’s elves and kidnapped one of the small creatures for stealing the essence reasons.

Vexy and Velvet are both sister leaders of the duo, have the latter V for a name and both have two different voice actresses where one does the speaking and the other one does the singing. While Veneer and Hackus are both brother sidekicks who are not very bright except Hackus is far more stupider and gross while Veneer at least pretty smart at the end and more clean than him.

The big differences between them is that Velvet and Veneer are far more popular and have better memorable villainous chemistry than what Vexy and Hackus got.

Velvet and Veneer are actual real fun villain duo and a twin relationship between with a mean sister who wants to famous and the gay brother who doesn’t wanted to be famous deep down and wants to be loved but was still on her side until the end. Their moments together are very funny, memeable, charming and just reminds me of a Trollsverse version of Sharpay and Ryan from high school musical or Devin and Matthew from Big Mouth (if they had chemistry but just saying for the characters comparison). Even though some people says that they don’t belong in Trolls (which I respect their opinions) but for me in a way, they at least still make sure that Trolls are still Trolls and just added new things to it, which I think them along with introducing interspecies relationship with Bruce’s family did an amazing job at it.

Meanwhile for Vexy and Hackus and as another negative thing to say about The Smurfs 2 but here we go. Even though Vexy was the only fun character of that movie and on her own but being around and teamed up with her twin, Hackus. I will say that Vexy and Hacks together are one of the most boring part of the Live Action movies and they’re a really boring villainous twin duo between a rebel and a dimwitted slop with no personality and both are all about getting into trouble before redeeming.

The problem is that they barely had any fun chemistry, they’re not funny together and extremely unmemeable (even websites like TikTok, Instagram or Twitter wants nothing to do with them). While V&V does make sure Trolls are still Trolls, Vexy and Hackus are one of those things that doesn’t make Smurfs to be Smurfs. Not only they made the Smurfs to be more like Alvin and the Chipmunks rip offs but Vexy and Hackus also feel like they belong in the universe of Disney’s Descendants due how the way of how they wanted to be cool and hip, feel more like Shrek parodies and with ridiculous character designs in my opinion (especially Vexy seems more like a mini version of Mal or Evie). Their dynamic are so boring that after the Smurfs live action series lasted for 2 movies with 2 holiday specials and moved on into reboots, they never wanted these two to come back and most people nowadays (including me) decided to no longer care about this Smurf duo.

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Is It Really That Bad?

Dreamworks has such a stellar reputation these days thanks to things like the reappraisal of Megamind as a subversive superhero masterpiece ahead of its time and The Last Wish being one of the single most epic animated films ever made, but there was a time where the studio got very little respect. You see, the studio found solid footing a lot quicker than you’d think, with the first two Shrek movies becoming smash (mouth) hits and The Prince of Egypt being an animated Biblical epic for the ages. Sure, Sinbad is the fourth biggest confirmed loss in box office history, losing Dreamworks $125 million, but they could definitely rebound with some of that Shrek money, right? Maybe, but when you bomb that hard, you’re probably in need of a little bit more cash. Clearly the best way to go about getting that is to recapture that Shrek magic with a star-studded snarky comedy full of pop culture references! What could possibly go wrong?

Well, you’ve got the lowest rated Dreamworks Animation film on Rotten Tomatoes, uncanny valley CGI that was derided even back at the time, a star-studded cast that seems overly excessive even by animated studio standards of the time, a nonsensical combination of animated fish and gangster movie tropes, accusations of racism towards Jamaicans due to the two jellyfish characters, competition from The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and Finding Nemo, and even one of the own stars looking back on voice acting in the film as bad. That’s what could go wrong.

Still, some people look back on this movie fondly. You go to places on the internet where this movie is talked about and you’re bound to find some people saying how this movie was their childhood, and how it’s a riot, and how Will Smith is great… There has to be something to this, right? Shark Tale must have something to it if people still sing its praises, right? Is it… really that bad?

I mean, take a look at Oscar and you tell me.

Alright, alright, I’ll actually give it a fair shake. Here goes.

THE GOOD

Look, when you have this much talent in a film, you’re bound to accidentally stumble onto a few good things.

Easily the best thing in the movie is Martin Scorsese as Sykes, Oscar’s boss and the fish who most has to put up with Oscar’s boneheaded antics. The acclaimed director really shows off his funny side with this one, and the fact he has to deal with the problems of an obnoxious Will Smith fish make him surprisingly sympathetic. He’s genuinely a lot of fun, and the movie gives him plenty of screentime so you don’t have to worry about him being underutilized, and he manages to make any scene he shares with Oscar more tolerable.

Then we have the sharks. Specifically we have Robert de Niro playing the mob boss Don Lino; despite this being the most basic de Niro role you could possibly give the guy, he still manages to make it entertaining. In a broad sense, the entire shark mob gets a fair share of solid jokes, which is compounded by the bumbling octopus lackey Luca, who gets a few chuckles with his comic relief antics. Overall, our antagonists are pretty solid… and more enjoyable than our hero.

Then we have Lenny. I think Jack Black’s vegan shark is a bit of a divisive figure, but rewatching the movie, I honestly liked him and his storyline. For a movie from the early 2000s (and a comedy at that), it surprisingly tackles the topic of homosexuality in a tasteful manner. Yes, it is blatantly obvious and heavy-handed, and it’s not executed in a way that the film can make better use of it, but I think it’s a pretty bold and resonant message. If only the film had focused on Lenny and had it be his story instead of letting Will Smith’s stupid “Shark slayer” plot steal all the screentime; the movie is literally called Shark Tale, why is this not the story of the gay shark?! Why are we spending so much time with some whiny fish who lies, cheats, and acts like a dickhead to everyone around him?

Oh yeah and there’s a shark voiced by Peter “Columbo” Falk. That kinda rules.

THE BAD

Hey, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I do not fucking like Oscar.

Oscar is easily one of the worst protagonists ever conceived. He’s selfish, self-centered, stupid, egotistical, oblivious, obnoxious… It’s honestly mind-boggling that they cast one of the most charming and charismatic actors of all time and had him play a character antithetical to everything that he is as a performer. The entire movie is founded on him lying and taking credit for something he didn’t do, scamming multiple corporations out of brand deals in the process, gambles away his best friend’s precious heirloom and loses all the money, rarely takes responsibility for his actions… Honestly, this whole segment could just be listing all of Oscar’s negative traits and actions. And all of this could be forgivable if he was funny, but he’s not! He is utterly cringeworthy every time he attempts humor, and don’t even get me started on the romance.

Actually, no, let’s get started on the romance! Oscar and Angie’s relationship is fucking awful and toxic. This is the original Reylo right here, an unpleasant romance between characters with zero chemistry that is just overwhelmingly miserable and unhealthy. Angie refuses to communicate her feelings to Oscar and gets mad and jealous when he remains oblivious, and Oscar s just pretty callous and oblivious to Angie. There is no way any relationship with these two would actually last.

And then there’s Lola, the Angelina Jolie fish. Now, I ain’t saying she’s a gold digger… But she ain’t messing with no broke fish. Her relationship with Oscar is so blatantly telegraphed from the start as being manipulative and superficial, but he goes for it anyway. And while that is basically shoved in your face from the word go, you know what isn’t? The fact she’s able to pull some strings and work with the mob to kidnap Angie! How the fuck did she get in league with the sharks? Why did this not come up before? Why is this movie trying to frame this fish as a sexy femme fatale?

And there’s another thing: The animation in this film is abysmal, even for the time. The Shrek movies have aged more gracefully than this, and have you seen how Puss looked in Shrek 2 lately? This movie was bad even back then, with all of these fish designed to resemble their actors. Funnily enough, the more tolerable characters like Sykes and Lenny are a lot easier on the eyes (relatively speaking at least), while the worst characters are just unbelievably ugly. Angie, Lola, the jellyfish, and of course our old pal Oscar. It’s just really weird and awkward.

And maybe all of this would be easier to deal with if the film wasn’t so relentlessly unfunny and generic. When you get down to it, this is the most by-the-numbers mob movie and “liar revealed” story you will ever see. And while it’s trying to be funny, it’s generally failing miserably. Almost every joke is either a reference or an incredibly lame pun; there’s even a point where, while hamming it up, Oscar just rapid-fire spouts off movie quotes. And on top of everything else, the characters being fish really adds so little to anything that changing everyone to humans would improve things exponentially. Like it still wouldn’t be great, but we wouldn’t have to look at the aquatic version of Cats.

THE UGLY

Okay, I decided to save this for last. Ernie and Bernie, the two jellyfish, are widely viewed as Jamaican stereotypes due to their designs, voices, and singing of a Bob Marley song. They are probably the least-liked characters in the movie, and are seen by some as racist stereotypes.

The way I see it, while I don’t particularly like them, it’s not an Apu situation we have going on here, these aren’t two white guys putting on offensive accents. This is full-blooded Jamaican Ziggy Marley (the literal son of Bob Marley) and part-Jamaican Doug E. Doug playing stereotypical characters. Are they instantly not bad or offensive just because the actors match the ethnicity the jellyfish are stereotyping? No, of course not! But I do think a little context and nuance is needed here. They’re more annoying and stereotypical than outright offensive, but if you see them as offensive I can’t say I blame you. I just don’t think Marley and Doug were intentionally trying to offend.

IS IT REALLY THAT BAD?

Look, if you were hoping I’d be the shining beacon in a sea of mockery, here to tell you Shark Tale is an unsung Dreamworks masterpiece, I’m about to disappoint you. This movie is bad. Like, really, genuinely bad. You have to be seriously blinded by nostalgia to think this movie is good. It is basically “How Not To Make An Animated Film 101,” committing every single crime that made 2000s animation awful, from the bloated celebrity cast to the excessive pop culture references to the poor world building to the dance party ending.

That being said, this is an utterly fascinating bad movie. This is a film that’s fun to talk about, fun to mock, and like I mentioned above there’s still some genuinely good elements that keep this from being truly painful. This film is many things, but boring is not one of them. When it comes to “So bad it’s good” animation, this film is top tier, though your enjoyment of it will definitely hinge on how well you can stomach the terrible animation. That solid 6 is a little bit generous if I’m being honest, but at the same time, as far as bad movies go this one is an enjoyable one. I mean, what’s the Disney equivalent to this, a pop culture poisoned shitty, generic animated movie? Chicken Little. Shark Tale is a million times better than Chicken Little, so if it has one thing going for it, it’s that.

[figothynewton]

First listen thoughts of Unreal Unearth!!

Disclaimer: when it comes to his music I am literally incapable of thinking it’s bad all of these reviews are good and I don’t take criticism ps sorry for the long post oml

De Selbys: part 1 STUNNING the fuckin gorgeous Gaeilge vocals at the end???? The tranSITION TO DE SELBY 2 COME ON !!!!!!

First time- SOME PART OF ME MUST HAVE DIED THE FIRST TIME YOU CALLED ME BABY??????????? FUCK!!!!!!! God the rhythm his fucking voice the instrumentals !!!!! So good

Francesca- phenomenal as we already know

I, Carrion- Girl I already knew I was gonna like I, Carrion cause like hello I am a whore for Greek mythology and especially Icarus like sunlight is one of my favorites BUT “if we fall I only pray you don’t fall away from me” I am weeping it is so so beautiful oh my god

Eat your young- as fucking amazing as always

Damage gets done- Brandi Carlile and Hozier’s voices blend beautifully and this song feels like something you’d hear in like a coming age movie when the main character is having her realization that her life is changing for the better like full on perks of being a wallflower car tunnel scene (and yes I fucking love it)

Who we are- are the fucking vocals in that middle part him??? How is he physically capable of doing that???? Holy! Shit!

Son of Nyx- I think the best way to describe this is that my sister sent me the gif of Pinocchio from shrek rising out of the bed cause. Yeah.

All things end- remaining probably my favorite from the eat your young ep

TSFAWC(U)- Y’all. I had to replay the intro of to someone from a warm climate about five times “a joy hard learned in winter was the warming of the bed you’d shake for minutes there and move your legs wrap the blanket over you and keep your head within let your breath heat the air until you’d feel it getting thin” FUCK I need help PLEASE Ohp ok and now I’m crying again wow I almost choked from crying I’m not doing well

Butchered Tongue- girl I’m just gonna not stop crying am I ? it’s still singing here above the ground ??? Screaming crying yelling throwing up

Anything but- ! So fun!! But still so like melancholy like I’d give anything to run away! Clapping reminiscent of almost (sweet music) and it just feels like they were having fun dining the background vocals just so good

Abstract (psychopomp) really be making me fell that post about not being able to understand him cause if he wanted me to know the words he would have enunciated but lord I still love it. upon hearing there’s a part of me I’m afraid will always be trapped within an abstract from a moment of my life and I wish I could go back to not understanding the lyrics that fully made me cry all over again

Unknown/Nth- so the album hasn’t been out long enough for me to decide what my favorite out of the whole thing is but this has been my fav if the early/single releases so this one is for sure up there

First light- wow just wow wow so like I don’t even know how to describe it like I hate the word epic cause it’s so 2000s but like it truly is so like epic and powerful the sheer strength of his voice is genuinely jaw dropping just wow wow wow wowowowoowowo

So it was just a first listen through I don’t know which my favorite is yet but wow they are all just stunning it’s just an incredible album so so so good

[jezabatlovesbats]

I don’t know if I posted about them already, like I do with most things. But I had a bunch of old ideas for Unikitty episodes that younger me was going to send to the creators of the show. I put them in this big yellow envelope, but you know they're not going to take ideas from a stranger, let alone a fan, so I never did.

I actually once sent a letter to Telltale Games before it shut down, meaning this isn't the first time I've done something like that. I can show you what other parts of 2018 me were like if you want, like I did in the video I made for Big Bright World’s anniversary.

I also said that I was planning to write an anthology novel with the chapters being "episodes" that take place between the events of the Big Bright World books, and I'm going to redo SOME of these ideas. I can't and couldn't make them canon, and I don’t know why I wanted to in the first place, but at least I have fanfiction! Also, Sarah was Estelle's name in the twins' earliest versions.

I tossed the documents of the ideas out, so all that's left in the folder are profiles for Imogen and Pepper and crappy drawings of them. I had to scavenge old notes from my notes app to find the ideas themselves.

(Magic mirror from Shrek voice) And heeeeeere they are!

Sing a Song of Sadness The Unikingdom's having a karaoke night, and Master Frown drops by to ruin it for people, but Unikitty sees it as an opportunity to get him to sing with the gang. He resists at first, but then Unikitty discovers something about him she's never known before. That something is, “Even though I was never any good, I had fun doing karaoke with my friends, but something, something, wah wah wah, they left me.”

Brock's Biggest Shock This is an idea I had for an ep that's centered around Brock because I think the show deserved one where he's the focus alone. Most of the time, he's with Master Frown. Anyway, Brock finds out one day that his channel is getting boring to his viewers, so he decides to shake things up by doing something new. 

Night Fright In this one, Unikitty's scrambling to calm Puppycorn down when he develops a fear of the dark. I think he seems like the type of kid who'd be like that, and Unikitty, being the supportive big sister that she is, would definitely want to help him.

Gloom Service Richard gets fed up by the way he's treated by the others, so one day, he quits his job. Even though he tells them not to, the gang follows him to his new one, discovering that he's now working at this fancy hotel. They want him to come back, but they first have to look back and see why he wanted this.

Hawkspeare This one's pretty simple. It's where Hawkodile learns to express himself through poetry in his efforts to confess his feelings to Dr. Fox. He turns out to be pretty artsy thanks to said poetry, and the doc doesn't know what happened to him. 

Happy-Are-We Academy Dr. Fox notices that the people around her aren't very bright and starts thinking she can fix that by making them a tad bit smarter. To do that, she opens a school, subjecting her friends and the citizens as students. The school's called Unikingdom University.

Bicker No Quicker A simple argument between Unikitty and Puppycorn escalates into a fight between a lot of other people besides the siblings; after them comes the rest of the gang. As the quarrel spreads across the entire kingdom, Unikitty is clueless on how to resolve the conflict.

Smooth Lil' Doggy This one is inspired by Rock Friend and is supposed to be some kind of sequel to it. In it, Unikitty is thrilled to hear that Puppycorn has finally made some real friends, but she wonders what he could be doing when she finds out they're all girls. Pepper, Maya and Annie would have debuted in this idea, and I thought it up before I created Ringo.

It Must Be Magic Presenting my idea for Imogen's debut episode, which tells the story of how she met Brock and Master Frown. After getting kicked out from her own home, she grows interested in those villainous but wacky roommates, and she tries to charm her way into their hearts. Frown, of course, is stubborn about not wanting to be her friend.

Drama Pains Unikitty decides she wants to put on a play for Richard, but the problem is that she and the gang don't know too much about theater, so it's total backstage chaos. She's trying her hardest to get things all set up and get the cast in order for the show.

Eclipse Ripped An eclipse is about to cast over the Unikingdom, and Dr. Fox, being the astronomy nut she is, want to see it more badly than anyone else. She already has a full to-do list for the day, though, so she worries she won't be able to.

Uninet An episode idea where you get to watch videos uploaded to the internet by the people of the Unikingdom (and also Frowntown). Some of them are dramatic, some of them are funny, others are all cute and happy.

I had to fish these next ideas out by memory because they weren't anywhere in my notes. I typed them out on a document, but like I said earlier, I threw the documents away.

Doggy See, Doggy Do Puppycorn isn't a very popular kid in the Unikingdom despite being a prince, and when he notices how popular Hawkodile is, he makes it his mission to be more like him, even dressing up like him.

The Tooth About It Unikitty and Puppycorn are just happily eating pizza one day, but then Puppycorn feels a pain in his mouth, and once Unikitty sees what's going on in there, it's decided that he has to go to the dentist. However, Puppycorn's one of those kids who are terrified of going. This idea, of course, came before Tooth Trouble was announced.

It's a Loud Life It's a quiet night and Richard wants to watch his favorite show, The Real Housewives of Unikingdom, in peace, but Unikitty's holding a super loud party tonight (I think it was a sleepover), and Puppycorn's lady friends from that other idea come over for it. For the next couple of hours, Richard tries to quiet them down. I'm pretty sure It's a Loud Life was what I called this one, and I thought it up before Late Night Talky Time.

The Happiest Cat In The West Unikitty and her friends tell a story set in a version of their kingdom with a Western twist. Sheriff Unikitty and her friends embark on an adventure to protect the town of Rainbow Gulch from their sworn enemies. I vaguely remember this one, but I do recall that it was an idea for a 30-minute two-part special, like Unfairgrounds and The Birthday to End All Birthdays.

I still believe that what the show was missing was an Easter special. I wanted to see what the Easter Bunny looked like in this world.

[steele-soulmate]

Tattooed Wings, CHAPTER 539, Peter Steele & OFC, Soulmate AU

SUMMARY: Mary Claire Bradley meets her soulmate- literally- the famous Peter Steele of metal group Type O Negative. But will obstacles including trauma, stalkers, and toxic family members get in the way of their life?

WARNING: mentions of child rape (nothing graphic) PTSD, milk kink, soft smut, grinding, assault, fingering, hand jobs, blow jobs, 69, P in V sex, blood, noncon rape, violence, death, vandalism, graffiti, attempted kidnapping, break-ins, wild animal attacks, terrorist attack (sabotage) consensual impregnation, bareback, impregnation kink, creampies, terrorist attacks (shootings) hit and run pedestrian accident, precipitous labor, neonatal death, abandoned baby

WORDS: 1917

“Alright now audience- shout out your song suggestions for musical whips!” James called out as I bought him a tankard of water. “Gramacy Mary Claire!”

“Sweet Caroline!”

“Witcher!”

“Barney!”

“Like a Virgin!”

“Flight of the Bumblebee!”

“Eye of the Tiger!”

“Freebird!”

“Bad to the Bone!”

“Dead Girl Walking!”

“SpongeBob!”

“Ma’am,” James scolded in a serious tone of voice. “SpongeBob was the second most requested song in this show for seven years! And I was finally all like oh let’s get some different material and you all are all like NO! We only want the classics!”

“Alright, gentleman in the back!” I called out, pointing to the dude in the back row. “Save us, please!”

“My Milkshake!” he yelled, causing for everyone to explode into laughter.

“My whip cracks bring all the boys to my yard

And they’re like it’s better than yours

Darn right

It’s better than yours

I could whip you…” James trailed off to the audience hooting and applauding him.

“Alright, what do you got for us?” I asked a tiny six year old girl sitting on her father’s lap.

“This is Halloween!” she yelled.

“This is Halloween?” James repeated, getting a loud cheer from the audience. “Alright, tell you what- I already did This is Halloween last week, but how about Oogie Boogie song instead?”

“Mister quippy whippy says

It’s time for whipping rhymes

You’d better pay attention now

Cause I’m gonna whip in time

And if you aren’t sing along

There’s something very wrong

Cause this is how I whip it

When I do my whippy song

Hon hon-”

“Hon hon!” yelled the crowd.

“Hon hon,” sang James.

“Hon hon!” everyone shouted.

“Hon hon,” smirked my friend, still whipping his beat.

“Hon hon!” screamed the people.

“I’m the whippy quippy man,” he finished the song to much cheerings. “Alright, what next?”

“Muffin Man!” screamed someone front the third row.

“Muffin Man?” repeated James in utter disbelief, eliciting a round of cheers from the audience.

“No, do Witcher!” yelled someone else.

“No, I’ve already done Toss a Coin to Your Witcher!” James scowled at him before turning to me. “But I’ve never done Muffin Man- like, you mean the song Muffin Man?”

“Do you even know the muffin man?” I asked him.

“THE MUFFIN MAN!” he screamed at me. “No, now that I think about it, I don’t know the muffin man,”

“The muffin man?” I laughed at our silliness.

“The muffin man!” James looked exhausted as he turned to the audience.

“Is it me, or is this entire thing giving you Shrek vibes?” I wondered out loud as I cleared the stage once more.

“Wait wait wait a minute, hold on a minute- how does that song go again?” James asked everyone.

“Do you know the muffin man

The muffin man

The muffin man

Do you know the muffin man

Who lives on Drury Lane” sang the audience, getting a cackle out from the retired circus performer.

“Do you know the whippy man

The whippy man

The whippy man

Do you know the whippy man

Who does not know this song” James whipped the song in between giggles.

“One Winged Angel!” someone else screamed out.

“That’s the song from Final Fantasy Seven, right?” James asked, confirming it and giving out a loud sigh of annoyance. “A game that came out… 1997, I think?”

“A song that probably older than half the people here in the audience!” I droned, getting more whoops of mirth from people.

“A song that’s not even in English- it’s in Latin.” James waited a few seconds to let that tidbit of information sink in before continuing with his tirade against all humanity. “No one here speaks Latin- does anyone here speak Latin?” Someone raised their hand. “Shut up.” Everyone laughed as the Frenchman handed me a whip for me to hold while he performed the song with a single whip.

“We’re sorry!” someone yelled out.

“Yeah, well you should be,” he huffed. “I’m not sure what makes you think that I know that song, but I absolutely do know that song, and every little bit of that song, too! So we’re going to do it right now.”

“Estuand interius

Ira vehementi

Sephiroth

Sors immanis

Et inanis

Veni veni venias

Ne me mori facias

Veni veni venias

Ne me mori facias

Gloriosa

Generosa

Gloriosa

Generosa

Sephiroth”

“Now I just want you all to know that I sat down and I learned those lyrics,  well over a decade ago!” James grinded out his voice filled with exasperated glee. “Oh they’re remaking Final Fantasy Seven, that was really popular when I was a kid, I bet that song is going to be requested. I sat down and I learned all those GOD FORSAKEN LYRICS. And it NEVER EVER GOT REQUESTED. I have been waiting WELL OVER A DECADE FOR THIS MOMENT.”

I looked up and caught Peter’s smoldering green eyes locked on me as he cradled Baby Tommy, little girl Baby Eve and the Ratajczyk triplets in his muscular arms.

“Flight of the Bumblebee!”

“Come again?” James asked, cupping his ear to hear the audience member better.

“Do Flight of the Bumblebee!”

“Flight of the Bumblebee?” James accepted the second whip that I handed him before beginning to buzz loudly as he whipped out a fast beat.

“BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUZZ… BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUZZ… BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUZZ…” he sang out before finishing up with a dramatic flourish.

“Star Wars!” yelled someone new who was just randomly passing by the stage area.

“What Star Wars song?” James immediately honed in on one person sitting near the back. “The Imperial March? You got it!”

I lit a couple of torches before bouncing off into the audience up to Peter to demand a quick kiss before coming back up to the stage once more.

“No, no, no- we’re not doing Duel of the Fates!” James scolded me, cracking his whips a couple of times. “WHAT THE- THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!”

I turned around to see what the Frenchman was upset at this time, and saw that his whip had become undone from the hilt. I took a look at his face and an amused snigger leaked from my mouth.

“I need to do a quick DIY and fix this- does anyone have a lighter that I can borrow?” A woman from the second row held up a lighter, which she had crowd surf to the front, where I intercepted up and clicked it on for my friend to do the quick fix. “I just need to repair this really quickly. This has never happened before!”

“He got this covered- he is a professional!” I yelled, getting the audience to loudly respond. “Who here is having a great time at the New York Renaissance Faire?” The crowd answered me. “Who all’ve seen me wandering about?” A light smattering of cheers and some applause met my words. “Alright, now I have a feeling that this is about to get a lot louder- who’ve seen Jackie boy here wandering about?” The crowd exploded.

“Alright now audience, as you all may know, I have a catchphrase,” James was saying as he fiddled with his whip. “I am extremely fond of saying, oui oui!”

“OUI OUI!” everyone screamed in delight.

“And Mary Claire here goes-” He jerked his thumb rather half heartingly towards me.

“TORTURE!” I sang out.

“TORTURE!” chorused the gathered people.

“Ladies and gentlemen, what we would like to do is combined those two catchphrases,” James sighed as he finally fixed his whip. “And no, we will not be doing oui oui torture- that will be a different show.”

“You can find more of that kind of stuff on onlyfans.com/jaqueszewhipper!” I teased the audience as he returned to center stage once more.

“Wow…” James looked like he didn’t know whether to laugh or pout.

“I already told the crowd today about the Golden Banana,” I rectified myself.

“I know you did!” James laughed. “Cuz they came to my show and were all like oh when do you start?”

Everyone laughed at our playful banterings.

“That’s right ladies and gentlemen, Mary Claire and I dance at the Golden Banana,” James confirmed everyone’s thoughts. “Mary Claire’s name is- what is it, Prime Rib?”

“No, it’s Ser Loin!” I corrected him, clearly appalled.

“Ser Loin!” James repeated, ashamed at forgetting. “I am apparently Filet Mignon because I am French. And Mary Claire’s husband has been recently joining us, we call him Beef Jerky.”

I saw my soulmate losing his mind as he was roasted, the six babies, little girl, Baby Tommy, Baby Eve, Baby Mattie, Baby Teddy and Baby Jojo- tucked in his beefy arms and I knew that he would extract his revenge on me later tonight for the roasting I was giving his family name.

“Alright, now shut up- I’m going to do the Imperial March now!” James shooed me off into the audience. “Obi Won never told you what happened to your father,” James said to me as he did his impression of Darth Vader.

“He told me enough!” I cried out. “He told me you killed him!”

“No- I am your daddy!” And with that, James began to whip out the beat, singing very loudly and very off tuned.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” I screamed dramatically, dropping to my knees.

“Bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah! Bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah! Bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah! Bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah! Bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah!”

The mayhem continued on for the rest of the show and before I knew it, I was lighting James’s fire whips with a lighter before skipping off out of danger, where I watched as he cracked the flame engulfed whips multiple times, flipping and twisting and spinning until with a final CRACK, the fire whips were extinguished.

“Thank you one, thank you all!” I thanked the audience. “You can find more of his stuff on onlyfans.com/jaqueszewhipper!”

“And you can find Mary Claire’s stuff at onlyfans.com/maryclaire!” James announced with a smirk.

Gramercy, thank you, old French?

Oui oui, yes yes, French 

TAGLISTS ARE OPEN/ ASK BOX IS OPEN/ REQUESTS ARE OPEN/ PLOT BUNNIES ARE WELCOMED

If you liked this, then please consider buying me a coffee HERE It only costs $3!!!

PETER STEELE TAGLIST

@rock-a-noodle

@ch3rry-c01a

[noknowshame]

the cop in The Wicker Man yelling shit like “your crops failed because you aren’t supposed to be farming on a barren rock!!” well idk man they’ve got palm trees in Scotland so maybe they’re onto something with the whole human sacrifice thing. Now get inside the guy

[deathtothecandle]

the fact that the 1001 albums thing DOESNT have a single phil ochs album. hello. does pleasures of the harbor mean nothing to you.

[sehunniepotwrites]

if we were a movie | j.jh

for @nctsworld’s first writing challenge

SYNOPSIS. For someone who was always the understudy and never the lead, scoring this role was huge for you. All you had to do was pretend to be in love with your best friend. No big deal, right? Wrong. It was the biggest deal because, for the past four years, you had been hiding your feelings for Jung Jaehyun.

If this were a movie, he would be your perfect match and the story would end happily with the credits rolling to a perfectly timed soundtrack. Too bad this wasn’t a movie— this was real life and life came with complications.

GENRE. childhood friends to lovers!au, college!au, drama school!au, slow burn, angst, humor, mutual pining, fluff (loosely based on the Filipino rom-com Must Be Love and If We Were a Movie by Hannah Montana) PAIRING. theatre major!Jaehyun x  theatre major!reader WORD COUNT. 14+ k

WARNINGS. point of view switches from first (”I”) to second (”you”); self-doubt, insecurities, mutual pining, cursing, lots of references and direct quotes from musicals such as Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, Disney’s Newsies, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Shrek the Musical, and Wicked (edited but i might’ve missed some mistakes; bare with me!)

There are moments where time flows as normal, where people carry on with their days as they usually do. Then, there are moments people experience in slow-motion, where the world just stops spinning and all the background noise just fades away. These are the moments people look forward to. They’re the breathtaking ones, the ones that capture your heart and soul. After those moments, people are never the same. 

The first time I experienced something in slow motion was when I made my stage debut at a small talent show. There was thunderous applause after my performance and while my heart thumped against my chest, the world seemed to come to a stop. That’s when I knew my heart belonged to the stage or rather, the stage belonged to me. 

Some of these slo-mo moments are the ones where people fall in love. 

My father said that’s how he knew my mother was the one for him: he experienced it all at a slowed rate, everything fading into black and she was the only thing he saw. She was his brightest star and he was the one who reached for the sky to bring her down to Earth. 

When I was younger, I always dreamed about my “falling in love” slow-mo moment. I pictured a grandiose event with large actions and sweet words.  For it to actually happen at theatre camp during the initial dress rehearsal for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast J.R.— well, that was far from what I hoped for. 

And yet, it was just as special as I thought it would be. 

I was in my obnoxious fork costume, waiting for my best friend to leave the boy’s dressing room. 

Jung Jaehyun had been my best friend since the beginning, otherwise known as my first year at theatre camp. Only ten years old at the time, we both were cast as two of the three blind mice in Shrek the Musical and had been inseparable ever since. Although we attended different middle schools, our friendship grew from our shared vocal and dance lessons as well as our summers at camp. You know how it is; those who end up in the ensemble together stay together. 

Going over the dance moves in my head, I didn’t hear my friend’s voice calling my name. He gripped my shoulder, the action surprising me to the point where I lost my balance. I yelped and shut my eyes, expecting to fall onto the hard ground but a hand grabbing onto my wrist prevented my doom. With an arm around my waist, I barely missed the ground.

Slowly opening my eyes, I glanced up to see Jung Jaehyun looking down at me with a worried gaze. He was just a sixteen-year-old boy dressed as a spoon and yet, the world around us came to a halt. Gone were the other frantic theatre kids and the backstage messes. The couple playing Belle and the Beast was no longer sitting across from us, running through their lines. No hustle and bustle of the crew and the props masters.

It was just me dressed as a fork, falling down while my spoon for a best friend caught me in his arms. 

“We make quite a pair, don’t we, Forky?” he chuckled lowly, hitting the top of his costume to mine. It was a ridiculous sight— a pair of oversized cutlery in a crowded dressing room.

A burning hot sensation crept its way up to my face as he gently pulled me up. “I guess we do.”

Since then, my life has never been the same. I was in love with my best friend, Jung Jaehyun. I fell for him when the world stopped spinning beneath my feet while his world, unfortunately, kept on turning.

I remember each and every slowed-down moment in life —the good, the bad, and the absolute worst. I never thought a bad slo-mo moment existed, I simply didn’t think it was possible. 

I was young and naive then and I was so incredibly wrong.

The moment that hurt me most took place in my senior year of high school. The final callbacks for our community’s production of Disney’s Newsies were in order. The role of Jack Kelly, the headstrong and flirty newsboy, was easily given to the ever-so-charming Jung Jaehyun. He was not only my best friend at the time but he was the it-boy of our small theatre. People were either in love with him or wanted to be him— his talent matched his insane looks. His kind personality made him all the more lovable.

Jaehyun had his two fatal flaws, though. Everyone knew them but still saw him in such a bright light.

One: the boy was extremely clumsy. Jaehyun was often called “magic hands,” constantly ruining his props. It was a running gag in the theatre but the props committee never minded; one smile was all it took for them to forgive him and his cursed hands. 

That was his first flaw. And his second? Jaehyun fell in love way too easily and way too fast. 

How exactly did I find this out? Well, I was there to witness the scene that lifted his heart to the highest of levels while mine dropped straight to the ground.

I was in the running for the stubbornly intelligent female lead named Katherine Plumber. My opponent was the confident and radiant Son Wendy. She always played the lead in her high school productions but this was a community musical and I was determined to claim that part as my own. 

I went first, entering the audition room with a smile with the script gripped tightly in my palm. Performing alongside my best friend was easy. The romantic scene was a piece of cake, not because the lines were a breeze. That wasn’t it at all. It wasn’t because I memorized the Newsies script as a child either. It was because, at that moment, Jung Jaehyun was in love with me as much as I was in love with him. It was a moment I wanted to cherish forever: the way he looked at me was something I had never experienced before. It was so full of emotion and passion, like he had me within his grasp and never wanted to let me go.

“You got this. I believe in you,” he whispered in my ear, squeezing my hand in support. His breath tickled my skin and sent shivers down my spine. The nerves were back, not because of the audition, but because of him. 

“You’re just saying that because it’s the scene we’re about to act out, Jae,” I hissed. The sheet music for the duet, Something to Believe In, wrinkled in my free palm. 

His warm, comforting hand pressed harder against my own. “No, it’s not that. If you need someone to believe in you, I’m right here. I’ve got you, Forky. Always.”

The director cleared his throat from his seat, his scrutinizing eyes watching us closely as we got into position, just like we rehearsed a thousand times. “Whenever you’re ready.”

I watched as Jaehyun took a deep breath to get into character. He closed his eyes, rolled his broad shoulders back, and then his lids snapped open. His brown-eyed gaze aimed straight at me, with a vulnerable expression taking over his features. He was no longer Jung Jaehyun— he was Jack Kelly, a scared newsboy who was in love with a newspaper company heiress. 

The line came pouring out of his mouth with the utmost sincerity, the confusion and affection seeping through his words, “Just standing here tonight, looking at you, I’m scared tomorrow is gonna come and change everything.”

 Jaehyun took a step forward towards me, an unsure smile curling on his lips. “If there was a way I could just grab hold of something to make time stop just so I could keep looking at you.”

His body stops right in front of mine, keeping a clear distance but enough to feel the passion radiating off of his words and actions. For once in my young life, my best friend looked at me with a different kind of love in his eyes and I returned it, my genuine feelings seeping through my words. 

Biting my lip, I replied coyly, “You snuck up on me, Jack Kelly, I never even saw it coming.”

“For sure?” he stage-whispered. His upstage hand unexpectedly reached up to caress my cheek. The action was unrehearsed, almost catching me off guard. It was a different take on the scene. The characters were supposed to be shy, their thoughts wavering on their own feelings for each other and the impending strike that was to come the day after; yet, Jaehyun played Jack as someone certain of his feelings.

“For sure,” I answered back at the same volume, my hand cupping his own to follow along with his direction. It felt as if he was searching my soul for my thoughts and I could not let him in. The opening bars of the romantic duet echoed throughout the room and after taking a breath, I began to sing. Jaehyun joined in on the second verse and instantly, our voices blended together in a beautiful harmony, one that beat our Newsies karaoke sessions in his car. 

The scene ended as quickly as it began. The director hummed before jotting notes down and whispering to his casting assistants for a few seconds. I thought they were the longest seconds of my life. Jaehyun nodded his head to reassure me. “You did well, Forky.”

“Of course I did, it’s me we’re talking about here,” I nudged him back. “I can do no wrong, Jae!” 

“Thank you,” the director finally spoke, “you may go. Jaehyun, if you could escort her out and fetch Wendy for me?”

“Of course,” your friend nodded. The feeling of his large hand on my back slowly guided me out of the room. The spot he touched me burned but my cheeks were burning even more. Why was it that every little touch drove me to the brink of insanity?

“You’re so going to land this part,” I remember him saying as he squeezed my waist. My heart was beating erratically against my ribcage, the butterflies in my stomach threatening to fly their way up my throat.

“You think so?”

“Oh definitely,” Jaehyun stressed with a wink. 

He said it too soon. 

Because the minute he locked gazes with Son Wendy, I just knew he had found his leading lady. 

“S-Son Wendy?” he stuttered as he caught sight of the pretty girl in the waiting room. Her hair was styled similarly to a young maiden from the turn of the century, perfectly curled and out of her face. 

“Yes?” she smiled back.

It seemed like the words were caught in my best friend’s throat. Sneaking a glance at Jaehyun’s ears, they burned a bright red. “We’re, um, we’re ready for you.”

I watched as Jaehyun nervously offered his arm to her, his eyes never leaving her face. It was like he was her own personal spotlight, the way his eyes shone just for the girl in front of him. The boy was completely enamored and I was instantly in the shadows. The sweet smile that was reserved for me was directed towards another and it sparkled in a way it never did before.

The world around me moved incredibly slow as they passed me by. With everything frozen, all I saw was the gorgeous couple headed to the audition room with hushed exchanges. Jaehyun took his time heading to the private room to spend more time with the girl while Son Wendy steadily made her way into my friend’s fragile heart. My own heart clenched at the sight. It was breaking ever so slowly and I felt every little crack and tear. 

Even with the role of the understudy, it was as if I never even had a chance at winning his heart over. If Wendy wasn’t present for one rehearsal, Jaehyun didn’t even see me— his own best friend since our ensemble days. He was way too deep into his “showmance.” It was like I never even existed. It wasn’t long before he called Wendy his girlfriend and then, I was invisible. Cast aside. Ignored.

Needless to say, my heart broke in slow-motion as Jaehyun’s pounded rapidly for a girl that took two parts I desperately ached for: Katherine Plumber and the girl who held Jaehyun’s heart. 

But this was just the first time his heart was stolen by his opposite. The first of many.

The first two years of university passed me by like a summer breeze. Constantly busy with general education and introductory drama courses, I was constantly flitting around from building to building. My hands were usually occupied by my laptop, a blazing cup of caffeinated tea, and a worn out script while my mind was filled with jumbled up lines and the dramatic cries of an overwhelmed university student. I probably wouldn’t have made it this far if it wasn’t for Jaehyun and Xiao Dejun, another theatre major we had met during orientation, by my side.

Fast forward to my third year and the three of us were headed to the office of the theatre department. It was posting day for the spring musical— the day the cast list was revealed. This year’s musical spectacular was Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella. The play itself was a modern classic and it was also my dream come true.

This day, just like any posting day of the drama department, was nerve-racking. Everyone was anxious to find out what parts they were given and how the fairytale would play out. The part of the brave and kind Ella was always on my list of roles I wanted to fill. As much as I thought I did well on my final callback, I didn’t want to set my hopes too high.

“Are you nervous?” Jaehyun asked while draping an arm over my shoulder. He playfully put all his weight onto his right side to throw me off balance. 

“Nervous? Me? Why would I be nervous if I’m like 95% sure  I’m going to get the understudy again?” I chuckled sarcastically. Bitterly. It happened every year, so why get my hopes up now?

“Yeah but—”

“No buts, I’ve accepted the title of the Wonderstudy! I think you should too, Jae,” I slapped his shoulder before quickly slipping out of his hold before linking arms with Dejun. My best friend let out a yelp, almost tripping over his own two feet as we continued down the hallway. “I’m mediocre at best.”

The Wonderstudy: it was the nickname the other students in the department gave me because I was always the understudy. I was never the star of the show. It said that I was good but not good enough. 

Dejun leaned in and whispered, “You do know that you’re more than just that, right? You’re an actor. A phenomenal one. You weren’t accepted to this drama program by just being mediocre at best.”

I ignored my friend’s comment, eyes zoned in at the other end of the building. The crowd of usual theatre students crowded around the bulletin board, curious heads popping up and down trying to take a peek at the list. Some buzzed with excitement, happy they got a major part while others groaned in disappointment. You were most likely going to be with the later group. 

Once the cluster of students caught sight of Jaehyun, they parted like the red sea to let him through. It wasn’t really necessary, though, everyone knew the it-boy of the drama department was cast as the role of the misguided prince, Topher. 

The only question was: who was cast as his princess? Who was this year’s Ella?

I fought my way through the bunch with Dejun following behind me as our best friend was showered with congratulations. Jaehyun was all smiles, dimples prominent as he was lavished by the mass. Dejun made it to the list first. His finger dragged along the thin paper until he found his name. He cheered, pumping his fist up in joy. “I got the part I wanted! I’m Jean-Michel!”

Grinning at my friend, I sincerely congratulated him. He got the second lead: the feisty peasant looking for change. Turning again, his eyes grazed the list until Dejun found my name. His smile dropped ever so slightly and that was when I knew: I was beaten once again. 

“What part did I get?”

“Gabrielle,” he answered. Ah, the outwardly abrasive but quietly empathetic sister. The second lead, love interest of Jean-Michel. At least I was playing Dejun’s opposite. 

I took a step closer, wondering who took the part of the kind princess. Squinting at the small print, my eyes scanned the jumble of words until I saw it.

Ella……………………….Lee Naeun Ella u/s………………….Y/N

I scoffed. Forever the understudy. The Wonderstudy of the Theatre Department indeed.

The first rehearsal, otherwise known as the read-through, took a toll on me. It was usually a two to three hour long session, filled with loud chatter, crazy introductions, and a variety of crazy theatre games to break the ice. When the niceties ended, everyone took their seats in their plastic chairs that were arranged in a huge circle. Bae Joohyun, the head stage manager began reading the stage directions aloud as the table read began. The production’s director, Professor O’Hare, sat alongside Joohyun, jotting down notes and giving out commentary when needed. 

Amongst the reading of lines were tiny whispers, the sound of highlighters and pencils marking the paper, and the simultaneous turning of pages. The music director, Professor Lau sat at the piano bench and sight-read the music to give the cast a taste of the songs. Being the first rehearsal, the few who knew of the songs sang along to the accompaniment with joyous smiles, myself and Dejun included.

When Professor Lau played the first romantic duet between the leads, all heads turned to Jaehyun and Naeun who sat side-by-side. With it being their first time together, the performance was far from perfect but it was still something. His lower tone blended nicely with her softer voice and the shy glances they exchanged made their duet quite a sight. 

As Jaehyun and Naeun read the last lines for Act One, I noticed the way Jaehyun’s gaze kept flittering back to Naeun’s pretty face. The girl was focused on her lines, head down and hair blocking her gorgeous features, but he still kept looking at her and only her. I could imagine how the scene was playing out in his head, the world slowing down until Naeun was the only one moving.  He was infatuated. Twitterpated. 

And it hurt. It hurt more than reading the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet or listening to Elphaba’s desperate cry she lets out when she loses Fiyero. Call me dramatic but that was how I felt. 

It wasn’t like I tried getting over him. It wasn’t like I tried dating other people before; I had many, many times but my mind always drifted back to my best friend. He was the boy with the richest brown eyes, the perfectly dimpled smile, and the lowest laugh that set my heart aflame. Without even knowing it, Jaehyun had this incredible hold on my broken heart and he would not let me out of his grip. 

The green-eyed monster inside me resurfaced and I hated it. I absolutely hated it— why was I so pathetically in love with my best friend? 

 “Here we go again,” I said before dropping my head onto the table. 

“You say that every time and you keep running back to him at the end of the day,” Dejun whispered before looking back down at his script. His hand continued to jet across the page, his highlighter marking his many lines. 

Rolling up the script in my hand, I whacked his side. The action caused his hand to jerk the bright marker in another direction, striking a distorted line on his page. “Look what you did, twerp!” he hissed.

“Your fault, Eyebrows!”

“Stop calling me that, you fork!”

“Hey, only I can call her fork!” Jaehyun appeared out of nowhere, plopping alongside me. His voice snapped us out of our little argument, making us realize that the director called for a fifteen. 

“That’s only because you’re a dumb spoon,” I stuck my tongue out at him. Jaehyun pretended to reach for it and I blew a raspberry at him to retaliate. 

“You two idiots are my favorite cutlery set,” Dejun shook his head with a laugh. He was probably wondering why he stuck around us the majority of the time. 

“Let off it, Dejun,” Jaehyun said with the roll of his brown orbs. 

“Only if you let me be the knife to your set.”

“As if, dumbass,” I countered with a laugh. 

“Okay but you guys, can we stop fighting for a sec and talk about how I got her number?” Jaehyun beamed, throwing his arms over both our shoulders. He pulled us closer to his body and the faint smell of his musky cologne hit my nose. I held back a sigh as it filled my senses. Oh, to be drowned in his scent. 

“I got Naeun’s number!” he repeated excitedly, his strong arms shaking us. I held back my abrupt want to push him off. I wasn’t in a celebrating mood. My heart was too broken to care.

“Of course you did, when do you not get a girl’s number?” I answered a bit too bitterly. Raising a brow at him, I added, “Are we supposed to be surprised?”

“Listen,” Jaehyun countered, pulling back from me. “I don’t like that attitude, Forky.”

I scoffed, “Never stopped you from being my friend before, Jae.”

Jaehyun didn’t answer; he was too busy clutching his phone. His pretty brown eyes were fixed on Naeun’s contact page like it was the world’s greatest treasure. His eyes were sparkling in admiration before his gaze turned to the girl across the room. The look my best friend wore on his face was soft, the smile on his lips light. “I think she could be the one.”

Some thought him to be a player but I never thought of him that way. He might have had the looks of a heartbreaker but he had the purest heart of gold. The boy with the dimpled smile, porcelain skin, and cheeks as red as roses was a hopeless romantic to his very core. He was simply looking for his other half. 

“I think she could be the one.” His words repeated in my head, his voice pestering me. My heart lurched at them despite hearing them each semester. 

Jaehyun said this every year, with every girl. He said this when he crushed on Son Wendy, Kim Chungha, and so many more. His infatuations and crushes ended just as easily as they started. The boy was more than disappointed when the initial spark with each girl ended after a show’s run ended. When the musical closed, so did his feelings for each opposite. 

I never got stage fright; I was usually the one who said what was on her mind without a moment’s hesitation. So why was I hesitating to tell him my feelings?

Why was I hesitating to say that the one Jaehyun could be looking for was standing right next to him?

Just another rehearsal at the auditorium. 

Just another day watching my best friend fall for his leading lady.

Jaehyun and Naeun were standing in the middle of the stage, the ensemble surrounding them. He stood behind her, his hands gently placed on her waist while she leaned back into his touch. Naeun was wearing a fluffy tulle skirt, a mock-up of her ballgown. Park Sooyoung, the resident fashion major and lead costume designer, pushed her to wear it so she could get used to the estimated size of her dress. Even in a mere tank top and tulle skirt, Lee Naeun looked like a princess.

Professor Kwon, the choreographer of the production, stood at the end with a watchful eye. She counted them off, walking them through the routine while the rest of us practiced our steps off to the sidelines. 

Once the two main characters got the hang of their steps, Professor Kwon motioned for Professor Lau to play the songs from the beginning. As much as I tried to focus on my own dance moves, my mind kept wandering back to Jaehyun. 

Imagining him under the spotlight in a perfectly tailored suit, a crown sitting on his head, extending his arm out not to Naeun but to me. It was one of those movie moments where the characters and the audience watching fell in love. 

If life was like a movie, things would be so much easier. 

So lost in my thoughts, I missed a count and stepped on my partner’s foot. Muttering a quiet sorry to him, we continued on with the routine. As my partner swirled me around the dance floor, I drifted back into my daydream.

My utterly impossible daydream where I was the girl Jung Jaehyun was infatuated with. Although this play talked about impossible things happening everyday, I couldn’t imagine this ever happening. 

The terrible thing about being a theatre major in university was being a theatre major with midterms. Not only did I have to deal with hours of my back hunched over a desk and scattered study materials, I had to spend half of my days in the school’s theatre rehearsing. 

If I was not in class scribbling down last minute notes in notebooks,  I was learning dance routines or running lines on and off stage alongside Dejun. The days were long and the nights were even longer. Sometimes, the cast fell asleep in the seats of the auditorium while rehearsals were going on. We were all losing sleep. Some of us were losing our sanity but hey, welcome to the theatre. 

My schedule was filled to the brim and I wasn’t even the main character of the show. On top of that, I had to memorize the part of Ella. Not that it was really needed in the first place. 

No one ever stepped down from a lead role while I was their backup. It just didn’t happen.

Despite the hectic lives of belonging to the theatre department, the musical was two months into production and everything was running smoothly. With a month and a left until opening night, everyone was off-book and the initial stage blocking was done. The costuming and makeup committee were finishing up their mock-up designs and the student orchestra sounded divine. 

I saw more of Dejun than Jaehyun lately, my best friend being preoccupied with his new love interest before, during, and after rehearsals. I was cast aside once again.

Was it something out of the ordinary? No.

Did it still hurt? Yes.

Did I do anything about it? Absolutely not. I didn’t want to ruin his happiness. I rather suffer than see him as nothing but joyous, even if the happiness was temporary. The grin he wore when he was in love was too beautiful to rip away. Jaehyun shined like the light from the sun. I could never bring myself to do it. 

It was week eight of rehearsals when I stepped out of my last midterm, my head absolutely empty after reading small text for over an hour. Reaching into my backpack’s front pocket, I pulled out my cell phone and quickly turned it on. My screen was flooded with missed calls and texts from Professor O’Hare, Joohyun, Jaehyun, and Dejun, the notification numbers reaching over a hundred total. 

Something must have happened. Talk about a theatre emergency. Knowing our kind, they were probably being overdramatic. 

Just as I was about to unlock my phone, a video call went through. It was Dejun. Rolling my eyes, I slid my finger across the screen to answer it. “Jeez, I know you love me but give a girl a break, Eyebrows!”

“God, you’re so conceited sometimes. Why didn’t you answer my calls?!” He shouted, face close to the phone. I winced at the volume, immediately lowering the level as I slipped on my wireless earbuds. “There are important matters to discuss here!”

“What happened this time? Did someone say Macbeth in the theatre again? You know I don’t believe in that shit,” I said sarcastically.

“Oh my god. This is not the time for jokes! Everyone’s been trying to reach you!” Xiaojun yelled once more. “Where are you?!”

“I just got out of my musical history midterm in Maple Hall. Heading to the theatre right now. Why?” I never received an answer; Dejun hung up the call. Giving my phone a weird look, I shoved it in my pocket before continuing on my way. A light push on my back prevented me from going too far. 

“Twerp!” Xiao Dejun’s voice came from behind me, yanking me by the straps of my backpack. He was breathing heavily, trying to catch his breath. “Oh my god, we’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he said in between heavy breaths. 

Crossing my arms, I cocked a brow at him. “Why’s that?”

Dejun placed a hand on my shoulder for support. The words came flying out of his mouth, I almost couldn’t catch what he was saying. So much for being a theatre major. 

“Speak clearly, Dejun. Enunciate, articulate, exaggerate, remember? We are thespians and thespians do not mumble!”

The exhausted boy ignored my theatricals. “Naeun didn’t land a switch leap right and she rolled her ankle during advanced ballet. She’s going to be out for at least three to four weeks,” my friend replied breathily, his words a lot clearer than before.

The news shocked me to the core, my feet suddenly planted to the ground. It sounded like he said Naeun was out of commission. “What?” 

“She’s out for three to four weeks! I mean sucks for her, I wish her a speedy recovery but do you know what this means?”

The lack of response from me urged him to continue, “Sweetheart, she’s out. You’re in!”

Oh shit. I was in.

The part I had always dreamed of was mine. The lead role was finally mine.

I was now Ella and Jung Jaehyun was my Prince Topher.

Having an understudy step up to their role halfway through production was always something to get used to. It was a setback, a minor one, but still a setback. Just as Jaehyun finally settled into his role and built an unshakeable bond with Lee Naeun as his opposite, the accident happened. His potential girlfriend was now out of the show and off her feet in order to push for a speedy recovery.

The lovesick boy couldn’t even be there for her because his rehearsal times increased in order to get his best friend adjusted to your new role. There he was, leaning against the piano while waiting for you to arrive.

Professor Lau sat at the bench, flipping through his sheet music until he found the song he was looking for. 

The door slammed open and you stumbled in. “Am I late? I’m sorry, I just heard the news.”

“No, not at all. You’re right on time,” the professor smiled at you. “The situation’s weird, I know but congratulations on getting Ella.”

“Thanks, Professor. That means a lot,” you grinned back. 

Dropping your bag by the piano, you swiftly pulled out the script. You glanced at Jaehyun’s opened book for the page number before hastily flipping through the pages. Jaehyun nudged your side. “Hey, Forky.”

“Hey yourself,” you elbowed him back, biting your bottom lip.

“Congrats, bubs. You did it,” he pulled you into a side hug before ruffling your hair with pride. You had finally gotten a part you wanted. It was your time to shine. As your best friend for many years, Jaehyun had been waiting for the day you could show the crowds your full potential.  

“Did I really do it or did your girlfriend just get injured? How is she, by the way?” 

As much as you tried to play the overdramatic, conceited girl, you never believed in yourself but Jaehyun always did. You deserve the spotlight; your talent was out of this world and the masses were finally granted a chance to see you for what you were— a star.

“You did this. You were made for this part as much as she was,” Jaehyun reassured his best friend with a smile. He tapped your nose. “And she’s not my girlfriend but she’s doing alright. Just in a little bit of pain. I’m going to see her after we finish.”

“Give her some well wishes for me,” you answered. Jaehyun didn’t notice your smile dropping into a small frown.

“You ready to act like you’re in love with me?”

“I was born ready, you doof.” There was something weird in your voice when those words left your lips but Jaehyun didn’t have time to process it.

Professor Lau guided the students through a series of warm-ups before asking, “Shall we start with Do I Love You Because You’re Beautiful today? We’ll do a couple of run-throughs before Jaehyun teaches you the blocking.” His fingers played the beginning notes of the song, the light melody drifting to their ears. 

Already off book at this point, Jaehyun closed his eyes and began to sing.

Do I love you because you’re beautiful? Or are you beautiful because I love you?

Am I making believe I see in you A girl too lovely to be really true?

Do I want you because you’re wonderful? Or are you wonderful because I want you?

Are you the sweet invention of a lover’s dream? Or are you really as wonderful as you seem?

When his eyes fluttered open, Jaehyun found himself facing you with a script in hand. Your face wore the softest look as you stared back at him. His breath almost caught in his throat at the gentle smile you wore. You played the part differently from Naeun and it was a refreshing sight to behold. You were playing a confused peasant but your eyes still sparkled with the gleam of a thousand suns. 

There was a flush of heat that started from his cheeks and extended to his reddening ears. His heart was doing its best to break out of his ribcage and the star of the show wasn’t sure if his chest could keep it in for very much longer.

When singing with him, Naeun was a pretty princess.

But when he sang with you, the girl in front of him? Jaehyun thought you were absolutely breathtaking.

Two hours later, we were finally free of rehearsals. My first rehearsal as Ella. My throat was a bit parched from all the singing and projecting I was doing but I felt lighter than air. Singing with Jaehyun made me feel lighter than air. I was weightless, nothing could hold me down.

“Forky, you’re really good,” he said to me as we walked to our cars. I tried to fight the sudden heat making its way to my face. Lately, compliments from him were hard to come by.

 It was already late when O’Hare and Lau finally let us out, the moon sitting high in the sky. The night breeze crept its way into my thin jacket, causing me to hug myself to retain some warmth. Noticing my struggle with the cold, Jaehyun quickly draped his jacket over my shoulders. I was immediately hit with his familiar scent, it was almost overwhelming. I should be used to this, his action of sharing his clothes with me was nothing new but I was weak. It affected me every single time. I guess I was that head over heels for him. 

Head over glass heels, one could even say.

“You’ve seen me in action before and I mean, I was chosen to be the understudy for a reason,” I gave him a shrug. 

“Yeah but I’ve never seen you act and sing like that. Just...wow.” Stealing a glance at him, Jaehyun almost looked enamored with me. He was giving me a look that was usually reserved for someone else. I felt my heartbeat pick up in my chest and flutters in my stomach.

“Stop that,” I blushed, pinching his skin through the thin material of his long-sleeved shirt. A satisfying buzz ran through my body. Was he really looking at me like that? I was probably reading too much into it.

“No, but it seemed so real. Like you weren’t pretending.”

“That’s because I wasn’t,” I whispered under my breath as we arrived at our cars. 

“Hmm, you say something?” Jaehyun asked, leaning closer to hear me. 

Shaking my feelings away, I ignored the dull ache in my chest and acted through the tears I was desperately holding in. I wrinkled my nose at him playfully, secretly pushing the pain down my throat. “You really don’t listen to a word I say, do you, Jae? I said, I’ll see you later.”

“See ya, Forky! Get home safely!”

Scoffing to myself, I realized how much of a great actor I was. I deserved an Oscar or a Tony for the scenes I played out, the ones where I pretended to be okay when I was far from it. 

What award do you ask? Best Actress in a Supporting Role— the best friend to Jung Jaehyun but never the love of his life.

Wardrobe fittings for productions were always an exciting day for the whole cast and crew. It was one step closer to putting on a show. Jaehyun was already dressed in one of his many costumes, a white suit with golden trimmings. It fit him for the most part, only tiny adjustments were needed. Members of the wardrobe department quickly pinned his neatly pressed jacket before taking it off his hands. Since he was the main character, Jaehyun was one of the first ones done. He was simply waiting for you to come out in your first dress— the white gown for the ball scene in Act One.

When you finally did all those minutes ago, Jaehyun swore his heart stopped. 

Ten minutes ago, Jaehyun saw his best friend walk through the curtains. Your face was bare, hair still in that lazy style you always sported but your clothes. The comfy clothing you usually rehearsed in was gone and replaced by a beautiful ball gown. Despite the pins that scattered throughout the material to fit your form, it still appeared majestic. There you were, standing before him and the rest of the cast, and you were the loveliest you had ever been.

Ten minutes ago, you walked in and his head was reeling. Time slowed down as you tentatively made your way towards him. You did not meet his eyes but Jaehyun was dying to catch your gaze. He never wanted to let you out of his sight. The picture of his best friend in white was something he wanted to treasure and suddenly, the slowness around him stopped. The cast’s cheers and squeals disappeared. There was only you in that beautiful ball gown. 

Was this the slow-motion moment you always talked about? The one you always dreamed about experiencing? Jaehyun could see why people thought it to be magic. It was almost like a movie, movie magic if you will. 

Another look at you and then Jaehyun was in the future, watching you make her way down the aisle. A thin veil covered your face and he was so tempted to push it away from concealing your dazzling smile. His heart was fighting its way out of his chest, wanting to head down the path straight to you. How he wanted to reach out and touch you, cradle you in his arms. 

You were truly an angel in white. A princess. A queen.

The mere sight of you took him to the skies, the one place he was sure you were from. Although Jaehyun would never admit it, he always thought you to be beautiful. Throughout the many years of being best friends, he would find his gaze subconsciously drifting to you. He would rip it away before you would ever notice him doing so, knowing you would tease the hell out of him for it— it was his own little secret tucked away into the corners of his beating heart. 

“How do I look?” Your question snapped him out of his daydream and back to reality. Back down to earth. 

“Sorry, what did you say?” 

“Oh my god, you stupid spoon! I said, how do I look?”

“Lovely,” he answered sincerely, his brown eyes digging into your own. “You look absolutely lovely.”

Ten minutes ago, you simply murmured a question while Jung Jaehyun came to a realization. The realization that he might’ve fallen for you: his Forky, his best friend.

The loveliest girl he had ever seen.

With Cinderella’s opening night being only a few weeks out, you and Jaehyun decided to fit in extra time together to run lines and songs outside of scheduled rehearsals. That was the plan for every weekend and that particular Saturday was no exception to this plan. When his doorbell rang frantically, Jaehyun groaned loudly before getting up to answer the door. Did you always have to be so obnoxious?

Just as the door swung open, your loud voice boomed into his apartment, “‘Sup, ho! Ready to rehearse the hell out of this show or what?”

He stepped aside to let you in and you immediately made yourself comfortable in his humble abode. Jaehyun almost laughed as he watched you. There was a particular routine you stuck to when visiting his place. First, you would take off your shoes, slip on your personal pair of slippers you left at his house, drop your bag on the kitchen counter, and then open his fridge to raid his food supply.

Precisely as Jaehyun predicted, you waddled to the fridge in your memory-foam duck slippers and stole one of his yakults. He loved how comfortable you were in his home. It was truly a heart-warming sight.  The act itself was extremely domestic and he quite liked the domesticity when it was with you. That flash of you in a wedding gown came back to him and he blushed at the thought. The idea of spending a future together was flooding his brain recently and he didn’t know what to do. 

You weren’t the one he liked. Naeun was but why were you the only person on his mind? Was it wrong to have you in his mind? Naeun wasn’t his girlfriend— they were still getting to know each other. His time with her decreased over time since you had stepped into the role of Ella. He was very fond of you. He always had been. There was this little piece of his heart that was reserved for you but was it because you were his best friend or was it more?

Jaehyun quickly snapped himself out of it. 

“First of all, I’m not a ho,” he said before grabbing a yakult of his own. He poked the straw through the foil a bit too harshly, the liquid splashing over the top. Damn his strength— now half of his drink was gone. “Second, stop slut-shaming me for my dating choices. It’s 2021. If I wanted to be a ho, I could be a ho.”

You rolled your eyes as you took a sip of your drink. “God, I hate you sometimes.”

“You need to stop lying to yourself, I know you’re hopelessly in love with me,” Jaehyun said, pointing his drink towards you. He caught you rolling your eyes at his answer.

“Oh, you’re absolutely right. I am irrevocably in love with you, Jung Jaehyun,” you said sarcastically, dramatically batting your eyelashes his way. Your confession, despite being a sarcastic statement, left his heart racing against time. 

“Alexa, play Hopelessly Devoted to You!” you yelled ironically. 

“Now playing Hopelessly Devoted to You by Olivia Newton-John,” an electronic voice boomed across his living room before the opening notes of the ballad began to play. 

“Shit! I forgot you actually had an Echo,” you jumped, not expecting that at all. Jaehyun chuckled at your reaction, loving how easily you scare. He always thought it was one of your cuter traits. 

“Alexa, stop!” he called. 

Jaehyun ran a hand through his hair. He dragged his feet to his bedroom, knowing you would follow without a word. “I can’t rehearse today, I have to write this damned analysis paper for a class. It’s due in two days.”

“I’m sorry, is that paper more important than your best friend in the entire world?” you pushed from behind him.

“Yes,” he deadpanned, taking a seat at his desk. Jaehyun’s study area was an absolute mess. His notebooks were scattered around the floor, textbooks opened to random pages, and his laptop opened to a google document.  

“That’s a motherfucking lie and you know it.”

“I really can’t rehearse now, Forky,” he sighed.

He glared at you as you theatrically fell onto his bed. The notes spread out on his bed flying to the floor. “Oh, woe is me! Jung Jaehyun cannot give me the time of day to rehearse. What am I to do?”

“Why are you like this?” 

“I’m a theatre student, I’m wired to be this obnoxious,” you said with a straight face. 

He stared at you through narrowed eyes. “I really hate you right now.”

“I know,” you countered with a flat tone. “But in all seriousness, Jaehyun. I won’t take too much of your time. I just wanted to practice our duets a couple of times and then I’ll be out of your hair. Plus, you look like you need a break.”

One look at you and he was a goner. How could he ever say no to his best friend?

“Ugh, fine.”

“Ha, I knew you would cave.”

“Shut up.”

The next hour with you was spent rehearsing the numbers. During the last run-through, Jaehyun suggested going over the blocking and putting their all in it. To act like it was opening night. You swiftly agreed and he played the music from the top.

Jaehyun led you around his room, spinning you across the floor as you sang. The smile on your face was so lovely, he could not take his eyes off your lips. His eyes fluttered to a close and he imagined you in your full costume, downed in your gown, as dainty as a daisy and as graceful as a bird. The thought of you dressed like a princess drove him crazy.

He never thought of Naeun this way. This was different. You were different but why?

Jaehyun opened his eyes to see you smiling so gracefully at him as the song was coming to an end. Just as planned in the show, your gaze flitted to his lips. You leaned closer and he followed, dipping his head to meet you halfway. His heart was skipping to its own beat as he inched down. Your soft lips brushed against his oh-so-gently as he held you in his arms but before the boy could press back, the door to his room swung open.

You broke away from him, shocked at the sudden arrival to see your other friend and Jaehyun’s roommate, Dejun. “Oops, was I interrupting something?” 

“I, uh, I gotta go.” Before you could even stop him, Jaehyun grabbed his wallet and phone off his desk and ran out his room. 

Confusion clouded his senses. Why did he feel empty after you pulled away? Why did he want to kiss you so badly? It was just a stage kiss.

Was it not?

Jaehyun’s door slammed shut behind him, leaving me and Dejun in his room. It wasn’t long before we heard the front door close, too. “Well, that was something,” Dejun said after his roommate shuffled out of the apartment.

“Shut up, Xiao Dejun,” I replied, smacking his arm. 

My friend lifted his arms up in defense before he gave me a pointed stare. “I’m just saying, the two of you looked really into it. It looked great, to be honest with you. No notes to give here— I’m sure O’Hare and Lau would say the same.”

“It’s just acting,” I tried to shrug it off. 

“Stop lying to yourself.”

“I’m not!”

“Bulltshit. I saw the way he looked at you— that’s not acting, twerp,” Dejun declared, his voice dropping. His voice never dipped in tone unless he was serious and in that moment, he was dead serious. My friend sounded like a frustrated tutor deliberately explaining a concept for the fifth time and I was the stubborn student who just didn’t understand.

“Yes, yes it is!”

“No, it’s not because that’s how he always looked at you!” 

“Lies!” I yelled accusingly, “We got Liza Minnelli over here!” 

“God, you’re so annoying sometimes! Why won’t you confess? Cat got your tongue? Nothing’s really stopped your sharp tongue before,” Dejun groaned at my stubbornness. He slapped a hand onto my shoulder. I tried to shrug him off but his grip was too strong. Maybe it was him trying to help me get a grip. Who knew? I honestly didn’t. 

“It’s not like I haven’t tried, you know?” An exasperated answer left my lips. I was tired. So ridiculously tired of dealing with these feelings for my best friend. It had been four years since I fell for him. Four years of trying to see other people, four years of trying to confess, and four long years of failing every time.  “I just freeze up like a deer in headlights or like you did when you performed that one monologue sophomore year in voice and movement class. Remember that, Jun?”

I felt his sharp glare burning a hole in my back. “You promised to never talk about that moment, you traitor,” he hissed, his hand squeezing the hell out of my shoulder. 

“Okay yeah but you get the point, right?” My nails dug into his skin, leaving little indents onto his hand. He yelped, finally jerking his hand back to examine it. Shaking my head, I added, “Plus, he’s my best friend. I just can’t do it!”

“So, what you’re saying is that you choose friendship over the possibility of him loving you?” 

“It’s just...I don’t know—” I started, shifting my body to face him, “—choosing friendship means that I’ll only lose love. But if I chose to confess and put my feelings out there, I could lose him as a potential lover and my best friend. I’m not prepared for that. I don’t think I ever will be.”

And there it was again. The self-doubt hit me, imposter syndrome resurfacing at an all time high, bringing me to the lowest of lows. 

The feeling of being a fraud, of being not good enough. 

For Jaehyun. For any love interest for that matter. For the role of Ella. For taking my place under the spotlight. 

“Dejun?”

“Hmm?”

“Am I—am I good enough?”

“For?”

“I—I don’t know—” I stuttered as my mind was consumed by my own crippling thoughts. I tried to stay strong but the crack in my voice gave me away, “—for anything? Everything?” 

“Oh, twerp,” Dejun said in that particular voice and then that was when the floodgates opened. The tears just came pouring down with no sign of stopping. My friend gently pulled me into his comforting arms. They were snug and I felt safe but not as safe as I did in Jaehyun’s hold.

“You, my darling, are definitely good enough. Don’t let your thoughts tell you otherwise.” Although his voice was comforting, it did not help the unhinged thoughts running through my brain. 

“Then, why does it always hurt when I don’t get the role of the leading lady? Of his leading lady? I always get so far and then, at the end of the day, I’m just not what they’re looking for. What he’s looking for.” Pining for something so unimaginable was too taxing. Having the lead role in a play and having Jung Jaehyun wear his heart on his sleeve just for me. 

“Sometimes, the roles aren’t made for you and that’s okay.”

“But what about this one?”

“This one, twerp, this one is a little different.” 

“And why’s that?”

“Because there is music in you; it goes hand in hand with Jaehyun, like a melody to his harmony. You are his Ella and he’s your Topher,” Dejun urged. It was like he was begging me to not give up hope. 

“You’re just saying that.”

“I’m really not. You just gotta do what the theatre gods tell us to do: just trust the process.” 

How could I trust the process when all it did was hurt me by allowing me to have a glimpse of a love and a life that would never be mine? 

Opening night finally arrived. Everyone was called to the theatre for a full run through in the afternoon: the final dress rehearsal hours before the doors opened and the curtains were drawn. I had gotten there earlier to soak in the calmness of the empty auditorium before the chaos began.

I heard heavy footsteps come from behind me. Even without turning around, I knew it to be Jaehyun. The boy took a seat next to me on the wooden prop walls that were locked into the ground. If the stage managers and props committee saw us, they would’ve definitely ripped our heads off but they weren’t— it was just us.  

“Penny for your thoughts, my dear Ella?”

“Topher,” I answered, playing along with his game. “Lovely to see you here bright at early.”

“I knew you would be here and I wanted to be here with you,” he said, pulling me into a side hug. Jaehyun knew me well but did he know me well enough? “Spill it, Forky. What’s wrong?”

“Sometimes I still doubt myself,” I said a little too fast. A loud sigh followed my reveal. The crippling doubt was always there, haunting me. Let me tell you, it was not the best thing in the world to have during an opening for a new production. 

“Oh yeah?” Jaehyun asked, pushing me to continue. I felt the soft brush of his palm against my hand. His fingers grabbed hold of my wrist before fighting their way to tangle with my own fingers. The sensation tickled, taking me away from my thoughts for a fraction of a second. I played with his fingers, watching the way his pinkish hand fit with mine. 

I refused to look at him; I was too afraid of breaking down.“Doubting myself, my abilities. Always the understudy, never the star, remember?”

Jaehyun hummed. He rested his chin on my shoulder. “Did something change?”

“Yeah, I finally realized that maybe it wasn’t that I wasn’t right for the part; the part wasn’t right for me,” I laughed a bit dryly. “Does that make any sense?” 

“Weirdly, yes,” he replied, his breath blowing against my neck. I tried to ignore the tickling sensation and the way it made me feel. 

“But this is different— I feel like I was made to play Ella. Made to play her even though I got the part in this odd, unconventional way,” I turned my head to the side to avoid eye contact. “The girl who sees the good in everything despite the hardships and suffering she went through.”

“Without a doubt, I believe that you belong on stage with me,” Jaehyun answered sincerely, “and I’m glad we have the chance to finally play opposites.” 

He squeezed my smaller palm in support. I appreciated the reassurance; the action slightly calmed me down before she took the next step. Possibly the biggest step of my entire life. “There’s something else I realized, too.”

“Oh yeah, what’s that?” Jaehyun asked softly. 

Taking a deep breath, I said, “I realized that I could be right for you.” 

It took him a minute, a long solid minute before Jaehyun could bring himself to respond to my confession. I wondered what he was thinking at that moment, when those words left my mouth. “Right for me?” came his tentative reply. A quick glimpse at his ears and I saw the burst of red. He was caught off guard, embarrassed. 

“Yeah,” I said almost shamefully. Was I ashamed of my feelings? I never was ashamed before. Maybe it was because Jaehyun finally saw me for who I truly was— his highly dramatic best friend that was head over glass heels for him. 

“How long— how long have you felt this way?” The red of his ears seeped to his rosy cheeks. 

“Ever since we were a dumb pair of utensils,” I replied sincerely, my voice wavering at the truth, “a set of ridiculous tableware.”

There was an awkward chuckle that left his drying lips. I heard him click his tongue, a habit he did when Jaehyun never knew what to say. It seemed like I rendered him speechless. “Since we were sixteen? That long and you didn’t say anything?”

“You’re really asking me that?”

“Yes, I really am!”

“Jaehyun, c’mon. Use your brain! How was I supposed to? You’re my best friend and when you’re not my best friend, you’re out there chasing other girls,” I stopped to lick my drying lips. There was another inkling of silence and I gulped at how tense the atmosphere was. “And I thought maybe once, just once, you would chase after me, too.” 

I almost laughed; my greatest desire was finally out in the world and it was greeted by silence. 

“But what if I’m wrong for you?” 

And there it was. The rejection I was preparing for. Giving him a pained smile that failed to meet my ears, I said, “Then that’s life, I guess.”

“You guess?” 

“Well, I can’t make you act like you’re in love with me, can I?” I snapped, my pain taking the best of me. It clouded my brain, blocking off all rational thoughts out of my head. “This isn’t a play or a movie with a script, Jaehyun. This is real fucking life.” 

Hurt. I was being overwhelmed with a wave of hurt and anguish. My body was trembling as much as my eyes were. I felt them growing wet and I shut them closed. My hands curled into fists, nails digging into my skin. It stung but not as much as being rejected by the one you loved most. The lead of the movie in your mind. 

“Wait, no, that’s not what I meant,” Jaehyun tried to stop me from getting off the stage. I pulled away from him, quickly snatching my belongings before heading to the nearest exit. Turning back around before I left the empty auditorium, I experienced another moment in slow-motion. 

There Jaehyun was in all his glory— denim jacket slipping over his broad shoulders, dark brown hair sticking up in all directions and a confused look on his face. He looked like a mess under the spotlight of my mind but nevertheless, he was my mess of a best friend.

He was my mess of a best friend and that was all he was going to be. That fact hurt more than being the forever understudy. 

Why couldn’t I fast forward this portion of my life? Why must I suffer this much?

Why couldn’t I escape the role of being second best?

If only my life was a movie, then maybe I wouldn’t be everyone’s second choice. His second choice.

If we were in a movie, Jung Jaehyun would be my best friend and my perfect match. Our story would be the typical friends-to-lovers saga that every girl dreams of. It would end happily with the credits rolling to a perfectly timed soundtrack. 

Too bad this wasn’t a movie— this was real life and life came with complications.

After that confrontation, you and Jaehyun were off and not off the charts— just off. The directors noticed it. The stage hands noticed. The cast noticed it. The final run-through before the curtains opened just finished and it was an absolute disaster because of the way you acted with Jaehyun. Every time he opened up his body to you, the response you gave him was closed off. Cold. 

To the rest of the cast and crew, the prince and princess didn’t seem very much in love that day— they didn’t even seem friendly. You and Jaehyun seemed like two strangers trying to work their way across a stage. There was no connection. There was nothing else there. 

Now, if only you would let Jaehyun talk to you, maybe something would change but you didn’t. You ran away every chance you could. It was like Cinderella, but you didn’t leave a glass slipper behind. You didn’t leave anything behind. 

Less than an hour before showtime and he couldn’t even talk to you. Let alone look at you. He sighed into his hand, palms applying pressure to his eyes. Jaehyun cursed under his breath, forgetting that he had a heavy amount of stage makeup on his face. Looking into the mirror, he saw his makeup was still intact. Thank the theatre gods for the Ben Nye Final Seal Setter. It seemed like that it was the only thing set in stone at that moment. 

The door to Jaehyun’s dressing room slammed open and Dejun waltzed in, fully dressed in his costume.“Dude, what was up with you and the twerp during that dress rehearsal? You were so off!”

He received no reply, Jaehyun was too zoned out to hear. Dejun hopped onto the counter of Jaehyun’s dresser. Usually, the action would shock the main lead but Jaehyun was too lost in thought.“Well, you know what they say about a bad dress rehearsal. That means we’ll have a good opening night,” Dejun said, eyeing his friend for his lack of response.

Finally looking away from his reflection, Jaehyun glanced up at Dejun with a look of disbelief. “She likes me?”

His friend jumped off the counter with widened eyes.“Oh my god, did she finally confess? Was that why you were acting weird?”

“Dejun, you knew?” Jaehyun slammed his palms on his dresser. The makeup products on the tabletop shook, leaving the other guy to wince at the show of strength. 

“Honestly for being the ace of the theatre department, you sure are dumb,” Dejun replied a bit too casually as he leaned into the mirror to examine his appearance. He clicked his tongue upon realizing his cheeks didn’t have enough color. The stage lights would wash him out. The boy reached for Jaehyun’s pink blush and a clean wedge before applying it onto the apples of his cheeks.

“What should I do?”

“Well, Jaehyun, what do you want to do?” Dejun asked, turning side to side to double-check his reflection. 

“I don’t know that’s why I’m asking you!” Jaehyun fired back with vigor, hating how casual his best friend was acting. He was having a before-show crisis and his best friend was calmly stealing his bottle of Ben Nye, spraying his beautifully sculpted face with the setting spray.

“Well, do you like her more than a friend? And what about Naeun?”

“Yes? No? I don’t know! But—”

“But?” His friend asked before hopping onto the countertop. The actor raised his perfectly shaped eyebrows at his friend and Jaehyun had the sudden urge to pluck the beauties they were until Dejun had no eyebrow hair left. When Jaehyun didn’t reply, Dejun repeated his question.

Dropping his head in his hands, Jaehyun hesitantly replied, “There was this moment when I saw her and it was like that thing she always said? The slo-mo thing?”

Dejun’s head perked up. “You saw her in slow motion?” 

“Yeah, it was like time stopped. All I saw was her and then…” Jaehyun thought back to seeing you in a wedding dress. He changed his mind; he didn’t want to talk about his feelings. All he wanted to do was make sure opening night ran as smoothly as possible. Grabbing his white suit jacket for the top of Act One, the boy stood up in an attempt to escape his friend’s sudden peak in curiosity. “Never mind, this is ridiculous. I gotta go, Dejun.” 

“No, you’re not going anywhere until you actually confront your damn feelings,” Dejun said, shoving his friend back in his chair. “Do you like Naeun?”

There was a pause before he answered truthfully: “Yes.”

“Okay, and are your feelings for Naeun stronger than what you have for your best friend?” 

“No,” Jaehyun released another sigh as he leaned back in his chair. A hand reached up to brush through his hair before he remembered that it was gelled back in place. He dropped his hand to rub the back of his neck, not wanting to mess with his looks before places. “I was infatuated with Naeun but with her, god, she’s something else and it took me this long to realize it.”

“How do I know you’re not just saying that?” Dejun questioned, squeezing his friend’s shoulders a bit too tightly. Jaehyun thought his friend was testing him and for a good reason. If he was in Dejun’s position, Jaehyun would’ve grilled his friend, too. “How do I know you’re actually in love with her? Yes, you’re my roommate and best friend but she’s my best friend, too. I can’t let you hurt her if all you feel is something temporary. I can’t let you treat her like those other girls.”

“Because she’s The One, Dejun. I’m certain of it,” Jaehyun snapped back. “When I look at her, I see everything I’ve been searching for. It’s like I was blind for the longest time, you know? She was always just Forky to me back when I didn’t know any better. But now I see and all I see is her— her, with all her flaws. The way she hides her insecurities with her dramatic outbursts. How she picks at her cuticles when she’s nervous or how she always steals my food at home. And the way she just fits with me. I can’t explain it.”

Jaehyun didn’t even give his friend a chance to butt in. He was still rambling on with a fond smile, his mouth running a mile. “She’s been there with me since the beginning, Jun. Before I was this prince of the theatre department, she was there. She’s been there since the beginning and even when I was chasing after girls, she was there at the middle of it all, and fuck, I want to go all the way to the end with her.”

Dejun released his hold on his friend and rolled his eyes. The boy made his way to the door of the dressing room before mumbling under his breath, “God, what is with you two and giving out monologues? I swear, when this is all over, you should become playwrights.”

“What?”

“Never mind me, Jaehyun,” Dejun opened the door and gestured for Jaehyun to follow the path— the path down the hall that led to you. “What are you waiting for? Go get her, we have 30 until Joohyun calls for places!”

“Dejun, it’s much more complicated than that.”

“It’s only as complicated as you make it out to be. Just— just go and talk to her, yeah?”

Jaehyun sighed deeply as he reached your dressing room door. He knocked lightly, running through the lines he wanted to say in his head before you shouted a faint “come in.” The door squeaked open to reveal you, his best friend in the whole entire world, touching up your makeup. The best friend that he was inescapably in love with. You watched him through the mirror as he leaned against the frame with crossed arms. 

“Can we talk after the show? There’s something I need to tell you— it’s important. I don’t think I—um, I have enough time to tell you now,” Jaehyun asked, stuttering through his words. Gone was the confidence he usually bared. The only thing left in him was a scared little boy, afraid of the problem his words may cause. 

The smile he received from you did not reach your ears. “Of course,” you replied curtly before turning away from him. He noted how you were over applying your blush and fidgeting with your costume. You were doing everything in your power to avoid him. 

The tugging of your ear, the biting of your lip, the picking of your cuticles. He saw all your bad habits. You were a ball of nerves and the speaker announced it was ten minutes before places.

“Hey, Forky?”

“Yes, Jaehyun?”

“You know that I believe in you, right? Always?”

There was a twitch at the corner of your lips. “I do.”

“Good,” Jaehyun approached you with caution. You watched him from your mirror, never making direct eye contact as he came closer. He dropped a kiss on the crown on your head, relishing in the way his plush lips against your torn bandana and the lace front wig. “Break a leg, my Ella.”

He observed you through your reflection and took in how beautiful you looked in your rags. You made the rags the costume department designed for you look like riches. 

“Same goes to you, my prince,” he heard you answer in that soft tone.  Again, you had sent him to the skies and the boy was struggling to find his way back down.

When it was time to draw the curtains and light the lights for the first performance of Cinderella, it seemed like everything fell into place.  Jaehyun stared at you across the stage, falling for the way the lights illuminated your figure in that white ball gown. The bright glow brought his attention to your bright grin, that beautiful and radiant smile of yours, that shocked him to his core. 

Jaehyun locked eyes with you and suddenly, he was drowning. He was drowning in your expressive eyes. He was drowning in your overflowing love. 

It was different being across from you in front of a full audience. There was a rush that took over him whenever he saw you and it beat the flurries his heart experienced with his other leading ladies. As you said your lines with that bewitching sparkle in your eye, Jaehyun hated himself for not realizing how much he loved you sooner or how you were never playing pretend. 

But that was okay because Jung Jaehyun loved you now. He loved you in the world you made believe on stage, where he was Prince Topher and you were his Ella, and he loved you in reality where you would always be the fork to his spoon. 

Opening night went smoothly and the roaring applause I received during my final bow sent me to the moon. The way Jaehyun looked at me across the stage with eyes filled with pride and joy blasted me to places I had never been before. I became high on this feeling of being under the burning spotlights. The feeling of wearing the most intricate costume and the way his hand slid into mine for the last bow before the curtains were drawn; it was something I wanted to treasure for the rest of my life.

But with every high came a low— my low hit me when I ran into Jaehyun’s dressing room. I caught him in an embrace with Naeun who gifted my best friend with a rose. She placed a kiss on his cheek, causing his white ears to flush a deep red that rivaled the flower he held. The girl gave him a quick shove of the shoulder before heading to me. 

Her congratulatory statement went in one ear and out the other. I could barely process Naeun handing me a rose of my own before she walked out of the room, the sweet scent of her perfume lingering in her wake. She gave my best friend one more lingering look as she left and it hurt me in so many ways.

“Ready to go?” Jaehyun said, clearing his throat. “Wanna stop by the stage first? Soak in your first opening night as a lead?”

“Why the hell not?” The walk back to the stage was short. It felt different somehow.

“We did it,” I whispered.

“That we did,” he answered back. 

We walked onto the stage together and I could still hear the crowds cheering for me, giving me the standing ovation I earned. It was electrifying, the way the sparks ran through my body. It ran from the top of my head to the tips of my fingers and toes. 

Glancing around the empty auditorium, I pondered aloud, “But do you know what sucks about it all, Jaehyun?”

“What?”

“There’s nothing worse than the feeling of not being chosen and it still hurts that I wasn’t the first choice,” I replied truthfully, “Not as much as before. But I’m learning to get over it. The casting directors saw potential in me.”

“That’s because you do have the potential to be a star. You’re practically glowing right now.” I felt his eyes trained on me, just like they were the entire time we shared the stage. 

Turning abruptly to face him, I said, “You really can’t say that to me, you know?”

“And why’s that?”

“Because it makes my heart beat against my chest and these stupid butterflies come around before I remember that you have never chosen me to be your first choice,” I glared. 

“But I do choose you,” Jaehyun pushed, his voice laced with desperation, “That’s what I was trying to tell you before you stormed off on me earlier!”

“Are you really choosing me, Jaehyun? The real me? The me that has been your best friend for years? Or are you choosing the me that shares a stage with you every night? The me that could potentially be your next whirlwind romance?” No matter how desperate he sounded, he couldn’t beat the hopelessness that was dripping from my own voice. 

“No, that’s not it at all!” his voice boomed, the sound echoing throughout the empty auditorium. 

“Then, what is it, Jung Jaehyun? Because I am tired of being second best and I’m tired of not being chosen,” I almost cried. The anguish was just taking over my body and I couldn’t make it stop. “Yes, I know some parts are not right for me but I can’t help but be hurt. And then you say that you’re choosing me? Of course, I’m going to think of it being because I’m your newest love interest on stage.”

“If you could just listen—”

Unable to stop the words from coming out, I just kept running off at the mouth. Everything I wanted to say to Jaehyun was flying out of my lips at rapid speed; I couldn’t even stop it. “I have seen you in slow motion so many times and I want to just fast forward from those moments. To speed past them so I can move on from the idea of not being yours. I refuse to be a temporary love that you lose interest in. I just want you to pick me, to choose me, and to love me, damn it— is that too fucking much to ask for? To be chosen and loved?”

While I was taking a breath to continue with my rant, Jaehyun cut me off and the words he said rattled the stage, the ground beneath my feet, and my whole entire world.“No, it’s not and you are way fucking more than that, if you just take a moment out of your godforsaken monologue and listen to me! I choose you not because you’re my leading lady but because you’re you. You’ve always been this— this incredible, breathtaking you.” 

He took one step closer and I took one step back. “And you’ve the person at my side when no one else is.” 

Every single time I would retreat, Jaehyun would follow. The boy was persistent, his brown eyes trained on me. “The one who figured out you loved me first while I was too blind to see it. You’re the fork to my spoon. We’re a set, we go together. And I was too dumb to figure out that at the end of the day, I always think about you and how no one I’ve ever been with compares to you.”

 When my back hit the wall, I was trapped. Trapped in between his arms and the way they propped themselves on either side of my face. Trapped in the haze of his brown eyes and how they dug deep into my soul. 

 “I don’t see you in slow motion— I see you in fast forward. I see you in the future, my future, walking down the aisle in white and I don’t even know what I’m saying anymore. All I know is that I choose you. I will always choose you.”  

I was trapped by Jung Jaehyun and there was no escape for me. Judging by the way his eyes never let me out of his sight, there was a chance my friend didn’t want to let me go either. He wanted me to stay. 

“Jaehyun, what are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I love you. You’re my beginning, middle, and my end.”

“You love me? Like you’re in love with me?” Jaehyun heard you ask, like the possibility of being loved by him was so impossible. You were searching for any inkling of doubt but he made sure you couldn’t find any because you were the only thing he could see. 

Jaehyun brought a hand near your cheek. It hovered there as he hesitated to touch it to your skin until you leaned into his touch. Your cheek felt so warm in his palm and it was so comforting to have you in his hold. “I wanted to say it earlier but I was just so scared of losing you as both a lover and a friend because what if it all goes to shit? What if we go to shit and things hit the fan? I can’t lose you.” 

“But you, Jung Jaehyun, are in love with me?” you repeated as your hand cupped his own. The smile you gave him was bright enough to light up the stage. 

“Yeah, I thought I made that clear. I’m sorry, did I mumble that line?” he teased playfully, trying to coerce a giggle out of you. “Should I start the scene over?”

“No, no. I’m just—” you paused and he watched you recollect your thoughts. His glittering brown eyes were trained on you as the words processed in your head. “You love me,” you laughed in disbelief. 

Jaehyun took a step closer, his hand tentatively reaching out to stroke your face. He sighed in relief as you relaxed into his touch. “You’re my number one girl. I choose you.” 

“Well, it’s a good thing that even after all this time, I’ve always chosen you, too.”

Once those words left your lips, he couldn’t hold himself back. Wrapping his arms around your waist, Jaehyun pulled you against his chest and smashed his lips against yours. Yes, he had kissed you on multiple occasions prior to this— onstage and off— but this time was different than the rest.

 This was the first time he really kissed you after your feelings were out in the open.

The first time he kissed you and finally felt the love you harbored for so many years. Jaehyun just hoped you could sense the love he was pouring out for you, too. 

He did not want to let you go but he was struggling to breathe. You were so lovely, everything about you was so incredibly lovely, and to have you in his arms was the best feeling in the universe. Everything around him turned dark and he felt the warmth of a spotlight and the flush of your body against him. The entire world was spinning beneath his feet, his heart racing, and his lips chasing you and only you. 

Jaehyun did not understand why people did drugs— the high of being so ardently in love with another person, with you, gave him the high that he needed. 

He felt you hit his chest in an attempt to end the kiss but Jaehyun did not want to stop. A light shove to his shoulders was enough to separate his lips from yours and what a sight you were— chest panting heavily for air, lips plumped and swollen, and the prettiest set of eyes widened in shock.

“You kissed me!” you said in between pants. “Like not a stage kiss but you actually kissed me!”

“That I did, love,” Jaehyun replied cheekily, taking another step towards you. You stepped back to lean against the wall but did nothing to stop him from coming forward. “Are you gonna do something about it?” 

The look in your eyes changed after you heard his new nickname for you. It was coy. Flirty. Challenging. “Do it again, I dare you,” you whispered a bit too loudly. 

Before Jaehyun closed the distance, his eyebrow perked up at the challenge. “Gladly.”

Senior year was there before we knew it. 

Another year, another posting day. 

Dejun, Jaehyun, and I swiftly made our way down the hall to the front of the theatre department, curious to find out which roles we were given. The spring production and the final musical of our college career was Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. 

Callbacks for Belle went as smooth as ever— the chemistry between Jaehyun and I were off the charts. But why wouldn’t they be? We were together now. 

Just like any other time, the crowds gathering around the cast list and bulletin board parted immediately once they caught a glimpse of Jaehyun approaching. The only difference was that this time, he was tightly clutching my hand. 

When we arrived in front of the board, I shut my eyes before I could read the cast list. An anxious buzz flowed through my veins, tickling the tips of my fingers and toes. My boyfriend must’ve felt the twitching of my fingers or the sweat dripping off my palms. 

I felt his body shift towards me. “Want me to take a peek first, love?” Jaehyun asked as he pressed his plump lips onto the crown of my head. He nuzzled his nose into my hair, a small but sweet action that always comforted me. 

Shaking my head, I looked at him and said, “No, why don’t we look together?”

“On three?” he grinned lovingly.

“On three, you dumb spoon.”

The countdown was quick but the glance I took at the cast list was even quicker. It was so quick, I almost didn’t catch who was put into the role of Belle. Taking a double take, I let go of Jaehyun’s hand as my eyes zeroed in onto the tiny print. 

Everything around me came to a stop as I read and re-read the cast list. Everyone around me was celebrating their parts but I couldn’t hear them, they were all muted in my mind. All I could hear was the sound of my own breaths  and all I could see my name on the top of the page. 

Belle……………..Y/N The Beast……..Jung Jaehyun

“Oh my god, I got the part,” I whispered to no one in particular. Backing away from the board, I repeated the same words a little louder and it got the attention of everyone surrounding me. Before I knew it, everyone threw a congratulations my way. The cheers were loud and obnoxious but they were for me because I did it. I finally did it.

Feeling a little overwhelmed, I backed away from the blustering crowd before bumping into my boyfriend’s firm chest. Jaehyun caught me in his hold, his arms circling around my waist. He dropped his chin on my shoulder and placed a tender kiss on my temple. “Would you look at that? We’re not a ridiculous set of tableware this time.”

“No disrespect to those parts, they were awesome, but I think I like this a lot more,” I giggled, turning in his hold. 

As I circled my arms around his neck, he whispered, “Same here.”

I yanked him down into an earth-shattering kiss that sent the world spinning beneath my feet. It slowed down, speeded up, and it did everything in between. I saw flashes of yellow ball gowns, royal blue coats, and Jaehyun smiling at me gracefully across the stage. 

Jaehyun staring me down from the other end of an altar. 

I saw it all. 

If my life was a movie, then this would be the time that the screen would fade to black and show the names. Some overly poppy song would resonate through the speakers and everyone would get up from their seats and gush over the happy ending.

But it wasn’t. My life was as real as it could be and it was even better than any romantic-comedy that would ever grace the screen. 

This wasn’t the ending. 

This was the perfect beginning. 

AUTHOR’S NOTE. hello, my darling readers! you really didn’t have to wait that long for this release, did you? a big thank you to several people: @johtenrecs for always being my beta and for the helpful feedback, to my chaotic gc ( @smoll-tangerine, @ppangjae, @jaedore​, and @jeongvision) for listening to me complain about how i was losing it while writing this fic, to @suhpressed​ for helping me with brainstorm, and lastly, to my lovely @notnctu bc without her and our crazy idea of hosting a hannah montana collab, i wouldn’t have gotten this idea! love y’all! hope you enjoyed this and please leave feedback! uwu

TAGLIST. @yasmini24 @jaehyunnie77 @emmybyeakitty @fluffyjaes @aevizen @dearjaehyxn @yourmagnanimousholiness @jaehyvnsvalentine @keemburley @softieus @lanadreamie @lebrookestore  @notmangojuice @felixn-recs @captainsjoongs @anotherfullsun @ukiyoneo @kunrengui​ @babyyynatty​ 

© sehunniepotwrites, 2021

[petersasteria]

drivers license - Tom Holland

Pairing: Tom x Singer!Reader Requested? Nah 3,561 words

I was going to write this when the song came out, but as you observed, i wasn't writing bc i wasn't happy anymore. but here it is. enjoy.

Tom || Main || Taglist

* * * *

“I want you to meet my friend. She’s super nice and stuff. Maybe she could sing the soundtrack of one of my short films!” Harry said happily. “Anyway, she’s an amazing singer and she’s inviting me to the recording studio tomorrow. Want to come?”

Harry looked at Tom and waited for his response. The eldest Holland brother opened his mouth to say something, but Sam entered the room and interrupted. “Y/N’s my friend first, you know. I introduced her to YOU.” Sam rolled his eyes. “Besides, I suggested for her to invite you guys. Thank me later.”

“Thank you.” Harry mocked. “So, will you come with me-”

“Us.” Sam corrected. “Will you come with US tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I’ll come so both of you can shut up.” Tom laughed before scrolling through his phone again.

Tomorrow came and the three Hollands went to the recording studio where you were currently at. When they got there, you were in the booth recording your song which will be on your first EP. You were just starting in the music industry and you were still testing the waters and finding your sound.

The three men sat down on the couch and listened to you. It was safe to say that Tom immediately fell in love with your voice and he made a mental note to compliment your voice for when you’re done recording. After recording two songs, you were finally taking your break. As soon as you stepped out of the recording booth, Sam ran up to you and engulfed you in a tight hug.

“I missed you! You sounded amazing!” Sam said giddily. He was really happy and really proud of you.

“Thank you!” You said gratefully with a huge smile on your face. Sam was your first ever friend and he was your first audience. Needless to say, his opinions matter to you the most. He was more supportive than your family will ever be.

“I can’t believe my Christine will be doing great things on her own now.” Sam pouted. He called you ‘Christine’ and you earned that nickname because of Phantom of the Opera. You were his Christine and he was your Phantom. It was perfect.

“But I’ll always stay the same, Sam.” You said in pure honesty. You looked over his shoulder and saw two of his brothers.

“Hi, Harry!” You waved, recognizing his curly hair despite only meeting him five times. Harry waved back and that left Tom. He stood up and walked towards you and Sam to formally introduce himself.

“Hi, I’m Tom; Sam’s older brother.” He smiled sweetly. He offered his hand for you to shake and you gladly took it and gave it a firm shake.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Y/N.” You smiled before letting go of his hand.

“Your voice is just wow! You have a gift.” Tom complimented which made you shy. “Thank you.” You said sheepishly.

Sam cleared his throat, “So, lunch?”

The four of you had lunch at a small chicken wing restaurant. It was cheap, hidden, and there were only five other customers which was great. You talked about so many things and eventually, Tom asked about your friendship with Sam.

“Wait, how did you and Sam meet?” Tom asked, taking a bite of his chicken wing. You took a sip of your drink and swallowed your food before answering.

“I was homeschooled my whole life and when I told my mum that I wanted to enroll in a random course just to know what it feels like to have classmates, she enrolled me in a culinary course. Let’s just say that I’m surprised that I passed!” You and Sam laughed as you thought about the shit both of you did.

“We sat next to each other and we were cooking partners. She was so awkward!” Sam laughed, wiping a tear that escaped from his eye. “But I’m glad she was put in the seat next to me because if not, I wouldn’t have gotten to know her. I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Same.” You nodded in agreement. “Sam’s my best friend in the whole world and I honestly wouldn’t know what to do without him. He’s my rock.”

Sam turned his head to look at you and smiled, “Same.”

“Ugh, just date already!” Harry said with his mouth full. He even rolled his eyes in the process.

“Ugh, just swallow already!” Sam mocked.

“That’s what she said.” You giggled. The table erupted with laughter and you were happy that you got to meet new people, thanks to Sam.

“I meant his food!” Sam breathed.

“It sounded wrong, though.” Tom chuckled.

“Very.” Harry said with a playful look on his face.

After lunch, Sam told you that they had to go home already. You were visibly upset because you haven’t seen your best friend in such a long time and you had so much fun with his brothers. It’s true what they say; time flies by when you’re having fun.

“I’ll call you tonight.” You told Sam. He nodded and said, “I shall wait for your call, then.” You hugged him and hugged Harry right after.

“It was nice seeing you again, Y/N!” Harry exclaimed before pulling away from the hug. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Okay.” You nodded, already excited for your next meeting. You turned to hug Tom and not only did he hug you, but he also kissed your cheek which surprised you, Sam and Harry.

“I’d love to hang out with you again.” Tom said after hugging you. “But without these two divs.” He added earning a slap on the arm from each boy.

You quickly glanced at Sam and he just nodded for you to go. With that go signal, you turned to Tom and said, “Okay! I’ll give you my number and just text me later.”

Tom ended up texting you that night and he asked you out on a date. One date turned into two and two dates turned into three until both of you went on so many dates now. Despite the four year age gap, you two seemed to click. You didn’t have a label yet, though.

It all changed one night.

It was midnight and Tom decided that it’ll be fun to go on a spontaneous road trip. He picked you up and now you were on the road going God knows where. It was random, but it was really fun. Your parents were out of town, so you were confident in going with Tom on his road trip.

Both of your windows were down and you put your hand out to feel the wind. It was a great feeling. Tom was looking at you from time to time and he was smiling to himself. He stopped at a red light and you brought your hand back in again despite the fact that there were no cars around.

“I have a question.” Tom said, breaking the silence.

“Yeah?”

“Will you be my girlfriend?” He asked before driving again as the light turned green. You were surprised with his question and even more so when he started driving again.

Tom looked at you and saw your shocked face before turning to look at the road again. “I mean, you don’t have to answer now. Like, take your time. I just asked because I really li-”

“Yes.” You finally answered after being silent. He stepped on the brakes in shock and said, “What?”

“Yes, I’ll be your girlfriend.” You grinned. He chuckled and shook his head in disbelief, “Wow. The most amazing girl in the world is finally my girlfriend. It’s a great day already.”

That day was the start of a new chapter for both of you. Sam and Harry knew it would happen eventually. Harry was really happy, but Sam felt as though he was in between something; he was torn in between something. Little did he know, his hunch was right and he’ll soon find out why.

Tom was a great boyfriend. He made sure to think about your feelings before doing or saying anything, he made sure to include you on things because he knew you didn’t want to feel left out, he made sure to give you space when you would write songs, he picks you up all the time because you don’t know how to drive yet, but he didn’t mind; he loved it. Tom always told you that he loved you, he would send you memes that he knew would make your day, he tells you cheesy pick up lines and he would tell you jokes that catered to your humor which you greatly appreciated. In your eyes, he was perfect; he was your home.

For you, Tom was the one. He was the one you wanted to spend the rest of your life with and he told you the same thing. He said that when the time was right, he would propose and both of you would get married and he would give you the family you always wanted because your family didn’t really care about you and he hated that. You deserved the world and he promised you that both of you would have a family that’s so much different than yours.

Speaking of family, the Hollands loved you. They became your family. You and Nikki would have tea together and just gossip about things. You and Dom would joke around and Paddy would always challenge you in football. Harry just loved your presence and it came to a point where you would be his model whenever he wanted to take pictures. Tom would always whine and ask why Harry never asked him and Harry would say, “You’re the least interesting to look at.”

“Excuse me, what?!” Tom replied, pretending to be hurt. He knew Harry was just joking and quoting Kim Kardashian. “I’m the most handsome guy here.”

“Okay, Shrek.” Harry shrugged and continued taking your pictures.

Regardless of the sinking feeling that he felt, Sam was still happy that you found happiness in dating his brother. He did give you a go signal, after all.

Of course, all good things come to an end. In this case, your end came after dating for two years.

Tom was away filming for yet another movie and something in your gut told you that something was extremely wrong. You weren’t the jealous type, but every time you would FaceTime Tom, everything was off. The vibe was different and you didn’t like it.

The bad feelings you have solidified when it was revealed that Tom was starring in a film with a blonde girl who was the same age as him and she was gorgeous. You always felt that Tom might leave you for her and when you told Tom that, he assured you that nothing was going on and that you were crazy for even thinking about it.

It got to a point where both of you would always argue because of it. It got to a point where both of you avoided each other for a few days until Tom got back. He was outside your house and he texted for you to come and meet him by his car. You did and you didn’t know what to say. It was your first relationship after all.

Tom looked at you with his hands in his pockets, “I don’t think we should go on anymore.”

“What?” You asked, confused.

“We’re done, Y/N. It’s just not working anymore.” Tom explained. “You don’t trust me and we’re always fighting.”

“Wait, we’re not going to talk about this?” You asked him. He just shook his head. “So you’re willing to throw two years down the drain?”

“It’s just two years, Y/N. Get a grip, it’s not a divorce.” Tom huffed. “I have to go.” With that, he got in his car and drove away, leaving you standing there confused and hurt and feeling different kinds of emotions.

You figured that everything was just a nightmare and that when you wake up the next day, everything’s fine. Of course, you were wrong. When you woke up the next day, Tom blocked your number and on social media and it broke your heart. Then when you went on Twitter, Tom Holland was trending because apparently, he’s dating the blonde girl he told you not to worry about. You were still in denial, but when you called Sam, he just told you not to bother his brother.

“It’s true, isn’t it? He left me for her.” You said with a hoarse voice. Sam was silent on the other line. You could only hear his breathing. “Hello?” You called out.

“Y/N, I have to go.” Sam said softly.

You bitterly chuckled, “I lost him and now, I lost you. This is fun.”

“It’s not like that. I just don’t want to get in the middle of-”

“It’s okay, I get it. He’s your brother. Don’t be sorry or anything. Thanks for the years of friendship, Sam. I’ll forever treasure it. Thank you, truly.” You said before hanging up, not waiting for him to respond. Unbeknownst to you, Sam was extremely hurt for being part of the reason why you’re hurting. He removed the phone from his ear and looked at it. Tom cleared his throat causing Sam to look at him.

“Was that Y/N?” Tom asked. Sam nodded. “What did she say? What did you tell her?” Tom asked again.

“I told her not to bother you and just like that, our friendship is over. So, I hope you’re happy.” Sam frowned as tears clouded his vision.

Tom scoffed, “You don’t need her. You have so many friends. Plus, you have me. Anyway, get dressed. We’re going to the pub.” Tom left Sam’s room. Sam sighed and wiped his tears. He felt terrible.

As for you, in the span of twenty-four hours, you lost your best friend and the man you loved most in the whole world.

You’re currently crying tears of joy because your new song played on the radio and it’s your first time hearing it. Your whole team was really proud of you and they were your new friends and family now. Ever since your break up with Tom, they were there for you. They helped you get back on your feet until you were ready to write another song.

The said song is now playing on the radio and is being streamed by millions.

“Congrats, Y/N!” Your manager, Anya, said. “We’re all so proud of you!”

“Thank you.” You sniffed and wiped your tears.

Your song received good reviews and it’s included in Billboard’s Top 100. Every talk show host wanted you on their show for you to perform your hit single. Everyone wanted to talk to you about the song. Anya made it all happen. You were booked left and right and all the blessings were just coming in. You were extremely happy.

On the other hand, Tom knew the song was about him and it annoyed him because everywhere he went, your song was playing. Even Sam plays it a lot. It was clear that Sam missed you, but he made his bed and he has to lay in it.

“Guess what.” Harry said.

“What?” Tom asked.

“Y/N’s nominated for an award and she’s going to the award show you’re going to.” Harry announced which made Tom groan. “Also, people somehow figured out that the song is about you and now they’re assuming things and they want to know the story, especially your side.” Harry added.

“Easy.” Sam piped up. “Just tell them you left her for another girl and you dated the said girl right after you broke up with Y/N.”

“Shut up, Sam.” Tom hissed. Sam looked at Tom with a blank expression and said, “You don’t have the right to be angry after what you did to her.”

��Why are you defending her now? Why not a few months ago when it was still fresh?” Tom retorted.

“Because I didn’t want to get in the middle of your mess and I still care about her. Unlike you, I can’t just throw years of friendship away.” Sam said before leaving the living room.

“Yikes.” Harry said after Sam left. “Anyway, you have to act like it doesn’t bother you, so it’s not an issue.”

The day of the awards show finally came and you were nervous. It was your first time performing for an extremely huge audience and it made you anxious. The red carpet was all a blur and at one point you saw Sam and both of you made eye contact. You gave him a tight-lipped smile and he did the same. What he did still hurts you, but you wanted to let go of that part of your life now.

When it was your time to perform, your phone buzzed and a notification from a number appeared. You have deleted Sam’s contact number, but you memorized his number in case of emergencies.

“Good luck on your performance, my Christine. I’m proud of you.” He wrote.

You smiled a bit before locking your phone and giving it to your manager. Somehow, it was comforting to know that Sam still had your number and that he was still supporting you despite what happened. You walked on stage and began singing your heart out. The crowd loved it and it made you happy.

“She’s so good!” Sam exclaimed as he clapped for you.

“Please, she sounds like the other artists here. She’s not special.” Tom said as he plastered a fake smile on his face. Harry scoffed and said, “Yeah, right. You fell in love with her voice the first time you met her. Don’t lie.”

Tom never responded to that and kept his mouth shut.

An hour later, the category you were nominated for was up and it made you nervous. You believed you weren’t going to win because the other nominees were well known singers. But for some miracle, you won and the camera panned to Tom to see his reaction.

He wore a fake smile as he clapped. It was awkward. It was even more awkward when you walked past him and Sam stood up to grab your hand to say a quick ‘congrats’ which you thanked him for before walking to the stage to accept your first award ever.

“Wow, I can’t believe this. I want to thank my whole team for being so supportive and patient with me!” You smiled as you accepted the award. “Thank you to the amazing fans for their undying love and support. I wouldn’t have done it without you guys.”

“Lastly, I want to thank the guy who inspired the song.” You said as the camera panned to Tom again. “You know who you are and without you, there would be no songs or albums or EPs. You were the soundtrack of my love life and I’m beginning to accept that you’re not that person anymore. Thank you for everything and I hope that with this song, I can finally let go and start fresh.”

“Thank you again!” You said before leaving the stage. The people clapped for you except for Tom who just sat there with an expression no one could read.

You never interacted with Tom or his family the whole night and somehow, you were grateful for that. You never got a text from Sam anymore, but you did get a text from Tom’s new number a few days later asking for you two to meet in the place where you went on the spontaneous road trip to God knows where.

You drove up there with your new car and when you arrived, Tom was already there waiting for you. You parked and got out of the car before walking towards him.

“Hello.” You said, breaking the silence.

“Hi.” He said. “I figured we need to talk for closure.”

“Ahh. Yes, please.” You nodded.

“I don’t know where to start.” Tom admitted.

“Maybe start with the reason why you just left me.” You said bluntly.

“I just didn’t feel the spark anymore, okay? I grew feelings for someone else and I wanted to do it right without cheating, so I broke up with you and-”

“And got together with her the next day.” You finished for him. “Amazing, Tom. Really.” He didn’t say anything else anymore and you nodded and took this as your cue to leave. But before that you called out to him. He turned to look at you and you said, “Just know that I never lacked in our relationship. I’m just sorry that I actually believed that you were the one for me and I’m sorry that I believed what you said. I wish you all the best, Thomas. I do. You’re a great actor and I know your own blessings are still coming in.”

“Thank you.” He said. “You’re a great singer.”

You gave him a small smile and got in your car and drove away. The drive back hits differently because you remembered laughing with Tom as if the road trip happened yesterday, but it didn’t. You shook off the thoughts with a chuckle and just kept driving. You were finally letting go to start a new chapter in your life.

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who wants to see the soc med of this?

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[mlm-writer]

Hero of the Swamp (Shrek x Jaskier)

Edit by me 

Pairing: Shrek x Netflix!Jaskier (Julian Alfred Pankratz/Dandelion) Rating: Explicit Words: 2893 POV: Third Summary: After being left on the mountain, Jaskier finds himself lost in the swamp and in need of warmth and comfort. Note: Y’all can thank @spielzeugkaiser​ and their amazing art for this. Sorry for the sloppy edit, but I really was not going to put even more time into this sinful work.  Tags: I’ve been a bad boy daddy forgive me father fore I have sinned, pre-movies Shrek, post-mountain Jaskier, angst, fluff, Shrek’s huge dong, size kink, cum shower, monster cock, blowjobs, rimming, cum eating and Shrek has emotions ok 

The growls of monsters lurking in the forest rolled over the muddy forest grounds and reached Jaskier’s icy ears. He shivered in both terror and response to the temperature. He told himself he could get off that mountain on his own, but who was he kidding? His frigid ears caught something in the dark. The bard bolted off the path, then later found himself in the middle of nowhere, chilled to the bone, disoriented, and, to be honest, frightened. 

He was looking for a path, but even that seemed to not be present anywhere in the vicinity. Jaskier rubbed his trembling hands together and walked on. Jaskier thought he should at last find some shelter from the wind. Just as he was about to settle for a random tree, he noticed light in the distance, warm like fire, inviting him and promising warmth and shelter. 

The fatigued bard all but ran towards it, the signs around the perimeter unnoticed in the dark. His boots sunk into the mud of the swamp, but he had his eyes set on the house-like structure in the middle of the swamp. He could not believe anyone wanted to live in this stinky place, but right now this someone was about to be his saviour. Once at what he assumed to be the door, he knocked on it. When there was no answer he knocked again. There were some angry, heavy footsteps, before the door opened. 

Before him stood a massive humanoid, skin green like peas, frame built like Geralt who preferred cake over his nasty potions. “Eh, good evening, sir,” Jaskier tried. If it was living in a house, it must be intelligent to some extent… right? “Could you please spare some place for a weary traveller?” The green creature did not look nice, even without its facial expressions. Some tension left its body after the question. Jaskier recognised it as a hint of confusion. “I’m afraid I’ll freeze to death if I don’t warm myself by a fire.” 

“No, get out of my swamp,” the creature spoke. It sounded like it was from Skellige. It was about to retreat into its home, but Jaskier put his foot between the door.

“Please, I’ll die out here,” he spoke dramatically, hoping for pity so he’d have a roof over his head tonight. He was not sure if he should try his luck with this creature, but at least it could speak. Wraiths had said less words, before trying to slice him. 

“Not my problem. Get out of my swamp. The only way you get close to my fire is when I roast you over it.” “Oh please, you don’t mean that.”

Jaskier had barely finished speaking, when the green man grabbed him by his doublet and pulled him close. His breath stank of swamp water and fish. His mouth was wide and Jaskier was pretty sure he would fit inside there. The bard felt like he should be terrified, but underneath a thin layer of leather and cloth, there was warmth radiating off pear skin. He wanted to lean into it, thaw. What inhibited his survival skills further, where those eyes glaring into his. Under bushy eyebrows rested two brown pools of warm broth. He heard the green man roar into his face that he needed to leave, because he was an ogre and he was going to eat him, but it was hard to believe him. 

Within those eyes that were so close to his, the ogre told the story of a creature that wanted to be alone, because alone was safe, alone was comfortable, alone was all he was used to. Jaskier never knew that, but after today, he understood why one would think that. 

“If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands.”

It stung, more than anything had caused him to ache in ages. Jaskier could feel the urge to never make friends again, never love again, never lust after one he could not have. However, he refused. It was pain that made life worth living. Without pain, bliss did not feel as good as it did. The rain made sunlight so much more appreciated. The cold made fire so much more precious. The monsters made the witcher so much more valuable.

The human knew this, but the ogre holding him up by his doublet did not. Jaskier had wished for pity, but he pitied the other now. He clumsily threw his arms around the ogre and hugged him tightly. The ogre stopped yelling at him. Jaskier could feel the muscles against his body tensing up. The hand holding him loosened and he threw his legs around the ogre too, holding on and hugging him tightly. “You don’t have to be alone. I don’t fear you,” Jaskier spoke gently. 

“I am an ogre.” “And if you were really malicious I would not still be breathing. Please, just for one night. There are all sorts of dangers out in these swamps, especially at night. I just want to stay alive.” 

Jaskier could hear the ogre letting out a long sigh. “Fine,” he spoke, “but you have to be gone tomorrow.” Jaskier let him go, but not after planting a delighted kiss on the rough skin of the ogre’s cheek. 

“Thank you so much,” the bard exclaimed. He slipped inside, before the ogre could change his mind. The inside of the hollowed out tree looked cozy. It stank like hell, but he was in the middle of the swamp; what did he expect? “Do you like music? I have little to give you, but I am a bard.” Jaskier held up his lute as he grabbed the chair that had no food in front of it. One look at the giant slug on a plate and he was pretty sure he did not want to have any food. Jaskier pulled the chair a little closer to the fire and sat down with his lute in his lap. It seemed rather strange that there were two hand-crafted chairs, while the ogre seemed to be so keen on being alone. “Oh and you can call me Jaskier, by the by. What may I call you, my hero from the swamp?”

The ogre looked at him a little annoyed as he closed the door and sat back down to finish his dinner. “Uh… Shrek. You can play, but don’t sing.” Jaskier let the name roll off his tongue, before playing a calming tune. He didn’t speak, just let his fingers do their thing as he processed all that happened during the day, well it was actually more just those few minutes that haunted his mind. Each one of Geralt’s words cutting into his soul. “Eh… Jaskier?” Jaskier was pulled from his thoughts when Shrek spoke his name. He shook his head, before looking at Shrek. “You don't seem to be… you… you seem sad, well, what I mean is… I never heard such a depressing tune.”

Jaskier faked a smile. “My apologies, good sir. I’ll play you a happier tune, if you wish.” He diverted his eyes to the fingerboard, blinking away the tears he suddenly noticed pooling in his eyes. 

“No, you don’t have to. I prefer silence, anyway.” Jaskier looked up and noticed Shrek had finished eating. He stood up and started cleaning up. “You can sleep on my good chair.” Jaskier followed the ogre’s gaze to the fauteuil in the corner. He nodded. It looked comfortable enough. He had slept on forest floors with Geralt. This was more luxury than a regular day with the witcher. 

Shrek had some board and card games, which he seemed to enjoy to play. Jaskier wondered if Shrek usually played these games on his own or if he hosted guests more often. Neither seemed likely, since the games seemed to have gone untouched for at least a decade, if not longer. They shared a few laughs. Shrek turned out to be more fun company than Jaskier would ever have expected from an ogre. His jokes were terrible and sometimes a little insensitive, but he so clearly meant well. It was clear Shrek was not used to talking or any social interactions. He spoke like a young man still trying to figure out what was socially acceptable to say and what was not. Still, he was trying and Jaskier welcomes the vivid chatting. 

When they got tired, Jaskier curled up on the comfortable fauteuil by the fire. Shrek had draped a shirt of his over the human. It stank and was dirty, but it was warm and Jaskier was still low key afraid of getting kicked out to sleep in the mud, so he didn’t voice a single word of complaint. In the silence of the night with no one to talk to, words that were already spoken returned to his mind. Jaskier tried to block them out, but they bit at his brain, keeping him awake and drawing tears from his eyes. He curled further in on himself, trying to stay quiet as he sobbed into his hands. It just hurt so much to be discarded like he was nothing but a nuisance. Was that all he was? He was sure his songs brought joy in taverns, but right now the unlikely and unrealistic idea that everyone just pretended to have a good time was so overwhelming. 

The bard flinched when he felt a huge hand on his shoulder and arm. He looked up to find Shrek hanging over him in nothing but his smalls. He looked like he wanted to say something, but the ogre clearly wasn’t good with words. “I’m fine, Shrek,” Jaskier lied as he wiped the tears off his face, “I’ll just find the nearest town tomorrow and fuck the pain away.” The words had already left him, when he realised how that might sound. “And I’ll do that tomorrow, not because I think you’re hideous, quite the contrary, you might be the most handsome ogre to ever exist, but I just assumed you would not be interested in having sex with a human… male. Human male, doesn’t seem your taste, but it could be, I wouldn’t judge you. How could I? You’ve been a most generous host! I…” 

Jaskier almost suffocated as Shrek’s palm covered the entirety of his face. He got the hint and just shut up. Shrek slowly let go of his face, allowing him to breathe again. Jaskier looked away, cheeks red. He was blabbering nonsense to an ogre who preferred peace and quiet. He guessed it was time to sleep in the mud outside, however, Shrek wasn’t yelling at him… yet. 

“So you just have sex and that helps you feel better?” Jaskier nodded slowly. “I wouldn’t mind helping you feel better. It is not like I have had lassies lining up in the swamp… or lads.” He laughed a little awkwardly, making Jaskier laugh too. He took hold of one of Shrek’s huge fingers with two of his, by comparison, tiny hands. 

“Oh Shrek, you are such a wonderful host. You really do not have to do this though. I will still want to visit you again, even when you don’t want to fuck my brains out, just so I don’t have to think about some brutish asshole.” Shrek gave him a long look, before enclosing his hand around Jaskier’s waist and lifting him off the fauteuil. 

“It’s not just for you. It’s for me too.” And Jaskier wanted to read into those words, figure out the ogre with complicated feelings, but he had no willpower to. Shrek’s bed was firm, almost hard like a plank. It smelled like him, like onions and mud and firewood. Shrek tried to undress him, but his huge fingers couldn’t get a grip on Jaskier’s complex clothing. Jaskier smiled kindly at him, helping him without even needing to look at any button. “Can I kiss you?” Jaskier didn’t even reply. Instead he pulled Shrek’s head down. It was an awkward kiss. Shrek’s mouth was way too big and neither of them were very coordinated in the moment. 

When his clothes were mostly off and Jaskier was left in his smalls, Shrek kissed down his body, his huge tongue lapping at his skin and Jaskier could hear him enjoy the taste. He hummed to signal his pleasure, letting the ogre go about his business. Shrek pulled off his smalls and to Jaskier’s complete surprise, the ogre took his cock in his mouth. Jaskier whimpered, hands grabbing the sheets. Everything about Shrek was big, including his mouth. Even when the ogre sucked him to full hardness, Jaskier still didn’t feel the back of the ogre’s throat. Shrek sucked in his balls at well and Jaskier almost cried from the pleasure of having his cock and balls inside a warm mouth.  

When Shrek let Jaskier go, his length was hard, red and leaking. Jaskier barely had time to recover, before he felt that glorious tongue on him again, this time licking over his hole. Whispered pleas left his lips as he imagined that tongue inside of him. Then a thought crossed his mind. If everything about Shrek was big, what about his dick? Jaskier had seen the ogre’s hands and one finger was already bigger than the average cock. While he normally was down to go big, the imaginable size of Shrek’s dong low key terrified him.

His mind had no opportunity to freak him out completely, because Shrek’s tongue entered him and the feeling was so, so good. Jaskier moaned as big green hands spread his cheeks and thick wetness penetrated him. “Ah… ah Shrek I hate to be a uh… fuck!” The bard trashed his arms around when his new found friend started to stroke his cock at the same time. “I’m gonna cum! Way too soon, I know! Sto..aahh...” His whole body tensed as he spilled all over himself. Shrek was unrelenting. As the bard’s cock was spent, he still had his tongue inside him, pressing at the right places and wiggling around so talentedly. “Stop, stop, stop, it’s too much, really, too much.” 

Jaskier was out of breath, head fuzzy with post-orgasmic bliss. His whole brain short-circuited as Shrek’s tongue licked over his torso, cleaning him off all the cum he had spilled over himself. “Are you all right?” The green-skinned sex machine inquired with innocent eyes that did not match the absolute tent in his smalls. 

“Say, Shrek, will I die if I swallow ogre cum?” Jaskier almost laughed at Shrek’s expression. It was a ‘yes, no, maybe’. “Ok fine, but I will suck you off still.” The human pushed at the ogre, cornering the larger frame against the opposite wall, before getting on his knees. 

“With all due respect, Jask, I don’t think you can fit me anywhere.” Jaskier didn’t listen, pulling down Sherk’s white smalls in spite of knowing the ogre was probably right. As soon as 12 inch of green cock basically slapped him in the face, Jaskier knew he was in way over his head. Still, he was confident that if he tried, he could still fit the head inside his mouth. With Shrek still assuring him he did not have to do this, Jaskier started licking all over Shrek’s length. The taste was not as bad as he feared. In fact, the more he licked, the more he started to like it. Jaskier made out with the head of Shrek’s cock, fucking the slit with his tongue. Shrek was holding his shoulder, occasionally squeezing a little as he moaned. And oh were those delicious moans, primal, guttural, deep and vibrating through Jaskier’s entire body. 

The human tried many times, but he couldn’t slip the monster cock inside his mouth. He was resilient though and kept trying, while stroking the rest of the green length. He was so caught up in his quest that he didn’t hear Shrek telling him how close he was. He made a disappointed sound as he was forcibly removed from the cock in his mouth. Jaskier crawled back up the bed and stretched out his body. “Cum on me,” he wantonly moaned and Shrek did not disappoint. Jaskier had to close his eyes and mouth as he got showered in thick, beige cum. He never had felt this dirty, but it was a good kind. He wished he could have taken Shrek in his ass. He could’ve been so full. 

Once Shrek had stopped groaning, Jaskier dared to open his eyes. He could see guilt already spreading over Shrek’s face. He must have been a sight, so much smaller than Shrek and absolutely drenched in his cum. “Don’t look at me like that. I’ve always fantasised about being showered in cum. Just never thought that all that cum would come from a single person.” 

Shrek let out a relieved sigh and helped him wipe some cum off his face so it wouldn’t get into his mouth or eyes. “I’ll prepare you a bath,” he spoke gently, surprising Jaskier with the thoughtfulness. His eyes followed the ogre as he put his breeches on and moved out to probably get some fresh water. A laugh escaped Jaskier as he stared at the sticky substance covering his skin. Who would’ve thought that the swamp could’ve been so pleasant?