#-debuting or flopping and even if u do debut and not flop it takes years until you're earning real money

[hyunubear]

This had my mind shut down for a hot minute….

[hausofanya]

┈─ 𖧷 HAVE YOUR RAMEN AND CRY IN IT ﹕ THE SPICY RAMEN BREAKDOWN. set after STRAY KIDS survival show. genre, so much feelings. ( talk to me. suffering in silence is futile to growth. ) featuring chan, two bowls of buldak, and a hopeful turn for the better.

two hours. two hours spent encased in a glass box with nothing to show for it but a strained voice and wasted time. she can feel the weight of her own dissatisfaction hanging heavy on her shoulders, gaze dropping to the floor as a hastily shoved on baseball cap obscures her view.

two hours of his wasted time, too. but he’d never say it to her face. he was too nice.

‘you’ve almost got it!’ his voice crackles in through the speakers, and she thinks she nods, or does some kind of head jerk to indicate she heard him. her gaze doesn’t move from the floor. ‘we’re gonna run it back one more time, alright?’

she wonders if he knows about the whispers they get when people think nobody’s listening. about the girl who wasn’t talented enough to debut in a ‘proper group’, so jyp stuck her with the ‘experimental one because he didn’t know what to do with her’. that she knows what people say online about her — attention seeking, crybaby, whore — and that she spends her nights scrolling through forums instead of getting her hours in. the makeup artists are starting to get frustrated with her, she knows, but she can’t stop.

if she really was the ‘golden voice’ of her school, where’s all that talent gone? she sounds like a shattered record lol. my two year old sister can sing better than that. kick her out omg

she probably slept with someone high up to have debuted in that group. and it’s not even like they’re famous anyway so why bother? just seems like a lot of effort going nowhere imo

honestly glad survival shows exist bc u can really see it’s mostly just looks. yeah she’s pretty but that’s all she’s got going for her. most she’ll get is maybe two years and then a flop acting career.

she’d stewed over that last comment for days. even now, where she’s supposed to be improving, she can’t stop thinking about those comments, despite standing on her little soap box mere hours ago when hyunjin had expressed his own uncertainties. she’d sat there and listened and kept her own nasty swirl of fears buried deep enough.

hypocrite. but fake it until you hopefully make it, right?

cléo starts back from the top once more, turned away from the eyes boring into her body on the other side of the glass. trapped, like a caged zoo animal. she’s suddenly glad there aren’t any cameras rolling.

paper clutched in her hands, her voice wavers in the slightest but she’s able to get through most of the lyrics with no trouble. hope crawls a treacherous path from the balls of her feet and up to her heart. arms weak, it snags on any surface it can hold on to; a perfectly pitched riff, a smoothly sung chorus. and just when it finds the light, the end of the song just in reach—

her voice cracks. again, and again, and again.

no matter how many times she insisted on getting that one particular note right, her voice leaves her swiftly without second thought, all her progress depleting. hope trips and tumbles painfully back to the uneven ground. the paper crinkles in her hands, giving way easily from repeating crushing.

cléo takes a shaky breath and blinks back tears of frustration, quickly reaching up to wipe at her eyes under the guise of brushing her hair away from her face. ( she’s not fooling anyone, she knows. ) when she sneaks a look back at outside, she sees no one else in that room but him. her chest cinches painfully.

just as she’s about to try once more, his voice crackles in before she’s able to get a sound out.

‘cléo.’ she hesitates, but turns despite every muscle in her body screaming at her not to.

chan’s expression is unreadable, but she can tell he’s not .. mad. or frustrated, or even pissed. which confuses her because she’s one hundred percent sure he heard every second of her disaster attempt at a recording.

he doesn’t say anything for a moment, staring at her with the same unreadable expression, and her skin itches from being analyzed so closely. her gaze falls back to the floor before her eyes squeeze shut to prevent from crying.

‘are you hungry?’

huh? cléo swallows nervously and tries her best to scale her confusion back, absolutely sure he was going to comment on her lackluster abilities. she’s too late in answering what was probably a rhetorical question anyway.

‘man, i’m starved.’ chan then smiles at her through the glass, her eyes stinging from the warmth radiating through the barrier. ‘i could probably eat a horse at this rate. let’s go eat, yeah? my treat.’

🍜

one convenience-store-and-stray-cat-finding trip later, and cléo finds herself watching in budding amusement as chan tries and fails to act as if his mouth isn’t on fire.

when he’d told her he’d get the two of them whatever she wanted to eat, she’d suggested ramen because it was easy to make and didn’t require a lot of things to cook. besides waiting for the eggs to boil in his tiny little kitchen, the ramen was the best choice of a late night meal.

except .. she hadn’t been clear on how spicy it was. and she paid the price by watching in horror, at first, to see chan’s ears turn bright red — near cartoon-esque — to poorly hidden mirth as he down his second ( third ? ) cup of milk while her bottled water remained unopened.

“you’re trying to kill me, i know it,” chan groans weakly, and scoffs loudly when it makes her stifle a laugh. “you’re laughing. i’m seconds away from my deathbed, and you’re laughing. cléo.”

it’s the mention of her name that finally makes her crack, bursting into a fit of giggles that nearly make her fall over in her chair. it brings tears to her eyes out of how weak her body becomes soon after, unlike the tears and sniffling coming from her companion’s lack of spice tolerance. he puffs out his face in faux anger and it sends her into another round of laughter, clutching her stomach as she pleads for him to stop.

red cheeked but amused by her good mood, chan slowly eases the both of them into amicable conversation, steering clear from her ruined studio session. but the memories coming rolling back in despite his best efforts, and she goes from smiling and laughing to slowly answering with one worded responses, her expression closing shut.

silence hangs in chan’s tiny kitchen. cléo struggles to keep her breathing leveled.

it only takes one look and a gentle toned calling of her name for the first tears to stain her shirt, shoulders hunched up to her ears. her baseball cap long forgotten, she can’t hide from him even if she wanted to. shaking hands still attempting anyway — wiping furiously at tired eyes before his hands slowly pull them away least she hurt herself.

when she looks up at him, trembling nervously, she’s hit with the amount of concern and sadness mixed in his expression. and that’s what hits the final nail in the coffin, her resolve crumbling before she bursts into tears.

chan rubs her back soothingly as it spills out of her without warning, his head resting on top of hers. she tells him about her worst fears, the resentment she held towards herself most of all, and those comments — hundreds of them aimed at her worst moments and badly timed mistakes, magnified by millions. her fingers curl into his shirt as another horrid sob wracks through her entire body, her tears dissolving into the black fabric of his shirt. she feels him stiffen and her throat closes up, prepared for the worst; for him to agree, since he saw firsthand what they were talking about.

instead, he hugs her even tighter, her voice firm despite its soft timbre. “we chose you.” her headache bangs the drum line of a death metal song against her skull. “no matter what, we chose you. they only know what’s edited and served to them on a platter.”

she can feel him smiling without seeing it. “stage fright is normal even if you’ve been singing since you were little. you’re only human after all. and what’s a few bad clips compared to getting the chance to debut? you’ll work hard and do better. i know you will.”

cléo’s chest tightens a bit, but not painfully this time. she allows herself to relax into his hug for as long as she can bear it before she pulls away and awkwardly stares at her lap. “now i feel kind of silly. but, um. thank you for listening.”

“it’s the least i could do when you have clear intent to kill me. one last good deed before i die from heart burn or inflammation or something.”

chan smiles as cléo threatens to swap bowls, wiping a stray tear from the corner of her eye.

[ilsangdo]

WELCOME TO YOUR HOME AWAY FROM HOME!

beyond the sandy shores there’s a storm brewing, and NA CHAERI (she/her), a twenty-two year old ACTRESS has walked right into it. perhaps they aren’t aware of it now, but the CHOI YENA ( soloist ) look-alike is in for quite the memorable experience. will our beloved TOURIST be able to enjoy their stay?

be careful where you step, NA CHAERI, for HUMANS seem to be a little less welcomed here. and remember, here at ilsang, things aren’t always what they seem.

did na chaeri lie about her name too? posted by u/unidentifiedfryingobject2389

throwaway so i don’t get sued by A***N ent lol be safe guys. so everyone knows there’s nothing she didn’t lie about, but it turns out even her name is fake?

since she isn’t actually a ‘00 liner, na chaeri (?) was in the class of ‘17 at ****** girls high, right? my friend from college is from ****** girls high too and she thinks she knew na chaeri before, but she has a good reason why she didn’t recognize her at first… proofs are posted at the end! (edit: more proof in my comment)

so, do you want to see her graduation photo?

[image.jpg]

does this even look like the same person? but if you look carefully, you can see that it really is her. the point is the name, though. her name was actually shin chunja. total hillbilly name, lol!

it’s 95% certain that na chaeri totally changed her face and her name. so even aside from her birthday, she also lied about her name. i bet she changed it to hide that she was shin ceo’s daughter? there’s no way she would have debuted with her skills and even got the main role if she wasn’t the daughter of the ceo. na chaeri is completely shameless if she tries to come back from wherever she ran off to now

[ READ MORE ]

1.7k Comments

u/unidentifiedfryingobject2389 [OP]  |  1 day ago my friend sent me more proof that it’s indeed the same person… if you look at her hairline and ear shape, its really undeniable! [image.jpg] ╰ u/colorofcherry99  |  45min ago aren’t u obsessed with her? how do u know what her ears look like? ╰ u/colorofcherry99  |  edited 43min ago why are u posting a picture of someone else n claiming that it’s her? take this down! ╰ u/paranormalpenguins  |  37min ago omg did anyone see the unedited comment is the con artist herself making an appearance?

u/area51stormed  |  1 day ago wow… her transformation is freaking impressive, can her face even be considered human after all that surgery? ╰ u/colorofcherry99  |  15min ago look in the mirror, can u be considered human? anyway, i heard she only touched her eyes n nose, that’s natural these days for idols!

u/abominablesnowman  |  1 day ago Not a cherrypop but isn’t changing ur name common practice? Ur acting like she committed a crime but that’s just a stage name ╰ u/colorofcherry99  |  35min ago that’s what i’m saying! i don’t believe this ‘proof’ but even if she did, so what? there are so many idols who use fake names! ╰ u/paranormalpenguins  |  32min ago you’re working hard~~ A* E* company interns~~ i hope you get your bonus~~

u/colorofcherry99  |   31min ago ur working soooo hard to tear someone innocent down. she apologized for decisions her COMPANY made n even went into hiding when she did nothing wrong, chaeri is seriously pitiful… even if u hate her, she’ll definitely go viral when she makes her comeback, kkk ╰ u/area51stormed  |  27min ago it’s a fact that she pretended to be an underdog when she’s actually freaking old and only debuted through connections, though? flop idol lol ╰ u/colorofcherry99  |  26min ago she only changed her age by one month!!!!!!!!!!!

u/aliensoty  |  20min ago @mods can user colorofcherry99 be banned? she’s obviously a plant. just like her industry plant idol ╰ u/colorofcherry99  |  17min ago u just want to hate on na chaeri because she’s prettier than ur idol, ur obviously an idiot! just like ur stupid idol!

You have been temporarily suspended from r/nachaeriexposed. You will not be able to message the moderators of r/nachaeriexposed for 28 days.

[junicai]

Relationship with Stray Kids

➣ CHAN ☾ dachan

daeun is chan’s baby and the fact that she’s only two years younger than him changes nothing 

really really dependent on his approval. especially on mixing during the first few songs for skz 

skz has a completely different sound to what daeun was used to, and changing her production style to mirror that was a challenge

there are a lot of clips in the first few episodes of the survival show of daeun sidling up to chan with a notebook in her hand

and them sitting beside each other on the sofa while they worked

you can find dozens of ‘Bang Chan doing the Proud Dad smile because Daeun existed’ videos on youtube

its a very common occurrence 

hence why daeun hates hates hates being told off by him 

its never anything serious 

but she always feels so guilty afterwards, and then she’ll cry and then chan feels guilty

and it’s a whole guilt-fest 

so daeun usually tries to avoid having to be told off

now that doesn’t stop her from telling him off

can and will drag him out by the ear if he stays in his studio for too long

that’s a lie

she’ll just stand in the doorway and pout until he saves his work down and leaves 

works every time

sorry but this man loves to pick her up? 

its a problem 

girl isn’t even hurt or tired just piggybacks 

always 

he said he likes to carry her because he knows that she dances in heels for so long so her feet must hurt more than theirs does

YEAH-

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT.

chan walks at the end of the group, we all know this. but the one time he wasn’t, was when daeun was the second last getting out of the van, and had to dip back in to snag the bag she had left behind. already three strides into the building, 

chan - upon realizing that he had seven heads in  front of him, and not eight - spun around in a circle, eyes wide and shoulders pushed back as he tried to peer over the crowds. when he spotted daeun, he took her bag from her hand, snagging her hand in his other one, and refused to let go of her until they made it safely into the venue.  

➣ MINHO ☾ mieun

actually attached at the hip?

genuinely

like, no one was going to peg the very intimidating and sullen looking-fellow with the bubbly bitch with pink in her hair and yet: 

✨besties✨ 

it’s comical 

minho’s dry humor perfectly balances with daeun’s unique blend of absolute buffoonery

 they have a lil tradition before they go onstage of exchanging bracelets

yes, they have matching bracelets

it was minho’s idea and yes, stays freaked out

it’s like a little, ‘see you on the other side’ thing

because lord knows daeun spent hours upon hours running herself ragged in practices until all hours of the night 

and minho Wasn’t Having It

so the bracelets are a little. U Got This. from him

really doesn’t like it when she cries 

to the point where he’ll do absolutely anything to get her to stop crying

it was then, that daeun discovered that minho gives god tier hugs 

God. Tier. 

minho and daeun cuddling when they’re drunk? more likely than you’d think 

they’re hilarious together, and probably one of stays most preferred ships with daeun and any of the boys 

the twt threadfics here are Legendary

the most popular one is a coffee shop au - where daeun is a struggling literature grad, and minho is a long-suffering night shift worker

absolutely does not tolerate any kind of hate towards daeun - verbal or otherwise. he blew a fuse the first time she trended for sexy pictures someone had taken of her at a fansign 

daeun had to tell him it was fine twelve times before he calmed down

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT.

daeun pulled down her skirt again for the nth time, shifting uncomfortably in her seat. she had her ankles tucked behind the leg of the chair and her hands folded over her lap to try and prevent anyone getting a glimpse up further into her skirt than was strictly necessary, but was - ultimately - doing a poor job of protecting her modesty. 

leaning over, minho took a glance at daeun shifting uncomfortably in her seat again, and shucked off his jacket - leaving him in a thin t-shirt in the cold breeze. before daeun could protest, he had laid the jacket over her legs, tucking it in and then sliding his hand in between hers and holding it tightly over his own lap. 

➣ CHANGBIN ☾ dabin

same age siblings !

both being in the ‘99 line, and with daeun originally training to be a main rapper than a vocalist

they were pretty comfortable around each other having spent so long training in each other’s presence

in fact

they even performed a duet together for one of the monthly evaluations

that was when they really became friends so to speak 

daeun fell asleep during one of their rehearsals on the floor of the studio

and changbin couldn’t just, leave her

so he ended up staying with her the whole night

was she embarrassed in the morning? yeah. and then changbin told her off for not prioritizing sleep more, and then she was more embarrassed.

now in the group, their dynamic settled into something extremely comfortable

when daeun was first introduced to the boys as a team, changbin was the only one she was completely comfortable rooming with 

his studio? nah, their studio 

did daeun sit in on a lot of the 3RACHA work prior to debut? yes, solely because she wanted the experience, and changbin said she could stay

it is actually his studio, but there’s a small collection (read: four) of soft pillows in the corner of the room for daeun to sit on as they work

according to her, she works better on the floor

changbin can’t find it in him to refute the argument, so he always ends up down there with her, with sheets sprawled over the carpet

when he started working out, he started taking daeun to the gym

swole buddies 

except daeun wasn’t allowed to build muscle and just had to run on the treadmill the whole time and changbin wasn’t made about that. he wasn’t.

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT.

changbin and daeun being the mafia when playing with skz and neither of them being able to look at each other without laughing. every time they’d make eye contact, daeun’s lips would twitch up, and changbin would have to turn away to cough into his arm lest he give himself away. 

ultimately, they lost - much to the chagrin of the pair, who wailed at their loss and proceeded to drink their sorrows away with the coca cola that they were sponsored for. 

product placement at it’s finest, even if it was a metaphor for alcoholism. 

➣ HYUNJIN ☾ dajin

lil beans

babies

awh

not at the start but now, yes.

he was wary around her, at first because hyunjin knows he’s attractive and the Last Thing He Wants is a groupmate that has a crush on him

so he was a bit, cold and aloof with daeun at the beginning of the survival show

he didn’t want to give her the wrong impression !

but then 

then 

daeun apologized to him in her video message after her elimination for ‘upsetting him, and making him feel like he couldn’t be comfortable around her’ and dear god

hyunjin’s heart = broken. destroyed. shattered into pieces. 

he still feels Very Guilty about this sometimes because he knows that his attitude towards her played a huge part in her feeling alienated and not like she belonged in the group

daeun tells him it doesn’t bother her but he knows

they talked through it though

good communication besties 

A+

he doesn’t call her noona though

he did, once upon a time, but then daeun felt weird because realistically, there’s only four months between them and that’s not enough to make her any more of a noona to him than he is a hyung to jisung and felix? 

they have a little rountine now, when either of them are upset

they pack up all the emotions for a little bit

into a little box

get out a laptop (doesn’t matter whos)

and just cuddle, with some blankets, and a terrible show or movie that they’re not really watching until the person is ok to talk 

arguably the most healthy friendship you will ever find

therapists around the country are giving standing ovations 

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT. 

felix padded into hyunjin’s room to shake the boy awake, before catching sight of an already-awake daeun wrapped in his arms.

“noona?”

“help-” she gasped out, patting frantically at hyunjin’s arm that was firmly wrapped around her middle. “he won’t let go. it’s been an hour.” 

felix bit his lip, trying to stifle the laugh that was threatening to burst out. “i don’t know, you look pretty comfortable.” he began backing out the door.

“felix. lee felix. lee felix you come back here!” the harsh whisper-shouts echoed down the hallway after the giggling boy. 

➣ JISUNG ☾ jidae

partners in crime

probably have committed some crime together at some point but there’s no proof so chan can’t yell at them for it

they met when daeun first sat in on the 3RACHA meetings 

did someone say: soulmates 

changbin is convinced that the angel choir played when they first locked eyes

like this

jisung kicked the angel off of daeun’s shoulder and now it’s just him and the devil racking up reverse-brownie points in daeun’s conscience 

he’s been a wonderful influence, truly

to be fair though, daeun did attempt to convince him to stop eating ramen every day (to a varying degree of success)

to no degree of success actually. she just takes him out of the dorm to eat it now, but chan doesn’t need to know that bit

daeun? did you mean: jisung’s pillow?

anywhere, any place - he just flops down onto her

many head pats

they are both givers and receivers 

no words spoken only HEAD PATS 

the comfort is exchanged through osmosis

jisung is wholeheartedly against her ever getting a boyfriend 

Absolutely Not. she is theirs, and he will glare at anyone else who dares to Look At Her

nap buddies 

they get a combined total of negative six hours of sleep per week so they always end up napping together 

it’s very cute

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT. 

less of a ‘moment’ and more of a series of events that STAY found hilarious?

we all know han jisung’s iconic converse. they’re legendary. unofficial skz merch. 

right well, daeun was seen wearing them out and around a few times by fansites, and one of them asked had she bought her own pair after seeing jisung’s at a fansign.

daeun laughed and said no, they were almost the same size in shoe so she just borrowed his. 

daeun stole jisung’s shoes. 

➣ FELIX ☾ daelix

stop they love each other so much 

felix said once in a vlive that he finds daeun really comforting to be around because she’s so calm 

‘calm’ 

he had a lot of anxiety about debuting because of what jyp said to him upon his elimination *angry noises*

so daeun tried her best to alleviate as much of his worries as possible

even if that meant sacrificing her own sleep to sit with him in the kitchen and talk things out

sorry i’d like to revisit the point that They Love Each Other Very Much 

felix says that he was worried about leaving his sisters behind, so having another noona was really comforting to him 

daeun absolutely has an australian accent when she speaks english now and it is completely felix’s fault 

he’d actively correct her pronunciation to make her sound more australian because he thinks the accent is so cute on her  

aggressively cute together 

you will get a toothache if you watch them for too long 

someone stop them they’re so adorable 

he likes to give out random compliments to see how red he can make her face go before she whacks him to get him to stop 

the results conclude: a pretty nice cherry-cheeked colour

felix really lives up to his koala nickname when he’s around daeun

will latch on and will not let go until he has to 

you thought chan loved felix? now see: chan watching daeun and felix 

pain

its so painful he just smiles like everything is right with the world and it IS because felix and daeun are there and aaaaaAAAA-

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT.

a sad moment, but one that features in every compilation of daelix’s interactions anyway. when daeun’s name was called for her elimination, she closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath and schooling her face into something impassive. the boys were all staring at her with devastated looks on their faces, but nothing was matching the look that felix was giving her from his position right by her side. 

he choked out her name, stumbling forwards into her arms as she caught him and wrapped him in a hug. felix apologized profusely for being the one in need of comfort, while daeun just ran a hand over his hair and told him it was alright, she was alright. 

➣ SEUNGMIN ☾ daseung

protector of daeun’s sanity

she has One (1) well behaved dongsaeng and its kim seungmin

it’s not that he’s less likely to act out than the others, really. it’s that he’s the least likely to die while doing it, so that = most well behaved, in daeun’s books 

daeun likes to squish his cheeks

no reason

other than, soft cheeks go squish and seungmin lets her so why would she forsake this golden opportunity

now if he wants to sit on the couch beside her he has to resign himself to cheek-smooshing 

also cheek kisses, rarely. usually when daeun’s intoxicated.

the boys had figured that both of their personalities together would just merge and create an even more chill environment

calm²

but NO

pemdas

it cancelled out

they’re not Chaotic but they’re certainly not Calm 

it’s a unique vibe that can only be described by this -> link

sorry

scholars but minus the education 

profound visionaries but they’re blind, type beat 

have the combined brainpower of the librarian gary from that one spongebob episode but they choose not to utilize it for the memes 

in all seriousness though, they’re very comfortable around each other 

seungmin struggled a lot with confidence during their debut months, and daeun was the only person who really knew the full extent of it all 

there was a Hefty Amount of nighttime talks on daeun’s bed under blankets stolen from the living room 

FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT. 

seungmin can sing, we all know that. but stray kids’ style rarely allows for full ballad songs on an album, so seungmin being given the opportunity to perform ‘Love Poem’ on Kingdom was truly a blessing in disguise. (the disguise being daeun’s re-occuring vocal nodules that left her unable to perform). 

after the performance, seungmin had barely taken a foot off the stage before he was being tackled by a teary-eyed daeun, who immediately buried her face into his shoulder to stop the cameras getting a good look at her crying. 

“n-noona?” 

“you can sing.” 

“yeah?”

“you sing so beautifully, minnie, oh my god.” 

➣ JEONGIN ☾ jeondae

the first thing you have to realize about daeun and jeongin’s relationship is that both of them can be the Biggest Babies in the world 

now with that out of the way

jeongin ADORES daeun 

im sorry did someone say ‘noona who wholeheartedly finds it impossible to say no to him’?

i think they did

he doesn’t take advantage of it, persay

but he Does and Will use it to others detriment - especially during games

“jeongin! you told me you weren’t the mafia! i believed you! this is a betrayal!”

she’s so so smitten with him and everything he does 

it is virtually impossible for her to be mad at him 

he just gets a little scowl and then a soft flick on his ear at the PEAK of scolding 

is the world’s worst enabler for All His Bad Ideas 

often complains that he’s growing up too fast and it isn’t fair that he’s taller than her now 

which he’ll then respond to by resting his elbow on her head and leaning on her, so. it never goes down very well 

daeun checks his micpack for him before every stage

every. stage. 

daeun is the only person who is allowed to coddle him as much as she does 

hyunjin is Bitter and daeun is Smug 

jeongin needs help with schoolwork? daeun would do it for him if she had been any good at school either, but alas 

 FAN FAVOURITE MOMENT. 

chan stepped into the kitchen, camera in hand. 

“what are you doing?” 

daeun and jeongin shove his backpack off the table, the coloured permanent markers rolling off immediately after, two black ones uncapped in their hands. 

“NOTHING” 

chan looked pointedly at them, and then to the backpack that had slid underneath the table. there, written all over the straps and the front pocket were small drawings, ranging from dinosours to the words (written in very terrible handwriting, so he couldn’t be sure which one of them wrote it): “skool suks!”

chan looked over to the pair. they scrambled off the chairs, abandoning the evidence in their break for safety. 

[renjuseyo]

if ur requests are open can i pls request Jaehyun x male reader where the reader is so drunk that he forgot that his boyfriend(jaehyun) is his boyfriend. then he asks a member if he is taken and they said yes and that will make reader to silently be sad in the corner and jaehyun asks if readers ready to go home......... andddddddd ill leaveee the rest to u hehehehe (iloveurwriting so much)

tipsy ; jaehyun

group: nct

pairing: jung yoonoh / reader (male)

synopsis: both you and jaehyun knew how much of a lightweight you were, but when has that ever stopped you?

genre: fluff, crack

warnings: implied sexual content, explicit language

i lost inspiration for this, so i hope this mess of a fic is okay anon! as always, feedback is appreciated!!

when you peek through the peephole, you expect to see the delivery man holding the package you had ordered online. instead, you’re pleasantly surprised to see your boyfriend on the other side of the door, wrapped in a hoodie, mask, and tinted sunglasses. his disguise is pretty unnecessary given how your neighbors are mainly made up of old people who have never heard of nct, but it gets the job done.

once you’ve unhooked the chain bolt, you unlock the door and swing it open. he slightly jumps at the noise, but visibly softens when he sees you. “hey (name),” he greets, slipping off his mask and sunglasses.

“hey yourself. what are you doing here?” you ask. with how hectic his schedule has been after promotions with the nct 2020 project and working as an mc on inkigayo, you two hadn’t seen each other in weeks. though you missed him, you sympathized with the tireless hours he spent working as an idol. at least you preoccupied yourself with netflix.

he slips off his sneakers and enters your home, taking off the rest of his disguise. you close and lock the door behind you, trailing behind him. “i managed to squeak in some free time today, so i came to visit you,” he explains. he faces you with a smile, pulling you close. you subconsciously lean your head onto his shoulder, humming as he sways your bodies.

“i missed you,” you tell him, fingers ghosting his waist. he makes a noise of agreement, resting his chin on your head.

you eventually pull away, eliciting a grumble from jaehyun. contrary to popular belief, he was the clingy one of you two, always using the excuse of “you’re just the perfect size for cuddling.” “stop grumbling, jae. you’ve come so far, so it’s only fair i make you something to eat,” you tell him, making your way towards the kitchen.

he follows suit, hand grabbing at the hood of your hoodie. you stop in front of the refrigerator and open it, canvassing the food you have in there. as you debate what to make for lunch, he rests his chin on your shoulder and snakes both arms around your waist. you roll your eyes, though you don’t make any movements to pry his arms off. “i can always eat something else,” he smirks.

you realize too late the implications of his comment, absentmindedly sorting through the bags of vegetables in your fridge. “do you want takeout instead then? mrs. moon from two doors down said that there’s this really good pho house near here.”

he nuzzles into your shoulder. “i’d really like to eat you,” he says as nonchalantly as one can, considering his implications. you nearly drop a bag of spinach, spluttering incoherent words as you spin around to swat his shoulder. he laughs, loud and proud, a stark contrast from the quiet, polite laugh he’s practiced.

“you’re the worst,” you hiss, reluctantly closing the fridge. he pecks your cheek, eliciting a disgusted screech from you. he leans back with a laugh before attacking your face with kisses. you shut your eyes as you try to wiggle out of his grasp. but jaehyun’s been working out, evident from his arms, and he’s always had an intense grip. when he leans away, satisfied, you flick his forehead. with how clingy jaehyun’s being, making lunch isn’t an option anymore. “i hate you.”

jaehyun eventually relinquishes his attacks, threading his fingers with yours. “you’re usually not this clingy, jae. actually, now that i think about it, you don’t flirt all too much either, much less suggest sexual innuendos. what’s the occasion?” you ask as he walks you two to your living room. he doesn’t immediately respond, flopping down onto the couch and dragging you along with him. you land on his chest with an oomph, your cheek squished against his chest.

he combs his fingers through your hair, smiling as you make a noise of approval. “well, i wasn’t going to say anything before the news outlet, but...” his smile only widens when he sees you look up at him with curious eyes; he nearly coos at how innocent you look. “a certain idol you know might make his acting debut soon~”

your eyes widen, and you quickly prop yourself up with your elbows. “what! no way!” you exclaim, jaw hanging open. jaehyun laughs at your shell-shocked reaction, though it’s a given; when you were in a mood to vent, he would always take your hand and pepper your knuckles with butterfly kisses as you ranted about how he deserved better and shouldn’t only be seen as a visual, whining about how sm failed to show his talents as a singer and an actor. well, those days are over now, he supposes.

“yes way, love. are you excited?” he isn’t sure why he asked that question, considering how shell-shocked you already look. plus, the squeal that leaves your throat and the way you throw yourself onto him is answer enough already.

“do you even have to ask? you used to send me videos of you acting out different roles because you wanted to try acting, and you always did them so well! i’m really proud of you, jae. you deserve it.”

“i’m really glad you think so, (name). do you want to hear-”

“no!” you interrupt, slapping both of your palms on his mouth. he tilts his head in confusion, surprised by your sudden outburst. “knowing you, you’re going to accidentally tell me everything, and then i’m going to know the whole story line before the show even airs!”

he’s about to refute your claims, but he can’t really considering how you’ve layered both of your palms on his mouth. plus, judging by the look you give him, he’s certain he’s going to be eating his own words sooner or later. with a sigh, he peels your palms off. "you’re no fun. can i not even tell you the name and the basic plot?”

“i’m sorry for wanting to give you ratings,” you snort. “and no. then i’ll be waiting in anticipation and will force you to tell me everything, even if you tell me you can’t because i told you before not to say anything. you can’t even give me a drop of information.” well, jaehyun supposes that is true. you’ve always been enticed by television shows; he’s personally seen you react to cliffhangers a show gives before it ultimately gets cancelled. needless to say, it isn’t a pretty sight. “this calls for celebration! we can invite the boys too... do you want it to be extravagant, or are we keeping it low key?” you ask, sitting up and reaching for your phone.

“what happened to just you and me?” jaehyun asks, batting his eyelashes with feigned innocence. “i can think of a lot more fun things we can do.”

you don’t even bat an eye; unlike earlier, you were prepared for this kind of comment. “shoving my foot up your ass sounds really fun, but unfortunately that won’t get me any food. the boys probably already knew before i did, so you’ve probably already celebrated with them... i guess we can keep it simple.”

“i’d take your foot any day,” he fires back with a heavily exaggerated moan, to which you respond with a slap on the arm.

“i’m telling johnny to bring over beer.” you’re texting a group chat with you and the other 127 members. you’re only dating jaehyun, yet sometimes it feels like you’re dating all of them with how close you are. plus, gossiping with jungwoo about your boyfriend is always fun. with him being his roommate, you both often share similar struggles.

he rolls his eyes, stretching over to wrap his arms around your waist. he peers over your shoulder to look at your screen. “please, (name). you’re the lightest lightweight i’ve ever met. who are you telling to bring over drinks? you’re like a baby.”

“fuck you.”

“i think it’s the other way around, but i’d gladly let you order me around~” he flirts.

you shove a pillow in his face as you fire off a text.

after ordering pizza, tteokbokki, and fried chicken, your dinner is nearly complete. the boys were coming over soon, with johnny being in charge of drinks, jungwoo in charge of takeout, and donghyuck in charge of entertainment. you had a nintendo switch jaehyun had gifted you two years ago, and you intended on making full use of it tonight.

(plus, you have yet to beat yuta at super smash bros. today is going to be that day.)

you had finished clearing the table for the food before you notice jaehyun’s sleeping frame on the couch. you’re about to walk over and reprimand him for being unproductive, but seeing how tired and peaceful he looks stops you. instead, you grab a blanket from your room and drape it over him.

you’re about to walk away and grab water bottles for everyone when you feel something tugging your hand. craning your neck, you smile at jaehyun’s hooded eyes laced with sleep. “c’mere,” he murmurs.

water bottles can wait, then. you pat jaehyun’s side, and he scoots over to allow room for you. as you slot yourself in his arm, spreading a leg across his, he makes a noise of satisfaction, eyes fluttering close. “someone’s tired,” you observe, pushing the mop of black bangs obscuring his eyes. “did practice run late?”

he avoids your gaze. “no, i spent the night playing uno with johnny, ten, and mark,” he admits.

you laugh. “must have been intense. i bet you were so burnt out from uno,” you sympathize with sarcasm. “but in general, don’t overexert yourself, okay? i know you’ve been busy, but you need to remember to take care of yourself.”

jaehyun nods, but a yawn rips out of his chest. you give him a knowing look, one that reads what did i say? which causes him to laugh. “yes sir,” he lazily responds.

“as tired as you may be, don’t go falling asleep on me now. the others are going to be here soon. what would they think, the guest of honor asleep at his own party?” you chuckle, leaning down to press a chaste kiss on his forehead.

he beams at the gesture. “give me more kisses and i’ll think about it,” he coaxes.

usually you don’t give in to his bratty demands, but seeing how tired he is reminds you of the accomplishments he’s achieved in the past year. a kiss is the least you could down. you lean down, breath fanning his lips, and he closes his eyes in contentment.

a few seconds pass, but the kiss never comes. when jaehyun opens his eyes, he’s surprised to see you’re no longer by his side, instead standing by the door. “that’s one way of telling a guy to come and get it,” he sighs, sitting up. he wearily rubs his eyes, blurry eyes watching you.

“sorry jae, taeil-hyung just texted saying they’re here,” you apologize. he sighs, eventually standing up after a few moments of stretching.

just as you had said, knocks resonate throughout your home, signalling their arrival. you peek through the peephole to verify their identities and sure enough, all nine other members stand outside, arms loaded. you undo the chain lock and swing the door open, greeting everyone.

“thanks for having us,” taeyong smiles, stepping into your home. everyone else echoes his message, but it comes out mumbled, like they hadn’t thought of saying anything until taeyong. the power a leader has, you suppose.

“no problem. here, let me grab some of the food.” you scurry over to jungwoo and mark, whose arms were loaded with the takeout you ordered.

as you grab a box of pizza from mark, johnny slaps you on the back. you nearly lurch forward and drop the pizza; if you had, johnny would be first on your hit list. “so jaehyun finally told you?” he asks with a grin.

“thank god. he spent days talking about ways to tell you, knowing how excited you’d be,” sicheng snorts, slipping off his shoes.

you laugh, especially when you see jaehyun spluttering in embarrassment. “you could’ve fooled me. all he did was waltz in and drop the news after he nearly fell asleep. made me feel like a proud parent and everything.”

“you may feel like one now, but wait until you watch him act. just going to be lots of cringing and teasing,” doyoung sneers, elbowing his shoulder.

yuta rolls his eyes. “like you’re one to talk, mr. lead actor.”

your eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets. “lead actor?!” doyoung laughs, answering your question. “good for you, hyung!”

jaehyun narrows his eyes. “why do you look more amazed at his news than mine?!”

i’m not a lightweight, you told yourself. i can handle whatever yuta throws at me, you told yourself.

you were sorely mistaken.

jaehyun notices this too, seeing you sway in your seat. he chuckles at the sight; you were never able to hold your liquor, and when you got drunk, you were quite the spontaneous drinker to deal with. one time you had drank so much that you cried over cute things, like when sicheng showed you a picture of his dogs. or the one time you were a man on a mission, flirting with all of the members. needless to say, that led to a very interested jaemin and a very pouty jaehyun.

you had initially planned on just sticking to soda, but yuta had wanted to make things more interesting and challenged you to a game of super smash bros. each time the loser lost, they would have to down a can of beer. despite your inability to hold your liquor, it activated your competitive nature. but of course, yuta is crazy good at any games he suggests, completely demolishing you with lucina. no matter which character you chose, you were just no match against him.

after several fruitless attempts, you’re seated between taeil and sicheng, who seem way too interested in the tteokbokki to notice your behavior. everyone else seems occupied, too; johnny, yuta, jungwoo, and donghyuck are playing mario kart 8, taeyong and mark are immersed in yet another one of their deep, contemplative conversations, and doyoung’s watching the whole scene unfold, supervising everyone (probably to ensure nothing ends up in flames). on the other hand, jaehyun’s sitting on your sofa, alternating between watching the four men in front of your television screaming and you in your tipsy state. he decides to stick with the latter.

eventually you lift your eyes up and make eye contact with jaehyun, who responds with a wink. seeing you flush and look away has his chest swelling with giddiness; you’re just too cute sometimes. the table isn’t far from the sofa, so he can hear any conversation that goes on there. he watches as you take another sip of your can, eyes shifting back and forth from the television and to him. you stare at him for a bit longer, eyes canvassing his face, his posture, his thoughts.

it seems sicheng notices your staring, sitting back down and nudging your shoulder. “what’s so interesting that it’s gotten your attention?” he asks, purposefully raising his voice so jaehyun can hear.

you flush at how loud he is, lazily putting a finger to your lips. “shhh, i’m staring at the pretty boy there.” you point your chin towards jaehyun, who pretends to not see. you’ve never been subtle when you were drunk, but telling you that would just lead to you loudly slurring your arguments. “do you know if he’s dating anyone?”

jaehyun nearly spits out his beer. of all the times you’ve gotten drunk, you’ve never once forgotten that you were his boyfriend - if anything, you were all too eager to prove just how much you belonged to him. he’s not sure whether to feel startled or amused.

sicheng chooses the latter, a smirk forming. “yeah, he has a boyfriend,” he tells you. jaehyun hopes you’ll realize that you’re the boyfriend in question, but seeing how you deflate like a balloon, he guesses not. he questions how much you’ve had to drink.

you slide off of your chair, pouting. “of course a guy as attractive as him has a boyfriend. i’m not surprised,” you grumble, crossing your arms. jaehyun can’t help the amused smirk that makes its way on his face. watching you envy yourself for being his boyfriend is very amusing.

sicheng must feel the same, stifling his laughter. “don’t look so bitter, (name). his boyfriend’s a good guy.”

you pout, crossing your arms. “well, i bet i can treat him ten times better! pretty boy there doesn’t know what he’s missing out on,” you boast, standing up.

sicheng can only watch in amusement as you stagger towards the kitchen. if only you knew how strange that statement was. “if you’re so confident about that, then what are you doing? planning on hiding in the kitchen to wallow on your sorrows?” he teases.

“i’m not!” you protest. “i’m just going to get some water because i’m dizzy as fuck and possibly cry about how single i am.” you mumble the last part, though because sicheng has uncanny hearing, he probably heard, if the smirk on his lips is anything to go by.

jaehyun decides it’s time to intercept, because as amusing as things were, he hoped you weren’t actually going to cry about being single, especially since you had no reason to. he stops by the dining table where taeil and sicheng are. “so i heard you and (name) were talking about me.”

sicheng snorts, rolling his eyes. “just because we said pretty boys doesn’t mean we were talking about you.”

though unaware of the topic, taeil leans in, chewing on a mouthful of pizza. “yeah, for all we know, he could be talking about me!” he chirps. he’s met with an annoyed glare from sicheng (though both of them can see him stifling his laughter), which he responds with an air kiss. typical taeil.

“well, i’m going to check up on him. i’ll leave you two lovebirds alone for now,” he teases. taeil looks a little too happy at the joke, whereas sicheng threatens to stab him with a fork. it’s amusing watching their reactions, considering how everyone around them already knows that they’re dating. those two just haven’t admitted anything yet.

he follows you into the kitchen, though you don’t seem to notice, too busy pouring yourself a glass of cold water.  “(name),” he greets.

you jump in surprise, nearly spilling water on yourself. when you turn to face jaehyun, your confident nature immediately disappears, quickly replaced with one of bashfulness. “you know me?” you ask, in awe of how said pretty boy could possibly recognize you.

if only you knew just how well he knew you, he thinks to himself. instead, he decides to play along; you’re obviously too drunk to realize how silly this seems. “i do,” he hums, patting your shoulder. he isn’t sure if your red cheeks are from the alcohol or him, though he hopes for the latter. he never gets less prideful when you get all shy because of him.

hoping to maintain the confident facade you had earlier, you quickly clear your throat, looking away. “how can i help you?” you ask, taking a sip of your water.

“well, i was hoping if we could talk in a more... private area?” he asks.

you nearly spit out your water, eyes the size of saucers. he has to stop himself from laughing, afraid the drunk you would get the wrong impression. “just to talk, that’s all. it’s kind of loud here, don’t you think?”

the screams from the living room (which are mainly from johnny and donghyuck and the occasional ones of distress from taeyong) and the volume of the television are evidence enough, so you nod in agreement. “yeah, sure.”

“perfect. let’s go then~” jaehyun laces your fingers together before you can say anything, and your ears are practically fuming with smoke. you’re too distracted by his touch to question how he knows where your bedroom is. when you both enter your room, he flops down on your bed, patting the empty spot beside him. at this, you gasp, scandalized and very flustered. he chuckles at how shy you’ve gotten, shaking his head. “my my (name), get your head out of the gutter. we’re not going to do anything... unless you want to,” he flirts.

jaehyun never tries to take advantage of you, especially when you’re not sober. but when the sober you would throw pillows (or anything that wouldn’t actually hurt him) at him for flirting with you, the drunk you would always fire back with equally flirty remarks, or the shy you would just splutter in embarrassment. he can’t help it, spewing sweet nothings to you - you’re just too fun to mess with for him to not to, especially when you’re drunk.

reluctantly you place your water on your bedside table and lower yourself beside him, heart thumping erratically. he chuckles at how timid you are, a stark contrast from the snarky (name) that he knows so well. he turns to face you, both of your faces only centimetres apart. the smell of alcohol lingers on both of you, though it isn’t as prominent on him as it is on you. he makes a mental note to ask yuta how much you’ve had.

you squeak at how close you two are, hands flying to cover your face. “you have a boyfriend,” you whisper. you’re undeniably flustered, but you would rather die than be known as a homewrecker!

his laugh startles you, even more so when he presses a hand to the small of your back. you look like you’ve committed a heinous crime, potentially causing an attractive man like jaehyun to cheat on his boyfriend. the statement is so abusrd though, considering how you’re the boyfriend in question. “i do, you are right. he won’t be mad at me, though,” he hums, leaning in so close your noses would touch if it weren’t for the makeshift barrier you’ve made from your hands. you flush red in embarrassment, hiding your eyes behind your hands. if you make eye contact with him, you’re sure you’re going to melt into a puddle.

“even if he didn’t mind, i don’t think we should be doing this. i know i wouldn’t be happy if my boyfriend did this,” you whisper.

jaehyun sure is having a field day with this. you’re too flustered and worried to notice the pure look of adoration he’s giving you. “call it a hunch,” he says. “i promise you, he won’t be mad at this.”

“why?”

“you’ll find out tomorrow.” he pauses as a yawn rips out of his chest. “i’m really tired, so i’m going to sleep. the boys probably won’t quiet down on my account, anyways. you can always go back to them if you want, though,” he offers. a small part of him hopes for you to stay and cuddle with him, but judging how you’re so sure he has a boyfriend who would be absolutely devastated for literally sleeping with another man and how you have no knowledge of where you stand, he wouldn’t be surprised if you left.

what does surprise him, though, is when you stay rooted in your spot on the bed. “i’m tired, too,” you say.

jaehyun smiles so sweetly, the one that has his eyes dripping with honey, that your hands fly up to cover your face again. his boyfriend must be lucky to see that sight all of the time, you bitterly think to yourself. still, even if you’re not sure why he’s flirting with you or where you stand, you decide to savor every moment that you get to spend with him. even if you don’t really know who pretty boy is, he’s sweet and kind. plus, only a fool would cover their eyes when someone as beautiful as him lays before you.

he moves an arm to pat your thigh when he freezes in midair, remembering how he’s supposed to have a boyfriend to stay loyal to (even though he’s right in front of him). he retracts his arm and instead pulls your blanket to cover your lower bodies. “goodnight, (name),” he hums, shutting his eyes.

before jaehyun can begin the long process of trying to fall asleep, he feels you tug at his t-shirt. cracking an eye open, he sees you laying before him, staring at him with curious eyes and red cheeks. oh no, now he’s really tempted to kiss you. you’re impossibly adorable, seeing how vulnerable and curious you are. “yes?” he hums, trying to stay awake. the effects from last night’s uno matches have really begin to take a toll on him.

“i don’t think i’ve gotten the chance to ask, but may i know your name?” you ask.

jaehyun chuckles. he’s flirted with you and is even sleeping in the same bed as you, yet he’s forgotten the basic courtesy that is introductions. he didn’t think he would’ve needed it, considering how you’re his boyfriend. but then again, you’ve forgotten that you are his boyfriend. “my name’s yoonoh, but you can call me jaehyun or jae.”

no one actually calls him jae except for you. it’s a short and simple nickname that you have for him, nothing endearing. but because it’s something that only you call him, even though there isn’t a meaning to it, he’s grown fond of the way it sounds leaving your lips. which is why hearing it from anyone that isn’t you only leaves a weird taste on his tongue.

you’re so drunk you don’t even remember jaehyun, nor who he is to you, so it isn’t surprising that you stick with jaehyun instead. he doesn’t mind though, because he knows when you’re sober again he’ll hear you calling him jae and cuddling into him and doing all of the coupley things he wasn’t able to do tonight.

wow, jaehyun really is a lovesick fool. it’s only been one night of not being able to cuddle or kiss you, but he feels like he’s missed a whole eternity of them. he really isn’t sure how he’s lived before you came into his life.

for an hour, you pester jaehyun on how you two became acquainted and who you were to him. he indulged you, of course, purposefully skipping over the part of you becoming boyfriends and doing things that friends definitely didn’t do. his stories seem to be an effective way of getting you to sleep, because in the middle of a story of how a pair of swapped backpacks led to your relationship, you’re lulled to sleep, tired hands clutching onto his t-shirt.

he can only chuckle, leaning down to press a kiss on your nose. you’ll sure be in for a storm when you sober up tomorrow morning.

your jaw drops as you stare at the video on doyoung’s phone. it’s of you and sicheng, and right now you can only watch in horror as you pester him for information on the pretty boy you were so interested in last night. you have no recollection of last night’s events, though watching the video makes you glad you don’t. the problem is, the boys were there to witness them, even recording evidence of it on their phones. you’ve already seen pictures that johnny and taeyong have taken from when you and jaehyun were cuddling in your bed.

“please tell me that isn’t me,” you whisper, utterly mortified.

mark pats your shoulder in sympathy. “that’s you, all right.”

at his confirmation, you groan, burying your face in your hands. doyoung and donghyuck are cackling at your demise, with sicheng reciting your complaints word from word to a very amused johnny and yuta.

“...and then he was like well, i bet i can treat him ten times better! pretty boy there doesn’t know what he’s missing out on,” sicheng mimics, purposefully raising his voice an octave higher as he mocks you. out of embarrassment, you reach for a pillow on your couch and fling it at him. unlike jaehyun, he’s very good at dodging, proven when he ducks. instead, the pillow smacks yuta square in the face. he throws it back at you with even more force.

you duck, the pillow smacking an unsuspecting jaehyun. he really is horrible at dodging things - how shameful. “what the hell was that for?” he splutters, picking it up from the floor.

you turn to face him, eyebrows furrowed with annoyance. “you watched me make an utter fool out of myself, and you didn’t once try to do anything about it?” you hiss.

jaehyun frowns in confusion until doyoung dangles his phone in front of his face. when he watches the video, his face eventually contorts to one of amusement. “oh, that.”

your face is red with embarrassment. “yeah, that! like seriously? where is your loyalty? do you not care about my well being? you know how vicious these monsters can be!” you whine, gesturing at the said nine monsters behind you.

he nonchalantly shrugs, though you can see the corners of his lips threatening to curl into a smirk. “i do, but you were just too cute, seeing you all flustered. what about my own well being, huh? seeing you like that isn’t good for my heart,” he coos.

your heart leaps, but you mask it by smothering his face with a pillow. “you’re the worst,” you grumble.

“you act like you don’t like it, but i know you do~” he retaliates, albeit muffled from the pillow.

behind you two stands nine other boys, obviously unimpressed. watching you two engage in petty banter is always amusing, but not when it makes you flustered and encourages jaehyun to flirt with you like the cheesy, lovesick fool he is. “they’re so gross,” donghyuck gags.

johnny nods in agreement. “let’s get out of here before they start fucking on the counter.”

at johnny’s comment, you turn away from jaehyun so fast you swear you hear your neck crack. “do you have no filter?!” you shriek, exasperated.

with your guard down, jaehyun takes this as a chance to wrap his arms around your waist. a noise of surprise leaves your throat as he places his chin on your shoulder. “you’re so mean, (name). i liked the shy you a lot better~” he hums.

the other boys don’t even blink. “we’re going to leave now before things get bloody. good luck, (name),” taeyong says, saluting you.

jaehyun’s already tugging at the hem of your shirt and peppering your neck with kisses by the time the boys leave.

[spacelesbiann]

Jasmine @eight-hearts sparked inspiration in me when she wrote about her 10 favourite debut albums, and tagged me to do the same. My music taste tends to be deeply obsessive, flighty, and rarely contained in an album, so some of these are pretty new. In no particular order, here they are.....

Something to Feel - TEEKS (2021) Listening to this feels like summertime evenings, where there’s a fire burning in an old drum, everyone has a drink, and there’s a body of calm water nearby. The sound is so quintessentially the New Zealand music of my childhood. I tend to find that difficult to sit and intentionally listen to, but there’s something somehow different about this. Maybe it’s the themes of yearning. Anyway, I’m momentarily in love with it . Special song mentions: Remember Me; First Time

About U - MUNA (2017) This is my ‘staring out the passenger window in the rain, watching the sky turn bruise-coloured at the end of a long day’ album. I love this album with all my heart. Idk what about to say that sums it up any better. Special song mentions: Around U; Winterbreak

Surf Music - Paul Williams (2018) This is delightfully bizarre. I listened to this because James Acaster raved about it. I didn’t have high expectations. Paul Williams is a comedian who runs a basketball podcast with his more well-known brother. But it’s so good. Everything you could want in an album and more. There’s a recurring metaphor about basketball. There’s the lyric ‘I might not be the sharpest crayon, but that’s cos I’m your favourite.’ There’s a whole song about eating chips.

I love this album so much i made a uquiz about it. Oh! And - he sings with my exact accent. To the point that some parts are almost unintelligible the first time through. Special song mentions: Braces; Number One

Greetings From Ashbury Park, N.J. - Bruce Springsteen (1973) This is Bruce as I imagine him. The kinda whining timbre of his voice that makes me see him as he is today, not the skinny little thing he was in 1973. It’s fun! Opening with Blinded by the Light??? It’s a perfect encapsulation of his lyrics: some are deeply meaningful, some mean nothing!

It’s not my favourite Bruce album (honestly I get a little bored in the middle) it doesn’t even include my favourite songs. But it’s the sign of such good things to come, and that’s enough. Special song mentions: Blinded by the Light; Growin’ Up

Westlife - Westlife (1999) Westlife are the boyband of my pre-teenagehood. This album is the first time I ever heard them. I used to spend hours at my dad’s laptop copying the songs onto CDs so I could play them in my own bedroom. Except I missed several of the songs, so this album is a lot shorter in my head. Special song mentions: Flying Without Wings; Swear It Again

2 Cool 4 Skool - BTS (2013) You know me. I had to include this one. It’s such a baby album - only 7 songs. But without this I wouldn’t have my favourite albums of later years. I think about how they made this, their determination, the fact that is was critically a bit of a flop... But it’s BTS at their core.

It explains basically everything that will come. Songs fighting to uplift teenagers, encouraging people to follow their hearts and their dreams, to be themselves... I’ll stop myself, but seriously. I could write whole posts about their lyrics. If all you think BTS songs are is Butter and Dynamite, come to me and I will enlighten you. Special song mentions: Like; No More Dream

Hope World - j-hope (2018) This is just a fun album. It opens “say hello to my hope world!” and okay, yeah j-hope! Hi!! It did take me a couple of listens to fully appreciate it, but I looked up the lyrics and gave it some time, and I really do like it. It’s not for everyone but it really shows who he is as a person. It’s hopeful (heh) and it knows itself and loves itself. Special song mentions: Daydream; Airplane

PINK PLANET - Pink Sweat$ (2021) This album is what being in love sounds like. It’s playing in the background of the scene where the two love interests realise their one sided pining isn’t one sided. It sounds pink. It’s very nice. Special song mentions: 17; Honesty

Songs of Leonard Cohen - Leonard Cohen (1967) Okay so this. This might as well be Leonard Cohen’s Greatest Hits. This is a debut album?? What??? The songs sound like poetry and arguments and speeches and ballads and everything that is good. They’re gentle and they’re cutting and they’re about love and loss and hope and hate and pain and joy. I think there’s a lyric and a song in this for everyone . Special song mentions: Suzanne; The Stranger Song

My Head Is An Animal - Of Monsters and Men (2014) This one was hard to be honest. I nearly didn’t pick a number 10. So to be honest, I’ll keep it quick. This is just so calming. I come back to this when I need a little rest from my head, which is fitting given the title. Special Song Mentions: From Finner; Sloom

I want to tag @pauldeyoung @coelura @relationboats @neonastronaut @loveyourselff and @clytemenestras just because I’m nosey :))

[minjungfmd]

headcanon / career linings

trajectory from her pre-debut claims to present day. how her image has changed throughout the seven years inside equinox. warnings / none wc / 695

in the beginning of minjung’s career — she was really lackluster and had zero fans. her only appeal? she was the maknae. she barely had talent according to people who watched equinox’s earlier stages and her presence was shit. as a result, she wasn’t really one to look at during debut

she was more meek and timid in her earlier years, not fully revealing that 4D personality. that was in part because the life was too new and that she was just young — it was a surprise all over considering she graduated high school, and suddenly became an idol (at least from her classmates perspective).

her title tracks and the few after still made her not stand out one bit. even with the addition of sooah, which took away the ‘maknae’ label from her, she didn’t have as many fans. in fact, i consider her a very overlooked member because she still had chubby cheeks from still growing and the outfits that equinox had were really weird? it did not highlight her in a good light at all, and thus she was just… there.

things took a turn after red flavor, i’d say. many fans call it “her era” in how her voice was refreshing for the song. plus, she had her hair dyed bright red, so she stuck out a bit. this really brought her into the frame and the beginnings of her career start in 2018. 

this sudden bolster of fame brought a few brand deals her way — mostly, she did a soju cf. which was right in line with the ‘summer refreshing’ clinks, etc.

of course, right afterwards was the fall comeback of 2018 with peekaboo. this was probably her most ‘iconic’ moment, where she wore a rainbow dress on one of the stages / music videos. she went from the overlooked member in the background to ‘sex appeal’ for the darker concepts of equinox. that was when gold star went chaching, we know what avenue to toss her in.

because she did cutie with red flavor and more mature / sexy with peekaboo. this brought in burberry, and now she was promoting two big names. 

because she got a bit of public appeal, and her general image was good? gold star finally let her put her hands in a b-side of equinox's single. this is where her avenue in music really starts — she partially writes / composes kingdom come, which is very on brand with her actual persona.

but still, gold star wasn’t putting out artist minjung any time soon. they wanted to milk her worth for the cfs / brand ambassadorships. as a result, she was pulled from burberry then into chanel. the modeling really helps out her image as fans start to call her ‘human luxury’. then from chanel, she goes into dior. she does a lot of fashion related things, just because that’s the only thing gold star lets her do.

however, she gets a few image dents when she uploads some weird art (i’d say, nude sketches etc. something u wouldn’t expect of a girl group member.)

but afterwards the continuation of modeling slowly buries that criticism and now she has a generally positive public image (this is all over the place i know, but i hope i’m making sense).

they let her do solo work, and it flops at debut. doing exponentially better when gold star picks and chooses her songs, ballad to dance. so, they continue at that — figuring what works is what they decide

however, they did manage to like the deeper vibes to her solo debut? so they think taking one of her songs and putting the gold star touch on it would work, so that’s how psycho comes about. it does extremely well, and they think minjung isn’t so hopeless on the lyrics / composition scale.

as a result, they set her for a quick album release pre-approving songs. hence loveforclosure. the album drops does a+, and for now — they trust minjung in the process albeit a bit wearily. that’s why there’s a possibility of her working on equinox’s songs in the future, but also another reason why she might hide out and do things herself.

[bisexualhobi]

(Im not a company stan big hit can suck my ass)

1. Txt is not an aspect of bts? They are another group with a completely different identity. They are talented enough to match bts thats why armys love them and stan them. You are insulting them (and other groups) by saying that they are just another money making machine for bighit as a replacement for bangtan??

2. Idols hate bts lol everyone knows they do. They are from the biggest most prestigious companys yet they are huge flops compared to bts and that alone is enough for them to hate bts.. ik u are not asian but its a huge thing in asia, like if u work in a rich/huge company or are from a rich family u are so much superior to everyone else and then if someone without a strong background becomes more successful than them, the rich ones automatically hate them (if this sounds like the plot of a kdrama its because. Well. Kdramas are asian dramas and are based on real life)

3. Liking bts doesnt make one superior but liking continuously problematic groups does make one inferior and this is the main reason of twt fanwars because 90% of twt armys come from non western cultures and are deeply affected on so many levels by all the shit these groups and companys pull out every single month 👁👄👁 (dont say its just companys fault lol you know that nct member said lets not talk about this topic and its not just one example) ps: dont pull out the bts rapline were also problematic card bc they apologised for it and havent done it again

ok i’m gonna address point by point what you mentioned here. btw i’m assuming you’re different from the last anon i answered regarding “bts isn’t kpop” but if you are the same anon sorry for repeating stuff

1. i didn’t say txt is an “aspect” of bts. i mentioned them because what they are is the second bg big hit has created from scratch and the immediate successors of bts, a company that, until txt, had NOTHING but bts going for them. and even though txt is already becoming successful, the fact is that, just eyeballing it, bts brings in about 90 to 95% of big hit’s total revenue. big hit has a challenge regarding what they will do to cement themselves as a company beyond bts, and txt is the first step in that direction. when i say cash cow i mean a secondary source of income. my intention was not to disrespect txt at all, which i made clear in that textpost!! i don’t even stan txt and i’ve kept saying that they were far better than bts on the end of the year performances!!! i said, and i quote “txt ate them up because txt is a new group (that has a lot of passion and are hardworking ofc, this isn’t attacking them personally)” 

just a little caveat though, an idol group is always a money making machine for a company... like. it’s important to me that you know that. like, i hope you know that big hit isn’t looking to make groups saying “oh boy, i hope they flop! i hope they’re happy doing what they like and i will never care about the utilities :)” idol companies are literally some of the most money hungry industries because they often operate at a loss. don’t for a second think that bts and txt and any group is more than an asset for the company, whose sole purpose is to make money.

2. idols hate bts?? listen, in the entertainment industry there’s always gonna be drama and backstabbing, so i’m sure there’s animosity between many groups, i’m not naive enough to say that no one hates bts, the same way i’m sure there are plenty of idols who hate exo, who hate red velvet, who hate x or y. but the way you say this is such a delusional, paranoid way to put it. afaik, the last celeb/musician to trash talk bts publicly was befree or whatever tf his name was, that asshole rapper who mocked namjoon and yoongi and called them sellouts for joining an idol group. and that guy is a fucking failure! i think he even went to jail, didn’t he? so please, tell me who these other idols hating bts are, and where are the receipts so i can blacklist them. 

“huge flops” lmao good way to put all the other groups’ efforts down. stop thinking bts’ accomplishments are your own. they’re not. you have no idea the amount of effort each idol group, small or big, puts in just to be able to debut, so stop disrespecting THEM by calling them all flops. i know i’m not korean, i’m not asian, but i have korean friends and according to them all these groups who are supposedly “flops” are doing well in korea. just because they don’t have international success doesn’t mean they’re not commercially acclaimed in their own country. not everyone is out to get bts, i promise you. do you know who’s out to get bts? their akgaes. their sasaengs, and their antis, all those people online who send jimin death threats, who break into their property, who take pictures of their families. THOSE people hate bts and do more harm to them than an idol who says they didn’t like their new album or who said they don’t dance well. like please let go of the victim complex for one minute.

3. one part of stan culture i fucking despise with my whole being is fanwars using cultural appropriation and racism as “gotcha” cards. this is a clear example of this. first you say it’s inferior to like groups who have participated in ca. alright. i will give you that. the you turn and say bts hasn’t done that and that groups such an nct who have done it recently are to blame personally, it’s not just the company’s mismanagement. okay! so by your logic, being a bts stan is superior because even though they HAVE done problematic things, they apologized. it’s really transparent how you pick and choose what is an acceptable apology and what isn’t based on your personal feelings about the group in question.

i just need to know if you are black or if you are muslim or from a minority that has been hurt by cultural appropriation, if you are then you will know that when an idol group apologizes for doing such things, it is no one’s place but their own to decide whether to accept that apology or not. i am not black, or asian, i am a latin woman who can’t tell you whether it’s okay for bts to do the things they have done. you are contradicting yourself by saying other groups who’ve done cultural appropriation are worse, and then turn around and say to me “dont pull out the bts rapline were also problematic card bc they apologised for it and havent done it again” because guess what? not everyone has forgiven bts either! they have said the n word! they have done native american culture appropriation as recently as december 2020 and neither them nor big hit apologized for that! yoongi releasing the mixtape with that jim jones sample in it was NEVER addressed by him. it was a company statement. so who are you to say that the people still hurt by yoongi’s actions, whether intentional or not, can’t talk about it and be mad at them? IT DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY. 

i am not here to pass moral judgement, that’s why i don’t bring up ca in arguments. it is not my place to say whether what nct did with the muslim aesthetic should be forgiven, the same way it’s not my place to tell people who like nct that they are “worse” for liking them. people who reduce their stanning to how many “woke points” you get based on the artists you like clearly don’t care about activism in real life, they just care about it online for fanwars. to feel better about themselves for liking “unproblematic kings” and well i have news for you, NO CELEBRITY IS UNPROBLEMATIC. bts has learned from their mistakes, but they will continue to make mistakes every once in a while, case in point, the jim jones thing and the native american teepees appropriation. 

[thisiswherewestart]

I Remember (1/?)

Today had started out like any other Tuesday. I had woken up, logged in to work remotely for a few hours and then moved to a café for a change of scenery and to grab some lunch.

I usually frequented cafés close by my apartment, but my friend had highly recommended this quaint, newly opened one with an extensive pasta menu that was a half-hour train ride away. Anyone who knows me knows I'm a sucker for good pasta, and her rave review of their squid ink spaghetti had haunted me for the past week.

And so there I was on a Tuesday afternoon, after checking that they welcomed lingering customers. My laptop sat open across from me so I could monitor my inbox and I surveyed the simple decorations that created a homely ambiance. The fact that I was the only customer helped complete the serene scene. If this café were within walking distance, I would come again just for the atmosphere.

Ten minutes after giving my order to the waiter, my food finally arrived. The dark sauce coated the noodles beautifully, the seafood peeking out between the long strands making my mouth salivate in anticipation. As I picked up my fork, a tinkle of a bell sounded from the café entrance.

"Hello," a soft but confident voice greeted the approaching waiter. "One salmon aglio olio to go please. Thanks."

My fork stopped halfway to my mouth. My back was to the entrance but I would recognise that voice even in a noisy room.

"Tasha?"

And that confirmed it. It was him.

"Dongyoung," I greeted, standing and turning around to face the man. "It's been a while."

"When did you come back to Korea?" His tone was accusing now.

"How are you? How's Taeyong? How are the kids?" I shot out question after question, hoping he would forget the one he had asked.

"We're all fine. When did you come back?"

So much for that.

"Oppa…"

"Don't you 'oppa' me. We're basically the same age."

I sighed, dropping onto my seat and turning away from him. "I've been back for a year now."

He took the seat opposite me. Uninvited, but not unexpected.

"One year." The hurt in his voice made me wince. "A whole year and you didn't bother to call."

"Dongyoung, please."

His laugh was void of mirth. "So we're back to this, huh? The last time I saw you, you exclusively called me Doie."

I looked up at him.

"I guess that's what four years of silence does between friends."

*~*

"Five, six, seven, eight…"

The 7th Sense NCT U unit was made up of my favourite fellow trainees. 

Mark, who was the same age as my little brother whom I dearly missed. His naive sense of humour and bright eyed wonder had me growing fond of him in no time at all. Our shared love of story writing also brought us closer, as we encouraged each other to keep up with writing even as we were busy with idol training. He was my happy pill during our years as trainees together.

Ten, my fellow international school kid. We were different in that he came from money while I was the daughter of a diplomat. PSA: not all diplomats are wealthy! They are still government officers and don't earn nearly as much as you think they do. One of the perks was getting subsidised education, which made it possible for my siblings and I to attend international schools in non-English speaking countries we lived in. Ten and I hadn't known each other prior to becoming trainees, but he and I found that we just clicked. We even found several mutual friends in our international school networks.

Jaehyun and I took a little longer to warm up to each other. I was a fairly quiet person, only talkative around people I was comfortable with, so I was never one to initiate conversation. Jaehyun never approached me to start talking either, so a few months after we first met, our relationship had not progressed beyond a polite greeting when we bumped into each other. It took Taeyong to help us break the ice, but once we got to talking we found that our interests overlapped and they were the foundation to our pretty solid friendship.

Taeyong is the one trainee to whom I’m most grateful. I entered the company shortly after he did, and he seemed to decide to take me under his wing upon our first meeting. It didn’t matter that our training schedules didn’t overlap; he would always check in on me and help me when I struggled with getting dance moves memorised. In time, as Taeyong started writing and producing more songs, he would include me in his process and get me to record demos with him and Dongyoung.

Dongyoung was an enigma to me. I knew he had a kind heart because he would do things like invite foreign trainees home during holidays so they would have somewhere to go. I could see the warmth in his interactions with other trainees but he was only ever cordial to me, so I always thought he did not like me very much. It was, once again, thanks to Taeyong that we got closer. Dongyoung and I were both vocalists, but I dabbled in some rapping and Taeyong seemed to enjoy writing songs that featured the three of us. Studio sessions with the two of them became some of my favourite memories of my time as a trainee.

I was looking through the lyrics of the latest song Taeyong had written when the group finished their practice run and paused for a water break.

“Tash,” Taeyong greeted as he flopped down next to me, leaning his back on the cool mirror.

“You guys are looking really good,” I praised, handing him a water bottle. “The modifications you guys made last week improved the overall performance a lot.”

“Right? I’m so glad the choreographer let us do that.”

Dongyoung approached us, sitting on my other side. I passed him the last of my stock of water bottles. “Hey.”

“I’m beat,” he sighed. “But we look good right?”

“Yeah I was just saying that.”

The three of us sat in amicable silence for a few moments, the two of them gulping down the cool water as I finished perusing Taeyong’s lyrics. I shut my eyes as my thoughts turned to my own debut, or lack thereof, and my family’s increasing worries. 

“Hey, you okay?” I opened my eyes to find Dongyoung peering at me in concern.

I gave him a half smile. “I guess.”

“You’ll debut soon,” Taeyong assured me, guessing the subject of my thoughts correctly. I appreciated his vote of confidence, but we all knew that was a lie, at least if I stayed at SM. Having debuted Red Velvet two years ago, it was highly improbable that they would debut another girl group so soon. And besides, they were all tied up in NCT’s official debut, with two U units, 127 and Dream all training hard to perfect their debut performances.

“We should probably get back to training,” Taeyong said apologetically. His eyes were kind as he briefly grasped my shoulder with a comforting hand before standing up. “Tell me what you think of that song later,” he nodded at the printed lyrics in my hand. “I want your verse by the end of the week!”

Dongyoung sat studying my expression for a bit longer.

“I’m fine, Doie. Really.” I pushed his shoulder gently. “Go. They’re waiting for you.”

“We’ll go out to eat after this, okay?” he offered, standing. “We can get pasta. My treat.”

“Man after my own heart,” I proclaimed, clutching my chest in jest.

He grinned as he walked to his starting position. 

I watched as Taeyong counted the boys into yet another rehearsal. Meeting Dongyoung's eyes in the practice room mirror, I could see the nerves he increasingly felt but rarely showed for their debut performance, only seven days from now. I smiled as brightly as I could, hoping he couldn't tell my heart was breaking knowing I would be leaving in five.

*~*

The Doyoung that sat before me today was a fully fledged kpop star, hair perfectly coiffed and clothes fitting his comfortable but stylish lookbook. He had truly grown into his looks, and seeing him was making my heart ache. With pride? With longing? I didn't even know myself. I had just started developing maybe-more-than-friends feelings towards him when I had found myself back with my family.

"You look good. Healthy."

"Where have you been for the last four years, Natasha?"

His use of my entire first name hurt more than I expected. Was this how he felt when I called him Dongyoung?

"I went back home."

"As in back to your home country?" he asked, incredulous.

"Yes."

"Why? And don't tell me it's because you didn't debut with Red Velvet."

"You're kidding, right?" It was my turn to laugh humourlessly. "Has SM debuted another girl group since then?"

"Well no, but-"

"Don't say they might have added me to the group like they did Yeri. When I left, it had been one year since that happened and two years since they debuted!"

"But why did you have to leave?" Doyoung's voice was rising. "You could have moved to another company. You know you had the skills to debut."

"I just… had to, okay?" 

I guess he heard the pleading in my voice because he switched to another line of questioning after studying me for a minute.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” His voice was quiet. “Taeyong and me, especially,” he sighed. “We missed you. We still miss you.”

“I’m sorry. I know it was shitty of me but I just didn’t want to make a big deal out of me leaving.” I did not want to give you guys the chance to persuade me to stay.

There was a pause. “Did you miss us?”

Tears I thought had dried up years ago threatened to fall. “You have no idea how much,” I whispered, willing myself not to cry.

“Oh I think I do-”

“At least you guys had each other,” I blurted. 

“Excuse me?” Doyoung narrowed his eyes at me. “We were not the ones who stopped talking to you! I called until your number went out of service! And then we looked for you online but there was absolutely nothing. Why did you fall off the grid completely?”

I opened my mouth to respond but was interrupted by the waiter bringing Doyoung his food. Doyoung thanked him and handed him a card. “I’ll take care of her bill as well.”

“Don’t,” I protested. We were in the middle of an argument and he still wanted to take care of me. “Just charge him for his food, please,” I asked the waiter.

“I’ll pay for her,” Doyoung insisted. “Thank you.”

The waiter left, an awkward smile on his face as he retreated.

“I have to go now, so we’ll put a pin in this conversation.” Doyoung stared hard at me until I nodded my assent. "Does anyone know you're back?"

I shook my head. "I work in software now. I don't run in the same circles anymore."

"You know we have these things called phones, right?" He gestured at his Samsung with exaggerated motions. "They're amazing. You can connect with anyone, anywhere. Even if they're in a different country." He looked at me pointedly.

"I'm sorry, okay? I know I could have, should have, kept in touch but I just… I couldn't."

"Why?"

A million reasons. "I don't want to get into it right now."

"Fine. But you know I'll keep asking until I get answers."

I smiled, thinking about his habit of persistently badgering us until he got what he wanted. "I know."

"In fact," he grabbed my phone, which had been lying next to my rapidly cooling plate of pasta. "I'm going to call myself so I have your number."

Before I could protest, he had held my phone up to unlock it with my face and was dialling.

"Wait, I-"

He clicked the dial button and automatically put the phone up to his ear, before slowly lowering it again, staring at the screen in disbelief.

"So you kept my number. This whole time. And you still never called."

I didn’t know what to say to that. All I could do was apologise again. “I-”

“Just save it, Tash.” He put my phone back on the table. “I’m going now. Pick up when I call, okay?”

“I don’t like talking on the phone. Can you text me instead?” I joked, trying to keep my tone light.

“Do not test me,” Doyoung glowered. “Answer when I call.”

“Okay,” I murmured, but he was already walking to the counter to pick up his card.

He left without looking back.

[h3llostrang3r]

An Heir is Born (TRH)

Liam x Sophie Word count: 2,104 Warning: Sophie likes to cuss. Summary: Sophie and Liam welcome their first child.  Notes: (pt. 1 of 2) Obviously, this throws canon right out the window. I thought it would be at least another year before I would have to think about my Liam and Sophie actually having their baby, but here we are.(I’m not ready!!) A couple of these ideas are not my own. I gave them a fun twist and added them as Easter eggs.

The time was ticking down as Cordonia waited for the future heir to make their debut. Sophie had finally reached the 9 month mark and now it was up to the baby to decide when they were ready. The nursery was complete, the King and Queen’s overnight bags were packed, and Sophie was more than ready to evict her tiny tenant from her uterus. 

“Sophie, please reconsider, my love. You are due any day now and it will be faster to get you to the hospital if you stay here at the estate.” 

Liam held his wife’s hands and brought them up to his lips, hoping this sign of good gesture would get her to change her mind. 

“Liam, I love you, but I am going crazy being cooped up here. If I don’t get out, I am going to call Olivia and she will escort me out … with a knife pointed at anyone who tries to stop me.” 

His face fell, “Will you at least let me come with you?” 

“Oh my dear husband, don't worry! We’re just going shopping. And Rashad has been waiting months for an audience with you, don’t break the poor man’s heart - he works hard enough. I promise to keep my phone nearby, okay?”

He finally nods in agreement and she gives him a playful kiss, her large baby bump slightly in the way. 

“Now a kiss for the baby…” 

Liam bends down, brings his face to her belly and whispers, “I will get you a panda if promise that you will not try to come out while you and your mother are out. One kick for a `yes’.” 

He waits for a response… nothing. 

“Hmm, they must be sleeping. Or they didn’t like whatever you were whispering about down there.” 

They both turn their attention as Hana and Maxwell arrive in the foyer, eager for their shopping trip with Sophie. 

“Looks like we’re off. Kiss for the road, please.” Liam lets out a sigh as he stands, and obeys his queen’s wish. 

****

They were finished with their last stop, the group waited for Sophie’s head guard, Xander, to pull up with the S.U.V. She pulled out her phone and facetimed her husband. 

“Hello, my love, how was your shopping trip?” 

“Hello, handsome. It was fun, we’re just waiting for the car and heading back to Thornwood.” 

Liam notices Maxwell in the background carrying an unusually large stuffed animal...was that a squid? 

“Sophie, what was Maxwell carrying?” 

She looks back at Maxwell and laughs, “A gift... for the baby… Hey, I’m starving. Would you mind asking the staff to start prepping -” Sophie suddenly looks down and her smile fades.

“Oh shit…”

“My love, is everything okay?”

“I just pissed myself.” 

“Soph?”

 Liam can hear Hana gasping in the background. After a few moments Sophie looks back up at the camera, the look of fear spreading across her face. 

“Liam…” 

“Love? Are you okay?”

“My-my water just broke.” Panic settles in her voice and she looks to Hana, who comes to her aide. Liam sees Maxwell frantically running with the giant squid, it’s head flopping around and tentacles flying every which way. He runs to the car to alert Xander about what just happened.

“My love, have Xander take you to the hospital. I’ll have Drake and a team escort me there. Deep breaths, don’t panic, okay?”

Sophie unable to speak, just nods her head. The camera moves around as they enter the car. All he can see is the ceiling of the S.U.V., followed by large purple tentacles, and then large plastic bulbous eyes. He can hear Maxwell and Sophie exchanging screams of panic, and Hana trying to calm them down. Unexpectedly, Hana’s face appears on the screen.

“Hi Liam. We’ll make sure Sophie gets to the hospital safely, we’ll see you soon!” 

The video call abruptly ends and Liam scrambles out of his seat to find Drake, the heir was on their way. 

“Oh god, oh god.” Maxwell brings his face uncomfortably close to Sophie’s belly, “stay in there baby, we’re not ready for you yet!” Suddenly he begins to take quick breaths in and out. He whispers to himself, “remember the Lamaze training,” and continues with his breathing techniques.

“Maxwell, you’re supposed to be coaching the mother-to-be not yourself.” Hana runs her hand over Sophie’s forehead, “hang in there Sophie, we’re almost there.” 

****

They manage to get Sophie checked in and settled into a private room. Maxwell paces back and forth, while Hana continues to try to comfort Sophie.

“Hana, the doctor says it’s still going to be a while. Would you mind maybe taking Maxwell for a distraction or something?” 

Hana nods and leads Maxwell out by the hand, telling him they should find a bakery to bring back cronuts for Sophie to eat later. 

Sophie sits in silence, trying to breathe through the pain. Deep breaths, Sophie, deep - fuck this hurts. Deep br- seriously, why does this hurt so much? 

Her thoughts are interrupted by the click of the door. Liam enters the room, her heart skips a beat every time he enters any room; she was a sucker for his regal stride and handsome face. He looked mixed with emotions, it was somewhere between pure joy and ‘dear god, this is really happening.’

“Are you alright, my love? How are you feeling? Can I get you anything? Tell me how I can help.” 

Sophie offers a sweet smile, and tugs him by his lapel, bringing him down for a kiss. She loved seeing Liam out of his element. He had the royalty card down, but these moments of vulnerability and normalcy is what she loved most. “I’m super hungry… Can you bring me something to eat? Maybe some Doritos? I would be so grateful for some chippies.” 

Liam brushes her hair back from her face, even amongst all the chaos she radiated with beauty. “I think the nurses said that your food intake should be limited now, but I believe they said Jell-O and popsicles are okay? I’ll go check.” 

Liam makes his way out of the room, his steps light with a slight bounce to them. Sophie’s stomach growls and she can no longer tell the difference between the contractions and hunger pains. She didn’t think applesauce and popsicles were going to cut it- she wanted some actual food. 

“Doritos!!” Her cries could be heard from behind closed doors to the nurses station, “my duchy, for some Doritos!!” 

No one answers her pleas, so she takes out her phone and sends out a text:

S.O.S. Am dying. Send help. 

… You’re not dying, Thorn. What do you need? 

Guardian of the Realm, you have answered the call of your Queen! She requires sustenance. She requires… Doritos. Cool Ranch. Please.

Why don’t you ask Liam ?

This is a secret mission, Drake. Only you and your Queen may ever know of this task. Now hurry! There is no time to waste!

He’s going to kill me.

No he’s not. Besides, you’ll have full protection from the Queen. 

Liam arrives back to the room with the food Sophie is allowed to have. She tries a small bite of the jello and lime popsicle. Both of these options sucked. How could a pregnant woman be reduced to eating jello and a popsicle when all she craved was a Dorito? 

“My love, this isn’t working. Can you see if they have applesauce and a cherry popsicle, please?” 

“As you wish, my Queen.” Liam chuckles as a places a gentle kiss to her lips and heads out once more.

Where r u???????

Moments after she sends her text, Drake arrives with a snack size bag of chips. 

“You may be the queen, but you’re a Thorn in my ass. You know that, right?” 

“Mmhhmm. Now gimme!!” He hands her the bag and she hastily opens it up. There it was in all its yellow-5 glory, she munched on the chip - eyes fluttering closed with delight and a low moan.

“Should I leave you two alone, Thorn?” 

She grabs another chip and shakes her head ‘no’. 

“You are my hero, Drake. Want one?” 

He chuckles as he shakes his head, “nah, I’m good. Feeling better now?” 

“You have no idea. I owe you big time. Oh, I know, I’ll build you a cabin. You want a cabin? I'll build one right behind the duchy, hidden in the woods.”

Drake gives her a wide smile and laughs, Sophie and him always connected on that level; life wasn’t always about fancy and expensive things. Sometimes all you needed was a bag of chips... or whiskey.

The door opens once more and she quickly shoves the bag to Drake, then licks the delicious remains from the Doritos off the tips of her fingers. Liam has returned with her requests. “Hello Drake, is everything alright? I thought you wanted to just stay in the waiting room?” 

Drake does his best to hide the chips from Liam’s view. “Oh ya, well-uh… I needed a break from Maxwell, so I thought I would go for a walk and I ended up here.” 

“Ah-I see. Well, here, have a seat and join us.”

“No-no that’s okay. I think I’ll take this walk outside for a bit. Hospitals creep me out. Good luck, Thorn.” 

He gives a shy wave as he leaves the room. “Thank you for keeping me company, Drake.” He gives Sophie a smirk just before he exits. Liam pulls a seat next to Sophie’s bed, displaying the food on her tray. 

“Alright, as requested - applesauce, and a cherry popsicle.” Liam looks to Sophie, noticing that she’s trying hard to hide her disappointment. “And I also brought you this…” 

From behind his back he offers her a bag of cool ranch Doritos. “I figured a chip or two couldn’t hurt.” 

Her face lights up and she wraps a hug around her husband's neck. Peppering kisses across his face. “You spoil me, you really do.” She claps her hands with joy then enjoys her allotted amount of chips. 

“It’s because I love you so much, my Queen.”

****

“I thought you said you loved me…” Sophie wailed as sweat ran down her forehead. The contractions were hard and she was fully dilated. Her legs were perched up and her grip on Liam was incredibly strong. 

“I do, my queen, keep breathing.” 

“You did this. You seduced me with your charm and ridiculously sexy body. Then you stuck this baby in me and now they won’t. Come. Out!!!” 

The doctor instructed her to stop pushing for a few moments and she rested her head back on the pillow. She shot a glare to the doctor, “For the love of Cordonia and it’s apples, get this baby out of me.” 

“Sophie, deep breaths, my love, please.” Liam tried his best to stroke her hair, and give her kisses of encouragement. “You’ve already proved that you’re capable of so much, you can do this.” 

They notice the doctor whispering to the nurse before she puts her attention back on them. “Your majesty, it appears the heir has decided to come out backwards. We’re moving you to the O.R. for an emergency c-section.” 

Her gaze shifts back and forth from the doctor to Liam. “What? No. NO.” Sophie releases Liam from her grip and places her hands on her belly. “We went over this, tiny human, face-down, ass-up. FACE-DOWN, ASS-UP.” 

****

Sophie is prepped and Liam is by her side, the room is quiet other than the beeping monitors, and the doctors and nurses talking. Liam distracts her with his favorite memories of them. From their magical night in New York during his bachelor party to the moment they realized they were going to have a baby. So many memories already made and many more to come. It was more than he could ever hope for; someone to truly love and care for, and now a child- their child.

“Liam, I’m sorry for yelling at you. I didn’t mean it, it’s just …trying to push a baby out of a vagina is hard.”

He gave her a comforting smile, and gently squeezed her hand. “I know, my love. You’re doing so much work for our child, you are so wonderful.” 

He leans to give her a kiss. She focuses her attention from the pressure down below to his soft lips. His stubble slightly tickling her face, but she enjoys every second. He pulls away and stares into her eyes, his eyes glisten. She is beautiful, loving, she is his wife, and the mother of his child. 

A baby’s cry fills the room, Sophie and Liam share another kiss, she feels a tear on her cheek that’s not her own. 

The Royal Heir is born.

[readingthelastpage]

Tay is still playing the game: it is too soon to do this yet

hate to be the bearer of bad news

warning: this is a looooong analysis of the Gaylor fandom, the Rep era and the new era.

so us Gaylors were kinda enamoured with the queer context of the beginning of the Rep era. she dropped a few tunes that had people who used to believe her man-crazy reputation googling Karlie Kloss, wrote a nice little declaration about how everyone looking for specific men in her new songs is wrong, changed from outfits designed for the male gaze into something more comfortable and had a British unknown with a wonky relationship timeline as the public muse of the album. All is well, we thought - she is literally burning her Reputation, she will let people come to their own conclusions, she will take the money, they will both ditch the boyfriends and come out.

And hey, maybe that was the planned narrative in the beginning. But both boyfriends are still here, and one has been updated into a husband (with two separate highly publicised wedding parties). Now the new narrative is that Taylor will let people figure out things more and more - which is inextricably linked to Karlie, whose boyfriend wanted the “het card” so bad that he has to marry Karlie twice before she is released. They all want to erase Kaylor so deeply that they have to spend years in these new golden cages, but at the same time, Karlie will not even block instagram comments that call out her marriage as fake and Taylor will not stop people from writing articles about her that keep referencing Karlie. Maybe their strategy really is to lay low in public for years while building full separate lives but still be linked even in places that they have full control over, but then I don’t think it really is a good strategy. I think the more likely thing is that we overestimated the honesty of the Rep era and the extent to which is was another performance.

Of course people acknowledge it was a performance. Everyone in this fandom acknowledges that it’s good business sense to stay in the closet and maximize your fanbase before you cut the cord. But then, I argue, Reputation was playing the game on hard mode, it was a bit of a flop (sorry!), she switched gears and started contemplating the next era very fast, and we are probably about to get another performance, another continuance of the game, with things being concealed from us just like they were in the previous era. Everyone always wants that candid, natural era from Taylor and we were so smug thinking we were the only ones getting it.

Let’s walk back a little. Taylor always, always responds to criticism. They doubted her songwriting credentials, so she wrote an album solo. They called her a sugary country princess so she lost the accent, wrote a few pop anthems for Red, just for kicks, and did highly glam performances of them with no guitar in sight. They called her conservative and unfeminist so for the next album she debuted a glam squad and her public narrative was about friendship, her against the world, her against the haters who don’t want her to write about her feelings. She wrote Blank Space as an indictment of her public image (and, as Gaylors have probably correctly read, the narrative she pulls transparently with all public boyfriends), and people freaking loved it, and part of the reason why she keeps referencing it even into the Lover era is because she has never been so loved and lauded. But make no mistake, I’ve been on Tumblr since 2010 and people wrote first posts about how they shouldn’t be called out for liking Taylor Swift long before Taylor Swift started writing about being called out for BEING Taylor Swift. She has always responded to what we want to hear. Yes, her art is for herself as well as for others but Taylor wants to be an iconic popstar. Art is just a part of being an iconic popstar.

Flash back to the Rep era. The media was bad, so they get nothing. People were mean and used things on her social media, boom, wiped. There is no explanation, just Reputation. The sound is dark and she’s an edgy princess and she admits her faults and candidly writes all about a broad-shouldered love that helps her hold on - but no juicy details and pap pics. Looks like an abject refusal to play the game. But if you look again, it just looks like a response to all the criticism. Taylor, stop calling all your friends and the paps every time you go out to get milk - fine, you get next to zero pics. Taylor, stop exploiting your dating life for fame and having pictures taken every time you fly a jet to a famous boyfriend to sit on his lap - fine, I’m dating an unknown, we only hold hands, and I have broken up with two boyfriends in the meantime but will only write one relationship narrative song for both of them. Taylor, don’t play the victim when we know you’re a powerful popstar who plays the feud game sometimes - Look At How You Made Me Do Something Bad. The old Taylor you hated is dead - the new Taylor is both edgy enough to kill her and conscious enough to write this line making fun of herself. And those are not the only lines where she’s sarcastic and high drama either.

She Did All Of That, created some iconic imagery, and pretty soon she was able to see that it wasn’t really landing the way 1989 did. She gambled everything on a carefully planned (but still abbreviated) tour, won the gamble, landed on her feet, pulled some other cool artistic and political moves, got bolder with the wlw messages... but she started conceptualizing the next era very early on, at least visually, and we keep getting visual proof of that. I think Taylor wanted to reframe who she was even back in 2018, as abbreviated as the era was it was a long time to keep playing the snake Taylor character. It was the last album she wouldn’t own full rights to. I also think that it was a long time to keep portraying a cohesive narrative that wasn’t really all that true anymore. I think Karlie and her broke up for good around the time of the release, and had some serious arguments probably around the time Taylor disappeared, but even if you don’t and think they are still together, one can argue that Rep didn’t have a lot of space for all the angst Taylor was feeling. People say there’s even too many songs about how she got cancelled - but they mostly focus on the media and the Kardashians, with some shoutouts to false friends, and all quickly erased by “I have a hot partner so F U”. There’s not a lot about the pain you feel when you get rejected like that, including by your own fans, not a lot about fears for her career, not a lot about other things we know she went through, like being stalked and her mom’s cancer. Rep conceals as much as it reveals, and she probably wanted to write about these emotions as soon as she processed them a little better - hence the “really sad songs” we will hear on Lover.

One of the reasons why Rep just didn’t land is because “pop is dead” and people look elsewhere but the big pure pop girls for popular music. Every big pop girls latest era is either years away in the past or her most recent phase is an experimental or edgy one. The new sounds flirt with rap and trap, productions are minimal. Taylor’s Rep phase is also a part of that. The big girls try to play the game, but no one wants to hear Katy or Taylor doing Lorde, people want to hear new artists. Even Ariana, an old school maximalist who only barely adapted to this new era by being close to r’n’b from the start, is wearing a cute minimal uniform, writing in low caps and putting out trap-inspired songs. But the pop press has been talking about being bored of it for a long time. I think Taylor is seeing this opportunity for the tide to turn, has seen it since 2018, wants to be ahead of the curve and will put out a colorful maxi pop album about unabashed positivity, being who you are and celebrating others being who they are (ME!, as a first single of this era, blatantly points in this direction, just like every other Taylor first single pointed at the rest of the era), fighting for what’s right, processing your unhealthy feelings.

But will she come out? I don’t know, because this is still playing the game - it’s just that the game and the cultural moment aligns with what Taylor wants to write right now. Listen, I’m an older millenial just like Taylor and I am tired of edgy characters, dark spaces and the color gray. Maybe she is too. Maybe this time we’re getting full radical honesty from her. But it is likely that it’s not, and that it’s too soon to unleash everything that Taylor is into the world. Get ready for that possibility as well. Maybe the rainbow messaging will only remain as what it is right now - activism for others, and a little wink.

[dreammutual-remade]

idol!you and lucas

request: please do a bullet scenario about lucas and his gf both being sm idols - anon

word count: 2.6k 

a/n: first of all,,,, this gif hurts me badly, seCOND OF ALL im so sorry for the inactivity !!  I have finals this week and I graduate really soon n ive just been v busy !!! also I had hella writers block trying to finish this ish up but I hope u like it anon !!!!its a lil hard for me to write as an idol just because thats such a Wildt lifestyle but I did my best ily

warnings: cursing n also some crying because god knows all of our boys prolly have during their idol days :(((((((

what’s up butter cup

let’s dive tf in

as a pre-warning thingy i’m making you a singer so i’m very sorry if you can’t sing i can’t either bby

alright so this story begins when you’re not even 16 years old and you audition for a bunch of companies

tbh you didn’t think you were /that/ good at singing or dancing but ???

all the companies wanted you??? you got offers from JYP and SM and Pledis ????? go off queen

we stan

anyways

you decide to go with SM since they produced leGENDS SHINEE

FUCK I LOVE THOSE GUYS

(binch if u went to JYP u literally could have been in TWICE ?!?/&.&. ABSOLUTE LEGENDS UR LOSS THOT)

also because you just think that’ll be best for you ?? idk we don’t judge here (i already did though i’m So Sorry)

on your first day as a trainee you’re in search of the female dorms and you just can’t find them

eventually you run into this,,,, Gang Of Adolescent Boys

they’re wearing dorky ass muscle tees and keep saying shit about “foreign swaggers”

(.... y’all already know who it is sjdkdkd)

and you’re Meek and New and Small so you’re like um, hellowherearethegirlsdormsplease

okay there’s four of them and they’re all fckin huge except for one

the Biggest One with the american accent points you in the right direction and you try to scurry away but end up smacking into the Second Biggest One’s arm because he moved in your way on accident ouchie

“god lucas why don’t you just run the poor girl over”

“hYUNG PLEASE”

“hehehhehe i’m just kiddin”

and you just kind of mumble that it’s fine and go on your way

okay so you train for three yEARS before your debut

and you def come out of your shell alright like you’re Extroverted and whatnot

you still see those boys and even make friends with mark and donghyuck and the Foreign Members

but the entirety of the group you met has debuted except Lucas

you’re not close but you wave and say hi when you see each other

you turn pink everytime from Emotions and also Holding Your Breathe Due To Anxiety

and he was cute years ago but he’s only gotten prettier with age dude

they recently dyed his hair to give him some Blonde Stuff and he looks reaLLY GOOD

LIKE TO THE POINT WHERE U HAVE TROUBLE LOOKING HIM IN THE EYE

but eventually you’re like hey now i’m a grown woman i can handle this giant childish man !!! quit that @ emotions

alright so you debut like, days before him no lie

you’re a solo artist bc idk

red velvet was full 😔🤟

anyways you’ve been filming the video for the past couple weeks and the concept is sort of filmy and shimmery like old sparkly anime water u kno ?

and you’re wearing similar stuff to what ten was wearing in the new heroes mv (BIG OOF) except less warm toned ?

like swishy sort of see through white shirts and spandex underneath

you’re a Beautiful and Skilled dancer so they have u all over the place with this choreo

on the FLOOR on the WALL in the AIR

no joke they had you in a harness doing cool swirly shit in the air this is the stuff of legends my g

but like the inside of SM ? is very cold

if you’re not filming you’re bundled up in a blanket and trying to rub the goosebumps out of your arms and legs

because you have to look all smooth and flawless for filming and those are two things goosies are not

luckily the song wasn’t a huge ballad because it’s rather hard to belt out long ass notes when you’re upside down lmao

anyways, the song is a bop and the mv is beautiful and you are wearing minimal clothing and although these are all nice things but also

RECIPE FOR DISASTER

the filming is almost done thank GOD

you’re taking a break from filming and you go out in the hall in your costume to go get another water bottle because ain’t nobody around to give a pre debut thot a water bottle 🤧🤧

your arms are wrapped around yourself when lucas jogs up behind you and throws his jacket around you??

literally throws it like you made an oof noise

“um ,? thank you that was aggressive”

“i knOw i’m sorry it’s just you are practically naked and it’s Cold in here and also walking behind you i noticed you were Very Exposed sO”

you turn bright red because that means everyone has seen your ass prolly and you duck your head and pull the jacket tighter around yourself

“oh! i’m sorry i mean you look uhh? really good ?? yeah you look good nOT that i was looking super hard or anything or that i uH saw aNything BUt if i did it would look good i’m sure nOT THAT I thInK about that ?$/&/“

and now you’re both blushing very hard but you feel a little better when you see he’s just as flustered as you

you brush your fingers on his forearm to get him to stop staring at the floor and tell him thanks and ask about when he’s debuting

he tells you the mv filming is done since they had to go Real Far Away to do it and get it done ahead of time and that the teasers will be out in three weeks and then the mv release and then its Show Time Baby

you’re excited for him and he’s excited and you debut really soon as well and he’s excited for you and !!!!!

there’s excitement all over the place

he’s smiling so big and his eyes are cute and crinkly and :(((((

you still got a crush on him /sigh/

one of the staff literally yells your name down the hall and you’re like aw shit that’s my cue lol

you leave him with with a lil squeeze of his bicep and you’re BOTH shook

him because ?? was that fLIRTING

you because ?? THAT WAS FLIRTING

also because his biceps are thicc i’m gonna cry

big baby stands there for like 3 mins just shook and with uwus oozing from his pores

you skrt very quickly to avoid the consequences of your actions and get back to filming

okay TIME SKIP

your mv was released and did GOOD AS FUCK

you didn’t hear it from me but lucas + nct boys were seen on vlive jamming the fuck out to your song

you’re backstage like 10 mins from going on and having an absolute panic attack

what if you trip ??? or your voice breaks !!:&::

what if all the reviews say you’re Trash live and that the mv was better since they edited

what if you FLOP AND HAVE NO FANS

NO ONE DOES THE FANCHANTS

FUCK FUXKFUCKFUXKCUDJ

so you do call the king of debuts

mark lee

and you’re like mARK FUCK IM GOING TO CRASH AND BURN PLEAS LLSSE DHELPD ME

he tells you to Calm The Fuck Down and assures you it’ll be fine but it’s not working and mark is but a young boy he don’t know how to deal with FEMALES

you hear some deep ass voice on the other side ask who’s on the phone and mark says your name and then the voice is closer and deMANDING to be given the phone

u already kno it’s our boy yukhei

he can hear you gasping through the phone and having a mental breakdown and immediately makes his voice all low and soft

wow i’m , affected writing this shit

“hey, y/n, listen to me, you’re okay, you’re fine. i promise it’ll be okay.”

“bUT WHAT IF I-“

“you won’t. you’ve worked too hard and practiced too much. i know you i saw you do it. do NOT let all of that go down the drain. you can do this. now get your cute ass out there and take NO SHIT”

“i know but i am, scared”

“don’t be! this is what you love isnt it?”

“i mean,,,, yeah”

“and you want to do this more than anything don’t you?”

“well , yeah”

“then for gods sake don’t be a wimp and do it”

“hey i miss the part of this conversation where you were being nice to me”

“that part’s over babe you need some TOUGH LOVE now please for me and for yourSELF get out there”

“okay.. thanks lucas”

“anything for you, angel”

yOU HANG UP SO QUICK

how dare he

you were all Comforted but then he went on with that angel bullshit

okay long story short you ended the industry dude

all solo artists BOW BEFORE YOU

VOCAL QUEEN

DANCE QUEEN

lucas: shaking because His Angel did so well and you were wearing white and actually looked like an angel

but you don’t see him for the next like twO MONTHS because he’s promoting boss and you’re promoting your single and neither of you are home ever

when you do get a second to yourself you try to send him an encouraging text but

you seldom get a second to yourself :(((

he does the same thing and they’re so sweet :(

“good morning i hope u slept well !!”

“princess don’t forget 2 hydrate”

“i saw ur mnet performance u looked beautiful <333”

this man is practically begging you to wife him up i mean

he’s cute

he’s BIG and WARM

very sweet to you :(

talented and lovely

absolute dweeb

supportive of you even from great distances

BEST BOY UWU

you try to be just as encouraging back because he deserves it UGH

“bub don’t forget to eat i know ur hungry rn”

“!!!!!! you came foR MY LUNGS WITH THAT CENTER DANCE AT THE END BOI”

“why are u sending me messages u need to rest bby :((“

when things calm down though you,, see each other

he doesn’t formally ask you out and you don’t say anything but, youre dating sort of kind of

as idols you’re both still so so busy and you JUST debuted so neither of you are really allowed to date anyways

you settle for little bits of cuddling and secret touches as you pass each other in the hall

you both stand outside of your respective dorms at night to facetime without waking your dorm mates

he desperately wants to go on dates and do Normal Couple things but there’s no time :(

the most affectionate you’ve ever been is when the girl group who shares a dorm with you was out promoting and you had him over and you took a nap together :((((

he Insisted upon being the big spoon and basically wrapped your whole body up with his limbs

pressed a few lil kisses to the back of your neck and your shoulder when he thought you were asleep

you weren’t though and you turned around to kiss him on the cheek and then tuck your face into his neck and pass tf out

he has to leave though because mark texts him and is like YO I KNO UR WITH Y/N AND HER ROOMMATES ARE ON THE WAY HOME

ABORT MISSION DUDE

and that’s pretty much it :(

months pass without much between you even though you’re trying your best

and even though you live in dorms you’re still so lonely especially when you’re traveling because you don’t have any group members

you don’t want to annoy or worry lucas though so you don’t complain

he notices though and late at night he’ll call you while you’re in bed and talk about his day and how he misses you and wishes you were there

and when you get all emo he says he’ll be waiting for you at the airport

(he really does he goes and hides in the bathroom and texts you so you can go in there and TACKLE HIM)

he still calls you angel all the time :((((

god that’s another weakness of mine ??? IM SUCH A WUSS

but it has specifically changed to “my angel”

uwu

your first kiss and first Real Confession happens on the Worst Day Of Your Life

you’re about to go on stage (you’ve released an album since your debut so this is new stuff) when you get a call from your mom ??

she’s crying and tells you your grandma is sick and in the hospital and it’s really bad

immediately you’re barely holding yourself together because that woman half raised you and was the reason you stayed in dance and worked so hard to become who you are today

there are tears streaming down your face already and the makeup team is fluttering around you trying to fix what you’re messing up and it’s bad

you still have to go on though so you go and perform with tears in your eyes and your manager yells at you after for not pulling it together

you go home in tears and then you’re not looking where you’re going and ran straight into a staff who yells at you some more for being some entitled idol brat

originally you weren’t gonna say anything to lucas but, the staff pushed you over the edge and you call him in tears and are incoherent and can barely tell him where you are before you hang up

our boy BURSTS into your room and sees you sitting on the floor with your face buried in your knees and 🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨🚨 !!

he gathers you in his arms and sits on the bed with you curled up on his lap

he holds you close and rubs a comforting hand up and down your back at the same time as he frantically tries to figure out what’s wrong

“y/n?? baby what’s wrong? angel, please you gotta tell me or i cant help”

“i jjJJUST Got a cALL and my grandMA IS SICK AND THEN I DI D BAD AND DISAPPOINTED EVERYONE AND My mManageR yeYELLED at me and theN I RAN iNtO a staffF meMbEr and he yELled at me too and I JSUT .$:&:&;& i’m sO SORRY u doNT need to deAL WIYH ME you have problems of YouR own and-“

“shhh listen to me i always care about you okay? angel, i want to help you no matter what you know that. also, if you weren’t so distraught i would go beat some SM ass you didn’t deserve to be yelled at :(((( how about we call your mom and check for updates with your grandma and i’ll stay here with you for the night?”

you nod and then reach for your phone while keeping as much physical contact with lucas as possible

he’s the only reason you haven’t reached the Depression Point Of No Return so

we stayin close

you put your mom on speaker and set your phone down before squishing yourself back into his chest and sniffling while the phone rings

your mom answers and you shakily ask for any updates and she tells you not much but your grandma has improved and they think that within a couple weeks she’ll be better

you cry some more and tell her you love them both and you’re so relieved and lucas kisses the crown of your head and is just There For Comforting

once you hang up and you’ve calmed down a little more you back up a little and turn to face him

“hey thank you so much, you didn’t have to come and help me so much but you’ve always been there to make me stop Freaking Out and laugh and i just, love you. yeah that’s what it is. I LOVE YOU I AM IN LOVE WITH YOU, WONG YUKHE-“

he cuts you off by snatching your face in his big warm hands and kissing you right on the lips

he then kisses your nose and your forehead and pulls you back into his lap to tuck you under his chin

“it’s all for you, angel ;)))) i love you more”

[1ove-jin]

Disclaimer: I know not all Armys are like this! I know there are also a lot of ArmyCTzens like myself. I know that there are problematic NCTzens who DO blame Armys. Both sides have those fans that need to be called out. This is not hate directed at any one fandom and I’m not a police, but we should discuss this in a civil manner. Warning is that this is a long ass rant:

So here’s the thing - the western market is opening up, right? We should all thank BTS as a major contributor for this, that’s the actual truth. I’m super proud of all of BTS’ accomplishments, but if we, as a fandom really are proud of this accomplishment then can we all please act like it and stop being self-proclaimed ‘security guards’ slamming opportunities for other artists in the face?

BTS are the biggest act right now, but that doesn’t mean they own the rights to a whole music market. We would be hurt if someone would have told BTS “you can’t go to Japan and promote because Tohoshinki were there first, they opened the way, they’re the top artist in Japan!” - we’d call that unfair. Please don’t be hypocrites and tell other artists they can’t expand into the western market

It’s not a pity party. It’s not a ‘who struggled more’ party. EVERYBODY struggled to get what they have now. Just because NCT is from a big company, doesn’t mean the members didn’t struggle and comparing someone’s struggles to another person’s is the shittiest thing to do honestly. For example

“I just failed a test I studied so hard for, what will my parents do?”

“aww that sucks, but at least you’re rich! I just failed a test, and I’m poor. I have it way worse you shouldn’t be complaining.”

Sounds absolutely terrible doesn’t it? I know BTS came from a small company, and they struggled so much. I was posting about BTS when they were happy they even got 100 people to show up at their fan-meets. When Jungkook was trying to promote a free concert. I’m not denying it, they struggled to get the the top and deserve everything they have.

But why doesn’t NCT deserve it? Why does anybody assume they got everything handed to them on a golden plate? Do some people think they jet skied to debut? Can anyone speak from experience and say that debuting under SM is easy?

Jisung of NCT joined to be an SM trainee when he was just about 10 years old. He promoted through the school year and literally said “I have no friends (because nobody relates to me). I have nobody.”

Ten left Thailand to make something of himself and he cried in front of his teachers who acknowledged his passion for dance. Because he hoped to repay the people who were responsible for his education in his homeland.

Huang Renjun, born in 2000, laughed and put on the “pure boy” image SM shoved down his throat, but deep down he was concerned about worrying his parents.

Wong Yukhei, born in 1999 (also not even 20), left his home country and when he smelled Thai food - immediately said he thinks of his mother. Can you imagine how much he misses his family?

Johnny Seo, Nakamoto Yuta, Qian Kun, Ten, Dong Sicheng, Wong Yukhei, Mark Lee, Huang Renjun, Zhong Chenle - all 9 foreign members who left behind either their families, friends, home countries, favorite foods, and languages so they could go to a basement to train without knowing if they’d debut or not.

Taeyong was accused of being a criminal - a scammer. Turned out to be not true. Suffered a lot of emotional hardships because of that pressure and to this day people still call him fake or hate him saying he trusts his face to employ him. He was told, directly, “you won’t do” when he first tried to dance in SM. He MADE HIMSELF one of the noticeable dancers in NCT by practice - there’s no way to cheat around that.

Moon Taeil passed a really cut-throat audition and had to choose between attending university or pursuing his dream as a singer. He made that hard choice. He gave himself that opportunity.

Na Jaemin suffered a back injury and halted promotions with Dream.

Mark Lee. Left his family when he was 12. Non-stop for two years has never not been busy. NCT U, NCT 127, NCT Dream, High school rapper, snowball project, SM station, SM Town, KCON - how many dances has he memorized? How many nights did he spend recording? He memorized lyrics in 4 different languages (Korean, English, Chinese, Japanese), how many hours of sleep did he give up because SM kept rolling him like a machine? And he never complains. He’s just turned 19.

If you want to talk about mental, physical, emotional suffering pre-debut, post-debut, till now, than NCT have suffered enough and don’t need no bullshit attitude like “but SM hands them everything!!!”

I don’t believe SM paid to have NCT planted / somehow ‘infiltrate’ the US market. From the beginning they were planned as a global group starting with 127 in Seoul. Literally half of their members are foreign members, and 2 are natural born citizens of a predominantly English speaking country. Johnny is from America, Mark is from Canada. What likely happened was that western media became aware of kpop thanks to BTS and wanted to explore / hype this thing as a whole ‘kpop wave’ - and they naturally found one of the biggest companies; SME, who gave them NCT because of the vision, plan, and potential; america bought it up and invited them over.

Yes, SM being a big company helped them stand out to the west, and NCT being in SM helps, but for each member to get into NCT and for NCT’s sound to be as good as it is- that’s their efforts. That’s there sleepless nights, their notebooks filled with lyrics, their 12 hour dance practices, their choreography, that’s their work.

All members of BTS and NCT struggled in their own ways. You can’t say one struggled more than another. All the emotions that ran through them, the worries, the stress, that’s all valid and important and everyone handles it differently.Therefore, NCT deserve everything they get. SM didn’t coddle them because they were foreigners or good looking or only 10 years old - they said ‘work your ass off’ and ‘wait’ or ‘get out’ - so once all that grueling trainee shit was done they said ‘okay we’ll support you with money’ - they earned that support.

ANYBODY wanting them to flop is immature as hell. Like are people really out there saying they hope NCT won’t be successful? So you want a 16 year old who has no friends, nobody to rely on but his hyungs to fail? You’d be happy to see his family flop, really?

You want a guy who was acknowledged for his traditional Chinese dance skills and left behind his rightful place in a highly selective university to flop? The guy who’s coped with the frustration of a ‘cute dumb’ image despite being an intellect trying to master another language, just trying to get his thoughts across to flop?

What about the guy who has ‘debuted’ but doesn’t even have a song yet, but still patiently smiles and genuinely supports others as if it were his own stage while waiting? Or the guy who cries if he even thinks about his parents because all he wants to be is a good and successful son? you want him to end his dreams?

The guy trying to love his dark skin in South Korea, who’s never nearly acknowledged enough about his great vocals and dance skills, only told he’s noisy, but still- STILL smiles at his fans and puts on that bubbly personality every.single.day. The one who debuted at 16, was sexualized by gross fans, and still got up to get behind the camera despite the mental trauma stuff like that could cause.

What kind of person are you to want them to fail? That’s the question. Because I recommend you start being the person to listen to some kings of wisdom- BTS: they’ve been telling us to cultivate love in our hearts. To end verbal, physical, emotional violence.

Don’t be that person. Be better than that. And if you’re that kind of Army, honestly? Shame on you. We HAVE to be better than that if we want to take pride in opening a market, we have to let people in. Nobody will dethrone BTS. But the stage at the top is big enough for everybody. Everybody who managed to climb there deserves a spot.

[geniuscloud]

NCT Dream Reaction - Crying In Front of Them

@selca-ships “Hey could you make a nct imagine of them reacting to you crying in front of them? Thanks! ❤️” *Later requested NCT Dream*

This is my first time ever making a reactions post, so sorry if it sucks!

I apologize for spelling mistakes, I ain’t got time to edit. Also if I edit my post the gifs go away so :-/

((ALSO IF I MESSED UP THE GIFS FOR THE MEMBERS I APOLOGIZE. MY GIFS AREN’T WORKING SO IT’S ALL BLANK, I’M CLICKING ON A RANDOM GIF RN.))

Mark

You had just gotten off of Skype with your parents, your boyfriend Mark was by your side. The one thing you had wanted was for him to meet your parents, and get their approval. More or less to show off what a wonderful guy you had met. You moved to Korea on a whim, without your parents, hoping to work for a large entertainment company after becoming obsessed with the way the entertainment industry worked in Korea; even if that meant just being a staff member. 

“Your parents are so nice” Mark smiled, tucking the laptop to the side before returning to face you. His eyes were instantly met with your glossy ones, tears starting to spill from it’s ducts. Without saying a word, his smile faded, and he planted a kiss on the top of your head before pulling you into his side with a big hug. This was the first time he’d ever seen you truly cry, and it was unfortunately a feeling he knew all too well. Being a foreigner, all alone, and not even having the safety of friends or family around. He knew how lonely you must be feeling without your family.

“It’s okay baby, i’m here when you need me. Cry all you need to, i’m not leaving…”

_________________

Renjun 

You were sitting on the floor of his dorm room, as he attempted to clean up a little. Sharing a room with a bunch of guys often meant it was messy, and usually you’d offer to help. Though after the 3rd time of you ending up cleaning up for him, and decided to just sit on his bed and read. It was probably your favourite book, but the ending always made you tear up a little because you got attached to the male lead character.

“Oh my gosh, this plate must have been here since our debut! It’s moldy and stinks. No wonder why we couldn’t find out where that smell was coming from…” Renjun exclaimed, holding a plate with what may have once been food,  from under one of the other members bed. He looked over to you, to see you in tears. The book face down on his bed.

“Is the smell REALLY that bad that you’re crying?”

“No you dork, my favourite character just died…” you sniffled, whipping your tears away.

“Aw, i’m sorry. Will a cuddle help?” he asked, walking towards you.

“Once you throw that nasty thing away, and sanitize your hands,” you giggled through a couple more tears.

“As you wish…”

___________

Jeno 

Movie nights with Jeno were one of your favourite things. The two of you cuddled up together with popcorn and a package of chocolate chips which were also sprinkled around the bowl. It was his turn to pick the movie, but he suggested you picked it together in celebration of your 6 months anniversary. You settled on a film called ‘The Boy in the Stripped Pyjamas’ which neither of you have watched. The reviews were really good, it seemed interesting with the theme being around the war. 

Little did you know, it was the most heartbreaking movie you’ve seen in a very long time. Most of the movie you were trying to hold back tears; but halfway through the movie, you tucked your face into his shirt and small sniffling started to escape your mouth. 

“Are you okay?” he asked, patting the top of your head.

“No…” you whispered, gripping his shirt a little; your face still buried in his chest.

“You’re so cute when you’re cuddled like this, but don’t be sad. It hurts my heart for you to cry like this.”

______________

Haechan

“Can I see your hair?” Haechan asked as you pulled the hoodie tighter to your head.

“No! I look awful! It’s so short and my mom did such a bad job!”

“There is no way it could be that bad, just take off the hood.”

“Please don’t make fun of me…” you whispered, removing the hood. Your hair which once touched the middle of your back, now sat just above your shoulders, “I look like Dora the Explorer.” 

“I thought you said it was bad?” Haechan wiped a tear from your eyes as you stared at the ground. 

“I hate my stupid brother! I can’t believe he got my hair sucked up in the blowdryer!” 

“It’s okay, I think this length looks cute on you. I like short hair anyways. If you want though… I’ll go with you to the hair salon so you can get it styled in a way you like. There is no need to cry angel.”

_____________

Jaemin

(Y’all he looks so good in this gif)

“I’m really glad no one recognized us yet” Jaemin exclaimed as you two walked around the theme park. “I’m so glad we could go on a date in public without being harassed. I really want to ride the ferris wheel with you. I know heights aren’t really fun, but I think it would be romantic for us to be together.”

“U-uh yeah…” you smiled nervously. You were terrified of heights, but since Jaemin seemed to want to go on, you tried to hide your fears. He pulled you into the line and held your hand tight. The wait felt like forever, as people were loaded into the cars one by one. Each group that got loaded in, meant you were closer to getting on and being lifted over 50 feet in the air. Only two more groups stood from you and the front. You gripped his hand tighter as tears started to escape from your tear ducts. 

“H-hey what’s wrong?” he asked looking at you with concern.

“I’m sorry, I just can’t do this. I’m too scared!” you cried.

“It’s okay, you should have just told me! We can go on something else if you’d like. Is the tea cups okay? We can go on that if you prefer?”

____________

Chenle

Ever since you moved to Korea a few years ago, your birthdays were often uneventful. Most of your friends still lived in your hometown, which meant “celebrating with friends” was just a 4 hour Skype conversation. Even though you had your first actual boyfriend, you expected that this year would be no exception. Chenle told you he had a schedule all day, and unfortunately would have to take you out another day. 

“Hey y/n! Happy Birthday!” your best friend cheered into the phone.

“Ah thank you! I wish I could see your face. I miss you so much!”

“I’m sorry, we’ll have to Skype later tonight. I’m out for a bit, but once I get home we can Skype.”

“This is good enough for now. I’m just so glad to hear a friendly voice. I never realized how lonely it can be when you have to celebrate your birthday alone,” you whined as you flopped onto your bed.

“Cheer up! You have Chenle now!” 

“Yeah I know, and I really wish he was here right now. He said he’s busy, so we’re going on a date another day to makeup for it.” That is when you heard a knock on your door. You rolled off your bed and went to answer the door, still not hanging up with your friend.

“He’s a good boyfriend though, from what you’ve told me.”

“I know, he’s fantastic… give me one second, someone is at the door” you sighed. You pulled open the door to see two familiar faces…

 “Happy Birthday y/n!” Chenle cheered, pushing your best friend in front of him. 

“OH MY GOD! YOU’RE HERE!? YOU’RE IN KOREA! DID CHENLE GET YOU HERE?!” You screamed, hugging your best friend. She nodded vigorously. You were crying so much as you clung onto your friend, holding them tighter than ever before. You had to pry yourself from your friend before attaching yourself to Chenle. Tears streamed down your face even harder as he tried to wipe some of them away with his thumb. 

“Thank you Chenle so much, this is the best present ever! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!”

“Anything for you… I know how lonely you were without your friends, so I thought i’d help bring one of them to you to make you happy.”

____________

Jisung

You were hunched over your desk with dozens of papers scattered everywhere, and your text book wide open. You had so many final exams coming up, and were up to your eyeballs in homework. On top of that, you had vocal and dance classes to attend, since you were still a trainee. Things were just starting to get too much, too quickly, and you didn’t know how to cope with the stress. 

“Hey y/n, are you ready for our anniversary date?” Jisung asked, sneaking up behind you.

“That was today?!” you gasped, turning your head to face him.

“Yeah, did you forget?”

“I’m so so so sorry! I’ve been so busy, and I need to study, and I just have so much to do! It just escaped my mind, because of all of my things are due so quickly and I just can’t handle it!”

“If tonight it’s good, we can just reschedule I guess…”

“Please don’t be disappointed! I’m so sorry, I just-I can’t handle this anymore! I’m so stressed out, and I don’t know what to do!” you cried. Jisung was shocked to see you cry, but saw how hurt you were, and gave you a big hug.

“Don’t cry sweetie, i’ll order some food for us while you study, and maybe I can help you out? Then when you’re done, I’ll give you all the hugs you need.”

_______________

(BONUS) Lucas 

He wants to be in NCT Dream, so why the hell not.

(He’s so hot, i’m gonna bust a nut. I love those glasses on him. He’s not even my bias)

It was his first stage debut with NCT U; performing BOSS live on TV. You knew how hard he had been working, and how long he had been waiting for this day. You couldn’t help but be so proud of him, as he prepared for the stage. You stood off to the side, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek and cheered for him, before he walked into the stage. 

Maybe it was the way he looked in his outfit, the way his voice growled when he rapped his lines, or just the overjoyed expression on his face. He was happy, and was doing something he prepared so long for. The overwhelming emotions started to pour out of you as did the tears. You were sobbing happy tears for him. Seeing your boyfriend finally getting to debut made you cry like you’ve never cried before.

When he got off the stage, he quickly ran to you and picked you up in a big swinging hug. When he set you back down and looked into your eyes, he saw them glossed over with tears.

“Baby, why are you crying?” he asked.

“I’m so proud of you! I love seeing you like this, and I’m just so happy for you! Can I not be proud of my boyfriend?!”

“Don’t cry, you’ll make me want to cry. I like it when you give me kisses, not tears, so do that instead please,” he admitted, puckering his lips out a bit.

“You’re lucky I love you…”

[bellaloona]

KPOP BIGGER TAG!

Tagged by @shineekeylover, thank you~

the title is no joke, this is gonna take me 3000 years to write bc of all the questions

edit: wow it really did take that long

also still trying to study for finals pray for me

1.) 5 favorite groups? - EXO, SNSD, Red Velvet, DAY6, LOONA

2.) Top 5 on your bias list? - Yixing, Hani, Sooyoung, Key, Kino (well the order changes a lot but the top 3 are solid)

3.) Ult Bias group and why you love them? - EXO were the first k-pop boy group that I got into, and even though many, many groups caught my interest after them, my love for EXO hasn’t gone down over time. I loved almost all of their songs from the first listen and they were the first group that I went out of the way to look up variety programs and get to know personality-wise. I don’t know I think it’s a combined thing of just having really cool music, funny and attractive members, and sentimental value that makes EXO stand out to me. :)

4.) Ult Bias and why you love them? - I’ve said this before but Yixing stood out to me since Call Me Baby (well he stood out to everyone back then bc the blond hair was a Look)! I love his little dimples and his really sweet personality. And his morals are so strong (I was completely done for when I watched the first season of Go FIghting ;-;) and don’t forget he’s so talented at literally everything. But the biggest thing is that he’s just a really caring guy, whether it’s toward the other members, his GF castmates, the 99 trainees from Idol Producer, he just cares for everyone so much and it’s very heartwarming. Also, my mom likes him and that’s pretty cool

5.) Favorite Kpop Meme - no one is ever going to top starbucks hyungwon and that’s a fact

6.) Favorite pic of your ult? (I dare you to only pick one) - I don’t HAVE any pics of yixing saved (bc I only save the finest of memes on my phone and he’s just not the memeiest guy) but there’s a blog called @happyzyx that’s just dedicated to pictures of him smiling and every new pic they post is the best pic!

7.) 5 Favorite Kpop MVs - BTS - Spring Day, BTOB - Movie, IU - 23, LOONA/Heejin - ViVid, Red Velvet - Red Flavor(as you can see I love pretty colors!)

8.) 10 Favorite Kpop songs? - ohhh boy this list is going to be different from the other one but I guess in no particular order: SNSD - I Got A Boy, 2NE1 - Gotta Be You, BTOB - Movie, Shine - Pentagon, Hyolyn feat. Changmo - Blue Moon, Say Wow - DAY6, LOONA/Kimlip & Jinsoul - Love Letter, Forever - EXO, Song Ji Eun - Don’t Look At Me Like That, Girls’ Day - Expectation

9.) Favorite Kpop crack video? - anything that valentae makes

10.) Favorite content creator within the fandom? - oooo ok so I just started following them recently and they’re loona/multifandom but @boratanical makes really cool graphics!

11.) What fandoms would you say you’re an active member of? - EXO, SNSD, LOONA, DAY6....NCT and Red Velvet on some days

12.) Take your top 3 biases- fmk - uhhhhh m - Hani, f - yixing, lovingly leave alone and not kill - sooyoung

13.) If you could be best friends with any idol, who would you choose?  - baekhyun i am free on thursday if you would like to hang out on thursday

14.) If you could date any idol, who? - tbh none of them, I just want to be everyone’s friend

15.) What’s one Kpop album you think everyone should have listened to? - Verse 2 - JJ Project, I cant believe you guys let that masterpiece flop

16.) Are you a soft or a hard stan? - I said I was 95% soft and I stand by that!

17.) An idol that makes you go into soft mode? - (g)-idle’s yuqi :(((( and by default, any idol that’s younger than me, they’re all my adopted sons and daughters

18.) An idol that makes you want to smash the empire state building with one single punch? - ong seongwoo and doyoung >:(

19.) Favorite vocalist? - AKMU’s Suhyun!!!! Her voice is so precious and soothing to listen to~

20.) Favorite Rapper? - Yoongi because not only is he an amazing rapper but I love his lyrics, also CLC’s Yeeun

21.) Favorite dancer? - NCT’s Ten

22.) Things you have in common with your ult? - we care about people a lot...and we’re Chinese.........we’re not that similar lol

23.) The most beautiful trait any idol can have? - physically, a nice smile. Personality-wise, I’d say openmindedness?

24.) Songs that will always make you jam along? - PENTAGON’S SHINE IS THAT SONG!!!!

25.) Your worst wrecker?  - see question 18

26.) Any kpop concerts you’ve been to? - SHINee World in LA last spring :’)

27.) Favorite choreo? - as of right now, UNB - Feeling, like that is a piece of art right there

28.) Favorite live performance? - that one BTS Go Go performance with all the hearts in it, that was cute 💕

29.) Favorite debut mv? - Seventeen - Adore U!!!!!

30.) Recommend a rookie group! - stan A.C.E you fools (also Stray Kids, Golden Child, UNI.T, UNB, Good Day, and of course, LOONA but I’m not even sure if they classify as rookies at this point)

31.) A kpop song you could listen to every day for the rest of your life? - CLC - Pepe

32.) Tag some cute mutuals you’d like to get to know better (and to do this challenge)! - hhhhh ok @yuniixoxo, @fatheartnut, @taenhoona, @sugassugarbaby98, @chunghart, & @therosiestpeach if you guys want to 💕

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 20/02/2021 (Lil Tjay & 6LACK, Taylor Swift, slowthai)

Okay, so we’ve got a busy week ahead of us, actually a pretty massive one to deep-dive through – and it’s immediately obvious from the second song on the chart, but for now, “drivers license” by Olivia Rodrigo hangs on for what I believe is its sixth week at #1, and we’ve got a lot to cover.

Rundown

First of all, why’s this a big week? Well, there is an album bomb – or at least all that the UK Singles Chart allows for album bombs – and everything that could have debuted... debuted high. So in the UK Top 75, which is what I cover, we’ve got an awful lot to discuss. First of all, our drop-outs, other than debuts from last week, include “Baby Shark” by Pinkfong, “Train Wreck” by James Arthur, “Golden” by Harry Styles, “SO DONE” by The Kid LAROI, “Therefore I Am” by Billie Eilish, “All Girls are the Same” by the late Juice WRLD, “All I Want” by Olivia Rodrigo and fittingly, “Skin” by Sabrina Carpenter. We also have  a fair few losers, like “Bringing it Back” by Digga D and AJ Tracey down to #16 off of the top 5 debut and all of Fredo’s tracks skidding down off of the album bomb two weeks ago, like “Money Talks” with Dave at #19, “Ready” featuring Summer Walker at #37 and “Burner on Deck” with Young Adz and the late Pop Smoke at #51. We also have “34+35” by Ariana Grande not getting a remix boost at #30 (though it can get the album boost next week), “Love Not War (The Tampa Beat)” by Jason Derulo and Nuka collapsing at #39, “Regardless” by RAYE and Rudimental at #48, “willow” by Taylor Swift at #49, “Lemonade” by Internet Money and Gunna featuring Don Toliver and NAV at #50, “positions” by Ariana Grande at #52, “i miss u” by Jax Jones and Au/Ra at #55, “Midnight Sky” by Miley Cyrus at #56, “Be the One” by Rudimental featuring MORGAN, Digga D and TIKE at #58, “Martin & Gina” by Polo G at #59 (I’m surprised we didn’t get “GNF (OKOKOK)” debut, by the way), “What You Know Bout Love” by the late Pop Smoke at #61, “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles at #62, “Loading” by Central Cee collapsing at #63, “No Time for Tears” by Nathan Dawe and Little Mix doing the same at #65 (probably both victims of streaming cuts), “Apricots” by Bicep at #68, “Really Love” by KSI featuring Craig David and Digital Farm Animals at #69, “Looking for Me” by Paul Woodford, Diplo and Kareen Lomax at #70 and “See Nobody” by Wes Nelson and Hardy Caprio at #73. What may be more interesting than our notable fallers are our notable gains and returning entries, however, as whilst only “Shallow” by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper returned to #64, we also have some inexplicable or just plain bad gains. “Roses” by SAINt JHN and remixed by Imanbek seemingly has a second wind at #67, along with “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran at #57 and “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi at #42, but our other gains are mostly recent debuts, like “Little Bit of Love” by Tom Grennan at #45, “Astronaut in the Ocean” by Maxed Wolf at #44, “Believe Me” by Navos at #43, “Arcade” by Duncan Laurence at #33 and finally, “Friday”, Riton’s ugly Nightcrawlers remix featuring Musafa & Hypeman dopamine re-editing itself into the top 10 at #10, becoming everyone’s first in that category, except the Nightcrawlers themselves getting their first top 10 since 1995, even if it’s just “Push the Feeling On” getting into the top 10 a second, separate time 26 years later... and it’s scary to think 1995 is indeed 26 years ago. Anyway, let’s start to make sense of these new arrivals.

NEW ARRIVALS

#72 – “MAZZA” – slowthai featuring A$AP Rocky

Produced by SAMO, slowthai and Kwes Darko

Now, the charts may be chaotic because of the general weakness of it all but it also allows for artists you wouldn’t really expect to do that well get #1 albums, and slowthai’s riding the waves of controversy, his well-received debut album and, you know, a genuinely very good quality of work, as his sophomore effort, TYRON, debuts at #1 on the UK Albums Chart, and we’ve got three songs from Ty on this singles chart, which is the highest amount the chart actually allows, meaning this is an album bomb. Yeah, an album bomb from slowthai – that’s the one thing you can guarantee ONLY ever happens on the UK charts... well, okay, there are many things, but we’ll get to those later. I’m surprised “MAZZA” didn’t debut higher given the music video, big-name feature, being one of the catchiest on the record and the fact that it’s getting radio play, but it’s still here, so who’s to complain? This track, from the emptier A-side of “bangers” in the first half of the album, relies on a quirky synth loop and a bouncy trap beat for slowthai and Rocky to individually prove themselves on and, yeah, the song is pretty great, with a really infectious hook and mostly really smooth flows, propelled by the charisma that just so easily spreads out of every word Ty raps. The title itself is slang that basically something is “mad” – that in, crazy and fun – and that is fitting for the song, which seems to be at a disconnect between the content, beat and feature. Ty flip-flops between flexing, depression and drug addiction, whilst A$AP Rocky just delivers some flexing... but when it’s one of Rocky’s best verses in years, I’m just glad to have him spitting here finally. This is far from the most interesting track on the record but it’s definitely an empty banger cruising on energy more than anything, which is good because it has that in spades. I’d like to point out though that much like the rest of the first half of this album, it is derivative: this is a beat you could see either Rocky or Playboi Carti on, and Ty seems to be doing mostly Rocky-esque flows with a definite attempt at doing the same ad-lib-focal song structure as Carti would. This is unfortunate by now but I can see him growing out of his influence as time comes, although it is a concern when it’s clearer on your bangers than it is your retrospective tunes, which are also pretty clearly Kanye- and BROCKHAMPTON-inspired. Speaking of...

#72 – “terms” – slowthai featuring Dominic Fike and Denzel Curry

Produced by Mount Kimbie, JD. Reid and Kenny Beats

It’s crazy to see production credits from Mount Kimbie and Kenny Beats on the UK Singles Chart... but with that said, you’d expect that to end up as one of the best songs on the chart, especially with this trio of artists. Sadly, the tracks that debuted this week are not close to my favourites off of the project, but if songs like “45 SMOKE”, “push”, “nhs”, “focus”, “PLAY WITH FIRE” and my personal favourite, “i tried”, aren’t going to chart, then I guess we can deal with this to show the more introspective side of the record and slowthai as a whole... except this song is exceptionally shallow in that lane, discussing the downsides of fame in a way that feels tired and done before, even on the same album – and we’ll get to that in a bit. Dominic Fike discusses his words being “jumbled” when in reality I don’t think anything Ty has said has been confused or taken out of context. It doesn’t help that this beat has a drowned-out guitar sample that just sounds ugly below a dark, menacing 808 and trap percussion that take Dominic Fike out of his element so much that he just sounds awful on the hook. Slowthai may have a faster flow here but he’s remarkably unfocused content-wise, and Denzel Curry doesn’t deliver more than a badly-mixed Memphis rap interlude that you can barely tell is him. This is far from bad, I do like the subtle vocal samples in the chorus and slowthai’s second verse about his daily schedule is genuinely really great, but it feels like wasted potential. Fun fact: This is actually Denzel’s first ever song to chart in the UK... if you can even call it his song. We’ll see Ty more later as we get higher on the chart.

#60 – “Cover Me in Sunshine” – P!nk and Willow Sage Heart

Produced by the Struts

Okay, so this is a song by P!nk with her young child daughter... Hmm, okay, so this is a ballad relying on acoustic guitar picking and some really ugly echoed percussion as well as two voices that go from meshing not at all to meshing too well together for voices 30 years apart. I’d like to end it here because this song really isn’t interesting past the novelty factor and some strange mixing in the first verse especially but as a bland uplifting “Fight Song”-type song, I guess it works though I don’t know about you but if I were going through a global pandemic right now with no real source of income, no end in sight and constant governmental error that’s killing thousands of people nationwide, I wouldn’t want a child who was born into millionaires telling me that it’s all going to be okay... oh, yeah, we are in that situation and I don’t want to hear this at any point, especially because this is generic and frankly, not worth anyone’s time.

#54 – “Mixed Emotions” – Abra Cadabra

Produced by TR the Producer

Okay, so when I said this would be a big week I did not mean or expect that it would be a good week, as we can tell already, but Abra Cadabra is here with a “thugs-need-love-too” track to drive that point home. Apparently a snippet of this went viral before its official release in a Valentine’s Day EP I didn’t know existed, which I honestly don’t get because there’s nothing stand-out about this song, like, at all. It’s got a guitar-based trap beat as Abra Cadabra croons in his admittedly pretty interesting, rich voice but he’s not saying anything interesting and this beat is just incompetent, with those badly-mixed swooshing sound effects that come in way too many times, and the fact that half the song is lacking percussion for no reason other than to make the beat sound busier than it is, even when it already has that ugly acoustic guitar lick playing through the whole thing in the front of the mix and... yeah, what’s the point in really critiquing this? Abra can’t even really hold much of a flow, especially in the meandering second verse, so not much of value is lost when this inevitably drops out next week.

#53 – “Big” – Rita Ora, Imanbek and David Guetta featuring Gunna

Produced by Mike Hawkins, Toby Green, Spenser, Sam Martin, David Guetta and Imanbek

This is the lead single – if you can call it that – from a trainwreck of a collaborative EP by COVID-19 super-spreader Rita Ora and everyone’s favourite Kazakh DJ, Imanbek, who seems to be chasing hits here with no real gain. You can already tell this is going to be hilariously bad, right? There are four primary artists seemingly picked out of a hat who had never collaborated prior to this EP, with two vocalists that would not mesh at all, and two producers... as well as four others to engineer this mix out so that the actual DJs and producers here become pretty much in name only. So, this is an already pointless song in all capacities, but then we find out that Ed Sheeran had a hand in writing this... this is just prepped for disaster. Fittingly, the song’s bad in a hilariously boring way. It starts with a bassy synth lead and some generic house production before Rita Ora comes in with a really unconvincing delivery that does not help to propel some genuinely bad singing in the pre-chorus and awkward songwriting. “Blame it on the city how I’m ballin’”? “Big tanks looking like Transformers”? It’s even funnier when you note that that line is where the beat cuts out (kind of) and it doesn’t rhyme with the rest of the verse at all. There’s some really bad vocal processing that makes Rita Ora sound overly digitised, much like a lot of Imanbek’s production, but also emphasises her in the mix along with the vocal mixing being generally overly loud compared to the rest of the production, which doesn’t really have a proper drop so it just goes nowhere other than a brief drum fill that comes out of nowhere and serves no real purpose. Rita Ora delivers rap clichés or at least lines I’ve heard before in the most generic possible way in the second verse, with as much charisma as Gunna’s literally phoned-in verse, mixed awfully, where the beat doesn’t even dignify his existence by just staying on the build-up and not even properly giving him the trap breakdown that it’s clearly going for. There’s this one stray kick or 808 note in that verse that goes nowhere. It’s honestly hilarious how dreadful this song is, lacking any groove or punch that it would need to become even a guilty pleasure... if you still use that term, anyway. Just fascinating. Anyway, let’s get to the top 40.

#39 – “CANCELLED” – slowthai featuring Skepta

Produced by SAMO, Kelvin Krash and Kwes Darko

Yeah, okay, so this song isn’t great either. Although I’m glad slowthai is in the top 40, it won’t be for long and it’s not because of Ty. It’s because this is a Skepta song through and through. He does the hook, has a verse and a presence on the intro and post-chorus. It’s probably good that it is as well because Skepta does the best he can with his menacing delivery over a pretty weak flute-trap beat that sounds as sleepy as Skepta’s flow on the chorus, which is even more awkward when it takes a left turn for an unnecessary post-chorus. Ty brings energy here and some pretty funny lines but is overall a non-presence on his own song, being over-shadowed by the bass knock and interrupted by Skepta’s hook at the end of his verse. Skepta brings a better verse, with some genuinely really fun flow switches but nothing content wise to make this song that’s already barely two minutes feel like it adds anything to... well, anything. The song itself is trying to prove a heavy-handed yet misguided point about cancel culture, which I don’t think even exists, and how it “kills art” when in reality anything further than stans or trolls on Twitter is probably deserved. When a book shop stops selling J.K. Rowling books, it’s not because they’re silencing or censoring art as much as they are not giving profits to a terrible person with too much time and money on their hands. Thankfully, neither of these guys are terrible people but what backlash they have had has been either from a deserved place or not from the left. There was an incident at an awards show with Katherine Ryan that didn’t get him cancelled but got Ty some brief backlash. Everybody swiftly moved on, and nothing changed except I think he delivered some kind of apology, not that I would remember because this song retcons whatever regret he has for it. He also got some backlash from the British news media – see: the right-wing – from displaying a severed head of Boris Johnson on stage, but again, if backlash “killed art”, you wouldn’t have a #1 album. As much as it wants to be a middle-finger to cancel culture, it ends up as a worthless flex track from rappers who’ve done much better. It’s not bad at all – and I’m glad the guy’s having success (I mean, after all, the album is overall good and he’s a fellow Northamptonshire resident). I just don’t think this song really works at all for what it’s trying to do.

#35 – “Siberia” – Headie One featuring Burna Boy

Produced by TheElements and AoD

This is an awfully rap-centric episode, huh? Well, this is from the deluxe edition of Headie’s album Edna, because that trend’s not going away any time soon... and I think Abra Cadabra could learn from this because this is how you do a low-key guitar trap single, with those watery, almost Blink-182-esque acoustic loops under a somewhat off-kilter trap beat as Headie mumbles in his smoother voice and faster, fun flows that do remind me too much of Gunna but overall sound pretty great. The cadences, especially in the chorus, are pretty infectious, and honestly the song could just use with some refinement in the mixing category and with Burna Boy’s verse, as whilst the singer definitely delivers the energy here, his voice is particularly muddy in this mix and his flow is more janky. With some multi-tracking or backing ad-libs, this could have definitely sounded better. The strings and electric guitar that come in at the final chorus were a welcome surprise though, and Burna Boy’s soulful delivery on the final outro verse sounds better than his actual verse, so I don’t really know what went wrong here. The content isn’t all too interesting, but I’m a sucker for geography references so the hook would have always made me chuckle and that’s before the shallow but deserved political commentary in Headie’s verse as well as Burna Boy making... perhaps insensitive references to infections in his more Young Thug-like inflections that do sound fun and more out-there as a contrast to Headie keeping it a bit tighter. Yeah, this isn’t perfect but it’s a pretty good trap banger so check it out.

#27 – “UK Hun?” – United Kingdolls

Produced by Freddy Scott and Leland

And now in stark contrast, drag queens. I don’t follow RuPaul’s Drag Race at all but I very much understand its appeal, especially now that it’s come to the UK on BBC Three, with I believe Graham Norton at the helm. This is a song from its second season that apparently takes homage from Eurovision for a song which has a title that is literally a pun. “You okay, hun?” but because it’s Britain, it’s UK. Very, very clever. At least it’s up-front right out of the gate so you can expect what will end up as pretty dumb fun... and this is immediately obvious from the intro which introduces you to the chorus: “bing, bang, bong, sing, sang, song, ding, dang, dong, UK, hun”. Okay, so this wasn’t ever going to be a prowess in songwriting, although you’d think there’d be something more here given MNEK’s involvement. Each contestant in the race gets a rap verse here over a pretty rote late 2000s dance-pop beat, with varying levels of charisma but ultimately a lot of energy from people who pretty clearly can’t sing, not that it matters when there’s the Auto-Tune slathered on top of the pre-chorus and chorus. I do feel like I’m separated from the show enough to be completely mystified by this, but really, the song’s not bad, and I can dig the upbeat synths in the chorus, even if the childlike novelty of it makes it a lot less enjoyable to me, personally. At the end of the day, it’s a sugary pop song about confidence with a pretty great fourth verse about loving yourself for who you are, so I can’t hate that. Also “gender-bender, cis-tem offender” is kind of a bar.

#25 – “We’re Good” – Dua Lipa

Produced by Scott Harris, Emily Warren and SLY

Future Nostalgia is a great album, and like all great albums, it needs a mediocre deluxe edition with snippets of leftover, unfinished tracks and remixes... no, wait, no album ever needs that. Sadly, life doesn’t go my way all of the time, so Dua released a “Moonlight Edition”, the fifth version of the album to be released as far as I know, and other than a hilarious JID collaboration in the form of “Not My Problem”, it’s not worth listening to past the first 11 tracks that were already on the standard edition. This track is the worst of them all, stripping away any of the disco groove and grandiose strings that defined the vibe of the album for a really bland, vaguely tropical trap-pop tune. The only remnant of the disco theme is the chorus referencing cocaine, which seems bizarrely out of character if anything, although it doesn’t help that Dua sounds checked-out, especially on the verses but also on the chorus which definitely takes some inspiration from emo-pop in those guitar tones but not in those awkward, first-take vocal deliveries that make the chorus flow pretty awfully. This songwriting is consistently janky too, with the overly short bridge serving no real purpose and the song itself feeling like an under-written, over-produced waste of everyone’s time. I’m surprised Dua couldn’t debut higher than #25, but at the same time I understand why people aren’t enjoying this as much as the prior singles, because this is bad.

#23 – “Commitment Issues” – Central Cee

Produced by mokuba

This guy is just releasing a bunch of singles and squandering any potential I saw in him, huh? Well, okay, this is from an upcoming album but that doesn’t make its acoustic guitar loops any more interesting or the content any more dissonant from its hard-hitting UK drill beat and his aggressive delivery. Like, there’s nothing about his flow or the instrumental that makes sense for a song where he’s apologising to his ex and trying to convince her to come back to him... at all. I’d get annoyed by a song that’s not cohesive in its content, but this one is annoyingly so, with the content never giving a reason for the dark, menacing 808 slides other than the... arguments with the woman he describes in the hook? It does kind of work with the flow there, but, like... why? Why does this exist? This isn’t convincing, it can’t be a banger because of its overly-specific break-up themes and it’s just a mess of a song, not helped by the fact he goes off trailing in the second verse about how many “hoes” he has, which is honestly kind of funny given in the first verse, he acknowledges that his ex hates those types of lyrics. Man, Central Cee was onto something with the jazz-drill on “Loading”, where did any of that go?

#12 – “Love Story (Taylor’s Version)” – Taylor Swift

Produced by Taylor Swift and Christopher Rowe

The original “Love Story” is one of my favourite Taylor Swift songs. There’s something so sweet and Mew Mew Power about it. I don’t know if that’ll work as an adjective for anyone else but what I’m saying is it really emphasises the inner “white teenage girl in the 2000s” that many have hidden in them, with its cute banjo intro and honestly kind of funny misinterpretation of the original Romeo & Juliet text, none of which has been fixed in this new version. Out of the stuff I’ve heard from the country-pop era of Taylor’s work, it’s definitely one of the catchiest, most melodramatic choruses, probably second to my favourite from this era, “Mine”. Well, this new version has to be made so that Taylor Swift can own the rights again to her music that Scooter Braun sold after she left the Big Machine label. Honestly, I think I prefer a younger Taylor Swift in the context of such a cutesy, pretty song with all its childlike novelties – I mean, a 30-year-old Taylor Swift won’t misremember details from Shakespearean texts. Not to say that she sounds bad here because she sounds great, especially over the more refined, modern production and the incredible strings in the chorus that are emphasised in this mix. I can’t say that much of a cover that takes the original and does exactly the same thing with it, just with a more modern instrumental that honestly has a pretty epic instrumental bridge. Ultimately, this is taking a great song and making it sound better and more accessible for an audience a decade or so detached from the original “Love Story” and it sounds pretty great doing it.

#2 – “Calling My Phone” – Lil Tjay and 6LACK

Produced by Non Native, Bordeaux and G. Ry

This chart week ended up being less of a beast to tackle than I thought it was, mostly because there are a couple good fun songs sprinkled in the range of mediocrity here. Now this is the final song to discuss and... this is just as inexplicable as “drivers license”. If it weren’t for the streaming numbers, I’d be convinced this is an error and this should have been switched with the second-highest debut, as it makes no sense for Lil Tjay and 6LACK to debut at the #2 spot in the UK. For context, Lil Tjay is an Auto-Tune crooner from the Bronx, in a similar vein to a Lil Tecca or A Boogie wit da Hoodie, who I thought would completely disappear post-“Pop Out” given he seemed to be on the Lil Tecca route as most of his other singles just couldn’t stick the landing other than I guess “F.N.”. Admittedly, that might be because they were pretty bad, and I think he actually kind of ruined “Pop Out” by killing its momentum with his non-existent presence and gross Auto-Tune whine, but he seems to have gotten a lot of traction since then from a posthumous Pop Smoke record as he wastes time on “Mood Swings”, which became a pretty massive hit for Tjay and the late Pop Smoke, with a lot more longevity than I expected, even though it was my personal least favourite on that posthumous album. 6LACK is more for the alternative and hip-hop head crowd, known less for his street bangers than he is for his smooth alternative R&B collaborations with guys like J. Cole. He has mainstream attention and has tried to cross over before, but ultimately he’s probably better guest-starring on robotic Gorillaz singles with Elton John of all people... or at least that’s what I thought, because they seem to have just released a single with no real promo other than TikTok previews and a music video, and it blew up immensely almost immediately. Maybe it’s good timing given Valentine’s Day but this seems like a combination of weak charts and a genuinely organic sudden hit, pushed by a label of course but not without word of mouth and... I don’t know, I’m kind of clueless on why this is so big here, and seemingly everywhere, but I’m not complaining. Wait, no, I am complaining because I’m not a fan at all. I can go for smoother, more soulful R&B but something about this is way too jagged for it to work for me, with Tjay delivering some pretty bored, mumbled crooning over melancholy pianos and an infectious but off-beat chipmunk vocal sample that acts a refrain because nothing Lil Tjay does is catchy enough. His verse is really sloppy, as is the piano, and the percussion is kind of just gross in how it’s mixed. Thankfully, 6LACK is here for some brief relief on the second verse, as he actually has a presence with his cruising, subtle multi-tracked delivery that sounds genuinely pretty great and would be at better use with bass that isn’t mastered like this and maybe an actual chorus. In fact, I think this would work as a UK garage song with that vocal sample if you speed up the whole track and add some actual groove to it, so someone please get on that because otherwise I don’t see any reason why this is so high. It’s just lethargic R&B, really just basic and tired.

Conclusion

Yeah, this was a big week but sadly I think it is shrouded in a lot of mediocrity that I think will be gone by next week, so whilst the UK chart chaos can be fun, especially when I’ve got nothing else to do, I’m not sure if any of these songs really stick. Best of the Week goes to Taylor Swift’s re-recorded “Love Story” with a really close Honourable Mention in slowthai’s “MAZZA” featuring A$AP Rocky, just hedging out Headie One. With the worst, we have a lot to choose from but because of its high debut and hence the expected hype, I’ll give Worst of the Week to “Calling My Phone” by Lil Tjay and 6LACK, with tied Dishonourable Mentions to “Big” by Rita Ora, Imanbek and David Guetta featuring Gunna, and honestly Central Cee’s “Commitment Issues” for not working on any level, though it really easily could have gone to Dua Lipa, P!nk or Abra Cadabra. Here’s this week’s top 10:

Honestly, I have no idea what’s coming for next week other than Ariana Grande’s deluxe edition. Maybe Trippie Redd’s pop-punk album can make somewhat of a splash? I don’t know, I don’t think anything too big is coming but I’m probably wrong. I just know that a lot of this’ll be gone by next week. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank if you feel the need to do so and I’ll see you next week.