#and it weirds me the fuck OUT truly i just saw it under a tweet of someone posting a rare photobook on twitter?? like multiple people

[bishonenspit]

so super weird how normalized it is to make jokes about robbing someone or harming someone when they post about having an item you want.... so strange to me truly

[shitswiftiessay]

so taylor has put out another hit piece against joe (who’s surprised)

after buying winning the TIME person of the year award 2023, and having a gushing puff piece that’s supposed to paint her as this trailblazer for women and feminist icon…

she made sure to dedicate a significant portion of it to talking about her boyfriends. 🙄

so here are the cringeworthy excerpts where she’s talking about her latest victim boyfriend.

“Football is awesome, it turns out. I’ve been missing out my whole life.”

I love how she single handedly debunked the claim that swifties have been making, that taylor ALWAYS loved football and was a huge eagle fan (just bc she had an eagles shirt). now it’s basically confirmed that this football shit is just taylor’s newest PERSONALITY that she’s gonna wear for a few months, until she gets bored of it, and then she’ll throw travis under the bus and she’ll start siccing her fans against him.

“This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell.”

god, someone bring me a BARF BUCKET please. 🪣 🤮 and since when is it “adorable” for a guy to PUT YOU ON BLAST because you wouldn’t go out with him or take his number?? that’s… very weird. i’m sure she wouldn’t find it “adorable” if she wasn’t interested in the guy. but anyway, i’m pretty sure she just saw an opportunity here and she took it. she can’t handle being single for more than a month, she needed a new man to make people forget about her matty healy era. and she’s LOVING the good press she’s getting for being “America’s royal couple” as her fans are calling them. but does she actually LOVE HIM? that, I remain yet to be convinced about.

and I love this part. “We would never be psychotic enough to hard-launch a first date.”

yeah, taylor’s not CRAZY you guys, it’s not like she said “I love you” to matty healy on stage back in may before breaking up with him 2 weeks later. nah. it’s not like she immediately bought a house next to her teenage boyfriend connor kennedy who was STILL IN HIGH SCHOOL when she started dating him. nah. that would be CRAZY. PSYCHOTIC even!!

and here comes the part where she starts passive aggressively smearing joe and we all know she’s on a smear campaign against joe now but it’s kind of pathetic that even while winning PERSON OF THE YEAR she has to make it about that.

so taylor obviously has a lot to say about her new relationship, and how proud they are of each other. but you know what I DON’T hear her saying? “I’m in love” or “I’m happy with him.”

and personally, i think that speaks volumes. if she was truly HAPPY with her new man she wouldn’t be doing all this shit. if you were around when taylor broke up with calvin and then immediately started hard-launching hiddleswift, taking pap photo after pap photo and being extremely “happy” she was and meeting his mom and all that shit…. and if you don’t see the parallels between what she’s doing NOW with travis, you’re either a blind fan or just flat out stupid.

because at least when she started dating joe she actually left her exes alone (at least for a little while), she was like “I forget their names now.” and you can tell she was happy without having to make a big show of it- “nobody’s heard from me for months, I’m doing better than I ever was.”

but now she’s acting like it’s the worst thing ever that she was “locking herself in her house for a lot of years,” and she KNOWS that her fans are going to take that and blame joe for it.

JUST LOOK at the quotes and replies of this tweet and this tweet to see how those insane fucking swifties are acting over this. EVERYTHING she does now is an incitement against joe and she knows it, it’s deliberate, it’s calculated.

and i guess she’s gotta bury him while she continues hanging out with a sexual abuse apologist so she can look like she has some kind of moral high ground.

also, the way she’s trying to erase the fact that 11 of the 15 songs on reputation were LOVE SONGS about joe, not “a goth-punk moment of female rage at being gaslit by an entire social structure.”

this woman is just narcissistic and straight up DELUSIONAL at this point. she’s so far up her own ass it’s nauseating. but i really hope that she keeps on talking. because the more she talks, the more people realise what a narcissistic clown she is. 🤡

[rassicas]

We are getting playable Cuttlefish in Splatoon 3.

i dont like saying im totally certain about predictions, but the evidence is so subtle, yet so very intentional in the exact way that the splatoon team would do if they were trying to hint at something. (under the cut because long post)

I’m sure some of you have seen PandaUniverse’s tweet introducing the cuttlefish evidence. first two images are from that tweet, putting it out there that i cant take credit for those.

exhibit A: train station gates

the splatoon team foreshadowed OE before release with a blocked off train station in inkopolis square....this seems even more obvious? no entry for squids, mysterious 2 finned squid thing can enter? exhibit B: weird hat

again, two finned squid thingy like in the ticket gates. i saw some ppl saying “its just a weird octopus” but like. why would the splatoon team purposely model an octopus hat super weirdly? also @sprousprou​ sent me a better image:

that is not an octopus lol After i saw the tweet, i remembered a thing that me and my friend dodo were scratching our heads at a few months ago while we were reconning all the s3 stages for details, because... Exhibit C: that’s a fucking cuttlefish

again, 2 fins. found in Mincemeat Metalworks, it’s in the same style as the Angry Squid and Angry Octopus graffiti that’s been seen before.

So how do I feel about this? well... not even a month ago i thought it would be weird to expect a new playable species, but the evidence feels so undeniable now. but i also mentioned in that ask, cuttlefish are pretty much the only species that would make sense with current lore. being ink-producing cephalopods in real life, unlike nautiluses or dumbo octopuses, i would expect cuttlefish to be ink-based shapeshifters like the inklings and octolings. and we have seen cuttlefish in splatoon’s canon before... albeit only once in the japan-only octo expansion artbook....and they look a lot like inklings. However i find it a bit... weird... that they’d be introduced like this with next to zero build up, unlike the playable octolings which were hinted at from the first game. i’m also deeply concerned about the idea of this truly becoming a pattern, like the splatoon team potentially introducing a new species in each DLC, leaning on "play as this New Guy” as the main selling point and not “play this cool story.” I also would prefer if they just expanded on customization for octolings and inklings and not added a new species. but i guess it’s splatoon 3, gotta have 3 species too. and ill take it any day over salmonlings also in the aforementioned ask, the only justification i could think of for a sudden introduction of cuttlefish would be that they happen to live super far away outside of inkadia/splatlands. combine that with the knowledge that the DLC is more than likely going to be a world tour of some kind...well, that’s probably gonna be the reason for their introduction: they just live far away. tl;dr im feeling 100% sure cuttlefish are coming to splatoon whether we like it or not

[hl-obsessed]

Hi! No hate, just curious what you think Louis meant with that reply. I’m feeling kind of hurt and would love a different interpretation. Thanks!

Ok so this is long one, anon.

An this is my letter of complain to the fandom. I'm disappointed in you guys.

(this might be a little chaotic but bare with me)

*

Louis isn't stupid - that's first of all. He knows damn good what he's doing.

Second - we actually know shit. We have no idea what he was actually talking about.

But if we taking this as Larry and Parma ham thing and clearly denying this, then here we go:

_

You talking about how weird it was that he told us day before that he's going to be on for a chat.

Especially when he spent time on social medias yesterday liking and commenting on posts. He could have just start replying to the questions on tt because there are hundreds everyday just waiting for him, and fandom would catch on him being online in seconds and would start asking things immediately. There wasn't actually reason for this unless... it been step up.

Set up that someone form above could monitor things, his every step, every move.

There probably was sheet ready with questions he had to answer. Babygate, denying Larry, usual shit.

Maybe there was one answer for one song he pulled out on tour.

One for 505, one for 7, one for HIM in Back To You. Or one for songs and another ones for lights, one for blue and green, other for rainbow ones.

We think he just did that because he could and wanted to. What if he went for an agreement, that he can do this but he will have to make some comments denying all this in the future.

1 for us and 1 for antis and all the aprrences that they are keeping of him for years.

And you're treating him like he isn't the first victim in all of this. He was put in the closet, he had to sign off contract for kid to protect everything what's important to him and hid it even deeper.

You all getting pissed like he killed your mothers, and you fucking forget that's it's not about you. Larry is him, it's them. It thier lives. He can say whatever shit he wants because it is about him.

And break up with ealnor? You thought this wouldn't have consequences? Third question is maybe exactly for that.

He can do so much that is screaming Larry over and over again, for weeks on tour, and you hanging him for one comment.

True that people only see you mistakes, no matter how much good you do.

You all thinking he's stupid and he get mad to the point he didn't even saw he answered to the wrong tweet.

No one fucking thinks he did it on purpose?

Chicken in parma ham is so important, it always was. What if they made him answer Larry question and he answered wrong one on purpose, because he knew it will get enough or even more attention that way. The Above will check it out on thier list and move on, but he known real fans will know the truth.

That he didn't actually write it under right question on purpose, that he didn't actually mess with original meaning of this.

Great to see that you all are turing against him instead of thinking what he could mean by that.

I was searching for this quote when he said the fans can listen to what he's truly saying between the lines.

He doing so much cryptic shit and you are getting hung up on one fucking thing he said. Thing he probably HAD TO say.

I'll be up for the chat was a warning. I'll be up under supervision. I might say things you don't like but i had to say it. You know me, i know you, and i know you lot know how to read between the lines.

And you're giving him what for that?

There is that saying that there's no difference how they're talking about you, what's important is that they are talking.

Another box checked, Louis is trending on twitter.

You often say how brilliant his mind is and how you love the way he's thinking.

And now what, you think he just straight away get pissed, went stupid with it, and shoot rude comment at one of his fans because of what?

He's public person. He has to keep appearances. He's forced to keep an image they where building for years.

He often says how important we are to him. He wouldn't just lasched out like that on the fan, to silence stupid theories. Especially when this never works.

From time to time there is some comment that seems to be harsh. But you don't just hate him for that, especially when he does so much loud things that says otherwise.

He's tying to protect this. Them. Us. With keeping both sides happy. Can't you see that?

I'm so pissed at you guys right now.

And i'm going to protect this boy to the grave, at all costs.

[meetmeatthecoda]

Subterfuge by meetmeatthecoda Fandoms: The Blacklist (US TV)   Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Chapters: 1/1 (complete) Words: 3,795 Tags: No Archive Warnings Apply, Elizabeth Keen/Raymond Reddington, Elizabeth Keen, Raymond Reddington, Agnes Keen, Katarina Rostova, Drama, Romance, au season 7 fall finale, No Spoilers, Lizzington - Freeform, strong t rating, Adult Themes, mostly of a sexual nature

Summary:

"Because there she is, his oldest friend, his greatest enemy, sitting there at Lizzie’s table like she has any right at all, with a small smirk on her face, dark and taunting, all for him."

Red finally discovers firsthand that Katarina has moved in down the hall, causing things come to a head between he and Lizzie. Written in bits and pieces throughout 7A. Works as an AU season 7 fall finale. Lizzington. Strong T rating for adult themes.

[storiesforallfandoms]

comparisons ~ machine gun kelly

word count: 2195

request?: yes!

“Can I get a Colson Baker one where you’re dating after him and Megan where you get a bunch of hate and they both defend you against the hate please”

description: when her boyfriend’s ex is one of the most beautiful actresses of this generation, she finds herself being constantly compared to her and receiving hateful messages

pairing: machine gun kelly x female!reader

warnings: swearing, hate messages, insecurities

masterlist (one, two)

There was some sort of assumption that when you start dating someone, you immediately hate their ex. That could not be further from the truth for me and Colson. In fact, Colson’s ex-girlfriend introduced us shortly after their break up, and had constantly pushed for the two of us to get together.

Megan was basically the backbone in our friendship. She pushed me to pursue my dreams in acting (as well as helped you with that since she was so much more famous than you were when you started), then she pushed me to start auditioning for bigger roles. The moment she introduced me to Colson, I knew exactly what was coming next.

“That’s weird, Meg,” I had told her. “Isn’t there, like, a girl code about dating your best friend’s ex?”

“I’m literally shoving you onto him,” she had responded. “I think you’re fine with the girl code.”

A few months after meeting, I finally caved and asked Colson out on a date. Six months later, I was still thanking Megan for giving me that push.

Shortly after making our relationship public, however, the happiness slowly came to a stop. For me, anyways. Colson, bless his heart, was blissfully ignorant to the comments his fanbase started to send me.

“yikes, he really downgraded huh?”

“how do you go from megan fox to...that?”

“guess mgk couldn’t keep up his streak of hot girlfriends”

Hate comes with fame, I knew that. I had my fair share of hate comments ever since the start. It was easy to ignore them when they were just a handful of hate comments here and there, but this was different. This was a bombardment of hate that was so heavy I could barley go online.

Colson was oblivious for a while, until he found out I had deleted all my social media accounts.

“Did you delete your Instagram babe?” he asked the minute he got home the day I had done it.

“Yeah,” I responded, nonchalantly. “I deleted all my social media.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “I just thought it’d be better for me mentally. They say being so attached to social media is bad for you or whatever.”

“But you weren’t even addicted to social media. You just liked sharing your memories - our memories.”

I shrugged again and turned back to my cooking. I wasn’t about to tell him his fans drove me off the internet. He loved his fans, I couldn’t fuck that up for him, even if what they were saying hurt me so much.

My back was to him as I cooked, so he couldn’t see my reaction when he asked, “Is it because people were comparing you to Megan?”

I froze completely. I could feel his eyes staring into the back of my head, but I just couldn’t convince myself to turn around to face him. I knew that if I did, I’d crack. I had gone too long pretending everything was okay, keeping this secret from Colson, to finally let it slip now. I just had to throw him off of his thought process.

“Where did you get that idea?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light.

He was next to me suddenly, holding his phone up so I could see it. On the screen was a picture of me at a red carpet just below a headline that read “(Y/F/N) deletes social media accounts amid hateful comments from boyfriend Machine Gun Kelly’s fans”.

I sighed in frustration. Of course the tabloid vultures had already written articles about it. I had only done it a few hours earlier, but they always had to be the first ones to write another story about me.

“I didn’t even know I was getting hate,” I said, trying to keep up the lie even though it was pretty obvious I had been found out. “I just decided to delete my accounts, it must be a coincidence.”

“Really? Because this article says you were receiving so much hate that you couldn’t even go into the comments on your pictures or replies on your tweets without seeing a mass amount of hate from my fans.”

I turned off the stove and turned around suddenly, abandoning my cooking completely as I quickly walked out of the kitchen and towards mine and Colson’s room. I felt a lump forming in my throat, and the last thing I wanted was for Colson to see me cry.

I wasn’t shocked to hear his footsteps coming after me. I forgot how much longer his legs were than mine, so it didn’t take long for him to catch up with me and stop me before I could get too far away. He took hold of my arm and turned me around to look at him. The moment my eyes landed on his face, it felt like someone had finally broke the dam holding back my tears.

Colson pulled me in for a hug and held me tightly as I sobbed into his chest. Every ounce of overwhelming feelings I had been bottling up for months was finally starting to come out, and I realized it was long overdue when I eventually began to grow tired from my crying.

I felt Colson pick me up and bring me to his bed. My eyes were starting to grow heavy despite how much I was fighting against them to stay awake. The minute my head hit the pillow, I was out like a light.

I wasn’t sure how long I was asleep, but it was obvious I had needed that rest, because when I woke up again I felt more well rested than I had in a long time.

I opened my eyes to find myself facing the window, which helped me to pinpoint that it was now nighttime as the sky was pitch black. I rolled over, expecting to find Colson asleep next to me only to find that I was alone in his bed. I was confused at first, forgetting the events that happened mere hours earlier.

I could hear a distant voice talking and was able to identify it as Colson’s. I got up from his bed and made my way towards the stairs, hearing it get louder as I stood at the top.

“I wish she would’ve told me,” he was saying. “I don’t know why she would’ve kept this a secret from me.”

“She didn’t want you upset with your fans,” came another voice. This one was distorted like it was coming from a phone. When she spoke again, I realized it was Megan’s voice. “And she’s stubborn. She was probably determined to deal with this by herself.”

“I just hate that she felt that way,” Colson sighed. “I don’t want her believing anything any of those people said to her, but I saw screenshots and fuck...they really did just bombard her with hate.”

“I know, but none of us could’ve predicted this. Your fans were so cool with us dating, I thought they’d love (Y/N) since we’re so similar.”

I sat down on the top of the stairs and peeked down enough that I could see Colson without him seeing me. He was laid out on the couch in just his sweat pants. In his hand he was holding his phone up, the other was slung over the back of his couch. I could see the guilt on his face, which broke my heart to see. I didn’t want Colson feeling guilty for something that was out of his control.

“You think what I posted will do anything?” he asked Megan.

“I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. When people want to hate, they just want to hate.”

Hearing that Colson had posted something made me curious. I felt around my pants for my phone, but realized I had probably left it in the room or downstairs somewhere. I was in too deep now to give myself away, but I really wanted to know what he had posted about the situation.

“Thanks for talking to me about this, Megan,” he said.

“Of course, Colson. Anytime.”

They said their goodbyes and hung up. Colson tossed his phone onto the coffee table and put his arm under his head. “Are you gonna come down babe?”

I wanted to ask how he knew I was there, but instead I stood from my spot and made my way down the stairs. When I entered the living room, Colson just looked up at me for a moment, almost expectantly. I smiled down at him and laid on top of him with my head on his chest. The arm that was over the back of the couch wrapped around me and he gently kissed the top of my head.

“How much did you hear?” he asked.

“Just the last bit,” I admitted. “Something about a post you made.”

Colson hummed, his chest vibrating underneath my ear as he did. “I wanted to address the issue, and I knew you wouldn’t let me do it if you were awake.”

“I still don’t like that you did it now,” I said, half joking. “Can I see the post?”

He moved his head to look down at me. “How do I know you’re not going to delete the post?”

“You don’t,” I responded. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

He smiled and reached over to grab his phone from the coffee table. He opened it and pulled up a post he had made on Instagram: it was your usual white background with text post you saw celebrities make from time to time.

It read:

“I love my fans so much. You guys are my EST family, and I’m so proud of this family that we have built over the last few years. However, it came to my attention today that some of you have been less than nice to my girlfriend to a point where she felt the need to delete her social media accounts. I will admit, I was oblivious to this at first as I am not one to go onto other people’s social media to read comments and replies, and (Y/N) kept this to herself instead of telling me about it. But now that I do know, I have to say I am beyond pissed. (Y/N) is the most beautiful girl I have ever met, inside and out. She is not Megan, and honestly - with all respect to Megan - I’m glad that she’s not. I love Megan as a friend, but truly that’s all she is to me. (Y/N) is my soulmate, the love of my life. These comparisons and jabs at her because she isn’t my ex are absolutely disgusting, especially coming from people who claim they love me as much as you guys do. Please learn how to treat the people in my life with love and respect, or else take my face out of your profile pictures and my name out of your usernames/bios as you are not a true fan of mine. From the bottom of my heart, fuck you to anyone that made my girlfriend feel like shit.”

I scrolled down to see the comments and saw that the top one was from Megan, and was already liked by Colson.

“(Y/N) is not my competition, nor is she my enemy. She is my friend and she has been since before Colson and I were ever together. The fact that people feel the need to pit two women against one another just because they both dated the same person is absolutely appalling to me. I’d like to emphasis Colson’s statement - fuck you to whoever hurt my friend.”

I handed Colson his phone back, not wanting to read any more. I could feel a lump in my throat again, but this one was from happiness. I felt so lucky to have two amazing people in my corner during a time that was otherwise very trying for me.

“I’m sorry I never told you,” I said as I rested against his chest again.

“You shouldn’t be sorry, (Y/N). I’m sorry this happened to you.”

“You don’t have any reason to be sorry either. You can’t control your fans.”

“Then neither of us will be sorry.”

I chuckled at this. For a moment we were both silent, the only sound being Colson’s heart beating under my ear. It was a soothing sound, and combined with his fingers tracing over my back, I was almost lulled back to sleep.

“I love you,” he mumbled against my hair.

I lifted my head to look at him. “What?”

“I said I love you.”

I was speechless. It was the first time he had seriously said those words and he had managed to shock me into silence with them.

He looked at me, his face slowly becoming concerned with my silence.

“I love you, too,” I finally managed.

A smile broke out across Colson’s face as he wrapped his arms around me and held me tightly to him. For the rest of the night, he would whisper those three words to me randomly, and I would whisper back my response every time.

[peeterparkr]

perfidy;tom holland|11

chapter 11: the sidekicks 

enemies to lovers au/enemies with benefits

chapter summary: brothers know best

pairing: tom holland x y/n

warnings:  swearing, angst, didn’t proof read, dirty dancing 

word count: 8k 

here’s a playlist

social media before you read (IMPORTANT FOR THE CHAPTER) :  

 tweets & texts  instagram posts

previous chapter next chapter series masterlist wanna be tagged?

Hey guys sorry for not posting! But to make it up! Here’s an extra long chapter! Thanks for your messages, I’m feeling better now:) And I hope you enjoy this one since I loveeee Dirty Dancing

We all believe in lies when we’re in love, even if we know it’s not true. We all want to trust people when we are in love. Tom still believed in y/n. 

“I hate her,” Tom had stated as soon as he had walked into his place. He stormed into the kitchen as he saw Harrison. 

“And we’re back to that, hi, thanks for the horn last night,” Harrison rolled his eyes.

“I hate her,” Tom yelled.

“You said that already,” Haz pointed out before walking away. 

Tom followed after. “Well… you know what she did before calling me?”

“I do not, Tom,” Haz sighed. 

“She kissed Timothee,” Tom snapped. 

Haz paused and looked at him. “Tom.”

“Fuck her honestly,” Tom yelled again. “And then she just calls me up and then we—we—“

“You had car sex,” Harrison stated. “Which by the way, seriously be careful with the horn—“

“And then we went out for breakfast and—“Tom complained. “We had a moment, I took her to the tree house, we cuddled—See? That’s romantic, I’m doing hat? Then they almost caught us—Because we left her fucking car there, I held her hand the whole breakfast and then she dropped the bomb. She’d kissed Timothée.”

“She told you?” Haz questioned. 

“No, but Timmy called her and he texted her—And I read it.” 

Harrison watched him. “Tom, are you listening to yourself?” 

“And it doesn’t end there, Harrison—She said that we are not exclusive, and then—“

“Tom! Tom! You put yourself into this, I don’t know what the hell you guys have been through, but you accepted that but—but, Tom before you continue this—I think Sam knows.” 

“Sam?” Tom freaked out. 

“Yes, Sam, he texted me he saw you both sneak out of the treehouse, he’s on his way over so you better start coming up with an alibi,” Haz suggested. 

Tom was screwed. He needed time to think, and a shower would help him with thinking. What pathetic excuse could he give out to his brother? Did he really need to give him an explanation? Maybe he could say it was a weird place where he could focus and then y/n had read some lines with him. 

But maybe he’d seen them hold hands,had he seen how Tom was holding her hand under the table? 

There was no way he could’ve seen it. But maybe he’d noticed their behaviour. Tom wasn’t subtle when he looked at y/n. Not now, anyway. 

But now Tom couldn’t focus, he had to think about y/n and what he was going to o with that, how to make y/n trust him. He couldn’t, he knew he had been an asshole, he’d made mistakes, some bad, some worse. And that had led him here. 

Maybe he did know why y/n didn’t trust him. Stupid decisions. 

 He really didn’t want to deal with Sam now. 

Tom had opened a beer as he was on his couch, staring at the lovely day outside as Sam had settled in. Haz was across with another beer, watching them. 

“Okay so, care to explain, Tom, may I know why I saw you both sneak out of the treehouse?” Sam asked for the third time. Tom hadn’t answered. 

“What’s going on?” Sam pushed. 

“We—had a picnic there,” Tom admitted. 

“Are you dating? Like last time?” Sam questioned. 

Tom frowned as he turned to his brother. “Last time?”

“Harry’s not here, Tom, you can be honest about it, we all knew it,” Sam rolled his eyes. “Three years ago.” 

“We—no, we are not dating,” Tom sighed. 

Haz scoffed as he took a sip of his beer. “Were you 3 years ago?”

“Kind of,” Tom admitted. “Not really.

“Fuck, what?” Harrison scoffed. 

Sam chuckled. “I knew I was right.” 

“Three years ago was a very different situation, and I really don’t want to talk about it, okay?” Tom excused himself. “

“I just need to know Tom, what exactly are you doing? Harry was madly in love-”

“I know I know, Harry. Harry. Harry. I am very aware? I know Harry was in love with her. I’ve lived all my life knowing,” Tom snapped. “Harry loves her. No news. Loves? Loved? I don’t know. I know that.” 

Sam frowned. 

“But what none of you fucking knew,” Tom sighed as he stood up, pacing around the living room. “Is that I’ve also been in love with her since forever,” Tom explained. “I can’t hide it anymore and now that Harry is fucking getting married to someone else I might as well finally give it a shot.” 

Sam was the one to sit down now as he watched his elder brother. “What?” 

“I am in love with y/n,” Tom stated. 

“You’ve been awful at showing that,” Sam pointed out 

Harrison chuckled. “That’s what I initially thought, Sam but then everything makes sense.” 

“Does it?” Sam frowned. “Because as long as I remember, you broke her heart in the blink of an eye three years ago when you were supposedly dating her.” 

Tom coughed. “I know.” 

“Right,” Harrison nodded. “You’d been hanging out for a while, I knew that, but then when we saw you, you left her all alone and ended up hooking up with--” 

“Yes I know,” Tom barked. “I know, I fucking suck. I know, but I did this… Oh my god, everything I’ve done…” 

“Y/N has always had a soft side for you, even after everything,” Sam frowned. “I don’t know how the fuck she still had a crush on you after she’s literally seen your worst side. I never told anybody this but that time three years ago, I was the one to drive her home, and I’d never seen her cry before, not that way.” 

“Look,” Tom plopped back on the couch. “I know, I’ve been awful to her, but everything has a reason alright?” Tom sighed. “I’ve always… I knew she had feelings for me, alright? Especially… three years ago, and I thought, that time I could… I could finally tell everybody but then I saw Harry’s face and he was so heartbroken, he was so… So heartbroken.” 

Sam watched him. Harrison waited. 

“So I thought, hey, I can’t do that to my brother, I can’t let him be sad, because he loves her, okay? And… All my life, he was the one who was nice to her, he was the one whom she should like and she liked me? How the bloody hell did she like me? I did everything I could to make her hate me but we always ended up…” Tom rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, if she loved Harry things would’ve been easier but she’s broken my brother’s heart too many times, all by herself, and three years ago, that was on me. I was the one to blame on my brother’s broken heart.” 

Sam watched him. “Why didn’t you say anything?” 

“About what?” 

“If Harry had known,” Sam explained. “He would understand, for fuck’s sake Tom, all Harry ever wanted was for y/n to be happy.” 

Tom sighed. “It was easier hiding it, alright? I don’t know,” Tom snapped. 

“Do you really love her?” 

“Yes, fuck I love her, but now… Everything has gone to shit, okay?” 

“And what is going on now?” Sam questioned. 

Harrison rubbed his face. 

“She doesn’t trust me anymore,” Tom sighed. 

“Do you expect her to, Tom? Honestly? You’ve treated her like actual shit for a while and you expect her to be happy?” Sam frowned. “Really Tom, you’re the one who sent her to therapy.” 

“What?” 

“Three years ago, she didn’t tell anybody but me, just after you broke her heart she had to go to therapy, and do you really expect her to trust you again?” Sam frowned. “You really don’t know her, not like Harry or I do. And not even Harry because oh well, has she felt guilty when it comes to Harry.” 

Tom frowned. “What?” 

Sam sighed. “Didn’t you guys see it?” Sam looked at Haz and Tom. “She knows about Harry’s feelings. She tried to make his feelings go away.”

“This makes it even worse,” Tom snapped. “She is no better than me.” 

“The difference is Tom, she never broke his heart, not on purpose, and the way to get rid off his feelings was by introducing him to other people, not by making out with some random person at a club when she was on a date with him.” 

Tom stayed quiet. 

“What’s going on right now?” 

Tom sighed. “We slept together,” he admitted. 

Sam took a deep breath. “I knew it.” 

“What?” Tom frowned. 

“Ah, come on you guys were not subtle at all, please,” Sam rolled his eyes. “Wait-” He closed his eyes. “Please tell me you didn’t fuck in the treehouse or else I won’t be able to walk in there again.” 

“No.” 

Sam sighed with relief. “I hate you.” 

Tom stayed quiet. This hadn’t been the reaction he expected. He had obviously expected a warmer ‘oh my god, I didn’t know, you should go after her, big brother’ instead Sam was trying to get Tom not to date y/n, and not for the reason he had expected him to stop from. Sam was defending y/n? 

“So, what’s-- what happening?” Sam asked, not sure if he wanted to know the answer. 

Tom didn’t give him one. 

“They’re enemies with benefits,” Harrison was the one to answer. 

“What the fuck is that?” Sam watched him. 

“I dunno, she came up with it.” 

“Tom, if…No, why are you doing this? That’s literally the worst thing you could do,”Sam said. “Now that, if Harry found out.” 

“I know,” Tom rolled his eyes. “I want a relationship,” Tom explained. 

“But she doens’t want one,” Sam finished. “Right.” 

Tom clenched his jaw. “Yes.” 

“Did you expect her to, after everything?” Sam questioned. 

“ I don’t know what to do anymore,” Tom started. “I’m angry at myself but I don’t know what to do I don’t even think she was that angry at me alright?” Tom explained, Harrison and Sam glared at him. “I… I really, deep inside. I don’t think she’s ever truly felt anything for me,” Tom said. “She’s always been confused,  y/n has always been quiet about it, did she like me when I took her to prom? I don’t know! When we kissed? I don’t know! And now, even when… All of this is going on, I have never seen her look at me and feel like I’m the only man in the world, alright?” Tom frowned. “Yes, she’s said it, she probably told you about it, but with me, she’s never shown me she likes me, except… Except three years ago, And I fucked it up with her, and now…” Tom ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t trust her either, because yes, I’ve been bad to her, but she’s also been… She’s also broken my heart, I don’t know, three years ago, I.. I don’t know, maybe I had expected her to tell everyone because when… We had kissed okay? And she hadn’t really… It felt like a numb kiss.” 

They didn’t say anything. 

“And I don’t trust her, because she’s also… Remember about 4 years ago, she’s also broken my heart, when she said she didn’t care about any of my movies? Or when she stood me up for the premier? Or when she read out a poem on how dumb I was?” Tom pointed out. “I can’t trust her, because I know she’ll also break my heart, and I know, I know, I know…. I’ve been far worse to her but you guys, look….” He left the room and headed towards his room, searching in one of his drawers. He took out a small bag and then came back to them. 

“What is that?” 

“This is my own reminder that she also pushes away everything I give her, yes the context for this… Is my fault.” 

“Dust?” Sam frowned as he stared at the plastic bag full of dust. 

“These are the ashes from the last flowers I gave her I know I fucking broke her heart I am very aware,” Tom said.

“Why do you have that?” Harrison frowned. 

 “I don’t know why the fuck I kept it, I guess to remind myself that she would never… like me back because I had finally done it. I thought, hey she’ll like Harry back, but what did she do? She dated Timothée, even when Harry was going to be there for her,” Tom sighed. “I don’t know, I don’t know where I’m going with this, I have a lot of things like this, okay? Even if it’s fucking mental.” 

Sam and Harrison watched him.

“But I don’t know what the hell I am supposed to do, I held her hand for—I don’t know I don’t know if she was sad if she was angry, because she didn’t care. I never know what’s up with her, she tells no one. And—after I did this I reached out for her, alright?” He held up the flowers. “Day and night and I regret it okay? Everything I’ve done because how the fuck have I allowed myself to hurt the person I’ve loved the most?” 

Sam watched him. “Exacly, how do you expect her to fall in love with you?” 

“I don’t, not… Not right now but I am so stressed right now, I want to show her that this time I won’t break her heart, that this time I am going for real, and that I want her to fall in love with me and as stupid as it may sound, I dunno hae a relationship, a normal one, I don’t.. I don’t want whatever we have right now.” 

“Well, prove it to her, ask her out,” Sam said. 

“It’s not that simple,” Tom said. “I don’t know what to do, because I just want to dive in but I’m also afraid of her, I’m afraid that she’ll take her revenge.” 

Harrison shook his head. “That’s not like y/n.” 

“Her revenge was probably dating Timothée,” Sam explained. “But y/n won’t hurt you, not like that anyway.” 

“Well, how do I make her fall in love with me, then?” Tom asked. 

-

We all believe in lies when we’re in love. But y/n didn’t trust Tom. 

Y/N had been distracted. Maybe she didn’t love him anymore. He was only a distraction, but such a good distraction. The thing was, she didn’t know this side of him. 

But she knew him enough to know he’d back up. Because y/n over the years had seen a pattern: Tom shows her some love, then he backs away and blames it on her. 

Of course, y/n had trust issues. She’d been repeatedly stabbed by a man, and she’d actively given him the knife. 

She had been staring at the Polaroid. If anybody saw it they’d think Tom was in love with her, his eyes sparkled with love. So gentle as a wide smile was shown. It gave y/n butterflies. But as she was hanging it up she stared at the other pictures, particularly at the one when they were back in Rome. A gentle jolt was felt. As if her own wall full of memories was kindly reminding her of what Tom had done. 

Nobody chooses who we fall in love with, and nobody chooses where our heart wants to go. We can’t stop ourselves from falling. In whatever that sense it may come to. Falling down to the ashes of what something might have been is a stupid way to live by. 

But when we do, when the decision is up to us? Is it wrong to let ourselves fall? 

Because y/n knew she was going to, anyway. Either fall in love or fall into that dark place. There was no going back. Especially with those poisonous pair of lips he had. 

Y/N had paced around her place and finally opened up her laptop to write away. Honestly, she couldn’t. She was too angry at herself because this probably was her downfall. Was she really looking for revenge? Did she really want Tom to go down where she had? 

She didn’t wish that for anyone, but she had to protect her heart. She didn’t love him, but this was way too good to be written. Maybe that was the reason the script had come in so quickly, so easy to write sometimes. When her mind wandered to his broad back drawing to his strong arms. The late night conversations. However, she’d stop. Mostly because she didn’t want to daydream about him. 

But she’d always written about him, how many files did she not have about him. Not exactly stories. But maybe a doc that was only describing how light hit him perfectly or how his laughter could outshine the whole room. The way he’d gently look into her. 

A million poems dedicated to his smile. 

Maybe that was weird. Too much for a crush. But really who else could she tell that she loved him? 

Past tense. Not anymore. 

But did she not love him? Because she had to separate the sex from her feelings, but honestly, his lips butterflying on her skin didn’t help. And her mind was roaming again. She went back and collected every single Polaroid she had of him. She hadn’t really understood why he hadn’t pointed out how many times he’d appeared on her wall. From children, to their prom picture, a silly picture. Tom here. Tom there. He was the main focus of her entire room. 

Tom. 

She’d even printed one in which he was kissing her cheek, just after Rome. Had he not seen it? Had he been so oblivious to how important he was to her? Or did he only choose to ignore it? Like everything else. 

Because her heart did stop whenever she looked at him. But this was stupid, right? Having feelings for someone who had made her cry her entire life. Talk about some issues. He always ignored it. 

But then all the other Timmy pictures hanging around stung. 

She felt like she could still feel Tim’s lips against her. Soft and light. 

The only company she had now was a little plush frog from her childhood. It was dirty and ripped off but still huggable. 

Fritz.

Still huggable. 

She didn’t know what else to do. She didn’t want to write. She didn’t want to do anything. She just wanted to lay down on the floor while listening to One Direction, because y/n had very poor ways of dealing with her stress. And because y/n was someone very lonely, and very quiet. She rarely told anyone about anything. Except Harry but… she’d always been careful around Harry. Because… Harry. Harry only knew about her slight crush. That’s what she’d said about it. 

But no one really understood her feelings towards Tom. Not even her for that matter. Less now. 

Luckily her brother had come to the rescue. A pizza and beers. Stella Artois. The one damned beer that reminded her of Tom. She wasn’t sure why. 

Of course when he’d walked in and saw her on the floor hugging Fritz, surrounded by Polaroids featuring Tom with ‘If I could fly’ in the background, he knew it was going to be hell for him. She had cleaned the tears. 

“I was going to say mood, but I’m honestly too concerned,” James said. “So, what is this? A ritual to make Tom finally admit his real feelings for you? Should I get candles?” 

Y/N only looked at him, and pouted. 

“Should I do the same with you so you finally admit your feelings for him?” He asked as he sat down on the floor with her. “You’ve been crying.” 

She only closed her eyes and hugged Fritz tighter. 

“You’re weird, N/N.” 

He didn’t push the conversation, until they were both sitting up. Pizza seemed more interesting. 

Y/N opened her third bottle of beer. 

“So you have feelings for Tom, brand new information,” James said. 

“You—“

James laughed. “You haven’t been subtle about it, though I thought they’d already be gone by now. I hadn’t seen you this way since three years ago. Thought you’ve grown out of that crush.” 

“Three years ago, huh,” she looked at the now-empty box of pizza. 

“Yup, you chose the worst Holland to have feelings for,” James pointed out. 

“I don’t—“

“You do have feelings,” James concedes. 

“I do, but I don’t know what feelings,” she admitted as she picked up a Polaroid and stared at it. She let out a soft groan in frustration. “How the fuck do you not expect me to like him?” 

James stared at her sister. “And what’s the deal? You know Tom is in love with you?”

“He is not.”

“Harry is too, wouldn’t be surprised if Sam had a crush on you. Even Paddy.” 

“Shut up. That’s not true,” 

James let out a laugh. “Well, at least Tom and Harry.”

“No.” Y/N paused. “Not Tom.”

James scoffed, surprised. “So you do know about Harry.” 

She did. But she didn’t want to admit it, because that would mean she’d broken her best friends heart. She couldn’t live with that. 

“But Tom doesn’t love me.” 

James laughed. “You’re so oblivious y/n, and he is too, he doesn’t know what his own feelings are.” 

“No, but he is aware of mine and he loves playing with them,” y/n frowned. “And—I had promised myself I wouldn’t love him anymore. And I won’t.” 

“Well what’s the problem?” James asked, “ah wait you’re working for him, so you’re spending more time with him,” James recalled, “is he being an ass?”

“No,” y/n was frustrated. “That’s the problem.” 

“But what about Tim?”

“I—don’t know,” she closed her eyes. “I love Timmy.” 

“Alright…” 

“But god, Tom.”

James watched her and then gave it a thought. He suddenly realized it. “You slept with him,” he said it to himself. 

“Wha—What?”

“You slept with him!”

“James!” 

“Oh my god, y/n did you have sex with Tom?” 

“I—“

“Oh my god, you did,” James watched her as he slowly freaked out. “Oh my god. No. Why did I ask you that? Gross. No fuck—I don’t want to know about my little sister’s fuck….God I’m gonna kill him.”

“James!” 

James stood up. “I’m going to kill him, let’s go right now. God—“

“James,” y/n rolled her eyes.

“I’m going to kill him, how dare he corrupt my little sister? For god’s sake you’re childhood… friends! How dare he! I thought he was my friend but if he”-

“James!” She ran after him. 

“If he dared to sleep with my—he’s a fucking awful friend. And I’m going to kill him, my keys, where are my keys?” 

She stopped him. “I...didn’t sleep with him! James chill.” 

“You didn’t?” 

Y/N blinked. “No, I didn’t. You need to calm the fuck down.” 

“Y/N?”

“We… kissed okay, now calm down, Jesus, James, you’re older. Be mature.” 

“Sorry—And—“he closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “Sorry, even if you did it’s none of my business. You’re a grownup.” 

“I am,” she continued. 

He watched her, as she was shaking. “But… Oh my god you did. No, I know you—- You did sleep with him, didn’t you?”

Y/N didn’t answer. 

“Oh my god, y/n,” he squinted his eyes. “No wait, I know you—you did sleep with him.”

She rolled her eyes. “If it had hypothetically happened, and it didn’t—Why would it matter?” 

He rubbed his face. “Y/N oh my god.” 

“Look, the only bad thing about this—Is our past.” 

 “I—I don’t need details okay? But is this going anywhere? Are you in a relationship?” 

Y/N didn’t answer. 

“Oh my god, you’re not that’s what’s stressing you!” James watched her. “Isn’t it? Yes, now I get it! Oh my god you’ve caught feelings but you—“

“James you’re—“

He had to pace around the room. “I need you to understand y/n that while you and Tom didn’t get along he’s one of my best friends. Alright? So him sleeping with you is a direct betrayal to me and I hate him.” 

“Now we are in the same team,” y/n walked over to her kitchen to sit on the counter. 

“No we are not, because you slept with him—Or sleeping?” 

Y/N gulped. 

“Y/N!” 

Y/n looked away. “Can we focus on what’s important here?” 

“That you have a crush on him, or what? Are you pregnant?” He asked. 

“No.” She rolled her eyes. “The problem is way bigger than all of this.” 

“Do you have tequila?” James asked as he rushed to her cabinets. “I need some tequila to be able to hear this.” 

Y/N glared at her brother as he took out some shot glasses and a bottle of tequila. “You’re overreacting.” 

“How would you feel if your best friend slept with you?” 

“If Harry slept with you?” She chuckled.

James rolled his eyes. “You know what I meant,” he frowned. “And—He's been an asshole to you for all your life.” 

“My point exactly,” y/n ran a hand through her hair. “Look, there is a lot of Tom and I that you guys don’t know.” 

James downed a shot, and then poured one for her. “No kidding.” 

She downed a shot too. “Oh my god, it’s only sex James, I’m sure you’ve had it.” 

“I don’t tell you about it!” 

“I wasn’t planning on telling you! I didn’t tell you!” 

James downed another shot. “Oh y/n, I had assumed you had had sex with someone!” 

“Can we not talk about it—“ 

“And I knew— like oh she probably, I mean. C’mon y/n. You were on the floor with Harry Styles—“

“One Direction,” she corrected. 

“Not fucking important y/n,” James snapped. “I knew you were broken hearted but  I didn’t—expect Tom? I thought hey, she probably slept with her ex again! And she’s confused about Timmy but—Fuck, Tom?

“Oh my god, James, I’ve been in love with him my whole life,” she snapped. “No—Not right now.” She had to pause to pinch the bridge of her nose. “I am afraid I’ll fall ban in love with him. 

She stared at the bottle of cheap tequila, inviting her to drink more. 

Her brother filled up his own glass. 

“No, I can’t. Tom has broken my heart so many times I’m not sure if I could afford any more.” 

James watched her. 

“And that doesn’t even come close to where my actual problem relies on,” y/n explained. “It’s way more complicated.” 

“Should I pour more?” James asked. 

—

Y/N had confessed some things to James, and her brother hadn’t really told her anything. “Y/N, don’t get in trouble, you’ll end up breaking many hearts in this, but... your own heart is the one at stake.” 

He had been right. But she hadn’t slept, at all. She couldn’t see him. She couldn’t see Tom, and then Timmy. She would freak out, because she couldn’t handle this. So she hugged Fritz, like that would help. 

But her phone rang, in the middle of the night just as she was about to drift off trying to solver her problems by trying to find the answer in a dream.

“Tom… it’s 4 am,” she answered, angrily. 

“I know,” he sighed. “I just—“

“I’m not in the mood I’m tired—“She snapped. 

“I’m not calling for that.” 

“What for then? let me sleep,” she frowned as she sat up.

“I don’t want this to be like that last time,” he explained.

Y/N wanted to cry. “I don’t want to have this conversation Tom, not at 4 am.”

“But I mean it.” 

“What are you suggesting Tom?”

“I’m suggesting…”He trailed off. “I don’t even know what I’m suggesting.”

Y/N didn’t want to listen to him. “I think you mixed it up Tom, see? That’s why having breakfast is forbidden, and that’s why we shouldn’t have spooned and that’s why you shouldn’t have held my hand.” But she didn’t know why she was saying this, in technicalities she had him where she was supposed to have him. Was he catching feelings? 

But y/n knew Tom couldn’t catch feelings. This was another game  by tom

“But why not, y/n? You want it too,” he pushed. 

“I don’t know if I want it, Tom.”

Tom kept quiet for a bit. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to burn another set of yellow flowers, alright?” She reminded him. 

“II don’t think you’re getting my point y/n,”Tom gulped. 

“What point? Tom can we talk about it later? I need to sleep,” she sighed. 

“The point that maybe I don’t want it ending on me showing up at your door with yellow flowers? Unless it’s…”

Y/N frowned. “it’s what?” 

“Happy flowers, maybe change the meaning of yellow flowers...I dunno y/n, I just know.#

“Well it won’t change, you realize that?” Y/N answered. “But why do you want to...We can keep this thing going, sex and no strings attached what’s the deal?” 

Because she didn’t want to write about it. That was it. She really didn’t want to write about it, but this whole ‘enemies with benefits’, she knew she could sell it easily to her boss and she didn’t need to have her heart on stake. 

“That maybe I don’t want it,” Tom said. 

“You don’t want it?” Y/N questioned. It was hard to accept the fact that she didn’t want to admit that Tom may had had feelings for her too. 

“Maybe I do want some strings attached.”

“You’re just jealous of Timmy,” she remembered where all of this had come from.

“Maybe”

“And that’s it, but I don’t— look tom, I’m not trying to get back to Timmy alright? Are you happy with that answer?”

“No.” 

Y/N frowned. “What do you want from me then? Want me to go over, so we can have meaningless sex right now and then forget about all of this?” She said with poison. 

“No.” 

She groaned. “What do you want Tom?” 

��I want to take you out on a date.” 

She stayed quiet. “For what? So we can start hanging out only the two of us for a while, go out on dates and then you’ll end up with another pink skirt on a club and leave me hanging there? For that?” She hissed. 

“No, to make up for that, because I shouldn’t have done that kind of shit,” he said. “Because I really never wanted to hurt you.” 

“I thought you did, you said you were doing it exactly for that,” she felt tears coming down. “Tom we are better at being enemies, that’s what we are good at.” 

“Are we though?” 

“Tom that’s who we are, it’s our nature. It’s on your nature, we are always looking for a way to hurt each other to get back at each other,” she reminded him. 

“Well shouldn’t we change that?” He questioned.

“We can’t change it, we are untrustworthy,”she explained. 

“Well we also couldn’t be in a room for more than five minutes and we’ve managed that,” He reminded her. “I’m just asking for a date y/n.” 

“And I’m just asking you to let me go to sleep okay?” She frowned. 

He groaned. “Y/n it’s not-”

“I can’t deal with this shit right now, okay?” She interrupted him. “I don’t want to go to that dark place Tom.” 

“You think I haven’t gotten to a dark place?” 

She scoffed. “Have you, really Tom?”

“Y/N I have been awful to you,” he admitted. 

“No shit.”

“I’m the bad guy of this story, I know that, and I’m an asshole, I’m very aware. But I think that we both know it’s no secret that I like you.” 

She didn’t answer. Because she didn’t want to believe it. But when you’re in love, you want to believe in all lies. 

“At least these days I’ve tried to make it clear.” 

“Well, you’ve been years building up this whole I hate you thing, you’ll understand why I have a hard time believing you,” she said. 

“But I mean it, I—I think we know each other that much-” 

“Yes, to know we wouldn’t work, we’ve been proven, no, let me rephrase that,” she took a deep breath. “You’ve proven that it would take you less than five minutes to hurt me and hey, I’ve proven that to you too.” 

“But we’ve also proven that I can kiss your neck and undress you in less than two minutes,” he chuckled. 

“Goodnight, Tom.”

“No. Y/n, wait—”

“Well, but you do realize that doesn’t mean anything, if anything it means we can keep up with this whole benefits thing,” She said, as the thought came to her mind.

“No no no, y/n, come on, just—Let me take you out tomorrow. For lunch. Doesn’t have to be a date,” he pleaded. 

“I’m not having this conversation at four am.” 

“Why not?” 

Y/N bit her lip as she hugged her pillow. “Let’s just continue to hate each other, fuck when we want to and we’re good okay?” 

“No, not okay y/n, besides this is not like you.” 

“It’s not like me? Well you turned me into this Tom,” she snapped. 

“Well, then we’re done with the sex.” 

“Alright.” 

“No wait-”

But she’d already hung up. 

Tom didn’t sleep after that. And he had gone to rehearse. He saw her, they hadn’t even said hello to each other. But of course after talking to Sam night he’d gotten a very different perspective. And after talking to her, it was too different. He’d fucked up by calling.

Tom had to ignore her, too. She didn’t want to go out with him, alright. So Tom had made sure to make her see that he didn’t care. 

He couldn’t. 

However, he didn’t blame her. 

But he knew her. 

He knew y/n was of the jealous type, very jealous. She’d shown it throughout their life, y/n was someone who wanted attention, all the time. She had always been the centre of attention, you didn’t need to know her to catch that. Her clothes, the way she’d make her melodic laugh be heard across the room, and the way she’d find the perfect moment to walk into a room. But she tricked everybody into thinking that she didn’t care, when in fact she did. 

Of course, when he saw her, he knew that she knew exactly what she was doing. A headband tied up in a bow, and a white big shirt not fully buttoned. She knew exactly what she was doing. 

So of course, Tom being so mature, made sure that y/n knew he actually didn’t care. And he’d noticed over the last two weeks that y/n would get very distant when his co-star, Maddison would get unbelievably close to him, clenching her jaw and faking a smile. Tom had noticed Mad’s flirting, he’d just ignored it. 

Except for today, so when y/n pretended not to see Tom, he decided to approach Maddison. And as usual, she flirted, and Tom did answer this time, side-eying y/n as he was subtly touching Mad’s shoulder. 

Y/N hadn’t looked up. Not once. And he noticed she looked tired. 

“Hey, we should get lunch together today,” Tom slipped, loud enough for y/n to hear him. That’s when he noticed a change in her body. She didn’t look up, only eyed him quickly and then sucked in her cheeks. She took a deep breath but then continued her texting. 

And he got her. 

But that didn’t last long, because Timothée had arrived, and that’s when she’d looked up. He’d approached y/n, and it was slightly awkward. But he was so close to her. And her sight had turned soft, so soft when she’d stared at him. Tom could only clench his jaw and look back at Maddie. 

He decided to ignore it and walk in after the choreographer had. Tom tried staying close to the door as he warmed up, either trying to show off or listen to the conversation y/n was having with Tim. 

“Tom we are about to start.” 

He turned and had to have his arms around Maddie now, that’s when y/n had slightly turned to him. But y/n was already smiling at something Timothee had said. Tom kept staring outside but the choreographer closed the door, and now he could barely see y/n from the window on the door. 

Tom turned around so he could be more subtle, staring at the reflection on the mirror. And they started to dance, they were going to use some songs from Dirty Dancing, a subtle reference the director wanted to give out. Tom listened and tried to focus, the choreographer and director gave them notes.  

But he couldn’t concentrate, his eyes were glued to her and Timothée. Tim’s green eyes always on her, and her cheeks up and curved. They were dancing, outside, mimicking Tom’s and Maddie’s movements. 

Tom didn’t understand why it bothered him that much that Timothee was always dancing with her. Always. Dancing. Jumping. Perfectly. It reminded him of old times, at parties usually, when y/n would be singing along with Timothee as they danced. 

But this was even worse because they were not dating and they were there doing it for fun. Besides, y/n looked gorgeous so stunning. 

Those pair of high waisted jeans and that stupid white shirt. It was driving Tom insane as Tim and y/n were sillying around. 

He hated how he made her smile. And besides, he was boiling up over the fact they’d kissed. And Tom had seen them outgrown the awkwardness? What had Timothee done to outgrow such an awkward subject? They’d kissed, that was worse. 

He’d seen them talk. At first, he had said hello and he had stared into her eyes. And that was it? 

And y/n had barely looked Tom in the eye. 

Tom had to keep on focused, but he barely could. Maddie was not interesting enough and honestly, it bothered him seeing Tim’s slick fingers on y/n’s waist as she laughed. But then they stayed quiet as they watched them dance. They eventually weren’t even paying attention. 

Tom continued dancing and trying to memorize it but he couldn’t. He couldn’t move, there was no rhythm in his body. And somehow he saw Tim getting closer, and closer, and he didn’t know because the reflection could be lying but he’d seen Timothée kiss y/n’s cheek. And Tom felt his whole body warm-up with jealousy and his head aching. And he felt as if the world was turning. He didn’t know what happened until a loud thud was heard and Maddie was on the floor and Tom was seeing blurry, on the floor, as well. 

He was sweating, and he was nauseous. He had to stop to pinch the bridge of his nose. 

“What the fuck, Tom?” Maddie complained 

“I… I don’t know, I…” He was dizzy. He hadn’t slept, he hadn’t had anything for breakfast and adding this whole jealousy thing probably hadn’t helped him, at all. “I don’t feel okay.” 

Y/N had run into the room, and over to Tom, who weakly sat up. Tim ran behind her..

“Tom, are you okay?” 

Maddie frowned. “I’m on the floor, too, you know?” 

“Yes, but he’s the one who almost fainted,” y/n sassed as she cupped Tom’s face. “Here, drink some water and… Can we bring in some sugar? His blood pressure is probably down.” 

“You’re a doctor now, y/n?” Tom mocked, earning a glare from her. 

“How do you feel?” she asked.

“I don’t know, tired, okay?” Tom answered, Timothée was only looking at y/n. He looked away, as y/n handed him the bottle of water. 

The director watched him. “You think you can continue with this?” 

“Yes, just give me ten minutes.” 

“Ten minutes? I need the whole day to rest, you dropped me, now I’m sore,” Maddison complained. “Besides you weren’t even focused,” she continued as she stood up. “I’ll be doing it tomorrow” 

Tom watched her leave as the director sighed. “Are you sure you’re okay?” 

“Yeah, sorry, I… y/n’s probably right I need some sugar,” Tom admitted. 

The choreographer nodded. “Yeah, don’t worry, I’ll… I’ll work with the other dancer while you rest a bit.” 

“Give me a bit and I’ll try rehearsing it by myself,” Tom added. 

The director nodded. “Yeah, we can’t waste more time, besides we already have to shoot that scene from two days ago, and we… can’t waste more time. You,” he pointed at Timmy. “Get the other dancers, I think they’re here today, so we will go to the other room and they’ll be... “ He ran a hand through his hair. “Just gather them in room 5.” 

Timmy nodded, glanced at y/n and then left. 

The director turned to y/n. 

“I’ll take care of him, and make sure he rehearses,” she assured him. 

Tom squeezed his eyes shut and then crawled his way to lay his back against the mirror. 

“Did you sleep last night?” Y/N asked as she stood up, crossing her arms above her chest watching him. 

“No,” he answered. 

“I didn’t either, some weirdo called me at 4 am,” she scoffed, making Tom chuckle. 

“Well, that weirdo had stayed up until then,” Tom admitted. “And then he didn’t sleep after that.” 

Y/N scoffed as she sat down beside him. “Is that the reason why you were failing at every dance step?” 

“Hey,” Tom nudged her. 

“You’re usually good, but today you sucked,” she pointed out, laughing.

He rolled his eyes as he ran a hand through his hair. “Maybe.” 

“And you have a terrible dance partner,” y/n added. “She’s too overwhelming.” 

Tom chuckled. “She is?” 

“Total diva, you shouldn’t go out for lunch with her,” she pointed out, looking away. 

Tom smirked. “Oh.” 

She coughed. “Yeah, no, not her,” she cleared her throat. 

Tom clenched his jaw. “Well, I had asked a better girl to go out for lunch and she declined the offer.” 

“Bummer,” she shrugged. “But she probably had her reasons.” 

Tom nodded. 

They stayed quiet for a while, Tom not knowing what exactly he should tell her. He knew he’d fucked up with her by calling her last night. But still, he wanted to keep fighting? How interesting was this that even after she’d shown him her worst side he was still in love with her? 

He gave it a thought. Why did she love Timmy? What did they do together that made her happy? And he understood. Dancing. She always danced with Timmy.

“Can you help me out?” He asked. 

“Hm?” She frowned. 

“Yes, with the choreography, I need a better dancing partner and I still need to--” 

“I’m an awful dancer,”she pointed out. 

“Yes, but I’m good at leading, I just need to hold someone.” 

Y/N hesitated but stood up. “Alright.” She offered him a hand. “But you’re better now, right?” 

He took her hand and then plugged in the music. 

“I love they’re using dirty dancing,” she commented. 

He grinned as he walked over to her, placing her hands on her hips. “Okay so, let me lead, no no,wait,” he chuckled as he tried moving her. 

“I don’t dance, Tom,” she reminded him. 

“Okay, wait,” he took her hands instead. “Just, trust me, okay? Let me lead, help me out,” he said before moving her back and forth, as the music started her clumsy feet stepping on him. “y/n, don’t step on me,” he chuckled, as he looked her in the eyes. “Look at me… Two three four, two three four, loosen up your hips,” he instructed as his hand landed on it, let it roll, yes, a bit less hard.” 

“I suck.” 

“You do,” he grinned. “Now, okay, shoulders down, don’t lean back,” he commented, as his hands were now on her waist. “Okay okay, don’t be too harsh y/n,” he commented as she pushed her hips forward. “It’s… ‘ve seen you move, and you can be softer.” 

She blushed as she nudged him. “Tom, hey, no, this won’t work.” She pushed him away. 

“No, you’re doing good,” Tom grinned as he pulled her back in. “Okay, don’t put your heel down, feel the music and let me,” he chuckled as she was barely loosening up and then leaning closer to him. “Okay, okay, not that much, this is your dance space,” he pushed her back, as he opened up her arms. “And this is mine, alright?” He showed her. “We’re dancing not… Other stuffing.” 

She rolled her eyes with a smirk as he kept dancing with her. They weren’t really following the choreography but this rather seemed like Tom was trying to show her how to properly dance. Not jump around like she did with Timothée. And she seemed to enjoy it, but Tom was getting nervous, this was definitely not what he’d expected to have from their last conversation. But y/n was giving in. 

“I’m going to spin you around,” Tom explained. “And it’s gonna be quick okay, the key for this is, don’t look around, try to find the spot, which are my eyes,”he commented as he stared down at her. She looked him in the eyes, in her very particular way of looking into eyes, first staring into one then the other. “And when I spin you, try to find my eyes again, alright?” Tom had turned softer. 

‘Love is strange’ started playing. 

She had only smiled as he then proceeded to spin her, once, twice, three times and her eyes went back to his but she was dizzy anyway as she let out a laugh, almost falling to his arms. 

“I’m the worst dancer.” 

“Okay, that wasn’t bad,” Tom laughed. “But, we’re doing it again, remember, find your spot,” he reminded her. She stopped, just slightly, now her hands were on his face, cupping it. 

He gulped. “Alright? You found your… spot?” As her breath fanned his, his heart beating faster as she stared at her.

She stared down at his lips. “Yeah,” she whispered. 

He spun her again, and then she managed to bring him down to the floor. He only laughed as his hands landed on her hips. 

“Sorry,” she gulped as she quickly stood up. Tom watched her from the floor. They kept on laughing. 

“Oh, that song,” Y/N coughed awkwardly. “Now I remember that scene,” she mocked as she tried to move her hips. She rolled her eyes. 

Y/N  laughed. “Sylvia,” she chanted just as the song was playing. 

“Yes, lover b-girl” Tom mocked. 

“No, no I’m not doing this.” She turned around. 

“How do you call your lover boy?” The song sang. 

Tom laughed. “Come here, lover girl.” 

“And if he doesn’t answer?” The song continued. 

“Oh lover girl,” Tom sang louder, watching y/n blush looking away. 

“No,” y/n said. 

“And if he still doesn’t answer?” The song continued. 

“I say,” Tom grinned. “Baby, oh baby” he crawled over to her as she tried to push him away.

“Tommy.” 

 He managed to pull her down to her knees to bring him to his sight. “My sweet baby,” Tom sang to her as he wrapped his arms around her, now the soft spot he’d had for her gone and filled with lust. 

“You’re the one,” he whispered to her, as his eyes turned darker watching her. 

She only blushed as she wrapped her arms around his neck as his hands made her move her hips, slightly moving down his hands to cup her eyes. His eyes travelled down from her lips to her neck as he nuzzled down to her breasts, but she pushed his head back up to her face. 

And it seemed Tom had forgotten he’d almost fainted as his lips arrived on hers, combining his lust with her sweet lips as the song was merely a background. 

And they were too busy to know that someone had seen them through the window of the door. But you know, when you’re in love, you believe in lies. And Timmy really wished this one was a lie. 

previous chapter next chapter series masterlist wanna be tagged?

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[shera-dnd]

Face Turn - Tag Team

It’s once again time for some more Face Turn!

I hope y’all are liking Weiss and Yang’s dynamic, because their fans sure do... a bit too much in fact

this chapter is definitely not just me roasting real people shippers lol

ANYWAY here’s the AO3 link and on with the fic

While Weiss and Yang’s relationship progressed outside the ring, so did it do inside it as well. Though they haven’t directly had any rematches yet, they have insulted and challenged each other constantly and Weiss had to admit that shit talking her friend was one of the best parts of her job.

The other great part was kicking people’s shit in and then hearing their fans boo her out of the ring. 

She had made a big deal of ‘putting all of them in their place’ and she was doing her best to make good on those words. It truly seemed that only Yang would be able to beat her now and the build up for their rematch was fast approaching.

Poor Yang on the other hand just couldn’t catch a break and had to deal with so many heels coming after her while she was still ‘recovering’. One of those vultures happened to be a man by the name of Mercury Black, and Weiss was on her way to ruin his day.

So the plan here was pretty simple. Yang would be exhausted from all those fights she hadn’t fully recovered from and Mercury would take that opportunity to take her down, but before he had the chance, Weiss would interfere and beat up Yang too, disqualifying Mercury and saving Yang once more. 

She was Weiss’s rival after all, she couldn’t have someone else beating her up.

She got her cue and made her way to the ring, unannounced. Casually she leaned against the structure and threw in some insults as she watched the fight unfold. It was only when he had Yang backed into a corner that she grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head against the turnbuckle.

The judge called it there, disqualifying Mercury for outside interference.

“I didn’t need your help!” Mercury shouted, right up to her face.

“Oh please, like I care about you,” she scoffed, “now be a nice loser and go sulk backstage.”

They sized each other up and braced to fight right then and there, but the judge interrupted them again and made Weiss leave the ring.

“Do try to make a better show of it next time,” she taunted Yang on her way out, “it wouldn’t do to have you lose to every punk with an attitude.”

Yang could only sneer through her bloodied face. Lilac eyes stared at her, promising revenge in front of the whole camera crew. She had to admit, Yang was a fantastic actor.

Her taunting grin never left her face as she walked back through the booing crowd, not offering any of the fans even a glance as she made her way backstage.

That is until she noticed the one person cheering her heart out. It was a younger person with a sign that read ‘Freezer Burn 4 Life’. Weiss had no idea what that meant, but the fan kept cheering her and pointing at the sign.

Didn’t matter, she did her job and it was time to go back to the changing room.

“Schnee,” Mercury called as soon as he saw her, “that was the biggest dick move I’ve ever seen.”

He marched up to her, studied for a second and then offered his fist.

Weiss punched it.

“Nice!” He laughed, “think we can talk Blake into scheduling a fight for us?”

She chuckled, “I’ll see what I can do.”

On her way out she stopped by Yang’s side, just to give her a slap on the first non-bruised surface she could find and say, “see you at the Fang tomorrow.”

And so they did just that, but what she didn’t expect was for them to have a visitor.

Weiss nearly jumped on her seat when she heard a noise coming from her left and turned around to glare at the person, just to recognize her favorite writer sitting down and ordering a drink.

“Right, forgot about the blindspot, sorry” Blake apologized.

She didn’t really say anything back, just shook her head and turned back to her drink. No point in bringing attention to the humiliation.

“Hey, Blakey,” Yang greeted, “is it your turn to share your tragic backstory over some drinks?”

“There’s no amount of alcohol that can get me to share that mess,” she joked, or at least they hoped she joked, “actually I was more interested to hear from you. Have you two been checking your social media lately?”

“Eh,” Yang shrugged, “not much outside of the usual promo stuff.”

“And I have better shit to do than scroll through twitter all day,” besides, it strained her eyes too fast for her to enjoy it.

“So I take it neither of you have seen the hashtag ‘Freezerburn’ before, right?” She asked, already pulling out her phone.

“I think I saw someone carrying a sign about that yesterday,” Yang commented.

“Yeah it was some random fan during your last match,” she elaborated, “they seemed really intent on making me see it.”

Blake took in a sharp breath through her teeth as she looked awkwardly between the two of them.

“I don’t know how to say this but,” Blake braced herself, before turning the phone towards them, “your fans started shipping you.”

There was a moment of silence as they tried to process what had just been said. This was made entirely more difficult by the fact that what Blake was showing them was simply surreal. 

Hundreds of tweets under that stupid tag, ranging from short messages in all caps about how they were meant for each other, to long and elaborately edited videos of just about every second they’ve spent together in public.

It was bizarre.

Worse still was the knowledge that their match from the previous day had only added fuel to this fire they had no idea had been burning in the first place. It all filled Weiss with a profound discomfort that she couldn’t quite put into words.

“What the fuck?” Was her only response.

“Not this shit again,” was Yang’s.

Blake just sighed and ordered another round on her.

“What the fuck!?” She repeated, much louder this time.

“I should have seen this coming,” Blake said, “I should have taken some sort of precaution to make sure this wouldn’t happen.”

“Do they fucking know how disrespectful this shit is?” She was nearly shouting now, “Do they know how fucking creepy they look?”

“No and no,” Yang sighed, “and trust me, Blake, there’s nothing we could have done. If they get it in their heads that we're a couple then nothing in the world is gonna convince them otherwise.”

“You sound like you have way too much experience with that,” Blake said.

Yang took another long sip of her drink, before she could answer.

“It was back when I was doing Indie stuff,” she began, “it wasn’t nearly as big as this, but back then I had been in a tag team with this girl called Neo. People would hound us for info on our relationship and shout that we should kiss any time we won a match. It was really creepy, especially considering Neo was already in a relationship at the time. It was just…”

Yang shuddered.

“Okay that’s fucking it, next time I see someone with a Freezer Burn sign, I’m ripping it in half,” Weiss declared.

“Don’t actually do that,” Yang pleaded, “they’ll just take it as confirmation that we’re secretly crushing on each other or something. The more you bring attention to it the worse it gets.”

“So should we change the plot line maybe?” Blake offered, “keep the rivalry, but tone down the ‘only I get to beat you’ aspect of it?”

“I guess that could work,” Yang shrugged. With a gesture towards the three of them and the bar in general, she added, “maybe we should tone this down as well.”

“What!?”

“You know, they haven’t found this place yet, but every time we meet outside of the arena we’re risking just fueling their weird shit,” Yang explained and Weiss was having none of that.

“Fuck that!” She interjected, “I’m not sacrificing this shit over some internet weirdos. If they wanna be creepy then that’s on them, but I get to decide how I spend my free time and I’m gonna spend it with my fucking friends!”

This had been the best thing to have happened to her in well over a year and she was not letting it be hijacked by some obsessive creeps.

“D’aww, you see me as a friend?” Yang teased, and suddenly Weiss agreed that maybe they should spend less time together.

[zedecksiew]

“Exotic Warrior”

(Am writing this because it’s been bubbling over in my mind. This post is an exorcism of bad vibes over bad ideas that have held me hostage, the past few days.)

+

There is now criticism on Twitter arguing that the “Exotic Warrior”, one of Troika!’s d66 Backgrounds, is racist because it is coded as Orientalist / Asian.

I would like to respectfully disagree.

(There are other arguments in the initial complaint. I am commenting the “Exotic Warrior” specifically. Because by being actually East Asian -- part of the diaspora, living in Southeast Asia -- I feel I have some standing to comment.)

+

When I encountered “Exotic Warrior” in the book it stood out as a neat background and helped sell me on Troika!.

As I read it, the Background is a deft piece of work: it references the “adventurer from a foreign land” thing, but occludes said trope’s usual Orientalism -- an attempt at deconstruction.

A foreigner, in Troika!, can be anybody. This isn’t just a platitude; it’s supported by the book’s implied science-fantasy setting -- is essentially Spelljammer, but on more acid.

It is similar to Electric Bastionland / Planescape / etc in that it features a melting-pot, nobody’s-local “city at the centre of creation”-type deal. (I have Thoughts about RPG setttings that focus on metropoles, but that’s a separate post.)

+

Here’s the “Exotic Warrior” ’s text, in full:

24 EXOTIC WARRIOR No one has heard of your homeland. Your habits are peculiar, your clothes are outrageous, and in a land jaded to the outlandish and new you still somehow manage to stand out.

POSSESSIONS - A WEIRD & WONDERFUL WEAPON. - STRANGE CLOTHES. - EXCITING ACCENT. - A TEA SET or 3 POCKET GODS or ASTROLOGICAL EQUIPMENT.

ADVANCED SKILLS 6 Language - Exotic Language 3 Fighting in your Weird Weapon 2 Language - Local Language 2 Spell - Random 1 Astrology 1 Etiquette 

Honestly? None of the above reads as particularly problematic. It’s a legit, characterful beginning point for a player-character.

Sure, my Western-media-battered brain jumps to Samurai Warrior -- 

But immediately also to Sufi Missionary or Varangian Guard. And indeed comes to rest at Indeterminately White Gentleperson Naturalist -- the kind of exotic visitor Southeast Asia got, a lot, those scouts of European imperialism.

+

These readings are possible because of the illustration the entry is paired with. Here they are together:

Setting aside the surrealist stylisations:

The shape of the costume, the belt, the “skirt” -- these look like Europeanisms, to me. And the figure’s laughing abandon opposes the standard Orientalist tropes of wise inscrutability or red-faced savagery.

The choice to run “Exotic Warrior” with a decidedly non-Orientalist-coded illustration isn’t an unintentional piece of art direction.

(PS: any critique of an illustrated text that only focuses on the words is incomplete. Image is half the text of an illustrated text.)

+

The nondescript-ness of the entry plus its accompanying image is an open door. Opening this door isn’t without risk: whatever assumptions you make about your particular “Exotic Warrior” are drawn from your own biases.

+

Regarding “Etiquette” and “Astrology” and “Tea Set”?

With my biases: I don’t read these things as uniquely East-Asian. (When I first encountered “tea set” in Troika! I genuinely thought: “English tea service”, instead of: “temae”.)

The one that I did read as real-world Eastern was “Pocket Gods” -- but many human cultures had this, pocket gods are a part of Troika!’s wider fantasy setting, and “Exotic Warrior” isn’t the only Background to start with them.

+

A note on “exotification”:

The criticism of “Exotic Warrior” fundamentally seems to be: “Playing a character from the Other / that is Other-ed = BAD”.

I fundamentally disagree with this notion.

I have no lived experience of a society where being other-ed (in terms of culture, race, class, gender expression, etc) isn't an ever-present thread in the fabric of one's life -- and therefore a crucial and profound source of conflict and insight into the human condition.

(The ethnic fault-lines in Malaysian society have become so unbridgeable today primarily because it was official policy to sweep all that other-ing under the rug of “Malaysia Truly Asia”, as opposed to working through our ugly whispered prejudices towards understanding.)

We are not all the same. Cultural, geographic, and material differences exist. The mismatch in knowledge and understanding this creates? It matters.

In fact: To insist on universal cultural-knowledge parity; To push for “nobody’s born here, everybody belongs” melting-pots as the default framing; To nudge questions of difference and arrival into ghettos (to paraphrase one of the tweets I saw: “you can only explore issues surrounding the Other in a game specifically designed to do so”);

All that comes off to me as a very neo-liberal position, designed to safeguard and disguise the privileges of “mainstream” metropolitan melting-pots.

I read it as:

“Post-modern cosmopolitan societies want to be inclusive but don’t want to pay the admission price of history and discomfort, so they generally opt for erasure instead.”  

+++

Throughout this post I have been careful to speak from my particular context. Because context matters.

More context:

I like Troika!. Like, a lot. I think its creator, UK-based Daniel Sell, strives and succeeds at making thoughtful work. I consider him a friend, whom I’ve had personal (albeit Internet-bound) interactions now and again.

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I have BJ Recio to thank for the following insight. Talking to him about “Exotic Warrior”, BJ brought up a crucial point that I’ll paraphrase here:

Roleplaying the outsider can be bad, especially when it is used as an excuse by the West to do fucked-up shit. But it is not default bad. Assuming it is default bad centres the discussion on “Will White people fuck this up? (Yes.)”

Essentially, the argument against “Playing a character from the Other / that is Other-ed = BAD" assumes two things:

(a) Western participants as default; (b) harm (because of ignorance or bad faith) as default.

+

If your context -- your Background, hah! -- prompts you to experience Troika! with those assumptions; and therefore read “Exotic Warrior” as necessarily Orientalist, and racially-charged?

Your context is your context; I’m not going to invalidate it.

If you are located in a society where the binary of White / non-White overpowers everything, I certainly understand the whys and hows of your position.

Your context matters.

+

So does mine.

+++

I think I’m reacting badly to this because I personally feel turned away by this RPG Discourse Around Representation (tm), supposedly done in the name of my East-Asian ass.

I resent the idea that “Playing a character from the Other / that is Other-ed = BAD”. It threatens to render verboten the entirety of my RPG work.

I am a SEA creator trying to explore and be true to my context. If there is one constant throughout SEAsian experience, it is difference.

Our peoples have ever encountered and glamourised and hated each other, all of us simultaneously Us and the Other:

Japanese and Malay enclaves in Ayutthaya; Mongol invaders in Java, who never left; Luzones mercenaries, employed by both the Sultan of Melaka and his Portuguese enemies; The reputation of the Ilanun / Bajak Laut; White conquistadors (aforementioned above); The entire history of diaspora Chinese identities (my identity!) in SEA, generally;

Foreigners from foreign lands -- feared, not fully understood, not fully understanding, simultaneously conquering and settling and finding modes of belonging, becoming a part of the land.

Always arriving.

+

That the background music of my geography, discordant though it may be, is somehow so harmful it may only be meaningfully depicted in the hermetic context of a “game specifically designed to explore that”?

This feels bad, and extremely unwelcoming. It feels like a shut gate instead of an open door.

I refuse to be turned away.

+++

(Hopefully I can finally stop thinking about this shit.)

[nctzendreamz]

Psycho — Bae Joohyun

Irene really, really loves you. Too much, you begin to realize.

Warnings: Psychotic!Au, mentions of abuse, murder, language, and in general dark themes.

Word Count: 7k

January 16, 2020 — 9:45PM

She might as well have been a celebrity, as she was the key reason that this coffee shop got visitors. Her silky smooth skin, complimented by her sparkling eyes and perfect build was everything the masses needed to get up early in the mornings before work.

She couldn’t count all the numbers she had recieved in just the couple of months she had been employed at Velvets; the coffee shop that rested in the center of the city. It’s red and pink decor, followed by the hand crafted decorations from so many visitors in the past, was exactly where Bae Joohyun, more frequently referred to as Irene belonged.

She always had the same greeting. It was in the protocol, after all.

“Hello! Welcome to Velvet’s. How are you doing today?”

And today is no different. She always tries her best to look right at the customer as soon as she hears the familiar bell, indicating the door had opened, but her nail was chipping, and it was driving her nuts. She says her line, still fiddling before she realizes that it can’t be fixed until later.

“I’m so sorry! It’s been a long—“

And then she stops. She has seen a million people come and go to her place of work. Most of them found her beauty to be enchanting, but even the finest of them could barely make her blink. No matter how hard they tried to merge the conversation onto dinner, or what she was doing after her shift, her facial expression stayed the same—dull and unimpressed.

But you. You’re standing here in all of your glory, hair perfectly sculpted to your face. She loves this look on you. It’s the perfect color to compliment your perfect skin, and daring eyes as they swallow her whole. Usually, she did this to others, yet here you were, snatching her soul—seemingly without even trying. 

“A long day.” She finally breaths out. Her heart is racing at a dangerous pace, and she knows she looks like a creep right now. Her dark eyes are trying to break you down, and bring you to your knees, but it’s not working.

“I understand that.” You giggle. You seem tired. The bags under your eyes are slight, but still drooped enough to which she can tell you’re either a student, or you work a nine to five. Regardless, you’re not always free. Your clothing is simple. Sweats, a hoodie, and some ugg boots to shield you from the cold weather. “Your nails are so cute, by the way.” You smile, and it’s calming. It’s not a full on cheese session, but that makes it even better. It’s simple, just as you seem to be.

“Don’t flatter me.” She begins, showing them to you in full form over the marble counter. “It’s chipped.”

“And still cute.” You assure, smoothly moving a sole finger across the nail. “Is it gel polish?” You question with an adorable head tilt. Absolutely priceless. You’re probably very good at getting what you want. You know exactly how to move, and lighten your voice to make people feel what you want them to feel.

“It is. You know—

“It stays on longer.” You finish for her.

“Exactly.” She can’t hold in her smile. Was her heart...warming? If so, that meant her cheeks were turning pink, which also meant that you could see clearly that you were doing it right. If you were flirting with her, you were doing it so well, and so respectfully.

“I’ll just take a hazelnut.” You breathe out. Your hands are in your pockets, and you’re shifting the weight from your toes to your heels repeatedly. You must be cold. When you’re cold, you get jittery it seems. That’s why you’re in here in the nick of time. You’re definitely in school. You probably just got out of class, and have a shit-ton of homework to finish. That’s why you need the coffee and that’s why you seem so exhausted; although you’re trying to hide it from her.

“Hazelnut!” She shouts, turning around and giving the ticket to the real worker in here. She doesn’t even look at him as reaches out to snatch it from her. “Is that your favorite?”

“The only coffee I will drink.” You admit, covering your face with your hands. You’re embarrassed. You probably feel somewhat uncultured, and childish for even saying that out loud.

“Have you ever tried another?” She says in a light tone, tilting her head just as you did a few minutes ago. Still, you’re unfazed. You actually close your eyes for a moment before snapping them back open.

“I have. I think it was roasted chestnut? Whatever it was it was not good at all.” And now you’re laughing. Your laugh—it’s beautiful. It’s not a subtle, shy chuckle that would indicate you don’t laugh often. You laugh all the time. She can’t tell if it’s a boyfriend that always has you geeked like this, or maybe your friends. Maybe, even your girlfriend, but that would break her heart too much.

“Well, coffee isn’t the only good thing here. We’re not Starbucks, but our frapachinos are pretty good.” Irene mentions, eyes flicking to the frap menu to the left of her. She lets the red sweater she spotted slip off her shoulder ever so slightly, and you’re looking at it. It was for a mere second, but she saw it.

“Here you go.” Josh—the chef of this shift interrupted, handing you your coffee quickly.

“That’s the fastest you’ve ever done that.” Irene seethes, shooting an annoyed look to her co-worker.

“Trying to close. No offense.” Josh nods to you, already starting the trials and tribulations that closing involved. He’s wetting a rag in preparation of wiping all of the counters down.

“Oh, none taken. I hate to be that customer that comes in late like this. I just have all this work to catch up on and I figured buying aderall from the guy who sits beside me in Psych wasn’t the best idea.”

Irene breaks into a fit of laughter. Truthfully, she wasn’t faking it. You were so funny. But she was also right. She hit the nail right on the head, actually. Josh couldn’t believe his ears as he had barely seen her smile a genuine cheese. Of course he stayed silent. “You’re funny!” She coughs out through her fit.

“Don’t flatter me.” You smile brightly. Your smile is so pretty, just like you. God, she was running through too many scenarios on how she could make you stay. “Thanks for this pleasing experience. Today sucked and I needed it so badly. Do you guys have like a manager or something? Or like a survey?”

She had never been asked this before. No one had ever cared to commend them on their excellent service and caffeine recovery program they had in place for the addicts. “Um...no. But what you can do is come back. To repay us.” She whispers the last part.

She needs your name. She just knows someone like you has the most goregeous name.

And the heavens answers her request. She already saw that you had a necklace hiding under your hoodie, but you’re pulling it out now. It’s a name; she just needs to know who it is.

“That necklace, I love it.” She leans over the counter, squinting to see the name. “Y/N.” She mumbles. “Is that your name?”

“It is.” You respond. “People say it’s stupid to wear your own name, but it’s comforting to me. Plus, I don’t have someone else’s name to wear so.”

So, you were single.

“Don’t get too discouraged. Someone could come and change that. Very soon, actually.” She purrs, and she finally does it. She’s getting in your head. You’re seeing her.

You leave, your walk mezmorizing her in ways that makes her tingle. She barely follows the procedures of cleaning, as all she wants to do is go home. She needs to know everything about you.

“Y/N L/N. Twenty four years old. Younger than me.”

It wasn’t that hard to find your all your social media. All public, minus your Facebook account. Your Twitter consists of retweets of memes that probably made you scream, and your own little comedy that your select friends liked as they felt obligated.

She can’t lie; she was expecting to see a tweet about her. Something about a beautiful girl in the coffee shop. But there was nothing. Not a peep. Then again, maybe this was a good sign. Maybe you liked to keep your loves private. She’s searching through your pictures, embellishing in the sight of you until something stops her scrolling.

It’s a picture of you, and another guy. His hair is black, but his features are far from plain. He’s not impressive to her, but she knows to you, he’s everything. He seems to be just your type.

It’s been two years, and yet, it feels like a thousand.

The caption is so short, yet so sweet and gentle. It’s telling a million stories with one sentence, and even she can tell there’s real love in the photo. On your side, at least. She feels sick now. He’s tagged on the photo.

Lee Taeyong. That’s his name. The first place she searches is his likes, where she knows she’ll find proof of him being a scumbag. The way you addressed your necklace; it’s almost as if it was a mere replacement for a previous. It was a somber, silent story.

A lot of his likes are filled with hip-hop. Viral dances, artist appreciation, funny memes just as you enjoyed. You two probably found love through a similar interest. She continues to scroll though, where she finds something that truly twists her stomach. A quote.

Do you ever wish you could turn back time? Fix a mistake? Go back to when everything was perfect? When you could hold her and she was yours? Because same.

He hurt you. She didn’t know what he did, but she knows he hurt you. Her first guess was cheating, and she was going to stick to it. Maybe your chill nature was because your walls were up so high. Maybe your intense laughter wasn’t because you laughed all the time, but instead because you hadn’t laughed in a while. And it was all his fault—fuck Lee Taeyong.

He works at a video game store. No—he owns an arcade to be exact. She was going to see him. She needed to observe him in person. See his vibe. In the mean time, she can follow you on Instagram. That’s not too weird, right?

January 17, 2020 — 7:30PM

“Welcome to T’s.” A dull voice speaks.

Although the lighting in the arcade is practically blinding—all the neon creating a cool atmosphere, their customer service is awful. Probably a telling to his personality if that’s the kind of people he hired.

She waited for a moment, waiting for more. How can they just assume she knows what she’s doing? What kind of place was this? It’s a Saturday afternoon, and it shows because people are everywhere. Kids are running around, and adults are talking trash to eachother as they bet money on who will win the car game. “Men.” She sighs. But with her sighs brings the man she’s looking for. He’s almost blending in with his all black clothing, but she knows it’s him. He’s hard to miss, but not because of his features. It’s because she hates him.

Her current outfit; a tight red dress and dangerous heels aren’t really arcade attire, but she doesn’t care. She clacks her way over to Taeyong, who is surrounded by many people. He must be popular. He definitely cheated on you. The girls around him were ridiculous. So much for missing you.

She knows approaching so quickly would be foolish. It wouldn’t make sense. She decides instead to creep around, wanting to know who these people are. As she gets closer, she can recognize almost all of them. Chungha—your seemingly bestfriend was here, some guy with his arm around her shoulder. The Johnny she had seen pop up on your feed a few times, the Ten, and lastly, the Momo. Momo also seems to have some unspoken feelings about you.

She could feel it in the way she comments under your pictures. You couldn’t notice her flirtatious nature, but it was there.

The most beautiful human in the world.

My favorite.

Can I be you?

More like—can I be with you?

“Excuse me.” Irene finally speaks, interupting their laughter. She was hoping they’d give her a dirty look, so she could have even more of a reason to turn you against them, but they don’t. They look at her in synch, smiles still on their faces.

“What’s up?” Johnny says, a dashing grin on his face. Another who thinks she’s too beautiful. Exactly how she felt about you. “Are you new around here?”

Chungha punches him in the shoulder promptly, clearly not a fan of his approach. Irene can see why she was your chosen best-friend. Then again, was she really your friend? I mean, all of these people were hanging around your ex boyfriend and the only person who wasn’t here is you?

“Sorry about that.” She apologizes. “Us pretty girls are hard to come by, and they get extremely thirsty.”

She’s funny, but not as funny as you.

“Oh it’s fine. I’m Irene.” She introduces, placing her frail hand out. It connects with Chungha’s, and it’s genuine. “He’s right. I am new here. I’m a tad overdressed, I see.”

“I’m not complaining.” Johnny adds, receiving a punch from Taeyong this time.

So, he’s somewhat of a woman supporter too. I mean, he didn’t have to stop him from his words, but he did.

“I’m Taeyong.” He sighs, but he doesn’t place his hand out. That’s odd. The glow of games is making all of them look nothing less of models, but that doesn’t mean she’s impressed. No one was better than you.

“You know, you’re allowed to touch a girl other than your family and Y/N.” Johnny jokes.

The mention of your name makes everything in Irene’s body spike. They were acknowledging you, even though you weren’t here, which means maybe you didn’t mind them being here without you. Or maybe you and Taeyong weren’t exactly broken up. Something complicated instead.

He doesn’t say anything, just squints at his friend in an evil manner.

“Y/N.” Irene interrupts, putting a hand on her chin. “I met someone with that name last night.” She says. She knows exactly what she’s doing. “I work at Velvets, and this girl came in. She was wearing a necklace with that name.”

She watches for Taeyong’s reaction, and she gets what she wants. The mention of the cafe makes him almost flinch. Velvets must have been a place you two frequently visited together when you were dating. But then again, why did you seem so clueless about the menu? No, you weren’t. You mentioned you tried other coffee. It must have been with him. The way you laughed, it all makes sense now. You were thinking about him. A memory popped up.

She wants to ask if you were his ex, but that would be crossing the line. She had only known them for two minutes. It would seem too odd.

“Was she wearing sweat pants and a hoodie?” Momo questions now. Her hands are crossed over her chest, and Irene can’t read her. She doesn’t like that. Momo somewhat has her guard up.

“Yeah. I think she was.”

“That was definitely her. She’s been dressing like a complete bum lately.” Momo giggles now. If she didn’t already know this was her competition, she knows now. Momo is giggling just from thinking about you. You must make her laugh a lot. Irene doesn’t like her judgemental nature. You would be perfect in every state if she was a real one, but she’s not. So maybe she isn’t going to be a problem after all.

“You described her perfectly.” Irene seethes, quickly switching back to her normal state. The bright smile, and pink lip.

“How was she?” Taeyong questions. He still cares. She can see in in his eyes, but even if she was blind, it wouldn’t matter. His voice was so frail when talking about you.

“Oh brother.” Ten sighs

“I have a right to know.” Taeyong argues. He’s frustrated. He’s hot headed; at least when it comes to you.

“She seemed perfect to me. Laughing a lot, making jokes and stuff. I apologize if I’m out of place for this, but what’s going on? Is she okay?”

All of their faces seem to freeze for a mere second. They’re not uncomfortable with her question, but it seems like they’re wondering do they have permission to tell your buisness like that. They’re looking at Taeyong, presumably because it’s technically his buisness too.

Chungha is the first to speak. “She’s fine. These two,” she points to Taeyong, and then seemingly to thin air, “they broke up.”

Momo is oddly silent. She’s seemingly fuming, but no one is paying attention to her. That means none of these people know about her feelings for you. She’s been keeping it bottled up this entire time.

“Oh...sorry for asking.” Irene quickly scrambles, tucking her hair behind her ears. “I should’ve put that together by myself—

“It’s okay, beautiful.” Johnny places a hand on her shoulder, and she wants to slap the stupid grin off of his face, but he was going to be useful. He was stupid, and naive. One pull down of her panties, and he would tell her everything she needed to know. She moves into his touch, giggling just a tad.

The vibration of her phone distracts her, and she quickly searches for it in her Louis purse. You followed her back. One by one, you’re liking her pictures, and she can feel her heart beating hard through her little chest. Was her fairytale going to happen? Was she finally going to be able to fall in love again? God, she loved you already. Your sexy demeanor, your perfection. She needed you, and she would do anything to get it.

The bell of the shop dings, indicating that more people are walking in. From the way that they all freeze once again, she knows exactly who it is. She turns around and there you are. Her knees so badly want to get weak, but she controls herself. Today, you’re wearing an oversized t-shirt. She can’t tell if you have shorts on under, but she hopes you doesn’t. The shirt is from some band you listen to, and you have white converse on your feet. High top.

Momo is the first to greet you. She practically jumps into your arms, and Irene notices the way you don’t seem to mind. Her brain is starting to shock her, jolting her anger to all the wrong places. She could fucking kill Momo right now. The two of you are spinning around, Momo’s legs around your waist and you inhaling her scent. Everyone else is looking at the scene with a soft smile—they’re so stupid. How can they not see?

Momo finally returns back to the floor, and now you’re looking at her. She quickly fixes herself up, so quick, that you don’t even notice.

“Irene?”

The way you say her name is causing her to pool. She wants to hear you say it for the rest of the night. She takes a deep breath, not hiding it this time before she strides to you, hugging you. She knows this won’t make you uncomfortable. You seem to be willing to catch some affection for people you like. When she feels your hands on her middle back, she inhales you. You smell like spring, even in the winter, and that’s so beautiful. You’re so beautiful. She allows her cheek to graze against yours ever so slightly, and your noses to touch before she backs away. She sees the way you bite your lip. No one can see you but her, and she likes the thrill. It’s dangerous.

“Johnny.” You sigh, walking past him without a look. You don’t like Johnny—that’s obvious. Was he possible the reason for you and Taeyong’s break-up? “My Tenny!” You screech, putting his face in your hands like a baby and kissing his cheek softly. You have a soft side. “Chungha~” You sing, embracing her tightly. Now it was the big reveal. Would you speak to Taeyong? Or would you two do the awkward stare.

He still loves you. It’s obvious in the way that the love practically pours out of his eyes, and his hands shake. “Y/N.” He whispers. It’s like no one else is in the room. You must have not seen any of them in a while, based on the way they stare at you admiringly.

“Hey.” You whisper back, slowly moving to hug him. He closes his eyes for a mere second, and it’s all over. Now you’re back beside Irene, who’s very pleased.

“Irene was just telling us that the two of you know eachother.” Johnny speaks. He’s trying to get back into your good graces. It’s so obvious it’s painful.

“Yeah.” You smile, but not at him. “I was at Velvets getting my usual, and then we met. Surprised to see you here though.” You’re looking at her now.

“What? Just because I’m in a dress means I can’t be a gamer?” She jokes, and everyone around laughs. Everyone but Momo.

“No. Momo wears dresses.” You say, slapping her thigh gently. Why do you keep touching her? She’s standing right here, looking good for you, and you’re flirting with Momo? “There’s just a lot of assholes in a place like this. You don’t seem to be interested in that.”

“Well, how about I prove you wrong? Loser has to buy the other coffee.” She prompts.

She hopes everyone else looks jealous. Especially Momo. Knowing you, even if you wanted to say no, you weren’t going to deny her.

“Any coffee?” You question with a raised eyebrow.

“Anything you want—that is, if you win.”

“I say we have a tournament.” Momo adds in. “I mean, it’s been a while since we’ve all been together lile this.”

Shut up, slut. God, Irene just wants to wrap her hands around her neck. She had to get you away from her as soon as possible.

“Sounds good to me.” You agree. “Is that cool with you?” You look back at her. You’re already hooked enough to have to ask permission when you had only known her for 24 hours.

“Does it matter if she is?” Johnny mentions.

“Johnny!” Chungha screeches. “Why are you being such a dick!”

“Don’t answer that.” Ten prompts, taking his friend by the hand and leading him outside.

“Anyways, that sounds like a great idea to me. Let’s roll!” Chungha yells in sorority fashion, and now all of you are going to where the fun is. There’s a million games to choose from, but it seems like you guys have a section you’re leading her to.

“As you can see, the games only get harder and harder from here.” You explain to her, placing a hand on her lower back.

“So like, kids shouldn’t be going this far.” She giggles.

“Exactly. Consider yourself privileged.” You wink.

“Just because I’m short and cute does not mean I’m a child.”

“You’re going to have to prove that to me.”

You’re definitely flirting with her now. And to make it even better, more fiesty than she had expected it to be.

“What are you doing after this?” She flirts back, placing her hand on your back now.

“You’re taking me to get coffee.”

“Velvets will be closed.” She pouts.

“I didn’t say you had to take me to Velvets. They sell hazelnut coffee everywhere.”

“You really think you can beat me, can’t you?”

“No. I know I can.”

And you did. You beat the clean breaks off of her in every single thing. The whole tournament went to hell as you and Irene were completely in your own world. You ran from game to game like children.

You weren’t rude enough to not say goodbye, but it was quick. You knew exactly what was going to happen after tonight, and you needed it. It had been too long.

“You’re not coming over?” Is the last thing you hear right before you and Irene head out. It’s Momo again, and her eyes are sad as she seems to know exactly what’s going on. “We haven’t had the big sleepover in so long, and I cleaned my house.”

Irene is reading you like the open book you are, and you’re fighting it. You haven’t seen your friends in a while, and you want their attention. You love the fact that they miss you, and you miss them even more, but you don’t crave them like you’re craving her right now.

“I promise next weekend.” You try to plead.

“But I got drinks.”

“A promise is a promise.” Now your pinky is out. The way Momo seemingly gives up on her complaining shows that your promises held weight. She connects her pinky with yours, before lightly caressing your knuckles with her thumb. You don’t think anything if it, but Irene knows, and her eyes are burning holes into her skull.

As soon as the two of you reach the car, you’ve forgotten about the coffee.

With a slammed hand on the foggy window, Irene is in bliss.

“So much for that hazelnut coffee, huh?” She purrs, kissing you once more.

“You still owe me.” You giggle.

“You’re absolutely right.” She’s now crawling down your body, fully prepared to repay you for your victory. More like her victory. She had won, and it was easy. You were easy, and yet she still loved you. She would never let you go, and anybody who got in the way of you two being together forever will feel her wrath.

February 17, 2020 — 2:00PM

“Wait wait, so you’re telling me that I leave for two seconds, and Y/N and Irene are fucking?”

“Not just fucking—fucking dating.”

Johnny and Taeyong were catching up, just as brothers did. After being pulled out of the arcade by Ten, it had been decided that Johnny needed a break from his crew. There was clearly some animosity—rightfully so within the group, and a month break was much needed.

“I didn’t even know Y/N...”

“Exactly.” Taeyong finishes for him, taking an aggressive sip from his coffee. With the slam, some of it splattered on the table. He can’t help but think about how you would immediately clean it up as little things like that bothered you, if you were here that is.

“Well, how do you feel about it?”

“I don’t understand how this happened so quick. I mean, think about how long it took me and Y/N to start dating. We talked for what felt like years before you guys pushed us to make it official.”

“You mean pushed you.” Johnny corrects, sipping his Americano with shade.

“Whatever. I just don’t like it. I mean, this Irene girl just shows up, and takes Y/N away that quick? That quick?”

“I mean, she is fine as hell. Are you saying you wouldn’t be down for that?”

“Can you not be gross for like two seconds?” Taeyong fumes.

“Shh.” The congregation of the library says in unison, causing him to throw his head down in shame.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Month of meditation actually did something I can assure you.”

“I want to look into her.”

“As in, like stalk her? Do you really think you’ll find anything?”

“I don’t want to, but this all happened too coincidentally. I know you think I’m crazy,” a nervous habit formed as a little boy, Taeyong is scratching his elbow like a manic. His rash has appeared, and rash equaled bad news.

“Well, you know I’m on your side. You might be stupid and crazy, but as your best friend it’s my job to make sure you don’t do it alone.”

They weren’t alone, even when they thought they had found a secluded area. She was there, disguised as a typical college girl. She sported a bob that made her look extremely basic, and her ears heard every drip of that conversation. Of course, being the idiots that they were, a bathroom break included them leaving all their belongings on the table.

February 21, 2020 — 12:00AM

“Do I know you?” The blonde girl says in a low voice. She’s scared as she approaches her vehicle. She worked the late shift tonight, and deep down she knew it was a horrible idea, especially when her boyfriend was too drunk to come and get her.

“You don’t need the extra money—I got you, babe.”

But she ignored him.

“No, but I know you.”

“Did my boyfriend sleep with you? Because if you want revenge, I’m not the one you need to be speaking to.”

“What would make you think that?”

“Past trauma.”

“So he’s cheated before.”

“No, past trauma.” She doesn’t know why she’s entertaining this stranger. Maybe it’s because she’s so beautiful. You can’t help but to trust her, even in such a suspicious predicament. I mean, she was leaning on her fucking car like she pays the note. “Are you an addict or something? I barely have anything for myself, okay? Maybe next week.”

“You’re Johnny’s girlfriend, aren’t you?”

“I’m calling the police.”

But Irene snatches her phone from her, slamming it on the ground. The black gloves that cover her hands secure her non-existent finger prints, and the phone shatters.

“Literally what the fuck!” The blonde screams, but it doesn’t matter. They’re in a parking garage and there’s no one here to save her. She tries to run away, but Irene is just too quick. The knife that was behind her back connects to the back of her neck, and she haults.

“This is for your nosy fucking boyfriend, who believes that he can somehow find out about my past and make Y/N leave me. How foolish of him.” She chuckles, letting the blood trickle down her arm.

She’s crying and screaming, but as stated, it’s irrevlant. Irene 2 — Johnny 0.

February 18, 2020 — 9:00AM

“I just...I just can’t believe it. I told her not to work that stupid fucking shift.”

“It’s not your fault, Johnny.”

“Yes it is. If I wouldn’t have been drunk out of my ass, I could’ve saved her somehow—I don’t know. But now she’s gone. I loved her. I loved her so damn much and I was finally pulling it together because of her.”

The rest of you sit on the couch, struggling to find the proper words for such a tragedy. Johnny is sobbing into his hands now, while Ten is rubbing his back gently. Taeyong is off to the side staring into space. You’re familiar with this look. He was thinking heavily about something, but you obviously would never find out what it was. Chungha is sitting on your right, rocking back and forth. Her nails are chopping at her fingers—a clear sign of her fearfulness. Similar to Taeyong, Momo is silent. You expected her eyes to be on you in search of some answers, or silent suspicions, but she refuses.

Finally, Irene is beside you to the left. You didn’t know Johnny’s lover that well, but you knew she was a decent girl. She didn’t deserve this, and you couldn’t even imagine what would it would feel like to lose someone you loved. Anyone sitting in this room. Her frail hand is locked on your elbow while her thumb is trying to soothe you.

“I’m so sorry.” She whispers. Her lips find your shoulder in something sweet and comforting. “Who would do something like this? Did she have an ex boyfriend?”

It takes a minute for Johnny to find a response.

“She did tell me about some guy who began to get a little possessive, so she broke it off. But she never mentioned him coming back.”

“Maybe it was him.” Irene says quietly. You can tell she’s trying not to say too much, as she hadn’t been hanging with the crew for too long. You’re grateful that she’s here for you.

“Let’s just let the police do their job.” Momo finally speaks, standing up from the loveseat she sat on alone. Something is wrong with her, but you’d have to figure that out later.

“Let’s order some food.” You decide, standing up as well. “I know you might now want to eat right now, but it’ll clear you head even if just a little bit. We are all under a lot of stress right now.”

“I agree, babe.” Irene commends, smiling at you sadly.

“Alright.” Johnny sighs. He also rises, but he goes straight into the back of his apartment instead. None of you were worried about him hurting himself. You knew he needed time to let his emotions out, as he was constantly trying to be society’s definition of a man.

Your phone vibrates, and it’s Irene who’s hitting you up.

I think you should check on Momo. Was she friends with her? She just seems really upset and I know how close you two are.

You have to contain the smile that wants to come out for the sake of the situation, but she was so perfect. She didn’t get jealous about anything. And she was so in love with you. It had been too long since you could confidently admit that this wasn’t a one-sided situation.

Your feet are approaching the kitchen softly, trying not to make such a scene. Momo is leaned over the counter at first, but when she sees you she tries to straighten up.

“Hey.” She whispers, preparing for eavesdropping.

“Hey.” You say back.

Why was this so awkward? It was never like this before.

“I just wanted to check on you.”

“I’m fine.”

Which means she’s not. You see her observing your current outfit—yoga pants with a shirt she had bought you years ago covering your body.

“Do you want to talk later?” You offer, putting a tiny smirk on your face remembering that usually made her feel better.

“I think that would be good, actually. I don’t know if we’ll have the time, but maybe when everyone’s asleep?”

“The best thing I’ve heard all day.” You open your arms out, and you know she won’t deny you. She lets out what seems to be all the stress from her week as she lets you engulf her. It had been so long since the two of you were close like this. On your nights where you couldn’t sleep from past thoughts, it was Momo who would come over and hold you until you could.

“I’ve missed you.” She mumbles into your shoulder. “So much.”

“I missed you too. I’m sorry I haven’t been exactly here as much.”

“Irene...I know.” She pulls away at the mention of her name, and it’s odd timing. “Let me just ask you something— as one of your best friends?”

“Go ahead.”

“Don’t you think the two of you are moving a little fast? I mean, we saw the girl for the first time a month ago, and now you’re all committed and in love with her. I’m just concerned.”

She made several points. It wasn’t that you made people wait for you in the past. This whole scenario was just too quick, especially since you had just gotten out of a relationship not too long ago.

“Are you insinuating that I’m not over Taeyong?”

“No.” She’s confident in her answer. “I don’t want you to be with him anyway. He cheated on and is a fat jerk.”

You snort at her last two words, and she’s punching your shoulder lightly even though she’s laughing as well.

“You’re so negative minded.”

“Continue.” You breath out, covering your mouth.

“I just feel like—

The door flies open, revealing Irene on the other side. “Sorry to interrupt, but have you ordered the pizza yet? We’re all starving.”

In reality, she wasn’t in the mood for food. Ten and Taeyong had went to the back to check on Johnny, and Chungha was using the bathroom. She had heard your whole exchange and to say she was pissed was an understatement. Why didn’t you try and defend her? You should have walked out of the room, and straight into her lap the minute the slut tried to question you on something she knew nothing about.

Both of you look like you’ve been caught, and she relishes in that. The fear that is in both of your eyes.

“Yeah I got you.”

That’s all you have to say to her? First, Momo was able to get you to open up that fast, when you hadn’t even revealed to her any details of you and Taeyong’s relationship.

“Or, you can order it if you want. Me and Y/N were just catching up I’m sorry to take her away.” The slut speaks. Her voice bleeds cockiness, even though her face is soft and sweet. She knows that Irene is mad. She’s enjoying it.

“Okay.” Is all Irene mumbles before going back to the living room.

“What was that about?” Momo is looking at you in confusion and fear. She had always had suspicions about Irene. She just seemed too nice—too willing to be everything you needed, when in reality she didn’t fit the role.

Momo had been in love with you since she met you. Your smile, the way you loved everyone no matter their differences, and your seemingly never ending talent of making her laugh. You were magical, but she was okay with being on the sideline. She had done it for two years straight while you were with Taeyong, and even during your nights of crying over she kept it to herself.

She knew keeping it to herself was only hurting her, but she was willing to be hurt for the sake of your happiness as you were happy with Taeyong. She could see how much the two of you loved eachother, and even after everything went down, she didn’t want to stop your journey of loving herself to have to figure out a way to reject her feelings nicely.

“Guess I’ll have to find out later.”

You seem frustrated as your leg is tapping up and down—even though you’re not sitting. Your breathing is getting faster and faster, and she knew this picture. This is exactly how you used to react when Taeyong made you upset, or neglected your feelings.

“Does she know what pizza you like?” She decides on, trying to pick your mood up with her bare hands as you were always able to do for her. She finds herself dancing slightly—her go to when she didn’t know what to do.

“I should probably go find out.” You smack her exposed stomach before walking back into the living room, where everyone has returned. Momo is behind you, and Irene is staring straight at the wall.

“The pizza should be here soon.” She whispers without removing her eyes.

“That’s goo—

By soon, even she didn’t seem to have meant this soon. The door is being knocked on quite aggressively, and all of you are looking at eachother trying to decide who’s going to answer.

“I’ll get it.” You step up. You were always the one in the group who would rise to the things you knew they were scared to do. Before you can even put your hand on the knob though, the banging is coming again, this time even louder. “I’m coming!” You spit full of attitude, and at the same time, everyone but Irene is rising to the occasion to stand by your side. You would always protect eachother—even from the pizza man. Johnny steps infront of you, opening the door himself.

It’s the police, and they don’t look happy.

“Are you Johnny Suh?” The chubby officer questions.

“Uh—yes.” He stutters. “The police said I wasn’t getting questioned until tomorrow.”

“Oh cut the crap.” The other offer says. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Cierra Valdez.” He rips the handcuffs from his belt, and he’s trying to turn Johnny around, but Johnny will never go down without a fight.

“What are you talking about!”

“Get off of him!” You yell, immediately trying to pull him in your direction. Everyone else follows, together more powerful than the police. Johnny is out of their grasp for just a few moments before a gun is pointed towards all of you.

“Drop your hands now!”

“You’re not gonna fucking shoot us!” Taeyong screams. It was the most passion Irene had heard come from his lips, and she was quite entertained. She was entertained by all of this. If you wouldn’t have been letting Momo flirt with you, she would’ve gotten up to shield you, but you didn’t, which is why she’s sitting on the couch in fake shock.

“Y/N get over here!” She yells. She doesn’t even have to wipe the sly smirk off her face as nobody is looking at her.

But you ignore her.

“I didn’t kill her!” Johnny is crying all over again, his whole face soaked in tears. “I loved her. Why would I kill her?”

“Anything you do or say will be held against you.” The Miranda rights are flowing out of the officer like he does this all the time, and now they’re dragging him out. His back is scratching on the cement.

“Y’all have to help me!” Johnny screeches. The whole apartment complex can hear what’s going on, and it’s killing him inside. He didn’t kill the love of his life. He didn’t. “I loved her.” He cried once more. “I fucking loved her!”

Continued

[klarolinedrabbles]

What are some of the tvd to fandoms greatest hits so to speak... I was only in it for a short time and then jumped out because I couldn't stand to

Oh, well allow me to be your guide. This will be under a read more because I already know, I’m gonna write a whole essay. Shout out to my ride or die @hellsbellschime.

I don’t think any overtly crazy happened during the good!TVD years. No wait, I’m lying.

The year the spin-off got announced, I believe it was tvguide, that posted an article with like info tidbits for currently airing shows. And one of them, was that Hayley was pregnant with Klaus’ kid. I remember this shit so clearly, man. Everyone was so confused. And then they were like SURPRISE, APRIL FOOLS. Because it was in fact April 1st. So ha-ha we all had a laugh, great. Fastforward to what, late April? Episode 4x20 airs, and it’s exactly what happened???

That whole day btw, the day the backdoor pilot for TO aired was just insanity. I’ll say that about a lot of days in this answer, but that day was really just something else. Like we were delirious, that’s the only way I can explain what happened on here. It was a nightmare but also one of the funniest night’s I’ve ever spent on here. I gotta go back for old time’s sake and reblog some of the shit from that night because we all snapped. And not in the good way. 

The TVD 100th. Now, we knew Joseph was coming back for that episode so they hype was real. Because up until that point, we’d gotten a huge load of nothing in regards to Klaroline. They released a trailer, a short one, that’s still in my favorites folder on youtube to this day. I rewatch it all the time because it’s iconic. And there was literally .002 seconds of Klaroline. It’s Caroline standing and then Klaus says “hello, caroline” and everyone lost their shit so much when it dropped that ‘hello caroline’ trended ww on twitter. 

THE DAY THE NETWORK THAT AIRED TVD IN AUSTRALIA AIRED A PROMO WITH THE KLAROLINE KISS IN 5X11. ICONIC. I literally woke up, logged on at around 11 AM my time, and my dashboard was on fire. It was the BEST. We didn’t know wtf to do, it was amazing. 

Paleyfest. Ohhhh buddy, lemme tell ya. So TVD/TO got chosen to have the CW panel’s at Paleyfest that year. Everyone was on a bit of edge because TO to that point was what, almost done with S1 and Klaroline had been given the mega cold-shoulder despite being the very thing other than the Mikaelson’s that got used to lure people in? After the pregnancy plot from hell, everyone was ready to peace tf out, but we got halted because it was a ‘ohh of course it’s gonna continue’ then they tried to nip Klaroline in the bud with 5x11 and no one was having it. So Paleyfest was where we were gonna get some ANSWERS, DAMMIT. I live on the east coast and the festival was held in the west coast so I wasn’t awake when it was happening. I remember making a post about how ‘going to sleep, and hoping when I woke up the answers were good.’. So I went to sleep, woke up a few hours later like 2-3 AM my time, and checked my blog and the first message I had was ‘don’t wake up stephanie, everything is a mess, stay asleep where everything’s fine’ I—

The gist of that was, they basically set JoMo up to be the bad-cop in shutting down Klaroline. He gave this long answer that made absolutely zero sense. The girl who asked the question about Klaroline, who was like 13 at the time, got called a bully for even asking a question at an event she paid to be at. A mess. And JP was like NO CROSSOVERS, ORGANIC, BLAH BLAH. And Paul was sitting next to her going “why can’t the show’s just intersect”, he was right and he said it. 

I can’t remember if this was S1 or S2, but somebody tweeted something and Carina replied ‘when you’re found dead in your basement with klaroline written on you this is why’ or something like that, that was a ~fun~ night. And then like half an hour later she was like “I’m sorry, I’ll never tweet about Klaroline again just leave me alone” if you’ve ever seen this fandom refer to ourselves as basement dwellers, this night is why. 

NARDUCCI. Can’t forget him. Talk about a man who just didn’t get it. And I don’t mean Klaroline, he just didn’t get anything, nothing in his head has ever clicked, I’m convinced. He used to pick fights on twitter repeatedly. Admitted once that he missed his flight because he was on twitter…arguing with a fan. AND ONE DAY, he decided to just—snap. Went on this hours long tirade against the Klaroline fandom, essentially calling everyone stupid because no one was appreciating the ‘art’ of the show. So when I say it lasted hours, I mean that. Now, you’d think, that he would be done, right? WELL, apparently that wasn’t enough, so the next day, he continued. I remember because I was in this gc on whatsapp, and I remember Erika sending a message to the gc going “omg, Narducci vs KCers round 2″ when I tell you I screamed. The man went on a two-day rampage against this fandom and it was insane. 

S6/S2 of TVD/TO was not a fun time. I can genuinely say it was borderline a chore to come on here during that time. It wasn’t fun, every day someone was in argument with someone from production on twitter. Truly the worst year of the fandom, imo. So S7/S3 rolls around and that’s where shit went nuclear. 

Hillary and I, are minding our own damn business, when someone come’s to us with information regarding the new seasons. This was post-SDCC, so it’s like the lull of September, waiting for the seasons to start in October. And we get approached with information, talkin bout how Caroline’s gonna be pregnant with Alaric’s twins in S7. When I tell you we didn’t know wtf to do. And we had to like wait on confirmation about it but then we found out it was legit and we were pissed. Literally ask us if we wanted to be in the spoiler game, the answer is no tf we did not. And she and I basically spent two days complaining. LIKE UGHHHH WE DON’T WANNA DO THIS, BUT ALSO THIS IS DISGUSTING, WE CAN’T JUST LET THEM SPRING THIS ON EVERYONE, BUT AGHH WHY US. So we chose collectively, as a duo, because das my other half yo, to blab. 

That went over as best as anyone could hope for it to go. Now, flashforward yet again, this time to around late Novemeber/December. I had been sent word that something was going down. TVD/TO lost their Thursday slots and got bumped to Friday’s, so a plan was going on, and they made one. We’d heard that they were rearranging something mid-season because they were gonna make a crossover work, publicly we found out it would be Paul and JoMo that crossover back-to-back. THEN ONE NIGHT—I call it black friday bc  that day was a fucking mess—, a friend of mine was friends with an SCer, I wanna say, and she was hearing word that the crossover did have Klaus and Caroline interact via phone call, but that it was very definitively an ending. Because they spoke about Camille and Stefan, etc, etc. Like a closing of the book type thing. So okay, we were like devastated, everyone on twitter was losing their shit. Everyone was pissed, and @-ing the writers all these crazy, sad things, we were a wreck. Ask Hillary about this night because she, I remember, describes it as ‘logging on and reading what everyone else had and not understanding why tf everyone was mad about it’. It was the first and last time that our roles were reversed, and bless her for it. 

SO WE’RE SITTING THERE, it’s Saturday, and we kept getting more information and we were like…something isn’t right here. So we did a bit of digging, spoke to a few people and waited it out. LO AND BEHOLD, everything we’d heard about the phone call was false. There was a phone call but the CKers and SCers were so mad about what was actually said in it, that a few of em, ring leaders of the feeble minded, made up a version and passed it around their fandoms as legit till it eventually worked it’s way over to us. So we all jumped the gun on fake information, lmfskdnknsks. Rumor has it, you can still hear Hillary yelling ‘I told you so’ at me through our group chat. 

So all was well, I couldn’t tell everyone why not to panic, just that they didn’t need to. Until, this account popped up called tvdspoiler or something on twitter, also saying false information about the phone call. Sending everyone into a panic yet again. I remember this because I was at  kmart with my mom, and the kmart by my house was in a basement so I had no cell service. I was able to send like a couple of messages, and was basically like ‘tell everyone to chill, I’ll clear it up when I get home’ did that in like a couple of hours cause then I had to leave to the midnight showing of the force awakens with my friends. So that day was chaotic, but fun. It was the first time I reached 99+ messages on my inbox, lmao. 

So that all happened like a good while before we actually saw the episode. But cut to a few weeks later. I woke up at 1 AM my time to drink water, was on tumblr trying to go back to sleep. I checked my inbox and there was this bizarre message talking about ‘got some scoop’ and they were like ‘Finn dies in 3x17, Aurora gets put into some weird sleeping spell in 3x18, Camille and Davina die in 3x19, Lucien dies in 3x20′ and I quite literally laughed??? Literally who wouldn’t. Like who tf would ever believe TO had the balls to do all of that when they never killed anyone off. AND, WHO WOULD BELIEVE THAT SOMEONE WOULD JUST STOP BY, SHARE IT AND LEAVE. So I sent a screenshot to Hillary and was like ‘yo did you get this because wtf’. We often got duplicate messages. And we often got messages of people who were pissed about the two previous times we, from the klaroline fandom of all places, had legit info that wound up being true, that they were just waiting for us to fuck up. So we used to get messages of people pretending they were sharing info, and it was just antis trying to make us look stupid. 

SO, Hillary says ‘just answer it because it’s obviously fake’ top ten moments before disaster. I answer it and am like oh haha, and where did that info come from. And they came back like a minute later, saying ‘I have a source’ THEN THEY ELABORATED. They mentioned that Lucien drags Freya and Vincent to Mystic Falls to do this spell with some bullet and etc. So at that point we were like fUCK because that same day we’d found out was in 3x16, which ended with Lucien and this white-oak bullet, having kidnapped Freya. And that’s when we knew, that someone showed up in the middle of the night, spoiled the whole back-half of TO S3—and then left.

The back-half of S3 was so fun??? Every week the info just kept coming true. On the wikia everyone hated me, probably the most anti messages I ever had was during that time, honestly it was great, 10/10 would recommend. 

THEN, at some point in our blog history, Hillary had been getting quite a few messages about PT. And she had this fucking line in one of the messages about Phoebe’s pronunciation with her accent for the show, or lack thereof. And she said “weeches and woves will always have a place in my heart” SO THEM PHOEBE TWEETED IT. THAT EXACT LINE, and we were like was she...? So we shrugged off okay. A few days later, she tweeted “hellsbellschime enough, there’s plenty of other things to watch on tv, I hear mad men’s great.” And I—

THIS WAS ON SOME RANDOM ASS SUNDAY. Like I was lounging around, waiting for the new episode of game of thrones and then WHAM, chaos. AND AS IF THAT WASNT ENOUGH, Leah joined in too. Putting a target on my friends back...about her blog that no one was making them read. You can’t make that shit up. And Jenn actually replied to Phoebe’s tweet and got a reply back, and she was all “you’re right, I’m sorry” and then deleted the original tweet, which I still have a screenshot of btw. And then Leah showed up in Hillary’s inbox with this ridiculous three part ask about how she shouldn’t criticize women in the acting industry because of how hard it is for women in that industry which is true, but it doesn’t make you exempt from criticism??? So not sure where she meant to go with that one.

SO THERE WE HAVE IT, our fandom’s greatest hits. I’m sure I can elaborate and insert more, but I’ve been typing for a good 40 minutes. 

Told ya, I wrote a whole dissertation, lmaooo.

[reinvent-and-believe]

For the 5+ headcanons: geraskier (OR geraskefer, if you'd prefer) + Broadway/theatre AU! 😊

Okay, first of all, how dare you know me so well??? This is RIGHT up my alley and I am THRIVING, thank you so much omg. Second, I am SO SO SORRY, you did not ask for three pages of setup and YET HERE WE ARE

So, modern AU, obviously. Magic and monsters still exist, peripherally, on the outskirts of society; you occasionally hear of a murder that’s just a little too weird to be human that gets chalked up to various monsters, and there’s rumors of humanoid or humanoid-appearing creatures (dopplers, elves, certain classes of vampires) existing surreptitiously alongside humans, hiding their true nature. How much of that is true and how much is just paranoia is anyone’s guess.

Witchers, in theory, also still exist, but they have even less of a place in this world than they do in the canon setting. You’ll occasionally run into people who will swear up and down that a witcher fixed their aunt’s haunted attic or a witcher showed up and the random bizarre murders in their small town stopped or they once saw a witcher tracking blood footprints down an alley by the St. Louis arch, but witcher sightings are given about as much credence as UFO or Bigfoot sightings.

And so our young hero Jaskier is making his Broadway debut in a revival of Next to Normal, playing Gabe. It’s the chance of a lifetime; they wanted to go with young unknowns for the teenager roles, and he was discovered at a BFA showcase in New York and invited to audition. After half a dozen callbacks and a little over a month of rehearsal, here he is, just weeks away from previews.

And it’s kind of a big deal. Not only is this the first time Next to Normal has been revived, but he’s also playing opposite Tony Award winner Laura Benanti as Diana, for god’s sake (because it’s my headcanon and I can mix in real actors I really want to see play these roles dammit! 😂). It’s a huge deal.

Which is why it’s just completely unacceptable that Jaskier is being haunted.

He didn’t think he was being haunted, not at first. He glanced at some eerie green lights coming from the wings during their first tech rehearsal, and he assumed the crew was just experimenting with some new lighting angles, no big deal, and kept going with his song. When the number was over, the lights were gone.

But then little things keep going wrong. His white tuxedo jacket isn’t stage left for his quick change when he distinctly remembers putting it there. He can’t find his prop and the ASM is scolding him for moving things when he really, really didn’t. He misses a cue because the monitor in his dressing room is, apparently, lagging five minutes behind.

He’s freaking out. He knows how bad this makes him look to everyone he’s working with, and while he’s a little scattered sometimes, he is a professional when it comes to his craft and he would never be this careless.

It must be sabotage. And there’s only one person it could possibly be…

His archnemesis. His understudy. Valdo fucking Marx.

Valdo Marx has hated him since day one, it only makes sense he’s trying to get Jaskier out of the way so he can be the one with the triumphant Broadway debut at 22 instead of Jaskier. So Jaskier calmly, politely, non-aggressively (he’s a professional, dammit) corners Valdo and makes it very clear that he will stop sabotaging him ASAP unless Valdo wants his boyfriend to know he sucked Jaskier off in the bathroom after their second callback.

(He’s not a saint. It’s not like he’d resort to blackmail if Valdo weren’t trying to get him fired. Fair’s fair.)

Except, turns out, it’s probably not Valdo. Valdo couldn’t make the batteries in his mic pack die five minutes into every rehearsal even when Jaskier watches the sound engineering change them right before they start. Valdo couldn’t make the fly system break right as Jaskier crossed under it and make a piece of the house set hit Jaskier in the head. And Valdo Marx definitely couldn’t black out all the lights in Jaskier’s dressing room and make that unsettling green light appear behind him, a shadowy figure barely visible, hissing in a rattling voice out, out or perish.

And listen, Jaskier would normally welcome this fascinating turn of events; he loves an adventure. But this is his big break and he will be DAMNED if he lets this creepy green-light apparition ruins this opportunity.

So he talks to the stage manager, the director, then, for good measure, the Equity monitor. All of them tell him the same thing: surely someone else would have seen it if there was a ghost. It’s probably the stress. He should take a few days off, get some rest, and then come back when he’s feeling better. But he probably shouldn’t mention it to the other actors. Wouldn’t want to get everyone worked up.

But like HELL is Jaskier going to do that. He’s not stressed, except about the fact that he personally seems to be undergoing a haunting.

So he stays. And things are getting...pretty scary, all things considered.

Seeing his not-so-friendly ghost friend has become a pretty regular occurrence. It appears next to him when he’s standing in the wings waiting for an entrance. It’s sitting in the house when he’s onstage. It locks him in his dressing room. It’s just really not going great.

And then it puts its hands on him. He didn’t even know it HAD hands, much less a truly corporeal form, but there they are, really, really cold pale hands choking him in his dressing room after the run of the show. He stomps on its (also apparently corporeal) foot and books it out of the theatre and to the nearest bar.

He downs a shot then opens his phone camera. There on his neck, clear as day, are bruises in the shape of fingers.

He’s at the end of his rope. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s read about ghosts online, he’s tried to take protective measures but they all seem to be shit because they’ve done fuck all to protect him from his undead stalker.

He takes another shot, laughs at the absurdity of his situation, and tweets “if anybody happens to be besties with a witcher, hmu” before ordering another drink.

Three texts appear from an unknown number in quick succession.

what’s happening. is this why you can’t pull your shit together to get through a single scene?

or are you just tweeting bullshit as usual?

this is yennefer. i can help.

And. Well. Jaskier doesn’t have a problem with his costar Yennefer, who’s playing Natalie in the show, but she is more than a little terrifying, so they’re not particularly chummy.

But if she can help…

And that’s how Yennefer’s hunky cryptid not-boyfriend (“we fuck around but it’s casual”) witcher ends up helping Jaskier get rid of the wraith trying to steal his role.

(But there’s lots more)

(Lots more fun mystery stuff but also lots more cute threeway flirtations with theatre happening in the background)

(The three of them hook up and it’s unexpected and delightful)

(Geralt stands backstage on opening night with two bouquets, staring at them hopefully)

(And he doesn’t know shit about theatre but he sat in that audience transfixed and he’s pretty sure he’s in love with them both)

[5sosbitchfest]

Alrighty, Nonsters.  We currently have 290 Asks in our box!  As much as we might try, I know there is NO WAY we’re going to be able to get through all of them.  Everything exploded this weekend when MessyGate went down!   I don’t want to ignore any asks just because I already answered a similar one.  So, I’ve tried to gather as many similar Asks as possible to let your your voices be heard.  Y’all are definitely NOT alone in your feelings.  Get ready for a lot of opinions on Messy’s Twitter Drama.  

Also, if you sent in an Ask and we haven’t answered it yet, please feel free to resubmit it!  I do try to scroll through all of them but it is a daunting task and personal stuff and work make it difficult for me to get through everything in a timely manner!

********************************

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I’m really disappointed in Luke and this band in general, the way they deal with things. “honest policy” with messy? So he knew all of this and it was okay? Or he confronted her on this and he is okay with what she has done? I’m not sure this whole thing would be a deal breaker for me, but it certainly would make me real mad at my SO and some whiny excuses wouldn’t be enough to make things alright. Radio silence would’ve been much better than that story he posted, made himself look like a fool.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: These girls will sooner or later become their downfall if their management or them does not realise they should rely on other things than bringing relationship up front to sell their music. I find it extremely bad that they are behaving as if nothing happened, I hope there will be changes once touring will be possible again and we won’t see these girls tagging along everywhere or being brought up in interviews all the time but somehow I’m not counting too much on that.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I wonder if Luke knows everything that Messy got exposed for or just the parts Messy wanted to show him. Bc Luke said in his Story that he wasn't online lately so maybe he wasn't on Twitter too and Messy just showed him the parts that make her look good and he still doesn't know that she spoke bad about Ashton or how she stalked the fans also after she knew that they didn't hack his email adress cause he wasn't on Twitter so he couldn't see the screenshots.🤷‍♀️

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I'm just waiting for the day one of them date someone who isn't a part of their circle. tired of them passing around the same toxic girls.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: These girls are just digging a whole for these guys and they want be able to get out of it soon

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: It was a chicken move for Sierra to do it as a reply and no one has talked on twitter that she deleted it because they probably think her deleting it is saying it wasn’t true

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Am I the only one who thinks that guys really only heavily interact with us when they want to promote something or say something about the music? I do understand they have lives so being on Twitter isn't number one priority and with all the drama that surrounds this fandom its very easy to not want to be online a lot, I just can't help but feel that way

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I'm talking about this messy situation (no pun intended) with my friend and she said to me that Messy should consider changing her career if she can't handle that not all people are going to like her. (that ofc doesn't include any form of harassment bc that's not cool)

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I really don't know how to feel about the Luke situation. At first I was upset and disappointed of Luke but now I almost pity him bc real or not either the management would want Luke to defend her or Messy. And I think Luke isn't the kind of person who would stand up against the management or Messy (even though it would probably be better for him if he would). And most people don't realise when they're in a toxic relationship so I can't really blame him. I just hope this ends asap.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I literally was so angry and frustrated with Luke and this whole situation yesterday that I couldn’t even look at him on my home screen, I had to change it. It’s really a disappointing thing to witness. Whether management put him up to this or he genuinely believes this toxicity is okay, I’m just very grumpy with him at the moment. He deserves better and WE (the fans) deserve better.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I think Luke really needs to be in a relationship with sb who either isn't famous and doesn't want to be or with someone who is famous bc they have a successful career too and who doesn't need Like to be famous.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I’ve only seen a few accounts on Twitter who are attacking Messy and Crusty to the core and exposing every bad thing they’ve done with receipts for the sossies defending them! I’m happy that karma is finally getting to those con artist who think they can get away with anything

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: that recent lierra picture is photoshoped lmao. if you look at Sierra's hand you can see color coming off from it and her arm looks hella weird.her forehead looks hella weird and look couldn't have taken the picture because I doubt that he could stretch his arm that far and make a perfect picture. also we haven't even seen Sierra's face so I still don't believe they're together

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: The Lemon pic was like a punch in the face (even though Petunia and Luke are looking cute there). But I've been asking myself lately if Luke has seen the whole drama going around on Twitter or just the posts Messy wanted him to know so the ones who make her look like the victim (and not the ones where she insulted Ashton or she made it clear that she stalked his fans). Cause Luke said he hasn't been online lately.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I mean we dont know how much of the story he truly is aware of and how much s changed to fit her narrative and get L to feel bad for her. Plus he was under pressure from management to do damage control and not standing up for his gf is a very bad look for outsiders who dont understand why she's at fault. It was a pretty neutral statement and he was obviously told to make the post so I dont blame him and just blame her more for putting him in the situation in the 1st place

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I wonder how much toxicity happens behind the scenes, we know S is very manipulative and L is very much a people pleaser so.. and with how much they have to sell their "love" and "happiness" in the relationship. Minipulation is a powerful thing and it could explain why hes out of touch with reality, especially lately since he's isolated with her and doesnt have the voices of the band to raise any concerns and he's been getting skinny again and seems very "meh" rather than happy, idk

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I feel so disconnected with this fandom rn. I feel like no one is streaming CALM and that makes me sad bc it's such an amazing album. The boys aren't even online anymore, everyone is mad at each other and now Luke comes up with this shit... tbh I wish I would wake up tomorrow and see him tweeting something like yeah I'm sorry about my ig story I still love y'all lmao

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Wait wait wait wait ive been gone from the fandom for a little while now and what the fuck is going on with Luke and S? What did S do that she made a fake ass apology for?? I’m so lost please help me! 😂

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I'm seeing a lot of my mutuals unstanning and I'm just so mad bc Sierra started this drama and got Luke into it and I'm sad that people are leaving bc of this, it's just too much toxicity and it shouldn't affect the band and their connection with the fans but with Luke saying this he makes it seem like he supports the ugly things she does

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I am a Luke stan and I've always loved him bc he has inspired me so much through the years but when he does this things it's like...damn. I feel like he's invalidating the fans' feelings by being like "if you don't like my girlfriend, ur fake" like he has never noticed me on Twitter or anything but my biggest fear is to be blocked by him or just ignored bc I don't like her (although I never expressed it publicly) n yeah anyways :// It feels weird

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Going back and re-reading the DM’s messy literally confirms that she accesses Luke’s account by saying “we couldn’t get in” or some shit like that

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I hate being a luke stan, sometimes it just seems like he doesn't care? he always puts these toxic gfs before the ones who adore him and pay his bills. might just move into Cashton's lane. unproblematic kings.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: He literally posted a picture of him cuddling her and petunia within the hour

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: The saddest part of this situation is it’s like a repeat of Arzaylea. Luke has no idea what a respectful, mature relationship is. We saw it with Arz and were seeing it again it’s just a little bit different. He stays being controlled and manipulated by toxic partners. I really think homeboy needs to be single for a WHILE and focus on himself. He needs to unlearn the things his past and current relationships have taught him about love because if I know anything, it’s that this ain’t real love.

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Is it bad that I just want the larzaylea drama back?? Like everyone could at least agree on their feelings then...

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: Just checked messy’s insta and of course, everyone that still supports her filled her tagged with just the single picture

Anonymous said to 5sosbitchfest: I feel like the reason Sierra is getting away with what she’s done is because she isn’t that known. Like yeah she’s associated with 5sos, but they’re also like not that big which is probably why it’s getting swept under the rug. I’ve only seen the 5SOS fandom calling her out for her actions. If this had happened with a well known celebrity, they probably would’ve been dragged and been trending on Twitter. I might be wrong but I feel like this is what’s happening which is just unfair.

[problematicwelshman]

Long submission posted by request under the cut!

Wow, I actually broke down when I saw those pictures of him and Rachel because he looked so happy. I have to say that I have actually wished more than once that he had knocked Rachel up but then I remember that she loved him enough to respect his decision of not becoming a Dad again but then I also remember that apat planned it and it makes sense. What absolutely baffles me is how some people can’t see that she trapped him. Excuse me, I’m not saying Michael is not to blame (it takes two to tango) BUT think about this: he’s always been in proper-age relationships (which was shocking because you know… celebrities) and they have lasted YEARS, all of them, and now all of a sudden he willingly has a new kid with someone (half his age) he met just a month ago (?) WTF. No matter the way you look at it, it does not make sense whatsoever. He looks nothing but happy in those pictures with her. FFS he looked so sloppy like he doesn’t give a fuck when he actually used to look incredibly great. This is my opinion but I think he only stays with her because he doesn’t want Lyra to go through what Lily did. I mean, yeah he was around all the time and that but at the end of the day Michael went to his house and Kate and Lily stayed at their home with her husband. Even though I know they spent a lot of time together as a family, I’m sure it was great but it’s… different. I know he would do anything for his daughters but he also deserves to be happy. What’s done can’t be undone and he’s doing the best he can but what hurts me the most is how his relationship with Kate and Lily will never be the same. Look at some of her tweets. I don’t blame her, if my Dad did something like that to me I’d be really angry at him. One of my favourite things about him is the love and affection he has for Lily in interviews (obviously, she’s his daughter and I am aware of the fact that no one is the BEST dad but not every father says those kinds of things) and thinking about how Lily might not want to talk to him is actually depressing. That’s the main reason I dislike apat, I honestly do not give a fuck about their age gap since both of them are consenting adults, I give a fuck about the fact that she truly knew what she was doing and didn’t think about him for a solid second and fucked his life up. It’s not like I’m not grateful he talks to his fans. No, I think that’s lovely but he wasn’t like this before. I know it’s his way to escape from the fucking hell his life has turned into but it’s sad. Again, Michael should have been more careful but I mean, what can you do when someone traps you? Sorry if I’m not making any sense here and just rambling but I’m starting to be actually concerned about him. I just want to see him happy again. Feel free not to post this as it’s long as fuck haha but I’m honestly grateful for your blog, you and for giving us a place to share our thoughts or even vent. You don’t deserve that much hate.

How weird. The last message was the only one I couldn’t send but I thought I eventually did because the page said that it was sent. Anyway, thanks again for being so patient.

First of all thank you for trusting me enough to post your submission publicly. I’ve seen people within the fandom tread lightly or completely backpedal and delete posts when they want to say something that goes against what the loudest or most voracious voices within the twittersphere feel is the “correct” or “right” way to feel, think, or behave. Everyone has seen or experienced the hive mind in action at one point or another whether that’s here or on their own posts on twitter.

I saw these coming through while I was logged in earlier and saw one of your messages must have been cut off by the Tumblr anon gods so I’m glad you saw my post on how to send me the rest! 

I think you’ve made sense out of everything that’s happened so far, honestly. I’ve noticed and felt the things you pointed out for a while and we’re not alone in this train of thought, either. It’s worrying to see and harrowing to know that there’s nothing any of us can do about it. We’re only spectators, after all. Michael has to be the one to ask for help if he needs it or to take the proper steps to mend any bridges that have been burned as a result of his actions. I think he’s trying to do his best and also do what he feels is the right thing to do. I really do. He’s in a tough situation and perhaps feels he has to remain in it as some sort of atonement for any wrongdoing or past mistakes and especially Lyra’s sake. It seems as if he’s completely sacrificed his own happiness in the process though, and that’s a slippery slope that usually leads to resentment and other unhealthy coping mechanisms. Take it from someone who not only lives with a soon-to-be psychologist, but who have both watched their own mother self destruct for the past 20 years. 

Hindsight is 20/20 and if Michael didn’t want any more kids after Lily, he could have eliminated that possibility for himself years ago. 

[dementedgnomicwizard]

i preplanned those tunnel tweets + made a list of specifically what pictures i wanted and finished making the worms earlier this morning so like i wasnt Winging It at all but it sure felt like it! bc weve only ever gone to the tunnels as a group before, but today the only time i could go was in the 25 minutes before my evening class and no one else was free then so i was like whatever ill just go get my pictures and then to class and it’s fine. so i put my little sandwich baggie full of worms in my pocket and went over to the machinery building, which is where the tunnel entrance is, but the entrance is in the basement and there’s two ways to get into the basement both of which are almost always locked so i was like well i’ll just check and see if either of them are open. and it turned out the freight elevator was allowing trips to the basement so i got in and went down

the freight elevator spits you out in like this really cluttered and fucked-up looking storage basement basically which is where the tunnel entrance is and while the tunnel is dark the basement itself is usually lit by these shitty fluorescents HOWEVER! today when the elevator doors opened it was absolutely completely dark in the entire enormous basement. but at that point i was like i made it over here, i have my worms, i have my photo list, i have time before class, and what are the odds the elevator will be working again, ill just use my flashlight who cares. so i turned my flashlight on and started picking my way through to the tunnel entrance, except i stopped and made a detour to take pics in that little office room because i thought it would sorta look like the room where they found gertrude’s body and i could make a fun joke about it  ANYWAY as i’m coming out of the office room i notice that the stairway door directly across from me is open, which is weird because they’re Never open because they don’t want us to go down there. so i was like, shit, maintenance and/or security are down here and my only way out is the super obvious elevator so ill just wait them out so i like turned my flashlight off and crouched behind a bunch of shit

anyway i just sort of huddled in the dark for a while and soon enough it became clear that no one was actually coming so i took advantage of my proximity to the ground to scatter some worms and take that first worm pic where im pointing. and then i was like okay, might as well get the tunnel bit over with. so the area of the basement where the mouth of the tunnel is is closed off with this big metal fence and there’s like a wire-mesh on the front with a huge padlock only years and years of horrible college students have managed to sort of beat the bottom half of the gate a few inches outwards + compromise its integrity enough that its easy to pull far enough open for someone else to slip through. however my problems today were 1) like i said ive only ever gone with a group before, meaning i’d always had someone to hold the gate open for me, and i had never attempted to get through without assistance before let alone back out and 2) the gate is RIGHT next to the stairs that i mentioned earlier were open when they usually never are. so i stood there for a minute like... okay, say i DO try to get through myself, and i get stuck. OR, say that happens and THEN whoever was working down here comes back and im stuck so i get caught and in trouble.

and then i was like actually fuck it we ball so i like. sort of just got down fully on the ground (which was gross btw do not recommend) and like rolled and twisted and pushed myself around until i wiggled through. that was the moment when i sort of started to accept just how much tunnel dirt i was gonna be covered in by the end but it was so far past too late to back out so i headed into the tunnel entrance. it gets TRULY dark like really really soon after you walk in also like i thought the basement outside was dark because the lights were off but the tunnels are like....  DARK. anyway i stopped halfway down the entry tunnel to try and set up the like “worm door outline” thing from after MAG39 and like initially i had thought that i could figure out an okay way to at least temporarily get them on the wall bc theyre made of latex and super light but it was quickly apparent that that would not be the case so i found a patch of the floor that looked smooth enough to be a wall and set it up on there instead. so i’m like. squatting on the floor in this very dark and kind of gross tunnel, and i have my phone laying on the ground next to me flashlight-side-up so i can see as well as use both hands to dig cold little latex worms out of a sandwich baggie and arrange them in a pattern on the ground and the flashlight was lighting up the tunnel in the most fucked up way and it was dead silent and the WHOLE time i was like, and this is the moment when like a maintenance worker turns the corner and finds me and is just like, hello??? theres some clown playing with worms in the tunnel????

anyway that did not happen and instead i got my little doorway set up and then it was time to take the first pic (of the worm door by itself without me in it) which was when i realized that when i open my camera app my phone forcibly turns the flashlight off so every time i wanted to take a picture in the tunnels i was gonna have to turn my light off and just like chill alone in the pitch dark in a tiny tunnel for however long it took me to take each photo and i was like hm okay wig i guess so i took the door pic and then it took me like four tries to get myself positioned right for the cringe ass fail worms one because, surprisingly, it is difficult to position yourself directly in the center of an archway of worms that you cannot see, and while i was doing all those failed tries i got to spend a lot of time laying splayed out on my back in the dark on the tunnel floor anyway i got it finally so i just sort of kicked the worms to the sides and kept going in further. to get to the pit you have to turn left at the first fork and then take a right and then theres this weird like step? thing? in the middle of the tunnel and if youre me you have to do a super awkward crabwalk limbo step thing to get over it because the pipes on the ceiling above it are hot and the step comes up to like 6 inches below the pipe but also i dont like to touch the top of the step because its gross. so its always a production. this time i think they had worked on that pipe recently or something because it was leaking so the step was wet and the pipe dripped hot water onto my neck while i was crawling under it LMAO

anyway from there its a straight shot and it opens out into this like larger room near the entrance to the engine room and the pit is right at the edge of where the dirt of the tunnel turns into the concrete of the room floor. and theyve like half-covered the top of it in wooden planks but theyre not held down so when you have to step on them just for a second to get out of the tunnel its so nervewracking. theres overhead lights in that room though so that was nice idk if i couldve managed the flashlight-camera-transition in the dark AND one-handed. so i took my from-above tunnel pic and then i was like (checks my photos list) “well...... i did say id get two from inside the pit.” i had actually never been in the pit before because the other two times i’ve gone to the tunnels i’ve been with other people and they would barely even let me get near it let alone get on the ladder. so i was like well i guess there is a first time for everything so i put my phone in my back pocket and ducked under the little yellow chain they have up and started going down the ladder and i got like 8? maybe 10? feet down before i thought to look down again and let me just say..... all the times we had looked into that pit from above we had never guessed anywhere CLOSE to how deep it actually was. thats all. so i was like.... um i was expecting to be able to like, stand on solid ground while i take this pit selfie, but that was clearly not going to be an option, but also i had committed this far already to getting these pics from the pit so i was like ugh i guess and hooked my one arm over the ladder so i could get my phone out w the other hand and take the pics from in there. and then i climbed back out. the ladder rungs made my hands SO gross and dirty with rust i was like eugh eugh.

but after that the only picture left to take was the one w my pen and the only way for me to go was back out towards the entrance so i was like its fine im almost done. so i went back out until i got to the tunnel after the first fork and i was like cool here’s a good a place as any so i got my pen ready + went to get my camera out, and literally RIGHT as the flashlight went out and the camera app opened i was like SO sure i saw something move vaguely in the darkness to my right like REALLY close to me shoulder height so i was like uhhh no and took a flash photo more out of reflex than anything and i didnt see anything but also the flash lit up for like,  one second and then it was dark again so i like switched back to the flashlight really quick and obviously it was just a normal tunnel and i was the only one there so i opened the camera app again to try to take the pic again and literally just like the first time right as the flashlight turned off i was soooo sure something moved right next to me like so close but i was like “nell. youre being insane.” so i didnt do anything and i just took like three more possible variations on the pic i wanted and then i turned my flashlight back on and once again obviously nothing was amiss so i was like epic win and went back out the tunnel entrance. and then i was like............. oh god i have to do the gate squirm again. but there was no other way so i just did it really fast before i could really get worked up about it lol and then i went back over to the freight elevator only when i pressed the button it would light up and then immediately go dark when i unpressed it and i was like oh fuck because 90% of the time when you get in on the ground floor this elevator literally refuses to take you to the basement and i was like oh no it re-locked while i was down here and now i can’t get up this way so im just like in this basement for the foreseeable future but then of course as i was going down that tangent the elevator doors opened and i stepped into the fluorescent light and looked down and was like wow i am just so thoroughly, completely, orangely covered in dirt. but i made it home with like 5 minutes to wash up a bit before my evening class so that was a win! i did learn however that i should never take my evening dose of adderall directly after a bit of minor breaking&entering while the adrenaline is still there because when i got to class i almost jackhammered a hole through the floor with my shakyleg

[eusuntgratie]

A, B, E, J, K, M, N, O, P, T, V

Well I spent far too long on this, but it was fun. 

A - Ships that you currently like a lot I mostly read Stucky. They got me into this mess and I’ll love them forever :) I like Geraskier a lot, which is definitely @witcherling‘s fault. I love Carol/Maria, although I haven’t read a ton (hint hint we need moooooore). I love good, interesting friendships with Steve & Nat and Bucky & Nat. I love stories that explore Steve’s relationship with Wanda post CACW. I love reading Sam when he’s developed beyond a caretaker or helpful friend with no actual personality of his own and Tony when he’s developed beyond an asshole literally only present to antagonize Steve. 

B - A pairing–platonic, romantic or sexual–that you initially didn’t consider, but someone changed your mind. I loved Geralt and Jaskier’s dynamic in the show and that mountain scene made me cry, but I don’t think I’d have sought out fanfiction or really shipped them without @witcherling​ ‘s intervention. When I love a writer, I’ll read damn near anything they write, and now I’m fully immersed and reblogging witcher shit and I’m not really sure what happened but here we are. 

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what? Just a few thirst tweets:  https://archiveofourown.org/works/24597331 

J - Name a fandom you didn’t think about until you saw it all over Tumblr. I haven’t watched The Magicians, but tumblr posts make me want to ship Queliot a little. Not sure if I should watch the show or just look at two lovely boys kissing and/or pining when they show up on my dash. Honestly most MCU pairings didn’t cross my mind until I saw them here. Stucky jumped out of the movies and slapped me in the face with WE ARE CLEARLY IN LOVE so lots of other ships are just...odd...to me. But ship and let ship, y’all. If it makes you happy, write it!

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc? Bucky? His actual arc gets pretty fucked by the MCU, but I do really love the idea that love transcends violence and pain and time and ultimately helps him find his way back to himself. I love fic that explores that, but lets him do the heavy lifting of his own recovery (vs. Steve fixing him with his super soldier dick). 

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend. SHURI PLEASE BE MY FRIEND! I will awkwardly stand in the corner of your lab and be amazed and try not to ask obnoxious questions every two seconds. She is the coolest and I want to hang out with her. She could be jaded or spoiled or pampered but instead she OWNS that she is always the smartest in the room and uses that to help people and help her country. She doesn’t take shit and she owns her intelligence and I love her. 

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice). Realistic depictions of mental health issues and recovery and therapy, bi and pan representation that goes beyond off-handedly mentioning a random person is attractive, non-binary and trans representation period (but especially stories where gender identity isn’t THE THING, but merely one part of who the character is). 

Shout out to @chicklette for their gorgeous fic Songbird which is almost complete and features a lovely bi Bucky who deals with bi erasure and wrangles with how people perceive his sexuality, him, and his partners. I LOVE THIS FIC! https://archiveofourown.org/works/23990152

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of? I’m recently obsessed with Hozier which is also @witcherling’s fault (really throwing you under the proverbial bus today, I suppose) and NFWMB definitely gives me stucky vibes. 

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas). uhhhh... something with Steve having a big brother-ish relationship with Wanda and maybe him and Bucky bond over that… Bucky feels similarly protective of his sister and they meet because maybe Wanda and Rebecca are friends and these two giant beefcakes bond over their extreme softness and incredible love for these two young women? I love fics with Geralt and Ciri and Jaskier… maybe Jaskier teaches guitar lessons (lute lessons? I don’t know there’s a reason I don’t really write) and he has a major crush on his fave student’s super hot dad but doesn’t want to make it weird? I’m tired I did my best *shrug*

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending? I have lots of headcanons but none are really so rigid that I can’t consider other viewpoints or read fic where things are different. I think Bucky knew he loved Steve before Steve understood what his love for Bucky meant. After watching CATFA far too many times, I’m not sure that Steve knew what all his BIG BUCKY FEELINGS meant until he lost him. But I still love love love reading pre-war stucky where they’re all sweet and and in love and having glorious sex in their shared apartment. 

V - Which character do you relate to most?

hmmm this one is tough. Bucky is my favorite character in the history of everything, but it’s not like I have lots in common with him. Bucky is wildly competent; the things he is/wants/need to be good at, he steadfastly devotes himself to and his loyalty and love for the few things he really, truly cares about is unshakable. I’m passionate but that passion gets strewn about across too many things; I really admire Bucky’s quiet devotion to what he loves and his ability to become fucking great at what he needs to be good at. Steve being ready to fight the entire world to protect Bucky is hella relatable.

N was my favorite to answer. Thanks @witcherling 💕