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lunarsands · 1 year

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ALSMP Fanfic: Along The Roads To Sanctuary Ch 4

Bonus also Empires SMP S2 fanfic! I just didn’t want to make the title field too long ^_^;

Characters: PearlescentMoon, Scott Smajor, MythicalSausage, Eddie, Joel Smallishbeans, Bubbles the Dog, Hermes, mentions of other Empires S2 characters, including a certain misplaced warlock… Sausage Supreme

Relationships: MythicalSausage/Scott Smajor

Tags: Canon Divergent, fictional religion, scosage, Afterlife SMP meets Empires SMP S2 but in an AU way

Warnings: violence, surrealism via magic auras, humorous misunderstandings about infidelity (tfw your husband cheats on you…with you), kidnapping (although we know how that went in canon)

(Sequel to Echoing Through To You, When The Skies Cry, Until The Blood Moon Descends, Then We’ll Rewrite The Stars, Wherever These Flowers May Grow)

Summary: A happily ever afterlife is interrupted by the distant past; Sausage receives another calling and is sent into a different mortal world from their old one, with Scott insisting on following so they won’t be separated. They both lead brand new lives but only Scott regains memories of the previous one on his own, and he isn’t allowed to remind Sausage about any of it without jeopardizing the mission the angel was sent to complete – a mission someone else was supposed to have dealt with.

(Also available on Ao3!)

[ Chapter One ] [ Chapter Two ] [ Chapter Three ]

[A/N: Two chapters in one day bonus because I’m experiencing burn out and need to forge on ahead.]

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Chapter Four

“This might be an even bigger revelation about where we are, if it can get through that barrier still up in your mind.” Scott held onto him all the way up to the patch of ‘unique’ flowers. “Does anything else about them seem familiar?”

Sausage gazed down at the blue and white flowers, but then shook his head.

Scott took on his second floran form, complete with a starflower in his hair. He carefully watched the aura around Sausage. “This memorial. The flowers. Our flowers, Sausage.”

Just as he had suspected, the silver part of Sausage’s aura flowed up around his head. “St-Starflowers. Angelflowers. Wait… This is THAT world?!”

“Yeah. I thought it was a crazy coincidence when I first realized—”

“Joel is THAT Joel?!” Sausage interrupted. “How did he not— Oh, right. Neither me or you look, uhh, whatever it is you are right now. I don’t remember that either.”

“Floran,” Scott said warmly. “It was honestly one of my favorites. It offered some unique opportunities, and fit right in with our love of beautiful gardens.”

Sausage hummed in agreement, then promptly plopped down on the ground and squished his face between his hands. “This is a lot,” he mumbled into his palms. “And… not all of it is making sense.”

“Sorry.” Scott changed himself back to his human appearance in case someone else happened to come across them, then sat down across from Sausage. “I don’t know what the entire plan is this time. This world now has new, thriving civilizations, built on top of what we did in the past. That other version of you mentioned centuries having passed – so maybe…” Scott pondered for a moment. “Maybe he was around when that corruption struck the land. Maybe he time-travelled to get here. What’s even in that white tower?”

“Oh, that was something I built based on a different kind of dream I had – sort of like being granted a vision by a god of creativity! A tower to greet the morning’s light after a good night’s sleep! There are a couple of special items in there… Um, one of them might have been able to allow entry from another reality, now that I think about it.”

“Let’s start there to see if we can get any clues.” Scott pointed to his left eye again. “We’re probably meant to do something about him, which might also help clear up your head and get you back to normal. I can now see your aura as well as your wings. You look like a bit of a confused mess, so obviously there’s more yet to be done.”

Sausage nodded and moved to get to his feet. Once standing, he cast about himself, checking his pocketspace. “The first thing I should do is ask the magic to give me a new Staff. Something tells me I’m going to need the power. Don’t know what that other guy is going to do with it, but maybe he has magic powers, too.”

They headed back and stopped off at the gifting tree. Upon Sausage’s request, a second Staff of Sanctuary appeared. He gingerly took hold of it, but he smiled when he could feel the magic pulsing through it as strongly as ever. However, he was very quiet as they made their way up through the white, mossy tower. Scott took it to mean Sausage was still processing everything, so he let him be, and meanwhile looked around at all the details inside the tower. Glowberry vines hung everywhere, with plenty of other greenery scattered around, and Scott would have figured it was just one more nature-themed portion of Sanctuary until they reached the landing that contained a pedestal directly in line with a window.

Scott could see it was swirling with a rainbow of different magics, but one that stood out the strongest was a dark gray stream of smoke. On top of the pedestal lay a single wither rose.

Sausage cautiously approached, then picked up the rose. His expression crumbled, and Scott saw wisps of pale blue encircle his head. He quickly stepped in and put his hand over the top of the rose. “Let’s try to stay focused. We’ll unpack anything else later. What is this thing?” Scott gestured to the pedestal.

“Part of it is a lodestone, to act as a guide for different energies.”

“Okay, that explains why I’m seeing every color of magic under the sun around it.”

“Are any in particular standing out?”

“It’s starting to dissipate now, but there’s gray smoke.”

“Gray smoke, black wither rose. That might have been his connection into this reality.”

Further explanations were cut off by the sound of an explosion in the distance. Sausage hurried to the window for a look. “I think that came from the Forgotten Cove!”

“Before he knocked me out of the window, he mentioned something about causing chaos. I’m thinking he has already started.”

“Let’s get after him before he hurts someone!” Sausage hopped up onto the window sill to take off with his foliage-covered elytra, then glanced back at Scott.

The disguised starborne shrugged. “I left mine at home. I can travel long distances without them as a starborne, but…” He gestured down at himself.

“You can borrow one from me! Back to the tree!” Sausage jumped to the floor and grabbed Scott’s hand, squeezing it once as they ran down the steps. He threw a hopeful smile Scott’s way. Scott shifted his hand to interlace their fingers and lightly squeeze back. They were halfway out of this mystery – halfway to returning Sausage’s memories of their life from before this.

The other half, however, was what worried Scott, and he recalled Pearl’s confession that there was something she wasn’t allowed to tell, and it relied on someone else not yet in this equation on his and Sausage’s end.

~*~

They tracked Sausage Supreme by the trail of destruction he left behind, as well as some of the other rulers complaining about Sausage – of the Sanctuary variety – pestering or outright bedeviling them by blowing up projects they had been working on, adding that they weren’t fooled by him changing outfits and pretending to be innocent. Sausage was consternated by the fact no one seemed to notice the difference between him and the other guy, but he wasn’t going to try to explain the concept of this particular case of different realities when he was still grappling in his own head to understand what was going on.

Finally, the two made their way to Chromia, where Scott was dismayed to see everything was overrun by llamas that had been let out of their garden by large holes in the walls. “I’ll worry about rounding them up and fixing that all later. How have we not caught up to him by now?!”

Rather than answer, Sausage took off again and made a beeline for Stratos. Scott gasped loudly as realization hit him.

Hermes was at Stratos. And with the way Joel sometimes left them unattended…

With daylight preventing him from accessing most of his starborne powers, Scott could only hurry after Sausage using his borrowed elytra.

Stratos had not gone undamaged. Wither roses surrounded the lore fountain and the water seemed to have been replaced with mud. But it was the row of signs in front of it that Sausage was staring at. “He’s been leading us on a chase as a distraction this whole time,” he said when Scott landed. He had his fists clenched tightly. “He’s got my boy. He went right back to Sanctuary. Let’s go!!”

Without waiting another second, Sausage flew toward the giant Nether portal in the center of Stratos. Scott followed but wished they had some kind of plan. Having his other scimitar might help, too, but he had forgotten about it with more important things going on. He hurried after Sausage into the portal, feeling the drag of the Nether’s heat and swiftly becoming uncomfortable due to its utter lack of a sky. He lost sight of Sausage, but stuck to the marked off path that led to Sanctuary’s portal.

He always hated going through the Nether, but with no one else to see at the moment he didn’t have a reason to suppress the weight of it on his breathing or have to be casual about how it made him slower. Except, now wasn’t the time to be slow; Sausage hadn’t waited for him and had already gone through the other portal. Scott kept the layout of its exit in mind as he flew into it.

He pulled up short at the edge of the platform. He could see them in the town square below already – Sausage Supreme to one side with Hermes in a cage behind him, the floor lined with copper to counteract the child’s storm-inspired powers, and Sausage was across from him, shouting for the villain to let Hermes go. The two Sausages were pointing their respective Staffs of Sanctuary at each other.

Scott carefully glided down, trying to remain out of sight in hopes of getting the drop on Sausage Supreme. Or, perhaps, he should try to free Hermes so there would no longer be leverage against Sausage and he could cut loose with the magic he intended to use; or maybe even unleash some angel power.

That hope was dashed when he saw Sausage become outlined by a red glow and be tossed up against a building. Not completely pinned though, Sausage lifted his arm and fired a bright blue bolt from his Staff toward Sausage Supreme, breaking his focus and disrupting the holding spell, allowing the Protector to drop to his feet. Then the spell slinging went into a full battle.

As he attempted to get closer, Scott had to shield his eyes. The feedback from his left one was starting to feel like an oncoming headache. He was about one street over from Hermes when Bubbles ran past him carrying a pickaxe in her mouth. She slipped right past Sausage Supreme’s notice and made it to the cage without any trouble.

Scott retreated behind cover. Maybe he wasn’t needed here, after all… But he would absolutely step in if it looked like Sausage was about to lose. Scott’s attacks would be weakened by the daylight, but even just the showy effect of a star strike could distract the villain long enough for Sausage to recover.

That is, if he didn’t end up incapacitated, himself, with how much ethereal energy was being revealed by his left eye. Sausage’s dual-mixed aura was surging and starting to blot out his features, while now Scott could see Sausage Supreme’s aura – itself a roiling combination of red, magenta, and gray. The bursts of magical energy from their spells made him clutch at his head; this was going to become overwhelming very quickly. “Pearl,” he muttered, “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea…”

He wasn’t sure he could keep up with everything enough to figure out where – or if – he even could lend a hand. He put his head down and squeezed his eyes shut, hoping a few seconds of not observing all that magic might help. He was drawn back to the battle, however, when he heard an angry cry.

He was now baffled by a new sight. Sausage’s aura was now split perfectly down the middle, silver on one side and pale blue on the other, which was also the side that held the Staff of Sanctuary. The villain’s aura was still a messy cloud, so it wasn’t as if something had happened that stabilized all the different energies.

Then a new figure’s aura crept into view from a different alleyway: small, diluted purple, and crackling with sparks. Scott tried to reach out but was too dizzy to even try stumbling over to stop them. Hermes. No. It isn’t safe!

The child’s aura crackled brighter. Scott squinted. Lightning shot forth, skewering through the red-magenta-gray conglomeration.

All right. Well. That could definitely be of help.

Scott then saw the hand on the silver side reach out to grasp the end of the lightning bolt. Silver flames erupted around the hand, and it trembled, but then the wrist rotated as if getting a better grip on a piece of rope and began to pull, dragging Sausage Supreme toward him.

The glow coming off of Hermes flickered, then went out as the remainder of the lightning was discharged. Scott could see the child unobscured now, tottering back a step with Bubbles at the side to lean on. Hermes seemed unharmed, merely out of power for the moment.

Meanwhile, Sausage Supreme’s aura shook from the side effects of the electricity. As he came within range, the pale blue hand struck its Staff of Sanctuary against the ground, releasing a pulse of energy; then it let go of the Staff, leaving it to stand upright on its own. Energy pulses continued to radiate from it, while the pale blue hand grasped hold of Sausage Supreme’s arm.

The pulses from the Staff grew brighter. Scott saw Hermes cover his eyes, and Bubbles laid down with a paw over her muzzle, so he knew he wasn’t the only one being overwhelmed by the light. He could no longer make out the difference in the two Sausages so he shut his eyes, placing an arm in front of them for good measure. He heard a sound like the reversed shattering of glass, then felt a final pulse of magic right down to his starborne bones. He hastily looked out across the square—

He saw only one figure now, with a mix of silver and pale blue churning around red, gray, and magenta. Those three colors were soon swallowed up, then, suddenly, the pale blue spread in a burst, forcing out the silver into a splatter across the ground. Scott’s stomach wrenched.

Yet then the silver gathered itself together and rose up into a small pillar of swaying flames. The fully-blue Sausage form didn’t seem to notice it and instead took the Staff of Sanctuary from where it still stood on its own. As he lowered it, the intense magic faded from the area, returning Scott’s vision to normal. He saw… just Sausage of Sanctuary again, no outline of wings or other auras as he crouched and held out his arms while Hermes ran over to him. “Hermes! ¡Mi querido hijo! You were so brave! And so strong! Yeah, no one is going to mess with you ever again!”

The pillar of flame seemed to be watching, then it turned and started drifting toward Scott. He felt a warm sensation on his hand and remembered the other rings he had intended to give Sausage. One of them was now beginning to glow. Scott ducked around a corner. When the pillar reached him, a tendril of flame extended toward him. Scott took off the glowing ring and held the tendril as if it were a hand, then slid the ring onto it.

The pillar shifted and took on a vague humanoid shape with wings. The head turned to look back at the Protector of Sanctuary and Hermes. Scott then heard his partner’s voice in his head, strongly confident without any of the earlier confusion or reluctance, albeit distant and ethereal. “They’re a nice family. I’m sure Hermes will grow up to do great things.”

Relieved that it seemed like his Sausage had emerged with all his memories back, Scott whispered, “You need to explain to me what, exactly, just happened. You weren’t the only one in there, were you? You got kicked out just now. What did I just see?”

“Can we… go somewhere else? I need a moment. It got really weird there for a while but I needed to just stay focused. And, um, I’m not quite myself right now.”

“I can see that! But at least you’re more yourself than you were twelve hours ago.”

As quickly and carefully as they could, they crossed the town square. The Protector of Sanctuary was chatting away with Bubbles as he carried a now sleepy-looking Hermes, probably on the way to put the child in bed for a nap. Having been leaning his head on the man’s shoulder, Hermes could see over it as Scott and the silver-flame version of Sausage snuck past. He raised his little hand and waved. Sausage the Seraph paused and waved back, then hurried after Scott.

Hermes leaned their head back down and hugged his papa.

“Oh, mi niñito tiene sueño. I love you, too! We’ll all go rest and then you can have cookies and pumpkin pie for dinner later!”

Once they had entered the Nether and crossed to Chromia’s portal, the angel-shaped silver flames leaned on the frame and sighed with gusto. “Whew! That was a lot! I don’t think I’ve had to deal with that much magical energy since that time Pearl sent me to the Twilight Forest to try to negotiate with a High Lich!”

“When she— What? Never mind. Tell me how I managed to miss the fact I might have been talking to two different Sausages the entire time we’ve been here.”

“I found out the same time as you – like ten minutes ago, right? Of course, now that I look back, there was a kind of feeling that another soul was there, but like it was half-asleep, or something, through everything.”

“I’m. I’m sorry, like it what?”

Sausage went quiet; Scott wasn’t sure if the crackling-flame sound he heard was coming from his partner or the Nether itself. Then Sausage drew a deep breath. His form solidified a little more, but still resembled an apparition. He held up the index finger of both hands. “Two souls, two versions of me, inside the same body.” He pressed the fingers together. “Living the same life, gaining the same experiences. …Until I started getting my memory back, and the other me’s own memories also started to surface.”

He moved one finger away by a centimeter. “And then a third version from a different reality showed up, but was actually a piece missing from the soul of the other me that I was sharing a body with. Then add the missing piece back in, and there’s no reason for me to keep being there.”

“I think I need a flow chart. Why would this world’s Sausage be missing a piece of his soul that was in a different… reality? What.”

Sausage sighed loudly in exasperation. “How should I know! I’ve got my own memories of the life you and I had together, and now the shared memories of growing up here! Remember how I forgot all about originally being from the celestial realm and being one of Pearl’s angels? The other soul didn’t have any memories I could access to find out, not that I even had time for that when I realized it was there! I was too busy wrangling lightning and trying to stuff the evil soul into the whole mess of Mythical Sausage energy! Look, look – it was like if you’ve got a cup of water that’s two-thirds full, and you need to add the remaining third, but that happens to overflow the cup because it turns out one portion is like a different density than the others. Like mixing oil and water. I was the portion that didn’t actually belong, but the portion also already in there didn’t have the… uh… adhesiveness? Mergeability? To get the missing part to stick. I think I’ve lost track of the metaphor, hold on…”

Scott could only stare at him helplessly, trying to get a grasp of the explanation.

Sausage appeared to scowl, then sighed again, this time in resignation. “I don’t think the other me was strong enough to get the job done. And you saw that other guy – no way could he be allowed to keep running free. Who knows what he would have done – if he ended up influencing Hermes, turn the kid into a demon or something – that would be horrible! And the only way to stop him was to put him back where he originally came from.”

“So,” Scott said softly, “What about Hermes, then? He’s… your son, too.” He gave a gentle chuckle. “A child of a god and an angel.”

Sausage’s expression turned lost for a moment. “I’m not…sure. Technically they’re the son of the me of this world, and Joel. I was kind of… an extra co-parent? I guess that I’m sort of like a built-in guardian angel. And what happened at the end there was me fulfilling that part of a guardian angel’s calling. Stop a demon from causing harm. Demon is gone, threat is over, I move on.”

“Wait, what do you mean a demon?”

“Oh, that guy had some serious demonic vibes going on! There was a bunch of demon power mixed into his soul! Come to think of it, maybe that’s also why I needed to be here…”

Scott gingerly touched Sausage’s arm. “Well, we know how things go when your calling ends. You could always check in on Hermes from the reflecting pool, like you did with me.”

“Yeah,” Sausage said with a bittersweet smile, his tone soft. “I’ll be able to do that much.”

“Plus, since Hermes is a demigod, there might come a day where he ventures into the celestial planes and pays a visit to Pearl’s realm.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s true.”

They stood in silence for another moment, then Scott said, “So I guess we’re done here. We can check with Pearl to see if there’s anything else, but maybe we can go home. Um, but at the very least, let’s get out of the Nether right now. Not a great environment for starbornes.” Scott grimaced, then held out a hand toward Sausage to walk him through the portal out into Chromia.

“I’m done, yes, but what about you?” Sausage asked as they stepped down onto the grass. “You still have a life here. Don’t you have anything you need to take care of? You still have Chromia to look after. Someone else is filling my shoes.”

Scott led the way toward the pond connected to the celestial realm, a little smirk crawling onto his face. “You know what? I think it’s time for the ruler of Chromia to go back to his adventuring days – who’s to say he didn’t simply disappear while hunting for another mysterious treasure?”

Someone called from behind them, “You would leave just like that, without saying goodbye first?”

They turned, both startled to have heard the voice of Sausage – the Protector of Sanctuary variety. He grinned as he trotted away from the Nether portal. “Where do you think you two are off to so fast?”

Scott pointed at himself and feigned confusion. “Us two?”

The Protector gestured toward the angel-shaped flames. “I can see him, too. We did just share a body for over two decades, even though I was asleep through most of it, and had you fill in until I was aware enough. I remember most of my past, now.” He nodded at Sausage the Seraph. “You must have had a similar experience, if they thought you were the one for the job.”

“Actually, I’ve figured it’s because I’m a really powerful angel, and that other guy had some demon energy mixed in! Could be a real challenge for the average reincarnated human, even if it’s a human version of me! No offense.”

“None taken. I’m glad for the help. Things got… messy, at my end. The big issue I now remember, involving my Pearl, well… She… ascended to godhood, but felt so much regret for being unable to help me when I was desperately trying to save her when the world was ending, that after she came to claim my soul at the end of my mortal life, she didn’t want to let me go when my soul was called back to this world. Before all that even happened, I had split the other guy off from my soul and banished him to a pocket dimension where he couldn’t hurt anyone – yeah, that’s a whole other story. But I guess the universe saw he would find a way to return to this reality, and I was needed to put an end to what I was responsible for creating. But Pearl – my Pearl – didn’t want me to have to deal with what was involved. So, the universe needed to balance things out after finally wresting me from her, so that’s where you came in.”

He sighed sadly. “She meant well. She got involved before, when I did something else kind of stupid.” The Protector then smiled weakly. “She means a lot to me, too, so I can’t really blame her. I don’t have a way to talk to her directly right now, but I hope she’s looking in and can see that it all went just fine!”

Scott put a hand on the Protector’s shoulder. “We need to get back to our own Pearl. I think she might have known what your Pearl had done, and was upset but couldn’t let it show. We need to let her know that everything did work out.”

The Protector placed his hand over Scott’s. “So… what actually are you?” He looked at him a little sadly. “Are you from another reality, too, and not just some cool star-powered hero from here?”

Scott nodded. “Yes, I’m from his reality. We have a tendency to follow each other around.”

He grinned over at Sausage the Seraph, who came closer to rest a hand-shaped flame on the Protector’s other shoulder. “Take good care of Hermes for me. And if Joel ever gets his memory back, ask him about the two spirits of the forest who came to rest in a bamboo jungle near a rock outcropping. He might be able to explain where those flowers came from, after all.”

The Protector seemed to mull that over, then looked between the two in wonder.

~*~

Scott and Sausage the Seraph continued on their way to the pool by the shed only to find it ringed by glowstone and the light from the water giving off so much supernatural radiance that Scott started to get a migraine within seconds. He covered his left eye and motioned for Sausage to enter the pool. Rather than extinguish his flames, he merely passed through. Scott hopped in after him without hesitation. The glowstone shattered behind him, returning the water to that of a simple decorative pond.

On the other side Sausage stood restored to his normal, solid angelic appearance. He looked himself over and sighed in relief. “Wow, that was convenient! For a minute there I was worried I would need a whole new vessel! How about you?”

He turned to Scott, who was still in his Chromian human form. “Well, I kind of still like this coat, but it clashes a little with the purple.” He waved a hand over his face and head, turning his eyes violet and hair shimmery purple, with the tiny constellation also returning to view.

Sausage studied him for a moment. “Hey, so, what is up with your eye? Is that some starborne thing we didn’t know about before, or just some extra magic you picked up along the way in that world?”

“The second thing, technically. It was Pearl’s doing, to be honest. My, um, eye got stolen by a creepy skull artifact and a wizard tricked me claiming he could get my original eye back from it, but according to Pearl he was going to sneak a fake one in, but she intervened in time to imbue it with magic first, to give me an edge in aiding you. I’m not actually sure how much it helped in the end, since I got overwhelmed by all the soul auras and magical energy around and couldn’t fight.”

“Well, I still think I was meant to handle that final part by myself – er, me and the other me.” Sausage then smirked. “Couldn’t stay away, could you? You followed me.”

“Do you really think I was going to wait decades to see you again? I don’t care how immortal we are like this. I don’t have that kind of patience.” Scott smirked right back at him.

They stepped toward each other to embrace, but then Pearl appeared and got between them. She turned to Scott and pressed the palm of her hand over his left eye. Scott uttered a quiet noise of discomfort as mild pain swelled around his eye socket, but as it faded, he could tell the input from that eye had returned to the way it was before the incident with the skull.

Pearl smiled awkwardly. “Sorry, I had to wait until you came back to this realm for me to be able to fully restore it for you.” She then turned to Sausage with an even more pained look.

“Everything worked out fine, Pearl!” Sausage announced cheerfully. “I mean, that did get a little weird when I started remembering my life and the other me’s at the same time – but it’s pretty cool knowing there’s another me who led a different type of life, all mortal and plain and stuff! Well, aside from the magic. That’s not plain or boring!”

The pained expression on her face remained.

“Uh. Pearl?” Sausage asked, confused as to why she hadn’t even hugged them upon their return.

Pearl walked to the reflecting pool and waved a hand over it, then said softly, “Sausage, do you remember when I told you about my old world, and how I had a friend I had to leave behind?”

“Uhm, yeah?”

The pool resolved into the image of a sepia-toned scene of swaying stalks of wheat. “When he reached the end of his mortal life, I went down to collect his soul before a reaper could come to try to send it to the Plane of Souls…”

“Oh, this sounds familiar! Wait, are you saying you’re the Pearl that the other me was talking about??” Sausage’s eyes went wide. “I thought he meant another, parallel Pearl! Like how I’m a parallel version of him, but I’m an angel instead of a human with incredible magical powers!” He uttered a brief chortle, pleased with the idea of any parallel version of himself being powerful in some way, but when Pearl failed to smile, he stopped. “Uhm. Is there something else to this that I’m missing?”

Pearl glanced toward the pool. “Do you remember when I said you were so much like my old friend?”

Sausage nodded then exchanged looks with Scott.

“It’s… because you are him. I did something similar to that other Pearl. I put that soul into a brand-new angel vessel. I just wanted to have you by my side and at peace here, doing what you loved to do back in the mortal realm. My architect.” She turned toward Sausage again and reached out to gently touch him under the chin, then withdrew her hand. “But you also became angel-coded because of that vessel, so when you received a calling, I couldn’t do anything about it, and had to let you answer it, then wait for you to complete your journey through a new mortal world.”

She took a deep breath. “The other version of me wasn’t so willing to let her boy go. He didn’t get put in a new vessel. She just hoarded his soul somewhere. The threat he needed to face was something you had also dealt with in your original mortal life, but it was properly resolved, and there was no chasing down fractured pieces of your soul. And yet, your soul was similar enough that the higher powers that be enlisted you for this job.”

Sausage stared, dumbfounded. “Uh— Wait— You mean, some of those memories might actually have been mine, and not his?”

Pearl nodded. “I can’t say how much of it was one or the other.” She gave another weak smile. “I don’t have that much insight into what’s in your head.”

“So, Mythland—?”

“Was a kingdom you built up and restored in some places. Do you want to see it?” Pearl gestured to the pool.

Sausage shook his head. “No. I’d rather leave that in the past. I have what I have now.” He took Scott’s hand and held it tightly. “And also, I, um, think I need to sit down.” He started to glance around in distress, but Scott swiftly guided him over to the wicker throne to sit at its base.

The starborne was silently digesting all of this. It didn’t change how he felt, even if this was a whole new side of Sausage that he was finding out about. In fact, Scott let out a little laugh. “Does this mean you’re actually several hundred years older than me?”

“I don’t know,” Sausage mulled it over, the distraction perfectly timed. “Does it count that I sort of started over as an angel, like we started over in that world? Hey, Pearl – did you know that was the same world you sent us to as florans? And Joel didn’t recognize either of us! What are the odds of him losing his memory of the past when me and the other me had our memories sealed away! Can you imagine what would have happened if we all remembered at the same time? Hey, speaking of that – Scott, did you know the whole time, or did you get to have a little vacation from the past, too?”

As he babbled on, Pearl and Scott were both relieved that the revelations hadn’t dampened his spirits any. Pearl even chuckled to herself. Yup, Sausage was the same as always, no matter what form he was in. There might be more to unpack another time, but for now she was happy to indulge his enthusiastic ponderings.

~The End~

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[Post A/N: The story of Sausage of Sanctuary, as well as more revelations about which Sausage, exactly, he is, will be continued in the crossover “Thou, O Kings, Fair Be You All” coming soon!]

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Translations for this chapter:

¡Mi querido hijo! = My dear son!

mi niñito tiene sueño = my little boy is sleepy

#alsmp #alsmp fanfic #alsmp shipping #scosage #empires smp #empiressmpshipping #mythicalsausage #scott smajor #dangthatsalongname #sausage supreme #empires hermes #empires smp fanfic #soul liminality 2 #lunar yarns

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koocycle · 3 years

Text

play thing | drabble series (i).

pairing. basketball player!jungkook x female reader

summary. jungkook is aware of the fact that you’re not his to love, yet he’s eager to show you what you’re missing out on.

wc. 3065

warnings. none

taglist. if you’d like to be added, please send me an ask!

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‘‘You look really pretty today.’’

A hint of a barely visible flush creeps up your already heated cheeks upon hearing the words leaving his lips. You don’t want to show your vulnerability at such an everyday compliment, yet the act seems a bit too hard when your lips break into a grin you’d rather keep to yourself today - completely losing your focus under his heated gaze attempting to meet your own.

‘‘Thank you, Jungkook.’’

He tries to hide the smile that’s making an appearance on his face, but he finds your flustered state way too adorable to not be entertaining on this fine afternoon. He can tell you’re not used to getting compliments by the way you innocently play with the heavy fabric of your dress, pretending to dismiss the existence of the wet haired man in front of you, but he knows better than that. Better than this simple act of innocence you’re putting up for him.

And he’s not making it any easier on you — not when he is looking at you like this. His entire figure is casually leaning back against the heavy door of the men’s locker room and his backpack hangs lazily over one of his shoulders as you can suspect that there’s nothing more in there besides a total of two pencils in desperate need for a new grinding.

‘‘You can look at me, you know?” He’s mumbling this time, words barely audible before his gaze shifts to his feet, his head tilting and the grimace not yet visible on his face. ‘‘Barely complemented you. I don’t bite.’’

His words make you shoot an eyebrow up your forehead, giving you the final strength to look him in the eye this time. You know exactly what he’s doing.

“I mean — unless you’re into that?”

There it was. The boyish grin just begging to show up, the hint of pure mischief continuing to gleam in his eyes — the kind he wouldn’t be able to hide even if he wanted to. You had expected it to come to this point already, had been waiting for it, actually.

You straighten your back, composing your posture in front of him. And he oh so desperately tries to not avert his eyes down your slightly pushed out chest. The lightweight fabric of your nude colored blouse is allowing him to catch a glimpse of your bra, but he won’t let his guard down.

“I’m not, actually.” You manage to answer smugly, a load of confidence washes over you as you already have a feeling as to where this is heading. This surprises him as well, the sudden hint of a tease clearly audible in your voice.

“Hm, no?”

You shake your head. “Nope.”

Your friend dramatically rolls his eyes at the obvious lie, a glimpse of a pretty smile tugging at the corners of his lips. He shifts his weight on both his feet now as he disregards the locker room door by itself, prepared to make his way over to you now – and you can already feel the beat of your heart in the base of your throat with each step he takes. Because he’s looking bolder than the days before. More daring – defiant, almost. Ready to take on the challenge and not willing to lose anytime soon.

His entire aura screams fuck me in the janitor’s closet five minutes before your next class starts.

No.

‘‘Tell me what you are into then.’’ His eyebrow cockily raises up on his forehead as his head just slightly tilts, knowing he’s got you stuck in place. The confident expression you had written on your face completely dismissed.

You can’t handle him.

You clear you throat, announcing your defeat. “You know I got you guys take out?’’ The high pitched undertone in your voice betrays you – but what else do you have in your power when he stands in front of you like this? The warmth of his body this close to you, you’re actually able to feel him? ‘‘Chinese.. take-out..’’

Both of his eyebrows raise up this time, the surprise coating his features perfectly. ‘‘What?’’ as his gaze shifts to the barely open bag hanging on to your fingertips, you feel a little less intimidated before him. “Seriously?” his tattooed fingers curl around the shoulder straps of his backpack, “I love Chinese take-out. You’re an actual angel.”

When he’s right in front of you, his gaze feels heavy on your shoulders. You tell yourself he’s only interested in the food, but there’s too little space between your bodies for that to be true. His cologne is even stronger this time and it makes your mind all cloudy.

“Uh.. It’s just,” you immediately stop talking as you feel yourself grow hot under his presence, stumbling over your own words before you attempt to gulp your nerves away. “Just some sweet sesame chicken with fried rice and egg rolls.. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Still an angel.” He smiles down at you, pinching the tip of your chin just slightly before taking his backpack off and hastily rummaging through it. “Let me pay you back.”

“Oh no,” You immediately try to reassure him, “Absolutely not, Jeon. Over my dead body. You guys trained for over 5 hours, this is the least thing I could do. ”

You watch him pull an eyebrow up, a small smile appearing on his features. As if asking you why you wouldn’t want the money. As if you’re the crazy one here.

“___” He goes, the stern warning in his voice not being dismissed. “You just bought an entire meal for a team of fifteen hungry men. It’d be disrespectful not to pay you back, honestly.”

“You’re not paying me back. End of conversation, Jeon.” You point an accusing finger his way, a cute smile on your face.

Nonetheless, your finger gets dismissed by him as he shakes his head in disapproval before rummaging through his backpack yet again.

Pulling out a rather small wallet, he opens up and goes through it.

“This should be enough.”

He holds the money in between two fingers in the air, pretty pink lips turning into a knowing smile when your eyes widen at the paper in his grip.

“That’s way too much, Jungkook.” A snicker leaves him when you cup your smaller hands over his bigger ones, pushing the 50 dollar bill back to his chest. “Way too much. Are you out of your mind?”

“Are you?” He challenges, eyebrows raising as he waits for you to say something, “I honestly don’t mind paying you back, ___. If anything, it would make me feel better knowing I paid for my own lunch.”

“I mind, though. We’re not doing this.”

“Come on,” He whined, tilting his head slightly but still remaining eye contact with you. “You bought me food, this is the least thing I can do.”

“I bought all of you food, not just you.” You correct him, pointing a long finger at him. He thinks it’s such an adorable act and can’t stop himself from wrapping his entire palm around your pointer finger. “You’ll treat me on Mexican next time, won’t you?’’

When your hand moves in its place to intertwine your fingers together, the last thing Jungkook does is protest. He proudly accepts your soft hand to take place in his own. His thumb gazes over the smooth skin as he can’t help the grin from appearing.

“You win.” He states in defeat, voice lowering a few volumes down until he goes mute, you almost don’t notice the “for now,” he mouths after.

Beats of silence pass between your figures. Your hands are still intertwined and there’s too little space between you to be seen as two average friends with platonic intentions only. The silence hanging in the air isn’t uncomfortable, but rather peaceful.

You don’t see Jungkook that often, and that’s partly due to both of your packed schedules, growing stack of assignments, and his unending amount of training sessions in basketball court. Nevertheless, he is a great friend to you, and you’re grateful to share this friendship with him. You’re comfortable around him, and you’re sure it’s the other way around as well. That’s an obvious fact considering the way you’re standing here with him. Holding hands with giggly expressions on your faces.

‘‘Stealing my girlfriend, Jeon?’’

It’s crazy how fast the distance between you and Jungkook enlarges within a second when the heavy locker room door comes to an abrupt open. You feel as shocked as you look like with the sudden change of atmosphere, eyes slightly wide when a startled, and rather uncomfortable smile finds its way on your lips.

That’s right; Jungkook kind of seemed to forget about this dude.

‘‘Oh I- uh.. we were just.. talking.’’ Jungkook manages to blurt out, fingers reaching out the scratch the back of his neck.

‘‘I know. Don’t sweat it, man.’’ The new figure that enters the scene dismisses Jungkook somewhat faster than needed after his attempt on reassuring him, now centering his eyes on you. He stands in between you as if creating a shield around you – as if creating some sort of barrier between you. His hands are slightly up in the air, presumably ready to embrace you in his arms.

‘‘Minho..’’ His name trails off your lips in a rather hesitant manner, Jungkook can’t help but notice. ‘‘How did training go?’’ Your tone is so soft and delicate, filled with affection.

The larger male takes a few more steps towards you, invading your space as his hands slip around the small of your back. You almost don’t notice the rest of the guys walking out of the locker room as well with him filling your sight, allowing them to have a front row seat on the scene unfolding in front of them.

‘‘It went fine. What’re you doing here, hm?’’ His words are slightly mumbled before he pushes your body more against his own, his smell overtaking you. He barely gives you some time to process the question before his lips slam against yours, taking you in a hungry kiss.

The guys watch the scene expand in front of their noses, a few ‘‘oohs’’ thrown in there when your boyfriend deepens the kiss even more, causing you to be thrown off guard a bit.

‘‘Minho,’’ You try to speak in between the kisses, but he won’t budge. Nervous laughter manages to escape you, ‘‘We’re not alone.’’

Jungkook wants to look the other way a little too badly, but his eyes are somehow still glued on the show you’re currently putting out. He would rather not call the heavy feeling in his stomach something along the lines of disgust, but it’s hard for him not to with the way his insides are turning upside down.

“Better find a room for those two or we’ll be stuck here all day.” It’s Min Yoongi who snickers beside the damp haired boy, nudging his side with his elbow. But Jungkook can’t seem to laugh at the attempted joke. Instead, his fingers are tightening around the straps of his backpack once again, trying to collect his cool.

Your hand is carefully placed on your boyfriend’s chest in attempt to calm the kiss down before he finally quits the whole act all together.

‘‘Can’t even kiss my girlfriend now?’’ Jungkook wants to wipe the grin that's slowly but surely growing on his face off. And the feeling is only starting to increase when the large male turns back to his teammates, a disgusting smirk visible on his features.

Such an ass.

Jungkook can’t help but scoff at the sight – and visibly so. He’s just using you to show off.

‘‘I uh..’’ You start but trail off the rails soon enough, making the attention turn back to you, ‘‘I brought you guys some take out, you texted me that you guys have been training all day and I figured out-”

“You brought us take out?”

You don’t get to finish your sentence when Kim Namjoon speaks up from behind, eyes bulging out of his head before slipping past his teammates’ bodies. And even when he eventually stands before you, trying to peek inside the plastic bag in your hands, you can’t help but note the huge amount of height difference between you. No wonder his coach never let him rest on one of the benches during all the competitions played so far - he’s easily one of the tallest players on the field.

It doesn’t take a lot of peeking before a gasp escapes his lips, “Dude - she got them egg rolls, I’ve been craving those all week.’’ Eyes buckle out of his scalp, ‘’All damn week.”

Jungkook can see you shooting a warm smile at Namjoon from afar, content with the way it seems to light the male up – pretty dimples making an appearance as his nearly perfect set of teeth shine brightly in your view. He can almost compare you to a child who just gave their parents the perfect valentines gift, looking all bubbly and excited over this.

‘‘I got some chicken as well.’’ You thrillingly whisper to your side, another set of giggles escaping you once Namjoon, once again, is ready to attack that plastic bag in your grip.

‘‘I didn’t expect you to come with take-out, though.’’ Minho sighs heavily, catching your attention almost immediately as you look at him with a huge set of eyes. The tone of his voice is disgustingly sweetened up as he swallows you back into his embrace, hands dissolving around the small of your back, not caring about the remaining players gauging at the two of you from the other side of the hall. ‘‘We already made plans, babe.’’

You don’t hold on to him the same way he does to you, Jungkook notices. The bright gleam in your eyes from before has already disappeared, now replaced with a frown between your brows. And he hurts for you.

‘‘You can’t reschedule?’’ You ask hazily, almost afraid to ask the question. ‘‘I know Joon would like some take-out.’’ Your hair falls out of your face when you spare Namjoon a pretty glance from over your shoulder.

Yet your boyfriend shakes his head, ‘‘Not this time. You should’ve told me before you went all out to please my teammates like this, love.’’ He titters at his own joke, thinking he’s funny. Still, a few guys besides Jungkook seem to snicker a bit at your rosy-looking cheeks. But he can’t bash an eyelash.

If no one is going to say it, he will.

‘‘Of course we can reschedule.’’ Jungkook speaks up, catching the eyes of your boyfriend immediately, quickly followed by your own. ‘‘We can go for some fast food any other day.’’

When Minho raises a cocky eyebrow up his forehead, the question already written on his features, Jungkook heaves out a tired sigh.

‘‘Come on, man. She bought us an entire meal.’’ His open palm points to the bag, which is still hanging around your curled fingers, reddening the tips completely.

‘‘It’s not like I asked her to.’’ He bites, almost as if what he had said offended him. ‘‘Right..?’’ He’s looking back at you now, fingers playing with the strands of your hair as he hides them behind your ears. An irky smile visible on his face.

‘‘Right.’’ He confirms once he sees you nodding, placing a hasty kiss on the soft surface of your cheek. ‘‘I’ll call you after. Promise.’’

You’re not worried about him not contacting you – that’s the least thing on your list you’re concerned about. But he doesn’t care. Will not now, will not ever.

‘‘Okay..’’ You manage to say, your voice coming out softer than you had expected. And even though his embrace hadn’t really done anything to warm you up, the void sweeping up to you once he leaves you in place feels a little heavier right now.

‘‘I’m out of here.’’ The guy states, convinced the other guys will follow after him when his hands are raised besides his head. As he turns around without a second glance your way, your eyes follow his figure until he’s out of sight, heading for the exit.

Namjoon, the one whose mouth was watering at the idea of take-out just a minute ago is the first one who breaks the uncomfortable silence. ‘‘Next time, little one.’’ He pats your head gently, making backwards steps to disappear in a second. ‘‘Thank you, though.’’ He’s shooting you an apologetic look before big steps follow your boyfriend’s down the stairs.

Min Yoongi is the next one who leaves the scene to what it is, followed by a few other guys. But unlike Namjoon, these guys don’t do much other than gifting you a few uneasy smiles — ready to leave as soon as possible. And for some reason, it makes you feel even worse.

The silence that follows when it’s just you and Jungkook standing in front of each other hurts more, though. You’re embarrassed, he can see that much.

“Come here.” Your friend spreads his arms for you to jump into, yet you don’t make a move to do exactly that. “We’ll get out of here and eat it together. It might be a little much—” He embraces you in his warmth when you don’t attempt anything, “but do you want to see how many rice cakes I can stuff in my mouth?”

You only glare at him, not having it in you to laugh at the attempted joke when your boyfriend’s irritated expressions occupies your mind.

“I know you’re tempted.” Jungkook wiggles his eyebrows at you, close to succeeding in cheering you up. And it nearly makes you want to give in and have just as a good time as Minho is about to have — but you don’t have the heart to do so.

Instead, your heart is seeking for validation.

Hence you decide to push him away. Only for you to doubt your previous actions for the upcoming few hours.

“It’s alright, Guk.” You smile at him, hand on his chest as you push him away. “I was gonna share some with my roommates anyways.”

The excuse sounds weak to the ear, even to you. But it’s not stopping you from making your way out of the hall before he seems to progress it, mind occupied with your insecurities.

#jungkook #ficscafe #jungkook drabble #bts au #jungkook au #jungkook fluff #bts fic #bts imagine #bts fics #bts x reader #jungkook fanfic #jungkook angst #jungkook smut #jeon jungkook #cosmoguk

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itsbeaconhillsbaby · 3 years

Note

I love your writings, they’re so good and realistic and not weird and cringe like some others on here, by far the best I’ve seen in a while !! Was just wondering if you’re taking requests and if so if you could do one when your an actress and have always had a crush on him but you meet him at an after party at a premier or something and have flirty banter and maybe more ? Thankyou x

hello my lovely x

this is so unbelievably sweet I've been screaming since this popped into my inbox. I wanted to start this off by saying a massive thank you - this is my first ever requested piece and I am so excited to be able to create something for you! this is a milestone fic: the 10th fic that I've written for tom, and is also one of my longest!! I also want to apologise for how long it has taken me; I started on this a while ago now and you have been so patient and kind! please enjoy and let me know what you think! (also the timing that this is now coming out on his birthday is all the spook!!)

after party antics || tom holland x reader

word count: 2729 warnings: alcohol use summary: premiere after party meet cute

Circular tables filled the floor as glittering chandeliers hung low from the ceilings above. Pretty foliage and large blooming fresh flowers in pastel pinks, greens and blues, draped through the room, entangling themselves around chairs and across wooden beams. Lace, satin and chiffon brushed along the floors as what felt like the entire film industry conversed with one another; hands clutching at suit jacketed arms, glasses clinking in cheers.

Music, chatter, camera flashes and laughing filled the room - sounds reverberating all around. You glide through the crowds, smiling and nodding your thanks as people congratulated you from either side.

Taking a detour from your path, you spotted the signs for the bathroom and let out a shaky exhale when it appeared empty. Resting your hands on the wash basin and closing your eyes, you took a couple of deep breaths before your face erupted into a toothy grin, a small squeal of excitement bubbling from your lips.

You were at an after-party.

For your very first film.

Surrounded by some of Hollywood’s finest.

WHAT!

If your best friend woke you up stating that this was all some insane dream, you wouldn’t be surprised. It would make more sense, actually – this just couldn’t be your life.

You could feel yourself spiralling and spritzed a little bit of water onto your face to calm yourself down, making sure not to ruin the amazing make-up look that your team had spent so long perfecting earlier that day.

The premiere had only just finished.

You had walked across the red carpet on wobbly legs – cameras flashing, thousands of fans screaming from behind barriers, photographers and press overpowering each other in order to get the best angles and shots; screaming for you to ‘look over here’, ‘turn to the side.’

The premiere had only just finished up as you sat amongst a drool-worthy cast; some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Joining such a large cast was daunting, especially considering who some of those people were – and more so since it was with Marvel, one of - if not the - biggest film franchises out there.

You took another look in the mirror, tucking your hair behind your ears and smoothing down the front. Giving a twirl in your signature Teuta Matoshi gown, the tulle dress embroidered with tiny little yellow daffodils and white daisies, you took a moment to admire your favourite designer as you adjusted the slightly puffed sleeves before leaving the restroom.

You held the door open behind you to allow for a gaggle of tall women to enter in beautiful flowing gowns, turning abruptly to shift yourself out of the way - smiling at them as they all smiled back.

Up on the tips of your toes, wobbling slightly in your heels, you try to peer over the heads of the masses of people. You were eagerly looking for your team, consisting of your incredible manager and your best friend, who you dragged everywhere with you. But you could barely see past the sea of heads in front of you.

You decided to head for the heavy, wide double-set doors that stood open, leading out into the freshly manicured gardens; alive with luscious trees, plants and flowerbeds. A separate dirt path led into a lowly lit rose garden that was nestled in amongst the grasses.

It was a little quieter outside, but not by much.

There was a large marquee to your immediate left. A bar was situated at one end as bottles were flipped in the air - waiters passing out trays lined with champagne flutes. Pristinely clothed tables were crowded with guests; bodies tumbled past you as they headed into the marquee - parties splitting into different locations now that the main event had concluded, leading into a very alive and wild after party.

Your cheeks ached as the smile on your face refused to drop. Too amazed by your surroundings to let it relax. You stand out on the patio area, looking out across the gardens towards the glow of the city in the distance, lights twinkling in exchange for stars. Despite the dry warmth of the evening you could feel the lightest of winds raising the tiny hairs on your arms.

“Room for another?”

You jumped slightly at the interruption, the voice light and questioning. You turn, your dress dancing around you.

“Sorry, I hope I’m not interrupting. I’m Tom, I’ve been meaning to introduce myself all night. Congratulations on the film!”

As you exchange pleasantries, your cheeks gathering up some heat beneath the radiant glow of your make-up, he presses forwards leaning in for a hug as you do the same. You can feel his hands against the bare skin at your back leaving behind tiny little goose-bumps in their place, your skin tingling from his touch. You couldn’t help but breathe in his cologne, the pleasant woodsy scent engulfing you.

“Ah, so you’re the spider guy? I think I’m getting the hang of these superhero names now.”

Your lips twitch, forming a playful smile.

He tilts his head ever so slightly to the side, eyeing you up as tiny crinkles appeared around the outside of his eyes. They were looking at you inquisitively with a sweet kind of intensity.

You could feel your heart kick up a notch under his gaze. You scolded yourself internally for your lack of composure. Of course, you knew who Spider-Man was, you’d been such a fan of the Marvel films for years and you’d have to have been blind not to notice the cute, brown haired, quick witted, web-slinger who the world quickly fell in love with. They weren’t the only ones; did he look even better in person? How was that even fair? You shook your head slightly at your thoughts in an attempt to dispel them from your conscious.

“Sorry, I don’t know why I said that. I’m a fan of yours – your work is brilliant.”

You continued on with your bumbling word vomit – a light pink blush evident across your cheekbones and nose.

Tom’s face lights up more as you stumble over your sentences, his eyes glistening in the darkening sky.

“Oh really? Big fan, hm?” He wiggles his eyebrows teasingly, before calling upon one of the many smartly dressed men and women swooping seamlessly through the crowds with their glossy black trays.

You take a moment to drink him in. His crisp navy suit sat comfortably unbuttoned, the satin shirt hugging the figure beneath. He looked older than you’d seen him portray onscreen; his jaw strong and chiselled. His shoulders and body filled out his suit comfortably, hair beautifully fluffed; although it did seem slightly rumpled, as though he had been running his hands through it.

“Oh yeah,” You paused for a beat before continuing, “Then again, I think you’re about the 30th actor I’ve said that to tonight.”

He nods, laughing, his eyes lighting up at your relaxed, playful energy.

“Oh. Okay, nice. No, I see how it is. New girl keeping us all on our toes with the flattery.”

He holds one of the crystal champagne flutes out to you before picking up his own. Shimmering, golden liquid danced as you accepted the glass, fingertips brushing over open palms.

The cool bubbles gently slid down your throat. You could feel eyes on you as you focussed on the glass in your hand.

“Have you met everyone yet?” Tom gestured towards to the lit-up marquee, “A lot of us were talking about how great you were in your film, they’ll want to meet you.”

“Now who’s full of the flattery,” You tease, nudging his arm slightly as he shakes his head at you, “But honestly, I haven’t, I’m kind of finding it all a little bit intimidating. I’ve also lost my team which is not helpful.”

You took another sweep of the area. Now low-key wishing that you wouldn’t find them for a little while, not if it meant that you could continue to talk with Tom with no interruptions.

“Well hey, I can introduce you? I was so terrified when I did my first Marvel premiere, but everyone is so great. Trust me. It’s like a strange, crazy dysfunctional family. I think you fit in perfectly.”

“Are you calling me strange, crazy and dysfunctional? You have an interesting way of making friends, Holland.” You both laugh, “Only if you’re sure though? I don’t want you to be stuck introducing me all night.”

“Don’t be silly. We’ll make it fun. C’mon.”

Tom led you through the entrance of the marquee, turning on the charm as people fist bumped or pulled him in for a quick hug or handshake. Every time they did he peered through his eyelashes at you, inviting you to introduce yourself.

As you made jokes and conversed with your new peers, Tom couldn’t stop himself from watching you. Your name had been all the buzz recently and he’d been eager to meet you. Not only because you were undoubtedly going to be working with each other on future projects, but because you were also getting thrown into the Marvel spotlight like he had been. Little did he realise just how enamoured he had become with you in such a short space of time. There was something about you, he thought, as your cheeks glowed, a wide grin resting upon your face, eyes dancing wildly as you spoke with your new peers - something that he felt drawn to. You noticed him staring and gave him a little wink, shaking him out of it as he joined back into the conversation.

****

The two shot glasses sloppily thump against the bar top.

“Ha!”

“What! No, I was totally first!” Tom protested loudly, throwing his hands into the air.

“I definitely beat you!”

You smiled politely at the bartender as he collected the row of glasses lined up in front of you before turning wildly to face Tom.

“You just can’t face the fact that I won.”

He gestures to his brother who had pulled up a stool to join you both, “Harry c’mon, I won right?!”

“You can’t ask him that, it’s cheating. He’s your brother, of course he’s going to pick your side.”

“Tom, I hate to say this mate but I think she has you beat…” Harry said regretfully, camera slung around his neck as he nursed his own drink, mouth falling into an upturned grin as he supervised the pair of you.

You looked past Tom, straight at Harry, grinning proudly, “I take it back, Harry’s opinion is very important.”

Tom gives Harry a gentle shove as they mess around. You feel an arm slink around your shoulders, giving a playfully gentle squeeze. Your heart thumps along to the beat of the bass, music pulsing through your very bones as the three of you continued to laugh and joke around. Tom’s hair had gotten far more rumpled as the night had gone on, a long way off the perfectly styled look that he’d started off with.

You decided you preferred it messy.

Tom was sitting close by you on his stool, your knees both knocking together. His foot was tapping the footrest to the beat of the music. He’d discarded his suit jacket, and it now hung from the back of the chair, leaving him in his fitted shirt. You couldn’t help but notice his defined muscles as he ran a hand through his hair before resting it on the back of your seat.

“You look really pretty tonight. I saw you walking the carpet earlier, you completely owned it up there.”

“Tom Holland, are you flirting with me?”

You spun in your seat a little bit, making direct eye contact as your hand rested gently on his knee.

As soon as the pair of you had challenged each other to a drinking competition (involving a lot of shots) the night flew by, and you found yourself becoming more and more comfortable with Tom. He was quickly going from that cute actor who you had a little crush on, to someone you were actually spending time with? The intimidation you were feeling from earlier had dissipated, leaving you feeling slightly fuzzy and very happy.

He shrugs, that cheeky grin appearing again. A twinkle shining within those gorgeous brown eyes.

“I don’t know. Am I?”

He slides off of his seat, holding a hand out to you, palm up.

“C’mon.”

“Where are we going?” You questioned, as Harry returned with the drinks.

“Dance floor.”

You can feel your face light up as you hopped down from the high stool, gripping onto Tom’s hand as he helped navigate you back down to solid ground. He whispered to his brother who comfortably started up a conversation with the people around him, before giving him a pat on the shoulder as you dragged him over to the dance floor.

The floor was already packed with bodies. A live DJ station was against one wall facing out into the crowd; flashing, swirling lights brightened up the outdoor space. You pointed out a space in amongst the crowd and Tom led you both towards it, far better at making a path through the wayward limbs than you would have been.

The space was small, and the pair of you were in extremely close proximity. This was the most at ease you’d felt all night, allowing yourself to just feel the music and dance with one of the sweetest, most charming and insanely attractive men you’d possibly ever met. The space quickly filled up, growing tighter until you and Tom were practically chest to chest. He was a quick mover; his hips, legs and arms moving in all the right directions.

Your bodies were pressed together tightly, rapid heartbeats beating as one.

He leans in, pressing up against your side, brushing some stray hairs out of your face, “I also meant what I said earlier. You’re really beautiful tonight.”

“Just tonight?” You whisper into his ear, leaving him to flounder slightly on the dance floor. A little colour flushed to his cheeks as he lifted an arm, spinning you under it.

Before he has a chance to answer, you continue.

“You don’t scrub up too badly yourself, Holland.”

As the two of you lock eyes; the heat from the dance floor, the pounding of the music and the dancing, twinkling lights all fade to the background. His eyes dart to your lips, and you can't help but follow his lead, when you can suddenly hear your name being called out in the crowd.

"Oh my god, I got her. We've been looking for you for ages!" You were suddenly no longer face to face with the cute boy but instead looking into the slightly stressed face of your manager, "It's nearly 4am, the car is here and we gotta go!" She took a moment to look between you and Tom, who suddenly now looked a little bit embarrassed and sheepish - nervously rubbing at the back of his neck.

"Oh. Sorry, I've interrupted something here, haven't I?" She awkwardly made her way back through the crowd after whispering a sorry in your direction.

You smile at Tom, and make your way out from the dance floor. He was close behind you, nodding to a group of people back up at the bar.

He pulls you in for a goodbye hug, embracing you similarly to how you'd hugged earlier in the evening. Except this time was full of promise and a strange tension that hadn't been present before. You could feel the goosebumps prickle your skin where he touched it - his hands gentle as he held them tight around your waist, breathing you in before pulling away.

"Thank you for tonight, Tom. I owe you, seriously."

As you hurriedly caught up to your team, dress fluttering behind you as you immediately begin laughing and chatting animatedly to them, you could feel eyes on you. You looked back as you continued to vacate the marquee and head for the cars out front. Tom was stood, staring after you, a bright smile on his lips.

Something told you this wasn't the last you'd hear from him, and your stomach flip-flopped immediately at the very thought of seeing him again after tonight. For now however, the image of the brown haired, glossy eyed young man smiling after you in awe would have to be enough.

#glamour-l #tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fanfic #tom holland imagine #tom holland fluff #tom holland meet cute #asks #lisa writes #you should've seen my reaction to getting my first request THE EXCITMENT #I haven't posted fic in ages now tho and im all shy and nervous again omg #I really hope you like it

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plus-size-reader · 4 years

Text

Worth Dying For

Emmett Cullen x Plus size!reader

Word Count: 2007 words

Warnings: none

Summary: Emmett falls in love with a member of the Uley pack, even though the two shouldn’t have any contact at all.

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Historically Emmett didn’t have the most tolerance for werewolves.

He thought what most people thought, he thought that the two species had no reason or chance at being anything more than enemies but that changed rather quickly when you two met.

For whatever reason, he didn’t have the same urge to challenge you like the others.

There was just something about you.

He couldn’t put his finger on it. Luckily for him though, you seemed to share the same confused opinion of him, which led to a very complicated romance.

The two of you frequently broke the treaty to see each other in secret. It was more than dangerous, but neither of you had much of a choice in the matter.

After all, it was like you’d thought before. Vampires and werewolves were very different creatures and you had nothing in common, except for the fact that you both navigated completely off of instinct.

You couldn’t help but do what felt right and being with Emmett felt right, even if every thought you had told you to get as far away from him as humanly possible.

It wasn’t up to you, clearly.

You both knew the consequences for breaking the treaty, and what could happen if either of you families found out about this, but here you were, crossing the slippery stones of the river under the cover of the night.

“You better be careful, wouldn’t want to fall” you heard finally, that cocky tone evident in his voice even in a whisper.

All you could do was sigh in reply. He had a point. It would be hard to explain coming home all wet, but it would be harder to explain why you’d been out there in the first place.

Still, you weren’t going to let him know that, so you only shrugged. “I think I got it handled”

You didn’t, not really.

In fact, you had been so preoccupied now knowing he was watching you, making his snide comments about everything you were doing that you didn’t realize that the rock in front of you was covered in algae.

As soon as you step down on it, resting all your weight on one wobbly foot, you did just as he’d warned you about, falling into the river.

Initially you had been worried about the cold water and having to explain your damp clothes but you hadn’t actually thought it was going to happen. As it would turn out, there was more than that at stake.

You crawled out of the lake on the Cullen’s side of the barrier, taking the hand Emmett had offered you to catch your bearings but before you could, he stopped you.

“You’re bleeding”

There was a cautiousness in his voice as he helped up onto the grass, though it wasn’t because he was worried about him. More than anything, he was just worried for you.

After all, he only knew that you were bleeding but he didn’t know how bad the damage was or what had happened when you came down on the riverbed. Not that he took much time at all to wonder before he tore at the pant leg of your jeans, ruining them.

“Emmett! What are you doing?” you asked, swatting away at his hand, taking a look at the damage.

He had completely shredded the fabric all the way up to your knee, which was now freely bleeding around the curve of your kneecap. The damage wasn’t too bad but now you’d have to explain how you ruined your pants.

This was just getting more and more complicated as the minutes ticked by.

“There’s rocks and gravel stuck in the cut. Carlisle can get it out” he explained, immediately standing from his crouched position at your side, not even noticing that he was talking crazy.

What he was suggesting could start a war.

“We can’t do that! I’ll be fine” you tried, not even attempting to stand to your feet. You knew that if you did, he would know just how badly it hurt, and that would make this all worse.

For now, you would just have to sit tight and wait for that stinging pain to die down.

“It isn’t fine Y/N. Just trust me” he urged. Had he been thinking clearly he may not have suggested it, but right now, all he could think about was taking you to have that looked at.

There was all kinds of scum and bacteria down there and your body wouldn’t heal itself nearly as effectively as his would. It would just make him feel a lot better if Carlisle told him it would be alright.

As soon as Emmett heard it from him, he would lay off but not a minute before.

“You really aren’t going to let this go, are you?” you asked, knowing for a fact that he wouldn’t. If there was one thing Emmett was more than anything else, it was stubborn.

...And unfortunately he was also immortal.

That meant that if you didn’t do as he asked right now, you knew that you’d be hearing about it for the next hundred years.

“Fine, but if we die, it’s your fault” you grumbled, securing your arms around his neck to let him pick you up from the dirt. If he had been anyone else, you would have panicked slightly over your weight but not with Emmett.

Not only did he have superhuman vampire strength but even if he didn’t, you were sure that he’d be able to handle you. All things considered, he wasn’t some frail, lanky thing.

“We aren’t going to die. You need to just trust me for once” he scoffed, that grin on his face that forced you to roll your eyes. He really believed that, you could tell, but you weren't so sure.

After all, this was his family you were talking about. He wasn’t the outside breaking the treaty on the wrong side of the stream. The only thing that saved it was that you knew he did have something to lose in all this.

...You.

He wouldn’t have even suggested it if he didn’t think it would be okay and as much as you hated it, you just had to trust that he knew what he was doing.

It wasn’t until you neared the Cullen house that Emmett really noticed a change in you. Your heart was hammering against your rib cage with nerves and he swore that you would break his skin with how tightly you were holding him.

It was strange for him to see you like that.

Usually between the two of you, all you ever did was throw jokes and teasing jabs his ways, arms folded across your chest and a roll of your eyes. He didn’t think he’d ever actually seen you afraid.

“Hey, relax. I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I promise” he promised, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. It wasn’t really something he could promise, but it would be a lie to say it didn’t make you feel better.

Emmett didn’t even bother to knock as he entered the house, immediately attracting the attention of the rest of his family, who had been waiting for him to come home.

They weren’t sure what he was doing but that fell away pretty quickly when they saw you.

“What are you doing? She can’t be here” Rosalie spoke first, unafraid to insert her opinion when no one else could. Though, everyone else paid her no mind as Carlisle emerged.

The first thing he took notice of was the blood, now mostly dried around the edge of your wound, and the various stones and things peppering the open cut.

Something had happened out there, and while you being here was a problem they would have to deal with, his first instinct was to take care of that. He couldn’t help it.

Carlisle had been a doctor since before that was a term frequently used and it was in his nature to help people, no matter who or what they were.

“Come with me, we’ll talk about this after” he decided finally, beckoning Emmett alongside him to his office, making it clear that this conversation was far from over but had been moved to the back burner.

At least as far as the rest of the Cullens were concerned.

Though, it was a whole different story as soon as the three of you were alone behind closed doors. You expected the third degree almost immediately, even wondering if Carlisle would make Emmett leave the room.

...But he didn't

Instead, he instructed Emmett to set you down on his desk so he could get a better look at the cut. “How did this happen?” he wondered, naturally assuming that the two of you would tell him the truth.

By coming here, you had already outed your biggest secret so anything else would pale in comparison to whatever it was you had been doing out there in the woods.

“It was my fault” Emmett started, knowing that he would be far more lenient with the pair of you if he shouldered the blame and honestly, it wasn’t a stretch.

You had been trying to convince Emmett that meeting up like that was too dangerous but he couldn’t help it. The idea of not being able to see you was too much for him, and he didn’t even entertain it as an option.

“We’ve been meeting out there, by the river” you piped up, hoping that would better explain how it had happened. There was no point in hiding it now.

Whatever consequences there were, they were coming for the pair of you no matter what happened now. Keeping it a secret wasn’t going to change that and if Carlisle was going to kill you, he wouldn’t be bothering with bandages.

“Why?”

There was no emotion at all on Carlisle's face as he spoke, not to you or Emmett singularly, his attention completely on the task at hand. He could have guessed, of course, but he didn’t want to devalue what you two had.

He knew better than anyone that love could be complicated and as difficult and dangerous as it could have been, he didn’t presume to know just what you shared.

It would be much simpler to hear it from your own lips. After all, if he was going to face a literal war for this little rondeavu, he had to know what he was fighting for.

Clearly Emmett was willing to fight for whatever it was you two had, and that was enough for Carlisle to be on board, not that he was going to admit that now.

“I love her” Emmett allowed, his words filling the small space almost immediately. He had never told you that to your face but if there was ever a time to admit it, it was now.

You were in shock, rightfully so, over what he’d just admitted but more than anything, you were just trying to juggle everything you were feeling right now.

Part of you wanted to tell Emmett that you loved him too, but the other part was too concerned with the perilous situation that you were currently in to process something so intimate.

You did love him, of course you did, but it just wasn’t the right time to have that conversation.

“And is that something you’re willing to die for? Surely you must have thought about what you were risking by doing this” Carlisle questioned then, shocking you both.

He wasn’t pulling any punches in that department but he couldn’t be. This was a serious situation and it didn’t just affect the two of you. This was going to change both your lives and the lives of both your families.

...But again, Emmett didn’t even hesitate.

It didn’t matter what he had to do, or who it affected as long as you two could be together and that he knew you were safe. To Emmett, you were worth dying for.

#emmett cullen #twilight #emmett cullen x reader #emmett cullen imagine #emmett cullen x ps reader #emmett cullen x plus size reader #twilight x reader #twilight x ps reader #twilight x plus size reader #twilight imagine

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escapewithbts · 3 years

Text

Secrets in a Foreign Language - Jungkook (Part One)

So I’m not entirely sure if this is going to be just a couple parts or a small series, I kind of just came up with it randomly! I also couldn’t think of a better title so bear with me please haha nevertheless I hope you enjoy! I loved writing this beginning so far!

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>>next

You fiddled with the keys in your hand, searching for the one you marked for this particular unit. Finally, you found the correct one, pushing it into the lock and opening the front door with a click. It looked like pretty much every other apartment in the building, modern with a large living space, open concept kitchen with stainless steel appliances, large windows that looked over the city of Seoul. Just another multi-million dollar home you could only ever afford in your dreams.

Yet here you were, entering the home of an individual who could afford such a space in their reality... because it was your job to clean it. Yes, you were a housekeeper for the company who owned this apartment building; one of the most expensive places to live in all of South Korea.

You had moved here to Seoul from your home country abroad in search of change. A new adventure? Something to push you out of your comfort zone? Really you were just extremely bored back home; sick of the same routines, the same people, the career you didn’t enjoy. So, before you could talk yourself out of it, you contacted a job agency based in Seoul, South Korea whose mission was to find jobs for foreigners who spoke little to no Korean (aka you). And that is approximately how you landed this gig. Only a few months in and your Korean had significantly improved (requiring basic necessities like, you know, food and toilet paper, forced you to learn how to acquire said items in this new language) and you weren’t hating this job at all. You were alone most of the time, cleaning wasn’t too difficult since you have been doing it your whole life, and because it was for such a wealthy company the pay wasn’t bad either. Was it what you wanted to do for the rest of your life? Probably not. But it paid the bills and still left some income for exploration of your new home country.

And honestly, the most difficult part of it all was the scheduling. Sometimes you had limited time to clean a home based on the person’s day, sometimes you had an excessive number of units to clean in one day and wondered how exactly you were going to finish them all. But once you came into a routine that stuck you quickly found a pace for yourself that worked perfectly.

And since you were entering the homes of some of Korea’s wealthiest and most famous, the contract and background check for the position were quite lengthy. For example, you couldn’t touch anything unnecessary in their homes, couldn’t snoop around (obviously, you wouldn’t do that for a “regular” person anyway?), you weren’t even allowed to use their bathroom if you had to. The company had contacted all your previous employers, colleagues, some friends, even randomly requested internet browsing history a couple times! (I guess they wanted to make sure you weren’t a crazy stalker “fan” some K-pop groups you had heard about having, or a spy for another company’s CEO). The process was rather insane in your opinion, but alas, you passed, and honestly, the fact that you were a foreigner who didn’t speak much Korean probably helped your case. And to be fair, you really didn’t care about whose house you were in, you were just thankful to have acquired a job after your decision to move across the world that happened on a whim.

This particular unit was actually decorated quite nicely. It was more minimal style, with modern furniture that still felt warm and inviting. You figured it must be the home of someone younger, probably mid-twenties like you, but you also got the feeling they didn’t spend much time here. It was already in fairly immaculate shape (thankfully, it was your last job of the day, so you knew it was going to be quick) and didn’t seem very lived in in general. You couldn’t help but notice what looked like speakers and recording equipment shoved into the corner of the room. This place must belong to a musician or producer of some sort, you thought. You shrugged and turned back to where you had entered, lugging your cleaning supplies in through the front door. Then you put in your wireless headphones, pulled on your rubber gloves, and began by dusting around the surfaces of the living room.

Not long after you had started, you were in the bathroom off the guestroom wiping down the sink. A sudden sound of what you thought was the loud slam of a door shutting startled you. Your head shot up and you stopped what you were doing to remove an earphone from one of your ears. Immediately you heard the raised voice of a young woman coming from down the hall, followed by a quieter one from a man. Your heart started racing. Were you in the wrong unit? Had you read the schedule incorrectly? Did you get the address mixed up? You frantically pulled your phone from your back pocket to check the schedule that came directly from management. Yes, the date matched, it was Tuesday. Yes, the time matched, 2 in the afternoon. And the address was correct, too. So why were there people suddenly in the home? Did they know you were here? This had never happened before in the short time you had been doing this job, so you had no idea what to do. Continue working like you didn’t realize they were here? Make your presence known so you don’t seem like you’re being suspicious? Were you going to get in trouble with the company? Certainly not if you were just following the schedule, right? Your mind was going a mile a minute.

Then before you could quite make up your mind, the voices sounded even closer, and you could only make out a little bit of what they were saying, especially since your Korean wasn’t great yet.

“Why didn’t you go with me?... What were you thinking?” you heard the woman’s voice say (or something like that so you thought?) She sounded angry.

“I don’t know…” the man replied, followed by something else you couldn’t comprehend. He was still a lot quieter than her.

She spoke again.

“What are people going to say, Jungkook?”

You froze.

Jungkook.

Jungkook? Of BTS?

Okay, so you weren’t a crazy stalker fan or anything, but it was impossible to avoid knowing about the K-pop group BTS. They were literally everywhere around Seoul. Commercials on tv, billboards all over the city, posters on the subway trains… their faces even appeared on the coffee drink you had every morning for goodness sake! Since you kept seeing them, after you had gotten the job, you researched them a little bit. Their music was good, they seemed like genuine people, but never did you think you would be in one of their houses. There were hundreds of Korean businessmen, executives, celebrities, and only 7 members of BTS. Honestly, what were the chances?

Pretty good apparently. Fuck.

“I’m your girlfriend, Jungkook,” she continued annoyingly.

Ah, that’s right. In your brief research you had read he was seeing another idol. What was her name again?

“No, Cho-hee,” Jungkook replied.

Oh right. Kim Cho-hee. You remember now.

“You’re my pretend girlfriend.”

Your heart stopped.

Oh fuck! You definitely weren’t supposed to hear that. You had to show yourself now. That’s it, your decision was made for the sake of your career.

You quietly walked out of the room and found the two of them in the hallway with their backs turned to you. Just as Cho-hee was opening her mouth to respond you cleared your throat.

They both whipped around at your sudden sound. Yep, it was them alright. You recognized them immediately. They stared at you stunned for a second before Cho-hee spoke up.

“Who are you?!” she practically barked in Korean, taking a few steps towards you with her long slim legs, her large brown eyes wide, her dark hair whipping around her shoulders, her pale skin painted with a red hue.

“I, uh, I’m…” you stuttered, attempting to find the correct Korean words but failing miserably from being put on the spot.

Jungkook calmly put his hand around Cho-hee’s arm and pulled her back slightly.

“She the housekeeper,” he answered in Korean for you. Yes, that was the word you were looking for. “I don’t think she speaks Korean.”

Not well, anyway, thanks Jungkook.

He turned toward you, his dark brown eyes finding yours. Your stomach flipped from nervousness.

“You speak English?” he asked timidly in your native tongue.

All you could do was nod.

He let out a sigh of relief and said something you didn’t understand to Cho-hee, causing her to step back and a look of relief to wash over her face, too.

It was then that you realized they probably thought you didn’t understand their conversation. That you didn’t know the meaning of any of it. Should you come clean and tell them you understood? Particularly the “pretend girlfriend” stuff?

Cho-hee turned back toward the main room and beckoned at Jungkook.

“Come on, let the help continue working.”

Oof. ‘The help’. You definitely understood that. You knew cleaning the homes of rich people meant you may run into some entitlement, but dang, you didn’t think someone would make it so obvious, language barrier or not.

You winced.

Jungkook cocked his head, a confused look on his face. But then he shook it off.

“I think…” he said hesitantly in English, then shook his head to correct himself, “Ah um no, I thought you were here on Wednesday?”

You shook your head.

“No, um, my schedule says Tuesday. So, unless it’s wrong then…”

Jungkook put two fingers to the bridge of his nose in thought.

“Aiishh, no you are right, I’m sorry. I’m not here very often so I never can remember which day.”

You began taking off your gloves.

“It’s-it’s okay, I can go, come back at a better time…”

He waved his hands in front of him in protest.

“No, no, stay, continue, please. I don’t want to be an... interrupt... interruption? That’s the right word?” a blush formed on his face as he chuckled at himself.

You smiled. Cute.

“Yes, that’s right. Thank you. I’m almost done, I promise.”

He smiled at you again and nodded.

“Jungkook-ah!” Cho-hee yelled from the kitchen.

Jungkook then bowed to you and whispered a quick “thank you” before disappearing into the other room.

You hadn’t realized how tense your body had become until you they were out of your sight and you released your muscles with a deep breath.

You quickly decided to keep their conversation to yourself; no point in letting them know you accidentally heard every word and understood, right? You wouldn’t tell anyone, after all it wasn’t your business. Still, there was that thing you felt for not speaking up right away. What was this feeling again? Oh yeah. Guilt. You tried to shake it off and just continued scrubbing.

There were, thankfully, no more loud conversations between the two of them while you cleaned, but just as you were finishing up in the last room of the home you heard the front door open and close. Were you by yourself again? You listened for noises. Silence. You couldn’t help but feel a bit of relief.

However, upon stumbling back into the kitchen with all your cleaning supplies you noticed Jungkook sitting on a stool at the kitchen island. He was scrolling through his phone and eating a bowl of cereal. He jumped when he saw you, clutching his tattoo covered hand to his chest.

“Holy shit, I forgot you were here,” he stated breathlessly.

Your face turned hot.

“Sorry, I’m... sorry for startling you. And again, for being here while you’re here; the, um, schedule mix up, I’m, uh, not sure what happened…” you stumbled over your words. Real smooth.

He waved his hand while shoving another spoonful of cereal and milk into his mouth.

“No, no, really, it’s my fault. I forget the schedule sometimes.”

You shrugged and nodded.

“Yes, well, I imagine you’re pretty busy most of the time.”

Shit. The words fell out of your mouth before you could stop them. Weren’t you not supposed to know who he was? You mentally smacked yourself in the forehead.

He didn’t seem bothered though, he just replied with a nod and a small “mhmm”, as if to say, ‘you’re not wrong’.

You started walking towards the front door to leave (before you could get yourself in even more trouble), but right as you did so Jungkook lifted the cereal box up from its place on the counter, looked at you and asked, “Want some?”

You stopped in your tracks and hesitated.

“Umm… I’m not sure… I’m allowed?”

You felt silly for saying this as you were a grown ass adult, but you knew it was true. There were so many rules put in place with this job, and they hadn’t quite gotten to the clause about eating the client’s cereal.

Jungkook stood up and walked around to the cupboard, pulling a bowl down from the shelf and grabbing a spoon from the drawer.

He placed them at the spot across from him and gave you a small smile before sitting back down.

“It’s okay. I’m okay. Your secret is safe with me.”

He ran his fingers along his lips like a zipper which made you both laugh.

“That is my favorite cereal…” you admitted, putting your things on the floor and walking over to the stool.

As you were sitting down, Jungkook began pouring the milk into your bowl. You stared at it confusingly, caught off guard for a second. Not cereal first? He read your expression immediately.

“I know, I am weird, I put milk first, okay?”

You put your hands up and laughed, a blush on both your faces.

“I didn’t say anything,” you retaliated.

Jungkook jokingly narrowed his eyes at you as he poured in the cereal, a grin still across his lips.

“I saw it in your face.”

You chuckled nervously and looked down at your now full bowl, taking a spoonful up to your mouth.

“What’s your name?” Jungkook suddenly asked.

You swallowed before answering.

“(y/n).”

There was a pause.

“What’s… yours?” you asked coyly, wondering if you could get away with pretend naivety.

Jungkook cocked his head and let a breathy giggle out his nose as he chewed, it scrunching and creating wrinkles.

“Hmm... my name is… Park Jimin.”

You snorted, thankful that no milk shot out your nose.

He laughed at that, his perfect teeth on display.

Clearly, he was testing you. Two could play at that game.

“Oh yeah? Well then it’s nice to meet you, Jimin.”

He didn’t break eye contact with you as he took another bite.

“You too, (y/n).”

You smiled and shook your head, looking down to fill your spoon once more.

The two of you continued eating, just causally chatting, mostly about you and your move to Korea and your life back in your home country. Jungkook seemed so shy and sweet, the complete counterpart to his “pretend” girlfriend.

Your stomach flipped at the memory of the conversation you had overheard. You had almost forgot about it by now, wrapped up in the random moment of eating cereal with Jungkook. The guilty feeling returned. You knew you had to let him know, especially after how kind he has been to you. He could hate you, that was okay, it’s not like you had anything to lose.

Oh, except your job.

You dropped your spoon into the now empty bowl and took a deep breath.

“Umm... I have to tell you something…” you began before you could chicken out from this awkward conversation you were about to have with basically a stranger.

He put his bowl to his lips and slurped the milk while simultaneously looking up at you, waiting for you to continue.

“I speak some Korean. And I heard your conversation earlier… with, um, Cho-hee, and I understood… well, most of it,” he slowly placed his bowl back on the counter in front of him and stared at you with wide eyes, his lips slightly parted open, “But I-I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry, I just wasn’t sure what to do, and I-I swear I will keep it to myself and never mention it ever again; I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear anything, okay? Seriously. I promise.”

He didn’t say anything, and you couldn’t read the expression on his face. He stared off into space for a minute, then stood up and grabbed the empty bowls, walking them over to the sink and placing them inside. His back was to you as he hunched over, his hands supporting him on either side. Your heart was beating a mile a minute, your hands getting sweaty as you fiddled with your fingers.

“I really am sorry,” you whimpered softly, “Please, please don’t have me fired.”

He turned back to you, a surprised look on his face, his doe eyes wide.

“What? Why would I do that?”

You looked down.

“I don’t know… for not telling you I heard right away. For listening. For… being here while you’re here.”

Jungkook sighed and ran a hand through his long black hair, then shut his eyes tightly.

“I’m not worried you tell anyone, it’s okay. I have been thinking about… trying to end it anyway.”

He opened his eyes again and suddenly looked tired and worried. But you didn’t want to pry. It really wasn’t your place.

“Okay.”

Was all you could come up with to respond.

He glanced at you briefly and gave you a shy side smile.

“So, I don’t tell anyone you ate with me, you don’t tell I have a fake girlfriend?” he said jokingly, knowing he was the one who persuaded you to eat with him in the first place.

You chuckled and stuck out your hand.

“Yeah. Deal?”

He put his hand in yours. It was warm and felt so strong against your small one.

“Deal.”

You were so thankful he didn’t seem upset about the whole thing. In fact, he almost seemed relieved that someone else knew now. In this short time spent with him you knew you were leaving with only high praises and positive thoughts of Jeon Jungkook.

“Well, I better get going,” you said, standing up from the stool. You grabbed all your supplies and looked back up him.

“Thank you, um, for the cereal and being so understanding about everything.”

He nodded at you.

“I will remember your schedule next time and not disturb you by being here, okay?”

You smiled.

“You didn’t disturb me, but okay.”

“Tuesdays at…umm what time do you get here?” he put his fingers between his brows in thought again.

“2pm.”

He grinned at you and gave you a thumbs up.

“Okay! Okay okay! I got it! Let’s get it!”

You laughed and he chuckled embarrassingly.

“Well it was nice to meet you, Jungkook. Take care.”

You gave him a little wave as you went to the front door, opening it and stepping out.

“You too, (y/n),” he called after you, “I’ll see you around.”

>>next

Masterlist

92 notes · View notes

jincherie · 4 years

Text

fox rain | five

• ☽ — pairing: bts x reader • ☽ — genre: crack, fluff, angst, college/uni au • ☽ — words: 9.9k+ • ☽ — rating: sfw • ☽ — warnings: stop two on the angst train express!!! not as blatant, more reading between the lines here...... have fun! • ☽ — notes: bros... it’s only downhill from here. cowa-fucking-BUNGA amirite cowboys???????!?!?

— posted; 18.09.2020

When the love letter you wrote and submitted as an assignment is leaked to the entirety of your university, it becomes a race against time to dispel rumours and convince the seven suspected muses of the poem that they aren’t the subject before anyone realises that you are the author. Easy, right? Well… maybe not as easy as you think.

— • masterpost | prev. | five | next • —

You lay in a sort of placid, bewildered shock, the kind that is sourced from confusion as opposed to an unpleasant surprise. After waking to blearily turn off your alarm before it blasted through the entirety of Dancing Lasha Tumbai, you’d unlocked your phone to find this curious set of messages from a number you haven’t saved. You’ve been lying in place for several minutes as your tired, wired brain slowly kicks into gear and attempts to debunk the mystery. After another unsuccessful few minutes of staring blankly at the screen, you’re saved from impending cranial combustion when your phone lets out a delightful little tinkle and another message hastily joins the others.

Ah, that makes so much sense now! Except it doesn’t. Actually, it kind of adds to your bewilderment. Taehyung… is texting you? You don’t think you’ve ever in your life had any correspondence with him that didn’t either take place in the presence of Jimin or under the influence of alcohol… also in the presence of Jimin, now that you think of it. You haven’t really interacted with Taehyung outside of Jimin. So it is particularly odd to wake up to a series of messages that are from him, and pertaining to such an odd topic. You’re still so tired you can’t even fathom what would warrant a text from him. Maybe you dropped something at one of your tutoring sessions and Jimin asked him to give it back to you? It would make sense, since after the rollercoaster of a ride the last week has been for him (in particular, the questionable events that took place at the hands of one Kim Seokjin but somehow ended up with Jimin and Hoseok making up? You don’t really understand it but you’re not even going to bother to try to at this point) he has ended up a little preoccupied.

Tapping the screen when your inactivity leads it to go dark, you take a moment to scrounge a response from the empty barrel bottom that is your brain. Once satisfied, you drop your phone onto your bed and flop yourself back to the position you’d been in before your own alarm woke you so rudely. Technically, you don’t have to be up and about for another hour…

With faith that your additional hour of sleep will revive your ability to think, you allow yourself to slip somewhat self-indulgently back into sleep and pass the fuck out like a woman who has spent the night trying to forget.

(Which you are, and did do, except with maybe a little less alcohol than what that sentence implied.)

X X X X

It has been almost a week since the unfortunate end to that tutoring session on Monday, and while you’ve managed to stay off social media enough that you haven’t triggered yourself by accident in the entirety of that duration, every time you come on campus it’s like for however many steps forward you took, you take double the amount backwards. University students are such gossips! Well, the jobless ones are, anyway. The students that work and study are too busy dragging themselves around campus in a stunning rendition of the undead from various media to be bothered with the latest plot twist in the resident school drama. Which is to say, there has been no twist. The population is still shamelessly up Sera’s ass in the belief that she is the author of the poem, and as has become the norm you find yourself resisting the urge to hunt the bitch down and go in for round two on her face. Surely, your self-control has earnt you the title of a saint by now.

You’re blasting some angsty shit on the way to your music history class and pretending you’re in a music video for some indie band (it’s cathartic, and you will argue that fact to your grave), when you make it a few steps past the entrance to the food court and have the absolute living daylights scared out of you. Thudding footsteps reach you through your earphones and two hands clamp on your shoulders to halt you in place and spin you around like Barbie Ballerina.

“You’re a disgrace!” It’s Seokjin who has halted you in the middle of the hallway, every bit as dramatic as you’d come to expect. “You skipped drama class? And you call yourself an acting major, PSH!”

Yanking your earphones out, you nail the tall, pink-haired idiot with a glare. Very bold of him to be approaching you after you nearly chopped off Lil’ Jinnie barely a few days ago for his bastardous antics. Perhaps he’s getting a bit big for his glittery pink rainboots.

“First of all, will you please listen to me when I tell you I’m not an acting major?” Unfortunately, when you speak your voice comes out more exasperated and less threatening than you intended. “Second of all—very bold of you to be approaching me right now. You’re lucky you escaped with your life, you meddling bastard. You want me to bite the rest of your dick off?”

“You should know by now that I take that as a compliment,” Seokjin sniffs, haughtily, ignoring the latter part of your threat. “And do you know how boring it is for me to crash your class when you’re not even there? No one threatens me like you! It’s getting harder and harder to get it up these days, you know. I need a hit of the good stuff.”

For a moment you’re simply stunned into silence, staring at him and wondering just how and why he seems to have been sent here with the sole mission of making you want to kill him and then yourself. Nothing you could think to say really is enough, so you settle on simply turning and walking away.

Of course, you forgot that no one turns their back on Kim Seokjin and gets away with it.

“YAH!”

You wince—you think he actually just broke a sound barrier, or maybe your eardrums— or both. Seokjin quickly scrambles to place himself in front of you, arms out. His eyes are wide in something you suspect he thinks is a puppy-eyed look, but actually comes across more like he’s trying not to shit himself.

“Promise me you won’t skip drama again!” Seokjin says, pointing a finger at you in borderline accusation. When he doesn’t see your expression budge, he quickly changes tactics. “If not for me, the most charming prince in the story of your life, then at least for Jungkook, that poor virgin—”

You blink, distracted for a moment by what he said. “Wait, Jungkook is in my drama class?”

“’Wait, Jungkook is in my drama class?’” Seokjin repeats in a voice a few octaves higher than your own. “Listen to you, not even knowing who is in your own class. For shame! But have no fear, since you clearly skip so much I will happily extend my generosity and take you under my wing. Tutelage fee starts at $55 with an extra $5 for every question you ask that I don’t know—”

“Do you ever actually hear yourself talk?” you ask, feeling your will to live draining out your ears. “Like, the shit that comes out of your mouth? Do you hear it? Because—wait, are you saying you would charge me for questions that you don’t know the answer to?!”

Seokjin shrugs, “It’s a little unorthodox, I know. But—”

“I would literally be bankrupt! Thousands—no, millions of dollars in debt!” You exclaim, grabbing him by his stupid big shoulders and shaking him about. “Do I look crazy to you?!”

“Oh, what, you think you can do better?!” Seokjin demands, voice wobbling from your shaking. “What’s 2x2?”

“Fucking four!” you wail, releasing him in your despair. You can’t do this, your day only just started and you are not exhausted enough to micronap while he talks like usual. “I’m leaving, don’t follow me. DELETE MY NUMBER.”

“Haha jokes on you!” you hear Seokjin holler from behind you, voice rapidly growing quieter from the speed that you’re powerwalking away. “You never gave me your number!”

You make it to class barely on time due to Seokjin acting as one of the biggest inconveniences in your life, and while you manage to push him from your brain for the duration of it, you wish you could say that is the last time you see him,

It’s probably the fact that you busted his ass being a weirdo with Jimin and Hoseok last week that has him so…. attached this week, you suspect. You’re at your third Seokjin encounter for the day and you’re honestly considering whether you should trip to the campus pharmacy and look for some pepper spray, or maybe an umbrella. Pepper spray would be more effective, but the umbrella…. You can’t argue against the satisfaction it would provide.

You’re trying to sneak your way into a library on the Arts side of campus, one you don’t usually go to, so you can study without worrying about going absolutely batshit insane in the presence of Seokjin. It was hard, but you think that you’ve finally managed to shake him. What on earth had him so determined to tail you today? Was it seriously because you skipped your own class? Nutcase.

You peek your head around the corner looking not only for Seokjin, but for another thing you had happened to notice every time you were ambushed. You have yet to determine whether the glimpse of phenomenally bright floral print right before Seokjin pounces you is causation or correlation, and it makes you a bit nervous. Cautiously, like timid forest animal, you creep around the corner and begin to make your way into the building, eyes flicking from the library door right at the end to the rest of your surroundings. The café coming up on your right tempts you greatly, but you know it is too great of a risk. Out in the open, you’d definitely be seen.

This area is almost like a courtyard, an undercover area between three separate buildings. With a looming cement and glass ceiling, though, it feels like a building of its own. The library sits nestled in the corner of the largest building, and although it isn’t very wide, it spans several floors. You plan on going to the highest one and hiding in a corner near a window.

You’re close, so close to reaching the library in fact that you’ve fallen into a false sense of security. By the time you register the sound of pounding footsteps approaching behind you, for the second time today, it’s too late.

“Ah, y/n! Wait!”

Instinctively you prepare to burst into a sprint to get away, but at the last second stop yourself. That doesn’t sound like Seokjin… that sounds like—

“Taehyung?” you ask, turning in surprise as the boy comes to a screeching halt in front of you, bending with his hands on his knees as he attempts to catch his breath.

“I’ve… been trying….” he huffs, “To talk to you…. all day….. hah…Why are you so….. good at running away?”

He looks absolutely wiped out, cheeks red and sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. You’re just beginning to feel guilty when you notice his shirt, the bright floral print that you literally don’t know anyone else bold enough to wear, and you realise he’s really not lying. Poor Taehyung, just like you he has fallen victim to—

“That Seokjin bastard,” you say, completing a quick scan of the area to make sure the mention of his name didn’t somehow summon him. “He’s been harassing me all day. I’ve had to really up my game. By the way… are you okay? Please breathe… also what did you want to talk to me about?”

Taehyung straightens, eyes closed as he attempts to control his breathing. One of his hands comes to sweep the ashy hair from his face, the ends slightly damp with sweat.

“I’m fine,” he says, sounding slightly like he’s about to pass out. You prepare to take a step forward and catch him if he does, but he opens his eyes in the next second and shoots you a dopey smile. “I’m fine! Apparently just… whoo… really out of shape.”

“Your sacrifice is not in vain,” you say, smiling when he lets out a sudden laugh. Another shaky breath rakes past his lips before he straightens, eyes blinking a little wider. “Ah, right. I was looking for you because, um… you didn’t respond to my text… and I needed to ask you something that’s a little time-sensitive…”

“Your text…” you wrack your brain, sure that you remembered responding to it this morning in bed. Your mouth shifts into a wince, though, when you can recall writing a response, but not actually sending it. “Oh. I am so sorry, I’m an idiot. I was kind of half asleep when you texted, and I swear to god I typed a response but I think I fell asleep again before sending it…”

There is not a shred of accusation on Taehyung’s pleasant features, lips instead slightly curled in a smile. “That’s fine,” he chirps, rocking on the balls of his feet for a moment. “I do it all the time too. I’m just glad I caught you.”

You return his smile, before a thought that had been nagging you earlier returned and you acted on the urge to voice it. “By the way…. How did you get my number?”

Your question seems to be unexpected and, for some reason, flusters him slightly. He reaches to scratch the back of his neck, averting his gaze for a moment. “Uh, Jimin gave it to me. It was for something stupid a while ago but I never needed to use it.”

You raise your brows at what he said, but get the feeling he’s not going to elaborate. Instead, you remain quiet and wait for him to continue his thought from earlier. He shuffles on his feet, returning his gaze to your own. “Anyway, the reason I was trying to catch you all day was because I wanted to ask you something…”

“I know it’s not really any of my business, but I kind of noticed, and Jimin mentioned lightly that things haven’t been, uh…. great for you lately.” He doesn’t even give you time for that statement to sink in amongst your shock, continuing without pause despite the way his cheeks begin to flush, “And, uh, my exhibition is this Friday, and I was gonna go with Jimin but he double-booked himself with Hobi, so now I have no plus-one and I was wondering… if you wanted to go?”

When you simply stand there, dumbfounded, he clears his throat awkwardly, fiddling with the cuffs of his button-down. “To um, you know, take your mind off things… maybe… you don’t have to, of course, but I just thought I would—”

Snapping out of your stupor before he can take back the invitation, you hastily step forward and outstretch your hands. “Oh, no I would love to go! This is really—” you clear your throat, trying to ignore the light sting of your eyes “—sweet of you. I’d like to go, if it’s ok. You’re sure Jimin doesn’t mind…?”

Taehyung seems shocked, and you suspect he might have thought you would turn down the invitation from the way his eyes seem to light up. Have you really been walking around campus looking like that much of a gloomy bitch? You need to check your facial expressions when you get home this afternoon.

“He won’t mind,” he says, waving his hand excitedly. “Great, perfect—um, here is the little info sheet. I’d stay to tell you more but my class actually started a few minutes ago, so…”

“Oh!” you exclaim, taking the sheet from his hand before waving him away. “Go! Go to class! I’m sorry I made you late! Thank you for this, by the way!”

He seems slightly dazed at your enthusiastic thanks and farewell, but he shakes himself out of it and before he goes he sends you a smile that you can’t think of any other way to describe except dazzling. “It’s no problem, y/n. See you then.”

And then he’s off and you’re left standing alone in the pseudo-courtyard, clutching the exhibition pamphlet in your grip. Your eyes sting ever so slightly, and you can’t help but think how kind of sad it is that one person goes out of their way to think of you in the midst of everything you’re dealing with and you’re so touched you’re nearly driven to tears.

Hormones suck and you want a refund.

X X X X

Taehyung was right when he said that what he had to ask you was time-sensitive.

You hadn’t realised it at the time, but Friday was only a few days away— and in the midst of classes, schoolwork, and everything else, those days went fast. Before you know it, it’s Friday morning and a panicked glance at the pamphlet Taehyung had given you reveals that the exhibition opens officially around 4:30PM. That works out surprisingly well for you, considering your last class ends at three o’clock and you can easily reschedule your session with Hoseok and Jimin.

There’s a lot about the invitation you haven’t gotten to really dwell on, and that continues to be the case as the day flies before your very eyes. By the time your music theory class comes to an end and you finish scribbling down the last few lines of note from your teacher, the event is even closer than you anticipated. From your recent examination of the pamphlet, you’d found earlier that Taehyung’s exhibition is being held at a small university-sponsored gallery downtown. It shouldn’t take you too long to get there from your house, and on the way home after packing your things, you plot out the route you’re going to take. It’s about a twenty minute trip, as you discover, since there is by some stroke of luck a bus that goes straight there from a street just around the corner from your own. Taking that into account, you should have around forty minutes or so to get ready.

Considering you’re one of many poor university students populating the area, it’s not often you actually put the effort in to get dressed up. Around these parts, there is a distinct culture of sweat pants and comfortable tops and more often than not a socks-and-slides combo, something you take part in more often than you’d like to admit. Still, you feel that considering the nature of the event you’ve been invited to and what you know of Taehyung’s works, you should probably be putting in much more effort than usual.

While you might act like a slob sometimes, this isn’t actually a problem— even goblins like you can have a stash of decent clothes somewhere in their cave. Yours happen to be pushed to the back of your closet on hangers that haven’t seen the light of day in months. What can you say? University takes its toll in mysterious ways.

Standing before your closet, eyes boring into the portion that’s been held in its depths for longer than you can remember, you wonder which way you should go with your outfit. Exhibitions are fancy right? Should you dress it up? Logic says you should, but on the other hand what if you are the only one dressed up? That would be humiliating. You pause for a moment to think about the type of garb you usually see Taehyung in— you have a feeling that he will probably dress the same way tonight. Recalling his bold, avante-garde taste in fashion is about as helpful as one might imagine, but it does comfort you to know that no matter what you choose, most eyes will likely be on him anyway.

Comforted by that fact, you make up your mind and pull out a set that isn’t too over the top, and won’t make you look like a rat. Once you’ve slipped into those, you freshen up and wash your face, trying to make yourself seem a little bit more alive afterwards and not like you had an 8AM class today. You’re successful, to a degree, but you’re a little tight on time so you can’t really dwell on it. Feeling your stomach rumble as you grab your bag and key, you can only hope that this exhibition has free food.

x — x — x

“Ah, y/n! You’re here! You… you look nice.”

You were so busy staring at the large, shiny building before you that when Taehyung’s voice rings out in greeting, it startles the hell out of you. You don’t even register what he says before you’re pointing with eyes and mouth wide open, “Your exhibition is in there?!”

His expression of surprise melts into one of amusement, a laugh tumbling from deep in his throat. You don’t even notice the way his cheeks are flushed ever so slightly as he meets your gaze.

“Fancy, right?” he says, wagging his brows. “Some loaded alumnus who actually enjoyed his university experience practically donated it to them. So now they use it for, uh… for most exhibitions.”

“For the best ones, you mean,” you say, your grin widening when he scratches the back of his neck, bashful and blushing. “But yeah, damn. I was expecting it to be nice but I wasn’t expecting it to be this nice.”

Taehyung laughed again, clearing his throat. As he takes a moment to collect himself, you let your eyes scan over his form. The second you do so, you feel a foreign flutter in your stomach, heat flushing to your face. There is truly no other way to describe his choice of outfit for today except for painfully boyfriend. Perhaps on anyone else it would look a little less than presentable, but on Taehyung’s model-esque form the loose chestnut pants and an oversized leather jacket over a boldly patterned shirt work wonders. How does he look so effortless yet so…?

If you’d attempted to wear something like that you’d end up looking like the local court jester. Perhaps you should just make peace with the fact that God has favourites and Kim Taehyung is clearly one of them.

“It, um. It started a few minutes ago, shall we head in?”

Taehyung offers you his arm, a gentlemanly move that completely contrasts the boyish grin on his face. Ignoring the sudden sensations in your abdomen, you make a show of curtsey-ing before you take it, eliciting a laugh from your company as the two of you head to the entrance and the full exhibition experience begins.

As soon as you enter there is someone by the door, who seems to be at the very least taking note of how many people enter, a table with flyers and booklets beside him. Taehyung parts from you only to move over and grab a few, brandishing them as he returns with a bright grin.

“Here is all the information about the event, madame,” he says, with an extremely exaggerated air of grandeur, presenting one of the flyers with a flourish. You take it, unable to help your soft snort.

“I would have thought I had something better, what with the very artist behind the event accompanying me,” you say, grinning when you see his cheeks turn an endearing pink as he flashes a bright, boxy smile.

“True,” he returns, folding the other flyer and slipping it into the pocket of his jacket. “You can’t ask a flyer questions in real time. Anything that crosses your mind, you can ask straight to the source.”

“Oh? Then, may I enquire as to what the theme of this exhibition is?” You’re enjoying the playful air that drifts between you now, unable to rid your face of the smile currently displayed on it even if you wanted to.

Taehyung’s eyes flick to you, a lopsided smile tugging his lips to accompany the sly accent to his gaze. “Ah, a tough one right off the bat. I think telling you straight-up would be too easy. Let’s see if you can try to guess it as we walk through.”

You turn to him with an affronted look, having expected him to easily supply you with the answer. Taehyung is a little cheekier than you remember. You snap your mouth shut, cheeks heating when you notice he has offered his arm to you once more. Taking note of the other people in the room walking around in a similar manner, you slip your arm through his and try to ignore the way you feel your ears light on fire.

“Okay, you’re on,” you respond, if a few moments too late. He doesn’t comment on the delay, simply sending you a smile that you can’t quite decipher the emotion behind. You don’t get to dwell before the two of you are off, beginning on your journey through the building and starting on your tour of the exhibition.

You’d kind of always known that Taehyung was talented, considering he managed to make such a name for himself on campus in such little time with such ease. Hell, he’s well-known enough to have made it onto the list of suspects for the muse of your poem. Still, this knowledge is only compounded the further into the building you go and the more of the exhibition you see. Taehyung is truly talented, the images blown up and displayed on the wall each capturing a certain emotion that you don’t have a name for, yet is so familiar that each time you see a new one it gives you pause. Viewing his works, seeing into this part of him and witnessing this bit of his soul he has bared, you can’t help but feel a slight sense of kinship.

It’s something that rests in the space between your lungs and diaphragm, something that tickles but also something that aches. You do know this feeling, so familiar yet so out of touch and far from the tip of your mind’s tongue. You do try to guess the theme of the exhibition as you go, throwing out the occasional dumb guess to elicit a laugh— he always laughs, and it always makes you smile— but you don’t quite manage to pin it.

“The five senses,” you shoot into the dark, standing before an image that has made you stop and stare for a good five minutes now. It’s not quite black and white, and it’s not a particularly unique image— but something about the composition, something about the movement in the two hands that are so close yet so far from actually touching, speaks to that hidden part of you. The way one of the hands simply hangs, unbothered and neutral, but the other, the one slightly closer to the foreground, has fingers ever so slightly outstretched, reaching but never quite committing to the movement and the unspoken consequence of the hinted action.

Of course, you know the answer even before Taehyung says it. He laughs, hands in his pockets, “Nope, ddaeng.”

“This is hard,” you whine, without much heart behind it. The smile stays on Taehyung’s face.

“Whatever. You’re smart, I know you can guess it. It should be easy, for you.”

The compliment catches you off guard, and you have to turn away so that he doesn’t see your cheeks warm. The two of you had parted when you caught sight of the snacks table; you’d been prepared to abandon him and make a beeline over, but Taehyung had surprised you by marching over himself and coming back with a loaded plate. He’d confessed with a sheepish smile that he hadn’t had lunch, and really you were in no place to judge since you hadn’t either. By this point in your journey, though, the plate is almost empty. There’s only two tiny cupcakes left and you’re letting the rest of the things you scarfed down settle before you go in for more.

Perhaps it was a little dangerous, coming here with Taehyung. He looks so fine, even while shoving sweets in his mouth, that you spend about the same amount of time looking at him as you do at his artworks. It takes all of your willpower to tear your eyes away every time you catch yourself looking at him and admiring the truly boyfriend fit he has donned for this occasion. Every so often he will simply stand before one of his works, scrutinising it with a fresh perspective and ever-criticising eyes, and the sight of it will make something nameless and foreign well within you. You don’t quite know what to do with it, so you ignore it. Or at least, you try to.

It feels a little too similar to what you know of yearning. It leaves you confused.

You stop not long after in front of another piece, this time a combination of three images that act as separate snapshots of smaller parts of a larger image. You admire the way he has set it out, revealing not too much but just enough that the viewer gets a sense, a feeling, but isn’t confronted with the message. It allows everyone to take their own sensation from it. You like that a lot about his works— he doesn’t tell people what to feel as they view his images, but merely hints, prompts and nudges. He sets the stage and allows people to take what they need, see whichever bits draw their eye most and spell meaning from elements of their choosing. He’s talented, you find yourself marveling again, so incredibly talented.

But still, you can’t put a finger on what the theme is.

By the time you make your way completely though the exhibition, having doubled back at a few points to look again at a select few of the pictures, you’re still no closer to guessing. It has you deep in your thoughts as you stand outside, waiting for Taehyung to return from thanking one of the guests who had recognised him for coming.

“Guessed it, yet?”

You turn, pinning him with a look that you hoped didn’t look as dumb as it felt. “Leave it with me,” you say. “I’ll figure it out eventually.”

At your words, Taehyung laughs— it’s one of the full-bodied ones you’ve come to enjoy, where he throws his head back a little and shakes his hair back into place after. You have to snap yourself out of it before he catches you staring.

“I’m sure,” he says, unable to keep the cheeky grin off his face. It does slip ever so slightly though, just for a moment, as you watch a thought cross his features. “By the way…”

You tilt your head, waiting for him to continue. You feel an odd combination of at-peace, and unsettled. Holistically, this is the most at-peace and relaxed you’ve been in weeks. However, when you take a moment to tune into the inner machinations that make up your being… something in this exhibition has reached into your insides and fiddled around, moving things where they shouldn’t be and touching things that aren’t meant to be touched. It’s odd, and you acknowledge that it gives you quite a bit of cognitive dissonance. Even so, you’re calm enough that you have no trouble being patient while you wait for Taehyung to continue and say what he seems so nervous to say.

“Um, I know I initially only asked you about coming here, to the exhibition…” he begins, reaching to rub the back of his neck in what you recognise to be one of his nervous ticks. “But, I actually have these vouchers I won in a competition a while ago for a paint-and-sip session that are about to expire, and I was wondering… would you like to go? Now, I mean. Since they actually kind of expire tomorrow. Unless you’re busy, because if you are that’s—”

You decide to put him out of his flustered misery, reaching to nudge his arm. “Of course, that sounds fun! Plus, you were right the other day; I could really do with the chance to relax. Thank you, for all this. I really appreciate it.”

It takes a second for your words to register, but when they do the most blindingly bright smile spreads across his face; he’s practically beaming at you.

“Of course,” he says, with barely a moment’s hesitation. “I’m really happy you agreed to come— I’m glad you said yes to the paint-and-sip, too, because it’s one of my favourite places. Come on, let’s get going. If we get there at just the right time, we can get a really good seat, hopefully by the window.”

The journey continues, Taehyung leading you through the city while chatting easily all the while, a stunning twilight cityscape backdrop and the gentle glimmering surface of the river meandering through buildings providing the perfect scenery. If you had a little more faith in your artistic ability, you might try and paint the image you see now; Taehyung in the colours of dusk, soft and natural against the bright lights and harsh lines of the metropolitan landscape. But alas, you aren’t as talented as the man besides you, and you don’t even want to think of how it would turn out if you attempted to paint such a thing. You quickly throw the thought from your mind before it can linger and get up to more trouble than it’s worth.

“Here we are!” Taehyung’s cheer breaks you out of your stupor, bright smile directed your way once more as he stops in front of a large establishment with long strips of window and a colourfully sewn awning.

‘Brush & Bar’, the cursive, neon sign reads above the door, flickering between soft pink and peach orange. It’s an interesting aesthetic the place has going on, but when you look over and catch sight of Taehyung once more it suddenly makes sense why he likes it so much. The style of this place is very similar to some of the more outlandish things he tends to model around campus. Before your reverie lets you remain abandoned outside, you hurry to follow after the ashy-haired boy, grabbing the back of his jacket when you almost trip over the door frame. He spares a look over his shoulder to make sure you’re okay before he continues, moving towards the counter and smiling with more charm than you can personally handle at the staff member there.

It’s a woman, who you suspect is in her mid-thirties, and she is pretty enough that it takes you by surprise when she rolls her eyes heavily at Taehyung’s approach.

“You again, boy?” she asks, though it sounds more rhetorical than anything and you catch the slightest tinge of humour accenting her words and it soothes your hackles. “Don’t you ever get sick of hanging around here?”

“Nope!”

She cracks a smile, lines appearing at the edges of her eyes. “Well, I suppose that’s a good thing. We’d miss you an awful lot if you ever stopped showing up here.” Her eyes flick ever so slyly to you, and then back. “Say, is today the day you’re finally gonna make good on those vouchers you won? I know you said you were waiting for the right chance to ask that g—”

“Yes!” Taehyung cuts in loudly, eyes wide and cheeks flushing darkly. “Yes, yep! I brought the vouchers! They do expire tomorrow after all!”

The woman, Bora as you now see from her nametag, simply smiles, something sly about the action intriguing you. Taehyung clears his throat, reaching to scratch the back of his neck sheepishly. “So, um… I will use them now. Is the window seat free…?”

Bora nods, a fond curve to her lips now as she rummages around behind the counter and takes the offered vouchers from Taehyung to punch holes in them. “Your favourite spot? Of course. I had a feeling you were coming, too, so I’ve already gone and set it up with some canvases and acrylics.”

She hands the vouchers back, and Taehyung slips them into the pocket of his jacket. “Paintbrushes and jars are in their usual place, and I know you don’t normally drink while you’re here but if you’d like some tonight just take your order up to Kyungsoo. Oh! And tonight’s special for snacks is tea cakes, so definitely make the most of that. There are some good ones in the display.”

At the mention of food and alcohol, your gaze had already started to wander on its own— you catch sight of the display of cakes and other sweets and feel your mouth water. Ridiculous, since you were kind of full before, but what can you say, you’re a complicated woman. Lots of layers, not unlike an onion. The thought almost makes you snort.

With a gentle nudge to your arm, Taehyung is bringing you back to the present moment and leading you over to the window, where a medium-sized table has been set up with two square canvases and a basket of paint bottles, palettes leaning to the side. Taehyung instructs you to take a seat, informing you with a smile that he’ll grab some paintbrushes and water for the two of you to use. At his suggestion, while he is gone you open up your phone and search for something to paint. Something that’s not too hard and not too easy. Because your skills are… well, they’re not nonexistent but you’re not about to go around tooting your horn in front of someone with actual art skills and talent. Apparently there is usually an image supplied for each night, but Taehyung says it’s not strict and that tonight is one of the nights where all the patrons just have free reign.

You sort of get distracted part way through the activity, eyes subconsciously seeking Taehyung’s leather jacket amongst the decently filled establishment. It’s really quite nice inside, actually; the walls and general decor are soft and neutral, with pops of colour everywhere that bring each corner and table to life. A lot of the furniture is wooden, natural and polished underneath specks of paint that decorate in layers that tell of time spent well. The lighting is soft with the exception of the bulbs stationed above each table, which are brighter and angled towards where the canvas would be. On one of the walls, the one near the bar, it is completely covered by greenery— vines that, as far as you can tell, aren’t actually fake. A soft, almost jazzy tune filters lightly through the room, complemented by the low hum of chatter and paintbrushes hitting glass. You’re incredibly impressed and, admittedly, you like this place a lot. It has the kind of vibe that just… makes you content.

“Here we go!”

You startle at the sound of Taehyung’s low register, looking over to see him placing a bundle of paintbrushes in between the two of you and a jar beside each of your canvases. He takes his seat across from you, smiling brightly. “Did you decide what you want to paint?”

You hum, turning your gaze out the window for a moment to see if it grants you any inspiration— it’s a gorgeous sight, the twilight sky broken by the outline of buildings with glimmering insides, but it doesn’t help much. You don’t know what you want to paint. Of course, there is this big, expanding feeling inside you, the urge to express it somehow filling you to your fingertips, but what do you do with it? You don’t even know its name.

“No,” you answer, reaching for one of the palettes propped up to the side. “But I’ll be okay. Maybe I’ll just see where the vibe takes me.”

The smile Taehyung gives you at that is softer than most, and he eagerly follows suit in grabbing a palette and beginning to set it up; he squirts a big dollop of white, blinking at it for a moment as though he hadn’t intended to put that much. “There are some pencils and erasers to the side there, too. I prefer the moldable one.”

You thank him for his advice, before realising as he puts his own pencil ever so lightly to canvas that he hadn’t told you the subject of his painting. “What are you going to paint?”

“A secret,” he says, leaning around the canvas to grin at you. “Since I don’t know what you’re painting. Let’s swap paintings after, though. I do want to see eventually.”

That makes you laugh, but you don’t bother pushing further. A surprise is nice every now and then, you know. So long as it’s not the kind that ruins your life as you know it indefinitely.

But you’re here to have fun and relax, so you’re not going to get into that. You’re not even going to think about it.

Taehyung clears his throat, catching your attention immediately. “Right, before we start we should probably order. Did you—”

“No need, my boy!”

Two new figures appear at the side of the table, one a youthful man on the shorter side, the other older and plumper with grey beginning to speckle through his hair. The shorter one places two drinks onto the table, colourful cocktails in a generous glass, and the older laughs before placing down two plates, each with a different kind of cake slice situated neatly in the middle.

“On the house,” the man continues, chuckling at the shocked and somewhat flustered look on Taehyung’s face. “You’ve given us a lot of business so don’t even worry about it. Plus, we heard you were finally making the most of those vouchers so… here’s a little something to start the night off well!”

“...Thanks, Mr Kang,” Taehyung finally manages, shooting them a smile that could honestly give Hoseok’s own a run for its money. “You too, Kyungsoo. Do…. do I wanna know what’s in this?”

He’s gesturing to the drinks, a somewhat fearful look on his face. The shorter man shakes his head, thick brows curved in mirth as his lips twitch into a lopsided smile. “Nope. Tastes good though, so you got nothing to worry about.”

You can’t tell whether Taehyung is relieved or concerned, and so step in to save him a moment of reprieve. “Thank you so much— this all looks amazing!”

Happily, the two men soak in your praise. “I assure you,” Mr Kang says, patting his chest proudly. “It tastes as good as it looks.”

Kyungsoo snorts, but doesn’t disagree. He gives the two of you a small smile. “Right, we should be on our way. You two enjoy yourselves, and if you want refills just come let me know.”

Taehyung nods, thanking them again, and then it’s just the two of you once more.

“Well,” he says, licking his lips and reminding you of a puppy as he stares intently at the slice of strawberry crepe cake, decorated with a generous drizzle of syrup and two fresh, sliced strawberries in a dollop of cream beside it. The other one, a coffee-caramel blend you presume from the heavenly aroma reaching your nose, looks just as good but is nowhere near as successful at capturing his attention. “I guess… let’s begin!”

Whether he meant painting or devouring the food, you end up doing a bit of both. Each mouthful of cake that enters your mouth is announced with an explosion of flavour so rich it lingers long after you’ve swallowed the mouthful down. The drinks, too, are delicious. Fruity but not too syrupy or sugary, you suspect Kyungsoo had used spirits and tempered the fruity flavour with a bit of lemon or lime.

You still aren’t really sold on what to paint, but in the meantime you end up sketching out the flowers that sit on the windowsill a little behind Taehyung. They don’t seem too complicated, and if they end up looking terrible you can just smear the canvas with paint and call it abstract. Of course, part of Taehyung’s shoulder cuts the vase off from view so he’s probably going to end up making an unwitting appearance in whatever mess turns up on your canvas.

Even though neither of you have any idea what Kyungsoo put into those drinks, you’re sure its something strong. Before long the two of you are already giggly, conversation flowing easily as you put paint to canvas and attempt to make something decent. It’s around the time the two of you are almost finishing your drinks that the conversation takes a delightful turn, which consists of Taehyung telling you about his little fluffball, Yeontan.

“Oh my god,” you say, fingers gripping the paintbrush tight as you try to pet the urge to pet a dog that isn’t even here. “He’s so cute! Look at his grumpy little eyebrows!”

Taehyung laughs, having taken a break from painting to show you his dog like a proud parent. He takes his phone back and slips it into his pocket, paint-flecked hand returning to the brush he’d abandoned. “He’s such a smart dog, but he’s also super dumb. Runs into shit all the time. And there was one time that a friend came over and brought a new camera that he hadn’t seen before—”

Taehyung has to pause recounting the story, he starts giggling so hard. It makes you erupt into laughter as well simply because of how contagious the sound is. “He got so mad, he ran in front of me with his little legs and started barking at it like he was trying to protect me. I love that little dog.”

“I love him too and I haven’t even met him,” you giggle, using your pinky (the only finger you’re sure you haven’t gotten paint on yet) to wipe under your eyes. You don’t think you let a tear slip but you’ve been laughing so much you can’t be sure.

Taehyung beams at you from around his canvas, brush held midair. “That’s exactly what Jiminie says.”

That gives you pause. “Wait— Jimin hasn’t seen your dog? But you’ve been friends for ages!”

You catch the photographer smiling as he delivers a few soft strokes to his painting, affection hidden in his tone as he responds, “Yeah, a few years. Since… the last? Second last year of high school? Maybe? It was a wild start to the friendship.”

“Wild?” you echo, intrigued.

“Yeah. What really kick-started our friendship was this one time I came over while Jimin was really upset about something. I can’t remember exactly how it happened but we ended up at some wack university event nearby. It was boring as hell, and somehow we figured the best way to be entertained would be to commit a mild crime and get away with it.”

Once more, the ashy-haired male has to pause his story to get the giggles out of his system, taking the opportunity to sip a little more of his cocktail. You do the same, not one to pass up much of any drink these days.

“Long story short, he ended up streaking across the field and earning himself a title at the university as ‘mooncheeks’ or something equally dumb and funny, earnt himself a bit of a nude legacy.”

You pause, the alcohol beginning to slow your mind just enough that it takes a little longer for you to connect the dot between his story and something you’d shoved so deep in the back of your mind years ago that you’d almost forgotten it.

“Wait—” you smack your paintbrush down, eyes wide as an accusing finger is thrown his way. “That was— he ran into me on the way back! Oh my god I almost forgot, that was you two?!”

Taehyung erupts into laughter that is an octave or two shy of being too loud, having to place a hand over his chest to brace himself. He’s nodding wordlessly, eyes pinched shut, and it’s probably the alcohol making your eyes blur but for a moment you could almost swear he’s glowing.

“Yeah,” he finally manages to articulate, wiping a stray tear or two from his eyes, sniffling. “It cheered him up, though, so I think it’s worth the potential trauma.”

That makes you laugh, another sip of your drink going down. A lot of the spirits must have settled at the bottom, because this one had a little warmth as it went down.

The night goes so easily it’s like a dream, the atmosphere and alcohol in combination with Taehyung’s company making you feel much like you did before this whole shitshow, back when it wasn’t so hard to release the tension in your shoulders or to muster a genuine smile. Taehyung happily gets you a few refills, refusing to let you pull out your card— which is probably for the best because you’re not sure where your wallet is and you’re not coordinated enough to look right now.

You’re on the further side of tipsy, teetering on the edge of pleasantly drunk where nothing makes sense but you’re still somewhat coherent, and everything is funny. Taehyung has almost dipped his paintbrushes in his drink instead of the jar a few times, resulting in a long round of laughter and sore stomachs each time. Eventually, you’d moved his drink to the other side of the canvas and he’d offered you a sheepish smile.

Surprisingly, your painting doesn’t look too bad, either. Currently it has a bit of a blurry, undefined quality to it, but in your current opinion it kind of works for it. Taehyung’s shoulder did end up making a feature and as the two of you talk you find yourself distractedly painting patterns in the ‘leather’, swirls and hearts and hell, even a few triangles. Eventually, you reach the point where you think that you really can’t do anything more to make the painting better in the time you have, so with a contented sigh you place your brush down and instead turn your attention to Taehyung.

Even as he talks to you and wobbles a little in place, he’s still so incredibly focused in his work, in every detail that meets canvas at the direction of his nimple finngertips, that you don’t think you even see his hand shaking while he paints. Which, your hand was— a lot. It’s the main factor responsible for this one squiggly flower stem in particular you can see in your painting.

As you sit there, happily listening and laughing at each anecdote Taehyung offers you about his life, you find your mind wandering a little bit. Back to the exhibition, and the works and even the way you caught him regarding them. You recognise the critical lens that he viewed them through, because it’s one you adopt yourself for your own creations. Something wells in you, an urge to reassure him in case he ever had any doubts about his own talent; you’re far too many drinks in to be in a place where you can stop yourself.

“Taehyung,” you begin softly but seriously, with minimal slur. He doesn’t stop his motions, but you see him pause for the briefest moment before humming in acknowledgement. “Taehyung, I have to tell you…”

You’re figuring out how to best word your impression of his works and his talent, but you must take longer than you thought because Taehyung lets out a soft huff, giving you a smile that you can’t quite decipher.

“Don’t worry,” he says, flicking the paintbrush back to rest the wooden stem on his knuckles. “I already know I’m not the muse. You don’t have to worry about convincing me.”

For a second, all you’re able to do is blink. Taehyung simply goes back to his painting, expression neutral and his soft hum brushing your ears beneath the soft melody floating from the speakers. You realise quickly that you don’t know what to say to that, and that the full implications of his words haven’t really sunk in yet. He must have noticed that you’d been trying to go around and convince all the suspected subjects that they aren’t the muse of the poem… you feel oddly ashamed, for some reason. Your cheeks feel hot, and not just from the alcohol flush.

“Done!”

Taehyung’s voice breaks you from your reverie, his cheery smile greeting you once more. “All finished?”

You nod, offering a smile of your own and taking the opportunity to say what you wanted to earlier. “Yep. I’m excited to see yours, you’re so incredibly talented, Tae.”

His smile turns shy at that, a bashful laugh tumbling from his lips as he does his best to clean up his area. You do the same, standing up for the first time in a while and having to reach out and stabilise yourself on the table so you don’t fall. The drinks hit you a little harder than you first thought!

“Thank you,” he finally mumbles a few moments later, collecting the brushes. “I’m excited to see yours, too.”

You let out a short laugh at that, knowing that whatever you threw onto that canvas isn’t going to be able to hold a candle to what he made.

Quicker than you can keep track of, the two of you finish tidying and then before you know it you’re saying your goodbyes to the staff and stepping outside. You shiver at the unexpected breeze that greets you, people along the other side of the street huddling together. It’s a windy night and the breeze carries a bit of a bite.

“Oh, right,” Taehyung starts in place, offering his canvas to you. “Careful, it might still be a bit wet…”

Somewhat mindlessly, you swap paintings with him, smiling brightly before your gaze is drawn to the side. By nothing but absolute chance, it passes over the line in front of a bar popular with students at your university, and you almost blink and move on before your eyes halt in familiarity. At the hands of nothing but stupid luck, there is someone you recognise over there. Yoongi stands, face indicating a loud complaint before it even leaves his mouth, and there are a few others around him that he seems to be with who are laughing as they wait in line.

Your head feels so messy, like the wind has managed to get inside your skull and fling everything about like leaves on the autumn breeze. You’re so distracted in the moment that you don’t see it as Taehyung follows the direction of your gaze, and his expression drops. When you jerk out of your reverie, it’s just in time to see his eyes flicking from your painting, to his, and then back to you.

You’re about to peek at his painting and fill the silence with a compliment, but he beats you to it. Something is different about his expression, and not just because he’s no longer under the warm light of the paint bar. The glow you’d noticed so easily earlier seems to have dimmed a bit.

“Did you figure out the theme of the exhibition?”

At his question you startle, gaze flicking to the side as you try and figure it out on instinct on the spot. You’d completely forgotten to think about it, and considering you spent about as much time looking at him as you did his works while at the exhibition, you can safely determine you’re still nowhere closer to the answer. “Ah… no.”

As though drawn like a magnet, your gaze ends up over in the direction of Yoongi for the briefest second. You struggle to tear it away.

“It’s anaxiphilia.”

Even through the inebriation slowing your thoughts, his words reach you immediately. It’s as though your heart has turned to stone and dropped straight through your chest. That unspeakable, unknown emotion wells and bubbles within you, swelling to twice, thrice its size and blocking words before they can even reach your throat. Your eyes are on Taehyung again, but his are still centred where yours had been— had he also noticed Yoongi? You didn’t know they knew each other...

“Oh,” you finally manage, swallowing down that nameless sensation. Taehyung’s gaze slowly slides back to you, dark eyes full of so much… something, you think it would take you years to unpack and familiarise yourself with it all.

For a second, the two of you stand with your gazes locked, both of you too deep in your own thoughts to do anything about it. Taehyung is the one that breaks the spell.

“Well, it’s getting late, I shouldn’t keep you out any longer… There is a bus stop here, and tons of ubers in the area…” His eyes flick away as he talks but return as he murmurs this last bit, “Thank you for coming today. I hope you had fun.”

“Of course I did,” you rush, finally finding your voice amongst the shambles in your head. “Thank you for inviting me, Tae. I really… I really needed this. Thank you.”

He nods, smiling at you, but you notice it doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Please get home safe,” he says, and you nod immediately, making his gaze soften. “See you later.”

“Bye! Thank you again!” you wave, Taehyung turning quick and already a decent way down the street after his farewell. He offers a wave over his shoulder and you catch it just in time before you turn back, gaze unconsciously seeking out the familiar figure across the road. Distantly, you observe that Yoongi is no longer in line for the bar and has switched to the bubble tea place a few stores down.

Taehyung’s exhibition and it’s theme swim through your mind, a sudden impulse welling within you in response that spurs your legs into a motion. You’re about to go across the road in a sudden spurt of something like bravery, but for some indecipherable reason, you stop before you can get more than a few feet. You turn your head, gaze thrown over your shoulder, eyes seeking without an explicit goal in mind.

You catch sight of him just before he rounds the corner and disappears from view— even from the back Taehyung presents a handsome figure, but in the split-second you manage to view him, the most notable things about his retreating form is the slumped curve of his shoulders and the lowered angle of his head. He’s gone before you can blink leaving you for good this time with nothing but your messy head and the one thought that swims to the surface that says after seeing him glow in happiness for the better part of the evening, sadness doesn’t suit him much at all.

Clutching the painting, your turn back to the front and try and focus on the present for just a minute or two, like whether you’re going to catch a bus or uber it home, but each time you start a new thought it always brings you back to the odd mix of guilt swirling deep in your gut. There’s something else there, the familiar hollow pit of yearning, but for once… you can’t quite tell who it’s for.

a/n: thank u so much for reading! i really hope it was worth the wait and that you look forward the future parts as fox rain begins to slowly draw to a close!! pls let us know u liked it w a like and rb and screaming in our inboxes is always ALWAYS welcome!! thank u !! love u !! <3

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professional-idiocy · 3 years

Text

On Thin Ice - pt. 2

I am a master of procrastination so this little piece has been sitting in my drafts since last Sunday while being nearly finished. I don’t exactly like this piece but oh well, my inner perfectionist is always mad at me.

Here’s pt 1 and here’s art of Colby, Kevin and Rosa - Next

Taglist: @cupcakes-and-pain, @whoopsalittlewhumpy (Surprise :3)

CW: Colby and his thoughts may be a bit upsetting. He has a lot of self-worth issues. Still references to torture also injuries but really just confused villain wondering why a stranger is so nice to him.

Colby didn’t know what was happening. Someone had just picked him up and taken him away from that hellhole. It was honestly confusing. The man clearly knew he was a villain, so why didn’t he just leave him there? He was a monster and clearly deserved it.

He pulled the coat tighter around him as the thoughts became too much. The coat. The man had even given him his coat. He was a terrible person. No, he wasn’t even a person. He was a monster who hurt others for no reason.

Well, he did to be useful for Alaric. Alaric might be a supervillain, but he just wanted to be useful to someone who had saved him. It wasn’t wrong, right? Alaric had even praised him on multiple occasions. He was doing good, according to him.

Colby let out a small yelp of pain when the car bounced on some bump in the road. No, even the universe was telling him he deserved it. He was nothing more than a monster lucky to be alive.

“Sorry about that” The man said as the car stopped. Colby looked at him puzzled, why did he apologize? He was a monster and deserved the pain.

“Good news is that we’re home now, so we can clean up your wounds” He flinched at that. It would hurt, it always hurt. Miss Rosa always threw some salt in the wounds to avoid infection and that was it.

He should be grateful she had been kind enough even bother with it.

The driver’s side door closed, and he flinched, was he going to be left here? He couldn’t see the man and it was driving him crazy. Miss Rosa had mentioned he would be returned if he was boring. Had he already been boring? He could be entertaining. He could do things. He could be useful. He didn’t need to go back.

He sighed in relief when he could finally see him through the window. He hadn’t been abandoned. The man opened the door and smiled softly.

“Can you walk, or do you want me to pick you up?”’

“I can walk, sir” Colby said softly, he really couldn’t, but it might be entertaining to watch him struggle. He whimpered softly as he tried to get up, wincing in pain as he put pressure on his leg. He pushed himself forward, only for his other leg to give up. He expected to hit the pavement, but the man caught him.

“I can still try—”

“No, you can’t” he said picking Colby up like it was nothing. He really could do it if he tried, it just might take a while. He was held close for the first time in ages. It was warm and the closest thing to “safe” he’d experienced in a while. He closed his eyes leaning into the warmth enjoying it. It felt nice. It almost made him forget he’d be hurt. Well, he had to pay back the mercy he’d been shown.

He stayed still hoping to enjoy the warmth for as long as possible, but much to his surprise he was gently set down on the couch. Instead of being dropped on the floor.

“Wait here while I go get everything” Colby nodded as the man disappeared into the kitchen. He knew he’d just fetch the salt, it would hurt, but he deserved it.

Colby sat there waiting for him to come back, he’d gone into the kitchen and the amount of time he spent there made him worry. It shouldn’t take that long. He should be back here. He felt relief wash over him as he saw him come back with a first aid kit.

Why would he waste that stuff on him?

He set it down on the coffee table and started to dig through it for everything he needed before he paused.

“Oh yeah, I’m Kevin Mills, sorry for not telling sooner” he said sitting down next to him with a bunch of supplies, none that seemed to include salt. He sat there waiting to figure out what he wanted.

“Do you mind if I take pictures to document the injuries?” Colby nodded without hesitation. He didn’t know why Kevin wanted to do it, but it was better to just agree.

He held out his hand letting him take the photo and then begin to gently clean the wound. It felt weird that someone treated him with kindness. He obviously didn’t deserve, but it still felt nice. He really wanted to show how grateful he was, but he didn’t know how.

He let Kevin clean the wounds trying to hold back tears as some warm emotion he couldn’t name washed over him. He sat there getting used to the steady rhythm that was accompanied by soft praise. It was surprising when the wounds were carefully cleaned before being bandaged. He was a villain, but Kevin was still treating him like a human.

He didn’t deserve it but it didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the brief moment of kindness. Much to Colby’s surprise, the cleaning process was over faster than he’d anticipated, but he couldn’t help but to feel sad as everything would soon return to normal.

“If you don’t mind me asking, how long were you in there?” Colby snapped back into reality, watching Kevin curiously before shrugging. He didn’t know.

“Since 5th of September, I think?” Kevin seemed to freeze before cursing. Colby flinched back in terror. He’d said something wrong. He hadn’t meant to make him angry. He couldn’t help as tears began to fall and he knew what was to come.

“I’m sorry” he said bringing his hands to shield himself as Kevin looked even more hateful, he knew it meant pain.

“I didn’t mean to— please I’m sorry” he said hoping begging might help but it never did.

“Shh, It’s fine. I’m not angry at you” Kevin said softly as a small flicker of hope ignited in him. He really hoped it wasn’t a lie.

“You— You’re not?” Colby asked peeking out from behind his makeshift barrier as Kevin tried to appear as non-threatening as possible.

“Of course not, it’s just that I could’ve helped you sooner if I’d known. I was there at least 2 times before today” Kevin whispered his voice growing quiet as Colby just looked surprised before nodding. Kevin was sad. He didn’t want Kevin to be sad. He had been so nice to him. He wanted him to be happy.

He laid his head on Kevin’s shoulder curling up next to him. He’d smiled when he did it before so it should be good now. He snuggled closer getting comfortable hoping it would help Kevin. He couldn’t help but to smile when it worked. Kevin chuckled and gently pet his hair, actually thanking him. Most importantly Kevin didn’t push him away.

He couldn’t help but to feel proud. He’d been good for Kevin and if it continued. He might even be allowed to stay. He snuggled closer to Kevin, he really hoped he would be able to keep it this way.

#villain whumpee #whump #original writing #villains and heroes #villain hero whump #villain whump #original whump #civilian caretaker #injured villain #heroes and villains #On Thin Ice #you're stuck in here with me pal #here goes nothing

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supersonic-womanofyou · 4 years

Photo

My first attempt at an interview fic! Read this on Ao3, or under the cut.

Spotlight on Eric Bittle

Interview by Elizabeth Chu

Photographs by Jack Zimmermann

The internet personality, author, and baker talks about his childhood, his relationship with Providence Falconers captain Jack Zimmermann, being a LGBTQ role model, why he struggled with his overnight success, and his upcoming cookbook.

I meet Eric Bittle in person for the first time on a Saturday afternoon, in a trendy coffee shop in downtown Providence. Even though I’ve heard of it in passing, I’ve never been inside. Eric obviously has, since when I approach the table where he’s chosen to sit, Eric is already chatting familiarly with one of the waitresses.

But after a couple minutes talking to Eric, I mentally revisit that assumption. Eric Bittle has a way of putting people at ease, of making even the most distant strangers feel like long-lost friends-- through his warm personality, but also through his seemingly-never ending supply of homemade baked goods. By the time I sit down across from him, I’m already in possession of a whole pie and two jars of jam.

Most of the celebrities I’ve met have on screen personalities that are vastly different in person, but the Eric Bittle I meet that Saturday could have been pulled directly out of his Netflix series or one of the episodes from his vastly popular vlog. He’s perennially bright and cheery, with a Southern drawl that’s been blunted by years in New England, but is still very present. When I mention it, Eric laughs. “I used to hate my accent, but I think it’s become as part of my brand as pies are. I’d probably lose all of my followers if I started talking like a Yankee,” he jokes.

The source of Bittle’s accent is his hometown-- Madison, Georgia, a town of barely four thousand people. When I ask what drove him to move up north, he gestures to himself as a whole. “Not too many opportunities for a baking, skating, Beyonce-loving gay boy in Morgan County.” He turns more serious, though, when he continues: “I was bullied a lot as a child. When I think back to my childhood, to living in Georgia-- for people who looked or acted different, it could be suffocating. I remember feeling like my future was just so starkly outlined for me-- going to a state school, settling down with a nice girl, spending the rest of my life just pretending. It sounds like overdramatic teenage angst now, I know, but I always knew if I wanted to live honestly, I needed to get out.”

And so Eric applied-- and was accepted to--Samwell University in Massachusetts, which touts itself as one of the most LGBTQ friendly schools in America, under the motto “one in four, maybe more.” According to Eric, it’s where he began to come to terms with himself and his identity, where he finally said the words “I’m gay” out loud, where he continued to bake and vlog and began to think seriously about a career in both, and where, perhaps most famously, he met his now-husband, Providence Falconers captain Jack Zimmermann.

“We both played on the hockey team, but we weren’t exactly friends at first,” Bittle says about his relationship with Zimmermann.

So, of course, I have to ask him-- what is it like, being a baker married to a hockey player? Eric and his husband seem like almost comical counterpoints in every aspect of their careers and personalities. Eric makes his living through baking and cooking, Jack plays in the notoriously-macho NHL. Eric has built a brand and a food empire off of cheeriness and Southern hospitality, Jack has a reputation of being a “hockey robot,” with his cold, generally disagreeable demeanor during interviews.

“Well, with it all laid out like that, it really does sound like we’re night and day,” Eric laughs. “But honestly? We just work. We both love skating-- that’s what we bonded over in college, actually. We also both technically majored in history, even though we have very different specialities and did so for pretty different reasons. But even our differences are compatible. Like, I love talking, he doesn’t, so we’re never talking over each other or silent. Also, pro hockey players have to eat an insane number of calories, so Jack’s always there to eat my cooking, and that’s really all I can ask for.”

Eric and Jack, who played on a line together briefly at Samwell, took the sports world by storm seven years ago when they kissed on the ice after the Falconers won the Stanley Cup, making Jack the first openly LGBTQ player in the NHL. The pair broke yet another barrier for LGBTQ people in hockey soon after, when Eric became the first openly gay NCAA Division I hockey captain.

When I ask Eric if he ever thought about following in his partner’s footsteps and pursuing a career in professional hockey, he just laughs. “Oh, definitely not. I love being on the ice, but I don’t think I would have made it very far in the NHL or AHL.”

His fame may have started out in the (relatively niche) world of professional hockey, but since graduating from Samwell, Eric has found incredible success beyond the legacy of that historic kiss. His first book, published five years ago, spent several weeks on the New York Times Food and Diet bestseller list, and was applauded as a fresh, vibrant take on Southern cuisine and desserts. Check, Please reads as seventy percent cookbook, thirty percent memoir, with every page infused with Bittle’s indomitable, ubiquitous personality. His vlog, which he started in high school and has updated continuously ever since, has millions of subscribers, who tune in every week to hear Bittle talk about everything from pies and cookies to relationships and family. Finally, and perhaps most famously, Bittle hosted his own Netflix series last year, applauded as a combination of Marie Kondo and Queer Eye, in which he taught baking with his usual brand of positivity and universal appeal, interspersed with feel-good moments and life lessons.

It strikes me that while Bittle’s career may have been jump-started by his relationship with Jack Zimmermann, he’s certainly managed to make a name for himself in the years since. To the hockey world, he may still be an afterthought to Jack Zimmermann, but to the baking world (and a good portion of Netflix’s viewership), the name Jack Zimmermann is an afterthought to that of Eric Bittle.

“Jack definitely gets a kick out of it when we’re in public together and I get recognized, and he doesn’t,” Eric says. “It’s kind of crazy, actually-- I definitely couldn’t have imagined all this ten years ago, back in college or in high school.”

And what did Eric imagine himself doing? “To be honest, I don’t think I had any idea. When I decided to go to Samwell, I didn’t even have a major in mind or anything. I just wanted to get out of Georgia. And at Samwell-- I mean, I majored in American History, of all things. Talk about a useless degree! I literally just chose the major that let me take the most baking or baking-adjacent classes.” He pauses, and laughs. “It drives Jack crazy, actually-- I never have a plan for anything, really, big or small. I’m the kind of person who just crosses my fingers and hope it all shakes out for the best.”

His husband’s opinion aside, this tactic seems to have worked out pretty well for Eric. His next, eagerly anticipated cookbook, which follows much in the vein of his Netflix show, is due to come out in two months this August. “It’s going to be focused on easy, cheap cooking and baking that’s still healthy and fulfilling. I think there’s a mindset that to make tasty, healthy food you need to have expensive ingredients and tools, or a lot of time on your hands, or have a lot of experience. But like-- I made food for an entire hockey team in a frat house on a college student’s allowance for four years, so I know something about cooking healthy on a budget,” he jokes. “I really just want to make good, healthy food accessible for everyone.”

Well, he’s managed to do that, and more. Eric Bittle’s career so far has certainly been a whirlwind. He’s gone from publishing his first cookbook to hosting his own show in what’s only been a matter of years.

“I do have to pinch myself sometimes, “ Eric says about his dizzyingly quick ascent to fame. “Like, Carrie Underwood tagged me in a tweet about hockey husbands the other day. Carrie Underwood!” The disbelief is clear in his voice. “I mean, Jack’s always been the bigger fan of country music, but the Georgia boy in me had to lie down for a moment when I saw the notification. So I think-- I still can’t really believe all of it, you know? It feels like yesterday I was still about to graduate college, with barely any plan and procrastinating on my thesis. And I guess sometimes-- sometimes I do feel a bit guilty, you know? Like-- there’s so many people fighting for this, fighting for what I’ve got-- getting books published, getting a show, everything else. I definitely had a leg up in name recognition because of Jack and hockey, and even when Jack and weren’t married yet, I never had to worry about having a roof over my head if the vlog wasn’t bringing in enough money or the cookbook wasn’t selling well enough.” He pauses, pensive, and it’s not the first time in this conversation that I mentally reassess my first assumptions about Eric Bittle. Behind the nationally famous smile and welcoming accent is a thoughtful young man still grappling with becoming a public figure and a role model, with a sprinkling of imposter syndrome, who doesn’t understand exactly what millions of people across the country see in him.

But perhaps that as well is an unfair assessment. It’s clear that Eric has a refreshing genuiness that few public figures possess, and that this is part of what has managed to speak to so many people from all backgrounds. That on some level, his modesty about his own fame is part of what constitutes his appeal.

When I mention this, Eric flushes a bright shade of pink. “Oh, aren’t you a flatterer. Well, I suppose so.”

So after this cookbook, what’s next? Is fatherhood on the horizon?

“I did mention that I never have a plan, didn’t I?” he quips. But he does confide that he and Jack have been talking about having a family. “We’ve always wanted kids, but there’s always been something going on. Jack’s job and being on roadies all the time, me trying to get my career started. We don’t want our kids to be raised by babysitters and nannies, you know? We want to be there for them, so while it’s definitely something we’re considering, we’re trying to balance timing. But it has been a couple years, so.” He blushes. “We’re revisiting the idea.”

“But other than that-- I have been approached about the possibility of some other projects and shows in the future, but I probably can’t talk about those,” he says. “And though it’s always been a dream of mine to own a bakery, that would be a pretty huge commitment. So I guess I’m just trying to say that I’m not really sure exactly what comes next.” Nevertheless, he grins, as if to say, and isn’t that exciting ?

Fatherhood or his own bakery-- I’m sure that no matter what comes next for Eric Bittle, he’ll forge ahead with his characteristic positivity and Southern grace, with plenty of baked goods along the way. *

#omgcp #eric bittle #jack zimmermann #interview #multimedia fic #art #magazine #fic #omgcp fic #zimbits #pov outsider #omgcheckplease

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wangxiandecoded · 4 years

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Episode 3

Previous Episode | Next Episode

(Spoilers for the whole show ahead!)

Seeing Lan Zhan For The First Time

Ever since I saw the fanmade romcom trailer of the show, I can’t get the image of bridegroom Lan Wangji out of my head. His entry is so elegant and his presence throughout the show truly ethereal. (Wei Ying, you’re not even trying to hide those heart eyes. We get it! You’re impressed.)

Lan Zhan’s Character Growth

We only remember Lan Zhan as the guy who reserved all his emotions and smiles for Wei Ying, so rewatching the rigid, inflexible person he used to be kind of drives me crazy. Lan Zhan before he met Wei Ying started his journey as a lone, icy, untouchable snow-capped peak and by letting himself love and be loved by Wei Ying in return, the person he becomes in the end is like a warm, summery mountain shining with life and no trace of the glaciers that thawed over. His character evolution is no joke and it is only because Wei Ying’s companionship makes him more human and allows him to be the best version of himself. Lan Zhan’s arc is one of the best things in the show and the most rewarding reason to watch it.

Did I Just Meet The LOML

Lan Zhan taking note of his future soulmate showing off his intelligence right from the start. But shhh, he’s too much of a tsundere to admit that right now.

But Lan Zhan, What About The 9pm Curfew?

Notice how Lan Zhan is up late at night waiting for Wei Ying, like a Good Obedient Boy from the Lan clan ready to catch a lawbreaker red-handed. Are we sure he has not simply mistaken his positive feelings for annoyance and found a way to spend more time with Wei Ying?

Wei Ying, my bro, I think you might be the moon in this case.

Flirting With The Law Enforcer? That’s One More Violation!

It’s cute to watch their dynamics in the beginning, Wei Ying is already so familiar with Lan Zhan, tries to share his drink with him, teases him for the first of many times. And Lan Zhan just looks like “?????? Are you flirting with the law enforcer?! That is yet another violation of the Lan clan rules!”

Wei Ying coquettishly pushes Lan Zhan's sword into its sheath and the chase that comes next is the beginning of something monumental and exciting.

(I understand preserving the original meaning is difficult in English translation but they really had Wei Ying call Lan Zhan inflexible only to follow it up with a beautifully choreographed fight sequence? Really?)

Wangxian’s First Meeting Is Romantic Cinematography At Its Finest

This scene right here is in my opinion, the most romantic scene to ever exist in all of fiction. If anyone tries to argue that Lan Zhan and Wei Ying are best bros, show them this scene. There is no hetero explanation for why it is so romantically shot. We have seen it countless times in fairytales. This is unmistakably the meeting of two people destined to be in love forever. It stole my breath the first time I saw it, and has done every time since. Like legit, it needs to be on top of those lists that boast the most iconic meetings in romantic history and taught in academic institutions worldwide.

First of all, a moonlit first meeting is enough to immortalize a story in our memory as being inherently romantic. But Wangxian are so effortlessly and picturesquely sword fighting (or should I say dancing?) on the rooftops, hair and clothes gently swaying to the tune of WuJi and thanks to the slow-motion closeups that make them glow like a live painting under the moonlight.

(And surely I was not the only one who heard this random bell ringing at night and got reminded of wedding bells or the film ‘Your Name’? Lol!)

We see that neither of them has the upper hand in the fight. This is important because it establishes they were born to be each other’s equals on the battlefield, something Zewu Jun points out later. (Just one of the many soulmate things Wangxian share.) I have no doubt Lan Zhan is freaking out wondering, who the fuck is this guy? How can he match my every strike and step without even uncapping his sword?

In these above shots, there is a beautiful, unmissable symmetry in the way they are framed that drives it home that they are two halves of the same whole; their paths will be bound together, their perspectives will come to reflect each other. They are one and the same. The way they fight is also kind of intimate and very poetic. The super romantic backdrop and their placement shows that they are in perfect tandem and their chemistry is loud and luminous from the first time they meet.

There is nothing straight about this scene. Not even the shot angle. Look!

There is also something quite god-like and celestial about their meeting, like we are witnessing two prophesied immortal beings whose encounter is going to change the fate of the universe. And does it not, indeed?

I think I heard the moon longingly sigh in this scene because she felt so single. Honestly, understandable. It’s so maddening how two soulmates meeting for the first time can turn out to be this iconic, beautiful, brilliant, breathtaking and every other word you can think of. (We’re lucky Wang Yibo and Xiao Zhan are used to dancing, the fight sequences are all so graceful. *chef’s kiss*)

I feel like this one scene reduced every straight romance I’ve ever seen to ashes. I’m honestly curious, can anyone outdo this in the future, gay or not? It has become The Standard for first meetings. I envy the talented, creative minds that envisioned and executed it.

TL;DR : The whole scene is drenched with a romantic field of vision meant specifically for the audience to swoon over.

“Lan Zhan!”

Wei Ying drops one of his two precious pots of Emperor’s Smile because Lan Zhan attacked them. Most people would just be mad in this situation but it's the first time Wei Ying calls him "Lan Zhan”. I wonder what led Wei Ying to have such an informality with Lan Zhan, who didn't consider him his friend until much later. It could be that it’s just who they are, two people with opposite personalities. But we don't see Wei Ying exhibit this closeness with strangers and yet he's whining Lan Zhan's name in that classic style of his, right from the first night they meet. Adorable! (Lan Zhan who owes him two bottles of Emperor’s Smile for breaking them spends the rest of his life buying them for Wei Ying.. In case you needed a reason to cry.)

Breaking The Rules & Breaking The Barriers To Lan Zhan’s Heart

Wei Ying actively criticizes the Lan clan’s rules and finds their teaching unreasonable. He thinks drinking Emperor’s Smile when he’s sitting on the roof technically doesn’t count as being “inside” the Cloud Recesses where alcohol is banned. A small detail but it shows Wei Ying’s gift of seeing through the grey areas in morality. It is a trait that ultimately influences Lan Zhan to shed the hard and fast ideas of orthodoxy he was raised on and share Wei Ying’s quest for justice. This makes both of them the only people inside the world of The Untamed who are able to see the deep-seated problems in the existing system and question them. Their love story is inextricably tied with rewriting the laws of their world and if that does not make The Untamed the most revolutionary romance to ever exist, I don’t know what does.

Lan Zhan Really Just Cares A Lot

Turns out Lan Zhan didn’t let the Yunmeng Jiang clan stay out in the dark after all. Love how he’s Gay Gripping his sword in panic and backing away from Wei Ying because he doesn't want him to know he's a good person whose heart is in the right place. You know, because that's a horrible reputation for his tsundere persona to have. Zewu Jun takes one for the team and blows his cover, which becomes a common occurrence in the show. Wei Ying is also quick to apologize to him like, “I had a good feeling about you!” when we’ve seen he rarely does that with disciples from other clans.

President In Action

The conversation between Lan Zhan and Zewu Jun needs no analysis and the latter’s triumphant smirk in the end when Lan Zhan walks off is all the evidence you need that He Knows What’s Up. I love how Zewu Jun probably sits around like, "I have to personally do something or my dumbass brother is going to spend his whole life alone, when he's clearly met his soulmate and is too blind to admit it." Thank you, President of the Wangxian club. We do not deserve you.

What Did Wei Ying Mean?

Wei Ying says all the female suitors from all the clans admire Lan Zhan without knowing how cold and rigid he really is, and he doesn’t complete his sentence because Lan Zhan uses the silencing charm on him. What did he mean by this? What were you going to do, Wei Ying?!

Episode 3 gives us insight into the inception of their romance and we see every moment since the beginning has been tailor-made to tell the audience this is going to be a love story set against fantasy-driven, action-packed odds in ancient China.

#the untamed #the untamed rewatch #the untamed analysis #cql #cql analysis #cql rewatch #wangxian #wangxian analysis #wei ying #lan zhan #lan wangji #wei wuxian #cql spoilers #cql episodes #the untamed episodes #mdsz meta #mdzs #chen qing ling

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thevindicativevordan · 4 years

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Terra-Man

I created a section for Superman Rogues in my Superman masterpost so I feel obligated to actually write about a character for there. But I don’t really want to dive into the nuances of Lex or any of the big guns just yet, so how about we talk about a guy most people don’t even know exists?

Terra-Man friends! The Pre-Crisis version was created by Cary Bates, Curt Swan, and Dick Dillin. Based on Clint Eastwood’s “Man with No Name”, he was a child of the old American Wild West, with his father killed by an alien. Young Tobias Manning was then adopted by said alien out of guilt. The alien took Tobias with him out into the cosmos, trained him, and crafted high tech weaponry for him that resembled weapons used by 19th century cowboys. He was also gifted with slowed aging that gave him nigh-immortality. Tobias killed his alien guardian and struck out on his own as an interstellar criminal, taking the name “Terra-Man” to homage his Earth roots. His Pre-Crisis fights with Superman varied between him being treated as a bizarre gag villain and a deadly serious threat.

Spoilers: The guy who ages up Superman is Tobias. He actually comes across as a legitimate threat in the story, using preptime to outwit Clark repeatedly:

And it was the first time I had read a story with Terra-Man in it that made me go “this guy could be a legitimate threat”. Of course Bates had more creativity in his pinkie than a lot of creators produce in their entire careers, and the Post-Crisis revamp of Terra-Man really sucked:

They got rid of his cowboy hat (a creative felony if I ever saw one), and revamped him as a businessman who had a crisis of conscience over the environmental damage he was causing, and thus set out on a crusade to protect the environment. They kept the high tech weaponry, and gave a lot of it an ecological spin, he had gadgets that allowed him to drain Superman’s solar levels to make him susceptible to weaponry, but the background motivation has aged poorly. Given the current environmental state of the world, more people would probably cheer this version of Tobias on as a hero (just look at Green Arrow or the Poison Ivy fans!) than want to see Superman beat him up. Also he still talked like an old school cowboy for some bizarre reason? Or maybe that was just how writers thought every Texan talked.

Anyway he ended up getting ripped in half by Black Adam and basically has been gone ever since as far as I’m aware:

So he’s been absent for two whole reboots now, New 52 & Rebirth, so I feel entitled to give my idea for how to make him work as a Superman Rogue. First up: his design. None of the ones I posted above really worked for me, none of them look “cool”, and if Venom and Carnage have taught us anything it’s that 90% of why some villains stick around is that they look cool. The Pre-Crisis one is too plain looking, he looks generic, the Post-Crisis look lacks a hat and the cowboy theme and is thus unacceptable. Luckily there’s already two very cool looking sources to draw on for a new design:

Guy front and center is Terra-Man from the Legion of Superheroes cartoon, and my first introduction to the character. His backstory was heavily modified for the show, but he was a stone cold badass, forcing Imperiex and Superman X to team up to beat him. Think Cad Bane from The Clone Wars by way of Terminator and you basically get the gist. I honestly wouldn’t mind just straight up taking that design and adding the mustache of the comic version. But there’s another source to draw from:

How the hell this guy never caught on I’ll never know. Maybe because Morrison never gave him enough badass moments during their Action run? But Nimrod has a very cool design, and he also has some crazy weapons like a gun that shoots telepathic bullets, he already feels somewhat like a Terra-Man revamp to me. I’d take the idea of a helmet/full body suit and the crazy high-concept tech weapons from Nimrod & Pre-Crisis Terra-Man, and combine it with the color scheme, basic outfit and hat of the animated Terra-Man. That would be a really cool design that would get people interested in Tobias I feel.

Second off: the name. Maybe I was just dumb as a kid, but I was always wondering why animated Terra-Man never used his earthbender powers. He clearly had them, why else would he call himself Terra-Man and not Space Cowboy? In the interest of retroactively justifying my young self’s stupidity, I propose a new name: The Terran. I think that does a better job of conveying what his deal is, that he’s a former resident of Earth aka Terra who has gone out and made a name for himself in the cosmos. Think of the children who will no longer be confused about why he’s not throwing boulders at his foes. I rest my case.

Third and finally: The motivation. Why does this guy show up on Earth? What’s his deal? Why does he hate Superman? Well I think there’s some easy justification in explaining why he would finally return to Earth in the first place by making him a hunter like Nimrod was. Terran is out to hunt the most dangerous creatures of a species for sport and profit. Guess who has an Intergalactic Zoo in his Fortress, containing last members of extinct species some of whom posses hides or organs that would fetch high prices on the galactic black market? That’s an easy way to justify why the two would first come to blows, and where the root of the contempt for each other would begin.

But that would only be the beginning. See there’s some very interesting twists on the Superman concept with Tobias. He inverts a lot of the core components of Superman. He’s a human who was abducted and adopted by aliens as a child. He got his “powers” from his alien father, and his “name” from the aliens he worked for and killed. He’s a human straight out of Earth’s past, a literal Man of Yesterday. I think you could do some very interesting stuff by contrasting the two, and one of the big ways to do it would be to make Tobias Manning gay.

Yeah yeah get your jokes out of the way but hear me out: Tobias is from 19th century America, not exactly known for it’s tolerance of homosexuality (or anything non-WASP really). Part of why Tobas stayed away for so long then was that he felt alienated from his home planet. He thought he would never be accepted there, and thus stayed away and tried to carve out a life for himself in space where at least no one looked down on him for who he loved. So when he finally comes back and sees the way things have improved he’s overjoyed. Finally he can be himself among his own kind, he doesn’t have to stay away from Earth anymore, he can stay here and reconnect with his heritage. But then he runs into another barrier: He was raised according to 19th century American norms as a kid, then by alien norms for the rest of his life. He has zero in common with regular humans in the 21st century DCU Earth. His speech is antiquated and peppered with alien words no one understands, marking him as odd. Nobody shares any of his interests, and his job, which would’ve been cool and badass in the 19th century, now invites disgust in everyday conversations. Tobias may have been a human born on Earth, but he was born in the Wild West and raised in space, and he’s become totally alienated from the rest of humanity.

Enter Superman, an alien born on another planet but perfectly able to live amongst humanity since he was raised by them and educated in their modern standards. He’s white-passing and straight, and those two attributes help him be accepted. It would absolutely piss Tobias off that this alien is viewed as more human than he is, is accepted where he is not, and that would fuel the fires of resentment. So when he and Clark cross paths, Tobias is out for blood. Not just to beat/kill Superman, but to embarrass him, humiliate him, make him the outcast for everyone to point and gawk at. Also killing one of the last Kryptonians would really help cement Tobias’ reputation as a stone cold badass hunter which doesn’t hurt either.

On Superman’s side, part of him would absolutely despise Tobias for being a poacher, for hunting and killing endangered species, for trying to kill or humiliate him. He’d be put off by Tobias’ 19th century ideal of manhood and enjoyment of killing, something Superman wholeheartedly abhors. But on the other hand he would absolutely empathize with Tobias’ frustration. Clark has felt alienated from humanity at points himself, but also recognizes that he was lucky to look and be like he does given where he landed. He’d want to try to reach this guy, to connect with him, given how much he can sympathize with the longing for a place where you can be yourself without fearing rejection from others. Whether he would ever succeed is anyone’s guess.

I realize the possible pitfalls in making a prominent villain, who is also a cowboy gay, but I do think what I have here is an interesting way at looking at the very concept of “alieness”, a topic often explored in Superman stories. I’d add a prominent gay member to Superman’s supporting cast as a counterbalance too, either to the Daily Planet or the Metropolis Special Crimes Unit.

So yeah that’s how I’d revamp Tobias into the Terran.

#superman #dc comics #terra-man #revamp

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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Legend of the Three Caballeros: Labyrinth and Repeat Review (Commissioned by WeirdKev27)

Saludos Amigos! We’re back on the Ride of the Three Cablleros as I intend to knock this wonderful series out at a steady cliip, and since I THOUGHT the premire was a two parter, it still ends on a cliffhanger but it’s too early to tell if this is just normal for this series like say Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, where it’s really more one continuous story, or just the end of the pilot. For now with all the exposition out of the way from part 1, we can jump right into the thick of things where we picked off. PREVIOUSLY ON LEGEND OF THE THREE CABLLEROS: Donald had an enormously shitty birthday, loosing his job, his house and his nightmarish harpy.. er his girlfriend, all in one day. Things went up a bit though when he inhereted a Cabana belonging to his ancestor Clinton Coot and met two new pals: Ladies Man Jose Caricoca and loveable weirdo like myself Pancito Romero A Lot of Other Names Gonzales. The three soon had a yard sale with the various treasures inside the cabana and got an offer for a million dollars for the cabana and all inside from local waiter’s nightmare Baron Von Sheldgoose, whose deal includes a jewel incrusted golden atlas. Upon finding it our boys were attacked by a human goddess who popped out of the book and that’s where we pick up.

Good. Let’s begin. So Xandra, said goddess, is holding our heroes at arrow point with their attempts to defuse the situation falling flat and their attempt to understandably flee by claming to be the cabs failing pretty much immidatley. We do get some good gags including Jose accidently telling Xandra she smells like feta cheese in greek. But lucky for our boys before Xandra can do a murder on them Donald accidently shuts the book.. and finds out she disappears when he does that. Cue our loveable idiots opening and closing the book for a while, easily one of the best bits of the episode. I will say while the pilot was pretty good comedy wise this episode solidfies how funy the series is. The series is at times a barrage of wonderful jokes and set pieces and it is awesome to behold. Also a breif thing before we get back to the plot... Xandra is indeed human, or at least looks like one. Normally i’m against this as honestly Ducks just mesh better with Dogfaces, other birds and other anthromorphic animals. It just works better and is more consitent to have a world that’s simply anthro animals and non-anthro animals. But.. it works for me here since so the human characters.. are all gods. While i’d of PREFFERED them to still be non humans, like Ducktales does, it works since she’s not really a human but a god and thus it comes off more as her being something inherently diffrent and otherworldly, but something that’s not so distracting it pulls focus away from the rest of the cast, just otherworldly to our heroes.

So while our boy screw with the goddess who you know, tried to murder them for flimsy reasons without stopping to ask why three strangers look exactly like her friends, we get to know the triplets better. I also get a better bead on what voices Jessica is using. May is using Jessica’s Lynn voice, just a touch higher since May isn’t a preteen, while April, the one in yellow, uses the voice she’d later use for candace. Junes is a BIT like Lucy, but with obviously way more energy and emotion. But it’s clear the three are smart confident and willing to run a scheme, and easily get a thousand bucks out of sheldgoose for the spooky purple ring he saw last episode in a really chortleriffic bit where May serves as an auctioneer while her sisters up the price by bidding thus tricking Sheldgoose into paying. They also get past him having a claim on it as he dosen’t have a receipt or anything else other than a verbal contract with Donald, one that wasn’t even complete since the boys hadn’t brought out the atlas, so they were within their rights to fleece him for the ring.. even if him getting it at all is going to backfire, they had no way of knowing that so it’s whatever. Back in the house the boys have apparently done the book thing on Xandra about a hundred times, and Xandra FINALLY grabs the book. At least our boys are bonding. But while threatening them again , she finds out they don’t know what happened.. and recongiing clinton int he painting realizess time has passed, these boys are her boys decendants, and perhaps some explination is in order since she’s lost in a strange world.

So after unveling a bookmark that allows her to project out of the book without being trapped, Xandra gives us our backstory: long ago, in a distant land I Aku master of darkness unleashed an unspeakable evil... wait sorry wrong narration. Long ago Xandra was guardian of the Atlas, which is explained to be the key to various magical hot spots around the world where various myths come from. Things were fine.. until the evil Lord Felldrake decided to screw it all up, binding Xandra to the book and using it to cause chaos and try and take over the world. All was lost till the Cabs stopped him, freed Xandra best they could, and then journed the world with them till she tragically was shut inside the book and seemingly lost. For whatever reason Clinton never opened the book, we’ll presumibly find out later, and well.. here she is. Xandra is voiced by, unsuprisingly given this project’s all-star cast, voice acting vetran and modern legend of the buisness Grey DeLisle, also credited as Grey Griffith for a time. And like tress she has a rather massive and awesome resume, which naturally i’ll be going into since usually I go into shows mid way and don’t get to do this: Grey’s notable rolls include Daphne Blake ever since What’s New, Scooby Doo?, Lor from Weekenders, still not on plus and I will not let that fact go till I get a valid reason why not, Crazy Cat Lady and Lizzie Divine, Mandy, Doctor Ghastly, Kimiko Tohomiko, Sam Manson, Frankie Foster, Azula, Riley Daring, Freida Suarez, Black Canary (Brave and the Bold), Fire, Dr. Holiday, Aya, Master Nadia, Magpie, Moon Butterfly, Jackie Lynn Thomas, Lola Loud, Lana Loud, Lily Loud, and Martin Prince following Russi Taylors tragic passing, just to give you an idea of how long, varied and wonderful her career and range is. And to give a certain person paying for this review an idea of some of the shows i’m familiar with. Moving on. Despite learning of their family legacy of heroics, our heroes are planning to still sell the book given Donald and Jose are poor, and Panchito’s giving in to peer pressure. Seriously Camil is already the MVP of the series, easily the best part of it and it’s a shame he wasn’t brought back for Ducktales, especially since by season 2 frank was aware of legend and Jamie had been on the show before. But Xandra offers them a life of adventure and heroisim.. and when that fails points out theirs treasure and the boys agree to hear her out. So after showing some off Xandra takes them to a Labyrinth to retreive three mystic amulets, and goads Donald into going in by challenging his Ego after he tries to refuse to go. Panchito is naturally fully on board with a dangerous adventure and Jose is talked into it after Xandra pulls an explination why she can’t go out of her firmly toned ass that theirs a mystic barrier which he buys. So while Xandra conjurs a chair and a coconut drink to relax and wait to see if they die or not, our boys head in. They find a massive, beautiful labyrnith and a large house containing a minotaur. Sadly i’ts not Ferdinand aka the Minotaur who worked as Wonder Woman’s chef, cooking up damn good vegetarian goodies for her at the Thymsicarian Embasy. All of this is real things that happened and all are things that should be in the next fucking movie. Seriously as much of a mess as Wonder Woman 1984 is, i’d buy a ticket in a heartbeat caution to teh wind if it was announced he was being adapted for it. He’s also very smart, kind and loyal if you were wondering. Get yourself a man like feridnand if your into men.

Anyways Jose once again tries to speak a languge, and thus we get about a minute of Eric Bauza saying the word moo... sometimes... most times really.. I REALLY, REALLY love my job. But with the bull pissed off and going super sayian god super sayian, there’s only one thing left for our heroes to do...

So they do and we get a great gag where Donald, when deciding wether to split up as to lower the possiblity of him getting hit, has TWO shoulder devils, because inside every man is a battle between good and evil that evil usually wins while dancing and singing a jaunty toon over good’s grave.

But it naturally backfires and the two devils tell him he’s on his own. So we get a fun chase sequence with the three before Donald finally decides fuck it we can fight back. Noticing Panchito’s talent with a rope, he has him rope and ride the Minotaur which he does, then uses Jose’s hankerchief to lure the minotaur and beat him. It’s a gorgeous, fun action sequence that shows off the series is as cool as it is fricking hilaroius. So our heroes find the amulets, a blue one for donald, a red for panchito and green for jose, and put em on, proudly telling Xandra. It’s then revealed the Minotaur.. is an old friend of hers and this was just a test to see if they could work together and you know.. not die. They can, and she’s proud and plesantly suprised by how good they are. So our heroes return home, Xandra storring the atlas on her back, and all three suitably impressed. Their further impressed when they find a hidden lair with more treasure, and three sets of armor, their ancestors old armor which as it did in the teaser at the start of the series, looks REALLY fucking cool and comes from various civlizations. Just.. lovely to look at. Our heroes pose.. and the nieces find them, wonder what’s going on, and mention Sheldgoose at the door, apparnelty not phased to meet a god or that their surrogate uncle has a hlemet. Sheldgoose has come to offer the money.. and it’s REALLY tempiting. Donald has lost EVERYTHING remember, this money could help win Daisy back, get him a fancy house still in new quackmore.. even a third of a million is still enough to set someone as humble and easy to please as donald for life. But.. it’s here where this episode succeds where the premire fell. By this point we’ve SEEN Donald’s weaknsses: he’s greedy, short sighted and selfish. So it makes it THAT MUCH more impactful when he does the right thing, tearing up the check and refusing to sell out his legacy. Sure this could make his life better.. but it’s not worth his soul, his new friends or the world’s safety. He may not be able to get Daisy back or a new house.. but he’d NEVER be able to repalce his new friends, his legacy, or his wonderful new home. Sheldgoose naturally throws a fit and vows vengance and what have you... and just as naturally gets dragged away by his ring. Like the boys he’s brought to a mystic secret chamber by a family heirloom.. but unlike the boys we get a wonderful sequence of him being slammed into things while Wayne Knight makes delightful noises.

But Sheldgoose finds thanks to the ring he was drawn to a styigan well leading to a talking staff... Felldrake surivived, if trapped in the staff.. and he’s Baron’s ancestor, himself a sheldgoose who urges his decsendant to take the staff, accept his destiny and thus Sheldgoose revels in his new power as he and feldrake summon Feldrake’s loyal minon.

So we end on Donald happy. His day was crappy to start.. but while he lost his house, his shrew and his job.. he’s found a new purpose saving the world, an ew life of adventure.. and forever friends in his two new amigos and goddess mentor. He’s finally happy. OR he is for a a second before Feldrake’s minon emerges from it’s sarcophagus and runs off with donald. TO BE CONTINUED. Not doing the jojo gag this time.

Before we go on one last cast member; Kevin Micheal Richardson is Felldrake, and he is unsuprisingly awesome and like Grey has a long and storied career.. you know the drill by now: He’s voiced the Narrator for Clerks the Animated Series, Robert Hawkins (Static’s Dad), Dark Laser, Numbah 5′s dad who was a VERY poorly aged refrence to Bill Cosby, Mammoth, Trigon, Armagedddroid (Something I never realized holy shit good on him), Captain Gantu, The Joker, Pandabubba, Principal Lewis, Schnitzel, Tombstone, Omega Supreme, Cleavland Junior (They drove a dump truck full of money up to his house he’s not made of stone), Mal Duncan, Doctor Fate, Man Ape, Kilowogg, Sheriff Blubs, William Viceroy , Mr. Gus, Rhombulous, Shredder (TMNT 2012), Rosie Rosevelt, Coach Mitchell (Seriously watch Milo Murphy’s Law, we need a season 3), and Dot’s Zit. As you can tell the guy is VERY good at villians so he was a natural choice.

Final Thoughts: This was a huge improvment. With the miserable parts of the pilot long gone this episode is a fun, breezy adventure that sets up our heroes, the series tone, and our bad guy some more while giving us tons of great gags. I highly look forward to whatever comes next and cannot wait for the next episode. Until then, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

#the legend of the three caballeros #the three caballeros #grey delisle #kevin micheal richardson #donald duck #panchito romero miguel junipero francisco quintero gonzalez #Jose Carioca #panchito pistoles #april duck #may duck #june duck #baron von sheldgoose #lord feldrake #xandra

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justasoftplacetoland · 3 years

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Chapter Three

Wow, it's been a year. We’re back in lockdown and I’m back writing again.

It's kinda crazy how much can change in a year. I like to think that it was changed for the better though.

Although 2020, I was really hoping COVID would vanish and life would go back to normal, that hasn’t been the case. It’s kinda like normal is fading farther away as the days go by.

But I’ve been wanting to write about this topic for ages, not exactly sure how, but here’s a shot I guess…

Do note that this is all my personal opinion and my little bit of thought into this topic.

It all started in a class when we were talking about Diversity and Representation on stage. It really sparked an interest for me. As a POC, I find it pretty interesting to read into these topics, especially with the amount of social justice showing up on social media and well.. reality really. With the increased awareness of racism around the world, people are starting to be more woke when it comes to people’s race and ethnicity.

Theatre to me, is a form of storytelling, no matter how unrealistic it may be, or how “fairytale-like” it may be, there’s always some truth to these stories. They all have to come from somewhere right? And with the diversity of people, comes many different stories to tell- Take In The Heights as an example, it's about the Latinx community in America, and how they survive as immigrants. A very real story, because to this day it’s still an active, growing story. Of course, written by Lin Manuel Miranda which is absolutely amazing I am honestly so obsessed with his musicals AND he is a Latino himself, having grown up in Washington Heights.

But then taking The Colour Purple as an example, this musical was written by Marsha Norman, who’s white. Writing about a story of an African American woman in the South.

Then comes the topic of representation.

White writers writing minority stories- Some of these stories HAVE to be told, the weight, the significance of the story, it's a chance for these minorities to be represented on stage. But it becomes a matter of how the casting directors, producers, directors and team behind the show is going to put it forward to the public.

But then the authenticity of the performance comes into play. Are these minorities represented accurately on stage or is it what the creative team *thinks* is who these minorities are? Then are we going to have someone of the specific minority group in the room while the creative team is having decisions for the show? Are we going to have someone in the cast playing someone who is essential to the story that they HAVE to be specifically that minority group? That all has to be present for an authentic, accurate representation of a show, to ensure that this story is told with that truth in it, no matter how much. The more real it is, the more important this authenticity is.

This ties into diversity too.

To me, diversity is the people we see on stage. Take Hamilton as an example, intentional colourblind casting- Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, the Schuyler Sisters, They’re all white in reality. But on stage, they’re played by African-Americans, Latinx, Asians and so many more minority groups.

Diversity to me means breaking barriers, theatre is to be shared by everyone. It’s a gorgeous art form that is out there for everyone to enjoy. It shouldn’t be something for people who are privileged one way or another. It is for actors of any kind to not be labelled by their race, ethnicity or religion, to have an equal chance of landing roles like every other white performer in the world (this is debatable in terms of geographic location as well but that on another day). But this ties into the authenticity of a role that’s being played as well.

If a role that is written as an Asian is out for casting, why cast a white actor when an Asian actor can play it authentically while allowing that Asian actor to play their truth? (Side note on that, there are MANY kinds of Asians out there, not all Asians are the same. Please get that right.) If there are Asians out there who are good actors, who can play the roles. It’s no excuse that an Asian actor isn’t suitable to play an Asian role but a White actor is. It makes no sense.

My mentor once asked me, what would make me enraged, pissed off. The first answer that came to mind was- If Miss Saigon was made out of a fully white cast.

Sure, the back end creative side has been pretty decently accurate (at least to my knowledge). But on stage, I think it is SO important to at least get Asians (as in the umbrella term) to play the Vietnamese and Thai roles. Sometimes you may not be able to find someone who is authentic to that specific ethnicity, sometimes there are actors who are mixed, but then it should go to at the very least POCs. POCs have very unique and sometimes united life experiences that some people are just unable to understand. And to ensure the authenticity of a show, I think it is very vital to at least have actors who are “like” the roles to play them.

But then on the flip side, you think about all the dominantly white roles out there in the theatre world. And you could argue that by casting people who are “not white” would affect the authenticity of the show.

And to this I ask you, think about the ratio between the pieces of theatre written for white people vs. pieces of theatre written for POCs. Clearly, there are SO many more written that have been dominantly cast, because it's the majority yes. And to this, I have to say, if the story is about a complete experience that only a white person would experience (btw I challenge you to name one!) and you want to go all out and cast only white actors sure by all means. But if this can be a shared experience, and a POC actor is suitable for the role, I don't see why those actors should be removed from the equation.

And I swear if one more person dares to tell me that Hamilton should’ve been cast fully white because America is majority white, I’m gonna lose it.

To me, POC actors shouldn't be defined by the colour of their skin, unless it’s necessary for the authenticity of the show (e.g. The King And I, Miss Saigon, Hamilton, The Colour Purple, In The Heights) If they are truly defined by the colour of their skin, you could literally count the number of shows on your hands. (That has to change btw- progress !!!) And if that is the case, SO many POC actors will be out of jobs. I don’t see why a Latina can’t be Elphaba in Wicked, or an Asian be Cosette in Les Miserables.

The problem is, so many casting directors have this image of who they want to cast in a show, most of the time, that image ends up being someone white.

BUT POCs shouldn't be defined by the colour of their skin and end up being the “token POC”.

Welcome readers, to Tokenism.

Tokenism is when, say an entire cast of 20 people, 19 are white, 1 is black.

Theatre companies take diversity into consideration and want to appear progressive, yes. But they use a single POC to show “HEY WE’RE DIVERSE”

Sorry, hun that's not how this works. It becomes a thing of casting actors, not for their talent or their suitability for the role, but because of the colour of their skin (again!). Now I'm not saying that the “token” actor isn't good at their craft because I have no doubt. But it becomes a front, and said actor would end up questioning if they got the role for their skills or because they fit the criteria for “one POC per cast”.

Nice try casting team, it’s a start, but not good enough.

We’re making progress, the first POC Christine has just been cast in Phantom Of The Opera on the West End and I couldn't be happier. Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is made up of a VERY diverse cast as well. We’re getting there, but there's so much room to be better.

Here’s to more authentic stories about minorities, more diversity on stage, and more love to all humans.

So that's the end of my rather large chunk of thoughts on the theatre industry.

I sincerely hope I didn’t offend anyone reading!

See you in my next post! (Which hopefully won’t be written a whole year later)

C xx

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cynthiaandsamus · 3 years

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Custom Toonami Block Week 72 Rundown

Code Geass: Lelouch continues his plan to kidnap a little Chinese girl and Todoh gets to show off his new Zangetsu so the Black Knights enjoy having two Knightmares worth a damn for once, though as if on cue Kallen gets caught in the most bullshit way possible bringing them back down to one Ace. Xingke has home field advantage and a new Knightmare with spinny dealies and turns Zero’s bullshit tactics of fighting in the one place that basically wipes out the enemy for him against him. However the gods of the Code Geass world themselves said “You know Xingke’s way too OP, better Kimimaro him and make it so he’s terminally ill so he can’t do too much” so now the Black Knights are literally backed into a cave and instead of letting Xingke just finish the job the Chinese government swoops in with Britannian reinforcements to try and claim victory and seize power all at once. Also Lelouch is somehow back at school despite being in China and I don’t remember this part at all but I guess it answers my question from last time. I think it has something to do with Sayoko and realistic Lupin III style mask or something.

Inuyasha: The Panther Demon filler continues as Inuyasha’s Group, Koga and his two goons and Sesshomaru/Jaken make their way into Panther Demon territory after Inuyasha breaks their barrier. Koga meets up with Royokhan and gets the low down on the Panther Demon backstory with Taiga killing their leader hundreds of years ago and then Sesshomaru beating them 50 years ago but losing a lot of men in the process. It’s kind of a neat turn seeing Jaken go try to get Inuyasha and Sesshomaru’s like “fine I guess we’ll let him help” and then getting mad when he finds out he can’t even come because he’s nailed to a tree. Like it’s a weird bit of complexity for Sesshomaru to feel betrayed by not getting help he never really wanted and now being determined to fight off the Panthers alone. Anyway all the groups square off against the Panther mini-bosses, Lightning Panther beats Miroku and Sango and gets them captured with Kagome, Wind Panther fights Koga to a draw, Ice Panther continues her beef with Sesshomaru and Fire Panther keeps teasing Inuyasha. It’s kinda nice that they give every group someone to fight and something to do but I kinda wish these fights lasted longer and Fire/Ice panther were scaled up a bit to match Inuyasha and Sesshomaru’s power because they’re firing huge sword beams at this point and it just doesn’t seem like they’d have this much trouble with them. Also Jaken and Inuyasha meet and both of them are like ‘hey you seen my group?’ which I just thought was funny.

Yu Yu Hakusho: A new arc begins and honestly this is the Yu Yu Hakusho arc I remember the least because I think I missed an episode or two in the middle of it since YYH came on right around when I got home from school back in the day. But yeah, Kuwabara suddenly decides he doesn’t wanna do demon shit anymore and Yusuke’s like “fine it wasn’t your job anyway you made me let you come last time” and then Kuwabara immediately backpedals on it because there’s a hot girl he wants to save. Also they still need to give Keiko a lame backstory about Yusuke interning with a detective that doesn’t explain all the zombies after her but Kuwabara’s sister being like “Damn who’s the spirit baby, here’s $50 for the bus” is fine apparently. Anyway we get the Toguro brothers’ introduction and it’s neat to see them effortlessly make Yukina cry to make jewels and then have Younger Toguro give her some advice about making herself cry on cue so she doesn’t have to suffer every time which is some weird tough love take it or leave it advice that says a lot about his character right away. Also Yusuke and Kuwabara fight a giant plant demon who’s all like “Yeah I’m a demon but I got bills to pay bitch” and like what bills does a demon have and why can’t they just steal from the rich human but it doesn’t matter because Yusuke and Kuwabara just blow him away.

Fate Zero: So the church is like ‘yo free Command Seal to whoever fucks up Caster’ which is strange because yeah Caster’s killing children and shit but UBW Caster killed a bunch of peeps too and no one blinked an eye and Kiritsugu blew up a fucking building and no one cares so I have no idea where the line is here. Also Iskandar gets a shirt from amazon and it’s hilarious but he forgot to order pants and Waver tells him he’s not allowed to wear pants until he murders a historical figure and Iskander’s like “you know what that’s fair” so he’s just gonna be freeballing it for a while I guess. Strategy meeting with Kiritsugu, Iris and Saber happens and Saber seems more than a little pissy that Kiritsugu doesn’t address her directly and is basically treating her like a Pokemon. They talk about the four spots the grail can appear at and since we’ve already seen UBW we know it’s gonna be in the huge residential place so it can murder everyone and also Shirou. Also Caster shows up for Tentacle Hentai time with Saber along with more child murder but Lancer’s like “Hey I am the Vegeta of this story and no one kills Saberot but me” while Kiritsugu does his Homura Akemi thing to fight off Kayneth’s T-1000 Black Clover Nozel Silva Mercury Magic which is just amazingly amusing to me that Kiritsugu’s fighting style is to just shoot all these demi-god mages in the face and end his battles in the most anticlimactic way possible.

Konosuba: So Kazuma’s dead again. Shoulda really occurred to him sooner that dying again would get him reincarned again but nah, Samurai Santa has to come off him so he can meet Eris but he actually seems to miss his friends a bit. Like he doesn’t ask to go back specifically we’re not being that cheesy here but considering Kazuma’s two purposes in this story are to complain and explain the joke it is nice that he has some lingering feelings for his party. Then Aqua’s all “Hey fucker get back here, you’re not getting rid of me that easily” and despite Eris saying they can’t just revive him because he doesn’t belong there Aqua just does it anyway, really gives the vibe of an older coworker being like “you’re not supposed to do it this way but this is the way I do it” kind of deal. But yeah Kazuma has a crush on Eris now and despite these guys saying how much they hate being in a group together they sure seem to turn down every out they have to get away from each other, idk I get the joke and jadedness but a little more sincerity would be nice.

Sailor Moon Crystal: Usagi wakes up at Mamoru’s place and he gives her his backstory about how he became Amnesiac Batman in Evening Wear. Luna knows Sailor V but for some reason is really cagey about divulging that to the rest of the group even though literally everyone has been assembled now. There’s a dated plot about Blockbuster taking over people’s minds that Usagi literally handwaves away when Zoisite comes out and punches her and defeats the whole team with one dark energy wave. Tuxedo Mask comes in and punches him in the face and then remembers he doesn’t have any powers and gets owned. The two have a sweet but ultimately cringy reunion before Sailor V saves their worthless asses.

Durarara!!: With Mikado’s status as Founder of the Dollars revealed, Seiji goes on a stabbing rampage again and luckily keeps stabbing the only people that don’t actually get hurt by it, this time being Celty. Celty’s about to go grim reaper on Seiji’s worthless ass before Mika Harima runs in and tells everyone she isn’t really Celty’s head, weirdly enough Mikado recognizes this right before she says anything somehow, like makes sense Celty realizes it’s not her head but Mikado has no frame of reference aside from knowing she was wearing Mika’s clothes which in her cover story would be explained by Celty’s head leeching off Mika’s dead body. But yeah despite Seiji spending 18 hours a day staring at Mika he apparently couldn’t tell either which really throws a wrench in his “power of love justifies indiscriminate murder” philosophy which amuses both Izaya and me. Mikado breaks down the craziness that’s just transpired what with the stalking, murder, incest, identity theft, actual theft, and stabbing and tries to put a positive spin on it in that Seiji and Mika are both fucking crazy and deserve each other but it’s a hard sell my dude. Izaya tells Mikado that he’s going to be an excitement junkie like him soon if he keeps ramping up life in this crazy city and Celty just kinda forgives Shinra for knowing where her head is without telling her and also plastic surgerizing a yandere girl to look like her and give her her name which seems a little weird for them to just punch each other and call it a wash when Shinra was arguably as yandere as Mika here and they still get unofficially married. Seiji tells Mika he doesn’t love her but because of all the shit she went through to literally mold herself into the object of his obsession he guess she can hang around until he gets the headless sex toy of his dreams so… happy ending I guess. Everyone in this town is fucking crazy and they forgive each other way too easily but for a show that swings back and forth between how fucked up people are and saying humanity is fundamentally pretty decent I guess that’s kind of the point.

#ooc #Toonami #Custom Toonami Block #Code Geass #Inuyasha #Yu Yu Hakusho #Fate Zero #Konosuba #Sailor Moon Crystal #Durarara!!

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aboyandhisstarship · 4 years

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Human are weird: The GTO/SICON verse Reboot

The GTO, Or Galactic Treaty Organization is a military and political alliance between a number of species in the alpha quadrat of the galaxy. The GTO is a rather new organization only founded nine years ago following the first contact incident, where The Klendthu’s crash landed on a small cold planet on the edge of a solar system at the edge of the galaxy, and encountered a small outpost, one mis understanding later, and The Klendthu’s spent 6 Terren months fighting the creature’s from the fourth planet.

Once diplomacy was able to be established through communications a cease fire was called, and the strange race who called themselves Humans started a dialog.

Over the last nine years the alliance has grown to be a massive power house in economics, Politics and Defense. They are 4 major races in the alliance

The Klendthu Congress: an insect race with a regional hive mind, but don’t let that fool you, they are wicked smart and industrious. They have developed some of the most impressive mining tech available. Their planets is ruled by a Queen there entire government by the high queen, the average worker has about the same level of intelligence of a human 6 year old, but when working groups then can easily compete with a genius level human.

The Kalbur Merchant Empire: a race that vaguely resembles the big foots of earth legend. They are the economic Backbone of the GTO, there race is built around the building and creating of wealth, money heavily influencing there culture. Their government is run by a council of officials elected from the top business and workers unions on their world. In terms of technology they tend to lead in interstellar coms and other commercial type tech, with their military tech sorely lacking…as such they maintain an allied Military presence on their worlds.

The Verkia technocracy: an Aquatic telepathically floating species that vaguely resembles the squids of earth, they are the most advanced species in the known galaxy in almost every way. As such however they tend to be stiff and follow a very strict social custom; it is considered taboo for a student to leave the sciences in exchange for another discipline, sometimes leading as far as disowning by family and friends, or worse case total exile from Varikan society. There government is run by a council of appointed top scientists that are generally the heads of top instuites within Verikan space.”

The Strategically Integrated Collation of Nations: The Humans, the youngest race in the group as well as the craziest, Hailing from a death world on the edge of the galaxy where everything can and will kill you they are a society still recovering from finding out aliens even exist and there conflict with them. SICON was formed after the Pluto attacks from several of the earths major nation states, pushing aside the last barriers to unification. SICON is a democracy, with each former earth nation state, and Human colony earning a seat in the SICON Parliament with the majority seat holder winning said election with the party head becoming the Prime minster, Underneath them is the Star Marshal, commander in chief of the SICON Navy, and the ODT’s or Orbital Drop Teams… highly trained and equipped soldiers who go through a strict selection process. The nature of the human world as well as their Military technique’s make them the leader in Military technology by miles, with standard issue power suits for ground forces, the entire concept of Orbital insertion, air support and deep space carriers being introduced by the humans. These advantages are only enhanced by their natural predatory nature and ability to hone their bodies into killing machines….

T’Las groaned scratching her fur groaning “Great I keep making the humans sound terrifying.” The Kalbur sat back in the far too tall chair. It was built for a human after all she groaned, she sat in a gray metal room, the thick bulkheads joined into a thick window showing the swirls of hyperspace outside the window.

T’Las was grateful to the human for letting her take his office as he called it, but honestly being on a human ship was scary…well the entire assignment she was given was scary. 18 terran months ago a Verkian science ship crash landed on a Pre FTL society and well the folk on the planet went crazy fighting over the tech they could barely understand, by now only two groups remained on the planet before the GTO sent an intervention team, well Humans falling from the sky into your main base would put the fear of god into anyone and the sides agreed to moderated peace talks, she had actually been invited to dine in the captain’s cabin with the Ambassador, the Captain and the ODT Commanding officer, and had to quickly get ready. She put on her formal fur clips and quickly moved through the ship.

The Valley Forge is what the humans called it and as human ships go it was on the small side, only 400 meters long and 600 across. The vast majority was taken up by the Chekov drive core and the small retrieval ship and drop tubes for the ODT team. She left the section of the ship past a group of humans joking about something called a date, before she left the ODT region of the ship.

It took her a couple of minutes and asking for direction’s before she arrived at the metal door. She knocked and a human voice called “come in.”

Inside were to humans before dressed in their formal uniforms, one had more bars across her shoulders and was a human female, T’Las was able to identify as she introduced “Hello, you must be the reporter joining us, I’m Captain Hernández.”

The male human who was also in Dress uniform had shoulder patches on the side of his jacket that looked kind of like the Human drop pods as he introduced “Lieutenant William Erickson, ODT senior officer.”

T’Las carefully took the offered seat “Nice to meet you Captain Hernández, Lieutenant Erickson.”

There was sound of something scraping and a robotic voice saying “May I enter.”

Erickson and Herandez stood up as the door opened, in stepped a creature that walked on four legs, it was armoured and had 4 side facing eyes, attached to its chest was a small box, Herndez smiled “your Majesty.”

The creature screeched before a second later the robotic voice spoke “Captain, Lieutenant…we have known each other long enough to dispense with the Niceties surely.”

Erickson laughed “I’m sorry to say its official orders, they don’t want us causing too much trouble.”

Herndez chuckled as she said “you’re Majesty Queen of Gamma prime, this is T’Las of the Kalbur.”

T’Las had never seen a klendtuian queen before and muttered out a “Hello…your majesty.” She quickly added bowing slightly.

The queen made a chirping sound that robotic voice translated to a disjointed human laugh before saying “there is no need we are all equals here.”

The three of them sat down as a small platform elevated the queen to the table, Erickson took a sip of water saying “the squad says hi, and Futuba was real bummed she could not join us.”

The queen somehow betrayed a guine response through the robotic voice as she responded “I’m sorry they were unable to join, it has been for too long since I last saw dagger squad.”

A couple of humans still in there dress best placed done four plates, for the humans it was a simple salad meal with Erickson grinning “SICON figured streaks were not a good look.”

The queen chirped again as a plate of strange green slush was placed in front of her and T’Las got a salad in the style of her people. T’Las asked “so how do you all know each other?”

Erickson smiled without showing teeth “long story, it involves a lot of explosives.”

The queen scratched “it was my vessel that crashed on Pluto, then private Erickson, and then flight Lieutent Hernández crash landed in my den, we were lucky enough to have gotten our…talk box open…they were the first to talk to us…they helped us build peace.”

Erickson smiled “we got a cease fire and spent 3 weeks talking, we had to live off my mom’s cookies.”

The queen chirped “I’m sorry you could not eat our food.”

Herndez grinned “I thought the food was ok, the company was awful.”

Erickson looked genuinely hurt as the conversation moved to a different topic.

17 hours later:

T’Las was sitting in her quarters/ borrowed office mussing about the nature of Human space travel. Most other GTO races have adopted the supercharged carrier system, where the engines have a certain particle run through it in an infinite loop that somehow results in faster than light travel; Humans on the hand adopted the Chekov hyper drive, named after the human scientist Anton Chekov who invented it. The Chekov drive punches a hole in subspace allowing the human ship to enter into another dimension allowing the vessel hundreds time faster than the speed of light.

T’Las did not pretend to be well versed on the subject of interstellar Star ships but she started to write “as I fly on the human ship I noticed something interesting about the difference in the FTL Technology employed by SICON as opposed to the employed by the rest of the GTO, but first some background, for any ready who is not aware Humans are pursuit predators, what does this mean? imagine for a second that you are a terran creature, you see a human coming and run away. The issue is you are faster than the human but the human can chase you as far as they need to, sometimes for kilometers and days at a time.”

T’Las read that and said “NOPE.” She quickly edited “Being a Pursuit predator means they chase their prey, sometimes for days and across vast landscapes, just about anything can out sprint the average (non -power suit wearing) human, but in a distance race…you lose every time. What is the relevance of what I’m saying? Well Most FTL tech we know of is faster than Human hyperspace, but the Humans can go farther and for longer…Example, A Kalbur ship and a human ship need to cross GTO space, the distance is say 15 Cubic light years, The Kalbur ship would rock ahead of the ship until about 5 light years at which point it needs to slow down to let the engines recharge, by contrast the humans will stay be coming and easily overtake the Kalbur, once the Kalbur engines re charge they will jump and yet again overshoot the humans until uh oh, they have to stop again, meanwhile the humans have being moving at a steady pace this entire time and easily yet again over take the Kalbur and hit where they want to be easily hours before the Kalbur vessel.”

T’Las read it over before nodding approvingly “that’s better.” Adding “now the logical next question, what about in combat and yes it is as terrifying as you would think, the humans with their massive over gunned ships firing hunks of metal at a quarter of the speed of light at you, so you make a break for it…and you think you are in the clear then boom, they appear out of nowhere (reminder that we have yet to have anyway detect someone in Chekov travel, and if the humans do they are not sharing.) You can’t run you can’t hide you can only that they are feeling merciful.”

T’Las re read the last paragraph saying “way to dark…” deleting the last paragraph she smiled sending the story off, as well as her other noted on the function .

7 hours later:

T’Las heard a small knock on her door, and opened it to see a human with a strange shape on her face the human grinned “Hiyo.”

T’Las blinked “uhh hi?”

The human smiled “Specialist Futuba Kurogane, Dagger Squad, intel and Communication’s.”

T’Las nodded “Pleasure…uhhh not to be rude?”

Futuba grinned “oh yea right, this came for you from your boss,” Handing T’Las a drive saying “have a good one.”

T’Las played the message and it was her boss telling her “that last story is a gold mine! We have re run it 4 times and they still want more! Keep up the good work!”

T’Las rewatched the message 4 times saying “people are really that interested?”

2 hours later:

T’Las backed up as the creature advanced towards her, it was on four legs and bore it’s teeth as it sniffed her, the humans office door had closed cutting off her escape from the predator, T’Las considered making a break for it when a human shouted in a language her translator did not recognize. The creature instantly stopped sniffing her and trotted back towards the human, the human was a female of darker complexion who smiled sheepishly, saying to T’Las “sorry about Porthos here.”

T’Las took a deep breath before yelling “WHY DO YOU HAVE A DEADLY PREADTOR IN YOUR INCLOSED SPACESHIP!”

The human rolled her eyes “she is a MWD.”

T’Las said “what!?”

Erickson rounded the corner saying with crossed arms “heard some yelling, what’s the issue Specialist?”

He reached down petting the creature as the other human said “Porthos seems to put the fear of god into our guest here.”

Erickson sighed “Abebi, you know we had aliens onboard who would be scared of Porthos.”

Erickson looked at T’Las before saying “come on, I will fill you in.”

Mess hall:

Erickson drunk a glass of water explaining “there is a creature on earth called a dog.”

T’Las nodded following, as Erickson sighed “these animals have amazing sense of smell so we train them to find things for us; Porthos for instance is a bomb sniffer….so if you ever see him sit run….Abebi, is his Handler she takes care of leads the dog on mission’s…that make sense?”

T’Las sighed “sure you humans have trained a deadly predator to find equally deadly explosives for you…great…”

Erickson glanced at his wrist “we are almost at the planet get ready.”

Clapping T’Las on the shoulder

Hanger bay:

The ship rocked as it dropped out of hyperspace, Ericson was dressed in strange 4 piece garments with dark lens over his face as he explained “this place was a warzone a few days ago, so stay close and do as we tell you, everyone follow?”

The queen squawked her affirmative and T’Las nodded awkwardly as they boarded the military drop craft.

4 hours later:

The conference had been going on for hours now with the creature Porthos and his handler walking around constantly as the rest of the humans eyed the assembled crowd, so far everything was safe and secure. The peace was signed But then the meet and greet and the glad handing with the all the ambassador’s started, and well T’Las was happy she had her camera drone on for what happened next.

The drone had been flying around the room for about twenty minutes when an alien stepped forward to speak to the ambassador’s, Porthos walked towards the alien sniffing before sitting facing him. T’Las remembering what Erickson said looked for something to hide behind as all the humans in the room stiffed, The queen knowing what Porthos was as well changed color, however the aliens on the planet did not know what was about to happen. A tense second later, small sliver looking weapons appeared in the humans hands as Erickson yelled “hands in the air!”

Porthos rose up barking as Erickson yelled “Abebi!”

The handler nodded “on it sir!” yelling something in a strange human language, the dog advanced on the now terrified alien, sniffing before looking at the creatures jacket and growling. The humans moved in as Erickson said “Futuba call for evac, Abebi.”

The handler interrupted “checking the entire room got it.”

Erickson threw the alien down pulling out a bomb he quickly defused he said “Valley Forge we are pulling out over!”

The delegation quickly moved out to the waiting drop ship, handing the would be bomber over to the locals they blasted off, the humans visibly relaxed and started chatting with each other and the queen like they all almost didn’t get blown up, leaving T’Las to come to the conclusion “Humans are weird. “

#SICON verse #humans are weird #humans are space orcs

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