#like in the anime they kinda go on dates because of his inability to say no but ok. once or twice. most physical touch is a hug. most

[kashilascorner]

the after the rain manga has me sad because the reason why i enjoyed the anime was because it was complex but things were taken seriously and most importantly, the story never actually turned into a romance. in the manga though... Aside from the blatant fanservice in some of the chapters/volumes, kondou explicitly admits to being in love with akira 😬

[whoneedssexed]

Hi. I need advice. My bf has depression and while it hasn't been terrible while we have been dating , recently he seems more distant and has mentioned he feels stuck in life, he's constantly unsure now which is very not him and keeps quiet and says "I dont know" alot. We and his friends think his depression is slowly coming back, because obviously it doesn't go away. I dont know how to help, because I do feel like its putting a strain on our relationship, we're currently doing long distance due to work so we arnt able to have our similar routine. His communication skills are not the best, we have small arguments frequently mainly due to his lack of interest on the conversation or his small outbursts. Which at the time I didnt put two and two together but now it kinda make sense. I feel like he has become distant and dont seem engaged at all when we have little time to talk. While I feel for him, im getting frustrated because our fight seem to be the same pattern, of him not being able to communicate properly. I've expressed this before as this is all we have at the moment and he seems to understand but doesn't seem to make much effort of trying. I do think the distance has affected this and he doesn't seem to realize, he a very actions person and he has expressed that he feels useless bc he can't do much for me while I'm away. Were so well together in person but lately we seem like a completely different couple . I'm not sure what to do, I think I want to give him some space , which makes me a bit sad bc we hardly have much time to chat. I ask him if he needs alone time ,etc but he can't seem to answer me with a direct answer. During our relationship his depression hasn't been bad , its been maybe mild but nothing to this effect, it's never caused a shift in our relationship but this time it feels different. So im.not sure how to go about this. Any advice would help, I do love him and want our relationship to grow but the past couple of months it seems more draining and mentally exhausting.

I know this is a very, very late response, but when things get like this for depressed people, it can be a red flag for potential suicidal ideation.

That said, being depressed can also cause a lot of brain fog, which makes people indecisive, dissociative, unable to think to the future, etc. This happens because of how exhausting and draining depression can be, especially in a world that demands you always be doing something, anything, at every moment. People with depression are extremely susceptible to burnout.

He could need a change in medication/treatment, or a change in environment, or a change in his support systems. Or sometimes, it's just a temporary rut in life. Doing more positive and/or relaxing things can also help, such as colouring in books, going to a movie, starting a new series, visiting an animal sanctuary, going on a hike, going to an amusement park, etc. Things that don't require a lot of effort and can be simply enjoyed, depending on social tolerances (ex: a museum could be a bad idea because there's too many people and it overwhelms).

There's also the fact that the strain on your relationship could be the cause of the depression and not the other way around. Which is to say, because you guys aren't in your usual routines and aren't able to experience each other often, his depression is returning. A lot of depressed people rely on routine and partner support to supplement their treatments. Breaking routine in particular can leave someone feeling lost, hopeless, confused, stuck, and so on. Plenty of people need routine to feel purpose and direction in their lives.

Depression can cause more arguing because it can deplete one's ability to tolerate others. Again, this is because of how draining depression is, which leaves someone with significantly less spoons and overwhelmed easily. Shutting down is a natural defense mechanism and presents itself as aloofness, sudden bouts of anger, disinterest in anything, inability to conversate, and so on. There can be different ways to treat these individual symptoms which can improve the overall depression.

If he seems to struggle still with communication or explaining what he wants and thinks, have him start keeping a journal or notebook where he writes everything he is feeling, or even draws pictures. Have him jot down any time his mood dips and what happened at the time it did, and maybe he can find triggers for what's going on with him.

But, it is fair to be frustrated. You have your own feelings and likely own problems as well and for the support YOU needed to be taken away is absolutely a frustrating thing. It's a good idea for you to find other support in this trying time to maybe take the pressure off of him.

If you haven't already, I would communicate to him exactly how you're feeling, and that you want to help but you don't know what to do. Ask him what he needs most right now - a distraction? a discussion? a solution? - and follow through. If he can't decide about it, emphasize you're there for when he knows. Additionally, explain to him that there's always gonna be sometimes when you two can't be in person and that he can't fix everything every time, and that you don't expect him to.

Here are some resources for both of you:

Getting Out of a Funk: How to Help Yourself Through Depression

Tips for managing depression in relationships

Babylon: How Depression Can Affect Relationships

Self-care Wellness Toolkit

Worksheet for depression coping skills

How to talk to someone who has depression

How and Why to Practice Self-Care

How can I communicate with someone with depression?

Depression in relationships

How to Tell Someone You're Depressed

Helping Someone with Depression

The Impact Your Mental Health Can Have on Communication

PsychCentral: 10 Self Care Tips for When You Have Depression

Anna Freud: Self Care

What Not to Say or Do to Someone Who Has Depression

Coping with Depression

How to Talk to Your Partner About Your Depression

How Depression Affects My Ability to Communicate

Psychology Today: Why Self Care is Hard for Depressed Individuals

The Royal Australian & New Zealand College of Psychiatrists: Self-care for depression

6 Powerful and Effective Ways to Communicate Better in Relationships

5 Signs that Depression is Eroding Your Relationship

How to Talk about Depression with Family and Friends

Tips On Communicating With Those Who Have Depression

6 Dos and Don'ts for Supporting Someone Who Has Depression

22 Ways to Cope with Your Depression

NIH: Caring For Your Mental Health

Depression Self Help Guide

Mindfulness and Relaxation Techniques to Help with Depression Symptoms

Healthy Coping Skills for Depression, Anxiety, and Anger

Clear Minds Center: Tips for Communicating with Someone Who is Depressed

How Depression Effects Relationships and What You Can Do

What to Know About Dating Someone With Depression

Relationships and Communication

How to use mindfulness for depression

Depression in Relationships: When to Say Goodbye

-Mod BP

[excelsi-or]

your type (pt. 3)

BIPOC rec: Amii Ceramics  on Youtube and IG does ASMR ceramics vlogs where she makes the most adorable animal plant pots. She’s an Asian creator based in Canada. I really love her work and love watching her studio vlogs. They’re so soothing.

w.c. 770 (short little filler)

pairing: woozi x OC/reader

pt. 1; pt. 2

“I bet you can’t win noona over,” Hansol says later that evening.

They’re having a video game night, sans Chan, Joshua, and Jeonghan who have tests coming up. Regardless there are still enough people to tease Jihoon’s about his inability to get a phone number.

“Jihoon’s got the best game out of all of us. She must be playing hard to get,” Seungcheol muses.

“You obviously don’t know noona,” Seungkwan retorts. “You only get noona’s attention if she wants to give it to you.”

“We don’t even have her number. And she likes us,” Hansol chimes in.

“Hence why you guys aren’t friends,” Seokmin laughs.

Soonyoung adjusts himself on the couch. “Cheol’s right though.” He drops his phone onto his stomach to leave a girl hanging for an hour. “If anyone’s going to be able to get her, it’s going to be Jihoon.”

Jun claps his hands and straightens up onto his knees. “We haven’t had a bet in ages.” He passes the controller to Minghao after having just lost. “Should we text the others?”

The bet is half and half. Seungcheol, Soonyoung, Minghao, Jun, Mingyu, Jeonghan and Jihoon are all convinced that their best Casanova can win her over. The bet ends when someone says ‘I love you’.

“Let’s bet 100 each,” Seungcheol says.

“You’re an idiot!” Jeonghan shouts down the line.

“You’re on our side!” Seungcheol argues. “Aren’t you sure Jihoonie can do this?”

“Of course, but we’re still students. Still poor students!”

“Don’t worry, hyung. When I win, you get double your money,” Jihoon chuckles. That seems to appease him.

With the details of the bet decided, Jihoon turns to Seungcheol. “Can you invite the girls over tomorrow night? If there’s too much of a lag between the invitation and our breakfast, she won’t come.”

Seungcheol waves his phone in the air. “I got you, Jihoonie. Already done. They’ll be over for drinks and board games tomorrow night.”

“Cheol invited us all over tomorrow,” Jihyo announces.

The girls are all over for a group study evening. There are two coffee pots on either end of the table, and snacks scattered like a cohesive center piece.

Jihyo meets her roommate’s eye across the table. “You coming?”

Wheein reaches into one of the three chip bowls to pop a chip in her mouth. “Jihyo told us about your breakfast date. How was it?”

She glances up and notices everyone’s eyes on her. She scoffs. “It was fine. Pretty good actually.” She shakes her head and returns to the chemistry paper she’s reading. “But I’m not coming.”

“Why not?” Momo whines. “You just said it was good.”

Hwasa tips her head, adjusting her glasses on her nose. “She’s not into playing around, remember? And Jihoon is one of the biggest players we know.” She shakes her head. “Let’s just leave it.”

She looks up when Sejeong taps the back of her hand. “You haven’t properly dated anyone in ages. What’s the harm in playing around? He’s clearly not looking for anything serious and Jihoon oppa’s a good-looking man!”

She chuckles at the term of endearment.

“And rumours are he’s packing,” Sana giggles. When they all turn to her in surprise, Sana lifts her hands in defense. “A girl I sat beside in my biomembranes class used to sleep with him.”

She hums. “I’m not interested in playing around with Jihoon.”

“Just because you got hurt last time, doesn’t mean that you will again.”

She hesitates before closing the lid of her laptop. “Well, what do you guys know about him?” Her girls are going to be relentless if she doesn’t indulge them a little.

Everyone has something to say about Lee Jihoon, either from direct interactions or through second-hand gossip.

Sejeong claims that she’s met people who believe Jihoon’s the best in bed.

Jihyo claims that Jihoon’s really romantic.

Whereas Momo and Hwasa both say they’ve gotten mixed results when they speak with Jihoon.

“If he’s the hot and cold kinda guy, sometimes they turn out to be the sweetest types,” Wheein chuckles. She’s the most amused by this conversation, but can definitely see the pain on her friend’s face. “What about this? You just come tomorrow. One time. If Jihoon isn’t all over you, or you’re really not interested in him, then your breakfast was a write off and we’ll lay off.” Wheein tosses a sour gummy worm across the table and tips her head. “Deal?”

She catches the gummy worm and pauses before putting it into her mouth. “If you think it’s good for me, fine, deal.”

Her girls all cheers their mugs of coffee as they buckle down for a long night of studying.

[adultswim2021]

Aqua Teen Hunger Force #47: “eDork” | August 29, 2004 - 12:00 AM | S04E05

Two things I should mention up top: I consider this episode to be particularly unmemorable by virtue of the fact that I did not really remember it. I remember somebody using a GIF from this episode as a message board avatar but almost nothing else. Also, I’m in a really terrible mood right now. So this one’s not going to fare too well. That’s just how it is, bro.

This one’s pretty straight-forward. Shake (and Carl, and at a point, Meatwad) get a “state-of-the-art” e-helmet that lets them do various things that your current-day smart phones do, except you don’t wear a gigantic heavy thing on your head to operate your smartphone. There’s also glasses that let Carl look at farmyard porn, and a piano attachment that just incessantly plays ragtime. It’s a fairly staid comedy tradition of depicting a bad product, one that is disingenuously portrayed as useful when it’s anything but.

The helmet and it’s various attachments are so heavy that Shake’s inability to mobilize himself causes him to need to buy a pair of robot legs that go with his helmet. Carl also gets these legs, and the legs immediately start humping each other. This is in the last few minutes of the episode, which actually do escalate the premise in an effective, fairly funny but also kinda creepy in an off-putting way. Most of the episode doesn’t add up to much, though. I guess there’s a reason I didn’t really remember this one.

Make-Out Session Promo (August 28, 2004)

Again, I’m really not sure where I’m getting these dates from. I remember combing through toonzone RATE AND REVIEW threads many years ago to pin things like this down. This bumper featured nothing but stock footage of a young couple making out. Thus began Adult Swim’s love of stock footage. They purchased some stock footage library and used it incessantly from here on out in various ironic ways.

I recall somebody from the network being interviewed, and I remember the interviewer saying that the network was starting to look too slick and try to appeal to NORMIES because they thought the stock footage use was an intentional ploy to attract non-stoners? Like they didn’t understand that it was ironic at all? Does anybody else remember this? Why do I??

MAIL BAG

Do you remember the MTV show 3 South that had Brian Posehn on it? I remember it airing around the same time as Clone High but I liked 3 South better. But such opinions are now in the dustbin of history and you gotta respect that

I do respect that. I never did watch this show, but I think I rejected almost any comedy that was COLLEGE related, because I fucking hated college so much. It aired around the time UNDERGRADS did, and I remember sorta confusing the two shows with each other. From what I read 3 South was the superior show.

When you think of it, MTV Animation played a pretty big role in the development in adult cartoons. It was pretty experimental and envelope-pushing, and even though it only yielded one true classic (Beavis and Butthole of course) it did pave the way for Adult Swim in a fashion. I almost should tackle that next, but I don’t wanna watch The Brothers Grunt. Good god, who does?

[sanshineaus]

six or so

JUNG YOONOH/JAEYHUN X READER

warnings: none

type: drabble, fluff

word count: 2694

a/n: yoonoh tattoo for new comeback yoonoh tattoo for new comeback yoonoh ta-

”Oh my God, Yoonoh,“ your hands instinctively come to cover your mouth, your lips already curling into a grin that makes your eyes turn into crescents.

“Yeah?” the man in question raises his head from his phone, and you can’t help but let out an incredulous chuckle. Now that his neck is in view, the tattoo adorning it truly makes you huff with joy.

The other commuters at the bus station certainly aren’t fans of your ardour.

The ink is anything but delicate, and tracing it with your eyes, you realize how big it really is. Running from his collarbone and all the way up to his ear, the face seems hostile; and although you can’t make out exactly what it is, the fangs are simply perfectly done, and the rough shading only adds onto the charm of it.

Your hands slowly find their way back down to your sides, and your grin seems to widen as you let out yet another peep of pure joy, “It looks so good on you!”

Yoonoh’s smile in return is quite bashful, and he hangs his head down once again with a small wince—the flesh must still be a bit tender, after all he had only disappeared for six or so days and judging by the size of the tattoo it can’t have healed evenly everywhere.

Your best friend finally lifts his beautiful head again, and you feel yourself flutter when you catch his grinning gaze, his teeth on full display as he moved to greet you at last. A quick hug, though he makes sure to sway you both to the left, and you can’t help the laugh which bubbles up to your lips once again.

Yoonoh just seems to elicit joy from you, every single one of his appearances prompting you to smile and brightening your day. It’s not that he offers himself to do so or anything like that—it’s just that you feel it’s only natural to mimic the dimpled boy in his very own cheer.

You’ve exchanged so many jokes and tremors within the six or so years you’ve known each other. From highschool and petty drama where you vowed to each other to never interact with humans over a pint of rum-chocolate ice cream, to now; fresh out of college and promising each other to not forget friend date nights over a bottle of whatever was cheap and weak (because you both thankfully found jobs and you’d like to keep them AND drink on week nights).

You two finally begin walking, away from the bus station you, and into the street right next to it. The change of scenery would’ve given you whiplash if it weren’t for you getting accustomed to the city. Bustling with life, the new corner of town breathed modern and chic, paved elegantly but full of people on a nightly outing, much like yourself and Yoonoh.

Along the pavement, mostly restaurants and niche stores lined up one after another. Though the stores were mostly in the process of closing up (like the leather store you knew everyone went to for a new wallet or jacket), the restaurants were just starting. Even if none of them stayed open past one in the morning, their peak was just starting. Traditional restaurants which you knew to be distinguished, those newer and sleek ones with food you’d spend half your paycheck on, and of course the animal cafés wrapping up their last shift, it was all so natural.

“So, what do you feel like eating?” you break the silence, looking at the man next to you. Yoonoh seems to break out of a reverie and you wonder why he’s so beautiful just simply not paying attention.

“The usual?” he asks out loud, and you simply agree by rising to your tippy toes to scan how far away your favourite restaurant is. The crowd is certainly at a peak tonight, and although you know where to go, Yoonoh grabs you by your elbow, gentle as ever, and breaks his way through the crowd.

He’s truly a darling, you realize, when he links your arms properly and worms his way through the surplus of people. You try to look ahead so as not to bump into anyone, but even from the side, Yoonoh is so distracting and simply amazing. Your heart thumps in your chest.

Even as you face the restaurant door, and both try to peer inside to check for a possible table, he doesn’t let go of your arm. For a split second, there’s guilt creeping up your neck for the sole reason of your heart racing and your stomach fluttering for contact which you’re used to, and something he’s done before with you, but it quickly dissipates when you remind yourself that it’s fine. You’re not doing anything wrong just holding on to your friend, because Yoonoh wouldn’t have continued to hold you if he wasn’t okay with it.

What does kill you, though, is him opening the door for you.

It’s a simple gesture and he’s just being polite, you remind yourself again, and you’re probably right. But the way he smiles at you before saying there’s a table he saw by the cash register? It simply knocks a breath out of your lungs, and you grin while you follow him.

Your dinner goes well— when you’re seated, you immediately begin catching up. Yoonoh tells you about his promotion, and before you know it, you’re deciding on ordering shots to really celebrate. Neither of you are drunk because your meals are truly heavy and the drinks you ordered before the shots were sipped slowly, but you’re feeling buzzed and elated.

It’s only after you start discussing music that you realize the restaurant is beginning to slowly but surely clear out. People were leaving and the staff were wiping down tables with an air of finality. To avoid feeling bad, you finish up your drinks and split the bill before walking outside, which is when Yoonoh turns to you, “Come over?”

Come over. You chuckle at that and nod, obviously. You’ve been over before, sleeping over and joking around with Yoonoh. You didn’t do it often¸ because you were two adults with busy schedules, but sleepovers with him were such a warm thing to experience.

You slept over for Christmas the first year he got the apartment— cozying up and taking quizzes on the internet before making breakfast food for dinner. You stayed up more than you slept, and you even ended up building a fort for your friends who were set to come over in a couple hours. It felt incredibly homey, and you truly had fun.

But you had work tomorrow… and so did he… Before you could even get a word in, he grabbed your hand to lead you out of the street, which was also slowly clearing out. “I’ll call in sick, I hope that you can, too.”

Come to think of it, you could— you didn’t use any sick days, and you definitely missed talking to Yoonoh when the clock hand passed three. He was much more open and raw, and so were you; but the comfort never left. He’d tell you about his life, and you’d tell him about yours before one of you would crack a horrible joke that made both of you feel better.

Catching the bus is easy enough, and you and Yoonoh find yourself in front of his apartment soon enough. Walking up the stairs is a bit of a struggle, because he keeps giggling and it makes you way too happy to focus on the basic action of moving. But this is fine, because he seems so happy and light on his feet that it simply makes you forget your inability to concentrate around him.

He opens the door for you again, and you rush to take your shoes off so that you can jump onto his couch. He makes a sound, you assume to complain, before he comes to yank you from the couch by your arm.

“Come on, I’ll give you spare pyjamas! Get up,” he whines, though there’s a grin on his face, and he finishes by huffing. You only listen to him because you feel uncomfortable in the attire you have donned (or that’s what you tell yourself).

It’s when you’re both in his undoubtedly large bed, together and under two blankets because he insists it’s cold, giggling at a silly remark you made, that you realize how smitten you feel. Yoonoh looks adorable in his sleepwear, eyes hidden behind his eyelids as he smiles. You caused that smile— something that brings a weird sense of pride into your heart. It makes you feel warm; Yoonoh makes you feel warm.

He decides at once that it’s time to sleep, and your gaze casts towards the clock on his wall reading four fifty something. It’s closer to six than you’d like, and you agree to both text your workplaces before passing out.

You’re not proud of the lie you come up with for your manager, but you don’t stress about it as you turn your back to Yoonoh so that you can finally close your eyes. You simply can’t, though, your stomach tightening with a burning curiosity.

You turn to him again, “Yoonoh…” and he opens his eyes gingerly. You laugh at his confused eyes, before inching closer— maybe too close, but your own gaze finds his neck. “Why did you get the tattoo? Really.”

He purses his lips, turning his head upwards so you can get another look at the tattoo. You wiggle your hand out of the blanket to softly press against his neck, tracing the design gingerly. He doesn’t complain, but you can tell that the very edges of the tattoo still haven’t healed up properly, and so you retract your hand.

“You want a truthful answer? I just thought it’d be cool,” Yoonoh begins, “but it has a meaning. It’s an oni tattoo on the neck, which would mean I would’ve been able to hide it if I had long hair. It’s not the mask though, so it wouldn’t be ‘evil’.

“It can mean two things— the fangs mean that I’m warding off people and protecting myself. Kinda like one of those poisonous frogs, but less colourful. The face itself means that I’m trying to transcend humanity, get better and grow stronger with the help of people.

“Oh, and speaking of colour— I wanted it in full colour at first, but then the artist suggested more fine lined detail and we just went with it. I guess I’m happy with it, since it’s on my neck and all.”

You hum in wonder, coming to lie down even closer to him. Your nose brushes against his shoulder, and you hear Yoonoh’s breath hitch, making your own stop in its tracks. “It’s cool, too. I already told you it looks good,” you whisper.

You hear him let out a laughing breath, before he bids you goodnight with your name in tow.

When you wake up again, the morning feels way too new. Somehow, throughout the night (or, morning, rather, as it’s now well in the afternoon) you managed to get your head on Yoonoh’s chest. His arm sits around your shoulders, whilst yours is wrapped around his torso. He’s still sleeping peacefully, and so you slip out of his death grip as quietly as you can, so as not to wake him.

You know your way around his home, and your instinct is to make him tea. You’re not sure what he has in his fridge, so you opt not to start on breakfast. Yoonoh had the worst habit of forgetting to stack up or grocery shop at all, usually getting take-out instead of cooking. You don’t exactly want to take your chances.

You do work while he’s asleep, though, washing his dishes and wiping down his fancy counter. He comes out while you’re throwing away the paper towel you used. Yoonoh’s morning smile is the best thing in the world, you think, because he seems so pure as he comes to prop himself up on the counter.

“Good morning.” His voice is even better to head, and the grogginess not fully gone from it makes you smile as you hand him the cup of lukewarm tea.

Your cup is nearly finished, but as you bring it up to your lips, he speaks, “Can I ask you a question?”

A million things run through your mind at once, at last settling on concern for your friend. You raise your eyebrow at him, sitting across from where he was leaning. Yoonoh smiles at you again, most likely to try and put you at ease, “Did you… did you enjoy your time with me?”

It rings in your head that something’s not right, and your face contorts as you try and figure out what he means. Your voice carries a curious lilt within it, “Of course. I always enjoy when we go out.”

But it doesn’t seem to be enough for him. Yoonoh takes a sip of his tea, and his eyes seem determined to bore into your soul. You try to maintain the intense eye contact, waiting for him to finally voice his doubts. Within minutes, everything has turned way too tense for your taste, and you simply have to reach out to press your hand against your friend’s arm.

He puts his tea mug down, standing upright and walking over to your side of the counter. You’re entirely surprised when he grabs your cheeks, cupping them together. You let out a noise you’re not proud of, and involuntarily jerk backwards, but the man simply holds you in place. He’s gentle, though, and you ease up once he gives you a smile.

“I meant, did you enjoy sleeping with me,” to this you give a snort, and he grimaces before pinching your cheek, “not like that, you nerd.” This causes you to give a half-assed kick to his shins, to which he pretends to be incredibly hurt, ows and ouchs included.

“Yes, Yoonoh. I enjoyed sleeping in your bed,” you chuckle, hooking your hands onto his elbows. “What’s with the sudden questioning?”

He squished your cheeks together once more, “I don’t really know where to start with it. You make me kind of nervous to even try.”

You could feel heat rushing to your cheeks, your brain running through and endless amount of possibilities as to what Yoonoh could possibly mean. Your hands gripped at his elbows, and your eyebrows furrowed as you got ready to fire out questions, but luckily he spoke again before you embarrassed yourself.

“I’ve always felt different towards you, I guess. We’ve been friends for so long that I just never thought it was anything serious. And I’ve felt this before— just like last night— but… ahh,” his face scrunched up, and yours followed soon as the corners of your lips rose into a petite grin.

“I guess what I’m saying is that I really, really like you, and yesterday cemented it.” He finally gets out, sighing. You stay there for a moment, letting his words register in your brain. He’s special to you… and you sound to be just as special to him.

Your hands move to his wrists, patting them to get him to loosen up. It gives you some leeway to close the distance between the two of you, bringing him into a ginger kiss. Yoonoh seems surprised (though you don’t entirely blame him for it), a startled yip leaving his lips. His grip on your cheeks loosens with time as he moulds his lips against yours, thumbs running over your cheeks.

You don’t keep him there for long, sudden bashfulness hitting you. You pull away, finding it a bit challenging to look him in the eyes again, though when you do you’re met with the warmth you’ve familiarised yourself with. You can’t help the laugh bubbling out of you, pulling Yoonoh close to you into a death grip of a hug.

“I really, really like you too silly. And for six or so years, too.”

[mimi-sanisanidiot]

Love is wild sometimes, ain't it?

Do you ever feel like you're in love with someone that you can't have?

I am, more often than I'd like to admit.

I'm in love with my best friend. And I can't have her. Because she's in love with our other best friend. And it hurts. So damn much.

Hi, my name's Mimi and I'm a fucking dumbass, welcome to my tedtalk!

For the sake of anonymity of my friends, I'll refer to them as Bean, and Mochi. We're all female so here we are.

I met both Bean and Mochi in my first year of highschool. I met them separately in mutual classes and I found out we're all mutal friends. Bean was in my art class and we were on opposite ends of the room, but always in the view of one another. When I first saw Bean, she confused me so much. Bean is rather tall for a girl and has a slim thick frame, due to her androgynous style of clothes and fluffy short hair, she's often confused as a boy. Which works for her style. At the time, me being a still blind lil gay in the making, couldn't tell if she was a boy or a girl due to being so far away. But honestly it never bothered me. Still Bean confused me so much!! One day she'd be in baggy male clothing and the next she was in a crop top with a skirt and knee high socks! Either way she made my heart race! I didn't care if she was a boy exploring her style and identity or a girl having fun with her outfits or anything in between. So one day, I gathered the courage to finally walk up to her and complimented her My Chemical Romance t-shirt that she wore often, after class. I was never the kind of girl who made friends easily but could make conversation with any stranger if I truly tried to.

So saying that, you can obviously see that I as a new freshman tried to become friends with this beautifully intimidating human being by pointing out the most teenager angsty thing a teenager can wear to show how angsty they are! The cliche of teenager angst, My Chemical Romance!!! That aside, this would be my first official real conversation with her, aside from the shy hi's and nervous excuse me's that we often exchanged when we passed by and bumped into each other during class in accident. So you can see where this is going. I obviously made a fool of myself trying to speak clearly and loud enough for her to hear me as I walked by her on the way out of class, keep in mind most kids were trying to leave and they were quite loud since the door was near her desk. She hadn't heard me so she asked me to repeat myself, while I was panicking on the INSIDE! I did repeat myself, while stuttering a bit and my subtle lisp wasn't so subtle anymore! I was dying.. I wanted to bolt out that door and hide in my corner and never emerge again. But she was so nice.. She just smiled so sweetly and so kindly at me seeing that I was freaking out about my inability to speak properly at the moment, it surprised me honestly. No one other than my parents had looked at me like that but my parents hadn't comforted me about my stuttering since I was a child. And here she was, this awkwardly shy giant was smiling at me, making me feel so much better and still making my heart race. I felt myself smile back a bit and nodded and turned to make my way out of class. But she stopped me, she had then complimented my Attack on Titan button and my Spirited Away button my backpack, which made me so happy! She knew who these characters were and she complimented me on them. No one, not even my friends, said anything about them. They never noticed them, nor did they like anime. So to have Bean notice them and say she liked them, made my day.

Soon after that, I asked her if she'd like to join me for lunch and she did.

We hit it off immediately! We're both dorks and nerds about different childhood shows and random nerd stuff. Not only that, we both looove food! And we also connected on the fact that we're huge romantics and are girls on the slightly heavier and tall side too. We became close friends and hung out at lunch almost everyday. Up to this point, I was always by myself at lunch since all my other friends had 1st lunch and Bean and I had 2nd lunch. I was alone and then, I wasn't. Bean had made me her friend and that made a difference in my life for the better. I had dealt with a traumatic incident in my last year of middle school so i don't doubt that Bean practically saved my life my freshman year, even if she doesn't realize that but that is a story for another time. She also introduced me to some of my closest friends now. So I have her to thank for that. I soon realized that I had a huge crush on her that I feel like was really obvious but not to either of us. But that doesn't matter, since I never confessed and she had her boyfriends and people she dated as we grew closer. Although it hurt me, it made me happy just seeing her happy. And I was there to help her feel better when things didn't work out in the end. And that made feel happy just knowing she was happy and that I made her feel comfortable enough to come to me for help. So I too had dated a few people and had my heart broken quite a few times but my heart had always beated a bit faster when I thought of her.

My love for Bean only grew as the years pasted. But as did the growing friend zone between us. So I pulled an Angelica Skylar and was just happy that I could keep her in my life.

My bond with Mochi had also grown throughout the years despite us being different in multiple ways. Mochi sometimes gets overly comfortable sometimes and it ticks me off sometimes but she means well. The three of us have late night adventures and loads of sleep overs and have fun gushing about music and cute people, both male and female and nonbinary peeps! It's fun.

Back to my main simp story and not my sad friendzone gay shit.

The three of us are quite open with our sexuality and feminine charms, ya know? We flirt with each other often, it's always been part of our banter. We also playfully grope/fondle each other when ever we're together. The fondling occurs more often than not when we're with Mochi. Sure we all initiate it at some point but when Mochi is hanging out with either of us, she's the main instigator. We're all chill about it cause titties are nice, and so are soft thighs and love handles! We all like the soft plush!! We all drink body appreciation in this household!!

Mochi is fantastic! I love her so much! But she also becomes unresponsive to group moments sometimes.. Like we would all be chilling watching a movie or something, like maybe having a conversation and then she'd be off by herself always on her phone and never reacts to anything we say. When she stays over, she sleeps way in, past what we decided, and is inconsiderate of if either one of us have any other plans that day. We plan to have a sleep over of one day and she stays for 3. I can never ask her to leave cause I was always raised with my home is open for those who need it but one can also overstay their welcome. And I absolutely despise confrontation. It makes me uncomfortable and makes me feel like I'm the dick, even when I know that I'm in the right.

But that's besides the point. I love them, I truly do. I'm just weak against my friends when it comes to my own comfort sometimes. That's something I'm working on currently.

So you see, these are my best friends, yes they are flawed but so am I. Yet I absolutely love them.

Mochi had invited both Bean and me to a whole weekend trip with some of her friends that she wanted to introduce to us. Sadly I couldn't attend having already used my day out of that week the day before she had asked. But Bean went. They had a blast, drinking and going out to the shopping district of the beach town they went to. Not in that order obviously. They were safe and locked themselves in their hotel room when they began drinking and hadn't went out once they began. I'm not going to lie here, it hurt not being able to go because I was excited to meet Mochi's friends and hang out and have drink to let loose for once, you know?

But when they came back, Bean had kinda went off the grid. She wasn't responding to group chats nor private messaging. At first I thought, oh she's busy and she'll get back to me later so no sweat right? Wrong.. She never did. And when I'd check out our messages, she only left me on seen and that's it. Then I'm like, did I do something wrong or is she doing okay? Turns out, she's fine. But I wouldn't have known that if it weren't for Mochi. Mochi had told me something that broke my heart more than it did finding out Bean was in love with a toxic manipulating piece of garbage with mommy issues and she was sacrificing her own mental well being to help a human dumpster fire. Again that's another story for another time.

So this is it, it hurts to know the person I've been in love with for almost 6 years, had kissed my best friend and has admitted to a stranger, while drunk, about how much she wants to get with said best friend. Never.. Never did it occur to me, that she ever felt that way towards Mochi, and that she also kissed Mochi while Mochi was and still is with her boyfriend.

I don't know what hurts more, the drunk confession to a stranger, the kiss or that she didn't tell me her feelings for Mochi.

I know that I'm not entitled to her feelings nor her explanation nor ever lil detail of her life. Because that's not healthy nor is it right. I know that the only person at fault here is my own toxic mentality. But I still worry sometimes okay..?

I was worried that she was having a bad time and she was by herself.

I was worried that something had happened to her.

I was worried that she had had enough of me, and was simply trying to figure out a way to end our friendship without trying to be mean about it..

I was worried that she simply hated me and wanted me out of her life for good and was simply ghosting me until I got the hint...

Maybe that I had done something to have upsetted her..

I just guess that Bean didn't need my prying and needed time to collect her thoughts.

But at the very least, she could have done was send me a message. Like "I'm fine, need time to collect myself, ttyl" or something...!

My own intrusive thoughts are bad enough, but worrying about whether or not, my best friend is alright is too much!!

I dont even know! Maybe I'm the ass in this scenario! With my own toxic pensive ideals and my overbearing personality. Maybe I shouldn't project my feelings towards my best friends and maybe just fucking grow up and move on from something that will clearly never happen!!!

Maybe I should simply get over it..

But it hurts, so much..

Because maybe I missed my shot at ever being able to confess to Bean.. Because I'll never know if she ever felt the same, that I'll never know if I had a chance at all... All because I was too scared to lose my best friend...

Now I might lose both of them if they don't work their feelings out... Maybe I'm just a pathetic piece of garbage.

I have no clue how I'm supposed to act anymore. Mochi is still with her boyfriend, Bean is in an emotional limbo and needs to collect herself and I'm an emotional mess.

If anyone has any advice on what I should do or how I should proceed, please let me know.

I have dinner with them in an hour, and I'm scared.

Thank you if you made it this far, I appreciate that you're willing to read a strangers love life or the lack of one and follow their rant. I hope you all have a great day, evening, or night, stay hydrated and tell your loved ones that you love them before it's too late.

Please learn from my own mistakes. If anyone likes this, then let me know and I'll tell you more about my pathetic love life stories and my pining over my best friend.

[ofcdove]

             𝓻𝓪𝓺'𝓼 ( 𝕥𝕖𝕟𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕖 )  𝓹𝓵𝓸𝓽 𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽 𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 001

hey y’all  it’s  me,  lowering the bar  for  us  all.  here’s  the  plot  list  i’ve  been  promising  but  have  yet  to  do.  hopefully  this  one  turns  out  way  more  organized  and  aesthetically  pleasing  than  the  trash bin  that  was  my  other  one.  you’re  more  than  welcome  to  snatch  up  something  that’s  open (  just  shoot  me  a  dm ) ooooooor , lmk  if  i  missed  any  plots  because  spoilers  i  definitely  will so  no  i  didn’t  drop  plots,  i’m  just  a  forgetful  idiot!! you’ll  also  find  all  the  resources  to  everything  you’ll  ever  need  to  know  about  my  muses below  as  well. see something  you  don’t  vibe  with  anymore?  tell  me  lets  change  things  up.  alright,  yee?  yee. 

last  updated :  4/1/2020

𝔻𝕠𝕧𝕖 𝔻𝕒𝕣𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕘  /  23 

  normani. cis-female. she/her.  ／  dove darling just pulled up blasting pressing me by rico nasty — that song is so them ! you know, for a twenty three year old actress/musician, i’ve heard they’re really stubborn, but that they make up for it by being so vivacious . if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say early 2000s r&b playlists, princess cut diamonds, and shiny lipgloss over perfectly lined lips . here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble !

intro here. 

pinterest tba. 

vc:  doja  cat  &  normani 

she’s  a  hollywood  starlite  but  also  kinda  a  meme.  daughter  of  an  actor  and  a  socialite  --  dove  comes  from  bunches  of  money.  she’s  a  bit  spoiled,  but  that  doesn’t  really  make  her  any  less  friendly.  tends  to  expect  people  to  like  her  cause  she’s  so  good  at  pretending.  still,  she  balances  that  with  being  genuine.  often  described  as  surprisingly  quirky in  the  media  dove  is   honestly  too  fucking  silly  for  her  own  good.   probably  anime  trash  on  the  low.  your pr  team’s  wet  dream  thanks  to  her  squeaky  clean  public  reputation .   just  because  she’s  never  been  caught  doing  something  bad --  definitely  does  not  mean  she’s   an  angel  by  any  means.  

current connections: 

best / close  friends:  nathalia,  kaia ,  maeve,  adore, valentina, parker, heather, jack, allie, ashley , korday

current  pr boyfriend :  brodie 

ex childhood best friend: milena

enemies; becca ,  zar,  &  cassie?  i  guess. 

ex on good terms:  rhett  

exes on bad terms: ricki 

 fwb:  damian 

flirtationship:  logan 

party friends: xavi 

ex fiance: harris

wanted connections:

 party friends aka people dove really only hangs with in passing,  usually  after  a  few  drinks . 

ex on bad terms  there  probably  aren’t  many  of  these !  but,  give  her  one  that  just  really doesn’t  like  her  bc  they  dated  after  her  engagement  was  called  off and she  was  more  emotionally  unavailable  than  ever. 

ex pr relationships:  self  explaintory  but,  i’d  like  to  see maybe  one where they  fell for  her  and  she’s  like “lmao this is fake... relax.” 

enemies ! the more the better to balence out how many friends she has skajafs

anything else! 

ℕ𝕠𝕖𝕝 𝕃𝕒𝕦𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕥 / 22

―   chance perdomo. he/him. cismale.  ／  noel laurent  just pulled up blasting a boy is a gun by tyler, the creator  — that song is so them ! you know, for a(n) twenty-two year old rapper, i’ve heard they’re really reckless, but that they make up for it by being so altruistic. if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say rolled up sleeves on an oversized sweater, missed 2am calls, messy notebooks filled with lyrics. here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble !

intro here 

pinterest tba 

vc: kevin abstract

aka   gay   panic .  my mother  trucking  baby.  period.  too  kind  to  ever  really  stand  up  for  himself.  my  one  muse  that  is  definitely  a  pacifist  and  avoids  confrontation  at  all  costs  -- unless you’re  coming  for  someone  he  loves. ( but tbh even  then  he  doesn’t  really  want  smoke sgkads)   literally  just  a  sweet  boy. super  soft  inside  and  out,  loyal  to  a  fault,  and  overall  well meaning.   nurturer /  dad  friend .  will  often  ignore  his  own  problems  simply  for  what  he  thinks  is  the  greater  good  of  his  friends.  selfless  to  a  fault.   tendency  to  fall  into  bad  situations  thanks  to  his  reckless  nature  and  inability  to  say  no.

current  connections: 

best  /  close  friends:  xavi ,  future  iridescence  boys,  valentina,  milena,  brodie,  maeve, nathalia, 

ex on bad terms: ricki 

neighbor /  light  meaningless  admiration : harris 

past  fwb:   zar,  heather 

he’s  scared  of  them:  parker lmao

past  hookups: valentina 

friendzoned  friends :  kaia

flirtationship: adore 

people he produces for: lavender, korday

 wanted  connections: 

his sister..  listed  on  the  main  but  lmk  if  you  ever  want  more  info  on  that! 

more  of  the  irridesence  boys  ( deadass  the  next  person  who  brings  one  of  them  will  get  free  dash  icons  from  me.  any  style.  i’m  begging.  bribery?  it  works !  )

unlikely  friends ! 

exes  on  bad  terms  and  good   terms. 

people  he  produces  for . 

anything  else  your  sweet  lil  head  desires !  

𝕊𝕔𝕠𝕥𝕥𝕪 𝕊𝕥.𝕁𝕒𝕞𝕖𝕤 / 23

luke hemmings. cismale. he/him. ／  scotty  st.james  just pulled up blasting despicable by grandson — that song is so them ! you know, for a(n) twenty-three year old musician, i’ve heard they’re really  detached ,but that they make up for it by being so venturesome . if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say old guitars, the smell of cigarettes and bourbon, and hundred dollar bills thrown in the air . here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble ! ( it’s me! the raq )

intro

pinterest here 

vc: 5sos /  luke hemmings

a  hot.... mess  tbh.  scott’s   been  through  so  much  so  he’s  really  guarded ,  over  protective ,  and  self  loathing  as  hell.  tendency  to  keep  everyone  at  an  arms  length  unless   you’re  someone  very  special  to  him  and  does  not  deal  well  with  whatever  he  deems  betrayal.  though,  that  doesn’t  stop  him  from  being  an  absolute  buffoon  when  it  comes  to  seriously  committing. as  a  side  effect  though,  if  you’re  on  the  list  of  people  he  really  fucks  with  he  will  fight  for  you.  also,  will  fight  cause  he’s  short  tempered  and  shit  at  expressing  himself.   really  fears  abandonment   seriously.  lowkey  scared  of  the  dark  eye -- :( he’s  such  a  sweet  boy  on  the  inside  but  outwardly  a  prick  like  99.9% of  the  time. 

current  connections: 

best  /  good  friends:  brodie ,  harris ,   maeve ,   gus  and  parker 

enemies:  xavi,  remy ( eh? debatable )   

acquaintances ( aka  friends  but  he’s  too  much  of  a  dick  to  claim  them ):  cassie, ashley,  heather??, kaia??

ex on  really  bad  terms:  genevieve /  nathalia  / korday 

adoptive sibling: stas

childhood  girlfriend  /  something  really  complicated :  maeve 

friends: ricki 

wanted  connections: 

unrequited crush on him because im sure he milked that bc he wants affection w/o the commitment

party “friends”  friends  is  so  loose because  he...  never  calls  more than like 4  ppl  his  friend  but  he  treats  them  like  friends akass

a very  bad ex  pr  relationship  that  he  publicly  cheated  on  so  they  could  end  things  because  he  literally  can’t  fucking  stan  pr  shit akjdfas

neighbors ! 

an enemies with  benefits Perhaps? dont see that going further than they bicker but also smash ig sakfdjafd

anything else ! 

[extreme-technicality]

Im only messing with you 😘 while im here though could i have some fic recs puh-leaaase - 🍍

Ooh honey, you have no IDEA the can of worms you just opened :D (since this list is so long I’m gonna split it up into SFW Complete, NSFW Complete, SFW Ongoing, and NSFW Ongoing)

SFW Complete:

The Invisible Girl [sonamae]: OK SO it’s Hagakure-centric, with background Hagakure x Shouji and KiriBaku. My favorite part about this is that the romance is important, but not the focus. The focus of this oneshot is on the family she creates with Bakugou, Satou, Todoroki, Kirishima, and Tokoyami. Go read it, it’s great. BIG BROTHER BAKUGOU FTW!!!!!

Ground Zero [sonamae]: Speaking of Big Brother Bakugou, this is the next oneshot in the same series as the above one, but from Bakugou’s pov. Again, the romance is important but not a focus, and that’s so fucking refreshing and I love it so mUCH idk what else to tell you. Just go read these two. The rest of the series isn’t complete, but these two specific fics ARE, hence why they’re in the Complete section.

Lighting The Beacon [M3zzaTh3M3z]: This is one of the first bnha fics I’ve ever read, and I’m so glad this was my introduction to the fandom!! It’s a pretty fluffy oneshot, starting off with Kiri asking Baku out and Baku rejecting him because “who ever heard of a gay hero?” Aizawa hears about that (the basics, no details like names or anything), and things…start to change. Mic says he’s married to a man (its Aizawa), All Might comes out as pan, ace Midnight…and at the end, Bakugou asks Kirishima out very publicly. It’s so near and dear to my heart, and it honestly deserves more attention than it gets.

You’re only relevant until you’re older (they’re gonna talk about you over and over) [futurehearts]: Pro-Heroes Red Riot and Ground Zero are happily married and Baku has a reputation to slowly destroy :D (he’s soft, mainly for his husband, and he knows it…and now so does the rest of the world lmaooo).

Love Notes [PurplePersnickety]: Kirishima gets really, REALLY sappy love notes on his desk for a week or two and works to figure out who it is (spoiler alert, it’s Bakugou being a Soft Bitch). When Kiri asks him about it, he confesses everything and they date in secret for six months before telling the whole class (oneshot).

Sonder [Maplefudge]: I bet this bitch thought she wouldn’t get a shout-out well guess what you write good and there’s nothing you can do about it This is the first work of maple’s I ever read, and it’s perf <3 I’m love. It’s a look at the “totally platonic” (how much sarcasm can I add to two words?) Kiribaku from members of the class, over the course of 13 chapters. It’s full of fluff, useless mutual pining, obliviousness, and “platonic bro kisses”. Read it if you need to scream at some useless gays.

Anger Management [Julietwasanidiot]: The entire fandom is gearing up for S4 by writing hurt/comfort KiriBaku post-raid fics, and I am HERE for it. Because of when it’s set though, there’s going to be spoilers so if you’re anime-only you migt want to steer clear of this one. It’s got an ICONIC rice-and-anger line, though.

Stupid Mistakes [lemxnfox]: Kirishima and Bakugou got in a fight! They fight a lot, but this fight they’ve been fighting for six months and the class is #OverIt. They concoct a plan to lock the two of them in a room and force them to make up– and they DO. Side ShinKami and TodoDeku.

No More Fragments [Ischemia]: Canon-compliant…to a degree. Shinsou takes his place as the Superior Purple in Class A, gets himself a boyfriend (Kaminari) and a squad (the Bakusquad)…and loses it. Or does he???? Canon-typical violence, side Kiribaku, mystery plot.

Caught In My Own Web [anxioussaliorsoldier]: SHINSOU IS IN 1-A!!!!! And he fucks up when trying to use his capture weapon lmao. Kaminari finds him and they recreate the iconic Spider-Man kiss…and then Shinsou passes out from the blood rushing to his head. It’s cute guys.

Be Selfish For Me [A_Reflective_Projection]: WARNING– the entire thing is Aizawa asking 1-A to be careful as pro heroes, by taking them to a hero graveyard. It’s painful. It’s sad (especially when Aizawa brings up a classmate of his who died in their first year as a pro). It ends bittersweet, and there’s some good Dadzawa content in there. The most present ship is Erasermic, and that only really makes an appearance in the last chapter.

Closer [MikeWritesThings]: Fluffy Erasermic, canon universe, where Aizawa starts calling in to Mic’s radio show cuz he misses him. It’s sweet af ❤️❤️

Meaningless Holiday [dysonQueer]: It’s a sweet Valentine’s Day fic, canon-compliant, with established Erasermic for the soul. I highly recommend it if you’re having a rough day and you need some feel-good fluff

Come Back Toe Me [Milligramme]: Aged-up, Pro Hero fic where Kiri has a shit day heroing, but he isn’t physically hurt. Not until he breaks his toe on the coffee table, that is. He can’t stop laughing, and Bakugou can’t stop worrying about his dumbass boyfriend.

Kiss Me Through The Screen [Ischemia]: Aged-up fic with ShinKami as the main focus and some side KiriBaku, but…uh, most of the Bakusquad aren’t full-time Heroes. Kami dropped out of UA completely, and Shinsou never went in the first place. So, Kaminari is working at Jirou’s cafe and works as a SFW camboy at night, while Shinsou is a teacher and watches the stream nightly. Later there’s a plot around a stalker, again please keep yourself safe Pineapple Anon!!

If I Don’t Act… [SilentNorth]: This is gritty and painful, but don’t worry! There’s a happy ending :D (I rarely read/write/recc pure angst, you’re safe here my child). Kiri is a college dropout working two jobs, living with Mina as his roommate, and with a hero complex the size of Texas. Enter art student Bakugou, who can save himself thank you very much. Some mention of depression/attempted suicide, as well as slightly less than canon-typical violence, please keep yourself safe and skip it if that’s going to trigger you, Pineapple Anon.

Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all [theroyalsavage]: A Kiribaku “10 Things I Hate About You” AU where Todoroki asks Kirishima to fake-date Bakugou so he can date Midoriya. Everything is going smoothly until Kirishima accidentally falls in love *gasp*!!

The Skeletons Inside Of Us [firelord_zutara]: Erasermic, quirkless AU where Mic was the lead singer of Aizawa’s favorite local band in college. Aizawa has a crush on him, they lost touch after college, and they didn’t meet again…until their nephews (Aizawa adopted Midoriya, Shinsou is Mic’s sister’s kid) meet and by extension, the uncles. Background ShinKami and KiriBaku, written for EraserMic week (7 chapters).

Life’s a Drag(on) [PurplePersnickety]: FANTASY AU!!! You know, the Fantasy AU from the third ending. But altered, juuuuuust slightly. Bakugou lives in(? ish) a village and helps a dragon when it’s hurt. A day or so later, a (hot) new guy comes to town named Kirishima, and the dragon keeps coming around. Shenaniganery follows. :DDD

Space Dust [PurplePersnickety]: Do you like Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, and/or Men In Black? Then you’re gonna fuckin LOVE this :DDD It’s got half-alien Kirishima, cyborg Bakugou, mention of a larger universe outside of the planet (outside of the oneshot too, lbr). It is a oneshot though, even if it is a long one, with canon/typical violence and mention of kidnapping and child experimentation. Please put your mental health and well-being above everything else and skip it if it’s gonna trigger you!!!

Achromatopsia [PurplePersnickety]: DID SOMEBODY SAY SOULMATE AU???? No? Well hAVE ONE ANYWAY!!! Kiribaku soulmate AU (oneshot), where you only see in one color until you touch your soulmate for the first time. Fun fact, achromatopsia is the complete inability to see any color!! I’m sure that’s not gonna have any bearing on the story whatsoever…

NSFW Complete:

A Cast for your Heart [KTG]: Heads up, this is LONG. 90 chapters, 268k, it’s magic and sex and drAGONS and angst and almost-dying!! The fantasy system is completely original, set in modern times, and the OCs??? Don’t get me STARTED. Kiribaku, Tododeku, and Seromina are the bnha ships present as well as a lot of OCxOC ships. There’s also a sequel set to come out this month (July 2019)!!

Long Time Coming [Madam_Muffins]: I’ve probably recc’ed this before, but I just. I just love this one so much, ok? It’s massive Kiribaku slow burn, outlining what might happen if Bakugou is just a little bit more emotionally constipated. Baku fucks up, gets help, he and Kiri get together (and fuck a little), and there’s elements of the Reincarnation and Fantasy AUs in there towards the end!! Go read it, madammuffins is my amazing tumblr mom and I love her to bits.

SFW Ongoing:

Engraved In Your Mind [Hejter]: FACEBLIND BAKUGOU KATSUKI!!! It’s canon-compliant, except for that little detail, but she writes it so WELL that now I can’t look at canon!Bakugou without thinking that he’s faceblind. Kiri finds out and starts working to build trust with Bakugou and help him on his path to becoming the top hero, and it’s GREAT. Slowburn Kiribaku. Like,,,SLOW.

Define: Oblivious [PurplePersnickety]: I bet you thought I was done with the Purple reccs. I’m never going to be done reccing Purple. Deal with it. I mentioned, in the summary for Love Notes, that there was a six month time skip? This is what happens in those six months. SeroKami and MomoJirou are side ships in this one.

The Right Thing [TuesdayTerrible]: Established Kiribaku where they’re graduated from UA, and living together, and being pro heroes…and then one day Baku finds a little girl who tried to kill herself cuz she was quirkless. Needless to say, this strikes a chord in Bakugou (cuz…yknow, he kinda told Midoriya to kill himself in like episode one and then it was never addressed again). He can’t stop thinking about her, and while we haven’t gotten there YET it looks like it’s gonna end with him and Kirishima adopting her and Bakugou apologizing for the bullshit he put Mido through. There is mention of a suicide attempt (clearly), skip it if that’s gonna trigger you!!!

Hands Off! [PullingAllMighters]: Much like Kiss Me Through The Screen, Hands Off! is a non-canon compliant aged-up AU where not everyone is a full-time hero. Kiri is, Kami and Sero are his sidekicks, Ochako is in a different agency, and everyone else is doing Other Shit. Bakugou hasn’t revealed his full backstory yet, but it looks like he was a Pro Hero until a year or so ago when something bad happened and now he’s got PTSD. His old apartment building burned down so he’s living in Ochako, Momo, Jirou, and Mina’s guesthouse until he finds a job and another place to live. This has a fresh take on the hero system, and I really really enjoy it so far!! There is, however, a fairly detailed scene of Bakugou being triggered so if reading that would trigger you, please don’t!! Keep yourself safe, Pineapple Anon!!! Endgame Kiribaku

Blood of my Hand [PurplePersnickety]: Is it obvious yet that I LOVE purple’s writing??? This, I believe, was the gateway work, and I’ve dived headfirst in and not looked back. Fantasy AU, slowburn Kiribaku, and it’s. I can’t even sum it up. There’s too much. It’s too good. Game of Thrones WISHES it could be what BomH is. There’s mention of slavery and past child abuse, please skip that if it’s going to trigger you!!

A Boy and his Dragon [VanHan]: Oh look, another fantasy AU. Have you figured out that I have a type yet? Kiribaku but the Kiribaku hasn’t really happened yet, cuz Bakugou is a literal child who got kidnapped and is probably gonna get sold. He doesn’t even know Kirishima is Kirishima, he just knows him as the cool dragon in the cage. This one just barely makes the SFW list, because there’s no explicit mention of fucking, but there’s a really really gross pedophile that shows up fairly early on and hasn’t died yet. There’s also graphic depictions of violence in the first chapter, and once you combine those two things I would absolutely understand if you decided to give this one a pass, too.

Everglow [Maplefudge]: ANOTHER fantasy AU?!?! In MY fic recc list?? It’s more likely than you think. This one just started, and it’s got that enemies-to-lovers shit going on. Dragons plus my favorite tropes = FUCK YEAH!!!

Crimson [Crocodillia]: I bet you thought I was done with the fantasy AU reccs, didn’t you? Well, HAVE ANOTHER!!! This one has strong HTTYD vibes, and I’ve literally never seen anyone try that before with these characters!! So far there’s only two chapters, but I am HOOKED and if you like HTTYD…you’re gonna like this, too.

Becoming Human [FoolishFortuna]: Demon!Bakugou becomes Human!Bakugou when he refuses to take a kid’s soul. I think we’re three chapters in and he just got to earth and met Kirishima, as well as a few holy people (Midoriya, Ochako, Iida, and I believe Tetsu). Now he gotta find his daughter and keep her safe. Kiribaku with some fairly graphic descriptions of torture and cannibalism in the second chapter, don’t read it if that’s gonna trigger you!! Also he pretty brutally rips apart the girl’s abusive parents.

Surviving for Second Chances [SilentNorth]: TWEWY Kiribaku AU!!! There’s some differences between the original game and the fic, for pretty obvious reasons (medium, objective, and character differences being a few), but this got me to FINALLY watch a playthrough of the game cuz I’m too broke to go and buy it myself!! Kirishima as Neku and Bakugou as Joshua, plus Mina as Shiki and TodoDeku as Rhyme and Beat. Canon-typical violence, and we just finished up Week 1!!

Love And Other Allergens [thefrailtyofgenius]: A Quirkless AU where Todoroki is a lawyer with a flower shop underneath his apartment. Todo finds out he’s allergic to one of the plants, buys a different bouquet every week instead of, yknow, asking for help like a normal human being (I say, knowing damn well I’d just buy allergy medication and not even try to figure out what I’m allergic TO), and accidentally falls in love with the cute (and absolutely fucking ripped) flower boy (Midoriya lmao). It’s LONG. The TodoDeku is extremely slowburn, and there’s a fuckload of side ships. An incomplete list: Erasermic, Kiribaku, ShinIida (Shinsou and Iida), and MomoJirou. Bonus Endeavor’s Bad Parenting, Midoriya Hisashi’s Bad Parenting, and both of those assholes getting locked up forever :D (I’m so serious about the length tho, it’s like 40 chapters or something).

NSFW Ongoing:

Mixing Signals [Shippeh]: Kiribaku aged-up, but they’ve tried to date multiple times and every time Bakugou fucked it up. Every time they broke up, they pretended like they’d never tried in the first place (which…oW), but this time. THIS time, Bakugou swears he’s gonna make them work.

Heartbeat Thunder [Shippeh]: This is one of the few ABO fics I’ll recc, because it’s not just “ooh heat sex fun times”. This has THOUGHT put into it. They’re confused kids goddamnit, let them be confused!!! Basically Kiri doesn’t ever want to rut so he’s suppressing everything about being an alpha, while Bakugou thinks that trying to hide from your secondary gender is stupid. They do fuck tho, which is why the fic is in NSFW Ongoing.

Take a Chance On Me [FanficIsMyThing]: The other ABO fic I’ll happily recc. Kiri is an alpha which lets him be a hero, while Baku is an omega so he’s gotta be a vigilante until the laws get changed. They run into each other on patrol a few times, Baku helps Kiri and crew out a few times, and every time Kirishima *mysteriously* fails to catch the vigilante Chemical X. They haven’t actually fucked yet, but there’s been enough sexy times to put this squarely in NSFW territory. And it’s not just sex!! I don’t wanna spoil, but it’s good I swear.

Opposed to the Typical [Heronfem]: A model/fashion designer AU featuring HoH!Bakugou, model!Bakugou and designer!Kirishima, as well as a metric shitload of others. Basically Kiri is an intern with Fatgum who gets called to help another studio with their fitting, gets assigned to Bakugou, figures out he’s HoH and handles it like a champ. Because he does it so well, whenever Bakugou needs to get his measurements taken again, they immediately call for Kirishima. And ofc they gonna fall in love :3c But its more complicated than that, and I don’t wanna give too much away, but make sure that you pay attention to any trigger warnings at the start of the chapters!!!

[ofcnoel]

               𝓻𝓪𝓺'𝓼 ( 𝕥𝕖𝕟𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕖 )  𝓹𝓵𝓸𝓽 𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽 𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 002

        hey y’all  it’s  me,  lowering the bar  for  us  all.  as usual  let  me  know  if  i  missed  anything  cause  to  no  one’s  surprise : i’m  dumb !  now  that  i  have  4  muses  i  wanna  like,,,, make  sure  i  have  a  good  amount  of  plots  for  each  one  sooooo don’t  mind  me  if  i  roll  up  demanding  attention.  alright, bye love u plot with me pls imma do replies now

𝔹𝕚𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕖 ℙ𝕣𝕖𝕤𝕔𝕠𝕥𝕥  /  24

leigh-anne pinnock. cisfemale.  she/her.  ／  billie prescott  just pulled up blasting girls need love by summer walker — that song is so them ! you know, for a(n) twenty-four year old singer, i’ve heard they’re really pessimistic,  but that they make up for it by being so audacious. if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say small forgotten &  meaningless tattoos, patron filled shot glasses, and texts left on read . here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble ! (  it’s me raq im sorry u have to see 4 muses from me )

intro  here

pinterest tba

vc: little mix  //  leigh-anne pinnock ( * possibly summer walker im. still debating ) 

tl;dr :  her  parents  were  divorced,  which  sent  her  into  a  crazy  phase  of  running  away  and  not  trusting  anyone  around  her.  her  father  gave  up  on  her,  she  hates  her  mother  –  her  grandfather  billy  is  the  only  person  who  seemed  to  continue  to  care  and  support  her .  she’s  still  quite  untrusting,  her  best  defense  mechanism  being  sarcasm  and  a  little  bit  of  coldness.  she’s  not  the  best  lover  cause  she  doesn’t  believe  in  all  that  but  she  is  a  rather  loyal  friend.  if  you  know  any  of  my  older  muses  she’s,,, a  margo  lite.  margo  with  some  goals  and  direction .

current  connections :  

best  friends :  girls  of  equilibrium,  harris,  milena ,  kami 

i-- lmao that’s it i’m working on the rest

wanted  connections: 

party  friends 

bad influences on her

good  influences on her

people she’s a bad influence on

someone  new  to  the  industry  that  she’s  protective  over

casual  flings

exes 

anything pls

𝔻𝕠𝕧𝕖 𝔻𝕒𝕣𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕘  /  23

 normani. cis-female. she/her. ／  dove darling just pulled up blasting pressing me by rico nasty — that song is so them ! you know, for a twenty three year old actress/musician, i’ve heard they’re really stubborn, but that they make up for it by being so vivacious . if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say early 2000s r&b playlists, princess cut diamonds, and shiny lipgloss over perfectly lined lips . here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble !

intro here.

pinterest tba.

vc:  doja  cat  &  normani

she’s  a  hollywood  starlite  but  also  kinda  a  meme.  daughter  of  an  actor  and  a  socialite  –  dove  comes  from  bunches  of  money.  she’s  a  bit  spoiled,  but  that  doesn’t  really  make  her  any  less  friendly.  tends  to  expect  people  to  like  her  cause  she’s  so  good  at  pretending.  still,  she  balances  that  with  being  genuine.  often  described  as  surprisingly  quirky in  the  media  dove  is   honestly  too  fucking  silly  for  her  own  good.   probably  anime  trash  on  the  low.  your pr  team’s  wet  dream  thanks  to  her  squeaky  clean  public  reputation .   just  because  she’s  never  been  caught  doing  something  bad –  definitely  does  not  mean  she’s   an  angel  by  any  means.  

current connections:

best / close  friends:  marnie,  kaia ,  maeve,  parker, jack,  allie, ashley , 

current  pr boyfriend :  brodie

childhood best friend: milena

ex on good terms:  rhett  

exes on bad terms: harris

flirtationship:  logan

party friends: angel

ex fiance: harris

wanted connections:

party friends aka people dove really only hangs with in passing,  usually  after  a  few  drinks .

ex on bad terms  there  probably  aren’t  many  of  these !  but,  give  her  one  that  just  really doesn’t  like  her  bc  they  dated  after  her  engagement  was  called  off and she  was  more  emotionally  unavailable  than  ever.

ex pr relationships:  self  explaintory  but,  i’d  like  to  see maybe  one where they  fell for  her  and  she’s  like “lmao this is fake… relax.”

enemies ! the more the better to balence out how many friends she has skajafs

anything else!

ℕ𝕠𝕖𝕝 𝕃𝕒𝕦𝕣𝕖𝕟𝕥 / 22

―   chance perdomo. he/him. cismale.  ／  noel laurent  just pulled up blasting a boy is a gun by tyler, the creator  — that song is so them ! you know, for a(n) twenty-two year old rapper, i’ve heard they’re really reckless, but that they make up for it by being so altruistic. if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say rolled up sleeves on an oversized sweater, missed 2am calls, messy notebooks filled with lyrics. here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble !

intro here

pinterest tba

vc: kevin abstract

aka   gay   panic .  my mother  trucking  baby.  period.  too  kind  to  ever  really  stand  up  for  himself.  my  one muse  that  is  definitely  a  pacifist  and  avoids  confrontation  at  all  costs  – unless you’re  coming  for  someone  he  loves. ( but tbh even  then  he  doesn’t  really  want  smoke sgkads)   literally  just  a  sweet  boy. super  soft  inside  and  out,  loyal  to  a  fault,  and  overall  well meaning.   nurturer /  dad  friend .  will  often  ignore  his  own  problems  simply  for  what  he  thinks  is  the  greater  good  of  his  friends.  selfless  to  a  fault.   tendency  to  fall  into  bad  situations  thanks  to  his  reckless  nature  and  inability  to  say  no.

current  connections:

best  /  close  friends:  malachi,  future  iridescence  boys,  milena,  brodie,  maeve, marnie, 

neighbor /  light  meaningless  admiration / neighbors : harris

complicated not ( but definitely ) boyfriend: scout

weird terms: samyr 

he’s  scared  of  them: parker lmao

past  hookups: valentina

friendzoned  friends :  kaia

sister: hallie 

wanted  connections:

more  of  the  irridesence  boys  ( deadass  the  next  person  who  brings  one  of  them  will  get  free  dash  icons  from  me.  any  style.  i’m  begging.  bribery?  it  works !  )

unlikely  friends !

exes  on  bad  terms  and  good   terms.

people  he  produces  for .

anything  else  your  sweet  lil  head  desires !

𝕊𝕔𝕠𝕥𝕥𝕪 𝕊𝕥.𝕁𝕒𝕞𝕖𝕤 / 23

luke hemmings. cismale. he/him. ／  scotty  st.james  just pulled up blasting despicable by grandson — that song is so them ! you know, for a(n) twenty-three year old musician, i’ve heard they’re really  detached ,but that they make up for it by being so venturesome . if i had to choose three things to describe them, i’d probably say old guitars, the smell of cigarettes and bourbon, and hundred dollar bills thrown in the air . here’s to hoping they don’t cause too much trouble ! ( it’s me! the raq )

intro

pinterest here

vc: 5sos /  luke hemmings

a  hot…. mess  tbh.  scott’s   been  through  so  much  so  he’s  really  guarded ,  over  protective ,  and self  loathing  as  hell.  tendency  to  keep  everyone  at  an  arms  length  unless   you’re  someone  very  special  to  him  and  does  not  deal  well  with  whatever  he  deems  betrayal.  though,  that  doesn’t  stop  him  from  being  an  absolute  buffoon  when  it  comes  to  seriously  committing. as  a  side  effect  though,  if  you’re  on  the  list  of  people  he  really  fucks  with  he  will  fight  for  you.  also,  will  fight  cause  he’s  short  tempered  and  shit  at  expressing  himself.   really  fears  abandonment   seriously.  lowkey  scared  of  the  dark  eye – :( he’s  such  a  sweet  boy  on  the  inside  but  outwardly  a  prick  like  99.9% of  the  time.

current  connections:

best  /  good  friends:  brodie ,  harris ,   maeve ,   gus  and  parker

enemies:  angel / harris

acquaintances ( aka  friends  but  he’s  too  much  of  a  dick  to  claim  them ):   ashley,   kaia??

his sister but he doesn’t know it :  ashley 

ex on  really  bad  terms:  genevieve /  marnie

adoptive sibling: stas, scout 

childhood  girlfriend  /  something  really  complicated :  maeve

wanted  connections:

unrequited crush on him because im sure he milked that bc he wants affection w/o the commitment

party “friends”  friends  is  so  loose because  he…  never  calls  more than like 4  ppl  his  friend  but  he  treats  them  like  friends akass

a very  bad ex  pr  relationship  that  he  publicly  cheated  on  so  they  could  end  things  because  he  literally  can’t  fucking  stan  pr  shit akjdfas

neighbors !

an enemies with  benefits Perhaps? dont see that going further than they bicker but also smash ig sakfdjafd

anything else !

[sunnyborabora]

Alpha (Jungkook x Reader) Chapitre 4

Y/n is a powerful alpha. Nothing bad in fact except for the fact that she is a female alpha, something so rare that only a few are existing at the same time. Despite this, she is living her life as she wants, until she met Jeon Jungkook. An omega that wants everything but being what he is. They are undoubtedly attract to each other, but they don't seem to know why. As they are trying to start a relationship they have no idea that bigger forces have already planed something.

I suck at update I am so sorry... I was just wondering where I was going with this story and it took me a while to find a good plot. Interesting things are going to happen in the next chapter! I wish I could write more often but I am in the middle of midterms exam and maybe I won’t survive those so... I am supposed to write a Renjun smut. Concidering what happened with Heachan I might take some time to write it. Not that I think that what I wrote was wrong but because it is more considerate to wait a bit. But for the person who requested it don’t worry it’s the next thing I am doing!

--------

The anger fade quickly and Jungkook was left with only that unpleasant feeling of guilt and shame. He had not tried to contact any of his friend on the weekend and even less Y/n. He had wake up on Saturday with a clear distaste for himself and an inability to make the first move to contact any of his friends. He spent his day walking back and forth in his apartment, sulking, getting angry , to finally sulk again. He was trying to think about what had happened. He didn't understand. The more he was thinking about it and the more the realization that he had in fact blew everything out of proportion was settling in his brain. Why was he even so sensitive ? He easily came to the conclusion that he had to apologize. He called her pitiful... He was feeling ridiculous, and he might have cried multiple times. He didn't try anything this day. He couldn't even bring himself to text Jimin or Teahyung. Saturday had been painful, Sunday was already worst. He stayed 10 minutes in front of his friends apartment building, 5 more in the stairs trying to catch his breath, his friends probably already knew he was there, and as he was finally approaching the door, it opened itself. « We were really wondering when you were going to get out of your hole. » Hoseok, was watching him disapprovingly, but get out of the way to let him enter the apartment. Namjoon was sitting on the couch reading a book as Yoongi was on his computer next to him. Jin was watching tv sitting next to Taehyung and Jimin and was the first to see him enter. « Oh, Jungkook-ah » Five pairs of eyes were glued on him, and if he was only nervous before he started to feel on the verge of panic right now. « Well, well, we weren't expecting you anymore » said Jin, pursing his lips, looking at him up and down. « You're not helping hyung » said Namjoon. Indeed, Jin wasn't helping, Jungkook was feeling like he was going to burst into tears at any moment now. « I-I wanted to... I-I am sorry... » It had always been such a struggle for him to express how he was feeling, his hyungs, they were the only friends he had, and the only friends he wanted. They were his family and the feeling of disappointment was eating him from the inside. « Chill Jungkook it's okay. You look like you're going to combust » said Taehyung laughing. « True, it's okay ! » Said Jimin. Hoseok started to laugh on his right, and soon everyone was laughing, everyone except him. « Oh my god Jungkook are you crying ? » He had spent so much time, 24h to be exact, telling himself that they would reject him. He was thrown on the ground by Hoseok, in the middle of his friends, Taehyung on his right clutching his arms, Jimin hiting his shoulder playfully. Everything was fine now. He was fine. Exept he was not completly fine. His happyness wasn't complete. Something was missing. « Come on let's eat something » As they were all eating a pizza, sitting all over the living room, laughing and watching tv. But it was still there, this feeling of emptyness. Finally, it was time for him to leave, he said goodbye to everyone quite surprised when he saw Yoongi getting up, and following him to the door. « So, did you apologize ? » Jungkook did not quite understand. « I just apologize... -Don't play dumb Jungkook, we didn't forgive you just because you had nothing to be forgiven about. Y/n on the other hand... » He knew. Yoongi didn't need to remind him. « I know... I just... Don't know what to do... -Your relation ship with her, honestly it's none of my business. Don't take this as a dating advice or anything, but she is a good person. She for sure didn't deserve that. -I know... » Yoongi smiled and Jungkook left. This is when he decided to go to Y/n's apartment and to apologize. He walked all the way there, and it could have seemed long but it was all the time he needed to think. When he arrived in front of the building, a nice lady let him in, so he didn't need any code or something like this. But then he remembered he didn't know what floor she was leaving in. Was she even there ? He was truly stupid. « Maam ? Do you know on what floor Y/n L/n is leaving ? I-I want to surprise her but... It's the first time I came to her place... » The lady smiled. « It is rare that Y/n is bringing people to her place ? Are you her boyfriend or something ? » Jungkook blushed. The lady laughed. « She is on the 3rd floor young man, good luck ». Jungkook almost run in the stairs, but as he was walking, he started hearing voices. Y/n. Indeed, she was, in the corridor, leaning on the door framing, another woman in front of her. « If you need other advice or things like that just call me. -Thank you Y/n. -It's fine, you came all this way here to see me, it's normal. -Thank you again. » The other female was a bit smaller than Jungkook, a pretty face that looked awfully tired and worried. She didn't have any smell, so Jungkook thought she had no present yet. The woman walked past him without a look, and this is when he saw that Y/n was looking at him. She was smiling slightly. He walked in her direction, his eyes on the ground. Her scent was filling the space, it was so sweet, so strong. « Hi Jungkook » He could not explain what happened at this moment. All he knew was that he needed her closer. He wrapped her into a bear hug, clutching her frame between his arms. She didn't say anything, she limit  herself to gently touching his back. « Let's go back inside, I don't want my neighbors to see more than they should. » He let go of her, only to follow her inside. Her apartment was big. Bigger than his for sure. It was a nice, warm place. The living room had a big fluffy carpet that was taking almost the entire room. The couch seemed so inviting, he didn't know why but now that he was here, he was so relax, almost sleepy. « You can seat if you want. Do you want something to drink ? -No thank you... » He sat on the couch, waiting for her as she was doing something in the kitchen. She come back with a mug of what he could smell was hot chocolate. « You should have text me, I would have prepared something I- -No. » She looked at him confused. « Why are you here Jungkook ? -I came to apologize » She didn't say anything. « I-Noona... I don't know what I could say to make you forgive me... I am so sorry... » She looked at him confused. « You really think that if I was that mad at you I would have let you into my apartment. What happened, happened, let's just discuss it like adults okay. -But what I told you... I...I don't think this of you at all... I like you a lot, you're one of the strongest women I have ever met. You are not... Whatever I was dumb enough to say. » She smiled. « Thank you. For apologizing. And for everything that you just said. Not gonna lie, you kinda hurt my feelings » she said smiling smugly, « But we all said some dumb stuff when we are angry. And you were furious. The question is why ? » He was confused. « I don't understand.... -I was quite confused after what happened at the bar. I didn't know what you wanted. I am going to be honest, I never had a relationship, serious relationship, with an omega. I want it to work. But I don't know what you are expecting from me. We talked about it before. I want to give you the freedom to stand for yourself, and I am going to be honest with you it is not in my personality to go full alpha on people even if my wolf would like otherwise. So I am asking you ? What do you want from me ? » Jungkook's heart skipped a bit. « You're asking me... What I want ? -Yeah. I mean it's the way relationships work right ? -I... I don't know... It's the first time... I don't know... » Y/n eyes opened wider. « You've never dated before ? Even like a little girlfriend or boyfriend before you presented ? » He shook his head. « Oh. It's okay, don't worry, it's new for both of us then. » Jungkook felt ridiculous. Was it going to be like this all the time ? Because he must be honest then, he had no idea of what any social, romantic relationships were about. « I was so angry... They were insulting you... I couldn't do anything about it... And you weren't reacting... I... -You know if you want to stay with me, you'll kinda have to get used to people judging me because I am an alpha. It's rare, I only met two other in my entire life, and for one it was not even on this continent. People are usually pretty curious. Some other can get really aggressive. It's fine, in the end I know that I am as rare as a northern hairy nosed wombat. -What is that ? -A super rare animal. » Jungkook smiled a bit. « Just to tell you that it doesn't affect me anymore. I know who I am, and who I want to be and this is the most important. The only people that can hurt me are the people I love. » He breathed deeply. He knew that she wasn't affected by this, but it hurt him. « It's just that I like you a lot, and I can't stand people insulting you. -It wasn't easy for me either. I had never been this tense. You've been threatened by alphas twice in the space of two weeks. -I swear it's not always like this. -It will be Jungkook... When you start living your life as you want, there will always be people to tell you to stop, or to insult you. Doesn't mean you have to stop. -I know... But it's hard... -I know. But you learn with time. At one point you're so fed up with being someone else than you have no other choice than being yourself. » It was hard. He always had been so concerned by what other people thought of him, he was always so shy... « It might kinda be my fault too. I mean, maybe, I was going too fast ? With all the, you know, kissing and stuff. I- » He was definitely embarrassed and the noises he just did weren't helping. « Are you okay Jungkook ? -Why are we talking about it anyway... -It's important. I kinda have to tell you something and please don't think I am weird or anything... » He didn't think he could never find her weird. « I want to take things slow. Usually my wolf is taking interest in the person I am dating after some time... It's not the case with you. My wolf wants you, as, like... » She cleared her throat. « Never mind, just that she would like to go fast. Maybe too fast for you. Tell me if you feel pressured or anything else... » He wanted to know what she had mean earlier... But in the end the conclusion was the same from his side. His wolf never wanted someone this way. If he could submit to his alpha right now and getting matted he for sure would do it. It wasn't in Jungkook's plans. « I... Feel the same. My wolf I mean. » She raised her brows. « Really ? -Yeah... My wolf wants to submit to you at any moment, he really feels great when you are with us... » She made a face and Jungkook was sure she thought he was some creep. « No ! Wait ! That's not- -Don't worry Jungkook, I understand. » She smiled at him, embarrassment fading a bit. « So what are we doing now ? » He asked not sure of what he was expecting. « What if we keep going. Now that we have talked. We can keep going on dates and eating together for lunch. No need to marry each other right now ». He chocked on his saliva and the flash of a very pretty Y/n in a wedding dress came in his mind. Something was wrong with him. « O-okay... » He was ready to leave then, slowly getting up. « Wait ! Hana is not here tonight, do you want to stay for dinner ? We could order something, and watch netflix ? » He didn't hesitate one bit. He nodded and sit right back on the couch. She smiled happily, getting up to come and sit next to him. « So what do you want to eat ? I know a Vietnamese restaurant that are doing excellent pho.... »

They ate in front of a tv show Jungkook didn't know, but it wasn't important in the end because he was focused on something else. His heart was full of happiness and ready to explode. He could not explain the feeling of fulfillment that he was feeling at the moment. But here he was, cuddling on the couch with Y/n. His head on her lap as she was slowly stroking his hair. He didn't know when he fell asleep, but he woke up still on the couch, in a better position than before, with two fluffy blankets on him to keep him warm. But Y/n wasn't here. He knew where she was. In her room upstairs. He didn't know what was happening, but he started to walk up the stairs to finally find Y/n's room in the end of the corridor. It was as if he could not control his body. His legs were walking on their own and his mind was blank. He just needed to be with her. He opened the door, and she was sleeping in the middle of the bed, her face buried inside her pillows. « Alpha ? » She raised her head slowly, intense red eyes glowing in the dark were fixing Jungkook. But he wasn't afraid. He knew what he had to do. He simply lowered his head, a pained sound coming out of his mouth. But his alpha didn't say anything. She didn't say anything, but she slipped on the right side of the bed, leaving him space to come. And he did, almost running inside the bed, hugging his alpha as much as he could. And she was purring, her red eyes still watching him, and she was smelling so good and everything was perfect. Jungkook didn't remember anything. He was sure he had fell asleep on the couche, but he was definitely in a bed. It has been 10 minutes since he woke up, but he hadn't move one bit. He was frozen on the spot. He should be happy because Y/n was all over him, her head on his shoulders, her face nuzzled in his neck. He was feeling her breath on his skin and it was even harder not to move. When did he even came here ? Did she tell him to come ? She twitched in his arms, her hand gripping his shirt before she raised her head slightly. « What... » She suddenly raised, her body leaving his. « What ? What are you doing here ? I mean... What... -I don't know ! I swear it's not what you think. I was on the couch and I woke up here. » Please believe me. « I believe you. It's fine. I was just surprised, don't worry. » She got out of the bed leaving him alone. « What do you want for breakfast ? Let's hurry up, so I can drive you to your apartment before class. » He groaned, he totally forgot about class. « We can just stay here all day... I don't have anything important to do... » She laughed, roaming through her clothes, looking for something. « Come on, we're going to eat, I am hungry ». Finally, Jungkook decided to get dressed. If food was a great motivation, the idea of leaving her side was disturbing. « Let's eat waffles, I love this ». He would have preferred to stay in bed, but waffles sounded good. And they tasted good too. Once sited in the restaurant, with a mug of hot chocolate and a impressing pile of waffles, he wasn't regretting his bed too much. They soon finished and left for uni. « I can 't believe we are already back to class... Why is the weekend so short ? » She chuckled, elbowing him gently. They were walking, slowly, nuzzling closer together because of the cold. It was so domestic, Jungkook heart could burst at any moment. Everything was perfect until they start to approach the main corridor. A circle of people was forming around something they could not see. « Y/n ! » It was Hana , Y/n's roommate. She was clutching her bag in her arms looking panicked. « Hana ? What is happening ? » Y/n let go of Jungkook's hand, and started to walk toward the crowd. The atmosphere changed almost instantly. The crowd spread in half, letting her pass. Jungkook followed her, but people didn't let him go further. All he could see was a group of guy, and the girl he saw in front of Y/n's door yesterday. And it's where it hit him. There was something wrong with the girl. « What's happening ? » Y/n 's voice resounded in the corridor. The other girl got on her feet and was ready to run at the guys. But Y/n caught her arm before she could jump on them. « Calm down. What's happening ? » It was it. The alpha voice. It was the first time she ever used it in front of Jungkook. Everyone stopped breathing. The alphas in the crowd tensed up. « They attacked me ! I was just going to class, trying to keep it low like you said I should but it did not work ». Y/n turned her gaze on the group of male in front of her. « Why ? » The first one scoff, shrugging his shoulders. « It's a question of balance Y/n. We are wolves, we don't want other species to mix with us. » This is when Jungkook understood. Not everyone were wolves on this planet. Even if wolves were the most common species, 6 out of 10 people were wolves, some other individuals had peculiar capacities. And he was sure that the girl was a freaking witch. Y/n seemed to think a bit. « She is with me. I don't see the problem. -You can't have her in your pack. You are a wolf you should not accept the others. -I'll accept whoever I want in my pack. This is none of your business. » The guy in front of her tensed up. Jungkook was shaking. What if he wanted to hurt her ? He could not let his alpha being hurt ! « What's happening to you Y/n ? At some point we were good friend right ? Now your playing lovey dovey with your new toy and you're forgetting what is really important. » The alpha turned around to face Jungkook, and he was feeling sick to his stomach. « Don't look at him. -Don't worry. We know he is yours. But before it wasn't what was stopping from sharing a bit ! » Jungkook took a deep breath. Trying to think about the conversation they had the day before. He had to stop himself from acting reckless. « Don't touch the witch. And don't come near my omega. » One of them chuckled. « Does your dad know your mating with this guy anyway ? » Jungkook saw it. At the moment the dude mentioned Y/n's dad she froze, face suddenly so pale that he thought she was going to faint. « That's what I thought, it would be bad if maybe I was calling one of your brother to tell him what is happening. I think I still have Youngjae's number. -Call him, text him write him a letter for what I care. Just don't come near them. » The boys finally left, the circle of people dissolving bit by bit. Jungkook wanted to throw himself in Y/n's arms, he needed comfort. But Hana was already in her arms. The other omega was shaking, face buried in Y/n's neck. « Hey Hana are you okay ? Hey, do you want me to call Joon ? » Jungkook left before he could hear the answer. What just happened ? When Y/n woke up this morning, everything felt right. Her entire being felt full, contempt. Her wolf had not been this happy in a long time. And she understood pretty fast why. She woke up to a very stiff and shook Jungkook. She didn't really know what had happened either. « What... » She wished she had reacted differently. What type of person ? Girlfriend ? Alpha ? Was reacting like this hen they just woke up with the boy of their dream next to them. Social skills social skills my ass. But it was not because she didn't want to wake up next to Jungkook. It was just that she was sure that she left him on the couch yesterday when she went to bed. Did he come up on his own ? Did she called him ? Her wolf was arguing that it wasn't that important, that Jungkook was here, and it was all that mattered. It was true, but still, she could feel like something had happened. Actually she thought about letting him sleep in her room the other night. But they decided to take things slowly and it was not taking things slowly than sleeping in the same bed than him. Her wolf cried, treating her of betrayer, but she did not listen. « What ? What are you doing here ? I mean... What... -I don't know ! I swear it's not what you think. I was on the couch and I woke up here. » He was panicking. Damn it wasn't good. She hated it when he was feeling pressured. And it felt like she was pressuring him a lot lately. The boy needed space not some clingy weird girl, sleeping with him like that. She almost face palmed. « I believe you. It's fine. I was just surprised, don't worry. » She got out of bed as quick as she could. Space space space ! The more she was repeating this to herself the more her wolf was crying. The only thing that came up in her mind was to proposed Jungkook some Breakfast. They could stay together and in the same time getting ready for classes. Yes that was a plan. « I can 't believe we are already back to class... Why is the weekend so short ? » He was so cute. His black hair was still messy from bed, and he looked so soft in his sweatshirt. But this is where Y/n understood that she had a problem. She was only watching Jungkook, not seeing anything around her until she eared a voice. « Y/n ! » Hana, it was Hana. Fragile, sweet Hana who was having a panic attack. Y/n wasn't okay. Nobody was supposed to hurt Hana. That was not possible. It has always been like that, since the first day they met, Y/n and her wolf promised to protect that bubbly omega. And it never happened before. Her and Joon were making sure of this. But here she was not taking care of her. « Hana ? What is happening ? » Y/n let go of Jungkook's hand, and it hurt like hell. Was it supposed to be like that ? She gathered her senses as fast as possible, ready to enter the fight. She knew how those type of things were working. Were wolves might have a human sides inside they were not better than animals. And you could not show any weakness when you were with dominant wolves. She felt everyone tensing around her as she was walking through the crowd. She understood almost instantly. She knew it would happen at some point but could the universe give her a day off. « What's happening ? » Y/n 's voice resounded in the corridor. Sohee was on the ground, her books and papers spread all around her. « Calm down. What's happening ? » She didn't mean to use her full power in a simple sentence, but she was so tensed. Maybe she had to work on her control. Those Yoga class were maybe not a bad idea. « They attacked me ! I was just going to class, trying to keep it low like you said I should but it did not work » Yeah, she was not expecting anything else. « Why ? -It's a question of balance Y/n. We are wolves, we don't want other species to mix with us. » It was bullshit. The same bullshit everyone was saying all the time when it was about other species. Wolves because they were the majority preferred to ignore the others and not include them into their pack. Sohee being here was something incredible. The university was finally opening their door to more witch and other species was a great thing. Well at least Y/n thought so. How wolves could understand that others were not a problem if they were never seeing them. « She is with me. I don't see the problem. -You can't have her in your pack. You are a wolf you should not accept the others. -I'll accept whoever I want in my pack. This is none of your business. » Y/n was not ready to fight. She didn't want to. And honestly shifting in the middle of university was definitely not the best idea. « What's happening to you Y/n ? At some point we were good friend right ? Now your playing lovey dovey with your new toy and you're forgetting what is really important. » She wished she could forget about all the bullshit she had done at some point. Hanging out with alphas because she was one seemed to be a good idea at the time. She was not regretting a lot in her life bu this was definitely something she would like to change. The fact that he was mentioning Jungkook didn't help a bit. He could insult her all he wanted, she didn't give a fuck, but not Jungkook. « Don't look at him. -Don't worry. We know he is yours. But before it wasn't what was stopping from sharing a bit ! » We know he is yours. It sounded right in her head, so wrong in the mouth of that douchbag. Just thinking about him touching Jungkook, just breathing in his direction made her skin tingled, the feeling of shifting crushing her stomach. « Don't touch the witch. And don't come near my omega. » One of them chuckled. « Does your dad know your mating with this guy anyway ? » It hurt more than what Y/n had anticipated. Not a lot of people knew about her family. Not that she had anything to hide, but she always wanted to keep it low witch was impossible if everyone knew you were the daughter of some important pack Alpha. Not that she was scared of her father, he was actually a sweet man and a good leader. But he was a pack leader before being a father and he was sometimes forced to make decisions that were hard to accept for her. If she had chosen this life it was because she didn't want to be a part of this system that was the pack of her parents. She didn't care much about hierachy, and she wanted to be a free spirit. Not being forced to think or do things because of some stupid rules. « That's what I thought, it would be bad if maybe I was calling one of your brother to tell him what is happening. I think I still have Youngjae's number. -Call him, text him write him a letter for what I care. Just don't come near them. » It would be bad if one of her older brother was coming. They were territorial and wanted just a thing : deciding of every aspect of her life. She wasn't going to let them. They finally left, the pressure on her shoulders getting lighter. She turned around to see if Jungkook was okay. Hana jumped in her arm. « Hey Hana are you okay ? Hey, do you want me to call Joon ? » Hana was okay a bit shocked but everything will be fine once she would be with her Alpha. It was not the same for Y/n. Her heart broke a little. Jungkook had left without her being able to tell him anything. She wasn't used to get so much attention. And it was a lot said because she was basically getting attention for existing. But her Omega wasn't here, and she was left alone.

[puckrmn]

Drunk On You || Peychuck

DATE & TIME: Nov 24. 3ish AM. 

TAGGING: @peytonhudson and @thepuckrmn

LOCATION: Puck’s apartment

SUMMARY: Post-night out shenanigans. 

WARNINGS: I’d say it’s like PG-13ish stuff. 

PEYTON

“You are... *so* hot.” Peyton smirks, crawling onto Puck’s lap and kissing at his cheek playfully. She doesn’t remember what she’s had to drink, or how much exactly, but she knows her body feels like it’s borderline flying and the man she’s on top of is literally the only person she remembers seeing tonight. Which is fine, because really, he’s the only person she wants to see. “I like your apartment.” She tells him grinning, and running her hand absentmindedly down his arm. “Thank you for not making me crawl through the window like I make you do... Broken bones are kind of the *worst*. We had a dog come into the clinic the other day with a broken leg and  even though he got the world’s cutest cast, I really just wanted to swap with him... His name was Pablo. Did you know that dogs can smell your feelings?” Useless animal information tended to fly out of her mouth apparently when she was both nervous and drunk. Both of which she was right now  - Though the latter helped the former. “Do you think they’d be able to smell how into you I am?”

PUCK

Puck chuckled as he leaned back to allow her to get onto his lap. After a night of a lot of drinking and practically having sex on the dance floor, the two found themselves back at Puck’s bachelor pad surrounded by drunk food they picked up on their way home. Draping his arm over her leg, he sat there staring at her with a slight smirk on his face as she rambled at him for what felt like the millionth time in their relationship. “I’d be impressed as fuck if you somehow managed to climb into the window of my third story apartment.” He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear and smirked. “I’m not sure. I bet your new dog is definitely going to notice you smelling like sex all the time,” he joked. “I mean Sugar knows you’re hella into some mystery guy. So it’s possible.” Puck leaned up and pressed his lips to hers for a moment. “Can you smell how into you I am?” he muttered as he nipped her lower lip.

PEYTON

“So climbing up walls is all it takes to impress you? I’ll have to remember that.”  Peyton grins, lifting her eyes in mock thought . She still couldn’t work out why Puck was seeing her, she wasn’t dangerous, or (through no lack of trying) badass, she was just... her. Puck could have anyone in this town, she knew that. Her nose crinkles, and her cheeks flush pink for a second,  “Sugar told you?... She didn’t tell you who this mystery man was though did she? Because that could make our not-not-a-date date a little awkward.” She joked, and before she could continue rambling, the breath against her lips, takes her away. She nods slowly, leaning in to kiss him again. “I... umm.. I like the way you smell.” She whispers, pulling away and resting her forehead softly against his. “Is that weird?”

PUCK

Puck shook his head at her question. “She didn’t say who it was. We were just talking about how our dream threesome with you could never happen now that you’re with your mystery man,” he explained. His eyes closed as she rested her forehead against his. “It’s not weird at all.” His hands ran slowly over her back as he just held her close to his body and enjoyed the moment. This situation was completely new to him and took him way out of his comfort zone. He was used to doing what he wanted and not caring about who he hurt in his path. This was different. She was someone he never wanted to hurt. Sighing, he opened his hazel eyes and stared into her brown ones. “You drive me fucking nuts, Hudson. You’re fucking intoxicating. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to explain what the hell you do to me,” he said softly, the alcohol coursing through his veins allowing him to be more honest than usual.

PEYTON

Peyton’s grin lights up her face when he talks, more so than it usually does when she’s in Puck’s presence. “You don’t have any idea how great you are, do you? You can’t say things like that to me and not expect me to fall for you.” She half jokes, knowing that the more time she spent with him, the more time she wants to. “You know I only want to be with you, Puck Puckerman, right? You’re not my distraction — though to be fair, you are very distracting. I mean, I was doing a presentation the other day on a case study and I accidentally called the dog Puck... thankfully I don’t think anyone noticed? but it was still... something. Anyway, my inability to not think about you is not the point i’m trying to make.” Blushing, she pulls back, and lets her hands rest on his chest softly. “I need you to stop thinking I’m going to end up with Ben... or anyone else. Let me be with you until you get bored of me.” She chuckles, the circling alcohol helping her not stumble over her words for once. “Ben doesn’t make me feel the way you do. Not even Devon makes me feel the way you do and I’m looking at him with cheese fries goggles.”

PUCK

“Puck would be a great name for a dog. Puck the pug? I mean come on,” he joked. “I think about you a lot too,” he added simply. Puck listened to her try to convince him once more that he was the one she wanted to be with. Taking her left hand in his, he carefully played with fingers as he tried to process what she was saying. He could tell she was being sincere, but that didn’t help silence the voice in the back of his head. The voice that said he would never beat the connection that Peyton and Ben had. The voice that kept saying she deserved someone better. The voice that he was going to ignore for now. Puck raised their connected hands to his face and placed a small kiss on her ring finger. Sighing, he looked back up at the girl seated in his lap. “Are you sure you don’t wanna go get married?”

PEYTON

At least he wasn’t arguing that she belonged with Ben this time. That was an improvement she would take, if only because she knew one day he’d believe her. She was persistent, and even though Puck did the opposite of helping her think straight, she knew she wanted him. Peyton smiles softly at the kiss, and nods adamantly. “Lets do it,” She jokes, folding her fingers into his. “I don’t know where you can get married at this time of night... but I don’t see how it could be a bad idea at all. We don’t need rings, I’ll tattoo a puppy on your ring finger and you’ll know you’re mine.” She says with a small laugh and traces an outline of a puppy on his shirt to show her skills. “I could be a great tattoo artist, y’know? Not the most insanely attractive one in town, but... I can take second to you.”

PUCK

“Vegas, baby,” he replied before pecking her lips. “Just kidding. That’s basic as fuck.” He smirked and looked down at her finger as it moved over his chest. “That…I could actually make happen. Rings are overrated. Tattoos are more badass. Although I kinda don’t know if I want a puppy on my finger. What about a P. P for Peyton. And you’re so much fucking hotter than me. You’d be the hottest tattoo artist in town.,” he added. Puck nodded down at his shirt for a moment. “You can take that off whenever you want, by the way.” He shifted her in his lap so that she was straddling him. “So…Sugar’s nude…you’re into that?” he asked as his hands snuck under her shirt, caressing the skin on her back. “Because the idea of you enjoying that…is pretty fucking hot.”

PEYTON

Peyton rolls her eyes playfully, “There is no one in this town that is hotter than you, Puck. I’m not even sure you’re real half the time.” It still made no sense that someone like him would want to be with someone like her, it was like one massive dream. But she wasn’t going to question it. Not tonight, probably not ever. If it was a dream she didn’t want to wake up.  “P works too.” She tells him with a slight smirk, taking his hint and pulling the shirt off over his head, tossing it to the ground without much thought. Shirtless Puck was a whole new level of distracting, and despite having seen him shirtless time after time now -- almost every night since they’d first slept together, it still flusters her for a moment. “And I’ll-i’ll get a P...” She says stumbling over her words before looking up at him, with flushed cheeks. “For Puck... Or puppy. Because you’re sort of the same thing. Sounds like the perfect first tattoo to me.” She knows he’s joking... At least she assumes, but somehow the idea doesn’t bother her at all.  Maybe she was putting her heart into something that was never going to work, but she was in with Puck. All in.

“I thought it was a very nicely taken photo.” She laughs, and wraps her arms around his shoulders, playing with the strands of hair at the back of his head absentmindedly. “But Sugar is beautiful... And clearly very attractive. It was a nice surprise. Really nice.” She kisses at the tip of his nose gently. “You can admit you liked it, babe. It was hot."

PUCK

He chuckled and kissed her forehead. “If I’m not real…then you’ve been having the longest and most elaborate wet dream ever,” he joked. Puck leaned forward and lifted his arms to help her with her task. “Matching P tattoos instead of rings. Boom done. Hawaii here we come. But first…” he drifted off before grabbing the bottom of her shirt and slowly pulling it up and over her head. “…there. Now we match.” Puck pulled her closer to his body, enjoying the feeling of her body heat against his. Puck knew the whole secret relationship was taking a toll on the both of them, more so on Peyton than him, but he really did enjoy the little bubble they created for themselves. Things just would be messy once other people starting throwing in their opinion about the situation. Smirking at the kiss to his nose, he shrugged at her comment. “It was hot. I did enjoy it. But I’m enjoying the fact that you enjoyed it so much more.” Puck leaned forward and kissed her for a moment before a thought crossed his mind. “She said my dick was ‘not bad’. I think she meant to say it was the greatest thing she’s ever seen.”

PEYTON

“Hawaii here we come.” She repeats, holding her arms up for a brief moment to make it easier for her shirt to come off. Still feeling alcohol in her veins, every touch on her skin from Puck felt like a small burst of electricity was shooting through her body, and honestly? it was hard to be close to him and not want to very quickly take off the rest of his clothing. She was drunk, and he was the hot... So hot. Peyton had never had a problem questioning her sexuality, she knew from a young age she found both men and women attractive, and she was fortunate growing up in a house where no one asked her to define who she was with a label. She was free to be herself. She’d never hesitated when someone was hot... And sugar is hot -- maybe if her heart wasn’t entirely invested in Puck she would think about dating her. “Yeah? Is this where you tell me you want to have a threesome with Sugar? Is that the dream here?” She jokes, leaning in to deepen the kiss and in turn shutting her up for a minute. A trick which only Puck seemed to have mastered. “So... Sugar was the person you sent the dick pick to?” Peyton swallows thickly, chewing on the inside of her lip and suddenly feeling weirdly insecure. It was easier knowing he sent a pic than knowing who he sent it to.  But she was going to be cool... She could totally be cool. “I think it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever seen... If umm... that counts?”

PUCK

Puck smirked at Peyton’s question. “I mean…I won’t say no if the opportunity presented itself. But it’s not like I’m going door to door campaigning for it to happen.” Sure a threesome with Peyton and Sugar would be any dude’s dream come true, but it wasn’t on the top of his to do list. He was having a great time with the girl in his arms and wasn’t trying to rock the boat anytime soon. His fingers easily unclasped her bra as she deepened their kiss. He stopped his motion as he felt her pull away from him. Puck furrowed his brow as he watched Peyton process the dick pic information. He was an emotional idiot, but even he could tell that this was bothering her. He hooked a finger under her chin to force her to look him in the eyes. “Hey. It wasn’t me hitting on her. She just didn’t believe that I’m packing heat. Your opinion counts. Your opinion always counts, baby.” Puck ran his thumb across her cheek and smiled. “Plus I’m tryna hook your brother up with her….so that she can stop trying to date you if I’m being honest…I mean I even gave her shitty intel about you…because I kinda wanna keep you to myself. Only if that’s ok with you…”

PEYTON

Peyton lets her gaze meet his, and it’s easy to believe him when he looks at her like that. He could tell her dinosaurs were roaming outside and she would believe him... every single word. She trusts him. Wholeheartedly. Smiling softly, she nods and bites down on her bottom lip gently, trying to remember words as she sat on top of him without half her clothing and his thumb strokes her cheek. “You can keep me. I’m happy to be all yours, Puck Puckerman.” She says simply. “You’re so cute... Like an otter I just want to hold hands with all the time. But not actually hold hands because that’s not our thing, but sea otter’s they hold hands when they’re swimming so they never drift apart? It’s very cute. They’re also just as loving, if not more loving than humans, they just don’t like to show it all the time. So yeeeah... you’re an otter.” That might be the least sexy thing Peyton has ever said while not fully clothed, but once the words started coming it was hard for her to stop. She closes her eyes for a second, chuckling shortly at how lame she just sounded, before taking a deep breath. “I’m going to try that again. Does umm... This not-not-a-date date end up in your bed? Because as great as your couch is, I wouldn’t hate for you to be on top of me.” She continues with a faint smirk. “Was that better?”

PUCK

Puck raised an eyebrow as she started rambling about otters. He had been around her long enough to know that when she started babbling about animals it means the nerves were getting to her. “...aren’t otters what they call hairy skinny gay guys?” He glanced down at his chest and then back up at Peyton. “I mean I am kinda hairy,” he joked. A smirk played on his lips as she shifted gears away from animals and back to the fact that they were both half-naked. He pretended to think over her question for a moment. “Ya know...I think I could make that happen.” Grabbing her thighs, he easily stood up with her in his arms and navigated his small apartment to his bedroom. Puck carefully laid her on his bed and crawled over her. “Your bed is like a million times more comfortable than this is.” He brushed a strand away from her face and smiled. “But I am really happy that you’re here right now,” he added before leaning down to hungrily connect their lips.

PEYTON

The way Puck smirks as she rambles makes her heart jump every time, but she is admittedly thankful when the topic is switched and his arms are instead taking her to the bedroom. Looking up at his smiling hazel eyes, she grins, “I don’t know, this feels pretty comfortable to me.” Kissing him is something Peyton could do all day — and if she wasn’t already drunk, she would be after feeling his lips and his body weight against her for more than a minute. Puck did something to her, something she wasn’t prepared to give up anytime soon. Somewhere between their lips crashing and her legs hooking around his waist, her hands fumbled at the top at his jeans, struggling to focus on both *him* and his buttons at the same time. “I think your pants are broken.” She laughs defeatedly against him, giving up and wrapping her arms around his shoulders, sliding her fingers into his hair. “Maybe we’ll just have to... cuddle? I hear sex is very overrated... Save it for the wedding night?” She teases, her eyes closing as she moves her lips down to his neck.

PUCK

His hands gripped her waist tightly as the kiss grew with passion. He dropped his head against the bed as her lips moved to his neck, his weak spot. “You know...I’m usually really against cuddling...but you’re just so fucking good at it...and we should probably save ourselves until marriage...but...”he drifted off as his hands moved from her waist to the front of her body. In an easy motion, Puck had her jeans unbuttoned in a second. Kneeling up on the bed, he worked on tugging her pants down her legs and tossing them aside. “...I’m so much better at taking off clothes.” Puck stared down at her as he easily undid his own jeans. “You’re beautiful,” he said simply as pushed his pants down his legs and kicked them away. Grabbing her waist, he playfully threw her further up the bed before leaning down to eagerly reconnect their lips.

PEYTON

“Yes, yes you are.” She says with a playful smile on her lips. As much fun as it was being so tightly against him tonight as they danced, having him alone and watching as he pushed the clothing off his seemingly photoshopped body was a thousand times better. “And you’re perfect.” Peyton breathes in response, her laughter filling the room as she’s thrown further up before her lips are fused with his. Arms wrapping around his shoulders she pulls him down closer, moulding their bodies together and twisting her legs into to his to deepen their kiss as much as she could. Almost reluctantly, her lips pull apart from his, though close enough to still feel the warmth of his breath. “I need you, Puck.” She tells him in a whisper, keeping her eyes closed so he doesn’t realize that even in her tipsy state, she’s not just talking about his body.

PUCK

His hands eagerly roamed her body as the kiss grew more desperate between the two. It was always effortless with Peyton. His body responded to her touch instantly. Being with her just felt right to him. A groan fell from his lips as she pulled away, immediately missing the contact. Her whispered voice caused a smirk to appear on his face, clueless about any deeper meaning behind the words. “I’m right here, baby,” he muttered as he pressed a kiss to her cheek. Pulling away slightly, Puck reached across the bed to dig through his night stand. Grabbing the desired item, he held it up so she could see. “Boy Scout motto. Always be prepared,” he joked, dropping the condom onto the bed next to them before leaning down to recapture her lips with his and get lost in each other’s bodies once more.

PEYTON

Peyton’s lips mimic the smirk playing on his, and she really doesn’t care that her drunken declaration is washed aside. It didn’t even matter, when it was just the two of them the world disappeared anyway. She pinches at his side jokingly as he pulls away to search through his draws. “I just wanted to make sure this wasn’t an elaborate drunk wet dream... but I think you’re real.” She comments teasingly, distracted quickly (and more than happily) by his return and the feeling of his body against hers. There was a mental note made to ask him about his time in Boy Scouts, but it could wait. That was kind of the great thing about being with Puck, it all felt like it could wait.

[sweettoothshipperrotg]

okay I know I said last one but,,,,,, i couldn’t help myself- SO how about Superhero AU? With FrostedNature? (loveuthankubye)

Oh you and your promises of not sending more prompts. LIKE.YOU.COULD.HOLD.OUT (don’t you worry baby it’s fine, your prompts always make me happy :3)

Sorry this took so long, but I’ve finlly completed it.

Based on: ‘You’re my arch nemesis but our best friends are dating…I guess I’ll play nice in civvies, for now’ AU

Hope you enjoy!

SECRET IDENTITITES, MY FOOT

Jackson Overland Frost couldn’t believe his eyes when Bunnymund introduced his girlfriend’s best friend.

This was supposed to be a nice evening. He had cleared up his schedule specifically for tonight (if he kept on canceling every time something “came up”, Bunny would probably have strangled him) and was more than ready to enjoy his first free night in three years.

Luckily, he had been spared his friend’s backlash since Tooth’s friend also had to unexpectedly rain check their outing several times.

It wasn’t like Jack didn’t like the idea of his friend now being engaged (albeit, it had shaken him a little). Toothiana was a lovely woman, a bubbly behavior that balanced Bunny´s down to earth personality. The aussie had never been in such a long relationship before, but on the four year mark he decided to pop the question.

Jack, as the newly designated best man, was having a hard time handling his responsibilities for his friend’s wedding, his job at North’s store, and his “extracurricular activities”.

The couple had declared that their two friends had to meet in order for their nuptials to smoothly continue.

Toothiana had told him a little about the future bridesmaid. Emily Jane was a no-nonsense successful botanic researcher who Tooth had met at college and become friends with.

To anyone else such a friendship would have seemed rather odd, but considering that he had and Bunny had become friends when the blue-eyed boy was getting his ass handed to him during a bar fight, he understood. His opponent had managed to throw him over the table when Jack had tried to be a knight in shining armor and save one of his friends from a rather insistent ex-boyfriend. Aster had knocked the douchebag with a mean right hook and helped Jack up from the floor.

They had been besties ever since.

Now he was at a fancy restaurant in a five-star hotel, surrounded by his two friends and sitting in front of a stunning woman in a black dress who was sending intense glances his way.

Not in the sexy sense, more like “I want to murder you with this very steak knife I have in my hand” kinda way.

Although his presence had never warranted such a reaction from anyone he had met, there was a little problem.

He knew this woman.

And judging by the recognition in her eyes when they shook hands for the first time, she knew him as well.

Despite his best effort to keep his night job and his personal life separate, it seems it had come back to bite him.

The woes that betides a superhero.

Yes, he had superpowers. And yes he spent most of his free time as a vigilante making the streets of Burgess City a little safer to tread.

By now, Jack Frost had become more than just a fable among people.

It had been quite a decision when his ice powers manifested for the same time after his close call with death at the local pond he used to skate at with his little sister.

He remembered the cold and the dark water that surrounded him. He can even recall his sister screaming out his name from the surface. But then he woke up in a hospital bed after being unconscious for days and with his mother and sister asleep by his bedside.

His powers took two weeks to show themselves.

A glisten and a flurry of ice shot out of his hand into the tree next to him and covered it with an intricate and budding frost pattern. And the rest was history.

Had it not been for the present tense atmosphere, he would have chuckled at his memory of his first years as a superhero, running around with a mask and in an old blue hoodie. What a reckless kid he had been.

Thankfully his current supersuit was now more outfitted for combat and to handle his powers. North had been very helpful after Jack had busted into his shop to stop a large robbery.

And yes, of course North knew of his double life (the ex Russian scientist was his go to tech guy, after all). A superhero couldn’t keep down a stable job as easily as the comics made it look, and he had rent to pay.

In his many comings and goings he had faced many different foes: the low life criminals that preyed on the streets, the low level grunts of the mafia families, even a few corrupt leaders of the crime syndicates that sat atop of the city.

But none had been such a challenge like his arch nemesis. Persephone.With such a taste for dramatics, no wonder the universe had decided to search for someone to meet her match.

Her phytokinetic powers had him gawking at her when they first met at a bank robbery – that she orchestrated!

With a graceful swoop she and her plants had descended upon him and confronted him in one of the most engaging combats he had had in ages.

He was quick and nimble, but her defense and her strikes knocked the wind out of him.

Luckily, he had entertained her enough for the police back up to arrive.

She had left him fighting off thorny vines and unable to follow her and end the dance they had started.

Jack Frost had encountered the mysterious woman several other times.

She seemed to dabble in several types of crimes, but was quite adept to burglary. The high-class type. Although those pompous fishes could do with having a little less money, the upper class victims were outraged at the inability of the police to catch the masked villainess.

The mystery that was Persephone had kept him awake many nights. Unfortunately, it wasn’t all from a sleuth-related nature.

Her sly smile was ever present when he closed his eyes, so was her taught yet lithe body he had felt during close quarters combat and her alluring and taunting voice.

In other words, his imagination was playing against him. And he was losing, part of him wanted to put her behind bars so he would stop thinking of her so damn much.In another universe, these two characters would have never recognized the other; oblivious of their double life until some convoluted hand of destiny revealed their identities at a more inconvenient time.

But it seemed that fate had other plans.

His mind was brought back from his machinations all of a sudden.

“I’m sorry, I have to take this call.” Emily’s voice apologized profusely to her friend. “I’ll be right back. I promise.”

She sauntered out of view, almost as if she knew that his eyes would follow her.

“I…uh…I gotta use the restroom” He spluttered and excused himself away from the couple.

Jack passed the restrooms, and made his way to the open courtyard the hotel had.It looked quite pretty with the lights that illuminated the ornate fountain.

She was there, with her back to him and appearing to admire the abundant yet harmonic greenery that surrounded them.

Oh how freaking convenient.

He approached, carefully as you would to a deadly animal. The frost was starting to surge on his palm but yet he didn’t attack. The place was secluded but not enough for a full on battle to go unnoticed.

“Of all the places in this city, I find you here.” She still did not turn to face him. “How odd, isn’t it?”

Jack didn’t answer, sizing her up. He felt relief that she hadn’t take the steak knife with her, but that feeling burst when he realized she was far more deadly without it.

“And here I was planning such a show for when we met again.” Persephone said in her usual tone; the type of confident voice that came from always holding all the cards.

“Eager to see me, sweetheart?” The word escaped his mouth before he could help it.

They had slipped into well-known roles; their war of wits just as accelerating to him as their physical warfare.

“Flirt all you want, Frost.” Her head turned to glance at him, a smirk blooming in her lips. “But you’re not handing me over to the police just yet.”

The plants around them swooshed, but not because of the wind.

“Really?” Jack clenched his jaw, his muscles tensing. “And why is that?”

She now fully turned around and stepped forward, but he held his ground.

“Because you wouldn’t want to break your dear friend’s heart, would you?”

That sent a rush of fear through his blood. Instantly, a sharp spike of ice was forming onto his hand and was inches away from her neck. She didn’t even flinch. “If you dare harm Bunny or Tooth-”

“Spare me the theatrics, Frost.” She said calmly, as if she didn’t have an ice blade to her neck ready to run her through. “I’m not going to hurt any of them.”

Ok, that had him baffled.

“What?”

“I happen to truly care for Toothiana, and I even like Bunnymund enough to entrust him the safety and happiness of the only true friend I’ve ever had.” She firmly explained in all seriousness. “I would walk through burning coals for her and make anyone who hurts her wish they were dead.”

“What I meant to say is that we happen to be their best man and bridesmaid, quite crucial to their wedding if memory serves me right.” Emily continued to explain. “And I think it would put a damper on their wedding if I were to get rid of you or, in the most unlikely case, for you to send me to prison. That’s why I’ve decided we should reach a compromise.”

“What exactly did you have in mind?”

“A truce.” She replied with a confident smile. “I don’t go around on my nightly activities and you don’t try to throw me in jail while our friends are planning their wedding. Heck, we might have to work together to make it happen so it would be useful to not be at each other’s throats.”

Jack Frost had not expected this at all. Was she truly going to just play nice with him until their friends were married?

It felt like he was missing something. Once more, she had pulled the rug from under his feet.

Jack shook his head to clear out the fog, as the wheels spun inside his head. “How can I trust Burgess City’s top criminal to keep her word?”

“I guess it’s all about a leap of faith” She stepped closer and gently placed a hand on his chest, the ice dagger now pressing firmly against her skin but she paid it no mind since she was finding him far more interesting. The conflict that battled within those blue eyes of his was positively delicious, and so was his accelerated heartbeat. “Aren’t you heroes all about that, anyways?”

Silence stretched over them, both enemies sizing each other up for the others next move. But, in the end, it was him who spoke.

To be honest, he was probably making the biggest mistake of his life.

“Fine.” He warily acquiesced. “We play nice until Bunny and Tooth get married, but if I find out that you’re at it again then the deal is off.”

“Sounds good to me” She grinned, trying to suppress the mix of anticipation and adrenaline that had her self-control in such shaky grounds. “Now would you kindly put the icicle away? I need to get back to our table before Tooth gets worried.”

The spike vanished, and he retreated back so her influence would stop messing with his head.

She made her way out of the garden, but turned around to end their encounter with one last warning. “Don’t worry, once we cart them off to their honeymoon we can go back to destroying each other like always”

He didn’t grace her with an answer as the sharp click of her stilettos faded away in the distance.

Jack combed a hand through his hair and sighed.

There were definitely going to be some interesting months ahead of him.

TADA! Hope you liked it.

If you feel like sending asks, don´t hesitate to do so (it might take time but I’ll eventually get there, I promise!)

[calliecat93]

Callie Reviews: TMNT 2012 Season One (Part Three)

(Part One) (Part Two)

Here is where we look at the season as a whole. For this, I will be looking at four things: Animation, Voice Acting, Characters (Heroes, Villains), and Story. I’ll be going more into depths about some stuff I skimmed over here as well. So lets dig in!

Animation

This is the Turtles first CGI show... okay yeah the 2007 movie was CGI, but that was a movie. When I first heard this, I was reluctant as I felt like 2D was becoming more and more of a lost out. But the CGI was really good! Mind you it looks a tad bit dated now as every season they pushed more and more to improve it. But still, it’s very well done. I can’t recall any point where I thought it looked bad or cringy...aside form when they wanted you to cringe anyways. What helps is that the show does add in some 2D elements, There’s the comic-style flashbacks of course, but even past that. They use these anime-like quirks like the sweatdrop, blushing, wide blank eyes when reacting in shock, vein burst when a character is angry, all these tiny little things that give it a more cartoony feel. I can’t recall any other Nickelodeon CGI shows that were doing this prior, so it helped it stand out among the other shows.

Another plus side? The character designs. Aside from a few background characters they re-colored, none of the important characters look the same. Like I know that some don’t like April’s design, but at least they gave her and Karai their own distinct character designs. Then there are the Turtles. Something I don’t like about the upcoming show is how much.. accessorizing they add in to make the Turtles look distinctive. 2k12 kept it very simple. Different heights, eye color, shade of green, and of course body build. For example Donnie, the genius who is mroe invested with machines than training, is both the tallest and most slender. Raph, the strongest, is the most buff and Mikey, the youngest, has larger eyes and freckles to show his child-like nature.And even with Raph,a ll four boys have kind of high school athlete-like builds. Nothing over the top like say... the Michael Bay films. Basically, I can believe that these guys can do the ninja-like agility more than I can with the overly buff, giant versions that have been used.

When ti comes to the mutants, the animators get creative. There are so many unique mutant sin the show. Snakeweed, Spyder Bytez, Dogpound, Fishface, Splinter, Leatherhead, all the mutants have their own unique design that work for them. They also know when to get creepy, like with the mish-mash... thing... from The Alien Agenda. That was disturbing as heck, and it’s not even the creepiest one they come up with! Oh just wait for next season, haha... but yeah, mutant designs are great!

Now the settings are kinda... meh. I mean The Lair is cool, but it’s mostly just either the the Lair, the New York landscape, Shredder’s lair, or an empty warehouse most of the time. It’s nothing really... creative I guess is the right word. We also don’t explore new York much, mainly settling on skyscrapers as the setting. It’s understandable why since New York is the setting, but still it juts gets kind of boring after awhile. But for what it’s worth, they do try to do creative stuff when they can like in Baxter’s Gambit with the black and white screens.

And of course, there is the fight choreography. As I said before, it’s fantastic. All the fights in the series are fluid, well-paced, and fun to watch. If I had to give some examples off the top of my head, there’s New Friend, Old Enemy when the Turtles rise form the water. The mix of black and red is absolutely perfect. There’s the first fight against Shredder in The Gauntlet which despite the boys getting constantly knocked down by Shredder, they give it everything they have. It looks freakin’ badass. Then there is any Splinter fight scene. There’s not many, only about three in this season (It Came From the Depths, I, Monster, The Showdown two-parter) but they are excellent. I said that the Splinter vs Shredder fight was the best and nothing after ever topped it, right?

So yeah, if I was going to rate the animation on a 1-5 scale...

Rating: 4.5

Voice Acting

The series was voice directed by veteran Andrea Romano, so you know that the performances are gonna be solid. As far as casting goes, they got in a LOT of big names both in the voice acting industry and out. There’s of course Greg Cipes (Mikey), Mae Whitman (April), Nolan North (The Kraang), Kevin Michael Richardson (Shredder), Phil Lamar (Stockman), Clancy Brown (Dogpound) and of course Rob Paulsen (Donnie). Rob’s casting was actually a pretty big deal as along with being a veteran with nearly 30 years of experience, he was also the voice of Raph in the original 80′s show. So getting him back even as a different Turtle? Yeah... that’s pretty big!

Then you have more well-known on-screen actors, like Sean Astin (Raph) and Kelly Hu (Karai). Now they both actually have very solid VA-ing careers and still do voice work to this day, but if you’re say... a Lord of the Rings fan and known Sean only for that, this may entice you. The newcomers to voice acting are Jason Biggs (Leo), Christian Lanz (Fishface) and Hoon Lee (Splinter). There’s also guest actors like Jeffrey Combs (The Rat King) and Roseanne Barr (Kraang Prime), so a solid mix of professional voice actors and a few newcomers. The result?

The voice acting is fantastic. Like even as the show goes on and you see more and more mixed reception, the acting is NEVER one of the things you see go down. If anything, it is one aspect that continues to improve episode by episode. All four Turtle actors do an amazing job conveying their characters, able to go from comedic to dramatic in a split second. I’d say that out of everyone, Hoon Lee impressed me the most since he’s the only one aside from Biggs (and... e’ll talk more about him next season) I hadn’t heard of. And he gave a very solid performance. Everyone did. Even for just minor characters like Pulverizer (Roger Craig Smith... yes Pulverizer is Sonic the Hedgehog) or some of the villains like Snake (Danny Jacob who voices King Julian outside the Madacgascar films) or Spyder Byte (Lewis Black), they convey their characters perfectly. Like Black’s character is a rude slob you want to punch, and he does such a great job in making you feel that way!

So yeah, you got a strong cast, a veteran voice director, and a crazy group of characters for them to voice. All of them nail it. And just wait, this is only the S1 cast. Wait until you see who they bring in for future seasons!

Rating: 5

Characters

As I said in Part One, this is the best part of the show. I know a lot of people who fell off TMNT as it went on, but still kept interest because of the characters. To me, this is always the most important part of storytelling. Yes having a good story itself is important, but a good story will be nothing without likeable characters to move it. A cliched story may be annoying, but if the characters are likeable and strongly written, people are usually more forgiving because they care about the cast. This show is no different. To this day, the thing that kept me attracted to the show was the Turtles, April, and Splinter and what they’d get into next. All of them have strong personalities that get you to care about them, or at least see where they’re coming from. I could gush about each of them one by one... so on we go!

Lets start with Mikey because he is the least developed this season... and most of the show sadly. I’d even say that his focus episodes dropped massively in quality after this season as he was forced mroe and mroe into the comedy relief/designated victim/little brother role. It’s a shame too because this season did an excellent job in balancing out both the comedy relief and the more innocent side of the character. Mikey is the most naive of the brothers and the least serious among them. It’s not to say that he can’t take situations seriously, it’s just that he’s more easy-going and fun-seeking than the other three. His biggest problem is his inability to focus and goof around, which has caused several instances of accidentally setting off alarms. 

While not the best of the four, Mikey is a talented ninja and the best at going off just raw talent. He doesn’t think through fighting moves, he can just go with the flow and be perfectly fine. His strongest skill hpwever is his empathy and desire to make friends. While this has backfired on him before, like in New Friend, Old Enemy, where Bradford used and then kidnapped him for a trap, Mikey is incredibly non-judgemental and open-minded. It’s why he could befriend Leatherhead so easily in It Came From the Depths. He saw that the Kraang were attacking him and decided to simply talk to him like he would anyone else, even pointing out that maybe LH only acts like a monster because that’s how he was treated for so long. Mikey may not be book smart, but he’s very emotionally smart. As I said, Mikey’s character sadly devolves into annoying comedy relief as it goes, but for this season he had a strong start. No meaningful development aside form slow progression on paying attention (Parasitica being the final payoff... also if you’re afraid of wasps then avoid that one), but his character is strong enough to carry him through.

Raph is the brawler of the group and the quickest to anger. Hie’s the strongest fighter and incredibly confident... unless he has to deal with bugs. His biggest flaws are his both his anger and his jealous towards Leo. The first half of the season has Raph frequently back-talks and argue with Leo all because he got made the leader over him. For example, in Never Say Xever he is unhappy with Leo using mercy because bad guys don’t deserve it. Leo does eventually use the more Raph-like approach when kidnapping Bradford... and it fails miserably. What saves them? Leo’s act of mercy causing the Purple Dragon to repay the favor sand saving their shells. While he does slowly get a better grip on his temper once Splinter tells him of how dangerous it can be (Turtle Temper), it takes until New Girl in Town for him to overcome his jealousy once and for all. It’s very well done too by having Leo finally get fed up and give Raph what he wanted. Ultimately Raph can’t handle the pressure once things get rough and comes to understand both what Leo deals with essentially every day and how his own actions made it worst.

After that, Raph becomes the perfect example of a follower. While he’s still question Leo, he has good reasons for it, like everything involving Karai for instance. But he actively looks out for him more and stops mocking him outside just brotherly messing around. And even during that point, while Raph could be an insensitive jerk, he does love his family and will make amends when he goes too far. When he mocked Mikey wanting friends in New Friend, Old Enemy, at the end he comforted him after the fallout with Bradford and assured him that he’s a good person. When he mocked Donnie’s crush in Operation: Break-Out and led to Donnie going on a mission solo, Raph was worried about him, realized that he way too harsh, and tried to make amends by giving Donnie all the credit once back home. While Raph doesn’t conquer his temper completely, over the season he does get a better grip on it, can admit when he goes to far, became overall nicer, and by the end is a much better person. It was good stuff!

Donnie is probably the most... divisive of the four. Not because he’s badly written per say. He’s intelligent, but also high-strung and prone to stress. He’s not a bad ninja, but because of his focus on machinery, he’s the least skilled. The two episodes that focus on this are Metalhead and Monkey Brains. Metalhead has an admittedly meh plot where he gets sick of his bo staff and therefore creates the robot Metalhead to act as his weapon. The ‘meh’ plot is IDT it addresses the message of ‘the weapon doesn't make you a good fighter, you do’ very well, ut still Monkey Brains does a much better job, demonstrating Donnie’s tendency to over-think everything and how that is detrimental in a fight. By the climax, he’s able to get himself to rely on his instincts against a mind-reading villain (we’ll get to him later) and kick his ass.

Then there’s The Pulverizer episodes, which are the most interesting but sadly don’t go anywhere after this season. It has Donnie accept Pulverizer as an apprentice of sort, mainly so the kid can have some form of self-defense if he’s going to put himself into danger. It’s ultimately ineffective, but mainly because of Pulverizer wanting to rush and not listening properly. The most important part though is Splinter telling Donnie that by doing this, anything that happens involving him after will be his responsibility. Which we see in The Pulverizer Returns where Pulverizer decides ot let the Foot mutate him to gain awesome mutant powers. Donnie tries to save him, but sadly he fails and Pulverier.. it’s not pretty. While Donnie does still save him after, he’s left with the guilt of ultimately failing his student. I’ll go into mroe about how horribly the writers wasted this next season, but here? It was interesting to give Donnie this plot since you’d expect t to go to say... Leo. I think it really worked for what it was worth and let us see a side of Donnie outside just being the smart one.

So with that said, why is he divisive? Well... it’s because another major part of his character is his crush on April. He doe snot... manage it well, to say the least. He is rather, well... stupid and kinda creepy with it. But I do want to point this out. Yes, it is annoying but I think there’s a good reason for it: he’s an awkward teenager. Yeah him asking her to feel his goosebumps (Metalhead), accidentally calling her ‘his April (The Gauntlet), accidentally saying awkward things when she acknowledges him (pick any episode) are incredibly facepalm worthy at best. And yeah, they should have done better setup than have him just find her pretty when seeing her once. However he does genuinely care about her and int he premiere, he was driven more because he saw an innocent girl scared and was unable to help than his newfound crush. The feelings are genuine and Donnie being awkward about is because... well, Donnie is awkward in general and he does slowly improve. Honestly I’ll have mroe to discuss about this next season cause haha... boy is THAT a clusterfuck. But ultimately while Donnie can be annoying, overall it’s pretty bearable and he has plenty of positive traits to balance it out.

Finally, we get Leo. He’s the group leader, but unlike the past series where he pretty much grew up with that role, here he gets the role halfway through the first episode. He starts as a goody-two-shoes with a mischievous side who had a very basic view of leadership. He see sit as a position of authority, greatness, and unstoppable. That’s not to say that he doesn’t take the role seriously, he does. He devises plans, does his best to keep his brothers focused, and frequently asks Splinter for advice on how to best do things. But he also frequently uses cheesy one-liners and does his best to be as over the top with his heroics as possible, thinking it’s cool when it isn’t. It gives Leo a more naive feel to him, someone who is serious but also is still a teenaged kid who has a lot of learning to do.

The pressures of leadership are Leo’s primary focus as a character. While he has some doubts, the biggest blow to his confident comes in The Gauntlet after there massive defeat against Shredder. The following episode has him unsure of if he can properly lead the team and feeling guilty when things go wrong. But the ultimate meltdown comes in New Girl in Town where Raph finally pushes him too hard and he quits. He’s realized at this point that leadership is not like it is on TV. it’s unforgiving, stressful, and you’re gonna be the one facing the consequences when things go wrong. His difficulty dealing with this is what attracts him to Karai. She’s fun, does whatever she wants, and doesn’t care about the rules. She offers him a form of freedom that he hasn’t had before. It’s why he tries to get her to change sides, he doesn’t want her to be an enemy. Unfortunately things end badly between them this season, but you can see where Leo is coming form no matter how naive he was about it.

Leo evolved a lot over the season. He went from a naive teenager who quoted old TV episodes to a serious, determined leader who was willing to do whatever it took to get his team through. He never quit being optimistic and he does still have his stress with leadership later down the road. But the season is about him easing not the role an understanding the weight of that role. It’s very easy to feel bad for Leo because he tries incredibly hard, but he doesn’t receive a lot of gratitude or payoff, and he just has to accept that. By the finale, he’s willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to ensure both success and his family's safety... something that becomes a bit of an issue in later seasons (looking at you Space Arc). I’d say that because we got to see Leo actually having to come to terms with the role, it makes this imo the best version of the character. We actually have to see him accept the role and how he hate show it limits his free time, something IDT the past versions really did. And all while having this dorky, idealistic side that keeps him likable and all the mroe relateable. Overall, I’d say that the leader in blue was handeled very well here!

April is my favorite character in the show, but her writing this season has some issues. Now as a character herself, she’s perfectly fine. She’s an independent sixteen year old and incredibly proactive. Whenever she finds info on the Kraang or about her dad, she looks into it. When everyone is ready to quit in Panic in the Sewers, she’s the only one who actively tries to do something and get everyone else to not give up. When Splinter offers to train her, she accepts it and we see bits and pieces of her progressing. But it’s done realistically as demonstrated in Karai’s Vendetta where it’s very clear that April is nowhere near her level. But it also demonstrates her determination and how she never gives up, getting back up after every blow and at east trying to put up a fight. While she’s forced to sit most things out and does on occasion get kidnapped, she still tries to be an asset and does very well as an intel gatherer. She’s also incredibly stubborn and can get in over her head without thinking things through, like in Metalhead and the finale episodes. But ultimately her proactiveness and need to take action are her strongest traits and what makes her a useful ally.

The issues with April are in the writing of the plot. I already mentioned how the early episodes could have done mroe in having her ease into the group. There’s also after Karai’s Vendetta where despite living with the guys, we don’t see her until the penultimate episode. We see her express hating it in that episode, but we don’t get to explore the fallout of her losing her normal life. In fact we...d on’t see April’s life outside Turtle stuff until next season, and even then not by much. Now of course the show is about the Turtles and you gotta keep the focus on them, but still we get a bunch of ‘show, don’t tell’ problems with April. We’re told things like she’s living with her aunt, but we never see them interact. Hell, IDT April’s aunt is ever mentioned outside the pilot. We also find out that April is the Kraang’s target... and we never see how she feels about it. If she’s scared, if she’s worried. We can assume that she has some stress about it, as indicated when she vents in Karai’s Vendetta, but little to no showcase of how she feels about it. Mind you we don’t with the Turtles either, but still. Still, overall April is a solid character imo.

That brings us to Master Splinter, the best written character by far. Splinter is the perfect balance of a mentor and a father. He’s firm, strict, and not afraid to dish out punishment when it’s necessary. But he’s also gentle, patient, knows how to give his sons proper guidance, and when to let them figure things out for themselves. He’s also snarky as Hell, so it’s good that he has a sense of humor. He’s also a flawed person. He lost his wife and daughter because of hat is essentially a sibling rivalry that went WAAAY too far and his own inability to control himself worsened things. He lost his family and then his humanity, ending his life as Hamato Yoshi. Since then, he’s hidden int he sewers and tried to focus his energy on raising and protecting his sons. It makes letting them go topside difficult, as it is for any parent whose children are growing up. He can make mistakes, like letting his fear control him and press his sons far too hard in Panic in the Sewers, but he can admit those mistakes.

Splintr’s largest plot in the season, outside mentoring the boys and April, is accepting his mutant status and overcoming his fears. Many epsiodes such as the premiere, Turtle Temper, Monkey Brains, Panic in the Sewers and the finale show how much pain the rat master carries and while he’s move don to a new life, it still haunts him. The episode that best displays this however is a filler episode called I, Monster. In it we get this version of the Rat King, the mind reading villain from Monkey Brains, who uses his power to swarm New York. When he senses Splinter, he proceeds to try and brainwash him too. The episode does an amazing job at showcasing all of Splinter’s fears. The boys outgrowing him, his past tragedies, ending up alone, and the Rat King slowly uses all of it to break him down. Splinter fights back, but the thought of the boys moving on without him is ultimately what defeats him until the boys remind him of who he is. He is Hamato Yoshi, Master Splinter, but most of all their father. They need him and always will. Which lets Splinter overcome the mind control and essentially Airbend Rat King through a wall. It was awesome~

Despite that episode being filler, it’s one of the season's best. It is a strong character exploration piece about a father who has gone through Hell and is faced with the fear of his kids not needing him. It is very relatable and makes Splinter all the mroe sympathetic. And we see Splinter truly embody who he is now when faced with the Shredder again and upon learning that his daughter had survived. He went into full rat mode and gave Shredder the beating that we all wanted. And the season ends on a perfect lead in for the next one. Splinter now knows that Karai is his daughter while she was raised to hate him. It’s any parent’s worst nightmare. He now has to deal with that revelation as well as how he’s going to break it to his students. Splinter has some solid growth int he season, something that a lot of mentor figures in cartoons don’t get, and it’s done perfectly. He has his flaws, but is still a strong father figure to his sons. Add that to Hoon Lee’s absolute perfect performance and you have what is in my opinion the best incarnation of Master Splinter in any TMNT series.

While the main cast is strong, the supporting cast and villains are... not so much. There isn’t really a supporting cast honestly. The best we have is Leatherhead, who is awesome. He’s a damaged character. One treated like a monster and tortured for who knows how long. It left him damaged and prone to trauma-induced outbursts. But he is a good person who knows that what happened to him was wrong and can be quite sweet when given the chance. He didn’t have to save humanity, especially since most would scream and run if they saw him, but he didn’t want anyone else to endure what he did. It’s best exemplified with his sacrifice in TCRI, going back to Dimension X and knowing fully well what’ll await him there. But he does so to save his friends and give them the chance to save the Earth. LH is freakin’ badass and I love him!

The villains though are... kinda boring. Most of the mutants, while the designs are cool, are incredibly one-note. Not all of them, like the Rat King is so dramatic and twisted and his VA does such a great job with the delivery that you both love him and want to strangle him. But others like Snakeweed or Spyder Bytez are just... well, evil for the heck of it. The Kraang are the worst though since at least the mutants are only in like one or two episodes. The Kraang are annoying as HELL. They can be dangerous but the redundant speech pattern and all fo them having essentially the same personality (aka none) is so... boring. Min you in Season 4 we kind of get an explanation to why, but it doesn't change how grating they can get. That being said in large groups they can be dangerous and with things like the Technodrome, they’re not to be taken lightly. Still, GAH I HATE THEM!!!

The Foot are somewhat better. Stockman is pathetic and remains pathetic throughout the entire series. Bradford is a pompous asshole. Xever is a little more interesting in that he kidn of was forced to work for Shredder or go to jail... but sadly after that reveal, he reverts to typical henchman status sadly. Shredder is the Big Bad and a no-nonsense leader. He has no empathy and is more than willing to inflict physical violence on his troops if they fail him. He even threatens to harm Karai, his daughter (kinda...) if she questions him. He is a very single minded perosn, his only goal beign to kill Splinter and his students by any means necessary. Hell. he only starts caring about the Kraang when he realizes that they can advance his goal, but has zero issues letting humanity fall to them. Oh, and there’s his glee when Karai tries to kill Splinter. WOrst? THis isn’t even the worst that he does int he show. Oh just wait for next season. JUST WAIT. Otherwise though, while a powerful fighter, he just mopes in his throne for most of the season, but Richardson’s badass voice acting was nice to hear.

The most interesting villain by far is Karai, and Thank God for it. While Leo is a good-good, Karai is a bad girl. She’s laid-back, does what she wants her way, and doesn’t play by the rules. She’s introduced as a competent fighter, but unlike the other Foot she’s more interesting in talking to the Turtles than killing them. I think she did become genuinely fond of Leo, but ultimately she’s going to be loyal to what she thinks is her family. She also started off realizing that there were bugger problems, like the Kraang, that required more attention over the vendetta until the Turtles betrayed her. Then she pretty much went ‘screw it’ and decided to go with the vendetta, which only got worst when she met Splinter for the first time. Still, ti was nice to have someone actually question Shredder and try to be sensible. She’s definite the most well-written of the villains, and the revelation about her being Splinter’s daughter means that there is MUCH more to come for her. Like I said, just wait for Season 2!

Okay, this section was a LOOOT longer than I thought. So I’ll just finish by saying that the villains aren't all that interesting, but the main characters are very well written. They have strong personalities, plenty of room for growth, and their interactions always gel really well. Very well done!

Rating: 4.5

Story

The main plot threads are the Turtles against the Foot, and the Turtles feud against the Kraang. All with some subplots, like Pulverizer and the mutant of the week stuff, and filler episodes thrown in. I say that the plots are handled very well. For example well go with... say two or three Kraang-centric episodes. Then we may or may not get a filler episode before shifting over to the Foot Clan for awhile. It never felt like we got smothered with one faction over the other, which is good. The plots also slowly intertwined and it felt like they came together at just the right time during the last six or so episodes. Hence hwy the finale worked so well, giving some kind of payoff on both ends.

Many of the episodes were very basic and outright bizarre. Like Cockroach Terminator having a mutant cockroach tr to murder Raph... it’s kinda gross, but entertaining! Every episode normally has at least something small that’ll carry over as the story goes along. For example, Donnie built Metalhead in... well, Metalhead and brought him back in the finale, plus it helped him learn mroe about Kraang tech. In Baxter’s Gambit, April finally gets her own weapon and she attempts to use it in Karai’s Vendetta. The episodes all play a part, even if just minor, in the larger narrative and I feel some of the later seasons kind of slacked on that. This season had a perfect balance.

That’s not to say that it was perfect. Like at the end of TCRI, we find out that April is the Kraang’s true target which makes us wonder why... and the next episode is about Raph’s fear of bugs! So TCRI was episode 17, we don’t even mention this fact again until Karai’s Vendetta, which is episode 21. Five episodes later, and even then we get one tiny hint (April doesn't get damaged by mutagen-laced water) and... that’s it. The.show has a bit of an issue with not exploring fallout, which is weird because Panic in the Sewers did and id it excellently. Maybe it’s because they have to make episodes to sell toys, IDK. It doesn't do too much damage, but it makes it feel like they both wasted character opportunities and like there’s something missing. But at the very least the episodes remain entertaining, so there’s that.

Rating: 4

Final Thoughts

You know what I like about this series and why I ran it above the other ones? Well it does something that I feel that the previous incarnations lacked: The Teenage Mutant Nina Turtles felt like teenagers. They felt like a bunch of kids truly entering the world for the first time. They screw up, they have problems to overcome, and they don’t always learn it immideatly. Like their cockiness is a frequent pain in the shell for example. But the reason that I like pretty much all of the episodes aside form Episode 11 is because it feels like we’re watching a group of kids truly starting to grow up and learn about how rough life can be. How they have to change, how they have to fix their mistakes, and just become better people. As a nineteen year old who was just staring to figure my life out, when I started the show, that drew me in. I related to these characters so much. I felt like I was growing with them and coming to understand who I was due to it.

It felt really nostalgic to go back over this season. Imo, it still holds up big time. It’s funny, action-heavy, well animated, and the characters are just as enjoyable as I remember. Would I call this the best season? Hmm... maybe. I still have three more to look over. But it was a really fun ride and it got TMNT 2012 off on the right track. Can they stay on it during Season 2? Come back next week, and we shall see!

[allthephils]

Repose

Chapter 11

Rating M  word count: 2036/ 32497 so far

Read on Ao3

As the day wound down, no one came. The next day, Phil wondered if Dennis would show. He wondered if he’d ever be allowed back there. Dennis did come though and the day proceeded as usual, with no interruptions. Still, as Phil wandered the room, watering the plants, a knot of nervous energy grew in his stomach. He’d grown fond of his strange new normal, but any minute, it could all be taken from him. He could lose this little home away from home. He’d put energy in to this, he’d put love into it, and it hurt to think of walking away. He still assumed Dan would wake up but now he wasn’t sure he’d be here to see it. Then there was a small dark corner of his mind that questioned his own assumptions. The curse could be real. It absolutely could be and Phil may be the only answer for Dan. His feelings were complicated enough without this responsibility. Add fear to that and he ached for Dan, in a way that he hadn’t in years.

He didn’t know what to make of it. He paced the room, quieter than he had ever been, trying to remember the last 5 years. They’d been full of accomplishments and memories but it all seemed to fade to the background.

He inventoried his romantic history, trying to make sense of the magnitude of emotion he was experiencing now. Online dating never yielded more than one or two dates. There had been hook-ups, nothing to write home about, mostly with people he met at industry parties. There had been the time he ran into Jimmy at the garden center. It was just a few weeks after the break up and Jimmy was familiar and pretty and kind. He’d invited Phil to see his new place and one thing led to another. Phil had cried in Jimmy’s arms afterward. Of course, Jimmy was lovely and understanding but Phil had been so mortified, he never called him after that.

Then there were the relationships. Michael was a friend of Phil’s manager. He was beautiful, funny, confident, and he adored Phil from the start. He loved him with an intensity Phil just couldn’t match, however hard he tried. Phil ended it after a year, telling Michael he deserved better. Michael didn’t agree. Breaking his heart put Phil off dating for a while. The next time was only last year. Phil had loved Sebastian, he really had. All his friends loved him too. He felt the relationship grow around him, watching Sebastian get comfortable and make plans. He just couldn’t see a future with him though. Phil’s family didn’t get it, it all seemed to be going so well. Even Louise didn’t understand but she was supportive anyway. The thing was Phil couldn’t really see himself with anyone. He broke it off after 8 months. It didn’t seem that unusual at the time. Now, here with Dan, he had to wonder if his inability to fall deeply in love was because his future was already written. Maybe he had never truly let go of Dan.

There was Dan and Phil at the start and there was Dan and Phil now. What came between felt out of focus. If you had asked him a couple weeks ago, he would have said that 5 years is a long time. Now it was a flash. Back then, he’d known that the depth of feeling between he and Dan was irrational for a relationship that lasted only months. He had believed in love though, with his whole being, and he trusted that these things are bigger that two people. He had believed they were meant to be. Now that everyone else agreed, he was frightened. This situation was manipulative. It had shaped and molded Phil’s heart and mind into something he recognized from all those years ago. He couldn’t be sure which pieces were genuine and which were nostalgia. He couldn’t be sure if what he felt was love or fear or if there was even a difference.

 That night he lay in bed, contemplating what he’d do if they told him he couldn’t come back. There had to be a way around this. He texted Louise. Hey Lou, sorry it’s so late. I’m scared Lou. Prince Walter definitely doesn’t want me there. I don’t know how much longer he’s going to let me come.

Louise answered immediately, of course. You know you can text me anytime Phil. That man is an absolute bell end. I’m with you. Let’s just take it day by day. Try to get some sleep love.

    “Hello?” What a strange thing, answering the phone.

A sigh came from the other end. “Hey.”

“Hey Dan. Everything ok?”

“Yeah, I just wanted to hear your voice.” He sounded exhausted.

Phil warmed at the sweet thought of Dan making an actual phone call to hear Phil talk.

“I’m really sorry I’ve been so busy. I may have bitten off more than I can chew. All these projects add up to a full-time job. I miss summer.” Dan said, glumly.

“That’s ok. I understand. Besides I saw you three days ago.” Phil really did miss him but this slower pace was probably a good thing. His heart had been rolling downhill, picking up speed, ever since that first wink. He was grateful for the time alone, to work and consider what exactly all this was.

“Was that only three days ago? Huh. Feels like longer. Anyway these lunch dates, they just aren’t enough.”

“I don’t know, it’s kinda romantic, our stolen hours together. I’ll take anything you can give me.” And he would. Phil would run away with Dan today if he asked or take only the thin scraps left of him after everyone else in his life got first pick.

“I know you will. You’re amazing, but you deserve better.” Dan sounded frustrated, almost defeated.

“Are you kidding me? Better? Dan, the hour I spent eating lunch with you the other day was the highlight of my whole week. What’s going on? What’s happened?”

“Nothing new. I’m just tired of having my life designed for me.”

Phil wished he had any idea what that was like. He didn’t know how to help. “You’ll get some freedom at university, won’t you.”

Dan mumbled, “fuck university. It’s just the beginning of the end.” There was silence on the line. Phil didn’t dare respond to that. Finally, Dan spoke, “I miss you Phil. I want to introduce you to my brother. I want to take you places.”

“You have taken me places.”

“I want to be alone with you, really alone.” Dan said, lower, obviously trying not to be heard.

“I know. I want that too.” Phil closed his eyes.

“I have to attend some meetings with my father, which means I’m trapped at bloody Windsor for the week, then this stupid benefit party on Halloween.”

“Oh. Ok.”

“Promise me I can see you after that?” Dan asked.

“I promise.”

“I have to go. I’ll text you when I can get away from Prince Vlad.”

 Days went by without a text. Dan had told Phil about his father . He was a taskmaster, idle hands are the devil's workshop and all that. Phil didn’t want to get Dan in trouble but he missed him and he was a little scared from his Halloween week movie watching habits. Mostly, he just really wanted Dan to know that he was thinking about him. When it was late enough that he assumed Dan would be alone, he sent a message.

Phil: Just thinking about you, wanted you to know. I hope you are having an ok time.

Dan: Phil. Thank god. How is the real world?

Phil: I watched some freaky horror anime and I wasn’t scared watching it but now I’m sat in my room with the light on and I think I’m just gonna have to sleep like this.

Dan: Lol. I wouldn’t be any help at all if I were there. I’m a complete coward.

Phil: I still wish you were here.

Dan: Me too.

Phil: Are you feeling any better?

Dan: Better than what?

Phil: Than the last time we talked?

Dan: I don’t know. I’ve just been focused on work.

Phil had a a question nagging him, running through his head all day. He typed it fast and hit send before he could change his mind.

Phil: What did you mean when you said that uni was the beginning of the end?

Dan: Just that, after uni, there are expectations. No one cares what I do right now, as long as they still believe I’ll end up where I’m supposed to.

Phil: Where you’re supposed to?

Dan: Married

Phil stomach turned.

Phil: To Iris?

Dan: That’s their pick yes.

Phil: So I’m just your gap year then?

Dan: What? No.

…

…

Phil watched the dots, waiting for a reply. Instead the phone vibrated in his hand.

"Hey." Phil huffed.

"Phil, listen..."

Phil cut in, unleashing all the thoughts he'd been carrying, “This is why I wanted to talk. But we just kept kissing instead and then I guess I decided I didn’t care. But I do, Dan. You’re not interested in Iris but that doesn’t mean you aren’t promised to her. Uni will come and you’ll leave and then after you’ll have to get married or whatever. England’s not ready for a gay king. And I just wanted to know all of this before I let myself admit all these things I’m feeling. And now fucking Iris is your future and I can’t even dream of a future with you, but I never should have to begin with because it’s all so new.” He took a deep shaky breath, “But it feels so real.”

“Phil.” Dan was practically whispering, hiding in his bathroom with the fan on, desperate for privacy. “It is real. It is. And it doesn’t matter who I’m promised to. They won’t force me to marry.”

“They won’t?” Phil squeaked out.

“No. It’s complicated, but let’s just say, I have an out.” Dan spoke slow and soft, doing his best to reassure Phil. “They wanted me to bring her as my date to the benefit and I said no. I said I wouldn’t string her along anymore. She knows how I feel, please don’t blame her for any of this. She’s actually really smart, incredibly strong, and she’s been a decent friend to me. Her life has been mapped out since before she was born, just like mine has. She is doing the best she can with the options she’s been given. My parents don’t even really know her, she’s just from the right family is all.”  

Phil’s breath had steadied, the initial flood of emotion subsiding. “And what would your parents think of me?”

Dan sighed heavily. “They don’t need to know about you. You’re none of their business.”  

This did nothing to assuage Phil’s fears. He was quiet.

“Phil, when the time comes, I will tell them about you. I’ll tell everyone. I swear.” He sounded frightened, whispering and rushed. Phil wished he could take back every word and just wrap his arms around Dan. “It’s just going be hard, mostly on you. I just want to keep you to myself for a bit longer, ok? I haven’t even decided what I want to do for the next few years, for uni. You are the only thing I’m sure about right now. Please don’t doubt this. I know it’s new, but I...we’ve come this far. Please trust me.”

Embarrassment took hold now that Phil was calm. This was exactly what he had been trying to avoid, too much too soon. “I trust you. Of course I do, I’m sorry. You must think I’m crazy, saying all that. You probably want to get off the phone.”

“Phil, do you not hear me? I feel exactly the way you do. It’s fast but it’s real. I’m not scared, Phil. I’m not going anywhere.”  

They kept talking, in hushed tones, easing into normal conversation They talked about what Phil had planned this week, about the food at Windsor castle, and about Dan’s brother and how his voice was cracking. They talked until Phil was nodding off. Their goodbyes lingered, dancing all around the words they both wanted to say.

[jackie-gremlin-ghost]

Even MORE CU Headcanons!

I am on a roll! XD

Edith

I’m with everyone else. She’s an Alien.

Her species usually sends their “hatchlings” to other planets. By touching an inhabitant of that planet, they can mimic their DNA and shapeshift into that species as a means to infiltrate and try to find a weak point for future invasion.

Edith was different, however. At birth, she was deemed too weak to survive, let alone infiltrate, so they cast her pod out into space and just left her to die. Fortunately, though, she landed on Earth, and was found and adopted by a human couple.

Most of her kind are unable to perfectly mimic another species. There’s usually little physical signs that show something’s... off about them (patches of their original skin color, their tentacles are hard to hide, sharp teeth, etc.). Despite thinking she was weak at birth, Edith was one of the small percentage that could do a near-perfect shapeshift. Their loss.

Compared to her own species, she was considered a runt.

I highly agree with @rabbitkinder and @anostalgicplaceforme. She is definitely a spur-of-the-moment cook. And she uses different ingredient combos that sound like they wouldn’t work together at all, but somehow, they do when she does it.

Another thing I agree with with @rabbitkinder; she knows Krupp is CU, and that just makes her love him more.

She’s the reason most of the kids look forward to lunch every day at school. Not because of the food, mind you, but because she is easily the sweetest member of the school’s staff. They love telling her about their day so far, and she always has nothing but nice things to say back.

As I mentioned in a previous post, she thinks Krupp’s nose is adorable.

She loves all sorts of animals, but her two favorites are dogs and pigs.

She has a St. Bernard named Orion. Krupp jokingly calls him “Cujo” every now and again.

Melvin

Before finding out about his lack of a Hahaguffawchuckleamalus, he had honestly chalked up his inability to laugh to his chocolate allergy. Chocolate does cause releases of Serotonin in the brain, after all. And Serotonin makes you happy. And you laugh when you’re happy... right?

He always paper-bags it when it comes to lunch at school. He did tell Poopypants that the cafeteria was toxic, so I think he wouldn’t even go NEAR the food.

He keeps several pairs of spare glasses just in case something should happen, be it bullying or one of his inventions or experiments going wrong.

Prefers the original Star Trek series over The Next Generation, but thinks that Picard is a superior captain to Kirk.

Calls his Dad “Poppa” because he thinks “Daddy” just sounds too immature. (And yet he still calls his Mom “Mommy”...)

Is the type of kid that seems to have an easier time befriending his teachers rather than his classmates.

The Staff and Students of JHES

The attraction between Krupp and Edith was clear as day to the rest of the faculty, so much so that they actually started a betting pool on how long it would take before the two of them finally wound up dating. Ms. Anthrope was the one who ultimately won that bet.

When word reached the students that Krupp and Edith were together, they were stunned. What could a sweet woman like her see in a monster like him?! But the more they thought about it, the more it kinda made sense. If anyone could tame Krupp, it’s her.

Despite this, a few of the girls still tend to ship Edith with Captain Underpants instead. XD

Much to George and Harold’s surprise, a few of the students actually started a “Captain Underpants Fan Club” after the whole Poopypants incident, and even named the two of them co-presidents of said club.

[ladyofstardust]

Goblin Waltz no.2

Word Count: 5.8k

Rating: T

Summary: In which Jareth calls in the favour, and Sarah puts on her silver shoes to dance to his tune. Careful, this one is dripping with sap.

Notes: Apartment-verse fic.  Directly follows Portions for Goblins.  I’m also posting them over at Ao3 in order if you’d prefer to read that way.   

“Well first of all, I don’t think this is going to work,” Sarah said, crossing her arms over her chest.  She was wearing her old college hoodie and a pair of ripped jeans standing in, arguably, the fanciest room she’d ever been in.  And she’d been to Versailles.

“I should like to at least try precious,” Jareth said extending his hand towards her.  “For old times sake you see.”

“I might remind you that if you want me to help you, maybe try not reminding me of previous instances of you being a jerk and calling me by nicknames I hate,” Sarah said with a sigh, reluctantly giving him her hand.  

He pulled her in close and placed a guiding hand on the small of her back. “Old habits darling, sorry.” Jareth began to lead her in dance and Sarah immediately stumbled.  Thankfully he was able to anticipate this, and held tightly to keep her from falling over entirely.

“You are very old,” she teased back, regaining her footing.  “So old I should really be getting you signed up for seniors discounts.  I wonder if the local long term care facility would take you in.”

“I don’t know how you could possibly be counting your steps and snarking at me at the same time,” Jareth said, absently.  “Concentrate Sarah.”

“I told you I have two left feet!” She reminded him as she proceeded to step all over his.  She hoped his boots were steel toed.

Jareth had called in his favour.  When she’d made him pretend to be her date for new year’s she’d promised him one no-questions-asked favour of a similar nature.  Nothing morally questionable and she’d consent to it.

She just didn’t think that it would involve dancing .

“You’re much more graceful when you’re not so inside your own head,” he admonished.

“Yeah well, you wanted waltzing, this is my waltzing.  Unless you’re fine with me busting out the moonwalk. I am excellent at the moonwalk.”

“What is the - nevermind, do not tell me.  I feel certain I don’t want to know,” Jareth replied thinking better of his request.  

“Maybe I’ll just moonwalk my way out of that whole ball,” Sarah teased brightening.  There were few things she enjoyed more than poking fun at Jareth.

“You’re going to trip over your fancy dress is what you’re going to do,” he said ignoring her.  

“How true,” she said sourly.  “Do any of your little parties here have things other than dancing?  Like say, a really intense Jenga competition? Maybe I could just out drink the rest of Faerie instead.  How do they feel about beer pong?”

“You’ll have your work cut out for you there,” he said, changing directions.  “Most of them have been well into their cups since the 16th century. Not sure they’ve been sober since the reformation.”

“A policy I could get behind,” she said with a grumble as she faltered over her feet.

“You don’t have to dance with anyone but me,” he reminded her.  “You’re just here as my date.”

“Is that, you don’t have to, or please don’t dance with anyone else I can’t deal with several angry foreign dignitaries and their busted feet?”

“It is please do not dance with anyone else as I do hate sharing,” he said with a grin. “Your charms are enough to fell several of the men and women attending and I’m not sure I could handle such competition.”

He’d left her a message that morning to meet him in his palace ballroom after she got off work.  They couldn’t text each other, because of Jareth’s complete inability to touch an electronic without messing with the space time continuum, but they had their own way of sending messages.  Sarah would write messages on mirrors, and he would send her his written reply. It was weird, but she kinda liked opening her hand mirror to his rants about the Winterlands, the occasional sketch of a cat, or even the xoxos.  

So although she’d really prefer not to dance at all at this wackadoodle ball he was attending, a promise was a promise. There were several high ranking Faerie men and women who apparently had designs on the Goblin Throne.  An unmarried monarch was cause for some competition amongst the non-land holding gentry and Jareth wanted to avoid the matter entirely. Sarah was sure this was true, but she was also sure that Jareth just wanted a chance to show her off at this year’s demented faerie prom. She’d suggested the Enchantment Under the Ground dance as theme but Jareth hadn’t understood the reference.  She’d have to remember to show him Back to the Future as it was frankly a crime he couldn’t appreciate her pitch perfect Doc Brown impression.

So yeah, of course she knew why he called in the favour, but privately she also knew she would have agreed to attend as his guest regardless.  That small part of her that was still the girl in the park playing dress up was a lot less buried than she would lead him to believe.

Also she never got to see anywhere else in Faerie beyond the Labyrinth.  Jareth had told her she’d barely scratched the surface of his realm but Sarah was curious about the worlds beyond the Goblin Kingdom.  The Undersea, the Winter Lands, the Sky Worlds - all places he’d name dropped in the past and Sarah wanted desperately to see them.

This affair would take place in Great Forest.  Sarah had asked which great forest and was told that all magical forests were the Great Forest.  Anyone who got lost in the woods, who wandered off the path, every red riding hood staring down her big bad wolf, every story held between the trees - it all belonged to them.  Sarah looked so taken aback by the reach of their lands that Jareth had postured a bit about the Goblin Kingdom having just as far of a reach but without the “overdone” nature of the Forest lands.  Apparently the forest in the Labyrinth also belonged to them, but they gifted it out to Jareth for his use on runners and his woods-inclined population. In exchange, he designed some tunnels to run underneath the main castle and helped manage their portals.  

Such was the tradition for the height of summer, the party would be held in the Castle Atop the Trees.  The way Jareth described it, Sarah was picturing the most elaborate and laws of physics flaunting tree house in the world.  At this point Jareth made sure to remind her that his castle was sentient and his magic much more impressive than ‘that fop, Orreno’.  

Yeah, she was a tiny bit excited.  

Except for the part where there’d be dancing.  That part could go to bog.

“My charm is mostly snarky comments and bad decisions, but fine, as long as that goes both ways. Not super interested in watching you seduce Countess whatsherface,” Sarah said, only half teasing.

“I’m sure the entirely fictional countess will be very disappointed, we don’t even have countesses here,” he muttered.  “Look at me not your feet Sarah.”

Jareth’s ballroom, much to her surprise, wasn’t the same dream bubble she was expecting.  It was several times larger to begin with, and instead of silver and peach tones, the room was floor to ceiling stone, with gold filigree paintings carefully drawn on every surface.  The gold designs moved gracefully through the room, animated by magic, and showed various beautiful scenes from the Goblin Kingdom. The room was lit by the large double doors, opened to various private balconies, positioned perfectly to let in the most sunlight possible.  Along with more suspended crystals than Sarah could count. Unlike Jareth’s usual silvery opaque ones, these were transparent gold baubles that seemed lit up from the inside, as if each had a candle hidden within. The effect was quite breathtaking, but the moving designs were distracting to Sarah as she tried to focus on her steps.

“I don’t understand how this can be so hard,” Sarah muttered as Jareth narrowly avoided wincing as she took a particularly hard step on his foot.  “I managed alright in the first ballroom.”

“That one I’m afraid is ‘on me’ as you say,” Jareth said regretfully.  “It would have been a poor spell if you immediately stumbled from my arms.  So I added a few enhancements to keep you from thinking too hard, thereby letting your natural grace shine through.”

“Natural grace right,” Sarah said with a snort as she tripped again.  “I’m a regular ballerina over here.”

“It’s not as though I’m asking you to transverse the bog without a bridge, oh wait,” he said with a toothy grin, “you already managed that so really this should be a piece of cake.”

“I will hurt you,” Sarah muttered.  “I will moonwalk over your dead body while humming Billie Jean and then who will look stupid.”

“I just cannot imagine the moonwalk looking anything other than ridiculous so still you I imagine,” he said with some annoyance.  “This is not at all what I envisioned when I invited you to this soirée you know.”

“Aw, I’m sorry Jareth, did I ruin all your nice neat plans to swirl me around with all the romance and grandeur of the Underground by being a useless dancer?  What a pity,” she mocked.

“Always have a plan B darling,” he said, giving his wrist a twist.  One of his usual crystals appeared there. “Do you want it?”

“No,” she said crossing her arms.  “In fact, I don’t even want to know what’s in it.”

“Too bad,” he said, throwing the crystal to the ground.  The room exploded in a burst of white light and Sarah was temporarily blinded.  

When her eyes finally stopped seeing spots and the room adjusted back to it’s regularly scheduled lighting, Sarah realized what he’d done.

“Oh hell,” she said, looking down at her now extremely fancy outfit.  The dress was definitely Jareth’s version of an update to her pretty princess dress she’d worn the last time they’d danced together.  But it was made of nothing Sarah had ever even seen before. It looked like starlight and felt like feathers. It fit her so well that Sarah had to touch it to make sure it was really there at all.  It floated gracefully around her and her skirts lifted slightly at the hem as if she was walking on her own cloud. It fell off her shoulders and the full skirt shone like the brightest moon when she moved.  The bodice was decorated with bits of broken crystals and reflective glass and when she looked behind her, she saw the outline of every constellation she could name (and a number she couldn’t), on her train.  Her hair had been washed (...somehow), and fell in loose curls down her back. It also appeared several inches longer than it was in reality. Thankfully, he must have decided she had enough to be worrying about as he skipped the heels and instead gave her a pair of the most comfortable flats she’d ever worn.  They too carried the design of the stars and when she took a careful step forward, she realized that the stars moved in time with her.

The rest of the ballroom, already beautiful in its splendour, had it kicked up to eleven as all the light but a handful of the golden crystals dimmed, and the sun began to set around them.  Sarah realized that in the semi-darkness, the gold filigree designs turned into stars themselves, as they danced across the ceiling, which had become a window into the darkening sky. A false moon hung inside the ballroom as well and, though Sarah knew it was only an illusion, it looked so big and beautiful that it didn’t matter.  

“I thought a little atmosphere might help,” he said with a shrug.  He’d put on his Goblin King finery, but made sure his outfit complimented hers.  The silver streaks running through his hair made her smile, at least he was consistently weird.  

Music filled the room, and was as loud and clear as if Sarah had the band right above her.  Actually, she thought looking up, it was coming from somewhere.  

“Is that my iPod,” she said in utter shock as she noticed her ipod floating along above her head beside the crystals.

“Well I said it was plan B,” he grumbled.  “I thought you liked this song.”

“I do but damn, you sure know how to blast the speakers.  If it breaks after this much magical interference I’m charging you the cost of a new one,” she replied.

“Invoice me,” he said, holding out his hand for her to take in dance.  She reluctantly took it and he pulled her into a spin.

To Sarah’s great annoyance, it was either the shoes, the music, or something, but Jareth’s plan B hadn’t been the worst idea.  Her dancing greatly improved. Her skirt hid a multitude of sins she was undoubtedly committing with her feet, but Jareth guided her seamlessly and easily.  She stopped trying so hard to get her steps right and just let him lead. She knew she was playing right into his hand by letting the magic of the moment get to her, but the man knew how to set a mood.

“This is some Beauty and the Beast nonsense is what this is,” she said between steps.  “I’m half expecting the goblins to run out hurling food at me telling me to be their guest.”

“As if I would ever give the goblins unrestricted access to food,” he scoffed.  

“Don’t you remember the old warnings?” She teased.  “We must not look at goblin men, we must not eat their fruit…damn I can never remember the last line.”

“Who knows upon what soils they fed,” and at this, he paused in their dancing.  He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her in close, letting his hands glide along the line of her body.  “Their hungry thirsty roots.” He finished, gently tugging on her bottom lip.

“I was thinking more that the goblins have their own market do they not?” she huffed.  

“Yes,” he said, slackening his grip. “But they’re not going to waste their food, those are their wares.  No, they much prefer nicking the food from my kitchens and then passing it off as fresh from the Goblin Market.”

“Is it not?”

Jareth led them in a step change and Sarah caught one of the filigree drawings waving at her from the corner of her eye.  “No the feast of the goblin market is a very…particular kind of food. You’d know better than anyone.”

“I would?” She asked in surprise.

He leaned in close to whisper in her ear.  “The girl who ate the peach and forgot everything.”  

“Oh yes,” she agreed.  “That.”

“Yes, that.” He replied, changing the direction of their dance again and Sarah nearly tore her very fancy dress trying to keep up.  “The only person who found my dancing so abominable she shook off 700 years worth of powerful magic and smashed my favourite guest ballroom by flipping a table out the door.”

“Well your dancing was just that bad,” she said seriously.  “Also it was a chair not a table thank you very much.”

“I’ll be sure to correct the records, though I’m mostly curious how you managed to get through all your schooling without taking the most basic of ballroom classes.”

“Because it’s not 1860?”  Sarah said, eyebrow raised skeptically.  “Seriously Jareth when was the last time you were in a human classroom?  Art and music are barely hanging on by a thread as it is, nobody’s gonna waste tax dollars on teaching kids how to foxtrot.”

“Well that’s why your skills fall short,” he said, clicking his tongue.  “Most of Faerie takes dance for about fifty years.”

“Fifty years of dance?!  Damn Jareth!” Sarah exclaimed loudly.  “I seriously forget how long you guys live until you drop something like that on me.  Even our most famous dancers don’t train for that long. Hell, they’re usually retired long before age 50.  Seriously, how much schooling do you even do down here?”

“Yes it is strange, fifty years doesn’t seem terribly long to me.  But then again, we do make rather a production out of dancing. It’s seen as a necessary social skill.  I imagine not knowing how to dance down here probably has an aboveground equivalent. Where if someone was not practiced at a particular skill, they’d find themselves socially excluded.”

“I suppose,” she said, narrowly avoiding a spill. Her dress spun as she twirled, and the silver of her dress looked beautiful when swept across the golden floor.  “Tell me something about you I don’t know.”

“Something you don’t know?”

“Yeah, like - so you took dance for fifty years.  Who was your favourite teacher? Or I dunno, what’s your favourite song?  Or ice cream flavour - do you even have a favourite ice cream flavour? Who was your first kiss?  I’d ask you what you wanted to be when you grew up but I feel the answer is ‘king’.”

“So curious love,” he said not breaking step.  “Should we play our favorite game then?”

“What one is that?”

“The one where I tell you anything you like in exchange for you answering the same questions,” he said pulling her in closer.  “Choose your right words the goblins said.”

“Or we’ll be stuck twirling forever and ever,” she sing-songed.  “A fate my feet probably couldn’t bear. As if I ever turn down a deal with you.”

“Yes, you don’t need to tell me that you don’t back down from a challenge, this I know.”

“You first, I asked first.”

“Alright,” he drawled.  “Let’s see, my favourite tutor was probably Professor Edrend.  They were my Sky Lands’ languages professor.”

“Were they from the Sky Lands?” Sarah asked.  

Jareth nodded.  “Yes, they were a cross between a water nymph and a slyph.  How their parents even met is a complete mystery.”

“A bird may love a fish signore, but where will they live,” she quoted.  

“That’s not Shakespeare,” he said, brow wrinkling in confusion.

“No, Barrymore,”  she smiled. “My favourite teacher though was Ms. Spence, who taught freshman English.  We read Romeo and Juliet and while Kevin R. was struggling through reading aloud Mercutio’s soliloquy, she would let me quietly read whatever novel I was currently tearing through.  She pushed me ahead to the ‘enhanced’ classes and always wanted to hear what I had to say. I still think about her sometimes. About them all, all the people who silently and slowly changed me.  My grandmother sewing my costumes and telling me stories, Ms. Spence for handing me my first Bronte and telling me that my words mattered. My mom, for giving me that fateful red book in the first place.  Then my dad for believing his sad and angry teenager was a good babysitter. What I’m saying Jareth is - you have a lot of thank you cards to write.”

“I’ll bring out the good stationary then.” He teased.  “I didn’t realize you believed so much in fate.”

She shrugged.  “I don’t really believe it per say, I more just feel that everyone changes us in some way, whether we know it or not.  Some of those changes and choices helped lead me to trod all over your feet in this very fancy dress.”

“So you think we’re fated then?” He said careful to keep his tone light.  But Sarah heard what he was asking.

“I think that no matter what happens, I’m happy I’m dancing with you.  Which honestly is never a sentence I thought I’d say. But that was an extra question, so you owe me two.”

“My favourite colour is purple and I enjoy strawberry ice cream,” he hand waved.   “Do you believe in destiny?”

“I’d rather tell you my favourite ice cream is cookie dough,” she said, rolling her eyes.  “I don’t know enough to say yes or no whether I believe in destiny. I’m not sure how that’s different than fate really.  If you ask me whether I believe in vampires I’ll say no - but if one shows up at my door tomorrow I’m not going to tell they they’re not real. I’m kind of at a disadvantage here since you’re reading from a different rule book than I am.  I’m way more interested to hear whether you believe in fate.”

“There are oracles,” he said with that bemused expression on his face he reserved just for her.  “But I avoid them mostly. They are…complicated.”

“I’m not asking you what an oracle is because that’d count as another question, so instead I’m going to assume they give a kind of prophecy.”

“Correct,” he said simply.

“You didn’t answer my question,” she pointed out.

He quirked a smile at her, and did a bit of a complicated two step that caused her to falter slightly.  “Let’s just say I’m not quite as ready to stare down something both greater and stronger than I am.  Now didn’t you also want to know about my first kiss?”

“Wow you must really not want to talk about oracles because that is the biggest fuck off I’ve ever heard, but fine I’m taking the bait.  Tell me who got there first,” she said with a raised brow. They would be coming back to that later.

“I was 11 and her name was Liah. She was the daughter of my mother’s favourite seamstress.”

“That’s adorable,” she smiled.  “I’m just picturing your eyes meeting over the spinning wheel.  Did you guys stay in touch?”

“We’re still quite friendly, she’s made a number of my favourite pieces.  You two would get along well I think. You both enjoy questioning my decisions so much.”

“You got a type Jareth,” Sarah shrugged.  “Did she make what I’m wearing?”

“No that’s one of mine,” he said, giving her another twirl.  “But you don’t have to wear it if you don’t like it. I can ask Liah to make something more to your taste.”

“Obviously I love it,” she laughed, giving her skirt another swish for good measure.  “But I thought you said you’d never move the stars.”

“I said I’d move the stars for no one, tell me Sarah, when have you ever been no one?  Besides, I’m not moving anything, you are,” he said, gesturing to her feet.

“But you put them there,” she reminded him.

“And a match is just a stick until it meets a spark,”  He said, giving her another twirl.

“Can’t start a fire without a spark, even if we’re just dancing in the dark,” she sung lightly.  

“What was that?” he said, amused.

“A freebie, my favorite song.”

He led her around the room another time before something occurred to her.  

“So where are your stars then?” she asked considering his outfit.  It wasn’t like it was too out there for him - the man wore more eyeshadow on a daily basis than she’d ever touched.

“I don’t have stars,” he said quietly.  “I can only offer them.”

She didn’t really have a quick response to that.  Instead she let him dance with her because even outside of her favour, she wanted to.  She didn’t like dancing, but she liked him.

“You can’t say stuff like that without me wanting to do something stupid,” she said, trying to avoid looking at him.  Because whenever he said stuff like that, the kind of things that made her heart clench and her stomach drop, it was so hard, so impossibly hard to not grab him by his sparkly lapels and...well, a lot of things.  

“That is the idea,” he murmured pulling her closer.  “Please tell me all the stupid things you’d like to do.  I want to write them down and reference them later when you’re willing to happily agree to all of them.”

“Mmm is that so,” she said.  She was tired of always being the one thrown off balance by Jareth and his ability to weaponize his sexuality against her.  He was good at it too and the jerk knew it. But Sarah had a few tricks of her own up her sleeve and she’d never been great at risk evaluation.  

“Well I’d start by pushing you down into your throne.  I’d bind your hands so you couldn’t touch me…well not with your hands at least,” she said coyly.

“…what?”  Jareth said, his previous seductive and pretentious demeanour vanishing.  

“Then I’d slowly remove this dress, letting it fall from my shoulders and pool at my feet.  Until I was standing in front of you wearing just this necklace, and these lovely shoes you’ve poofed in for me.  No surprise that you forgot to give me underwear, so I guess it’ll just be me, naked, and you, all tied up.”

“You’re a cruel woman Sarah Williams,” Jareth replied, and Sarah was pleased to hear the strain in his voice.  

“I play the hand I’m dealt Goblin King,” she said with a careful smile.  “Maybe I just play a little better than you?”

“There is one thing you’ve forgotten,” Jareth said.  “I know a bluff when see one.”

“Who says I’m bluffing?” She challenged.

“Oh?” He said, arching a singular brow.  “Well then I’ll call.”

He didn’t wait for her to respond before closing that final inch of space between them and kissed her.  Sarah had suspected he might go in for the kiss after her little game but she was ready for him this time.  He wasn’t getting the upper hand in this kiss. No, he was playing her game now.

He might kiss her like she was the only light in the room, but she kissed him back like the monster she knew.  She kissed him thoroughly and deeply. A kiss that was was angry, hot, and unyielding. A kiss that, in any other situation, wouldn’t stay just a kiss.  A kiss that she’d practiced on men whose names she could no longer remember, and the kind of kiss she’d been working up to give him. So if Jareth was going to try and drown her in his kisses, she was pulling him down with her.  

Jareth hadn’t been ready for any of that and Sarah knew it.  She smiled gleefully when he pushed her back from him, out of breath, and flushed.  He looked like he’d just run a labyrinth and Sarah was pleased.

“Now who’s bluffing?” She said, and did not bother to hide her own reaction to his kiss.  It didn’t matter anyways. She’d won this round.

“This is not…” he trailed off, running his hand through his hair.  “Yes, alright Sarah, you win again.”

“Well you don’t have to be a sore loser about it,” she said shaking her head.  “You got what you wanted just as much as I did.”

“I never get what I want,” he muttered, low enough that Sarah barely heard him.

“What do you mean,” she pressed him.

“It’s of no concern,” he said, coming back into himself.  Sarah watched as he nervously tightened his hands into fists.

“No,” she said taking his hand in hers.  Unclenching his fist. “Not that easy, what do you mean?”

“If I wanted to take you here on the floor of this ballroom -“  he trailed off.

“But that’s not what you want?  Christ Jareth, I thought that’s all you wanted.”

“Once yes,” he conceded.  

“But now?” She said with interest.  Maybe she’d misread it, maybe it was just a fun game for Jareth to push her out of her comfort zone like that.  

“Now it is not enough,” he said.  “I think I’ve made that perfectly clear.”

She let out a breath.  She understood exactly what he was talking about.  “Yes, I know. But Jareth really, you don’t get to tease, and flirt, and kiss, and then get mad when I do the same thing back.”

“It’s different.  I’m…” he trailed off, struggling to finish his sentence.  

“Playing the long game?” She said crossing her arms.  “Yeah I’m aware. When you do it you see it as chipping away my resolve.  Getting you closer and closer to the point where I just give up or give in, as opposed to when I do it to - what?  Fuck with you? God, you’re such a ding dong sometimes. Let me make one thing clear, when you talk about wanting me to want you - that ship sailed some ten years and two poofy dresses ago.  But I haven’t really done much about it, I mostly have been letting you steer this ship. Yeah I kissed you first, but I’ve never been able to kiss you just because I wanted to. You’re always kissing me.  You have to let me initiate, you have to let me in the game.”

“Well…do you want to kiss me now?” he asked slyly, and Sarah threw up her hands in response.

“Honestly Jareth, I spend about 80% of the time I’m with you just trying not to kiss you.  Trying not to do a lot of things to you. I’m completely stupid for you and I’m living like a goddamn nun as a result.”

“Why?” He said, confused.  “You know that’s not necessary.”

“Well no actually I think it might be.  We’re not…there yet and you just said that it’s not what you want,” she said, awkwardly.  

“Kiss me like that again and I might just forget,” he said, leaning back in to kiss her and Sarah threw up her hand to block his lips, instead giving him a fateful of palm.

“If I kiss you like that again we both might forget but quiet, I think I hear something,” she said.  

She and Jareth stopped, straining their ears to hear the faint rumble and occasional scattered bird noises.  

“What the hell?” She said turning to Jareth, who looked like the proverbial deer caught in the headlights.  

“Oh bogdammit,” he hissed.  “We have to leave, immediately.”

He grabbed her by the wrist and began to pull her before she stopped him.  

“Wait!”  She pointed upwards to her still playing, and still floating iPod.  “Gimme my iPod Jareth.”

He waved his hand and the iPod fell, it was sheer luck she managed to catch it.  “Now come on!” He shouted, running towards the door across the room.

Sarah lifted her skirts and ran quickly after him.  He slammed the door shut behind her and leaned against it panting.  Sarah was startled to see him so freaked out. “Christ Jareth, what’s got you all twisted?”

He smirked, gesturing to the eye sized hole in the door.  “See for yourself, be my guest .”

Sarah looked at him with confusion and peered through the hole in the door to see what had become of the previously immaculate ballroom.  She said previously because currently there was a massive food fight happening in there with about…god there had to be more than a hundred goblins and probably thirty odd chickens.  Sarah was pretty sure that she saw Hoggle and she was pretty sure she heard him yell “I’m taking ye all down with me!” But it was hard to know what with all the hunks of raw meat and - dammit some of those potatoes were on fire , flying through the air.  

“Why…is this happening,” was all she managed looking helplessly back at Jareth.

“I told you I don’t give gobins unrestricted access to food for a reason.  Someone left the pantry unlocked, this always happens whenever someone leaves the pantry unlocked.  I’m going to enjoy lowering that someone inch by inch into the bog for this,” he growled.

“Can’t you stop it?” she gestured back at the chaos.  

“I’d ruin my suit,” he grumbled.  “I spent hours on it.”

“Oh for,” she rolled her eyes, daring to open the door wide enough to poke her head outside.  “Hey!” She cried out to the horde. A flaming goblin soared through the air, narrowly missing her head, before she thought maybe Jareth had a point, and ducked her head back in.  

“They’ll run out of things to throw in about an hour love,” he said leaning against the wall.  “In the meantime shall we continue?”

Sarah stopped and looked around where they were for the first time.  It was inexplicably, a second ballroom. Much smaller and less grand.  Just a lot of glittering stone and family portraits. A large fireplace was in the centre, and instead of crystals there were sconces with candles lining the walls.  

“This is the private family ballroom,” he said, answering her unasked question.

“You have a private family ballroom?” she said teasingly.  “That’s bourgeoise as hell.”

“I … am bourgeoise?”  He said confused. “I’m the king.”

“Whatever,” she laughed, walking into the centre of the ballroom.  “Can we just dance like regular people now?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” he said, walking towards her.  

“Like this,” she said giving a small silly spin.  She started swaying her hips back and forth. She threw on an old dance track and tucked the iPod into the front of her dress.  “Gimme your hands,” she said extending her hands out towards Jareth.

“What are we doing?” He said taking her hands.  

“We’re dancing the way I know how,” she said, giving a little skip to the left.  She let him twirl her and spin her back into his arms. “See,” she smiled at him.  “Fun.”

“Yes,” he smiled, giving her a quick peck on the cheek.  He spun her back out before she could object. “I can dance like this.”

The track changed to something a little bit slower and a little bit sultrier.  A song she knew very well. The familiar voice echoed quietly around them and Jareth pulled her back in closer.  She threw her arms around his neck as they swayed back and forth, his hands on her hips, her head resting in the crook of his neck. 

“I like this,” he said quietly.  “Lend me this record.”

“Anytime,” she smiled.  

He started to spin her out again, and this time when he spun her back in he gave her an unexpected dip.  She gasped, not expecting the drop, but his hand on her back didn’t falter and he bent down and booped her gently on the nose. 

“I’ve got you,” he smirked, pulling her back up towards him.  “I did train for over fifty years you know.”

“How could I forget,” she laughed.  “Do it again, it was fun.”

“You’re getting much better,” he said, giving her another spin.  “Will Cinderella be ready to dance at the ball yet?”

“That seems unlikely,” she laughed again.  “But there’s a chance I might actually enjoy myself.  Miracle of miracles.”

“I think the miracle is for the first time at one of these events I might as well.” He grinned, dipping her again.  

“I don’t hear the goblins,” she said.  

“I don’t care,” he leaned down, kissing her.  His hand held her steady as he took his time, pulling her slowly back up.  

Sarah didn’t mind when they kept on dancing.