#ok so this is kinda messy in formatting sorry

[sneakertin]

if anyone is still interested in the bounty hunter tentoo au, here's my huge little ramble about it!! it's a bit wild. sorry not sorry.

also, there's some more details in this post, in case anyone missed it.

and here's a couple of sketches, of course^^

ok so. when tentoo finally finds thirteen and yaz it's almost like an episode-style kinda story with him as the villain of the week, simply because i think in this format. after he has his hysterical little explanation of everything that's happened the doctor is visibly traumatized and yaz is profoundly concerned. predictably, he tries to kill the doctor(but not yaz). they manage to get away, and now she has to tell yaz about who tentoo is. she basically sits her down like a grandpa and tells her the entire long ass story. reasonably, yaz has very conflicting emotions about him. yes, his story is heartbreaking and all, but he does want to murder the woman she loves?? anyway. tentoo soon finds them again. he's a very tough enemy, maybe one of the toughest the doctor has ever met. he spent years preparing for their confrontation, he has her memories and her mind, her thought process. not only that, he knows all her weak spots and all her insecurities(he's a bit like the master in that respect). at first it seems like he's always a step ahead of them, but that soon changes. after all, he is extremely mentally unstable. he has been running on spite for the last ~15 years, and the doctor is much older than when they last met. he may have her memories, but she had plenty of time to gain new ones, to become wiser. this goes on for a while, tom and jerry kinda shit, but tentoo looses in the end.

also, there's this little scene where he stumbles upon the tardis while chasing the doctor and yaz. he sees her, stops dead in his tracks. he hasn't even realised how much he missed her. he approaches slowly and feels a faint presence in his mind. his telepathy is very weak, his time sense practically gone. he leans his forehead against the door and tardis welcomes him. he almost cries. that's the first friendly telepathic contact he's had in years. he feels at peace as he reaches for the door handle and.. it doesn't open. he tries again. she doesn't want him there, he realises. anger rises in him. he kicks the door.

"Oh, I see how it is. You want to protect her. You know that I'm going to hurt the Doctor. I mean, of course you do. I don't know what I was expecting."

he gives her one final, longing look before leaving.

initially, he dies during their battle. killed by his own weapon or something like that. it's all very dramatic and tragic, he forgives the doctor right before dying and asks her to live the life he couldn't. she gives him a gallifreyan funeral. she and yaz hold hands as they watch his body burn. the doctor has a strong sense of deja vu.

BUT then i thought that i don't want this story to end so soon because i need something to think about during the day, and i'm not ready to let go of this au yet. so, i made tentoo travel with thirteen and yaz!! this doesn't make much sense but it's fun so i don't care. the doctor feels insane amounts of guilt over tentoo and she desperately wants to make it better(it's a rather selfish decision, very typical of the doctor). and tentoo probably just realises that the doctor is not nearly as evil as he thought all those years. meeting her in the flesh reminded him of when he was her, of the fact that he never did anything out of any malice and yet people still blamed him for the things that weren't his fault. he's completely burned out, all the fight leaves him. on a subconscious level he just wants some company, wants to travel properly again. and after all the shit he went through, the doctor is probably the only person who can understand him. so, to his own surprise, he agrees. yaz is not too excited about bringing a serial killer aboard, but she sees the potential in him.

their battle was messy. his spaceship is destroyed, and it feels like the end of an era. they walk back to the tardis in silence, there's rubble all around them.

he realises, as he stands in front of the blue box, that he's trading one stolen spaceship for another. that brings a laugh out if him and yaz gives him a weird look. by that point, the doctor is nearly vibranting with excitement.

"Ready to see what she looks like?"

right, the tardis must have redecorated. he nods. the door makes a familiar creak as he takes a step forward. his jaw drops.

"Oh, you gorgeous!!"

he rushes ahead and moves around the console, touching the corals and admiring their colours. yaz is a bit shocked at his surge of enthusiasm. he seems so... doctor-like, she thinks. yes, his smile is manic and his eyes are filled with pain. his face is marked with a scar and there's nothing but an empty space where his right hand used to be. but in that moment, he is human.

slowing down, he runs his fingers along some buttons with a solemn expression. he lifts his gaze up at the moving column.

"I'm sorry for kicking you. You were doing the right thing and I... I was just upset that you didn't let me in. You understand, don't you?"

the tardis makes a low, gentle noise. he smiles.

"I missed you too, old girl."

he startles a bit when the doctor approaches from behind.

"I take it you like her new look." she laughed, awkward. "Erm, listen, I wanted to ask... About your name. Or, the lack of one. We couldn't very well keep calling you the instantaneous two-way biological metacrisis, could we? Now that you're not trying to kill me anymore, you could be the Doctor ag-"

"No!" he blurted, suddenly. "I mean, I... I don't wanna be you. I'm not you." she stared at him, open mouthed. "I think I wanna be my own person now. Fresh start, you know? Not the Doctor, not the Verisian Slayer or whatever it was that they called me." he looked lost, scared by the thought of his own future, but determined.

"That's the spirit!" she grinned and slapped him on his back. he grimaced. "Sorry. Anyway, we still need to come up with a name for you! How about good old John Sm-"

"Absolutely not!"

"Alright. John Handy?"

"Be careful, I might change my mind about not trying to kill you. By the way, you owe me a new hand." he angrily flapped his empty sleeve at yaz. she raised her hands in defence, laughing. she felt a bit guilty now, for nicking and breaking it earlier that day. oh, what a mad day that was.

"I'll make you a one! Back on the topic, how about James? You know, like Jamie Mccrimmon."

his shoulders sagged and she saw his eyes fill with memories of an old friend.

"Yeah, I think I like that."

...

AHEM!! got a bit carried away there. this thing nearly turned into a fic, but i'm not a writer so it's probably very messy. i don't wanna pull the "english is my second language" card so i'll just apologise for the ungodly amount of grammatical nonsense. sorry.

ANYWAY, they start traveling together and it's literally the most dysfunctional friendship ever. you may be thinking: "how is this gonna work? are they just gonna forget about the fact that james spent the last ten years killing people left and right?" well, he can't be any worse than the master, right? but he is a very troubled character and he spends a lot of time trying to recover from everything that's happened. the doctor and yaz are there for him all the while.

as for their relationship... basically, the doctor is very protective of james. as i said earlier, she feels directly responsible for what happened, even tho he doesn't really blame her anymore.

also, damn. that name change is very sudden, isn't it? i still can't tell if it's cringe or not. but i don't want him to go back to being the doctor, so it's not like there's any other options. the way it works is that he doesn't actually reject his past. has the memories of being the doctor and even tho he didn't actually live through them, to him it feels like he did. he was the doctor up to a certain point and then he became an entirely new person, albeit with a mutual past with her. he finally embraces his humanity. during their travels he is surprised at how refreshing it is to be in the role of the companion, to not be the doctor anymore. he no longer feels the weight of all the responsibilities and expectations that come with that bearing that name. people no longer blame him for every little thing gone wrong, for the most part. he's relieved to feel that kind of freedom, but at the same time he feels sorry for the doctor who is still being treated like that, and probably always will be. tho he is faced with his own bad reputation occasionaly. someone recognised the doctor and james once and called them "the doctor and their personal assasin".

relationships, yes. james has no problems getting along with the doctor, for obvious reasons, but he and yaz take some time to get used to each other. in the end, they bond in a way that i can't really explain. he sees right through yaz, and it kinda freaks her out. he immediately recognises the exact kind of relationship she has with the doctor and oh boy, he turned himself into a fucking matchmaker. you'd think he'd be horrified at the prospect of the doctor falling in love with a human again, considering the massive trauma he has regarding this topic, but no. i guess that as a human he takes it much easier this time around. he is mortal, and so is yaz, and that kinda makes her seem less fragile to him.

OH!! i forgot to mention the little running gag i came up with. so, every now and again james gets his prosthetic broken, or stolen, or eaten or absolutely obliterated in the most unpredictable comedic way possible and he gets soooo mad every time. at one point they meet the pting again... you can guess what happens.

oh, i was also thinking about bringing jack into this whole mess because i'm obsessed with tenjack, but i'm still not sure about that. i was just wondering how different their relationship would be if the doctor was human. we already know that jack loves the doctor and will probably never stop. but james doesn't have much of his time lord senses left now and therefore he wouldn't be able to feel jack's "wrongness". moreover, he spent years with barely any human connection and now he's desperate for it. most importantly, the majority of the doctor's relationship hang ups are based on their immortality, and guess what!! james doesn't have that anymore. he's not the doctor, he's changed, but he still has the memories. jack is still his friend. with nothing holding james back, i truly think he would be able to return jack's feelings. or maybe I'm thinking to much about it. maybe i just everyone to be gay, who knows?? i honestly don't know just how weird it would be if they were together but, my god, i just want them both to have some comfort, something that goes farther than friendship.

anyway, jack joins the dysfunctional trio post revolution of the daleks(for him) so he already knows thirteen and yaz. you can imagine his shock when he sees james. james is no less surprised. a wave of insecurity hits him and he immediately tries to explain to jack that he's not who he thinks he is. that's he's not really the doctor, that's he's that weird little guy who grew out of The Hand. jack hears his words, but goes for a hug anyway. james sighs in relief. at least he doesn't have to deal with rejection again. he's also startled to realise that jack doesn't feel wrong anymore. it's supposed to be a bad thing: his mind can no longer sense the timelines. but instead of panicking about it, he just chooses to relax in his friend's embrace. the doctor looks at them, and smiles.

...

aaaand that's all i have for now!! when i tell you i nearly died trying to convert all my loose thoughts into a semi-comprehensible text. you a real soldier if u read all that. hope you enjoyed<3

[checkoutmybookshelf]

...It is possible I am about to bring the Bridgerton fandom down on my HEAD, but I have an opinion and I am sharing it.

The show hasn't set writer Colin up sufficiently well for me to believe that he is going to catch professional jealousy about Pen being Lady Whistledown.

Yes, we got the journal reading scene, and it is well established that Colin is a prolific letter writer. I am also aware that the fandom is happy to headcanon Colin being as prolific a letter writer as he is made out to be is setup that he is a prose writer. But um.

Contextually, when all you have to communicate with people is letters? Like, that doesn't necessarily HAVE to equate to also being an excellent prose writer. For one, when you're writing a PRIVATE letter to someone you like (such as a friend or family member) your audience is extremely specific, so you don't have to tailor to a general audience. The skills are different. I imagine the letters being a combination of text messages and a Tumblr blog and a Facebook profile before Facebook became functionally unusable. It's a means of connecting and sharing experiences, and given how the Bridgertons react to the letters and their content, it's basically an amateur travel highlight blog. Which is why the letters and journals worked TOGETHER in the book to establish Colin as a good travel writer, because he had the letter format and the longform format. They complemented each other and there was more emphasis on Colin actually engaging with his journals in the book. Like, he was talking about editing them and refining the prose and really engaging with the text. That piece is missing in the show for me. He doesn't seem to really give a damn about the writing unless the plot needs him to in a given moment.

We got two full seasons of Penelope building her private life around Whistledown and finding time to write and struggling with writing and working out the logistics of getting published and protecting her identity. Even without the time jump in the book that gives her extra experience as a runaway successful gossip columnist, I believe that writing is important to Penelope in the show.

Colin spent season 1 being a naive white knight, without so much as a hint that our boy is a writer. But maybe he discovered writing on his travels. Ok, fair enough, but then why didn't they have him working on writing in season 2 when he was feeling directionless and purposeless? Would that not have been a direction and a purpose? He just...kinda shows back up in season 3 and there's a journal for one scene and we're expected to believe that he is suddenly as avid a writer as Lady Whistledown? Sorry, no, I'm not sold. We don't even get what might have been an interesting internal conflict where his fuckboying around the ton in a desperate attempt for validation is CONFLICTING with some kind of internal validation that writing brings him. Like...the foundation and the groundwork and the moments that Penelope gets to establish writing as something important to her just are not there for Colin.

I honestly think I'd have preferred them to drop writer Colin altogether (I'd have been disappointed as hell) rather than try to token in the writing with like...the letters and the singular journal scene. Writer relationships can get MESSY and DRAMATIC and...I would have loved that. But the show just hasn't spent enough time there for me. I'm still here for the Polin relationship, but I wish we'd gotten the love and care in setting up writer Colin (or even a fraction of it) that Penelope got.

[kidflashimpulse]

You got any Bart Whump fic recs? Asking for a friend of course—

a couple, i feel like there’s more out there but these r the ones coming to mind, i hope u enjoy them (if u haven’t read them already 😅) they’re mostly bluepulse, hope that’s ok

p.s if anyone has any further recommendations please feel free to add them :)

Bart gets injured a lot. (Imprudent by orsumfenix)

Character study on Barts trauma (suffer the signs by beforetheline (mochibbh))

Bart goes through it trying to save as many lives as possible. (Weary and Burdened by SalaciousCrumble)

i’ve recced this one before but it’s just everything to me and the scene where he gets hurt is pretty great

(Flash Facts of Bart Allen by Killthespare)

zetaflash fic where they’re at joan’s funeral (Invulnerable by Ailerua )

idk if they’re all necessarily whump but they sure got me in my feelings so

i’m not so obnoxious to link my own work where he also kinda goes through it oh would u look at that how did that get there, but yeah he also kinda gets hurt and goes through some stuff so if u or others haven’t read it yet, might be worth giving it a shot lol

(sorry about the messy format lol )

[yourinterestisnotcringe]

different anon - what just rubs me the wrong way i guess is the implication of the cast ‘taking over’ ian and anthony’s spot. fans back then where shamed about thinking or being worried that the cast or the content they created would be pushed away on the main channel when unscripted content wasn’t coming back, but now fans are ‘valid’ in thinking that the cast are taking over ian and anthony’s place.

i’m just uncomfortable with the insinuation (whether intentional or not) that the cast is ‘taking’ a spot thats not rightfully theirs and vice-versa. i think there’s a balance that can be made on the main channel and that there’s no need to alienate one over the other. it all just feels like that time the smosh squad got introduced and i feel like we shouldve grown past that way of thinking.

Hi 👋🏻

(Firstly: your last point was the reason I made sure to say I love the cast again and again, because I agree. This is not an anti-squad thing. I hated that back in the day.)

It wasn't right or ok to shame people for having that opinion, I agree. Though, I was always of the opinion that they weren't pushed away from any spotlight, the main channel just changed direction again (people were upset over cast member channels vanishing from main, but actually they were just moved to Pit - which doesn't mean anything deep, Main just changed direction and content concepts). But shaming people for their opinion in this context is never nice.

I didn't intent to make my reply to sound like the cast doesn't deserve screentime or they don't deserve a spot on main because it's "not rightfully theirs". Everyone on Smosh "deserves" a spot anywhere, it's their job after all. I think all this is messy af because we're all protective of our faves and there lies the source of lots of bad fandom discourse.

I can't put into words well what I'm feeling, I'm sorry. But I'll try again.

The age old debate in the Smosh fandom will always be scripted vs unscripted (or I&A vs Cast ig, which I hate). Scripted was on main, unscripted on the other channel(s). Scripted was I & A and the cast (minus the very beginning), Unscripted was the cast and I&A. Ideally, when things were/are going well, everyone has a place where they could shine. Some viewers preferred Scripted, some Unscripted (some, like me, both). Then Anthony left and the place where Scripted took place slowly became un-/semi scripted. Naturally there wasn't a place for I & A to shine, because I & A didn't exist anymore. It was Ian and the cast. Some viewers were sad over that understandably so. Their fave content was vanishing.

Then Anthony came back, the Scripted place became scripted again (making the sad viewers mostly happy again and other viewers sad) and cast got more empowerment on the Unscripted side (shows, the new pitch admission system, etc) while semi scripted stuff happened in the form of Live Shows. Intense Nostalgia stuff happened and then cast got more parts again on the Scripted side.

What I and others are now a bit worried about is that the Scripted stuff on the Scripted Main Channel will vanish again and be replaced by Unscripted/Semi-scripted stuff - stuff that wouldve been on the Unscripted Channel normally. And that content featuring I&A will slowly vanish or hardly be there. That might sound irrational but those feelings are also valid. When the cast wasn't in a few new sketches, they were still around Pit and Games, so we wouldn't worry over not seeing them anymore. If the Scripted content vanishes, people are worried over losing I&A content. Seems irrational, i totally get that. But it is what it is.

I'm not trying to alienate between both "sides", pls believe me. I absolute adore the cast and love many scripted formats they had during Anthony's absence.

I just want both concepts to co-exist and not be shamed for still loving I&A and the kinda neat thing of Main = Scripted feat I&A and the cast, Pit/Games = Unscripted feat cast and I&A. To me that seems perfectly balanced and idk why they would mix that up.

Pls understand that I'm not having ill intentions, I've watched Smosh through sooo many changes since 2006 and stayed watching. I personally never shamed any person that mourned cast being gone from main for a while.

(Then again, who knows what the announcement will bring and maybe I'll feel sooo silly over all this 😬)

I have a feeling you chose that wording (rubbing you the wrong way) because I used it the way i did, I apologize. I meant that it rubs me the wrong way how people have prejudice against people that like I&A and think they must hate the cast or that they shame those people.

[almightyhamslice]

A slapdash comic of Spyro meeting Ember for the first time. srry abt the kinda messy formatting on this one, I totally didn’t plan it beforehand LOL. it’s meant to be read like:

“Spyro!! You gotta help me! I got ambushed by Gnasty Gnorc and now nothing’s right!?” “I’m sorry- do I know you?” “It’s me, Ember! We met at Sparx Pond, we rescued a bunch of dragonflies together! Don’t you remember?” “I’ve never even heard of Sparx Pond... I think you’re mistaken.” “You forgot, like everyone else...?” “I DIDN’T FORGET ANYTHING! I’ve NEVER met you! I’m sorry.” (beat) “Well,” “OK, you can come with me. Who’s your dragonfly?” “Scarlett.”

Funny story, right after finishing this comic I got the Spyro Reignited art book as a christmas present! And I realized I was totally breaking one of the main Reignited Spyro conventions when I drew him lol. Turns out, his eyes shouldn’t have whites on all sides--his pupils are pretty large to make him appear younger/cuter. As you can see in this comic... I didn’t do that LOL. But I will! Now that I know that. (tbf ETD Spyro also breaks this convention so I shouldn’t sweat it LOL)

anyways yes the adventure TRULY begins!! I think Ember feels rlly lonely and sad because, to her, it feels like whoever talks to her is gaslighting her abt the whole ‘extra realms’ and ‘gnasty gnorc’ thing. She KNOWS what she saw. Spyro is disconcerted by her claims, but believes they are in earnest, so they’ll team up!

[prompt-master]

henlo i am sorry to bother you but i am ten years late to the danganronpa fandom and two years late to your fanfics but i was wondering if you might consider finishing your Bear Trap story? like even if its just a quick lil synopsis of what you wanted to write, or if its an unfinished chapter, id take anything 👉👈

also ur lovely ok bye

Ok this was worded very kindly so I'm going to justify it with a full geniune response.

I'm honestly probably never going to update Bear Trap, but I WILL give you a synopsis. I did however want to first quickly explain why I don't plan on finishing that fic.

To keep a long story short. I kinda hate BT. It was my first fic after a two year break and imo it shows in the quality. I thank BT for temporarily getting me back into the writing groove, but I cringe way too hard looking back on it. I do have an unfinished chapter draft, but I'm not sure if I'd ever post it. I'll have to reread it at some point and see how I feel.

I would also like to say that if anyone else is willing to write the last part, I am more than willing to work with them.

Now, here is what I had planned for BT, bare (haha bear) in mind that it's messy because it was just self indulgent nonsense:

The format of BT was meant to go; build up, impact, aftermath. With each chapter focusing on a different story beat.

There was going to be a fake chapter released only on tumblr where Naegi died, only for the characters to go "did you actually think that would happen?" meant to poke fun over how many people thought I was going to kill Naegi.

This means the last chapter was going to entirely focus on the aftermath of Naegi's injury. I wanted each character to get an analysis of how they're feeling and each individual relationship would get a spotlight

This also means that. Tbh. The aftermath segment probably would not fit cleanly into one chapter since it would be pretty big.

It began with the hospital ride from the helicopter, Togami and Kiri watching as medics struggle to keep Naegi stable. There's a very dissociative vibe going on.

Because Togami and Kiri are closer to Naegi then they are each other, they don't really know how to comfort each other. It's awkward, quiet. They only speak to share facts and speculation. But there's a moment where they lean shoulder to shoulder.

Naegi was going to lose his leg, and have to get a prosthetic. Some of the fic was going to focus on him relearning how to walk with his new leg with the help of his partners.

I wanted to make sure that Naegi becoming disabled wasn't a "bad" ending. It's obviously upsetting to lose a limb in a tragic accident, and Naegi does have to cope with it. But I wanted to feel more empowering in a "see this shit? It's proof I survived"

Togami was ofc going to lovingly call him a cockroach

There was going to be exploration over how despite being known around the world for surviving a tragedy, they still don't really know how to LIVE with tragedy. They are just forced to keep moving on without getting a moment to breathe.

Due to Naegi seeing how freaked out Togami and Kiri were, he tries to keep everything together and stay lighthearted for their sake. He knows they want to see he's okay. This meant he pushed aside his own coping however.

The fic was going to end with Naegi finally letting out his emotions and crying in front of both of them, admitting that he was scared and thought he was going to die, and that he was so grateful they were there. Even if he had died then, he wouldve been more okay with it if they were with him. But that doesn't mean he was actually okay with it.

Togami negotiates them all a 2 week vacation lmao

If I remember correctly (I did not reread the fic to check, I'm going solely off memory) I was going to make a point about how despite feeling like they nearly lost their chance to tell Naegi they love him, both Tog and Kiri know that a confession shortly after a traumatic experience isn't the best idea. But also, Naegi doesn't need a confession to know they love him.

There were certainty more details to thefic that I can't fully recall ATM, such as the specifics of each individual character/relationship analysis. Let me know if you have any questions! Ty again for your kindness

[cozypups]

HELLO MY WONDERFUL MUTUALS!!! I AM DOING OK!! it's kinda sucky tho because my ocd has been interfering with my life again, but i need to wait until monday to contact my psychiatrist to increase the dosage of my meds 😔 i'm really sorry i haven't been updating or being as active as before!!

i've been thinking about being more active again, but i always tend to think about how messy my blog is and if my tags are organized enough 😬😬 I've realized i like being VERY specific with tags so i don't lose something i may be looking for in the future, but sometimes that causes duplicate tags which SUCKS...

I've been watching so much anime lately, and i got back into playing even more league... uhh OH!! i also contacted an advisor about going back to college but instead of an AA, it'd be academics in computer programming!!! especially since lately I've learned a lot of frameworks like next, nuxt, react, vue, i even got into sass (but scss because the css formatting is what I'm familiar with) and i learned about static site generators... templating languages like nunjucks, liquid, even handlebars (although I've been meaning to learn even more)

it's super duper fun!! ALTHOUGH, from all of the videos I've watched and how many github repos I've made, i think I've accidentally developed an ocd obsession with making things look incredibly modern, and like it has to look like a professional website as opposed to fully giving that up and being free, expressing myself with an oldweb amateur style... it's made me feel like my ocd medication isn't working lately, especially since I've found it really hard to do certain things without being so held back by the intense feeling of dread for some reason, and it reminds me of when i was on my previous meds which only made my ocd worse, and i was even experiencing the beginnings of serotonin syndrome, but my psychiatrist made me feel like i was being [replacement: silly] 😬 idk whether i can trust my psychiatrist because he honestly doesn't completely answer my questions..? it's like he answers it for an entire 2 minutes, but the minute and a half are basically him explaining how it's normal for someone with ocd, but he does it in a way that makes me feel like... idk, [replacement: very silly]... ANYWAYS THOUGH, how has everyone been?? did i miss anything while I've been away? i hope everyone's day is very ☀️ SUNNY AND your night is very 🌙MOONY. 💕

[findinyourkin]

hiya! ive never done a call before so sorry if this formatting is kinda messy

im a classic sonic fictive!! (middle, 12yrs old) mostly sourced from the OVA movie + games. im mostly looking for my tails but im ok with other sourcemates! the body is 20, so preferably 18+ but we're willing to accept 17!

important note also-- i wear sports tape and a lot of bandages all over pretty much, so if anyone remembers that part specifically feel free to interact here and ill dm you!

!!!!!!!!

[royal-kard]

bigger kpop tag!

I was tagged by @curledlife thank you for the tag angel!!

1.) 5 favorite groups?

shinee, exo, vixx, f(x), kard

2.) Top 5 on your bias list?

jonghyun, suho, leo, victoria, all of kard 

3.) Ult Bias group and why you love them?

shinee. hands down. the boys, all five of them, were made ( I believe) to be shinee. it was fate for these five to be in one group. their individual personalities and skills are amazing and wonderful, and these boys excel in all areas that they take on. they’re always shifting and transforming their music and their style, but they always do these things in such a shinee way. let me be completely honest and say that no other group really compares to these boys to me. they are a group of five boys each with their own distinct and vibrant color, and when they come together everything just works. they’re a group whose music has helped me get through some rough times, and they’re the group i’ve grown up listening to. their the group that paint my happiest moments, that help lift me up in my saddest times. i’ve laughed with them and cried with them. they’re like family to me. they’re so brilliant each in their own way, and i love them so much. its really hard to put into words just how much i love these boys. im so proud of all five of them. 

4.) Ult Bias and why you love them?

jonghyun. I could write a whole essay on why I love him so much, but to keep it short I suppose, he had a very wonderful and kind soul which is something that I admire because in spite of the things he was going through he always looked after others and brought comfort to those around him. His words always came to me at the right time, and the way he thought was never sugar coating anything, but rather, his words were comforting because they were realistic in the most considerate way. (That probably doesn’t make sense, but I’m not too sure how to word it.) His musical artistry is also something to be admired. He was made to create beautiful music. He wrote from within himself, and created music that was fun, music that touched and moved people in various ways. To me, there will never be anyone else who impacts me in the way that he has. He was and is someone I respect so much, and I am thankful every single day that I was able to find him, his music, and shinee. 

5.) Favorite Kpop Meme

that one gif of hyungwon from monsta x with the coffee and mic

6.) Favorite pic of your ult? (I dare you to only pick one)

every picture of him is a blessed one, but i really love this one too:

7.) 5 Favorite Kpop MVs

shinee | view , f(x) | red light , vixx | voodoo doll, shinee | lucifer, jonghyun | she is 

8.) 10 Favorite Kpop songs?

this changes all the time, but these are some I guess: view by shinee, the chaser by infinite, eternity by vixx, airplane by f(x), replay by shinee, moonlight by exo, i need u by bts, hallelujah by jonghyun, love belt by jonghyun, trust me by b.m and somin 

9.) Favorite Kpop crack video?

this one 

10.) Favorite content creator within the fandom?

within the kard fandom: @somin (quality content right there).

11.) What fandoms would you say you’re an active member of?

I’m pretty much just an active member for five groups which is shinee, exo, vixx, f(x), and kard (and im failing at kard lately tbh sorry :( )

12.) Take your top 3 biases- fmk

I’m gonna take jjong out of the mix because I don’t feel comfortable with that. 

f- matthew i guess

m- leo

k- suho (he doesnt like to clean so he’s gotta go) 

13.) If you could be best friends with any idol, who would you choose?

ALL OF KARD, hongbin, and kyungsoo

14.) If you could date any idol, who?

any one of the kard members, or maybe like kyungsoo ( he seems reliable) 

15.) What’s one Kpop album you think everyone should have listened to?

ALL OF SHINEE’S MUSIC. yes. also you & me by kard because every song on that album was gold, and you all need to hear the greatness of every single track. 

16.) Are you a soft or a hard stan?

98% soft. i think. 

17.) An idol that makes you go into soft mode?

all of my faves. they’re all so wonderful, and they all make my days so much better!

18.) An idol that makes you want to smash the empire state building with one single punch?

hyuk. 

19.) Favorite vocalist?

Jonghyun.

20.) Favorite Rapper?

Tablo.

21.) Favorite dancer?

kard. taemin. hakyeon. ten.

22.) Things you have in common with your ult?

we both enjoy dark spaces and time on our own.

23.) The most beautiful trait any idol can have?

being humble and kind. i really admire that in people because plenty of people are not that way.

24.) Songs that will always make you jam along?

oh nana | kard , ring ding dong | shinee , papi | f(x) , what u do | exo , really really  | winner , neverland | ukiss , breathe | miss a , roly poly | t-ara.... there’s so many

25.) Your worst wrecker?

hyuk. 

26.) Any kpop concerts you’ve been to?

shinee, kard, exo, got7, bts, ukiss, big bang, kcon and a couple other music festivals with various artists (la gets a lot of events) 

27.) Favorite choreo?

all shinee choreo, exo’s monster, bts’s i need u, kard’s trust me, f(x)’s 4 walls & red light, infinite’s the chaser, gugudan’s the boots, red velvet’s peek-a-boo, hyuna’s roll deep, vixx’s scentist & fantasy, snsd’s mr mr...and others. 

28.) Favorite live performance?

shinee’s lucifer (rock vers) and their performance for symptoms

29.) Favorite debut mv?

replay| shinee & sorry | the rose 

30.) Recommend a rookie group!

i would say kard, but since all of you following me are hiddens, you know how great they are already!! so... they’re more of a rookie band, but the rose is fantastic. their music has a really distinct and captivating sound. if you follow kard, you know that b.m is friends with sam, but the rest of the boys are fantastic too!

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

love belt | jonghyun

32.) Tag some cute mutuals you’d like to get to know better (and to do this challenge)!

@somin @oliviahei @voonbora @jiwoojisoo @jeonjiwwoo @jsephology @sujiwoo @sominbiased @wendynasty @stefdonyx (you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to!)

[cognitosclowns]

HI SORRY FOR SOUNDING INSANE PROBABLY but yr writing is. so good, u write everyone so in character and yr posts r easy for my poor peabrain to read cuz theyre formatted so well

this is a really specific request BUT I WAS FROTHING THINKIN ABOUT IT AND i wanted to see yr take on it.... SO andre and his s/o try out like. aaphrodisiacs together. iiiiiii might write smthin about it with my oc who knows but ANYWAYS thank you yr so swag uhh godspeed andre enjoyers <3<3<3

AAA TYSM <3 MSNDS I WORRY SOMETIMES THAT MY FORMATTING IS TOO WACKY, IM SO GLAD YOU LIKE IT <3

OH ALSO THIS IS,, kinda adding in w/ an ask about Submissive Andre?? SO IF THE PERSON WHO SENT THAT ASK SEES THIS,, THIS ASK HAS A LOTTA THOSE IDEAS IN IT DMSND

NSFT BELOW BC THIS IDEA MAKES ME FERAL, minors dni. Tw : drugs, drug use

IM such a sucker for the Mutual Aphrodisiac Trope. TYSM ANON

Andre will make it himself, ffs this is right up his alley lmao. Drugs that make you horny? Holy fuck???

His S/O already trusts his concoctions 100% - Andre would never think of giving his partner smth that would harm them. He’s an ass, but hes not THAT kind of ass. That’s some Rand shit smdnsd

HONESTLY?? hes surprised at how Intense of a reaction his body has to it?? he kinda expects it to just be a slight buzz or smth bc,, hes taking mass amounts of drugs every day?? like shouldnt he be entirely desensitized??

NOPE this shit hits him like a fucking SEMI. 

he’s not sure if its bc he added a little of Myc’s Goo for spice ( not enough for it to wipe memories  moreso to just give you two a nice Extra Buzz on top of everything?), or just the CONCEPT of an aphrodisiac is giving him a Placebo(ner),, but LORD,,

it feels like his head is swaddled in a hot, wet cloth? it takes so much energy to even think?? His whole body is,, just shaking itself apart and its the best feeling in the world?

From your perspective he looks ruined? Like you two haven’t even started doing anything yet and he’s already whimpering? you aren’t even sure if he realizes he’s making noise?

It hits you just as hard lmao - your core feels like just,, hot molasses in a stand-mixer. This lovely, hot swirling feeling <3

OK BUT <3

The kisses are hot. Not just sexually - like,, physically there’s heat? You’re pretty sure his entire body is Feverish? Maybe it’s just bc he’s blushing so hard <3

When he’s kissing your neck it feels like,, a warm shower? The feeling just spreads Out and Out and Out from each kiss?? It’s all very messy bc he barely has coordination when he isn’t on Horny Drugs (tm)

Andre really should have had the forethought to take off his pants first because,, his hands are shaking way too hard to even properly grasp the button?? You might be able to catch him begging a bit under his breath?

he just,, straight up gives up eventually and starts grinding against your thigh. sndbs if neither of you have the coordination to get clothes off? it’s gonna be a lot of very needy dry-humping!

Surprisingly?? If the two of you are nude he doesn’t actually take initiative??

You’d kinda expect him to be,, more dominant but tbh he’s just laying back and letting you take control at this point?

When you actually take him in?? he looks like he’s dying?? But like a happy dying smdns this man has the Dopeyest Smile on his face.

His eyes go wide like a deer in headlights,, and his head just,, slowly falls back into the pillows? Every muscle in his body tenses up before going slack. You’re pretty sure he just saw god smdmsnds???

it barely last for a second before he’s writhing under you, half-thrusting, half Wriggling To Get Friction!!

You two definitely find more of a pattern once you start bouncing!!

and my pattern, i mean Andre lays completely limp, begging like his life is one the line while you do all the work smnds

Sometimes he manages a few thrusts but mostly?? Just the combination of sensations and feelings is enough that he just,, lets himself enjoy it.

Its very difficult to tell when he starts to cum bc,,

he’s leaking the entire time, making an absolute mess of everything.

after a while he just Stops making loud noises?? He melts down into,, these Heavy Gasps and Sporadic Shouts. He’ll absolutely talk if you need him to, but he’d rather just let his brain shut off and enjoy it!!

Mostly he just seems to be in a state of pure bliss the entire time? The only time he gets Really Loud again is when you cum - feeling your insides get tight? <3 he’s a mess

Once you two come down from the high?? honestly everything feels a bit sticky, and wet, and you feel a little dizzy?? You’re both exhausted and happy and <3 Andre can’t stop giggling bc of how soft he feels all over??

expect his limbs to be lazily draped over you <3 and some very mushy ramblings about how nice it was to share that experience with you before he Passes The Fuck Out <3

in any case he is,, absolutely using that shit again. Even just in his own free time, if you don’t wanna use them again. Those aphrodisiacs might be his new favorite thing smds.

I DUNNO IF THIS WAS OOC? AAA LMK WHAT Y’ALL THOUGHT!!

[one-boring-person]

Hey girlie, I was just wondering if you could write me an poly! Lost boys x reader who is an dance teacher for kpop groups and she is very strict (just like this https://youtu.be/fBUVTOUtrcw on YouTube Lisa being even scarier on youth with you) and she is ver shy and sweet towards David, dwayne, marko and Paul.

(if you don't want to write it, then you can skip don't worry I understand!)

I'm sorry this is a bit short, but I hope you like it!😊

Two Sides Of The Same Coin.

The Lost Boys x reader

Warnings: none

Masterlist

Stalking around the group of young adults, I can't help the shiver that runs up my spine, my head still caught up over the fact it feels as though I'm being watched by someone other than my dancers. Forcing this down, I flick my eyes around the room, still seeing nobody sat there, returning my focus back to the people rubbing through the choreography. A sigh of frustration escapes me as I see them struggling over a particular step.

"Stop, stop, stop! What was that?" I halt them, calling out loudly to get their attention, "Last I checked, that's not the step I taught you, is it?"

One of the guys in question swallows, wiping some sweat from his forehead, hair falling into his face as he goes to reply.

"We just don't get it, that particular bit. Can you show us again?" He explains carefully, as if treading on eggshells around me, something that sends a brief flare of triumph through me.

"If that's what it takes for you to get it right, then sure. Get into formation and watch me. Then you're gonna shadow it exactly as I did it, slowly so you get it properly." I order them, moving to stand in front of them, "Make sure you're in time with each other, or we'll be running through the whole dance as many times as it takes for you to become in sync with each other. Got it?"

They nod, breathing heavily as they get into their correct formation, watching me closely. I move into position, before fluidly going through the small series of movements that make up this particular part of the dance, showing them exactly how it's done with practiced grace. Having done that, I go through it more slowly, emphasising each part and explaining it as I do so, making sure the group of people know what they're doing, somewhat glad to see a few looks of understanding. 

"Now you do it. I want this nearly perfect." I inform them, standing in front of them with my hands on my hips, my face stern.

In near unison, the dancers slowly shadow the part, making sure to do it properly, mimicking my fluidity to a point, most of them performing it very well. Watching them, I observe that there aren't too many flaws with what they are doing, knowing that they'll need to run through it a few more times before they get it down.

"Ok, now do it again, but at normal pace." I order them once they've finished, ignoring the low groans.

They complete it with only a couple of mishaps, none of which are too serious, prompting me to give them the next exercise.

"That was good. A bit messy at times, but good." I acknowledge, nodding at them, "Now I want you to do the whole routine, without stopping at all, full energy. If I catch any of you slacking, we start again."

The dancers can't help the exhausted looks of dismay, many of them quickly grabbing a drink of water before they get into position, staying still until I press play on the music.

Instantly, they all surge into motion, moving in beautiful unison through the mesmerising movements, most of them looking as if they're enjoying themselves. Each part is performed nearly perfectly, a small smile tugging at my lips at the sight of them all doing well, the hard work finally paying off. Some of them stumble over a particular part, so I make a mental note to go over that again the next time we practise. Other than that, they do well.

As the music comes to a halt, the group of youths are all covered in sweat, panting heavily as they finally break out of their finishing poses, hands dropping to knees in exhaustion. Once again, triumph flares up in me, a strange satisfaction coming to me from the sight of them all tired after the work.

"That was good. There's a few parts we'll work on, but for now you're free to go." I dismiss them, waving them off as they grab their stuff and trail out, each of them glad to be getting to a shower.

After a moment, I go to take my own bag, intending to drive home before I get a shower, not willing to share with the members of the group.

"Well, looks like we finally got to see the other side of the coin." A smug voice says behind me, my body tensing at the sound of it.

Turning slowly, I instantly feel a blush come to my cheeks, my eyes dropping to the floor as I catch sight of the four boys standing at the far end of the hall.

"I never saw that coming." David adds to his previous statement, his smirk evident in his voice as they all come closer, watching me.

"I, err…" I struggle to find words, scratching at my arm as I glance back up at them, "I never saw you come in."

The boys chuckle, exchanging knowing looks.

"You wouldn't have." Dwayne informs me, "David used his mind tricks to keep us hidden from you." 

Understanding dawns on me, my brow creasing into a frown as I realise they must've seen everything.

"Oh." Is all I manage to say, unable to stop the heat rushing to my face.

"Damn, (Y/n), never knew you had it in you." Marko wonders aloud, looking me over, impressed.

Smiling shyly, I let my eyes flick up to meet his briefly, before they find my feet again.

"Thanks." I murmur, turning again to grab my bag.

"Wouldn't mind seeing that side of you a little more." Paul flirts, quickly covering himself up as he realises what he's said, "Not that there's anything wrong with how you normally are!"

Sighing, I turn back around.

"Did you guys want something?" I question them quietly, playing with the handle of my bag.

"Just wanted to see what you're like at work." David chuckles, stepping forward to wrap an arm around my shoulders, "It's impressive what you've got going on here. Those guys respect you."

Looking up at him, I fight off a timid smile as the others come closer, each of them grinning at me.

"Really?" I query, a little unsure.

"Yeah definitely." Paul reassures me, taking my free hand in his, playing with my fingers.

"You're kinda scary like that." Marko adds, winking to show he means no harm by the comment.

"Am I?" I'm somewhat shocked by the observation, unaware that I was so intimidating.

"Yeah, you are." Dwayne grins, taking my bag from me and hoisting it onto his shoulder.

"I had no idea." I murmur, eyes widening a little.

"It's like I said," David smirks, " Two sides of the same coin."

[poweranon]

I sighed as I stretched out on the thick black plastic of the trampoline. I had come to visit my parents that summer, and as always they had begun to fight when the alcohol came out. As I lay sprawled out on the trampoline, staring at the slowly dimming sky, the sounds of my angry parents having a “discussion” faded in the background as I remembered all the moments I had on the trampoline… and with him. 

10 YEARS BEFORE

I laughed loudly as I jumped on the trampoline my parents had just gotten, enjoying the feeling of being in the air before slamming back onto the fabric. Attempting to do a flip, I landed face first, crumpling into the trampoline and rolling over with a small “ow.” Hearing a slight, muffled laugh, I sat up, looking around the property before spotting a boy with messy brown hair peeking over the wooden fence next to my house, dirt covering his face. Once he saw me looking at him he ducked down, trying to hide, but I could still see the top of his head. 

  “Hi!” I exclaimed, scrambling off the trampoline and running over to the fence, hoping to make a new friend. “My names (Y/N), but you can call me (N/N)!” He still wouldn’t look back over the fence so I tried to pull myself up, but I wasn't strong enough. “What’s your name?” I asked, hoping to make a new friend.

“T-Toby.” He finally peeked over the fence, his brown eyes a little wary. 

 “Hiya Toby!” I said excitedly. “Do you wanna come over and jump on the trampoline? It’s really fun! I’m trying to do a flip but,” I sighed, shrugging my shoulders dramatically. “It’s kinda hard.”

 He looked over at the trampoline and then back at my grinning face. “Uh, ye-ah. That soun-d-ds fun.” His shoulder jerked, looking kinda painful. I stared at it, worried for my new friend. 

“Hey Toby? Is your shoulder ok?” He seemed to shrink and just kind of nodded.

 “It d-does that-t. I c-can’t feel it.” I stared at it for a second more and then shrugged. “Ok!” I stepped back so that he could climb over, which he did easily, jumping over the fence. 

“Come on!” I yelled cheerfully, grabbing his hand and pulling him to the trampoline. We jumped on, and Toby eventually came out of his shell, laughing and jumping and doing amazing flips that he tried to teach me how to do.

Eventually his older sister Lyra came out, looking for him, and jumped the fence too. That summer the three of us became inseparable, especially after Toby and Lyra’s parents separated when Lyra was sixteen and Toby and I were fourteen. Soon after that Lyra got a job and Toby and I began to hang out, just the two of us, usually laying on the trampoline and laughing at random things that the other said. 

Sometimes all three of us would sneak out and go to the trampoline and lay there on our backs, side by side, and stare at the stars together, talking about the future and murmuring our fears and worries into the night, with the soft sound of cicadas and frogs in the night air. 

On Toby’s sixteenth birthday, I kissed him. Lyra was at work and wouldn’t be able to get off until late. She was sorry, she said, and promised to make sure she got off on his next birthday. Toby and I were laying on the trampoline, staring up at the stars, and I made a joke about how one of the star formations looked like a penis, and he laughed and we looked at each other, and it was in that moment that I realized that Toby and I weren’t twelve anymore. Toby was well on his way to manhood, and you could see it on the way that his jawline was sharpening, how his face wasn’t so round anymore, and how his shoulders were broadening. I knew I wasn’t a child anymore either, although now, looking back, I feel like we were still those children who met so many years ago. Toby’s skin was pale in the moonlight, and his amber eyes seemed dark and encompassing, seemingly older and yet still holding a bit of the energetic child he was back when we first met. I leaned in a tiny bit, my eyes flicking down to look at his bitten lips for a split second before I looked back into his eyes.

  The world seemed to still, the insects and frogs to quiet, and then I reached up, held his soft white cheek, and kissed him gently, feeling his lips mold against mine. I stayed there for a moment, and then pulled away. Staring into his eyes, I sat up, suddenly realizing what I had done. What if he didn’t feel the same? I didn’t need to worry, however, because Toby pulled me back down, kissing me gently but surely, running his fingers through my hair. 

After that night, it was an unspoken agreement to keep the kiss secret from Lyra, but we started to spend more time hidden in each other’s rooms, laying next to each other on the bed and laughing and kissing, and it was probably the closest thing to heaven that I knew. 

Then his seventeenth birthday came, and that terrible crash, and his dad came back and suddenly Toby didn’t want to be around me anymore. He became withdrawn, his anxiety kicked up, and his mom started homeschooling him. I heard his mother screaming at him one day, voice shaky and shrill. Apparently he had taken to biting the flesh off his hands. 

I tried to contact him. I texted and called, I would knock on his window, and when he wouldn’t respond I would leave notes taped to the windowsill; I went to his front door and tried that, but his ass of a father wouldn’t let me in. I tried for two years, and then there was a terrible fire, the entire neighborhood aflame. The Roger's house was almost completely burned down, and my house had been severely damaged, but somehow the trampoline had been completely unscathed. The police approached my family while we were by the fire trucks and asked if they could speak with us, specifically me. They asked me when the last time I saw Toby was, and if I knew where he would go to hide. I told them that I hadn’t talked to Toby for two years, and when I asked why they were asking me, they told me that he had killed his father and set the fire. All I remember after that was falling. The world seemed dull, and after they said that he was assumed to have perished in the flames, I kind of just gave up. I had lost Lyra, and now I had lost Toby. I even lost Ms. Rogers. She moved away, a broken woman who had lost her entire family, leaving no way to contact her. Some people said that she went to an asylum, and others said that she moved in with a relative, and still others said that she had moved to a cabin in the woods and became a witch. I don’t know what is true. 

A couple weeks later, a story was featured in the news about the murder of some grade school kids that had been hacked to death. The hatchet that had been found in one kiss skull was supposedly one that Toby had been seen with, and due to the lack of body found, he was assumed to be alive and murderous. 

  That was three years ago, and each night I still have nightmares where I’m burning and Toby is there, burning with me, his skin melting into grotesque patterns, staring at me with an almost intimidating blank stare. No matter how much I scream and cry, reaching for him, he does nothing, just stares at me. . Eventually he disappears into wisps of smoke, wafting into the forest air, and his sister comes to me from the fog, exactly as I saw her the night she died.  Huge gashes are all over her body, her right arm bent at an unnatural angle, her neck almost flat against her shoulder. She reaches towards me, and right before she makes contact, I wake up. 

   Suddenly, I’m jerked out of my thoughts by the snap of a branch. I sit up and look around, realizing that it’s completely dark outside now. A soft breeze blows, prickling goosebumps erupting across my skin.

   I jump off the trampoline and start heading inside, occasionally looking around on my way to the back door. I slip inside, locking the door behind me, and go to my room. It was actually converted to a guest room when I moved out, but it still has the dark blue walls Lyra  and I painted it. Curling up under the thick gray comforter, still in my clothes, I screw my eyes close, hoping I would get a peaceful night's rest.

@creepy-bi-day here’s that toby fic that was supposed to be fluff but ended up not lmao

[albatris]

is there romance in atdao or is it all just found famiy vibes? if there is romance im real curious about how peeps would express those kinda feelings

hello hi hello this took me AGES I’m very sorry I kept getting distracted by things such as being asleep

anyway yes thank you for the question! romance? yes, we’ve got some of this going on, sure, though I would count the romance as within the found family c:

I don’t know if you wanted a Ramble™ but this is a topic I can ramble about and I’m in a bit of a rambling mood so you can have a ramble, free of charge, just take it up to the register and have them enter the code “logan this is not what I ordered”

but yeah, your question? about eight vaguely relevant tangents immediately spring to mind! also spoilers?? spoilers after the cut

I really should have formatted this response in a way that puts the super spoiler heavy part at the end but since when have I ever ever in my life made things easy for my dear sweet followers

y’all know what I’m like with spoilers by now 

but yeah, to set the scene, there’s two main romantic......................... situations going on in the story, the first being between Noa and Alice, and the second being between Kai, Tris and Shara. so, the former I would describe as “a legitimate romantic subplot” and the latter I would describe as a character tripping and falling into it by sheer chance and just being like “oh whoops well I guess this is what I’m doing now” which is also extremely valid

Noa and Alice end up not being, like, Confirmed Endgame by the end of the story even though much of the plot looks like it’s heading in that direction, and like...... yeah, in my head, they do end up in a romantic relationship at some point post-story, but I’m not sure on what sort of timeline

during the story itself, it’s established that they do share mutual feelings for each other and this is likely heading towards a romantic relationship, but I think since much of the story sees Noa still trying to find her feet in just, like....... having friends at all, and trusting those friends, and knowing who she is in relation to others on any sort of level, I think near the end of the story she decides that she’s not at a place where she wants to try and figure out a romantic relationship just yet

it’s not a hard no, it’s just a “hey not right now” and a “let’s see what happens later down the track, for now it’s just nice to be around friends” ‘cause even that is just super new territory for her

which I worry will make people feel cheated, but also, I think it’s the ending for this subplot that would make the most sense for where the characters are at and would be the most fitting c:

and secondly there’s like

hm. ok

well, there WAS a vaguely jokey post I made yonks back where I pitched the idea of an ATDAO polyamory ending being just like. Alice who’s dating Noa who’s dating Shara who’s dating Kai who’s dating Tris. and I stand by this being solid as hell. but also, given the ending to Noa’s subplot with Alice, it doesn’t really work in the story canon, n though I think Noa and Shara is a dynamic I really enjoy, it would likely not actually play out in reality :P

which leaves the trio of Shara, Kai and Tris, a trio I’ve always vibed with and had vaguely on my radar as a valid poly ending but for some reason didn’t twig that I could just, like, make it canon and no one can stop me LMAO

but yeah, this one, like I said, it’s not so much aHD whole big subplot, it’s just something that falls into place super casually and is never really brought up beyond “oh is this a thing that’s happening?” “yeah” “cool ok”

I think there’s a brief window as a reader where you might be like “ugh this is gonna be a stupid love triangle or some weird jealousy thing” but then it just ends up being a complete non-issue. there’s basically zero romantic drama for this plotline, Tris and Shara are bros and Kai is dating both of them

n as for your question itself, it depends on whether you mean, like.......... how they would go about expressing to someone else that they have romantic feelings or, like, how they express their affections in a romantic scenario

‘cause for the former, the answer for both Tris and Noa is just.... they don’t

Noa because at the start of the story she views her crush on Alice as a huge fucking inconvenience that’s going to make things messy and complicated, so she just tries to ignore her romantic feelings as hard as she can (obviously this doesn’t last hahaha). but yeah, she’s just very pissed off that she has a crush and doesn’t want to acknowledge it :P she also has no idea how to respond when Alice expresses romantic interest in her, this is all extremely new territory

and Tris because he doesn’t realise he’s even experiencing romantic feelings in the first place?? like. the boy has so much baseline anxiety jitteriness that stuff like, idk, feeling your heart pick up pace, butterflies in the stomach, any kinda social nerves you get around the people you like, etc, he experiences this with Kai and is automatically just like “great now you’re here and I’m having a panic attack can you please leave”

just slaps a label of Bad Vibes onto it then later is like Wait A Minute

but yeah, I think neither of them would be super comfy actually expressing their feelings out loud or making that first move, Noa because she’s super fuckin petty and stubborn and Tris because he’s waaaaaaaay too fuckin socially anxious for that shit are you kidding

in terms of how they express their affections though??

so like. I have to reiterate that I’m aro and ace and I have a lot of difficulty in articulating what makes a romance A Romance, like??? I have relationships that are friendships and relationships that are romantic, but I myself don’t really experience romantic attraction in the way other people do

as such, the way I write characters in their romantic expressions tends to be just an extension of how they act in their friendships? which I think is a pretty ok thing to base a romance off anyway, but like, yeah, romance, this is a mystery to me for the most part, do I look like I know what a romance is

anyway I think once Alice and Noa get a little closer there’s a lot of good-natured ribbing and friendly insults, n since they already had a bit of a rivalry going on beforehand I would imagine this competitive streak doesn’t disappear :P Noa is generally uncomfy with being Openly affectionate and soft with others, so I think there would be a lot of more “indirect” ways she shows this care. I think they have the kind of relationship where from an outside perspective you don’t really get how it’s warm and affectionate, but it’s just ‘cause you don’t know the lingo, right

Tris is just the cheerleader type in all friendly relationships I think, lots of encouragement and hype and compliments and enthusiasm, he’s very excitable and very easily impressed hahahaha. though I think it takes people a while to click that he’s legitimately being 100% earnest and genuine, the constant deadpan does not work super well in his favour

anyway I’m gonna hop back up for a sec so I can cover Shara and Kai real quick

these two are............ a bit more direct with actually verbalising their feelings to people? Shara is a socially anxious type, but also not someone who enjoys beating around the bush, n she generally likes to just speak what’s on her mind and be direct with others whenever she can. Kai just kinda........ I mean, I don’t think they consider romantic affections to be a super big deal? at least in theory? I say in theory ‘cause, like, I think they give the impression that this kind of conversation is just super smooth and easy for them, and on the inside they’re like “it’s really not a big deal it’s just feelings it’s whatever” but they’re still anxious about it and had to hype themself up for like a week before going through with it lmao

but ye, in terms of how they express their affections, they’re both fairly similar. you suddenly will just Not Be Able To Get Rid Of Them, they’ll constantly be hanging around in the same space or dragging you into whatever shenanigans they’ve got going on, I think for both of them their favourite expression of love is just sharing in experiences or sharing the same space, just Being Involved And Around 

a “hey come help me run errands” type or a “I’m gonna hang off the back of your sofa while you’re studying and sometimes slingshot balls of paper at you with a rubber band” type :P

and now I have to go on Another Tangent just ‘cause the subject matter is vaguely relevant and idk where else I’m gonna go on this tangent

there is definitely some part of me that’s still super super fond of the idea of Kai being aro??? and I initially did write them as such, but for the moment this is not something that’s remained canon in text ‘cause I’m a little bitch ‘cause like

Kai would be aro in very much the same way I am, which is to say, they’re a person who is extremely full of love and who has difficulty in differentiating what the step is supposed to be between friendship feelings and romantic feelings, so, someone who may not necessarily “get” what makes a romance a romance or experience any feelings different from a strong friendship, but who is still open to being in a romantic relationship

(the difference between us being that Kai Really Really Likes People and enjoys being close with others as much as possible, where I’m more the awkward standoffish hermit type lmao)

but yeah, I was kinda like. well. despite being a perfectly valid aro person in a romantic relationship myself, if I were a fictional character people would probably call me bad rep HAHAHA. like “yeah they’re apparently aro but they don’t really ACT aro and the author put them in a romantic relationship ://”

and while I think there’s value to be had in fiction in exploring the different ways a person can be aro, I just, like................... thought about the hypothetical future discourse and was just like UGH. I cannot be fucking BOTHERED

I get enough people in real life being like “ok but you’re not REALLY aro like why do you even bother having that label it’s not like it matters in your context” even though I’m the goddamn expert on my own experiences you bastards

lmao

but yeah I think aro Kai is canon in my heart hahahaha. and they may end up articulating some of the same feelings, maybe just not with the label applied, who knows

anyway that’s my rambles done I think! thanks for reading n have a nice night c:

[spookypalace]

something borrowed - chapter two

After one drink too many at her  30th-birthday celebration, Jo unexpectedly falls into bed with her  longtime crush and best friend, Alex – who happens to be engaged to her best friend, Izzie. Ramifications of the liaison threaten to destroy  the women’s lifelong friendship, while Jackson, Jo’s  confidant, harbors a potentially explosive secret of his own.

—

Or the one where everyone is a little messy but you still root for them anyway.

(ao3 link)

ok ok so i'm not entirely happy with this chapter, partly because i used a bit of backstory from the book but i kinda preffered how they did it in the movie so i included that also lol - so there is a bit of both :/ i've been sitting on the chapter for a bit but couldn't think of any way i'd want to change it up so i thought i'd just post and get it over with.

also this is a flashback and within this flashback, there is a flashback. it's the big chunk in italics, but if anyone thinks the way i have formatted this chapter is confusing then please let me know so i can change it and make it ... make more sense i guess.

anyway, thanks for reading and please let me what you think!!

May 2004

It’s to no one’s surprise that the only person left in the campus library at ten p.m. on the last Friday of their final year of law school, it’s Jo. It’s where she spent most of her evenings for the past couple of weeks, studying and stressing—attempting to cram in as much last-minute knowledge she could before their final exam on the following Wednesday.

Brunette hair tied back, save for the few small wisps fluttering over her eyes she’d blowing up at every so often. His oversized grey sweatshirt hangs loosely off her arms as she turns page after page of some old law journal, her right-hand scribbling down messy notes at her unusually fast pace.

The library was dull lit, save for the security guards lamp who sits grunting in the back corner, and the numerous lamps that lit the large mahogany table she currently sat at—books splayed across the surface, ones she hadn’t touched for hours but kept out just in case. Jo chooses not to think about how long it’ll take her to clear this up before she must leave.

A yawn escapes her lips, causing her to lift her left wrist and check the time, she’d already been here for six hours and unless the security guard was kicking her out—she wasn’t leaving. Jo had come way too far and worked way too hard to fall at the last hurdle, the last exam.

Maybe if she hadn’t spent the first half of her senior year with Izzie and Jackson and Alex so much, albeit separately, she wouldn’t feel the need to study as much as she had in the past few weeks. Jo had found herself falling behind, distracted by parties and flooding apartments and some crappy law drama Jackson had forced her to watch every Thursday night. But now, after weeks—she felt like she was getting back on track, just in time as well.

Jo’s eyes scan the page in front of her, she reads it over and over, but the words just don’t seem to settle in. With a deep groan, she throws the pen across the table and flops her head into her hands, rubbing circles against her temple.

“You look like you could do with a drink.” Alex’s familiar deep voice sneaks up behind her, causing Jo to jump in her seat—spine becoming rigid as a loud gasp escapes her lips. The sound causes the security guard to stand from his seat, glaring over at the pair. “Sorry,” Alex calls over to the guy, raising his hands in defence before letting out a laugh as he settles down on the chair next to a still heavy-breathing Jo.

“You scared me!” She exclaims through gritted teeth, trying to keep her voice quiet but still let Alex know she wasn’t all that happy about his surprise arrival. He places a comforting hand on her back and rubs softly, up and down up and down. It surprises her just how much the action did relax her, the feeling of stress no longer coursing through her body. “What are you doing here?” Jo finally asks now her breathing has returned to normal, turning in her seat slightly to look up at Alex.

Alex is about to reply with something snarky about her rigorous studying schedule but then he notices; the grey sweatshirt that engulfs her small frame, the one with their college logo fraying over the chest. He’d recognise it anywhere, with the raggedy hemline against the wrists and the small patch of white paint he’d stained it with when he helped his mom paint the shed in her backyard. It was his sweatshirt. Jo was wearing his sweatshirt. And he couldn’t explain the warm fuzzy feeling he felt after just one look at her at her snuggled inside of it. She looked so cosy—perfect, even. He wondered if he’d ever see anyone look just as good as she looked in this moment.

But, then again, she was constantly surprising him.

Ever since she first sat down next to him in their freshman year; her eyes big, lips pursed and rambling about something or another to herself. Alex had thought she was crazy; the way she ranted under her breath as if there really was someone else up in her head conversing back to her. But then, once she spotted him staring, her ranting turned to babbling as she tried to explain herself. And in an instant, he no longer thought she was crazy, he thought she was cute and funny, OK, and maybe a little crazy—but that was part of her charm.

They had been friends ever since, really good friends.

Just friends.

“Is this mine?” He plasters on his crooked smirk, hiding the warm feeling he felt after noticing, as he uses his thumb and forefinger to pinch at the material and pull her a little closer.

She leans into him with a giggle, her dainty shoulder bumping against his broad, “stooop.” She drags, trying to fight the curl of her lips as he continues to tease her with pokes to her stomach. She’s attempting to get back into the reading she momentarily gave up on, picking up a pen which was closer to her than the one she angrily threw earlier. But he doesn’t relent, forcing her to swivel on her seat and look him dead in his amused brown eyes. “I forgot to bring clothes when I crashed at your place last night,” she informs with a shove to his arm, “I would have headed back to my apartment but my landlord called, the plumber was over there—finally fixing the damn pipes.”

Jo swears she sees Alex’s shoulders deflate at her words, and she can’t pinpoint exactly why he would be disappointed about finally getting her out of his hair. Despite the fact that Alex’s apartment was tiny, practically the size of the car she lived in back in high school, the place never felt cramped when it was just the two of them. There were times that they were probably a little too close for comfort, heat rising into the small area, but even if Alex minded her showing up with a single duffel bag and an apologetic smile—he never complained, not once.

Alex laughs lightly, “it’s cool, it looks better on you anyway.”

“Shut up.” Jo scoffs, deflecting the compliment. Something Alex noticed Jo did a lot, if not every single time someone attempts to say something nice to her. “So,” she pushes the conversation along, “you don’t have to worry about me showing up anymore.”

He shrugs, “I like the company.” Jo tilts her head to the side, eyes scanning his face—trying to find something, anything, that would give her a sign as to what that meant. What it meant coming from him. A sign. Something. “Oh!” He exclaims, shooting an apologetic glance over to the security guard, before his hands reach down the bag pack he discarded onto the floor upon his arrival, “I got you something.” He tells her with a smile and a glimmer in his eyes, hands fishing into the bag.

“For me?” Jo’s eyes widen in excitement as she grins widely. A giggle escapes her lips when he produces two bottle of beers and a bottle opener, popping the caps off when he sees the small excitement in her face. He loved that about, Jo. She appreciated the simple stuff—the stuff he appreciated, they enjoyed together. “You shouldn’t have,” Jo murmurs with a smile, hitting her bottle against Alex’s once he’s passed hers over, keeping the bottle below the table—out of the guards’ sight.

“I have a proposition for you.” He states, swigging the beer.

Jo’s eyebrows raise inquisitively, “mmhmm, what’s that?” Brown eyes widening as Alex leans in closer towards her, placing a bookmark on the open page of her book before slamming the thing shut. “Alex—”

“Let’s get out of here.” It’s not really a question, more like a polite order. “You need a break.”

With a huff, Jo rakes her eyes over the mess of open books, sighing at the sight before her. Jo shakes her head, turning back to Alex, “you should be studying, too. We have five days until we take the biggest test of our lives, Alex. Our entire future is counting—”

“Stop.” Alex groans, grabbing the small woman by her shoulders and forcing her to look him in the eyes. His crooked smirk never fades from his lips, doesn’t even falter. “You need a break.” He repeats, his voice almost stern.

Knowing that this wasn’t an argument she was about to win, Jo sets down the beer and picks up the misplaced pens, chucking them into the blue pencil case she’s been carrying around since he met her. Alex’s smirk turns into a proud grin as he watches her pack up her things, closing book after book.

He stands up, helping her gather her things and piles up books so he can take them back to their rightful place for her. It takes him three trips but when she murmurs a quiet thank you, raising a soft hand to stroke down his arm, he really doesn’t mind.

Once they’re done, her bag is filled and his hands are clutching at two cold beers whilst they walk out of the library, Jo bidding a sweet farewell to the unimpressed security guard, a thought crosses his mind. “You know,” he begins, watching as Jo’s brows raise in his direction and her hand comes to snatch back the cool beer, “once this is finally over, I’m taking you out for dinner.”

Jo grins, “a fancy bistro or a penthouse bar looking over New York’s skyline?” The glimmer in her eyes as they continue to walk in the direction of his apartment without even a spoken word regarding the matter, tells him she’s teasing.

“Private jet to Milan, actually.”

“How about …” Jo chuckles, bumping shoulders with Alex, tucking her small frame against his larger, “we eat fried chicken in the car like we were raised to do.”

“Sounds perfect.” He wraps an arm around her shoulders, pulling her in closer as they round the corner onto the street of his apartment.

The next time they see one another, out of the classroom, she’s worming her way through the crowded bar they had agreed to meet at. Jo’s eyes are scanning across the people as her once cool skin heats up, in search of him. Fingers fumble to unbutton her thick coat within the mass of people, not wanting to accidentally elbow someone in the back—she sees him.

Alex is there, with a wide grin on his face and a bottle of his usual beer in hand. He’s laughing along to something one of there classmates have said before his eyes land on her, and if possible, his smile widens and sparkling white teeth blind her. He pauses his conversation, moving towards her and grabbing her by the hand to pull her through the crowd at a faster pace. He was glad to finally see her.

“Congratulations!” Jo exclaims to Alex and the rest of their classmates once they reach their corner of the bar, all of them cheer and offer her their own congratulations at the sight of her. She smiles up at Alex, before her hands finally move back to the one button she was yet to undo, snapping the coat open she shrugs it off her shoulders and places it across her forearm.

Alex is turned towards the bar, requesting another beer for Jo as she does so but when he turns back—his mouth goes dry. He’d never seen Jo dressed like that. The figure hugging little black dress hugged her curves perfectly, lifting and contouring her cleavage. He thought, though he kept it to himself, she looked absolutely perfect. But before he could be subject to both Jo’s and their classmates lame jokes about his drooling, he shakes his head—ignoring the feelings that rushed over him at just the sight of her. Pleased for the moment of distraction as he exchanges his cash for a beer and hands it over to the petite brunette, full lips offering him a tight smile in thanks.

Yes, he’d always thought Jo was pretty. Beautiful, even. When she was dressed in a sweatshirt or just a cardigan, even a simple t-shirt—she always managed to look utterly perfect. At least, to him she did. He’d heard her wining about bad skin and greasy hair, but he’d never seen the faults that she could see.

As they’re standing there, celebrating the end of an era, Jo begins to reminisce on how they got here …

She thinks about how she had met Alex during their first year of law school at NYU. Unlike most law students, who come straight from college when they can think of nothing better to do with their stellar undergrad transcripts, Alex Karev was older, with real-life experience. He had worked as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, which blew away Jo’s nine-to-five summer internships and office jobs filing and answering phones. He was confident, relaxed, and so gorgeous that it was hard not to stare at him. Sure enough, they were barely into their first week of class when the buzz over Alex began, women speculating about his status, noting either that his left ring finger was unadorned or, alternatively, worrying that he was too well dressed and handsome to be straight. But Jo dismissed Alex straightaway, because she thought that he thought she was crazy, convincing herself that his outward perfection was boring. Which was a fortunate stance because she also knew that he was out of her league. (She hated that expression and the presumption that people choose friends based so heavily upon looks, but it is hard to deny the principle when you look around—partners generally share the same level of attractiveness, and when they do not, it is noteworthy.) Besides, she wasn’t borrowing thirty thousand dollars a year so that she could find a boyfriend.

As a matter of fact, she probably would have gone three years without talking to him, but they randomly ended up next to each other in a significantly small seating-chart class taught by the sardonic Professor Zisman. Although many professors at NYU used the Socratic method, only Zisman used it as a tool to humiliate and torture students. Alex and Jo bonded in their hatred of the mean-spirited professor. Jo feared Zisman to an irrational extreme, whereas Alex’s reaction had more to do with disgust. “What an asshole,” he would growl after class, often after Zisman had reduced a fellow classmate to tears. “I just want to wipe that smirk off the jerks face.” Gradually, their grumbling turned into longer talks over coffee in the student lounge or during walks around Washington Square Park. They began to study together in the hour before class, preparing for the inevitable—the day Zisman would call on them. Jo dreaded her turn, knowing that it would be a bloody massacre, but secretly couldn’t wait for Alex to be called on. Zisman preyed on the weak and flustered, and Alex was neither. Jo was sure that he wouldn’t go down without a fight. She remembers it well.  

Zisman stood behind his podium, examining his seating chart, a schematic with their faces cut from the first-year look book, practically salivating as he picked his prey. He peered over his small, round glasses (the kind that should be called spectacles) in the pair’s general direction, and said, “Mr. Karev.”

He pronounced Alex’s name wrong, making it sound more similar to “carve.” “It’s Ka-rev,’” Alex said, unflinching.  Jo inhaled sharply; nobody corrected Zisman. Alex was really going to get it now.

“Well, pardon me, Mr. Ka-rev,” Zisman said, with an insincere little bow. “Palsgraf versus Long Island Railroad Company.”

Alex sat calmly with his book closed while the rest of the class nervously flipped to the case, we had been assigned to read the night before.

The case involved a railroad accident. While rushing to board a train, a railroad employee knocked a package of dynamite out of a passenger’s hand, causing injury to another passenger, Mrs. Palsgraf. Justice Cardozo, writing for the majority, held that Mrs. Palsgraf was not a “foreseeable plaintiff” and, as such, could not recover from the railroad company. Perhaps the railroad employees should have foreseen harm to the package holder, the Court explained, but not harm to Mrs. Palsgraf. “Should the plaintiff have been allowed recovery?” Zisman asked Alex.

Alex said nothing. For a brief second Jo panicked that he had frozen, like others before him. Say no, she thought, sending him fierce brain waves. Go with the majority holding. But when she looked at his expression, and the way his arms were folded across his chest, Jo could tell that he was only taking his time, in marked contrast to the way most first-year students blurted out quick, nervous, untenable answers as if reaction time could compensate for understanding. “In my opinion?” Alex asked.

“I am addressing you, Mr. Karev. So, yes, I am asking for your opinion.” The teacher groaned, rolling his eyes. “I would have to say yes, the plaintiff should have been allowed recovery. I agree with Justice Andrew’s dissent.”

“Ohhhh, really?” Zisman’s voice was high and nasal. “Yes. Really.” Jo was surprised by his answer, as he had told her just before class that he didn’t realize crack cocaine had been around in 1928, but Justice Andrews surely must have been smoking it when he wrote his dissent. She was even more surprised by Alex’s brazen “really” tagged onto the end of his answer, as though to taunt Zisman. Zisman’s scrawny chest swelled visibly. “So you think that the guard should have foreseen that the innocuous package measuring fifteen inches in length, covered with a newspaper, contained explosives and would cause injury to the plaintiff?” “It was certainly a possibility.” “Should he have foreseen that the package could cause injury to anybody in the world?” Zisman asked, with mounting sarcasm. “I didn’t say ‘anybody in the world.’ I said, ‘the plaintiff.’ Mrs. Palsgraf, in my opinion, was in the danger zone.” Zisman approached our row with ramrod posture and tossed his Wall Street Journal onto Alex’s closed textbook. “Care to return my newspaper?” “I’d prefer not to,” Alex stated, unflinching. The shock in the room was palpable. The rest of the class would have simply played along and returned the paper, mere props in Zisman’s questioning. “You’d prefer not to?” Zisman cocked his head. “That’s correct. There could be dynamite wrapped inside it.” Half of the class gasped; the other half snickered. Clearly, Zisman had some tactic up his sleeve, some way of turning the facts around on Alex. But Alex wasn’t falling for it. Zisman was visibly frustrated. “Well, let’s suppose you did choose to return it to me, and it did contain a stick of dynamite and it did cause injury to your person. Then what, Mr. Thaler?”

“Then I would sue you, and likely I would win.”

“And would that recovery be consistent with Judge Cardozo’s rationale in the majority holding?”

“No. It would not.” “Oh, really? And why not?” “Because I’d sue you for an intentional tort, and Cardozo was talking about negligence, was he not?” Alex raised his voice to match Zisman’s. Jo thinks she stopped breathing as Zisman pressed his palms together and brought them neatly against his chest as though he were praying. “I ask the questions in this classroom. If that’s all right with you, Mr. Thaler?” Alex shrugged as if to say, have it your way, makes no difference to me.

“Well, let’s suppose that I accidentally dropped my paper onto your desk, and you returned it and were injured. Would Mr. Cardozo allow you full recovery?” “Sure.” And at the end of the hour, Zisman actually said, “Very good, Mr. Thaler.” It was a first.  

The pair had left class feeling jubilant. Alex had prevailed for all of them. The story spread throughout the first-year class, earning him more points with the girls, who had long since determined that he was totally available.

Jo had found herself telling Izzie the story as well. Izzie had moved to New York at about the same time Jo did, only under vastly different circumstances. Jo was there to become a lawyer; she came without a job, or a plan, or much money. Jo let her sleep on a futon in my dorm room until she found some roommates—three American Airlines flight attendants looking to squeeze a fourth body into their heavily partitioned studio. She borrowed money from her parents to make the rent while she looked for a job, finally settling on a bartending position at the Monkey Bar. For the first time in their friendship, Jo was happy with her life in comparison to hers. Well, she was still poorer, but at least she had a plan. Izzie’s prospects didn’t seem great with only a 2.9 GPA from Indiana University. “You’re so lucky,” Izzie would whine as Jo tried to study. Really, after years of living in her car, growing up parentless, really? Luck is buying a lottery ticket along with your Yoo-hoo and striking it rich. Nothing about Jo’s life is lucky—it’s all about hard work, it is all an uphill struggle. But of course, she never said that. Just told her that things would soon turn around for her. And sure enough, they did. About two weeks later a man waltzed into the Monkey Bar, ordered a whiskey sour, and began to chat Izzie up. By the time he finished his drink, he had promised her a job at one of Manhattan’s top PR firms. He told her to come in for an interview, but that he would (wink, wink) make sure that she got the job. Izzie took his business card, had Jo revise her résumé, went in for the interview, and got an offer on the spot. Her starting salary was seventy thousand dollars. Plus, an expense account. Practically what Jo would make if she did well enough in school to get a job with a New York firm. So while Jo sweated it out and racked up debt, Izzie began her glamorous PR career. She planned parties, promoted the season’s latest fashion trends, got plenty of free everything, and dated a string of beautiful men. Within seven months, she left the flight attendants in the dust and moved in with her co-worker Reed, a snobbish, well-connected girl from Greenwich. Izzie tried to include Jo in her fast-track life, although she seldom had time to go to her events or her parties or her blind-date setups with guys she swore were “total-hotties” but that Jo knew were simply Izzie’s castoffs. Which brings her back to Alex. Jo raved about him to Izzie and Reed, told them how unbelievable he was—smart, handsome, funny. In retrospect she’s not sure why she did it. In part because it was true. But perhaps she was a little jealous of their glamorous life and wanted to juice her own up a bit. Alex was the best thing in her arsenal. “So why don’t you like him?” Izzie would ask. “He’s not my type,” she’d say. “We’re just friends.” Which was the truth. Sure, there were moments when Jo felt a flicker of interest or a quickening of her pulse as she sat near Alex. Especially once they became friends and ended up spending almost all their time with one another. Jo was only glad that by the time Jo was spending nights at Alex’s place she had dropped it. Jo had tried to remain vigilant as not to fall for him, always reminding herself that guys like Alex only date girls like Izzie.

But then came the way Alex’s hand would softly find the small of her back as they were walking, and the way his hooded gaze would meet hers after a few drinks at the bar, and then his muscular arms would wrap around her after a study breakthrough and all of the work she had put in to not falling for him … evaporated. She was completely and utterly hopeless.

Izzie was the first to notice the change in Jo’s feelings. As they were lying on the blonde’s couch and she had absentmindedly mentioned him to Jo, and the brunette sat up straighter and a blush painted her cheeks and she began to stutter out her words … Izzie screamed gleefully, teasing Jo to begin with but ultimately telling her best friend to go for it. But that had been a while ago now, and although Izzie mentioned Jo’s feelings for Alex in passing on occasion, it was mostly pushed to the back of their minds. Izzie was still very much aware, though. She proved that much when she teased Jo with a wink and a smirk at every mention of the older man’s name.

And despite Jo’s closeness with both Alex and Izzie—it wouldn’t be until tonight, now law school was over, that the pair would finally meet. About one hour had passed since Jo had shown up and she and Alex had found a free booth in the back of the bar to slip into, most of their classmates already moving on to the next bar whilst a few stayed behind but hung out on the stools nearer to the entrance.

“You know,” Alex quirks up an eyebrow at Jo, “you’re gonna’ have to finally relax now you have to stop worrying about schoolwork.” He remarks with a teasing smile.

Jo giggles, “now I just need to worry about finding a job.”

“Well, at least take a night off.” Alex rolls his eyes, letting out a laugh of his own. “I want us to have fun, tequila shots and vodka sodas on me. What do you say?”

Jo pretends to mull it over for a second, although she knows that Alex is very certain that she’ll say yes. “OK.” Jo states, leaning in closer to Alex, her breath dancing across his neck as she whispers, “but you need to make sure I end up back at my place tonight.”

Alex’s gaze finds hers and he nods, “I’m on Jo duty, got it.” She raises a hand between them offering him a handshake, and his eyes cut from her to her dainty hand, he clutches it before giving her a firm shake. He found himself quite enjoying the feel of her soft small fingers in his, and when she pulls it out of his grasp—he misses her touch. “I don’t mind keeping my eyes on you,” he flirts but it’s lost on Jo, whose completely convinced he only tried to make her blush and tease her, as she scoffs and playfully hits his arm as he slides out of the booth.

Jo is only sat alone for a moment of two before she hears the shrill screech of Izzie’s voice, “I’m hereee!” The blonde runs up to the booth, shimmying into the seat and flopping her purse down onto the table with an exclaimed huff before flipping her long blonde hair behind her shoulders. Her eyes are scanning the rest of the bar, barely paying attention to the friend she had come here specifically to celebrate with, before muttering,  “oh god, of course you’re the one sat alone in the dark corner—”

Jo cuts her off, sighing before she begins to explain she wasn’t alone, “actually—”

“I need to get drunk.” Izzie interrupts with a deep sigh before venturing off into a mini rant, “I’ve had such an awful day, running around after my boss and urgh—this client asked me to run and get him coffee, plus, I’m almost certain that the stress is the reason my hair is falling so flat on my head right now.” Izzie huffs in one single breath, fiddling with one strand of perfectly curled golden hair. “Oh crap,” her eyes widen, “how was your test thingy?”

Jo raises her eyebrows for a millisecond but chooses to ignore the comment—as if passing the bar was just another test. Like their high school math SAT which Izzie almost didn’t even bother to attend. Instead of complaining, she smiles and nods, “it went great, I’m confident—”

“Fuck!” Izzie’s voice cuts her off again.

At that moment Alex sauntered over to the booth with a tray full of drinks for him and Jo, which she now suspected she’ll be sharing with Izzie. As soon as he joins them, his eyes flick to the blonde and as if on instinct, Jo introduced him to Izzie, and she turned on the charm, giggling and playing with her hair and nodding emphatically whenever he said anything. Alex was pleasant to her but didn’t seem overly interested and, at one point, as she was dropping Goldman names—do you know this guy or that guy?—Alex actually appeared to be suppressing a yawn.  

Seemingly, this went unnoticed by Izzie—although she seemed mildly miffed with Jo when the brunette was responding to her instead of Alex. But she thought she was saving her friends from an awkward interaction.

“Do you want another drink?” Alex turns his attention to Jo, noticing her almost empty glass. She wonders if this is just an excuse to get away or if he wanted another himself, she couldn’t tell how far along he was through the dark coloured beer bottle.

“So, when you gonna’ grow a pair and ask Jo out on a real date?” “I am sick of hearing about study sessions and nights out and blah blah blah …”

“Iz—” Jo begins, stopping herself as her mouth begins to go dry with embarrassment. “I mean, he—you don’t have to … we don’t—we are just friends.” She stutters over her words, feeling a fresh deep red blush crawl up her chest and her neck and then her cheeks under both Alex and Izzie’s stares. Izzie’s eyebrow is quirked up, lips curled into a tight smirk, watching Jo’s flustered state. Whilst Alex looks more taken aback; his lips are parted, a small frown on his face and he almost looks as if he’s about to begin protesting before Izzie begins to giggle.

Both of their eyes snap in her direction as she continues laughing before, at a flip of a switch, the blondes face turns serious. There’s a slight glimmer in her eyes as she asks, “well, then when are you going to ask me on a date?”

Alex’s eyebrows almost shoot to his hair line, clearly surprised by Izzie’s forwardness. His eyes leave Jo’s and he’s uncomfortably chuckling at Izzie, his fingers fumbling with the paper that wrapped around his still cool beer.

Jo’s throat turns dry; her heart dropping and her once joyful demeanour has turned sour. It sounded selfish, but they were supposed to be out celebrating her. Her and Alex. But Izzie didn’t know Alex, she only came here for Jo. And Izzie knew, even if Jo tried to deny it, Izzie knew very well that Jo had feelings for Alex. She’d told her that much—every time Jo went into denial; Izzie would state again and again that she knows Jo better than herself and she knows Jo has a huge thing for Alex.

So, why was she sat here, on Jo’s night, basically asking Alex on a date?

“You can take me to this penthouse bar I’ve seen,” she tells him, confidently, lifting up her glass and seductively placing her straw between her lips with a coy smile, “overlooking the skyline, very classy.”

Jo lets out a breathy laugh, before excusing herself, feeling as if she won’t be able to hide her disdain any longer, “I need to use the bathroom.” She tells them both, shimmying out of the booth as Alex gets up to make way for her to leave. His brown eyes watch her retreating form, unable to tear themselves away.

As Jo takes a breather in the ladies’ room, she wonders if she could even be hurt with Izzie at all. Like she said, she had denied having feelings for Alex over and over. And it’s not like she stated a claim on him, he wasn’t hers. Yes, he was her closest friend in college and other than Jackson, he was easily her biggest confidant. They bonded over shared hatred for teachers and classes, and similar upbringings. She had always felt like they shared something, since that first-class years ago. He wasn’t hers—and it was selfish of her to decide in her own mind that he couldn’t be Izzie’s either.

It wasn’t her place. When she worms her way back to the booth, she’s almost stopped in her tracks as she hears the sound of Alex’s gruff voice next to Izzie’s loud and obnoxious laughter. But with a deep breath, Jo powers ahead and moves to stand directly in front of the booth. “I’m going to head home,” she tells them, offering her best fake smile, “I’m pretty tired—big day an’ all.”

“I’ll walk you home!” Alex offers, almost jumping from his seat to catch her wrist in his hands. Neither of them noticing Izzie’s burning gaze on the friendly interaction.

“No, no—it’s fine.” Jo places her free hand on top of Alex’s, gently telling him to let go. “I’ll catch a cab.” She lies. Knowing she’ll end up walking back to her place, needing the fresh air and the time to think.

He’s concerned as he presses, “are you sure?”

Offering Izzie a tight-lipped smile and Alex a shake of her head, brushing his concern off, “certain.” With that, the pair both nod—Izzie more eager than Alex to be left alone, the blonde shoots Jo a wink as a way of saying thank you but Jo chooses not to acknowledge it, she knows Izzie won’t remember come morning.  

As she steps out into the cool air, a wave of emotion sets on her and if there wasn’t so many people lingering on the street lined full of bars, she thinks fresh tears would fall down her face. But then she’d be the pathetic one who was crying over some boy who wasn’t even her boyfriend. Or was she crying over the betrayal of her friend. Was it even a betrayal?

“Jo!” The familiar sound of Alex’s voice shouts from behind her, stopping in her tracks and silently thanking herself for choosing not to cry, “are you ok?” He asks sincerely as she spins on her heel, turning to face him and plaster on that well-rehearsed fake grin.

In that moment, she thinks pretending that she has no idea what he was insinuating, “ … with?”

“Well,” he lifts a thumb to gesture back to the bar, “with this?”

She can’t believe her faux smile can grow any bigger, but it does, “yes—of course! Yeh, Izzie’s great,” Jo begins to nod profusely, “you never know where it might lead, right?”

“Erm,” Alex begins, eyes glistening against the streetlights before he lets out an un-convinced huff, “yeah.”

“Cool, so, good night.”

“Good night.”

[japanessie]

MY FIRST STORY on Hey! Hey! NEO! with Downtown 30 Sept 2019

MFS was so excited over this one. Must be an honour to be invited to be a guest for these famous comedians, eh?

Disclaimer: I did this with a lot of help from FujiTV onscreen captions and Google speech capture technology wherever possible. My ears can’t do this 100% on their own LOL. Not to mention listening to this a countless number of times! Hundreds! I also rephrased things liberally here and there. The photo collages only serve as a summary. Surely a lot of things were misheard too. Sorry for all the mistakes and fails 🙈 . Here, I picked some parts of the lively conversation and left out the rest that I’m so hopeless at. Words in italic or bracket are my own addition. I also selected some Japanese words to remember and left out the ones I’m not ready for. Sorry it makes things look messy.

A bit of background…..

DOWNTOWN is a popular Japanese comedy duo from Hyogo consisting of members Hitoshi Matsumoto and Masatoshi Hamada. So, this means, they use a lot of Kansai-ben. I can’t even pass standard Japanese, let alone Kansai dialect LOL.

MY FIRST STORY held a lottery for Fan Club members to attend the recording at FUJI TV, Odaiba City on 23 Sept 2019. I didn’t apply because I knew I would not be able to understand things on the spot. Not to mention I had no money to go anyway 😂. Congrats to those who got picked to go!

——————————————

MFS the “handsome"band?

Hitoshi Matsumoto: You guys are kinda like "Visual Kei”.

Hiro: (surprised) Really??

Hitoshi Matsumoto: Very handsome*.

* Not sure if he mentioned someone’s name or what with it.

Masatoshi Hamada: EH? (…looking at Hiro’s face…)

Everyone: (laughs)

Hitoshi Matsumoto: But I’m sorry ok (…putting his hand on Nob…), you are the least popular, I understand that*.

* Oh my God, that’s brutal (but I’m still laughing). Sorry Nob.

Everyone: (laughs hysterically)   Nob: (smiles and nods*)

* Aww…. Nob is so gentle & accepting. It’s not like he’s ugly though. Far from it. Especially if you’ve seen him in person. But it’s hard not to look super “unpretty” when sitting next to pretty boys like Hiro, Teru and Kid'z.

Masatoshi Hamada:   But first, they debuted seven years ago.

Hitoshi Matsumoto:  Since we know nothing about it, were you guys already this good-looking from the band’s formation time?

MFS members: (… err… how to answer this one?…)

Hiro: (…awkwardly..) I guess so. Maybe.

Masatoshi Hamada: Any huge place you guys want to perform in*?

* Actually I’m not really sure what he said. Just guessing ….haha.

Hitoshi Matsumoto: (putting his hand on Nob again) Any problem with him*?

* Kinda like any problem with having a not-so-handsome guy in a band of handsome guys? OMG, brutal LOL

Everyone: (laughs)

Nob: (..somewhat startled…. what, me?)

Hiro: (raises his hand and laughs) No, no. We’re not that kind of band. He’s fine.

Hitoshi Matsumoto: (nudging Nob) Don’t take it to heart, eh? Don’t take it to heart *.

* Not sure if that’s what he meant. Just guessing … huhu.

Everyone: (laughs)

——————————————

Hiro is such a chatterbox, they think he should just enter a grand competition

Hitoshi Matsumoto: (to Hiro) You’re such a talker*! (pretending to look annoyed) Are you going on R-1 Grand Prix or what!

* 喋り達者 / shaberitachisha (?) / master talker, chatterbox

Everybody: (laughs)

Hitoshi Matsumoto: I can’t even talk at all (when Hiro talks)!

Hiro: (laughs) No, no! I’m not going on R-1!

*R-1 Grand Prix is a popular competition where entertainers compete with each other making jokes or whatever funny things to win the title of champion.

* LOL Do you think Hiro talks too much?

——————————————

The Downtown guys know Hiro’s parents very well and are particularly good friends with Mama Mori

Masatoshi Hamada & Hitoshi Matsumoto: (bowing to Hiro in respect to Mama Mori) Send our regards to your mother.

Hiro: (bowing back) Thank you.

* Mama Mori did background narration for the comedy duo for many many years.

Hitoshi Matsumoto: I’ve been to your father’s concerts too.

Hiro: Ah, thank you so much (bowing to Matsumoto-san)

* Sorry, I don’t really understand everything else 😕. Matsumoto-san also mimicked Papa Mori’s onstage self-introduction but I couldn’t capture what was the joke… huhu 🙈.

——————————————

MFS team’s penchant for pranks & Nob’s heart of gold

Masatoshi Hamada: You guys like pranks very much, don’t you?

Hiro: We are mischievous with each other, either with the members or the staff. We do some light-hearted* “hidden camera” thingy. Playful**. Playing stuff on each other (laughs)

* 軽い / かるい / karui / light

* *遊び心 / あそびごころ / asobigokoro / playful

Masatoshi Hamada: (pointing at Kid'z and Nob) It was labour intensive* on you two.

* 骨 / ほね / hone / labourous

* 粗大な / そだいな / sodaina / grand

Kid'z & Nob: (smiling & nodding together)

Hitoshi Matsumoto: Well, keep telling. About the after party and all.

Masatoshi Hamada: You did that in Taiwan!

Everyone: (watching clips of Kid'z and Nob being pranked)

* ネタバラシ / netabarashi / spoiler

Masatoshi Hamada: (patting Nob) That’s horrible, ne~? Did you feel it was really serious, that being overseas?

Nob: Well, I didn’t know a word (of Chinese). So, I was like, “Could I have brought this powder with me or what?” (gesturing being shown a packet of powder with his hands).

* 粉 / kona / powder

Everyone: (laughs) 

* Both Matsumoto-san and Hamada-san couldn’t believe what they heard.

Masatoshi Hamada: (walking up to Nob and tapping his body)

Hitoshi Matsumoto: (reaching for Nob too & repeatedly slamming his hand up & down) Then you (should) just clearly* DENY** it!

* 明確 / めいかく / meikaku / clear, firm, solid, assure, precise

**  否定する / hitei suru / deny

Nob: (looking blurred & clueless)

Everyone: (laughs)

Hiro: (astonished at how goody-two-shoes Nob can be) You don’t say, “Could this be my powder?” in that situation!! You didn’t bring that, right?! 

Everyone: (laughs)

Hiro: In order to do that hidden camera prank, we firstly had to go on a special* trip to Taiwan. Then we had to add one Live performance to it too.

＊わざわざ / waza waza / specially, doing something specially rather than incidentally

Hitoshi Matsumoto: So, you did not do that onwards from that Taiwan live show?

Hiro: Yup, it was the other way round.

Audience: Eh??!!

Masatoshi Hamada:  (referring to the clip) That (felt like) half a year…

Hitoshi Matsumoto:  (…looking at Nob…) Dang! THAT entire time you were getting nothing BUT scolded* (by those actors?)?

* 恨まれる / uramareru / get scolded, get cursed ~ from the word 恨む / uramu

Everyone: (laughs)

Nob: (smiling and shaking his head)

* OMG, Nob is unbelievably nice! He’s not bitter at all.

Hitoshi Matsumoto: You’re the stuff for Wednesday’s Downtown*! (laughs)

* Wednesday’s Downtown is their famous comedy show.

——————————————

Why Teru was never picked for pranks?

Masatoshi Hamada: (puts hand on Teru) You are the only one who has never been pranked?

Teru: Yes, that’s right. I don’t know, (…looking at Hiro….) do you hate* me or something?

* Aww 😍…. so all this time, Teru actually feels being left out by Hiro 😮? He was like, Hiro, why you never want to pick me 😕? 

嫌わる / kirawareru / be hated ~ from the word  嫌う / kirau / hate, dislike

Hiro: No, no! The thing is, if it’s him (….pointing at Teru…), it wouldn’t be as funny.

Everyone: (laughs)

Masatoshi Hamada: How is that?

Hiro: He’s like (…still pointing at Teru …), whatever that’s happening*, he is unperturbed most of the time **.

* 起きる / おきる / okiru / get up, rise, occur, takes place

** 動じる / どうじる / doujiru / move, shift, motion

Teru: (laughs)

Hitoshi Matsumoto: Aah you know, my eyes can see around and filter out for certain* who’s funny and who’s not.

* 確かに / tashikani / certainly, surely

Note: I only guessed the rest of his sentence LOL

Everyone: Ok (…. anticipating Matsumoto-san’s verdict….)

Hitoshi Matsumoto: (…looking at Teru “scanning” him with a very serious face…) This one so totally NOT funny.

Teru: (…covers his face in embarrassment…)

* Spot on 😄! Teru oh Teru. When he tries to be funny, he just becomes corny & awkward instead. Strangely, when he’s not trying to be, that’s when he’s accidentally downright hilarious 😂

Everyone: (laughs)

Hiro: You may stop it right there * (laughs).

* Haha, so, it basically just stops there with Teru. Pranks may not work well on him because of his non-reaction to abnormal situations 😄.  But a true bromance story 😍. Hiro spared you all these times because he knew your character so well, Teru 🤗❤️💕.

* Aww... Teru was so embarrassed to be branded unfunny 😄.

——————————————

I don’t fully understand the joke where they asked Teru if he had some prank ideas on Hiro 🙈😭

*Disclaimer: Below is my best guess.

Masatoshi Hamada: (putting hand on Teru) How about your own?

Hiro: (realizing Hamada-san’s intention) For me?

Teru: (scratching his head) Hmm

Audience: Aaahhh!!

Hitoshi Matsumoto: (to Kid’z & Nob) Do you have something good for (prank) ideas?

Teru: (pointing to Kid’z, Nob & himself) The three of us are setting it up*. (nodding)**

* 仕掛ける / shikakeru / set up

** Does that mean “Yes, we’re thinking of pranking Hiro” 😍 ?

Hiro: (wide-eyed & taken aback by Teru’s answer) Holy cow! !

Masatoshi Hamada: Ah, good (….making a hand gesture as if putting something into something else….)*

* Don’t know the words he said here. Sorry 🙈.

Hiro: That’s not even a hidden camera thing!

Everyone: (laughs)

Masatoshi Hamada: You 3 guys can (shackle) him down and ….

Hiro: (looking at Hamada-san) That’s not even…!

Nob: (pretending to …hmm…. pour water onto something?)

Hiro: Normally I would already be complaining*!

* 訴えます / uttaemasu / complain

Hitoshi Matsumoto: Maybe make it like Masako-chan’s* hair or something (gesturing 2 pointy things on his head).

* If Matsumoto-san meant Masako-chan as Mama Mori, then I guess he was saying to tie Hiro’s hair into two girly piggy tails like his mother likes to do during her comedy skits as まーちゃん (Maa-chan).

Everyone: (hysterically laughs)

Hiro: (waving his hand & shaking his head) Ehh! How are you even going to get close to doing that?!!*

* Lets’s take Matsumoto-san’s suggestion LOL 😂 😂 😂

* Hiroki, you cunning little one! You’re so NOT wiggling your way out of this LOL

——————————————

How was that, my fellow MFS fans? I hope the rough idea is there even if I couldn’t get the thing 100% right.

Help and corrections are very much welcomed. Hehe!

Would love to hear your feedback about this talk. Do you think MFS is visually pleasing to the eye? Does Hiro talk too much? Do you feel Teru has no funny bones? Do you want to see Hiro getting pranked?

Oh wow! To me, I can see why DOWNTOWN is such a popular comedy team in Japan. They truly are hilarious! Thank you Matsumoto-san & Hamada-san.

[everysongineverykey]

ok yeeters i have a question: if i want to get into star trek which one should i start with? my dad loves it and his favourite is deep space 9 and the new one (sorry i cannot remember what it is called) but?? have any suggestions??

your dad has excellent taste ds9 is fucking AWESOME but if you want to really get an idea of the series?

-tos is really just different storylines for each episode so technically it's not essential but i suggest you watch at least the first season to get an idea of the universe

- the first two seasons of tng are kinda bad but you'll need to watch the premiere (encounter at farpoint) and the episode skin of evil because those are kind of important for later context but other than that it's all worth watching

-ds9? watch it all. literally. all of it. it's (in my opinion) the best of the treks- though it is kind of a different format (they're on a space station instead of a spaceship) and it's a little darker, with more serious themes (ptsd, terrorism, homelessness, war, etc), but it's ALSO the first trek to have a canon gay couple (one episode, but it's a wonderful one, called rejoined) so yeah. effervescent. some of the best episodes include our man bashir, in the pale moonlight, take me out to the holosuite, rejoined, the wire, far beyond the stars, and valiant. those are all later into the series, though, and it's best enjoyed in order

- voyager i've only seen three episodes of, so i can't really say how good it is. apparently it's kind of messy? the episodes i saw were all rather good, but critics say it's meh, but i'm not really one to judge. watch however much of it you want

-i saw the first episode of enterprise and Did Not Like It, but then again, that's the only episode i've seen of it since i gave up on it after it. it's usually called the worst of the treks by critics, but again, i know people who do like it, so... watch at your own leisure, i guess? it's a prequel so it can either be great or awful

- discovery is also a prequel that i saw the first season of and haven't seen anything else of. it's definitely not bad! it's got gay (though not with a happy ending), and it makes some cool use of the mirror universe plotline. i would recommend the premiere and magic to make the sanest man go mad, but again, watch however much you want!