#reality tv love is blind type shit

[thatonebirdwrites]

This chapter is now Kara's turn to prepare for the date. (While other shenanigans happen). I'm a little slow on updating due to not feeling well. EXCERPT:

Kara hopped off the bus at its first stop in the San Jose Barrio. Nia followed close behind. “So it’s just up ahead.” She led the way down the street toward the Mexican market where she’d found the group originally. 

Nia nodded and fell into step next to her. “I ran some searches on the names you gave me, but found very little. Other than a missing sibling, where the case was deemed a runaway. No follow-up.” Her messenger bag hung her shoulder, and she tugged at the strap, her eyes darting back and forth across the street. “You get the feeling we’re being followed?”

Kara took a deep breath and opened up her awareness to the full breadth of her superhearing. Sounds poured into her awareness — car wheels against pavement, footsteps against pavement or grass, claws scrambling up bark, the flutter of wings atop roofs — oh, someone had exited the bus right before it pulled away from the curb. Their heartbeat was fast, as if the person exerted effort of some type. Soon footsteps clipped against pavement in their direction. 

She spared a glance behind them, but no one was there. She could hear the heartbeat and the footsteps still. She tipped her glasses briefly downward and squinted, but her x-ray vision on revealed the vague outline of a person. Some sort of energy masked them from view.

In her pocket, she had one of Lena’s warding vials— Lena wouldn’t let her leave home without it now — and warmth exuded from it. Far more than when Nia and her set out on this task. Which meant it warded against something. And the one thing Kara had no protection against?

Was magic.

“Yeah.” Kara pushed her glasses up her nose and leaned closer to Nia. “I hear their heartbeat, but they masked themselves with magic I think.” 

“Magic?” Nia wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, that’s why I feel weird. Magic use always makes my nose itch. Except Lena’s. That makes me feel all warm and gooey.” 

“Doesn’t it?” Kara sighed and smiled at the thought of her :zhao. Lena would definitely sense if this was actual magic or just some weird tech thingy right away. 

Nia snickered. “You such a goner for her.”

Normally Kara would huff or blush and deny it, but tonight was the Date. One that Kara had meticulously planned.  Explored the courting customs of all the possible cultures in America — speedreading had its uses — and Ireland, but in the end, decided to do as Lena had suggested a few days ago. Combine bits of Kara’s Kryptonian heritage with Lena’s own heritage. She had high hopes that Lena would love it, and it brought a smile to her face. 

“She deserves the best, you know?” Kara sighed and kicked a stone down the sidewalk, one ear cocked for their follower. Who definitely was still tailing them.i Their heart rate had sped up, and their breathing sounded strained. Was the whole masking themselves hard to do?

“So do you.” Nia nudged Kara’s side. “You’ve worked hard to fix things between you two.” 

Kara nodded. “The appointment is on Friday, you know.”

“Oh?” Nia leaned closer, her voice hushed. “That couple therapy?”

“Yeah. I don’t know what to expect. Lena hasn’t really said anything beyond the date and time.” Kara grimaced. She didn’t want to go into it blind. 

Odd that their follower sounded like they were wheezing. As if running, but their footsteps still held the steady beat of a walk. 

“Can’t say I’ve ever had couple therapy.” Nia tapped her chin. “But I suspect if you’re honest,  you’ll be fine. I mean, how hard can it be? Just grab a shit ton of tissues just in case.” 

That did not help Kara feel better about the appointment, but she appreciated Nia trying.

She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Follower struggling to stay masked. Let’s take a short-cut. Wear them down.” Kara ducked into an alley with Nia close behind. She wove around trash bins, out the otherside, and then into a shop. 

They walked down aisles, past other shoppers, and waited until their follower had also entered the shop. “I’ll exit first,” Kara whispered. “Will head this many blocks south. You go north, then we turn east for this many blocks.” She held up three fingers each time. 

Nia grinned. “Got it.” She snagged a bag of treats and took it up to the register, while Kara left the store. 

[iwtvdramacd18]

what are the vamps watching on tv in 2022/2023 👀

oh lord.

Ok Armand had a horrible reality tv phase and roped Louis into it and even though Armand has moved on Louis has a guilty obsession with those awful ass marriage game shows. He's watching Love is Blind leaning forward eyes dilated like when he was reading the tenor's thoughts you feel me?

Armand is switching wildly between watching those channels with the super old movies and shows like gunsmoke and shit and also hbo type stuff but also religiously keeping up with Riverdale. He has the Rivervale Archie "I was at the ground zero of the birth of rivervale" monologue memorized. Louis peeks into his mind once and its just literally an entire fucking episode in there

[thelonesomequeen]

I tend to agree w all these posts about not defending celebs but I've yet to see some blind defense about CE in particular so far apart from the usual 'golden retriever in the body of a Greek God' kind... What I've seen especially in the past months when it comes to Evans is mostly character assassination. The relentless posting of made-up rumors and storylines, the ig stalking, the harassing of family members ranging from Scott to minors. The very intense narrative that he's in fact using insta to groom young girls, his 'fetish', while 'old' women (his age) are trying to clean his sloppy online thotting by saying there's no proof when all the 'evidences' are there. There are a couple of very annoying blogs on here, a certain forum, i don't need to give names b/c we all know who they are, who haven't thought twice before spreading fake news and unverifiable shit and claiming everyone calling them out and challenging their narratives were making fools of themselves and should stop DefENdInG Chris Evans... So I dunno if there are really so many ppl who think the man is a knight in shining armor or just folks fed up of the same BS about his private life. Also, i read somewhere that fans treat the fandom as reality tv but what i think now is that they treat Chris as a kardashian... To them, he's Khris. Granted he's not the most private actor out there (who is really?) BUT he's not a kartrashian type of celeb and never will be. He's never gonna provide daily content and the drama they crave. So they have to invent. And the toxicity and negativity aren't only about young women and his ig follows and likes but also about his posts. He posts a pool back flip and 'oh, he's so lame, a thirst trap for sad girls', he posts a piano vid 'look at how smug he is looking at the camera like that, I'd smack some common sense into him', the scare videos 'spoiled middle upper class brats', dodger in his bed 'just when he told his ons to leave', watching Snoopy 'to later on switch to porn'... These are TRUE comments and reactions I've read about his ig activity. I'm convinced one day he'll delete it and never come back. So, while I'll never defend him or any famous person for that matter, I'm also not gonna be dragged into the hating cycle some 'fans' have going on. If they don't really like him, they should just find someone else to stan

I do agree that there is a sector of the fandom that loves to make up drama and carry it on as long as possible in a weird attempt to destroy him. To those people, I have to ask why they’re still here and bothering instead of just moving on with their lives? You don’t need to make up an excuse to leave a fandom. You can just accept it’s no longer for you and simply move on. It really isn’t that hard. However, there are newer fans that do like to rewrite the history of things that have happened that they don’t like in order to defend him from it or call him out for things that land in morally gray areas. The biggest example of this I can think of is his relationship with Jenny. The truth of that situation is the relationship started when she was a committed, married woman and they were both very aware of her marital status. It was enough to make fans at the time leave the fandom or at least take a break. But new fans now love to tell false, elaborate stories about how Jenny lied to him, manipulated him, or tricked him into the relationship and he had no idea she was married instead of just coming to terms with the fact that he got involved with a woman who was very much married. They’ll do whatever they can to make him appear completely innocent. At this point it’s water under the bridge, but it’s not the only situation like that that exists. I’m not going to go further into detail on other situations because it’s old news at this point, but you all know where our archive is if you’re curious enough for old drama and gossip🦎

[bisluthq]

imo swifties jumped on the "oh they were on and off a lot, things now make a lot of sense" train more as a way to rationalize it. Because the breakup was sudden etc, if people started to think oh actually there were a lot of conflicts for a long time and it wasn't as smooth as we thought, it's a way to accept it yk. That's why I said the story sold to us is whatever they want us to believe. And adding the rough patches bit to me was clearly to lead people to think oh yeah it makes sense then. It's the reason why most of the fandom also decided to paint this picture that Joe was evil all along. It sounds weird to prefer to think he was an abuser, a cheater and a gaslighter then a person who made mistakes as a human (just like Taylor) but our brains process better a black and white type of mentality. It's easier to think and accept we were fooled for years and both us and Taylor were blind while he was a shitty person, than think shit happens and sometimes good people make mistakes or just aren't right for us. Ofc swifties take it to the extreme, because to them the breakups are always because the ex was shitty and Taylor is this god like human who can't do no wrong and has absolutely no part on this. She's always right and everyone else is wrong. No one grows having people with this mentality in our life by the way

yeah, I think the point is reality is a lot less interesting than the “oh they had an on/off toxic relationship and he cheated and he kept her in a basement” - which feels more like a TV show script. A lot of people like Taylor the character imo and forget that there’s a real person there, whose life is actually pretty normal (aside from the fame stuff which is wild but isn’t the main reason imo that they broke up because if that were the main reason, they’d never have been together as long as they were). Idk guys - Taylor and Joe loved one another and then they fell out of love and she skedaddled tf outta the relationship. It’s a very normal story for many longterm adult relationships. There was a lot of good. There was a lot of annoyance. There were certain problems they couldn’t ultimately overcome. It’s sad, but it’s normal. Shit happens.

[dropsofletters]

the soul game [kmg]

summary: when she signs herself up for ‘the soul game’ after being a years-long-user of an application that updates when meeting your soulmate, she didn’t think she’d end up in a reality show of this kind. one of those detailed, drama-filled tv shows that people binge-watch while munching on popcorn and saying how they’d never be like the people on the screen.

but it’s what she has to do. fifteen people were paired up in a house in order to find the person the universe assigned for them as their soulmate. lurking, searching, aching to meet the person that will romantically fulfill her.

though, just as she’s being recorded finding love, her eyes divert towards the producer’s assistant with a hat that covers most of his sweet gaze and suddenly, it feels like she’s the one person out of the fifteen contestants without a soulmate.

what if she’s wrong, though? why would she long to talk to kim mingyu and his backstage persona when he’s not even a contestant to start with? when he’s not soulmate, at all?

perhaps, love is not a linear game.

title: the soul game pairing: kim mingyu x reader genre: soulmate!au (in which you can know if you met your soulmate by updating a dating app) ; producer’s assistant!au ; reality star!au ; app!au ; strangers to friends to enemies to lovers!au ; slowburn prepare yourselves type: fluff ; angst ; humor ; drama ; suggestive ; reality show shenanigans word count: 18,739  words warning: mentions of alcohol, partying, but nothing ever too detailed. 

Silhouettes glimmer in the pictures scattered on top of her vanity. Behind said photography lays a description, written in the scribbled font of the casting director that couldn’t give more of a shit to actually jot something important down. She knows there are fifteen contestants, including herself, and that the person behind that silhouette is twenty-five, a little over six feet and he likes Britney Spears’ ‘Oops, I did it again’.

That can only tell so much about a man.

And it’s ridiculous. How she’s going into this blind but so bare at the same time. In the literal and perhaps metaphorical sense of the word. One of those stylish beach kimonos falls off her shoulders, the violet flowers on the black fabric standing out. She had paired the color of the violets to her bathing suit, something that wraps around her waist and goes a little too high up her hips when she sits down and no matter how much she crosses and uncrosses her legs, she still wonders what she is doing here.

“Joan,” She whispers her stylist’s and best friend’s name like she needs reassurance. Damn right she does. When she signed up for a whole dating reality show, she hadn’t thought about the fact that she’d have to go around in a bikini and actually date unknown people who like Britney Spears classics. “Remind me why I’m here again.”

Joan has strands of blonde hair framing her small face, and she blows densely on the air through her pink-dusted lips. “Because you’re one of the few people who actually downloaded that app that no one cares about anymore.”

Fighting her defenses, her head lulls to the side when Joan straightens another piece of her hair for the umpteenth time. “I beg to differ. The Soul Game is actually a very valid application created in 2007, mind you. Lots of people use it to find their soulmate.”

While married to the love of her life and with one kid on the way, Joan still manages to be cynical. “People download dating apps, babe. Not soulmate apps. People don’t care about finding the person that the universe set them up with. You know, getting good head after a date is probably the most people expect at this point.”

Okay, so maybe, she’s a bit old-fashioned. Maybe, the other people that were selected for the casting also were old-fashioned, and it doesn’t matter that she’s in a showy bikini or that she was given a script in which she has to make out with someone at the edge of the pool at the end of the second episode. It could be that this will lead her to her soulmate sooner than intended.

She throws her forehead forward, resting it against the vanity. Joan keeps straightening her hair and she can only curse herself for downloading that app years ago. She was young and, in a relationship, hoping that the app would show her boyfriend at the time as her soulmate, but it was met with a lot of disappointment and an affair with her then best friend.

But it’s okay. It happens. People date a lot before getting to the real deal.

The Soul Game was created years ago. It was a website by then in which people created profiles and immediately, some sort of software settled the information that was given to launch a profile. What the users had to do was jot down who they were in a relationship with and post it to their profiles. In most occasions, if they posted it and the person that they were dating wasn’t their soulmate, it’d post: ‘User is in a relationship’.

The grand finale happened when the user posted its status and it updated to: ‘User has found their soulmate’.

It was a discovery made in the late 2000’s and for the longest while, it sounded like bullshit, but the more people that created accounts, the more that they found their other half. While Joan wouldn’t dare to admit it, the universe brought her to her husband. In her application, unused at this point, the words ‘married to her soulmate’ glistened in a way that almost made her…jealous.

That’s why she responded to the e-mail that she got. The application, or whoever ran the service, had taken the time to call for a casting to make a reality show in which its contestants had to figure out who in the bunch were their soulmate. Only at the end of the season, after feelings blossomed and dates went out and about, were the contestants being told if they had found their soulmate in the bunch.

The catch is that she could definitely end up with the wrong person.

“Chill.” Joan tells her, patting her hand over her hair before sighing. “You’re going to ruin your lashes and they are those magnetic lashes I am just trying out now. I don’t want you to have one eye open and one eye closed when you meet the eye-candy the show prepared for you.”

This is not like a date, right? It’s not like the pressure of being in a group of people in which her soulmate was also in is a big thing. Something will come out of this, but the tension of her muscles is insufferable at this point.

“…I don’t even know if they’re eye-candy.” She retorts, lifting one of the photographs in the air to point it to Joan. “The only thing I can see out of this silhouette is that they have a big ass, and that’s not a deal settler for me.”

Joan quirks her hip to the side, taking the photograph and turning it around. “5’6, loves lasagna and body shots.” That has her stylist lifting her eyebrows. “That’s a combination, for sure. Not a good one. Could you maybe get them to do lasagna shots out of your belly button once the season starts? Because I’d pay real good money for it.”

“There are fifteen contestants, Joan.” She turns around on the chair, her name imprinted on the back of it, and she has to cover it with her elbow to feel less ridiculous. Who told her that she could be a reality star? What exactly had the casting director seen on her other than a romanticist-need of meeting her other half? “That means someone is going to end up alone. What if it’s me?”

“Not with that face.” Joan retorts, fixing the diamond necklace around her neck. “Besides, we’ve been friends since high school and if there’s someone that deserves meeting their soulmate, that’s you. You’ve longed for it for so long—”

“To the point I’m in a fucking dating show.”

“Reality dating show.” Joan corrects. “…And it could be fun! Or it will be. The script is raunchy, at best, but you’re such a good, charismatic person that I’m sure you’ll have all the viewers wrapped around your finger in the matter of seconds.”

That doesn’t sound like the best of compliments, but it’s the most she gets when she wavers while standing up, heels shaking until Joan grasps her by the shoulders.

A pair of brown eyes inspects her features before she hears her best friend ask: “Are you okay?”

She may be here for him. For the soulmate that she has looked for since she was young, when she’d sigh into her pillow and cry another failed love attempt. He’s here, the data had said in the app. The people around the set knew who she was supposed to get with, and still, she can’t imagine who it is.

But she wants to figure it out.

“No.” She replies, but she fixes the sleeves of her kimono. “There will be cocktails by the pool, though, and I may need to take a sip and look around the guys in the cast because I’m sure I will throw up if I don’t give myself time to internalize everything.”

“Take your time.” Joan wraps an arm around her shoulder, tugging her away from the changing room. “And if you’re going to throw up, try to do it on camera. That gets you more views and hence, more money.”

Oh, right. There was also a salary for this. Though, the person who found their soulmate successfully also got a price at the end. “What kind of best friend are you?”

“The one that tells you money is more important than love.”

“You’re married and pregnant.”

“And I need a single, rich aunt for my daughter, of course!” Joan retorts, stealing a chuckle out of her just as they reach the camera-people, producers, staff and whoever else is preparing the scenery at the pool of the hotel they are staying in.

Or at least, the script says they are going to meet here and one of the members is going to coincidentally say they know a house that they can rent and they will spend the rest of this month-long vacation there.

She sighs deeply when she hears a pair of footsteps following after her and soon after, a camera is pushed to her face. “The first soul member has arrived!” The cameraman announces and that has her shrinking onto herself.

She has to get used to this. People will be just around the corner, looking for her or who she’s with.

Her fingers glide a strand of her hair behind her ear. “…Hi.”

“Wait, wait, wait!” She hears someone with a lisp speaking at that moment, emerging from behind the shorter cameraman. It’s a man, quite young, too, with a cap that reads ‘assistant’ in capital letters and a face that deserves being in front of the camera. “You can’t greet the camera directly. Only when you give your opinions later on in the episode, but we’ll record that tomorrow, okay?”

This man is gorgeous. The kind of beauty that shouldn’t be covered by the layer of sweat that rests on his straight nose or with the baggy clothes, in all black, that read off the pink and green neon letters of the reality’s name. A few strands of brown hair peek from underneath the cap, a set of silver-brimmed glasses resting on the bridge of his nose, his not-full but not-slim mouth perking up in a small smile before he waves a hand in the air.

“We’re not here.” She doesn’t think she has seen him before. She would have remembered that face, and probably mistaken him as one of the contestants. “You go to the pool, look around and see nobody’s there and you pick up a glass and someone will come in. I promise. It’s all planned.”

“O—Okay.” She stammers, running her digits over the necklace on her neck and biting on her bottom lip. Her eyes trail forwards, walking with as much lack of interest as she can without looking like she wants to shrink and fly away, until she reaches the braided chair and asks the bartender for a…

Wait, what did the script say again?

“Sex by the Beach.”

She cringes when she says it out loud.

With one breath in, she swears something on the top of her head one she takes a sip of her drink. A cocktail so bland that she wonders it’s vanilla sex at the beach between a separated couple who are about to sign the divorce papers but they are trying to make it work for a good time’s sake. She’ll meet her soulmate, here, and she’ll do it just right…because something in the pit of her heart tells her that he’s here and he’ll shine once he talks to her first.

For now, all she has to do is sit straight and not look over her shoulder towards the…whoever’s assistant that should be in front of the camera instead.

###

“I just don’t get why we don’t get to see who’s actually paired up with who.”

Mingyu’s pouring the third cup of coffee for the night onto his mug as he says those words to Wonwoo. The editor is working hard on fixing the editing the scenes of the ‘Confession Booth’ where the contestants gave their thoughts about what happened in the first episode. Though, once he turns around, Wonwoo’s face is practically glued to the screen, not even blinking as he spits out:

“It’s better to guess.” Wonwoo announces and Mingyu sighs deeply, settling himself on Wonwoo’s side and staring at the contestant on the screen. He swears he remembers her name on a normal occasion, he really does, it’s perhaps Mia or Mai, but he’s too tired and the only thing he can notice is her bright pink hair.

Oh, and that she’s sleeping by now. The party is going to continue by night, after all.

“Wasn’t she the girl who fell face first—?”

“After pole dancing? Yes.” Wonwoo says, working through the green screen and cutting the stutters and drag of words. “Like I was saying, Mingyu…I think the best part of this contest is figuring out who the soulmates are even if they don’t get together at the end.”

Mingyu stares at his own screen, sending a look towards the pictures they had taken earlier this morning for the posters when the release of the episodes happened. His eyes settle on the woman at the middle, with an awkward smile and a peace sign in the air, exchanging her violet bikini for a summery yellow dress that splattered in roses. Not violets like she did yesterday.

He shakes his head before he could continue staring at her sun-kissed legs.

“Who do you think is the soulmate one?”

The editor thinks for a second, turning on his chair and spreading his legs before taking a sip of his own coffee. Though, Wonwoo doesn’t look energized in the slightest bit. “Seungkwan.”

“What?” Mingyu questions, a chuckle in his words. “Seungkwan’s the one who gets along with most people out of the entire cast.”

“That’s why. He’s the friendly guy.” Wonwoo returns his gaze to the screen. “Nobody dates the friendly guy in these kinds of shows.”

Mingyu’s finger points at the woman he was looking at, saying: “What if it’s her?” His arms cross over his chest then, sticking his tongue out to press it to his bottom lip. “She’s…so closed up in her own mind.”

“No.”

“What?”

“Weren’t you listening to the confessions?” Wonwoo asks, quirking an eyebrow. “Two guys want to be with her already.”

“Oh,” What is Mingyu thinking about exactly? It’s not like he can root for her not to find her soulmate, but there’s that itch of curiousness in the back of his mind. Attraction, perhaps, or a sense of mystery wanting to figure out a puzzle that he’s not even part of. He shakes his head. “You’re right. I had forgotten.”

His head lulls to the side and he closes his email to work on rummaging through the next few episodes’ scripts. As he should.

###

“What does your script say? You have to kiss someone at the end of the episode, too?”

That’s barely a whisper in between the event that they find themselves in. Apparently, The Soul Game’s second episode included a trust-building set of games in halves that is supposed to stir things up, create tension but also build the first few couples. Seungkwan is by her side, sipping on a canned soda and running a hand through his red-colored hair.

Truth be told, he’s the easiest to talk to. For now. He hadn’t shown any sight of side-eyeing or planning anything just now, and she knew from the moment she talked to him that he wasn’t her soulmate and it feels like the sentiment is mutual.

Endless fields of blossoming flowers accompany palm trees and fountains as she and Seungkwan talk by a table at the yard, but judging by the cameraman approaching, there is no much time left until they have to continue with the script.

“I have to unfollow Lisa and then, she’ll scream at my face.” Seungkwan chuckles at his own antics. “…Which I don’t know how I’m even going to do. Lisa’s so cool. It’ll physically hurt me to unfollow her.”

A laugh traps itself on her throat before she’s resting her chin on top of her palm. “At least, you don’t have to put your tongue down someone’s throat.”

“Wanna trade?” Seungkwan questions and by her peripheral, she sees a camera plastered on the two of them.

Meeting everyone in the cast has been a disappointment. Not that some of them aren’t attractive—there’s, at least, four people that she would actually go on dates with given the case. If only she wasn’t here to meet whom, supposedly, was the love of her life. The spark hasn’t been there with anybody, leaving her with an aftertaste and a little camera time of herself, seated on couches and having lunch with people that she’s trying to feel connected to and she doesn’t at all.

“You already have your eye on someone?” She retorts and the apples of his rounded cheeks turn crimson, playing with the straw on his drink. “Oh my God, Seungkwan! That soon?”

“That soon.” Upon being recorded, they have to change the sense of their conversation. They are not two people playing by a script, but two individuals with lives made to entertain whoever was behind their phone or TV screen. “You’re ready to…try it out with someone people or are you going to wait?”

“I’m not sure who I should pick.” That seems like the good thing to say. Makes her seem funnier and livelier than she actually is. And she needs to kiss someone at the end of the night, after all. Her legs extend under the table and she sighs. “Like, I want to kiss someone tonight…” Lie, she doesn’t, but that’s what the script said. “But who, though?”

“I have two options, according to what I’ve heard around the house.”

“Ooh, I’m being talked about?” She smiles, only to have Seungkwan nodding.

“Minghao or Jaehyun?”

The connection is gone with both of them. Nonexistent. Never existent, even.

“…Am I really being talked about any of them?”

“One of them.”

“I’m betting Jaehyun.” Gossip seems to be one of the main pillars of this reality show. “He looks like trouble.”

Seungkwan cackles at her words. “Satan kisses well, so the word has it.”

“You want to kiss him for me?”

“And have all his future fangirls cutting my throat? No thanks.” Her only friend in the cast as of far stands up at that moment, placing the bucket hat he had taken off before arriving at the table on top of her head. “I think he’s by the kitchen. Let’s go get him.”

Oh, Seungkwan’s not helping her to get past her plot point in this episode. Definitely not.

But yes, he is.

That’s how she ends tucked under Jaehyun’s arm. His real name is Yoonoh, and in the first two episodes, his shirt is disregarded. She can already imagine the shouts of his name that will come after this season of the show, even if he finds his soulmate or not. He’s easygoing enough to welcome her as Seungkwan excused himself to go buy a few burgers for everyone in the house, and for the first couple of minutes, his conversation goes skin-deep. Not soul-deep at all.

The bright pink couch hurts her ass, fingers mindlessly roaming the lining of her denim shorts. The breeze of the night and the air conditioner turned on in someone’s room, gliding down the rest of the house because of the opened door, makes her wince and shiver enough to feel slightly comforted by Jaehyun’s hand on her shoulder, but then, she realizes exactly what she’s doing here.

She shouldn’t hold back. Jaehyun is the kind of man women sigh for as they imagine a future with them, but his gaze is lazy as it lands on her. He doesn’t discern her features, a tuff of blonde hair moving with a flower of breath that he blows in front of himself before the conversation rolls somewhere else.

“I plan on having fun,” Jaehyun speaks into his beer bottle, quirking a defined and slightly makeup-coated eyebrow. “This whole soulmate thing? It’s actually pretty nerve-wrecking if you think about it.”

She agrees with that much, but not for the same reasons that he has. His hand trails towards her waist and the weight and warmth is nice. Just that. Time doesn’t stop, her mind isn’t hazed. She’s just extremely nervous, if anything.

“Agreed.” She starts. “But…the whole point of this vacation for me is to find my soulmate.”

“How’s that going?” Jaehyun questions, and she almost looks at the camera. She was this close of peeping from the corner of her eye and saying that it’s going pretty fucking bad. But there’s a script, and there’s a plot, and she’s getting paid at the end of the day…and by now, she’s being recorded.

“I still have to figure out who it is.” What does one say in this situation? Her hand spreads on top of Jaehyun’s chest, looking down at those lips that don’t cause her more than recognition. They are pink. They seem soft. They are inescapable at this point. “Help me out?”

She cringes at her own words, but that’s what the script said.

Jaehyun is not the one to pine or patiently wait for his princess to arrive. His mouth spreads on hers in the matter of seconds, a sigh trapped in her mouth and stifled into his lips. His hand carves the back of her head, and cheers shine for their existence in the far distance, but more than that, she’s disappointed.

Because Jaehyun’s not a bad kisser, but it’s not a lifechanging kiss. Neither synchronized by the perfect organization of the universe. Her mouth is still closed when he opens it to deepen the kiss, and even when they’re conjoined, his hand is too relaxed on her neck. Like he’s too tired to actually try harder, or because he likes being chased instead.

Separating, the hand that she had placed on his chest pats the hot skin before saying: “Alright, that’s something.”

It is pathetic.

What the hell is she doing on this show?

Jaehyun is definitely not her soulmate, and at least, that plot point is over.

Here’s to hoping Seungkwan’s and Lisa’s fight is more interesting to the public.

###

The newest staff member leaves very little to aspiration. In fact, Mingyu’s back hurts from bending down too much to pick up the stacked-up cans of beers that the contestants had drank last night as the first glimpses of the morning seep through the windows. She, Hyunjin, should have cleaned up after the burgers and dessert that the cast shared last night.

But that didn’t happen. Hyunjin is fast asleep with her hip tilted and one of the staff’s coats thrown over her head in one of the tents by the house, and when Mingyu tried to wake her up, she had shaken as if she was feverish, asking for another minute.

And Mingyu, the producer’s assistant, is fucking stupid at times, or so he considers himself. So, what did he do? Do what she was supposed to be doing.

The cameras around him are, at least, not following, petrified to capture the contestants once they awaken. Almost in the afternoon, as per expected, because it’s nine in the morning right now and they are probably too tipsy to even care about making breakfast. Most people but someone, because Mingyu stops in his tracks, sneakers colliding onto the marble flooring when he sees a woman pouring herself a cup of tea onto one of the many mugs they were planning to sell as merch once this season dropped out.

For a few seconds, as her back is half-turned to him, he lets himself enjoy the view. Her hair is not as dolled-up as the hairstyles her friend puts her in, but the frizz and the bucket hat on her head make her look reachable beneath so much beauty. She has an oversized t-shirt on her body, which could very well have a design on the front but he doesn’t see it. It’s half and mindlessly tucked at the back, leading up to her sweatpants-covered hips.

And she’s humming a tune, soon after whispering to herself to remember what she has to do. She counts the toasts on her plate, the same she does with the spoonfuls of sugar she pours on her tea, and when she turns around, Mingyu suddenly realizes what he was doing.

He was staring at one of the contestants.

Great.

“Morning.” He manages to rasp out. Suddenly, he’s very aware that he hasn’t slept well in two days preparing the start of the season, and while Wonwoo is on his tenth dream and so is Hyunjin, he could really crash on a bed.

The contestant, whose name he knows but he doesn’t dare say out loud, turns around again and spits out quickly: “Let me serve you some tea. I didn’t know I was going to have company.”

“Oh no, you don’t have to.” Mingyu tosses the empty cans onto the trash as he says those words, but he hears as she pours some more liquid into a cup. Only when he looks over his shoulder does he realize that she had not made more tea, but she’s splitting what she had made for herself in half.

She’s beaming when she turns with two mugs and it takes all in him to say no. It’s not enough, because he doesn’t say anything, and lets his fingers graze hers when he grabs the mug from her hands.

“I shouldn’t be talking to the contestants, you know?” Mingyu prompts, sipping on the drink and letting the droplet of honey along with the sugar coat his tongue in too much dulcetness. She seems to like it, and he doesn’t have the heart to grimace the slightest bit. “Thanks, by the way.”

“No one’s around. No drama, no recordings.” She expresses as she sits down by the island, taking off her bucket hat and sighing deeply.

The silence is dense apart from the first bite of her toast that creates a crunch so loud that he swears he can hear her chew slower as not to make a noise.

“So…” Mingyu trails, fairly aware of his lisp out of the sudden, letting his eyes roam around the room as not to look at her before he drags himself towards the seat in front of her by the island. His boss will have his head, but if he makes the conversation quick, maybe and just maybe, he won’t get shouted at. “Have you found your soulmate yet?”

The question’s stupid, but she had been the talk of the morning between the camera-people. The hottest kiss of the season, one of them had called it, and Mingyu didn’t have the heart to ask Wonwoo for a peep when he edited this episode in the following days.

It’s a direct question, too. It’s like asking someone ‘when are you going to get married?’ or ‘so, the kids are coming around any time soon or you don’t plan to have any?’. It’s disrespectful, and just before Mingyu can apologize, she’s taking another bite of her toast and answering.

“Truth be told?” She asks, and Mingyu can only nod. “There’s seven guys and none of them feel like they could be anything more than my friends.”

Mingyu chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck as he drinks from his mug. “So, Jaehyun didn’t pass the test?”

Her eyes glimmer for a second, mouth agape, and then, she’s closing it quickly. “I was going to ask you how did you know, but I swear I had three cameras zooming in on us as he smeared his saliva on my face.”

“That bad?”

Bumping her mug with his, she reiterates: “A lady never tells.” With that, Mingyu’s laughing and the corners of her mouth finally lift up in a genuine smile. Not the wolfish grin she gives to the camera. “…But Jaehyun’s the typical hot guy of the season. You know, your beach boy character. I guess it was the best choice for me to fill the plot point with him, but nothing’s there. Definitely.”

Mingyu nods, his fingertips trailing on the edge of his mug. “What about Joshua?”

She shrugs her shoulders, sighing, and that genuine smile disappears as quickly as it had appeared. “It feels odd. I’ve gone on dates, don’t get me wrong, but none of these guys feel like…” She stops for a second, lifting an eyebrow. “You don’t happen to know if I’m the one without the soulmate, do you? Because if I am, I want you to tell me.”

Mingyu could tell her that he has no idea. He had the same thought just a day ago, but upon seeing those saddened eyes that accompany her with a mystery that none of the viewers, neither himself, would be able to discover, he forces a grin onto his features.

“You have a soulmate.” He doesn’t know if he’s lying or telling the truth, but something’s something. “Try looking somewhere else, perhaps?”

She stares ahead, between there and not really, as if she’s always flowing in a cloud of daydreams. “What did you say your name was again?”

“I never said it.” Mingyu retorts.

“It’s not fair.” A pout peeks from the corner of her mouth. “You know mine.”

“Mingyu.” Without thinking, he’s standing up. At his title, he remembers that he shouldn’t be there to begin with. “Producer’s assistant.”

And at the cue of the start of Sunday Morning by Maroon 5, sang by someone going down the set of stairs, Mingyu knows that contestant number six, Joshua Hong, has awakened.

One last look at her has him turning around, barely sending a few words over his shoulder towards the two people awake in the house.

“I’ll call a few camera-people over. Wait up.”

### 

Minghao is downright scary. Not his face, neither is it his attitude, it is his stance. When he got called to go out on a date with her to the paintball place near the house, he had simply nodded and gotten up. He hadn’t grasped her hand, neither had he sent a reassuring smile. He was disinterested, at best, and even though he’s fashionable while wearing an overall cladded in paint from head to toe and it’s first time she sees someone that can hold a paint gun and make it look worth a magazine cover, but she is also not entirely sold on him.

They feel disconnected, if anything.

Seungkwan said it would be fun, so she followed suit. Dragged herself through the muddy floors and shot whoever she saw, taking an extra minute to figure out if they were part of her team or not. Minghao is in her team, and the camera-people have made it their objective to record from a position in which it looks like they are closer than they actually are.

She’s hiding behind a few bushes, the miniscule leaves prickling at her face and through the mask, while she searches for the last man standing in the other team. She doesn’t even know if her people are bathed in paint at this point, leverage found on the gun in between her fingers until she feels a hand landing on her back and a deep timbre follows after.

One of the curled strands of Minghao’s hair falls on his face when he takes off his mask, blowing a raspberry and slitting those calculative eyes before he adds: “You disappeared. Where were you?”

“Hiding. I don’t know who’s left in the other team.” Studying him, Minghao is the kind of beautiful that belongs to a fairytale. He lacks the boy-next-door persona and exchanges it for high fashion. Haute Couture of the male population, she calls him inside her head, but it’s not quite her style, if she’s honest. “Where were you? I haven’t seen you since the beginning of the game.” She whispers back.

The cameraman behind her—Jeonghan is his name, she believes?—, moves, and it’s pretty fucking difficult to win this match when there are people following them around everywhere.

“There was a pile of boxes stacked one over the other up north. Standing up there made me see the game better. That’s how I found you.” Minghao replies, resting on his back and sighing deeply. “It’s the small girl from earlier. She’s the only one left. You know, the short one. Those are the kind of people who have the most piled up anger, if you ask me.”

She chuckles at his words. Minghao’s smart, but in the kind of way that secretly tells her that he never studied for a test and he still aced it. “Hayi. Her name was Hayi.”

Minghao waves a hand in the air. “She’ll grow impatient and jump out any time. I think we can relax.”

“Can’t fight your logic. I honestly have no idea where she is.” She mimics his position, resting her chin in between her knees, propped against her chest. “…Do you like these kinds of games?”

“I like figuring out the game. Not exactly the competition per se. I couldn’t care less about winning.” Minghao runs a hand through his hair, a smile playing on his features. “You know who is really competitive? Yihyun.”

At the mention of the short haired, tattoo-cladded engineer of the competition, she has to laugh. Internally or outwardly, she doesn’t quite recall what she did. “You’ve been placing an eye on Yihyun?”

The apples of his cheeks don’t tint in pink. Confident as a man can get. “She’s very smart. I’d like to get to know her better.” Then, his caramel eyes settle on her. “Which sounds mean considering I got called to a date with you, but we’re not…on that same page together, right?”

“No.” She smiles back at him, thankful for his honesty when she feels a piercing pain on the side of her waist. Only when she looks up does she realize that Hayi is pointing directly at her, though it doesn’t last long before Minghao’s reflexes work at the team’s favor and the paintballs plaster on Hayi’s clothes.

There’s a tooting horn from the far distance that indicates they have won, and she high fives Minghao at the time that the camera points at them. To anyone rooting for them, the smiles exchanged could mean something once Minghao clears his mind later on in the season, but she knows it then. She can find a friend in him, much like Seungkwan, but nothing else will ensue.

“Alright,” Minghao stands up then, opening the zipper of his overall and staring at the staff. “Can I go read my book now? I kind of don’t feel like continuing this date.”

She can’t say she feels different. Disappointment is familiar by now, because at this point, she’s starting to wonder if her soulmate really exists in this world or if The Soul Game just lied to her the entirety of her youth until this day.

###

“Boring. Boring. Boring. God, can it get any more boring?!”

Third week of recording, eighth episode in cue, and Mingyu doesn’t expect to slip into the living room on a Saturday afternoon to see her getting scolded by his boss. Minhee is not normally the most patient of people; she likes professionalism how she likes her coffee—made fast and scalding her tongue enough to awaken her. Reaching her thirties and wearing the show’s hoodie, Minhee crosses her arms across her chest when she frowns at contestant number seven.

“I’m sorry.” Her nails are being played with and unlike any other day while recording, she’s not wearing flowers. Whenever she’s not on screen, she’s cladded in grays. Like a second skin. He wonders if she tries being livelier for the show, or if the color is drained out of her after another disappointment.

He closes the door behind him and the noise alone has her staring up at him. Her eyelashes are starting to lose the density of her mascara after having been dolled up for a while, but those lips don’t lose the pretty pink shade that she smears on them. Mingyu’s lips quirk up in a smile, one of those tight-lipped that he tries to push down because his boss is there and technically, they are not allowed to hold any kind of friendship or relationship or even amicability with the contestants.

“Sorry won’t cut it.” Minhee adds, looking over her shoulder when Mingyu presses her cup of coffee to her side. She doesn’t even utter a small ‘thank you’. She thinks she deserves it, after all. “It’s episode eight and we don’t even have enough footage of you doing anything. You lounge around and make small talk and try to play nice when all my other contestants are putting their all into their shit.”

The contents of Mingyu’s stomach may have emptied by the punch he receives at those words. Sure, there are contestants that have gotten more camera-time. Jaehyun is one of them, who may have kissed the entire house in the first eight episodes of the season, and he has already paired himself up with Mai. There’s also Joshua and Julia, who have a thing going on that no one can comprehend.

And that face-shot Lisa managed to make by throwing coffee at Seungkwan during their fake argument in episode four? Legendary.

But she’s interesting to look at. At times, it feels like she’s the only one that truly believes in the app anymore. The only person that is not here for a reason other than love.

Mingyu doesn’t know how she does it. The Soul Game App is shit, at best.

“I—I kissed Jaehyun and went out on a date with Hao…” She tries to reason, lifting a finger in the air. “I’ve done more than Seungkwan, I don’t get—”

“That’s not your role. You’re not here to be the drama queen, like Seungkwan is.” Minhee opens her folder, showing the character boards that she had placed as silhouettes at the beginning of the show. “You are supposed to be the easy character that dates around. I don’t give two shits if you find your soulmate or not, but we hired you because you were, apparently, a charismatic and fun person and we’re not seeing that. I could record my grandma and she’d hook up with more people than—”

“Minhee.” Mingyu stops her, trying to ease the seething in his tone when the producer turns to look at him. “The point of this show is to find a soulmate. We’re not a partying show by any means. She wasn’t hired to get drunk or sleep around. That’s her business and her saying.”

“She needs to act, Mingyu.” Minhee reiterates. “Her script said she needed to kiss someone, and she did, I grant her that, but then…we were planning the love triangle with Minghao and she sent him straight into Yihyun’s arms.”

“And they are getting along just fine.” The woman being scolded says, tugging at the collar of her gray turtleneck and making sure her shirt in still inside her jeans.

“She can live the reality show just as she pleases.” If he recalls the contract properly, that’s what it says. “She was never told she had to fit certain character.”

Minhee spreads a hand in the air, as if deep in thought. “I’ll make something up on the spot, I guess.” She starts. “Your soulmate is here, but since you’re so slow in figuring out who it is, we’ll have the next episode being about you and Seungkwan having an accidental hook-up that makes everything awkward.”

That doesn’t make any sense. Mingyu would have laughed, if only the woman by the couch hadn’t stood up, hands in the air.

“I see Seungkwan as a friend. It won’t happen.”

“Well, he’s the only one who hasn’t had his plot-point either, and I need it to happen.” Minhee announces. “We’re eight episodes away and you haven’t dated four guys yet. Joshua, Seungkwan, Taehyung and Hoshi. The only one you truly talk to is Seungkwan so…”

“No one will believe that.” She argues, but Minhee is shrugging her shoulders.

“A peck. A bathtub scene. Whatever you decide to do with him on screen, it doesn’t matter, but make it believable. I pay you for that.” Minhee throws one look at Mingyu before tasting her coffee, scrunching her nose up and returning the mug to him. “This is decaffeinated. You want me to die or something? Geez.”

With that, the entrance door opens before Minhee is off to the front yard to scream at more members of the cast.

Silence drapes over them like a curtain of smoke. Mingyu’s hazy when she sits down again, biting on her bottom lip and fighting the moisture that accumulates on the brink of her eyes. Quickness comes short for what he does next, for he’s in front of her in the matter of seconds, kneeling down and hesitating if to rest his hands on her knees or not. It’s an up-and-down motion that she just stares at before his big palms are engulfing the denim on her knees, fractions of the folds in his hands meeting the bare skin that appears through the ripped portions of her jeans.

“You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with.” Mingyu says, but he’s interrupted by the first tear that glides down her face, throwing her head back to stop more of them from coming around.

“I don’t know why I try anymore.” She starts, and his heart pumps to the rhythm of her breaths. “It’s obvious I’m the one without a soulmate out of the bunch and I keep trying for no reason.”

Mingyu shakes his head, hesitating on reaching one hand forward before he’s using the sleeve of his hoodie to pat the tears away. That widens her eyes, and she’s looking back at him with a purse of her lips. In between a pout and a bite. He likes it.

“You know, I don’t believe in soulmates, but it’s clear that you do.” Long ago, Mingyu had heard the tale of the opportunity of knowing if the person you were with was your soulmate or not through The Soul Game, but he was only curious through high school. After that, he decided that the fun part of dating was not knowing where it was going to lead to. “…And if you truly think, in the depth of your soul, that the person you were looking for is somewhere around here, stay in the show. But, if you are only being miserable while recording, it’s better that you leave it as is. No matter if your soulmate is here or not.”

Her hand reaches up to his, a lonesome thumb running over the harshness of his knuckles before she sniffles. “I’m not sure.” But beneath her, there’s this bravery that no one can dig out of her. “But I want to find out.”

Mingyu’s lips plaster on a smile until he hears his name being called by Hyunjin, who’s struggling to open the door while carrying a box filled with equipment. He’s up his feet in the matter of seconds, not without forgetting to send a look over his shoulder.

That’s all they share.

Two smiles. A look over the shoulder.

And an imminent curiousness that they will never scratch.

### 

Ninth episode and it couldn’t get more boring. Prompted, it’d probably look somewhat suggestive to whoever is watching. She’s laying on her bedroom—the only space in the house that is miniscule enough so she’s left on her own—with Seungkwan by her side. He hasn’t stopped running his hands through his red hair, now playing with his bangs and looking at them as he counts every split end. She purses her lips, playing with the little ulcer that had grown on the back of her lip out of stress, before she sighs deeply.

“What if we pretend that we hold hands?” She questions, turning to the right to stare at his profile. He stops touching his hair, twinkling eyes grazing her features before he shakes his head.

“You really think the people watching will be happy that we’re just holding hands?”

“I mean, what do you want me to do?” She scoffs, sucking her cheeks in before quirking an eyebrow. “You’re cute, Seungkwan, but I reassure you that you don’t want to kiss me, and I think the feeling is mutual.”

Seungkwan mimics her position, a mess of blushed cheeks and a saddened pout on that pair of lips. Or rather, a disappointed one. “It’s pointless.” He says. “The two most romantic people in the entire house have not found who they actually click with.”

The strings of her heart should have not hurt. She pushes the covers upper on her body, trapping a sigh in a confine so tight between her neck and the cloth so that it doesn’t leave. As if, in some way, that stops her from feeling any less devastated.

Maybe, humans…we are just thirsty for what we see. In romantic comedies, in couples that found their supposed soulmates, in families that exchange laughter in late-night dinners. She seeks for it; for a love that will receive her at home and that was meant to be. So organized by the universe that there would never be a taint. Not a lie that dug deeply or a reason why leaving was necessary.

“It’s not pointless.” She reasons, and Seungkwan sits up at that, expanding his hands in the air.

“I’m starting to think the problem is me.” Seungkwan says, pressing a palm to his chest after. “Is it me that doesn’t fit anyone? Maybe, I’m the one without a soulmate.”

“You get along well with everyone.” Pointing it out comes easily. “That says enough about your character. I may be the one without a soulmate.”

Seungkwan toys with the sleeve of his shirt, before breathing out a small: “You really don’t want to fuck Jaehyun even the slightest bit? Come on, be honest, you have three braincells and some kind of horniness under all that.” He waves a finger in the air. “…Jaehyun is top tier.”

“Top tier fuckboy.”

“Joshua?”

“He already found his soulmate, I’m sure.”

“…Mhm, Taehyung?”

“Too pretty.”

“Damn,” Seungkwan coos, a whistle after. “You’re lonely for a reason, woman. How in the hell is someone too pretty to date?”

“You know how difficult it would be to wake up to that face every day? I would be too shocked to speak.” She jokes around and that earns sweet laughter from Seungkwan.

He leans back on the bed once again, propping a leg on top of her thigh and swiveling his toes under his sock. She pinches on the skin, earning a hiss from him. “What about the producer?”

“The producer?” The memory of the woman that had shouted at both of them for not having enough drama on their timelines in the show has her sucking in a breath. “What about her?”

“Not her.” Seungkwan mumbles, sparing one look at the camera just in case they were listening. “…The guy.”

“The guy?” Her face heats up, blinking a few times to understand.

“Mingyu.”

Drastic changes go through her body. An ice cube going down her spine. Sand accumulating on her throat and making her swallow thickly. She remembers nimble fingertips, stilled eyes that settled on her and somehow, had made the world seem less gray. It was glistening in gold, along with his smile and those speckles that rest in his irises as if the sun had kissed them before fleeting to the sky.

“Not a chance.” She spits out, toying with the edge of her shirt and blowing out a raspberry.

"For you or for him?" Seungkwan asks and that voice dulls inside her head.

“For both of us.” She responds, almost opening her mouth to say something else when a noise crashes the entrance door and makes both Seungkwan and herself jolt and sit straight.

She would have said that they are from different worlds. That she works as a website designer that shouldn’t have ended up in a show to begin with, granted that she’s not the most easygoing of people, but instead, she’s welcomed by a pair of fire-y eyes that widen upon falling on the flooring. Her feet bring her closer to the man sprawled on the tiles, his snapback resting on the floor, the strap of his tank top half through his milky skin when he rolls on his back and chuckles at his antics.

Hoshi, or Soonyoung, rather, is so blushed on his cheeks that he looks like a strawberry. His lips bloat enormously because of the alcohol on his system, and he extends a hand towards her face when he says:

“You’re not the bathroom.”

Trying to push a chuckle down, she wraps her hands behind his back. “Sit up, Hoshi.” She hasn’t talked to him enough to call him by his real name. “…You could throw up on yourself.”

Hoshi’s eyes squint at her when he asks: “How…did you know I wanted to throw up?”

“She has eyes.” Seungkwan announces from his spot, bringing two fingers to his nose and pinching on it. “I’ll get out before I smell something I shouldn’t.”

Overdosed in carefulness, she brings him with wavering steps, mouth babbling about in comfort. For some reason, while Hoshi has been going around the house living the time of his life, she doesn’t feel intimidated by him. “It’s a soulmate show. We are supposed to be able to walk at the end of the show, Hoshi.”

She opens the door to the bathroom with the help of her hips, feeling Hoshi’s hand contort against her shirt before he’s draping himself like a ragdoll in front of the toilet. His elbows quirk around the ceramic, his bleached blonde hair falling on his forehead.

He chuckles softly, in between a heave. “Nobody cares about the real me.”

Those words make her frown. Hoshi had shown to be one of the most outgoing members of the cast, and it surprises her to hear that. She closes the door, in case any of the cameras captured what he was saying, before sitting down next to him. Fingers carve through his hair, and she adds:

“I’m sure that’s not true—”

He opens his mouth, trying to throw up, but nothing comes up. Instead, he leans his head against his elbows. “…They like me being talkative and funny.” He mutters. “What will happen when the cloudy side of me shows? Will I still have a soulmate then?”

She thinks the exact same way. No one here had seen the tears that had draped down her cheeks like parts of her being. Her bones had shattered then, wondering if her yesterday will build a better future. And the future called her out with a weaving fingertip, but she can’t figure out if there’ll be heartbreak in what’s meant to be, too.

“…We can only hope.” Her voice caresses his skin in goosebumps. “That whoever loves us, soulmate or not, decides that the broken pieces of us are worth loving, too.”

That’s the moment Hoshi throws up, but even then, in his most atrocious of states, she feels something. A connection in her heart that has her patting his back and wondering if the heat in his skin, that electrification, comes from her desperate mind, the fact that he’s drunk…or because Hoshi’s skin is the perfect temperature to collide against her cold palms and freeze her in the spot.

She doesn’t figure it out that night, when she gives him a painkiller and lays him on Seungkwan’s bed, making sure that he’s on his side. Every now and then, Hoshi opens his eyes, babbling something about a nightmare, and she holds onto his hand from the side of the bed, telling him to go back to sleep.

It’s not a start. It’s humanity healing when knowing pain is not individual, but shared instead.

###

The account was created when he was fourteen.

At some point, when Mingyu had not grown into his body properly and his shoulders were too slim for his height, he had wondered. Not if he had a soulmate, but if the love he felt was good enough for it to connect him to someone forever. He was so young, barely a teen, when he had fallen for one of his friend’s cousins. Val, she was called, and Mingyu’s eyes would glisten at the mere appearance of her into the classroom, waving her long hair in a finger and curling onto her seat to shrink away from the teacher’s gaze so she wouldn’t get asked anything.

Neither Mingyu nor her answered any of the teacher’s questions in that entire unit.

He’d pack his backpack with flowers and toss them around her locker in hopes of making her smile. At first, she was confused, but after a while, Val’s brown hair would thread around the flowers and she’d braid them to keep them in place. He shared his meals with hers when she had forgotten. He shared songs—those that were too pop-filled for him right now, but at that moment, they had felt like they were meant for them. Written about two teens that danced around the truth.

Until he got the balls to ask her out. Mingyu physically cringes while laying on his bed, staring at the screen of his The Soul Game account. He tugs his hoodie over his head and pulls at the threads so it tightens, as if that will stop him from looking.

His mom had dragged him to another blind date and it was horrid. A kiss on her doorstep that had him wanting nothing else and he had left it there with a smile. Along with his heart. However, he is starting to wonder if he can view love the same way that a certain contestant does in the show from this stupid application.

Updating, he adds his date’s name: Lim Sana, into his profile.

NOTIFICATION! | KIM MINGYU WENT OUT ON A DATE WITH LIM SANA |

Soon after, the bubble turned red, exchanging Sana’s name for something else.

NOTIFICATION! | KIM MINGYU WENT OUT ON A DATE WITH LIM SANA. NOT A SOUL MATCH FOUND |

Surprising? Not really. If that had been his soulmate, he would have cried. Not because she wasn’t beautiful, everything about her was girl-next-door gorgeous, but it was not a great date. Boring, at best.

Maybe, he shouldn’t have been thinking about another woman on the first place.

His finger drags through the amount of women he updated into his account. Val. Sana. Lina. Oh, and Mina, how to forget that. Jeongyeon. Sarai. And plenty more.

Every single one in red.

None his soulmate.

However, a part of him aches to know if it’d ever turn green. For the first time in years, he had re-downloaded the application and had found some interest in how it worked. How did they find out who the soulmates were? What person had created such a thing, and how did they know?

It had to be fake. That much Mingyu knows.

However, upon three more episodes about to be recorded before the grand finale comes, Mingyu is on the edge of his seat. How would anyone know if they had met their soulmates?

He’s about to go crazy.

Shaking his head, he locks his phone and tosses it on the other side of the bed. Just because he had a bad date, he’s not going to start to believe on that bullshit. It’s not going to happen. Not today.

###

“I won’t be on the eleventh episode.”

Minhee gasps like she has heard the most atrocious pairing of words. Her eyes trail over her body; the lack of bikini and summer clothes bringing a hand up her chest to tug at her heart like she’s about to die. Instead of paying attention to her—or concentrate on the frown in her features—, she toys with the strap of her leather bag.

“You’ll kill me.” Minhee seethes, pulling down the hood of her sweater and pointing at the logo in the middle. “You’re here to find your soulmate and give me episodes. Not, literally, take a vacation.”

She’s been here for a while; she wants to tell Minhee. Every single hour, she has spent inside this house unless she has somewhere to go with the rest of the cast. She has followed after the script, tugged at the extensions in Mai’s hair—and apologized for it after, with a hug shared in between the two behind the scenes—and honestly? She’s tired.

“Joan, my stylist, is closer to popping her baby out than keeping it inside.” She crosses her arms across her chest, trying to portray a powerful stance. “I want to buy her some baby clothes and make sure that she has everything in case she goes into labor earlier than expected.”

Minhee shakes her head. “Find another stylist who isn’t about to pop in half.”

“Minhee.” Mingyu says, knees cracking when he stands up from his kneeling position as he watched the recently recorded video. Hoshi sits on the couch at the living room, sipping on a smoothie that smells like heaven in fruits and stares at the scenery like it is a film. “She doesn’t have anything important in her script to cover up. She can leave.”

Mingyu’s brown eyes shred her of every layer in her skin. If gazes could pierce through someone’s skin, it would be this one. Not in a way that made her feel uncomfortable, though. It’s almost like Mingyu can see through her; the control that it takes her not to leave this entire experience behind, the way that her fingers tighten once Minhee beings talking again. He sees her. Somehow, he does.

“You’re always covering her, Mingyu!” Minhee barks, pointing at finger at her. “She’s boring.”

“Then, get in a bikini and stand in front of everybody and flirt with someone in the cast.” Mingyu fights back, hovering above Minhee, eyebrows set lowly and making his eyes seem smaller.

“I won’t pay her for this.”

“I’m not expecting you to.” She conquers, moving in between Minhee and Mingyu. “Minhee, please.”

“Who the fuck is even her stylist?”

Hoshi extends his hands on top of his head, his shirt lifting up the slightest when he swings himself away from the couch. “I’ll cover up for her.” He adds, waving a hand in the air. “It won’t be difficult. I could even peck Seungkwan on the lips if that’s what it takes. She can be out of the episode.”

He’s a godsent, she thinks. Hoshi, even though she had not talked to him before, has been an angel the past few days. Serving breakfast for the two of them, putting on music that they both enjoy louder on the speakers, and now, he’s covering up for her. Minhee sighs deeply, putting her hood on again and shaking her head.

“Do whatever the fuck you want. I’ll start thinking about getting a boob job and becoming part of the cast next season so I don’t have to go through this shit again.”

Hoshi chuckles on the back of his hand, but just when Minhee is gone—not leaving without throwing a glance over her shoulder that throws daggers at Hoshi—, the air turns dense. She is thanking Hoshi in between heated cheeks and a shy smile when Mingyu stares in between the two of them before clearing his throat.

“Soonyoung, I’ll pay you back. I promise.”

“You don’t have to.” Hoshi places a hand on top of her shoulder. “…Or you could. My manager brought the Just Dance game with him and I want to use it for old time’s sakes.”

Hoshi has his own online dating show online, and it’s a bit of a paradox that he’s here. An influencer or an online presence? Of course, but he’s competing against himself while also building more of a fanbase with this. Nonetheless, she nods once, placing her own hand on top of his.

“Sure. You’ll have to see me kick your ass, then.”

He cackles. As in, full on laughter. “You wish. I’ll kick your pretty ass instead.”

Mingyu clears his throat again, pushing his lips together and making them pop. “…Did I skip an episode or…?”

That’s when she notices his full height. The beauty of him. How close she was to Hoshi. It’s that repulsing method that happens innocently when someone finds another person attractive. She wants to be seen as such; single, interested, available, so she lets go of Hoshi’s hand and smiles at Mingyu. A thankful smile, as well, but behind that, she’s screaming at herself.

Fuck, he’s the producer’s assistant! Minhee would cut her hair off if she dared go for the assistant instead of one of the contestants.

“Maybe a few.” Hoshi jokes around, throwing himself on the couch again and returning to his Instagram skimming. “I’ll have to think of what to do this episode, Gyu, but I promise it’ll be good.”

But Mingyu is not looking at Hoshi but at her instead. “You…” He trails, waving a finger towards Hoshi after. “H—Hoshi…?”

“Um,” How is she supposed to respond to that? That Hoshi feels weird in a way that she hasn’t experienced before, but that doesn’t deny the fact that she’s pretty much overly attracted to Mingyu? “I’ll get going, but I look forward to what you guys are going to do with this episode.”

One last nod and she moves towards the door, trying to keep her steps stable when her hands glide across the doorknob and she hears the sigh that escapes Mingyu’s lips.

…Even attraction is more complicated than love.

###

Wonwoo is sensational at keeping secrets. Jeonghan, however? He’d much rather have his tongue cut off than to keep a secret to himself. Gossip runs on his blood more than his mouth can run. And that’s a lot, to start with.

So, when he enters the editing room before the grand finale with an envelope in between his fingers—shaped in the form of a heart, drenched in the color pink—, sporting a smile as big as the universe itself, Mingyu had to take off his glasses and try not to sigh at the mere excitement that bounces around the place.

The couch is much too comfortable and midnight has downed upon them for him to stand up when Jeonghan closes the door behind him. He twirls the envelope in between his fingers as if the contents include the secret to eternal happiness, and for a while, neither Wonwoo nor Mingyu are interested.

“Guess what I have here?” Jeonghan prompts, and Wonwoo is the first tone to respond, a snap of his fingers following the tapping of his keyboard.

“Something you definitely shouldn’t have.”

“Bingo.” Jeonghan answers, taking a seat on Mingyu’s extended legs and making the taller man whine on the back of his throat. He pulls his calves away from the confines of Jeonghan’s warm thighs. The man plops on the couch and Mingyu has to fold his body for the two of them to fit in. “But be more specific. Any guesses, Mingyu?”

He tries not to be interested, but when he puts on his glasses again, he sees something he shouldn’t have. The logo of The Soul Game is plastered on the back of said envelope, shining in its neon stance. “Wait,” That’s when he sits up and Jeonghan’s smile grows wickedly bigger. “That’s from Minhee’s office.”

The air becomes crisp with intensity when Jeonghan runs a finger on the edge of the envelope, unfolding it in the blink of an eye. “As it turns out, Minhee had me print the soulmates and their matches before the grand finale and just as I was about to glue it closed, I thought to myself…” He stops for a second too long, and Mingyu is at the edge of his seat, broad shoulders shaking with each breath he takes. Anticipation clads him. “What if we make it a game? Who is ending up with who?”

Wonwoo turns around on his chair, interested but not showing it on his features when he taps his fingers against the armrest. “Julia and Joshua.” He points out, and Mingyu scoffs.

“That’s obvious.”

“Well, you should’ve said it, then.” Wonwoo conquers, not knowing quite well that Mingyu’s voice is at the edge because he remembers a smile that he hadn’t stopped thinking about. An anatomy that moves through this house as if she doesn’t own the air that surrounds her and she should apologize for it, but to him…for him…she owns the mere molecules that create the speckles of sunshine that fall on her eyelashes when she beams at the world.

“Mai and Jaehyun.” Jeonghan prompts, still not opening the envelope entirely. Soon after, he’s mentioning her name. “With Seungkwan, for sure.”

“You’re blind. They’re just friends.” Mingyu adds, scratching the bridge of his nose under his glasses.

“Mingyu’s right.” Wonwoo stands up to grab three cans of soda. What Mingyu would toss at Jeonghan’s way, Wonwoo gives right on the palm of his hand. Seconds pass by before Mingyu is downing a gulp far too quickly, making his stomach churn. “She’s ending up with Hoshi. I’m eighty percent sure.”

He shouldn’t mind the frightening feeling on the pit of his stomach, merging between disappointment for not trying and that curiousness that kills people. He has always been the kind to venture into stories that tainted his heart into the red mess that it is today. Broken hearts when being heartbroken, Mingyu knows how this kind of literature ends.

It’s always in nothing.

“One way to figure it out.” Jeonghan opens the envelope then, staring at the piece of paper he had printed before stucking a strand of his blonde hair behind his ear. “Taehyung with Dana. Mai with Jaehyun. Joshua and Julia. Yuna and Chaelin. Hoshi and…” Jeonghan trails, pointing at Wonwoo soon after as a cackle leaves his lips. “You were right! Oh my God, she has a soulmate!”

It’s fine, Mingyu wants to tell himself. He isn’t looking for a soulmate himself, and he knows his attraction and interest towards her shall remain as that only. However, there’s a bitter taste that accumulates inside his mouth as Jeonghan continues reading until there are fourteen members of the cast paired together, perhaps by a fucking computer or by life itself, and he can only imagine the laughs exchanged between her and Hoshi as they drank their coffees, with her feet propped on his lap and his hands molding her calves.

He can imagine the lingering conversations. The easygoing nature of Hoshi turning into a lukewarm tea-like exchange of words when she is around. He’ll shine the parts of her that want to speak up, while she’ll let him simmer down into the understanding of his persona.

They are balanced when together, while Mingyu is a babbling mess whenever she’s around.

“Seungkwan doesn’t have a soulmate.” Jeonghan puts the piece of paper back in the envelope, and Mingyu thinks about those words for a while. The poor guy had done his best to find his match and it was obvious that he hunted for them with all his might. To no avail. And now, obviously, Hoshi will come out victorious and Mingyu doesn’t even know why he’s jealous to start with.

But fuck, he is.

He is jealous.

Because if she didn’t have her soulmate in the cast, it’d be way easier.

“It’s obvious.” Wonwoo replies, voice deep. “He’s friends with everyone, but that’s about it.”

“Dang, I thought he really was dating—”

The idea comes to Mingyu full force when Jeonghan accidentally lets the can of soda fall on top of the envelope, staining the names and leaving them unreadable. The man gasps, cursing under his breath before taking the piece of paper in between his fingers.

“Shit. I had just printed that!”

He can type the list down quickly again and pair someone with Hoshi and Seungkwan that is not her, and it’ll be fine. She’ll be the one without a soulmate, and it won’t matter. It’s not like she and Hoshi have deepened into the veins of a love affair, and soulmates don’t really exist to start with.

“I’ll take care of it.” Mingyu excuses, sniffing softly before sending a smile towards Jeonghan that he hopes seems convincing. “Just…clean all this mess up before anyone sees it, okay?”

“Sure.”

Mingyu actually looks at Wonwoo, who is quirking an eyebrow at him. Kim Mingyu is not the synonym of a generous person when it comes to favors, but before Wonwoo could question him, he opts to let it slide by sprinting out of the room with the dampened list in between his fingers.

Yes, he may not be playing fair, but romance is overrated to be this structured matter sent by heaven or hell. Romance is what we make out of it; the gestures, the will to fight for it…a love so necessary that it’ll be worth fighting for.

So, with his back hunched and his fingers moving at a speed that he wouldn’t believe, he erases her name from next to Hoshi’s, so when it will get revealed tomorrow night…she’ll be a free woman.

And maybe, love is an unfair game, too.

###

Three hours before the recordings of the grand finale happen, she’s munching on a plate of spaghetti like her life depends on it. It might, honestly, because her stomach is dipping with each nervous breath she takes and even watching TV does nothing to calm down her nerves.

She has scrolled through Instagram. Texted all her friends. Even Joan, who is getting a foot massage at this very moment in her extremely pregnant state, had opted to give her some inspiration by putting on Single Ladies by Beyoncé on loop. It’s doing nothing more than stress her out as she tries her best not to move her arms to the beat, chewing quickly onto sauce-coated pasta.

Who the fuck will she choose?

It should be easier. As it was sold by the rumors going around those who had found the loves of their lives, it was an instant click. Way different from instantaneous attraction, but subtle enough that it felt like peace and not a truck going over her heart and stomach, down to the tips of her toes. She hadn’t felt that, and neither does she as she stares at the silhouettes displayed in the cards that she had grabbed at the beginning of the season. Connections? Plenty, but none of them felt like peace and intrigue at the same time.

Palm trees whisk the air like a skirt on someone’s legs, the hammock in which she’s seated on dizzying her. Maybe, she shouldn’t be eating while in the threaded fabric, but the nervousness that follows after her is not letting her think normally. Bright green and pink walls surround her, cocooned in a place in which no one will find her.

What if she chose someone and they said no?

What if whom she chose was not her soulmate?

What if she did not have a soulmate at all?

Before she could further question herself, she hears someone slip in the same spot next to the pool that she’s in. The knitted chair in front of her creaks under the weight of someone’s body. One look up and she sees Mingyu, his dark hair curling into a comma with the wind, the hoodie that he had sported all these weeks forgotten and exchanged for a black tank top and a pair of baggy jeans. Every line of his muscles is delicious to look at, enough to make her bring a hand up her lips just to check if there’s sauce in the corners of her lips.

Instead of telling her something about the show directly, Mingyu starts by saying: “All the time I’ve known you…or tried to get to know you, actually, I kept wondering what you find so interesting about soulmates and love.” Mingyu asks, threading his hands behind his head and interlocking them on those locks of hair she’d roam with her fingers as if she was a sailor searching for a treasure in the ocean.

Putting the half-empty spaghetti plate on the knitted and curved coffee table, she licks on her bottom lip, toying with it for a second before the answer comes to her head. “All I’ve known is love that breaks and when I watch it work, I think it’s a magical force of the universe making it happen.” She shrugs. “Think about it, how many people actually work in a relationship? As humans, we’re meant to not get along well.”

“You think so?” Mingyu prompts, a smile appearing on the corners of his mouth.

“Wars happened for a reason.” She completes and he nods once, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, brown eyes a magnetic force that pulls her in when paired with the charismatic tone of his voice. That lisp, meant to capture anyone who ever dares to listen to him.

“I digress.”

She sips on her glass of water. “You do?”

“I think people who want to be together make it work.” Mingyu responds, shrugging. “Because a hundred things can make you different from the person you choose to spend time with, but that can be an interesting thing. That may make you want to try more, because you like them enough to stay and accept them as they are.”

Her heart goes a mile per minute when she hears him speak, and she lets the coldness that perspires from the glass caress her skin and shrill her from the peripheral of her body to the center. “Ever gone through that?”

Mingyu shakes his head. “That’s what I find interesting about you.” He complies. “I don’t think it’s old school, but it’s a magical thing that you believe in. As if love falls on your lap and it’s meant to be understood in the blink of an eye.”

She hums, shaking her head when she leans back on her seat and toys with the threads of her shorts. “I’ve come to learn it’s not as easy.”

“It isn’t.” Mingyu agrees.

“Is love hard for you?”

“Hard to acquire, even harder to make it stay.” His words play the lullaby of society’s cynic traits, and she’s fooled for a while to believe in those gleaming eyes. To be interested, even. “…But isn’t that the fun? The strategy, the logic, the fall-outs and the fooling. It’s what makes people so interested on it. How we approach it and how we manage to try again after.”

With the clouds of white sprawled on the pool and reflecting on Mingyu’s skin, she almost thinks that he’s that kind of uncertainty she wants to figure out. Love is not supposed to be a conceptualized matter to be found in books or in the normative of what we know. However, this could be attraction, mixed with a skip of the heart and a return of his smile that has her chuckling with him soon after.

“Way to downgrade what this entire reality stands for.”

“I just wanted to talk to you about it, I guess.” Mingyu stands up then, the breeze dusting the top of his nose in a rose tone that is almost addicting. More beauty added to art. “You can pick who feels right, but if you’re wrong or right is up to you. To what your heart tells you, I guess.”

Her heart has fallen silent at this point. She listens to Mingyu’s breathing and the authority that the wind pulls on them by dragging them closer together in such a cramped space. His clothes cling to him and hers do to her, too, but each layer seems to be shredded under what hasn’t been said and what can be discovered.

She doesn’t want to choose anybody from the cast, but she has to.

Love is not supposed to be found it. It’s supposed to be given. Organized by matters that know better, not her.

“I got too deep, didn’t I?”

She nods, but she grins at him. “I like this side of you.”  She retorts. “Shows you’re not just a pretty face.”

Mingyu looks towards the pool, blurring the words with the ambience around them. “Anytime you want to see what’s past what you see, I’ll be ready to show it to you.”

Driven into uncertainty, Mingyu does not disappear without leaving her with a mess of thoughts and questions. His body dips with such immaculateness that she stays in awe when his warmth engulfs her, his big hand spreading on her forearm, scalding her skin when his lips part on her cheek to leave the imprints of every fold of the pink flower that is his mouth.

With that, he drags his hand down her arm, nails clinking against hers for a second before he says his goodbye and dooms her with the memory of his back and a question inside her head.

Why can’t he be her soulmate instead?

###

“You were robbed!”

Joan’s indignation makes her laugh, stacking up the children’s books that her friend had just read to the grain of rice that she dares call a baby. Nature had brought something so small into the world, in between pushes of pain from her mother and a lot of carefulness to have the little boy into the room. Even so, he lays comfortably on his mother’s chest, breastfed into a happy oblivion as Joan speaks about what happened in the grand finale.

The staff had given her a glimpse of the edited version of the season and Joan had just finished it, for she had opted not to be told anything as she watched what she had missed of the season. It’d be an understatement to say that she was surprised.

“Soonyoung literally gave you a foot massage. That’s, like, something you do when you’re super into someone.” Joan stops for a second, patting the little hairs on her little boy’s head. “Junho doesn’t do that for me, and we’ve been married for years.”

“And he’s your soulmate, worst of all.” She leans her back against the wall, crossing her arms across her chest and sighing deeply. Her eyes can’t look away from the child on Joan’s hands, but she continues the conversation.

“You didn’t pick anybody, though. Not even that hot piece of butt that slow-danced into your heart.” She chuckles at Joan’s words, shaking her head as if asking her to stop, but she doesn’t. “…Why? I literally thought you were so going to go for him, and you said no to Soonyoung. Soonyoung. Hoshi, my girl. He’s like the perfect balance between sexy and cute and just a really nice boyfriend.”

“I didn’t have a soulmate.”

“That—Okay, you could have had a boyfriend. You could have gotten…” Before she could go down the road of speech that she knew she’d take up, Joan breathes in and exchanges her words for something kid-appropriate. “A good relationship and what comes with having a nice connection with a guy, if you know what I’m saying.”

She quirks an eyebrow, jotting a thumb towards her phone on the table with the diapers. “Want me to get Soonyoung’s number for you?”

Joan rolls her eyes. “You get me. You’re not utterly heartbroken or…even remotely devastated that it has been stipulated, by The Soul Game, by the way, that you’re…soulmate-less.”

At first, she was devastated. Internalizing what she had to do on the grand finale was one thing, but having confirmed that she didn’t have a soulmate was a difficult thing to go through. Soonyoung had chosen her as his soulmate, too, but the answer was wronged from the beginning. Maybe, they just got along really well, personalities that matched and clashed in ways that the universe had no deal with.

But one week later, she has healed. Started working on a new database for a website she needs to take part of, and life is great. With a few glances here and there, given that the news of The Soul Game’s new season had dropped out, and it will be released in four months from now. Other than that, her life has been…normal.

Or as normal as it can be when having thoughts about Kim Mingyu.

Yesterday morning, she had woken up with chills growing from her legs up to her arms, sweat pooling at her chest and her lips heaving when he had decided to visit her in her dreams. In that figure of images that never really happened, Mingyu pressed his lips to hers instead to her cheek and it was a clash of everything she had desired. A hand had curled around her ribcage, pressing her chest to his and molding her waist to his command. Her thigh had caressed in between his as their lips parted and that hammock became the ground that welcomed the attraction and sighs of his name that left her lips.

It was rough, and for some reason, it felt liberating when knowing she did not have a soulmate.

“…What would you say if…?” She lets her voice trail, clearing her throat after. “Or rather, let me change the question. Opinion on Kim Mingyu.”

“The assistant guy?” Joan asks and when she nods, her best friend’s smile widens. “If you get to tap that, I’m definitely giving you an award. You’d become the real MVP of the female population.”

She chuckles, pushing herself forward on the wall before scratching the back of her head. “I’m torn between sending him a text or not.” She shrugs. “…If I don’t have a soulmate, might as well date around while I can, right?”

“Oh girl, you’re nasty.” Joan jokes around, covering her chest when she stops feeding her son and then, she gives him a few taps on the back. Careful as she can be. “…But please, be that nasty with that guy and put him in his place because he’s eye-candy taken to the biggest potential.”

The big hypothesis of what is going to happen is that she has no idea, but it’s a nice feeling when Joan asks her to leave the room to have her son sleep and she takes her phone out of her pocket. She had the numbers of most of the staff, but she got Mingyu’s when he had given it to everyone in the cast in case that they wanted to ask anything.

No one did, but she’ll be the first, then.

A brief greeting should be enough, but upon sending it, she thought she’d feel like a trainwreck…instead, she’s welcomed by a nice sense of comfortableness. This could go terribly wrong, completely ignored or just right.

And that’s just how life is.

###

Two weeks of texting lead to where Mingyu is right now. In some jazz bar, with music that sounds much too repetitive but that she seems to enjoy. A glass of wine ends up in between his lips, moistening up and trying not to blush at the mere image of the pretty red dress cladding her curves. If his mind would have told him that he’d ever feel his heart leaping out of his chest like this, he would have said it was a lie.

He toys with the collar of his shirt, looking over his shoulder to see if the AC is still on. By the way heat pools at his nape, he would have guessed that it was a hundred degrees here, but maybe, it’s just nervousness. For the first time in his life, Mingyu is so nervous on a date that his hands are clammy and he has to clasp them together and fake a smile when she asks him more about his interests.

“Well,” Mingyu tilts his head to the side, leaning back on his seat and undoing one button from his shirt. That leads her gaze to his chest, her eyes dancing with a shimmer to it that he enjoys a little too much. Trancing her becomes his grandest hobby then. “Wonwoo, Jeonghan and I had this dream. Us three, we thought we’d be the trio of Hollywood, almost. Wonwoo, the mastermind behind scripts; me as the actor, Jeonghan as the director.”

She pushes her chin into her palm, quirking an eyebrow. “I would have never guessed you’d want to start in a movie.”

“Oh, my mom has lots of videos of me acting.” Mingyu confesses, looking down at his drink and letting his gaze trail towards the people dancing together. It’s different from what he sees in clubs, people jumping on their feet and adding a waltz to their steps that he has tried hard to comprehend. If only his mind wasn’t on her, maybe he could have nailed it. “There was this one time that I legitimately tried to be Peter Pan and I launched myself off the couch to fly.” In between quotations, he adds. “You can imagine how that turned out.”

She chuckles behind her hand, leaning forward and scanning his face. “You don’t have a single scar from that?”

“Mentally, maybe.” Mingyu conquers before leaning forward, too. “So, at the end, I ventured into the behind-the-stage side of film in college and Wonwoo became a pro in editing. Jeonghan is good at recording, so when we applied for The Soul Game, we were set.”

“You got in at the same time?”

“Yes.” He nods. “It’s just unfortunate how things turned out for us. I went from wanting to be in front of the camera to me repulsing it entirely.” Perhaps, it’s the shape in which life turned out. He had tried to change it plenty of times, but it is not as easy. Destiny isn’t always happily fulfilled, but he has a job that he likes, which is more than what he could ask for.

“At first, like, when I saw you first, I really thought you were part of the cast.” She says, washing her mouth with a bit more of wine. He wonders if the dizziness in her gaze when looking at him is the intention of getting under his skin in the best kind of way or just the wine acting up. “You have the face.”

“You make an awful lot of comments about my face, don’t you?”

“It’s a pretty face.” She adds as if it’s nothing. “I can look elsewhere if you want me to. I’m sure I’ll find a pretty man around here.” Her chin turns to the side and she, too, looks at the people dancing. This is his cue to jut his hand forward, grasping her chin and bringing her gaze back to his.

“I never said I didn’t like it.” Mingyu whispers, mind, soul and body placed on the way her lips part and how she flutters those eyelashes as if telling him that he just said the right words. “…It makes me a bit shy, I guess, that you’re always telling me and I never tell you anything.”

“You don’t have to do it,” Innocently, she adds. “I compliment you because I mean it.”

“Who said I wouldn’t mean it?” For some reason, those words feel like they mean more than they should, and he clears his throat before letting go of her chin to grasp her hand in his. “What if I told you as we danced?”

“I thought you said you didn’t dance jazz.”

“I don’t get it.” Mingyu’s honesty is his best quality when he takes her by the waist and pushes their abdomens together, foreheads almost pressed together as he lets the dim golden lights bathe them, clashing with the orange on the walls. “But I know how to slow dance, so at least, I can give you the experience.”

She chuckles, leaning her forehead against his shoulder momentarily before looking up at him. “So, anything to say as the dance swings your mind?”

“…You have really pretty lips.” Mingyu responds, and he tries his hardest not to let his thumb graze her bottom one. “I half wondered how lucky Jaehyun was that you decided to kiss him.”

“It was scripted.” She corrects, pushing her lips together as if begging him not to look there. Trying to hide, she is, but he doesn’t let her.

“You have an awfully pretty mind, too.” Those words feel natural to let out of his lips. “You’re smart in ways that people wouldn’t notice. Your way of words and the way you handle yourself. How you changed the script to be cohesive even when you weren’t entirely into what you were bound to do. I don’t know if you’re super witty or just a great actress.”

“I should say that about you.” She adds. “You see the world for what it is, Mingyu.”

“And what’s pretty about that?”

“That you don’t get heartbroken when bad things happen.” Though, he shakes his head, dismissing what she said with a brief deep timbre.

“It still hurts, and I hate that it hurts in a way that makes me bitter.” He starts. “Because when you go into it blindly, you can say that you enjoyed it or that you had no idea that it’d end badly. Instead, I spend every single minute wondering what could go wrong and it’s horrible. I didn’t enjoy it along the way, you get what I’m saying?”

“I wouldn’t take you for the worrying kind.” She answers, leaning her forehead against his and letting him breathe in her scent. Hypnotizing.

His fingers curl against her waist. “Maybe, I need help clearing my mind.”

“You do?” She questions, parting those ungodly lips.

“I fucking do.” Mingyu breathes out, and just when he was going to ravish her lips like it’d be the last meal he’d ever try, an old man takes her by the hand and swings her around to dance with her.

He’s about to complain, but she’s laughing at the old man in the matter of seconds.

“Theo! I didn’t know you were here!”

“Would never miss a Saturday in my favorite place, much less with my favorite lady.”

He was just stopped by an eighty-year-old man and somehow, when he sees the smile on her features, he can’t say that he’s not willing to try again.

Maybe, later on his date. Perhaps, another day.

For now, he’ll have to finish that glass of wine that she didn’t.

###

Mingyu likes his smoothies so sweet that they’d give headaches to anyone who tried them.

He had picked her up after her job hours were over and he had insisted on taking her to this smoothie place that he has gone to since his college days. The nostalgia was clear on his face when he spoke to one worker that hadn’t been there before. As he said, he was used to the same thirty-something woman that had attended him back then, but the guy had managed to get his order just right. With too much passion fruit and chocolate for it to be a little weird.

The wind is so strong that it becomes a trumpet against her eardrums. Kind of shrilling, if she’s being honest, and no matter how accompanied she is in this park where older people are taking on their nightly walks and younger ones are skating until their feet hurt, the only person that manages to calm her down is no other than Kim Mingyu. There, standing by her side with his brain frozen for the umpteenth time since they started walking, and the contrast is beautiful in its own way.

“Can I have some?” She asks, peering over her shoulders and wondering how in the world she feels such at ease. Her heart doesn’t weight, neither does her stomach move around when Mingyu plops the straw out of his mouth and nods, granting it to her without letting go of the plastic cup, that pink straw going in between her lips to match the sunset draping around them. “Mingyu, this is diabetes-inducing, for sure.” 

“I like my smoothies as sweet as me.” Mingyu jokes around, ironically winking at her in a very exaggerated manner and almost making her choke with the little bit of passion fruit left in her mouth.

“That was cheesy.”

“Is that a pun?” Mingyu jokes around, only to have her sighing deeply.

“I’ll leave you here, Kim Mingyu.”

“Here where?” His mind doesn’t click with her words before she’s sprinting off to the horizon, turning around and running backwards as that wind, the same wind that scares her, plays with her hair and rids her of the judgement of being free. The universe doesn’t decide if she’s happy, but she does that day—because she wants to.

“Whoever gets to the car last is a big poopy diaper!”

“Are you five?!” Mingyu screams, rushing after her with a cackle escaping those sweet lips before he’s passing by her, flying like thunder through the sky and alerting her when tapping the side of her waist when passing by her. “You big poopy diaper!”

“You cheated, Mingyu!”

“I totally didn’t!”

She shouldn’t feel this lightweight, with a heart that barely palpitates inside her ribcage, not weighting an ounce or dragging her down. Perhaps, this is what people were talking about when they said that love was supposed to feel like the start of a day that none of the pair wanted to end.

Real love, that is.

But it’s too soon to think about that when Mingyu rests his back against the front of his car, his taut and strong arms caged over his chest before he unleashes them from their confines to wrap them around her and place a small kiss on the top of her head as he coos.

“You’re a big loser, but I’ll buy you another smoothie to make up for it.”

“How about a burger?” She retorts, a pout on her features that has Mingyu pulling away from her the slightest to drink the last bit of his smoothie and then, get his car keys out of his pocket.

“We’ll get you a burger, then.”

###

Three in the morning, the light of her phone washes over  her face when she unlocks it to stare at the message Mingyu had sent.

Mingyu: had a dream that u fell down a set of stairs.

Mingyu: are you okay?

She should be angry, for she had been working in front of her computer screen for far too long to get the preparation of a website just right, but given that she does have a set of stairs that lead to her apartment, a smile takes over her features. Someone cared enough to text her at three in the morning just to check if she had not fallen down the well of stairs after the date they shared early in afternoon.

While she is smiling, she still responds.

Messenger: i was sleep u bum.

Messenger: asleep*

Mingyu: you can’t even type, are you sure you didn’t hit your head with the stairs?

Mingyu: or are you like that by nature?

She can’t help but roll her eyes at the winking emoji that comes after that.

Messenger: i’ll head to sleep. dream pretty things about me instead.

Mingyu: you want to be in my dreams, don’t you?

Messenger: kim mingyu, i’ll haunt you with a butter knife in your dreams instead if you don’t head back to sleep. come on.

That night, she dreams about him.

###

Getting more cliché than this, it can’t be. The night falls like a blues around her, the sound of its white noise blurred by Mingyu’s TV screen as the shadows consume them. His blankets are propped under her chin, her cheek squished against his bicep—that must hurt by now—as the horror movie leaves its tiresome music in the background and manages to scare her one more time. Worst part? It’s that she laughs after, while Mingyu is tethering on the edge of turning Netflix off altogether.

Comfortable would be short for what it is to have his legs intertwined with hers as if his anatomy belonged to her and her only. Just when the night gets a bit too crisp does Mingyu notice that he had left the balcony door open. She enjoys it—his apartment, that is. It’s such a manly yet somewhat Mingyu-ish place. He hangs posters of his favorite movies in the living room, and his favorite toy from when he was a kid hangs from his closet. His vanity is filled with cameras that he says never go unused, and that he’ll show her the pictures he has taken over his lifetime to her one time.

One time sounds like a promise.

So, when Mingyu stands up, his sweatpants hanging low and showing a glimpse of his boxers, she can’t help but grow in love with the familiarity. With the hang of his clothes on his broad shoulders, or the way he pushes his bangs away from his forehead as he seethes that he has to get a haircut. Her body moves to its will to travel through the endless paths of her mind months into a burning pit of romance that never reaches quite what she wants.

Mingyu’s waist becomes her north, the center of her destination in a tourist trip that she would have never expected, with a shiver going up and down his spine and straightening him. The wind is no longer moving his hair, though it remains a tousled mess of black with the speckles of the shimmer her makeup left on it when she had cuddled him earlier. It’s when he turns around that she realizes not kissing him at that moment…not kissing him before…waiting for the romance to simmer or for it to feel different was the worst mistake she could have ever made, because in this tranquility that he brings, she aches for him more.

“What’s up?” His hand trails down her head to pat her hair into place and almost, just almost, he moves to the bed to pause the movie they were watching. Instead, she clings onto his clothing, fluttering her eyelashes in the way she knows he enjoys the most before she sighs deeply.

“If I don’t kiss you right now…” She whispers. “I may actually lose the will to do it, and I want to know if I’m crazy or if it’s okay—”

Mingyu doesn’t give her time to explain herself any further, hooking a leg in between hers and holding her cheeks in between his palms, connecting his mouth in a way that dizzies her. Mingyu puts his all in the kiss, starting with a press of his lips that she is familiar with when caressing her skin like her forehead or her cheek that night when recording for The Soul Game.

His tongue intertwines with her and it touches the spot that has her seeing stars just when her digits touch the warm skin of his biceps and she tugs him closer, a grunt coming from the back of his mouth and telling, though silently, that he’s hers. The night seems endless at that moment, with the smoke of his gasps hypnotizing the roof of her mouth and giving a taste that she is not sure she’ll ever erase from her mouth.

He's too sweet, just like what he drinks, and for the first time in a while, her heart doesn’t patter with the uncertainty of what may come. She’s excited, letting his hands trail down to the edge of her shirt and tugging it up just as his lips go down momentarily to her neck before he’s drawn to her lips once again.

Mingyu takes it all with just one touch of his lips and she grants him gladly, because this is what a soulmate should feel like and even if he isn’t by some stupid app, he is in her heart.

In her heart, Mingyu is all.

He’s all she could have ever gotten.

### 

The world turns onto its axis five months later, when scrolling through Twitter in her lunchbreak—which she shouldn’t have been doing, on the first place—and just when she had thought the image of The Soul Game had left the picture of what her life was, just a dot of whom she used to be before she realized that she could be whoever the hell she wanted.

She shouldn’t have looked through the supposed leaked pictures of the vacation the cast spent together, but this user had said that he was part of The Soul Game’s creating team, as in the app and not the show, and he digressed with how the show ended.

Hence, he leaked the real database from The Soul Game, and her name was not left alone.

She was alongside Hoshi.

She should have let it slide, because the last few months with Mingyu haven’t been good. They have been the best in her entire life. She feels accepted, flourished into the kind of person that she should have always been, worshipped and loved in ways that she would have never imagined. And loving someone with all the might and will and fight in the world is just as beautiful, because Mingyu said so, and he was learning, so was she.

So, she shouldn’t have opened that app, much less jot down Mingyu’s name to see that, indeed, it turned red.

He wasn’t her soulmate.

But the option to be in a serious relationship still let her update whom she had gone out on dates with, and it may be a lie, but it’s what she had to do to check. Her fingers hover before she writes down Soonyoung’s full name, then selecting the option of ‘first date’ and soon after, the app turns green.

Confetti blossoms from the sides, congratulating her for meeting her soulmate, and then, something clicks within her.

Someone had changed the pairs. Seungkwan didn’t meet his soulmate, neither did Soonyoung because of—

Her heart palpitates far too quickly when she grabs her phone and dials the first number she sees, walking through the seas of coworkers to get to the bathroom while also throwing the door behind her. It smacks loudly by the time Mingyu picks up, chatter heard behind his voice.

“I’m in the middle of recording, babe, what do you—?”

“You changed the pairings, Mingyu. I was told I didn’t have a soulmate and now the real pairings have leaked and it isn’t true.” Her reflection, filled with anger, stares back at her in the mirror when she presses her lips together. Mingyu stays silent. “Jeonghan couldn’t have done it, neither do I think that Wonwoo would go that far, because the only person that had any sort of interest with me not meeting my soulmate would be you—”

“Is it really that important?” Mingyu utters, chatter dying down when she hears a door closing on his end of the call. “Shit, I thought we were happy.”

“Don’t play that card with me.”

“Yes, I will play that fucking card.” Mingyu counterparts. “You can go with Hoshi if that’s what your soul is telling you, but my soul was telling me that I wanted to try having something with you. I felt different with you, and I didn’t give two shits that I had a soulmate out there or what a fucking app that knows nothing about me or how I’ve grown up to be says. So yes, I lied. Yes, I changed the pairings. Yes, Seungkwan has a soulmate but maybe, he will grow up from this.”

“You’re no one to decide—”

“I didn’t decide for you.” Mingyu finalizes, voice curt, and it takes all in her not to cry. How can she feel at ease when the person she loves the most had lied to her? “You could have gone with Hoshi if that’s what your heart called out for. The show let you pair yourself up with someone regardless of soulmate-ship or not. He proposed to try it out with you and you said no.” He pauses. “Does it change things for you now? Do I suddenly not mean the same to you because your soulmate is out there, closer than you think?”

“Mingyu, it is not about a soulmate.” She fights back. “You made a decision and didn’t even decide to tell me. It mattered to me. It doesn’t mean I was going to date Hoshi, but I wanted to know if what I believed in was real.”

“You know what’s real? Or what I thought was real, I mean.” Mingyu breathes out, a harsh grunt coming after. “Us. Me waking up every morning and feeling happy of being in a relationship for once. You, I don’t fucking know, living your life for a second with the choices you made and not wondering if you are with the one. Because I think we both know that we can be each other’s ‘the one’.”

She wants to tell him that’s the truth, for there has not been a story as beautiful as the one she had written for herself. For the love they watered and let show in the form of a flower. Instead, she remains silent. Hurt from the dishonesty, or perhaps clashing with whom she used to be. For we don’t change, we evolve.

“…When you realize if you want me or not, you can call me.” With that, Mingyu hangs up.

### 

“…I can’t believe you really did that for a woman.”

Jeonghan is starting to get annoying, and his laughter, too, but he had been nice enough to drop by his apartment with some videogames and pizza for Mingyu to kick him out. His head leans back on his couch, staring at the screen as he loses another match for Mortal Kombat and truthfully, he wants to win against Jeonghan, but his mind is anywhere but in the game at that moment.

“For someone I really liked.” Mingyu corrects and Jeonghan pauses the game.

“Liked? You’re whipped for her. From the moment she was around in that bikini, you were probably salivating and watering the plants in that fucking beach house.” Jeonghan counterparts, picking up his bottle of beer and sucking on it. “…How long have you declined her calls by now?”

“Three days.” And a few hours, but Mingyu doesn’t want to say that he has been counting. He tosses his head back, sighing deeply. Today, the night is not crisp. The rain shatters like ice against the windows and then, he remembers that he had left his balcony doors open. “Which doesn’t matter. I’m sure she’s just feeling guilty but I’m giving her the time to think and go back to Hoshi.”

“…Like a pussy.” Jeonghan completes for him. “She wants you back and you’re pushing her away.”

“She cares about soulmates more than she cares about me.”

“Then, why is she calling you?”

“To break up?” Mingyu is moving towards his bedroom as he says this, trying not to replace his frown with the saddened look that has overtaken his mirror the past three days. Truth be told, he’s scared. Scared that she’s going to go to Hoshi’s arms and he’ll have to be on the first row to see the woman he loves just flee away.

Instead, he concentrates on fixing the ball of sheets he had left on his bed, for he had not had the mind to organize them. He fights against the chilling wind when he goes over to the balcony, but just when he’s about to close the doors, he hears his name being called.

“Good Lord, you finally showed up!” The wavering notions on her voice have him getting out to the balcony, not caring if the rain patters against his chest or that his hair glues itself to his forehead. She’s drenched from head to toe, holding a hoodie in between her fingers, now bunched up because of the rain. “I—I wanted to get in, but I didn’t know if you’d open up so…I—I waited here.”

“Are you crazy?!” Mingyu asks, eyes widened. “You’ll catch a cold!”

“It doesn’t matter. You weren’t talking to me and I needed to be noticed!” For the first time in their entire relationship, his heart aches. In the worst kind of way. She lifts the hoodie up in the air at that moment, black as coffee yet dropping water droplets at her feet. “You recognize this?”

“All I see is a black ball.” Mingyu adds and he swears he sees her teeth shaking and clashing against each other.

“It’s the hoodie you gave me on the first day at the reality.” He doesn’t recall that all too well. He was on a rush and he had seen someone shivering, so he had tossed his hoodie—one of too many—towards that person. He hadn’t realized it was her. “I was crushing so badly on you that I kept it because it smelled like you, and it was dumb and stupid and honestly childish and maybe borderline creepy, but I kept it, because part of me wished you were part of the show so I could pick you.” She adds. “But I picked you, show or not, soulmate or not, because from the moment I saw you, Mingyu, I knew I’d only be able to love you with the peace that you deserved to be loved with.”

Mingyu’s fingers contract against the railing, parting his lips in an ‘o’ at her words.

“So yes, I felt betrayed but that’s because you lied. I don’t want you to lie to get yourself into my life, Mingyu, because I pick you with your highs and lows, your truths and please, not your lies.” That steals a smile away from him, and she has to wave the hoodie in the air to get his attention. “Now, could you please open that goddamned door and let me take a shower? My ass is freezing.”

Mingyu had never moved so fast, and maybe that’s what love is, choosing to open the door for someone even if it’s uncertain. Perhaps, this will last a lifetime or another day, but it’ll be a memory he won’t regret nonetheless.

[acklesangel97]

So I’m aroace but I love trashy reality dating type shows (eg. married at first sight Australia (the au version is the best, no arguments), are you the one?, love is blind, the ultimatum, too hot to handle). I love the drama and shouting at the tv and acting like I know things about relationships. And I think I’ve figured out why. I think i feel kinda like a scientist and I’m fascinated with these shows like they’re experiments. Like “so this is how the allos think and act? Fascinating🤔”. Like I understand none of it but I live for it. Also, a lot of the time I feel like I know better than a lot of these people and idk if it’s cos I’m unbiased and can offer an outsider pov or cos I just feel that a lot of it is basic shit and I just don’t get how these people aren’t getting it. Or maybe I’ve read too many fanfics. But yeah, my overall thought when watching these shows is “wtf is wrong with these people?!”

[bentforkent]

earth-shattering, red roses

penelope garcia x gender neutral!reader

a/n: here is my very hesitant, very obscure, and very late submission for @veraiconcos​ fic challenge. is there a market for penelope x reader fics? dunno, but there should be. penelope rights. 

tagging sweet @gaystevie​ 

content warnings: none - this is half fluff, half angst :) 

word count: 1842

in which you’re penelope’s online friend and she develops a crush on you. 

“and then i just,” penelope pauses to hold up a pair of campy earrings to the camera, “pick out some earrings, and i’m good to go!” after putting the jewelry on, she turns her face to model. her hair is pulled back into a bun, adorned with some fluffy hot pink hair accessory. 

“looks cute, pen,” you muse, watching her pose on your tiny phone screen. penelope looks at you with a wide smile. there’s a piece of your hair sticking up and out of place, and she desperately wants to reach out and smooth it out. her thumb twitches.

 “alright my sweet soulmate,” she starts with a smile. you know what’s coming.  “it’s time for me to head to work.” 

you pout at her pixelated face. “already?”

“unfortunately, dear,” she says, but despite feeling reluctant to hang up, her words come out as cheery as ever. 

“alright, penny. have fun at work,” you say, and as soon as she acknowledges your farewell and offers her own, the screen goes black with nothing but a tri-tone to signal the end of the call. 

 you and penelope met seven months ago on some new, groundbreaking virtual world game. penelope’s character was a fairy, with wings that glowed so much she had to have paid extra to have them. (she hadn’t. she just hacked into the fairly new and easy-to-bypass code and given her character the virtual wardrobe of her dreams.) she made a point to keep true to herself, even through her tiny computer alter-ego.

 the two of you often floated in the same circles as you played the game. you were funny, always typing something witty into the chat, and she quickly found herself very fond of you. she let her fingers hover over her keyboard before typing out her first message to you. after the whole “fisher king” fiasco, she respectfully refrained from contacting people on the internet, resigning herself to admiring from afar. but you were different. you had interacted with penelope already, exchanging compliments and working together to solve quests in the game. you knew her, and she knew you, but direct message felt like a new realm. it felt...intimate. 

when you replied to her first message, a simple “hi penelope!” with a butterfly emoji attached for good measure, penelope nearly flew out of her desk chair; she was so excited.  she quickly typed back to you, punctuating with approximately two million exclamation points and a link to her own personal social media. you smiled widely to yourself watching penelope’s chat appear on your computer screen. 

over the next months, you and penelope had become practically inseparable. well...virtually, at least. you lived much too far from penelope, and penelope much too far from you.  your distance spanned one timezone and a handful of states, but with how often you two talked, you always felt close. you learned her favorite color, her favorite movie, her favorite tv shows. she learned your guilty pleasure snack, your nighttime routine, and your favorite song to drive to. after 12am, you’d whisper into the phone receiver about your day, telling her about everything that bothered you or brought you joy. penelope revelled in these chats. listening to you was the best part of her day. this was your friendship, and it was good. 

 but recently things had been ever-so-slightly different. penelope lingers on a phone call even though she is exhausted, just to hear your voice. she proof-reads her text messages multiple times before sending them out--who does that? the red heart emoji is fast becoming her most used, taking the place of the pink one. the pink one is platonic, it’s always been platonic, and the red one is romantic. how is this happening? often, penelope lies in bed, imagining you’re laying against each other with your hands entangled. she reaches and rests her hand on the other side of the bed, where you would lie if you were there. sometimes, when she’s really tired, she believes she can feel you.

when thinking about this, penelope’s chest feels tight in the most exhilarating way. she’s confused, naturally. the last time she felt this way was when she thought she had real feelings for derek. (she’d buried whatever feeling that was way deep down in the depths of her brain.)

 could it be love if you had never touched? no. no, penelope is a romantic, but she’s also a realist. this can’t be love, not yet. but...a crush. the realization of the word seeps into her bloodstream, setting each cell in her body on fire. it’s a nice fire, a warm fire, a fire that flickers in pink flames. penelope spins around a few times in her work desk chair. 

gee, how lucky is she that she’s got her own little cave here? no one to interrupt her private moment of reckoning...although, now that she thinks of it, it’s not much of a “moment” from the outside. it’s not like her cheeks are stained red and there’s a sign on her forehead that reads “i have a crush!” any one of her coworkers could walk in right now and have no clue anything is any different. (penelope forgets that she’s terrible at hiding things and that she works with trained behavioral profilers.) she pauses a minute, staring at the door, half-expecting hotch to walk in and chew her out for not looking up white males in nebraska, or something. 

 penelope smoothly rolls her chair over to where her cell phone rests. she really shouldn’t be making a personal call at work, she thinks, but she also really shouldn’t have hacked into reid’s work computer and changed everything in english into tagalog last week. penelope can’t remember the last time she genuinely cared about the FBI’s rules. (in her defense, it took spencer like--half of a second to figure out what the unfamiliar language was, and a whole work day to understand it. she was teaching him!) 

 she picks up the phone, grinning as she swipes through recent text notifications of you updating penelope on your day. she finds the “call” button quickly, and waits as it begins to ring.

“penelope?” you question upon answering. “i’m at work, i can’t really talk right now.” you sound happy, despite the intrusion penelope knows she’s providing.

 “no, i know,” penelope replies, twirling a pen in her free hand. she taps her foot quickly. “which is why i’ll make this super quick.” she drags out the word ‘super’ like it tastes like candy.  “i have a crush on you. an earth-shattering, red roses, big crush on you.”

“oh,” you gasp, surprised. “oh! yeah!” you shake your head quickly, as if trying to wake yourself from a dream. all penelope can hear on the other line is the swooshing of air. “yeah, penny, me too. definitely me too. by that i mean, i have a crush on you too.” you’re stumbling, tripping over the words in your haste to get them out, but neither one of you seem to notice. all you can tell is the grin on your face is starting to hurt your cheeks, and all penelope can tell is that if she pulls her knees any closer to her chest she might squish herself. 

 “okay, cool,” penelope says through a smile. 

 you give a breathy laugh. “i really do have to go, though. i’ll definitely talk to you later, though. bye, penny,” you say, and hang up before giving penelope the chance to quip a witty goodbye. 

 you like her back, penelope thinks, the harps playing in her head making her feel like a juvenile pining after someone on the playground. her stomach flutters. the angelic voices in her head are singing, something that sounds like a warbled, choral version of “i wanna dance with somebody” by whitney houston. she closes her eyes, and relishes in it. 

after a second, the stark silence in penelope’s office startles her into reality. 

what is this?

what is she doing?

 oh, fuck, she thinks. tears well in her eyes. what is she doing? this is so unrealistic, penelope thinks, berating herself. you’re far away, only connected to her through a phone screen. it’s a great sentiment to have this sweet crush, yeah, but it’s not practical. not real. it’s not like penelope would ever be in a position to pack up and fly to you, and after hearing you gush about your job just the night prior, she knows you certainly feel the same.

 and then she feels like shit for even calling, for even telling you that she felt this way. it would cause nothing but problems. penelope pauses, in her brain. no, it wouldn’t even cause problems! being with you is so incredibly far-fetched that there isn’t even a “will they, won’t they” debate. any problem is solved with a simple “won’t they.” no, this wouldn’t cause problems, but it would cause heartache, and she should’ve known better. penelope thinks she’s feeling a bit of that heartache now. she sniffles, toying with a tiny plush pig she keeps perched on her desk. sometimes penelope just gets blinded by the butterflies. it’s her best trait and most fatal flaw.

 there’s a knock at her door. derek. 

 “hey babygirl,” he says, pushing open the door and leaning into the doorframe. “what are you doing for lunch?” 

 with her back turned to him, she rubs at her eyes delicately, trying very hard not to mess up her makeup. “uh, i brought my thermos. soup,” she says, clawing desperately at the bubbly personality she can feel slipping away from her for today. she’s just down in the dumps. 

 “hey, what’s wrong?” derek asks, instantly picking up on her sour mood. he steps into her office and closes the door behind him. 

 penelope turns to him, eyes rimmed in red, and gives him a half smile. derek, sweet derek, always so in tune with penelope, is looking at her intently, worry written in every crease of his face. penelope always feels lucky to have him, but especially in this moment. in a rush of emotion, she stands, flings her arms around his neck and pulls him in to a tight hug. 

 derek chuckles. “i love you too.” 

 penelope pulls away with a half-hearted chuckle, swatting the air as if to get rid of the negative emotions plaguing her office. “you come in here with your big muscles and your pretty face and somehow you’ve got me crying in your arms.” she laughs again, slightly more enthusiastic this time. 

 derek pulls her to his chest again, holding her there without words. penelope lets out a deep sigh, releasing every single emotion she just ran through. 

she could deal with those later. she could deal with her royal mess with you later. right now, it didn’t matter. what mattered now was her office, her lunch, and derek morgan.

“derek?” she asks, voice small. he turns to her, prompting her to speak again. “if i asked you to stay, would you?”

[wendibird]

SPN 15X17 Observations

Well, watching this week went pretty smoothly (and I was actually able to get my little bluetooth keyboard thing to talk to my tablet so I was able to watch on my big TV screen and type up notes fairly easily. :) 

And just to clarify, sometimes my notes as I took them were VERY brief, and in some cases I’ve gone back and added in a few details or explanations to make clear what I meant by what at the time. 

I’ve also come to the conclusion that I don’t always remember to take notes, especially if Important Things are happening. (Do people even like the notes section? Or would you just prefer reading my odd takes on everything after the fact?) 

Anyway, here’s what I have for 15X17 “Unity”. Well, I do have more thoughts drifting around, but I’m always concerned that I’m going on too long as it is. *LOL*  (Under the cut for length and spoiler aversion)

Okay, going in I’ve heard rumors that this is a “Sam Heavy” episode, so we’ll see. *fingers crossed* 

- wow, is Chuck starting in on this world already?

- Silent treatment.

- I wonder if she’s guessed.

- fuck you Dean!

(but I’m not surprised. it just confirms what I’d already suspected about how Dean really feels about Jack.)

Commercial Thoughts:

Yeah, so, I’m firmly in Sam and Cas’ camp here. Jack may not be family to Dean, but he is to them. He’s their Son. 

I also think that though he hasn’t talked about it, Sam regrets his part in the Drama Coffin plan involving Jack last season. Think it’s one of those cases where he realized too late he was on the wrong side, and he doesn’t want to be there again.

As for Dean… I get that he wants to see the people he cares most about make it out of this. (Sam and Cas.) And I get he’s doing the tunnel vision thing. I think he knows that Sam’s right but he won’t let himself admit it.

- Wow….. The fanangels are kinda creepy.

- They’ve lost all their nuance with Chuck. Or my theory is right and Chuck has actually shifted darkside.

- Oh wow…. Amara is really going to bat here.

Commercial Thoughts:

Still not sure how much she’s (Amara) really guessed. She’s acting as though the whole “trapping him” idea is still a go, but what she’d said to Dean, as pointedly as she did, it seemed like maybe she suspected what was really going on and was still trying to give him the option to go a different way.

And even if this is Chuck having shifted dark, it could still be written with more nuance than this crappy villain schtick.

I mean, even in S11 when he’s all but given up on humanity and existence and was going to let Amara win, it was written with there being a depth to him about it.

- Don’t know if Dean’s trying to convince himself that he doesn’t care as deeply to make this easier or what.

- HOw is ADAM still alive?! And she’s an angel?

- Interesting behavior for an angel. *LOL*

- “Then he moved on to our sons.” Hints of Cain and Abel?

- Okay, so the angel kept him alive. (Sure, I can buy that.) 

- Pretty Crystals!

- He’s (Dean) heard those lines before. And Dean’s feeling uneasy about it.

- Amethyst! (Sorry, always had a thing for Amethyst and it’s my birthstone)

- (oh, okay, all of them)

- Ewww….. Open heart surgery

- Rib!

- Dean doesn’t like being rail-roaded.

- Talk time.

- I don’t like this…… (Jack using the rib and starting the suicide-bomb process.) 

Commercial Thoughts:

Okay, so, what Dean said, I’m glad he said it. And I have been getting hints of that feeling from him the whole season, about feeling disconnected because of what they found out about Chuck and their lives. I just… I still think he’s willfully blinding himself to what’s really going on. That even this version of “Free Will” is a script that he’s following. (Well, I think he’s starting to have misgivings about that.)

- Uh-oh! Ideas! 

- I love two researching nerds!

- Were we supposed to understand the Latin? *LOL* I caught “Mortem” in there a few times.

- Yey door!

- “your internal compass is functioning perfectly”

- I LOVE THEM SO MUCH!!!

- Who dat?

- Dead someone or other

- W section.

- Reapers maybe?

- Who’s thinning the ranks?

- Empty!Meg!

- Sam is good! (At bluffing the hell out of an ancient cosmic being.) 

- IT’S A LITTLE LATE TO STOP IT!!!!

Commercial Thoughts:

*FREAKING OUT!!!*

Jack already started it! OG!Adam said that once started the reaction couldn’t be stopped.

Okay, deeper thoughts. Everyone’s playing chess. Still. The game is just bigger.

OG!Adam wants God dead because of stuff that happened. And Billy is following his plan? (Did I get that right?) The plan will make Billy the next God. (Not surprised there honestly.) Her world will be a lot more “orderly” no doubt.

The Empty just wants to sleep. (Honestly, can relate.) 

But everyone’s just using them all as gamepieces again. Dean’s getting that feel from things OG!Adam and Whatserfaceangel said. Sam knows now too. They’re still stuck in someone else’s story. They’re still not gaining true “Free Will”. I’m hoping that the route they take will actually get them off this train track.

- DUDE - WHAT (was in reference to Dean pulling a gun on Sam)

- Go Sam! He’s not letting this one go. (Referring to my feelings on Sam feeling bad about Jack and the Drama Coffin thing from way before, and him NOT settling for Dean’s plan this time, him sticking to his guns and saying what he feels and taking action.) 

- Chuck played her (Amara) too.

- Not again! (Oh Jack, will this forever be your fate?)

- FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!

Holy shit! That episode!

Okay, it actually did a good job of wrapping up a lot of ideas. Like, big-picture ideas that have been themes throughout the run of the show. 

Also, apparently this was the only world where Cas and the Winchesters broke the mold? Didn’t play by their roles?

Also, minor point but it made me happy: Chuck pointed out how it’s Sam who needed to find things out. Sam who kept digging. I made mention of it last episode how Billy kept going to Dean, because he was easier for her to manipulate. But Sam asks more questions. I think part of it is what Cas said about his internal compass. I think another part is his experiences. He’s been the brunt of the cosmic plot-lines a LOT of the time. So he does keep asking questions because of all the times he hadn’t and things went badly. (Like end of S4 with killing Lilith.) 

And let me be clear, it’s not that I think Dean is dumb. He isn’t. And he and Sam both make decisions a lot based on their feelings. (Sometimes it’s all you have to go on.) But he’s shown a tendency in the past several years especially to be more likely to make them based on anger. And he doesn’t get called on it often. And I don’t know if this is TOO meta (is that even a thing with this show anymore? *LMAO*) but I feel like part of that is written into the script. Of their world. Even when Dean’s wrong he’s often proven “right” by the narrative. He very rarely is made to face up to his mistakes. (Not saying he never is. But it definitely doesn’t seem to happen as often.) And I’m wondering, is that because up till now, he was Chuck’s favorite? We saw that Chuck can manipulate a LOT of things. And events, and even some people. 

How often have we noticed and commented on how the Narrative backs Dean up so much of the time, even when he might be in the wrong? Or even just questionable? Or morally grey? How much of that is possibly now supposed to be due to Chuck’s meddling? Because I’ve also seen it mentioned (and have also noticed) that although Sam winds up the “wrong one” a lot via the narrative, he’s actually HAD to learn and grow because of that. But because Dean is rarely shown as wrong, he hasn’t had to, and his character has stagnated a lot in the last several seasons. Of course, in reality, that’s due to the writing/show-running/powers-that-be making those decisions, but in-show could it possibly be something to do with Chuck? Maybe at first because he liked Dean more? But as time grew on, and he kept trying to set up his Cain and Abel plot with them, maybe it was to reinforce Dean’s self-image that he’s Right? 

And also by contrast, we had the end of last season where so many of Sam’s decisions which had been made with best intentions and best information/resources at the time wound up blowing-up in his face. As if to say "Ha-HAH! That's what you get for thinking you could lead people! That's what you get for thinking you could save Jack! That's what you get for thinking someone like Nick could be redeemed! That's what you get for talking your brother out of the Drama-Coffin plan!" It felt like it was specifically intended to make him severely doubt his own judgement. And it worked. After all that shit went down, one thing after another, culminating with their mother's death, he didn't trust himself. He didn't believe in himself. So he put all his trust in Dean. And Dean was full of RAGE. (I don't blame him. His Mom has been a keystone of his life, even when she wasn't there.) But Sam didn't give the objections he normally would have to Dean's plan to box-up Jack. Even though it was CLEAR how much he didn't like it. How wrong it felt to him.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is, I think Chuck has been nudging and manipulating a LOT of things in order to get the Winchesters to behave how he wants them to. 

IDK. My head is hurting from some of these meta thoughts. *LOL*

SO! Back to what happened in the actual episode.

I thought the format was interesting, focusing in on the different POV characters for their spans of the story until it all came together. (Wondering if this is going to continue into the next episode…) 

I liked that we got a lot of reveals about what is (possibly) really going on, in regards to the grand schemas. Because there are several at play here. But now we're at least getting glimpses of them. 

Even though we didn't see Billy, I thought the reveal about her plans were interesting, but definitely fit with her character as established so far. I know a lot of people are saying she's gotten drunk with her power or she's "turning evil" but I don't think that's the case. It's true that she hasn't told them everything about her plans, but that's because she's also using them as pieces in her game. But her goal is the same as it's always been since we first met her. She has ALWAYS been about the Natural Order. She never liked how the Winchesters (or anyone else) flaunted death again and again. So once she's in charge? Everyone and everything goes where they belong. The demons stay in hell, the angels stay in heaven, souls go where they're meant to, people from other universes go back (even if there's no universe to go back TO. Tough shit, they'd be dead anyway according to her) and those who have already died and been resurrected? They go back to wherever they should be. (At least, I THINK that was the implication made, with Sam asking Dean if he'd be willing to trade HIM to take-out Chuck. Sam was definitely realizing a LOT when Empty!Meg told him what Billy's plan was.) 

This isn't her turning Evil like has been done with Chuck. It's more, her becoming a more extreme version of what she already was. When she got her promotion, she found out a LOT more things. Including this option of events for taking Chuck out and putting things back to how they belong. And it even started with Dean's aborted Drama Coffin plan. Which eventually fails, because Sam, but it then leads to Jack sacrificing his soul to take out AU Michael, which eventually leads to Mary's Death and Chuck's opportunity to manipulate things more and so on and so forth until we wind up here. 

(Also, just wanna say, absolutely LOVED Rachel as the Empty again!) 

And also, having just watched that scene again, can I just say again how awesome Sam is? He straight-up told the Empty that even if he WAS lying, their best bet is to let him go with the book. And it couldn't really argue with that because he was right! (Well, if it had killed him then and there, Dean probably wouldn't have known right away and probably would have been able to carry out the plan. So there is that. Buuuuut none of them knew that either at the time.) 

And in general, I love how Sam just would NOT give up. This is the Sam Winchester I've come to love. He could feel in his bones that this plan was wrong so he was doing everything he could to not only stop it, but to find some other way to get what they truly wanted. 

I also loved his and Cas' interactions. They were supportive of each other and both were trying to find a way to save their son. (Dean has officially forfeited his Dad-Card in my book. Hell, in his book too.) Also, I remember hearing someone from production, or who was maybe on set or something mentioning something about the Holy Grail in this episode? Well, in that scene where Sam and Cas are looking through those old crates and trunks and boxes, when Cas finds the key Sam is holding this really old looking chalice. Wonder if that's supposed to be what that is. *LOL* I mean, the Spear of Destiny (or at least, the head of the spear) was there in the Bunker, so why not I guess? *LOL*

We didn't get a lot of Sam and Jack interaction, but I liked what little we had. Sam made it clear to Jack that he wants to save him. (I'm really hoping we get SOMETHING more of them in the next episode or two but... yeah. Not a lot of time left.) 

I could go on for some length about my feelings on Dean and how he's been this season. But I don't want this to turn into a fully anti-Dean rant. I will say though that I'd definitely gotten the impression before this that Dean has different categories of people he cares about, and in his mind, he also has them ranked according to how expendable they are. And I'm not just talking about Jack here, though he is a major part of it. But at the end of the episode when he and Sam are having it out, Dean says he's basically willing to sacrifice EVERYONE to get what he wants. 

(I don't think he's actually willing to sacrifice Sam for it though. And yes, I know, he was waving a gun in Sam's face. But I don't believe for a moment he had any intention of killing his brother. Not when Sam asking point blanc if Dean is willing to trade him for killing Chuck, and that seems to be what causes Dean to start listening to what Sam's saying. Also, in the past, Dean hasn't been above threatening people to get what he wants. Like with Kaia. Also in S8's "Trail and Error" when he and Sam were talking about taking out the hellhound, Dean pretty much said if Sam even tries to get close to it, Dean would shoot him in the leg. Now, we never got to see if he actually would have or not, but regardless, it was a case of Dean being willing to hurt Sam a little in order to protect him from something he saw as a bigger threat. In that case it had been taking on the trials. In this case, it would have been to win their shot at freedom. At least in Dean's mind. Not saying I approve! Just, I think that's where his mindset was.) 

And this is a far cry from the Dean who, just a few years ago was willing to be a kamikaze bomb in order to save the world. And yes, Dean has mentioned "Saving the world" this season too. And I'm sure he means that too. But when he was at his most emotional, what he was talking about wasn't saving the world and everyone in it. It was freeing him and Sam from being Chuck's entertainment. And he's willing to sacrifice nearly anyone to accomplish that. At least, he was up til now. I hope that they're going to give him a change of heart before the end because I really REALLY would like the show to end with me not despising Dean and what he's become. Yes, I'm a Sam-girl, but I do care about Dean too. 

Also, I feel bad for Amara and what wound up happening with her. Like many other characters, she fell victim to Chuck's manipulations, and now I'm guessing he's even stronger than before. But also, Chuck wasn't the only one manipulating her. And maybe if they, (Dean especially, since she had a soft-spot for him) had actually been trying to find another way earlier, she wouldn't have fallen to despair when finding out the truth. 

Aaaaaanyway, I think I've rambled enough about this episode as it is. Thank you to whoever actually bothers to read all of this. *LOL*

[tragiceyes]

The Importance of Being Honest

Note: Because of course I had to write a quarantine Jaydick fic. And it’s a little too dialogue-heavy to be a good fic, but I still had a lot of fun writing it!

Summary: Fourteen days Jason and Dick have to stay in quarantine together. Fourteen days until he kicks Dick to the curb forevermore. Jason’s counting down. Link to ao3 --> https://archiveofourown.org/works/23598802 (read it there, better formatting)

14.

Fourteen days left. Jason was counting his lucky stars they’d gotten stuck at one of his more robust safe houses. Half his places in the City were one-room, bare bones bunkers, with enough food and clothing for a couple days tops.

Conversely, they were trapped at his place in the Bowery, which, for all intents and purposes, had the form and function of a normal apartment. Fully stocked cabinets, a comfy couch and plenty of books to pass the time.

That is, if one could concentrate on reading.

Dick let out a long-suffering sigh. His tenth in the past five minutes.

“Christ, Dick, can you please shut up? I’m trying to concentrate here.”

“I’m bored, Jason,” Dick complained, “if you had more interesting things to do in your apartment-“

“-there are literally two shelves full of books right behind you-”

“I don’t feel like reading.”

Honestly, Dick was such a child.

“I don’t care what you feel like, find some way to entertain yourself,” Jason snapped at him, “or get out of my sight.”

Dick fell silent. He was the type of person who’d prefer silent company over lonely exile, Jason considered.

Jason returned to his book.

For a moment.

Dick stood on his hands and began tottering around upside down.

Jason let out a sigh of his own.

13.

Monday morning. Jason had the same breakfast every day: six eggs and six strips of bacon. After pointedly ignoring Dick’s request for cereal, Jason was making enough for both of them.

Dick was making coffee.

“You don’t have any cereal? Not even Cheerios?”

“No, Dick. I don’t like to start my day eating a bowlful of sugar, and neither should you.”

Dick rolled his eyes, “Okay, grease monster.”

“Dick, this is a protein-rich breakfast. I burn through at least half it before lunch with my workout routine.”

“Yes, you have very nice abs, Jason. We’re all very proud.”

“How long do you think the energy from that cereal’s gonna last you? One or two girly cartwheels?”

“I’m an acrobat. I don’t want to be built like a tank.”

“Yeah, I can see you prefer to be built more like a ballerina.”

“Shut the fuck up, Jason.”

Jason sauntered over and dropped a plate in front of him. He grabbed Dick’s hand and slid it under his shirt, “Feel that, Dickie-bird? Try punching through that and you’d break your feminine wrist.”

“Impressive,” Dick concerned with a smirk, “or, it would be, if I hadn’t still beaten you in hand-to-hand combat countless times.”

“What you do isn’t hand-to-hand combat, Dick. It’s more like a rousing game of ’dodge-the-fist.’”

“Whatever, Jason.” Dick withdrew his hand, but not before purposefully yanking a little on the hair beneath Jason’s belly button.

He wasn’t above being petty.

12.

Dick was a slob!

He was leaving his clothes everywhere, like a trail Jason could follow to find him.

It had only been two days. How had he made such a mess?

He stomped into the bedroom, where Dick was sitting on the floor, video-chatting Wally West.

“Pick up your shit, Dick!” Jason yelled, tossing the clothes at him, “This is my fucking apartment, have the decency to clean up after yourself!”

Dick hung up the phone, and removed the dirty shirt in his lap, “God! I’m sorry! You could just fucking ask-“

“You’re a fucking adult, Dick! I shouldn’t have to ask you to clean up after yourself!”

“-and I would have-“

“It’s not a fucking circus in here!” Jason stormed into the other room, having no further escape, “fucking trailer park circus boy!”

He instantly regretted that. Wasn’t like he hadn’t grown up poor himself. Dick’s trailer was no more shameful than his parents’ dilapidated apartment.

Or the occasional cardboard box.

He felt sorry. He hoped Dick hadn’t heard.

11.

“Jason, can I borrow something else to wear?”

“Hm?”

“I’ve been wearing the same thing for the past three days. Can I borrow something of yours?”

“Oh, yeah. Go for it.”

Dick emerged from the bedroom in a pair of jeans he’d cuffed at least six times (they still dragged on the floor) and a t-shirt emblazoned with the Red Hood logo.

Jason liked it, though he couldn’t say why.

10.

Dick was lounging on his couch watching television, taking up as much space as humanly possible.

Jason ambled over, shirtless and still a little sweaty after his at-home workout.

“Whatcha watching?”

“Love is Blind.”

He snorted, “Seriously?”

“Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.”

“Sit up and move over, then.”

To his surprise, Dick moved over to make room for him.

They sat in silence for a couple minutes.

“I can’t believe you watch this crap. Honestly, Dickie, do you have no shame?”

“It’s not as bad as you make it out to be."

“Nothing about this is even remotely real.”

“Sometimes it’s real. And they really fall in love.”

Jason laughed heartily at that, “You’re kidding, right?”

Dick ignored him.

“Love at first sight? On reality tv?” Jason mocked him, “You do know people don’t really believe in that shit, don’t you?”

“They want to believe it.” Dick said simply.

9.

Jason had just brushed his teeth and was getting ready for bed.

Dick was lying back on the couch, a hot towel over his eyes.

“You alright there, bird brain?”

“Fine.”

“What’s with the towel-blindfold?”

“My eyes get really dry at night. Hot towels help a little bit.”

Jason bit down on his smirk, “Hmph.”

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just, I guess Mr. Perfect is mortal like the rest of us.”

Dick pulled the towel off his eyes to glare at him, “I’m not perfect, Jason. You’re just insecure.”

Jason raised his eyebrows, taken aback, “Well, tell me how you really feel.”

“I’m sick of you saying shit like that. You’ve been snarking at me since you were a kid. And I’m sick of everyone else saying shit like that, too. I never claimed to be fucking perfect, so it’s not my fault when people have ridiculous expectations of me that I can’t live up to.”

“Relax, Dickface, I’m sorry. Didn’t realize it was such a sore subject.”

Dick’s face fell a bit, “Well, it is. You all expect a lot from me, and I can’t always be what you want me to be.”

He put the towel back over his face.

8.

Dick was in his bed.

Dick was in his bed.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Jason demanded.

Dick looked up at him, “I think we should trade tonight. I’ve been sleeping on the couch for almost a week.”

“Yeah, and you’ll be sleeping there for another week. Beat it!”

Dick didn’t budget, “Come on, Jason. It’s uncomfortable. It’s too cramped and my back hurts in the morning.”

“You know what isn’t too cramped? The floor. Try that.”

Dick snuggled into his pillow, the bastard.

“Dick.”

Dick ignored him.

“DICK!”

“Just for tonight.” Dick said it like he was bargaining, but it was clear he wasn’t going to move.

“Dick, you’re 5’10-“

“5’11!”

“-I’m 6’3. I need more space than you. Physically.”

“We can share, if you want.”

Jason glared at him, “You want me to come over there and move you myself?”

Dick didn’t even glance his way, “Try it.”

Jason stomped over to the bed and grabbed Dick’s ankle. Dick slithered out his grip. Jason lunged for him, and they wrestled on the bed together. He had the weight advantage, but Dick could be as slippery as a snake.

Jason moved to crush him, but Dick wrapped his legs around Jason’s waist and flipped them over. He seated himself right on Jason’s stomach, and grabbed both his wrists, bearing down so they were face to face.

He smirked, “Pinned ya.”

Jason’s face was red and his stomach felt funny.

Dick curled up tight like a child, far away from him, his head resting on Jason’s favorite pillow.

“This is a one-time thing.” Jason said aloud to himself.

Dick was already asleep.

7.

“You’re smiling.”

Jason looked up from his book, “What?”

“You’re smiling at your book.”

Jason stared at him.

“Did something funny happen?”

“No…I, uh…I just like this line.” Jason mumbled to himself, “In The Importance of Being Earnest.”

Dick waited patiently. Jason swallowed.

“When Jack leaves, Gwendolen says ‘If you are not too long, I will wait for you all my life,’” Jason reads the line, biting down on his smile, “I always liked that line. It’s a good line.”

“It is a good line.”

Jason nodded at him awkwardly and continued to read.

“That’s cute.”

Jason snapped his head up so quickly, he cricked his neck, “What did you say?”

“It’s sweet,” Dick was smiling at him now, “that a line in a book makes you smile like that. I didn’t know you were such a romantic, Jason.”

Jason bit back the denial on the tip of his tongue. He returned to his book, feeling the heat of Dick’s gaze warm his cheeks.

6.

The next morning, Jason was greeted with an unusual, though not totally unwelcome, sight.

Dick was contorted on the floor, ass up in the air and knees boxed around his ears.

What the fuck.

“Karnapidasana.”

“Gesundheit.”

Dick let out a soft chuckle, “I’m doing yoga.”

He gestured flimsily to Jason’s laptop, which was open to a YouTube video on advanced yoga practice.

“Sorry I borrowed your computer without asking. Hope you don’t mind.”

Jason’s mouth was a little dry.

“Not at all.”

Dick breathed in time with the practice, “You’re free to join me.”

“Thanks, but…pretty sure I can’t do anything resembling that.”

Dick slowly untangled himself, “We can do a beginner’s class. Give it a try, it’ll do wonders for your state of mind.”

Jason considered snapping back that his state of mind was perfectly fine for someone who’d watched his mother die, lived on the streets, been beaten to death, resurrected, and replaced, but instead he just said:

“Okay.”

5.

Dick was singing a soft tune in a language Jason didn’t know.

Strange. The Bat had trained them in all the same languages, or so he had assumed.

He wanted to complain, but true to form, Dick had a nice voice, and Jason had been about to take a nap anyway.

He closed his eyes and let Dick’s gentle voice wash over him:

“Nane man dajori,

ňi kalo dadoro, ačhiľom korkoro

sar čhindo kaštoro.”

4.

Dick was scrolling through the channels when he noticed Jason rummaging around in the cabinets.

“What are you doing?”

“Just looking for some yeast?”

“Yeast?”

“Yeah, I was gonna bake a loaf of bread to go with dinner.”

Bake bread from scratch? Jason was clearly a more sophisticated cook than Dick had realized.

“I didn’t know you could bake bread from scratch.”

“I can do a lot of things.”

“Will you show me?”

Jason looked over at him, surprised.

“Uh, yeah. Sure.”

Kneading was fun. Dick wasn’t doing it right.

“Not like that! You’re going to tear it.” Jason admonished him.

Dough was stuck to Dick’s hands. He tried to push it back into the mound.

“No, look. Like this.” Jason moved behind him, taking Dick’s hands in his own and guiding them rhythmically.

Push. Turn. Push. Turn. Flip. Push. Turn.

“Better. Keep doing that.” Jason let him go and turned to switch on the oven.

He liked the feeling of his hands on Dick’s.

3.

“Let’s play a game!”

“No.”

“Come on, Jason. It’s not like you have anything better to do.”

“Well, I’d rather do nothing.”

“Come on. A drinking game. Let’s drink the rest of your stash and play a game.”

Jason rolled his eyes, knowing he was going to give in. After all, it wasn’t like he had anything better to do.

“Fine. Go get my whiskey.”

Dick grinned triumphantly and made his way to the kitchen, returning with the bottle and two glass tumblers. He sat on the floor and patting the space across from him for Jason.

“What, we can’t use chairs like civilized people?”

“Come on. It’s more fun this way.”

Jason made his way to the floor, taking a pillow with him. He took the bottle from Dick’s hand and poured a finger into each glass, “What are we playing?”

“Truth or Dare.”

“How very high school of you.”

“You can go first.”

“Fine. Truth.”

“Who’s your favorite Robin?”

“I hate all of you equally.”

“Liar.”

“Fine. Stephanie, then.”

“Good choice. How come?”

“Because fuck the Replacement-”

“Jason-“

“And I don’t like the demon child.”

“He’s not a demon child.”

“-but you knew exactly who I was talking about…”

That surprised a laugh out of Dick. Jason was surprised. Usually, Dickie-bird was much more sensitive about his little demon friend.

“What about me then?” He asked with a self-satisfied grin.

“You’re in second place.”

“All right!”

“It’s a distant second.”

“Fair enough.”

Dick was still grinning at him with a funny look it his eye. It was making Jason feel exposed. He took a swig from his glass.

“Your turn.”

“Truth.”

“Same question.”

“Oh, I love all of you equally.” What a sap.

“That’s a cop-out.”

“But it’s true!”

“No, it’s not. Your favorite is Demon Boy, followed by Replacement, followed by Steph, followed, in a distant fourth, by me.”

“That’s not true, Jason!”

“Yes, it is.”

“You were a great Robin-“

"Yeah, okay."

"I mean it!"

“Well, you didn’t exactly think so at the time I took the job.”

Dick’s face fell. Jason hated himself for hating himself for doing that.

“That was…complicated. And it wasn’t about you.”

“Whatever. I want a dare this time.”

“I dare you to lick the floor.”

“What the fuck, Dick!”

“What? These floors are immaculate.”

“They aren’t, not since you’ve been here.”

“Are you really going to chicken out this early, Jason?”

“You are fucking deranged.” Jason said authoritatively. But he bent down and licked the floor anyway.

“Ew!”

“Fuck you, Dick.”

Several drinks and rounds into the game, and things were starting to get a little hazy.

“Your turn.” Dick slurred, flat on his back.

“Truth.”

“Coward.”

“Last time you made me dump ice cubes down my pants, and my nuts are still numb. I’m not taking any more chances.”

“Who was the first person you ever liked? Like like liked.”

Jason wanted to mock his language, but he was suddenly feeling a little warm, “Pass.”

“You can’t.”

“I’ll take a dare, then. Go ahead and make me drink from the toilet or something.”

Dick snickered at that, “No, you have to answer. That’s the law according to the rules.”

“You don’t need to know.”

“I really need to know now, cons-slithering…condisering...considering how much you don’t wanna tell  me.”

“It’s embarrassing.”

“I won’t laugh at you, lil’ wing…”

“What a fucking liar.”

Dick cackled. “Fine, maybe I will then.”

“I’m not telling.”

“You have to,”

“No.”

“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaassseeee?”

“Fuck no.”

“Please, please, please, please." Dick chanted. "Please!”

“GOD! Shut up! It was you, okay! Fuck!”

Dick’s jaw dropped, his eye wide. He looked like a fish. Jason decided to tell him so.

“You look like…you fucking fish. You look like a fucking fish.” He took a defiant swig of whiskey straight from the bottle.

“You like fish then. Fish fucker!”

Jason couldn’t stop a laugh for bubbling up, but being mid sip causing a bit of whiskey to go up his nose. It burned like hell!

“Fuck! You! You just made whiskey go up my nose!”

Dick was laughing hysterically, unsympathetic as can be.

“Fuck, that burns.” Jason coughed loudly, “God, I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.” Dick was teasing him now, and Jason couldn’t stand it. His face was reddening and he was glad to have to whiskey as an excuse.

“Get over yourself.”

“You really liked me?”

“Yeah, I really did. Which made you hating me fffffff-fucking hurtful." Jason continued thickly. The alcohol was really loosening his tongue now, and this could only end badly, "You hurt my fucking feelings, you know.”

“Jason,” Dick was crawling over to him now. Jason began scooting away, “Jason, I’m sorry.”

“Get away!”

“I want a hug!”

“No! Get back!”

But Dick was relentless. To Jason’s clear horror, he climbed up on his lap and threw his arms around Jason’s neck and pressed his face into Jason’s shoulder.

“God!” Jason yelled. He would never forgive himself if he went hard, “Damn you! Get the fuck off me!”

“Stop moving and just hug me!” As though Dick wasn’t the one squirming on top of him, absolutely clueless as to the effect it was having on him.

Jason groaned miserably. What had he done to deserve such torture?

“Get. Off.”

Dick squeezed him a little harder before relenting unhappily, “Fine.”

He crawled away on all fours, until Jason, emboldened further by the alcohol, raised a hand and brought it down as hard as he could against Dick’s ass.

SMACK!

“OW! Fuck, Jason!” Dick cried indignantly.

Jason was cackling madly at the look of disbelief on his face, “Ha! That’s what you get!”

“That hurt!” Dick dragged himself to safety, far from Jason’s reach, “Jesus Christ.”

He knocked over the bottle of whiskey on his way. Fortunately, it was empty.

Empty!

“I guess the games over then…” Jason slurred, “which is….imma go to bed then…”

Jason stumbled to his feet, slowly and clumsily making his way to the bedroom, and collapsed face first into the pillows.

Dick wasn’t far behind.

Jason flipped to his side with a moan, only to be confronted with Dick shuffling himself into a little spoon position.

“No, Dick!”

“Cuddle me!”

“No! Get back on your…that side.”

“Jason!”

“No.”

“You know you want to.”

“I’ll kick you off.”

“Is it because you have a boner? It doesn’t bother m-UNF!”

Jason had just shoved a pillow in his face to smother him. He held it down with all his might, but Dick’s fist flew out and hit him on the shoulder. He loosened his grip for a moment, but that was all it took for Dick to get free and mount an attack. He gripped the pillow underneath his head and whacked Jason as hard as he could.

Jason pushed his face down with one big hand.

Dick kicked him in the stomach.

Jason grabbed his ankle and started tickling his foot.

Dick screamed in spite of himself and used his other foot to kick Jason in the chest.

Jason grabbed his other ankle and forced them to either side of his body.

Dick grabbed him between his legs and began to squeeze.

Jason threw himself down to crush him under his weight.

Dick squirmed to the side and used Jason’s momentum to flip them over.

“Ha!” He cried in triumph, hands on Jason’s shoulders. From where he was seated, there was no mistaking Jason’s arousal. Dick was impressed. After all those drinks you’d think he-

“AH!” He cried as Jason suddenly forced himself up, dislodging Dick from his crotch. Jason pressed his advantage, crushing Dick beneath him, hands gripping his thighs, chests pressed together, his face inches from Dick’s.

Dick’s eyes were wide, his face was pink, his lips were parted. Jason wanted to devour him.

Dick looked like he was about to speak. Jason could think of no other way to silence him.

He crashed his lips against Dick's.

Then they were kissing and moving aggressively, hands wandering, rolling around on the bed. Jason ground into Dick and Dick let out a moan that he knew would follow him in his dreams. Dick was tugging at his shirt, Jason was fumbling with his own pants, he was so tangled up in Dick he could hardly tell who was who, but he never wanted to be separate again, from now on he always wanted to be this close to Dick.

They were rolling, pushing, squeezing, and Jason’s head was pounding, but he was seeing and touching parts of Dick he’d never imagined, and Dick was touching him too.

They came apart together, and when it was over Jason, pressed closely to Dick, slept better than he had in years.

2.

He woke up as if in a strange dream.

He was naked

Someone was next to him.

That someone was Dick.

His nose was in Dick’s hair.

He arm was clutching Dick’s waist.

Dick was naked too.

Dick. Naked!

And he was still asleep.

Jason shamefully snuck a peek at him.

He was all warm, golden skin.

Angular, perfect face.

Long, slim neck.

Strong, lean back.

Faded scars.

Round, plush ass.

Strong thighs.

Jason could lean in and stay pressed up against him all day long.

Instead he went to make some coffee.

As he prepared the first cup to Dick's liking, he heard a soft shuffle.

Dick was there.

He hadn’t bothered getting dressed.

God bless him.

"Hi."

"Hi."

1.

“You know what this means?”

“What?”

“You cheated.”

“…what?”

“During the game. You said Steph was your favorite Robin,” Dick was grinning at him now, all teeth. Smug as can be, “That wasn’t the truth.”

Jason walked toward him, stopping only when they were inches apart. Smirking triumphantly when Dick had to look up at him.

He wanted to taste that grin.

Dick opened his mouth again, “You-mmmmm”

Jason had finally found a way to shut him up.

They spent the day together.

0.

They’d made it fourteen days. Dick was free to go.

But Jason didn’t want him to, and Dick didn’t offer.

What Jason did want to do was finally get to a grocery store. He had a nice dinner in mind, and needed some ingredients.

“I’m heading out!” He called, but Dick appeared, fully dressed in athletic gear.

“I thought I’d get some fresh air too. Going for a run.”

“See you back here later?”

Dick grinned, “If you’re not too long-“

“Don’t even think about it.”

“-I will wait for you all my life.”

Jason, refusing to dignify that with an answer, made his way out the door.

“Don’t pretend you’re indifferent to me!” Dick called after him.

Jason turned back with a grin, “Even before I met you, I was far from indifferent to you.”

Dick smiled, “Oh, Jason. That was so sweet. Did you just make that up?”

Jason’s grin froze on his face. He stared at Dick. Dick stared blankly back.

“Fucking dumbass!” Jason stomped off, not even trying to keep the amused smile off his face.

“Jason, wait!” Dick laughed, chasing him, “What do you mean? Jason!”

-the end-

[juliehader]

( maya hawke, female, she/her ) have you heard about JULIE HADER? of course you have. they’re the 21 year old SOCIAL MEDIA RUNNER. i don’t know what their last job was, all i know is that they’re originally from LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA. carol in hr said that they’re kinda DETACHED and SECRETIVE but jessica in marketing insists that they are QUICK-WITTED and RELAXED.  at the end of the day, this company would fall apart without them. i just hope their head doesn’t get too big with all the hype surrounding them. According to the latest Vibez quiz, their personality most closely resembles POCAHONTAS ( jem, she/her, 27, pst )

Hey everyone, back at it with my SECOND whole ass character. I’ll probably just stick to her and Max (Ross Lynch) for awhile, so give me all the plots!

Basic Information:

Name: Julie Marie Hader. Gender/Pronouns: She/Her Sexual/Romantic Orientation: Pansexual/Panromantic Age: 21 Birthdate: March 29, 1999 Occupation: Social Media Runner

Background:

TW: Physical/Mental Abuse to an adult and child, Drugs (Marijuana)

Growing up, Julie had what would be described as turbulent childhood. Her Mother Helen and her Father Daniel were High School sweethearts who got married too young. They found out they were pregnant when they were High School Seniors, and Helen - being from an old school type of family, wanted to settle down immediately. The idea of raising a baby on your own is daunting, and Helen had never truly been on her own before. Her relationship with Daniel was not a mature one from the start; they were teenagers and mind games were ever present since the moment they met at age 16.

He was Helen’s first love, and she wanted to believe she had it all with a husband and newborn daughter. Daniel got odd jobs and Helen stayed home to raise Julie. They struggled, because it’s hard to find a steady job when you have no experience and you have a baby at home. This led to more arguments between Daniel and Helen, and Daniel had always been on the quick to anger side - but as the years went on Daniel became increasingly more verbally (and at times physically) abusive towards Helen. As Julie became older, he would extend the verbal abuse to her too. Helen was dependent on him, and she couldn’t go stay with her parents. But it all came to a head when he lashed out at Julie physically. Helen decided then that it was finally enough, and in the middle of the night she gathered her and Julie’s things, and they left.

Daniel found them a couple of times, until they were able to file a restraining order. Julie hasn’t seen him since she was 18, when he tried to reach out to her on social media when she graduated High School. She blocked him, but there’s a part of her deep down who wanted to message back. As much as she says she hates him, that was still her Dad, and a part of her wishes things could be different although she knows that’s not how the world works. 

Her and her Mom struggled to make it work, but from ages 10-14, it was just them. Julie and Helen became closer than ever, and Julie became increasingly protective of her Mom - especially whenever she brought home a new boyfriend. Helen would make crafts and sell them on the side to sustain them while also working a main job to keep them afloat, and Julie would always help her with it. It started as home made soaps, but then delved into home made jewelry. Julie doesn’t admit it, but she still holds on to those memories of just sitting around helping her Mom when it was just the two of them.

When Julie was 14, Helen met a man named George, and the two clicked right away. Julie did not like this bitch at first, because it was the first serious serious relationship her Mom had since her Dad. And Helen is the type to not like to be alone, so her suspicions were high. So naturally, she did not like it when they announced they were getting married and Helen was quitting her job in the process. She rebelled against it - typical emo teenager, but underneath it all, she just didn’t want anyone to get in the way of her and her Mom again or to hurt them somehow. Eventually, she learned that George was... a pretty decent guy. It took years, but she actually kind of sort of loves him, in her own way. She’s still always looking for signs of things to possibly go wrong, but she’s happy her Mom is happy. 

She has a step-brother, Miles, who is about six years older than her, and a half-brother Joshua (the birth child of Helen and George), who is now about five years old. She actually bonded with them before she did George, and can’t really see her life without them around. Don’t tell them that tho.

Julie still has difficulty letting people in and trusting them fully, because she feels like she has to be cautious. Because of this, she tends to keep people at arms length, until she feels like she can trust them. That’s not always an easy feat, though. 

Some mini-facts:

Julie is highly independent and has turned down money from George (her step-dad) to help her out. Although she does trust him in her own way, she never wants to be in the position of having to rely on somebody else.

She currently lives in a small lil apartment and needs roommates (connection ideas!) because housing costs are expensive damn. 

She was originally an entertainment intern, having thought she wanted to pursue that field, but she fell into the position of social media runner instead. It’s a way better fit for her, considering she doesn’t entirely know if she wants to keep pursuing a career in the entertainment field.

Julie actually has an interest in computers and coding in general that started when she was in High School, and has been secretly saving up money to go to college for it. She has an app she’s been working on for a couple of years that she hasn’t told anyone out, because she feels like its not good enough yet. 

She has TWO side hustles. Julie lowkey also has her own Etsy store making homemade jewelry (organic so it that bougie hippie shit), something she used to help her Mom with when it was just them. She also happens to sell weed, and is pretty good at networking to do that. She’s been doing that since she was 18, so a lot of people probably know her for it tbh lmao. 

She’s super chill, and people can probably trust her to keep a secret because she doesn’t really care to blab peoples dirty laundry. 

She’s probably friends or friendly with a lot of people because she tends to joke around a lot, but there’s probably few she’s genuinely close to. She believes in vibes pretty strongly.

She loves trash TV and if she had to pick a dream right now, it’d be to be the host for the next biggest reality dating show. Make it happen for Love is Blind Season 2, Vibez.

Possible Connections:

I have actually made a list of wanted connections here for Max, but they are just basic ideas and most could work for her too. I am open up to any ideas/plots/all the connections! If there’s something you’re dying to do, feel free to hop into my DMs. My discord can be found at Spammy Santino #9317.

[fioress]

chicago’s very own fiore gattuso has been spotted on madison avenue driving a 2020 bentley continental gt v8 in red , welcome ! your resemblance to lorenzo zurzolo is unreal . according to tmz , you just had your twenty first birthday bash  . your chance of surviving new york is uncertain because you’re impatient , but being cunning might help you . i think being a libra explains that .  3 things that would paint  a  better picture of you would be bloodshot baby blue eyes, long drives without a specific destination, getting high by the beach. ( i have been conning money out of older women and men ever since my parents disowned me  ) & ( cismale + he/him  )

tw : abuse, homophobia

full  name : fiore emiliano luca gattuso ( first name pronounced fee-oh-reh, also see here! )

nicknames : fifi, emmy ( by people who know his middle name ), some people might say... flower boy ( fiore literally means flower in italian ) 😳

gender : cismale

height :  5 ′ 8

age : 21

birthday : october 14 , 1998

zodiac : libra  ( leo moon, aquarius ascendant )

right  handed  or  left  handed : left  handed

eye  color : baby blue

hair  color : basically dark blonde / light brown

piercing  &  tattoos : the libra symbol on his left wrist, a cartilage piercing on his right ear

languages  spoken : italian  ( native  tongue ), english, spanish, sicilian ( after many summers spent in his parents’ summer house in sicily )

sexuality : bisexual

place  of  birth : napoli, italia ( naples, italy in english )

last  3  songs  listened  to : dimmi che mi ami by dj matrix ( a full on fucking italian boy tbh ), talk is cheap by chet faker, west coast by lana del rey

character  inspo : maxxie oliver from skins u.k , adam groff from sex education ( think season 2 adam ), alyssa foley from the end of the fucking world, david rose from schitt’s creek, michael kelso from that 70′s show, a mix of nick miller & winston bishop from new girl, maeby funke from arrested development 

♡ so fiore was born to an american mother named lindsey harrison & a fully italian father named gian gattuso. his mother is a very well known politician & his father is heir of a very popular gas company, literally named gattuso gas ( yikes lol ). besides that, he is also a preacher. without saying much, his parents are very well off

♡ fiore grew up with anything he’s ever wanted ( materialistically, of course ). besides that, his parents genuinely weren’t the best of people. his mother stole millions from the so called campaigns she ran & was a generally very corrupt politician, his father treated his employees like shit & was a pretty hateful person altogether

♡ they were people who expected a lot out of their only son, which made fiore feel an insane amount of pressure from the very start. at a very young age, he showed characteristics lots of boys his age didn’t show. he did things like peeing while sitting down instead of standing up, preferred to play with dolls instead of ‘boy toys’, favored the color pink, got along better with girls, preferred to watch shows that were considered ‘girly’, etc etc. 

♡ they were very harmless things honestly, things that most parents would laugh about & turn a blind eye. however, fiore really wasn’t that lucky when it came to his parents. any time he would do anything his parents claimed a ‘normal boy wouldn’t do’, he would get a huge lecture & a beating to go with it. needless to say, he learned to hide a lot of who he really was from a very young age

♡ he did a lot of things to seek the approval of his parents. he wasn’t smart academically ( dumb boi 101 tbh ), but he tried to make them happy in other ways. fiore was never fond of sports at all, but he started playing tennis at seven years old, because it made his parents happy. truth be told, he hated tennis with every fiber of his being, but again, he did this, simply because it satisfied his parents 

♡ fiore grew up trying to be the perfect son, considering the fact his parents were very much in the public eye of everyone. it was all smiles for the pictures, but behind closed doors, he really wasn’t the happiest boy ever

♡ simply put, he has always known that he likes boys. he likes girls too, don’t get him wrong, but he knew, literally since he could remember, that he also had a thing for guys too. of course, he knew this wouldn’t settle well at all with his extremely strict & religious parents, so he buried his feelings incredibly deep 

♡ he has a lot of charm & wit & found himself getting into relationships quicker than most of his friends. he briefly dated a girl when he was fourteen, but it was when he was sixteen that things really began getting, dare i say, spicy?

♡ there was an american boy new to his very #elite school & if you guessed it, they began to date! yup, his first boyfriend at sixteen years old. fiore was basically living two lives at this point. at school, he was himself, loud & proud, but when he got home, the facade began. the way he would switch up as soon as he entered the front door to his house was honestly shockingly scary 

♡ he really felt himself falling in love with this boy even though they were both fairly young. they snuck around forever. when no one was home, he would sneak him into his room to have sex, sneak out of his house when his parents were asleep, all that fun stuff. their relationship was forbidden ( at least to fiore’s parents ). this is where it gets juicy af tho, hear me out 

♡ so one day, fiore & him get really really drunk & honestly? video record themselves having sex! 😊 they didn’t do this to post it anywhere or show anyone or anything, they really just did it for themselves. they made a few copies & kept it for themselves ( stupid boys, i know! ), but they really felt like they would get married & all that gooey lovey dovey shit so they did it because yolo i guess? this is where it gets peak #juicy

♡ so fiore & him are walking back from practice. this is a time where fiore knows no one is home & no one is coming home for a while, so when they get to his house & see his father’s car parked outside, he lowkey panics a little. of course he makes the guy leave & goes inside to see what’s going on

♡ his father asks him to come upstairs & surprisingly, leads him into his room. he says something along the lines of ‘i just want to show you this so i can hear your explanation on what the fuck this is’ & this is when fiore’s entire life practically takes a 360. his father turns on his tv & legit starts playing his sex tape with his boyfriend. just picture this though; your extremely religious & hateful father & you sitting on your bed, watching your gay sex tape with your boyfriend

♡ obviously, this news isn’t well taken by his father. to make a long story short, he gets his ass beat. like, literally almost dies type shit. when this happened, he was seventeen, almost eighteen. he knew if that was ever discovered by his parents, it wouldn’t go well, but he really didn’t think them discovering his sexuality would be that brutal

♡ his parents basically disown him at that moment. they bought him a ticket to chicago & told him they never wanna see him again. it’s sad, but he packed his things & left in two days to go live with his cousin in chicago. citizenship wasn’t a problem because he had dual citizenship due to his mother being american

♡ it doesn’t really take an expert to figure out that fiore did not take this move well at all. for months, he was really depressed. he wouldn’t go out & would just lay in bed for the longest time. he was really hurt by everything that happened & it took him a while to recover. he has also lived in italy his whole life & wasn’t really used to life in america at all, but after like the fourth month of just feeling sorry for himself, it was his cousin who snapped him back to reality

♡ slowly but surely, he began putting himself out there. his english honestly #sucked when he first got to america, but it’s gotten a lot better since then ( he still has a pretty deep italian accent though ). at first, he began working at a pizza place, but fiore slowly began to realize how much he despised working. his entire life, he received everything on a silver plater with pure golden spoons, so this? he was for sure not used to it at all. again, his life completely did a 360. he went from living in a three story mansion in the most prestigious part of rome to living in a very shitty part of chicago, broke almost always, & working a job he hated with everything he had, splitting rent with his cousin

♡ fiore did not want this at all for himself. it wasn’t until he went out clubbing ( fake id & all ), that one his friends showed him the wonders of conning people. they walked into the bar with twenty bucks and left with four thousand dollars 

♡ quickly, fiore began to learn his friends’ ways. his looks, personality & his thick italian accent helped him tremendously; it was like people literally couldn’t get enough of him. soon enough, he was conning & finessing the fuck out of older men & women for their money. he once walked into a casino with five dollars and walked out with over twelve thousand, & it was only because he stayed for like an hour only

♡ finessing people became a huge hobby of his. it was with all this money that he bought himself a luxury car & jump started his model & influencer career. it was also with this money that him & his cousin ditched chicago & moved into a much better apartment in new york. with his looks & persona, he gained followers like crazy & posted videos on youtube as well, getting sponsorships & recognition easier than he expected. he was literally living off his looks & his personality & honestly? he was here for it! 

♡ there is still a part of fiore that has a lot of issues & trauma. honestly mommy & daddy issues af, but he doesn’t talk about this at all. no one really knows how he came up or where his family is & he keeps it this way, dodging questions about his personal life as much as he can

♡ in a way, he is kind of relieved with everything that happened with his parents because now, he’s completely free to be himself & do whatever the fuck he wants, knowing very well they can’t really touch him now. of course, it still left a mark that he’s never going to be able to erase or forget ( both in his heart & on his body too ), but he feels free for once in his life & he’s honestly kind of happier now 

♡ relationship wise, he really doesn’t commit to anyone. after practically being forced to leave his now ex boyfriend at almost 18, he kind of feels like he doesn’t deserve love? it’s really fucked up but he’s genuinely convinced that no one is ever going to genuinely love him or want to be with him so he just avoids any romantic relationship of any kind, usually just hooking up with people & then leaving as soon as it’s over. the truth is that he really does want to be loved, accepted & cared for by someone he loves, accepts & cares for as well, but will it ever happen if he continues pushing people away? probably not tbh 

♡ he is a fucking drinker & hella pot smoker!! legit give him some alcohol & weed he’s happy. he always has either one on him, or both tbh 

♡ this is all that’s coming to mind rn but underneath is his bio!!

       fiore was born to lindsey and gian gattuso in naples, italy. from a very young age, he showed characteristics most boys his age didn’t show. he would pee sitting down, every time he would visit his cousins, he would rather play dolls with them instead of ‘boy toys’, favored the color pink, watched things that were considered ‘girly’, etc. of course, this never settled well with his extremely religious parents, and every time he would do something even remotely different than a ‘regular’ boy would do, he would get a huge lecture, and a beating to go with it. that being said, fiore was quick to learn to hide a lot of who he really was. he absolutely despised tennis, but he played it anyways, and he did it, simply because it made his parents happy. the gattuso’s had a ton of money, so he played tennis in nearly all of europe. he has always known that he likes boys, maybe even a little bit more than he likes girls. literally since he’s had a sense of judgement, he’s just known. of course, he kept this a secret, practically living a double life, being himself at school and someone completely different at home. it didn’t take long for him to get a boyfriend, and soon, he found himself slowly falling in love. secretly sneaking him into the house when his parents weren’t home to have quickies, holding hands with him down the school hallways, and even lying to his parents and telling them he was going going to tennis practice just to hang out with him. however, one mistake costed him, well, everything.

        they were drunk and goofing around, and decided to record themselves having sex. it was innocent and pure, both of them just making love to each other in the rawest, loveliest form. the two boys made copies of it, and fiore kept one for himself. one day, when he was trying to sneak his boyfriend into the house, he saw his dad’s car parked outside, which was odd because he was never home around that time. his boyfriend left, and he went to go investigate. his father was beyond calm, and bought him up to his room. his room. fiore was confused as his father told him to sit down on the bed, and soon, his worst nightmare became a reality. his father began playing his damn sex tape on his dvd player, and to say he was mortified was an understatement. he was humiliated, and most of all, afraid. it came without much warning, but soon, his father was throwing punches to his face, his stomach, everywhere, dragging him down the stairs just for it to continue. all he saw was blood. for the first time in forever, fiore truly felt like he had hit rock bottom. they took away his cellphone, any type of technology he had to communicate with was gone, and before he knew it, he was being shipped off to america, completely cut off by his parents.

        fiore definitely didn’t take the move so well. he was a depressed mess. he wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sleep, and over all, just felt out of place. it took him a pretty long time, but eventually, he began adjusting. of course he was still super hurt over everything that had happened, his parents cutting him off, him being away from his now ex boyfriend, his first true love, but time luckily healed most of his pain, and soon, he found himself bettering his english, making friends, and fitting right in. at least he didn’t have to play tennis here. living with his cousin wasn’t so bad either. they constantly smoked, drank like there was no tomorrow, and he even managed to land him a job at a pizza delivery place. fiore hated this job though, but after a night our with friends, he found himself learning the art of conning and finessing older men and women. he does this like there’s no tomorrow, the money he made from all these schemes helping him jumpstart his career as an influencer and model, which bought him back to his typical luxurious lifestyle. fiore is just trying to get by, one day at a time.

extra spice:

[fiiore-blogs]

( lorenzo zurzolo , 20 , cismale ) i  just  bumped  into  fiore  gattuso  the  other  day  while  walking  down  north  kingsboro , where  he  lives . i  hear  they  can  be  charming  and  narcissistic , but  when  i  think  of  them  i  immediately  think  of  bloodshot  baby  blue  eyes , luxury  brands , an  enchanting  smile ( ari , 21 , she / her , est ) 

tw : homophobia , abuse

full  name : fiore emiliano luca gattuso ( first name pronounced fee-oh-reh, also see here! )

nicknames : fifi, emmy ( by people who know his middle name ), some people might say… flower boy ( fiore literally means flower in italian ) 😳

gender : cismale

height :  5 ′ 8

age : 20

birthday : may 30 , 2000

zodiac : gemini ( aries moon, libra ascendant )

right  handed  or  left  handed : left  handed

eye  color : baby blue

hair  color : basically dark blonde / light brown

piercing  &  tattoos : the gemini symbol on his left wrist, a cartilage piercing on his right ear

languages  spoken : italian  ( native  tongue ), english, spanish, pretty decent sicilian

sexuality : bisexual / biromantic

place  of  birth : livorno , tuscany , italy

last  3  songs  listened  to : dimmi che mi ami by dj matrix, almeno stavolta by nek, west coast by lana del rey

character  inspo : kat hernandez from euphoria ( huge muse ! ), adam groff from sex education ( think season 2 adam ), alyssa foley from the end of the fucking world, maeby funke from arrested development, lucrecia montesinos from elite

♡ so fiore was born to a spanish mother named martina & a fully italian father named gian gattuso in tuscany, but they later moved to rome when he was around four years old. his mother is a very well known politician & his father is a billionaire, heir of several gas, water & electric companies all over europe. besides that, he is also a preacher and very involved in church. both his parents are very well off financially

♡ fiore grew up with anything he’s ever wanted ( materialistically, of course ). besides that, his parents genuinely weren’t the best of people. his mother stole millions from the so called campaigns she ran & was a very corrupt politician, his father treated his employees like shit & was a pretty hateful person altogether

♡ they were people who expected a lot out of their only son, which made fiore feel an insane amount of pressure from the very start. at a very young age, he showed characteristics lots of boys his age didn’t show. he did things like peeing while sitting down instead of standing up, preferred to play with dolls instead of ‘boy toys’, favored the color pink, got along better with girls, preferred to watch shows that were considered ‘girly’, etc etc.

♡ they were very harmless things honestly, things that most parents would laugh about & turn a blind eye. however, fiore really wasn’t that lucky when it came to them any time he would do anything they claimed a ‘normal boy wouldn’t do’, he would get a huge lecture & a beating to go with it. needless to say, he learned to hide a lot of who he really was from a very young age

♡ he did a lot of things to seek the approval of his parents. he wasn’t smart academically ( dumb boi 101 tbh ), but he tried to make them happy in other ways. fiore was never fond of sports at all, but he started playing tennis when he was five, because it made his parents happy. truth be told, he hated tennis with every fiber of his being, but again, he did this, simply because it satisfied his parents

♡ he grew up trying to be the perfect son, often times putting himself in situations he didn’t want to be in or felt uncomfortable doing because he wanted them to be proud, but honestly? it was like? never enough. it was all smiles for the pictures, but behind closed doors, he really was pretty damn miserable

♡ simply put, he has always known that he likes boys. he likes girls too, don’t get him wrong, but he knew, literally since he could remember, that he also had a thing for guys too. of course, he was aware that this wouldn’t settle well at all with his extremely strict & unfortunately, very close minded parents, so he buried his feelings incredibly deep

♡ he has a lot of charm & wit & found himself getting into relationships quicker than most of his friends. he briefly dated a girl when he was fourteen, but it was when he was sixteen that things really began getting pretty #spicy

♡ there was a romanian boy new to his very #elite school & if you guessed it, they began to date! his first boyfriend at sixteen years old. fiore was basically living two lives at this point, sneaking around with a guy behind his parents’ back, but when he got home, the facade began. the way he would switch up as soon as he entered the front door to his house was honestly shockingly scary

♡ he really felt himself falling in love with this boy even though they were both fairly young. they snuck around forever. when no one was home, he would sneak him into his room to have sex, sneak out of his house when his parents were asleep, all that fun stuff. their relationship was forbidden ( at least to fiore’s parents ), but things go downhill pretty fast

♡ so one day, fiore & him get really really drunk & honestly? video record themselves having sex fjkgnfv they didn’t do this to post it anywhere or show anyone or anything, they really just did it for themselves. they made a few copies ( stupid boys, i know rip ), but they really felt like they would get married & all that gooey lovey dovey shit so they did it because yolo i guess? this was a pretty big mistake though

♡ one day fiore & him are walking back from his tennis practice. this is a time where fiore knows no one is home & no one is coming home for a while, so when they get to his house & see his father’s car parked outside, he lowkey panics a little. of course he makes the guy leave & goes inside to see what’s going on

♡ his father asks him to come upstairs & surprisingly, leads him into his room. this is when fiore’s entire life practically changes forever. his father turns on his tv & legit starts playing his sex tape with his boyfriend. just picture this though; your extremely homophobic, close minded & hateful father & you sitting on your bed, watching your gay sex tape with your boyfriend

♡ obviously, this news isn’t well taken by his father. to make a long story short, he gets his ass beat. like, literally almost dies type shit. when this happened, he was eighteen and had just recently graduated school, with plans to travel. he knew if his relationship was ever discovered by his parents, it wouldn’t go well, but he really didn’t think them discovering his sexuality would be that brutal

♡ his parents basically disown him at that moment. they bought him a ticket to new york & told him they never wanna see him again. it’s sad, but he packed his things & left in two days to go live with his cousin 

♡ it doesn’t really take an expert to figure out that fiore did not take this move well at all. for months, he was really depressed. he wouldn’t go out & would just lay in bed for the longest time. he was really hurt by everything that happened & it took him a while to recover. he has also lived in italy his whole life & wasn’t really used to life in america at all, but after like the fourth month of just feeling sorry for himself, it was his cousin who snapped him back to reality

♡ he began putting himself out there. at first, he began working at a pizza place, but fiore slowly began to realize how much he despised working. his entire life, he received everything on a golden plater with pure solid gold spoons, he’s always had everything he’s ever wanted without working for it, so this? he was for sure not used to it at all. again, his life completely changed. he went from living in a three story mansion in the most prestigious part of rome to living in a very shitty part of new york, broke almost always, & working a job he hated with everything he had, splitting rent with his cousin

♡ fiore did not want this at all for himself. it wasn’t until he went out clubbing ( fake id & all ), that one his friends showed him the wonders of conning people. they walked into the bar with twenty bucks and left with four thousand dollars

♡ quickly, fiore began to learn his friends’ ways. his looks, personality & his thick italian accent helped him tremendously; it was like people literally couldn’t get enough of him. soon enough, he was conning & finessing the fuck out of older men & women for their money. he once walked into a casino with five dollars and walked out with over 12k

♡ finessing people became a huge hobby of his. he’s also very very lowkey done some camboy stuff, but with a mask on because he’s sneaky af ( legit think kat from euphoria ) like, these super lonely old men or even women are just sending him money for being hot? amazing! it was with all this money that he bought himself a luxury car & jump started his model & influencer career. it was also with this money that him & his cousin ditched the crap show that is south kingsboro & moved into a much better apartment up north. with his looks & persona, he gained followers like crazy & posted videos on youtube as well, getting sponsorships & recognition easier than he expected. he honestly makes a shit ton of money off social media & modeling, like, he’s basically living off his looks, personality & the content he post? we love to see it

♡ there is still a part of fiore that has a lot of issues & trauma. honestly mommy & daddy issues af, but he doesn’t talk about this at all. he literally refuses to talk about anything that happened to him before he was eighteen. no one really knows how he came up or where his family is & he keeps it this way, dodging questions about his personal life as much as he can

♡ in a way, he is kind of relieved with everything that happened with his parents because now, he’s completely free to be himself & do whatever the fuck he wants, knowing very well they can’t really touch him anymore. of course, it still left a mark that he’s never going to be able to erase or forget ( both in his heart & on his body too ), but he feels free for once in his life & he’s honestly kind of happier now, but also, low key needs therapy tbh 🥴

♡ relationship wise, he really doesn’t commit to anyone. after practically being forced to leave his now ex boyfriend, he kind of feels like he doesn’t deserve love? it’s really fucked up but he’s genuinely convinced that no one is ever going to really love him or want to be with him so he just avoids any romantic relationship of any kind, usually just hooking up with people & then leaving as soon as it’s over, or just stealing money from them and ghosting. the truth is that he really does want to be loved, accepted & cared for by someone he loves, accepts & cares for as well, but will it ever happen if he continues pushing people away? probably not tbh

♡ he is a fucking drinker & hella pot smoker!! legit give him some alcohol & weed he’s happy. he always has either one on him, or both tbh. he’s secretly a hella good cook too but this is something almost nobody knows really. he can make food or desserts, and he’s also taught himself to make weed edibles which is honestly iconic kvnfjvc even though he keeps this part of himself hidden

♡ he can be really sneaky & deceiving when he has to be, like, he’ll legit have 0 reason to lie but he’ll lie anyways? it’s like a defense mechanism lmfao

♡ very much conceited boy, honestly in love with his looks but it goes deeper than that. he feels like he has nothing to offer besides being hot so he dwells on looking good always, pretty sure he would rather die than wear sweatpants like vjkdfsvnfs literally always looks a1

♡ is actually? secretly blind af ndjvdfnv one of his many secrets tbh. has a vision of 20/50, nearly 20/60, but hasn’t worn glasses since he was seven, pretty much doing everything with contacts. he just thinks glasses look unattractive on him & honestly refuses to let anyone see him with them on. the only person who even knows he has vision as bad as he does is his cousin who is a npc sooo ��

♡ this is all that’s coming to mind rn but hmu for plots pretty pls jkfnvjnfv, this is his birthchart for some extra #tea

[sagebodisattva]

The Universe Doesn’t Give a Shit About You

You know, one thing that has become seriously irritating nowadays, is this whole “the universe is doing something for you” shtick, that’s apparently become the latest favorite new age meme, currently making it’s rounds on the internets. Take a look at this stuff.

(A variety of examples are shown.)

And that’s just a small sampling. And this isn’t just a case of a few isolated incidents. This type of sentiment is everywhere now; seemingly having become all the rage among many aspiring spiritual truth seekers.

“Depressed? Cheer up. The universe is horny for you!”

By first appearances, making references to the universe seems to reflect a more scientifically based position, although, I don’t think these seekers really mean it in a scientific way. Essentially, these new age universe worshippers are just former theists, who probably finally realized the complete absurdity of that position, and so now, have shifted their heels over to pantheism; that is, a doctrine which identifies god with the universe, or regards the universe as a manifestation of god; which is basically a veneration of nature. And, as we all know, mother nature is pretty much a cold, predatory, discriminating bitch; so I’m not sure why anyone would associate nature with a benevolent god.

I know, god loves you so much, he allows evil to rack you to the core on purpose. It’s a test, right? It’s all part of his divine plan. God just wants to see if you will curse his name when he makes times get incredibly tough. It’s a Job type of deal. He’s forcing you into a position of struggle and suffering, all so he can wage a bet with the devil over whether or not you will be disobedient. Isn’t that just so cool of him? Now you get to show god just how loyal and subservient you are to him, despite all the abuses he hurls at you! That’s such an enviable position! The one true god loves you so much, he tortures you as a demonstration of just how much you worship and obey him. That’s what love is. And just think of how lucky you are! He picked *you* as a guinea pig in his twisted self aggrandizing experiment! He chose YOU! This would make such a great reality TV show!

Heaven and Hell productions, presents...

“The God Fucks Me Factor.”

Ah yes, it would be, so nice. Because god takes great pride in your blind obedience, you know. And he’s a very jealous god, if you can believe it. So what’s going on inside your head is of supreme importance him! You must think that you believe in him, then confess it with thy lips, and then go down, and perform some lip service on the godhead. You should show great pride in being a slave. It’s a feather in god’s cap. And now, can be more fully realized with the advent of pantheism. It’s theism, with a pan. It’s pantheism.

Famous 17th century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza was really captivated by the idea of pantheism, and his many philosophical contemplations on the subject is largely responsible for ushering the position into modern day prominence. Pantheists do not celebrate a distinct personal or anthropomorphic god, but rather, accept all gods into worship, because they view god as everything. An ideological stance that can become quite problematic, to say the least.

Throughout history, pantheism has been a belief system that, in one form or another, tended to be the most common default faith practice among the many various indigenous peoples from around the globe. It’s the same ideologic methodology that the pagans of Europe used to practice; that is, before Rome came along and forced Christianity deep down into every person’s every available orifice. And you should always keep this historical fact in the forefront of your mind. Your Abrahamic belief system is the result of a Roman soldier raping someone’s great great great great grandma and grandpa with a big middle eastern theological strap-on dildo. Don’t you ever forget that. Your whole modern day spiritual life was originally founded on a theological psych-rape. Your precious sacred religion was passed down to you through your family being raped. And it’s no coincidence that Rome, an arrogant empire dead-set on conquering the entire world, found Christianity to be quite compatible with their grandiose ambitions. And that should tell you something about the core fabric of the Abrahamic cult religions.

So, pantheists believe that god is everything. All inclusive, with no exceptions. No standards or filter necessary. This includes every kind of concept; even the stupid ideas and majestic fantasies, floating around inside our heads. And this also includes every kind of object or person to have ever existed, no matter who or what they are. This means they are ALL god, whether it be a virus, a parasite or an infectious bacteria, whether it be a machine gun, cocaine or a dildo, whether John Wayne Gacy, the unabomber or Adolf Hitler, they are all but different forms of an ambiguous enigmatic god! He’s so complex, you can’t even fathom him. He’s got value and purpose so profoundly beyond your puny logic, you can’t even question him.

And not only is every kind of object or person a manifestation of god, but guess what? With pantheism, ALL the different gods, are god as well. It’s not that some gods are valid, and some gods are not, or that maybe all gods are completely full of shit, no! In fact, it actually quite the opposite, I’m afraid. Now, all different gods are actually the one same god. Every so called “god” is graciously welcomed into pantheism with open arms. Whether Yahweh, Zeus, Horace, or the great honorable bull testicle god, all of them are just different manifestations of the one same god!

Yeah. You know, when it gets right down to it, I don’t have any issue with the whole “god is everything”, bullshit, but, uh, to say the least, I think these concepts might be just a little *too* inclusive for most of the population’s tastes. They’re simply not palatable to their delicate tongue’s tender sensibilities, and they therefor much more prefer to perform oral worship on a single god head. Who am I to stop them?

But the concept of a universe is just so much better then a god, isn’t it? Yeah. It’s a better false substitution. The idea of the universe as a higher power is more soothing then the idea of a god as a higher power. This particular surrogate for the truth is just so much more secure and comforting. But in the end, it’s the same exercise. The idea that something ELSE in the field of perception is the responsible agent. In fact, most of this pantheism business just seems to be a matter of replacing the word “god” with the word “universe”, and calling this a new ideological position. Are you confused? Well, worry not! I will gladly give you a little taste, and bestow upon you three prime examples.

Quote:

“Never trust anyone completely but God. Love people, but put your full trust only in God.”

Lawrence Welk.

Nice. Which now becomes:

“Never trust anyone completely but the universe. Love people, but put your full trust only in the universe.”

Quote:

“Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Sweet. But could also be stated:

“Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is the universe’s handwriting.”

Quote:

“Man has to start with something and then develop it - he cannot ever make anything from nothing, only God can do that, and call forth the creation.”

Margaret Weston.

Awesome. But let’s not overlook:

“Man has to start with something and then develop it - he cannot ever make anything from nothing, only the universe can do that, and call forth the creation.”

See how it works? Just about any dialogue about god could still hold water when replacing the word “god” with “the universe.” So it’s really not all that much of a novel position. It’s just a convenient one-size-fits-all philosophical cure-all. An ideological placebo. And I’m not one who is much impressed by Dues Ex philosophy, which is what any type of theology basically is, including pantheism.

For those of you not familiar with the term, “Dues Ex”, it is derived from the term “Dues Ex Machina”, a Greek phrase, which translated means, “a god from a machine”, and is usually employed as a literary device, wherein an explicitly complex seemingly intractable problem in a plot narrative is suddenly inexplicably solved by the addition of an unexpected character, object or situation. Think the eagles coming to save Frodo from uncertain doom in the fiery volcano of Mordor. Basically, it’s a cheap fast way to tie up the loose ends of a difficult quandary. It’s ideological laziness, and quite frankly, has no place in philosophy, in much the same way that theism has no place in philosophy.

And by the way, speaking of the “a god from the machine” thought experiment, it reminds me that, when it comes to gods and machines and ghosts and men, philosophers have gotten the whole thing all wrong all along. A god may emerge from a machine, but if it does, bear in mind that both the god and the machine are equally sourced from the pure mind. And this is the part people just can’t seem to understand. Though-out history, philosophers have always deeply contemplated the idea of “a ghost in the machine”, but that’s because most philosophers think they are a physical creature living in a physical environment. But it’s a huge lie. There is no ghost in the machine. What you actually have, is a machine in the ghost; as, there is no such thing as physicality, and a “deterministic mechanical universe”, is just an abstraction. What you call “physicality”, is a denser mental state; and to attribute this mind-space into an idea of objective locality is just plain falsehood. It’s just plain wrongheaded.

And it doesn’t matter if you include the “self”, as god, because this “self”, is still an attribution. The egoic character that you’ve associated an identity with, isn’t a self, so this is still in the same realm of falsehoods. Illusion is everything on the screen of perception; including the physical body, and all it’s supposed psycho-biological properties. Wherein is any universe?

So that’s pantheism; which, I’m not all that partial towards, due to it’s attributional psychology, which shares the same central backbone as orthodox religion. Why would it be any different with pantheism? The responsibility is still elsewhere, hence the power is elsewhere also; so it matters not that you’ve replaced an anthropological deity with celestial chemistry. Same excrement, different poop chute. And that’s the same reason why, that if a truth seeker were to take a purely scientific position considering the universe, it wouldn’t be all that much different then a theist or a pantheist viewpoint.

“How’s that?”

That’s right, Charlie. As previously stated, a purely cosmological scientific viewpoint; that is, the idea of the universe as some grand cosmic physical context of exterior space consisting of a mixture of different objects and chemistries, is just that: an idea. In other words, also completely full of shit. There is no “universe”, existing, anywhere. And that’s why, the universe doesn’t give it a shit about you. There’s no vibrating strings out there governing some law of attraction that brings forth metaphysical emergent properties when you energetically match a frequency. No. What you really have, is just an IDEA of a universe, which is not really located in a space-time continuum, but, only imagined as a location in a mind-space continuum.

If you can understand this basic fundamental, then you may have finally grasped one of the basic truths of reality.

[thewritingstar]

1-200 we're all in quarantine so got nothing to do. Might as well ask pls

oo anon you were gonna ask anyways lol. But I did this hella quick during a zoom.....

1. What is your middle name?

-Rose

2. Do you have any nicknames that aren’t derived from your actual name?

-Star

2. Do you have any allergies?

-Penicillin (not really thou), but no

4. What is the longest your hair has ever been?

-Lower back

5. How well can you write in cursive?

-Its readable

6. Name one item on your bucket list.

-Going to all the Disney parks in the world

7. Have you ever been on a blind date?

-haven’t even been on a real date

8. What is the oldest piece of clothing you still wear and how old is it?

-prob like five years ago and its jeans

9. How often do you eat out at a fancy restaurant?

-nothing like I have to dress up but maybe once a year??

10. How grammatically correct are you when you text?

-rules don’t apply in text

11. Can you drive stick?

-hell no

12. What foreign country would you most like to visit and why?

-japan because I think it would be so cool

13. Nutella or peanut butter?

-NUTELLA

14. At what age did you have your first kiss?

-...............ahahhahahh

15. DC or Marvel?

-DC. Harley Quinn owns my ass

16. Have you ever hosted a wild party?

-my parties consist of drinking capri suns and playing cards against humanity and Mario kart

17. Name/author of the last book you read cover to cover. Do you recommend it?

-...ooof haven’t read a book in a while

18. How many of your Facebook friends do you actually hang with?

-my mom

19. Have you ever donated blood?

-I was apart of a cancer study so I used to donate my blood (and pee) to science

20. From 1-10, how much do you like decorating for holidays?

-8 I love to decorate but I’m not allow near the Christmas trees

21. Coffee or tea?

-vaniila iced lattes or raspberry ice tea own me

22. What is your go-to Starbucks drink?

-Vanilla bean frap with extra vanilla

23. Last show you binge watched?

-currently its assassination classroom

24. Dogs or cats?

-puppy’s

25. Favorite animated Disney character?

-Jessica Rabbit, Dumbo, Rey, Tamatoa and Guedo

26. Have you ever cooked a big family meal by yourself?

-mostly baking for my family

27. Favorite winter activity?

-Staying inside

28. Have you ever butt dialed anyone?

-probably

29. Can you blow a bubble gum bubble?

-yes

30. How early in the year do you start celebrating Christmas?

-my mom plays Xmas music year round

31. What emoji best describes your life right now?

-the wilting rose

32. Are you fluent in more than one language?

-nope

33. What is the longest you’ve ever kept a New Year’s resolution?

-I don’t make them

34. Have you ever successfully been on a diet? Did you gain any of the weight back?

-I’m on a diet to gain weight and its not going well

35. Are any of your grandparents still alive?

-only on my moms side

36. How good are you at communicating through facial expressions?

-hahaha my face gives everything away and I can read people pretty well

37. Have you ever gotten a commercial jingle stuck in your head?

-EDUCATION CONNECTION! Get connected for free

38. Have you ever left a movie theater before the movie was over?

-Nope

39. Do you consider rapping singing?

-rapping is in its own ballpark...its why its called rapping

40. Does your home have a fireplace?

Yep

41. Favorite non-chocolate candy?

-sour gummies worms

42. If you could have only one superpower, what would you want and why?

-oooof ummmmmm maybe teleportation

43. Have you ever locked your keys in your car?

44. Do you listen to any religious music?

-noooooooooo

45. Do you drink soda? If so, which one is your favorite?

-I hate soda

46. What was your ACT score?

-do not do me like this (21)

47. Rice or quinoa?

-rice

48. From 1-10, how good of a driver do you consider yourself?

-like an 8

49. Do you like horror movies?

-nope

50. How easily do you cry?

-uh depends on what it is

51. Do you have any tattoos? If so, of what and where?

-no but I want some

52. You are hanging with your closest friends. What are you most likely doing?

-being dumb and quoting tik toks at target

53. Can you handle spicy foods? What is your spice limit?

-not very well

54. Can you play any musical instruments? If so, which ones?

-no

55. Are you more introverted or extroverted?

-middle of the road

56. Last CD you bought?

-Folklore by Taylor Swift

57. Do you like roller coasters?

-yessss but they cant be extremely tall

58. What day of the week is laundry day for you?

-uhhh depends on when I have time

59. Have you ever played spin the bottle?

-uh maybe once but I was in fourth grade and walked away

60. How long have you known your best friend?

-I’ve known my bestie for 16 years (met when we were 4)

61. Can you eat using chopsticks?

-yes!! I usually eat my Chinese food with them

62. Do you have any stickers on your laptop computer? If so, what are they of?

-no because I need to get a case for my iMac and iPad

63. How often do you say y'all?

-every fucking day. Y’all is my go too

64. Favorite flavor of ice cream?

-cookie dough, pralines and cream, blue raspberry sherbert, vanilla, coffee

65. How long was your longest relationship? Are you still with that person?

-my longest relationship was like three weeks in fourth grade with my friends cousin who I saw twice

66. Star Trek or Star Wars?

-haven’t seen either but prob Star Wars cause r2d2 is cute

67. How good are you at math?

-ehhh I’m okay at stats

68. Have you ever acted in a play or a musical?

-used to do the plays in middle school :)

69. How often do you read/pay attention to your horoscope?

-not much my horoscope but just my sign in general

70. What is the shortest your hair has ever been?

-just above my shoulders

71. Have you ever broken any bones?

-my big toe

72. Do you like to go fishing?

-nooooooo I went fishing once and it pooped on me

73. Do you believe in evolution?

-of course

74. Favorite costume you wore for Hallowen? How old were you?

-I was perry the platypus…. 19

75. Real or fake Christmas trees?

-fake!!! WHO WANTS TO CLEAN THAT UP???

76. How many pillows do you sleep with?

-usually 1-2 but like 5 in the winter

77. Do you live in an apartment or a house?

-House rn

78. How many of your friends are of the opposite gender?

-in my close circle, one but I do have many boy homies

79. Have you ever had a near-death experience?

-many times

80. How long have you been at your current job?

-four weeks

81. What kind of car do you drive (year, brand, model, color)?

-white car

82. How flexible are you?

-not super but mama can bend

83. Have you ever ended a romantic relationship?

-haven’t even started one

84. Phrase you say the most?

-“I’m uncomfortable” “Y’all” “I would let J.D from heathers…..”

85. Have you ever kissed anyone of the same gender? If so, did you like it?

-no but I wish

86. Do you own any homemade clothing?

-not that I know of

87. Do you like fast food?

-yessss

88. Have you ever given anyone CPR?

-nope

89. Have you ever learned to do anything from a how-to video on YouTube?

-I fixed my moms glasses yesterday with a video so she wouldn’t have to spend a shit ton of money

90. Describe your sense of humor.

-if Always Sunny in Philadelphia and “vine comp that butters my eggroll” had a baby

92. Favorite cereal?

-no

93. Have you ever auditioned for a reality competition show?

-no

94. Have you ever gotten a TV theme song stuck in your head?

-Sugar, spice and everything nice, these were the ingredients…….

95. Do you believe in ghosts?

-indifferent

96. Do you think there is life on other planets?

-hell yeah

97. Have you ever given money to a street performer?

-yep

98. Your deepest fear?

-lets not go there

99. Pancakes or waffles?

-waffles but I don’t even like them that much

100. Are you still friends with anyone from high school?

-yep, my friend circle dates back to elementary

101. From 1-10, how good of a dancer do you consider yourself?

-7

102. How much of a patient person are you?

-I can be extremely patient. Once waited three hours in a dressing room with my friend and I didn’t have a phone

103. Do you know your IQ?

-no but its prob god level

104. Do you eat meat at all?

-mama loves meat

105. Do you own any clothes from a garage sale or a thrift store?

-I think so

106. Have you ever bought anything from a flea market?

-yess my mom used to take me to flea markets all the time

107. Have you ever quit a job?

-early this year

108. Have you ever gotten a song you dislike stuck in your head?

-many times

109. Any movie(s) you can watch over and over and over again and enjoy just as much each time?

-robots to ratatouille

110. Do you or have you ever worn glasses?

-just sun glasses

111. Have you ever skinny dipped?

-when I was like 6

112. Are your birth parents still together?

-yep

113. Have you ever been in the audience for the taping of a TV show?

-not that I know of

114. Favorite type of cookie?

-chocolate chip or the sugar cookies with the pink frosting on them (I’m a whore for them)

115. Have you ever been broken up with?

-nope

116. How often do you smile when getting your picture taken?

-most of the time

117. Have you ever accidentally dialed 911?

-yes I have and I was 6 and bullied for it for years by my uncle even though my cousins tricked me into doing it

118. Oldest memory?

-throwing a chair at a kid in preschool for stealing my cookie

119. Have you ever been the victim of a nasty prank?

-nope

120. How often do you snort when you laugh?

-uhhhh a lot

121. From 1-10, how good of a singer do you consider yourself?

-5

122. Favorite Disney song?

-uuuuuuhhh Shiny, See the Light, Why Don’t you Do Right, Show Yourself

123. Where do you see yourself 10 years from now?

-hopefully in la

124. What is your Myers-Briggs personality type?

-I’m an advocate

125. Have you ever had a fortune cookie fortune come true?

-I think so

126. Name one thing you wish people would stop posting on social media.

-fascist, racist, homophobia stuff

127. Last musical artist you saw live?

-Jonas brothers

128. Credit cards or cash?

-cash cause I feel like I didn’t spend anything

129. Favorite fandom?

-the powderpuff girls or fairy tail

130. What is your astrological sign?

-Aries

131. Have you ever been fired from a job?

-nope I’m a good noodle

132. Any hidden talents?

-I can do the cinnamon challenge

133. Can you surf?

-nope

134. What motivates you to do well in life?

-the fear of failure

135. Your worst physical feature?

-my acne

136. From 1-10, how much are you like your father?

-mehhhhhhhh like a 4

137. How lucky do you consider yourself?

-I’m a pretty lucky person ngl

138. Name a moment in your life when you were pleasently surprised.

-when I won a coffee maker at my senior grad night raffle

139. Have you ever been summoned for jury duty?

-nope

140. What type of shoes do you wear the most?

-my converse

141. Favorite summer activity?

-getting coffee

142. Favorite song to sing in the shower?

-any Taylor swift song

143. Have you ever lived with a roommate you did not get along with?

-my parents sometimes

144. Have you ever lived on a farm?

-my grandparents owned a cherry farm when I was little

145. Have you ever kept a diary or a journal?

-tumblr is my diary

146. TV show or movie you quote/reference the most?

-Always Sunny, The Office, Gotham

147. How often do you get mad at yourself?

-constantly

148. Have you ever gotten any stitches?

-only in animal crossing (he’s so cute)

149. Have you ever been hunting?

-no

150. Favorite YouTube channel?

-Jenna marbles, try guys, mukbang edit channel, drama channels

151. Have you ever had a pet besides a dog or a cat?

-I had a mouse once

152. From 1-10, how well do you work with others?

-9

153. Are you friends with any of your exes?

-I don’t got exes

154. Apple or PC?

-I have an Apple Mac rn but I think I loved my pc so much so I’m getting used to the format

155. Do you collect anything?

-what don’t I collect? Funko, pins, so much stuff

156. Have you ever seen any Broadway plays or musicals?

-I saw Newsies and A Music chorus

157. Any missed opporunites you wish you had taken?

-I’m not too sure

158. Have you ever uttered a spoken hashtag?

-yes

159. Do you have a pool at your house?

-nope

160. What is the longest you’ve gone without sleep?

-like 24 hours and it was hell

161. Last thing that made you laugh?

-a meme 20 sec ago

162. Disney or Nickelodeon?

-Disney

163. Name one celebrity you wish was still alive.

-Billy Mays (Oxyclean dude)

164. From 1-10, how much are you like your mother?

-maybe a 6

165. Your best physical feature?

-my hair

166. Earbud or earmuff headphones?

-earbud

167. Have you ever wished you were born the opposite gender?

-..hmmmm sometimes I think it would be cool but I’m pretty content with being a girl...

168. Do you have any piercings anywhere besides your ear lobes?

-my nose

169. How often do you wash your hair?

-every other day usually

170. Showers or baths?

-I love a good bath but I take showers more

171. Have you ever been a bridesmaid or a groomsman?

-noooo but I wanna be

172. Bottled or tap water?

-bottle

173. What was your favorite TV show when you were a kid?

POWERPUFF GIRLS

174. Any guilty pleasures you’re willing to discuss?

-watching glee

175. Favorite video game?

-Mario kart

176. Have you ever gotten a New Year’s kiss exactly at midnight?

-nooooo why are there so many questions about kissing

177. How many of the United States have you visited?

-four, ive passed over a few more in a plane

178. Have you ever given money to a homeless person?

-yes

179. Have you ever gotten a surgery?

-no

180. Your least favorite food?

-cheese

181. From 1-10, how competitive are you?

-depends. I’m like a 6 but I can be pushed to a 10 when motivated

182. Do you like wearing hats?

-only a snap back occasionally

183. How much of a jealous peron are you?

-ehh not really

184. What was your SAT score?

-900-1100 (stop nationwide testing doesn’t work and I didn’t learn eveything)

185. Have you ever voted for a reality competition show?

-no

186. Does anyone in your family currently serve in your country’s military?

-my cousin

187. Snowboarding or skiing?

-I don’t do snow

188. What celebrity would you most want to play you in a movie about your life?

-jack black

189. Have you ever been a Boy or Girl Scout?

-hell no

190. Have you ever dyed your hair?

-many times

191. From 1-10, how good of a cook do you consider yourself?

-7

192. You have just opened up a web browser. What is the first site you visit?

-this cursed site

193. How many things can you do with your weaker hand?

-a lot

194. Were you involved in any academic clubs in high school?

-honors i guess

195. Have you ever played hooky from school?

-like twice

196. Are you comfortable with watching rated R movies?

—-not with my parents

197. Do you root for any sports teams?

-bold of you to assume i do sport

198. First thing you do when you wake up in the morning?

-pee

199. If you could take home any one animal from the zoo, which one would you choose?

-a lizard

200. Tell something about yourself most people don’t know.

-uhhh ummmm (I have a tik tok with 7.5k followers) 

[fightthegods]

dated —  november 2008 - april 2010 located — dorchester, boston type — one-shot

AGE FOURTEEN

Eoin comes to consciousness, eyes blinking and unfocused. Where however long ago, his entire world and body was intense pain, waking up now is met with calm and warmth; a smiling face comes into focus, and a gentle hand presses to his cheek. "Mom?" he asks, his voice cracked and raw.

There's a laugh, "I sure hope not." The face comes into focus; soft, warm brown eyes framed by wild, black, and kinky hair. There's a smile on the girl's face, though it speaks more of amusement than anything else. "Come, let's get you to your feet. Can you stand?"

Oh, but he is lying down, isn't he? Eoin finally manages to tear his gaze from the angel above him to look around at the reality of the world. "What happened?" The question comes at the same time as the memory comes back to him. The walls of the alley are still sizzling under the biting acid, there's the acrid smell of death in the air, and three bodies, unmoving, half-decayed. No, not decayed. Corroded.

The girl gets up from where she'd been sitting and holds a hand out to him for him to take, which he does. There's surprising strength in her as she pulls him to his feet, or maybe he just isn't that heavy. "You got into a fight," she claims as she too looks around at the mess, then turns a little wicked smile on him. "Or maybe a fight got into you. Doesn't matter, you should feel better now."

"Yeah," Eoin stammers quietly, hands moving along his body slowly. Where previously his broken ribs, cracked under relentlessly kicking boots, were endlessly cracked, there's no trace of harm or pain in them now. His face is absent of swelling despite the beating, and the only hint that anything had happened at all is the caked blood where previously there had been excessive wounds. "Thank you. How did you do that?"

The reply comes in the way of a cheeky wink, followed by an equally cheeky grin. "The burning cure," she says, producing a worn zippo from her pocket. The flame of the lighter catches in her open hand and is extinguished once more when she closes it. "Where are your parents?" Eoin can only reply with a frown and a little shrug. The girl studies him for a moment, then, with a nod, she seems to make up her mind about something. "Okay. I want you to meet some people."

There's nothing Eoin can really do as her hand wraps around his upper arm and he's dragged down the alleyway. "I'm Eoin," he says, eyes still glued to her as though she's a mirage and if he looked away, she'd vanish. "What's your name?"

The girl looks back at him when she stops at the mouth of the alley, the mischief ever-present in her smile. "Nachelle."

AGE FIFTEEN

"Stop! Eoin, stop!" Nachelle's voice calls and echoes through the abandoned warehouse they call their home, along with several other kids, both mutant and human. A shriek pierces the otherwise silent space. "Please! Please stop!"

On the cot they share, Eoin has her pinned down, straddling her waist as Nachelle turns and squirms the best she can under his relentless assault. A wicked smirk rests on his face as his fingers dig into her ribs, over and over, pulling yet another scream from her lips. "Call me a dumbass again. Go on, try me."

Nachelle's eyes squeeze shut as sharp laughter bubbles from her mouth, and her head shakes violently. "You're a—” A gasp. "You're a dumbass, Eoin. Please, stop!" This time it's Eoin's turn to laugh, and when his fingers settle, he leaves Nachelle a panting mess.

"Fine," he snickers as he gets off her and lies down next to her. It's a tight fit, as it always is, but neither teenager seems to mind very much. Her head finds his chest and an arm wraps around his waist as she pulls herself into her side and that much closer to him. Eoin's hand drops on her head, playing with her hair slowly.

"You are a dumbass, Eoin," Nachelle repeats when her panting and soft giggles have subsided.

Eoin simply nods. "Mhm. I know."

Silence falls upon the warehouse again, and Eoin doesn't know how long they lie there, her fingers gently tracing patterns on his chest while one of his fingers twists around a piece of black hair over and over.

"I love you."

The words push into the silence slowly, and for a second, Eoin thinks that perhaps he misheard. When he blinks his eyes open and looks down, they connect with hers; no mischief, no laughter in her eyes. She said what she said and she meant it.

They stare at each other for an eternity. She's not taking it back, and Eoin realises he doesn't ever want her to.

"I love you too." Of course he does. How could he not?

The smile that he conjures onto her face with those four words leaves every radiant smile that had come before it but a dull affair. When she crashes her lips against his, he thinks for all its flaws and hardships, his life is absolutely perfect the way it is.

AGE FIFTEEN

Panic clings to every edge of Eoin's mind as he gasps in the cold Boston air, the salt in the air burning into the back of his throat as much as the gas is burning into his lungs. It all happened far too quick for him to comprehend; one moment they're all sleeping peacefully, the next, the warehouse — their home — is invaded by men in dark vests and riot gear, flashlights shining everywhere, blinding them even upon the deafening sound of gunfire.

The gas poured from his hands unlike a manner he'd ever seen gas do; it wasn't wispy, or billowing, but rather thick, almost liquid, like a waterfall of thick vapour unleashed from the pores of his hands. Silence came quick, and the only thing that stopped the unbidden assault from his hands was the fact that he couldn't breathe.

Before he could fall to his knees and succumb, already lightheaded, he's grabbed by the arm and pulled from the warehouse by a hacking and coughing form.

His knees finally find the floor even as another gunshot rings in the air. Nachelle drops the rifle by the police officer's now-dead body before she crouches next to him, wrapping her arms around his shaking and crying form.

"We're okay, Eoin," she reassures him, but her voice is ravaged, and she can't keep herself from coughing no matter how much she tries. "We have to go, we can't stay here. More will come, come on."

"I killed them," he whispers through his panicked sobs, voice just as raw and painful as Nachelle's sounds. "I killed them all. I killed them, I killed them." His body rocks back and forth on its own accord before he's hauled to his feet.

"No you didn't, baby," she says, but her attention isn't on him. The kids that also made it out find their way towards them, some older teenagers like Nachelle, some Eoin's age, and others younger still. "Is this everyone?" An older boy nods his head, still coughing as he watches Eoin. "Don't look at him, Jarod, it's not his fucking fault. Grab the little ones, we need to leave."

The next day, the news reports a warehouse of dangerous mutants has been eliminated, and viewers are asked to keep the officers that died in their thoughts and prayers. Nachelle turns off the TV with angry eyes. They know better than these lies.

AGE SIXTEEN

There's something in her eyes, a challenge, her gaze unwavering as its fixed on him. Eoin looks at the man holding her by the hair harshly. "So what's it gonna be?" the human asks, no, demands, and Nachelle's hand on the man's wrist tightens, her glare going darker.

Eoin has known her for long enough to know what her face is telling him. Don't. Eyes moving between her and the human, he finds his fists clenching by his sides. Don't give in. And she's right, of course. They've fought for everything they have, and under no circumstance are they going to give it up for some mutant-hating piece of shit with a gun and a threat.

His eyes narrow, and maybe there's something about him, a shift in his body, the movement of his hand, that betrays his intention. "Eoin," Nachelle says, just as the pungent smell of acid fills the air and he throws the glob. Intended for the human hand holding the gun to Nachelle's head, the man shifts her in the line of fire at the last moment, and Eoin watches in horror as the acid burns away at her face.

She's silent. The animalistic scream that tears through the air isn't hers; it's his own. The human lets go of her hair, startled, and starts backing away as the gun is aimed at him. In the next second, Eoin's world goes black, and, even as the gun is fired and lodges a bullet into his shoulder, the animal wearing Eoin's skin pounces on the man with unimaginable speed.

When Eoin's rational mind switches back on, he's sitting on the severely mutilated corpse of the human, panting hard. The wailing of police sirens rings in the air, far still, and it can't drown out the murmurs of the shocked crowd that's now gathering in the street near the alley; phone cameras are pointed at him, heads shaking. Monster, some hiss. Mutant scum, others spit. Eoin looks between them, their judging eyes, and then his eyes fall on Nachelle's still form.

There's something in the depth of his stomach that lurches and stills; something in the back of his mind that snaps. With slow movements, he shifts towards her. He can't look at her face; won't. Instead, he digs into her pocket and pulls her zippo from it. The burning cure. 

Eoin gets up to his feet and holds up acidic hands with cold eyes. "Move!" he roars at the crowd, even as he approaches them. They part like the red sea, some scrambling to get out of his way more as he walks through them. He should just kill them all.

When the police finally arrive, Eoin is long gone, and whatever was left of the person Nachelle knew died with her in that alley.

[thedeaditeslayer]

FanExpo Canada Interview: Actor and Host Bruce Campbell for Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

Here’s an interview that mostly covers Ripley’s Believe it or Not!

If you’ve ever watched a cop show, seen someone fight a Deadite, or stayed up late enough to watch offbeat flicks on basic cable, you’ve probably seen Bruce Campbell. Campbell has a long history on screen, starting with his breakout performance in The Evil Dead, a small film he made with his buddy, Sam Raimi, that went on to spawn sequels, spin-offs, comics, games, and a series.  Though horror fans most recognize him as Ashley “Ash” Williams from that franchise, Bruce has had a robust career. With the “face of a soap opera star”, he went on to star in shows like Ellen, Xena, and Burn Notice.  Now an actor and an author, he’s added “host,” to his hyphens, having hosted the touring live show Last Fan Standing and now, Ripley’s Believe It or Not.

The first season of this new show hit the Travel Channel this year, and so Bruce sat down with some of us at FanExpo Canada to discuss the show and his illustrious career.  The show is different from the Ripley’s of the past, focusing on the strength and perseverance of different people, what they’re able to overcome in the face of adversity.  The warmer side of the horror icon was fully on display as we pulled up some chairs to chat.

You’ve shot a few episodes now. Will you be back for any more?

Bruce Campbell: You need to call the Travel Channel and work that out. We don’t know yet. I think they haven’t decided because it hasn’t even opened in Canada yet. So, I don’t think you make those decisions until you figure out how it’s going to play everywhere.

And how did you get these hosting gigs? There’s obviously not something that you’d usually do.

Bruce Campbell: No, but other people get ideas and they pitch them out. And this one I thought was pretty good to do because it was a very reputable company that’s been around for 100 years now, which is rare, especially in America.  Companies don’t last that long. They last 20 years. They think, “Wow, Amazon, 20 years.”

This is FanExpo’s 25th year.

Bruce Campbell: That is impressive though. That’s a quarter-century but you know Ripley’s is kicking your ass too. So that’s why I thought it was worth exploring. I followed Ripley’s. I read the books and watch the TV shows and I knew exactly what was going on.

[The Ripley’s exhibit], obviously, they have this section, which is the props and movies and the film. Is there something for one of your movies that you would love to see in the Ripley’s exhibit one day?

Bruce Campbell: Yes. Yeah, they should have some stuff in Ripley’s, but Ripley’s is kind of, unless it’s amazing, they won’t have it. That’s the thing. They don’t just play it [as this] history game. It’s got to be amazing. It has to be a strange animal, a strange device, something unique that’s never been done before. So yeah, that’s what makes their collection cool.

Will you be revisiting any of the [Ripley’s stories] that were previously covered? Or like kind of a look back?

Bruce Campbell:  I think over time, they’ll have to do everything to choke the airwaves of material. You know, if you get three, four seasons into something, you have to get clever. But the thing that this first season showed me is how many stories there actually are. We did sixty stories. This for the first season alone. So, can you imagine over three, four years? That’s a lot of stories. Which shows you it’s a big world out there, and there’s a lot of crazy stuff going on. I feel like we’re playing catch up.

Any examples you can give us from those sixty?

Bruce Campbell: No, no, because it’s…I can’t.  It’s silly to single anything out.  But they are amazing. The show is higher quality than I had hoped for. You never know when you get involved in something, is it going to be something they slapped together? Or do they care about it? So, as an executive producer, it was important to, I thought on my part, to work on the tone so we treat these people with respect. Because not one of them are normal. Normal as in our traditional normal. But that’s what’s cool about the show.

And do we get to see you kind of going out and about on location?

Bruce Campbell: No, I’m a studio guy.  I tied all together. The crew goes out in films, the folks.  They filmed themselves a lot. We’re using their footage at the time. Everyone has a camera like you, we’re all running around filming their exploits.  We found some of these people on YouTube. You know, they have their own channel. It’s easier nowadays to find them than it was 10 years ago. Type in “weird shit,” and stuff comes up.

Would you ever like to travel in the future with the show?

Bruce Campbell: I travel enough. I, you know, last three years, I think it was thirty-five cities or forty cities.  I’m only twenty-five cities this year. I’ve got off easy this year.

This is Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Is there anything that you’ve come across that you just do not believe?

Bruce Campbell: I believe it. But it is amazing. Still, it’s believable. But you go “I don’t know how but it’s believable. Unbelievable.”

And I was wondering just one of the exhibits that Ripley’s is famous for is the hairball.  Have you contributed to the hairball? Have you contributed a lock of hair?

Bruce Campbell:  Screw that.  I’ll bring my cat by and give it a furball. Where is it? Where is the big ball?

Here.

Bruce Campbell:  In Toronto?

No, it’s downstairs. It’s there now people are contributing their hair to the hairball.

[PR chimed in to let us know it got stuck for a while at Canadian customs]

You mentioned the longevity of Ripley’s.  What do you think it is about the exhibit that in this day and age where there’s so much in terms of entertainment, this kind of old school form of entertaining is still popular?

Bruce Campbell:  Well, you get to know the people.  Anyone can find weird footage on the interwebs, but get to know the people that’s what’s different from us on a security camera. Showing weird things happen.  We get to know these people and then we see it act out. We see what they’re trying to accomplish, overcome. They’re always trying to meet some new challenge mostly. We’re documenting that we’re taking their footage, we’re stealing their footage.  

It’s about a good story.

Bruce Campbell: Yeah, it is because most of it, it’s come from behind because people are born, you know, kid’s born blind, just wants to ride his bike. So how do you learn? How do you ride a bike if you’re blind? You just want to be a normal kid. So, he learned that bats can echolocate, and make little clicking noises and they can see and can tell things from the sound bounced back. Is it a hard surface, a porous surface? Is it closer or further away? Is that an alley? Is it open space? Is it dirt? He learned it all and he started riding his bike by making little clicking echolocating noises just like a bat. And he got so good. You can teach other blind kids. It’s amazing.

Could you do it? Maybe? Could I do it? I don’t know. But you know, it’s how we think someone is born with a negative what you see if you make it into such a positive, the kids like abnormally gifted, in my opinion, to overcome what most of us would go “well, I’m blind. Guess I’m not riding that bike.” It’s great to see someone go, “no, I think I want to try that.” It’s great. We all get very convinced of our own limitations, and I think we could fool ourselves sometimes.

Do you think then in that vein, the show is quite inspirational?

Bruce Campbell:  It’s 100% inspirational. Most of these people have lives that kind of blew before good things started to happen. Or they had physical challenges or were hurt, injured.

You mentioned tone there. Had they ever run segments past you that you turned down?

Bruce Campbell: No, because as long as it’s real, and that is the most amazing thing about Ripley’s it’s not faked. So we move kind of beyond the reality show aspect. Reality shows are manipulated, every single aspect of The Bachelor, every aspect is manipulated no matter what you think, it’s producers behind the scenes, pulling the strings, figuring out who would be the most entertaining to put together. We don’t do that. Everything you see is completely real. The guy says he can cut an Oreo cookie and half in the middle of the air through the cream sideways, he can do it, you know, verified. We have a bunch of the Guinness World Records folks doing stuff to sell. So, there’s a lot to look at.

You came a couple of years ago doing Last Fan Standing. What have you brought over or learned from Last Fan Standing that helped you host or what did you really have to change?

Bruce Campbell:  I learned that people don’t need that show. Otherwise, we would get the show on the air by now.  Sometimes it just takes a while to learn things. It was fine. We had fun. But we tried to pitch it as a TV show and nobody wanted it. I think they don’t want to white middle-aged guys running around acting like your crazy uncle. It’s when we realized we’re a little past our demographic.

It was good in the ’90s.

Bruce Campbell: Yeah, would have been great in the ’90s probably.

Was there anything in the Ripley’s warehouse that you were excited to see or are most looking forward to seeing?

Bruce Campbell: No, because I don’t know what they have. I’d love to see the inventory. I’m sure there’s stuff in there that’s more amazing than you would think. It’d be fun to do some shows where you just get the crates, get the crowbar. Get the curator, you know, come on, let’s show some stuff and tell the stories behind it.  Because they wouldn’t have it in the museum if it wasn’t amazing. They’ll have a two-headed goat. They won’t have a one headed goat they’ll have a two-headed or a four-eyed something. Smithsonian doesn’t have that.

What do you want audiences to take from the show?

Bruce Campbell:  Just a positive experience.  Because you can sometimes see the normal side of people through extreme activity in a weird sort of way.  Doesn’t really make sense. But yeah, mostly a positive experience. The “it factor” is not that hot. We don’t want to turn people off, that’s not the idea.  But there are people who are doing stuff that’s both amazing and repulsive, at the same time. So you’re gonna have to deal with that to.

Granny’s not gonna want to watch everything and little Billy’s not gonna want to watch everything but, tough, that’s half the fun. There’s no reason for us to flinch away from it because it is real.  A guy wanted to become a parrot, so he did everything he possibly physically could to become a parrot. So what would that entail? Surgery tattoo on his eyes, removing your ears, tattooing your face, like the patterns of a feather.  He wanted to fly, so he rigged up some crazy fly rig. Amazing? Yes. Horrifying? Potentially. So, some stories have a two-edged sword. Yet at the same time, you celebrate that person’s independence. “I want to be a parrot. Here I go. Fly a little bird.”

Certainly innovative.

Bruce Campbell:  Let’s go with that.

Well, you can be whatever you want when you grow up.

Bruce Campbell: You can do whatever you want. I want to be a parrot.  Some guys want to be a fireman.

You mentioned that you have been a fan of Ripley’s for some time. So, what was your first experience?

Bruce Campbell:  Their book, they had a leather, clothbound red book. It was a good-sized book. And then they have their very unique illustrations that they always had. That was just a permanent fixture on our bookshelf in the living room.  Most people had a Ripley’s book of some kind. That’s what you get with an institution

What do you think Ash Williams would make of the Ripley’s exhibit?

Bruce Campbell:  He’d be like it’s cool.  We did a story about a woman with a bionic arm. She has parts that she can put on, clip-on and clip off. Yeah.

You’ve done some pretty cool mutilation and gory scenes like being thrown through a glass window in Lodge 49 and cutting off your own hand in The Evil Dead 2. What’s been your most favorite gory scene to shoot?

Bruce Campbell: I’m not a gore guy, so I don’t have a favorite gore. Gore is a drag to me. Yeah. Blood is sticky. Blood is cold. Not fun, sticks on all your clothes. Yeah, I’m so over it.

You’re past it. You’re in your host life now.

Bruce Campbell:  You know, once you realize you’re in your late fifties, should I really still be lying on dirt floors covered in blood? Is that really what’s on the agenda still, like still? It’s having it off the floor.

Personally, I would love to see you return to Sam Axe.

Bruce Campbell:  It’s about time. People are starting to get nostalgic.  All you gotta do is wait the right amount of time, which could be right about it now.

Quick letter-writing campaign.

Bruce Campbell: Especially when the world’s going to shit, everyone wants to find the shows that make them feel comfortable. They want that meatloaf sandwich that made them feel good. Like everything was safe.

Do you have any characters that you’d love to do one last hurrah with?

Bruce Campbell: I never sort of play that game. But you know, I could do this Western again. The Adventures of Brisco Country, Jr., Brisco Rides Again.  Could do that. Sam Axe, Burn Notice could be good. There are still d-bags in the world that need to be taken down. You know, come out of retirement. Yeah, there’s stories in there.  You know, these days with the structure of television. Everything’s going that way, anyway. Everything’s always a limited series, eight episodes or ten episodes. But that’s how you get Kirsten Dunst for Fargo. One year obligation, it’s not a seven-year contract.  All TV contracts were always seven years and actors, they really start to bristle at that.  Why you can’t get bigshot actors because they’re like “seven years. You kidding me? No chance, Lance.”

So, it’s kind of interesting how the format of TV shows works professionally because now you can get someone like Kirsten Dunst because she’ll go, “Great. I can do a whole season of a character study.” For an actor, it’s awesome. That’s the best part of Ash vs. Evil Dead, going back with experience now as an actor to that guy. To bring the character forward now and try and mess with it. It’s a very appealing aspect of it. So, I don’t know. Never say never about any remake.  Everyone’s got remake fever. But they always have. The first movie ever made in Hollywood is The Great Train Robbery. You see cowboy pointing a pistol at the camera.  And what’s the second movie? It’s the sequel, The Great Train Robbery 2.  That didn’t take long. That’s how Hollywood works.  I don’t know Marvel themselves into the ground.

Are you hoping to get a call to appear in Spider-man to prove to Tobey Maguire that you did outlast him?

Bruce Campbell:  No.  I don’t need that to prove my ability to outlast Tobey Maguire.

What is next for you then in terms of directing or acting?

Bruce Campbell:  I have stuff coming up that’s not official so I can’t really talk about it. But I’ve written some of my own stuff that I’ve just finished up. Because I realized that you can’t… I want to get back into the movie game. Sort of where I started. I got diverted into TV for years, so it’s time to go back.  But you need material. So I’ve just been writing more books, stuff like that.

Will you be working with the Raimi Brothers?

Bruce Campbell:  If it falls off the truck that way. If that’s how it works, yeah.

Is it harder to get projects greenlit these days?

Bruce Campbell:  I’m going to find out.  All the executives are twenty-five. So it could be easier, it could be impossible. They might go, “Thanks, gramps. Nice meetin’ with you.” I mean, it’s time to find out.

On Ripley’s, will we be seeing a Ripley-esque ability from yourself?

Bruce Campbell:  I don’t have those skills. Look, I got stunt guys for that. They’re there to make me look good. It’s all smoke and mirrors, you know.  But Ripley’s is not fake. I’d have to have a skill it was real. I don’t have any skills that are real, other than riding electric bikes really well.

Was there any particular character you’ve ever played that you really identify with and miss playing?

Bruce Campbell:  Most of ‘em.  But Evil Dead, Ash, I’m done with.  I’ve done that. Got that box checked. Because I think I played with enough to get my, you know, I left everything on the table. I don’t know, usually, when I’m done with the character, I’m happy to walk away from it. Burn Notice, same thing. Seven years, it’s a long run. Hundred and eleven episodes. That’s enough. Yeah, so we’ll see. Could be here next year. touting the Burn Notice movie.

What’s your favorite scary movie?

Bruce Campbell:  Well, it’s the guy who sort of, persona non grata, Mr. Roman Polanski, The Tenant. A movie that haunted me for weeks after I saw it because it messes with your head. It’s trying to make you think you’re going crazy and by the end of the movie you actually really wonder if you’re going fucking crazy and it really disturbed me.  I found it completely disturbing and not a drop of blood in the whole movie. No gore, no monsters, no nothing. I mean, it’s creepy as shit because that’s what Polanski’s really good at. And he’s in it and so it’s really weird. Yeah, he’s a weird actor. Yeah.