#throughout this tour i have seen a lot of people describe stuff the boys have been doing as ''really gay'' and it's been rubbing me the

[allsassnoclass]

....

[essaysbyciara]

It’s Been A Long Time | Nebraska Williams x Black!PlusSize Reader [Part 1/?]

Warnings: language, smut thoughts (my ministry!)

So this has been in my drafts for a *HOT MINUTE* but that photo of Trevante in high school triggered a release. If people dig where it could be going, I will add it to my list of stuff to finish and open up a taglist. I’ll try my best to do so, I promise! lol

“God, I played this album out…” Lil’ Wayne’s seminal album, The Carter, didn’t age at all. Back in 2004, Wayne was a secret about to bubble over to superstardom, just years shy of lollipops and Static Major (rest in peace). Wayne represented the teenage angst of your time, even though you toiled in the suburbs while he wrestled with the streets. But as “On My Own” damn near explodes your factory speakers, a high pitch ping from your phone pauses your trip down memory lane. 

Message from Sheena: Let’s catch up before the babies wake up. 

You hit the call button on your dash once you stop at a red light. 

“Girl, hey. You on your way to work?”

“Ain’t I always, Shi Shi? Damn near almost overslept. Thought I missed my flight.” 

Sheena, or Shi Shi, is the epitome of a best-friend-forever. You two met in Ms. Grayson’s civics class, 11th grade. On the first day of school, you rolled into third period wearing a Scream Tour II t-shirt and if you were to describe Sheena in that moment, jealous wasn’t even the word.  She stanned hard for Lil’ Bow Wow but her mom wouldn’t let her go to the concert because she got caught with a boy in her room. That boy is now the husband half-way responsible for the twin girls she’s hoping will give her some grace by sleeping a little bit longer. 

“Damn. You wanna gift some of that sleep to these twins, God mommy?”

“Only if you gift me some of those post-pregnancy boobs, Mommy Dearest,”

“Can’t do that. Jarell been having too much fun with those!” 

“Girl, eww. I don’t need to know all that.”

You kinda did. Sheena’s stories were always live, wild and uncut. And the only fireworks you’ve been adjacent to in months since you broke up with that lame stockbroker, Keith. You curve around the airport parking lot as Sheena starts digging deep into her latest soft-core episode with her husband since the six weeks ain’t up yet. In between interjections of how nasty Jarrell could be and watching planes taxi in the distance, you cruise through Instagram to take inventory of what your day might be like. 

Managing social media for the biggest sports publication in the country was not the fulfillment of a dream after high school because, shit,  social media didn’t exist when you were in high school. But it’s what has you just hours away from a flight to the NFL Combine in Indianapolis, sitting in a parking lot, listening to your BFF’s slow burn sexcapades. You break up the audio immersion experience once your timeline displays something else to ruminate over.

“Sheena! Shi -- shut up! I can’t believe - you remember Lisa from high school? She got married ...and it ain’t to Brasco.” 

“Whaaaa… you can finally stop making u-turns in the hallway and snag your man!”

You didn’t appreciate the lowly dig from your friend about Nebraska “Brasco” Williams, star running back, track champion and boy so fine he made both Omarion and J-Boog look like ogres. Your high school crush had you shook to your pubescent core; pretty teeth, deep skin tone and two tattoos before the age of eighteen. You’d see him in the student parking lot with the rest of the football team and you’d rush to your car as if it would go home without you. He was too hot to handle. You were beyond envious that Lisa could. 

“Lisa ain’t do too bad. Her man is crazy fine. I mean, not Brasco fine but still…” 

“Man,  he had high school going crazy. I wonder what happened to him after that fight? I should stalk him on Facebook while I pump.” You laugh so hard, the couple walking past your car stops their argument to stare at you. 

Your laughs break once you realize you might actually miss that flight. You relegate Shi Shi to kiss the twins for you and to send his Facebook profile if she can actually find it. You tried years ago and failed. 

“Aight, fave. I will.  Love you. Text me when you touch down in Indy.” 

As you weave through the terminal, your mind thinks back to the days at New Birth High School. While it brought you joy in a forever friend and the launching point for your forever career in sports journalism, it did bring you one of the most hurtful days of your life that took years to shake. 

It was the summer going into your senior year. Lisa’s sweet sixteen pool party. No way in Hell you thought you’d be there but your Mom and Lisa’s stepmom sat on the same deacon board at church and somehow thought you two were friends; Lisa paid you dust in those hallways. You fretted over every part of your outfit, especially the swim shoes you didn’t want but your Dad picked up at Sports Authority. But you were fretting the most over your swimsuit, a red one-piece with a deep open back. It was sexy for a 16-year-old, to be honest, but you secretly tried it on at the mall and fell in love with it -- especially how it made you feel. 

You fell in deep love with your body that day. The way the swimsuit clenched your waist, giving your almost-pear shape some definition you’d never seen before. Your hips sat wide, your breast placed taunt, just peeking through the sides, showing off a crescent shaped birthmark right below your collarbone. It was Jet Beauty of the Week-esque and it made you feel on top of the world. Something that society kept telling you a plus-size teenage girl was not to feel. You used the last of your paper route money to buy it and hid your secret weapon in the back of your closet until the day arrived. You were hoping to get some boy’s attention -- especially Brasco. But you’d take anybody’s glare if you could get it. 

You were in the clear once your Mom dropped you and Sheena both off at Lisa’s back gate. As you walked into the party, the sounds of the local hip-hop and R&B radio station blasted throughout her huge backyard. So much fun was had -- so much splash and dash -- that the faint sounds of “Knuck If You Buck” failed to erupt a party full of teenagers it was made for. The pool seemed tempting in 90-plus heat but most of the temptation came from the jacuzzi next to it. There inside sat Brasco, his lanky on-field wide receiver sidekick Kenny and Jarell, Sheena’s partner-in-bedroom-bust crime looking delicious in their highlighter-color swim trunks. You were still figuring out your body and the reactions conjured up from the sight of water droplets chasing down their backs confused you even more. But the heat of the sun -- and the heat from your body -- got too much to bear. That pool called your name. 

You stripped off your t-shirt and denim shorts, leaving your swim shoes back by the picnic table. They clashed. Your nerves splashed together like the water you couldn’t wait to feel, battering against your heart. Were you ready for all this attention? Amongst the rest of the classmates, you disappeared. You weren’t popular. People knew of you but didn’t know you, only associating you with Sheena by proxy of Jarell. “My Goodies” came on the radio, providing you a soundtrack and a sign from God. Before you could answer the call, Sheena jumped into the pool. You tossed your glasses on top of your clothes and did the same. 

The water felt golden. Sheena smacked your face with sheets of chlorinated goodness. Too much fun was had by all, even Lisa joined in the fun. Suddenly the entire football team did too except Brasco and Jarell, languishing on the edge of the jacuzzi because like most boys from their side of town, they didn’t know how to swim. Lisa saw her boo in isolation and tapped Sheena on the shoulder. 

“Hey, Shi Shi. Let’s get in the jacuzzi.” Sheena grabbed your hand to guide you out of the pool. You weren’t expecting to see your Mom at the other end. Sheena didn’t grab you to join her in the warm bubbles, she got you out at the angry-faced-behest of your mother. You both were going home. The party silenced and stares followed as everyone watched your walk-of-shame to grab your clothes. You got what you wanted in the worst way possible. 

Your unholy exodus commenced when Lisa’s mom called yours to report what she saw: this red bathing suit too revealing for a little girl to wear. It wasn’t the green ruffled mess-of-a-bathing-suit from last year. She claimed to witness stares and whispers and “boobs hanging out, butt all out.” Your mom got over there quicker than a church shout. She waited to scold you after she dropped off Sheena. 

It was a Sunday School scolding like no other. Tears pooled deep like the one you were just having fun in. You tossed the bathing suit into the trash bin. You were never going to see it again. 

The announcement of your flight breaks you out of your day nightmare. Grabbing the handle on your suitcase, you see a text with an attachment from Sheena. 

Girllllllllllll. I found Brasco and babyyyyyyyyyyy… 

You gasp. Time did a wonder on him in all the right ways. He packed on even more muscle, chiseling out the navy thermal dressing his upper body. Teeth still bright, Moonlight-bright. His Omarion-Pandemonium-era braids were gone, now donning a clean fade with perfect waves. His stance meant business, a lot of it risky. You bite your lower lip to mask the “damn!” urging a release from you, staring at his picture so intensely that you damn near walk into the stewardess checking your boarding pass. 

You couldn’t wait to get to your first-class seat. You needed a safe space to drown in your own splash waterfalls. You beg Sheena to send you his profile, looking to make some more of that mess and she obliges. Scrolling through his Facebook, you see nothing. You needed him to match your uncleanliness. Another text from Sheena breaks you out of your spell. 

Ain’t shit on here though. I can’t find an Instagram or anything. That’s where the dirt is at lol 

You put your social media skills to work. Ain’t an Instagram profile that you can’t find. Nebraska Williams brings up nothing. Such a unique name and nothing to show for it. 

Maybe Jarell can follow him, Shi. 

Jarell ain’t on this thing. He hates all this stuff. You want me to follow him? 

Girl, yes! I need more pictures! I’m trying to find his ‘gram and no diceeeeeee. Ughhhh. 

Damn the “no cell phone until after lift off” announcement. You then try “Brasco”, too many names -- rappers, really--  and a dog company to boot. “Brasco Williams” yields no results. You couldn’t wait what could be hours, days,  weeks, maybe never, for a response from Brasco to Sheena’s friend request. 

You pull up Google as a last ditch effort. The results bring up what only seems to be archives from your now-defunct city newspaper covering one of Nebraska’s record-setting games from 2005. You know to quit while you’re ahead until you see a Youtube video: “Nebraska Williams (RB) New Birth High School (MD). uploaded by Donyell Williams. You remember Donyell as this boy who played too damn much in Geometry class but right now, he’s Brasco’s cousin who's Instagram profile came up on the first search. Thank God his profile wasn’t private. You scroll back far enough to hit the jackpot. 

I found it! @donniebrascowill is his Instagram. 

Sheena was right about the dirt. His posts were bare but his stories carried enough. Enough shirtless, weightlifting, fresh-out-the-barbershop-got-to-show-you-the-fade dirt. You hit the follow button before the stewardess asked for your drink selection. 

End of Part I

[petewentzisblack1312]

hey dils!! was listening to sunshine riptide and thought of u so i wanted to say i hope ur taking care and also ask if u have any favorite fob videos/interviews?? lately i have been obsessed w the promo video patrick did for the honda civic tour where he drove around LA and said the only reason they got the tour was because he already drove a civic ahsjdbd

first of all it is SO flattering that listening to sunshine riptide made you think of me 🥺

secondly i was molded out of clay to answer this question, 100% i have a lot that i think about like way too often

the one where petes giving a tour of his parents house where he lived at the time and was showing off his stuff and was particularly very excited about the fact that his band was turned into action figures and then half way through andy shows up and is like "were best friends forever!" and petes like "yeah andy comes over for sleepovers a lot, we hang out in my basement and make zines and stuff" and then at the end he gets all excited cuz he hears his moms car pull up and he goes out and shes coming out of the car and then patrick gets out of the car carrying groceries and petes like "here mom me and patrick can put the groceries away you finish the interview" and shes like "no- pete i just got home from work im a mess" and hes like "what? no! no mom you look great, you can finish the interview well take in the groceries" and then she did and the camera crew came back to the two of them messing around and putting groceries away.

"pete wentz is honestly the only way to describe pete wentz. hes the most complicated guy i know." [cut to] "if anyone can make a strike without touching the lane i will pay you $300" *throws bowling balls straight into the air* *runs down the lane*

ok but in all seriousness i love that interview not only for that iconic moment but because later the footage is like blaring i dont care and pete goes and grabs a stuffed giraffe out of the prize thingie and hes like "what do you mean :)? we bought this with our tickets!!" and the editors are very much trying to make it a bad boy rebel without a cause moment except if you looked the woman behind the counter had a smile on her face and was laughing and then afterwards he gave it back and said "we werent really gonna steal it" but it really seemed like she knew that already

and then at a different point a couple fans showed up and they were all shy and excited to meet him and he was just like "hey are you guys coming to the show later" and they were like "yeah" and he was like "cool! thanks for coming out :) do you want a picture?" and they took a picture and it seemed like he was still kinda excited that people were excited to meet him. marcus (their bodyguard) was like trailing behind him and smiling and laughing throughout most of these antics and i just think thats sweet.

later in this same interview once again as they were on the ride back to their hotel or whatever theyd brought back a fake moustache and patrick put it on and did a bunch of dumb impressions.

patrick: if i wasnt doing music i think id be like a music critic or music journalist or something

andy:...i thought you said youd work at walmart

theres this one srar era interview thats just joe and patrick riffing for like 15 minutes. like it looks like they just straight up forgot the interviewer was there its so funny theyre such good friends.

this one joe and pete interview where i dont even really remember what they were talking about but theres a moment where joes talking about music with this intense passion and pete just kinda looks at him with this level of brotherly pride that keeps me going

this one andy and pete interview where 1) there were waterfowl chillin behind them which was deeply fascinating to andy and 2) they took a moment to swivel their chairs and hug each other bc theyre besties

band superlatives, specifically the moment where theyre all separately like "technically marcus isnt in the band but like. its marcus." bc that was sweet, unofficial 5th member of fob. and also "whos the most talented" "patrick. patrick. its patrick, hands down." "hm. petes like a really good soccer player" like thats a moment out of a fucking sitcom

halloween asmr with pete wentz. the man cant act but god can he commit to a bit.

there was this like live text chat that they all were in with fans on some radio station website. there were a lot of very fun moments, including joe saying "this is very current technology." as a comment on how very dated the live chat was and andy being like "can we set an icon i wanna change mine to an XVX" and pete and joe being like "oh are you vegan straight edge? we had no idea." and then pete was like "actually i wanna change my icon to andy hurley" and andy was like "no pete im not gonna send you a picture of me" and he was like :( and then a minute later he changed it to andy and he was like, and i swear this is almost a direct quote "BOOM! i love my life haha" and andy was like "goddammit" like i have no idea where to find this but it was so good.

theres this one "this or that" interview with joe and andy wherein the interviewer was a woman and like she seemed pretty at ease around them and got to the last question and imo seemed kinda uncomfortable and kind of established (in a way that seemed like she didnt usually do that) that it was a gross question, which was "would you have sex with a super hot celebrity but shes just died" and both of them were like "hey. what the fuck. absolutely not." and shes like "oh thats a first" and they are both like "do people say yes to that????????" and shes like "youre literally the first people to say no haha" in a way that made it seem that she did not find it funny and i just find that to be an interesting moment and i hope shes doing well and has a better producer now.

theres this one interview w andy on a hardcore podcast where the interviewer asks andy "do you every wish fall out boy were more political?" and he said (paraphrasing) "fall out boy is political, in its own way. we may not be as explicit with our politics as my other stuff, but kids find fall out boy, and through me, with all my other bands, or through joe, since he does a lot of metal, find heavier stuff, and are introduced to this stuff and to being vegan straight edge or anarchist or just more radical politics, and i dont think that just because we arent being super political in our music we arent a political band" which was really something to me bc i had just been thinking about that as a concept i call "gateway punk"

theres this one interview i recently found of a very small chicago music news outlet where a young lady interviewed pete and asked far more interesting questions than any other interviewer id ever seen and one such question was how he felt about the legalization of marijuana in illinois and he said that it was cool that it was legal but everyone locked up for it right now should be released and i like that he got to be political

theres a moment on the badass jew podcast episode joe was on where the interviewer whomst i do not recall was espousing some veiled antiblack sentiments wrt some antisemitic comments some famous black people had made and joe just completely rebutted it immediately and pointed out that black people not only are not a monolith bht are at a greater disadvantage

and also he made a joke that i could never make and cant fully get bc im not jewish but it was very funny and i love hearing people make jokes that arent for me.

this one interview before patrick had kids where he was saying how everyone kept asking him and elisa when theyd have kids and he was like "you cant just make that happen yknow? how do you just do that?" and pete immediately grinned and leaned over and mock whispered "you have sex" and patrick punched the air and was like "i hate you so much"

that one interview about abap where pete was like "we actually got the guy who did the whistles on patience by guns n roses to do it on this" and then he looks over at patrick and patrick shakes his head and petes like "you couldnt let me have this?" and he was like "i was gonna but then you looked at me and i just couldnt."

"whats the most important thing to you right now?"

patrick: star wars

joe: my daughter.

patrick: ...my son?

the puppy interview. everyone involved including the puppies was having the time of their goddamn life.

i have to stop this is too much its been like an hour

[dreamescapeswriting]

BTS Reaction || You’re Really Smart

A/N: As someone who has a REALLY low IQ I decided to try and change it to you’re really smart, I hope that’s okay? If no one gets the lyric reference in Namjoon’s I might cry…

Seokjin:

Namjoon had the great idea of taking everyone to an escape room for the day and here you were paired up with Jin, Taehyung and Jimin who were all walking around aimlessly as they tried to figure out the room. Namjoon had told you to go with them while he went with Jungkook and Yoongi you figured it would be a breeze and for you it was. You'd already figured out the clues but kept your mouth shut cause the boys were too busy trying to come up with it.

"Guys?" You asked looking up from the floor to meet Jin who looked like he was ready to swear at his kids, Jimin who looked about ready to cry and Taehyung who was staying calm throughout.

"Why did we do a horror escape room, I hate this," Jin said to you, you smiled at him and then whispered in his ear the answer to getting out, at least into the next room.

"How long have you known this?" You shrugged your shoulders, to you it seemed simple but according to the boys it was almost impossible for them to even see how to put any of the clues together.

(X)

You all made it out of the horror escape room in record time and Jin was throwing his arms around you,

"And this is why she's the best girlfriend." He yelled kissing your cheeks and then laughing as you pushed him away, dramatically wiping your cheeks where he'd kissed you.

"You guys cheated, she has a high IQ," Yoongi mumbled you stared at him with an eyebrow raised,

"Namjoon has a high IQ though..." Namjoon stared at you and then over at the boys who were expecting an explanation.

"Just because someone has a high IQ doesn't mean their massively smart." You told them and then Namjoon agreed with you. Both of you going into a long rant about how IQ tests are measured in different ways and not everyone has a good IQ because their minds are stronger in other ways.

Yoongi:

"Yoongi can we go back to the hotel I'm tired." You yawned to Yoongi as you walked around the streets, he'd brought you along to Amsterdam with him on tour and was trying to get some sightseeing done but you'd been up all night researching for a paper.

"Maybe if you didn't stay up all night there wouldn't be a problem." He chuckled, tapping your cheeks in an attempt to wake you up. You both walked over to a small cafe and ordered a coffee, where you stood at a table and leant your head on your hands. Eyes closed as Yoongi flipped through a tour guide book trying to find his next spot.

"This will wake you up, explain string theory to me since that's what you were researching." You nodded and thought over how you were going to explain it to him,

"It's a theoretical framework in which the point-like particles of particle physics are then replaced by one-dimensional objects, strings. The theory describes how the strings propagate through space and interact with each other...String theory is a theory of quantum gravity." He stared at you from across the table, you hadn't even opened your eyes to explain it.

"That was as if it was just stored in the back of your mind...How did you do that?" You shrugged your shoulders and opened your eyes, Yoongi was starting to look uncomfortable.

"What?" You mumbled standing up straight as he pulled you back in the direction of the car he'd rented.

"Going back to the hotel."

"To sleep?!"

"No." He smirked grabbing your hand and pulling you faster through the crowds of people so he could get to the hotel as quickly as possible with you. He'd always loved how smart you were and hearing you talk about something like String theory as if it was common knowledge made him want you more.

Hoseok:

For as long as you could remember you'd had a fascination for true crime and all things like that, your brain seemed to store all of the facts about that and not much else.

"We should enter a quiz." Jungkook said as you walked into the pub in Malta, you looked up from your phone and nodded in agreement, turning to look at Hoseok who was nodding as well,

"It'll be fun." You giggled pulling Hoseok over to a table and getting the team name ready.

"It's all based on common knowledge by the looks of it," Jungkook said as you and Hoseok giggled from across the table. You'd been dating for three years and you were still just as happy as the day he asked you out.

(X)

It was the last round and so far you were doing well for points but the last round was on true crime, Hoseok looked at you and nodded. He was the only one out of all of the boys that knew about your extensive knowledge of serial killers.

"Who knows this?" Jungkook asked in confusion, you took the paper from his hand.

"Types of a killer? Easy, organised, disorganised, and mixed." Jungkook stared at you,

"How many people did Harold Shipman kill?" Jungkook read out the next question while Hoseok watched as you answered it without blinking.

"200 but that's only ones that have been confirmed, there are a lot around him that are labelled suspicious."

You won the quiz but on the way back to the hotel Hoseok had his arm linked around your waist and Jungkook asked for facts about other serial killers,

"Ted Bundy had a collie called Lassie." You yawned as the door to your hotel was pushed open, Jungkook was wide awake and wanted to know more though. Asking question after question while Hoseok walked you into the bedroom,

"Talk about it in the morning Kookie, I'm sleepy." You whined dropping onto the bed, Hoseok following you and smiling at how brilliant his girlfriend was

Namjoon:

Namjoon had fallen in love the moment you opened your mouth to talk to him. You were both walking around a museum together, your brother had Jimin decided to bring you along and now you were alone with Namjoon, both walking in uncomfortable silence until you both got excited over the same painting. You began listing of facts about the painting and artist and Namjoon just stared as you spoke about it, and then watched as you did the same with the next painting. Now, whenever you went out on dates he found himself learning more from you than he did from the small plaques on the walls beside the paintings.

"Where do you store it all?" Taehyung asked one day while you were out with Namjoon, hands locked together as you strolled through the Natural History Museum. It turned out your facts didn't stop with art, it included History and other subjects.

"I don't know, I think my brain is like a sponge and it just soaks it all up." You giggled, Namjoon smirked and span you around under his arm,

"I don't care where it comes from, your sexy mind is my favourite." He whispered in your ear, kissing your cheek as you giggled trying to push him away. When he first met you he'd never seen the need for public displays of affection but there was just something about you, something that made him want to show everyone that you were his and he was proud of you.

"I love you." He whispered to you as Taehyung wandered off, you'd only been dating for two months but he knew it was real.

"I love you too." You whispered back to him with a smile on your face, rushing off to find Tae.

Jimin:

Much like Namjoon when he first started out in the industry, you and your group were featured on a lot of different quiz shows because you were smart.

"Next we have Jimin and Namjoon from BTS and Y/N and Lucia from H.E.A.R.T." The producer said into the camera and all of you went to introduce yourself to each other and to the cameras.

(X)

The show had gone amazingly and the whole time Jimin couldn't keep his eyes off you, he found himself watching the way you worked. How whenever there was a question partially hard you would push your glasses further onto your nose, or throw your hair into a ponytail. He was teased by the host and Namjoon for staring of course, and it only made you blush whenever you felt his eyes on you and you looked up to see him staring at you.

"Where did you learn to memorise all this stuff?" He asked when you were all standing in a changing room together,

"I don't know, I guess I've just always stored it away." You laughed looking over at Namjoon who was with your band member, talking about songs you should all work on together.

"It's so hot." Your breath hitched in your throat from how outspoken he was and you blushed a bright red colour,

"I think you're hot too." You giggled, looking at the floor as you bit down on your lip trying not to come across as too eager for him but he was now blushing.

"We should hang out sometime...Without all the quizzes, maybe get some food? Or if you're too busy maybe just a drink." You tried to hold back the small laugh and nodded, touching the top of his arm to stop him from ranting.

"I'd love that Jimin, call me sometime." You told him, writing down your number on his hand and then walking out of the changing room with your band member.

Taehyung:

Taehyung knew about your extensive knowledge of Shakespeare and used it whenever he could, right now you were sitting in the dorms with him and the rest of the boys talking about old English, Tae was in a debate with Jungkook over Charles Dickens and Shakespeare.

"Look all I'm saying is Y/n can tell you different Sonnets by heart and then the meaning behind it." You looked up from your noodles and stared at Jungkook who was staring at you, Namjoon looking up from his book to hear the argument between you all.

"Sonnet 130?" Namjoon said, closing his book. Taehyung turned to look at you and you swallowed the noodles that were half hanging out of your mouth.

"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun; Coral is far more red than her lips' red; If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. I have seen roses damasked, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks. I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound; I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground. And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rar. As any she belied with false compare." Namjoon blinked at you and Tae had a giant smile across his face.

"Meaning?" Yoongi questioned finding himself more invested in the conversation now you'd said a Sonnet without blinking or looking it up.

"Okay so for the shortened version it's offering the readers a different look at female beauty and what it's like to love someone with all their shortcomings and for what they don't like." You explained, going back to your food and turning to look at the TV while Tae was sitting there with a smile on his face, arm wrapped around your shoulder.

Jungkook:

You were standing in the kitchen making yourself a cup of tea when you heard Jungkook scream, you thought he'd just died in a game at first but then you heard him rushing around the living room,

"Kookie?" You questioned walking into the room to see him on his phone, you looked at the desk and his computer screen was black,

"I was in the middle of a game!" He yelled, clearly stressed out over the fact that his computer was potentially broken, he began taking it apart to see what was going on with it and then stressed even more because he couldn't figure out what was going on.

"Let me." You said throwing away the apple core and walking over, you put your glasses on and bent down on the floor.

"Wait here," You walked off upstairs and he waited for you as he looked for a new PC online but you knew he didn't need to do that, you searched through the boxes until you found it and then came bounding down the stairs carrying the power supply, taking his out and replacing it, connecting everything up to the correct holes and making sure the motherboard was linked up properly. Booting up the PC and watching as Jungkook's mouth fell open as he watched you doing it.

"What?" You questioned putting the side back onto his PC and putting it back on the desk and brushing off your hands.

"How did you know to do that?" You shrugged your shoulders and walked back into the kitchen with Jungkook asking you question after question.

tagline: 

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[mypoisonedvine]

Hiya! Could you maybe write a sad/angsty Jaskier imagine where the reader is dying from an illness or something, but when she dies she kinds of a transformation (like yen) where not only does she come back to life, but she’s even more beautiful. After years she eventually finds Jaskier and Geralt again and they reunite ect ect. Could you please make it really emotional? I’m in the mood to cry 😩

Hoo boy, I really ran with this one, because I actually had a vaguely similar idea before I got this ask and I ended up sorta frankensteining the two together into something hopefully enjoyable!  Sorry it took so long, but with a word count of 6k it’s not too shocking that it took me a few days!  Hope you’re still in the mood to cry!  I took a few liberties with the original prompt although I actually had a second idea that followed it more closely in some ways and less so in others.  Maybe I’ll write that one up someday as well but I don’t want to be known for killing readers lol so I’ll need to get some normal stuff out there in between.

Quick disclaimer, I sort of made canon squishy in this one… it’s supposed to be set after Jaskier breaks up with Geralt after the dragon hunt.  Theoretically, he heads straight back home and that instigates this whole plot.  The thing is that he and the reader would be 40 for that to really make sense.  So, I kind of left it vague…. depending on your age, feel free to imagine that less than 22 years have passed lol.  So, just a heads up on that.

WARNING: major character death, in fact it’s the reader and it is depicted graphically.  I would not recommend this story to someone struggling with suicidal thoughts because it does straight up describe you dying, all in second person.  If you think you would find that really disturbing and/or really enticing, please don’t read this!  The good news is, as is made clear in the original request, there’s a happy ending!

Never Really Over (a Jaskier x Reader oneshot)

Rating: T (violence but only implied smut)Word Count: 6kTaglist: never had one of these for an ask before but lol @100percentamess you asked to be tagged in everything so here’s your first!

You were cleaning out an old closet when you found it, tucked away under a floorboard.  When you saw the small decorated chest, you instantly remembered what was inside.  Throughout your childhood you had written him a number of love letters, confessing your undying commitment to him every few years like some kind of triennial tradition.  None of the letters ever made it to him, because you knew better than to dream of him ever returning the sentiment.  Even knowing that, you felt embarrassment burning in your chest when you remembered some of the ridiculous things you had written.  Julian, you’re the love of my life and I know that we’re meant to be together, shit like that.  

You had always wanted to get out of this town, see the world, experience life, but you never got your chance.  That made it sting all the more when you found the letter from him under your door so many years ago.  You didn’t even need to open the box to read it, you remembered it like you had it right in front of you: You’ve been my best friend my whole life and I’ve loved you like a sister.  I hope you won’t be hurt that I’m leaving, but I can’t stay in this place.  I need adventure, and I plan to find it while I tour the Continent with my songs.  If I ever return I’ll be sure to stop by… and if I become a famous bard, you can always say you knew me back when!  -Julian

When you heard a knock at the door you jumped, having lost yourself in the memory.  You slid the floorboard back quickly, and moved a rug over it to cover the cracks.  Running to the door, you swung it open and what you saw made you sure you’d gone mad.

It was Julian.  He’d barely aged, so much so that at first you thought he was some sort of corporeal memory of the day he left.  

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he remarked casually.  

~

“Julian-” you began.

“I go by Jaskier now,” he corrected.

“Unless you’re here to perform, I’m not going to call you by a stage name,” you frowned. 

“It’s not just a stage name: I’ve reinvented myself,” he boasted. 

“Jules, I’ve known you my whole life, and you’re the same you’ve always been,” you shot him down with an eye roll.  He smiled at you and it made your heart ache.

“You’re the same, too.  But you look different,” he observed.  You must have made a face of disappointment because he instantly corrected himself. “Not older, necessarily.  Well, not old.  You look different…” he paused, “but it suits you.”

“Don’t sound so hesitant,” you laughed.

“It’s just strange!” he defended. “But it’s good to see you again.  I missed you greatly.”

You sighed, looking away. 

“You don’t hate me for leaving, do you?” he asked nervously, taking your hand in his.  His touch shot through your entire body, and you wished he wouldn’t do things like that- things that were so unimportant and nonchalant to him but meant so much to you.

“I only hate you as much as I ever did,” you answered quietly, looking back at him.  He looked like he really needed to believe that you didn’t hate him, which was strange: normally he seemed to either not care what people thought of him, or maybe even thrive on negative attention.  He was always meant to be a star: a firm believer in the idea that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.

“Strangely, I don’t find that comforting,” he replied with a chuckle.

“You best not come to me for comfort, don’t you remember how mean I am?” you smiled back.

“Yes, but never to me!” 

“Well, you left,” you responded, and the mood was dampened.  Regretting to have lost the energy, you piped up quickly with a question. “How were your travels?”

It didn’t seem to help.

“Oh, lovely,” he said, but his energy didn’t match the words. “Saw all sorts of wild things.  You’d have loved it.  We were going to make it to the coast- we never did.  But you’d have loved it,” he reflected somberly.

You sighed, imagining how incredible it would be.  To think that he thought of you in such interesting places made you wonder if he would be willing to go with you, like you’d always wanted.

“Maybe we should go,” you suggested hesitantly.

“No, you’d have a terrible time,” he deflected.

“But you just said I’d have loved it,” you remembered.

“I meant being there, but travelling?  You don’t have the constitution for it,” he scoffed.

“What I don’t have the constitution for is staying here,” you countered, sadness palpable in your voice.

“Well, now that I’m back I’m wishing I’d never left,” he groaned.

“Don’t be ridiculous.  Please tell me you won’t be staying long,” you replied incredulously.

“Best not to, I suppose.  Maybe I’ll go to the coast on my own-” he began.

“Take me with you,” you pleaded, gripping his doublet, having lost all sense of dignity, “I need to leave this place.  I can’t die in this town, Julian.  I need to see the world!  I’ve never seen the ocean, the mountains-”

“No,” he repeated.

“Please,” you begged.

“I don’t do that anymore,” he grumbled, turning away to pick up his bag and starting to walk away. “It’s over, alright?”

“What?”

“I was travelling with someone but… I guess I drove him as crazy as I always drove you.  And he told me to leave him alone,” he sighed.

You felt guilty for pressing on it, not realizing it was still a sore spot.

“You didn’t drive me crazy,” you comforted, “not really.”

“I think I’m just too much.  I’m too intense for most people,” he explained.

“Most people are terrible,” you groaned. “Remember how we talked when we were young?  How everyone was so pompous and ridiculous and fake?”

“Yeah,” he smiled a little at the memory.

“Well, we were right.  I mean, I know we were whiny little brats,” you smirked, “but this town hasn’t changed much.  All gossip and nonsense.”

“It’s not this town, it’s the whole Continent,” he corrected.  “Trust me, I’ve seen a lot of it, and people are the same everywhere.”

You didn’t say anything at first.

“Except you,” he added, “of course.”

You smiled but it hurt when he said things like that.  All the “love you like a sister” crap that made being his friend so painful, and now more than ever you couldn’t escape from it.  Of course a part of you was glad to see him again, but now that he was in front of you, it was like not even a day had passed since he left: you still loved him so completely, so desperately, and so pointlessly.  

~

You heard him singing, ever so quietly, from around the corner.  You always thought he had a lovely voice but he’d never liked to play for you.  He said it gave him stage fright, something he failed to experience on actual stages.  You figured he was just holding out on you, for whatever reason.  You didn’t want to spy but also you couldn’t really help it, since you were visiting his family’s home and he had been silly enough to play a song with the door open.  He started and stopped and started over a few times, but once he got going for good, you were close enough to be able to hear the words…

She is the sun, bright and unforgivingBurning the grass and drying the rainI never looked at her, afraid to go blindI loved her light though she brought me such pain

She is the sun and when she walks awayThe world gets colder though the sky is in bloomAs the sun sets I ask if I’ve lost my chance foreverBut she could never stay and to the night I am doomed

“Ah, fuck, doomed doesn’t really rhyme with bloom, does it?” he interrupted himself.  You jumped a little, not realizing how entranced you were by the song, and you reached up to wipe a few stray tears from your cheeks.  You couldn’t be mad at him for singing a song about another woman when he didn’t even know you could hear, but you were angry regardless.  Moreso than angry, just sad.  Wasn’t love supposed to make you feel good?  Loving Julian was a thankless job, certainly.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked, and you jumped again, not even having noticed he’d turned the corner.

“Just mopping,” you blurted out.

He looked around for a moment with a raised eyebrow.

“…where’s your mop, then?” he (fairly) queried.

“Still in the kitchen,” you explained, “I’m planning where I’m going to mop.”

“I figured you could sort of just wing it with mopping.  Didn’t realize there was a pre-mopping phase.”

“Oh, absolutely,” you nodded, “it’s really important.”

“Well, I wouldn’t want to keep you.  Get on with it,” he encouraged, starting to go back into his room.

“Wait,” you prompted.  He stopped, turning back to face you. “I liked the song.”

“I was hoping you hadn’t heard that,” he replied nervously.

“Why?”

“I didn’t want anyone to hear it until it was finished,” he explained.

“And when it’s finished, will you play it at the local pub or something?” you asked, remembering his earliest performances when you were fifteen or so.

“No, too personal for that: I was planning to play it for the subject,” he explained.  You winced.

“I’m sure she’ll love it,” you responded quietly

“Yeah, the Countess is fickle and all but she usually spreads her legs for a good song,” he smiled mischievously.

Thinking of him with someone else, especially like that, made you want to vomit… then you would actually need to mop.  

“Why did you come here?” you asked him, finally, after wanting to understand for so long.

“I… I needed some time at home,” he answered, but you didn’t buy it.

“Why now?  And why did you come to my door?” you growled.

“Are you offended by that?  Am I not allowed to visit a friend?” he responded in confusion.

“I didn’t even realize we were still friends!” you admitted.

“Why wouldn’t we be?” he asked like it made no sense at all, and you were thankful you weren’t holding anything because you likely would’ve thrown it.

“You left without a proper warning, I didn’t hear from you at all for… a long fucking time, and now you have the audacity to come back!” you barked.  “I already gave you everything, and you threw it away, searching for adventure!  What could you possibly want from me now?”

"It’s just my selfishness, I suppose, but I wanted to know there was someone out there who still cared for me,” he defended.

"You’re asking me if I care for you?  Is that really what’s on your mind?” you asked incredulously.  He didn’t respond, seeming confused.You felt tears sting the back of your eyes, rage burning through your chest.  You were tired of lying, tired of running around and being his pet all so you could be near him when he wanted nothing from you but a reminder he wasn’t totally alone in the world after he’d burned every bridge- including the one you had been standing on, waiting, for all these years.

“Julian Alfred Pankratz, I will love you until the day I die.  I promise you that.”  You tried to say it with the anger, hatred even, that you felt, but most of it was lost as your voice wavered from crying.  You turned away and walked outside, sobbing so hard you weren’t sure that you would be able to walk home properly.  You did, eventually, and immediately crawled into bed and cried yourself to sleep.

~

Maybe it wasn’t even noon yet, but it felt like time for a drink.  The pub was empty, at least at first; halfway through your fourth mug, an old acquaintance, Viktor, walked in and sat beside you.

“Bit early for that, isn’t it?” he frowned.  

“Then what are you doing here?” you asked.

“Looking for you,” he answered.

You chuckled, considering how disappointed he must be to find you like this: eyes still swollen from crying, half-drunk, more cynical and calloused than ever.

“So, listen, I’ve been thinking,” Viktor began, and you fought the urge to roll your eyes.  Despite being nearly an old maid at this point, Viktor had always sought you.  You’d known him your whole life and he was always a pest: rude, aggressive, dull.  Dumb enough to think you hadn’t realized his feelings for you.  He had proposed marriage twice, never having much of a better reason than “we’re both still single and it would make our families happy if we married.”  And now here he was, bothering you while you were trying to have a drink in peace, presumably so he could do it all over again.

“I’m not here to ask you to marry me,” he clarified, as if reading your mind.  You perked up a bit at that.

“I’m finally too old for you?” you scoffed.

“Don’t be like that,” he frowned, “you’re not old.  It makes perfect sense to me that you’re unmarried at this age, even if everyone calls you an old hag and a spinster.”

Viktor had a way of trying to be nice but it always ending in an insult.  Not that it was news to you that people talked about you that way.

“And why do you think I’m unmarried?” you pressed.

“Because you haven’t gotten to know anybody well enough,” he posited. “Look, I’ve known you my whole life, so I always figured I knew you well enough for marriage, but I see that you’re right now.  We don’t really know each other that way.”

You nodded. “Good, you’ve come to see reason then.”

“There must be some way that we could, though,” he added. “A date; courting.”

“Courting?  I’m not fourteen,” you grimaced.

“Whatever you’d want to call it.  I’d come by tomorrow and we’d go for a walk.  And we’d talk about whatever we wanted to, and we’d see how we get along when it’s just us,” he offered.

“Sound boring,” you mumbled.

“Don’t be so mean,” he requested.

“I was always mean and you still fell for me.”

“I was always nice and you still ignore me.  If you would just stop chasing something you’ll never get-” he began, but as you looked at him he stopped and started over.  “You have to stop hurting yourself over people who don’t care about you,” he explained. “If you gave me a chance, you’d appreciate how nice it feels to know someone cares for you.”

I wanted to know there was someone out there who still cared for me, you remembered Julian saying.  Apparently everyone else wanted to be cared for, but you were too busy caring to consider your own feelings.  You were so tired of fighting for Julian and rebuffing Viktor and shouldering the burden of spinsterhood in a conservative town like this one.

“Alright, come by tomorrow, then,” you acquiesced.  Viktor smiled.

“You won’t regret it- you’ll learn to appreciate me,” he predicted as he stood up to leave.

“The beginning of every successful relationship,” you replied sarcastically, but he seemed to take you literally.  What a moron.  At least he was nice enough- and actually had the integrity and honesty to tell you how he felt… not that you felt particularly integritous after your confession to Julian.  But you were optimistic; maybe this was a step in the right direction.  So why did the idea of letting go of him, even when you had known you needed to for years, hurt so deeply?

~

You stayed drunk through the afternoon but stopped drinking after a while, so you could go to bed sober.  You stayed up later than normal, avoiding sleep and the torturous dreams of love that it always brought.  It had started to rain- downpour, actually- and the thunder would’ve kept you up anyhow.

You heard a knock at your door and answered hesitantly, unsure who would be coming by so late.  When you opened it you saw Julian, soaked through with rain, looking like a lost puppy.  Of course you wanted to invite him in from the rain but you were still angry so you let him stand out there a bit longer.

“What are you doing here?” you asked.

He looked at you, and when you looked back into his eyes, you saw it.  You understood instantly what was really going on.

“Oh, oh no,” you reprimanded as you stepped back, wagging a finger at him. “No, Julian- don’t you dare.”

“I can’t help it,” he defended.

“No, no, don’t you dare love me now!” you ordered.

“Why can’t I?” he asked quietly, stepping towards you, through the doorway and out of the rain.  You stepped back again, running into a wall and bracing against it.

“It’s too late.  Jules, after all these years…” you trailed off, but then shook your head. “It’s too late,” you repeated.

“It can’t be too late,” he refused, “there has to be another chance.”

“You ran out of chances,” you explained, starting to cry, “it’s over.  Julian, it’s too late.  At some point, it has to be too late.”

“There has to be another chance for us,” he asserted.  You sobbed when you heard him say that word, ‘us.’

“Jules, no,” you wept, “I waited for so long.  I thought that if I loved you hard enough, that you would have to love me back.  And you left.  Julian, you left.  I had to give up.  I had to let it go.  I had to stop loving you.”

“But you didn’t,” he remembered, and you watched as a tear ran down his own face.

“Because you’re my fucking curse!” you screamed. “You’re my ghost!  You fucking haunt me!  Loving you has taken everything from me!”

“I never asked you to love me all those years!” he countered, his voice raising but not matching yours.

“But you’re asking me to now,” you scoffed.

“I’m not asking for anything.  I just need you to know the truth,” he explained.

“Bullshit,” you spat. “You came here because I was always your back-up plan.  You tired of whoring around, and you decided to come back because I was the stable option, the safe option.  You never wanted my love, you just wanted my attention.”

“For a long time, I didn’t understand the difference between love and attention,” he responded with a quiet, somber tone.  Your anger subsided partially.  “I didn’t understand the need for loyalty or reliability.  And then I lost everything.  The first thing I thought of when I considered coming here wasn’t my family, my house, my culture.  It was you.  I wanted to go home,” his voice began to waver tearfully, “and coming back to you was coming home.  I lost everything and all I had left was you.  And it’s not because you were my second choice.  It’s because I’m a fucking idiot who couldn’t see how much I needed you until-”

“Until it was too late,” you finished.

“Don’t say that,” he pleaded, stepping towards you again, this time touching you, grabbing your arms gently but with urgency.  His hands were warm, even when they were wet with cold rain. “Gods, don’t say that, please.”

You looked up at him and cried; you cried because you knew that there was no ending for you but heartbreak. 

“The day I met you, when I was just a few years old, was the day my life was ruined,” you whispered. “Cursed forever to live a life at your beck and call, because I loved you with everything I had.  I’ve never been able to stop, even when I hated you and even when I needed to let you go and move on so that I could live.  Julian, I waited my whole life for you…”

“You don’t have to wait anymore,” he whispered back, leaning down as his face moved closer to yours.  You whimpered weakly, your crying beginning to soothe.  His hand wiped your tears away, and you rested your face into his palm.  His touch was so warm, delicate, comforting.  

“I love you,” he confessed, examining your face.  You nodded, still crying partially from the initial hurt and partially from a solemn joy of everything you ever wanted suddenly right in front of you.  He was so close now that his face was just a few centimetres from yours, you could even feel his breath, see every drop of water running down from his hair into his face.  “Tell me it isn’t over,” he begged.

“It was never over,” you reassured, closing the distance between you and kissing him softly.  You were both still crying, just a little, perhaps mourning all the time lost that you could never get back.  And yet, all the anger of the past and the fear of the future washed away, and all that was left was being together in this moment.  The hand on your face moved to hold your head and neck, and the other pulled you closer at the waist.  Feeling his body pressed against yours was like cozying up to a warm fireplace, his presence a golden glow against the cold, dark world outside.  You wrapped your arms around his neck, deepening the kiss and starting to fall back into his arms.  He held you tightly, the wetness of his clothes soaking through yours quickly.  You didn’t even gasp when he picked you up, too lost in the kiss and trusting him too much to be afraid of falling.  He carried you down the hall, kicking the bedroom door open but setting you down onto the quilt gently.

~ 

You awoke to sunlight streaming in through the window, and the feeling of Julian’s fingers running through your hair.  You turned to face him, appreciating how lovely he looked washed in the sunrise.  You indulged yourself in looking at his muscular shoulders and chest where they weren’t covered by the bedsheets.

“Good morning,” he smiled.

“I can’t believe that really happened,” you whispered, mostly to yourself.

“I can,” he replied. “It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” you answered, feeling yourself blush a bit. 

“We should go somewhere,” he suggested suddenly.

“Where?” you asked.

“Wherever you’d like,” he shrugged.  You ran your fingers down his chest, admiring the thick layer of dark hair, imagining all the places you could go.

“Take me to the ocean, then,” you requested.

“The middle of the ocean?  Or is the coast alright?” he smirked.

You laughed.

“I’m serious!” he defended. “I’m not opposed to sailing.  It’s rather peaceful.”

“It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?  The water?” you imagined.

“Nothing quite like it,” he smiled serenely.

“Promise you’ll take me,” you demanded.

“I promise,” he whispered as he moved a stray lock of hair out of your face.

“Soon?” you pressed.

“There’s nothing keeping us here.  We could leave tomorrow if you’d like,” he offered. 

“Not planning on running off without me again, are you?  This wasn’t all some convoluted ploy to get me into bed?” you asked, mostly joking.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he laughed, sitting up and pulling you closer.  Soon he was hovering over you, and your legs wrapped around his waist before you could even think about it.

“Twice in a night didn’t satisfy you?” he smirked.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever be satisfied,” you replied.

“And to think you accused me of wanting to run off!  I’m not sure I’ll ever get out of this bed, if you have your way,” he teased, leaning down to kiss your neck.

“I waited so long for this,” you explained, “I suppose my patience has run thin.”

“Then I won’t keep you waiting any longer,” he growled, and you bit your lip as you smiled.

You startled when you heard a knock on the front door.

“Who’d be coming by at this hour?” Julian asked with confusion.

As if to answer, you heard Viktor’s voice coming from across the house: “Are you all right?” 

“Fuck,” you whispered, rolling out from under him and hopping out of the bed.  Despite the commotion and the events of the night previous, Julian still took a moment to look you up and down as your naked form was exposed.  “I forgot he was coming over today,” you hissed.

“Tell him to bugger off,” he scoffed.

“Alright, but I need to get dressed and you need to stay hidden,” you commanded.

You searched for your clothing strewn about the floor, slipping back on your wrinkled dress and attempting to make some sense of your hair.

Dressed enough to answer the door, you shooed a half-clothed Julian into a corner where he couldn’t be seen from the entryway.  You dashed down the hall and opened the door, and Viktor was waiting on the other side.

“Viktor!  Good morning!” you said cheerfully, holding the door only enough to fit your body into it, hoping he wouldn’t see much of the messy room behind you.

“Isn’t that what you were wearing last night?” he noticed instantly.  You sighed, not realizing your plan wouldn’t last even through one sentence.  What you especially didn’t realize was that, upon understanding what most likely had happened, Viktor would push past you, entering in a rage.

“Wait, stop!” you protested, but it was too late.  Viktor stormed towards the bedroom, from which Julian had emerged and then immediately started to run away. 

“You,” Viktor growled as he pointed to the topless bard.

“Hey, long time no see!” Julian cheered weakly.

“Bastard!” Viktor bellowed, chasing Julian down and pinning him against the wall. 

“Stop!” you demanded, rushing towards them.  Viktor released Julian only for a moment to grab you by the collar of your dress, and you yelped.

“I’ll deal with you next, whore!” he spat, the back of his hand slapping you across the face so hard that you spun onto the floor.

Julian launched at Viktor, the two falling next to you on the ground and wrestling in a flurry of punches.  You tried to kick them off of each other but the fight grew more brutal quickly.  Soon Viktor had forced Julian onto the ground and was punching him over and over, each hit bloodying his face more and more.

“Stop, please!” you begged, but he wasn’t listening.  You were sure that he was going to kill him, and you scrambled towards your bedside chest.  Opening it, your dagger was laid right on top, and you wasted no time grabbing it and running over to the two of them.  You grunted as you swung the blade down, stabbing Viktor in the back.  He cried out, falling onto his side on the floor.  Julian weakly sat up, sliding along the ground to get away from his attacker.  You watched Viktor struggle for a moment and then relax, a large pool of blood already forming under him.  You rushed to Julian’s side on the floor, examining his face.

“I’ll be fine,” he reassured before you could even ask.

“It looks pretty bad,” you winced.

“You saved me- I thought he was going to kill me,” he groaned.

“I couldn’t let you go that easy,” you smiled.  Julian closed his eyes, leaning his back against the wall as he sat in the corner of the room.  You looked at him with a smile: even bloodied and beaten he looked like everything you’d ever wanted.

You stood up and turned around, hoping to be able to care for Viktor’s wound, and everything happened so fast that you were on the floor before you realized exactly what had occurred.  You looked up just in time to see Viktor topple to the ground and die, a trail of blood behind him.  The wound in his back was empty, and you looked down to see your own dagger plunged into your gut.

“No!” Julian yelled, crawling towards you and examining the wound before grabbing your face. “No, no, no, no,” he rushed, tears running down his face as he scrambled around you to try to decide what to do.

“Julian,” you tried to soothe him, feeling a burning heat radiating from where you’d been stabbed.

“Oh Gods, I’ll go get someone- there must be a healer nearby-” he began desperately.

“Julian, look at me,” you requested, your voice weaker.  You felt so tired.  He obeyed, the fear in his expression clear even as you couldn’t see him that well through your tears.

“It’s over,” you whispered.

“No, no, it’s not,” he reassured as he shook his head, “it can’t be.  You’re going to be okay.  And we’re going to be together.”

"We were together, and it was beautiful,” you remembered, stopping to cough which sprayed blood from your mouth.

“It’s not over,” he repeated, but the way his voice wavered made it clear that he didn’t believe it entirely.  “I can’t lose you again.”

It was getting harder to fight to stay awake, and you didn’t want to fight anymore.  You felt like if you just let go, you could fall back into something warm and dark and peaceful.  And you were ready to let it wrap around you and take you home.  He grabbed your hand and held it in his, planting a kiss on your knuckles and holding your fingers against his forehead.  His touch kept you lucid a bit longer, but your fingers were already so cold…

“I kept my promise,” you whispered, a warm tear rolling down your cheek as you felt everything blur and soften, your vision narrowing down to a point even though you couldn’t tell if your eyes were closing.

“No, no, please don’t go…" Julian’s begging faded away into the quiet static of sleep.  

~

You startled awake, and instantly you couldn’t see or breathe.  Your body flailed against the oppressive darkness and you felt it moving against you, felt that there was something to struggle against.  Pushing back against the weight, your hands were suddenly cold and you remembered the feeling as air.  Sitting up, you were freed, coughing hoarsely as you breathed for the first time you could remember in a long time.  Opening your eyes, you saw you were on the beach, surrounded by and covered in sand.  You looked behind you and observed the hole you had just crawled out of.  Just above where your head must’ve been lay a pile of rocks, and remnants of dead flowers.  This was a burial ground.  Your burial ground.

You vaguely remembered dying, the sensation of holding Julian’s hand as you slipped away.  You could imagine it so clearly that it almost felt real, like you’d only let go of him a moment ago.  You reached down to your stomach where the knife had been, and found a bloodied hole in your clothes but no damage on your skin.  

You touched your hair and it was braided.  You looked through the sand and found flowers everywhere, even a bouquet.  You began to cry as you realized that Julian had kept his promise to take you to the ocean, and even gone so far as to prepare your body for a funeral and decorate your sandy coffin with flowers.

There has to be another chance, his words from the night before you died rang in your head.  You stood up, your legs still a little wobbly as you got used to walking again.  But quickly you were running, determined on your mission to find Julian and fix this for good.  You weren’t sure how you were alive, but you knew why: he and your teenage self were right.  You were meant to be together.  And now not even Death could stop you.

~

“Tell me the date,” you demanded as you swung open the door to the mage’s office.  He motioned to an astrological calendar on the wall, and you examined it.  

“It’s been exactly a year,” you realized aloud.

“Since when?” the mage asked curiously.

“Since I died,” you said casually.

The mage stood up, pulling out a chair and gesturing towards it.

“Please, have a seat,” he requested.

~

“I’m not sure I came back from the dead,” you groaned as you looked at yourself in the mirror.  You saw some features that you shared with your memory of how you’d looked before, but you saw yourself as a stranger.  Everything you’d hated about your face and body (and there was a lot) was gone.  No pockmarks from your childhood illness.  No wrinkles around your eyes and mouth.  Stronger jawline, bigger eyes, fuller lips.  Your hair was fuller as well, and even the colour was different.  It wasn’t like looking at an entirely different person necessarily, moreso just yourself with several minor changes that really added up, but it was quite the shock regardless.

“In my experience with resurrection, a physical change is normal,” the mage explained.

“You have experience with resurrection?” you asked incredulously as you turned to him.

“No,” he frowned.

You grimaced, looking back to yourself in the mirror, tugging at your skin as if the mask would peel off and you’d look like the old you again.

“So, you don’t know how or why you’ve changed?” the mage interrogated.

“Yes, of course,” you sighed.

“And you don’t know how or why you’re alive?” he asked.

“I don’t know how,” you answered, “but I know why.”

The mage waited for an explanation.

“Love,” you stated plainly.  “Do you think love can create miracles?”

He pondered for a moment before he replied. “Destiny gets her way,” he decided, “and even Death bends to her will.”

“I’ve always known he was my destiny,” you remembered.

“I have to say, I’ve had quite a peculiar day,” the mage admitted.  You glared at him.  “Not quite peculiar enough to compete with yours, of course, but peculiar nonetheless.  I don’t usually spend all day talking about destiny.”

“I thought that was normal fare for a mage.”

“Most people come here asking to either lift a curse or cast one.  Destiny is a rarer issue.  Just before you came in, I was discussing it with someone else- a witcher, if you’d believe it,” he recalled.

“I’d believe anything now,” you smirked.

“Say, do witchers normally have travelling companions?”

Your face dropped and you stood up from your seat.

“Tell me where they went,” you demanded.

“I try to offer my clients privacy, a sense of discretion-” he began, but he choked when you grabbed him by the collar.

“Tell me where they were headed, now,” you repeated through your teeth.

~

“You’ve aged more in the past year than you did in all our travels together,” Geralt observed.

“I lost everything,” was all Jaskier said.

Suddenly he looked to the horizon, not for any reason, just a feeling that he should.  Staring ahead he saw a silhouette begin to emerge from over the hill.  You looked back at him and you prepared to explain who you were, what had happened, why you changed (not that you understood all of that yourself).  Instead he started to run to you, and you couldn’t fight back your ecstatic smile as you began to run to him as well.  When you met in the middle he embraced you, spinning you around and pulling you into a kiss that made you feel properly alive again, more than before.

“It was never over,” he told you quietly as he pulled back from the kiss.  

“How did you know it was me?” you asked, running your fingers down his cheek. “You buried me.  I look completely different.  I don’t even recognize myself.”

“I could just… tell,” he shrugged.

“But how?” you demanded.

“Because it’s you,” he answered simply, using his hand to brush some hair out of your face. “It was always you.”

You kissed him again, with enough passion to make up for the all the time lost, and yet, brimming with hope and excitement for the future.

[davidmann95]

All-Star Superman #2

A scant year to the day since part 1!

All evidence to the contrary I actually have always wanted to go back to this, especially since I keep getting asked if I’ll do so and it stirs my omnipresent sense of guilt over my lack of productivity, and also the last year has not resulted in a mass turnaround of people realizing it’s a for-real good book and not just comfort food so this remains necessary. This isn’t going to be quite as in-depth as the first go-around - both that as the introductory issue and that as the introductory recap had a lot of groundwork to lay - but still plenty to cover, as this issue sets up Lois and Superman’s arcs for the series, which is rooted (amazingly, especially right off the bat, given the book’s reputation of being about how amazing Superman is) in how badly Superman’s let his fears and shortsightedness poison the most important relationship in his life.

If the first issue is the big classic Superman material - Superman saving the day from the monster! Lois and Clark and the rest of the Daily Planet crew! Lex Luthor’s sinister schemes! A ticking clock to doom! - this scales all the way down to the uncomfortably, stiflingly intimate. Classic archetypal Superman stuff gives way to the most Silver Age issue: casual huge ideas, relationship drama, misunderstandings, last-minute reveals that recontextualize the entire issue, and baaaarely latent psychodrama bubbling up at the edges. In service of that the visual framing here is not unlike a stage play, a limited set of physically connected locales as a pair of figures bounce off one another. Quitely and Grant’s work is therefore comparatively subdued next to issue #1, keeping to traditional panel layouts and wide or medium shots with a background color palate of mostly blacks and whites and grays with a handful of other colors popping out...until Lois starts to lose her shit at the end of the issue and we get close-ups and full black and white panels and eerie glowing and dutch angles and that unsettling abstract image of her clenched teeth, as the story starts to squeeze us like Lois’s gut.

She’s right to be unsettled for that matter; she’s alone on Superman’s turf (the one issue where that’s the case other than #6, and that one’s about how Smallville stopped being his home), the weird antiseptic alien lair of the ultimate super-hobbyist, and all the baggage of their relationship is spilling out into the open as she has less and less reason to think the best of this odd man who’s been lying to her for years. Unlike the Silver Age tales this is referencing, she’s absolutely on the money with her complaints about him: he’s been dicking around with her forever and thinks it can all be okay now (His little “What?” on the second page when she bursts his bubble says it all), and he’s awkwardly overcompensating trying to fix it.

While the Fortress tour serves to peacefully acclimate us to how utterly bizarre Superman’s world really gets past the traditional rescues (the little cubic starfield we don’t know the meaning of yet, trophies are floating rather than physically suspended, the glowing flowers in Lois’s room, “The Phantom Zone map room’s pretty dull unless you can see radio-negative anti-waves”), Superman himself is...humblebragging isn’t the right way of putting it, but it feels like he’s working way, way harder than he ever will again in this book to be cool and impressive and assuring. He’s a dope in love, but he can tell something’s up and that super-brain of his isn’t putting the obvious pieces together, or noticing that this is just putting her off further and further until, like Bluebeard’s wife before her, she stumbles through the threshold of the door she was never meant to, even of course in the end he’s still Superman and there’s a perfectly good reason. Not a good enough reason, however, for her accusations at dinner to not hit home - his mind may be expanding, but he’s still way up his own ass here in a genuinely unpleasant way that’ll be elaborated on momentarily. For now he’s left stammering that she should trust him and it’s limp and phony, especially compared to his big entreaty for someone to trust him in #10 (which’ll be right after he finally comes clean with her); while Superman may not be considered a savior figure by his friends in here the way he often is in the mainline comics Lois seems to be the only one who doesn’t look up to him at least a little bit, but that clarity means she’ll call him out where no one else will.

Across the next two pages it’s all laid out, and we get to the roots of where things have gone wrong between the two of them. Lois is paranoid, certainly, the panels are literally squeezing in on her, but with Superman seeming so out-there and alien like never before she would have every right to be even sans alien chemicals. But notably there remains throughout a part of her assuming the best of him wondering if maybe this is just another big misunderstanding or that he’s simply been mutated by the solar overexposure. And in her heart of hearts, she admits that maybe she wants this to be another big damn trick with a completely sensible justification, because the alternative is that this is the new normal and she has to accept that he’s a flawed mortal man. It’s ugly and it’s mean - especially since she likes Clark - and it’s human as hell in the worst, most understandable way. It’s not going to be until said mortality is staring her in the face that she’ll be able to accept it.

Superman, meanwhile...someone could write a thesis on these panels as an articulation of the Superman/Clark dynamic. The Mirror of Truth is actually preexisting, centerpiece of a Jerry Siegel/Curt Swan joint in Action Comics #269 that was later adapted into the Superman newspaper strip where Lois uses it to figure out Superman is Clark Kent until he tricks her into believing the mirror can lie, after which he tosses it in a volcano; here it’s survived, and curiously shows him as Superman rather than Clark, when in the original tale it displayed Kent even though that was fully the era of Clark as a disguise. In here too it’s Superman who’s the ‘true’ identity of the two and which this time is reflected in the mirror, yet as in #1 it’s Clark who says what he’s truly feeling. In that light, the final panel of the abandoned glasses reads like nothing so much as Superman using the mirror as affirmation that the truth of the solemn, steadfast Superman identity gives him licence to deny the uncomfortable emotions his squishy human farmboy side is dredging up, ‘lying’ to him in a way he had to fake in the source material. Those emotions however knock right on the door of what he can’t grasp here: Clark’s so wrapped up in his own head trying to do the ‘right’ thing that he’s overlooking how his attempts at self-sacrificing selflessness are hurting the people around him. Throughout the series he’ll come to rely on others, first at his lowest points with Jimmy and the Bizarros, until at last he comes to invest true trust in Lois, and the Kandorians, and Leo Quintum, and even Lex.

For now though Lois is deep in a hole, a brief but memorable meeting with the Unknown Superman of 4500AD - everything Superman seems to be becoming to her even before she wonders if it’s literally him, cryptic and masked and with a big ‘ol question mark right on his chest instead of the familiar comforting logo, even his gutbuster of a question reinforcing his distance from a recognizable human experience - leading her all the way to reimagining her Silver Age ideal happy ending of marriage and family with Superman as a Cronenbergian horror. It’s still a Superman story, it turns out he had the very best reason possible for wanting to keep her in the dark, but right through to the end he remains just a little condescending in his reassurance, and his gift of essentially bringing her up to his ‘level’ isn’t going to solve the problem. While the next issue lets us see the two of them properly in love, it won’t be until the elephant in the room comes out that they can come to terms.

Additional notes

* God Quitely is so good. Look at the way the seatbelt curves in the first panel! Lois’s bemused little disbelieving smirk!

* Pages 2-3: Aurora Borealis?!

* Lois is the only character other than Superman who gets to have actual narration (in both cases as looks at their in-text writing), the only one whose viewpoint is thus privileged in the same way as his.

* The key is the realization of this series’ aesthetic in a nutshell: the old-school idea in a sleek, shiny, clever new way that doesn’t take away from the fantastical toyeticness of it all. For that matter, the key is the centerpiece of a later bit with Superman that could be fairly described as the long-term goal of the book book as Morrison’s hoped-for perennial: “One day some future man or woman will open that door, with that key. When they do, I want them to know how it felt to live at the dawn of the age of superheroes.”

* This is A. The first note of a larger DC universe existing offscreen, something that I’ll go into more when discussing #8, B. A brilliant, concise, fun little summation of his place in Superman’s world, and C. Absolutely hilarious given Morrison suggested in his exit interview that this could be seen as much later on in the same universe as All-Star Batman & Robin The Boy Wonder, which entirely rewrites the tone of that moment.

* Already discussed the key but the muscles in Superman’s hand tensing a bit at picking it up is another great detail.

* The glimpse of the Fortress here is excellent: the statues of his friends and enemies instead of pictures because he does things bigger with the yellow electric something crackling at the end of it, the off-model but curious-looking robot appearing to glance at Kandor (are it and the bigger robot with the seats on top of it trophies, or Superman Robots with different designs tasked for specific purposes?), the classic Bad Penny Good For One Crime, the Legion time bubble that establishes his time-traveling credentials for later, the Titanic where he and Lois will dine when their relationship hits a proverbial iceberg, and most strikingly the space shuttle Columbia, his apparent rescue of which I have to imagine is a reference to Astro City’s Superman analogue Samaritan debuting by averting the Challenger disaster.

* It’s next issue that has my actual favorite Superman/Lois moment of all time, but “When we’re married fifteen years, when I’m sagging and he looks just the same, will he still meet me and say things like...” “These are for you. I picked them on Alpha Centauri 4.” is right up there.

* The technological aesthetic of the Fortress is so different than P.R.O.J.E.C.T., sleek and solid and cleanly-lit and antiseptic, beautiful and advanced but a little cold in its own way. As stuffed with wonder as this place may be, there’s something hauntingly empty about it, suiting both the tone of the issue and as a physical embodiment of Superman’s emotional state. The one part that goes against it is the forbidden room, it even has beakers and test tubes to sell the mad scientist vibe...though if you were to stretch it, it much more close resembles the human technology seen at P.R.O.J.E.C.T., and this is meant as a gift for one.

* The cosmic anvil made it along with the key into the CWverse, Lois used it in Elseworlds! I may not be expecting All-Star quality from the upcoming Superman and Lois, but it’s good to know the powers that be are using it as a reference point (beyond how it inspired Supergirl’s take on Cat Grant, a connection I discussed in a post that seems to have vanished into thin air). The whole page is perfect, Superman at his most joyfully benign and beautiful and godlike; it’s the one bit where Lois’s skepticism cracks a touch watching him feed his adorable little Lovecraftian abomination from beyond the stars.

* While he never appears physically aside from a statue Brainiac hovers over this series from beginning to end in name and deed, the ominous ultimate enemy of Superman’s past, the great trial overcome even as the scars forever remain. Morrison mentioned in the exit interview that he didn’t appear in here because he and Quitely already used him as the villain of JLA: Earth 2, but that if he had it would have borrowed Superman: The Animated Series’ take on him as a Kryptonian AI gone rogue. Personally I like his place in here as-is, a little totem parallel to the Justice League references indicating the breadth of Superman’s history between putting on the cape and Luthor’s final scheme.

* A pair of minor notes: Lois points at Superman with the pointy fork when asking him pointed questions, and while it’s not immediately clear on first read she does in fact ask the Unknown Superman exactly 3 questions (“Kal Kent?” “Will Superman and I ever marry and have children?” “What do you mean?”) before he replies with his own, as promised.

* “Oww.” and “Tickles.” literally could not be more perfect Superman moments.

* Worth taking a moment to marvel at just how many future plot elements are seeded here. There’s the obvious bit of Superman thinking about having a partner setting up the next issue, but we also for issue #6 have our first look at Kal Kent and Lois wondering “What if (the Unknown Superman) was really (Superman)?” when Clark will indeed pose as him, for #10 we get our first look at Qwewq, and for #11 not only is the Sun-Eater introduced but so is Robot 7′s malfunction as a result of Luthor’s tampering.

* The structure of the series according to Morrison is a solar cycle, beginning and ending at midday with nightfall in the center. If last issue was the sun at its brightest we begin the descent here, with Superman remaining larger-than-life and ultimately trustworthy but with his classic persona and habits held to an additional, unflattering degree of scrutiny.

[woo-san-shine]

Our Way

ateez college au

Premise: You and your best friend from high school move away to a university 3 hours away from your small hometown. You find yourself meeting a strange cast of characters along the way that will help you find your way throughout your freshman year.    

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: None 

Author’s Note: A work in progress!!! Mostly just for fun

prev // next 

Chapter 6

The sun is beginning to set as we make our way across campus.  The air is still warm, and there are people lazily laying on the grass, talking loudly about plans for that evening, or just walking around their new home.  Hongjoong is leading the pack upfront with Seonghwa, Wooyoung and Jungho are still talking about the game that they had left behind, Yunho and Mingi are clowing each other with Sooyoung laughing extra loud every time Mingi says anything at all.

"She realizes Mingi isn't that funny, right?" A low voice says to me. It was San.  He had fallen into step next to me without me realizing.

"Oh, she acts like this whenever she really likes someone," I say to him glancing in her direction.  She had just let out another loud giggle at something Mingi had said.

"Hmmm..." San looks back and forth from Sooyoung to Mingi. "I guess I can see it."

"What, them getting together?"

"Yeah. But she's your friend, I'm sure you have more of an opinion."

"Sooyoung likes someone who... needs her, in a way.  She likes to be in control." Sooyoung had boyfriends in the past who couldn't handle her confidence and strong personality, or at least that's what I would tell her when the relationship would end.  "Also helps that they're in the same major," I add.

"Ah, that makes sense," he pauses.  "What are you studying?"

"I'm in the College of Art majoring in Graphic Design.  You?"

"I'm in the College of Education.  I want to be an elementary school teacher."

"That's adorable," I say before I can stop myself.  Goddamnit, why do I keep doing this? "I mean kids... are adorable..."

San smiles.  "Ha, yeah. I've always been good with kids. Yunho is in education too, so I’ll have classes with him."

"Aw that's nice to be with someone you know.”

“You’ll be with Yeosang though, right? He’s the same major as you.”

"Yeah I've heard, still have to actually meet him though."

"He's a treat alright. A little shy at first but he comes out of his shell once you get to know him."

The group comes to a stop in front of a large all-glass building. You can see the reflection of the sunset illuminating off of one side.

"Wow," Sooyoung says gazing up at the building.

"It's even better on the inside," Mingi says.

We enter the building and are greeted by a large lobby willed with giant cushy chairs, flat-screen TVs, and it’s very own dining hall.  It was much nicer that my dorm lobby, but it also seemed rather cold and unwelcoming.  Not as homey.  We pile into the elevator and I find myself squeezed in between San and Wooyoung.

"Aww, a rose between two thorns," Wooyoung says looking from San to me.

San rolls his eyes.

"Hey, I saw that!" Wooyoung yells.

The two joke back and forth for the entire elevator ride and the walk down the hallway to a room with a whiteboard labeled "Kang Yeosang" on it. Hongjoong knocks. After a few second and boy answers the door.

"Yeosang!!!!" Everyone except Sooyoung and I yell. The boys hurriedly make their way into the room, either hugging or giving the boy who answered the door a clap on the back.

"No, yeah, please. Make yourselves at home," he says sarcastically looking over his shoulder at everyone who had just run in. He turns back to us. He looks slightly puzzled.

"Uh, hi," I say. "I don't think you know us, but I'm Jaemin and this and Sooyoung and we..."

"Oh, right. It's nice to meet you, I'm Yeosang," he bows to us and them shakes our hand. "They told me about you. Please come in."

The thing that I noticed first about Yeosang was his deep voice. It was quite a shock coming out of his fairly small frame. He was probably one of the smallest out of the group, but his features were striking. He had thick brown hair that covered his forehead, bright green eyes, rather large ears, and high cheekbones. His face looked as if it had been carved out of marble, there was no other way to describe it.

We walk in and as he shuts the door behind us.  Sooyoung whispers "Seriously, what have they been saying about us?"

I shrug, but before I can say anything I am stopped in my tracks by what I see. We have just walked into one of the nicest college dorms I had ever seen. There was a full kitchen with a small island, a dining table and chairs, a living room with a large couch and a TV, and a separate room with a bedroom and bathroom.

"You're kidding me," Sooyoung says, mouth slightly gaping.

Yeosang sheepishly runs his hand through his hair. "Uh, yeah it's a nice place." He looks embarrassed. "I'm on the scholarship so..."

"Yeosang's family also has m-o-n-e-y," Yunho fake loudly whispers from his place at the dining table.

"Ya know everyone here knows how to spell and hear," Seonghwa says.

"I don't know about that, Mingi's pretty questionable," Wooyoung adds raising his hand in the air.

Mingi elbows Wooyoung hard in the ribs which makes him double over in pain. Yunho and Jongho snicker, Seonghwa rolls his eyes, but San and Hongjoong look slightly concerned.

"Wait, this was one of the options for living if you were on scholarship?" Sooyoung asks Yeosang.

"Yeah, I think so."

Sooyoung looks over in my direction for a brief second. I knew that she was probably thinking 'why the hell aren't we living here?' but there was no way that my family could've afforded this dorm. I look down at my shoes, slightly embarrassed.

"Do you both want a tour?" Yeosang asks us.

He takes Sooyoung and I around the apartment-style dorm while the others do indeed make themselves at home. By the time we're finished, most of the boys are in the living room. Someone had figured out how to turn on Yeosang's TV and started a game of Super Smash Bros. Sooyoung goes into the living room and confidently set herself next to Mingi on the couch. I walk over to the dining room table and sit across from Hongjoong, who was just sitting by himself and enjoying watching the boys play games. Yeosang follows and sits next to me.

"Are you the one in Graphic Design?" He asks me.

"Yep, that's me," I say with a small smile. "I've been told that's what you're studying too."

"Ha, yeah."

"Is your first class tomorrow Intro to Drawing at 9 a.m.?"

"Sure is."

"What?! Mine too!" Hongjoong says excitedly, breaking his stare from the intense game going on in the living room.

"What are you doing in that class?" Yeosang asks.

"It's for my minor! I told you that last month when we made our schedules."

"Oh right," he replies.

"You should totally sit with us tomorrow!" Hongjoong says to me.

"Really?" I ask.

"Of course!"

We talk for a while about what we think classes will be like before Yunho comes over and slams a large hand on the table.

"Alright people, it's almost time." He says to us.

"Time for what?" I ask him.

"The cleanse," he says seriously.

"The what?" I ask again, highly confused.

"Does she really not know," Wooyoung asks, walking over to stand next to Yunho.

I stare back at them, eyebrows raised.

"There's a tradition that the night before fall classes start all the freshman jump into the fountain," Wooyoung says to me.

"Wait," I say hands out stretched. "That huge fountain in the middle of campus?"

"That's the one," Wooyoung replies.

"But, why?" I ask the group.

"Some people think it's for good luck," Jongho answers.

"Almost like a cleanse before the semester starts," Hongjoong adds.

"I actually did hear about that, but I didn't know if it was true," Sooyoung says, still seated next to Mingi on the couch.

"That sounds kinda..." I start

"Dangerous? Silly? Pointless?" Seonghwa asks.

"Fun," I say.

"Well then let's get going!" Yunho yells, leading everyone out of the dorm.

We exit Yeosang's dorm and head in the direction of the fountain. It was dark now, but campus is still well-lit. There were a lot of people, presumably all freshman, heading in the same direction. Once we reach the fountain, there is a large crowd gathered around it. The fountain itself was probably a little smaller than a football field. There were large jets in the middle that shot water about 20 feet high. With the number of people that were here, it would be surprising if we all fit.

"How deep is it?" Yeosang asks, a little nervously.

"Oh come on, it probably only goes up to your knees," Mingi says nudging his shoulder.

"Hey, let's put our stuff over here!" Hongjoong yells, pointing to a large tree next to the crowd gathered around the fountain.

We head over in that direction. We all start to take our shoes off and pull our phones out of our pockets. Both Jongho and Wooyoung immediately take their shirts off and toss them with their things. Jongho's muscles and Wooyoung's confidence are very apparent. San follows, but no one else seems to be as daring or seems to care. Seeing this, Sooyoung promptly strips down to a sports bra and spandex shorts. She isn't the smallest girl, but boy was she confident. She waltzes past Mingi who isn't even trying to hide staring at her. I look down at my own shirt, a white cotton T-shirt.

"It's gonna become see-through once it gets wet anyway, might as well take it off," Sooyoung whispers to me, winking.

I sigh and walk back over to where I had put my shoes and my phone. I peak around to make sure no one is looking at me and wriggle out of my shirt. I am now only wearing a black lace bralette and high-waisted jean shorts. This is as far as I'm going. I wrap my arms around myself and head over to we're the group is standing by the edge of the fountain.

"Two minutes until 10 o'clock!" Jongho yells after checking his watch.

"So what, do we just walk in?" Sooyoung asks the boys.

"Some people walk, some people fall in, some people swim all the way to the jets, really whatever you want," Hongjoong says.

"I have an idea," I say kinda shyly.

Every single boy's eyes look over to me.

"Uh, what if we all stood on the edge and jumped? Like, all together," I say. There's a pause. "Carefully, of course," I add.

They all glance in Hongjoong's direction, almost as if to get his approval.

"I like it! Everybody climb on the edge, quick!" He says.

We all form a line and step into the end he of the fountain. People around us are either with doing the same, sitting on the edge, or backing up like they are going to hurdle over the edge. I find myself in between Sooyoung and San. His face is shining with excitement, dimples in full view. He looks down at me and we both grin. He looks over my head and then cocks it to the side, indicating to look at what's going on next to me. I turn just in time to watch Mingi, who is next to Sooyoung, ask if he can hold her hand while we all jump.

"AWWWW HOW CUUUUUUTE," Wooyoung's loud voice echos from down the line. "I want to hold hand too!!!" He immediately grabs the hands of Yunho and Seonghwa on either side of him. Yunho sways precariously on the edge from the force of Wooyoung's hand holding and Seonghwa rolls his eyes.

A countdown begins to ripple across the crowd.

"TEN, NINE, EIGHT!"

The boys start whooping and cheering.

"SEVEN, SIX, FIVE!"

I can’t hold back my laughter as I look around at all the excited faces about to jump into the fountain. How could something so juvenile bring so much joy to a bunch of teenagers?

"FOUR, THREE, TWO!" 

At the last second, San grabs my hand and squeezes it.

"ONE!"

I feel my feet leaving the edge of the fountain. For a split second, I know nothing except the warm breeze through my hair and the pressure of San's hand in mine. But soon my body is engulfed in freezing cold water. The bottom of the fountain is surprisingly slippery and the moment my feet touch the bottom, I start falling backward. San starts to fall too and we both try our best to steady each other but eventually we fall into the cool water, completely submerged.

I quickly get up and brush my hair out of my eyes. San is kneeling on the ground, rubbing the water out of his eyes. When he looks up at me, we laugh at how silly we both look. I gaze around to look for the others. Everyone around us seems to have either fallen too, or is still climbing over the edge.  People are laughing, shouting, swimming, and splashing in the water. I find Hongjoong, who is wading from person to person making sure they are okay.

"Hey! You guys good?" He yells towards San and I.

I give him a thumbs-up as San starts to wade towards Wooyoung.  He whispers something into his ear and they both start to creep over towards Hongjoong, who has his back turned.  Once they reach him, Wooyoung grabs Hongjoong’s arms and raises them above his head.  San goes for his legs.  The pair hoist above the water and start to swing him back and forth.  The others notice and start chanting.  

“HONGJOONG! HONGJOONG! HONGJOONG!” 

After a few more swings, they toss him back into the water.  A few seconds pass before he emerges from the water.  He stares back at his friends, all of whom are giggling or cackling with laughter.  He pretends to act mad before a huge smile spreads across his face, even bigger than mine. 

We spend a good thirty or so minutes just playing around in the water, starting with a crackhead version of ‘sharks and minnows’.  Once a game of chicken starts, I decide to sit this one out.  I wade over to an edge of the fountain that isn’t occupied and lie on my back, floating atop of the water.  I stare up at the night sky.  

The last day and a half had been so busy that I hadn’t even had the chance to really just stop and think.  Classes start tomorrow.  Am I prepared?  Will the professors like me?  Do I even know where my classes are? 

I figure suddenly obstructs my view of the night sky.  It’s Jongho.  

“Mind if I sit with you?” he asks. 

I sit up and lean my back against the fountain’s edge. “No, of course,” I pat the top of the water next to me. 

He takes a seat. 

“This is pretty fun, huh,” I say to him.  

“Yeah, pretty cool tradition.” He pauses for a second. “Um.. I just wanted to say thanks.” 

“For what?” 

“For uh... wanting to hang out with us I guess.” He looks over to his friends and Sooyoung who are still playing in the water. 

I am taken aback. “Well, you don’t have to thank me.” 

“I do, really.  We haven’t really had friends outside of our group in so long.  Most people either think we are too intimidating or too weird to want to hang out with us.” 

Well, he wasn’t totally wrong.  The group as a whole was slightly intimidating and the way the interacted with each other could come across as a little weird. 

I wave my hand to him. “I should be the one thanking you!  If it wasn’t for you guys Sooyoung and I would probably be cooped up in or dorm staring at the wall.”

He chuckles. 

“Really, thank YOU for introducing us to everyone,” I say as genuinely as I can. 

“I’m glad you needed help carrying all those boxes yesterday,” he says smiling.

I look over at him. When I meet his gaze, he shyly looks down and fidgets with his fingers.  I wanted to say something nice back, but before I can open my mouth a wave a water washes over us.  

“Hey! We’re about to head out you two.” Wooyoung had come over and splashed us. 

We all climb out of the fountain and rush over to the tree where we had put our things.   

“Will we be seeing you again?” Yunho asks me, his large eyes extra wide.  

“I sure hope so,” I reply.  

As I am saying goodbye to Yunho, Wooyoung, and Yeosang, San walks up to me. 

“You have a leaf in your hair,” I say as he stops in front of me.  I stand on my tip-toes to reach to pick it out of his black and red-streaked hair. 

“Oh, thank you,” he says.  “It was nice to meet you, Jaemin.” He wears a soft smile, dimples only slightly peaking out. 

“Uh, no of course. It was nice to meet you too,” I say shyly.  I clutch my t-shirt to my chest. 

Before I can say anything else, Sooyoung grabs me by the arm and starts to drag me towards the direction of our dorm.  Maybe it’s a good thing I keep getting interrupted when talking with these boys.  I don’t know why I’m always at such a loss for words.  

prev // next

[bluekayanite]

(SU:F Theory - Snow Day) Has Steven REALLY Changed That Much?

...Or is he just still dealing with an old issue?

(I intended to post this last week, but apparently forgot to actually, you know, post it. >_<  I’ve got another one upcoming, but here’s this one for now.)

EDIT: Some edits have been made.  Not gonna stress myself over the details this time.

My Feelings on the Ep

Okay, I dunno about you, but I actually found the story of Snow Day pretty upsetting.  The whole thing was about Steven running from his childhood favorites, and he pretty much stated that it was because he didn't want to be seen as a kid.

Sure, I can get behind not liking when people assume you haven't changed, especially when the changes in question have to do with you learning and growing (been there... -.-), but it didn't feel like that was the real issue.  I mean, there's growing up and changing, and then there's more-or-less trying to hide, or to erase the past.  IMO, this ep showed Steven trying to avoid "kids stuff" to an extreme.  He literally jumped over the edge!

And not just the kids stuff, but it feels to me like he's been avoiding silly stuff in general, like that goofy charm that seemed like an essential character trait throughout the first series.

Even the idea that he could've left behind so much of the goofiness I love was pretty distressing - it really feels like he's trying to run away from a part of himself, essentially killing a part of himself (or at least a version thereof).  But that's not the whole of the issue for me.

To me, it really kind of felt like Steven believed the Gems were wrong to still want to appreciate the old stuff with him - not because of “seeing him as a child, still,” but... like they couldn't still appreciate the way he used to be, even in a nostalgic sense.  Like he believes that they shouldn't be allowed to enjoy the silly stuff, either.  Or the little things in general.

(If you're not taking the time to pet something cute, I'd say it's pretty serious.)

Also: come on!!  The Cheeseburger Backpack and Together Breakfast are two of the most iconic things of the series-es!  And personally, like I kind of said, I’d say Steven's goofiness is right up there with them!  Even the vegetarianism!  Remember how big Steven was on hot dogs?

"I think there isn't such a thing as a bad [hot] dog, though.  Only bad chefs!" - Steven, Wacky Sacks Unboxing minisode

It was even in the first opening of SU!

I don't mind that SU:F is more mature than SU, but it feels like it's missing a lot of the heart that made SU so easy to love.  I’m even noticing that there's been a shortage a star-iris-endings.  I’m pretty sure the last iris was used in Guidance... for a fake ending.

Not that I think the star-iris should be forced, but it seems like it's not being used, even when Crewniverse has a perfectly good chance to do so.  The fact that they've used it at all suggests that they're not trying to avoid using it - more like they've fallen out of the habit, or something.  And I’m really starting to feel the absence of the little bit of lighthearted warmth that it typically brings.  It just kinda quietly punctuates just how serious the show has been.

...It's pretty depressing, really.

But yeah, in general, I'm not a big fan of the idea that you have to let go of kid things as soon as you grow up.  Doctors believe that play is just as important for adults as it is for children.  Heck, that article even mentions reading aloud to someone (and I'd say, by extension, being read to) as a form of play... one of the forms that Steven specifically avoids.

And if you ask me, The No Home Boys sounds like its pretty deep - not just a basic, “silly” kids’ story.

"My favorite story is this classic one where the No Home Boys are chased[...] by a mysterious pursuer, which turns out to be the very fear resting within themselves." - Steven, On The Run

At the very least, it's what led to him having an adventure that led to him learning something important, and to bringing to light - and resolving - some previously-unspoken tension between Pearl and Amethyst.

So at the very least, I wouldn't cast aside childish things so quickly, if only for all the good that they have already brought.

There's also the fact that adult play has been accepted as a pretty important thing in our current society - it's basically our culture now.  As said on the YT Channel Lockstin & Gnoggin (in response to COPPA), "This isn't the 1970s anymore[...]  Adults are no longer afraid to be interested in things."  I mean, heck, I think odds are pretty good that if you’re reading this, you're probably an adult who enjoys “kids stuff.”  I know I technically fit in that category - I’m getting old enough that I don't like to think about it. ^_^;

Personally, I believe that the “adults can still like ‘kids’ stuff” thing could really use more representation in mainstream media, ESPECIALLY after the whole COPPA thing.  Personally, I’ve always believed that this would be done through Steven Universe.

And personally... I still think odds are good that it will.

Why I Think There's Still Hope for the Subject

The “adults enjoying ‘childish’ stuff” thing isn't just a thing with Millennials and the Internet in general: it's a pretty strong part of the culture of the Crewniverse, what with them actually enjoying Together Breakfast for the release of the ep by the same name.  Not to mention donuts topped with Pop Rocks fire salt (exact quote - for Joking Victim), a big bowl of macaroni-and-nothing (for Warp Tour), and even a Rice Krispie temple that promptly got pummeled by a giant hand (technically for Bismuth, but also referencing Jailbreak).  And those are just a few examples.

And in general, I've noticed that SU is very Millennial show, featuring values like that the reason for work should be to enjoy life, rather than to make money (Drop Beat Dad), and I've already said that being able to enjoy "kids stuff" as an adult is a pretty Millennial thing.

So to me, it seems like it's probably inevitable that Steven's going to get over the "trying too hard to adult" thing.  Heck, if anything, I'd say that Snow Day is just another part of the long-running-buildup.

Steven has a history of trying to cut everything “childish” out of his life, and/or being embarrassed when it's brought up.

This felt like an extension of that history - to me, it feels like this issue leveled up, like he's trying harder than ever before to avoid being associated with "kids stuff."  His reaction to Garnet presenting the Cheeseburger Backpack certainly looks like one of embarrassment, and one of not even appreciating the gesture, regardless.

And if you look, this whole thing started when the Gems implied that birthday parties were a "kids thing."

(My apologies for VUDU’s captions - they got better, I promise.)

Since then, he’s been stuck on the idea that he would have to leave things behind as he got older.

Before that, he was trying to convince the Gems of just the opposite.

Little did Steven know that they actually came around, while he was away...

But now?  Now that they've obviously come around, he's still having trouble getting over what was once said.

He's even overtly objecting to being called "cute," or like a kid!

I think this is a pretty good example of how one little thing can result in a problem that a person struggles with for a long time afterward; how one idea can result in a person pressuring themselves to try and be something or not, even if the people who gave the idea have changed their minds.  I think it's a pretty good example of the kind of baggage - the kind of problems - we carry around with us.

And you know what the official description of SU:F says?

"[A]s [Steven] runs out of other people's problems to solve, he'll finally have to face his own."

I very much believe that this is one of them. =3

Before I saw the movie, I had been spoiled by the “catchup” vid for the last season clearly being narrated by an older-voiced Steven.  (So sorry, Hilary, that you want through so much trouble, but the neck wasn't much of a secret to me. XD; )  And spoilers aside, it had been pretty well hinted that he was going to grow up, via both of the “Birthday” episodes. 

(Personally, I’m kind of disappointed that we missed the magic growth spurt - I always thought it would've been hilarious. X3)

I’d often thought that Steven was going to grow up when he realized that he didn't have to leave “childish” stuff behind - that he can be grown up without having to "stop being a kid," or worrying about how people would see him if he didn't.  I kind of figured it would allow him to feel more comfortable about growing up, and so he would grow up.

But, apparently, that's still a thing he needs to work on.

And sure, I'm glad Steven came around at least a little, but I wonder if it's really enough... especially since he doesn’t even seem sincere on loving that the Gems upgraded the Steven Tag game.

But also, it seems to me like this issue is affecting more of his personality than just his desire to have fun... like he's losing quite a bit of himself.  Remember how Pearl once described him?

You have to feel like yourself!  Sweet and considerate, and only occasionally obnoxious! - Pearl, So Many Birthdays

It does seem like Steven's been having trouble with the considerate angle, lately.  I mean, he kept busting into Jasper's hideout, he took over Amethyst's mentorship program (completely ignoring the feelings of the Gems being mentored), and in general, he's kinda... asserting himself and his opinions more than listening to others(').  I'd even say that he's lost a lot of his sweet, and he's... probably more than occasionally obnoxious. ^_^;  I mean, Aquamarine and Eyeball certainly think so. X3

Now?  Well... I'd say that the Gems have at least as much of a point as Steven does.  I have to admit, I feel a lot like Amethyst - I think she has a point about the direction Steven is (or had been) heading, and about what kind of example he was setting.

I agree that the issue is serious enough for Pearl to be justified in being willing to join in (which I really love her doing =3).

(Seriously, I’ve actually been worried for Steven.)

...And now I’d say that her old plea to feel like himself again is even more valid than ever.

In a way, Snow Day felt a lot like So Many Birthdays in reverse: instead of Steven trying to spend time with the Gems and making them feeling awkward about silly stuff, we now have the exact opposite.  Now, instead of allowing himself to still be a kid, Steven tries to convince them not to make him be a kid.  ...Which, again, is fair, but still.  I'd say it goes too far when he hates the idea of "kid."

But yeah...  I figure this has gotta be addressed sooner or later.  Personally, I can't wait fo the day when it is. XD;

...call me crazy - call me super crazy - but I’m hoping that a certain Pink Doofball* will talk some more sense into him. X3  That, or maybe his dad.

(*If you're not familiar with my blog... well, here's my main theory, in case you're interested.  I know it probably sounds insane, but it would mean a lot if you'd give it a look.)

[revengeworld]

The Circus I

Kylo? x Reader Modern/Monster AU

Words: +3.800

Warnings: Annoying Hux, but fluff and a little twist :DD

AN: HAPPY HALLOWEEN LOVELIES!!! I have a little treat for you! <3 Most of this chapter was inspried by my lovely boyfriend <3 I haven´t been this excited to post something in a long time! Feedback is much appreciated <3 EDIT: Cotton Cand Kiss is now “The Circus” - 12.2018

MY MASTERLIST

Part 2

It was supposed to be an exciting evening. It was Halloween and the towns fair was already in high spirit since two days, especially since another circus had decided to lay down next to the fair. So the usual yearly attraction seemed even bigger then usual. Which was even more exciting but the thing that made her the most nervous, was the date she was supposed to have.

Y/Ns friends had set her up with Hux, a very well known young man in this town with a promising and bright future with his lawyer career.

It was clear to her that her friends just wanted the best for her, but as soon as he picked her up at her doorstep, Y/N had a feeling it wouldn´t be such a pleasant experience.

Most of the drive, Hux was only talking about himself or his work, basically letting her know how good he would be as a man and she wondered why he had even agreed to be on the fair, since his opinion towards this activity seemed to be that he thought this kind of behaviour was just childish.

With a deep sighed, she looked outside the fancy cars window, seeing all the colourful lights from the big fair.

As soon as she had stepped out of his car and saw the giant Ferris wheel, the many wild rides and the smell of popcorn, cotton candy and other delicious food made her all nostalgic and excited again. Maybe now he would finally warm up a bit, he could be just as nervous as she was.

But again she was disappointed. He was reluctant to go with her to the shooting booths or ring throwing games, not even the Cotton Candy seemed to lighten his mood and he rather commented how bad this would be for her teeth and weight, so she didn´t even buy one in the first place. With a disappointed mood she looked around. She had already tried to get him into the auto scooters the ferris wheel or the mirror maze, but nothing seemed to suit his taste. Not even the big circus tent and laughter that came from it, changed his mind.

“They are only showing you cheap tricks to get your money. You shouldn´t fall for something like this.” was the only thing he said.

Rolling her eyes while she walked behind him, suddenly the bright lights of a Horror attraction caught her interest.

She always loved spooky stuff, the adrenaline that was rushing through her body when she got scared was something she already enjoyed since a small child. This was the reason she had been so excited about this night in the first place and she would at least have a bit of fun, if her date wanted to or not.

“I´m going in there!” she announced and changed her direction and Hux looked quickly after her.

“Oh Y/N, no.” following her, she already had positioned herself at the end of the line.

Since she wouldn´t let him convince her to go, Hux unwillingly waited with her in line. Y/N noticed how he was biting his lip and nervously tapping with his foot on the ground.

“Are you scared?” she asked a bit too amused.

“Of course not. I just think this is all a waste of time.” right after he said it, Hux regretted his words when she heard Y/Ns scoff.

“I´m not meaning that you are a waste of time, of course!” he tried to rescue the situation but she ignored him and turned her head away.

Letting her eyes wander over the big decorations, she suddenly noticed one of the zombie actors at the entrance, who was weirdly attractive even in his bloody make up, winked at her. With a small smirk, she bit her lip and looked to the ground until it was her and Hux´s turn to enter the horror house.

Throughout the attraction Y/N noticed the zombie boy from before a lot, but since other monsters try to scare her, she was a giggling mess. The complete opposite from Hux, who tried to keep the actors away from him and held Y/N mostly right in front of himself, which didn´t bother her since she was enjoying herself for the first time this evening.

When they were sneaking through the last part of the horror house, she already had shivers run down her spine. It was almost pitch black and quiet creepy noises where coming from all sides. And she needed to admit that even to her this was quite eery, especially when her mind started to play tricks on her.

While she tried to figure out if she saw real movement or not, a sudden bloodcurdling scream came from behind them.

Without thinking the shut her eyes, grabbed the wrist of her date and started to run right to the exit.

When she could feel the cold air on her hot cheeks again, she opened her eyes, only to see Hux running right by her, who she thought she was holding the hand of.

Slowly turning around, she faced a very laughing zombie and immediately screamed before she busted out into laughter with him.

“Oh my… I´m so sorry!! Did I pull you all the way with me? Gosh...” Y/N was so embarrassed that she didn´t even notice that she was still holding onto the zombies hand. Until she realized it was the same guy who had winked at her at the entrance and she had seen throughout the attraction.

“Seems like I ruined your horrible date. He had quite the scream.” rubbing over his ear with his free hand, he grinned down at Y/N who first seemed surprised before she started to laugh again.

She hadn´t even realized that it was indeed Hux´s screams and not one of the actors.

“Are you serious?!” she already had tears in her eyes from all the laughing and tried to carefully brush them away.

“You heard it yourself and it scared you more then anything else.” The zombie boy grinned wide while watching her.

Looking back over her shoulder she saw Hux far away trying to catch his breath.

“Kylo! There you are, geez we still need you here!” a tall blonde woman came through the exit and Y/N turned her attention back to them.

“Ah shoot. You know what?” he suddenly asked Y/N who slightly tilted her head in anticipation. The boy named Kylo, gently pushed the sleeve on her arm back before dipping his finger into the fake blood on his chest before starting to write with it on her skin.

“My shift ends in half an hour. If you let me, I would like to make up for that horrible date.” when she looked in his eyes he winked with a smile and saw how her cheeks turned slightly red.

Slowly letting go of her he was already dragged back into the horror house by the blond woman and Y/Ns eyes fell down on her arm, where she saw a few bloody numbers. Laying her other hand against her hot cheek, Y/N had the sweetest smile on her lips. Maybe this evening could still be saved.

“Wow it really hit you hard huh? You think she is it?” Phasma asked Kylo who was still grinning.

“You can´t deny how fucking cute she is! Besides, that rich bastard Hux really treated her shitty today. Someone needed to step in.” he only shrugged his shoulders.

“Aha and that´s why you specific targeted him through the tour and made him scream like an old lady?” raising an eyebrow, Phasma crossed her arms in front of her chest.

“Hey it´s my job to scare the shit out of people!” he called while walking back to his marked spot, to scare the visitors.

He couldn´t even describe how excited he was and how much he hoped she would be really waiting for him.

Of course it could be that when he would walk out she would be gone or went back to Hux, but still Kylo had a good feeling especially seeing her laugh so much after this horrible evening.

He had already seen her with Hux here and there while they were walking through the fair and how unhappy she was with the situation.

Sitting impatiently in his chair in the make up room, were Phasma was just freeing him from all the blood and prosthetic, Kylos leg was bouncing up and down.

“It would be surprising if she actually waited for you. You looked horrifying.” the taller woman mumbled but also had a small smirk on her lips, while she brushed one last time over his face with a make up wipe.

“I´m just that charming!” jumping from his chair, he quickly threw his leather jacket on and run out of the room.

“Have fun!” she called after him while shaking her head.

Stepping out in the cold autumn air he already saw Y/N standing further away next to the auto scooter while arguing with Hux.

But when she noticed the now unmasked Zombie boy behind Hux, her eyes immediately started to light up. She wouldn´t have expected that he would be this handsome under all that make up. How his dark long hair was framing his pale face so perfectly, made her feel butterflies in her stomach already.

Quickening his steps, he tapped the Ginger on the right shoulder while walking by his left and swiftly laying an arm around Y/Ns waist to pull her with him.

Until the other noticed anything they were already a bit further away and only heard him scream. “Solo!!”

Kylo only smirked and showed him the middle finger over his shoulder.

“K..Kylo, right?” she asked a bit shyer now, since she basically didn´t know him at all.

“Oh yeah, I basically just jumped on you. I´m Kylo. And you´re Y/N right? I heard him call you.” he explained and she nodded.

“So! What would you actually like to do?”just walking through the stalls, Y/N let her eyes wander around until they saw a big fat bat plushy, it was probably half her size.

Following her gaze, he inspected the big stuffed animal.

“Uhm I don´t know… ” since the previous part of the evening was so disappointing, that she was careful to openly state what she would like to do. Scared to be rejected like before with Hux.

But Kylo was completely different. He was polite and actually showed that he cared about her wishes and feelings.

“You want to try the shooting range?” but since he saw how her eyes lit up, Kylo already pulled her to the booth and tossed the worker a violet coin, while she was ready to pull out her purse.

“Oh I would´ve paid...” but Kylo only shook his head.

“Don´t worry about that. Since I work here I have a ton of these and we can use them everywhere except the circus of course.”

“Then let me at least pay for that.” with the sweetest smile she looked up to him and of course he couldn´t say no to that.

“Trying to impress your girl, Ky?”

“Oh shut up Finn.” taking the toy rifle from him Kylo stood close behind Y/N who carefully laid her hands on the smaller version of the weapon.

“I probably miss...” Y/N giggled a little nervous when she could feel his chest against her back.

“Don´t worry I help you.” he whispered, which made the hair in her neck stand. Kylo was now so close that he could smell the sweet perfume on her soft warm skin. He couldn´t resist to nuzzle his face a bit closer against her hair, while helping her to aim.

Laying his hands right onto hers, together they aimed at the target until they pulled the trigger, landing right in the middle!

“Wow!!”

“Just two more.” Kylo grinned at her excited face and she nodded. Having him so close to her, it definitely made her heart beat faster, something that didn´t happen in all these hours with Hux, but Kylo managed to do it in just a few minutes.

Two shots later, Finn needed to climb up a latter to get the big fat bat down and threw it to Kylo who gave it to Y/N who had the happiest smile on her sweet lips.

“Thank you!” standing on her tip toes she pressed a quick kiss on his cheek before squeezing the giant stuff animal tightly.

“Glad you like him.” Kylo patted the animals head and she grinned shy.

“I love him!” swinging lightly from left to right in a happy little dance, she squeezed him tightly again and Kylo couldn´t deny how adorable she was.

“You know what? I´m quite hungry. What do you say we grab some food and walk around after?” he proposed and held his hand out for her to grab.

“Sounds like a good plan.” without hesitant she grabbed his hand and he let his fingers slip between hers before tugging her gently along, while the little bat wings flopped up and down with every of her steps.

Since he worked here, he could tell her a lot of storys that happened behind the scenes of the fair.

Munching on her fries, she watched Kylo take a big bite from his bloody steak.

When he noticed her surprised look, he showed her a little smirk.

“Sorry, but I haven´t eaten much today.” Kylo explained with a full mouth and she nodded slightly.

“No, it´s fine! I didn´t meant to stare, sorry … Do you want some of my fries?” pushing the small paper plate into the middle of the table.

“Oh don´t apologize about that. Guess I looked a bit too hungry. Thanks, I´m good now, don´t worry.” brushing away a little ketchup stain from the corner of her mouth he licked it from his thumb, which made her blush again with a shy smile.

After finishing their meals, they where wandering through the fair, trying every attraction they could get on, which thanks to Kylo was everything, without the need to pay any of it.

“Can we go to the circus now?” Y/N asked while they were walking near the enormous big tent, where ominous music was playing.

“Of course, everything you want...” he whispered in her ear and she started to chuckle. In Kylos presence she was so much more calm and the chemistry between them was something she never had experienced, which would explain why she trusted him so much and could be just herself.

Paying for the tickets, Kylo was grabbing a bag of popcorn from the seller at the entrance, before they entered the circus tent.

From inside it looked even bigger then from the outside and Y/N couldn´t stop staring. Wooden Ranks where around the first half of the tent while in front of them was a wide arena with a small stage at the end.

Sitting down in the first rows Kylo laid his arm behind Y/N on the back of her chair.

Soon the lights in the tent were dimmed, when the ranks were almost full and the amazing show began. It was nothing what she had ever seen before, almost magic and supernatural, which made her question how they could even do some of their tricks which seemed just impossible. Giant animals that just couldn´t be real, so she thought it was probably just costumes or projections, but she just couldn´t stop her wide wondering eyes.

Watching Y/N be so fascinating and at awe with the show, Kylo could only smile and was not able to take his eyes of her until she was suddenly pulled away from him into the arena.

With a growl he leaned back in his chair and looked in suspicion at the scene, while the tall man completely in black, his face hiding in the shadow of his cylinder, put her into a box, that was stacked vertically, where the magician was supposed to make her vanish.

Kylo watched closely when she stepped into the box and the lid was closed over her. The last he saw was her excited little grin and a small wave towards him. The box got spun slowly around before they opened it again and it was completely empty.

Leaning back forward in his chair, Kylo tried to figure out if they just used a hidden compartment until the spotlight was leading behind the audience, where another box was standing who seemed identical to the one on the stage.

When they opened the cover of it, the audience immediately started to clap and cheer, except for Kylo who was just glad when Y/N jumped out of the box, quickly bowed and returned to him.

With her usual adorable chuckle she sat back down in her chair and cuddled up against Kylos side, who laid his arm tightly around her shoulders.

“You good?” nuzzling his head gently against hers, she nodded.

“Yeah, but it was so weird. Suddenly I was on the stage and then I was somewhere else. But it just felt fuzzy and warm.” she explained and switched her attention back to the rest of the show.

Towards the end the lights dimmed down completely until it lit back up again. Holding Y/N close they slowly left the tent with the other audience.

The Fair had calmed down since it was near the closing time.

“Want to finish our evening with Cotton Candy and a ride on the Ferris wheel?”

“Sounds like a good end to this amazing evening.” she agreed, her cheeks flushed from all the excitement.

While they were waiting in line for one of the last rides on the Ferris Wheel, they tried to steal from each others cotton candy and laughed the whole time.

Holding on to her bat when she sat down, Kylo was throwing Poe, the operator of the wheel, two coins before falling next to Y/N.

When Y/N cuddled up against his side again, he noticed her slight shivering and quickly laid his jacket around her shoulders before pulling her closer in his arms.

“This was really a nice evening. Thank you for saving it.” she smiled up to him and he could only smile back.

“You´re very welcome. I´m glad I rescued you.” letting his hand run up and down her back, to keep her warm, Y/N looked over the almost empty fair with all it´s shining lights.

“It´s really beautiful up here ...” she whispered in complete awe.

“It is.” he agreed, not wasting his gaze on the scenery, his eyes were focused completely on her.

“Would you consider … I mean… we could...” she suddenly started to stutter, not really getting a word out, Y/Ns cheeks started to heat up.

“You know I still have some tokens left which are way too much for me alone. How about we use them up tomorrow?” Kylo interrupted her, since he knew exactly what she was trying to say.

Turning her eyes back to him, Kylo could see the excited glim in her eyes and her rosy cheeks before she nodded with a sweet smile.

“I would love nothing more then that..” Y/N admitted and Kylo saw this as his chance to get closer to her.

Gently laying his hand against her warm neck, he slowly leaned down to her and stopped to take a last look into her eyes. Letting her eyes flutter shut, she silently gave him permission and soon his plum lips laid against her soft ones, which tasted like cotton candy.

Kylo could feel her hands on his chest, holding onto him for what seemed to be dear life and he just intensified the kiss.

“I hate to interrupt, but I let you two have three rounds already and we really need to close now.” Poe stood at the exit and held it open for them, but Kylo just showed him his middle finger, while kissing Y/N just for a bit more before they separated.

Her face was completely red and she tried to hide it behind the big bat plush, while Kylo helped her up out of the seat.

“Will you bring her home?” the blonde woman from before was approaching them and Kylo quickly caught the key she threw him.

“That was the plan.”

“Good, otherwise I would´ve kicked your ass.” she winked towards Y/N who started to chuckle.

“Y/N this is Phasma, somewhat of my boss. She is our make up artist.” Kylo explained with a shake of his head.

“Nice to meet you! You really did an incredible job, the make up was amazing.” she already started to gush over the amazing work she had seen in the horror house.

“Oh thank you sweetheart!” already getting pulled into a hug from Phasma, Y/N was glad to have met all these nice people tonight, they seemed all really close.

“Be careful, when he drops you off, he likes to bite.” Phasma suddenly whispered in her ear, which made Y/N giggle.

“Stop telling her some weird kinky shit!” Kylo hissed and quickly pulled Y/N away from the blonde woman.

“Come on I´ll bring you home now.”

Waving everyone goodbye, Y/N soon sat in the passenger seat of an old, black Chevy Impala.

His jacket still around her shoulders, and the big plushy on her lap, she couldn´t stop the smile on her lips.

This horrible night had turned in the best one in her life, she would almost admit. Almost. And she really didn´t want it to end.

After placing her big new plushy friend in the living room, she sneaked quietly back into the hallway were Kylo was waiting.

“Sooo, tomorrow we continue our little adventure?” he whispered excited, not to wake her roommate, while laying his hands onto her hip.

“Well did you think otherwise?” taking of his leather jacket from her own shoulders, she threw it over his before pulling him down to her.

“Definitely not.” he whispered against her lips before kissing her again, this time a bit more sensual then before, but still gentle enough not to make her uncomfortable.

Wrapping her arms slowly around his neck, both of them could feel the smile the other had on their lips until they quickly got interrupted by a tired voice upstairs.

“Y/N? Are you finally home?”

“It´s me, don´t worry. You can go back to sleep.” she called back up the stairs.

Hearing her roommate mumble something in her sleepy state, bot of them started to chuckle.

“I should really go now. I´ll see you later, if we´re lucky I can show you around behind the scenes a bit more.” pressing another quick kiss on her lips he opened the front door.

“That would be so awesome. Tomorrow can´t come sooner.” she smiled honestly and he winked at her a last time before turning around.

Back in his car, he received a new message, which only contained a bat and heart emoji, which let him now that it was Y/N.

Saving her number into his phone he soon started his car, his eyes started to shine yellow in the dark light and his long fangs showing through his smile while he let out an excited growl.

[gingerlexi2897]

You would think after Tabor and our time in Hungary we would be ready for a bit of a  break. We were. However, instead, after a nice evening in Budapest with the Scottish team, we boarded a bus bound for Vienna.  For as much apprehension I had and as much smoke had been chucked by certain individuals about the bus, the 3-hour ride from Budapest to Vienna was great. In fact, that bus ride was nicer than some flights I’ve taken, and oh so much cheaper.

Now this being my first time in Vienna, I had very little idea of what to expect and pretty much all of it was based on the WWII reading I’ve done in my life. I expected the city to have modernized over the years, but I was genuinely surprised to see how it has almost split into two cities; Old Town with its historic buildings, narrow streets, and a wide variety of architecture, and the skyscraper-filled, steel city built further down the river.

We got off the bus and immediately set out to conquer the metro system and make it to our Airbnb. Everything was going smoothly, we bought our tickets, we caught the correct train going in the correct direction, and we had only wanted to fight one rude person. Now see here’s the thing, in almost any other European city I’m able to use the wonderful, magical app that is CityMapper. It’s clear, it’s easy, it tells you the exact time your bus/train/boat/space ship will arrive, it tells you exactly what colour the line is and it even tells you how many croissants you’ve walked off. Seriously, it’s great. Vienna however, for whatever reason, is not included in the list of cities which means we had to rely on the somewhat spotty service of Google Maps. This is where we ran into a small hiccup in our quest to find the flat. We rode the 3 or 4 stops to Schwedenplatz where we needed to switch lines to ride another 3 stops. It’s important to remember that wonderful, magical CityMapper tells you the COLOUR of the line to get on. Well, Google Maps does not. No, instead it tells you some random colour for the line with the name (ie U1) in very tiny letters that easily gets overlooked in the madness of trying to navigate public transport in a city you’ve only just stepped foot in. Oh, and it tells you that that specific train line doesn’t come into that station and you’re going to have to change stations. Lies. So we drag our bags, which thankfully were fewer and lighter because the AMAZING Scottish team took our two big bags back with them and we crammed just enough clothes and toiletries for 5 people for a week in backpacks and carryons, out of the station, over the tram tracks, and across the street to the river just to realize that we were actually supposed to be in that station. So I’m sure much to the amusement of those around us, we drug our stuff back across the street and the tram tracks and once more found ourselves standing in Schwedenplatz Station. So here is my shameless plug for CityMapper: get it. From there we had no major issues getting to the flat (well except for the fact that I apparently kept booking places on the top floor in a building with no lift…) and were soon showered and ready to go again.

As much as we love touring and seeing the sights, our main reason for coming to Vienna was to see friends. Becca, Phil, and their adorable kids have been living and working in Vienna for almost two years.  I’ve known the two of them since I was in late middle/early high school but it had been almost 6 years since I had last seen them. It was special to be able to spend time with their family in the city they now call home as well as hopefully be an encouragement to them as living overseas can oftentimes feel lonely and unrewarding. We were able to do dinner with them our first night in Vienna and met them the next day at Schonbrunn Palace.

Just like in Budapest, we grabbed a bus tour that Monday morning and used it to take us out to the palace and to get a feel for the city. Unlike our bus tour in Budapest however, this one I would not recommend. While you did get to see a decent amount of the city on the two routes it ran, the audio tour went into very little detail of the actual history of the city and instead went on and on about the same two composers. That’s all well and good, but there is a lot more to a city than two or three famous people. The best part of the whole tour was getting to see the architecture and street art on the way out to Schonbrunn. The palace itself sits at the base of a hill with the city sprawling out into the distance behind it. Even though it was an incredibly hot day (by European standards), we wandered around the grounds and climbed to the top of the hill to see the views.

After our time looking at the various sculptures and manicured gardens at the palace, we caught the hop-on-hop-off bus back to Old Town where we could change routes. Here’s where the already meh tour got worse: It was only supposed to be 6 or 7 stops back to where we needed to switch routes but because our lovely bus driver decided to get off and smoke a cigarette or twiddle his thumbs for 15 mins at every stop, it took us nearly an hour and a half. By this point, we were all tired, hungry, hot, and ready to be back at the flat. We eventually made it to the stop where we needed to switch buses and then had to wait another half an hour before it arrived. Slaphappy is the only way to describe how we were feeling. Backstreet Boys may or may not have been sung in the street and a tear may have been shed. We did finally make it back to the flat and were able to cool off and relax a wee bit before Mum and Dad headed off to watch the boys for Phil and Becca while Erin, Itty, and I made our way back to city centre.

We spent the next day just hanging out and finally made our way to a body of water to relax at, which is something Erin, Itty, and I had been trying to get to since we left Budapest. That evening we said farewell to Vienna and caught a flight to Paris and the next part of our adventure.

Things we learned during our time in Vienna:

Itty is not a fan of the fact that Erin and I not only enjoy walking cities but that we have a tendency to power walk everywhere we go. Erin and I are more than happy to walk for hours if need be in order to find the perfect place to sit down, which is exactly what we did. Itty, on the other hand, would have preferred that we take the 15 min metro ride and skipped the whole walking-through-the-city thing. 

Public beaches are a God-send when you’re in desperate need of a body of water and a place to relax. At €2 a person, a nice nap on the riverbank in the sun is the perfect way to enjoy Vienna without running around like a crazy person.

If you have time, try to see something arts-related such as the Lippizaners at the Spanish Riding School, the Vienna Boy’s Choir, or one of the many art museums throughout the city.  Schonbrunn is worth it but the bus tour isn’t. 

See you in Paris,

Lexi

    Strauss, Schubert, and Beethoven You would think after Tabor and our time in Hungary we would be ready for a bit of a  break.

[thehamsterscagecouk]

The Grand Tour's Croatian Finish Line Girl Doesn't Own A Cat - Exclusive

2017 was a great year for many reasons, not least of which was the arrival of the second season of The Grand Tour. In Episode 4, which dropped on Amazon Prime Video on 29 December, the boys decided to address perhaps the most frequently and harshly spoken criticism of Season 1: scripted-ness. Aptly titled ‘Unscripted’, the episode’s main film saw the trio head to Croatia to demonstrate what unscripted TV actually looks like by not doing any preparation whatsoever.

The intrinsic irony, of course, is that this was probably among the most intensely scripted films of the entire season, given James’s random insistence on reinventing the wheel by reinventing the fire engine and the perfectly timed appearance of an exquisite rally track on which Jeremy and Richard could race their respective cars. This isn’t a criticism, of course; it silenced the critics and produced an immensely entertaining segment, thus felling two media birds with one automotive stone.

One particularly excellent (and in no way unscripted) scene saw Jeremy’s Audi TT and Richard’s Ariel Nomad pull up for a drag race and immediately realise that they needed someone to wave the starting flag. Clarkson suggested that they recruit ‘a local person' to perform this simple task. Then, a producer hopped into a time machine and travelled a few weeks into the past, scoured the Internet for Croatian models and contacted Silvija Jurin, before jumping back to the present day and escorting her to the track. Presumably.

Silvija Jurin is a marketing expert by day and a model by night. She resides in the Croatian city of Zadar, and in her twelve years of modelling work she has starred in several commercials and advertising campaigns and done much fashion work, in addition to a spell as a local television host. She was contacted by the Grand Tour production team in advance of the filming and she is undoubtedly one of the tragically unsung stars of The Grand Tour.

Initially, she was installed as the start line for the race, responsible for the countdown and the waving of the flag. Once the Hamster and the Orang-utan realised that that was never going to work, for obvious reasons, she was transferred to the finish line and the start line was staffed thereafter by another incredibly talented on-screen personality, namely The Grand Tour’s Sound Supervisor, Russell Edwards.

Having irritated Hammond with her obvious Clarksonian bias (can we blame her?) she is escorted off in the ape's Audi to feed her cat. Or is she? If only it were that simple. In a world exclusive that will surely take the entire automotive and televisual industries by storm and upend countless long-established institutions, Shifting Lanes can reveal that Silvija Jurin does not own a cat.

Clarkson responded with shocking indifference when confronted with the troubling revelation

I know what you're thinking. And you're right – when Silvija had hopped into Clarkson's Audi, he did indeed say that she needed to ‘go and feed her cat'. However, crucially, Silvija herself said only that she had to feed her ‘pet'. As it turns out, Silvija is a dog lover and owns a black Labrador called Dot.

Silvija and Dot

Fear not, for Shifting Lanes shall unashamedly reveal that which W. Chump & Sons and Amazon Prime Video were unwilling or unable to. As well as the hidden truth about domesticated animals in her possession, this tell-all interview sees Silvija discuss her favourite cars, what she really thinks of Jeremy Clarkson, what it’s like meeting James May, and more. Read on.

HAD YOU DONE ANY TV WORK BEFORE THE GRAND TOUR?

In my twelve years working as a model, I've done a lot of TV work, including several commercials. For a while, I worked as a local television host on a series about the Špancirfest festival in 2013 in the city of Varaždin. This is a very famous festival which provides a special experience of the continental part of Croatia. It’s definitely worth putting on your to-do list for when you visit Croatia! I’ve also shot promotional videos for the Tourist Board in my home city of Zadar. So, yes! I’m never far from TV work and shootings, and I love it. The camera also loves me, so the love goes both ways.

HAD YOU WATCHED THE GRAND TOUR BEFORE THEY CONTACTED YOU?

Of course!

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE THING ABOUT IT? WHAT DO YOU LOOK FORWARD TO IN IT?

I like their humour – whatever you do, please don’t stop making jokes! And I have to admit that when I was filming with them I was subconsciously watching the whole production, which was unbelievable. Your skin is burning.

HOW DID THE GRAND TOUR GET IN TOUCH WITH YOU?

They have a good nose for making stories, and I was very lucky. They were looking for a local model, I sent them two photos and they called me back in less than an hour to tell me I’d got the job. It happened so quickly.

WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION WHEN THE GRAND TOUR CONTACTED YOU?

I was very happy, but I didn’t really have time to think about it at that point. I just had to go with the flow.

DID JAMES MAY SAY ‘HELLO’ VERY POLITELY WHEN HE MET YOU?

Yes, like a very polite gentleman.

WHAT IS IT LIKE WORKING ON THE SET OF THE GRAND TOUR?

We’re all professionals, so working with them is easy-going. All shootings are interesting in their own right because they each produce unique stories. This shooting was interesting, honourable and unforgettable.

WHAT DID YOU AND JEREMY GET UP TO OFF-CAMERA?

There isn’t much free time off-camera. Everyone came to Croatia to do serious stuff, to produce a quality recording, so most of the time we were just doing our jobs. Especially Jeremy.

WHICH CAR DID YOU PREFER – JEREMY’S AUDI TT OR RICHARD’S ARIEL NOMAD?

If I had an Ariel Nomad I would crash it very quickly, because it’s the kind of car that begs me to drive it on mountains and unpaved roads. So Jeremy’s Audi TT would be much better for me. And the blue paint goes well with my green eyes.

“Whatever you do, please don't stop making jokes!”

WHAT DO YOU DRIVE?

An Opel Corsa 1.6. It’s amazing how it never needs repairing. Everything in my car is manual so I never take it to the garage. I dare to fix some tiny things myself, like the radio, windows and wipers. I don’t touch the engine but I know how to change the oil and tyres, and even get a car with a dead battery going again. Not bad for a woman!

WHAT KINDS OF CARS DO YOU GENERALLY LIKE?

I don’t like low-sitting cars because I’m tall and it’s hard to get into them, so Jaguars aren’t perfect for me, haha! I like Jeeps, big cars that are strong on road safety. The last one I was in was a Toyota CHR. That’s a nice car.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE CAR?

My favourite car is my Opel, the one I drive all the time. I’m happy with it because it’s completely functional. But, if I had to name another, I’d say the Rimac C_Two. Because it’s Croatian and it looks amazing. It’s so sexy and powerful.

“The rimac c_two is so sexy and powerful”

WHEN VISITING CROATIA, WHERE SHOULD YOU GO AND WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?

That is a tricky question because there are so many different experiences Croatia can give you, but I’ll do my best. If you don’t care about costs and you’re a Game of Thrones fan, you should definitely visit Dubrovnik (the main filming location for King’s Landing, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms in the show). It is one of the most powerful cities I’ve visited, and I’ve travelled a lot. I'd suggest Zadar, my hometown, for people who like to go out and be active in nature, as there are many natural parks and other beauties in the area. There are undiscovered coves and sea peaks on the island of Dugi Otok, there are thousands of beautiful islands in the Kornati National Park, Plitvice Lakes has many waterfalls, Paklenica National Park has endless peaks and climbing rocks, and Vranjsko Jezero National Park is a bird reserve where over 250 species live. Your knees will sneeze from the natural beauty at these places.

If you like big cities, Zagreb (the capital) is the only choice. A quarter of the Croatian population lives there so you’ll meet a lot of people and find plenty of branded shops and other usual big city attractions. It is a very lively city. If you’re more romantically-inclined, you must visit the city of Varaždin. It’s a baroque city, a bicycle town and a city of flowers, with a unique atmosphere and very charming vintage-style streets. For those who’d rather party through the night, there’s Zrče Beach in the city of Novalja, near Pag. There are very famous parties twenty-four hours a day, all throughout summer. And finally, don’t forget to visit Vukovar. It’s the only place in Croatia where you can really experience some history. The remnants of past days are still there to be seen today, creating an unforgettable experience.

“What am i supposed to do? is this ok? who knows!”

“it's like having sex all the time but never having experienced orgasm”

Croatia is full of history and stories. Wherever you decide to visit, you will be gladly welcomed by all Croatians, and you will be offered whatever local delicacies are available. And we do like to eat and drink well. You should try a Croatian ham called pršut, or the meat of young lambs that eat salty grass all year long. It is too good to describe.

WHAT IS THE MOST AMUSING THING TO HAPPEN TO YOU IN THE COMPANY OF PETROLHEADS?

The most amusing thing was to be there, on the set of The Grand Tour, participating in a completely unscripted film. I was relaxed and independent, but I didn’t understand what was going on. What am I supposed to do? Is this OK? Who knows! But somehow, it all came together perfectly. As if I knew what I was doing, haha! It was very funny, wasn’t it? So, perhaps I naturally belong on The Grand Tour team!

DO PEOPLE ALWAYS TRY TO SHOW OFF TO YOU AND END UP EMBARRASSING THEMSELVES?

Well, that’s not what Croatian people do. We all love ourselves so we don’t need to show off to anyone.

HOW HARD WAS IT TO PRETEND TO LIKE CLARKSON SO MUCH FOR THAT AMOUNT OF TIME?

Who said I was pretending? I always say that everyone should do everything with genuine passion, whatever life gives you. If you're not emotionally invested in what you're doing, you are just wasting your life. It's like having sex all the time but never having experienced orgasm. It's very sad. That's why, honestly, you should enjoy everything you do. Or don't do it.

WHO DO YOU LIKE BEST OUT OF JEREMY, RICHARD AND JAMES?

They taught me that there aren’t any stupid questions, just stupid answers, so I’d say that I like them all equally. Each has their own attractive qualities. One is mysterious, the other is ridiculous and the third is hardworking.

WHO CHOSE YOUR WARDROBE FOR THE FILMING? DID YOU PICK YOUR OWN CLOTHES?

Yes, I chose my own outfits. They were the best I could find at the time.

WOULD YOU RATHER FIGHT ONE HORSE-SIZED DUCK OR A HUNDRED DUCK-SIZED HORSES?

That's a question that requires a lot of thought. I think I'd rather choose one horse-sized duck. A hundred horses mean a hundred problems.

WERE YOU SUCCESSFUL IN FEEDING YOUR CAT?

“Perhaps i naturally belong on the grand tour team”

I hate to break the myth of the cat but according to my personality, I have to be honest. Perception can be fucked up, it can distort reality so often people see and hear what they want to. So, now you finally know: I don't have a cat. I only said ‘pet'! I'm a dog-lover. I have a black Labrador. Her name is Točka, which means Dot.

“Perception can be fucked up”

WOULD YOU LIKE TO WORK WITH THE GRAND TOUR TEAM AGAIN?

I’d love to!

“I never have a plan, just an idea”

DO YOU HAVE ANY FUTURE PLANS TO WORK WITH THE GRAND TOUR AGAIN?

I never have a plan, just an idea.

Images credited to Amazon Prime Video and Silvija Jurin (via Instagram @silvijajurin). Amazon Prime members can watch Seasons 1 and 2 of The Grand Tour at PrimeVideo.com/GT.

Interview by Jason Reed  

[contradictoryenigmas]

2020 Postmortem: 10 Questions

2020. A year that did not go as planned. Okay, I am massively downplaying just what a complete shitshow it was. The best way I can describe is that episode of Seinfeld where George declares it to be the "Summer of George", only to have him in a hospital bed towards the end, disappointed that it didn't work out.

When I started writing this year's 10 questions piece, I wasn't sure how it would form considering most of the year was spent at home, trying to survive. But the result is the longest 10 questions to date. Guess I had a lot to get out there.

Author's Note: If you are new to this or want to take a look back at previous pieces, you can click on the links here: 2017, 2018, and 2019.

What made up your body of work this year? Which parts are you most proud of?

I should start with one of the major elephants in the room. Since March 12th, I have been working from home. The day before, all of us at work got an email from the home office in the United Kingdom saying the offices there and in the U.S. would be closed for a time to protect employees from the growing spread of COVID-19.  Many of us thought we would be back in the office in a month or so. Oh boy, how wrong we were considering later that day, news would come out that Tom Hanks and his wife contracted the virus and the NBA would suspend their season after a player tested positive.

Not being in an office has some significant downsides for me. For one, it was the place where I interacted with people outside of close family. Now, the only real interaction I do with co-workers is either over email or Microsoft Teams, mostly dealing with work stuff. I worry this long period of isolation will hurt my social abilities, which to be fair were at negative levels when I had started this job last year, but were improving. The other is losing the separation between work and home. Since coming home and spending time in my room as an office and place to rest, my anxiety and feelings that I should be working started to come in. Some of this was alleviated by me setting some ground rules such as having a hard stop. But those feelings are still there and likely hampered efforts to try and relax.

Most of my work for the year was spent on three big projects that would set the course for the future of the company. Having this on the back of my shoulders added a bit of anxiety and drained me of a lot of energy. Every day, I found myself crashing in bed to take a quick nap so I could regain some energy.

That brings me to writing. 2020 I was hoping to get back to writing in a big way. Not only with automotive stuff, but doing some more with this blog and launching a new project. But with everything that has been going on this year, a lot of these ambitions had to be shelved. A lot of this stems from not having any energy or motivation to either start and/or finish various pieces. There would be moments where a burst of energy comes on and could I belt out a quick review or news story, but it was rare. At the end of this year, I have a bit of a backlog of new car reviews to get up. But at least I'm not pushing myself to the grindstone and getting them out. This only results in shoddy work and I feel quite bad.

For the personal blog, this is going to be the first and last piece for the year. It wasn't for the lack of trying. Several pieces currently sit on my laptop that are in varying states of completion, but again, I lacked the energy or motivation to go forward.

There are a couple of pieces I want to call out,

Afterthoughts: A Car In Troubled Times: This was written after my Grandfather passed away in June (not from COVID). With this and everything going on in the world, I wrote about how the car became a place where I could escape the world for a bit and work out various thoughts and feelings.

Quick Drive: 2020 Lexus RC F: My last new car review of the year and man what a car. I loved the throaty V8 engine and the grand touring nature of the suspension. I think the last line sums up my feelings about this car,

"It brought me the joy which sometimes is all you need a car to do."

What were your top 5 moments of the year?

Getting back to reviewing vehicles on a somewhat regular basis

Saving enough money to move forward on finding my first apartment

I know that's only two, but I really can't think of anything else from this landfill fire of a year.

What are you really glad is over?

THE YEAR!  (cymbal crash)

Okay, that was obvious, so let go a bit deeper.

The mess of the 2020 elections are mercifully done. A lot of us knew this was going to be very different, but I don't think we knew how much it would be. Just look at the first debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Then election day rolls around and seeing the collective sadness rear its head as the first ballots are being counted, even though we knew that the mail-in ones were still waiting in the wings to be tallied. It took a few days, but the sense of jubilation when the results were leaning towards Biden was not all that surprising, considering the mess of the past four years. Whether or not this gets better remains to be seen.

How are you different today than you were 365 days ago?

I touched on this with the first question, but loneliness has been a big issue. Not being able to interact with people outside of my own family has brought back memories of some of the dark days of depression where I wouldn't talk with anyone. Thankfully, I'm not fully returning to these ways. But I can't help but worry that my socials skills will be back at a negative level. Twitter and Instagram have filled in some of the missing social aspects, but I can only use it so much before feelings of "Fear of Missing Out" and not being able to interact in person. Also, the deluge of various events such as the killing of George Floyd and the election meant I had to turn off social media at times to allow time to process and work out various feelings.

My mental health has also taken a bit of a stumble. Various aspects of my ADHD have started to come back in force with procrastination, distractions, fear of rejection, and warped perception of time to name a few. There has also been a large amount of stress and anxiety to work through because of the year. I think it's a bad sign when your anxieties have their anxieties to deal with.

To top it off, it has been hard to find something to keep my mind occupied for longer than five minutes. I look at the number of books and video games currently sitting on shelves or stacked in the closet waiting to be open, or the various movies and TV shows I have in queues for various streaming services and my own media server. Yet, they are left untouched. I drift towards scrolling through various social media outlets or watching the same YouTube videos. I've been trying to figure out why these are my go-to and not the items listed above that would give the same pleasure and stimulation, but also open some new windows and ideas. I haven't fully figured it out yet, but I do have some clues and ideas as to why.

On the flip side, I'm very lucky that I am still employed. That may seem like a put-down, but out of my close family, I'm the only one who has stayed employed throughout the year. My mom's last day of school was the day I started working from home, and she wouldn't return until the start of the new year. Both my dad and brother had furloughs at their respective jobs during the late Spring.

I have been slowly messing around with some projects that I've been wanting to do. These include expanding my media sever collection to include music, cataloging various media so I stop buying duplicates,  and starting to explore various interests that I had when I younger.

Getting back to reviewing new cars has been quite enjoyable. Despite having a backlog that will not be finished till sometime in February or March, it has been fun again to figure out a vehicle's high and low points.

Is there anything you achieved that you forgot to celebrate?

Nope.

What have you changed your perspective on this year?

Two things come to mind. First is that I don't need a firehose of information. I was subscribed to several sites through RSS and had many people I was following on Twitter to see what was happening. But this massive flow of information was only making my anxiety and stress worse. For the past month, I have started to unsubscribe to a number of newsletters and RSS feeds, along with culling down my Twitter following list.

Second is that I need to slow down. What I mean by this is I need to take my time and not focus on trying to finish everything as fast as possible so I move on to the next thing. There is something about taking a moment to breathe or letting things play out to a point to where you can jump in and provide a different point of view.

Who are the people that came through for you this year?

My therapist came through this year, transitioning from in-person visits to doing chats either through Zoom or on the phone - depending on whether or not either of us run into technical issues. They have been really helpful just listening to whatever was on my mind that week, and point out possible thoughts and directions to chew on to get me into a better place.

There is also a large number of people I interacted with that made the lockdown and isolation a little bit more bearable. Too many to list here, but I would like to say thank you to all.

What were some pieces of media that defined your year?

Casiopea, Mint Jams: There is a person who I follow on Twitter that brings up Casiopea from time to time. This Japanese jazz fusion band has been around since 1976 and produced a number of albums. I had them in the back of my mind for a time to check, but wasn't until the fall when I started listening to Mint Jams - their seventh album (and I believe second live album). I immediately fell in love with the band after hearing the first track Take Me. Something about this brings absolute joy and pleasure. Since then, I have bought the CD and started to dive fully into the discography.

Yakuza Like A Dragon (Playstation 4): I don't know how to describe a game where one minute you're beating up criminals and the next minute you're trying to figure out who is urinating in a river. It seems ridiculous, but that's Yakuza Like a Dragon in a nutshell. There are moments of complete absurdity that is intertwined with tender and heartfelt moments as you interact with your compatriots. I'm currently on chapter five and finding new stuff to do such as a Mario Kart knockoff and running my own business, while trying to figure why I was betrayed by a father figure. It's chaotic and beautiful at the same time.

Zero 7, Simple Things: This album was the one I would play if I was feeling down or needed a reminder to slow down.

Growing Collection of Face Masks: If I am going to wear face masks to protect myself and others, I might as well have some interesting ones. Currently have around twenty masks that I wear and wash, all of them with some distinct pattern or fabric to have them stand out. I'm likely going to be buying a few more in the new year because I'm really like wearing them.

Honorable Mentions: Ghost of Tsushima; Animal Crossing: New Horizons; Paper Mario: The Origami King; Tatort - German Crime Drama; Motorweek's Retro Reviews on YouTube; Newton and the Counterfeiter by Thomas Levenson;  x + y: A Mathematician's Manifesto for Rethinking Gender by Eugenia Cheng (currently reading, may appear in my 2021 10 Questions).

What will you be leaving behind in 2020?

This one hurts but it is the "old normal". I remember listening to a podcast about a couple of months after starting working from home and one of the hosts brought up that the old normal isn't coming back. We need to take time and mourn the loss. I didn't know what to make of this at the time, but it really started to sink in as this mess slowly continued throughout the year.

Think about how much has changed in your day to day routine. For example, I don't leave the house unless I really need to get something from the grocery store, taking the dog for a walk, or going for a drive to clear my head. A lot of places I would have normally gone are either only allowing pickup or closed down. I haven't seen anyone outside my family since March and have seen only a couple of relatives since then.

No one knows what comes after the virus is at a state where all of us can resume some sort of 'normal'. Will our favorite places still be around? Is virtual learning going to be the next step for schools? Are we going to watching new movies over streaming services and not at a theater? Will online shopping take over as the main source of getting goods?

There's a lot of unknowns that will not have an answer for quite some time. But I have started to mourn that the old normal is gone. As much I hate it and don't know what's next, I know that I have to ready myself in some fashion.

What do you hope to accomplish in 2021?

Unfortunately, a lot of the stuff I want to work on in the coming year depends on what happens with the rollout of the vaccine and containing the virus. There are a few things I have marked as priorities.

Moving into my first place: So I never have talked about this publicly except to a few close people, but I'm really looking forward to moving out and into an apartment. Originally I was planning to do it this year, but then everything came to a screeching halt. This proved to be a blessing in disguise as I was able to save a bit more money so that I had two months of rent and the security deposit. I have a few places in mind and the goal is to move in before the end of March. That will give me enough time to figure out several items such as insurance.

Writing: I feel like this is something I mention every year. Some progress is made, but not as much as I would like. This past year, I was hoping to branch out by doing more with this blog and starting a couple of projects that had been sitting around for a while. But none of those things happened. Next year, I have some maintenance items to do for the personal blog. I don't know if I'll have anything worth writing about at the moment since my brain is currently recovering from a pile of mush. As for the projects, I'm hoping to launch one sometime in the next few months. The other is going to sit on the sidelines still as I still need to work out some items with that.

Keeping Records: I always think that I remember 'x' and I don't need to write anything down about it, and it turns out I do forget. Yeah, I'm wanting to change that for this coming year. Primarily, I'm doing this for any vehicle I review because it might be months before I start writing, and have forgotten key parts I wanted to mention. This is also something I want to do with books, video games, and music as a way to remember what I enjoyed throughout a given year.

It would be at this point I would end this postmortem with some pithy note about 2020 getting kicked out and 2021 hopefully being a massive improvement. Except that feels quite insincere. We have various vaccines rolling out, but it remains a massive question as to how fast and whether or not enough people take it. There's also the toll on mental health that is only going to get larger not only from those working in hospitals but in other fields. I could go on with other items, but you get a general idea.

[youngk]

here’s my experience at EVERY DAY6 concert in JULY (warning: long and all over the place

i got there around 20 minutes after lining up started so didn’t have to die in the heat for a long time 

(wanted to steal this after the show)

& when we finally entered the venue, i was stupid and chose the wrong spot (i was greedy and chose section A to get an earlier admission number -_-) because there wasn’t only one tall person in front of me but another tall person in front of me AND the girl next to me kept pushing so i had to pretty much tip toe throughout the entire concert to see brian  (so i couldn’t really see his hands fml) & wonpil.. but i was in the 4TH (?) row. and about 15 minutes before the show, a girl in section B fainted so if any of you are planning to go to a show in the future, please 챙겨 your 건강.  the show started off with some space ship-like thing and they were all standing in the middle AND THEIR FACIAL FEATURES.. I WAS OF COURSE AMAZED BY BRIAN’S NOSE AND CHEEKBONES!!! and then they started off with colors like WHAT THE WHO EXPECTED THEM TO START THE CONCERT OFF WITH COLORS ?? let’s start off with jae. jae looks the same on screen and in person. i was actually surprised when he passed by cause i expected him to be extremely tall but he wasn’t that much of a giant i expected him to be. here’s jae & his arms: 

sungjin...... he deserves a post of his own.... his eyes are really big, and his double eyelids are so thick and prominent.  dowoon also looked just like how i expected him to look ; same on screen and in person. he’s so cute i wanted to cry (i didn’t cry throughout the concert tho wow thanks for ya’ll prayers. i was sane) when he was talking with wonpil on stage.  i was actually really surprised by wonpil. he’s 100000000X more handsome in real life and HIS HAIR WAS UP TODAY. like… he looked like a foreigner.. HE DOES NOT LOOK KOREAN IN REAL LIFE. I WAS ACTUALLY MESMERIZED BY HIS BEAUTIFUL FACE.  O K BRIAN KANG. 

I SAW HIM IN A WHITE SHORT SLEEVE WITH MY OWN TWO EYES AND NOT THROUGH A SCREEN. tbh i kept looking at his arms once they changed.  and this is him getting choked up (really wanted him to just let it out). he said throughout the concert he got choked up so many times and almost lost it when we sang Hi Hello while waiting for them to come back out for the encore because the mics were probably still on & he heard us singing through his in-ear. 

of course there are no words to describe how amazing their vocals are. EVERY SINGLE MEMBER,  i repeat EVERY MEMBER has such distinct voices and are all great live including bb dowoon!!! he sang so much today & it’s pretty crazy how much he improved over such a short period of time and how well he sang during his 널 생각해 duet with wonpil. and i’ve said this the last time i saw them at kcon but wonpil’s voice is so strong and powerful.  jae’s voice of course is so soft AND BRIAN KANG YOUNGHYUN .. i saw him nose scrunch .. NOSE SCRUNCH !!! (these pictures make it look far but i saw their expressions SO clearly) AND LITERALLY MELTED AND LOST IT RIGHT THERE WHEN HE SANG “MOVIE~” RIGHT BEFORE THE SECOND VERSE. BOY KNOWS THAT THAT LINE KILLS EVERYBODY (i think) BECAUSE HE SMIRKED AND HIM TUCKING ON HIS COLLAR AND TEASING WHEN WONPIL SAID IT WAS HOT SO THEY SHOULD TAKE SOME STUFF OFF but brian said he didn’t have anything underneath AND DURING HIS HUNT RAP AND if i remember clearly, HE GRABBED A FISTFUL OF HIS HAIR WHEN HE SAID “DISHEVELED HAIR” ……………… thinking about it again , i cry.  i was second away from the fence so i got to see brian REAL CLOSE AND JAE AND WONPIL AND DOWOON and i touched wonpil’s hand AND I GOT TO WITNESS THIS SMILE RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY EYES (not my photo) 

HE WAS SO ADORABLE. he saw all the fans had their hands sticking out so he walked back and put the mic under his arm and ran between the fences. and yes , i touched brian’s arm or shoulder in his WHITE SHORT SLEEVE !! 

they did so many short versions of their old songs but i think it’s been a while since they sang 이상하게 계속이래 which was a nice throwback & their unreleased song BUENO (which wonpil said was french …. lol) WAS SO GOOD and i recorded it cause i’m not sure when we’ll ever hear it again. BUENO was inspired by despacito lol. BUT RAPPER JAEHYUNGPARKIAN sjflksj both of them are so good but brian’s flow yo.  oh and they did little instrumental solos throughout the concert AND BRIAN WAS FIRST UP TO SLAP THAT BASS. WE NEED MORE OF BRIAN’S BASS SOLOS IN OUR LIFE. AND FOR SUNGJIN, HE SANG HIS PART AFTER THE BRIDGE IN 반드시 웃는다 WITHOUT ANY INSTRUMENTS BUT SOLEY HIS RAW VOICE AND THIS WAS LITERALLY ME ‘O’  THEIR NEW SONGS ARE BOTH UPBEAT but their side track ‘놀래!’ is more upbeat and LOT OF FALSETTOS TO LOOK FORWARD TO. brian’s bass riff in the beginning of the title track gives the song kind of a funky vibe. overall liked both songs (as always) but couldn’t really pay attention to the lyrics.  also, nichkhun, shinee’s key, and actress nam jihyun came today. ALL OF THEIR FACES ARE SO SMALL (especially key) and apparently park jaejung, dowoon’s only celebrity friend, as he claims, came & when he introduced him, he wasn’t there so dowoon was all … slfjlksj my bb is adorbs.  the fanchats, which i never practiced or looked at, just came out of my mouth naturally lol. the singing was pretty crazy as well and i was finally able to be a part of a ‘congratulations’ 떼창 and sing jae’s part for him. i’m sure everybody has these moments at concerts where you think the singer looked at you but there was one time i waved to brian and he smiled THE FREAKING SMILE THAT I ALWAYS SAYS MAKES MY HEART FLUTTER FJSKLJ OK I’M CONVINCED THAT HE’S SEEN MY TUMBLR LOL JK BUT IMAGINE? THAT MEANS GOODBYE @YOUNGK. but there were many moments i felt like sungjin was actually looking at me and i got so fkjsd so looked away a couple of times … O K! shut up liz time to sleep  oh and i waited with a few other people to see them leave but they left without rolling down the window but one member has his hand sticking out of the car and they just left like that so never figured out who that was lol but all i did was wave back. there’s so much more that i want to say but there’s so much that went on that i don’t even remember and i’m so sore but STILL HAD A GREAT TIME,, thanks to the people who asked.  i’ll be uploading a few videos & if you read all this, wow ily thanks.  HOPEFULLY I CAN SEE THE BOYS SOMETIME NEXT YEAR AND THEY COME TO DO THAT AMERICA TOUR THAT NEVER HAPPENED 

[spine-buster]

Out of the Ordinary - Will Ospreay

I was driving to work one day and heard that Selena Gomez song “It Ain’t Me” on the radio and…well…this scene formed in my head.  Every time I hear that song this scene plays over and over.  I haven’t even watched a Will Ospreay match; I think I’ve seen one clip of an interview he did with Rob Naylor.  I think I have a problem.  My brain works in mysterious ways.

2500+ words.  Serious angst with a dash of fluff at the end.

@wrestlewriting @wrasslin-x @wrestlerecs @chasingeverybreakingwave @thegenericluchadora @running-ropes @sammiielli @fan-fiction-galore @ratherkissawookie @anerdysouthernbelle @spot-of-bother @amaranthine-reign @baleesi @flnnbalor @smuppies @sarahmatthews7 @daintymissdevitt @newjapan @thyestean-feast @corey-renee

- - - 

     When anybody was asked to describe you, the first word they said was pragmatic.  You always thought logically and sensibly, and on more than one occasion you were told you were mature well beyond your years, which you took as a compliment but some saw as a detriment.  Your fellow wrestlers had a strong love/hate relationship with you because of your personality.      Two wrestlers that loved your personality, or at least appreciated it, were your friends Zack Sabre Jr. and Marty Scurll.  Zack, who was a lot like you, took a liking to you early on; Marty took a while to warm up to you, but now that he had, you couldn’t get rid of him.  He routinely expressed to you that you were one of his favourite people.  You didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing, but you leaned towards good.      Zack, in particular, stuck with you throughout the only time in your life where you didn’t think logically and sensibly, and he was right beside you (now with Marty) when you got out of it.  Three years ago, you began dating Will Ospreay against your better judgement.  You were a newbie, and he was cute, and he kissed you one night at a bar and said the sweetest things to you.  But you were both young, and traveling the word for wrestling, and though you got booked on a lot of the same shows and were together often, it just couldn’t work.  It didn’t work.  

     Just over a year into the relationship, you used that same judgement to end things.  It was hard, but it needed to be done, especially before he could really hurt you.  It hurt you in ways you never revealed to anyone – not Zack, not Marty, nobody.  Barely four weeks later, he was with another girl – a fellow wrestler on the circuit named Maddie.  You convinced everybody it didn’t bother you, and you even worked a few matches against her, always remaining professional.  You wondered if she knew the extent of yours and Will’s relationship.        Touring Europe now, you found yourself in a locker room with Zack and Marty, giving them your thoughts on spots they wanted to do for their match.  Many wrestlers were around – half of which you knew – and Will and Maddie were booked for the show too.  They hadn’t arrived yet, but you were expecting them at any hour.        “You wanna do those rolling Romero specials?” Marty asked Zack.      Hearing the move made alarm bells go off in your brain.  “Don’t,” you interjected quickly.  “I’m doing them in my match.  You can’t do the same spot too.”      “Fine,” Marty nodded his head.  “What other way can I bend your body like a pretzel, Zack?”      “You working against Maddie tonight?” Zack asked you, completely ignoring Marty’s question.      You shook your head.  “I’m working Sadie,” you revealed.  “That’s why we’ve already got the match called.  God forbid Will and Maddie show up on time so we can plan a match beforehand.”      Zack snorted at your comment, knowing Will’s penchant for being late.  Marty huffed out a laugh.  “Are they in a mixed tag tonight?” he asked.  You nodded you head.  “Well then, maybe you could go out there and teach her a few pointers,” Marty commented.      Zack laughed out loud but you could only smirk.  “Be nice, Marty.”      “I am being nice.  A month ago she almost dropped Sadie on her head.”      “She’s still learning,” you said.  “We’re all still learning.  Will’s getting her to practice more aerial stuff like him, so she might be neglecting a bit of the fundamentals.”      “He’s training her and responsible for making her forget the fundamentals?  I should punch him in the face.”      “Marty!” you chastised him.  By this point, Zack was just looking back and forth between the two of you.        “Whatever, he deserves a punch in the face after what he’s been saying,” Marty mumbled.      You saw Zack’s eyes bulge out of their sockets quickly at Marty.  Marty, seeing his reaction, shrugged his shoulders quickly and looked away.  “Why?  What’s he been saying?” you asked.      The boys looked at each other silently, not answering your question.  That was the only clue you needed.  The atmosphere of the room completely changed at this point.  “What has he been saying?” you asked again, slowly.  Still nothing.  “One of you better speak or I’m going to assume the worst.”      “It’s nothing, love,” Zack prefaced.      “It’s bullshit is what it is,” Marty mumbled again.      “What’s going on?” you demanded of your friends.        “You know how Will is…he runs his mouth a lot…and well, he said…he’s been saying, in a couple of locker rooms, really, that you still aren’t over him, which is why you’re still alone, but that you’re also desperate to get married, which is quote unquote pathetic,” Zack revealed.      The hairs on the back of your neck stood up.  You felt like your body was on fire.  “He said what?”      “I told you love, it’s bullshit,” Zack said.  “Nobody believes him, especially the ones that know you.”      “But he still says it,” you said as more of a statement than a question.      “Well…yes.  But I cannot stress this enough…nobody believes him,” Zack repeated.      You looked toward Marty, who was biting his tongue in anger; God knows what kind of expletives he wanted to throw around.  He and Will were friends – they all were – but Marty was quick to call people on their bullshit.  You wondered if he had already said anything to Will.  “What a fucking asshole,” you said, shaking your head.  “He can fuck right off.”      “Don’t do anything stupid,” Zack warned.      You looked at him like he was crazy.  “Me?  Do something stupid?  Do you forget who you’re talking to?” you asked sarcastically.  You were the pragmatic one, remember?  “If nobody believes him, he’s making a bigger ass out of himself than I could,” you said, shrugging it all off.      Zack smiled at your response, knowing he didn’t have to worry about you.  “Good thinking.”      The thing was…when it came to Will, you were stupid. - - -       When Sadie told you Will and Maddie had arrived, you knew it was go time. Your blood had been boiling since Zack and Marty told you about the things Will was saying.  You had managed to keep it cool, but now that you knew that he was here, in the building, you felt like you were about to blow.        You left the women’s locker room, under no suspicion from Sadie, and walked down the hall to the men’s, where you saw the door was slightly ajar.  A bunch of voices could be heard, but that didn’t cloud your train of thought at all – you knew exactly what you were going to do, and exactly what you were going to say.      You opened the door slowly, just enough to see one of your fellow wrestlers lacing up his boots beside the door.  “Hey,” he greeted you.  “Who you looking for?”      You ignored him, opening the door fully until you spotted him, directly across from you, his arm up on the coat hooks, leaning against them as he talked to Maddie.  Of course she was still in the men’s locker room, only stooping to join the female’s room until the last minute.  God forbid she wasn’t attached at Will’s hip every moment of the day.      You darted towards him, ignoring the stares of everyone around you.  Will turned his head towards you at the last possible second, taking his arm off the coat hooks.  The last thing you noticed was the confused look on his face.      “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” you screamed, shoving Will with such force that he actually stumbled back onto the bench seating.  “What the fuck is your problem?!”      “What the fuck are you talking about?” he asked, standing back up.  By this point the room had gone silent, all eyes on you and Will.  Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Marty hold back another wrestler from intervening.        Maddie looked at you like you had just ripped the head off her favourite doll.  “What’s your problem with my boyf --”      “Maddie, unless you want me to spill my ammo on you too, I suggest you stay the fuck out of this ‘cause it has nothing to do with you,” you warned with such venom in your voice you almost scared yourself.  She was just as shocked, her mouth closing as she stayed silent.      You brought your attention back to Will.  His brows were furrowed by now, and you could tell he was angry at the way you were speaking to his girlfriend, but it seemed like he was too scared to say anything.  “How dare you talk behind my back to our colleagues.  How fucking dare you.”      “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he denied it, like you knew he would.      “Oh, so now you’re going to deny talking shit about me?  Really?” you demanded.  “Telling everybody I’m not over you?  That I’m sad and alone and desperate to get married?” you listed the things he’d said.  “How am I the desperate one when you were the one to propose after only six months and I said no?!”      And there it was.  Everyone’s jaws hit the floor in complete shock at what you had just said – everyone except for Will, of course, who was seething.  Nobody, nobody knew he had proposed; not Zack, not Marty, not even his or your parents.  You hadn’t let anyone on about it; it was a secret between the two of you, and it was supposed to stay that way.  And now, it was out in the open.        “Who was the one waiting up for you when you’d go out and party with your bros, huh?” you kept demanding of him.  “Who would go out and get you Gatorade and Advil for your hangovers?  Who was the one who actually let you go out instead of keeping you on a leash?” you made a slight jab at Maddie.  You couldn’t hold anything back at this point.  “And just last week, who was the first person you fucking called that came to pick you up when you were drunk out of your mind wandering the streets of Hamburg since you couldn’t find the hotel?”      He didn’t bother answering you.  He knew, you knew, everyone in the room knew the answer to those questions.  His eyebrows were still furrowed as you huffed and puffed, the anger in you not subsiding any time soon.  There was so much you could say to him – so much you thought about saying to him for two years.  You didn’t know how or when you were going to stop.      “And another thing – it’s one thing to talk to other girls while we’re still together, hanging by a thread,” you began, pointing to Maddie, “but it’s another thing to get with them less than a month after a break-up.  You think I didn’t know?  I fucking knew.  You were a scumbag then and you’re a scumbag now.”  You looked over to Maddie, surprisingly not feeling an inch of remorse.  “Congratulations, sweetie, but a word of warning – the way you get ‘em is the same way you lose ‘em.”      Will clenched his jaw.  Only now had the eerie silence of the room, despite it being full of men, get to you.  You didn’t even know how long you had been standing there, giving your verbal beat down, but you figured now was as good as ever to end it.  “You can fuck off, William Ospreay.  If I ever find out you’ve even looked in my general direction or muttered my name to anyone else I’ll chop off your balls and feed them to you for breakfast.”      With that, you turned on your heels and walked out of the room, every pair of eyes on you.   - - -       The show went on.   Your match went well, and the crowd was very into it.  You went over Sadie, but that only meant she’d go over you in the next show.  You were good friends so you didn’t mind.  She’d heard about your outburst in the men’s locker room and high-fived you for it, telling you that you should have done it sooner.      Will and Maddie finished their match and left early, apparently not wanting to run into you again.  They were staying at a different hotel than you, lucky for them.  You didn’t want to see them either, so you were glad they took the initiative to get the fuck out of dodge.      After changing out of your ring gear and into a pair of black leggings and an oversized sweater, you heard a knock on the dressing room door.  You looked behind you to see who it was.  Without bothering to wait for a response, whoever was on the other side pushed the door open slowly.  Marty revealed himself soon enough.        “Hey.”      “Hi Marty.”      “You almost ready?”      “Yeah, just packing in my shoes,” you said, turning back to finish.      He took the initiative to step inside of the room, closing the door about half way.  He watched you for a few moments, stuffing your shoes into your luggage and zipping it back up before crossing his arms against his chest.  “You okay?”      “I’m fine.  Gonna need a bigger suitcase soon,” you commented.       He watched you for a few more seconds.  “Listen…what happened earlier…”      You spun around to look him in the eye.  “I’m going to hear it from Zack when we get back to the hotel.  I don’t need to hear it from you too.”      “You’re not going to hear it from me,” he said.  “I just…I thought it was very… honourable of you.  I thought it was the right thing to do, to be perfectly honest, and that he had it coming.”      Well, those were words you didn’t expect to hear from him.  “Is this some sort of reverse psychology thing?”      Marty chuckled slightly.  “No, I actually think that, darling,” he said.        “Well, thanks,” you said, turning back quickly to lift your luggage off the bench and extend the handle.  You knew you could always count on him.      “Listen,” you heard his voice again as you faced away from him.  “I was thinking… once we get back to the hotel I could, you know, buy you a drink…you know, since uh, you probably obviously need it,” he stumbled through the sentence.        Still facing away from him, your eyebrows rose.  Did he just say what you think he just said?  Was that subtext really there?  Oh, Marty.  Marty Marty Marty.      You spun around to see him looking at you, desperate for an answer.  You would never reveal to him how anxious he truly looked.  “Come here,” you said.      “What?”      “Marty, just come here,” you repeated.      He followed your command, approaching you and standing inches apart from you.  “You’re going to go through an entire night of buying me drink after drink, and maybe even food, just for an opportunity to maybe kiss me at the end of the night?”      Marty huffed out a laugh, bringing his arm up to scratch the back of his neck.  “Well when you put it like that…yes.”      “Can I save you the time and the money and just kiss you now?”      You were pragmatic, after all.

[glassprism]

"Ask a Phantom"- any 5 questions of your choice

You mean I get a choice? Well then...

1. Who is your favorite ALW musical Phantom?

(I’m doing this so if I one day make a Favorite Phantoms video, I’ll just copy my descriptions from here).

Michael Crawford - Besides respecting him for his contributions to the character, I especially loved his acting and the way he moved as the Phantom. It was intensely elegant, sensual in how controlled he was, and capable of immense grief. It also worked extremely well with Sarah Brightman’s acting (which I also like), as she also felt just a bit larger than life, a bit dramatic; together they gave the show this darkly romantic vibe that I think was needed when it first opened. Most Phantoms that came after went for a grittier and more realistic approach, which I also love, but it also makes Crawford’s interpretation stand out all the more.

Ethan Freeman - What a Leroux-accurate Phantom, and unlike other actors who have taken that approach, he managed to do it without becoming too campy. His Phantom was old, isolated, and creepy, and it showed even down to his physicality: a hunched over, beetle-like scuttling around Christine that just made me want to whisk Christine out of his lair. Wonderful emotions at the end, where he would show a dreamy happiness at finally achieving love even in the midst of his sadness at losing Christine.

Hugh Panaro - A changeable Phantom that took a little while to grow on me, with a voice like dark chocolate. His Phantom was a sarcastic little s***, mocking Raoul throughout the 'Final Lair' and injecting a constant tone of sarcasm in his words. He was also childish, in every sense of the word: a selfish boy who loved pulling dangerous pranks and laughing at other people's (mostly Raoul's) troubles when they annoyed him, but also a lonely, abandoned child at the end. Changed his performance throughout his two runs and even depending on the Christine he was with, and kept throwing in new details, which made every performance feel fresh.

Earl Carpenter - Probably one of the most nuanced Phantoms I've ever seen. Sure, his voice was pretty iffy during his first run; sure, he was vanilla as heck in the restaged tour (though I blame the blocking). But at his best, in the original production? He put incredible thought into his performance, and it showed: the way he would mirror Christine's movements, as if the two of them were in sync with each other's thoughts; the tiny uncertain gestures he had in 'Music of the Night', never quite sure if he should touch Christine or if she would accept him; the sudden confusion in 'Point of No Return' as Christine suddenly takes over the song; the moments of hesitation in the 'Final Lair' when Christine breaks down, like he too knows that what he's doing is wrong, but has gone too far to stop... it's incredible to watch. 

5. Who is your favorite character that’s not Erik?

I like how this seems to assume that most people’s favorite is Erik... but really, my favorite character, including Erik, would still be Christine. I adore her strength, her growth, her endless compassion, and (in the ALW musical) her awesome, awesome wardrobe.

She would then be followed by Raoul, Carlotta, maybe Meg, possibly the Persian, Madeline from Kay’s book (her character, flawed as she is, fascinates me)... and then maybe Erik.

(I’m just kind of tired of the phandom’s extreme emphasis on Erik and E/C, which is why he is dumped at the bottom. Sorry dude.)

17. Have you ever written a phan phic?

Apart from that horrifying fic I attempted when I was 17 which was described in the last question, yes: I wrote a retelling of Love Never Dies that I (at the time) thought fixed the big problems with LND, like making Raoul a loving husband, giving Christine more agency, and having the Phantom actually attempt a moment of redemption. (Still E/C-supportive though, so fair warning.) I also wanted to deal with the Phantom as a father, so that’s in there as well. I haven’t read it in a while, and I’m not sure I want to; I think I’ve grown a lot more as a phan, so there’s probably a ton of stuff in it that I would instantly see as problematic, and honestly, if I were to write it now, I’d completely redo it so that it’s more of a family and psychological drama with the Phantom barely a character, but hey, it’s there.

Also, the title is stupid as hell.

18. Who are your favorite artists/writers in the phandom?

I no longer read or write fic for POTO, but some of my favorite artists would be:

Muirin007 - I love the sharp edges and textured look of her art, and just how bony and angular her Erik looks

Elf-in-mirror - There’s something soft and wonderfully luminous about her art that just makes me want to stare at it for hours

RJDaae - I absolutely love the slightly cartoonish look and the bright colors of her works

23. If you had the chance to ask Gaston Leroux one question, what would it be?

“How do you really feel about Love Never Dies, anyway?”

I dunno... I often see remarks along the lines of “Leroux would be turning in his grave over [insert hated adaptation here]!”, and sure, maybe he might be mad at how some of his themes have fallen by the wayside. At the same time, I like to think he’s a pretty chill guy who is just really happy (and maybe a bit bemused) at the success, and numerous adaptations, this one novel of his has received. So that question would be my litmus test for discerning his overall attitude.

Thanks for the question!

[beckettsthoughts]

all of the lighthearted autistic asks!!

This is amazing, I love people who send me these! I appreciate you so much, anon, you guys on here are some of my favourite people. I already answered a few in a previous ask, so I’ll do everything else:

(A) -

(B) -

(C ) What are some of your favourite stims?

My favourite stim is chewing! I usually contain this with my chew necklace, but if that’s not nearby then straws, sleeves, hoodie strings and my own tongue will be subject to my chew stimming. I also really like rocking back and forth, or people running their hands through my hair. Those are both amazing stims as well.

(D) -

(E) Give me four fun facts about your current special interest!

To make this a little more unique, I’m going to give you fun facts about my relationship with my special interest rather than just stuff you could find on Google. My main special interest, before we begin, is Fall Out Boy, and it’s been my special interest since before I was diagnosed.

1. The first Fall Out Boy song I recognised as a Fall Out Boy song was Sugar, We’re Goin Down. However, I already knew Dance, Dance and Thnks fr th Mmrs without having truly recognised or known the artist.

2. The first full Fall Out Boy album I bought, though, was Save Rock and Roll. 

3. The moment I realised Fall Out Boy was my new special interest was when I spent a week obsessively checking the UK Charts website to see if AB/AP reached number one. Shocker, it didn’t. That title went to Mark Ronson instead, with Fall Out Boy stuck at number two. I was really salty about it at the time, because I was really hoping the album would nab that top spot. I’d never even looked at the chart website before, so something really stuck out to me about Fall Out Boy being a real, genuine interest of mine. I wasn’t diagnosed at the time and didn’t have the language to truly label it a special interest, but that’s when I knew it was more than my other interests.

4. I saw Fall Out Boy’s AB/AP tour in Bournemouth on October 11th, 2015. That was the first major concert I’d ever been to, I took time off school to travel and it was one of the best nights of my life. I have the setlist saved as a playlist on my phone, so I can listen through it just like I heard it that night.

(F) Are you a Quiet Autistic or a Loud Autistic?

A mix. I’m very, very talkative when I’m around people and I have incredibly poor volume control, so I come across as a Loud Autistic. However, I spent vast quantities of time alone, with my laptop volume kept low and myself completely silent. People don’t tend to see that so often, though, so to most people I come across as Loud. I actually link that to my ADHD more than autism, though, because I speak very quickly as well as very loudly.

(G) Are you mostly a Sensory Seeker or Sensory Avoider?

Oh, I’m more of a sensory avoider. I avoid bright lights, loud and discordant crowds, anything too hot or too cold. I will seek out tactile stimulation or movement, but otherwise I am very much a sensory avoider.

(H) Are you a Lots Of Clothes Autistic (big jackets, long pants, boots) or a Minimal Clothes Autistic (tank tops, shorts, flip flops)?

I am a Lots Of Clothes autistic for sure. I only wear short sleeves if it’s very warm in the summer, otherwise I’m wearing hoodies and jeans and my trenchcoat. I even sleep in full length pyjamas, no matter what time of year. If I have too many layers to keep track of then I can get uncomfortable, but my comfort clothes will always be sweatshirts and joggers. I feel very uncomfortable and exposed if I’m wearing shorts or just t-shirts.

(I) What’s the cutest/sweetest thing anyone has ever done to accommodate you?

Oh man, there’s too many instances for me to choose the absolute best, so instead I’ll just describe a recent moment that really stood out to me. A while ago, I was invited by a friend from school to a beach barbecue. This particular friend has always been super understanding of what it means that I’m autistic, and she allowed me to invite a plus one. I assumed that she’d allowed everyone a plusI ended up not being able to take anyone along because my close friends were busy, but I later learnt that she specifically asked me because she knew I would be more comfortable with if I could bring a close friend with me. I ended up not being able to bring anyone along, because the people I would ask were otherwise busy, but I really appreciated that gesture.

(J) Do you have any pictures that really show that you’re autistic? Not that there’s any wrong or right way to look autistic, but any pictures that you feel show your specific brand of autism!

I can’t think of any specific image, but if I showed you all of my photos from throughout my life you would probably see a running them in what I’m wearing and how I stand or position myself. You can see me wearing a lot of the same clothes, my favourites and most sensory-friendly options, and you can often see photos of me drawing or writing regardless of the setting. Up until a few years ago, I’d also always have certain toys in tow.

(K) What’s your favourite sensory friendly outfit? Do you have a picture?

Unfortunately I can’t show you my home comfort clothes, because I never take pictures in that. It’s just a combination of a sweatshirt and joggers. However my sensory friendly outfits for actually leaving the house can be seen in most of my selfies, or in any of my mirror photos on my side-blog. The usual combination is my black skinny jeans, one of a rotation of t-shirts, and my long trenchcoat with all the clasps on it. That’s my most comfortable outfit.

(L) What do you call raptor/kitty/t-rex hands?

I didn’t have a name for them for the majority of my life, but when I got involved with autistic communities online I saw the term ‘raptor hands’ and picked that phrase up pretty quickly. I like the sound of it, too.

(M) Did you take on any animal mannerisms as a kid? What animal?

Lions! I used to have a tiny toy lion, and I always pretended to be a lion when I was running around and ‘playing pretend’. Cats were a running theme in general, actually. I used to be able to scale all the furniture and lay across the back of the sofa, curl and climb my way up the banister of the stairs and crawl my way beneath tables and lay there rather than sit on a chair. 

(N) What were your go-to foods/samefoods as a kid?

Chicken nuggets, pasta and cheese, and a particular snack dinner my mother put together known as ‘cheese, ham and apple’. It was, well, a plate of cheese, ham and apple, all in chunks. Roast dinners were always safe, too.

(O) What are your go-to foods/samefoods now?

Cheeseburger, simple pasta bolognese, and margherita pizza. Chicken nuggets are still up there, but I’m way pickier about them now and I prefer them battered to breaded, which means I don’t often get them. I have roast beef dinners fairly often, homemade in the winter and pre-prepared from M&S in the summer, and I also have a particular type of instant pasta I really rely on at the moment. French bread is a go-to, as well, if I don’t want anything else.

(P) -

(Q) Ask your own question!

To anyone who sees and wants to answer this, my question is as follows:

What is your favourite thing about being autistic?