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violet-1atte · 7 months

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Kinktober Day Fourteen: Selfcest - Minho/Minho

Tags: degradation, name calling, brat!Minho, dom!LeeKnow, the art of truly fucking oneself

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Maybe it was a bit egotistical, but Minho loved looking in the mirror while he masturbated. He loved the sight of himself falling apart from his own hands, his own touch. Knowing it didn’t need someone else to make him feel good, that no one could ever know his body as well as he did. No one else knew that the area where his waist met his hips was an erotic zone, no one else knew the perfect angle to twist their hand around his cock, no one else knew that his collarbones were almost as sensitive as his nipples. Sure, someone could figure these things out eventually, and he sometimes had trouble when fingering himself because his fingers were too short, but that didn’t matter. Nothing topped the self-satisfaction and pride of knowing he got himself off so well.

And watching it only made the pleasure more intense. Sometimes he really wondered what it would be like to fuck himself. Okay, he definitely was egotistical. But he didn’t feel like delving too deep into that. He just knew that often as he got off in front of the mirror, three fingers deep into himself with a hand wrapped around his cock, he imagined it was himself he was fucking.

Sometimes when he got really deep into it, it almost seemed like his reflection was looking at him. It was different than seeing his reflection when he was looking at it. It felt like someone else was staring at him, like there were another person’s eyes on him. He chalked it up to a vivid imagination and being deep in whatever autosexual headspace he was in.

That was until one night, where all his hopes and dreams became reality.

On that fateful night, he was on his bed like usual. His floor length mirror hung on the wall at the foot of the bed so he could watch himself comfortably. He was on his knees, thighs spread so he could get a full view as he jerked his cock. The slide was wet and slick, just like he liked it. He stroked his hand up and twisted and a small bead of precum leaked from the tip. He bit his lip and his hips jerked as he watched his own skin flush all over from the growing arousal in his stomach. He’d memorized the sight of his own body, knew exactly what he looked like when he squeezed his cock a little harder and thumbed over the slit.

He knew everything so well that he noticed the very second something was off. At the same time as he slid a hand up his chest to play with a nipple, his reflection moved the opposite hand. The opposite hand.

Minho stopped his movements all together and stared. What the fuck. There was no way he was seeing things. He knew exactly what he saw. But now that he was staring his reflection down, the hand was back in the right place. He turned his hand, palm facing the mirror, and the reflection did the same.

“Okay…” he mumbled to himself. He tilted his head and furrowed his eyebrows. “What the fuck was that…”

“I had the same reaction when I realized you weren’t actually my reflection.”

Minho fell back at the same time that he let out a high pitched scream. He stared at the mirror with wide eyes, his heart racing a thousand miles a second. That was his voice but he didn’t say shit. “What the hell. What the fuck. Who drugged me. What the fuck,” he muttered. He rested his hand on his chest. His breathing was bordering on hyperventilation because what the fuck.

His reflection laughed. It laughed. By this point, Minho was convinced he had either been drugged with the strongest hallucinogen known to man or he was being haunted by some demon from hell. Or perhaps his dead soul from a past life. “I thought you’d have that reaction! That’s why I didn’t try to ease you in. Fucking hilarious,” his reflection snorted. Minho’s fear molded into minor annoyance and he scowled. His reflection scowled back.

“What the–what do you mean? What is this? Who even are you? Is this some prank?” he asked, moving to sit up from where he had fallen against the bed. The reflection– his reflection(?), laughed again and Minho internally cursed himself for being so attracted to…well, himself.

“My name is Lee Know, this is the reality of alternate realities, I am essentially you, and no it is not a prank,” the reflection–Lee Know, stated simply. Minho’s head was still reeling and he’d barely caught his breath.

“Lee Know? That’s my alternate reality name? That’s stupid,” he mumbled breathlessly. “This is insane. I must be insane. There is no way this is happening. I must be dreaming. You’re not real,” he said, but he felt like he was trying to convince himself more than anything.

“I’m definitely real,” Lee Know said with a shrug. He sighed dramatically and threw a hand over his forehead. “Oh whatever shall I do to convince you?” Minho didn’t even know how to respond anymore, or if he even should. If this was a figment of his imagination, then interacting with it likely made him sink further into delusion. Right?

Lee Know sighed again and let his hand drop to his side. Then, a smirk spread across his face. “Oh…I know. It’s simple, really. I only just learned how to do this so it might take a second…” He pursed his lips and furrowed his eyebrows and Minho couldn’t help how attractive he found him(self?). It was one thing to watch his own reflection as he did something, but now watching his own reflection, someone, or something that was literally a mirror image of himself, do things without him controlling it…that was a whole other thing.

Minho barely noticed the fact that Lee Know was putting his hands against the mirror until they were no longer on the mirror, but the other side. Minho screamed again, eyes blowing wide. “What the fuck!” he exclaimed, taking in a deep, shaky breath. “What are you doing?”

“Proving that I’m real,” Lee Know hummed. His arms made their way out first, then one of his legs, then his upper body. It looked like an uncomfortable position, but Minho was too freaked out to focus on that.

When Lee Know finally stepped out of the mirror, Minho’s breath caught it his throat. He looked very real. Too real. And he was somehow even more attractive than Minho even found his own reflection. His eyes ran over the sharp point of his nose, his high cheekbones, his pink lips, his deep set eyes. It was just like staring at his own reflection but so much better than that could ever be. He found himself subconsciously wetting his lips, the heat that had previously been in his stomach but had dissipated, returned. But then Lee Know smirked and Minho went back to realizing how fucked up this situation actually was and the panic settled back into his body.

“Okay, actually what the fuck is this. This is insane,” he said, shaking his head vehemently.

“That’s what I thought too,” Lee Know said with a shrug. “But I’ve come to accept it. Besides, isn’t this everything you’ve ever wanted?” he asked, tilting his head. His expression turned smug and Minho felt his cheeks burning for some reason.

“What? Absolutely not! There’s a–a clone of me from some alternate reality that just walked through my mirror! That’s pretty terrifying!” Minho exclaimed, waving his hands. It suddenly occurred to him that he was currently still naked and he felt the urge to cover up in the face of this stranger. But was he really a stranger? From what it seemed so far, this was truly a different version of him. He didn’t need to cover up from himself.

“See I got the impression you’ve wanted to fuck me this whole time,” Lee Know said, the smirk on his face widening to a grin. Minho nearly choked.

“Wh-what? No! I–” He struggled to find words. He could feel his ears heating up and it was clear Lee Know noticed. “I want to fuck me ,” he emphasized, even though it was embarrassing to admit.

“I am you ,” Lee Know insisted. “In a way I am your reflection and you are mine. We’re just from separate places.”

“This is–I don’t know, this is just crazy,” Minho said, shaking his head. “I can’t–I still don’t know what the hell is going on.”

“Do you have to?” Lee Know asked, taking a step closer. “You can figure that all out later. But it seemed like you were in the middle of something before I came here…I mean. I was too.” He licked his lips and his eyes trailed over Minho’s body. “So why don’t we finish it? What do you think? I mean, it's clear how we both feel about ourselves. About each other.” He stepped closer until he was up against the bed and then he crawled on top, hovering over Minho.

“I don’t know, that just seems…insane.”

“Well we are a little weird, hm?” Lee Know said lowly. His face was now mere inches away from Minho’s. Minho felt like he couldn’t breathe and he felt his cock twitch between his legs.

“Can’t deny that,” he said with an airy chuckle. Lee Know smiled.

“Then what do you say? You get fucked by yourself, I get to fuck myself, it works out for both of us. We don’t even have to see each other again.”

Minho’s face scrunched up and he raised an eyebrow. “Wait, you’ll fuck me? I don’t think so. I’ve always imagine being the one to fuck you . So why don’t we switch positions, hm?”

Something dark passed over Lee Know’s face and he tongued his cheek. Then Minho gasped as Lee Know grabbed him and flipped him over so he was on his stomach. The movement punched a moan out of him and his body heated with embarrassment. “I don’t think so. I’ve watched you fuck yourself on your fingers enough times to know you like to be filled up. You’re not as in control as you think, Minho,” Lee Know mumbled against his ear. Minho gritted his teeth and moved to push himself up but Lee Know pressed down between his shoulder blades. “I don’t think so. You’re gonna be a good little slut and take it, okay?”

Minho groaned but masked it with a growl. Arousal pooled in his stomach and chills went down his spine. Fuck, he knew himself too well. “You’re the fucking slut here. You do the same fucking thing. You said it already, we’re the same.”

Lee Know huffed out a laugh. “That’s true. But that just means I know you like being tossed around and called names as much as you like doing it. Can’t fool anyone. You get something up your ass and you act like a bitch in heat.”

Minho let out a whine. A fucking whine. He never whined. But Lee Know was exactly right. “Just–shut the fuck up and if you’re gonna fuck me than do it already.”

“Of course. You don’t like foreplay. Good thing we’re the same.” Lee Know licked up the side of Minho’s neck and tugged his earlobe between his teeth. “Can’t wait to watch myself get ruined like this. It’s gonna be so hot.”

“Narcissist,” Minho grumbled.

“Pot and kettle,” Lee Know whispered. He sat up and got up to grab something from the dresser, but he made sure to give Minho a firm slap on the ass. Minho gasped and Lee Know bit his lip. “I really do have a nice ass damn.”

As Lee Know went over to the dresser, Minho lifted his head. “The lube is in the–”

“Bottom drawer, to the left, in the box where you keep your toys.” Minho huffed but didn’t respond. Lee Know just smirked as he got the lube and got back on the bed. “No need to use a condom, right? Since we’re the same person. We’re both clean.”

Minho nodded and swallowed thickly. “Yeah, yeah, just get on with it.”

“You’re such a brat,” Lee Know said, smacking his ass again. He squeezed his ass where he smacked it just for good measure and Minho bit his lip.

“You’re a brat too,” Minho snapped.

“Touche.”

Lee Know grabbed Minho’s hips tightly, fingers digging into the jut of his hip bones. He pulled his hips up so that his ass was in the air with his chest pressed to the bed. Lee Know spread his cheeks and pressed his thumb over his rim. “Wow. We’re fucking sexy like this.”

Minho blushed and his skin tingled all over at the thought that he was about to be fucked by himself. It really was everything he’d dream of. “I know,” he said back, inhaling shakily. Lee Know responded by squirting an unreasonably large amount of lube onto his hole, so much that it ran down his thighs and dripped onto the bed.

“I know you like it messy,” Lee Know said, leaning over him. He squeezed his hips roughly then rubbed two fingers over his hole. “I’m sure two won’t be too much, right? I know you’re loose from how much you fuck yourself.”

Minho’s head spun and he struggled to form a coherent response. “Y-yeah, that’s good. That’s okay,” he said, licking his lips. His mouth felt dry but at the same time he was close to drooling. Already. He didn’t think that having himself fuck him would reduce him to such a mess so fast.

“Good. You would’ve taken it anyway. Just like the slut we both know you are.” Lee Know punctuated his words by thrusting his middle and pointer finger past Minho’s rim in one motion, going all the way to the knuckles. Minho gasped and buried his face in the sheets and he mouthed at the fabric and bit down. The thrust of Lee Know’s fingers stung but fuck if it didn’t feel amazing. The pain only added a thrill to the pleasure that was tingling up and down his spine.

Lee Know spread his fingers and Minho clenched his teeth harder, his moans muffled into the sheet. Lee Know laughed and thrusted his fingers deeper and curled them, brushing against his prostate. White-hot pleasure burst through Minho’s stomach and he moaned, his eyes rolling back. “There it is,” Lee Know mused, pressing his fingertips against the bundle of nerves again. Minho gasped and his hips jerked. More precum oozed from the slit of his cock and he shivered.

“Hnnn—stop doing that,” Minho panted. Lee Know tilted his head just as he brushed over Minho’s prostate again. Minho inhaled sharply and his back arched, pushing his ass more into Lee Know’s hold.

“Why?” he asked sarcastically. Minho huffed and groaned against the bed.

“Fuck! Because–because you’re gonna make me fucking come and I already–”

“You already came today. Twice,” Lee Know said simply and Minho could feel his face heating up again. “Like I said before. You’re a little slut, Minho.”

Minho bit his lip and took a deep breath. “W-we’re–we’re a slut, Lee Know-yah,” Minho said, but his words were beginning to lose their bite.

“ Hngh –yeah, you’re right. I’m a slut too. For myself. For you.” He gripped Minho’s waist with his free hand, hard. Minho clenched his fists and his chest heaved. He was going to burn up and burst into flames, he was sure of it.

“Then show me,” Minho said, his voice barely a whisper. “Remind me why I can satisfy myself the best, show me you know me—”

Lee Know groaned and pulled his fingers all the way out before pushing in a third, stretching Minho’s rim wider. Minho whined and buried his face against the bed. Oh fuck. He curled his fingers against Minho’s velvety walls and hit his prostate repeatedly. Each brush of his fingertips over his sweet spot sent shocks of electricity up his spine and made him dizzy. All the blood in his head was in his cock now. It hung hard and heavy between his legs, aching and begging to be touched. The muscles in his stomach tensed every time Lee Know pumped his fingers into him, every time he spread them to open up his hole. The way he fingered him was relentless, with as much vigor as someone would use to properly fuck him. The hits against his prostate were exactly what Minho wanted, what he needed, and shit, Lee Know really did know what he liked.

Lee Know eventually moved his hand off his hip and slid it up Minho’s stomach to his chest and pinched a nipple between his two fingers. Minho whimpered pathetically, the stimulation to his nipples sending jolts of pleasure through his entire body. A fourth finger had only just made its way past Minho’s puffy rim when his whole body tensed and his dick spurted cum all over him and the bed. Lee Know continued to abuse his prostate and tease his nipples as he came, which had Minho’s legs twitching with overstimulation. His cock barely even softened when he’d finished and it hurt, but that only made a knot coil in his stomach.

Minho barely had time to gather himself after he came before he was being flipped back over onto his back so that he was looking up straight into Lee Know’s eyes. “I know missionary isn’t our favorite, but I wanted to see you while I fucked you senseless. See what I look like getting fucked. And more importantly, I want you to see me. ‘Specially since you were so confident in topping earlier. At least you get to know what you look like on top, hm?”

“Fuck just–just fuck me,” Minho said, looking off to the side. He couldn’t believe how annoying he was honestly. Is this how his past partners felt when he teased them? He’d have to make it up to Jisung.

“Hm…I could drag this out longer, but I really want to see how it feels to fuck myself.” Lee Know grinned and Minho could feel himself flush all the way down to his chest.

“Then do it–come on, please .”

Lee Know bit his lip to bite back a moan and Minho watched as his cock twitched between his legs. A wave of arousal washed over Minho at his reaction and he swallowed thickly. “Can’t believe I get to do this,” he breathed. He hooked his hands under Minho’s knees and pushed his legs back. “No one’s ever gonna fuck you better than this, Minho.”

“Better not,” Minho said back.

Lee Know smirked smugly and squirted another large amount of lube over Minho’s hole. He shivered at the cold sensation and bit his lip when Lee Know lined himself up. “M’sure you don’t mind if I’m rough, hm?”

Minho could almost laugh at the fact that Lee Know was basically asking for consent for himself, but he could appreciate the fact that his other self wasn’t an asshole. “Of course I don’t. Fuck me hard–nghh shit!” Minho exclaimed, nearly choking on air as Lee Know slammed his entire length into him in one go. The sting from the stretch made Minho’s eyes burn and he took a few deep breaths.

“Good?” Lee Know asked, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

Minho nodded, unable to find words for a moment. “Ye–yeah,” he said brokenly. “Move. ‘S’good, I’m not a little bitch,” he said, wetting his lips.

“You sure moan like one,” Lee Know replied, and then he began to move. He wasn’t gentle in any way. Almost immediately, Minho was grasping at the sheets to brace himself. Lee Know put every bit of strength he had into snapping his hips and thrusting into Minho as hard as he could. Minho couldn’t even attempt to hold back the moans that spilled from his mouth as Lee Know purposefully aimed at his prostate, hitting it with every rough thrust.

“Fuck, you literally feel perfect ,” Lee Know groaned. Sweat dripped down his forehead and his bottom lip was bitten red from where he’d bitten it. Minho’s foggy brain could only think of how this version of himself was even more attractive than what he’d seen in the mirror. And he found that he didn’t mind. “You’re so– hmmh –so tight, even though you fuck yourself like–like a little whore, shit .”

“ Nnghh , fuck, fuck, keep going,” Minho babbled mindlessly. His cock smacked against his stomach with every sharp thrust of Lee Know’s cock. It was an angry red color and dribbling so much precum it almost looked like he’d already come.

Lee Know pushed Minho’s legs back and changed his angle so that he was going even deeper. Minho gasped and his eyes rolled back. Lee Know fucked him like a ragdoll and the angle change caused him to practically feel Lee Know’s cock in his stomach. The pressure on his prostate with each jab of his hips was twice as intense which made Minho writhe against the bed.

“Lee–Lee Know,” Minho hiccuped, fists clenching at his sides. “I’m–fuck–I can’t—” he whimpered and Lee Know simply smirked down at him. Minho could tell though, he was just as affected as him. He knew himself. The tips of his ears were red and his skin was shiny with sweat and the rhythm he was fucking him with told him. He was close.

“Play–play with your nipples for me,” Lee Know instructed through gritted teeth. “Wanna–wanna see you fall apart. Come on my cock– fuck –while playing with yourself.”

Minho could only whimper in response as he moved his hands from the sheets and brushed his fingers over his nipples. Even the slight stimulation had him shaking and his hole clenched like a vice around Lee Know’s cock when he began rolling his nipples between his fingers. “Ohh fuckk," Minho moaned airily. “Keep– ahhh –keep going, I'm c-close.”

“Yeah?” Lee Know asked breathlessly. “Gonna come getting fucked by yourself? Narcissistic slut.”

Minho’s eyes rolled back and shudder wracked his body. “You–you’re fuh-fucking yourself,” Minho stuttered. And then he added a weak, “bitch,” for good measure.

“Oh? Hah–I didn’t know that,” Lee Know snarked. He dropped his head down and bit Minho’s thigh and Minho let out a loud mewl as the pain erupted across his skin. He liked being bitten almost as much as he liked biting and Lee Know just knew.

Lee Know turned his head to the other thigh and delivered a sharp bite to the soft flesh there as well, just as he snapped his hips against Minho’s ass. “Hnng ahh–fuck,” Minho choked. He continued rubbing his nipples as Lee Know fucked him and his mind filled with a heavy buzz. His abdomen tensed and he clenched around Lee Know, stars decorating the corners of his vision. “I’m gonna–gonna–Lee Know, please–m’gonna come,” he whined.

“Shit–mm–m’kay then, come. Show yourself how much of a slutty bitch you are,” Lee Know growled against his skin. He nipped his thigh again and Minho writhed as a debauched moan ripped from his throat and he came for the second time since Lee Know arrived. Cum splattered all over his abdomen and chest, some even hitting his neck and chin. His eyes rolled back as Lee Know continued fucking him at a brutal pace, pushing him up the bed until he came himself, spilling inside Minho and filling him up.

Lee Know let out a shaky breath as he pulled out of Minho. His eyes slid down to Minho’s hole where is cum leaked out onto the bed. “Wow,” he mumbled. “Can’t believe that’s me.”

“Get over yourself,” Minho said breathlessly, letting out a laugh. This was crazy. Insane.

“You too, sweetheart,” Lee Know replied, reaching out to pat Minho’s cheek.

Lee Know helped clean Minho up and somewhere during the process, he fell asleep. He slept deeper than he had in months but his rest was filled with dreams. Dreams that no matter how insane, still didn’t match up to what he’d experienced.

When he woke up, Lee Know was gone, and his reflection was back. He spent a little while looking in the mirror, waiting to see if something would change, if his reflection would blink without him, or send him a wink. But there was nothing. Still, as he turned around to get his stuff for a shower, he had that same feeling of someone watching him. And that sent a thrill down his spine.

#kinktober #kinktober 2023 #kinktober day 14 #selfcest #minho smut #lee minho smut #smut #stray kids fanfic #skz smut #stray kids smut #stray kids fanfiction #fanfiction #skz fic #skz fanfiction #degredation kink #name calling

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obsessednotepad · 2 years

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Honestly I love how the show has shifted our perspectives on these characters and their relationships with one another. Honestly in the YT series we got some instances and scenes to be able to make inferences of their personalities but the TV series? Mwah thank you Becky and Joe for this good soup.

Literally we see how they’re stuck together and fucking hate each other on any given day because they’re 3 randos stuck in some place where every day they restart at home before ever being able to escape- who don’t know even how to escape this place.

So they just simply get by and at this point after the YT series they’ve kinda gotten used to the same routine of teachers popping in and out of their lives to torture them. Of course a few changes are welcomed bc it does become dull, maybe perhaps that’s why they go batshit on each other when given the chance bc holy shit what do you do with that resentment and anger that lives inside of you and all you’ve got is a confusing group (clump? Found family?) who don’t really fully understand each other.

But we also see that on any other given instance, they have formed their ways of showing how they care and get along. (I will probably edit it in later bc I only have limited storage in my brain and majority of it is full of bullshit)

However a little detail I’ve noticed is while Red is hardly vulnerable about personal feelings, he just seems like he assumes nobody truly cares enough about him to even a “best friend” level and given with how his family treats him I honestly can see why he feels that way. I even think regardless of the platonic or romantic implications- the “I like looking at you” scene is just so. Good. Yes because it’s a nice moment and has quite no heterosexual explanation for it but. The whole “I see you and you see me.” motif is just. So good in a way for both characters in that one moment.

They’re in a time of distress but also ease, everything feels easier to say in the dark when no one can see you. However with a egotistical, narcissistic, and honestly weirdly stupid but also fruity ass character who over compensates for either not actually being good enough (as we can see through him only making a minimal mistake that gets him instantly thrown out of a family, we can possibly assume this for other scenarios or his actual real family and well him as a character..)or something else, coming out of his head, seeing someone for who they are and liking it- is just fucking refreshing for this character. And Red? Holy shit, 1) him being the one to first openly admit is well kinda new for his character but then again his character has expanded beyond monotone and boring- he has emotional outbursts and is just as scared and angry as they are but we’ve never fully seen him say something alike to what he does say in that scene.

“It would be nice to look at the house again..and maybe looking at you too.”

Idc whatever you interpret it as- I just love how we see through small little moments and voice lines and scenes like this one how each go about their way of expressing themselves. Also just the line?? The scene?? Taking place in the dark??? Dude don’t even get me started bc while I know there is a bunch of context this scene could’ve easily been cut but it was left in for a reason. And I just generally love motifs that connects characters through “I see you” so. Yeah.

And I haven’t even fucking touched Yellow yet >:)

The whole thing with episode 6 just reveals so much more. Of course he’s always been a little silly but never fully ignorant of what bad things happen to them. especially in the YT series and haha we see that within episode 6 too. And now we see a “separation” between parts of himself, see how much aware he’s been of the hellscape they’ve been stuck in and choosing to just try to make things better by doing what helps Red and Duck feel better. Just be the happy and goofy kid. However when he can think clearly, for himself solely is when you realize he’s been thinking of this stuff for the entire time, just never had ability to communicate everything without hurting people or himself. Idk just kinda sad seeing a kid with so much shit in his brain and having so much difficulty expressing them while also going through so many emotions at once is like. Fuck you’ve got 97 mental illnesses and not in the quirky way…

But the scene with “have we gone wrong?

I don’t think so…atleast it doesn’t hurt to think anymore-

they seem upset with us….

well maybe it’s because they’re not in control of us anymore….

maybe they never were.”

It represents so many experiences. Like discovering that maybe you dont identify with what you were born with and how that effects you and your family- or a kid growing up, realizing they are scared of shifting away from themselves as they grow, or just realizing you cannot be what everyone wants, that you are in control of your life.

Well until your batteries get taken away.

And then the dynamic between all of them? Ugh I don’t know if I should discuss bc of how long this will end up being. This is probably incomprehensible and stupid but idk that’s like my thing so. Yeah get with it.

#dhmis #fluffybird #obsessed thinks sometimes #dhmis red guy #dhmis duck #dhmis yellow guy #Becky and Joe did so fucking good #omfg

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fruitcoops · 2 years

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The Theory of Flight

My final @oknutzyweek submission, a day late! This is a gods AU that I’ve been thinking about for a couple months now (and co-writing one version of with the beloved @veryspacecowboy in the noot discord), and I really wanted to share it with you guys, too! Sweater Weather characters belong to @lumosinlove--thank you for making so many amazing OCs. This week has been a delight.

TW for mentioned death (everyone is fine, it’s a prerequisite for the story)

Of all the things Leo was expecting when he up and fucking died, this was decidedly not it. Tears? Sure. A touching ceremony? He figured he had been decent enough to deserve one. Wailing and rending of clothes from the people who knew and loved him? Maybe it was egotistical, but a guy could dream. He never thought it would happen that soon, anyway.

But becoming a god? Not exactly on his agenda.

It was made all the more confusing by the fact that he was not alone on his immortal life-after-life journey, and everyone he met seemed to expect him to just…deal with it. Just casually get good with the fact that he would be alive (in a fashion) for literal eternity. A kindly older man—Pascal, god of…Christ, there were all sorts of things—had given him the brief rundown, but it didn’t feel like enough. Perhaps therapy would be a better option. Really intense therapy.

Leo blinked. Was he still allowed to say ‘Christ’?

“—and over here is the garden sector,” Finn said brightly, apparently oblivious to his charge’s internal meltdown. He cast a lopsided smile over his shoulder and tugged Leo along by the wrist, sandaled feet slapping comically on the shimmering path.

Ah, yes. Problem number eight fucking billion of getting spiritually suplexed by immortality. Gods weren’t all old and bearded and uncomfortably muscular like he had expected—they were hot. Like, really hot. Red-hair-and-pretty-eyes-and-freckles hot. Hot with a capital ‘Holy motherfuck, where were you while I was alive?’. Leo thought it was a little unfair that all the cute boys came by while he still felt like a sentient wet noodle and probably looked like one, too.

Finn was still chattering about the gardens and a few of the gods Leo could expect to meet there, apparently content to play tour guide while Leo tried not to have a panic attack. He remembered being dead. Sort of. At least, he remembered thinking ‘oh, god, I’m going to die’ and then nothingness, before a deep inhale and warm golden light filled his lungs with a strange new sensation. Leo let his eyes wander along the strong bands of Finn’s arms and forced himself to follow one whorl of blue paint where it sliced through the smattering of freckles—focus, he reminded himself. Breathe. The line dipped out of sight at Finn’s elbow, then reappeared partway along his forearm and trailed down to his slender wrist.

Leo didn’t notice they had stopped until he nearly ran right over his guide. “Whoa, easy,” Finn laughed, steadying him with a hand on the shoulder. The gentle brown of his eyes reminded Leo of a deer he had seen once in the woods, lithe and regal as it stepped over frozen leaves. Still fawn-freckled in the dappling sunlight, but nearly as tall as him.

His brain stalled out. Leo was sure he looked more than stupid, goggling at Finn with his mouth open, and blurted the first thing that came to mind. “Did you die, too?”

Finn’s brows shot upward so fast they disappeared beneath the front curls of his hair. “What?”

“Oh, shit,” Leo mumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose. So much for ‘focus and breathe’. “Sorry. Sorry, I wasn’t—ugh.”

“No, no, it’s okay.” There was a laugh in Finn’s voice again, but it wasn’t cruel. It was the laugh of someone who just enjoyed laughing. He pulled at Leo’s wrists, guiding his hands down. “Were you wondering if I was mortal once?”

Mortification burned hot in Leo’s chest. “I just—I was wondering if I was the only one, or if that happened to everybody, but it’s intrusive. You don’t have to answer. Sorry. This is kind of a lot to process.”

“Hey, don’t apologize.” Finn ducked his head to try and catch Leo’s gaze again, and smiled. “Really, it’s alright. It’s normal to be curious. Yes, I was mortal, and then I died, and now I’m here. That happened to a lot of gods.”

“Not all?”

Finn shrugged one shoulder; the brooch holding his shoulder strap together caught the sun with a flash of bronze. “Some of them don’t remember.”

“And you do?”

“I remember enough to know this is different,” was an answer Leo had not expected. The corners of Finn’s eyes crinkled and he started walking backwards. “We’ve covered most of the boring stuff, so I was going to take you to the meadow. A lot of my friends are there. Do you want to meet them?”

The logical answer was a loud and resounding no. How could he possibly meet a whole flock of superpowered gods when he was barely keeping himself upright? How could he make conversation with people that had been dead for hundreds, thousands, of years? The only thing Leo wanted was a hot bath and a long nap where he could lose his mind in peace. The only thing he wanted was to be alive again, where things made sense.

Finn’s brooch glimmered again, the same color as his lashes in the light of the garden. The rough green fabric of his cloak was woven with golden thread, and when he turned just so, Leo swore he saw the same gold forming a soft glow around his body. “Okay,” he said quietly. Finn had been kind to him, patient despite Leo’s anxious silence. His friends couldn’t be too bad.

“You’re sure?”

Leo took a shaky breath. “As long as you stay with me.”

He felt a squeeze on both wrists, grounding him. “Stuck at the hip,” Finn promised. “And whenever you’re ready, we’ll leave. Nobody will be offended.”

They started down the path again, but Leo balked. “What if—” His cheeks heated, and he looked away when Finn turned. He should’ve just sucked it up and kept walking, but it was too late to back out now. “What if…I’m new. What if I’m too new?”

What if they don’t like me? Finn seemed to sense the unspoken question, because his face softened. “Leo.” Leo closed his eyes at the sound of his name in Finn’s mouth. He was the second person to say it in this new world. It was a comfort and agony at the same time. He didn’t feel enough like himself anymore to deserve it. “Leo, they’ll love you.”

“I don’t know anything yet.” Unwanted tears thickened his voice and he blinked rapidly, swallowing them back. Breathe, Leo, you can’t cry on your first day. Inhale, exhale—there was no real relief from breathing. The thought made his throat go tight. “I don’t know why I’m here, or where I am, or what I’m supposed to do. And they’re gods. They’re important. I’m just an idiot who died.”

“We’ve all just been idiots who died,” Finn said firmly, moving to hold Leo’s hands between them. Something suspiciously close to Leo’s heart gave way at the reassuring touch and he sniffed. “Hey, no, listen to me. Do you think any of us knew what the fuck to do when this happened? No. I was fighting, and then I was running until I couldn’t, and then I woke up and some dude with a beard told me I was a god. What the fuck is all that about? I sat in the bathtub and cried for, like, three days when I got here.”

“…is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Yes.” The earnestness in Finn’s expression took him off guard. “Whatever you’re feeling, however you want to deal with it—we’re here for you. You’ll figure it out, Leo. Someday you’ll know what your purpose is, but until then, your only job is to keep on going. Something out there believed in you enough to make you a god. I trust that it knows what it’s doing.”

The air was cold against the trail of a tear as it slid down his cheek, followed by a second, then a third, until he squeezed his eyes shut. Finn let out a slow breath before releasing his hands and guiding him into a hug; Leo clutched the back of his sash like a lifeline. He expected the fabric to be as coarse as it looked, but it was soft as a cloud. “I wasn’t special,” he choked out through heaving breaths. He refused, refused, to let the sobs catching in his chest see the light of day. It was horrible enough to tremble in the arms of a man he hardly knew. “Finn, I didn’t do anything to deserve this.”

“Then you must be good enough on your own.”

The relief of letting go was river-sweet. Finn held him tight even when Leo’s knees buckled under him, murmuring soothing words and rubbing his back. It’s going to be alright, he said, gentle while Leo fell apart. You won’t be alone. Its going to be okay. Catharsis rushed through his body and mind, easing the terror running riot through every part of him. Despite his mortification, Leo was grateful not to be alone for the first flood.

One chapter of his life was closed forever. Another had opened, and he didn’t even know the first word of it, but he knew he wanted Finn to be there on every page.

“This is new,” Finn said when Leo had moved on to shivering. “It’s scary. If you need anything at all, let me know and I’ll help.”

Leo sniffled. “What are you, the god of friendship?”

Finn laughed again, and it sounded like the hum of a pan flute. “Good guess. But no, I’m just a messenger.”

They stepped away from each other, remaining within arm’s length; Leo was surprised to find his face was dry to the touch. The sticky, overwarm feeling of a good cry was absent, though he still felt the knot in his stomach begin to unwind. He offered Finn a wobbly smile. “The friendship part is just for fun, then?”

“Exactly.” Finn’s hand found his wrist again. “C’mon, I’ll show you the way. We’ve got a bit of a walk ahead of us.”

Leo followed him through fields of swaying grass and past towering mountains; through the edge of a dense forest full of glowing lights and past a distant ocean with boats rocking in the harbor. Environments he could never have imagined as a mortal cropped up in every direction, each cast in shining technicolor. The air was clean and fresh, and he let it carry out the trickling streams of his breakdown. Something caressed his face—at first, it felt like simple wind, but a wisp of a giggle siphoned out when it tumbled away. Finn let go of his hand after a few minutes and Leo couldn’t help trailing a path in the high wheat, rolling it between his fingertips just to watch it float away on the breeze. He could smell the sea, salty and deep; he could smell the forest, all thick loam and crisp leaves. With every tilt of his head, the whole world changed.

“What should I expect from your friends?” Leo asked as they passed the coast and headed down into a valley. He was glad Finn had taken them the long way around. His breakdown had stolen what fragile strength he had gathered since dying, leaving him drained. The dipping, winding path was just what he needed to get his head in order long enough to survive some small talk.

“The first thing to know is that they’re all lovely people,” Finn explained, hopping over a tortoise with a jewel-toned shell. “The nastier gods don’t go where we’re going.”

“Nastier gods?”

His freckled nose wrinkled. “Not everyone is as sweet as you when they’re blessed with obscene power. But don’t worry, they’ve been smacked around enough by the older gods in the gang to knock ‘em down a peg. Pascal got involved once, and we haven’t seen the other guy for a couple hundred mortal years.”

“Pascal is the one with the beard at the entrance, right?” His eyes had been brown, too, but darker than Finn’s. More paternal, less playful. His voice had sounded like a thundercloud come to life.

Finn nodded. “That’s him. Solid dude, his wife is amazing, and their kids are adorable. Anyway, the second thing to know about our group is that we’ve got a whole range of ages and backgrounds. Don’t be surprised if someone starts talking about when the world was all one big clump of land in the ocean.”

Pangaea. Some of them lived during Pangaea. Leo took a deep breath, and then another one to clear the dizziness. “Got it.”

“Also, you might see some of the really really old gods wandering around. They won’t usually trouble themselves with us, but feel free to say hi.”

“How old?”

“I delivered a message to Inanna last week from Oshun.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Yeah, he stops by from time to time.”

“No, I—nevermind.”

Finn didn’t appear to notice his hesitation. “Note number three is that they will all invite you to dinner at some point, and while you’re under no obligation to go, it might be a fun way to mingle. I’ll warn you of the ones that can’t cook but will try anyways.”

“I like to cook.”

Leo pressed his lips together as soon as the words were out—he hadn’t meant to speak. Mortal cooking could never compare to what gods were used to, and he wasn’t even sure he would know what to do anymore. Would his hands remember how to knead dough? Would his tongue remember the taste of stew in the winter? Did winter exist in this blissful, perfect place?

“That’s good,” Finn said, unbothered. “I can’t.”

“I’ll have you for dinner sometime, then.”

The passive thoughtfulness on Finn’s face melted away into surprise, then settled into a sideways smile. “You’d do that?”

Leo shrugged. “We’re friends, aren’t we? I like to cook. You don’t know how. It works.”

The smile grew, and with it came a faint pink dusting over Finn’s nose and cheeks. “It does.”

Finn was still looking back at him when they crested the hill, but Leo couldn’t stop his quiet gasp. The wheat field tumbled into vibrant green grass studded with wildflowers that blanketed a large meadow, bookended by the woods and a flat lake. Trees crept in one by one, a birch here, a fir there, low branches sweeping down in arcs. Someone had constructed a floral swing from one of them; with every push from the breeze, petals cascaded down in a waterfall.

And everywhere Leo looked, there were gods. More gods than he had ever seen in any of the other places, tall gods, short gods, gods in as many shapes and colors as the flowers at their feet. They splashed in the lake’s lapping waves and lounged catlike in the sun—now and then, one would vanish in a shimmer of color, or another would appear at the outskirts. Some had brought furniture to relax in, while others had claimed various bits of the glade as their resting spot.

“Welcome to The Den,” Finn said, his chest puffing with pride. “The best realm of them all.”

“This is…” Leo trailed off with a shake of his head. The aura of radiating peace clung to his skin and cooled the heat of the sun.

“I know.”

“Is this some sort of godly spa?”

“No, but I see why you’d think that,” Finn laughed. There was an extra skip in his step as he headed down the hill and gestured for Leo to follow, like he had been looking forward to being there all day. “I’m not sure why it feels so different. Probably because there are so many of us here all the time, and not a lot of conflict. It’s a common space. If someone wants to start shit, they don’t do it where everyone will think they’re a dick.”

Leo didn’t doubt that for a moment—the ground hummed with power. The Den may have been plainer than many of the other areas they had walked through, but it had been charged by the mere presence of dozens of gods cycling in and out. There was something tangy in the air, almost like oranges. He wondered if that was what magic tasted like.

“See that guy in the water?” Leo squinted to follow Finn’s line of sight to the lake, where a man stood waist-deep and traded splashes with a long-haired young woman. Excess water sloughed off his dark skin when he returned Finn’s wave. “That’s Talker. He’s a major river god and his girlfriend Noelle’s a rain goddess, so they expanded a stream into the lake.”

“How long did that take?”

“For them? Ten minutes, give or take.”

Talker flicked the water Noelle’s direction and a wave washed over her; within seconds of resurfacing, she opened a black cloud over his head, sending a curtain of rain down with a burst of laughter. A thin blue shimmer connected the tips of their hands with the arcs of a leaping dolphin.

A young woman sitting on the shore with a book gave a lazy swish of her hand—thunder shook the surface of the lake, and Finn nodded to her. “That’s Aubrey. Sydney’s probably on call right now, but she brings the lightning. Oh, hey, Bliz is here!”

He let Finn usher him further down the hill, doing his best not to slip, and went willingly under fluttering hands that gestured toward the motley crew of immortals. Focusing on their ethereal glow and range of clothing diverted Leo’s attention from the warmth of Finn’s hand between his shoulder blades; he stubbornly ignored the thrill in his stomach when the smell of fresh rain and old books washed over him each time Finn grew close.

“We call him Bliz, but his real name is Kasey,” Finn explained, pointing to a blond man with broad shoulders. “He’s a winter god. Old as shit, too—I don’t think his original people exist up north anymore, but he was big for them. His partner Natalie is a music goddess, though I’m pretty sure she’s actually one of the nine Muses and is fucking with me. My brother Alex is dating them both.”

Leo raised a brow. “Your brother? He came with you?”

“Hmm? Oh, not really. I don’t know if I had mortal siblings.” Finn tilted his head from side to side while he thought, as if he was searching for the right words in the air. “It’s a bit tricky to explain, but a lot of us come from similar cultures or have similar enough realms of power that we stick together, like siblings. Alex is a wind god, I’m a messenger god, so it just…I dunno, it fits. He’s more family to me than the others for sure.”

“That’s wonderful, Finn.”

The dusty blush returned and he ducked his head a little. “Maybe you’ll hit it off with someone. You never know.”

“I’ve got enough time,” Leo joked, earning himself a snort of amusement.

“You can say that again. Uh, the big guy over there is Kuny, and then the one next to him is Nado. They’re usually out and about because their realms are more specialized for a bunch of small things, but it’s always good when they can stop by. Next to them are Lily and James, who came from the same pantheon and control autumn and spring for a few different worlds. They only started dating over the past thousand years, though. Pretty young relationship.”

“What counts as an old relationship?” Even as he asked it, Leo wasn’t sure he wanted to know. A millennium was a mere blip to the gods. It felt kind of terrible to think it would become the blink of an eye for him, too.

“Well, Pascal and Celeste are as old as the earth and sky, but…” Finn hummed and surveyed the Den, then made a happy noise and turned Leo a little to the right. “See those two?”

He found only a handful of dozing gods and shook his head. Then Finn took him by the chin and moved his head for him, stealing the breath clear from Leo’s body. His touch was gentle, yet steady. A soft sigh escaped Leo when the touch fell away; he had to blink a few times before centering his vision on the pair Finn was trying to point out. “Under the tree?”

“Mhmm. That’s Remus reading, and Sirius is—per usual—all up in his personal space.” They looked quite content in Leo’s opinion. Remus, cloaked in plain brown, didn’t seem bothered by Sirius’ dark head occupying his lap in the slightest. Hazy silver-gold surrounded them in a woven heartbeat. “They’re one of the rare couples that started in different pantheons, not that they recall which was which. Neither of them had an easy trip up here.”

Leo frowned. “What do you mean?”

But Finn appeared not to hear him, or at least did a very good job of ignoring the question. “Their realms overlap because they’ve been together so long. It’s kind of interesting, actually, since they started out on opposite ends. Remus was a healing god at first, and Sirius was a death god.”

“And now?”

Beneath the ash tree, Sirius plucked a small lupine from the grass and tucked it between the pages of Remus’ book. “Remus is still a healer, but he also helps those who die gentle deaths along. And Sirius has always had some little realms, children and loyalty and a couple others, but those grew stronger the longer they stayed together. Less doom and gloom, more of the things he enjoys.”

It may have been the most confusing and panic-inducing day of Leo’s life (or rather, his afterlife), but he could have heard the wistfulness in Finn’s voice a mile away. He glanced away from the lovers under the tree and to the right, following the tilt of Finn’s face.

Another god sat alone, a sword at his hip, oiling an armguard. In the sun, his tan skin made him look like a burnished statue come to life. He looked up as if he could sense them watching, and his scowl of focus dissipated like morning mist into a smile the moment he saw Finn.

Oh, Leo thought. The other god set aside the armguard and raked a hand through his hair—he felt Finn’s chest hitch. Oh, shit. Finn may have been the expert in the history of the other gods, but it seemed he had a complex story of his own that was still unfolding.

“Finn, light of foot,” the god called as he sauntered over with a hand on his sword hilt. “Messenger of worlds, swiftest, nosiest, and most irritating of the gods.”

A smile struggled to break through Finn’s solemn expression. “Logan.”

“You brought a friend.”

“Maybe.”

“A rookie.” Logan’s eyes were the brightest green Leo had ever seen; something a little like fear, a little like excitement tumbled through his stomach when they flickered up and down his body before settling on his face. Whatever Logan found there, it made him cock his head to the side. “What do you do?”

“I…died.”

Amid his overwhelming embarrassment, Leo wondered if it was possible to shuffle off an immortal coil in addition to the mortal one. “That’s it?” Logan raised a brow, more bemused than anything. “You don’t seem like a ghost.”

“I’m not.”

“What’s your realm?”

“I have no idea.”

“Lo,” Finn began, and Leo only had a moment to be surprised by the casual nickname before Logan held a hand up and narrowed his eyes.

“How long have you been immortal?”

“Like, two hours.”

Logan poorly stifled a laugh. “What’s your name, rookie?”

“Leo. Knut.” Thank you for finally asking a question I can answer. “Like the lizard.”

“You’ve got plenty of time to figure it out, Leo Knutlikethelizard.”

“It’s—” Leo faltered, then sighed. He didn’t have the energy to argue with a god whose attention had already turned back to Finn. Not today. Not fucking today. “Thanks.”

“You’re playing tour guide?” Logan sounded surprised, though it was hard to understand why. Finn was a messenger god—it only made sense that he would be the one to show newbies around.

Finn half-shrugged. “I had time. Good day?”

The humor drained from Logan’s face, dimming the vivid shine of his eyes and dulling the tan of his skin. He stood a good six inches shorter than Leo, a detail that had gone unnoticed until now amidst his bluntness and broad shoulders. Leo wanted to kick Finn for asking a question that so clearly upset his new friend. “It was a day,” Logan answered. “I would have preferred being a tour guide.”

“You hate being a tour guide.”

“I hate Duvost more.”

Finn frowned deeply at the name. “Why would you—”

“War is war.”

“There are other gods—”

“And they asked for me.”

“I—”

“Finn. Enough. It was a day and it’s done now.”

The corner of Finn’s jaw ticked, like he wanted to keep pressing the subject, but he carefully smoothed it out and straightened. “I’ll bring you dinner later, once Leo’s settled.”

Logan shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, I already ate.”

A look crossed Finn’s face, then, a combination of hurt and frustration and want that made Leo’s fingertips tingle the way lightning felt just before it struck. Apparently, he had not imagined the emotion in Finn’s voice before. Less doom and gloom, Finn had said of Sirius. More of the things he enjoys. A heavy burden alleviated by a friend-turned-lover. Oh, there was history there, no doubt. He could see it in the way Logan leaned toward Finn like a habit and in the pulsing, roiling, viciously red mist between them that neither spared a glance toward. Maybe not the kind of history either of them wanted, but one they were both fighting.

Leo just wished he knew which direction they were fighting it, so he could—

So he could—

Well, shit. He wanted to calm the strange thing between them until it stopped thrashing, wrenched in different directions but refusing to die out in spite of its missing pieces. He wanted to spend days and days with Finn while they wandered across this strange world; he wanted to see Logan smile again without the weight of whatever duty he was called to fulfill.

Leo had expected a lot of things when he died. Falling ass over teakettle into the third spot of an immortal love triangle was not one of them.

It appeared chapter one of the story of his next life had begun.

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macbethz · 7 months

Note

1, 10, and 15 for the choose violence ask game :)

THIS IS A LONG ONE SORRY. I guess I had violence in my heart.

1. The character everyone gets wrong

Ok im aware this is like the most predictable answer for me but its true. CLARA!!! People don't get her at all and it absolutely infuriates me, because she's pretty much the only companion in nuwho who is hated to this extent (ie, people saying mean shit about her on my posts ABOUT HER) Oh does she annoy you by having the exact same traits as the doctor? Do you not like her egotistical and controlling behavior? I wonder why. Perhaps there is a point there.

Sidenote - it annoys me when people will call her a mary sue and simultaneously get mad at her being an asshole and yk, having character flaws, as if those terms aren't mutually exclusive & her hyper-competence that gets read as "mary sue" isn't an intentional choice by the narrative and a result of her being DEEPLY unwell in other aspects of her life.

I feel like a lot of people judge her based on the second half of s7 which, to be fair, is awful and I don't think they knew what they were doing with her yet. But in the context of her whole run she is genuinely one of the most evocative characters to come out of doctor who for me, especially in the way she serves as a kind of commentary and subversion of companions as a whole. I genuinely could talk about clara forever but yeah I do feel like a lot of the hate comes from the fact that people Don't Get Her.

And then among fans who do there's always a risk that they see her as this blank slate twee girl to self-project onto which again, to be fair, is how she was written in season 7. But so many things from supposed fans of her as well that I'll read and be like she would not fucking say that. she does not have the emotional awareness to say that. and/or she is not like a uwu quirky shy girl she would fucking speak her mind about that. She is deranged and I love her. I have to shut up abt clara or this will be the whole post.

10. Worst part of fanon

I honestly cant get TOO annoyed with doctor who fanon because i am a comics fan AND a danny phantom fan and its surprisingly common practice for people in both those fandoms to be a "fan" of something they have not consumed the media for in any form, resulting in this horrible mess of fanon with no connection to what makes the original compelling. + doctor who is such a mess of canon anyway basically everything has been canon at some point even if its shit.

But I think in the end the worst part of DW fanon is, like all fanon, the flattening of really compelling characters to fit trope archetypes. I see this especially with tenrose, where they're just turned into this kind of generic ship that you can plug n play into any situation with little connection to the interesting ways they actually behave in canon.

As a kind of interesting reversal, though, fanon will often expand out dw's most generic characters (ie most chibnal companions. sorry), but only for the purposes of shipping and not in ways I myself find particularly interesting. Like imo Yaz is probably the least developed chibnal companion but pretty much the only one I see expanded on in this way because of the shipping potential.

15. that one thing you see in fanart all the time

im probably gonna get slaughtered for this but i think maybe weve had enough crowley in doctor who outfits or 10 meeting crowley fanart. maybe im bitter because i dont really care about the GO show and I feel like it fills up the dw tag to the brim these days

#THANK YOU for ask and thank you those who read everything #i just got back from rosh hashana services with rage in my hearts apparently #warlock wartalks

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seokahwrites · 3 years

Text

NUISANCE | chapter 2 (or, i hate him so much my heart skipped a beat)

5.6k

back to nuisance masterlist

pairing.

| lawyer! jeon jungkook x lawyer! reader

summary.

| all you wished for was a relaxing two weeks in a big ass boat eating some big ass shrimps, away from the real world. but instead you’re stuck with your arch rival with no means of escape — and goddamit why does the bastard smell so good.

tags.

| 2 BROOKLYN 99 REFERENCES TELL ME IF U CATCH THEM; paragraphs dedicated to jungkooks back muscles; im so sorry like a few parts were really thirsty; but there’s a very sweet paragraph dedicated to jungkook’s smile; reader and jungkook bonding???; jealous reader; smug jungkook; love sounds like hate; a lot of plot convenience if you haven’t noticed

a/n.

| hello everyone! first off THANK U FOR THE MASSIVE SUPPORT ILY. i feel like this could’ve been better but i’m not sure how. but no they’re not moving too fast bc… well 😃😃 also i’m planning on writing more serious pieces after this series even though i’ve barely started :P anyways, i hope u all have an amazing day lots of love

“What kind of neanderthal doesn’t go outside for two days?

Jungkook asks through the open bathroom door as he’s sitting on his couch, your mouth still too foamy and minty to give him a quick-witted answer.

You spit into the sink and glare at him through the mirror, “I was being productive and I cooked horrible food all day,” you splash water on your face and pause at the door frame on your way out, “Unlike some people that spend their hours hunting for their next prey.”

You don’t stick around to watch the way he rolls his eyes, walking over to your bed to grab the orange wrap skirt and white top for today’s outfit. But you couldn’t really put it on since someone was still in the room.

There isn’t an inkling of a thought in Jungkook’s doe eyes, the time it was taking for him to get a hint was more than enough for you to pass your eyes over his black tank top, stinky green shorts and dark sandals. How did he look better than you in a tank top? Fuck him. Wait, no he doesn’t. Still, fuck Jungkook.

Once your eyes are back on him, the fiend has a shit-eating grin on his face as if he’d just caught you red-handed in the middle of a dirty sin — you were just judging him.

You raise your eyebrows in an attempt to maintain your composure, “Well?” And wave the clothes in your hands to help him understand the situation.

No sound comes from the ‘Oh’ of his lips, his small brain finally coming to terms with reality. But just before he heads out the door, “We’re having lunch at the deck,” and he doesn’t wait for an answer, slamming the door behind him.

Who the hell did he think he was?

Now, you didn't have to go along with Jungkook’s plan — hell, it was probably the last thing you wanted. However, does going to the rooftop deck to have a nice lunch and a-little-too-early drinks really sound like a bad idea?

And the answer to that question is what led you to pulling your clothes over your head and reassuring nobody but yourself that, “I’m only going because of the fucking food,” cursing Jungkook here and there too, of course.

Just before heading off, you grab the cruise’s complementary sun hat, a long string of pastel beads for your neck and your favorite pair of sunglasses — not that you were going to use them for more than keeping your hair away from your face anyways.

Breathe in, Y/N.

You’re out the door, “I’m ready.”

Your exposed skin stings as you feel Jungkook’s eyes go from your leg exposed from the slit of your skirt, to your fluttering stomach and slowly — as if he didn’t want to miss a single detail — up, up, up, until his gaze meets yours. And that look is back, the one he’s only ever used whenever he couldn’t hide what he truly felt for you: aversion.

Yet, instead of the slander you were expecting, Jungkook does nothing but shake away whatever was on his mind and lock the door. Beep, And he goes the entire way to the elevator without uttering a single word.

Still, even if the silence was deafening you don't make much of a fuss, only observing Jungkook’s silent figure as he stared ahead and around anywhere he wouldn't have to meet your eyes.

He was a pain in the ass even when he wasn't speaking.

Ding.

You’re the first to exit, part because you were excited to get a breath of fresh ocean air and part because you couldn’t stand whatever the hell was happening in the elevator.

There were half naked people everywhere, kids running around and chasing after each other through the zig zag of chairs and tables. From the wooden floor to the samples of blue and yellow on the umbrellas, cups and slides, the view was the very core of vacation.

Jungkook suddenly stands before your wide eyes and takes you by the wrist, taking the lead as he shoves his way to the stairs that lead to the highly-expected rooftop restaurant, the place safely guarded on the opposite side of all the commotion.

As your sandals flip-flopped against the wooden stairs, you start to see a flood of blue and beige chaise lounges, white coffee tables centered in the space of each one and the alabaster bar surrounded by people in all sorts of summer attire. Maybe Jungkook was onto something.

Speaking of, he grabs your shoulders — ruining the view as always — and pushes you down the first empty couch he finds. “Stay here, I’ll get us some food.”

You don't fight him on it, deciding to just let the sea breeze caress your face, closing your eyes and taking it all in. Things were nice.

That is until you look at the entrance and see Jungkook talking to the same raven-haired girl from yesterday. The sight bothers you and you can’t quite put your finger on as to why, perhaps it was because he could’ve at least had the fucking decency to not hit on people while he was ordering your food. God. Only he could put a stain to an otherwise perfect morning.

And you could’ve looked away, but just as a bee is attracted to pollen or a driver is allured with the sight of a car crash, you simply couldn’t — not that you were attracted or allured to Jungkook in any way, though.

The woman’s cotton cover up flowed with her hand as she playfully hit Jungkook on the arm. You envy her, you’d never touched an implant before. Jungkook crosses his arms at this movement, probably thinking his biceps were going to pop out even more. Your body threatens to convulse in second hand embarrassment.

But the lovebirds are interrupted when the cashier calls out for Jungkook, his order ready and trayed up. You look away and could only hope it was just in time for none of them to notice that you were ogling, but Jungkook’s mystery girl catches your stare and her angelic smile dissipates in front of your eyes. Chills, literal chills.

You feign surprise when Jungkook sits beside you, placing the tray of colorful drinks and drool-worthy pasta on the table with a clang.

“I hope the mimosas are a good enough treat for your highness,” he bows his head.

You can’t repress your squeal nor your smile as the glass meets your lips and you have a real summer drink for the first time in forever, the girl’s glare fading with every sip you take. Jungkook simply watches, amused when you down half of the drink in one go.

You’re content, only with a simple worry in your mind. “What time is it?”

Luckily Jungkook had brought a watch on his wrist, your phones long forgotten on the nightstand, “One something,” he grabbed both plates, handing over yours, “Why? Gotta run away from me again?”

You try to scoop as much chicken, sauce and pasta as you can twirl on your fork, practically salivating once you're munching down the food. “As a matter of fact, I do.”

Jungkook crosses a leg over the other as he eats the chicken from his own plate, “What are you up to today?”

Huh. You asked yourself the same thing. “I actually have no idea,” you admit, “I just saw the words massage and wine and thought ‘I have to go’.”

“Of course,” and he doesn’t sound the least bit surprised — or judgemental, at that. “You did the same exact thing at the last firm getaway.”

Your hand flies to your mouth, “Oh, God. Why would you remind me,” Jungkook is slapping his knee at a miserable attempt of stifling his laughter, “Nothing will ever compare to the misery of being surrounded by a bunch of sobbing tipsy widows.”

His laugh only booms alive and you try to convince yourself that it scratches your ears, but it doesn’t and you find yourself giggling as well. What the hell was in that mimosa?

“God, youre such a fucking idiot.”

“Lower your voice, boozer,” you slap his thigh — hurting you much more than him — and catch a few glares in your direction.

Jungkook drinks his entire glass, “Eh, screw them,” not sparing a second thought to the strangers, “Are you heading to the fifth floor again?”

The alfredo pasta in your plate has been reduced to nothing, “Yeah, why?”

“I’m heading that way too.”

You snort — you know, like a wild boar. “Gonna meet up with yesterday’s catch?”

He has a conceited smile on his face and you fear the next words to come out his mouth, “Maybe,” he places his plate on his lap and leans closer to you, his breath tickling your ear, “Jealous much?”

Scoff.

You push him away, drinking the rest of your orange juice. Scoff (again). You’ve never met someone so egotistical. How dare he?

“Don’t act like being seduced by an incubus like you is such a big deal,” you hope to poison him with your words but he only bites down a sweet smile, “And it’s not like she’s seen anything that I haven’t in the past two nights.”

Goddammit, Y/N. Where the fuck did that come from?

Jungkook drapes an arm over the couch, “Someone’s been enjoying the view.”

You try your best to scowl at the demon, but when your eyes accidentally tarry on Jungkook’s collarbones and arms — why is it always the fucking arms? — for a few moments too long, red paints your cheeks instead and you simply fiddle with your empty glass.

Jungkook’s victory weighs heavy on the lifted corners of his lips as you wait for him to finish the rest of his food — he ate like a five year old.

“This is where I leave you, I guess.”

The walk to the fifth floor was a quick one, you and Jungkook standing in front of the familiar entrance, that same chalkboard from yesterday scribbled with roses this time.

A woman is the one welcoming you at the door today, the same list and my-boss-forced-me-to smile on her face, just like yesterday’s guy.

“Ms. L/N,” she calls out as you and Jungkook come closer, “You must be the last couple to join us today!”

She manages to sneak her way behind you, pushing both of you into the dim room before her words could even reach your eardrums. Did she say couple?

Jungkook attempts to correct her, “I’m just here to drop her off—,” to no avail.

The woman has a menacing smile and look to her eyes that shuts the both of you right up, “The first activity was just about to start,” she rushes to the exit and shuts the door, but not before a friendly, “Have fun!”

Was this cruise actually full of psychos?

You and Jungkook are frozen in place, only noticing the handful of couples sitting on the floor, the petals spread across the room and romantic candles sticking out the walls, a moment too late.

“Welcome! Welcome!” An elderly woman approaches you, her short hair wrapped in a pink bandana, the boho print matching the rest of her clothes and chunky jewelry, “I’m Hattie, your instructor. Why don’t you two sit down so we can start?”

Though you're both in shock, none of you attempt to make an escape, taking quick but hesitant steps to the last empty space in the back. A flustered Jungkook is the first to talk once you’re sat down, “What the fuck, Y/N?”

Hattie seemed to have been saying something when Jungkook whispered a tad too loud, both of you putting on a smile when she looked. “I have no idea what’s happening either,” you grit through your teeth,

Once she looks away, you and Jungkook take a breather.

“I legit didn't see anything about onboard couple’s therapy, I was really tired,” you rub between your brows, “You can go, Jungkook,” your head gestures to the sealed exit, “I can take the embarrassment. Plus, that’s kind of the whole point.

“But that guard lady locked us in here,” his fading hope is visible in the way he buries his head in his hands, seemingly forgetting who he was with when he asks, “Am I really stuck here with Y/N?”

Are you fucking kidding me. You can’t believe you were empathetic with the monster for even a second. “Don’t be over dramatic, it’s only until six.”

His shock takes over his hands and the volume of his voice when he hits his legs, “WE’RE GOING TO BE HERE FOR FOUR HOURS?”

The murmurs and whatever that instructor was saying, are quickly silenced.

“We’re sorry,” you apologise on his behalf as he struggles with reality, “Please, continue.”

She coughs and puts back that old lady smile of hers, clasping her hands together, “As I was saying, we have three tasks ahead of us,” she puts up a finger for each one she lists, “A loving touch, a loving conversation and a loving drink.”

Her voice is drowned out by your dread, your eyes glancing at the couples holding hands and touching, whispering what were surely forbidden secrets into each other’s ears, the candle wax melting and falling in a picturesque way and how the music was crispy to the ears. It was all so… romantic.

And then there were you two idiots that stuck out amidst the crowd, both awkward yet number one is redder than the roses and number two was sweating like a hog. I’ll let you decide which is which.

Hattie’s words are what bring you back to the present, “For us to loosen up, we will begin with the loving touch session,” please say massage, “Each couple should head up to their respective massage rooms.”

At last, the sun is found in the storm.

You follow with an excited sway when Hattie finally comes to bring you to your room. She closes the door behind her with an, “Enjoy!”

A masseur is waiting on the opposite side of the massage bed with welcome arms, “Good afternoon, Mr. and Ms. L/N.”

Jungkook raises his hand, “I’m actually Jeon, she’s the only—.”

“My mistake, Mr. and Ms. Jeon,” Goddamit, Jungkook can’t you say anything helpful for once? “Which one of you will be massaged first?”

You practically leap to grab the robe in his hand before Jungkook could steal the chance, pointing to the jade door, “Is this the changing room?.”

The man nods, a little taken aback from your excitement.

You're out of your clothes and in the backwards robe in the blink of an eye, laid down on the bed in less than a minute, your head now resting on the top of your crossed arms.

“So, Mr. Jeon,” you feel a cold oil drizzle over your back, experienced hands spreading it across your back, “You’ll be placing your hands—,” wait, where did they go, “— right here.”

And just like that Jeon Jungkook’s hands were on your bare back, the concept of a loving touch finally flickering in your mind. His hands were a little more rough and shakier than you would’ve imagined.

Why was that going through your mind?

You should’ve been wishing death on him, yourself and everybody else in the boat, shouldn’t you?

“A loving touch is all about, not only a physical connection but really feeling your partner’s body, go ahead.”

Jungkook, being the pet he was, followed his orders and he did it a little too well, he slowly moved his hands from the knots on your shoulders to the very low of your back and you’d be lying to yourself if you said it felt horrible.

“It’s connecting on a whole new physical level with the other,” Jungkook’s hands travel to the dimples of your spine and linger for a moment too long, but they quickly come back up and focus on the crevices of your neck instead, each movement seemingly aiming for all of your stiff muscles.

Not too bad at all.

The masseur’s philosophical rant about touch and love is completely ignored, your mind hyper focused on every inch of skin Jungkook set his fingers on, his hands sailing further down the sides of your body, the extra attention he pays to your waist not unnoticed.

“Fuck.”

Indeed.

Oh, God. What did you just say?

No, no, no.

Perhaps it was just low enough for nobody to hear it—

“I guess that means you should switch now,” the masseur chuckles with a cringed tone.

It was not.

You prop yourself up and look at Jungkook who you could only hope wasn’t laughing at you, your eyes glassy and pleading for something unclear.

And the bastard was snickering, looking in no direction in particular with a blush to his cheeks and a mocking, lip-biting chuckle on his face.

Once you’re up and standing, it quickly dawns on you that it’s Jungkook's turn. Meaning you had to touch Jungkook and massage Jungkook and touch Jungkook.

The world did hate you.

Jungkook realises he was taking too long and mutters a quick, “Uh,” before pulling his top over his head and you shut your eyes — weren’t you Ms. Jeon, though?

The masseur has to call out your name for you to open them back up again, Jungkook laid on the bed with his head on top of his arms.

“I suppose you know what to do, Miss,” the man smiles.

“Yeah, Y/N,” he exhaled and you can hear his smug, “You know what to do.”

The square footage of Jungkook’s back intimidated you the tiniest bit now that it was splayed out before you, you must admit. Still, you place gentle hands on his back and you’ve confirmed once and for all that those bumps were indeed not from a disease but muscles. Rock hard muscles.

You don’t even remember you had to repay him the favor of embarrassing you — because yes, it was his fault — as you get lost in every dip and fold of his skin, your fingers moving on pure intuition.

The curve of his back, the ridges of his shoulders and the little jolts on the surface of his skin, you could feel all of it.

A hand to your wrist jolts you awake, Jungkook stirring with a glaze to his eyes as you both look up at the masseur, “It’s time for your next activity, Miss.”

Oh, God. What just happened?

You cough and don’t bother to excuse yourself as you leave the room, Jungkook grabbing your forgotten clothes and putting on his robe as he follows behind you.

You try to shake away the burning that creeps it’s way to your fingertips and cheeks as you sit back down on the floor. But it doesn’t work, your sweaty palms joining the party instead. Great. Just great.

Hattie’s voice saves the day, “I hope we’re all relaxed and ready to converse with our partners,” not at all, “If you could all just face each other, cross your legs and hold hands. This intimacy is important when facing important feelings and questions with your partner.”

As if Jungkook slathering oil on you like you were a nice roast chicken wasn't enough, now you had to hold hands with him. Is death still an option?

You’re facing each other, Jungkook’s palms up, “Shall we?”

Uneasiness settles in your stomach, a feeling you’ve never felt with Jungkook before. Sure, you’ve felt judged or uncomfortable but never truly uneasy. Maybe it was just your body reacting to the physical trauma you had to endure.

You nod.

“You know,” Jungkook seems to still be waking up, “You’re not too bad with your hands,” and he laughs.

But it’s a welcome sound that unbundles your nerves in the most peculiar way, your own smile coming back. “You’re not shabby either.”

“I could tell—.”

“I suppose you honeymooners didn’t hear my explanation,” None of you bother to correct her anymore as she places a deck of cards between you, “But all you need to do is pick a card in turn and answer the question. Don’t forget to look into each other’s eyes,” she winks and stands up, making her way to the front of the crowd.

“I guess this is when we start asking each other the questions,” the cringe in your tone is all that rasps your ears as you hold hands… with Jungkook.

“Go ahead,” his head points to the pile of cards in front of you but his eyes only look at Hattie and the way she seemed to ignore every other couple in the room except the both of you.

You breathe in as deep as you can, your hand grabbing the first question, your uncontrollable blush heating up tenfold when you realise this was probably even more intimate than the event-that-shall-not-be-named that occurred in the massage room.

Your mouth stumbles before properly saying, “How long have you been together?”

But Jungkook doesn’t seem as embarrassed as you, the same tint painted on his cheeks but he manages to laugh all the same, your chuckles joining his.

“I’d say about two years?”

Sly bastard. “I’d say two years too.”

He’s the next to grab a card, placing both of your hands on his left one before reaching.

“This is a great one,” he snorts, putting on a serious face when he replaces the card with your hand, “Are there any issues you’d like to bring up?”

You throw your head back just like the exorcist girl, and cackle— were you okay?. “Well, where should I start?”

This was actually kind of fun.

“Okay, but let’s be real for a moment,” he lightly squeezes your hands, “What is your issue with me?”

Or, maybe not.

“Well,” you curse at the old woman for putting you this close, your eyes left with close to no space to avoid Jungkook’s, “There’s just this way you look at me.”

Your gaze is back on the confused boy, the furrow between his brows strong enough to be considered a wifi connection. “What are you talking about?”

“Like—,” you try to come up with some way to explain, “—The first time we met, right? It’s like, you just go silent for a few seconds and literally look through my soul. It makes me feel like I murdered your entire family.”

Jungkook’s eyes grew wide with every word you spouted, the flush on his cheeks practically steaming from his skin.

Did he seriously not know? Oh, well.

“I’m just gonna go ahead and grab the next one,” you say to the top of Jungkook’s head since his face was pointed to his lap.

“Oh, God,” you squeeze Jungkook’s hands with a little more force than necessary, but at least it makes him look up, “You ready?”

Nod.

“What do you love most about your partner?”

Now that was a real couples’ therapy question. Great job, Hattie.

“I think you should answer this one,” you seem to state the obvious, “Since I was the only person to answer the last question.”

Jungkook’s shoulders fall from their perfect posture, “Fine.”

His eyes have that same glint you mentioned before as he scans you up and down. Was that the fifth time today? New record, guys.

“I guess,” he purses his lips with a slight smile, “She always knows how to make a moment memorable. Oh?

Your palms were sweating once again and you wouldn’t have taken note of it if you weren’t holding Jungkook’s goddamn hands at the moment. Why you of all people?

“Coming of a little strong, partner,” the nervousness in your giggly tone ever the obvious thing.

A small smile, “What about you?”

Oh, right. You needed to answer.

It wasn’t like you were an actual couple, “Uh—,” but why is the air between you so thick?

You struggle to find an answer and decide to go with the first thing that pops in your mind,“Well,” Shut up, Y/N, “He always manages to sneak his way in my thoughts.”

Why didn’t you shut up?

However, at this Jungkook smiles, but it isn’t the taut one you’ve seen hundreds of times before, no. Jungkook’s entire face scrunches up and the moons under his eyes seem to have constellations that creased outwards; the way his nose rumpled, his cheeks puffed up and his front teeth steamed the spotlight. Jungkook wasn’t smiling, the boy in front of you was beaming.

And he was beaming at you.

“Next one?” He asks, his face still shining.

You can’t even move at the sight.

Shuffle. “What is your favorite memory with your partner?” He puts it down, “I have like three answers for this one.”

The lightness is back in an instant and you keep that picture of Jungkook on the back of your mind, “You do?”

“Yup,” he pops the P, “First, at the last Christmas party, I go to take a piss at the men’s bathroom, as one does.”

“Please, don’t say it,” you groan and you can’t even hide your face because Hattie would probably slap your hands into Jungkook‘s.

“But, wait,” he feigns shock, “I hear someone gagging in a stall, more specifically a woman. And who else could it have been but the Y/N L/N.”

The almost forgotten memory of you retching your heart out in a smelly toilet and a suited Jungkook carrying you back to Seokjin comes back, and though it’s fuzzy and the mere thought of it is dreadful, Jungkook’s laugh is contagious, even to you now.

“Ah, I never thanked you for that.”

“You don’t need to—.”

“I didn’t finish,” you look at him disillusioned, “And I shouldn’t, because Mother Jin rubbed it in my face the rest of the night about how I was the boss and he was the lousy, underpaid assistant.”

“Classic Jin,” he chuckled. “Okay, second of all, when you threw a coke at my face two seconds after meeting me.”

“Ha, ha. Very funny, Jungkook,” your voice is dry, “But to my defense—.”

“I looked at you weird, totally a justifiable course of action,” he raises his brow, “What about you?”

“What about me?,” Your confusion is cleared up when you’re reminded that you were simply playing a silly card game, “I would have to say… Watching your boss throw a drink at your face after you asked her to make you a partner in the firm.”

Jungkook seems to have buried the memory, “What is it with you people throwing liquids at me?”

You put a thoughtful hand to your chin, “You just have a very drink throwable face.”

He’s quick to snatch your hand back into his and it doesn’t even ring in your mind, “Another one.”

Groan. “Fine, uhm—,” you purse your lips, “Honestly? Maybe, right after that when you were on the sidewalk crying and piss-drunk and you just kind of talked to me.”

Jungkook’s surprised expression has a genuinity to it, “Oh, no. What did I say?”

You shake your head as if to say ‘Nothing’, “You were just going on about how hard you’ve been working and you couldn’t even go out with your friends and you didn’t look at me in the eye even once,” you’re staring into the empty space, “You just said ‘this was a nice dream but I have to wake up now’ and blacked out.”

Your giggle is akin to a little schoolgirl’s and you look backat Jungkook, the night sky in his smile back once again. Hm. Cu—

Hattie claps and the noise bounces you back from your trance. You whip your hands out of Jungkook's hold, afraid they were going to end up drenched from your heart palpitations — Seriously, why was it so hot in the middle of the ocean?

You avoid Jungkook’s searching eyes to the best of your abilities. This could only be a fever.

“We seem to have reached the end of our loving session,” the biggest smile on her face, she can’t wait to get rid of us, “Each couple’s loving drink is awaiting at the exit. The robes are complementary, please do not forget your possessions and stay in love!” Thank God.

You’re on your feet in no time, practically jogging to the exit when Hattie suddenly grabs hold of you, making Jungkook stop in his tracks.

“You two kept on interrupting my class,” she narrowed her eyes but there’s a nicety to her, “But I let it slide, it’s not like I haven’t dealt with worse. Plus, you two have something special that most of the other couples in this room didn’t have.”

A woman scoffs at Hattie’s words when she passes by with her own wife.

Your lack of response is filled with Jungkook’s curious words, “And what is that?”

She leans in a little closer, “Shine,” she whispers this time, “A shine to your eyes and a shine to the way you dance around each other, it’s envying.”

The shine she was referring to was surely the dislike you had for each other. Surely.

You were so sure that you wouldn't stick around for another crazy word of hers and you go back to your almost-running pace to the elevator, not looking back to check if Jungkook had followed behind you.

Why were you so embarassed?

You reach your room in no time and hide yourself beneath the sheets. For a few moments you don’t move, as if you were waiting for something, or someone, to come knocking at the door; and when no one does, your chest weighs a little heavier as if you were disappointed.

“Are you telling me that Jungkook made you moan?” Jin’s voice shrill through the speakerphone, your knees to your chest as you sat at the balcony.

“That’s besides the point, Jin,” you groan, “But, yes.”

He hisses through his teeth, just like the snake he is, “Yeah, there’s no coming back from that.”

“Please,” you’re begging at this point, “Help me.”

“I don’t know what to say Y/N. The symptoms you described don’t sound like the flu, it sounds like raging thirsty hormones.”

Beep, you hear through the glass doors, making you turn, “You’re the worst,” the handle was rotating, “I gotta go, Jin. Love you, bye,” you whisper into the microphone as you grab the phone and make your way into the room for who knows what reason.

And there you were, like a fucking idiot, standing in the middle of the room when Jungkook walks in, scratching the back of his neck when you lock eyes.

“Hey.”

You bite your lip, “Hey.”

The air weighs down with words that wanted to be said and the uncertainty of what they meant, and nobody says anything as you fidget with your skirt Jungkook makes his way to his pile of clothes.

You watch as he digs his way and he seems to be looking for something.

Does he need help—

“Fucking hell, Y/N?”

Excuse me?

You come closer to his little circus act with your hands behind your back, “What?”

Jungkook stands up and you can feel his breath on the tip of your nose, “Where’s my shirt?”

Now, you were truly baffled.

“What shirt?”

He goes to the bathroom and continues his search for said shirt, “My hawaiian shirt,” his voice echoes, “It’s pink, it looks exactly like yours.”

Wow. And he picked on you for that on your very first night together. Wow.

“Why would I steal it?” You start searching through the pile of clothes on the chair, sure to find something.

“I didn’t say you stole it,” Jungkook is striding towards you, “You could’ve just gotten them mixed—.”

His sentence never finds an end when you stand up and turn at the very same moment he comes behind you, your bodies clashing and falling to the floor with a bang. Jungkook is on top of you, the only thing stopping your faces from touching being his upend arm, you don’t even notice your hand was holding onto it until you feel something flex beneath your fingertips.

Could this day get any better?

It takes a few moments for any of you to move, but when you do it’s up and rushing, both of you dusting off your clothes as if there was anything to dust off and staring intently at the ground.

“Uhm—,” Jungkook is the first to break the silence as he grabs something from behind you, “Found it.”

And you both wait for someone to say something else, still no one does and Jungkook puts the shirt back in the pile, walking towards the door.

But just before he could take those final steps, you grab him by the wrist and breathe out. You hated this.

“Look, Jungkook,” he does, “I’m really sorry for running off, I just felt really weird, you know?”

He early waits for you to continue.

“It’s just—,” you let go of him, your fingertips burning from the touch, “—today was a lot. I think we’ve never had real, sober time together that lasted for more than an hour and there was so much touching and talking,” you find yourself rambling, “It was just, really overwhelming because we’re not that close, “So, let’s just go back to insulting each other every two seconds and have a good dinner?”

He seemed to be expecting more, but if he was he doesn’t say a word about it and puts on a happy façade, “Only if you promise to not moan in the middle of our meal.”

Your expression falls flat. “You know what, forget it—.”

“Fine, fine,” he puts his hands up in defeat and unlocks the door, “They’re serving sushi tonight,” he doesn’t wait for you as he heads to the elevator, “So hurry up, dumbass.”

You smile, tucking your hair behind your ears.

Dumbass.

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cherripeach · 3 years

Text

Chapter 8

Little Match Maker

Summary: Your life motto is “I have the power of god and anime on my side, don’t mess with me,” and you stand by that with your life. No human, magician, or random creature could ever stop your firm belief in it.

However, getting transported to this world that seemed to turn your already bad luck worse was not what you wanted to be in your life story, but you made the most of it. Making friends, enemies, and disasters, you were in your prime in this world, and so you decided to help as many people as you could flourish, at least what you believed to be.

Prologue 19-20: *Mario Theme Song* *kid bangs head on desk*

Chapter Summary: Finally, a solid moment of calm.

Warnings: Curse words, jokes about death, jokes about coma

Words: 3.3k

Relationships: developing but future twstxreader

The three of you began your journey back to the mirror. All of you are more damaged and much more of a mess than the cottage.

Grim was satisfied with whatever he ate, so much, in fact that he was situated on your shoulder, rubbing his belly and even burping in your ear.

As tired as you are, you still could not knock Grim off of your shoulder. Petting his head, however, did put more energy back into your energy bar. You could even hear the slightest pur coming from him.

Ace and Deuce both trudged behind you back to the mirror. Ace appeared remarkably more beat up than Deuce, but neither appeared put together.

Once all three of you finally stood before the mirror door, you could breathe a sigh of relief because there was no more spooky forest anymore.

After you got into the school, you allowed Ace and Deuce to lead the group because you had no clue where the Headmaster would be located. You three went up over four flights of stairs and through like ten hallways, and you finally arrived at a set of ginormous, old, brown double doors.

The three of you stopped in front of the door, and Ace held up his hand and knocked.

When nothing was heard or no one came, all three of you walked inside.

Headmaster Crowley was sitting at his desk, slouched over a stack of paper, writing and reading from the paper in front of him. Even when you, Deuce, Ace, and Grim walked in (even though Grim was on your hip), the headmaster did not even look up at you.

It was not until Ace coughed into his hand that the headmaster’s head popped up to stare in awe at your group. He could not even put words together as he was just lost staring at the three of you. His mouth even moved some as if it was trying to find some words to say. If you could see his eyes, you were sure that they would be bulging out of his head by now.

Grim flung his arms up in the air yelling, “Hey, we went into that scary mine and got you the crystal thing. At least, say something!”

The Headmaster flew up out of his seat, “Eh!? You really went to Dwarfs' Mine to find a magic crystal?”

“Eeeh?” The three idiots and you all jumped back.

The headmaster shot a look at all four of you idiots to let him speak and then shook his head, “I really didn't think… You'd not only go but then come back with a crystal in hand. I quietly completed the paperwork for your expulsion.”

“Are you fucking kidding me!?” As nothing was going your way, you may as well mess more up, so you began your lecture, “I have spent all of my afternoon and most of my night babying and taking care of these three imbeciles, so they stop whining about everything. I also had to actually get them to work together to defeat a monster that is against safety standards for a principal to let the students go up against. All without a decent meal, sleep, or a shower. I look like and feel like shit and now have more bruises and scratches on my body than your number of mistakes in the last twenty-four hours.” You quited down some If I could, “And if someone doesn’t try to cooperate and help me, I’ll start sobbing right here.”

The principal was left stunned, but quickly shook it off, “I apologize for your grievances, but what do you mean by ‘monster’. And more importantly what do you mean by ‘work together’?”

‘Did he not hear a word I just said??’ Your mind would not allow you to forget this moment.

Ace popped into the conversation now, “There was a monster there!

It was super gross and crazy strong, it was awful!” He stuck his tongue out in disgust.

The headmaster placed his hands on his desk and leaned forward, “Could you explain it in more detail? And also tell me how you worked together to defeat it?”

Ace, Deuce, and you started on your long, treacherous (As Grim described it) journey and battle to get the magic crystal which was still gripped in your hand.

The handmaster let out a chuckle, “hoh hooh. A mysterious monster living in the coal mine. The four of you worked together to defeat it and bring back a magic crystal?”

Deuce and Ace could beg to differ:

Ace crossed his arms and turned away, “We didn't really work together…”

Deuce could only look at his feet, “It was more like our goals were aligned…”

The Headmaster grabbed the clothes near his heart and slowly out of his mouth came booming sobs and howls.

Grim faced you and inquired, “What's with this guy? Why is an adult bursting into tears!?”

You shook your head, “To be honest, I don’t know nor do I care. I just want to go back home.”

The Headmaster shot back up from his slouched cry to gaze at all four of you, “In all these years that I've been Headmaster… For the day to come that students from Night Raven College go hand-in-hand to face and defeat their enemy!”

Deuce gave a shout of, “What?! I did not hold this guy’s hand!”

And that just would be the only thing that Deuce cared about.

Ace was the same as he scowled at Deuce, “I would never do that, gross! But Headmaster, how old are you!?”

The Headmaster dabbed his eyes on a random tissue he pulled out of thin air, “ I am overwhelmed with emotion. This incident confirms it.” He turned to you and spoke your name, “Without a doubt, you have talent as a beast tamer.”

And with you delusions of no sleep, no water, and almost no food, you heard that completely wrong.

“Headmaster, look I’m not one to judge, but that sounds too kinky to be school appropriate.” You signed and shook your hand that was not holding Grim.

Ace and Deuce made wide eyes at you, but the Headmaster just continued on.

He threw his hands out as if he was worshiping himself, “Students of Night Raven College are budding wizards called here by the Dark Mirror. However, they are of a superior class that makes them prideful and egotistical people that have not even the slightest inkling to work with others. Making many of them selfish and centered.”

Grim’s nose wrinkled, “You're really not saying anything good.”

Crowley (Since I finally realize that he does have a name) pointed a finger at you, “You cannot use magic. But, maybe, precisely because you cannot use magic means that you could give instructions to wizards and get them to cooperate. Perhaps that mediocrity is exactly what this school needs right now.”

Ace repeated Grim’s line with furrowed eyebrows, “He’s not saying anything nice, is he?”

Your smile lifted as you locked eyes with Ace, “It’s not like there is anything nice to say about you.”

Headmaster Crowley ignored your discussion but still had a finger pointed at you, “I have no doubt that your existence is essential to the future of this academy. So says my educator-senses. Trappola, Spade. Along with rescinding your expulsion I shall give you the qualifications to attend Night Raven College as a student!“

You paused from your glare of with Ace, “Wait.. what?” Your eyes widened, but Grim’s grip on your cloak tightened.

The other two boys threw in their own remarks and confusion about the situation.

You had gained eye contact with the man for a solid five seconds just to say, “You have gotta be kiddin’ me?” before he spun around with his hands in the same position to worship himself.

He chuckled and nodded, “Yes. For I am exceedingly gracious. But, there is one condition. You cannot use magic. Becoming a wizard is out of the question. You probably will not be able to complete all your lessons. That is why, Grim. You have proven to me that you possess enough talent to become a wizard. Therefore, I shall allow the two of you to enrol together, as one student.”

Grim skirted out of your arms onto the Headmaster’s desk, “I... I can go to this academy too...? Not as a handyman, but as a student?”

Headmaster Crowley turned back around to emphasize to Grim his next lecture topic, “Yes. Provided that! You don't ever let an incident like yesterday occur again! Do we have an agreement?“

Grim snatched the Headmaster’s hand and lobbed it up and down, “Yes, yes, yes.” All before leaping into your arms with a little speckle of a tear in his eyes, “We-we can.”

You ran your hand through the fur on his head, “Yes, we can.”

He sprung up while still in your hold with his hands held high, “I did it!”

The Headmaster opened a drawer and pulled out a piece of cloth, “Well then, I shall give the symbol of your status as a student of Night Raven College, a magic crystal, to Grim.”

Crowley walked over to the two of you and wrapped the collar around Grim’s neck.

Grim began pulling on it and observing all that he could, “Whoa! A magic crystal!?”

The Headmaster bobs his head, “It is the norm for students to have their magic crystals in the form of a 'magic pen' but, you wouldn't be able to grip it in your paws, right? It's a special custom. Aaah... I pay attention to even the smallest details! Aren't I too gracious?”

Grim rocked back and forth in your arms while waving his hands and hitting your face several times, “I did it!! I'm so cool! I got my own special magic crystal collar~”

The Headmaster shook his head and turned to you, “He isn't listening at all...Do you understand? As you can see, Grim is not accustomed to human society. It's up to you to take the rein and supervise him to prevent from causing any more trouble!”

You breathed in and out, “So now you are going to force onto me more responsibilities? Let’s just make me in charge of the country while we are at it”

Ace grabbed your shoulders and cackled, “Aha! Look at you. School's just started, but you're already a supervisor?”

Deuce verbalized his findings, “I see. There's only the two of you in your dorm… so if you've been entrusted with supervising Grim, that makes you a supervisor.”

Ace’s cackle burst through his lips again, “Pufft... Isn't that unheard of? For there to be a supervisor student who is unable to use magic. Nice. It's cool. A supervisor student who is unable to use magic!”

You squinted your eyes, scrunched up your nose, and frowned your lips, “Because this is exactly what I want to do with my life. Of course, not sleep 24/7 or” You tossed the hand not holding Grim up, “Or how about something even better: a coma.”

Ace let go of you and walked around you to get behind you, only to smack your back, “Good luck, supervisor!”

You glared at Ace and murmured, “I’ll steal all of your favorite snacks. I’d say hurt you, but eating your snacks will hurt you mentally.”

Headmaster Crowley snapped his fingers, “I see, a supervisor. I do have a work request, and having a title makes it very convenient... This is wonderful! Supervisor. I entrust you with this. ...This is nicknamed the ‘ghost camera’.”

This camera or whatever was an old camera thing, but you weren’t listening. Your lack of sleep was catching up to you once your brain realized that the stress of being kicked out was gone. Your eyes began to flutter close every couple of seconds and then snap open once you brain processed what was happening. Problem was that you did not understand anything that came out of anyone’s mouth until Ace elbowed you in the ribs.

You caught the headmaster's end of a speech, “Does my graciousness know no bounds?”

You stumbled over your words, “Uh...yeah. Thanks a lot.”

Crowley sat back down, “It is already late. Let's save the detailed conversation for tomorrow.

Return to your dormitories, everyone.”

Deuce bowed to the man, “Pardon our intrusion.”

All three of you just about sprinted out of that room.

Once in the hallway, a yawn came out of your mouth.

Deuce sighed, “Haaaaaah... Expulsion rescinded... I'm beat.”

Grim was the only one of you four who did not look like they were about to pass out right now with his singing and skipping, “I start as a student of Night Raven College tomorrow! I'm gonna leave you all in the dust and take the top spot!”

Ace snorted, “You talk big for someone who is only half a full student... Anyway, it's fine.”

“We're classmates tomorrow, Supervisor, Grim.” Deuce bowed to you two.

You just bob your head at the two who started a conversation about how they have to see each other every day even if they don’t want to.

Ace rolled his eyes, turned to you, and smiled somewhat, “Alright, see you tomorrow, Supervisor.”

Grim turned to face you, “We better get back to the dorm! Tomorrow, we aren't the handyman! Finally... Finally! Our bright and shiny academy life at Night Raven College begins!”

You could only throw a thumbs up to show you were listening to Grim as you followed him to your dorm.

Once at your dorm, Grim sprinted to bed and passed out before you even made it in the room.

You went into your bathroom to check if you had any running water, and what a sight it was when you realized that you still did not have any running water.

You just had to curse that man out, “Fuck that ignorant man! When I get my hands on him, I’ll strangle the bullshit out of him!”

You huffed out and decided that getting out of this cloak was the best option to at least be more comfortable. Taking off the cloak and placing it on the bathroom counter, all you saw was what a mess you had become: you were breaking out again as acne appeared from stress and lack of care, your eye bags could probably hold weights above what your arms could, your lips were in dire need of chapstick, and your hair was probably able to be a grill with all the grease on it.

You slapped your cheeks and struggled to walk downstairs because there was no way you were going to sleep in these conditions without a shower and without proper air conditioning or food for dinner.

You dumped your poor self on the almost destroyed couch and just tried to close your eyes. You only had your eyes close for a minute when you heard a rustling outside of your dorms.

You sat up and surveyed the area making sure no one was inside as if anything important or worth stealing was inside the house, and after you saw no one inside, you checked the window closest to you. All you could see was a cult like gathering of fire flies and a tall ass figure in view.

And in your haze of delusions you went outside to greet the being.

You stepped out the door and down a couple of stairs to get a clear view of the male, and from what you could assume he was not bad on the eyes. He looked familiar, but your mind was blacking for a minute there; The horns were an odd part, but I mean there were furries here.

The male finally noticed you when you tripped down the last step and almost fell on your face, but you didn’t, so you didn’t embarrass yourself in front of the male who looked like he could kill you which in your eyes is the one thing that makes a man.

The male and you finally locked eyes causing you to awkwardly smile at him while he just put on a confused face that you would see on a dog, and then, your brain connected the dots.

The horned puppy decided to start the conversation, “Child of man, why do you look sick?”

Kinda hurt, not gonna lie, but you have to hide it, “Wow, puppy, and to think I thought you liked me.”

The male’s face fell, “I never meant to offend you. Your appearance is concerning, however, and I do not want you to be facing any trouble here.”

“Nothing you can do, dude.” You shook your head, but you had an idea, “I mean, unless you can either let me borrow your shower or fix my water…” You threw in your sad eyes to make it more appealing.

The male was taken aback, “Your water is not working?”

“Nope.” You popped the ‘p.’

The male gazed at your house, “I hope to be of some use to you with your troubles.”

You snorted at his response and began to walk to the house, “Well, dude, I’ve always wanted a boyfriend…” You raised your eyebrows at him.

The male’s face contorted in confusion, “I do not believe that I could offer any help at finding another for you.”

You shook your head, “You know what, let’s just go fix my water.”

You two finally entered the dorm and headed to the basement where the water tank was.

You pointed at the water tank, “I don’t know what to do. Please work your magic, magic man.”

The horned male pulled out his pen from his pocket and murmured some words only for a bright green light to appear and fly onto the water tank.

After a couple of seconds, you could hear water flowing into and out of the water tank.

You jumped onto the tall male and squeezed his neck to both hold on and show your gratitude, “You are the absolute best person I have ever met. I could just kiss you right now!”

The male stood there in your arms waiting to be let go you guess, but since you have not had a hug in more than a day you were going to take full advantage of this. You squash his neck between your arms and finally, when you heard a cough, you slowly began to let go.

“Really, thanks dude. I don't know what I would do without you.” You smiled up at the male in your appreciation.

The male bowed to you, “It was not a problem, child of man. I do not need your gratitude.”

You slapped his arm, “Oh, shut up! You are amazing and definitely need my thanks.”

The male shook his head, “It is time for me to go back home, child of man. I hope you are blessed with a great night.”

You walked with the male back upstairs and out the door. He waved goodbye and headed to two figures in the distance. One reminded you of sleep beauty as you named him.

You also found this as a great time to embarrass the horned male, “Since you fixed my water, I’ll give you a free pass for whatever you want in the future. And I mean whenever. But thanks so muchhhhhhh!” You yelled at the males with your hands cupped to your mouth.

The taller of the two other boys, the one who you did not know and was not sleeping beauty, was being held back by sleeping beauty for some reason.

You just threw your shoulders up and walked back inside ready to take a shower.

And the shower was the best one you ever had. If only you could get a change of clothes.

#twisted wonderland #twst #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x you #twst x reader #ace trappola #deuce spade #twst grim #malleus draconia #twst crowley #twst crossover

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thisgirlisonfayeeer · 4 years

Text

Unforgettable

Chapter II: Study Night

Pairing: Alex Summers (Lucas Till) x F Reader

Chapter Summary: Months into the semester, You, Alex and another friend made plans to study for an upcoming exam. But before, you watch Alex train in football for the first time.

Author’s note: Aaaaaah!! This is coming out to be a slow-burn fic series as I’ve been planning the story in my head, but I truly hope you’ll like it! Give me your thoughts via comments or ask!

read: Chapter I

You and Alex have become good study partners over the course of the semester. More importantly, you're becoming great friends. You've gotten to know about his life, about how he was adopted and how he loves his foster sister Haley. You’ve even met his family on one of their surprise visits while both of you were studying together. He also told you that he has an older brother named Scott and they got separated when he got adopted. He told you he wanted to contact him for some time, but he’s afraid his adoptive parents would take it the wrong way.

You’ve become so close in such a short time and you’re glad you have him around. Your classmates would sometimes tease you together. It crossed your mind often, but you didn’t want to ruin the friendship that’s blooming between the two of you. So you often just ignored them and Alex did the same. You never talked about it, but it seemed like you had an unspoken understanding that you would never cross the line. You both were content enjoying each other’s company.

Other than Alex, you’ve also become good friends with the only other girl in your class, Marge. As the only two women, you get along so easy because you both knew the struggle of being a woman in a field of study dominated by men. She often joins you and Alex when studying for quizzes and you mostly hang out with her when Alex is in football training.

You have a big exam coming so you, Alex and Marge agreed to study together and pull an all-nighter at the library. But before that, Alex had to train for a big game that’s also coming. So you and Marge went over to the field to watch him train while waiting for him. You’ve never done this before, you would just usually wait for Alex at the library when studying.

After sitting down, you opened your notebook to quiz Marge when you overhear a group of girls sitting nearby talk while watching the boys train.

“Oh my god, that rookie Alex Summers is so cute!” one of them said.

“He’s so dreamy. I can’t wait for the after-party of the game next week. Maybe we get a chance to mingle with him and the rest of the team,” another said.

You shook your head, laughing quietly. You looked at Marge who also gives you a weird look.

“I know our boy’s an athlete but I didn’t expect him to be this popular. We’re freshmen.” you told Marge, whose eyes have gone off to the field.

“I know why, look.” she tapped you lightly by the shoulder and you looked over to the field where Alex did an exceptional throw.

“Oh shit. Wow.” you and Marge stood up from your seats, eyes following the ball Alex threw. After seeing the ball land past the goal line, you looked at each other and then flinched upon hearing the bunch of girls near you scream.

-------------------------------------------------

You were standing outside the locker room with Marge, still dumbfounded by the fact that your friend could possibly become a college star player.

“Oh hello, ladies.” your thoughts get interrupted as a man came out of the locker room. He’s clearly one of the athletes, with toned muscles highlighted by his almost tight polo shirt and slim-fit trousers. He’s got brown hair, grey tantalizing eyes and a handsome smile. You figured he must be one of the senior players of the team.

“Hey?” he waved his hand in front of your face.

“Uhm, what?” You realized you were staring too long.

“Oh, we’re here for Alex.” Marge answered. He must have asked whom you’re waiting for.

“Wow, I didn’t know the kid’s already popular with the ladies. I’m gonna have to up my game then.” his confidence is annoying but you also found it charming.

“I’m sorry, who are you?” you ask him innocently.

“Ouch. You ladies don’t know me?” he placed his hand by his heart in an attempt to look hurt.

“Honestly, we don’t really follow college athletics. We’re here for Alex because we’re going to study for an exam together. He’s our classmate in geophysics studies.” you gave him an apologetic look.

“Y/N! Marge! I didn’t know you were waiting for me.” Alex sprung by the door of the locker room. He stopped a moment to see you’ve been talking to his teammate. “Oh Tom, I didn’t see you there.” He walks over to you.

“Look at you, making the ladies wait for you. You’re already in the game kid.” he, Tom, teased Alex.

“They’re my classmates, Tom. This is Y/N.” Alex placed a hand on your shoulder. “And this is Marge.” he then pointed to Marge. “Marge, Y/N, this is Tom, our team captain.”

“Pleased to meet you ladies.” he offered his hand out to Marge for a handshake then to you. “So you’re not dating any of them?” he turned to Alex.

“Oh, no. We’re good friends.” Alex answered. You didn’t notice, but he glanced at you for a quick moment.

“Oh.. May I ask you to go out with me some time then, Y/N?” Tom then turned to you. You froze for a moment.

Me? A freshman going out with a senior and football team captain?

Alex and Marge’s eyes go wide, looking at you. You looked back at Alex, as if looking for something in his eyes. A protest permission perhaps. Nothing.

“I would love to... Maybe after our exam?” you answered with a hint of hesitation that’s unnoticeable to the people around you.

“It’s a date, then.” Tom said as one of his friends tap him in the shoulder as a signal for them to go. “Good luck on studying.” He tapped Alex twice on his shoulder. “See you next practice, kid. You were great back there.” He then winked at you and went on following his friends.

The three of you grabbed dinner then made your way to the library without a mention of what happened earlier.

------------------------------------------------

After midnight, the three of you were in a combat with sleep inside the library. Your study area reeked of coffee on top of the smell of the books, which you loved. You planned a study pattern that for one hour, you will all read and study the topics covered by the exam, then you will quiz each other for the next thirty minutes followed by a ten-minute break so you won’t overload your brains.

You were in your fifth read when you heard a snore. You put down the book you were reading and see Marge, who was seated in front of you, with her head down, her book serving as her pillow. You chuckled lightly at the sight of her deep in slumber. You then grabbed the small pillow you brought out of your bag and went to replace her pillow book.

“I see Marge has given up to sleep.” Alex, seated to your left, noticed the commotion and put down his book as well.

“I’m surprised that you’re not the first to give in to sleep, considering you were in training earlier.”

“I had a lot of energy drink back in practice, so I’m still good.” he brought his book back up to continue reading.

“I’m not, I’m beat. I think I’m gonna take a nap too,” you cleared the space in front of you on the table. “Wake us up in an hour, or when you feel like sleeping.” you placed your arms over the table, then laid your head on top of it. After a few minutes you shifted in your place, trying to find the most comfortable position to sleep while sitting.

“Okay I can’t watch this any longer. Come here.” Alex, who apparently was watching you struggle to find the right position to sleep, tapped his right shoulder as an invite. “You can lean on my shoulder while you nap.”

“Sorry, I only brought one pillow and Marge looks like she’s gonna break her neck so I decided to give it to her.” You straightened up in your seat before leaning on his shoulder. “You sure this is okay?”

“Yeah.” you noticed him stiffen as your head touched his shoulder but eventually, he relaxed.

You closed your eyes, but the sleepiness went away for some reason. You thought of getting up from your position and going back to reading, but his shoulder was like magnet and you found comfort leaning on him.

“What’s your first impression of Tom?” you decided to just chat with him while your eyes were closed, hoping you get sleepy while talking.

“Huh? Uhm... He’s a nice guy. A little egotistic, but I guess that comes with being team captain. A bit intimidating, but he’s nice.” He answered while turning the page of the book he’s reading. “Why?”

“Well, I’m really surprised he asked me out. I’m a freshman and he’s a graduating student athlete. Plus, he’s also one of the most popular people in school.”

“Why did you say yes then?” you feel him tilt his head slightly. He was looking at you. There was something in his tone that seems off, but you couldn’t recognize it.

“I was caught off-guard. And how could I say no? He’s actually quite charming. But I’m quite nervous about going out with him, you know? I’m not really used to dating, I grew up a nerdy girl who loves rocks.”

“You’re gonna be fine. Just be yourself. You’re an amazing person and he’s going to see that like I did.” you heard him close his book and felt him pat your head. “If he ever gives you a hard time, you come to me, okay?”

“Thank you, Alex. I’m most certainly glad I saved your ass on our first day in class.” you said softly, smiling.

“I am too.” Alex looked at you again, only to see that you finally fell asleep. He noticed some of your hair had fallen in front of your face. He swept and tucked them behind your ears. “More than you know.”

#Unforgettable #Alex Summers #Havok #Lucas Till #Alex Summers x Reader #Havok x Reader #Lucas Till x Reader #alex summers imagine #x-men #x-men imagine #lucas till imagine #uncanny x-men #x-men first class #i'm so sorry this is my first fic series #i'm very rusty in writing #aaaaaa idk what im doing

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wxsuthorn · 3 years

Text

a sort of organised analysis of The Gifted characters:

pt 2: Wave

(this analysis includes episodes 1-13 of season one and 1-7 of season two, so it probably isn’t completely accurate, but i tried my best. also please excuse my shitty grammar and spelling if I noticed it i would’ve fixed it lmao)

Characteristics and qualities in the beginning of season 1

I’m writing this while listening to love score on loop lmao so if smth I write makes no sense I blame it on nanon’s high note. RAK TER DAI REBLAOW. okay so in episode one Wave just seems like that classic draco malfoy mean dude with his whole wIpE mY fReAkInG fOoT bullshit. But wait... what’s this??? an egotistical personality that comes from past trauma??? yep, lmao. But we’ll talk more about that in the next section.

Throughout the show, Wave displays his ego very clearly, but he also show’s his intelligence. I don’t think i need to explain but in case you need examples: first discovered his potential and revealed it, solved the problem from the academic competition punn was in, almost beat all of the gifted squad when he had the plan to “leak” the gifted program info (he could’ve done it if pang didn’t use his potential, which wave didn’t know the details of, unlike the rest of his classmates), did a research project in eighth grade that was plagiarized to be used as a MASTERS(?) DEGREE THESIS. Bitch is smart as fuck, on contrary to Pang, who also has an inflated ego. (I will discuss how their egos are different in the next part). His intelligence isn’t only academic, but he’s also street smart, and he knows how to provoke people (like when he came back at ohm’s joke + when he provokes punn)

Wave doesn’t really show a lot of depth in the beginning, but to sum it up: ego, smart, kinda cocky and wants to be the best, doesn’t seem to trust anyone, very straight forward/has a level of confidence, cool/mysterious so I don’t really mind him being mean cuz im interested in his back story.

okay lets move one to where wave has a backstory and development.

Characteristics and qualities from episode 9 - 12 of season 1

Wave... was mentally/emotionally groomed when he was in eighth grade and had his work plagiarized. Yeah. On top of that, he’s an orphan with grandparents/guardians who don’t provide him enough emotional support for him to develop properly as an adolescent. These traumatic experiences affected him in so many ways.

In the flashbacks, we see Wave being shy, introverted, and he lacks the confidence he has in the present. His eighth grade self lacks self confidence, since a majority of the adults in his life have told him that he was dumb/he wasn’t good enough. On top of that, he has no emotional support (adults or peers) to seek help from and was probably very lonely for a long time. Well, if Wave is in M4 (aged 15-16) in season 1, and he was in lower secondary school in the flashbacks (probably M3, aged 14-15), which means that his personality changed/developed pretty quickly. What triggered this change you ask? MS. NARA. THE BITCH AND ONLY. FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT WHO I HATE AND WANT TO DROP KICK.

Let’s talk about Ms. Nara, shall we? To say the least, she mentally/emotionally groomed Wave into trusting her, and even having a crush on her. She encouraged him to do work that she would eventually plagiarize for her masters degree thesis. That’s the shit she did. Fucking bitch I hate her. And Wave trusted her really easily because again, he significantly lacked emotional support, so once he received it, he was very welcoming of it. This allowed for ms. bitchass to groom him more easily. She praised his talent, spent a lot of time with him, encouraged him to do more, and brought his ego up. Her effect on Wave stuck with him, since it wasn’t really that long ago, and he could even remember little words/phrases she would say. “You talk big game, huh?” is one of the things she said to Wave, and when Namtaan said the same thing to him, you could see him thinking back to those times with ms. bitchass. lmao almost everyone in this show has trauma. Now, when Wave decided to expose ms. bitchass for buying her bachelors degree and get her fired, that shows basically where he became like the wave from season 1. He wanted to win against her. He couldn’t let her get away with what she did to him. After all, isn’t he extremely talented? Despite him disposing of ms. bitchass, he still took in her words of encouragement and praise. He still believed it all. But after she “betrayed” him, he must’ve felt that perhaps she was lying... so in turn, he had to prove that he indeed was talented by getting back at ms. bitchass.

Ah yes, Wave is indeed a cocky motherfucker. But his ego can be easily tarnished by adults. The reason why I say adults, is because I don’t think he has ever felt threatened by a gifted student, other than Pang. When Punn tried to provoke him by saying he didn’t get head student, Wave didn’t give a shit cuz he knew (thought) he was better. But when Director Supot says “Wasuthorn im disappointed in you” and shit like that, Wave listens to it and gets pissed as hell. A lot of these behaviors come from his trauma with Ms. Nara. If you look at almost any internal conflict he has, it can be traced back to his self-worth and/or trust issues that stemmed from Ms. Nara.

I don’t think I’ll need to explain this much but Wave’s need to win at everything is basically to prove to everyone (but actually just to himself) that he’s better/more talented than everyone else again because of his past trauma and how he had almost no emotional support.

Okay now I’m gonna talk about his relationship with Pang and their trust. This is the part where I’ll get the most wrong cuz episode 9 of tgg just fucking came out and im rushing cuz i wanna watch it. Again, unlike other peers, Pang reaches out to Wave as an equal, and they have an agreed ideal. Fuck the school system, it just makes kids feel bad about themselves and give them trauma. At first, I think Wave trusted Pang because of his idealistic and almost naive outlook on the world; he just seemed good, and like he genuinely wanted to do something to better people. However, in the end his ideals and beliefs to align with Pang’s exactly. No one wanted to give up their potentials for their own reasons, Wave’s being to protect his breakable ego. lmao this is getting messy im so sorry welp lets move on.

Characteristics and qualities from season 2, until episode 7

Wave trusts Pang. He says it to Time. It’s made clear in the beginning. But when Pang decides on things on his own and tries to find Korn on his own, Wave starts to see a pattern. Pang (unknowingly) only comes to Wave when he needs help with something regarding doing the right thing blah blah blah hero complex shit. and like Wave said, once he doesn’t agree with Pang, he just does everything on his own, like his view is the only correct one.

Lets take Korn for example. Or the whole “there’s an imposter among us” drama. Wave was the one with the braincell in the moment. He was the one to conclude that they could be someone within the group who betrayed them. He looked at the situation logically, while Pang was looking at it idealistically. This is what separates them and causes friction between them. Wave can separate and balance his ideals/logic/emotions, while Pang’s ideals/logic/emotion are all smushed together and combined.

Last point: his last fight with pang (episode 7) was a valid one. Wave was hurt af. and i think he started to see Pang as another Ms. Nara. The difference here is that Pang is a kid, and he’s also unstable, so they’re both affected by what he’s doing. It is possible that Punn used Pang’s potential on Wave, but it wouldn’t be out of character if the fight came up naturally.

Summary

Has an inflated, yet breakable ego

does what he can to prove that he’s talented/good enough to protect his ego from shattering

trust issues (stemming from Ms. Nara)

a smart boi

he can balance his ideals/logic/emotions most of the time

Sees Ms. Nara in everyone, compares all of his relationships to the one between him and Ms. Nara

Genuinely cares for people and is afraid to lose the emotional support he has (since he lacked so much of it in his childhood)

A smol bean that must be protected

Cocky

could probably be the villain to a superhero movie if he wanted to

#wave #wasuthorn #tgg #the gifted #the gifted graduation #tgg spoilers #charater analysis #the gifted series #chimon wachirawit #the gifted wave #sorry its messy and a little rushed lmao

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let-me-love-you-loki · 4 years

Text

Waking Up in Vegas-Ch. 38

Chapter 38: Ain’t Always What You See

Seth, Morning, 8:30 AM

I looked back at Roman, wiping the tears angrily from my face. “Why aren’t they coming?” My voice was gruff and raw. I hated it.

“Some personal stuff,” he replied, not even looking at me.

My jaw snapped shut, an ache running through the bone as I ground my teeth together. “Why aren’t they coming, Roman?”

He dropped his phone onto his chest and sighed. “Mera’s in the hospital.”

“WHAT?!”

The word roared out of me. I felt it rip through my throat, and I swear that blood dripped down into my stomach. My heart slammed into my ribs and squeezed through the bone, shredding into ribbons. Getting shot in the stomach would probably have hurt less.

“Where? Why?” I paced the hotel room, searching for my phone, my wallet. “Where?”

Roman swung his legs over the side of the bed. “I don’t know, and I’m not asking. It’s not any of our business.”

“Yes, it—”

“No,” Roman replied firmly, the pure power in his voice enough to stop me dead in my tracks. “It isn’t. You are going to get your egotistical bullshit under control, and you are going to leave them to deal with this themselves.”

“Mera—”

“Is Dean’s wife now. And you’re going to have to deal with it.” He stood up, towering over me. I felt myself buck up, spoiling for a fight. “If you can’t be a grown ass man and keep your shit to yourself, then maybe the Shield is over. Because I’ll be damned if your childishness is going to screw us over as a team.”

Roman shoved me in the shoulder and walked out, slamming the door behind him.

Mera, Late Morning, 11:14 AM

Everything was hazy, like floating in one of those sensory deprivation pools. I didn’t know which way was up or down. The world existed, but reality was murky. The nurse had given me something for the pain. It made my limbs feel heavy. If only it could make it easier to breathe.

“Hey, darlin’,” Dean said from my side. I turned my head to look at him, surprised that I could do it without too much pain. “Feel any better?”

His fingers curled against mine, waiting for whatever sign I could give. My fingers twitched, tapping against his palm. It wasn’t quite the signal we’d devised, but it was enough for him. He smiled.

“Good, good,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss my wrist. “The doctor came in while you were asleep…”

I’d been asleep? When had that happened?

“… and he had some of your test results back. He said things are looking better. Whatever they’re giving you is working.”

“Dean.” My voice came out in a broken rustle, barely audible above the pop and crackle of every breath I took. “Go… home…”

He pressed a kiss to my wrist again. “You can go home soon, sweet wife. As soon as the doctor says it’s okay, I’ll take you home.”

I shook my head, turning it away from him as a cough tore my lungs in two. “No… you… go… home.”

“I’m not leaving you,” my husband responded vehemently. “I’m here as long as you are.”

Dean, Late Morning, 11:19 AM

Mera looked better than she had earlier in the morning. The wings of the rash across her cheeks had paled some. She moved a little easier, as if some of the pain had slipped away. Her face had relaxed a little. Perhaps I was trying to ease my own terror at seeing her in the hospital, but I thought that her breathing came a little easier.

“Rest, Mera,” I said quietly, reaching up to brush the hair off her face. Though the rash had faded, her complexion beneath was pale. There was a sheen of sweat on her skin. I kept my fingers against her wrist, soothing my own fear by counting the pulse beating in her veins. “I’m not going anywhere until you can go home.”

I watched her for a moment as she tried and failed to take a deep breath. The snap-crackle-pop-wheeze of her lungs ensured that all I felt was terror at the next few days. It was true what I’d told her, that the doctor thought she was getting better. But I hadn’t told her that he was concerned about the fluid that still gathered in her lungs. About the way that her blood still had trouble carrying what little oxygen her drowning lungs could take in.

Drowning… it wasn’t the word that the doctor had used, but it was close enough. Mera’s lungs were heavy with fluid that shouldn’t be there. She couldn’t breathe. I waited—dreaded—the moment when I looked at her and saw her fingers and toes turning blue, the purple tint rising around her lips. It was a nightmare that I was desperate to awaken from, but one that had an all-too-real chance of happening.

I felt helpless. There was nothing I could do. I had no choice but to watch her suffer and to wait, hoping and praying to a God that had never once listened to me that—just this once—I could have the thing I wanted. That she would be okay.

My heart had been lodged somewhere near my knees since the first moment she’d struggled to breathe. I knew that it wouldn’t be anywhere near where it was supposed to be until we walked out of this hospital with a clean bill of health for her.

It was quiet for a while as she tried to sleep, to rest. I kept my fingertips against the inside of her wrist, filled with terror that the moment might come where I no longer felt it. The background noise of monitors and her labored breathing was interrupted by a ringtone that I recognized as Mera’s. I leaned as far back in the chair as I could to grab her overnight bag. Her phone was sticking out of the front pocket, screen lighting up with a number I recognized.

I knew it was a bad idea. That beast in my chest roared at my stupidity, it roared its frustration in my helplessness in the face of Mera’s illness. But I answered.

“Hello,” I said, trying not to let my anger and desperation spill over into my voice.

“Where is she?” Seth’s voice was surprisingly frantic on the other end. He sounded like he’d swallowed broken glass.

“What do you want?” I replied, trying to keep my voice down despite the rage spilling through me. What fucking right did he have?

If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he was on the verge of tears. “Where is she, Dean?”

I looked back at Mera, feeling something squeeze my breath out of my body. She looked calm for the time being. Her chest rose and fell, even if her breaths were shallow and crackling. It killed me to walk away from her, but I did. I walked to the bathroom and drew the door almost closed.

“Now isn’t the time for this, Seth,” I hissed. “I don’t have time for your bullshit.”

The other end of the line went quiet for a moment. Then… “Where. Is. She?” The words came out in a snarl. Just the sound of it slammed into me, burning through the rage and igniting it like gasoline.

“You don’t have a single goddamn right to know that,” I snapped. It was a battle to hold myself in check. My fingers curled into a fist and I was desperate to slam my fist into the wall. “You gave up that right a long motherfucking time ago. And I swear to God, if you even think of trying to start shit while she is like this—bring the cops because they’re going to have to drag me off your ass. You do not get the right to stick your nose in our business now.”

“Goddamnit, just tell me where the fuck she is, Dean. I…” His voice cracked again, but this time it sounded like he was actually crying. “I just need to know she’s okay.”

“Why do you care?” I growled, gripping the phone in my hand until I was afraid it would shatter. I swiped my thumb over the end call button.

God help me if he showed up.

I’d kill him.

Tag List

@mox-made-me-do-it @houndsofjxstice @lunatictoosweet @xbutterflius-effectusx @mother-forker @instantboquetdestinysblog @dcnmarvelgamergeek @pinkduality @lilred91 @imagineall-the-fandoms

#waking up in vegas #wuiv #dean ambrose #dean ambrose fanfiction #wwe #wwe fanfiction #multi-chapter #ofc #oc #real-person fanfiction #seth rollins #dean x mera

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dear-yandere · 4 years

Text

lots of ilya (oc) q&a below - part 2

tw. heavy and graphic mentions of noncon and murder (typical ilya stuff), mentions of childhood abuse.

[ part 1 ] [ part 3 ]

question: So, would Illya still like being murdered by his darling if the darling was immortal? Like he can shun the darling, but how would he feel if that darling surprise-attacked him?

answer: betrayed, at least in the first few moments. there’s something particularly romantic, to him at least, about a darling who loves him so dearly they’d go against his wishes and still reward him with the highest form of love he thinks anyone has to offer - death. he’d certainly like being killed by this type of darling, and being the little shit he is, he’d mock them in his last moments; after all, they just killed the only other person that could possibly understand the reality of murderous love.

“is this worth being alone for eternity, darling?”

question 1: How would Ilya feel about a darling that is an assassin for the mafia? Would he view them as more exciting prey since they can fight back? I feel like assassin darling might view his attempts on their life annoying especially if it’s during a hit.

question 2: How would illya feel about an assassin darling? Would he find them interesting because they are capable of fighting back?

answer: ilya would no doubt find this darling intriguing; it’s not everyday he somehow manages to court an assassin, especially one that’s after his head. it’d be a game of cat and mouse, one where he’s likely to lose given that he isn’t a mastermind. he can’t keep his game going for long, not against someone who’s literally trained to kill evil men like him. considering how lax he is about who he courts and kills, ilya no doubt has a bounty over his head among the underworld. one wrong kill and the next thing he knows, the mafioso father of his last lover is hellbent on rearranging his guts. it’s not an easy life, and that makes it all the more fun to toy around with an expert killer while he has the chance.

question: I can't get this outta my head ever since that one ask where ilya would be happy if his darling successfully kill him and I was thinking would he come back as a ghost because yeah he's happy that someone "loves" him but wouldn't he still have this hatred towards the world that makes his soul unable to move on? OR a better one is one of his darlings coming back as a ghost haunting him??? Idk these ideas have been rattling in my head for a while and I'm wondering your perspective on it.

answer: so ilya is actually set in a different world than every other oc i’ve made, so there’s nothing supernatural at play here. but if there was, he’d be annoyed that he’s come back as a ghost after such a wonderful display of love from his darling. what’s done is done and he’d rather just move on.

funny thing is, when i was originally playing around with the concept of ilya, my first thought was a ghost! darling who continually haunts him long after he’s killed them. perhaps they whisper totally unsexy things to him while he’s in the heat of the moment...and of course he can’t do anything about it.

i wonder if they’d drive him mad enough to consult an exorcist or something...

question: what if... ilya’s darling accidentally killed someone though? out of self defense they strike someone down with a bit too much force and end up killing them, what if it’s a coworker that maybe ilya feared his darling might have caught feelings for. would he read it as his darling being in love with the man they killed? would he misread the whole ordeal? what would he do?

answer: as a victim of abuse and assault himself, he understands the important distinction between ‘love’ and defense. in fact, the shattering mentality of a darling who’s just had their first kill would be a welcome change for ilya. will they ask him for help? what will they do -- what sort of fun mental hoops will they jump through? how long will it take them to break? will he even have to intervene, or should he just watch as they slowly fall apart?

even if he feared his darling has caught feelings for someone else, he isn’t all that fussed so long as that darling is smart enough to give him what he wants when he wants it. in the end, they’ll die at the hands of his suffocating love anyways; darling’s wavering affections really make no difference when it comes to their fate.

question: honestly Ilya is such a wonderful character to me because he's the absolute opposite of everything I believe in. Like I think hurting others BC you've been hurt is the most egotistical disgusting thing u can do and hypocrites make my blood boil. I don't even wanna b his partner in crime or his lover but I'd LOVE to just sit down w him and have a nice discussion about our morals lol

answer: this isn’t a question but i’m including it here because i’m lazy but -- i completely agree! even as his creator, i find new paths to explore with him every day; messed up characters like him, especially killers, are so interesting to explore and pick apart their psyche.

a bit off topic, but i think you may find the ted bundy tapes on netflix of particular interest. you get a glimpse into someone that i, more than once, found myself basing ilya off of.

question: How does Ilya decide how long he wants his Darling to stick around before he kills them?

answer: whenever he feels his darling would suffer the most! every darling is different, of course, so it’s really up to his discretion. if his darling is the type to take things slow, he’ll likely kill them the first time they have sex as it’s so fun to betray their trust in such a way; on the other hand, if his darling is more sexually-outgoing, he’ll simply kill them when they least expect it -- perhaps going so far as to assault them without consent, all the while calling them derogatory names and proclaiming they practically begged him for this. his favorite part of murdering his beloveds is catching them off-guard -- it always makes for the best expressions and death screams. if he’s feeling particularly sadistic, he’ll slit their throat right before they cum; there’s always that quick flash of surprise followed by betrayal and finally...realization.

question: out of curiosity, did you make ilya sex-crazed as a side effect of his childhood abuse? kids who were abused tend to act impulsively (ex: drugs, unsafe sex), among many other things. if not, that’s a wild coincidence, but if so, thank you for being attention to the effects of childhood abuse on a person.

answer: that’s exactly it! i was going to explicitly mention this in his character post, but i didn’t want to offend anyone and risk anons telling me that “not all victims react like that”...even though i have firsthand experience with this topic (not childhood abuse, but i don’t intend to go more in-depth).

anyways, i really wanted to create a character who shows the extreme end of the coping spectrum; rather than becoming quiet and reserved and fearful, there’s still that underlying fear but it manifests as ‘outgoing’ / impulsive behavior, though ilya’s case is obviously particularly extreme. in a way, he became the monster he hated in order to get the ‘sweetest’ form of revenge -- that’s why he knows how much of a hypocrite he is. he knows that better than anyone, but this is the only way he’s found that’s helped him ‘cope’ while also ‘getting back’ at those he hates -- the adults who did nothing to help him and in, some cases, led to his messed up outlook on life. this sentiment eventually extended to a misanthropic hatred of every adult he comes across; having spent his entire life faking himself and being the perfect charming good-boy his parents wanted, wooing anyone he sets his mind to is now fairly easy.

now i’m no expert on serial killers, especially ones with traumatic sexual experiences, but i’ve had yet to see a yandere oc who can relate to assault survivors while also managing to be so hypocritical and abnormal to this extent. in a way, ilya is very very close to my heart and i enjoy the feedback he’s gotten! i think the obsessive love that comes with yanderes ties in nicely with his contradictory character; his love is suffocating, just like the “love” of his teacher and the lack of love from his parents. his story is one of tragedy -- the famous modern-day (still debating if i should set this in the 1800s) Jack the Ripper, an enigma who keeps everyone at a distance because he himself is too terrified to admit the monster he’s become. he’s a character meant to be so outrageous and morally-corrupt and yet so frighteningly human.

enough of my rambling though, i’m glad you caught this and gave me a chance to further explain my thoughts on him! thank you dearly :]

#oc questions #*ocs #ilya #tw noncon #tw murder #tw abuse

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happymetalgirl · 4 years

Text

September 2020

As quickly as I caught up, I fell behind, and I’ll explain it all later, but that’s why some of the review blurbs here are really short while others are much longer. I still tried to make the shorter ones as expressive and dense as possible, even though I personally don’t like that approach so much. Anyway, September 2020, still a hellhole.

Faidra - Six Voices Inside

Drawing very obvious influence from Burzum’s Filosofem for the ambient portion of its sound, Faidra’s atmospheric black metal debut manages to marry both the snow-hazy ambience of Norway’s second wave with today’s more full-bodied naturalistic ambient black metal in a ceremony rather respectably elegant for a debut.

7/10

Heathen - Empire of the Blind

One of the more anticipated thrash metal releases of the year, Heathen’s more intensely melodically focused and unbalanced approach only drags their lethargic Testament-sequel brand of melodic thrash down, as Empire of the Blind trades out the genre’s hallmark spitfire aggression for dull guitar leads and uninspired operatic vocal lines that leave only a desire for the former.

5/10

Oceans of Slumber - Oceans of Slumber

A demonstrably competent, but woefully soulless and bloated display of neo-classical prog metal chops, Oceans of Slumber’s self-titled fifth LP is one of many of the genre’s avatars for much of its impressive face-value and numb delivery.

5/10

Corey Taylor - CMFT

We all knew this day would come, the charismatic Slipknot and Stone Sour frontman has finally released a solo album. And you could tell from the rollout with the star-cameo-studded music video for the lead single, “CMFT Must Be Stopped”, that Corey was going to lean in on it. But honestly, for as much natural swagger Corey Taylor can wield and showcases on the track, his straightforward rock songwriting that has graced Stone Sour’s discography is astoundingly weak, and this song’s more exuberant egotistical indulgence amplifies it rather than remedying it. It’s definitely one of the worst singles I’ve heard all year, especially for a project so highly anticipated as this, and there’s really no excuse for it to be this bad. If the general goal of a solo project is to transcribe your creative DNA onto an album as authentically as possible, and if this is an honest portrait of Corey’s creative core, it really just affirms for the many people annoyed by his media omnipresence that his main talent is just being the great big mouth. It should be obvious, but I’m not saying this to disparage in any way his massive contributions to the legendary legacy of Slipknot or even the genuinely important role he’s taken up as metal’s de facto representative press secretary. It’s not unheard of, and probably more normal than the opposite, for group-embedded artists to struggle to get a strong solo venture going. Thankfully, the lead single is the lowest point this album stoops to, but with its generic 80’s hard rock and glam anthems, it frequently gets pretty damn close. And look, I can tell it’s an album that’s supposed to be more about having a good time than any of that other artist DNA shit I brought up earlier, but its only routes there are through cheap imitation of other artists’ styles, and this still wouldn’t be anywhere near my first well of songs to draw from if I were making the most drunken of tailgater playlists.

4/10

Skeletal Remains - The Entombment of Chaos

Relatively new on the wider death metal scene, the Californian four-piece show once again, on their fourth album, why there remains such an appetite for old-school death metal with effective beating sessions and shredding clinics like The Entombment of Chaos.

7/10

Messiah - Fracmont

Originally part of the movement of early intensifying that inched fast, heavy, growly metal closer and closer to, and eventually over, the line that would separate thrash from what would become the vast world of death metal before their lengthy disbandment, Switzerland’s Messiah are fortunate to return to a world still hungry for new and old flavors of death metal with the stylistically and compositionally vintage (if not rusty) but somewhat technologically updated death-thrash of Fracmont, but they will need to do more than just pick up where they left off and acclimate their approach to the modern era if they intend to stick it out in today’s harsher death metal ecosystem.

6/10

Stryper - Even the Devil Believes

The Christian glam metal outfit have really leaned into the power metal glory that their high-soaring brand was always kind of adjacent to over the past few albums, and to their benefit, and despite what their goofy striped outfit look back in the day would have led you to predict, the steadfast veteran Christian rockers have aged far better than most of their 80’s hair metal contemporaries. Nevertheless, the walking oxymorons’ cheesy, on-the-nose, and occasionally preachy lyricism remain a pesky turn-off to both the religion they espouse and the medium they evangelize through. Frontman Michael Sweet took a bit of a misdirected offense from another reviewer who pointed out exactly this about his band’s new album, taking some media time to play the insufferable persecuted god-fearing follower of Jesus that so many Christians so delusionally imagine they are as a majority religious group with more political power than any other. Now with Michael Sweet claiming that his band has it so rough because they’re openly Christian, I say it really comes down to how you present it, and he especially presents it kinda goofy. One of the songs I’ve been getting energized by a lot on my workout playlist is “Devil’s Den” by Impending Doom, an also openly Christian band. And apart from the nasty 8-string groove, the song’s central refrain “slaughter the demons that are clawing on my brother’s back, until my brothers fight back” about support through spiritual struggle against one’s vices is a thrilling lyric that frames that aspect of Christian spirituality in a much more relatable and sympathizable manner. I’m not expecting Stryper to go into gratuitous deathcore brutality to deliver their message, but they can’t be mad about receiving criticism when they haven’t evolved the 9th-grade-reading-level lyricism that was begrudgingly accepted in the 80’s. Sociopolitical stuff and frontman antics aside, Even the Devil Believes is an instrumentally solid, but exceptionally lyrically corny record full of Bible verse quotes and Sunday School rhymes. I’ll highlight the song “Do Unto Others” for beating the odds on this album with its invigorating sing-along power metal melody, but that song is perhaps the sole reason my feelings in this album are more neutral overall instead on negative, while the vast majority of this album is just begging to be instrumental or at least tuned out.

5/10

Mastodon - Medium Rarities

Mastodon really could have just saved the earth-quaking opening single for their next album or released it as a stand-alone single instead of with the other forty minutes of entirely unnecessary of instrumental versions and live cuts among the other worthwhile material to compile for an album like this.

Fallen Torches/10

Ihsahn - Pharos

The now prog-immersed enigmatic Emperor frontman put out a pretty solid EP earlier in the year, but I was still hoping that Ihsahn would come through with a more essential addition to his solo catalog, and even if it’s a small one, his second EP of 2020 is that addition. Pharos is a succinct, five-song display of proggy melodicism much more confident and infectious than the still-respectable Telemark, further bolstering Ihsahn’s prog credibility and proving to anyone skeptical that he was all esoteric experimental bark and no substantive bite that he indeed has the songwriting chops to thrive in the genre.

8/10

Uniform - Shame

The New York duo’s sardonic and noisy industrial metal neither progresses nor regresses on their fourth album, Michael Berdan’s nasty vocal delivery and the backing industrial instrumentation lose steam and effectiveness rather quickly and the numbing experience ends up being over before you know it for the wrong reasons. It has its moments, but they are brief and few in number.

6/10

Cloudkicker - Solitude

Through an eleventh album under the name of his occasionally djenty instrumental prog studio project, Ohio virtuoso Ben Sharp once again flexes his technical and compositional prowess in an entertaining rather than self-congratulatory manner.

7/10

Marilyn Manson - We Are Chaos

This was a bit of a weird one, and it definitely caught me off guard for a few reasons, mostly for how it flows and for my own not hearing the title track previously when it was released as a single. The iconic 90’s boogeyman of the religious right wing in America is on his eleventh album now and (I mentioned it when I reviewed his tenth album, Heaven Upside Down, in 2011) it seems like people are finally accepting that the Antichrist Superstar’s fire-stoking strategy of blasphemous industrial metal last century was something that served its purpose for a time that has now passed. With Manson now on the more mortally introspective side of 50, the more measured rock of the latter portion of his catalog is starting to outsize what so many see as his grotesque golden age, which has seen him dip occasionally into the sounds of his beloved trilogy, but mostly dabbling in glam and indie rock sounds to find a late-career footing to sustain him. And on this album’s collaboration with country outlaw Shooter Jennings, I think the aging provocateur has found a direction that could be promising. Now I say it that way because I don’t think they gave us more than a tantalizing taste of it on this album, but I would love for Manson to further pursue what he and Jennings pull off together at the beginning of We Are Chaos. It took me a little while to warm up to the hammed up spoken word intro and industrial rock body of the opening track, “Red, Black, and Blue”, but I do think it does kick the album off well, albeit deceptively. It’s easy to forget how well Manson can hold himself on a ballad, not just on his meditation on his own aging during “Running to the Edge of the World”, but also on several cuts in his famed trilogy like “Lamb of God”, “Man That You Fear”, and “Coma White”. But after the somewhat tame fire of the intro track, Manson jumps straight into three songs of completely unexpected indie rock balladry that capture his mission to soundtrack every listener’s individual apocalypse at this time. Going through a lot of changes in life myself, I had a bit of unexpected catharsis with these songs that I think I’m going to be unable to dissociate them from with future listening. Unfortunately, Manson doesn’t re-engage ballade mode until “Broken Needle” closes the album, with the middle portion of the album having some good moments of industrial rock swagger, like “Perfume” and “Infinite Darkness”, but also some songs like “Half-Way & One Step Forward” that are just too dry on energy to be worth the time. But overall, I think the brightness in this album’s best spots make it well worth more than just a cursory listen, and I just hope that this album is a turning point for Manson and a step toward finding his groove without the flagrant heresy that built his youth.

7/10

Derek Sherinian - The Phoenix

Meandering through a generic prog rock instrumental wasteland and picking up the occasional morsel from between the dried out cracks of desert floor, The Phoenix is barely even a hearty display of the prog metal skill and street cred we all know the talented keyboardist to have.

5/10

Napalm Death - Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism

British grindcore legends Napalm Death need no introduction at this point, and with plenty of excitement behind their most lengthily-awaited LP after 2015’s well-respected Apex Predator - Easy Meat (and the sizzling appetizer the Logic Ravaged by Brute Force EP gave us), the band’s fifteenth full-length onslaught of deadly grindcore, Throes of Joy in the Jaws of Defeatism is a satisfactory dose of the band’s usual black-pilled rage against political and societal ills at most, with a few odd, to say the least, stylistic choices to say the least that beg the question of why this took so long.

6/10

Finntroll - Vredesvävd

While its adherence to the band’s boundaries within the niche genre they occupy makes it unlikely to take its established Finnish masterminds to any new heights, Vredesvävd is a professional, yet still fun serving of Finntroll’s black-metal-flavored folk metal brimming with energy and optimism.

6/10

Proscription - Conduit

Another Finnish outfit making their mark on 2020, Proscription still have some important ground to cover in ironing out and more specifically differentiating their blackened death metal sound, but Conduit is hardly a timid debut, providing a solid foundation for the four-piece to build upon.

6/10

Carnation - Where Death Lies

Not the faintest hint of a dreaded sophomore slump can be heard on the Belgians’ unflinching, merciless follow-up to their sizzlingly nasty 2018 debut album, Chapel of Abhorrence. Where Death Lies is as unyielding of a continuation as it gets, and in the best way such a straightforward trajectory can be. Nothing but skin-shredding, means-tested death metal in its most fibrant Floridian Form from front to back, Carnation showcase their skills from groove to solo in another stellar all-around display of force that provides a perhaps necessary reminder to the fans and critics annoyed by its ubiquitousness of the raw power that can come from unadulterated death metal.

8/10

Fit for a King - The Path

Fit for a King deliver perhaps the most convincing pathos yet for their more brightly melodic brand of Architects-like metalcore on their sixth album, putting on an exquisite balancing act that could sway even the most stubbornly cross-armed observer who likes the breakdowns but hates the clean singing.

7/10

Kataklysm - Unconquered

Kataklysm’s 2018 album, Meditations has ironically stuck out to me in retrospect because it was the shortest full-length review I had ever done, simply because there was so little to say about the unmemorable melodeath on that record. The band have definitely bounced back with some potent fire in their belly on the metalcore-infused Unconquered. Boasting more infectious grooves and more crushing breakdowns with a notably greater sense of urgency behind them, it’s still a pretty unambiguous and unambitious record, but it makes a far more convincing case for itself.

7/10

The Ocean Collective - Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic / Cenozoic

After a largely forgettable preceding act from all the way back in 2018, The Ocean Collective Return much more revitalized and sufficiently warmed up for a much more engaging 51 minutes of progressive metal that checks both classical and modern boxes.

7/10

Fires in the Distance - Echoes from Deep November

The debut album from the Connecticut four-piece offers a rather compositionallly directionless and standard take on the death-doom it offers. Even while taking a melodic approach very similar to that of a Khemmis or a Spirit Adrift, the attempted soulful guitar leads come off as aimlessly noodly and unplanned as the structures enclosing them, whose dynamic shifts feel more like repeated defibrillation attempts for unlively songs.

5/10

Darkcluster - Spirit of the Void

The debut album from this Canadian one-man-band studio project makes its intent to fill the sci-fi extreme thrash void that Vektor might not get to return to in the wake of the revealing David DiSanto’s domestic violence toward his girlfriend, and while Darkcluster’s mastermind clearly has the technicality down, the atrocious vocals across the rather lengthy and largely compositionally aimless project greatly hold this album back.

4/10

Swine of Dissent - An Uprising

A safer and more measured, but more successful black-metal-flavored thrash debut record, Swine of Dissent still have some work to do on the compositional floor as well, but with not as many glaring flaws, they have enough to start with and move forward with this type of thrash metal.

5/10

Gazpacho - Fireworker

The artsy Norwegian outfit returns to the more sprawling prog rock that hooked me into their music on Night for their eleventh album, but Fireworker is far from the kind tepid, nostalgic return to normal that a late-stage revisiting of older styles often suggests of other acts. Elevating their already lofty sound and massive scope to new cinematic, choral, orchestral heights with astounding ease, the soulfulness contained within the band’s clinical execution of such a daunting series of tasks makes Fireworker their most accomplished and enrapturing work yet.

9/10

Sumac - May You Be Held

While far from fatal, after the enthrallingly eccentric and humblingly heavy sludge experimentation of 2018’s Love in Shadow, the slightly tempered creativity and muddied production of May You Be Held is a mildly disappointing fourth LP simply for how high its creators have set their own bar. Nevertheless, Sumac continue to impress with a noisy, explosive, yet hypnotic approach to post-metal that thrives in the band’s love to draw outside the lines and with a deluxe box of crayons.

8/10

Obsidian Kingdom - Meat Machine

Priding themselves on their eccentricity, Obsidian Kingdom come through with one of the most stylistically diverse, genuinely experimental, and entirely entertaining sludge albums of the year, if not recent memory. Taking the thunderous sludge of Mastodon and going at it with the mindset of a band like Sumac, the quirky Catalans pack operatic vocals and even Slipknot-sequel passages into the intricate compactor that is Meat Machine, and it’s a feat they can certainly take pride in.

8/10

Deftones - Ohms

Coming from a big fan of both Gore and Koi No Yokan, Deftones’ plunge deeper into the elegant shoegaze of this later stage of their career on Ohms was bungled far too much by a lapse in the critical compositional organization that has allowed their ventures into spacey alternative metal territory to succeed.

5/10

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tksfandomhellhole · 4 years

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totally didn't just give up on the tumblr app and boot up my laptop just to post this

Fandom: Apex Legends (Video Games) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Mirage | Elliott Witt Summary:

Mirage is his own biggest fan, because he knows no one else will be.

Mostly an introspective/character piece I did a few weeks back for Mirage and lowkey a plea for buff (which is finally happening!!) Caustic is technically there as well.

Mirage would be elated if you told him that you'd find his picture if you looked up "Self-absorbed" in the dictionary. The idea of negative press doesn't exist to him.

Or at least that's what he tries to make it seem like.

So it would come as a surprise to most that perhaps the most egotistical and self-absorbed of the Legends does not check the ratings or read the comments on any forums about the games.

In fact, aside from hanging fanart on the walls, he keeps any fan letters in a box under his bed only for days where he's at his worst.

(He tends to have a lot of those)

Because the reality is, Mirage is his own biggest fan.

If he wasn't, who else would be? He's certain it's no one.

Growing up the youngest of four boys, it was easy for Elliott to internalize a lot of things that his brothers didn't really mean.

One of those things was that being the youngest made him the weakest.

When his brothers went off to fight in the Frontier War they told him he had the very important job of staying here and watching over their mom. He knew it was just a way to make him feel better about not being able to fight the good fight. That once again he was being excluded because he was the youngest.

It didn't really make him feel that much better when the war was still going on and he was sitting at home feeling useless.

And it definitely didn't make him feel any better when they were reported MIA once the war ended. That now he'd never get the chance to prove himself. That he had stayed at home, useless, while his brothers had fought and lost their lives.

Elliott hates being useless.

Unfortunate that his curse of uselessness seems to have followed him into the games, the one place where he thought he could finally prove himself.

Most of his teammates wouldn't guess it, but Mirage actually brings his 110% to every game.

Problem is, his 110% is not even 70% of some of his more skilled teammates.

And when everyone besides you brings something valuable to the table, you have to hide your inadequacies behind self-deprecation and humor.

Today he's the jump master and the pressure to not make a shit landing might already be getting to him a little. "Just a thought, we could land here." He throws out, trying to gauge his teammates' reactions to the spot. Annnnd dead silence. Great. He takes their silence as confirmation and launches anyways.

"Follow the leader! Or don't- do whatever, as long as we win."

Of course, suddenly his teammates find some other spot far more interesting than the one he pinged, and take that as invitation to silently break off.

He lands on his own and loots as quickly as possible. By some stroke of luck, it's not an active spot, and he gets the drop on an enemy Lifeline.

"Nobody had your back, huh? Hate when that happens." He tells her, irony not lost on him.

He loots her stuff as quickly as possible and drops out, hoping to avoid any smoke from her teammates.

"I'm down!" He hears Wraith say over the comm lines. He takes a look at his map and finds she's none too close to him.

But what is Mirage, if not at least a good teammate, even at the cost of biting off way more than he can chew?

"Uhhh, okay, don't panic, I'm coming to save you." he says with what feels like is becoming his trademark uncertainty.

He makes it all of thirty yards before the squad from earlier runs up on him, and two of them against two of him doesn't work out in his favor. "Bad news, I'm down!" He says over the comm line, using the few extra seconds his knockdown cloak buys him to inch his way into a corner out of sight. Another squad joins the fray, and the first squad ignores him in favor of not dying. He watches the firefight go down suddenly regretting his choice of words earlier. He'd much rather his team all be in one place right now.

To his relief, he can see on the map that Caustic seems to have made his way towards Wraith's now banner and recovers it.

He's not too optimistic about his own outlook though. Caustic is not the fastest legend and there's still a sizeable distance between them.

There's also the fact that Caustic has no real reason to come recover him anyways.

Mirage isn't the worst shooter in the game, but he's no Bangalore. And he's no Pathfinder, no Crypto, no Gibraltar- hell even Revenant at least deploys a death totem that he doesn't care who uses.

No he doesn't do any of the things that everyone else does. He's just another- or well several- pretty faces for people to shoot at.

And he tries, he really does. He keeps an eye on everyone's shields and weapons, keeps an eye out for useful equipment, revives and respawns teammates as soon as possible, but deep down he knows it isn't good enough. There's no advantage to teaming with him. And if there's no advantage, it means anyone stuck with him is at a disadvantage.

When he first joined the Apex Games, the last thing he was worried about was the other people. He was used to looking out for himself- he had already learned the hard way that he was the only person who'd care about what happened to him outside of his mother. So he outfitted himself with his holo-tech and did his best to make a name for himself in the games. He didn't realize at the time how integral teamwork would become, and how lacking that in turn made him.

No matter which way you flip it, all he is good for is eating bullets.

He wants to improve his holograms in some way, but he's no Wattson, and he didn't inherit any of his mother's genius. So instead he tinkers with an old holo-suit every weekend trying to figure out a way to make the modifications he wants a reality. Instead he jokes about how bad he is at this while putting in extra hours at the range whenever possible. Instead he enters combat with the confidence of a seasoned pro and none of the skill to back it up.

Self-absorbed, self-serving, and insufficient. Well aren't I just the greatest person to have on the team? Mirage thinks loathingly.

Maybe it's more fitting if he dies here alone, nothing but fakes to back him- the biggest fake of them all- up. Maybe he was wrong to think he could really be a Legend, much less a champion.

As his eyes begin to cloud over, he's ready for death's cold embrace yet again.

Instead, someone's shoes are in front of him now, and a muffled sigh of discontent is heard as a hand on his shoulder pushes him backwards gently and he's suddenly jabbed.

He really doesn't know when Caustic got here, but he expresses his thanks as Caustic pulls him to his feet.

"Your gratitude is acknowledged, let us move now before the ring comes in." The remnants of the earlier fight are still here in the form of half looted deathboxes, and he has to scour through some of those for some heals and ammo before they move on.

It's looking like the respawn beacon they were heading for won't be in the next ring, unfortunately for Wraith, so they cut their losses and head to the center.

They encounter another two or three squads, and one rambunctious Octane along the way, Mirage continuously finding himself downed in increasingly ludicrous ways.

"I've been observing... I hate to be the first person to break it to you, but I dont think you were really made for these kinds of games, Witt." Caustic confesses, while reviving Mirage for the 4th time.

He just sighs. "Yeah... yea, I know."

"So then why do you do it? Why the masochistic endeavor of placing yourself in an environment where you are the weakest link?"

"Wow, ok, little harsh there." He says, pride hurting more than the injection site of the syringe. "I just... want someone to remember me. And I guess I thought, 'What better way to be remembered than dying in the most glorious bloodsport of our generation?"

"A foolish sentiment. Life is insignificant; why not accept your fate?"

"Listen, I don't have to explain myself to you." Mirage says, a little defensive, and more than a little annoyed.

"Have it your way. Your incredible knack for narrowly defying death has provided me an insurmountable amount of data. So much to notate..."

"Glad to be of service." Mirage mutters bitterly.

Mirage does feel a little stupid when he compares his reasoning to other people's. It's not noble or some part of a larger plan. He isn't searching for answers. He isn't doing it because he has to. He isn't even being straight about it and just acting out of boredom like Octane or Revenant.

He's just worried that once everyone has forgotten him it'll be like he never existed at all.

His mom has already started forgetting... who will be left when she's gone?

It's the one thing that truly terrifies him.

So he keeps going on, even though he's the weakest link.

He keeps going on even if he's the biggest joke amongst the legends.

He keeps going on, even if everyone else is laughing at him and not with him.

Because as long as they're laughing he knows they see him.

Really, he's more concerned about what's gonna happen once they stop finding him funny.

No respawn beacon will ever be able to save him then.

---

They don't win the game.

He wakes up alone in the med ward, common procedure for the squads upon elimination from the game.

He heads back to his room, not bothering to check the results, congratulate the champions, or talk to any of the other legends.

No one stops him.

He sits on the floor next to his bed and pulls out the box from underneath, taking out a letter at random.

The words start to blur about a paragraph in, and he puts it back once he realizes his tears are just drenching it entirely at this point.

He's ready to go home.

But there's nothing left for him to go back too.

#apex legends #apex legends fanfic #mirage #fanfic #im incapable of creating content that doesnt have angst you have been warned

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tothedarkdarkseas · 4 years

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What do you think is the REAL difference between Stu and Murdoc? Is it upbringing, age, personality, or cocktail of things?

I’ve gotta tell you, of all the kind asks you sent (and what a nice thing that was of you to do, thank you, they were fun to ponder!) this is the one I’m like… jittery to answer because there’s just so much to be said. Put under a cut because it ended up kinda stupid-long.

I mean, what has to be determined first is– are Murdoc and Stu that different? I tend to think they’re not, not as much as they are alike. That’s actually what I like best about them and something I usually play to when I can, how much they both resemble a certain stereotype but with their own twist. Many of their differences are a little superficial, like Stu being a bit more geezery with his football and all, and Murdoc being less uptight with his hobbies (be it involving cheeky GTA or a gimp mask.) I joked the other day that the biggest difference between the two is just that Murdoc does uppers and Stu does downers, and that’s pretty much it. I do think on a “deeper” level, like a more innate behavioral level, they’re a lot more similar than they actually realize.

But with all that being said, of course they’re not identical, and there’s a lot that contributes to where exactly they differ. I think that everything you said is absolutely relevant to that!

Let’s start with age and upbringing. The age difference between Murdoc and Stu is actually fairly stark when you just look at the years, but it never feels quite that bad to me because Murdoc and Stu are both so emotionally stunted and immature. There’s a line in Bojack Horseman than I think is incredibly on-point here, about how “the age you are when you get famous is the age you stop growing.” I think for Stu, it absolutely damned him to become famous at around 20, it locked him mentally into an age where he should’ve been learning everything wouldn’t be given to him, and instead it was just… given to him. In excess. If you follow that reasoning Murdoc’s sort of odd though, in that he never actually achieved fame on any major scale until he was in his 30′s. It seems more like Murdoc’s exaggerated sense of self-importance (probably a response to knowing, very much knowing, that he was not in fact something towering and impressive at all, and there’s like… something absurdist in really choosing to think he is. That’s almost the ultimate form of his Humor As A Shield– what could be a bigger joke than not hating himself?! Ha! It’s funny because it’s sad!) set in way before he actually became famous. It’s more like his maturity is stalled at the time he started trying to be famous. Stu didn’t actually try to pursue music at all before, while Murdoc spent a decade absolutely convinced that it had to work and doggedly not accepting when it wasn’t. It feels like these two approaches enabled (or damaged) them in different ways, but both end up with the result of men who don’t act their age for many years and have hedonistic, stereotypically rockstarish ways of living far beyond that of their bandmates. Stu can barely claim he knows better though and is perhaps more… people are gonna yell at me for being so hard on him haha, but more spoiled and therefore more ignorant because he never actually lived a responsible adult life. (Does that mean Stu hasn’t had difficulty in that life? Absolutely not. The man has at least three counts of massive head trauma and was in a coma for an undetermined period of time, he has a permanent physical impairment that likely impacts his vision, I think he’s earned a few perks.) Murdoc on the other hand is very aware of what it was like to be a failure, to be conventionally unemployable, and to have so little to lose that he’d make incredibly stupid decisions that could’ve ended his free life. His indulgence now is frankly more extreme, but Murdoc has an even greater sense of believing he earned that and he owes nothing (whether that’s completely true or not.)

And that’s just touching on the ends of their “upbringing,” not the actual 18+ years that went into it. It goes without saying that Stu and Murdoc had very different home lives– Rachel and David Pot are suggested to be rather precious with Stu out of some probable guilt for his first head trauma, in complete contrast to Sebastian’s humiliation and neglect– but on top of that, what seems to be glossed over at times is how they grew up in very different regions at very different time periods. I’m far from an authority on this or on anything (as always I really suggest asking @elapsed-spiral if you want better information, don’t let the hiatus thing fool you, Danni’ll still talk about British Shit Innit) but I’m told the British school system Murdoc would’ve endured in the 60s and 70s was unremittingly bleak and damaging to a child’s development. Despite his immaturity and my feelings that their age difference isn’t really so pronounced, Murdoc is older than Stu and unfortunately he experienced a much colder and rougher school environment, and it’s tough to argue that didn’t have an effect. (Though on the flipside, Stu was in school during Section 28, a thing I’m also not an authority on. Go figure a working class and very closeted bisexual man in the 80s might internalize some homophobia! The go-go 80s aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.) It’s not exactly surprising that Murdoc, who grew up on the lowest end of working class, in council housing, in an unglamorous Northern town like Stoke with a neo-fascist brother and a neglectfully-abusive alcoholic father, would come away an emotionally repressed and embittered person. It’s almost a bit bold that Murdoc is as “flamboyant” as he is (even if it comes with a hefty side of toxic masculinity)– he could’ve become hateful in a more stony way, but instead he’s like a giddy-cruel showman out of spite. You can argue that Murdoc’s lack of support system results in him feeling much more unfettered. He has no one to thank for getting him out of that and no one he credits for getting him where is. He very much has the mentality of “I take what I can and do what I want, because the world owes me everything.” And in a way, I can see where that’d come from.

He’s wrong though. Because Stu’s there. And Stu owes Murdoc nothing.

I know I’m really running on here, and I think you probably already have a picture of what I see Stu’s upbringing and childhood as. Rachel Pot is the unsung best character in Gorillaz, Stu was quite coddled by his parents, and Stu admits to being largely unmotivated and rudderless. It’s notable that Stu is in fact also working class but he’s presented like he’s not, I think just as a result of looking a lot better in comparison to Murdoc and us Americans not fully knowing the details of the British class system as compared to ours. (I don’t want to condescend to you anon, you may be British and know all this a lot better than I do. But because I am American, what would be more American than assuming everyone’s American?) I would say Stu’s family places on the higher end of that though (again, council housing for Murdoc, Stu had a garden with what must’ve been a decently big tree for him to fall out of) and isn’t portrayed as struggling in the same way. His job at Norm’s seems more like something he does because he’s not allowed to sit in the house all day, and he likes messing with the keyboards and he likes having spending money because he’s too old for allowance, and girls he’s fooled around with occasionally pop in to his work and bring him a pastry from the Tesco Express she works at and they make out in her car. Stu comes away from Crawley with quite a few “tethers” that disallow him from feeling as “loose” as Murdoc– he has a good relationship with his parents, a handful of mates, probably a handful of girls he wasn’t on bad terms with, at least one who’d end up becoming his girlfriend. So why does he have some of the same “cruel showman” qualities as Murdoc? Why does his entitlement end up looking much the same? That’s all personal interpretation of course, but I’d say it’s because Murdoc drove a car into his face and stole an unspecified amount of time from his life. I’d say because he’s out of his parent’s house for the first time in his life, and he’s going full throttle into being this person now. I’d say that in one night, and many unconscious nights following it, Murdoc smashed that same embittered attitude into the front of Stu’s skull. To be clear, that isn’t writing off Stu’s faults on Murdoc; it isn’t to say Murdoc made him egotistical or promiscuous or immature. But the attitude that you are fucking owed something is really only an attitude they share because Murdoc gave Stu someone to spite where he didn’t have that before.

(I recognize this whole dynamic isn’t for everyone and I do get it, and for what it’s worth I think it’s totally correct to say Murdoc gave Stu all the best things in his life. He just also gave him the worst bits too. The reality is neither would be here without each other, for all the good and bad that implies. It’s true that Stu’s famous because of Murdoc, but it’s also true that Murdoc’s famous because of Stu. What a tangled web!)

I’m sorry, I’m so off the question now, I just love this stuff. So, personality! That’s unquestionably a factor, the answer to the nature vs nurture debate will always be a little bit of both. I think if you tallied up all of Stu and Murdoc’s traits, desires, and behaviors after they’ve been living together a few years, you’d find a longer list in the similarities column than the differences. The environmental influence doesn’t just stop at where you’re raised, I think the environment you live in and the people who inhabit it continue to have an impact on you pretty much throughout life; even if moving to a richer city doesn’t “change” you, it changes the way you look at things, understand things, respond to things. It just inherently does. Still, I recognize that’s my own characterization of them and if you just look at the characters in canon, you’d be hard pressed to say they seem like the same guy. There are things about them that are just innately different, some of it learned through their upbringing and some of it dictated by… the way they’re wired.

Which is a point I’m really hesitant to comment on too much, but– mental health. It probably doesn’t look the same between Stu and Murdoc. There are other blogs who will discuss in more depth their neurodivergent headcanons and I see nothing wrong with that, I don’t really think there is any case that can’t be made, but I’m not especially confident making those cases myself. What I’ll say is that I don’t necessarily read Stu as having any specific learning disorder, because I fear it’s a little… iffy to have so many jokes in canon about him being thick or being slow. I think it really is just that, even prior to the injuries I reckon Stu was “a bit thick.” Head trauma doesn’t help that, though. Lifelong migraines and impaired motor function came about from the brain damage, absolutely, and I do imagine he must’ve suffered some neural response slowing, but his “lower intelligence” I feel a little less comfortable casually ascribing to anything and more to just Stu being Stu. Murdoc is also a case to be careful with, but within phase 3 it seems fair to say Murdoc suffers a psychotic break and is dealing with some delusions. Dangerously, I kind of lean into thinking this isn’t something that “just happened” because of the events of El Mañana and Plastic Beach, and that Murdoc had perhaps needed to be on an anti-psychotic like lithium well before that point. Again, I don’t want to insensitively represent this so I try not to really put such a fine point on things, but… I’m a little inclined to think Murdoc went undiagnosed in his young life and still may be demonstrating some effects of that. So, y’know, make what you will of it, but there’s that.

Sorry I nattered on about this, I do really enjoy examining both characters. Jokes about the drugs and stuff aside, I’ve always felt that the biggest difference between Murdoc and Stu is that Murdoc is adaptable, and Stu is malleable. Where that stems from is probably a combination of all these things. Murdoc knows what he wants and has no loyalties, he’s been without a future, he does what he can to succeed because he’s already done what he can to survive; Stu doesn’t know what he wants and he does have “loyalties,” but he has no sense of purpose, and he’s easily nudged in the direction you need him to go. While he can be stubborn, just like Murdoc, he’s also more sincerely shaped by his experiences even later in life into multiple, sometimes disparate versions of himself– I might even wager that’s why Stu becomes such a contradictory character without any of the contradictions feeling inauthentic. The two of them “being what they need to be” is part of the reason they accomplished as much as they did. But it’s also hard to say that they really “held on” to each other through the years, or if they just melded together in parts.

#Anonymous #sorry i'm late with this but i can't shut up #headcanon posts

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jacemontgomery · 4 years

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look !! it’s jace montgomery !! he’s my favorite a-list actor with 34.3M followers, even though he’s only twenty-one. i heard he can be vexatious and egotistical, but i think he’s ambitious and jocular. when i first saw him, i could’ve sworn he was noah centineo, but i’m sure he’s heard that before.

Hellooooo. My name is Ali, but we’re not gonna talk about me, so.... this is my butthead Jace. He used to be a sweetheart (and still can be rarely), but the spotlight turned him sour. Let’s see… .

Jace’s full name is Jason Oliver Montgomery, but do not call him Jason. He has never gone by that name (save for maybe once as a wittle child???) and will not answer to it. There may be a rare couple exceptions.

Born October 31st! Halloween baby, man. Grew up in Seattle, Washington.

Jace and his parents made the permanent move to LA when Jace made his way into the business as a child actor at age 11, but he still spent plenty of time visiting his grandparents.

His father (Brooks Montgomery) is also in the business and travels a lot, so he’s not around super often, but the relationship is still okay between them.

He was raised mostly by his mother (Lori) with the help of his grandparents (Maeve and Albert), spending a lot of time with his grandfather listening to jazz music.

Jace loves and cherishes jazz, but at this point in his life, he would never tell a soul. Not his aesthetic, ya feel?

His grandpa Al was always, always teaching him to know who he truly is and stick to it, never let the spotlight change him, and always remember his morals. Jace adored his grandfather and took his words as law. He worked hard to remain humble and remember who his grandfather taught him to be as a man, until....

Jace’s attitude went south around the same time his grandfather’s health declined and he eventually passed. Ever since, that sweet little Montgomery boy has rarely been seen. RIP. Welcome, Asshole Jace.

This boy no longer gives a fuck about anybody (okay, there MAY be one or two out there rn, buT HE’LL NEVER SQUEAL). It is Jace against the world now, and he will burn it to the ground... when he’s not charming it up for the cameras and his fans lol.

He does, however, have a tendency for bad publicity. Typically little scandals and hookups and perhaps a bar fight or two ?? who knows??? Like we established, he doesn’t give a fuck.

Jace recently had more than his share of negative publicity, so now his publicist is working on a way to fix it. lolol bless this person

Jace is Spider-Man! Most recent claim to fame! He starred in The Amazing Spider-Man (maybe a year or two ago???), and now production is getting ready to start for the show Edge of Spider-Verse.

Ummm I think that should be good to start with? I’ll try to work on an about page for him. :D Anyway, I’d love to plot, so come at me! I have a couple (not well thought out) ideas, but I’ll def need some help brainstorming.

wanted connection here for ex-girlfriend

brother from another mother?? best buds that are seen together all the time. they party and support each other’s careers and shit talk... and even if they have a spout and don’t talk for a while, they pick up right where they left off

punching bag aka the person jace takes his frustrations out on. like this poor person probably always catches him in a bad mood (okay he’s always in a bad mood these days but sTILL)

the “never working together again” as tagged by the paps bc there are great stories of how terribly things went on set with these two

#≡*✦ — intro #shineintro #aaaaaand here's jace #in a very messy intro

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jamesmarlowe · 4 years

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『ANTON THIEMKE ❙ CIS-MALE』 ⟿ looks like JAMES MARLOWE is here for HIS SENIOR year as a FINE ARTS student. He is 21 years old & known to be CLEVER, INVENTIVE, UNRELIABLE & EGOTISTICAL. They’re living in NOLAND, so if you’re there, watch out for them. ⬳ SLOTH. 25. EST. SHE/HER.

hi hello welcome 2 my twisted mind ☺️ marlowe is a character i’m still fine-tuning bc he’s brand-new, so this is unfortunately.... a bit of a mess.... and mostly made up on the spot.... c’est la vie!!

(a late addition but u can also peep his weheartit collection here 4 some vibes)

his government name is james marlowe but he only goes by marlowe & only introduces himself as marlowe like he’s madonna or sting.... most ppl who know him (apart from like close friends) probably don’t even know what his first name is. maybe he doesn’t have one!

hails from Appalachia, specifically a trailer park in a poor-as-dirt stretch of Virginia where he was born n raised, baby. he’s Appalachian white trash and not afraid to admit it. marlowe’s very casual about his upbringing and his dumpster fire of a family (no less than three relatives are currently incarcerated, one of which is his older brother who’s probably serving a minor sentence for whatever dumb shit Tim Riggins got got for in FNL or like, selling illegal fireworks out of his trunk :/ ). the only thing he’s a little self-conscious about is his twang which he’s mostly suppressed by now, but other than that, he’s got no shame in where he comes from bc lbr no authentic artist ever came from money anyway!

born sandwiched in the middle of five siblings, marlowe’s always been wild and creative and impulsive, a loud-mouthed kid with too much to say for his own good, prone 2 getting in trouble but learning absolutely nothing from it. it was his mission in life to be Different from all the other kids who grew up where he grew up, with the way he talked, dressed, acted, because he knew that he was destined for bigger n better things so it was just a matter of getting other ppl to believe it, & then seeing how far a little talent and a lot of charisma would take him >:)

from age 8 onwards, he told people he was an “artist” and that became his primary identity. when he was 16 he completed an independent sculpture project (called “Skyscraper”) where he constructed a 20-foot tower made out of junk collected from around the trailer park and then glued Barbies n other dolls all clawing over each other to get to the top, smack dab in the middle of Main Street and refused to take it down even when the local fire department showed up 2 threaten him with fines. it did eventually get taken down bc it was ‘structurally unsound’ and someone nearly got concussed by a falling mannequin head, but at least it got some attention from local newspapers and w/ that as the crown jewel in his portfolio, marlowe got into a few different art/liberal arts schools the following year. radcliffe was the only one who offered a partial scholarship and the east coast sounded nice n far from home, so anyways lets go ✈️ college

FAST FORWARD its senior year babey and marlowe’s been making the most of his time here at radcliffe. he’s a fine arts major but specializes in mixed media sculptures (and probably is really shit at most of his other classes, like art theory where u actually have to read textbooks? still life drawing? boring. yawn. won’t do it.) his entire profile as an artist i’m cribbing from Rachel Harrison bc I saw her exhibition at the whitney a little while ago and her sculptures made me go ?????¿¿¿¿¿ which i think is exactly the kind of bizarre nonsense that marlowe is going for with his “art”. feast your eyes on these masterpieces. the joke of it all is that marlowe is the first to admit that his art isn’t like.... good. but his philosophy is that if people respond to it & praise it like it’s art, then by definition, it’s art. and if it gets him places (like it got him onto Cultured Magazine’s “30 Young Artists To Watch This Decade″ list), then yeehaw!

When he’s not busy creating new monstrosities, marlowe takes one fat nap per day (usually at a time when he has class) and is otherwise a very social creature who needs constant attention. he’s got a lot of friends and is always looking to make more, not in a #fake way but just as a person who genuinely likes being around people. he very quickly gets bored if left on his own, so he’s prone to following people around campus like a stray cat regardless of whether or not they tell him to shoo. he dorms at Noland but is almost always found in other houses, often crashing in other people’s rooms (needs to be close to his friends or He’ll Die), and he definitely frequents parties, bc marlowe never passes up an opportunity to drink other people’s booze and get a lil messy and Chaotic. he’s [jim halpert voice] not a slut, but who knows? he’s kinda a slut! he’s also definitely pulled another stunt similar to Skyscraper by taking over the quad for a guerrilla art installation with his sculptures (and without the school’s permission oops) which may be the basis for some connections if ppl know him from that particular exploit!!

in summary..... marlowe can be a bit up his own ass at times, but being around him is generally a Good Time bc he’s easy-going and friendly and always down for anything, always. litcherally zero impulse control so nothing gets in the way of a dumb idea that might potentially make for a good story. perhaps he’s not the most reliable person, so don’t expect a prompt text back if ur in a life or death situation, and he doesn’t care very much about anything, so ur setting urself up for disappointment if you do expect him to care about something (the fact that he’s never been in a long-term relationship... very telling). all he wants to do is just have! fun all the time! he’s trying to scam his way into the American Dream with his dumb art, so that he can live a good life and maybe get rich and famous and eventually party at Art Basel in Miami with Frank Ocean! is that really so much to ask!

appearance: marlowe’s very vain and a lot of thought goes into his appearance even when (especially when) it doesn’t look like he’s done anything but roll straight out of bed. all of his outfits are as outrageous as his sculptures are ugly. think mismatched prints and loud colors, silk shirts gaping open like he got tired after the first three buttons, a pawn’s shop worth of jewelry, weird dangly earrings w/ feathers or tiny charms, tinted yellow or pink sunglasses, sometimes a bandana around his neck, just for extra flavor. his hair always has to look perfectly tousled; u can catch him checking out his reflection in pretty much every mirrored surface. at least half the surface area of his body is covered in tattoos & he’ll suggest getting more during every drunken night out, which... is why he has so many by now!

connections: to be quite honest its 2 am and i feel all of my higher brain functions shutting down so i’m gonna make these very simple n straightforward, but we can always workshop!!!! pls feel free to message me even if none of these strike ur fancy :0)

peers in the arts - friends, acquaintances, rivals, probably some former group project members holding a grudge....

fellow party animals who don’t mind sharing when marlowe inevitably mooches off their alcohol and drugs :)

unlikely friends!!!!! it’d be fun to have a friendship dynamic with someone who’s very different from him!!

a roommate in Noland... possibly one he’s not on good terms w/... even tho marlowe hardly EVER sleeps in his own dorm room, he uses it as a storage locker for all his “found” art materials. i can imagine that living in that mess would try the limits of anyone’s sanity :)

enemies - they can hate his whole Genius Artist shtick and they’d be valid :/

fellow insomniacs! marlowe is very much a night owl (regular naps during the day may be 2 blame but oh well) so he needs a fellow nocturnal to hit up the late-night McDonald’s drive thru with him and then lay on the grass lookin at the stars and contemplating life’s great mysteries while eating chicken mcnuggets

exes - idk if u can even call them tht when his past “relationships” have all had a lifespan of six weeks or less, but hey there’s drama in that too!!

fwb - i don’t think marlowe’s the type 2 be juggling too many fwb/hook-ups at one time simply because That’s A Lot of Work. that being said... he never likes to sleep alone ;)

#radintro #im working on some gif icons but full disclosure.... they gon be sparse and shitty!#so instead we have this pic where it looks like he passed out on a lawn and woke up w/ shit scribbled all over his face #and u know what? on brand #anyways plot w/ me!!!!!!#about

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