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#and jessie for just having the best voice across the board
duskwoodgirl4life · 1 year
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Chapter 11
MC'S POV
The wedding day is here. I am both excited and nervous at the same time I can't wait to marry Jake. I didn't sleep much last night. I spent the night at Jessy's. It felt so strange not sleeping next to Jake I missed his warmth and the comfort of his arms wrapped around me. Jessy Is helping me with my hair and makeup. She can tell that I am missing Jake and is doing her best to calm me down. "Why don't you phone him MC it might help you settle your nerves" I looked up at Jessy and smiled at her idea I grabbed my phone and called Jake. "Hey baby, I just had to phone you so I could hear your voice. I miss you so much." Jake could tell I was worried and nervous. He always finds a way to calm me down. "Hi beautiful, it's so good to hear your voice I miss you to baby soon we will be married and we never had to be apart again plus there is the honeymoon"
I could hear the giggle in Jake's voice which made me smile so much, "before I go I just want to say that I love you so much Jake" I felt a warm feeling spread throughout my body when I heard Jake's next words "I love you to Mrs Dillon" we both hang up the phone and I can't stop smiling soon I will become Mrs Jake Dillon. Jessy helped me get into my dress. It was a light lavender colour with a flower pattern on the side. A few more hours later and I was already to go to the church the car had arrived and was waiting outside.
"This is it Jessy, the moment I have been waiting for ever since Jake entered my life" Jessy handed MC her flowers after she had gotten into the car. "You look amazing MC Jake's going to fall in love with you even more when he sees you" a light blush spread across MCs face at Jessy's words. After a few more minutes of driving they had arrived at the hotel. Jessy helped MC get out of the car handing MC her flowers.
Jake's POV
Today is the big day. I am waiting for MC to arrive. I can't wait to see how beautiful she looks in her dress. I can't wait to do so many firsts as a married couple. I do have a surprise for MC. I have arranged for us to fly first class to Paris for our honeymoon. I have asked the hotel to have a bottle of non alcoholic champagne ready and have the room scattered with rose petals.
The music starts and MC is guided down the aisle by her father, once at the altar MC stood in front of Jake with tears of happiness in her eyes. They both took each other's hands and said their vows and the I do's they were now officially married. They walked back down the aisle hand in hand with smiles on their faces at the reception they were introduced for the first time as Mr and Mrs Dillon.
Everyone had a fantastic time. There was lots of dancing and laughter, Dan had gotten down on one knee and asked Jessy to marry him which she accepted. After the reception was over Jake and MC went up to their hotel room Jake insisted on carrying MC over the threshold. Giggles could be heard from MC as Jake carried her into the room he carefully put her down on the bed. "Come here Mr Dillon I need to inspect the contents of your pants" a smirk spread across Jake's face as he moved closer to his wife. "I'm afraid your dress is going to have to come off Mrs Dillon. A full inspection of your body is needed" they both fell back on the bed kissing each other running their hands all over each other's body.
After their first night together as a married couple they both work up in each other's arms kissing each other good morning. "Good morning baby, how did you sleep?" MC smiled at Jake's words looking into his ocean blue eyes. "with you next to me I slept perfect baby" Jake leaned in and kissed MC on the lips. Jake closed the gap between them, heating things up between them after they finished they both lay panting and catching their breath. After a long shower together they had breakfast together and then went to pack before the car arrived to take them to the airport.
Hand in hand they boarded the plane and got shown to their seats, "Jake this is first class I thought?" Jake kissed MCs hand softly and smiled. "I upgraded our seats, I wanted us to travel in comfort" MC sat down still holding Jake's hand. "I love you Jake, this is amazing I've never been in first class before" Jake pecked MCs cheek taking in her scent. "I love you to MC, only the very best for my wife"
After a few more hours of flying they arrived in Paris, a taxi took them to the hotel they were staying at. The hotel they were staying at was beautiful; there were flowers all around the entrance, inside there were white gold marble posts. It gave the reception area a light, fresh look after they checked in they got shown to their room. MCs eyes widened in amazement at what she was seeing "it's beautiful Jake, you really did all this for us" Jake wrapped his arms around MCs waist. "I wanted us to have a romantic night together, I've arranged room service tonight we eat on the balcony"
MC turner and kissed Jake on the lips after everything that had happened she was truly happy she was in the arms of her forever love. Jake had never been happier having MC by his side ment the world to him; she had convinced him to hold off on the government/FBI revenge until they had come back from their honeymoon.
The End
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novadreii · 3 years
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if the best pop singer in terms of raw ability in the 2010′s was jessie j, then the worst one is unquestionably selena gomez. super beautiful, all long and modely with a cute button face but holy shit, she cannot sing. not to save her own life.
edit: she is so closely followed by tswift it’s not even funny. taylor is marginally saved by the fact that she plays an instrument and writes songs, but i hate her boring image and repetitive themes that center around heartbreak. someone give her some weed and get her to a six flags or something to feel something else for once. her voice, while it used to be thin and off-key live, has improved a lot, but let’s not pretend she can sit in the same pew as adele, amy, bey, and co.
and solidly upper mid tier would be demi lovato. she has a big impressive voice with a scratchy sexiness to it, but struggles with consistency, occasionally control and being on-key. to be fair, she’s also been struggling with addiction so i can’t say i blame her.
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slashingdisneypasta · 3 years
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Slashers Toy Story!AU
Or, *cough* a way for me to write out a buncha funny Incorrect Quotes and smoosh two things I love together.
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Woody: Jason Voorhees
Buzz Lightyear: Michael Myers
Jessie: Ghostface
Prospector/Stinky Pete: Roman Bridger
Bo Peep and Ham: Freddy Krueger
Mr Potato Head: Chucky / Charles Lee Ray
Mrs Potato Head: Tiffany Valentine
Slinky: Carrie White
Rex: Bubba Sawyer
Barbie: Jennifer Check
Ken: Patrick Bateman
Lotso-'O'-Huggin' Bear: Sheriff Hoyt / Charlie Hewitt. Was gonna be Bo, but Hoyt just fits way better. Plus he has Thomas.
Chuckles: Monty
Big Baby: Thomas hewitt
The Chatter Telephone: Luda Mae Hewitt
Also, Sunnydale Daycare: Ambrose. Because why not.
*I'm thing the kids in Toy Story are the fanbase and creators of the Slashers in this AU. Like, Andy and Bonnie are the original creators that make up the canon stuff and created them to be the infamous characters we all know- and Sid is us fan-people that twist and distort the characters for our own pleasure, haha XD *
An abundance of Incorrect Quotes bellow the cut!
Chucky: *With all the features on his face mismatched*
Chucky: Hey Freddy, look! I'm Picasso!
Freddy: ... yeah, I don't get it. *Leaves*
Chucky: *what... * You uncultured swine!! *Shakes his fist at Freddy's retreating back. That was a good fucking joke, goddamn.*
~
Michael: *Writing down on whiteboard:* Excuse me... I think the word you're searching for is
THE SHAPE.
Jason: *Already so done with this edgy boy's bullshit*
Jason: *Moves attention to his own whiteboard, starts writing*
Jason: *Shows board*
NO. The word I'm 'searching for', I cant say, because there are preschool toys present.
*Gestures ferociously to Carrie and Bubba.*
~
Jason: *Ughhhh. Shows board that he frantically wrote on:* Its not a KNIFE! Its a little stick of plastic!!
Freddy: What's wrong with him??
Chucky: Knife envy~
Freddy: Ah been there
~
Jason and Michael: *Watching Dr Loomis give psychology advice*
Jason and Michael: *Slowly tilting their heads sceptically, in unison*
Michael: *Holds up board for Jason to read:* ... I don't think that man has ever been to medical school.
~
Jason: *Trying to get Michael to help him. Writes passive aggressively on board and shoves the thing in Michael's view:* Would you give me a hand!???
Michael: *Fucking slices his own arm off and chucks it at Jason*
Look, he's having a bad day...
~
Freddy: *Sneaks up on Jason and digs his fingers into the giants sides*
Jason: *Whips around and cracks Freddy in the face from shock*
Jason: *Realises its just Freddy as the other groans and holds his nose, and looks a little guilty. Oh, Freddy. Writes on board and shows him:* There's gotta be a less painful way to get my attention.
Freddy: Agh- Fucking- Merry Christmas, hockey puck!
Jason: *Catches sight of something above them, tilts his head. Writes and shows board:* Isn't that mistletoe?
Freddy: *A slow, creepy grin rips across his face* Yep.
~ Toy Stoy 2~
Jason: *Frantically holding up a board:* Michael! I was a yo-yo!
Freddy and Chucky: *Look at each other*
Chucky: 'Was'?
~
*Michael and the others watching a dude try to buy Jason and failing.*
Michael: *Thinking: Mm, now just walk away.*
Man: *Follows after where Jason went.*
Michael: *Thinking: ... the other way.*
~
*After Jason has been stolen- everyone is panicking*
Michael: *Stomping his foot, trying to gather these psychopaths' attentions. Wait a minute! Wait, hold on! When he semi has their attention, he shows a piece of paper with writing on it:* This is not time to be hysterical.
Freddy: Its the perfect time to be hysterical.
Bubba: *Gasp. Should we be hysterical!?*
Carrie: *Tries to calm Bubba down, a hand on his arm and voice gentle* No-
Chucky: Yes.
Michael: *Thinking: ... well, maybe*
~
Freddy: Give this to Jason when you find him
Freddy: *SMACKS MICHAEL UPSIDE THE HEAD*
Michael: ... *Holds up board* Alright. But I don't think it'll mean the same thing coming from me.
~
Freddy: *Up ahead* Hey guys! Why did the toys cross the road!?
Michael: *But rolls his eyes. Not now bacon bits.*
Bubba: *Perks up and waives. Oh! He loves riddles. Why?*
Freddy: To get to the chicken... on the other side!
*They all look out and celebrate, seeing where Jason was being kept hostage... but then realise how dangerous getting across will be as a giant fricken truck careens by and crushes a can the same size as them*
Bubba: ... *Promptly turns around and starts walking back the way they came. Oh well. We tried-*
Michael: *Grabs Bubba back*
~
Jennifer: I can help! I'm Tour Guide Jen!
Jennifer: Please keep your hands, arms and accessories inside the car, and no flash photography! Thanks.
Chucky: -I'm a married man, I'm married man, I'm married man-
Freddy: *Shoves Chucky out of the way* Then make room for the single fellas.
~
Michael: *Ugh. Writes on board:* They're on level 23.
Carrie: How are we gonna get up there?
Bubba: *Gestures to balloons, then up to the sky. Meaning: Maybe if we find some balloons, we could float to the top!*
Chucky: Are you kidding? I say we stack ourselves up, push the intercom, and pretend we're delivering a pizza.
Freddy: How bout a roast? *Grins*
Freddy: *Assesses Chucky and Carrie in turn* With tenderised pig and a slaughtered lamb as sides.
Chucky: Hold the fuck up did you just call me a pig- and a side-
Carrie: What?
Bubba: Oh! Oh! *Pats his chest excitedly. Do him! What about me??*
Freddy: ... Eh, you can be the toy that comes with the meal.
~
*Michael does something to get them all hurt and doesn't to care at all, of course. Just moves on.*
Chucky: Remind me to glue his mask on his head when we get back.
Freddy: *Nods, yep*
~
Chucky:*Embracing Tiffany after having been away saving Jason*
Glen and Glenda: You saved our lives! We're eternally grateful!
Chucky: Oh, fuck...
Tiffany: You saved their lives, Chucky?? Oh, my hero.
Tiffany: *Immediately drops Chucky in favour of picking up the babies* And they're adorable! Lets adopt them!
Chucky: *Thinking: What? No- Absolutely not- Don't say tha-*
Glen and Glenda: Daaaaddy!
Chucky: Fuck.
~Toy Story 3~
Jason: *Holds up a sign as he stands there menacingly with his machete:* You got a date with justice, Charles.
Chucky: Heh, too bad, 'sheriff'. I'm a married man.
Tiffany: *Comes out screaming, wielding goddamn nun chucks*
~
Michael: *Eyes narrow behind mask, slowly holds up sign he prepared earlier:* Bastard son of a hundred maniacs.
Freddy: Hah. That's Mr Bastard son of a hundred maniacs, to you!
~
*The toys/Slashers watch some toys, including Jennifer and her car get thrown in the donation bin*
Ghostface: Oh, man, poor Jen.
Freddy: ... I get the corvette.
~
Tiffany: Its alright, Jen, it'll be okay.
Jennifer: Well... Needy and I have been growing apart for a while...
Jennifer: Its just... I cant believe she would kill me!
Chucky: *Who's 'best friend till the end'/victim also killed him* Yeah. Welcome to the club, toots.
~
Hoyt: They just love new toys, don't they?
Chucky: Love!? We've been chewed, kicked, drooled on-
Tiffany: Just look at my nails!
Hoyt: ... Hm. Well, here's the thing, sweetheart. You aint leavin' Ambrose.
Tiffany: *Thinking: Oh fuck no he did not just- * Sweetheart!? Who do you think you're talking to!? I have over 10 kills, and I deserve more respec-
Hoyt: *Covers Tiffany's mouth with his hand* Ah, that's better.
Chucky: *Thinking: I'm going to fuck this douche up- * Hey, no one takes my wife's mouth. *Shoves Hoyt back off her by the chest* 'Cept me.
~
*Hoyt and Thomas bring Chucky back from 'The Box'. He's more fucked up looking then usual, sand all through his hair and stuck to his plastic features. He shakes it out of his pockets.*
Tiffany: *Gasp* Sweetheart!
Chucky: Eugh... it was cold. And dark. Nothin' but sand and a couple of Lincoln logs.
Freddy: Ehhh... I don't think those were Lincoln logs.
~
Ghostface: I was wrong...
Chucky:
Chucky: Ghostface is right. He was wrong.
~
Jennifer: *Fake cries*
~
Chucky: *Slaps a Pidgeon*
~
*Trying to reset Michael back to his former settings/self (The one that knows them and therefore will maybe-perhaps-possibly not kill them*
Freddy: Oh- oh- oh, here we go. there should be a little hole under the switch.
Jason: *Little hole little hold little hole- Nods. Got it!*
Freddy: To reset your Michael Myers action figure, insert paper clip-
Jason: *Sharply turns to Bubba, urging him to put his finger in the hole quickly*
Freddy: Caution; Do not hold button for more then five seconds...
Michael: *Suddenly stops thrashing and goes slack*
Everyone: ...
Bubba: *Jumps off him, holding up his hands. Its not my fault!!*
~
Michael, on Spanish Mode: *Gives Jason two sweet kisses on either cheek*
Jason: *Awkwardly, slowly holds up sign:* We gotta switch him back.
~
Ghostface: Oh! Mikey!!
Michael, still on Spanish Mode: *Sees Ghostface*
Michael: *Drops to his knees, gathers up Ghostface's hand*
Michael: *Looks up at Ghostface in utter awe and admiration*
Ghostface: *Freaken freaked out. Shouldn't he be the creepy one in this outfit? Leans away* Uhh... did you fix Michael?
Freddy: Uh, sorta. I mean I for one think this is a huge improvement.
~
Michael, STILL on Spanish Mode: *Does a dance of feelings around Ghostface, wanting to express himself*
Ghostface: What- why- please stop I'm gonna pee myself- Of laughter or fear I have no idea but I WILL PEE
Michael: *Grabs and dips Ghostface, and holds up a sign* We will be the most famous killers in history, together.
Ghostface: *Thinking: Oh I can get behind that, hell yeah- *
Jason: *Arrives*
Ghostface: Oh- *Scrambles out of Michaels hold* JASE!
Michael: *Watches them move on together* *Throws down the sign*
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Freddy: I suddenly feel disgusting, like... I somehow ended up in some kinda... love-square, of some kind...
~
Jason: *Nicely gestures for Michael to give him some help*
Michael, stillllllll on Spanish mode: *Sniffs his nose at Jason's hand, shoving him out of the way with one arm like no thank you.*
~
Jennifer: Authority should derive from the consent of the governed. Not from the threat of force! // Or, alternatively which I think fits a whole lot better- // I am not going to stand back here and let another fucking old white guy tell me what the fuck to do!
Chucky and Freddy, two old white guys: *Look at each other*
Chucky:
Freddy:
Chucky and Freddy: *Shrug*
And that's it seeing as I don't really wanna see Toy Story 4. I hope you enjoyed this silly thing with me at least a little XD
Okay so I got a little attached in the end.
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kimnamshiks · 4 years
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You Got it Like That?
Alternately longer Title: You Got it Like That? (Damn that’s crazy)
Pairing: Wooyoung x Female Reader
Genre: Whatever the hell this plot is and Smut
Rating: Explicit
WC: 7.5k+ (below 8k that’s for sure)
Tags: Smut, light fluff, bad attempt at humor, brief Minsan shenanigans, Fingering (female receiving), Temperature play kink, slight praise kink, slight kink discovery (anal), marking kink, some other shit I’ll update if I missed it. Briefest mentions of Seonghwa
Summary: You just needed to get through this week at the resort at the hands of 20 coworkers and Wooyoung; the Sales Department Supervisor who got some raunchy photos of you the day prior.
Taglist: @atiny-piratequeen @thereal-smolchild @angel0taiyo
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You stumbled through your house happily, sorta out of it since you’re still high on the party you just left from. A little drinking here and being around smokers that had you linger in the weed; the endorphins coursing through you were pretty higher than usual on this Saturday night. A friend’s night that turned into crashing someone’s party freely without judgment which made everything better in your opinion.
You were on your way to stripping off your clothes when a buzz alerted you, taking your attention away from your work at hand.
+1[245] woobieboobie Uh… I believe you sent it to the wrong person? But holy hell you really did that. Didn’t expect that this late but thank you (;
Confused, you opened the message in full and damn near dropped your phone in shock. Six photos of you in states of undress stared back at you. Provocative and cheeky (literally, ass cheeks showing in some) as you smiled happily towards the lens of your phone. Your breast pushed up in the little strappy blue chemise set you wore to show off your body littered with little bruises and fingerprints on your thighs. Even some prints were dark on your shoulders from one of your wilder nights from a quickie. Honestly, you can’t even remember who’s house you took them in..
Though you managed to send them out to for… what exactly? Looking at it, you couldn’t help but groan in dismay.
+1 [873] me [image89.jpg attachment sent] Feeling sorry that you can’t leave these on me huh. SOL~  Gotta work for it if you want it, doll xoxo
Above those photo messages were questions about the next team-building trip that your company was supposed to take for the week, discussing with your co-manager Wooyoung, from the sales department. Just brainstorming ideas on how to get the departments to know that they work together, no matter how much push back you get from each other. 
Both of you got close over the process of thinking this up and getting approval by the company head. If it brings back good results they may make this an option across the board for the rest of the departments who can’t get along. Yea you crushed on him a bit but who wouldn’t? He was hard-working, caring, pretty funny and fucking fine as shit. 
You weren’t trying to mess the good balance of friendship up right now cause of some tipsy texting.
There was one for almost every photo too! You didn’t drink that much did you?
+1 [873] me [image90.jpg attachment sent] Wanna know what you like about this pose.
+1 [873] me [image95.jpg attachment sent]    Tbh my form looks the best it’s ever been.
+1 [873] me [image105.jpg attachment sent] Call me pretty cause I almost had to beat an asshole up for saying I looked like shit tonight :(
You couldn’t do anything more than spam a message out in response and hope, praying that Wooyoung doesn’t say anything to you tomorrow.
+1 [873] me Kfajsdlgjskfjogsldfj!!! uH THANKS?! DELETE PLZ. SEE YOU TOMORROW!
+1 [245] woobieboobie ….. (:  Hmm. See you tomorrow beautiful~ ;3
Based on that response, you knew he wasn’t. The fucking troll. Regardless you made sure the pictures were saved and got ready for bed. There were no real regrets, just the slight anxiousness of the unknown
Would he ask you about it?
Did he want details?
Would he ask for more of them?
Which you wouldn’t mind if it was any of your girlfriends, but you two haven’t hit that stage yet in friendship to even know if jokes like that were allowed (from what you thought). So this was a huge deal for you.
With a sigh you set your alarm and laid down. No one was going to hear about your lapse in texting, you were going to take this to the grave.
If your dream happened to have a certain male coworker and a few Kamasutra positions no one was going to know.
When Sunday rolled around, Wooyoung was nothing but a gentleman to you. He made sure to carry your bags or help get the large group of 20 people to quiet down enough to listen. It was like he was trying to somehow stay on your good side. It had you relax enough to not think of this type of trip of anything business, just a group of people trying to understand each other at the end of the day.
His conversation light on the bus to the resort that was agreed upon, having you laugh, choosing dumb driving games to pass the time there. It was nice to see both departments playing The Movie Game or even having acapella showdowns. 
It was pretty nice. Even when they got to their destination to see their sleeping arrangement, he didn’t bring it up. Well… If he wasn’t going to say anything you would pretend like nothing went on. Wooyoung and yourself had one cabin, then there was 5 to the large cabins in the surrounding area. 
“Okay guys! We’re going to make you all pull colored sticks -- Whatever color you get we’ll throw a number and that’s the cabin. No switching at all and I mean it!” Wooyoung said above all the groans and whining.
“But you two get your own that’s not fair!” his friend, Mingi exclaimed.
San moved up with a giant pout on his lips. He knew you were sorta weak for them anyways. “Yea why don’t you guys have to do the popsicle thing too!”
You pinched his cheeks playfully, yet your voice was slightly stern. “Because Wooyoung and I made the decision to do this. We’re supposed to have fun but we are also supposed to make sure you guys stop trying to destroy each other’s job.” 
“Regardless of what happens do know you guys are still getting the normal pay that you would if you did work. So no need to worry about that.” Wooyoung assured them at your side.
Everyone seemed to relax more at that before they got the sticks to be roomed. Once it was fixed and you sent each group on to their merry way Wooyoung hip-checked you to get your attention.
“So roomie shall we get our little cabin together?” he was twirling the room key as he asked. He stuck his arm out afterward with a little wink.
“Aah… I guess roomie. It shouldn’t be so bad~.” you sang, sauntering off towards the destination. 
The rooms were beside each other, pretty spacious from everything of the bathroom to the living room and open floor kitchen. Covered in soft colors you would think it was more of someone's house than that of a resort. Both of you moved things into the respective rooms to set up, heading to sleep since it was pretty late for the first day.
“Night Woo!” you sang to the wall, getting comfortable into your bed.
“Night. Sleep well~” he sang back.
There was more shuffling on his side before you succumbed to sleeping, tomorrow’s worries for the you of tomorrow.
As the week progressed, to you it seemed as if your coworkers were actually getting along with each other. Besides the standard disagreement or someone getting into their feelings, it wasn’t so bad. You got to know Wooyoung’s team more so as you helped them when you explained why your promotions team needs their hand in hand cooperation when asked of them. Just a simple “Everyone on the same page makes things run smoother.”
You also got to know Wooyoung more so in his work environment. He made sure to repeat anything that someone needed help with, ready with a playful remark if someone would call him out on being wrong. He even entertained everyone with a little dance if someone got a question right.
He was so fucking cute you could honestly get cavities right now.
When everything was done you all would head back to either the cabins or the entertainment on the property to set up. Sometimes you had a few of your teammates, like Dahyun or even Jessi who would take you out to see all that the full resort had to offer. Drink or flirt a bit with the other distant company people who used the other spaces. 
Mingi catching you out late for talks and jokes before San would join, all of you guys laughing till your stomachs hurt. Maybe stay up later than normal around a little fire looking at the stars.
Other times it was just you and Wooyoung laughing about on the walking trail or sharing snacks with some dumb reality tv show. When you would cook he’d try to be helpful, making sure nothing was too far or too hard to reach. It was really sweet, learning more about him. From the favorite foods or movies-- learning about his whole squad of friends are apart of the company. (He didn’t tell them that he personally knew them for years, just of their working together) Mingi and San being his department while the oldest one, Seonghwa, being apart of your team. 4 other members were spread out in the other departments.
Being so domestic so quickly like it was second nature to both of you.
He even made sure to knock before trying to enter into your space or making sure everything was alright before doing something that he would consider uncomfortable for you. (“Hey I’m gonna come out shirtless!” “Okay that’s fine!” “Don’t look!” “Why cause you got cute nips or something?”) When you asked him about it, he just smiles cutely to tell you it’s to make sure you were dressed or that if you brought anyone in while he was in the shower, all parties would know.
Sometimes Wooyoung would forget of course. You would sneak glances at him every now and then; wet and soft from the shower. His body a touch pink from the hot water with his bottoms hanging off his hips.
“Like what you see~?” he’d whisper over to you when he caught you looking. 
“It’s here for show so I might as well enjoy it huh?”
“Then I deserve one too right? You are very beautiful.” He told you one time when he was drying his hair and he looked at you expectantly. Even when you flushed hard from the statement, shoving him playfully and whining, he just ruffled your hair up.
You two got comfortable enough that you would be cooking in your pjs just after a shower. Where you wouldn’t be fully dry and the clothes would stick to your frame just a bit more. He never made comments but you felt eyes on you more so than not. 
“What am I going to do once we leave here? I’m not going to have your cooking anymore~,” he lamented over the ribs he ate.
You scrunched your nose at his messy eating, even as you were thinking that he looked like a little chipmunk with his mouth full. “Well, we can always hang out after this you know. Or I can just bring food to the job?” you offered.
“Mmm…” he trailed off as he finished chewing-- eyes focusing back on you sharp and serious, “Rather just hang out with you. Then I don’t have to share at all.”
His tone was playful when he said it, but his eyes told you a whole different story. It wasn’t something you saw directed at you so it kind of made you a bit hot under the collar of your pajamas.
“I like sharing though~. It’s okay you’ll just need to work for that huh?” you giggled in the same breath to reach over and clean his face with your thumb.
You sat back without care, cleaning your hands to resume eating but Wooyoung was sort of stuck in his thoughts. Seeing you eat so cutely after doing something like that without warning had his heart rushing. Blinking back into the present he finally responded with a,
“I’ll work for it. Don’t you worry.”
The light-haired male sounded cocky, in turn, you shrugging your shoulders to continue eating.
“We’ll see about that.”
Sometimes… Mingi and San were your main trouble makers from Wooyoung’s team who continued to push your buttons when you were just trying to be informative. Mostly making you come over and show them easy steps in the program that you guys utilize to get any updates. Hands-on enough that they start to look flustered as well when you press up against them, voice soft with a bit of an edge cause your patience was running thin.
Maybe you were teasing them. No one’s gonna notice since everyone should be focused on their work anyways right? San’s face flushing harder than usual though this time. He seemed almost shy with you, whispering “Oh okay I get it now.”
Wooyoung stood off to the side of one of your workers, clenching his teeth at the scene. Trying to figure out what was going on between you three right now.
When you turned to him and gave a thumbs-up, he scoffed and focused on his work at hand with helping. You were confused at his antics but shrugged-- He’ll talk to you if something serious was going on. He was probably just pissed about something.
Later on in the day everyone seemed to be doing better now when they got paired up to work on a small project together. Quiet laughter or a little flirting here and there happened.
You moved over to Wooyoung who stood against the wall silently, murmuring “You alright..?” “‘M fine.” He gritted out, gripping his arms tight before letting them fall to the side. His brows were still pushed together in a slight frown, purple locks of hair sort of sticking to his forehead. You reached out to move them out of the way to smooth the wrinkles from his face.
“You’re not but I won’t pry. Just relax your face hun, you’ll have your face stuck like that~” you playfully jeered and bumped shoulders.
He seemed to freeze a bit before relaxing, giving you a quirk of a smile that you couldn’t help but be extra over.
A faux gasp and a coo came from you. “Aw see? You turned that frown upside down~ Good boy!”
He choked on seemingly nothing before pushing away from the wall. “Shut up dork. Let’s finish, got an announcement for everyone.” “Not even a dork!”
A call of your name distracted you both for a moment before you looked at him seriously.
“But you’ll tell me if somethings wrong right? I won’t judge you or anything, Wooyoung.”
He gave you a look that said something that you couldn’t quite understand. He nodded, making a face when Mingi came over and dragged you away in excited chatter.
“I heard there’s a dance tonight! San and I are going to take you as our date~”
“Hey how did you hear about that!” Wooyoung’s voice screamed across the area.
Both of you giggled, gossiping about what to do as well as what to wear for later that night. Both unaware of the slightly angry look Wooyoung gave to your backs.
You’ve been added to the group chat: Date night!
+1 [177] minglepringle Hope you’re ready~ Me and san will be over there soon~!
+1 [392] sanscript I look better than Mingi just letting you know.
+1 [177] minglepringle We’ll see about that.
+1 [873] me Boys I bet you both look dashing. Stop fighting I’m TRYING to finish getting dressed! Or I’m dumping both of you!
Your mind was too busy giggling at their antics in the text messages. Their playful banter and whining that you got used to over getting close with them, you enjoyed seeing it as much as you have. You also think that they may be fucking but that’s on a whole other note. So immersed into everything that you missed Wooyoung’s warning of checking in that his loud gasp had you turning quick. 
There he stood, so fucking beautiful in his all-white suit with his hair fluffed up fully around his head, the middle-parted style that fit his look too well if anyone asked you. His eyes were rimmed in light brown eyeliner; a thin diamond choker on with a pair of earrings that added to the overall expensive look. Your eyes couldn’t help but follow down the expanse of his neck to the peak of collarbone winking at you from behind the open plackets of his black shirt. It was tucked into his pants to showcase the little waist and his pants clung to thick thighs and calves. 
“Holy fuck Woo…” 
Your eyes trailed back up his form with no shame as you damn near undress him mentally. Shouldn’t do that given you guys work together but what the job doesn’t know won’t hurt anyone.
“You look... Really good.” You finally finished when you gathered yourself together, looking up to meet his eyes. They were slightly hazy and far off before they focused on you. His jaw set when he walked farther into the room.
“Thank you. I’d say the same for you though. Is that all you’re going to wear darling~?” he asked in such a soft candied voice that you got whiplash from the change of his tone, “Just a bralette and boy shorts? Think the boys would like that a lot hm? Seeing their stern supervisor looking all pretty like that.”
You sucked in a quick breath, feeling your nipples harden against the cloth at attention from his voice. Even your heartbeat began to pick up when you realized he was watching your body respond to his voice, a smirk on his features. The thought of covering yourself up shyly was the last thing on your mind as you shakily exhaled.
“Not at all,” voice in a whisper as you grab your dress to slowly slip on in front of his eyes. 
“I was just caught off guard, Wooyoung.” you kept the same tone as he tilted his head. 
Probably taking in your figure now that it was covered back up in the peach shade maxi wrap dress, long enough to brush against the floor with the slit high enough to show your legs. White liner with darkened lashes with a smudge of brown shadow with nude glossed lips was the choice of makeup.
You added a pair of brown studs into your ears as you bit your lip, giving him a slow twirl so your dress could float around you. Stopping, you asked softly, “Well? How do I look now?”
Wooyoung stepped closer to run the back of his knuckles against your cheek, opening his mouth to say something but it was interrupted by a knock on the main door from two excited voices.
“We’re here to pick you up~!”
“Move Woo stop hogging our date!”
It broke whatever air wrapped around you two that you put on your boots and felt your face heating up quickly.
You didn’t know what to say as he still stood there, looking at you with so many emotions that you felt hot yet again.
“I gotta go Wooyoung…”
He sighed and backed up, his playful air back around him “Save me a dance would you?”
You booped his nose and nodded, giving a bashful smile before leaving to San and Mingi’s insistent whining. You couldn’t really process what was going on but at this point, it didn’t matter; two gorgeous men were your date for tonight and you decided you were going to have fun.
Which you were having. The guys made you three take so many pictures you were sure there was a whole album dedicated to it now. Lots of solo shots of you making funny faces or doing runway poses that you made them do tenfold. (”Can’t wait to use this cute one as blackmail” “You wouldn’t dare!” “Oh doll, you will learn real quick I’m vindictive.” “That’s kinda hot...” Choking sound here somewhere. “Mingi plEASE”)
They layered on the compliments thick to get you to giggle or shove at them on the way there, even when they were the equivalent of models on the fashion runway themselves. Each male held the door open to the pavilion to you before all three of you walked in with each other. It was gorgeously colored with a stage where the DJ was switching up his songs in front of the large dance floor littered with people. Surrounding it were the tables that already had forgotten drinks or people’s belongings there, or just people not really dancing just relaxing with food on their plates.
The music was everything from every genre you could think of that you could sing or dance to, open bar and buffet that you won’t admit you visited more times than you’d admit. It was only to keep your mind off your roommate but it wasn’t helping when your eyes would drift over to him from your peripherals, catching him drinking at the bar or laughing loudly at something someone said. 
Fuck it. You can get lost in the dancing since you felt a little looser from the alcohol thrumming in your system. Dahyun and Jessi off doing lord knows what with whatever guys they suckered into doing their bidding for the night.
“Mingi come here! I lost you somehow and you’re supposed to be dancing with me,” you whined loudly while pulling him close and grinding on him before dropping it low to your knees.
He laughed around a whispered “holy shit” as he followed your dancing, his big hands pulling you back up to roll and dance on him again. Songs passed with the two of you sharing another drink before San joined to sandwich you in. It gathered a crowd when you three started dancing raunchier with a couple of other people. Especially with the way the two males really had you going because of their wandering hands and smoldering gazes. When you were gyrating really hard on San, he gripped your hips before trying to tickle your sides.
“You’re such a tease~. We’re definitely going clubbing when we get back to the city.” San whispered in your ear, holding up a finger sandwich to feed you.
You turned to blow a kiss at him before eating the offered food. “I would love that! I’ll go get some water and some food. I don’t wanna eat everything you’re feeding me~.”
Both nodded at you when told them you’ll take a break since you were so sweaty and out of breath from all the dancing, happily giving each of them a small peck on the cheek. You laughed at some of the comments of surprise that you got as you made your way to the bar.
Yea no one’s seen you dance like that but again you all were here to have fun right? It’s bound to happen sometime so at the end of it all, it was something dumb to think or fret over. None of them were CEO’s or anything (well you couldn’t say that for the other people at the resort, but they don’t know you.)
Yet before you could make it there you were stopped by an unfamiliar male stepping into your space.
“I’m sorry but I’m trying to get somewhere so if you could just..Move out the way please that would be great.” 
“I just wanted to tell you that your dancing out there was really sexy,” the male stated, moving into your space with an open look on his face. You didn’t really respond but you were guessing your nonresponse was a good cue to him.
“Maybe if you like for me to get you drinks we can get to know each other. Or just let off some steam, if you know what I mean.”
You stepped around him, shaking your head. “Sorry but it’s not what I’m looking for now excuse me--”
He takes a grip at your hand, tight that he had to have heard you snarling. “So you’ll dance like a slut for those two guys but you won’t even give me a look? Especially when I look better than them both?”
You bristled at the comment of him talking about Mingi and San like that, turning around to give him a piece of your mind when Seonghwa steps up to you with Wooyoung in tow.
“It seems like she doesn’t want to deal with you sir,” Seonghwa’s voice was firm, gripping his upper arm tight enough that the guy yelped and let go.
Wooyoung makes sure to stop you from clocking the guy by putting his hand onto your lower back. It was a nice touch but it didn’t calm you down at all.
“This has nothing to do with you--”
“Assholes who think their hot shit? Overcompensating too? Guys like you aren’t the ones I go for.” you spat quickly,  “Fuck with me again, or any of my people and you’ll be trying to find the best doctor in town to stitch your dick back on to yourself.” Angrily you stared him down, allowing Wooyoung to tug you away from the asshole and off to a quiet room.
Once the door was locked, he watched as you paced back and forth for a few minutes. He was even calm as you blew up.
“The nerve of that dickwad! The way I dance has nothing to do with who’s allowed to talk to me or not! Literally has no correlation.”
Wooyoung stood by the door and listened as you ranted, sipping on his drink.
“Lucky I didn’t fuck him up. I look too good to be brawlin today. He even had the nerve to talk about Mingi and San? He really fucking lucky--”
“You really fucking do and it’s driving me insane,” Wooyoung growled from behind you, having you jump from how close he was. “You look like a goddess reincarnated and I couldn’t take my eyes off of you.”
“Wooyou-” you began as your body responded to his closeness again. 
He slowly pressed his body against yours, unashamed at the loud gasp you gave him because of his clothed dick hitting your hip.
“See?” the male whispered, looking up into your eyes, “Being so carefree from judgment, dancing how you want. Singing loudly and having a good time regardless of who is around; gorgeous. You made sure to include everyone that was close to dance or sing because you wanted to enjoy this party.”
You really didn’t know where he was going with this but you heaved a shaky inhale when you caught him looking at your lips. 
“It just made me like you a hella lot more… Sweaty, hooded eyes were so enticing. Then when you handled yourself with that guy back there, you got so protective and serious…” he trailed off, his dick twitching against your hip again.
“Really wanted to get on my knees and eat you out right on that dance floor… it was so damn sexy you just don’t know what you do to me.”
An airy moan slipped past your lips from his confession, his response of holding you closer and a tad bit tighter had your nipples pebbling to hardness swiftly. Wooyoung’s hands slid down to cup your ass that you whined out his name.
“When you sent those photos… I wanted to have a quick jerk session. Had a hot moment of jealousy…” he whispered now, leaning in to brush his lips along the quickening pulse on your neck. “I wanted to mark you up like that. Have my fingerprints linger on you for days from holding you so hard. Wanted my mouth to find out all your weak spots to have you crying..”
Your arms wrapped around him as you shivered, hips canting slowly against him in the slow simmer of want.
“Wha- What stopped you then hm?” It was a breathy ask while you carded your fingers through his hair, your leg sliding up to wrap around his hip to hold on. You were feeling a bit faint.
His moan vibrated against your skin as he replied “Wanted to be a good boy for you. Said I had to work for it, remember? So I have been.”
Pulling away, you looked at him questioningly, his skin pinkening with an almost boyish shyness to it as he mumbled, “Was gonna wait for the perfect time so I could take you out to dinner then hopefully get to this point now.” Which done it in for you.
"Tell me more doll, wanna hear it." You purred sweetly, feeling him give a full-bodied shutter.
"Didn't want you thinking that I suddenly wanted to fuck because of those pictures. But I've looked at them once in a while this week, hoping I could get you like that myself."
He was suddenly picking you up impatiently to set you on the table in the middle of the room; his lips nipping at the skin he could reach right now as you whined under him.
"Shit, Wooyoung," a hard whimper left your throat and you rutted up against him. "Same. It's the same. I've been crushing on you but didn't wanna complicate things I.."
Your words died on your tongue as he trailed his hand along your body, letting you arch into the feather-light touch before he put his glass down. “Can I kiss you?”
Your arms shot up and tugged him half onto you, nipping his bottom lip hard before kissing him deeply. His mouth tasting of Malibu Sunset shots and something else you couldn't place, both of you groaning at the contact. Tugging at fabric to get to heated damp skin made you a bit desperate, given how many times you have imagined doing anything remotely sexual with him.
“Pretty baby, panting so hard and we haven’t even gotten naked yet huh? You want me that badly? Want my hands on your bare skin that much.” he taunted, pulling back from your grabby hands with a playful pout.
“You take your dress off and then I’ll be good for you to take my clothes off too.”
You sat up with a pout back to him, tone going sultry instead, “That’s unfair cause I really am. If you’re my good boy you’d let me take off your clothes for you. Maybe even let me choke on your dick. I’ve been wanting it for so long~”
You watched as Wooyoung’s dick twitched hard, seeing his hands shake to a stop before moving back towards you in a flash. Inwardly you cheered in victory, hurriedly breaking a few buttons off his shirt and shoving everything off his body. As a prize, you immediately went to sucking marks on to his skin-- feeling his groan of your name vibrate on onto your lips. 
You left lipstick marks in some places before sucking harshly on others such as his cute nipples and the lines of softly defined muscle, all the while he tried to push your dress off your shoulders. You made a show of sliding your hand into his pants and gripped his dick that was already slick. 
“Who’s wet now doll? Hm?” you moaned out high and breathless, skin prickling with goosebumps from the sudden attack of cold water droplets falling onto your chest.
“Baby, you will be soaked when I’m done with you. Come on, clothes off wanna try something.”
He was asking you in a rush which was sweet but you really wanted his dick in you someway so you relented your control this time to him. You hurriedly slid your dress off your body and moved to get onto the table before Wooyoung tugged you by your bra and kissed you hard again. He was mapping out your mouth like he wanted to remember every dip and curve of it; sloppy, messy and so fucking hot you knew you were dripping in your panties now. “This okay? Not uncomfortable?” he pulled his lips away from yours, gently pushing you back from following.
You swallowed, whimpering out a “Yea it’s fine” from his serious gaze at your face.
When you didn’t change your mind he relaxed and kissed you again. Stealing your breath and making you drool a bit making it hot and messy in the right way.
When cold, wet fingers slide down the curve of your breast your body curved to the touch happily, mind already dopey on wanting Wooyoung’s touch; on wanting anything Wooyoung could give you right now. His mouth moved down your neck, lapping and sucking just as many bruises into your skin in repayment to your own work. 
Wooyoung would cover the next stops of his lips with thin layers of alcohol to suck off your skin as if you two had all the time in the world, skipping past your aching breasts to apply more of the sweet liquid on your stomach then your thighs. He made you sit back on the table as he made a promise to his earlier statement and marked you up basically head to toe; his eyes dilating fully to the point of pitch blackness cause of the whining and mewling.
“Fuck. Just let me..” Wooyoung spluttered while grabbing his phone to take a few photos.
You were leaning back with your legs spread, fingers rubbing your clit over your soaked through panties frantic now. Honestly, you don’t know how you even made it through his markings because you couldn’t describe how much you loved it; probably looking too gone already by how he froze for just a moment. He joined you after shuffling his pants off to finally snatch your bra off to give some love to your aching breasts.
But not without adding an ice cube between his lips then sucking a nipple into the same space. The moan that bubbled out of your mouth was nothing less than dirty, making Wooyoung double his efforts. He did this to the other one as well to make your peaks harder than they ever felt. Bringing that same numbing cold heat combo onto your neck then back down, across your navel and your hip line. He skipped over your core to press his now cold lips onto the marks he left earlier, grinning at your pleas leaving your lips quickly.
“Please Woo, ngh! Please!” you cried, holding his head to your chest while he moved your panties to the side and slid two fingers in immediately. The shock of his cooling mouth and cold fingers onto your burning skin brings a pleasant hum to your body and even heavier wetness between your legs. 
You never knew how much you liked the combination.
“Need you, baby, please ‘m tired of waiting.” Your head buzzed as you slipped further into his ministrations, alternating from begging or crying out his name to scrambling for purchase on the table when he moved his body away from yours. You had to have left a few more marks in the shape of claws along his skin.
“Want my dick that bad? Kinda like how you're begging right now,” He pressed into you harder that you choked for a moment.
Why was he teasing even more now holy fuck. “Yes let me have it!. You didn’t let me suck you off like I asked earlier.”
“I’ll let you suck me off later, I’ll blow my load if you even so much as touch it.”
You whined even harder. Maybe you wanted him to dirty up your face, he keeps taking everything away from you. It was a fun back and forth game but you were truly wanting his dick like months ago.
It was distracting enough that you just registered the sounds of how wet you truly were, body experiencing harsh pulses of pleasure from Wooyoung’s fingers and the zip of chill his mouth left before he laved his tongue onto your clit. Harsh flicks of his tongue coupled with the perfect curling of those fingers you’ve also obsessed over sent you reeling. Such a move brought you hurling over the edge to your release quicker than you expected.
“Wooyoung! Holy shit!” you shouted, voice pitched higher than you’ve ever heard it, legs trembling around him as he sucked onto your clit to help you ride that high before layering wetter kisses to the inner thighs. Your head went back with another curse, feeling your body turn into a liquid state of pleasure, unable to ride out your orgasm on his fingers. When your eyes fluttered open suddenly you took in Wooyoung's features.
“God..” he breathed, looking up at you as if you were his whole universe at this point and slowing down his fingers, “you’re so fucking perfect aren’t you baby?” In your hazy state, you keened at the compliment, body curving up slow as if it was reaching for more praise. Slowly, you rotated your hips in small circles to beg for everything he could give.
“Oh? You want me to fuck you while you are just loose and pliant for me baby?” To your little happy hum, he smiled gently. Removing his fingers he made the show of licking them clean, gently taking off your panties and giving you a soft kiss for your patience. “Lemme get a wrapper and I’ll be right back. Okay my pretty baby? Be patience.”
Slurry on your high still, you stayed spread onto the table. “Hurry... Really wan’ your dick Wooyoungie. Need it.” You could feel your eyes tearing up at your denial of feeling him in you.
He tripped in his haste with the condom already on and picking you up into his arms much to your protest. You could see how little it mattered as he held you to rut up against your folds to slick himself up, kissing away your tears with a coo of your name and how precious you were crying for his dick like you were.
Little words whispered against your ear of "I got you, princess, shh" and "Fuck if we go past this I have so much planned for us, holy hell." You wrapped your legs and arms around him tight, leaning in to suck a lobe between your lips and tug, whining yet again.
“Wooyoungie, please. Wanna feel it for days.. Nothing else but your dick please." You hiccuped over a short sob, honestly too fucking horny to care at this point. "Please Woo please I’ve waited for you this whole time plea-”
When Wooyoung finally pushed into your body after making sure the condom was on, it gave way like a greeting. Your walls fluttering and kissing his dick inch by inch like it was meant to be there; so happy that you squeezed him tight and mewled loudly.
“Yess what I’ve been waitin’ for. Wan' it deep~. Make me yours~.” he cursed and started a slow pace.
Honestly, you couldn't believe how much patience he had given the circumstances. His strength on display as he brought your hips down when he fucked up into your body with a slowness that had you singing. He was so hard inside of you, hitting all the right ways when he readjusted his grip on your sweaty body, the slight curve helping to graze your g-spot when he was being nice to you. It was hurting just a tad from the build-up to overstimulation but it felt too good to stop. Clit being abused against his stomach while you arched to throw your hips back onto him to get him to quicken the pace.
You were moaning his name and nonsense when he slid home deeper into you, praising him. Mouthing out on how you crushed on him since all those years he helped you. From when you decided to let him get closer because you wanted to be in the same playing field. 
He paused mid-thrust with a tremble and a gasp, "Is that true..?"
Blinking past the tears you nodded, feeling bare to him suddenly.
His mouth worked around its sound for a moment, so focused on you that your breath stuttered on an exhale.
"Fuck... Fuck love, you don't know how much that means to me." He said, voice pitched so low it sounded like a snarl. Though the continuous pulses of his dick inside you spoke volumes.
Slowly you ran a hand through his sex mused hair and brought him close to your face, looking into his eyes, "Then please Wooyoung… Ruin me. Show me how much it means to you."
His resounding growl made your toes curl as he moved you two a few feet to the wall, pushing you hard against it now.
"My pleasure baby." He panted, "Gonna give you what you wanted since you asked so sweetly." He sealed his promise in a kiss before pulling out slowly.
The sudden snap of his hips made the surroundings turn to colorful constellations. Everything else fading to the haze past his beautiful expressions, the feeling of you two joined together, the cries and moans of each other’s name. Mind filled to the brim of Wooyoung, trying to kiss him but both of you are just sharing each other’s air now with little nips or licks here and there.
You don’t know how long he went at it but it felt like hours that he was pounding into you. You couldn’t even moan anymore, just whimper or keen or silently scream while he cursed in between punches of your name from his lips.
You both knew you were going to bruise on your hips and ass cheeks with how his grip tightened and loosened. At a particular shake, his fingers slid and pressed hard against your asshole, almost slipping in a bit from the dripping wetness from your folds and it tumbled you into your second release; so hard that you happened to squirt against him.
The wide-eyed look Wooyoung gave you when you screamed his name had him jerking his hips twice more before he came into the condom. He cried out to you in return, full-body shaking from its intensity that he leaned to kiss all over your face softly. Staying still and bringing you back down to him with kisses and murmurs against your skin. Breathy gravel tones from how spent his voice was blanketed you back down.
"I've been crushing on you too, you know."
"So gorgeous."
"I'm lucky to have such a beautiful princess."
"Come back to me love. I'm right here."
It was a few minutes before you gave him a satisfied smile, lazy in the afterglow and bright for him. 
"Mmm, you’re the best."
He took the time to pull out and maneuver the hold on to bridal style, holding you closer to his frame as he set you back on the table with a laugh.
“I must be if I made you squirt~.”
You swung at him weakly, hiding your face from him at that and you kept it there as he moved around the room. You could hear him bump into things, mumbling to himself before he found what he was looking for and moving back to you.
“Come on my pretty baby lets get you slightly cleaned up and get out of here. We can take an actual shower and cuddle together,” he whispered softly, moving your hands out of the way with the sappiest look you’ve ever seen on his face.
Not before he took another of you posing for him to show the additional fingerprint bruises on your lower half, then immediately went to cleaning you with feather touches in case you were too sensitive with the clean rag and water bottle he found in the room. You were getting sleepy under the treatment so you allowed him to do everything; fix your hair, help you back into your dress and watch him put your undergarments into his jacket and fold it up. Making every sure you two had everything you needed.
You even watched him get himself dress sluggish and tired as you were. Something about watching him get dressed was so enticing to you. Maybe it was the way his veins in his arms and hands looked… You couldn’t wait to trace them with your tongue sometime.
When Wooyoung offered to carry you back to the cabin you agreed happily, secretly enjoying his display of strength as you guys avoided the still pretty heavy partying people further down the hall.
“I owe you a dance don’t I?” you mumbled against his neck, curled tight to his chest.
“Yea you do.”
“Damn... We’re starting off our trysts with owing each other.” he laughed into your hair, kissing a free spot on your forehead. “Alright, that’s a bet.” 
You left it at that from his questioning hum. 
You both got back to the cabin without being caught by anyone who knew you two. He held on to your clinging form as you whined about showering later, you were tired and you just wanted to cuddle up to him and sleep. So much so he relented with a playful sigh and tucked both of you into his bed. He did take a makeup wipe to remove any lingering product on your face and his,
“So I can see your cute natural morning face~” with a kiss to your giggling lips.
The both of you held each other to sleep, tangled head to toe with Wooyoung being the little spoon. You’ll deal with the irritating clothes and washing in the morning you thought. You were excited to think you’ll wake up to Wooyoung beside you finally.
“I h a t e your friends Wooyoungie, I really fucking do.” you groggily said when you woke up to your phone’s reminder buzzes and took a look at the notifications.
“Mmm, why is that?”
You happened to look down at his soft sleep puffy face laying on your thigh, pouting up at you so you blew a kiss at him before showing him the messages.
+1 [177] minglepringle So.. heard you had a grand slamming of a time last night
+1 [177] minglepringle As well as seen him carry you off like a princess being saved by her prince~ So now we don’t have to worry about not seeing you for the rest of the night
+1 [392] sanscript A lot of slamming. Seems like our “Make Wooyoung jealous plan worked”!
+1 [177] minglepringle Glad you finally got that dicking you been thirsting over~  Congratulations! +1 [177] minglepringle DON’T EXPOSE US YOU ASSA LSDKJFLSJGSDJF--
+1 [392] sanscript Don’t forget to call us next time so we can hear better~! We’re friends now your supervisor status means nothing now!! (:< Besides you completely dipped on us and we would have asked you for a threesome but Wooyoung beat us out-- +1 [177] minglepringle sAN OH MY FUCKING LORD STFU +1 [392] sanscript What they gonna do? Beat us?
Then an extra one from an unsaved number,
+1 [524] Unkown As much as I love that you two resolved your heavy sexual tension can I get a raise for having to hear your horny asses going at it like rabbits and dealing with the Minsan duo? Thanks, boss. -Seonghwa
Wooyoung laughed hard, screeching about his embarrassment at his friends and how he was going to beat their asses. He was ranting, fumbling for his phone to give him a piece of their mind but you just watched him being animated. Still a bit sleepy, the marks dark against his skin while his eyes caught the light just right to sparkle slightly. Even when he was squeaking into the phone’s receiver at Mingi, San, and Seonghwa, you couldn’t help the happiness you felt at the turn of events.
Wonder what your friends will say once you tell them everything that happened. That would be for another day, you think as you stroke Wooyoung’s face and trace the features. He doesn’t stop talking but he does look at you with a sappy smile, wiggling and making kissy faces at you.
This was something you could really get used to.
277 notes · View notes
Text
Slowly
Pairing: Bryce x F! MC (Casey Valentine)
Summary: Three simple words make all the difference.
Author’s Note: Song inspiration is actually two songs-- “Say You Love Me” and “Tough Love” by Jessie Ware. Her music has been giving me massive inspiration, and so I highly encourage people to check her out. Anyway, I hope you enjoy! As always, my eternal gratitude to everyone who takes the time to read, comment, reblog, like. You guys keep me going!
Warning(s): A little bit angsty, I guess. Not too bad though.
Word Count: 1,510
Tags: @anotherbeingsworld @aylamreads
---------
Casey Valentine sighed as she made her way to the next patient. It was hard to concentrate lately, and she knew the reason why.
The doubts she’d started to have when it came to her relationship with Bryce were growing stronger by the day. She knew that he must have some feelings for her, that the past eight months hadn’t meant nothing, and yet…
Where did they stand?
He’d grown closer to her than anyone had before. Casey shared secrets with him that she never saw herself revealing in any past relationship she’d had, no matter how few and short they’d been.
“Casey!” She turned at the sound of Bryce’s voice, trying her best to maintain a smile. “Whatcha up to?” he asked when they were close enough, quickly looking around before he leaned down to give her a kiss.
She sighed, gripping his arms when he pulled her closer. Bryce pulled back long enough to look at her before coming back for another kiss, brushing his lips against hers. His hand moved up to her neck, holding her in place.
Casey pulled away after a minute, biting on her bottom lip as she tried to think of what to say. Finally, she answered. “I’m just checking on my patients. Speaking of which, I should really get back to work.” The tension in her shoulders relaxed when she locked eyes with him. “What about you? Don’t you have any surgeries to scrub in on?”
“Not for a couple hours.” He twirled a strand of her hair around his finger. “Got any plans in about ten minutes?”
She shook her head, taking a step back. “I have to check on my patients. I’ll see you later tonight, okay?”
Bryce nodded, winking at her before he turned and sauntered down the hallway. Casey watched him walk away, feeling a heaviness in her chest as she thought about where they stood. Boundaries had never been established for their relationship. They were definitely dating, but she wanted more.
For the rest of the day, she went through the motions, thinking of all the brief discussions she’d had with Bryce about their relationship. It meant something to him. He’d said as much during one of their hookups. Still, it meaning something wasn’t the same as love.
Love. The word bounced around in her mind all the time. Every time she looked at him, butterflies swirled in her stomach. Time hadn’t changed the feeling, and she hoped that it stayed that way. All she wanted was to hear him say those three words.
In the middle of the night, all she thought about was Bryce. His smile, his laugh, his touch. Him.
“I’m not one to say I’m in love,” he’d said once, laughing while surrounded by the other surgeons. “It seems like such a strong word. A huge commitment.”
This was before they’d been together, but she remembered. She wondered.
What if he still felt that way?
Once she’d finished checking on her patients, Casey made her way to the women’s washroom, collapsing against the stall wall with a sigh. She knew that it would be simple enough to say it first, to just admit that she’d fallen in love with him after knowing him for a few weeks, but she wasn’t unsure of her own feelings.
Bryce was a puzzle she couldn’t figure out. Try as she might to get him to open up, he kept his past a secret. Little details here and there, but never enough for her to grasp who he was as a person. Who he’d been. Who he might become.
This feeling followed her to his apartment, where they spent the night together, sweet nothings echoing in a quiet room. She watched his chest rise and fall after he’d fallen asleep, tracing the soft cuts of muscle. He was without a doubt the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, his bright personality only making her love him more.
Casey closed her eyes and lay her hand over Bryce’s heart, feeling the gentle beat beneath her fingers.
“I love you,” she whispered, knowing he couldn’t hear.
When she was greeted with silence, she sighed, turning onto her back to stare up at the ceiling. Shadows danced across the room, the light outside peeking through the blinds. This room had become as familiar as her own.
Although he was sleeping right beside her, she’d never felt further apart. The distance she’d imagined between them made everything difficult. Casey wanted more. She was tired of the constant doubt.
Bryce rolled over, slinging an arm over her stomach. The heat from his body lulled her into a dreamless sleep.
“Mm. Think we could get away with skipping out on work today?” Bryce mumbled when the alarm went off early in the morning. “I’m sure they wouldn’t even miss us.”
She struggled to pull herself from a deep sleep, her eyelids fluttering closed every few minutes until the final warning alarm went off. With a groan, the two of them slowly got dressed.
“So, I’ve been thinking, and—” Bryce grinned when she whirled around to face him. “What’s that look for? I was wondering if you wanted to go out for lunch tomorrow, since we get the day off.”
Casey nodded, tying her hair back in a bun as she headed for the bedroom door. “Sure. That sounds good to me.”
He grinned, pulling his shirt over his head. The two of them ate a quick breakfast in silence before heading to the hospital, barely saying a word to each other the entire trip. In no time, they were getting ready to do rounds.
“Casey, wait.”
Hope swelled in her chest, and she turned around, foolishly hoping that this would be the moment he finally confessed his feelings for her. Perhaps he’d heard her the night before somehow.
“Have a great day.” Bryce smiled, his lips parting as if to say more, but he closed them again, shaking his head before disappearing from the locker room.
The heaviness in her chest returned, and she stayed until time ran out and it was time to do rounds. Casey maintained a professional face during her shift, trying her best not to let her mind wander to thoughts of Bryce.
Eight months seemed like a long time to go without saying “I love you” but she had no idea if that was true. This had been the first time she ever felt this way about anyone. Shaking her head, Casey made her way to the locker room after a long day.
Bryce was waiting for her, smiling when their eyes met. He’d already changed into a casual outfit, leaning against the lockers when she walked into the room. No one else was around.
“Ready to go home?” he asked, remaining in the same spot as she changed, his eyes lingering on her body. “I can’t wait to sleep. I’m exhausted.”
Casey sighed, letting her hair down. “Me too.” She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a proper sleep. “Are you going back to your place, or are you spending the night?”
“Will Jackie freak out if I stay the night again?”
“Okay, well, maybe you should put some clothes on this time if you decide to grab something from the kitchen this time.” She couldn’t hold back a laugh at the memory of Jackie’s scream of horror waking everyone in the apartment up a few months earlier.
Bryce frowned. “It was almost three in the morning! How was I supposed to know someone would wake up?”
For a moment, Casey could forget about her conflicting feelings. She laughed and shook her head, walking down the hospital hallways with Bryce by her side. They exchanged stories about their days as they made their way to the hospital entrance.
By the time they reached the train, Casey’s stomach hurt from laughing. She looked up at Bryce, once again feeling the butterflies gather in her stomach. He noticed her staring and looked at her with a slight frown.
“What? What is it?” He reached up to touch his face, but she grabbed his hands, her lips pulling back into a grin.
“Nothing. You’re just so perfect.” She took a deep breath, contemplating whether this moment was right. After a second, she decided it was worth it to just say her feelings out loud. “I—”
Bryce blurted out a few words at the same time, cutting her off before she could finish. “I love you. Wow, that was scary.” His eyes were wide when he looked down at her. “Please say something back.”
Casey grinned, running her fingers across his cheek. “I love you, too.”
They kissed until the train came, separating just long enough to board before holding each other again. Passengers shot them dirty looks, and a few cleared their throats, but they didn’t care.
All that mattered was this moment.
The journey to saying “I love you” may have passed slowly, but it was all worth it, and Casey wouldn’t have it any other way.
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Creep- FFVII Biggs X Reader Part 3/?
Summary: You get on the bad side of one of Don Corneo’s men and now you have a target on your back.
Warnings: none for this chapter
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This was definitely a mistake, you thought. Your anxiety made you toss and turn, but you didn't want to keep him up all night, which, in turn, caused more anxiety. You quietly moved to face away from him, and instead, look at the covered window. Every time you looked over at the window, you remembered the dream. Could it have been a premonition? Could he be just outside the house right now, waiting for the right moment to break in?
"Worrying all night is not going to solve anything," the voice beside you said.
"I know," you sighed, "but I can't seem to stop."
"Come here."
"What?" You turned over to face him. You couldn't have heard him right, because you could've sworn you heard him say-
"Come here." He laid his arm across your pillow, beckoning you closer, "Unless you're not comfortable with this, then we'll just forget about it."
You hesitated. Nothing now or ever had prepared you for this circumstance. Biggs, your team member and the man you had a crush on, was inviting you into his arms. And he was staring at you, waiting for a response.
You hesitantly scooted closer to him, yet still kept some distance. Even though he was initiating it, you didn't want to cross any boundaries or look too eager. Your breath caught in your throat when his arm wrapped around you back, pulling you even closer. You froze under his touch, heart beating out of your chest.
"Are you sure you're ok with this? You're stiff as a board."
"Sorry," you said, letting go of the breath trapped in your lungs, "guess I'm just not used to this."
"To be honest, me neither," he admitted, a small chuckle forming at the end of his words.
"Really?" You wondered aloud, "I wouldn't have expected that."
"What do you mean?"
"I just thought maybe you-" you caught yourself, "Never mind."
"No, I want to hear it."
"There's no appropriate way to phrase it."
"Be blunt with it, then."
"I just always assumed you got a lot of action."
For some reason that made him chuckle, and you could feel the warm vibration of his chest from under you.
"What makes you think that?"
A lot of things made you think that. For example, he was smart, caring, VERY attractive, good with kids, the list could go on and on. But he didn't need to know that. Who ever said he reciprocated your little crush?
"Compared to a lot of guys in the slums, you're a total catch.”
“A catch, huh?” He hummed, you could practically hear the smirk in his words.
“Don’t let it go to your head. Most of the guys around here don't wash their asses."
His low rumble of a laugh resonated under you again; you quite enjoyed the feeling. A small smile formed on your lips as you adjusted to get more comfortable.
"Can I ask you a question?" You asked, to which he hummed in response, "If you're not used to this, then why me? Why now?"
"You looked like you needed some comfort," he began, "I know this whole thing is terrifying to you, it is to me too, but I promise it'll all be alright."
"How can you be so sure?"
"Because we're gonna get this situation fixed, and you're never gonna have to deal with that sicko again," his arm around you got tighter, something you noticed, "Anyways, you should try to get some rest."
"You're a good man, Biggs."
"I try."
His presence always seemed to comfort you. But now, knowing that he wasn't going to leave your side during this ordeal, you finally felt some degree of safety. That, along with his warm arms and gentle heartbeat, made falling asleep a whole lot easier the second time around.
————————
You looked up at Biggs' sleeping face, rays of light from the window illuminating his features. With his eyebrows unfurrowed and his jaw not clenched, he looked peaceful for a change. Your head lay on his chest, still processing how you got into this situation.
Sure, you had a crush on him, but that didn't change the fact that you were just friends. Right? Some friends hold each other through the night, Right? Besides, he was just doing it to comfort you. He was a touchy guy, anyway; this was his way of making you feel safe.
There was a knock on the door, and you suddenly remembered why you were at his house in the first place: people were hunting you down.
You looked back up at Biggs' face, just as still as the moment before. He must not have heard it. As much as you wanted to wake him up and then hide behind him like some scared puppy, you fought back the urge.
You could handle this yourself. You were perfectly capable of taking out a group of people if the occasion called for it. You've done it a thousand times with Shinra guards. Besides, you didn't want to drag him into all this. This wasn't his battle. It was best he stayed safe.
You slipped out of his arms, looking back at his face to be sure he didn't stir, which he didn't. Then, you grabbed your gun from the bedside table. With your weapon in hand, you made your way out of the bedroom and towards the door. Your heart pounded in your chest as you tried to stay as silent as possible. If whoever was outside heard you, who knows what they might have done.
There was a peephole on the door that was just a little higher than eye level for you. The urge to wake Biggs up returned as you didn’t want to see who was on the other side of the door, but you shook it away. Too afraid to look out a peephole, how pathetic, you thought. Taking a deep breath and stand on your tiptoes, you glanced out the hole. It was Jessie, thank God. Putting your gun behind your back, you opened the door.
Jessie's eyes went wide as she looked at you up and down. And then you realized: you were wearing some of Biggs’ clothes, answering the door at his house. This didn't look right at all.
"You two finally hooked up?" She asked, a grin forming on her lips.
"No, no, it's not like that!" You said defensively, "Wait, what do you mean 'finally'?"
"What's going on?" Biggs asked, making his way over to the door, his own gun held at his side
"Woah, woah, woah," Jessie put her hands up, "Your secret's safe with me! The gun's a little much, don't ya think?"
Biggs put his gun away, and you ushered her in before anyone could see you.
"So, you have fun last night?" She asked Biggs. He furrowed his eyebrows at her, about to ask what she meant, until he glanced at you and put the pieces together.
"That's not what happened!" He said.
She looked him up and down, eyes settling on a spot on his shirt.
"Then why do you have a drool stain on your chest?" She smirked, pointing it out, "Checkmate."
You covered your face with your hand. Wow, this was embarrassing. To think you drooled all over your crush and your friend had to go point it out to him. She really couldn't let it go, could she?
"I knew something was up last night. I thought you just stuck around the bar to comfort Y/N, but this," she gestured to the both of you "this was not what I had in mind at all."
"That's not what happened last night," he said again.
"Then what did happen?" She asked, folding her arms over her chest and waiting for a response.
"There's people after me, Jessie," you began, "They were at my house last night, so I stayed here."
The mischievous look in her eyes vanished, along with the matching smirk. Her eyes grew wide, staring into yours for any indication that you were making a joke. When your expression didn't change, her lips parted slightly.
"You're kidding," she finally said, looking from you to Biggs, and then back at you again.
"I wish I was," you admitted, "I'm serious, Jessie."
"What the hell happened?" She blurted.
You and Biggs had a seat on the couch and Jessie took a chair as you told her the story from the night before. You made sure to spare no detail, well almost no detail. You used the phrase "almost lost it," like you did with Tifa, to which Biggs corrected you and received another glare.
Jessie listened intently to your retelling of the story, and you could tell her every thought by the look on her face. Being an actress meant she was used to making exaggerated facial expressions, many of which slipped into her day-to-day life. By the end, though, you knew she wasn't happy with you. She stared on a moment more before getting up from the chair, shifting her weight foot to foot. She was either pissed or scared, or maybe both.
"And you didn't tell any of us this?" She began, "We're your friends, Y/N, we could've helped you out!"
"It all happened so fast, I could barely even process-" you tried to BS an excuse, but you were interrupted by Jessie.
"At the bar last night, you could've told us! I promise you, all five of us would've walked you home last night. We could've handled whoever was at your door, given them all a warning not to mess with you again, but we never had that chance because you're too prideful to ask for help! I wish you'd-"
"Could you stop berating her?" Biggs asked.
"You're not blameless here either! You had the chance to tell us and you didn't!"
"I was keeping a promise," he said calm and firm.
Jessie looked from his eyes back to you. A pang of guilt settled in her stomach as she noticed your demeanor had changed: you wouldn't look her in the eye anymore, instead focusing on the floor below you. Though she had a lot more she wanted to say, she held her tongue.
The next few moments were tense, an uncomfortable silence settling over the three of you. Jessie stood behind the chair, turned around with her gaze settled at Bigg's kitchen. It was immaculate, she noticed for a moment, before wringing her hands in thought.
She had originally come to Biggs’ house to check up on him, since he had not come in for the meeting yet. You were next on her list, but she never expected to see the both of you here.
Today’s meeting was important, she remembered. For today’s meeting would dictate whether or not the next phase of their plan would begin. If Barrett gave the go ahead, They would bomb the Sector 5 reactor the next day. If that was the plan, Jessie was going to break into a Shinra warehouse and steal some less volatile explosive material. She didn't want what happened in sector 1 to repeat itself this time around, and more importantly, she didn’t want any more innocent blood on her hands.
That meant she would have to go home first and take her father's Shinra ID. She originally intended to do this with Cloud as her only help; but maybe, just maybe, you and Biggs would be safer topside tonight than in the slums. If the two of you went with her, she would at least know you were safe.
Although she had planned the task to be a romantic adventure with the cute mercenary, she knew should couldn’t leave her friends in any danger. She had decided, then. Friends over hot guys, besides, she could still flirt with him a little while her friends were there. They'd seen her do it before.
"I assume you're going to tell the rest of the team about this," she said, her tone much more controlled this time around.
“I’ve got no other choice,” you replied.
"We should still be cleared for the mission tomorrow, seeing as this issue has nothing to do with it. But I bet you two want to get out of the slums for a little bit, take your mind off of those goons, right?"
"That would be nice," Biggs added.
"I've got an idea, I'll tell you about it after the meeting," she started, giving off one of her notorious smiles, though it didn't reach her eyes this time, "And Y/N, can I have a word with you?" She glanced over to Biggs, "In private?"
"Why private?" He countered, "Its my house."
"Because I'm going to apologize and I don't do that very often, I don't want any witnesses."
"Don't you think I deserve one too?"
"Too bad, you're not getting one."
Biggs rolled his eyes, but got up anyway, walking to his room and closing the door behind him. Upon his exit, Jessie walked over to you, taking Biggs' spot on the couch.
"I shouldn't have been so harsh," she began, placing her hands neatly in her lap, "I didn't mean to go full-Barrett on you,"
You laughed, staring down at your own lap, "You're right though."
"About what?"
"Me being too prideful to ask for help... All my life I thought I was being strong, but maybe that’s not the case.”
Upon hearing this, Jessie put a hand on your shoulder. “It takes a lot of strength to ask for help, y'know," she said, "but things like this are different. Your safety is at risk."
"I know,"
"Besides, if something ever happened to you, me and Tifa would be outnumbered. You wouldn't want avalanche to become a sausage fest, would you?"
You laughed. It was nice to hear her joke around like she usually did, instead of hearing her yell at you. It wasn’t very often that her anger got the best of her, and although her response today was warranted, it still took you by surprise.
"So you two didn't do anything at all last night?" She asked out of the blue, making you freeze in place. You should’ve known she’d ask about it again...
"We may have shared a bed, but that's it!" You whispered, just in case Biggs could hear you from his room. Jessie looked over her shoulder at his door before whispering back.
"What about the drool stain?"
"You just don't give up, do you?" You breathed, "That was all that happened. We were both scared so we, well..."
"Y/N are you too embarrassed to say you cuddled up with him?" When you didn't answer, she let out an exasperated sigh, running a hand though her bangs, "You two are absolutely hopeless."
She stood up from the couch, turning to look back at the bedroom door.
"You can come out now!" She yelled, "Besides, we gotta figure out how to get both of you to Seventh Heaven unspotted."
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gadgetgirl71 · 3 years
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The Ultimate Betrayal Kat Martin (Maximum Security #3) Publication date: December 29th 2020 Genres: Adult, Romance, Suspense
To prove her father’s innocence, she’ll have to turn a killer’s sights on herself
When her father is accused of espionage and treason, journalist Jessie Kegan has no doubt the man she looked up to her entire life is innocent. Worse yet, before Colonel Kegan can stand trial, he’s found dead of a heart attack…but Jessie knows it was murder. Forcing aside her grief, she’s determined to use her investigative resources to clear her father’s name. But going after the truth means Jessie soon finds herself in the crosshairs of a killer who wants that truth to stay buried with her father.
Protecting Jessie Kegan is a job bodyguard Brandon Garrett can’t refuse. Jessie isn’t just a client at Maximum Security—she’s the sister of his best friend, Danny, who was killed in Afghanistan. With dangerous enemies gunning for Jessie from every angle, keeping her safe will mean keeping her close, and Bran finds their mutual attraction growing, though being Danny’s sister puts Jessie out of bounds.
With their backs against the wall, Jessie and Bran will have to risk everything to expose her father’s killer—before his legacy dies with his daughter.
Goodreads / Amazon
EXCERPT:
They ordered-in Chinese and Bran turned the TV on in the living room, but neither of them were in the mood to watch. Jessie knew exactly what she was in the mood for. She hadn’t thought about sex this much in the last three years. Now, every time she looked at Bran, having sex with him was all she could think of.
Everything about him turned her on. The cadence of his voice, the way he laughed, the way he moved. Just watching him amble across the living room sent a curl of heat into the pit of her stomach.
What would it be like to kiss him? Run her hands over all the lean, hard muscles she had seen and couldn’t get out of her head? What would it be like if he made love to her?
Would she ruin it the way she had when she had tried before? Start thinking about Ray Cummings and the intimate way he had touched her? Conjure images of the rape he had planned to carry out the third night if she hadn’t managed to escape?
Fidgety and unable to relax, she headed for the pool, Bran reluctantly accompanying her. Exercising in the warm water was the perfect stress reliever. She glanced over to where he paced the deck at the opposite end of the pool, tall and lean-muscled, blue-eyed, and built. Nothing better than swimming–except for hours of erotic sex with the man of her fantasies.
It seemed so outrageous she found herself grinning as she stroked to the far end of the pool. She was still smiling when she came up out of the water, dripping and adjusting her swimsuit, just a few feet away from him.
“What’s so funny?” Bran asked, as grumpy tonight as he had been the night before.
She looked into his hard, handsome face and some little devil made her say it. “If you really want to know, I was thinking what it might be like to have wild, uninhibited sex with you.”
Hunger flashed in his eyes so quickly she took a step back. “Is that so,” he drawled, his gaze running over her, assessing every curve her orange-striped bikini displayed.
Her whole body flushed with heat as she realized she wasn’t the only one who’d been thinking about sex.
She swallowed. “I was imagining what it might be like, but I… I know if we tried, I’d screw it up. After Ray, I’ve got, you know, hang-ups.”
His gaze grew more intense. “What kind of hang-ups?”
She picked her towel up off the mesh table next to a lounge chair and quickly dried off, then slipped on her white terrycloth robe. Fortunately, the overhead lights began to flash, signaling it was time for the pool to close.
“Time to leave.” She started walking back to the room, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. By the time Bran opened the door and checked inside to be sure it was safe, she was starting to relax.
“What hang-ups?” Bran he as he closed the door behind them.
Jessie’s stomach instantly knotted. What had possessed her to mention it? But Bran had opened up to her yesterday, which meant she owed him the same courtesy today.
Trying to appear nonchalant, she shrugged. “You know, kissing’s okay, but if a guy starts touching me, my mind flashes back to Ray Cummings and I-I start thinking about the way he touched me, where he touched me, and pretty soon sex is the last thing I want to happen.”
Bran’s jaw looked iron hard. “He rape you?”
She swallowed and shook her head. “On the third day, just before he got home, I managed to get loose. I couldn’t get out of the basement, so I searched for a weapon.” Her lips trembled as the memory became all too clear. “I found a wooden box and pried a board loose. The board had a nail in the end so I held it like a bat, and I-I waited till he came down the stairs.”
“Go on,” Bran said so softly she felt a chill.
“He always wore this black knit ski mask with a red ring around the mouth, which made him look even more terrifying. Knowing what he planned to do gave me courage. The minute he stepped off the bottom step, I swung the board as hard as I could and smashed him in the side of the head. As soon as he hit the floor, I starting whacking him over and over with the nail in the end of the board. He was unconscious and bleeding when I took off running.”
“Finish it,” Bran said when she paused, more a demand than a request.
Her voice trembled. “The woman in the house next door let me in and called the police. Ray was still unconscious when they got there. Turned out he was a serial rapist. He had abducted four other women and locked them up just like me. Eventually, he released them somewhere, but they couldn’t identify him or the place he had taken them. I was the only one who escaped.”
She was shaking. She didn’t realize she had tears in her eyes till Bran pulled her into his arms.
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Author Bio:
Currently living outside Missoula, Montana, Kat Martin is the New York Times bestselling author of over sixty-five Historical and Contemporary Romantic Suspense novels. Before she started writing, Kat was a real estate broker. During that time, she met her husband, L. J. Martin, an author of Westerns and high-action Thrillers. Kat is a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara where she majored in Anthropology and also studied History. She spends her winters in Arizona.
"I love to travel and especially like visiting the places where my books are set," Kat says. "I love history and enjoy spending time in museums and art galleries. My husband and I often stay in out-of-the-way inns and historical houses. It's fun and it gives a wonderful sense of a by-gone era."
To date, Kat has over seventeen million copies of her books in print. She is published in more than two dozen foreign countries, including Germany, France, Norway, Sweden, China, Korea, Bulgaria, Russia, England, South Africa, Italy, Spain, Argentina, Japan and Greece.
Kat is currently writing her next Romantic thriller.
Website / Goodreads / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / Bookbub
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#Bookblitz, #BookBlogger, #Bookshelf, #BooksofInstagram, #BookStagrammer, #bookworm, #GoodReads, #instabook, #instabooks, #instagood, #Instagram, #MaximumSecurity, #XpressoBookTours, #XpressoTours
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How Oceans Of Slumber went to the edge and back to make the most vital prog metal record of 2020
Oceans Of Slumber are redefining what it means to be a prog metal band in 2020. But the future remains uncertain for them
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Between 2018 and 2019, all the original members of Oceans Of Slumber left, bar drummer/songwriter Dobber Beverly. He’d been the self-professed ‘shot caller’ of the band since they started in 2011, and later insisted they bring in female singer Cammie Gilbert, against two of his bandmates’ wishes (“there is a stigma in metal towards a boys’ club,” he notes). But with Cammie on board, they evolved from a loose, directionless project into a slick, soulful, progressive proposition that deftly incorporated extreme metal.
Dobber and Cammie are now the heart of the band, and are also engaged to be married. Together with keyboardist Mat Aleman (who joined in 2018) and new members Jessie Santos (guitar/backing vocals), Alexander Lucian (guitar/backing vocals) and Semir Ozerkan (bass), they are about to release their fourth album. Ambitious, honest and encompassing the personal and the political, it’s their best yet, ranging from thunderous black metal to gnarly death metal and powerful operatic drama. The fact that it’s self-titled surely stands as a statement about who they are in 2020.
“It’s to show this fresh start and this new generation, this new beginning of Oceans,” explains Dobber, speaking in a Southern drawl from his home in Houston, Texas. “We’ve made very confident strides in what we’re doing and the kind of music we’re making.”
Cammie met Dobber in 2015 when her then-band supported Oceans at a benefit show. She remembers seeing him in the middle of the crowd, glaring at her. In fact, Dobber was blown away by her voice and asked Oceans’ original vocalist, Ronnie Allen, to get her details. She duetted on some of Oceans’ songs, before graduating to frontperson when they ran into difficulties with Ronnie.
“Dobber is very serious; I found him quite intimidating,” she reveals today. “But watching him drum, then finding out he plays piano, then guitar, it was a cascade of my emotions falling into the band and my friendship with him. He’s one of the most impressive people I’ve ever met – he’s crazy musically talented, and he cooks amazing food! For me it was a pretty undeniable obsession that formed very quickly!”
Their friendship grew, but Dobber was married at the time. He calls it a “Walk The Line” moment, referring to the Johnny Cash biopic, where a mutual admiration and attraction developed between two musicians. He re-evaluated his life, ended his unhappy marriage, and the two got together.
“What Cammie and I fell into, was the fact that she had the same situation,” Dobber explains. “So when it became a friendship that was too interlinked, I was like, ‘I have to do the right thing to get out of the wrong situation.’ It was walking away from a long-term relationship that was shattered many, many years ago. And not repeating the things that I had done or gone through. There was an admiration for Cammie, and then the love that was between the two of us from respect and from everything else. It was very intense. I’m a very intense person…”
“He’s very driven and focused,” adds Cammie.
“To my own detriment,” Dobber shoots back.
“I can be very emotional and I have a lot of energy behind my emotions, and they’re not always focused,” confesses Cammie. “So it’s a good balance. It keeps me from being like a supernova.”
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In the living-room-cum-studio of their farmhouse in the city, and at their studio an hour north, Dobber and Cammie crafted Oceans Of Slumber. Dobber, who also has extreme metal side-projects Malignant Altar and Necrofier, composes the songs before bringing in the other members for the finishing touches. He gives Cammie a title or writing prompt to focus her attention on the lyrics. There are immersive stories of grief, depression, womanhood and love, but arguably the most intense song is Pray For Fire, which inadvertently captured the zeitgeist. Starting off chilled enough, it peaks with a spoken-word monologue that sounds like an early Daenerys Targaryen issuing commands to free a city.
Dobber explains it’s meant to be an inspiring anthem about facing your fears and challenging the status quo, led by a figurehead who’s working for the greater good. While it was coming together, they watched a documentary on the ship-breaking industry in India, where impoverished workers salvage metal and wood from huge container ships under treacherous conditions.
“You look across history, and there are people that are held down, and it creates such anger, and we do the same thing over and over again,” says Cammie. “I wanted a song that was empowering to those people that felt forgotten or lesser-than or oppressed, whether by socio-economic standing, or race, or war. It’s a full call to arms and a call for flames. Obviously with how things changed, it feels like it’s become a bit more literal than the song was meant to be, but I don’t necessarily mind adding fuel to that fire.”
She’s talking about the upsurge of anger following the murder of George Floyd, and the subsequent momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement, which transpired after the song was written. There have been protests downtown at Discovery Green, and for Cammie it’s meant a change in mindset as she comes to terms with current and historical injustices.
“My day-to-day life has not changed, but how I view things around me has changed quite a bit,” she explains. “I feel like the most impacting thing has been the amount of history I’ve learned about the US. I’m not surprised by the things I find out, but it’s very disheartening and it makes me really sad. It’s kind of a peculiar feeling, because you’re a modern person and you have this modern life, and then you find out this sad history that perpetuates so many things in your life now, and there’s a lot of cognitive dissonance.”
This examination of the past and the present has spurred her into action. “It’s taking on a responsibility that maybe I haven’t felt the need to do before, to not necessarily be an activist, but to make sure that I’m informed, and I speak correctly, and I give good information, and I show that I do care and that I do have opinions about these issues,” she says. “But above all else, we have a generation of younger people that are seeing this and growing up through this. I think it’s important that people in leadership roles are spreading positive messages.”
Another standout song with similar themes is the blastbeat-ridden The Adorned Fathomless Creation – a title from Dobber that describes the hypocritical and indefensible treatment of black people in America. He’d been thinking about how basketball player LeBron James pours money into education – he has established a school in his hometown, provided kids with school supplies and funded college places - yet faces racism in his own country.
“Adornment is the robing and the royalty, but to a big portion of America, he’s just some black person, some racial slur,” says Dobber. “I’d set on this idea with Cammie, and I’m like, you are one of these people. And on top of being heralded and lauded and loved and worshipped, simultaneously you are also some creation of America that America hates.”
Dobber credits touring the world with opening his mind to the issues endemic in The Land Of The Free, and as COVID-19 rises significantly in his conservative state, he’s concerned about whether the live shutdown could spell the end of the band. His former members quit due to family and financial concerns, and he doesn’t want the new line-up to be under strain.
“The worry is that something like this could make this virtually our last record, and by that I mean we could have half of the band drop out,” he frowns. “Because if we’re shut down in the States for a year or two years, that can fully dishearten a musician.”
Life is hard enough for bands in a country that prioritises profit over people, and Dobber has balanced music with his 20-year career in removals. “You’re always juggling trying to be alive here,” he explains. “We don’t have public transportation, so you have to have a reliable car. It’s hard, and I have a full-time job, I have a kid, I’ve got my band, I’ve got everything else, and it’s 90 to nothing, constantly. And the only way that we’re able to continue doing the things that we do is touring, and we can’t tour. This is going to be far more detrimental than venues closing in our cities, which they already are. It’s going to run off or have lasting effects on the people who populate this industry.”
Now is the time to support music, especially when it’s this crushing, tender and illuminating, not to mention slickly mixed by Swedish legend Dan Swanö. And Dobber has a closing message to people who are stuck in metal’s boys’ club. “For those hold-out stalwarts, it is OK for you to listen to a metal band with a woman in it,” he says. “It is OK for you to listen to a metal band with a black woman in it. So please do be open-minded and have these experiences, because bands like us want and need an audience.”
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anunvalidcritic · 5 years
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SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER VERSE
                                                MOVIE REVIEW
(DISCLAIMER: MY OPINION IS MY OWN AND CAN BE DEEMED INVALID TO THOSE WHO DON’T CARE FOR IT.)
June 27th, 2019 the year of our Lord (whichever one that may be) I watch a spectacular movie that I can truly say that the awards won were well deserved. Spider-Man was the first superhero I can truly say I looked up too and he’s super duper awesome my dudes. I plan on rewatching the movie again so I can complete this post.
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Man, this post is gonna be extremely long but it’s totally worth it!
I FUCKING LOOOVVVEEE THIS INTRO MAAAAAAANNNNN!!
“With great powers come great responsibility” - UNCLE BEN
AHHHHH THEY DID THE SPIDER-MAN 3 DANCE DEAD
YOU’RE MY SUNFLOWER!!!!!!!
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The love that his parents give is amazing.
I’m glad to see an ethnic spiderman its dope that he speaks Spanish and English.
I understand that Spider-man is a vigilante
“With accountability comes great accountability“ - JEFFERSON DAVIS
He didn’t have to do MILES like that lol
DEAD THAT CLASS WAS QUIET AF
AYYYEEE THE CITY IS BUMPIN’ TONIGHT!!!!!
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LOL MILES needs to get his face off that window.
Ayyee black people really do that stuff with that chill talkin’ being all smooth and shiiii ROFL
OOFFF
AHHH SHIT IT’S GOING DOWN WITH THE GRAFFITI AND THE SPIDER
SPIDER BITE
LMFAO BOOP!
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Damn his roommate just loves to study.
That is a lot of sweat tho
“I’M A MAN.“ - MILES
Haircut looks cool though if you ask me.
“EVERYONE KNOWS!” - MILES
“WOAH SHE’S TALL” - MILES
PETER droppin’ bops huh??
OOOO THAT LANDING WAS EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!
That was some freaky shit when that spider glitched though. It kinda turned into a thriller movie for a minute.
DAAAMMMNNN a normal person would be dead
“Stanton Island maybe but not Brooklyn!” - PETER
You better catch him!!!
he better not say you only get one of th…….. AAAHHHHH HE SAID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HE FUCKING SAID IT!!!!!!!!!!
PROWLER got a lot of balls flyin’ up on him like that.
WILSON FISK IS TOOOO FUCKIN’ BIG!!!!!!!
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Dang, these glitches remind me of when Vanellelope has hers. (I think her name is spelled wrong but it’s whatever at this point.)
You know whenever people make promises they sometimes are hard to keep.
WTF HE’S BLONDE!!!!!!!! WOAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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OH HELL NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIS MOTHERFUCKER JUST KILLED… AHHHHHHH
ROFL “Yeah I think it’s a BANKSY.” - BYSTANDER
RIO is the sweetest mom ever.
PETER should not have gone out that way! MAAAAANNNNNN
STAN LEE R.I.P
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Boy, you better not jump off that building that black in you bette… LOL, HE TOOK HIS ASS RIGHT BACK DOWN!
damn, he messed up the hard-drive.
Aww, I love that ominous blue and red lighting… good symbolism.
PETER B. PARKER
Spider-Man for the last 22 years
blah blah blah workin’ hard and fallin’ in love
15 years past
buried Aunt May
Split up with MJ
Seahorses mate for life 
“Could you image a seahorse seeing another seahorse… and then making it work.” - PETER B PARKER
pizza is life
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YEAH, THAT BLONDE SHIT THREW ME FOR A LOOP TOO!
“Adios” - MILES
DAAAMMMNN he didn’t have to do PETER B like that!
“Looks like a child dressed like spider-man dragging a homeless corpse behind a train.” - POLICE OFFICER
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Aye, I fuck with the song that was being played through that guy’s headphones even though I don’t even know what it was. 
“Why is your body another shape” - MILES damn that’s fucked up 
GOOODDDDDAMMMMN THAT GLITCH FUCKED HIM UP!
These fucking sweatpants man
“DON’T PLAY WITH ME.“ - MILES (black people love that line lol)
“You good with that Spider-Man?!“ - MILES
“In my universe, this place closed 6 years ago. I don’t know why.” - PETER B PARKER (Probably because the restaurant has a C rating)
Was lowkey waiting for a roach to crawl across something 
I LOVE THIS SONG!
“Spider-Man doesn’t wear a cape.” - MILES (He doesn’t wear sweatpants either)
How tf did WILSON FISK get his BIG ASS INTO THAT CAR?!?!?!
lol his booty jiggled a bit hehehehehe
hold up this chick sound like Jessie from Toy Story…
WOAH either she a freak or she likes pushing people
“And I for one can’t wait to watch.” - DR. OC (WTF DID SHE JUST SAY!!)
LOL, HE HIT ‘EM WITH THE ‘HEY’.
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Aww, they’re having a bonding moment! 
GWEN STAC(E)Y UP IN THIS BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Last 2 years
Joined a band
Saved her dad
Couldn’t save her PETER PARKER
Doesn’t do friends to save herself feeling.
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Oh, we’re getting a little WILSON FISK flashback.
Damn, why is she driving so fast…
Something like that was bound to happen I’m sorry to say. 
This dude really got some board shoulders.
SPIDER PEOPLE
Why does PETER B PARKER have on two different types of shoes?
BRUH AUNT MAY CAME FOR HIM!
DAAAANNNGG AUNT MAY THUGGIN’ HUH!?!?!?!?!
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TRIGGERED
DEAD AUNT MAY has “HELLO MY NAME IS …” cards
“Wherever I go, the wind follows.” - SPIDER-MAN NOIR
BRUH JOHN MAOULNEY
SPIDER-MAN NOIR
Year: 1933 
Job: Private Eye
Likes: Drinking egg creams and fighting Nazis (A LOT)
“Sometimes I let matches burn down to my fingertips just to feel something anything.”
PENI PARKER SPIDER
Year: 3145
Has a psychic link with a spider that lives inside of her father’s robot.
Lost her father
BEST BUDS FOR LIFE
SPIDER-HAM
PETER PORKER
Bitten by a radioactive pig 
Photographer for the Daily Beagle
Usually, when he’s not working like a dog he chasing a story
Likes to frolic and dance while doing it in his pants. 
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SAD FACE EMOJI
if stitch had a glitch lol
PETER B PARKER really puttin’ MILES on blast. 
STOP FUCKING CROWDING HIM!!!!!!!!!!!
This movie is back on their spooky ooky shit
Damn only if he knew his uncle was the PROWLER...
LOL, THAT MUSIC!!!!!!!!!
RUN BOY RUN THIS WORLD ISN’T MEAN FOR YOU!
BRUH PENI’S FACE!!!
“This is a pretty hardcore origin story.“ - SPIDER-MAN NOIR
“We don’t pick the ballroom we just dance.” - SPIDER-MAN NOIR
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OOOFFF WHEN AUNT MAY SAYS TAKE IT OUTSIDE SHE MEANS IT!
Of course, MILES dad is on the way
OH, SHIT SHOW HIM YOUR FUCKING FACE!!!
OH, FUCK!!!!!!
How the fuck you gonna be flying around without some type of bulletproof vest. DAMN SMH
Man, a kid should not be seeing someone die right in front of them. 
JEFFERSON didn’t deserve to find his brother that way. 
I’m glad they’re having a heart to heart to him. But that room is too small
“MILES the hardest part about this job is that you can’t save everyone“ - SPIDER-HAM
“Do animals talk in this dimension because I don’t want to freak him out.“ - SPIDER-HAM
Let the bodies hit the floor. 
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“A leap of faith” - PETER B PARKER
At least his dad came by to speak to him.
He had that boy fucked up again!
AUNT MAY A THUG BRO!!!!
THIS SONG IS GETTIN’ ME HYPED UP AND I’M NOT EVEN IN THE FUCKING MOVIE!
Man them taking the bus is really killin’ me
Bruh the waiter
ROFL
BATTLE ROYALE BABY!!!!
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YEAH MILES
“Do you have a problem with cartoons?!?!” - SPIDER-HAM
PENI I’m sorry to say but your BUD FOR LIFE is gone.
MILES is a smooth criminal!!
WILSON FISK BIG MAD!!
I find it so cool that each time they jumped back into the portal it was reflected off of them.
ROFL “That’s all folks” “Is he allowed to say that legally?”
WILSON FISK always tryin’ to hurt somebody damn!
NOBODY TOOK YOUR FUCKING FAMILY BITCH THAT WAS YOU! IF YOU TRULY KNEW YOUR WIFE YOU WOULD’VE KNOWN THAT SHE DIDNT GET JIGGY WITH THAT SHIT PERIOD!
THE SHOULDER TOUCH
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MILES did that (with help of course)
C-Mobile = T-Moblie hehehehehehe
BRUH HE DID WILSON FISK DIRTY!!!
MILES MORALES
SPIDER-MAN for 2 days
Finally, finished his essay
Saved a lot of people
Spent time with his father
Got hit by a drone as well
Had a proper meeting with his roommate
Slapped his sticker where his dad won’t find it
Will always remember his friends. 
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“Anyone can wear the mask. You can wear the mask. If you didn’t know that before I hope you know that now.“ SPIDER-MAN (MILES)
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Y’ALL THERE WAS A GLITCH IN THE SYSTEM! Everything and I mean EVERYTHING! So thankful I was able to salvage a little bit of it back. I really do wish I was able to get what I said at the end because I meant it. :( 
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EDIT: I was fast forwarding through the movie to get it off of my “continue watching” list and I discovered something at the end! So I’ll be making a bit of an edit. (This is a reminder that you need to ALWAYS STAY AT THE END OF EVERY MARVEL! (smh I made a rookie mistake))
James Blake has such an amazing voice
MEANWHILE IN NUEVA YORK
“I was gone for less than 2 hours.” - MAN
THE BEST LESS 2 HOURS OF MY LIFE!
oooo the man’s name is MIGUEL 
Earth ‘67
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH THE MEME THE MEME!!!!!!!!!!
“How dare you point at me!” - SPIDER-MAN
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creeped-out-ranked · 4 years
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Creeped Out is a horror anthology series shown on CBBC in the UK and available on Netflix elsewhere. It’s an excellent show, fun for kids with loads of crossover appeal for adults. But the big entertainment sites tend not to cover it, and I haven't been able to find a definitive ranking of all the episodes anywhere. So I decided to create my own, because why not?! This list includes season 1 and season 2; I’ll add further episodes as they’re shown.
Before we get into this: there are some spoilers in here. I’ve tried to keep them to a minimum but sometimes, to describe what's good (or bad) about an episode, I need to discuss elements of the plot.
Every episode of Creeped Out, ranked from best to worst
1. ‘Slapstick’ (Season 1, Episode 1)
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The first episode of a series is rarely the best, but Creeped Out bucks the trend—‘Slapstick’ hasn’t yet been bettered. It’s the perfect combination of cozy and creepy, with a quintessentially British setting (a seaside town complete with Punch & Judy shows), a puppet antagonist who’s somewhere between unnerving and amusing, and a relatable main character. Even the score is the best of the bunch: its sinister take on fairground music really adds to the atmosphere. The plot—Jessie wishes her parents were ‘normal’, and lives to regret it—is compelling, and in contrast to some of the weaker episodes, you actually understand why the characters do the things they do (even the bully is given a bit of a backstory). ‘Slapstick’ is a gem, and more than any other episode, it stands up to repeated rewatches.
2. ‘Trolled’ (Season 1, Episode 3)
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Sam leads a double life: he’s secretly NoFace, an online troll who often targets his closest friends. When he ignores a message warning him to stop trolling, things start to go very wrong. This episode is set in the plush surroundings of a boarding school (one of Creeped Out’s more notable backdrops) and the contrast between Sam’s environment and his online life is both palpable and believable. The dynamic between Sam, Fitzy and Naini is established very effectively—you really feel Sam has something to lose. Extra points for the properly bleak ending, too.
3. ‘Kindlesticks’ (Season 1, Episode 9)
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This episode is a fan favourite, and it’s not difficult to see why. ‘Kindlesticks’ came out of nowhere, landing in the middle of a few mediocre episodes, and doesn’t seem at first glance to have the most exciting setup: a bad babysitter getting her comeuppance. Yet you’ll likely find that the tale of Esme, her charge Ashley and his imaginary friend Kindlesticks will drag you in, spit you out and leave you reeling. It’s a simple idea executed perfectly, with what is undoubtedly Creeped Out’s best delivery of a twist. Seriously, I didn’t see that coming at all.
4. ‘Splinta Claws’ (Season 2, Episode 10)
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Admittedly, it isn’t difficult to make a Christmas episode good—add lots of sparkly decorations and a bit of ‘Carol of the Bells’ and you’ve already nailed the atmosphere. ‘Splinta Claws’, in which two boys get trapped in a department store along with a possessed animatronic Santa, builds on that to create an inspired take on PG-13 seasonal horror. It’s the self-aware script that really makes this episode; the ‘frenemy’ relationship between anxious Mikey and street-smart Lawrence, plus the characters’ recognition that the slow-moving Santa isn’t that scary (despite its nightmare-fuel face). An effective combination of action, emotion and humour results in a spooky festive treat.
5. ‘Tilly Bone’ (Season 2, Episode 9)
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Telling a story backwards is a bold move, and initially, it makes ‘Tilly Bone’ confusing. Some viewers might find themselves wanting to switch off as they wonder what the hell is going on. But stick with it, and a fascinating tale unfolds, with layers, details and clues to be picked apart, nods to classic horror, great performances (especially Alice Franziska Woodhouse as the disquieting Junebug) and some of the series’ most original and surprising ideas. It’s formally innovative, daring and altogether one of the most impressive pieces of work Creeped Out has yet produced.
6. ‘Marti’ (Season 1, Episode 4)
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Kim is initially delighted when her new phone’s AI helps her to become more popular, but things take a turn for the sinister when ‘he’ claims to be in love with her. ‘Marti’ cleverly uses this premise as a kid-appropriate way to explore themes of coercive control and abusive relationships. I have a feeling this episode may have been inspired by the 2016 movie Bedeviled—there are lots of similarities, right down to Marti’s voice—and it says a lot that in 25 minutes it crafts a better, more meaningful story than a full-length horror movie for adults was able to manage. Often unfairly slept on, ‘Marti’ is the talented underdog of the series.
7. ‘Takedown’ (Season 2, Episode 8)
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‘Takedown’ is intriguing because it departs completely from the series’ typical aesthetic—there's lots of shakycam, a grainy feel to the cinematography, a muted colour palette. It’s shot more like an indie film than an episode of a kids’ show. It focuses on Alexa, the only girl on her high school wrestling team, who uses a weird chain text to wish for more strength. Since this is Creeped Out, it’s no surprise that her ‘gift’ comes at a price. With its gritty feel and the authentic friendship between Alexa and Lucky (‘cheers to root beers’, anyone?), this episode is something really different, and all the more memorable for it.
8. ‘No Filter’ (Season 2, Episode 6)
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Like ‘Trolled’, ‘No Filter’ is a thoroughly enjoyable example of what a series like this should be aiming for, which is essentially a junior version of a Twilight Zone episode. There’s a recognisable starting point—who hasn’t used filters or Facetune to make their selfies look better, and who bothers reading all the T&Cs?—and when Kiera’s eroded face is revealed, it’s one of the few moments in the series to create a genuine shock. Plus there’s a proper pantomime villain, just as it should be. The ending might be a little jumbled, but it’s entertaining enough that that can be forgiven.
9. ‘Cat Food’ (Season 1, Episode 2)
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Happy-go-lucky prankster Stu pretends to be ill so he can skip school, but gets more than he bargained for when he discovers the elderly neighbour, Mrs McMurtle, is actually a shapeshifting monster. ‘Cat Food’ is a fun, comedic episode (the only one yet to make me laugh out loud) and, while there isn’t a great deal of substance to the story, it’s efficiently told and neatly resolved. Rhys Gannon is great as Stu and it’s just an all-round fun time.
10. ‘The Traveller’ (Season 1, Episode 11)
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While the vast majority of Creeped Out episodes take place in a distinctly middle-class milieu, ‘The Traveller’ switches things up by focusing on Jodie and Brandon, troublemaking kids on an inner-city estate. They come across a device that can pause time, and it’s all fun and games until a blue-skinned man starts hunting them down. The plot is a bit more Doctor Who than your average episode, and the combination of urban setting and sci-fi story is surprisingly successful. There’s also an emotional gut-punch of a moment when Jodie finally understands the problems she’s been creating for her mum.
11. ‘The Call’ (Season 1, Episode 6)
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‘The Call’ isn't one of the strongest stories in Creeped Out’s repertoire. An unpopular girl is drawn to an environmental activist and discovers she’s a siren, gaining powers into the bargain—interesting enough, but not enormously original, and inevitably a gateway to slightly tedious lecturing about plastic etc. It stands out mainly because of a stellar performance from Rebecca Hanssen, who reminds me of a young Olivia Colman. Hanssen really inhabits the character of Pearl, and shows how excellent acting can elevate an ordinary plot and script.
12. ‘The Many Place’ (Season 2, Episode 4)
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With their holiday scuppered by torrential rain, three siblings wander a hotel and find themselves lost in a maze of realities. ‘The Many Place’ is designed as an homage to Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, and spotting the references is part of the enjoyment here. The story takes advantage of the liminal, disconcerting nature of a large hotel to craft a series of alarmingly plausible terrors, and the ending features the best twist since ‘Kindlesticks’.
13. ‘One More Minute’ (Season 2, Episode 1)
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‘One More Minute’ kicks off the second season with a pure hit of enjoyment that doesn’t take itself too seriously. When Jack can’t tear himself away from his favourite videogame, he finds time passing quickly—scarily quickly. While it may not be among the best, everything about this episode is solid: it’s (appropriately) well paced, the relationships are soundly fleshed out, and it’s all wrapped up well.
14. ‘Itchy’ (Season 2, Episode 2)
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It may have one of the show's sillier premises—the villains are... head lice—but I have a soft spot for ‘Itchy’. Perhaps it’s the setting: a military academy on an English island feels fresh when you compare it to the many identikit homes and high schools in the series. Perhaps it’s the strong performance from Oliver Finnegan as protagonist Gabe. Either way, there’s something low-key charming about this episode.
15. ‘Side Show’ (Season 1, Episodes 12 and 13)
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This two-part season finale is set in the early 20th century and centres on a troupe of circus performance whose ringmaster won’t allow them to venture beyond a magical barrier. Overall, ‘Side Show’ isn’t especially creepy; it’s more of a fantasy story that feels like it could have been its own separate series. The advantage of this is that there’s more space for character development and worldbuilding. The disadvantage is that it doesn’t truly feel like part of the Creeped Out universe.
16. ‘A Boy Called Red’ (Season 1, Episode 5)
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Vincent and his dad aren't getting along, but when they go to stay at the latter’s childhood home, Vincent finds an unusual way to reconnect: via a time-travelling portal. The switches between past and present are handled admirably, and Boris Burnell Anderson is a standout as AJ. There’s a lot to like about ‘A Boy Called Red’; it just doesn’t stand out as especially memorable when compared to some of the stronger Creeped Out stories, perhaps because there’s no real antagonist. 
17. ‘Bravery Badge’ (Season 1, Episode 7)
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A troop of Girl Guides—sorry, ‘Hedgehog Rangers’—head into the woods for a camping trip. When the girls start falling into a strange trance, it’s up to a moody, reluctant Ranger to save the day. The setting here is promising, the campfire scene is a highlight, and the urban legend about the missing troop is a great touch. Unfortunately, the good stuff is undermined by questionable acting and a somewhat ridiculous supernatural menace. Though I will admit the singing is quite creepy.
18. ‘Shed No Fear’ (Season 1, Episode 10)
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Set in the 1970s, with some decent period detail, this episode follows two boys as they battle a mysterious shadow-creature inhabiting an old shed. It’s cute to see Greg and Dave rekindle their friendship and tell the smarmy football captain to get lost, but the threat of the Shade is never particularly well-developed. The title also annoys me. Outside the context of this episode, nobody has ever uttered the phrase ‘shed no fear’. It isn’t even a good pun!
19. ‘The Unfortunate Five’ (Season 2, Episode 5)
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Five kids in detention meet their match in a seemingly sweet, yoga-loving teacher who pits them against each other. Establishing five protagonists and two villains within the space of 25 minutes is a tall order, and it’s one this episode doesn't meet. ‘The Unfortunate Five’ has a good concept and also boasts one of the series’ goriest images (when Faye attacks Hawkins and blood spatters across the glass—I’m kind of surprised CBBC didn’t cut that). But the flimsy, unmemorable characters doom it to the lower reaches of this list.
20. ‘Only Child’ (Season 2, Episode 7) 
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This could have been great: the story of a girl being menaced by her demonic baby brother, while her parents are convinced she’s just jealous, has lots of potential. Yet ‘Only Child’ doesn't really work. The denouement is rushed and muddled (exactly how does Mia identify the link between the baby’s power and the feedback sound?) and the low-budget special effects don't help. It also suffers from being set entirely within the Tuthill family’s apartment, which looks like a cheaply decorated show home. 
21. ‘Help’ (Season 2, Episode 3)
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A very meh installment about a brother and sister who are overly reliant on their family’s Amazon Alexa-like virtual assistant. It’s basically a weaker version of ‘Marti’ with a much less impactful message. The siblings are barely fleshed out, and the episode shares with ‘Only Child’ a sterile-looking set that doesn’t resemble a real family home at all.
22. ‘Spaceman’ (Season 1, Episode 8)
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If episodes like ‘Trolled’ and ‘No Filter’ represent what a show like Creeped Out should be, ‘Spaceman’ is exactly what it shouldn’t be. If ‘Cat Food’ proves how well humour can work within a scary story, ‘Spaceman’ shows exactly how it can go wrong. The tale of unlikely pals Spud and Thomas finding a crashed spaceship is by far the worst thing Creeped Out has come up with—it’s implausible, unfunny and not remotely creepy. Avoid.
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Psycho Analysis: Team Rocket
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(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)
“Prepare for trouble! And make it double!”
I feel like there are few anime villains who are quite as iconic and memorable to the current generation than the bumbling trio of Team Rocket: Jessie, James, and Meowth (that’s right!). These three have appeared in nearly every single episode of the anime, indisputably being main characters on the level of Ash and his pals. Hell, they actually have more of a right to being main characters than franchise staples like Brock, Misty, or whatever girl of the season Ash has tagging along. Team Rocket are pretty omnipresent.
Of course, they’ve had many ups and downs over the years. From some poor showings to voice actor changes to being so overexposed it’s hard not to get tired of them to some absolutely awful decisions the characters make, Team Rocket are just as imperfect creations as most of the other characters in the show. Still, I find Team Rocket to be more consistently enjoyable and even for the most part more compelling than Ash Ketchum. It helps that, unlike him, they have rather interesting backstories and characterization.
Actor: Originally, the trio were voiced by Rachel Lillis (Jessie), Eric Stuart (James), and Maddie Blaustein (Meowth), though in the case of Blaustein and Stuart they actually weren’t the first in their respective roles; Nathan Price and Ted Lewis were the first to voice their characters. Blaustein and Stuart are easily the more iconic voices, however, so I’m going to focus on them.
Lillis is also the original voice of Misty, as well as Jigglypuff, though she has a pretty prolific career in anime voice acting outside of Pokemon; her performance of Jessie really cements her as an abrasive, stuck-up witch who constantly sounds like she’s talking down to everyone; you can practically hear the sneer in her voice, it really is something.
Eric Stuart you may know as Brock or perhaps Seto Kaiba, or perhaps as Meta Knight from Kirby: Right Back at Ya! Or maybe you know him from his music career. Either way, you know that he gave James that sissy, foppish charm that we all know and love.
Maddie Blaustein… She was easily the most talented of the bunch here, and that’s really saying something. She was a woman of a thousand voices, to the e point where you’d never know she was voicing someone unless you saw her name in the credits. Like, can you believe she was Solomon Moto and Sartorious in the Yu-Gi-Oh franchise? Or Omega in Sonic 06? She was one of the greats, and as such is it any shock she delivered the best performance possible to the sneaky little wise guy mascot of the bumbling trio? Her presence is definitely sorely missed even today.
Of course, these three really made the characters who they were, but they did eventually get replaced, and while I don’t think Michele Knotz as Jessie, Jimmy Zoppi as James, or Carter Cathcart as Mewoth are bad by any means – they still manage to give great performances and keep the characters lovable  as ever – I do think that it really is hard to live up to the iconic originals, especially in Blaustein’s case.
Motivation/Goals: Team Rocket are introduced as menacing, competent criminals very early on in the anime, with the same goal as any Team Rocket member would have: stealing Pokemon. Of course, after their fated encounter with Ash and the witnessing of his Pikachu’s incredible power, they become single-mindedly obsessed with nabbing Ash’s Pokemon pal and using him for their own nefarious purposes, and the rest is history. Of course, Team Rocket occasionally finds time to look for other goals, such as getting food or money, but most of the time they just try and find new ways to steal Pikachu and fail at doing it.
Personality: Their personalities are really what sets them apart and makes them so interesting. Jessie, for instance, is definitely the more evil of the three; she’s willing to keep going at Team Rocket goals even when there’s no need, while her teammates are far more willing to just abandon stealing Pokemon if better opportunities arrive. Jessie can be callous and cruel, she has an extremely short temper, she’s loud and brash, but even with all that she truly does love her teammates. Even Wobbuffett. Jessie really epitomizes “jerk with a heart of gold.”
James is flamboyant and just as willing to take part in evil schemes to steal Pokemon, but out of everyone in Team Rocket James is easily the nicest guy. He’s sweet and doting to his Pokemon, he has quite a few morals, and he has a lot of the more genuinely compelling emotional moments. All of this also leads into him being probably the smartest and most level-headed of the group, for what that’s worth anyway.
Meowth is snarky and loud, but he has a lot of depths, much like his colleagues. I mean, this guy taught himself how to talk (at the cost of being able to learn moves like Pay Day), so he’s gotta be at least a little smart, right? WELL… while Meowth does have some smarts, especially street smarts since he grew up on the mean streets of Hollywood, Meowth is also the looniest of the three if you can believe that. Have you perhaps seen the numerous fantasies of Giovanni doing something ludicrous with some random Pokemon? Guess who is the person responsible for thinking most of those up. Go on, guess.
There are things all three members of the group share: all three are incredibly friendly to the point where they’re only villains because of their loyalty to Giovanni; they’re as likely to be friendly with Ash and the gang as to be trying to steal his Pokemon, o the point where they’ve not only helped him, but have directly had a hand in saving the world on quite a few occasions. All three are pretty hilarious in their ineptitude as well, and all three are actually very competent at disguising themselves. They all tend to be pretty hammy as well. All in all, the three are really enjoyable and fun for what they are.
Final Fate: Whenever these three do evil, there is only one fate in store for them: blasting off. Still, they always end up somehow coming back in the next episode to cause a ruckus.
Best Scene: In a series as long as this, it’s hard to single out one scene among the hundreds of thousands of scenes they’ve had. Still, the entirety of “Go West, Young Meowth” counts as one for Meowth, culminating with him taking out a Persian by himself, as well as Jessie and James coming to Meowth’s aid before said duel.
Best Quote: I hardly think it is possible to overstate how good their original motto is:
Jessie: Prepare for trouble!
James: And make it double!
Jessie: To protect the world from devastation.
James: To unite all people within our nation.
Jessie: To denounce the evils of truth and love!
James: To extend our reach to the stars above!
Jessie: Jessie!
James: James!
Jessie: Team Rocket, blast off at the speed of light!
James: Surrender now, or prepare to fight. note
Meowth: Meowth, that's right!
From 1998 to 2006, this was how they announced their arrival on the scene, and while they’d go through other mottos and songs and whatnot over the years, nothing can top the original.
Final Thoughts & Score: Team Rocket are some of the most memorable antagonists in all of anime, despite amounting to what would just be nameless, faceless mooks in the game series the anime is based on. Honestly, it’s hard to imagine the anime without them involved, and even when they introduce more serious villains they rarely ever match up to Team Rocket. Hell, even other members of Team Rocket fail to live up to their entertaining standard; does anyone remember Atilla and Hun, does anyone actually care about Butch and Cassidy?
In fact, it’s pretty easy to say that in many ways these three are even more interesting than Ash. You see, we know from the start Team Rocket is going to fail in whatever evil schemes they have going on in any given episode, so unlike when Ash inevitably loses the championship, Team Rocket losing is expected, making their victories sweeter as opposed to Ash’s victories feeling like inevitable buildup to failure. It also helps that unlike Ash, all three have pretty interesting, compelling, and even tragic backstories, with Jessie following in her mother’s footsteps as a Rocket grunt, James fleeing from an abusive arranged marriage and tossing aside a life of riches for crime, and Meowth learning how to talk by itself and growing up on the streets. Team Rocket just ends up feeling so much more interesting and fleshed out than the main character of the show, though considering the amount of screentime they get they easily could be considered main characters.
Jessie, James, and Meowth across the board get 8/10. I’d definitely say it’s the high end of 8, but they are held back a bit by some truly dumb decisions they’ve made over the years, dumb decisions to rival Ash’s, such as the frequent letting go of Pokemon the audience has likely grown to know and love, with Arbok and Weezing being the most offensively egregious example. Still, this gang has stuck around for over 20 years, and the show and series at large just wouldn’t feel the same without their continued presence. Good, bad, it doesn’t matter; Team Rocket’s iconic trio is a core part of the franchise, and their impact can’t be ignored.
“Meowth, that’s right!”
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tghjuxqtf07-blog · 5 years
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ayearofpike · 5 years
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Witch World/Red Queen
Witch World
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Simon Pulse, 2012 521 pages, 24 chapters + epilogue ISBN 978-1-4424-3028-0 LOC: PZ7.P626 Wi 2012 OCLC: 924501501 Released November 13, 2012 (per B&N)
(HELL YES I DID take this picture in Vegas. Way back in November, underscoring just how behind this entry is.)
Red Queen
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Simon Pulse, 2014 ISBN 978-1-4424-3029-7 LOC: PZ7.P626 Rd 2014 OCLC: 1030042441 Released August 19, 2014 (per B&N)
First I have to address the immediate question: It’s the exact same book. Like, down to pagination. (Yes, I read them both. We’ve already established I’m kind of a freak.) I don’t know why it has two different sets of catalog information. I don’t know why they changed the title, but I will hazard a guess that Witch World is a shitty title and it took slow or lacking sales for S&S to convince Pike/Pike to convince S&S to change it. I don’t know why they then picked a title that would be coming out shortly from another publisher, one that would go on to create a much more robust universe and move enough units to muddy any kind of search query. I don’t even really know why I bought them both. I don’t know a lot of things, and I’m not quite masochist enough to find out.
What I do know? This book is more of the same old shit. Like, OK, most people aren’t going to read all 95 of Christopher Pike’s books right on top of each other, so the connections and relationships might slide. But if you do, you start to see that this dude actually has no new or original ideas after ... let’s generously call it 1996. The beautiful girl in the California town in the middle of nowhere who goes on a weekend party outing with her friends, but then meets a dude with mysterious powers and ends up in a fatal situation, only to realize that she’s survived death and now has strength and vision beyond her prior ability or even imagination? A vision that taps her into an alternate parallel universe, where she’s had a child who has the potential to be the most powerful human ever, only evil forces know about this child’s genetics and want to use her for their own selfish and horrific ends? This is The Grave, gang. Well, mostly The Grave, with some Sita and Alosha and, yes, even Spooksville sprinkled in for flavor. But the point is, we’ve seen all of it already.
Pike has previously said that he felt rushed toward the end of his previous S&S days, and that he didn’t put everything he had into the stories he wrote because of being pulled in multiple directions. That’s fair, and it makes sense that he’d want to come back to something he felt wasn’t as good as it could be, something that didn’t get enough care and attention, and make it better. So it’s a little frustrating that this is what we get. Don’t get me wrong, it’s got a lot of potential, but then again, so did The Grave. I can’t help but feel like Pike is still just trying to figure out what has sold, what has been attractive to people who read his books and others like them, and is retreading so much old ground that it’s starting to become flat and uninteresting. (Which might be part of my reticence to finish this project.)
One thing that’s new and notable about WW/RQ: it marks the placement of Pike’s first YA F-bomb. He’s been using “damn,” “hell,” and “bitch” since the beginning, and starting with EoI (eliding maybe one or two in Whisper of Death) he began liberally (not literally, mind) dropping “shit.” But “fuck” has been sacred, hallowed ground, off limits in any but his adult novels, never mind that this is pretty much what all of his characters want to do all the time. So imagine my profound shock when I picked this book up right around its release date* and encountered the word “unfuckable” on page 18. A sign of the times, yes, and of what was becoming permissible in YA, but to someone who had grown up with Pike and expected a certain voice and stance, this felt kind of wrong and out of place. Much like my opinion of Pike in the 21st century in general.
*This was another random club store find in a rural town in southern New Mexico. I don’t know why the store where I mostly bought diapers was getting Pike in hardback on or near release when nobody else even knew these books were available, and can’t imagine I’ll ever find out.
OK, summary time. Jessie Ralle has just graduated from high school and her entire senior class is going to Las Vegas to celebrate. Said entire class is like 200 people — so not only does Pike still not get what a small town is, but he demonstrates increasing disconnect from how young people actually act. Vegas is a two-hour drive from Apple Valley, California (where Jessie’s mom relocated them after her Hollywood doctor dad bailed on them for a hot young nurse, and also where none of this takes place). I barely even wanted to drive across town to my senior party, to say nothing of paying for a hotel and a fancy dinner with a massive group that I barely know. And that was before the Internet and streaming media allowed us to prune and curate what (and who) we interact with so ruthlessly. Like, if this was a class of 40, I’d be on board, but 200?
But apparently it’s a close-knit 200 people, even though we only ever meet like six of ‘em. Jessie’s riding in a car with four others: her best friend since childhood, the uptight salutatorian, the class nerd who of course has always had a crush on Jessie, and Jimmy. Jessie has loved Jimmy from afar since the beginning of high school, and from up  close for a couple of months this past winter, but he dumped her to go back to his previous girlfriend, who graduated early and hasn’t been seen around town since. That doesn’t mean Jessie is over him — far from it, actually — so this car ride is either going to work out in her favor or be super awkward and uncomfortable.
They get a three-bedroom suite at the MGM Grand for $150 over a weekend somehow. It is all I can do to suspend my disbelief. Like, I’ve been to Vegas (obviously; see top image). Pike obviously has too; his description of spatial mechanics is (mostly) on point, which is what makes this price thing so jarring. I’ve been responsible for booking hotel rooms there off and on for the last 20 years. And the one time we ever got a suite, it was almost twice that PER NIGHT and still only had one bedroom. (We split it six ways, and we all HAD jobs.) And this was in the beat-ass old Luxor in September 2006. Ain’t no way these fucking CHILDREN managed a SUITE in a PREMIER CENTER STRIP HOTEL SIX YEARS LATER FOR LESS. And Jessie has the gall to fucking COMPLAIN ABOUT THE COST.
I MUST STOP YELLING. I am so a dad, right?
But anyway, Jimmy doesn’t have a room — he wasn’t even sure he was coming on this trip. Jessie’s best friend offers for him to stay with them, which Uptight Salutatorian bitches about, but like, chill the fuck out, there’s a couch, right? He and Jessie have to talk about whether this is OK, and it turns out he left her because his ex was pregnant, but the baby died just after he was born. And Jessie isn’t OK. They’d been together long enough that this smacks of either an excuse or a manipulation, and she doesn’t like either option. She kicks him out and cries a lot, and then the gang all goes to dinner at the Bellagio, which is where this starts to get financially realistic when half the class balks at the cost of the meal and fucking bails. Yet the restaurant serves the rest, even giving these (again) CHILDREN bottles of wine, which messes Jessie up enough to kiss Nerd Crush. In front of Uptight Salutatorian, who (it turns out) likes HIM. So everyone gets pissed off at each other and takes off, and then Jessie and Best Friend go see O (the Cirque show inside the Bellagio). 
It’s page 35, by the way. Almost 500 to go yet. At least from here the story gets more focused and straightforward.
After the show, they want to gamble. CHILDREN. But they have fake IDs, so they head down to the Tropicana, an older hotel with lower minimums on blackjack, where they bump into a dude who seems strangely familiar to Jessie, even though she’s sure she never met him before. This dude is in town for a medical conference ... Jessie will later learn about his genome-scanning technology and what it implies for people like her, but she’s gonna have to figure it out first. He has an uncanny ability to win, and people start asking him for advice, but he denies them all. Except Jessie. They quickly pile up hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is where she’s hosed because they’ll never let her cash out that much with a fake ID. So the dude gives her his room key (not at this old-ass dirtball hotel, at the Mandalay Bay across the street) and says he’ll get her money and bring it up in a minute, and she should order some dessert from room service while she’s waiting.
No, they don’t fuck. They almost do, but then Jessie remembers Jimmy and realizes she’s still hung up on him, even though he wronged her and left her hanging. But she learns that the dude will cop to some unnatural method of knowing what’s coming next in the deck, which is why he managed to bet properly at the right times. He doesn’t show her, but he does teach her how to play twenty-two. Not twenty-one, which is blackjack: in twenty-two, aces are only worth one, but red queens are eleven. And if you get a natural twenty-two (queen of hearts and queen of diamonds), you win instantly, PLUS your opponent HAS to try to win their bet back in full on the next hand. The dude doesn’t state why these are the strict rules, but he does imply that a portion of the winnings goes to some mysterious party that doesn’t come clear yet.
So Jessie goes back to the hotel, where Jimmy is sitting on the floor outside. He’s been sexiled from the nerd’s room, because it turns out he was OK going after Uptight Salutatorian (who I guess isn’t so uptight after all). And he’s crying and he’s apologetic, and this coupled with Jessie’s realization in Mystery Gambler’s room is all it takes for her to accept him back. They have breakfast with everyone the next day (room service, more invisible money spent) and then Jessie and Jimmy drive out to Lake Mead to splash and swim and sex. But what’s weird is that it reminds them both of the first time ... which neither of them remembers the same way. Even more awkward is the ex showing up with a warning: “They never take just one, Jessie. They always take both.” (102)
This doesn’t make any sense, right? Well, Mystery Gambler has planted a seed that things might get confusing pretty quick, and invited Jessie to talk to him about it. So she hops in a cab back to his hotel, except the cab takes her out to a creepy industrial area instead. When it finally stops at a stop sign, she bolts, only she doesn’t know where she is now. Luckily, a beautiful woman in a red Porsche pulls up at that exact moment and offers to give her a ride. Which ... aren’t you even the slightest bit concerned that a strange car brought you out here and now another strange car has just pulled up right when you needed it? Obviously not, which is what leads to her getting tased and waking up in a meat freezer, where the safety ax is of course missing. She wrestles with the door and some meat-hanging apparatus for a while, but can’t get it open and ends up spraining her ankle in the process. And even though it’s dangerous to sit, to slow down, to stop moving in this freezer, Jessie can’t help herself.
She wakes up in a hospital. Only this room doesn’t look or feel like a typical hospital room. Plus, she can’t move. She can’t even blink. She’s briefly relieved when two doctors come in, but that goes away when she realizes they’re here to perform the autopsy. The senior doctor gets called out, which is all the other guy needs to start satiating his necrophilia all over Jessie’s corpse. He’s pretty shocked when Jessie suddenly sits bolt upright and curses him out — enough that he has himself a nice little heart attack right there in the morgue. The other doctor comes back, and she seems to know what happened, and is also weirdly thrilled by the guy’s obvious pain? But she leaves without taking any action, and Jessie sees this as her chance to get out of Dodge.
The hospital is downtown, which is a long way from the MGM Grand but at least it’s an obvious straight shot on Las Vegas Boulevard. Only Jessie doesn’t recognize some of these north-end casinos. She goes inside one to get her bearings and is quickly accosted by three punks, who she casually injures like it’s no thing. What’s even stranger is how quickly they back off and the degree of respect they suddenly accord her. And even stranger than that is that the blackjack tables don’t say “blackjack.”
You guessed it. People in Las Vegas are playing red queen.
So now she has to talk to Mystery Gambler more than ever. She walks all the way to the Mandalay Bay, because fuck a taxi anymore, right? Only it’s called the Mandy, and his room on the top floor is now one floor lower than it used to be. But as it turns out, he does have some answers. He first tells Jessie the truth of why he's in Vegas: his whole medical conference story is just a front. There is some basis in reality, in that his group has identified certain genes that, when awakened, enable essentially superpowers. His genetic sensor identified that Jessie has seven of these genes — but he already knew that. He seems to know a creepy amount for some rando she just met. And also, he keeps calling her Jessica, and she realizes she's using a longer version of his name too, reflexively, even though he never called himself that in their interactions.
This, plus the hotels and the casino game and the fact that, y'know, she woke up on a fucking MORGUE TABLE a few hours ago help Jessie to realize the truth of her situation. With a little guided meditation, which helps her to remember things that never actually happened to her, she learns that there are two simultaneous dimensions happening on Earth, we live two lives in parallel, and the extra genes (when activated) allow people to experience both. These people, historically, are who we think of as witches, so for lack of a better term this second dimension is colloquially called witch world. Like, super lazy writing, right? I guess Pike blew his load inventing names for shit in Alosha and couldn't be arsed to consider that maybe twelve thousand years of connected humans might have named something themselves. (Yeah, I said twelve thousand years. Back at it again with the same timeline.)
But one of those things Jessie remembered is having a baby. This is where her father (remember, the dude who bailed on Jessie and her mom) suddenly shows up. We learn that he left (in the “real” world, not in witch world where he’s still present in her life) because he realized the importance of Jessie and her fate, and hoped that his absence would protect both her and the baby to come. (He has the "seeing-the-future" gene, I guess?) According to Dad, this baby is potentially the most important person in the history of both worlds, because she's the only one to have ever been born with all ten extra genes. It's also a weird connection, because this is the only occasion that anybody knows of where a child has been born to different parents in the two worlds. (The kid is an entirely different person because of that, so that's weird too.) But, just like the boyfriend's ex-girlfriend warned, "they" have taken both. 
"They" turn out to be a cadre of witches who want to use their powers to elevate themselves rather than ... well, it's never really made super clear what the "good" witches do. Like ... hang out and be immortal? Oh yeah, I didn't mention that once you're awakened you can't die of natural causes. I guess the dad says that sometimes they'll interfere when shit is really going sideways, but for the most part they want regular humans to regulate their own affairs. It's the Telar again! Only, no, wait, they call themselves the "Tar" in this book so it's obviously totally different. And yeah, both babies have been taken; they let the boyfriend think his son died in infancy so that he'd eventually be a lever to manipulate Jessie when he realized he had two living children. But it sounds like the daughter is already causing trouble for her kidnappers, without even being aware of her ten genes, which ... 
I don't know, it doesn't make any sense now that I'm writing about it. Like, I'm cool with the parallel dimensions, I'm on board with dying to become awakened, I'm down with extra powers and whatever. I'm even mostly OK with this story reusing so many assets from all these past books. But like ... how does the baby have some (even unconscious) control of her locked genetic powers when her counterpart in the real world is not only still alive, but had a different MOTHER and is therefore a totally different PERSON? The first chapter of the sequel (all I’ve read of it so far) doesn’t make it look promising that we’re ever gonna find out, so just keep suspending the shit out of that disbelief, I guess.
But anyway, now that Jessie’s connected, she’s hell-bent on rescuing her baby. Which I think she would have done even if she were still separated, but whatever. And I know, easy to think that not actually having a memory of the baby might make it difficult, but these memories are slowly bubbling up and emerging, especially strong ones like parenthood and family. She’s been warned against contacting Jimmy (or “James,” I guess) in witch world, but she doesn’t hesitate to tell him all the crazy shit that’s happened to her in the real world.
(This is another reason I have a problem with the lazy naming conventions on display. To witches, “witch world” is the most real. Each day takes place first there in their perceptions, followed by the same day in the “real world.” We’ll also see how events in witch world have a stronger effect on events in the real world; namely, if you die in witch world you pretty much always die in the real but the inverse is not true. So, once again, why wouldn’t witches have come up with some more appropriate naming patterns at least, given how old the oldest is? Just more lazy crap we gotta swallow.)
So anyway, Jimmy doesn’t believe her; he thinks someone drugged Jessie with a hallucinogenic and now she’s having altered state memories. So she gets out of the car they’re driving to the desert and picks it up to prove her new strength. Why are they driving in the desert? For some reason, Jessie is drawn to the power associated with the nuclear tests that the government ran in the barren nowhere that is most of Nevada. There’s gotta be a reason, after all, that the centers of witch power are here. So they bust into the deserted testing ground, only to discover it’s not that deserted — there’s a kid out there apparently living by himself. He takes to Jimmy immediately and agrees to come back to the city with them, where they’re going to talk more to Jessie’s dad.
The kid can’t speak, but he can write — with a prehensile tail that he has heretofore hidden by wrapping it around his waist. He tells them about the other freaks that live out in the nuked test cities, as well as the mean man who brings him food. The rationale isn’t clear, and the kid isn’t talking ... well ... you know what I mean. But this is where Jimmy finds out his son is still alive and being used as bait. And dude fucking TAKES it: as soon as his ex calls and wants to discuss what she might know about the children, not only does he refuse to step back and let the powerful people handle the rescue, but he actually wants to go through the death process in order to awaken his awareness of both sides.. They don’t let him do that, because apparently our good guys are not allowed to actively connect more witches, except when they are. So all they can do is talk to the ex and learn that she doesn’t care who she sells out to as long as it saves her son, which ... fair. But Jimmy isn’t willing to go that far, and they head back to her dad’s house to regroup, where they realize they’re being watched.
Or they were, I guess. There’s a car with two obvious spies in it, but they’re dead, and the killer is hanging out nearby. This dude is, we learn, second-in-command of the Tar leadership, a five-thousand-year-old Celt who wants to take a more proactive approach in encouraging good and deterring evil in both humans and witches, mostly with his sword. He’s a Highlander, is what I’m trying to say. He takes Jessie out to a sacred spring in the mountains, where they swim naked together, as you do when you first meet an ancient Celtic swordsman, right? But there’s some cliff writing out here, written by the ancient people in a script the Highlander knows, having been taught it by the man who turned him so many years ago. It describes a woman who will have such power that she controls the destiny of the world, and it’s essentially Jessie’s daughter. So like ... tell me something I don’t know, right? What’s more new and unusual is the Highlander’s description of red queen, how it was taught to him and spread throughout ancient Rome, and how a certain percentage of all winnings, no matter who takes it, has to ultimately return to his benefactor, who we’ll call the Alchemist because that’s what Pike calls him.
We’re going to have to wait on more description, because the Highlander takes Jessie home and we skip-cut forward to the next night in witch world, where she’s meeting the leadership council and discussing their intents to rescue the baby. Mystery Gambler is there too; he's going to act as Jessie's liaison to the bad guys, having served as a double agent since the Civil War. This scene seems like it might be superfluous, except that you mostly only retain the memories from the dimension in which you die, and so the council knows that Jessie needs some backstory.  (Don't we all.) The main thing we get out of this is that they've kind of figured out that WANTING to activate their witch genes has a high correlation with witches going bad at all, especially when they try to engineer the birth of high-number witches. So Jessie's contact with Jimmy was carefully arranged so as to appear NOT engineered, because even though the future sight told them that these two were compatible and would fall in love and make a power baby, any appearance of forcing it could make things all fucked up.
So Jessie's entire life is a sham, manipulated by sources of power she was never supposed to see, one of those being her own goddamn father.
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What next? Well, on to the other purpose of this meeting: prep for said meeting with the bad guys. The council expects that they're going to offer Jessie her baby back, as long as both of them live under bad-guy control, and they want her to string them along while they figure out what to do. Great fuckin' plan, guys. You've been trying to make a power baby for how many thousand years, and you didn't have a contingency plan if it got kidnapped?
But so Jessie and Mystery Gambler go to the next meeting, and this is starting to sound like work. As it turns out, the leader of the bad guys is (plot twist that surprises nobody!) the coroner who was unfazed when Jessie sat up in the morgue. She's making this deal because the baby is difficult, and they think that if she has her mother that they'll be able to control her and her powers. They let Jessie hold her, which activates even more of those mom connections, but when they go to take her away the baby cries and creates almost a physical wall, which the big strong guard man has to fight with all his might to overcome. President Coroner has no qualms with the possibility that she might have to kill both baby and mom if they don't cooperate. In fact, she invites Jessie to die right here and now, by forcing her to fight for her life against Mystery Gambler. For Jessie, this is proving her worth and her importance in being allowed into the bad-guy circle. For Mystery Gambler, it's a step up to a higher ranking of leadership. For President Coroner, it's TV. So they have a monster sword fight ... well, Mystery Gambler has a sword; Jessie has a bamboo stick that proves its power when she somehow shoots fire out the end and totally incinerates the dude. Which is cool by the bad guys, because they already knew MG was a double agent and wanted him dead anyway. And then there's another kid ... this one with a tail ... only instead of a blunt prehensile end, this one has a stinger like a scorpion's. Guess whose kid THIS is.
Back in the real world, Jessie and Jimmy go see her dad, who confirms that there was a mysterious fire on the top floor of the Mandalay Bay the night before, with one fatality. Which ... does this even come close to matching the timeline? How could it have already happened if the day hasn't happened yet? But whatever — the important thing is that the council wants Jessie to accept the bad guys' offer and go live with the baby. The tail-boy is still here, though Jessie's dad says he's riddled with malignant tumors and can't possibly live too much longer. But they realize that if he can tap into those cross-dimensional memories, the way Jessie and Jimmy were doing when they argued about fucking all the way back ... two days ago, then maybe they can use him to triangulate the area where witch-tail-boy lives, presumably with President Coroner. He leads them to a gated community at the base of a mountain, which they figure is good intel to take back to the council even if they're not ready to investigate yet.
Jessie does want to try to find the area where she got dumped and zapped the day she was killed, for ... you know, reasons. She hears cries of pain coming out of the sewer in the general area she thinks it was, and in investigating she runs into the big mean guard from the bad guy meeting. He thinks it's been a waste of time trying to get her on their side and is just about to kill her when the Highlander shows up and unceremoniously lops off his head. He has some more info about what might be going on down here, and it has to do with his dearest and oldest love: that’s right, President Coroner. 
They met in ancient Rome, around the turn of the calendar, but every effort they made to procreate ended in tragedy. One son was killed in battle fighting the Huns, one daughter (and her children) died of the plague, and a final son (who, let it be known, they named HERME) disappeared during the US Revolutionary War. All this loss made the poor woman so bitter and angry that she naturally began striving for control, including supporting Hitler (like, literally helping him) during WWII. The Highlander thinks there's another dimension to her having gone there, though: somehow she can feed off the pain of misery and death, and is addicted to it. Also, it gives her another power of being able to confound people, which the Highlander experienced when trying to reason with her around the time of the Hiroshima nuclear explosion and again when the power baby was kidnapped. Is it helping anybody that he's holding out on the council with this info? 
So he takes Jessie back to the hotel, where she owes her best friend an explanation — only she already knows. Turns out that this dude she's been hooking up with in Vegas is a witch too, and has explained to her the ins and outs and difficulties of what's going on with Jessie, up to a point. Turns out this dude is ALSO a double agent, here supposedly on assignment from the bad guys but just about ready to turn face, at least partly because he's found himself in love with the friend. After two days. His primary power is the ability to change his appearance at will, which Jessie learns in a jarring fashion upon waking up in witch world and finding a tall hunky dude in her suite in place of this pudgy nerd. She has that gene too, he says, and helps her start down the path of disguising herself. She quickly gets good at it and then realizes: couldn't I use this power to sneak into that gated community and steal back my baby?
Obviously it's not going to be so easy as walking into the joint and walking back out with The Special, even disguised as President Coroner as she is. First of all, she doesn't even know for sure that the baby is here now, and she does know that the actual boss is in town, not here. (Lucky thing, right, when she goes through the guard shack in full makeup.) So instead she goes to Jimmy's ex-girlfriend's place. Don't ask me how she knows that THIS is an option, or that the girl is indeed even home, or that she is living there at all. There's not even really a reason to believe that she can help, or that she even KNOWS anything about the baby. But Jessie's concerned about the competition, and fairly confident that her target doesn't have the strength gene and will therefore be easy enough to overpower. It proves true in terms of tying the girl up and throwing her in the trunk of her car, but Jessie isn't counting on being lied to. The ex kicks through the backseat and forces Jessie off the road, where they have an epic Matrix battle that culminates in Jessie punching a hole in the gas tank and exploding the thing with an emergency flare. She feels a surge of pleasure while the ex-girlfriend dies, which is ... creepy? Shows some link to President Coroner? What else does it mean?
It at least means that Jessie should be prepared when she goes to talk to President Coroner tonight. She buys a handgun at a pawn shop, then meets Jimmy James in front of the Tropicana, where the big ugly bodyguard picks them up in a limo. James takes a little while to get in the car, and he doesn't sit right next to Jessie for some reason. The car takes them back to the gated community, to the biggest house, where President Coroner is waiting. Negotiations don't really go as well as could be hoped, since the boss already knows that she's not the one who kidnapped the ex in the trunk of a car. But while they're working out their threats and measuring their dicks, who should walk in but the Highlander. He's finally talked the Tar council into using brain powers to murder his dearest love, and as one person has to be present to make it work, guess who volunteered. Only the big mean bodyguard is holding the baby, and he'll rip her in half if they make a move against his boss. This is a good time for the best friend's boyfriend, the shapeshifting teacher, to appear out of thin air, grab the gun out of Jessie's waistband, and cap the bodyguard in the head. Yeah, he was sitting between them for the whole car ride, like there's not enough seats in a limo for him to stretch out somewhere else. Cockblocker.
But here's the weirdest part: President Coroner recognizes him. That's right, bitches — Herme lives! He has seen the evil his mother is doing and has finally come out of hiding to try to help put a stop to it. And James helped him because he knows what's going on in both worlds. He's experienced it, actually: after Jessie fell asleep, he killed himself (with Herme's help) so he could be fully present and help in witch world. I have more timeline problems and concerns, obviously, starting with the question of how Jimmy could possibly be here today if he hasn't yet killed himself, but that's not where the characters are right now. Right now they're concerned with stopping this ultimate evil who doesn't seem to care about murder. So Herme and his Highlander dad point blue brain lasers at President Coroner, who generates a red bubble to stop them, because everything we have to know about good and evil energy colors we learned from Star Wars.
And now Jessie finds herself inside the red bubble. She's been the most susceptible of those exposed to PC, after all, and so she might be convertible to the pain-suckers. She relives all of the memories that our dear villain has of her children dying and of how the pain could be turned into a pleasurable sensation, and it's just hypnotic enough and convincing enough that, as Jessie finds herself back in her own body, she can be persuaded to take her gun back from Herme and shoot the Highlander. He doesn't die, but he's weakened enough that President Coroner can steal his sword and stab him in the heart.
So now what? Well, it's a good thing Jimmy's here to save everybody! What would we do without a white dude who's barely aware of his powers? But he knows that together, with Jessie and the baby, they have a strength that is impossible to overcome. So they manage to paralyze our villain, but now her scorpion son shows up and wants to murder too. Only — plot twist! — he murders his mom! Turns out that when Jimmy killed himself, he also killed tail-boy in the real world, and now HE'S got good-guy memories. This is really telling about President Coroner's parenting skills that all of her living children not only think that she has to die, but show up to help DO IT.
But now all is good and we can move forward as a family, right? Totally! At least until Jessie wakes up in the real world and finds Jimmy lying beside her, still and cold and dead.
This would have been a good place to stop, right? Of course he doesn't. Two days later, Jessie and her best friend are home from Jimmy's funeral, talking about what's going on and all the implications, when suddenly there's a sound at the door — the mail box. (Does anybody still have one of these shits in 2012? Most rural neighborhoods are going to the community box.) Jessie collects the mail, among which is a red envelope containing a letter from the Alchemist (remember that dude) anticipating a future meeting and sending best wishes from ... President Coroner.
And that is the end of Witch World! Or Red Queen, whichever one you picked up. Like, are we starting to understand how Pike has so little grasp of world-building that he has ALREADY killed his main antagonist AND the potential monkey wrench in Jessie's future relationships? Doesn't he realize none of us are going to get invested in a world where you don't stay dead after you die? I mean, except zombies. But since that's not what we're talking about, I can't possibly imagine where Black Knight is going to take us. I mean, I can, because I've read the back copy, and it doesn't look remotely related. Maybe that's one more reason I've been stalling on this entry: to keep me away from the annoying-looking next one.
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lxveille · 6 years
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Hey if you still accept requests, could you do 14 + 37 for Hoshi? Thank you!!
100 ways to say i love you (requests closed)WC: ~ 1640
It’s all Prince’s fault. After all, who can stay fully dressed to Kiss?
At least that seems like the only reasonable explanation Soonyoung can come up for how he ended up watching you and Seungkwan, standing on top of the couch in nothing but oversized shirts and underwear, clinging to each other as you wail over the high notes at the end of the track. Whatever the reason, Soonyoung’s never felt quite like he understand exactly what extra time meant until this precise moment, his own feet still gliding over the living room’s floor boards as he follows the bass of the song’s final seconds.
The playlist shuffles on. Wham’s opening riff has you hopping down to the floor, shuffling over to Seokmin and mirroring the bop of his head. You press your tongue between your front teeth and grin as you fail to know any words beyond wake me up, go-go, and yoyo. Seokmin laughs even though he isn’t doing much better. Seungkwan’s still testing his luck on the uneven couch cushions, his dance more a combination enthusiastic arm gestures and small jumps than anything else.
It’s not until Jessie’s Girl is blasting out the speakers that anyone else shows up in the doorway to question when exactly a quiet night in had turned into a impromptu dance party.
“What are you guys doing?” Jun asks, as if it weren’t obvious. It’s not clear if Joshua’s chortling beside him out of surprised amusement at the scenario or just at the question that has such a blatant response.
You and Seungkwan don’t so much answer him as you dance aggressive towards him and drag him into the fray, carelessly shouting lyrics all the while. Jun gives an uncertain laugh at first, looking enough like a fish out of water that Soonyoung’s certain his friend isn’t too familiar with Springfield. But the hesitance starts slipping away quickly once Seungkwan grabs one of his hands and leads him into a bouncy sort of two-step.
“Where did everyone’s pants go?” Joshua asks from the door frame.
“Either don’t question it or don’t mention it!” Soonyoung shouts back, the adrenaline of movement making him respond faster and louder than necessary.
“Isn’t that… the same thing?” His valid point seems to go unheard. Probably because of too many voices chiming in to try sing along with a guitar solo.
Jun’s the first to drop off as the next song fades in. Soonyoung suspects it might be due to a certain self-consciousness at the glimpses everyone keeps getting of each others’ underwear as bodies jump and arms are thrown over heads enthusiastically. He’d say Jun’s too sober for this, if not for the fact that there wasn’t a drop of alcohol involved in getting to this point.
Soonyoung himself is unexpectedly the next to come to a standstill. Through no fault of the music. There’s few things that can bring him to an altogether, appreciative pause. You gliding across the floor to Whitney Houston, he decides, might be at the very top of the list. There’s something in the synths and the floating vocal line that’s revamped your energy.
And you must be familiar enough with the room to be entirely uninhibited, your eyes closed as you let your feet carry you in any cross-footed, energized way they will across the floor, hands above your head and hips rolling with the melody. “I wanna dance with somebody,” Seungkwan sings along, nudging Soonyoung out of his mesmerized gaze with a small bump of his hip.
“With somebody who loves me,” you join in, a laugh spurred by nothing than unbridled joy keeping you from sustaining any of the notes for long. It is not the first time Soonyoung had felt fondness burn between his ribs and race up to his cheeks, but it hits him harder than usual. He’s not such he can make it through the night without getting to brush his fingers against your own. It ought to be exaggeration, but he feels like the world depends upon getting a spark off your skin.
Your blind dancing knocks you into Seokmin, who takes the hit with a laugh and as an opportunity to link hands with you and falling into your groove. You apologize without missing a beat of the song.
The song fades out too soon; with notes that feel like they could be endless, you never lose the energy of it even as the volume gives way. At least not until it’s come to a full stop. There’s a moment of silence, in which the four of you exchange a brief glance of anticipation for what will come next.
Soft drums start. It’s a lower momentum than the room’s had up until now. So it’s not surprising when Seungkwan makes a move for the phone plugged into the speakers to seek out something else.
“Boo Seungkwan!” you shout abruptly, “Don’t you dare turn off Toto!”
“You’re really gonna dance to Africa?” he makes no effort at concealing his skepticism.
“Obviously!”
“I’m ready for water, anyway,” Seokmin says, leaning onto Seungkwan’s side as a means of suggesting he do the same.
“Oh! That does sound good,” Seungkwan ricochets back into full cheeriness, as if he’s only just remembered that drinking water is a useful thing to do.
You scoff, like they’ll be missing out on the very best song that’s played all night. The disappointment on your face doesn’t linger for long though. Not when Soonyoung shoots a small grin your way and asks (only half jokingly), “Can I have this dance?”
Your fingers slide into his with ease and a smile that has his heart doubly sure that this is precisely where he wants to be.
He leads you into a small spin that don’t quite fit with the song. It hardly matters, though, when all Soonyoung feels is the rising beat and the touch of your hand in his. Your feet bump clumsily with his own a few times as the two of you continue to dance, and you chuckle out apologies that he insists you don’t need to give. This isn’t a choreographed piece; it’s something lighter and instinctual, with steps guided by feeling alone. There’s no mind for what anyone else would see if they were watching as long as he gets to be in this moment, losing himself right along with you to a song you’ve loved for years.
When it’s over, it finally seems to hit you that you’ve been in near-constant motion for quite some time. Your hands fall away from his and you let yourself collapse onto the floor while Cyndi Lauper starts playing next. Soonyoung finds a spot beside you, arms outstretched over his head as he listens to you catch your breath.
“Thanks,” you say suddenly, and when he tilts his head to see your expression, he finds your eyes are closed once again as you smile broadly up at the ceiling.
“For what?” He can’t fathom why you’d be grateful to him at all.
“For dancing with me.”
The more enamored half of him wants to tell you just how much he feels the thanking should be the other way around if it’s just for that. Somehow, he keeps it bottled up and answers instead with a simple, singsong, “Of course!”
“Well, still…” For a moment, it seems you won’t finish the thought. Your beaming expression settles into a calmer smile as you turn to look at Soonyoung. “I liked it.”
You reach your hands up, arms framing your own head on the hardwood floor. The side of your palm brushes against his pinky, and Soonyoung’s fingers curl with the pure want to twine with yours again.
“I liked it, too.” His eyes stay centered on yours. He means something else; something not dissimilar in sentiment, but different enough that his throat is tightening with nervousness at the thought that you might figure out. (He hopes that you will. It’d be a relief, at this point.)
Your front teeth come down on the cushion of your lower lip for a moment, your gaze seeking something in his own. You’re on to him, Soonyoung thinks. And you’re smiling all the while.
You turn your head, scanning the room that’s stayed emptied out since Time After Time started playing. It’s almost suspicious that Seokmin and Seungkwan still haven’t come back yet. But that isn’t the reason you’re checking in on whether or not you’re alone with Soonyoung. “I like you,” you admit, eyes still on the ceiling as a precaution against seeing his reaction, just in case you read the tenderness in his eyes the wrong way.
You’re only torturing yourself by not checking the way his features change with those three words. If he weren’t already lying on the ground, he wound of have been knocked flat by them. In contrast to your nerve-wracked stare into the air overhead, Soonyoung can’t take his eyes off of you. He nudges his hand closer to yours, wrapping fingers over your open palm. It’s enough to get you to glance his way again. And your heart thuds at the upwards-tilted gape on his lips.
“Can I kiss you, then?” he asks, sounding rather like he still can’t believe what he’s just heard. You nod, and move yourself just a little closer to meet him halfway.
His lips come against yours with feather-light pressure. He pulls back barely a centimeter before pressing a second kiss to you, a fraction more certain and a few fleeting moments longer. When he starts to pull away, you follow after him, starting a third that’s a little more desperate as you implore him to stop doubting and let you kiss him properly.
You convince him, with fingers curling into his hair and his hand upon your hip, to curl closer together as you continue kissing on the floor.  
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howiend · 3 years
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mistakes come full circle.
feat. (sarah/college roommate) the sun sat high in the afternoon cloudless sky above the play ground. i sat on a bench that adorned the little neighborhood playground. it was made of rickety old wood and made to look like a little ship. loads of mothers brought their children to the park from the neighborhood, only solidifying i’d made the right choice to be here with my son and near sarah and the kids. pippa and my boy were the same age. the cutest best friends there could be. a small part of me hoped he liked pippa just to finally say i was part of sarah’s family. like for real. not that it mattered; that bitch was my sister. i sat next to her on the bench, watching as our children played with the other kids. the sun was shining brightly down as we spoke about how we’ve aged, adulthood, justin, corey. we spoke and spoke until i felt my voice was hoarse. it was getting late anyway. i needed to get back before corey got back home. moving my eyes from sarah, i looked around the playground and felt my heart skip, drop, and fall to the ground in front of me. there on the other side of the playground stood my son with corey’s hand around his small little arm. tugging. he was tugging so hard. “wait, no, please!” i cried out, seeing as the sun began to disappear behind a cloud. ironic. “corey, please!” “he’s not yours. he’s mine and jessie’s,” said corey as he screamed over his large shoulder. i could see his facial hair and the scar that sat across his skin jagged from a fight in iraq during his tour. “corey, no, that is my son,” i fought. corey took everything. he took everything. he gave it to everyone else. but he couldn’t have my baby. not mine. even if he did share corey’s dna, he couldn’t. “he’s mine! not yours,” shouted corey as he grabbed the boy from the ground and held him like a rag doll. i began to scream as hot tears streamed down my face. closing my eyes, i screamed loudly, matching a crash of lightning, stirring my eyes open. i sat up in bed, still screaming. with labored breaths, i reached out and tugged at the string that ignited the room with the lamp that sat on my bedside table. my face was wet; a mixture of sweat and tears. the dream so vivid, to forever live in my brain. this wouldn’t be something i’d forget. i knew why i dreamed it. i knew why i thought about this. i rubbed my stomach, knowing nothing was going to be there. ”i’m sorry, rachael, but you can’t have children,” the words echoed in the empty bedroom. they melted to the floor like candle wax, getting stuck in the crevices between the wooden boards. forever to be there as a reminder. i would never have children. i would never be able to have children because of corey and i’s negligence. that fateful day in 2018 at the clinic and now, i was stuck. alone. i couldn’t help the tears that fell from my eyes, catching on my round cheeks. depression had sunken in, taken ahold of my insides and turned me into goo. i still hadn’t told derrick about that day. it was so hard to let him in. to let him really understand me, because i didn’t think there was anyone else out there. i was lucky to find two, let alone three. james had me and corey broke me. grabbing my phone, i unlocked it quickly and hit speed dial, bringing the phone to my ear. i knew it was late, but there was a code. we had a code. “hey,” i said in a whisper as the phone picked up, “i know it’s late. but i need you. and i don’t know what else to do.” sarah’s voice, raspy, on the other side responded, “okay, what’s up?” “i’ve had a secret that i haven’t been able to tell,” i began, “and when i say it, i know i’m going to break. because that’ll mean it’s real.” “rach, babe, what’s going on?” asked sarah; i could tell she was more alert, more awake. “i can’t have kids, sarah,” i whispered, my voice breaking at the end of the sentence as i take a deep breath and let out a sob, “pip will never have a god sister or brother because i can’t have kids.” i just began to ramble about all the things her new born baby couldn’t have. i knew sarah’s story and i knew of her troubles, but i didn’t even think of how my infertility would bother her, or make her react. “i’ve had this secret sitting on my chest for so long, sarebear,” i cried out. fat, ugly sobs as i sat in my bed, crying against the sham pillow. “i’m so sorry,” i whispered. to whom i was apologizing to, i didn’t know.
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retrauxpunk · 6 years
Text
i saw this bunch of asks and i’ve decided to answer all of them because fuck waiting for asks that’s why
billie jean: what do you notice more in a song - the drums or bassline?
probably the drums. this is embarrassing but i barely even know what a bassline is. don’t ask.
sweet dreams (are made of this): what’s the best dream you’ve had?
i was in the hunger games with ben whishaw. we were sort of allies. we were some of the tributes remaining toward the end of the game. we had this intense moment of eye contact in which we weren’t sure if we were going to kill/get killed by the other, and then we made out. fuck yeah.
africa: favourite 80s music video?
i agree with @cheapskate-bleeding-queer​, Dancing in the Street is really something.
every breath you take: who’s the first person your mind goes to when you hear a love song?
either my boyfriend or my ex, depending on what kind of love song it is haha
should i stay or should i go: how many languages do you speak?
one fluently, one relatively proficiently, and basic spoken knowledge for another
uptown girl: what’s your favourite book trope?
there’s too many! here are a few i like: allies fighting with sword-like weapons back to back; badass battle magic; characters deciding to make out as a way to hide their real agenda (e.g. trespassing); saving each other’s lives; cyberpunk/biopunk; urban fantasy; people who save the world/have magic powers but also have normal lives of school/work
don’t stop believin’: what’s the longest journey you’ve been on?
mmm... flying from sydney to london. jesus. an entire day. but it was business class, so it was pretty cushy ... the flight from germany to sydney felt much longer because it was in economy and the shorter flight (8) was first, and the second one (16 or some shit) was second, so really i was going a bit nuts.
i wanna dance with somebody (who loves me): who was the last person you danced with?
my boyfriend, at the paramore concert
maneater: where did you spend your last friday night?
hanging out at my boyfriend’s work, playing beer pong
jessie’s girl: what would you do if you found out your best friend was seeing your ex?
be incredibly shocked/surprised and upset and bitter ... and ask them why? and also chew out my ex too. but more angry at the best friend because they know how my relationship with the ex went and it’d be a real douchey move for them to get with them haha. ...thankfully this is very very very unlikely to happen.
born in the u.s.a.: what’s your home town like?
sunny with a beautiful harbour. very expensive in terms of housing. pretty multicultural, with white, asian, and middle eastern being the dominant groups (in descending order). lots of great food.
wake me up before you go-go: how did your last date go?
saw Early Man with my boyfriend at the cinema. it was nice. uneventful but pleasant, which is how things usually go when you’ve been together for years...
girls just want to have fun: relationship with your parents?
we have really different/conflicting views about basically everything, which is what happens when we’re from different generations and grew up in different cultures... #immigrantlife but they tried their best and love me and i love them even though it has been kinda rough
beat it: opinions on the police force?
a necessary institution, i’d rather have one than not have one, but has several serious endemic issues regardless of which culture we’re talking about
never gonna give you up: how old were you when you joined the internet?
around the time this was a meme haha :p ... around 12-13, when I got into message boards and post by post roleplaying.
faith: when was your first kiss?
15 for a peck, 17 for making out
i’m so excited: where was your first kiss?
outside my house for the peck, and in Sydney’s Hyde Park for making out
take on me: could you reach the high note?
absolutely not, but i make a dumb attempt anyway
footloose: favourite musical?
The Book of Mormon!!!!!!!
9 to 5: do you like country music?
I’m not sure. Maybe?
back in black: what makes a good rock song?
a strong beat! strength of instruments! a hot voice and good lyrics. makes me want to start drumming my fingers/tapping feet/headbanging, no matter where i am. i’m too crap at music to be able to give a better answer, so have that subjective one.
material girl: are you sentimental?
absolutely. i’ll bleed my heart all over your carpet and ruin your clothes. though i don’t know if that comes across for people who don’t know me too well?
walk this way: what was the most expensive thing you bought in the last six months?
probably concert tickets for me and my boyfriend ... either that or my Doc Martens
you shook me all night long: are you seeing anyone at the moment?
yup
thriller: favourite film genre and why?
I like quite a few, but probably action/thriller. I love good action movies, I love watching well-choreographed combat and general Cool Badassitude, and the dialogue tends to be peppered with fun humour too. Really good for suspense and engagement.
i want candy: chocolate or sweets?
Chocolate
ghostbusters: how far do you believe in the paranormal?
I don’t really, but I wouldn’t push my luck either.
the power of love: does true love exist?
absolutely! all love is true love. if it’s not true, it’s not love.
hungry like the wolf: what’s your crush’s favourite music genre?
stuff like Queen
walk like an egyptian: favourite song currently in the charts?
Lemon To A Knife Fight by the Wombats
(i’ve had) the time of my life: if you could relive any ten minutes of your life, what would you relive?
listening to Pink Floyd’s Time while on acid (the first time I’d tried either the album or the drug)
just can’t get enough: what’s your guilty pleasure?
I don’t really feel guilty about my pleasures?
i’m gonna be (500 miles): how far apart do you and your best friend live?
lmao. a 24 hour flight apart. about as far away as you can get
you spin me round (like a record): favourite modern cover of an older song?
i don’t know many, but the Scissor Sisters cover of Comfortably Numb as a disco hit is really good!
we built this city: if you were president, what would your first ruling be?
oh god uh I don’t know. but some stuff I’d like to make happen are: increasing taxes on fossil fuels, more protections for queer folk, making abortion safe and easily accessible, overhauling the sex ed curriculum in schools to include a lot more focus on consent and the nuances of consent instead of focussing purely on physical sexual health, increasing funding for mental health, OH BOY I COULD GO ON AND ON 
how will i know: do you believe everyone is deserving of love?
by default yes ... for people like ivan milat ... no ... so, yes, except in the extreme cases of people proven to be unrepentant and unwilling to reform after committing atrocities
nothing’s gonna stop us now: what’s been the biggest hurdle you’ve faced in your life so far?
either my own mental health RE being quite neurotic/obsessive, or a bad former partner who did some things that fucked me up. they’ve recently seemed to be truly sorry/empathetic though so that one at least will be getting better now. tbh they’re both getting better, so that’s nice!
come on eileen: have you ever written a song? if so, what was the genre?
i kinda wrote lyrics and had an idea for a melody for this ... some kind of bad sappy love song that would probably be in the pop rock category? oh god i’m so glad i have no further memory of it
living on a prayer: which was the song of your childhood?
if we’re talking pre-teenagerhood ... um ... I dunno! maybe ‘Sk8er Boi’ or Atomic Kitten’s ‘The Tide is High’ haha. as for my mid-teens ... Tokio Hotel’s ‘Der Letzte Tag’. late teens, it’d be ... maybe Taylor Swift’s ‘Holy Ground’.
sweet child o’ mine: describe your perfect first date.
meeting somewhere public, having good food and drink, excellent conversation and laughs, then going to my/their place and having more of the same, and making out and potentially Other Things wink nudge giggle wink wink nudge
don’t you (forget about me): is there anyone from your past that you regret cutting ties with?
No. HA. feels good to say that
eye of the tiger: favourite 80s movie?
i .................. don’t know if I have one
under pressure: give an example of a world event that occurred the year you were born.
Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as president of South Africa
with or without you: what would you value most: a relationship or a job?
oh my god i don’t fucking know. 
another one bites the dust: where did you achieve your biggest accomplishment?
what ... even was my biggest accomplishment ... I guess either in my school’s exam hall (getting a high ATAR), or on my apartment couch (finishing NaNoWriMo)
pour some sugar on me: turn ons?
oh boy, hmm: having the exact same ideological beliefs as me; a lean but toned body; Irish/Scottish/Russian accents (among several others); neck kisses; being clever; being very skilled at something (esp something with a physical dimension e.g. drawing, playing guitar, snowboarding, etc.); the right amount of confidence/bravado but only when I’m already into them (otherwise this becomes a 10000x turn-off) 
in the air tonight: do you enjoy flying?
YEAH BB
tainted love: thoughts on synthesisers/electronic drum kits/technology based music?
i have no problem with it and it can produce excellent stuff just like any older instrument
like a virgin: share a controversial opinion.
i hate avocados
karma chameleon: what do you like most about your appearance?
on good days, hair and face. otherwise, my body.
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