#which is actually funny cause they’re all different stages… now I have to consider what my favorite perfect baby I and baby II are…. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

China blocked Tumblr because of pornography and censorship problems in 2013.

#which is actually funny cause they’re all different stages… now I have to consider what my favorite perfect baby I and baby II are….

mochidreambubble · 1 year

Text

From Golden Grove, Love Sunset Bird

[ongoing fic] {I started a planned multi-chapped fic as well as others related in the same concept - but not necessarily in the same timeline/continuation. This was what started the chain of OL fics. See all related fics on Ao3 here, and for just this ongoing one right here.

The chapters are not exactly going to be linear - the chapters will all take place at each individual MC’s step, so due to the year and age differences, the chapters will not be happening at the same time depending on which MC’s chapter it is.

Both MCs will be using they/them and left, strictly because everything about the MC is so customisable, from their Name, Looks, and Gender - all of which can be changed at any stage so, really I left most of those details up to however you want to interpret/imagine them as. Frankly, it’s not the main focus of this fic. View the MCs however you wish.}

[Summary:

Letters, Postcards (and potentially Emails) that span across years.

Long distance friends spilling their hearts over paper.

From, Sunset Bird ~ Love, Golden Grove]

(you are here) First - Next One: Beginnings & Always Step 1 ~ Hilltop Beginnings

Lizzie thinks it’s so funny that your pen pal is six. Well, pen pal is a stretch, considering your city friend ( baby , Lizzie insists on calling them, they’re so young they’re basically a baby) mostly sends you postcards plastered with stickers and a few words written by their Mama . It hasn’t changed since you started sending them letters - your doodles and writing in as many different coloured crayons as you could manage - at the start of the year.

You met them through a creative type of program you saw a colourful poster for Friends As Far as the Eye Can See - Friends even across the Sea and you thought it sounded fun! Kids came and went at Sunset Bird, so you felt, it is pretty neat to have some kind-of friend that would still be your friend no matter what - summer going by wouldn’t be an issue cause so long as you kept sending letters, and they sent postcards, you were basically always connected!

Mom and Ma sat you down before you started sending them letters, a very long and very booooring lecture about stranger danger and what you could and couldn’t say. Both of them really hovered over your shoulder when you wrote your first letter. They seemed to relax when the first postcard from your pen pal arrived, it had a letter from their own Mama as well which was addressed to both of them instead (well, not to Mom and Ma exactly. It was for the ‘Parents’ so basically them).

Your moms said that your pen pal lived in the city. You’re not sure why a six-year-old was doing this, and you kind of agree with Lizzie that they were pretty smallish in age (not that you’d ever tell her of course). Unlike you, it turns out, this wasn’t their idea.

“Their mother signed them up for this. I guess she was hoping to give them a special friend,” Your Ma says as she brushes your hair and you when you ask if they knew - Mom and Ma always have all the answers after all! You let her fuss over your hair as long as she likes, you love it.

You wonder if they knew what was going on, Mom says they do as kids are always more mature and smarter than people give them credit for and she winks and both you and Lizzie. Mom and Ma’s friends liked to say Lizzie had a sharp wit (you don’t think Lizzie likes sharp things at all actually) and that you were uh…

“ A precocious child ,” Your Ma repeats those words when you asked. She makes a face like she doesn’t quite like that people called you that. You ask, because you don’t even know what that word means.

She smiles, but you can tell she’s smiling because you were slightly frowning. “It means you’re very mature, very grown-up, in a lot of ways. But you’ll always be my little baby.”

You guess you sort of understand what the word means now. Maybe? You don’t feel like an adult though. You still like to collect shells and make silly drawings and play all day, nothing like what your Mom and Ma do. But you do feel sort of kind of responsibility towards your far-away pen pal. Lizzie may be your older sister, but you were the older one between you and your pen pal. You felt like you needed to be cool? Or at least someone they could look up to, hopefully…

It’s summer right now and you finally have more time to play at the beach, so maybe you should tell them ‘bout some of the cool shells you’ve already found washed up recently? Or maybe about some of the tourists from places you’ve certainly never been to before? You just hope these were more interesting letters than the ones you wrote during your school days, where the most exciting stories seem to be about funky school lunches at the occasional field trip. Normally, you’d just write about your family…

“Come onnnn,” Lizzie huffs, dramatically slumping against your bedroom door. You forgot she’d been waiting for you. “We’re supposed to meet Shiloh at the playground since forever ago!”

You don’t want to tell her you don’t really feel like going. Shiloh is her friend; no matter how much you’ve tried to bond with Shiloh all the times you’ve seen him so far. You like to think you’re pretty likable (maybe?). You like talking to people and making new friends. You don’t really know why Shiloh not liking you bugs you so much.

“You go on ahead, I’m thinking about-”

“About what to write to your baby friend far far away ,” your sister sticks her tongue out, ending with another dramatic impatient huff. “Nevermind, I’m going without you.”

You feel a little guilty, especially since you promised to go with her. But you also want to finish writing your letter…

…

Which unfortunately goes nowhere. Your paper is getting crumpled with all the times you’ve erased your pencil scribbles. Slumping back down your chair with a sigh, you wonder if you should go meet your sister after all. But you’ve been staring at the now very crumpled paper that was supposed to magically be your letter for a long while now. The sun was setting…

But you were getting nowhere, so outside you go! You made sure to call out to you Mom and Ma you were simply going for a short walk. Mom tells you not to wander too far, and even though you know that super well, you made sure to yell back that you wouldn’t.

You take in a deep breath, the air salty. Without the sun high in the sky, it wasn’t super hot at the very least. You were ready to just hang around the curb outside your home and stretch just for a bit. But you spot someone, a stranger. He was sitting on said curb, slumped over with his head in his hand. With the stranger hunched over, you could only see the sandy colour of his ponytailed hair.

You stare long enough that he notices you.

You thought it was funny, at first. But the more you thought about it later, the sadder you felt. Cause the stranger, a dad it seemed, offered you a twenty-dollar bill to be his son’s friend. You knew very well that wasn’t how kids your age made friends. And even though it would have made you super rich, it didn’t feel right to take it. You didn’t mind meeting ‘Cove’, without that money bribe thank you very much. You think friends should be made without being paid to do so. Meeting new people made you super excited anyway. It would also be super fun to have another kid your age, next door even! Most kids your age lived super far away, and if not for school, you think it would be super hard to meet kids your age at all.

You agree to help the stranger-dad look for Cove. You found him on your hill.

Made you wish you were magic. You’ve never met anyone so sad.

Of course, you made a promise to make this boy with the prettiest hair and the sad frown smile. You felt like you had to.

……

Hello Fairy Friend

Is that ok? You gave me so many many mermaid stickers last time and called me your mermaid friend. So I wanted to call you something special too. You like fairies right?

I think I met someone magical today. His name is Cove, and I think he’s super special. His hair is green like the ocean in the morning. He’s my new neighbour, and I get bubbles inside me when I think about that.

Cove was really sad though. Nothing I say makes him smile. I wonder if I can get him to smile.

I feel sad for him. His dad wanted to give me twenty-dollars to be his friend. Moms and dads don’t do that right? Like, you mom didn’t give you money to send postcards to me?

Anyway! That’s it then! It’s my mission this summer to make my new neighbour smile!!!

Making new friends makes people happy, right? It made me super happy to be friends with you, even though you live so far away.

I wanted to do so many things and nothing at the same time this summer. But now!!! I have a plan!!! It is super great!!!

I’ll let you know if Cove and I become friends. Cause you’re my friend too, and I want you to know!

Okay, bye!!! Send me a postcard soon!!!!

From

Your Mermaid Friend!!!!

#cove holden #our life beginnings & always #my fic #my writing #our life now and forever #From Golden Grove Love Sunset Bird fic #We're still friends even if we're miles apart fic series

41 notes · View notes

ironwoodprotectionsquad · 2 years

Note

Team RWBY didn't "steal" anything. They continued the plan that Ironwood abandoned in favor of running away and leaving people to die. Oh, and btw, you guys still utterly fail to tell us what Ironwood's so-called "plan" was besides running away.

I’m going to assume you’re the person whose post I was referencing which is funny because I blocked em so I’m guessing you’re trying to circumvent the block out of sheer pettiness. I did pay attention I’m just not sure you actually did because the girls where running around flailing around with only the idea to “call for help” and then acted surprised when help didn’t just magically appear for them almost as if traveling takes a long fucking time and that’s pretending people where willing to just drop what they where doing and go straight to Atlas.

Also even more hilarious that you say that because originally you where screeching about how James had “no” plan. Guess what, he clearly did and you’re apparently too embarrassed to admit you where wrong so you’re trying to pretend you said something else and hope no one noticed. Hysterical. Really so original.

I also love though the implication that evacuating from something you have no hope of beating is somehow cowardly? James learned Salem was immortal like hours ago at best? That’s no time to come up with a plan ESPECIALLY since he was dealing with a crap ton of other shit piling on like the heat going out, Grimm invasion, Watts taking over the system and Amity being at risk. He had more critical things he had to focus on and then Salem was literally on his doorstep and his people had already been run ragged. They didn’t have any fight left even pretending for a second James would have considered standing his ground with no plan as to how to deal with Salem. And then after all the whining about how they’re hunters and huntresses and can’t “run away from a fight” the mains spend way to fucking long moaning and groaning about never resting again as if they aren’t the reasons they’re in this position in the first fucking place.

On the note of “running away” running away would be James taking the staff and lamp and fucking off alone and not helping anyone. James was evacuating who he could guarantee could get away before Salem showed up. Their actually is a difference shockingly. We don’t call it “running away” when people are evacuated from fire zones or the path of a hurricane, why are people calling it “running away” now when RWBY doesn’t even have an iota of a plan on what to do about Salem, the immortal witch who literally cannot be killed and therefore can just keep going and going and going while everyone is very much human and mortal and would quickly tire out and need rest to recover but Salem showed us she can just keep making Grimm with zero issue. Also you know who handled this whole theme of living to fight another day better? ATLA.

For those unaware in an episode called “The Day of Black Sun” an invasion against the Fire Nation is staged in a desperate attempt to stop the hundred year war the Fire Nation instigated during an eclipse which temporarily causes fire benders to lose their bending. Despite their best efforts things go wrong and the plan is not fully executed before the eclipse ends and their means of escape get destroyed. The mains are forced to leave the adults behind because their only means of escaping can’t carry everyone out.

No one cries that it’s cowardly to run, no one accuses the mains of abandoning them, they had to make a tough choice to ensure the one person the Fire Nation desperately wanted to ensure he didn’t end the war lived so the world stood a fighting chance to survive the war.

So in a situation where two of the four world ending objects are in danger of being taken by the big bad guy and they need to do whatever they can to keep them away from her, why are we calling the man deciding to do what needed to be done to protect them a coward who is just running away. His current plan was now useless and he had no time to figure out how to deal with Salem so he decided for now the best course of action was to focus on escaping with those he could save. That is a fucking plan regardless of you or other simps insist just because you don’t like it. This was not some black and white situation but a morally complex and extremely difficult trolley problem with no real right answer.

And yes RWBY did in fact steal James’s plan as the show itself pretends it was theirs all along and no one else had any input it in it so I would certainly call that one stealing. Did you miss the part where the mains also in volume 7 repeatedly tried to push James to change course and tell people sooner because of unspecified “suffering” of the people? Because what’s going on in Mantle is tied to James’s plan whether you like it or not. They didn’t like how things where going and threw a fit and then when they forcibly took over they started crying because it was hard and waited for the writers to dump a duex ex machina into their laps to solve all of their problems because they where given the damn script. That is NOT a plan. That is the hand of the writers. And that is a valid criticism. I paid attention. Just because you don’t like people pointing out issues doesn’t mean they didn’t pay attention.

#james ironwood #ironwood protection squad #pro james ironwood #pro ironwood #general ironwood #general dadmiral #rwde #dadmiral ironwood #RWBY bashing #RWBY critical #anon ask #answered ask #anon hate

42 notes · View notes

machinegunbun · 3 years

Note

concept: so i know we think of colson as this really rough guy when it comes to sex, but what about soft!dom col where he's strict but caring, and maybe the reader even has a bit of a praise kink. ❤❤

Omg yess

word count: 1.3k

A/N: sorry theres not a lot of smut, my brain got to wandering and I didn't feel the horniest so maybe pt.2? tons of fluff tho and its good to be back :)

Okay, so.

I'm thinking maybe reader has a past that left them uncomfortable with intimacy, whether from a relationship or otherwise. They're still super into freaky shit, but they need to feel comfortable first.

Does that make sense? Like, they need that safety blanket there first.

So obviously at first meeting Colson was scary, because to an outsider (especially early kells) he's this chaotic, sex machine.

It's clear to everyone that Reader is obviously attracted to him, and they are. They love the idea of doing all this kinky stuff with him, and at first Colson being Colson comes on kinda strong with the flirting, which makes them a little nervous to pursue anything.

But, one day, reader is hanging out with the gang (I imagine she's friends with Ashley [ that is his assistants name, right? God, it's been so long ] ) Maybe they're at a restaurant, nothing fancy just something where you seat yourself, and everyone squeezes into a booth, deliberately leaving no room for Colson and Reader, pointing to a two seater across the way.

You sit just far enough away from the group that you're out of earshot, and you can see them peeking the heads up and around the booth to try and catch a glimpse of what you're saying.

It's awkward at first, you're expecting him to drop some flirtatious joke that makes you choke on your drink, but instead he asks you how you met (whoever you're connected to in the group.) You tell him the story and return the question. He opens up about the fact that they're a day one, and even tells you about some of the stuff they went through together, good and bad. It's the first time you'd seen Colson not crazy or off something. He wasn't kicking out a windshield or hanging from the roof by a metal beam, he just was.

It was then that you realized the difference between MGK and Colson baker, and that before today at this restaurant you'd never met the latter.

Colson was able to express himself a lot better than MGK ever seemed to, at least when it came to you. He inquired a lot about you as a person, but the moment was ruined when you were in the midst of exchanging deep personal stories and Rook shot his straw wrapper at Colson and it bounced off his forehead and into his drink. Colson stood to return the favor, his story completely abandoned.

You didn't get a chance to speak to him like that again until two weeks later, when you met up once again in his hotel room. You were both sat on his bed watching spongebob, waiting for Rook, Slim and Baze to return with the bucket of ice. It wasn't a secret to anyone what they were doing, it didn't take three grown men to find an ice machine.

You didn't mind though.

Colson made you a little less nervous now that you'd seen him as someone other than the party animal you'd come accustomed to on stage. He was actually pretty cool, and really funny when he wasn't stressing you out with his antics.

When you asked him if he would finish his story for you he looked surprised.

"Oh, wow. You remember that?"

"Yeah, of course I do. It feels like the first time I ever really got to talk to you." He seemed uncomfortable at first, but continued with his story nonetheless.

The conversation flowed effortlessly until you began talking about how you always found Colson so interesting. He did things that terrified you like they were nothing. You admired his grab life by the balls attitude, and somewhere along the way of your ranting you opened up about how nervous intimacy made you. How most of the time the only way you could ever get off was by masturbating.

You hadn't even brought it up with him in mind, but the relation clicked immediately for him.

"Oh my god. I'm so sorry."

"No, it's really nothing," you laugh nervously "I think it's just anxiety, I dunno. I'm paranoid."

"No, no. I'm sorry for the way I always talk about you— To you." he corrected "I never realized it made you uncomfortable. You always seemed into it, but I should've been more considerate and I'm sorry. I never would have— If i'd known I was making you uncomfortable—" He rambled

"Colson, it's fine." You cut him off "I mean, I am into a lot of the same stuff as you, It's just... I tend to like the concept a lot more than the reality because I am worried, and I need to feel safe before I can even consider something like that."

Colson must've really taken the conversation to heart, because he treated you a lot differently after that. When he'd heard that his loud onstage personality made you a little nervous he was sure to cool it when he was around you. He made sure to address you directly more often when you hung out in groups, whether to joke with you or as a conversation starter. He hadn't realized how uncomfortable and ostracized you'd been feeling in the group aside from your connection to it, but he was determined to change that.

It took a little bit, but eventually you really were comfortable with him, even when he was acting wild. You realized that being an anxious person and being around someone loud like him that you didn't really know was a little off-putting. Large crowds were hard enough for you, but with constant abrupt movement and noise it only worked to make you more anxious. Once you knew Colson a little better it didn't bother you as much, and he even helped you to become a little more comfortable and a little less anxious.

So when you found yourself in his hotel room once again, finishing the tail end of a family guy episode, you decided to make your move.

You weren't really sure how to start. Not with Colson.

You managed to awkwardly snuggle your way into his side, to which he gladly obliged, but you both remained silent apartment from the episode flashing on the tv. Glancing up at Colson, he stared blankly at the TV, glimpsing down to you momentarily to see what you were looking at him for. Your eyes returned to the TV soon after, your hand finding its resting spot just above his XXX tat.

You could feel Colson's chest shake softly with laughter. You tried to remember what had just happened in the show, but you were so busy anxiously devising your master plan to seduce him that you completely blanked. You could feel your heart beating in your chest. All you wanted was for him to blindfold and tie you to the bed and fucking own you. Everything about him drove you crazy. From his voice to his tats to his eyes to that fucking hair. God, you wanted nothing more than to have him between your legs while you tugged at those beautiful curls.

Your hand drifted lower, your nails scraping softly across his skin. This time he audibly chuckled.

"Are you tryna fuck me?" he asks, causing you to blush. It wasn't that you thought you were being sly, but you didn't expect to be confronted like that.

"I-"

"You're good, it's cute that you're shy, I just don't fuck with that teasing shit so, unless you wanna get yourself in trouble..." Although the words were harsh, his tone was soft. Things progressed quickly after that, your lips meeting in a heated kiss to your hands pinned above your head, his mouth moving to your neck as he whispers in your ear

"What's your safe word, princess?"

~*~*~*~

taglist

@kidtheekid

@cclynn88

@lonerlee

@madisonmgklover22

@bakedcolson

@triplexdoublex

@chokemeshaw

@myfatbottomedgirls

@friedwangsss

@rumoured-whispers

@sunflowerbebe07

@nichmeddar

364 notes · View notes

thoughts-on-bangtan · 3 years

Text

Five Hall of Shame Asks

Since these few amused me, but also made me go ??? I thought I’d share (a trigger warning though applies for the last ask but I’ll detail it beforehand again). But especially with the first and third one, like, in how many different ways do I have to reiterate that regardless of argument, unless it’s something completely new and an angle that has never been argued/made before, besides vmin I do not see any other maknae ship as romantic, past, present, future. I’ve been ARMY long enough that I know enough to have a solid opinion and these types of asks? They are not helping your case, at all. Which I’ve also already said a bunch of times. And I’m only giving you an “answer” because I thought I was funny (in the first half of the answer to anon number 1), so I’ll post it.

From anon: It always baffles me how so many blogs entirely miss and ignore the possibility of j*k*ok being real despite all the evidence and proof to their relationship but people would hold onto a thin thread called Vmin or t*ek*ok, especially the former being a pair of soulmates that have never try to romanticize their bond.

It baffles me how so many people/shippers entirely miss and ignore the possibility of staying on their side of the shipper universe, celebrate the bond you ship, and leave people who ship something else be. But people would hold on to a thin thread called "I must convince everyone of my thing because otherwise my thing isn't real (enough)" which they do because they crave validation that they don't see “minding their own business” as viable option especially when the former would mean others will continue to not see their thing as romantic.

Oh, and, 95z is Love.

No, but, seriously, anon, what did you think you’ll achieve with an ask like this? I don’t know, and I don’t actually want to know. This is a OT7 as well as vmin and namjin blog, and since that isn’t what you’re after, I would advise you to seek out any of the j*k*ok blogs on this platform who hold the same opinion as you do, and there are plenty to choose from.

Lastly, their bonds are not a competition, not a game of compare and contrast. We (as in people participating in the shipper universe) aren’t a court, judge and jury, we’re just fans with (more or less informed) opinions.

From anon: Vmin are the best brothers. Jimin was born to be worshipped and owned by jungkook.

...I’m sorry, is Jimin some kind of deity to be worshipped or an object you can own? I know this is like the bad boy language that gets people all fuzzy in really bad “romance” movies about your typical alpha male, but in real life? Unless that’s the sort of relation you’re after, you do not own your partner. Or your friends. Or anyone. Owning someone is a sign of possessive behavior and that, in most if not all, cases does not lead to long or healthy, in any kind of way, relationships.

From anon: JMs sabotaged his own relationship with V because of JK. Its so clear. There's only so much a person can give & take & seems like V has slowly been pulling back from JM even tho he still very much loves JM. I feel like crying. I've been watching this unfold for a year now. Where there's Vmin there's JK. Yes they're family/friends, but JK interjected himself in the middle of Vmin. Whether it was on purpose cause he felt left out and wanted attention or if its because JK developed feelings for JM.

If you claim the issue is JK, how is it then that it’s Jimin who supposedly sabotaged his own relationship with Tae? The logic doesn’t quite make sense to me. Also, based on everything we’ve seen during PERMISSION TO DANCE on Stage last weekend, I really don’t know how you can interpret any of it as Tae pulling away from Jimin, or vmin not being close anymore, or their relationship having been sabotaged.

Furthermore, since this is a Hall of Shame post I can admit that these kinds of Teen Drama 101 “plots” are annoying me more and more because they keep on coming and it just feels like people purposefully don’t consider anything but their own need and craving for drama. As I’ve said many times before, despite how much shippers want to portray JK as some kind of possessive, overly jealous, intrusive and obsessive asshole, that isn’t who he is. At all. Which I’ve written about many times before (here and here). And also, despite how much shippers want to present JKs “choice” as being strictly limited to he either has to be with Jimin or he has to be with Tae, because apparently he can’t just be friends with both, but that’s not how life works, how relationships and friendships work, and it’s also completely nonsensical.

JK is their dongsaeng, and he’s Bangtan’s maknae. He is two years younger than Tae and Jimin, and despite Tae offering (years ago) for JK to drop the honorifics and thus becoming his equal, JK rejected the idea both in Tae’s and Jimin’s case for the sake of their dynamic and friendship (here’s a whole post by the marvelous romanticdrift about JK and honorifics).

In Korea, and I say this cautiously since this is based on research so if any Korean ARMY are reading our blog please do send in an ask if this is right, the younger person in a friendship is the one who will always be “unequal” to the older half to a certain degree. Actions that have been interpreted as romantic by shippers, like JK carrying Jimin’s shopping bags in Malta (BV3), they are simply something dictated by culture/age hierarchy (and him wanting to be a good friend). JK, as the younger, is, in a way, obliged to help his hyungs. We’ve even seen that in the most recent ITS episode where, after breakfast, Hobi says he’ll clean up since he was the only one who didn’t cook, but JK says he feels weird with that since he is the youngest, as in, due to his age he should be the one to clean up despite having cooked. Or when Yoongi “asked” him to took dinner with him, JK first apologized that he’s too exhausted to do so, and yet ultimately he still joined him and cooked.

Just like Jimin and Tae are chingu, as well as Namjoon and Hobi, JK also has his chingu in form of his 97z squad. People with whom he has matching tattoos to honor/celebrate their bond, and his friends even sometimes post pictures wearing the same clothes as JK.

Whatever vmin have or don’t have, it has nothing to do with JK. They both love him as their maknae, their youngest friend, and they are close to him in different ways because people have different dynamics with different people. As I said earlier, their bonds are not a competition, not a game of compare and contrast, and JK loves his hyungs, all of them, in different ways and also shows it in different ways, ones which are adjusted to each hyung (a post about his bonds with Hobi, Yoongi, and Seokjin). As much as he can hug Jimin or Tae, because they like hugs, he won’t hug Yoongi or Namjoon in the same way because that isn’t their preferred “love language”. Or as “rough” as he plays with Seokjin, because that’s part of their dynamic, he won’t do the same with Hobi. Or while JK will jokingly pretend he’ll pull down Jimin’s pants (ITS season 1, one of the earlier episodes), Tae will do the same with JK (ITS season 1, one of the later episodes), but Tae won’t do something like that with Jimin, because it isn’t part of their dynamic, and JK wouldn’t do it with Namjoon or Yoongi for the same reason.

You also have to keep in mind that we have a very limited view on their interactions and dynamics, the time we see compared to the length of a year is basically nothing. All we have to go by are their own words and the bits and pieces we see, everything else is a guessing game.

Anon, I have no idea what kind of development you think you’ve been observing for the past year, or what led you to interpret things in such a manner, but as someone who has been here a long time (how many times have I repeated that so far since our first posts?) I truly have no idea where you’re getting any of this from. Yes, JKs bonds with Tae and Jimin have changed and evolved, just like Tae’s and Jimin’s bond has evolved and strengthened, but none of it has anything to do with whatever you think it does. At least that is my opinion. You don’t have to subscribe to it, but since this is our blog, all I can do for you is give you my opinion so there you have it.

From anon: Do you dislike straight people?

I mean this in the most sarcastic way known to human kind: yes.

Trigger warning for the following ask (below the cut) for those who might prefer not to read a statement following the opener “I’m not homophobic but...” since it does sound rather (very) homophobic. Stay safe!

From anon: I’m not homophobic but I always wonder how bts members parents feel watching their sons and pride behave in such way with each other’s. So sexual 24/7.

Especially Tae and Jin and Jimin with Jk or even sometimes Vmin.

Everyone calls them the pride of SK but how will these people feel one day when they find out that they loved and supported such gay guys for years. I feel bts should reduce these behaviors. It’s so embarrassing watching their content with family sometimes, they’re literally rubbing on each other’s thighs and what not. I pray they’re guided.

You claim to not be homophobic just to then basically bash the members for behaving in a way you think is “too gay” and thus would prefer for them to be “less gay” which, surprise, is homophobic because what, exactly, is “too gay” about any of what they do? If, instead, it was a girl and a guy, would you still feel like they’re doing too much? Or, even better, if it were two girls, would that still be too much?

And I get it, especially if views/fans are coming from countries where this kind of skinship which we see in K-Pop between male idols is rare, it can be a bit surprising at first, and yet at the same time we as an audience somehow have no issue whatsoever with seeing female friendships that are touchy on screen, or romances (or movies/shows in genres where the romance is secondary, supposedly) with straight couples that kiss and feel each other up every other scene. Perhaps they (as in Bangtan and their way of interacting) are not the problem, but what you deem as sexual behavior? Is hugging a friend sexual? Is Tae lying down next to Jimin in bed to take a selca sexual? Is Hobi sharing a bed with JK in their RUN Staycation sexual? Is a shirtless JK hugging Seokjin in his selcas sexual? Or is that just friends who are extremely close and have been with each other 10 years type of close, and all of it simply shows that even men can (and should be allowed to) show affection without it being seen as weird?

You don’t have to like everything they do, but putting the blame on them being (potentially) queer and thus their behavior (according to you it seems) automatically being sexual, that is an issue. And it isn’t their issue, but yours.

If the behavior showcased by idols, as well as BTS, is “too gay” for you, too “sexual” for you, than perhaps K-Pop and its idols are just not for you. Besides, compared to some other things I’ve seen, what Bangtan do is nothing that would step outside of the frame, so to speak. You have to keep in mind cultural and contextual differences, and if they are something that’s too much for you, as viewer, then the only option isn’t to pray for them, but to reflect on your own views and values in that regard. And change who you stan. Because Bangtan won’t and doesn’t have to change unless they want to.

And the BTS parents? They must be proud beyond anyones imagination seeing everything their sons have achieved. The pride they bring to their country, as well as the joy they bring to ARMY and anyone willing to give their music a chance. Bangtan have taught us how to love ourselves, how to love others and be more open minded, so perhaps it’s time for you learn that, too. Or leave. Which sounds mean, yes, but it’s the truth.

Also, great choice to come to a blog co-written by a queer person with an ask like this, bravo.

#hall of shame ask #taehyung #jimin #jungkook #vmin

58 notes · View notes

stellocchia · 3 years

Text

Alright, now that I got some sleep, time for an overly long analysis on Tommy’s second prison visit!

I’m only talking about character in the rp from here on out, not the cc’s unless explicitly stating otherwise

First of all, a clarification is in order: was it Dream’s plan from the very start to get put in prison to end up in this situation? No. Does this mean he couldn’t have caused this to turn things in his favour? Also no.

Dream has proven before that he’s a rather flexible character (kinda has to be with a nemesis like Tommy), he’s been put multiple times in unexpected situations and managed to come out of top. We don’t know if he expected L’Manburg to be reborn after the 16th, and yet he managed to have the whole cabinet wrapped around his fingers. He didn’t expect Tommy to threaten him with Spirit, and yet he spun it around on him. We also know he didn’t expect Tommy to leave Logsteshire (he was talking about it with Punz, it’s the reason he went to check on him shortly after because he realized he may have stepped too far and broken Tommy out of his manipulation there) which offered him the opportunity to frame him for the community house disaster later on.

He is nothing if not resorceful.

Another thing we have to discuss when talking about the visit is the themes of their relationship:

- Dream’s possessiveness/obsession

- The whole Dream finding Tommy “fun”

- Their “game”

More under the cut

- For the first point, when I say “possessivness” I mean that Dream literally regards himself almost as Tommy’s owner. Don’t believe me? Let’s talk about how he treats Tommy’s canon life then!

Remember all the way back during exile? To keep Tommy in line Dream consistently threatened to take his last life, implying that he would have been fine with Tommy dying, yet, as soon as Tommy showed signs of wanting to take his own life, Dream bust out the line “it’s not your time to die yet”, 2 times in fact. Why? Well, Dream wants control in all things, not only that, but he clearly thinks he’s in the right in wanting it. Of course the life of his favourite toy is no exception. Also let’s not forget about the terrifying scene on top of the obsidian grid where, when Tommy said that their story would be over soon, Dream immediately took control again assuring him it would never be over.

There is also Tommy explicitly stating that Dream was “borderline his owner”, in case we needed an additional affirmation, in the stream where Mexican Dream made an appearance in exile.

Also, I have to mention that during the first Prison visit Dream, when talking about what he missed, grouped Tommy together with “his stuff”... can’t get much clearer then that

- Dream’s describing Tommy as “Fun” has been a reoccurring creepy theme between them. But is it soley done out of manipulation or does Dream actually feel that way in his twisted world view? I’d say a bit of both to be honest.

Clearly there is a level of gaslighting with it were he used to say it at the very start of Tommy’s exile to get him in the frame of mind of considering Dream his friend and trying to convince him that they always had fun together (trying to get him to switch his anger from being directed at Dream to being directed at his old friends), but that’s not all.

Dream, in cutting all his known attachments, is left with only Tommy as an attachment, Jack is right on that one, which is the rason why his obsession seems so extreme. That said, it’s pretty obvious that he does sort of find his relationship with Tommy “fun”. It’s the reson why literally everyone else is a replaceable pawn, but Tommy isn’t. Don’t get me wrong here: he doesn’t see him as a human and, despite him “caring” in his twisted way, there is NOTHING healthy about their relationship. But it is still important to point out that Tommy is extremely important to Dream.

- Their game is something we’re all well aware of. They are regarded by so many people as the hero and the villain of the server, even though neither of them accepts their assigned role. That said they both view the other in the role assigned to them. Dream doesn’t see himself as a villain, but he does see Tommy as a hero and vice-versa. And, just like that, the stage for their “game” is set.

Only problem? Only one of them is playing the game. We know this from the season 2 finale: the reason Dream kept coming down and trusting Tommy was because he thought Tommy was as attached to their “game” as he was, but he was wrong. Tommy HAS other attachments, plenty of them, he’s not dependent on Dream and that’s also probably why Dream is so obsessed with him in the first place: everyone else is predictable, easy to use. They aren’t surprising, they aren’t “fun” (remember that? Remember Dream goning “Tubbo isn’t fun” when Tommy said he had as much value as himself? Because I sure do) they are boring pawns.

You’d think he may think differently of someone like Techno but, despite him acknowledging his strenght, he has no reason to think he won’t be able to use him every time at the smallest promise of violence as it worked every time before. George and Sapnap? When’s the last time Dream showed them he cared in any way? He used them time and time again and then left them behind when the relationships required work on his side to mantain. He didn’t even speak to Sapnap during his visit! He regards Quackity as barely an annoyance (remember what history left on him in the Lost City of Mizu? Just a Fool). Punz and Sam were both people he paid, only means to an end. They ALL played his game and followed his rules, which is what made them predictable. It's what makes them so replaceable.

Now that the themes are established, let’s move on to the analysis of the visit itself!

First of all: big foreshadowing from Sam with the missing books (which Tommy admitted to not remembering the content of) and from Tommy saying how much he trusted and appreciated Sam. It doesn’t have much to do with the analysis, but we all pointed it out.

That said, what was Tommy’s objective with this visit? Closure. Tommy wanted to make their game finally stop for good, he wanted to reclaim the control over his life that he hasn’t had for a while now. Not over his literal last life nor over hid day to day life. Both used to be controlled by Dream.

Dream “loosing” his clock is the first information we learn. But, remember during Bad’s visit when Bad convinced Sam to give Dream one last chance to get his clock back if he behaved? And then again with Sapnap? Dream wanted the clock to go, that’s why he kept burning it despite the warnings. Why? Could it be that he was planning to get someone to stay with him in there? Isolation affects you much harder when you’re not aware of the passage of time after all...

“That’s the Tommy I know!” from the start of the visit Dream is trying to re-establish their “bond” and get Tommy in the mindset of them being “friends” again. I mean, it’s not a coincidence that he’s never been this talkative or friendly in any of the visits from other people.

Other point in favour of Dream having planned this long stay is the sheer number of potatoes he had stored. Also, may I add that he immediately started giving them to Tommy? He started before the tnt and explosions, before he should have known Tommy was gonna stay. He never did this before during any of the visits we’ve seen. Establishing his role as provider again like back in exile I see...

Dream also started immediately demanding for Tommy to visit him more, but Tommy does turn it down just as quickly by explaining that that would be the last visit (if Dream wasn’t planning to act this time, he changed his mind in this moment. He’s very adaptable remember? And his main accomplice was online...). Of course, Dream isn’t happy about it.

We already established that Tommy is the only one he finds “fun” (as far as we know), having him stopping visitations entirely wouldn’t be good for Dream. There is also the fact that Tommy is deciding to move on on his own. It’s Tommy’s choice under Tommy’s complete control and Dream has already shown he’s not too kin on that being a thing.

“Anything you want to say to me now, you have to say to me now, because I’m not visiting you again” “Why?” I’m highlighting this piece of dialogue because I think it’s pretty indicative of Dream still being convinced that they’re both still playing the game. Sure, Tommy outplayed him for now, but the game is not over, is it? Tommy can’t just decide to drop him can he? They both have so much “fun” after all...

Of course though, to Tommy the “why” should be obvious. Because of Dream he’s struggling with severe ptsd. He’s afraid of plains biomes, of lava, of heights to a certain degree, of black stone (both because of the Attachments vault and the Final Control Room on this one), of tnt, of small holes (big enough to drop your items in as he said), of giving up his stuff and of Dream acting Friendly. Dream hurt him a great deal to the point were he’s not managing to settle down even now, he’s still afraid. How can Dream not see how he hurt him? How can he not understand? In Tommy's mind it just doesn't make sense.

TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES (had to add this because it was just funny... why are there always bloopers with this 2?)

Potatoes again. Again the tnt had not started to go off yet. And Tommy eats them again immediately, of course. I can’t stress this enough, but this is done again to re-establish the dependency tommy had on Drem during exile. While he didn’t entirely depend on dream for food (he barely ate and he had Mushroom Henry), he used to be entirely dependent on him for protection, getting to the point where he would hardly defend himself from the mobs when they attacked him even when Dream wasn't around. Of course Dream can’t provide “safety” while he’s in prison, so he has to find something else.

“You had all this shit coming” “I did but... you know... maybe one day” “No! Have you seen this prison? It’s kind of the most secure thing ever” They are talking about two different things here. Dream is implying that, maybe, they’ll let him out in the future while Tommy, having already decided to move on and not worry about Dream anymore, is implying that the only way Dream is getting out is if he manages to escape, which he won’t. Quite different from the first visit were Tommy showed quite a bit of hesitance when asked if he would ever let Dream out.

“Unless you have extreme therapy” Tommy recognizing the importance of therapy I see! No, but, more importantly, this goes to show that Tommy is moving on from his exclusively vengful mindset he had at the start (which was more then understandable, btw). At the start of this visit he said he didn’t think that Dream deserved to die anymore and now he’s recognizing that he needs help, Tommy however also knows he’s not the one who should be helping him, he can’t. Still, he’s empathizing with him, because he can’t help doing so. Despite everything, Tommy always tends to see others as their own individuals, even when the same is often not true in reverse.

“I mean exile wasn’t that bad... right? I mean, we hung out” again, tying it back to the themes in their relationship, this fits so well. Of course exile wasn’t that bad, right? After all: why would Tommy have needed anyone else when he had his Best Pal Dream? And here’s the thing: we can’t know how much of what Dream says is just manipulation and how much of it he believes, but Dream has shown enough signs of being dependent on Tommy as his only attachment that we can assume there is, at the very least, some level of truth in this. I mean, if you remember back when he blew up Logstedshire, he didn’t even wanna believe that Tommy was suicidal. Tommy told him directly, but was dismissed. Why? Not because Dream wasn’t extremely opposed to him taking his own life, he’d already shown that not to be the case. Perhaps because he actually didn’t think it was that bad? Maybe he didn't want to admit he pushed him too far? Did he actually view himself and Tommy to be Dream’s own twisted version of “friends”? It’s a possibility and it’s what this visit seems to imply.

“When I’m around you I feel like my brain is conditioned to be your friend, but also when I have a knife I wanna just plunge it into your heart... you don’t make me a good person!” This seems to be a rather recurrent theme with Tommy and the mentor figures in his life. Wilbur trying to convince him (albeit not managing to) to just blow it all up and give in to his aggressive nature. Techno wanting to “bring him to the side of evil” and making him more violent in the process. Now we have confirmation that Dream himself makes him lash out more (though we could see this already when he was in exile in how he lashed out at Jack Manifold without the latter having done anything to deserve it). There is also the confusion to point out. While Tommy is trying to move on he’s clearly in no way “healed”, he’s still very much suffering from the consequences of Dream’s abuse and manipulation. He still doesn’t know exactly how to feel about him because, despite everything, he feels compelled not to hate him entirely.

“You’re a bad guy” “Well I did bad things, but everyone thinks they’re right from their perspective” “That’s not true” I haven’t seen almost anyone talk about this exchange, but it’s such an important one! As we said, Tommy views Dream as a villain, Dream doesn’t (he admits to having done bad things, but not to being bad because of them). Dream also sees Tommy as a hero, but Tommy doesn’t (Tommy doesn’t even view himself as “the good guy” in his own story, which ties in to his big self worth problems). It’s an interesting dynamic to be sure.

“Well I think I’m right. I did bad things, but I did them for good reasons” “What good reasons?” “I wanted to bring the server together you know? Make it a big happy family” This is the second time Dream brings up unity as his ultimate goal (the first being with Punz). Of course we know that the “unity” he wants it’s under his complete control. It’s not an objective that we can see as positive, but he does, or, at least, if he’s telling the truth about it, he may actually believe in it. Now, while this is the second time he brought up “unity” directly he did also strongly imply in the season 2 finale that that was his intention when explaining he was doing everything to get the server to “how it used to be”, back in the idealized past with no conflicts that never existed. Dream is deluded in the literal sense of the word, I would say it’s pretty probable there is at least some truth in his declared objective (truth in the form of him actually believing the bs he spews).

At this point Tommy is done. He’s drawing an end to the visit and Dream started getting more frantic. He started insisting on how he’s “changing” and insisting for Tommy to go visit him again. Ngl, I think this was probably to buy time for his accomplice (who is very possibly enderwalk!Ranboo) to get there. Because, if he let Tommy go, their game would truly be over, and Dream can’t stand that.

And cue the explosions!

So: Dream managed to buy enough time and, by the prison's protocols, Tommy is now stuck with him up to 7 days. He can’t leave which means Dream gets another chance to force him into continuing their game.

Quite a few people pointed it out, but, from this point onwards, Dream gets much more assertive and controlling in his demeanor. He drops the whole “insecure” act that he had going on in his enunciation and general behaviour and goes back to being like the old Dream (you would almost think that all that talk about “having changed” was just absolute bs, though he keeps insisting on it throughout)

Tommy’s behaviour also changes. He gets much more paniked (no doubt a combination of way too many of his triggers being present at once) and pliant. He starts calling out for Sam and asking to be let out but, of course, that doesn’t happen as Sam has to take care of the security breach first and foremost.

Dream starts immediately harping on Tommy being stuck there (probably to increase his panic, as he's easier to influence when he's distressed), first pointing out how “Sam can’t hear him” and then that the tnt must indicate a “security problem” (which he then explains he knows the consequences of because he wrote the book). By now he’s dropped his meek act entirely and he’s showing to be much more smug and self assured (a big contrast with Tommy having a very obvious panic attack). As we already said: he got what he wanted, he basically won already. All he needs to do now is get Tommy back to how he used to be in exile (”when they had fun” in Dream’s words...).

At this point there is only one question left to be answered: Why did he do all of this? How does this benefits dream?

Clearly this didn’t help him to get out. The security may actually increase because of it. Right? Well...

“I mean... if you want a way to get out, let’s get out together! We can work it out, we can-” “Fuck off” “Then there is no way out” I’m going out on a limb here and saying that, perhaps, Dream may know a way to get out provided 2 people cooperate on it. Tommy wouldn’t help him yet, but, who knows what he may do after spending way too much time locked in a small room, with a lava fall on the side and Dream to top off the list of his worst nightmares...

“Are you trying to get out?” “I’m not trying to get out, I’m not trying to get out!” a bit of a contradiction here, considering he proposed getting out together like 2 minutes before (coupled with his insistence on “one day...”)... however “I’m not trying to get out (yet)” may be a way to interpret his words more truthfully. If he just needed an accomplice to get out, he would have probably used Ranboo, but there is something else he wants as well...

(btw, potatoes AGAIN multiple times, especially every time Tommy is particularly distressed, and Dream also brings up Tommy being on his last canon life again in the context of this being “just like exile”... man do be trying hard with those parallels...)

You see, he already told us that he still sees his objective as good. He still wants control. He still wants his game to go on. And there is one person he elected to be the key to everything...

“I’m telling you you’re stuck in here for a little while with me, were we can bond, we can talk, just like old times, right? You know... just like exile” “Tommy this is the best thing that’s happened to me since I got in this prison, because now we can be company, we can stay together!” “Fine, fine, you’re done with me in a couple days, when you get out of here” “Tommy it’s not that bad! We can- we have lot’s of time to bond” Ngl... something tells me his other objective is very obvious... and we talked about it to death by now. But, in case it wasn't clear to someone, he wants to get back what (or who in his case) he considers to be his most cherished possession (again, do NOT interpret this as a "good" thing. It isn't. Dream literally treats Tommy as his toy, it isn't healthy and I've seen way too many people in chat trying to imply otherwise and calling it "cute". It's not cute, it's abuse)

“Tommy you’re stuck in here with me wether you like it or not, ok?! Wether you like it or not you’re in here with me for a WHILE, we’re gonna talk, we’re gonna have lot’s of fun” I just wanted to point out again how much Dream’s demeanor changed from the start now that he’s back in control. He’s not asking Tommy to talk to him, he’s not giving him a choice in it. Tommy already said how he doesn’t wanna talk and “get to know him better”, but that doesn’t matter. He has no power anymore. He doesn’t have the power to leave NOR the power to ignore Dream, as much as he wants to. Also, after this, Dream seriously ramps up the whole “We’re gonna have so much fun!” shtick...

And you want to know the saddest part of the ending? Tommy is already cracking (honestly, not surprising. He’s been through WAY too much by now...)

He started asking Dream for confirmation of whether all of this was “serious” (just like he needed to ask if things were real back in exile... or generally Dream’s opinion on everything). He also asked for more potatoes in a dejected tone (I know it may not seem that serious, but, as I said, it is just another way to create the dependency that Dream wants), showing a beginning of acceptance for Dream’s role as provider once again. Together with the very obvious “I can’t do this” and the black screen right after it creates a very worrying picture.

In conclusion: Dream is already dependant on Tommy, but the opposite not being true was a big part of his downfall. So, before he can get out, he has to work on getting Tommy back to exile!Tommy only this time he’ll be even more careful not to do some dumb mistake probably...

As anxious as I am to see how this will develop I do also think it’s one of the most interesting outcomes they could have had!

Also can we please take a moment to appreciate how WELL cc!Dream anc cc!Tommy manage to handle this incredibly serious scenes? Like, they bounce off of each other perfectly and, as someone who’s done theater themselves, I cannot commend them for managing to do so well in IMPROV enough!

They are honestly so great! Let’s get some serious love and appreciation for them to close on a positive note!

Also @mysweatymakerstudentworld

#tommyinnit #dreamwastaken #tw suicide #tw abuse #tw manipulation #exile arc #dream smp #Dream smp spoilers #long post #my post #analysis #relationship analysis #this is the sequel to rapunzel where she's stuck on the tower with mother goethel #I can't imagine it ending well...

354 notes · View notes

classic80sand90smovieloves2 · 3 years

Text

Meeting and Dating Charlie MacKenzie

(Not my gif)(Requested by @jotaro-spengler)

(Sorry this post took so long. I literally changed the entire meeting story last minute because I’m an indecisive perfectionist so it took a lot longer to write than expected. Hope you enjoy!)

- You and Charlie getting together was really all Tony’s fault. He just had to go and mention you: shine the spotlight in Charlies mind right on you and say look here you fool, a beautiful woman who you already care about and who already cares about you.

- That wasn’t really how it happened of course. All Tony had actually done was say something along the lines of “now take a look at my sister-”, using you as an example in some scenario he came up with rather than giving his friend a recommendation.

- But, in Charlie’s half listening mind, all he heard was “take a look at my sister” and take a look he did.

- You were a little younger; which tended to be the case when it came to younger sisters of friends that were his age, and you were pretty. You had a nice personality, you thought he was funny on occasion, and you weren’t a total stranger who he could easily find a flaw; that he didn’t already know about, in.

- Why not give it a shot? Worst case scenario, you say no or he breaks your heart and loses his best friend in the future. But hey, it was Tony’s idea to begin with, right?

- So he visits you at work, making small talk; as per usual since this was a fairly normal occurrence for the two of you, before trying to ask you out as casually as he could.

- Initially, you think that you’ve misunderstood him or that he’s misspoken, then you think that he joking, …and then you just think he’s gone crazy. You quite literally ask him if he’s feeling alright because it’s so out of the blue and unexpected.

- But, once you come to terms with the fact that this is a legitimate request, …you agree.

- I mean, it’s not like the idea never popped into your head. You’ve known the guy since middle school: of course you’d considered it; though you’d never imagined that it would actually come to fruition.

- Nevertheless, here you were, giving each other somewhat awkward smiles and arranging a time and place.

- Your first date is initially going to be just a regular dinner at some diner down the street that the two of you; and your brother, often frequented but you quickly find that it just feels wrong to go there: like the two of you are still just two friends.

- So you scratch that idea and find yourselves wandering around town, buying some food from a street vendor and taking in the atmosphere of the night. What started out as a; frankly, uncomfortable first date ends up turning into one of the best you’ve ever had.

- It’s no surprise that the two of you get along. The question is whether or not you fit as a couple so; regardless of whether or not you’d normally do it, you decide to have your first kiss before the night is over to test out the romantic chemistry between you.

- It may not be the most romantic first kiss in the world; considering the fact that you literally both talk about and agree to it like it’s some sort of business deal or logical course of action, but you enjoy it nonetheless and it gives the two of you some clarity.

- He likes you and you like him and the two of you are happy together. You just hope that it lasts....

- Charlie really doesn’t care about what other people think, in fact, he sort of likes to bother and gross people out so he never minds engaging in a bit of pda. If he feels like kissing the hell out of you, he’s gonna do it; regardless of whether or not there’s people around.

- Interlocked arms or holding onto his arm as the two of you walk together. He likes having you close to him so literally securing you to his side by your arm is a helpful form of affection.

- Handholding. He’ll usually swing your arms back and forth whenever you do.

- Cheek kisses. He’s a fan of both giving and receiving them so it definitely goes both ways.

- Excited, feverish, and passionate kisses. You tend to just lay one on each other at random; oftentimes catching the other person a little off-guard, so these types of kisses are pretty common in your relationship.

- Kissing in the rain; sometimes with him kicking his leg up in the air behind him.

- He tends to just call you by your given name; or a teasing nickname on occasion. He finds that using pet names just aren’t his thing and that a lot of them cause him to roll his eyes more than anything else.

- The two of you really don’t have a “usual” cuddling position since you tend to just do whatever feels right or makes the most sense. Some days you cuddle with your head on his arm, other days he’s the big spoon, and sometimes you’re the big spoon.

- Back scratches and shoulder kisses.

- Taking baths together.

- You know the meme about the person getting into their partners shower fully clothed so that they can ask them a question? That’s the type of shit that he does constantly. Sometimes you just have to sit back and consider the fact that you may be dating either an idiot or a crazy person.

- Getting his help when you’re trying to pick out your outfits.

- Going to his open mic nights.

- Having poems written about you. …They’re pretty bad....

- If you're dating Charlie, you have to stop caring about how other people view you because there’s no way you’re not going to do; at least a few, ridiculous things out in public together. The two of you are constantly doing dumb shit so just try to ignore any judgmental looks you may or may not receive.

- Chasing each other around and playing other childish games.

- Frolicking and dancing like children of the night~

- Double dates with Tony and his girlfriends.

- Diner dates.

- Wandering around the city together.

- Buying from different street vendors and food trucks.

- Cruising around town with his top down and the radio turned to your favorite station.

- Sitting out on his roof with him.

- He loves seeing you smile so expect a lot of dumb jokes and comments that are meant to make you laugh.

- Teasing each other. You like to call him “nice” just to mess with him.

- Convincing him to do different things with you. You know that it wasn’t his idea to go on that Alcatraz tour with Tony so it’s safe to say that he can be persuaded into accompanying you just about anywhere.

- Taking different classes together; though you probably shouldn’t take him to those sorts of things …for the sake of your teachers sanity.

- Getting visited at work. He’ll always insist that he was “in the neighborhood” but he absolutely was not and totally drove all the way over just to see you.

- Speaking of work: he would definitely offer to help you with whatever task you had to do just to ease your workload and spend more time with you. It would also probably get him into the good graces of your boss so the man/woman would be a lot more lenient with him hanging around.

- Finding your own ways to quiet his rambling. He tends to just keep talking whenever he’s nervous or feeling shy so you’ll have to learn the best way to quiet him whenever he gets like that; which usually means you’ll be kissing him or saying something he wants to hear.

- Telling each other stories. His are usually exaggerated to an outrageous degree but you never really mind; it’s sort of more amusing to see where his brain takes him than to just listen to a normal story.

- Family get togethers. You’ll usually sit in the kitchen with him and his mother while Tony and his father watch some sports game in the living room.

- Interesting interactions with his family; namely his father. The man’s a little hard to get along with but he’s certainly entertaining.

- He'll always check on you before leaving you alone, making sure you’re okay before he ditches you to do something; even if it’s just using the rest room for a minute.

- Him getting advice from Tony. Regardless of whether or not you want to picture yourself as the mans sister, he’s going to be your best ally when it comes to surviving your relationship; so you might want to get on his good side if you weren't already.

- Having to get through his sabotage stage.

- Charlie tends to get scared and break up with people when things are getting too serious so don’t be surprised if; or when, it happens to you. The good thing is that, if it’s meant to be, he’ll come to his senses and dedicate himself towards getting you back; usually with some big cute gesture.

- Just not feeling like yourself? No problem! He’ll be completely understanding and accept that you just aren’t happy; all while doing whatever he can to put a little pep in your step.

- He’s not an incredibly jealous person but he is cautious. He’ll never refuse to let you hang out with someone or do something but he will keep an eye on your relationships with other guys. Not because he doesn’t trust you but because he doesn’t want you winding up in an awkward position because you couldn’t see the red flags of encroaching romance.

- He’s somewhat protective of you; oftentimes sticking out his own neck to save yours. Although he’ll usually; awkwardly, try to settle things in a peaceful manner after an aggressive outburst at someone or something; usually because he only then realizes how big and threatening they are.

- The two of you fake fight every now and again but real fights only happen once in a blue moon. You get along incredibly well so it isn’t often that you can’t settle things in a peaceful manner; especially since he approaches you very calmly whenever he has a problem.

- Because most of his issues with you are reasonable, fights usually end before they even begin. But if they don’t and you wind up having a legitimate argument or fight, he’s always willing to apologize; especially since he’ll feel extremely guilty for upsetting you.

- He mainly shows you that he loves you but he definitely isn’t opposed to saying the actual words.

- As afraid of marriage as he normally is, he actually proposes to you pretty quickly. I guess when you know you know?

#charlie mackenzie imagine #charlie mackenzie imagines #charlie mackenzie headcanons #charlie mackenzie headcanon #so i married an axe murderer imagine #so i married an axe murderer imagines #so i married an axe murderer headcanon #so i married an axe murderer headcanons #90s movie imagine #90s movie imagines #90s movie headcanons #90s movie headcanon

44 notes · View notes

proudfreakmetarusonniku · 3 years

Text

anyway I need to go to bed but I have too much energy so I am channeling it into headcanons. here u go species headcanons for Everyone on the Dream smp with explanations because I’ve put a TON of thought into this. They’re probably like half contradicted by canon but fuck it My City Now.

Dream- A (juvenile) stage of being a god. He, DreamXD, and Drista have become known as “dreamons” but that’s technically a separate species, all spawned from them. He's not really focused on being worshipped in his own right, preferring power in the mortal realm, though he’s not averse to pretending to be his brother (the god worshipped by Church Prime) or his sister (a minor goddess of death worshipped by many hidden cults) if it can help him get power. He’s got pure white skin everywhere except his face (which is pale but human-like), black blood, entirely green eyes, pointed ears, fangs, claws, and digitigrade legs ending in hoof-like claws.

George- A human, the only human on the whole server. Humans are pretty rare, vastly outnumbered by hybrids but outnumbering any other species, and “pure” humans (what we'd consider to be a completely normal appearing human) are all but nonexistent. For example, George has eyes with dark sclera and white irises.

Sapnap- A blaze hybrid. He’s got a few rods surrounding him and his eyes blaze with fire. It’s usually just warm but not hot enough to hurt but if he's agitated or upset it can easily burn hot enough to set things ablaze.

Callahan- A reindeer hybrid. He’s got antlers, reindeer ears, fur around his arms, and hooves.

Awesamdude- A creeper hybrid. He's tauric, with four insect like legs. His skin and is green and mottled and has a texture similar to leaves. His eyes are pitch black. He has a tendency to make hissing sounds when stressed, though he can’t explode like a full blooded creeper.

Alyssa- A mouse hybrid, with large mouse ears and a long tail. This definitely isn’t an in joke for the thousands of hours I spent browsing TVTropes as a child and the “what happened to the mouse” tROPE SHUT UP.

Ponk- A demon hybrid, with pointed ears, slit pupils, a small spaded tail, and small horns.

BadBoyHalo- A full blooded demon, with pointed ears, a tall stature, pitch black skin and hair, fangs, claws, hooves, a long spaded tail, long horns, and small bat like wings. He’s rather self conscious about how intimidating he looks. He's also a lich (with Skeppy as his phylactery) which is why he has pure white eyes (a trait the undead share).

TommyInnit- An absolute mess, genetic wise, since I’m taking Tommy's joke about being born in a lab and running with it. He's mostly angel, and was basically cloned from Phil's DNA (from a feather that fell off his wings that somehow someone got a hold of) but had a bunch of other hybrid and human DNA mixed in to make him somewhat stable enough to actually survive gestation. He has very small, dark wings that are useful for balance and little else, fangs, claws, and pointed ears. His bones are very light, making him fragile but a lot more dexterous. His blood is slightly off a human's, being slightly pinkish. His freckles, wings, blood, and eyes glow slightly and are patterned like the night sky. Technically undead as of his resurrection, and maintains the many injuries of his death permanently (bruises stay and don’t heal but don’t worsen, broken limbs can be moved at unnatural angles, ect.), pale, corpse like skin, and one of his eyes turned pure white.

Tubbo- A ram hybrid, with small curved ram horns, horizontal pupils, ram ears, a tail, and hooves. Nice and simple after the absolute mess that was Tommy.

Fundy- A limited shapeshifter, able to change his species, though he prefers to be in a fox-like form. He inherited this from Sally, who had similar abilities, though with more strength. He's always got certain features he inherited from each parent that he can’t change though- wings, pale skin, and ice-like freckles from Wilbur, and salmon scales coating his wings and cheeks, and ginger-and-white hair from Sally.

Punz- A dragon hybrid, with dark horns, dark sclera and slit pupils, wings just large enough for limited flight, a strong tail, fangs, claws, and blue scales coating his cheeks, wings, tail, arms, and legs. Has a natural inclination to sleep in a pile of his wealth he only holds off on when he feels it’s at risk of being stolen (which, since this is the Dream SMP, is almost constantly).

Purpled- An enderman hybrid, with small horns, pointed ears, purple blood, and ender particles surrounding him. Parts of his arms and legs are covered in leathery, pure black skin.

Wilbur- Half angel, half fucking refrigerator because cc!Wilbur hates us (affectionate). His skin is unnaturally, icy pale, and his blood is an icy blue. His freckles are the colour of ice reflecting. He's got wings from his father, large enough to glide, but they’re pale coloured and slightly transparent. He has fangs claws, and pointy ears. His blood, wings, and eyes glow slightly and are patterned like the night sky. As Ghostbur, he’s got the injuries of his death apparent at all times, though they don’t hinder him or cause him pain, corpse like skin, pure white eyes, and is permanently transparent.

JSchlatt- A ram hybrid. He’s got large ram horns, dark sclera and horizontal pupils, a ram tail, fur around his arms, and hooves.

Skeppy- A construct made to be Bad's phylactery. He's fully made of diamond, and appears as a moving human statue (though entirely made out of diamond), though he has limited shape shifting ability to change his “hair” and “clothes”, though he has to remain the same mass. He has some small red detailing on him out of redstone (which was used partially in his contruction). The egg flipped the red and teal in his colour scheme. Also he's smalllllllllllll.

Eret- Part ghost, due to being descended from Herobrine. She has pure white eyes, pointy ears, and under stress he becomes partially transparent. They tend to hide their nonhuman features (ears under hair or hats and eyes under sunglassses) and are often mistaken for human.

Jack Manifold- Started as a wolf hybrid, with large wolf ears and a tail. After dying, he came back from hell as a hellhound with red and blue “flames” coming from his eyes, ears, and replacing his missing tail he lost in one of his deaths with two made of this fire. The fire is chillingly cold to the touch, and not warm. His eyes are also monocolour, though in heterochromatic red and blue instead of the usual pure white found in undead.

Niki- A moth hybrid, with antennae, monocolour amber eyes, fluffy wings, and more fluff around her neck, wrists, and torso. These and her hair are patterned gold and black, though as of now she’s dyed them all pink. Idk I just feel like moths fit her for some reason.

Quackity- A duck hybrid, with golden wings and webbed hands and feet. He’s also a shapeshifter of sorts, however instead of shifting into different forms he shifts into different beings, from alternate realities that never came to be. These can be used to shift into near identical copies of those around him, to impersonate them, or to shift into alternate versions of people (like Mexican Dream to Dream). These aren’t Quackity, though, and as such they have their own pool of canon lives, and while he has lots of influence over them they can still act autonomously.

Karl Jacobs- An inter dimensional being made of time itself. While his current form is mostly human, he has technicolour rainbow blood, freckles, and patches on his skin, along with clock-shaped pupils that change with the time. His “natural” form is a vaguely humanoid mess of ever shifting colour.

HBomb- I didn’t know what to do with him at first- he was a cow hybrid in my pfp set- but I just think the idea of him being a chill cat hybrid who turns full nyaa whenever he’s in a maid dress to be funny so he’s a cat hybrid now. With dyed-white cat ears and a dyed-white cat tail.

Technoblade- A piglin hybrid primarily, but he’s definitely got some weird traces of other species. He’s got tusks, pink hair, pink pig ears, a pig tail, and hooves, but he’s also got paws from some other animal hybridisation in his blood, and has a tallness that suggests demon blood somewhere down the line. His red eyes aren’t natural, and only occurred after he was sacrificed to be the vessel of the Blood God.

Antfrost- A cat hybrid, with blond and brown fur, a cat tail, paws both on his hands and feet, and cat ears. He’s also got split pupils and blue sclerae (though a different shade to his irises).

Philza- An angel- the creation of a god or goddess to help serve them (Dreamon's would be an example of the angels the Dream's can create, though they’re primarily running wild nowadays.) The creation and servant of one of the gods of death, Kristen, to serve her in the mortal realm. He’s got very large feathered dark wings, pupilless unnaturally bright eyes, pointy ears, fangs, claws, and dark blood the colour of the night sky. His wings, eyes, freckles and blood glow brightly and are patterned like the night sky. Injuries reveal that he's fully inhuman under his skin, appearing to be a void of colour that also glows and is patterned like the night sky. His crows, who are messengers from the afterlife, have this same pattern on their feathers.

Conner- I don’t know much about him tbh but. He’s just a hedgehog hybrid. I mean he’s joked enough about canonically being the kid of Sonic and Elise. He’s got blue hedgehog ears and a tail, and blue spines mixed in with his dark hair.

Captain Puffy- A sheep hybrid, with small curled sheep horns, sheep ears, a fluffy sheep tail, hooves, and hair curly and soft like wool. The split in her hair between brown and white is natural, though she keeps a small section dyed rainbow.

Vikkstar- Another angel, though of a god long gone. His entire body, even his “clothes” (which are made of flesh) glow intensely bright and have the pattern of the night sky.

LazarBeam- A gingerbread hybrid, which I’d say is dumb but we’ve already had a refrigerator hybrid so. I don’t know what else to say here.

Ranboo- Half enderman, half god of some sort. Has small horns, pointy ears, an inhumanly wide mouth with fangs, claws, digitigrade feet ending in hoof-like claws, pure black and white skin, pure black and white hair and freckles on the opposite side of the skin, red and green heterochromatic eyes barely distinguishable from their sclera, and red and green blood. Hmm, I wonder what other character shares similar descriptions... :)

FoolishG- A more matured god than Dream. Appears to be made entirely out of gold, with his hair and freckles appearing like copper. His pure green eyes have a similar texture to emeralds. Also he’s like. Massive. He’s like eleven Skeppy's.

Hannah- A nymph of the forests. Has prehensile vines and flowers flowing in her hair all the way to the ground, and half of her face and one of her arms are entirely made of these prehensile vines and flowers. Makes flowers grow in her step, after being corrupted by the egg they wither around her instead.

Charlie- Slime hybrid. Honestly just kind of got the most impractical parts of being a hybrid, having random sections of skin changed into green slime which drips everywhere and kind of gets in the way. It doesn’t seem to bother him though.

#my headcanons #making that a tab cause this was fun to write #dream smp #dsmp #dream smp headcanons #dsmp headcanons #dsmp species #dream smp species #the whole dsmp cast #literally all of them #excluding npcs #but including Mexican dream and Drista technically!#under a read more because LONG #i wasn’t joking when I said I did everyone

35 notes · View notes

gukyi · 5 years

Text

the coffee shop contract | jjk

summary: apparently, having an instagram profile with a different girl in every picture is reason enough for your friends to strike up a deal where they’ll pay you to have a relationship. well, jeon jungkook’s no good at relationships, but a fake relationship isn’t a real relationship. is it?

{fake dating!au, college!au}

pairing: jungkook x female reader genre: just fluff because i have a one-genre mindset word count: 18k warnings: alcohol consumption but no main character is overly drunk, dumb college antics, i know this is a fic but please don’t do these things in college actually a/n: yes, this story is actually based on a real instagram account my friend showed me in college. oh yeah, college? that’s a thing. i’m sorry for taking so long with this fic, i’m trying my best but college is hard. please wait patiently for me and enjoy this plotless piece of garbage!

Jeon Jungkook thinks that his college experience is overwhelmingly standard. He goes to his classes (most of the time), goes to parties on the weekends (sometimes), goofs off with his friends when he’s supposed to be studying (all of the time), and eats like shit.

(The plus side to his eating-like-shit habits is that he’s a gym junkie, which means that in theory, every time he exercises he burns off all of the shit and just leaves the energy behind. In theory.)

He operates under the assumption that he leads a very normal college life. He is but a typical student with a very small budget who detests the fact that he has to buy brand new versions of his textbooks just so he can get the online access code. He thinks he’s nothing but average.

His friends think differently.

“It’s not that weird, guys,” Jungkook insists in a group study room one day, where neither he nor his friends happen to be studying. In fact, Jungkook’s laptop is dead. He forgot his charger in his bedroom. He has no idea what he thought he would be doing when Taehyung texted and asked if he wanted to come and study with them.

They are doing anything but studying.

Taehyung has been on his phone the entire time, and the same topic of conversation that circles their friend group every now and then is at hand. “Yes it is, Jungkook,” he insists. He holds his phone up to both Jungkook and Jimin to prove a point. “Think about it. Okay, I’m scrolling back and forth on Tinder—”

“You just swiped right on some random dude,” Jungkook points out monotonously, a single eyebrow raised. Next to him, Jimin bursts into the laughter he was doing a poor job of holding in. “Why do you even have Tinder? You’re dating someone, and he’s sitting right next to you.”

“Fuck,” Taehyung mutters in exclamation, quickly pulling his phone back to try and rectify his carelessness. “Wait, never mind, he’s cute.” Jungkook shakes his head to himself. “Stop trying to distract me! I’m trying to explain something to you!”

Taehyung resumes.

“Anyway, think about it. I’m scrolling back and forth on Tinder and I see this cute guy who goes to my school named Jungkook. His pictures feature some pretty decent selfies, no workout or shirtless pics, and an awful shot of him with two hot dogs shoved into his mouth at once, courtesy of his best friend,” Taehyung explains, beaming. He even makes a point to pull up the aforementioned hot dog picture. It’s not pretty, but it’s a good conversation starter. “His bio is pretty standard, likes adventuring, hates doing required readings for class, lives off of coffee. I like the look of him.”

“Get to the point, Tae,” Jungkook says with a sigh, tossing his head back in exasperation. It’s not as if he’s in any sort of rush to move on from the conversation because he has something better to do, because he doesn’t. He just doesn’t need to be grilled like this.

“I go to look him up on Instagram, because maybe he’s the kind of guy to have his profile public for the viewing of others.” Taehyung pulls up Jungkook’s Instagram. He had forgotten about how good his aesthetic was. “Lo and behold, his profile is public! Hurrah! I can stalk him happily just to see if he really is my type. But, wait, what’s this?”

Jungkook facepalms.

Taehyung keeps going, scrolling further and further down Jungkook’s page. “It looks like every single Instagram post is with a different girl. Wait! Maybe they’re the same one—nope, they just did their hair similarly. Huh. That’s strange. Every picture features a different girl, no repeats. Now I really don’t think I want to swipe right anymore. So I go back to Tinder, and I avoid the guy by the name of Jungkook at all costs.”

Jungkook thinks that maybe he shouldn’t have come to the group study room at all. Maybe, if he leaves now under the excuse that he forgot his laptop charger, he just won’t have to come back. Ever. For the rest of his educational career.

Taehyung puts his phone down on the table with a smack, staring at Jungkook with an extremely unimpressed look on his face.

“Are you going to do this every time I tell you I went on a date and I don’t think I want to go on another one?” Jungkook frowns. Maybe he needs new friends. Maybe that would be a better solution.

“Yes, because you’re a stand-up guy who’s funny and smart and got a hot ‘bod and you can’t seem to tie down anybody for more than a couple of months, max,” Taehyung tells him pointedly. He’s always been extremely good at backhanded compliments. “Aside from us, your best friends.”

“I’m rethinking the ‘best friends’ part,” Jungkook says. He can’t believe it, but he thinks he would rather be studying.

“You wouldn’t do that to the man who paid for new Airpods for you!” Taehyung cries out, loud enough for someone in the main study room to turn around and glare at the three of them.

“You’re the one who broke them! You dropped them on the street and let some biker ride right over them!” Jungkook reminds him, eyes wide. He remembers the image vividly, Taehyung snatching his earphones out of his hands as they walked towards their favorite Korean place, watching them tumble right out of his slippery fingers and onto the pavement, and a bicyclist with those flashing red lights attached their handles coming speeding down, right over the case. It was the most tragic thing that Jungkook has ever witnessed.

“And I bought you brand new ones that were engraved with your name like a good, rich best friend would.” He may be an eclectic international student majoring in economics like half of the campus, but at least Taehyung’s self aware.

“Well, it’s not like Jungkook’s going to redo his entire Instagram feed or anything,” Jimin adds callously. Someone gets it. “He’s got this whole muted, neutral-toned aesthetic going on. He also doesn’t seem to mind the lack of commitment.”

Taehyung tuts, shaking his head. He’s still on page one of his fifty-page reading on Economic Disparities in the Post-Cold War Global Stage. He has not even picked up his highlighter. “That’s where you’re wrong, sweet Jiminie.”

“I know you guys are dating, but please never say the phrase ‘Sweet Jiminie’ in front of me ever again,” Jungkook pleads.

“I’m willing to wager that with the right incentive, Jungkook will actually make an attempt at maintaining a real, long-term, committed relationship with someone he’s genuinely interested in,” Taehyung says, a devilish glint lacing his dark brown eyes.

Jungkook hates that look. It’s the same look he had when he suggested they roll their office chairs down the hall of the dorm at three in the morning freshman year. Same look he had when he had Jungkook take sensual nudes of him to send to Jimin pre-relationship because Jungkook apparently had the photography skills of Photous, the photography god (that Taehyung is convinced exists in Greek mythology). Same look he had right before he downed five Monster drinks consecutively, which had the opposite of the intended effect and caused him to pass out in the group study room.

“No favor you could do for me would make me even consider accepting this wager,” Jungkook tells him immediately. He loves his best friend, but multiple times Taehyung has said he’d do Jungkook’s laundry and ended up turning all of his white belongings pink—his bedsheets, towels, and a couple of his favorite shirts are now all cotton candy-tinged.

Taehyung shakes his head. “I’m not talking about favors, young padawan. I am talking cash, the cold, hard kind that you can feel clenched between your closed fist.”

Taehyung comes from a family with money to burn but never does he spend it so recklessly. Except maybe when he bought five Monster drinks with the intention to drink them all like vodka shots. He shuffles around his backpack (work still forgotten) before pulling out his wallet, slapping two hundred dollars onto the table in front of them.

Jungkook, the money-starved college student he is, immediately reaches out for the stack of bills, but Taehyung nabs it from him before he can regain any semblance of personal dignity.

“Ah ah ah,” he tuts condescendingly. Jungkook shrinks back into his wheely chair as he reminds himself that while taking Taehyung’s money may have short-term benefits, he will feel long-term guilt. “Not yet, Jungkookie. First, you need to accept and complete the wager.”

Jungkook huffs. This feels like a drug deal. “Specifications,” he coughs out.

“If you actually find yourself in a committed, loving, uplifting, and completely real relationship with someone that you are mutually attracted to for longer than three months, with at least three Instagram posts of them on your page, I will give you money,” Taehyung says. This immediately crosses out Jungkook’s plan to coerce his favorite music production major (and other best friend), Min Yoongi, into helping him.

Jungkook narrows his eyes. “How much money?”

Taehyung ponders the question for a moment, checking his wallet one more time just to make sure the same amount that was in there two minutes ago is still there now. “I’ll be generous,” he says with a shrug. “Four hundred.”

Jungkook’s eyes nearly pop out of his head. Sure, he’s well aware that his best friend is one-hundred percent loaded, but four hundred dollars could finance his textbooks for the next two semesters, probably. It could buy him a new computer program and matching equipment for his average mixtape-making skills. He could send it home to his parents and they could go on a wholesale store shopping spree. They could buy him all the granola bars and multigrain crackers he could ever dream of.

“Are you serious?” Jungkook asks, gobsmacked.

Taehyung nods nonchalantly. “Yeah, why not? If you didn’t use the money, then I’d just buy some dumbass shit like more energy drinks. I’d say it’s a pretty good use of my cash.”

Jimin’s looking at Jungkook like he’d be a fool not to accept the deal. Jungkook wonders what the harm is. He succeeds, and not only does he get four hundred dollars, he also gets to be in a genuinely enjoyable relationship with someone he actually cares about. He’s in college, too, which means that it’s the perfect time to make some possibly-regrettable and extremely stupid decisions. And maybe, for once in his life, Taehyung’s right. Maybe having an Instagram feed with a different girl in each picture gives off fuckboy-let’s hook up and then I’ll never speak to you ever again vibes. Maybe he should really rethink his Instagram aesthetic.

“Choose quickly, Jungkookie, or I might come to my senses and go buy one hundred Chicken McNuggets with the money instead,” Taehyung advises.

Taehyung’s hand makes to put the two hundred dollars clenched between his fingers back in his wallet, and that’s when Jungkook impulsively shouts, “Yes! I’ll do it. Fine. Whatever.”

Taehyung cackles like the Wicked Witch of the West. Jungkook wonders if there’s a downside to this.

But to his clouded, 1AM mind, surrounded by friends that make him lose even more brain cells, it seems like the perfect decision.

“You do realize that Taehyung is basically paying you to court someone, right?” Yoongi asks over coffee the next day. It’s four in the afternoon, Jungkook’s finished with classes, Yoongi hasn’t started his homework, the both of them have ordered the most caffeinated drinks possible.

“So?” Jungkook asks as he takes another sip, shivers as he feels it run through his blood.

“So, any person you actually try and date for the next three months will find out about the deal one way or another and then feel used, and you’ll feel shitty. If you do somehow manage to date someone for the next three months successfully, they’ll find out about the money and dump your dumb ass,” Yoongi explains callously. He downs half of his coffee in a single go.

Jungkook grins. “I’m really loving the confidence that all of my friends have in me when it comes to maintaining long-term relationships. It makes me feel so great.”

Yoongi rolls his eyes. “You know that I’m right, Jungkook. You can’t just accept this deal and expect the person you end up dating, if you even end up dating someone, not to find out. That’s unrealistic and basically grounds for a terrible breakup rom-com.”

“I already told him that I’d do it. I want the money because I am a broke college student. It seemed like a no-brainer at the time,” Jungkook says, exasperated. He sighs into his coffee and the foam wobbles. “What am I supposed to do? Tell Taehyung that the deal’s off and let him make fun of me for the rest of recorded human history?” Jungkook whines.

“I don’t think he’ll do that.”

He definitely will. Taehyung’s gravestone will say Don’t Forget to Find Jeon Jungkook’s Grave and Laugh At Him For Me. Jungkook will spend the rest of eternity buried six feet under with random strangers laughing at him until the sun absorbs the Earth and wipes out life on the planet entirely.

“Yes he will,” says Jungkook, pouting. “What other option do I have?”

A chair screeches on the wooden floor next to him and Yoongi and suddenly, someone speaks.

“Sorry, I wasn’t eavesdropping even though I definitely was, and I couldn’t help but notice that you seem to be in some sort of monetary predicament,” you say, looking at Jungkook with wide eyes. You look familiar, but Jungkook can’t place where from. Maybe one of his classes?

“Can I help you?” Jungkook asks, taken aback by your sudden brazenness. The last time Jungkook came face to face with someone so shameless was the first time he met Seokjin while at a house party in Namjoon’s apartment. Seokjin walked through the front doors blasting Who Let the Dogs Out from his iPhone and immediately declared himself king of the household before Namjoon could even say hello.

You shrug, shoulders nonchalant and unbothered. “I think I’m the one who should be asking you that question.”

Jungkook’s flabbergasted. He turns to Yoongi, who, like he does with most things that don’t directly involve him, seems to have already assumed a hands-off position. Like it’s not his problem that his best friend has just been approached by a random stranger in a coffeeshop who looks to be promising a solution to his problems. Like the Shadow Man from Disney’s Princess and the Frog. Like a mafia boss.

With a non-comforting pat on Jungkook’s back, Yoongi stands up, finishes the rest of his coffee in a single gulp, and says, “Looks like this one’s on you, ‘Kook.” He doesn’t say anything else and, five seconds later, he’s gone.

“Jungkook, right?” You ask the moment Yoongi’s out the door. You’ve fully shifted your chair to face Jungkook, and Jungkook doesn’t know where to look when your eyes are staring right at him.

“How do you know my na—”

“I’m Y/N. I hope you don’t mind me barging in on your conversation like this,” you say, not at all deterred by Jungkook’s very obvious bewilderment.

“Um—”

“See, I was just drinking my hot chocolate even though it’s still warm outside, and I overheard that you were in quite the dilemma,” you say. Even though you technically aren’t invading any of his actual personal space—you’re not touching the table, accidentally brushing your foot against his leg, leaning in aggressively close—Jungkook feels like you couldn’t be any nearer to him. Like all this overwhelming forwardness and confidence is rendering him speechless and keenly cognizant of his personal bubble. “And I’m here to propose a solution.”

“Do you go here?” Jungkook somehow manages to get out.

“Me? Yeah, I’m majoring in communications,” you tell him casually. Jungkook wonders why he’s not surprised to hear that.

“Okay…” Jungkook still doesn’t know what to say.

“In any case, in the past five minutes I’ve spent listening to you talk about how your friends said they’d pay you if you managed to date someone for more than three months, I’ve devised a foolproof solution that benefits all parties involved,” you tell him like you’re trying to get him to sign onto a business deal. Jungkook swears that there must be fine print somewhere. He just can’t tell where.

Jungkook raises his eyebrows. He’s interested. “Which is…?”

“Date me.”

If Jungkook’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when Taehyung pulled out that fat stack of cash in the group study room, they must jump right out and roll onto the wooden floor at this.

“I’m sorry, w-what?” Jungkook sputters, like he hadn’t heard you correctly even though he definitely had. He was expecting something maybe more in the realm of counselor, like tell your friends you don’t want to do the deal, if they’re really your friends they’ll honor your wishes, or maybe even on the opposite side of the spectrum, like if you run away to Norway now and change your identity they’ll never be able to find you, here I know a guy. Not date me.

Certainly not Date Me.

“Date me,” you repeat. It’s the simplest phrase. And yet, it befuddles Jungkook more than his theoretical computer science class does. “Maybe I should rephrase it. Fake date me. How’s that sound?”

Jungkook lets out something between a cough, a chuckle, and the noise a dying Canadian goose would make.

“Basically, what I’m thinking, what my vision is, is that you and I agree to fake date for two weeks past the designated period—in your case, three months. This prevents your friends from thinking that the whole relationship was all for show and so you can preserve your dignity. I, as your honorable and true girlfriend, will do any and all things necessary to make your friends believe that you are genuinely committed to our relationship. Then, your friends pay you after the three months is up, and because it takes two to tango, I get half. Sound good?” You propose. You seem to have thought of everything.

The first problem is that Jungkook doesn’t know how he’s going to maintain the facade of a real relationship with someone he 1) barely knows and 2) barely knows. The reason he doesn’t commit to anything isn’t because he’s afraid of commitment (okay, maybe he is) but because all of the dates he ever goes on are Tinder dates or hookups-post-one-night-stand. He doesn’t date people he’s already familiar with, and then it never goes further. Even if he didn’t meet you on Tinder or sleep with you after a shitty frat party, he doesn’t see how this scenario is much different.

The second problem is that, true to his college student nature, Jungkook is starved for cash. When Taehyung promised him four hundred dollars, he immediately began thinking of ways to spend each and every cent. But the prospect of him losing half of that money to someone he barely knows has him more than hesitant. How will his parents go on their wholesale store shopping spree without four hundred in cash to blow? If Jungkook wants those four hundred dollars so badly, why not put in the effort?

The third problem is that Jungkook is a phenomenally terrible actor. When he was in grade school and everybody had to participate in the class play on why smoking is bad for you, Jungkook’s role was Kid In The Background Sitting On A Chair Reading A Book. He was on stage for a total of two minutes as the main character was peer pressured into smoking, and he never set foot on it again.

So, if Jungkook were to arrange this into a five-paragraph essay with Times New Roman size twelve font, he’d have a pretty good argument for why your proposal is probably not a good idea.

But then, Jungkook is reminded of a few key things that keep him from declining right off the bat.

First, he’s already said yes. Which means that, if he wants those four hundred dollars, he’s going to have to go through with Taehyung’s deal.

Second, going through with Taehyung’s deal and keeping the four hundred dollars all to himself will require lots of effort on his part. He will have to keep going on dates until he finds someone he clicks with, and then he will have to keep going on dates with that specific person for the next three months and develop a meaningful relationship.

Third, Yoongi’s right, as he usually is. Even if Jungkook establishes a relationship, the deal will always be in the back of his mind, and the truth will eventually come out. This may lead to Jungkook’s first genuine heartbreak—if he’s committed to the relationship—and Jungkook isn’t mentally prepared for that either.

And somehow, as Jungkook makes it through the labyrinth that is his mind, he comes to the overarching conclusion that maybe accepting your proposal isn’t such a bad idea after all. If you already know about the money, you’re willing to help him dupe his friends, and you don’t really care about splitting up in three and a half months, then the only thing that Jungkook is losing is two hundred dollars. And while that may be a lot, he’ll still have two hundred of his own to console him.

Despite the lack of communication between the two of you, surrounded by the white noise of the ambient coffee shop, you don’t appear at all deterred by Jungkook’s radio silence. You’ve put the deal down on the table and are waiting for Jungkook to either pick it up or push it off.

“You get half?” He asks, just for clarification. It’s difficult to miss the fact that you are, essentially, halving the benefits he’s reaping from accepting Taehyung’s deal.

You nod. “Yup. But in return, any dates we go on I will pay for my share, so you don’t have to worry about that. I will also be a loving and doting girlfriend you gets you coffee, croissants, and Dunkin’ whenever you ask, and even sometimes when you don’t. So I think that it evens out.”

“You’re sure about this?” Jungkook asks.

You laugh, cracking a smile that shows off your teeth and fills out your cheeks. Jungkook looks right at you, and maybe he doesn’t feel anything right now, but he thinks he might be able to find a friend in this along the way. “I’m the one who suggested it, aren’t I?”

Jungkook sits resolutely. He just prays that neither Taehyung nor Jimin ever find out about this. If they do, he really will have to escape to Norway and change his identity.

“Okay,” Jungkook says, his eyes staring firmly into yours. “I’m in.”

Seeing as the both of you are college students with the most updated technology at your fingertips, you pull out your laptop and situate it between the both of you. You’ve shifted tables so now that you can face your future fake-boyfriend, and Jungkook feels more and more like he’s signing up for some shady website in the hope that it’ll give him the answers to his problem set. Immediately, you share a Google Doc with him.

“What should we call it?” You ask, cursor hovering over the Untitled document.

“The contract?” Jungkook suggests weakly. He was never good at titles.

“The Coffee Shop Contract,” you add on, typing it dutifully into the bar. “Sounds official.”

“It’s official because there’s money involved,” Jungkook points out. You wouldn’t be writing up this formal contract if you weren’t reaping any financial benefits so long as you both honor it.

“Maybe it’s just because we don’t know each other yet, but you seem like the type of guy to swindle me out of promised cash,” you observe, albeit somewhat inaccurately.

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean? I’m untrustworthy?” Jungkook asks, only a little offended.

You purse your lips into a thin smile. “My friends make fun of you because you’ve got a different girl in every single one of your Instagram posts. Can you blame me?”

Jungkook tosses his head back, exasperated. “It’s not that weird!” He exclaims.

“It’s kinda weird.”

You type up a brief outline of the requirements. It looks like this:

The Coffee Shop Contract

Signatories Jungkook and Y/N.

This contract entails a fake relationship between the signatories of Jungkook and Y/N.

This fake relationship shall last no less than three months and one week and no longer than three months and two weeks.

Both parties involved shall do any and all things possible to ensure that this fake relationship appears as realistic as possible.

Both parties will pay for their share of any and all outings made together.

Three Instagram posts on Jungkook’s account must be made throughout the duration of the relationship.

Should this fake relationship be successful, Jungkook shall give half of his payment to Y/N as compensation for her efforts.

No falling in love with each other.

No one can know.

Signatures: _______________________ and __________________________

“What was the reason you needed to type up a whole contract? I thought we had already discussed all of this,” Jungkook asks when you’re finished, eyeing the document on the screen. It looks much too official for his liking. Jungkook, if he could, would probably write his essays on a series of Post-It Notes—specifically the accordion-style ones, because those bring more joy into Jungkook’s life than he cares to admit.

“This solidifies it,” you inform him sternly, fingertips moving quickly across your keyboard. “So that way if either of us breaks the rules, the deal’s off.”

Jungkook frowns slightly, tilting his head. “What if we both break the rules?”

“Well then,” you tell him firmly, resolutely, putting your hand on top of his. Jungkook jumps slightly at the touch, but your palm is warm and it wraps around his with determination. “I suppose that we go down together, or we don’t go down at all.”

When Jungkook’s alarm goes off at ten o’clock that Sunday, the first person to say anything is Taehyung. He comes stumbling out of his bedroom in their two-bed one-bath off-campus apartment, hair disheveled and still wrapped up in the hoodie he’s been wearing for the past forty-eight hours.

“Jungkook?” He asks hazily, voice muffled and thick from sleep and the retainers still in his mouth. “What are you doing up?”

Jungkook looks up from where he was mid-washing his mouth out post-teeth brush, and stares at Taehyung’s reflection in the mirror. The fluorescent light of their bathroom illuminates his undereye bags and the hickey he seems to have acquired in the past 12 hours extremely well.

“Huh?” He asks, mouth only slightly full.

“What are you doing up? Didn’t you get back at like, four last night?” Taehyung asks. He must faintly recall the door slamming shut as Jungkook stumbled back, the alcohol from whatever parties he ended up slowly making its way out of his system. Jungkook does not over-drink… but he also doesn’t under-drink. He was with Jimin the whole time, though, who was flat out hammered, and when Jungkook wrapped an arm around his waist and insisted he drop him back off at his apartment across the street from his and Taehyung’s, Jimin told Jungkook that he was very nice and attractive but that he had a boyfriend.

Jungkook wonders if Jimin’s going to wake up before three this afternoon.

“Yeah,” Jungkook says. He splashes his face for good measure before slapping on some of the lotion they have on the edge of the sink that he always mistakes for soap. His mother told him that furiously smacking skincare into your face wakes you up and depuffs your eyes. So he does it. “I’m meeting someone for brunch.”

Taehyung slaps himself in the face.

“Don’t tell me Jeon Jungkook is awake at ten in the morning to meet someone for brunch,” Taehyung says, even though that’s exactly what Jungkook is telling him.

“I am,” says Jungkook.

“Who?” Taehyung demands to know, leaning against the doorframe. While his body may be falling asleep, his mind sure still runs a mile a minute.

“Uh, some girl,” Jungkook says, trying to make it sound as nonchalant as possible. Jungkook accepted Taehyung’s deal a week ago, and you had told him to only start mentioning ‘a girl’ after time had passed to keep Taehyung less suspicious. So you had texted him last night while he was four vodka shots into the night, saying that you should meet up for brunch the next day, and Jungkook, the dumbass he is, said yes without realizing the time you had suggested.

And now he is paying the price in bags.

Eye bags.

“A girl?” Taehyung asks, immediately more awake. “Did you meet her last night?”

“Uh, yeah,” Jungkook lies.

Taehyung scoffs. “Did she give you that?” He points to Jungkook’s neck.

“Yeah,” Jungkook lies again.

“Wow, what a ladies’ man, huh?” Taehyung asks, giving Jungkook a good punch in the shoulder before he pulls his hoodie right over his head, tugs on the drawstrings for the South Park effect, and trots back to bed.

Jungkook runs a hand through his hair before his eyes focus back on the hickey on his neck. He can’t remember a damn thing about who gave it to him. For all he knows, it could have been Jimin. Jimin has, for the record, mistaken Jungkook for Taehyung quite a few times when drunk, though clearly he was able to distinguish between the two of them last night. He grabs Taehyung’s concealer (which is two shades darker than his skin tone) from the cabinet behind the mirror, tries his best to hide it, and prays that you won’t make fun of him when you meet up.

“The fuck is on your neck?” is the first thing that comes out of your mouth when Jungkook appears at the corner table of the brunch place. He was late, as per usual, but only because Jimin came knocking on the door and Jungkook had to direct him to Taehyung’s room before he collapsed face-first on their couch and stayed there for the next two days.

“Uh,” Jungkook says.

“Is that a hickey? Are you attempting to conceal a hickey with concealer that is literally two shades darker than you?” You ask, squinting as you lean in.

“Uh,” Jungkook says again. He sits down, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

“I ordered us orange juice already,” you tell him. “But it seems like you had a lot of fun last night. Care to tell me anything about it?”

Jungkook picks up the menu to keep his hands busy and give himself an excuse not to meet your eyes. The french toast looks good, and is less expensive than the avocado toast for some strange reason. Classic brunch problems. “I mean, it’s not really that important—”

“Hey,” you say, leaning over and snapping your fingers in front of his face to get his attention. “I’m your fake girlfriend now. I’m obligated to be interested in what activities you get up to when I’m not with you. So, what did you do last night?”

Jungkook figures that since he walked in here five minutes late with mismatched concealer poorly hiding a hickey, you have a right to know what the hell happened last night. If he even remembers what happened last night.

“I went out around ten with my roommate’s boyfriend,” Jungkook begins, because that part he knows happened.

“Wait, your roommate’s boyfriend? Why not your roommate, too?” You interrupt, though it’s a valid question.

“Well, Taehyung’s not really a partier. I mean, he met his boyfriend, Jimin, at a party, but he doesn’t really like going out and getting drunk that much, and he’s also a damn lightweight so you really can’t take him anywhere unless you want hin clinging to your side the whole night,” Jungkook explains.

“How did they meet?” You ask, not out of obligation but because you’re genuinely interested. Which is nice, Jungkook realizes, that you actually want to keep listening to him talk instead of disregarding him in favor of the menu. Jungkook can’t really think of many dates where both he and the person he was with weren’t asking questions just for the sake of asking questions. But you seem to have a different approach. “If he’s not a partier.”

“That’s actually a funny story,” Jungkook begins, already laughing. “Taehyung hates parties but that night he was determined to go to one because this cute boy he saw on Tinder was going to be there. And so he dragged me out to this party at eleven at night to try and find this boy, but then gets roped into a game of beer pong with said boy, so, mission accomplished. Except, because Taehyung’s a lightweight and a terrible shot, he misses entirely and bonks the shorter kid next to the cute boy on the head.”

“Let me guess,” you finish. “That was Jimin?”

Jungkook nods. “Only Taehyung would end up falling in love with the best friend of the boy he thirsted over on Tinder.”

“Can I ask who the cute boy is?” You raise your eyebrows.

“Oh, that’s Hoseok. We’re actually all really good friends now,” Jungkook says, because that’s just how the cookie crumbles. “His boyfriend is a really close friend of mine.”

“Wait, are you talking about Jung Hoseok?” You ask, eyes wide. Jungkook nods. “My friend’s in the dance group he leads. He’s dating this guy named Yoongi, right? She says they’re super cute together, and that he drops into practice all the time to say hello, and Hoseok makes him dance with them.”

Jungkook nearly bursts into laughter in the middle of this crowded restaurant at the image of Yoongi trying to hip-hop choreography that Hoseok creates. He loves Yoongi, but he’s got the coordination of a baby giraffe and two left feet. Which is exactly why he sticks to music production, the less physical of two musical evils. “Yeah, he was with me in the coffee place when we first started talking.”

“That was him? No way,” you say, shocked.

Jungkook has to say that he’s equally as surprised. You seemed familiar, but Jungkook assumed that it was because you had the same class or something. What he wasn’t expecting was this labyrinth of mutual acquaintanceships that draws a path between you and him.

“I guess we’re closer than you think,” Jungkook says with a shrug. The waiter comes over to ask for their orders, and Jungkook, because he’s reckless and you’re grinning at him with a smile wider than the sun, orders the avocado toast.

You nod, handing your menu to the waiter before he whizzes off. “Isn’t it funny how that works?”

After the second time you go out to a restaurant—this one a relatively nice but not upscale pizza place—Taehyung wants to meet you.

It’s not so much wants.

It’s more like demands.

“Two dates, Jungkook!” Taehyung screeches at the same time the first kernel in their microwave popcorn bag pops, making Jungkook wince. “You’ve been on two entirely separate dates with the same person, and I haven’t met them yet!”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Jungkook says awkwardly, avoiding Taehyung’s gaze so as not to watch him go bug-eyed right in front of Jungkook’s nonexistent salad as he slowly waits for their microwave to implode and burn their entire apartment complex down. “it’s just two dates.”

“Which is two more than you normally go on,” Taehyung insists, holding up two fingers just in case Jungkook was unsure as to what number he’s been saying repeatedly as the popcorn pops. “Perspective, Jungkook! This is a big deal for you!”

“You act like I’ve never been on a date before when I, in fact, have,” Jungkook deadpans with a frown. He tries not to flinch when the popcorn surprises him with the last few kernels.

“Yeah,” Taehyung says like a white girl in a Netflix original movie, opening up their shoddy microwave to a steaming (and slightly overcooked) bag of dollar store popcorn. “But when was the last time you went on two dates with the same person?”

Jungkook opens his mouth to respond when he realizes he can’t give an answer without incriminating himself. It’s definitely been a while.

Taehyung picks up on the nanosecond of silence and Jungkook’s fish gape immediately, cackling as he tears open the popcorn and a quarter of the pieces go flying across their tiny counter island, still sticky in some places where Taehyung forgot to wipe up the juice from the watermelon he was cutting (sans cutting board) last night at two in the morning.

“Perspective! Matters!” Taehyung says, interjecting each word with a piece of popcorn in his mouth. Jungkook reaches over to take some for himself, just happy knowing that the microwave hasn’t caused his tragic demise and he can put off death-by-microwave for another day.

“You’re an Economics and Fine Arts double major, perspective is all you care about,” Jungkook says, cheeks puffed up like a chipmunk preparing for winter. “I think you’re being dramatic.”

“I think that two dates is a record,” Taehyung tells him pointedly.

“How noncommittal do you think I am?” Jungkook asks, shocked. He’s been in committed, long-term relationships. In high school. And nowadays in college, the definition of long-term has become so distant from what it used to be that three weeks is pretty much long-term at this point.

“Very,” Taehyung says. He tilts the popcorn bag into his mouth and finishes it, and Jungkook is both horrified and impressed, because the bag was still a quarter-full when Taehyung decided it would be a good time to chug carbohydrates covered in butter. “I gotta meet them, Jungkook. I’m your best friend. I have to!”

Jungkook narrows his eyes. “You do not have to meet her. In fact, you shouldn’t even be involved in my existent or nonexistent dating life at all. You have a boyfriend.”

“Excuse me, I am still your best friend despite already having met the man I’m going to marry and adopt three dogs and a giant iguana with, and therefore I’m allowed to want to meet her. We should do something fun,” Taehyung says, before his eyes light up in the same way they did before Taehyung once suggested they take an extremely pricey Uber out into the suburbs just so they could go to the biggest wholesale store in the area and buy as many sixty-brownie packs as possible.

The same way they did before Taehyung thought it was a good idea to pay Jungkook money to get himself into a committed relationship, and the same way they did when Jungkook agreed.

“Oh my God, we should go play laser tag! That’s so much fun!” Taehyung begins to jump up and down in the middle of their apartment like an eight-year-old boy at an amusement park for his birthday, and Jungkook has reason to be worried he’ll fall right through the floorboards and into the apartment below.

Jungkook couldn’t think of a worse group outing for you to meet his friends. While Taehyung definitely sucks at laser tag (Jungkook always wins), a furiously competitive, glow-in-the-dark, shriek-inducing, friendship-ending activity may very well be the last thing Jungkook wants to do with you while you meet his friends. He wants you to like them. He wants them to like you. Laser tag doesn’t promise either of those things. Laser tag, in fact, actively promotes immediate dislike.

“Absolutely not. There’s no way I’m introducing you to her in a laser tag setting,” Jungkook immediately rejects Taehyung’s suggestion. Taehyung frowns, probably trying to think of some other equally as infuriating activity for the four of you to do together. Jungkook racks his brain, trying to think of something else that appeases Taehyung’s desire for physical competition while also minimizing the potential for disaster (which is very high whenever Taehyung is involved). “How about… mini golf?”

Taehyung breaks out into a devilish grin, and Jungkook wonders if mini-golf was an even worse suggestion.

“Mini-golf?” You ask as you arrive at the mini-golf place, a little outside location far away from the hubbub of the city but close enough to not require an overpriced Uber.

“It was this or laser tag,” Jungkook says, whipping his head around to see if Taehyung and Jimin have arrived yet. He can’t seem to see Taehyung’s faded teal hair nor Jimin’s pink, which would otherwise be easy to spot because whenever they walk anywhere, Gen Z’ers stop them on the street to remind them that they look like Cosmo and Wanda from The Fairly OddParents.

“Laser tag!” You exclaim, punching Jungkook in the shoulder for emphasis. “That would have been such a good idea! Mini-golf is so overdone, I would have loved to go to laser tag.”

Jungkook pouts. He can’t believe he already royally fucked up the first meeting between his fake girlfriend and his best friend (and his best friend’s equally-as-chaotic just not-as-loud boyfriend) because you and Taehyung wanted to play laser tag and Jungkook was the dumbass who thought that mini-golf would be a better idea. Maybe Jungkook should just try to get knocked in the head with a mini-golf ball going at one hundred miles an hour like it did in Avril Lavigne’s VMA-deserving music video Girlfriend, fall on the ground and roll into a Porta Potty, and then wake up with no recollection of any of the day’s events.

You notice Jungkook’s pout immediately as you hand over eight dollars so he isn’t paying for the both of you, and pat him on the back. “But I still like mini-golf. It could be worse. We could be at a Kidz Bop concert right now.”

Jungkook supposes that there’s always a silver lining.

The silver lining vanishes the moment he hears a preteen boy who’s on hole eight shout, “Oh my God, it’s Cosmo and Wanda!”

“That would be the other half of our party,” Jungkook says with a grimace, staring distantly into the void as Taehyung and Jimin clamber onto the course. Taehyung carelessly gives the poor teenager in the booth a twenty, does not take his change, and picks up a golf club that is nowhere near the right size for his nearly-six-feet-tall figure. Maybe if Jungkook makes eye contact with the supermassive black hole that Taehyung is convinced actually exists at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, he’ll just get sucked right in and lose all the matter in his body so he doesn’t have to deal with this shit for the next two hours.

“I’m Taehyung,” Taehyung introduces himself aggressively, holding out an enormous hand for you to shake. You do so hesitantly but firmly, trying not to break eye contact with Taehyung, a task you will soon find to be quite difficult, as Taehyung can keep his eyes open for over five minutes straight. “And unfortunately, my charming personality and extreme good looks have already attracted a mate. This is my soon-to-be husband, Jimin.”

Jimin waves respectfully, pink hair bouncing.

“They’re not engaged,” Jungkook says, feeling the need to elaborate because Jungkook’s known Taehyung since before freshman year of college, and sometimes even he can’t tell when he’s kidding.

“Real shame, but I actually have my eye on the only natural-hair-colored college-aged super buff guy in the group,” you say, nudging Jungkook’s side with a wink. Jungkook thinks he might vomit at your description of him.

“Kook’s a real looker, but he flakes on us all the time. I’m impressed you even managed to get him to come with us,” Taehyung jokes, but the comment nonetheless makes Jungkook’s mouth open in indignation.

“I’m the only mutuality between all of us,” he re-emphasizes, “I’m the one who organized the whole thing!”

Taehyung leans in to whisper into your ear, but Taehyung’s whisper is normal people’s regular outside voice, so Jungkook can hear every word. “Truthfully, I wanted to go play laser tag.”

You nod enthusiastically. “So did I! Jungkook just mentioned it and I wish we had gone there instead. We’ll have to go sometime. Just a warning: I’ll crush you.”

“I accept your challenge,” Taehyung says with a firm nod.

Jungkook coughs loud enough to interrupt the both of you and even attract the attention of the next family who’s come up to pay. He feels bad for them—they’re going to be stuck behind the four of you for the rest of this hellhole of a mini-golf game.

“Are we here to play some mini-golf, or what?” Jungkook asks, tiny golf pencil and paper stuffed into his back pocket to record scores, because Jungkook came here to win, and winning is what he will do.

Jungkook does not win.

He actually loses by one point. A singular value. A sole divisor.

He’s pissed, but also impressed.

Taehyung comes in dead last, as he normally does even when he’s playing mini-golf with a club that’s actually the right size, but the gap between him and Jimin’s third place is significantly larger considering his club is meant for someone who’s about a foot shorter than he is. Even so, he seems to give no shits whatsoever about his abysmal performance, and is instead spending most of his time post-mini-golf game high-fiving the shit out of you.

“You beat him! I can’t believe it! I don’t think Jungkook’s ever lost a game of anything in his entire life!” Taehyung exclaims, making Jungkook wince. It was down to the wire the entire game with you and Jungkook neck-and-neck, Jimin a fair few points behind the both of you, and Taehyung hardly in the same ballpark. And on the last hole, Jungkook overshot the curve and his ball jumped the hole while yours sailed in, leaving him to wallow in his second-place pity.

“Just doing my job,” you say with a flip of the nonexistent hair next to your left shoulder. Your hair is nowhere near your hand whatsoever. “He was the one who suggested mini-golf before he knew what a pro I was.”

“It was one point,” Jungkook reminds you, fuming. “If my golf ball hadn’t skipped the hole we’d be tied,” he says, consoling himself more than anyone else.

“But it did, and now you owe me dinner because you lost and I won,” you tease as you walk out of the mini-golf place, sipping on overpriced sodas from the generic mini-golf diner.

“That was not part of the deal whatsoever,” Jungkook says with a frown. “I never agreed to that. We never said anything about dinner. What the fuck.”

You laugh, tilting your head back as you chuckle, Sprite fizzing in your hand. Taehyung insisted nobody get straws, and now you all have disposable open (and full) cups of soda in your hands as you make the treacherous journey back to your campus. “Fine. How about we go out to get some bubble tea after this?”

Jungkook likes the sound of that. He’s been craving some taro tea recently.

“Deal,” he says with a nod, and the two of you shake hands to seal it.

Jungkook finds that he’s actually really looking forward to getting bubble tea with you post-mini-golf game. He’s spent so much time with you and the rest of his friends (however many there are) that you haven’t gone out alone, just the two of you, in a while. Jungkook misses that.

You get along so well together.

Jimin grabs your attention with a question about Hoseok, since the two of you happen to be connected through his dance group, giving Taehyung just enough time to swoop in and wrap an arm around Jungkook’s shoulder, Dr. Pepper spilling onto the asphalt beneath them.

“Damn, she really knows how to keep up with you,” Taehyung says, quieter than he’s ever spoken before.

“Are you implying that I’m difficult to keep up with?” Jungkook immediately retorts.

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “No, you dumbass. I’m saying that you’ve never been on a date with someone who meshes so well with your own personality. No wonder you guys have been on two dates.”

“I can’t believe you think I’m this one-date-wonder kind of guy.”

“You guys go really well with each other,” Taehyung says, and that sort of out-of-the-blue, genuinely complimentary statement makes Jungkook narrow his eyes in suspicion. “Seriously, I’m not just saying that. I think you guys make a cute couple.”

Jimin says something funny and you laugh again, giggles breaking out into the air as you slowly make your way towards campus. You’re not looking at Jungkook, but Jungkook is looking at you, and he thinks that maybe even if this is all just one big ploy, he might still get a really, really wonderful friend out of this.

Taehyung pinches Jungkook’s cheek before turning his chin to face you. “I think that she’s someone you might want to hold onto.”

For once in his life, Jungkook has to agree.

Jungkook is running late.

This is no rare occurrence by any means, as Jungkook frequently shows up five minutes late to class with nothing but his half-charged laptop and an eraser-less mechanical pencil, which leaves fantastic impressions on both his classmates and his professors.

But Jungkook hit snooze on his phone four times, and now he’s got ten minutes to get his shit together and get to his Metropolitan Nature class before he gets chewed out by his professor for being late three times already this month.

He makes a few quick sacrifices. First, he’s not getting changed out of his pajamas, so this is what his Metropolitan Nature professor is getting, whether she likes it or not. Second, he doesn’t have time to use the bathroom so he’s just going to wipe his face with one of Taehyung’s makeup-removing wipes and pee after class. Third, there is no way in hell he’s making himself any sort of breakfast, not even grabbing a granola bar or anything, so he’ll just suffer until later, when he isn’t a debilitating mess of a human being and has time to stuff an apple into his mouth.

And then, as he’s scrambling to get his backpack and make it to class on time (five minutes to go!), there’s a knock on his door.

Jungkook almost doesn’t answer. Instead, he grabs the nearest object to him—which happens to be their television remote—and holds it out in front of him like a weapon, waiting for the burglar on the other side to bust the door down, realize that Jungkook and Taehyung’s shared apartment has absolutely nothing valuable inside of it, and turn around to rob someone else.

There’s another knock on his door. Jungkook decides that it’s probably not a burglar, but he keeps the remote in his hand just in case and opens the door.

On the other side is, much to his surprise, you, with a steaming cup of what he assumes is coffee and a little paper bag in your hand.

“Oh, geez, what’s up?” Jungkook says, quickly trying to fix the mop on his head known as hair, to little avail.

“Why are you holding the TV remote?” You ask instead of greeting him back like a normal person.

“Oh, uh, just making sure you aren’t a robber or murderer or anything,” Jungkook says. There’s too long of an awkward silence that falls between the two of you, and in that time frame, Jungkook tosses the TV remote behind him and listens as it lands with a thud on the rug by the couch.

“O…kay…,” you say nervously. “I got you breakfast.”

Jungkook’s mouth drops open and he’s too sleep-deprived to shut it again. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, I told you that I would,” you remind him. “It’s a croissant and hot chocolate, because I wasn’t sure what your coffee order was. Here.” You don’t give him the chance to respond, instead shoving the cup and paper bag into his hands very ungracefully.

“Oh, wow, I—I don’t know what to say,” Jungkook says, very obviously floored at your random generosity. He knows that this was what you discussed but he didn’t realize that it would actually be put into practice.

“A simple ‘thank you’ would probably suffice!” Taehyung calls from his bedroom, clearly having overheard your entire conversation thus far.

“Fuck off!” Jungkook shouts back, and he hears Taehyung cackle.

You raise your eyebrows, leaning forward slightly.

“Oh, yeah, thank you,” Jungkook says, still flabbergasted. “Seriously, I—I really can’t thank you enough. This was super nice of you.” God, who still uses the word super? Jungkook has to go before he embarrasses himself further.

“No problem,” you tell him with a shrug. “Just doing the girlfriend thing.” It’s a good thing Taehyung’s in the other room, because he can’t see you wink.

“I really appreciate it, Y/N. This was so thoughtful of you.” Jungkook doesn’t know how else to express his immense gratitude for this simple act, mostly because no one’s ever spontaneously brought him food at such an opportune time before. He missed you, is what it is. He didn’t realize it until you showed up at his door, and now he’s speechless and looks like an absolute fool, all because he missed you.

Weird.

“It was no big deal, really,” you tell him. “You headed to class? Let’s walk together.”

Jungkook’s already late but he decides that he would much rather walk than sprint, because that means he gets to savor the taste of blazing hot chocolate and a warm croissant, all while spending more time with you.

When Jungkook was thirteen, a brand new go-kart arena opened up in their town. It had flashing neon lights and a giant sign and an arcade with actual prizes to be won in exchange for tickets. There was no sight more glorious to Jungkook’s freshly-teenaged self.

His best friend at the time invited him out the day after it opened, and Jungkook was so excited that he said yes before thinking about anything else. He had never been go-karting. He couldn’t remember the last time he went to an arcade. He wanted to win ten thousand tickets to get a remote-control car.

But he had no money because he realized that he was only getting paid for mowing his neighbor’s lawns at the end of the week, which meant that he wouldn’t be able to pay for anything.

In desperation, Jungkook begged his older brother for some cash, promising that he would pay him back as soon as possible. Jeonghyun agreed (albeit begrudgingly) and Jungkook went on his merry way, having a grand old time at the brand new go-kart place with an arcade and winning one thousand tickets, which was enough to get him five of his favorite candy bars.

Jungkook fully intended on giving some of them to his older brother as a thank you, but he ended up eating all of them on the way home, and then Jeonghyun doubled the amount that Jungkook owed him, and it took Jungkook a month to repay him.

Jungkook discovered then that owing people is the worst feeling in the entire world, a sentiment he’s maintained ever since. It makes him an extremely reliable person whenever he borrows anything, which is already rare to begin with.

Jungkook owes you more than just some hot chocolate and a croissant. You’ve saved his ass on numerous occasions, getting along well with Taehyung and Jimin and suggesting that you’re interested in him, striking up a deal that will save him from the wrath of Taehyung, giving him breakfast (free of charge!) on a day where he definitely wasn’t planning on eating anything. He feels like hot chocolate and a croissant just doesn’t cut it.

In the end, Jungkook knocks on your door at seven in the evening with a paper bag filled with various Chinese takeout dishes. He never knows what to get whenever he gets Chinese food, so he gets a little bit of everything and, inevitably, eats all of it. He’s hoping that this is sufficient enough repayment, because you certainly deserve it.

You open the door drowsily, mumbling something that sounds like “Who is it?” under your breath, when you see Jungkook and your eyes light up.

“I brought Chinese food,” Jungkook supplies helpfully, holding up the bag as if the scent that’s wafting through the air isn’t proof enough.

Your mouth drops open, just like his did. “Oh my God, you’re my hero. I was just about to make myself some shitty instant ramen for dinner, but this is so much better.”

“Just returning the favor, I guess,” Jungkook says with a shrug. “It was really nice of you to drop by this morning.”

“It was really nice of you to bring Chinese food tonight,” you respond as Jungkook hands over the paper bag. You let it sit on your palms, too heavy to be held by the top of it. “You just saved me from my fourth instant ramen dinner of the week.”

Jungkook laughs. He and Taehyung were like that during their freshman year, boiling water in their kettle at four in the morning to burn the insides of their mouths out with the fire noodles. Fond memories. You grin at him, Chinese takeout resting securely in your palms, and gaze at each other for a few more seconds before Jungkook coughs to end the silence.

“Aren’t you coming inside?” You ask, stepping away from the door to usher him in.

“Oh, no, the takeout was just a thank you for this morning,” Jungkook says, shaking his head and his hand as he takes a step away from the door. His stomach grumbles.

Exposed.

“Don’t think I can’t hear the whale coming from your belly,” you say, eyes narrowing as you point at his torso. “Come on, you paid for this thing, you might as well get your fair share. There’s no way I’ll be able to eat all of this myself.”

“No, it’s alright, seriously—” His stomach growls at him, like it’s personally offended that Jungkook’s rejecting the Chinese food.

You frown at him, raising a single, unimpressed eyebrow. “Come on, you dumbass. It’s getting cold.”

Jungkook relents, though it probably wouldn’t have taken much more to wear him down anyway, and walks inside your apartment. He slips off his sneakers and joins you as you set the food down on the coffee table in front of your couch, fabric worn and pillows sunken in. It looks delightfully comfortable.

“Sorry it’s kind of a mess in here,” you say as you grab plates from your kitchenette. “You caught me off guard—I just got out of the shower, too.”

Your apartment is cleaner than his and Taehyung’s looks on days where they actually try to tidy up. Jungkook wishes he had those capabilities, but when he’s presented with the options of cleaning up or taking a nap, he will invariably choose the latter. And the clothes you’re wearing, even if you insist that they’re your nasty lounge clothes from high school, Jungkook couldn’t care less about. You look nice.

You always look nice.

Once you’re all settled, you tear open the stapled paper bag to reveal the glory hidden inside. Jungkook gets one whiff of the scent and nearly passes out, huffing it in like an Expo marker. He was a little worried that he hadn’t gotten enough, but as you begin to take each box of rice and biodegradable container of noodles and vegetables and soup and everything in between, he realizes he had nothing to stress over.

“Oh my God, we’re gonna have so many leftovers,” you say excitedly, eyeing all of the dishes as you break apart your wooden chopsticks. Every smell imaginable fills your apartment, and it makes Jungkook’s mouth water and his stomach rumble. “This cost way more than the hot chocolate and croissant, definitely. Let me Venmo you back half.”

Jungkook shakes his head defiantly, taking the rice out of your reach as punishment. “Absolutely not. I won’t let you pay me back a single cent.”

“What? That’s not in the contract,” you say with a frown, making to pull it up on your phone just as proof.

“Who cares about the contract?” Jungkook says, snatching your phone right from your slippery fingers and placing it on the end table next to him. “I’m just doing the boyfriend thing.”

You attack the mountain of food in front of you like an all-you-can-eat buffet, taking a handful of noodles here and a couple pieces of broccoli there, a few dumplings and a bit of soy sauce, a spoonful of rice, some of the wonton soup. Your plates are filled to the brim with helpings from every single container, too excited to save any one dish for another day.

“God, this is just what I needed,” you say with a pleased sigh, tossing your head back.

“Long day?” Jungkook asks before he puts a chopstick-ful of rice in his mouth.

“The longest. I don’t know if I told you this, but my Communications 316 professor is absolutely incompetent. He has no idea what he’s talking about, confuses himself half the time, and doesn’t listen to the TA. It’s ridiculous. I might as well teach the damn class,” you say, clearly exasperated.

“Sounds awful,” Jungkook comments with a wince. If he ever had a professor like that he would just drop the class and change majors, but you don’t seem to be taking as dramatic an approach. Maybe Jungkook’s just a chronic over-reactor.

“It is. Never take Comm 316, you’ll actually want to jump into a black hole. What are you majoring in, again?”

“Physics,” Jungkook tells you over a mouthful of food.

“Wow, that’s amazing,” you say, and for once in his lifetime, Jungkook knows that there’s someone out there genuinely impressed by his choice of study. Normally he gets much more sarcastic comments, or the person he’s chatting with will just say “Flex” before changing the topic. “Do you wanna do engineering, astrophysics, or theoretical stuff?”

“Not sure yet,” he tells you, “but I’m thinking more astrophysics. I think space is really cool.”

“Astrophysics, holy shit! That’s like, the coolest thing you could probably ever major in. Meanwhile, I’m probably gonna end up being the personal assistant to some Instagram-famous fifteen-year-old.”

Jungkook refuses to let you put down your major. He’s a shitty conversationalist and an even worse public speaker. Jungkook thinks anybody who pursues an avenue like Communication could probably debate his ass into next month. “Hey, those fifteen-year-olds make bank, so I see no issue with that.”

You laugh, nodding. Jungkook leans over the table to help himself to another couple of dumplings, looking back at you as you smile at him, a single grain of rice stuck on the corner of your lips. In the warm evening light of your apartment, the soothing noises of ambulances and honking cars below you, Jungkook decides to remember this moment. Save it forever.

“Let’s take a photo,” Jungkook suggests, even though he’s already taking his phone out of his back pocket. “This is too good not to remember.”

“Right now?” You ask, caught off-guard. “I just stuffed my face with Chinese food, I’m wearing a t-shirt I got when I was in tenth grade, and we’re in my grody apartment. Are you sure?”

Jungkook’s already setting up the phone stand, stacking empty biodegradable Chinese takeout boxes to create the optimal angle. “I gotta get three Instagram posts in, remember?” He says. Because that’s obviously the only reason he wants to take a photo of the two of you, right here, right now.

Obviously.

You’re still hesitant, but Jungkook sets up the self-timer on his phone and leans back into the couch, pulling you in next to him. “Just relax,” he tells you. “You look wonderful.”

The first few pictures are classics—back straight, head up, chin down, hair fixed. Jungkook lets his phone click like a photobooth, making sure the camera gets every one of his angles. Then, the two of you start to get a bit more playful, coming up with creative (or uncreative) poses—peace signs, finger guns, winking faces. You drape your body over his legs and get a few of you looking like perpendicular line segments, a couple of you cuddling, one of you squishing his cheeks.

“Okay, last one,” Jungkook says, setting his phone up. He expects it to just be a relatively normal one, your bodies close to each other but not aggressively so, but a second before the camera shutter clicks you plant your lips on his cheek, making him smile as he gasps. His phone snaps the last photo, and it takes everything in Jungkook’s power not to immediately look at the final shot.

“What was that for?” Jungkook asks, fingers tracing over where your lips pressed against his cheek.

“Just ‘cause,” you say nonchalantly, beginning to gather up your leftovers. “I didn’t know you had a scar on your cheek.”

“I got it when I was little,” Jungkook says, finger lingering on top of it.

“It’s cute,” you tell him, standing up to pack away the leftovers in your fridge and toss out anything you completely devoured. “You’re cute sometimes, you know that, Jungkook?”

Jungkook’s speechless. He stands in the middle of your apartment like a fish out of water, eyes wide as they watch you flitter around your kitchenette. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know if there is anything to say.

“This was a lot of fun,” you tell him when you bid your goodbyes, leaning against the doorframe of your apartment. “Thanks for bringing me Chinese.”

“Thanks for inviting me in to eat it with you,” Jungkook says back. “We should do this again sometime.”

“You mean like a date?” You ask, eyebrows raised. “What do you think we are, boyfriend and girlfriend?”

Jungkook laughs. “My mistake. We can have a friend dinner, if you want.”

You grin. “Hmm, I think I like boyfriend and girlfriend better, don’t you think?” You ask.

Jungkook pretends to ponder the question, like he doesn’t already know the answer. “Me too.”

The entire way home, Jungkook’s cheek tingles.

Jungkook (10:18AM): hey what r u doing rn??

You (10:18AM): i’m about to go to this volunteering thing at the animal shelter !!!

Jungkook (10:18AM): wow really?? that sounds like fun

You (10:18AM): yeah i’m really excited !! You (10:19AM): are you an animal person jungkook

Jungkook stares at his phone distantly. He was secretly hoping you’d be free, because it’s a Saturday and he’s got nothing planned the entire day. He could do work, sure, but that’s a Sunday problem. And he just wanted to do something with you. Sue him.

Jungkook (10:19AM): yeah i love animals Jungkook (10:19AM): except iguanas fuck those guys

You: (10:20AM): do i wanna know????

Jungkook (10:20AM): in high school my brother got an iguana and it ate my school id so i couldn’t buy lunch for the whole year

You (10:20AM): i’ll ask later You (10:20AM): but my volunteering thing isn’t until 10:30 do you wanna come?

It’s not that Jungkook’s heart skips a beat, but it skips half of one.

Jungkook (10:21AM): are you sure?? i don’t want to be a bother

You (10:21AM): no come !!! it’ll be so much fun !!! we’re just holding an outdoor adoption fair for the day so we get to spend time with animals and encourage people to adopt them it’ll be lots of fun!! You (10:22AM): please come i’ll be so lonely without you :(

You don’t need to say another word. In fact, you pretty much had Jungkook sold the moment you told him what you were doing. He’s already halfway out the door of his apartment by the time he texts you back.

Jungkook (10:23AM): i’m on my way!!

He gets to your apartment in record time, too excited to spend time with you to be ashamed of the desperation that’s radiating off of him. Jungkook’s not socially starved, nor does he not have other friends he could pass the time with. But he’s been friends with Taehyung, Jimin, and Yoongi ever since he set foot on campus for the first time, which means that he’s spent more time with them the past few years than he has in the past couple of months with you, because that is how math works. And Jungkook hates math, but he knows that he would much rather spend the day with you than anybody else.

He knocks on your door, only slightly out of breath, to find that you haven’t even put on your shoes yet.

“You got here quick,” you comment. “Did you run?”

“I didn’t work out this morning,” Jungkook lies like a liar. It’s by no means a good excuse, he just didn’t want you to think he ran all the way just to be with you. He wants to retain some shred of dignity, especially after losing most of it when he agreed to a deal where he would date someone for three months in exchange for money.

“Sure thing, Batman,” you say. “I’m almost ready, just give me a second.”

Jungkook waits patiently in your doorway, catching his breath and trying to wipe away the sweat that’s slowly beginning to collect on his forehead in a futile attempt to make him seem as cool and natural and not-at-all-excited as possible. It doesn’t seem to be working very well.

Whatever. Jungkook supposes that there are much worse things than having you think he just wants to spend time with you this afternoon. After all, he really does.

On the way there, you tell Jungkook all about the cat that your family had when you were growing up. His name was Pickle and he frequently brought your family stolen flowers from neighbors’ gardens, which was both extremely endearing and also rage-inducing. He also exclusively ate cat food that was the combination of meat and vegetables, which made you believe for a solid three years that all mammals were omnivores. They were, in fact, not.

“I haven’t had a cat since he died when I was thirteen, holy shit I want one so bad,” you say as you arrive at the park right by the shelter, where the adoption fair is being held. “Thanks for coming, by the way. You didn’t have to. You probably have lots of Physics work to do.”

“I wanted to,” Jungkook says instantly, refusing to let you believe otherwise. “I did. That’s why I texted you.”

“To come to the adoption fair?” You ask, waving hello to another one of the volunteers. You must be here often.

“No,” Jungkook says, faltering slightly. “To, uh, well—to hang out with you, actually.” God, he sounds like he’s twelve. Hang out? To hang out with you? The same way that preteens do because they’re too old for the word playdate? For God’s sake. You’re college students, friends (hopefully, because if not then Jungkook has completely misread this situation), and fake lovers. And Jungkook chooses the phrase hang out to describe time spent with you.

“Oh,” you say, more to yourself than to him. Your brows furrow slightly, like you’re pondering something too insignificant to say aloud. Jungkook knows that feeling. “Well, I’m glad you texted me, then.”

Jungkook’s glad, too.

The animal shelter staff, despite his unannounced arrival, are absolutely thrilled that Jungkook’s volunteered to help alongside you. They tell him that he’s got an extremely friendly and marketable face, and will be good for talking to prospective adopters because he’s, by default, extremely charming.

“I can vouch for that,” you mutter into his ear before another worker asks you to help out with some of the dogs. Jungkook stands there, your words ringing in his ears, as the instructions the shelter coordinator tells him fly right over his ear. Charming, huh?

Realistically, there are plenty of ways that Jungkook could be spending his free Saturday that would be appealing to most, if not all, college students. He could be lazing around in bed, sleeping in until two in the afternoon, and never getting out from under the covers. He could be marathoning his favorite TV show or a new K-drama that Taehyung’s obsessed with, finishing the whole series in a single day. He could go out for brunch like any good college student would, go to an overpriced café and take aesthetically pleasing photos to post online, spend the whole day online shopping.

But instead, he’s standing in the sun surrounded by prospective owners and a whole bunch of pets, watching as you play with a few of the puppies in the pen as people ask you questions, and Jungkook decides that there’s really nothing else that he would rather be doing than this.

Here’s the thing: animals are cute, but you with animals is cuter.

Jungkook comes to this conclusion relatively early in the day, after staring at you unabashedly as you play with the puppies, pick up cats for people to hold, and encourage prospective owners to consider older animals in the shelter because they give just as much love and joy as the babies. He is, admittedly, not doing the thing he came here to do (volunteer), but hardly anyone is paying attention to him and he is, in turn, paying attention to you. And you’re doing your work, so does it really matter if he’s not doing his?

In the end, Jungkook actually does begin to contribute something of substance to the event, but only because the coordinator assigned him to the animal registration table for people adopting pets, which means he doesn’t get a free pass to watch you play with puppies for the rest of the day.

Jungkook volunteers, he swears, but he doesn’t do it that often, which makes participating in this even feel that much better. He can’t help but smile and congratulate the brand new owners on their new best friend(s), happily filling in the official papers and watching as each animal goes to their forever home. It’s humbling, and it makes him happy, and Jungkook doesn’t think he could get that sort of feeling if he just stayed at home watching Netflix.

The day ends up being a success. At least, that’s what the coordinator tells him, because over half of the pets available got adopted in that single afternoon, which seems to be quite the accomplishment. The good news is that even though Jungkook was objectively less than helpful, the coordinator isn’t shouting at him because everything turned out well anyway. So that’s always a plus.

“We’re gonna start packing up, folks,” the coordinator says into her megaphone as the day winds down. “Animals first, equipment second!”

“Jungkook, come over here! Quick!”

For a second, Jungkook thinks you’re in pain, but it’s enough of a second for him to turn to the sound of your voice and dash over, responsibilities (as per usual) forgotten.

And then it turns out that you’re nowhere near injured, or hurt, or anything even resembling endangerment of your wellbeing.

Instead, what he sees is this:

You, waiting in the middle of the park, grass tickling your ankles. You, grinning as you meet his eyes from where he stands a few feet away from you. You, with your t-shirt from the rescue center and plain jeans on.

You, with a kitten in your arms, mewling softly as you stroke its back.

“Are we allowed to adopt now that the fair is over?” Jungkook jokes as he comes over to you. It’s when he’s right by your side that he notices something different about the cat, at the exact same time you point it out—

“She’s only got three-legs!” You say, overwhelmed with affection and completely endeared. “Look at her! She’s only got three legs,” you say, motioning for Jungkook to come closer.

“Do you know what happened?” Jungkook asks, leaning down to hold his fingers out for the kitten to sniff. She does so dutifully, pressing her little pink nose up against Jungkook’s fingertips before deeming him a satisfactory human being. Instinctively, Jungkook begins to rub at her cheek.

“No, only that they found her with something on her leg and it had to be amputated when they brought her to the shelter,” you say, bottom lip coming out in a pout as you look down at her.

Jungkook grins. “What’s her name?”

“Miracle,” you tell him.

Fitting name.

“Isn’t she adorable?” You ask, holding Miracle close to you as she clings to your chest. It’s clear that the both of you have already latched on to each other.

Jungkook nods, because how could he ever disagree? You’re standing in the middle of the local park as the afternoon draws to a close and the evening light sets in. It’s a little chillier now that the sun is going down, but it casts a hazy glow over your surroundings. And you’re just waiting there, a kitten in your hands and a smile on your face, and Jungkook can’t resist.

He can’t resist the way you look, how you could possibly look like this. He can’t resist as he pulls out his phone, not-so-subtly pulling up the camera so he can snap a few quick shots. Because pictures like this deserve to be remembered forever.

You don’t notice until the fifth picture in, when Miracle begins to meow, drawing your attention away from her and up to Jungkook.

“Oh my God, hey!” You shout softly, trying not to frighten Miracle or attract the attention of any of the other volunteers who are very obviously doing more work than you two at the current moment. “How could you snipe me like that? I’ve got cat fur and dog slobber all over me, I probably look like trash.”

“You don’t,” Jungkook insists, but he pulls his phone out of your reach anyway. Just in case. “You look fine.”

“Fine does not equate to picture-worthy,” you hiss, but you’re laughing.

“I’m a photographer, Y/N,” Jungkook says, patting himself on the back. “If I need a work a little magic, then I will.”

You scoff. “Sorry that my sweaty ass isn’t up to par with your Instagram standards,” you joke, making Jungkook chuckle. You put Miracle back into the pen she was waiting in throughout the fair, beginning to wrap up. “But at least you finally have two pictures of the same girl on your Instagram page.”

Jungkook chuckles again, but this one isn’t as real.

He had forgotten about Instagram entirely.

“Jungkook, your fucking phone alarm keeps going off!”

Jungkook’s in the bathroom, halfway through the latest John Mulaney Netflix comedy special, doing his goddamn business.��

“It’s for my laundry!” He shouts back. He needs to go and pick it up at the laundromat around the corner before someone steals one sock from every pair and leaves him, hypothetically, sock-less. “Can you just turn it off?”

“Fine!”

Jungkook thinks that’s the end of the conversation, so he unpauses the comedy special and laughs as John Mulaney tells anecdotes about his youth. And then, two seconds later, there’s banging on the bathroom door.

“Jeon Jungkook!” Taehyung shrieks, accompanying every syllable with an equally as impactful thump on the door. “Open this door!”

“I’m on the goddamn toilet!” Jungkook shouts back. What does a locked bathroom door mean to Taehyung? Doesn’t he know what the hell Jungkook’s doing in here? “Give me a second!”

“We have to talk, right now!” Taehyung yells. Their neighbors are probably calling down noise complaints at this very moment.

“What the fuck,” Jungkook mutters, closing out of the Netflix app on his phone and hurrying himself up. He finishes up his goddamn business, laments the cutting short of the comedy special, washes his hands, and opens the door.

The moment it cracks open even a sliver, Taehyung is crashing into the bathroom, holding up Jungkook’s phone like it just murdered his entire nuclear and extended family. Jungkook nearly stumbles back into the shower at the force of everything, before Taehyung dangles his own goddamn phone right in front of his face.

“What the fuck is this?”

“Uh…” Jungkook says, a little frightened and a lot confused, “the time?”

“Not that, you dumbass!” Taehyung says. “Your lockscreen!”

“What about it?” Jungkook asks, desperately trying to scramble for his phone back. And while Taehyung may have the upper hand and the element of surprise, Jungkook is swole and swift, and he manages to rip it out of Taehyung’s grasp before long.

“It’s of Y/N! Are you serious!” In hindsight, maybe Jungkook shouldn’t have taken his phone out of Taehyung’s hands, because now both of them are smacking Jungkook’s shoulders repeatedly like the worst cuckoo clock ever.

Jungkook pushes Taehyung off of him and gains his bearings. “So? We’re dating.”

Fake dating. Minor detail.

“Yeah,” Taehyung says like a popular white girl in a teenage movie. “But you’ve never set a photo of someone as your lockscreen before! Or ever!”

“She’s cute, what do you mean?” Jungkook says defensively. Taehyung is reading way too into this.

Taehyung frowns. “I’ve known you since before we started college, and in that time not once have I ever seen your phone background be of a picture of a girl, or anybody, you were romantically interested in. Ever. I’m pretty sure you’d set your lockscreen as Hyuna before you’d set it to a picture of a girl you like. Let alone one with a three-legged kitten!”

“First of all, I love Hyuna, so fuck you,” Jungkook says pointedly. He’d die for her, full stop. If Hyuna told Jungkook to abandon his twenty-first century life and live as a hermit for the rest of his life, he’d do it without question. “Second of all, is it really that big of a deal? We’re just dating. It seemed like a natural segue.”

“Wow,” Taehyung says, taking another step back from Jungkook. He looks him up and down like a doctor inspecting the body for wounds, hands on his hips. Then he says, “I can’t believe you’re actually starting to fall for somebody.”

Jungkook opens his mouth to tell Taehyung he’s being overdramatic and ridiculous (as he usually is), but something stops him. There’s no way he could be falling for you. Absolutely not. You’re just friends, and after these three months are over you’re just going to go back to being friends. Friends who are, collectively, four hundred dollars wealthier. It seems like a good deal. It’s also fake in every sense of the word.

There’s no way that the feeling are real.

How could they be?

Min Yoongi does not want to make a big deal out of his and Hoseok’s first anniversary. Jung Hoseok wants to hire a plane to write JHS ♡ MYG in the sky.

Naturally, they have a house party.

It’s half an excuse to celebrate the first of what Jungkook is probably correct to assume is many, many more anniversaries, and half an excuse to throw a party that involves alcohol but does not involve frat boys. Which are two criteria that Jungkook heavily considers when figuring out plans for the night.

Because it goes without saying, Jungkook invites you as his plus one. If he didn’t, Taehyung would probably accuse Jungkook of trying to fake date for money (which he obviously isn’t already doing), and then steal his manga collection and sell it on the streets, in that order. These are things that Jungkook definitely does not want. Also, you know Hoseok, which means that by the transitive property in Jungkook’s eighth grade geometry class, you know Yoongi. And that basically rounds out Jungkook’s friend group.

By the time you and Jungkook arrive at Hoseok’s apartment just a couple of blocks off of campus, he can already hear the bass thumping through the floorboards outside. Hoseok and Yoongi have good music taste, for sure, but there is no way either of them would willingly set the volume that high. Which means that—

“Jungkook!” Taehyung shouts, already buzzed, as the two of you step inside Hoseok’s apartment. He wraps an arm around Jungkook’s shoulder, nursing a nearly-empty glass of red wine. Jungkook is right to assume this is definitely not his first glass. Taehyung waves hello to you as well, doing his rounds as per usual, before fluttering off to cling onto someone else.

Hoseok’s house party looks less like a party and more like a house. The lights are dim (courtesy of Yoongi), hors d'oeuvres are set out on the counter island (courtesy of Seokjin), and only their closest friends (plus guests) are here (courtesy of Hoseok). The only thing that might elicit any sort of party vibe is the booming bass that rings throughout the room as music plays from their television (courtesy of, you guessed it, Taehyung).

“Hey, Jungkook!” Hoseok shouts from where he’s lingering around the kitchen island, popping an olive into his mouth. He waves the both of you over to where he and Yoongi are standing, drinking their tasteful wine and eating their tasteful tapas. “You’re the girlfriend, right?” Hoseok asks, pointing to you with a smile.

“That’s me,” you say, nodding. “Hoseok and Yoongi, right? I recognize you from—”

“From the pictures,” Jungkook interjects. You look to Jungkook with a puzzled expression, and he raises his eyebrows and widens his eyes unhelpfully. “I showed some to you, remember?” He says, trying to be natural.

“Oh, yeah,” you say, catching on. Changing the topic, you turn to Hoseok and say, “You direct a dance group, right Hoseok?”

“Yeah! You’ve heard of it?” Hoseok says, eyes lighting up. He’s always happy to talk about the things he loves (dance, chemistry, and Yoongi).

“My friend is in it,” you tell him. “Do you know Chungha?”

“Oh my God, yes!” Hoseok exclaims excitedly. “I think that when I graduate, I’m gonna make her the leader. She’s so talented.”

“Learned from the best,” Yoongi adds in softly, blushing. Hoseok responds by pressing a kiss to Yoongi’s cheek, grabbing another olive to go as he heads off to greet other guests.

With Hoseok out of the picture, Yoongi’s disposition morphs almost instantly. In the blink of an eye, he goes from humbled, in-love boyfriend, to jaded, suspicious college student.

Jungkook opens his mouth to explain to Yoongi before his friend reads him like a board book, but Yoongi beats him to it.

“Let me guess,” Yoongi says, eyes narrowed as he stares the both of you down. Unlike Jungkook, who’s already caving into himself under the weight of Yoongi’s gaze, you’re holding onto his arm firmly, looking at Yoongi with a stern glare. “You asked her to pose as your girlfriend so you can get the cash?”

“Well,” Jungkook says, because technically Yoongi’s wrong. He didn’t ask. You did. And you’re splitting the cash, so that solves that issue. “Not really,” he says, like a kid trying to get out of punishment for something he very clearly did.

Yoongi frowns. He turns to you. “Please tell me that you’re getting compensated for hanging out with my dumbass friend.”

“Hey!” Jungkook cries indignantly.

“Yes,” you assure Yoongi. “I am. But thanks for the concern.” Just then, Hoseok calls you over to introduce you to a couple of his friends from his dance group, and you wave goodbye to Jungkook and Yoongi before scurrying off.

Yoongi looks at Jungkook, and Jungkook feels fucking transparent under his sharp gaze. He grimaces. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?

“Yes,” Jungkook insists, taking some offense to what Yoongi’s insinuating. He’s got everything under control, thank you very much. The guidelines to your arrangement were laid out very clearly in a Google Doc, electronically signed by the both of you. You’re getting along well. Jungkook hopes that you’ll be still friends after all of this is over, because he likes spending time with you. Go figure. “I’m fine, Yoongi. You don’t need to worry.”

Yoongi looks skeptical, but he drops the subject anyway. “If you say so,” he says. “I just don’t want you to expect something you aren’t getting.”

“What do you mean?”

Jimin finds Jungkook, in that instant, and drags him to participate in karaoke with you, him, and Taehyung. As he’s getting pulled away from the conversation. Jungkook looks at Yoongi desperately for a response. Yoongi doesn’t answer.

Two rounds of early 2000’s karaoke and several voice cracks later, you end up next to Jungkook’s side as the party rages around you. Well, not necessarily rages. More like continues.

“What did Yoongi say to you?” You ask, leaning in to whisper into Jungkook’s ear.

“Oh, he was just making sure that I knew what I was doing,” Jungkook says. It’s not not the truth.

“And do you?” You ask, eyebrows raised as you look up at him.

Jungkook falters.

He thinks he does.

“Taehyung, did you drink this whole bottle—god damnit,” Seokjin’s voice echoes throughout the apartment as Taehyung happily bounces out of the kitchen, even more tipsy than he was when he slung his arm around Jungkook as he and you walked into Hoseok’s apartment. He’s not flat out intoxicated yet, but he’s certainly getting there. Hopefully, Jimin has the sense to keep more alcohol out of his hands.

“Jungkook,” Taehyung coos happily as he peppers platonic kisses all over Jungkook’s cheek. This is natural. “Don’t forget about the deal, alright? I still have the four hundred dollars if you manage to date for that long.” He singsongs his words. In Taehyung’s stupor, he seems to have forgotten that you are still standing right next to Jungkook, watching as his best friend plops wet smooches on the side of Jungkook’s face 1) like it’s nobody’s business and 2) like he doesn’t already have a boyfriend he does this regularly with anyway.

Jungkook turns to you, eyes wide, but you pat his shoulder and calm him down.

It’s fine, you mouth to him. I already know.

Obviously, Jungkook’s mind supplies unhelpfully. That’s why you’re here. Because you already know about the deal. And the money. Obviously.

“You know what,” Taehyung says, finger pointed. “I’ve never seen you kiss Y/N,” he continues, and Jungkook already doesn’t like the direction Taehyung’s headed in. “You guys should do it.”

“Should we, though?” Jungkook say, looking hesitant.

“I know you, Jungkook,” Taehyung says accusingly, “I know that you would start fake dating something just so you could get the cash. Prove that you aren’t.”

Jungkook frowns. “You know you actually have no power or right to make us kiss, so—”

Before Jungkook can continue, you flip him around to face you and pull him in close, hands on his neck as you plant your lips on his. Jungkook nearly stumbles back from the shock of it all, but you keep your grip tight and slowly, his hands find his way to to your waist. Distantly, he can register Taehyung (and probably everyone else in the room) shouting, but all he feels is your lips on his and his heart on fire. It’s by no means a super majestic, romantic, movie-worthy kiss, but Jungkook’s breath catches in his throat and he instantly relaxes at your touch, and that’s never happened to him before.

When you part, it feels like Jungkook’s heart is about to beat right out of his chest.

Taehyung seems perfectly satisfied, and has already moved on to pressing up against Jimin in an effort to upstage the both of you. He will definitely succeed in his endeavors, mostly because Taehyung and Jimin are a thing, and Jungkook and you, well.

You turn to Jungkook, cheeks warm from both the rush and the embarrassment, and you grin. Jungkook takes one look at you, and his heart starts to race. He maybe wants to do that again. Actually, he knows that he wants to do that again.

Fuck.

You (3:23PM): hey are you busy rn?

Jungkook (3:23PM): no Jungkook (3:23PM): what’s up?

You (3:23PM): do you wanna go out and get acai bowls? You (3:23PM): i feel like we gotta talk about some stuff

Jungkook (3:24PM): yeah Jungkook (3:24PM): right now?

You (3:24PM): sure You (3:24PM): meet in 15?

Jungkook (3:25PM): okay!

Jungkook is nervous.

Granted, Jungkook gets nervous when he’s spontaneously offered a baby to be held and he doesn’t know what to do because he doesn’t frequently hold babies, but still. He’s nervous.

He’s sitting in the acai bowl place with his hands in his pockets, palms sweating. Logically, he should take his hands out of his pockets to remedy this, but if he does that then he’s just going to rub his sweaty hands through his obnoxiously long hair until you get there, and he doesn’t want to pour his heart out to you with sweaty hair.

So he sits on the high stools by the counters against the windows with sweaty hands and a nervous blink, watching to see when you’ll walk in.

It occurs to him then that if all goes well, you might actually end up holding hands after all of this is over, and for God’s sake he cannot have sweaty hands, so he gets up and grabs about fifteen napkins from the dispenser to the suspicious glare of the underpaid teenage worker behind the cash register, rubbing his palms profusely on them.

It is then, as Jungkook stands looking simultaneously like a fish in water and like he just walked out of middle school PE, that the bell above the door rings and you walk in, hands in the pockets of your hoodie and your backpack resting on your shoulders.

“Hey,” you say softly, standing next to him as you stare up at the menu board. Jungkook’s come here before with you, and he’s already memorized your order.

“Hey,” Jungkook replies, weirdly out of breath.

“What are you getting?” You ask. Jungkook hates how neither of you know how to start the conversation.

“Oh, just, uh, my usual, I guess,” Jungkook says with a shrug. He has been here a total of one other time (with you), and he didn’t really like what he got last time, but now it’s been established as his ‘usual’ and he’s in too deep to change it now.

You end up back where Jungkook was sitting before, next to the giant glass window that overlooks the busy street. Jungkook sets his acai bowl down on the counter, turns to face you, and takes a deep breath. It’s now or never.

“I—”

“I think I like you,” you blurt out first, words tumbling out of your mouth like an avalanche. You’re staring at Jungkook, biting down on your lip nervously, and Jungkook sputters. “I’m just gonna tell you up front. I think I have a crush on you. No, I know that I do.”

“I—” Jungkook says again, floundering. “I don’t—”

“I’m really sorry,” you say, turning back to look at the strawberries in your bowl. “I think it’s been building up slowly for a while, but ever since that night at Hoseok’s house I just… I realized, you know?”

Jungkook’s silent.

“And I knew that I had to tell you because we’ve been really clear about all of the terms of this… agreement and I wasn’t going to hide this from you either,” you’re rambling now, words practically bouncing on top of each other. “I’m really sorry, Jungkook. It’s okay if you’re angry or something, I know that this wasn’t part of the contract because you kind of have to find a new partner since we both made it clear that this relationship wasn’t inherently romantic even though I made it into one anyway. Just say the word and we can call this thing off. I’m sorry.”

You stare down into your acai bowl like it just set the curve for your least favorite class. Jungkook sits there, acai bowl untouched, words processing.

“Do you… want to say anything?” You ask, nervous again.

“Don’t apologize,” Jungkook says. His hands are all sweaty again, but he barely pays them any attention. “I don’t care. Fuck the contract, honestly. It’s a Google Docs.” You’re gazing at him with wide-eyes, shocked that he’s even opened his mouth. “I’m really glad that you and I are doing this together. I probably would have never even met you if it weren’t for you interrupting me and Yoongi at the coffee place.”

You grin.

Jungkook realizes, then, that he’s been waiting too long to do this.

“Honestly, I—” He says before chuckling, sweaty hand scratching at the nape of his neck, “I was gonna tell you something too. But you beat me to it.”

“Hmm?” You ask, looking at him.

“I think I like you, too,” Jungkook says, and his heart seems to finally settle. “No, I know I do. You’re right—it’s been a long time coming, but the party at Hoseok’s just… I realized. I needed you to know that, too. You deserved to know that this is reciprocated.” Jungkook gets a burst of confidence (probably from the cool air that rushes through the room whenever someone opens the door), and takes your hands in his own. They’re sweaty, and Jungkook feels like he just ran a marathon, but it feels almost like they belong. Like this moment was meant to be.

“We may have started this thing because of my dumbass friends, but I want to continue it with you,” Jungkook says. He’s six lectures behind in his differential equations class, he hasn’t done the readings for his Korean-American history course since the beginning of the semester, his diet has mostly consisted of midnight ramen and chocolate chip granola bars, but he has never felt lighter. “I like you a lot, Y/N.”

“Oh, thank God,” you say dramatically, heaving a sigh. “Because I like you a lot, too.”

Naturally, it’s smooth sailing from there. At least one aspect of Jungkook’s life is working out for him. His differential equations lectures, history readings, and diet are still works in progress.

“So, can I delete the Google Drive document?” You ask, pulling out your phone. “I don’t think we need it anymore, do we?”

“Unless you still want to reference it for instructions on how to be a good significant other,” Jungkook jokes. He still hasn’t touched his acai bowl. He definitely needs to come clean and order something else next time. “My standards are pretty high.”

“Hey! I exceed all of those standards on a regular basis, don’t I? I bought you hot chocolate and a croissant that one day. And I’m good with your friends. Isn’t that, like, what all guys want in a relationship?”

Jungkook pouts. It kind of is, but truth be told you exceed his standards just by existing. “No,” he insists. “Sometimes they just want to be little spoon but everybody makes fun of them.”

“Aw, do you want to be little spoon?” You ask, totally endeared. You press a kiss to his cheek and it makes his skin turn cherry red. “You can be little spoon. I think that I’m a great cuddler.”

“We’ll have to test that theory,” Jungkook says with an eyebrow raise.

“Hmm, I like the sound of that,” you say, leaning into him. Jungkook lets his body be enveloped by your warmth, basking in it, before you jump up, something else popping into your head. “Oh! We should probably tell your friends to call off the deal, don’t you think?” You say. “This isn’t really about the money anymore, is it. I’d feel bad.”

Jungkook has half a mind to tell you that Taehyung would probably bathe in one hundred dollar bills if their apartment had a bath, so four hundred dollars is practically pocket change in his eyes, but you’re right. As usual, you’re right. Curse you and your good-hearted nature.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Jungkook concedes easily. You could probably tell him to change his major to English and he would listen to you. “I’ll tell them tomorrow.”

“Oh God, they’re gonna roast us so hard for making a deal,” you say, face-palming. This is true, but Jungkook’s friends will get over it. Jimin’s a hopeless romantic and Taehyung will just be overwhelmingly thrilled that Jungkook actually managed to hold down a relationship.

“They’ll get over it,” Jungkook says. He presses a kiss to your forehead and lets his heart flutter.

“You think anything’s gonna change?” You ask, resting your head on his shoulder.

Jungkook pauses for a second. Wonders if there’s something to fear. And he decides that he couldn’t care less about that. “Even if it does, I don’t care. As long as we’re together.”

“We’ve been summoned,” Taehyung says as he and Jimin arrive at the group study room Jungkook booked specifically for this occasion.

“By who?” Jungkook asks, scrunching up his nose in disgust. “Because it wasn’t me.”

“No, you’re right,” Taehyung says, collapsing on the chair across from Jungkook. “It was this angry gremlin with hair that looks like a wet mop. Let’s see… what what his name again?”

If there wasn’t a massive table separating them, Jungkook would throw hands at this very instant.

“The fact that you called both of us here frightens me greatly,” Jimin says as he takes a seat next to Taehyung, their hands interlacing almost instantly. “Either you’re about to tell us you’re dropping out or that Taehyung’s cheating on me with you.”

Jungkook frowns. “Why the fuck would I ever date Taehyung?”

Taehyung gasps. “What do you mean? I’m a catch. Admit it, Jungkookie, you’d date me in a heartbeat.”

“I would literally rather have Jimin vomit into my own mouth,” Jungkook deadpans. Jimin nearly actually pukes at the mention of such an action, and Jungkook decides that even the pure thought of that makes him want to cannonball into a volcano. “But I’m not cheating on either one of you with the other one, and I’m not about to drop out.”

“Oh, thank God,” Taehyung says dramatically, like he says everything else. “I thought that we would lose our resident Buff Boy who eats all of my leftovers at meals. I was worried there for a second.”

“I hate you,” Jungkook tells Taehyung genuinely.

“If you’re not dropping out, then why did you call us here?” Jimin asks curiously. “To study? Taehyung doesn’t even know where his backpack is.”

“You lost your backpack?” Jungkook says, in awe. He knew Taehyung was careless, but he didn’t think he was that careless. Maybe he really has lost all fucks. Which does not bode well for him, considering he has to write a thesis in order to graduate.

“I just don’t know where it is right now, alright?” Taehyung says, ashamed. He very well should be. What kind of college student loses their backpack? “Why did you ask us here?” He changes the topic so as not to be subject to any more shaming.

“Uh, to talk about the whole deal thing,” Jungkook says awkwardly. He has no idea how he’s going to go about this. He walked into this group study room about as prepared as Taehyung is when he walks into his first round of midterms.

“Ah, yes,” Taehyung nods sneakily. “Honestly, Jungkook, I’m impressed that you and Y/N have even been going on for this long. Does she know about it?”

Jimin smacks Taehyung in the side. “Obviously not, otherwise they wouldn’t still be dating. Have some faith in our Jungkookie for not betraying this deal to her.”

“Actually—”

“Oh, yeah,” Taehyung says with a laugh. “If she knew about this, she’d absolutely break up with you.”

“I’m. Aware.” Jungkook says stiffly.

“You’ve exceeded all expectations, Jungkook,” Taehyung says happily. “You got a girlfriend and you managed to maintain a relationship for nearly three months all without mentioning the deal to her.”

“Your faith in me is overwhelming.” Jungkook frowns.

“We’re very impressed with you, you know? She seems really nice, too. I thought you’d, like, resort to Tinder dates just so you could get the money,” Jimin adds on.

“Oh, speaking of money, since Jungkook’s doing such a good job, how about we…” Taehyung pauses for dramatic effect, which is something he does so frequently that it just makes every one of his sentences overdramatic, “raise the stakes?” Taehyung wiggles his eyebrows just as an add-on to the proposition.

“Seriously, Tae? Don’t waste your money on something like this—”

“But you’re doing so well! Why wouldn’t you want more money?”

The nagging college student part of his brain tells him to just cave and accept the money, because a higher payment means more money for the both of you, which is… tempting. Jungkook is, still at heart, a desperate and money-starved college student.

But he knows he can’t. Not because it would be a waste of Taehyung’s resources, but because neither of you need the money anymore. What for? You’re already dating.

“Because—”

“Even I would accept it, and I’m an international student,” Taehyung says with a laugh. “Y/N doesn’t even need to know!”

Something in Jungkook snaps.

“You know what, you guys?” Jungkook says, standing up from his seat angrily, hands slamming onto the table. “No. I don’t want your money, and I don’t want you guys to raise the stakes or whatever. This isn’t right. I shouldn’t be paid to date someone.”

“But what does it matter if she doesn’t know?” Taehyung asks, a single eyebrow raised in confusion.

“It matters because I care about her! For fuck’s sake, that’s why it matters,” Jungkook says, running a hand through his hair out of exasperation. “It matters because it’s about the principle. I care about her, and I don’t need any sort of incentive to date her. I just want to.”

“But—” Taehyung says again.

“She knows, you dumbass!” Jungkook shouts. “She’s well aware that there was money on the line. We started dating because we came up with this—this agreement to split the money once the three months were over. But then we both realized we actually wanted to date each other for, you know, an actual relationship, and we decided to get rid of the deal. Which is why I called you guys over here. To tell you that I don’t wanna do it anymore. I’m out.”

“Seriously, Jungkook?” Jimin says. “You started fake-dating someone for money and then you fell for her?”

“She is really nice,” Jungkook insists. “You said it yourself, Jimin. I care about her.”

“Wow,” Taehyung says, speechless, for once in his life. “I never knew you actually went through with all of this. I didn’t even think you’d manage to do it at all. You had me fooled.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook says with a sigh. “Me too. The fact that you guys even thought this deal was a good idea at the time is just… it’s ridiculous. I was dumb, too, for accepting it. But I don’t wanna do it anymore.”

“Okay,” Taehyung says with a simple nod. He’s holding Jimin’s hand, which means all this talk about romance and dating is making him sappy. “We don’t have to do it anymore. I’m sorry for being so obnoxious about it. We’ll call it off.”

Jimin raises his hand, almost like he’s scared to say something. “I know we’re calling this off, but since Y/N knows about this whole deal in the first place, I feel like we should do something to make it up to her. You know, because she got roped into this thing.”

“I think that’ll be nice. Something meaningful, too. Not just money,” Taehyung adds.

Jungkook grins. He knows exactly what to get.

When Jungkook knocks on your door the next afternoon, he can barely hold his grin in.

“Jungkook?” You say when you open the door to see him, holding a nicely-wrapped but suspicious-looking box in both of his hands.

“Hi, Y/N,” Jungkook says happily.

“I don’t like that look on your face,” you immediately say as you usher him inside. “You’re scaring me. You text me are you at your place rn? and when I say yes, I receive no further information.”

Jungkook just smiles. “I have a present for you.”

“I can see that. Can I ask why?”

“Because you’re my girlfriend.”

You squint your eyes. “Is that a good enough reason?”

“I think so. It’s also from Taehyung and Jimin, but don’t give them most of the credit. It’s mine. I got this for you. Because you are my girlfriend and I am your boyfriend.”

“O...kay,” you say hesitantly, hands held out as Jungkook places the box in your palms. You sink under its weight, clearly surprised at how heavy it is for a simple box. “If this is a prank, I’m breaking up with you.”

“Please don’t break up with me. I think I might love you,” Jungkook says, smile so wide it’s beginning to hurt his cheeks.

You pause, hand on the top of the box about to open it, and look up at him. Your face is impossibly soft, and Jungkook wishes that you could stay like that for longer, just so he can etch it into his memory. Remember it when he’s sad. “You think you might love me?”

“I think so,” Jungkook says honestly, because it’s true. He’s not sure yet, but he knows he’s on his way. “I think I do.”

“I—” You say, soft grin lacing your features. “I think so, too.”

“Open it!” Jungkook insists, giving your wrist a squeeze as encouragement. “I promise it’s not a prank. But even if it was, please don’t break up with me.”

“You are never this happy, which makes me exceedingly stressed,” you say, hands tentatively beginning to take the lid off of the box. “Why are there holes in the side of this thing? Is something about to squirt out at me?”

“No,” Jungkook says. “It’s nice, I swear.”

You narrow your eyes at him.

“You’re my girlfriend,” Jungkook says. “You deserve it. You wanted it, too. I got exactly what you wanted.”

Before you even have the lid off of the box, you hear a sound.

Meow.

↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!

#jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #bts fluff #bts angst #bts scenario #jungkook scenario #bts imagine #jungkook imagine #bts au #jungkook au #bts fake dating au #w: the coffee shop contract

5K notes · View notes

unsaid-stardust · 3 years

Text

“Julie and The Phantoms” No Longer Phantoms as They Debut at #1

Only a year ago today, internet band “Julie and The Phantoms” took the world by storm when they posted a cover of Taylor Swift’s “You Need To Calm Down”. From there, the band, which consists of lead singer Julie Molina (16), guitarist Luke Patterson (17), bassist Reggie Peters (17), and drummer Alex Mercer (17), continued to post weekly covers which garnered an average of 3 million hits per video. Sure enough, the band got picked up by Hollywood Ghost Club Records and signed on to record a total of 3 albums.

It would be easy to see that such rise to greatness could cause some trouble in paradise, but the band told a different story when I sat down with them at a local diner.

I was quick to notice that Julie had looked to her bandmates, careful not to overstep anyone wanting to answer, but the 3 boys had all eyes on her. Luke had nodded and teased “all you boss”, seemingly some sort of inside joke, which prompted Julie to take the lead just as she does on stage.

J: Ah well, we’re not really allowed to give any details quite yet, but we can say that there’s definitely some discussion happening behind the scenes!

I: of course! That all must be very exciting considering only a year ago today you guys were posting covers on YouTube!

L: Yeah, yeah it’s all super exciting. The boys and I had talked about it long before we even knew Julie, so it’s just crazy to see it all happening and now with a wicked beauty of a singer to light up the stage every night? What more could we have asked for?

Luke winked and clicked his tongue towards Julie who’s smile got brighter than before. The shooed her hand at the compliment though, a teasing “oh, stop it” sounding from her.

I: You mentioned that you knew Alex and Reggie before meeting Julie. Can either of you tell us how you guys all met?

A: Well Reggie, Luke, and I actually all knew each other since the 2nd grade. We met in the music room and the rest was history. With Julie though, Luke actually had seen one of her original songs--which was “Wake Up” I know that for a fact because you can’t forget the first time you heard a voice like that--floating around on YouTube at the time. Reggie and I had just been chilling in our studio and Luke came running in with his laptop and said-

R: Wait-wait! I Wanna take this one I do a great Luke impersonation

A chuckle escaped from Julie’s lips and the two boys in question had shook their heads.

A: Do you...? Okay.

Reggie then began to pretend that he was preparing for an acting gig, his thumb pressed to his two fingers as he brought them in front of his face, releasing a breath of focused air.

R: guys guys you have to check out this insanely talented wicked beauty. Her pipes are just insane

L: I did not say that

R and A: Yeah you did.

Julie took the reins then just as natural as she were taking the reins on stage.

J: Well, even if you did or didn’t say that, that is how you guys found me. They emailed me after that and they invited me over to their studio where we had a impromptu jam-sesh. We didn’t even have a song planned to practice which is how “Bright” was actually born. So, after copious amounts of begging and begging and begging-

Luke playfully punched the lead singer in the arm and as Alex and Reggie threw out objections.

J: ok ok, I said yes to joining the band right away and as Alex said earlier, the rest is history

I: Oh, you guys for sure were meant to make this history together. You just have this natural chemistry with one another. I mean just from hearing how you guys met and then from seeing you guys today--you guys have been so in sync this whole time. I mean Reggie, you and Alex answer the same. And Luke and Julie, you two have moved the same the entire time. It’s just amazing watching you all here and on stage. But speaking of Luke and Julie, I have to ask...are you two dating?

The two shifted in their seats, but they never took their eyes off of the other, which is not the only time that Patterson had been the culprit of doing so. Both took the time to answer giving Reggie the leeway.

R: They’re not, but they should be

It’s hard to tell if the sun had just hit Julie and Luke at the wrong time or if the L.A temperature had suddenly gotten to them, but Julie was quick to respond to the bassist.

J: A-ha you’re so funny Reggie. No, no we um....we aren’t dating. I love all the guys right here next to me and I feel like I’ve bonded with them so much over the past year; they're pretty much my family. Alex and I have dance parties in my room and paint each others nails and Reggie and I gush over Taylor Swift’s newest albums and Luke and I...we just have a different bond from songwriting, you know? So I really just take that speculation as having great chemistry with my band which is definitely needed when you spend hours locked in a studio trying to get an album done.

I: Speaking of the album, can we talk about the album cover for a minute? It’s just so unique and eye-catching! Can you tell us what inspired you to choose this for your debut album cover?

Alex: Our really good friend and PR assistant Flynn actually designed it. She said that she took into consideration all of our personalities and what made us “Julie and The Phantoms” and went into photoshop and designed this masterpiece. The colors behind us our each of our favorite colors and the space background kinda comes from the idea that all of us feel like something fated us together. The universe maybe, but whatever it was we were meant to play together. And the font is a homage to Star Wars for Reggie!

I: that’s amazing! So what you’re saying is, I need to contact Flynn for all my graphic designing needs?

The band immediately nod their heads in agreement.

J: yeah she’s amazing. She’s actually my best friend too and she was the one who really got us going. We wouldn’t be here without her!

I: Sounds like a true friend! Alright, well, thank you guys for letting me sit down with you guys. It was a pleasure, one more thing to ask though--if you could have written any existing song, what would it be?

R: ooooo definitely ‘home is where my horse is’ that one is a masterpiece

The band, excluding Julie, groaned at the title.

L: Reggie stop trying to go country it’s not gonna happen

A: and that isn’t answering the question since it doesn’t exist!

J: hey, hey, it exists in Reggie and Me’s heart ok.

The bassist reached over to high five the lead singer.

A: I wish I would’ve written “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” by the icon that is Whitney Houston.

J: ooo that’s a good one. Anything by Alicia Keys for me. Or Aretha Franklin. Those two were definitely my idols growing up

L: oh “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” by Green Day for sure. The lyrics in that one hit hard man I'd love to just write a song that does that to people one day.

I: Well, looking at the charts, it appears like you might have already! Thank you so much again for sitting down with me today. Hopefully we’ll get to talk sometime soon and I look forward to seeing what you guys get up to in the future!

You can now stream “Bright Forever” on Apple Music and Spotify!

#Julie and The Phantoms #Jatp #julie molina #Luke patterson #Alex Mercer #reggie peters #jatp au #jatp edit #this is sort of an au I guess #literally dont know how this happened lmao #sakljdfh #bree edits jatp

59 notes · View notes

ohscorbus · 4 years

Note

Do you think Albus had a moment where he realized how rich Scorpius was?

Everyone knows how rich the Malfoys are. That’s common knowledge. But knowing something and understanding it, seeing it with your own two eyes, that’s something completely different. So yes, I think the reality of it hits him many times over the years. Which is actually quite funny considering the Potters aren’t exactly poor themselves.

Harry is undoubtedly very well off and no matter how much he probably donates or invests, those vaults aren’t going down. He’s working as the Head Auror and there’s all the vaults he inherited, but also the fact he doesn’t spend excessively to show off or simply just because he can. Not in the way your typical Malfoy would. Where they’ll have the finest robes and rooms of rare trinkets, Harry prefers his Weasley jumper and his family photos. I think Ginny would be the same. She grew up in a family that got by on hand me down clothes and secondhand textbooks. She also had to deal with people making her family’s financial situation the butt of their jokes. But she never went hungry, was always surrounded by family, and knew she was loved. That’s the heart of the Weasley family to me. All the things Harry desperately craved growing up. The fact he loved the Burrow the second he stepped foot in there was not surprising. I have no doubt the home they built for their own kids resembles the Burrow in many ways. On the outside it may look more like a traditional house, but inside there’s a warmth to it that money just cannot buy. It’s in Lily’s artwork on the walls. Their first September 1st photos along the mantelpiece. The lingering smell of a home cooked meal. The lines on the doorframe marking their ever increasing heights. The jumper left on the worn armchair. Their faces on the clock that Ginny has ‘detention’ added to so she knows when James isn’t telling the whole truth in his letters.

Albus never grew up without food or a warm bed. He also always got whatever new books he needed and whatever toy he’d asked for at Christmas. Just like Scorpius. And I think it’s a privilege both the Potters and the Malfoys have tried to instil in their sons. For Albus it was ‘just because they can afford it, doesn’t mean he needs it’. There’s pocket money to earn and treats for special occasions and siblings to share with. So Albus still ended up with half a wardrobe of James’s old clothes and he happily passed down his books to Lily as she learned to read. He never questioned it because his cousins did the same. That was his norm. Just like Scorpius’s class was his. Even with Draco and Astoria bringing him up without all the pureblood nonsense, I don’t think they’ll ever be able to lose their class. Nor would they want to. But I can see them actively trying to instil some modesty in him. He’s not to be embarrassed or ashamed of what they have but he’s also never to be as boastful or spoilt as Draco was. I don’t think they’d ever try and live more modestly though. They want the best for their child and they can afford that, so why not?

So the Potters are rich and the Malfoys are super rich. But I don’t think the Potters and the Malfoys are financially worlds apart compared to many of their fellow students. They’re alike in that sense. It’s more their parent’s attitude towards money that makes them different from each other. But part of growing up and venturing out into the world on your own is about meeting new people from different backgrounds and experiencing new cultures. So I think Albus being shocked by Scorpius’s world is just part of that. (Although as the eldest of five myself, I can imagine Albus is more shocked by Scorpius’s life as an only child!) It also makes me wonder if Scorpius is ever shocked by Albus at any point. It wouldn’t surprise me if Scorpius has a better idea of the Potter wealth than Albus does. If money isn’t something Albus has ever had to worry about then he’s probably not paid much attention to it. He’s still a child so why would he? Whereas Scorpius is the sole heir in a family that’s very much involved in their investments. I doubt Draco hasn’t taught him a thing or two over the years about what that entails. Not that Scorpius would judge Albus or his family for their choices, but I’m sure he’s intrigued by them. Harry Potter could afford a manor of his own, so why wouldn’t he have one? It’s an innocent question I’d love to see eleven year old Scorpius discuss with his parents. He’d never ask Albus. Not even when Albus eventually visits the Manor for the first time and makes a comment about wishing he had a room like his. That too is an innocent statement. I don’t think either boy would actually want to change anything about their lifestyle. (Although not having to share a bedroom wall with James sounds like the dream to teenage Albus.)

You know what I’d really love to see? Scorpius at the Burrow for the first time. You’d think it wouldn’t be the same once all the kids had moved out, but now they all come back with their own kids and the place is fuller than ever before. I’d love for Scorpius to have that close knit, extended family experience. I want him to see how everyone has a place in the chaos. A bigger house would give them breathing space but it soon becomes clear they don’t need it. They’re happy to share food, fight over who gets the better stool, and argue whose turn it is to do the dishes. It’s utter madness but he feels the love here just as much as he does at his own table. It’s not about whose parents got it right or wrong. Which is better or what they prefer. It’s about understanding and acceptance. So Scorpius doesn’t hesitate to grab the tea towel and stand alongside Albus at the sink. Just like Albus happily learns exactly which fork he needs for what course. They adapt because they choose to be part of each other’s lives.

But there are moments that give Albus pause at Hogwarts though. Like Scorpius’s fancy shower products that outnumber Albus’s single bottle. The expensive sweets he’ll sit and mindlessly eat on an ordinary Tuesday evening. The birthday presents he receives that cost more than what his own parents would even spend on him. But there’s no judgment. Just surprise and amusement. Because Scorpius also collects chocolate frog cards, he doesn’t take his Weasley jumper off for weeks once he gets his own, and he wears more odd socks than any other person he knows. He may tease Scorpius about it, in the way only a best friend can, but there’s nothing behind it. Albus isn’t jealous or annoyed by his wealth and nor is Scorpius rubbing it in. In fact, I bet he’s even a little embarrassed those first few times he catches a reaction from Albus. But ultimately? Albus doesn’t care and so neither will Scorpius around him. They’ve both had a lifetime of people judging them so they aren’t about to do that to each other. They’re just Albus and Scorpius. That wealth still belongs to their parents at this stage in their life anyway. I don’t think any significant shock or even disagreement over money comes until they’re both adults and more independent. That’s when I can see the differences in their upbringing really being highlighted. That’s not to say they don’t also align in places. It’s definitely Albus and Scorpius vs. Draco when it comes to their wedding!

(Apologies for the long winded answer. Money is such a fascinating subject because it brings out the best and the worst in people. The fact that Albus and Scorpius seem so grounded is a credit to their parents. But just because they are okay with each other doesn’t mean they don’t encounter any issues from other people. But the bullying is another topic entirely. Vandalised trunks can be replaced but words can cause wounds money can’t heal.)

#albus potter #albus severus potter #scorpius malfoy #scorbus #potter family #malfoy family #text post #mypost #long post #Anonymous

91 notes · View notes

taekooktimeline · 4 years

Text

May 31, 2020 (filmed)

In the Soop, start of ep. 6, is filmed on this date.

Please remember the below is our THEORY. You are free to interpret as you wish.

The episode opens with Tae fidgeting and being visibly anxious.

Jimin is entrusted with the mission to get Jk to Tae and tells Jk there is a leak that requires him to collect his luggage as a ruse to get him to go outside.

As they get closer Tae sits up abruptly. Jk is confused about what is going on. We’ll discuss further below, but for now this indicates while the talk appears to be planned and scripted to an extent, Jk didn’t expect the talk to happen at the time it did, as is evidenced by the boxing wraps he just finished wrapping on his hands. Tae created an elaborate setup for this moment and Jk was authentically surprised.

Jimin and Tae playfully banter as if they’re at a classy restaurant - Jimin being the waiter - which adds certain romance to the scene.

Jin comes by and asks if Taekook are on a date. This increases their shyness which makes Tae say “jungkookshi!” on repeat. We can’t tell if he’s panicking and calling out for him as if saying “Jk, help! this is so awkward” or if he’s teasing Jk, but it actually looks like a mix. It’s awkward because they are being filmed while playing out such a scene.

Jk asks about the occasion and Tae replies that it’s nothing special, though shortly what follows is a conversation reminiscing about their trainee days, as well as Tae’s recent struggles.

Tae starts by saying that Jk’s recent attempt to hang out with him is what prompted him to prepare this intimate talk.

Following the above phrase is when Jk fully realizes what’s going on, letting out a big “ahhhhhh” of understandment. Despite this Tae asks once again “Remember?” to which Jk confirms by repeating “ah, ah, ah”. If there is an acting cue this would be it.

Tae adds a couple short sentences to finish the introduction.

Jk then excitedly says “I see!” using a similar voice to that funny one from the drama “Itaewon Class” as if getting ready to start an interpretation (the one that has the “it’s fun!” line).

Out of nowhere, Jk brings up the topic of them being scolded together even during trainee days, parroting exactly what Tae said in his YT livestream back in late April (which is rare because they barely mentioned each other as of recent times so there aren’t many chances to coincide). You can tell there wasn’t a cut between Tae’s intro and Jk’s topic if you pay attention to Jk getting rid of his wrappings. It seems like Jk isn’t the best at easing into a pre-planned topic and just dropped it abruptly which caused them both to laugh. They start to talk about the past and highlight how they were always close, scolded together and partners in crime. It’s interesting that the conversation unnaturally segwayed from having drinks to trainee days.

Jungkook says that they’ve been busy lately which implies that they no longer have the special bond that was just mentioned. This seems to be the whole objective of this theatrical interpretation: to make the public believe that they drifted apart & are now reconnecting. While it’s true that BTS explained on a recent vlive that they worked for 18 hours a day - which doesn’t leave much time to decompress and have time to yourself, let alone with loved ones - we believe they are trying to sound credible by creating lies out of truths (we are busy = truth; lost the special bond = lie).

Jk tells the camera in a narration that Tae used to be so playful and the easiest to talk to out of all the hyungs, but has become more reserved and not as open as he was in prior years, even to the point of developing certain awkwardness in their relationship. Again, lies based on truths. Tae has grown up and matured but he is still playful in a more calm way. Additionally, since three months prior to filming, Tae was noticeably sad and withdrawn. BTS were even concerned and had written on his festa rolling paper to be happy and reach out to any one of them to discuss when he was ready. Tae finding Jk in the soop to have an on camera discussion was very pivotal for their on camera presentation of their relationship going forward to viewers - making it a safe excuse for the sudden openness & increase of on camera interactions being now viewed as reunited friends - but they surely must have had private talks & we don’t believe there was any type of emotional distancing involved.

Reviewing prior footage shows they’ve always shown indicators of closeness and acted in a questionable manner, as well as what could be considered special attention to each other. We’ve caught onto moments they were instructed to separate - such as the vlive in which staff clearly rang the bell & told Tae to leave the hotel room as if he wasn’t sharing it with Jk on May of 2019 - so this talk is the culmination of the narrative BH tried to fabricate these recent years.

Weverse didn’t pick up the entire translation but Jk actually said “these days” he hadn’t really had a serious talk with Tae. This implies Tae was distant recently, which aligns with the sham but also correlates with Tae’s behavior in the spring. Tae mentioned in KBS and this Soop episode that the pandemic was something he struggled with. We doubt that Jk & Tae didn’t have any deep talks during these difficult times and then chose to broadcast their first ice-breaker so we once again deem it a false statement. We will elaborate more in our final thoughts.

Jk credits Tae for bringing him out of his shell in trainee days. Jk has mentioned this in prior interviews, so it seems to be a really important thing for Jk to continue to acknowledge. Tae appears genuinely surprised about Jk bringing this up - blushing for a second - so it’s apparent that they didn’t have a strict script for the sake of making it feel natural. They would just have planned to make sure to touch some key points to convey the narrative of reconnecting. As a positive side, it looks like it falls inside their plans to highlight how much they click and how much of an impact they’ve had on each other. During Festa, when Tae appeared to be at a low point, Jk referred to Tae as his commonality (which K ARMY proceeded to trend for its general meaning). Keep in mind Festa content was released in June, which would have been just after “In the Soop” was filmed, but it was surely written beforehand along with the rest of Festa’s content (~March). The fact that Jk said he has a lot in common with Tae correlates to what he said in this episode about having many similarities. This whole setup would be a bridge for them to be able to, at least, publicly act like close friends once again - which is a milestone - while giving a platonic explanation as to why there was a lack of on camera interactions. We guess it works if they don’t plan to come out as of now and it makes BH look good.

Tae never wanted Jk to use honorifics, but to treat him as a same age friend. Keep in mind honorifics are very important in a country like Korea. It does seem, based on Tae’s personality, that he’s not as hung up on such specifics. Regardless, the fact that, from the start, Tae insisted on treating Jk as an equal is a big deal when factoring in the culture / customs of their country.

Portion of Interview for the Magazine “Catch The BTS” Vol.1, 2013/11:

It seems like Jk was polite with Tae at the very beginning of their friendship, but after some time they started interacting as same age friends - as they explicitly said - and talked casually. In the below pics they contradict the old evidence by saying that their age difference and use of formal speech put up a wall between them. Jk even says “that’s what I chose back then”, meaning it later changed. It’s an easier way to lie.

They also might have used Festa to push the narrative of age difference being partially responsible for their supposed distancing. It was written that Tae viewed Jk as his “maknae-like dongsaeng” which uses not only one, but two terms to reinforce how young Jk is (“maknae” means youngest of the group, while “dongsaeng” is the complementary word to “hyung”. Jk is the dongsaeng of all his hyungs. It does NOT mean biological brother).

Tae mentions how he draws strength from ARMY and has felt empty lately, yearning to perform again. He didn’t feel as loved since they were not on stage hearing the cheers. This appears to be the main reason Tae struggled. And again, this correlates to Tae struggling in recent times, as the pandemic forced BTS (and the world) to change plans, and there was a lot of anxiety and uncertainty. The fact that this affected him so much suggests he still has self-worth issues and relies on external validation to a considerable degree. In our eyes, this is interlaced with his identity & fear of rejection - at least to an extent - being this a period of changes in TK’s presentation that stirred up various emotions. This theory is also supported by him reading the speech about happiness from the LGBTQ film CMBYN a little over a week after filming this. It seems like this was also a crucial topic to tackle & broadcast in order to continue working on the public’s empathy and dive little by little into the sources of their struggles.

Jungkook shows himself to be a source of strength to Tae, giving him advice and reassuring him he’s handling things well. He tells him that he should take this as an opportunity to work on stuff so that the people he loves can see how much he improved.

They decide to make a toast to those who love them. They do not toast to ARMY, which is the typical choice of words. Could this be specifically to people who support them? Because we know not all ARMY would accept them if they found out.

The scene ends with them smiling brightly at each other before walking away from the tent.

(final photo courtesy of TK_Rainbow insta)

Taekook’s “talk” clip: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Kx0ahPr8dVRQzGNBXEbH9nhkRLkLaVLh/view?usp=drivesdk

Our theory - Personally, we believe this moment was staged to an extent. The execution may have been authentic in that Tae planned a romantic setting, since Jk seemed genuinely surprised and had prepared to work out prior to them meeting. However, it should be taken into consideration that taekook were relatively hidden in on camera, official moments for years. This possibly could be a presentation, agreed upon between TK and BH, to explain their current loudness to viewers who may only be watching official content and looking at things at the surface level. To see TK not as interactive in ON official camera moments, to suddenly see them in the manner we are, required an explanation that wouldn’t out them for the moment while allowing them to showcase their special bond and familiarize people with it. Taekook have always made it clear, in Jk’s words, that their relationship is not for the cameras. To have a 1-1 raw, intimate conversation in official content with cameras around, for a televised show, goes against their prior nature and indicates some sort of pre-planning.

Jk mentioned in “recent days” Taekook had not had a serious talk. Then, on camera, what the viewer is able to view is not very heavy besides their talks about Tae seeking love & support from ARMY. JK’s statement of the lack of recent heart-to-heart talks doesn’t match with what they proceeded to talk about. Although it wouldn’t be the goal if it were to be genuine, the viewer did not learn anything pivotal in the talk, meaning it was just a retake on topics deemed safe for public consumption. On the contrary, they flipped the original - pure - story of them being just like same age friends that were close in debut times, to them being close but never overcoming the weight of the age difference. There are a plethora of deep topics Taekook could have discussed. They weren’t able to fully dive into how Tae has exhibited some sort of playfulness throughout the years, but visibly bottled up and became more reserved only in recent months, just barely scratching the surface. The pandemic clearly is part of why Tae struggled, but not all. They do not discuss the obvious separation or lack of on camera moments during these last few years. These are certainly not topics they can easily and freely touch upon given their current situation, which means the idea of suddenly having a “serious talk” to clear the air between them, on camera, for television, has even less credibility. Keep in mind, in between debut to current times, we have always gotten subtle signs of genuine closeness & even slip-ups that they tried to hide. This confirms that what was aired (not necessarily all they talked about but what the viewer was able to see) didn’t really touch on anything intimate.

Since we believe Taekook are in a romantic relationship and are closeted, this means they cannot be fully transparent in why the recent years have involved cuts and on camera separations. The positive takeaway, though, is it appears that taekook will no longer be heavily hidden, nor separated on camera or official content as a result of prior negotiations, which probably took place back in 2018 as they signed - in advance - their second contract. The plan going forward, to us, is for taekook to be less restricted and to normalize their interactions - now holding increased control & benefits over key points in their career. Whether TK have the legal ability to come out at some point - if ready - within this contract or if this new direction would be the rooftop, that we don’t know. Either way, BH had to explain this long-needed change in on camera moments and appears to have chosen this method. Keep in mind the contract renewal took effect shortly after the Soop was filmed. Soon after Soop, Tae read CMBYN and wrote on Weverse he wants to be happy. It’s interesting how all of this happened in quick succession from one another.

Again, as stated at the start of this section, please remember this is our THEORY. We have done our best to clearly explain why we are thinking in the manner we are. Please remember this topic is controversial, and the reader is entitled to their opinion just as much as we are to ours.

Interestingly, these were the lyrics of the song that played in the background as they talked:

TK trended once the ep was released on Sept. 23rd -

June 1, 2020 - First day of Pride Month. Continuation of Episode 6. Tae wore a Bert and Ernie shirt the next day. This may be a coincidence or it may be him trying to send a message after having a 1-1 with Jk on camera. Please decide as you like.

We don’t want to theorize too much on the ending scene but it’s possible there are clues in it. No other member has ended an episode of “In The Soop” as an individual moment. And the ending shot of Tae has a lot of metaphors as he stands to embrace the sun, and then let’s the canoe take him to its brightness. The implication may be that Tae has found healing in this setting, and this, among other things, has helped him come to peace with his struggles.

#taekook #taekooktimeline #may 2020 #2020 #200531 #separation #sadness #closeness #hints #lgbtq

106 notes · View notes

peaceoutofthepieces · 4 years

Text

Sink Or Swim

tag list: @cleocc @feeling-kinda-so-so @hopelessromanticvirgo @dreamy-slytherin @adora8 @lockerfivethreefive @painfully-oblivious @poeticinemaa @jjustonemorething @saraben00 @wedarkacademia @coolguyssyndrome @hischbabe @suckerforsobbe @tayspots @starmansander @theah0lt @zoenneforever @invisibleme @chibibanane

~^~

Monday, 14:12

Song: gnash - i hate you, i love you

Lucas tugs absentmindedly at a loose thread on his pillowcase as he waits for the boys. He’s been staring blankly at his laptop screen for a quarter hour already, the only tab open to Jens’s Instagram. Devoid of any new posts but with recent messages that Lucas still hasn’t responded to.

Maybe he’s overreacting, but he physically can’t do it. Not after hearing Jens explain that he’d ditched him for Jana. Without so much as a single warning.

It had taken Lucas over half an hour of waiting like a fool and sending Jens messages before he was able to admit to himself that he’d been stood up. He’d gotten Jens’s urgent apology when he was already halfway home, and at that stage, he’d struggled to care what the excuse was. He was tired of feeling stupid. He was angry.

He still is, but he also misses Jens already.

The tone of an incoming video call stops him from falling into that pit of self-pity, and he answers with probably a little too much enthusiasm. He doesn’t care, though, as Kes and Jayden pop into view on his screen, grinning just as ridiculously, cheering as soon as they can see Lucas. Lucas ducks closer to his screen and examines, noting that they seem to be in Jayden’s room and both have a little more scruff on their chins than when he’d last seen them. Weeks ago, he reminds himself. This is his first time seeing his best friends—the people he used to talk to everyday—in weeks.

“Hi,” he says, giddy, already grinning wider than he has in days.

“Hey,” Jayden leans in to examine him closer, blocking Kes and beaming. “I was hoping I could be like ‘you’ve changed’ but you haven’t even changed your hair, Lucas. It looks like you’ve been frozen in time since you left.”

Lucas snorts as Kes shoves him out of the way. “Shut up, Jayden. You look fucking great, Luc. I missed that pretty face.”

“Funny,” Lucas muses, “I haven’t thought about your’s once since I left.”

Kes squawks, and then he’s leaning forward to take up the frame, pointing a finger at Lucas threateningly. He then turns it towards himself and circles the air in front of his face. “You love this face. Don’t even try to lie to me.”

It is a lie, so Lucas doesn’t bother arguing any further. He’s missed them both more than he’s willing to express, for surety they’ll make fun of him in response. They do, however, still have their own ridiculous grins stuck on their faces, so maybe Lucas is judging them too harshly.

“Are you going to tell me what I’ve been missing then?”

Jayden scoffs. “You’re the only thing that’s missing, man. It’s boring as hell without you.”

Lucas shakes his head. “Come on, you’re seriously trying to tell me you haven’t gotten in any trouble the whole time I was away.”

“Well, no one said that.”

Kes rolls his eyes and offers Lucas a shrug. “There hasn’t been much, man. You’ve only been gone three weeks.”

“I’ve already been gone three whole weeks, you mean,” Lucas raises a brow, even though the realisation sinks in and scares him. He’s only been here a little over three weeks. He hadn’t known Jens for the first one, meaning it has hardly taken any time for Lucas to develop such a strong, ridiculous crush on him.

Really, can he even call it a crush? The word feels much too tame to describe the force of his feelings, sometimes.

He has to swallow down the sudden anxiety crawling up his throat as Kes says, “Surely you have more exciting things to talk to us about then.”

“Yeah,” Jayden urges. “You get to meet all the new people. Did you find any of the hot girls yet?”

Kes bumps his arm. “Luc doesn’t have to find the hot girls. They come to him. It’s weird as fuck, man.”

“Fuck you,” Lucas retorts, and it’s half-hearted. His chest feels tight, all of a sudden, and there’s a heaviness that sinks into his stomach and takes root. It’s a weight that had slowly began to drift away, as Lucas let himself drift and entertain the possibility of accepting that part of him. Of thinking that part could be known alongside all the rest without changing anything. He’s reminded now, with his best friends of years looking at him, that it’ll never be that easy. “There are plenty of girls that I’m sure you couldn’t get, yeah.”

The boys both ‘oh’ dramatically in response and Lucas rolls his eyes fondly, even as the ache in him does nothing to dissipate. His smile still feels tight, stretched thin, and he feels suddenly helpless. He’d been hoping that seeing them would put him at ease, would make him feel normal, would allow him to stop thinking about his dad, still at work, and his mother, still in Utrecht, and Jens, still being avoided.

He supposes he should have known better.

“You can at least tell us about this new fancy friend group of yours,” Kes says, casual and genuine, and Lucas wishes the simple request didn’t make him feel worse, but it does.

He forces a shrug. “They’re cool.”

“That’s it?” Jayden scoffs. “Come on, tell us who’s the pretty boy you’re always with, at least. We have to know something about our replacements, yeah?”

“They’re definitely not replacements,” Lucas assures. “No one could replace you. I wish I could just come back.”

The boys share a look, and when they turn back to him, they’ve softened. Lucas’s chest only grows tighter, the ache more thorough. He misses them now even more than he had that first week, when he’d been left feeling completely alone, even wishing for the presence of his dad on occasion just to have the company. It hurts twice as much to be reverted back to the stage when he’d had a taste of something different.

“We’d love that, too, Luc,” Kes promises, and Lucas misses him so much he could cry, and he almost does when he goes on to ask, “Are the pretty boys not even treating you right?”

Lucas shrugs, looking back down at that loose thread on his pillow, smoothing his hand over it this time to feel the bump under his fingers. “They’re cool. Some of them do remind me of you guys. Aaron’s kind of the funny one, I guess, and Moyo’s really cool and kind of freaked me out at first. But they’re nice. Then there’s Robbe, he’s the smaller one with the curly hair? He’s sweet. But his boyfriend, Sander, is really cool. He’s studying art.”

He watches them intently over the word ‘boyfriend’, but nothing in their expression changes other than their smiles widening fondly at the mention of art.

“You’ve already found your perfect clique, then,” Jayden teases. “So what part are you? Still the nice face?”

Lucas shakes his head and pulls the thread. “That’s Jens.”

“That’s right,” Kes drawls. “‘Jensrolt’, yeah? You mentioned him before too.”

Lucas nods. “He was the first one of them I met, so.”

“He seems pretty cool. He’s got the chill, Kes-like vibes,” Jayden muses, elbowing his friend, and it’s enough to finally drag another proper smile out of Lucas.

“He does kinda remind me of Kes, actually.”

“What, ‘cause he took pity on you or because he’s hot as fuck?” Kes raises his brows cheekily and Lucas resists the urge to answer honestly by simply saying ‘both’. Instead he focuses on his best friend calling his crush hot as fuck. Which is weird, but not wrong.

But really weird.

“Maybe because he’s full of himself,” Jayden raises his brows at Lucas, exaggeratedly, mocking, and he and Lucas both laugh as Kes tries to shove him off the bed. Lucas watches them wrestle and glances at his phone.

“I think he might be too pretty and too cool for me, actually,” Lucas mumbles.

Kes and Jayden both stop and look at him, and they’ve lost all previous hints of amusement. “What do you mean?” Jayden asks. “Is he being a dick?”

Lucas shrugs again. “I’m probably just overthinking. I was supposed to hang out with him yesterday and he couldn’t make it, that’s all.”

“He couldn’t make it as in he cancelled on you or he stood you up?” Kes prods.

“It wasn’t a date,” Lucas says, too snappish, too petulant. They can both see right through him. “But he stood me up,” he mumbles.

“Fuck that. Like it’s not hard enough to get used to new friends without them being assholes. Did he tell you why?” Jayden asks.

“He was meeting up with his ex-girlfriend.”

“Fuck that. How long were you waiting for him?”

“Like half an hour? Then I gave up and left. He text me to tell me he forgot because she’d asked him to meet up.”

Jayden scoffs as Kes frowns. “It seemed like you two were getting on well before, though. He’s been friendly enough so far, right?”

“Yeah, he’s been cool right from the start and I thought it was great. I’d found friends. And then he completely forgot I existed. And now I wanna come home to you guys.”

“He obviously didn’t completely forget about you,” Jayden attempts to comfort. “Maybe he had something else going on, too.”

“Yeah, Luc. And if he did then he sucks and you can get better friends than that. But you like them, right? The whole group. And you should trust your own judgment. You’re pissed right now but it probably is a genuine mistake and you probably know it.”

Lucas considers this for a moment and begrudgingly admits that he’s probably right. Kes beams and adds, “But for now, we can say fuck him. It’s us time. Did you talk to your dad about coming down another weekend?”

“Not yet,” Lucas says, sinking into the pillow behind him. “Right now I still have a curfew.”

Jayden snorts. Kes elbows him. “Is he there? We could try to talk him around.”

“No, he’s working. As usual.”

“Fuck that,” Jayden repeats. “Man, you’re lucky you have us. Jens is the last straw. If he fucks up, you tell us, and we’re coming over there to steal you back, okay?”

Lucas laughs, and reminds himself that he is lucky.

#van der stoffels #vds #wtfock #skam nl #sink or swim #vds season fic #sos clip

71 notes · View notes

omniswords · 3 years

Text

Chronicles of a Parisian Dumbass 14

Happy Chronicles Update! I promise I'm still trucking along on this baby. I think?? We've also officially reached the halfway mark on this installment, which is kind of. Wow. That's WILD.

anyway, I hope you enjoy!

welcome to today’s episode of Luka’s Word to the Wise: whatever it is, it doesn’t have to be perfect. it just has to be good.

thanks, I.

Ivan is right. And technically, so is his Ma, who’s been telling him and Juleka this for as long as he can remember. But Luka will give them the gratification of saying I told you so when this is all over. Even though he could take a stab in the dark and guess that only one of them would take him up on that offer. And it wouldn’t be Ivan. And it wouldn’t be his Ma.

In between messaging back and forth with Bubbles over the next couple of days, Luka puts together a flyer. It’s not exactly the best—just something he threw together on one of those free graphic design websites, definitely nothing like a Gabriel billboard. But it’s punchy, and it fits the vibe, and it gets the overall message across. And more importantly, Juleka doesn’t give him The Look for it. In fact, she smiles over his shoulder when it’s done, and she rubs her fist in his hair, and she affectionately says, “Now can you chill?”

Luka only grins and throws her into a fireman’s carry for another round of ping-pong. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t know how to be totally chill any more.

They pool pocket money, leftovers from past paychecks, to put in an order for copies at the local print shop. Only Rose has ever been; she tells them she’s tagged along with a couple of old friends from an art club to print issues of the comic they’ve been working on together. It’s nice to see her take the lead, point out the best paper stocks and finishes and spot colors, whatever those are, based on what she’s overheard. It certainly beats the alternative: four barely-adults standing awkwardly at the counter, pretending they know what they’re doing.

Even if, according to Luka’s Ma, that’s most of what adulthood is, anyway.

They decide on something glossy because it makes the colors pop, and admittedly Luka has to thank his lucky, anxious stars for saving the file in every format imaginable because he wasn’t sure which one they’d need. Before he leaves them and heads to work on his bike, Juleka gives him another smile, and Ivan manages a single, subtle nod, and Rose’s eyes sparkle. And it’s starting to feel a little less like a thing he needs to do. It’s a thing he wants to do. With them.

And, well. Any bonuses are just that. Bonuses.

These days, Luka’s made it a point to bike past the bakery on his way to work, because if he’s as much of a regular as the Dupain-Cheng family claims, then he might as well act like it. To be fair, he doesn’t always stop in to talk or buy something; in fact, most times he doesn’t. maybe it’s some silly sense of hope that he’ll be seen. That Marinette really did talk to her parents about picking up an extra shift or two behind the counter. That there’s still room on the bulletin board for him—them. And most times, it is just Mrs. Cheng at the storefront, organizing displays or chatting with a friendly customer.

But sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it is Marinette, idly staring at the window with what he can only assume is her sketchbook at her side and her apron tied around her waist. And sometimes, she looks up at him. And sometimes, she waves and smiles with all the warmth and none of the sweat of July.

That’s why he does it. For the sometimes.

The flyers, once they’re printed, are nothing short of gorgeous, but Luka can’t bring himself to take any of the credit for it. More than anything, he’s just happy to see his bandmates all in on this, even if he did jump in with both feet. Even if they do still rib him during practice about how he’s way too invested in this. (At least Mylène has only nice things to say. He’ll have to remember to order a few extra pastries just for her.)

They split the flyers into four stacks, because of course Mylène insists on helping and of course Rose and Juleka insist on going together. They run or pedal off in different directions once they’ve put a game plan together, and at least Luka can credit them for not teasing when he offers to take the third and fourth arrondissement. They all know it’s where the bakery is, in spite of how he talks up the Place des Vosges. They know, and they don’t have to say anything.

He’s still trying to figure out whether it’s a blessing or a curse to have your real-life friends on your social media accounts.

Even as he’s hanging the flyers in downtown coffee shops, in libraries, on signposts and public bulletin boards, Luka can’t stop staring. With every flyer he pins or tapes up, he finds something new to love about it. A splash of neon color in the top left corner. The jagged, cutting edges of the lettering. The blurred glow of a spotlight. Every time he looks, he gets the feeling that he’s already there. Music pounding in his ears, stage lights burning so bright and hot they make him sweat, fresh calluses on his fingertips that he’ll regret and adore later. He doesn’t think of stardom often, but he imagines this is something close to it.

At the very least, it’s what he would want to make of it.

It’s close to closing by the time Luka arrives at the bakery-patisserie; the usual lingering smells of fresh bread and sugary frosting and the easygoing music are both conspicuously absent when he walks in. But Mr. Dupain and Ms. Cheng are both missing from the storefront, and he has to double check the time on his phone to make sure he didn’t accidentally arrive too late, or that he’s not interrupting some closing routine. It shouldn’t take long; he spent almost the whole bike ride over rehearsing what he needed to say. He looks around cautiously, even clears his throat in case it gets someone’s attention.

It does. Marinette pops up from behind the counter with a squeak, and it startles him so much he nearly drops the stack of remaining flyers in his arms. And that would’ve been a pain in the ass as much as it would’ve been straight out of one of Rose’s cute romcoms for Marinette to round the counter and help him pick them up until their hands brushed over the same one.

Jesus. He really needs to get out of the house on his sister’s date nights.

He really needs to have a date night.

He also really needs to stop thinking about date nights when the person he’d actually consider a date night with is right in front of—

“Luka?”

He blinks to attention, standing awkwardly in the quiet. God, he really hopes he wasn’t staring at her when he zoned out like that. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

Marinette shrugs it off with an apologetic smile. “We’re fresh out of napoleons, you know,” she says casually, slipping past him to flip the sign on the door. “Guess you’ll just have to come first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah, I guess I will—wait—” He shakes his head. “No, that’s not why I’m here.”

Marinette pauses at that. Even seems to stand a little taller, intrigued. Hopeful? “Oh…? Then why… are you here?”

Meekly, Luka holds up one of the Kitty Section flyers and nods toward the bulletin board. Here’s hoping he—it— isn’t too much of a disappointment.

Marinette squints at the flyer for a second, and then her eyes widen and spark in delight. She looks… impressed, at least. which isn’t to say she’s never seemed impressed by him before. It just makes all the things he’s been working for a little more worth it. “Wow,” she says. “You really weren’t kidding about being in a band, huh.”

“You know it,” he says with what he prays is a casual shrug; this… wasn’t part of the script. “I don’t wear this thing on my back just to look pretty.”

She stifles a laugh, then claps a hand to her mouth immediately. “Sorry, I didn’t—I wasn’t implying that you’re not handsome—pretty— “

Oh God. She’s stammering. And it’s adorable.

Marinette composes herself with a deep breath and her arms folded over her chest. “There are pushpins in the corner,” she says. “Hang it up wherever you want.”

Except Luka can’t help feeling like she’s got her eyes on him the whole time. Either she’s coming to terms with the fact that he was telling the truth all along, or she’s… judging him. Or the flyer. And honestly, he can’t tell which is worse. “What’s wrong?” he asks once he notices she’s still staring. “Did I put it up at a funny angle or something?”

“No, just… thinking…” Her voice sounds distant, perhaps somewhere he might never find her. But then she snaps her fingers, and she says, “That’s it!”

“Uh.” Luka’s brow furrows. “What’s it?”

“Oh, just… sorry, my thoughts just ran away with me, I guess.” Marinette steps toward the flyer, brushing her fingers over it and wincing. maybe it’s just from the finish; his nails have scraped over then more than once, and it felt just as bad as a chalkboard. “I was just thinking, well… you’ve been good to my parents and all. Why don’t we help you with promotion? You know, put postcards in the boxes or bags. It couldn’t hurt, could it?”

Luka nearly spotters, but the only thing he can manage to say is, “Where am I gonna get postcards?”

“I can make ‘em.” She says it like the simplest, most obvious thing in the world, and looks him up and down when he falters. “If… you and your band are okay with that, I mean. Cause I, y’know… dabble, in graphic design. But I don’t want to impose, if you’re okay with this. It’s your band and all.”

“I can,” he starts to say; then he stops himself, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. “I can ask them?” Idiot, he thinks. That wasn’t supposed to be a question. “I’ll let you know what they say. Have to come in bright and early tomorrow anyway, right?”

Marinette only smiles. It’s faint, almost absentminded, but that sweet little tug at the corner of her mouth is hardly lost on him. “You don’t have to.”

“Ask them?”’

“Come by.” Her bag is hanging on a peg by the register, and she’s off rummaging through it before Luka can ask what she means. He gravitates toward her more than he actually walks to her, and by the time he reaches the counter she’s fishing a card out of her wallet. It’s pink and black, decorated with the same spray of flowers and monogram as her apron. when he turns it over, there’s her name at the top, and below that, two email addresses. And two phone numbers.

He looks up, wide-eyed.

“So,” Marinette says. “Unless you’re coming all this way for a napoleon, a pear tart, and my pretty face, I think you’re good.”

“I—” Luka turns the business card over and over as though it will teach him now to speak again. “I guess so.” Does she know he thinks her face is pretty? Wait—of course she does, he gave her that note. Oh, Jesus, does she still have that thing? It’s been weeks. “Well,” he says, scuffing his heel against the tile. “Who knows. Maybe I’ll come anyway.”

Okay, that was definitely not part of the script.

But then, neither is the way her eyes are sparkling. “Well,” she murmurs. “Maybe you will.”

“I should, uh—” He jerks a thumb toward the door. “Go, um. Happy closing?”

She laughs behind a hand, glancing between him and the tacked-up flyer before she grabs a broom and sends him off with a delicate wave. And to be honest, Luka’s never been angry with nature before, but he curses the wind for being so loud that he can’t hear that giggle in his head, over and over. Almost as much as he thanks it for drowning out all the stupid things he said, and the lingering questions of why she offered at all.

Luka’s Word to the Wise, Part 2:

Progress isn’t linear but it sure as hell doesn’t mean you can’t stutter your way through getting a girl’s number and succeed.

#miraculous ladybug #lukanette #luka couffaine #marinette dupain cheng #fic: chronicles of a parisian dumbass #HELL YEAH LUKA THAT'S MY BOY

46 notes · View notes

yasbxxgie · 4 years

Photo

The Artist’s Way: Writer-director Radha Blank ruminates on creative frustration and rejuvenation in her debut feature, The Forty-Year-Old Version

Fair warning: This interview with Radha Blank isn’t business — it’s personal. Right now, like at this very moment, Radha is being introduced to the world as the writer, director, and star of the remarkable new Netflix film The Forty-Year-Old Version. But I remember Radha in the 1990s, smashing open mics at Brooklyn Moon in N.Y.C., rocking a fitted N.Y. Yankees cap and big hoop earrings. I remember her jumping into cyphers and catching wreck (read: she can dance her ass off) at Club Kilimanjaro. I remember sitting in the audience of her play Seed in 2011 and thinking, Damn, homegirl can write. I remember witnessing the rise of her emcee alter ego and one-woman show RadhaMUSprime at Joe’s Pub in 2014 and thinking, Damn, Radha can rhyme. AND she funny AF. Because Radha was (and is) a part of a close-knit artists’ community, I also recall her hustle, the keeping-the-lights-on-while-trying-to-make-your-dreams-come-true shuffle we know so well. Radha worked as a teacher, she wrote for children’s television and for shows such as Empire and She’s Gotta Have It.

So when The Forty-Year-Old Version won the U.S. Dramatic Directing Award at Sundance earlier this year, the community rejoiced! This wasn’t just a win for Radha, it was a win for the people. Here was a film rooted in Radha’s own story, about a woman at 40; a Black artist trying to get her stories told — as a playwright and as a rapper; a daughter grieving the death of her mother. Radha told her story her way, down to shooting the streets of New York on 35mm film in black and white. The result is a whole, liberating mood. There’s even a nod to Prince’s Purple Rain.

Karen Good Marable: First of all, Radha, congratulations! The Forty-Year-Old Version is amazing. Your success feels so much like a win for Brooklyn. A win for us all. Thank you for writing it. Radha Blank: I really did make it for us — us being Black women, Black women of a certain age, Black women artists of a certain age. I didn’t think I’d be starting a whole new career in my 40s, but I think it speaks to what’s possible if you let go of other people’s ideas of where you should be in your life. If I listened to other people and gave credence to their ideas, I would not be here.

Amen. When you were younger, did you have the boxes to check, i.e., “I need to get this done by 30, I need to get this done by 40”? Were you that girl? RB:

I think I was that girl. And I always say this about aging: It’s never really about the person; it’s about other people’s perceptions that you then take on. I thought by 40, I would be married with a couple of kids, all of my work being published, theaters asking, “Can we do a revival of this play now?” I really thought once I decided to be a playwright, which was probably my mid-20s, I thought, Oh, by 40, I’m going to be set up. I will have a house. And I do have a house, but that came from Cookie and Lucious Lyon. They got me a house.

Come through, Empire. RB:

I feel like we’ve all been conditioned to think that 40 is: You’re an adult, you’re accomplished, you’re established. What me and my character share is there’s still all of these “who am I” moments, questions around identity. Especially when my mother died, I really had to figure out who I was, because so much of my life as a woman, as a person, as a Black American, as an artist, was tied to this woman. When she died, I really had no sense of myself. So I feel like my personal experience propelled me toward telling the story. We just don’t see women of that age saying, What do I do next? Am I happy? Is this enough?

Your mother — curator, visual artist, cinephile, and arts teacher Carol Blank — figures prominently in the film. She is a goddess and a guide, but she also represents a complicated lesson in what it means to be an artist. RB: Oh, listen, I feel like everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned from my mother — from my frustration as an artist to being a teaching artist for so long. That’s where I learned how to be a director, honestly. I didn’t go to film school. I did stand-up comedy and all this performance stuff, and my first example was my mother. She knew how to turn a phrase or a joke to get the kids interested, and if they weren’t, she wasn’t going to push it. I learned from her first, and I tried to match her energy.

I don’t know what my mother went through when she turned 40, as an artist. I know she was a mom of two by that time, but I gathered — especially because she was a teaching artist for so many years — that she was hustling, jumping between these different roles, trying to make sense of something for herself. In that way, I feel like the movie and my journey as an artist brought me closer to her. I was like, Oh, this is what you had to go through. And then you had two kids on top of that?

In the film, your character is also a teacher. As much as she tries to model support and positivity, sometimes the frustration seeps through. One line stayed with me: “Don’t think that because you created something, people will appreciate it.” RB:

Yeah, I have been bitter. I was able to transform that into a film; it gave me a story to tell. But I did feel that theater as an institution didn’t pay off, there wasn’t much of a dividend. I had done a play in 2011 called Seed, and everyone was like, “Girl, this is your breakout! This is your moment! This play is going on Broadway!” None of that shit happened. Theater was not responding in the same way. I was quietly devastated by it, and I think the movie is my exploration of the why. How come things didn’t happen for me? Here’s someone who has been trying for 20-something years and my biggest accomplishment was 10 years ago when I was 30. That’s why I invented the 30 Under 30 award for my character: The idea that accomplishments are amplified by one’s proximity to youth. There’s no 50 Under 50 award. Or 60 Under 60. Being young and doing something as an artist seems more of a cause for celebration. You know what I mean?

There’s also this theme of displacement that runs through the film. In addition to your protagonist feeling out of place in the classroom and in the theater community, she’s also setting a play, Harlem Ave, that deals with gentrification. RB:

So, my parents were gentrifiers in their own way in the late 60s and 70s, when they moved to the south side of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They didn’t displace people, because what they and their artist and jazz musician comrades would do is take over dilapidated spaces that were considered unlivable — broken-down lofts and factories and storefronts — and create community. There was an investment in engaging the community that came before you, whereas now I think gentrification really is just about an opportunity for the person moving in — “Oh, look at this dope, cheap brownstone that I can get” — with no regard for what came before.

Right. RB: The same thing happens with these artistic institutions: They find a dilapidated space, they revive it and put a million dollars into it. Then when it comes to programming, the people on the stage don’t look like the people outside of the gate. They’re thinking of their silver-haired patrons, because those people can afford a $100 ticket, and that is who I feel most of the theaters cater to. So when diversity shows up on the stage, it’s a version of diversity that protects the audience from feeling bad about racism or sexism. They can still remain in a comfortable place, so they can come back next week or next month and see something for the $300 membership.

But then you brilliantly juxtapose said institutions with the battle rap in the Bronx. RB: I wanted to show these different hubs of art in New York. This film is about capturing an authentic New York experience, and so we shot that battle rap scene at a warehouse space at the tip-top of the Bronx. Art and culture are happening in these spaces that we’re not always focusing the camera on and that don’t have the multimillion-dollar renovation fund of a downtown theater. But this is theater. This is art.

Is that battle based on an actual show? RB:

Yes. Well, we recreated that. Babs Bunny, who people may recognize from Making the Band, created this brand called Queen of the Ring. If you go on YouTube, you’ll see their battle raps. I would watch them because I just needed to see women slaying shit and not being proper or polite. I just wanted to put it into a cinematic world.

Your pen is equally hard-hitting, Radha. Rhymes like “Poverty Porn” and “This Some Bullshit” do so much in revealing character, advancing the narrative. RB:

Thank you. I mean, I feel like if we’re stopping to listen to a song, it should still be about advancing the narrative. We’re still moving forward, riding on this person’s frustration, but into the next scene, next act, or what have you. I think it comes from being a playwright, making sure that everything is earned and not just thrown in there for novelty or because it’s colorful and interesting. I feel like RadhaMUSprime is probably an explosion of her consciousness, the things that she’d been suppressing.But yeah, I’m an emcee. I rhyme. The beautiful thing about the film is I didn’t have to become a professional rapper. I don’t feel like the movie is 8 Mile. I say the movie is 2 Mile,

because she’s not trying to go that far. She’s not trying to be a hip-hop star. For her, hip-hop is a meditation and it shows up in many ways, from the trap beat floating outside her window, to her freestyling in the mirror, or with the dudes in the basement cypher at Arlene’s Grocery.

In some ways, the moral and artistic struggles of The Forty-Year-Old Version remind me of Hollywood Shuffle, Robert Townsend’s 1987 classic. RB:

I appreciate that you bring up Hollywood Shuffle, because I know that because I’m Black and I’m shooting in black and white, people always make the comparison to She’s Gotta Have It. But I feel like my film calls back to Hollywood Shuffle, about a Black artist confronting the white gatekeepers on who gets to tell a Black story and how.

Exactly. And like Townsend, you wrote, directed, and starred in your own first feature film. How was that experience, and do you think you would do it again? RB:

I wouldn’t say I regret being in my film, but I think that there’s probably more of a fascination with my film because I’m in it. And I have too much respect for actors to call myself one. I don’t come from training. I don’t sit in these auditions day after day. I don’t have to endure seven callbacks for a role. I just think that when an audience is familiar with a face, it might make it easier for them to go down the line with this person. So while I don’t plan on being in another one of my films, I do plan on mining my family legacy for storytelling, and on telling stories where music is a driving force.I really want to be an auteur. I’m hoping that my stories get quieter. Very quiet, but very potent. A slow burn, but such a beautiful payoff. I want to make work like that.

Amen.

Photographs:

Radha Blank on set, t & m

Radha Blank with her fellow cast members

#radha blank #the forty-year-old version #the forty year old version #hollywood shuffle #robert townsend #netflix #netflix queue #radhamusprime #black comedy #black playwrights #comedy #burn hollywood burn #black cinema #black film #black films

79 notes · View notes

thoughts-on-bangtan · 3 years

Text

“Let’s BTS” asks about “I like you the most” and Jin’s reaction

by Admin 2

First of all, I want to wish you all, far away in the world of Vmin and BTS, a healthy and peaceful Easter, if you celebrate it, and a nice weekend for those who don’t! Since Admin 1 is quite busy right now and currently also participating in Camp NaNoWriMo, I (Admin 2) will take over our blog for a little while though Admin 1 will still be lurking and checking comments etc. I want to emphasize right away (you will probably notice it anyway) that I have no literary talent compared to Admin 1. I'll try to worthily “replace” Admin 1 for the time being and talk to you about Vmin and more.

Unlike Admin 1, I am not so careful with shipping discussions (and I even like them) as long as everything is done respectfully and we’re all sticking to the truth about the BTS members. I don't like criticizing other shippers because I understand that other fans may love their favorite members and ships just as much as we love Vmin or Namjin, but sometimes it’s inevitable that I have to say something.

So, I invite you to a discussion. I am open to discussion.

We got two interesting questions about “Let’s BTS” and specifically Jin’s reaction to vmin and I want to discuss them.

From anon: Hi, just wanted to see what you made of Jin’s reaction to Tae’s message to Jimin on the Let’s BTS show. I’ve seen some people say he looks so done and even annoyed with it. I can understand him looking apprehensive at first because Tae is a bit of a loose canon, but everyone’s reaction after is to laugh and smile and shout but Jin is very stoic. I’m kinda new and wondering whether he isn’t a fan of Vmin’s brand of declaring their love on national TV. Although when I think of how he behaves with Joon - I’d struggle to wonder why he doesn’t like it. Any thoughts?

From anon: Hi, I cannot believe what I’m reading about Tae on some platforms. What is wrong with people? Anyways I wanted to ask you what you thought of Jin’s reaction to Tae’s message for Jimin? I’ve started seeing people saying that Jin hates the fact they’re close that’s why his reaction was weird. I’m a vmin shipper but Jin is my bias and I can’t get my head around the fact that Jin doesn’t love them both dearly. He did look “apprehensive” perhaps but I’d say with Tae being Tae; that isn’t surprising.

In order to answer these two questions and to form my opinion on the matter, I’ve looked at the situation with regard to Jin and other members several times.

I admit that I’m surprised myself that Taehyung went this far. Actually, it's not even about the content of his words, but about the whole circumstance and the atmosphere that he created around his "confession". I don't know who added the music, whether it was a Taehyung hint or simply something the editors and PD thought of, but the whole situation and phrase gained even more "meaning" and "seriousness" through it.

I seemed as though the background music was supposed to make the moment remind everyone almost of a scene from a K-Drama (or one of vmin’s playful roleplays), but it only added to the effect of this being a serious, sincere and weighty moment instead.

Taehyung joked around by turning the table and pretending the envelope was not intended for Jimin, but this just led to an increase in the tension displayed by the members and the moment itself, and yet still Jimin was immediately convinced that he was the one for whom the envelope would be. Everyone was acting (which makes it sound like they were faking it which isn’t what I mean) like they were curious, but you could clearly see everyone's tension and nervousness, especially when looking at Jimin. Taehyung added that the contents of the card within the envelope were for Jimin's eyes only, emphasizing the seriousness and intimacy of what he was about to say. As a result, Jimin’s reaction led to uncertainty, nervousness, and at the same time an awareness of the sincerity and seriousness of Taehyung's words.

The words "I like you the most" are (on a superficial surface level) nothing big when compared to "I love you", but they still had the biggest reaction. Jimin wrote "I love you" to Suga and absolutely no one reacted nervously, everyone joined in on the declaration, and the situation was relaxed and even funny. Why did Taehyung’s words cause such reactions then? Why?

My thought is this: When the envelope was revealed to be for Jimin, it was met with tension by both members and Jimin. We all know that Taehyung can be a bit of a loose cannon sometimes, even on national television, when it comes to Jimin.

Jungkook immediately commented that "it’s about friendship", Suga laughed nervously and loudly, as if he wanted to end the situation quickly, and Jin had a serious face that didn’t seem all too positive or eager about what would happen next.I'm not going to go into Jimin's reaction here, but rather Jin’s, since that’s what the anons were wondering about.

In my opinion, Jin doesn't like situations that slip into seemingly too private matters. He is definitely the kind of person who gives up the least private information. The situation with Vmin clearly didn't suit him. And not because Jin doesn't like Vmin (because that’s simply not true), but because he knew this program would be broadcast nationally and streamed worldwide, that it would be debated, that every word would be analyzed, and most importantly, because the team that recorded the show wasn’t their own but one that belonged to KBS. Jin doesn't want anyone to have access to BTS's private life, after all he even asked the You Quiz editors to cut what he saw as too sad/depressing about his answers so clearly he thinks about and considers many such things. I think Taehyung didn't care all that much, but Jin did care.

Perhaps I will go too far in my analysis and imagination here, but let's not forget that in the near future Jin is going to have to leave for his military enlistment in the highly conservative Korean army, which holds very homophobic views. Any shadow cast on any of the BTS members (even if some of them are already suspected to be queer) can endanger Jin or make it even more difficult for him to perform his service well and safely. The suspicion that two of the members might be in a relationship with each other would make Jin an accomplice, since they belong to the same group and would lead to him also being suspected of being queer, guilty by associating basically. This is my opinion at least.

Jin is the oldest and feels responsible for BTS, much the way Namjoon does as leader, for everyone including Taehyung, because Jin is aware of the wave of hatred that will be/is poured onto Taehyung across sns after such a public statement. According to Jin, in my humble opinion, this is neither the time nor the place to take such a step in such serious manner. As long as everything was done in form of jokes and witty answers, Jin was joining in and having fun, but when it was Tae's turn his face became serious, as if to warn Taehyung. Jin knew that "Taehyung's atmosphere" could/would fluster Jimin and the entire team, and could become the subject of rumors spread by the staff that isn’t their own.

So no, Jin’s reaction wasn’t because he hates vmin or anything like that, because that’s not true on any level, but because Taehyung’s words about liking Jimin the most were perhaps too sincere for the setting they were in, raising too many brows, and that’s potentially why he reacted the way he did. After all, if you watch the 5th Muster concerts, and especially the one in Seoul, when vmin stand at the very end together, Jin approaches them and throws water at them as though to pull them out of their bubble and back into reality. All in good fun and because he simply cares a lot about them.

Also, an alternative and even more simple answer could be that Jin’s face has no relation to anything I just said and doesn’t tell us anything about what he thought about Taehyung’s words. After all in some interviews he also just sits there quietly and watches/listens to the other members and that doesn’t mean anything at all, or at least nothing negative. But since you asked for my thoughts, here they are, though they don’t have to be right.

I actually have no idea what the reactions are to this show in Korea and among the general public, but I've seen the reactions to Tae’s words across various sns, which one of the anons also mentioned so I’d like to talk about those for a moment as well.

My hair stood on end when I read some of the responses/posts about Taehyung. I never thought that people who call themselves ARMY or fans of BTS would have such opinions about any of the members. A wave of hatred literally flooded Taehyung, like Admin 1 previously mentioned in their answer to an ask.

I just wanted to cry. It shocked me how far shipping can go (literally playing with actual, living people with no regard to their own words and thoughts) that it can cause such extreme emotions in "fans". It's hard to say which is more negative and alarming for some, Taehyung potentially really having (romantic and reciprocated) feelings for Jimin, Taehyung's feelings not being for the “right” person, or the mere fact that Taehyung's feelings are for a person of the same gender.

It’s also interesting to see how deceptive some are. I don’t even mean that “Taehyung and Jimin like each other most” is ignored, which it is, but rather that those mutual feelings were manipulated to twist them into a completely different direction and to another person, or turned into mere jokes or sarcasm. As if all of this simply never happened.

On the other hand, the fact that Jungkook unbuttoned his shirt before going on stage for “My Time”, as opposed to him not doing so during rehearsals, has become very important and an example of J*k*ok being in a relationship, how that’s now even clearer than ever before and is an indisputable fact, according to shippers. Apparently, J*k*ok were flirting with each other throughout the entire segment and show and only had eyes for each other. Somehow Jungkook imitating Jimin is the final piece of evidence to prove everything shippers ever claimed and thus, according to them, everyone must now see that they love each other romantically.

I've carefully watched this show three times, this particular segment and everything else too, and frankly I haven't seen anything that could be called anything even close to flirting when it comes to the two main ML ships. I'm mature and I think I know what flirting is and I can “read” the simplest human behavior, but I really couldn’t see any of it. In my opinion, Jungkook imitating Jimin is clear and open and not a secret. I fully understand Jungkook, I would also follow Jimin in his place :-) Jimin's dancing and looks, as well as his professional work ethic, are truly breathtaking, inspiring and worth imitating. However, this has absolutely nothing to do with romantic affection or a romantic relationship between them, in my opinion.

Hence, I fail to understand these behaviors which in turn lead to a wave of hatred against Taehyung and the, repeated, disregard, belittlement and erasure of Jimin’s and Taehyung’s friendship and relationship bond, and even some going as far as pretending anything vmin was simply not there at all just to make their ship seem more real, booo.

#BTS #vmin #Jimin #Taehyung #Seokjin #Let's BTS #answered ask #answered by admin 2

84 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

finesalt

cupscoinsswordsandsticks

🔮Cups, Coins, Swords, and Sticks🔮

zinisterr

sin or not to sin

lonnoyjimmy-blog

Jimmy

inguaribile-romantica9

In love with love