#can you guess who the friend is who nearly falls out of the van lol

[kirkycurls]

You Jump, I Jump, Jack

When a gorgeous metalhead and his band move into town, your dreary summer pouring coffees is turned on its head—for the better.

*Set in some nondescript American town *Story Kirk is 88/89!Kirk (26/27) and MC is 24 *Not necessarily historically accurate band-wise and I'm not American so bear with me *5 chapters *Fairly sfw but theme of alcoholism *Happy ending!

Chapter One

CWs for this chapter: None.

It had been raining for weeks in your small town: industrial bins floating down the street; kids walking to school with silt up to their knees—the kind of June weather nobody saw coming but now nobody could stop talking about.

You didn’t mind it so much. Tucked away behind the counter of Yvette’s pouring coffees all day for mostly middle-aged men reading newspapers, you could stay dry and keep tabs on what was going on outside through the little chocolate box window out front. Spending your weekdays here since graduating college wasn’t what you’d expected, but since your parents had moved even further upstate you’d wanted to feel more financially secure, single as you were.

It was past 11 on Tuesday morning and the rain had slowed to a drizzle. The cafe was empty save for an older couple playing Yvette’s ancient game of mini chess by the radiator and her son Steve wiping down the table by the door. 

“Ste”, you managed, half-focused on the van that had just pulled up at the old Sunday school across the street. “Ste”, you tried again, louder this time.

“What?”, he asked, turning around. “I’m mid-wipe here, sweet. You can’t disrupt the magic man mid-wipe.” 

You laughed, “Spray’s topped up”. 

Gesturing at the bottle of cleaner you’d just refilled, you rolled your eyes with a smile as he approached the counter with a look of mock offence.

Still smiling to yourself, your eyes wandered past him to the dark-haired guy that had just jumped out of the van, his face screwed up in disgust as he looked down at the muddy water lapping round his ankles. Another guy appeared behind him and practically fell out of the vehicle laughing, only to get his jeans soaked to the knee as he tripped on a hidden drainage cover. 

Boys, you thought. 

The dark-haired guy said something to his amused friend and looked around, taking in the street and the flood, eyes roaming disinterestedly until they landed on the coffee shop with the faded name of the owner above the door, and, through the small front window… you.

You swallowed. Feeling a presence to your right, you blinked and turned to see Steve watching you with an indiscernible look on his face. 

“Earth to the dreamer”, he mocked, switching to his usual grinning state, pumping his eyebrows like a five-year-old with a secret. “Fancy a heavy metal concert?”

“What?”, you huffed with a laugh. 

“Those guys are setting up shop in there”, he said, pointing towards the steady stream of instruments and various studio pieces a taller third guy was now hauling out the back of the van. “Metallica. Heard of ‘em?”

You shook your head.

“Seems they’ve been getting more shows recently so they wanna set up a permanent residence somewhere local—a sort of HQ.”

That broke you out of your reverie. 

“Um, and you know this how?”, you scoffed. Steve wasn’t exactly the type to be up to date with the town gossip. He could usually be found on his girlfriend’s couch with his hand down his pants and a baseball game on the TV when he wasn’t on shift. He wasn’t stupid and he definitely wasn’t a bad guy, but by your standards, he was beyond help.

✵

Before he could answer, a sudden gust of warm air blew into the cafe, the bell above the door protesting loudly. The napkins you’d tidied an hour before were whipped into a flurry. 

With a sigh, you knelt down to retrieve the stray few floating to the ground at your feet, hearing the approach of heavy, squelching boots. 

“Sorry…didn’t mean to ruin your good work”, a boyish male voice chuckled from above you. Returning to your feet, brow furrowed in mild exasperation, you locked eyes with the culprit. 

Grinning at you with a set of perfectly imperfect teeth, shining chocolate-brown eyes, and a mane of dark, glossy curls, the first guy from the van stood leaning against the counter, one hand outstretched with the offer of returning the collected napkins to their tray.

Damn. White noise fizzed inside your head as you unsuccessfully attempted a reply. He’s cute.

Steve sniggered behind you. 

“This is Kirk”, he laughed. 

You turned, a look of mild confusion on your face. 

“Hammett”, the guy from the van added, dropping his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Kirk’s in Metallica”, Steve continued, still amused by your temporary muteness. 

“Lead guitar, right?” 

Kirk smiled and nodded. 

“He was in here last week with his friend James.”

“Oh right, hi…”, you managed, suddenly self-conscious.

You turned to the counter, smoothing the fallen napkins back into formation. Out of the corner of your eye you could see Kirk’s gaze lingering on your face. 

“Yeah, it’s me, James, Jason, and Lars”, he said, attention back on Steve.

You breathed an internal sigh of relief for being momentarily unobserved. 

Another few seconds of awkward napkin twiddling elapsed until you realised you hadn’t said anything and both Kirk and Steve were expecting you to speak…

Accepting that the obsessively flat paper couldn’t get any flatter, you took a breath; fixing your best customer service smile before diving into a string of questions…

First for Steve: What day did they visit the cafe last week? Did you make them lunch? Did you tell him about me?

And then Kirk: What’s the situation with redecorating the Sunday-school-turned-heavy-metal-headquarters? Don’t you think it’s funny that it’ll go from a religious building to a house of vice? Why are you so gorgeous…?

In the process, you learned that Kirk and James (the tall, muscular one you’d seen unloading gear) had headed over for a takeout order last Friday whilst finalising the rent on the new place. It was particularly busy that day—Fridays always were—and you didn’t remember seeing them. Kirk explained how the daughter of the now deceased man who’d owned the school was practically begging them to take it off her hands, so the band had bought it for next to nothing. Kirk and James had taken most of the old furnishings to the dump already; all that really needed taking care of now was repainting the place and positioning their stuff. 

While the three of you talked, a large party of customers entered the cafe; each now in various states of shaking out umbrellas and settling down to browse the lunchtime menu. You knew the conversation would have to end soon, as the 12 o’clock rush could get pretty hairy.

Before you had a chance to pipe up, Steve chimed in. 

“Oh we can help out with a few licks of paint easy”, he said to no-one in particular, straightening up and taking in the still increasing crowd. You could hear the son-of-the-manager gears clicking in his head, greasing up in preparation to make a few extra tips.

His hand landed on your shoulder.

“Why don’t you take tomorrow off and help the guys. Mom’s gonna be around anyway; I’m sure she’ll understand and we both know you’re artistic”, he winked, referencing the time he’d caught you making sickeningly girly latte art when you were supposed to be servicing the coffee machine. 

Your eyes flew to Kirk who was looking more than pleased with the idea.

“Would you?” 

You hesitated, then nodded; a little bewildered and not sure how you felt about being roped in on your own.

“That’d be awesome, thanks.” He leant over and gave a light bump to your arm. 

You tried to suppress a smile. Butterflies.

“Great”, Steve grinned.

“I’ll let you both figure out the details. But right now could you deal with that delivery out back? I forgot to sort it earlier.” You rolled your eyes. 

“Hey, relax. I’ll deal with this crowd so just take your time. Nice to see you again, Kirk.”

A nod from Kirk. “Yeah you too, man.”

Left alone, Kirk turned to you; a cheeky smile dancing on his lips as he rapped the counter and said, “So…”.

You let out a light laugh. “What?”

“Need any help?” 

“Oh, no…you don’t have to to do that”, you replied, making your way behind the counter to grab some supplies but secretly hoping he’d push the point.

“Ah it’s no bother, trust me”, Kirk continued, following you halfway. "There’ll be nothing going on over there today except Lars arguing with James about the feng shui and me and Jase trying to mediate.”

You laughed, feeling some of the tension melting from your body.

He was nice.

“Nah, I’m just kidding; I don’t think either of them know what feng shui is.”

That earned a belly laugh from you. 

You knelt down to the cupboard under the sink to locate a pen, calculator and packing knife; letting your hair cover your face to hide your shyness after letting out such an indiscrete sound. 

“So can I?” Kirk asked. “Help?”

Finding what you needed, you straightened, finding Kirk firmly planted a few feet in-front of you with no sign of backing down.

“Uh yeah, sure…why not. I’ll make us some coffee”, you smiled. “It’s just through that door and right ahead—you’ll find it”, you said, watching as he wandered off in the direction you’d given.

“Awesome”, he fired back, “can’t wait”.

You watched him leave, hands reaching up playfully to hit the door frame as he went. 

You smiled to yourself. This was definitely not how you’d imagined your day playing out: meeting a cute metalhead, making plans to help paint his band’s new headquarters and now pouring black coffee into takeout cups so the pair of you could sort a delivery together? No, this was not what you were picturing for this so-far dismal summer. 

Securing the lids to the drinks, you pocketed the stock supplies in your apron and headed out back, coffee for two in hand.

✵

Parting Yvette’s handmade beaded curtain with your right shoulder, the wind chime over your head sang as you emerged from the back porch, crossing the few steps to the centre of the stock area and setting the cups on one of the two piles of delivery boxes filling the compact space. The stock area wasn’t much; in fact it was literally just Yvette’s garden, as she lived upstairs—a quaint, currently gazebo-roofed yard with stone-walled raised flower beds set around the perimeter.

Kirk was inspecting some gnarly looking plants in the far corner when you arrived, turning as you placed the coffee down to make a joke about The Day of the Triffids. It was true Yvette hadn’t given as much care to the flora and fauna out here as she had to the cafe, which was her pride and joy. She’d been out of town a lot recently on various craft retreats and managerial workshops, so the place needed a little TLC. 

Kirk picked up the coffee nearest him, cheersing it with the air in thanks before taking a sip and carefully placing it back. 

“So what’s first?” He rubbed his hands together enthusiastically. 

You removed the packing knife from your apron and set it next to your own cup, then walked over to the other pile of boxes, hands on your hips as you considered the best way to start.

“I need to check the stock matches what’s listed on the invoices, so if you could maybe help stack them according to the package number that’d really help.”

“As you wish”, Kirk answered, shucking off his jacket and discarding it on the wall.

Five minutes or so passed as you stood back near the doorway watching Kirk shift the boxes. He was chatting away about his bandmates, giving you a colourful mental image of their individual personalities: James, the lead singer and a pretty wild partier; Lars, the Danish drummer, always with a cocky word to try and trip you up; and Jason, badass bassist who was all about working hard for the fans. 

You agreed to meet up outside their new place around nine the next morning, aware that you’d only been given one day off work thus far and impatient to see Kirk in his natural habitat. 

As you listened, offering him various strategic “mmm”s and “oh right”s, your eyes wandered not so innocently along his sweat-dampened neck and the straining muscles in his arms, down to the way his strong hands gripped the underside of the boxes… You noted how gently he set them down, heavy as they were. 

“What do you think then?” 

“Huh?” You snapped to as you realised Kirk had asked you a question, a slightly self-conscious look in his eye as if nervous for your response.  

You mentally traced back to what he’d been talking about while you were…gawping…and recalled him inviting you to pizza and beer that evening to meet the guys before everyone got to work tomorrow.

“Oh, yeah.” You exhaled a laugh. “Yeah of course, I’d love to.”

He looked relieved, and a bit excited, you thought.

“Ah great, I knew you’d be up for it”, he replied, back to his usual self. “I can show you around and you can finally tell me some more about you”, he joked, flicking some of the debris from the boxes at you. 

You both laughed, acknowledging that you hadn’t exactly been a chatty Cathy since he’d arrived. 

It was at that point you decided you actually liked this guy. He was relaxing to be around; interesting, kind, very attractive; and there was something in his eyes that made you feel a sense of kinship. He didn’t step on your toes but he didn’t shy away from trying to get closer either. 

Kirk took a step back to admire his handiwork. Very neat.

“That’ll do thanks, I can take it from here”, you smiled, peeling yourself away from the wall. 

“You sure?” He answered. 

“Yeah, honestly. This next bit’s pretty boring”, you chuckled. “Go and sit down—you’ve earned it.”

He looked relieved as he made his way back to his original spot, flinging himself down on his back on the wall with one hand gently pulling at a spray of pink carnations and the other hanging freely.

You turned back to the boxes with a smile, taking the calculator and pen from your apron pocket to start checking the invoices.

A minute or so of pleasant quiet fell as the conversation petered off. You busied yourself with the calculator, almost forgetting Kirk’s presence as you got into the details of the invoices taped to the side of each package.

Then, “I saw you last week you know.” 

You froze momentarily, pen between your teeth, glad you had your back to him so he wouldn’t see the slight blush tinging your cheekbones. It made you uncomfortable to know someone had perceived you without your noticing—especially him, with his big brown eyes and gorgeous curly hair you’d imagined running your fingers through more than a few times since your initial conversation inside.

“Is that okay?”, he interrupted the silence.

You turned around, pen dropping into your hand. 

“Of course, why wouldn’t it be?” 

He didn’t respond. He’d changed positions since before; now leaning forwards with his elbows on his knees and fingers steepled, observing you with the ghost of a smile and the kindest eyes. You felt your heart swell and then catch as you became aware of the seconds ticking by. 

God, this guy, you thought. 

No-one had had this kind of effect on you since…well, ever. No past boyfriend had looked at you like he was looking right now. 

Move, then. Don’t just stand here like an idiot.

You stretched forward to grab the packing knife from the first pile of boxes, desperate to break the awkwardness that had descended out of nowhere, but as soon as you reached for the handle, the safety clicked, shooting the blade into the still-full takeout cups and landing warm coffee all over Kirk’s thighs. “Shxt!”, you cried, hands flying to your mouth. “I’m so sorry.”

Kirk jumped up, visibly stunned but recovering quickly. Meanwhile, you were garbling out a string of profuse “Sorry”s and standing fixed to the spot, completely unable to move. 

“Hey, hey…it’s fine, relax”, Kirk assured you. You pulled your hands from your eyes to see him laughing, clearly unbothered. 

“I’ve got dirt up to my knees from the damn flood out front; these jeans obviously weren’t meant for me.” 

Your panic eased as you realised he wasn’t mad. You laughed awkwardly, tucking your arms around yourself in an attempt to calm down. Without a word, Kirk jogged past you through the beaded curtain.

Crap, is that really how that’s gonna end? 

You needn’t have worried. A few seconds later he returned with a wad of napkins and bent down to mop up the spillage. 

“If you knew how many times I’ve had to clean up puke from the floor in my house after a night with the guys, you wouldn’t be so worried”, he winked. 

You exhaled with a smile, hitching your skirt up a little to kneel down and help him. 

If you hadn’t both been busy sharing sweet glances and bumping arms as you cleaned up your first drinks together, you would have noticed that the rain had stopped completely and the sun come out from behind the clouds for the first time in weeks. 

 .✵.

#kirk hammett #metallica #kirk hammett x reader #kirk hammett fanfiction #kirk hammett fluff #lars ulrich #james hetfield #jason newsted #kirk hammett x oc #eagerly awaiting your thoughts #pls send thoughts lol #can you guess who the friend is who nearly falls out of the van lol #it's lars #ofc it's lars #also if anything sounds familiar it's bc I've got other ppl's fics floating round my head so I apologise if I've inadvertently re-used #any names and whatnot

[heartbreakgrill]

Best Friends; Matthew Gray Gubler

a/n: THE AMOUNT OF SERATONIN THIS GAVE ME WAS INSANE IM CRYING OMG

description: you’re a makeup artist and mgg is just...outgoing.

K BUT IMAGINE BROS

You’re just a regular ol’ makeup artist (and in this fantasy world, makeup artists are TRAINED TO DO MAKEUP ON POC BECAUSE THEY ALREADY SHOULD BE). It’s season 13 of Criminal Minds and this is your first time working on set because the show you’d been spending the majority of your career on just ended.

You had met the cast and crew at the start up party a few weeks ago, but this was the day. The pressure was on. (Not really, it’s just makeup lol). Anyway, so you’d already set up in the makeup trailer alongside the other artist. Today, scenes were going to be filmed just in the Bureau, so no gore. You doubled checked your list just before 5 am, ready to cross off each actor and actress you were assigned.

“You nervous?” You heard the other stylist, Henry, ask you.

You turned to him, setting down your clipboard. You leaned against the counter and crossed your arms over your sweatshirt clad shirt. You were dressed down because it was so early- a Disney sweatshirt, jeans, slip on Vans, and your glasses instead of your contacts.

“Yeah, a little bit,” you chuckled.

Henry grinned at you, “Don’t be, hun. They’re all really great people.”

“I know, it’s just- I just feel awkward at first, grabbing people’s faces. I know I’m trained for it, but it takes a bit to settle into with new people,” you explained yourself, wiping your sweaty palms off on your jeans.

Henry opened his mouth, but a series of knocks resounded off of the door. You both turned towards it before Henry said, “It’s time.”

You giggled at his dramatic spectacular, turning to wash your hands as Henry let in the first cast members. Aisha and Joe stepped into the trailer. They greeted you with open arms, wide smiles, goofy jokes and polite goodbyes. You felt giddy, high, almost, when they walked out the door.

“So?” Henry asked as you both began to disinfect your areas.

“I feel so much better,” you grinned, folding a towel in half.

The rest of the cast flew past, already making great companionship with you. Henry, too, continued to get to know you between eyeshadow brushes and hairspray. Finally, the last person knocked on the door. It was nearing 6:30 AM, and you were somewhat tired. You yawned into your palm, sighing gently as Matthew Gray Gubler walked in.

“Hello, lady and germ!” He bounded to his chair, the biggest grin on his expression, a coffee cup in hand, and the other shoved into his character pants.

You jumped somewhat in surprised and he laughed at you. “You’re new.”

“Yeah, hi, we met at the party, Y/N,” you reached out your non-yawn hand and shook the one he pulled from his pocket.

“Ah, yes, I remember well. You were wearing very pretty eyeshadow. Green, right? It reminded me of Elpheba, but it definitely brought out the flecks in your eyes,” he rambled on, unashamedly and confidently.

Additionally, he barely made eye contact, it was more here and there as he busied himself with sitting down and crossing his legs. When he was settled, he met your eyes firmly and looked you up and down.

“Except now your wearing glasses.”

Henry laughed at your deadpan expression. Matthew chuckled lightly, too. Henry spoke, “She’s new, remember? Very talkative, but new. And tired, I guess.”

You nodded slightly, “Yes to both. Overwhelmed a little. I like the effort, but I’m not used to your energy. Give me ten minutes, and I promise I’ll get distracted from doing your makeup because I’ll be exchanging sarcastic remarks.”

“Only my character is a profiler, but I can see it,” Matthew spoke and took a sip of his coffee. He then reached to set it down on the makeup counter before hesitating. “Do you have a coaster?”

“Wait, yes, I do! I made sure to bring some just in case. At my old job, we constantly had people leaving rings of coffee on the counter.” You rushed over to your tote bag, which was set on the couch. You rummaged through it as Henry spoke to Matthew, messing about with his hair.

You found the coasters your sister had hand-painted, which ranged from pumpkin to dinosaur designs. You held them out in front of Matthew, who pulled his head from Henry’s hands to look at them.

“Oh, my Gosh! Pumpkins! Defintiley pumpkins!” He pointed excitedly at the coaster in your right hand.

You giggled and set the coaster onto the counter. Matthew thanked you as you politely took his cup and placed it on top of the design.

“I take it you’re a fan of Halloween?” You spoke as you set the others down beside your makeup supplies.

You sat down in the seat beside Matthews, awaiting him as he got his hair done.

He hummed in response, “It’s my favorite holiday.”

“My birthday is two days prior,” you bragged lightly.

Matthew gasped, turning his head to you. “No way! Oh, we are so totally throwing the best Halloween slash birthday party bash this year, then.”

You flushed at his excitement. “You barely know me.” You laughed somewhat.

Matthew shrugged as Henry frustratedly pulled his head back forward. “Stop moving!”

“We’ll be best friends by then, I guarantee it,” he stated.

“Really? Well, shouldn’t best friends know each other’s favorite colors. Favorite foods, movies...”

“Purple, everything except for plain bread, Hocus Pocus...or-“

“No! No ‘ors.’ Final answers only,” you adjusted your glasses and leaned forward.

He looked at you from the corner of his eye and smiled like he had been played. “Hm. Okay. Hocus Pocus it is then.”

“Of course it’s a Halloween movie,” you giggled.

Matthew grinned at that. “Let’s year yours, then, bestie.”

“Okay...” you sighed, tapping your chin, “pink is my favorite color. I love sushie and every other food, but specifically Chinese food is my favorite. And...I can watch Edward Scissorhands like it’s nobody business.”

“Ugh! A classic! I love that film!” Matthew exclaimed.

You nodded enthusiastically, “Yes! I’ve loved it since i was literally a child. My mom says it’s creepy, but I disagree. It’s beautiful. The themes and symbolism are beautiful. Ugh, plus that ice sculpture scene? Unbeatable. Winona Ryder does such a wonderful job portraying innocence which turns into wicked obsession... and Johnny Depp is just gorgeous...”

You trailed off as you realized you were rambling and Matthew was staring at you with sparkling eyes, a slack jaw, and the lightest imprint of his dimples.

“Sorry,” you scratched your leg, practically falling in on yourself.

Matthew scrunched his nose as Henry sighed. “All done. Your turn, chica.”

You stood from your chair and brushed your hair behind your ears. Matthew took your spot, wriggling in it. “Thanks for making it so warm.”

You smiled as you washed your hands. “You welcome.”

Henry touched your shoulder to gain your attention. “I’m going to go get coffee. Want some?”

“Uh, tea, please. Green, with two sweet n low packets,” you listed off.

He nodded and turned to leave. “Thanks so much!” You shouted as he left.

Matthew watched you through the mirror as you began plucking through your materials. You got to work, feeling all flustered now that you were up in his business.

When your hands moved to his face, he hummed. You furrowed your brows and pulled back somewhat.

“Sorry. Your hands are pleasantly warm. I knew that they would be because you’re just very bubbly, but it was still surprisingly wonderful,” he folded his hands in his lap.

“I like the way you talk,” you blurred out. You pursed your lips and looked away from his eyes, continuing to work on his foundation.

“I like the way you blush at everything,” Matthew echoed.

You blushed again. “Sorry. I’m just-“

“Not very outgoing. I can tell.”

“I thought you weren’t a profiler?”

“I’m not. But I’m super duper outgoing, so I can tell when others aren’t. You’re bubbly, but it takes someone who shares your personality to get it out of you,” he rattled off as if he were an expert.

“You seem to know me very well now,” you laughed gently.

“Guess were best friends already, then.”

You leaned back, propping your hands on your hips. “I think we’re, like, soulmates.”

Matthew quirked a brow, “I guess so? But why do you think?”

“Look at your sweatshirt,” you tugged on your own.

His eyes flickered from yours to his. His eyes widened and his jaw went wide. “Oh, my gosh! No way! We have to document this moment on camera.”

“Really?” You giggled as he stood, towering over you.

“Yes! Henry, come quicker!”

The door had swung open when Matthew stood, and Henry ran up the steps. “What’s wrong?”

“You have to take our picture,” Matthew exclaimed, swinging his arm around your shoulders and holding you flush against his side.

Henry looked you up and down and finally noticed your sweatshirts. “Oh, my God, you’re, like, totally mean to be. Let me get my phone.”

After a photo session consisting of many different poses (silly faces, Matthew squishing your cheeks, tugging you onto his back, nearly falling over as he swung his leg into your arms) you finally got him sat back down in his chair.

“Let’s tackle these eye bags.”

TAG LIST: @mantlereid @boxofteenageideas @dinosaursandsocks @ashhdaniellee95 @stephaniemelville-blog @zhangyixingxing1

#matthew gray gubler x reader #mgg x reader #mgg imagine #mgg oneshot #mgg fanfiction #mgg #mgg fluff #mgg gifs #matthew gray gubler

[21burritoseavey]

Chapter 6 - Slow Down

a/n: this one’s quite long so i’m sorry but I really hope you read it all and enjoy it! let me know what you think:)

Summary:  Daniel and Y/n are best friends, but like every clique love story lol, Daniel fell for Y/n, though he’s never admitted his feelings because Y/n has a boyfriend. After their exams, the group of friends decide to go on a “California-cation” (see what I did there haha) but Y/n’s boyfriend also tags along. It gets a little interesting and I guess you’ll just have to see how things go…

“What’s wrong?” Corbyn urged seriously from his seat. The back of the van had finally fallen silent due to Jonah’s sudden stop and almost everyone's gazes were fixated on the driver’s seat. 

 “This van’s a twenty-year-old piece of crap is what’s wrong” Jonah huffed, slouching down in his seat tiredly

 “Ugh, why does everything go wrong when I’m with you guys?” Y/n groaned, habitually fidgeting with the strings of her hoodie. 

 “Hey!” The rest of the boys snapped, glaring at her. She only giggled lightly. 

 Daniel, who slumped drowsily in his seat with his cheek leaning on his palm, muttered “Hey, okay, don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.” He sat up, straightening his back before continuing, “come on guys.” Daniel said, getting out of the car while gesturing to the others to do so too. 

“I’m too tired to get out” Y/n remarked light-heartedly. She lounged back in her seat, brought her arms up to rest behind her head and her eyes focused on Grayson beside her, who sat quietly doing who knows what on his phone again. 

 “Grayson…” She breathed, lifting her soft hand to rest under his chin. Grayson glanced at her swiftly. “Go help him out.” She said tenderly, a gentle smile forming on her lips. 

 Before Grayson could even speak a word, Y/n’s other hand crawled slyly up his back to his neck, and she pushed her lips on his. His strong figure melted easily against her comforting touch, but she pulled back almost immediately when she heard Jonah. 

 “Ewww. I don’t need to see that” Jonah called as he was getting out of the front seat, biting back a cheeky smile. 

 “Love you.” Y/n said sweetly as she shifted back into her seat and watched him close the car door. 

 Grayson hid his eye roll and replied with a quiet ‘love you’ before approaching the rest of the boys. Their slightly clueless faces twisted in confusion had Grayson biting back a smirk and he slowly wiggled his way into the huddle of boys to get a better look. With a furrowed brow and pursued lips, he inspected the exposed hood of the car almost silently, and after a couple awkward minutes of the guys whispering their own conclusions to each other, Grayson broke the silence. “We should just push the car.” He deduced simply, pushing the hood back down and dusting his hands free of grease and grime. The boys nodded casually as if they thought the same and followed him to the back of the car. 

 “I could’ve figured that out easily” Jack scoffed quietly to Daniel, earning a gentle chuckle from the boy beside him. Jonah got back into the driver’s seat again, looking back to meet Y/n’s eyes. 

 “Your boyfriend really seems to know a bit about cars.” He said truthfully as he looked back at Y/n, signalling to Grayson behind the car. Y/n smiled proudly, sneaking a glance at her boyfriend before turning back to Jonah.

 “Yeah, he does.” Y/n paused with a grin, “I’m glad he’s here, you know? Like...with all of you guys so you can get to know him better. He’s such a great guy and-” Y/n caught herself beginning to ramble and she quieted down bashfully. “He’s great.” She finished simply. 

 Jonah chucked faintly. “I’m sure of it.” He said, despite remembering the negative conversations he had with Daniel about Grayson. 

 “Okay Jonah,” Grayson called from behind the car. “What you’re going to do now is turn the ignition on, hold down on the pedal and put the van into second gear.” After a few seconds, Jonah nodded when he was ready. 

 “Stupid bugs!” Daniel groaned, wiggling his arms haphazardly to swat them away. Y/n giggled cheekily, shifting in her seat to look over at the five boys ready to push the car - completely sheltered from the bugs that had been bothering Daniel so much. Until that point, she was completely unaware that he had taken off his shirt and she felt her cheeks warming up at the sight of his glistening, toned body. She guiltily snapped out of her trance and looked forward again. 

 After a few attempts and a few funny complaints from the boys, the rusty old van was able to work again, hopefully for the remaining duration of their drive and the group were back on the road. 

Corbyn had opened the sunroof which sent a cool breeze blowing in the car and  music played from the crackling speakers quietly. It was significantly quieter though, everyone was either on the verge of sleep or busying themselves with their phones. Daniel kept his blue eyes out the window, feeling the gentle rise and fall of the van as his brain explored thoughts of Y/n and Grayson. 

 Maybe he’s not so bad after all? He thought. 

---

The cool summer night was reaching eight o’clock when the weary van finally came to an official halt, belching and rumbling as Jonah parked it in the lot. Y/n’s stomach was tickling with excitement and she was so overcome with joy that she nearly shoved Grayson out of his seat, ushering him out with “Come on! Come on! Let’s go!” He merely stared wide eyed at her, gradually stepping out of the van just to get on her nerves. “Oh. My. God. Gray. I literally hate you.” Y/n grumbled, making Daniel and Grayson burst into genuine laughter and they exchanged small, tight smiles. 

The guys briefly looked around noticing scraggly trees and bushes interspersed along the campsite, swaying and creaking and they heard the faint sounds of people’s voices that drifted with the light breeze.

 “Oh my god! You have no idea how much I just wanna sleep right now!” Zach yawned, stretching his arms tiredly as he stepped out of the van, shutting the rigid door behind him. 

“Okay well, if we just get the tents built quickly, we should be able to just chill out and vibe real soon.” Daniel said, as he began to unload the trunk. He passed around the backpacks and sleeping bags to everyone, and they all started walking ahead. “It should just be down there.” Daniel called out kindly, pointing to the wooden benches and public toilets in the distance. 

 “Hey,” Y/n greeted, casually resting her hands on each of Daniel’s shoulders from behind. He flinched in momentary fear but his expression faltered at the comforting sight of Y/n. Her gentle eyes and dewy skin shimmered with ease even when the natural light was dwindling, and Daniel couldn’t help but go weak in the knees as her eyes caught his lingering gaze. 

 Catching himself in his persistent and rather embarrassingly long trance, he offered her the smallest backpack with a grin while he carried three big duffle bags and sleeping bags on his broad shoulders. They began walking towards the campgrounds, already significantly behind the rest of the group yet strolling slowly. The sounds of the gravel crunching beneath their feet floated with the light breeze and Daniel broke the serene quietness with a question. 

 “You and Grayson okay now?” He asked. 

 “Yeah.” Y/n made sure to grin widely at him before continuing “I just wanna say thank you again.”

“It’s really okay it-.”

 “Not just for that, but for everything Dani. I appreciate you so much.” Y/n said honestly. She even stopped in her tracks as if to signal how serious she was. 

 “I appreciate you too, Y/n. I love you…. more than you will ever know.”  Daniel didn’t even realise he said the last six words out loud and he tried to break nervousness quickly. He shifted the weight on his back and a slight grunt escaped from his lips. 

 “Do you need some help?” Y/n said shyly, desperately trying to hold in her laughter as she watched Daniel trudge forwards, a new layer of sweat dampening his forehead. 

 Daniel took a deep breath before replying, swallowing back his slight awkwardness. “No, no, I’m fine,” he said quickly. 

 “If you say so…. doof” Y/n ran off cheekily as she giggled, turning back when she heard Daniel again. 

 “Hey! You’re a doof!” He yelled back with a small chuckle.  

 By the time Daniel finally caught up with the rest of the gang, he was clawing for a breath, dropping the bags on his back ungracefully with a loud thump and sat down quickly on a wooden picnic bench near him. 

 Like usual, Daniel’s eyes wandered the new place from the tall trees with brittle, dry leaves to the burbling shallow creek in the distance to Y/n. She was resting on a nearby bench with Grayson, cuddled up into his side comfortably. He cleared his throat nervously and got up from the bench, trudging back over to his bandmates right past the young, mingling couple. He saw Y/n snake out of Grayson’s arms from the corner of his eye and he heard the faint whispers between them before he felt the cold sensation of Grayson’s hand on the back of his shoulder. He turned around to be met with a somewhat friendly smile and he returned it. 

 “Do you need any help setting up your tent?” He asked, gesturing to the unopened tent on the ground behind him. Daniel nodded,

“Yeah, thanks.” He replied, walking towards the flat grassy area Jack, Corbyn and Zach where at. Grayson followed behind casually, placing his backpack down. He kneeled on the ground, opening up the drawstring bag. Daniel came closer and crouched down as well and started to pull out the parts. 

The sky had melted into a rich navy with stars adorned everywhere yet the two boys had finally achieved their goal after an exhausting and slightly awkward hour. The exterior was wrinkled, wobbly and a little broken but both boys were too exhausted to even care and lay sprawled out inside the tent. 

 Surprisingly, despite Daniel's initial dislike of Grayson, he couldn’t deny that he was charismatic and incredibly easy to get along with. He figured that’s how he was able to get an amazing girl like Y/n, charming her off her feet onto the dancefloor and then into his car that first night they met at his twin brother’s party. 

“Hey, uhh do you have a flashlight?” Daniel asked as he shifted slowly. 

“Yeah, there should be one in my backpack. The biggest pocket.” 

“Thanks man,” Daniel said gently as he zipped open the tent and crawled out slowly, trying not to break the fragile structure. He crouched down in front of Grayson’s black backpack and zipped open the biggest pocket as instructed. He carefully weeded through the plentiful cans bug spray and sunscreen. Underneath an extra shirt was a small gift bag, pink in colour and drowned in glitter. Daniel could only make out the blush-coloured tissue paper that peeked out of the bag in the darkness. He froze in thought, plentiful ideas hazed in his mind, flashing in and out of existence quickly. 

Pink and glitter? It’s not a holiday. It’s not anyone’s- 

 “Daniel! Grayson!” Y/n yelled out. “Come on!” 

Daniel’s thoughts were interrupted but he quickly pulled out the flashlight and zipped the backpack up again, meeting Grayson’s gaze just in time when he emerged from the tent behind him. 

#daniel seavey imagines #daniel seavey fanfic #wdw boys #why don't we imagines #why don't we fanfiction #why dont we fanfic #zach herron #corbyn besson #jack avery #jonah marais #slow down

[7-wonders]

How about Xavier and the reader smoking (weed) in his van and y’all just start making out? (It can lead into whatever you want lol)

Let’s try this again!

To many, the van parked in the back corner of the aerobics studio parking lot would barely warrant a second glance. If somebody were to look again, it was often to chuckle at the license plate proclaiming the van the “Vanta-C,” or to wrinkle their nose in disgust at such a junky old van. It was inconspicuous in all the right ways, which is what made the Vanta-C the perfect place to unwind after class…and sometimes before class.

Xavier, you have to admit, has some of the best weed you’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. Luckily for you (and everybody Xavier’s friends with), Xavier believes in sharing his stash, claiming that smoking alone is too depressing for him. At least once a week, some variety of your friend group will pile into Xavier’s van, listen to music, and share a couple of joints. It’s a fun time no matter who’s there with you, but your favorite days are when it’s just you and Xavier in his van.

You’re sitting in the back of Xavier’s van, leaning against the cool seat and allowing the air conditioning to cool you down after a heavy aerobics class. A joint lies beside you, unlit, as you flip through Xavier’s extensive collection of cassette tapes. The man in question leans over the center console, switching out one tape in his cassette player for another. He’s mumbling under his breath as he stretches his lithe arm towards the play button, finally hitting it and starting the tape.

The familiar sounds of Journey’s classic synth music fill the air, and you eagerly bob your head to the rhythm as Xavier sits down opposite you. “Finally, some good music,” you note approvingly.

“What, you don’t like the regular music we play?” He holds out his hand for the joint, striking a lighter and expertly getting it started as he takes a few quick puffs.

“Correction: I don’t like Ray’s music.” You gratefully accept the joint, letting the sweet smoke fill your lungs and watching as it filters above you in delicate shapes. “His idea of a mixtape is just different George Michael songs, and I’m pretty sure I’ll end up cutting my ears off if I have to listen to ‘Faith’ one more time.”

“What do you have against George Michael?” Xavier asks jokingly, watching with hooded blue eyes as you take another hit and hold the smoke deep in your lungs before exhaling through your nose: a trick you had learned from Xavier himself.

“‘Dunno, probably the stupid earring,” you tease, flicking Xavier’s cross earring that’s a direct imitation of George Michael’s.

Xavier whistles lowly, stealing the joint from you and holding it between his slender fingers. “Harsh, (Y/N). I share my stash with you and make you a mixtape, and this is how you repay me?”

“You made me a mix? Is that,“ you point to the speakers at the front of the van, “what this is? My very own mixtape?” You’re laying the teasing on pretty thick, but you can’t help it when you know it makes Xavier’s cheeks flush a beautiful shade of pink.

Lately, things have been different between you and Xavier. Not in a bad way, but just in an unexpected way. Ever since the night last winter where you had found him throwing up in some dingy bathroom at a house party, unknown troubles that you didn’t both to ask about sending him straight into the arms of alcohol poisoning, your dynamic had changed.

Suddenly, he wasn’t just Montana’s cocky ex who you only tolerated because all of your other friends adored him. He’s funny, and introspective, and a lot smarter than you originally gave him credit for. You can talk with him for hours about almost anything, although your conversations usually deviated towards music and pop culture. He understood you on a different level than any of your other friends.

He’s also devastatingly handsome, which doesn’t help the small crush you’ve developed on him.

“It’s nothing, really,” Xavier shrugs nonchalantly. “You have a really good taste in music, and I wanted to make something for you to listen to.”

“Thanks, Xav.” You’re touched by this unexpected display of friendship, the man in front of you not really known for doing nice things for people.

Xavier fidgets with his earring before thrusting the joint in your direction, not quite sure what to say to fill the silence. “Here, it’s your turn.”

You both fall quiet as you listen to the music and pass the joint back and forth, your movements getting slower and more languid as the drug begins to take effect. You can feel your veins thrumming with the relaxing heat that begins to spread through you, watching Xavier through the hazy smoke that fills the van.

“What are you thinking about?” you ask quietly, leaning your head back against the side of Xavier’s van.

What Xavier wants to say is that he’s thinking about the way your eyelashes flutter as you try to follow the smoke with your eyes, or how pretty your lips look wrapped around the rolled-up paper. Instead, he plays it safe. “Mmm, just life. Plans for the summer.”

The blue of Xavier’s eyes is nearly swallowed whole by his blown-out pupils, giggling at how freaked-out his dilated eyes make him look. Staring at the smooth planes of his face as your fingers tap out the beat to an AC/DC song, an idea starts to form in your mind. Normally, if you weren’t high, you’d never even consider what you’re thinking. Being high, however, silences the part of your brain that reminds you how disastrous your ideas can be.

Flipping the joint so the cherry faces you, you slowly place it between Xavier’s full lips, smirking lazily when his breath hitches at the contact. His eyes are glued to your hand, watching as your fingers linger against the soft skin of his lips. Breathing in deeply, he makes a move of his own when the warm smoke escapes his mouth as he blows it in your face. You stifle a cough, looking away like you didn’t just try to come onto Xavier.

Across from you, Xavier is internally freaking out. Was that unintentional, or were you trying to seduce him like he hopes you were? For his sake, he really hopes that you were attempting to make a move on him.

“Can I try something?” Xavier asks suddenly, making you look down from the ceiling.

“Sure?” Your eyes are pleading with him for answers, but he refuses to budge.

Xavier takes a couple of deep breaths from the joint, filling his lungs with as much smoke as possible. Winking at you, he shuffles forward and places his hand on the nape of your neck, pulling you towards him and pressing his lips to yours in a heated kiss.

There’s hardly a moment’s hesitation as you eagerly reciprocate the kiss. The smoke travels from Xavier to you as he slips his tongue inside your mouth, giving you no choice but to breathe it in. Your hands, desperate to grab onto something, tangle in Xavier’s beautiful hair. He doesn’t even complain about you messing up his precious locks, instead setting down the joint on a stray ashtray so it doesn’t set the van on fire and wrapping his other hand around your waist so he can lay you down against the floor.

Your back meets with the carpet of his van, and you stare at Xavier through the hazy air in ecstasy as he slides your shirt off of your body. Rolling his hips against yours, you can feel his sizable bulge already through his shorts.

Xavier’s hands, large and veiny, pull your bra down your chest to expose your breasts. “I fuckin’ knew your tits would be gorgeous, even when you’re wearing your workout clothes I just knew.”

He continues to kiss you as his hands explore your body, moaning his approval as your hands start to mimic his actions. His lean body fits perfectly against yours, and you take your time to explore each and every curve of his muscles as he sucks your bottom lip into his mouth and pulls slightly.

You need more, crave more, and you begin thrusting your legging-clad hips against him to the heavy, slow beat of the song booming from the speakers.

“Fuck, Xav,” you pant from under him, kissing him again. “I want you.”

“Yeah? Tell me what you want.”

“Want,” you pause to moan when he begins to suck a hickey against your neck, “want you to fuck me.”

Xavier nods, lifting away from you to allow you to sit up on your elbows so he can unclip your bra. He winks at you as he seems to move in slow motion, kissing you once more and humming along to “Still Loving You.”

“It’s a good thing you like The Scorpions, ‘cause this is a perfect sex song.”

“Actually, there’s no ‘the’ before Scorpions. A lot of people think there is, but the band is just Scorpions.” The words escape before you can even think to stop them, your eyes widening in embarrassment.

“Fuck, it’s so hot that you know random shit like that,” Xavier leans down to kiss you again, fingers playing with the waist of your leggings.

You’re both so wrapped up in each other, the weed and the euphoria of the situation making it almost impossible to focus on anything else, that neither of you notice the door to the van sliding open until an excited squeal has both of you scrambling away from each other. The sunlight filtering in does nothing to reveal who’s standing in front of you at first, the two silhouettes taking a moment to become a smug Montana and an embarrassed Chet. Xavier covers you with his body, but you still grab your shirt and hold it in front of your chest for some semblance of modesty.

“I’m so sorry, guys, I just needed to pick up my gym bag?” Xavier’s eyes flicker to where Chet is pointing, seeing the red, white, and blue gym bag that Chet had asked to stash in the van prior to class. Xavier nods slowly, avoiding eye contact with everybody as he pushes the bag with his foot, allowing Chet to snatch it up.

“Well, I guess we’ll let you two horny lovebirds get back to it,” Montana says gleefully.

“‘Tana,” you whine, pleading with her to stop as you wish for the ground to open up beneath you and swallow you whole.

“Alright, alright.” She holds up her hands disarmingly, grabbing at the handle of the door and winking at you as she starts to close it. “Wrap it before you tap it, babes!” Montana shouts before the door closes.

Xavier’s only able to mutter a stunned “oh my God” as he stares at the space where his friends occupied only moments ago. Turning to you to make sure you’re okay, he’s momentarily concerned when he finds you with your head in your hands and your shoulders shaking. When he hears your near-hysteric laughter, he can’t help but smile.

“What the fuck just happened?” you gasp out between peals of laughter, tears nearly streaming from your face as you begin to put your bra back on: a sight that makes Xavier worry.

“Y’know, we don’t have to stop just because of a little interruption,” Xavier trails off, placing his hand on yours in an attempt to get things back on track.

“How did that not kill the mood for you?” you chuckle, pushing his hand away and sliding your shirt over your head. “Aw, don’t look so sad! There’ll be another chance for you to score, I’m sure.”

Xavier sighs, picking up the joint and sadly taking a hit. “Fuckin’ Montana.”

//

Quick Tag List: @ccodyfern @1-800-bitchcraft @divinelangdon @lvngdvns @wroteclassicaly @tcc-gizmachine @xavierplympton @michaelsapostle 

#xavier plympton #xavier plympton imagine #xavier plympton x reader #ahs 1984 #ahs 1984 imagine #american horror story #american horror story imagine #american horror story: 1984 #ahs imagine

[imissjoongsmullet]

Caught in the Rain

Pairing: St. Van x reader

Genre: fluff

Summary: You and Geumhyuk on your first date, getting hit by a sudden rain shower.

Warnings: you get wet, but not in that way lol

Word Count: 1772

Author’s Note: This one is dedicated to my absolute sweetheart @silverstonemanor who has been putting up with a lot of my Minghao harassment and really deserves some more Van in her life. Merry Christmas, enjoy baby girl! ♥

►

You’re walking along the narrow sidewalk that runs next to the city park, the streetlights creating little circles of light in the otherwise dark evening. The winter air is cold but your skin feels hot. Your heart sits in your chest, thumping out of control because of the man strolling next to you. He’s a friend of a friend and you’ve just had your first date with him.

Jang Wooyoung had set you up after he’d figured out you liked him. You’d tried to be subtle whenever you were in the same room with Geumhyuk but your good friend had seen right through you. He’d figured it out after a night on the town a few weeks prior and thus insisted the two of you got to know each other a little better.

So far, it had been both the most nerve-racking and most beautiful night you’d had in a long time. He’d picked you up at your place and you’d taken a taxi to his favorite Italian restaurant. You’d been really quiet at first, just like you always were when he was around. You were so afraid of saying something that might turn him off but you’d found, to your great relief, Geumhyuk was much easier to talk to than you’d imagined. He is so warm and attentive, holding doors open for you, asking you questions and actually listening to your answers.

And he looks so handsome. He’s wearing a cream, low-cut, knit sweater that shows off his collarbones a little underneath a red scarf. You’ve been unable to stifle the thought of how nice of a place it would be to nuzzle up against, but you’ve kept that information to yourself.

Now, walking side by side through the deserted city streets, he looks radiant. It’s nearly freezing and the sky is rumbling in the distance but neither of you seem to notice. He’s telling you about his dog, Cash, about how he’s always chewing on his sneakers but he can never get angry because he’s just so darn cute. The way his eyes light up as he tells little stories pulls smiles from you you didn’t know you had in you.

“Do you want to meet him?” he asks, eyes flitting to you hopefully. You can see a cloud of breath leave his lips.

“I would love too!” you reply, immediately regretting how eager the words had come out.

He chuckles sweetly, still not pulling his eyes off you.

The sky gives a sudden deafening crack and within the next couple of seconds, rain begins pouring down on the two of you. You both look up at the same time, Geumhyuk’s hand immediately taking hold of your upper arm and pulling you with him towards the park fence, where the trees would shelter you at least a little. It’s not raining that hard yet but the air feels heavy with the promise of a true storm.

“Here, take this,” Geumhyuk says, shuffling out of the jean jacket he was wearing over his sweater, “to cover your head,” he adds, giving the top of your head a tiny pat before handing it to you.

“No,” you mutter, fingering the jacket, “you’ll catch a cold.”

He shakes his head, smiling down at you. “I’ll be fine,” he replies, taking the jacket from you again and holding it over you.

You’re staring right into his chest because you know if you look up your faces will be so close you might actually pas out. You can smell his cologne, sweet but not overpoweringly so, and oh so inviting. You feel warmer just from standing close to him and you figure you wouldn’t mind waiting out the storm like this. You imagine him putting his toned arms around you, holding you close but then, with another loud bang from the sky above, you come back to reality, realizing he must be getting wetter and colder with every passing second.

“We should find a proper place to hide out,” you suggest, your small voice barely audible over the noise of the rain now.

His head dips down towards you a little, eyes locking.

“My place isn’t too far from here actually,” he shrugs, turning to look out into the deserted street with a pensive gaze. When he turns back to you his lips were pulled up into a little smirk.

“We could make a run for it if you want.”

You chew your lip, thinking about your options but the next moment you feel the back of Geumhyuk’s hand touch yours and all you can think is that you’d follow him anywhere.

“Let’s do it.”

His grin widens as he takes your hand in his and starts to run, not even bothering to stay on the sidewalk because there’s no one around this late anyways. You hurry after him, fingers tangled in his and laughing - you’re both laughing like careless kids, letting the rain pummel down on you. You don’t even try keeping his jacket over your head. Your sole focus is on the man pulling you along like he's known you for years.

He didn’t lie; it’s not far to his apartment, tough the few minutes you'd run were enough to have you soaking wet. Your laughter dies out as you reach his doorstep and, in your case, is at once replaced with a brand new nervousness. It’s a tight squeeze to keep away from the rain while he fumbles with the keys to the front door of the building. You suddenly realize what exactly is happening: you are going home with your crush after your very first date. You are going to enter his own private home; just the two of you. You sincerely hope he’s not expecting anything from you. Not that you think he’d be that kind of guy, but still. You follow him into the narrow building gingerly, trying to still your now out-of-control heart.

You’re greeted immediately with the earsplitting barks of Cash. Geumhyuk shushes the overly excited dog with a loving smile that makes him look more adorable than you’ve ever seen him, and turns back to you.

“He doesn’t bite, look,” he says, petting the now very happy dog.

You smile and crouch down to rub Cash under the chin. “He’s sweet,” you say gleefully.

“Oh!” he pipes up, coming to a stand, “let me get you some dry clothes,” and he disappears through a door on your left. When he returns he’s already changed into a soft, gray hoodie and sweatpants, looking like the human representation of a teddy bear. He hands you the pile of clothes he’s brought with him.

“Feel free to use the bathroom to change,” he says, and you get the feeling his hand lingers just a moment longer on yours than necessary, “I’ll fix us something to warm us up.”

You blush profusely as you watch him walk off into the kitchen, still a little shaken over everything that’s happening. But then you notice you’re dripping all over his hardwood floors and hurry your way into the bathroom.

His clothes feel so nice and dry and soft and warm and they even smell faintly of him and you wonder whether there was any chance you could walk away wearing them. He’s given you a gray hoodie and sweatpants that funnily match the ones he’s wearing. You smile timidly as you look down at yourself. This is nice.

He’s already waiting for you in the living room when you come back out. He’s put on some soft music in the background and prepared a set of steaming hot drinks.

“I didn’t know how you liked your coffee so I made a guess,” he says, his eyes following you as you made your way over to sit down beside him.

“It’s perfect,” you reply quickly, taking the steaming mug in your hands just to have something to hold onto. You’re getting nervous again so you put the mug to your lips and sip slowly, relishing how the hot beverage warms you up from the inside.

“Did you have a good time tonight?” he asks out of the blue and you nearly spit coffee all over his couch.

Swallowing hard, you answer, “yeah, of course,” immediately hiding your face behind your mug again.

He looks gratified and takes a sip of his own drink. “Me too,” he says after setting it back down. A silence falls over the two of you, only interrupted by the snoring of the sleeping dog in a corner of the room. He seems to be thinking about something and you feel your nerves start to act up again. This is the moment, you think. This is the moment the conversation will die out and he will hate you forever.

“You know,” he finally breaks the silence. He’s toying with a loose thread at his sleeve, “I wish Wooyoung had introduced us sooner,” he says and his eyes fall on you again.

You don’t know what to say. All you know is, if he continues to look at you like that, you might actually pass out.

He looks back down at his sleeve.

You know it’s your turn to speak. You take a shallow breath and ask, “why is that?”

You watch him bite the inside of his cheek for a moment before he turns back to you and this time there is something new in his look.

“Because,” he starts and his hand reaches out toward yours, “then I’d have more confidence,” he interlaces his fingers with yours, slowly, making sure you’re okay with this, his expression sweet as candy, “more confidence to do things like this.” He squeezes into your hand ever so gently and it sends a jolt of electricity through you. He seems to notice because he starts grinning.

“You’re so cute,” he says and he pulls his hand back towards himself, letting you fall into him so he can wrap his arms around you.

You can feel and hear his heartbeat against your ear and it’s fast, just like yours. He squeezes you a little closer, letting out a contented sigh. You can’t believe this is happening. Just a few minutes ago you were out in the cold rain and now everything is so warm and soft and comfortable and you slowly feel yourself begin to get drowsy. You don’t want to fall asleep. You want to enjoy this moment. But maybe falling asleep is the best way to enjoy this moment, because waking up in Geumhyuk’s strong arms is definitely something to look forward to.

#st van #geumhyuk #vav #lee geumhyuk #st van fluff #fluff #he looks like a good hugger #ya know

[izzy-b-hands]

Take A Picture (Take Two)

A sort of follow up to Take A Picture (hence the title, though I think you’ll get by fine reading this even if you haven’t read that one first.) 

Tim and Brian have been together for a bit, but there’s always been that interest in and from Roger. Yet none of them have pushed to act on it, until tonight. 

As you may have guessed, there’s mostly smut in this, with a healthy dose of Emotions to balance it out lol. 

My love to all who read/like/reblog!

“Just come back to ours.”

Roger swallows hard, and Tim can’t help but watch the way his throat moves.

“Yeah, Brian’s right. Come over to ours. There’s always room for you,” Tim adds. He has other reasons for wanting Roger to come over, but he won’t push.

None of them have, for that matter, in the months since he and Brian finally got together. They’ve been formally dating for nearly six months, and moved in together for three, and all the while, the Line that existed between himself and Brian, has now moved to exist between both of them and Roger.

Which has always been there, really, just like it had been between himself and Brian. Roger has always been a flirt with them, but never in such a way that they took it too seriously.

But it’s gotten hotter and heavier and is incredibly obviously not a joke now, and in any case: Tim wants him. Just as badly as he wants Brian every day, in his bed and in his heart and in his life.

He knows it wouldn’t be easy; as it is, as far as their families are concerned, him and Brian are still ‘bachelors’ that just happen to be comfortable living together while ‘waiting for the right one to come along.’

But he doesn’t care if they’d have to hide it. They could do it, three ‘bachelors’ that never do find ‘the one’, that worry their families, but secretly are happy as can be together.

Still, he won’t push.

“It is late,” Roger yawns, leaning against the streetlight outside of the venue. Everything has been packed into the van except the three of them, the only decision left to make as to where they’ll go. They could drive the long distance away to drop Rog off at his mum’s (this is arguably the furthest from home any of them have played so far), then have to drive themselves home too.

Or he could simply come home with them, one trip to warm beds and, if Roger would want, warm and loving arms too.

The issue, Tim figures, is that they aren’t saying what needs to be said. They’re dancing around it, and normally that would be fine, but he’s tired and despite that still horny, and all he wants to do is go home and see if they can get off before falling asleep.

“I want you to come back to ours,” Tim breaks the newly fallen silence. “Brian?”

He knows Brian is well aware of what he’s asking without saying. Even so, he can see Brian fighting off his nervousness to speak honestly.

“I’d like that as well. If you’d want to, Rog.”

Roger looks at them both with a gentle smile. “Not only to sleep though, right?”

Tim isn’t usually one for big motions, anything dramatic, but he’s sick of it now. Bouncing around that Line again, when he knows that stepping over it is likely to lead to happiness (it certainly has with Brian.)

Even so, he gasps a little when he kisses Roger, who moves into the kiss like he’s been waiting for it. Who kisses back in a way that’s unexpected, a little bit desperate and wanting and hungry.

There’s a beat of silence again when he pulls away from Roger, who has his eyes still closed, lips still searching for another taste of Tim’s.

“That’s a hell of a way to convince me,” Roger finally giggles. “Not that I really needed any convincing. I just wanted to be sure you both were comfortable, that you both wanted this, wanted...”

“We do,” Brian interjects awkwardly. “Trust me, we do.”

And there’s everything they haven’t told Roger yet, in those few words. Nights of almost calling him and asking if he’d want to join them for a night, just to see how it goes. To see if it’s passing feelings, or something more serious. Days of wanting to ask him along on little day trips, but not wanting to make things awkward if the invitation implied too much, gave away any hint of ‘this is you being with us as more than friends.’

Roger’s familiar smirk is back. “Then what took you so damned long?”

They break with that, giggling as they climb into the van.

“I’ll keep him busy,” Brian shouts from the first row of back seats, Roger already in his lap. “Do you mind driving, Tim?”

He might have minded, but he doesn’t right now, because he can still peek at the action in the rearview mirror as they go.

Roger, straddling Brian, moaning into his mouth, hips grinding against him like it’s all Roger knows how to do. Brian, hands wandering already (they have an inside joke about that, how his hands move as quickly over Tim in bed as they do over his guitar onstage, that he simply doesn’t know how to move his hands with anything other than passion), alternating between grabbing at Roger’s ass and thighs to disappearing in between them, likely working at zippers and buttons on trousers.

Tim realizes he’s going much too fast, his eyes not focused enough on the road. He tries to calm down, to be mindful of what he’s doing, but it only gets more difficult as the sounds in the backseat get louder.

There’s a detour that he didn’t realize had been put up, that leaves him at a dead end and needing to turn around. But he’s grateful for it, as he turns to peek at Brian and Roger.

Roger doesn’t notice, on his knees, Brian’s cock in his mouth. Brian blushes as he meets Tim’s gaze, but his hand reaches down to gently thread his fingers into Roger’s hair.

“I really wish we lived closer,” Tim mutters, and he smiles when it earns him a laugh from both of them (Roger’s of course rather muffled.)

There’s a slick sound Tim knows is Brian’s cock falling from Roger’s mouth, but he doesn’t look up or cease his working to get the van turned back around in the arguably too-small street, until he feels a hand on his thigh.

“Let Brian drive the rest of the way,” Roger says. “Or let me, and let me watch the two of you.”

“You have to watch the road too; it’s not as easy as it seems,” Tim smiles, though either of those ideas sound absolutely heavenly.

Roger climbs into his lap, a hand reaching down quickly to the gearshift to make sure it’s in park, before he moves it to Tim’s shoulder, then to twine his fingers in Tim’s hair.

He lets his own hands roam under Roger’s jacket and shirt to his hips, legs opening more to give Roger more room to grind down. He can’t imagine what any of the homeowners on this road must think, but he doesn’t really care right now.

“Go in back,” Brian is by them, cock still in his hand, toying with himself. “I can hold off long enough to get us home.”

“And if Tim and I were to take turns at your cock while you drove?” Roger breaks away from Tim to ask. “What about then? Think you could hold off until we get home?”

Tim pulls him back for a hard kiss at that. Home. Not just ‘staying the night’, not ‘a sleep over with friends’. Home. It was a gift to hear that come from Brian, and it’s a gift now to hear it from Roger.

Roger kisses back, but slips off him a moment later and tugs at his hand to bring him to the backseat.

He maneuvers past Brian with a quick but deep kiss, a moment of reassurance for both of them, of ‘yes I still want you but I want this too and I can’t wait to share it all together.’

Before Roger can move, he climbs onto his lap. Roger’s trousers are already undone thanks to Brian, and he anticipates a quick shove past the waistband of Roger’s pants, but there isn’t one.

“Slut,” Tim says it mostly jokingly (truth be told, there are simply some trousers so tight that there’s no way Roger could manage to go anything but commando in them), but with a slight edge that he hopes Rog will like.

The way Roger’s hips buck up to meet his, he knows he’s done well.

“Say that all you like,” Roger teases. “But who’s got his hands down my trousers?”

The teasing drops away into happy sighs and gasps as he palms at Roger, mindful that there’s no lube yet aside from the precome beading at the head of Roger’s cock.

He glances up only once to look back at the front seat; Brian is driving safely as possible, but his eyes burn whenever he catches Tim’s in the mirror, and his tongue slips out over his bottom lip in a way that makes Tim wish there was a way to be in two places at once: working Roger’s cock with his hands and capturing Brian’s tongue with his mouth.

Finally, the van stops.

“I can’t carry both of you and the equipment in on my own,” Brian jokes. “Can we tuck away long enough to get everything inside before we continue?”

He joins Roger in nodding in agreement; the sex will be fun and he’s hoping they might plan for more together after, but the equipment and instruments are expensive and difficult (and in the case of Brian’s guitar, impossible) to replace. Leaving them in the van would be like asking for them to be stolen.

“This is still sexy, yeah?” Roger laughs as they heft crates and instruments up the stairs and into the flat.

“I mean, I get to see your ass every trip,” Tim replies. “That counts for something, I think.”

Finally inside, with nothing left in the van, it seems to have done just that.

Brian is on him immediately, and any fear that Roger feels left out is assuaged when Tim looks over to see him already with his shoes kicked off,  undoing and working off his trousers too.

“Don’t look so worried,” Roger smiles. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“You mean that?” Tim realizes as he asks it he might be killing the mood, but he can’t wait to ask. He’s greedy tonight, maybe, but it can’t be helped. He needs to know this is more than one night.

Roger nods. “Might not be able to move in right away, and I don’t know if that would be too much anyway-”

“You could start slow,” Brian interrupts, removing his lips from Tim’s neck. He gestures them towards the bedroom, and leads the way. “Stay with us some days, move things over here as you like. It doesn’t have to be all at once. I think what Tim is trying to ask beyond that, is...do you want this? Us? Like we’ve got each other, I mean, like-”

“Boyfriends?” Roger smiles so fondly it breaks Tim’s heart. For all his bluster and showiness, there’s an absolutely dear heart underneath it all. “Yeah. That’s what I want. If you’ll have me.”

“Of course we will,” Tim laughs. “Am I an ass if I say we took too long to get here? To finally making this happen?”

“No,” Roger replies as he tosses off his jacket and shirt, and falls into their bed as if there’s nowhere else that he would belong. “I’ve been getting off thinking about the two of you for...”

He blushes. “Longer than I should probably admit to, actually.”

“No shame,” Brian says, his own clothes joining Roger’s on the floor. “What do you think we’ve been doing? Hell, we’ve got a dildo we named after you, since we couldn’t actually have you.”

Roger loses it, laughing hard, and it’s a gorgeous sound to hear as Tim strips and joins the two of them in the bed.

“A dildo?!” Roger is red in the face, tears streaming. “My god. You did that, rather than just asking me to be with you two?”

“In our defense,” Tim giggles. “It is a really lovely dildo. Though I’m sure not as good as you.”

“How about I prove that?” Roger wipes away the last few tears and grins.

It’s an awkward few moments, but that’s expected and forgivable. Working out who wants to fuck who, how they’re all most comfortable, getting condoms and lube from the bedside table prepared.

He ends up on his back, with Roger slipping inside of him, and Brian inside of Roger.

“Though you know, your back is going to hurt sooner rather than later,” Roger murmurs to Brian. “Tell us, and we can readjust.”

“He’s right,” Tim adds, though focusing on anything else other than the feeling of Roger inside of him is a true task. “Don’t be shy, say if you’re hurting, alright?”

“If I do, will you two let us get started?” Brian laughs, laying against Roger, his head dipping down to press kisses to Roger’s back and neck.

“I didn’t peg him as the impatient one,” Roger smiles.

“I’m plenty impatient too,” Tim sighs, and moves his hands to Roger’s hips, trying to urge him into movement.

That takes another moment as well, working out how best to move with each other. But it’s only a moment, and then it’s wonderful.

He gets to see Brian, eyes closed, thrusting into Roger with soft little happy gasps and moans.

And Roger.

Roger is completely blissed out, moving gently within Tim to time up with Brian’s thrusts into him, letting out the sweetest little whines and moans.

His head drops to Tim’s shoulder, and Tim can’t help but wrap his arms around him. “If it’s too much...”

“’m good,” Roger almost pants it out as he lifts his head again. “I love you both.”

“Just for this?” Brian giggles in between kisses to Roger’s back.

“No,” Roger shakes his head, biting back a moan that Tim can still hear in his throat. “For everything. This, and everything else. I mean...fuck.”

“Hard to have a serious conversation like this, isn’t it?” Tim has to laugh, even as he reaches a hand down to his cock to jerk himself off. He’s too close to not touch himself now.

“You do know what I’m getting at though, yeah?” Roger whines, and kisses him hard. “I love you both because I know you love me. Because you want me like this, but you want me just as much as a bandmate, as a boyfriend, in every w-”

Roger dissolves into moans and groans as he comes, cock as deep in Tim as it can be.

“You’re adorable,” Tim mutters, but Roger just bats away his hand from his cock, and takes over. “And a gentleman.”

“I try,” Roger mumbles, all happy soft smiles and kisses to Tim’s neck and chest as he strokes Tim’s cock, fingers tracing over the head to make him jump.

Brian isn’t always loud when he comes, this is one of those times. He’s bent over Roger, head pressed against his back, hips jerking erratically, but otherwise silent except for a few choked whimpers.

“You good?” Tim asks him, and Brian lifts his head to offer a gorgeous grin. “Good.”

“Brian; I’ve got an idea,” Roger says. “You’ve got to get out of me first though.”

Brian giggles and moves away long enough to get rid of the used condom on his cock, taking Rog’s as well when he hands it over.

“Alright,” Roger says, and gives Tim a smile. “You stay right there, and just let us take care of the rest.”

He lays at one side, Brian takes his cue and lays at the other, and Tim knows in a heartbeat what they’re intending.

“I’m gonna warn you now, I’m close. With both of you-”

“I know,” Roger interrupts. “Let me ask you now: after you come, can we keep going? If it gets to be too much, you just tap our shoulders?”

Tim nods and enjoys the sight at his hips. Brian and Roger leaned on him, licking and sucking at his cock, taking turns moaning with their lips around it. It’s ridiculous and overwhelming and he’s loving every second of it.

When he comes, he expects them to move away, but they don’t. They both laugh and jump when the first few drops splatter them, but neither of them moves.

And true to Roger’s words, they don’t stop after he’s come. They take turns, lapping gently at his oversensitive cock, and without intending it, he finds his cock jumping again. The orgasm is dry, but it feels as good as the first.

They’re gone for moment after, cleaning themselves up, and he doesn’t stop Brian from doing the same for him as he lays there, still all jelly in his limbs.

Best is when they’re back, and Tim can snuggle them into his arms.

For awhile, it’s quiet. Only their breathing and the sensation of bare skin on skin.

“So,” Roger breaks it. “If we’re going to do this, and have me eventually move in...could we start now, with my drums staying here? And me, until I need to go pick things up from home, clothes and whatnot...” “You don’t even have to ask,” Tim replies with a kiss to the top of Roger’s head.

Brian nods. “You and your things are always welcome here. We’re excited to finally have you.”

“I’m excited to have you too,” Roger almost whispers it.

All Tim can think to himself is that they waited much too long for this. For this happiness.

#text post #LeeH writes #Smile band fic #brian may x tim staffell x roger taylor #I love this smut but also it took me all day to write lmaoo

[mrsslrss]

2019.

Welcome to my annual accounting of things I loved, 2019 edition. 

I’m realizing the pattern here is to start this with a reflection of how I rang in the year but 2019 crept in pretty calmly: no big bugs to kill, no spontaneous sobs to a Sharon Van Etten song. On the first day of this year, I woke up and cleaned the house and, I don’t know, probably went to Big Bear and got a coffee and took a nap. Since it’s nearly the end of the decade, I could start there, but I couldn’t tell you where I was for New Year’s Eve, 2009; if I had to guess, I’d put myself at a friend’s house on the North Shore, drinking PBR with the guys and listening to pop-punk. That winter I was convinced I wouldn’t return to Poughkeepsie, I was so miserable, but when I did things started to fall into place.

I think my goal for this year was roughly something like, Just put your head down and do the work. When you are tempted to get fed up and wither from frustration or have a big ego about not getting what you want, just put your head down and do the work. I don’t know if I did that, exactly, if I really stuck to the goal, but every so often in a particularly challenging moment the goal would come into focus at the front of my mind and I’d sigh and acquiesce and nod at the work ahead of me. I got a lot done, I think; in this way I got a lot done. It was nice to be reminded about how the process can be the goal -- something I thought about a lot this year. Sometimes the goal looks like a result, but it’s really the habit I’m after.

I’d like to keep that up next year. 2019 was a year of cultivating; 2020, maybe, will be a year of action. Or maybe not! Maybe nothing flowers until 2021 or beyond. Or maybe I start tearing things up by the roots in 2020, who knows! 

So anyway. Here’s to 2019, and here’s a list (more or less alphabetized -- why not!) of ten things that helped me make it through.

annie’s homegrown birthday cake bunny grahams

My official snack of the year. Over the summer I was visiting MZ in Brooklyn and we got snacks at their neighborhood grocery store and I bought these, which are meant to celebrate the 30th anniversary of this snack company, taste like funfetti cake, and are definitely meant for/marketed to children. But anyway I ate the whole box and then sought them out at every Whole Foods in my vicinity (because I went online and WH is apparently basically the only place you can find them?) and started preaching the good word to anyone who was looking for a snack. By, like, September I had eaten so many of these that I could no longer stomach them, so I’ve been on a brief hiatus, but still: snack of the year.

keeping lists

I started this year with a big digital spreadsheet called “2019 things” where I intended to keep lists: all the new albums and songs that struck me, all the old albums and songs I got obsessed with, the places I wanted to travel in the year. I kept adding tabs: the books I finished, my financial priorities, stuff I wanted to make sure to read or watch. I was pretty diligent about updating them -- I wrote down every book I read, but definitely forgot to add a couple albums; I never made it to Philly this year. I started keeping gratitude lists (analog) towards the end of year, too, because in college a friend told me it helps rewire the brain away from pessimism, or something. 

meditation

Before this year, I’ve never had a serious relationship with meditation, but it always seemed like the kind of thing I would like. In mid-January I got struck by the urge to try it, so I did, and kept it up for a few days, and then I fell off, and then I got back on, and now, somehow, it’s been three-hundred-something days of it in a row. I have learned to find a quiet moment in a nice corner of my room before work, but also in a tent in the Catskills, in a guest room in Wales, in a hotel in Georgia, on a walk through Brooklyn, in my childhood bedroom. My life and brain don’t feel, like, enormously different or changed, but that’s good; it feels useful to keep showing up to something without expectation.

my siblings

Having a big family means every year is inevitably a big year for someone, but this was, somehow, a big year for all of my siblings. Mostly good things: health and healing, a wedding and a graduation, a license acquired and a course of study started and jobs well done. It doesn’t feel good to get into the hard stuff here, but there was a lot of that, too -- a lot of grueling bullshit overcome. After the wedding I almost texted everyone just to say how proud I was of all of them, but naturally I chickened out. But I really am proud!

navy blue

Longtime readers of, uh, *gestures wildly* whatever this is may recall that last year I claimed I only wore black but might be interested in navy blue? This year I determined that navy blue is so good: the color of the deep ocean, the night sky, my first Catholic school uniform. I bought navy jumpsuits, a sweatshirt, a scrunchie. I wore navy-adjacent eyeliner just in the corners of my eyes most days of July and August and September. I’m wearing a navy blue sweater right now. A good year for navy. 

“not” by big thief

My song of the year, which I knew from the first time I heard it. So much of this year (the news, the planet, global catastrophes, mass violence, etc. not to mention personal failures) felt hopeless and dreadful, but also so constant and exhausting that I wasn’t sure I could keep summoning anger, never mind do it in a useful way. I love this song because it is about abjection in the same way it isn’t about anything, about absence as presence, about not-knowing as knowing. It is desperate without being hopeless, explosive without being violent, or maybe: violent without being harmful. It’s about transcending language and different kinds of language and using whichever tools you have (Words are good enough). It’s about being swallowed whole by the everything-ness, a theme that came up in so much of the work I loved this year, the subject of an essay I’ll never write (lol). Music Twitter™ got into an argument about whether this band is good; I feel so sure of my love for this song (and most of what this band does) that I, for once, didn’t immediately assume I was a fool, or being had, just because someone disagrees with me. Instead it felt delicious and special to resonate with a thing that doesn’t resonate for everyone, a rare and generous experience for me. Imagine that.

pottery

At the beginning of the year I signed up for a ten-week session of pottery classes at a studio in Georgetown, and then when I told M, he wanted to join (by which I felt incredibly endeared). Then it became ten more weeks, then ten more, and since then we’ve gone nearly every Thursday night. Some things that are nice: learning to to make something with my hands, especially after staring at a screen all day; not being able to look at my phone or read the news for several hours (related: so many of the Democratic debates happened on Thursday nights!); having a standing weekly date with my favorite person. Nearly everyone in our lives got lumpy bowls, vases, etc. for Christmas this year, of which we are very proud.

“rooms on fire” by stevie nicks

This year, Stevie Nicks became the first woman be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame twice and so Rolling Stone interviewed her about her fabulous career. In the interview, Rob Sheffield said his favorite song of hers is “Ooh My Love” from The Other Side of the Mirror, which is an album I had never listened to before, so I started listening and the first song just hooked me. It’s so dramatic and magical and moody! It’s right up there on the Apple Music-generated playlist of my most-played songs of the year.

stockholm

For several years one of my repeated resolutions was “go to Scandinavia.” Sweden has always been the big goal, but Oslo seemed possible for a minute, and in 2013 I did briefly entertain the idea of going to graduate school in Finland. (Imagine!) This year I got really fed up of having not really, you know, taken a proper vacation since starting my job, so I took a full week off after my sister’s wedding and planned a solo trip to Stockholm. Each day of my trip I woke up whenever I woke up and I explored a different island; I went for long runs, drank coffee, ate kardemummabullar, took the subway across town, saw a one-of-a-kind Viking ship. I burst into tears at the Moderna Museet, ate through a vegetarian tasting menu at the Fotografiska, had an extremely lovely spa experience. I read three books in a week. I loved every second of it.

wigs

I bought a big gaudy pink wig this spring in anticipation of seeing Sasha Velour’s one-woman show in New York -- or, I told myself I bought it for that reason, but I think I really just wanted the possibility of wearing a big gaudy pink wig at will. After the Sasha show, I wore it to see Robyn at The Anthem, and was delighted when, after I put a picture on Instagram, a handful of people in my life thought I had a) dyed my hair pastel pink and b) grew my hair ~half a foot over the weekend. (I wish!) I think I’ll wear it for our house’s beach-themed NYE party, too.

everything else 

frequent, long drives with M; songs about solidarity; the #saltypod; custom t-shirts; craving waffles; having an e-reader; the concept of “the archive”; choosing kindness; threatening to move to rural new england to work on a farm; being in love

[aint-nodenying]

seeing life through a new light (p.m)

y/n is a badass in a band with her college buddies, the abolitionists, and paul mccartney comes in to watch one day and is immediately entranced by the guitarist’s skill and beauty. however, there’s a wild twist about her...

word count: 3,628

a/n. alright, here it is!! now i wrote this pretty quickly (well for me lol) but i’m still really proud of this and how i put my idea on “paper”. now the song that i used in this one was black smoke rising by greta van fleet because i imagine that y/n’s band is like led zeppelin-esque where led zeppelin literally takes inspiration from them (since this is before led formed) but yeah most of their songs that i’m gonna write with this series is gonna be gvf or led,, sorry not sorry.

remember that my taglist is open and you can join it right here: xxxx

let me know if it’s not working and i can try to fix it!! anyways, enough rambling, enjoy this bad boy!!! (ps if anyone wants me to make a outfit look book for this lmk because i’d be very much up for it)

also i didn’t know who to tag because my normal list on victims didn’t heed my advice and fill out my taglist (ahem) so i’ll just tag y’all too, don’t be mad at me since y’all didn’t listen but just don’t read if you don’t want to. don’t come for me for tagging you if you didn’t want to be bc you literally didn’t follow my instructions. have a nice day!

----

October 1961

You loved the feeling of the wind against your skin. You loved the feeling of the fretboard touching your fingertips when you pressed down on the strings. You loved the feeling of the bass booming against the stage when you performed live. You loved getting lost in the adrenaline when performing. You loved to just feel. However, you didn’t love it when some asshole bumped into you without apologizing. You were in a crowded bar, sitting on one of the barstools after a performance with your band, The Abolitionists. Your bandmates, Thomas, David, and Michael were nowhere to be seen. They had the habit of abandoning you once the set was over, opting to tend to their groupies. You didn’t have any problems with that though, normally you had your friends with you and the boys meant no harm in abandoning you.

At this point in your life, you were a second year in uni for computer science and performed with your mates at gigs every other night, quite successfully might you add. You hadn’t regularly gotten drunk with your mates since they had always been quite protective of you, especially David since he had known you since secondary school when you had moved to Liverpool from Australia at the age of 15. You were best friends with David since you had met him tutoring him in math class. You and him met the other band members in college, deciding to form a band in which you were the guitarist along with Michael (who was also the lead singer, mind you), occasionally playing a diddy on the piano - David was the bassist, and Thomas was the drummer. You had been performing together for about two years at this time and you all were very happy together, barely arguing. You were beginning to gain a crowd of fans, along with a couple of record companies listening to your original pieces.

You downed another shot of whiskey, immediately reaching for another one, wincing at the stinging sensation as you did so. As you held the full shot in your hand, your friends immediately tried to pry it out of your hands, protesting wildly.

“Y/N, love I think you’ve had enough for one night,” said Margaret gently. She reached for the small glass once more and was batted away by your blindly-given hits. Patricia scoffed and pulled on Margo’s arm by the crook of her elbow.

“Don’t bother, the woman is an Aussie, she can drink you under the table.” you giggled and winked, bopping your nose with your index finger. You quickly downed the second drink and hissed loudly at the burn. You gestured towards one of them and cleared your throat before jumping down from the stool.

“I need to use the loo, one of you accompany me, please.” you still had your arm out and felt one of them grab your hand (judging from the overpowering perfume, you guess it was Margo) and place it in the crook of their elbow. The two of you began to walk through the crowd of people before someone promptly bumped straight into you, pouring their drink all over the front of your button-up.

Margo gasped loudly and you heard a distinct slapping noise before she angrily yelled out, “Watch out, arsehole. Where were you looking?” you tugged on Margo’s arm impatiently before pulling her away from the stunned Brit. “Fuckin’ arse, who does he think he is running into you like that?” you snorted as you took off your shirt and exposed your black sports bra to the infuriated blonde.

“I don’t think he knew I was blind, Margo,” you said, scrubbing the shirt under the sink. There was a moment of silence before she gently grabbed the shirt from your grasp.

“I got it, babe, you weren’t scrubbing the right place.” You nodded and flicked off the water before feeling along the walls to go into a stall to relieve yourself. After you were done, you felt around the counter before grasping the faucet in your palm. You washed your hands and dried them before grabbing onto the edge of the counter and jumping up, sitting next to the sink. “I mean I understand you just performed beautifully, and it definitely doesn’t seem like a blind person could do that, he still should’ve apologized to you instead of just staring at you.” you giggled and swung your legs back and forth.

“Darling, maybe he thought my looks were to die for,” she scoffed, slapping a wet hand on your knee. You shrieked loudly and immediately started laughing along with Margo. She sighed deeply and held up your shirt.

“Yeah, the shirt is fucked, sorry love. I’ll give you my cardigan out there, it’s a bit chilly today.” you nodded and jumped off the counter, holding out your hand once more. She grabbed onto your palm and rested it in the crook of her elbow, opening the door. Upon opening it, you heard the jukebox play more clearly and the chatter less muffled. You also heard Margo scoff and felt her move jerkily against the side of your arm, as if she were pushing someone out of the way.

“Fuck off, you prick,” she pulled you towards the table while you blinked confusedly. You stopped suddenly and Margo placed your hands onto the tall barstool before letting go and going to sit in her own chair. “God, the boy is persistent, that one is.”

Patty looked between you two, confusion clouding her face. “What happened?” she glanced down at your chest. “Y/N, babe, where’d your top go?” you felt something soft touch your bicep and you reached out to find it was said cardigan from Mago and put it on.

“Some bloke spilled his bevvy onto my chest, and Margo is quite pissed about it, so don’t talk about it much.” you snickered. You felt around the table for a shot and when grasped in your palm, you downed it and heard a loud gasp from beside you.

“You again? Didn’t I tell you to fuck off?” you were confused before a loud scoff came from behind you. You set the shot glass down and turned towards the noise.

“Well you didn’t let me have a chance now did you, was too busy admirin’ your friend to get me words out,” snarked the mysterious man. You muffled your snickers behind the palm of your hand before Margo mocked him loudly.

“Oh yeah, admirin’, that’s a load of tosh. You were right oglin’ her, you were. Quite a creep this boy is, let’s go girls.” You felt the table shake before you felt a hand on your shoulder. You reached out, waiting for one of the girls to take your hand and guide you off the stool but it hadn’t come. “Oi, get your mangy hands off her, you tosser.” You felt a petite, small hand grab your elbow and pull you off the chair roughly, nearly making you fall.

“Wait, where we goin’?” you asked, tripping over your own feet by how fast they were leading you.

“Tryin’ to find David, he’ll help you. You’ve still got to clear the stage.” you nodded and felt yourselves slow down as you tried to maneuver through the large crowd of people. At one point, you were crushed between two people and the hand guiding you disappeared. You panicked and froze, not knowing what to do. You were without your seeing eye, without your cane; you were utterly lost and didn’t know what to do.

All of a sudden, you felt a hand on your shoulder and you screamed, beginning to smack the air in front of you. You came in contact with the person a couple of times before realizing it was the guy from before.

“Ouch, can you calm down?” he asked, grabbing onto both of your hands with his one. “Are you okay?” you gulped loudly and shook your head scared, panting.

“No, please don’t hurt me, I don’t have anything to offer,” you dry-sobbed. You tried to weakly tug your hands out of his grip before giving up, giving into your fate. He laughed dryly before letting you go suddenly.

“I wasn’t goin’ to try anything, you know. I was just gonna tell you how much I liked your performance. I’m in a band meself so I was goin’ to ask you how you do your riffs.” During his spiel, you managed to calm down to just occasional sniffles and glanced in his direction.

“Truly?” he nodded, which you couldn’t see. You didn’t say anything so he just confirmed it verbally once more. “Alright, help me out of this crowd then I’ll talk to you.” he nodded and grabbed your shoulder, leading you out of the crowd, just a little ways away from your friends. “Alright, what’s your name, what’s your band name, when’s your next performance?”

He gave a short laugh before letting go of your shoulder to cross his arms at his chest. “My name’s Paul McCartney, I’m apart of The Beatles, and our next performance is at the Cavern Club.” your eyes widened in recognition and reached out to slap him in his chest.

“Paul McCartney? Lord, who knew I was standing in front of pure talent? Yeah, I’ve heard of you blokes around, you’re very quite popular with the ladies. I’m sorry about my friend, Margo, by the way, she’s normally not that aggressive. She actually really likes your music, she’s just been a bit on edge lately. I’m actually quite surprised she didn’t recognize you.” he smiled bashfully, kicking his foot, glancing down.

“Thank you, I really appreciate that. I really like your new song as well, what was it, Black Smoke Rising?” you nodded. “Yeah, who wrote that one, it’s amazing.” you smiled and giggled a bit. You pointed at yourself and he looked at you in disbelief.

“Yeah, I wrote it like two years ago and we all came up with our own riffs and shit, David’s voice really brings it to life, though.” his smile slowly faded and he cleared his throat.

“Are you and David dating?” he asked timidly. “Just wonderin’ because it seems as though you guys have a lot of chemistry on stage, he looks at you quite a bit.” you laughed loudly at that comment, clapping your hands together joyfully.

“No, David is like a brother and I’m like a sister to him, don’t worry. We’ve just known each other since secondary so we’ve got a bit of memories, that’s all. I don’t really see his glances anyways, maybe he’s just seeing if I’m alright or summat like that.” he nodded and looked across the bar to look at his friends who were all winking and giving him thumbs up. He rolled his eyes and looked back at you.

“So, you’re quite talented and beautiful, do you mind if I could take you out on a date someday?” you smiled and rolled your eyes. “What’s that look for? I really do fancy you y’know,” you shook your head and rested your hand on his shoulder comfortingly.

“Oh, baby,” he blushed at your pet name. “You have no idea what you’re getting into,” he looked at you confused and asked you what you meant. “You do know that I’m-” you were cut off by a loud voice calling out your name to your right. You stopped talking and whipped your head towards your friend’s voice. “David?” you yelled. David yelled your name one more time, right in front of you before he softly grasped your hand in his, resting it on his arm.

“Who’s this wanker?” he asked nodding towards Paul, who was watching the exchange jealously. You shook his head and stood on your tiptoes to whisper in the 6’3 tall man’s ear. His eyes widened and immediately pulled you towards Paul, reaching out his other hand to shake the other Brit’s hand. “Paul McCartney, oh my god, we love your music, we do. We’d seen your performance from two weeks ago, we had - it was amazing, you know,” he rambled. “My girlfriend Margo absolutely fell in love with your friends, you know, it was hilarious since she’s my girlfriend but I didn’t blame her since you’re a bunch of fit lads,” his eyes widened at his words. “I mean, I’m not gay or anything but I can appreciate looks when I see it, but, oh, I mean, thanks for looking after Y/N. If she had gotten hurt, I wouldn’t of have known what to do,” you snickered at his nervous chatter and tugged lightly on his arm.

“Alright there, Dave, let the poor boy breathe.” you looked over at Paul’s direction. “If you can find me after today, come and ask me out again, maybe I’ll say yes.” You didn’t see Paul’s face light up with excitement and you definitely didn’t see David’s bewildered expression. You pulled on David’s arm once more and he began to walk towards your other friends slowly, out of shock and as to not lose you again. You both trekked through the sea of people to your band and friends. David pulled on your arm to indicate to stop walking and immediately a body slammed into yours, pulling you into a tight hug. You shrieked instinctively before recognizing the person’s perfume and patting her lightly on the back.

“Alright, love, let me go now. ‘M suffocatin’ in your hair,” Patty giggled through her sniffles and let go you go reluctantly. She stepped back and sneered in the air.

���I bet you fifty quid that jackass was leerin’ over our poor Y/N,” you giggled at her words and blindly walked over to the table that Thomas and Michael were sitting at, arms waving wildly around you. Thomas grasped your hand once you got close enough and sat you on his lap before handing you a drink. Meanwhile, David crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at Patty.

“What bloke; lots of black hair, big droopy eyes, and like six feet tall?” she nodded vehemently and glared at the thought of him. David burst out laughing and clapped his hands. Margo and Patty looked at him shocked, wondering what was funny with the situation. “Babe, Patty, that was Paul McCartney from the Beatles.” judging from the prolonged silence, you guessed that the girls were in shock while Thomas patted your thigh and Michael spat a bit of his drink out.

“Holy shit, Y/N, how the fuck were you chatting with Paul McCartney?” you shrugged and took a sip of the crisp beer (guessing it was lager since it was quite clean.)

“Look, I didn’t even know it was him at first - the man is a flirt, he tried getting my number before he even realized I couldn’t even see what the guy looked-” you were interrupted by a loud guttural groan coming from Margo. “What? What happened?” you asked panicked, ready to stand up.

“I can’t believe I just yelled at Paul McCartney, kill me now.” she hid her face in David’s neck and continued to groan loudly. You huffed out of annoyance and relaxed back into Tom’s lap, his arms wrapping around your waist loosely. You heard crackling in your ear as he lit a cigarette and held out your hand for a drag. He handed it to you and you inhaled deeply, holding the smoke for a few seconds before exhaling. You felt your muscles relax as Tom patted your leg.

“Alright pet, up you get. It’s time for us to put the shit in the van,” Michael said as he gently grasped your hand. You nodded and returned the cigarette to Tom before following Mike to the front of the stage. You carefully went up the stairs of the stage and removed the smooth amp cords from your guitar and from the amp itself. You wound them around your hand and placed them along the edge of the stage for Margo to grab to put into the van. You turned back around to pick up the amp off of the small table it was on to the front of the stage once more. This time, when you put the amp down, you felt a hand grasp your wrist before you screamed out of shock.

“Whoa, whoa, love it’s just me,” exclaimed Paul, letting go of your wrist immediately. You snatched your wrist back and got off the ground from when you fell on your bum when you screamed. You scowled and huffed obnoxiously, telling him silently you were upset.

“God Paul, you just don’t sneak up on a blind girl like that,” you walked back towards the stage and picked up your guitar. When you turned back to the other side of the stage, you felt around for your guitar case before placing it inside. You heard Paul stuttering beside your hip, in shock of the new information.

“You’re blind?” you nodded without looking up, still strapping in your instrument. “Well excuse my shock, you certainly don’t act blind love, you definitely got most people fooled. You snorted lightly before standing back up, picking up your case after closing it and started towards the stairs. He followed you out the door to the van and began asking the many questions you predicted him to ask.

“Might I ask you how much you can see? How are you getting around today without a cane or without a seeing eye right now? Are you still willing to go out on a date with me?” you were taken aback at the last question, not expecting him to still want to go out with a blind girl.

“Uh, I can see a little bit, like some light but mostly black,” you licked your lips and squinted in his direction in confusion. “Sorry, you still want to go out with me?” he nodded aggressively before realizing that you couldn’t see him.

“Yeah, you not being able to see as much as most people doesn’t change the fact that you’re gorgeous, and I like talking to you. You not having the ability to see literally had no effect on me before, I didn’t even know you were blind.” through his spiel, you blushed at his sweet words and nodded.

“Alright then, yeah I’ll go out with you,” you felt him take your guitar from your hands and took your hands to rest on his elbow. He began to lead you somewhere before you felt a rush of air hit your face. You assumed he led you to the back of the pub to the van and trusted him. He giggled under his breath and you could feel him practically skip with happiness. “Alright there Paul, you can calm down now, I said I’d try this out but we don’t know if this’ll work.”

He scoffed loudly before patting the top of your hand. “Ye of little faith, fair maiden. I’ll sweep ya off your feet, just you watch. Also, you never responded how you walked around the pub without guidance.”

You shrugged as you came to a stop. He let your hand drop from the crook of his elbow before you heard the back car door open and something heavy land on the carpeted surface. “I don’t know, maybe muscle memory? I’ve been performing here for quite a while, even before I joined The Abolitionists, and I also haven’t been blind forever you know,” he nodded intrigued with your back story. He grabbed your hand and began fiddling with your rough fingertips, making you blush.

“May I ask you how you went sightless?” you nodded and scratched your head with the hand he wasn’t fiddling with.

“Yeah, I had polio when I was around nine so I lost my sight that way, I started playing some instruments around the age of five so good thing I still had experience with that before I lost my sight, eh?” you laughed along with Paul at your sad joke. He continued to fiddle with your fingers as he looked at your face as if he was admiring your features.

“You’re gorgeous and so strong, Y/N,” his words made you blush as you slapped his chest in embarrassment. “I swear I haven’t been this forward with anyone before, there’s just somethin’ about you-” he was interrupted by a loud bang that made you and him jump. You then heard chatter come from inside the building leak out into the quiet autumn air. He held onto your hand as he led you to the other side of the van that faced the brick wall that kept the building shielded from the pedestrian's eye.

He leaned down to whisper into your ear, “I really do like you Y/N, I’m performing at the Cavern later this week on Friday,” you nodded as his other hand came up to tuck your hair behind your ear. You shivered at the sensation, the action not going unnoticed by the dark-haired male. “I’d be really happy if you came to listen.”

You bit your lip to mask your smile and nodded. “Sure, I’ll see if I can make it,” you said, pretending to be indifferent. He smirked and hummed in acknowledgment before cupping your face in his large palm. He leaned down to kiss you on the cheek softly, making butterflies race in your stomach and shivers all down your back. He leaned towards your ear to whisper into it once more before strutting away into the night, meeting his friends on the other side of the building.

“I’ll see you then, Y/N. Have a beautiful night, beautiful.” He walked away that night with your heart in his palm and his in yours.

usual victims:

@polaroids @magicwithaknife @rogersdrumkit @blitchen @mxrcury-love @lady1505 @shae-is-not-ok @alexfayer @fuckinghurricanesoul @committed-no-crime  @fire-and-blood-got-blog @cosmicsskies

#the beatles #beatles #beatles fic #the beatles fic #paul mccartney #paul mccartney x reader #john lennon #ringo starr #george harrison #the beatles imagine #beatles imagine

[arielmagicesi]

often when a series ends and especially when there is such a show-stopping ending, before I can analyze how I feel, I have to first list everything that actually happened. Now I don’t know if Steven Universe is actually over but I just. what the fuck that was too much I didn’t have time to react before getting slapped with something else

spoilers below obviously

I was tempted to start listing from the point of “Gem Drill” because I’ve heard that only a year has passed since then and I mean, what a fucking wild year for poor Steven. I’m also tempted to start listing from “A Single Pale Rose” because shit moved FAST starting from there. But I’m just gonna list everything that happened in “Change Your Mind.”

It’s kind of what makes me suspect that this is the final episode of the entire series, because although plot pacing has been accelerating throughout the entire series (going from “Steven learns how to bubble” taking 10 episodes, to “diamond showdown” being a minor subplot of 1) and although the plot pacing went super-speed for this whole diamond arc, this episode shoved EVERY LAST THING IN.

stuff that could’ve waited (Lars and Sadie’s reunion) and stuff that should’ve taken vastly longer if it even should’ve happened at all (White Diamond’s lightning-speed reformation) was all put into one episode. now, it was deftly combined, and I liked almost every individual part, and there was some possibly-unintended comedy to it all (”she’s GOOOOONE!!!!” and White Diamond demonstrating the big ship’s pussy-out look, etc) but holy hell I would have loved for it to have gone at a slower pace so that they could have explored some of the stuff.

[also, my ability to react to things is lessened. meeting Sunstone would’ve been, I’m not joking, the highlight of my week just two years ago. now it wasn’t even the coolest of the fusions we met, and meeting the fusions was an incredibly minor point in the episode. also i have other things in my life now lol]

obviously, part of this pacing is due to the airing schedule of the show. on a normal airing schedule, I’d feel emotionally exhausted- this would have been, what, a month after the Pink-Diamond-is-Rose-Quartz reveal? but because this show airs in the dumbest way possible, we have like five hundred years between plot points. however, Steven did not? Pearl did not? Garnet did not? CONNIE did not? how the fuck are they getting along?

secondly, this was all in one episode, so yeah holy shit, some whiplash occurring for this here viewer

(one final note: I now take back getting annoyed that we got Watermelon Moana last week because it was so gentle compared to this)

anyway, my promised list of Crazy Shit that happened in one 40-minute episode:

1. Steven gets a flashback that tells him about a previous transgression of Pink’s, where we meet some other aliens. pointing to an old rebellion?

2. we see another Steven identity crisis with him flashing through Steven-Pink-Rose

3. Steven convinces Blue Diamond that she’s abusive and she immediately realizes the error of her ways and decides to help him and Connie out. (also, Connie talks to Diamonds a lot, I love her. damn girl)

4. we retrieve the bubbled Crystal Gems

5. Yellow and Blue have a big public diamond showdown

6. we discover that Yellow Diamond has emotions and tears, and feels pressured. shocking. if only the planets she’d colonized had thought to sit her down and chat

7. Yellow decides to join Steven’s side as well

8. they make a plan to escape via the leg-ship

9. White Diamond decides to show up and do her Creepy Act and she lands her big torso on the legs (confirming the obvious theory that the ships act as one big body)

10. Diamond Showdown Part 2, where Yellow and Blue attempt to fight White

11. Bismuth, Lapis, and Peridot return. We see Lapis and Peridot’s new forms.

12. Bismuth has fixed the arm ships and upper-cuts an upper-crust for the first time in her life in a really cool way.

13. Steven manages to say words to White Diamond, and so do Yellow and Blue.

14. White Diamond GREY-IFIES BLUE AND YELLOW DIAMOND

15. which also means we find out exactly what the fuck is wrong with White Pearl (also may I say, this is something I wrote about in my fic, accessible on my AO3, linked in my About)

16. Steven falls dramatically with the gems of his friends in his arms

17. Steven finds out he can (and decides to) retrieve gems from their gems by fusing with them

18. We see Smoky Quartz form mid-air

19. We see Amethyst’s new form

20. Steven fuses with Pearl for the first time ever, and we see Rainbow Quartz 2.0 for the first time

21. We see Pearl’s new form

22. We see what a pink diamond/rose quartz forms with a garnet for the very first time

23. Steven’s own first fusion with Garnet

24. Sunstone attempts to start shit with the giant robot

25. We see Garnet’s new form

26. Bismuth presents the replacement for the Sword of Rose Quartz, as a gift to Connie

27. We see the full-blown temple fusion for the very first time ever

28. Steven has his first fusion with all the Crystal Gems

29. We meet Obsidian and she succeeds in starting shit with the giant robot

30. We see Bismuth, Peridot, Lapis, and Connie all contribute to the fight and survive horrifyingly dangerous scenarios. (still gotta wonder what the HELL Connie’s mom was thinking... she went from not letting her kid watch inaccurate TV shows to letting her nearly die countless times in outer space at the hands of alien dictator robots)

31. let me just add, I <3 Connie and she deserves the world. bravest kid in the universe

32. the Crystal Gems find a way to invade the robot

33. the four main Crystal Gems face up against White Diamond herself and her grey-ified pearl and grey-ified fellow diamonds

34. White reveals a bit to us via villain-monologue that we probably could’ve guessed already: she wants every gem to be flawless, to be identical to her essentially yet subservient- which she considers to be synonymous with flawlessness- and her theory about the way the colors of the diamonds informs their personalities. Including that Pink is part of White, despite White’s dislike of this fact.

35. White grey-ifies the Crystal Gems

36. Connie arrives, also fully ready to fight this bitch

37. the grey-ified Crystal Gems restrain Steven and Connie

38. Steven gets to have that full-fledged conversation he wanted with White, I guess

39. BIGGEST ACTUAL REVEAL OF THE EPISODE: We find out what happens when Steven’s gem is removed from his stomach!!! that’s been a question since episode ONE I think

40. we get to see a Pink Steven and a Human Steven, which is pretty cool. I compare it to what might happen if you got split into What You Got From Your Dad and What You Got From Your Mom

41. this is just my theory, but we find out, I think, that Steven’s general strength in everyday movement comes from diamond strength and that he turns weaker than a baby without it, which makes sense because he’s always had it

42. White Diamond attempts to grey-ify Pink

43. we find out, as Pink Steven so eloquently says, that Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz really, really is gone. she died in childbirth essentially. I think he might someday manage to access her full memories but I don’t think that persona is ever returning

44. we see what Steven’s bubbles/shield would look like in full diamond form

45. the badass scene of Connie CARRYING STEVEN TO HIMSELF?

46. we discover that either Steven is the most special boy ever, or White’s powers are no match for love or some shit

47. we get to see Steven...  fuse with himself?

48. everyone gets un-greyified. Including White Pearl. the white-pearl-is-old-pink-pearl theory is confirmed, though I think it may have been in a flashback in “Familiar” and hinted at during Steven’s flashback at the start of the episode when Blue said “she’ll take away your pearl”

49. we see Steven/Pink’s full empathy powers in play, I think? that’s what happened when he pink-ified the whole group? INCLUDING WHITE?

50. Steven gives White Diamond one of his lightning-round therapy sessions, and she decides to Be Nice Now, Actually

51. that’s right. THERE ARE NO VILLAINS I’M GONNA LOSE MY MIND

52. the ENTIRE GROUP GOES TO EARTH

53. meaning that White leaves Homeworld (and “her own head”) for the first time in eons, according to the other Diamonds anyway

54. we get to see Sadie and the Cool Kids’ new looks. minor I know, but Jenny looks great in a suit!

55. also minor but cool: they’re covering “Let Me Drive My Van Into Your Heart”

56. for the second time in like 2 weeks, Diamond Ships interrupt a townwide Beach City gathering

57. we find out that Beach City is full of fucking idiots who thought that the ship was like, a grand finale to the concert? instead of full-on panicking mayhaps? cause every time this shit happens it usually leads to mayhem?

58. the Off-Colors, coincidentally, finally arrive on Earth at the exact same time

59. Lars meets Lion for the first time as Pink Zombie Brothers

60. Lars and Sadie reunion, in which we also find out that Sadie is like a legendary figure for the Off Colors

61. THE OFF COLORS MEET THE FUCKING DIAMONDS

62. Greg and Steven reunite

63. The Diamonds meet and finally heal the Centipeedles

64. The Diamonds visit Rose’s fountain and get it working as a four-diamond extravaganza event

65. every gem from the temple is brought there to be healed. we see the healing of, I assume, p much every monster we’ve met

66. we get to see the Heaven and Earth Beetle, who are pebbles too, and lesbians!

67. callback to the memories of the four Diamonds having swimming pool time

68. Jasper gets healed and naturally tries to destroy Steven immediately, then looks up to see all three of her diamonds. She and Amethyst get to bond, I guess.

69. Callback to the intro itself with the “We Are the Crystal Gems” song and all the new Crystal Gems chilling on the beach

70. New song, “Change Your Mind” and it’s cute obviously

My feelings on the episode? So besides what I wrote above the list, re: whiplash, I think that from a realistic standpoint and a writing-fantasy standpoint, it is some wild shit. For all three diamonds to achieve a FULL redemption arc in one episode? Too much. For there to be NO villains? Come on. And for the lesson to be, we should just give heartless dictators love and they’ll grow hearts? Worrying.

However, as I reached the end of the episode, I thought about a time in high school when my teacher asked me which superpower I’d want, and then annoyed the class by seeming morally superior by saying he’d want to speak every language. Thinking on it later, I thought- I’d want more than every language. I’d want the ability to TRULY understand others, and to make them TRULY understand me- and each other. Because yes, OF COURSE every conflict can be boiled down to a lack of understanding, a lack of empathy. If we had superhuman empathy on our side, we really could do away with violence. But in the real world, we don’t have superhuman empathy, we just have regular empathy, and some don’t even try to use that. So saying “have a little empathy for your oppressors” is ghoulish.

But Steven DOES have superhuman empathy. In fact, all the Diamonds do. Blue can make others cry, White can make others be identical to her, and Yellow can give others fear and command. And they use it only for evil. But Pink can make others understand. And she had only used it for frivolous things until she finally combined with a non-gem life form. Then, human empathy met superhuman empathy, and did what it had to do. THAT is how Steven defeated the Diamond Reign of Terror.

That being said: I don’t know if the target audience of kids really caught that nuance, considering that the episode went so fucking fast. Additionally: some of that superhuman empathy could’ve been pointed at the legions of crushed, oppressed little gems- which I know it was- but the focus was SO intensely on, like, “poor Yellow never got enough credit for being SO good at imperialism!”

So yeah. Both writing-wise, pacing-wise, plot-wise, message-wise... I did love it, as I do the whole show, but I also thought it could’ve benefited from some space, some criticism, and some better organization down at Cartoon Network’s scheduling department.

Art-wise, well I’m not an animation expert, but Obsidian can get it <3 and I loved the designs for everything.

Character-wise... I’ll have to think on it more.

OK THE END I’M DONE REACTING TO STEVEN UNIVERSE. SHOW’S OVER

#steven universe #su spoilers #change your mind #written by me #this is a mammoth essay that i wrote on the spot. feel free to skip or skim

[emiliaboone]

Fantasy Romance Thoughts: Twilight

Yeah, I went here. I know, I know. But I needed to do it. We all know where this one slots itself in, so here’s my second “bad” fantasy. well, just bad. We know it’s bad.

Who is in love? Bella and Edward How much time? Most of the movie. Happy Ending? Yes Plot Focus? Absolutely. How much lead up? I distinctly remember there being a lot more, but there isn’t! They hang out a lot and they spend a lot of time together but it’s distinctly not romantic until she finds out he’s a vampire. The closest you get to lead up is them having dinner together, but even still theere wasn’t much to work with. It was like going from one date to being totally cool with dating aserial killer. It escalated much more quickly than I remember. Were you into it? Not even when I was a fan of the books did I ship this How was it integrated? This was the plot, it’s a romance movie. He falls in love with her and then has to save her when other vamps come after her. It was integrated in the beinning weirdly tough, because they spent time together and became closer, but there wasn’t a lot of romance, except for a long look when he saves her life the first time and the hand touch. But that’s about it. It’s strange how quickly it escalates. Was it distracting? The romance itself isn’t distracting, because it is the movie, but the movie is also like, ridiculously annoying in the way it goes about the romance, and those moments stic out like a sore thumb. Kiss? Yes Sex? No-that would be unChristian of them. Annoyance Level: 10. So much of this pisses me off. Rating: I want to rate this higher because I remember a time when I liked them, but I think even when I liked twilight I knew this movie was shite, so I’m giving it a 2.  And that’s generous. Thoughts: Full Disclosure, I really liked these books for a while. Didn’t last long, but I did. Lol remember that Parks and rec episode where they watched this movie? Also has a good score. And soundtrack. I legit even had a flute book dedicated to this soundtrack. And it was AWESOME. Charlie is my actual fave. “oh right, one bathroom” is such a weird line. Also the sales lady picked out the bed stuff but what about all the decorations lining the walls? Yeah tones of voice here, so weird. So is this scene, since they used to play together but he introduces himself? Wouldn’t you say “sorry to be weird, but do you remember me?” the convo between the dads is low key the best part of this. Also why’d she ask which one’s the clutch??? Also remember in the books where Eric kind of disappears and is replaced with some dude called Ben? Did they segregate gym class??? Omg Anna Kendrick, sometimes I wonder if she gets to forget about this movie, even she isn’t great in this. “Oh my god Karen you can’t just ask people why they’re white” This laughing thing is like the most cringey thing ever. This whole discussion about the legality of the Cullens’ relationships is so real. I just have to say, Jessica and Angela are the most natural people right now but Bella’s being so WEIRD! Sometimes I wonder how I missed some of this. His reaction to her “scent” is just really hard to watch. LOL OMG HE’S JUST STARING AT HER. Now he’s being unnecessarily rude. This movie has over 40%, but right now I”m just laughing. Wait, why was she in there? Lol “one year”, I totally remember you from years ago while I thought you were someone else. OMG OF COURSE SHE REMEMBERS HER FAVOURITE?? she throws her homework away dramatically while no-one can see her do it then insists she has homework. Why would you ask someone you don’t know why they were gone? And again, why is that weird? And again, sh’es 17, what makes him think it was her choice to move? I mean it was, but why would he know that? And why would she notice his eyes? I have to stop talking. He’s just watching her…saves her life, has his arm around her, long look in each other’s eyes. I LOVE charlie! So her reaction to this is fair. She’s right ttto be suspicious of what happened. But why would she be suspicious of Carlisle? She doesn’t know him, she has no reason to believe something’s up with the family right now…Ok this conversation makes no sense. Again, her reaction to this is warranted. and props to him he’s playing this off so well. But it went from “I know what I saw, you were by your car” to randomly “I know what I saw you stopped the van”. And he just got REAL aggressive. And he was doing so well until then! He could have just kept on the whole denial thing and he wouldve gotten away with it! He distracts her and they super obviously stare at each other. Weirdly natural conversation, he just says “it’s what’s best”, and it go tweird again. “We shouldn’t be friends” what an awkward conversation starter, they don’t need to be friends…Yeah his flip flopping is weird. If you were samrt you’d stay away from me, I definitely would because that’s such a weird thing to say out of the blue. And how would she know he’s not the villain? God what a weird response! She is flirting HARD with him. Like way more than with Edward. Saves her again, scares rapists off with a look that’s definitely not that scary. Nearly running them over immediately would have been much less effective. He’s furious with the guys (obvi) like, violently. Where would she have gone? Why is she so cool with him following her?? “money sex money sex cat” was my favourite thing once. Valid quesiton edward, yeah his dialogue is creepy…She has such a weird reaction to that meet cute hand touch…Wait why were those flashbacks a thing again? Oh, cos he’s dead? Then why was there a closeup on his eye? Dead people don’t have gold eyes…Be real. Anyone else in that situation would NOT assume vampires are real. The way this scene is shot is so weird, it makes me sick. She’s not afraid of him for some reason, she insists he won’t hurt her, even though he actually wnats to kill her, and he wants to protect her but he carries her on his back. Wait, hang on was a romance ever a thing? Why doens’t she care, I thought they were friends? I’ve never noticed it, but this is so random! WHY DO YOU TRUST HIM? You’re literally trapping her? WHY? THIS MAKES NO SENSE??? THEY BARELY KNOW EACH OTHER??/ Is it because like he said that she draws her in? then isn’t it like date rape? What are the rules here? Also shouldn’t you be in school? God there’s so much of this movie left. Bonding over music and awkward dancing, and he takes her for an adventure in the trees. I’m sorry I know this is done to death but this is CREEPY! He’s watching her sleep! They kiss, and she begs him to stay and watch her sleep some more. So I know this scene is nototriously dumb but I actually really like it. Until the other vamps come, except for rosalie, it’s the only scene where everyone seems to be relaxed and not super uptight. The acting (for the most part) doesn’t suck here. He’s incredibly protective of her with the other vamps, they all are. That’s the second time they’ve said “rip them apart and burn the pieces” THEY JUST MET! And on top of that, rosalie was protecting her earlier, now she’s reluctant?? She’s part of the family, she’s his life now, WHY?? He omes to save her, and then sucks the venom out of her to make the pain go away? I guess? What are these images? She freaks out when he tells her to go to Jacksonville, saying  you can’t leave me, we can’t be apart. Why do you already hate each other? You don’t kow about the vamps/werewolves yet…May I remeind everyone, they just met. And she wants to become an actual vampire to be with him forever. And he fakes her out in my least favourite moment.

And there you have it. A terrible review for a terrible movie. If you want to see the actual video version of the rant, you can find that here. Sorry about it, but I needed it. 

#writerblr #writeblr #movie review #twilight #bookblr #authorblr #write #writer #case study #f***ing nobody

[jumping-with-jae]

I JUMPED WITH JAE: My Experience at the Day6 Live and Meet in NYC

Hello! If you read the title right, yes that did happen, but I’ll get to that later. I would have posted this sooner, like right after I got home from the concert, but being a college student in the middle of midterm season, I was too stressed to even get to this until now. But here I am! So without further ado, here is how my night with Day6 went!

So first of all, I got myself a P2 ticket, which means that I didn’t have to get in the line super early for the hi touch since that starts after the concert ends. I still got there by like 4 hehe. Anyway, as soon as I got to the venue, I was already met with familiar faces from the KARD concert in NYC (that I also went to and that was LIT), so I was able to wait at the door because of them. It hasn’t even been 5 minutes since I got there and I’m somehow already on Subkulture’s Twitter, like holy crap they’re fast. Trying finding out who I am from the posts that night heh. While waiting there, I got myself a free banner for the fan project (which went decently from what I saw) as well as some high quality fan made photos of my bias Wonpil for four dollars, and I thought it was a pretty great deal for four dollars!

To whoever made these photos, you are amazing. She made so many more photos of everyone else as well, and they all looked incredible. 

I met some P1 holders in the line as well, and before I knew it, all P1 holders were going in to do their fansigns. What I didn’t expect was for them to come back outside, since they didn’t do that for KARD. What was great about this though was that I could see everyone through the glass door walking out just moments after their fansigns ended, and I saw everything from happy and ecstatic to sobbing and crying, and even to some just looking flat out DEFEATED. Those kinds of reactions make my day even better hehe. On a side note, to the girl in the green sweater with P1, you almost made me cry with your beautiful reaction TT

Some of the fans came prepared to show how dedicated they were, as someone brought a Bob the Builder plushie to support Sungjin and someone even made a We Want Bald Jae 2K17 banner which was HILARIOUS xD

The people around me decided to do some sing alongs to Day6 songs, and before I knew it, I’m in the venue with $100 already spent on merch. (YIKES) Though $60 were from friends, so no, I am thankfully not too bankrupt hehe. Going further into the venue, My friend, who shall be referred to as ‘A,’ and I decided to take pictures of us sitting on the stage with the tour sign and instruments, and even though we got yelled at for doing so, we still got the pictures. Worth it!

An hour later, the concert starts, and I felt even more excited when Day6 came out than for a lot of other Kpop groups and bands. I grew up listening to alternative and pop rock music Paramore and Fall Out Boy, so I already had the familiarity of listening to a band in a concert. But at the same time, I’ve also grown to the familiarity of the Kpop chants, so that’s two in one for me! They all looked beautiful on stage, and they were all very charming, both while they’re performing and just sitting around. Some of my favorite performances of the night included I Smile, Noah, Congratulations, Dance Dance, and Free하게.

Some highlights of the night for me include Wonpil wearing a suit, the majority of the audience not knowing what Sungjin likes, and Jae getting lit during the encore. As one of my friends described it, Wonpil wearing a suit is like a child wearing his father’s suit, which just made it even more adorable to me. I actually can’t get enough of this man, like I need help. (No pictures, sadly) As for Sungjin, during the game, I feel like using Overwatch as the picture for video games baited us so hard, and when Sungjin said he likes sports more than video games, it was just so hilarious looking at almost everyone sitting down because they thought wrong. Though I felt so bad for Sungjin, like I really wanted to just hug him after that.

Now as for Jae, I first have to thank ‘A.’ She found me a spot closer to the stage to sit at, and it was an isle seat so that I could see Dowoon even clearer than before. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be writing about this, so thank you so much ‘A.’ Free하게 was just playing, and all of a sudden I see Jae get off the stage and run straight forward in my direction and all I’m thinking is “BOI WHERE ARE YOU GOING HOLD ON.” He got so close as  he stood on one of the seats across from me and began hyping up the crowd to start jumping, and before I know it, I’m jumping with Jae, who’s like only a few feet away from me, along with the people around me. No words could express how happy I was during that moment like… damn man. You’re amazing, Jae.

One thing I noticed was that halfway through the concert, I realized that I just never look at Dowoon playing the drums. Like I always forget that he’s a part of the band just because he doesn’t sing, and that made me feel really sad. So to compensate, I took a video of mainly him playing the drums for Congratulations, and it was just really nice seeing him in his element playing the drums. He looks really comfortable back there, and it made me happy seeing him just doing his thing.

Something that I also noticed is how RUDE Young K can be. Like he can get into the music like anyone else, but sometimes he’ll just be getting his groove on a little too much and all attention goes straight to his hips. Don’t you dare do this to us Young K! I don’t have any videos of this, since he kinda does it really sparingly. (And tastefully too hehe)

I honestly am trying to think about other things that have happened during the concert, but they’re all in this happy and beautiful blur, so if I missed anything else that would be a disgrace to forget, 미안해요 ㅠㅠ

So the concert ended, which means that I’m now waiting to do the hi touch. One of my friends wanted me to record her doing her hi touch and she said she’d do the same for me, but the thing that I thought was that if it was anything like the SVT concert in NYC, you would literally cut a random corner and all of a sudden you’d see the members. And that’s exactly what happened! Like stop giving us heart attacks! I was pretty much as shook seeing Young K first after cutting the corner like how I was shook seeing freaking Minghao first in line for SVT’s hi touch. The staff wanted us to go at a pretty fast rate, as seen by the Day6 members just holding their hands out, not looking to grasp your hands for longer than two seconds. The order btw was Young K, Dowoon, Jae, Wonpil, and Sungjin. So besides just saying “Hi [insert Day6 member’s name],” I tried adding personalized statements like “You’re so amazing Young K,” “You’re so cool Dowoon,” and “You were so lit Jae.” I did say all those things and they just smiled and nodded their heads, and then I get to Wonpil and things already feel a little different LOL. Like everyone else including Sungjin is like leaning in towards the table to get to eye level of their fans to say hi and high five them, and then you have freaking Wonpil who’s standing a little further back, and he’s also puckering his lips inwards, squinting his eyes a little, and doing this kind of nod that could translate to something like, “Yes I know, I know I am.” The most adorable man in the world like I actually can’t even. I didn’t personalize anything for Wonpil as a result of that shock, and then I ended up doing finger guns to Sungjin?? Cute, heh. All of that took like seven seconds, like I even said to myself “Wait can I do that again?” But yeah that was that, and like any other hi touch, I wish it lasted a little longer.

I thought I was gonna go home right after that, but then I notice the van that Day6 would be leaving in, so I decide to wait around there until they came out. The wait took nearly an hour, but the experience was more frustrating for me in the end, just because the van decides to move after the long wait, and ten seconds after that, you hear the fans at the other side of the venue scream for Day6 one last time. No, I didn’t see them there. Sad? Yeah. The screams lasted like ten seconds at most, so I assume the members just walked out, maybe gave a wave or two, then rushed into the van. I thought I’d go home in some disappointment, but one last thing actually happens as I walk back to the train station. As I cross the street, I notice a van that was “very similar” to the van the Day6 got in, and me obviously being very curious, I take a peep through the windshield and believe to see Dowoon’s silhouette. I was kinda just looking in disbelief, like “that’s no way that could be Day6′s van, but what if it is?” Because I’m a little too considerate, I end up not saying anything to the van and just look at the van in pure confusion for the next twenty seconds before they went off. Assuming it was actually Day6′s van, I wonder if, one, they actually acknowledged my existence, and two, if they recognized me from the concert. I’m pretty different from a lot of the people that went to the concert for ‘one main reason,’ so I think there’s a good chance that assuming it was them, they did. I’ll leave a picture here to ponder over.

But yeah, that’s how my night went. I took the train with some friends, slept, went to class, and went back to the rough school life. It really was one of the best concerts that I went to, like it’s at least in my Top 3. I could argue that there were some downs in the night, like how I didn’t personalize anything to Wonpil or say anything to the van, but I’m not sad about any of it really. I enjoyed my night with great friends with one of my favorite groups. It was a good night~

If you got this far, thanks for reading my ramble! I could probably talk about so many more things, but I can’t think of anything else right now, and I am also super exhausted. So I guess until the next one! Thanks again~

#day6 #day6innyc #day6inna2017 #day6 live and meet #jae #sungjin #youngk #young k #wonpil #dowoon

[dfnews]

Episode Recap of "Spud's First Birthday".

Season 4, Episode 3 - June 19, 2017

"Spud's first birthday brings the family together for a celebration. Meanwhile, Joy and Austin work on a house-flipping project; and in Laredo, things heat up in the kitchen with Jinger and Jeremy."

That line about things heating up between JinJer is quite racy. We could only hope TLC would air something like that. They would rather stick with coma inducing content instead.

1. And the coma begins. The show opens up with recently wed JinJer sitting at home talking about going grocery shopping. At the store they look at food. Cheese excites Jeremy to no end. Jinger says she loves living in Laredo and that she'll need to learn Spanish. I hope she has better luck than Jill. Back at home Jin is sent to work in the kitchen as Jer moves Duggar bought furniture so he can workout. Jeremy's parents bought him dumbbells as a wedding present. How romantic.Maybe that gift represents the family he married into. Jinger needs to do the prisoner thing and use them to build up her muscles so she can fight off unwanted sexual contact and bust out of that hell hole. I'm referring to the cult not Laredo. When asked about what his life will be in a year, Jeremy states pretty much what he's doing now. When asked about five years, he mentions starting a family within the next five years and Jinger grins. So, do they now believe in using birth control which is against God's will? (According to the Duggars.) Are they sinners in the eyes of the Godbobber or just blowing smoke out of their butts by pretending to not be babymaking machines? I guess we'll have to wait and see.

2. A visit to Benessa's house is next which ends up crawling with children to help snap me out of my coma. Just slightly. Anna and Jill arrive with their kids to go to a consignment sale. They take footprints of the kids and measure their inseams like old Jewish tailors. As the kids overwhelm the tiny house Benessa talk again about buying a bigger home so they can foster and adopt. The Godbobber has a bunch of homes. Even Jason bought a home. What's holding up Benessa? If they do adopt I bet it will be an older girl so Jessa can check out like her mom.

3. Joystin are working on a house to flip. Don't worry, Austin's dad is chaperoning and Austin is looking out for the best interests of Joy's thumbs with the buzz saw. After this fifth house is flipped, Austin will be allowed to ask Joy's daddy to allow Joy to marry him. That was the deal he made with his dad and he's sticking to it. Joy and Austin look comfortable hanging around with each other as they work. Marriage will change that. Joy will become a babe swooning, stuck in the kitchen, perpetually pregnant house slave. This scene ends with a love note written to Austin by Joy on the old linoleum as seen in the picture. She actually writes I <3 U!!! Isn't that giving away a piece of your heart which Duggar girls are banned from doing? And who's Ethyl?

4. Back to the girls and kids. There is a little time-line fibbing here because Jessa earlier said she was 7 months pregnant which would have meant this was filmed in November or December but Jessa is much smaller in these shopping scenes and it's obviously still summer or early fall. Someone said this sale happened in September. When did DerJill get back from their phony missioning? Also Jill wouldn't have been pregnant in September. So take this episode's time-line with a grain of salt as with most episodes. The girls "wisely" took the kids shopping when they are tired and cranky. For some stupid reason, Anna is carrying around a baby and a ton of clothes. Doesn't this stupid store have shopping carts? Markie ends up falling and gashing his head on something and Anna has no hands free to help him. She somehow dumps Meri and the clothing somewhere and is then seen rushing out of the store with Markie. No blood was shown in this episode. They enjoy looping puking scenes but in this case they were sensitive about blood.  Anna later worried that she came off as nervous and upset during the accident. She has been guilted into hiding her emotions in every way for every reason. That poor woman is going to eventually have a break down. Jill left with Anna and Markie for the hospital leaving Jessa with Mackie, Mikey, Meri, Izzy and Spudinsky, oh, and a full tv crew to help. She buys a bunch of stuff and loads them all into a van. I hope she had enough appropriate car seats. LOL! Like the Duggars even care about that.  Back at the compound Markie comes home with his head entirely wrapped up in bandages. How big was this cut? He looks like he just went through brain surgery. Another successful Duggar shopping trip.

5. A few month later at the compound, Joy is rounding up annoyed looking kids for a meeting. Spud's birthday is early November but the Duggars already have their Christmas decor out. Joy explains his party is belated due to the rude marriage of Jinger and Jeremy on Spud's birthday.  Joy talks about her duties in the house since Jinger was evicted and her mother apparently passed away. She's in charge of the little girls' hair, and I'm sure more, keeping the house clean, doing the laundry, typing up frivolous lawsuits to keep the money coming in, and now Jessa has put her in charge of her child's first birthday party. Joy needs to acquire some weights in order to break out of her own prison. Joy takes six of the kids out shopping to buy cake and other supplies. I wonder if the Duggars know they can order groceries and have them delivered now instead of trying to convince the girls they love shopping. A little less brainwashing is good for any family.

6. Back at the compound Joy is barking out orders and rushing about to make a special birthday for a 13 month old. Why such a big deal for a 1st birthday? I don't think it would have been if it wasn't being filmed. I have no photos of me on my 1st birthday. My parents probably didn't do anything since I was too little to care and my mom was seven months pregnant at the time and my older sister had just been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. I completely forgive them.  I held a small party for my foster child's first birthday with just a few grown-up friends and a small cake I made which he didn't eat. He didn't eat because he and I developed a horrible tummy bug the next day. Ahhh, fun memories. Joy decorates the house and hopes nothing goes wrong for the birthday. Life is full of surprises, Joy. Take my advise. Just hope you have a happy baby for the day who doesn't puke all over you. That's all you can ask for.

7. Why didn't they just buy sorbet instead of making it? Why do they constantly make their lives harder than necessary? Michelle is resurrected to assist in making the sorbet. I'm sure she'll quickly disappear again when some laundry needs to be done of the kids track mud into the house. Ben's family is visiting for the party. They announce they have moved from Hot Springs to Little Rock. I wonder why? Maybe Ben's dad finally got a job. They talk about how Spud is growing and Ben loves how he is beginning to talk. When Spud wakes up in the morning he looks at Ben and says, "Cracker?" Yes, Spud. Your dad is a cracker. We've known that for awhile. The tons of guests arrive at the compound for the party. Derick walks in and looks skeletal. His clothes hang on him. He still has the man bun. They talk about returning to El Salvador soon but I think he needs a hospital stay first. Trust me. He's going to end up in the hospital eventually. Hopefully it will be in the States.

8. Spud gets his smash cake which ended up nearly as well as my foster child's party. He refused to eat it and then threw up on himself. Kind of like uncle Derick too! They video chat with JinJer and the Godbobber shows up to take photos. Josh and his family are nowhere to be seen. The boys have talking heads where the Three Stooges are mentioned though they could only name two stooges. Now where did they learn something so worldly as the Three Stooges? I always get a little freaked out when a Duggar attempts to step out into my world. Shooo! Get back into your bubble! Outside, the bigger kids are going all howler monkey on an inflatable jump house. I've worked with kids for many hundreds of decades and I've never seen kids out to destroy a jump house like this Duggar bunch. I hope they bought it and it wasn't rented.

I'm starting a new feature with this recap called,   What Did We Learn This Week?

1. We learned that cheese excites Jeremy so much that the Vuolos are going to name their children after cheeses. Velveeta Vuolo is a pretty name.

2. We learned that Ethyl and Joy Duggar <3 Austin. I'm Counting On sister wives.  

3. We learned that sorbet can get Michelle to come back to life. Powerful stuff!

4. And we learned that the Duggar kids, when left unsupervised with inflatable toys, can be as destructive as a man preaching family values as he surfs the web for hookers.

[frxggi]

Late Night Confessions

Sighs this didn’t turn out how I wanted it to  Tbh if i see chan getting into this sort of situation, mature and calm is like the exact opposite of how i think he’d behave He’s still young and so full of life so i feel like he’d let his emotions get in the way of handling this sort of thing so i kind of tried to have him act a bit more cooly but also still kind of ????? like how he usually is   srry if this isn’t exactly what u asked for but i did my best lol  Genre: Fluff i guess? Maybe angst not really actually  Word count: 2898  As always constructive criticism is always welcome thank u and goodnight  Also I wrote this on mobile so sorry if it’s kind of fucky ill edit later when im on my computer 

Sneakers squeak against laminate floors, heavy pants of exhaustion accompany loud music as you twist and turn and move your body to the song that’s been on loop for hours. The choreography that’s been drilled into your brain is now muscle memory as you finish out the song, your hair falling in your face. You raise your arms triumphantly, a shout of excitement leaving you as you bounce on your heels. This is the first time you’ve performed the song without messing up. Your other members groan and whine, their legs like jelly as they clamber over to sit down on the couch the company had only just put in the practice room. “Y/N, come sit next to me!” Hana, your rapper counterpart waves you over. You squeeze into the small space next to her and she casually drapes her arm around you, her phone held in front of her as she excitedly presses play on a new video she’s been wanting to show you. The visuals are beautiful, but the murmurs from the other girls overpower the volume emitted from the phone’s speaker. The video is nearly over when the door to to the practice room is kicked open. You and the other girls immediately get off the couch. The seven of you must have collectively forgotten that Victon, your seniors by a year, was scheduled for practice directly after your group. Subin announces his presence with a loud yawn as he stomps into the room. His hair is disheveled and there’s slight bags under his eyes. You guess he must have just woken up from a nap. The girls began to apologize for overstaying after they all give a quick greeting and file out of the practice room one by one. You, being the leader, have to stay behind and make sure everything was left as it was before you and the rest of the girls had arrived hours earlier.

Seungwoo enters last, his newly dyed gray hair pushed back haphazardly into a beanie. He’s dressed in black jeans and a white t-shirt that’s maybe a few sizes too big so it hangs lower on his shoulders and you can see a peek of his collar bone. He greets you with a wave and a warm smile. You return the gesture and then return to the task of cleaning your things.

“Y/N,” A cheerful voice begins. It’s Chan, rocking on his toes and a devilish grin on his face.

“Oh, hi. Am I in your way?” You ask, motioning to lift your bag but finding it stuck on the leg of a chair.

“No. I was just wondering what your schedule is like for next week.”

“We have a fanmeet on Tuesday, and tons of other stuff. I think I’m all booked.” You reply, bending down to free the strap of your bag.

“Ah, how unfair.” Chan juts his lower lip out in a pout, sniffing in an attempt to mimic crying before he’s back to his normal attitude. You laugh at his gesture.

Seungwoo watches the two of you casually out of the corner of his eye.

“We’re going to dinner to celebrate our first win. You and the rest of the girls are invited! Pleeeeeaaaassseee try to come?” Chan has his palms pressed together, held against his lips as if praying as he fixes you with a gaze you’re positive no girl can resist. You grumble.

“It’s not up to me to rearrange our schedule, but I’ll ask our manager if it’s possible.” His face lights up, and you wag a scolding finger in front of him before he can speak up. “BUT, no promises.”

Chan takes it in stride, and he’s waving a fist triumphantly as Subin beckons him away from you. Seungwoo takes this opportunity to speak next, catching you as you make your way out the door. “Stay safe out there, Y/N. The weather has been really unpredictable lately.”

“Ah, the dorms aren’t far from here. I should be fine; you don’t need to worry.” Throughout the course of your training, Seungwoo found himself taking you under his wing, so to speak. He’s helped a lot with your debut, even composing a song off of your album. It’s your favorite song. That being said, you and a few of your other members became fast friends with the boys; Seungwoo especially, so it’s no surprise that he worries about you.

You bid your goodbye as you zip up your coat, and Seungwoo stops you yet again. “Oh! Good luck at your fanmeet! You’ll have to tell me about it next time we see each other.” You nod, returning the smile he gives you before slipping out the door. You don’t catch that he’s staring at you as you leave. He doesn’t catch that Chan watches the interaction with a hint of distaste.

Tuesday morning rolls around and you’re the first one awake. Were it any other occasion, you’d take every opportunity to sleep while you can; your group had debuted not too long ago, and you’re busy with promotions, so you don’t get much time to rest. You’re showered and dressed before any of the other girls even wake up. Cooking would make too much noise, so you opt for eating a few boiled eggs from the fridge and a yogurt drink. Hana is the next one to wake, and she stumbles out into the kitchen of the large dorm (more like apartment) you share with the rest of your group. She’s lazily rubbing the sleep from her eyes and does a double take when she sees you leaned against the counter, chewing on your breakfast.

“You’re up early,” She observes. “Like, really early.” Hana has been dubbed the early bird of the group since you were trainees, so it’s to be expected that she rouses before everyone else.

“I had a restless night.” You respond through a bite of egg whites.

Hana sets out to grabbing dishes from the cupboards, presumably to get started on making breakfast. She’s younger than you by three years, but she admittedly has leagues more experience than you in the kitchen. You chalk it up to her being the only girl among her family; two younger brothers couldn’t possibly cook for themselves.

“Are you nervous for today?” She asks as if reading your mind.

“Not nervous, just excited.”

She fixes you with a knowing look.

“Maybe a little nervous.” You admit sheepishly. You can hear the soft patter of bare feet against hardwood flooring, but the footsteps never make it to the kitchen. A few moments later you hear running water; the youngest must be awake and taking her shower. You offer to help Hana with preparing a meal for everyone, and she accepts your generosity, but doesn’t have you do much as far as handling the food is concerned.

By now the rest of your members are awake and three of them are settled on the sectional, watching the morning news. The food is finished, and Hana encourages everyone to help themselves. You only eat a small portion, sitting cross legged on the chair at the kitchen table and Hana sits across from you, stuffing a spoonful of rice into her mouth. You finish off your food and it’s only a few hours before the rest of the members are ready. Before long, you and the others are stacked into a large van, headed to your destination.

Voices of hundreds of people talk amongst and above one another, and your smile stretches from ear to ear as you greet your fans. You hadn’t expected such a large turnout, given that this is your first fanmeet, but you were pleasantly surprised when you walked onto the stage to see the place was packed full of excited fans. You receive a number of gifts and pout when a staff member shews each fan away after only a few brief moments. You’re having fun and you’re happy and laughing and shining and before you know it the fanmeet is nearly over. Your nerves begin to act up again. The reason why you’d been so nervous to begin with is because at your first fanmeet you’re going to perform your first self composed song, especially for your fans. You announce that you have a song to perform as a thank you to everyone who showed up, and a staff member hands you a guitar. It’s your first time doing something like this, and you begin to second guess the quality of lyrics to a song you were so confident about in the days prior. Your fingers shake lightly and it takes you a beat then two to gain your composure. You begin to strum and pick at the guitar strings softly, your voice echoing out in the room that had gone silent. You sing a simple but sweet story, telling the tale of a girl who’s fallen in love with a boy but can’t bring herself to tell him out of fear of rejection. Instead she opts for a friendship, preferring that rather than having the boy disappear from her life completely. It’s a story that strikes all too close to home, and as you sing you think of warm brown eyes and a bright smile and your heart skips a beat. The song ends and the fans erupt into cheers and applause. You politely bow and offer them thanks before you’re being ushered off the stage.

You’re buzzing with energy as you file into the car, now on your way to practice. The fans love your song, and it boosts your self confidence and you’re excited to write more in the future. You’re cheerfully chatting away when you feel a tap on your shoulder. You look behind you to see Hana handing her phone to you.

“Chan wants to talk to you.” She informs, and you take the phone from her, holding it up to your ear. “Hey! Your phone is off, so I couldn’t get a hold of you.” Chan chirps.

“Yeah, sorry, I didn’t charge it last night so it died.” “That’s fine, that’s not why I’m calling.” He says. You say nothing, which prompts him to continue.

“Did you talk to your manager yet? Can you come to dinner with us?” He questions hopefully. “Ah, yeah, I asked about it this morning. We aren’t busy on Friday. I don’t know when you plan to go out but-” “Friday works! If you’re free Friday then we’ll do it Friday.” Chan interrupts, adamant on your group coming to dinner with them. “Okay, I’ll tell the girls.” “Okay, cool! I have to get back to practice now, bye Y/N!” The call ends before you can get in a response.

It’s Saturday evening, and you’re dressed in your casual attire. It’s still cold out this time of year, so you grab a jacket and shrug it over your shoulders before heading out. When you arrive to the restaurant Chan envelopes you in a hug, ignoring the staff members protests. You return the gesture and make your way over to Seungwoo, where he greets you with a hug of his own. You tell him that you wore a jacket specifically for him, knowing that he’d have complained otherwise. He laughs and allows you to lead the way into the building. The party takes up four tables, all pushed together to seat 14 people. Hana sits on your right with Seungwoo to your left. Heochan sits across from you, between Subin and Sejun while Byungchan, Hanse, and Seungsik all gather at the opposite end of the table. Your peers all talk and laugh among themselves and you’re listening to a childhood story of Sejun’s. Hana sits idly scrolling through her phone as you all wait for the food to be served. It’s when you’re all speaking about everything and nothing at the same time when Hana interrupts. “Oh! Check this out! Someone at the fanmeet recorded your performance, Y/N!” She excitedly shoves the phone in your face, and you take it from her, holding it out over the table so the others can see. Chan leans over the table, trying to get a better view. The video finishes and you hear ooh’s and ahh’s from the boys, your cheeks heating up a degree at the praise.

“That was really good, Y/N. You wrote it yourself?” Seungwoo questions, impressed by your work.

“She wrote it about the boy she likes.” Your youngest member interjects from besides Subin. This peaks the interest of both Chan and Seungwoo. “Oh?” Chan pipes in quizzically, his lips turning up into a smirk. “Does Y/N have a crush?” He teases from across the table. You kick him in the shin. “Why, it’s not like it’d be about any of you guys.” You scoff, sticking your tongue out to mock him. “Don’t say that, Y/N, y’know Chan’s practically in love with you.” Hanse pipes up. It’s true. From the moment you met Chan took a particular liking to you. At first, his affection started out as a joke, brought on by Subin, poking fun at how he always seemed to gravitate towards you whenever you were around. Eventually, Chan had told you that he actually had feelings for you. Of course, you couldn’t return them, much to his chagrin, but he didn’t seem to let your rejection get in the way of your friendship. “Yeah,” Chan starts, playing into the humor of the situation. “Y/N, you don’t have to hide that the song is about me.” “What if it’s about me?” Seungwoo takes his turn to speak, a smile playing on his lips but it looks unnatural on him, forced. No one else seems to notice. Your cheeks are red from embarrassment, the boys unrelenting in their antics. “Why would it matter if it’s about you? You don’t even like her.” Chan defends, shooting a halfhearted glare to his leader.

“You don’t know that! I like Y/N plenty. I might even say I have a crush on her.” Seungwoo counters, and you groan.

“Will you two stop, oh my God!” The words fall on deaf ears though, and they don’t pay you any mind. “Doesn’t matter, she totally likes me!” Chan argues. “Yeah? What if she likes me more?” Says Seungwoo.

“Looks like you two are going to have to fight to the death.” Subin says, feigning awe. “Or, you could just do rock paper scissors!” Hana adds. “Great idea!” Says Chan, and Seungwoo holds out his closed fist, ready for a match. The two duke it out, and on the first round, Chan loses. “Best two out of three!” He exclaims, refusing to back down. A fire in his spirit, Chan and Seungwoo throw their hands out once more, and this time, Chan is victorious. He wins the final round too, and points a finger in Seungwoo’s face while laughing. “Hell yes! I win! Now she’s my girl!” You shake your head. “I’m not anyone’s girl! The song isn’t about either of you guys, so shut it before I explode!” You shout, crossing your arms indignantly. The action seems to settle the two boys. Thankfully, that’s the last you hear of the topic throughout the night. Dinner goes on as if the two hadn’t been involved in a rock paper scissors death battle. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. It’s late, well after midnight when you finally make the journey  back to the dorms. You’re exhausted as you wash your face of your makeup, after the other girls have all gone to sleep. You quickly change into some sleepwear and crawl into bed. As you’re plugging your phone onto its charger you get a message. 12:26 Seungwoo: Hey, are you up? 12:26 You: I’m just about to head to bed. Why, what do you need? 12:27 Seungwoo: I just wanted to apologize for earlier. I think Chan and I sort of stepped out of line.

12:28 You: Don’t worry about it. Chan has been trying to sweep me off my feet for ages now.

12:36 Seungwoo: Can I tell you a secret?

12:36

You: I’m just about to fall asleep, but go ahead.

12:37

Seungwoo: I wasn’t joking.

12:37

Seungwoo: When I said I liked you.

Your eyes widen and you do a double take. You can’t believe what you’re seeing. Your heart soars but almost immediately you begin to question the legitimacy of his words.

12:38

You: Really?

12:38

Seungwoo: Yes, really. You don’t have to do anything about it. I just wanted you to know.

12:38

Seungwoo: I hope this doesn’t ruin our friendship.

You beam at the screen, the light from your phone illuminating your dusty pink cheeks.

12:39

You: Don’t worry, it won’t ruin anything.

12:39

You: Now can I tell you a secret?

12:40

Seungwoo: What is it?

You take a few minutes to type out a response, giggling to yourself as you roll back in your bed. You type out a message and throw your phone to the end of your bed to stop yourself from staying awake all night. Though, given the information you just learned you’re positive you’ll have yet another restless night.

12:40

You: The song really was about you.

#o my sweet prince seungu #i yearn for the day when u find ur perfect girl #im actually more biased towards chan so it kind of hurt me 2 give him the ass end of the stick in this scenario #Also for my sake pretend he still has silver hair a year down the line lol #victon #victon scenario #seungwoo #seungwoo scenarios #O wait maybe it should be #han seungwoo scenario #just in case #i mean hes the only seungwoo i know in any group but ik hes not the only 1 so #froggi writes

[kayleygoestolondon]

The Great European Adventure

Warning: buckle up and hold onto your butts because this is going to be a long one, folks. I haven’t done an update since mid-February, so I need to write about a few of my London adventures before I dive into my Easter vacation. 

February/March:

I participated in the March 4 Women, which is a celebration tied to International Women’s Day. There were thousands of women there and the rally included some famous women who came to speak about gender equality. It was an awesome experience, despite the typical London rain, and I even made it into a Buzzfeed article about the event. I’m proper famous now. Have a game of “Where’s Kayley” if you wanna waste a few minutes and see all the hilarious signs from the march. 

I attended two live tapings of QI, which is a British quiz show that I became obsessed with after moving here. It used to be hosted by Stephen Fry, but he was replaced a couple years ago by Sandi Toksvig, who I’m also obsessed with. The show is hysterically funny and has lots of great celebrity guests. A friend and I got free tickets to be part of the studio audience so we went to two different episode tapings. It was a really cool way to spend an evening and something I never would have been able to do if I didn’t live in London. I’m now impatiently waiting for the episodes to be released next season so I can see if my cackle-laugh is distinguishable in the audience. 

England is entirely incapable of handling any snow at all, so when the “Beast from the East” (lol), also known as “Snowmaggedon” (even bigger lol) happened in February, my school was closed for TWO DAYS. I was housebound for four days as the country had a collective nervous breakdown over what was basically three snowflakes and some chilly wind. 

I went to see School of Rock on the West End, which was a great show. I love the film, and even without Jack Black the theatrical version was pretty awesome. Still waiting to see Matilda and Aladdin!

Still surviving the mad preparation for SATs at school. I go back to work tomorrow, and we’ll officially only have four more weeks until the exams. At this point, I can’t wait to get them over with because I’m so sick of administering and marking practice tests. I’m optimistic that my students will do well, but there is a massive amount of pressure on them to succeed, so I’ve got my fingers crossed. 

Now, onto my great European vacation. I went to 5 different countries in less than two weeks, which was overly ambitious, but I made it back in one piece (albeit significantly poorer). 

SWEDEN:

I flew into Copenhagen and took the train into Lund, Sweden, where Carina and her family picked me up. Back in 1990, my grandparents hosted an exchange student from Sweden who lived with them for a year. That was Carina. Ever since then, they’ve kept in touch. Last summer, Carina, her husband, and her two daughters came out to Canada to stay with my grandparents for a few weeks and tour the country. I got to meet them all for the first time, and since then I have been hoping to go and visit them in Sweden. I was with them for Easter weekend and they were the most amazing hosts. I was definitely spoiled - the Easter bunny even found me while I was there :) We went into Malmo, which is one of the bigger cities in Sweden, and also went to the seaside. The weather was horrifically cold while I was there... obviously not compared to Canada, but compared to what I’ve been used to, I nearly froze to death. It was a lovely weekend and it was really nice to spend a holiday with family. I tried some traditional Swedish things, like herring (which I enjoyed) and schnapps (which I did not). Linn and Klara attempted to teach me some Swedish, of which I can only remember the words for “dog” and “puppy”... so I’m basically a linguistic prodigy. 

DENMARK:

I took the train back into Copenhagen on Monday the 2nd. It was cold, but thankfully the sun was shining. I did a walking tour around the city and learned a lot about Danish history. The harbour there was especially beautiful. After the tour, I went on my own and found the famous “Little Mermaid” statue. I knew in advance it was going to be a massive letdown... which it was. It’s tiny and covered in graffiti. Great job on your major tourist attractions, Copenhagen. I also had a famous Danish hotdog and obviously for me that was a key moment of the day. The next morning, I went and checked out their National Museum before catching my flight to Amsterdam. Overall, I loved Denmark and Sweden. The Scandinavian countries are incredibly expensive, but really beautiful and welcoming. I was so enamoured with all of their colourful buildings. 

NETHERLANDS:

When I landed in Amsterdam, I met up with my friend Robyn at our AirBnB. She’s a Canadian teacher working in London too, and we did the rest of the trip together. Our first night in the city, we went for dinner at a fondue restaurant next to the place we were staying in, and I ate way too much bread and truffle cheese. Just kidding... there’s no such thing as too much bread or cheese. The following day, we went on a walking tour, went to the Anne Frank House, and then ended the day with a tour of the Heineken Brewery and dinner. It was an amazing day. The Anne Frank House was a pretty powerful and moving experience. 

The second day, we did a trip out to the Keukenhof Flower Gardens. I have never taken so many photos of tulips in my life. We finished the day with a canal cruise around the city. Our last day, we visited the Van Gogh Museum before getting on the train to Bruges. Van Gogh is one of my favourite artists of all time... the only thing that was missing was Starry Night :(

BRUGES:

Out of all the cities I’ve visited in Europe, Bruges is among the top 5. I found it very similar to Prague in terms of medieval charm. Bruges was never bombed or destroyed during the World Wars, so most of its buildings are original. We also finally had some nice weather, so that helped. We did another walking tour (our standard first activity in any city), checked out some markets and shops, and went to the Chocolate Museum. Yes, there is an actual Chocolate Museum in Bruges, and yes, it is as delicious as it sounds. It’s almost possible that I ate too much chocolate that day... almost. Our second day, we climbed up to the top of the Belfry (366 steps!) and got an amazing view of the city. It was cool to see how the bells worked, even though being right beside them when they ring is enough to blow out your eardrums. Then we rented bikes and did the Windmill Path around the outside of the city. We biked out of Bruges and into a nearby village called Damme. It was gorgeous, and I didn’t fall off my bike, so that was a solid day. 

VIMY (FRANCE):

That evening, after our biking, we hopped on a train to make our way to Arras, France. The idea was to get to Arras so that we could go to the Vimy Memorial the next morning. We made it as far as Lille, where we were supposed to catch a connecting train, before we ran into our first obstacle. There was a train strike going on in France, which meant our train to Arras was cancelled. As were all other trains. So at 8 PM on a Sunday night, we found ourselves stranded in the Lille train station. We tried to rent a car, but all they had was a manual, which neither Robyn nor I could drive, so we were forced to find a crappy hotel room in Lille. On the walk there, a group of street children tried to pickpocket us. Not a great first impression of France. In the end, I guess the important thing is that we were safe and we didn’t lose anything important. We had to spend a bunch of extra money on renting a car the next morning to get us to Vimy, but it was more than worth it. The day we were at the memorial was actually Vimy Day, so there was a special ceremony. It rained (of course), but we still went and explored the Canadian cemeteries and the reconstructed trenches and tunnels. I have never been more proud of being Canadian, and it was so humbling to see the way our military contributions are still honoured in France. 

BRUSSELS:

The last stop in our trip. Brussels was interesting, but not nearly as beautiful or charming as Bruges. We did a walking tour, got rained on (classic), and had an awesome dinner before trying out some Belgian beers. Belgium is very proud of their beers - almost as much as their chocolate - so it seemed only appropriate that I have a few on my last night there. I also had a waffle or two :)

ONWARD:

Tomorrow is my first day back at work in more than two weeks. I’m mostly ready to get back into a routine, but more importantly, ready to earn a paycheque again. I loved my trip, but I’m also happy to be home. It’s weird how much London feels like “home” now. At the moment, I don’t have any upcoming trips planned besides going back to Canada in August. I can’t wait!! The countdown is on.