#ill try to finish the next part by next week cuz this is only part one of this episode! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

tastyykpop · 3 years

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𝑆𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝐶𝑜𝑟𝑟𝑢𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛-ρ† 2

Pairings: enemy, student, barista!jaemin x student, barista!reader, (very small) taemin x reader

Suggestive, slight angst (you have to squint), fluff

<previous- next>

Warnings: dom!jaemin, brat!reader, brat taming kinda, possessiveness, degradation, praise, thigh riding, choking a lot, pet names, jealousy

a/n : here we go again👨‍🦯

"Is it true? Her and jaemin?" Students whispered amongst themselves and thats all you heard today, wondering why they were even talking about you and him. It was strange really, jaemin was nicer and there were very little pranks and even then, they weren't as bad as what they used to be.

"Y/n! Oh my god I can't believe it!" Yeri jumped with a smile plastered on her face, "Are you and jaemin together?"

You twisted your face in confusion. Is that what people think? "What!? No! Where did you even get that from?" You questioned.

Yeri smirked and leaned closer, "I heard from jeno that you both fucked." She leaned back, "is that true?"

"I- well thats not entirely wrong but what does that have to do with him and I dating?"

"Jaemins been nicer with you and there's rarely ever pranks. I mean, anyone with a brain could tell that something is up." Yeri pointed out. She raised an eyebrow as you glanced around, making sure no one can hear you.

"Okay yes me and jaemin did have sex, but seriously we aren't dating. And I'm just as shocked as you about the way he's acting." You whisper-yelled at your friend. She mouth fell into an 'o' shape as she nodded, then attempted to walk away until you grabbed and brought her back, "wait im missing something." You squinted, "please dont tell me everyone in the school knows."

"Okay I wont." She shrugged and tried to walk away again but your hand gripped her arm tighter, "Ow, did you get stronger?"

"Yeri I'm serious! No one was supposed to know and now everyone knows!" You slowly let go of her and stared at the ground, "i swear Im gonna kill that boy!"

Yeri snickered and patted your shoulder, "Dont you mean fuck him?"

"YERI!!"

Order after order, customer after customer, you began to wear down after a hard days work. Irene stayed for a bit at yours and jaemins station to help since it was so busy. And it still wasn't fast enough for all the orders that just kept coming. It felt like you weren't going to finish and the shop closed at 8:30, it was currently 8:17.

"Ugh why is there so many orders at this time?" Irene groaned from exhaustion, jaemin snickered.

"Just be happy we get payed after this." He said and you all agreed.

Everything seemed to suddenly slow down at the cafe as it was beginning to close. Only a few orders were actually left and after that, you could close.

Irene and jaemin cleaned up the stations. Of course Irene left first afterwards, and you counted the money at the register. And since youve been working here for almost 2 years, counting money was just as easy as walking. But since its been super busy today, it took you a while to count some of the coins. Only once while you counted did you mess up, but you brushed it away and started again.

"Can you be any slower?" Jaemin commented, having just finished his part.

Putting the money away after counting, you put your hands on your hips like a mom scolding her child, "Whats the hurry all of a sudden?"

He only giggled and ruffled your already messy hair, "I wanna spend time with my baby."

You tried your hardest not to blush.

"No way." You swatted his hand off your head.

"And why not?" He quirked an eyebrow as you and him walked to an empty table in the cafe.

"Cuz you told jeno what we did last night and now the whole school knows. I'm kinda mad at you right now." Groaning, you hid your head in your arms trying to avoid his gaze.

You couldnt see him, but you heard the sigh and knew he was pouting at you, buy you didn't bother looking up.

"Why can't I brag about how good you were?" Jaemin questions, leaving you to groan louder.

"This isnt what I wanted..."

The boy shifted in his seat and pulled your head out your arms, his hands holding the side of your cheeks, "then what did you want?"

Your cheeks puffed as you tried to find the right words, "...to not have done what we did last night."

"So you regret it?"

You shrugged.

Jaemin leaned back and stared at you with a cold face. He has a hint as to why youre now suddenly saying this, not only because of him telling his friends, but also because of his past with you. If he wasnt pranking you, he was making fun of you, if it wasn't that, he'd make you flustered with his words or actions. Jaemin was annoying, yes, but your reactions were priceless to him. You got annoyed by jaemin and you hated him. He didnt blame you even after all this.

"I guess im not really mad at you telling him, just more confused on why you had sex with me." You started playing with a strand of fallen hair and waited for his answer.

"I did what I wanted to do from the beginning; fucking you dumb. If you think there's another reason, there isn't." Jaemin crossed his arms with a half smile.

You stopped playing with your hair and glared at him, "No no there has to be more! You're way to nice to me now for that to be it!"

"Do you think I like you?" He suddenly leaned forward. You didnt bother saying anything and sat back in the chair, "Why would I like you?"

Its been a week since your last interaction with jaemin. Literally. Theres been no pranking or anything. It was odd, but you couldn't stop thinking back to what he said when you both were alone in the cafe. Something about that kind of stung. You dont know why but, you thought maybe, just maybe, he'd actually like you. And maybe, jimin was right about about you liking him.

"Hey how was work?" Jimin asked getting up from the couch. You noticed taemin was here too and it wasn't surprising anymore as he's been coming over recently this past week.

"It was a bit busy actually." You smiled, nodding your head in taemins direction to acknowledge him and he smiled in return. Cute.

Jimin came back to his seat on the couch and handed you and taemin a clas of iced tea, "Jaemin didnt do anything again huh?"

You shook your head, "You don't understand how weird this is. Like he completely stopped interacting with me." You sighed taking a sip and seat next to taemin before ranting again, "Wait...oh my god! Did I get played? Was he really just trying to fuck me this whole time?"

"Fu- what?" Taemin zipped his head at you.

"Its a long story-"

"No its not," jimin cut you off, "basically hes kind of a bully to her and hes always doing pranks and saying some provocative things, but magically," he started flailing his hands, "jaemin started being nice, said he wanted to 'fuck her dumb' and then she was in his bed."

"....so you just...let your bully fuck you??" Taemin squinted his eyes at you and you nodded slowly. "Interesting. "

"I dont even know why. Like it just happened." You stuck out your bottom lip and laid you head on taemins shoulder, "I can't believe I did that..."

"It was bound to happen." Jimin sipped his tea.

You lifted your head slightly off of taemins shoulder and stuck your tongue out, "You know what fuck you!"

"You both are like kids." Taemin said, moving to get up.

"Hm?" Jimin looked up from his iced tea, completely obvious to what taemin said and taemin shook his head.

"I need to get back home. Jimin don't stay up too late." Jimin whined at his friend as taemin got up, "y/n, be good." You gave him a thumbs up and watched as the black haired man left.

"Jimin hes cute." You frowned.

Jimin rolled his eyes, "tell him that next time then."

You rolled over so now you were laying on jimins lap and he gave you a look of disgust, but you ignored it, "Mans is too cute for someone like me to say something."

"Dude he literally called you cute the first day he met you." Jimin said a matter of factly.

"How do you know he wasnt lying?"

Jimin scoffed, "Taemin lying? Thats like me and you dating. It just doesn't go together."

"I dont know if i should be offended or happy." You glared.

"The latter." He averted his eyes from yours and continued watching the show on t.v.

2 classes in and your were already tired. If you hadn't had stayed up so late with jimin, crying over some k-drama, maybe you wouldve gotten a good night sleep. But because of that you looked dead. You didn't even try to look your best this morning, only throwing on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt and brushing your hair back. You thought you looked okay to some extent at least. Maybe not your normal self but at least you were presentable.

There's was only so much you could handle in your class right now too. Trigonometry was definitely not your strong suit and you wondered how you even got in this class.

People were hunched over doing their work and you were struggling with question one. It was a bit embarrassing. You looked to your right for answers but they were just as lost as you, so your left was your next move.

"I dont appreciate you cheating off my paper y/n." Jaemin whispered, making sure the professor didn't hear him.

"Sorry I'm just confused.." you grumbled, placing your pencil down, jaemin gave you a look.

"Maybe if you used your head you'd get it."

"Im not dumb jaemin."

He exhaled and rubbed his face with his hands, "Come over later ill help you."

You looked at jaemins partially completed paper then back at your blank one. You needed this if you wanted to pass but you also didn't want to be with jaemin at the moment and you weren't too sure what tricks the boy had up his sleeve.

"I dont think-"

"It wasnt a question." Jaemin then went back to his work, ignoring whatever protest you had as you were about to open your mouth.

It was at this point you even planned on not going later. The only thing is he really didn't like being disobeyed and you found him a bit scary when mad. It wouldnt be right to miss out on him tutoring you anyway because jaemin was a smart guy. With his help you should be able to pass easily given a few months.

The professor ended class a few minutes early. Jaemin and you both headed to your next class when someone tapped on your shoulder, making you curiously turn around.

"TAEMIN!" you leaped up and hugged the guy around his neck as he giggled with full cheeks. "What are you doing here?"

"I changed colleges since it was closer to where I was living, but I didnt realize you were here too!" He beamed.

Jaemin stood watching you both converse and giggle over small things. He wanted so badly to drag you away from taemin but he knew you weren't going to like him very much after that. But something about the two of you laughing and subtly flirting didnt sit right with him and he didnt know why. It wasnt jealousy because why would he be jealous with you? He didn't care about you in that way. So why was this making him angry?

"Y/n lets go to class." Jaemin interrupted the two of you.

"You can go ill be in shortly." You brushed him off as if he was nothing and began talking with taemin again. Jaemin despised it but listened to you and walked away.

You were happy taemin came to this school because now it gave you a chance to get closer with him. It was definitely the small crush that grew over the week that made you feel like a 14 year old girl whenever he said something remotely sweet.

Taemin and you stood just outside of the classroom door and you gave him a quick hug and good bye before heading into the room with a big smile.

Jaemin stared at you as you walked up the steps to your seat that was a few feet away from him. The smile plastered on your face made jaemin see how much of an impact taemin really had on you.

Seulgi and sana kept glancing back at you, snickering here and there. Something your not fazed by it anymore. Probably them planning another prank or something. You also felt another set of eyes behind you and looked back to see jaemin glaring at the back of your head. Wondering why he was doing that, you crooked your head to the side then faced the front again after not receiving any response from him.

Ten minutes passed and the professor never came. Students were still all around the room talking to each other and the room was noisy. You decided to just ignore everyone and focus on any work you could, everything other than trig. You were saving that for jaemin.

"Hey nana," jaemin looked away from you and gazed up at seulgi who was now standing in front of him, "theres a party later at Wendy's and joys house. You coming?"

You put the pencil down and started biting your nails, wondering what he would actually say, not that he would ditch on you, but still.

"Im working later." He simply said, seulgi rolled her eyes playfully.

"Ill come pick you up after just bring clothes."

Jaemin raised a brow, "ill be too tired to go."

He was starting to get on seulgis nerves as she grit her teeth, "Then ill come over after school."

You scoffed and rolled your eyes wondering why she was trying so hard. Clearly the boy didn't want to go, or at least go with her. You didnt understand how she couldn't see that.

"Can't im helping someone with trig after."

She leaned over his desk, jaemin not really fazed by anything as she kept coming closer, "I have a feeling you're lying nana."

"Why would I lie?" He replied stoic. "Y/n is coming over for help."

Its the way that literally everyone in the room looked back at jaemin and you. Such a weird pair. Now they really would be questioning the two of you.

You anxiously looked back at him, seulgi was up in his face, nose flared, jaemin remained still and not intimidated by her or the class. But you were ready for someone to say something.

"Whats with you and y/n all of a sudden?" Seulgi asked. You could tell she didn't want you to go over his house, that was pretty obvious, but its not like she could stop you.

"Nothing, she just needs help in trig."

The class was still silent, even after a good 30 seconds. Now you just wanted the professor come in and talk about some WW2 stuff so people would ignore this. But your were pretty sure your professor just didn't want to teach and stayed home for the day.

"You dont need to help her." She faked a smile when she glanced back at you. "Shes a smart girl."

Jaemin was just about ready to get up and walk away, "I want to help her pass, now I do believe your seat is over there." he pointed over to the middle row of seats, just a few before yours. Seulgi actually took the hint and walked away. Her eyes were trained on yours and she looked as if ready to say something but decided against it.

God, now you just wanted to leave.

Jaemin placed a notebook and an open textbook on trig in front of you. His eyes watched as you hesitated to do your homework. You would get ready to write then lean back in confusion. For you, something was just not clicking with the whole trigonometry thing. You even started to wonder why you were taking it.

"Look this is what you have to do." Jaemin sat up and took the pencil out of your hand and went through the steps. Despite him being shockingly good at explaining and teaching, you found yourself lost at his words and just started staring at his side profile. Admittedly, you had to say he was pretty. And his lips as he was talking made you hypnotized. They looked soft and you wondered if you'll ever be able to feel them again.

"Repeat what I had just said."

You snapped out of your thoughts and hesitated, looking back at the paper then slowly began going over what you remembered until you started stumbling over your words and then stopped when he placed his hand on your thigh.

Jaemin exhaled loudly, sounding very disappointed in you and the only thing you could do was wait for whatever he had to say, "Why aren't you paying attention to nana?" His voice remained the same, but his nickname was a complete contrast.

"Im sorry I was distracted..."

"Distracted." Jaemin raised an eyebrow, "Theres nothing here to distract you."

Although you wanted to say he's been distracting you, you most certainly didn't and spared yourself the embarrassment.

"Y/n whats distracting you?" Jaemin set aside the pencil and gave you his full attention. Yet you remained silent and let him figure it out himself. But he knew, you were pretty easy to read. This is why he tapped your thigh, trying to get an answer out of you.

"You already know. Why do I have to say it?"

"I wanna hear it come out of your mouth." Jaemin shrugged.

"Jaemin..." you mumbled staring at your blank notebook, "Can we just move on?"

"Say it first." Consequently jaemin only made things worse by moving his hand up and down on your thigh in a taunting manner. One way or another he'll make you flustered.

"Youre clearly the distraction now can we please move on. We only have an hour and a half until work." You blushed.

A playful smirk found its way to his lips as he hummed in agreement. His hand still rested on your thigh and he once again tried explaining the problem in front of you. Granted, your phone went off in the middle of his second attempt of explaining.

"Taemin texted me hold on." You reached to grab your phone but jaemin was faster. He took your phone and threw it on the bed behind him.

"Pay attention." Jaemin had said. But you decided to be a bit stubborn and decided to get up and grab your phone, but jaemin had other plans. Hence why now you were stuck in a death grip on his lap with a hand to your neck. You couldn't see his face, but you knew it was cold. Jaemin didn't like to be disobeyed even for a second. "You only listen to me when I make a move, so do I have to keep you in this position for you to do your work?" You quickly shook your head and tried to wiggle out of his strong grip, but jaemin wouldn't let you go. Particularly because he figured you'd try and grab your phone again, which in that case, wasn't going to happen. If you so desperately wanted to pass, hes going to make you pass. Jaemin doesn't care even if he has to go as far as disciplining you either. As long as you pass, he'll be fine.

"You dont want to disappoint nana right?" You shook your head again. "You have a voice, use it."

"N-no.."

Jaemin hummed and let go of your neck, still keeping you on his lap. "Now be a good girl and listen. This is the last time I'll repeat myself."

So then you listened. Certainly because jaemin would not hesitate in making you regret any decisions you had.

After his third explanation, you understood the whole process a bit more and began doing your work. Jaemin was happy to see you do the problems, only pointing out a few mistakes, but praising you after for getting them right. You'd try your best not to smile or blush by putting your head down or looking away. Jaemin found it cute and couldn't help but smile himself.

"Lets get ready for work." Jaemin tapped your thigh for you to get up then he made his way to the closet to find clothes.

"Do you have a white t-shirt I can use?" You asked and jaemin threw you a shirt. Luckily for you the dress code was white on top, black on bottom so you didn't need to worry about the pants.

The both of you changed swiftly, not really caring about each others presence as you've already seen each other naked.

Without warning, jaemin dragged you out the his car, not bothering to give you a chance to say you wanted to drive yours. And you both were off.

It was a silent car ride besides the soft music playing on the radio. Jaemin kept you occupied with a hand resting on your thigh. He had a nice hand, you weren't gonna lie, but besides you gawking at his hand, it really did keep your mind focused. Not even the streets filled with so much activity could make you stop staring. It came to the point where you ended up grabbing his hand and played with his fingers.

"If you like my hands so much maybe I should use them on you again." Jaemin said, your breathing stopped for a second and you faced him.

"I just... find your hands nice thats all. Nothing sexual nana." You emphasized his nickname with a mocking tone. But in reality it was a very lowkey sexual desire to have him feel you up again, or even finger you. Whatever it was, you didn't want to admit it.

Parking the car, you and jaemin went inside the cafe to find it was again very busy. Irene was at the register helping a customer with their order and when she glanced up, you could've sworn she saw a ghost.

She finished the order and looked between you two, "Am I missing something?" She asked, pointing a finger at you guys as if accusing you, "you never come in together nor even walk inches next to each other."

"Y/n was at my house because I was tutoring her for school, so I drove her here too." Jaemin responded and you nodded in agreement. Still, irene found this crazy.

"Okay...just get to work then..." she squinted her eyes. Jaemin was the first to get to the stations, followed by you who made sure to look at the orders on screen.

After a while of making coffees, teas, and such you decided it was time for a break, so you asked irene if you can just take a seat for a bit to which she said yes.

Only a few tables remained empty, you took one near a window so you could see what was happening outside. Nothing different. Some teenagers fooling around on the sidewalk, couples passing by, and people rushing to get to their jobs. Meanwhile you never noticed someone sitting in front of you until they blew into your ear.

"Ahhh, what the fuck taemin!" Frowning at the sudden intusion, taemin laughed at your shocked face and sputtered many apologies. Many of which you knew he didnt mean.

"How long have you been sitting there?" You leaned over the table asking.

Taemin naturally leaned over too, getting closer to your face, "Just got here." He smiled, "I texted you that I was coming but you never replied."

You pouted in realization that that was when jaemin decided to discard your phone on his bed and not allow you to get it back. "Sorry I was being tutored for trig."

"Its fine." He pinched your cheeks, the smile never left his face once he finally saw a shade of red on your cheeks. Moreover, the two of you kept conversing for about 5 more minutes. Taemin talked about how jimin was bored all day from not seeing you at home so he went over to comfort him. You chuckled at the thought of jimin sadly laying against his friend and playing video games, trying not to feel bored. It made you happy that you had that kind of impact on him, knowing damn well no matter how much he said he said you weren't fun, that was a lie.

"I have to go. I'll make sure to come by later." With that taemin and you stood up and gave each other a hug. What surprised you was the lips on your cheek, giving you a bunch of butterflies in your stomach. "Bye y/n." Taemin winked and walked out the cafe.

Alarmed and flustered by what happened, you steadily walked back to the counter and just stopped there.

One might consider that to be a cute thing to see in a cute little cafe but jaemin thought otherwise and he was quite literally done with this.

"Come here." Jaemin made a finger motion to you and took you to the back of the cafe, away from the bustling people. "Whats with you and that taemin dude?"

"Why do you care?" You tilted your head up at him with a smirk. If you can manage to successfully push jaemins buttons and walk away with it, this would be the best day ever.

Jaemin took your chin in his index and thumb, bringing your face closer, "I asked you a question. I expect an answer."

"I dont have to answer if I dont want to." You tried swatting his hand away from your chin but he only moved down to your neck, causing you to gasp at the sudden squeeze. Basically, jaemin was choking you out of jealousy. "H-hes just m-my friend." You stuttered as you told the truth expecting jaemin to now let go, but he only softened his grip.

"I hate him."

"You dont know him." You mocked back and jaemin lazily rolled his eyes.

"I dont care if I dont know him I hate the fact that hes with you." Jaemin growled, letting your neck go.

You took the chance to let out a laugh at his frustrated face. This was entertaining to you and for once you had the upper hand, "so youre saying you're jealous?"

Roughly, jaemin slammed your back against the building with his face only mere centimeters from yours. You could smell the scent of mint in his breath too. "Maybe I am." Jaemin pushed a knee between your legs. "Shouldnt mess with my girl. And you shouldn't have let him kiss your cheek." Jaemins lips hovered over your lips. His hands harshly gripped your hips, moving you them over his thigh. Hearing the sound of you moaning out in shock, jaemin captured your lips in a kiss, a rough one at that.

His anger was through the roof and he showed that. "Youre mine and only mine. I'm the only one who can touch you like this, kiss you like this." Jaemin kissed down your jaw, still grinding your core on his thigh. You tried silencing your whimpers by biting your hand, but jaemin was quick to stick his fingers in your mouth, causing you to gag and choke.

Without a moments hesitation, jaemin pulled away from your neck to watch you suck around his fingers and he laughed through an angry aura, "If only taemin could see how much of a slut you are for me, maybe he would back off." You whined around his fingers and he pushed deeper down your throat. Your hips stuttered a bit, but kept moving forward, trying to get more friction.

"Such a stupid little girl for nana." Jaemin ruthlessly began fucking your throat with his fingers, "Are you gonna cum out here? What if somebody walks out and sees?" Your eyes rolled back and jaemin hummed still keeping the pace with his fingers and helping you move your hips. "Aww but I bet you wouldn't care. Since your so eager to cum and all." You gripped his wrist becoming more and more desperate to reach your high. Indeed you were so close that you started seeing stars, but jaemin pulled his thigh and fingers away.

"Were you about to cum?" He laughed in your face sadisticly. Your face heated up in embarrassment. "Stupid girl."

Cooing at your red face, jaemin brought you into another kiss, much softer than before but enough to know who's in charge.

"Lets get back to work, yeah?" Jaemin tapped your cheek with his two fingers and walked away leaving you hot and bothered.

Naturally you wouldve followed but you literally almost came in your pants just outside of your work. What were you thinking letting jaemin do that to you? And why did he have such an affect on you to the point that you forgot about what happened with taemin. You couldn't stand out here any longer and went inside. Jaemin was calm as if you didn't almost just get off on his thigh and sucked his fingers off. God this boy was doing something to you and you couldn't take it!

Working next to him seemed even more difficult. You were a hot mess, plus you were horny and honestly jaemins existence wasn't helping. And now, especially now, you realized that lasting until 8:30 was going to be a train wreck.

The school day was normal, yeri was hyper as always and cracking jokes making you spit out your banana milk. And her constant teasing about jaemin was nothing different. Of course you told her what happened the other day, she's your best friend, and she was blown away. Yeri wasn't expecting such news to be dropped on her like that and you couldnt blame her, only shrugging your shoulders and sipping your banana milk.

Stopping mid sip, you saw the boy you were subtly looking for; jaemin. Your reason? Well even you didn't know but your for sure were going to come up with something.

For the past few days jaemin never left your mind. Even when you saw him he always lingered. You could say you missed him. Besides that, taemin was never on your mind anymore. Just jaemin. It was like your mind needed him.

So you got up from your seat, yeri looked up confused and watched as your legs took you to your destination. Your heart was beating rapidly and you weren't even sure how this would go. Either you'll die from embarrassment or be the happiest girl alive. It was the anticipation.

You sucked in a deep breath once you got to him, jaemin peered up at you with curiosity, some other students even found your boldness interesting, until you spoke, "Wanna go out with me?"

#nct smut #nct #nct 127 #nct dream #nct u #wayv #nct 2020 #na jaemin smut #na jaemin #jaemin #jaemin nct dream #na jaemin nct #kpop smut #kpop

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springfieldblues · 4 years

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my long ass review for S32E03 Now Museum, Now You Don’t

warning: LONG because i rambled about history more than i thought i would

id been looking forward to this one because i like art history, especially after seeing how they tried their best to stick to historical accuracy in the previous episode I, Carumbus. this time however….they didnt try that hard. i dont know why i thought theyd go through that sort of trouble again LMAO

but its okay, i dont really expect the simpsons to be the paragon of historical accuracy or anything. especially in anthology episodes told through a particular character's lens (in this case, lisa, whos already feverish so whatever)

first i just wanna say that this is, i guess, less of a review and more of an accidental list of history fun facts. so im just gonna get my general thoughts out of the way first.

the episode was fun! to me at least haha. i mean it got me to think and do a lot of research on my own so that must count for something. besides a couple of really weird ones, the jokes were good. anthology episodes tend to be….not that good but i thought this one was one of the better ones so far. idk.

anyway on to lisanardo da vinky its the renaissance! jesus christ the italian accents in the beginning of this segment were annoying as hell but i also feel like that was the joke lmao. ill be real i kind of tuned out for a second there when grampa started rambling so idk what he said.

i told myself i wouldnt get nitpicky with historical accuracy if the jokes were funny (final edit: so that was a lie) but this meh bit with the pizza guys and mascots was really not worth ignoring the fact that its impossible for italy to have any tomato-based food in the 15th century (tomatoes were brought to europe from the americas in the 16th century, and pizza as we know it today—flatbread, cheese, tomato—originated in the late 18th century)

oh this next part was kind of legit tho. lisanardo, like the real leonardo, became andrea del verrochio's apprentice at his workshop. i loved this next bit:

"Whoever paints the sweetest cherub will have the honor of having MY name signed on their work. That's what great artists do!"

SO YEAH as it turns out, lisanardo painted the sweetest cherubs. the painting here is called The Baptism of Christ, and the real leonardo assisted verrochio in finishing it. specifically, he painted the cherubs in the corner.

this causes verrochio to quit and go someplace with less talented people: a music school (yes, verrochio did quit painting after getting owned by young leo and his mad angel painting skills. he never did anything with music tho, he was more of a sculptor)

alongside lisanardo, in mr largo-verrochio's workshop we have barticelli (botticelli bart), dolphatello (donatello dolph), ralphael (raphael...ralph) and mediocrito (no one that i know of. sorry milhouse) (and kearney i guess but they dont refer to him by name). botticelli and donatello are said to have also been apprentices at verrochio's workshop, but raphael came a couple of decades later so he couldnt have been there. and donatello was too old so that claim is a bit questionable. but anyway

it IS true that leonardo's peers envied him, to the point where he was anonymously and purposefully accused of being gay (a major crime punishable by death in 15th century florence) while he was still working at verrochio's workshop

we are then treated by what im pretty sure is the fourth time the show has used 'at seventeen' by janis ian, this time sung by a dejected lisanardo (man they really do keep making yeardley sing these days huh) who only wishes to be appreciated and not envied.

"I'll show them all! I'll show them all in a secret diary that no one will decipher for 400 years!"

some of lisanardo's future inventions. who wouldve known

so after barticelli, for some reason (revenge??? or something?? what was his plan here idgi) steals lisanardo's diaries full of blueprints of her inventions and takes them to mr burns who i have to assume is pope alexander VI here, they decide to use her inventions for war.

"With these, we can kill the most evil people in the world!! ....Slightly different Christians."

leo actually did this of his own accord. im surprised this is what they decided to do with lisanardo instead of talking about leo's love of nature and vegetarianism (not a single mention of that in this episode? come on...) then again, trying to do good only to end up indirectly making things worse is a very standard lisa storyline. i guess they didnt want to miss the chance to have evil pope burns (very fitting, especially for that era since they were all about money and controlling the people)

so lisanardo decides to leave for france, unlike the real leonardo who was more or less persuaded by his ultimate fanboy king francis I to move to france.

"Lisanardo, I have many questions. Why are you hitting yourself? A nerd says 'what'? And how is it possible that I am rubber and you are glue? Et cetera, et cetera."

that line may seem a little random, like hes just nelson saying nelson things (and i mean, obviously he is) but the real francis also "had an unquenchable thirst for learning, and Leonardo was the world’s best source of experimental knowledge. He could teach the king about almost any subject there was to know, from how the eye works to why the moon shines." so yeah, he did have many questions and lisanardo, finally being appreciated for her intellect, was happy to answer them all. its very interesting how lisa assigned this role to nelson in her retelling of da vinci’s life :^)

and so she lived the rest of her days in france, nat king cole's 'mona lisa' plays because duh, and they make a da vinci code reference because duh. and the segment ends. and not a single time did they show the actual mona lisa painting. the fuck?

(ngl i was fully expecting bart to say 'leonardo da vinky' for a second here)

so this next segment is about french impressionist painters, most likely the batignolles group, a name adopted by the early representatives of impressionism. its much more vague than the lisanardo segment since no one here is referred to by name (except moe, more on him in a sec) but i dont feel like it really matters in this case. bart is prrrrooobably claude monet but its hard to say, this segment is kind of a mish-mash of a lot of things. also i gotta say i really liked how lisa introduced the story to bart with an 'if you hate the formal study of art' and not 'if you hate art' because thats exactly my headcanon. i LOVE the concept of artist bart and whenever its referenced it just makes perfect sense to me.

anyway the segment opens in 1863 at the école des beaux-arts (back then it was actually known as the académie des beaux-arts), preserver of traditional french art styles. skinner reviews his students’ paintings one by one. praises the plain, unimaginative paintings depicting your typical european countryside landscapes. very run-of-the-mill (haha get it...cuz theres….a windmill) (although the real académie didnt approve of such basic stuff, they wanted artists to draw epic historical and mythological scenes) then he gets to barts painting and he gives him an F- because the painting made him think.

(the paintings in this scene arent real famous paintings as far as i know but they are inspired by real paintings enough to get the point across)

in comes barney dressed as bacchus as a model for the students to sketch, which i just loved:

barney: “You prefer robe open or robe off?” skinner: “Just cover your privates with this walnut shell.” barney: “Whoa!!! So roomy!”

skinner gasps in horror at bart’s sketch, which “looks nothing like him” and bart explains that “it shouldn’t; we’re making the art that we feel because we can’t compete with a camera.” damn, you go bart. take that, realism. draw what you feel!!

(also no, you didnt need to hold still for 17 hours for a daguerreotype. 30 min tops.)

nelson haw-haw of the week: FOIE-gras!

so here they are at the moulin rouge (“enjoy it before baz luhrmann ruins it” hey shut up. i love that movie), which wouldnt be built for another 26 years, but it is the most widely known gathering place for bohemians in the public consciousness so i can understand why they went with the moulin. nelson delivers this anachronistic line:

“This époque keeps getting beller and beller!”

which alludes to la belle époque, the golden age of france usually dated from 1880 to 1914. made me snort so ill let that slide

and heres moe! as henri de toulouse-lautrec, who was actually born a year after the year this segment is set in. yo moe szyslak he was just 1

toulouse-moetrec introduces himself as the chronicler of the demimonde (not an actual job). an iconic figure associated with the moulin rouge (largely due to his affinity for alcohol and prostitutes), toulouse-lautrec was also a painter, having illustrated a series of posters for the moulin himself. he simply had to be in this segment, anachronisms be damned, just because they decided to include the moulin. cant have one without the other.

and yes he did have a walking cane where he kept his liquor.

i love how everyone drinks absinthe in this place. theyre bohemians what else would they drink

toulouse-moetrec points out that barts paintings are the greatest thing hes ever seen (and hes seen like five things!) and that hes a genius. milhouse realizes that they should stop doing what the teacher says and use their own minds to instead...start doing what bart says lmao. to the easels!

next we have skinner hyping up chalmers about the art his students made for the salon de paris, an art exhibition that the emperor of france will attend. he assures him that none of these paintings will encourage debate, provoke thought or be out of place at a dentist’s office. when they unveil the art, theyre both SHOCKED at how scandalous the paintings actually are.

this reaction was kind of accurate. impressionism was severely rejected at the salon de paris, due to paintings not looking finished enough to them, they thought they were ugly and vulgar for depicting nudity in a contemporary setting (historical and mythological nudity was fine). these impressionist paintings were sent to the salon de refusés, which is. yeah. the place where they sent the rejects. the salon de refusés does not make an appearance but this scene makes a reference to it when the artists get expelled from the royal salon. also:

“What about our student loans?” “Oh they’ll be refunded. We are not barbarians, I mean, come on.”

(god if only)

so the painters are down because they want the emperor to actually see their paintings. toulouse-moetrec pipes in once again with an idea.

“There is one thing the emperor loves more than anything.” “France?” “No, he hates France.”

apparently the emperor really loves cheese, which makes sense since its napoleon III (who loved cheese) and homer (who loves cheese.) so the painters roll into the salon inside a giant wheel of cheese (obviously.) as lenny said, “Eh, you know French cheese. Very runny.” napoleon III chases after the wheel into a room, where the wheel falls apart after getting chomped on by the emperor. now that they got his attention, the painters proudly show the emperor their impressionist art, which he couldnt be more indifferent about because he just wants to eat his cheese dammit, and he awards them with the royal medallion just to kind of get them out of his way. skinner immediately starts kissing ass (as he does) until marge’s like ‘hey wait a minute. you expelled these students from the royal salon’ and an executioner immediately starts ominously measuring skinners neck.

“Uh, sir...is your tongue sticking out because you’re dead or because you’re mad at me?”

and thats the end of that lmao (gore in this episode, gore in the last episode, and next week we’re getting gore too cuz its THOH, what the hell is goin on)

we get a short intermission with maggie, who wants a story for her too! lisa tells her that renaissance artists loved to put babies in their paintings, especially baby angels.

here she is showing her The Triumph Of Galatea by raphael:

King David Playing The Harp by peter paul reubens:

and a very simplified version of pretty much any depiction of hell by hyeronimus bosch lmao:

not much else to say about this one, really. but i really liked that sky!

the last segment is about frida kahlo and diego rivera. or as bart puts it ‘the one about a fat guy whos wife is too good for him.’ i was REALLY looking forward to this one because i love frida and i thought itd be a cool opportunity for animators to go bonkers and do really cool shit with her art as inspiration…..but the segment is not about frida, its about diego and his selling out to capitalism. and its also yet another story with homer and marge drama. no funky cool animation here. sigh i guess i’ll take it

the story begins in 1929 at la casa azul, frida’s home (now museum dedicated to her life and work.) frida and diego are getting married. this courtyard definitely did not look this way yet back in 1929. also theres something very cringy yet funny about lovejoy saying spanish words the way he does, i honestly cant decide how i feel about that one

the writers know theyre being cringy with their gringoness so they go along with it.

moe: “Spanish for ‘best wishes’!” mel: “Spanish for ‘congratulations’!” bumblebee man: “Spanish for ‘muy bueno’!”

OH YEAH BUMBLEBEE MAN this is his new voice actor, eric lopez! hes not mexican but its still great to finally have a latino actor voicing a latino character and hes very excited to be part of the show so i hope to hear more of him!! im rooting for him

el barto/zorro makes an appearance which i am very confused about. he has jack shit to do with frida and diego and mexico in the 20s-30s. el zorro was set in the spanish california of the early 19th century. their use of the original theme song makes me think they just wanted to flex their disney privileges tbh

lets not talk about that that whole scene was bad

anyway diego announces he and frida are going to new york, without even asking her first. frida is obviously pissed.

“Don’t worry, as a woman, you’ll be treated with much more respect in America.”

so in new york, diego is having a bit of a business meeting with mr burns as one of the members of the rockefellers, who is commissioning him to draw a mural for the rockefeller center. its kinda funny how he refers to him and frida as socialists even though they were very much communists lmao its okay you can say it. ok so far, but then frida says ‘yes, we hate the capitalists! right now, a young socialist is being born who will take them down! mr. bernie sanders. i hope hes quick about it’ and that was a simple enough joke and couldve been left at that but then its immediately followed by this weird as fuck family guy-esque cutaway gag to bernie as a baby:

“Getting a cootie shot should not cost your lunch money. And if you don’t listen to me, listen to the Bernie Babies! What? Everybody’s got goons.” *larger babies start beating up this other baby* “I disavow that, and welcome it.”

this confused me so much that i had to ask one of my american friends to help me understand, but even she was like ‘uhhh yeah thats a weird joke,’ especially now that hes been out of the race for months (then again these episodes take almost a year to produce. i guess they couldnt be bothered to replace it with something more relevant.) whatever that was weird and confusing and unfunny moving on

frida is pretty irked that diego is going through with this deal. after all, it goes against everything they believe in. im not sure how the real frida felt about diego doing the mural, but she did feel a bit of rage during her visit to the united states, especially the obvious disparity between rich and poor. she hated having to interact with capitalists and found americans very boring. in this segment, frida seems to be acting more like the american communist party, which diego got kicked out of for accepting commissions from wealthy patrons. in any case, frida is pretty upset about this whole thing.

and finally we get the first and only kind of surreal frida moment. kinda. maybe. its more cartoonish than anything but im desperate ok

interesting how they felt like they had to add a “don’t smoke” in big letters after showing patty and selma flying away on their giant cigarettes. i wonder if this is something theyre making them do now? i remember hearing something about them toning down patty and selma’s smoking

diego comes home to frida, drunk as hell, followed by the marx brothers. i cant believe they didnt make a marxism joke come on it was RIGHT THERE. THE MARX BROTHERS. KARL MARX. COME ON

frida paints her feelings.

this makes diego realize that frida is a genius and he is not half the artist she is. he proclaims he will now show his awe of her by sleeping with other women, starting “an hour ago.” to which frida replies, “and i will start sleeping with other women, starting two hours ago.” yes this was pretty much their relationship. though im just wondering how the hell did diego not know frida was this kind of artist until now? i know homers an idiot but jeez. art was how frida and diego met, diego knew from the get-go that frida was an incredible artist. i guess the fame got to his head or something. again, homer just being stupid.

“well enough already, while the art is still deco, okay?”

its time for the mural diego painted, Man At The Crossroads, to be unveiled:

rockefeller examines it. good and great so far, and then...uh oh

“Who’s that fellow…? With the beard, and the bolshevik smile…” “That’s the founder of Soviet Russia, Lenin!”

“B-b-but he’s a communist!” “Oh he just attended a couple of meetings.”

rockefeller will not have this communist in the temple to capitalism that is the rockefeller center, so he orders diego to paint over it. diego stands his ground and refuses. despite rockefeller’s threats, diego says that theres only one person he wants to be proud of him no matter what and in true homer & marge fashion, frida is touched by this. they happily leave the rockefeller center.

now, the real story of Man At The Crossroads and the rockefeller center was actually not that different. as soon as the rockefellers found out diego had snuck in a portrait of lenin into the mural, they ordered him to paint over it, to which he refused. diego even offered to include abraham lincoln and even american abolitionists in the mural as a compromise, but the rockefellers simply did not want any references to communism whatsoever. they did not complain about the hammer and sickle, though. yes, they did know diego was a communist and hired him anyway. what did they expect? lmao. diego said:

"Rather than mutilate the conception [of the mural], I shall prefer the physical destruction of the conception in its entirety, but preserving, at least, its integrity."

so they decided to destroy the mural before it was even finished and they never talked to each other again.

diego then repainted the mural at the palacio de bellas artes back in mexico, this time known as Man, Controller of the Universe. this new version included even more communist leaders and a depiction of john d. rockefeller jr. drinking at a nightclub, right underneath a depiction of syphilis bacteria. cue nelson haw-haw:

this was the version they used in the episode also, since the original was, well, never finished and also destroyed. only a black and white photograph of it exists, taken by diego before it was destroyed so he could remake it.

right so, homer!diego then pulls a Barthood and finishes the episode with a large mural summarizing the entire episode. he says some rick and morty thing i didnt get because i dont watch the show idk idc

the end

ALRIGHT NOW ITS TIME FOR THE STORY OF VINCENT VAN MOE

#if you read all of this bless you #the imageless gdocs version of this is 8 pages long #hope you...enjoy?!?! these art history fun facts?!?!#dont let me do something like this again but also let me know if i should do something like this again #i was really only motivated to do this because im already passionate about the subject so idk if i could do it otherwise #anyway. this took me all day yesterday because the power kept going out #but im finally done #bye

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maythefandomsbwithu · 4 years

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Hey I decided to post this on Tumblr cuz why not

tattoo artist Geralt/florist jaskier 1

It was just another day for Jaskier. It was June and business was booming. Or should he say blooming, he was a florist after all. The wedding season was well under way and orders were coming flooding in. He couldn’t wait for Ciri to finish her exams so she could help out in the shop more but for now he had to manage on his own.

He owned a quaint little shop called Dandelions Aren’t Weeds in a reasonably quiet part of town. It didn’t seem like much to an outsider but to Jaskier it was his pride and joy. He spent his days tending the plants and catering to his customers’ needs, often with a fresh bloom tucked behind his ear. He took pride not only in his business but in his appearance as well, dressing in fine, brightly coloured clothes that complimented his complexion, with just a light smear of makeup, the boldest on a day to day basis being a dark streak of liner under each eye. He looked as pretty and delicate as the flowers he sold but appearances could be deceiving.

The only thing out of the ordinary in the past weeks was all the work that had been going on the renovate the shop next door. Rumours had been doing the rounds of what it would be when it was finished. By the look of it, the one that proved to be right was that it was going to be a tattoo shop. Jaskier hoped it wouldn’t be off putting to some of his customers with more…traditional values. By the looks of it, it was due to open any day. He hoped his new neighbours would be nicer than the last ones. He sighed and continued putting together an arrangement. He had too much work to do to worry about that right now.

Another few weeks passed and Ciri finished her exams. He was definitely grateful to have an extra pair of hands; his niece was marvellous. She’d been helping him out at the weekends while she was in school. He’d decided to take her on full time over the summer, he needed the help and she was saving for a car. He definitely appreciated having someone to talk to with Ciri’s sharp wit and general good humour. Most people didn’t realise they were related though, they couldn’t see past Ciri’s blond tresses and paler skin. However, if one observed her carefully, her mannerisms were similar to Jaskier’s and she had the same glint in her eye just before she made a smart-assed comment.

The tattoo shop next door had opened too, a steady stream of people going in and out. Jaskier has yet to meet his new neighbours though. Oh well, he presumes they are busy with their opening week or something like that. He’d bump into them eventually.

Jaskier had been doing a bit of tidying up one evening. Even though they technically weren’t closed because the door was still open, it was too late for any more customers so he had sent Ciri to go and get them both a coffee from the café down the road and popped in his headphones. He hummed and bopped his way around the floor, cleaning as he went. He was so distracted that he didn’t notice the man who’d come in until he walked straight into him.

Jaskier snapped out of his day dream to find a man who was basically a blonde, tattooed superman standing in his flower shop. His long hair was drawn back from his face in a bun, accentuating a jawline Jaskier could cut himself on and, holy shit! Did he have gold eyes?!? He thought this stranger looked fantastic. Oh shit, he was staring at Jaskier, he should probably snap out of it and say something.

* Bad Jaskier! * He internally chided himself. *No ogling! *

“Can I help you mister….?” Jaskier asked, clearing his throat and yanking out his headphones. He had to be professional.

“Geralt, Geralt Rivia. I own the tattoo shop next door.” The man, Geralt, offered his hand. Jaskier noted then that if he wanted to, this guy could probably break his entire hand. However, while firm, the handshake bore no ill intent. Good.

“Ah! My new neighbour! Julian Alfred Pankratz, at your service, but I prefer Jaskier.” He gave a flourishing bow. When he said he’d bump into the neighbours eventually he hadn’t meant literally. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your presence this evening?” *Nothing like laying it on thick Jaskier* he thought to himself, inwardly cringing at his own eagerness.

~~ time rewind~~

Geralt was relieved the day that White Wolf Tattoos finally opened for business. The renovations and paper work of starting out on his own had caused him mountains of stress. But he had known it would all be worth it once he got up and running, and away from her.

Her being his ex-girlfriend and ex-boss Renfri. He knew from the start that mixing work and pleasure would be a bad idea but at the time he’d been too loved up to care. Everything had seemed fine at the start but she gradually showed her true colours, growing more manipulative and egotistical as their relationship progressed. It was stifling. He had no reprieve, even when they’d split, he’d see her at work every day. He couldn’t take it anymore.

That was how he came to leave Cursed Princess Tattoos to start up on his own. Well, not completely alone. He had Yennefer. Granted, she was his ex too, a long time ago, but they’d parted as friends and continued as such ever since. She had been his rock during the aftermath of his break up with Renfri. She let him live with her until he found his feet again, she’d become his business partner and done the lion’s share of the paper work while he nursed his broken heart. He didn’t know what he’d do without her.

It had taken months but his shop was finally about to take off, he could feel it. A number of his old clients had followed him when he’d left Renfri’s shop, insistent that he was the only reason they ever went near the place. There were new clients too, as expected in a new part of town, that flocked to his shop. Thanks to Yennefer, social media pages had acted as some of his best advertising. He was finally making a real name for himself.

The first week had flown by. He and Yennefer had been run off their feet constantly but he assumed things would calm down after a while. Thankfully a short period of calm came on Saturday evening, his last appointment finished sooner than expected so he could take a break and do some exploring in the neighbourhood. Yennefer assured him she could hold the fort, allowing him to take a walk.

As he’d wandered out of the shop his gaze fell on the florist’s next door. A client he had consulted earlier that day had mentioned wanting a floral piece, a flower shop was a great place to find inspiration. At first, he’d thought they might be closed but the door was open. As he entered his eyes fell on the most gorgeous man sweeping the floor. His brown hair looked soft and artfully styled; a yellow flower perched behind his ear. His dark eyeliner only emphasised how bright the blue of his eyes was, matched by his stylish blue shirt and jeans. He was stunning. Geralt was smitten. He’d realised long ago that he liked men and women but he hadn’t come across a man that he found so attractive in years.

He snapped out of his daze and cleared his throat hoping to get the man’s attention. No response. He tried again and still nothing. He stepped forward to tap the man on the shoulder only for him to turn around and walk straight into Geralt’s chest.

They stood for a moment, both dazed and staring at each other before the florist broke their silence.

“Can I help you mister…?” He’d trailed off while he yanked is headphones out. *Ah,* thought Geralt, *that’s why he didn’t notice me come in.* Geralt immediately offered his hand.

“Geralt, Geralt Rivia. I own the tattoo shop next door.” He shook the florist’s hand firmly, a hint of a smile going unnoticed in his eyes. He generally kept a very stoic outward demeanour.

“Ah! My new neighbour! Julian Alfred Pankratz, at your service, but I prefer Jaskier.”

So that was his name. Jaskier. He quirked an eyebrow at the flamboyant bow he received and resisted the urge to scoff. This was a lively one, he could tell. He practically radiated positive energy.

“So, to what do I owe the pleasure of your presence this evening?” Jaskier asked him. Another eyebrow quirk, his presence was a pleasure then, was it?

~~~Back to presnt~~~

“I came for inspiration.” He stated simply. It was the truth. He watched Jaskier’s face split into a grin.

“Oh really?” the florist, “In that case, I can very much help you. How do you want me?” With that he struck a ridiculous pose and made what Geralt could only presume he thought to be a model face, which was more of an exaggerated pout. He could only scoff and roll his eyes at the antics, ignoring any possible subtext of the latter comment.

“For a floral tattoo.” He clarified, watching as Jaskier’s smile never faltered.

Okay, maybe Jaskier was being a little too flirtatious with the ‘how do you want me’ thing but in his defence, Geralt never even flinched, merely rolled his eyes and moved on. He’d take that as a good sign.

“Ah! That I can help with too.” He gestured grandly around the shop. “See anything you like the look of?” He knew he certainly did, watching Geralt like a hawk as he had a glance around the shop. That man was something to behold.

Geralt shrugged, and moved to browse around the shop. If he was honest, the thing he most liked the look of was the owner, not his wares. He pushed that thought from his head and thought about his client. What had they discussed before?

“Sunflowers.” He said aloud, “My client said something about sunflowers.” He cast his gaze over the room searching for a bright flash of yellow, but although there were plenty of yellow flowers, there seemed to be no sunflowers. He frowned.

Jaskier noticed the frown. “I’m sorry. They’re quite popular at this time of the year, we sold out some time this afternoon.” It was just then that a flash of brilliance struck his brain. “Although, we’ll be getting more in first thing on Monday morning, if you would like to come by then?” He suggested, trying to mask the eagerness in his voice at the opportunity to see the tattoo artist again. He hadn’t known the man for more than five minutes but he felt drawn to him, despite the intimidating aura he gave off. He wanted to get to know him.

Geralt gave a deep, non-committal “Hmm.” As he glanced around the shop once more, before returning his gaze to the florist. He considered it. His client definitely said sunflowers specifically. And he certainly would not be opposed to seeing Jaskier again. He almost shook his head physically as he rid himself of that thought. *Stop it, its far too soon after her to be thinking about someone in that way* he reasoned with himself. While yes, the man was attractive, he knew nothing about him. They might have absolutely nothing in common. He might be just another heartbreak waiting to happen. With his stupid grin, and his stupid hair and his stupid, pretty eyes. *Fuck. * He needed to get a grip. Still, it wouldn’t do any harm to come back, with his customer’s best interests in mind, of course;

“Sure, I can find time.” That’s it Geralt, play it cool. He didn’t need to go rushing into anything. Besides it was basically just business and there’s no harm in being civil to the guy. Who knows, they might end up friends. Well, maybe acquaintances.

Jaskier tried to quell the traitorous swell of hope in his chest that he might have something resembling a chance with this guy. But, hey, if not maybe they could be friends at least. But for now, he must remain calm.

“Great, we open at nine.” He beamed. He glanced at the clock on the wall. Was that the time? “Also, we’re technically closed at the minute so….” He trailed off hoping Geralt would take the hint. While he would love to stand and chat all night, he had things to do.

Geralt answered with another “Hmm.”, this one more amused than the last. The smaller man certainly wasn’t behind the door. Normally most people would be more intimidated and would not try to get rid of his in such an unsubtle way.

“I’ll see you Monday then.” And with that he turned on his heel and left without another word.

“Nice meeting you!” Jaskier called after him with a wave. He was dumbfounded by the tattoo artist next door. He was so brooding and mysterious. A man of very few words and yet Jaskier was hanging off every “hmm”, let alone word. He needed to snap out of this. It was just a silly crush. And he could only imagine the stick he’d get if Ciri copped on. Speaking of, where was she with his iced latte? He needed to cool off.

#the witcher #the witcher netflix #geralt of rivia #geralt x jaskier #geralt z rivii #jaskier #tattoo artist/florist au #geraskier #tattoo geralt/ florist jaskier

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echoisfailing · 4 years

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Robin Story Part 1

(A/N) Not my gif and i tried to find one without the scoops uniform but was very hard so i gave up. i'm going to try to not switch pov’s but you know how it goes also ill especially try not to switch during but i can't think of a way to avoid it sooo sorry. Definitely some homophobia so if that makes you uncomfortable im so sorry cuz same. Also highkey have no idea how the 80’s worked so tell me if anything isn't factual (For the future). 805 words not including (A/N)

Also just cuz i wish all fics had this 8/13/2020

‘Dear Robin,

I want to start this off by saying you’ll probably never know who I am so please don't try to look for me and I won’t leave anymore letters. I probably shouldn't even leave this one but i felt like i was going to explode if i didn't get these feelings out. So here it is i really fucking like you i have since i was like 12. I know that seems like a long time and it probably is and im very sorry if im weirding you out. Yeah so bye.’

I finished writing this and realized how fucking crazy i sound so i folded it once down the middle and threw it away. I sat at my lunch table and waited for my friends to arrive. As people started to come into the lunch room from the cafeteria I saw her. She is the most gorgeous person in the world. “Hey (Y/N), how's it going?” my best friend Scarlet said sitting next to me. “Not much um i took your advice and wrote a letter to my crush.” I said nervously. “Oooo how'd that go?” She prodded. I rolled my eyes and sighed. “I threw it away.” She shoved me slightly “Chicken I mean what's the worst that could happen? Rejection yeah but it'll be less awkward since you aren't even friends.” Only if rejection was the worst thing that could happen. I mean Hawkins isn’t a religious city but is not a very progressive city. I’d be surprised if i didn’t get assaulted in some way shape or form and not to mention disowned. I dont even think im gay Robin is the only girl ive ever had a crush on. Like ever. Well Except for Carrie Fisher but who doesn't have a crush on Carrie Fisher. And it's not like i haven't liked or even dated guys. Like even just last month I went on a date with Billy Hargrove, well less of a date and more hooked up in his car but I digress. I feel wrong sometimes. I feel like i'm gonna go to hell if I act on my emotions and who knows maybe that's the reason I didn't put the letter in her locker.

Robin’s Pov

I went to throw away my trash for lunch and caught a glimpse of my name on a piece of paper. I picked up. Gross i know but i was curious. I read the note and I kinda wish i hadn't. Not that it was weird i mean don't get me wrong i'm majorly creeped but it makes me more uncomfortable knowing someone is pining over me. More than likely some dude, maybe even Keith. He's always flirting with some girl but he is never this sentimental. I walked to my next class, not having enough time to go to band hall. I got there first no surprise because I'm like 5 minutes early. People started to walk in and I saw Scarlet with her friend. She is so cute. But there's no way she'd ever go for me. I got over this girl Tammy first semester but now its the last couple weeks of the school year. I am counting down the minutes until this period is over then I get to go to band and pretend for 5 seconds that i am a normal band geek and not this constant mess I am. I hear Scarlet talking to her friend about her date with some guy tonight, and my heart feels heavy. Disappointed but not surprised type of thing. Either way it puts me into auto-pilot i barely hear the bell ring. I rush to band hall and get my instrument. I go through band which is a nice distraction. But that obviously ends and i decide i dont need 7th period as bad as i need a job for this summer so i just walk out the door from band hall to the parking lot and get on my bike and trek to StarCourt Mall to apply to some stores. I walk in to the mall and head for the record store:Apply, JCPenny:Apply, Cinema:Apply, Burger King:Apply, Hawkins Heros:Apply, Scoops Ahoy!:Apply. Its long after school by time i get through with scoops so it makes since when i quite literally run into Scarlets friend. “Oh shit im so sorry.” She said. I sigh out “Its fine my fault really dont worry about it.” She kinda blushed. “Its (Y/N), right?” I asked praying to god i was right. “Uh, yeah and you are Robin. How are you doing?” She is really awkward and blushy. “Weird to say the least but i have to go now, have a good rest of the day.” I told her and walked away kinda fast.

#robin buckley x reader #robin buckley #stranger things #robin buckley imagine #stranger things imagine

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neopuff · 4 years

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hello, i hope you're having a good day!! i was wondering, do you have any tips for making amvs? like, what programmes you use, how you handle the timing, etc. thank you for all the fun edits you make!!

hi!! sorry for the delay in answering this, i just wanted to take the time to answer it thoroughly and i kept forgetting lol & thank you! i already typed this once and tumblr made it disappear so i apologize if anything i say comes out short ‘cause i’m just trying to remember all that i typed before lol

ok so ill just go through my general editing process in Vegas, i dont know any other program well enough to talk about it at length:

(disclaimer: this is just how i do it, i dont watch tutorials and my editing friends and i don’t watch each other edit often so i would assume that my way is very different from other ways you’ve probably seen! i might even do something in a very stupidly hard way, please feel free to tell me if theres an easier way to do anything lol)

1. Song: So skipping past the “choosing song and ship/character/show” theme, I’ll dive straight into CUTTING THE SONG! I’m not about that Editing The Entire Song life, and neither is most of the editing community anymore, so I cut it up into a shorter thing that I’m better equipped to edit to. I’m just using a random example but here I’ve taken this long ass song and turned it into this:

(the next step just kind of depends on my mood, or ill do both, doesnt matter)

2-A. Subclips: if im making a shorter video or a video where i’m not 100% super familiar with the footage, i will immediately start making subclips using the episodes ive already pulled into the project. if it’s a ship/character that i’ve edited before, i’ll just go to Import->Media from Project and import the subclips i made previously. either way, subclips are there!

2-B. Sheets: for ships that i know very well/have a lot of footage/im concerned about potentially repeating something, i will go to Google Sheets/Excel and take the lyrics im editing to and put them in column A, separating by pauses in the singing. then i put corresponding footage i think will go well in column B! im often not super specific because i know the beats are gonna be different than i remember, so i usually stick to referencing whole scenes instead of specifics moments. here’s an example:

3. Clip placement: Then I start placing clips down! Below is how I organize my timeline tho I know a lot of editors who put the music on top, this is just how I like it. I also keep a single muted audio layer in between for the video footage’s audio and then I’ll delete that layer when I’m done (or sometimes I don’t, it doesn’t really matter)

I think it’s good to hit the beats as much as possible, it makes for a more dynamic audio-visual experience! In general I try to make my videos so that, if I didn’t add any zooms or typography or coloring, it would still be a good amv. And don’t limit yourself to just one layer, you can have as many layers as you’d like and put clips on top of each other (cookie cutter/changing the layer to dodge or add or screen or whatever) is a good way to mix things up

when I zoom in you can see I’ve got some variety already in my transitions, I know I use that motion-blur-zoom a lot these days but I still try to mix it up and keep my brain invested

4. Typography: After all the clips have been placed (or most of the clips, ofc sometimes I’ll want to add more later) I move on to typography! I’m lazy so the first thing I’ll do it just put down unedited text where I think I’ll want it to go. It just helps me organize myself. Then I’ll pretty up the text afterwards.

Typography isn’t necessary for a good AMV, but really nice typography can really spruce things up. I’ve only very recently gotten confident in my text editing skills, and I just kept watching typography done by editors I really like until I figured out what they were doing. My recommendation is to just KEEP ADDING EFFECTS! Convolution kernel, gaussian blur, mask the text so it appears from angles that the transitions wouldn’t be able to do - of course there’s gotta be a limit for taste, but just add stuff until you like how it looks. Also changing the blending style of the text layer is good, dodge and difference are my go-tos for typography layers.

5. Transitions: I don’t go crazy with transitions, but it’s fun to mess around with them. You don’t want too many crazy/different transitions, you want them to match the mood of the song and the type of beat you’re hitting. I usually ensure that all similar beats in the song have the same transition type on them, bbbbbbut that’s cuz I’m overly obsessed with parallel structure. There’s plenty of fantastic AMVs where they just go ham and do whatever types of transitions they want to in each part of the song and they make it work just fine

(next step, once again, kind of depends on my mood lol)

6-A. Zooms: Time for zooms! I usually just use the pan/crop for zooming, but often I’ll incorporate Sapphire FX BlurMoCurves or NewBlue AutoPan, especially if I’m trying to zoom typography with the footage at the same rate. I try to keep my zooms short and slower, I mean obv it just depends on the song but yeah. There’s a lot of different ways to do zooms so I recommend experimenting and just playing around with different effects

6-B. Zooms...but different: Another way that I’ll do zooms which is definitely pretty different (but this is what I do for crossovers like 95% of the time because I am laaaaaaaaaaazy) is I’ll drag the project into a new project timeline and start editing it there. It’s similar to how After Effects works and it makes it easier to put effects overtop of multiple layers without having to pre-render anything.

So you can see I’ve just pulled in the .VEG file and popped it in the timeline! So this way I can add zooms and transitions without worrying about layers. And if I see a mistake I need to fix, I can just go back into the original .VEG file and edit it, and it’ll be edited when I come back here. So it’s much easier than pre-rendering or trying to do zooms on a lot of layers. To be clear tho, this doesn’t work well if you have a lot of fade transitions, it’s best for sharp transitions and it’s great when you’re using Sapphire FX BlurMoCurves a lot.

7. Overlays: After that I’ll add more typography (or if you didn’t add any earlier, you can add some here overtop of the new project file) that kind of goes on top of everything. And then I’ll add any overlays or objects or whatever else I wanna add! I’m not someone who uses a lot of backgrounds cuz I don’t have a background-creative-brain so I stick to simple overlays at the most.

8. Coloring!!! This is very sad but I only JUST learned a few weeks ago that you can add coloring/effects to your entire video with this button here, so in case anyone else hates watching tutorials as much as I do here’s where I’m talking about:

This shit would’ve made my life so much easier throughout the years lol But alas. Anyway so for coloring there are some effects that are popular for any colorings you’ll find on YT (but you can certainly just download some, Riverdale editors in particular share a lot of really great colorings but you’ll find them anywhere in the live action editing community):

Channel Blend, Color Curves, Color Blend, Color Balance, Convolution Kernel (best for live action footage or footage that isnt very crisp), Color Corrector Secondary

These are all just fun to mess with. Channel Blend in particular is something of a mystery for me, I haven’t studied it fully to understand what I’m doing so I mostly just mess with it randomly until I like what I see lol

9. Render time! First render, anyway. Usually there’ll be some random problem in the footage or something and I’ll have to either go back into the project and fix it OR if I’m feeling particularly sour (or maybe if I’ve rendered like 3-4 times already) I will just take the finished render and manually remove any errors, stretching out the good footage to cover my tracks. You’d be surprised how often I end up doing that lol

And then it’s good to post! I primarily render as .WMV but I also go for .MP4s every once in a while. If I want to upload it to Twitter I’ll do an .MP4 but it’s a new thing for me so I’m still stuck on .WMV mostly.

Anyway I hope this answered your question at least a little bit, I can go into more detail about certain parts of this if you’d like!

#anon asks #carro answers #sony vegas #magix vegas #editing #long post

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drkcnry67 · 3 years

Text

look up... (day 3)

A/N: @obxmermaid here is day 3. we find that its tutoring time again, Draco and YN have been spending time together during tutoring and little rendevous’ in the shared quidditch tent, but when the mistletoe grows it sparks joy.

fandom universe: harry potter

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x reader

tags: kiss under the mistletoe, tutoring, making out under the mistletoe, saying the L word without the silencer.

25 days of hogwarts list

today was the day, you were finally gonna say the L word without the silencer. you and Draco had discussed it for a while now and realized that neither of you cared what happened as long as you both got to be together in the end.

one day during potions you were sitting paying attention to Snape as he was teaching how to make veritaserum, while Draco a table away from you was staring at you.

Snape: Mr. Malfoy how long does it take for Veritaserum to mature?

draco snapped back to look at Snape...

Draco: a week

Snape: wrong. lets try another question, what does veritaserum do?

Draco: make the drinker vomit?

Snape: perhaps you would like to be my guinea pig my malfoy and test this brew...

before Snape could finish this sentance, the bell chimed class was over...

Snape: the exam will contain a potion presentation. each of you will have to make a potion of your choosing while i watch... so each of you have to present me with your potion that you picked so i can make sure i have enough of each ingrediant needed for each potion. remember there are a variety of potions out there so i dont want to see repeat potions. Now leave me to grade your pathetic papers.

You grabbed your books and walked towards the door but was stopped when you heard Snape say your name. You went back towards him and Draco.

Yn: yes professor.

Snape: miss YN, can you give Mr Malfoy a recap in your tutoring session of today's lesson obviously he wasn't paying attention.

Yn: I'll make note of that and we will review that professor. Speaking of potions, I'll brew veritaserum for you for my exam professor.

Snape: you sure your up for that Miss YN. its a rather complex potion.

you nod your head.

YN: ive been practicing my potion brewing as part of my prep for the exams. i got this sir.

snape: very well as the first student to approach me with their potion request you have the honor of brewing me this potion. it will be a good accomplishment if you wish to follow my footsteps and become a potions master.

YN: thank you professor, i look forward to brewing this for you. Draco ill see you after supper for tutoring.

Draco nodded not trusting his own voice as he too left the classroom moving onto where he would see you next. charms led by flitwick, your rivalry with Draco was legend in that class but also was the knowledge among the teachers that you were tutoring Draco.

Flitwick: take your seats children, today we are gonna be conjouring non verbal spells, our minds can do wonders and our magic helps bring what we want into the light.

YN: professor what if what we want is something we arent sure we can ever have. like a normal life for example. how would that be depicted.

Flitwick: it would show itself in the form of 1 flash of what you want from that normal life. miss YN why dont you come up here and show us how its done.

you nod walking from your seat to stand before the class. you concentrate your minds energy into something not involving you and Draco. you didnt want to get in trouble.

so you conjored a different dream of yours, one where you were standing in hogwarts as a professor, teaching the students all that you knew.

flitwick: well done miss YN, i hope one day that dream becomes a reality for you.

you were one of the few people in most of your classes that could comprehend the lessons the professors were trying to teach. your issue was that with everything you knew, there was no loopholes yet pertaining to the forbidden relationship between you and Draco.

YN: thank you professor. please dont hesitate to ask me for demos anytime.

flitwick smiled and nodded as Draco was waved at to come forth next. this made you curious about how it made you happy being with Draco in secret. making sure your cousin is not aware of what kind of happiness has befallen you.

hermione sitting next to you though, felt your current emotion being your cousin makes you shiver.

Hermione: we need to talk cuz. Your giving off huge amounts of lovey dovey energy. Who are you crushing on?

Yn: no one I'm just thinking bout the pretext of my next short story.

Hermione: I can't wait to read it, you sure thats the only thing wrong

Yn: yes that's what it is. I can't wait for class to be over. I have so much to prep before tutoring tonight. I've got 2 temp clients before the only consistent client tonight...

hermione scoffed as she thought about how you tutor draco every single day.

Hermione: ugh Draco, i dont know how you put up with having to tutor him. i mean he is your greatest rival.

you had one thing in mind for you to speak but another thing came out instead.

YN: that rivalry is just for appearances we are actually getting along some what in our sessions.

Hermione: this is the same guy who has teased me for years... and now you tell me that your rivalry with him is just for appearances. is there anything else you would like to tell me?

YN: i saved his life over the summer.

you started walking back to your shared dorm. your cousin quickly in pursuit clearly wanting to hear the rest of that story. she cornered you in your dorm, the same spot where she knew you couldnt hide anything.

hermione: im sorry you saved his life... how?

YN: those last 2 weeks before school when you went to meet ron and harry... dont worry it wasnt anything major i just kinda hid him from his parents. he needed to escape, i helped him do so. its all good. nothing to worry about.

That's all that needed to be said, your cousin let you go knowing you had a busy schedule. Your last stop for tutoring was the astronomy tower, you were approaching and you could see lights on inside.

You were unsure of who else could be inside, Draco was rarely on time. you approach the door and it opens on its own, you are greeted with a warm candle light glow and the sight of your boyfriend standing in the center of the room.

Draco: right on time. i decided to surprise you for once.

YN: well you succeeded.

you said after you shut the door and approached him with a huge smile on your face. his arms now overlapping with your own arms as your hands sit on his waist.

Draco: i have one more surprise for you...

YN: whats that?

Draco: look up love.

you were following draco’s gaze as he slowly looked up. both of you now staring at Mistletoe. it was hanging from the ceiling. for a moment you let your guard drop... it was a happy moment, this was happy for you and for Draco.

before another word was said you found one cheek cupped in one of your boyfriends hands as his gaze held your own. Draco spoke again before either of you would realize that something ever would be wrong.

Draco: i love you YN... now and always i am gonna love you no matter what happens.

thats when he kissed you under the mistletoe. your heart fluttered like a little school girl. you were the one thing that Draco knew he could not live without.

~to be continued~

#obxmermaidholiday

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indigopurple · 4 years

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Basically a review of OP episode 503 ig

Currently rewatching post-war arc (in the dub so I don't have any screenshots for u guys sry) and theres a few things id like to point out.

During a conversation Dadan once had with Garp, they were talking about Roger. Garp said that even if they were facing powerful enemies, he would never run away because he wouldnt dare leaving his comrads behind; it wasnt an option for him. Obviously we see this in Ace. But ALSO, isnt this what he did with Katakuri? It was a little different cuz of the setting mostly, but he separated himself from his crew to fight off katakuri, and lied to them about being okay so they didn't worry (he was already getting his ass kicked by then, so he just made that stupid smile and told them not to worry (or smth like that, I can remember the exact line) (that smile was so gross and fake cuz he fucking sucks at lying). Also he said roger destroyed a buncha soldiers cuz they mouthed off his men. That's what Ace tried to do but instead he died. :(

"The pain he went through just made him hold on tighter to the ones he loved" -Garp, about Roger. "Despite his flaws and his bad reputation, his crew still trusted him completely." -also Garp, about Roger. These both sound a lot like Luffy AND Ace.

When Dogra got home and told everyone about Sabo's ship being shit down and him dying (which we all know didnt happen, thank fuck), (by the way the absolutely lost looks on Ace's and Luffy's faces with the sudden silence hurt like a bitch), Luffy started crying and said "WE SHOULDNT'A LET HIM GO, IT'S ALL OUR FAULT". Which fucking says something about him (thinking of episodes 913-915 when he goes fucking berserk, but before that he learns that Kaido probably killed Tama and he says "I should've escorted them..!" (*ugly cries*)). Ace also reacted pretty similarly-- "Sabo...why didn't we go back into town and bring him back here?! We're so stupid!" And he gets mad and asks where he could find the bastard that killed him (obviously not getting a good answer since it was a fucking celestial dragon ugh). That is what Luffy does, in present time. He results to anger first, not sadness. Not sure when he learned to do that but I'm 99 percent sure it was from Ace. Also the blaming himself thing? High chance thats ALSO from Ace. Who else would teach him that self hating behaviour?!

Dadan pins Ace down to stop him from going after the Celestial Dragon to calm him down, telling him he cant do anything, he's not big or strong enough to do anything and he'll be killed as soon as he tries anything, especially since it was the whole country -the whole WORLD- that killed Sabo. He can't do anything. And then they tied him to a tree outside to let him cool off. Oh yeah then he also told luffy to stop crying like a little girl or else he'll- (and he didn't finish the sentence). ...Ok maybe thats why luffy started being more angry than sad.

This is where things get a little more :( . Ace reads the letter Sabo sent them before he died. As he reads, he walks to the end of the forest, to a cliff overlooking the ocean. And starts fucking bawling (btw the voice actor who had Ace's childhood part did not do a very good job, no where near as in character and real as Coleen Clickenberg did with all of Luffy's crying scenes. She was spot on.) ...do you see where im going with that? He isolated himself before letting himself feel sad. It was all rage and then calm beforehand. Y-you see where im going with that. Dont make me say it.

"How's Luffy doing, is he any better?" "Well...he hasnt been eating much, but he still eats twice as much as we do". Oh look, That's what happened after Ace died too. There's a behavioral pattern that hasnt gone away. Not sure why it wouldve tho.

Luffy is mopeing, lying on the ground in a similar setting ace was at when he cried. Hes thinking about some of the things Sabo said, like how theyre gonna sail the seas together, and he clenches his hands into tight, shaking fists. After Ace shows up and hits him, and talking abt some other stuff I don't feel like relaying, Luffy tightens his grip on the straw hat and tells ace, whimpering, he wants to get stronger (and stronger, and stronger, and stronger and stronger and....) And he wants to be the strongest in the world. "And then, I'll protect everyone. I won't lose anyone I care about". He gets stronger mainly to protect the people he loves. And then he asks ace to promise he won't die. To which he hits Luffy again and tells him he should be more worried about himself dying first. And then the famous line that hurts like a bitch- "I'm NEVER going to DIE!" And then this hopeful music comes on (fucking damnit funimation, u gotta do this? Really??) Also he says he wont die as long as he has a wussy little brother to protect. ...FUCK. Ok, the fist clenching is a thing he does all the fucking time, usually when he gets mad. This was different because he wasnt mad, he was sad. He clenched his fist because thinking about it hurt. Which, huh, sounds a lot like his whole episode after waking up from his 2 week coma on the polar tang. To try and stop the mental pain of those horrendous memories, he resulted to physically pain. He hurt himself. So, He clenches his fists in times like these to fight off the mental pain and the urge to cause himself physical pain. Guys, our boy is bad at emotions, help him. ....ok this paragraph is longer than I anticipated so ill dumb down the rest of it ig. Next part, him asking ace to promise he wont die. The music, the body language, the over change in mood- this comforts him. He stopped hiding his face and silently sobbing after ace said this. OH YEAH! didn't he tell jinbe not to die when they parted ways in Totto Land? And then, hes missing still in Wano and we see Luffy is worried....but convinced Jinbe will show up. Again, this comforts him. Hes nervous cuz someone KOFF KOFF ACE broke that promise once. But jinbe is his crew mate so he trusts him, thank god.

"-But whoever did it, they must be opposed to freedom." The whole freedom thing? That runs through Luffy's blood and spirit.His brothers fought for it, his dad is the man who strives to give everyone freedom basically, and Luffy himself has seen enough of the OPPOSITE of freedom to be so, so much more than just against it. Hence why he of course was so eager to free the slaves in Sabaody, the kids in punk hazard, the toys in dressrosa, the country of Wano from Kaido's tyrany. The apple doesnt fall far from the tree huh.

I dont think Luffy would remember his promise with Shanks if it werent for his brothers putting feul to his dream. It was a stupid bet at first; he just wanted to beat Shanks, right then. But after meeting Sabo and Ace, he found the opposite of freedom and human rights. And then he wanted, REALLY wanted, to become the free-est man in the world; the pirate king.

Last one i promise ok? This one is less connected to whats going on in the episode at this point, but something I noticed (its so obvious everyone has seen this ok) was when luffy cries, his posture is always open. He doesn't curl in on himself like many people would do (I know I would, lol). He doesnt hug himself, protect himself. He's just, opened up to whoever is watching, literally. This has a little more to do with something I haven't talked about much in this post yet; his self-destruction issues. I said he tried to hurt himself when he felt mental pain, which is definitely similar. But he cries and doesnt try to protect or comfort himself, like he doesn't have that programmed into his mind. Reminder that he only wants to live because of his dream, and if he doesnt have his dream, he wants to die. (Whoa.). Ok, so no self preservation mechanism at all rlly. Hes basically ride or die. So, when things hurt so much that he cries, he has no hope left. He just kinda...dies inside. So this was mildly different after sabo died. Yes we saw him just standing there, sobbing. But the next day he's still crying, and instead he's laying on the ground. I saw that and the voice in the back of my head told me he wanted to be a part of that lifeless dirt beneath him. Then, Ace walked over. And his words made him feel the hope that I told you about earlier, and he sat up into a sitting position. And HUGGED HIS LEGS TO HIS CHEST. There's some self preservation! Some hope! Some will to exist, to live! Something we saw none of as he sat in front of his brothers corpse, shutting down. He sat there, open to his enemies, incapable of protecting himself. Practically anyone couldve killed him right then and there. I think he mightve liked that, at that moment. Like thank god he has that stupidly good luck cuz if he didn't I swear someone couldve thrown and axe or FUCKING ANYTHING AT THAT MOMENT and hed be dead becuase he never physically or mentally prepared himself. On purpose.

Our poor boy needs some fucking attention and therapists. (Insert my rant post about how jinbe is on the crew primarily for anger management and therapy, not just being a helmsman.) Ugh, smh ugly cries

Aaaaand thats about the end of the episode. Theres so many little tics and peesonality traits that you notive thru this episode, and I only noticed them cuz im rewatching this part of the show for like the third time. I don't react as much as the first time of course but some things are definitely sadder after knowing what's going on and what will happen later on.

Moral of the story (post)? I think luffy is almost equally as alike -if not, more similar to roger as ace is. Also, high key genuinely think Luffy met like NO ONE but Garp before he met Shanks and his crew. What the fuck was his first like 5 years of being alive like? (He wantd to be a pirate cuz Garp didnt want that. Rebellious baby asshole. And then shanks made things worse, in a good way for luffy. And then ace and sabo made that worse thing worse for a good reason. Luffy lives...for those influences. And that is fucking it. Why.

Oh thanks tumblr for moving my picture to the bottom of the post u fucking idiot

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artificialqueens · 5 years

Text

Not Nineteen Forever (4) (Branjie/Scyvie)- Ortega

a/n: i am absolutely hanging out my arse so editing and re-reading this chapter made me feel vaguely ill. i’ll pass it off as method acting xo thank you so much for the continued love and support for this fic, the fact that each chapter so far has broken 100 notes makes me piss my pants with excitement (watch now i’ve jinkxed it and this one’ll get like 8). in this installment Scarlet finds it hard to believe that she isn’t Victoria Beckham.

Trigger Warnings: explicit drug use, alcohol. unaaay.

Summary: Brooke, Yvie and Nina are three flatmates who forged a friendship in their first year of university and picked up some other waifs and strays along the way. Now in their final year, there are feelings that need to be unravelled and confessions to be made whilst navigating drunk nights, hungover mornings, takeaways, group chats, library meetups, cafe gossiping, and the small matter of getting a degree

***

Scarlet had to admit, she was enjoying the high life. As she sat up the back of the lecture theatre in the new fur coat she wasn’t planning on taking off anytime soon, blinking heavily with her £75 lash extensions, drumming her £50 acrylics against her notepad, she smiled to herself. This was definitely the kind of life she was suited to. Okay, she got a bit of a shock when the rent left her bank account, as well as her gas and electricity bills, but she still had a good amount there. Clenching her stomach, Scarlet thought about the number on her banking app. £3713.65. Slightly giddy, she pressed her lips together as she thought about it. How could she have spent over a thousand pounds in the space of two weeks? She thought through it in her mind. Rent, £550. Electricity, £30 split with Ra’Jah. Gas, £25, also split with Ra’Jah. But that only came to what…just under six hundred pounds? There was still so much unaccounted for. Scarlet thought about how much she’d paid for on nights out, the two shopping trips she’d been on since her scratchcard win, and the many, many Ubers she’d taken pretty much everywhere. It was time to reign the spending in.

It was crazy how much confidence it was giving her, though. Even on the group chat Scarlet felt self-assured enough to throw out barbs every so often, the girls all responding with keyboard smashes and capitalised laughter and giving her a boost of serotonin. It had even made her feel more confident around Yvie. Scarlet felt weird about the whole Yvie thing. Now that she’d realised she liked her, she didn’t really know what to do about it. She knew she would do something, she promised herself, as if she ended up in a situation like Vanjie’s she would scream. Scarlet cast a glance to the girl beside her, frantically typing notes into her laptop and listening intently. Bored, Scarlet took her fluffy-topped pen and wrote on her notepad, pushing it Vanjie’s way.

Lunch after this?

She watched as Vanjie looked down at her writing, looked back up, then nodded once. Scarlet smiled, glad that she had something to look forward to. It had been a while since she’d had a catchup with Vanjie, and part of her was excited to see if there had been any progress made between her and Brooke. Scarlet then realised it was a little selfish of her to think that way and, realising she hadn’t confided in anyone about her crush on Yvie yet, she decided she’d let Vanjie in on her secret.

When the lecture finished up they decided they would go for lunch at the Mexican place in town. It was a slightly longer walk than anywhere on campus but Vanjie was good company, chatting away happily about something funny her Mum had done back home and distracting Scarlet from the cold weather. They eventually reached the restaurant and got sat at a table, despite the fact Scarlet could have stood under the heaters that were blasting by the entrance forever. She watched as Vanjie shrugged her huge coat off then leant forward.

“So, how’s your lovely flatmate?” Vanjie asked, Scarlet letting out a snort and rolling her eyes.

“Our oven’s broken. She’s saying I broke it,” she explained, Vanessa tilting her head with intrigue.

“Why? What did you do?”

“I don’t know. Used it to cook food,” Scarlet said, her laugh giving away her monotone voice and causing Vanjie to giggle too. “It’s exhausting living with her! She just hates me for no reason! I swear she’s going to turn up by my bed in the middle of the night with a knife and her pillow to smother me with.”

“But then she’d have no-one to blame for the shit that goes wrong in the flat.”

“True. If I’m ever found murdered, though, you know who it was,” Scarlet raised her eyebrows knowingly, Vanessa having to stop herself from laughing as a waitress arrived at their table and took their drinks orders. Vanessa ordered a Corona and Scarlet almost joined her, then realised that beer on a lunch break when she still had a lecture in the afternoon was risky. She got a blood orange San Pellegrino instead. As the waitress walked away, Scarlet continued. “How’s Silky and Akeria? I’ve not seen them since last Saturday.”

“They’re good. Akeria’s stressing about Masters applications, even though I keep telling her every uni is gonna be fallin’ over themselves to accept her. Silk is fine. She’s always fine. I think she’s made peace with the fact she’s probably going to get a 2:2.”

“Nothing wrong with a 2:2,” Scarlet shrugged, even though she knew that if she was on course for a 2:2 she’d be crying as if her life was over.

“That’s true. Degree’s a degree. Still gon’ cry like a baby if I don’t get a 2:1 though,” Vanessa frowned, brightening up as the waitress returned and put their drinks in front of them.

“You will,” Scarlet said. It hadn’t been a lie- even though she only saw Vanessa working towards part of her PPE degree, she always seemed on the ball with lecture notes, got good grades in her essays, and you could never shut her up in tutorials. The other girl still narrowed her eyes at her as she took a drink.

“You have to say that, though. You’re my friend,” Vanessa said, Scarlet brightening up at the validation of her friendship. She’d never known if Vanessa had liked her at first, but over the years they’d eventually settled into being comfortable with each other. Vanessa sighed. “I worked out that if I want a 2:1 I need to get above 65% in everything until the end of the year.”

“That’s doable!” Scarlet insisted, pouring her can into the glass in front of her. She frowned and shook her head. “Anyway, let’s not worry any more about uni. How’s Brooke Lynn?”

Vanessa slid down in her seat and covered her face with the menu. “I don’t know, bitch, ask her.”

“You know what I mean! How are things going? Any progress?”

Vanessa screwed up her face. “I mean, I don’t know. Kind of? Maybe? It’s so hard to tell with that bitch.”

“What’s the maybe?”

“So last Monday we went for a drink after we went to the library. We were just talkin’ and somehow…I don’t even know how we got onto this topic…we started talkin’ about how we were…y'know, like in bed.”

Scarlet let out a screech. “OH my God. Amazing. How is that a maybe in any way?!”

“Nah, well, you know,” Vanessa smiled bashfully, fanning herself with the menu which neither of them had so much as glanced at. “It started to get deep and then I did my classic ha ha ha what a big joke this is I’m definitely not takin’ this serious in any way thing I always do with her. I think I made it awkward, ‘cuz I’ve not seen her since then. I mean we’ve talked on the chat but…yeah.”

Scarlet pouted, feeling sorry for her friend. “Oh, Vanj, no. It won’t be that at all. You know her and Plastique have got their portfolios due next week, she’ll just be busy!”

Vanessa bit her lip, then smiled slowly. “How about if I organise a lil somethin’ to take her mind off her work, then?”

Scarlet took a sip of her drink. “You’re going to turn up to her flat wearing nothing but a massive bow playing The Stripper through your phone speaker.”

As Vanessa howled, Scarlet realised a little too late that someone had come to take their order. She asked for five more minutes, neither of them having looked at the menu yet and having only used it as a prop for embarrassment.

“No, bitch,” Vanessa wheezed, finally getting her breath back. “Let’s see if we can get her to come out tonight.”

Scarlet felt her brows pulling together involuntarily. “On a Wednesday? She’ll be too responsible.”

Vanessa sighed and gave the menu a cursory glance. “Couldn’t we at least try? I just need to know if I’ve made things awkward so I can go about trying to fix them. Although how the fuck I’d do that, I don’t know.”

“I guess you could put it on the chat?” Scarlet shrugged.

Gleefully, Vanessa bounced about in her chair and grabbed her phone decisively, immediately typing. She put it back face-down on the table almost as quickly as she’d picked it up. “It’s sent. Although now we’re running the risk of everyone being free apart from Brooke Lynn, and if I’m honest I really don’t have the energy to go out otherwise.”

“We’re getting old,” Scarlet shrugged, her eyes scanning over tostadas, taquitos and empanadas without really being able to focus on any of them. “Do you remember the days when you could manage two nights out back to back?”

“I remember the days I could manage two nights out in one night,” Vanessa laughed, running a hand through her hair and exhaling. “Scarlet, why am I nervous? Tell me why I’m nervous.”

“Because you’ve just orchestrated a night out with our whole friendship group just so you can see one member of it. Instead of, you know. Asking her on a date,” Scarlet smiled teasingly, Vanessa laughing in self-depreciation. It occured to Scarlet that she still hadn’t told Vanessa about Yvie. “That reminds me-”

Just then she was cut off as the waitress appeared again at their table. Scarlet couldn’t bear to send her away again so she quickly ordered some fish tacos and some sort of cheesy beany quesadilla she had no idea the other ingredients of. Vanessa rapidly fired off an order for a pulled chicken burrito and pork taquitos which, Scarlet could glean from a quick glance at the menu, seemed to be served with radioactive levels of spice. As the waitress walked away, Scarlet frowned.

“Are those taquitos not really spicy?”

“Meh. I don’t mind spice. Worst case scenario I’ll have to install scaffolding round my ass for the next three days after I eat ‘em,” Vanessa shrugged and then leaned forward, hardly giving time for Scarlet to laugh at what she’d just said. “You said ‘that reminds me’ after we were talkin’ about dates, what’s up with that?”

“Oh uh, nothing,” Scarlet smiled shyly as she picked at a bit of dripped candle wax on the tabletop. “Just that I’m joining you in the crushing-on-my-best-friend club for the foreseeable future.”

Vanessa’s face lit up. “What is this?!”

Scarlet felt cheeks flush red as she said it. “I…think I have a crush on Yvie.”

Vanessa let out a quick screech of delight, drawing the gaze of a dining couple sitting at the opposite side of the room. Hushing herself, she leant close to Scarlet and continued. “Oh my God! Bitch! I love this. This is amazing. Aw, you’d be so cute together! I knew you were touchy with each other but I always thought that was just how your friendship was.”

“It is how our friendship is!” Scarlet protested, then put her head in her hands to cover her cheeks as she smiled. “I just…realised I like being touchy with her a little too much to be friendly.”

“Oh, I got it. You wanna be touchy with her in a different way,” Vanessa winked suggestively, Scarlet squealing in mortification and both the girls ending up howling with laughter. As the laughter died down, Vanessa smiled. “Well, welcome to the world of crushing on a friend, boo. It’s amazing, electric, and largely horrific. And painful. I’m not selling this well.”

“It sounds slightly sadomasochistic.”

“That’s actually what you get if you Google it,” Vanessa nodded faux-seriously, then put on a funny, posh-sounding voice. “If you liked getting shocked by a disused electrical socket twenty-five times in a row, perhaps you’d like: crushing on your best friend!”

Scarlet laughed, then shot a glance down at her phone as it sat face-down on the table. “I’m kinda hoping Yvie comes out tonight too now.”

“Ooh! We should check the chat,” Vanessa said, pouncing on her phone and her face dropping as she looked. Scarlet opened her own to see what had been said.

FORD TRANSIT VANJIE: me n Scarlet wanna go out tonight who’s down

large incongruous silkworm spiced praline: BITCH ARE U CRAZY WE AINT FRESHERS ANY MORE

large incongruous silkworm spiced praline: I GOTTA DATE WITH BRADLEY WALSH AND WHOEVER THE CHASER IS TODAY

Akeria Sainsburys Bag for Life: Girl we all know The Chase starts at 5pm you gotta think of a better excuse

Akeria Sainsburys Bag for Life: Sorry boo I’m out

large incongruous silkworm spiced praline: BITCH BACK TO BACK EPS ON CHALLENGE TV FROM 7 THANK U NEXT

Akeria Sainsburys Bag for Life: Need to be at the library early if I wanna get that 1st

Kim Kardashian-West: Placement :((((((( sorry babyyy

Akeria Sainsburys Bag for Life: I’ll see yall at pres though

Akeria Sainsburys Bag for Life: I’m guessing they’re gonna be at ours

Okay Then: Sorry girls our portfolios are due in like 9 days

Okay Then: big celebrations after though!!

Dave the Laugh: i’d actually be down

Scarlet felt guilty as her heart gave a jump, Vanessa sitting dejectedly across from her. “Hey, chin up! She’s not replied yet.”

“If Plastique is sayin’ no, she’ll be a no too,” she jerked her mouth to the side in a pained attempt at a smile. “Your girl’s down though, that’s good!”

“Stop. She’s not my girl.”

“Yet,” Vanessa smiled, a glint of disappointment still present in her eyes. Just then, Scarlet’s phone lit up in her hand.

mose: I’m going to follow the tradition of my entire university career making poor life choices and say yeah I’d be up for a night out

Scarlet looked with anticipation across to Vanessa, whose eyes were wide with excitement. She didn’t seem to know that she had a beaming smile on her face, and Scarlet couldn’t help but let out a chuckle, happy for the girl opposite her. “See? Good news!”

“Oh my God. It’s gonna be me, you, Yvie and Brooke Lynn. Fuckin’ double date night out,” Vanessa’s eyes scrunched up as she laughed happily. Scarlet felt her pulse start racing, nerves taking hold of her already. She was excited, though, for some time with Yvie in a slightly smaller setting. She hadn’t grabbed a coffee or done anything with just her in a while, and even though this wasn’t the ideal setting, it was still an opportunity. Vanessa was back typing quickly into her phone, and Scarlet watched the group chat progress.

FORD TRANSIT VANJIE: yall suck apart from Yvie and BrookeLynn

FORD TRANSIT VANJIE: come to mine for 9 then bitches! Xoxoxoxo

Mose: See ya then boo

Scarlet turned over her phone and raised an eyebrow at Vanessa. “You’re her boo.”

“Yeah fuck y’all bitches, I’m Brooke Lynn’s lil’ ghost,” she smiled and gave her hands a quick clap together in excitement, Scarlet spluttering a laugh at her friend’s adorable reaction. Just then, their food arrived and got placed down in front of them.

“Oh hey, can I grab another Corona?” Vanessa asked, holding up her empty one. The waitress took it and nodded, and Vanessa gave Scarlet a guilty look. “I should really head to the library after this but I’mma go back home and nap, then spend the next four hours gettin’ ready. Fuck, I don’t even know how I’m gonna afford goin’ out tonight.”

Scarlet took a bite of a taco, then thought. Lunch was only going to come to about forty-ish pounds altogether, and really, what was that out of her winnings? She swallowed, looked to Vanessa, and smiled.

“Hey. I’ll get us lunch,” she shrugged, shifting a little in her seat as Vanessa blinked at her.

“Serious? No, Scarlet, I can’t let you do that.”

“Honestly! My loan came in early,” she said, looking down at her plate as she lied. “Think of it as a celebratory, double-date-crush-night-out-whatever-the-fuck-this-is treat. And you can buy me a drink or something when we go out, call it even.”

As a waiter came by and placed another bottle in front of Vanessa, she gave a smile and raised it. “To coming out on the other side of tonight with girlfriends?”

Scarlet smiled as she clinked her glass against Vanessa’s beer. “Let’s not push it.”

The rest of her lunch with Vanessa passed by comfortably, Scarlet paying the bill when they were finished without a second thought and the girls saying goodbye with a hug and an excited squeal in anticipation of later on. Part of Scarlet wanted to head straight to the shops to look for something new to wear but she stopped herself, instead getting in an Uber and going back to the flat, the prospect of her returning to campus for her 3pm lecture growing thin. Turning the keys in her front door, she sighed when she heard loud music coming from Ra’Jah’s room. Scarlet had hoped she’d be out by now. Walking through to the living room to dump her shoes, coat and bag, she paused when she saw something on the messy, cluttered coffee table that she was sure hadn’t been there before.

It was a tiny, clear, plastic ziploc bag filled full of a white powder. Scarlet frowned as she picked it up, transferring the bag between her fingers and watching as the powder inside crumbled and broke up, the same sort of consistency as flour although slightly looser and whiter. The realisation of what she was holding suddenly hit her like a bus, nearly making her drop the bag. She stood silent for a couple of minutes, completely unsure of what to do. Then she heard the music in Ra’Jah’s room get turned up and that seemed to make her decision for her.

Storming back through into the hallway, Scarlet banged on her flatmate’s door. “Ra’Jah!”

The music got cut off and there was an eerie buzz of silence in the flat. The door in front of Scarlet swung open to reveal her flatmate, her face unimpressed. “Yes?”

Scarlet held up the bag, hoping it would elicit some emotion out of the other girl. It did not. “Can you not leave that shit lying around our flat?”

Ra’Jah smiled in amusement, showing a set of slightly uneven teeth. Scarlet felt her top lip curl up in a sneer. Ra'Jah wasn’t able to pull them off, not like Yvie with the cute gap she had between her front teeth. Fuck, was she really thinking of Yvie right now? Ra’Jah leant on the doorframe cockily. “What, a girl ain’t never seen cocaine before?”

“Of course I’ve seen it,” Scarlet lied, gripping the bag tight between her fingers. “I just don’t want the flat looking like a fucking crack den. I mean it’s not a potted plant, Ra’Jah, it’s a fucking class A drug. It’s not decorative.”

“Class A, ooh,” Ra’Jah mimicked mockingly, irritation washing over Scarlet. “Don’t shit yourself, bitch, it’s fine. I only put it down for, like, two seconds anyway. Just give it and I’ll put it somewhere safe.”

Scarlet went to pass it back to her, but something held her back. She looked at the powder again and a flash of thoughts flew through her head, of skinny, glamorous models and nightclub toilets and champagne. It was an illegal drug, and everything Scarlet had been brought up to believe told her it was fucking disgusting, and dangerous, and led to a spiral of addiction and debt. But still part of her was so insatiably curious, like she was addicted without even having tried it yet. She watched Ra’Jah’s expression change as Scarlet curled her fingers back. “Where’d you get it?”

“What is this, twenty fuckin’ questions?” her flatmate snapped back, rolling her eyes. “Just give me my narcotics, bitch.”

“Can I, um. I’ll buy it off you?” Scarlet stumbled out, causing Ra’Jah to look at her in disbelief.

“You want to buy cocaine?” she raised an eyebrow at her, speaking through a slight laugh. Scarlet’s hackles were up.

“Or give me the number of your dealer.”

Ra’Jah let out a small snort, shrugging her shoulders. “Ain’t any need to involve anyone else. Alright, that’s a gram. Give me sixty and it’s a deal.”

Scarlet felt her eyes widen involuntarily, Ra’Jah chuckling in response. “Girl, what did you think it was gonna be? Naomi Campbell snorts this shit for a reason, people use rolled up hundred dollar bills to snort this shit for a reason. It ain’t fuckin’ Cabbage Patch kids weed we talkin’ ‘bout here.”

Scarlet frowned and took out her phone, opening up her banking app. Just before she transferred the money, she looked at her flatmate suspiciously. Ra’Jah rolled her eyes.

“Look, I’m not taking you for a ride. I got it for fifty, a bitch wants to make a profit. Sixty is standard in some places. Others you’d be talkin’ seventy. Google it if you don’t believe me.”

“No, I believe you,” Scarlet simply said, hitting a button and just like that, sixty pounds flew out of her account. A nervous heartbeat felt entirely too fast and too loud in her body. Another hundred pounds gone.

“Thanks, bitch. This was great fun, maybe I’ll drop out and become a dealer,” Ra’Jah laughed, Scarlet saying nothing in reply as the door swung shut in her face. The bag seemed to make her right hand tingle, and a surge of nervous excitement shot through Scarlet like propane.

She got ready for the night ahead in a sort of daze, as the panic and the gravity of what she’d actually done began to sink in. She’d just bought a gram of cocaine for a night out. What the hell was she planning on doing with it? There was no way she’d be able to actually do any. Or was there? That was what Scarlet had always said about weed and now her and Yvie got high together all the time. Her pulse thrummed at her wrists when she thought about the other girl. Scarlet imagined bringing the small bag out in a toilet cubicle with her, watching her eyes grow wide, imagined her thinking holy shit, I never knew Scarlet was this type of girl at all. Imagined them both cutting it up with Scarlet’s bank card and snorting it, then hitting their high on the dancefloor, turning to her and letting Yvie lean in and kiss her in a haze of euphoria and lust.

Scarlet felt a throb of heat pulse between her legs, her doubts gone. This was a good decision.

Scarlet showed up to Vanessa’s flat only running a tiny bit late, ready with a bottle of vodka the size of her head and a couple of mixers in case any of the girls wanted to share. She got buzzed in quickly and was welcomed into the flat by Akeria who was looking a far cry from her usually-glamorous self, her hair piled on top of her head in a towel and a pair of pink flannel pyjamas on. Scarlet was shown through to their kitchen where she found Vanessa, Brooke and Yvie all sitting on the sofa or on chairs beside Silky who was also in her pyjamas and, just as she’d promised on the chat, was watching The Chase. The girls gave a small cry of delight as Scarlet walked in, Scarlet not missing the way Vanessa was sat on Brooke Lynn’s lap. Part of her prickled with jealousy, wishing that her and Yvie were in their place, but she didn’t mind too much. She was happy for Vanessa. Scarlet grabbed a glass, took a chair to sit in, and began pouring a drink as the girls continued to watch the TV.

“Low offer of minus four thousand pounds, high offer, please?”

“Fifty-one thousand pounds.”

“We’re watching The Chase,” Vanessa explained to Scarlet.

“I gathered.”

“If he takes the minus offer, I’m gonna reach through the TV and stab him,” Brooke said seriously, her face displeased.

“Nah, he’s gonna stick in the middle. I trust Nigel, 52, from Stockport,” Yvie drawled, taking a sip of her drink then smiling at Scarlet from her position on the chair beside her, reaching across and squeezing her hand. “Hey, girl, how are you?”

“I’m good, thanks,” she smiled shyly, giving Yvie’s hand a small squeeze back and admiring her crushed-velvet red dress. “You look good.”

Yvie momentarily looked as if she was about to say something cute in response when her eyes were suddenly ripped from Scarlet’s and back to the screen as the girls groaned loudly.

“He’s a fucking TRAITOR,” Silky yelled, launching a cushion at the TV. “Sheila brought back forty-five thousand for this asshole to take from it? NO MA’AM!”

“Well this is the most lit pres I’ve ever been to,” Scarlet deadpanned.

“I hate this motherfuckin’ game show. Silk, turn this shit off,” Vanessa rolled her eyes, her flatmate loudly complaining.

“It’s my fuckin’ flat too, hoe!”

“Yeah, some of us actually have to do work tomorrow,” Akeria piped up from her position at the oven, checking on whatever she’d put inside. “How come you’re out tonight anyway?”

Scarlet caught Vanessa’s eye and she just stopped herself from smiling. “Oh, you know. Sometimes you just fancy going out.”

“It’s called being spontaneous, Kiki. You should try it,” Brooke joined in as she brought both hands up around Vanessa’s waist, the other girl giving a happy sigh and Scarlet staring at them, jealousy burning under her skin. As the other girls bickered, Yvie turned to face her again.

“Hey. You alright?” she asked, concern etched on her face and making Scarlet’s heart swell up.

“No, yeah, I’m good!” she smiled, blinking and trying not to come out with the truth of I’m insanely jealous of how close and cuddly Brooke and Vanessa are being right now and I wish Silky would get up off the sofa so we can join them. Satisfied with her answer, Yvie smiled.

“That’s good. No sad allowed at pres,” she joked, then tapped her gently on the nose. “Also you’re not allowed to be upset, you’re, like, my favourite person. Don’t tell the others.”

Scarlet felt something akin to a tidal wave flood over her whole body. Boosted, she gave Yvie a small wink. “I won’t. I promise.”

Something behind Yvie’s eyes seemed taken-aback, but not in a negative way. Almost as if she hadn’t expected Scarlet to come back with something so flirty so quickly, and Scarlet had to hide her smile behind her hand when she saw Yvie’s cheeks turn slightly pink.

Two hours later, all of Scarlet’s vodka had been drank and the four girls had managed to navigate a drunk Uber ride and entry into one of the fanciest clubs in the city. Usually none of them would have been able to afford the entry fee, but Scarlet had paid the ten pounds for each of them without batting an eyelid. She probably should have cared, but Scarlet had hit that stage where the alcohol had her convinced that life was wonderful, she was invincible, and she would be young and rich forever. She laughed as she cast her eye around the small circle the girls had formed on the dancefloor. Vanessa was dancing, frankly, like a stripper, and Brooke seemed to be living for it, her hands on the other girl’s waist protectively. Yvie was bouncing and flailing about, completely intoxicated, and yelling along to whatever song was playing- Scarlet didn’t know it, but she didn’t really need to. Turning to Yvie, she grabbed her hands and laughed. Yvie looked at her curiously.

“You look like those things…those car lot things…they go like this in the wind,” Scarlet explained, suddenly demonstrating to Yvie and throwing her hands in the air. Yvie buckled over with laughter, her hands on her knees, and Scarlet was so pleased she’d made her laugh.

“Bitch you started doing the floss to Miami 2 Ibiza, shut the fuck up,” Yvie snorted, Scarlet howling beside her. Casting her eye again to Brooke and Vanjie, an idea planted itself in Scarlet’s head.

“Yvie, watch me dance like Vanessa,” she commanded, suddenly feeling emboldened enough to throw her arms around Yvie’s neck and push her body up against hers. She ran her hands through the other girl’s hair messily, Yvie’s eyes half-lidded as she laughed gently at her.

“Girl…messing up my hair,” she muttered, Scarlet smiling back brazenly.

“It was messed up when you did it,” she smiled cheekily, tapping Yvie on the nose like she’d done to her earlier. Without giving her a chance to respond, Scarlet dropped down onto the floor in a move she hoped would make her look irresistible. Instead, she toppled over and ended up flat on her back against the sticky floor, the crowd parting around her like the Red Sea. She looked up to see Yvie laughing hysterically, holding both her hands out to her. Scarlet took them gratefully and she was pulled up, beside Yvie again only this time with just a fraction of the confidence. Yvie must have seen her pouting as Scarlet felt her strong arms being wrapped around her in a hug.

“Aw baby, I like your dancing the way it is,” she slurred into her ear, a tingle shooting down Scarlet’s spine at the proximity of Yvie’s lips to her skin. Scarlet was about to do something, say something, when she suddenly felt herself being wrenched away from Yvie and dancing beside Vanessa, who was gripping her arm. Scarlet was confused until Vanessa leaned in close to her and yelled above the music.

“I got an idea,” she said, her voice thick with alcohol. “Gonna make them both jealous.”

Scarlet’s eyes widened, an electric shock running through her veins as Vanessa pulled her close, then tilted her head up and kissed her. There was little to no hesitation and Scarlet felt herself kissing back, feeling the eyes of the other girls on them both. Vanessa kissed as if she’d known Scarlet’s lips her whole life, hot and passionate, and it briefly ran through Scarlet’s mind that Vanessa probably had a certain Canadian blonde on her mind as she was doing it. She desperately wanted to open her eyes, to look over to Yvie to see if she even cared. Show over, Vanessa pulled away, beaming and laughing, and Scarlet felt herself laugh back. In her drunk state, the situation was funny- the pair of them getting with each other to try to make their two other friends jealous. It appeared to have worked, certainly in Scarlet’s case, as Yvie took her hand and pulled her back, an odd sort of smile on her face that didn’t quite reach her eyes. She shouted over the music at Scarlet, something that she couldn’t quite hear.

“What?”

Yvie raised her voice a little more. “I didn’t know you liked Vanessa like that!”

Scarlet laughed. “I don’t!”

Yvie gave her a funny look, a multitude of questions no doubt running around her head. Scarlet felt her confidence peak and she leaned in close to Yvie’s ear, Yvie’s arms snaking round her waist instinctively. “You jealous, girl?”

She felt Yvie’s body shake in a laugh Scarlet could tell was affected. “No…bitch.”

Scarlet leant her head on her shoulder and spoke against her neck. “Hey, 'f you’re lucky it might be you next time.”

She pressed a tiny kiss against Yvie’s skin and pulled away laughing, Yvie looking momentarily shaken then joining in with Scarlet’s laughter. Scarlet ran her tongue over her teeth. Fucking yes. Suddenly, she remembered the tiny bag she had in her bra. She caught the attention of the other girls and shouted over the music again. “Guys. Come pee with me.”

She began to make her way through the crowd to the toilets, hearing Vanessa and Yvie laugh at Brooke singing a parody of Come Fly With Me but replacing the word “fly” with “pee”. They eventually all managed to cram into a cubicle together, Scarlet counting her blessings that there was no toilet attendant on duty who would almost definitely have bundled them all out. The girls looked shocked as Scarlet turned around from locking the door and produced the bag from her bra.

“Is anyone down?” she asked lightly, Brooke letting out a nervous laugh beside her. Vanessa flipped her hair over her shoulder.

“What the fuck is that,” Yvie asked, her face set in a hesitant, concerned smile. Scarlet shrugged.

“It’s exactly what it looks like.”

Vanessa spoke first with a blase shrug. “Yeah, bitch, let’s do it.”

Scarlet smiled happily, part of her quite surprised at how readily Vanessa agreed to the whole thing. Her eyes darted to Yvie, who was still looking at the bag cautiously. Obviously noticing her eyes on her, Yvie gave her a look that Scarlet couldn’t quite decipher, then screwed her face up. “So this is a thing we all do now?”

Vanessa narrowed her eyes at her. “Aw Jesus, Yvie, it’s one key in a club on a night out, we’re not all about to turn into fuckin’ junkies.”

Scarlet’s confidence had been given a knock. She hesitantly caught Yvie’s eye. “I mean, you don’t have to, I just thought-”

“No, girl, I’ll do some. ’M not a fucking pussy,” she frowned, taking a breath that seemed to be shaky and turning to Brooke, who was still looking with wide eyes at Scarlet. “Brooke, you doing this?”

It occurred to Scarlet that this was the first time she’d ever seen Brooke look anything other than completely sure of herself. She was laughing awkwardly, almost nervously. Scarlet watched as Vanessa put a gentle hand on her arm. “You don’t have to, baby.”

“No, well, y'know me. Try anything once,” she slurred, leaning into Vanessa’s touch. “Okay, fuck, let’s do this shit.”

Scarlet moved to empty the bag out onto the toilet cistern, but Vanessa put out a hand to stop her. “Woah, girl, the fuck you doin’? Just take a key, ain’t no need for all that fuckin’ credit card shit.”

Scarlet frowned at her, confused in her drunken state. “Keys?”

Vanessa seemed to shrink back into herself as she saw all three girls looking at her intently, wondering how she knew so much about the process. Wordlessly, she gestured for the baggie and produced her keys from her gold clutch bag. She calmly opened the small plastic bag and fished into it with a single key, balancing some of the powder on the length of it. With a short glance up at the girls, she pressed a finger to one nostril and gave a quick, harsh sniff with the other. As quickly as it had appeared, the cocaine was gone. Vanessa rubbed quickly at her nose, sniffing awkwardly.

“Alright, who’s next?” she questioned. Scarlet could feel Yvie’s eyes on her.

“Well since Scarlet brought it, she should go next,” she said, something off to her tone and her stare that Scarlet couldn’t quite pinpoint. Scarlet shrugged stiffly, Vanessa reaching back into the bag with the key and holding some out for her. The butterflies in her stomach almost overwhelming, Scarlet leaned forward and mimicked what Vanessa had done. The first thing that she felt was the all-encompassing smell of petrol, followed by a horrific stinging at the back of her nose and mouth, Scarlet briefly being reminded of jumping into swimming pools when she was little and water shooting up her nose. She gave a cough and a big, follow-up sniff, Vanessa chuckling lightly.

Well, that just happened.

Nervously thrilled, Scarlet felt the butterflies in her stomach dissipate as she watched Vanessa hold a key out to Yvie. Yvie frowned and shook her head.

“Nah. Changed my mind. I’m out,” she said darkly, shooting Scarlet a glare that made her feel like a reprimanded child.

“Come on, Yvie, it’s fine,” Scarlet offered, the other girl scrunching up her face.

“No. It’s not happening. You guys have fun.”

Scarlet felt dejected. She wished she knew what she’d done wrong. Trying to push her feelings aside, Scarlet watched as Vanessa turned the key to Brooke. Brooke was looking from the key to the lock of the toilet stall, nervous. Vanessa reached up and touched a lock of her hair.

“You don’t have to, Brooky.”

“No, I will, I will. I’m just nervous. And excited,” she stammered out, Scarlet thinking she couldn’t have judged the girls’ reaction to this entire situation less accurately if she’d tried.

“You can rub it on your gums if you don’t wanna snort it,” Vanessa explained, part of Scarlet wishing she’d told her that before her turn. Brooke tilted her head, considering, then wet her finger, reached into the bag and took some. Then she put her finger back in her mouth and maneuvered it around, her eyes on Vanessa.

“You tryna flirt, boo?” the other girl questioned, her eyes half-lidded as she locked eyes with her.

Brooke let out a laugh. “Bitch I’m trying to take fucking drugs!”

Vanessa, Brooke and Scarlet burst out laughing, Yvie shushing them.

“Right, let’s go, junkies,” she said irritably. Scarlet frowned, sad that she seemed to have upset Yvie in some way. An idea came to her as they left the cubicle and wandered past the judgemental line of waiting girls.

“I’m gonna get us a bottle of champagne,” Scarlet decided, sure for a second that she saw Yvie roll her eyes, but she wasn’t too sure.

“Vanjie, does it look obvious we’ve been doing drugs?” Scarlet heard Brooke yell over the music, Vanessa laughing gently.

“Everyone here is on drugs, baby. Just chill. It’ll kick in in a minute,” she winked, taking both of Brooke’s hands and jumping a little on the dancefloor.

Scarlet watched as Brooke’s eyes darted to a security camera on the ceiling. “Guys. They can see us. They know.”

“Brooke, relax, nobody gives a shit,” Yvie rolled her eyes. Brooke turned to Scarlet, panic filling her eyes.

“Scarlet, what was in that? Is it all okay, yeah? It’s not got anything through it?”

“Oh, good. Well done, bitch, are you seeing this?” Yvie glared at Scarlet before she had a chance to reply to Brooke. “Brooke! It’s fine! You’re okay!”

The music seemed as if it had been turned up louder. Scarlet scrunched her eyes closed. “Brooke, it’s fine, okay? I’m going to the bar, who wants something?”

“Ugh, of course you are,” she thought she heard Yvie mutter. Suddenly irritated, Scarlet whipped around to face her.

“And what is that meant to mean, huh?” she snapped, Yvie’s eyes widening a little at being challenged.

“You, bitch! What the fuck is up with you these days?”

“Nothing’s up with me? What is this?!” Scarlet cried, a couple of heads turning their way then slowly turning back. She could feel her heart hammering in her chest as if she’d just drank fifty Red Bulls back to back, although she was unable to tell if this was the effect of the drugs or just how annoyed she was.

“Something’s off with you. Fucking…cocaine, champagne, this constant…buying everything for everyone like we’re all charity cases, behaving like you’re a fucking extra off Gossip Girl? This isn’t you, Scarlet!” Yvie yelled back, suddenly grasping her by the wrists and giving her a shake. “The normal Scarlet would have shit herself at the thought of doing a key, the normal Scarlet would want to go to Levels and pay a pound for entry instead of going here to dance around with a bunch of fucking Love Island rejects!”

Yvie’s words stung harshly at Scarlet’s heart. She knew the other girl could sometimes grow argumentative when she was drunk, but Scarlet had never had it directed at her. It wasn’t nice. Scarlet felt her tone switch a little as she spoke. “Yvie, you’re being kind of a dick.”

Yvie gave a laugh of disbelief. “Well breaking fucking news, Scarlet! So are you! I mean do you have any idea how shitty it is to see your best friend grow into a total asshole over the space of two weeks?”

“Guys,” Vanessa suddenly interrupted out of nowhere, and Scarlet had no idea how long they’d been fighting or at what volume. “Me and Brooke are gonna go. She’s not doing well.”

Yvie looked at Vanessa, panicked. She cast Scarlet one last withering look before dashing through the crowd, presumably to pick up their jackets. Scarlet felt a bubble of upset prick at her throat. She turned to Vanessa instead. “What’s happened?”

“She thinks she’s having a heart attack. I mean, she’s not, it’s just the drugs, but I’m still worried about her,” she frowned, biting her lip. Vanessa jerked a thumb back to where Yvie had slinked off. “The fuck was that all about?”

Scarlet shook her head silently, not trusting herself to speak unless she began to cry. She didn’t understand how she’d managed to fuck everything up so badly. Vanessa saw her upset and pulled her in for a quick hug.

“Baby. Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”

The four of them got their coats and joined the taxi queue in a blur. Yvie wouldn’t even look her way, and Scarlet didn’t trust herself to try to speak to her in case she managed to make things even worse. She seemed more concerned about Brooke anyway, who was chattering away, her teeth clicking together in the cold night air.

“Is the taxi driver going to know? Will he just drive us to the police station and hand us in? Do you think he’ll phone the police? What if the police were to just come here right now and say they’re giving random drug tests to everyone in the line? What if-”

“Oh my God, what if you shut the fuck up?” Yvie snapped, Brooke looking taken-aback. Vanessa wrapped her arms around Brooke’s waist protectively.

“Brooky. It’s alright. The police aren’t coming, the taxi driver isn’t gonna turn us in. We’re going back to your flat and we’ll get you into bed safe. You’ve got us, nothing’s gonna happen to you.”

Brooke let out a sound that was halfway between a sigh and a sob. She buried her face in Vanessa’s hair. “I love you, V’nessa.”

Scarlet saw something shut down behind Vanessa’s eyes as she squeezed Brooke tightly. “I love you too, baby.”

Scarlet couldn’t stop herself from casting her eyes across to Yvie, selfishly longing. If she hadn’t fucked everything up, maybe something could have happened. Now, though, it looked as if she’d have to piece their friendship back together, never mind anything more.

The line moved up, and they found themselves at the front. Brooke and Vanessa spilled in, then Yvie. Scarlet went to join them when she found the door getting pulled across in her face. Yvie scowled at her. “No. You’re not getting in with us. I don’t even want to speak to you right now.”

Scarlet could hear Vanessa protesting. “Yvie, for fuck’s sake-”

“You’re not coming with us, bitch. Make your own damn way home,” she reiterated, slamming the door shut.

As the taxi sped away, Scarlet couldn’t fix the slack-jawed look of complete hurt she could feel on her face. As the reality of what had just happened sank in, she felt her face crumple like a paper bag as she began to cry, stood on her own at the taxi rank in the small hours of the morning, and all she could do was wait.

#rpdr fanfiction #tw drug and alcohol use

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shitty147xc · 5 years

Text

MY FIRST WEEK!

•==========================•

•=MONDAY=•

I started my day going to school

When i got to school, I went to my friends especially to my girlfriend 😆😆 I pay for the weekly class fund which is 5 pesos. I had a chat with my friends. We laughed about some crazy things. Our class started. TLE was the first subject we have 2 groups. We have assigned dates for the groups to cook. My group will cook on Thursday and the other group will cook today. Group 1 left to cook at TLE room while my group was left in the classroom. As always, when there's no teacher around, we chit chat. They had a topic that made me overthink. They talked about where to transfer school after high school. i dont know where im going to so I felt down. It's because I feel like I'm gonna be left out. We watched a movie, "The darkest minds" I'm still ovethinking so I told my gf that I'm not ok. She just told to not worry.

Science time!. We had a activity about plate boundaries. My group was trying to figure out what to do with our materials. We didn't prepared enough tools soo I panicked but my groupmate told me to calm down, chilll So i did. I Had an idea so we used that idea even though its not foolproof. Me and my girlfriend had a fight so I ignored her and kept on doing my job. She keeps on poking me while I'm still thinking how to do shit. Our teacher said it was time, go eat your launch. Me and my groupmates look at each other because where not done yet (panic alert). I dont know what to do so asked them. Our leader said will do it tomorrow morning so they did. We had launch. My gf was giving me this sad look and teary eyes and she said sorry I said its ok(marupok👌). The school was almost over, Our last subject is english. Sometimes I get nervous in that subject because i feel like one wrong move kaboom😅😂 but its fun too lollsss We laugh and smile in that subject all the timee and get nervous 😂😂

•=TUESDAY=•

My day started again peacefully until i remembered that i have a report in English yes i know its our last subject but still i cant take away my mind off it. So yeahh we started again with chit chatss and laughing stufff. We had a assessment exam in English. We only used our stock knowledge. I did't finished the exam cuzz im to slow at reading. Its kinda bummer for me but i think I did good. Before having lunch we had a meeting about what food to bring next friday (buwan ng wika) I was the first one to raise my hand and shouted PANSIT MALABON!!!😂😂😂 Then my teacher said that all of us needs to taste the salty egg its called "ITLOG NI KUYA" then we all laugh even our teacher laugh because the name is stupid. We had an activity that we have tooo dance in a depressing song. Our last subject, my fear! Because im about to report I know its not my first time reporting but still the anxiety is taking over me. I saw my teacher going to our classroom but I stopped him and said "sirrrrrrr im nervous"😂😂😂

He said "its gonna be fine" something like that. I finished the report I was about to cry, I froze too and I was on my knees. He said I did good *thumbs up* and that Made me happy

•=WEDNESDAY=• (nothing interesting)

No classes because its holiday soo I'm staying at home where its boring. The only interesting part of my day

Was washing dishes becausee when I'm washing plates I danceee yeshh andd alsoo singg i look like an idiot but whoo cares. I make cleaning interesting lolss😂😂. When I overthink I used the mic with Bluetooth and singg andd singg like i was broken hearted but im not it just makes my mind peaceful.

•=THURSDAY=•

Another day with stressed and depressing day but kinda relief cuz im done with the reportt yessssss!!!.

The whole day i was depressed because me and my girlfriend talked about something that makes my heart break even her's but its fine we covered it with some positive topics that made us laugh. We had a quiz in filipino i did't do good because my score was 3/20 i knoww i knoww itss bad really bad but im not the only one hehehehe Ill try my best next time. Our last subject again still made me nervous. We had to make an essay about were would our soul go in what level in hell. i kept on thinking where should my soul go. First i chose greed but its too hard to explain so i chose violence but it was time to go home so it was a take home activity i guess TO BE CONTINUED.

•=FRIDAY=•

LAST DAY OF THE WEEK like any other day CHIT CHATSSS 🤣🤣. I thought this day would be less stressful but i thought wrong. I was relief on math every day but today i was stressful, big numberss in my notebook my weakness. On social I was stressed too because I have too explain many things but i couldn't elaborate. Science another stressful subject it doesn't have big numbers but has looooonng equation 😭😭😭. After lunch I had fun we had a quiz on mapeh that i thought would be hard but nahhh itss great. LAST TIME ON MAI'S LIFE LOLS 😂😂. We has an essay and today we passed that essay. I didn't expect reading our essays in front of the class but for the first time I was not that nervous. I read my essay and again my teacher said good i was again gladd its giving me confidence actually so thank you sir😅😂😁.

THATS ALL FOR TODAY YEY

I CAN REST IN PEACE

😂🤣😆😁😊☺️😗😂

•==========================•

#life

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athanasia-istolla · 5 years

Text

Interview: Sindri Istolla

The following is done in a present state/day style: Oct 19th 2019/Unknown Hydaelyn date.

► Name ➔ “Sindri Rianorix Istolla be m’ full name, not dat anywon uses such.”

► Are you single ➔ “Mm if ye mean am I not see’n anywon, den yee. Tis long since dat’a been elsewise.”

► Are you happy ➔ “A’times, yee. Tis not always easy. I hath my health an me life. The Shroud itself be kind ta me even thou som folk be not.”

► Are you angry? ➔ “Angry? Non non.. Frustrated perhaps at current, but such wilt pass once dem false wanted posters be delt with.”

► Are your parents still married ➔ “When saw em last, yes.. I dun think much could’a shook dat bunch’s unionship even after all dis time.”

NINE FACTS

► Birth Place ➔ “mm such thing, is knowledge for the trusted only..”

► Hair Color ➔ “Most be silver with streaks o black.. Tis ma natural colour despite de questions o who I see ta get it done… all most non believe me thou.”

► Eye Color ➔ “Hmm ma eyes be bit complex.. Da outer lens is Dune-gemed Lilac, such be all dat most see at first glance, in part o how large they are. Yet past such lay a shifting teal-violet set o limbal rings o’ sorts. Tis not supar hard ta see, more easy at night thou. Last me sclera is dark, bu’ with how large de dune lens is, tis unnoticed by near all. If one was in ma life oft enough, eventually would see both o such thou.”

► Birthday ➔ “Thirteenth Moon of the Sixth Umbral Moon (13/12), T’was so early that day the sun had not risen yet”

► Mood ➔ “Perhaps a bit uneasy. Feels like some’n coming.. Yet tis hard ta discern when an if such be related ta thee fake posters.”

► Gender ➔ “Female.”

► Summer or winter ➔ “Winter. Aside de lovely delights of the season, cozy hearths, the quiet snow brings to de world.. The stars hang longer over head.. Tis peaceful to bundle near a soft fire an gaze upon the astronomic gems.”

► Morning or afternoon ➔ “If ye mean when to wake.. Just ‘fore dawn.. The stars still littering the sky.”

EIGHT THINGS ABOUT YOUR LOVE LIFE

► Are you in love ➔ “Love? Non.. perhaps hav’ a crush or three.” soft shy chuckle “But non, not love.. Not yet at least.”

► Do you believe in love at first sight ➔ Rumbles an amused chur as she smiles. “The fates work in many ways.. I have yet to personally experience such depth of sudden infatuation. I would personally be cautious of such. Yet I would not say such be impossible.”

► Who ended your last relationship ➔ “If by such yet again ye be speak’n o the intimate type… Circumstance.. Events beyond our control.. Despite the effort against such. I doth not know if she survived the raid.. An I was likely sold off too quick if they had mounted a rescue.. Twas a very long time ago now..”

► Have you ever broken someone’s heart ➔ “Am sure I likely hath broke a few in my home lands.. An perhaps some of these ones.. in the past at least. I can say such was not out o ill will nor intentional thou.”

► Are you afraid of commitments ➔ “Hmm non.. Tis not commitment I fear, tis abandonment, an what I can contribute being ‘enough.’ I know well I can’t provide all things, even the instances I wish to thee core I could. Tis hard ta find those who understands such.. While I am not opposed at all to Monogamy in the ‘right’ circumstances. Polyamory-esk dynamics feel more natural to me. T’was very common in my home lands. I’m.. still healing from things, I’ve made much road, yet still be more a head. ‘Someday’ I hope to share thine life with anothers again..” Chuckles “course such whimsy talk.. Who knows.. ‘Someday’ could start tomorrow if the fates align.”

► Have you hugged someone within the last week? ➔ “Doth this include Crypts an Elementals?”

► Have you ever had a secret admirer ➔ “Recently? Not any am aware of.. I mean, tis part o the name no? If they be do’n it right am not supposed ta be know’n ye?”

► Have you ever broken your own heart? ➔ “Oh ye.. T’was a very long time ago now though..”

SIX CHOICES

► Love or lust ➔ “Both.. Ye ye I know it says choices.. Yet both share a common base.. Passion.. An I rather adore passion.. In all things, not just the tango twix two or more.”

► Lemonade or iced tea ➔ “While can’t say I’ve tried iced-tea.. Lemonade is much too sour usually fer me. So tea.. With the promise ta try it iced come thee summer months again.”

► Cats or Dogs ➔ “I’m one who rather likes all nature.. If I must chose, Cats. They be far more self sufficient an tis quite lovely ta have a purring snuggle bug close while read’n.”

► A few best friends or many regular friends ➔ “A few best/close companions.. Much as of course one would have other degrees of relations.. A core few dear faces is preferable..”

► Wild night out or romantic night in ➔ “Am a bit o a quiet one on de whole. Yet night outs can be quite delightful.. Hmm will go with night in, this time.” Softly chuckles.

► Day or night ➔ “Night, especially a clear night with a new moon.. Stars as far as you can see.”

FIVE HAVE YOU EVERS

► Been caught sneaking out ➔ “Of course, who hasn’t when young.. Even then I was.. Enamored with the astral.. Twas hard not to sneak out with ma scope on dem new moon nights.”

► Fallen down/up the stairs ➔ “Gehh.. course ye got’a ask som’n like dis.. Ye.. both.. more den am gonna be admit’n..” Her features bronzen with a lil pout.

► Wanted something/someone so badly it hurt? ➔ “Ye.. more den once..”

► Wanted to disappear ➔ “There were times.. In de past.. Am sure in some.. Most would have wanted the same..” Glances away, her tails coiling tighter around her hips as she hugs a length o one to her chest to suppress a tremor.

FOUR PREFERENCES

► Smile or eyes ➔ “Eyes, there is.. Much one can glean from a simple quick glance from the eyes..”

► Shorter or Taller ➔ “Oh dear.. Make’n me out ma self hm? Taller.. Am quite petite.. Four-Fulms an Three-Ilms tall at most, while I do enjoy huggling de even smaller den myself.. Tis hard not to be bit captivated by a taller lass.” Her features bronze again whilst she wiggles a little in her seat.

► Intelligence or Attraction ➔ “mm Am gonna cheat again an say both.. While I do lean towards a captivating mind.. Tis much said for there to also be de draw of the physical.. Perhaps tis a balance or one o em ratio kind’a things?” Grins a lil.

► Hook-up or Relationship ➔ “Mymy ye are a nosy bunch ne? Ye gonna ask for my diary next?” Chuckles through an amused rumble. “mn I’d say there be a place for both.. Yet I do lean more to relationships.. An such things have numerous degrees to them.. Yet something.. I guess that doesn’t leave one feeling.. Used o sorts.. Am sure some could argue there is “fun/good” ways of that feeling.. I’ve.. only experienced the darker side o such thus far.”

FAMILY

► Do you and your family get along ➔ “Yee, we did quite well on de whole.. Course we had our disagreements and such, what fam doesn’t.”

► Would you say you have a “messed up life” ➔ “hmm before these lands.. No.. it was a good life.. Even when we disagreed I was never treated ill or harmed.. An I could tell.. That they honestly thought they were doing the best for my sake.. ”

► Have you ever ran away from home ➔ Laughs softy “Guess you could say such in away.. Certainly wasn’t intentional.”

► Have you ever gotten kicked out ➔ “Non, not in de way yer asking at least.. There be an ‘o age’ passage with my kin.. Live off the lands on our own till our ink finish take’n root.. Mine took bout four full cycles.. Folks were very relieved when I returned ta em.”

FRIENDS

► Do you secretly hate one of your friends ➔ “Non non.. I’ve more aquatencies and trade contacts den friends currently.. I wouldn’t say hate but.. Thinking on it, perhaps a bit of wryness o one fellow.. Am doubtful they be give’n me the right return on some the crystals I sell em.”

► Do you consider all of your friends good friends ➔ “mn again I don’t really have at the moment.. Tis certainly a few acquaintances I’d like to get to know better.. Some.. much better.. I will admit to shyness an caution, despite my friendly demeanour.. Have been.. Betrayed more than few times.”

► Who is your best friend ➔ “Currently I don’t have someone I’d consider such.. Perhaps someday though.”

► Who knows everything about you ➔ Those lilac gemed eyes cast down a bit. “Saga did.. I know not if she lived through the raid on our village. Lady Lena as well, that was less willing of a conversation, despite my gratitude for being saved, in some sense, from de slave fight pits in Ul’Dah. I feared she’d sell me right back to the nearest auction if she knew it all.. or kill me herself. Yet she didn’t.. What more, made me da Head o house Attendant’s second & de attendant/body guard of her only heir, her daughter. Both Ladies of Bloodlion passed in the calamity.”

Tagged By: @kyrie-silverwings

Tagging folks mostly to share the info cuz I have barely anything for Sindri up lol Shy flail. No worries if you’ve already done it: @tsukikotanshi @lulu-ffxiv @az-ffxiv @under-the-blood-moonlight @fair-fae @purple-salt-mage @othard @alun-ura @cheche-dotharl @paleshadeofrose @clouded-vxle @trishelle

#Sindri Istolla #Iridescent Twilight #character prompt #ffxiv rp #sorry for the slight rambles I couldn't help it XD #Sindri

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goodnightkisseu · 5 years

Text

Yoon Jisung - Confidant

Requested By: @prettywordsyouleft (“ HELLOOOO! <3 I have waited for this day, heh. I would LOVE to request something fluffy with Jisung. I don't mind if it has some angst in it, but I want a happy ending BECAUSE YOON LEADER DESERVES ALL THE HAPPINESS IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. ”)

Genre: Angst/Fluff (tbh it’s just a lot of drama cuz I’m dramatic af)

Note: So I know that Chelle had asked for fluff and this isn’t exactly fluff, but it was a story that I really wanted to tell for Jisung ;___; This story takes place in the same Mafia!au world as my Jihoon ‘Runaway’ fic so if you would like a bit more background on some of the parts that mention Jihoon, I would suggest checking that out! I’ll link it in the reblog. This world is actually one that I’ve been thinking of building out, so I may end up writing more mafia!au ones that take place in the same universe? Not sure yet. It’s a bit of a dramatic piece, but I hope that everyone enjoys it! As always, please feel free to let me know what you think.

More drabbles next week so please stay tuned!

Enjoy~

Also, because of the situation with tumblr links, please check my bio for links to my masterlist~

- goodnightkisseu’s admin / ashley <3

“Sir, we’re here,” the deep voice said from behind the steering wheel. His look was ominous, one that you would not want to cross your path. Normally Jisung would drive himself to the places he needed to go, but with the rising threats to Jihoon’s family and their syndicate as a whole, everyone was now traveling with details, even his own right-hand man. Still, Jisung couldn’t let a threat stop him from his daily schedule. So here he was, a bit after nine in the morning, at a small coffee shop. It was almost like clockwork. He was a little late, now that he wasn’t driving himself. It was a bit out of the way given where the syndicate was located, but Jisung was willing to go a little out of his way for a good cup of coffee, and more.

“Would you like anything?” Jisung inquired, but the man driving the car formally told him that it wasn’t necessary. With a small nod, the male exited the car and headed into the rather vacant coffee shop. Jisung particularly liked going at this hour as the morning rush was over, yet it was still before the lunch rush. The coffee shop was calm at this time, and that allowed him to be leisurely.

“Wel –” the barista behind the counter started, but as soon as she recognized him, a giant smile grew on her features. “Oh! Jisung! It’s good to see you this morning!”

Jisung returned your smile with a kind one of his own as he approached the counter. “I’m a little later than usual. Sorry about that,” he apologized, but all you did was shake your head.

“No, it’s really alright! So I guess someone else took you today?” you inquired as you started on his usual order.

Jisung couldn’t help but chuckle. “Oh, so you know what car I drive?” he retorted, watching as you seemed to freeze up, which only made him laugh even harder. “Don’t worry. I figured you would. The parking lot is pretty visible. A… friend drove me today,” he explained nonchalantly.

You nodded in understanding, still a bit embarrassed that you said too much. You couldn’t help it. You enjoyed his company and always anticipated his next visit. To say that you had a small crush was… an understatement. “Did your friend want anything?”

Jisung’s eyes locked with yours over the espresso machine. “No, he said he was fine. But enough about my friend. How have things been for you? Is business better now? What about the new apartment?”

A smile spread on your features and you were inwardly glad that the topic had shifted. “Now that the holidays are over, things have definitely picked up. And the new apartment is nice, but still a bit empty. It’s going to need some work,” you explained sheepishly. “And things with you?” you asked as you finished up his drink, placing a lid and a sleeve on it.

“The same as always,” he replied vaguely, but with a smile that often made you forget that he never truly answered any of your questions when it came to his profession. “Thank you for the coffee. I hope you have a wonderful day and I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said and you nodded, watching him walk out moments after he arrived. These meetings always felt so short.

Visiting you at the coffee shop had been part of Jisung’s routine for about four months now. He had come in at first, saying that he was new to the area and that this coffee shop was nearby. He then started to arrive more often, and in no time, he was here every morning. What started off as a favor… honestly became his favorite part of the day.

Jisung had known your mother. She worked as an intelligence analyst for the Park family, and Jisung had often interfaced with her when he was putting together his reports or even just checking on possible threats that could have been coming for Jihoon. On a couple of occasions, she had mentioned that she had a daughter and about how hard it had been to raise you without you finding out what she did. She admitted that she was proud of you though, of how independent you had become and she couldn’t have asked for anything more.

However, your mother was gravely ill, and on her deathbed, possibly from having confided in Jisung so much over the years, she asked him to take care of you. She feared that your father, a lowly broker, would try to bring you into his life, and that had been something she had tried to prevent for years. So, Jisung promised her that he would check on you.

But over time, he grew fond of you. He enjoyed your company, hearing about your day and the things that happened throughout it. He was happy that, from time to time, like with your recent move, that he could help you out, be someone that you can talk to. A friendship bloomed from this promise, though he knew it was more than that. It wasn’t a feeling he felt like he had a right to act on, however, so for the time being, it would stay a friendship…

========

Your days always started off quite well. Seeing Jisung every morning, even on days when you were having a hard time, always made the day better. However, your pleasant day all came crashing down that evening. As you were closing up, a figure slipped into the coffee shop, and just as you were about to make a mad dash for the back room, it called out to you, the voice familiar. It was one you hadn’t heard in many years and one that you hoped you would never hear again.

It was your father.

Honestly, you didn’t know much about your father growing up. You had a feeling that your mother had always been a bit tight-lipped when it came to him. That being said, that did not mean that you wanted him here, either. He hadn’t been there for you while you were growing up, and from what your mother had said, he also wasn’t a great person either. You still remembered the time he forgot to pick you up from grade school. All of the other kids had already left… and you were just… there, waiting. So you didn’t have very fond memories of him, to say the least.

“Oh, my beautiful girl, you’ve grown up so much,” he said pleasantly, reaching in for a hug, but you stopped him.

“Why are you here?” you asked as sternly as you could.

Your father stopped mid-motion and moved to stand up straight again. Yeah, he supposed he couldn’t just come in here like a father again. “Sweetie, I’m here to tell you that you’re in danger. Someone has been keeping a close eye on your for months now and you didn’t even know.”

You gave him a quizzical look. Someone had been watching you? Your father must have been mistaken. You worked at a coffee shop. Your life was boring and mundane. Why would anyone be watching you? “Look, dad, if you’re just going to make up stories, I don’t have time for that. If you just need money then I can –”

“I don’t need money! I have so much money!” your father exclaimed, watching as you backed away from him. Alright, that wasn’t exactly his best move but he was getting impatient. He needed to get you on his side and he needed to get out of here quick before he was spotted. “Look, sweetie, I’m sure that the lie that your mother told you was that I was a broke good-for-nothing and that was why she left me, but it’s far more complicated than that. I’m not the bad guy. The people that are watching you are.”

He wasn’t… broke? Your mother had told you that your father had a problem, but now that you were seeing him, you supposed that he actually looked rather put together. A little frantic, but he was still dressed nicely. Though you knew you would regret it, you had to ask him. “What… what do you mean…” you said slowly.

With that simple question, your father knew that he had piqued your interest and it was time to tell you the truth… well, his version of the truth. He told you of how your mother and he really met, that the two of you them worked in the seedy underbelly of society. He told you of his broker work and your mother’s work as an analyst. He knew it would be shocking to you, that it would sound like a lie, but he reassured you that this was why you never heard about what your parents did in their everyday life.

The more your father spoke of his work with crime families as well as your mother’s work, a lot of things became clearer. You got vague answers from your mother whenever you asked what she did for a living, and in hindsight, there was no way that your family could afford that home if she were just an office worker. It seemed like life hadn’t been kind to your father as he didn’t have an affiliation of his own, and you felt a bit bad. Yet, as your brain was catching up to what your father was telling you, about how your mother had to keep you away from him because of her ties to a certain crime family, you felt a sinking feeling in your stomach.

He continued on about how this crime family had been threatening him, to keep him away from you all this time. “And that’s why I’m here now sweetie. I’m here to get you out of that family’s grasp and back by my side. I want to protect you myself,” your father urged.

“Look, dad, what you say might be true, but all I do is work in a coffee shop. There’s no way they would –”

“But honey, they would use you! They would use you against me!” your father explained as he grasped both of your hands in his. “Don’t you see, they’ve already started and you haven’t even asked questions yet!”

“What do you mean, ‘they’ve already started’?” you inquired, that feeling in your stomach making you sicker by the minute.

“That man, Jisung! The one that comes here every morning. Did you never think it was strange that he just showed up one day at your store? That man is the right-hand to the Park family’s heir. That was the family your mother was working for and after she passed, they’ve been keeping tabs on you. They’ve been keeping me away because they want to use you against me, to make me work for them!”

At that moment his words made you nauseous. You weren’t sure if you fully believed him, but there was one thing that was for sure. Jisung wasn’t the person he said he was, and your perfect image of him shattered into pieces…

========

Jisung wasn’t sure that he had ever moved so quickly in his life. When he received a text from you that night, almost well after midnight, to meet you at the coffee shop, he felt his heart sink. He had given you his number in case of emergencies but never thought that you would use it. To see that text from you, to be a place that you shouldn’t have been so late at night, he worried. So, without his driver and against every precaution he generally took, he went straight to you.

The coffee shop that was normally dark at this hour was lit, the lights illuminating everything to Jisung before he even got out of his car. Presumably, there was no one else there, and with caution, he entered. He saw you immediately, seated at one of the many tables and as soon as he entered, you stood up. “Hey,” he started slowly, “I got your message. Is everything alright?”

“We need to talk,” you said flatly. After your father left, you didn’t quite have it in you to head home. Your mind was racing with all of this new information and you felt like you had to sort through it all before you could head back. Though nothing really made sense, there were a couple of things that you did know. One, your mother had likely been lying to you for most of your life. Two was that Jisung showing up all of a sudden was a bit suspicious. And upon thinking about how you felt about Jisung now that you knew a bit more about the situation, you knew that you had to get straight to the truth. No more lies. You couldn’t take them anymore.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?” Jisung asked. This all still felt very strange to him. Though he didn’t feel the presence of another person, this situation didn’t feel right.

“Something did. I saw my father again,” you said, eyes watching as Jisung grew rather stiff at your words. “I didn’t know what he was doing here at first. I honestly never thought I would see him again, but he showed up, spinning this story about the truth of my mother? He told me about how she, apparently, worked for a crime syndicate. He mentioned that with her gone, that her boss would try to use me against him. Does any of this sound familiar?”

A short sigh left his lips as he called your name. Jisung didn’t think that this would happen so soon. He was hoping that he would have more time to get to know you, to build your trust. Yet it seemed like your father had other plans. He was making a power move. For what, Jisung couldn’t be sure. “Look, this entire situation is far more complicated than you could ever believe. Your father, that man, he isn’t who he says he is…”

A scoff left your lips, signaling to Jisung that he likely said the wrong thing. “Oh, and you are? Tell me, Jisung, do you really work for a company like you say you do, or is that company just a coverup for one of the biggest crime families in the country. Yes, my father told me about you, the right-hand of the Park family. I looked you up. There’s no work history for you than at a company that is run by Park Jihoon and his family. You’ve been there since you were eighteen. How does one get a job, a high-level job, at one of the biggest companies in the country with no experience?” you countered, your anger starting to seep out. You were just so fed up with all of it. The more you thought about it, the angrier you got. No one in your life had been truthful to you, and it was painful.

Well, you got him there. “Alright. I wasn’t exactly who I said I was either, but I am trying to keep you safe,” he reasoned. His answer seemed to surprise you. It seemed like you weren’t quite ready for him to be so calm about all of this. It was just how he was raised.

“Keep me safe? Why would you want to keep me safe? Don’t men like you just take what you want? It doesn’t matter how many families you hurt, does it, Jisung?” your anger had definitely boiled to the service and you were waiting for Jisung’s demeanor to change as well. You wanted him to yell back, but he never did. He must have been taught not to.

“Honestly? I planned to keep you safe because your mother asked me to do so. But also, I care about you…” he admitted. He never should have let his feelings for you get to the level that they did. They clouded his judgment and here he was, the cat out of the bag and you were upset. So very upset.

“Oh, and because you say you care about me that it’s somehow safer being with you than my broker father? And how do I know that the moment you get tired of me, the moment I’m no longer useful to you or your family that you just won’t get rid of me too?”

The words, what they implied, it hurt his heart. He would never do that to you. He would never put you in that type of situation. Yet with how angry you were, maybe he was just too slow in realizing that he was the only one that felt the way he did. “I would never harm you,” he said firmly. “I was taking care of you as a promise to your mother, but I did grow extremely fond of you. I felt things for you that someone that does what I do for a living, should never feel for another person. But in trying to hide who I am from you, in trying to keep up a charade, I’ve upset you. So, do you want me gone?”

This conversation wasn’t playing out how you had expected. You thought he would get angry, but he was so level-headed, it almost… it almost felt like you were making a big deal out of nothing. But you were still upset. You just wanted everything to go back to normal. So instead of holding off on your decision, you nodded.

And you regretted it instantly.

As soon as you completed the small gesture, Jisung was on his feet. You wanted to stop him but the words never came out. Instead, you watched as he walked towards the door, only stopping momentarily to look back at you. “I really was only trying to help. You aren’t wrong though. Knowing someone like me is far more dangerous than someone like your father. I apologize for causing you trouble. You won’t have to ever see me again…”

And just like that, before you could say anything else, Jisung left the coffee shop, leaving you alone and stunned. Though you thought this was the outcome that you had wanted, you found yourself even more confused than before.

========

True to his word, you never say Jisung again after that night. He didn’t stop by for his morning coffee. At first, you were relieved. Not having Jisung there meant that your life could go back to normal, that you could just be an average person again. But as time passed, you couldn’t help but realize that you may have made the wrong decision to confront him as you did. It felt strange that, as soon as nine rolled around, he wasn’t there. It was weird not having someone you could tell your troubles to. There was no longer that gentle smile that would greet you every morning, and what at first had been a relief, became a deep pain in your chest. You missed him, and it didn’t take you long to realize that you really did feel the same way about him that he did about you. That crush was no longer just a crush.

Still, you had made your decision, taken a path in your life that he was not a part of. You chose family over companionship, and you really thought you had made the right decision… until it turned out that you hadn’t. One night, upon leaving work, you felt someone walk up behind you and place a rag over your mouth and nose. You had tried to struggle, but to no avail, falling unconscious in a stranger’s arms. Eventually, you regained consciousness, but there was no telling how long you had been out. You couldn’t see anything, the bag that was over your head obscured your vision. You couldn't move, your arms and legs tied. All you could do was listen to the men talking around you, and it only made you realize how much of an idiot you were.

Apparently, your father had defaulted on a sale, the deal never having gone through. These people, obviously pissed, hunted him down and were looking to make him repay everything he had taken. So, scared for his life, your father put yours at risk instead. He had told them about you and your connection to the Park family. This obviously meant more to them than a measly broker so they let him go. You were an idiot for trusting him, and now you were likely going to die because of it. After all, Jisung wasn’t going to come for you. You already burned that bridge.

Though you didn’t know how much time had passed, it honestly felt like hours. You sat there quietly, scared, and just listening to these thugs. Every now and then, one would come close to you and brush his hand against you and that just made you jump. They were having fun scaring you to death, and you could hear it in the way that they laughed afterward. You thought that things would just continue on like this, but a loud noise outside drew yours and your captors’ attention towards the door. There was shouting, lots of it, and gunfire. You didn’t know what was going on, all you heard were the sounds. It was all so loud, and you couldn’t focus on any of it. You were too frightened to.

Almost as soon as the noises had started, they seemed to have stopped. You sensed became heightened at the sudden loss of sound and the moment that someone placed their hand on your arm, you couldn't help but thrash around, at least, as much as you could with your limbs tied. The individual pulled the bag off of your head and you were instantly blinded by the lights in the room. It seemed like you were in some type of warehouse, in a place that you were unfamiliar with. When your name was called you looked at the individual that was kneeling in front of you and you almost couldn’t believe it.

It was Jisung.

A wave of relief promptly washed over you as he untied your hands and legs. You were still quite confused as to what was going on, but you opted to keep your mouth shut. Instead, you let him hold you to his form, his hand keeping your head close to his chest as he led you out. You knew that he was protecting you, to keep you from seeing what had happened around you, but at that moment, you weren’t even thinking about that. All you could think about was that you would never be in this place again…

========

It was a short trip to what you could only assume was one of the many apartments that the Park family owned. No one said anything during the car ride. Jisung had remained quiet, as did his driver and the other young man in the front seat. As soon as the car was parked, Jisung led you into the building, the pair of you going up in the elevator into one of the suites above. The door was quickly unlocked as he guided you instead and towards one of the two bedrooms. He suggested that you clean up, no matter how shaken you were about the events that had just transpired. You agreed, still too numb to really process everything that was going on and you quickly slipped into the shower.

You didn’t know how long you were in there. You honestly just felt like you stood under the running water because you were told to. Still, your thoughts did start to clear up a bit. Your mind was still running through every that had happened, replying it all. You knew you shouldn’t have. You knew it was bad for you, but it was also helping you move on, piecing everything together like this. When you felt like your mind was clear enough, you stepped out of the shower and changed into the clothes that had been left for you in the room. You didn’t ask questions. These were really the least of your worries at the moment.

Slowly, you exited the room, your eyes immediately taking a look around the large and luxurious looking apartment. So all of the stories were right. The Park family was indeed that rice. Maybe not by legal means as the media suggested, but they did have money. Your eyes wandered from object to object before they settled on the figure across the room, by the windows. He looked up at you as soon as you exited the bedroom, and what looked like a small smile formed on his lips. You had taken a few steps towards him but stopped just short of him, keeping yourself a good distance away.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked, but made no move to approach you. Jisung knew better than that. He had told himself that he wouldn’t get involved with you anymore. He told himself that you had made your choice, that you didn’t want him in your life. Yet as soon as he had heard news of your abduction, he sprung into action. It didn’t matter to him that he was walking into their trap, he knew he was. What mattered was that you were safe, that you weren’t harmed.

“Honestly, I’m still confused. I really don’t know what happened. I mean, I know why it happened, but it all feels like a blur, like a dream…” A really bad one, you thought inwardly. You took the opportunity to stare at him from across the room and took one tentative step forward. Everything in you wanted to run to him, to be held by someone that you knew, but that wasn’t right. Not right now it wasn’t.

“It’ll get a bit easier to understand things with time. I can’t say that it will all be pleasant, but I know that you’re someone that can work through it,” he told you, watching as you inched closer to him. He took everything in Jisung to not pull you in for a hug himself. “I’m sorry that you had to go through that. You were right when you said that I was more trouble than your father was, and I’m sorry.”

His apology and the mention of your father reminded you as to the reason you were in this situation, to begin with. Your father… you never should have trusted him. “I made the wrong choice.”

“You made the choice that felt right for you. You chose family. Most people would.”

“But you shouldn’t when you have the family that I do,” you retorted. Your brain had been working through a lot of it, and there was one question that you couldn’t help but ask as you drew closer to him. “Why did you come for me?”

Jisung watched as your steps had taken you right to him. You now stood in front of him, your hair damp, just looking at him with those eyes that made his heartache. This couldn’t happen, not after something as dangerous as this had already transpired. It would only be worse. No wonder Jihoon was so protective. It was painful watching your loved one get hurt because of you. “You know the answer. You don’t have to ask.”

For the first time, you got a good look at Jisung’s face. He looked like he was in pain and the dried blood on the side of his face indicated to you that he was injured, but still wanted to stay by your side. “I’m sorry…” you told him gently as you reached up to touch his face.

“This isn’t your fault. None of it is,” he said gently, but also firmly.

“Jisung, please don’t leave me again,” your voice was barely above a whisper, but you knew he heard you.

“I won’t…” he promised, and as soon as the words left his lips, it was like your body gave out. Your legs collapsed below you and it was only due to Jisung’s reflexes that you didn’t go crashing to the ground. Yet, as weak as you were in the moment, as tired as you were, you were glad to know what Jisung wasn’t going anywhere. You felt safe in his arms. You knew that you could trust him and that you could confide in him, and that was honestly all that mattered…

#wanna one #yoon jisung #wanna one imagines #wanna one scenarios #kpop scenarios #yoon jisung scenarios #yoon jisung imagines #i really hope that this is okay ;;#oof that is not a great gif i'm sorry but the mood was right ;;#this is also really long >_>

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beardyallen · 5 years

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8 Crazy Nights (Part 1) - Captain Marvel, Work, and Food

Not sure if you all saw, but I tried to write this on Saturday...It did not go well. And now it's two days later, more stuff has happened, and documenting everything seems just a million times more daunting.

Nevertheless, he persisted.

However, I'm learning from my past mistakes and posting this in several pieces. Hopefully this isn't being read out of order.

If memory serves, and my memory is sufficiently muddled after the celebrating yesterday, I left off on Thursday, March 7th. The next day, I spent a goodly portion of my day in my office, cracking away at my random pedigree generator algorithm. Super (duper) exciting stuff, I know.

But R showed up that night to go see Captain Marvel at the nearby mall! And, as is apparently tradition when you visit someone's apartment, she brought me a gift. And what sort of gift do you bring a guy like me, you ask? Authentic German beer, obviously! Oh, and mangos, as I had divulged that I've only ever had dried mangos and mango-flavored things. Sadly, the mangos are still sitting in my fridge because I'm not entirely sure how one is supposed to eat them. *shrug*

The mall itself is quite strange (from my limited perspective), and I don't think I've described it yet. In a standard American mall, the jewelry shops are always on corners; here, the jewelry shop (as well as several other shops) are posted up with no walls in the middle of an open space. And approximately 25% of the shops are bakeries or coffee shops. This place really knows how to entice your sweet tooth! R picked up some mini cheesecakes for the trip the next day!! Super (duper) yummy!!

One of the other interesting aspects of the first floor is the manner in which one would buy shoes (there are like...10 "shops" that sell shoes). Once again, the shops have no walls, so you just kind of wander over to a display, the attendants hover around you to see if they can help (presumably?), and after you've picked your shoe, they give you carbon paper with an order, you walk to a desk 5 shops over to pay, then carry the receipt back and attendant who was helping you wipes off the shoes again and exchanges them for the receipt. I suppose it keeps clutter down and eases the shopping experience if you're trying on shoes from different displays? When I bought shoes a few weeks ago, it was quite an ordeal given that I had no idea what the expectations were and we couldn't really communicate with anything other than hand signals, nods, and shrugs.

The second (of five) floors has the supermarket and a plethora of men's clothing shops, half of which are athletic-themed shops like New Balance, Adidas, or knock-off-Air-Jordan, and the other half are more "high-end" clothing shops. Nothing in between. Oh! And more than 80% of the models in the pictures and spreads on the walls are white. Not sure how effective that is when 95% of your clientele doesn't look like that. *shrug* There _does_ seem to be a strong desire here to appear Western, but still...

The third floor is mostly women's clothing, and the fourth floor is partially empty. But the fifth floor has the cinema and food court. One comment about the phrase "Chinese food"...It's immensely inadequate. I don't know how many different cultural regions there are in China, but there's for sure at least 6 unique cuisines, all tied to a particular region. And when I say 6 _unique_ cuisines, even my uneducated, narrow American perspective (and palette) can distinguish between them. That, to me, is probably the biggest problem with describing a restaurant in the States as serving "Chinese food." But hey, I'm just an ill-informed American, so my opinion probably doesn't carry much weight.

The cinema itself was quite impressive as well. You know how when you walk into a cinema in the States, and you get hit with that theater-popcorn smell? It's buttery and savory and only sometimes kind of stale? Well, that didn't happen here. And not because they don't have popcorn, or that they don't serve as much popcorn...I think it's mostly because, as seems to be the case with everything here, the popcorn isn't of the buttery, salty variety. No, this popcorn is green or pink or caramel covered. Drizzled with chocolate syrup or some other sort of confectionary (is confectionary a real word?).

Oh, and it's not just the popcorn that got a make-over. The nachos here are...borderline unrecognizable. And that's not the say that you wouldn't recognize what was placed in front of you, because I think you would, but you just wouldn't recognize it as "nachos." Instead of warm tortilla chips with a cup of hot, sometimes-mildly-spicy cheese sauce and jalapenos and other nacho toppings, here you get a bowl of...warmed up Doritos. That's it. Just Doritos. That have been sitting under a heat lamp. R ordered them and offered me some. I said thanks-but-no-thanks. It was a strange experience, watching someone happily munch on heated up Doritos.

Captain Marvel was exceptional, though! The classic Marvel opening was modified a bit for this film, and if you've seen the movie, you know what I mean. For sure shed some positive number of happy-sad tears. The actors were all exceptional, and I was thoroughly impressed to see how seamlessly the special effects made it look like Samuel L. Jackson was 25 years younger and had both eyes! Crazy!!! Also seeing Phil Coulson return to the big screen was dope, and I loved the post-credit scenes! The music was perfect, too! I just wish the theater had the volume high enough to trigger the strong emotional reactions I'm used to feeling in Marvel movies.

After the movie, I stopped by the beer shop across the street where I met The One to buy a couple bottles of Founders beer. I swear, I had ever intent of enjoying them on St. Patrick's Day...but one of the two was consumed a couple days later, and the other wasn't opened until I got back from the celebration yesterday...and I don't think I would have really been able to appreciate the KBS in that particular state. So I have that to look forward to when I finish teaching tonight!

The next day was spent traveling with my coworkers to the Great Wall, and this seems like a decent place to pause the narrative.

Actually, we'll skip the Great Wall for a minute, and I'll describe the past week. It wasn't terribly eventful, but there are a few mildly-interesting pics. My work week consisted mostly of prepping my students' first exam, along with a practice exam (which I don't like doing, especially at this level). In fact, on Friday, after I finished writing and testing my random pedigree generator, I spent a good portion of time trying to get the numbers of a particular probability problem to work out.

I totally don't look like a crazy math fanatic at all..

When I wasn't working, I spent much of my time reading or playing video games. There's a Communications grad student here who also plays Super Smash Bros. We intend to maintain the friendship State-side as he has a few gamer friends in Denver who play SSB as well. And who have guessed that Petey Piranha would actually be an entertaining fighter?! Like..he's a glorified potted plant, but his attacks are interesting, effective, and rather distinct (see: he's a potted plant). *shrug*

Several of those nights involved take-out from KFC...which just released a new item. Or at least new to me. You'll note some orange fibrous material on the top, some sort of white cream in the middle, and the base is a waffle. Cuz nothing says "Kentucky Fried" quite like whatever the hell that is...(Not that KFC can even call themselves Kentucky Fried, nor is their chicken even real chicken! Sorry guys, someone's gotta say it!! lol)

The waffle itself is quite sweet, as is the white cream. Not sure the intended flavor of the cream, but my best comparison is the sugary drizzle stuff you put on toaster streudels. Struedels? Strueueudels? Not sure how to spell that, and Googling it would require a smoothly operating VPN which I just don't have the patience to deal with right now. And the orange stuff on top? It's dried crab. Which I knew in advance as I'd had it on the hike to the underground river and caves. All-in-all, it surpassed my expectations, but I don't think I'll get it again...

Oh, and dinner on Friday night consisted of lamb spine. Yup. The spine. Of a lamb. Technically, it was lamb spine hot pot, but let's be real: the stand-out contributor isn't the heat or the pot or the brine. It's the spine.

You can see a bunch of vertebrae just boiling away in there. You still use chopsticks, but one of your hands has a plastic glove. Oh! And you can push your chopstick through the hollow center of the vertebra to get at some of the marrow and what we could only assume was part of the spinal cord. I ate mine, but the only other person who was lucky(?) enough to find one didn't partake.

Other than some rather standard beer, CB ordered us a bottle (half a fifth) of some sort of herbal liquor. E, another instructor, mentioned a commercial for the product which seemed to suggest that this was the perfect gift from a marrying-age girl's new fiance to her father upon their first meeting. "Made for the man!" It was somewhere between a whiskey and an amaretto, but the sweet taste was distinctly floral or herbal or something. It was pretty good! Definitely something you sip to enjoy.

I have one more food experience to share, but it fits better in a different part of the story, so I'll stop here and pick up with The Great Wall in my next post.

Sláinte,

BeardyAllen

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sweetiepie08 · 6 years

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Get Cool (Chap 1)

Based on @sharpace‘s knife shoe au.

Miguel loves to skate and he loves competing at skating, but he wishes he had more chances to skate with the rest of his team. The opportunity arises when his team is invited to perform a group routine at a charity showcase. However, when half his team suddenly falls ill, they are forced to either pull their performance or combine with their rivals, the De la Cruz team.

Chapter 1. Chapter 2.

“Get off our ice!”

“You only want this time because you know it’s our time!”

“I will not stand for such accusations!”

“You’re just trying to keep us from practicing for L.A.!”

“What are you implying?”

“I’m implying nothing! I’m stating it out right, saboteur!”

Miguel sighed and sunk his face further into his hands. Every. Single. Time. He and his team sat on the bleachers while their coaches bickered about rink times. You’d think by now there’d be a time slot sign-up list or something. Why couldn’t they just skate?

He glanced over at Team De la Cruz. They looked just as bored as he did. Though, he noticed a few kids were missing. Sick? Injury? It didn’t matter.

This was going to go the way it always went. They’d argue until the rink manager came out and forced them to compromise. One team would get to practice while the other team waited around for their turn. Their coaches would glare & make snide remarks at each other. He’d ride home with Tío Héctor & Tía Imelda grumbling about “that De la Cruz.” Then they’d get to do it all over again the next day. At least it was Friday. They had a whole two days before they had to sit through this again.

Oh look, here he comes now. A sweaty, balding man walked up to the rink wall. The coaches skated over to him and, after much complaining and arm flailing, Ernesto slinked back to his team, glaring, while the Riveras called their team onto the ice. Miguel predicted this outcome too. De la Cruz had the ice first yesterday, so naturally it was their turn.

“You guys have schoolwork?” Ernesto grumbled to his team. They all nodded in reply. “Well go do it. They’ve got the ice until four.”

Miguel put on his skates and joined his team on the ice. Finally… Just once he’d like to have a practice that didn’t have time dedicated to drama.

[-]

After practice, Miguel waited on a bench while Héctor and Imelda talked to the rink manager about time slots. Yet another thing he wished they didn’t have to waste time on. At least twice a week, the rink manager threated to kick out both teams, but they all knew these threats were empty. It’d be bad publicity for everyone and no one wanted that.

“Well if that’s the way you want it!”

Miguel turned to see Ernesto holding a phone to his ear and his face turning red.

“Just see if you can find a better trainer. Don’t come crawling back to me.” He ended the call, muttered a few curse words, and shoved the phone back in his pocket.

Yeesh, Miguel did not envy the De la Cruz team.

“Did we lose another one?” asked Marco, De la Cuz’s star pupil, who’d been sitting close by.

“Never mind that,” Ernesto growled, running a hand over his face. “Just get on the ice.”

Marco and Ernesto stepped into the rink. Geez, what was that all about? Miguel wondered. He didn’t have time to think on it as his teammates, Juan, Arturo, and David, approached him.

“Oye, Miguel,” called Juan as he got closer. “You sure you can’t come to my sleepover tonight? My mom still says it’s okay.”

“Sorry, it’s my Abuelita’s birthday. My family’s going out to eat to celebrate.”

“Too bad,” added Arturo, “it’s gonna be fun.”

Miguel sighed and glanced over at Héctor & Imelda who were finishing up their conversaTion with the rink manager. “Sorry, guys. Maybe next time.”

“Okay then. See you at practice,” said David. They all said goodbye and the three boys walked away. Miguel watched as the boys jumped into Juan’s mother’s minivan and drove away, wishing he was in that car, too. It wasn’t Abuelita’s birthday that was the problem. He wouldn’t mind missing the sleepover so much if he got to hang out with his friends on a regular basis. But there always seemed to be some excuse about why he couldn’t go. Just once, Miguel wished he could join in on the fun.

“Ready to go Chamaco?” A hand landed on the top of Miguel’s head. He looked up to see his Tío Héctor smiling down at him. “Don’t want to keep your Abuelita waiting, do we?”

You’ve got no problem keeping me waiting. Miguel bit his tongue for even thinking that. His family already made sacrifices so he could compete. It really wasn’t fair to ask any more of them. “Sure,” he said, smiling himself. “Let’s Go.”

[-]

Monday morning rolled around. Miguel sat eating his breakfast while he listened to Tía Imelda field yet another phone call. This one was the third one this morning and they all went about the same.

“Alright, tell David we hope he feels better soon. Okay, bye.” Imelda hung up the phone and sighed.

Héctor frowned. “David, too?”

“What’s going on?” Miguel asked between bites.

Héctor and Imelda gave each other a look. Oh no, not that look. Adults always gave each other that look right before delivering some bad news.

“It seems Arturo and David slept over at Juan’s over the weekend,” Héctor said.

“Yeah, I knew that.”

“Well, apparently Juan’s little sister had the flu, but she wasn’t showing symptoms yet,” Imelda continued. “The boys all caught it too. I told them to sit out for 2 weeks so it doesn’t spread to the rest of the team.”

“Two weeks? But what about the charity showcase?” He’d been looking forward to it. It was being put on by the Make-A-Wish foundation and they invited skaters from all over the world to be a part of it. Normally he skated solos but for the showcase, he’d be part of a group routine. He was supposed to get to spend more time with his teammates. He was supposed to get to skate without worrying about having to outscore the De la Cruz team. He was supposed to have fun. But they needed at least six skaters to participate in the group showcase, and if they were missing three…

“I’m sorry, Chamaco. Juan, Arturo, and David aren’t going to have enough practice time before the showcase. It looks like we have to pull out.”

“No!” Miguel shouted, slamming his hand on the table. “I want to skate! There must be some way we can still go!”

“I’m sorry, Miguel,” Imelda said. “There’ll be other shows.”

“Not like this!” Miguel wished he didn’t sound as whiney as he did, but he couldn’t help it. “I was going to get to skate with my friends for once.”

“Look, nothing’s set in stone yet,” Héctor added. “Let’s just have a good practice today, and we’ll see what happens.”

Miguel crossed his arms and sunk down in his chair. He hated when adults said ‘we’ll see.’ Did they really think he didn’t know what that actually meant?

“Now, finish your breakfast.” Imelda had her coach voice on. She would hear no more complaining. “We need to get to practice.”

[-]

Practice started with the same old shtick: De la Cruz and the Riveras arguing over rink time. Once again, Miguel and his teammates were left waiting in the bleachers.

“So, we’re really pulling out?” Carlos asked.

Miguel nodded bitterly. “He said, ‘We’ll see.’”

The entire team groaned in unison. “We’ll see?” Antonio grumbled. “Do they think we’re stupid? We know what that means.”

Miguel nodded and glanced over at De la Cruz’s team. There were only three of them. The team had six only two weeks ago. Plus, there was that call he overheard on Friday. Were kids leaving De la Cruz’s team? If that was the case, they’d have to pull out too.

A light bulb went off in Miguel’s head. “Hey, guys,” He said, turning back to his teammates. “I think I know how we can stay in the showcase after all.”

“How?”

“The De la Cruz team.”

“What?” Antonio scoffed. “Are you crazy? Why would they help us?”

“Well, I was just thinking, since they have three skaters and we have three skaters…”

“But they might not go for it,” Carlos argued.

“It wouldn’t hurt to ask,” Miguel said, getting up.

“Asking in general, maybe, but asking them?”

Miguel rolled his eyes and started over. What was there to be scared of? Marco was mean sometimes, sure, but he wasn’t a monster. The De la Cruz team were just kids like them; kids who loved to skate. And if they said no, at least they tried, right?

As Miguel approached the De la Cruz team, Marco peaked over the sunglasses which he, for some reason, insisted on wearing indoors. Miguel heard Marco mutter “This ought to be good,” to his teammates, but pretended he hadn’t heard.

“Hi,” Miguel started off with a friendly smile, “my team and I were just talking and we noticed there’s only three of you.”

“Wow, you counted all the way to three?” Marco sneered. “Someone’s been watching his Plaza Sésamo.”

“Actually, it’s just called Sésamo now.” Miguel realizes his mistake when the De la Cruz team bursts into laughter. “My little cousins watch it. They’re five,” he said, attempting to recover, but he knew he’d already lost. The boys only laugh harder and Miguel felt the heat rising to his cheeks. “Anyway, I was thinking…”

“Oye! What’s Elmo up to these days?” One of the boys threw out.

Just ignore him. “I was thinking since you have three skaters and we have three skaters…”

“Did Conde Contar teach you how to add?” Another boy said.

Miguel gritted his teeth and looked away. Is this really worth it? “You know what, forget it,” he huffed and stormed off.

“Have fun with Abelardo!” one of the boys called after him, sending the rest of the team into hysterics all over again.

“Oye, Rivera!”

Miguel stopped at the sound of Marco’s voice. “What do you want?” he sighed turning around.

“Look, I think I know where you were going with that,” Macro said as he ran up to Miguel. “I noticed there were only three of your team, too.”

“Yeah, three of our teammates got the flu,” Miguel answered.

“And neither of our teams can go to the showcase with only three.”

Was this really happening? Were he and Marco really on the same page? “That’s why I was going to ask to team up.”

“I thought so,” Marco said with a nod. “What makes you think our coaches will go for it?”

They both looked over at their arguing coaches. Imelda and Ernesto were getting in each others’ faces. Héctor had his hand on Imelda’s shoulder, a subtle way to pull her back in case she decided to punch Ernesto in the nose…again.

Miguel put on his best optimistic smile. “Well, I’m sure if we told them we all agreed on the idea and told them we really wanted to perform…”

He was met with a roll of the eyes and a dismissive puff of air from Marco.

“Or, we could just forget the whole idea.” Miguel turned sharply and began walking back to his team. He wasn’t sure this would work, but if Marco chased him down the first time…

“Wait,” Marco called after him.

Miguel stopped and tried to fight down the cocky grin creeping to his lips. “Yes?”

Marco chewed on his bottom lip and glanced back and forth between Miguel and the coaches. Finally, he turned back to his team and demanded, “Justo, get out your phone.”

Justo crinkled his eyebrows and shot a look at the rest of his other teammate. “Why?” he asked, taking his phone out of his skating bag.

Marco marched up to him and the phone. “Because, I’m about to break into Coach’s email and I don’t want him to see it on my phone.”

Miguel looked over Marco’s shoulder as the other boy opened the email app and typed in Ernesto’s username and password. He scrolled past emails from parents, reporters, skating officials, and at least a couple dozen from some lady written in English. Finally, Marco stopped on the showcase invitation. He opened the email and clicked the link. “It doesn’t say anything about not teaming up. We might have to reregister under a new name, but that’s about it.”

“That’s it?

“That’s what I just said.” Marco tossed the phone back to Justo who scrambled to catch it. “We’d better ask, like, now, though. Registration closes today.”

“Wait, what’s going on?” asked Martín, the other De la Cruz team member.

“We’re teaming up with the Rivera team.” Marco’s answer left no room for discussion.

“Wait, we’re really teaming up?”

Miguel turned around to see Carlos and Antonio hovering behind him. “Well, if we want to perform, this might be the only option. If you guys are all down, we can get our coaches on board too.”

Carlos and Antonio deliberated for a second, then responded with a nod. Justo and Martin still looked unsure, but Marco shot them a glare and they agreed.

“Good, then it’s settled,” Marco declared. He dragged Miguel down from the bleachers and over to the rink side where the coaches were still fighting.

“Tío Héctor,” Miguel said, interrupting some insult Ernesto was about to launch.

“One second, Chamaco,” Héctor replied, still glaring at Ernesto. “We’re figuring this out.”

“Actually, while you guys were fighting,” Marco sneered, “we figured something out,”

All three coaches stopped, shot each other confused looks, then turned back to the kids. “What?” Héctor asked.

“What do you mean?” Imelda added.

“Neither of our teams have enough to perform at the showcase,” Marco began.

“Marco,” Ernesto hissed, “what are you doing spreading that around?”

“But, if we combine our teams, we’ll have enough skaters,” Miguel finished.

“We just need you guys to not kill each other for a month,” Marco added.

“We already looked it up. It’s not against any of the rules.”

Héctor and Imelda stared at each other in a way which made Miguel suspect telepathy existed. “It does make sense…” Héctor conceded.

“Did the rest of your teammates agree to this?” Imelda asked.

“We took an informal vote.”

“I’m okay with it if they are,” Héctor said.

Imelda nodded. “It would be good team building.”

“Well, I am not,” Ernesto snapped, folding his arms firmly across his chest. “Marco, you have your reputation to think about. You need to skate with teammates that are up to your caliber.”

“But, we all compete on the same level,” Marco argued. “He’s beaten me plenty of times.”

“Yeah and he’s won over me, too,” Miguel pointed out. This was so stupid. They were comparing ranks now? When there were more important things to worry about?

That’s not the point. You’re too talented, Marco. You don’t want to be held back by…

Ernesto’s phone buzzed in his jacket pocket. He looked at it, cringed, then stuffed it back in his pocket. “You’re sure this isn’t against any rules?” Ernesto asked through gritted teeth.

“Absolutely sure,” Marco confirmed.

“You guys would just have to reregister together,” Miguel added.

Ernesto ground his teeth behind his lips. Smoke would not be out of place coming out of his ears. His head looked like might turn into a cartoon firecracker and explode. He let out a long puff of air through his nose and finally answered, “Fine.”

The answer looked like it pained him, but Miguel paid him no mind. He turned to Marco and offered a celebratory high-five which the other boy, surprisingly obliged.

Miguel could feel his grin stretching across his face as he ran up to bleachers to tell the others. Finally, he was going to get to skate for fun.

#knife shoe au #ice skating au #coco #coco au #coco fanfiction #pixar coco #miguel rivera #marco veracruz #hector rivera #imelda rivera #ernesto de la cruz #coco fandom

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yogurtbattle · 6 years

Text

Ginger Roger(s) Taylor? Chapter two

Again, any feedback is appreciated. This chapter is longer (about 3000 words).

Roger mindlessly shifted through the envelopes on his kitchen table. Bills, more bills, some boring letter from the bank… then his interest was captured by the last letter. The handwriting on the envelope was elegant and there was no company name on the envelope. He opened it and found a handwritten note inside. He flinched when he saw the name signing off the note at the end. Her. The girl he had been trying to get out of his bloody head the past week. The last person he had expected to write him a letter.

He lit a cigarette and then read through the note. It said:

“Hello Roger,

This is a small note to say I am sorry for being rude to you at the party a week ago. I have no other excuse than being intense as a person, very all or nothing. Even more when the person I am talking to is a stranger to me. I do not think ill of you as a person, I was just annoyed by you at that very moment. I hope you will accept my apology.

Hope you all the best in the future,

C.A. González Huntington”

That was a little unexpected and confusing. He had no idea what prompted her to write this note. And fuck, the worst part of it was that it made him hope. Hope that maybe he still had a chance with her. No, Rog, forget it. Forget her. She doesn’t want you, she made that more than clear. But he couldn’t forget the lively sparkle in her eyes or the chemistry that had been obviously there. She was unlike any girl he ever met before and he had met many. There was this intriguing mix of warm liveliness and regal composure surrounding her. It confused and attracted him at the same time. He had no idea why. But she was, above all, interesting, and that had captivated him.

After spending a few minutes debating with himself, he decided what the heck, life’s too short to not chase after your own happiness. It wasn’t often after all that he met a girl that left such a strong impression on him after just one meeting. Still, the thought of getting rejected again left Roger a little wary. Thinking through his options, he realised he didn’t even have any contact details of her. Nothing. A quick search on Google left him none the wiser. This was going to be even harder than he thought. Then it struck him: she hadn’t had his contact details either, so someone must have given it to her. And that someone was the person he was now going to plead with till he gave in.

“Hey mate, how’re you doing? Have you cured your hangover yet?” he heard Aaron say over the phone. “With another one. And some more,” he sighed, while running his hand through his hair, “hey, have you by any chance given my address to Camila? I received a handwritten note from her today.”. “Handwritten eh? That’s gotta mean something, mate! And yes, I did, I thought you might like it, you seemed a bit down at the party and what’s better than a gorgeous chick to cheer you up?” Roger clenched his teeth together. Down was one word to describe it. And she was the one who caused it in the first place. “Well, eh, I wanted to talk about that,” he frowned, “Do you have her phone number or something? I… want to talk to her and I don’t have it.”. “She didn’t write it on the note? Shame!” Aaron laughed, “I can’t give it to you, cuz I’m sure she’ll murder me if I do without her permission, but I can ask her to call you if you want?”.

Of course, this bloody world isn’t going to make it easy for me, Roger thought. “No, thanks,” he needed a Plan B quickly, “Do you… eh… have a public mail address of her maybe? Something I can contact her on that she wouldn’t hate you for?” not his best plan, but maybe he’ll figure something out. “Yes, I think have her work mail in my contact list somewhere. Let me see… it’s [email protected]. I’m not sure if she’ll read the mail herself though,” Roger wrote down the address on the first piece of paper he found laying around his kitchen table, which turned out to be his lyric diary. “I’ll find a way to make her read it. Thanks though. I owe you one,” his mind was already on the mail he was about to write. “That’s what friends are for, right? Get me a drink in next time and tell me all about your new date and we’re fine,” “Will do. Listen, I need to write a very important mail now so I’m hanging. See ya!” after a quick bye he put off the call.

Right. What was he going to tell her? He needed an excuse to see her again. He needed to feel if the chemistry was still there. And if she was as beautiful as he had imprinted in his mind. He couldn’t just ask her out on a date though. No matter how he would put it, she would always say no, he was sure of that. So, what was a good excuse to meet up again? That she still had something of him? No, there was no way she was going to buy that. That he needed her advice on something? No, she would just answer via mail and he would be no step further. He needed something better. He quickly lit another cigarette.

Wait. Wasn’t she a dancer or choreographer or something? She had mentioned that during their conversation. Good, at least now he had an idea in which direction he was going. He started writing:

“Dear Camila,” he hated being formal, and he was trying to woo her after all anyway, but he had to be careful not to be too slimy either. “I received your note today, thank you, it was nice to read. I must say I was surprised to see your fine handwriting lying on my kitchen table. Of course, I’ll accept your apology, although I still don’t know why you cut me off like that. I wouldn’t mind hearing you tell me face-to-face. Don’t worry, I’m not asking you out on a date. I wouldn’t dare. But I have a small problem I need your help with. You see, the girl I like is an excellent dancer and even though I have some fine moves I must admit I’m nowhere near that level. And when you’re trying to impress a gorgeous girl that won’t do. You’ve told me you’re a choreographer, so I wondered if you mind teaching me a few extra moves etc.? I’ll thank you over a drink afterwards, if you want. Thanks, Roger. PS: If your assistant is reading this, please forward it to Camila.” He felt really pleased with his own mail. It had turned out exactly how he wanted it to. Out of fear of chickening out if he read it over he clicked ‘send’. All that was left to do was hope for the best.

Several hours later he was trying to concentrate on the book he was reading, but his mind kept wandering off to his laptop. His thoughts went back to that cursed party. At first, he had only noticed the way her dress had shown off her perfect curves and how delicate and soft her features were. He had noted how well she dressed: sexy, but subtle. Then he observed the way she said her name. Ca-Mee-La, like a pretty flower. It suited her. Her eyes, oh those eyes. The way they looked at him send shivers down his spine. There was a wildness in them, a rebelliousness that he had liked immediately. Her voice dry, but soft and smooth. The way she moved was elegant, as a dancer should be. She spoke very sharply and fast, like she was always on the edge of a heated debate. But when he said something funny, she would break into a wholesome laugh that lit up the whole room. But there was something about her, a certain amused look that he couldn’t figure out. As if she was thinking a lot of thoughts she didn’t want to share with anyone. And then suddenly she was gone. It had left him feeling cold, rejected and bitterly disappointed. The only thing that was left to do was getting absolutely piss drunk and that was exactly what he did.

Suddenly, he was disrupted from his thoughts by the sound of his inbox receiving a new mail. He stirred, feeling nervous and excited at the same time, when he saw her name as the sender. He quickly opened it:

“Dear Roger,

pleased to read you liked my note and accepted my apology. I am aware of my shortcomings as a human being, so I makes me happy I did not stamp on your feet too hard. As for a face-to-face explanation, there is not much to explain apart from it being in my character. Your ‘little problem’ amused me. You must think her very special if you are willing to go out of your way to impress her. You want me to help you? Well, as it happens, I just finished my work on a new West End musical, so I have some spare time in the next weeks to teach you. Why don’t you come to tonight’s show, so we can discuss details afterwards? I will give you backstage access if you agree. You do not need to buy me a drink afterwards, I am always willing to help someone for free.

Looking forward to seeing you in action! X, Camila.

PS: Victoria is not my assistant, but my partner-in-crime. We only use her mail address to stop men from trying to get into contact with me via my work account.”

He lit a cigarette to calm his nerves. He felt a flicker of excitement inside. So, she did want to meet him now suddenly? She continued to bewilder and fascinate him. He wondered whether it was intentional and she was playing hard to get or if she was just a little strange as a person. And was she playing along or did she really believe his explanation? He didn’t know, but he was dying to find out.

A West End musical though? He hated musicals with a passion. He would never go to one out of free will. But this was also his only chance and he had already come this far… One evening wouldn’t hurt, he guessed. Who knows, it might actually be fun… Yeah, probably not Roger, stop lying to yourself. You just have to get through this bit.

When he arrived backstage at the theatre, he tried very hard to not get in the way of the production people preparing themselves for the show. He looked around but didn’t see Camila anywhere. No-one was paying him any attention and he was looking very silly, standing awkwardly around by himself. What a bloody idiot he was. He got himself a cup of water to at least have something to do. Suddenly he heard her calm voice behind him: ‘Hey Roger. I am pleased to see you.”. He turned around and there she was, as beautiful as he remembered her. “Hey!” he sounded a bit too enthusiastic for his liking. He took a deep breath. He smiled: “How is everything going with the show?”. “Fine as far as I can tell. I don’t know, I’m not involved in that bit. I leave the boring parts to Victoria,” a slight smile crept upon her face, “I see you already got yourself a drink, but there is more than just water available if you like.”. “You’ve got something stronger as well? Beer? Wine? I guess it should be wine in a theatre, wouldn’t it?” not that he cared about etiquette, he preferred wine anyway. He could really use a proper drink now though. “Yes. Red or white? Come, let’s go somewhere else for the moment and return when the show starts,” she waved her hand to show him the way and he gladly started walking.

“Or we could just not come back at all,” he said naughtily, “And white, please.”. He wanted to see if she would take the bait. “Oh, but you would miss a wonderful show. It is good to broaden your horizon, Roger,” there was a hint of amusement in her face. “Some horizons do not need to be broadened,” he groaned. They had come into an empty office room now and Camila picked up a bottle and poured him a glass of white wine. “This should get you prepared for an evening of random songs performed to a backdrop of spontaneous synchronised choreography. And some lines in-between that everyone will have forgotten afterwards anyway,” her eyes were sparkling with amusement now. “I thought you liked musicals?” he was slightly confused. He had yet to find a way to figure out whether she was telling the truth or not. “Oh, I do. There is much wonder hidden in the utter ridicule of it all. See, it is just a matter of perspective. You can spend your whole evening moaning about how much musicals suck, or you can spend it making jokes about the whole concept while bopping along to the songs. I know which one gives you far more pleasure in the end,” there was some truth in there somewhere, fuck. In the end he followed her back to the general backstage area to find out whether she was right or not. Or just so he could shamelessly stare at her all evening.

During the show they spent the whole time whispering to each other to avoid disturbing others. Camila’s sharp, somewhat absurd sense of humour kept him entertained throughout the show and he managed to get a few jokes in himself as well. He was pleased to the point of cockiness when he saw her laugh at them. As silently as she could, of course. When the wine started to work on him, he also dared to move close to her. She didn’t mind. After some time, he even wrapped his arm around her. She just smiled at him when he did so. Having her so near him swelled his heart. Fuck, he really liked her. He could smell her probably expensive perfume from here, which was feminine and sensuous, but also light and fresh. He still wondered why she had suddenly taking a shine to him again and he decided to ask as soon as the opportunity arises. For now he just decided to enjoy the moment.

That opportunity did arise once they settled down for an after-show drink. “So, are you still up for some dancing lessons? It is very beneficial for you, you know,” she smiled. “Like what? Getting strained muscles? I thought maybe I could take you out for a nice dinner instead,” he grinned. He had lots of ideas in facts. Dinner would only be the start. “Well, it was your idea to begin with. You are not going to chicken your way out of it now. I promise it will be fun,” she paused, then added dryly, “for me at least.”. He pouted, of course it would be. He had no intention of making a bloody fool out of himself though. So he had to come clean.

“Ah, that was just an excuse you know. To see you again,” he flinched. Camila laughed: “I know. More reason to go through with it.”. “Haven’t you already tried to torture me enough by making me watch a bloody West End musical?” he groaned. “Like I told you, there are several benefits to a few dancing lessons. Some which you will thank me for later,” there was a sincerity in her voice that Roger could not ignore. He thought: “Like what?”. “Your posture could use help. Plus, your movements could have more strength,” she showed what she meant. He laughed. “And I will be there,” she smiled a wide smile and he felt his resistance crumble away. Fuck.

“Well maybe it wouldn’t be too bad? Only once! But you must tell me first why we’re here in the first place, cause I’m a little confused right now.”. “Sometimes people change their minds, do they not? And I thought your mail was sweet. Very funny. As you saw, I can be too abrupt at times. Not my best personality trait. Now may I ask why you decided to try again? Rejection is not something one likes to encounter on a frequent basis,” she explained calmly and confidently. She thought he was funny. And sweet. She didn’t know anything. He couldn’t care less. “Well, it was too good an opportunity to ignore. It is not often I run into a special lady like yourself,” he smiled lazily.

“You say what? With your broad circle of female acquaintances it should not be too hard to find yourself a nice girlfriend,” she narrowed her eyes, thinking about something she wouldn’t tell him about. “I’m not just looking for a nice girlfriend though. In the end we all want something deeper than that, don’t we?” a soft glance fell over his face. “Real love you mean?” the amused look was back again for a second, then it got replaced by a more neutral one, “perhaps I should practise what I preach more often.”. He had no idea what she meant with that comment. “If I’m not supposed to be single by your reasoning, why are you?” he felt that perhaps they were discussing things a bit too deeply for what wasn’t even their first date yet. “I don’t consider myself relationship material. At least, every attempt I made failed miserably. And always because of me,” he appreciated her honesty, but was left guessing why. “You are warned, so to speak,” she raised one eyebrow. “It’s not like I don’t have a reputation either,” they both laughed.

After a little more time had passed Camila announced that she was going. He protested and wondered what she had to do that was more important. “Nothing,” was the only answer he got. She kissed him on the cheek and then left. He realised there was a long way to go before he would really understand her. But he felt it was worth it.

#my fic

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