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why-this-kolaveri-machi · 3 years

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it wasn’t power i coveted; it was acceptance.

Titans 3.06

y’know, i was just thinking the other day that 1.06/1.07 and 2.06/2.07 were the best episodes of their respective seasons, so i have great hopes going in to this one. fingers crossed!

as always, typing this up as i see the episode.

SPOILERS AHEAD

1. oh! um... that was a Cold Open, all right. *nudges* get it? cold? because it’s snowing? and two people got murdered in cold blood? eh?

... oh, i’ve just started.

1.5. i wonder if “i want to be sipping pina coladas on a beach with you” is the new “i’m just one day away from retiring.” i was so on edge after that--i kept expecting that car to explode. even so, the way they died wasn’t an anticlimax: brutal, and quick.

1.75. so i’m assuming that’s the titular lady vic! this show better bring up why this doll was important or why these two cops needed to be killed, and not leave it to the ether like jericho’s little mindscape jaunt in 2.08 (i’m still dying to know what that was about???)

i love how deliberately unappealing wayne manor is.

(sorry for the pic quality. i don’t have hbo max! ssshhh.)

2.3. i love the many references to “home” and “our house” when they’ve been here for less than a week and saw one of their friends get blown into pieces. i mean, i unironically love it: home is where family is, after all!

2.5. i’d like to say that kom is playing some sort of long game here, especially given the build-up we had last season and some of the more niggling details this season: why did kom choose now to use her bond to lure kory when she’s been on earth for months? why did justin call kory now, just around the time that she started getting kom’s visions? and what about kom’s ability to exactly imitate other people? hmmm.

2.75. the reason i wrote i’d like to say is that i’ve made the mistake of assuming plot complexity where there is none; i was so invested in the jason todd orchestrated his own death theory for instance, when it turns out that oops! ra’s al ghul just happened to leave a little lazarus puddle in gotham, and oh yeah! scarecrow just happens to have a network of henchmen working for him on the outside and a fully functional laboratory and a weapons cache fit for a new supervillain in the basement of the high security psychiatric unit/prison that he’s in!

(no i’m not bitter, why do you ask)

2.8. iiiii don’t know what to say about the implications of sex slavery being a thing on tamaran, so i’m not going to say anything at all. for now.

3. gotham, six years ago... wasn’t it five years before s2 that jericho died and the titans disbanded? and when was the flashback from 1.06 where dick let zucco die? i think it was after the events of 2.08: jericho? i can’t seem to find any transcripts or reliable information online, so i’m going to have to rewatch 1.06 at some point.

(i love the old-fashioned batman music in this heist scene)

3.5. “security is a joke... it’s my way of keeping my dad on his toes”. what you’re an ethical thief now, like an ethical hacker? i don’t think that excuse is going to sell, barbara, on the day you do encounter a decent security system and your father is forced to arrest you.

(then again, gotham’s security is piss-poor. did you know that you could just walk into arkham asylum without any official clearance, ply one of its most dangerous inhabitants with contraband, and said inmate could get away with having an entire laboratory and weapons cache--NO I’M NOT GOING TO LET THIS GO)

3.8 so that flashback between dick and barbara was really cute! and also illuminating:

a) dick sounds so light, so... um. look. i have some apologies to tender to mr thwaites, because while i’ve always thought he does a fine job as dick grayson, i’ve never been terribly fond of his cadence as he delivers dialogue. it’s often monotonous, i thought, but then again, he’s usually delivering exposition or dealing with one soul-crushing crisis or the other. so i was pleasantly surprised to hear dick sound so carefree and alive in his conversation with barbara, laughing frequently, his emotions so bare and bubbling to the surface. it’s really a fantastic contrast to the traumatised and world-weary dick grayson that we see now, even more so than the costume department just bunging a backwards-baseball cap on mr thwaites’ head and hoping that will convince us of his relative youth.

b) and god, when he wakes up from that memory, all alone in his bed, bleeding from bullet holes in his shoulder (bullet holes that are--in a somewhat convoluted way--barbara’s fault)? yikes. it’s great. you have my apologies, mr thwaites!

c) can you imagine dick just... crawling back to wayne manor, trying not to be seen by anybody, shedding his suit and just... collapsing onto his bed without even tending to his wound? the sheer emotional and physical exhaustion of it?

d) it’s so interesting to see how barbara and dick approach the idea of legacy--a big theme on the show!--in this flashback. barbara is the one bucking the idea that she should follow in her father’s footsteps, while dick seems pretty content with the batman-and-robin setup, and even tries to get barbara to join their team (robin-girl. pfffft). obviously after this several traumatic things happen wherein dick ends up questioning and then resenting his role as robin, his relationship with batman or even returning as a vigilante at all. and barbara... ends up replacing her father as commissioner. it’s tragic, really.

e) the dynamic between dick and barbara in the flashback reminds me of how it was between dick and donna in 1.08 and even between kory and dick in early s1. it’s like having an older, strong-willed woman by his side means he gives over the steering wheel for a while and lets himself... unspool, a little bit. it’s kinda endearing.

also:

*pinches his cheeks*

3. you know, we talk about dick and Eldest Daughter Syndrome, and that’s definitely valid, but here gar seems to me the embodiment of it, with all the emotional gardening and firefighting that he’s expected to do. he’s kind of the guy expected to keep his shit together and take care of everyone else while they are falling completely to pieces, unable to carve out time to process his own trauma. he’s also picked up dick’s and kory’s tendencies to bottle up their struggles and shun appearing vulnerable, and he’s struggling in the shadow of both dick and kory undergoing acute crises, his best friend (and frequent confidante) on the other side of the world, and seeing hank die, utterly helpless to stop it.

i’m glad that he got a chance to tell dick even a smidgeon of what he really feels, and i hope this is at least a semblance of a wake up call for dick to actually sit down and work with the people he repeatedly calls family.

3.5. it’s heartening to see that dick immediately makes it his priority to go talk to gar. but don’t blow off kory in the process, man!

4. i’m really loving this dynamic between kom and conner--i get the idea that both of them consider each other as Unknowns, alien two times over. but conner’s only ever known the titans, who embrace being different, and kom’s only ever known... well.

anyway, kory is Really Stressed, and honestly? #relatable.

when you’re forced to bring an estranged family member to hang out with your friends...

4.5. i love that the titans are spending so much time in the kitchen. a real family!

5. jonathan crane is a creep and i absolutely cannot stand him.

5.25. how did he get a whole lab setup (in the basement of a hospital...?) with a bunch of whitecoats to work for him? how did he just waltz into the viewing room of an operation theatre when he’s one of the most wanted men in gotham right now? why is jason wandering around maskless when--presumably--as the adopted son of the most famous person in gotham he’d be a tad more recognisable than your average joe?

why do i expect this show to answer anything anymore?

5.5. that’s not necessarily a criticism, mind; i’ve said since season 1 that titans is very comics-like in this aspect, all about the Aesthetic and the splash-page splendour rather than the niggling unimportant details of how or when the characters got to said location. like. the camera gliding over the operation being set-up, lady vic bursting in and doing her murder dance (imagine the luck of the poor intern who chose this day and this surgery to assist) and jason, shocked and slack-jawed, framed by blood.

5.75. it’s a sobering reminder for jason that, though he chose this path in order to gain control over a world that seemed like it was rapidly spinning out of his grip, he’s only succeeded in handing over even more control to a man with an agenda that is very clearly not aligned with his own. he’s in too far to stop now, though.

5.9. i have a lot more thoughts about jason! saving it up for the end of this recap, though.

6. more kitchen time! i better see dick do some cooking soon...

(”our kitchen”! it still delights me! kitchens are So Important)

6.25. so much of dick’s issues have revolved around his relationship with bruce, so it’s completely understandable that in the wake of a huge crisis where bruce literally asks dick to replace him and be a “better” him, dick would default to all the worst things he learned from the man. and i’m glad kory’s having none of it, but come on, guys. the woman’s literally fetched her fratricidal sister out of a hole in the ground with no idea what said sister is going to do next and experiencing a burgeoning sense of guilt far, far beyond her history with the titans, and dick’s too far into his autocolonoscopy that he can’t see that she needs help.

6.5. “he services your urges”--well, as far as we know, kory is the last person he had sex with...

7. “i hope [gar] isn’t angry with me...” SIR! i thought you’d already spoken to him! smh, as the kids say. kory wouldn’t be needing to reassure you if you just took the effort to build two way emotional relationships with the rest of the team. @superohclair was taking about dick’s relatively low emotional intelligence? i agree.

7.5. “i got my own problems [...] you and barbara? fix it.” YOU TELL HIM, KORY

8. man i really like this weird, sad tension between dick and barbara--this sense that both of them are approaching the other based on how they remember them and are ultimately disappointed by the truth. barbara thought she could trust dick to... well, be a better batman, but dick has not only failed at that in her eyes, but repeatedly undermined her while exploiting the authority that she gave him. in dick’s eyes, this is nothing like the barbara that he knew, rebellious and ready to do whatever it takes to find something.

like. this show sometimes really hits me in the chest about the ways it shows kids grow into adults and into caretakers, and the way it’s stop-start, the ways nothing can happen at all for a long time and then it’s Crisis Central all at once and there’s no space to breathe. the weird sort of sadness that comes with nostalgia.

8.5. oracle name drop! i agree with barbara, any system that can just randomly tap into gotham phonelines is a monster.

8.7. (i don’t know if it’s my imagination, but is dick holding himself... differently in this episode? like that wound is definitely bothering him, and he’s running on fumes)

9. man, that was a really sweet scene between kom and conner. “feeling alien in your own world”... “not quite here nor there”

honestly this team runs on conner and gar’s faith in their value as a family, and it’s a sign of conner’s generous heart that he extends that opportunity to blackfire. this arc of maturation for him, where he’s now able to consciously choose which parts of himself he can use to do the thing he wants to so--save people--has been so fulfilling to recognise. this baby’s grown with the titans! and what he’s learnt is that people can get fucked up, but the titans is a place where they can be fucked up, and grow.

MY MAN CONNER

10. oh man i’m drinking in the gar-dick interaction in this episode like i’m three days into the desert and it’s the only source of water for miles around!

a) gar is absolutely not dealing with dick’s bullshit this episode and I LOVE IT. it’s such a far cry from the man who was idolising dick/robin back in s1 and expecting him to solve all their problems. dick is fallible, dick is fucked up, but he Tries His Best and that’s ok.

b) dick, huffing and puffing through that vent, unable to put any pressure on his left shoulder, trying to have a heart to heart with gar... fuck i love this asshole.

c) bruce took in a kid who was suffering... “and made him into a weapon”. well. i absolutely agree with dick that it was bruce who put these kids into these horrible situations with him and they came away with a bucketload of trauma to add to the one that they already had. but we know that bruce was really trying with jason, and at the end of s2, dick was coming to acknowledge that bruce had offered him something that wasn’t just darkness. jason’s death and bruce’s reaction to that shattered that fragile progress.

d) “gotham got to me too.” i feel more sympathetic towards dick running off on his own than most, and it’s not just because i’m an unapologetic stan. we’ve seen before that dick... devolves when overwhelmed, and he lashes out and makes ill thought out decisions and just Does Not Deal. it happened after hearing the news that deathstroke had returned in s2, and it didn’t help that everyone around him was reeling at the news, either. this time, however, he has his salvation in his family, and despite some stupid decisions like running off and kidnapping supervillains without telling his team, he’s been really on the ball this season. thinking clearly and logically, holding it together and working on a plan, thinking two steps ahead of the villains... yes.

e) gar needing to believe that jason isn’t beyond redemption... there’s a lot of blood on his hands, too, from when he was manipulated by cadmus last season. it makes sense why he’d relate to jason’s predicament, and i hope dick picked up on that.

f) my head just added a plaintive ow after dick jumped feet first into the storage room

i need, crave gifs of this scene!

11. *sits on hands* i’m going to talk more about red hood, i promise!

12. more gar and dick! is it my birthday??!!

(actually, according to the tamil calendar, it is my birthday! my “star” birthday)

12.5. excellent. dick using some implausible training that bruce taught him to solve a mystery? passing some of that knowledge onto gar? that proud smile when he sees gar perfectly execute moves that he taught him? MY HEART IS EXPLODING

13. aw, i love flashback!dick and barbara, they’re so cute <3

13.25. why does it not surprise me that the way he proposes a relationship to barbara is by saying “we make sense”? this guy can deduce exactly who was present where and what weapon they were holding from a garbled audio recording but other times he’s utterly clueless, and that’s a consistent character beat right from s1

13.5. so.... that’s why lady vic has it out for... barbara....? i don’t get it. it’s flimsy. but hey! the fun thing about titans is that i don’t have to get it. the payoff has nothing to do with the plot.

14. i can’t believe that barbara fell for that, but at least that wheelchair fight looked awesome, so.

15. oh yeah, i forgot that red hood bullied the mob into helping him and scarecrow... at least that explains the whitecoats and the elaborate set-up.

15.5. honestly i love how this dynamic between kory and kom is developing, though i wish more of the team would pay attention to it. time to call justin, i think!

16. i wonder what happened after that second flashback where barbara got hurt during that heist. did she give up on doing any more (maybe jim caught her)? was it because dick was called away by bruce and then the titans and got caught up in his own issues? maybe barbara froze him out because she wasn’t looking for the relationship that he was looking for? maybe the idea of doing that with someone turning into batman-lite was just... unappealing? scary?

whatever it is, it doesn’t look like dick ever processed the end of that relationship. it’s very intriguing to see where their dynamic goes next.

17. so.... what, did vic deliver some fear toxin to barbara? i... what?

17.5. and i TOLD YOU that they would never explain that doll or why vic attacked those two cops at the beginning! oh, titans. never change.

18. did jason just randomly have tim’s restaurant burgled? god, i’m feeling a bit nauseous... are they going to kill tim’s father?

18.25. i feel like the rest of the season is going to wrestle with jason’s culpability in the horrible stuff he’s doing and i’m already seeing that prospect divide fans. on one hand, his story is taking a lot of oxygen away from other equally interesting story arcs, and he’s done some truly awful things, like indiscriminate murder, threatening to kill children, blowing up hank, and potentially killing tim’s parents.

there’s something to be said for the kind of hold that crane has over him, and the so-called ‘anti-fear’ drug that he keeps plying jason with--he’s alone, drugged almost constantly (to the level of dependence), fresh from the trauma of being bludgeoned to death. he hasn’t conquered fear; he’s ruled by it. on the other hand, given that he’s the one character on the show given an obvious and identifiable ‘mental illness’ arc (maaaaybe dick too), one can argue that it’s irresponsible to show this progress into such violence: jason was vulnerable because he was struggling, and that left him vulnerable, but it took only a push before he became a fucking serial killer.

but that could mean we underestimate the degree of that vulnerability, and the mechanics of this universe where he fell into the clutches of the one supervillain perfectly designed to exploit that vulnerability. that helpless spiral into further and further self-destruction is all too real. it’s valuable to know that someone who has sunk that low can still seek help--actual help--and get it.

18.5. i don’t know. it’s not a question i’m going to resolve at the end of an overlong recap at 1 in the morning. i don’t believe it’s even a question that titans can resolve. but i am interested in where they’re going next with jason.

19. this episode was genuinely great! i’m pumped for the rest of the season!

#titans #titans spoilers #meta #dick grayson #koriand'r #barbara gordon #garfield logan #conner kent #komand'r #jason todd #jonathan crane #a byronic cupcake #badass strawberry truffle #manic pixie pop tart #a tragic jalebi #this is a 3k+ MONSTER yikes

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writing-freak · 4 years

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BNHA Soulmate AU Week Day 2: The Red String of Fate

(GIF credit to its owner!! :) )

Tamaki Amajiki x Reader

Word Count: 1,853

A/N: It’s officially day 2 of my BNHA Soulmate AU Week!! Today's fic, featuring this cutie pie, is a red string of fate au, where Tamaki, Reader’s shy soulmate, keeps running away, making the string longer each time. I had a lot of fun writing this, and I hope you guys like this one too! Remember, I’m taking soulmate au headcannon and imagine requests for BNHA characters in addition to the 5 other pics I have planned for this week! So stay tuned, tomorrow we have one where you can’t see the soulmate’s eye color until you see them, with my very favorite boy, Iida! If you want to be added to this week’s taglist, or have a request, let me know! Thanks for reading!! :))

Masterlist

You learned to hate the red string hanging off your right pinky finger from a very young age.

For while the string always went through walls, passing through everything solid and everyone in its path, it never seemed to want to leave you alone, and you found yourself tangled in it through every part of your day.

You woke up tangled in the string, with it wrapped around your shoulders and your waist as you tossed and turned during the night. When you brushed your hair, it got caught on your ear, when you ate, you had to be careful not to eat it too. You tripped on it out in the streets, your foot caught on it in the hallways at school.

You hated the string so much that one day you decided to cut it. But of course, like with everyone else, the scissors slipped right through the red string, unable to make contact.

When you first really noticed the red string, enough for you to understand what it meant, it freaked you out that no one could see it. It almost had you convinced it didn’t exist, that it was a part of your imagination, an adventure just for you.

When your mother sat you down and explained that everyone had one, that it led you to your soulmate, you realized that you had kind of been right, in a way. It was your own little adventure, one that you would go on one day.

And it wasn’t as if you didn’t try to go on that adventure. The red string led you out of your home, into crowded streets, in front of passing cars. You had been saved one too many times by a lucky hero for your parents to let you out of their sight until you were nearly in high school.

And by then it didn’t matter anyway, since you hated the string, and would never use it for your own adventure. The person on the other end of it intrigued you, but the string itself, it was your enemy, keeping you from them. You didn’t need its help. You would find your soulmate on your own.

So despite your intense hatred of the red string on your pinky, and its inability to leave you alone, you didn’t think about soulmates all too often. That is, of course, until you met yours.

You were dozing in class when you first noticed the string moving. The only reason you noticed in your tired state was because the string had previously been stuck beneath your foot (of course), and when it shifted, it lifted your foot from the ground.

Then, to your amazement, the string rose off the ground, higher and higher, until there was a clear straight line between you, and a boy you didn’t recognize, with dark hair that covered his eyes, who had just walked in your class.

Your mouth dropped wide open, but it seemed as if your soulmate hadn’t noticed the string yet. Instead, to your confusion, he was hiding his face in the nearest wall.

“L/N,” Aizawa said lazily, “Is there anything you were hoping to say to the big three?”

But you couldn’t answer, and instead, you stood up, and reached your other hand over to tug on the string.

The boy’s whole hand yanked up, and he finally turned away from the wall, your eyes meeting for the first time across the classroom. But his eyes went wide in fear, and before you could say anything, he was off, running out of the classroom faster than you could even think to ask his name. The red string tied to your finger sunk back to the ground as he slammed the door behind him, and everyone’s eyes went to you.

Your face heated in embarrassment, and still nearly shaking from shock, you sunk back in your seat. The two other students at the front of the class that had entered with your soulmate looked as surprised as you felt.

“Tamaki,” the blond one said, sighing deeply. He eyed you curiously, and you tried your best to hide your face in your hands.

Tamaki, you thought. Who was this Tamaki, and why did he run away?

After class, and hearing from the “big three”, minus the one that happened to be the supposed love of your life, you raced after the other two in the hallway, Nejire Hado, and Mirio Togata.

“Mirio!” you called. “Nejire!”

Despite the fact that the blond haired boy seemed much more outgoing and forward than the others in the short introduction you had had earlier, it was Nejire who turned around, with a smile on her face, and approached you.

“Y/N, right?” she asked as you caught up to her, leading you down the hall and off to the side, away from the crowds. You nodded, tugging at the string on your finger subconsciously.

“And that was Tamaki?” you asked, testing the boy’s name out on your tongue. It felt strangely familiar, as if you had been meant to say it your whole life. You guessed that was probably an accurate description; you were fated together with the boy, after all.

Nejire sighed. “As happy as I am that Tamaki found his soulmate so soon, and it seems to be a lovely person,” she smiled at you, “I’m afraid my friend is often very fearful. I’d imagine he’s quite freaked out at the moment.”

“I didn’t mean to scare him,” you protested, worry crossing over your face. “I’d just like to talk to him - would you be able to introduce us?”

But from the look on Nejire’s face, you could tell she wasn’t going to do that. “I would love for you to meet Amajiki, and for you guys to fall in love and spend the rest of your lives together. But that’s going to have to be on his own time.” It looked as if it were painful for her to tell you this. “Look, I am so sorry. I can’t imagine knowing your soulmate is right there, and not being able to do anything about it. But trust me; I know Amajiki.” She put a comforting hand on your arm. “And I know one day, you’ll know him too, and you’ll understand.”

And with that, she left, leaving you gaping after her.

You gave your soulmate three days. Three days to process, three days to have some space. And then you went off looking for him.

You spent all of your free time following the string. During lunch, your break during training, the hour you usually spent on homework before dinner. It never took you long; he wasn’t nearly as far away as you had always imagined. But no matter how close you got, how short the string shrunk in your hands, Tamaki always ran away, taking his string with him.

For the next week, the distance between you and your soulmate grew smaller, and then bigger, and then smaller, and then bigger. As you chased him everywhere, depending so strongly on the string you had grown to hate, he reinforced your hatred in it. The further away he was, the longer it got, the more you tripped and got tangled in red.

But this time, your stubbornness won out over the string. For this time, it was not an endless adventure that you would spend the rest of your life following. This time, the end was in sight, and you were not going to give up until you reached it.

You both knew that one day you were bound to catch him, and perhaps that was why it ended up happening sooner than you expected, with Tamaki giving up too easily one day when you had him cornered in an empty hall.

“Tamaki,” you sighed, out of breath. “Can I please just-”

“I-I’m sorry!” the older boy nearly yelled, bowing his head as you looked at him in shock. “I’m sorry I keep running away! I just can’t-”

“Tamaki, it’s okay,” you reassured, speaking softly to comfort the boy. This close to him, it was as if you could sense all of the tension in his body, everything in him wanting nothing more than to run away, far away. And everything in you was telling you to keep that from happening, in whatever way you could. “I understand.” When Tamaki met your eyes at this statement, you could see the initial hesitancy to believe you. But you did understand, on some level that made no sense to either of you, and as his eyes softened, you realized that he could sense this too.

“I’m sorry,” he said, softer this time. You nodded your head.

“I don’t mind taking things slowly,” you said, and he peered up at you beneath his long hair. You laughed a little. “We’re soulmates, we have all the time in the world! I just want to start somewhere. In all honesty,” you admitted, “I’m just sick and tired of tripping over this string everywhere I go. It would be nice to have a little break from that.” You tilted your head to the side, grateful that you still held eye contact with the boy in front of you. “So can I introduce myself? I’m y/n.”

You saw the slightest smile creeping onto Tamaki’s face. “Amajiki,” he answered, and you beamed back.

“Amajiki,” you tested, “can I accompany you to lunch? We can eat with your friends, they seem nice! Honestly, I just don’t think I can handle another cafeteria break where I trip and land with my face in my tray of food.”

Tamaki let out a small laugh, and then proceeded to hide his face in his hands from the growing blush on his cheeks. But your heart fluttered at the sound, one of the most angelic laughs you’d ever heard. And you had caused it. Your smile grew wider.

Despite his embarrassment, Tamaki did agree to accompany you to lunch, provided it be with the other big three. As you walked through the halls, your hands so close to one another, you didn’t have to worry about watching your feet. Instead, you were preoccupied with your overwhelming desire to hug the boy next to you, to celebrate the day you finally meant the one you were meant to be with.

But Tamaki needed time, and you were more than willing to give it to him. You would give him all the time in the world. When you felt a light bump to your hand, and looked down to see Tamaki’s pinky finger intertwining with yours, you realized you might not need as much time as you thought.

You walked through the halls, holding pinkies, not hands, and the red string hanging off your fingers was no more, the distance between you nonexistent. And in that moment, you knew you had been wrong before. For while the red string had an end, and you had finally reached it, you knew following Tamaki would be an endless adventure, one you’d gladly follow for the rest of your life.

Taglist: @anything-and-everything-here69 @engel-hageshii @mrsreina

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artificialqueens · 4 years

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Signed, Sealed, Delivered, Chapter 5 (Crygi, Jan x Nicky) - Joley

ao3 link

Gigi’s back arched, her eyes squeezed shut. One hand gripped her comforter while the other fisted into the other girl’s hair. “Fuck, Crystal…”

The girl suddenly stopped her steady ministrations and looked up. “Excuse me?”

“What?” Gigi opened her eyes, only to look confused and disappointed at the sudden lack of contact.

“You just called me Crystal,” she replied, only to receive a blank expression in return. “My name is Emily.” She didn’t sound as angry as perhaps she could have. In fact, there was a hint of amusement in her voice.

On the other hand, Gigi wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Her face had already been red, but it was burning hotter than ever. Even in the poorly-lit room, it was very clear that the girl between her legs didn’t even resemble Crystal, which to her, made it even worse. “I’m so sorry, I-”

“Whatever, it’s none of my business,” Emily shrugged it off. She sat there quietly for a moment before looking back up at her. “Do you want me to continue or…”

Gigi sat up and shook her head. “I’d love to, but, um, I’ll take a raincheck,” she mumbled sheepishly as she got up to search for her clothes. She just wanted to get the hell out of there, and fast.

“So, who is Crystal?” she asked, lighting up a cigarette, “must be a real beauty, huh?”

“Crystal is my best friend,” Gigi answered with a humorless laugh as she got dressed. “And… yeah, she is. I know, what a fucking cliche, right?” she sighed. “Doesn’t help that we’re pretending to be engaged,” she added, only to quickly follow up with “don’t ask.”

She chuckled, taking a long drag. “Don’t worry, I won’t,” she assured flatly. “But if you ask me, you should probably talk to her about this before it happens again with someone who’s gonna actually get pissed at you.”

Gigi rolled her eyes and pulled her bag over her shoulder. “Good thing I didn’t ask.”

——

Jan had been pacing around her room nervously for the past ten minutes. While she had considered what Heidi suggested, she wasn’t ready to just dive in and confess her feelings to Nicky. Instead, she decided to ease into it with the song she’d been so diligently practicing. When she sang she wasn’t scared. She didn’t have to think, she didn’t have to fear. And with the song not being in English, she didn’t have to worry about getting hung up on words and inflictions, she could just feel the music. And if nothing else, focusing on giving this her all would take her mind off of the wedding chaos.

‘Hey, are you ready to call?’ The text from Nicky popped up on her phone and finally got her to stand still. She took a breath, collecting herself. ‘Yeah, one sec :)’ she sent back, then looked at herself in the mirror once more before sitting in front of her laptop and calling Nicky.

“Bonne après-midi, my dear,” Nicky greeted cheerily. “Now, tell me what is so important. You used even more exclamation marks and emojis than usually. I was a bit concerned,” she teased.

Jan rolled her eyes playfully. “Oh stop, I’m just excited. I have a surprise for you, I’ve been working really hard on it,” she paused, waiting for Nicky to signal for her to continue. “I learned a French song and I wanna sing it for you.”

Nicky perked up in pleasant surprise and curiosity. “You did? But you don’t even speak French,” she furrowed her brows, “wait, do you?”

She giggled and shook her head. “No, no. But this song… I dunno, I listened to it and it made me think of you. Like, I could just feel it in my soul that it was the perfect fit,” she explained. “So, without further ado…” After clearing her throat, she started the music and began to sing. She lost herself in the music, the words she didn’t understand flowed with such ease. It wasn’t until the song ended that she was able to gauge Nicky’s reaction, and it caused her to frown a bit. “Are you okay?”

Nicky sniffled, wiping her eyes. “Yes, yes, I’m fine,” she quickly assured. She pushed her hair out of her face, blinking rapidly. “You have such a beautiful voice. It’s not even fair that you can just sing in another language so easily,” she feigned a soft laugh.

Jan took it as nothing more than high praise, which of course, she appreciated. “Aw, thank you. And before you know it, I’ll be able to sing to you in person,” she beamed.

“Yeah,” Nicky agreed, voice barely above a whisper. “Thank you, Jan, that was a nice surprise.”

“I’m glad you liked it! Listen, I hate to cut this short, but I promised Heidi and Jackie I’d meet them for lunch. I’ll call you later though, okay?”

Nicky nodded, and the call ended shortly after. She sat back in her chair, putting her hand over her pounding heart. Sure, she had been aware of the budding feelings she had towards her American penpal, but it had been so easy to not focus on. They talked a few times a day for the most part, but it was otherwise up to her to distract herself, and she could do so fairly easily. But something about Jan singing that song, it brought everything she had felt forward, and it hit her like a ton of bricks.

Oh.

“Mon dieu,” she muttered under her breath and stared up at the ceiling. She couldn’t help but wonder if it was better or worse to become aware of how strong her feelings were knowing she was going to see Jan in person in less than a month. On one hand, she worried she would be going in hoping for too much and would end up disappointed. On the other, she couldn’t help but think that maybe it was a sign. And you can’t just ignore a sign, right?

She squeezed her eyes shut and reopened them, hoping it would somehow give her a moment of clarity. Or better yet, she would suddenly be in New York and she would see Jan and everything would be all right. But nothing came of it, and she was left to sort out her feelings on her own.

Nicky groaned and lurched forward, then rested her head on the desk. “Vingt jours de plus…”

——

“Don’t you think doing an engagement photoshoot in Central Park is a little… cliché?” Gigi asked as she watched Crystal help Lemon fiddle with the lights.

Crystal shrugged. “It’s supposed to be cliché. It’ll make it more believable. Besides, it’ll be fun.”

“Then why are you all pouty?”

“Your dress is a lot bigger than mine and I feel outshined at my own wedding,” she replied, watching the way Gigi’s dress flowed with every move. It was truly a testament to Gigi’s designing abilities – with her dainty features and defined silhouette, she looked like a Disney princess. The more Crystal looked at her, the more she was convinced Gigi had stepped out of a cartoon and simply never told her.

Gigi giggled, covering her mouth as she did. “You’re not gonna be outshined,” she assured. “Look at your hair, whose eyes wouldn’t go right to that?” And to be fair, Crystal’s normal mess of curls was styled with a braid going across the crown of her head, and the rest was done into a teased-out ponytail. Normally, the two of them were the same height, but with the hairdo, it appeared that Crystal had a couple of inches on her.

Crystal tilted her head in thought. “Okay, you got me there,” she conceded.

“You guys ready?” Lemon asked when she had everything set up to her liking. “We have like, an hour and a half, two hours in this lighting, let’s make the most of it.”

Crystal and Gigi nodded, letting the shorter girl position them as she best saw fit. “Okay, look in love,” Lemon directed before she began snapping away.

As it turned out, Lemon didn’t need to give them a whole lot of further instruction. The fondness in their expressions, the tenderness in their touches, it flowed with a natural ease. Some passerbys would stop and look for a moment, some even snapping a picture of their own with their phone, but the faux-couple never lost focus. It was only one instruction that caught them off guard.

“Now kiss.”

The two of them froze, both understanding it was a perfectly logical request, but neither sure of how to approach it. What followed was a moment of awkward silence, then hesitant leaning in, and finally, their lips met in a gentle kiss.

“Good, now hold it,” Lemon continued, unphased by their odd behavior. She snapped a few more photos before looking up from her camera. “Alright, ladies. I think we got it,” she announced.

Crystal and Gigi lingered in the kiss for another moment before pulling back, leaving a new tension mounting between them. Neither of them could look the other in the eye, both knowing if they did, they’d start kissing again without the ability to stop.

But Lemon didn’t feel particularly inclined to facilitate whatever the hell was going on between them. “Anyway, I’ll email you guys the pics once they’re done. I’m gonna go now, some of us have actual girlfriends to spend time with,” she said, packing up her things. “Good luck with… this,” she said, gesturing between the two of them before leaving.

“So,” Crystal cleared her throat, “I think that went well.”

Gigi had opened her mouth to reply when – perhaps mercifully – they were interrupted when a woman came up to them.

The woman seemed friendly, maybe a bit tired. She was well-dressed, likely in her early thirties. “Hi, I’m so sorry to bother you,” she started, “but my daughter here wanted to meet the ‘princesses’,” she explained with a soft laugh.

Crystal and Gigi’s gazes drifted downward to the little girl, no more than four years old, shyly holding onto her mother’s leg. Their expressions softened and just like that, all of the tension melted away. They carefully crouched down to be eye-level with the child as her mother nudged her over. “Do you want your mommy to take a picture?” Crystal suggested to the girl.

The girl nodded eagerly, turning to look at her mom, who was already fishing through her purse for her phone. “Okay, Ayla,” her mom directed, “smile big!”

All three girls smiled brightly and Crystal and Gigi slowly got up as Ayla ran back to her mom. “Could you send that to me, actually?” Crystal asked, then gave the woman her number when she obliged.

When the two of them were alone again, there was a brief moment of worry that the tension would build back up, but the whole incident was still providing a successful distraction. “Oh my god, this is so cute,” Crystal cooed.

Gigi rested her chin on Crystal’s shoulder to look. “Aw, yeah, that’s adorable,” she agreed, her arms absentmindedly looping around Crystal’s waist. “I didn’t know you were so good with kids,” she added.

Crystal shrugged, having never really thought about it before. “I guess so, I was always around my cousins growing up and being one of the older girls puts you on default babysitting duty,” she explained, becoming aware of Gigi’s hold on her as she spoke and realizing there was nowhere else she’d rather be, even if it came with the stipulation of standing in the middle of Central Park in a wedding dress.

“We should get changed,” Gigi said, though she didn’t make any immediate attempts to move from Crystal. But eventually she did let go and stand upright. “I’ll order an uber.”

——

Back in Crystal’s bedroom, she and Gigi had long since changed out of their dresses, taken off their makeup, and let their hair flow loose and free. They lay sprawled out on Crystal’s bed, barely watching whatever was on TV. This was their normal, when they were able to turn off their brains and just enjoy each other’s company.

At least, until Gigi broke the silence, clearing her throat first. “I think we need to work on acting like a couple.”

Crystal furrowed her brows and sat up. “What do you mean? I thought we’ve been pulling it off pretty well so far.”

“Come on, you have to admit that kiss was pretty awkward,” she retorted.

“Okay, yeah, that’s fair,” she conceded. “So what, you think we should practice kissing? I haven’t used that line on a girl since tenth grade,” she teased.

Gigi turned a bright red at that, though she insisted, “it’s not a line!” in a voice that was a little too strained to be convincing. “But the time until Nicky’s visit is dwindling, and this all hinges on how convincing we are as a couple. So, you know, no pressure, but…”

“But Jan’s fate lies in our ability to tongue wrestle. Got it,” Crystal finished with a firm nod. This was what she did best – make a dumb joke to deflect from the fact that she was dying to kiss her and get it right this time. “C’mon baby, kiss me like you mean it,” she said in a comically ‘sexy’ manner.

And Gigi did, taking it as a chance at redemption. She cupped Crystal’s face and pressed a deep kiss against her lips and suddenly, all bets were off. As soon as she felt Crystal kiss back, she poured everything into the embrace.

Crystal was fairly certain Gigi had stolen her breath in the kiss, as she found herself forgetting how to do anything but kiss back like her life depended on it. She grabbed onto Gigi’s shirt, eagerly pulling her closer until she fell back on the bed with Gigi on top of her, their legs intertwining.

Gigi couldn’t have held back if she tried. She yanked Crystal’s hair to expose her neck, then bit down and left a hickey in the dead center of one side. It just made it more convincing if she left proof that they were in a committed, intimate relationship, of course. In fact, she left one on the other side for good measure. “God, you’re so fucking beautiful,” she muttered, sitting back and straddling Crystal’s waist and gazing down at her.

Crystal was fairly certain her heart had never beaten so fast in her life. Being with Gigi was nothing like her hookup with Jan. Things were fun and slow and light with Jan, compared to how hard, fast, and passionate Gigi was. She supposed that was where the difference between a friend and lover lies – Jan was warm and comfortable, but Gigi lit a fire in her, they weren’t even undressed and she was already aching for her to fan the flames. “Please don’t stop.”

The quiet plea was music to Gigi’s ears and nothing in the world could’ve stopped her from obliging. She tugged off her own t-shirt, now significantly less dressed than Crystal, having forgone a bra. But she made quick work of remedying that, stripping Crystal from the waist-up and placing a trail of kisses from right above her navel, all the way back up to her collarbone. “Couldn’t if I tried,” she cooed.

“Mm…” Crystal exhaled softly, reacting to every touch with a silent cry for more. She loved the way Gigi’s lips felt against her – on her neck, on her breasts, the way her tongue swirled around her nipples and flicked against the metal of her piercing. “Fuck…”

Gigi moved back down Crystal’s body, tugging off her shorts and panties in one swift motion, then made herself comfortable between Crystal’s thighs. She had only just started when Crystal stopped her.

“Wait, wait, I wanna get you too.”

It took Gigi a moment to understand what Crystal meant. “Oh! Okay, yeah,” she got up and repositioned herself on top, her head between Crystal’s thighs and her legs resting on either side of her head, letting Crystal shift underneath her until she was straddling her face. They both started off slow, but neither could keep the teasing pace up for long, picking up in speed and fervor.

Gigi balanced herself with one hand, using both her tongue and the fingers of her opposite hand to fuck Crystal with a pace that bordered on erratic. Her mind was both frantic and clouded with lust and emotions she was in no position to decipher. She was only loosely aware that Crystal was struggling to keep up with her, and she didn’t care. It was her so it felt good.

And Crystal actually liked the challenge of trying to keep up with Gigi. Her senses were in overdrive with how incredible she made her feel, and it spurred her on all the more. It did become more difficult as she neared her peak – her vision started to get hazy, her breathing more labored, and she couldn’t focus on anything else when she came with a loud groan. She took a moment to catch her breath, then readily and eagerly got Gigi off as well.

When they were both done, Gigi pushed herself off of Crystal and lay beside her. She wrapped her arms around her, pulling her close with her arms securely around her waist. “I think we can pull off being a couple now,” she mumbled, face buried in Crystal’s hair.

“Yeah,” Crystal breathed out with a hint of a laugh, “we’re such good actresses.” And she was just glad Gigi wasn’t able to see the grin on her face, because now she couldn’t even convince herself that she wasn’t in love with Gigi.

#rpdr fanfiction #jan sport #nicky doll #gigi goode #crystal methyd #crygi #jan x nicky #lesbian au #university au #college au #smut #signed sealed delivered #joley #s12

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missjanjie · 4 years

Text

Signed, Sealed, Delivered | (5/?)

Title: Signed, Sealed, Delivered Summary: Jan is in love with her French pen pal, Nicky. Her roommate, Crystal, is in love with her best friend, Gigi. A (perhaps ill-thought out) plan emerges: give Nicky a reason to visit by inviting her to Crystal and Gigi’s wedding. With a month to pull the scheme together, no one knows how this will end up. Word Count: ~3k (this chapter) / ~14.5k (total) Relationship(s): Sportsdoll (Jan Sport/Nicky Doll), Crygi (Crystal Methyd/Gigi Goode Rating: E

Read on AO3 | Ko-Fi

Gigi’s back arched, her eyes squeezed shut. One hand gripped her comforter while the other fisted into the other girl’s hair. “Fuck, Crystal…”

The girl suddenly stopped her steady ministrations and looked up. “Excuse me?”

“What?” Gigi opened her eyes, only to look confused and disappointed at the sudden lack of contact.

“Whatever, it’s none of my business,” Emily shrugged it off. She sat there quietly for a moment before looking back up at her. “Do you want me to continue or…”

“So, who is Crystal?” she asked, lighting up a cigarette, “must be a real beauty, huh?”

Gigi rolled her eyes and pulled her bag over her shoulder. “Good thing I didn’t ask.”

------

“Bonne après-midi, my dear,” Nicky greeted cheerily. “Now, tell me what is so important. You used even more exclamation marks and emojis than usually. I was a bit concerned,” she teased.

Nicky perked up in pleasant surprise and curiosity. “You did? But you don’t even speak French,” she furrowed her brows, “wait, do you?”

Jan took it as nothing more than high praise, which of course, she appreciated. “Aw, thank you. And before you know it, I’ll be able to sing to you in person,” she beamed.

“Yeah,” Nicky agreed, voice barely above a whisper. “Thank you, Jan, that was a nice surprise.”

“I’m glad you liked it! Listen, I hate to cut this short, but I promised Heidi and Jackie I’d meet them for lunch. I’ll call you later though, okay?”

Oh.

Nicky groaned and lurched forward, then rested her head on the desk. “Vingt jours de plus…”

------

“Don’t you think doing an engagement photoshoot in Central Park is a little… cliché?” Gigi asked as she watched Crystal help Lemon fiddle with the lights.

Crystal shrugged. “It’s supposed to be cliché. It’ll make it more believable. Besides, it’ll be fun.”

“Then why are you all pouty?”

Crystal tilted her head in thought. “Okay, you got me there,” she conceded.

“You guys ready?” Lemon asked when she had everything set up to her liking. “We have like, an hour and a half, two hours in this lighting, let’s make the most of it.”

Crystal and Gigi nodded, letting the shorter girl position them as she best saw fit. “Okay, look in love,” Lemon directed before she began snapping away.

“Now kiss.”

“Good, now hold it,” Lemon continued, unphased by their odd behavior. She snapped a few more photos before looking up from her camera. “Alright, ladies. I think we got it,” she announced.

“So,” Crystal cleared her throat, “I think that went well.”

Gigi had opened her mouth to reply when – perhaps mercifully – they were interrupted when a woman came up to them.

The girl nodded eagerly, turning to look at her mom, who was already fishing through her purse for her phone. “Okay, Ayla,” her mom directed, “smile big!”

“We should get changed,” Gigi said, though she didn’t make any immediate attempts to move from Crystal. But eventually she did let go and stand upright. “I’ll order an uber.”

------

At least, until Gigi broke the silence, clearing her throat first. “I think we need to work on acting like a couple.”

Crystal furrowed her brows and sat up. “What do you mean? I thought we’ve been pulling it off pretty well so far.”

“Come on, you have to admit that kiss was pretty awkward,” she retorted.

“Okay, yeah, that’s fair,” she conceded. “So what, you think we should practice kissing? I haven’t used that line on a girl since tenth grade,” she teased.

“Wait, wait, I wanna get you too.”

#crygi #sportsdoll #rpdr rpf #rpdr fanfiction #rpdr fic

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wuxian-vs-wangji · 4 years

Note

As someone who works in tv do you have any tips or tricks you could share? Just about like being on tv and such?

Well, I can give some tips, but I work on crew, I actively avoid being turned into Cast (yet somehow I’ve been on air more than the crew members who WANT to be on tv). Here’s what I can give, but it’s probably not what you were looking for:

If you’re being interviewed in any situation, try to answer questions in complete sentences. For example if you’re asked about your favorite color say “My favorite color is _________”, not just the color itself.

This gives them the option of cutting out the interviewer in edits, and just overall makes it easier on the producer and editor to use the footage as they need. Generally speaking like 85% of what you say will be cut anyways.

Unless it’s a live interview, don’t hesitate to stop yourself and re-state something in a different way. Editors will want you to sound good, so they’ll help you a lot.

I once spent a solid month editing audio for an interview with a Buddhist monk because he kept sucking his teeth and it made a weird sound. The length of the piece kept changing (2 min, 5 min, 4 min, 7 min, 9 min, 4 min) so I had to just edit the audio on the raw interview so I could make each individual edit faster.

Makeup isn’t as complicated as people think. The blunt truth is that TV lights makes E V E R Y O N E ‘ S skin look greasy and oily, no exceptions. Still, you can buy a $3 compact of what looks like white powder (Probably called HD or Photo-Ready). Don’t spend a lot of money on it, don’t let Revlon convince you you need their $12 version. It’s all just talcum powder.

The powder breaks up the light so your skin looks like skin on TV and not a swamp monster thing.

Any makeup beyond that is what we call “beauty makeup”. That’s like if you contour, put on lipstick, eyeliner, etc. Do all that as you wish, then put the HD/Photo-ready powder on top.

Especially focus on forehead (double-especially at hairline), beneath your eyes, nose (double-especially the tip), upper lip, and chin. Cheeks as needed, but that area tends to see less direct light and so it doesn’t look as oily.

In general, unless you’re reading off a teleprompter directly into a camera, just pretend it isn’t there.

This goes for news interviews, general interviews, etc.

As we say at the station “Keep calm and don’t look at the camera- look anywhere but the camera.”

If you DO NOT want to be on camera (if a crew is grabbing general shots on the street or something)—

Just go up to the camera man, patiently wait while he finished his shot, and then say ‘Excuse me, I’m going to be over there, can you please try to avoid getting me in the shot?”

99% of the time they’ll just say “Oh, yeah, sure, that’s fine” and even if they do get you in the shot, it’ll be super wide so there are a ton of people and you aren’t featured. Or if they’re also editing the piece (like news cameramen), they’ll cut around footage of you.

OR if confrontation makes you uneasy, just stare dead-eyed directly into the camera (bonus points for not blinking). If you make them uncomfortable, they won’t use the footage.

OR go up and tell them you DEFINITELY want to be on camera (or behave in a way that suggests it). If someone is too eager for attention they’ll specifically cut you out of the shot.

You can also just hold up a branded item (like a Starbucks cup or shopping bag) and prominently feature it along with your person. Unless that company is one of the sponsors of what they’re shooting, the camera guys will avoid it.

If a microphone is being put on you (properly), the crew is going to be all up in your space.

My general policy (since I’m the one who mics everyone) is that I will talk someone through exactly what I’m doing as I’m doing it so they don’t feel uncomfortable.

I ask them to please put the microphone up under their shirt and out through the neck, then say “Alright, now I’m just going to clip this right here and then pull the cord a little bit to get some of the slack out… And we’re done!”

If the lady has a dress on I warn her I’m going to be clipping the mic to her neckline, then pushing the cord down into her collar and around to her back, where I will use a little bit of (gaffers) tape to pin it in place.

I’ve trained the guys I work with to also speak like that rather than just grabbing people’s shirts and moving stuff around, if the person putting a mic on you just reaches for you ask them to please let you know what they’re doing at each step.

Just a note– don’t wear clunky necklaces that sit at the neckline, you’re an audio person’s worst nightmare.

If the mic is put on WELL, it will go under a layer of clothing to hide the cord. If the program is more lax or the audio person is lazy, the cord will just be left hanging out (which looks sloppy).

If you are putting a mic on a dress that has multiple layers/textures, clip the mic to the most fabric-esque of those layers.

I had to mic Natalie Cole (daughter of Nat King Cole) for an interview and while I went for the fabric of her dress, the other camera crew clipped onto a plastic petal she had. Their mic fell off 4 times because of the slippery material and the final time she snapped at them and then (nicely) asked me to fix the mic since mine hadn’t fallen off.

Natalie Cole was such a nice lady.

Celebrities aren’t as scary as they’re made out to be, UNLESS–

Generally it’s their manager who is a dick (so they don’t have to be because Image).

As long as you are professional, most celebs are normal people. Don’t ask for autographs or photos if you’re there to work (why I don’t have pics with most people I’ve worked with ), don’t shirk duties to stare at them.

Job first. Ogling second. All celebs respect that.

They tend to have pretty packed schedules, so if you’re delaying them you are directly screwing up their day.

That being said, most still understand accidents on set happen with audio or video and won’t bite your face off if there’s a slip-up.

The meaner a celebrity is, the lower-level they are.

I’ve worked with sports stars, television stars, even an ex-President of the United States (Jimmy Carter, who I DID get a selfie with because he offered), yet the absolute WORST ‘celebs’ I’ve ever worked with are the ones you’ve never heard of with niche or tiny fan-bases.

Generally speaking, Celebrities didn’t get their status by being dicks (I mean legit celebs, not reality tv people). As long as you’re professional and treat them with basic respect, they’ll be cool. If they were impossible to work with they wouldn’t make it so far.

They also tend to be very well behaved when cameras are around.

That was probably both way too much info and not at all what you wanted to know, but I’m a camera woman, audio director, field director/producer, and now graphics operator. I’ve been on TV often but never intentionally~~~

#i was even on CNN in junior high #a little puff piece about a space simulation facility that has since shut down #they heard me say something; wanted to use it as a quote; and got a shot of me without me realizing it for the article #so yay?#i'm always UNINTENTIONALLY on tv #almost weekly now #they like to show off the one woman they have that works there as if they are sooooo progressive #casually leaving out all the sexism and harassment #anyways #ask

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onceuponaprincessworld · 4 years

Text

Fairytale of New York

Merry Christmas @artistic-writer, it’s me your secret santa! I had a blast talking to you and getting to know you better. I tried to include everything you wanted to your gift both to the fic and the pic set, the title is taken from your favourite christmas song. So, this is my first time writing angst, I hope that you will like it. Thank you to @hookedonapirate for being my beta and for all her help with this fic. Lastly, I would like to thank @cssecretsanta2k19 for organizing the event.

summary: This day could not have gone worse for Killian Jones. Is one thing to have been hit by a car, it's another thing to actually fight for his life in a hospital bed a few days before Christmas,and before he could actually propose to his girlfriend, well that is a bad day indeed.

Also on Ao3 and FF.

/////

Killian Jones is a 32 year old firefighter, who is crazy in love with his girlfriend. He will always remember the day he first saw her. He was just moving into his new house, in a new city, the moving truck was parked outside of his apartment building, when a blonde goddess walked out said building. He was stunned for a moment and then he remembered himself and had the good sense to introduce himself.

Turns out it was the most important introduction of his life, because 5 months later she became his girlfriend, a title she’s held for the last 3 years. He thinks it's high time for that title to change.

He decided on a place - the park where they shared their first kiss, a kiss Emma declared a one time thing before walking away ( But he knew better). He decided what to wear - his favourite pair of black pants, a blue shirt that Emma bought him for his birthday and his signature leather jacket. Finally, he decided on a ring - a silver one with a green stone in the middle that matches her eyes.

He is now walking outside of the jewelry shop feeling happy and excited, with the ring secured in his pocket. On the way to his car, he suddenly hears the sound of tires screeching the pavement. Then everything goes black.

-------

Emma is just stepping out of the shower when her phones rings. Seeing Killian's name appear on the screen, a huge smile breaks out over her face as she picks it up.

"Hey babe, have you left the grocery store yet? Did you remember the cinnamon?" she asks playfully.

"Is this Emma Swan?" a voice she has never heard before in her life answers, a voice she is certain she will now remember forever.

"Yes, this is she. Who is this?"

"My name is Joanna Miles and I am a nurse at New York Presbyterian Hospital. I am calling because you are listed as Mr. Jones’ emergency contact. He was in an accident and is very seriously injured."

The earth is moving under her feet, she can no longer stand, it feels like her legs have turned into jello.

Killian is hurt. He was in an accident. Her love was injured. Those thoughts are going around her mind on an endless loop and she can't concentrate on anything else Joanna is saying.

Emma asks her which hospital he’s in, forgetting that Joanna had already mentioned it, and in which room to go, before hanging up the phone with shaking hands.She only wants to reach him, o be near him. She takes a deep breath and moves to the door only to realise she is still wearing a towel.

She runs into their room, puts on a pair of yoga pants, a t-shirt and her jacket. She ties her wet hair in a bun on the top of her head and races out the door.

She drives to the hospital while staying just above the speed limit. When she arrives, she parks outside the hospital and runs to the front desk.

She’s directed to the waiting room on the third room and then waits. At some point she remembers to call Killian’s brother, Liam, and then her brother to let them know what happened. She isn't sure they understand everything she says, tears are constantly running from her eyes.

David is the first one there; he holds her and tells her that Killian will be fine. Liam arrives next with his wife, Elsa. He is livid, pacing the waiting room and asking the same questions, questions Emma doesn't have the answers to.

She is sitting there and waiting, waiting to hear if he will be okay. She is waiting to see him and hug him, she wants to make sure he is still there, that he didn't leave her. Just the thought of it has her sobbing again, David has his arm around her; her tears are soaking his shirt.

After several hours spent in the waiting room, a doctor finally appears and asks for her. She immediately stands up. What the doctors says, though, makes her want to sit back down.

Killian had a severe head injury; the doctor telling her in details about his conditions usings many medical terms, which she is certain are important, but her mind can't grasp them. What she does understand, though, is that Killian is in a coma and the doctor doesn’t know when he will wake up.

But he has to wake up, she thinks to herself; though she might be saying it out loud, she might even be yelling it, she just isn't sure anymore.

The next couple of days pass slowly creating a new routine. Emma and Liam are on Killian's side at all hours, they only leave to go home for a shower and some hours of restless sleep. David keeps telling her to go home and stay there, and that he can call her if anything changes, but she can't leave more than a couple of hours; she can't sleep in their bed by herself. She needs to be near him, to see him, to make sure he is there.

She almost snaps at her brother the third time he suggests she not stay another night at the hospital. Can't he understand that where Killian is, that's where she wants to be?

The doctors keep coming in to the room, taking tests and checking all the machines that are connected to his body, while sharing very little. They don't know when he will wake up or if his condition will leave any permanent injury. His left hand is in a cast, but it is healing, he has some bruises on his body and arms, but they will heal with time. She knows it, everything will heal, if only he wakes up. She wants him to wake up to see again those blue eyes of his that made her fall in love.

It is now Christmas Eve and they had planned to go for a walk at the park near their house today. It was their place, where they shared their first kiss, it was the moment after that kiss that Emma knew she could risk getting her heart broken again, even if she ran away from him in that moment, she knew she could trust him.

Killian had mentioned that it would be nice to see the park decorated with Christmas lights, she was always a sucker for everything that had to do with Christmas. She didn’t need any convincing to agree to his plan. Unfortunately, their walk will have to wait, they would go once Killian was out of the hospital.

Instead she is spending Christmas Eve in a hospital at the bedside of her boyfriend. Their family will be here again later; they don't leave her alone for long. Just being the two of them for a moment, she feels that it is her time to ask for a Christmas miracle.

Emma holds Killian's hand while sitting beside him on the bed, she brings the back of his hand to her lips to press a gentle kiss it.

"Killian, I don't know if you can hear me, the doctors say that you might, so if you do, I ask you to wake up, to come back to me." Tears are falling from her eyes, she can't hold them back anymore. "I am begging you to fight, to open your eyes and make me the happiest person on earth. Please, my love, wake up." She is openly crying now but she doesn't care, she only cares for him to wake up. She is still holding his hand in hers and praying to everything and everyone to help him.

She stays like that for hours, always at his side, holding his hand. David comes in with his wife, Mary Margaret, his wife a little later, and they sit with her, telling her all about little Leo and how excited he is about Santa coming. Emma tries to smile, to show her love for her nephew, but she knows that her smile is not bright.

Liam and Elsa soon follow, but with Elsa being 7 months pregnant she can't stay for long. When the visiting hours end, everyone gets ready to leave. David pulls Emma aside and asks her to come to their home. Emma hugs him and wishes him Merry Christmas.

Emma is again alone in the room, talking to Killian about how everyone was just here how they can't wait for him to join the celebration, and how nobody makes gingerbread cookies like him when she suddenly feels his hand twist. For a moment she thinks that she imagined it; she is staring at his hand expecting to see it move again before she looks up and sees his eyes open and looking at her.

Emma is speechless; she is frozen as she looks back at him. After a moment she is standing up and calling out his name in just a whisper. She then presses the call button for the nurse to come in.

What happens after that is a rollercoaster of emotions. The nurse comes in, takes a look at the bed and then at the machines beside him and calls the doctor in. Emma is rushed outside of the room reluctantly, where she starts pacing.

Killian is awake, she saw him. He will be okay. That's what she keeps repeating to herself to help her stay focused and calm.

After what seems like hours, the doctor comes out and informs her that Killian is awake and well, that his body needed the extra time to heal from the accident, he will be very sleepy the next couple of days, but everything looks promising. Emma is thrilled, she cant contain her smile anymore, and calls everyone to let them know; she is certain they will be there soon.

When she’s allowed back in the room, she practically runs to his side;, His eyes are closed but the moment she touches his hand, they open and he gives her a small smile,

"Swan, did you miss me?" he asks.

She all but throws herself at him, being careful of his injuries and kisses him. There are tears coming from her eyes, but they are happy tears. "Only a little, Jones," she answers and kisses him again.

Christmas day is finally here; it's not the Christmas that they had planned, but she’ll take it. Killian is doing better and that's all she could ask for.

"Hey, love, have you seen my phone?"

"I am not sure, let me check the box with your things the nurse gave me when I arrived." She goes to the closet and opens a drawer. Sure enough, there is Killian’s jacket and she is searching the pockets when she something small, she pulls it out and sees a velvet ring box.

"Did you find it love? I wanted to text Liam," Killlian asks from the bed.

Stunned as Emma is, she’s able to turn around, still holding the ring box. Killian looks at her and starts scratching behind his ear, his nervous tell.

"Uhhh, um..” he stutters. ”Guess you didn't find my phone then?"

Emma gives him an annoying look and that is all it takes for him to decide that it doesn't matter that they aren't in the perfect place, or that he’s not wearing the perfect outfit; all that it matters is that he has found the perfect woman.

"Emma, come a bit closer, love." When she is within touching distance, he takes the box from her hand, and holds out his hand for her to take. When she does, he takes a deep breath and looks into her eyes.

"I had this all planned, we would go to the park, see all the Christmas lights, drink hot chocolates with whipped cream and cinnamon and then I would ask you. But seeing as my plan got sidetracked, I can't go another moment without asking. Emma Swan, you are the light in my life, the perfect woman for me. You stood by my side at my worse and brought me back. Will you marry me?"

"Yes, yes a million times yes!" she answers while pressing her lips on his and seals her answer with a kiss.

They only separate for a moment so Killian can place the ring on her finger and they are soon kissing again.

#cssecretsanta2k19 #csss2019 #cs ff #cs fic #my fic #cs fanfic #cs fanfiction #cs fanfics #captainswan #cs fanart #artistic-writer #csff

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oliverwxod · 5 years

Text

Just a little bit of your heart (Bucky Barnes) - Prologue

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Its kind of a frat boy!Bucky fic but he’s not really the stereotypical kind xx

Warnings: slow burn, eventual smut, swearing, broken families, pinning and angst

Summary: Y/n and Steve have been best friends since birth, it was only natural they went to the same college. Bucky is Steve’s room mate who has a big reputation around campus as being the typical college fuck boy. Bucky has never been in a committed relationship and he wants to turn his image around and become serious. When Steve starts blowing Y/n off, Bucky and Y/n come to an agreement to help each other out of their situations.

A/N: Okay so this is a new fic I'm writing, this is just a section that basically explains what the whole pic is about, also the new update makes the format look terrible on mobile so I'm sorry about that. TAGS ARE OPEN SO MESSAGE ME IF YA WANNA BE TAGGED xxx

Prologue // Part 1 // Part 2

Saturday nights were a huge thing to Y/n and Steve. They had been best friends since birth, spending almost everyday attached to one another, it wasn’t a surprise they ended up attending the same college. It was rare to ever see one without the other, almost everyone on campus knew that and they were rooting for them to finally make an official couple.

"What are you doing here?" Bucky asked, opening the apartment door wide, face etched with a concerned frown.

"Hello to you too" she spoke walking straight past him happily, her grin tugging at her face in excitement. Bucky watched her go, confused, why was she so happy? Steve wasn’t even home.

"Steves not here" Bucky spoke following her into the kitchen, where she had placed a couple of full plastic bags on the kitchen island.

"Well I thought I'd surprise him after work, cook him his favourite food because he's been so distracted recently, thought he could do with a night off, plus he always cooks dinner for me." she shrugged. She was so proud of herself for the idea to surprise her best friend, knowing he was going through a stressful time recently.

"Y/n... Steve left work early and he's on a date right now" Bucky said almost hesitantly, he wasn’t sure if she knew or not, or if Steve told her and she had forgotten. Steve normally told her everything.

She stopped her actions, coming to a still before facing his with a bemused look, a twisted smile replacing the previous grin.

"What?" She was taken aback, he could tell, Y/n had been and always would be an open book to anyone and everyone, you didn’t even have to know her to tell what she was feeling, it showed on her face.

"He's on a date. Did he not tell you?" Bucky asked surprised but catching on to the fact Steve had in fact not told her, he hated to be the one to break the news to her, knowing how important Saturday nights were to Y/n and Steve.

It was unusual for the pair of them to be apart on a Saturday night and it rarely happened, it had been a tradition since they were kids, the only exceptions being family holidays.

"Uh... I must have forgotten" she spoke looking away and shaking her head, giving out a laugh to try and hide the disappointment she was really feeling, but it was too late.

Although they weren't exactly friends, only knowing each other through Bucky being Steve’s room mate, Bucky wasn't a heartless person. He could tell she was upset, playing it off like it was nothing.

"You didn't know." He stated the obvious, no matter how convincing Y/n was trying to be.

She nodded silently.

"Oh well. It's about time he finds someone serious.." She trailed off. She looked at the bag of food she had placed on the counter, now feeling silly and maybe a bit humiliated, the bag sat on the counter mocking her as she tried to think of something to say to break the awkwardness slowly surrounding them.

"You hungry?" She asked.

Bucky nodded awkwardly, never really having spoken to Y/n for more than a couple minutes. "starving" He spoke, the truth was Bucky had already eaten, but he knew she could use some cheering up, even if he didn’t really know her.

"Good, I hope you like Pasta" she spoke.

He nodded, going into the fridge and pulling out two beers, handing her one. He could do this, he thought. He could spend time with one of Steve’s friends and help cheer her up.

Bucky had a reputation around campus. He was the quiet, mysterious frat boy who went to the biggest most talked about parties of the week, he was the guy who could hold his drink until he was many Russian vodka shots in. He was the guy who had slept with a lot of the girls around campus, the man who could not be and would not be tied down by anyone, no matter how many dates he went on or how hard people tried to change him. But nobody really knew anything about him. No one knew the real him.

“It’s my go to” He spoke, giving her a small smile.

She nodded appreciatively at him as he stood, watching her work her way around their kitchen as if it were her own.

"So... how long have you been in love with Steve for?" Bucky was shocked at his own words that fell from his lips.

She choked on her beer staring wide eyed at him. No one had ever asked her such a bold question and the last person she was expecting it from was Bucky.

"W-what! I don't... I- why would you say -” she sighed, putting her beer down on the counter and frowning at her own stuttering. “Is it that obvious?"

Bucky nodded smirking. “Yep"

"Shit. Does he- do you think he knows?" she asked, feeling pathetic that Bucky had seen her be blown off by Steve for a date and now finding out she had loved Steve since they were kids.

"No. He definitely doesn't know" Bucky spoke. They decided to leave the conversation at that, both of them silently agreeing not to bring it up again.

"Surprised you're not out tonight" she spoke, as she pushed a couple pieces of pasta around her plate, her appetite had diminished since the moment she learn’t that Steve wasn’t in.

"Well... I’m trying to clean up my act. Realised I'm getting no where In life drinking and partying... plus I think I've slept with most people who go to revs, it's getting too awkward to go there now" he stated, giving her a small smirk. Y/n appreciated his efforts in trying to cheer her up, she could tell he was bitter about his so-called reputation.

"Charming" she spoke laughing.

"Don't know how long I'll be able to last until I give in" Bucky spoke eyebrows pulling into a mocking look. "a man has needs" he shrugged as her face was twisted in a wry smile.

"At least you're trying... Maybe... maybe we could help each other?" She spoke carefullynbefore cursing herself for not thinking before speaking.

"Woah... What do you mean?" Bucky asked looking taken aback as his mind jumped to conclusions.

"Well I need to move on and you need to stop sleeping around and find someone serious... We could help each other out!" the idea was sounding great in her head, she just wasn’t putting it across in the best way.

"How?"

"We can wing man each other. I'll help you find the perfect girl, you help me find someone who doesn’t want commitment so I can get over Steve, and I can stop you from having sex with strangers!"

"Doll, are you suggesting we sleep together?" He asked amused.

"What!" She looked shocked, partly because of the name he just called her and partly because of his absurd conclusion. "no! I didn't mean it like that. I just meant I can help you clean up your reputation around campus by helping you find someone serious and you can wingman me to help me find someone I can have meaningless sex with to get over Steve.”

"Okay I see what you're saying" he spoke nodding briefly as he thought about it. He wasn’t sure he could actually clean up his act but he could always give it a go.

"And?"

"It could work" he shrugged.

“So do we have a deal?” she asked, now fully discarding her fork and standing up to throw the rest of her food into the bin.

“We have a deal” Bucky replied, standing up to put his bowl in the sink.

“good” she spoke, meeting his eyes.

“great” he smiled, chuckling slightly.

Bucky couldn’t understand how he had gotten himself into a deal with Steve’s best friend who before tonight he had barely spoken more than 5 sentences to.

TAGS: I hate myself for starting a new series before finishing another one, I'm sorry, let me know if you don’t wanna be tagged xxx

Forever baes (let me know if you don’t wanna be tagged in this fic):

@dreambigbeawesome @hellosafie @linheliano @extreme-supernatural-lover @thisismysecrethappyplace @mannls @1elboomdemsechevarria @what-the-hell-is–a-hufflepuff @myrabbitholetoneverland @jbarnes87 @permanent-lines @alyssaj23 @piensa-bonito @maresmiley @soldierplum @jjsoccer11 @les-bio-lie @dewy-biitch @despelllestrange @kingdomcage @unlikelygalaxygiver @hiddles-rose @httpmcrvel @breezy1415 @artisticlales @imthegirlyourparentswarnedyouof @maladaptive-ninja-returns @xinyourdreamsx

Bucky Barnes tags:

@tranquility-or-chaos @analovesseb @jamesbarnesappreciationsociety @australianhorrorstory @chloe-skywalker @bexboo616 @adamsbubblegumbitch

#bucky barnes au #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #Bucky barnes smut #Bucky barnes imagine #Bucky barnes angst #winter soldier imagine #college au #Bucky barnes college au #marvel imagine #marvel fanfic #marvel au #avengers au #avengers imagine #Steve rogers imagine #Steve rogers au #Steve rogers angst #Steve rogers fanfic #captain America imagine

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frangipanilove · 5 years

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THE PHILADELPHIA ANGLE (or Noah’s t-shirt theory part 2)

AMC recently posted a teaser to the Rick Grimes movies, where we see a helicopter fly towards a city skyline. It was eventually revealed that the city in question is Philadelphia, indicating that Philly will play a significant part in the films. Of course, we still know almost nothing about this project, but for now I’m gonna assume that Philadelphia will at least make an appearance in the films.

To me, the new teaser and the Philadelphia connection was extremely interesting, because I’ve been spending some time analyzing a scene that incidentally is the only time in the history of the show (that I can remember) that there has been a Philadelphia reference.

The scene in question is the one from 2x8 “Nebraska” where Hershel has started drinking again and disappears from the farm. Glenn and Rick go after him to try to get him to come back with them. They find him in his favorite bar, and while they’re in there trying to convince him to come back with them, two strangers enter the bar. It is revealed that they have traveled from Philadelphia. A fight breaks out, and the two strangers are eventually killed.

I have been working with that scene for a while, because it contains some really interesting symbolism that I’ve previously discussed here:

https://frangipanilove.tumblr.com/post/183736635005/sirius-and-the-north-star-or-pigs-feet-and-frosty

Although I’ve spent a lot of time analyzing the symbolism in the bar scene from “Nebraska”, I’ve been unsure on how it fits into the larger picture, and also on how it is relevant from a TD perspective. I know the scene is significant, but what does it tell us? How is it relevant to Beth?

The newly released teaser for the films offers a new piece of the puzzle, and I’ll try to explain how below.

A few weeks ago I posted my theory on Noah's t-shirt, where I explain my thought process on how Noah's t-shirt ultimately points to episode 10x2 and/or 10x10. Of course we are all aware of how the «Get Well Soon» clock poster from Beth’s room at Grady possibly points towards these two episodes, and we have seen multiple theories on the significance of that clock poster over the years.

My take on all of that is explained here

https://frangipanilove.tumblr.com/post/185522170650/noahs-t-shirt-theory

The interesting thing about the newly released teaser is that it offers a connection to a sort of continuation of Noah's t-shirt theory, because in the bar scene from 2x8, one of the Philly guys is also wearing a very interesting t-shirt:

Where Noah's t-shirt had the words «one one recording studio» written on it, the Philly dude’s shirt has a picture of a shark as well as the number 11 on it. Apparently the text and the shark refers to a 11-U baseball team from Manahawkin, NJ, and the number 11on the back of the t-shirt is written, well…»one one».

Like, you know…

...like the text on Noah's t-shirt.

What a tremendous coincidence!

Two t-shirts, several seasons apart, both with an animal image as well as the number 11 (or “one one”, if you will).

It’s almost as if there is a theme..

The shark t-shirt refers to a baseball team. This is a huge point, and something I will have to adress in a separate post. But for now, keep in mind all the baseball references around Beth, such as the bat seen by the train tracks from 4x10 “Innmates”, and Glenn picking up a bat while literally saying “Beth” in 5x9 “WHAWGO”.

Further, let’s talk about the shark on the t-shirt. Wanna know where else we saw a whole bunch of sharks in the same scene? In Noah's house, in his brother’s room where we saw Tyreese get bit, causing him to hallucinate. And as we all know, Beth was a part of this hallucination.

Beth, as well as a bunch of sharks.

There’s a picture of a shark on the wall behind Beth, along with a painting of a dog, there’s a shark in the book shelf, there’s a poster of a shark behind Bob, as well as a giant shark’s head coming out of the wall next to him. There’s also a shark-shaped surfboard-like decoration on the wall behind the fabric with polar bears on it. I talked about the polar bear fabric in the Sirius/North Star post that I linked to above. I’ve also talked about the polar bear symbol in several other posts, such as this one

https://frangipanilove.tumblr.com/post/185964198900/fear-the-walking-dead-a-guide-to-understanding

and this one

https://frangipanilove.tumblr.com/post/186222365190/fear-once-again-serves-as-a-guide-to

And next to the polar bear fabric, there’s a clock.

Ah! The clock.

We’ll never tire of talking about clocks, will we? Take a good look at the clock from Tyreese’s hallucination. Beth is staring at this clock in the picture above, so it must be important.

The hands point to the numbers “5″ and “10″. To be fair, one could argue that the hands point to the “5″ and the “9″, which would make sense, as this is episode 5x9 after all. It depends on how literal you want to interpret it. In my opinion, an approximate interpretation is sufficient, and I maintain that the clock could be interpreted as hands pointing to the “5″ and the “10″.

But remember what we’ve talked about (in Noah’s t-shirt theory among other places), that on an analog clock, the number “2″ (which indicates the hour) can also be read as “10″ (indicating minutes). So both of the numbers “2″ and “10″ can be read as “2″ and “10″. Or they can be read 22, whickh is pretty spectacular for reasons I will elaborate on later in this post.

In this particular clock from “WHAWGO”, there’s also a hand (whick probably indicates the set alarm) that points to the “8″. So we have a set of hands that can be interpreted as pointing towards episode 5x10 “Them” which is when the music box woke up.

And we have hands that can be interpreted as pointing to episode 8x2, which is the episode forshadowed by Noah’s t-shirt theory (link above), the episode when we saw the “Blue Heron” painting behing Rick.

But guess which episode in also points to!

If you swich around the numbers “8″ and “2″, you simply get 2x8!

Episode 2x8 “Nebraska”.

Which is none other than the episode I mentioned above, where we have the Piladelphia dude in the shark t-shirt, with the number “11″ (one one) written on the back. Can you see how this all creates a pattern? It’s a complex pattern, but a pattern none the less.

Further, 5x9 “WHAWGO” is the episode following 5x8 «Coda». The clock has hands pointing to both the number “5″ and the number “8″, which of course means it can be interpreted as pointing to episode 5x8 “Coda”, when Beth “died”.

Gimple ensured us of the importance of the clocks. This is what he meant.

As I explained in my Sirius/North Star post (link above), sharks were referred to as «dog-fish» back in the olden days. So that’s another tremendous coincidence, don’t you think? Shark references doubles as dog references, “shark” and “dog” references can be used interchangebly. It certainly puts the dog painting and the shark pic on the wall behind Beth in the above pic in a different perspective.

The Philly dude’s shirt had a picture of a shark on it. Noah's t-shirt had a stylized version of the «Blue Heron» painting seen behind Beth in «Still», and later behind Rick in 8x2 «The Damned».

Also, as I’ve repeated several times, I believe “beer” and “bear” are in reality the same symbol. We get a confirmation of that here, where there is a polar bear directly above where the word “beer” is written on the fridge behind the bar. I’ve also argued that the “bear” symbol is a reference to the star constellation Ursa Minor, or Lesser Bear. In North America, this constellation is usually referred to as the Little Dipper, and as we know, the North Star (Polaris) is at the end of the Little Dipper. The polar bear on top of the fridge confirms this connection (polar bear points to Polaris, the North Star). And the North Star is a major Beth symbol due to her picking up the DC spoon in “Still”.

The heron incident in 8x2 “The Dammned” was foreshadowed all the way back in season 5 (again, see Noah’s t-shirt theory) and while confirmation bias will sometimes play tricks on your brain, causing you to interpret «evidence» in a way that favors or confirms your pre-existing beliefs, that was not the case with the Blue Heron painting from 8x2. I had worked out the theory on it years before 8x2 aired, and I sat down to watch the episode, prepeared to see something related to «resurrection». In the «Noah's t-shirt» post I explain in more detail how I reached the conclusion that led me to anticipate major «resurrection» symbols in 8x2. There was, in addition to Noah's t-shirt, in 5x15 “Try”, the presence of a digital clock showing 06.30. If we interpret that as a reference to episode 6x3 “Thank You”, it’s significant that in 6x3 we witnessed the infamous «dumpster gate», tptb wanted us to believe that Glenn was dead. You know, when in fact, he wasn’t. Much like they want us to believe that Beth is dead, when in fact, she’s not.

In other words, 6x3 was the episode when Glenn DIDN’T die. It was the episode when he simply continued to stay alive.

(Also, if you read 06.30 on an analog clock, you’d find both hands pointing to “6″, perhaps referencing 6x6 “Always Accountable”, an episode full of Beth references, but that’s a post for a different day)

Other notable resurrection-themed incidents of 8x2 «The Damned» includes the «resurrection» of Morales, a character not seen or heard from in 7 seasons, and finally Morgan's little death fake out moment, where he pretended to be dead, when in fact, he wasn’t. Much like…yeah, you know.

Of course, what none of us could have known back when 8x2 aired, was that Andrew Lincoln was planning to exit the show. I’ll admit that I was confused as to the meaning of the reappearence of the “Blue Heron” painting in 8x2. However, as soon as it became known that Rick was to exit the show while still staying alive within the extended TWD universe, things became clearer. The heron is thought to be the bird from the original phoenix myth. It appeared behind Rick. He survived, although the characters believe he’s dead. The Blue Heron painting appeared behind Beth while she said “we made it”, and that is some fine symbolical evidence of both Beth and Rick being alive. The symbolism around them is the exact same.

Back to Rick. He survived only because he was saved by Anne, who arranged for a helicopter to pick him up and give him medical assistance. And by the way, I haven’t posted my “Cat” theory yet, but the main takeaway is that cats are popularily believed to have nine lives. In other words; cats are resurrection symbols. That has been my working theory for the longest time, and it was more or less formed after observing how Carol in season 3 was believed to be dead, but later resurfaced and famously stated she had “nine lives”. After Fear’s Daniel Salazar “rose from the dead” AGAIN, this time with a cat by his side, I concider this theory confirmed. Cats = “nine lives” = resurrection. I’ll definately do a more thorough post on cat symbolism later, but the reason I bring it up here, is because guess what; Anne, who saved Rick’s life, was a bit of an artist, and one of her more well-known works was this spectacular blue Picasso-style cat:

You could in fact argue that Anne’s blue cat symbolized Rick’s resurrection.

And never forget there was a blue helicopter present in Tyreese’s hallucination in 5x10 “WHAWGO”, along with all the sharks. And Beth.

And this is where the movie teaser comes in, because that helicopter that saved his life? It seems like it might have traveled to Philadelphia. I could be wrong, because it's still early and we know almost nothing about the films, but at least at this point, it seems like the helicopter transported Rick to Philly.

To have the same symbolism appear around both Rick and Beth, while knowing for sure that Rick is alive, it certainly indicates that Beth is alive also. And the heron itself is associated with the Phoenix myth, in that an (now) extinct species of heron on the Arabian peninsula is thought to have been the original representation of the Phoenix. Plus, both herons and helicopters are flying creatures. Helicopters are called “birds” in slang terms. And I also want to point out Beth “flipping the bird”, first to Daryl, then later to the burning moonshine shack.

When the Blue Heron painting (which represents resurrection) appeared around both Beth and Rick, and we know for a fact that Rick is alive, it’s logical that the same goes for Beth.

Subsequently, the very same logic would apply in relation to the shark on Philly dude’s T-shirt in 2x8, and the sharks in Noah’s brother’s room in 5x9 «WHAWGO». As I mentioned, sharks were once called “dog-fish”. I meticulously explain my interpretation of the dog symbolism in the Sirius/North Star post that I linked to somewhere above, so I won’t get into that here, but I want to mention that there were at least a couple of dog-paintings/drawings/pictures in Noah's brother’s room in 5x9.

So to try to summarize, the Philadelphia reference in the Rick Grimes movies teaser might prove to be very interesting from a Team Delusional perspective.

But there’s more. The filming of yet another TWD project has recently started up; the third spin off, currently known as “Monument”. It has been described as “TWD for teens”, and they filmed on location at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia this week. Interestingly, this picture from TSDF suggests that it was transformed into “Nebraska State University”. Make of that what you will, but it’s certainly worth mentioning.

Finally, I try not to read too much into it, but I thought it was worth mentioning that the next episode of “Fear” will be called “210 words per minute”. Like I’ve previously mentioned, a lot of the symbolism on TWD seem to point to certain episode number combinations, such as 10x10 (forshadowed by Beth’s Get Well Soon poster from “Slabtown), 8x2 (forshadowed by Noah’s t-shirt theory) and 10x2 (see Noah’s t-shirt theory). In this post I discussed the clock from 5x9, and how it possibly pointed to episode 5x10, among others.

It so happens that the next episode of “Fear” in fact will be season 5 episode 10, or “5x10″. And there is a possible reference to episode 2x10 in the title. 2x10 is when Beth tried to commit suicide. Also, if you switch the numbers around, you get 10x2, which I have talked a lot about in Noah’s t-shirt theory, and ultimately it can (on an analog clock) be read 10x10. Like the “Get Well Soon” clock from “Slabtown”.

So if you watch “Fear”, keep an eye out for interesting symbolism!

#Team Delusional #team defiance #team beth lives #BETH LIVES #bethyl #Beth Greene #daryl x beth #beth x daryl

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bedlamgames · 4 years

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Q&A #103

Today we have the Twine conversion, lesbian training mantras, social lube, a bunch of random stuff from the discord, and a whole lot more.

[Anonymous said]: I'm really curious what the tally means for your twine conversion posts. Can't seem to figure out what its suppose to represent progress wise...

- Answered this last Q&A. Because of you asking I’ve now also added the explanation to what it’s about to every stream post so I hope that helped with understanding what’s going on with that.

[Anonymous said]: Suggestion: For races that start with a random corruption (ie: Succubi), have an option in full custom to spend points to either narrow what that corruption is (to be one of the four types, for example) or to outright pick one (for a much higher cost).

- That’s a good idea. Being able to pick specifically I think would be too much. There are ALOT of corruptions so that would mean many many menus to be able to select everything. Being able to pick one of the four types seems fair to me as something to spend points on in Full Custom. Added it to my notes.

[Anonymous said]: Have a succubus slaver who used to be a lamia. On level up, she had the option to get the Fleet trait, which I thought was off-limits for Lamia due to their body shape. I think it's a bug?

- Good spot and should be fixed as of the last update.

[Anonymous said]: Noticed a bug with No Haven 0.903: If you select a human (or once-human) for your character, and then quick restart, your next character will keep the human's Racial aspect Social Lube. On the topic of that Racial, it says " includes one human, and three other different races/subtypes gain an additional Success" Does that mean one human and three non-humans, or one human and three slavers each of a different race from each other?

-Took me awhile to work this out as going from human to human seemed fine. However you’re right that those with a heritage like demi-angels or succubi will incorrectly keep the previous racial.

The second so as long as you have at least one human you can get the buff by say having a northerner, noble, wastelander, and convent.

[Anonymous said]: hi bud, xfto/x421 here, its been a long time i guess. wanted to ask about the status of the no haven/twine conversation. i joined your picardo lately but couldnt post some reports since you dont allow guest-posts. well anyway, the report is about something ridiculous i have found after some restarts, the chosen main charakter (lamia) starts as male with the hard carry aspect(immense shaft) and different description than the ones the perks would give. 1/2

another question, feels like i asked something similiar in the past, how about the integration of different artpacks/access to older pics, or deletion of those that never get used? i guess that would requiere some more access to the game than you allow atm. maybe with twine? do you have a roadmap on tfgames or somewhere for the future of no haven? i know there are some more races you want to implement and improve some systems, but thats it, hope you are doing well in these times. 2/2

I do an update on the patreon every two weeks which is linked on the twitter. You do not need to be a patron to read these and is the best way to stay informed about what I’ve been up to. That includes the status of the conversion. To quickly sum it up;

It's at a stage where all the RAGS to Twine code conversion is basically done. What I need to do now is translate all that work into something playable and there's currently big logic issues with a bunch of the conditions and passages. So what I'm currently doing is trying to tidy up the visual look of the code with a bunch of idents with the theory that will make finding the errors easier.

Alas it’s not me disallowing guest posts... Picarto had some massive stonking issues and so they locked things down hard due to that preventing guests from chatting. I suggest a throwaway email site to get around that.

I don’t think there’s any art in the game file that’s not used as I try to keep on top of deleting the old ones. Not really down for doing art packs of the old ones as due to that not being my art so I see them as placeholder only until they can be replaced by commissions.

I probably do need to do some kind of roadmap sometime. I’m less keen as it’s kind of a dirty word these days as due to the miss-use of them by others it’s got some bad connontations, but I’m also aware the alternative which is me randomly mentioning stuff on discord/picarto streams leaves the vast majority of my audience in the dark which is also really not ideal.

[Anonymous said]: [no haven 0.903] [Crit no longer grants Bimboborn] okay, but how do I get bimboborn now?

- It’s a corruption. Specifically Blessings of Perversion.

[Anonymous said]: With the change to training where hypnotic slavers can fully embed the relevant mantras for blowjob, bimbo, and sissy training, could we also get that for lesbian training?

- Yes that’s the plan when I do the third part of lesbian training. Got a set of commissions planned just got to sort the funding and work out who I’m getting to do it.

[Anonymous said]: hey bud, x421 here, again, might be already fixed because thats from no haven .903, but i recently had the witch queen super rare quest, you might want to proof read the quest and results, there are a few typos. i really did enjoy the writing nonetheless, just a quick question about that quest, as far as i understood this one, you only change your odds of the final result depending on how good you do on your way to the final, but the reward in the end only depends on the final result? 1/2

2/2 it just dawned on me that its been a while since you made an Q&A post so i guess i ll go and lurk on the tfgames forum in the next days, just one last question: i asked early in development about camp upgrades and you were not that convinced about that stuff, i understand you want the slaver camp as some bandit camp and not some castle/bastion or whatever, but since you added camp upgrades, maybe add proximity to a certain region? or something to spend supplies and gold in a 13month+ run?

- Hah! Okay will give it another read through.That’s correct yes. There’s also rewards on the way if you Critical those parts.

There is a new gold sink coming soon in an upcoming update. I’ve also got plans for more camp upgrades coming later.

[From the Patreon]: I'm that guy you replied to about the patch notes in Q&A 101. Solid updates. Bugs in the outfit system has driven me nuts since like, 2015, has it been that long already? I think it has. I like collecting them and something always blows up. This time, I ended up with a slaver wearing both the ooze outfit and ponygirl outfit. So there's that. Also I was disappointed the new Quicker then You'd Like wasn't interactive. Solid in any case though, thanks!

- I'll get them all one day I swear! Don't suppose you remember the chain of events that led to that? New QAYL was a patron requested one with the idea of having a big pay off for playing submissive which often involves playing sub-optimally.

[From the Patreon]: 1-ive been noticing when you choose to repick choices for an slave training assignment the slave gets added to the list of choices 2-also just how rare is the post-slave princess city assignment, cause i can never seem to get it even after selling multiple slave princesses 3-another thing is that the nightly puppet-leader stat is almost impossible to get again(either that or i have bedwarmers incapable of usurping me even thought i my current stats mean i couldnt win against even the subbiest slave)

- Will check 3 as you've not been the only person to mention that. 2 I know exists for sure as other people have definitely got it. Should be no rarer than any other rare City assignment, and thanks for the spot on 1.

[From the Discord]: Top 3 Animes of the 2010 to 2020

Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica the series was staggeringly good. Just redefined what anime could be to me. Film is a... well it was a thing. A beautiful thing with an ending which I still quite know how to feel about.

Shirobako. It’s about creativity, craft, and about how people can come together to make something. It might not be something good, but dangit it’s been made and that’s worthwhile. It’s also from personal experience by miles the most accurate depiction of working in an office I’ve ever seen.

Oh man this is very very hard deciding on the third so pick one of the following and I could probably make a strong case for it.

Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon, Darling in the FranXX (yes really, yes even the ending), Lupin III: Part 5, Kill la Kill, Monster Musume, Flip Flappers, Demi-chan wa Kataritai, Zombieland Saga, or Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai.

Also while I was taking the question to mean series both Your Name and Promare are absolutely phenonemal films.

[From the Discord]: Best recent Eurovision Act

Lena. Always Lena.

[From the Discord]: What's the agricultural technological level of No Haven like

It’s not hit industrialization yet. What makes the difference is and allows cities like Aversol and even bigger to exist is that the organization of the human empire is far better than it has any right to be for the other levels of development being able to keep an incredibly complex supply chain constantly flowing even if on the ground level it barely seems to be moving at all. There are also some much, much larger farms both on the Great Plains and further to the north compared to the much more isolated single/couple of households ones that your slavers raid.

[From the Discord]: What have been some of your all-time favourite assignments, both in terms of working on them and how they turned out?

Love When Week’s End Comes for a recent one. Writing all the results in colour commentary (and all the variations for weather, events and outcomes) was a real challenge and I do like how it came out.

Witch-Queen and Arisin’ for being the first times I tried to go for a different, more potentially disturbing/freaky mood, and I’m pleased with the results.

Sable Masquerade as I really like the ‘bad end’ I came up with. Actually I like the whole thing as while the pitch from the patron obviously helped, a lot of it was inspired by a random superhero bondage party picture I saw on HF, which I decided to run with, and had a bunch of fun exploring.

[From the Discord]: Weirdest bug and most difficult bug

The one that resulted in a male wisp riding a griffon was a fun one.

Most difficult has to be the clothing management which as a previous question suggests I’ve still not entirely solved.

[From the Discord]: If No Haven was an MMO, what race/class would you play?

Kreen rogue mainly as I really like the edit I did for the portrait which MidnightonMars later translated into a commission.

If not definitely a lamia.

[From the Discord]: Knowing what you do now about the design of the game, are there any game mechanics you wish you'd have implemented differently?

Clothing management. So very much clothing management. I’ve redone it entirely twice now, and it’s still not where I want it to be.

[From the Discord]: What was your inspiration for creating the setting of No Haven? Has the direction the game has gone varied from your initial idea? If so what has been the biggest change?

- It started off with adapting the chan game Deeper Dungeons which was basically a certain popular mmo with nothing different about it outside of it being porn along with some possibly unwise options of personal abuse. I first changed it by ditching gnomes for neko which to my mind was a clear upgrade. There even used to be an examine refference in the RAGS version to suggest they’d been in the region of the dungeons before being driven out.

Then it was a gradual process of adding with the occasional subtractions to get it closer to a more Warhammer feeling setting which has always been a major love of mine when I was still doing Whorelock’s in RAGS.

With No Haven it was a case of building on what I’ve done there and expanding upon that with the race lore and assignment descriptions. Biggest was probably when I did the favoured/unfavoured stuff and added a ton of extra backstory to various races to justify the choices made there.

#Q&A

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rosyerim · 6 years

Text

nct 127 as your best friend

taeil

is literally a grandmother

you’re the person he goes to everytime he doesn't understand something slang wise

“y/n,,,mark called me the goat,,,is that good or bad?”

“today jisung called me a bro but i’m not his actual brother, should i tell him?”

also needs you to explain memes to him

“johnny just sent me a picture of a trashcan and said mood should i be concerned?”

“why do you keep sending me kermit pictures, i do not get it”

but he’s the cutest bean alive

hugs you all the time!! hello hug, goodbye hug, i appreciate you hug, all the hugs!!

has the voice of an actual angel

he gets super shy when you ask him to sing but will belt out whatever song you want

also plays the guitar whenever you visit him at the dorms or at practice & attempts to each you

he encourages you to sing with him, whether you can or not not doesn’t matter, he likes it when you two are screeching the lyrics to your favourite song together

loves eating your food, even if you can’t cook, he appreciates it!!

scolds you if you don’t do your homework or leave dishes in the sink, he is a lil granny hehe

johnny

you call him beanstalk so he calls you jack, even if you’re a girl he doens’t care lol, together you’re jack and the beanstalk

sends you memes throughout the day when he has time, he just feels like you have to see them or else he’ll combust

he always messes up your hair whenever you say horton hears a who

makes you tune in to nct night night everynight & will literally quiz you on what he was talking with jaehyun about

always giggles when you hype up his singing voice and dancing

he did’t spend all that time in the dungeon for nothing

whenever you two go out and get separated you just shout “oh daddy” and he’ll find you

almost died laughing when you worse his shoes before, he’s literally bigfoot

has the ugliest photos of you on his phone but he says they make him feel better about himself

but then you just send him his predebut pics and he shuts up real quick lmao

never ask his opinion on your outfit unless you want him to just

*inhale* johNNYS FASHION EVALUATION *exhale*

3am meme wars

literally kills you with his pun, doesn’t matter where you are

johnny, holding up a pie: “hey y/n you’re such a cutie pie!”

johnny, with a bag of candy: “these may be sweet but you’re even sweeter!”

johnny;"if you were a booger i’d pick you first”

johnny; “h-” “say another word johnny seo and i would fucking cut you”

you’re highkey done with him but you don’t know what you do without him

and vice versa <3

taeyong

sometimes you want to smack him because he keeps overworking himself!! & you want him to rest!!! but he doesn’t listen

so most of the time when he has a day off you just go over to the dorms with takeaway and spend the day watching that anime he hasn’t shut up about

but he loves how much you take care of him (he won’t admit it tho)

he usually comes to you if he has a problem or just needs to rant & you listen every time!!

he loves when you send him random pictures of dogs you see because he misses his own dog ruby

he laughs so hard when you attempt to rap his parts in songs, esp in chain like,,,im convinced taeyong has gills because of how fast he raps

calls you randomly in the middle of the day just because he wants to hear your voice (;´༎ຶД༎ຶ`)

cutest little man alive, if you’re happy he’s happy, always giggles at your puns even if they’re bad

also brings you with him when he gets a piercing, so he can squeeze your hand

pouts when you say any member is better looking than him as a joke

“but i’m the center,,,(ಥ﹏ಥ)“ then he brings out the puppy dog eyes so ofc you take it back

he’s also super caring towards you and will fight anybody who makes you sad

yuta

sassiest man alive & will roast tf out of you

but its okay you roast him back so your entire friendship is just insulting each other

but nobody else can insult you, otherwise yuta gets angry >:[ & vice versa

judges you when you wear his jumpers because only he can make it look good

makes you watch anime with him but without the subtitles & unless you speak japanese, you’re going to be bored for ages

tries out shitty pick up lines on you they’re for winwin

all the members aid yuta is like a hot pouch so he lets you cling to him during winter or when it’s cold because he doesn’t want his bestie getting a cold smh

then’d he have to take care of you rip

comes whining to you everytime winwin rejects him but also wont accept your love???

teaches you little phrases in japanese and dies when you repeat them but butcher them

also asks for your opinion on his outfits & piercings

“y/n should i go with the cross earrings or hoop?”

“neither you’re too ugly”

“not as ugly as you”

you two fight like cat and dog but deep down he’s a total softie for you aw

doyoung

another sassy man but only roasts you if he feels you’re being annoying

whenever you’re sad tho, doyoung makes you your favourite meal & mAYHaps you cried at how thoughtful he is

treats you like you’re his little brother

he pushes you off the couch because he find’s your reaction funny rip

but whenever he goes away on tour he always comes back with hella souvenirs just for you

doesn’t let you near jeno because “you’ll taint him!!” but he gives jeno your number as an emergency contact???

he’ll randomly text you that he’s coming over then show up two seconds later & you two end up blasting bazzi all day while he bitches to you about the other members lol

when you cook, even if you’re good or bad, he’ll always be hovering over your shoulder and telling you that you’re doing something wrong, jokingly

then he’ll eat up the whole dish & tell you it was horrible #justdoyoungthings

judges you silently whenever you bring up an ex he never liked but still lends you his shoulder to cry on if you get upset

if you ever call him sad he’ll be over to yours in about 5 seconds with your favourite snack and let you pick movies for you two to watch

sends you random clips of him singing during the day & gets all bashful when you say you love his voice

you got him a toy bunny for his birthday and despite him saying he hates it, he brings it with him whenever he goes on tour & sleeps w it :’)

jaehyun

marine boy

glares at you every time you call him jeffery

you always ask him wtf is his skincare routine but he just laughs & says “perish :)”

sings you to sleep with his voice actually from HEAVEN because you called him when you had a bad dream & he’s hella smug because you trust him that much(▰˘◡˘▰)

doesn’t get annoyed when you poke his dimple, he’s find its cute how you find it cute which you find cute and you’re both just C U T E

encourages you to tune in to nct night night but will highkey be sad if you don’t

you two always stay up super late talking to each other on the phone because his voice is so soothing and he thinks the same about you until one of you end up falling asleep like (´﹃｀)

he has so many screenshots of you fast asleep on facetime and he sets the funniest one as his lockscreen, so when hes away he can look at it & remember you’re there for him (⺣◡⺣)♡

lets you borrow his jumpers but only if you really need it like he’s not giving you his tommy hilfiger jacket unless you forgot your own jacket and its -374873 degrees outside lol

also p cuddly with you since he’s so comfortable around you

like you’d just be chilling at the dorms and he’ll lay his head down on your lap & you’ll start running your hand through his hair as he dozes off

or when you two go out to eat he’ll loop his arm your shoulders whilst you walk & wouldn’t even bat an eyelid

you two get mistaken for a couple so much you end up just shrugging it off because lol their opinion doesn’t matter

your friendship is important to each other all thats all that really matters

winwin

only likes getting dotted on by you

when the other members yuta smother him with love hes just ( ¬_¬)

but when you do, he’s like (ღ˘⌣˘ღ)

he attempts to teach you his wushu skills and his cool flexible tricks but you just end up dislocating something lol

he ends up switching to chinese whenever he rants to you & unless you speak chinese you’re basically listening to an angry winwin for about 20 mins

but so long as he gets it off his chest you don’t mind :))

do not let the boy near a kitchen he will literally set it on fire

for your birthday he tried making moon cakes but ended up burning his hand (つ﹏<。)

but you still appreciated the thought & he bought you take away

he gets a bit down sometimes because of how little lines he has & sometimes he thinks he’s voice isnt that good but you reassure him every time that his voice!!is amazing!!! sm just need to get their shit together sm more like smh

he loves it when you speak to him in chinese, it makes him feel so at home awe

likes to fall asleep on you because you’re the most comfortable thing to him

doesn’t matter where or when because to him

your lap= free real estate

you two also get mistaken for a couple sometimes but winwin just nods hugs you close to prove his point & you two always die from laughter afterwards

he always listens to you though so whenver winwin is moody, taeyong calls you to give out to him so he goes from (-`д´-) to (￣^￣)ゞ real quick

winwin loves you & you love him too

jungwoo

softest boy

whenever you meet up with him you don’t say hi, you just do his part from boss then he walks away from you lol

you always encourage him to speak up, esp. when he’s with a bunch of people

since he has a habit of copying what people say you say the most complicated words in english

“superkajafrjalisticaxosjdapefwfnls”

“super fuck off y/n”

your entire friendship consists of either eating at your place or eating out at some random all you can eat buffet

super supportive of you even when you do stupid things, you look over at him and hes just d(￣▽￣o) “you do you y/n”

sends you selfies of him so you can fawn over his beauty & tell him which pose suits him best

claps like a seal whenever you say something funny but gets pouty when you make fun of it

super affectionate with you & glares at anybody who comments on it, like jungwoo just wants to be close with his bestie, is that wrong?

is lowkey protective of you like if he thinks lucas is tryna make a move, jungwoo will swoop tf in and whisk you away to the safety of his room

you two end up cuddle under the blankets watching his favorite movie & he ends up dozing off

does aegyo whenever you get mad at him so you can’t really stay mad, he’s just too cute

mark

always goes to your first whenever he writes a rap because he values your opinion a lot & you’re honest with him

lots of inside jokes which just consists of you two giggling to each other randomly

needs you to tell him to take a break because of how much he works

if he doesn’t listen you threaten to feed him sour candy

but you’re super duper proud of your canadian bestie, when he preforms on stage you’re deadass in the crowd like

“thats my bEST FRIEND!!!(´⌣`ʃƪ)“

pouts when he tries to call you & you don’t pick up

he wanted to tell you about the fluffy dog he saw a minute ago!!

but texts you nonetheless & you wake up to 36 messages describing the texture of the dogs fur and how it barked

but you loved how weird mark was, the weirder he was the more comfortable he was and it was just so cute

doesn't care if you steal his jumpers, he has about 300 but will not let you touch his caps, they are his prized possessions

he doesn’t even try roast you because of how many memes of him you can send back

you always tell him how much you miss his ramen hair

he laughs at anything so you could literally cough and he’d cry from laughing but thats what makes him so endearing

you call him seagull boy to annoy him & it works lol

gets shy when you watch his dance at practice & ends up making mistakes but nobody is mad about it hehe

you also refer to him as long ass ride boy or sing sang sung boy

he threatens to block you irl

tries to teach you how to play guitar but you end up purposefully messing it up and he cringes so badly lol

but mark is your best friend and nothing will change that

haechan

he is That Bitch

always comes to you first when he has tea on the members

“y/n bitCH, mArk actually flirted w winwin infront of me, i’m cancelling him smh”

random dance competitions at 4 in the morning are a must, he always ends up beating you （πーπ）

also snaps you selfies of him randomly because he wants you to hype him up

which you do obviously

also texts you almost everyday & keeps you updated on what hes doing

“i’m at a cafe w my hyungs tday!!”

“omg i have a shoot @5am i’m going to d i e”

“come over and make me ramen pesant”

buT he looooves when you baby him

before you leave the dorms after hanging out, he makes you tuck him in & give him a lil smooch on the forehead goodnight awee ( ˘ ³˘)

but would die if you ever told his hyungs s you swear not too plus it’s good blackmail for you hehe

you always say “ohmgod its michael jackson hehe” whenever you two meet up and homeboy loves it so he moonwalks over to you

he’ll randomly challenge you to singing competitions of who can hit the highest note haechan and whose voice will break first yours

also cuddles with you all the times, you’re his personal teddy bear & will snap back at the members if they try comment on it

“you’re just mad nobody will let you touch them mark”

the most savage best friend but only lets you baby him aw

#nct #nct headcanons #nct imagines #nct scenarios #best friend au #bff au #haechan imagines #doyoung imagines #taeil imagines #jaehyun imagines #mark imagines #johnny imagines #jungwoo imagines #winwin imagines #taeyong imagines

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thatsabae · 5 years

Text

Payback - Jungkook | Chapter 11

genre: romance/comedy/friends-to-lovers

summary: “Revenge is sweet”, that’s what they say, and your plan is to find out if that statement is true. After finding out about your boyfriend’s infidelity, you seek after his lover’s boyfriend, cause mama always told you that sweets are better when shared. But first, you need to convince him to join you.

You turn around and face Jordan, still disbelief of what he was proposing you. Did he finally become crazy?

Jungkook is also tense, standing by your side, as shocked as you. The air seems thicker now, even more than it was thirty seconds ago, and all you can see is Jordan in front of you.

“What did you say?” You were hoping to you be the crazy one, not listening right.

“Exactly that. I love you and I want to marry you.” He took your hands into his and looked hopeful. Your eyes could fall from your face by the way you opened them. “I do want a future with you. You even said that what happened with Calli isn’t hurting anymore. Maybe we could… We could start again.”

“Jordan, that’s not… Ugh.”You sighed.

Why he was making everything more difficult for you? Couldn’t he just accept and leave?

“Jungkook, can we talk later, please? I promise that I’ll call you.” You push his arm a little bit.

“Are you sure?” He didn’t look like he wanted to leave, but you needed to do this alone.

“Please”.

“I’ll wait for inside.” Taehyung informed, sensing that he wasn’t needed there anymore, but instead of doing what he said, he followed Jungkook to his car.

You waited their brief and quiet talk end and both leave before starting your own conversation with Jordan. But it was hard to find the right words. You felt like laughing, but also crying.

How long did you wanted to hear these words but now they sounded just like a big joke?

You dreamed to build a family with Jordan, marry with a beautiful dress, have kids. Maybe a dog too.

But that’s what they were. Dreams. Dreams that turned into a nightmare when you found out about Calli. When your cousin Kimberly saw him entering a hotel with a blonde girl when he said he would be out of town to a convention.

Now you just wanted to be far from him. You didn’t wish him bad things anymore, just move on and dream it all again with someone else.

You look at his face, full of hope, and can’t hold back a chuckle.

“We are over, Jordan. I’m sure about it”.

“Just listen to me, babe. Don’t be hasty because I made a mistake”.

“A mistake is picking salt instead of sugar. You cheating on me wasn’t a mistake”.

You were calmer than the day before, when you had to break up with him, and you were glad for that, at least explaining and talking would be easier and better explained. You just hoped Jordan would finally understand.

“And what? That guy was here because of friendship?” Jordan rubbed his eyes. “Can’t you just recognise that I’m the only man that didn’t try to rush you? Even you said it before, that all guys you met didn’t want to date you because of that. I made one mistake, but it was only because I was lonely, please, understand me”.

“I guess you’re right. I don’t think Jungkook was here because he wanted to be friends.” You smiled, unsure of how much you should share with him. “But that’s okay, I’m not after his friendship either”.

“What?” Jordan took a step behind. “You don’t even know him”.

“I don’t, but I knew you and look where we are”.

He sighed. “Can’t you at least give me another chance? Please? I love you, Y/N.”

“Jordi. I loved you too.” You caressed his face, trying to sound the softest you could. “I really forgive what you did and I promise to always try to think the best of you. I forgave you the moment I accepted that I was the only one suffering because of it”.

Your fingers touch his nose, like you were trying to memorise his features. You would miss him, he’ve been not only a boyfriend, but also a friend this whole time, but it was needed. You needed to move on. “It’s still hard, but I’ll work on it. I loved you this time we were together, please remember it”.

You let your hand leave his face, falling by your side.

“But don’t ask me this. You can’t ask me to forgive something like this and, at the same time, say you love me. I don’t want it. I don’t want us anymore”.

“Is this because of that guy? I promise you we can go back to what we was. I haven’t talked to Calli since that day on the restaurant”.

“You’re right about Jungkook. I barely know him, so no, the answer is no. It’s because of myself. I wasn’t going to end everything so soon, but that guy, he made me realise that the only person suffering is me. There was no point trying to make you feel a tiny bit of it.” You sigh, but smile right after. “It was only us. We were the ones suffering. Not you and that girl”.

You start walking towards your house again, when you heard Jordan following you behind.

“I don’t care about her. Please, listen to me. I want you, I love you. I want to marry you and spend the rest of my days by your side”.

“Jordan, stop it!” You push him away, and take a few steps away too. “Leave me alone. I said no, and that’s my answer. I don’t want you anymore.” You turn around to start walking again, but decide to do the opposite and say more. “Saying you didn’t care about the girl you were seeing only makes everything worst. That means you’re a heartless cheater”.

“Are you acting like this because of that guy? Do you like him or something?”

“Jordan, stop making this about him. I’m breaking up with you because I decided that. How many times should I say it? And yes, answering you, I do like him. He’s great, and was great yesterday.” You make sure to add, hoping it would pain him a little bit of all he done to you.

He may never understand what you really meant, but you said anyway. If he did, better.

You both hear the front door opening and your mother staring you both, confused by the animosity between you two.

She waves at Jordan, but is ignored. He’s still staring you, tears on his eyes.

“And now. Leave my yard and don’t come back unless you have a great reason to, or else my dad is gonna show you how sorry you should really be”.

You enter your house, pulling your mother along by her arm. Enough of Jordan. Enough of all this pain he caused.

You stare both your mom and dad in the living room, Taehyung is seated by your dad’s side, waiting and curious about the scene outside.

“Mom, dad. I have something that I wanna share with you”.

You stare the road outside Taehyung’s car. You’re really late for work and might even lose your job, but you don’t care. What’s the point? Today is a great day. Everything seems prettier. The grass seems greener, birds singing louder and stronger. Even the sun is looking more yellow than how he used to. Brighter.

It all seems to be a better version now. Even you seemed a better version of yourself when you got back inside and added some makeup in front of the mirror.

Was that the effect pos-Jordan?

You liked.

“Have you ever realised that you could be seeing something that you always knew, always seen, totally wrong?”

His laugh echos through the car.

“I guess that can be, but does it make sense?”

“I mean, just an example: I do this route everyday for almost two years now, but today… It seems different. Like I missed something this whole time I passed here and only now I saw it, and I can’t stop seeing it and noticing. Guess it doesn’t make sense, right? What could I have missed in a street?”

Taehyung thought about what you said for a moment, while changing lanes.

“I think I understand what you’re saying. Like when you finally understand something in maths and suddenly everything makes sense and seems easier?”

“Yes and no. Just forget I mentioned, okay. It only make senses in my head, I guess. It’s just like I haven’t really seen all these things before. Or like they didn’t have colours”.

“Ah, I think I know what you mean, but people usually get like this when they are in love, not when they break up.” He laughs at you, again and fuss your hair before starting to whistle.

“What about you?”

He stayed silent, only smirking at you, making you even more curious.

“That’s right! Y seems to be happier and I’m sure that’s not because of my current situation”.

“Glad you asked.” Taehyung gave you a giant smile. “There’s this guy I know. Richard, the photographer?” He waited for you to nod before explain.

“He was hired for a task next week. A guy wants to propose to his girlfriend, but he also wants to be creative. He got the idea of hiring Richard to film everything, and it will be like they are giving an interview to a tv show, talking about relationships”.

You started to understand the whole idea.

“That sounds funny. But why are you so happy about it, he’s not proposing to you”.

“Well, Richard will take the role as the director and interviewer. He needs at least three more guys to help with cameras. He asked me to help. We need to film the big moment”.

Taehyung shrugs, the big smile still on his face.

“I suppose that you’re not this happy because it will be a romantic scene to watch?”

“Let’s consider that the payment will be good enough to make me happy. If I’m lucky enough, they will ask Richard to take pics of their official party too, and he will include me on the event”.

You smile, proud of your brother. He always worked so hard, turning a hobby into his work and being good at it.

Different from you, Taehyung always been more independent. He found himself what he wanted to do. You were still trying to find what you liked.

You felt like you were on right path, being able to break up with Jordan, you sensed that as your first step.

Then it hits you.

If you really wanted to move on and start over, inspired by the independence of your older brother, you needed to do all by yourself. Including finding a job by yourself. You liked the one your father helped you, but it was too easy for you, being helped always.

You knew what else you would have to do.

You were finally getting the control of your life.

That day, you did everything crossing your mind. You informed your bosses that it was great working with them, but you would only wait until they found someone to replace you. The best was that they agreed that you were way too young to stay in a job that wouldn’t allow you to grow.

When you left the office, you saw a language school and entered there, without seconds thoughts.

You wanted to do as many things you could. Things that would only add at you.

So many ideas of things you always wanted to do but postponed for who-knows-when were coming back and being written on your pocket planner, that calling Jungkook that day didn’t cross your mind.

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artificialqueens · 5 years

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How Far I'll Go Chapter 5 (Ninex) - Mia Ugly, Meggie

A/N: ��Previously: Nina and Cracker resolved their tension, though Cracker appears to know more than she’s letting on. The queens were grouped in threes to recreate some classic sapphic films, and Nina isn’t feeling great about his team’s performance. Meanwhile, Monet helps Nina calm his nerves.

To come: the runway, the reckoning, a flashback. And a musical number. Of course.

(Thank you to everyone who has been reading/commenting on this. Your enthusiasm is means more than we can say, and we’re so grateful.)

Here is the link for the song in this chapter, in case you want to sing along at home!

Chapter 5: I bet you’ve got secrets too

Nina wakes up and is still on Drag Race.

(Will the same thing be true tomorrow morning? Don’t think about that right now.)

He showers, gets dressed, heads down to breakfast. As he’s waiting for the elevator he tries not to fidget too much, not to start biting his nails or tugging at the buttons on his cuff. He’s already vibrating with anxiety and the day hasn’t even started yet. Breathe, girl (but then that just makes him think about Monét, their shared breath yesterday in the Werk Room, the warmth of Monét’s hands against his. In, out. Goddamn if Nina isn’t going to remember Monét’s voice all low and calm like that, or their eyes locked together, for maybe probably the rest of his life).

The elevator dings as it opens, and - Jesus Christ.

This time Nina recognizes the gasping couple immediately.

“What—and I cannot stress this enough—the fuck, you guys?”

Brooke and Vanjie immediately pull away from each other. Nina turns his back. He doesn’t want to see them, doesn’t need to have this conversation. If either of them think that he’s going to spend the rest of the day talking them down from whatever lovelorn panic spiral they end up in, well - they’re wrong. That’s what they are.

So much for “it won’t happen again” and “we’re done” and all of that. Nina should’ve known better. He’s heard the speech from both of them before, after all, and look where it’s left them. (Not to belabour a point, but it’s left them here, on All Stars, making out in elevators and then pretending that anyone is fooled.)

When he gets to the conference room, the mentors have already left. Nina - tries not to feel too disappointed. It just means he probably won’t see Monét until tonight on the runway (even then, it will only be from a distance.)

Maybe that’s for the best. Nina could use a bit of distance.

After that dream last night, Monét’s been in his head all morning, and Nina’s got to be stronger than this (put it aside, right? Give it up, throw it away. Do something else with these feelings, anything except - feel them).

He sits with Asia for breakfast, ignoring Brooke and Vanjie as they go off to separate corners of the room, neither of them speaking to each other (both of them avoiding eye contact with Nina. Thank God for that).

“I think we were okay,” Asia tells him about her scene. “Like, we got it the hell together. But those two…” She raises an eyebrow, no more clarification needed. “They gotta figure out their shit. They still fucking?”

“I - have no idea.” Nina likes Asia, trusts her, but - he really doesn’t know how to answer that question. Given the situation in the elevator this morning. And yesterday morning. And - you know, probably most mornings (nights, afternoons) since they damn well broke up.

“Did you know Trixie’s man split with her?” Asia asks the question like she’s asking Nina if he knows what the weather’s going to be like. “Vanjie told me. I guess Miss Mattel was all up in her feelings yesterday.”

“Really?” Nina’s genuinely surprised. From the vibes that Trixie gave off on social media, he thought her boyfriend was kind of a - sure thing. Jesus, what was his name? Well, Nina knew at one point, and Trixie had been writing songs about him and - it’s all unexpected. Though of course Nina doesn’t know her as a person at all, really. Just knows her as Trixie Mattel, All Star and business mogul and celebrity shit-talker.

“The tea is that it’s because of some pics with Katya, you know.”

“I… don’t.”

“Like romantic photos. Nothing - I’m not talking dick pics, honey. Just some shit from a show or something, you know how they are. All touchy, cuddly. Anyway, I don’t have the details or anything. Just what Miss Vanjie was spilling.”

Nina thinks back to Trixie Mattel’s awkwardness from their time on set yesterday. The way she flinched when they brought up Katya. Jesus - no, no. He’s not going to take on anyone else’s drama right now. Ru Paul’s Best Friends Race? More like Ru Paul’s Messy High School Soap Opera.

Nina’s shaky and anxious for most of the day, despite his best efforts. He tries to keep a brave face on, tries to convince himself he’s got nothing to worry about. His Lavender Menace runway look is one of his favourites: a super-cinched mermaid silhouette that drips with pale purple beads and holographic paillettes. He feels like a futuristic Barbra Streisand in “Hello Dolly!” and can’t wait for the judges to see it.

He and Brooke paint next to each other at the mirror, a bit quieter than usual (Nina is not going to ask, is not going to give in to the Branjie drama du jour.) There’s always been a calm that surrounds Nina while he paints so he relaxes into it. He knows this part, understands it, trusts his hands with the brushes even if he doesn’t completely trust his body on the runway (or trust his sisters with their votes). He relies on muscle memory and an arsenal of information gleaned from the countless queens with whom he’s worked over the years. Makeup he’s confident in. Makeup is what he can put his hands all over and make his own. If he has nothing else, he has his face (and fully made up, with the right shade of lipstick and just the right wig, Nina feels almost pretty. Close enough that with a couple drinks in, you might not know the difference).

Today he’s chosen a deep plum eye flecked with holographic glitter. It’s a lot, it’s over the top, it’s very Nina West, which is exactly what he’s here to show them. Too much of himself got lost in Season 11 and that can’t - won’t- happen again. His glitter might exactly match the paillettes on his dress. He might have planned that. His purple eyeshadow might also match Monét’s purple lipstick from the finale night (that, he didn’t plan. Honest.)

After he makes the connection, though, it’s almost all he can think about, which is not a good thing. He should be focusing on the competition. On turning it out on this runway. On trying to ignore the feeling that it could be his last one.

A couple of innocuous conversations about the “inner saboteur” happen while they’re all painting together, but the producers are looking for that hook, so - of course it’s only a matter of time before they convince someone (in this case Ivy, who probably didn’t realize it was a trap) to ask the inevitable question.

“Brooke and Vanjie. What was it like being on the same team again? Like playing a couple after - you know, everything?”

Nina stiffens, knows that this question is going to fuck with Brooke and Vanjie’s heads. The two of them look over at each other and then away, before Nina forces himself to focus on his own reflection in the mirror. He packs more plum eyeshadow on his brush, taps it carefully on his eyelid, pretends he isn’t listening. (Of course he’s listening. They’re all listening.)

“It’s fine, girl,” Vanjie says, trying desperately to sound nonchalant. “Makes it more realistic, don’t it? Plus that shit is ancient history. Like, back when there were dinosaurs and shit.”

“Is it awkward though?” Shea asks. “Being on the same season again?”

“No,” Brooke says a beat too late, a note too high. Nina winces at the sound, then hopes that none of the cameras caught that. The last thing he wants to do in his talking-head tonight is answer questions about Branjie. “I mean, we stayed friends, stayed really close—”

“Oh yeah, real close.” Vanessa snorts, runs his tongue across his teeth, stares down at the bottle of foundation on his table. The Werk Room falls silent. Brooke’s hand pauses, mascara wand poised above his right eye, waiting for the bomb to drop, waiting for Vanessa’s next move.

Nina’s waiting too.

But Vanjie just releases a deep breath and clicks his tongue. “Yeah, we cool. We did what we did in the scene, now we just gotta wait. But baby, it’s gonna be all fine.”

* * *

It’s anything but all fine, as it turns out.

The runway is one thing. Clearly Brooke looks gorgeous in purple (Nina isn’t blind). Vanjie goes unexpectedly high-fashion in an asymmetrical gown patterned with lilacs, lilacs also forming a crown atop her white-blonde wig—a May Queen, a Midsummer Night’s dream. Nina feels like a bag of money in his dress, and if he searches for Monét’s approving gaze from the audience, well - it doesn’t have to mean anything. It doesn’t mean anything. Nina uses this ache for fuel, stomps the runway like maybe, maybe, maybe he’s winning Monét over. Like he’s cool and sexy and mysterious, like he could be the kind of person someone like Monét would fall for.

He lets that fantasy carry him as he flirts with the judges, spins at centre stage, and leaves the runway walking on air (he’s done what he can, let’s hope it’s enough).

When they’re all called back to watch the films and listen to the judges’ critiques, Nina’s fantasy starts to fade.

Shea, Nina Bo’nina, and Ivy slay (as Nina completely expected). The three of them look gorgeous (Shea’s purple dress has a bustle and train that nearly stretches the length of the runway, it’s dramatic as hell and the judges are living). Their scene is weird and glamorous and perfect: Shea as Carol, Ivy as Therese, and Nina Bo’nina as the surprise jealous ex-girlfriend have Ru almost crying with laughter. There’s no doubt that they’re going to be in the top tonight - or at least two of them will.

Brooke and Vanjie, well… Being bad at acting is one thing, but Nina can’t for the life of him figure out how they’re so bad at playing a couple when they’ve literally been doing it since their break up last fall. If only Aileen Wuornos had an Instagram, Nina thinks bitterly, they’d be fucking set.

The looks are on point, and Asia is a lone bright star as an evil police officer, but Brooke and Vanjie are kind of a mess. Nina doesn’t know how to feel about it—it’s hard to feel anything when he’s still waiting for his own scene to play.

And then it does.

Blair reaches over and takes hold of Nina’s hand as the clip rolls, and it is - not great.

Not awful - but definitely not great.

Nina gets a couple good laughs, and Cracker looks the part, but Michelle was right - they are stiff, and they don’t look like they’re having fun. Blair in particular looks terrified on-screen (and Nina can feel Blair’s hand tightening against his as the scene unfolds).

When it ends, Nina tries to smile graciously but he knows it falls flat. On the other side of Blair, Cracker stares down at the runway.

Ross claps enthusiastically, but Ru and Michelle applaud more out of polite tradition. And that’s when Nina knows that they’re fucked.

“Ladies,” Ru says after a short deliberation break where Nina desperately tries to hold Blair together without falling apart himself. “What an - interesting approach to this week’s challenge. Here’s some advice: stop letting personal matters get in the way of your success.”

Nina gulps.

“That said, let’s move on to the judges’ critiques.”

They love Shea (of course). Ivy’s dress isn’t their favorite silhouette, but they commend her on the flawless construction and the bold use of lavender and grey plaid wrapping paper (that queen is something else). The other Nina has painted her entire body purple and green as a living, breathing representation of a lavender plant and the judges are interested if not completely sold. Either way, Nina hasn’t heard enough negative critiques to feel safe.

Brooke is next. The judges fawn over his form-fitting fully-stoned pageant gown, the pale color of the fabric accentuating the creamy undertone of his skin. Michelle especially loves that he’s wearing a deep auburn wig, says it changes his entire aesthetic and is the perfect balance to the rest of the look.

“But I see we still haven’t taken any acting classes,” she continues carefully.

Brooke purses his lips. “I actually did, I just—” He sighs. “It was a rough week for me.”

Michelle nods, narrows her eyes, and then surprisingly - drops it? She doesn’t listen to excuses from anyone, but for some reason she doesn’t go right for Brooke’s throat this week. Nina suspects she knows exactly what (or who?) Brooke is referring to. Michelle usually does.

Asia’s electric purple feathers are another judges’ favorite, and she’s complimented by both Michelle and Ross for being the saving grace of an otherwise dim performance.

Nina can see Vanjie crumbling with nerves, but the smile he pastes on when Ru says his name is radiant, could light up Columbus in a pinch. If Vanjie just knew how to channel that control into challenges - Nina forces himself to listen.

“First of all, you look flawless. This is not your Season 10 or Season 11 Miss Vanjie. You are stepping up, girl.” Michelle smiles, and Vanjie’s face could now light the entire state of Ohio.

“But I’d like to know who made the decision that you and Brooke would play the main couple?” Ross asks.

Blackout. Vanessa’s mouth falls open. “I- We- It was a group decision.”

“We thought it made the most sense,” Brooke supplies weakly, “seeing as how we have a history.”

Michelle nods. “I get it, but it just didn’t work.” She looks at Asia. “What did you have to say about all that?”

Asia shakes her head. “I trusted my sisters. They said they could handle it and I believed them. You can’t fake the kind of chemistry that Vanjie and Brooke have. I just wish it had translated better.”

“Mmm,” Michelle agrees. “Or at all.”

“You didn’t think maybe it would be too much like art imitating life?” Ru asks, gesturing between Brooke and Vanessa, who are both looking anywhere but at each other. “Ex-lovers playing lovers? That’s…” He chuckles, but there’s little joy behind it. It’s cold, even for Ru. “That’s playing with fire, kids.”

“I wouldn’t even have cared if it worked,” Ross says gently. “Play with all the fire you want, burn the stage down, but give us something.”

“Ross will be hearing from our union representative. Thank you ladies.” When Ru glances over at Nina, the corners of his mouth tick upwards, but only slightly. “Nina West.”

“First of all…” Michelle kisses her fingers like a chef. “This gown? Gorgeous. Hair, perfection. You look stun-ning. But that performance, girl…”

Nina nods. “I know.”

“Last season, every acting challenge you were high-larious. What happened?”

“There’s been a lot going on -” Stay vague, sis. Don’t be the one who throws people under the bus. You just fixed whatever was broken between you and Cracker. “I don’t think I’m settled in yet.”

“Settled in,” Michelle repeats blankly. “How many episodes of All Stars do you think you should get to settle in?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean -”

“You looked pretty settled in when you almost won last week,” Ross says.

“This is the best of the best,” Ru says, eyeing Nina. “What you brought last week was what we want, what you have on tonight is what we want, but all of you girls need to figure out whatever these personal issues are because I don’t have time for them. This is not - and I repeat, not RuPaul’s Best Friends Race.”

Nina nods. What else can he do? He tells himself not to look at Monét, not to see how he’s taking this - but Nina’s eyes immediately betray him. Monét’s perfect pink lips are pressed tight together (and, Christ, he’s even prettier than Brooke is in purple) and his hands are gripping the armrests of his folding directors’ seat.

Monét’s worried. Shit.

The judges move on to Miz Cracker, who looks like a purple technicolor acid trip of Alice in Wonderland. It’s Nina’s favorite thing on the runway, if he’s being honest.

Michelle peers over the top of her glasses. “Can you guess what I’m going to say?”

“I look damn good, but why the fuck wasn’t I funny?” Cracker deadpans. “Yeah, I don’t have an excuse. There obviously was some tension between Nina and myself, I take responsibility for that, but I apologized and we worked through it. It’s not going to be an issue anymore.” She offers her hand to Nina, who takes it and squeezes gently.

Ross shuffles his cards. “You looked amazing in the film, though. It was cast quite well.”

“Thank you. Blair and I switched roles last minute, so that’s comforting to hear.”

Ru nods, seemingly satisfied, and turns his attention to the third member of their group. “Well, I do declare!”

Blair has gone full Scarlett O’Hara realness for this runway, hoop skirt and all, and Nina and Cracker are at least five feet away from her out of necessity. The lilac taffeta falls in tiers from her fitted bodice and cinched waist. Blair’s hands are folded daintily, the white lace gloves accentuating how tiny her hands actually are. If Vivienne Leigh had a 19-inch waist, Blair’s can’t be a centimeter over 19 and a half.

Blair is smiling, but it’s porcelain, like the slightest jolt will shatter her.

“Blair St. Clair!” Ross starts with a big smile. “Is that really you in there?”

Blair does a cute little curtsy, bending as much as she possibly can in that corset.

“I love it, I love it, I love it,” Ross says. “That dress! I feel like I’m getting the vapours just looking at you, I need a fan.”

Blair—shockingly enough—has a pale violet fan hanging off her hip, almost completely hidden by ruffles. She pulls it off (“Catch!”) and tosses it toward the judges’ table while Ross claps in delight. (The fan goes pretty off course, hitting the edge of the table and ricocheting toward the ground in front of the stage. A crew member grabs it and brings it to Ross who fans himself dramatically.)

“What else is hidden in those ruffles?” Ru quips.

“A lady never tells,” Blair laughs softly.

“So yes - you look the part,” Michelle says, bringing them back on track. “But Blair. Honey. What was going on in that scene?”

The smile drains from Blair’s face.

“You showed up on set looking terrified. When I watched the scene tonight, that’s what came across the most for me. That fear.”

Blair nods. Her shoulders start to sag.

“You’re an actor. We know you can act. Do you know you can act?” Ru asks.

“Yes.” Blair doesn’t sound confident. “I just - got in my head this challenge. And then we switched roles—”

“So whose idea was that?” Ru interrupts.

Blair’s lips part. Nina has this horrible thought that Blair might say it was his idea, like an act of sabotage or something - when really, he was just trying to help. He really, really didn’t want to throw Blair off her game—

“It was mine,” Blair says. Nina exhales silently. “I thought it’d be better for the whole team, but I don’t know if it worked out that way. I think it shook me. I’m sorry.”

“You still look terrified,” Michelle says. “You’re clearly gorgeous, clearly talented. I want you to see that too, Blair.”

“I do. Or I thought I did, I guess I’ve still got some - work to do.”

“Thank you, Blair.” Ru’s voice is gentle. “Based on the judges’ critiques, I think we all know there was a clear winning team this week.” He pauses for effect, looks between them before settling his gaze on the three queens closest to the judges’ panel. “Shea Coulee, Ivy Winters, Nina Bo’nina Brown - condragulations! You are the winning team. But two of you really proved to us that Ru is the warmest colour… Shea Coulee. Ivy Winters: you are the top two All Stars of the week.”

Ivy cheers and hugs Shea, the two of them spinning briefly in place. Nina’s heart is fully in his throat, he may not be able to breathe soon.

“You’ve each won a $2,500 gift card to Wigs and Grace and a $1,000 gift card to Coolhaus Ice Cream.” Shea and Ivy embrace again, a little less excited by their ice cream prize.

Ru continues, “Nina Bo’nina Brown, you are safe. Team Vanessa Vanjie Mateo: ladies, you are all safe.”

Blair flinches besides him, and Cracker doesn’t even blink. She was clearly steeling herself for this moment. Nina wishes he had. There was just some stupid optimistic part of his brain that couldn’t even go there, that thought they had a chance—

“That means Team Nina West: I’m sorry my dears, but all three of you will be up for elimination. Shea and Ivy: each one of you needs to decide which of the bottom queens you will eliminate if you win the lipsync.”

Okay. Okay. It happened. Just - keep it together, don’t think about last season, don’t think about the moment they told you you weren’tgoodenoughtoSTAY—

Nina looks up briefly from his super-fun shame-spiral and catches Vanjie’s eye down the runway. The sweet thing gives him a wince of empathy, and Nina winces back.

“While you deliberate backstage,” Ru continues, “the judges and I will… learn macramé.”

The safe queens laugh, but Nina is wobbly on his heels, moving on autopilot to the backstage lounge. His brain doesn’t start working until he’s sitting on the couch with a cocktail in his hand, Blair and Cracker wedged beside him.

Brooke has disappeared (for a cigarette probably) and Vanjie is off somewhere talking to Asia, rolling her eyes and bobbing her head, clearly pissed off.

“Yay…” Cracker says dryly, “I blame the lesbians for this. Control your children, Brooke Lynn.” She tacks on that last part loudly, like if she yells enough, Brooke will hear her wherever he is.

“Girl, they’d probably enjoy that too much,” Shea says with a smirk, and Nina laughs (even though there is glass in his mouth). He feels mostly okay about his chances of staying. He does have a win to his name after all, and Cracker was safe last week. But Blair… Well, she’s crying silently, furtively wiping away tears. They can all see the lipstick writing on the mirror (it might be in Blair’s handwriting).

“Do any of you—” Ivy begins, before Shea stops her with a hand on her arm.

“I’d like to talk to Ivy, actually. Other than that, I’m good. Unless any of y’all really want to - you know, make a speech or something.”

So that’s how it’s going to be. Nina has a speech running through his head, his track record on the show, his win last week - but he’s surprised by Blair shaking her head ‘no.’ Cracker looks over sharply at that, hesitates - and then shrugs.

“I can cry real tears if you need me to,” she says to Shea. “But if you’re good, I’m good.”

Both Shea and Ivy look at Nina.

“I mean…” He shrugs. “You guys are in charge.”

“Great!” Shea says and grabs Ivy’s arm before pulling her to the back of the room, where they lower their heads and begin to speak quietly.

Blair sniffs and dabs at her eyes. “I didn’t need to talk to them. What’s the point, you know? But I would like to talk to the two of you… if… I could.” Then she’s fully crying. “I just need a minute.”

Nina puts his arm around her, pets her hair while she breathes. It’s probably a moot point; it’s still early, but they all know how this works.

Miz Cracker sits next to Blair, lacing and unlacing her fingers, not looking at either one of them. Until she does.

“I’m really sorry,” Cracker says, holding Nina’s gaze over Blair’s head

Nina shakes her head. “We’re good, I told you.”

“Yeah, but…” She sighs. “What Ru said about personal bullshit getting in the way… That was all me. I was angry with you when I shouldn’t have been and now we’re in the bottom—”

Blair raises her head and looks both of them over with swollen, red eyes.

“—and it’s really my fault. And fucking Monét’s—”

Her diatribe stops and she looks wide-eyed at Nina, who is still holding Blair’s hand, rubbing soft circles through the white lace glove that adorns it.

“Can I ask you…” Nina pauses. “What, um, exactly was Monét supposed to tell me?”

Miz Cracker shakes her head, trademark blonde curls bouncing across her shoulders. “No. I’m not touching it anymore. I can’t. If that idiot has something to say to you, he’ll say it on his own time.” She decisively smooths an invisible wrinkle from the front of her purple tea-length gown and folds her hands in her lap. But Nina notices that her thumbs never stop twitching.

“No matter what happens, I hope—” Blair clears her throat and takes in a deep breath, which she releases as a shaky sigh.

Nina shakes his head. “Blair, you don’t—”

“Wait, wait. Just listen.”

Both Nina and Cracker shut up and look at her.

“It’s going to be me. We know that.”

“Blair—” Cracker tries again.

“I was in the bottom last week. We know. Okay? We know.” Her bottom lip trembles but she straightens her shoulders, nods decisively. “I just want to say, you were great teammates. Like really, really - nice.”

Now Nina thinks he might start crying. No. NO. Keep it together.

“And I really like working with you.” Blair smiles sweetly. “Miz Cracker, you’re so funny, and I’ve looked up to you for so long. I can’t believe I got to work with you again.”

“Blair—” Cracker starts, but her voice breaks.

“Nina, you’ve taken such good care of me this whole time. You really looked out for my feelings, and you were so sweet.” Blair squeezes Nina’s hand. “And I just really hope everything works out for you and Monét.”

Nina chokes a bit. But so does Cracker (great, they’re more in sync now than they were during the challenge).

“Sorry, what?”

“Oh, are you two - not -” Blair blinks her eyelashes, looking at Nina in shock.

“No, nope, we’re not,” Nina says quickly. “Nothing - happening there. No ma’am.”

Blair watches him for a moment, and then narrows her eyes. “Really?”

“Yes, really!” What is even happening? Vanjie and Brooke are the bad actors, Nina is Oscar-caliber. Is he losing his touch? Or is it just where Monét is concerned (and God, wouldn’t that be a nightmare)?

“Okay. Just - I thought. You know, from this whole conversation. And the way he looks at you.”

Cracker makes another choking sound, and Blair snaps her mouth shut.

“Never mind. I must have - gotten confused. Sorry. Forget anything I said.”

“Except for when you said how great we are,” Cracker amends, pulling Blair into a hug. “You can’t take that back. I need this.”

Nina is grateful that Cracker always seems to be able to make Blair smile, and Team Cheerleader hugs it out. Moments later, Ivy and Shea come back from whatever corner they were hiding in, each of them looking grim. Before they’re all led back onto the mainstage, Vanjie grabs Nina and squeezes his hand.

“It ain’t gonna be you, girl. Keep it on-lock, you’ll be fine.”

The other queens have similarly encouraging things to say to Cracker and Blair, and Brooke even goes in for a hug before the crew comes to get them. Then they’re on stage again, lights so bright they’re making Nina feel dazed.

Don’t look at the mentors, he tells himself, and this time he listens. He’s too embarrassed - can’t possibly think about meeting Monét’s eye right now. (Here I am, totally fucked and on the verge of going home. Still glad you picked me?)

“Welcome back,” Ru says as the lights flash. “Two top All Stars stand before me. Ladies, this is your chance to impress me, win ten-thousand dollars, and earn the power to give one of the bottom queens the chop. The time has come for you to lip-sync. For. Your. Legacy.”

And for my life, Nina thinks to himself. Oh God, he should have poured his heart out to Shea and Ivy, should have told them how much he wanted this, should have—

“Good luck. And don’t fuck it up.”

The opening beats of the Eurythmics’ “Sisters Are Doin’ It for Themselves” start and Shea immediately starts ripping off the train of her dress. The queens around Nina lose their minds. Ivy got changed into a spangly cocktail dress for the lip-sync, but Shea kept her original gown - except now it’s been turned into a sexy purple bathing suit, and she looks stunning. Nina can’t say he’s in the headspace to pay much attention to anything that’s happening on stage, but the other queens and the judges seem to be cheering with every move Shea makes. Ivy’s classy and quirky but she isn’t the dancer that Shea is. She can’t command a stage in the same way.

Nina focuses on breathing. Focuses on not falling over. Stares at the crumpled heap of Shea’s train, purple fabric stretching down the runway, while somewhere in the background Ru cheers with delight.

This can’t be the end. Not yet. Not yet.

Nina blinks and somehow the lip-sync is already done. As the music fades, he feels Blair’s hand slide into his. He forces himself to stay present, pay attention.

“Ladies, I have made a decision,” Ru says as Ivy and Shea catch their breath, both of them looking hopeful. “Shea Coulee, you’re a winner baby. You’ve earned a cash tip of ten thousand dollars. That means that Chad Michaels - you’re also a winner. You’ve won a cash tip of five thousand dollars.”

There’s some cheering from the mentors, but Nina barely hears it over his pounding heart.

“Ivy Winters, you are safe. You may join the other girls. Will the bottom three queens please step forward?”

Nina walks forward in a daze, Blair’s hand still held tightly in his. After a moment at centre stage, Cracker reaches down and takes his other hand.

“Shea Coulee. With great power comes great responsibility. Which queen have you chosen to get the chop?”

Shea sighs, but doesn’t draw it out more than she has to. “I love this queen and this ain’t personal. I made this decision based on past performances, so I’m sorry, I gotta go with Blair.”

She takes Blair’s lipstick out of her neckline. Nina hears Blair take a deep breath beside her.

“Blair St. Clair,” Ru smiles sadly, “as it is written, so it shall be done. You are and always will be an All Star. Now sashay away.”

Blair straightens her shoulders. She looks up and smiles brightly. She seems to Nina the most confident and beautiful she’s been since they first started filming.

“Thank you so much for another opportunity to show you and the world who I am. I’m going to keep growing and getting better, and I’m going to make you so proud of me.”

Ru nods, Michelle smiles, and Ross might wipe away a tear, but Blair’s eyes are dry as she hugs Nina and Cracker, then turns and walks down the runway.

She pauses before leaving and strikes a dramatic pose. “With God as my witness, I’ll never be eliminated from Drag Race again!”

Everyone laughs, genuinely laughs, because Blair is funny when she can relax and be herself. Nina’s hands are shaking as Cracker slides over and wraps her arms around his waist.

Safe safe safe safe safe.

“Con-drag-ulations, All Stars,” Ru says cheerfully from the judges’ panel. “And, remember: if you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else? Can I get an amen? Now let the music play!”

Nina is dancing but his heart is pounding as loudly as the music. Relief is making him dizzy and the flashing lights aren’t helping matters. Cracker hugs him again and he’s so damn grateful for that, just to have someone anchor him to the earth for a moment. He knows the mentors are probably coming up on stage, but he doesn’t see Monét in the crush of queens around him. It’s fine. It’s good. He’s in no fit state to try to impress anyone right now.

Nina’s one of the first to leave the runway, and he knows he’s got to go get changed, get ready for his talking head interview (which is going to be - let’s not kid ourselves - intense after this elimination), but he still finds the first quiet spot that he can, ducks behind one of those tall tool boxes full of set pieces or cords or something and just lets himself shake. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He’s here, he’s here, he’s got to calm down—

“Nina? Girl, hey now—”

Nina looks up (even though he doesn’t need to, would know, has known that voice in the dark) as Monét comes closer to him, eyes full of concern.

“I saw you tear off that stage, knew you were feeling some kinda way. And if you want to feel your feelings by yourself, if you need a minute, I get it. But listen - you’re still here. Okay? It was awful, but it’s one challenge, and you’re still here.”

Nina nods, but he can’t stop having flashbacks to Season 11, can’t stop remembering the depth of the hurt and disappointment when he was sent home. He feels like his heart is already in shards just from anticipation, and it’s hard to remind himself that it’s actually still intact. He’s still here.

“I know. I know. I’m sorry–” Nina tries to catch his breath, tries to keep the tears in his eyes from falling. This version of himself is the last thing he wants Monét to see.

“What are you apologizing for?”

“Because I’m on your team, and - this challenge should have been easy for me, for us—”

“Nina West.” Monet’s got his serious face on, something Nina hasn’t seen much of yet. “This mentor shit don’t mean anything to me, okay? You think I need twenty-five K so bad? Nah, girl - with this voice? With this ass? Nah.”

Nina feels a laugh rising tightly in his chest. Monét deserves a fucking medal for trying to make him feel better.

“Don’t worry none about me. Jesus. You put this challenge behind you for yourself. You move forward and win this crown for yourself.”

“Bet you say that to all the girls.”

“I don’t.” Monét’s voice goes a bit too loud, and he stiffens as they both realize it. His eyes are on Nina’s, and Nina realizes he’s holding his breath. This - what is -

Monét exhales a weak laugh and Nina feels the ghost of it against his lips. “Shit. I mean - I’m allowed to have favourites, right?”

It’s so sweet and ridiculous that Nina’s face breaks into a smile, and as he does he feels the slow slide of a tear down his cheek. Wonderful. Fantastic. Could he be more pathetic?

Then Monét is reaching out, wiping the tear away with the soft pad of his thumb.

“Hey, now. No crying, Jean Grey.” Monét’s voice shakes, and he doesn’t drop his hand. His fingers stroke gently along Nina’s jaw, angling his face up and into the dim light. Studying it like it’s a priceless piece of art.

Nina feels - something strange happening in his stomach. Like he might be sick. Or maybe can’t breathe? It’s tough to say, so he says nothing - just stares at Monét and tries to keep his heart beating (but at least if he drops dead now, his face will still be warm from Monet’s hands. If he dies, he’ll still have had someone look at him, just for a moment, like he was a masterpiece).

Monét’s mouth opens, and Nina’s eyes drop briefly down to his lips. His lips are something else, just - devastating.

They should kiss, maybe. That would be - would be okay.

Even if Nina ruined everything after the finale, maybe - maybe Monét would still want to kiss him (Nina remembers the taste of his mouth, remembers how soft it was, how desperate it made him feel, pressing kisses against his neck, chest, hip—)

That’s when a couple of electrics coming stomping through, hauling lights.

Nina flinches. Monét drops his hand. Steps back.

Nina tells his heart - in very strong words - not to punch its way out of his chest.

“I’m - uh - anyway. You gonna be good?”

“Sure,” Nina says, still trying to remember why breathing is important. Was that - something? Had that been something? Or was he just -

“And I’m sorry about Cracks.” Monét keeps talking, shuffling awkwardly from one foot to the other. “It’s kinda my fault that - she was all in her feelings.”

“Oh. Really, it’s okay, we talked it over. I think we’re cool.”

“Shit, thank God. I was worried that she was gonna be like this for the rest of the season. Couldn’t resist the Nina West charm, right?”

“Actually –” Nina’s mind skips carefully over the ‘Nina West charm’ bit. There are some things he cannot survive. “She said this thing - you should probably know about it - I think she might be angry at you now?”

Monét looks carefully blank. “Really.”

“She seemed - when we talked about it - upset about something you didn’t do? Or didn’t say, actually. She said she thought you were going to tell me something.”

Monét makes a soft noise from deep in his throat, like a ‘huh’ sort of sound but if you were also choking.

“Are you okay?”

“Oh. Yeah. Doing real good.”

Nina doesn’t need to say anything else, and he doesn’t really want to know - but he also kind of wants to know (he also still kind of wants Monét to kiss him, to touch his jaw again and lean forward and just—)

He clears his throat. Don’t think about kissing. “What were you supposed to tell me?”

“Oh, I—” Monét hesitates. Just for a second. But Nina notices. Then Monét smiles, radiant and white (and just off enough to clock the flaw). “I have no idea. But I’m sure that bitch will have no problem sounding off at me about it.”

“Yeah, okay.” Nina isn’t going to push. Not right now.

“Well, maybe I gotta go do some damage control,” Monét says with a laugh that sounds brittle. “Congrats on making it through another episode, Nina West. Always knew you would. One step closer to that finale, right?”

“Right.” Nina forces himself to breathe, to smile, to watch Monét walk away.

It seems to Nina that as Monét walks down the hallway, he’s almost walking to a beat. As if there’s low music playing in the background, like the strumming of some stringed instrument. Nina can almost hear it.

“Was that a moment?” Nina murmurs to himself, and then - no. No. Oh shit, he’s singing.

“Did we have a moment?

Was that a moment right there?

Or am I overthinking everything,

Always in my head

But that felt like a moment

With your hand on my skin.

If I could only speak

I’d ask you what it meant.”

Monét doesn’t turn around, doesn’t hear him (thank God) because Nina can’t stop the words that are coming out of his mouth.

“And I don’t know why I can’t just say what’s on my mind.

And I don’t know why I can’t just ask you what you’d like.

It seems as if we talk so much but never even speak.

And all we have are pleasantries

The hi, how are you’s, I can’t breathe

With all this silence rising like the sea.”

He stops. Takes a breath. He can still hear music.

“But that felt like a moment,

An honest moment just then

It felt like something real, maybe

A little more than friends.

Did we have a moment

When you touched me like that?

I’ll press it between pages

And then play it, play it back.

And I don’t know what you’d do if I said

How I feel.

Maybe you would laugh at me

Say none of it was real.

Or maybe you’d be kind

Oh God, the worst thing you could be

With all these little tragedies

The walls I’ve built in front of me

Are falling to the ground now

Just like leaves.”

The chords swell just like the rate of Nina’s pulse when Monét touched his face.

“But was that a moment?

It felt like a moment to me.”

Music crashes like waves, builds like a barricade, and Nina holds his breath against the weight of it.

“Was that a moment?

Could it ever be?”

Then he pauses. What do you do in this situation, what do you say? Do you make the first move, risk your dignity? Or do you convince yourself that it’s just in your head? (He thinks and thinks and overthinks before the song continues.)

“That wasn’t a moment.

Okay, fine, we touched

But you’re like that with everyone

You’re lovely and beloved

That wasn’t a moment.

Please don’t let me fall.”

Nina breathes between his clenched teeth before he sings the final line:

“That was nothing at all.”

The music fades out, giving Nina just enough time to wonder if he should seek professional help before Monét is walking quickly back towards him. Nina can’t move, can only stare in shock. Monét probably didn’t - hear any of that, right? That was just another one of Nina’s weird musical fantasies that started up when he got that All Stars call (he really should probably talk to someone about that, to be honest.)

“I almost forgot,” Monét says under his breath (while Nina tries not to get too distracted by the way his lips form the words), “ and you didn’t hear this from me. But, girl, you better make sure that wig’s taped down for the next challenge.”

Nina lifts his hands to his hair - it’s fine, it hasn’t shifted at all.

“What?”

“From what I hear, it might get snatched.” Monét winks before he walks away again, and Nina - oh.

Shit.

It’s time for the Snatch Game.

* * *

Interlude: Monét, finale night

“So like - girl. Okay. So.”

Monét runs his hand over his bald head, desperate for something to do with his hands. His face is done but he hasn’t put his wig on yet, is waiting for the last possible minute (this one bugs him, and he really should get rid of it, but it was stupid expensive and he’s still kinda wearing it out of spite).

Anyway.

“So this might sound funny. You might think this is crazy - shit.”

He swallows. Breathes, and tries again.

“I’m gonna sound like a stalker, maybe - but - ”

“Oh. My. Jesus.” There’s a pounding on the bathroom door and Cracker’s voice echoes in the room. “Your phone is out here, who the hell are you talking to? Do you have a burner phone in there? Are you calling your secret family?”

Monét hears Bob’s loud laugh in the background and winces.

“He’s secret straight, I’ve been tellin’ you this whole time. Got all these side-chicks.”

“Monét!” Cracker knocks again.

With a sigh, Monét cracks the bathroom door, peering into the room where his two friends have been waiting, already dressed and a couple of drinks in (okay, fine, it’s finale night - Monét might also be a couple drinks in at the moment). Bob’s boyfriend is there too, all suited up with his hair pulled back - and if he looks a bit like Cracker out of drag, well, no one’s going to mention that.

“Will you just stop?” he hisses at Cracker. “I’m trying to work out how I want to… You know…” He widens his eyes at her, praying she’ll get the hint. They talked about it at lunch a couple days ago. She knows better than anyone else what Monét is planning.

“Oh shit,” Cracker mumbles. Then a smile graces her features. “Oh shit. Tonight? Okay, then. Werk. Glad you’re finally taking my advice.”

“Girl, we would have left your ass and gone down to the bar if we knew you were going to hide in the bathroom all night, practicing your Oscar speech,” Bob shouts at him. Doesn’t matter what the size of the room is, Bob has one damn volume setting. “You’re giving up your lame-ass Miss Congeniality trophy, remember? Not accepting a new one.”

“Fuck off.” Monét gives up on hiding, comes out of the bathroom to hunt for the bottle of whatever everyone else is drinking.

“It’s not his Oscar speech that he’s practicing,” Cracker sing-songs, raising an evil eyebrow as she sinks back onto the loveseat.

“You can fuck off, too.”

“Ooooh!” Bob says with exaggerated delight. “That speech. Tonight’s the night, huh? Okay, well. Let’s hear it.”

“Yeah, okay.” Monét rolls his eyes.

“Speech, speech, speech!”

“Fuck off, Bob.”

“Listen, I’ve been waiting for you to put the moves on one Nina West for two motherfucking years now.” Because Bob always knows what her sister needs, she produces a bottle of tequila from behind her back and hands it over to Monét. “Or have you forgotten the reason your sorry ass was in Columbus to begin with on that fateful weekend?”

Monét takes two (larger than necessary) drinks and replaces the cap. Liquid courage or some shit. “Yeah, okay. I was with you, taking care of you, like always. Never forget.”

Cracker reaches over for the bottle. “So what are you going to say?”

“I don’t fucking know. I didn’t exactly get that far.” Monét sighs. “Everything I come up with makes me sound like a stalker.”

“I mean…” Bob shrugs. “If the size 12 Pleaser fits…”

“Fuck off, Bob!” Monét grabs his wig and marches over to stand in front of a mirror, trying to position the piece correctly. Maybe he spends a little more time on it than is absolutely necessary. Maybe he’s trying to avoid anymore teasing from Bob and Cracker. Eventually, he can’t stall anymore, so he pats it down one final time, fluffs out the bits above his ears, and swivels around, gold sequins casting light around the room.

Cracker’s smiling at him. “You’re stunning.”

“You ain’t gotta tell me, bitch. I been knew.” Though (don’t tell Cracker, it’s nice to hear).

“Soooo…” Bob says slowly, drawing out the syllable for far too long, watching Monét carefully as he reapplies his lipstick. He could do that downstairs, but honestly he likes annoying Bob. “How are you gonna do it?”

“Do what?”

“Woo Miss Nina West. Seduce her. You gonna buy her a drink at the after party? Tell her you’ve been stalking her online like a crazy bitch ever since you saw her in Columbus back in 2017 but didn’t have the guts to say anything?”

“Don’t even -”

“Or tell her you, like, were all lovelorn and shit for the entirety of Season 11? Tell her how many watch parties you dragged me to just to catch a glimpse of that ass?”

“Bob,” Cracker says, a warning in her eyes.

“Or maybe you’ll lay on that ex-Miss Congeniality charm? You know she’s probably gonna take your crown this year, right? You gonna ask her to come upstairs so you can show her how to properly polish the trophy? Oh, Jesus, won’t that be annoying. Two of you.” Bob scoffs.

Monét rolls his eyes. “If I make a move on Nina West, it’s none of your goddamn business how I go about it, Roberta.” He grabs his earrings off the table, fixes them to his lobes. “Now. Can we please go before I’m late to my own give-up?”

Bob holds up his hands in surrender. “Fine. But you better clear the air tonight. It’s been how long now that you’ve been fucked up about her? It’s getting embarrassing -”

“Bob, drop it,” Cracker says, all low and soft in that voice she reserves only for Bob. Whatever they had together was a long time ago, but they still definitely know how to press each other’s buttons. It’s usually annoying. Tonight, Monét is grateful.

Bob and his boyfriend trudge ahead with little regard for Cracker and Monét as they walk to the elevator, but Cracker turns to Monét and grabs his hand. “Hey. Ignore him. He’s… You know.”

Monét nods. “I know.”

“I’m proud of you.” Cracker smiles. “Like - get it, girl. Took you long enough. And then you can introduce us. I always thought Nina and I would be friends.”

“Don’t go crazy now. Nothing’s happened yet. I don’t even know what to say.”

Cracker shrugs. “Just… be you. You know, everyone loves you so just… Go with that. Trust your gut.”

So Monét does.

He also trusts champagne and tequila, and wonder of wonders, it seems to fucking work. Nina laughs and banters and smiles at him, gorgeous and glittering with alcohol, and for once in his damn life, Monét feels like this is something that’s supposed to happen. Like he’s in the right place at the right time and this is a sure damn thing.

So he invites Nina back to his room (put that speech on the back-burner, girl, just for now) and Nina says “yes.”

Jesus of all Christs.

As Monét walks back up to his room, his final remaining braincell (listen, he’s had some drinks) thinks it’s a good idea to text Cracks: “It’s HAPPENING!!!!!!!” like some sort of schoolgirl. She responds immediately with the eye-roll emoji and several eggplants. Whatever, she loves him.

He gets his paint off, gets changed - wishes he had time for a shower, but the last thing he wants to do is miss Nina’s knock. It feels like a lifetime and also thirty seconds before Nina shows up outside his door still in his paper-doll pink, and it’s ridiculous and adorable and hot as hell, and the rest of the night just - disappears.

Magic.

So clearly the last thing he’s thinking about is giving Nina West this like - awful crazy-bitch speech about maybe having a crush on him for longer than he should’ve. The alcohol helped him not think about it too much (and Monét’s a damn over-thinker. He might not seem the type but that’s ‘cause he makes flawless look so easy, child). The next morning (afternoon), there’s no alcohol left in his system to blame and Monét has to - as they say - step his pussy up.

So he asks Miss Nina West out for lunch.

He’s as cool and casual as he possibly can be when what he really wants to do is just roll back under the blankets with that man, but - lunch, first. Then - his stupid ass speech. Then, hopefully - the rest. Like, rolling around in blankets, a relationship, a proposal somewhere down the line, a minivan and four kids and white picket fences… All that good stuff (Jesus Christ, calm your tits girl).

He might fucking floss after Nina leaves, might spend a bit too long moisturizing. Whatever, it’s nothing. He’s not building this up in his head or anything, he’s just - making an effort (Nina West is the reigning Miss Congeniality okay? Monét ignores the fact that he’s the reigning All Stars champion).

And when he goes down to Nina’s room, clutching the rest of the clothing Nina left behind, and running over his dumb-ass speech in his head (“This probably sounds - stupid, okay, but I saw you at this show back in Ohio two years ago - no, don’t laugh, it was a good show, you looked good, and I remember - I thought -”)

But Nina doesn’t answer the door.

Monét waits a bit, knocks again.

No one answers.

Fuck.

He wishes he’d gotten Nina’s phone number, because maybe he’s gone out, or had to meet up with someone, or is in some hotel room holding back Brooke Lynn’s hair as the queen cries out her broken heart (Monét ain’t blind, right? He knows what that shit looks like). Or maybe Monét got the numbers wrong (that was a lot of tequila), and this ain’t Nina’s room.

Shit.

Or maybe -

Nah, nah, he won’t go there. Nina West is not the kind of person that would ghost someone. Monét’s sure.

Pretty sure.

No, there’s no way.

He can’t wait in the hallway all day looking like some sad-ass puppy, so Monét folds the rest of Nina’s clothing, stacks it outside his door. Then he impulsively decides to leave his number as well. (Nina could get his number, right? From so many other queens, so Monét has zero chill, but fuck it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained or some other cliche bullshit he read on a cross stitch sampler at his Nana’s house.)

In his hand, his phone buzzes with a text from Cracker.

Bitch where are you??? Let’s do lunch. I need to know allllll the details! Then another eggplant Emoji. And the water droplets, which Monét thinks is just crass, but whatever.

Meet me in the lobby, Monét fires back as he turns around and walks back down the hall toward the elevator.

There’s an explanation, he’s sure of it.

He allows himself to entertain the idea as he rides the elevator down to the lobby. Nina will text, apologize, they’ll work things out, get them sorted. Everything will be fine in the end.

Monét has burned red-hot (silently, from a distance) for Nina West for way too long.

There’s no way it’s going to end like this.

#rpdr fanfiction #nina west #monet x change #vanessa vanjie mateo #brooke lynn hytes #ninex #eventual branjie #background trixya #smut #angst #musical #all stars au #how far i'll go #hfig #mia ugly #meggie #concrit welcome #submission #on set fic

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handmadecp · 6 years

Text

Leather Camping stool.

This weeks project is a three leg small camping stool. Some one sent me a picture of one they saw on holiday and I said..gotta have one..ya know..like you do lol. So..here’s how I made mine..which I might add..is super comfortable.

Pic 1: I remembered I had an old camping stool in my shed..you know those nylon and cheap stitching ones that fall apart after a few uses, I’m glad i didn’t throw it away as it came in handy as a Template. I used it to mark out a shape on the leather for the seat as shown and to get the sizes for the leather pieces that would become the leg ‘pockets’. As seen here the leather was cut and then ..as is quite usual these days i figured what a waste of leather just to cut it and leave it bare..so I found some designs in my book and cobbled something together that I think suits nicely. I did the usual tracing the design then transferring it to the leather using a metal ball point stylus.

Pic 2 : I was told in my early days that I shouldn’t use Tracing paper as it gets wet from the wet leather and will tear....well I’ve never had a problem with it and it’s very cheap..just don’t press too hard and don’t use a normal pen or pencil as that is asking for trouble if it should tear. seen here the pattern is taped down to prevent it moving around whilst i transfer it. I use decorators paper tape it doesn’t stick as much so won’t harm the leather...it works for me..but do what feels right to you.

Pic 3 : You can see here the outline transferred onto the leather..I didn’t have to press hard at all so no issue with the tracing paper.

Pic 4 : I used my new arthritic finger friendly swivel knife from Tandy to carve the picture ready for tooling. (No it’s not called that lol..but the fatter grip helps reduce the cramping in my fingers. )

Pic 5 : I used the dividers first to mark the line and pushed a bit harder on the second pass to have a slight groove already which I found helps to guide the actual ‘Groover’ seen here and keeps it from slipping quite so much.

Pic 6 : Using the dividers I marked the second line for the next stitch groove, I’ve since learned that it’s best to sand your edge smooth all round first because later when I did it I ended up getting a bit close to the stitch groove..so lesson learned there..but it worked out ok.

Pic 7 : Then I used the edger to round things off a bit on the edges..always very satisfying doing this bit..don’t know why..just try it yourself and you’ll see what I mean lol.

Pic 8: Ok, so stitch grooves are done which created a nice border line which just screamed out for a border stamp so I used one of my favorites as shown here and with the extra thick leather it came out lovely and deep and crisp with a nice dark out line thanks to wetting the leather first. You can see on the back of the leather I have again used the paper tape to help avoid too much ‘stretching’ of the leather whilst Hammering on it with stamps and tools etc.

Pic 9 : close up of the stamp used.

Pic 10 : The finished border stamp.

Pic 11 : The bevellers I used to do the outline tooling. I did add more to the design towards the end as will be seen later.

Pic 12 : The added design adds something more to the overall ..I think. and the stippled back grounder has done a great job. All done using just the basic tooling kit you can find online. I usually like to make a deep carve with lots of flower petal lifting etc..just my own choice and taste..but with this being a seat I didn’t see the point as it would only be flattened by all the bums sitting on it .

Pic 13 : I then used the Time Bond glue by Evo-Stick to initially attach the leg pockets, I used this instead of 528 because I figured I might need to peel off and try again if my lining up didn’t go well...it went ok. I only realised after gluing these that I could really do with adding some extra leather for strength inside the pockets because when sat on the legs will want to push through the tip ends of the seat..so, what did I do to get around this ??..read on.

Pic 14 : Ta daaa..well ok..not a major fix but does the job..next time I’ll attach these before I glue the pockets on. I cut these to fit and glued them inside the pockets..does the job and looks ok.

Pic 15 : used the edger again to round the edges off a bit more.

Pic 16 : Next comes the stitch holes, I used a 4mm gap Craft Tool stitch punch as shown here rather than the stitch awl as there were a lot of stitches on this one.

Pic 17 : I used the Saddle stitch with a slight slope for effect on this one, ohhh my god it took for ever..if ever there was a case for spending on an Industrial sowing machine..this is it, sore hands cut fingers..but also..a great sense of achievement once finished. the Dark Brown waxed thread I used looks great against the leathers natural color and as it’s sunken inside the stitch groove line I don’t need to worry about it getting ‘worn’ by bums rubbing on it as it’s sat below the level of the seat itself.

Pic 18 : I decided to add one extra touch both as part of the design and also for extra strength.I used Copper Rivets and here you see the tools I used, peen hammer, low cutter snips and the proper rivet tool to help fix the rivet caps and to dome the cut end ready for the hammer and the copper rivets themselves. note the thickness and quality of the leather used..this seat should last for many years.

Pic 19 : close up of the copper rivets underneath. Yes..the stitching is a bit wonky underneath..mainly I think because as I hit the stitch hole punch the leather wobbled as it sticks up...more care at this next time should remedy that..another lesson learned to improve my work.

Pic 20 : And finally, I coated the whole thing in Fiebings Leather Sheene to water proof and protect. It goes on a milky color but dries clear and can be buffed to a really nice shine very easily.

Pic 21 : The finished seat..still drying in this pic hence some of the darker areas, here you can see the design and how well the copper rivets go with it.

Pic 22 : I’m very happy with how this came out, it’s quite an easy project for someone who’s used the tools and has a basic understanding of what’s what so why not give it a go, maybe share your pics with us.

Pic 23 : The finished stool, I’ve attached metal tripod legs to this one temporarily but will be making some wooden legs for it, these will be available on my ETSY shop as soon as they get made..plain leather ones in flesh color or reds blues blacks Tans Browns..what ever I can come up with...if it’s on the shop it’s for sale. I will also be making some with a decorative border and will accept commissions for Hand tooled / Carved Personalised ones such as this one..offering with wooden legs or these solid black metal legs. I can be contacted via the messages on ETSY. Thanks for following my little projects, I hope you’ve enjoyed this build along and maybe it’s convinced you to have a go yourself. feel free to drop me a line I’m always happy to share ideas. I’m not a professional I started myself just 3 years ago this October hence the title of my blog but I am well and truly addicted to it now. many more projects to come this year so watch this space and as always..Stay Crafty.

#camp stool #leather stool #personalized stool #Crafts & Hobbies

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themotivationjournals · 7 years

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A Message To Anyone Who Thinks They Are Falling Behind In Life

So, how many sleepless nights have you spent staring at the ceiling?

You met Roger, that old chum of yours, who slapped your back to exclaim:

“Hey! Still at the same company/residence/driving the same car……?” Whatever took his fancy.

He has moved up the corporate ladder after switching jobs six times, and now drives a fancy car.

His children are studying abroad, and he owns a villa in a plush location. Great for him!

Does that really matter? Is that what you wanted in life? Is that what he really wanted, or did he get carried by a wave?

If you feel like you might be falling behind in life, read the following advice very carefully.

Hopefully it will convince you that you’re doing just fine as you are.

1. Where Is Your Zero Set?

Do you remember the question you were most frequently asked in childhood: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

Your answers varied with time. You were in awe of the power that your teacher wielded over the class, and wanted to be like her.

You were envious of your neighbor, who got to ride in his father’s BMW, and you wanted to be rich enough to buy that car. You were willing to take up any business/profession to achieve that goal.

You saw the pics on the Wall of Fame, outside the College Principal’s office, and wanted to be on it.

You knew this could help in gaining admission to the crème-de-la-crème of educational institutions.

You needed that branding to achieve success in life. Then the business and corporate world changed your perspective, and shifted all paradigms once again.

Your Zero has shifted at all these points in your life. Zero is the point from which you start measuring growth in life, on a linear scale.

You spend your life terrified of falling on the negative side, but who created this point, and allowed it to control your life?

Chances are that this Zero is an inherited or imposed monstrosity.

You have given it sanctity, with your unquestioning acceptance of the same.

Such a basepoint will always exist, but it could also be at the center of a circle. Growth can be non-linear:

2. What Is Your Score On The Circle Of Life?

Rate yourself on each of these arcs, and allow yourself to grow from the center to the periphery. Your Zero becomes a centripetal force, creating pressure on the diameter, and accelerating growth.

As one area of your life improves, it creates momentum in every other segment of the circle.

Now ask yourself how Roger has fared on each of these arcs.

3. Choose Your Role Models Wisely

Social media has stories splashed around of college drop-outs becoming billionaires, or running the hottest startups in the country. It is the media’s job to showcase such successes.

Yet, has anybody checked the statistics about the proportion of such people who made it?

And what other attributes did they have, other than being a ‘drop-out with a brilliant idea’?

A lot of time, effort and money goes into gaining admissions to the premier educational institutions.

Why waste that investment for a pipe-dream? Why assume that the drop-outs always do better than the pass-outs?

Think carefully before you make rash decisions; make sure they are the right ones for you and don’t choose a path based purely on what other people have done.

What’s worked for Roger might not work for you.

4. Ambition-Achievement Balance

Living beings are defined by a very unique DNA structure, which is difficult to replicate. You have probably seen this image splashed around social media:

Sure, I cannot be a monkey to climb that tree, nor can the monkey attempt to be me, a fish or a penguin.

There is a plethora of personality tests available to give you a profile of your strengths and weaknesses. All may not be accurate, but an average of three to five will give you a fair idea. And this is not only for students and beginners. If you are dissatisfied with life, in general, this will tell you why and what is going wrong. Changing tracks has never been easy, but it is not impossible, either.

Look for changes within your organization, your industry, or even somewhere else entirely. Take up additional courses to strengthen your base and cover the qualifications gap. A new path may emerge, slowly but surely. The metamorphosis will not be devoid of pain, but the caterpillar will eventually emerge into a butterfly.

5. The Sunk Cost Fallacy

The biggest hindrance on your path is the investment that you have already made in reaching this point. You have built an identity, which your ecosystem expects you to continue.

Your parents have invested in your education. Your spouse has married a person with a certain professional and social standing.

Your children are known as the sons and daughters of that person. In short, your identity is being defined by their expectations of you.

Your bosses and mentors have determined a certain career path for you, which may or may not be to your liking.

If you change and grow as an individual, one can understand their discomfort in dealing with this new persona.

They may feel that they do not know this person, and have to reframe the terms and conditions of dealing with you.

But they are also the ones who made you feel inadequate where you were.

Give them time and they will recreate the context in which to deal with you.

Some will fall by the wayside, and some will learn to relate to the real you, not the garb that you wear.

Finances cannot be ignored. Take stock of where you are, and figure out how to best allocate your resources in order to accommodate your needs.

You’ve probably come across cases where people earn money from a particular line of activity, save enough, and then invest it in something that they really love doing.

Maybe your crossover happens a few years down the line, and not immediately. If so, this gives you sufficient time to prepare yourself, and the ecosystem, for the changes ahead.

6. Change Your Notion Of Sacrifice

The word ‘sacrifice’ is thrown around in so many different contexts. You sacrifice a holiday for your child’s exam, or for an office emergency.

You sacrifice a career abroad, to take care of your parents here.

There are ‘expected sacrifices,’ which all parents make for their children. Then there are ‘imposed sacrifices,’ such as those you make for the organization you work for.

How do you define this term? Exchanging a valuable piece of life, for something of lesser value?

Exchanging what you like, for someone else’s likes and dislikes? Exchanging your individuality, for a socially comfortable slot? Exchanging your call in life, for money?

I have rarely come across a case where a so-called sacrifice has been a one-way street of giving.

The giver has gained something in return: tangible, intangible, or partly tangible. It could just be the happiness you get from seeing your children grow in life.

It is only a question of how you define less or more.

Understand the parameters, and build a scale for measuring the impact of your actions.

You will see a value somewhere, in all your actions.

Nothing has been in vain. You may have a thankless job, but you have gained experience, if not recognition.

7. Redefine Success

The only way to accept failure is to redefine success. Success is independent of others’ expectations.

Be careful of the words that you use to define success. Words frame our thoughts, and a borrowed terminology can muddle your thinking process.

If this is the case, words become a tool for manipulating your thoughts, rather than a mode of honest expression.

Stay as authentic as possible, and look at events and persons as they are, at this moment, without applying filters.

Make a vision board, talk openly to people you trust, explore new opportunities to help you discover what you truly want from life. And stay clear of expectations and role-plays.

This awareness will clearly show you where you stand in the Circle of Life. You will feel ‘centered’ in your unique individual persona.

You need to press the Reset button, to start life at the desired point.

[THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN BE A CONSCIOUS RETHINK]

#articles #culture #life #wordsnquotes #inspiration #motivation #motivational

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turnipradish8 · 4 years

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Using the Perfect Social Media Program for You

It's absolutely exciting to discover a young adult's opinion on the appeal of each different social app. Offers a distinct interpretation from the reports connected with each software use and exactly how is being used each day. This report will not reduce the objective of every social networking app, it offers a particular viewpoint, an adolescent daily use guideline, should you will. I believe the best way to tackle this is going to be to split by online social network and the findings and views I've gathered over time. Facebook Basically, Facebook is undesirable for some young adults. Facebook is a thing we all got in middle school because it was cool however now sometimes appears as a clumsy family social gathering we can not really abandon. It is odd and can even be demoralizing to possess Facebook sometimes. That said, unless you have Facebook, that is a lot more odd and infuriating. Weird due to the cultural pressure and frustrating because you'll have to reply that to just about everybody in classes you meet who makes an effort to be your friend or find you on there. Facebook is quite often used by us generally for its group functionality. I know a lot of classmates who just go on Facebook to check the groups they are part of and rather quickly sign off. In this part Facebook stands out-groups do not have the same challenging rules in it that the news headlines feed does. It is very easy to just see the brand-new information posted over the group without having to sift through tons of posts and advertising you do not really value. Messages on Facebook can be popular among our generation, generally because they offer the methods to talk to those individuals who you are not really comfortable with requesting their quantity but comfortable enough to send out them a pal request. Facebook is often the jumping-off stage for many people to attempt to find you online, simply because everyone all around us has it. Any time I met you onetime at some kind of party, I'm not going to make an effort to check Twitter to learn who you are. Preferably, many opt for the ease of Facebook and the highly effective search capability that provides you results of individuals who you truly have a chance of understanding (unlike Twitter, whose search features, although it improved somewhat within the last update, leaves very much to be desired). Snapchat Snapchat is so quickly transforming into the most utilized social websites application, especially with the advancement of attaching your Snaps to a brief history feed. In the event that I may break down a party for you in social networking terms, here's how it could pan out: You update yourself planning for the party, going to the party, having fun at the dance, leaving at the end of the special event, and getting up in the morning after the special event on Snapchat. In Facebook you post the adorable, posed pictures you took together with your friends on the party (definitely zero alcoholic beverages in these pics). On Instagram you choose the prettiest one of the collection to create to your network. Snapchat is where we can really be ourselves while being mounted on our social identification. Without the constant social pressure of the follower count number or Facebook close friends, I am not really continuously having these random people shoved in front of me. Instead, Snapchat is a somewhat close network of friends who I don't care if they find me at a party enjoying yourself. No other social media (besides Twitter perhaps) it is tolerable post a uninterested picture besides Snapchat. There aren't likes you have to stress about or responses, it is most taken away. Snapchat has a great deal less public pressure mounted on it compared to every other popular social media network out presently there. This is exactly what makes it therefore addicting and free. If I don't get any likes on my Instagram picture or Facebook post within a quarter-hour, I will delete it. Snapchat isn't like that whatsoever and really focuses on creating the storyplot of a day time in your daily life, not some cleaned, transformed, handpicked focus on. It is the real you. One other quick apart about Snapchat, We only know a handful of persons (me included) that think Snapchat does erase your photographs. Almost everyone else I understand is convinced that Snapchat offers some top secret data source somewhere with all of your images on it. While I will save that debate for a later date, it is safe and sound to say that whenever photos are released or in the event that there may be controversy about security within the app, we honestly usually do not really care. We aren't mailing photos of our store cards here; we are sending selfies and photographs with us having 5 chins. Twitter In all honesty, a lot of us simply do not understand the idea of Twitter. There's always a core clique at nearly every school that would make use of it extremely frequently to tweet and one more clique that uses it to merely watch or retweet, but besides that many avoid it. In addition, it isn't incredibly easy to find friends on the website and many simply use it to complain about school in a setting in which their parents or family members (definitely not bosses) tend not to look at it. Twitter is a location to follow or be followed by a couple of arbitrary visitors, but still have your identity end up being attached to this, this difference will be valuable later on on. Your tweets may also be easily searchable on Twitter which is good but not great if you wish to be yourself rather than have it follow you around when you're trying to property a job. Hence, to others Twitter can be used like Facebook, users post with the assumption that your company will discover it one day. You will find after that 3 main groups of Twitter users: the ones who use it to complain and express themselves, the ones who tweet with the assumption that the prospective employer will eventually see whatever they say, and the types who just take a look at other Tweets and do the occasional retweet. Instagram Instagram is the most used social website app outlet for young adults. Please be aware the terminology right here, it's the most used social media application venue. Meaning, however the many people are on Facebook, we in fact share stuff on Instagram. It's always thrilling to me to visit a friend with fifteen hundred close friends on Facebook only get 24 loves on an image however on Instagram (where she gets nine-hundred supporters) she gets 295. I now have a handful of thoughts as to why this might come up. I am not really worried everytime I like an item on Instagram that it'll arrive in anyone's newsfeed and they will possibly screenshot which i liked it or research it later. The same applies to commenting. I am much less pressured to check out a friend or relative back in Instagram, that suggests that my feed is almost always made of articles I actually want to experience. That said, I'm going to return and browse through a program that has content material I love instead of those where I have to find the uncommon precious stone disguising. The articles on Instagram is consistently of top level of quality. Many people take the time to edit their photographs with filters, employ varied lighting and contrast settings (it's also among the actions to publishing an image), etc., to make the photos seem the best they possibly can. This translates to the content on Instagram is normally better (image-wise), therefore i am more likely to go back to the application. Instagram was not flooded with the older era yet (not everyone owns an Instagram profile) meaning its fresh and fascinating to younger masses. But, it is popular enough that if you have a smart phone it's nearly unheard of for you not to possess Instagram, if never to take images, though to perhaps tag users in photos. An extra feature: tagging. I don't have to constantly open Instagram to make sure I was not tagged in any shameful or negative photos. That is simply because you can't very easily identify them inside your newsfeed, designing the full experience appear far more private. Am I seeking weird in a picture you uploaded? Who cares. I could just delete the tag if I actually am that annoyed about it without dread that my close friends from another online circle (who do not follow you) are certain to get to it first. I am sure Facebook has the capability to enable you to check every single image tagged of you just before it appears on your own account, nevertheless plenty of people I know do not have that enabled or understand it also exists. Users do not publish 10000 times each day on Instagram. Almost everybody is a lot more polite about publishing, sometimes doing daily, several times weekly, etc. This means that there isn't a frequent amount of content being jammed down my throat every time I open the app, which is possible to be caught up with my Instagram newsfeed. You can find no hyperlinks on Instagram, this means I'm not being frequently spammed by the same advertisement, horrendous gossip updates, or news posting about the "29 Impressive Items for Your Pet You Had No Clue You Wanted". These are a number of points why nearly everybody my age tend to use Instagram a lot more than they are doing Facebook. Everything about the software helps it be less commercial and more focused on this content, meaning that more teenagers tend to visit it.

Every time we do visit the program, it's a much more interesting experience therefore we are more willing to Like and connect to the posts more. That increases our relationship with the program, so that we use it a bit more. Facebook gets all of the shots we shot, the great one, and the nasty one, while Instagram just gets one that undoubtedly summed up the festival we visited. It is much more selective, and truthfully users spend more time for the captions to create them focused or witty. you could try these out In Facebook we just throw up all sorts of things we got therefore users can tag one another and display our friends that we're still alive. Many of those younger than myself (9-15 years old) who I have talked to concerning this situation don't even have a Facebook profile. Instagram is everything that they need. The Others Here are other social networking that some teens work with still that might not actually demand a full-length discussion. LinkedIn: We need to obtain it, so we got it. A lot of folks wait around until university to understand this (as they probably should, it is not because of this demographic anyways). Pinterest: It's generally female-focused and it is for people who have an artistic type or folksy concentrate. Not too many persons discuss it. Kik: Is basically a messaging app that is largely employed for messaging users in Twitter, I guess? I don't know any person who makes use of this application. WhatsApp: Users download it when you go out of the country, you use it there for a little bit before going back again to iMessage and Facebook Messenger, you then delete it. I know plenty of people who use it to communicate with friends they found in other countries, but I feel like Messenger is definitely beginning to surpass it. For international college students, nevertheless, WhatsApp can be a pivotal device that I've heard is actually practical. GroupMe: The most used group messaging software in college. Everyone seems to have one, would make use of it and adores it. GIF support, the capability to like others messages, even trivial issues such as being able to switch your moniker between group chats all get this to both a good and interesting application. GroupMe also works for actually any telephone or system just like a desktop, iPhone, Android, and could very well operate over text aswell for individuals who may not possess a smart phone.

#smartphones

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