#so we both see that his feelings have obviously progressed beyond an attraction
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You have to ask Daphne out again.
#tv: frasier#frasieredit#frasier#niles crane#i think this episode marks an important point in the development of niles's feelings for daphne#because at first it is an infatuation brought on by niles instant attraction to her plus his unhappy marriage#and we've slowly seen it progress from there#but now we're in season three#and niles has never taken an active role in sabotaging daphne's chance for a relationship#so we both see that his feelings have obviously progressed beyond an attraction#and we also have his bad behavior checked by frasier and rectified#so it pushes his feelings into a much more grounded if no less complicated place#while enforcing a moral boundary that he cannot cross in spite of his feelings#things i made
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So I thought I'd make a post on this as it's been a minute since the season 3 trailer dropped and what I'll be talking about was something that was making the rounds and I thought I'd say something when the craze had died down; but amongst the various topics of conversation, weirdly Colin's virginity seems to have come up, along with the general nature of his sexual experience. So be warned I'm going to be referring to spoilers at points from what's been posted by others on here and on Reddit, I'll leave a gap between this paragraph and the next so there you go, read at your own discretion. (note: post may be long, whoops)
So even if you've remained away from spoilers and seen only the trailer and other official promo stuff, it's clear that Colin has returned from his travel's more experienced this time in more ways than one, namely it is clear that he has been deflowered (kind of hate this term but I couldn't think of something else), and beyond that he's then also become particularly experienced in the bedroom and in the ways of charming women and such. I've seen some people say that they wished he'd still been a virgin more so because they would've found the dynamic of both him and Penelope being virgins something interesting to see as a shift from dynamics of previous seasons, and whilst I don't necessarily hate that, what's disturbed me is the way other people have had such a visceral reaction to Colin having any involvement with any other woman ever and getting ridiculously angry; which is funny when really they should be seen as interesting points of character development. In episode 1 of season 3 he returns home obviously looking as he does now and there's the whole sequence of the dropped glove that he picks up and kisses the hand of the lady in question it belongs to, Colin has returned feeling he has a solid sense of himself but also thinks himself untethered to the necessity of connection in order to engage in sex or even just flirtation, but this is important as the season progresses. In episode 2 from what I've read, he visits a brothel in which he pays for the services of a woman who works there, everything goes fine, I don't know exactly how much we will see of that encounter but it'll probably be enough; also to note, the source of this information stated very clearly that this interaction and a following one in episode 4 do not bear significance or even compare on what we will get with Polin in terms of an array of content that this season delivers.
Speaking of episode 4, reportedly he goes again but this time he's unable to engage as well as he did before and without a doubt this is due to Penelope. Additionally, this is an interesting look at sex in terms of it just being for gratification, and sex in terms of connection, a means to an end versus an act of love. In previous seasons, the depiction of brothels/sex work establishments doesn't really bear the same importance plot wise (side note I am not nor should you go shaming these people in that line of work as it's one that deserved respect like any other, it is simply functioning as a part of the conversation here), unlike here where I think that it's really important as it show's Colin's inner need for connection in order for it to work, because when he was away he probably had no issues getting his kicks because he convinced himself this felt right and back home would be no different, but that only lasts briefly and why you may ask? because the friend who he'd left and returned to transforms from a woman only in name to a woman in fully realised form, from a wallflower into an Emerald, and this kicks into gear the real maturity he needed to gain, realising from not just her appearance but the other qualities she possesses and the ways in which he is both attached and attracted to her, that she is who he has truly loved this whole time, he just needed to get out of his own head. It should also be pointed out that in the show, Colin has always drifted with finding himself let alone sorting out his feelings, so it is highly likely whilst he was technically violating polite society rules with his interactions with Penelope and this should've fired something off in his brain, that it caused him instead to think this is simply something that someone does with a friend they value highly versus being a by-product of his underlying feelings that he has with no one else. And as such, whereas Penelope was the one pining before, now he will be the one doing so and he's no longer on the pedestal he was previously so they'll be on even ground to start something real.
On a quick note, this is a friends to lovers ship but I want to make it clear, especially with men and women dynamics, that not all friends are going to have this trajectory whether we're talking about characters or irl people; friends to lovers tropes should be understood as two people who's connection starts with friendship and there's always a sense it could be something more whether or not both parties are consciously aware and it's to do with how they explore that, and is NOT in any way the case that these friends can somehow never be just friends with a strong connection, case and point Penelope and Morgan from Criminal Minds, close friends and nothing more and they're great.
Something also to say is that the obsession with Colin's sexual experience is just as bad as they way women are treated for their sexual experience, it creates this weird value and attributes a weird rating system of respect to something that's not our business, as well as fetishizing what people do or don't do with their bodies and making assumptions about their activities, so you know maybe we should agree to not do that. Beyond that, how about we actually watch what happens instead of spiralling out of control about this stuff. Also, if I see anyone who aren't fans of this ship to begin with, just leave, you're wasting energy on something that you literally don't need to be, do what the rest of us do and exit out and invest your time in what you actually enjoy instead of festering hate.
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It causes me some noise, when I see that people use in their arguments or opinions why Din and Bo cannot or do not have something beyond their friendship, involving "respect" "There is only a deep respect between the two"
Then I think; Is that really a point for or against them being able to join?
Technically, respect is a value that must be given to everything; that must be within all relationships, especially those closest to us, something that we must live with even in our own beliefs so as not to lose ourselves… Then use "respect" as a factor that can prevent the union of two people. Definitely throw it away for that, because thanks to that respect that they mention so much, they took that step to get to know each other, and give that vote of confidence to each other.
Although their relationship at the beginning was one of tolerance and mutual use because each one had their own priorities and wrong ways of thinking. They were physically attracted to each other, which can be very noticeable, but Din also saw Bo Katan as a challenge; That is why he also felt such a strong attraction towards her, just like Bo Katan towards him, because he broke with the paradigms that she had created and saw him as someone indomitable. Until everything that happened with Grogu happened, Din falls into an emotional abyss and until the boy returns to him, that is when Din regains all hope and feels that the only one who can help in that purpose is Grogu and the children of Los tribe plays under the sun again and without hiding is Bo katan "some of us have bigger purposes"
That's why when Bo Katan is also in her emotional abyss, Din decides to take a risk, listen to her heart or intuition or whatever you want to call it and give her that vote of confidence, support her and follow her, even if she rejects him at first, when Grogu is going to ask for help to rescue his father, he feels guilty because he knows he let his anger win. That's why this worry that I'm wrong… that's why everything changes here.
This is when respect begins to come in, because in that coexistence, they see that they were judging each other badly and they feel more attracted not only physically, that was strong in season 2 and remained in this season 3… but their attraction , their chemistry is established here, they begin to connect, the synchrony flows and is seen… they begin to realize that they are comfortable together and respect, obviously, is the way in which they should treat each other because it is something that links them, allows them dialogue, fight together, investigate, plan, live together, fight… etc etc…
then respect is essential for your bond and even better it is the bridge that begins to be cemented for that emotional bond… because there are winks where their own emotions
They don't understand them, they start to bloom
And better in a progressive, healthy way and with positive elements like respect, so really if that is your argument to say that you can't be together romantically, throw it in the trash.
Because he says so himself; He does not care about her lineage and if before he saw her as "a capricious princess, someone selfish" now he sees her for her qualities, as someone special and knows and respects her position, now he calls her "ma'am" and that is why she is worth worth it, he knows that it is worth giving one's life for. Just like her, he knows that he is special to his son and that it is worth fighting to recover his planet and offer them something better for their future.
I think it's phenomenal that they gave us that transition that not only can you feel the physical attraction, that if they left it alone, it would be a romance that can be forgotten over time, that would not remain in the collective memory and would not be part of pop culture, they know that giving importance to emotional ties is essential for a relationship to work well and healthily and it was seen in this season. That relationships must have both elements to work and respect is vital. That is why they have their friendship, their alliance and their bond and it is fine, because it will allow them to develop in the way they want.
So think about it very carefully and with your heart, surround yourself with better people and positive feelings so that you don't see respect as an impediment.
#the mandalorian#this is the way#star wars#bo katan x din#bokadin#dinbo#bo katan kryze#din djarin#clandetres#din x bo
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WandaNat x Reader : Inhale pt. 2
Summary: She never ceases to surprise you.
Warning: Smoking, Cursing, One Suggestive Joke
Word Count: 1,998
Part 1
* * * * * *
The white paint stares back at you as you lay on your bed. Your view of the ceiling is obscured by the red ball you toss up into the air. It gets slightly smaller as it moves away from you, then larger as it falls back down.
Your hand catches it and throws it back up into the air, repeating the same process as the tv plays on monotonously from the corner of the room.
Boredom has been washed over you for the past few days. Your girlfriends went on a mission last week. You were able to pass the time during the first week, keeping yourself distracted by hanging around the team, training with Steve, going for a run every time your fingers twitched towards the cigarettes you had hidden in your closet. All of that was failing to work right now.
It seems, though, that you don’t have to suffer through it much longer. F.R.I.D.A.Y chimes up after hours of quiet with an alert that Natasha and Wanda were back and heading to the room.
You instantly perk up, pushing yourself to a sitting position on the bed and glancing at the door frequently, ready for your girls to walk in. Except they don’t.
The gleeful, happy to be home, response you were expecting is replaced by their clearly upset demeanors. A frown sits on Wanda’s face like you’ve never seen and Natasha’s expression remains neutral.
They don’t acknowledge you save for a glance in your direction. Both of them go into the closet and quickly change into more comfortable clothes. In an instant afterwards they’re leaving out. And you’re left beyond confused.
With the possible reasons for their behavior and clear attitudes in your head, you don’t take offense to it. You give them some time to cool off, going back to tossing your ball in the air and catching it as you watch tv.
Around an hour or two later you decide they’re fine now, or at least fine enough to talk to. So you get up, heading first to the kitchen to grab a bottle of cold water and then to the general training room.
The sound of familiar huffs and the pounding of fists against a leather bag let’s you know your assumption was right. Your redheaded love is off to the fair side of the gym, headphones in her ears as she beats on the punching bag.
You smirk at the sight of her. Not only do her yoga pants and sports bra look great on her, you always find her focused and slightly aggressive expression kind of hot. She glances at you as you approach and you know she can hear you despite her headphones.
Stopping behind the bag, you lean on it, showing off your smirk to the woman.“ If you really want to work off your frustrations I can think of a good way to do so.” Natasha grunts, rolling her eyes and focusing on punching the bag.
With a sigh, you move to her side, gently taking her taped up hands and moving in front of her. Forest green eyes look into yours and you give her your best encouraging smile. She knows what your silent question is and sighs.
“The mission went south. We suffered a civilian casualty and others got hurt.” Her expression and tone remain neutral but obviously she’s upset about this. It isn’t her first time dealing with this kind of thing from a mission but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t hate every bit of it.
“I’m sorry to hear that baby.” You raise your hands to her arms and gently rub them, squeezing a little in between.
Natasha’s heart warms at your soft comforts.“ I’ll be okay. Wan is more torn up than I am. She-” The woman shakes her head,“ she blames herself.”
You frown, prepared to ask for more details. Then you figure you can ask the girlfriend who’s more deeply affected by it.
“I’ll go talk to her.” Natasha nods at your words.“ You gonna be okay?” A teasing smile forms on your lips.“ I know you’re my super tough ex-assassin but I’m here if you want to talk.”
Her lips tug up in the corner at your teasing words, but it quickly becomes a sincere smile when you offer your ear. Slowly reaching up, she runs the pad of her thumb along the apple of your cheek.“ I’m okay detka. I’ll let you know if I need to talk. Or your other services.”
You chuckle softly and nod. Leaning forward, you press a soft, quick kiss to her lips and part, heading off to find your other girlfriend. The not so tough witchy one you love just as much.
Finding the woman proved to be a little harder than you thought it would be. She wasn’t in any of the places you thought she would be in: the library, the theater, the common room. You wrack your brain for ideas as to where she is and when the last place pops into mind, you can’t believe you hadn’t thought of it first.
It’s a quick jog to the elevator and an even shorter ride up to the top floor. From there you take the stairs up to the roof.
She’d stolen this spot from you a few months after you started dating. She and Natasha found you up there smoking once and through the year and a half she would find you up here, sometimes sneaking a smoke when you shouldn’t be.
Her long brown tresses fall down her back freely, the rest of her beauty hidden as she faces away from you. Though you still find her insanely cute that she’s in your hoodie and some stretch pants.
The long slow straightening of her form clues you in on her deep breath, her body relaxing as she lets it go. You only get a little confused when she pauses and does it again. A thought that you’re unsure of, but the physical cues make you curious. The familiar movement of her arm, the deep breath, the pause.
“Wan?” You call with an indescribable look on your face.
Your brunette girlfriend’s shoulders drop and she turns to you. Immediately your eyes focus on the small cylinder in between her fingers, watching as it rises and rests between her lips.
She takes a quick pull, pauses, let’s a little smoke go, then it all comes out in a straight shot that disperses in the air. It’s such a smooth combination of actions that leaves you wondering if she’d done this before.
Deciding to hold your comment on that until after she’s completely calm, you take a different route. Approaching her still pacing form, you cross your arms and ask,“ was it that bad?”
A snort leaves her lips and she takes another drag.“ Worse.”
“Tell me.” Your hand reaches for her free one and you pull her towards you as you sit on the ledge of the roof.
Her hand squeezes yours. Your eyes drop from her green ones to her lips as they wrap around the cylinder again, cheeks caving a little, then her lips puckering slightly as she pushes the smoke out.
“I heard Natasha get hurt,” she starts, fingers once again tightening around yours,“ I looked away for a split second and he got away. We caught him but not until after he shot the tires out on a car. It flipped and crashed into another one.” Her jaw clenches, eyes glossing with tears.“ He hurt a man and his son and- and killed a woman.”
A heavy sigh leaves your lips and you stand, pulling her a little closer to your form. You’d been down this road a number of times. Being on the Avengers team since the beginning almost, you know exactly what it’s like to make a mistake and have others pay for it. It was a deep hole that never ceased to make you hate yourself. But you didn’t want Wanda feeling that way.
“Hey,” you reach a hand up to cup her cheek, looking into her eyes,“ I know that it hurts. And it’s easy to blame yourself. But it’s not your fault. He made the choices that resulted in that woman losing her life, not you.”
“But I’m supposed to be the hero. I’m supposed to save people. And I didn’t.” Her accent thickens as she gets choked up, eyes glossing over.
You sigh, taking the cigarette from her hand and putting it out on the ledge, then pull her into your arms. Her head rests on your shoulder and her hands slip up to your shoulder blades.“ You are a hero. A great hero. However, you’re not a perfect one. None of us are. It sucks in situations like this but you can’t save everyone no matter how much we want to. It doesn’t make you a bad person or any less of a hero.”
From the flicker of emotions in her eyes, you can tell it’s still going to take some time for her to cope with this. Still though you see a glimpse of that soft look and you can also see that she believes you to a certain extent.
Raising your hand, you gently push the corner of her lips up. She whines and turns her head away, noncommittally pushing at your side. It makes you laugh and she presses her forehead against your chest.
“Wanna tell me where you got that cigarette from?” You ask.
She pulls away, producing a pack of cigarettes. Brows furrowing, you flip the top up and count the cigarettes inside. There were four missing.
“Did you smoke four whole cigarettes before I got up here?” An incredulous tone laces your words, disbelief flooding your system.
Has your habit rubbed off on her? You know she and Nat found it attractive but did that lead Wanda to try it? It’s a terribly unhealthy habit, which is why your girlfriends wanted you to stop, and you certainly didn’t want Wanda getting into it.
“No, I didn’t smoke four. I got these from your boot in the closet,” she tells you.“ Which means you smoked them.”
“I-” you try to think of what to say.“ That was over the course of a few weeks. I haven’t had one in months though.” You know you didn’t need to give her an explanation but you wanted her to know you were still doing well.
Wanda and Natasha were very well aware of your progression towards quitting. They could even tell the difference in your behavior. Both women were incredibly proud and admittedly you were proud of yourself as well. You had confidence you would be able to completely quit in the fairly near future.
The younger woman smiles softly at you,“ I know you haven’t. And you don’t have to worry about me starting. It’s actually very nasty and I didn’t feel it did anything for my stress.”
“Good. I don’t want you forming an addiction and I don’t want to die if Nat found out you’d started by smoking my cigarettes.”
“She knows now.”
Nearly jumping a foot in the air, you turn around to see your other girlfriend smirking a little at you. A nervous chuckle leaves your lips and you scratch the back of your neck.
Rolling her eyes, Natasha steps to the side to stand beside you and Wanda. Her hand slipping into yours, the other held up towards Wanda.
Wanda sighs and places the pack of cigarettes in Natasha’s hand. The redhead pockets them then takes the younger woman’s hand.“ Neither of you smoke again.” She states plainly.
Looking at Wanda, you both nod.“ Never again Miss Romanoff.” You and Wanda say simultaneously, bright smiles shown to Natasha.
It’d be harder than that for you but not impossible. Especially not with the support and encouragement of the two women you loved and needed the most.
* * * * * *
Taglist: @owloftheshadows @natasha-danvers @blackxwidowsxwife @yumusak-yastik @b-5by5 @fayhar @lostandsearching @iliketozoneout @ecruzsalaz
#wanda maximoff#wanda maximoff fic#wanda maximoff x reader#natasha romanoff#natasha romanoff fic#natasha romanoff x reader#wandanat#wandanat fic#wandanat x reader#marvel#marvel x reader#mcu#mcu x reader#reader insert
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The Queer Appeal of Sk8
Recently @mulberrymelancholy reblogged a post of mine with a truly galaxy brain take about how Sk8 “is a show made for queer fans” and generally how sports anime often depicts love and relationships in a way that’s more accessible and relatable to ace/arospec people than other mainstream media does.
Just, *chef’s kiss* fucking brilliant. I urge you to read their post here (note I’m referring to the reblog not the actual post).
And basically, it got me thinking about this concept of Sk8 as a Queer Show, and the kinds of stories and dynamics that tend to attract queer audiences in droves, regardless of whether its queerness is made explicit or hell, whether that queerness was intended.
And that’s what I’ve been pondering: What are the cues, markers, or coding, in Sk8 that set off the community’s collective gaydar?
I obviously can’t speak for the community. So here’s what aspects of the show intrigued me and what, for me, marks Sk8 as a Queer Show beyond the subtextual queer romances: a punk/alternative aesthetic, Found Family, Shadow as a drag persona, and The Hands.
1.) The Punk Aesthetic
All three of the above screenshots are taken from Ep 1, and every single one of them depicts background characters. They’re nameless and ultimately unimportant characters, yet each of them designed so distinctly and so unique from one another, one could mistake each of them for the main character(s) of another story.
Of what little I know about Punk subculture, I do know this: that the ethos of Punk is heavily built around a celebration of individuality and non-conformity. Sk8 seems to have incorporated this ethos into the very fabric its worldbuilding, and the aesthetics and culture upon which it takes inspiration appeals specifically to a queer audience.
I don’t really need to explain why Punk has such deep ties with the queer community. For decades, queer people have found community and acceptance within punk spaces, and punk ideology is something that I think is just ingrained in the queer consciousness as both lived experience and a survival tactic.
Therefore, a show that adopts punk aesthetics is, by association, already paying homage to Queer culture, intentional or not.
Queer fans notice this- like recognizes like.
2.) Found Family
This also needs little explanation.
Too often, queer individuals cannot rely on their “born into” families for support and acceptance. Too often, we are abused, neglected, and abandoned by those who we were taught would “always be there for us.”
And so, a universal experience for queer people has been redefining the meaning of Family, having to build our families from scratch, finding brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers in people with whom we have no blood relation, and forming communities tied together by shared lived experience rather than shared genetics.
And this idea of Found Family is also built into Sk8′s narrative.
Like, for example, the way that Reki promises MIYA that he and Langa will “never disappear from [his] sight,” filling the void that MIYA felt after his friends abandoned him.
And in the way that JOE becomes a paternal figure for Reki, teaching him ways to improve in skateboarding, and ensuring that Reki doesn’t self isolate when he’s feeling insecure.
And in the whole Ep 6 business with Hiromi acting as babysitter to the Gang.
Hell, even ADAM (derogatory) is associated with this trope. Abused as a child, he finds solace in an underground skateboarding community and culture he helped create- his own found family (or some powertrippy version of it anyway).
Again, queer fans see themselves depicted in the show, but this time in the way that the show gives importance to Found Family relationships between its characters.
3.) Shadow and Drag
This is one that’s more of an association that I personally made. But I was intrigued by the way that Hiromi adopts his SHADOW persona. He wears SHADOW like a mask, and adopts a personality seemingly so opposite to his day-to-day behavior.
Further, the theatricality and general “gender fuckery” of his SHADOW persona, to me, just seemed so similar to a the characteristics of a drag persona (I don’t know a whole lot about drag but enough that I’m drawing superficial similarities).
There’s also this aspect of a “double life” that he, and actually all the other adult characters of the show, have to adopt, which is a way of living that I’m sure a lot of queer viewers see themselves reflected in.
4.) The Hands
Ohhhh the Hands.
One of the things I noticed very early on is the way the show constantly draws our attention to Reki’s hands, which I thought was a little strange for an anime about skating. After all, skating doesn’t really involve the hands, or at least the show doesn’t really draw attention to hands within the context of skating.
I count 3 times so far between Eps 1-9 in which hands are the focus of the frame.
First, when Reki teaches Langa how to fist pump after Langa lands his first ollie, second, when Reki and Langa make their Promise, and finally, when Langa saves Reki from falling off his board.
And you know what they say, twice is a coincidence but thrice is a motif (no one else actually says this I think I’m the only one who says this lol).
I’m not really certain why hands seem to be such a shared fixation among queer people (at least among those I interact with). All I know is that gay people are just fucking obsessed with them.
I have a Theory as to why, and at this point I’d love for other people to chime in and “compare notes” if you will, but I think it basically has to do with repression. And in the same way that queer people have had to redefine the meaning of family, we’ve also had to redefine intimacy.
Being overtly physically affectionate with someone of the same sex, even if they’re your significant other, or often specifically BECAUSE they’re your significant other, can still be dangerous, even now despite the “progression” of society. Queer people know this, this vigilant surveillance of our environment and ourselves, always asking ourselves, “Am I safe enough to be myself?”
Already, Western culture is pretty touch-averse. That is, it’s considered taboo to touch someone unless they’re a family member or a romantic partner. And to touch a person of the same sex in any way that could be misconstrued as romantic (which is most things tbh) is a big no no.
There’s just A Lot to unpack there.
But basically I think that queer people, by necessity, have had to learn to romanticize mundane or unconventional ways of being physically intimate so that we can continue to be romantic with one another without “being caught” so to speak.
Kissing and hugging is too obvious. But a handshake that lingers for just a second too long is much more likely to go unnoticed, braiding someone’s hair can easily be explained away as just lending a helping hand, touching palms to “compare hand sizes” is just good fun.
But for queer people, these brief and seemingly insignificant touches hold greater meaning, because it’s all we are allowed, and all we allow ourselves, to exchange with others.
God, I’ve gone off and rambled again. What’s my point? Basically that the way the show draws attention to Reki’s hands, and specifically how they’re so often framed with Langa’s hands, is one of the major reasons why I clocked Sk8 as a Queer. It’s just something that resonated with me and my own experience of queerness, and I know that I’m not the only one who noticed either.
~
So in conclusion, uhhhh yeah Sk8 the Infinity is just a super gay show, and it’s not even because of the homo-romantic subtext (that at this point is really just Text).
Because what’s important to understand is that Queerness isn’t just about same-sex romance.
Queer Love isn’t just shared between wives/girlfriends, husbands/boyfriends, and all their in-betweens. Queer Love can be two best friends who come out together, queer siblings who rely and support one another, a gay teacher who helps guide one of their questioning students, a queer community pitching in to help a struggling member.
And that all ties with another important thing to consider, that what we refer to as the “queer experience” or “queer culture” isn’t universal. In fact, it wrongly lumps together the unique experiences and struggles of queer BIPOC all under one umbrella that’s primary White and middle class.
So I think what drives a lot of my frustration about labeling a show like Sk8 as Queerbait is this very issue of considering queerness and queer representation within such narrow standards, and mandating that a show must pass a certain threshold of explicit queerness to be considered good representation.
I get that someone might only feel represented by an indisputable canonization of a same-sex couple. That’s fine. But labeling Sk8 as Queerbait for that reason alone ignores the vast array of other queer experiences.
The aspects of Sk8 that resonate most deeply with my own experiences of queerness is in the way that Reki and Langa share intimacy through skating (intricate rituals heyo). For me, them officially getting together ultimately doesn’t matter- I’ll consider Sk8 a Queer show regardless.
Similarly, @mulberrymelancholy finds ace/arospec representation in that very absence of an on-screen kiss. A bisexual man might find representation in Reki, not because he enters a canon relationship, but in the depiction of Reki’s coming of age, growing up and navigating adolescent relationships. A non-binary person might feel represented through CHERRY’s androgyny.
That’s the thing, I don’t know how this show will resonate with other members of the queer community, and it’d be wrong to make a judgement on Sk8′s queer representation based on my experiences alone.
That being said, Straight people definitely don’t get to judge Sk8 as Queerbait. Y’all can watch and enjoy the show, we WANT you to enjoy these kinds of shows, and we want you to share these shows and contribute to the normalization and celebration of these kinds of narratives.
But understand that you don’t have a right to tell us whether or not Sk8 has good or bad queer representation.
And even members of the queer community are on thin ice. Your experience of queerness is not universal. Listen to the other members of your community, and respect that what you might find lacking in this show may be the exact representation that someone else needs.
#and scene#i was up till 4am writing this instead of doing my hw#bc i hav Opinions dammit#sk8#sk8 the infinity#sk8 meta#sk8 theory#queerbait
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i love your analysis so much! i have a question as well, like, how do you envision polin's sex scenes ? thanks for your answer (:
Hey! Thank you very much :)) I have no idea if they are that even good but I’m happy you like them. It’s just my brain tending to produce some iNsIGhiTfUL analyses though they usually end up drowned under a huge wave of stupidity and horrid spelling/grammatical mistakes XD. So, about Penelope and Colin’ sex scenes, I guess we’re getting spicy in this house 🌶. I mean, I don’t blame you. Who’s not hot for Polin ?! The steamy Polin hours have already begun and they’re legit challenging my patience. (Be still my Polin heart, be still).
Okay, without further ado, let’s talk about sex baby, shall we ? It’s a pretty long answer/meta so bear with me.
I don’t know if you’ve read Romancing Mister Bridgerton, but a quick reminder (for those who haven’t... yet), there are a bunch of iconic steamy scenes that I’m dying to watch on screen. First we have the famous “thank you” scene where Penelope, now a 28 year-old spinster, asks Colin to kiss her because she doesn’t want to die without having been kissed... then ends up thanking him— which happens to be humiliating for our 33 year-old boy because he thinks that she thinks he did it out of pity while he absolutely did not. The man definitely felt butterflies in his stomach... and in other places as well lol. We also have the ICONIC carriage scene where Colin gives Pen’s generous bosoms™ the attention they deserve. This is followed by his proposal. Later on, after the announcement of their engagement, there’s a pretty hot make-out scene on Lady Violet’s sofa. Finally, we have their first time in Colin’s bedroom, after sneaking out of their own engagement party... which leads Colin to push the wedding date forward. At this point, I just love their horniness, especially Colin’s who’s just so freaking amazed by Penelope for more than 300 pages straight (duh! who isn’t ???).
When you say envision, I suppose you mainly refer to the way those scenes will be filmed right ? I’m afraid I don’t have an advanced knowledge in film-making but let me start by telling you what elements need to be depicted. I would love Shonda and Chris to capture the real essence of our boos’ feelings : the yearning, the love, the respect and the guilt (specifically on Colin’s side) in their eyes. The more we move forward throughout the seasons, the more we see different layers of the perceptions of they have of each other, going from a childish idealization/immature ignorance to a sudden realization. A mature one. Penelope goes beyond the facade of the charming devil-may-care guy to meet the seriousness and temper of her significant other. Meanwhile Colin discovers how confident, powerful and attractive this woman is and always has been. It echoes what I’ve written about the importance of the gaze in Polin’s love story in this meta. By the time season 4 hits, man... their heart eyes and eye-fucking will jump OUT XD, all fibers of their beings, burning with need. The fact that this evolution took literally years is very emotionally painful, which is why I find it important to keep the slowness aspect of their relationship before and during their love making. I’m really looking forward a slow build-up toward their intimacy. It would differ from Daphne and Simon who merely shared one hell of a kiss in Lady Trowbridge’s garden then shared their sexy times after they married or Anthony and Siena’s rough sex... In fact, there’s a certain (sweet) ardent tenderness in Polin I like due to the fact that they’re slowly (re)discovering each other, as adults. Since they were both introduced in season 1, the audience will have all the time in the world to notice numerous evidences of the many natures of love they have for one another : from an affectionate and friendly love to a more carnal and enduring one.
Okay so, in terms of filming, with Netflix’s Bridgerton being a show which promotes the female gaze, it wouldn’t be that much of a surprise watching those sex scenes being shot from Penelope’s perspective, like it was the case with Daphne in the first installment of the series. Most of the time, sex scenes in Historical Romance are not gratuitous. Their presence serve an important purpose in a hero/heroine’s journey. In Penelope’s case, they’re here to help her learn to embrace and love herself. In other words, sexuality is synonym of freedom. I don’t know if they’ll show a lot of skin, but I won’t be complaining considering the fact that we’ll have the chance to get a chief kiss treat on screen : a plus size woman in a major successful Netflix period drama getting a love story as romantic and steamy as other more “fit” female characters. No, your weight doesn’t prevent you from being desirable at all. As far as I’m concerned, I haven’t watched a plus-size female character portrayed as an attractive protagonist in a period drama (please if you have, let me know, I can be wrong). Having a beautiful half bare curvy body like Nicola’s being equally filmed like numerous slim actresses will be so inspiring and powerful to watch, especially for (young) women who struggle, like Penelope, to love their body shape which, to them, doesn’t “fit” the “beauty standards”. By showing her female gaze and portraying her as seductive, Pen’s “supposed” imperfections transform themselves into mighty assets, loved and worshipped by our dashing Mister Bridgerton. That’s body positivity at its finest darling ;).
It will be deliciously erotic watching the undressing process being exquisitely slow, garment by garment, while their gaze are all heated and hungry. Their sex/make-out scenes should be tender and passionate, sweet and raw. The lightning, colored by a dark blood orange yellow or a blue depending the locations^^. Moreover, the depiction of the exploration of Penelope’s desire can translate itself thanks to multiple close ups. For instance, I can imagine a few ones on Pen’s fingers gently roaming over the smooth skin of Colin’s firm chest and back/touching his hair right after he removed his shirt. And a disheveled Colin letting his hands and lips making a journey of their own, mapping, conquering the alluring unknown territory that is her gorgeous voluptuous body... kissing her on the places he knows oh too well will give her pleasure (is this me wanting him to go down on her?— um yeah I sure hope it IS! If he doesn’t, trust me imma riot... AGAIN). Even a close up on her face while Colin is performing his addictively pleasing torment will be a marvelous proof of the female gaze. By the way, why not even adding a post-coital scene after their first time ? I can picture Penelope waking up first and contemplate her handsome soon-to-be husband. She’d bring her hand to his face and let it travel all around his forehead, his cheeks, his lips, his neck and let it rest on his heart— making sure that what she’s just experience was real... obviously, Colin will wake up in the process and he’ll take this as his cue to go for another round of sexy times under the sheets.
Showing Pen reaction is essential according to me because she was stuck with the idea that she would never experience the luxury of being loved, giving pleasure nor receiving it... she ended up being happily wrong. Throughout her multiple intimate encounters with Colin, I want her to progressively realizes that she can be an active partner. In the carriage, she knew she had an effect on him, but it’s not until their first time that she actually realizes it. Hence the reason why I WANT the mirror’s introduction in one of their sex scenes. Here’s as a little reminder an excerpt from chapter 18 :
“I want to see you sitting up," he groaned, "so I can see them full and lovely and large [about Pen’s breasts]. And then I want to crawl behind you and cup you." His lips found her ear and his voice dropped to a whisper. "And I want to do it in front of a mirror."
“Now?” she squeaked.
He seemed to consider that for a moment, then shook his head. "Later," he said, and then repeated it in a rather resolute tone. "Later.”
It would be such a shame if the show doesn’t use the incredible potential of this object (/kink). I mean, the symbolism is pretty clear. Penelope has always fled her “ugly” reflection but it seems like Colin wants to show the real her, the beauty that holds every single inch her alabaster skin and the effects they have on him. Thus, I would love to watch a scene where Colin just praises the alluring goddess and siren that is Penelope Featherington. Just imagine! Just IMAGINE the power of this scene : a shirtless Colin sitting behind her on a bed, meeting her gaze in the mirror, his lips touching her right ear, biting and licking the lobe sometimes, whispering all kinda of dirty yet poetic words to her while letting his hands caress her thighs, her hips, her arms, her lovely bosoms™... oof. At the same time, a wonderful and harmonic instrumental music will play in the background and match the melodic partition of shudders, breathes and moans let out by our lovers. I can imagine Luke inspiring himself from his performance in the 2019 short film, Youth In Bed. The way he conveyed the awe and the yearning on his face, in his eyes with his mouth slightly open when he knelt before his partner Shun Yin was just captivating and— and so Colin! I cannot help but bring myself to picture Ethan, the character he played in YIB, in a Polin steamy scene. I cannot unsee this anymore jsksk. I mean, all this gifset radiates this book4chapter18!Colin, you cannot tell me otherwise!
Also, I would love Shonda and Chris to keep Pen and Colin’s cute/emotional pillow talk. One thing I really love in JQ’s books is the concern she gives to her male protagonists about potentially hurting their partner during the act of penetration. Colin is a rake, and what his experience with women taught him is that he needs to be very gentle with the love of his life. It was so adorable seeing him not wanting to harm her and asking her to tell him if he does anything she doesn’t like 🥺. Plus, before actually doing it, Colin and Penelope shared a few kisses and just laid down side by side, confessing their love. Though our boy kept feeling guilty about not returning her love after all these years. He desires nothing but to make up for the lost time and show his love and desire during this special intimate moment. I hope they’ll keep all of chapter 18’s dialogue. It’s just so telling of our boos’ feelings, you see.
All in all, I can’t wait to watch those Polin steamy scenes. As much as I may sound crazy, I want them after two other seasons of pure pining and yearning in order to have a very good payoff. I’m not an expert on depicting intimacy on screen, but I loved so far what Lizzy Talbot, the intimacy coordinator who worked on the show, have done in season 1. Sex scenes in Bridgerton seem very real and dive you in the intimacy of the moment, leaving you all flustered and hot. So probs to her! I have faith in her work and have no doubts about what her and the directors will serve us in future seasons. Though, in the end, I think it’s mostly up to the actors, Nicola and Luke, to see if they’re comfortable filming sex scenes.
If you guys have any suggestions or wishes for those steamy polin scenes, please do share them :) by commenting on this post or by sending me asks! I’d love reading your thoughts/take on this very important matter ;))
#bleulone answers#meta and gush#polin#colin x penelope#bridgerton#colin bridgerton#penelope featherington#polin meta#ask#anon#luke newton#julia quinn#nicola coughlan
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To Infinity And Beyond - Chris Evans x reader
a/n - hey lovely people!! i thought of this when we found out chris is doing lightyear (which i am so happy about omg) and i just really wanted to write it:) also you can see it as my way to make up for the angsty ending of rumor has it lol. also the gif definitely isn’t how i imagened him in the fic i just thought it was nice since he’s voice acting. hope you enjoy and as always feedback is super appreciated<3
Summary: you meet a mysterious strager in your new voice acting job in a pixar movie, but you can swear you knew him from somewhere, if you could just figure out where...
Warnings: this is happening during covid-19, also any and all romantic attraction in this fic is towards chris and NOT buzz, y’all be wildin but it ain’t me, there’s very clear separation between character and actor i promise lol
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you were a voice actor for a few years now
you only had pretty minor jobs by now, some small tv shows, a movie for a small studio
but apparently luck was on your side
you scored the most epic gig ever - Disney!!
you were so excited, disney movies being a part of your childhood and your life
disney was basically a synonym for “happy” for you, and you were indeed ecstatic to work with them
you were voicing the love interest in a new toy story movie, one that was depicting the story of the person buzz lightyear from toy story
so naturally, you brought your friends over to have a toy story marathon to tell them the news
they were just as excited as you were, if not more
you were supposed to meet your costars before the film, but because of covid they wanted to minimize the contact between you all, meaning you had virtually no idea who they were, since no one was officially announced to the public yet
your first day on the job, you came a little early, wanting to affirm the faith that was put in you when they cast you
you were told to wait on a couch outside for a couple of minutes until the actor before you finished
you wanted to ask who was it, but before you could the assistant who ushered you in was already going somewhere else and you didn’t want to bother them
after a few minutes, you saw a man leave the recording studio, his mask on his face
you could’ve sworn he looked familiar, but more importantly
damn
he looked really good, even with a mask
but you didn’t have the time to think about it as he left quickly and you were called inside
you made small talk with the producer for a bit before getting to business, doing a couple takes of each scene and then you were told it’s okay to go
a few days later, when you came in they told you they already have some stuff from buzz, so you were going to do your scenes and hear what he was saying
at first you were glad, because it’s easier to talk when you’re “talking to someone”
but then you realized it was an unwelcome distraction
his voice was so familiar, and you just couldn’t place it for the life of you
you had tried to do a few takes, but each time you got distracted thinking you figured it out and then realizing that’s probably untrue
at the end of your session you apologized
“sorry guys, i’m a little tired today”
they said it was no problem and just to come more focused tomorrow, and off you went
on your way out, you bumped into the man you had seen your first day
like, physically bumped
“sorry,” you smiled through your mask, hoping he’d understand it
he simply waved you off and quickly went upstairs to the studio
oh well, maybe he was late
at any case, as you walked home you realized you could’ve just asked who was voicing buzz and resisted the urge to facepalm since you were in public, thinking you’d ask once the weekend was over
but you didn’t get the chance to ask after all, seeing as they released the news over the weekend
“Chris Evans to voice Buzz Lightyear in new Pixar film”
your jaw dropped
obviously you knew who captain america was, and you were shocked you hadn’t recognized his voice
moreover, you realized you also didn’t recognize his face
this time you were in the comfort of your own home so you actually facepalmed
you had bumped into chris evans not once, but twice, and you didn’t recognize him
god, you were so embarrassed
the next day when you came to work you were greeted by the sight of chris leaving the studio just as you arrived
his mask was still on his chin, so that was the first time you properly saw him
and oh my god was it worth the wait
“Hi,” you smiled at him
“hey,” he smiled back
“I’m probably gonna be a little late, but it’s really nice to officially meet you,” you said
you didn’t know what to do next, but thankfully he extended his hand for a handshake
“you too,” he smiled
“listen, i don’t wanna keep you too long, but can i maybe have your phone number? so we can actually get to know each other,” he chuckled
“yeah, sure,” you smiled
ohmygod chris evans just asked for my number
over the next few weeks you had seen chris a handful of times while one of you was leaving the studio, but you didn’t have much time to talk
until one day, when chris asked you this question:
“do you wanna get something to eat sometimes?”
your brain short-circuited for a good minute
“it’s just so weird being in a movie and not knowing your castmates,” he added
“yeah, i totally get it. i’d love to get something to eat,” you said, his words shaking you from your reverie
“great,” he smiled, “so, uh, i’ll text you”
“sure,” you smiled back
and true to his word, a few days later the both of you went out to a restaurant that had an outside sitting space to eat
when your food arrived you took off your mask and took a bite
“hmmm, this place is rea-”
the words got stuck in your throat as you looked at chris and saw him looking at you with a smile
“what’s wrong, is there something on my face?”
“no,” he quickly assured you, “no, it’s just that it’s even prettier than i imagined. your face, i mean,” he chuckled and looked down at his food
“thanks,” you giggled looking back down at your plate
“so, how come you’re doing this project anyways?” you asked. “i mean, i’ve never known you as a voice actor. i mean, i never really knew you at all until now but you get it,” you chuckled
“yeah,” he smiled, “well, i’ve always really loved disney. like, when i was a kid i really wanted to work there when i was older, so when the opportunity presented itself obviously i took it. young me would’ve beat my ass if i didn’t,” he chuckled.
“that’s so sweet,” you grinned
you talked about your work for a while, some cool scenes you both got to watch, but the conversation got more and more personal as the night progressed, as talking about your favorite disney movies turned into talking about your families and your childhood
talking to him was easy, and you didn’t even feel the time passing until you realized you should probably get out of the restaurant before they kick you out
not that they would kick chris evans out, but you know, manners are important
you offered to split the bill, but chris wouldn’t have it
“c’mon chris, it’s not like this is a date,” you chuckled
a silence settled over the two of you for a moment as you both contemplated what you just said
“what if i wanted it to be, would you allow that?” he smiled after a few moments
“that depends,” you smiled, “are you asking because you want me to let you pay?”
“ah, you got me,” he raised his arms, “but that’s just a part of it. i’m actually asking because i wanna know. for future reference, so i'll know when i ask you out again to ask you to go somewhere you don’t need to pay because you’re so stubborn,” he smiled softly
“alright, i guess you can pay,” you rolled your eyes with a smile, unable to fight the grin rising on your face
“and i’d love to go out again,” you said
don’t worry, you ended up going out again
that’s just a story for another time;)
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i feel like this was probably cuter in my head but i hope you enjoyed!!
Taglist: @horny-nd-bored @shannon124 @perfectlyharolds @wintersoldierslut @iceebabies @sleepingpapermouse @steverogerswasalwaysworthy @holtzkinnon @angelicl-y @stydia-4-ever @thatoneperson5000 @fangirlfree @kaitcordx25 @bequeening @steve-barry-damon-logan @itscrazycherryblossomcollection @hollandxmarvel @stargazingfangirl18 @readsreblogsfics @onetwo3000 @beritmetal @harrystylesholland @jazbot2000 @anobscurename @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @peggycarter-steverogers @evansphnx12
if you wanna join / be removed from this taglist, comment/message me! much love <3
#chris evans x reader#chris evans x y/n#chris evans x female reader#chris evans x you#chris evans fluff#chris evans imagine#chris evans fic
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Mia, episode five
1. One thing Druck is super good at is these aesthetic shots. This whole opening bit reminds me of the scene with Amira when she’s praying in her room. Lots of beautiful shots of the room, curtains and stuff, which are just super pretty with a few hints of colour. I dunno, this is just an aesthetic I like and I appreciate that Druck caters to me. Mia is so cute, too! Like both the way she looks and also how kind she is. She still doesn’t really like Alex a lot (though you could see in that montage from the previous night that she’s warming up to him) but she still feels like she should leave things looking nice. These little post-it notes are sort of cute too, and you can see that she thinks they’re sweet. I don’t like this Bjorn though.
2. Interesting that we get a clip specifically one week later. I have no idea how that must have felt while this was live, and I’m really glad that I didn’t have to live through these long gaps in any of the things I did watch in real time. This one was reasonably low key though, so maybe the wait wasn’t as agonising. If you didn’t know who Bjorn is (I’m assuming the Niko character) then nothing in the last couple of clips would have felt all that alarming. But Mia’s so flirty here - that one conversation at his house must have really charmed her. Pity we didn’t really get to hear a lot of it because he still hasn’t charmed me!! And actually that ‘show a montage of how things are going while a song and/or other conversation plays overtop’ is a huge thing Druck does, I think. I feel like in some cases (Matteo and David after their first pool kiss moment, for example, or Hanna and Jonas breaking up) work quite well. But here, I think we needed to hear more of Alex to actually believe that Mia would be this flirty with him. For me, this is too big a turnaround from her very cold manner with him at the piano and an actual proper look at that conversation might have helped. But also, I am super biased because William and so maybe a more reasonable person might like it okay. This bit with Linn is weird. Genuinely creepy, and I’m not sure why they’re setting her up to feel like this. Maybe some sort of hint of the creepiness to come with Bjorn (I’m assuming it’s coming, anyway).
3. I don’t get this bit with all the pictures at the school. I assume it will become obvious later but I’m not sure what exactly they were trying to do with this. You’d think they run the risk of having the whole Abi chaker clan thing shut down - if this happened in my school there’d be so much trouble. A groups of kids once put post-its all over one teacher’s room and they got in SO much trouble for it, and that wasn’t obscene like this is. This thing here seems so targeted at the Abi thing, using their plan specifically, that it feels like someone outside the group wants them not to be allowed to run their theme. Or someone in the group who wants a different motto maybe. I don’t know, but it feels very mean and very specifically directed at this group of people.
4. Hmmm, I’m with Leonie on this one. I’d be giving Carlos the super evil stare too. It may be ‘funny’ to some of these people, but given that there are younger kids at this school (I assume, right? They still have classes running for the smaller ones at the end of Matteo’s season, allowing their prank to go ahead) this is sure to go down really badly with the school itself. I’m rolling my eyes at the ones who are outraged that the school is considering reporting it - what did they expect? Also, surely they can figure out who was doing it - people were literally throwing handfuls of the pictures over the stairs. Surely they could work out who it is. It’s pretty clear that Alex still thinks this is funny and I’m losing patience with him. Every time it seems like maybe he’s getting less gross he goes and acts like this again. Bleh. I’m not often rooting for Leonie and feeling for her, but wow today I really am. This is shitty and she has a right to be angry.
5. Ew, Alex, why are you stalking Mia again? She’s made it pretty clear she’s not happy with you. Turning up out of the blue like a creep isn’t a good way to go about winning her over again. His ‘we were drunk, what can you do?’ is so... stupid??? They’ve lost money from this, the school is really angry, they could easily have some pretty bad consequences and he’s all ‘meh, it was a drunken prank’? I know money isn’t an issue for him, but there are issues here beyond the money. I’m also kind of annoyed that everyone keeps suggesting she’s upset because she’s jealous. I’ll be really annoyed if the show carries on this way - this isn’t just a silly little prank, and people have every right to be angry and annoyed. Diminishing it to jealousy isn’t cool. Is Leonie also jealous? The people who are angry and upset they’re being blamed and their money has been taken?
6. I do love scenes where the whole girl squad is together. They make me happy and I miss seeing them together so much. But OMG, Alex is blackmailing Mia again???? I mean I guess it worked the first time so why wouldn’t he? But this is seriously shitty behaviour. Honestly, in clip one I was mildly starting to warm to him with the post-its and all, but he’s managed to speed run right back into ‘asshole’ category. This was the problem in the og as well - William was such an asshole, that in order to make him likeable, we had to see a much more genuinely villainous character. Alex is still super dislikeable and so we need someone ‘worse’ to make him look palatable, which I assume is coming. We’re halfway through - we should like him by now. I dunno. Maybe some people do? But he still has done nothing to make me think he’s nice or someone who Mia might be attracted to.
7. Oh a long Friday clip? Almost half the episode? I guess it’s going to be a rough one for Mia then. More reflections again - her whole face in the mirror now, but it’s surrounded by graffiti. I’m always fascinated by the way mirrors and reflections work, and it’s fun to see Mia slightly obscured in her mirrors even now. It’s not as disjointed as it was at the start but it’s not a fully clear reflection either. I may not like the way Noora/Mia’s story goes but I do like some of these things which show the progress.
8. I feel kind of sorry for Jonas, because that break up wasn’t his choice. But seriously, he seems to be blaming this on Hanna a bit and like ????? He chose to make her feel small and unworthy through her whole season. She’s allowed to try to figure herself out outside of him and his wants and needs. Eh, I know he’s hurting and all, but that’s actually his issue and he shouldn’t be pushing it on her.
9. This scene with Mia and Alex bothers me. He still seems to have no idea why she might find his actions (selfish and self-serving and filled with blackmail) offputting. ‘I fixed it, so we should totally be together now’ is such an immature and childish take on this. These types of guys need to grow up and learn that they can’t just buy and/or coerce their way into whatever they want. I like the way they decide to have Kiki walk past just as Mia has to choose whether to say she doesn’t want Alex or not. It adds a poignancy to it and Mia obviously chooses to stick by her friends. I do wish it felt more conflicting, like if Alex genuinely had changed or had shown he has depth or something it would be a bigger ‘wow she’s rejecting him for her friend’ but instead he’s still such an unpleasant character that I don’t care.
10. I’m not sure why Mia does the brushing off of the makeup - I feel like it made more sense when Noora did it (I mean I watched it once a very long time ago so who knows, but my memory is that it was her way of trying to reject being ‘pretty’ and having guys liking her because it was messing her up). With Mia, I don’t understand. Someone help me out?
11. I still don’t get what Mia sees in Alex. Again, I know I have a really big bias against him because of William and I know it was always going to be tough for him to be someone I care about. But even so, this feels like a huge whiplash when she says of course she likes him. I’d get it if we’d seen any of his development, but every time he took a mini step forward he shoved himself right back into dislikeable territory. Once again, I mourn the actual conversation between Mia and Alex. This all feels far too fast, and the fact that this is suggesting his blackmail is all good is very worrying. All the post-it notes in the world can’t make me think he’s nice enough to want to kiss.
Overall, I didn’t really like this one. I feel like the pacing is still off; I don’t believe the speed at which Mia has fallen for him and honestly it hasn’t been very long since Kiki was with Alex and had her heart broken. The fact that Mia even saw her and told him she doesn’t like him only to turn around immediately and change her mind is strange to me. Mia has always come across as a caring person who tries to do the right thing and help out her friends. That she has apparently no qualms at this point is difficult for me. They’re acting the hell out of this, but I can’t buy it. Unfortunately. Sadly, because this is based on a very flawed original, I don’t think it’s going to make me enjoy these two. There are things that I’m interested in seeing as we go forward but most of those have zero to do with Alex.
#druck#mia - episode 5#didn't like this one#update on feelings about Alex - still don't like him#honestly I don't see why Mia goes after him#none of this makes sense to me
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I have some thoughts about how FGO has handled trans and trans-adjacent characters, and I’m frustrated how many people talk about the mishandlings without discussing the transmisogyny in it, but this is long as fuck, so its under the cut.
Its a good thing that FGO is having more characters with the genderless trait who aren’t given that trait for shitty reasons, but framing this as FGO being better at handling nonbinary characters, while technically true, ignores what caused many of the early issues. That cause is often transmisogyny.
Transmisogyny has been an issue in the game since Da Vinci’s introduction. Da Vinci doesn’t have the genderless trait, but she’s still important to discuss to understand FGO’s mishandling of trans characters. Mash and Romani are both angry at the idea of Leonardo Da Vinci not being a man, and call her a pervert, among other things. This is immediately after both find out King Arthur was actually a woman, but neither seemed to care then. Its understood by the writing that some believed to be a man turning out to actually be a cis woman isn’t deserving of malice, but that person turning out to be a trans woman is. The writing surrounding Da Vinci slowly got better, with characters being less shitty about and eventually respecting her gender. While Da Vinci initially describes herself as beyond gender, she says so in response to Roman and Mash’s reaction to her gender, where as whenever she is referred to as a woman (Lancelot saying he couldn’t hurt a beautiful women in Camelot, Napoleon calling her mademoiselle in LB2), she eats it up. Her early description of being beyond gender feels more like a tongue-in-cheek way of degendering a trans woman. While overall the writing treats Da Vinci better now, there are still times where it gets shitty, even as recent as the event where Van Gogh was introduced, where Hokusai talks about both Da Vinci and Van Gogh having an inherent maleness that bleeds into their art. This event did have a guest writer, but it was still allowed into the game.
The first character to have the genderless trait is D’Eon. Historically, D’Eon was intersex and trans feminine, and very likely a trans woman, but the fate version is introduced saying they were crazy in life, intended to be in reference to how they presented their gender. They are also presented as caring more about loyalty to France than what gender they are seen as, when the real D’Eon blackmailed the king into legally recognizing them as a woman. Transmisogyny, as well as intersexism, is pretty obviously what made Type-Moon take reduce D’Eon to just jokes about gender. D’Eon feels degendered in way similar to how Da Vinci is at time, though D’Eon gets it worse
Astolfo debuted in Apocrypha, where their presentation is used for a joke where Jeanne, believing Astolfo to be a girl, freaks out when she sees that Astolfo has a penis. The joke is that it is such a horrible thing to find a penis on some you think is a girl. I shouldn’t need to explain the transmisogyny behind that, or that Astolfo ostensibly not being a trans woman doesn’t make the joke less transmisogynistic. There are other, better things about Astolfo in Apocrypha, but most of their writing in FGO is in the same vein as the joke with Jeanne. This is crystalized in Agartha, where both Astolfo and D’Eon were used for many transmisogynistic, intersexist, and homophobic jokes.
The third, and for a long time last, character to have the genderless trait was Enkidu. They are given this trait due to changes to their myth. In Fate, Enkidu is made of clay, and had a nonhuman appearance until meeting Shamhat, and modeling their appearance after her. They don’t have a physical sex, but, due to originally being a male character and appearing feminine in fate, the writers and fans alike treat them similarly to how they treat Astolfo and D’Eon, though less aggressively. Usually when Enkidu appears in a fate work, one character has to talk about how they can’t tell whether Enkidu is a man or a woman, before settling on neither, but only reach that conclusion because they don’t have a physical sex. The transmisogyny isn’t as strong in Enkidu’s writing, but its still there.
Until LB3, no other character would be given the genderless trait, and what all 3 of them have in common is being AMAB or originally male characters who present femininely. Technically Da Vinci fits this description as well, but her body is considered female by Type-Moon’s standards, so she gets the female trait. Also, with the exception of Astolfo, have bodies that wouldn’t considered male of female by most people. In Deon’s case, this is the result of intersexism, and even more frustrating when you remember that D’Eon blackmailed the king to be seen as a woman. I’d wager the reason Astolfo is grouped with the other two is itself a continuation of the joke from Apocrypha. It’s a coy “We all know what Astolfo’s ‘real’ gender is, but we’ll play along with the joke.”
I think this also explains other characters who, arguably, could be included in the genderless trait, but were not. Nezha, like Da Vinci, only got a “female” body after dying, so they get the female trait too, despite not really being comfortable with any gender labels. Mordred, who consistently gets violently angry at being called a woman, and whose bio states that they don’t like being referred to as a man either (though this wouldn’t be implemented into writing until LB3, where they are clearly far less bothered by being referred to as man) also has the female trait. King Hassan’s bio has his gender listed as “?????” but he is treated as male by the game and has the male trait.
None of the newer genderless servants fit the same description of amab/originally male and presenting femininely, which does show a more nuanced understanding of gender identity and expression, but it doesn’t show anymore respect towards trans women and transfems. Both Shi Huang Di and Douman have somewhat androgynous presentations, but we still don’t really have trans fem character whose gender and presentation is treated respectfully other than Da Vinci, and that’s frustrating. For the most part, though, these characters are all pretty well handled.
Two of them, Mao Nobu and Romulus-Quirinus, are new versions of characters who already had the female and male trait respectively, meaning the game has at least someone moved away from equating the genderless trait to a character’s physical sex, but not entirely since part of the reason Shi Huang Di has the trait is their inability to reproduce.
There is some disagreement about how Caenis is handled, and I do have thoughts on that topic, but if I talked about that this would be twice as long. The short version is that the necessity to make characters fit into fanservice, something which negatively affects all of the characters I mention here, limits the ways in which Caenis’s relationship to their gender can be explored. Its also why we have Caenis and not Caenus, and why Caenis is rarely allowed to where a shirt.
There is also Dioscuri, who is two characters, one man and one woman, who are collectively on servant, so even though they have the genderless trait, they're not really relevant.
We do have more originally male characters now in female bodies. Vritra and Van Gogh, who were added recently (Vritra’s bio says she was originally male and now has a female vessel and Van Gogh is Vincent Van Gogh in Clytie’s body), Kama, an originally male deity possessing Sakura’s body, is being added to NA this year, and even back in part 1 we had Quetzalcoatl, another male god in a female vessel. All of them are given the female trait, and Quetz in particular seems to be very comfortable being a woman, but this still feels like what happened with Nezha, where the “physically female” body matters more than the identity of the character, especially with Van Gogh, who had no choice in being put in Clytie’s body.
Mechanically, the gender traits only affect certain skills and nps, having extra or stronger effects. The genderless servants are exempt from the extra effects, with one exception. Once of Blackbeard’s skills has an effect for female servants, but D’Eon and Astolfo (And maybe also Enkidu, but I don’t remember) were included in this effect as well. The joke here was that Blackbeard is written to be reflective of the worst qualities of weebs and otakus. many of whom would refer to those two as traps, a transmisogynistic slur, so Blackbeard is into them in the same way. Servants with the genderless trait added afterwards weren’t included in this effect, even though some of them (the ones who transphobic fate fans consider to be women) would still be seen as attractive by Blackbeard. So rather than coding each one individually to be included, they added a new trait, the female looking trait, for Blackbeard’s skill. The genderless servants included in this one all present feminine, but the inclusion of this trait is to make continuing a transphobic joke easier, which almost feels like a step back from some of the previous progress in handling trans characters.
I also think some people are a little too eager to give FGO credit when it may not deserve. For instance, a lot of people liked Douman being included in the genderless trait, and on its own it fine, but the my room line where Sei talks about trying to check under Douman’s robes concerns me. Many people took it as Sei just being horny for Douman, but it could easily be intended as Sei trying to check what’s really in his pants, especially since the canon reason Douman has the genderless trait is that he combined himself with some spirits and deities, one of which is female.
None of this is to say its wrong to view any of these characters as nonbinary (I do view most of them as nonbinary), but I don’t think we should view the genderless trait as equivalent to nonbinary. Not only are there characters included in it who probably shouldn’t be (like D’Eon) and characters who don’t have it who probably should (like Nezha), doing so treat nonbinary as a third and wholly separate gender. And if you’re going to talk about the transphobia of FGO, please be willing to use the word transmisogyny.
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Not a Summer Crush Part Three
a/n: this one has some very fun special guests. bonus points for past calvak (s/o @storiesofsvu) in this one, and generally very fun cute pining. any feedback is forever appreciated!!!!!
Part Three
A week after you all had drinks, Rita Calhoun flew into Casey's office with a truly impressive amount of speed, banging the door against the wall, causing Casey to jump in her seat.
"Christ, Rita!" she said, catching her breath. Rita stared at Casey, like she was waiting for her to admit something. Casey had no clue what. "Can I help you with something?"
"Casey Marie Cabot Novak," Rita began. Oh God, not the whole full name, she thought.
"What did I do?" Casey asked, running her current cases over in her head, trying to come up with a place where she could've messed up. It was after the last jury of the day, and she was going over her usual end-of-the-day routine.
Rita closed her eyes and breathed. "Casey. Please tell me that you aren't having an affair with Caroline Haley."
That was not what Casey was expecting.
"What!?" Casey tried to say more things, but her brain was buzzing far too loudly. Where on earth had Rita gotten that idea?
"Don't play dumb with me Casey, just tell me, yes or no, are you sleeping with her."
"Literally, no? Absolutely not, obviously no, in no way am I having an affair with my junior colleague; and I resent your implication that I would, and I resent how you just barged in here and yelled at me."
Rita looked satisfied. Either she'd convinced her that she was telling the truth, or whatever authority she'd received this intel from was unreliable.
Casey continued in a more subdued tone of voice. "Who said I was sleeping with Caroline."
Rita took a deep breath. "Nobody did. I just guessed, and when all the pieces fell into place, I freaked out a bit." Casey looked at her. "I think the lady protests too much, though."
Usually, Casey would come back at her with an equally witty comment, correct Rita’s misquote, or, if she was feeling particularly flustered or tired, throw something. Instead, she sunk into her chair and hid her face in her hands, clearly distraught.
"Casey? What's wrong?" Rita asked, trying to pull her best approximation of sweetness out for her friend.
"You're right."
"I'm right you two are..."
"NO!" Casey almost yelled. "No," she reiterated quietly.
"What am I right about then?" Rita asked, somehow more confused than she was when she thought there was something illicit going on.
"I have feelings for her? I guess?"
"Oh, Casey. Did you tell Alex? I mean, it's pretty normal to be attracted to people other than your spouse..." Rita had taken a seat on her couch, obviously a bit uncomfortable with all this sharing of emotions.
Casey had progressed from the startled rage to a quiet sniffle, the kind one gets when they try to keep themself from crying.
"No," a sniff, "she told me."
"Alex noticed?"
"Alex brought it up. About a month ago."
"So, Alex is the one having an affair?" Casey dotted at her face with a tissue, collecting her composure.
"No, she isn't. Um, there's no good way to say it, but... We both wish we were, all having an affair, I guess? but we aren't?"
Rita whistled, a low bell noise. "That's... a situation for sure."
"It is."
"How did that conversation go? 'Hey babe, I like that new junior ADA, we should try to get her to be our third?'"
Casey scoffed. "No? We're not going to ask her out."
"Why not?" Casey just gave her a look, between incredulity and intrigue."I mean, you two are hot, she's gay, and literally nobody could turn you down."
"That's it though, isn't it? She's ten years younger than me, and we're kind of in charge of her at work. The power imbalance is less than ideal." Casey said, wistfully.
"You were sleeping with Mary Clark when you were 27," Rita said with a shrug.
Casey looked her in the eye. "How did you know that?"
---
Alex knocked very gently on Serena's office door. It was the end of the workday and Serena would be nearly done for the evening. A quiet "come in" came from inside, and Alex did.
Serena noticed something was wrong immediately. Alex always wondered how her friend was so perceptive.
"What's going on, Alex?" Serena asked, knowing that Alex didn't show up without texting unless something happened, in fact, she hardly ever made the trek uptown to her office space unannounced. She noticed a faraway look in Alex's eyes, saw her bite her lip, telltale signs that something was bothering her.
Alex closed the door behind her, leant against one of the comfy chairs in Serena's office. Alex always thought that if Serena wasn't such a good lawyer and passionate advocate, she should've been a therapist. Any space she was in was calm (really, she fit her name).
“Casey and I are, having a problem, I guess.”
Serena rose from behind her desk and met Alex, hugging her tightly. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry.” She let go, sat down, and motioned for Alex to do the same. “What kind of problem, Lex?”
Alex laced her fingers together and then tugged them apart. “It’s Caroline,” she began. “Haley,” she added, like Serena wouldn’t know who she was talking about.
Serena looked at her expecting her to go on. When she didn’t, she asked, “Is she ok?” Alex nodded. “What happened?” Alex’s expression turned more worried, she looked away from Serena. Not a good sign. Serena ventured a guess, hoping she wasn’t right. “Casey isn’t…” Alex shook her head. “Good.”
Serena paused, even more unwilling to imply what she was about to, “Are you?”
“God no,” Alex said, whispering. Serena wondered why Alex even came to her, knowing how self-reliant she was. So... If nobody is having an affair? Serena gave Alex one of her classic looks, that always made Alex feel like her mind was being read. Serena knows that it isn’t that, but it never fails to get her to talk. If nothing else, Alex hates silence.
Alex breathed deeply and tried to calm her hands. She flips the conversation over. “What do you think of her, Ser?” Serena waited a moment to answer, hoping that Alex would open up before she said anything, but seeing that would not be happening, Serena thought about her question.
“I think she’s a wonderful attorney,” she began, knowing full well that your legal prowess was not what was stressing Alex out. “She’s obviously really smart, um, she seems to care a lot about her friends... she’s really pretty, um, I like her, I guess? I don’t know her that well, Lex.”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Serena looked at Alex again, as if to tell her that she was done talking for now. “Um, she’s,” Alex swallowed, took a sip from the travel mug she always carried, “unreasonably beautiful.”
Serena was taken aback at her friend’s choice of words, how she felt about the young attorney, yet, there was no affair happening, apparently. “Strong words. But, if neither of you are sleeping with her, what’s bothering you so much?”
Alex turned her gaze up towards the ceiling. “That neither of us is sleeping with her?”
Serena turned her eyebrows up, then narrowed her eyes, pushed her lips out, considering all the things that Alex could be implying as well as all the ways she could react. She opted for some humor, hoping to shock her friend out of her state. “All this over a threesome you haven’t had?”
It worked, and Alex gave her a thin laugh. “I guess so, yeah. Um, I don’t think either of us just want to have sex, though. I think it’s gone a little beyond that.”
Seeing Alex cheer up, Serena allowed herself to react more spontaneously. “Oh my god. You have a crush, and Casey has a crush.” Serena had an open mouthed expression on her face, the kind that would usually bother Alex when it’s at her expense.
Alex bit her lip into a sweet smile. “Casey’s pretty cute about it, too.”
“You should talk to her, Lex.” Serena said.
---
Ramin was sitting at the counter reading texts while you washed that night’s dinner dishes, drinking a glass of the basil lemonade you’d made (mixed with gin for the adults). Ramin could tell something had been bothering you all week, so he’d made your favorite for dinner, khoresh bademjan and rice (every time Ramin cooked, you thanked Ashley for having the sense to marry an Iranian man instead of the string of other French people he’d dated before him). You two had let Ashley go to bed early-- his company had a big premiere in a week that he was consumed by. The girls were long asleep. You danced around to the Googoosh album that Ramin had over the stereo, making him laugh with your dramatic interpretations of the violin lines. You got contemplative as you scrubbed a plate.
“Hey, Ram?” You asked as you stilled your feet and hands.
“Yeah, babes?” He replied, still looking at his phone.
“When you met Ashley, how did you know what you wanted, or that you wanted something with him?” You put the plate down, played with the sponge, turned around. Ramin bit his lip and looked at you. He turned down the music.
“I never like, made a conscious effort to decipher any of that. It was always very natural with him.”
“You never felt like, I don’t know, like, confused?”
Ramin shook his head. “No, no I didn’t. But Ash is so, uh, forthcoming,”
“Demanding,” you interrupted,
“I never had to guess with him,” he finished.
You nodded, picked up a pot to wash.
"Like, we were both single dads, so Léa wasn't an issue. And he never resented Lowell."
"People really did that?"
"You'd be surprised at how many people are jealous of a dead man," Ramin said, looking at the photo on the wall of his late husband with a newborn Léa. "Ash never was. And I just kinda, knew, you know?"
"I don’t, actually," you replied quietly. Ramin hummed.
"Why do you ask? You got a crush?"
You thought about outright denying it, going forward with your old strategy: deny your feelings until they disappear. But Ramin would know you were lying; and you were growing tired of pretending. Every wall that you'd built over the past few months knowing Casey and Alex started to crack. They wouldn't fall just yet. You shrugged noncommittally.
“Have you ever thought about what would happen if you met someone else?”
“God, I try not to.”
“No, like, someone you both want to, I don’t know, pursue.”
Ramin raised his eyebrows, took a sip of his drink. Smiled at you.
“Did someone ask you to have a threesome?”
Your cheeks burned and you held the pan up above your face. “No, but, ah, I think I want them to?”
Ramin’s jaw dropped, half natural reaction half exaggerated fascination. “Juicy,” he said.
“Pfft,” you replied to his teasing.
“Anyways, no I haven’t thought about that. I imagine it would be a lot of conversations and figuring out what everyone wanted. But also, like, I’m too old for that. And we have the girls and very busy jobs, I don’t think either of us has the mental or physical energy for that kind of thing,” said Ramin.
“You’re not that old.”
“I’m 35,” he said, lifting his shoulders and finishing his lemonade, motioning for you to get the pitcher back out of the fridge. He filled his glass again.
“You’re going to finish that before any of us get a second glass.” Ramin did not acknowledge your admonishment.
“I’m 35 and a widower with three kids. I think I get to call myself old.”
“Only because Ashley’s younger than you.”
“And you are a veritable infant.” Ramin retorted, eliciting a wounded look from you, then resolved to return to you. “So, who’re the lucky ladies?”
You groaned as you put away the sponge, the brush, the soap, and the dish towels. The kettle you had put on whistled. “Casey and Alex,” you replied with some effort not to explode at being genuine and sharing your feelings with a friend.
Ramin gave you a repeat of his earlier performance, except this time his jaw dropped in actual shock. “Lina!” He whisper-shouted, in the way one does when they’re trying not to wake up their daughters and grumpy husband. He whistled. “Did they ask you out?”
You bit your lip. “No. But, I wish they would?”
“You won’t get very far with wishing,” Ramin said, already having moved on to strategy, ever the analytical presence. “Also, you have to introduce me first.”
“I don’t have to do anything for you,” you said, teasingly, pouring the now-slightly cooled water from the kettle over a bag of mint tea and moving to the couch, Ramin following your lead.
“How hasn’t Ashley already told me all of this?” Ramin asked, citing Ashley’s famous inability to keep a secret.
“He doesn’t know,” you said.
Ramin nodded as he sipped his drink, then placed it on a coaster. “Probably smart.” He paused, got a mischievous look in his eyes. “I thought you didn’t do pining?”
You muffled a frustrated yell with a throw pillow.
---
"Mary told me," Rita said, "when you and I were involved," Casey gave a pained smile, remembering her first few years as an ADA in white collar, "she congratulated me, actually." Casey's eyes went blank. "I could've sworn I told you that then. What, Case, people talk about people. And she was right."
Casey let it be silent in her office for a moment. "OK, you knowing the details of my sexual past aside," she said, "what made you think I was having an affair?" She didn't want there to be any gossip around the office that could hurt you.
Rita took a second, looking very much the same as she did when she was preparing an argument in court. "Three things. You've been all jumpy and nervous, Alex has been spacey, and I mentioned you to Caroline and she got this enamored grin," Rita noticed Casey seemed surprised by her last point. "I realized as I was walking over to give you this, actually," she said, reaching into her messenger bag and producing a folded blue paper. "Sorry."
Casey sighed, reading the motion. Back to earth. "OK, Calhoun. See you later," she said, as good as shooing the lawyer from her office. They shared a quick hug before Rita left.
"Hey, Casey, if it matters, I think you should talk to her," Rita said as she left.
"I'll keep that in mind."
---
" I will," Alex said, "I have, kind of. Mostly to point out all the reasons it wouldn't work."
Serena considered. "What about all the reasons it would? I mean, you all get along well, your friends like her, it seems like it could be perfect, if you and Casey are on the same page?"
"The stakes are too high," said Alex, "what if she's not into us? What if it gets us in trouble at work, what would happen if we broke up with her? Or what if it breaks me and Casey up?" The last question she raised genuinely shook her up, Serena could tell.
"Those things are all bad, for sure," Serena replied. "I guess the question would be, is it scarier to find out or to never know?"
"I'm not sure. Hell, she probably wouldn't be into either of us, I mean, I'm 15 years older than her and we both have all kinds of baggage, it's kind of part of why we work; and she certainly must get lots of attention, I mean, she's beautiful," Alex stopped talking abruptly as she saw Serena's laughter. "What's funny?"
"Nothing," said Serena, "it's just that I haven't seen you this nervous about anybody besides Casey.
---
"What are you going to do about it?" Ramin asked you once the dramatics had passed.
"I mean," you said, "nothing? What is there to do about it? I can't pursue them, not without losing my job, so I'm going to have to just get over it."
"Or you could seduce them. Make use of your feminine wiles."
You rolled your eyes.
"Flirt," Ramin said, clarifying.
"Can one use their feminine wiles if all parties are women? I mean, aren't they just wiles?" You asked him.
"I don't know, you should find out," he said. Before you could get angry, he continued, "seriously. You should flirt with them, so they either know you're interested and they go for it, or they get too overwhelmed by how amazing you are and go for it in spite of themselves."
You looked at him. "Damn, Ram. For a guy who's only had three partners you really have some ideas about strategy."
He shrugged. "The worst that can happen is they don't respond to you, and then you know. Obviously, keep it appropriate and flirt with them both so it doesn't seem like you're trying to be a homewrecker."
"Maybe," you said, thinking.
---
#casey novak#alex cabot#calex#calex x reader#alex cabot x reader#casey novak x reader#svu fanfiction#svu fanfic#svu#fluff!! rita calhoun!#rita calhoun#serena southerlyn
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The Bast Bad Idea (Part 2)
Three-part CS AU where Emma and Killian are doctors working at the same hospital (world without pandemic). They’ve yet to meet, but Emma has definitely seen the sexy Dr. Jones in her travels at Mist Haven Medical. It’s generally a bad idea to get involved with a colleague, but a little fantasizing never hurt… right? Inspired by the song ‘Bad Idea’ by Ariana Grande and a TV couple who set the bar for true love stories.
Part One Here. Story available on FF Here and AO3 Here.
A/N: Hello everyone! First and foremost, I want to start with a huge thank you to all of you who have reached out about this story. The response was so far beyond what I was expecting, but I am thrilled to know that all of you enjoy a CS Doctor AU as much as I do. As someone who grew up watching Grey’s Anatomy, it’s essentially engrained in my DNA to love a medical romance, and this story is one I have wanted to write for a long time. I’ve had more than a month away from writing thanks to my busy schedule, but finally my muse came to play and add a bit of fluff to this sweet short story. Chapter two picks up with a critical question – what was Dr. Jones going to propose to Dr. Swan…? Without further ado, here is our answer. Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy!
“This might be presumptuous of me, love, but I find I’m helpless to resist. I was wondering – that is, I was hoping that perhaps, you and I, we could…”
His eyes strayed down to her lips, and Emma wet them absentmindedly. She heard a low growl, and realized it was coming from Killian. She shifted in her seat, turned on in a way she had never been before. Instinctively she moved closer, sensing the sinfully sweet current between them, like lightning just before it cracked across a summer sky. The instant attraction was breathtaking. It felt almost out of time and space.
“We could…” she continued, nudging him along and hoping he would elaborate. She wanted so badly for him to say aloud what she herself was wishing for.
Yet where Emma expected words, she was instead met with action, tantalizing and surprising, but inspiring something in her she never expected. Before she knew it, Emma was in Killian’s arms, aching for this moment, kissing him and knowing she was positively senseless. All that existed was this kiss, this touch. It was electrifying and invigorating, a blaze rushing through her blood stream that emboldened a part of her she’d always held back. Desire. That was what this was, and it was luscious and intoxicating.
Following his lead, Emma broke away from the kiss only to gasp for air as he crowded her body against the wall. The hardness of the cement blocks behind her, coupled with the heat and definition of Dr. Killian Jones was too much to handle. She arched into him, striving for contact, and reveling in the feel of his skin on hers. The only problem was these damn clothes between them. Never in her life had she been irritated at this doctor’s coat she’d worked so hard to earn. For years she studied and poured everything she was into medicine, all for the authority this coat portrayed, but she practically purred when Killian stripped hers off and tossed it to the ground. Pushing his off of his body in return made her mind race. The muscles of his chest and arms were driving her to distraction. Then they flexed, and she swallowed harshly, earning a deep, decadent chuckle from this man who drove her crazy.
“See something you like, Swan?”
God that cockiness. They’d never had any kind of real conversation before now, but the way he smiled spoke volumes. His air and his persona were dripping in assuredness. Emma used to think that she hated so much confidence, but when it came to Killian, she craved it something fierce. It was somewhat infuriating, the way his eyes shone with mischief and conceit, but it was also hotter than anything she’d ever known. Still, part of her would rather die than admit that aloud. She had her pride, no matter how wrapped up in this moment she may be.
“It’s hard to say,” she replied, her voice sounding out with a shredded silkiness that she’d never heard before. “I haven’t seen much of anything yet.”
“My apologies, love. Allow me to rectify the situation.”
Emma watched as this ridiculously attractive man purposefully teased her. With deft fingers he reached for the base of his scrub top, inching the material higher up his body. The trail of dark hair he revealed was evocative, but it held no candle the shape and tone of those abs underneath. Sweet Jesus, were those real? Emma bit back a groan at the sight, her lip pressed tight between her teeth. It took everything in her to keep her hands from reaching for him. She lay them flat on the wall behind her at her sides instead, but they balled into fists unconsciously as Killian eventually tossed the shirt away.
His black hair was mussed now, both from removing the scrubs with that always-present swagger, and from her fingers having run through it during their never-ending kisses. His eyes were dark navy blue, but still they shone with hunger and delight. His grin was a mix of charming and predatory, but instead of inciting a fight or flight response, Emma only wanted to surrender. This was a man who knew he was in complete control. He had hooked her, totally and beyond any shadow of doubt, and all she wanted was for him to have his way with her.
The curses he whispered while helping her shed her own scrubs were like prayers on high, a sweet song to her ears that only added to his allure. Killian’s eyes never strayed from her, but his reactions were so open and transparent. He hid nothing, allowing her a glimpse to the world inside, and it caused the power between them to shift. If Emma was being hunted, then she was also hunting in return, and Killian seemed ready to be caught.
“Emma, I -,”
His voice faded out, and she struggled to hear him. Instead, there was a blaring alarm. Was this a fire drill? Why had the light in the room gone hazy? Still, Emma heard herself whisper his name.
“Killian?”
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
The screech of the sharp, incessant chiming by her ears wrenched Emma’s eyes open, and immediately she groaned in disappointment. All of that – every exquisite moment – was a dream. Ugh, of course it was! Because this was her life now: fantasizing about a hot trauma surgeon ceaselessly and wishing that her memories of him were more than mere imagination.
“Damn it,” she muttered aloud, covering her eyes with her hand in frustration. With her vision blocked, Emma was more aware of the feeling that her body was wrapped up in her sheets. She’d obviously been tossing and turning through the night, restless in ways she rarely was before seeing Doctor Jones. These freaking dreams just felt so real, and they’d only gotten worse since officially meeting him.
That was three days ago now, but things had been chaotic in the meantime. The level four trauma that came in when they’d been formally introduced totally swamped the ER. Emma was called down for consult on multiple patients, needing to give life and death assessments and treatment plans for half a dozen people. While down there, Emma had the chance to see David and Killian in action. She was struck, even in the grips of adrenaline, by their cohesion and capability. They were cool and collected, battling odds that were dire to say the least, but they prevailed. Emma had worked for years to hone her craft, to heighten her skills, and to meet the moments of medicine that her work provided. But the energy in the ER had shifted, and she felt her own abilities elevated by the camaraderie and collectiveness of everyone in the hospital.
That shared experience only lasted a short while, for after initial inspections and emergency consults, Emma was quickly rerouted to the surgical wing. For 16 hours straight she worked to save the lives of four people, and through something that felt like magic, or maybe divine intervention, she was successful each and every time. That good fortune held, not only for her, but for all of her colleagues as well. The hospital had managed something next to impossible – they had saved every victim of the horrible accident, but the work had been backbreaking. When she’d finally scrubbed out of her last procedure, Emma admitted defeat, heading home and sleeping for twelve straight hours.
Her next shift was markedly slower, and Emma had the chance to see the progress of her post-op patients, and to connect with the others in her unit. It was critically important that the doctors, nurses, admins, tech teams, and other staff were all feeling strong and secure. Patients needed everyone working as a collective whole, and Emma took it upon herself to monitor that. It was unusual for a Doctor, especially one who wasn’t overseeing daily operations, but it mattered to Emma. Saving lives took so much more than her medical degree and steady hands. She needed each and every person in the cardiac wing to be successful, and she valued every one of them for what they brought to the team.
Unfortunately, while Emma’s day was slower and steadier, there was also a favorite element now lacking. She wasn’t too proud to admit that she’d willingly joined Ruby on the daily trip to the coffee cart. Actually, she’d been the one to page Ruby this time, earning more than a bit of teasing from her best friend, but Killian and David never showed. Only later, when Emma was at the tail end of her workday and helping with a consult in the ER, did she learn why.
“He was here for sixty-eight straight hours,” David said bluntly, after having confirmed his diagnosis for a patient presenting with a blood circulation issue.
“I’m sorry?” Emma asked, confused for a moment at David’s turn of topic.
“Killian,” David said, prompting Emma’s face to heat. Here she was, hoping it wasn’t totally obvious that she was looking for a man she hardly knew beyond imaginings, but David had seen through her in a matter of moments.
“Oh, um – that’s, well that’s… crazy. Sixty-eight hours?” That beat even her record, and she’d been called a workaholic on more than one occasion.
“Mhmm. We were on the end of a twelve-hour shift when the call came in and he stayed, until every last patient in the trauma department was seen and attended to. I left for eight hours and was dead to the world the entire time. Still felt laggy when coming back. Meanwhile, he caught maybe four hours sleep total interspersed between rounds, crashing in on call rooms. You’d never know though. He was totally unfazed. Brilliant as ever. It was like being back in the field again.”
“Seriously?” Emma asked, amazed at that. She was no stranger to long shifts, but to work that hard for that long was a herculean feat. Somehow, though, she wasn’t surprised to hear Killian had pulled it off.
“Yup. I had to force him to go back to his hotel. Actually, Regina had to. I tried, but until the Chief said something, he wouldn’t budge. She had to spew all sorts of protocol and legal jargon at him to get him to go. Even then, I could tell he was debating whether to stay or not.”
“He has a real connection with his patients,” Emma commented, vocalizing a fact she’d ascertained by watching him in action. Killian cared deeply, and while his main job may be all about stemming the flow of crisis, and bouncing around from one case to the next just to keep people holding on, he kept track of all those he helped, and invested in each patient no matter what.
“Maybe. I think it had more to do with the fact that it was only eight am and you wouldn’t be at the coffee stand yet.”
Before Emma could respond, David was paged for something else. He’d left her with a polite goodbye, but also a knowing smile. Another time, Emma might have tried to fake that she wasn’t interested or deny that there was something between her and Killian, but instead she was too busy fixating on what she’d just heard. Emma carried David’s assessment around with her for the rest of the day, well after leaving the hospital and heading home. She spent the night wondering if what David said was true. Was Killian as interested in her as she was in him?
“This might be presumptuous of me, love, but I find I’m helpless to resist. I was wondering – that is, I was hoping that perhaps, you and I, we could…”
“We could what?” she whispered, getting out of her car, heading inside to her next shift. “What was he going to ask me?”
“Did you say something, Emma?”
Emma jumped at the unexpected question, senses on high alert as she stood before the elevator in the parking garage. When she found Mary Margaret only a few feet from her, and clearly the orator of the previous question, Emma relaxed slightly. She tried her best not to show her embarrassment, but it was difficult. Now she was talking to herself? Jeez, she was truly losing it at this point.
“Oh, uh, nothing. How are you today?” she asked her friend. Mary Margaret smiled widely. Her excitement was palpable, filling up the elevator car as the two of them stepped inside.
“I’m great! Just eager to get to work.”
“Any interesting cases on the schedule?”
“Oh, uh, sure, there’s a few, I guess. Well really most of my day is going to be in consult with the Chief’s office.”
“Wait a second, you have to spend a prolonged period of time with the Evil Queen and you are smiling? Who are you and what have you done with Mary Margaret?” Her friend now looked flustered, clearly trying to grasp at an explanation and then it dawned on Emma. “This is about David isn’t it?”
“David?” Mary Margaret asked, her pitch higher than it had been just moments ago. Emma laughed at her friend’s terrible play acting. Trying to pretend that this wasn’t about David Nolan was a lost cause. Eventually Mary Margaret realized that, and she sighed, releasing the tension in her shoulders as she exhaled. “Okay, yes, I am seeing Dr. Nolan today.”
“Let me guess, he’s also going to be at the admin meetings.”
“They’re about coordinating long term therapies better with our emergency protocols and treatments. So yes, the head of the ER is likely to make an appearance.”
“I see,” Emma said, biting back a smirk so as not to make Mary Margaret too uncomfortable. In the end though her curiosity won out, and she had to ask. “So, any movement there?”
“Movement?”
“Has he asked you out yet?”
“Not exactly.” Emma waited for her friend to explain herself. Mary Margaret held off for a few seconds before blurting out the truth. “I actually asked him.”
“Really?” Emma was shocked. Not because she thought any less of Mary Margaret. In fact, quite the opposite. She was proud of Mary Margaret for going for what she wanted. She just had never ever seen Mary Margaret step outside of a comfort zone like that, and certainly not with a hospital colleague. “Good for you. And he obviously said yes.”
“Why is it obvious?” Emma rolled her eyes, but in a teasing way.
“Come on, you know you two were making heart eyes at each other the other day. There was a definite spark. We all saw it.”
“I’m honestly surprised you noticed since you had your own, what did you just call them? ‘Heart eyes’? Well, you definitely had heart eyes for a certain trauma surgeon.”
Now it was Emma’s turn to blush, and what perfect timing, because the elevator doors had just opened to the lobby. They exited the quiet of the elevator to a hustle and bustle found only at a top tier hospital. It felt like a swarm of people, buzzing every which way, on their own individual paths.
“David and I going to dinner tomorrow,” Mary Margaret said quietly, looking around and finding no eavesdropping colleagues. When the coast was clear, she smiled, looking back at Emma with excitement all over her face. “That’s all I know though. I may have asked him out, but he made it very clear he had plans for how our first date was going to be.”
“I have a good feeling about this guy,” Emma said, referring to David. She had known Mary Margaret for a long time, and she knew how much her friend wished for a real and solid love in her life. Few people desired and deserved that kind of connection like Mary Margaret, and for Emma, there was a real satisfaction in seeing her friend’s instant connection with a stand-up man. Based on past experience, there weren’t too many of those to go around.
“Which one?” Mary Margaret asked. Emma stammered something non-committal out, causing her friend to laugh once more. “And that right there is all the answer I need. See you later, Emma. Oh, and when you see Killian again, just go for it. Believe me, it’s so much better than waiting and wondering.”
With that, Mary Margaret headed towards the wing of the hospital where the Chief and her admins worked. At the same time, Emma turned her attention to the cardiac unit. She had a ways to go to get there, but while still in the main entrance of the hospital she was stopped short by a gruff, and somewhat uncertain voice.
“Excuse me, Doctor Swan?”
“Yes?” Emma replied, looking to the young man who approached her. Taking in his features, she realized she knew him peripherally. He was one of the new interns cycling through the hospital this year, but he hadn’t worked in the cardio wing or in a surgical capacity. Taking in his lanyard, which bore his ID card over plain clothes, she saw he was an ER intern. Interesting. “Can I help you?”
“This is for you.” The young man offered her a paper box. Emma accepted, thoroughly confused before the intern elaborated. “Curtesy of Doctor Jones.”
“Oh,” Emma said, suddenly incredibly interested. Unable to resist, she opened the box. She didn’t know what she was expecting, but what she found made her smile widely. “These are flowers. Paper flowers.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m not entirely sure of the significance, but Doctor Jones told me there is a note inside as well. He wanted me to be sure to mention that.”
Emma was more than excited to read what this astonishing man would write to her, but something the intern said reminded her of the awkwardness of this situation. Had Killian used his authority over the interns to have this delivered? It wasn’t a crazy assumption. Many of the residents and attendings here saw interns as the low rungs on the ladder. They were meant to be learning and training, but often they were sent on coffee runs and foolish errands. Emma never believed in that though. She found it unkind and unnecessary.
“To be honest, it was hard to convince Doctor Jones to let me bring these,” the intern said, perplexing Emma further while eerily reading her mind. “I had to offer about a half dozen times. My shift was ending, you see, and I’ve been looking for a way to thank Doctor Jones since he got here. You know he created extra hours in the ER skills lab? He’s working with first years too. We get very little access usually, because the third years are prepping for exams and stuff, but he convinced Doctor Nolan to extend the hours. He’s even hosting classes himself. Cool right?”
“Very cool,” Emma said with a nod, and another smile. She breathed out a sigh of relief, genuinely happy to realize this man she’d been thinking of was good to others. It also made accepting this thoughtful gift so much easier.
From there, Caleb said goodbye, heading out for whatever interns did with down time these days. Oh, who was she kidding? Sleeping. That’s what she’d done, and no doubt that was what all interns still wanted most of all. Emma though, felt more awake now than she had in a long while. She found a quiet corner in one of the corridors leading to the cardio unit and took a seat, opening the box away from prying eyes.
Inside the box there were six different types of what looked like origami flowers. They were beautiful and delicate, and she wondered where he could have bought them. Only when she opened the note did she realize the truth.
Emma,
As you know, I’ve been away for quite a while, out in the field in a completely different world. In the desert there’s not really that much to do, except survive and keep as many of your people as well as you can. The downtime is long and hot and quiet. I picked up these tricks from a fellow soldier. It kept my hands at the ready and my mind clear, and there’s an honest beauty in them that reminds me of you.
Truth be told, there’s a flower for each time I’ve tried to catch you at the coffee cart since our meeting. Clearly my missions have been unsuccessful, so this calls for a change in tactics…
Emma smiled at the thoughtfulness and felt the pull of butterflies low in her chest. He thought she was beautiful, and he said it without fear. Had a man ever said so much? Had it ever mattered? Certainly not like it did now. Reading on, Emma laughed at the lightheartedness of the note and the bit of cheeky humor that accompanied it. His easygoing candor and transparency enchanted her, drawing her in even more than she already was. Then she memorized the time and place he suggested that they meet at the bottom of the page, knowing nothing and no one was going to keep her from this meeting.
Only after reading through his handwritten thoughts three or four times did she realize an added layer of perfection: these flowers weren’t just handmade and crafted with intention. They were also safe for her to take with her to her ward of the hospital. Being in and out of the ICU and cardiac units, Emma couldn’t bring real flowers into her offices without putting some patients at risk, but she could have these. From within the box she selected a bright yellow blossom, beautiful and intricate and folded to perfection. Wordlessly she tucked it away in her pocket. The others were deposited for safe keeping in her office as soon as she arrived back in the East Wing, and displayed on her windowsill, brightening the space.
The hours between the start of her shift and the time she was meant to meet Killian passed by slowly. Her rounds usually distracted her, but not today. While she still gave all due attention to her patients, Emma had that sense in the back of her mind that this afternoon would bring so much more to the forefront. The promise of seeing him again kept her heart pattering faster than it should be, and by the time the clock was minutes from their meeting, she was positively bursting with anticipation.
“Okay, usually I would give you a hard time and pretend to tag along, but even I can’t mess with a smile like that.” Ruby’s words snapped Emma’s focus back to the hallway where she was standing, pretending to read a chart. As she looked to her friend, however, she would never be able to recall what was on the screen in front of her. Ruby grinned when their eyes met. “He gave you the flowers, didn’t he?”
“You knew?” Emma asked and Ruby nodded.
“Yup. Ran into him at the cart a couple of times. He was really starting to piss off the kiosk guy with all his loitering. Had to give him a hundred dollars just to shut him up.”
“He didn’t!”
“No, I wouldn’t let him. I told Boris to shut it unless he wanted a hospital wide nurses strike. Guy knows better than to cross me. He just acts tough for clout.” Emma laughed, knowing her friend truly ran this place in most ways. But then the apprehension of the moment caught up to her again, and Emma’s brow furrowed in worry. “Oh no you don’t. No doubting this, Ems. I’ve vetted this guy. Run all the background, checked all the sources. He’s a good one, a one in a million, needle in a haystack, diamond in the rough kind of man. And, to top it all off, he’s crazy about you.”
“You think?” Emma asked and Ruby nodded.
“I know, but that’s all I’m saying. Let Killian speak for himself, okay? And, even though it’s hard, try and trust this.”
“I think I already do,” Emma whispered. “Trust him, I mean. But that’s crazy, right?”
“Love tends to be that way.”
“Ruby.”
“Emma,” her friend parroted, taking her hand and squeezing gently. “Just go for it. Go for it and see for yourself.”
With a nod, and the validation that she needed to hear from a trusted friend, Emma headed off. It felt natural and expected to make her way towards the center of the hospital once more. This time though, she passed the coffee cart, with only a fleeting glance. Killian wasn’t meeting her there today. In fact, she wasn’t entirely sure where they were meeting. She followed the directions he’d given her, up a few more flights of stairs and through the wing with pediatric patients and newborns. She had been here many times before, for consults and comfort. It was a draw here in the hospital – the cuteness of babies just starting their journeys in the new world. Emma looked at them today, noticing the vibrancy inside the nursery, but didn’t linger. Instead, she followed the last of the route that Killian had given her and ended up somewhere she’d never been before. A place that must have just finished being renovated.
“Wow,” Emma whispered, walking into the sunlight on the open terrace.
With the glass surroundings and the plant life everywhere, this place was beautiful. There were pergolas and hanging vines, topiaries and flowering plants, daffodils and tulips, all breathing in the spring. It felt like a park, floating in the air, with the sounds of the city barely audible below. Emma could imagine the kids and the families who would come here someday. She hoped it would be a space for them to find some peace and happiness while staying in this unfamiliar and often stressful place. Hospitals were rarely any fun for patients, necessary as they may be, but this space was beautiful enough to distract from that.
“You made it, love.” The deep rumble of that familiar voice sent a shiver through Emma’s whole body. She cast a glance over her shoulder, finding Killian, leaning against the stone façade of the building behind them. In his hands were two coffees, and as he moved towards her, he offered her one with a boyish smile. “This is for you. Didn’t want you missing a routine caffeine fix for my sake.”
“Thank you,” Emma said automatically, feeling his fingers brush across hers, sending a zing of awareness through her. Her eyes flashed up to his, and she knew he felt it too. Suddenly she had no want or need for this coffee. She cleared her throat slightly before continuing on. “Where exactly are we? And how, might I ask, does the new guy know about it before I do?”
“It’s the Hubbard Family Wellness Gardens, gifted by one of the hospital’s most loyal benefactors” he said, full of knowledge. Emma was shocked that he actually knew what this place would be but then he smiled, gesturing to the plaque bearing that information. She bit back a laugh. “And as for how I found it, that’s easy. I never leave well enough alone, and I’m curious by nature. I’ve been nearly everywhere in the hospital now, but this place seemed the best for what comes next.”
“What comes next?” Emma asked, her voice hitching up as she repeated the words.
“Aye,” Killian murmured, his tone dipping sensually low. She swallowed harshly as he entered into her space, and he tracked the motion. She felt the heat of his closeness, and caught his scent in the air, clean, and male, and with a hint of spice.
“I’m afraid I didn’t think this through,” he said, close enough to kiss her. God, how she wished he would kiss her. Emma vocalized her first thought.
“Really? I did. Like a lot.”
His smirk told her she’d said that aloud even though she never meant to, but before she could react, he took hold of her cup once more.
“I meant these,” he gestured to the coffee in her hand. Oh, right. “May I, love?”
Emma nodded, and shakily let go of the cup she forgot she was holding. With deft hands, Killian placed their drinks back on a table beside them with far more poise than she could muster at the moment. When that was done, he stepped towards her again, looking at her with a glint in his blue eyes that made her heart skip. His hands came to her body, one to her hip, the other to cup her cheek. The rightness washed over her, and so did the realization that none of her dreams could actually prepare her for real intimacy with Killian Jones.
“Last time we spoke I intended to ask you something. Do you remember?”
“Yes, I remember,” she whispered, her voice hoarse from wanting this so badly. Without thinking, she wet her lips, and he caught the action, letting out a groan that mixed pain with passion and pleasure. Then he cursed, a totally British ‘bloody hell’ falling past his lips before dipping his mouth to hers and giving them both a taste of temptation.
The kiss was… beyond incredible, but Emma was so deep in it she had no ability to comprehend anything at all. She was consumed with the moment, arching against Killian, feeling the silky strands of his dark hair and the scruff of his beard. His kiss was assured and passionate, dominant and indulgent all at once. She succumbed to the sensations, and let the rightness surge within her, not caring at all that they were outside or at work or that they’d just met. Instinct took over, and her gut, which Emma had always trusted, was telling her that this man was even more than she imagined, and someone she should choose to let in.
Pulling back from the kiss, Emma and Killian stayed close, and Emma took stock of all the places they were touching. His hold on her was firm but caring, like she was precious, and he wouldn’t let her slip away. In his eyes she saw so much emotion, and again she was struck by his transparency and trust. He wasn’t shying away from her or the moment. He was in the depths of desire with her, and their kiss, that perfect, sexy as all hell kiss, had left him tongue tied. The quiet wasn’t awkward, but assuring, and Emma felt secure here, safe even, while also being filled with more unknown wonder than she’d ever been before. Like someone at the start of a glorious adventure, she took a next step born of passion and hope.
“I’m off at six tonight… so, you want to pick me up at seven thirty?” she asked, referencing a date he hadn’t actually asked her out on. She feigned ignorance even though she could read him like a book. “Unless you were going to ask me something else…”
His hold on her tightened, and he shook his head immediately. She was right. He wanted a date – and she saw no reason to wait when she wanted one just as badly. She grinned at him, loving how the tables had turned. This time he swallowed harshly, and she was oh so tempted to kiss him again and see if he’d stay shy or rise to her challenge.
“It’s a date, Swan,” he said dazedly.
Emma hummed out her agreement, going in for one last fleeting kiss. But where she meant to only tease, he took the reins again, kissing her senseless and leaving her breathless when they finally broke apart. Only when her pager beeped with an incoming call did they end their inevitable interlude, and as they did, Emma felt a pang of longing, wishing this moment could last so much longer than this.
“Tonight, love,” he whispered, running his thumb against her lips. “Far away as it may seem, I promise the wait will be worth it.”
“Good,” she replied, nipping his thumb ever so softly, and bringing the fire back in his eyes, before taking a step back. And with that, and just enough presence of mind to grab her coffee, Emma headed off, back through the hospital to the work that awaited her, knowing she could and would get through anything today for the promise of tonight.
Post-Note: Ah!! Finally!! I got the words on the page!! I did the thing!! I wrote the story!! And honestly, it’s such a relief. It felt, at some points, like I may never get this chapter written, but finally today it came. I know many of you were waiting, and I cherished every comment and review and message along the way. I hope all of you who wrote me, and those who read along with chapter one, all enjoy this installation. I write these stories for me and to brighten my world ever so slightly, but also in the hopes that they’ll spark joy for others too. In a time like this, a little joy goes an awful long way. Anyway, thank you all for reading, sending you the best, and hope you’ll join me next time for the final chapter of this CS AU! xE
#captain swan#captain swan fic#captain swan au#cs fic#cs#cs au#cs fluff#cs smut#captain swan fluff#cs ff#captain swan ff#captain swan smut#emma swan#killian jones#the whole storybrooke gang#cs doctor au#cs medical au#ouat fic#ouat ff#once fic#once ff#bad idea#bad idea part 2
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Graham Burns: Analysis of the Nerd of Action
Hello, friends. Today’s character analysis is at the request of a dear reader @petrichornial who wanted an analysis of Graham Burns who is the genius of the Burns rescue operative family from Rescue Bots as well as Boulder’s partner and good friend.
As far as character biography goes, it is pretty simple. Graham Burns is one of the Burns kids and is younger than Kade and older than Cody, but it is never confirmed if he is older or younger than Dani though is is very likely that he is older than her because he is a university graduate though it could be that he skipped some grades from being an exceptional genius. When he was Cody’s age, he was also a Lad Pioneer and was good at it, but after getting lost in the woods one time, he left out of embarrassment. While he is a licensed and expert engineer, it is clear that he is still studying either for a Masters degree or even possibly a doctorate. When he is first introduced to Boulder, it is under the impression that he is just a machine though after learning that he was a person, he still had some trouble respecting him as such. Graham was initially more concerned with analyzing and learning about how Boulder worked as an alien life form which made the bot very uncomfortable if not insulted. Graham quickly realized that this was not right and respected Boulder as a person for the rest of the series. They even become best friends. Amy would later develop a crush on a newcomer and fellow loveable nerd Amy though he had trouble talking to her and even made several goofs along the way before finding the confidence to just say hello to her. It isn’t known how much their relationship progressed though or if anything did become of their mutual attraction since their first meetup. At the end of the Rescue Bots series, the rescue team was separated though Graham and Boulder remained partners as they were assigned to the west coast. While Graham never made an appearance on Rescue Bots Academy, it can be concluded that he is still fulfilling that duty alongside Boulder when the bot isn’t teaching new recruits and like Cody Burns, he remains in touch with the rest of the gang.
As a character especially of his type, I have to admit that Graham really got underrated as he breaks several molds for it. Most obviously, he may be the brains, but is not without enough brawn to hold out on his own. In both the action figure line and the cartoon, Graham has work boots, a construction helmet and for the toy only, a vest. We even see that Graham does get his hands dirty, is in shape, likes to camp and he even plays sports meaning that unlike most geek characters, Graham is not physically the weakest of the team. He also doesn’t have any of those stereotypical setbacks like a plethora of dietary limits, allergies to everything (just cats) and he isn’t asthmatic. Moreover, while he does struggle with his communication skills and talking to girls, he is not so socially inept that he is consistently insensitive or says inappropriate things that make people feel uncomfortable. Graham is a gentleman, he has enough sense to think before he talks, he is not oblivious to feelings and he does like people. Yes, he’s an introvert, but he is willing to open up when the chance presents itself.
Another thing about him that is noteworthy is that his genius never becomes a drag or the only reason for his character. His knowledge of things doesn’t go beyond his industry and he never pretends to know more than he does. And there have been times where Graham had to ask for help. Back in the day, geek characters were always expected to know everything and solve problems by reading a book then becoming experts overnight. In Rescue Bots, Graham shows us that even geniuses have limits and need time to get the hang of skills that are new to them. Furthermore, Graham doesn’t have the annoying speech stereotype of talking with the tone of a book or in this snobbish way. He talks and walks like a regular person. Most notably, Graham is not even the biggest genius in Griffin Rock. That title is reserved for the scientists who reside there or have made contact with it. Nor does he ever get competitive with them or jealous of their knowledge.
The most important aspect of Graham is that he acts his age and human. Even with all his genius, Graham has the same interests as most people his age and does the things we expect him to do when in certain situations. Like eating at his desk while doing homework and he enjoys things like pizza. He is also not above making bad decisions like eating the Magic Meat/Fo-Foo just because it was there even though it smelled awful and seemed off. Or going to Kade for advice on how to approach a girl or coming up with a cologne to solve his problems with his confidence. The most notable bad decision he made though was years ago when he left the Lad Pioneers before being given his last badge out of shame after getting lost in the woods. He is a good balance of capable, but human which is good.
In short, Graham is definitely a sign of the times in how the media does still follow tropes, but now, it does so respectfully and it no longer stereotypes its characters. Graham is Graham first and a geek second. And being the geek doesn’t make him weak and he shouldn’t be if he does rescue missions.
So what do you all think of Graham Burns? Anything you want to add to this analysis?
If you have a Transformers theory or character analysis you want explored, please let me know in my ask box. And please, support me through Patreon or Ko-fi if you want me to make Transformers merch and videos. Or if you want a commission of your favourite bot, let me know in my shop. All links are on my profile page.
Thanks for reading and please, stay safe.
#transformers#transformers fandom#transformers rescue bots#rescue bots#rescue bots academy#boulder#graham burns#lad pioneers#burns family#character analysis#transformers boulder#cody burns#dani burns#kade burns#chief burns#charlie burns#geek#nerd#genius
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things that have happened in my yttd au
this is your typical ‘au where nobody dies and they just happen to know eachother’ but all the participants are very close and... i’ve just thought up random scenarios n headcanons to go along with it.
(also a lot of these r influenced by .shintsukimistan’s headcanons so please check out their blog if you wanna see good headcanons!)
canon ships in this au: joemaru, keiji x kai, rekonao. (we also have hinakanna but im not really sure about shipping children, so we’ll just place it as platonic for now :] ) long post undercut
- q-taro is very very competitive, and he’s confident in his sports ability. so one time, joe challenged q-taro to a round of twister, in which q-taro obviously one, but then kai was like ‘i’d like to have a go.’ q-taro is like very intimidated by kai lol so he’s tryna impress him, and a move calls for kai to put his hands on, let’s say red. q-taro’s leg is in the way. queue kai doing a backbend and landing flawlessly. And keiji was laughing his ass off. like everytime you remind him of this he’ll laugh.
- they were all sleeping over at mishimas house on thanksgiving. unfortunately mishima lives next to a person who’s a spider enthusiast, and a tarantula got loose and ended up right next to gin somehow.
he woke up and screamed, every1 came running in (except for shin he kinda just walked in n then turned around saying ‘nope nope nope’) EVERY1 WAS SCREAMING and kai just *calmly places it in a jar*
- nao: babe. wake up. please. i need to tell you something. honey. wake u-
reko: what is so important that you had to wake me up at 4am on a tuesday
nao: i love you
- one time q-taro was drunk, and he gets competitive as hell. he was sitting at a table with kai, joe, keiji and alice, going On and On about how he was the strongest. joe dared him 2 arm wrestle keiji and in doing so, keiji got ready and simply just slammed his hand down before joe started counting (it took him off guard) keiji is smug as hell so q-taro is yelling that it wasn’t fair n keijis going ‘haha lol guess you aren’t the strongest’ and q-taro was progressively getting more annoyed
- kai is a stickler for proper posture and one time whacked shin in the back with his ladle thingy (is it called a ladle)... shin got a bruise LOL
- gonna talk about the ships for a little! reko and nao have been dating for 1 yr n 4 months. they met at a cafe (lol classic cafe au ooo) and reko was just entranced with nao’s hair. she went up to go say that (she doesn’t like to just ogle in silence lol) and nao told her she looked really cool. they exchanged numbers after small talk, and nao confessed 2 months later. very healthy relationship, yin to eachothers yang :]
- still not sure about keikai?!? how they’d date n stuff.. they’re both very reserved.. maybe kai wld confess
- ranmaru confessed w a letter! after being talked into it by sara, he wrote a note to joe telling him to meet at their hangout spot after school. joe came n was like ‘hey someone said 2 meet here have u seen them- OH WAIT’
it was a very slow confession.. ranmaru was very nervous. made it clear his feelings for joe were beyond friendship. joe asked him what being romantic w eachother meant, n ranmaru explained. joe didnt realize his feelings for maru were romantic up until that moment, and accepted his confession :D he and ranmaru sat down and joe asked him about what he felt comfy and uncomfy w, and talked about what they shld n shldn’t talk ab. it was sweet. they told the others soon later.
- speaking of others, i mentioned this before, but best friend squad!! ryoko, joe, sara, anzu, ranmaru and kugie are all friends! :D joe and sara and ryoko were friends prior, and anzu was ryokos friend (they were both in band). after ryoko introduced anzu to joe and sara, ranmaru came along and anzu befriended him, introducing him 2 joe sara n ryoko. then kugie got expelled from her last school and came 2 the school.. sara befriended her quite easily bc she does not take shit from anyone and kugie found that attractive LOL and boom! bsf squad! they hang out often! (i’ll make headcanons ab them later lol)
- hinako and kanna met at school :D they were paired 2gether for a project, n kanna was REALLY scared of her at first. but after like a few minutes she realized hinako wasn’t that scary n actually kinda nice (hinako was exhausted that day, if she wasn’t she probably would’ve tried 2 scare kanna a lil more tmjiwt). kanna and hinako became friends after that, hinako did have a bad case ‘ohh is she pretending to like me?’ but it quickly faded after kanna did kind things out of the blue. they have sleepovers like a lot (n they cuddle platonically :D its just kanna going ‘..hinako’ ‘yes’ ‘can kanna be cradled’ ‘okay’ and then they fall asleep like that)
- joe: hey you two are kinda similar (to ranmaru and shin). you’re both kinda quiet, kinda emo, skinny, kinda good with tech, n ur both relatively the same height
*ranmaru and shin look at eachother*
ranmaru: yeah except i dont look like this *over exaggeratedly slouches*
shin: .___.
#yttd#kimi ga shine#anzu kinashi#ryoko hirose#kugie kizuchi#sara chidouin#joe tazuna#ranmaru kageyama#keiji shinogi#qtaro burgerberg#reko yabusame#nao egokoro#hinako mishuku#kanna kizuchi
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Hello! Do you think they’re setting up some kind of romance between Allie and Folsom? It looks like there’s some kind of tension between them? They showed Allie’s pic with her bf but she’s out here mooning over Folsom…
On that regard, how come Max’s team is so… understaffed (if that’s the right term)? Do you think we’ll see more CSIs as the series progresses or logistically, can less people do the work now that technology is more advanced? Thanks!
hi, anon!
yeah, they're absolutely setting up a romance between allie and folsom.
i think the implication is that they previously had some kind of attraction or flirtation or maybe even dated, but now (for whatever reason) allie is seeing this off-screen mark character whom she's just moved in with. however, the interest between her and folsom is obviously still very much alive.
as for the team, i think that the low numbers issue is part of how they're justifying bringing grissom and sara in as consultants—as max keeps saying, they could always use an extra hand, given that the lab is perpetually understaffed—so i'm not sure that the show will introduce more new csi characters (beyond penny gill, whom we met last night) so much as it will simply integrate the grissoms into the team and maybe have max offer one or both of them a more permanent position at the end of the season once the fabrication case is wrapped.
it's convenient that the team could probably use one or two more experienced csis, and a couple of experienced csis just happened to come into town and offer up their services, no?
as for the logistics of the team in general:
max mentioned she was pulling someone off "nights" to help with the wedding case, a statement which, taken in consideration with the fact that we've seen her crew working a lot during daylight hours, seems to suggest that she personally heads the day shift (in addition to being the lab director).
however, who is a permanent member of her team and who isn't remains murky; allie and folsom seem to be her only constants, with park and penny floating in and out.
the fact that max has had to call in backup on occasion does suggest that the understaffing issue is a problem for her (i.e., that even with the improvements in technology, she can't successfully run a team comprised of just allie, folsom, and herself; there's too much work for just the three of them); ditto for how her team members often seem to pull "double duty" (such as, for instance, with folsom floating between his arson case and the fabrication case in the series premiere).
thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.
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i really wish the writers of lucifer hadn't turned chloe and maze's friendship into such an afterthought! like ok:
- when they start in season 2, both of them are in pretty isolated places socially. chloe, already a pretty introverted workaholic, is just newly divorced and has exactly one (1) friend: lucifer. maze has finally split off from lucifer and has two (2) friends: linda and trixie, but for the purposes of this comparison linda really is maze's one friend. maze has just accepted that she's not actually going back to hell, that this time on earth isn't really just a lunch break before they go back to the real world (hell) and so she now has to figure out how to build a real life in LA.
- basically, both maze and chloe are kind of in similar positions in terms of being isolated and really only having a singular overwhelming relationship with someone as opposed to having a network they can rely on so that all their eggs aren't in one basket. you can see where this backfires on both of them throughout the series when linda spends the week not talking to maze after seeing lucifer's face, and when lucifer runs off to vegas and suddenly chloe is stuck with all these feelings she can't express (and crucially can't talk about to him, her best friend.) ofc lucifer and maze's relationship transcends friendship just based on their immense history and is its own weird thing that i also kind of wish they had given more thought to, but w/e.
- enter: maze and chloe's friendship! i think for both maze and chloe, the other person is as "far" as you could get from themselves, but is fascinatingly still someone they can like, respect, love, and be loyal to. for a good while (and this is something i REALLY wish they had maintained) chloe, maze, and dan are basically raising trixie together which takes so much respect and trust that the other person is someone you want having a hand in influencing a kid you love! i think what's interesting is that, unlike lucifer who is trying to answer existential questions about his place/purpose in the universe, maze is really just focused on the people she cares about and having a good time (which is rooted in her doing meaningful work as a bounty hunter.) chloe is someone who pursues duty to the point of self-sacrifice, and obviously her friendship with lucifer helps her loosen up, but the pedestal he places her on/reverence he sometimes feels for her prevents him from really popping that bubble in the same way maze does. also chloe and lucifer's relationship gets SO much more complicated around the time maze enter's chloe's life so the role that lucifer once had to shock chloe out of her comfort zone kind of goes to maze once chloe has to draw some personal boundaries with lucifer.
- i think the key to maze and chloe's friendship is that they're both people who desperately need someone who embodies the other person's best trait. while this tendency isn't always healthy, maze is fundamentally someone very loyal to those she believes deserves it. obviously she's also betrayed people a billion times but at her core she's deeply committed to those she cares about which is something that i can see chloe find really appealing. at this point chloe has spent so much of her life in this weirdly precarious position where, since her dad's death she hasn't been able to fully trust anyone or open up to them. obviously she loves dan, but its clear that even when they're still "good" he doesn't trust her instincts or potential like he should, and when he spent those months gaslighting her the issue for her even beyond the fact that he shot malcom would have been that he didnt support or trust his wife. the appeal of lucifer is that from the beginning he identifies that she's smart and moral with good instincts. he trusts her, and strangely over the season she begins to trust him too! and then he runs off to vegas, etc etc lol. maze's primary loyalty probably isn't to chloe, but we see that to the best of her capacity she wants chloe to be happy -- she gets the prison warden killed, she "tries" and then really does listen to chloe venting about lucifer, attends the parent night chloe was stressed about, sets aside her grudge with lucifer to find chloe.
- in turn, chloe's best trait is her ability to accept people as they are and see their potential. of course she doesnt really have that many friends, but the people she is attracted to are all works in progress (dan is obvious, as are lucifer and maze lmao, but there's also ella who confesses something very personal and scary to chloe and gets a hug in return, and even charlotte who chloe's had clashes with both as charlotte and Mom for years but still gets the benefit of the doubt.) maze does have to change when she comes to live with chloe and trixie, but we see trixie grow up heavily influenced by maze in ways that makes it clear that chloe must genuinely like maze, or those influences like the handshake and the passion for gore and the knife training wouldnt have been allowed. we know that the reason maze is so loyal to lucifer is that he was the first person to ever accept her for who she was unconditionally, without shame or judgment. we see that for lucifer chloe is that person, especially because she sees his potential for growth just as she sees maze's. because she doesnt have preconcieved notions of what they're supposed to be she only sees them as people going through a difficult period of growth and supports them as best she can: reminding maze that they're friends, worrying about her in canada, trusting her with trixie who is the most important person in chloe's life.
- of course, chloe and maze have lucifer and linda but narratively lucifer and linda become so much MORE for chloe and maze. the show sunk linda/maze lmao but linda's clearly the adult maze cares most about just as lucifer is chloe's. and for both in s3 this person they each place so much of themselves into suddenly hurts them and they both spiral. i think there was real potential for chloe and maze to become each other's support and develop into a really steady, enduring friendship in contrast to the chaos of their individual romances (you will NEVER convince me that triangle was about amenadiel rather than linda lmao.) even post s3, they don't really address that maze really hurt chloe by pushing her towards pierce, and that chloe hurt maze by lying to her. i really think there could have been a lot of growth from maze going back to living with chloe and trixie after making full ammends and chloe realizing that actually, yes she can deal with this and it isn't that scary and then the tragedy of her maybe missing her shot with lucifer becomes more stark. we see chloe and maze teaming up in the first episode of 5A but then they blow that up too! i get that chloe needs space and its clear they're both using the other as placeholders for the people they really want, but there's no reason that they couldnt have come back together later and re-established their friendship on screen. obv they wouldnt work together after lucifer comes back, but to me this is where i believe they should go back to living together. without that, maze's connection to trixie in terms of what they can show on screen becomes tenuous and chloe's home life just becomes less interesting/worthwhile to see bc it'd just be her or maybe her with trixie. without that, it feels like we just see a lot of chloe either at work or in relation to lucifer (bc thats the best bang for your buck in terms of interaction!) we do get to see maze with linda, which is nice, but idk just feels like a step back from early s3 when maze felt more embedded in a community of people who liked, accepted, and cared about her wellbeing.
- i think one of the issues is that chloe and maze's friendship might have seemed like a knock off of their "main" relationships with lucifer and linda bc they have similar dynamics with them, but idk! there's a sense of fun that we get from their friendship that we dont really see from the main pairings because those are so serious and passionate and the main mechanisms by which the 4 grow so there isn't as much room for the lighter stuff. i know i said that chloe sees the potential for growth but she's not really pushing maze to talk about her feelings. she's doing the dishes maze won't, smiling at maze and trixie's handshake, shrugging off the fact that maze is throwing knives at their rented walls. maze and chloe create space for each other to be seen as themselves, good or bad, in ways that linda and lucifer can't for whatever reason. they don't really push each other, just let the other person be. it wouldnt be the ideal dynamic if they were the only person in each other's lives, but i think its vital to have someone in your life who can, in chloe's case, gently push you outside of your comfort zone and in maze's case offer acceptance, friendship, and trust.
idk this is just going in circles as i repeat the same points over and over and over but i really wish they had put more thought into sustaining the maze and chloe friendship throughout s4 and s5 because it would have brought out notes in both of them narratively that i think are lost otherwise. also its just sad for trixie that someone who was basically part of her family who she was living with is just...not there anymore and that's never addressed. : (
#lucifer#maze#chloe decker#lol im just writing this here to avoid doing school work rip#back to pretending to do a reading!!!
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That’s Rough Buddy (Seokjin)
SUMMARY : You were invited to your friends' annual Halloween Costume Bash™ and were supposed to go on a matching couples costume but your date cancels at the very last minute. Nevertheless, you pushed through with going to the party in your costume not knowing that you would still end up matching with someone. But unfortunately, it was with that very annoying (yet very attractive) guy that you despise so much.
PAIRING : Seokjin x reader
GENRE: humor, fluff, a sprinkle of angst in the end, enemies to lovers or frenemies to lovers (kinda?)
WORD COUNT : 16.6k+ words
WARNINGS: A swear word or two or seven, Jin is a crackhead (shocker), too much halloween games, excessive use of Avatar The Last Airbender quotes and references (aka Jin channeling his inner Azula)
NOTES: I originally was gonna make y/n and Jin dress up as Team Rocket and title this AU "Prepare for Trouble" but I ultimately decided on this. It pained me to do so because I am such a simp for purple haired Jin. Even if there are SO many hidden ATLA references here, I don't think you need to see it to understand this AU. Although, what on earth are you doing with your life if you've never watched the show?? Anyways, I hope you like this even though it's well into November now. Also, this is my very first fic so hopefully you’d enjoy this! Appa yip yip!
The smell of pumpkin seems to be enveloping the entire Park residence. You have barely reached the front porch and the scent has already hit your nostrils. How could a simple scent have possibly diffused into such a huge proximity, you wonder to yourself as you knocked on your best friends' front door. It wasn't until you entered the household when things became clear to you. Dozens upon dozens of pumpkins in different sizes were littered from their front hall to their living room. Some were already carved, some were sitting idly, and some were lined up to be carved by Park Jimin and Park Luna.
You were invited here on this lovely afternoon with the promise of free food. But after being handed a plate of pumpkin muffins and a bunch of carving tools, you felt a strong urge to just go home and maybe sleep through the holiday. Of course the two gremlins sitting on the floor, seemingly a pair on a mission, did not allow that to happen. So here you are on your seventh pumpkin, scooping out its contents, definitely not thinking of a million other things you'd rather be doing now. You were just about to stab your eye out with the sharp stabbing tool due to a possible mental breakdown when you got a text from Kim Taehyung.
Taehyung is Jimin’s best friend whom you might have had a crush on for about a year now since you’ve become friends with him. The two of you are going in matching costumes for the annual Park Halloween Costume Bash™ and have been texting non stop for two weeks now. Everyone in town takes this party seriously, including the adults. Even their parents are in on it though unfortunately this year, they're out of town so they aren't really involved. But the chosen winners for best costume are still to be awarded with a free dinner at the famous Park's family restaurant.
Tae Tae 🌻 : So that's a solid no on shaving my head? Cause I really wouldn't be opposed to it if it means a free heavenly meal from Papa Park 👀👀👀
You quietly chuckle at the thought of a bald Taehyung running around. The commitment of this man amazes you. You were about to type a reply when you felt something aggressively tap against your forehead. You look up to see an annoyed looking Luna.
Feeling something is stuck to your forehead, you slowly brought your hand up to touch it and you instantly felt a bit of pumpkin mush. "Did you just hit me with your filthy ladle?!" You disgustingly shouted at her.
"Dude, now is not the time to be all lovey dovey when the party is in three days and we still have about...uhm..." She looked around, started counting and then went to add stuff with her fingers, "A total of 27 pumpkins to stab and a whole house to decorate!"
You groaned loudly and fell on your back on the floor. You feel a headache start to develop from being surrounded by too much pumpkin flavored and scented things. If your two best friends' goal is to put any pumpkin patch to shame, then they definitely have achieved it. At this point, the stench of halloween in this area is strong enough to linger until the holiday comes back next year.
"Okay, but I don't understand why I'm being subjected into pumpkin slavery as well when this isn't even my party to throw?"
"When you're this behind on everything, all hands on deck are needed. We literally have not started on any of our to do list aside from pumpkin carving." It was Jimin who replied to your question. You watch him puncture a bunch of holes on the purple pumpkin he is working on. If you hear the word "pumpkin" one more time, you just might spontaneously combust or repeatedly bash your head with the wooden ladle in front of you. (A/N: Tbh, same here. It's only been a couple of paragraphs and I've already used the word 12 times.)
"I thought we'd be on top of this without mom and dad's help!" Luna started as she too began poking holes on her [word redacted]. "We are so behind! I mean, this guy still doesn't have a costume!"
"YAH! Stop exposing me like that! I told you, it's a…a work in progress."
Luna snorted at his step brother's remark. "In order for a work to be in progress, it must first be started-" Jimin cut her off by throwing her some [word redacted] meat.
It effectively stopped her from further embarrassing Jimin from his lack of costume days from the single most important party of their year. But it did start a revolting [word redacted] meat fight which lasted about a good minute. For the good of everyone, you stomped over to the war zone and pried the two idiots from each other. For a bunch of fools who are supposed to be rushing to get things done, they seem to be just fine with wasting their time.
"OPPA STOP IT!"
"I wouldn't have declared war on you if you hadn't outed me like that to y/n!"
"Well, it's not my fault you're so unready!"
"ALRIGHT THAT'S ENOUGH FROM YOU TWO!" You shouted as you yanked Luna off of him. Why on earth did their parents think it would be alright to leave these two on their own is beyond you. You gave Luna a reprimanding look and said, "Seriously, you'll make no progress if you continue with your antics."
Her eyes widen, looking like a little child being scolded by her mom. "He started it!"
From behind you, you can hear Jimin snickering. Probably feeling smug from her sister taking all the scolding. Honestly, are they five? You faced him with a much dirtier look than the one you gave Luna and he instantly stood straight, lips pressed into a thin line.
"And as for you!" You started, "I can't believe you still don't have a costume! This is so disappointing coming from you. How could you have let this happen?"
This may seem over dramatic, but this costume party is really THAT important. It's the highlight of the autumn season. This family really knows how to celebrate it and they do not fail to over shine what they had the year before. So this is really a bunch of steps back for these two.
"I know, I know!" Jimin yelled exasperatedly. "It's not that I haven't been planning. It's just that, how could I possibly top what I dressed up as from last year?"
He does have a point. He and Luna teamed up last year on what might be the most iconic costume ever. They both dressed up as the Wilson sisters from the movie White Chicks. They even had prosthetics on just like how Kevin and Marcus impersonated the twins. You guess you would not know how to beat that costume as well.
"I don't know what you're talking about. Maybe you're just uncreative cause I found a costume that will surely be a big hit to the people." Luna taunted her brother.
"What is it?" You and Jimin asked at the same time.
"You'll just have to wait and see!" She answered in a sing-song tone and proceeded to clear up the mess they made.
Jimin began helping her sister pick up [word redacted] mush with a long face. "Well that sucks hard for me. How about you y/n? What are you dressing up?"
"Oh, she's going as Katara, alongside Taehyung who is dressing up as Aang!" Luna answered for you, uttering the latter part in a way that sounds like she's teasing you.
"Oh, sweet! A date with Tae! I didn't know you two were finally going out?"
"What? No, don't listen to her. It's not a date! We're just friends." The two stared at you with a "yeah right" kind of look so you were compelled to explain further.
"Look, we were talking about The Last Airbender a few months ago and I mentioned how much I really wanted to cosplay as Katara. One thing led to another then poof! Here we are going as Aang and Katara to your party. It's not a big deal."
Jimin had a knowing sly smirk that made you somewhat uncomfortable. "Yeah, except Aang and Katara were madly in love and ended up making babies AND you obviously have a crush on each other." He said.
You reached for the nearest bowl of discarded [word redacted] meat and flung it towards the boy whose eyes have now disappeared and is in a laughing fit.
"No, no, no! You've got it all wrong! Y/n doesn't have a big fat crush on Taehyung." Luna defended you. Thank God for her! Between the two goons, she really is the one you can truly count on. You were about to say thank you when she added, "It's obviously Seokjin she has a huge ass crush on!"
Your mouth fell agape.
"Wait, oh yeah it's him!" Jimin agreed and tag teamed with his sister to tease you. Sometimes, you forget that they were born with different parents. Apart from their DNA, they’re pretty much identical. And it's scary.
"Okay, you know what? I take it back. You both deserve this!" You grabbed the mushy bowl and threw gloop after gloop towards the siblings.
Needless to say, you spent more time cleaning up afterwards than working on the decorations.
The next few days went by like a huge storm. Chaos definitely ensued. You spent more time and effort on making this party possible than you ever did with anything in your life. All you see are purple and orange with a hint of red even when you close your eyes. Halloween seems to haunt you even in your sleep. Just last night, you dreamt you were being wrapped in spider webs (Which let's be honest, is pretty much just cotton) by that huge scarecrow standing in your best friends' lawn.
You were out in town with Jimin doing last minute shopping, telling him that weird and disturbing dream of yours when he suddenly told you he has something to do and pretty much dashed away to the direction of a women's shoe store. What's that all about?
He's been absolutely frazzled since that afternoon you spent terrorising [word redacted]. You can't blame the lad. It's hours away from the party and it seems like he still doesn't have a costume. You and Luna don't know how he's gonna pull this off. If he does though, you'll thoroughly be impressed and would never question Park Jimin's capabilities.
On your way to the nearest bus stop, you received a message from Taehyung. You instantly felt giddy. The fact that you're going to a party with him in matching costumes have only sunk in this morning when you finished with the party preparations. You opened the text and your face instantly fell.
Tae Tae 🌻 : Y/n! I really don't know how to say this. But I don't think I can come to the party tonight. My little sister woke up to a very bad fever this morning and both my parents are working this evening. I'm so so sorry to cancel on you. I know we've been looking forward to this for so long 😔
You know you can't be mad at him. It's not like he planned for this to happen. But you can't help but feel absolutely gutted. He's right, you've been looking forward to this for so long. Since April this year actually. If he's not coming, everything just seems pointless.
You : Aww that's a shame. Don't worry about me though. There's always next year. Worry about your sister! I do hope she'll get better soon. She shouldn't miss out on halloween ☹☹☹
Tae Tae 🌻 : I know. She's not gonna be able to go trick or treating. But I'll make sure we'll watch halloween films!
Tae Tae 🌻 : Wait what do you mean there's always next year??
You : We'll just have to wait for next year to debut our costumes!
Tae Tae 🌻 : WAIT NO. Don't tell me you're not going to the party?? Just because I can't come??
You : Well yeah. It seems pointless to go.
Tae Tae 🌻 : Don't be like that! You're making me feel guilty 😭 Your costume deserves to be flaunted. Go or else I'll never talk to you again 🤧
Despite his order for you to come to the party, all desires to go left you the moment you read his initial text. The entire point of coming is to go as a pair. You both have been working hard to make your costumes as accurate as possible. To come alone doesn't make sense.
You were too engrossed with your phone that you did not realize you were going to crash into a person when you took a turn at the corner of the street. "Oww." You clutched the top of your head, as if you hit a hard wall instead.
"I'm so sorry-" the guy began to apologise but stopped short after he saw you. "Ah y/n! Watch where you're going! Don’t just mindlessly walk around!” he said, rubbing his chest where your head presumably collided with.
“Oh! I bet you're going as Wonder Woman tonight. Get it? Cause you wander too much around!"
The hollering buffoon in front of you, laughed at his own joke so hard that people around you started looking at the both of you. Wanting to get out of this embarrassing situation, you circled around him and proceeded to walk towards the bus stop. But he unfortunately followed right after you.
"Hang on." He jogged in front of you and held both of your arms. He looked you in the eyes with such seriousness that you think he has something very important to say. But alas, you should’ve known that nothing intelligible ever comes out of his mouth.
He opened his mouth and said, "Are you actually going as Wonder Woman?"
You made an annoyed sound and slapped his arms away as he said things like "I knew it!" and "I am such a genius!".
"No Seokjin! I'm not going as Wonder Woman.” you said as you reached the bus stop.
“Well that’s a relief! Honestly that’s super low and pedestrian even for you.” He jabbed at you but you stayed silent, not wanting to banter with him, unlike the usual. He carried on blabbering for the remaining time, telling you how “Spicy and scorching” his costume is. Whatever that means. At this point, you have half the mind to believe that he’s dressing up as a jalapeño. Knowing Seokjin, you wouldn’t put it past him to do so.
“You know what, actually, I'm not going at all." you butt in as an attempt to shut him up. His head whipped towards you at such a lightning fast pace, you were sure it would have snapped off. Oh how you wish.
"You're not going?" He said in what sounded like a very disappointed tone. Huh, why would he be disappointed, you thought to yourself.
You shake your head no.
For once, Seokjin seemed rather speechless and something else. Dare you say sad. This is really weird for him but you chose not to analyse him further and stood at the bus stop. You both just stood there in silence for a couple of seconds until a bus came parking.
You were already inside, swiping your bus card, when you heard him say, "Well that's rather disappointing. Who would go and scare the little kids away now?"
The bus doors closed just as his infamous laugh came rolling. You weren't able to hear it but the sound of his signature windshield wiper laugh still rang in your ears. You flipped him off and hastily took a seat after an old man looked at you with such distaste. You took one last look at Seokjin giving him the finger once more but much discreetly as the bus abandoned his still laughing form.
When 8:30pm arrived, you were sprawled on your bed watching this god awful halloween film starring Adam Sandler. You, honest to god, love Adam Sandler. But this film isn’t it. You stopped paying attention half way through the movie and started scrolling through your phone when your mom unceremoniously barged in your room.
“Mom, for the last time! I’m not coming to the party!” You told her for like the thirteenth time since you got home this afternoon. It most probably wasn’t the thirteenth time and was probably just the third time. But you’re really not in the best mood.
“Are you extremely, positively, a hundred percent sure about that, honey?”
You rolled your eyes at that. Your mom is never the one to keep repeating stuff as she is also easily annoyed just like her daughter. “Yes, mom. I am firmly, undoubtedly, and conclusively stating that I am staying in this room for the rest of the night.” You proclaimed, not even sure you can string up further words to describe how sure you are with your decision.
Your mom sighed as you closed the movie, not interested in it anymore. You look up at her with a raised eyebrow, silently asking why she’s still in the room. She fully opened the door and said, “Well, if that’s the case, then you need to tell that to Freddie Mercury downstairs.”
Not really understanding what she meant, you just stared at her dumbfoundedly until your brain finally started to function properly. “Uh, excuse me. But come again?”
She sighed once more, probably already tired from the night and the high jinks that came along with it. She never really liked halloween.
“Just come downstairs. Now.”
You hurriedly got up from your bed and sprinted out of your room. You haven’t even stepped foot at the top of the stairs when you indeed caught sight of the one and the only Freddie Mercury at your front door, rocking his iconic Live Aid outfit, topped with a lavish red robe, and a completely blinged out crown. Of course, we can’t forget the aviators and his emblematic moustache.
“Ay oh!” Freddie yelled at the top of her-I mean his lungs. It was so loud that your cat ran out of your house. Meanwhile, you shamelessly gawked at the person in front of you as you descended downstairs. You were absolutely confident that your best friend wouldn’t be able to top her costume from last year. Oh you were wrong.
“Darling, I know I’m fabulous but don’t ogle at me like that. Now do tell me, what’s this news I’ve heard from the grapevine that you’re not coming to the party??” She asked annoyedly in a pretty decent posh London accent. You on the other hand, ignored her.
“Woah that looks utterly real.” You touched her moustache and she slapped your hand away.
“Oi! Focus, lass! How could you possibly spend the last three painful days with us on what seemed like the halloween edition of Amazing Race, only to bail on us at the finale?!" Her accent slowly slipped away as her voice progressively got much louder. Once again though, you chose to ignore her.
"Your crown is so beautiful! Is this custom made? Oooh can I touch it?" You asked while reaching for it, not even waiting for her approval.
"Y/n stop it! I asked you a question. Answer it! Why all of a sudden, you decide to not go--"
"Dude, you really hit the nail on this one! Although I have to say, I don't think Freddie had protruding boobs."
Luna dramatically gasped at your statement and covered her chest using her robe. "I do not have protruding boobs! You make it sound like they're massive!"
"Well, compared to Freddie Mercury's, I guess they kinda are."
She hit you for the second time since she got here. "This is as much squeezing I can handle to flatten them out. Nevertheless, I believe I have normal sized breasts! Besides, I'm sure Freddie would've loved to have protruding boobs anyway."
A couple of seconds passed with you two just staring at each other, feeling the weight of your conversation. Realising how stupid your topic is, the both of you burst into laughter.
"What on earth are we talking about? I can't. This is too stupid. What the heck are you even doing here?" You managed to spit out in between laughs
Luna stopped laughing and gasped once more. She hit you for the third time now and ignored your protests of pain. "You little shit! What are you still doing here in your pyjamas! The party started 30 minutes ago! Come on, let's get you dressed up!"
She yanked your arm towards the direction of your room but you stayed planted to where you stand. "I can't. I told you, I'm not going."
She dropped your arm and took off her aviators. She had a really disappointed look which must be mirroring your own expression. "You can't be serious. We've been working hard for this. We've been excited for it since the first day of autumn!"
You didn't reply to her, you just looked at the ground. "But what about Taehyung?"
"Taehyung isn't coming."
Confusion spread across her face so you told her about his dilemma with his sister.
“Well that’s just bullshit.” She concluded with such spite. Your eyes widen at her aggression towards Taehyung. You can’t believe she would be this hostile about him choosing to care for his sick little sister. What else was he supposed to do? Abandon her for you?
“What the hell, Luna! HIS SISTER IS SICK! How could you be so bitter to him?”
“Woah! Woah! Woah!” She waved both hands up in a defensive manner, “I’m not mad at him! I’m mad at you!”
You rubbed your face with both of your hands. You guess it makes sense for her to be mad at you but now is really not the time for you to agree with her. You're not in the best mood to carry out an argument. You just want to crawl back to your room. That dreadful Adam Sandler movie suddenly sounds so temptingly riveting. Having said that, you still made it clear to her as to why you would prefer staying in tonight.
Luna, being the stoic person that she is, completely disagreed with your reasoning. "Oh quit being dramatic! He already gave you the heads up to go tonight. What more do you need?"
"I don't know, Luna. I just feel like I'm betraying him if I go."
She glared at you for a good second as if trying to telepathically make you change your mind. When it dawned on her that you're not conceding, she sighed the longest sigh you've ever heard from anyone, dramatically placed her aviators back, turned around while flicking her robes on your face, and then strutted away from you.
"Fine then! If you'd rather sulk here over a boy rather than spending an astounding good time with your friends, then be my guest! I guess all that hard work you've put in will be for nothing. But that's fine! There's always next year anyway, right?"
You watch her shimmy her tush towards the front door as she spews out reprimands after reprimands. And she says you're dramatic. Birds of the feather, really do flock together.
Her hand is on the doorknob when she gave you what meant to be her last look on you. It seemed more of a plea to you though. At that moment, you felt a pang of guilt. Are you really going to abandon your best friends for Kim Taehyung?
You gave her a small smile and said, "I'm sure you'll have a fucking marvelous party!"
Finally, she gave out a groan of defeat and opened your front door. "Oh whatever y/n! I should've left the second your mom told me you're not coming. Jimin needs my help, anyways"
Jimin. Somehow, you remembered that that boy didn't have a costume even until this morning. You wonder what on earth did he pull at the very last minute. So you called out to Luna.
"Luna, wait a second!"
"WHAT NOW?!" She yelled exasperatedly
"I just want to know what Jimin dressed up as."
She let go of your front door knob and crossed her arms. "Why'd you wanna know? It's not like you care about this party."
"Oh give me a break! Just tell me what it is!"
The smirk she has on her face tells you that she's not giving you what you want. Which you are absolutely correct.
"I'm not telling you what he dressed up as. If you want to know, then you find it out yourself. All I'm saying is that his costume is literally everything."
Some way or another, that statement of hers stirred something inside of you. Somewhere, a few blocks down, is a Park Jimin dressed up as something "literally everything" (Park Luna, 2020). If there's something you know about Jimin is that his definition of marvelous is a normal person's definition but times ten. She could be bluffing, but your curiosity is really peaked.
Damnit, you need to know what he dressed up. Right now.
You stood at the doorway of the Park residence living room with your mouth on the floor.
In the middle of their room is where a really cool light up dance floor is. You already know that since you were there when it was set up yesterday. What caught your attention was the guy dancing wildly right smack in the middle of everyone. A wild Jimin was twerking, doing high kicks, and *gasp*! Did he just do a split???
Beside you, stands a preoccupied Luna, too busy taking a video of his untamed brother. “What did I tell you? Fucking everything!” She hollered and yelled at him to do some more of his high kicks.
You looked at your thick blue Southern Water Tribe coat lined with fur and then at Jimin, wearing his Patrick Star hooker costume. Suddenly, you feel overdressed. He was only wearing a tight pink sweatshirt, Patrick’s famous green shorts, fishnet stockings, and some sexy thigh high leather boots. Yet he is indeed stealing everyone’s attention. How could he possibly bust out those kinds of moves in those thin stilettos? A normal woman can even barely stand in them. Hold on, so that’s why he bolted to that women’s shoe shop this morning, you thought to yourself. It all makes sense now.
Luna was left enabling his brother's thotty attitude as you walked to the kitchen. Luna was right, staying at home was a dumb idea. You can't help but admire all the halloween decorations the three of you have placed everywhere. Now you understand the vibes the two siblings were going when they said they wanted the house to be illuminated by jack o lanterns only. It looks really pretty here. Let's just hope and pray that this house won't burn down at the end of the night because this is definitely a fire hazard.
A guy approached you as you were standing by the snack bar. You don't really know who he is but he's dressed up as Dumbledore so you felt obligated to talk to him. "Your Katara costume is so cool! I'm a huge fan of the series! (A/N: Honestly who isn't?) Is it okay if I take a pic with you?" He asked and instantly whipped his phone out.
Who were you to say no? So you awkwardly stood close to him and smiled for the camera. Is this what fame feels like?
"Gee thanks! I'll have to take another picture with you later but with your date too."
Your face fell for a fraction of a second for being reminded by Taehyung. How does this guy know that Taehyung and you were supposed to go in matching costumes?
"Oh, I'm sorry! Taehyung won't make it tonight which is a huge shame."
He looked at you weirdly. "Who's Taehyung?"
"Uh my date..?" you stated but ended up sounding more like asking a question.
"Oh, your date!" Realisation hit him and you slowly nodded. "But he did come!"
"WHAT?"
"Yeah. I saw him arrive earlier. I must say, he looks sick!"
Taehyung came? But what about his sister? Did she magically get better? Why didn't he text you or something? You are so confused.
"Have you seen him anywhere?" You asked rather hopefully.
"Yeah! He's out back giving palm readings in his fortune telling booth."
Well now you're even more confused. That booth was meant to be a prop display only. What the hell is Taehyung doing, playing fortune teller with it?
You thanked the guy and zoomed out to the backyard as fast as you could. There were no signs of Taehyung anywhere. You roamed around for a couple of minutes, trying to maneuver around the massive crowds towering over your pretty small form, until you heard a loud guy complaining about some drink.
"I'm telling you man! We need cactus juice up in here!" Oh, that annoying voice, you're sure you'd recognise that anywhere. It's only a matter of time until you run into him.
"It'll Quench Ya!" Hold up, that’s a Sokka line! Why would he be quoting from “Avatar: The Last Airbender”??
"Nothing's Quenchier, It's The Quenchiest!" You hear him say before he bust out his windshield wiper laugh. His voice seems to be coming from that large group of people by the fortune telling prop. You approached the group not for Seokjin, but to see if Taehyung was around. The two of them are in the same friend group.
It was difficult to scout around the group since everyone is a lot taller than you. You jumped around until you caught a glimpse of the hollering man in the middle, wearing something red and what appears to be a large scar on his face. Why does that scar look familiar? Realisation hit you like a ton of bricks. It seemed like time stopped for all the wrong reasons when you took in the entirety of Seokjin's costume.
"Hey, look! It's Seokjin's date!", someone said and every single head there was in that group turned towards you at the same time. Even Seokjin, himself. It's so comical and stupid that you'd think you're in some sort of sitcom.
You looked like a deer caught in headlights, just stood frozen in front of the crowd. To be fair, how were you supposed to react anyway?
“Damn, she looks really pretty!
“Those are some fine hair loopies!”
“I don’t understand why they would go as Zuko and Katara. It doesn’t make sense.”
“ZUTARA MOTHAFUCKAS!!!”
One, you agree that you look banging tonight. Two, You also agree that if the two of you were indeed on a date, it wouldn’t make sense to go as Zuko and Katara when they weren’t even a thing. But three, yes, Zutara all the way and you would go down with that ship faster than you can say Bonzu Pipinpadaloxicopolis The Third.
Although the crowd had valid points, you would still think that Seokjin would contradict some of them. You know, like the accusation of the two of you being on a date? So it was a shock when he approached you with open arms and a huge smile while saying, “AH! There’s my sugar queen! Flameo, hotman! I was beginning to think you’ve bailed on me.”
You stepped back even before he got the chance to hug you.
“Uh what the heck is this all about?” You were pointing out the ridiculousness of him acting like the two of you twinning was planned but he thought you were talking about his fortune telling booth.
“Oh you know me! As a theatre arts major, I can’t help it when situations arise that forces me to slip into a different character.”
You looked at him unamused. “That’s literally a mental disorder you just described and literally, NO ONE forced you to do this. That prop was happily chilling in the background and you just have to go and torment it.”
He shushed you with a finger to your lips and it took all the will in you to not bite it off. “You’re just saying that cause you haven’t tried getting my expert opinion.”
“Expert opinion- You know what? Whatever! I don't have the patience to do this right now. I'm out here looking for my date so this night could get better. So why don't you just tell everybody here that we are not- hmmp!" Seokjin's rather large hands covered your entire face to shut you up or maybe slap you. Honestly you weren't sure. He was intending to cover your mouth but in his haste, he managed to smack you instead.
"Hey, guess what? I think you're the only person here I haven't told their fortune yet! That's just a shame, that won't do. No, no, no. What's that? You wanna go now? What a brilliant idea! Let's go, sugar queen!", he said all that in one breathing then pushed you towards "his" fortune telling booth that YOU had set up before the sun even rose this morning.
It was a very small purple tent (Actually, it was just a massive piece of cloth hanging from a tree trunk) with a little table set up and a crystal ball in the centre. He yanked the front part close for some privacy and you think you've never been more repelled in your entire life. To be stuck in such a small confinement with Seokjin and his ten foot wide shoulders is something that should be illegal.
He pushed you aside so he could sit at "his" table with you nearly falling through the cloth at the process. Once he's settled, he looks at you expectantly with a huge grin as if you actually wanted to get your fortune read by him. As if you volunteered yourself to be in this position.
His brain really is something and whatever that something is, you don't even want to try and decipher it.
Against your better judgement, you dragged yourself to sit in front of him. You're already here, might as well just try and enjoy the ride. Right?
Your butt had barely touched your seat and Seokjin was already declaring some insights about your future.
"Your future is full of struggle and anguish. Most of it, self-inflicted.", he said in all seriousness.
And of course, this is just some mischievous way to rile you up. What else did you expect from this guy? Or better yet, why do you even bother with him?
"You're not even gonna read my palms or bust out some tarot cards? Maybe do a little gazing into the crystal ball?"
"I didn't need to. It's written all over your face."
It took you a second to realise that he just directly quoted from Avatar again. You are quite annoyed at his childishness and slightly amused at his apparently extensive knowledge for Avatar references.
"I'm gonna give you the count of three to get the hell out of my face. If you're still here, I'll make sure your destiny ends right here." You replied, also quoting from the series.
He chuckled at your threat, finding it real cute just how easy it is for him to irritate you. "Okay, calm down. No need to get murderous."
"One."
"Hey, it's not my fault you're bound for failure!"
"Two!"
"Wait, are you actually being serious now?"
"THREE!", you yelled and lunged at the scarred boy.
He made a high pitched scream as you went and grabbed one of his shoulders. Your tiny chair went tumbling down and the crystal ball rolled off to the ground in your vicious movements.
"Please, not the face! Anything but the face! It's too VIP!"
"Oh, I'll make sure that stupid scar becomes a permanent part of your face!"
One of his hands were on your arm while the other was held tightly around your hand that was trying to claw his "VIP" face. For a small person, you seem to be putting up a big fight against him.
The scene that was unfolding inside that small tent is a sight to behold. If anyone ever walked in right now, they definitely would think that a more salacious thing is going to go down. All of the ruckus the two of you are making can probably be heard from the outside. But the both of you are too out of it to even consider the embarrassment you might get if someone barges in. Which is why you didn’t notice Jimin’s head poke inside the tent.
"Wow you guys. If y'all wanted a room, you could've just asked. As a very supportive friend, I would gladly give you one." The voice of Jimin rang from behind you and you instantly let go of each other, feeling a bit flustered.
"It's not what it looks like!", you tried reasoning with the boy. "He's being his usual little shit self and I'm just trying to purge it out of his system!"
Jimin, equally being a little shit like his older friend, brushed your reasoning aside. "Y/n, y/n, y/n. Out of all the people here, you're really the one to mess this perfectly set up prop? Didn't us setting this up at midnight meant anything to you? Couldn't you have just let Seokjin hyung here to peacefully give you his readings?"
You rolled your eyes at him. “Can you just shut up? Also, you knew this shithead was using our prop and you just let him be?”
“Of course he did! He’s taking 25% of my total earnings tonight.” Seokjin muttered.
“Total earnings- You’re making people pay for your made up bullshit?!” You hollered at the wide shouldered guy. Why are you even surprised about this? It’s Seokjin we are talking about. He could probably convince people to pay him just by walking past him.
“Oh you bet! But don’t fret, I’m not gonna charge you. With that kind of fate that you have, I’m sure you need every bit of kindness.”
Steam could might as well visibly come out of your ears right now with how enraged you are at him. You wanted to strangle him, bloodbend even. You didn’t have the chance to do anything though because Jimin was pulling you away. “Would you two stop with the lover’s quarrel for like a goddamned minute?”
He shoved you outside then did the same to Seokjin. “Everyone’s already inside about to play games and you two are still out here, too busy being all over each other!”
Jimin didn’t even need to say anything else or to further force you two. Just the word “games” made you both run inside at record speed. If people got real competitive with the costume contest, the halloween games are a whole other thing. Usually, after an hour or so since the party has started, the Parks hold a series of halloween themed games. The winners get various coupons. They aren’t as good as a free four course meal but that’s better than nothing especially if we're talking about the Park’s restaurant.
Sometimes, these games are done in groups but usually it’s in pairs. You weren't surprised that this year, all games are going to be done in pairs but unlike recent years, the games are going to be done in a "last man standing" manner. You knew all of this since you helped pick these games. You'd be more hyped up about them if it weren't for the fact that you don't have a pair to play with.
All these talk about games reminded you of Taehyung. You completely forgot you were supposed to look for him. But it became clear to you that he didn't really come when almost everyone who you came across with to your walk back inside pretty much assumed that Seokjin was your date. They all made some comment regarding your matching outfits which Seokjin didn't even try to deny. He was just gobbling up their compliments.
You listened to Freddie Mercury and Patrick Star explain the mechanics of this year's "Halloween Olympics". Now, what you didn't know was that they also changed the prize system. Apparently, they upped the prize since it's going to be a bit more difficult to win and there's only going to be one winning pair. This year, the winning pair is also going to win a free dinner. That got people buzzing.
With that, Luna explained that only the first 20 pairs to find a small, red, and hidden [word redacted] could compete in the games. Chaos ensued as you watch everyone scour around the house. All at once, you felt like you don't want to be competing against anyone in this room. Everyone seemed too terrifying as they went berserk. But alas, tonight doesn't seem like your night.
One by one, pairs came towards the siblings with their [word redacted] until only one was left hidden. Some guy, for some stupid reason, made the wrong decision to point and scream out the location of the last one. Obviously, everyone else made a beeline towards it.
Everything went in a complete blur for you. All you remember was seeing a tall guy in red jump for it. Then you were yanked by the said guy. Next thing you know, you were competing in the first game. Well, “competing” is a strong word. Seeing as you were dragged here unexpectedly without your consent and were in a total daze, your partner took full control of the reins. Now that you're coming back to your senses, you think this is for the best if you want to win. For once in his life, he can finally put his frat boy skills to good use.
The first game was announced to be a game of eyeball beer pong. It seems like the siblings are trying to get people drunk this early. You guess it’s a good strategy to easily kick people out of the games. But you and your partner ain’t going to be one of them. You watch your partner make perfect shots after shots, hitting every cup of the opposing pair. It wasn’t long before you both had won and eliminated the other pair.
“I can’t believe we lost! I really thought we had it in the bag.” One of the other guys had the audacity to say in front of Kim Seokjin, a true blue frat boy.
“Oh don’t flatter yourself! You were never even a player.” Seokjin muttered to the guy and held his hand up to you as if you were actually going to give him a high five. Instead, you gave him a long hard stare as cold as any of the water tribes. Any sane person would be decent enough to feel remorseful. He didn’t. Instead, he grabbed one of your wrists and gave himself a high five.
You smacked him upside his head. “You insolent fool!” You hollered like a villain in a Disney movie.
“Yah! What was that for?” his feigned innocence made you want to tear out not only his hair but also your own.
“You think I want to compete with you?”
He crossed his arms and slowly shook his head at you. Almost as if he is disappointed in you. “Tsk tsk tsk. I carried the whole bench and this is what I get from you? Just say ‘thank you’ and go.”
You scoffed. “For your information, I didn’t ask to be paired with you. You just yanked me from nowhere!”
“Well then, you're welcome, sugar queen!”
“YOU’RE WELCOME?? I don’t want to be paired with you!”
Your seething rage seems to somewhat alarm him. “Okay, okay, calm down!” You opened your mouth to interrupt him but he didn’t let you. “I admit that I did just yanked you and didn’t ask for your permission. Sure, that wasn’t really cool. BUT! In my defense, I was so deep in my competitive zone that I didn’t take the time to notice who I was pulling.”
He looked at you to see if you had anything to say but the annoyance remained etched on your face so he continued reasoning with you. “Listen, we both just want the same thing and that is to win. That ain't happening to you seeing as you're all alone. So really, I kinda did you a favor here. Come on, it'll be fun!"
You hate to admit it, but he does have a point. Maybe it's not that bad of an idea to pair up tonight. You both are pretty competitive. Besides, you do need a little cheering up err- a distraction, I mean.
"I guess we could try and not tear each other apart even just for tonight. This is for a good cause. We do both really want that free meal. Fine, I'll call truce for now." You finally conceded and held your hand out to him. He took it and you shook hands.
"I'm glad you're seeing it my way. Because to be honest, you're not winning a free meal with that costume." He confidently said with a shit eating grin.
You squeezed his hand a little too tightly and ignored his yelps of pain. "And neither will you because guess what?! Your scar is on the wrong side!"
"Ah! I knew someone's gonna tell me that sometime tonight. I can't even be mad at that reference."
"No Seokjin. Your scar really is on the wrong side."
"Yeah, and tea is just hot leaf juice."
"Uh, it really is though. But I repeat, your scar’s on the wrong side, buddy!"
“No it’s not.”
“Believe it or not, it is!”
"Are you actually being serious?"
You let out a really long sigh of disbelief to what you'll have to put up with. This is for sure going to be a long night.
To your surprise, the night did not go on as a drag. The next game did start off rocky with you not being able to guess any of the given Halloween charades. Either you are not as cultured as you think you are or you just don't get the mind of a theatre major. Or maybe, it's just his mind you don't understand, to be honest.
"How on earth was that Silence of the Lambs?!"
"What do you mean 'how on earth was that Silence of the Lambs'? What else does this even mean?" He replied while acting like his arms are pinned to his sides then proceeded to cover his mouth and then did a fluttering motion with one of his hands that seemed to be coming out of his lips.
"That could literally mean anything! For all I know, that could mean The Mummy!"
He scoffed at you as if you just told him the most offensive thing in the world. "The Mummy?? Oh, you are absolutely hopeless. We are so doomed if we keep letting you guess."
"No, we are SO doomed if we let you act out the things! You dare call yourself a theatre major?" To any other person, you would think that your comment is in fact just downright offensive. But that's not the case with you two because it seems like you could push all the wrong buttons of the other person and somehow still not end up really hurting anyone. You wouldn’t admit it, but maybe both of you find this weird comfort in these silly banters and in the midst of it all, you've unknowingly built some form of bond.
You collectively agree to switch roles and just like that, the tides shifted. The two of you were suddenly getting the correct guesses each round. At the very last round, you drew the movie Caroline from the witch hat. If it were you and Luna playing, you guys would have guessed this in a heartbeat since it's your favorite movie. But you're with Seokjin and you are extremely positive that he has never even seen the movie.
When the one minute and thirty second counter started to tick down, you immediately made a circle around one of your eyes and made a sewing motion to it. You thought it couldn't be anymore obvious than that but he just stared at you. By the time forty seconds have passed, your hope for him trickled down. You could hear the opposing pair celebrating prematurely on the side which ticked you off so much.
Your sewing motions got a lot more aggressive as you gave Seokjin the most desperate look you could ever give him. He in turn, gave you a very rare apologetic look. Yup, you guys were doomed from the beginning. All you can think of is how much this night really sucks for you. You probably should have stayed at home.
Once everyone started counting down from fifteen, you bid goodbye to the grand prize. The idea of it was just too good to be true. You stopped with your motions and gave Seokjin a small nod of defeat. He acknowledged this by giving you a slow nod as well and this seemed like the end for your pair. His gaze on you, however, flitted towards something or someone from behind you. His eyes stayed there for a good five seconds, appearing to be in deep concentration. You didn't even have the chance to look back since right before the audience counted to one, Seokjin was screaming the correct answer.
"CORALINE! It's Coraline! Of course, how could I not know?" He announces while flapping his arms wildy just a second before the timer rings. Everyone cheered at this sudden victory. The turn of events left you stunned. You thought for sure he wouldn't get it. He just keeps surprising you.
Seokjin approached you with a huge smile on his face and you can't help but return it to him. Not only that, you gave him a big hug which caught him off guard. You didn't know what came over you to do that but it felt like the right thing to do. He didn't seem to show any signs of protest as well.
"What the fuck? I really thought that was the end of the line for us!" You told him after sharing a brief hug.
"You really need to put a little trust on me. What can I say? I'm a genius." Just like that, you went back to wanting to punch his face again.
Rolling your eyes, you murmured, "Did the definition of genius change in the last 100 years?"
While you turned your attention to Jimin who was already announcing the next game, Seokjin glanced towards Luna and gave her a smile. Unbeknownst to you, this so-called "genius" partner of yours actually had help. He, did in fact, was never going to get the correct guess. He has never seen Coraline nor does he know anything about it. But your best friend, Luna, decided that she wanted to keep you two in the games so she tried so hard to discreetly mouth "Coraline" to Seokjin a couple of times.
You didn't need to know that though.
He didn't mind receiving a few assistance to win, but it does hurt his pride and it will hurt more if you find out. Fortunately for Seokjin, he didn't need any further helping hands. Even from you.
Either the games are too easy or you're just completely and utterly incapable because Seokjin pretty much breezed through them without even batting an eye. If you didn't know any better, you'd think he's trying to impress someone. You, maybe? Wait, no. That doesn't make any sense. Why would he do that? Besides, he made sure to gloat on you everytime your pair wins with you contributing nothing.
A couple of games and one harrowing round of What's Inside the Box later, just six pairs remained. It wasn't exactly all fun and games since along the way, your pair or rather, Seokjin made a rivalry against another pair. This couple dressed up as Team Rocket really got on his nerves. You can't blame him though. They kept on flirting with each other after every round and not to mention, they also kept taunting you two. You'll bloodbend them if you hear "Prepare for trouble and make it double" one more time before a game starts. To be fair, they do play very well. Actually, they seem to be the only other pair that puts up a good fight.
By this time, everyone has migrated outside for the last few games. For this one, as you already knew, you'll be playing blindfolded bean bag toss. One person would have to guide the other as they go through three different levels. The pairs that don't make it through would obviously get eliminated.
"Oh, we are so gonna dominate on this one!" You hear the girl dressed up as Jessie says.
"For sure. Why don't they all just pretend to be a tree and leave?" The guy dressed up as James condescendingly said and they both laughed out loud at his joke.
You visibly cringed at that. Can they get anymore intolerable? That's saying a lot coming from someone who knows Seokjin, arguably the most abhorrent creature in your life. Jeez, and you thought his jokes were the worst.
Seokjin made a gagging noise beside you, voicing out your sentiments. You can't help but laugh out loud with him until Patrick and Freddie approached you two.
"Okay, who's going to lead and who's the blindfold wearer between you two?" Patrick said and snickered a little after realising the other implications of his question. This little shit.
"Well, seeing as her skills are lacking, I'm gonna once again step up to the plate and handle this one." Seokjin reached for the blindfold but you snatched it from Luna's hand before he could.
You can't just let this night go down like this. Honestly, you're kind of having fun watching all the chaos ensue from the sidelines. But you're a woman of honour. You can't possibly go for a win while doing the bare minimum. You dare dress up as Katara and let some man take over?
"I'll be playing this one." You calmly but confidently declared.
"Sugar queen, I love the assertiveness. But I think you should-"
"I'm playing this one." You interrupted him with such firmness in your tone, they couldn't do anything but just nod to you.
Hell no are you gonna let Seokjin annihilate this night all by himself. You need to prove that you can match up to him. You'll show his stupidly pretty face and wrongly placed scar not to mess with your capabilities.
You took a long hard look at the three targets. Each one going higher and farther than the one before. You are to be given a practice round each level to get your bearings. Yada yada yada. You tuned the siblings out, of course you already knew all this. As the person who placed the goals, you'd think you have the upper hand. You were overly confident, bordering the line of cockiness, that you could do this. You even had the audacity to sneer at Team Rocket when they uttered their catchphrase to you.
You watched each pair try and make their shot. Surprisingly, everyone made it. That only added fuel to your fire. You were excited. You couldn't wait to finally do something. On top of that, Seokjin kept muttering things to you that if they can do it then so can you.
When it's your time to play, you are extremely buzzing. Going last is always an overwhelming feeling. All that built up confidence died down though the second you put on your blindfold. The darkness that enveloped you instantly made you feel unbalanced and disoriented. Confusingly, it's as if all your other senses heightened but it also felt like they all shut down at the same time.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck." You chant in your mind as you feel your awareness of your surroundings slip from you.
This is not good. Why did you subject yourself into doing this, again? You should've let Seokjin play when he had the chance. You clearly cannot do this.
In the midst of your swelling panic, you feel hands place on both of your shoulders. You jumped at the unexpected contact but it was just Seokjin. "You can do this, Okay? Just focus on me." He whispered in your ear with such comfort and softness that you had to shiver a little.
He rubbed small circles on your back with his thumbs, soothing you for a second until Luna gave you the go signal.
You slowly walk as straight as you possibly can even if you feel like toppling over the entire time. Please don't. The entire time, Seokjin was behind you. You halted when he told you and to the best of your abilities, you "delicately", as he instructed you to, tossed the bag to the left.
"Okay, that was shit." He truthfully told you in a nice tone as you hear the people around begin tittering at what you assumed to be such a horrible shot. You think you just heard Team Rocket announcing their victory. Shit, shit, shit, shit. You are royally fucked.
"Seokjin..." You can't help but whine, your anxiety creeping up ten fold.
"Hey, hey, hey. That's fine! What are practice rounds for?" He tried easing you.
"But everyone-'
"Forget about everyone. It's just you and me right now. Calm down and focus." The gentleness of his words and the lulling of his voice somehow allowed your breakdown to dissipate a little. If you're in a better state, you'd be surprised at how he is behaving towards you. You'd probably dismiss it and reason that he just badly wants to win. That's the only fitting explanation.
Sensing that you've calmed down a little bit, he let out a breath that he unconsciously has been holding. Your sudden mood shift made him really nervous. "Okay, sugar queen. I know you're a waterbender but mind channeling a little bit of your inner Toph for now? Just try and maybe get in tune with the surroundings? Come on, you set this thing up. Can’t you, like, use that to your advantage somehow?”
Easier said than done. But the way he’s practically cooing at you as he talks makes you want to subconsciously do anything for him right now. He could ask you to go find him a dragon egg and you’d most probably follow his orders blindly. Which is a concerning thought that you’d mull over later. For now, you focus only on his voice and try your best to toss the bean bag inside the goal.
You took a deep breath and said you're ready to attempt your shot. Seokjin instructed you to make your throw a bit more vigorous. By how much? You have no idea. Hell, you don’t even remember how hard you threw your last shot. This is literally all up to chance, if we’re being real. So you prayed to every spirit out there to put all odds in your favour.
Around you, some people began cheering. Some people were kind of waiting for you to completely miss again to get some good laughs out of it. Other pairs were taunting you, making a distraction. But you tried your hardest to tune them all out. Right now, all you can focus on is your aim and the nice words Seokjin is throwing at you. With shaking hands, you make a swing with what you hope is enough force to get to the next level.
You weren’t aware of it but to everyone else, it’s as if time went in slow motion. People’s heads comedically followed the direction of your bean bag. Your two best friends were both wide eyed, Jimin had both of his palms on the top of his head and Luna had her mouth wide opened. Seokjin stood nervously behind you with his hands intertwined in front of his lips as if reciting a prayer. Your bean bag’s hang time felt like an eternity but it was more than enough to realise that you still weren’t going to be able to make it. Seokjin almost cried on the spot at that realisation until your bean bag hit the rim of the basket. That split second of it hitting the rim made all the difference in the world. Everyone literally went silent as the bean bag bounced off the rim and went straight inside the basket.
With your vision completely obscured, you were clueless to all the spectacle that’s happening. In contrast to everyone, everything went in fast forward to you. Right after you made your shot, you instantly heard people yelling your name and a pair of arms encaged you from the back. Seokjin lifted you up and started spinning you around, obviously a sign that you made it.
With everyone’s reaction, you would think you made a championship winning shot. You don’t really understand the hype but you were just glad that you did it and it did wonders to your confidence.
“I told you that you were doing great! You just need to follow my voice.” Seokjin told you as he set you down and you took your blindfold off. Everyone still kept cheering wildly as Luna declared the start of the second round.
“Well, it is hard to ignore.” You joked at him but for some reason it made him blush. If his long hair weren’t hiding his ears, you would also see how harshly they’re flushing. He didn’t have a witty comeback and just avoided your gaze. He is flustered. How cute. You openly thought to yourself without even feeling an ounce of shame. It seems that the tides are indeed shifting and you’re not even fighting against the current.
The game continued with less dramatics, oddly enough. Even more odd is that you easily made it through the entire game. In the end, you weren’t even sure why you panicked in the first place. Two pairs got eliminated so you are now down to four. That’s fortunate for you. What’s unfortunate is that Team Rocket still hasn’t blasted off.
The next game was a round of Paper Dance. You were relieved that you both had to actively participate on this one and not have one of you slacking off to the side. You weren’t quite relieved when you remembered the mechanics of the game. Basically. You are given a sheet of newspaper and are forced to dance around it. When the music stops, both persons need to step inside the paper and stay there. Every round, the paper gets folded in half so the pair gets pretty close and intimate with each other.
The thought made you nervous and you slightly broke into a sweat. You were feeling rather uncomfortable with your heavy layers so you opt to take off your outer coat. Some tall and lanky guy dressed up as a sunflower, which you believe is also one of Jimin's close friends, started hollering, “Take it off now girl, just take it off!”
As objectifying his words are, you choose to laugh at how ridiculous he looked. A soft delicate flower uttering such promiscuous things. You thought maybe humour could divert your fluttering heart long enough for one pair to get eliminated so you could all move on to the next game. It didn’t, of course, what were you even expecting?
As the newspaper shrank, the more agitated you became. The fact that it was taking so long for one pair to get eliminated makes you weak in the knees and you don’t know if it’s a positive or a negative reaction. At this moment, the paper is still relatively in a decent size but it could only accommodate one pair of feet inside. Due to your lack of communication, you both stepped one foot inside when the music stopped and you collided with one another rather harshly. You immediately went flying down to the ground but Seokjin managed to grab your arm and pull you towards him. Once you were flush against each other, both of you instinctively wrapped an arm around the other person to gain balance.
The action might have saved you both from getting eliminated but it definitely put you two in quite a dangerous spot. Just like when you were blindfolded a while ago, everything around you tuned out and all you can focus on is you and Seokjin. Only this time, you weren’t facing just an empty dark abyss. You were face to face with the dark abyss of his eyes. Your faces were mere centimeters away. An hour ago, you would willingly defenestrate yourself, horrified at the idea of getting this close to this guy. But right now, as you two stare and hold on to each other, you weren’t so repelled. Neither is he.
You two were just getting comfortable with each other if it weren’t for Jimin blatantly calling you out for this really personal moment. “Oi! The music is back up! You two can get back to your lovey dovey moment later but for now we game.” The actual buffoon roared at the mic. His very public comment made everyone start hollering and teasing the two of you. Just like that, you went back to square one, an awkward mess.
At one point, Seokjin almost fell off when he gave you a piggyback ride. You thought it was either because you were too tense to even jump properly on his back or you are just plain heavy. You’re not even sure which option is better. The way that you are so conscious around him has never been a problem to you. You have an inkling as to why this is happening but you refuse to say it to yourself.
While you mentally kept cursing yourself, Seokjin was having the same problems. He was too shaky to properly hold you. He too was cursing at himself for acting so muddled around you all of a sudden. This is getting pretty bad. He needed to get a hold of himself fast. By that, he means go back to being a cat and mouse with you. In other words, go back to insulting you. But his inner self is telling him to just let this moment be and to let himself indulge in it.
Another agonising round later, one pair finally got eliminated. Thankfully for that, Seokjin was only tiptoeing on one foot at this point whilst carrying you. You, on the other hand, had other reasons to be thankful for.
Now, you were down to just three pairs. The semi finals are up next so you really need to get back to your senses. You are so close to achieving the grand prize. Remembering what the next game is, you knew you were monumentally screwed.
The semi finals, as Jimin is explaining, would be a bat doughnut eating contest. Five doughnuts shaped in a bat are individually hung on a string in their clothesline and both pairs would have to stand on either side, eating them all as fast as they could without using their hands. Both pairs are only allowed to work on one doughnut at a time. Now, that’s just on a completely different level of invasion of personal space. But you can’t blame anyone because you came up with half of these games, including this one.
“Let’s quickly push through this one.” Seokjin told you from his side. “We can’t let the others win. Remember, only the first two pairs get in the finals.”
You admire how composed he is right now. Why can’t you be as unaffected as he is? This is for the sake of the grand prize. Do you even want it? If yes, then you badly need to keep your eyes on the prize and nothing else. Definitely not on Seokjin, or on his piercing eyes, or his soft looking lips. NO STOP. Just what on earth is happening to you?
Realising you haven’t given him an answer, you simply nodded. With that, you heard the go signal and all three pairs started devouring the doughnuts.
They are [word redacted] flavoured. Of course, what did you expect? You try not to gag at that and you also try to avoid accidentally making out with Seokjin while making sure you eat the entire thing at lightning speed. There were way too many things going on at the same time for you to handle. Your brain could not possibly keep up. It’s like your brain and body were being controlled by two separate things.
One doughnut down and you move on to the next one, then the next one, and the next one. “That’s it, keep going!” Seokjin kept on muttering motivating words whenever he could. Again, how could he be so composed at a time like this? Somehow along the way, your brain completely shut down and your body went into autopilot. The two of you fell into an unspoken strategy of having sides so to have some boundaries. The moon spirit knows you badly need that.
Your pair is on the lead when you reach your fourth doughnut. For the first time since this game started, you felt comfortable. Did you stay like that for the entire game? Of course not. Naturally, the universe just loves aggravating you tonight.
Half way through your fourth doughnut, you accidentally brushed lips with Seokjin. The action was absolutely brief, but it was enough to halt you two and send tingles that you would feel throughout your body down to the tips of your toes. You two stared at each other for a second too long because Luna was announcing Team Rocket to have taken the lead. You two couldn’t care less though. For the third time tonight, all you could focus on is each other.
Wide eyes filled with something you two are too embarrassed to accept, lips slightly molding into shy smiles, and faces covered with icing and powdered sugar. In that moment, you two seemed to have some sort of self understanding that didn’t need to be said.
The moment didn’t last though. As brief as your little kiss was, you two were back at the game instantaneously. The other pair seemed to have gotten past you two as well. With a new found comfortness, you find yourselves working together without anymore awkwardness. You were back to your old competitive selves. You gobbled up the doughnuts at a jaw dropping speed. All that matters now, is winning especially since Team Rocket is advancing to the finals. The two of you didn’t even bat an eye when your lips would unintentionally touch a couple of times in your haste. You certainly weren’t complaining about it now. As a matter of fact, you felt him linger a few times. So were they really unintentional? We would never know.
You amazingly caught up with the last pair even with a few cheeky antics on the side. The two of you are currently on top of the world and just breezing through. For sure, you would end up beating them. There is no need to worry about anything.
What sealed the deal was when one person of the remaining pair mildly choked at a particularly large chunk that she had swallowed. You two took that opportunity to finish up your fifth and final doughnut. You swallowed for the last time and cheered for your partner to finish chewing. Everyone else was completely yelling at this point, it was such a euphoric feeling. Once Seokjin finished, you went and engulfed the larger man as best as you could in a bone crushing hug.
You two were all laughs, happily celebrating even if you haven’t won yet. “We are so going to come home with that prize.” You declared with such finality while you break away from the hug. You kept each other very close though.
“Oh yeah? You’re not gonna freak out on me again?” He teased you but you can’t help but just hit him.
“Only if you keep yourself in check.” You playfully replied. You fell into a comfortable silence, once again staring at each other with shy smiles. His eyes dropped to your lips for a second and you felt compelled to lean in. When he realised what you were allowing him to do, he leaned in too. You were slowly leaning towards each other, taking your sweet time and savoring every second of it. Your lips were pretty much fully touching, you could feel the warmth and softness of his.
“You’re lucky that chick choked up.” James, whatever his real name is, from Team Rocket woefully stepped into your moment. It took every fibre in you to not punch the guy.
“She’s obviously inexperienced. Couldn’t be me!” Jessie quipped and they both started laughing together. This time, it took every fibre in you to not bash their heads together. But as mentioned before, you are a woman of honour. You are willing to take the higher road and settle this fairly through the games.
Seokjin, well, he is Seokjin so he didn’t let the two slide so easily.
He let go of you and approached the two. He laughed along with them in such a forced and sarcastic laugh that it pained you. “Yeah, you’re right. We are lucky!” He said then squished himself in between the couple and placed his arms around them. What on earth is he on about, now?
“We definitely were just born lucky. But at least we’re not like other people who are only lucky to be born. Right, hotmen?” He said and slapped their arms in a playful manner but ended up being too hard. He left them completely offended, sauntering back to you with his windshield wiper laugh that you know all too well.
"Was that necessary?" You scolded him with both hands on your hips.
"Don't be such a Katara! I know you're dressed as her but please don't take it too seriously. Unless you really do want to be a sugar queen?" He wagged his eyebrows irritatingly.
You rolled your eyes at his usual foolishness. Glad to know he hasn't gotten fully soft on you. You would prefer for him to stick to his playfulness even if it annoys the crap out of you.
"And then there were two." Jimin starts, grabbing everyone's attention. Yeah just two left and it just had to be with Team Rocket. Oh, it would feel even better to win knowing you were up against them.
You were one step closer from a satisfying free full course meal cooked by Jimin and Luna's parents. Is that heaven or what? In the middle of fantasising and practically drooling about the impending prize, it dawned on you that once you win, (Yes, once and not if) you'd have to go on that dinner with Seokjin. An actual dinner. As in a date???
The thought made you slightly pale. You don't get why the thought of going on a date with him made you all nervous when you were practically stealing kisses from each other just awhile ago. The idea of going serious with him is nerve-wracking when just this evening, you wanted nothing more than to punch his guts. Now, you still do want to punch his guts but also kiss him.
You needed to snap out of it. All you did tonight is think of this guy. You were probably overthinking things. He probably doesn't even want anything serious with you. Maybe, he's just playing with you. Wait, no. That's too cruel even for him.
Your internal battle was stopped when Seokjin, himself, flicked your forehead.
"Oww! What was that for?" You grumply asked as you rubbed the sore spot.
"Your brain seems to be flying a couple hundred miles away. Y/n, now is not the time to be daydreaming about me. Did you even catch what I said?" Is he a mind reader? Most definitely not but even so, you are too embarrassed to say anything so you quietly hummed to him.
"What do you think? You agree with me?" You absentmindedly hummed again.
He clapped his hands together so loud, it made you jump out of your haze. "Good! That settles it. You're bobbing then."
"I'm sorry, come again?" You think you misheard him but it sounded like he said you're going bobbing? As in bobbing apples? What?
He stared at your dumbfounded expression. He realised that you weren't listening to the siblings' explanation and you obviously weren't also listening to his plan of attack just a few seconds ago.
He sighed and repeated everything to you even if he didn't want to. "We're bobbing apples for the last game. Since I don't want to ruin my perfectly good scar, you're up for it."
You scoffed. "And I want to ruin my perfectly good hair and makeup?"
"Hair dries off and without your makeup, you're still Katara. I, on the other hand, would just be some random handsome firebender without my scar. So really, it's better that you do it."
"But I don't want to do it!"
"Well boo hoo for you. You already agreed to it." He said and dragged you towards a large basin near Jimin and Luna.
"Wait, no I wasn't fully aware of the situation!"
"That's what you get for zoning out at a crucial time. It's too late now, you already agreed. A consent is a consent."
He was seriously being mean right now. You pulled your arm back to stop him but he wouldn't let go of you. So you kept your feet planted firmly on the ground. It ended up looking like he was dragging a very stubborn kid. "Y/n quit playing around! You need to do this."
"But Seokjin, I really don't want to do this." Your innocent looking eyes paired with that same whining voice that you used when you didn't make your first shot with the bean bag instantly turned him soft.
He stopped pulling you and placed a hand on your neck. The way he is genuinely looking at you makes you think that he'll probably switch with you. He didn't. Big shocker.
"Y/n, I know you don't want to do it but you need to." He started using that gentle voice of his that he used on you earlier. You knew you were a goner now. He's definitely found your weakness and he isn't afraid to use it on you. Curse him and his captivating soothing voice. What are you supposed to do now other than obey him?
"I, without a doubt, believe that you can do this. I'm sure you can defeat those two wobbuffets over there and we'd win! Don't you want that?" You nod your head yes.
"So will you please do me the favour of winning this game for us?" You nod your head yes without thinking twice. So much for being a woman of honour.
He smiled at you and caressed his thumb over your cheek. "Good girl." He said and you'll be damned if you're not going to do whatever it takes for him to call you that again. Forget everything. You want him to call you that again.
That is why you find yourself involuntarily walking up to the water and apple filled basin assigned to you.
"Step aside, filth." Seokjin jokingly muttered at James from Team Rocket. You hear Jimin and Luna giggle but you were too out of it to even appreciate his Zuko reference.
To your left, Jessie stands in front of her basin. She gives you a sly smirk and winks at you condescendingly. You want to burn your eyeballs.
You can't believe you're in this position. You can't believe you would willingly let your hair, makeup, and quite possibly even your costume get ruined. Lastly, you can't believe at just how much power Seokjin has had over you in a single night.
You stared hard at the apples. You've only bobbed for apples once when you were nine and it was one of the worst things you've ever done. You weren't even able to successfully capture an apple with how bad you were. Well, you're back more than ten years later and you're back with a newly found determination. Vengeance will be yours.
You hear Luna count down from three.
Seokjin's "Good girl" rang inside your head. No one's letting this magenta haired girl beside you win. You gripped the sides of the basin hard. Alright apples, it's time to face your doom!
"...One and go!"
Inhaling a sharp breath, you plunge your face inside the deep basin. You tried to keep your eyes open to see the apples but it was proving to be difficult as light was barely passing through the metal basin. Nonetheless, you kept biting around until you reached one apple. You tossed it outside the basin and took another breath, repeating the same actions.
You don't know how many times you did your little routine. All you know is that this is the longest minute of your life and you just want it to end so much. You were having such a miserable time. Your snot, your saliva, and even your sweat too were mixing with the water. Even though you avoid it so badly, you still manage to drink the water in your haste. Some of it even got inside your nose at one point. Bobbing for apples just might be one of the most disgusting things you could ever do. This must bloody well be worth it in the end.
Everytime you come out of the water, you hear the cheers of the people. You most certainly hear your partner, ear piercingly shrieking your name. It further feeds into your hunger to win. You don't care if you look absolutely ridiculous or that you were probably gonna end up throwing up later. All that matters is to win this for you and Seokjin.
At long last, Jimin blows an air horn to dramatically end the game. You came up gasping and snorting for air. How fucking graceful and beautiful. Seokjin rushes to you with a towel in his hand and wraps it around you right away. He pats you dry, careful to not smudge your very wet makeup.
Luna began making a speech on how much fun this year's Halloween Olympics were. You didn't pay much attention to her as Seokjin kept murmuring words of affirmation while he was still gently patting you dry. In all honesty, you could've done that yourself. But after what you were just subjected to, you definitely could use a little pampering.
"Again, thank you to everyone who participated in the games. As for the rest, you've been absolutely wonderful, cheering our players. Until next year's Halloween Olympics!" Luna concluded. Well, they did more than cheer, alright.
"And now, let's count the apples these lovely ladies bobbed so we can find out this year's victors!" Jimin continued and everyone counted magenta head's apples with him.
"Twelve apples in total!" Everyone cheered wildly and you felt your heart clench. That's a lot. What if you had less?
"Twelve?? Ha! Suck on that!" James ridiculed.
Seokjin just glared at him and he grabbed hold of one of your hands. He squeezed it tightly as everyone started counting your apples. Oh please be higher than twelve, please be higher than twelve, please be higher than twelve, please, oh please, oh please.
"Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen!"
"A grand total of eighteen apples! Wow that's a lot more! Which means we have this year's victors!" Jimin announced.
Eighteen? You bobbed six more apples than her? Wow, your nine year old self would be proud of you now.
Seokjin couldn't contain himself, he grabbed you by your waist and lifted you up in an embrace. "Y'all hear that? My girl just beat your asses badly! Suck on my poké balls!" He finally cracked and straight up insulted Team Rocket while still holding you up. You ignored the sickly sweet feeling that bubbled inside you when he referred to you as “my girl”.
"You will never rise from the ashes of your shame and humiliation!" Instead of a maniacal laugh, his windshield wiper laugh came out. The punchline was already perfect if only his stupid laugh didn't ruin it. As annoying as it is, you didn’t seem to be complaining about his laugh now in your head unlike always. Actually, it’s kind of endearing in a way. Crazy to think just how much one night can change. You wonder what happens now to the two of you.
Jimin and Luna called the both of you up on their makeshift stage to properly announce your rain of terror- I mean, your victory. Along with that, they are also going to announce the winner for best in costume. With all the action that’s been happening, people have forgotten that the awarding for best in costume is actually the main event of the night.
As Seokjin predicted earlier, you didn’t win. Some guy, Jung something something, dressed up as Shrek won by popular voting. You think he is also a part of Jimin’s friend group. You can’t be too sure as there are too many guys in that circle of friends for you to care. Which leads you to believe that maybe Jimin did some rigging of the results because his Shrek costume kinda deserves to be kicked out of the swamp. Not that you care though. As far as you’re concerned, you already won the grand prize as well.
“Told ya, you wouldn’t win best costume.” Seokjin says as you leave the stage.
“Neither did you. All because your scar is definitely on the wrong side.”
He groaned loudly. “You’re never gonna drop that, aren’t you?”
You laugh, thinking just how stupid he is for messing up his scar. For someone who seems to be able to quote directly from the show with ease, it’s really funny that he would overlook such a crucial detail.
“Neverrr!” You said in a singsong voice.
“Whatever.” He said while waving his hand in a dismissing manner. “It’s not like anyone else noticed it. I guess you were paying too much attention to my face, huh?”
You blushed at his remark. “Jeez, get over yourself, will you?”
You rushed your steps towards the house to leave him. You are sure Jimin and Luna are now tearing it down on the dance floor. He easily caught up with you though with those long legs of his and draped an arm over your shoulders.
Cackling at your flusteredness, he said, “Okay, then! So let’s say you weren’t gawking at me the entire time for you to notice my mistake.”
You hummed at him.
“Then I guess the only explanation why people seem to have failed to notice is because of my handsome face! They are too distracted by my beauty to notice my misplaced scar. Don’t you agree?” You elbowed him hard and left his yelping, laughing ass. What a weirdo. You giddily smiled though.
The rest of the night went by pretty fast. It was filled with dancing and laughing with people you know and don’t know. You even got to hang out a little bit with Team Rocket. You wouldn’t say you’d become friends with them but they aren’t all that bad.
The only missing thing though is that you didn’t share any more “personal” moments with Seokjin. He disappeared off with his group of friends after you left him. Not that you were fully expecting anything to happen, but you were slightly disappointed. Luna was quite chill about it at the start. She was probably wanting to discuss it in private. You know, for your own sake. But as she got tipsier and tipsier until she was full on drunk, she was practically squealing about it every few seconds. Hence, why you decided to socialise with other people which you would never do. Honestly, what is going on tonight and who are you even?
After the party, you remained to clean up. But Jimin told you that none of you would have to deal with the mess right now. He understands that everyone is completely knackered at this point. There were still a few people left but he ushered you to go home now. He assured you that he could deal with them and his hammered sister.
With that, you said thanks and hugged each other goodbye.
Walking out of their house, you thought back to earlier when you were thoroughly convinced to stay at home. You wonder how things would be if you had stayed. You would have totally missed out on so much! But you also wonder what would happen now. It seemed like Seokjin was unmistakably giving you the vibes that he likes you. You were too. So why did he suddenly vanish?
“You want me to walk you home?” A very familiar voice said from behind you. Ah, speak of the devil.
You faced him and smiled a little too big of a smile. “You live in the complete opposite direction. What are you talking about?”
He chuckled and made his way to you. “I was just thinking, what kind of gentleman would I be if I let you walk home all by yourself at 2 in the morning?”
He stopped a few feet in front of you. You find yourself a bit irritated with the distance between you two. You wanted to be a bit closer than that so you made the move to get nearer to him. “I think I can handle myself pretty well.” You said as you approached him until you were inches away from him.
“Oh, I’m sure you can.”
There was a brief moment of silence that fell between you. It wasn’t at all awkward or anything unpleasant. Actually, it was the complete opposite. You were just drinking everything in.
“Surprisingly, I had heaps of fun tonight. I never thought I would ever say that in the company of Kim Seokjin.” You said in a hush tone. You don’t know why you were speaking in such a way. The entire moment just seemed too delicate.
“I told you, you need to put a little faith in me, sugar queen.” He whispered. You smile at the term of endearment he had given you tonight due to your Katara outfit.
“I think I already have.” You said and his face started inching down towards yours.
Just the mere thought of finally getting to properly kiss him released thousands of butterflies in your stomach. You wanted to rush him to finally feel his lips but at the same time, you wanted to drag this moment as long as you possibly can. If someone told you this morning that you would be having these thoughts as you were about to kiss Kim Seokjin tonight,you’d laugh at their face. You’d probably also tell them that you’d rather slam your tongue in a car door.
He took his time with you, also wanting to milk every second of this moment. There was no need to rush anything. He was literally ghosting his lips against yours. He was probably teasing you. It annoyed you so much. So much so that you made the executive decision to take full control of the situation. You made the move to press your lips against his but before you could, someone walked out of the house and started yelling towards you two.
“SEOKJIN HYUUUUUNG!” A guy dressed up as Snoopy literally yeeted himself between you two and placed an arm around him. What is everyone’s deal with interrupting you two? At this point, it’s like the universe is telling you a sign or something. Wait, what?
You frown at the thought you just had. It’s a stupid thought. But then why are you having this sinking feeling inside you?
“Hoseok, for the last time, I’m walking home. I live just two blocks away. I don’t have a car to drive you home.” He told the guy, obviously exasperated just like you.
Hoseok started whining and arguing at the older guy. It’s clear that he was dead drunk. You wouldn’t try to argue with him right now. Seems pointless since everything will fly over his head.
“But why walk when you can drive???”
“Hoseok-ah! You’re really gonna ask Seokjin hyung to get you home when I’m here?” Another guy came out of the house. You turned to the voice and saw Yoongi approaching, dressed up as Garfield. You’re friends with him because he seemed to be the closest to Seokjin so you see him more often than not.
Hoseok immediately let go of Seokjin and went to hold on to Yoongi. Yoongi seemed to be in a rush to get home. Can’t blame him. It’s really late and it’s been a long night. So he said goodbye right away. But before they could leave, he turned to you.
“Before I forget, by the way, Taehyung wanted me to tell you to call him. He said you haven’t been replying to him all night. I think he wants to take you out later.” He made a fast but pointed stare towards Seokjin when he said the last part. It seemed like his way of telling him to do something about it. You didn’t notice though.
“Oh, okay. Thanks Yoongi. Good night and drive safely!”
With that, the two went off.
Another silence fell between you two. This time though, it wasn’t as comfortable. You didn’t know whether to continue off from where you got interrupted and how to continue. The both of you looked like you were in deep thought.
Taehyung. You completely forgot about him. Now, you feel really bad and shameful.
You notice Seokjin pulling something from his trousers that appeared to be two small envelopes. That’s probably your prize.
He held them both and looked at them for a few seconds. “I want to ask you something.” He started, not looking you in the eyes. He’s nervous. Is he going to ask you on a date? Well, that just made you nervous.
“Yeah?”
He didn’t say anything for a while. You watch him clearly having some sort of argument with himself. It felt like an eternity when he finally looked you directly in your eyes.
“Y/n, I want to-” Once again, he got cut off. Maybe the universe really is saying something here.
Your phone started ringing. It was Taehyung, calling you.
“I...You should answer that.” He instructed you. You should. But you didn’t make the move to. Your eyes switched back and forth from your phone to Seokjin a couple times. You were completely torn and didn’t know what to do.
You were just going to answer his call. What’s the big deal about that? It’s not like he knew everything that happened and was supposed to happen between you and Seokjin. It’s not like he was going to chastise you for all of that.
Before you pressed the answer button, the call dropped and you became tense.
Seokjin sensed your inner turmoil. He didn’t like seeing you like this. But he thought that this was becoming too much to handle right now. He looks at the envelopes he is holding. Sighing, he can’t believe he is about to do this.
He reached out both envelopes towards you. “Here, take them both.”
“What? Why?”
“Take Taehyung with you.” You could not believe what you were hearing right now. To say you were dumbfounded is an understatement.
Seeing as you made no move to get them, he took your free hand and placed the envelopes in your grasp.
“Listen, it’s bad enough that Taehyung didn’t get to enjoy the night. I think it’s only fair if he went with you.”
“But you worked hard for this too. It was a team effort between us.” You told him, still not understanding why he would give up the prize just like that when he was so adamant to win them the entire night.
“I know. But it’s fine, really. Don’t worry, I could always find a way to get free food from Jimin. Besides, you deserve to spend some time with your Aang.”
You still didn’t fully understand the situation at hand. But it appears that he is not going to let you go until you accept the prize from him.
You finally conceded and pocketed the envelopes.
“It’s getting late. We should really go home. It’s been one hell of a tiring night.” You nodded at his statement.
“Thanks for being an amazing partner tonight, Y/n. I genuinely enjoyed every single moment of it.”
“Me too, Seokjin. Me too.”
You wanted to hug him. But he didn’t make any other move. He was clearly just waiting for you to leave. You thought, maybe this isn’t the right time with him. With all the interruptions and should haves tonight, it’s most likely for the best to leave things here.
With a heavy heart, you gave him one final look and said goodbye. With an equally heavy heart, he watched you leave and disappear down the street.
“What the fuck was that all about?” Jimin’s sudden appearance from the front door made Seokjin jump.
“Yah! Couldn’t you have been a bit more careful?” He asked the younger boy while placing a hand over his chest to calm himself down.
Jimin paid no attention whatsoever to his agony. “You deserve to spend some time with your Aang.” He mocked Seokjin. “What on earth were you thinking?”
“I don’t want to- hang on. You were listening to our conversation???” Seokjin felt violated. Does this boy not know the meaning of privacy? First he kept interrupting you two all night then now he eavesdrops on your conversation and has the audacity to mock Seokjin.
Jimin did not feel nor look like he regretted what he had done. If anything, he looks really mad at Seokjin. “That’s besides the point. The point is, why are you just letting her go? You already had her!”
“No, I don’t think I ever had her to begin with. I mean, come on! She went dressed up as Katara and I’m dressed as Zuko. I think it was never meant to be.”
Feeling utterly frustrated, Jimin rubbed his face harshly. He had half the mind to take off his boots and impale his older best friend with them.
“That’s just bullshit! You’re too superstitious. You don’t listen to these signs! You take matters to your own hands.”
Seokjin knew that Jimin wouldn’t understand his point of view. He’s the type of person to chase anything and everything if he so pleases it. Which fair play to him, isn’t a bad thing. But that’s not how Seokjin rolls.
“Listen, you won’t understand me.” Seokjin started and Jimin openly agreed with him. “All I’m saying is if it’s not your time, then it’s not your time. You need to accept that and patiently wait. I did what I had to do tonight.”
Jimin did not respond to him. Truthfully, he does get what Seokjin is trying to explain. He does not agree with it at all though and still thinks it’s bullshit. But he can’t really do anything other than to support his stupid best friends and to let them learn things on their own. When that happens, he’ll for sure throw another party.
“Wow. Just wow. That’s rough, buddy.” Is all he can reply to Seokjin.
Indeed it was.
#bangtan#bts#bts scenarios#seokjin x reader#jin x reader#bts x reader#bts fanfiction#bts fanfic#bts imagine#bts humor#kim seokjin#bts au#bts one shot#seokjin oneshot#seokjin fanfic#jin oneshot#jin fanfic
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