#the melodrama is high this morning
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read 'em and weep #2
you and Eddie have an impromptu lunch.
Chapter 2
Eddie x Bookworm!Reader Series
Read Ch. 1 -> Here!
Contains: Eddie x Reader, fem!bookworm!reader, lovesick!Eddie, meal-sharing, budding romance, The Last Unicorn, ugly flashbacks, and Wayne Munson: #1 Uncle. No description of reader's physical appearance, no use of y/n.
Warnings: mentions of food & eating; allusions to Eddie's experience of abuse/neglect and its negative effects. (please note: I want to handle these topics delicately & respectfully - if there are issues with the way I've written that portion of the chapter, please tell me!)
Word Count: ~3.4k
if u are one of the big sweeties that replied or left comments on chapter one of this fic, just know that i read it over and over again while giggling and kicking my feet in the air. i am giving u a big wet forehead kiss!
The lamp on the end table is flickering weakly, yellowish light dimming and brightening and dimming again, over and over.
Without looking up from the worn paperback spread over his knee, Eddie quickly bangs on the table with his fist. It rocks slightly on its wobbly legs, but the bulb ceases its flashing.
'Your name is a golden bell hung in my heart. I would break my body to pieces to call you once by your name.'
Eddie arches a dark eyebrow, impressed. Damn. I’m gonna have to try that.
It’s hot in the trailer. The fan Wayne has set up on the floor by the TV offers little relief against the balmy air, and Eddie’s bangs are stuck to his forehead with sweat. He’s tied his hair up as high on his head as he could get it, desperate to get the mass of curls off of his neck.
It’s been two days since he last saw you and he’s been reading as though his life depends on it. A few pages with his morning toast and coffee, a chapter on his lunch break, and in the evenings – though he sat in the living room with Wayne – he kept his eyes trained down on the book in his lap, rather than the fritzy television screen.
His uncle had taken notice. He eyes the way his nephew’s shoulders hunch forward, the tip of his tongue poking out between his closed lips, the way his brow is furrowed in deep concentration.
“Take it easy, Ed. You look like you’re tryin’ to lay an egg over there.”
“Huh? Oh,” Eddie shifts back in his seat, face relaxing into a sheepish grin. “Yeah, okay.”
Wayne’s demeanor would appear gruff to most. But in spite of the surly pull of his mouth, the older man’s got this tell-tale twinkle in his eye that nobody recognizes better than Eddie.
“Good book? That looks new.”
“Yeah, s’from the library. I got a couple of ‘em.”
Wayne nods in approval. “Glad you’re branchin’ out. That copy you have of The Hobbit is fallin’ apart. Best you leave it be for a while,” he jokes.
Eddie rolls his eyes. “Hey, it was pretty beat up when I got it. I don’t think I’m the one to blame for that,” he retorts, staring pointedly at Wayne.
Wayne simply waves him off, an amused smile buried beneath his graying whiskers.
The next day, Eddie’s van sidles up the street towards the library – he’s acting on a strike of inspiration from the previous night. As he’d lain in bed, he’d been despairing over the fact that it was going to take him much longer than he’d like to get through all those books and, consequently, he had no idea when he’d be able to come and see you again to chat about them.
He’d let his head loll off the side of the bed, the back of his hand flung over his eyes in theatrical melodrama, when it occurred to him that he didn’t necessarily say he was only going to come back after reading all of them.
Instead, he’d go through them one by one, and pay you a visit after each book was finished.
God, he was a genius. Why’d it take him so long to finish high school?
Eddie pulls into a space and cuts the engine. He peers at himself in the rearview mirror, nervously smoothing his hands over his hair, which is already starting to frizz from the humidity. That’ll have to do, I guess. He grabs the book from where it’s lying on the passenger seat and exits, practically bouncing on his heels. There’s a bit of a flutter in his belly, something between excitement and anxiety; but more than anything else, he’s just eager to see you again.
So naturally, he’s disappointed when he gets inside and you’re not at the front desk.
Figuring you must be poking around the shelves somewhere, he sets off to find you. He ducks a left towards the fiction section and, when he walks by her, gives a stiff nod to Marissa, the uptight librarian. She returns the gesture with a steely gaze and wrinkled nose.
Eddie huffs. What did she expect him to do – steal from the library, where everything is free with a card? Only a Munson could take advantage of a public institution funded by taxpayers and still be made to feel like a criminal.
Eddie strides through the library, glancing in each aisle to see if you’re there. When he reaches the final row of shelves, he makes a loop around, strolling back up the other side, searching. He’s so focused on finding you that he’s completely oblivious to staff room door coming up on the wall to his left, until it swings open and smacks him in the face.
“Ow!”
There’s a horrified gasp. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry!”
Eddie can see your blurry figure – oh there she is – through the hand that’s massaging the bridge of his nose, and he instantly straightens back up. “That’s alright,” he says with a wince. “I’ve had worse, trust me.”
You look mortified anyway. “Are you okay?”
“I’m perfectly fine,” he assures you. “No harm, no foul.”
“I’m so sorry,” you repeat, mouth pulled down in a worried grimace.
“It’s okay,” he says with a soft laugh. “Don’t worry.”
It’s quiet for a moment, neither of you sure of what to say next. Then both of you start to speak at the same time.
“Oh, sorry –”
“No it’s fine, go ahead –”
“You first.”
This is going well. “I was just bringing this back,” Eddie tells you, holding up the book in his hand. “And I believe I did promise to tell you whether or not I cried while reading it.”
The hesitant, awkward look on your face immediately dissolves and turns into something sweeter, a smile so bright and pretty it nearly knocks the wind out of him. He thinks it’s like watching the sun break through the clouds.
“Done already?” You sound impressed. There’s a swell of pride in his chest – nevermind the fact that it wasn’t really a long book.
Eddie shrugs modestly. “What can I say? I’m a speed reader.” He tries to say it nonchalantly, but his cheeks dimple in a suppressed smile.
You fold your arms over your chest and lean back on your heels, taking a good look at him. He flushes under your appraisal.
“Well…” Your lips pucker as you contemplate what to say next. “I can’t take the book yet, because I’m actually off the clock right now,” you explain. “I was just heading out for lunch.” You give the red lunchbox in your hand a little shake.
“Oh,” Eddie replies, trying not to sound too disappointed.
“But,” you continue, with a giddy tremble in your voice that Eddie’s not sure is real or simply a product of wishful thinking, “if you’re not too busy, you can join me. If you still want to talk about it.”
He’s on cloud nine.
“Sure,” he says.
When he follows you, he feels like he’s floating.
The two of you end up outside, at one of several rickety picnic tables on the lawn behind the building. It’s still too warm outside for Eddie’s taste, but the shady elms provide a bit of reprieve.
Eddie takes a seat on the bench; you perch yourself on the flat tabletop. He tries not to stare at your bare knees, which are just exposed beneath the hem of your skirt, and dappled with the small dots of sunlight that sneak through the leaves above.
Instead, he watches you remove the contents of your lunch, arranging each item carefully on a napkin covering the space between you and him. A thick slice of brown, sweet-smelling bread; a small orange and a Tupperware with strawberries; two hardboiled eggs; and a carton of peach yogurt.
You pick up the orange first, nick the soft flesh with your thumbnail, and start peeling away the rind.
“So,” you begin, gaze focused on the piece of fruit in your hand, “The Last Unicorn. Did you like it?”
Eddie lets out an breathy chuckle. “I really did, actually.”
“You sound surprised.”
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t,” he admits. “No offense.”
“No, I get it. I tell people all the time to read it and they never do, I guess ‘cause the title sounds kind of corny. But it’s so good.”
“It was good,” he agrees. “But it did make me sort of sad in certain parts.”
You nod mournfully in understanding, not needing him to elaborate. “I know.”
“That bit at the end, about regret.” Eddie flips to a specific page, the corner dogeared to mark the place. His intonation changes, becomes deeper and richer, the same way it does when he’s sitting in his DM throne: “‘I have been mortal, and some part of me is mortal yet. I am full of tears and hunger and the fear of death, although I cannot weep, and I want nothing, and I cannot die. I am not like the others now, for no unicorn was ever born who could regret, but I do. I regret.’” He snaps the book shut again, voice returning to normal. “That’s pretty heavy stuff – you know, for a unicorn.”
“So did you cry?” you ask excitedly.
He sucks air in through his teeth, like he’s about to deliver bad news. “I hate to break it to you, but no.” You cock your head to the side in suspicion.
“If you did, would you really tell me?”
“I would.” He draws an X across his chest with a ringed finger. “Cross my heart.” You could get anything out of him, he was sure.
“Hmm.” You tap a finger against your lips in mock contemplation. “I’m not sure I believe you.”
You finish peeling the orange, and start pulling it apart into pieces. You gather a few slices in your palm, and hold them out to Eddie in offering. He leans back abruptly, feeling a squirm of embarrassment.
“Oh, no, you don’t have to give me anything.”
“Food is meant to be shared,” you say simply. “Have some.”
He stares at your outstretched hand, and you wait patiently, clearly not taking no for an answer.
Eddie takes the fruit hesitantly. “Isn’t it bad enough that I’m already out here bugging you on your lunch? Now I’m actually gonna eat some of it, too?”
The look on your face is comical. Stern, but impish, and made even funnier by the wad of half-chewed pulp bulging in one of your cheeks. “Well, first of all, I invited you out here. Second, yes, you’re going to eat some of it. You see this?” You hold up the big orange chunk. “It’s a clementine. As it grows, the insides conveniently divide into these little segments that are so easy to pull apart and dole out, it’s practically a faux pas not to share them with someone. Plus!”– you jab a finger at him for emphasis –“You significantly decrease your chances of contracting scurvy.”
Eddie’s in utter disbelief – he wants to bury his face in his hands and scream. He’s not sure how else to cope with this, with you, with the sudden certainty that he’ll fucking die if you don’t agree to go out with him soon. Instead he settles for, “Are you trying to tell me something? Do my gums look weird?”
“No.”
“Would you really tell me if they did?”
“I would,” you tell him, echoing his earlier statement. “Cross my heart.”
You and Eddie continue snacking and chattering on, both of you trying to cram in as much conversation as you can before your lunch ends.
“Here, this is the part that gets me – when Molly meets her for the first time – ‘Where were you twenty years ago, ten years ago? How dare you, how dare you come to me now, when I am this?’ God.” You shake your head. “They kept that scene in the movie, and I cried then, too. It made me so sad.”
At the mention of the film, Eddie sees his chance, and decides to take it. He wets his full lips, and squares his shoulders. He keeps his voice as casual as possible. “You know I recognized the author’s name, but not from his books.”
That piques your interest. “Oh yeah?”
“Yep. Peter Beagle also wrote the Lord of the Rings screenplay. From that cartoon movie they made like ten years ago.”
“No way! I didn’t know that. I’ve never seen it.”
Perfect. Eddie contorts his face into a mask of devastation. “What?!” He suddenly wrenches himself up from the bench, and backs a few paces away, like you’ve got something contagious. “You wound me, sweetheart. I thought you were cool.”
You raise an eyebrow at him in good humor. “I’m sorry, but there isn’t a single thing I’ve said to you yet that should lead you to believe that I’m cool. Three days ago I gave you a book with the word unicorn in the title.”
He ignores your self-deprecation. “We have to rectify this immediately.”
You sit up a little straighter, eyes widening slightly. Is that pleasure he sees in them? God, he sure hopes so.
But he doesn’t want to be pushy, or come on too strong. “If you want to,” he clarifies. “I have the video at home. If you’d like to see it sometime.”
You nod. “That would be f-fun,” you say. A wave of shyness seems to wash over you, like it did at your last parting the other morning. Your slight stutter has Eddie thinking you might be feeling the same way he is.
While you write your number down for him on a shred of napkin, Eddie munches on another bite of the brown bread. Apparently there’s zucchini in it, which he thinks is super weird, but it actually tastes pretty good.
Your break is winding down, so you lob another question at him. “Have you always liked to read fantasy?”
“Pretty much, yeah.” Eddie chews on a sliver of orange. “To be honest, I had a bit of trouble learning to read as a kid. I sort of ended up learning on The Hobbit.”
You look at him, impressed for the second time today. “Really? Wow. That’s a little more advanced than the Dr. Seuss books I was reading.”
He just shrugs, giving you a weak smile. He glances down at his watch.
“You better get back in there, honey. I’ve taken up enough of your time this afternoon.”
Eddie knows he didn’t offer you much with that last one.
But what he remembers is being left alone in dirty apartments for hours on end, and the endless cycle of evictions. He remembers that he only made it to school sporadically, and that he was miles behind his peers. He remembers that when he started second grade, he could read and write little more than his own name.
And then Al Munson had left to try his hand at being a crooked bastard somewhere else, without the burden of caring for his son.
That’s how Eddie ended up on the porch of Wayne’s trailer, pale and underfed, feet crammed into sneakers a size too small. All of his belongings fit into a single plastic grocery bag. He’d been confused and angry that he had to relocate yet again, and this time he was living with a stranger, his father’s older brother, whose fumbling attempts at parenthood left Eddie spitting with fury.
He just didn’t understand why. Living with his father, with his sleaze and his casual cruelty, had often terrified Eddie. But it was still the only life he’d ever known. Where had he gone? And how could he leave his boy behind?
And the expected routine of an average seven-year-old boy utterly mystified him. He didn’t understand why he had a bedtime, or why he had to drag the comb through his hair even though it tugged painfully at his snarled tresses, or why he had to keep going to school every single day, even though his teacher berated him constantly for breaking rules he didn’t even know existed, and the other students wouldn’t play with him during recess.
The enormity of the change threatened to overwhelm him. It was too much, and he was too young. There was a dull rage inside him then, simmering just below his skin, building in intensity each day, growing with each injustice he faced.
One night he’d picked a fight with his uncle over something small – brushing his teeth. Wayne, ever patient, was trying to calmly explain the necessity of the practice to Eddie, who wasn’t having it.
Still reeling from the sting of his father’s abandonment, and fed up with his uncle and his authority, trying to make him do all these stupid things he’d never had to before – he finally snapped.
They stood opposite each other in the doorway of the trailer’s small bathroom and, with a shout of agitation, Eddie struck Wayne in the ribs with all the strength his skinny arm could muster.
“Hey!” The older man’s fingers instantly closed around Eddie’s thin wrist and, for the first time since Eddie had arrived, his face was lined in anger.
Eddie instantly flinched backwards, squeezing his eyes shut, bracing himself for the inevitable, retaliating blow.
But it never came. There was only the sound of Eddie’s shallow breathing.
“We don’t hit each other in this house, Eddie. You don’t hit me, and I don’t hit you. That’s not how we handle things here.” Wayne’s voice was firm but gentle. “I know how your daddy is, boy. But I’m not like him, and you don’t gotta be like him neither.”
Eddie slowly opened his eyes. They were huge and wet in his little face. His chin began to quiver.
Without saying a word, Wayne picked him up off the bathroom floor and carried him into the living room. He set a sniffling, trembling Eddie down on the worn sofa, and knelt down in front of him, placing his careworn hands on his knees.
“I can’t imagine how hard this has been on you, Ed. I know that you’re young, and a lotta this stuff don’t make sense to you yet. But I love you, kid. An’ as long as you’re under this roof, I’m gonna do my best to take care of you.”
Eddie didn’t say anything, but simply knuckled at his tears with small fists.
Wayne pursed his lips, feeling out of his depth, but determined to make good on his promise to his nephew. “Listen, it’s not too late yet. Why don’t we stay up and read somethin’ before you go to bed?”
“Okay.” Eddie’s voice was small and hoarse. Wayne pulled a crumbled tissue out from the pocket of his jeans and passed it to his nephew.
He turned to the coffee table, eyeing a stack of books he’d purchased for Eddie; mostly Dick and Jane readers. They’d been recommended by Eddie’s teacher, at one of several meetings Wayne had had with her regarding Eddie’s behavior. She’d emphasized that the boy was ‘dramatically behind’, and that he would have to put in ‘a tremendous effort’ to catch up. From the tone of her voice, she definitely didn’t believe that Eddie would be up for the task.
Wayne picked up the first reader from the top of the stack, and fanned through the pages, full of dull watercolors and three-word sentences. He wrinkled his nose in distaste and, after a moment of deliberation, let the reader slip through his fingers. It fell quietly back onto the table, hiding the rosy, uninteresting children from view once more.
There was a short bookcase crammed against the wall between the couch and the kitchen counter that Wayne made his way over to. He crouched down beside it, scanning the worn spines of the books in his little collection, searching. When he found what he was looking for, he gingerly pulled it out, and gazed down at the cover. A wave of nostalgia washed over him, along with a sudden flicker of hope.
He plopped down on the couch next to Eddie, and angled himself and the book so that the boy could see the pages and follow along.
“How ‘bout we give this one a try?”
Eddie wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Whas’it about?”
Wayne smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners. “An adventure.” He looked back down at the page, cleared his throat, and began:
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”
thank you for reading!
Read Ch. 3 -> Here!
taglist: @eddiesgirlforever , @eds6ngel , @sheisahauntedhouse , @lokis-tardis-companion19 , @teary-eyed-egg , @whenshelanded
#eddie munson#eddie munson fanfiction#eddie munson fanfic#eddie munson series#eddie munson x reader#eddie munson x female reader#eddie munson x fem!reader#eddie munson x bookworm!reader#eddie munson x you#eddie munson x y/n#eddie munson imagine#eddie munson fluff#stranger things eddie#stranger things fanfiction#stranger things fanfic#eddie stranger things
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Classic Retrovision Milestones
64 years ago today, November 19, 1959, The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show premiered. (known as Rocky & His Friends during the first two seasons and as The Bullwinkle Show for the last three seasons) It originally aired from November 19, 1959, to June 27, 1964, on the ABC and NBC television networks. Produced by Jay Ward Productions, the series is structured as a variety show, with the main feature being the serialized adventures of the two title characters, the anthropomorphic moose Bullwinkle and flying squirrel Rocky. The main adversaries in most of their adventures are the Russian-like spies Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale. Supporting segments include Dudley Do-Right (a parody of old-time melodrama), Peabody's Improbable History (a dog and his pet boy Sherman traveling through time), and Fractured Fairy Tales (classic fairy tales retold in comic fashion), among others.
Rocky & Bullwinkle is known for quality writing and wry humor. Mixing puns, cultural and topical satire, and self-referential humor, it appealed to adults as well as children. It was also one of the first cartoons whose animation was outsourced; storyboards were shipped to Gamma Productions, a Mexican studio also employed by Total Television. The art has a choppy, unpolished look and the animation is extremely limited even by television animation standards at the time. Yet the series has long been held in high esteem by those who have seen it; some critics described the series as a well-written radio program with pictures.
The show was shuffled around several times (airing in afternoon, prime time, and Saturday morning time slots), but was influential to other animated series from The Simpsons to Rocko's Modern Life. Segments from the series were later recycled in the Hoppity Hooper show.
There have been numerous feature film adaptations of the series' various segments, such as the 2000 film The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle which blended live-action and computer animation and the 1999 live-action film Dudley Do-Right, which both received poor reviews and were financially unsuccessful. By contrast, an animated feature film adaptation of the "Peabody's Improbable History" segment, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, was released to good reviews in 2014.
Mr. Peabody will star in a new reboot series picked up for 13-episodes.
In 2013, Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show were ranked the sixth Greatest TV Cartoon of All Time by TV Guide.
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MISDIAL; LJN [CH3] LIKE A MORNING CALL
[★]; [MISDIAL MASTERLIST] [PREVIOUS PART] [NEXT PART]
info;
lee jeno x fem!reader
college au
chaptered
slow burn
genre; not-quite-friends to lovers, older brother mark lee, brothers best friend lee jeno, light angst, eventual smut, yn is a menace to society, story/character driven
warnings for this chapter; alcohol mentions
chapter wc: 11.4k (i'm sorry ;-P)/ comment on this post for taglist!
taglist: @hibernatinghamster @jenoxygen @eaglesnotravens @donutswithjaminthemiddle @jvjsssnaa @huangrenhyucks @luvenshiti @shiningdery @jaeminsbebu @aliceinwhateverland @bebsky@gem-gem @jkjkseo @jenosbliss @pewpewpwe00 @ti--red @philanarose @softbbyg0rl @aaasteroidsky @carelessshootanonymous @en-boyz @jlsavyy @roseymerrie @bangchanisemo @skuezk @jaehyuns-adorable-dimples @ourbeautifulaffair@jeonnyread @jvjsssnaa @episkeyjeno @bockhyun @jenojammin @zarastrawberry @peachie-bear @itadaramaterasu @alymii @cuteejeno @episkeyjeno
unable to tag: @nohunlee @ooojisoo @luv4jeno @not-clemb @jydivrs @pinkysinnerbaby @jenojenoyes
[a/n]: i dont even have an explanation for why this took so long besides the fact that work is kicking my ass rn LOL, but i'm so excited about this fic that ive been glued to my laptop every hour that i'm free. enjoy, chapter three, my friends
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THE APARTMENTS HOUSED INSIDE OF THE PALISADES TOWER ARE MYTHICAL FOR GOOD REASON, because the penthouse in which Jeon Somi lives is easily something out of a melodrama. Cleancut modern black and gray, polished gold metals, and endlessly high ceilings with windows so large that it was easy to forget there was even glass there at all (which, when you’re so high up, is a pretty freaky feeling).
If this wasn’t your hundredth time being here you’d probably be just as awed as the guys behind you are. Their eyes are wide as they shuffle out of their shoes in the entranceway, faces slack at the absolutely bonkers state of her home— but as it stands, you don’t even bat an eye. You just fling your sneakers in the front closet and slap the living room light switch on, the weight of this disastrous day settling on your shoulders all at once.
“I’m going to go and wash my face,” you announce, forcing a pleasant smile and turning to face the guys in the foyer. “If you have any questions—” Donghyuck nods, already opening his mouth to interrupt you, “— Somi dearest will answer them.”
He pouts. You can feel Jeno’s eyes on you, but you avoid looking in his direction like the plague.
What he must think of you after all this, huh? The second time he’s spoken to you in years and here you are yet again— embarrassed half to death and terribly out of your element, floundering in his presence like you did when you were fifteen and had no concept of confidence or coolness.
You were so sure that the night of the Nabi Bar incident was going to be a one time thing, and yet here you were again. Wasn’t last week supposed to be a once in a lifetime event? Something that you’d think of in a few months and laugh about— reminiscing over that time the guy you’d once been stupidly in love with came running out of the dark to save you, scooping you away from danger and patching your bruises up like some kind of romance novel prince? But now?
Now it was starting to look like nothing about this, nothing about him was shaping up to be temporary.
Things you hadn’t felt in years were starting to pick at your insides. You’d felt it that night when he’d dropped you off and you couldn’t sleep because your mind was racing so much. The cloying scent of his cologne was stuck in your nose and every brush against your bruised knuckles reminded you of how close you’d been in his bathroom, the sickeningly familiar feeling in your chest— Fluttering, fluttering, fluttering— And you’d felt it again in the car just now, an actual swoosh in your gut when you caught how he looked at you after Somi mentioned the Aegon competition.
His gaze was soft.
Knowing, almost, if you wanted to get completely delusional about it. As if he’s always understood something about you that everyone else didn’t.
(…Knowing, like the look he’s giving you right now as you take a step towards the other end of the penthouse and make the mistake of catching his eye. God. There’s no way he doesn’t know you’re just trying to get the hell out of here; It feels like he’s seeing right through you.)
“Right,” you say to no one in particular. “Then I’m off.”
Somi— who’d wound up in the kitchen somehow during all this— whines your name along with something about the jajangmyeon when she sees you leaving, but you don’t even stop in your stride out of the foyer. “Jaemin will help you, Som, he knows how to cook better than I do. You’ll help her won’t you, Na? You wouldn’t leave a tipsy, defenseless maiden alone in a space full of danger and sharp things and fire, right?”
You hear the distant click of the stovetop turning on as you’re walking away, quickly followed by a bunch of clattering, like someone throwing around a few metal pots. You hear no response or movement and flick a warning look over your shoulder.
“I’m not kidding. If you don’t want this place to catch on fire you’d better help her quickly.”
“What?” Jaemin finally splutters, “You’re serious? You’re really going to just leave us alone out here with— Hey, hey, wait! Somi, you don’t need a knife that big to cut up scallions!”
He darts out of your sight. Okay. One out of three, occupied.
You snatch up the television remote from the couch and turn it on, the giant flatscreen instantly lighting up the two remaining guys in the foyer as they stare after you. “You guys are into basketball, right? Knock yourselves out.”
“You’re… Cocomelon-ing us?” asks Donghyuck indignantly. “You think you can just put on ESPN and you’ll be absolved from helping cook? Do you think we’re five years old?!”
“Not five. Maybe like… eleven, or twelve? You strike me as more of a preteen.”
All that follows this is stunned silence. Great. That’s good enough of a reply for you. You toss the remote back onto the couch and continue farther into the rest of the house, face falling into a quiet grimace as you try to figure out just how you’re going to get through this night alone.
You feel it goes without saying that you do not only wash your face. You scrub everything above your neck, wash your hands, clean and cut your nails, pilfer through Somi’s extensive skincare shelf to rub some sort of moisture back into your now dry skin, comb your hair (and comb your eyebrows), worry at a speck of dirt on the shoulder of your top, take your socks off when you realize they’re a bit askew and then put slowly them back on, all in an attempt to drag out the time before you have to go back out there… only to look at your phone when you’re all done and realize only six minutes have passed since you’d first step foot in the bathroom.
With a shameful sigh, you stop pilfering.
What is your actual game plan to get through this night in one piece? Because the awkward way you’ve started this surely isn’t going to cut it, if this sad stint in the bathroom means anything. Could acting normal be your ticket? Everyone else is already pretending that the rest of the night didn’t happen, like this is really just some sleepover— the echo of Donghyuck’s laughter out in the living room proves that he’s at least having a swell time— so why can’t you pretend this is all normal too? You could just act your ass off. (What is it they say? Fake it ‘till you make it?)
Normal, normal, normal. You can do that.
So normal in fact, that when you wander back out into the house, eyes down and lazily picking at your nails (like a normal person would do), you don’t notice right away that you have no audience.
Jeno and Donghyuck aren’t on the couch where you’d left them. A laugh from the other side of the living room drags your eyes over until you’re staring into the kitchen where Donghyuck now is, apparently roped into helping by the looks of it, sleeves of his sweater pulled up his forearms and dutifully scrubbing at a handful of baby carrots in the sink. Slightly surprised, your gaze drifts over to the other movements happening behind him; a bedraggled-looking Jaemin following behind Somi as she wanders around her kitchen with a knife in each hand. His suggestions of safety seem to be going in one of her ears and out the other.
You spot movement on the balcony right as you think to wonder where the last boy has disappeared to.
The glass door leading to the overlook is cracked open an inch. The shadow of one gray flannel is briefly illuminated by the flash of lightning a few miles away, and with it comes the cool scent of rain into the house that you only notice now. The balcony is more like a porch with the size of it, nearly a full wraparound, and the figure blends in so well that it’s no wonder you didn’t see him out there at first. He’s leaning lazily on the railing, safe and dry from the retractable awning Somi always leaves out.
Of course. Figures he’d be out admiring the weather during a thunderstorm advisory warning.
Your stomach swirls a little bit at the sight of him, and you briefly consider leaving him alone and going to, like… help wash carrots or something, but your body knows you better. You’re wandering across the room before you can even think about moving.
“Having fun?”
If Jeno flinches from your intrusion he covers it very well. When he turns halfway to greet you he’s nothing but an easy smile, face just barely illuminated in the warm yellow light from inside. He beckons you outside with a small head nod and you, a little surprised he actually wants company, push the door open a little wider.
“Having fun,” he confirms as you wander up beside him. “You’re back?”
“I suppose so. Why are you out here by yourself?”
“Wasn’t really my choice,” he says, laughing, albeit a little sheepish.
“It wasn’t your choice? To come out here?”
“I offered to help cook, but Jaemin said I’d just take up space since I apparently take fifteen minutes to rinse a single potato. He banned me from touching anything.”
Oh. Is he notoriously slow in the kitchen? The most you’ve ever seen him make is burgers on your parents grill, but that was just flipping them every minute because Jaemin and Mark had done all the preparation. “Does it take you fifteen minutes to rinse a potato?”
“I like to be thorough when I wash produce. They come from the dirt, you know.”
Oops. You hit a nerve. He sounds slightly miffed by the humor in your voice. Maybe your smile is still too obvious, because he squints when he catches the line of your mouth.
“Right,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Forgot you’re the type who eats grapes out of the bag in grocery stores.”
“What— Why did you say it like that? I wipe them off first!”
“Yeah, you wipe them off onto your clothes. Do you know how many different surfaces your shirt will rub up against in a day? At that point aren’t you just swapping germs?”
He’s not wrong, but you’re a little caught off guard by the fact he remembers that so clearly. It seemed like every grocery trip he used to tag along to when your family would go shopping, he would catch you slipping something into your mouth as you pushed the cart— a stray grape or cherry, otherwise small and easily sneakable fruit. He’d always just smile, looking away like he didn’t see anything at all, but you always had a feeling he’d known what you were doing; and this was just confirmation that not only had he seen you, but he’d also permanently catalogued it into his memory. Ugh.
You cross your arms over the railing, turning away with a small huff. “Didn’t know you’d become a cleanfreak while I was gone. Slowpoke.”
The rain continues to pour.
After the grape conversation the silence stretches on for so long that you think that’s going to be it, that you’ll both just stand out here and exist in the chilly air, the wind occasionally whipping a flurry of tiny droplets onto the sleeves of your clothes— but he hums right as you’re about to suggest going back inside.
"Even with the storm, the view up here is insane. I’ve never been this high up without glass in the way. That's Namsan over there, isn't it?"
"Namsan?" you echo, a little annoyed by how quickly your body turns to the sound of his voice, "Uh. Probably… not? Namsan Tower is completely east from here, almost a literal ninety degree angle from this side of the building. You might be seeing something else."
"You didn't even look,” he says. “How can you be so sure?"
"Because it should be impossible to see it from here. This is an inlay. Unless Palisades is skewed like, one degree south, there shouldn't be any way—"
"Okay, wise girl, what's that light I'm seeing over there then? Since you're so smart."
You scowl at him, clicking your tongue at the pleased squint of his eyes, and ignore how he laughs when you all but shove him out of the way to get a better look. You're squished into the very corner of the balcony railing in the attempt to see what damn light he's talking about— forgetting, like you did at his apartment last week, that you’re not close, and that you probably shouldn’t be so comfortable around with him like this— craning your neck almost painfully towards downtown.
"There’s nothing there. Do you not have your contacts in or something?"
"I got Lasik a few years back, so I'd bet money my vision is better than yours. How are you not seeing it?"
Lasik? This is news to you. If you weren't still trying to find this dot he's talking about you'd whip around, staring deep into his pupils like Lasik would have somehow left a mark that confirms what he's saying, a brand of some sort, but you keep your gaze sharp on the horizon of this fabled Namsan.
You do end up speaking out loud though, absentmindedly. "I guess that’s not super surprising.”
"What?"
"It’s not surprising that you got Lasik. You used to talk about it a lot in highschool."
"I did?"
"Yeah, you used to complain about those big goggles they'd make you use during your games. And that putting in contacts every morning was annoying and took forever, but how you hated using glasses too, cause the glass was so thick that they made your eyes look funny."
You’re not paying attention to how odd it might be that you just... remember all that stuff. Especially because he'd never really been talking to you when he said these things. You'd just overheard by chance, during the myriad of times you’d wind up in the same place as him somehow; whether it was the kitchen before school whenever he’d drop by a little too early and your mom forced him to eat breakfast with you and Mark, or when you’d hide on the stairs and eavesdrop on all of your brothers friends when they’d come over after basketball games.
"But I never really got it," you add, "’Cause to me you always looked pretty either way. Glasses and Goggles and whatnot. They were cute.”
You squint at a blinking red speck hovering right on the edge, near the corner of the building.
“Christ, is that seriously it, Lee? That tiny red thing all the way over there? How the hell did you even see that through all these clouds?”
He says nothing. Another few moments go by as you try to confirm if that's really what you're seeing, and you think it is Namsan Tower, there’s even a few more little white lights you hadn’t paid attention to at first because you’d thought they were just very persistent stars. Shit. His vision is better than yours.
What a normal person would do now is turn around and relent— because, you remember belatedly, you’re still attempting to be normal— and tell him you’d miraculously been wrong, maybe rib him a little for his bionic eyes cheating for him, something friendly and nice and casual, but you don’t get the chance.
Why? Because when you turn, there’s less than two feet of space between you both.
As if Jeno had also been trying to look for the tower, he is now crowding you against the corner of the balcony— arm still curled around the railing, but now limp as he stares down at you instead. Which means, since you've turned around, you're practically face to face.
And he looks... surprised.
"What?" you blurt quickly, “What happened?”
He blinks hard and then looks away altogether, back into the black night of rain. His mouth is pursed into a very thin line, like he’s trying not to either laugh or frown.
"You thought I was pretty?" he asks.
Oh? Oh. “What?”
You stare at him for a very long moment, completely not following, and his lip only twitches in response.
Is he… smiling?
And then it hits you like a sack of bricks. You thought I was pretty?
Oh, God. Instantly, your expression sours— you almost want to hit him when you finally realize what that dumb, pleased look on his face is for (although it’s definitely more out of embarrassment at your own slip up because shit, did you really say that? Outloud?)
"You’ve got to be kidding,” you groan. “That’s what you’re looking all shellshocked for? Like that's something you need to hear from me, when you hear it all the time!”
You’d have thought you called him ugly with how Jeno’s smile suddenly vanishes. "All the time?"
Your mouth opens quickly to respond, already indignant, but when you catch the look on his face no sound comes out. His expression has turned into something much more curious than teasing now, eyebrows furrowed as you say nothing— He speaks again before you can figure out how to answer, yet another question, soft enough that it’s nearly lost in the thundering of the rain over the awning.
"And what makes you think that’s something I wouldn’t want to hear from you?"
You hear it loud and clear, yes, but as soon as the words are out of his mouth you’re still positive you’ve misheard him.
Is he insinuating that he would’ve wanted to know you thought he was pretty? No. There’s no way that’s what he said. Are you still drunk? (Or has Lee Jeno’s presence in your life just been so brain-breaking lately that your mind is starting to pull illusions on you? Because why… Why would Lee Jeno ever give a shit what you thought about him?)
"I mean, it's— It’s not like it's a secret that you look like this," you eventually force out, both audibly and visibly flustered, which you hate yourself for. “I thought it was a given, that you know…. You’re obviously…”
“That I’m what?”
Hot, your traitorous brain supplies quickly. Cute? Pretty, attractive, stunning, chiseled from marble and yet soft and warm like watercolor, annoyingly beautiful—
You glance away from him. "You know what.”
You’re embarrassed. Your voice has hardened a little with it, almost petulant, which is immediately annoying for multiple reasons, the biggest being that he’s even able to affect you like this at all after one stupid question. All those guys flirting with you at Wooyoung’s party a few hours ago and you’d brushed it off with ease, but Lee Jeno only looks at you and you can’t even meet his eyes? When did you become so uncool?
After a few awkwardly intense seconds you see him shift like he’s finally going to say something, and it’s merely a gift from the heavens that Jaemin’s voice rings out just then. It careens right through the crack in the balcony door, a sing-songy “Jeeeeno!” that shatters the atmosphere like tempered glass— quickly followed by, "And you too, Rockstar! Food is ready, come and get it before we eat it all! You’ll both catch a cold out there!”, and with the sudden reminder that, oh, yeah, you’re actually not alone in this house, you regain some of your lost composure.
You blast Jeno with a smile wide enough to signal airplanes and take one large step away from him. “Right. Food. Food! You’re hungry, right?”
Needless to say you do not wait for an answer. With haste you maneuver back into the house, quickly finding your way to the coffee table that Jaemin is in the middle of setting with plates and dishes, plastering a (hopefully) convincing look of wonder on your face. Your cheeks are already aching from the pull. How much faking have you had to do today?
“Smells great!” you say saccharinely, “Which one is mine?”
“The one with the extra sauce and chives,” Jaemin replies as you sit down, but peeks over his shoulder in his walk back to the kitchen to fix you with a warning glare. (He remembered that you like extra greens. Nice.) “But don’t you dare start eating before I get back with the sides, I know how you get. Sit and wait.”
“Wait? What do you mean wait? I thought you said it was done—”
“Sit and wait!”
Frowning, you abide by his scolding, still too scattered to argue.
Donghyuck stirs when you plop down beside him. “I helped too,” he says to you proudly. Somi is on his other side, splayed out on the ground swiping away at her phone, one foot crossed lazily over his legs. He doesn’t seem to care (or realize) that they’re there. Huh. You’re pleased that they seem to be getting along well, but they’re both pretty much the most outgoing people you know so it’s not earth-shattering that in the few hours they’ve become acquaintances they’ve also somehow already evolved to getting touchy. Jeno is sitting at the metaphorical head of the coffee table on your left, and Jaemin’s steaming bowl is directly across from yours.
“All I saw you do was wash a baby carrot.”
“All of the baby carrots. And the chives, which was way more difficult to do after Somi already cut them up into microscopic pieces. I boiled the eggs and fried the onions, too. You love eggs, so when you eat them and your face falls off with how good they taste, I’m definitely taking credit for that.”
You and Donghyuck used to argue a lot when you were younger. He was the loudest of your brother's friends and loved to rile you up just as much as you loved to prove him wrong, especially during those rare afternoons spent in his presence when you’d been in too good of a mood to pretend Mark’s commune were the bane of your existence. A handful of times, you spared an hour or two to watch TV with them or steal some of their food. (They always happily offered you some, but it made you feel better about avoiding them when you assumed they were feeding you begrudgingly.)
“I used to love eggs,” you tell Donghyuck snootily, that old squabbling-habit kicking in full force. “Who says I still do?”
“It’s not hard to tell, though,” Jeno pipes up. The last person you’re expecting to speak right now is him and it shows pretty obviously in how your head whips around. “Mark has been buying eggs like crazy because you eat through them so fast, which makes it obvious because Mark hates eggs. Every time I come over there’s a whole new box in the fridge. You’re like Dwane The Rock Johnson. That guy eats a carton of raw eggs a day.”
Silence.
Your mouth opens, then closes. Dwayne the rock…?
“Busted! Looks like you’re not as opaque as you think, Rockstar—”
Perfect. An outlet. You whirl back around and sock Donghyuck in the shoulder the second the last word leaves his lips, and his dumb grin is immediately replaced with a grimace as he squeals and jolts. “Stop calling me that.”
“Right! Right, got it, fuck,” he groans. “Christ, I swear your punches didn’t hurt this bad before! Have you taken up Muay Thai or something recently…?!”
Muay Thai? You look down at your first for some reason like the answer will just be laying there across your skin, but all that happens is you see the faded remnants of the scratches on your knuckles from your unfortunate meeting behind Nabi Bar.
Oh.
…Nabi Bar. Nabi bar. Right. The night of Nabi Bar. Jeno’s quick how-to-punch lesson. Apparently, it’s had some effect.
“I didn’t do anything special. I was just like, sixteen the last time I hit you. A lot can change in four years.”
“Liar!” Somi suddenly blurts from the ground, startling both of you. If she wasn’t so hidden behind Donghyuck you’d instantly reach over to pinch her mouth closed. “She works out now. Got a hell of a kick, too, you should see her on those little sandbag things at the gym. Piss her off a little more an’ she’ll show you, I bet, ‘cause— Oh my god, there was this guy once a few weeks ago who got it good when he—”
“Food first,” a voice exclaims.
Jaemin appears from behind you like a ghost holding a tray of little bowls and plates, and oh, you could kiss him for cutting that conversation short. “You will be free to display whatever sadistic desires you please after we eat, okay? Now. Who wants dumplings?”
Somi senses the food and sits up straight, forgetting momentarily about reminiscing, thank god, and you, already famished and now reeling to change the subject, waste no time picking up your utensils to shovel noodles into your mouth.
Midnight Dinner goes relatively peacefully after this. Jaemin and Hyuck argue about some basketball thing you don’t care to tune into, and later Somi cheerily informs the group that half the people at Wooyoung's party got stuck at the airBnB overnight when the weather advisory warning went out and that it’s chaos over there— people allegedly sleeping on the dancefloor and holing up in pantry closets. Thankfully (because your group chat probably would have been awash with death threats from Ryujin if not), Lia managed to get all of your girlfriends the hell out of there in time, and they were now safe and sound at Lia’s place a few blocks away from the party.
However. When the food is eventually finished and Somi’s mouth is no longer occupied, life becomes difficult once again.
Foolishly, you thought you were in the clear. In your head the night’s end would have come like this: you’d peacefully tidy up the table, using your last bit of hospitality to do the dishes while Somi showed the guests their rooms like the good host she is— and while they were off doing that, you’d sneak into the room you always slept in when you were staying over, jump into the shower for just long enough for everyone else to forget about you and go to bed, proceed to go to bed yourself, and finish this seemingly endless fucking day underneath a fluffy, ten-thousand-count threaded duvet, never (or at least for a few hours before they inevitably showed up at Mark’s apartment tomorrow) to see Donghyuck, Jaemin and Jeno, ever again. It was the perfect plan. Infallible. Who could stop you, right?
Netflix could.
Right as you were about to put your plan into action and suggest cleaning up, Hyuck gasped so loudly at your side that you startled and choked on your own spit.
“Did you guys know that all of the Paranormal Activity movies dropped on Netflix tonight at midnight?” he exclaimed, “Like, all of them?”
And that had been the single nail in your perfect plan’s coffin. Whether he already knew that Somi happened to be a horror movie freak or if his outburst was pure coincidence, it didn’t matter. All it took for your friend to catch her second wind of energy was the mention of this fabled ‘Paranormal Activity’, and you watched your plan drift away into Valhalla as Somi insisted that after everyone clean up, you all finish the sleepover with a movie.
It wasn’t the type of insistence that one could simply deny. Somi brought out the puppy-dog eyes. She used her trump card, and it worked. Donghyuck agreed immediately, the adrenaline junkie he is, and none of the rest of you objected either— even though you could even see it in Jaemin’s face that he wasn’t super enthusiastic about a horror movie right before bed, but what was he going to do? Say no to Somi? Who could charm the rosary off of a priest?
So it was with a heavy heart that you trudged through cleaning up, and trudged into your room to shower, and trudged into your duffel to put the pajamas on that you’d brought along (which, thank god, you’d decided to go with a pair of basketball shorts and an old highschool hoodie this time instead of only the big t-shirts you usually just brought to her house), and finally trudged back outside to throw yourself down onto the couch, exhausted and feeling very unlucky.
But at least you get to close your eyes for a little bit before everyone else comes out, right? Right. You bask in the beautiful, dark, ambient living room for… seven entire seconds before a voice rings out above your head.
“Is her brother a bodybuilder?”
God damn it. You crack your eyes open.
Jeno is standing over you with a small frown on his face as he looks at his hands— or where his hands would be, if the sleeves of Somi’s brother's crewneck weren't completely covering them. He’s upside down when you look at him this way, but you can’t be bothered to roll over, so you just tilt your head up (or down?) until you can see him a little better.
“Her brother is a gym rat, yes. But he’s actually not that big. He’s not that much taller than you, actually.”
“He’s not that much taller than me? How is that possible? I look like a kid in this.”
A kid? This causes you to perk up a little bit. You turn slightly, just enough to get a right-side-up idea of what Jeno is talking about— and immediately have to press your lips into a line to keep from laughing. Or coo-ing. Whichever sound would escape first.
He wasn’t wrong about looking like a kid; the black crewneck almost reaches his thighs it’s so long, hanging loosely over his body like he got tangled in a windsail, the sleeves of which folding easily over his hands in what may be the most effective sweater-paws of all time. The sweatpants he’s got on aren’t helping either since they’re dragging on the floor under his socked feet, Jeno’s legs absolutely undistinguishable from cloth as he stands there and… scowls at you?
“What?” you blurt. But as the word comes out, you know exactly why he’s frowning. You’re smiling. He knows you’re trying not to crack up. Oops.
“I knew you were going to laugh,” he mutters, but he doesn’t sound as salty about it as you’d have thought from his glare. “I look stupid. Somi didn’t have anything else, you know. I asked.”
“Why are you explaining yourself to me?” you snicker, “I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re thinking it.”
Jeno sounded so petulant that you almost felt a little bad for him, but then he folded his arms, adorably haughty, the movement of which making the little sweater-paws comically flop over each other, and the pity is instantaneously obliterated by the intense urge to squish him into a ball and put him in your pocket. Holy shit. Could he get cuter than this? Thankfully, your restraint doesn’t have to last long (you’re pretty sure a vein is about to pop out of your forehead from the sheer force of not trying to cackle) because a sudden booming thud from the guest bedroom hallway snaps both of your attention to the other side of the house.
“No fucking way,” Donghyuck howls. And then all of a sudden he’s here. That’s the thumping— he’s… running? “No way!”
No time to take full note of what he’s wearing (another gigantic hoodie and sweatpants combo) because he’s looking so frantic that his fashion takes the backburner.
“You’re… overreacting,” you hear Jaemin say, following not soon after him, but for some reason not even he sounds sure about his own words. What the hell?
“Why didn’t you tell me— Why— Traitor! Traitor in my own home!”
It’s only when his wide eyes find yours that you realize he’s yelling at you.
“I— I’ve never been to your house,” you attempt quickly, stunned. Unsure, you glance at Jeno, but he seems just as alarmed as you do.
Jaemin grimaces. His steps make no sound because the fabric of his borrowed flannel pajama pants are so long that you actually can't see his feet at all. “Ignore him,” he says. “He… Somi just…”
“I told him who’s clothes he’s wearing,” Somi interrupts casually, coming from the same hallway they’d just come from, most likely her own bathroom. She’s the only one with clothes that fit, obviously; the usual pajama set you’re used to seeing her in, fuzzy and pink, blonde hair tied up into a bun on the very top of her head. It takes you a second to put her words together, the meaning of ‘who’s clothes’, before all of this hubbub makes sense.
“Oh,” you murmur. “Oh. Yeah. Big Jeon. Jeongguk.”
“Jeon Jeongguk!?” Donghyuck wails in exasperation. “Does that make sense?! Grammy award winning soloist Jeon Jeongguk!? Are you crazy! That man is my profile picture on SoundCloud and you didn’t think to tell me that your best friend is his little sister?!”
“I didn’t know you liked him that much,” you hazard lightly, rising to your knees on the couch.
This is a lie. You knew how much Donghyuck idolized Somi’s brother. It was kind of hard not to know when Hyuck had the man’s entire discography memorized. But being that you weren’t really in the business of exposing celebrities (and the fact that never in a million years would you have thought you’d end up in a situation like this) you’d never had the incentive to, you know, tell him.
Which may have been a mistake, because now Donghyuck looks crazed.
He makes a staggered lurch to the couch and you tense, holding your hands out like he might try to tackle you or something, but the fight seems to leave him all at once. He completely bypasses your outstretched arms to flop into the space you’d just occupied on the cushion. The ripple causes you to stumble back into sitting, and you stare down at him. “I’m wearing Jeon Jeongguk’s clothes…”
“Your shoes are in his entryway,” you tell him, just to rub it in. “And you ate his food, and sat on his furniture. You showered with Jeon Jeongguk’s soap. Does that normalize it for you?”
Donghyuck makes a weak sound, like he’s drifting away, all the air being pressed out of a blow-up mattress, and you snicker a little bit. For some reason, you pat his head— it’s instinctual, a soothing gesture you’d express to any friend— but he’s not your friend. And you realize this almost immediately after your hand makes contact with his (surprisingly soft) hair.
So why are you continuing to pat his head?
“Right,” Jaemin says with a sigh, pinching fruitlessly at his nose bridge. “Bomb defused. Or… Bomb exploded, technically. Let’s get this slumber party tied up nicely, yeah?”
You look up, nodding in agreement, and immediately make eye contact with Jeno. It feels like he’d already been looking at you, but he then proceeds to act like he wasn’t when you catch his gaze.
…Okay. Weird. You stop petting Donghyuck’s head. Somi bounds towards the couch, reinvigorated with the mention of the movie, and you try not to side-eye Jeno too much when he plops down onto the couch next to you— at a considerable distance, might you add, like he hadn’t just been on top of you on the balcony an hour ago, but you instantly feel stupid for making that connection and whip your eyes away, once again agitated for some indiscernible reason.
The movie starts normally enough. With an entire couch-full of people and Donghyuck’s warmth at your side, since he’d never really moved from his dent next to you— if anything, sidling up closer once the oh-so-spooky-door-slammings started to happen in the film, because even if he likes to play coy, he’s really a big baby— it was pretty easy to stay grounded and not get too scared by the jumps and bumps on the screen.
Too easy, maybe. Because at one point you swear you were just going to rest your eyes for a little, just take a tiny little break during a slow point in the plot…
And the next time you opened them, everything was dark.
It’s quiet. The TV is off. And you’re… alone? You’re alone.
Groggily, you try to sit up from where you’ve apparently laid down, and your neck aches like you’ve been stuck in this position for hours, but no way it’s been hours, right? You didn’t seriously fall asleep?
However. The more you look around, the more signs point to the fact that, yeah, you totally blitzed it. You fell asleep. During a horror movie, no less. And it seems like everyone else made it through the film, as there’s not a single other person still out here on the couch. (So they couldn’t wake you up when they went to bed? Bastards.)
Once your eyes focus you glare across the house into the kitchen, and spy the time on the oven clock. 5:35AM.
Too early for you to have risen by yourself. You usually won’t wake up even if someone is banging pots and pans together outside of your bedroom door, so what… and why is it so cold in here? Your toes are freezing. The rest of you, not quite as much, because there’s a blanket draped over you that you don’t remember being there when you fell asleep. You sit up all the way, rubbing the crusties from your eyes and looking around again once your eyes have adjusted to the darkness, and find the answer to all of your questions in one look over to the source of the chill.
The balcony door is open again, and somebody is out there. Somebody in a big dark sweater, dwarfing their shape behind the fabric, but you’d recognize that pretty profile pretty much anywhere.
Lee Jeno. Again.
“Why are you awake,” you mutter nasally, throat still not completely woken up. This time he does jump at your intrusion— the big eyes and jolt would be funny if it weren’t so chilly out here. The blanket you wrapped around your head and body is doing well to deter the cold, but your feet and face aren’t happy.
“Did I wake you up?” Jeno asks, turning around fully. The black of his hair is just barely distinguishable from the dark blue of early morning.
You stand stiffly in the doorway again, not as confident to join him by the railing as you’d been last night.
“I don’t know. How long have you been out here?”
“Give or take fifteen minutes.”
You shrug. “Then probably not. Fifteen minutes, though? Out here? You must be trying to get sick for real.”
You’re squinting for no good reason other than the fact that you can’t quite open your eyes all the way yet. “And old people don’t fare well with colds, you know.”
He cracks a smile at this, bigger than you’re expecting for that weak of a joke. Before he can respond though, you surprise yourself by speaking first.
“Do you want to share my blanket?”
A beat of silence. It takes a second for your words to catch up with your obviously quite lagging brain, but when they do, you’re hit with a jolt of surprise that almost wakes you up fully. Shit! Again, saying things before you think— this is what got you in hot water last night!
“Actually— Sorry, you probably want to be alone right? Right, I’ll—”
“I wouldn’t mind sharing,” Jeno interrupts with a small smile, and you freeze. “It’s colder out here than I thought it would be. You might as well watch the sunrise with me, right? You’re already up.”
“Sunrise?”
“Yep. Should pop over the horizon any minute now.”
Oh. Your spine de-rigifies.
That is… actually, a very Jeno thing to do. Waking up at the crack of dawn just to see the sunrise.
Now you feel a little dumb for that not being one of the first things you assumed when you first saw him out here. Another second passes before you build the courage to step out again, right back into the spot you’d been last night— but this time, you shrug the edge of the (thankfully) rather large blanket open, and fling it wantonly over Jeno’s head, unsure how this has become your life. Highschool You would be crying tears of blood. (From envy or pride, you’re not sure.)
“Do it so no air gets in,” you instruct, and he obeys easily.
Soon enough you’re two peas in a blanket pod, only your faces poking out, but you’re… closer than you’d anticipated. Even with the size of the blanket. You can feel the fabric of his sweatpants brushing against your leg. If you look up too fast, you might headbutt him.
“This was a good idea,” Jeno murmurs suddenly, and you actually almost do heatbutt him when you jump at how close his voice is. “I forgot you burn like a furnace. I feel like there’s a space heater in here with me.”
You only nod. Anything more than that feels obscene with how quiet it is.
For a few minutes neither of you say anything, silent while the sky slowly blues, purples, and then turns the slightest shade of pink around the edges, a tiny little ray of sunlight peeking through the streets but not quite reaching through the skyscrapers yet. And this is… fine. Just two people watching the sunrise, alone. Acquaintances. Sharing a blanket to detract from the chill morning wind of September, just like regular people do.
“Do you remember Mark’s twentieth birthday?” Jeno asks, out of nowhere.
“His… twentieth?” you echo. “You mean the one you and him had to spend in the ER, because of that longboard Donghyuck got him?”
“That one was also pretty funny,” Jeno smiles, and you roll your eyes. Boys. Of course he’d think getting a matching broken arm cast with Mark Lee would be funny. “But no, that was eighteen. I’m talking about when you and I accidentally locked ourselves out of your house trying to sneak his cake inside. When we had to wait in your old treehouse for an hour for him to come home, in the dark, in the middle of a monsoon?”
Once he mentions the treehouse, the memory hits you like a punch to the gut.
That birthday. Jeez… yeah, how could you forget that? Jeno might as well have just said, ‘Remember the day you realized you had more than just a crush on me?’
With the caliber of feelings you’d had for him at that point, being stuck in that small space had been the highlight of your whole month, forget the fact that you’d torn a hole in your favorite shirt from clamoring up the wooden ladder and your toes had gotten so wet and pruney in your shoes that they bled. If you’d asked highschool you though, if you’d relive all of that bullshit— sprinting across the backyard while a torrential downpour hailed from the sky, laughing at how his glasses fogged completely over by the time you collapsed into the only marginally more sheltered treehouse, the hour you spent in there pressed against his side while you waited for your brother to get home— Yeah, you’d have done it again.
Splinters in your palms, cobwebs and leaves in your hair, the ruined pair of sneakers, all of it. A hundred times over. Just because you were with him, and that was all that ever mattered back then.
Your stomach twists at the recollection, an unfamiliar feeling stirring somewhere under your skin. God. How lame, huh? You’d really been head over heels.
“That was the first time I realized you doubled as a human fireplace,” Jeno says finally, snapping you out of it, and only then do you understand where this is coming from. “I was soaked to the bone, and yet I felt like I was sweating because I was sitting so close to you.”
“You caught the cold so badly the next day that we all genuinely thought you were going to die,” you remind with a short, weak laugh. “If I was supposed to be keeping you warm, I wasn’t doing a very good job of it.”
He hums softly. “You’re doing a pretty good job right now.”
It’s here where you make the first of many mistakes.
Without thinking, you look up at him. The sun has crested over the horizon now, orange rays of sunlight fully peeking through the buildings, and the glow of it is lighting Jeno up a blurred golden, filtering through his black hair and turning it bronze as he smiles off into the distance. It’s such a pretty picture that your thoughts, admittedly, falter quite hard at the sight— and it doesn’t help that when he senses your eyes on him, he glances down.
And again. You’re huddled up under the same blanket. You are very close. Close enough to feel his arm brushing up against yours, and to see the pools of honey brown in the eyes that had looked like such an intense, endless black last night.
(Maybe you’d reminisced too hard. Maybe the memory of that night in the treehouse pulled some feelings up from the long forgotten pit in your chest, the same place that used to flutter when you’d hear Lee Jeno’s name and pound like crazy in the rare times he’d call yours, the place that you’d thought died when he graduated and was never going to bother you again. The place you thought died. Because after what you say next? The only explanation for it is that your pit of love-struck stupidity is still thriving and fucking well.)
“We had an emergency key taped under the porch swing,” you blurt thoughtlessly.
Jeno blinks a few times in quick succession, like those had been the last words he was expecting you to mutter after staring at him so fiercely. “You… What?”
“A key to the front door. I remembered that it was there about fifteen minutes after we climbed into the treehouse.”
Self-preservation finally shows up to the word-vomit party, belatedly locking the key to your mouth so no other stupid confessions can escape— But it’s too late. Despite the intense confusion on his face, it’s clear that he heard you perfectly. You don’t have to be looking at him to feel how hard he’s thinking either; putting the pieces together, trying to understand what exactly you’re telling him— and after what feels like half an hour, Jeno finally speaks.
“So we could have gone inside before Mark got home?”
You cringe a little bit. “Yeah.”
“And you didn’t tell me on purpose?”
“...Yes.”
“Well. Okay,” Jeno eventually says, sounding thankfully only slightly bewildered, and not mad like he’d be well within his rights to be. “Can I ask why you’re telling me this now? Guilty conscience?”
“I don’t… know,” you tell him honestly. “Maybe. You reminded me of it when you brought it up and I guess my brain realized I’d never told you about that. I wasn’t really thinking when I mentioned it. It’s— It’s still very early, I’m not functioning all the way yet. Sorry.”
“Sorry for your brain trying to get you in trouble, or sorry for trapping us in the rain for an hour and a half because you were too embarrassed to tell me that you forgot about the spare key?”
This gets you to look up. What?
“Embarrassed?”
“I mean, after we’d already been soaked through, I don’t think I’d want to bring up the spare either. Why else wouldn’t you say anything?”
Jeno is simply smiling at you again, eyes shaped into those little knowing crescents you used to daydream about, but you can’t stop to admire them right now. That’s why he thought you didn’t tell him?
When you analyze the emotions swirling in your chest you realize that you’re oddly… disappointed. Because you were embarrassed? It wasn’t like you didn’t know Jeno was humble (or just dense, as Donghuck would say), but come on. Is that really the first thing his mind would come to for why a girl would willingly stay up in some wet, old, gross treehouse with a guy when she obviously had the means to go back into her own home? Is it so impossible to guess that it was him you were there for?
Why you’re so disgruntled by his response is unclear, and it seems Jeno has caught on to your displeasure.
“Why are you frowning at me like that?”
“Like what?” you reply hastily. “I’m not frowning at you.”
He squints, and you glance away from his suddenly very analytical stare. “...You are, though. You’re frowning at me right now. You said you weren’t frowning at me while you were frowning. Did I miss something?”
Yeah. You missed everything apparently. The last six years, even.
“No.”
“That’s a lie,” he says immediately. You’re so surprised by the certainty in his voice that you almost forget that you’re trying not to look at him. “You’re doing that thing. With your forehead.”
“Excuse me? I’m not doing anything with my—”
Jeno raises one finger to press right between your eyebrows, relaying the tension you’d unknowingly been holding there, and your words pretty much die in your throat alongside the memory of why you’re even pissy in the first place. “This thing,” he says. “When you lie, your eyebrows get all raised and angry looking. You have a pretty bad poker-face, Rockstar.”
“Stop calling me that,” you mutter automatically, but it has no real heat behind it. God damn it. Could you be more lame? Losing your fight and ire just because he put his finger on your forehead? “And stop stabbing me.”
He takes his finger back. “Are you going to tell me why you didn’t say anything about the key?”
“You answered your own question. I was embarrassed.”
“Liar. Your forehead—” You slap a hand over your eyebrows, and Jeno actually laughs. “... actually isn’t doing anything this time, but now because you did that I know you’re lying anyway. Got you.”
Fuck! Ripping your hand away from your skin, you scowl at him, embarrassed that he figured you out so easily. “Why do you even give a shit, Jeno?”
“I mean, I didn’t until your forehead started telling me differently.”
“My forehead is not— I don't—”
Jeno snickers at your indignance, smiling deviously like he’s enjoying teasing you more than he’s letting on, and your stress worsens.
“You’re the one who brought it up, you know—”
“I know,” you bark, “It’s just—”
“Did you think I’d be mad?”
“No! I— God, is it so hard to believe that I did it because I liked you?”
The words are out before you even realize what you’re saying. Or what you’re doing, should you say which is completely destroying six years of secrecy in one fell, sleep deficient, Forehead-Poking-Fueled haze.
You stare at him, breathing a little hard at both the outburst and in shock, and Jeno stares right back, no longer looking quite as amused. There’s such a long beat of silence at first that you, in your stupor, have the gall to wonder if he didn’t hear you— like that would be possible when you’d basically shouted your half-baked confession in his face— but then Jeno shifts, blinking hard, and all of a sudden the silence did not last long enough.
“You liked me?”
God, it sounds even more delusional out loud. Damage control, Gremlin Brain spits, Damage control! Backtrack, now! Your only saving grace, the only reason you’re not currently trying to find a way to throw yourself off of this balcony, is because he doesn’t sound completely disgusted with you. You force the most indifferent mask you can muster onto your face, attempting to blink the panic out of your expression.
“Liked you? So, maybe— Maybe it was a little, small thing. A kiddie crush, really, nothing to be… talked about…”
“Back then?” Jeno clarifies, sounding… Well, you’re not sure how he sounds and that’s so much worse. “You felt that way in the treehouse? When you were a junior?”
“Yes? Yeah, I mean. Yes. It was a little thing. A tiny thing. Listen—”
“But I thought you stopped liking me after Sungchan asked you out?”
Those twelve words are the equivalent of getting splashed in the face with a cup of ice water.
(Jeno frowns, lips thinning as he thinks. “Or was his name Seunghan?”)
For the first time in probably your entire life, you actually ignore what Lee Jeno is saying to you. As he mumbles to himself about the prospective name of this alleged ‘date’, his previous words echo in your head over and over again like someone replaying the same three-second stretch on a vinyl record— And with each iteration, your skin warms another degree. By the time you finally collect yourself enough to speak, paralyzed with shock, your face is burning so warm with something— disbelief, surprise, straight up fear, you’re not sure yet— that you’re positive that steam is curling out of your pores.
But I thought you stopped liking me after Sungchan asked you out?
(“I swear it was something with an S...”)
Jeno is looking elsewhere as he thinks— Until the incredulity in your voice brings his attention back to the present.
“You… knew?”
“Knew?” His lips twitch with a small smile. Seemingly still not grasping the severity of the shitstorm occuring in your mind, Jeno laughs softly, bashful. “About how you felt? Well. Yeah? You've never really been that subtle about… anything, you know.”
You can’t move. It’s actually beginning to get a little unbearable under this blanket with the sun starting to beam down on you and the added heat from your own ebbing horror, but you can’t move.
You’re being hit with every glaringly obvious cue you've probably ever given him, a rolling tape of embarrassing memories. It’s an attempt happening completely in vain, as trying to find the one that tipped him off is impossible; sifting through years worth of moony-eyes you thought were hidden by your undetectable stealth, the times you’d ‘randomly’ maneuver yourself sitting near him when the chance arose, all the times he’s probably caught you just staring and known exactly why while you thought he was none the wiser.
Holy shit. So the last six years of your life, the two years you’d stopped being obsessed with him included, have been a complete and utter show? A clown show, with you as the main act? Horror overtakes you. Fuck, what you’d give to go back a few minutes and stop yourself from even coming out here in the first place, to keep living in ignorance— he’d known. He’d known! Jeno knew about the giant, stupid crush you had on him, which probably meant that every single time you got flustered or clammed up or been weird around him recently he knew why, and…
Wait. You freeze, current freak-out taken over by another thought that bursts into your mind.
I thought you stopped liking me after Sungchan asked you out?
Sungchan? You rack your brain. Sungchan, the classmate you’d become fast friends with during the first semester of junior year, your sky-scraper tall, smartass of a deskmate for the few months before he grew the courage to ask you out. You’d both tried it out for a few days before realizing that maybe the dating life wasn’t the best avenue for your relationship and amicably returned to being friends, still close even when he ended up transferring to another highschool a few cities away over the summer. Even now you still kept in touch, sending the occasional ‘this deer looks like u’ and ‘omg i just found this polaroid in my old notebook, look at how babie u were’ texts to one another, but that had really been it.
You dated Sungchan for about four and a half days in the grand scheme of things. Not nearly long enough to even dent the ocean of unresolved feelings you’d had about Lee Jeno. Those feelings would continue to haunt you until the ripe old age of eighteen, up until when he and your brother graduated— But if Jeno thought that you completely stopped liking him after Sungchan that meant he didn’t have a clue about the years you still idolized him after that, didn’t it?
For a second you almost feel ill.
(Of course, however. Of course, right as your failing mask of indifference hits its weakest point, that’s when your luck would have Jeno belatedly notice that you are not having nearly as good a time reminiscing about this as he is.)
He finally reads the look on your face, the tightness of your lips and the unmistakable mortification, and his eyes widen so quickly with understanding that you would have laughed if you could release your mouth from its grimace.
“There wasn’t anything wrong with that though,” he blurts, backpedaling, “I mean— It was nice to be thought of so highly by someone like you. It was cute.”
Your smile tightens further.
You know he’s trying. Very hard. To rectify what he must see as him unknowingly upsetting you or something. But his words do exactly the opposite, and the second after he calls it that— the nearly five years you’d spent falling over yourself over someone, who you are now being told, has always just thought your feelings were ‘cute’— something splinters a little bitterly in your chest.
Jeno, to his credit, realizes immediately that he’s misspoken.
You can practically see it in his expression, the wince when you take a step back. It causes the blanket to fall away from you completely, now left hanging lopsidedly on Jeno’s shoulders— the movement of which seems to concern him more than you’re expecting.
“Wait,” he says quickly. “That didn’t come out properly. Y/N—”
Nope. No. You take another step back.
Time to go. What a perfect moment this could be to go back inside. Yep! A convincing yawn here, a shiver, a thanks for the sunset-watching-invitation, and then you can abscond back into the house to the comforting loneliness of your bedroom to immediately and until further notice pretend you never came out here and that none of this ever—
“I would’ve taken you seriously,” Jeno finishes in one short breath, like the words are escaping his mouth without the permission of his brain, “If I could’ve. You know that, right?”
Record scratch.
His mouth opens and closes when you freeze, visibly struggling to find the words to explain what he’s just said (or dropped on you, it feels more like), and you just stare at him, uncomprehending.
“No, I… I don’t know? If you could have? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You— You’re my best friend's baby sister,” he grinds out quietly, like it’s somehow supposed to explain everything, but you’re only left more confused. Confused and, suddenly, at the random mention of Mark at a time like this, on edge. “Not to mention you were like, sixteen—”
“I’m only one year under you though,” you interrupt.
“You skipped a grade in elementary school, I’m aware, but that doesn't make you any older. Two years is a big difference.”
“It really isn’t? Especially not when both people involved are adults, and did you forget about Yooa? The girl who confessed to you when you were a senior, that you dated, who was definitely only a few months older than me?”
Jeno’s eyebrows furrow like you’d just asked him if he remembered the eye color of somebody he met when he was five. He frowns like he’s trying to recall exactly who you’re talking about, this girl who’s entire name, history, and zodiac sign you’d had emblazoned into your mind because when she first started dating Jeno you’d cried for an hour straight and then proceeded to cyber-investigate the girl’s twitter to torture yourself a little more.
“So unless four or five months really makes all the difference to you, I’m calling bullshit on the age thing, which now begs the question— what the hell does ‘taking me seriously’ have to do with my brother?”
“It has everything to do with your brother,” Jeno replies eventually, voice taut. “And you and I both know you and Mark don’t always see eye to eye, so I really think it would be best if we just dropped—
“Did he say something to you?” you mutter, accusatory. “About me?”
“He—It’s not that easy, Y/N. Mark wasn’t—”
You scoff, boiling over. “Mark didn’t this, Mark doesn’t that, does being ‘best friends’ also mean that you’re obligated to be his lapdog? What is it with you guys and deferring to his every whim?”
Jeno’s words cut short. You’re pushing it, even for someone as controlled and notoriously difficult-to-rile as Jeno, and the burgeoning tick in his jaw is telling you as much, but you’ve never really been one to heed warnings. And now you’re pissed, so the tense pull between his eyebrows is peas to you. “Or are you going to be a big boy and tell me what he—”
“Mark didn’t tell me anything,” Jeno finally relents, sharper than you’re used to, but you hold your ground when he takes a step forward. “I acted like I didn’t know how you felt on my own, because what else was I supposed to do when Mark only ever spoke about you like you put the stars in the sky? Once I met you he started telling me about your grades. He’d get so excited to tell me how you were doing in dance, or what new music you were blasting in your room, or whatever new achievement you got and thought he didn’t notice, and after a while I found myself thinking about you when I wasn't even with him and that scared the shit out of me. Why? Because he's my best friend. Do you think I didn’t already know exactly how he felt about anyone that even so much as looked at you?”
And so the dam breaks. These are the most words you think he’s ever spoken in one setting and stunned by the intensity in his voice, you can only listen.
“Not to mention that by the time I figured out whatever I was feeling, there were only a few weeks left before I moved to Seoul for university. So I left it alone.”
He blinks, hard. “And eventually you got over me. So it’s—"
“If you say it’s alright, Lee Jeno, I’ll deck you.”
You don’t know where the fury comes from. Maybe it’s not anger at all. Maybe it’s the wave of disappointment, regret, resignation, and sadness from what could have been, all rolled into one. But it comes out as rage, the flare in your eyes and the resentful edge to your words.
“Have you ever wondered why Mark and I don’t see ‘eye to eye’, Jeno?”
His lips part, but no sound comes out. Whether it’s because he knows better than to answer right now or because he genuinely doesn’t know, you’re not aware.
“Because of this,” you mutter, “Because of this. Did you know that there was a point in my childhood where the feeling was mutual? A point where Mark was my favorite person in the entire world? I couldn’t imagine a single day where I’d want to be anywhere but with him. He was my brother, my friend— but then, as most people do, I got older. And when I got older and ceased to be the little thing that followed his every suggestion, when I stopped wanting to do everything the same safe way he did it, he stopped seeing me as that friend and started treating me like something he needed to protect. Instead of being brave, I became reckless. Everything I wanted to do became dangerous. Everyone I hung out with was a bad influence, every place I went was unsafe. He stopped trusting me.”
The laugh between your words is humorless.
“And for years, I thought it was my fault. That I did something to make him lose so much faith in me. Do you know what that feels like?”
The crack in your voice makes Jeno look away sharply. It’s quick, as though the sound had physically grabbed him, and the movement is what snaps you back to the painful present.
You take a step back, hastily blinking the very unwelcome burn from your eyes— It’s 7AM on a Saturday morning and you’re yelling at Lee Jeno on your best friend's balcony. When did your life get to this point?
“For the better part of four years, all I looked for was you. But because I’m your best friend's little sister, even though you knew, you did nothing, right? Because Mark said so?”
Jeno bristles again. “Mark didn’t say—”
“He didn’t have to say it!” you shout. “Mark doesn’t trust me to make my own decisions and somehow that ended up making the only boy I’ve ever loved keep his mouth shut when he could’ve liked me back. Does that make sense?”
Jeno’s eyes fly back to your face. If you thought he’d been surprised when you told him you liked him, then the look on his face right now would be one to snap a picture of. Oops. Guess you weren’t supposed to let that word slip— only four letters and yet such a big, big difference. But it probably doesn’t matter since you’ve already gone and fucked it all up by accidentally confessing.
You gather what little boldness you have left and look him right in the eyes.
"I’m only going to ask you this now,” your voice is wavering, but you ignore it, “Because a younger me used to lose sleep wondering what your answer would be.”
He must know what’s coming. You watch his eyes flash a million things, none of them decipherable.
“Am I only ever going to be Mark's little sister to you? No matter what?"
One beat.
Two beats.
His lips part as though to speak,
Three.
But nothing comes out.
A car honks down on the street below. A strong breeze sends goosebumps rising across your skin. A song goes off somewhere inside the house, a sudden singing twinkle; Jaemin’s alarm. You’re able to recognize it from the dozens of times he’s slept over at Mark’s place. He’d said something last night about having to leave super early, swim team practice or the like; he must’ve left his phone out in the living room somewhere, but the guy has ears like a hawk and has no doubt heard the tune from whatever blanket he’s under. He’ll come out to turn it off any second now, and you don’t want to be out here when he does.
“At least you’re honest,” you tell a very troubled-looking Jeno with a small, plastic smile.
You don’t wait for an answer, and you don’t turn back for the entirety of the walk back inside— and then, once you’re out of eyesight, the glazed over stumble— to your guest room. You slowly take out the extra duvet from the closet, wrap it around yourself like the world's saddest burrito, collapse onto the bed, and try your damndest not to cry.
(Safe to say that after about ten seconds, you lose that fight terribly.)
[♥︎]: and there it is, folks! please leave a like if you enjoyed! it REALLY gives me the motivation to work on this faster! [chapter edited & updated on 12/20/23!]
[MASTERLIST] [PREVIOUS PART] [NEXT PART]
#lee jeno#nct dream#nct jeno#lee jeno fic#nct dream one shot#nct dream × reader#nct dream smut#nct dream imagines#jeno#jeno lee#jeno x reader#jeno × you#jeno x Yin#jeno drabbles#ieno scenarios#jeno imagines#jeno fic#jeno fluff#jeno smut#jeno angst#jeno oneshot#jeno fanfic#nct dream fic#nct dream ieno#nct × reader#nct fic#nct imagines#jeno au#misdial masterlist
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64 years ago today, November 19, 1959, The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show premiered. (known as Rocky & His Friends during the first two seasons and as The Bullwinkle Show for the last three seasons) It originally aired from November 19, 1959, to June 27, 1964, on the ABC and NBC television networks. Produced by Jay Ward Productions, the series is structured as a variety show, with the main feature being the serialized adventures of the two title characters, the anthropomorphic moose Bullwinkle and flying squirrel Rocky. The main adversaries in most of their adventures are the Russian-like spies Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale. Supporting segments include Dudley Do-Right (a parody of old-time melodrama), Peabody's Improbable History (a dog and his pet boy Sherman traveling through time), and Fractured Fairy Tales (classic fairy tales retold in comic fashion), among others.
Rocky & Bullwinkle is known for quality writing and wry humor. Mixing puns, cultural and topical satire, and self-referential humor, it appealed to adults as well as children. It was also one of the first cartoons whose animation was outsourced; storyboards were shipped to Gamma Productions, a Mexican studio also employed by Total Television. The art has a choppy, unpolished look and the animation is extremely limited even by television animation standards at the time. Yet the series has long been held in high esteem by those who have seen it; some critics described the series as a well-written radio program with pictures.
The show was shuffled around several times (airing in afternoon, prime time, and Saturday morning time slots), but was influential to other animated series from The Simpsons to Rocko's Modern Life. Segments from the series were later recycled in the Hoppity Hooper show.
There have been numerous feature film adaptations of the series' various segments, such as the 2000 film The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle which blended live-action and computer animation and the 1999 live-action film Dudley Do-Right, which both received poor reviews and were financially unsuccessful. By contrast, an animated feature film adaptation of the "Peabody's Improbable History" segment, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, was released to good reviews in 2014.
Mr. Peabody will star in a new reboot series picked up for 13-episodes.
In 2013, Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show were ranked the sixth Greatest TV Cartoon of All Time by TV Guide.
[Classic Retrovision Milestones]
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Narrator: And so alls well that ends well for our high flying friend and his lowbrow companion. I think that it's safe to say that these boys put the moan in matrimony.
Snidely Whiplash: Oh that's terrible!
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melodrama is for the people who don't mean half the things they say. melodrama is for the people who pluck their eye makeup out of their lashes the morning after. it is for the ones who get the urge to cut off the people they love, for the people who secretly think their friends are full of shit. melodrama is for the people who love for the thrill of it and romanticize the high. melodrama is for the people who don't have any tangible problems but blow up everything in their minds, the ones who feel their problems are invalid. melodrama is for the ones who hate being called dramatic. it is for the ones who don't have talent because they are never the best, who want to grow but are scared of aging, who relate to everyone but still feel lonely.
melodrama is for the ones who are insecure about their anger. melodrama is for the ones who aren't good enough for their friends. it is for the hypocrites, the ones who value reciprocation but aren't good with affection. melodrama is for the easily distracted, the ones in denial. it is for the ones who don't feel their lives revolving around them, for the ones who recognize "home" but have never had one. it is for the ones who want to feel like themselves again. melodrama strikes the dangerous balance; it is for the cynics, the romantics, the stable, the unhinged, the dramatics, the detached, the self-centered, self-loathing, the selfish and selfless, the undefinable. melodrama is for the constellations of contradictions.
#melodrama aesthetic#melodrama#lorde#lorde music#lorde lyrics#perfect places#homemade dynamite#louvre#hard feelings#loveless#green light#supercut#sober#liability#writier in the dark
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needlessly relating the marauders to lorde songs (part 1?)
green light: mary as hell no one is changing my mind
sober: something about this feels very barty to me. .. like yeah. jack and jill DO get fucked up and possessive when it gets dark. BARTY.
homemade dynamite: pandoraaaaaaaaaaaaa like listen to this ONCE and tell me i’m wrong (it’s impossible)
the louvre: JAMESIE JAMIE JIMJAM. you are the greatest. i will hang you in the louvre. broadcast the boom boom boom boom and make them all dance to it.
liability: lily lily lily she’s a liability she’s a little much for everyone and they’re gonna watch her disappear into the sun!!!!
hard feelings/loveless: regulus. i associate this song with water a lot for some reason (the reason being: ridiculously expansive lore + visuals ive had in my head for years) and this one is about drowning but also rebirth and REGULUS. it’s him. also loveless is the best song off melodrama and i need the full version STAT.
sober ii (melodrama): you asked if i was feeling it i’m psycho high? no you won’t remember in the morning when i speak my mind? EVAN. ROSIER.
writer in the dark: SIRIUS !!! BLACK !!! i am my mother’s child i’ll love you til my breathing stops i’ll love you til you call the cops on me!!!!!!!!!!
supercut: ohhhhh dorcassss dorcasssssss like u don’t understand she’s in the car radio up the love we had and lost we were wild and fluorescent come home to my heart like....
liability (reprise): remus mf lupin that’s who. yeah we reflective. we emo. we are a liability but we’re kind of resigned to it now. we made liabilitism our bitch.
perfect places: i’m 19 and i’m on fire !! and i’m marlene !! let’s kiss and then take off our clothes !!! and go to perfect places !!
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tag 9 people to get to know better //
thanks for the tag @kittensittin ! 💜
Last song: Butchered Tongue, by Hozier
(I've been wanting to get back into my Irish practice; I've joined a Gaeilge discord server but have been too nervous to attempt to say anything yet)
Currently watching: re-watching Switched at Birth
(started on a random whim, and I don't know if I'll keep going through it all– I think it got to five seasons?! and I don't think I finished it originally either– but for now, the low-stakes ABC Family melodrama is a soothing distraction from the extremely-high-stakes rollercoaster from hell that is 2024)
Three ships: Rebecca/Ted, Lorelai/Luke, Claire/Jamie
(these are the three for which I've read fic most recently)
Favorite color: pink
(all shades, but especially that which I now call biscuit box pink :)
Currently consuming: my morning coffee
First ship: that got me into fandom & fanfic, Lorelai/Luke and Rory/Logan
(I did like L/L's original canon ending, but their road to get there, which I did not always like... certainly opened up a lot of possibilities! And R/L's... well, I appreciate it more in retrospect, knowing what ASP would've done instead, but still)
Relationship status: single
tagging: @boglady @blogfordantreacy @coachlasso @dee-thequeenbee @jakeperalta @klarinette49 @queenrikki @racheltuckerrr @waywardted
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The Beryl Coronet pt 1
Another one where I remember the title and then literally nothing else. There are a lot like that. I swear I have read most of these before, and watched the entire Granada series, but apparently my memory is just appalling.
One assumes that there will be a beryl coronet involved. i think beryls might be emeralds? (The Internet says both aquamarine and emerald are examples of beryl, my fleeting interest two decades ago in precious and semiprecious stones finally pays off!)
“Holmes,” said I as I stood one morning in our bow-window looking down the street, “here is a madman coming along. It seems rather sad that his relatives should allow him to come out alone.”
So we're starting out strong here. In one paragraph we have established that Watson is living with Holmes ('our bow-window') (where is his wife?) and with some period-typical judgement of mental health. I'm guessing the man in question is probably agitated from whatever incident has sent him to request Holmes' assistance, and not suffering from a mental illness, but the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Or it could be the onset of brain fever...
For a while he could not get his words out, but swayed his body and plucked at his hair like one who has been driven to the extreme limits of his reason. Then, suddenly springing to his feet, he beat his head against the wall with such force that we both rushed upon him and tore him away to the centre of the room.
Well that definitely sounds like he does have some condition. And if he didn't before, beating your head against a wall that hard is liable to give you some brain damage if you're not lucky. Glad that Watson and Holmes stopped him.
"Public disgrace I might have faced, although I am a man whose character has never yet borne a stain. Private affliction also is the lot of every man; but the two coming together, and in so frightful a form, have been enough to shake my very soul. Besides, it is not I alone. The very noblest in the land may suffer unless some way be found out of this horrible affair.”
Oh, no, I was right the first time. He's just agitated by his misfortune. Wow... this guy lacks coping mechanisms. He's really hyping this up, though, Public disgrace, private affliction, shaking his soul, the very noblest in the land (not that I particularly care about them, but the stakes they are high). I assume from the title that it's a beryl coronet that has been misplaced in some publicly noticeable way. If it turns out that he just misplaced the meat for his dinner, I will be judging him hard for all this melodrama.
“I feel that time is of value,” said he; “that is why I hastened here when the police inspector suggested that I should secure your co-operation. I came to Baker Street by the Underground and hurried from there on foot, for the cabs go slowly through this snow. That is why I was so out of breath, for I am a man who takes very little exercise."
Mr Holder: Time is of the essence.
Also Mr Holder:
We don't need to know how you got to Baker Street, we already know you arrived. Maybe if things are so urgent you should... start with the urgent thing and then talk about how unfit you are and how you need to do more exercise.
“‘It is absolutely essential to me,’ said he, ‘that I should have £50,000 at once. I could, of course, borrow so trifling a sum ten times over from my friends, but I much prefer to make it a matter of business and to carry out that business myself. In my position you can readily understand that it is unwise to place one's self under obligations.’"
First off, hello BofE inflation calculator: 50k in modern money is approximately £5.2 million today.
Second, 'I could just ask my friends. I totally could ask them and they could all give me this money easily. I'm only here because I want this to be business. I don't want to be obliged to them.' Why does this very famous person (Prince of Wales?) feel so defensive about this? He doesn't need to explain why he's asking a bank not his friends. That's literally what the bank is there for. This feels like what someone would say if they didn't have any friends. Or if they'd already borrowed millions from their friends and never paid them back.
“‘Next Monday I have a large sum due to me, and I shall then most certainly repay what you advance, with whatever interest you think it right to charge. But it is very essential to me that the money should be paid at once.’"
I know this guy is famous and (probably) royal and therefore by the rules of these stories therefore probably above reproach, but I would not want to give him a 5 million pound loan. The 'I could totally ask my friends' and this 'I'm totally going to pay you back on Monday. I've got loads of money coming on Monday' are warning signs for me.
"‘You have doubtless heard of the Beryl Coronet?’
“‘One of the most precious public possessions of the empire,’ said I."
Yep, my money is on this being Albert, Prince of Wales, him what would become Edward VII. Iirc he had a bit of a reputation for being a party boy prince, so if he really can't get any money from his friends (even if asking for 5 million were a reasonably thing to do) I wouldn't be surprised if it was because he wasn't good at paying people back.
This mfer just casually totes around some of the crown jewels, though. Just got 10 million in a case that he's carrying around. No one will miss it for a little while. I guess at this time they weren't on display at the Tower of London. I really want this coronet to be stolen so bad, and I have a feeling it's going to be.
"...imbedded in soft, flesh-coloured velvet..."
Whytf did you call it 'flesh-coloured'? Is the colour that important that you needed to specify it, and even if you needed to specify it, why choose those words? Why? Couldn't it have been red, or blue, or green? Why 'flesh-coloured'? ACD, I just want to talk.
"'Is the security sufficient?’
“‘Ample.’"
Well, if this guy says there's ample security, I guess there must be. Clearly that's enough reassurance for me to leave my ten million pound shiny hat here with no problems at all. Details? Who needs details? Pah. It's just a priceless object that technically belongs to the state rather than me.
I don't want this coronet to be recovered. I want it to be lost forever. Whoever stole it should get a gold star.
But it's okay because he makes it very clear that it shouldn't be lost or damaged.
"When I was alone once more, however, with the precious case lying upon the table in front of me..."
And then walks out leaving it just on the desk of this random guy he's never met before.
"I already regretted having ever consented to take charge of it."
Should have thought about that earlier, my dude. Also, if you know it's a national possession, is it even legal for the Prince of Wales to use it as collateral for a loan? Surely it would have to actually be one of his possessions to be valid. Or at least having the signature of the actual owner (Queen Victoria in this case, although possibly parliament?) to be used as such. Nothing about this loan is a good idea.
If he doesn't repay it are you just going to... keep national property?
"However, it was too late to alter the matter now, so I locked it up in my private safe and turned once more to my work."
You just... put it in your own private safe?
WTF even is this buffoonery? How is this... What is this... I can't even. Does the bank not have a secure vault? With guards etc.? But no, any safe will do.
"I determined, therefore, that for the next few days I would always carry the case backward and forward with me, so that it might never be really out of my reach."
I guess the bank does not have a vault. Or a night watchman, or literally ANY KIND OF WAY OF DEALING WITH ITEMS LIKE THIS. When it seems that this is something that they are in the habit of doing, although maybe not on this level. And they clearly have £1000 notes hanging around. Do they just all have them in their individual safes as well?
"I did not breathe freely until I had taken it upstairs and locked it in the bureau of my dressing-room."
Super secure. A+ job.
I've seen those old bureaus, the locks are so simple I could pick one with one of my hair pins!
I am fully on the side of any and all thieves in this escapade (unless it turns out the Prince of Wales has hired them himself for nefarious purposes) but at this point in time I have lost most of the sympathy I have for these people.
The only reason I don't think it should be stolen right now is that, honestly, it presents so little challenge to any potential thieves it's actually insulting.
"She came with an excellent character, however, and has always given me satisfaction."
Language evolves, meaning changes, this does not mean what it looks like it means. But still, it gives me the ick. Nope. No thank you. Especially when followed by the description of how pretty she is.
"My family itself is so small that it will not take me long to describe it. I am a widower and have an only son, Arthur. He has been a disappointment to me, Mr. Holmes—a grievous disappointment."
Oh boy. So you took a ten million pound coronet and locked it in a desk in the same house as a son who is perpetually in debt and cannot be trusted with money. Even if he didn't take it, which seems likely as he's clearly being marked as the most obvious suspect. I stg you should not be this foolish.
“And, indeed, I could not wonder that such a man as Sir George Burnwell should gain an influence over him, for [...] I have found myself that I could hardly resist the fascination of his manner. He is older than Arthur, a man of the world to his finger-tips, one who had been everywhere, seen everything, a brilliant talker, and a man of great personal beauty. Yet when I think of him in cold blood, far away from the glamour of his presence, I am convinced from his cynical speech and the look which I have caught in his eyes that he is one who should be deeply distrusted. So I think, and so, too, thinks my little Mary, who has a woman's quick insight into character."
Add a fae to the tally of Sherlock Holmes supernatural encounters. Also, I'm going to call it now, Arthur is blameless and Mary is in love with Sir George Burnwell and they're going to run away together, or that's what he told her when he convinced her to steal the coronet. That's my theory. We shall see...
"She is a sunbeam in my house—sweet, loving, beautiful, a wonderful manager and housekeeper, yet as tender and quiet and gentle as a woman could be."
A thief? Honestly I want her to be even more after this description. The Victorian ideals of femininity were so trite. I hope she stole that coronet.
"I think that if anyone could have drawn him into the right path it would have been she, and that his marriage might have changed his whole life; but now, alas! it is too late—forever too late!"
... it is not a woman's job to fix a man, Mr Holder. If this story ends with her marrying Arthur I will be very sad. Although from the 'too late' is one of them dead?
“When we were taking coffee in the drawing-room that night after dinner, I told Arthur and Mary my experience, and of the precious treasure which we had under our roof, suppressing only the name of my client."
You just... told them about it. Just... He says be discreet. It's 10 million pounds (£100k at the time). Your son has money problems. And you're just out here chatting about how you have essentially part of the crown jewels of the British Empire in a drawer upstairs.
My dude...
My actual dude...
You should have just taken the coronet out and used it as a centrepiece. it would have been less obvious.
Also, it's part of the crown jewels, how much use do you think 'suppressing the name of your client' is going to bloody be. There aren't a lot of people who can just help themselves to national bloody treasures.
“‘Where have you put it?’ asked Arthur.
“‘In my own bureau.’
“‘Well, I hope to goodness the house won't be burgled during the night.’ said he.
“‘It is locked up,’ I answered.
“‘Oh, any old key will fit that bureau. When I was a youngster I have opened it myself with the key of the box-room cupboard.’"
That's what I said! Also... this is evidence in Arthur's favour because only the stupidest person in the world would say 'I could steal that' and then steal it. Although... given the levels of intelligence his father is showing, we can't hold out much hope for him. Perhaps his mother was the brains of this operation. I hope for Arthur's sake he takes more after her than his father.
"I started to go round the house to see that all was secure—a duty which I usually leave to Mary but which I thought it well to perform myself that night. As I came down the stairs I saw Mary herself at the side window of the hall, which she closed and fastened as I approached.
“‘Tell me, dad,’ said she, looking, I thought, a little disturbed, ‘did you give Lucy, the maid, leave to go out to-night?’"
I'm going to try not to make this a Naval Treaty situation again. Data, data, data, etc. So instead of making an accusation here, I'm merely going to ask what Mary was doing at the window before she closed it, and point out that she is drawing attention to another possible suspect and also has good knowledge of all ways to access the house and ample opportunity to leave something open or unlocked.
These may all be coincidences. There are potential valid explanations for all of these things.
Or she might have just sent a message to Sir George Burnwell and planning to steal a coronet this evening.
“‘She came in just now by the back door. I have no doubt that she has only been to the side gate to see someone, but I think that it is hardly safe and should be stopped.’"
Though the narrative now wants us to think that Lucy is meeting with Sir George Burnwell... but my money is still on Mary. We already know Lucy has lots of suitors who hang around the grounds, she might well have been meeting with one of them.
"Are you sure that everything is fastened?’
“‘Quite sure, dad.’"
Only her word for that.
Not that I'm accusing her of anything. I'm merely... pointing things out. Factual things.
“‘Arthur!’ I screamed [...]
"He appeared to be wrenching at it, or bending it with all his strength. At my cry he dropped it from his grasp and turned as pale as death. I snatched it up and examined it. One of the gold corners, with three of the beryls in it, was missing.
“‘You blackguard!’ I shouted, beside myself with rage. ‘You have destroyed it! You have dishonoured me forever! Where are the jewels which you have stolen?’"
Some other facts that have been established. Arthur loves Mary and has asked her to marry him on multiple occasions. Just throwing that one out there. If he is trying to cover up a crime/take the blame for someone... perhaps...
Also, Mr Holder 'You have dishonoured me forever!'? Sure, but you dishonoured yourself first by being so very, very bad at your job. You had one job.
“‘You have called me names enough,’ said he, ‘I will not stand it any longer. I shall not say another word about this business, since you have chosen to insult me. I will leave your house in the morning and make my own way in the world.’"
Arthur making some interesting choices here. Like 'I know I was just found with my hands on a broken national treasure, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to walk out of this one a free man.'
When you said he was spoiled, Mr Holder, I didn't think you meant that he really didn't understand the meaning of the word 'consequences' at all.
Although maybe you should have listened to him before biting his head off. I know things look pretty damning, but maybe talking would have been a better approach. "Hey, son. What you got there?" But I get that it's a little difficult to remain calm when you're looking at the twisted remains of both a ten million dollar mistake and your entire career/life.
"Mary was the first to rush into my room, and, at the sight of the coronet and of Arthur's face, she read the whole story and, with a scream, fell down senseless on the ground."
Convenient. First, that she was so close to the room that she would be the first to rush in, and second, that she's now unavailable for questioning.
But seriously, Mary, I am behind you all the way on this. Keep at it! I am cheering you on. I hope your performance was Oscar worthy.
I don't know what Arthur expects his father to do here. Lie, maybe, and say 'I don't know what happened to it, Your Royal Highness. Must have been a random thief and absolutely not the son who I told the location to and who I found red-handed with it.' I firmly believe he's innocent and his father walked in on him trying to fix the thing, but even so he's coming across as kind of naive here. I get maybe hoping that Daddy wouldn't turn him in, but he must have thought it was a possibility.
“‘At least,’ said he, ‘you will not have me arrested at once. It would be to your advantage as well as mine if I might leave the house for five minutes.’"
Before Sir George can get away with the missing gems.
Mary, keep playing dead, if you faint for long enough you'll miss all of it. Although your... maybe potential boyfriend... might ditch you. Probably will ditch you. If that's what's happening. I really hope he's not just playing you and the two of you are going to take those gems, get them recut and sold, and sail off into the sunset (hopefully not interrupted by a random shipwrecking incident), but something tells me Sir George Burnwell is playing you.
"...I implored him to remember that not only my honour but that of one who was far greater than I was at stake; and that he threatened to raise a scandal which would convulse the nation."
This is not a convincing argument. Honestly, if I was told that what I was doing might cause a scandal for the royal family, I would absolutely have the impulse to do it harder. I get that I am not the Victorian son of a gentleman, but still. 'You have to save the royal family from scandal' would just make me laugh. They wouldn't be in a scandal if they hadn't done something scandalous.
"A search was made at once not only of his person but of his room and of every portion of the house where he could possibly have concealed the gems; but no trace of them could be found, nor would the wretched boy open his mouth for all our persuasions and our threats."
When would he have had time to hide them that well, considering he was still holding the coronet when you found him? Also, if he is, as I suspect, covering for Mary, then he's probably sure he's doing the noble and honourable thing by protecting her reputation or whatever.
"My God, what shall I do! I have lost my honour, my gems, and my son in one night. Oh, what shall I do!”
Well, maybe you start by inventing time travel to go back and tell your past self to do better.
Tbf, regarding his mental state, if I had, through my own fault, lost/damaged an object someone had entrusted to me that was worth ten million pounds, particularly someone with as much power as the Prince of Wales, I would be in a catatonic state. So yeah. But also, any sympathy I have had for Mr Holder has been lost at every single step of this process. Why does the bank not have a vault for this purpose? Why did he take it home when he didn't have anywhere safe to put it? Why did he tell anyone he had it? Why did he not move it after being told by his son how insecure the bureau was?
And, to back up my theory with text. Reasons I suspect Mary:
She was present during the conversation when Mr Holding told them about the coronet and where he put it.
She also heard Arthur saying how easy that bureau was to break into.
She was at the window that night for an unknown reason.
We only have her word as to the house being locked up that night.
Arthur is unwilling to say anything in his own defence, which makes me think he is covering for someone. The only person we have been given reason to believe he would protect in the text (other than maybe his father) is Mary. He could be secretly in love with Lucy, but given we already have evidence of his affection for Mary, that would be an abrupt turn.
So that's my theory: Sir George Burnwell and Mary are secret lovers and Mary, hearing about the golden opportunity her foolish uncle has presented her with, tells her lover, then either Mary or both of them, go to steal it. Arthur, who honestly might have been in there trying to get £200 for his own debts, witnesses this, attempts to stop it. The coronet is broken. Either Burnwell gets away with the jewels, or Mary does and gives them to him (through the window we saw her at earlier perhaps?) and then hears the yelling and runs upstairs just in time to give the theatrical performance of her life.
#Letters from Watson#The Beryl Coronet#Sherlock Holmes#Yes I am back on my bullshit#But Mary's totally guilty#right?#I'd be more positive about it if I wasn't also pretty sure she's being manipulated into it and won't get to see any profit#She gaslit gatekept girlbossed too close to the sun
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November 19, 1959, The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show premiered. (known as Rocky & His Friends during the first two seasons and as The Bullwinkle Show for the last three seasons) It originally aired from November 19, 1959, to June 27, 1964, on the ABC and NBC television networks.
Produced by Jay Ward Productions, the series is structured as a variety show, with the main feature being the serialized adventures of the two title characters, the anthropomorphic moose Bullwinkle and flying squirrel Rocky. The main adversaries in most of their adventures are the Russian-like spies Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale. Supporting segments include Dudley Do-Right (a parody of old-time melodrama), Peabody's Improbable History (a dog and his pet boy Sherman traveling through time), and Fractured Fairy Tales (classic fairy tales retold in comic fashion), among others.
Rocky & Bullwinkle is known for quality writing and wry humor. Mixing puns, cultural and topical satire, and self-referential humor, it appealed to adults as well as children. It was also one of the first cartoons whose animation was outsourced; storyboards were shipped to Gamma Productions, a Mexican studio also employed by Total Television. The art has a choppy, unpolished look and the animation is extremely limited even by television animation standards at the time. Yet the series has long been held in high esteem by those who have seen it; some critics described the series as a well-written radio program with pictures.
The show was shuffled around several times (airing in afternoon, prime time, and Saturday morning time slots), but was influential to other animated series from The Simpsons to Rocko's Modern Life. Segments from the series were later recycled in the Hoppity Hooper show.
There have been numerous feature film adaptations of the series' various segments, such as the 2000 film The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle which blended live-action and computer animation and the 1999 live-action film Dudley Do-Right, which both received poor reviews and were financially unsuccessful. By contrast, an animated feature film adaptation of the "Peabody's Improbable History" segment, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, was released to good reviews in 2014.
Mr. Peabody will star in a new reboot series picked up for 13-episodes.
In 2013, Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show were ranked the sixth Greatest TV Cartoon of All Time by TV Guide.
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lmao
crouch sr, having a day that just keeps getting worse: i understand, Lady Black, but there is a war on—
walburga, about to lose her actual mind on this stupid little man she cannot manipulate through no lack of her own skill: i don't CARE that some family was just murdered. they're DEAD! THAT'S NOT GOING TO CHANGE! my SON is MISSING, he could be in DANGER—
- - - meanwhile
barty, pacing his bedroom floor: —and they didn't die! so all along Maron's world being saturated with blue wasn't foreshadowing for the tragedy that would haunt her for the rest of her life, it actually signified—
regulus, lying on barty's bed, indulging in a bit of improper conduct, perhaps even eating cinnamon/ginger candies in bed (!!), internally: Cyprian Silkwood will rue the day he was born, istg
regulus, externally: oh wow.
BWHOGJWDJFKOSJFOSGHSOKDFJSD
regulus is in severe danger of being bored to sleep and choking on a ginger candy, which is really NOT what walburga has in mind
i also like the idea of the blacks intending to bust into potter manor metaphorical guns blazing and RETRIEVE REGULUS from his KIDNAPPERS and what actually happens is a screaming fight between sirius and walburga about which of them was worse for regulus, while orion (the only sensible one in this situation if you ask HIM) is casting relentless Point Me charms that are just spinning wildly, which means a) regulus is out of range or b) he is being MAGICALLY CONCEALED.
the potters are all hideously uncomfortable and trying to get orion and walburga to leave. they are also newly concerned about sirius's brother's welfare but even sirius hasn't heard from him since before sirius arrived at potter manor, none of them had any idea regulus would leave--
walburga: HE DIDN'T LEAVE, HE WAS TAKEN
sirius: YEAH, TAKEN ABACK BY HOW MUCH BETTER HIS LIFE WOULD BE IF HE BOOKED IT
meanwhile, regulus is doodling dragons on the backs of barty's old essays and unwillingly absorbing information about cyprian silkwood's work. he's considering staging a daring coup to change the subject
BUT ALSO. CROUCH SR FINDING OUT REGULUS IS MISSING. i could totally see him mentioning that walburga black came to see him when barty's mom asks how his day was, of course it's understandable that she's distressed by her son's disappearance but he does have terrorists to deal with and he did not appreciate the melodrama
barty eavesdropping from the stairs: 👀👂
winky almost certainly knows of regulus's presence because regulus does need to eat - i don't think barty would take the risk of informing his mom and she is not naturally a suspicious person so the biggest risk there is that she notices barty spending a lot of time shut up in his room (which is like, normal for him, but Still), concluding that maybe he needs something to do to take his mind off regulus's disappearance, and coming up with reasons for them to spend time together, which of course barty doesn't want to rEFUSE, but he has a GUEST
ooooo ok i'm starting to come up with a timeline now. regulus delays leaving until he's gotten his hogwarts letter for the upcoming school year and has obtained all his textbooks and such. then, he bounces. high society is in an absolute uproar over regulus's disappearance, they have ZERO clues, and then regulus calmly leaves the crouches' house, takes the knight bus to the leaky cauldron, very quickly floos from the leaky cauldron to hogsmeade before anyone can get a good look at him, and just pops up on september 1 waiting by the thestrals (he walked) to ride to school with his friends and begin the new school year!
and his parents get a bemused letter from dumbledore the next morning and go BALLISTIC.
#barty in the carriages: oh hi regulus how was your summer :)#the rest of their yearmates: *spluttering. in shock. disbelieving. demanding explanations*#regulus: oh you know. traveled a little. saw the sights. how was yours#barty: wow i feel like. i must have spent a solid month cleaning out my closet#regulus: is that so?#barty: yeah it just suddenly felt so cluttered for some reason? WAY overcrowded#the rest of their yearmates: *still spluttering and demanding explanations*#and when SIRIUS SEES HIM IN THE GREAT HALL. HE'S GONNA LOSE HIS SHIT#should i make an inbox tag#barty's closet au
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you asked if i was feeling it, i'm pyscho high
know you won't remember in the morning when i speak my mind
lights are on and they've gone home, but who am i?
Oh, how fast the evening passes
cleaning up the champagne glasses
all the glamour and the trauma
and the fuckin' melodrama
all the gun fights and the lime lights
and the holy sick divine nights
they'll talk about us, all the lovers
how we kiss and kill each other
they'll talk about us, all the lovers
how we kiss and kill each other
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Destiel Trope Collection 2022 | Day 27 | OMG They Were Roommates!
Quarantine Roomies | @cloverhighfive
Rating: Teen & Up
Word Count: 2,038
Main Tags/Warnings: Domestic Fluff, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, College/University AU, Dean Has a Cat Allergy
Summary: Cas and Dean roomie together while they have to go in quarantine to wait out the pandemic (written during COVID-19) outbreak. They're friends. But maybe Dean misread Cas.
breathe in the night air and think of me | googolplexbrown (AO3)
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 3,126
Main Tags/Warnings: Werewolf Dean Winchester, Creature Dean, Witch Sam, Punk Castiel
Summary: Dean doesn't think things through before moving into the city with his brother. Urban areas aren't built for creatures like him.
Not Another Roommate Fic | @Imbiowaresbitch
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: 9,388
Main Tags/Warnings: Roommates, mutual pining, misunderstandings, first kiss, first time, bad parent John Winchester, Homophobic John Winchester, idiots in love
Summary: After finishing college, much to his homophobic and controlling father's disgust, and seeing his younger brother off to Stanford, Dean escaped their tiny home town for the big city. But couch surfing with friends wears thin, and he quickly takes up an offer to rent from Cas, a friend of his old high school buddy, Ash.
Cas has been hurt before, and Dean has a shell around him, thanks to his dad trying to beat his bisexuality out of him. But now they have their friendship to lean on. And that's all Dean thinks he wants, until Cas starts flirting. Then, the possibilities are endless.
You're My Dream Come True | @Imbiowaresbitch
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: 29,967
Main Tags/Warnings: Roommates, getting together, first kiss, first time, panic attacks, everyone knows but them, friends to lovers
Summary: Dean and Cas have been roommates for ten years, ever since their first year of university. Cas is crazy about Dean, but tries not to let it interfere with their friendship. That gets harder when Dean comes out as bi and starts dating guys, not that any of them last.
It all comes to a head when Cas shares a simple, silly, kinda niche meme with Dean.
The Winchester Breakfast Special | @thefandomsinhalor
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: 33,602
Main Tags/Warnings: Roommates AU, Misunderstandings/Miscommunications, Pining, Injured Dean Winchester, Helpful Castiel, past Castiel/Hannah, grinding
Summary: Watching Dean cook breakfast after a long night of steamy passion is something Castiel gets to witness on nearly every Sunday morning.
The only problem is that the meal in question is never cooked for him.
Because he’s never the one spending the night with Dean.
He’s just the roommate.
Which is something he’d like to change very much.
But believing that his feelings will eventually run their course (and that Dean isn’t interested, anyway), Castiel plans to silently endure the smudge of awkwardness he’s left to experience in order to not complicate things.
When Dean injures his shoulder and finds himself in need of Castiel’s help, however, Castiel realizes that it will be easier said than done.
You Held It In Your Hands | @mittensmorgul
Rating: Mature
Word Count: 73,239
Main Tags/Warnings: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Medical Residents, Roommates, Mutual Pining, POV Dean Winchester, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Demisexual Castiel (Supernatural), Mention of Past Dean/Others, i worked in hospitals and nothing about this is remotely realistic, think of this as the dr sexy au, that's the level of realism i was shooting for you brilliant coward, Light Angst, More like melodrama, Comfortably Bisexual Dean Winchester
Summary: Working in Emergency Medicine was a grueling specialty, but the new residents in Grace Memorial's ER were in for a special kind of torment.
Dean had grabbed a seat at random at the new residents' orientation and felt his luck change for the better. His charming seatmate was remarkably also his new roommate and department partner for the next four years. He'd never expected to find everything he'd never known he needed when he'd arrived in Miami.
Two weeks into their new lives, Dean couldn't help but wonder if Cas might feel the same way, but at the rate they were going they might never have a chance to find out. A maliciously orchestrated series of scheduling snafus seemed surgically crafted to keep Dean and Cas from ever seeing each other again.
With a shot at happiness now just out of reach, and a seemingly impossible assignment to unmask the scandal at the heart of their troubles, Dean starts leaving long personal letters for his new friend to find every night, pouring out secrets he'd never shared with another soul. To his surprise, Cas writes back.
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BEST PICTURE NOMINEES (2018) AESTHETICS. repost, don’t reblog. bold whatever applies. tag whoever you want and feel free to add to the categories.
The Nurse Shark || Beth Riley
THE SHAPE OF WATER : early mornings. art on an easel. being trapped. flashy cars. self-righteous intolerance. speaking volumes without a word. being submerged. learning and adapting. raindrops on windows. bubbles rising in water. cats. taboo desires. tanks of water. kitschy nostalgia. kissing underwater. silence. isolation. golden age Hollywood. sign language. scales. egg shells. jell-o. the smell of cleaning supplies. creature features. the space race. red coats. monstrous fairy tales. lab coats. lunches in brown bags. the click of shoes. smog. dance routines. slices of pie. toxic masculinity. chains. government secrets. seeing past flaws. floating aimlessly. needles. greens and blues. deep, inexorable scars. gills. music from the 30′s. retro-futurism. bloody hand-prints. routines. record players. old movies. love in unexpected places.
PHANTOM THREAD : a doll in a gilded birdcage. butter to bread. the death of a mother. cycles. hidden messages. a disruptive presence. longing. wedding gowns. posh control. post-war. brightly coloured socks. inner turmoil. poison. an air of quiet death. hallucinations. family dysfunction. rich fabrics. curses. soft piano music. restrained anger. spinning out of control. artist and muse. dark love. pastels. peace in the countryside. clockwork dynamics. perfection. wild mushrooms. giving up every piece of yourself. rags to riches. ghosts. new year’s. lingering gazes. needle and thread. fine dining. hearing every sound. being ambushed. ego. flowing dresses. a person out of place. defiance. ink to paper. an artist tortured by their art. obsessive personalities. peepholes. soothing elegance. silk. spiral staircases. driving at high speeds. high society.
THE POST : typewriters. newspapers. tense climates. distrust of authority. internal battles. a legacy at stake. secrets. cover-ups. defending what you believe. peering through windows. melodrama. political corruption. behind closed doors. sniffing a scoop. ringing phones. lying for over a decade. cramming and crowding. cold grays. war. fluorescent lights. treason. shuffled papers. the jungle. a weight on your shoulders. fresh coffee. thousands of deaths. burglary. finding your voice. risking everything. propaganda. tough choices. exposure. type being set by hand. workplace rivalries. abuses of power. security breaches. hierarchy. a bed strewn with papers and books. paranoia. orders. clicking keys. redacted files. desk clutter. cigarette smoke. precious cargo. vanished technologies. suspenseful conversations. facing charges. courtroom battles. suits and ties.
DARKEST HOUR : never surrendering. duty. countless negotiations. the flash of cameras. beaches. historic buildings. guzzling booze. resignation. utter catastrophe. bunkers. radio broadcasts. going against the odds. bathed in red light. a sense of humor. allies. shouting matches. small square windows. selfishness. walking with a cane. war rooms. chandeliers. dust floating in air. righteousness. a poor reputation. an elevator surrounded by darkness. a world at war. needing a miracle. interruptions. a last hope. cigar smoke. quoting poetry. photos of a loved one. a single sunbeam. monarchy. vanity. rescue missions. refusing peace. pallid chambers. military uniforms. taking a stand. common folk. suicide missions. drums of war. tears down sullen cheeks. reluctance. complete collapse. evacuations. enveloped by fog. changing history. blood, toil, tears and sweat.
THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI : severe burns. police uniforms. sirens. the calmness of a deer. strumming guitars. grieving. horrifying memories. sucker punches. a lack of respect. facing threats. skin under fingernails. flicking cigarettes. awkward dates. nasty rumors. claustrophobia. lush green pastures. molotov cocktails. the fire of anger and revenge. strangers. no remorse. bashing in windows. the midwest. provoking a fight. pointing fingers. being pressed for time. rundown old houses. grey morality. dark undercurrents. insurmountable losses. cruel laughs. the american flag. dive bars. guilty no matter what. buildings in flames. ambulances. coughing up blood. spitting. chewing on fingernails. one versus many. black and red. not understanding another’s feelings. a mother and child. the pain of others. a quest of justice. abandoned billboards. a hardened gaze. driving to nowhere. small towns. last letters. absurd violence.
DUNKIRK : burying a body. warm cider. narrow escapes. a race against time. a small boat. all hope lost. being unable to come home. taken prisoner. shipwrecks. assuming the identity of someone else. setting fire to it all. smoke rising from a crash. sea foam. seaports. rendered blind. dropping to take cover. land, sea, and air. entangled in chain. toast with jam. suspense. waiting for escape. wounded men. laying in the sand. trauma. blank spaces. sinking ships. commended a hero. cocking a gun. swallowed by darkness. bullet holes. obstacles and delays. a hero’s welcome. planes overhead. the sounds of a ticking clock. bullets ricocheting off metal. people by the thousands. shell-shocked. the explosions of shells on shores. the sound of destruction. rising tides. head injuries. target practice. compressed time and space. the perennial threat of death. oil ignited into flames. lying for the greater good. blocking out the noise. primal dangers. taking command. sole survivor.
GET OUT : deer antlers. suburbs. hypnosis. strange behaviour. familial tension. chopping wood. uneasy stares. tears and a smile. deception. fight or flight. blindness. survival. sinking into the floor. watching but powerless. strapped to a chair. plugged ears. a failed handshake. car accidents. sunken places. something out of a nightmare. going hysterical. bingo cards. smoking cigarettes. static on a television set. doing more harm than good. a hint of a smile. a stranger in any environment that is foreign to them. waiting for someone to come when they never will. overturned candles. wealthy garden parties. constantly looking over your shoulder. silence no matter how hard you scream. trances. catharsis. a battle of wills. layers being peeled back. a cup of tea. nosebleeds. addiction. last bits of life leaving a body. black and white photography. sprinting at high speeds. conspiracies. surgery. blankly polite speech. noise of a spoon scraping across a teacup. a deer in headlights. staring at your own reflection. unable to sleep. loyal friends.
LADY BIRD : california landscapes. budding romance. uniforms. consolation. plain and luscious colors. apologizing. boorish sex. prom dresses. secondhand dresses. strong personalities. the theatre. being simultaneously warm and scary. battling depression. 90’s fashion. dreaming of elsewhere. partying. signatures on a cast. living on the wrong side of the tracks. not being bound by any era. rejection. sparklers. thrift stores. high school. identity crisis. a place that looks like a memory. going behind backs. disappointed parents. catholicism. poverty. busy new york city streets. monotonous hometowns. shitty bands. teenage anarchy. drifting in and out of friendships. menial jobs. red hair. self-given names. coming-of-age. a broken arm. excessive drinking. first kisses. cupcakes. smudged eye makeup. strained relationships. screaming in the middle of the street. thoughtful letters. standing out. decorated bedroom walls. having a change of heart. expressing individuality.
TAGGED BY. @void-foxy {by technicality and thank you}
TAGGING. Be fae, steal memes
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63 years ago today, November 19, 1959, The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show premiered. (known as Rocky & His Friends during the first two seasons and as The Bullwinkle Show for the last three seasons) It originally aired from November 19, 1959, to June 27, 1964, on the ABC and NBC television networks. Produced by Jay Ward Productions, the series is structured as a variety show, with the main feature being the serialized adventures of the two title characters, the anthropomorphic moose Bullwinkle and flying squirrel Rocky. The main adversaries in most of their adventures are the Russian-like spies Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale. Supporting segments include Dudley Do-Right (a parody of old-time melodrama), Peabody's Improbable History (a dog and his pet boy Sherman traveling through time), and Fractured Fairy Tales (classic fairy tales retold in comic fashion), among others.
Rocky & Bullwinkle is known for quality writing and wry humor. Mixing puns, cultural and topical satire, and self-referential humor, it appealed to adults as well as children. It was also one of the first cartoons whose animation was outsourced; storyboards were shipped to Gamma Productions, a Mexican studio also employed by Total Television. The art has a choppy, unpolished look and the animation is extremely limited even by television animation standards at the time. Yet the series has long been held in high esteem by those who have seen it; some critics described the series as a well-written radio program with pictures.
The show was shuffled around several times (airing in afternoon, prime time, and Saturday morning time slots), but was influential to other animated series from The Simpsons to Rocko's Modern Life. Segments from the series were later recycled in the Hoppity Hooper show.
There have been numerous feature film adaptations of the series' various segments, such as the 2000 film The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle which blended live-action and computer animation and the 1999 live-action film Dudley Do-Right, which both received poor reviews and were financially unsuccessful. By contrast, an animated feature film adaptation of the "Peabody's Improbable History" segment, Mr. Peabody & Sherman, was released to good reviews in 2014.
Mr. Peabody will star in a new reboot series picked up for 13-episodes.
In 2013, Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show were ranked the sixth Greatest TV Cartoon of All Time by TV Guide.
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[ ZORZO NATHARUETAI, DEMI WOMAN, SHE/THEY ] + WAS THAT AROMA CHAVALIT I SAW BY THE LIGHTHOUSE TODAY? I HEARD THAT THE TWENTY-EIGHT YEAR OLD WHO HAS BEEN IN NIGHTREST FOR ALL THEIR LIFE AND WORKS AS A MANAGER AT NIGHTREST LIQUOR AND PHONE SEX OPERATOR HAS A REPUTATION OF BEING INSOUCIANT, BUT ALSO MELANCHOLIC. THEY RESIDE IN LOW POINT AND PEOPLE IN TOWN USUALLY ASSOCIATE THEM WITH EXISTENCE DESIGNED FOR THE SHOCK FACTOR, THE GROTESQUE MELODRAMA OF IT ALL, AND PORTRAITS OF A ROTTEN GIRL.
DOSSIER /
FULL NAME: aroma chavalit, goes by aroma or ari.
DATE OF BIRTH: 13th of september, 1994.
ZODIAC SIGN: virgo.
GENDER IDENTITY: demi woman.
PRONOUNS: she/they.
SEXUAL ORIENTATION: bisexual.
RESIDENTIAL AREA: low point.
OCCUPATION: manager at nightrest liquor and phone sex operator.
BACKSTORY /
CONTENT WARNING: MENTION OF DEATH / OVERDOSE, DEPRESSION, DRUGS, ADDICTION.
aroma's childhood wasn't anything out of the ordinary—she and her older brother by 3 years, archi, were well taken care of and loved albeit under strict regime, living on the outskirts of fog gate.
to many people's surprise, she was actually a very kind, compassionate, and funny child, thriving on attention and praise. since their parents weren't home a lot, as they both worked two jobs, she spent most of her time outside or hanging out with their brother.
because of that, the siblings grew to be super close despite their age difference and it was obvious to everyone that they were attached at the hip. when aroma was 14, she had her first drink and cigarette with him, and they'd often split a cig out the attic window 10 minutes before parents coming home.
they looked up to archi a lot, even though they could admit that he wasn't the best role model—she'd lost count of how many times he'd fought with mum and dad, the number increasing at a worriedly rapid pace the older he got.
aroma was a dedicated student in high school, craving acknowledgment and praise from her parents, but it'd only urged them to be harder on her; however, it'd seemed to help with distracting them from her brother, which was a sacrifice she was willing to make.
when archi eventually moved away for college, she started noticing that they were no longer talking as much; those sparse and soulless replies hurt even more when neither of her parents or archi would explain the reason.
the last two years of school for aroma were miserable. they'd stopped trying and would often sneak out of school to hang out with the "outcasts" by the fence and have a smoke or go places where they knew they'd be sold alcohol even as teenagers.
one night, she got into a massive fight with their parents after they found out aroma almost failed three of their classes. in a burst of anger, their mother accused them of hanging out with "that shit influence of a brother" despite cutting off all contact from him and that was when she found out that archi was an addict.
their pleas to not see archi anymore fell deaf on her ears. whenever parents would be out of town for a few days, she'd drive down to archi's college and spend weekends with him and his friends, drinking and doing drugs, crashing parties and disrupting the peace.
DEATH / OVERDOSE TW unfortunately, aroma's brother did not make it to her high school graduation. right after getting their diploma, they yelled at their parents for not having at least an ounce of compassion to let him see his little sister at her own graduation and they immediately burst into tears and told her that he'd overdosed that morning, just a few hours before the ceremony.
when they buried archi, they buried aroma too. she wasn't mentally well enough to cope in healthy ways, so they turned to alcohol and drugs, the same things that took archi away from her. she was a master at hiding it from her parents though—they thought she was still just struck with grief, depressed and antisocial.
at 20, she moved to low point on a whim after asked to work at a phone sex line with her friend (they fell apart not even half a year in, but hey, at least she got to keep the flat).
aroma started talking to their parents less, much to their dismay. she felt guilty, of course, knowing that she wasn't the only one affected by the death of archi, but they couldn't face them like this. not like that.
eventually, things got better. not by much, but it was something. getting the manager's position at the liquor store helped, as it kept them busy and focused, and she was no longer putting herself in dangerous situations to feed into her unhealthy habits.
their parents still call every now and then to wish them a happy birthday or christmas. "we lit up a candle and bought your favourite tree," is what they say. "come home," is what she hears and the line goes dead.
CHARACTER STUDY /
makes a lot of self-deprecating jokes and can sometimes be a bit of a bummer to be around unless you catch them on their better days.
every year on her birthday she asks for the same thing: fun, quirky landline phones. so far, she has eight of them to make their sex work less insufferable.
writes ironic (or is it?) erotica and deranged fanfiction of the most random ships. they have the same energy as the people on tiktok writing fanfics of their homophobic classmates.
she often hyperfixates on drawing as a way to cleanse themselves of negative energy. all of her work is either gruesome or haunting or both and while they've received offers to have her work showcased in a gallery, they were all rejected because she hates being perceived by the public.
most of their life is online, but all of it is carefully curated and weaved with nothing but lies.
big on partying and doing anything that'll take her mind off reality, but their social battery tends to run on 25-55% battery. loves an irish goodbye for that reason.
can only name like 5 movies she likes because while they do consume a lot of them, she tends to forget the plot as soon as the screen is off.
dreams of decaying.
sometimes she'll leave her most horrifying drawings in their neighbours' mailboxes or tape them around town.
sleepwalks a lot. like, a concerning amount. she might as well have walked past a murder in action. once they woke up on the beach dunes in the middle of winter.
would rather be dead than get married "out of love". if it's not for any kind of benefits, they don't want it.
has at least 4 sugar daddy apps downloaded on her phone. they're all saved in a folder called "for a rainy day" except it rains a lot in their life.
walks everywhere. the destination is 2 hours away on feet? no problem, they'll just stop by a corner shop to get a pack of cigs and just walk. no music necessary.
they love people-watching and coming up with bizarre stories for the passerbys.
loves money, but doesn't have any
hates a bunch of people, but they're also delusional and loves the enemies to lovers trope, so it often works out in her favour.
EXTRAS /
PINTEREST + CHARACTER STUDY.
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hello I was tagged by @dansmiths to list my favorite albums of all time with this thing and it was extremely fun but also difficult.
I'm tagging anyone who wants to! Who enjoys albums and wants to tell the internet about them?!
List under the cut!
Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
AURORA - The Gods We Can Touch
Of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins
Blondie - Eat to the Beat
Lorde - Melodrama
The National - High Violet
Lord Huron - Strange Trails
First Aid Kit - Ruins
Santigold - Master of My Make-Believe
Paco de Lucia - Almoraima
Maggie Rogers - Heard it in a Past Life
Kate Bush - Hounds of Love
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Paco de Lucia - Fuente y Caudal
Of Monsters and Men - My Head is an Animal
Florence + the Machine - Ceremonials
Carly Rae Jepsen - Emotion
Beat Connection - The Palace Garden
Sky Ferreira - Night Time, My Time
Grimes - Visions
U2 - The Joshua Tree
Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City
Mahavishnu Orchestra - Birds of Fire
Loreena McKennitt - The Book of Secrets
Sylvan Esso - Sylvan Esso
Hozier - Hozier
Paramore - Brand New Eyes
Lord Huron - Vide Noir
First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
Oasis - (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
Bjork - Homogenic
The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Kali Uchis - Isolation
The Moody Blues - On the Threshold of a Dream
Frank Ocean - Channel Orange
The National - Trouble Will Find Me
Laundry - Affirmation
Tove Styrke - Sway
Ethel Cain - Preacher's Daughter
AURORA - Infections of a Different Kind (Step I)
MUNA - MUNA
#now with 100 percent less self deprecation i will NOT apologize for my taste lmao#this does have a definite 'stuff i became obsessed with in high school' bias
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