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lovesupernova25 · 3 years ago

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Broken Glass

a Quackity Oneshot

warnings: torture (non-explicit), blood, insanity, brief alcohol

i sat down at my computer, blacked out, looked up at 3 am and this was here. please enjoy. (idea from this one comment on this one tiktok that suggested that quackity uses the shape shifting powers some people hc him to have to torment dream. i’ll see if i can find the tiktok!)

~~~ *** ~~~

Quackity knew what broken glass felt like. He knew how it felt slicing up his hands, his face, being kissed into his skin. But this was the first time he knew what it felt like in his soul. Yeah- that's what this feeling was.

Broken glass.

Quackity didn’t turn around when he heard footsteps getting closer. He knew who it was already. No one else would be in this wasteland he’d built, anyways. No one was ever here.

“Q?” The rumble of Sam’s voice was concerned, almost hesitant. Quackity grabbed a bottle from the rack. “Quackity- you said it was urgent. What’s going on?” He turned, and the liquor slammed onto the counter. He might’ve relished the way Sam startled, on a better day. Quackity’s hands found the shot glasses, twisted the cap of the bottle. The neon blue that sloshed from the cup reflected the thunder in his gaze.

“Quackity, it’s still early-” But he tipped his head, knocked back the burning liquor. This time, Sam didn’t jump when the glass crashed down next to his hand. Quackity splayed his palms on the cool granite and leaned across to level his gaze with Sam’s.

“I need to visit the prison, Sam.”

Sam had the good sense to nod.

Maybe this was the wrong way to deal with things. Maybe strapping on armor and sharpening his knives wasn’t a healthy way to process his ex-fiances showing up trying to- what? Apologize? Make things ‘how they used to be’? If that was the case, they really were just mocking him. Nothing would ever be the way it used to.

It ended in a fight, of course. It ended in his already cracking heart fully giving out, splintering into a thousand shards like shattered fvcking glass. It ended in him envying Schlatt, because at least when his heart broke down he got to leave.

Quackity’s stuck here, with this void in his chest that keeps him floating oddly outside his body as Pandora swallows him whole.

They don’t even bother signing the waivers anymore. It would be ridiculous, at this point, especially since Quackity’s fully decked out in armor and tools. He guesses Sam’s just realized Quackity won’t be the reason Dream gets out of the hell they’ve so carefully crafted for him.

Levers, keys. The threshold to the heart of the prison is as claustrophobic as ever, but Quackity embraces the suffocating heat. There’s not much for his mind to wander on, here. There is the wall of lava, and there is the rasp of his boots on obsidian, and there is the rough leather pommel of his sword. There is, on the other side of the fire, a sacrificial lamb. Quackity grins and it hurts as the lava simmers down.

Sam says nothing.

“Dream…” He leans on the butt of his axe, looming, and his ears are still ringing with screams. “Wouldn’t it be so much easier to give me what I want?” He kneels next to the ragged lump of man on the ground and grabs his chin, forces it up. “C’mon… I would leave you alone then, right? I wouldn’t come, wouldn’t have to hurt you- you would get so much peace and quiet… you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Quackity makes his voice honey, his hand gentle. Gods, he thinks he even sees Dream lean into the touch. It’s pitiful, what the admin has become. One of Dream’s acid-green eyes is bloodied and purple, swollen shut, and a cut on his face oozes crimson. His mouth is positively dripping with the stuff, courtesy of Quackity’s pliers and some molars that were just begging to be yanked. He can hear the ragged, wheezing breaths of the man in front of him and Quackity has never felt so sickeningly alive.

“Heh…” Dream flicks his working eye up to hold Quackity’s gaze. “No-” He coughs violently, wheezing and convulsing. The hacking subsides and he forces out; “No peace in death, Big Q. You’ll know that s-soon.”

Quackity’s lip curls. He stands abruptly, taking little satisfaction in the way Dream’s chin cracks against the obsidian.

“You’re pitiful.” This was supposed to help. He thought it did- when he funneled all the glass inside of him into the swing of his axe, the cut of his knife. When the voices in his head were drowned out by the screaming. But Dream was on the ground, bleeding and broken and still acting like he had the upper fvcking hand, and it turned out the glass had grown only sharper.

This isn’t working.

He paces to the back of the cell and yanks a tattered book off the lectern, flipping through it with a scowl. He’s about to chuck the thing in the lava--just to see if it’ll get a reaction out of its’ author--when a name catches his eye. Gingerly, he thumbs back to the page it was written on. Quackity feels so sick he grins when he finds it.

It’s not just one name. It’s hundreds. Some he doesn’t recognize, but most from this server. In fact- it looks like everyone who’s ever stepped foot in Dream’s land has been scrawled on the black-bleeding page. Quackity even thinks he sees his own name in there somewhere. They cover the page almost entirely in ink, written and rewritten and scribbled over each other.

George, Sapnap, Karl, Tommy. Tommy seems to be in there a lot.

Dream must have sat here for hours, scribbling the names of people he would never see again, alone in his personal hell. It’s sick. And something in the back of Quackity’s mind sparks.

“Dream,” He says, as the start of an idea appears. “How would you like to see your friends again?” He sees the confusion in the prisoner’s eyes and has to fight to keep from grinning. “Or… your old friends, I suppose. But I bet they still care about you, don’t you think?” He sets the book down, pacing towards the heap of blood-streaked orange jumpsuit with mock sincerity plastered over his face. His mouth twitches at the look in Dream’s eyes. There’s fear, suspicion, pain… but also, delightfully, hope. He can see Dream trying to crush it, but it’s there. Gods, Quackity could get drunk on that look. Maybe he already is.

“How do you think,” He leans over Dream, hands folded behind his back. “They would feel about you if they saw you now?”

Quackity really is grinning now. The axe wasn’t working, the knives weren’t working, the pliers only made Dream more determined. It was time for a new tactic. He feels that spark in the back of his mind and fans it, turning away from Dream as it grows. He hasn’t dipped into this ability for a long time--people don’t much like his kind--but the only person to see him now is barely human himself. Quackity closes his eyes as the fire washes over him.

When he turns around, he almost breaks character at the shock in Dream’s eyes.

“George?”

There’s so much raw hurt in his voice- gods, why didn’t he think of this sooner?

“Dream…” Quackity says in George’s voice. “Gods… what happened to you?”

“No… how- George-”

“I mean, everybody says you deserved it.” Quackity makes sure the revulsion is clear on his--George’s--face as he steps closer. “I guess you did… Still, though… this is a new low for you.” Dream is actually trying to push himself up now, trembling on wounded arms. “I mean, don’t you remember how things used to be? When we were all together? And now you’re… this. Not to be rude, Dream, but it’s kind of no wonder no one’s broken you out.”

“Stop, you’re… you’re not even real, I…” Dream screws his eyes shut, chest heaving. Aw. It looks like he’s starting to catch on.

“We were all happy, before.” He continues, letting the glass, the anger, slip back into his voice. “Like a family. And then you ruined it. All you’ve ever been is a parasite- it’s just amazing we didn’t notice sooner.” Quackity snarls with George’s face and he knows Dream can’t separate the illusion from reality. “You know what everyone says? They say good fvcking riddance.” Quackity--George--takes a step toward Dream with every word, until he’s sneering directly down at him. “I used to defend you. Down to the very end, I’d defend everything you did- all the wars, all the hurt, broken promises and broken hearts. I was loyal to you.” He shakes his head in disgust. “Not anymore. Now, I say good riddance with the rest of them.”

Quackity doesn’t know much about George and Dream’s history, but he knew they were close. And Dream, for all his boasting about cutting ties, has never truly let go. “I loved you, Dream. And look where it got us. You’re bleeding out in a cell, alone and powerless, and I…” Quackity turns. It’s a damn good thing he’s an amazing actor, or the look on Dream’s face might just make him lose it. It’s the same look he’s seen on just three people’s faces before; three people with worthless rings and broken promises to tie them together.

(“Didn’t you ever love us?”)

But Dream was right about one thing. Attachments are dangerous. And Quackity can wield them like a sword.

“I’m leaving. I don’t need you, Dream. And neither does anyone else.” His lip curls. “You’re worthless, Clay. I hope you rot.”

And the curtain falls.

Dream has pushed himself against a chest by now, heaving and trembling.

“Stop. Stop this, you’re not him, you’re not-” Another coughing fit seizes him and he hacks up blood.

“Wasn’t it a good performance, though? I think I was spot on, Clay.” Quackity leers, in his own voice now. Gods, that was exhilarating.

Dream rests his forehead against the chest, face contorted. “What do you want?” It sounds almost like a sob. Quackity’s smile drops.

“Oh, you know exactly what I want, Dream. You know exactly why I’m still here, and why you can barely stand.” He cocks his head, lip twitching up into a smile. There are a thousand names scrawled into that book, all of them knives sharpened to cut. Quackity’s just gotten started. “Let's see if someone else could encourage you more.”

Dream barely has time to look afraid before the fire has washed over Quackity again.

Lights, camera, action.

“...You always wanted to be remembered, huh.” Sapnap’s voice says. Dream closes his eyes, breath hitching. “You’d always play the hero, when we were kids. Make George and I be the villains every time.” His eyes have been on the ground, but he lifts them now, stares down the figure in the corner. “Look where that fvcking got us.” And this hurts both of them, Quackity knows- because he knows Sapnap’s voice, his mannerisms, the way he sounds when he’s devastated and the way he sounds when he wants to burn the world with rage. Slipping into his skin is as easy as breathing and feels like suffocating all at once.

“You promised me- you promised me this would be our world. That we’d stay together, that we’d finally be happy.” And it is too easy to let that heartbreak bleed into his voice, sprinkle it with the rage and hate of wasted memories.

(“You promised me we’d be happy together.”)

He paces towards Dream with a glare like wildfire. “Well guess what, Dream. I am happy now. This whole server is happier now.” Quackity yanks the man in the orange jumpsuit up by the collar and snarls at his whimper of pain. “Without you. Without your sick fvcking games, without your wars, without your broken promises!” He’s shouting now, and he can see the whites of Dream’s eyes, like a horse near a fire. Quackity drops him with Sapnap’s hands like a rat he’d been holding by the tail. “Do you remember the promises you’d make, Dream?”

And now Quackity feels himself shifting again, almost involuntarily. His voice pitches higher and demonic horns scrape the obsidian above them. “You promised me peace.” Quackity says in BBH’s voice. “You said we’d be safe, that we’d win the wars!” It’s almost sickening to take the form of someone whose mind he knows is long gone. Worth it, though, to watch Dream squirm. “Is this what peace looks like to you, Dream? I can’t even remember what your face looks like!” There’s desperation in his voice, though Quackity doesn’t even know if what he’s saying is true. For all he knows it could be. “I can’t remember,” He takes a step towards Dream, glowing eyes wide with horror “What my own face looks like.”

“Bad-” Dream’s voice is almost pleading. He doesn’t want to hear this.

Good.

"Every time I look in the mirror-” Quackity’s breath hitches, just for dramatic effect. “All I see is red. Crimson. I’m poisoned, Dream. Because that’s what this place does to people.” The fire is back, transforming him. Quackity doesn’t even try to control it this time.

“That’s what you do to people.” Ponk’s voice rings throughout the cell.

“You poison them.” Alyssa.

“You tear them down.” Fundy.

“You think you’re so powerful,” Punz.

“But in reality-” Skeppy.

“You’re. Just. A. Parasite.” Karl hisses at the god on the floor who bleeds red regret instead of ichor.

Quackity doesn’t know where the words are coming from, now.

(“This country- it’s like a parasite, Q!”)

His breaths come ragged. When the fire sweeps through him again, Quackity nearly burns away himself.

Sapnap’s voice is tired when he speaks with it.

“You were never the hero, Dream. Turns out, you were never even part of the story.”

And Dream is left a crumpled mess of grief and blood at his feet as the fire dies to ashes.

Quackity’s tired when he leaves the cell that evening. It’s the bone-deep exhaustion that comes from more than lack of sleep, and it drags at his limbs. Sam does not look at him, and Quackity wonders if he knows what horrors were used in that cell today. He somehow can’t bring himself to care.

It was cruel, he knows. He slipped into their skin and cut Dream to shreds with the broken glass at his fingertips, ripped open his soul instead of his flesh and took pleasure in just tearing something down. It was cruel, but so is (was) Dream, and so is the world he created. Everyone gets cut and everyone bleeds, and the only thing to do is hope that your weapon is sharper than theirs. He’s had that lesson seared into his mind and cut into his skin too many times. So today when Quackity leaves a trembling mess behind the wall of fire, he cannot see Sam’s eyes- but if he could, he thinks they would hold something like fear.

So he steps out into the night, and he smiles, sharp and painful as broken glass.

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trippin-over-my-fandoms · 4 years ago

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I’ve seen this done before but here are my modern!rdr2 social media headcanons for the Van der Linde gang.

some of these are LONG and then some are shorter. doesn’t mean I love any of them any less however. I just did my best with all of them.

* I treat the gang as family especially for my modern au

Dutch

frequently uses Facebook and has dozens of friends he doesn’t even know. like if he gets a friend request he’ll accept it. John tells him he might as well just make his page public and Arthur pleads with him to make a facebook PAGE so that his random friends will stop liking posts that Arthur tags Dutch in.

Dutch has no idea how to make a facebook page.

he also has a Twitter and a massive following at that. He’s VERIFIED.

all of his twitter posts are vague though

are they a joke? are they political? is it what he’s eating for lunch that day? literally no one knows.

Hosea

also has facebook but doesn’t use it because why does he need to look at pictures of events he was at. he only uses it to see things he didn’t partake in

also has snapchat but just to keep up with the kids

because life360 was too much to deal with for everyone

and snapchat is cool

also he can and will spam you with bitmojis

Arthur

used to use facebook a lot but stopped because he was tired of his posts getting likes from people he didn’t know and friend requests from people Dutch was friends with.

plEASE

he has a private facebook for a reason, he doesn’t want other people to know his business.

he also has an instagram but anything he posts on facebook also goes on there. it’s not aesthetic or pretty or anything and he doesn’t even caption over half his pictures.

he literally only uses social media so that his friends and family know he’s alive

has snapchat because of Hosea but barely knows how to use it

doesn’t get why everyone wants to use snapchat when teXTING AND CALLING ARE RIGHT THERE

John

the question is what doesn’t he have.

john has been trying to make it big on social media since youtube came out.

his youtube used to have videos on it but he deleted them because they were cringy and arthur liked to send them to the group text.

plays twitch games on the weekends and sometimes with Jack but he thinks most of the subscribers are there for his kid since most of his solo streams don’t do as well

has a twitter, doesn’t follow Dutch, literally envies that he’s verified.

he’s tried everything but no matter what he does nothing pans out

uses tiktok to promote twitch streams

instagram feed is mostly selfies of him but 99.9% of the time he’s wearing sunglasses and the caption is some random quote

also has facebook but only to appease Arthur and Dutch, he doesn’t even have a profile picture. Claims only boomers use it.

an avid reddit user. if he’s got problems he’ll go to reddit. claims reddit saved his life. everyone’s tired of the story so they stopped asking.

also uses snapchat more than he should and the only social platform he has more than 100 followers on.

Charles

same as arthur and has both facebook and instagram and posts the same on both except his are pleasing to look at.

they’re unintentionally aesthetic

he uses a psd on all his pictures and won’t share what it is

has monthly life updates that start with some inspirational or deep quote and then text that pushes the instagram word limit

also has a deviantart , has shared psds there before , constantly tries to convince Arthur to get it.

used to use tumblr but he forgot about it

Abigail

the definition of a facebook mom. 80% of her facebook posts are about Jack or parenting.

Instagram is similar but also different, she’s actually a relatively successful influencer with over 1,000 followers.

all of her friends and family (who have instagram) follow her

has snapchat solely for the cute bitmojis and to send John adorable snaps of Jack playing with all the fun filters.

she also won’t take a selfie unless it’s with snapchat because she no longer trusts her own camera.

also uses pinterest and has a collaborative board with all the ladies.

but in general, on her own, she has too many boards. she uses pinterest for EVERYTHING

Sadie

bold of you to assume she uses social media.

she does just not a whole lot.

checks it once in the morning and once at night.

except pinterest because how dare Abigail get her into it. but even pinterest she only uses in downtime.

has facebook and instagram but there’s maybe only five posts.

if anything she’ll post on her story

will only snap Abigail and Arthur otherwise she doesn’t use snapchat

all of the social apps are mostly offloaded on her phone anyways

if she needs to know anything she just checks the group text which she has on do not disturb because they text way too much.

Molly

she’s verified on instagram

it’s also the only social platform she’ll use, which frustrates Dutch because he wants to be friends with her on facebook

but she’s happy with just instagram

she keeps it simple

and the main theme to her posts are fun outfits in her ever expanding closet

the other posts are usually of plants that she’s managed to grow. she’s not the best at being a plant mom but she’s still a good one to the ones she’s managed to keep alive.

the only thing she contributes to the pinterest board are her own pictures of her plants which are overly aesthetic.

Karen

started out with a normal instagram account then made a spam account which she ended up using way more often.

all of her posts are extremely chaotic

and usually reposts from her snapchat

has a reddit just to troll John

reposted his cringy youtube videos to reddit and got hundreds of upvotes

if you wanna see the most raw and chaotic videos of Arthur and John then she’s the one to follow.

also if you wanna see Abigail when she’s not all put together.

is the reason there’s so many memes in the collaborative pinterest board

Mary-Beth

has a instagram but also has a second instagram for art and book reviews

or basically anything she’d post on her tumblr

which is her second most used social

also uses facebook but only because she is an admin for one of those multifandom blogs.

also begs Arthur to get a deviantart.

uses pinterest most but only second to Abigail

literally the queen of pinterest DIYs

Micah

has twitter

as far as anyone else knows that’s all he has

maybe he has snapchat?

maybe they saw him on snapmaps once?

all he ever does with twitter though is retweet anything Dutch posts.

yet somehow he has so many followers.

Lenny

anyone who has snapchat has streaks with Lenny

even Hosea who doesn’t understand why it’s a thing

he also posts a lot on facebook but it’s mostly travel or vacation photos everyone is just a tad jealous of.

Lenny always seems to be busy but still has time for streaks with his friends.

he’s also an up and coming youtube vlogger

Sean

also has reddit to troll john

but he also legitimately uses it too.

he’s also really popular in the minecraft subreddit , don’t ask

also has twitch and also has way more subsribers than John

and a youtube which he’ll upload (overly edited) twitch streams to

everyone subscribes to him but they don’t tell John that.

also has a tiktok and is up to date on all the trends because of course he is

Kieran

got facebook when he was 10 and just never left.

literally doesn’t use any other social media

he’s not in the group text either so he has to facebook message Arthur to know what’s going on.

but he shares a lot of memes and cute pictures of animals

he used to follow Dutch but unfriended him when he was the only thing he ever had on his activity feed.

Susan

has facebook but claims she doesn’t have time to use it

Arthur knows this to not be true because she will like a lot of his posts.

she’s also guilty of liking every single picture in one post or album.

Arthur has also caught her looking at memes and using recipes she finds on there.

also part of the pinterest board but never contributes.

Trelawny

he has an account for everything

litereally

everything.

even whatsapp and linked in and kik

even tinder

the only one anyone knows about are his facebook, twitter, and instagam

but there’s no posts on any of them except twitter

he’s also verified

but for unknown reasons

any posts on his facebook are ones he’s tagged in

he’s also in a lot of facebook groups

Strauss

runs a subreddit

a paid facebook admin of several pages

the only person who actually knows this is Dutch because Strauss has told him about it

he has no online presence whatsoever out side of those.

Javier

spotify king

has over 500,000 subscribers on youtube

uses instagram but as another platform for his music

edits his own album covers

top tier playlists too

Tilly

aesthetic queen

the most put together and pleasing to look at instagram feed next to Charles.

uses pinterest a lot as inspiration and for making moodboards.

also uses tumblr to share moodboards

part of the sims global community facebook group

she keeps saying she’s going to start a youtube vlog but hasn’t yet

keeps trying to convince John to let her help him with his youtube.

she also uses twitch to play minecraft and sims

oh and she set up a minecraft server for everyone

Bill

facebook boomer

that’s it

I don’t know how else to put it

probably shares heavily republican posts

Swanson

didn’t use social media until tiktok.

he doesn’t do dances or anything but he does post weirdly obscure and chaotic videos that end up trending on more than one occasion

it’s usually drunk ramblings in his car that end up being hilarious

or videos of the others almost dying or ending up in the ER

Pearson

facebook boomer but make it cool.

also shares conservative posts but less offensive ones compared to Bill’s

likes almost every post any of his friends share

also comments on them too

Uncle

does he have social media? no one knows for sure.

yet somehow he knows what’s going on

even if nobody can find any of his social accounts or have ever seen him using one before let alone doing anything on his phone other than playing cheesy mobile games.

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bus-stop-to-kpop · 3 years ago

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Promise Me! (Ravn x Reader)

Pairing: Ravn (Kim Youngjo) x gn!Reader

Requested?: yes

Genre: Soulmate!au, College!au

Summary: You can only meet your soulmate in your dreams and as soon as you wake up you forget about it, will you ever be able to find him?

Word Count: 1,368

A/N: For the person who requested this, first of all I’m very sorry that it took me so long to write this and I’m not sure if the way i wrote this is what you had in mind when you requested it, but I hope you still like it.

~Admin J

"Promise me Youngjo! Promise me you will remember me!" You whispered tears starting to blur your vision. Youngjo who was gently holding your face wiped them away using his thumb. "I promise. I will remember you and come find you." His voice was determined, but the both of you knew it wasn't as easy as it seemed. You had been able to meet your soulmate in your dreams ever since you turned 16. However the trick of your soulmate bond was that just like regular dreams, you would forget everything once you woke up. It pained you everyday when you woke up and couldn't remember a single thing about the time you had spend with your soulmate. Well, sometimes you were lucky and remembered little pieces of your meetings. For example the fact that your soulmate loved music and that he had a dog, but these clues helped very little in finding him. However, as you were determined to find your soulmate, you started to write down every little detail that you remembered right after waking up. You envied your friends that had simple soulmate bonds, like being connected by a red string or a matching tattoo. They often told you not to stress about your soulmate too much, when the time was right you would eventually meet. That was easy for them to say, they weren't the ones meeting with their soulmate every night but forgetting about it in the morning. If only you could remember then maybe you could have been with him for years already. This morning too, you woke up feeling dried tear stains on your face and lightly wiped them away.Before anything else you quickly took the little notebook from your bedside table to write down what you remembered. A sentence repeated itself in your head various times. "Promise me ____! Promise me you will remember me!" It was your own voice sounding pretty desperate. There was a part that was cut off in the middle, surely you had said his name, but what was it again? It just didn't come back to your mind. In frustration you almost threw the notebook across the room. How would you ever be able to find your soulmate, the one person in the universe that was destined to love you, when your stupid soulmate bond didn't let you remember anything about him.

Right now all you wanted was to go back to sleep, maybe you'd be able to see your soulmate again, but you couldn't afford to skip lectures. Slowly climbing out of the bed, you picked some comfy clothes to wear, before making a little bit of breakfast for yourself. It seemed like none of your dorm mates were up yet, since it was so quiet. Of course all of them were lucky and didn't have morning lectures today. Before actually getting to campus you decided to go to the small coffee shop in the area, as you couldn't work the coffee machine back in your dorm without waking all the others up. "Y/N! The usual?" The pink haired barista asked upon seeing you enter and you nodded. Hwanwoong and you had met in the beginning of the semester and became friends quickly. He had an easy going personality that you just clicked well with and his dorm mates were incredibly nice as well. While the two of you didn't share any classes it was still easy to see him around campus, as he was basically everywhere doing some part time work. The café and the library only a few of them. You leaned against the counter as you watched Hwanwoong prepare your cup. "So how are the others? Is Dongju still doing his internship at the daycare?" You made a little small talk. "The others are good. Gunhak is currently trying to find a place for his internship. Dongju still has two weeks left with his." Hwanwoong took little breaks while talking, so he wouldn't have to scream over the sound of the coffee machine. Hwanwoong leaned over the counter to hand you the cup and in exchange you handed him money, "Hey, by the way, our new dorm mate arrives this evening. Do you wanna come by? We're gonna buy some alcohol to celebrate his arrival." "Yeah sure I'm in." You agreed. Since you spent a lot of time in the boys' dorm it would only be right to introduce yourself to the newest member. Your lectures were as boring as always and time seemed to move a lot slower than usual. When it was finally over, it felt like you had spent half your lifetime in that lecture hall. As you had promised to meet up with some of your friends to lunch you made your way to the crowded cafeteria. It wasn't hard to find them as you could hear Sunwoo and Chanhee bickering from miles away. They greeted you when you sat down but went back to bickering about whatever soon after. Not much later more of your friends arrived and you started a conversation with Keonhee that had taken a seat next to you, "Y/N Hwanwoong said your coming over later to meet our new dorm mate, is that true?" "Yeah, I spend a lot of time at your dorm so it feels only right to introduce myself." Keonhee nodded understandingly. After lunch you went back to your dorms, to find most of your dorm mates either at their lectures or part time jobs. You decided it was the perfect time to study some more pulled out some of your textbooks. You didn't realize how invested you were in studying until one of your dorm mates knocked on your door. "Oh Chaewon? You're back early?" "Early? It's my normal time to get back." A look at the clock next to the door confirmed that in fact she was home at the usual time. Shocked you jumped up from the seat at your desk, "Shit, I have to be at Hwanwoong's dorm in a bit, they're having a party for their newest dorm mate." You explained as you rushed to the fridge pulling out a pack of beer. "I can't go empty handed, I'll buy a new one tomorrow!" You promised before quickly making your way out the door as Chaewon shook her head with a smile at your antics. When you arrived at the boys' dorm, you could already hear their voices in front of the door. Quickly typing in the password that Hwanwoong had entrusted you with a while ago. All eyes were on you as you entered the dorm. It was a bit embarrassing, but you bowed with a smile and greeted them."Y/N, I'm glad you could make it." Hwanwoong came to take the pack of beer from you and lead you to the others, "This is our newest dorm mate, his name is Youngjo." He pointed at the male sitting on the right side of the table. As soon as your eyes met, you felt like you and Youngjo had met before, but you just couldn't place where. People often had deja-vu like that, still something about this felt different. "Hi, it's nice to meet you." Youngjo stood up and held his hand out for you to shake. When your hand came in contact with his the world seemed to disappear for a while, it was only you two. Suddenly memories started to flood into your mind, memories of you and Youngjo in your dream space, talking to each other, hugging each other or crying with each other. Suddenly you remembered every single thing about your dreams. "Promise me Youngjo! Promise me you will remember me!" started echoing in your head again. And that's when you realized, the person in front of you was your soulmate. Finally you had found the person you were desperately wishing to meet. A wave of emotion started crashing over you and tears started brimming in your eyes. "You found me!" The shaking of your voice was audible but Youngjo didn't seem to mind as he wrapped his arms around you. "I found you." He whispered in your ear with a smile as he stroked your back to calm you down.

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hwanuels · 5 years ago

Text

n.jm: where are you?

summary: jaemin is just a little (very) misunderstood

pairing: highschool!fboi!jaemin x fem!reader

note: gUESS WHOSE BACK IN TOWN?!?!?!? y’all already know the routine: poor grammar, crackheads, a fuck ton of cursing i think, and drug references (*coughs* stoner-boi!haechan *coughs*). this isn’t the last part so theres def gonna be a part three, i just have too much to write for jaemin and i don’t wanna rush things too much, but i also don’t wanna leave you all hanging. so enjoy. but also make sure to read part one first so you can be in the know~

“because she knew that i was in love with you”

it took you a good m i n u t e to register jaemin’s words, not that you even comprehended the weight of his words either.

you didn’t know how to respond so like a normal person you started laughing awkwardly to ease the tension, “you’re joking right?”

he hAD to be bc there was no way in hell that the biggest fuckboy of the whole school, na jaemin once harbored a one-sided love for you, right?

a small flash of hurt flashed across jaemin’s eyes that you couldn’t catch since his whole demeanor immediately brighten u again and one of his signature playful smiles on was back on his face.

.“i can’t ever fool you can i?” he chuckled shaking his head.

“no but seriously, why didn’t you go to hoco sophomore year? you were supposed to be hoco royalty with ella,” you picked at the melting ice cream.

jaemin shrugged, “maybe i just didn’t feel like it.”

he seems so nonchalant on the outside, but on the inside, na jaemin is thinking of 1001 ways to disappear off the face of the earth.

what did he expect in the first place? that you would just accept his belated confession that quickly?

but he’s now big s a d, but he ain't going let that show. no, no, no, it ruins his go-with-the-flow personality and the “playboy” role everyone put him in.

“do you have something to do after school tomorrow?” jaemin asked once the two had finished your sundae and the two of you were waiting for your ride to come to pick you up.

you shook your head at his question, knowing that haechan would mostly like ditch your afterschool hang out to get high with mark or chill at that one girl's house

“why?” you asked.

“how about we hang out then?” jaemin asked so casually. he was just that good at hiding his real feels

“can i ask why you’re suddenly trying to hang out with me more often? its weird” you say back, not like the feeling that was bubbling in your throat. was he trying to mess around with you? did he run out of girls to play with?

jaemin pouted slightly, ‘i’m simply trying to reconnect with my old friend. besides, i need help with the prom decorations and since you already finished it, you should know how to do them quickly.”

“i’ll see” is all you say.

and you leave, not knowing what you did to his poor little heart.

poor jaemin got ghosted bc you never reached out to him in the days to follow to “hang out”. the two of you would make eye contact at school, but you always quickly looked away.

:( x 10

it wasn’t that jaemin was shock by your cold treatment, but he was holding onto the hope that you didn’t see him as na jaemin the resident fuckboi, but as na jaemin the boy who was once the prince to your little princess. except jaemin knew very well that this isn’t a fairy tale, just cruel reality.

life is a little bitch and it was messing him the fuck up!

however, na jaemin is a coward and he knows this.

which is why he feels more comfortable when he’s surrounded by others wearing the mask that was carefully crafted for him than when he’s all by himself.

bc when’s he completely alone, when no one is around, he’s left with no one but himself.

the one person he hates the most in the world.

when did it begin?

when did he care more about what others think than what he thought? when did he begin to follow the crowd?

when did he lose himself?

maybe it began around sophomore year, when he first agreed to date ella. something that he wouldn’t have agreed to if it weren’t for you asking that of him.

he could never say no to you. the one who held his heart in the palm of his hands.

did he ever like ella?

he tried to, but it was kinda hard when the only reason why he said yes to her confession was to make you happy. he remembered the way your eyes lit up in happiness as he and ella broke the news to you

you looked like the happiest girl in the world and he felt his heart race at the sight, but not when ella confess to him.

it was useless pining, he knew that. you only saw him as a close friend and especially now that he was with your bestfriend.

that was why he tried soooooo hard to get himself to feel things for ella.

he spent most of his time with her, even ditching his homie student-athlete!jeno (who he often found himself feeling jealous of when he found out that jeno crashed at your house to have a movie marathon with you multiple times)

but he just couldn’t feel anything for ella. so he began to lie.

the first time he lied, it ate him up inside. the simple three words, eight letters phrase was hard to say when you don’t actually mean it.

but as jaemin found himself repeating the lie over and over again, the guilt that was always lingering in the back of his mind slowly went away until he had gotten used to it.

it became natural for him to lie.

to everyone and to himself

people always told him that it must be nice having a face like his, but every time he looked in the mirror, he felt nothing but hatred for the person staring back at him.

at school, he did nothing but play the charming guy that everyone saw him as. he did things that would please the crowd and he felt good when they responded the way he wanted. he overlooked things that he once thought was wrong just to be in good graces with the others.

when donghyuck had his little altercation with jeno, jaemin never felt more jealous in his life. donghyuck chose to be himself, he broke free of the mold that everyone fit him in. he had the courage that jaemin doesn’t

if someone told him to take off his persona, he wouldn’t know what to do. he’s lived this way for so long that he had forgotten who he really was. what he really wanted in life. what truly made him happy.

was he even happy? jaemin didn’t know.

which is why he didn’t know what to do when he overheard ella’s conversation with one of her other friends.

“do we really have to invite y/n too? i don’t want her do come with us to hoco. she’s such a party pooper.”

“i don’t want to either, but i’m only keeping her around because she’s the reason why i’m with jaemin in the first place.”

“isn’t weird that the two of them have been close friends for a while and she hasn’t had any feeling for him?”

“she did,” he hears ella admit. “until i told her that i liked jaemin and then she totally dropped him like that for me.”

“she’s kind of annoying though, always hanging around the two of you. she’s kinda clingy too, no one even likes her in our group.”

“just deal with her for now and we can ice her out later.”

FAKE BITCHES

anyways, jaemin didn’t know what to do so he walked away and pretended that he didn’t hear the conversation. but there's only so much he can just ignore, and this is one of them.

the familiar guilt comes crawling up every time he sees you, smiling with the people that called themselves your “friends”.

it doesn’t take long for jaemin to come to the realization that he’s surrounded by liars. and enough is enough.

well, he still has an image to maintain.

so he chose to break up with ella and actually tell the truth for once, but only to her. to be honest, the truth was kinda forced to come out by itself.

“what do you mean that you’re not going?” he hears ella’s frantic voice and the music playing in the background. maybe it wasn’t a good idea to do the breaking up part the night of homecoming.

good work, jaemin.

“i don’t think that this is going to work between us. i’m sorry”

was he really?

“but you said that you loved me!”

that was just a lie. he thought to himself. “i just don’t feel the same anymore, ella, please understand.” i never did.

“it’s because of her isn’t it? you’ve been in love with y/n this whole time haven’t you?” and jaemin’s blood runs cold.

the music was gone, so ella must have gone to a more quieter, private place.

“i’m not blind jaemin. the way you looked at her, the way you always find yourself next to her; i saw it all,” ella begins “i knew ever since you said yes to me.”

“then why didn’t you say anything? you just let me lie to you like that?”

“lying is the best solution, jaemin, you should know that the best.”

lying is bad kids, don’t do - admin minnie

jaemin could already feel the backlash he was going to receive. he spent the entire hoco night at home preparing himself for the shit that was going to go down the next day at school.

except nothing happened to him.

you had received the hatred, the eyeing, the whispers. you were the one that was iced out, outcasted, not jaemin.

jaemin was too afraid for the same thing happening to him, so he turned his head the other way.

“i just don’t understand why everyone is giving y/n the silent treatment. why are they mad at her? what did she do?” jaemin shrugs at jeno’s angry rant.

jeno had the right to be mad, you were dragged in to be jaemin’s scapegoat.

“and why did you break up with ella anyways? i thought everything was going good?”

“i was bored.”

it was pure irony and the biggest bitch slap in jaemin’s face that you had befriended lee donghyuck, the one person that he envied so wholeheartedly.

jaemin couldn’t do anything, no, he didn’t want to do anything he didn’t want to step out of the little safety persona that he created for himself. he didn’t want to lose all the people that surrounded him. he doesn’t want to be alone.

he hates being alone.

he’ll much rather take on the role of the fuckboy that he hates so much if that meant that people would still stick around him.

which brings him to his current dilemma

“i don’t see why you don’t just put up the image and just go with ella to hoco,” art-hoe!renjun says as the two of them walk to english “the two of you are both going to be king and queen anyways, just go.”

“maybe,” jaemin says, eliciting in a pointed glare from renjun

“you can’t just ditch prom just because of her, this the last year and are you really going to go down as the prom king that didn’t show up to prom?”

“i won’t win for sure, so there's really no point in me going,” jaemin replies

renjun rolls his eyes, and he taps a random passing student on the shoulder, “who do you think is going to win prom royalty this year?” he asks the stranger.

without missing a beat, the student replies, “jaemin and ella, why?”

and renjun’s face is the exact embodiment of i-told-you-so

instead of that motivating jaemin to actually go, it actually made him WANT to skip out on the event even more

“y/n ask to me to ask you if you gave ella all of the decorations for prom or something like that,” jeno tells him at lunch, causing jaemin’s eyes to drift over to you and haechan.

he wonders what the two of you are talking about that has you smiling that hard. he wonders what haechan has that he doesn't.

maybe its his natural-born charisma? not the artificial type that jaemin has mastered the act of.

“earth to jaemin,” jeno waves a hand in front of his friend’s face.

“sorry, yeah, i’m turning it in after school,” he replies, eyes lingering on you for one more second before focusing on the food on his tray, “besides, she could have asked me directly.”

“she had dinner at my house last night,” jeno replies, “what’s got your panties in a twist anyway?”

“not all of us is about to confess our feelings to our puppy crush, lover boy,” renjun pipes in.

jeno’s ears turn a tinge of pink, but jaemin wasn't focused on that.

and jeno might be a bit slow academically, but jaemin is his best buddy, his platonic soulmate.something was up.

“you have three seconds to spill before i will actually expose where you were hoco sophomore year to y/n” jeno threatens

“tell her, it’s not going to make a difference anyways,” jaemin pokes at his food “she has no interest in me what’s so over. i’m just another one of those fuckboys in her eyes.”

jeno and renjun share a look, before renjun decides to break the news to jaemin

“you haven’t been talking to her lately right?” renjun starts and jaemin nods

“the last time we talk was two weeks ago,” jaemin replies “she doesn’t have any other reason to interact with me like she does with jeno”

“before we continue with this conversation, can the green-eyed monster please leave the room?” renjun takes a small jab at jaemin.

“i’m not jealous,” jaemin looks up with an irked glare at renjun.

“then did you really need to mention jeno?” renjun returns the look with an annoyed expression of his own

jaemin scoffs, “you don’t understand, so don’t say anything,”

“tell me what i don’t understand then? because right now i have feeling the only reason you’re so pent up and annoyed is that you’re jealous, jaemin.”

“shut up,” jaemin snaps. “i’m not jealous.”

smiley and easy-going jaemin is gone out the door. everything coming out of renjun’s mouth is making him angrier and angrier and jaemin didn’t even know why.

renjun was speaking the truth. jaemin was jealous, but was he going to admit that?

nope

“it’s okay to be jealous,” jeno says, meaning to ease the slowly growing tension, but jeno’s attempts to mediate the conversation made jaemin even madder.

“can the two get the fuck off my case and leave me alone? i’m not jealous so stop acting like you know how i feel,” jaemin clenches his jaw “it’s really fucking annoying.”

“oh really now?” renjun fires back “it’s really fucking annoying how you expect the two of us to have your back, which we always do, and be fully okay with you going around town acting like a man whore and then being prissy about how the girl you’re interested in this time isn’t interested in you. this isn’t some type of cliche teen romance movie jaemin, grow a pair and deal with it.”

“so you think i’m a man whore too?” jaemin says sarcastically, rolling his eyes, “nice to know that my best friends think so highly of me.”

“jaemin, you know he doesn’t mean it like that,” jeno says.

“then what? it seems to me that you guys have been having a blast talking behind my back and lying about it to my face.”

“when did we say that?” jeno’s eyebrows furrow.

“you don’t need to say it for me to know,” jaemin spits “it’s written all over your faces.”

“i’m done,” renjun stands up, “when you’re ready to grow the fuck up and stop being a fucking dick bag, then find me.”

jaemin doesn’t even bother watching renjun leaving the table, anger was still consuming him. was it anger or frustration?

there was scream lodged in his throat that he wanted to release to the world. a pained scream of helplessness.

“hey jaemin,” jeno has a hard look on his face. he too stands up and leaves with some hard-hitting words, “learn to get over that ridiculously big ego of yours. not everything is about you.”

and jaemin is left at the lunch table

alone

fuck, he thinks to himself. fuck everything.

yeah, no way in hell was jaemin going to prom. no fucking way.

“looks like there’s trouble in paradise,” haechan gestures with his head to the table, near the center.

jaemin’s table, except, it’s literally only jaemin sitting there.

out of the corner of your eyes, you could see and angry renjun followed by an equally ticked of jeno stalking off.

“looks like the pretty boy is left by himself,” haechan remarks. “i wonder what happened?

“why are you saying that like you know what just went down?” you squint your eyes at the boy, who merely shrugs.

“spill”

“give me fifty bucks.”

“fuck off”

not long after, you hear a loud slam. jaemin stands up, his eyes quickly met yours and he looked away, going with haste out the cafeteria’s doors.

and you’re left wondering what the fuck went down at the norenmin table.

“okay, i’m done with all the fucking vague answers,” you stare down haechan, trying to intimidate an answer out of the stoner.

“why the fuck did jaemin not go to homecoming sophomore year and do not give me a smartass answer because i will without a doubt flush your weed stash down the drain and break your juul pens to bits. now, spill.”

damn, y/n going in for the kill

haechan hesitates before a sigh leaves his lips, “i don’t pride myself on much other than my ridiculously good looks and my ability to bargain good weed deals, but long long before i became so awesome-”

“cut to the chase”

“chill, bitch, i was getting there. anyways, i was basically jaemin’s confide,” haechan admits. “that’s why he’s so awkward around me, i basically know all of his personal secrets and all that jazz.”

and you’re shocked bc haechan is really reallllllllllllllllllllllllllllly petty with both of the ts bolded, and he has not once let any private info slip about jaemin, like the kind of deep shit, you’d write in your diaries.

not once sober or faded or drunk. the loud ass himself kept his lips seals which is an incredible feat already.

“don’t look at me like that, i’m a dick, but i’m not that big of dick,” haechan mutters “we all have things we don’t want the world to know “

“okay i won’t question that, but why didn’t he just go? i mean it’s just a school dance, right? its not that big of deal,” you don’t understand the extreme mystery or drama around jaemin’s non-appearance.

haechan shakes his head, “jaemin isn’t a simple as people make him out as, sure he fucks around with girls a lot, but like me, he wasn’t always like that.”

you nod in understanding, agreeing with the point haechan made

jaemin for sure wasn’t the same person that you knew right now. he was always a sweet boy with sweet words, but before high school, he never went around messing around with other girls

“the only choice that jaemin ever made his sophomore year that was his actual choice for his own self was to not go to homecoming, for a good reason too”

“can you be a little bit more detailed?” you urged again, curiosity flowing through you.

“he didn't go because for once he didn't want to be associated with that crowd, he didn't want to be surrounded by people who hardly gave a damn how he felt, only who he was”

haechan’s words reside in you for the longest time and you finally got a glimpse of what your normally stoned friend meant through an accidental eavesdrop of a conversation

“im not going ella, it's final,” jaemin’s voice has no trace of the playful, flirty tone it usually held. he was stern and hard with his words.

“are you really going to embarrass me again, jae?” ella sounded desperate “its just one dance. all you have to do is stand by my side and smile until we get those stupid crowns and take yearbook pictures”

“if you think they’re stupid crowns then why are you making me go?” jaemin argues back.

“you should be glad that i even helped you with your campaign. why else do you think everyone is voting for you?”

and jaemin’s voice goes to a lower, warning tone, “i’ve never ask to be nominated for royalty much less fucking prom king. i don't care what you or anyone has to say, i’m not fucking going to prom.”

your eyes meet jaemin’s as he walks past the aisle you were standing at (totally not peeping into his convo)

he has an emotionless face on and doesn't say anything as he leaves ella quickly follows but stops when she sees you.

“forget everything you heard, he’s going to prom!”

jokes on you ella, bc hes not going anywhere

guess who joined the i’m-ditching-school-because-i’m-an-emotional-wreck club!!

the next three days were hectic at school, everyone was excited for the big dance on saturday. there were last-minute promposals and girls were showing off their sparkly, expensive dresses to each other.

however, the one person that was missing and had you looking for all week was, na jaemin.

where the fuck was he now?

“have you seen jaemin? i haven't seen him at school lately,” you asked jeno, who was sitting in the library diligently waiting for his tutor/crush to arrive.

the number of times you received an “idk” from one of jaemin’s other friends was ridiculous and it was like they didn’t even care that he skipped school for three days or where he was.

jaemin might be a bit on the wild side, but he’s not the type to completely ditch school for three whole days straight. that was haechan’s job.

the only people you could rely on was jeno and renjun, but the latter was more agitated at jaemin than jeno was, so you figured that the athlete was the safer option.

“i have an idea of where he is, but i have a feeling he doesn't want to see anyone, especially today,” jeno replies. news of the norenmin argument traveled quickly around the school along with the fact that jaemin had rejected ella’s prom request. there were some rumors that were being spread about the male and they weren’t all that nice.

you knew deep inside that the two of them weren’t actually mad at jaemin, they (especially jeno) was just frustrated.

“can you slide the address though?” you asked, sliding up next to him

“why would i do that?”

“because you owe me a solid”

truthfully, you didn’t know what you were going to do with jaemin’s address and it’s been weighing you down the whole day.

“you going to prom?” haechan slides into the seat next to you. for once, there were no sunglasses covering his eyes.

you shook your head,” i don’t have anyone to go with.”

“you should have just asked mark to go with you,” haechan pointed out to which you gagged loudly.

“as if i would bring an actual twelve-year-old boy to prom, he’ll probably say let’s get it every two seconds and then my hand might just actually slip and punch his face or dunk his head into the disgusting kool-aid punch..”

“damn, and i thought i hated him.”

you rolled your eyes, “what about you? did you plan to confess to mina yet?”

“i was thinking about going old school and do one of those typical high school romeo and juliet scenes,” haechan said smugly. “might throw a shoe or two if i have to.”

you shake your head in disbelief, “be civil at least.”

“but i also can’t leave my main bitch alone for prom night so why don’t go to prom or hang out with the biggest thot in town?” haechan suggested.

“haechan, ten graduated high school like 3 years ago. i doubt he wants to spend his free time on a saturday night at a high school dance with me.”

facepalm.

“i’m not talking about that ultimate thot.”

“jungwoo is also in college.”

another fat facepalm.

“honestly, i thought you had at least ONE functioning brain cell,” haechan groaned “i’m talking about na jaemin.”

“what do you want me to do with him? the two of us aren’t exactly friends,” you mumble.

“exactly, use this time to spend some time with him or something. get closer or get laid, i don’t care, just don’t be a loner tomorrow,” haechan replies. “i can’t be friends with a lameo.”

“he hasn’t shown up for school in like three days and tomorrow is prom night,” you argue “besides, i don’t know where he’s even at.”

“that’s the fattest lie i have ever heard leave your mouth and you told mr. moon that his moon tie looked good on him. i know for a fact that you have his address saved on your phone, which is kinda creepy now that i think about it, but that’s beside the point.”

“why do you care so much? i thought you hated him,” you eyed haechan weirdly.

“because that moron needs someone to help him out and whose more suited for the job herself than the girl that was hopelessly in love with him all sophomore year.”

you smack his arm,”i should have never trusted you with my diary. besides, i don’t like him like that anymore.”

“then why do you worry about him so much?” haechan pointed out. ‘why did you go to jeno for jaemin’s whereabouts if you supposedly didn’t like him anymore.”

“caring about someone is different from liking them,” you chided him “you should know best since it took you months to realize that you were in love with mina.”

“stfu i’m supposed to be the wise teacher and you’re the young grasshopper.” haechan shushed you with a finger which you swatted away.

“i’m not joking around though, just go see what’s up,” haechan nudged you. “trust me, it’s worth it.”

“wow did love turn the hardest bitch in town, soft?”

“you know, i might actually just push you off stoner’s cliff one day when you’re not looking,” haechan narrowed his eyes at you.

“lol, as if i haven’t noticed that you haven’t been getting high since mina left your pathetic ass,” you pointed out.

and haechan h i s s e s.

but your stoner friend did have a point and you decide to listen to his advice for the first time in your life.

letting out a nervous breath, you rang the doorbell, a plastic bag full of junk food in your other hand. it was currently 8 pm and prom had already started. jaemin’s car was parked in the driveway, proving that he really didn’t go to prom.

“what are you doing here?” were the first words out of jaemin’s mouth when he saw you.

you raised the bag full of snacks, “do you wanna have that hang out now?”

there's a nervous feeling in your stomach, bc you don’t know if jaemin was going to reject you or not. he doesn’t have his usual cassanova, playful smile on. his face is completely neutral.

“don’t you have better things to do? like, go to prom?”

you awkwardly laugh, “about that, i’m not going.”

“why?”

“why aren’t you going?” you countered.

fair enough, jaemin relents and moves aside to let you in. there’s some lo-fi music playing in the background and a couple of books and paper strewn about the living room floor.

“my parents are on a business trip, so it’s just me,” jaemin informs you.

“cool,” you internally smack yourself bc jaemin didn’t really seem happy with ur sudden appearance. “were you just doing ur homework?”

“yeah, i have nothing else to do,” he says, cleaning up the area for u to sit. you sit down carefully and placed the bag of snacks at the base of your feet.

“did you want anything to drink?” jaemin moved to go into the kitchen. you shook your head but jaemin still pulled out two water bottles from the fridge. (save the turtles)

you look around the house, taking in the family portraits and the minimal home decor. you’ve only been to jaemin’s house a handful of times as a kid, and a lot has changed in those past few years, but some things stayed the same. on the fireplace mantle, there was a framed picture of norenminhyuck smiling with the brightest grins.

“jeno gave me crap for weeks for not taking down that picture of us four,” jaemin followed your gaze as places the two water bottles on the glass coffee table.

“why didn’t you take it down, then?” you curiously ask

taking a seat on the couch, jaemin shrugged, “sentimental value?”

and the two left it at that.

cue the awkward silence.....

“jaemin?”

he looks at you with a questioning glance

“why exactly did you and ella break up?”

jaemin lets out a sigh. he’s been anticipating the question but not now and definitely not your sudden appearance.

“there's no point in making excuse to you,” jaemin pauses before continuing “i never really liked her in the first place.”

and you look over in shock? bc the two of them were literally the couple of the year, a model example of a high school relationship.

“then why?”

“why did i say yes?” jaemin’s gaze was focused on you, leaving you unnerved. there was no sign of the cheeky jaemin, he looked completely serious. something no one really saw that often. “because thats what you wanted me to say.”

????????? - y/n’s mind

“jeno had told me that ella had urged you to introduce me to her and had confessed to you that she liked me. he told me you felt tasked with fulfilling her wish and took it upon your self to set the two of us up. i’m not stupid, y/n. i could tell by the way you planned double-dates with jeno and ella and i,” jaemin explained. there was slight embarassment on your side, sophomore you was not the best matchmaker. “but i only showed up for you. i could care less that ella was there, the only person that i wanted to see and impress was you.”

“i-“

“and i knew that you liked me too. i was expecting for you to confess to me when you told me to meet you behind the gym, but you let ella take the chance.”

“because she really liked you a lot, jaemin, and she was a close friend of mine”

“so you were willing to give up your happiness for someone who was using you to get to me?” jaemin asked bluntly.

you looked down at your fingers, feeling somewhat ashamed, “i was only worried about fitting in with the crowd at that time. i wanted people to like me.” you confessed. “after the whole fiasco, i learned to live for myself rather than for others, albeit with a little help from haechan.”

“you see, i wish i could be as brave as you to do that.” jaemin meekly smiles at you “because i’m still people-pleasing.”

“i only said yes to ella to make you happy but then everyone was congratulating me and there were more and more people by my side. i thought jeno, renjun, and donghyuck were enough to last me through high school, but the attention got to my head. i knew that no matter how much i hated ella, i couldn’t break up with because i thrive off the crowd she brought me. i thought that if i lie enough, i could make myself gain feelings for her. she was a kind and outgoing person, so i didn't think it would be that hard, except it never did happen,” jaemin sucked in his breath “i overheard a conversation by accident to one of her other friends and it was about you, about how they just used to you to get to me even though the knew you liked me. i knew that then i was surrounded by so many liars all with the same goal of getting in good with everyone.”

he continued on “the reason why i didn't want to go to hoco was bc i felt guilty. i didn't want to be another person that lived for the crowd and i knew that i would've sealed my future if i did go and get crowned king with ella. for once, i didn't want to be a liar. i just wanted to be myself.”

and then he bitterly chuckled to himself, “which is ironic since the next day i chased after the crowd again. i let you take the blame for me just because i was afraid of being outcasted even though it was my fault you had to suffer the consequences of my lie.”

“jaemin-“

“and then i kept pretending to be that stupid fuckboy that everyone painted me as just to be in the it-crowd or whatever. i don’t have anything special like how renjun has art and jeno has his sports, even haechan had something special like choir back in those days. i had nothing, i wasn’t known for anything and i’m still not known for anything other than being a fuckboy. i’m just na jaemin at the end of the day, talented in messing around with girls.”

“do you feel happy?” you carefully asked after jaemin finished his rant.

jaemin’s barely smiling at this point, “what do you think?”

“you know, i was never really mad about you about the whole ella situation,” you scooted closer to him on the couch. “at first, i blamed you because that was the easier option, pin the blame on someone else. until a certain someone told me to fuck what they say and live my own way.”

“haechan?”

you nodded, “he was the first person that i didn’t pretend or try to cater myself to fit his needs. we’re alike in that department, jaemin, we both want to be liked. i’m not going to lie, the first few months of being outcasted was hard on me. sometimes, i still get sad when i think about the day where everyone just abandoned me.”

“i’m sorry.”

“there’s no need to be sorry, jaemin because i can hardly care about it that much anymore. do you know why?”

jaemin shook his head ‘no’

“because i learned that being by myself isn’t that bad. we’re all scared of being lonely, it’s human nature, but our fears often cause us to forget that we still have ourselves.” you placed a hand on his shoulder “once you learn to befriend yourself, no one’s opinion will matter more than your own. learn to cater to yourself, learn to live for yourself. don’t just be you, live as you.”

“easier said than done,” the remark left jaemin’s lips bitterly, causing you to slightly frown. “it’s hard to learn to be friends with myself when i’m the person i hate the most. i hate the person who looks back at me in the mirror. i hate just hate what i’ve let myself become.”

“it’s never too late to change,” you say.

jaemin shook his head, he blinked quickly to clear his now glassy eyes, “it’s to the point where i don’t even know i am anymore.”

“you’re na jaemin,” you say with a little more force this time. you didn’t like the defeated tone that jaemin was talking in, this wasn’t the confident and every positive boy that you grew up with. this wasn’t the boy that stole your heart in the third grade and kept it till sophomore year. “the boy that never hesitates to help someone else and can light up the room with just one smile.”

“you don’t have to pity me, it was a grave i dug for myself.”

letting out a harsh sigh, you moved to take jaemin’s face into your hands, staring deep into his doe-eyed brown ones, which widened in response to your sudden action.

big moves, y/n, big moves

“i know it may be hard to see, but jaemin you’re way more than what they think of you. you can always change as long as you have the will to do so,” you wipe away a stray tear that was falling onto his cheek. jaemin didn’t even notice that he was crying. “it’s a difficult and long process, but it’ll be worth it in the end. trust me.”

“what if no one wants to be around me anymore? what if i end up alone? “ doubt filled his tone, and your eyes soften at the vulnerability of the boy. he was scared, lost, and confused.

“i’ll be with you. anywhere you’re at, i’ll be there by your side even if no one else will. you’re a precious person, you don’t deserve any less,” you smiled. “i won’t let you be alone.”

maybe jaemin was just being emotional. maybe it was the contained feelings that he held for you that was being released. maybe it was the way you looked at him with so much concern and the way you delicately held his face.

whatever motivated him to do what he was going to do next, jaemin could hardly care less.

without any hesitation, jaemin leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to your lips.

right now, jaemin didn’t feel lost or alone. you found him and he hoped that you’ll stay.

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imlostinsantacarla · 5 years ago

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@beaming-ben: hey! i just wanted to say i’m enjoying your lost boys posts :) was wondering if i was able to make a request with Y/N (so others can enjoy it) x Marko? it would be where the reader is new to santa carla and they are at the boardwalk looking at the stores and stuff. Marko notices them who turns out to be his mate and he starts talking to them. the reader would be quite shy in this but eventually opens up and Marko would be really sweet to them. Thanks for your time :) x

(a/n: heya love, sorry that this took so long for me to get around to! i hope you enjoy what i’ve come up with, i really tried my best! thanks for your request as well. - admin kat 🌙❣)

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Title: You Don’t Talk Much Do You? (Marko x Reader)

Summary: Moving out to the Murder Capitol of the World and into the home of your eccentric grandfather after a divorce between your parents has you longing for a night of fun. When your two brothers accompany you onto the infamous Boardwalk for the night, their teasing ways get under your skin and you feel the need to break away and cool off. Doing this means that you run into a particular blonde-haired boy that isn’t just trying to chat you up to win you over for the night, but for eternity.

Word Count: 2,269 (lmaoo 69)

Warnings: mentions of parents divorcing, angsty teenager stuff?, nothing else really.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

Being new to Santa Carla had an overwhelming pressure as nighttime rolled around and the Boardwalk was filled with the static buzz of teenagers having a blast of a time whilst the flashing lights of the fair rides busily illuminated the night air. There was a charge of excitement in the atmosphere which had you practically bouncing on your heels, a grin spread wide across your face. It seemed as though it had been an eternity since you had even stared fun straight in the face.

Currently you were situated between your two brothers, Michael and Sam, whom were bickering like school children over the topic of Sam needing and not needing babysitters to accompany him.

“I’m not a kid any more, Mikey! I can find my own way around here no problem.” Sam sassed with an exasperated tone, total offense clouding his countenance as he looked up at his older brother indignantly.

“Yeah, yeah,” Michael rolled his eyes, giving a hasty shake of his head, “tell that to mom after you get lost for the fifth time today.”

“Hey! The first time was my fault but the other four were your terrible sense of direction. Right, y/n?” Sam blabbered enthusiastically, though his face was heating up due to embarrassment.

“Huh?” You hummed, eyes averting from the roller coaster and landing on Sam who seemed even more offended that you hadn’t exactly been paying any mind to his side of the argument, never mind Michael’s point. “Sorry, what did you two losers say?” You inquired with a quick scratch to the back of your neck.

Michael grinned silly at you before staring down at Sam. “Jesus, and I thought mom was bad.” to which Sam laughed at, their brotherly bickering having become a thing of the past and your fleeting attention span now the main focus.

“You’ve seen plenty of rides before, I don’t see what the big deal is, y/n!” Sam stated matter-of-factly, his bright eyes illuminated with mischief.

“Yeah, I know. But when was the last time us three got to have fun instead of being stuck between mom and dad arguing?” You sassed, a tint spreading across your cheeks. Your statement was nothing more than sincere. Being in between two parents going through a divorce was messy and heartbreaking for everyone involved, but it seemed to have taken it’s toll on you the most. You’d assumed the role of keeping what was left of your family intact, like human glue, and it was the most exhausting job you’d slid into for awhile now.

“Jeez you make it sound like you’re the one going through the divorce yourself.” Michael scoffed mockingly, no doubt attempting to get under your skin as he usually did.

“YoU mAkE iT sOuNd LiKe YoU’rE tHe OnE GoInG ThRoUgH tHe DiVoRcE yOuRsElF.” you did a pretty bad imitation of his voice, throwing your hands up in the air as you did so. “You sound like you don’t give a shit.” you spat, pushing past your older brother.

“Great! Now she’s gonna go tell mom you were an ass to her and probably blame me too!” You heard Sam practically shriek behind you. You didn’t care, you just felt like you needed to get away from them, they were practically suffocating you.

___

Parting from your brothers had lead you to only dig yourself deeper into your own thoughts. You went from store to store that littered the Boardwalk and scanned the shelves of them absentmindedly with a lot weighing down the theme of your train of thought. Moving away from Phoenix had been challenging for you, especially parting from your friends, and your parents going through their divorce was hard, - even if your mother had managed to do it with little mess -. The change of moving to another state made you almost weak with nausea. When summer was over you’d be going to a new school with new people and the thought alone made you want to spew. Making friends back in Phoenix had been challenging enough as it was...

You missed your friends desperately, you knew you were gonna miss your old school even once summer was over here. Everything here was daunting and weird. I mean, your Gramps didn’t even own a TV! He had Taxidermy swarming around his whole house. The thought of that beaver he’d given Sam sent shivers down your spine as though The Angel of Death were tickling it. You were genuinely living with a crazy old man and your somewhat dysfunctional family. The odds of enjoying your time here didn’t look so hot. I mean, you were living in the Murder Capital of the World.

The exhaustion you felt seemed to morph into sore legs from having walked around the pier several times. You’d even walked past your brothers ten times, ignoring them whenever they’d called on you. They knew that when you were in a bad mood to just let you walk it off in order to cool down. Besides, they were the ones who’d agitated you in the first place. The least they could do was give you time.

The whole intention of coming to the Boardwalk was to have fun, engage in excitement: You’d wanted to go on every ride you saw, eat till you were so full you’d spew and watch the live bands play. You hadn’t bagged on miserably idling around a comic book store until the two kids behind the register eyed you all funny till you left.

Now you were at one set of stairs that lead down to the actual sand of Santa Carla’s beach. Your eyes scanning the scene before you with dull eyes of envy. The moon was strikingly pale against the velvety black night sky, tiny specs of stars dancing to the music of the local teenagers guffawing and fooling around on the sand beneath. The waves of the ocean were a velvety black, the moon casting an eerie silvery glow onto it, it’s reflection warbled as the salty water lapped onto the sand and retreated. There wasn’t just total darkness, on the sand, where there were teenagers, there were also oil drums glowing orange with dancing flames in the center of the group, providing warmth and light to their shenanigans. There were hundreds of oil drums littered all over the beach, like small beacons of light attempting to break through the darkness of night.

A sense of desperation to join them left your stomach jumping and twisting apprehensively, making you miss Phoenix all the more. You’d do almost anything to get out of the funk you’d sunk into, even if that meant doing something stupid and getting yourself grounded for all eternity by your mother. You weren’t astray to rebelling against her in the past. She knew that plain as day, which is probably why she had told your brothers to head out with you.

You climbed halfway down the stairs until you sunk down onto them, deciding you didn’t have enough courage to just throw yourself into any one of the orange circles that scattered the beach. Anyone of those groups could be filled with nutters and weirdos. You weren’t looking to get yourself into anything you couldn’t get yourself out of. But you observed the people your age, maybe even a little older than you, dancing and singing, - clearly both drunk and/or high on something -, with curiosity.

“You just gonna watch all the action go down from here?” You heard a voice clear as day in your ear, causing you to jump straight out of your skin, a yelp being pulled from your throat. You whipped around to find a boy your age with the dumbest grin plastered straight on his face, like the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. “Whoa! Easy.” His voice came out husky as he placed his hands up by his head, partially gloved, palms facing you.

You were stunned for what felt like seconds but stretched on for well over a couple of minutes. The guy was stunning, blond and wore the most peculiar jacket of gold and red that possessed patterns, faces, pictures... You weren’t even aware that you’d been staring till he chuckled again. “You know, you might wanna close your mouth before you drool everywhere.” He teased, his nimble and icy fingertips coming under your chin and forcing your mouth closed with a soft tap. He had his head tilted to the side, blue orbs penetrating yours like he was staring straight through your soul.

“O-Oh, s-sorry.” You cleared your throat, tearing your face away from him and looking out over the beach once more. You were grateful that it was dark where you were, so the blush that consumed your face now was well hidden, - at least you thought it was -.

“Nah, it’s all good. I’m not complaining.” You heard the grin forming on his face as he spoke. Suddenly the space on the step beside you was occupied and you could feel his gaze on your face now. “You new here? I haven’t seen you around before.” He inquired, leaning closer to you in a non-intrusive way. There was curiosity in his eyes as you met them.

“Yeah.” You hummed, nipping your bottom lip between your teeth. This felt odd, no guy, - especially this attractive -, had ever really spoken to you. You always thought it was because you weren’t attractive, but you knew the biggest part of it was because your older brother Michael (by one year) wouldn’t let any guy get within twenty feet of you. So the fact that this guy was sat here chatting to you made you wonder where in the hell Michael was at.

“Cool. Where’re you from?”

“Ph-Phoenix.” You muttered softly, eyes dipping down as you spoke. The way that he was looking at you made you feel a little unsettled.

“Cool, cool.” He mumbled, pulling out a pack of cigarettes, plucking a smoke out and placing it between his lips before lighting it. The flame from his lighter made it possible for you to fully see his face, which almost made your jaw slack open once again. He was definitely attractive. He laughed again. “What? You want one?” He offered the opened carton to you, to which you declined and he chuckled once more. “Alright. You’re not much of a talker are you?” He quipped humorously to which you felt your ears redden and you shook your head.

“I’m Marko, by the way.” He mumbled around his cigarette, puffing smoke in your direction.

“y/n” you smiled softly, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear as you watched him.

“Michael’s sister?” Marko inquired with a quirked brow.

“How’d you know that?” You were baffled and slightly terrified to say the least.

“Me and my buddies met your brother, we’re friends. He told us about you.” Marko clarified with a puff of smoke flowing from his lips as he spoke.

“That’s funny, he never mentioned you...” You hummed thoughtfully, “Oh God, what’d he tell you about me? That I’m a Monster Bitch from Hell?” You rolled your eyes indignantly.

“Somethin’ like that.” He simpered, eyes skimming up and down your body with interest as he spoke. “With the way he was describing you, I thought you’d look like a Demon of something.”

“I’m so gonna flatten him when I get home.” You muttered under your breath to which he laughed at. You turned to look at him once more with creased brows. “Then what do I look like to you?”

“Hot.” You laughed when he said that, shaking your head as you tipped it backwards. “I mean that in a non-demon kinda way.” He added.

“Well, that’s good I suppose.”

“You think so?” Boy he was a flirt, you could already tell. He was definitely funny also, which you liked. Funny guys were always more interesting to you. They were better than the hotheaded types, at least in your opinion they were.

“I dunno, would you prefer that I looked like one?”

“Nah, not really! I think you look great as you are.” He flashed his pearly whites at you with a confidence you’d never seen before and it spurred the pair of you into a conversation filled with flirtatious comments. You swore you’d never spoken to someone this much in your life - even with your very own family -.

Speaking with Marko seemed to flow naturally between the pair of you, which made your heart gallop a million miles per hour. However, even though he was nice to talk to, there was something about him that caused a spark of suspicion in you, like danger lurked around the corner if you continued to converse with him. But there was something else that was pulling you towards him, something you couldn’t quite put your finger on because you’d never felt this before. It was like a rope was tied across your midsection and Marko felt it too. The more either one of you resisted the tighter the pull felt, forcing you in his vicinity.

And sure, you’d talked to cute guys in the past before your brother intervened, and there was always a sense of giddiness in your gut as you did so. Yet it didn’t compare to the warmth that seemed to spread through your muscles as he inched closer and closer to you with each question and answer that flowed from both of your mouths. Something about this seemed natural and destined, like nothing could get in the way of or break it apart.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

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requests: open!

#marko #marko imagines #marko x reader #marko headcanons #the lost boys #the lost boys imagines #the lost boys x reader #the lost boys headcanons #the lost boys marko #the lost boys marko imagines #the lost boys marko headcanons #the lost boys marko x reader #hope you enjoyed it!#admin kat

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kuwurapikaaa · 5 years ago

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Chrollo Character Analysis

I have to warn you, even if this analysis does not have spoilers in the manga, but it is very long and with a dash of personal bias towards Chrollo - Admin MeiQi

Chrollo Lucilfer. One of the main villains of Hunter x Hunter. Leader of the phantom troupe, the band of thieves responsible for the Kurta massacre. Love him or hate him, he is an impressive character from a writer’s standpoint. You don’t know his morality. Like many characters in the manga, you don’t exactly know where to pinpoint him in the morality spectrum. He’s very gray in his morals, and that is what I want to see with a character.

Honestly, Chrollo is my most favorite character to write for, his complex character and his cunning personality easily makes him one of my favorites to stan and write for. Dissecting him is a very interesting thing to explore. - When I said that I can write a 2000 word essay on Chrollo, my friends said that they couldn’t believe that it was true or if I was joking, but here we are, with the quarantine and nothing to do, it has to lead me into this, a 2000 word monster.

His Past and How it affects him.

As of writing, we knew nothing about Chrollo’s past. And I think Togashi is not that interested in Chrollo. In my headcanon, Chrollo grew up roaming the streets of Meteor City. No family, no money, no food, nowhere to go. I can even see Chrollo doing sex work just to get around his life. He had to grow up very fast and was exposed to a cruel society at an early age. So, with his charm, his intelligence, and his sex appeal, he can put anyone around his fingers.

Meteor City is already a rough environment for an adult but you should also think about the children who roam the streets. How would a child interact with an environment as harsh as Meteor City? The city had always been described as this hell hole. Where people throw unwanted things, including unwanted children. Nobody was written in records and nobody knew the place. The city seems like it has no peace and is constantly in danger.

If my dad is writing this, he’d say that Chrollo is “Nagutuman” it literally means “starved”, it means that Chrollo got something taken away from him. Something that is really important. If I am going to paint a picture of Chrollo’s past, it would be less than beautiful.

Combined with Chrollo’s harsh upbringing and some type of mental illness, you have a recipe for disaster. - Perfect building blocks for a villain of a series as complex as Hunter x Hunter. As an aspiring writer, I always looked up to Togashi’s work and how complex the series is. Chrollo’s layers are one of the hardest for me to dissect without writing a long essay. Once you make me talk about Chrollo, I will run my mouth for ages. (Like what I am doing right now)

If I am going to embody Chrollo as one of the seven deadly sins, I think he’d probably represent greed, although envy is very close as well. He was a man with nothing who wants everything. He wants the money, he wants vast knowledge, he wants other people’s nen, he wants all the worldly things.

He was very obsessed with human nature. To the point that he will use this obsession to manipulate another person, and get what he wanted from them. He instilled himself to read books and observe the people around him. He used these books to pick a personality trait. Look, in typical literature, it’s easy to distinguish who is “good” and who is “bad” and personalities are not as complex as humans are.

With no one to talk to, he had this very reserved personality. Then, the books and observations couldn’t suffice anymore, so he started stealing very important things from people to know how they would feel when those worldly possessions were gone to them. When he saw how these people reacted to him doing that, he was joyed. He was happy in a twisted way to see what would happen.

I would say Chrollo is kinda numb, but can you really blame the man himself? I don’t think so. Nobody looked after him. Nobody cared for him. Not that I’m trying to convince you that Chrollo is a good guy, which obviously is not the case. (Being the antagonist of the series)

Stealing these things made him understand humans, made an empty void in his body filled in this twisted way. But since Chrollo is greedy, these things never satisfied him. I can even compare him to Ging, Gon’s dad. His greed made him leave his son so that he can have all these adventures and stay a hunter forever.

That’s why I would hate being in the hunter x hunter universe. As someone who has a very set standard of morals, I don’t believe greedy people like hunters deserve the privileges that they are taking for granted. I believe that people should have equal rights and people that have privileges should use their privilege in the right way.

What is the troupe for him?

A favorite quote of mine from him would be “I’m not important, but my orders are.” It shows that Chrollo treats and respects each leg of the spiders like his equals. I would even argue that the members of the troupe are the only thing that is important to Chrollo. I would go more into that in the last category.

The troupe is everything for him. His friends, his family, and lastly an extension of himself. The troupe became his identity, the thing that gave him life, and probably the only thing that is making him significant in this world. The troupe members are the only ones who cared for their beloved boss

To form it, he gathered people that he trusted the most. They all shared a thing in common, immensely talented nen users and outcasts. They shared his philosophy. “We can steal anything from you, but never steal anything from us” He built the phantom troupe with immense trust and him sharing the same principles as his members.

The troupe members are the only people that actually know Chrollo and even then, as I observed, he doesn’t seem super close with anyone in the whole troupe, minus Pakunoda and Machi ?? I will expand on Pakunoda and Chrollo at another time.

One of the ironic things I have seen with the Phantom Troupe is how they would go through all that for the death of a member. (With the requiem for Uvogin) But it was also said that in order to join, you have to kill a member. I find it very contradictory. Or maybe they would get mad or be like that when the person who killed Uvogin didn’t join the troupe ?? That is just very ironic.

Although I don’t have an opinion on it, I am putting it out there so that we can discuss it below and what do you think about this ‘rule’ made by Chrollo. It was something I never thought of when writing this analysis or just as I am watching the anime and dissecting the manga.

How would his demise be?

I think his demise would be ironic and symbolic. As an avid fan of Teleseryes, anime, and a reader of many book series, I know what I’m talking about. His death would be satisfying to both him and the reader. I am aware that Togashi defies the tropes of regular shounen manga, but this ending is the best in a way that it is shocking and satisfying.

His death would be bittersweet. - His death would seem cold, yet twistedly satisfying. He would have nothing to lose. I have to stress it again, that he’s a man who has nothing, and for him, death is inevitable. Remember what Melody said? “He walked with death by his side” That means that the man is really prepared for his demise and feels satisfied whenever it would happen at whatever point of his life.

I can see that his troupe members would be in heaven already. Him being cornered by either Kurapika or Hisoka (if Hisoka wants a re-match). He’d be happy if Kurapika killed him because the boy will get what he wants because he knows that nothing good will happen in a life full of revenge. Kurapika will just regret it in the long run.

Yet, he would die with a smile on his face. A genuine smile, not the one that he’s showing to the people he manipulated. It would be the only time Chrollo would feel happy because he can join his troupe members in heaven. (If they are ever going there) He would be happy to be with the only people that he cared about.

In his conversation with Neon, which showed his human side (but of course, in typical Chrollo fashion, he used this vulnerability as an Uno reverse card and manipulated Neon with it) he showed that he genuinely believed in the afterlife. In life and death. In heaven and earth. In sin and forgiveness. In my headcanon, Chrollo is a devout Christian like myself. He prays every night and day.

His favorite bible verse in someone’s headcanon that I also agree would be Corinthians 13:4-7 “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily anger, it keeps no records of wrong. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

This exact verse shows that Chrollo is someone that has sympathy, as much as he is portrayed as evil, in fiction’s black and white principle. But, he always cared for the Phantom Troupe. The troupe is above his life. The number tattoo that they have shows his loyalty and how he would instill to his members that “once you’re a spider, you’d always be a spider”. As said before, the troupe is the extension of his identity.

The million-dollar question: Is Chrollo capable of loving someone?

As much as I am the Chrollo fucker that I am, I will answer you wholeheartedly, No. Why? You may ask. Because at the end of the day, Chrollo is a thief, a wanted criminal with a high bounty on his head. Having a significant other can throw him off from his highly unattainable ambitions, from him achieving what he wants in his life.

When I was writing my OC, Zara, that was partnered with Chrollo, I started thinking about this deeper. Since Zara is an OC of mine that is like the opposite of Chrollo. She wanted simple things like a family and a husband that will love her forever. - Chrollo doesn’t want all of that. As I said before, what he wants is the treasures and knowledge to fill his empty void.

I don’t think Chrollo is someone who is capable of loving someone. - That is my opinion.

Like he isn’t the kind of guy for a long term commitment. He will fuck, but he’s the kind of guy to leave you behind. He sees that his troupe is far more important than some girl/man that would leave him if they knew he was this wanted criminal.

As much as the troupe is a piece of huge evidence to show that Chrollo is capable of loving people in a genuine sense, but his love for his troupe is limited to familial and mutual respect and trust. It isn’t something that should be taken into a romantic context.

Chrollo’s relationships minus the troupe will always end up in an abusive standpoint. It will always be filled with Chrollo feeding his partner lies about himself just to get what he wants. I said in his past that he never had anything, so he wants to take away everything from other people.

Without his manipulative nature, it would be hard for Chrollo to express love in a genuine way. I can even say that he’s like Kurapika in this department. They both are emotionally constipated people. Yet, they express it in a different way, being traumatized in different ways. Chrollo, unlike Kurapika, he used people to get what he wants and not push them away.

Since I am not a registered medical professional, I am not going to diagnose Chrollo with a mental illness. Like surely he does, but without proper knowledge, I cannot personally deliver it to the reader.

#chrollo #chrollo hxh #chrollo hunter x hunter #chrollo lucilfer #kuroro lucilfer #hunter x hunter #hunter x hunter character analysis #hunter x hunter headcanons #anime #anime character analysis #anime headcanons #heacanons #hxh #character analysis #phantom troupe

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priorireverte · 4 years ago

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This is the admin application for LILY POTTER. Please note that there is not the expectations that all applications been this long; I am aware that this is somewhat excessive.

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME & PRONOUNS: Emmy, she/her

TIMEZONE: Pacific Standard Time

ACTIVITY LEVEL: On the dash daily, aims for two long paragraph posts a week.

ANYTHING ELSE: Hoping to have a lot of fun!

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Lily Ruth Evans

BIRTHDATE: January 30th, 1960

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Female, she/her, Panromantic, Heterosexual

BLOOD STATUS: Muggleborn

HOUSE ALUMNI: Gryffindor

OCCUPATION: Returned, no employment yet (Unemployed before death as well)

FACECLAIM: Sophie Skelton

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

POSTBELLUM:

Finding herself in a world where twenty years have passed by without her would be hard enough. Catching up on world events, figuring out how technology has changed (at least the Wixen world is somewhat stagnant on that front, something she never thought she’d be grateful for), learning the story of the war that followed after her. Then there is the struggle of grappling with how the baby boy who she’d help in her arms not so long ago was now a full grown man who hardly needs a mother anymore. In some ways, having so many lost friends coming back with her is a comfort. At least she isn’t alone in that.

Yet on top of all that is having been dumped into this new world from the thick of the war. The expectations of peace pair ill with her extreme caution and jittery unease. So many expect her to be fine, when she’d not had any time to truly mourn all of those she lost—a list that is only longer now, with James, Sirius, and Peter all gone. (Peter, another subject she’s broken her heart on that people want her to be au fait with; she still cannot understand it.) Lily has only just begun to heal while so many around her are years, if not decades, ahead of her.

PERSONALITY:

As someone who is at her best when connected to people, Lily strives to ensure the comfort and happiness of all those around her. Her empathetic nature thrives off of that happiness, and she struggles to be comfortable and at peace when she knows others aren’t. That connection to other people can sometimes slip into dangerous territory when she starts defining herself by those relationships. It leaves her open to taking on their woes as her own, overburdening herself, as well as putting her in a position where being pushed away or having her help refused can deeply damage her sense of self-worth, depending on how close she is to a person.

Of course, having come of age in the middle of a war she has had to grapple with not being able to help or be there for everyone. It has worn Lily down, damaged the cheerfully optimistic outlook of her childhood, leaving her calloused, a bit jaded, and thoroughly exhausted with trying to be hopeful. She has had to become more careful with her inner self and what she gives away.

Her sense of closeness with someone is a large factor with Lily for the simple reason that there aren’t a huge number of people who she is really close with. While always a friendly, welcoming person, she has never had a great many actual friends; people she would confide in, lean on for support, turn to for the sort of help she so readily offers others. Thus the few she has are a big deal, and she clings to them, because she knows what it is to lose those precious few. As much as that steadfast loyalty is a defense against the outside world, it leaves her innerly vulnerable to the faults she overlooks in those loved ones. They slip past her judgment, and she will make excuses for them, justify their actions even against her own moral instinct, to a very far limit. That too is something the war has strained, with mere existence pushing her towards those limits, let alone having to grapple with the less savory parts of her friends.

It would be easy to think that Lily, by virtue of being ‘the pretty one’ in the family, was blessed with not having to concern herself with her appearance. In one way at least, that is true; she isn’t concerned with her hair or her face, doesn’t spend time fretting over the less than easy things to change. Yet she grew up in a bored factory town, where everyone knew everyone and appearances mattered within the strict hierarchy built around the factory company. What you wore, how you behaved: these things were taken as reflecting on the family as a whole. Don’t talk back to the child of your father’s superior, that will get you in trouble! Let the foreman’s wife take the last eggs at the grocery, lest your husband lose a shift at work.

That awareness of what other people think and perceive only sharpened for Lily at Hogwarts, under the constant scrutiny a Muggleborn endures. It took her a long time to be able to break free of trying to earn that approval of her peers by being the best, well behaved, friendly person she could be in the eyes of others. That approval, being well liked, keeping things genial and going smoothly is something she craved until she was forced to realize it simply isn’t feasible because of who she is, unless she wanted to sacrifice a large part of who she is. Lily had to grow up and let go of a lot of her insecurities, and build a defensive shield around the others, as a matter of survival.

With that awareness of perceptions and the judgments that come with it, it has to be said that Lily applies different standards to herself than she does other people. She values her actions, what she does, over what she says. Perhaps because she is aware of her flaw of not always thinking before speaking. Yet with others, she tries so hard to take them at their word, believe that shows their true intent over what actions they take. She wants to believe people, trust in them, adhere to her idea that people are good.

This is why, in part, she turned a blind eye to Severus Snape’s questionable actions for so long. He would explain himself, manage to make it sound not so bad, and Lily would discard her judgment because he didn’t mean to do bad, he told her as much! And she knew him, deep down.

Understandably, that instinct to take words at surface value has been scorched and damaged. She's wary, cautious of doing so, but oh, how she wishes she could once more. Instead, she has had to become more realistic in her estimations of people.

A desire to believe people innately tend towards goodness does not mean Lily is free of judgment. She can, and does, scrutinize people and weigh what they say and do and judge the goodness of that for herself. Her empathy doesn’t always extend to others that she sees as being in direct conflict to her morals and ideals and goals, and that leaves her open to dismiss people out of hand for those differences. Granted, a lot of that is tied to her ideals being forged in the fire of a life as a Muggleborn, of an existence of constantly being attacked. It leads to her stubbornly digging her heels in at a challenge, to get defensive rather than hear another side out when she’s already preemptively passed judgment based on what she thinks she sees.

One of the worst ways these critical evaluations can surface is in her deep rooted capacity for envy and jealousy. Regardless of whether it is because she believes she deserves the thing she is envious of or thinks herself unworthy of it, getting a handle on the streak of irrationality and pettiness that can erupt from her when faced with self-discontentment is something she struggles with. Partly because she would prefer to pretend it doesn’t exist. Everything is justified, even in the depths of those irrationalities. Lily would never even think of herself as a jealous person.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY:

While the Evans may have fallen in the middle class of Cokeworth, that placed them only at the upper edge of poor in the larger scheme of society. A shift manager might be someone in the hierarchy of a small factory town, but meant very little outside of it. Lily grew up with that dichotomy of existence, always aware of that dual standing, of the expectations and visibility. It was something she deeply internalized and operates on her subtly, never so much a conscious influence, but powerful all the same.

The Evans were a warm, close, essentially good family. They were helpful to their neighbors, went to church, were charitable. They didn’t really think twice about Lily’s friendship with a boy from the ‘wrong side of the tracks’; it was only Petunia who worried about these things that would only be a source of concern for the parental Evans if the pair had been older. Of course, by then Lily and Severus were beyond the pale, wondrous others. In many ways, Jonathan and Fiona Evans stopped trying to parent their younger daughter once they knew she was a witch. How could they impose morals on their daughter who half-inhabited a world they knew nothing about, and were frankly in awe of? To be fair, they took a largely equal laissez-faire attitude towards their older daughter once she reached teenagedom as well. Thankfully they’d instilled a sturdy moral foundation and compass in their daughter, so she could largely self-regulate through their passive parenting.

HISTORY:

Despite Jonathan Evans' job as a shift manager at the factory Cokeworth was build around setting the Evans family solidly in the middle of the town's society, in truth they were bottom of middle class at best, the difference between the poor floor workers and the managers amplified a thousand times over by the small snobberies and strict social hierarchy of a small factory town. That didn't make the family any less of a happy one. Jonathan working long hours while Fiona stayed home to raise their two daughters. Petunia, the elder, was perpetually trailed by her shadow that took the form of her younger sister Lily, who adored and idolized her big sister. It wasn't a life without stresses, but they got by, even as work slowed, workers got laid off, tensions in the town rose, and strange things started happening around little Lily. It was the last thing that concerned the Evans' the most, unsure of what was happening and what it would mean for their daughter, scared of what would happen if others found out. Petunia, picking up on this in the way children do, no matter how oblivious their parents consider them, encouraged Lily to refrain from such strangeness, trying to suppress and hide all those odd things, like the garden blooming two months early or a tantrum causing cookie floating out of the jar to waiting hands.

The relief from those worries came from an odd place; a grubby little boy from the other, wrong side of town. Severus Snape opened up another world to Lily, one where what she did wasn't cause for concern or anxiety, but something that made her remarkable and special. As those bursts of uncontrolled, unwanted abnormality dwindled, only Petunia seemed to not be won over by him. Lily, though, adored him; he became not just her guide to that mystical other place, but her best friend, someone with whom she planned a thousand wonderful futures with.

None of those plans approached the tarnished reality she was soon present with. From day one, things were different than she'd thought they would be. While to her, being sorted into a different house from her best friend didn't seem something to be concerned over, it quickly became clear to her that plenty thought otherwise. Always eager to please, Lily threw herself into being the best she could, becoming someone pointed to as the model of an ideal Muggleborn. Yet nothing she did was ever enough for this world she had dreamt of for so long to accept her. Something had to give.

All those tension gave way on a sunny day after her final OWL. With one word, Lily realized the futility of her efforts. Her dearest friendship shattered, she was left hurt, lost, broken and unsure of herself.

In the subsequent year, because life must carry on, Lily re-evaluated and reflected on everything her life had been built upon. No longer allowing herself to be define by what others wanted her to be, Lily reconsidered so many of her hard held ideas. Old opinions shifted and new friendships formed—most notably and remarkably with James Potter, who she'd so long damned as nothing more than an arrogant prat.

Seventh year ended and instead of finding her life beginning, Lily ground to a standstill. Unable to find a job, for no one wanted the liability of hiring a Muggleborn, she followed James and their friends into the Order, despite, or perhaps because, of the small number of Muggleborns in their ranks. She could no longer run from the war that she had found herself in the middle of as a young girl.

Lily lost and won and mourned and celebrated; she lived more in a few short years than anyone should ever have to. In the midst of such unfettered living, accidents were bound to happen. Finding she was pregnant, Lily and James decided to get married; the only way to live, after all, was without hesitation for there might not be a tomorrow. All too soon, that fact was brought to bear on the young family. A threat against baby Harry forced them into hiding; an imperfect solution. Not even eighteen months old and Harry Potter was orphaned, Lily's life sacrificed for the son she loved more than anything in the world.

OOC EXPLORATION:

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? The concept of this game is one that has been near to my heart for a long, long time, and I’m very excited to bring it to the tumblr rp community!

ANYTHING ELSE? I’m not clever enough for pinterest boards or spotify playlists. That’s what blogs are for, and I’ve got a few with years worth of writing Lily on them. (Which is also why this app is so excessively long)

#lily potter #prioriannouncement #prioriacceptance #admin.emmy

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clrkingrm · 4 years ago

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hellooooooooo! this is admin envy/holly and i am STUPID excited to kick things off around here..... i luv everyone so much already and i want to plot with All Of You :,) under the cut are some deets about mr. clark ingram: local garbage stoner, taco bell connoisseur, ex-juvie goer, and proud drummer for wet brain. feel free to hmu on d/scord (or on tumblr ims if u prefer) if u wanna plot something out. i also have wanted connections right here for ur perusal!!! <3 <3 <3

clark was born in new york city via in-vitro fertilization to two wealthy mothers. his formative years were spent in the fast-paced thrum of the city — its where his love for music first developed, and he 100% considered it to be his forever home. that was until he turned 13, and his grandmother falling ill led to his moms hauling them out to the tiny town of dingle to care for her in her final years.

three major factors led to clark absolutely despising his early years in dingle. 1) his ailing grandmother was an actual through and through asshole 2) he had just come out to his moms a few years prior, and transitioning in a tiny town versus the liberal heart of the city was not something he was looking forward to, and 3) compared to the city, it felt like there was absolutely nothing to do. this led to him lashing out, fucking around, and landing himself in trouble with the authorities more times than he could count.

this delinquency eventually caught up with him — his ass was tossed into a correctional facility when he was 15, after he accidentally burned down an abandoned home while getting stoned with his hooligan friends. they all dipped on him, leaving him to deal fully with the wreckage and the punishment.

after this minor wake up call, he got his life… slightly on track. he started actually going to school (and doing his homework!!!) regularly, partied a little less, and got involved with a better group of friends (ie: the esteemed connor roth). he managed to scrape up enough academic motivation to graduate high school, though not enough to even consider attending college once graduation arrived.

his mother (vivien, the mean one) gave him an ultimatum: either get a job, go to community college, or get the hell out. he is now the world’s worst dishwasher at rosie’s diner. though the titular rosie is generally distrustful of this little miscreant, he managed to snag the job because she was good friends with his grandmother. (little does she know, clark actively hates his grandma). he could find another job, yeah, but they always hook him up with free fries.

his grandmother passed away when clark was sixteen, but he only very recently found out that she left him her beachside home in her will. seems like a nice gesture, yeah, but it was mainly just to spite his mother (again, vivien, the mean one). giving a whole ass house to her unmotivated stoner son, where he could basically waste away? truly haunting her post-mortem. he now lives there with connor + TBD (lmk if u wanna live w them)! he still works as a dishwasher, though, for like, groceries… video games... and for weed money…. and for the free fries. gotta love the free fries.

he also does twitch streams as a small side gig, streaming the shittiest possible games. he has a puny cult following on the platform, who consistently send him worse and worse games to try out and yell about, but he makes essentially nothing off of it. he just likes the attention, mostly. (ex: this & this)

the one thing clark takes seriously in his life is drumming. he truly believes to the depth of his soul that he can make it as a professional drummer, and that if he doesn’t, there isn’t much else left for him in terms of occupation. this has led to a palpable desperation as he’s grown older — and to him taking wet brain a lot more seriously with the more time that passes. hence, the battle of the bands is actually kinda a big deal to him, because that spot at the festival could mean a lot for a future career.

clark truly thrives on being an annoyance. if he can find a way to push someone’s buttons, he will. there’s a disgusting pleasure he gets in messing with people, which has led to many constant citizens of the town to genuinely hate his crusty ass. as long as he can still get gigs, he doesn’t really care.

recently, he has tried to get into writing deeper lyrics for the group. he’s mainly the go-to guy for stupid and goofy lyricism, but he’s attempting to tap into his… feelings… whatever those are. (he has a lot, really. he just doesn’t wanna talk about them).

his main interests include drumming (obv), weed, taco bell, adam sandler movies (uncut gems literally changed his life), video games, skateboarding, stupid t-shirts, weird thrift store finds, partying, going to gigs, curating playlists, and being a general dumbass.

if you actually read all this shit and STILL want more, i got a nice about page for him right here (with a full bio!), as well as a pin board right here !!! (gotta rep the aesthetic)

#i am so hype!!!!!!!!!!!#intro.

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starryviolentine · 4 years ago

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Color Me Blue (That’s Me Without You): A Pre-Apocalypse Story

Part 1 (here) Part 2 (here) Part 3 (here)

Part 4/10: Brody

One of Brody’s favorite feelings in the whole world is the amazing sensation that comes from finally getting out of the car and stretching your legs after a long road trip. Stepping outside after being cooped up for hours, just getting to feel the earth under your feet again and breathing in all that fresh air... it’s absolutely glorious. The family SUV pulls up to the gates of Ericson’s Boarding School in the late afternoon on the last day before classes resume and the auburn-haired girl hops out, sun-kissed and glowing from their trip to the coast. Spending time with her mom, dad and brothers out on the Chesapeake Bay made for a weekend straight out of a dream, but Brody’s so happy to be back.

It’s a shame that not everyone feels the same way about Ericson’s. Brody loves it here, and these days she’s enjoying just about everything about her life at school. Just in case anybody asks, she has a list prepared of the three biggest reasons why she’s glad to be back home. Her second home, that is. That’s how much she likes her school.

One, she’s reading a wonderful book in English class and has been dying to find out what happens next. She meant to bring it with her over the weekend so she could get a head start on this week’s reading assignment, but she ended up forgetting it on her desk. Two, the pool is scheduled to open for the season in just a few more days. She’s been looking forward to it for weeks and has even been counting down the days on her calendar. Three, she can’t wait to see all of her friends. Even though she was only gone for a few days, she missed everyone so much, especially her best friend, Violet, and her new friend...

Actually, Brody’s not sure if “new friend” is the right way to describe Therissa. They’ve known each other for a long time. They’ve been roommates ever since Brody was ten. Even though Therissa was moody and mean to her sometimes, she was always there whenever she really needed her. Brody never doubted that deep, deep down the grumpy teenager had a kind heart, even though she didn’t like to show it. Although Brody has always liked Therissa, it was mostly one-sided… or that’s how it felt, at least. But not anymore! Therissa has been so much nicer, and she even hangs out with her and Violet sometimes. Brody truly thinks that they can consider themselves to be real friends now. And whenever she thinks about that, well, she feels like her heart could burst.

That’s why Brody doesn’t shed a single tear while saying her goodbyes today. As much as she loves her family, and as much as she misses them while she’s at school, so much of Brody’s happiness is right here at Ericson’s. There are hugs and kisses all around, and as the rest of the Buresses pack into the car and drive away, Brody stands at the gates and waves until they’re completely out of sight.

After that, though, she grabs her duffel bag and runs through the school grounds, making a beeline straight back to the dormitories. Along the way, Brody passes lots of familiar faces, and she beams and waves to all of her friends. There’s Sheldon and Trey kicking around a hacky sack on the lawn by the admin building, and Brody pauses just for a minute to say hi to Maddie and Erin who are having a clapping game competition by the courtyard fountain, but then she continues on to the residence hall. In her rush to get upstairs to her bedroom, she almost forgets to check in with the dorm leader to let her know that she’s back, but once everything’s taken care of, she heads down the hall to the central staircase.

Halfway upstairs, Brody spots a certain someone immediately. The girl is sitting on the arm of one of the chairs in the lounge, and even though she’s facing the opposite direction and Brody can’t see her face, she would recognize that long blonde hair anywhere.

“Vi!”

Violet knows that voice. She whips her head around. “Brody?”

Dropping her bag in the middle of the floor, Brody rushes over to Violet and throws her arms around her in an enormous hug. The sudden impact causes Violet to lose her balance and both girls fall in a heap into the seat of the armchair. This sends Brody into a fit of giggles, but she squeezes her friend tighter than ever. Violet is a little squished and her elbow is jammed uncomfortably into that crevice between the chair arm and the seat cushion, but she hugs Brody back as best as she can from her position underneath her.

Violet reaches her limit when she starts to lose feeling in her arms. Her neck is also starting to hurt. “Okay, get off me, please…”

Still beaming, Brody untangles herself from her friend and stands back up. “Did you miss me?”

“You were only gone for four days.”

“I know, but I still missed you.”

Brody has always been observant. She pays attention to little details that most people overlook, and she has a sharp eye for noticing even the most minor changes, like when somebody parts their hair to the opposite side, or when they leave two buttons open on their shirt instead of one. When Erin changed the color of her braces bands from turquoise to teal, Brody was the only one who could tell.

So when Violet gets up from the chair and dusts herself off, letting her friend get a good look at her for the first time since she got back, Brody spots the difference right away.

“Whoa, Vi, your nails!”

Violet instinctively takes a step back and tries to hide her hands behind her back.

“Wait! Let me see!” Growing up with two older brothers allows Brody to wrestle Violet’s limbs from behind her with ease. She gasps, jaw dropping open. “You… When did you paint your nails?”

“I… I didn’t-”

“They’re so pretty,” gushes Brody, voice full of admiration and just a pinch of envy. “Oh, you’re so lucky! Did you do them yourself?”

The extra attention makes Violet feel kind of embarrassed and she scratches the back of her neck with her free hand. “No, it’s just… Therissa asked, so I let her.”

Brody goes quiet as her brain reels. Therissa? Therissa never lets anyone touch her stuff. Therissa never invites them to hang out… it’s always the other way around. “She did?”

“Yeah,” Violet says, wriggling her arm free. “It’s not a big deal. Come on, Louis said that they’re giving away popsicles in the cafeteria today. Wanna grab one?”

Normally, a popsicle would have been the perfect ending to a perfect weekend, but hearing that her roommates spent time together without her is making Brody wish that she stayed at school over the weekend as well. Now she just feels disappointed that she missed out on a lot of fun. Painting their nails together? Something like that is a billion times more special than a fruity frozen treat. Brody holds her hands out in front of her. Just think, if she had only stayed behind another day or two, she might have colorful fingernails right now, too...

“Hello? Popsicles?” Violet repeats. “Are you coming or what?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Brody agrees quickly, trying to shake off these not-so-happy feelings threatening to ruin her good mood. “Let me drop my stuff off in our room first.”

During the walk to their bedroom, Brody tries to convince herself that there’s nothing to be upset about. Now that she’s back at school, maybe Therissa will offer to paint her nails, too. Of course, her mother wouldn’t approve. In the Burress household, the rule about that always has been, and always will be, no makeup or nail polish until she’s older. On one hand, Brody knows that she shouldn’t go behind her mother’s back, but on the other…

If Therissa asked…

Oh, there’s no way she could say no!

Brody has to admit that there may be times when she gets a tiny, nagging feeling inside her that maybe Therissa doesn’t like her as much as she likes Violet. It’s easier for Therissa and Violet to crack jokes with each other because they seem to have a similar sense of humor. Recently, they’ve started teasing each other a whole lot, but not in a way that’s meant to be mean. It reminds Brody of the silly way that she and her siblings act around one another. Therissa doesn’t do it with her, though. Only with Violet.

And sometimes that makes Brody feel a little left out.

Dr. Larson told her that depending on who you’re with, affection can take on many different shapes, so just because Therissa acts a certain way with Violet doesn’t mean that she likes Brody any less. Even though this makes sense in her head, sometimes her heart could really use a reminder. Brody hopes that Therissa will be there when she gets to their room because, surely, just talking to the teen again like normal will be enough proof that everything’s fine and that she’s just worrying for nothing.

After all, they are real friends now.

Right?

#twdg brody #twdg violet #violet twdg #brody twdg #the walking dead game #twdg #fanfic #color me blue

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flyonthewallmedstudent · 5 years ago

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The work life balance: Maternity Leave (Diary Entry/Long Post)

It’s a huge blur looking back from pregnancy to date, with kiddo being 4 months now. I ended up extending mat leave. I’m now (kinda) determined to start blogging about one of the biggest questions asked about medical training - is there work life balance and what is it like?

Going to start with the topic of maternity leave. (This will be a personal view - so would love see what other parents in healthcare (or any profession) think about it and what their experiences have been)

A huge eye opener for me was actually watching netflix series: Sex Explained and Explained episode on women (which can be seen here for free). The gender pay gap in our generation is explained incredibly well - and boils down to women taking time off to be primary caregivers for children. I recommend watching those episodes as they’re fun, short and simply but smartly explained.

Image source: https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2020/01/31/gender-pay-gap-new-low/

Okay. So. Maternity leave is paid parental leave usually given to the primary caregiver. Only one country in the western world that I’m aware of gives significant paternal and maternal leave - Iceland. Everywhere else, only the primary caregiver gets extended parental leave from 3 months up to a year (pay is less if you go beyond 3 months). Most of the time, mom’s are the primary caregivers, whether due to cultural norms or the fact that breastfeeding requires the mom be there most of the time.

The other parent generally get 1 week to 2 weeks off from the day the kid is delivered. That’s it. Everyone’s reaction to this has been what-in-the-hell. This was devastating for me and my other half - as I needed his support and he would be missing out so much of our baby’s life.

It also sets us up nicely for the gap to begin, if you watch the netflix series. We both graduate from medical school the same year, but as I take off necessary time from training, he won’t. (Is it stressful being alone with an infant while your other half works full time? Absolutely. It wasn’t as terrifying as I anticipated, it’s doable, but it’s really hard while you and the baby adjust to being alone).

Image source: Cleveland clinic - also has great parenting advice.

That said, there are friends of me where the parents alternate taking time off, the mom starts off in the first year of life. The Dads often take the 2nd year off. This applies to also medical couples that we know. (If they both have exams, the mom delays her exams one year, the Dad finishes his, then take time off for her to do hers. This is easier said than done, particularly if there’s 2 small kids involved).

With approaching mat leave with hospital administration, after I found out we were pregnant I wasn’t sure how workforce/admin would react. So, the first thing I did was contact a work colleague who recently had a baby (we were working together while she was pregnant). I asked her how she approached it.

Generally, you have to have worked within a health service for a year to be entitled to parental leave - that is to say, they cannot fire you and you’re able to retain your job when you return.

Many people I know take a minimum of 6 months off (less pay than 3 months) and a year.

While I was pregnant this seemed a long time. Surely I wouldn’t need that much time? Even workforce (they all have small kids) said that I too, will want those 6 months if not a year. They recommended I chat to the other moms in my program.

They said the same, they thought they’d only need 3 months off (we’re all eager to finish training as women without kids) but were encouraged to start with 6 months. In the end, post kid - they all felt that returning to work after 6 months was too soon, and ended up taking 9 to 12 months. The more senior doctors also suggested a year off. Even my obstetrician (a mom of 4) kept asking if I ever considered a year off. The idea that you don’t want to miss out time with them. From studying paeds in med school, we know full well that those initial years of development are so vital to setting up a foundation for the rest of their lives.

What everyone consistently said was that work will always be there. Time with your children at a young age won’t be.

The flip side to this is that not all women necessarily will want to be away from work that long. I thought I would be in that category.

Post for another day - but your whole brain gets reprogrammed once you become a parent, particularly, a primary caregiver (whether mom or dad). I’ve had friends who’ve cried when parental leave ended as it’s that hard to be away. When you go through the hell of hourly feeds, sleep deprivation etc, the bond goes deeper, you feel that they need you. And at the end of you, you really need them. This wasn’t something that really sunk in for me until suddenly I was near the end of mat leave, and then I realized I wasn’t ready to go back.

However, I have other friends who chose to go back sooner in part time capacity. They couldn’t afford to take time off. In this career however, it meant that they went onto full formula feeding. It was too hard to keep up with pumping for an infant needs and resident workload. (On a busy day, we hardly have time to eat or use the toilet, I can’t imagine finding time to get to the pump room, get the pump out and sit there for 10-30 mins). I envy them that they returned to work, and their kids seem by comparison to mine - more gentle and malleable in personality (they tolerate daycare pretty well). I think one mom I know managed to keep up with pumping, but she returned to work when her kid was already on solids.

Image source and also good resource on pumping and returning to work.

Now that I am a parent to a young kid, I do prefer the idea of part time and job sharing. Even though that will mean longer training, less pay (greater gender gap) etc. etc. I do wish that our laws and regulations were less punishing on the other parent. They are antiquated to be blunt. We should be allowed paid parental leave for either gender so that parents can alternate looking after small kids full time at home.

Ultimately, kids want time with their parents above all else. Even babies - you can buy them a toys and they wouldn’t care about them as much as interacting with you.

That said, I don’t judge those who choose either to be full time at work or full time mom’s. Either will have its rewards and both are hard, requiring sacrifice. I completely understand the draw to both.

I think it’s a tragedy that different facets of society look down on either full time working moms or stay at home mom’s. I think it’s unfair there is a pay gap and working part time will mean blows to your career progression (even though to put it bluntly, you are working less hours).

Is there a middle path where you are rewarded for both continuing to work while avoiding being away from your kids most of the working week?

One answer to having a better juggle is perhaps telehealth in the future. The ability to work at home I think is already life changing in some careers and I can’t imagine how much of a shift it would make in medicine. With Covid19, we’re already seeing a huge shift towards, it’ll be interesting to see how this will evolve further. I’m not saying telehealth should replace face to face medicine, but it should be utilized more.

Going to try to post at least once or twice a week, if only to maintain some sense of sanity with a 4 month old.

See you in the reblogs if you have any questions or have your experiences to share.

#maternity leave #residency #medblrs #medblr

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diveronarpg · 5 years ago

Photo

Congratulations, DAPHNE! You’ve been accepted for the role of BIANCA. Admin Minnie: We were honestly thrilled just to see your name again, returned to us in the flesh, but to see that you were applying for Bunny? And to actually read this work of art (read: your application)? The other admins can attest: I was copy/pasting whole paragraphs from your application and drooling over every word. You’ve captured every intricate, glittering detail that makes our Bunny unforgettable and deliciously mean. With a meticulousness and a great deal of fun that I think Bunny would envy, you’ve done her complete justice — in fact, you may have even done better than our little Bunny deserves. As the person who plays Maeve, I’m being entirely selfish and taking a moment of silence to applaud you and wish you a very warm welcome back! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Daphne Age | 23 Preferred Pronouns | She/her Activity Level | I will generously rate myself a 7/10 given the current situation, but the next two weeks might be a bit more on the 5/10 side until I get some things sorted out! After that, I’m all in. Timezone | EST

IN CHARACTER

Character | Bianca / Bernadette “Bunny” DuPont

What drew you to this character? There’s a running theme in stories that children symbolize some form of uncorrupted good. They’re humanity’s saving grace, so blameless in their innocence that they somehow become our last hope for redemption in worlds tainted by the actions of mankind, and in the Bible, Jesus even says the kingdom of Heaven belongs to people like them. Then there’s Bunny’s namesake, Saint Bernadette Soubirous, who had her first vision when she was fourteen. The Church exhumed her body on three separate occasions almost half a century after her death, and every single time, they found her corpse completely incorrupt and untouched by decay. To christen Bunny after her is so extreme a juxtaposition that it almost feels blasphemous, and yet it’s so slyly irreverent that it strikes me as being exactly something Bunny would do herself if she could. Because as much as she would have you believe she’s saintly, and as much as her identity capitalizes on the pretence of girlhood, make no mistake: Bernadette Du Pont is as corrupt as they come. And if Heaven truly belongs to people like her, then we should be scared, because where Saint Bernadette never decomposed from the outside in, Bunny reeks of rot and ruin from the inside out. It’s the kind of heavy-handed symbolism that I (and Bunny) just can’t resist, and I think a love for the worst kinds of irony and references that go six feet under (heh) is something we both share.

As that one saying famously goes, there’s something dangerous about the boredom of teenage girls. Bunny is no exception to the rule. I’m fascinated by what drives her, because all her antics are motivated by a lack of motivation, and yet interestingly enough, the boredom that drives her isn’t out of deprivation; it’s built from a constant exposure to excess. Easton was defined by the fact that he had nothing, but Bunny sits at the other end of the extreme. I wanted to know how things might look from the side where the grass appears to be greener. What are the consequences of being spoiled rotten and drowned in adoration, and how does someone who’s developed so high of a tolerance derive satisfaction from what they haven’t had to earn? It was only after years of being the perfect daughter that Bunny must have learned the answer: you pry it from the hands of those who would do anything to keep it. Bunny is remorseless in her mischief. She’s a hellion of a girl, a thoroughbred so pure that all sorts of nasty recessive traits have manifested in her personality, at least under that polished veneer, but she lacks a certain seriousness that would otherwise classify her as being Gillian Flynn-esque. What she lacks in seriousness, however, she makes up for in facetiousness, and I think that helps to make her nastiness more palatable, as well as loads more fun. Fun isn’t the type of character I normally gravitate toward, but I’d love to try my hand at someone who doesn’t take themselves too seriously (despite still demonstrating the capacity for occasional emotional depth). In Bunny’s life, it’s Bunny’s world, and in Bunny’s world, she plays both the princess and the pauper; the bratty little girl and the darling of Verona. But, as she often tells herself, there can only be one Bunny, and so there are certain moments where her true self must show through; where she’s prone to break character, if she’s truly as incorrigible as she seems. It’s a shame we didn’t get to see more of it with Bianca, but trust me when I say that no one would be happier to see how far we could push her worst possible interpretation. So Bernadette was a saint, you say. She couldn’t possibly have anything other than good intentions, never mind that they’ve only ever said one thing about good intentions in the first place. Let them eat cake, Bunny laughs from up high, surrounded by her festoon of sweets. Some will think her naive; others will think her cruel. Both, however, are right.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character?

I. CARTE BIANCA Okay, so let’s be honest. The Capulets aren’t doing so hot, and the Montagues are absolutely killing it right now, so maybe, just maybe, looking like a Montague sympathizer might not be the worst thing in the world? I keep coming back to how Bunny’s already had to rely on their mercy not once, but twice—first with Hector, and then again with Brielle—and not once, but both times, she somehow ended up with a Montague who happened to be more forgiving. Sure, we could write it off as luck, but we’re talking about Bunny here! She’s spent her entire life looking for ways to work things into her favour, so if she doesn’t see that as an opportunity to milk the situation for all it’s worth, I’d be hard pressed to believe it. I’d love to see her approach Brielle, or even Henry or Genevieve (with regards to how things played out with Hector) under the guise of common interest, or maybe even a debt to be repaid. Her name’s already been soiled, so why let that go to waste? Thanks to that video, everyone thinks they know where she stands. She was given bad cards, but not the chance to play them just right, and if Bunny had her way, she’d have you believe that she intended for it to happen from the start. So let’s go back to the beginning, then. Let’s explore the consequences of that incident, and see her try to talk her way out of trouble. We already know her strengths don’t lie on the front lines, but that’s not what makes a well-rounded team. I say, let Bunny do what she does best. Sure, it’s risky business. Sure, the Montagues might skin her alive. But maybe, just maybe, just maybe, it’s exactly what the Capulets need.

II. FOREVERLAND, NEVERLAND Bunny’s been friends with Juliana and Maeve for as long as she can remember, but the truth is that you can be acquainted with someone for a long time and never really know them. The romantic in me loves that melancholy thought: the idea that, once upon a time, things were simpler, and that it really wasn’t so long ago that they were children with few worries who needed little in common to get along. But life can change very quickly, and both Juliana and Maeve have responded in ways that prove they’re more mature than Bunny ever was. Whereas before they might have been too young to know any better, I’m sure that now they’re starting to realize that Bunny wasn’t always a good friend; Bunny, on the other hand, has stagnated. Life was good for her in her childhood, so it’s not surprising that she wouldn’t want to leave it behind. And then there’s Cyrus, who only galvanizes that. I think both of them are absolute drama queens, and so he and Bunny bring out the worst in each other, but in the best possible way. It’s fun as hell, but in this sense (and this sense alone), Bunny is aware that she’s somehow fallen behind, and it makes her insecure and gives her reason to resent the girls. I want to see how what’s left of their surface relationship falls apart at the seams as they’re forced to confront more stressful matters around each other, and as Bunny’s true nature becomes more apparent, I want one of them to call her out on it. Because aside from Katarina, who mainly does it out of spite, I don’t think anyone’s ever told Bunny something that she might not want to hear, even if it happens to be for her own good—and I dread to think of how she might take it.

III. THE IMITATION GAME Bunny’s biography mentions that she has a penchant for forgery, which, frankly, is also no surprise given the emphasis she places on appearances. But that says a lot to me about Bunny’s strengths: not only does it reinforce her ability to pretend (and double as a microcosm of her personality), it means there’s an actual tangible use that comes from her eye for detail, which is super exciting for a number of reasons. This is prime ammunition for heists in the making! It’s time for the Caps to snatch some Montague valuables from right out from under their noses!! Not right away, of course; Bunny doesn’t share anything of her own accord, not even her talents. And nothing paints a funnier picture (literally) than a privileged white girl trying to navigate the shady underbelly of the black market herself, but you can bet she’d be damned if she didn’t try. Fortune favours the bold, and so I’d like to see her succeed and maybe even rope one or two people into her growing little business, particularly those with more savoir-faire in the area than she. But fortune is also fickle, and what I’d like even more is for it to eventually blow up in her face, for her to end up in hot water with powerful clientele, and for the Capulets to have to pull her out. (And if Katarina should be involved in this, even better. Let the sibling chaos ensue.) Because then, you see, Bunny owes the Capulets big time. Then, she has more reasons to do things for the mob—you can tell that right now, her heart just isn’t in it—and less of a need to prove her loyalty. And that’s when the fun can really begin.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? Yes! We’re told to kill our darlings, after all, but I’m banking on the fact that only the good die young.

In-Character Interview: The following questions must be answered in-character, and in para form (quotations, actions written out if applicable, etc). There is no minimum or maximum limit for your response - simply answer as you would if you were playing the character.

What is your favorite place in Verona?

Oh, thinks Bunny. She doesn’t bother trying to mask her delight. It’s a difficult question; with so many excellent answers, which should she tell him? Perhaps the Phoenix and the Turtle? It does have its own homely charm, she supposes, but as a lady, she is well-travelled, and the truth is that it simply can’t hold a flame to the grand old cafes in Paris (a good cafe au lait and pain au chocolat has always been preferable to an espresso, in her opinion). Or perhaps she should say their home? The Du Pont villa is nothing short of magnificent by anyone’s standards; Bunny has spent many a day inside on her favourite chaise longue with a Sidecar in one hand and Cicero in the other. But still no, she decides, and quite vehemently, at that. It’s too mundane to make a memorable answer.

“Favourite” is such a big commitment for a word, and Bunny considers it deploringly, like a child asked to pick a single toy from their treasure chest. Why choose one when you could have them all? That’s just it, she decides. She will not pick. She will have all of Verona, or she will have none of it. Bunny smiles at her interviewer, now satisfied. “Do you have children, Signore?” She asks him, making sure to do so shyly. He answers no—a little too quickly, a little too eagerly—and though she pretends not to notice, Bunny’s smile grows ever so slightly. “Well,” she continues, eyes wide, “when I am a parent someday, I should like to be a good one, and good parents love all their children equally well, do they not?” The interviewer agrees. It’s rather unfortunate that her parents don’t fit this syllogism of hers, but Bunny doesn’t blame them, of course. It’s different when the choice is so obvious.

What does your typical day look like?

“In the morning, if my face is a little puffy, I’ll put on an ice pack while doing stretches. After I remove the ice pack, I use a deep cleansing pore lotion.” Bunny pauses to gage the man’s reaction, but her interviewer doesn’t interrupt. So she continues. “In the shower, I use a water activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and on the face, an exfoliating gel scrub. Then I apply a herb mint facial mask, which I leave on for ten minutes while I prepare the rest of my routine.” The man finally cracks a smile. For a moment, Bunny thinks he understands, and she beams. That is, until he ruins it by asking if that’s the secret to having such perfect skin, because if it is, he ought to let his wife know.

Bunny flushes with anger. She can’t understand why he would interrupt her perfect charade with such a stupid question. First of all, her glowing skin is a culmination of the best Du Pont-Alescio genes; second of all, his poor wife is probably an old hag, which means that unless she bathes in the blood of virgins, she might as well submit to her fate of being ugly for the remainder of her life. She wonders if he knows how easy it would be to ruin him—for her to approach his wife alone, inconsolable and in tears—and it calms her enough to smile down at her feet, as if the pinkness in her cheeks comes from humbly accepting his compliment, rather than shirking him for his attempt. Realizing that her clever little reference is wasted on him, Bunny then switches over seamlessly. “And then I have dance practice.” Bastian and Eleonora had been all too happy to keep indulging a hobby they thought she’d truly shown interest in; what she’d really shown interest in, however, had been the studios themselves and their many mirrors.

“I always drop by the Phoenix and the Turtle on the way back, if only to say hello to the lovely Signora who manages the cafe.” Truthfully, Bunny’s never met a more insipid woman in her life. But she of all people understands the importance of building rapport, and in this case, it comes with free pastries and a cozy nook by the corner window (which she’s unofficially claimed as her own space). “If it’s a nice day, I might go for an afternoon picnic at the Twelfth Night garden with Juliana and Maeve.” On the odd occasion that she does, this is, without a doubt, her least favourite part of it—which is why she says it if it’s a Nice day, because if she doesn’t feel like playing Nice Bunny, weather unpermitting, then absolutely nothing makes it worth the company. And even if it is a Nice day, it’s still a Maybe, because Verona is small, but the male brain is smaller still, and Bunny supposes the lack of real estate in both means that somewhere along the line, they had to sacrifice creativity. A pity, really. She’s long since lost count of the number of times she’s let a boy take her there on a date, if only because she’d been bored enough to pluck at their heartstrings like a harp.

And when it isn’t a Nice day, the interviewer wants to know? Then she might seek out a certain gentleman caller, while making it known that she truly had nothing better to do. “Then I’m home before sundown,” Bunny yawns delicately instead, as if the mere thought of it brings her fatigue. There is an idea of Bernadette Du Pont, you see, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real Bunny. Only an entity, something illusory. Maybe that’s why she loves the pointless falsehoods of routine.

What has been your biggest mistake thus far?

Bunny stills, suddenly very attentive, and wonders if this is a test. How was it that she’d accepted a hand to pull her back up, and that it had somehow dragged her down with it instead? Her lip trembles. It was the principle of the matter. Don Capulet had told her so himself, Regina Daly only waiting for him to say the word, and for the first time in her life, sitting there in his office, Bunny had been afraid. In that moment, she’d understood that there were some things from which her parents could no longer protect her. For so long, she’d been perfect. She’d set the bar high, and then higher still, until eventually she’d outdone even herself, and down she’d tumbled. It was fight or be sentenced, and so reluctantly, she’d fought, not with a gun or with her tears, but in one of the few ways she knew how: Don Capulet could deny her clemency, if that was what he wished, but he could not deny that she was truly her parents’ daughter.

Perhaps he’d changed his mind and now meant to first humiliate her. Was that what they wanted, she wondered? For her to beg forgiveness, to carve out her pyrite heart with the broken crown that came from old nursery rhymes? No, Bunny decides, casting those horrid thoughts aside. Taking that Montague boy’s hand had never been the mistake; the mistake had been thinking she was immune to making them. She’ll save her tears. They’re as precious as they come. She won’t apologize for putting herself first—not here, not now, not ever again. So Bunny sits up a little straighter. She lifts her chin and props it up on her elbows, putting on her best impression of a particular look she likes to call Bonjour, Tristesse. “Finding out how many calories are in the almond croissants at Phoenix and the Turtle,” Bunny says cheekily, her voice filled with a wistful regret. As if that had ever stood a chance at stopping her from eating them. The man laughs at this and agrees that their croissants are to die for, but Bunny can tell that he’s already writing her off as another vapid heiress. Hasn’t he ever seen what rabbits can do to a garden? This, she supposes, is the worst of her vices: not pride, nor greed, but a voracious appetite in all things bad for her.

What has been the most difficult task asked of you?

Bunny is all smiles again, pulling a golden heart-shaped necklace out from under her collar. The craftsmanship is absolutely exquisite for such a tiny piece of jewelry, and she knows it. Usually, she prefers to be more coy about who gave it to her—leaving it up to the imagination, she finds, is so much more en vogue—but she sacrifices her love for the air of mystery in exchange for the completeness of her story, which in some cases, can be equally as important. “My parents had this made in Tuscany for my eighteenth birthday,” she begins. Bunny turns the heart flat on her palm so that its apex faces the interviewer. At the bottom is a hole just big enough to fit a key. It’s a locket. “You can see the four chambers well enough, but it only fits the portrait of one person inside.” She has always made sure to phrase it exactly the same—that way, it prompts people to ask her whom she holds closest to her heart. It’s worked every single time but one, and the interviewer, of course, is not that exception. Some people guess her father; others her mother; others still guess Katarina, of all people, and Katarina, snorting, had guessed that she put herself (the closest guess by far, as Bunny had indeed briefly considered it).

“Both of them are bankers,” she says, as if a single person in Verona doesn’t know who her parents are. “And Maman has always said that secrets are as good a currency as any other.” Bunny pauses for dramatic effect and lowers her eyes; withholding information has never been more enjoyable. “I’m sure you of all people, Signore, should understand that I do not give them away freely.” The interviewer smiles and closes her fingers back around the necklace, clearly charmed by her answer. Bunny remembers Cyrus with his head in her lap on a dreadfully sunny Sunday afternoon, reaching up unprompted to examine her mechanical heart. Although she’d delivered the exact same spiel, he’d said nothing until she’d grown impatient and asked if he didn’t want to know. “I’d wager you put nothing in there,” Cyrus had mused finally, tugging on the chain to pull her closer—just close enough to see the smugness in his eyes. “Am I right, darling Bunny?” She’d swatted him away crossly. “Don’t be ridiculous,” Bunny had said, her mood now soured. She would die before granting him the satisfaction of knowing that for once, he had been right.

What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?

The sunlight streams through the curtains, hitting the windowpane at an angle that almost feels like a spotlight. Her thoughts? Bunny wears her allegiance like a pageant sash, and she’s long since tired of this flimsy title she hasn’t earned. Some boring old man said once that there was no avoiding war. But she’s distracted, and can’t quite remember which of them had said it—not all of them are old, but all of them are men, and most of them are boring, so who can blame her, really? Her thoughts, thinks Bunny with a callous satisfaction, would shock this man into cardiac arrest. But the show must go on, and so Bunny Du Pont, ever an advocate of the people, folds one leg over the other and schools her features into the perfect combination of innocence and remorse, intent on giving him exactly just that. If the interviewer has any remaining doubts, then this should throw him off her trail for good. “It’s awful,” Bunny says softly. Her breath catches in her throat. This much, she doesn’t have to fake: it’s so bland of a statement that she almost chokes on it (at the very least, it’s on brand with that terrible video). It’s not that Bunny doesn’t find the war quite awful; just that she finds it awfully tedious. Sure, the violence had been somewhat exciting at first, but her amusement for even that has already worn thin, fading with the shine of all things new. The burden of responsibility, on the other hand, has not. Bunny chews on her lower lip, her eyes already dewy, but not quite for the reason he thinks. Still, she decides to give the poor man one last chance. “I don’t suppose you have a penny, Signore?” The interviewer does not. Bunny pouts. Ah, well. World peace it is.

In-Character Para Sample: (tw; suicide)

JAMES DEAN AND THE (FRENCH-)ITALIAN DREAM STARRING THREE-TIME IMAGINARY AWARD NOMINEE, BUNNY DU PONT*

Lately, Bunny’s been having the same dream.

She’s sitting in the second dining room of the Du Pont family villa (the one her parents normally reserve for their important guests), still clad in her silk pajamas and about to reach for a strawberry meringue, when suddenly, over the tiers of cupcakes and chocolate fountains and swan-shaped fruit centerpieces, she notices an incredibly calm (and almost certainly dead) young man in a red jacket and jeans slouched at the other end of the table.

The first time it happens, she almost topples forward into the custard pudding.

“Hello, Bunny,” says the American movie star. He looks as if he could have walked straight out of his poster last month at the Rivoli, and Bunny wrinkles her nose, as if by refusing to acknowledge his presence, he’ll get the message and walk straight back (he doesn’t, of course; to think she would have learned by now). He’s got some nerve to be smoking a cigarette in the comfort of her very own home, especially when he comes unwelcome and uninvited.

“Put that out, please,” Bunny sniffs. The please is ornamental—let it be known that Bunny Du Pont was raised with nothing less than impeccable manners—but she only deems it fit to address him once it becomes apparent that he isn’t going anywhere. Movie star or not, there are no exceptions. Bunny Du Pont doesn’t dream about boys, not even for James Dean. Quite the contrary, in fact; they dream about her. If there’s one place she can afford to be candid, it’s in the safety of her own conscience, or a lack thereof, and so a triumphant little smirk settles on her face, her cheeks going rosy with pride.

“So the dead do dream, then?” James muses. Bunny startles, unaware that she spoke out loud. Then she remembers that here, of all places, she doesn’t have to, and sneers at him sweetly.

“Well, you would know better than I, wouldn’t you?”

He shrugs, unperturbed. “So would Roger O’Hara, I reckon.”

The name of the mild-mannered boy who’d helped her through school wipes the sneer right off her face. Sweet, poor Roger O’Hara had been the smartest boy in her class. Then he’d gone back to America for school overseas and ended his life a month after. It didn’t take, they’d said, but what exactly didn’t take wasn’t altogether too clear. What was clear, thought Bunny, was that it was incredibly rude to imply that she was responsible for his mental state of being, just because she’d coerced him into becoming second-smartest—

“What’d he like to call you again? Jenny?”

It had been a running joke between the two of them: the Hare and the Bunny, Roger and—

“Jessica,” Bunny says, reluctant.

His annoyingly perfect brow furrows.

“Right,” James says finally, taking another puff of his cigarette. “See, that was after my time.”

“Oh, don’t be pretentious,” Bunny frowns. She throws a grape at his head to emphasize her disapproval, and yet can’t help admiring his (or would it be considered hers?) dedication to character. James—er, Not-James—is only herself, after all. How else would they be able to understand each other? He knows everything she does.

“And a little more,” Not-James tacks on helpfully. Bunny glares.

Why couldn’t it have been Donatella or Mademoiselle Bardot?

The fourth time he shows up, Bunny decides to try a different tactic.

“You know,” says Bunny, with far too casual of an air to be up to any good, “that car crash was probably the best thing that could have ever happened to you.”

She peeks at him over her cuticles. Not-James watches her, eyebrows raised, gaze steady. He doesn’t take the bait. Well, she decides petulantly, that’s all fine and good. She doesn’t need him to egg her on anymore: she’s already so far into her bratty little whirlwind of a tantrum that she might as well commit. Everybody only loves him because he’s tragically and woefully dead, anyway, so the sooner he knows the truth, the better.

“If you were alive,” Bunny says matter-of-factly, “you would have just grown old and become a washed-up has-been.”

Like the rest of us will, she leaves out.

Not-James stubs out his cigarette. Bunny stares at him defiantly, eyes glittering, her hands bunched into fists, and for a second, victory tastes sweeter than anything in front of her. But then he stalks over, crosses the table in less than five strides, and knocks her chair over so swiftly that she can’t help but let out a rather unladylike shriek, flailing helplessly as James Dean sweeps her off her feet. The world slides forward, her chair tips backward, and Bernadette Du Pont finds herself falling almost all too suddenly, sinking down through her family’s treasured antique ceramic tiles and into a rabbit hole of darkness with no end in sight.

“Self-pity ain’t a good look on you, Bunny,” the so-called man of her dreams calls down from above. “See you on the other side.”

When she sits up in bed, she’s shaking. Not out of fear—okay, maybe slightly out of fear, but mostly out of fury—and she pushes her sleeping mask off in a frantic sort of frenzy, well aware that if anyone could see her right now, they’d be laughing at the sight of such a tiny girl, trembling with more anger than her body could ever hope to hold.

See you on the other side, he’d said ominously. Bunny fumes. It’s insulting in every possible sense of the word, no matter whether he meant the world of the living, the dead, the awake, or the has-beens. Self-pity? Bah humbug! She’ll show him the other side. Bunny goes to sleep that night on ten milligrams of Niotal, and when she wakes up the morning after having slept like a baby, she preens in contentment at her own cleverness—that is, until she sits up. Not-James is lounging casually in her armchair, flipping through a newspaper printed from the day he died.

“Don’t you dare Adele me,” Bunny warns, cutting him off before he has the chance to ask who that is.

She flops back down onto her bed and stares at the ceiling.

Well, fudge.

LA FIN

*Note: no Bunnies were harmed in the making of this production.

Extras:

Character inspirations: Veruca Salt and Marisa Coulter are the big ones; also Florence Pugh’s young Amy March, Amma Crellin, Margaery Tyrell, and the Princess from The Swineherd

((I just want to say that I got more carried away with this than I expected!! So thank you for taking the time to go through this, especially if you made it to the end! :) ))

#accepted #accepted: bianca

7 notes · View notes

scbincx · 5 years ago

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𝐦𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐬𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐧𝐚.

[ ESTER EXPOSITO, 22, CISFEMALE, SHE/HER ] welcome to the du pont institute for the young & gifted, [ SABINA MARQUEZ ]. you have been accepted as a [ REGULAR ] student from [ SPAIN ], going into your [ SENIOR YEAR ] and majoring in [ INT'L BUSINESS MANAGEMENT ]. your peers at the institute say that you are [ ASTUTE & SELF-ASSURED ], but being [ VEXING & CONNIVING ] may be the reason why the police are asking about you. did you think they wouldn’t find out that you were michael’s [ GIRLFRIEND ]? [ ADMIN J, 23, CISFEMALE, SHE/HER, EST ]

hi friends! jocey here with my first bby, sabina. i’m just gonna get this out of the way right now - apologizing in advance for all that is sabina because she’s truly just the worst™. lol anyways, gimme a like or hmu on discord if you’d like to plot with my little demon child!

name : sabina isabella maria marquez nickname : friends call her sab age : twenty-two sexuality : bisexual hometown : madrid, spain major : int’l business management, minor in entrepreneurship extracurriculars : student council president, business leaders of tmrw, du pont editor, honour society, model UN (spain)

━ the marquez family is known to have a bit of a controversial reputation, mostly surrounding how they made their fortune. what started out as a small delivery company in the canary islands decades ago has now expanded to a global empire of sorts. officially, marquez enterprises is a shipping company that controls the major ports in spain, and owns several businesses throughout europe and latin america.

━ but off the books? well, let’s just say there may be rumours that they’re involved in some shady business and have quite a few shady interesting contacts from all around the world, from politicians to some less than savoury people. regardless, it’s common knowledge that the marquezes are filthy dirty rich, enjoy living extravagantly and lavishly, and are practically seen as spanish royalty in the social scene.

━ as the eldest born to the head of the marquez empire, sabina was always groomed to take over marquez enterprises one day. she has a younger brother, though he shows no interest (or any capabilities, for that matter) in even being a part of it. then there are all of her cousins who want the seat - her seat - at the head of the table for themselves, like her cousin cristiano. well, over her dead body. and even from the grave, she would never let that happen because this was her birthright. while most kids dreamt of flying to the moon or being a princess, sabina always knew she was going to rule the world marquez empire one day.

━ sabina is her parents’ daughter in every way possible. they taught her everything legal and illegal that she needed to know in order to be successful in life. but some things even they couldn’t quite explain themselves. like when three-year-old sabina stole all the crayons in daycare to force other kids to buy them back with their snacks. from a young age, she quickly learned that tricking people into giving her what she wanted out of their own dumb free will was so much more satisfying than stealing it from under their noses. she may be named after a saint, but anyone will tell you she is anything but.

━ a hustler with an alpha bitch mentality, she’s always outsmarting people and outsmarting the system to get things to work in her favour. and when that didn’t work, no one could ever say no to a big fat wad of cash. because sabina marquez never loses. she doesn’t just play the game, she owns it, makes the rules and wins. every. damn. time. sabina strongly believes that playing by the rules was for suckers and if you weren’t the best, then you were nothing at all. and sometimes being the best required playing dirty. if she has to ruin someone else’s life to get her way, then she will gladly pour a jug of gasoline, light a match and enjoy watching it go up in flames. hell, sometimes she’ll do that just for the fun of it anyways. and if that’s what she does for her own enjoyment, then you do not wanna know what she does when she’s pissed off.

━ with that mentality, it’s no surprise that sabina easily became the top student of her program and student council president. though she may have lied and cheated her way to the top on several occasions, there’s no denying that she’s fucking brilliant. yes, she could have done it the right way, but where’s the fun in that? if anything, pulling off all the lying, cheating and scheming proved just how smart she really was. and maybe that’s why michael fell for her.

━ sabina always thought she was too good for michael. in fact, too good for almost anyone at this school. the whole golden boy, mr. popular act was boring and cliche, and she saw right through it. and yet somehow, almost as if it’d happened overnight, michael had won her over and they were quickly known as du pont’s ‘it’ couple. everyone envied them and wanted to be them. they couldn’t be a more perfect couple and she was the perfect girlfriend - sweet, adoring, supportive. in fact, so perfect that no one ever knew that deep down, sabina had never hated anyone more in her life than michael fucking valmont. and she couldn’t be happier now that he’s dead.

WANTED CONNECTIONS.

BEST FRIEND ━ someone who can put up with sabina’s awfulness, or maybe they’re just as awful as she is. this is probably one of the few people she’s actually relatively nice to (at least, by her standards) and will always have their back. possibly even one of the few people she’ll ever let her guard down for. preferably m/nb tbh bcuz she tends to be a bigger bitch to girls cuz they’re obvs more threatening than dumb boys are lol. taken by simon bexley, cade harrington, sofia gonzalez-cortes MORAL CONSCIENCE ━ does sabina even have a moral compass? your guess is as good as mine. this is someone she is more likely to listen to and could try to sway her from doing, y’know, ~*just sabine things*~. kind of the angel on her shoulder? often tries to get her to be nicer and overall be a decent human being. taken by grant winter-grandview EXES ━ either she dumped him/her, or she was dumped (in which case, rip my friend). maybe there are lingering feelings. who knows?? could be interesting if they’re very different from sabina and that’s why it didn’t work out despite the chemistry or whatever. RIVALS/ENEMIES ━ ho’boy. homegirl can piss off a lot of people just for shits and giggles, nor does she care to be likeable and personable, so i’m sure she’s got a hella long list of enemies/people she rubs the wrong way. also people she’s sabotaged and manipulated to get her way? plz. taken by adelaide montserrat, alice coltell, saylor winter-grandview, daisy kennedy CHILDHOOD FRIEND ━ self-explan. they’ve known each other since they were kids and their parents are likely friends. taken by madelyn vasquez UNWANTED CHILD ━ sabina somehow ended up being this person’s very reluctant mom friend. she hates it, she does not want to deal with them, and yet she’ll still go pick up their drunk ass at 4am. she’s all about tough love, so while she may be super harsh and hard on them, she does it out of love and because she cares. not that she’d ever admit caring. taken by nicollo fernez, james thompson UNLIKELY/ACCIDENTAL FRIENDS ━ they shouldn’t get along, but somehow, they just do and their friendship works. not typically someone sabina would see herself being friends with, but somehow an accidental friendship of sorts developed. taken by aurora van der berg, crimson cooper SECRET FLING ━ the person sabina cheated on michael with. it’s definitely more than a one-time hook-up, but not quite a relationship yet either. she cares about them a lot more than she’d ever care to admit out loud, but it shows through her actions. taken by william acher CAT & MOUSE ━ the more sabina can’t have something, the more she’s driven to go after it, even if it’s just to prove a point. and that point is that she’s always right and she always wins. so she’ll flirt, sweet talk and pull out all the stops just to get them to admit that they’re wrong about her. could also work the other way - the more they want her to cave, the more she’ll push and fight it. taken by gabriel johnson

okay, that’s all i can think of off the top of my head. some plots i’m open for multiple characters to fill, unless it has been crossed out. and ofc, i’m always open to new ideas too!

#dupont.intro #intro. ( sabina marquez. )

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fauvester · 6 years ago

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more modern au... the spirit moved me.....

This state ball really brought him back to the mid-recession crisis. There wasn’t anything like 1990 Chateau de Mere and political company in the East Parlor to turn his thoughts to the good old days, or the end of the bad old days, maybe, when he got to watch Van Buren’s economy tilt and rip itself apart like a badly balanced centrifuge. There were remnants of it all over the place if you had a keen eye for evaluating antiques, and he most certainly did.

Biddle blinked quickly in the dry air and looked over Maggie Bayard’s shoulder across the East Parlor entrance to where he last saw Thomas, circulating around with some of the First Husband’s old comrades. It was awfully funny, in an awful way, that they were letting the nullies into the White House after everything they’d done. John Calhoun got a grudging pass because he’d caught himself the leader of the free world, but that far and no further, by Biddle’s personal moral estimation.

Maggie looked back at him, her highball glass of seltzer hanging loosely from her fingers. “He had a teaching job back in Philadelphia, didn’t he?”

“Ah, you have a good memory, don’t you. Penn State. He’s on leave right now – I hope they let him stay off for another semester so he can stay down here. I guess I’ve gotten sort of fond of him. It’s very strange.”

“Husbands are like that, right? They just show up one day and hang around and you can’t get rid of them.”

“I know, who gives them the right.” They smiled. He took another sip of wine. Thomas was still out of sight, probably in the next room somewhere, where the muted music from the string quartet rolled out from. It was hardly an event that could be called a gala – he still remembered the parties of the Adams years, and even a few of the early Jackson affairs – but there were still enough people to lose someone in. He licked his lips. “So, who’d you think he’s going to pick for AG?”

“Oh, Stephens, definitely,” Maggie said quickly.

“Really!”

“That’s who he’s going to pick, at least. I don’t think he’ll accept. Between you and me, he’s a real brass-tacks lifer. It’ll be hard to get him out of the House.”

“Stephens, that’s the wiry little one with the overbite? Southern?”

“Georgia.” She drank. “An Old Fashioned Whig. Seersucker, confederate flags. He’s been in the House for, I think, two sessions? Needs some southerners in the administration, you know. Not even Mr. John can hide the fact that his cabinet’s too top-heavy.”

Biddle got the sense that Maggie had had this conversation many times before, but didn’t mind having it again. He’d had just gotten to DC that week to take his perfectly lovely new seat as the Secretary of the Treasury and had presently made up his mind to have as little to do with politics otherwise as possible, but the atmosphere made it hard to avoid it. Clay had taken office a month ago and Van Buren’s attorney general had retired shortly thereafter. Apparently he’d needed no strong urging – or if he did, the blackmail was handled masterfully. He suspected Corwin and Hayne. The two of them working together, well!

“He’s got the great gift of post-nuptual goodwill from the media, I think he can stuff his cabinet with whatever he wants. Stephens, I’m sure he’ll find a way to corner him into accepting. He’s good at cowing people with his superior… his..?”

“Who’s what?” Hayne interrupted, coming up behind the two of them to interrupt merrily. He was smiling boyishly and holding a salmon roulette in each hand.

“President Clay’s je ne sais qouis,” Biddle said, smiling back at him and rolling his wine glass in his hand.

“Is he all we ever talk about here? My god! Get some new material, darlings.”

“We’re in his house,” Maggie added. “Eating his canapés.”

Hayne wrinkled his nose in that charming little moue and ate them both in one go.

“Besides, compared to him, and you, Nick, we don’t lead very interesting lives,” she chuckled. “Empty nester here.”

“Speak for yourself. Besides, award-winning White House Press Secretary there,” Biddle added, and she smiled. At least some of them were still in the honeymoon phase of it all. He almost envied them their enjoyment of it. Some cruel new part of him hated them for it, too.

“Stop it, Nick, I have a husband to go back to,”

“Oh, he was asking where you were, by the way, your husband,” Hayne said, covering his mouth as he chewed. “Something about the German Minister? He’s in the State room last time I saw him.”

“Oh! Thanks, Roby. I’m going to go find him. Nice chatting with you,” She said as she brushed Hayne’s black-tie-tuxedo shoulder and gave Biddle a friendly nod.

“I’ll be seeing you soon,” he responded gamely as she left. The two of them watched her shoulder through the crowd with the soft but stern direction of someone used to wrangling junior reporters for a living.

“You scared her off.”

“I’ve seen enough of her for right now,” Hayne responded, rubbing his fingers clean of crumbs. “You know, you don’t just marry a person, you marry their family, and also their admin team, I swear to god. We’ve been butting shoulders with Clay’s folks for weeks.”

“Trouble in paradise. Young lovers...”

“Oh, /they’re/ fine. Biting each other’s heads off all the time. Sweet enough to give you cavities, ugh.” Hayne’s tone was tired but light.

“Where are they now?”

“Front parlor. Clay’s entertaining the Chinese ambassador with magic tricks.”

“Oh.” Biddle shuddered.

Hayne reached over and took his mostly-empty wine glass and finished it off, placing it back in Biddle’s hand. “Tastes like wine!” He exclaimed brightly.

“I despair of you, Roby. That was a good vintage.”

“Go get some more, hon, we’ve got plenty.”

“I might collect Mr. Cadwalader and head home, actually. We spent all day unpacking and I think I’m ready to hibernate.”

“Hah! Like you were doing any lifting.” Hayne responded, giving Biddle a once-over. Biddle sighed imperiously. Since he had the disposable income to hire movers he didn’t see anything wrong with doing so. Stimulating the economy. Besides, sorting through his books and paperwork /had/ been hard work, even though there wasn’t much actual legwork involved.

“Thomas couldn’t do much of that. His arm, of course, so I did most of the cleaning after the movers left. John - my brother John - and his kids are coming over this weekend to finish unpacking.”

“Housewarming party?”

“Naturally. If you’re nice to me, I’ll even invite you.”

“That’s a steep price. We’ll have to see.”

Biddle spotted a familiar flash of sandy grey hair across the room and took Roby’s elbow. Ooh, cashmere blend. “I’m off. Come over on Sunday dinner if Mr. and Mr. President don’t keep you, Thomas’s cooking.”

“He agreed to do Sunday dinner?”

“He will when I ask him,” Biddle responded, nodding across the room to his husband. “Bring your Thomas too and we’ll make a night of it.”

“Oh, alright. Send me an Outlook invite so I don’t forget.”

Roby waved his fingertips at him as he left. A few years ago he would have stayed for the whole party, luxuriated in the glamour of good company and food, but now? He looked up and around as he made his way to the other side of the parlor, to the wallpaper that was yellowed at the baseboard, the upholstery that was fading at the center, the whole subdued aura of the assembly, he felt a sick pain in the back of his throat. The lingering taste of wine, sour, on his palette. Four years, a whole incumbency, in the ignominious position of the most hated man in America.

I would take a thousand dinners with then-president Martin Van Buren, desperation leaking out from behind his polite façade, asking for help, to wash the taste form his mouth. Nothing could make up for those years he lost, he thought, suddenly fierce and angry at a world that was trying to buy him off with a quiet comeback story. He didn’t want vindication; he wanted nothing to have happened in the first place.

He met Thomas’ eyes as he brushed through two other cabinet ministers. He didn’t smile, he rarely did, but he gave Biddle a slow catlike blink. I know, he was saying. Me too.

He didn’t have to say anything, just looped his arm under Thomas’ good one and patted the crook of his elbow with a thin, ‘well, that’s it then,’ smile. Thomas looked up and out, past the stairwell where the sound of raucous conversation suggested the President was holding court, and then scanning over the crowd back to his husband with a nod of finality. That’s it, then. He squeezed Biddle’s hand against his side.

Together for a second, divorced from the warmth and excitement around them, and with the bittersweet air of pallbearers, the two left.

#modern au #dabs #G1 fauve is back with some nicholas biddle content

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dorepil · 7 years ago

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when you love someone┊final

*inspired by a webtoon something about us by lee yun ji

summary: you consider younghyun and yourself the best of friends. the people around you seem to think otherwise. however, one day, you start to view younghyun differently than just ‘best friends’.

pairing: reader x young k (younghyun)

genre: fluff, a bit of angst, best-friends-to-lovers!au

word count: 4.9k

chapters: 1 , 2 , 3

notes: [ mood: bittersweet ] finally! this marks the end of when you love someone, it has been a rollercoaster! one day, i had so much ideas for the story, and the next day my mind is completely dry. i truly enjoy writing this series, and i hope i ended it in a good note! i’d like to thank the readers for all the support i’ve received! thank you again, and enjoy reading :) -admin moon

‹ confession song ›

flashback - highschool

it was a late afternoon.

your best friend had dragged you all the way up the rooftop while you were in the midst of reading your novel.

you asked him curiously, “so how was your break? i couldn’t ask you earlier since i forgot.”

younghyun took a seat on the ledge and you plopped down right next to him.

“canada was great~ i met up with my old friends!” he replied.

“and a lot of them are attached,” you mentioned, recalling seeing the pictures of his friends with their girlfriends on his instagram.

reaching down and taking his guitar out of its case, he let out a chuckle.

“yet, here i am all alone.”

have you ever mentioned that high school kang younghyun was a hotshot?

you rolled your eyes. “don’t say that when you rejected almost the entire population of girls in our school.”

you enjoyed the light autumn breeze against your face while you lightly kicked your legs back and forth in mid-air.

“you know the song i’ve been working on since the start of the year?” he said while strumming the strings of the guitar lightly.

you turned and looked at him questionably before answering, “that song.”

“well, that song... i finished it over the break,” he announced proudly.

you were eager to hear the “highly confidential” song that he has been keeping from you.

“promise me, you won’t laugh.”

“ i promise.”

you do have to admit, younghyun has a nice voice.

it is the type of voice that reflects easily on your emotions, tugs at your heartstrings, and allows you to empathize with its meaningful lyrics through his calm and silky voice.

why why why do I stare at the ceiling every night?

i gave you so many hints so you can notice but you don’t

i’m serious my eyes say that i like you why don’t you feel it? my face is so obvious

i can’t stop loving you

“the lyrics dude, where-- who inspired you?”

“just some romantic chick flicks i watched over the break. plus, listening to unrequited love songs, and reading all the friend-zone experiences on the internet.”

you joked, “out of a sudden...? who hurt you?”

he averted his eyes away. “very funny.”

“i’m joking-- the song’s really good! it talks about how this man or woman is seriously in love someone but the person’s acting ambiguous, i highly emphasize with that person you know.”

“someone friend zoned you or something?”

“yeah! you know donghae?”

“oh my god, please tell me it’s not that guy from super junior?”

you waved off the topic. “enough of my love life. what are you going to name this song?” you asked.

he hummed, pausing for a moment to think.

“i’ll title it ‘i’m serious’.”

“let’s hope that you won’t become your own song.”

younghyun playfully pushed you in the shoulder.

“ha. ha.”

present - the annual festival

in the dressing room, you stared at your reflection in complete horror.

“oh my god, you look so cute!” nayeon squealed.

hugging your body was a brown furry onesie, with a cute headpiece that adorned your head and a pair of fluffy gloves.

“what am i?” you asked her.

“you’re grizzly from we bare bear!” nayeon said.

“how did we end up with this theme?”

nayeon giggled, “henry went late for the department meeting, the rest of the department had already chosen their themes and the only theme left was this.”

henry, overhearing the conversation between you and nayeon, walked over and joined in. “i’m sorry about being late, and also, i hate this equally as well.”

“heavens! what are you?” you almost screamed aloud.

henry was wearing an atrocious furry green body suit, a fake bushy green mustache stuck on the top of his lips and hair was sprayed in a shade of neon green.

“i don’t even know whether i’m the grinch or charlie the bigfoot.”

“you’re going to scare people off.” nayeon shook her head in dismay.

henry sighed, “i know right! i hope people still notice my out-of-the-world looks, that’s my biggest concern.” he pointed at his ��out-of-the-word’ face.

“hi, can i take a picture with you?”

you’re the 104th person that had asked me that. you thought, grinning through gritted teeth.

“sure, why not--wonpil!”

after wandering around and promoting around the area for people to visit your department’s store, you stumbled upon a wild wonpil nearby the game stations.

“your department theme is pokemon...?”

wonpil, who was wearing a charmander outfit nodded his head enthusiastically.

“you look so adorable! i wanna squish you!” wonpil cooed, reaching out and tried to squeeze your cheeks.

“i’m going to bite your hands if you do that.” you threatened playfully.

he squealed, “oh my god, that makes it even cuter!”

you saw a plastic ball flew in the direction of wonpil’s head.

before you could warn wonpil of the incoming danger, he winced as the impact on the back of his head.

“i choose you charmander!”

“what the heck! who is-- jae!” wonpil shrilled

jae laughed hysterically in the distant, earning a death glare from the poor boy.

wonpil picked up the plastic ball, aiming it in the direction of jae.

jae managed to dodge the ball, much to wonpil’s displeasure.

dowoon (dressed as a pikachu; yellow shirt, a pointed headband) and sungjin (dressed as bulbasaur; green shirt, green plant bulb backpack on his back) joined you, wonpil and jae afterward.

the school of music got the pokemon theme. the school of liberal arts got the harry potter theme. the school of business got the royalties theme. the school of arts got we bare bear theme.

we bare bear theme practically wasn’t a thing only after the whole cartoon got really famous, replacing the highly-loved spirited away theme.

jae, who had a lightning ‘scar’ on his forehead with a circular frame was trying to mimic the famous protagonist.

“are you the bear from the revenant?”

“excuse me? i didn’t mock your suckish harry potter impersonation, plus, i can’t wait to get out of this costume.” you defended yourself.

dowoon pointed to a group in front of us, “hey, look! isn’t that younghyun?” he asked aloud.

the five of us looked at the same direction, watching a group of girls swarming and constantly repeating ‘can i take a picture with you?’ while the person himself in the middle looked completely flustered by the attention he was getting.

“i guess brian is the mvp this year.” jae commented, a tinge of the envy in his tone. “c’mon girls! give our man some space!”

wonpil bumped you lightly on the shoulder, giving you the ‘look! jae is jealous’ and you giggled.

“hello prince charming, where’s your consort?”

“ha. ha. very funny, sungjin.” younghyun rolled his eyes.

he turned and looked at you, and you felt your breath got hitched up in your throat.

wearing a black suit and a golden crown right on top of his perfectly styled hair, he looked like a prince that had come out from a fairytale book.

indeed, only kang younghyun can pull off that.

“you looked so done with yourself,” he remarked.

“i am. meanwhile, you look... great!” you replied, fixing your headband self-consciously.

younghyun squeezed your cheeks and you let out a small yelp.

“you look fine~ cute actually.”

you felt your face began to heat up, and you quickly slapped his hands away.

“remember when we used to have band practices after high school?” sungjin reminisced, his attention now directed to the campus band who was performing on the platform stage.

jae smiled. “i haven’t thought about that for a while. wow, i really missed those days.”

you smiled fondly at the memories, remembering the times when you would stay back after school just to watch them practice, listening to the sounds of melodies echoed the gym room.

“y/n was our supporter, isn’t she? she would always sit on the sidelines while she watched us frolicking around with our instruments.” wonpil mentioned.

you chuckled, “i wasn’t the only one. you guys had a huge fanbase in the school going on. you guys literally receive confessions every single day!”

a group of high-school girls would follow behind them in the hallways, often a gift or letter in their hands.

“no, you were totally different. you would bring food for us after school, knowing we would be practicing on an empty stomach, watched us practice without complaining, and give actual helpful suggestions.”

“wow, i’m touched brian.”

your best friend groaned, “brian...? i take back everything about complimenting you.”

you felt your phone vibrated.

“sorry guys, this is my cue to disappear. nayeon needs help with managing the store.” you excused yourself, reading the emergency text from nayeon.

“see you later paddington!”

you shot him a glare, “let’s see how you will have to bear with the consequences later, jae.”

you found nayeon frantically preparing drinks, with many customers watching curiously at the girl who was stressed out.

“thank god you’re here! henry and a couple other helpers decided to ditch me to go watch the band perform, i’m going to kill him later.” nayeon explained.

“i’ll do the snacks. just focus on the drinks okay!”

“thank you! you are the best y/n!”

the both of you spent the next an hour and a half preparing food and drinks before the two of you settled all the orders.

“whew! you don’t mind if i go to the restroom for awhile?” nayeon asked.

“go ahead, i’ll be fine!” you shoo-ed her off.

you began to daydream after you were alone, gazing at the people passing you in a blur.

“hello, can i have one of those?”

you shook your head, breaking away from your reverie.

“i’m so sorry-- jinyoung!” you exclaimed.

the handsome alumni stood in front of you, chuckling at your reaction.

“you’re here!”

“i couldn’t miss this, the festival is always the best.”

you handed him the drink. “it’s okay, it’s on me.”

“kind as ever.”

“well, it’s rather embarrassing to see me in this state.” you sighed.

jinyoung scanned you from head to toe. “you look adorable, what are you talking about?”

“really?”

jinyoung laughed, “two years ago, during my last year here, when the school of arts got spirited away as the theme-- i was the no-face. it was the worst.”

“that was you?”

you recalled flipping through the past years school magazine, remembering crackling out loud at the picture of a frowning no-face.

“that’s my dark past.”

you chattered with jinyoung for a little more, catching up with him on hani, mr. han and his work life.

“y/n! oh, my god! why didn’t you tell me anything?” nayeon said loudly, rushing back to the store.

“what? what’s going on?” you asked, confused.

noticing jinyoung was there, she froze before recomposing herself and shyly greeted, “hello, jinyoung.”

“hey, nayeon.”

henry came running back after nayeon. “y/n! there you are! hurry over to the middle of the campus now!” he informed in between heavy breaths.

“why? are you guys okay? what’s going on?” you asked, concerned with the sudden change of behavior of your friends.

“there’s no time to explain, jinyoung can you follow y/n there?” nayeon asked.

jinyoung, who was also as confused as you, nodded his head.

“sure, i’m meeting hani there too. c’mon let’s go!”

you and jinyoung squeezed through the crowds, heading in the direction where henry had instructed you to go.

it wasn’t far from the place where you and your 5 friends had met up earlier.

“unfortunately, that was the final song from our own campus band. despite that, it is not the end of the performance yet! we have one last-minute addition. also a band, here are sungjin, jae, younghyun, wonpil, and dowoon.” the emcee, jimin announced.

stunned, you turned to look at the stage where your five friends were standing.

“jinyoung, those aren’t my friends... right?”

“they are. and look! there’s hani!”

“let’s start with some self-introductions first.” jimin said.

“i’m jae, from the political science department like my boy, jimin. i’m pretty known around here, follow me on my twitter @/jaesix!”

“the audience didn’t ask for a shameless plug, okay next.” jimin rolled her eyes. jae, unaffected by jimin’s clever comeback, sent a wink towards the audience.

“hi, i’m sungjin. i’m from the faculty of music along with wonpil and dowoon. i will be playing the acoustic guitar.”

“hello, i’m younghyun. i’m from business administration course.”

“hi everyone! i’m wonpil and this guy beside me is dowoon. i play the piano and he plays the drum!” wonpil introduced both himself and the shy dowoon.

a large group of people began to gather near the stage, curious by what was happening on the stage. “i’m going to the front, will you guys be okay?” you asked jinyoung and hani.

“go ahead!” the both of them replied in unison.

you maneuvered through the gaps before finding yourself an open space at the front. younghyun spotted you immediately, sending you a small smile.

“what are you doing?” you mouthed.

he mouthed back, “you’ll see.”

“okay, what will guys be performing today?” jimin asked.

all of them turned and looked at younghyun.

“we’ll be covering two songs then sing one of our self-composed songs. pardon if we don’t sound the best, it’s been a few years since we had a band performance.”

“let’s give them a round of applause!” jimin cheered, slowly backing to the side of the stage.

you watched nervously as they picked up the instruments. they took a moment to familiarise with the instruments and the environment before they started playing.

they started off with wonder girls' ‘nobody’ and it immediately lifted the mood of the audience and everyone began chanting the famous lyrics.

you were awestruck.

they certainly did not sound like a band that had gone on hiatus for a few years. every strum from the guitars and bass were on rhythm, the piano was harmonizing beautifully with the song and every stroke of the drums was on perfect beat.

you felt like you were transported back in time. you were experiencing the exact same feelings you had when you watched your friends jumped around the stage, having the time of their lives as they performed.

you truly missed this feeling.

after covering cnblue’s ‘i’m a loner’, the crowd went even crazier.

“this is a song for someone special, i hope you remember this song.” younghyun said to the microphone in english.

the meeting of two drumsticks commences the final song.

you froze when wonpil began singing the first verse.

why why why do I stare at the ceiling every night?

this song... isn’t it ‘i’m serious’? you felt a feeling of deja vu pulsed through your body.

i gave you so many hints so you can notice but you don’t

you felt your heart beating rapidly.

“...it talks about how this man or woman is seriously in love someone but the person’s acting ambiguous.”

i’m serious my eyes say that i like you why don’t you feel it? my face is so obvious

immediately, you looked at him with an open-mouthed stare, younghyun, at the same time, made eye contact with you.

“confess, serious, feelings… do you think he has a liking towards someone?”

it finally clicked in your head. “the english phrases... they were hints?”

in the end, i just made you listen to useless things and i let you go with a smile why am i like this?

“wait...” your ears perked up at an unfamiliar part of the song that you had never heard before.

i try to start a conversation to figure out how you feel trying to pass it off as a joke but why don’t you know? i’m only looking at you

“speaking of guys, you never seemed to have a guy you like.”

“what do you mean? don’t you remember my super junior phase?” you raised your brows.

younghyun let out a sarcastic laugh, “donghae? i’m speaking realistically.”

you stroked your chin, thinking deeply. “maybe jungkook from bts? he’s cute.”

when the song ended, there was a brief silence before everyone applauded

instead of joining the majority of the audiences with clapping, you were experiencing shortness of breath as the one particular verse of lyrics rang over and over in your head.

i can’t stop loving you

how could you not realize that you were the one all along?

when night falls, it concluded the end of the festival.

ever since the end of the performance, you were at a loss for words. you returned back to the store where nayeon and henry bombarded you with burning questions.

“i...i-- i’ll tell you guys later.” you sighed, taking a seat down on one of the plastic chairs.

you kept telling yourself that it was a joke, “no way he likes me, i’m practically like a sister to him.”

you got up from your seat abruptly, breaking your train of thoughts.

“nayeon, i’ll go change first then i’ll come back.”

you needed to get distracted, all these questions were perpetually killing you inside.

after changing out of your stuffy bear costume, you walked back to the store where students were already packing up and preparing to leave campus.

you and nayeon helped carry cardboard boxes with leftover poster back to the studio.

“wanna head for supper later?” she asked you as you closed the studio door.

you were about to excuse yourself for the night but you changed your mind quickly. “sure, i need a few drinks anyway.”

you, nayeon and henry were about to exit the campus before your conscience asked, “i wonder where’s the five of them. i haven’t seen younghyun after the performance too...”

you shook your head. “now is not the time to think about this.

henry had also invited jinyoung and hani to join along.

when the five of you were settled down at the restaurant, henry managed to break the ice by starting the conversation on his character during the festival.

“you have no idea how many side-eyes i received from people today... it was the absolute worst.”

jinyoung laughed, “now you understand how i felt when i dressed up as no-face?”

“that’s different! people still know you are handsome under that layer of face-paint.” henry argued.

“henry please, let this serve as a lesson for you to never be late again for important meetings.” nayeon patted henry’s back.

you and hani burst into waves of laughter.

at that moment, a group of people entered the restaurant and you instantly recognized who they were.

“hey! guys! over here!” henry called them over.

oh no.

jinyoung joined a couple more tables together so that it can fit everyone.

“yo, paddington.”

“jae, are you not going to drop that?” you sighed.

great, why does younghyun have to sit on the opposite?

“y/n! did you see our performance?” wonpil asked excitedly.

you glanced at younghyun, who was looking at you with the same curiosity before answering, “yes! you guys were amazing!”

dowoon did a little drum movement and jae awed at the younger boy’s little action.

“what did you think of the last song we performed?”

you tried to contain your shock from the question, looking at him confusingly.

“what do you mean younghyun?” you acted as if you were clueless, then bringing the glass of alcohol up to your lips.

“you’re such a bad liar y/n.”

why are you doing this to me?

you didn’t respond much after younghyun’s probing.

your nerves were running wild in your body, causing you to fidget slightly. hoping the alcohol would calm you down, you poured the content down your throat again and again.

“hey, enough.” someone took your glass away before you could take another sip.

it was none other than your best friend.

i’m tired. you breathed out exhaustedly, getting up from your seat slowly and said, “i need to head out for some fresh air, don’t mind me.”

once you headed outside, some of the stuffiness from your chest disappeared a little.

you spotted a little playground on the other side of the road and you turned and looked back at the restaurant. “just for a little while.” you mumbled to yourself.

the playground was deserted, there was an air of serenity and it helped relieve a terrible headache you were currently having.

you plopped yourself on the empty swing, slowly moving back and forth as you loosen your neck and let your head dropped.

“i thought we were just good friends. but now... something feels different. if... if i were to... tell you i like you... what would happen?” you spoke, allowing your feelings out in the cold night air.

you looked at him as a friend until you realized you loved him.

credits

sighing deeply, you got up from the swing. “enough dilly-dallying y/n.” you reminded yourself.

looking up, you felt your heart stopped.

“how long have you been here?” you asked cautiously.

“why didn’t you tell me?”

you fell back onto the swing, bringing your hands up as you covered your face.

“y/n...”

“you weren’t supposed to hear that younghyun.”

“i-i’m sorry.”

“don’t be. it’s not your fault i have feelings for you.”

uncovering your shaking hands from your face, you turned and looked up at younghyun with a forced smile, “let’s pretend you didn’t hear anything. i’m going to head back home now, please tell the rest i’m sorry for leaving so suddenly.”

“wait--”

before he could complete his sentence, you hurried off.

the next morning, you woke up in cold sweat.

the incident of the previous night had led you to a sleepless night, despite how tired you were.

“right, it wasn’t a dream.”

reaching out your phone from the nightstand, you checked whether you have any missed calls or messages.

0 missed calls or unread messages.

were you hopeful that he would call or text you after what happened?

probably.

you eventually got out of bed, taking a few minutes to get prepared for school.

unlocking the door, you headed out. you told yourself no matter how much you wanted to hid from him, you have to face your own shame no matter what.

“y/n!”

younghyun?

“oh... wonpil!”

“what are you doing here?” you asked while locking the door.

“ah, younghyun told me to come to wake you up if you overslept.”

you pursed your lips.

“well, i will have to thank him later.”

“he says he’s sorry that he can’t walk you to school today.” wonpil relayed his message.

“it’s okay. you’re here,” you replied.

this was your nightmare coming to life, a slip-up that has suddenly caused an unplanned tension between you and your best friend. for a long time, you’ll be haunted by the fact that everything will be awkward between the two of you, he’ll be reminded by your one-sided love while you’ll be reminded by your embarrassment.

no wonder he called wonpil to walk with me to school.

the two of you walked to school together, except the fact that this daily routine was replaced by wonpil.

after a short walking distance, you and wonpil finally reached campus.

“y/n! wonpil!”

“dowoon?”

wonpil and dowoon shared a look.

“i’ll take y/n from here.” dowoon smiled, linking arms with you as he dragged you away from wonpil.

“dowoon... what is going on?”

“you’ll see.”

after climbing multiple steps of stairs and take random turns, the two of you stopped in front of the recording studio.

“once you head in, go into the recording booth and put on the headphones okay?” dowoon instructed.

you nodded your head slowly, following his instructions although you perplexed by what was going to happen.

in the recording booth, you put on the headphones carefully.

“y/n, can you hear me? if yes, speak to the microphone.” dowoon asked.

you gave a thumbs up. “yup. crystal clear.”

“someone is going take over and give you further instructions, hold on~”

you watched from behind the glass panel as dowoon got up from his seat and left the recording studio.

“huh?”

checking your phone, you realized you only have an hour before lecture.

“what are the two of you up to?” you were about to send a text to wonpil and dowoon before a music began to play in your ears.

in life, there aren’t many days when things go your way there are more days when it didn’t go my way will today be another one of those days? i am pretty worried

after I tell you these words i’m not sure if we can go back to smiling like we are now but I have to i

like you i tried holding it back but i can’t anymore now i can tell you i want to love you

your phone slipped out of your hand, landing on the soft carpet as you listened to the chorus.

“who?” you whispered, turning and faced the glass panel.

someone else was inside the studio with you, and it was neither wonpil nor dowoon.

it was someone you had least expected to be there with you, observing you intently with an indescribable expression.

i’ve thought of you like this but if you don’t feel the same

you just need to tell me “i’m sorry” and i’ll be fine

like you i tried holding it back but i can’t anymore now i can tell you i want to love you

you could feel the emotions building up your body as the violins (or an orchestra) joined with the final chorus of the song, and you bit your lips from trembling.

when the song ended, he finally spoke, “i hope my song expresses what i want to say to you.”

you sucked in a deep breathed, then spoke into the mic.

“you don’t have to do this just because i like you.”

he smiled, “why not?”

why?

“you must’ve have pitied me because i’m your close friend. you didn’t want to feel bad for rejecting me because you’re afraid your guilt will eat you up.”

he let out a laugh. “y/n, why in the world would i do that to you?”

you sighed, removing your headphones and headed out.

“y/n... where are you going?”

he held your arm just as you were about to leave the studio.

“younghyun, don’t you understand? we’re friends, for a very long time. i’m afraid after this moment, i’m not sure we can go back to being normal, being friends. i don’t want to lose you because of my feelings for you.”

he loosened his grip on your arm.

“what if i don’t want to y/n?”

“what...?”

“what if i don’t want to be just friends, y/n? can’t you see? please, look at me. it took me a lot of courage to do this. ever since you got close to jinyoung, i went crazy. completely out of my mind. when i found out from jinyoung that you rejected him, i was ecstatic! from there onwards, i began to drop you hints... well in english because i was still scared. you weren’t the only one scared of losing this friendship y/n, i was terrified! every day, my feelings for you blossomed, and i don’t think i should hold back anymore. what i’m saying is, i like you y/n.”

you were astonished by his words.

after all, a man that you had been crushing on finally proclaimed his romantic feelings for you.

“i-i... is this a dream?” this was all you could muster out of your mouth.

sighing, younghyun lowered his body. the next thing he did literally pull the soul right out of your body.

he pressed his lips against your forehead, then proceeded in embracing you.

“is this still a dream?” he whispered in your ears.

you felt your vision blurred, a giggle escaped your lips as you embraced him back.

“you’re not crying are you?”

“stop it! these are tears of happiness, you idiot!”

a chuckle erupted from his throat, “well, that’s good to hear.”

there were cheerings from outside the door, and you and younghyun could easily guess who they were.

“wow our boy bribri beat us all here in getting a girl first!” jae exclaimed, his fingers furiously typing a new tweet talking about his single life.

@/youngk93 got a gf today, why am i still single #whyamialone #singlelife #tindercan’tevengetmeagf

wonpil and dowoon pressed their ears against the door while intertwining their fingers together.

“wonpil and dowoon, give them some privacy please.” sungjin grabbed them each by collars.

jae wiggled his brows, “yeah, give them some privacy. go get it brian!”

sungjin continued to drag wonpil and dowoon away. “jae, can you hurry up and for once, stop using your goddamn phone.”

“hold on-- i’m reading the comments! wait--! @/jiminpark07 replied to your tweet: look at yourself in the mirror first b4 asking why you are alone, loser. dude, she’s asking for trouble.”

the day finally ended with you resting on your bed, relaxing your sore back as you looked up at the ceiling, a content smile plastered on your face.

the only sounds in your room were the snorings coming from the person beside you.

you turned and faced him, reaching out and lightly traced the side of his face.

“i always felt a little alone and scared in this small, empty apartment. however today, it suddenly felt so full, just because you are here with me.”

you slowly shimmied closer to him, careful not to wake him up from his deep slumber.

“i’d like to be with you all the time, create as many memories together as possible.”

although he never told you this yet, you are his sun, his moon, and all his stars.

end.

#day6 young k #day6 younghyun #day6 youngk imagine #day6 scenarios #day6 fanfic #day6 fic #day6 written #day6 young k scenarios #day6 #day6 fluff

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