#So like my friend group is an ex-robotics team. We all used to compete in high school. I did the costume design for the competitions :')

[whlskr]

So, me and Henry are 2 parts of the extended friend-iverse. We also have several other creatives and one happens to be a really fucking good musician. I hadn't listened to much of his work and it's BRILLIANT. I'd only been to a couple live shows.

Oh my god I might actually be able to bring him onto the project.

Check him out

[ktheist]

1 | friend in me.

“don’t confuse your party friends with your real friends.” (x) 

muses. party friend!jungkook x reader ft. bestfriend!taehyung ft. ex-boyfriend!namjoon

genre. university au. fwb. f2l.

words. 6.1k

warnings. mentions of break up, mild exhibition, alcohol use, future mentions of joint, future smut, mature content

alternative title. to my dear friend.

final part. exclusives only (x)

note. this fic hasn’t been showing up in searches no matter how many times i repost and it’s got a special place in my heart so i really want it to reach the audience, that’s why i made a few changes in hopes to beat the odds lol. enjoy!

x

striking up an unlikely pact to look out for each other’s backs at parties, is the last thing you expect to do with jeon jungkook. sure, you may or may not find a reason to laugh at his lousy antics and corny pick up lines - he’s also a great kisser but that’s besides the point.

the point is, you’d like to keep him as that - the friend that you meet at parties and parties only. so when you see him on your campus grounds, naturally your first instinct is to stop, turn the opposite way you’re heading and where he’s coming from - and start fast-walking to the other end of the campus like the devil is after you.

except that devil comes in the form of denim jacket, white undershirt and wavy dark hair that easily falls over doe eyes that seem to sparkle when you freeze at the sound of your name and turn around to face him with an awkward smile.

he breaks into a mini jog, leaving his friends that you’ve never seen before, behind. your own friends who you’ve been walking with and ditched at the sight of him, gawping at you and the new face from the spot where you decided to leave them at.

why couldn’t they have gone on their merry way - regardless if you’d paused and trekked to the opposite direction you were heading to?

jungkook skids to a stop in front of you, pretty pink lips quirking after he tilted his head to shift his hair out of his eyes instead of pushing it back with his hands.

“hey,” he greets, glancing down at his scuffing vans before meeting your gaze again, the tip of his tongue running over his bottom lip before retreating back into his mouth, leaving a sheen of moistness on his lips, “i didn’t know you went here.”

willing yourself to smile, you push your hair to the back of your ear before wrapping your arms around your chest, “yeah,” you drag out with an awkward chuckle, not as oblivious as he is of the stolen glances coming from the people passing through the walkway.

“what are you doing here though?” you notice his own friends that he ditched waiting for him several feet away - a group of attractive men and women who clearly belong to the equally high place group from your own faculty.

and yet here he is, talking to you - the ghost with rounded glasses sitting atop her nose and faded chapsticks on her lips. out of all the days you could have looked more zombie-esque, jungkook had to show up at your faculty today.

he’s nice enough not to point it out though as his lips turn into an ‘o’ shape. if you focus, you’d probably see the light bulb going off in his head as the answer to your question hits him. though at this point, you’ve already been hit by your own realization of the reason for there being more people walking around with mechanical appendages and remote control of every kinds. it must be-

“we’re here for the robocup tournament,” he grins, excitement apparent in the way his eyes seem to widen as you can almost hear the screws in his brains working before the question tumbles out of his mouth-

“what about you? are you joining?”

you want to laugh.

and that’s the thing about jungkook - he’s so good at reading you that he knows something’s up. brows knitting together, “what’s... up?”

the shaking of your head is purely reactionary - you’ve made a few friends who came around to compete at times your faculty was the one to hosted it, like now. it’s not as serious as it seemed to be but it’s not entirely something you joke around either since it involved someone’s blood, sweat and tears to make the cut but-

“guess you haven’t heard about the long standing tradition of the circuit breaker’s string pulling. the competition’s rigged.” despite your too willing trip down memory land, you still let your eyes dart around in case anyone’s listening. after you’re sure no one was, only then do you finally go on, “every year, they pick a judge’s kid as part of the team - even if they weren’t enrolled in seollyu and were in some other non-robotics related university, they’ll get close to them and keep them around until the competition. one year, one of them even went as far as dating a judge’s daughter when they couldn’t recruit her into their team.”

swallowing down the bile, you pretend not to notice the complete downturn of his lips as you roll your shoulders in a shrug out of the need of having something to do that doesn’t require focusing on the conflicted, purse lipped frown on jungkook’s face.

“oh wow, we never heard anything like that in beongju.” he murmurs, eyes drawn to the grass a feet away as he contemplates.

“it’s okay, what matters is you guys have fun.” you wave a dismissive hand, smile more natural but still sporting its awkward tucks.

“yeah,” jungkook nods before he meets your gaze, smiling in a half-hearted attempt to ease his own mind, “who knows? maybe this year, beongju will come out victorious.”

you nod, chest blooming with hope - a wishful thinking perhaps, “maybe.”

it’s when his eyes twinkle with a different kind of excitement that you know the matter of the competition is past him, and that’s your cue to go.

“hey, are you-“

“i have a class to-

you both stop at the same time, staring at the other for the longest moment before jungkook offers for you to continue, “you first.”

“um,” you would have deflect it back to him out of politeness. that is, if you didn’t know that he was going to ask you if you were free. possibly to grab lunch or a smoothie somewhere. but that’s the thing, outside of parties, you’re a completely different person altogether. right now, you’re the all-work, no-play study-hard. none of your equally study hard friends are aware of how you are at parties - none of the people you know, know how you are at parties because you made sure to attend only those you’re sure you wouldn’t run into acquaintances. of course it’s difficult and there are a few familiar faces you can identify as people from your faculty at every party but barely which is a safe amount. so it doesn’t make sense to break the unspoken, mutual understanding of the core you and jungkook’s friendship is built on. he might have forgotten how important it was for you that you were strictly ‘fun’ friends, so it’s your job to remind him, “i have class right now.”

you take a step back in preparation to bolt towards said nonexistent on-going class, “but hey, good luck on robocup. oh yeah, what were you gonna tell me?”

jungkook’s “oh - uh,” shouldn’t have sent waves of relief to you the way it does, but when he mumbles a “nothing - it was nothing.” you couldn’t help but suppress a grateful sigh.

on any other occasion, with a person completely separate from jeon jungkook, you would have pressed on - encouraged them to say what they initially wanted to say. but instead, you shoot him a smile, “oh -okay. guess i’ll see you around?”

“uh,” it’s clear as day that he doesn’t want to just leave it up to chance to bump into you in this big building with at least a thousand occupants coming and going everyday throughout the competition but the way smacks his lips shut tells you he there’s something holding him back, so he settles with a, “yeah... see you around.”

x

“you know,” you pause, tendrils of reluctance forbidding you from relaying the tale of how you and jungkook met in hopes it was indicative enough but judging from the way jisoo has her eyebrows raised, lisa with her knowing smile, taehyung and jimin expectantly waiting but with the first actually shooting you an meaningful stare - it seems like you have no choice but to say it-

“we spoke a few times at different parties and realize we have the same party mutual and get invited to the same parties so... we decided to hang together... at parties.”

“hang,” lisa echoes, underlying tone couldn’t have been more obvious as she grins from ear to ear.

“please, no way in hell do you just hang with jeon fucking jungkook when there’s booze and a dozen of empty rooms involved.” jisoo comes barreling through like a bulldozer, hands in the air as she squeals at whatever scenario her mind is cooking up in her head.

laughter trickles out of your mouth as you hide your face in your palms in an attempt to avoid jisoo and lisa’s eyes and the things that they’re hinting at with a mere gaze.

“why?” taehyung’s baritone finally hits the air as he leans back against the recliner. once the silence settles in a second later and all eyes turn his way, he adds, “not that it’s any of our business but,” he shrugs, “he’s not really your crowd - not any of our crowd.”

that’s the million dollar question. taehyung hates beers and crowded places - which is a surprise given his social butterfly-ness among all five of you. jimin, jisoo and lisa do go parties - those that your closest friends would be at. otherwise, they aren’t adventurous as you.

maybe jimin has a another side that you don’t know - it’s a known fact that he has other friends. dance friends, drinking friends, and whatever type of people with similar interests who flock a certain direction.

just like how you had jungkook and the group of friends you hung out with at parties.

“i mean, my dance friends aren’t exactly your kind of crowd either,” jimin interjects from the floor, head lulled to the back to look at taehyung, “remember how you wanted to avoid hoseok at all costs after i brought you to a practice once?”

“yeah,” you instantly second, hand gesturing to the man in a ‘exactly what he said’ manner before turning to the taller guy, “everyone makes friends where their usual friends aren’t.”

“i guess,” he cedes after what felt like the longest pause in your history of friendship.

it is that moment, just as your muscles begin to relax, that your phone dings with a notification. unbeknownst to you that you still command the attention in the entire room, you cluelessly let check out the new text message.

koo: we lost ):

“it’s him.” lisa announces, the bed shaking as she scoots away when you try to swat her thigh.

“and she has him saved as koo,” she - without any trace of intentionally constructed pun, coos, hands clasped together next to her tilted head as she bumps it with jisoo who’s mimicking her gestures.

“he just texted to say he lost,” you clarify, shaking your head at the two girls’ antics.

not that it changes anything as jisoo leans her whole body against lisa, an arm on her forehead in a troubled manner, “now i wish i had a boyfriend.”

lisa hums in agreement, her long limbs extending to wrap around the older girl’s torso as she rests her chin on top of jisoo’s dark brown tresses.“me too, sweetie. me too.”

typing out a ‘i’m so sorry. it’s okay they don’t deserve your talent anyway ):’ with a mixture of emojis, you hit send just before turning to what jimin is saying.

“...go to one. i heard alpha sig is having one tomorrow,” then he turns to you, as though you bear an abundance of knowledge about which place is having a party and on what day, “right ____?”

it takes you a moment to piece together what he said. you didn’t hear the beginning but you’re sure it’s something along the lines of jimin setting the two lonely singles to break their 2 month no-party streak and maybe get that boyfriend they wanted.

“jimin, i’m not sure,” you say shortly before turning to the two girls,“not that that many good, upstanding citizen of men go to the parties i went to though but maybe there’s a miracle waiting for you girls,” you smile in genuine hopefulness while referring to an entirely hopeless place. but it turns into an emphatic one as the two girls fake cry about the minimal chance they have to get a - in what you could make out of  jisoo’s fake bawling - hot, sexy party boyfriend. whatever that meant.

you don’t have the time to confirm it when your phone dings again.

koo: thanks i can always count on you to be real w me 🥺🥰

another grey bubble pops pushes the text you’re reading upwards.

koo: you coming to alpha sig’s party?

koo: we have to be here for the closing ceremony tmr anyway

koo: help me make good memories before i leave seollyu 🥺

you suppress the urge to roll your eyes at that. he’s only been here for one day and he got invited to one of the most hard-to-get-in parties on the campus.

naturally, you and jimin were invited from your underlying reputations. and naturally, whoever you bring is invited too.

except you’re not a fan of going to parties that you know you’d meet the exact people you didn’t want to meet.

lisa peeks at your phone the second time - and you didn’t even notice until she screams, “___’s going to alpha sig’s!”

“oh my god, will he be there?” jisoo leans her entire body over lisa in a reckless abandon to get a peek of what the younger one saw only to have you hold your phone away.

“um? privacy? anyone?” you offer while jisoo pouts.

“duh, she’s going because of him.” lisa says im a matter-of-factly, “otherwise, she wouldn’t even entertain the thought of going to any party infested with people we already had to see sober.”

“am not.” you counter, the matter of replying already long forgotten as you cross your arms over your chest, phone tucked in between the side of your boob and hand, “if i’m going, it’d be because i want to!”

“so you’re going?” jisoo blinks, eyes twinkling with hope. so are lisa’s.

you have no choice but to turn your cheek to a laughing park jimin on the floor. his pupils disappearing behind his lids. clearly, he’s not going to back you up. so you turn to the only other person who you thought would.

“if tae’s going then i’ll go,” you declare, already feeling the triumph of what the man would choose from his precedent choices. “not that you guys need me to get in since jimin’s already-“

“sure.” the taller man announces.

you’re forced to make a double take while your jaw drops in your lap along with jisoo and lisa’s while jimin blinks in surprise from your periphery.

completely conscious of the gazes boring into his skull, taehyung attempts to casually shrug it off as a- “since you guys are going, you know.”

jisoo yelps in celebration before going “great, who’s up for some chicken?” shooting up and sending the mattress shaking as she takes big steps over your legs and hops off the bed. hands planted on her hips, she glances around the room with the residue of a pleased smile from the decision of all five of you finally going to a party together.

“me!” lisa follows suit with the exception that she’s crawling on her hands and knees to get off the bed.

“me but i don’t want to get up.” jimin whines, unmoving from his spot which is lying on the fluffed pink carpet as taehyung’s birthday present to his otherwise creme themed room.

“come on, park. get your ass off the floor and to the parking lot - get it, park jimin goes to the parking lot?” jisoo begins tugging on his wrist, the sight rather comical considering how she’s trying to make a man twice her size sit up, let alone move to get to the car seeing as he’s the only one with one.

lisa shares a doubtful look with you and taehyung at the poorly made pun, questioning why jimin seems to be the only one chuckling but then again, he’s always been the easiest to entertain.

after huffing and puffing, jisoo finally plucks the boy off the floor. but getting him to walk the distance from his apartment to the car is another feat.

it’s when their voices echo in the hallway, and you and a certain taller man is left in the room, do you notice the difference in this silence compared to the rest as he pushes himself up.

“are you going for real?” you finally ask, throwing your feet over the bed.

taehyung’s lips pucker as he contemplates the pros and cons, “what’ll i do if i don’t go? binge watch maze runner and be reminded of the fact that all third movies suck?”

maybe he doesn’t hate parties as much as you initially thought. after all, it’s been a year since he vomited all over kim sowon while making out on the couch at alpha sig’s.

you grin, elbowing the man as you both make your way out of the room, “hey, maybe you could find yourself a girlfriend while you’re at it.”

taehyung’s laugh doesn’t reach his eyes but you chalk it up with the jitters of the thought of having alcohol course through his veins and surrounded by bodies on the dance floor, “huh, yeah.”

x

the day fly by between getting to classes and getting lunch - it was a feat to convince everyone to go to dumpling place just a little bit off campus but you’d managed and subsequently successfully avoided running into jungkook for the day.

“bih, what the fuck?” lisa gawks, jaw descended to the ground as she stares at your mini black crop top that stops a few inches above your high-waist ripped jeans.

if you didn’t show up to classes in sweats and oversized sweaters, round glasses and hair always up in your laziness to make them look presentable - every day, maybe your ability to throw on some eye make up and highlights over your foundation wouldn’t have been so much as a surprise.

unlike you, your friends have always been on top of their game when it comes to appearing like functioning members of society. the clothes they have now have also been worn to class before - that’s how you know their confidence is sky high while yours require a little bit of help depending on what you wear.

why they decided to adopt a munchkin like you into their otherwise perfect clique, you’ll never know - but maybe it had something to do with you looking like a lost puppy in your first year with your round glasses and the thick books you carry around. it was a matter of time you ran into someone and drop them - that someone being jisoo.

after that, the rest was history - your prejudices towards groups of attractive people have never been so diminished.

your hair bounces gently as you hop into the passenger seat, giggling shyly at the attention you’ve garnered with your otherwise usual getup for a fun time.

“if i knew you won’t have any problems surviving off skinny jeans and cute tops, i would have burned those baggy clothes a long time ago.” jisoo confesses, red lips curled into an impressed ‘o’ as she takes in your appearance.

you gasp, truly offended to know your day-to-day choice of outfit has never been any of your friend’s preference yet only now do they make it known - talk about fake friends! “don’t you insult my comfy clothes like that!”

a light bump on her shoulder forces her to tear her gaze away and turn her cheek to the grinning girl next to her, “maybe she has a reason to dress cute.”

and just like that, the two breaks out into coos. sending you signals with their entire face muscles as jimin chuckles from the driver’s seat.

“but you know, this is how ___ usually dress up for parties even like before she met jungkook.”

you send praises to the gods for sending you this blessing of a friend as you fix the two girls a smirk, posing like a model as much as the cramped space allows you, “nah, i got it from my momma.”

an onslaught of protest - denials - mixed with cheers erupt as you begin to poorly mimic that of models with your limbs pointing in every direction and body bending in weird angles. it doesn’t take long before laughter tumbles out of everyone’s mouth, the front seaters included - taehyung had achingly turned in his seat to attend your fashion show while jimin stole glances in the rearview mirror.

x

yoo jeongyeon is the first to wave you over. if there’s a grey area where party friends and real friends merge together, it’ll be her. you’ve gone to parties together and had fun - though the last time you did, you ended up waking up on the same bed with some guy on the floor.

jin? jun? jeong? j-something grinned when he woke up to the sight of you two, “so... can i get you girls’ number?”

jeongyeon didn’t bother to hold back her grimace and you’d strutted into the bathroom as if you didn’t hear him.

“kim taehyung, lisa manoban and kim jisoo.” she studies each one with an impressed, “how did jimin and ____ manage to haul your asses out and over here?’

“the single life they’ve been walking has finally slapped them in the face and they finally want-“ you get cut off by lisa’s fake chuckle that sounds every bit forced.

“-wasted.”

“-boyfriends!”

they end up saying at the same time. while jisoo is finds no fault in her confession, lisa’s face is heating up - coming second next to you when it comes to shying back into her shell when topics like these come to light.

“taehyung too.” jisoo hooks her hand around the aforementioned man’s arm, stopping him from slowly disappearing into the crowd like a certain park jimin has, her other one around younger girl.

“jeongyeon, you have introduce us to cute guys or we’ll end up dying from all this single-ness!”

at that, the woman burst into laughter, hand on her stomach as she tries and fails to suppress it.

“i don’t know,” she wipes a tear from the corner of her eyes, “isn’t that more of ____’s specialty?”

“uh,” it takes a heartbeat for you to register what jeongyeon is saying before the same heart in your chest crashes against the ground at her next words.

“everyone knows,” a meaningful smile quirks on her lips, “about you and-“

“i- uh, i think i heard jackson calling me - something about a group project.” you quickly say, cursing yourself for the less than plausible excuse to get away.

and the three girls think so too as they call you out for it but you don’t stop until they’re out of earshot and out of the spotlight, ending up at a table full of booze.

you pop a can open, letting the bitter taste wash over your suddenly dry throat. the alcohol hasn’t got to you yet but you know it will and maybe that’s the only thing you have going on as you walk around, waving to people you know and lingering to talk with some, noticing that most of them are halfway to getting drunk.

some time later, you spot jisoo, lisa and jeongyeon dancing with some of your close friends. beer in their hands. you wonder how they’re going to find a boyfriend or even a hook up if they just keep to their circle - that was the clear as day distinction between you and them.

where they feel the most comfortable surrounded with familiar faces - regardless of whether they like them - you find comfort on a room full of strangers and the knowledge that you wouldn’t see them anymore after that.

but that wasn’t the case for jungkook. after one too many parties and several ‘hey, i was hoping i’d see you’s, a sense of camaraderie starts forming. of course, rules don’t apply where it would in a normal, socially sober setting.

you were friends as much as you were fucking like rabbits. finding comfort in mornings where you wake up without a sense of recollection, a throbbing headache and a lump of body underneath the sheets only to sigh in relief upon finding out who it was as though to say ‘oh thank god it’s you and not some rando i won’t know how to politely kick out while emphasizing that i have class in like 5.’

you embark on a visual searching journey to look for the same boy who wouldn’t mind if you had to shut the door in his half-awake face on mornings you had to get ready for class and still smiled at you later that night when you meet at a different party - until your gaze lands on a pair of brown eyes.

instead of wide and doe-like, the one that captured yours are hooded and heavy, boring into the windows of your soul. all of a sudden, you’re brought back to the same time last year. back when you were just a freshie with a stomach full of butterflies as you shyly look away from those piercing eyes.

but now, all you feel is your stomach rearranging and bile almost rising to your throat as you take a swig of the beer before melding into the crowd.

alpha sig is known for their closeness with circuit breaker, having been been sponsored by your own faculty for those with outstanding achievements to stay on-campus.

but none of the circuit breakers ever come to these parties - or at least, he never did.

almost as though the stars and planets aligned to manifest your only thought, a familiar voice wraps around the syllables of your name. and you would have continued on your merry way and pretend like you didn’t hear anything, if only you’re not in a hallway where there’s least people and subdued music compared to the dance floor you just escaped from.

“i heard you’ve been around,” kim namjoon stands at the end of the hallway, decked in plain gray t-shirt underneath a leather jacket and black pants. he takes easy, casual steps towards you with a dimpled smile that couldn’t have been more vain, “but i couldn’t believe my ears,” his shoulder line jolts as he shrugs, “well, until now, at least.”

“who would’ve thought? the cute ___ who blushed from a simple peck would have this side to her.” he stands a good half a head over you, his cologne’s changed from the last time you’d come in such a close proximity like you are now.

“yeah,” you drag out in a half-singing voice, face schooled into an unfazed expression, “i mean, it’s better than going around tricking girls into sleeping with you, right?”

at that, his smile instantly drops into a hard set frown as he lowers his voice, “i didn’t ‘trick’ you into having sex with me,” his lips quirk up at possibly a recollection of that night, “as i recall, you begged me to take your virginity.”

“that was before i knew your shitty motives to get brownie points from my dad just so you could win a stupid competition,” your voice is equally low and threatening, body heating up from the remembrance of those unreplied texts and the look in his eyes when you approached him that monday after the tournament - like he didn’t even know you.

namjoon laughs - the sound dripping with mockery as he throws his head back slightly, “come on, that was like a year ago. get over it.”

that’s it.

that’s when your mind is the clearest. no amount of beer could tell you otherwise - that this man right here doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt on the occasions that your friends begin spilling hot tea about the leader of circuit breaker and the things the members have done to win. they didn’t know about you and namjoon - nobody really does. you should have known those late night meetings and nothing but a polite smile when you pass in the hallways - were all red flags.

ones that you willfully ignore in the guise of ‘i’m not ready to tell everyone yet’s and ‘it doesn’t matter, if nobody knows, right? as long as i know you’re my girl’s

“you’re a dick.”

you push past him, cursing internally when he doesn’t budge and you’re the one who ends up with an almost dislocated shoulder.

it is only when you’re pushing a through the sea of bodies and swatting hands that try to grope your ass, does a certain doe-eyed, bunny smile enter your vision.

almost instantly, the urge to pinch the hand on your lower back disappears after knowing who its owner is. you’re pressed up against each other - the dance floor doesn’t allow much room for personal space and you’ve shared your personal spaces with each other far too many times to need that kind of distance from each other.

“i was looking for you,” the alcohol in his breath doesn’t feel all that repugnant as he nears his mouth to the shell of your ear, igniting a fire that kim namjoon had set up with the previous exchange.

he stands straighter, lips puckered sulkily as he swayed your bodies together, “we lost and everyone in my team had girlfriends or boyfriends to comfort them-”

your hands that cup his face and digs into his messy tresses make him clamp his mouth shut. the gentlest protrusion of his adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows in anticipation.

he asked and you shall grant it.

girlfriend. fuck buddy. what difference does it make?

“i know, koo. i’m sorry you wasted your time on that dumb competition.” you purr, noticing how his gaze becomes glazed as he steals a glance at your lips before meeting your eyes again.

a heartbeat later, you’re pressing your mouth against the softest pair of lips you’ve ever known. mentally, you make a note to ask what he uses to keep them smooth and kissable.

he snaps out of his stupor a moment later, hands snaking down to grab your ass like he’s done this a million times before and knows just how to get you moaning into his mouth. almost as natural as breathing, he slips his tongue past your lips tasting you.

another moan escapes you when he begins kissing down your chin, trailing sloppy kisses on your neck and suckling on the one spot that gets your heart palpitating on your chest. hands tucking on his pleated outer shirt for the sake of having something to hold.

you bring jungkook’s face to yours, noticing the sheen on his pinker lips before pressing another deep kiss. he doesn’t to think twice to react. one hand on your free hand slipping underneath your crop top. when someone shove into jungkook, almost sending you tumbling backwards and ending up doing the same to another person - jungkook curses. “fucking drunktards.”

a giggle escapes your lips, “pot calling the kettle black? we were probably bumping into people on nights we were shit faced drunk.”

“probably.” he shrugs, fingers lacing around your wrist as he guides you off the dance floor and into the kitchen where he doesn’t waste a second in hoisting you up onto the counter and slips in the space between your legs.

“hello.” you murmur, resting your forehead against his, cheeks hot and body aflame.

“hey, beautiful.” he fixes you a lazy grin, lips drawing closer to your mouth but before he manages to close the hair breadth’s distance, he stops.

“wait.” he murmurs against your lips, eyes glued to them as though he’s picturing another part of him on them.

“what?” you whisper, just as enticed by his own lips as your try to pull him closer with your arms that’s wrapped around his neck.

“are you drunk?” are his next words and you’re well aware the basis of where it spurred on.

once upon several parties ago, you’d included stopping you from putting on a risque show if your drunken self ever abandoned your self-restraint. jungkook, on the other hand, doesn’t love attention per se but he doesn’t shy away from it either.

“i’m not,” you assure, drawing closer to his lips by the second like moth drawn to flames. but you have enough sense to tilt your head to steal a glance towards the direction where you’ve been feeling a hole being drilled into your skull. your heart skips a beat when you catch namjoon’s eyes - he’s leaning against the wall with his friends either standing or sitting on the couch, beer in one hand.

“but i need your help to make someone jealous.”

jungkook follows your gaze towards namjoon and his friends a few feet away. it doesn’t take much for him to piece two and two together - especially after your a apparent animosity while telling him about the competition being rigged.

“ah,” he hums - you could just hear the smile in his voice. your knees weaken at the touch as you begin kissing the patch of skin closest to your lips which is his jawline. “i don’t know if i should be sad or happy that you’re finally agreeing to have sex in public with me because of some what’s-his-face guy.”

“not have sex sex,” you correct, delight filling your chest when he shivers - whether it’s from your touch of the image your words are painting in his head, you’re not sure, “but make out with me like you’re a kiss away from fucking me senseless?”

“i thought that’s a given?”

not needing to be told twice, you find yourself being devoured like a little rabbit in the arms of the beast. the background around you blurs together as you inhale jungkook’s scent, feel the warmth seep from his body to yours. your hand snakes down in between your bodies with one goal in mind: the gentle protrusion brushing against your own crotch.

“fuck a show,” jungkook hisses harshly against your mouth, breathing becoming labored as you caress him over the layer of his jeans, “where’s the closest room we can get to?”

you nod in agreement, hopping off the counter and tugging on your top to keep your nipples from being exposed after jungkook’s hand fall away from your breast at your retreat.

“they might have empty ones upstairs.” you tug on jungkook’s hand, making your way to the staircase and trying not to step over drunken bodies making out on the ground or simply passed out.

it’s when you get one foot on the stairs, that a clamoring thud erupts from somewhere on the dance floor - the air that was once blaring now pin drop silent. jungkook’s cheek presses against your back as he wraps his arm around your torso, a peck landing on your shoulder, not telling you to move but not really interested at the reason you paused to peer through the gaps of bodies that seemed to be looking at something just around the corner.

“shut the fuck up, dickhead!” a voice thunders against the walls after another thud that sounded like heavy equipment falling against the ground - and possibly breaking.

“must be those football guys fighting over a girl.” jungkook comments, uninterested.

on any other occasion, you would have agreed and gone on your merry way but it’s the unsettlingly familiar baritone that made you freeze in your spot in the first place. it’s with a rattling realization and the sight of jisoo among the throng of people, calling out “taehyung, leave it!” that gets you to trudge back to the floor, vaguely aware of jungkook trailing from behind with a “what’s wrong?”

eyes bore into your skull as you finally push through the throng of people and burst onto the scene. jisoo has her arms around taehyung’s while jimin appear miniature as he stands between the taller man and an unnervingly calm namjoon. the latter wipes a trace of blood from his busted lower lip as chills run down your spine when the man’s eyes falls on you, lips curving into a vain smile.

“why don’t you ask her yourself?” his voice drums against the walls - loud and clear to those who are watching which is basically everyone here.

“come on, ___, everyone wants to know if you begged me to be your first and how we fucked in the back room of the student lounge.”

[twinkleallnight]

Marshmallow

Losing her (Chapter 3)

Book : The Royal Romance

Pairing: Liam x MC, Drake x ??

For previous chapters: catch up here

Prompts: This is my first attempt at prompt challenge that I accepted. It was posted by @riseandshinelittleblossom and I was given these lines by @openheart12 . The lines appear bold in the story.

Special thanks to my dear friend @bbrandy2002 for pre reading and keeping up with me at all the odd hours. Can't forget to mention @speedyoperarascalparty who helped me with the texting message video in the begining of the story. Thank you so much dear.

Tags: @ao719 @bbrandy2002 @choiceskatie @drakewalker04 @gkittylove99 @hopefulmoonobject @jovialyouthmusic @mrswalkers-blog @mom2000aggie @speedyoperarascalparty @texaskitten30

Part 3:

In the morning my eyes open to the notification sound from my phone. It’s from Livy.

That last message makes me jump out of the bed. It is my favourite event- The Derby.

As I get ready my thoughts wander around the little banter I had with Livy over chat. I find myself smiling as I remember all those times, we had these talks growing up. It has always been like this. Every reply would always be to tease each other. Two years ago, she officially took over her duchy from her aunt Lucretia, who was a caretaker till Livy grew up. I shied away from there, as I found it inappropriate for a commoner to be a regular visitor to a Duchess. And now, we are left only with messaging each other. I hardly look at her in public. I shake my thoughts as they turn serious.

I need to go to the stables early. I quickly get ready and head to Liam’s room. I knock on the door and walk in without waiting for Liam’s reply.

“In the name of good Lord! Can’t you wait for a moment before I answer the damn door!” Liam shrieks trying to cover himself.

I give out a laugh and turn my back. “Okay, I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you that I am heading to Honeyhill downs a bit earlier then our plan. Ember is not well and she may feel left out while other horses are out for the race. I’m going to stay back with her. I will join you at the tents just before the race.”

Liam puts on his robe and comes to face me. “Do you realise you talk about that horse as if she is your girlfriend? Seriously, if you show even a tiny bit of same affection towards a human being you may have a real lady to call yours. And why didn’t you inform me last night?”

“I would have but that would have meant disturbing your little precious moment at the maze with your”, I say using air quotes, “girlfriend.”

Liam’s eyes give away a surprised look just for fraction of a second before composing himself. “I really like her!”, he says solemnly. “And I hope things work in our favour. But with this crowd of nobles I fear I will lose her.” Suddenly his demeanour changes and he looks at me with pleading eyes. “Can you help me by looking out for her? Especially when I am drowned in the rituals of the court.”

I know his feelings are sincere and I understand that this is important to him as Liam never asks anything of me-ever. He is a man who knows giving away for everybody. So I immediately agree and assure him that I will watch out for Riley.

I drive my truck and reach the stables well in time to give a quick check of all the horses. As planned, I stay back with Ember. When it’s about time I give her a pat, “Next time you will be fit enough to race, sweetheart! For now, you relax. I will come to check on you again tomorrow.”

As I move out of the stables I find Riley wandering nearby. “You seem to be lost.”

“Oh! Hi! Yes. Maxwell instructed me to move to the pink tents after meeting the press. But I can’t find pink tent anywhere.”

“Misinformed! You need to go to the white tent. Come on and I will show you the way.” We start walking in the right direction.

“You will be watching it from the same tent ?” she asks .

“No. I will be with Liam in his private tent.”

“May I join in too?”

“I am not sure. Let me check.” I quickly message Liam and get a prompt positive reply. “Lets go.”

We walk to the enclosed private tent around the racetrack. “There you go.”

She signals me to be quiet by placing a finger on her lips. I look at her puzzled. She moves in the tent behind Liam. He is staring at the racetrack busy in his thoughts. She makes a sound to scare him “Booh!”

He jerks up out of his seat, scared, but takes her in his arms within the next moment. She giggles in his warm hug and he has the broadest smile on his face. He looks up at me n mouths the words, ‘thank you!’ I m unknowingly smiling wide looking at the spark in my friend’s eyes.

As we settle down the race begins and we place our bets. I excuse myself in between to give the two love birds some time with each other. As the race comes to an end I escort Riley to the ladies group.

As I leave her, I get a glimpse of Livy's eyes staring at her. There is a flash of sadness before she covers it up with her cynical smile. I turn back to join Liam as we head to the lawn picnic. My mind is still trying to process what I saw in Livy's stare. I need to talk to her.

Queen Regina makes appearance at the lawn picnic. But what surprises everyone is Madeleine accompanying her. The former crown prince Leo abdicated the thrown after his social season. Madeleine is his ex fiancé. So everyone is wondering why is she here now?

Soon it is made clear that she is participating in Liam’s social season, as well. I look at Liam and we share our uncomfortable feeling over this awkward moment.

The teams are declared, Queen with Madeleine and Liam chooses Riley in his team. The game begins but my attention is caught by the pain in those green eyes.

I am not able to keep my eyes off Livy's face. What is it dear? I want to hug her right now and ask but I know I cannot be near the duchess without any urgent matter to discuss.

I lose interest in all the fun and game because, my mind is revolving around the same thought. I am going to meet Livy soon after this. I don’t realise when the game ends and when Max drags me along to the tea table.

Riley and Liam are seated already. There is another lady at the table. Riley perks up to make introductions. “ I am pleased to make your acquaintance with Lady Hana. Though we are competing as suitors here, I have found a great friend in her.” Hana’s brown eyes light up as she smiles and nods in curtsy. I acknowledge.

I settle down next to Liam. He senses my uneasiness and raises an eyebrow. I try to convince him with a smile and shake my head.

“Nothing that can’t wait for later.” I whisper.

We start eating the tiny tarts and just spoonful of snacks, something I hate about these events. I complain in the end that I m still hungry. Riley brings up cronuts and the rest of the table gets excited about trying the cronuts at a nearby bakery. I look at Liam wide eyed when I see him agreeing to sneak out of palace on Riley’s proposal. Liam is going all head over heels; my friend is planning to break rules! Whatever happened to the ‘stick to the rules' guy? Anyways, we plan to meet near the maze after sunset.

As we break off, I rush to the palace to catch up with Livy. I walk around her room for some time till I find the corridors clear and then tap urgently on her door.

“Come in,” her sharp voice calls out.

“Livy, it’s me!” I say as soon as I enter in. I feel weird. It’s been almost an year since I met her in private.

She is standing in the balcony, holding a glass in her hand, her eyes lost in the landscape somewhere in front of her.

“Livy?” I call out again as I get closer to her.

“ I don’t like it.” She says.

“Don’t like what?”

“This,” she shows her hands thrown out in general. “All this! I am stuck. We are stuck.”

“What’s going on in your mind, Livy?”

She frowns and glares at me. “First you move away now Liam is moving out.”

“I am pretty much here.”

“Yes, you are. Like everyone else is. For the crown.”

“I am still not getting what you want.” I purposely tease her more. She needs to lash out to get back to normal. Her Nevrakis' blood needs to boil enough before the outburst. “The events are going great and everyone is enjoying. Liam is happy, I think, really, very happy.” I push into her barriers a bit more.

I see the emeralds of her eyes getting clouded red with tears. There it comes. I brace myself. It is not an easy feat to stand alone against the wrath of Olivia Nevrakis.

“Just a year ago, I had all three of you, who called themselves my friends, with me!” she snarled. “ I was fine handling the heavy weight of the duchy of Lythikos all alone because I knew I had all of you to lean on. To keep me alive and human enough. Not the robotic royal machine I have to be in front of those high-headed nobles.”

“But you”, she jabbed a finger in my chest making me loose my balance. “ You were the first to conveniently wiggle out of the warmth that kept me together.” I stand straight again. “And now Liam is going all goofy puppy around that American. Fine! He is in love. I am happy for him. But he forgets,” she controls a sob, “forgets to be with me even on my parent’s death anniversary! Something that we have been doing together since I lost them.”

“ I am sorry Livy! I am so so sorry. I didn’t realise..” I don’t know what to say. I have always been worse, never having the right words in handling such situations. I try to move ahead and hug her, comfort her. But her palm faces right at me, stopping me.

“No. Not now. Not anymore.”

“Livy please!”

“I can see it’s getting worse. You kept treading outside my room long enough.” I looked at her with a shock. Nothing is hidden from her. She knew it was I outside her room!

Gauzing my thoughts, she continues. “I can recognise your footsteps. You should better know that by now.! You are scared to come and meet me or talk to me. I told you when I took up the duchy that I don’t care if you are a commoner. But you still continue acting Mr. Weird. I can’t take it anymore.”

She wipes the tears now rolling down her burning cheeks. With a new resolution, she blurts out, “It’s better that we stay away. I don’t want to be in and out of the comfort zone every other day. It’s better I take all the pain and hurt for once and all.”

I make another attempt to mellow her down. “Don’t do this Livy. Please!” I try to change the mood. “Riley has planned a sneak out cronut party. Come! We will enjoy ourselves together. It will be a nice change from the formal events. Max will be there too.”

She looks into my hopeful eyes one last time and then turns her back. “ I think I made myself pretty clear there. I don’t want to get hurt again. One day you're going to wake up and notice that you should have tried. I was worth the fight. It was nice knowing you. Enjoy your cronuts. Good bye!”, she walks away to her private chambers.

I stand there dumbfound. Suddenly my shoulders slump and I feel a heavy weight on my chest. After few minutes of inaction, I drag myself out of her room to the lawns outside. Somehow this is one moment where I don’t care if anyone catches me coming out of her room. I wish I had been brave enough earlier too, to not bother about who was watching me.

It feels like the worst day of my life. Losing her.

[ick25]

The problem with Megaman NT Warrior Axess.

As some of you already know, I finished reviewing the first season of the Rockman.EXE anime aka Megaman Nt Warrior. People have been asking me if I am planning to review the next season of the show that is Axess. The truth is that I have mixed feelings towards Axess because it is very different from the first season. Don’t get me wrong, I still love the show and I know the anime wouldn’t have been successful without Axess. There are a lot of things that I like, but also a lot of things that I don’t like, and if I were to review the episodes in order, it would be best if I got some issues I have with this season out of the way to avoid unnecessary ranting. (Unless you guys like my ranting for some reason)

1. The tone.

I personally like to call Axess the “experimental” season because it feels like it doesn’t even know if it should become a more mature anime or keep the innocent and sometimes goofy nature of the first season. One moment it has some silly situations and funny new characters, and in the next we have our beloved characters going through emotional traumas and being threaten with guns! Not space era guns like the ones the Net Agents had, but real guns. The biggest examples are Enzan and Mariko-sensei. For a kids action show, we get a lot of unnecessary drama, specially between Mariko and her long lost sister who she thought had died many years ago, only to come back and die in front of her twice, or having someone mistake her for Yuriko. I just think they could’ve written something better.

2. Unrecognizable past.

Axess tries to be a little more mature in tone and as a result it completely rewrites the first season like it never happened, at least, not in the way we remember. Changes like the plug-in PETs being replaced by the Advanced PETs that were just starting development in one of the last episodes of the previous season. However, they do mention the N-1 Grand Prix, Netto’s first meeting with Raoul, and the fact that Forte is now walking around in the real world in the former Gospel leader robot body, so that means the first season did happen, but differently? Going back to the tone issue, we get this conflict between Enzan and Blues who becomes corrupted by a Dark Chip that I personally find pretty boring because, one, we already know that Enzan cares about Blues ever since the Pharaohman incident, and two, I don’t care about this “new” Enzan enough to be interested in his life story more than the other characters. (Read the end of my review of episode 55 to see what I mean by new.) If the first season did happen, then why do we need to go into Enzan’s consciousness to see why Blues means so much to him, he didn’t seem to care much before the N-1, did he just forgot? He actually tells Netto after Rockman was deleted that he used to believe that Navis were just data. Some of the events from the first season don’t fit in well with Axess’s storyline making it very confusing.

3. Getting rid of old characters.

Another change was suddenly getting rid of some of the characters in the very first episode. Throughout the first season we follow the adventures of Netto and his group of friends comprised of Meiru, Dekao, Yaito and Tohru, as well as their Net Navis, but in Axess, Dekao suddenly decides to move to Jawaii to train with the Ex-WWW (who I don’t need to remind you that they are bad people) and leaves his little brother Chisao in Japan for some reason. Yaito moves back to Kingland to continue her studies or something, but then what was the point in moving to Japan from England (Kingland before it was a thing) in the first place?. And Tohru.... Well, he is still around, but let’s just say that he is not part of the group as much as before. Speaking of Tohru, Iceman gets a downgrade, he is now viewed more like a small child who hangs around with another small child like character, and less of a competent Navi that is capable of helping Rockman and the others to fight, which becomes very uncomfortable if you are used to his voice from the Dub.

The Net Agents are replaced with the Net Police as they were probably viewed as too silly for the new mature Rockman anime. So Axess sends them abroad with nothing but their space era guns only to return for a couple of episodes, one to remind us of the love triangle between Mariko-sensei, Higure and Masa as Commander Beef, and another just for Rockman to get Wood Soul from Woodman, which replaces the Style change in Axess.

4. Cross Fusion.

A drastic change, however, comes in the form of Cross Fusion. It might be hard to believe, considering all my CF design ideas, but I am not a fan of this concept. My theory is that Cross Fusion is a bold move the writers made to make the show more action like and appealing to young boys. In America, super hero cartoons are very popular, so in order to profit a little from that, the series had to be slightly modified to include more super hero transformation sequences and make the audience relate to Netto by fusing him with Rockman. Because Rockman is a computer program, kids can’t really relate to him, so they passed that torch onto Netto who basically takes over the show as the hero.

I don’t like this because I love Rockman, he is my hero and the main character, I never cared if I could relate to him or not, you relate with Netto as the human who develops a bond with an A.I. program that is loyal, always does the right thing, and does what he can to protect his friends. The whole point of the show is that they are best friends and their bond is what makes them a strong team, but even if Cross Fusion claims to be the result of that bond, it mostly just feels like it’s just Netto wearing Rockman as an armor.

There is also the problem with the action scenes in Cross Fusion. Not only do we get the same formula over and over again in Axess, but the battles are not as good as the ones in the Cyberworld. When you see Rockman fight, he jumps around, evades attacks, delivers punches and kicks when it’s necesary, making his fights entertaining. Netto on the other hand... Doesn’t really know how to fight, he relies more on brute force, the power of his chips, and almost never dodges attacks, the only thing that CF battles have going for them is the amount of damage they bring to the real world.

Anyway, these are just my opinions, but I’ll let you decide whether or not I review the Axess episodes in order, or have me review certain episodes from that or other seasons of Rockman.EXE.

[skepsys]

tell us more about your two lovely OCs please! how did they meet? how did their ship start? :eyes:

oOOOHGFGGGGG BOYYY Okay well ive only had them for about a week or so? two weeks? not very long so some things are still prettyyyyy loose/vague, despite HOW MUCH time ive been putting into them LOL but there’s some pretty solid building blocks regardless so Here We Go

to clarify ahead of time in case i havent already somewhere, SAINT is the robot with the toothy mask and Maverick is the guy with the white jacket

READMORE CAUSE HOLY FUCK THIS GOT LONG

ill be honest, they start off trying to kill and generally being pretty nasty to each other....! they’re both assassin/hitman/mercenary types so theres naturally a lot of rivalry there over who gets the real good jobs and stuff, but it’s made pretty personal right off the bat because Maverick is very smug and annoying and from the second he meets SAINT he makes sure to make it ABUNDANTLY clear that he’s better than him.  Maverick’s been in the game a lot longer than SAINT; the first time SAINT ever takes a job, he shows up to crash it and steal this Super Secret technology he had been sent to grab (which he was going to do ANYWAYS bc it was tech related to human augmentation, which he’s a Big Fan of, but SAINT getting there first presented him an opportunity to be an aggravating show-off, which of course he couldn’t resist...).  underneath the snarky flair with which he one-ups and outmaneuvers SAINT in this first encounter there’s a pretty serious threat to step off his turf Or Else, which as i said sparks a pretty bitter, intense rivalry

they spend a Good Long While beating the shit out of each other, like its ON SIGHT every time, Maverick has the upper hand for the first while, considering that while SAINT is COMPETENT, having been developed for combat, the fact still remains that he’s technically not a robot, but an AI whos spent a lot longer living in a computer than running around out in the world.  he eventually gets the hang of it though, and learns to see through a lot of Maverick’s feints and tricks.  they get pretty into it, SAINT has torn off one of Maverick’s (entirely mechanical and therefore fixable) arms in a rage because hes SUCH an insufferable dickhead, Maverick has trapped SAINT in a gigantic gas explosion... its kind of a miracle that the two of them make it out the other side alive every time??

it starts turning around when in the middle of one of their dumb scraps they get grabbed by some shaaaaaaadyyyyyy paramilitary group that i havent Super developed yet, but they turn out to be the Main Villains of the story so yknow theyre important.  the two of them are of interest because Maverick’s got absurdly advanced augments and implants, like “shouldnt really exist” advanced, while SAINT is a cutting-edge combat AI riding around in a unique, high-tech body.  the intention is theyll both be picked apart to be reverse-engineered, but not too long after getting caught and detained, Maverick manages to break himself out, bc being a slippery little weasel is kind of his thing

he then DELIBERATELY goes out of his way to track down SAINT and get HIM out too, in his words because “even though SAINT’s a pain in the ass, he doesn’t really deserve to be straight-up tortured”.  unfortunately he can only find SAINT’s AI, and not his body, and given that he’s got precious little time to figure out what to do, the two of them pretty much settle on getting SAINT’s AI out of the facility and then coming back later for his body.  unfortunately AGAIN they’re both idiots and think uploading a fully fledged combat AI suite to cerebral implants that are only really suited for enhancing reflexes and split-second decision making is a good, reasonable idea

long, painful story short, in the time it takes to escape and get to safety, Maverick’s brain almost practically melts from the strain, nearly killing both him AND SAINT in the process.  luckily with the help of a guy named Harlan, a genius bioengineer and Maverick’s ex they manage to get SAINT out and into a server he can live on for the interim

they do eventually get SAINT’s proper body back after a time where he has to live between a server and a shoddy temporary replacement body (which he is very angry about the entire time) but i havent Exactly figured it out since that has GOT to be very difficult and probably more than a 1.5 man job.  the two of them actually manage to have some actual normal conversations during this time but its kinda awkward and stilted.  theres a fair amount of realizing like “oh huh this dude is just A Normal Guy with like, thoughts and interests and stuff not relating at all to wanting me dead” on both sides

after this point they still butt heads fairly often but its toned WAY down; SAINT especially is kinda like “Hm.” because why on earth would this dude go so far out of his way to nearly die just to save someone who his only interactions with have been filled with vitriol and violence...? (spoiler its cuz Maverick is generally actually a pretty good and selfless guy underneath all the smugness and attitude)

eventually they start teaming up instead of constantly smacking each others’ wrists at every turn, around when the story starts really picking up and said aforementioned Shady Paramilitary Group starts becoming a proper real threat and theyre joined by a whole cast of other characters that i havent drawn yet (Harlan, as well as Leta, an AI programmer who worked on an early iteration of what eventually became SAINT, Jamie, Maverick’s older sister who’s a mechanic/pilot, Eleven, super-hacker extraordinaire, to name a few)

their progression from “kind of awkward friends” to “boyfriends, actually” isnt sth they rlly think about directly, its literally.  theyre both so goddamn STUPID it takes another character pointing out how theyve gone from “he’s fine, we work together pretty well i guess” to “id literally willingly die for this guy at the drop of a hat and also oh yeah i let him have access to some of my tech functions so we can keep better track of and support each other during operations better” for them to be like “wait oh shit oh fuck i might be in love”

THAT GOT SO GODDAMN LONG I LOVE THESE DIPSHITS SO MUCH IM CONSTANTLY BLOWING UP MY OC TWITTER W SHIT ABT THEM....IM TRULY LOST IN THE SAUCE ON THIS ONE... 

[valen-but-not-tine]

tezz, blake, agura, and mermista for that ask meme pls?

Fair warning a lot more of the questions have to deal with shipping than I thought when I first reblogged the ask meme this is for a /while/ ago, and I’m not really a big romance person (except one of these is in a HUGE ship of mine and I’m certain that was intentional ave.

got long, it was a long meme, and 4 characters

Tezz Volitov

What I like about them

well. that’s really hard to answer. to quote you, avery when I mentioned having trouble w this question, “I like him because he’s Tezz”

He’s everything that normally annoys me but done well to where it doesn’t?

cocky arrogant tech savvy bastard. but he has extremely strong sense of morals. Like boy took one look at the red sentients and was immediately ready to fight a war by himself and dedicated himself to being a one man rebellion.

What I dislike about them

how long it took me to answer the first question, he’s not my normal type, like for real I think his archetype normally annoys me, but for some reason the exact way he’s written gets around that.

Favourite moment

the entirety of the episode “Lord of the Kharamanos” Tezz making friends with tromp and once again showing his strong sense of morals with his absolute refusal to leave the kharamanos alone to fight the Vandals. I think this ties into why I love him so much, normally his archetype would have been the one willing to leave them to fend for themselves, helping them is a risk, but Tezz doesn’t even consider leaving, and is insulted by Vert considering it for even a moment.

Least favourite moment

The best quality version of his introductory episode on youtube is cut into 2 parts and the uploader split it /right/ in the middle of dialogue.

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

BACK! STORY! what’s his family life like? what did he eat when he was stranded?

An interesting AU for this character

This is pretty general for bf5 as a show, but in the the bf5 fused webisode “Cold Fusion” Sage is shown making an instruction type video for if they lose, somebody else could potentially take up the fight, and she deletes it at the end as Vert tells her the war will end with them. But what if she hadn’t. And then. what if they had lost? Tezz wasn’t part of the team yet, if the bf5 lost before he joined, but someone else (Grace?) found the video and picked up the fight, and then he joined? I don’t have much thought (well actually I have more than I’d like to admit) put into this idea, but ever since seeing that 50 second webisode, I’ve had that hmm what if idea in my head, and the only way I can really “see” it happening is if there was a similar situation to the shadowzone episode, where our bf5 meet the group that took up the fight when they died, team led by grace, with tezz, zen, and the rest of the group is ocs, but if this were a plotline I’d love for one of the team to be one of Agura’s brothers who came looking for her when she dropped off the face of the planet.

A crossover

umm I was really into storm hawks at the same time as I was into bf5, tho bf5 has withstood the test of time, so combining the 2 is something I’ve put some thought into before, but really w bf5′s setup of being able to go to different dimensions battlezones writing a crossover for really any show wouldn’t be hard.

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

I don’t have a lot of ships for bf5 as a whole, if I had to say one Tezz/Sherman, I love the interaction where someone asks if tezz is the brains of the operation and sherman says tezz is the left brain and he (sherman) is the right

Other ships?

Tezz/AJ I guess, in the finale when they sent the og team in bc “they started it, you should be the ones to end it” they had some cute interactions

BROTP

Tezz and Tromp, lord of the kharamanos gave us so much good tezz content.

NOTP

bf5 didn’t have a lot of romance, so there was never a set up that made me go NO but anyone with zoom is a full stop for me, there’s no canonical ages, but zoom reads as 16 to me, and most of the other cast as young adults, but adults.

An assortment of headcanons!

He’s Autistic!

Boy had a Bad Home Life, the boy was like 9 when he got himself stranded in a battlezone, and wanted to get back to earth because it’s where he’s from, but he /never/ mentions getting back to people. like it’s one thing if his parents just let him do whatever and he was experimenting in his free time, but he didn’t try to find anyone when he got back. and he immediately was ride or die for the bf5. the show probably just didn’t have time to touch on it, but with what we were given I can not see him having a good relationship with his family.

Blake (asuming Belladonna)

What I like about them

Listen I love revolutionaries. love me some characters fighting for a cause. Blake don’t back down.

What I dislike about them

how much Sun is tolerated lol

Favourite moment

When she stared her abusive ex in the eyes after he asked “what made her think she could win this time” and said “I don’t have a choice, I have people who actually care about me, and I promised I’d never leave them agian. So I’m not dying now!”

you tell him blake

Least favourite moment

90% of the scenes she shares w sun lol. why couldn’t we get more time with her parents? oh right sun took up any time they could have had lol.

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

fambly.

An interesting AU for this character

au where Adam never touched her.

A crossover

She-ra and the princesses of power, blake/yang and catra/adora, blonde jock and their cat gfs interacting

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

Uh Bumbleby without a doubt. they’re the slow burn we never get with queer couples, and while they’re not “canon” yet, that’s because they’re a slow burn, and they’re getting proper developement, but even so, them having feelings for each other is canon, to a point where Arryn Zech, Blake’s va got a motherfucking bee tattoo. like they’re /the/ main couple of rwby, Arryn mentioned Yang as someone who was in love with blake at a panel and had to be reminded to mention Sun. that’s cast tho, their interactions in show?

Yin/yang symbolism where they’re both both at different times, beauty and the beast allusions, character with abandonment issues/character who has a tendency to run, excellent fighting synergy? I could literally talk about how much this ship means to me for hours (you’ve heard a lot of it sporadically ave) and it truly means a lot to me, I’m not normally a romancey person, but something about a show I was into before knowing (or really admitting to myself) that I was queer giving me that rep? in 2 of my favorite characters? I’m used to seeing shows w queer rep bc I heard there was rep and decided to check it out, but Bumbleby seemingly happened around me already here. they’re not a queer bait. one of them isn’t going to die. and they love each other so much.

Other ships?

Listen. no other possible ship for blake (or yang) holds a candle (ha sweet burning the candle reference) to bumbleby. I’m not gonna go into it explicitly, bc the person who sent this ask isn’t there yet >:) but (as much as irl, friendship is just as important as romantic relationships, and I hate the idea of romance being “more”) the show has built up yang and blake in such a way that if anyone else wanted to be even considered they’d have to compete with the other. if you’re considering getting into rwby, Heroes and Monsters was the ep that a lot of the fan base realized that hey, they’re actually doing bees? and that’s bc there’s a scene that is so powerful with the 2 of them. from a storytelling perspective no other ship has the substance to compete with the bees.

BROTP

Blacksun. Blake and Sun work better as friends than they ever could as romantic partners, Sun has feelings for Blake, but they’ve always been one sided, and the only time he’s been on screen that didn’t have me rolling my eyes or wishing he’d leave blake alone so her parents who she hasn’t seen in years could maybe get some of the screentime he’s hogging was when he was recovering from being injured and blake is all “this is why I had to leave, my friends get hurt bc of me” and he was like “that’s our decision to make, I’d do it again, and I know Yang would do the same” like yeah he continues to flirt while in menagerie (sp?), but as soon as he realizes that she didn’t run off to fight the white fang alone he spends his time trying to get her to go back to her team.

NOTP

Tauradonna. I’ve also seen the “ship” called Animal Abuse and ouch if that doesn’t just hit the nail on it’s head.

An assortment of headcanons!

when blake and yang kiss for the first time her ears are going to twitch.

Bi

Agura Ibaden

What I like about them

listen the second thing she does in the show is tear a robots head off do I need to give more words than that?

What I dislike about them

I mean one of my only complaints w bf5 is I want more girls, does that count? I wanted to know more about her backstory in general too, like 5 brothers? at least one nephew? warrior princess? give me

Favourite moment

The first time Vert isn’t there and Stanford challenges her right to be second in command and she just shuts him down hard and takes charge.

Least favourite moment

uhhhhh. idk whatever made agura/stanford a bigish ship in the fandom

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

Listen. The toy line, which technically yeah sure not technically canon, but the toyline. calls her a warrior princess. was this just to sell toys? yeah probably. am I still intrigued. most definitely. Is Agura a motherfucking princess!!??

An interesting AU for this character

I can’t use the au I used for tezz, cause she’d be dead in that one. hmm. I just had a galaxy brain idea but what if everyone on the team got weapons with their vehicles and not just vert.

Give Agura a big sword.

OH SHIT I forgot about an idea I’ve had in the past but I don’t want to erase the give sword idea, one of those swapped aus shows have, agura and tezz are swapped tezz is on the team since the begining, is a little better w people, not by much he’s still but he didn’t spend his childhood alone fighting robots and sentients, and Agura got stuck on Vandal and becomes warlord within a year. Basically, trapped on alien planet--> I run this now. by time bf5 meet the vandals they’re allies not conquerors.

A crossover

yeah really just read what I wrote for tezz’s, the only way agura’s would change is if she’s a warrior princess like xena that could be fun, but cars and bf5′s whole thing would be super out of place.

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

don’t really have any, Agura/Grace if I have to

Other ships?

Agura/Sage

BROTP

Agura and the Cortez brothers!

NOTP

any straight ship with her is lame

An assortment of headcanons!

I know I’m not over the toyline but like. what if she was just a princess the entire fucking time. and was just way chill about it. imagine the shutdown

Stanford: ~I’m 189th in line for the throne~

Agura: cool I’m 2nd, but if it becomes relevant before my nephew is an adult I’ll be acting monarch until he’s old enough for the responsibility.

Stanford.exe has stopped responding

Mermista

What I like about them

I like swimming, she’s a mermaid

What I dislike about them

she’s vaguely got rude older sister in a sit com where the younger brother is the main character written by people who don’t have siblings, but like not really?

Favourite moment

“mermista will swim through the sewer system” “I’m sorry mermista will what?” but she still does it.

Least favourite moment

hhmmm not sure, she was in 5 episodes and I liked her, I guess early on when I saw her and sea hawk interact before I knew what their relationship was like and I thought she genuinely didn’t like him her intro scene was kinda :/

A situation with this character that I want to see explored more

well I’m expecting a princess with fire powers eventually (I haven’t seen original she-ra so I don’t know if that’s an accurate assumption) and fire/ water powers are always cool to see interacting.

An interesting AU for this character

maybe I’ve been reading too much of that she-ra dnd blog but she’s an eldritch knight with the control water cantrip and that’s gud

A crossover

it’d be neat to see her and Lapis Lazuli interact

OTP (or OT3+ etc…. just… favourite ship)

Mermista/Sea Hawk. It’s a twist on what we normally see where the guy in a het relationship is emotionally distant and the girl does all the emotional labor, but even then mermista obviously cares about sea hawk a lot, she is just not comfortable expressing affection, and he respects her boundaries and absolutely adores her.

Other ships?

did you see how she looked at adora after she transformed into she-ra? I don’t actually ship them but every princess is gay for she-ra

BROTP

With what we have so far I’d like to say frosta, just cause water/ice powers.

NOTP

I don’t think I’ve seen anything with her that I had a negative reaction too   ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I mean I guess frosta, we don’t have confirmed ages for any of them except for forsta who is decidedly way younger than the other princesses.

An assortment of headcanons!

the girl is bi

she had the mermaid tail before the people legs, and the tail is the default setting

[siliconwebx]

Is Discord The Free Slack Alternative for Your Growing Team?

Almost everyone who communicates with people online have heard of Slack. It’s communication software designed to replace email and make team communication a cinch. In a lot of ways, Slack is the industry standard for this kind of app. But it’s not the only player in the game. Discord team chat is nipping at its heels, and as a completely free alternative, puts up quite a fight.

Harmony in Discord

When you first boot up Discord, you will notice one major difference between it and Slack. Slack is business software that is wholly designed to be a workspace first and foremost. Discord, on the other hand, is primarily a communications tool aimed at gamer communities.

But don’t let that dissuade you. Discord team chat is fully featured and does just about everything that a growing team needs, without the cost that comes with Slack for a few of the more important features.

Major Features

Regardless of which software you choose, there are a few major features that make them worth using. The major benefit of these kinds of apps comes in connecting remote teams (and local ones, too) in a way that email and traditional IMs just can’t.

Channels and Private Messaging

In general, the big draw is that you can have separate channels for any number of topics or teams in your organization. For instance, we have a #content channel here at ET in Slack, while there is also a #development and #support and so on. You can also have private channels for smaller groups or topics, like if you go to a conference or have a special project (#wcus2017 or #blackfridaysale, maybe).

And you have private messaging between users, either one-to-one or group messages. You can do anything within a private message you can in a normal channel, only the contents stay between you and the other members of the chat.

For the most part, Discord and Slack both function identically with this. You get @ mentions and all the standard stuff you’d expect out of communication software with Discord team chat and Slack both.

Calls

In addition to private messaging, you can have calls between members of the server. These are VOIP calls like Skype, and they can be audio or video. With real-time interaction the main focus of Discord, the calls and video chats work pretty seamlessly. In my experience, they have higher quality for both audio and video than Skype, Slack, or Google Hangouts.

One check in Discord’s favor her is that instead of having to set up calls, you can just make voice channels. These are channels that still have text chat, but also have an open audio feed where folks can talk and communicate in real time. They can be private or public, and any number of people can be a part of it.

Mobile App

Mobile apps for team chats are necessities. What ends up happening is the chat channels turn into what might as well be text threads (with push notifications to boot), and you can initiate audio calls that come through like phone calls and video chats are essentially Facetime sessions. I’ve personally used both apps on a regular basis for all of the main functions, and neither Slack nor Discord’s app is really better than the other — they both do exactly what they’re supposed to.

Discord Pros versus Slack

Free Forever

You don’t have to pay for Discord team chat. Ever. The paid Nitro service is full of generally cosmetic upgrades (animated avatars, custom emoji); however, there are some upgrades potentially worth it for your team: increased upload limit and HD screen sharing. Since the upgrade is on an account-by-account basis instead of server, the folks who need it can pay as they go.

Also, Slack makes you pay per user, and Discord does not. You can have as many people on your servers as you want for free. Additionally, those users can sign themselves up without getting a special invite (which is not always possible for Slack servers).

Unlimited Messages

With Slack, you get to keep the most recent 10k messages your team has sent. Once you hit that limit, you cannot search the archives unless you pay.  With Discord, you can just keep scrolling and searching. They even give you a handy-dandy before/after tag that you can use while searching to bring up a pop-up calendar widget to hone in. It’s good stuff.

Text-To-Speech Notifications

When enabled, you get “to have a high tech robot speak your notifications to you.” It works surprisingly well, and when you get a lot of messages in a channel or a conversation you’re watching, having it read in real-time makes it a lot easier to get work done simultaneously.

Crazy Control

I say crazy here in the best way possible. With Discord, you can invite anyone anywhere anytime to your server. You can also generate any number of links to do this. If you want an open-invite server, you can make a link that allows any number of users to sign up and the link will never expire.

You can also set a limit on how many uses the link can have, expiration date, and even grant temporary membership so that the account they create is trashed when they disconnect. That way you don’t have people who need a single tech support conversation (or phone interview, etc.) hanging around your server when they don’t belong there.

Additionally, you can create as many servers as you want, just by clicking the + symbol in the left sidebar. So if you want a server for just guests that is totally separate from your primary team’s server (even outside of private channels, etc.), you can do it with a couple of clicks — for free.

Discord Cons versus Slack

Slack Apps > Discord Bots

When it comes to connections and utility, Slack’s developer API wins hands down. You can do so much with dev integrations in Slack that it’s hard for any software to compete, really. From Google Drive to Trello to Giphy, whatever you need to link to Slack, you can. With Discord, there is automation and a developer API, but the bots are generally for entertainment purposes. You could write some of your own, though.

Branding

Discord is aimed at gamers. You might honestly be put off by that. Slack presents a polished, business-oriented theme, while Discord is laid-back and casual. The features are documented with gamer communities and streaming in mind, while Slack’s are productivity-based. For some teams, this might not be a big deal — the branding isn’t actually in the way of the product features.

However, some teams may not be comfortable with having that as the main aesthetic of their business communications (especially if you bring clients online), so if that’s the case Slack is definitely the winner in this case.

Additionally, because of it being deemed as gaming software, some corporate firewalls may block Discord. You’d have to get special permissions and exclusions set up. For smaller teams and companies this might not be an issue, but it is an extra hoop to jump through if you’re in a larger, corporate setting.

One Account for Everything with Discord

With Slack, you have a separate user account for each server you’re on. So if you have a hobby slack and a work slack, you can have two separate profiles (even with the same email address). With Discord, you have a single username (ex: DiviUser#1337) that carries over for all your Discord servers and channels. This allows you to have a friends list (or contact list if you’re using it professionally), but it also makes your two worlds collide if you use Discord for hobby servers, too.

File Sharing

In Slack, you get 1 gb file sharing of any type. In Discord, you get 8 mb. If you pay for the Nitro plan, you get 50 mb. That’s a big difference. Additionally, Discord files are limited to audio and video, while Slack lets you make posts, send and share PDFs, etc. That’s because Slack is a workspace, while Discord is a communications tool.

Verdict: Is Discord Team Chat a Viable Slack Alternative?

Absolutely. Yep. Discord can absolutely be a Slack replacement, and is a viable alternative — especially if you haven’t already chosen a team chat. The Discord voice chat is head and shoulders above Slack’s, and making calls and having video conferences is so much simpler. (The text chat is comparable on both, really, so it’s a wash.)

Slack, on the other hand, is a more complete workspace. The file sharing is much better, and the ability to keep your work and play separate is a must-have for a lot of people. Also, if you’re big into automation, Slack’s apps and Slackbot are way better than the Discord versions. However, the freemium model may not work for all businesses, and paying for access to everything on your server after you’ve grown your team with a certain budget can be pretty disheartening.

If communication is your main focus, Discord is robust and easy to use. While Slack has a few more bells and whistles, they may not be worth the cost in the long run for your team. Do some tests and try them out for yourself since they’re both free to start with, but I think you’ll find that Discord is a lot more than just a tool for gamers to organize play sessions.

Have you tried Discord for your team? Let us know how it went for you!

Article featured image by discordapp.com

The post Is Discord The Free Slack Alternative for Your Growing Team? appeared first on Elegant Themes Blog.

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[evnoweb]

This Week in Ontario Edublogs

Welcome to a Friday before a long weekend.  It’s the last one of the school year but there’s something awesome about that!  Check out the following words of wisdom from Ontario Edubloggers.

Passwords

Jared Bennett reminds us that there are smart ways to handle the passwords on your accounts.  Using one really good one everywhere isn’t the way to do it!

Inspired by the message from Twitter to change passwords …

… Jared shares his thoughts about securities and encourages people to investigate the number of password managers that are available.  Quite honestly, I did that a couple of years ago and it’s made things so much easier.  A good password manager will create a highly cryptic password for you and save it encrypted online so that you can access it anywhere – even on your phone.

Thanks, sir, for the great advice and hopefully people will heed your words and become more secure as a result.  We are hearing rumblings of changes to logging in and that may be our reality someday.  But, for now, it’s a strong and unique password and two factor authentication whenever possible.

Working with students using classroom computers and a myriad of educational resources is another matter…

A New Teacher And Her Well-Being Strategy

If nothing else, all the discussion about mental health and life balance hasn’t been lost on Adriana Pietrantonio who used Laurie Azzi’s blog to share with us her plan for wellness as she leaves a Faculty of Education and heads to the education system for a profession.

I like her plan for taking care of herself.

Making sleep a priority

Going to the gym 3-4 times per week

Attending a yoga class once a week

Creating a weekly schedule to follow all my goals

Eat foods that make me feel stronger and healthier

Having open and honest communication with my family and friends about how I am feeling

Seek support from friends and peers when needed

I think a lot of people could benefit from this advice.

Life of an Ex-Student Teacher

I know that, after one year at a Faculty of Education, I was ready to wear the label “Ex-Student Teacher”.  I can only imagine what it feels like at the end of two years!

But Karaline Vlahopoulos claims to be ready to do that.

There’s a nice reflection on the program and tribute to those who touched her life for the part two years.  So, now it’s time to move on and get with the profession.

I know that we all wish her all the best as she rocks it.

3 Ways to Engage Students With Hard Fun

It was great to see that Brian Aspinall found his keyboard again and took time away from his boxers and carpool karaoke to share some thoughts about “Hard Fun”.

When you think about it, as teachers we can make anything “hard”.  Teachers lay awake at night looking for ways to make topics “fun” for it’s there that you reach that special level of engagement.  “Hard Fun” is an extra-special happening.

Seymour Papert makes an interesting argument here – http://www.papert.org/works.html.  It’s not a long read but it is insightful.

In this case, Brian talks about:

Unplugged coding

Green Screen Public Service Announcements

Making With Minecraft

All three activities, he sees fitting the bill.

I would suggest that the Green Screen activities are at a special level because of the advanced scripting and necessarily collaboration of the students involved in the activity.  It’s a nice combination of writing, planning, timing, and working with technology.  Plus, posting it to the web increases the chances for bigger audience.  You can’t go wrong.

When Parking And Driving Is Like Lining Up And Getting Dressed …

When I read the title for this post from Aviva Dunsiger, I had no idea at all where she was going to take us with it.

If you’re a reader of Aviva, you know that she makes reference to her driving and parking abilities quite often.  As well, when you read her writing, you know that she always works a whack of questions into things as well.

As this post develops, we learn more about her history of driving (and parking) and some of the decisions that she made for herself in that respect. It was a far different story for me; I couldn’t wait until my 16th birthday to get my Beginner’s License.

Things are different in the classroom though.  Student choice isn’t always a thing and often student decision isn’t possible in a world that thrives on conformity.

STEAM Team Evolution

I don’t know about you, but I get tired just reading posts from Diana Maliszewski.

By the time you read this, her school’s family STEAM activity night will be over.

There will be stations that explore straws and connectors, squishy circuits, green screen technology, unplugged coding along with Scratch, Dash robots, and bird feeder construction with recycled materials. The bands will play, Mr. Roberts’ Girls in STEM group will sell bath bombs and candles, and vendors like Elmwood Electronics and Ellaminnow will be there.

I’ve seen Diane’s organization ability and her devotion to whatever she’s involved with.  I just know this will be spectacular.

I’m looking forward to reading her post next week when she reflects and sums up the activities.

Reflections on the implementation of PBLA

From the TESL Ontario blog, comes a post from Sridatt Lakhan.

Into the post, I marvel at how education loves its acronyms.  SBAs, SUAs, Ts, As, all make the post until we get to PBLAs.  (Portfolio Based Language Assessment)

The argument turns to a discussion of the need for national standards and syllabus.

The individual components of PBLA may have sound research behind it. However, the assessment of individualized tasks cannot lead to a national language strategy which has national benchmarks and competencies. A national syllabus is needed. National competencies are fine, but their current implementation and achievement (i.e. results focused) go against the grain of adult education (andragogy) in our learner-centered, liberal democratic society.

I hope that you can take some time to click through and ready all of these intriguing blog posts.  There’s a little something there for everyone.

And, make sure that you’re following this bloggers on Twitter.

@mrjarbenne

@ms_pietrantonio

@KaralineVla

@mraspinall

@MzMollyTL

@avivaloca

@teslontario

This Week in Ontario Edublogs published first on https://medium.com/@DigitalDLCourse