#THAT MEANS UR ON IT TOO MUCH TOO SILLY BILLY

[omgeto]

you're on this app way too much

fine ill just go and piss off then

[lueurjun]

ੰ first kiss with enha | ꒰ heeseung , jay ꒱

enhypen reaction—there comes a time in a lot of relationships where the next step is taken, and here’s how the nerve-racking first kiss experience went for you and your mans.

version two: jake and sunghoon.

. . . . . . . ꒰ HEESEUNG ꒱ ,,

he’s a feral boy

we’ve all seen that man flirt and hip thrust HE IS FERAL

so naturally you’d assume he’d be laid back and confident about the whole thing

but when it comes to you, he’s a pile of blushy mush that just cannot comprehend the fact that he’s even managed to bag you

in his eyes, you’re out of his league

bc you’re a gorgeous gemstone! have faith in yourself bby ur wonderful

and without realizing, you actually intimidate him a little

bc ur just so goddamn perfect

an angel if you will

so the idea of kissing you just seems… scary

because what if he doesn’t live up to your expectations and you decide to leave him?

he is terrified of disappointing you so it actually takes him a while to gain the courage

which panics you because why in the world is this man not givin u a big ol’ smooch?

does he not want to kiss you?

omg does he think your breath stinks and is revolted by you?

you’re both massively overthinking it

lil silly billys

and none of you want to bring it up because how do you approach that conversation?

like you can’t just ask him ‘oh yeah, hee, how come you don’t want to kiss me? are my lips crusty? does the idea of locking lips physically repulse you?’

anyways you’re a couple months in

and things are getting serious so he can’t be that sickened by you

and you haven’t run for the hills yet so you clearly don’t want anyone else

finally. he’s had enough

this man is tired of staring at your lips imagining them on his own

HE IS YOUR MANS HE DESERVES SOME SUGAR

to be honest at this point you’ve given up hope on him kissing you, and you’re much too nervous to make the first move

so you just kinda go with the flow

which naturally means that the last thing you were expecting when sliding your cute lil self into his car

was for him to lean over, cup your face and plant one tasty smooch on those lips of yours

you literally froze for like two seconds but once realisation settled in, you kissed that man back in milliseconds

heaven. cloud nine. neither of you wanted to pull away

unfortunately, you had no other choice

so taken aback by the sudden kiss the only thing you could think to do was share a giggle before you held up a bag full of treats for your date

gosh ur both so awkwardly adorable i can’t

“i got us snacks for the car ride! but you taste better.”

you’re so cute stop the little blush on your face after saying the cutest yet lamest thing ever

heeseung cannot resist tugging you back in for another little lip tasting sesh after that because you are the cutest thing to ever exist

he is an absolute simp for you AS HE SHOULD BE

. . . . . . . ꒰ JAY ꒱ ,,

despite being the perfect man material, he isn’t the most experienced when it comes to relationships

like he’s had a partner before, but it was never serious so the milestones just weren’t that important to him

but it’s different with you

don’t roll your eyes at me

idc if that’s cliché okay. it’s jay. you allow it. lose the ‘tude baby cakes i know you rolled your eyes

anyways:)

everything that didn’t seem so important in his last relationship suddenly seemed a thousand times more nerve wracking this time

because losing you is on the line and jay knows that he doesn’t ever want that to happen

suddenly he wants everything to be perfect because you deserve the world and nothing less

hahahahasleepingontheroadtonight

jay absolutely refuses to give you a shitty first kiss

it has to be romantic. and it has to be amazing and if you don’t like it then he will slide down the wall

clutching honey to his chest

sobbing

same tho that’s a mood

anyways yeah he wants to make sure that you get the most romantic kiss ever

meanwhile you’re not too fussed because it’s jay and no matter what, kissing him would be a dream

unless he’s like a really bad kisser but he’s perfect so he’s not

he’s taking his time to prepare everything

like he plans a candle lit dinner, rose petals, the finest food

the whole shebang

lemme be you for one day i beg

but two days before the dinner is set to take place

YES HE HAS A FULL SCHEDULE

the two of you are hanging out like normal and the vibes are immaculate

and you both want to kiss each other

the timing just seems right

but jay, the little dum dum, is fighting with himself

because does he really want all of his hardwork to go to waste?

you’re both leaning in but smoke is practically pumping from his head due to how fast his mind is racing

seconds away from those luscious lips

HE PULLS AWAY

absolute dummy

you’re hurt and embarrassed obviously

bc you just got flat out rejected and that’s just horrifying but it’s fine it happens to us all babe

and jay is panicking because well… you look like you’re going to start sobbing

“is there something wrong with me?”

the crack in your voice. the pain in your eyes. THE QUESTION ALONE

oh dear jay feels like he’s going to throw up

this is NOT how he wanted any of this to go

you start packing up your things to leave which is fair because you’re embarrassed

and jay is trying to figure out what to say or do

and then he just decides to be honest because honesty is the best policy

so you’re about to step out of the door when he gently grabs your arm

“look i’m sorry. i really really really wanted to kiss you… it’s just… i have been planning a perfect dinner for weeks so it would be perfect. i didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, i just wanted it to be perfect for you.”

i’d fold honestly

i have no shame

and neither do you apparently because you can’t help but crack a perfect little smile

“so do i have to wait for this dinner or can i kiss you now?”

BOLD

you’re an icon

jay just kinda smiles sheepishly

and then he caresses your neck and tugs you into one of the softest, most amazing kisses you have ever had

firework inducing even, toe curling, heart thumping-

sorry i’ll stop

the point is, the kiss is AMAZING

maybe you didn’t need a fancy candlelit dinner to make it perfect after all

perhaps, all you needed was each other

i’m legit sobbing someone pls send help

[creepswrites]

haiiii!!! its me 🍭

ONGOGMGOFMGOMG im sorry if it took long to react to your writing of my request and IM IN LOOOVVVEEEEEE thank u so much i want to engrave it on my wall!!!

AND I HAVE ANOTHER REQUEST :DDD a bit silly too, soooo, headcanon forrrrr michael ('78), jason and billy lenz with a gn! s/o or soon to be s/o who looks very intimidating, maybe goth adjacent?? but personality wise is like that image of a dog with a propeller hat and a lollipop :-) a very sick request from my twisted mind again i knowww

anyways!! thank u again, i hope both sides of ur pillow are cold and u get plenty of sleep 🗣️🗣️🗣️

AWW THANK YOU SO MUCH!! i'm so glad you like it, that means a lot!!

SLASHERS X GN! S/O WHO IS GOTH & INTIMIDATING

JASON VOORHEES

I'm sure Jason's mother had things to say about people who dressed the way you do

But when he finally gets to meet you and learns you're just the sweetest thing? Oh he's all OVER you

He's not intimidated by you per say (he's a man with a machete after all) but he was a bit shy when asking you out

Definitely thinks you're pretty in your outfits though

You've caught him staring several times when you put on certain outfits you put a lot of energy into

If you ever meet with any of the campers, they're definitely put off by how you look

But Jason knows he's the one they should really be scared of. You're too sweet for that

MICHAEL MYERS

At first, it probably didn't make that much of a difference to Michael

He was attached to you, you fascinated him regardless of how you looked or acted

As you grew closer, he started to enjoy watching you put on makeup, no matter how much or how little

If you offered to do his, initially he'd just walk away without hesitation

But you can eventually wear him down enough :)

You've both got a very intimidating look about you, definitely giving power couple vibes

You're much nicer than he is though and anyone who observes you two for long could easily pick that up

BILLY LENZ

He initially screams when he first meets you. Not because he hates it per say, just because he's not used to it

Probably screams down the phone about it too, calling you scary looking or simply shrieking whenever you picked up

Billy takes some time to wear down simply because he freaks out easily but you being kind and playful helps him adjust

Steals your makeup at least once or twice to try and put it on the way you do. Sorry if he spills a bit... or a lot...

Happy to let you be the intimidating one though. He may be loud and terrifying over the phone but you're far scarier looking than he is

Trails after you like a lost puppy sometimes

You definitely hear him whisper and mumble about you being pretty though :)

[ddejavvu]

the ultimate boyfriend james potter in my head will forevermore be big beefy rugby jamie because that is SO boyfriend material so here i am projecting <33

James with a bestfriend (wink) or s/o that has cold hands 90% of the time. like, cold hands and cold feet . but cold hands so it takes so long to text back sometimes if they’re out n hes like “oh god am i in trouble she’s been typing for three whole minutes now” but it’s literally just ice fingers taking ages to work

very clear image of him being like - like you’ll both be out somewhere so he’ll ‘accidentally’ brush ur hand but when he notices how cold it actually is he drops all coyness and he’s just like “bug what??? ur hands r freezing why wouldnt you tell me 😡😡👎” while he’s blowing into em and then he gets to use the excuse allllll the time to hold ur hands cus he’s just being a good friend, wouldn’t want ur hands to freeze off! (even if ur hands r warm like ur sat watching a movie he’ll just hold em, and if u give him a look he just :]] )

oh god he’d probably also use it as a way to flirt even harder. like he’d notice ur hands are ice and ur maybe sat on em to warm em up so he’ll drop in a cheeky comment about how his tummys(abs he means his abs feel em it’s okay) always super warm and to use it as a heater. okay fine 🙄🙄 my arms are red hot too, go on, i suppose u can use them instead and ur like “james i am not going to feel u up” and he just :]

he definitely sends u lovey dovey taylor swift songs all the time cus he heard u humming one ONCE. he sends u wonderland, enchanted, U BELONG WITH ME, invisible string, lover, cardigan (he makes a playlist with these + others on and ur sat there like ‘🤨🤨🤨 is this..platonic?’)

(other honourable mentions on the playlist that I love and James would think he’s so sneaky and smart for adding: vanilla baby by billie marten, here you come again by Dolly Parton, uptown girl, build me up buttercup, hopelessly devoted to you, be my baby, i know it’s sapphic but he’d add she by dodie, cant take my eyes off you, my kind of woman, kiss me) n he would jokingly sing them to u randomly even when he knows you’ll get embarrassed and try and escape the area as soon as he starts up but that then gives him a reason to silly sing and hold onto u so ur now close to him, in his arms, and he can see u all cringing and embarrassed but at least ur attentions alllll on him [ie you’ll all be out at a pub and you hear the first four words from “cant take my eyes off you” come out of James’ mouth and ur immediately up n ready to bolt]

i thjnk i just enjoy the pining too much so all of this is James Potter Pining Pre Relationship thoughts because as nice as relationships are, the little bit before them is so sweet too <33 especially when reader is a bit blind lmao like UR SO STUPID HE OBVIOUSLY LIKES U (sirius would definitely shout this repeated from the get go, he’s like “babe he added paper rings and willow by Taylor fucking Swift to ur fucking COUPLES playlist after hanging out today - all he did was make moon eyes at u as he rubbed ur hands pls OPEN UR FUCKIN EYES” and Remus would have to redirect him cus he’s going a bit red in the face from lack of oxygen 💀💀)

today is multiverse monday! send me any au you can think of :)

--

BIG !! BEEFY !! RUGBY !! JAMES !! i actually got this ask like.. 9 seconds after u sent it.. bc i was obsessively refreshing tumblr while waiting for my dad in the car.. and the way that i giggled and kicked my feet and twirled my hair and skgsndjfanfkskjnakfnSNGKSJFNJFSND every single thought you send me scratches my brain in just the right way, i know when i see you pop up in my inbox i'm in for the treat of a lifetime <333

ICE FINGERS!!! i swear my poor best friend has to wait 20 minutes for little responses, i totally identify with that <33 no sometimes he just calls you like 'honey baby love darling are you hurt? are you okay?' and you're like >:(( i'm cold >:((

“bug what??? ur hands r freezing why wouldnt you tell me 😡😡👎”

he totally gets snippy about it!!! like 'that's my job, y'know, as your best friend. can't believe you'd lie to me.' / 'i didn't lie?' / ' you didn't tell the truth either!'

so he grabs em and gives em a good rub, and you swear you're about to short circuit when he raises them to his lips and blows hot air into them, rubbing them together with his own large, calloused ones <33

LMFAO SGKJDNFD NO BC he's like did u know my abs r actually so warm. they're a heater. biceps, too, it's a natural heating pack. and oh, god, don't get me started 'bout between my legs- and ur like JAMES!!!! NO!!!!! but he's >:)) why not sweetheart, afraid you'll like it??

HEHE i don't listen to much of her music but i know a few songs on there and yes, they're all on my james playlist!!! he slaps 'em on there, definitely plays love story at parties so he can kneel and pretend to propose to you and if you do not say yes he gets so butthurt. but not mean butthurt, pouty butthurt, and you'll have to rub his back and promise you didn't mean to hurt his feelings <33

NO BC SO MANY OF THOSE SONGS ARE ON MY JAMES PLAYLIST??? he's a loverboy fr, and he can't stop embarrassing you in public by singing to you. it's two birds with one stone, yk? one because he gets to basically confess to you, serenade you in front of a crowd and treat you like a princess the way you deserve, but two, because you always get all flustered!! and it means that you'll bury your burning face into his chest so no one can see you, and he can spin you around and sing about how much he adores you :')

no you are so right!! that's why i love slow burns so much, because the build up is so sweet!! i shit you not, the majority of my roommate!marauders fic plans are literally just reader and james growing sickeningly close and pining all the time because it's what i want in life!!! james potter loves hard and he should love me.

LMFAO SIRIUS IS LIKE REALLY.. REALLY BABE? AND I THOUGHT REMUS WAS SLOW ON THE ROMANTIC UPTAKE.. he definitely locks you in rooms together or ditches you on walks or pushes you into james so the big beefy guy can catch you <3333

[solar-halos]

wait yall i literally can't sleep in kinda a crazy way so here are my lucy gray and billy taupe hcs. yes theyre all highly specific. yes they only make sense within the highly specific pre-canon lore i established in my fics. lets just get into it

i know it's not really feasible but i am a firm believer in billy taupe being lactose intolerant. like of course he fucking is. billy taupe ruins fucking everything

with that being said, his ass needs to watch the fuck out. one wrong move and lucy gray is tampering with his fucking food yall dont know about her

okay no seriously he'll say something like "would it kill you to cook something edible for once" and she'll be like no but this might and then sneaks so much fucking dairy into his food

billy taupe never hits her sober, but when he gets drunk, he does get a little rougher. maybe not intentionally, but, well, you know. he's naturally the bigger one, so he's not as careful as he should be

i'd love to say that lucy gray starts swinging back but i think 1) she is smarter than that 2) wasting her makeup covering up a bruise that she offensively acquired doesn't sound worth it to her. like she's gonna try to diffuse, not actively esculate the situation. i do think she's a huge Object Thrower during sober arguments though

but that's the only case of her diffusing anything bc literally any other time is fair game. billy taupe bets on the wrong dog? don't catch lucy gray in a bad mood, or else she's gonna snap at him for being a bitch (pun not intended). he comes home late from the hob? he can sleep out on the fucking porch since he loves being outside so fucking much. looks at a girl a little too long at the market? lucy gray refuses to hold hands with this IDIOT and she's telling him off the entire walk home. she's not even waiting long enough for them to finish up their shopping

they're both so insanely jealous. at first i made a joke like "haha billy taupe is the type to get jealous when lucy gray kisses him for the first time and it's not sloppy bc that must mean she had prior experience" but i was wrong lucy gray is definitely getting so fucking upset over that. i think the shift of billy taupe being the more jealous one comes when they get a bit older. men are fucking weirdos though so i can def see him getting jealous only in specfic contexts, like exclusively when theyre performing. otherwise he's like this is my girl isn't she pretty and everyone else is like shut the fuck up billy taupe

speaking of performing, billy taupe rips up lucy gray's performance dresses and her makeup whenever he gets mad about her getting too flirty. unfortunately, since our girl isn't a diva 100% of the time, all she rlly does is get angry, but it happens again and again and again until the rest of the covey step in and start switching up the defense they use. instead of being like hey billy taupe it's pretty fucked up to treat ur gf that way they're like well lucy gray obviously intends on keeping him around but he can't keep ripping up her pretty dresses or else we'll have to send her out in rags. which. isn't very good for business

this is less of a lucy gray and billy taupe hc but i think billy taupe and maude ivory had huge big brother and little sister vibes. CC represents one end of the spectrum (accepting, but ultimately dejected by billy taupe's absence) and maude ivory represents the other (absolutely PISSED. a child of divorce fr)

when they break up she lets shamus gnaw on any leftover clothes that billy taupe didn't come back for (she threw all his stuff out the window after she found out about mayfair). she also burns all the songs he wrote for her

this one is very silly but they have a custody battle over shamus. still need to write that fic tbh

tbh that's all i have to say bc atp i feel like im just gonna be regurgitating the stuff i already wrote about in my fics. but that's all for now

[cashandprizes]

i was tagged by my gremlin partner in crime @mr-laveau to pick some songs and list the ships i associate them with. i am such a playlist girlie (gn) so this is very exciting for me!!! welcome to the inner machinations of my spotify~

Prissy (Alexis/Christian) - I know @autisticempathydaemon will have their own song (Hozier, I bet) for them but this is mine. It fits Christian's dorky but trying so hard vibes for me

Hot Honey Pizza/51 Shades of Honey (Guy/Honey) - SOMEONE i won't name names stole my song, so I had to pick another one! This is because of the silly jail jokes.

DAMN Polycule (FL/Damien/Huxley/Gavin/Lasko) - thank you @calicostorms bc this is from your playlist (HE MAKES SUCH GOOD PLAYLISTS Y'ALL) and like I could see FL saying this

Sam/Darlin - it was either this or save a horse ride a cowboy or pony ok this song is what I say every time I talk about the terrible amazing things I would do to my favorite southern belle (including the tiktok adlib "bend me over break my back in and fuck me from the back-") but I think it's still kind of cute and fits them

Ivan/Baby or Regulus and his listener - if you're ever met me you know I love my yanderes so much and like, Miss Twigs was NOT playing with this one (not pictured but also relevant is #1 crush by garbage)

James and his listener - I imagine his listener writing letters to give him when he (HOPEFULLY???) comes back just telling them about everything going on. It's very sappy.

Marcus/Love - speaking of yanderes <3 of course I had to pick a Vocaloid CLASSIC for this one

Alexis/Sam - I just.... this song fits them so well for me there's another Mayday Parade song that I think works too!

Not a ship, but this song makes me think of Freelancer and Caelum in the first season 💖💖

Geordi/Cutie - I mean. The title says it.

Spotify has officially said this is the maximum amount of songs I can link so that's it for now. Maybe I'll make a part two? Who knows. This is Lexi 🌕, signing off.

tagging my friends (no pressure live ur life): @calicostorms @angelnoodlesoup @just-call-me-angel @horrorscoupes @bicyclepainting @ejunkiet @gingerbreadmonsters (sorry if you were already tagged!)

[cupiidzbow]

aaaAAA??? THANK YOU SM FOR FOLLOWING ME!!! i really appreciate it, you're one of my favourite blogs and your art/gushes are always so sweet and wonderful to see!! 🥹🥹💚💚💚

i also wanted to share a silly story: the other day i was playing mario kart and i threw a shell at the character in front of me, who happened to be funky kong - and i instinctively went !!! OH NO FREDDIE'S BOYFRIEND :( and then i made up for it by playing as him today for the first time!! jhfdgfkjd his voice lines and trick animations are so silly and fun! that is all i hope you are having a good day!

— @anemone-ships

HEHEEE OF COURSE OF COURSE !!!!! I ALREADY FOLLOW U ON UR MAIN AND UR SO KIND AND SO PLEASANT AND I GOT SUPER EXCITED SEEING UR SELF SHIP BLOG !!!!!! :D ALSO WIAUGAHSGSGSH THANK YOU SOSOS MUCH ???? wuaghh that’s so sweet I’m so happy u like my art and my silly lil thoughts of my silly lil guys that really means so much to me oh my gosh 🥹🥹🥹💕💕💕

HEHEEEEEE U GOT HIM !!!!!!! THROW THAT SHELL AT HIM AGAIN 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️ (JOKING) AKSJJSHSHSHS THATS SO FUN THOUGH OMG!!!!! I HOPE U HAD FUN PLAYING AS HIM the animations they gave him are so charming and I love the voice clips they use for him in the mk series he is sooo silly billy wheeheee 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹 ALSO IM SO HONORED THAT U THOUGHT ABT ME WHEN U SAW HIM !!!!! thank u so much for thinking of me 🥹🫶🏽💕 I HOPE UR HAVING A GOOD DAY TOO !!!!! THANK U FOR BEING SO KIND TO ME WHEEEHEEEEEE 🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹💕💕💕

[angeltism]

rarepair ship anon , , , saki x nene is one of my faves , , , , silly . Nene w natural curls and saki slowly teaching her 02 care for them , , they're so sweet n special 2 me

shizuku x mizuki , , , i mean model and fashion designer dynamic , , , shizu probs gives the best cuddles fr ( also i hc shizu as transfem as well so that adds to why i like them ! )

ena x tsukasa , , , nawt sure why i love them so much but big sib x big sib , , , they both luv their little sib so much and show it so differently ,

also mino x shiho !! i luv them x kohane anyway but they r so kyutsies together !!! i love soft shiho and ditzy minorinrin

kohane x emu is another one , , that one mixed event with the beach cards , , , and kohane's first anni card ! they're cutsies

with ur last shuffle honestly i kind of love the dynamic of any of them paired off !! rui x an after the kamiyama mixed , rui x akito is akito torment but cute , rui x airi could be interesting to consider ! Airi x An could be cute since they both have very strong personalities too , , and ofc aki x an is one of the more well-known straight ships ( considering it's not cross-unit)

but particularly i like the aki airi dynamic !! they're so cute to me :3

sawrry if i'm nawt very helpful TvT , , , Have a good day Aqu-Angeltism !!

WAWAWA THESE ARE ALL SO KEWL OH MY GOD ??? I CAN SEE THESE SM SJSIFJSJSJ THESE R VERY HELPFUL ACTUALLY . I'm nawt great with imagining how cross-unit characters interact most of the time n I should probably actually Read more of the events n such . but for the time being I LOVE hearing abt rarepairs and cross unit ships they're all so silly billy n help open up my brain to more ideas n stuff . so this was VERY helpful n omg I love this sm tysm anonnie . they are all so cutesit . ♡♡♡

[rrxnjun]

when nobody's watching ;; hrj

pairing. huang renjun x fem! reader genre. high school au/university au, cheerleader! reader | coming of age, platonic, angst, fluff warnings. alcohol and weed mention, swearing wc. 11k (10.932) a/n. no plot, just identity crisis.

playlist. idontwannabeyouanymore - billie eilish ; patterns - sarah close ; lonely - the maine ; rare - waterparks ; always forever - cults ; snow globe - waterparks ; hope ur ok - olivia rodrigo

where renjun can't seem to figure out who he is when nobody's watching and where you carefully examine and amire each version of himself he creates along the way.

When you’re 14, you watch Mean Girls for the first time. In the dark of your bedroom, with your childhood best friend Jung Sungchan huddling all your blankets to his side, your laptop illuminates the midnight with the gorgeous face of Regina George as both of you awe and giggle at the silly script. When you’re 14, watching Mean Girls for the first time, you are very aware of the fact that after summer ends and you turn 15, you’re going to high school– and the image of having to live through the fate that met Cady, you shiver with horror. That night, you are determined to live through high school with a smile on your face. Too blinded by the dramatized image of the high school experience, you decide that you have to be one of the nice girls everyone likes, because if you’re not, you can’t imagine having to ruin someone’s life just for popularity. You don’t really strive for popularity, don’t get me wrong, it’s just that you’re simply too terrified of high school before it even starts.

When the time finally comes and you turn up to the building with a tall, lanky Sungchan by your side, you realize too soon that life is, sadly, not like Mean Girls, and while you’d love to wear pink on Wednesdays and walk around in designer clothing, your small high school in the tiny, microscopic town you’ve grown up in, is too old-fashioned to have their roles divided this way. Sure, the hierarchy is there, and the cafeteria sure does have assigned seats for all the different friend groups and extracurriculars, but it’s not as serious as the story you watched all those months ago with both terror and excitement, making you quickly realise that you don’t have to try hard to fit in with the populars, because it’s truly not that big of a deal.

And so, in the spirit of the new realization, you join the cheerleading squad. I know, it sounds ironic. All this fuss about the fact that Mean Girls wasn’t actually as realistic as you thought it was, all for you to end up with the popular girls anyway. In your defense, it wasn’t that serious. You weren’t even that good at cheer. Jung Sungchan just made you join so you could be at all his soccer matches so he could boast about his abilities the moment the match is over. Curse the boy and his athleticism.

Standing in the heat of the sun, droplets of sweat appearing on your forehead as you tug down on the short cheer skirt, you huff as the cheer captain– Ryujin, as you learned only a few minutes prior– walks around and yells at you with what you presume is supposed to be support and excitement. 

“Y/N! Why are you just standing there?” she asks you, her voice genuinely concerned, but also laced with a bit of annoyance. This is the third time you’ve messed up on today’s practice, and while you don’t really mind that much, you think your teammates are close to breaking down.

“Uh…”

“You’re supposed to be all the way over here!” she reminds you, pointing to the spot next to her on the freshly mowed grass, making you smile at her with tight lips and jog over there, nodding. Of course you were supposed to be there. You knew that…

“What’s going on, Y/N? You did great yesterday,” she sighs, making you roll your eyes. Yes, you did well yesterday– that’s because the formation was still fresh in your brain and the choreography wasn’t as complex. Also, yesterday was much more casual, since it was the first practice of the year. It was spent getting to know each other and sharing snacks in the locker room. On top of that, it’s only been 24 hours and your brain adapts slowly. There’s no way you’d remember the formations you learnt yesterday, when the sun is glazing your high, slicked ponytail, making you think you’re going to overheat and fall to the ground any second.

“I just… kind of forgot the formation?” you smile innocently, making the older girl look at you with wide eyes and an ironic smile, the despair clearly written on her face. 

“Don’t even try to tell me-”

“But I’ve got it now!” you say, showing her thumbs up, trying hard to calm the cheer captain down. You don’t really know what she’s like– from what you’ve seen, she’s nice, yet a little scary when she gets frustrated– but you can only imagine how she’s going to kick you out if you don’t manage to get your shit together and remember all the choreography you were taught yesterday. It’s just cheerleading, for god’s sake! You always liked gymnastics…

“Okay,” she huffs, shaking her head as she faces the front of the soccer field you’re currently training on, making you do the same as you notice the flood of your school’s soccer players get out of the gym, one of them being your dear friend Jung Sungchan, carrying the ball. “From the top! 5, 6, 7, 8!”

Your body moves almost on auto-pilot. Now, I’m saying almost– you don’t really remember the formation that well and you have to keep glancing to the girls around you to match their movements, but you seem to be in the right places at the right times, so Ryujin doesn’t really notice, which saves your ass, if you’re being totally honest. Curious of the sight in front of you, your eyes scan over the crowd of boys laughing to themselves as they kick the ball around, ready for their soccer practice.

You recognise some of the upperclassmen. Yuta is the team captain, and if your high school was like Mean Girls, he’d for sure be the Aaron Samuels of them all. He passes the ball almost gracefully to his best friend Mark Lee (you only know his name because one of the girls from the cheer is into him. He seems a little goofy, but you guess Jisu doesn’t really care), who passes it to another boy, whose name is either Jaemin or Jeno. You don’t really know which one is which, because they always go everywhere together, and when you asked Sungchan for their names the last time you saw them in the halls, he just told you it was ‘Jaemin and Jeno’, and so did everyone else you’ve ever inquired about the two. Nobody ever really specified which is which. 

Making a swift turn with confidence– because this is the only part of the choreography that you actually remember– your eyes are met with Ryunjin that is now opposite of you, wearing a focused smile that only reaches her eyes when you look at her. You suppose it’s a form of encouragement, a silent praise that you didn’t fuck it up yet, and it makes you strangely comfortable. Turning back to the soccer players– because the formation requires so– your eyes continue to watch the small crowd on the other side of the field.

“Chenle, pass to me!” you hear someone yell out, making you giggle as the boy holds up a middle finger to his opponent that was trying to trick him with a childish stunt, passing to his teammate. Stepping from one foot to the other, continuing to half-focus on the task you’ve been doing, you watch the boy that’s now in charge of the ball, your eyes almost falling out of your sockets.

The boy now running around the field with the ball is fairly short compared to the rest of the team, his jet black hair flowing in the wind as he charges through the field. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him before, because you’re fairly certain you’d remember the perfect curve of his nose and the focused pout on his lips if the encounter between you two did happen, the white of his ankles captivating you in a manner you’ve never experienced in your all 15 years of life. 

Yells and curses are thrown across the soccer field, the boy not really knowing what to do as he looks around in confusion. He looks like he’s just as good at the game as you would be… except with your eyes closed; so you don’t really know what he’s doing in the team. But hey, you can’t judge. Maybe he just really likes soccer and wants to learn. Everyone starts somewhere. Focused on the soccer practice, another sharp voice pierces through your ears– the owner of it being your cheer captain, Ryujin– making you halt in your movements and hide behind one of the girls in terror.

“Y/N I swear to fucking god if you mess up this formation one last time, I’m going to shave off your eyebrows in your sleep!” 

There goes your daydreaming. Strange– you thought you had this part of the choreography down, you were 100% certain you were doing the right steps and that the timing was sharply correct. You must have been distracted…

“I’m sorry-”

“The practice is over for today, I genuinely don’t have the energy to deal with this anymore,” Ryujin huffs out, making the rest of the cheerleading squad take their duffel bags off the grass, scattering back inside of the school building.

“I promise to get it down before the match, Ryunjin,” you peep as you catch up to her, trying hard to regain your position as a reliable cheerleader. You were told your smile was quite captivating, something a good cheerleader should never lack, so you suppose you can’t really let that quality go to waste so soon.

“You better, or else I’m kicking you out,” she glares at you, and you can’t really tell if she’s joking or not.

Squinting at the sophomore, you hum. “Are you serious?”

“100%.”

Nodding, you clear your throat. Taking a glimpse behind your shoulder, looking at the boy that made you so distracted in your routine, you take notice of his lost expression and the aimless posture of his hands by his side. He’s almost a little too far behind the whole team, and while you don’t really know how soccer works, you really think he’s not playing the game right, but you don’t pay more attention to it as you look back at your captain with a warm smile.

“I’ll do better.”

This is your first encounter with the boy named Huang Renjun. You learn his name through your best friend Sungchan, and while you were teased for hours about the intentions of knowing it– because Sungchan is one gossiping fellow who lives for drama– you don’t back down and fulfill your plan of learning something about the boy. After stalking the soccer player on instagram for a bit, you learn that he doesn’t quite live on social media (and good for him, honestly), making you curse as the only pictures of him you find on your feed are the ones his mum posted on his birthday. He’s a baby on those and he didn’t even like the post, not paying attention to it from what you presume was pure embarrassment. 

The soccer match is in two weeks, and while you’re not exactly living the plot of Mean Girls, you sit at the cheerleader table for the time being. You suppose getting closer to the rest of the girls can only serve you– you’re a 15 year old with a dream of having the wildest high school years, after all– and it’s also good to hear all the gossip about the soccer team. You finally learn which one is Jeno and which one is Jaemin, and you also learn that Huang Renjun is a freshmen like you–, and while you learn that everyone thinks that he’s insanely pretty (which makes you frown, because you selfishly wanted to be the only one), he’s also insanely quiet.

You tried to bug Sungchan into befriending him. It didn’t work– he already befriended the talkative Zhong Chenle, telling you that Renjun is too quiet to strike up a conversation. You just think he chose Chenle for his big house and the fact that he has his own basketball court he gets invited to four days a week, but you won’t say that aloud for the fear of sounding jealous of the fact that you can never tag along.

The weeks before the match finally pass and you’re at your first high school soccer game. Dressed in a skirt that just barely covers your asscheeks (you complained to Ryujin about it. She told you to deal with it– you’re exceptionally tall for your age), you twirl around with pompoms in your hands, cheering for the team you know by their names now. You quite like the feeling of having the whole school looking at you when you perform your routine in the half-time break, the formation now permanently glued inside of your brain, muscle memory trained hard now as you were watched by the stern eyes of your cheer captain the remaining cheer practices. Squealing and cheering for the team, you get so into the whole process that you feel like the main character of a movie (so glad it’s not Mean Girls), ready to watch the game when the routine is done and you can take a break on one of the bleachers.

Your eyes involuntarily follow Huang Renjun across the field. He does look a little out of place, you must admit. You wouldn’t really call him the sporty type either– his body not as chiseled and firm as his teammates, although you’d say that’s partly because he’s still growing and in puberty– but there’s something about him that makes you magnetically pulled to his presence, not being able to take your eyes off him. 

So when the ball is finally in his charge and he runs around with it, looking like a lost puppy when you play fetch with it on its afternoon walk, your eyes light up, you almost even let out a happy squeal when he charges forward, the last few seconds of the match passing by as the crowd yells out a countdown. The whole thing is so intense you think you could pee yourself, if you’re being honest, and as you stand up to get ready to cheer for Huang Renjun’s goal– the one that could make your team win– the excitement dies down when the boy kicks the ball forward with no real intention, the opposing team instantly taking charge and striding towards your school’s goalie.

You may be a little obsessed with Huang Renjun, yes. But even you can admit that he messed up the match pretty badly, earning your team the first loss of the season, making the following matches end just as badly with the bitter essence of a bad start.

You’re just 15 when you first notice Huang Renjun trying to desperately fit in to a cafeteria table, the only thing that reminds you of your favorite teenage movie that you watched with Sungchan in the middle of the night. You’re just 15 when you see the first version of the boy, not knowing that the next four years spent watching him silently will be just as eventful and interesting, keeping you on your toes the whole time. 

Sungchan would say you were just 15 when you first got a crush on Huang Renjun. 

You’d disagree. Not because it’s not true,

just because you won’t give him the satisfaction of being right.

At 15 years old, Huang Renjun leaves the soccer team after two lost matches (which were, admittedly… both kind of his fault). Cheerleading isn’t as exciting anymore when he’s not there, but at least you get to watch Sungchan… am I right?

You’re already a sophomore when you finally share a class with Huang Renjun. You’d think this fact would help you get closer to him and learn something about the boy, but the opposite is true as your object of interest doesn’t really interact with anyone outside his circle, keeping to himself. Truth be told, you’d do anything to fit into his circle– but with the company he chose for himself in the sophomore year of high school is nothing close to what you represent, the science kids so far away from the cheerleading status you still hold.

While you’re still stuck in your Mean Girls arc, Huang Renjun switched to the Harry Potter universe, it seems. Or maybe it’s just your sudden obsession with the books that’s making you feel this way… Nonetheless, Renjun now reminds you of the Ravenclaw boys in Potions class, except this is reality and you’re only sitting in Chemistry, watching over his every move as he moves through the room and focuses on the experiments.

Sungchan nudges you with his elbow, scowling. “Stop ogling Renjun and fucking do something, I think this is going to blow up any second!”

Hissing at him, afraid his mean comment could be heard by unwanted ears, you grit your teeth at your best friend and roll your eyes. “Shut up.”

“No, I mean it, though, I think this is going to blow up-”

“I’m a cheerleader, Sungchan, I don’t know Chemistry, for fuck’s sake,” you sigh, fully commiting to the social norms you were put in. The soccer player only glares at you more after your comment, deciding to take the boiling mixture and spilling the contents of it into the sink with one swift motion of his hand, hopefully not burning the drain in the process and getting you in trouble. You never know with Chemistry. One wrong step and the whole school is on fire. On one hand, you’d love that, but on the other hand, you’d love to experience your first kiss before dying, so you really, desperately hope nothing goes wrong this time.

“Great, now we gotta start over,” you shake your head in disbelief, already taking another cauldron into your hand and putting exact measurements into the flask. 

“As if the last mixture was salvageable,” Sungchan mutters, making you kick him into his shin for being annoying.

“Maybe you can befriend Huang Renjun and he can help us with the experiment,” you suggest innocently, watching your best friend melodramatically scream at your premise. This is not the first time you tried to make your friend to get to know Renjun, but it’s also not the first time he’s declining. You don’t know what’s so hard about being Renjun’s friend, you suppose he has a lot of them– from the looks of the group now standing around his small frame– Sungchan could easily sway the quiet boy with his charm and get him to your side.

“How many times do I have to tell you that I am not befriending Huang Renjun? You can do that yourself, if that’s really all you desire,” he huffs, shaking his head in disbelief.

“But-”

“No buts, for fuck’s sake,” he cuts you off, already knowing the contents of your rambling, “sometimes you gotta do the first step, if you want to cuff a man!”

“I’m old-fashioned, I’ll let you know.”

“That’s just… simply not true,” Sungchan grins, making you sigh.

“I mean, yeah,” you agree, feeling heat rising to your cheeks as you speak the next words, “I’m just shy.”

“Y/N,” Sungchan sighs as he looks you dead into your eyes, seriousness dripping off his tongue, “you’re like… the least shy person I know.”

Offended at his comment, because in this exact moment, you feel nothing but shyness when the topic of your conversation is Huang Renjun– your classmate you’ve never even talked to in the first place, but somehow grown interested in the first moment you’ve seen his face for the first time– you shake your head in disagreement. “You know that’s not true!”

“You made friends with my teammates even faster than I did! Don’t try telling me you’re shy when you were playing Call of Duty with Mark in his dorm room the first week you met him,” he rambles, making you grin at the comment. You knew he was jealous of you being friends with his older teammate– it didn’t matter that the boy was more awkward than anyone you’ve ever encountered (while also simultaneously being the most social human being on the campus, somehow. You’d say he’s so socially awkward and so social that it’s awkward at the same time.). At least you have revenge for not being invited to Zhong Chenle’s basketball court (yes, you’re still salty about that. You were decent at basketball. Well… more decent than Sungchan, at least.). 

“That’s not the same, though,” you roll your eyes, making your best friend suggest something that is already known between the two of you, but never truly solidified in words.

“Because you like Renjun?”

“He seems interesting-”

“Because you have a crush on Renjun?”

“I do not!” you scream out, making the rest of the classroom look at you, resulting in you hiding behind your giant friend in shame. You only hope the rest of the conversation wasn’t heard by the whole classroom. You’d pack your things and move away to Nebraska if it was.

“I suppose the two of you are done with the experiment?” the professor inquires, making all blood leave your face as you vigorously shake your head in disapproval, apologetic smiles sent her way as you promise you’re almost done and that you’ll be quiet from now on. Truth be told, you don’t even know if you’re almost done. You don’t know how the experiment is supposed to go. You can only hope the period ends before you have to show the results.

Reading over the manual again, with Sungchan standing behind you and looking onto the white sheet of paper over your shoulder, you try hard to succeed in your assignment. 

“I think I’ve got it,” he mumbles under his breath, gathering the things needed and finally getting to work, motioning for you to get closer and help him. 

“You’re actually smart for a soccer player, you know,” you grin at him, the annoyed look on his face being the result of your successful teasing. Sometimes it’s fun to poke around with social norms and stereotypes– mostly because they’re kind of true. 

“Just watch over the caldron and make sure it doesn’t bubble. If it does, turn the heating down, okay?” he urges you, earning himself a focused nod.

Now, the task at hand is easy. You just watch the caldron– it’s not difficult at all. But as we already established, you’re an individual that gets distracted really easily– especially when Huang Renjun is present in the same room as you, breathing the same air and looking insanely gorgeous even when he’s boredly looking at his own tools, seemingly done with the experiment with his head rested on his plopped-up hand, dissociated and uninterested. The group of boys around him– Shotaro, Jisung, Doyoung and Shohei, the proclaimed class geniuses at Science– look excited and immersed in the conversation, giggling at jokes and playfully smacking each other’s shoulders in fits of laughter when someone says something exceptionally funny. You imagine it’s Science jokes you wouldn’t get. You do fit the stereotype of a cheerleader, in a way– you’re not stupid, but you’re also not that smart in Chemistry, so you couldn’t indulge in their jokes even if you really wanted to. 

Renjun looks uninterested and left-out. You feel the sudden urge to take him into your small circle, to ask him about his day and about his interests. He seems so different to the boy he was last year– while he did hang out with the soccer boys a few times after quitting the team, you didn’t really see him around. You suppose that the first impression you make on people is usually how you stay fixated in the minds of the general public, and while he used to be a soccer player for a while (two months, to be exact), he then lost the status, resulting in him being just… simply invisible for the rest of the year. 

You were glad to see him with a new group of friends when you arrived in Chemistry class for the first time in your Sophomore year. While you didn’t really know how he ended up with them and what they do for fun after class, Renjun was now a part of the Science kids (this is your Mean Girls arc showing through. He does sit at the Science table in the cafeteria, though, so no one can really blame you for stereotyping.). 

In this exact moment, though, he seems to be collectively excluded out of the collective. It’s frustrating– for this is the second time you’ve seen it happen to the boy– but you suppose there’s nothing you can really do or say to make it change.

“Fuck’s sake, Y/N! I told you to look after the caldron!”

“Oh shit!” you yelp out as you see the mixture boiling, the liquid inside turning black with steam, making the whole experiment fail for the second time. 

Sighing, the boy only shakes his head at your distracted figure, taking the flask into his hand and once again, dropping the contents of it into the sink. Looking around the classroom, desperately trying to find something to anchor to so you can fix the situation, the bell rings and you’re left with the relief of knowing that the class is over and nobody can tell that you failed the assignment miserably.

“You’re lucky the bell rang, because this failure is completely your fault and I wouldn’t waste any time burning your skin off if we were called to show the results to the class,” Sungchan mutters, gathering his things.

“You’re not scary. I saw you shit your pants when you were eight.”

“Fuck off,” he rolls his eyes, leaving you behind to pack your things and silently ogling Huang Renjun on the other side of the classroom. The small circle of his supposed-to-be friends is now standing with the teacher, excitedly nodding as you hear them talk about a competition in Chemistry that is taking place next week. Interested in anything that includes Huang Renjun, you eavesdrop until you realize the boy was left out of the event– the four names scribbled down onto an application paper by their leader Doyoung left on the teacher’s desk, Renjun’s name nowhere to be seen. 

You don’t think he did anything wrong to get left out. Looking at the neatly done experiment, you’re fairly certain he deserves to be on the list of applicants.

Looking at the group, you just think he didn’t fit in with them.

Huang Renjun leaves the classroom alone, his backpack thrown over his shoulder. After the year ends and he no longer takes Chemistry classes, you never see him with the Science kids again.

“I can’t believe you dragged me to the play just because you didn’t want to go alone,” you whisper to your best friend, staring forward at the stage. It’s almost over now, you can tell because you read the book it’s following– you were always a big Oscar Wilde fan– and you can’t help but giggle at the state of Sungchan. The poor boy isn’t used to having friends outside of the soccer player circle, and while he’s sociable, the image of showing up to the play completely alone, just because his friend Guanheng asked him to, is truly terrifying in his eyes.

“I can’t believe you only agreed when I said Renjun’s in the play,” he responds to you with a snarkier comment, making you roll your eyes at him.

“Shh,” you put your finger against your lips, subtly telling him to shut up, “I’m watching the play.”

“Sure…” he mutters, making you smile in satisfaction, for you managed to silence him and keep Huang Renjun out of the conversation.

You’re 17 now. You don’t know much more about Renjun than you did when you were 15, and you no longer share a class with him anymore, so you doubt you’ll ever really get to know him. You rarely see him, since you have no mutual friends or mutual interests, and so your silly crush started to subtly fade into the background. You must admit that you don’t look away when he passes you in halls with the group of drama kids he hangs out with now– you’re a weak, weak woman, after all– but the silent obsession with him is not your main personal trait anymore, and you can tell that both you and Sungchan are more than happy about the fact.

When the play ends and the whole cast scatters onto the stage to bow– you recognise Guanheng, Dejun, Kun, Sicheng and the director, Ten– all smiling brightly beside Renjun in the very corner, who only gives the crowd a shy grin as he bows down with the rest. Truth be told, you never expected him to get into the drama club. He always seemed quiet and reserved, but you suppose this is him experimenting with what he likes, finding the outgoing side in him and getting into more social circles. 

After the lights turn back on and the school theater empties itself out, you find yourself waiting outside with Sungchan. The boy scratches the back of his neck in nerves, stressed from the sudden interaction with the drama kids. Your best friend is quite popular within the school, so you’re not really surprised that he and the charming Guanheng hit it off right away after meeting in Physics class. The sudden blush on his cheeks whenever you mention his new friend makes you strangely suspicious, though, but you won’t get deeper into it.

“Sungchan! Y/N!” you hear cheers from behind you, making you turn around and greet the cast of the play you just watched. Guanheng offers you a welcoming hug that you gladly accept, the rest of the friend group just as friendly to you as their connecting link is. Somewhere in the back of the group, you see Sicheng– the charming senior– trailing behind with Renjun. Too shy to look at him– because you still have the hint of the silly freshman on the inside– you avert your gaze off him and focus on the rest.

“We’re actually going to McDonald’s to celebrate the premiere, are you going with us?” Kun asks, a warm smile playing with his features. 

“I- I mean-” you see Sungchan stuttering, shaking your head in disbelief at the hesitance he shows when he gets too much attention. Jumping in to save the boy, you quickly agree.

“We’re down!” you nod, seeing the man gratefully smile at you as you follow the drama club through the center of the town, towards the closest McDonald’s.

Throughout the whole journey, you’re painfully aware of Huang Renjun’s presence. You two haven’t even said hi to each other, and while you didn’t expect for that to happen, you still feel a little awkward to be invading his space. He’s in the back of the group with Sicheng, the two of them perhaps the closest of the whole club, and you wonder if it’s your fault for making him so distant himself from his friends right now. Did you invade his circle? Did you make him feel uncomfortable? You’ll leave, if that’s what he wants…

Arriving at the McDonald’s, you all order yourself your fast food of choice, the conversation flowing surprisingly easily after Sungchan gets accommodated to the new section of friends around him. Sliding into a big red booth in the corner of the room, you’re pressed between your best friend and Dejun, who can’t stop talking about the new Avatar movie. You almost agree to go see it with him in the cinema, from how desperate and excited he sounds, but then you’re reminded by the fact that you haven’t even seen the first part and you actually kind of hate sci-fi… 

The whole time, your eyes don’t leave Renjun. Old habits die hard, you suppose, but you’re happy to see him genuinely laugh. You don’t think you’ve ever seen that on him before, and the sight of his eyes crinkled up into moon crescents and glittery stars in his dark orbsmakes your heart swell with fondness for the man. Still, though, you can’t help but notice the exclusion from the group– maybe he just doesn’t do well with crowds– as he sits in the corner of the booth with Dong Sicheng, while the rest are indulged in a shared conversation.

You don’t dare to try to include him in your conversation. Frankly, you think he isn’t interested, and it’s also not your place to organize a setting you were just tagging along to, only being invited because of Sungchan. 

In the back of your mind, you think this is it. You think that Renjun’s battle of fitting in is finally over and that he found his place. He looked so familiar with the boys, so eager in the conversation with Sicheng– you’re happy he finally found his place in the world. It’s an unexpected one, to say the least, but you’re just satisfied with watching him be happy from afar.

You pay your goodbyes to the rest of the group after your meals are finished and the clock strikes 10. You’ve never been this close to Renjun before, and you don’t think you’ll ever grow closer. It’s fine with you, though. You’re always watching him– even when nobody else is, interested in knowing about his well being and the trajectory of his life. It’s strange, but it’s natural for you.

When you’re 17, you think Renjun finally found his place in the world– you think he’s finally satisfied with his table at the cafeteria, with the social status he has, with the group of friends around him; although still a little distant with most of them except for one. When you’re 17, you didn’t know you couldn’t be more wrong.

When junior year ends, Dong Sicheng graduates.

Renjun never hangs out with the drama club again.

When you finally turn 18– the birthday party with baby pink party hats and champagne all over the carpet of your teenage room– it seems like everything takes a sharp C turn. You’re a senior now, and while you got admitted to your dream university after many hours of stress and days spent filling out the applications with your best friend Sungchan late in the library, you don’t think you’re ready to leave your home yet. 

It’s kind of weird that you realize the fact at a goodbye party thrown by your classmate Donghyuck. You’ve never really talked to the man before– you just shared multiple classes with him and he offered you weed outside of the gates to the building once– but there’s something about the aroma of the liquor he serves in his kitchen that makes you reminiscence about all the years you’ve spent in the cheer team or sitting at your little desk in the classroom, listening to only some of the lectures, because you didn’t really mind the rest. You also get back in your memory to the spacious cafeteria– the soccer team and the cheer team have joined their tables together after some months, and while it wasn’t like the Mean Girls, you still felt lucky to have such a big supporting system. 

Your cheer captain– Ryujin– graduated one year before you, the role of the most responsible one falling onto your classmate Jiwoo not long after, since they were always friends and you all wanted to lead the team in the fierceful manner Ryujin always has. You swear you saw the ex-captain somewhere in the house a few minutes ago, though, carrying a bottle of vodka under her shoulder as she twirled her slim body around one of the guys that graduated two years ago, the one you always saw Donghyuck hanging around with in the backs of the school halls, wearing leather jackets and snickering with smug grins.

Twirling the liquid in the red solo cup around, standing alone in the corner of the living room (Sungchan left you stranded a few minutes ago, when he spotted Chenle and Guanheng in the crowd), your brain takes you back to all the memories you’ve made in the last 4 years.

You remember celebrating one of the only wins your school’s soccer team got in your freshman year with Sungchan, the tall boy carrying you on his back as he ran around the field in the lights of the reflectors. You remember blowing up the Chemistry lab with him once or twice, and you also remember the whole classroom giggling at you when you had to clean it up, accompanied by the horrified screams of your professor. The memory of the winter formal in your junior year is the most vivid in your brain– you went with your cheer friends, while Sungchan finally scored himself his first date. Her name was Lily and while you found the girl to be quite nice, the memory in your brain is so bright mainly because your dear best friend was so drunk out of nervosity of being with a girl that he puked in the school yard, leaving you to laugh your ass off until tears were streaming down your face. 

Your whole four years were consistent. With the same group of people, in the same school halls and bedrooms of your friends when you had sleepovers as a cheer team building. You always had fun when new freshmen joined the team, making sure they know which Sophomore and Junior boys to be wary of, and while you’re excited for university, you don’t think you’ll get to replicate this carefree and silly presence of high school ever again.

“You okay?” you hear a voice call for you, making you snap your head up and see one of your classmates, Seunghan, staring at you with glittery eyes and a warm smile. You always perceived the boy to be quite the shy individual, but you think alcohol always helps everyone to get out of their shell.

“Yeah,” you nod, quick to make his worries fade away, “just lost in thought.”

“I get that. It’s surreal that we’re graduating, isn’t it?” he grins, shaking his head in disbelief. You didn’t expect anyone to get your feelings, but here you are– you guess you’re never as alone in your views as you think you are.

“It’s crazy…” you mumble, finishing up the cup and looking around, catching the boy staring at you constantly. Not really seeing your friend Sungchan anywhere, you decide the second best thing to do to pass time is to catch up with the boy right next to you, and so you lean closer to him and ask him if he wants to get out for some fresh air.

After seeing him nodding eagerly at your suggestion, you find yourself trailing out of Donghyuck’s house, straight to the backyard, while passing some of his friends on your way– their irises were twice as wide as a normal person’s would be and you swear you sensed the sweet, disgusting smell of weed resonating through the walls, so you were glad to get out before the essence got so deep inside of your nose and make you want to puke. 

As a cheerleader, you were a regular at those parties. You’ve seen enough of Yangyang, Donghyuck, Eunsok… and Renjun getting so high and mixing the drugs with alcohol that it left them out of it for hours, and you don’t really need that for yourself right now.

“Finally,” you gasp when you reach the backyard, leaning on the wall of the house. Seunghan follows you with a cup in his hand that you’re not sure when and where he’s gotten on your way out, sipping on the alcohol as his eyes never leave your frame.

“What are your plans after graduation?” he asks, genuinely curious.

“University,” you say, letting your eyes travel through the backyard, finding multiple people sharing cigarettes and pipes in the bushes, giggling to themselves. “You?”

“Same,” he nods, “I got into the town’s uni, so I’m just gonna stay here, though.”

Humming, you take a short glimpse at him. Truth be told, you don’t know much about Hong Seunghan. All you know about him is that he’s super nice and he always greeted you when you passed each other in the halls, despite not having many shared classes or social circles. Your friend Yeri once told you that he’s got a crush on you when you got an anonymous Valentine’s day card in your locker during junior year, but you dismissed the thought quickly as you realized you’ve never really had a coherent conversation with him. Looking into his starstruck eyes right now, though, you can’t say that you wouldn’t believe it now…

“I’m moving across the state, actually,” you grin, desperate to hide your despair behind a smile. Sungchan got into a university only an hour away from yours, which is the only thing that’s keeping you going right now– while you will be so far away from home, at least you won’t be completely lonely. If you ever feel like it’s too much, you can just catch a train and meet your childhood best friend in the next town. It’s easy. Or at least, that’s what you keep telling yourself.

“Why so far away?”

“I don’t know,” you mumble, taking your eyes off him again, looking through the crowd in the yard and finding a familiar figure, sitting lonely at the edge of the empty swimming pool, his legs dangling inside as he leans back, supporting his weight with his arms and looks towards the sky, “they had the best History courses, I guess…”

The conversation you’re having with Seunghan is only a background task now, a side quest in your game, as you focus on what you’ve been doing in the back of your head for the last 4 years. You monotonously reply to his questions and hum at all the right places in the dialogue to seem interested, but your eyes are focused solely on the man sitting at the swimming pool, looking more lonely than ever before. You’d make yourself feel silly for paying more attention to a man you’ve never spoken to than to the blushy classmate standing to your left right now, quietly obsessing your whole teenage years with a stranger, but for all you know, this could be the last time you’re seeing him in your life, so you let your inner little crushing-on-Huang-Renjun self have it, at least one last time.

When you turn 18, so does Huang Renjun. He finds enjoyment in all the possibilities now open to him with the new status of an adult, his Fridays spent drinking away with his new group of friends. He wears leather jackets and ripped jeans, and while you find it quite attractive, you don’t think it’s what suits him the most. Hell, even the soccer jersey looked more fit on him– and he played for the team for a total of two matches. His hair is bleached blonde and you once saw him with red, puffy eyes and a little fucked-out smile accompanied by his sketchy friends in the park, so you can only imagine what he’s been doing his whole senior year. You’re surprised he even managed to graduate.

When you turn 18, it’s when you worry most about him. He doesn’t seem himself, and quite frankly, he never has, but this is the most unpredictable and unexplainable version of himself that he managed to craft. 

You don’t think you’ve ever seen him genuinely laugh. And yes, you don’t know the boy, but still, you kind of miss the earlier versions of him, because at least those weren’t as self-destructive and damaging to his health. 

You wonder why he’s not inside with his friends. You wonder why he’s so alone in the backyard, why he’s sitting at the empty swimming pool with a bottle of liquor next to him, why he’s not laughing at stupid jokes and dancing to bad EDM music in Lee Donghyuck’s house like the rest of his circle is. You wonder what made him hang out with the crowd for the last year, what made him let his grades slip and why he never seemed to stay with one friend group for long. 

You guess it’s hard to be his friend. 

Or maybe, he just finds it hard to be other people’s friend. 

Changing himself up just to fit with the others, carefully crafting and molding his personality to have at least someone match his current energy– you wonder if it wouldn’t just be easier for him to be himself and let someone discover the true him for once. Because this surely isn’t him. And the soccer player, running aimlessly around the field wasn’t him. The kid that was good at science was never a good fit for the nerdy crowd either, because it wasn’t him. The drama kid that was decent at acting, but never really talked with anyone from the club other than Dong Sicheng (because even after all this time, you think that was his only real friend), wasn’t the real Huang Renjun either. And now, after the four years of admiring the mystery he is and examining him each passing day, you can for sure say that the version of himself that smokes and drinks in dark alleyways isn’t the real him at all.

After reminiscing on your four years of high school with a smile on your face, you wonder if Huang Renjun could do the same. If he smiles about the many twists and turns, or if he thinks of his high school years as a waste of his youth, a time he can only be reminded of with a bittersweet feeling, never fitting in despite trying so hard over and over again.

The boy at the swimming pool chews on the inside of his cheek, scoffing as he points his eyes towards the ground. There’s an urge inside of you to walk over to him and be a shoulder for him to cry on, be someone to finally offer him some comfort, to let him talk while you listen. 

But you don’t do any of that. 

You keep standing there, watching him, as Hong Seunghan talks your ears off about everything and nothing, making your confused heart simmer with despair at the broken look on Renjun’s face when he looks around for the last time before he takes the bottle standing next to him into his hand and smashes it into the pool with full force, the piercing sound of the glass shattering making your ears hurt as you jump up in surprise.

The boy stands up from his place as he storms off, your eyes meeting only for a mere second before he’s out. 

“Are you okay?” Seunghan asks again, for the second time this evening already, while you look at him with a tight smile and nod your head at the question.

“Yeah. Just… got distracted.”

When you’re 18, you believe this is the last time you’ll ever see him. When you’re 18, all you do is wish him well. 

Walking out of your trashy university accommodation, locking the door behind you– although you think it does nothing for the safety of your living space, considering the door is paper thin and anyone determined enough could get inside in two minutes, if they wanted to– you put the keys into your coat pocket and jog down the stairs, because you fear the old elevator ever since you heard your neighbor getting stuck inside of it one day when the power went out. Checking the time on your phone screen, you walk your way to university.

You always wanted to live somewhere far away. It’s not really about cutting people off or about starting new– Sungchan visits you every other week when he’s bored, after all– you just think you like the comfort the big city brings you. The architecture of the town is beautiful and your university’s History course is the best one in the country. You almost feel a little proud of getting in, moving out of the small hell hole your hometown was, and being competent enough to live on your own at 19, cooking yourself bad pasta for dinner every evening and posting instagram stories of the sunset with the song stickers from your playlist every other week. It’s a little surreal to live the life your younger self always dreamt of, for it doesn’t feel as strange and so brand new like you expected it to. You can’t say you don’t enjoy it, though.

Walking inside of the university building, still not used to the white modern walls and tall glass windows in the lounge area, you check the time and realize you still have at least 25 minutes until your lecture starts. Coming from a small town, you never really learned how to time your departure from home. You always arrive either very late or very early– it’s hard to calculate how long the walk is, when everything is within a 10 minute reach back home.

Deciding to spend some time in the lounge area before the class starts, because you don’t really feel like spending time in the lonely classroom and you also suspect someone’s having a class in there still, you walk towards the crowded place, adjusting the bag strap that’s sneakily slipping off your shoulder.

The view in front of you catches you off guard, the amount of students doing things to your little, anxious self (in moments like these, you wish you had Sungchan with you here. Despite being quite social in high school, it’s hard to make friends when he’s not around to be your isle of comfort; but you guess it’s time for you to be a big person and find friends on your own now), and as your eyes scan the place for an empty space to sit, your mouth drops agape in shock and surprise.

There is a boy with mousy blonde hair sitting at one of the bean bags, down in the university halls. He's surrounded by people, all typing away on their laptops, occasionally glancing up to their friends and talking in hushed smiles and cheery giggles. The boy is alone– scrolling away on his phone, earphones in his ears as the slight movement of his leg matches the beat– though, he doesn't seem lonely.

There are plenty of people around him, all with their kindred spirits, yet, the boy makes no effort in trying to fit into a circle; he doesn't try to match anyone's energy or to desperately make someone like him. In a way, the sight makes you sigh with relief. 

Huang Renjun has finally stopped trying, and while this sentence usually doesn't have a nice ring to it, this time, you don't think there's anything more positive about the fact that he simply just has no energy to change himself to fit the vision of himself that is kept by others.

Taking a few deep breaths in and out, you contemplate on your next step. Is this really how you get to know your high school crush, after so many years of thinking of him? Is university really the time for your first real meeting? It makes you feel kind of silly, the tingling sensation in your fingertips making it hard for you to stay grounded as you shake your head to clear your thoughts, deciding.

Wiping your hands onto the fabric of your jeans, taking another deep breath in and out, you walk up to the boy with a hesitant smile and drop your body to the bean bag next to him, accidentally bumping into his outstretched legs. The action makes your cheeks heaten as your whole body feels hot with uncertainty, but you don't back away as he looks up to you with an uninterested look, merely just wanting to know what bumped into him and made him lose his focus and switch his attention to the world around him instead of his phone.

Clearing your throat, you force yourself to quirk up the corners of your lips into the most welcoming smile, greeting the boy you know so well, but also don't know at all. 

“Hi,” you utter, seeing the boy glance at you with pure interest now, eyebrows furrowed as the gears in his brain work by themselves, trying to sort your face. When his thoughts are met with recognition, his irises widen as he works out a subtle smile, the one that reaches his eyes and makes them light up with a glittery sparkle, soft voice echoing to your ears.

“Y/N, right?”

“Yeah,” you nod, putting on an awkward smile, “from high school.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” he nods, staring at you, as if to wait if you have anything else you want to say. 

The encounter must feel strange to him. You've never really talked, and when you did, it was only when it was necessary. You were just a side character in his life– the one you pass in a game in a very unimportant side quest and never meet again, forgetting about it in an instant– however, to you, Huang Renjun, although he was never the center of your universe, was always there, somewhere in the back of your mind, as you looked after his every move and paid attention to every shift in his existence. To you, he was like the musician you fall in love with when you're a kid, and even though you don't listen to them anymore, you still have their account followed on instagram, keeping track of their every move, making sure they're safe and still loved by many.

Staring at you still, your throat gets dry as you have no words to say. Somehow, you always had so many things on your mind that you wanted to share with Huang Renjun, in each and every passage of his life. But now that you finally had the courage to walk up to him and talk, the words were stolen from the tip or your tongue and it's useless to try to search for them in your brain.

Maybe it's the boy recognising your hesitance, maybe it's his brain reminding him of all the times he's walked up to a new group and tried so hard to fit in with them, maybe he knows the lost look in your eyes all too well from how many times he's seen it in himself when he tried to make new friends; maybe it's the fact that he knows how stressful it is to walk up to someone and try to be their friend– nonetheless, for a reason to you unknown, he does something no one's ever done for him when he was in the position you are in right now, because, truth be told, this is the first time he's been in the position of being walked up to and interrogated with a premise of new friendship. And it's all thanks to you– so he takes the lead and warmly smiles at you, striking up a conversation.

“What's up? I didn't expect to see you here,” he says, taking his earphones out and putting them away to his pocket, turning slightly towards your figure and paying full attention to you.

Playing with your fingers in your lap, you turn your gaze away from him and master up a response. “I didn't expect to see you here either, actually,” you say.

“Yeah, well,” he shrugs, “I guess I just wanted to start over somewhere far away. It felt… a little claustrophobic back home.” 

The two of you share a look full of understatement, because in his eyes, as his classmate from high school, you must have noticed at least some of the glimpses of his numerous friend groups over the time. And while none of them really worked out for him, since none of them ever really felt as if they were right for him, now, in the university halls, although a little alone and a little too ordinary, he seems like himself for the first time.

“I get that,” you nod, not wanting to dwell on the topic for too long in fear of hitting a painful spot in him or exposing that you’ve been watching him the whole time, “what do you study?”

“Art,” he says with an excited smile, the one that makes his eyes crinkle up a little and his expression is full of undenied joy and excitement, the one you’ve seen on him for the last time in junior year, talking away with Sicheng in a red McDonald’s booth– hinting that after so many years of changing himself up and trying to fit in with the rest, he's doing what he really wants and desires, with no expectations and harsh looks of others.

“That's so amazing,” you hum in amazement, offering him a genuine smile.

“It's very exciting,” he nods, glad he no longer feels like he’s been made from a broken mold, glad he no longer feels aimless and unarmed with everything he encounters, just like he did in high school in the sports teams and drama clubs, hating each passing second he’s spent doing something he despised, wasting away his life. “What about you?”

“Oh, I study History,” you reply, scratching the back of your neck, “doesn't sound as exciting as Art, to be honest, but I've wanted to study it for the longest time, so…” 

“No, that's great,” he assures you, “although you don’t seem like a History kind of person,” he says, although he doesn’t know you that well– he can’t quite put a finger on when you two have met, and if you’ve ever even talked. Looking at you right now, though, he must have registered you, at least, because you seem too familiar in the foreign place and he finds himself silently holding on to the feeling of recognising at least something in the wide unknown.

Squinting, you curse the cheerleader stereotype for the first time in your life. “Is that supposed to be a diss?” you grin.

“God, no,” he shakes his head in disapproval, quickly leading you out of the misjudgement. “I just didn’t expect you to study History. I don’t know you that well, but you’re like, the furthest away from my image of a History major… but I guess my expectations can be wrong,” he defends himself, palms raised in defeat.

Humming, you still squint at him in uncertainty. “Well, I guess I get that. You seem like an Art major, though, to be honest.”

“Do I?” he asks, a tone completely different to yours– he looks grateful for the comment, his eyes shining with appreciation and maybe just a hint of pride. 

To be honest, it's not really about the way he dresses that makes him seem like he’d study Art– his black high-top converse, beige pants and an oversized brown flannel could be worn by anyone– but his aura, the energy he gives off at first glance, is something that gives it away. This is the first time someone's ever affirmed Huang Renjun's identity, the real one, on top of that– the one he spent his whole life carefully crafting and creating, picking away the bad parts as he tried and failed to fit all the other categories he didn't like– and it feels truly euphoric to him, like he fulfilled his life-long goal and finally found his purpose. "Well, thank you," he says, and you can tell he means it.

You want to tell him how glad you are that he let go of trying to please everyone. You want to tell him how it's great that he finally found himself, how amazing it is that he finally let go of the desire to be liked for something he wasn't, just to be popular or have someone by his side. You want to tell him how you appreciated his existence all those years, how you watched over his every good and bad step, how proud you are of him for the journey he's taken and how amazing it is that he finally reached the final destination. 

That would be weird, though– he doesn't even know that you’ve selfishly watched him all those years, tumbling and turning in the background of the mess his life had always been. So, instead, you mumble out a sweet: “You're welcome.” 

By the way he looks at you, you almost think he understands your intentions. You almost believe he can read your mind and find the pictures of himself in your memories, each and every single one carefully preserved with his essence, although it was different each time and never really stayed the same. 

But he can't. He can’t read your mind and he can’t tell that you know all about him, so instead, he thinks this is the universe rewarding him for being so patient, rewarding him for always trying, and that’s why he feels that he can’t let this opportunity get away from him.

“Do you want to hang out later? I have a class in 10 minutes, but I'd love to walk around and explore it here a little in the afternoon, if you're down,” he suggests, taking you off guard.

The new version of Huang Renjun that's in front of you is confident– something he always lacked, for it was never really him that he was showing to the world– and the new Huang Renjun is charming and magnetizing. You can't say you never felt like this about him before, because of course you did– you wouldn't have known so much about him and his various phases of life if you weren't interested in the boy, but the way you feel about him now feels more real– maybe because it's finally the authentic version of himself that he always was so afraid of showing to others. Electrified by his eyes, you bring yourself to nod.

“Of course I'm down,” you agree, smiling. 

“Great,” he laughs airly, the sound making your smile widen even more, “I'll get your number, then?”

“Oh, sure,” you say, taking his phone out of his outstretched hand, typing the number into his contacts list. Walking up to him all those minutes ago, this wasn’t how you expected the encounter to go. You expected to say hi to him, to maybe hear him tell his major to you before he turns his back to you and walks away, never talking to you again. Instead, you get an invite, a premise of something new, a meeting that excites you and makes you feel all giddy inside, just like the first time you’ve laid your eyes on the boy in high school and decided to secretly hold your heart out to him, if he ever wanted to take it. It makes you feel like you should’ve done this long ago, like you should’ve walked up to him during high school, when you noticed him struggling, but perhaps, this is how it was always supposed to go, how you two were supposed to end up in each other’s lives and how you were always made to finally know Huang Renjun for real.

“Good,” he nods, locking eyes with you, “I have to go now, because the class is on the fifth floor and the elevator is broken, and I also don't really know my way around the building yet, but I'll definitely text you later,” he giggles.

Laughing, you shake your head in disbelief. “Of course. Good luck on not getting lost,” you say as you wave at him, his figure already standing up tall in front of you, his eyes glazing over your features for one last time.

“Thanks, I'll need it,” he tells you, “I'll see you later, then.”

“Later!” you nod, the smile never leaving your lips as you watch him leave and take a shy look at you over his shoulder for one last time before he takes the stairs up, eyes quickly drifting away when your gazes meet.

If anyone was watching you for the last few minutes, they'd think you were old friends. They'd think you were just catching up, accidentally bumping into each other and talking about the struggles of university life, bitching about the accommodation and how the professors seem uninterested in the topic of their courses. The reality is different, though, and although you and Renjun were just acquaintances meeting in a big town, miles away from the home, you can already sense that you and him were meant to have a storyline in each other's lives eventually. 

This was Renjun's first time to be walked up to with a welcoming smile. It was also your first time to reach out and offer your friendship to someone. You changed your roles, in a way. 

And while Renjun continues to find himself more and more each day, the true and real identity deep inside of him, he finally has someone by his side assuring him that it's enough and that he never has to change a thing about himself to be liked. No more masks and no more acting. 

For the first time in his life, Huang Renjun knows who he is, even when nobody’s watching.

[blank1eboi]

so my mom got me into stranger things right. we binged all of s3 today because i'm sick and why not. these characters are giving me brainrot.

steve? gets sillier every scene. what a silly guy. my mom says he and robin look like little sailor babies in their uniforms and i thought that was silly. also? shut up. everyone in this group is a nerd. you are a nerd, just maybe.. not in the same way. ur little car stunt? that poor car but also FUCK YEAH GET EM!

dustin? perfect silly guy and everyone who hurts him makes my blood boil. he just a little guy. he looked so silly in his snow ball outfit. his relationship with steve makes me so happy they r like brothers.

hopper? idiot. silly idiot. why are you emotionally constipated so BAD. at least he is LEARNING how to communicate properly. i'm proud of him. silly guy.

joyce? good mom. im proud of her and she goes through so much shit. i hope she and hopper can properly get their shit together but also kinda not because let me tell u it can be FUNNY. she needs a break i think. give joyce byers a break.

robin? <3 i got so excited when i saw her ace ring my mom had to pause it so i could do a mini-ramble about ace rings. she is also a nerd. she does not act like it at the very beginning of the season but she is SUCH a nerd.

erica? sometimes she can be VERY RELATABLE. very mood and i am happy she is safe. also top tier sibling relationship when she said she believed dustin ab the crazy shit just not that lucas could ever be involved.

nancy? kind of an asshole again but that's ok. she's p chill otherwise and i think she just has too much trauma and isn't very good at handling it. also BAMF. nancy wheeler BAMF and you can rip this from my cold dead hands. her hair looked very pretty this season too. i love her

mrs wheeler? the beginning of the season, that thing with billy? that had me wince quite a few times. icky yucky. but. also good mom at end of it after nancy got fired and just. after the thing with billy she was p cool.

(idk if u can tell but these characters are in ZERO order it's just who is on my mind)

billy? VERY ICKY. s2 and almost all of s3 i had ZERO sympathy for him. then his dad was an ass and when he sacrificed himself because he thought of his mom that was actually like. ouch, but still i hate you. also his hair is ugly change my mind.

max? actually kinda of hated her the first few episodes she was in. like. she was kind of a bitch. she grew on me tho!! and by the time she and el started talking i was happy to see her. she's also. not as whiny as most of the boys in the group so. that was nice and her hair is always cute.

el? able to consistently get on my nerves and make me happy. it's a little funky. GREAT style tho i would steal a lot of her clothes. her relationship with hopper makes me go <3

suzie? did not like, personally, but i wouldn't protest if she showed up again. also if she wasn't annoying and made dustin sing hopper wouldn't have that shit happen to her and i would like her more.

bob? i was sad and i probably cried idr. he grew on me and i think he was sweet. he made joyce happy and he made me happy that he liked to help even when he had no clue what was going on and sometimes his advice didn't work.

mike? whiny bitch. learn how to be a decent friend and i'll give u another thought. why is nothing ever your fault? have you ever considered that it MIGHT be at least partially your fault?? ass.

will? honestly, the kid grows on me. he's always caught up in some shit and its hard to actually get anything from that but what you do get... he mostly seems like a sentimental guy who just wants to play games with his friends. i can respect that.

lucas? if he does dumb shit in s4 i WILL call him out. no hesitation. he is prone to doing dumb shit with zero regard for the consequences it seems. he's at least useful when you need him and can find him.

jonathan? he switches between "oh he's p chill actually" and "JONATHAN WHAT THE FUCK" so. idk. u kno what i mean. he's pretty smart tho he carries the party when they're stressed and i'm proud of him.

um. i think that's it. i started this post the day that i finished s3, got tired and went to bed, and now it is a whole 5 days later and i am one ep off from finishing s4. yay?

[farty-city]

inside bo burnham review no one asked for

i enjoy other peoples commentary and i was writing down my first thoughts anyway so here it is

inside

first song/intro song

i like the phone screen on him, very reflective of how we have had phone screens on us

“roberts been a little depressed” osnskjdnfs

they were right “daddys made you some content so open wide” hjbfafn

intro

oh my god he looks awful

but like in a cute way

maybe

healing the world with comedy (second song)

the canned and queued laugher no exactly… is it a symbol or is it just funny.. who's to say. 

it think its a good first song, establishing he knows what he is doing is kind of useless 

“the indescribable power of your comedy”

he looks like marc maron rn

i like the synthed voice and synthesizer

the jesus allusion … yeah

“i'm a special kind of white guy”

this feels like he knows how he is perceived by fans.. Make happy was too much

his fucking dancing fksjdnfksj

i think he did a good job looking manic

the lasers lmao

Side 1

Bo made a huge gamble releasing this like,,, what if you just stumbled upon it and this was ur first introduction to him..

I bet its like when i comment dumb things on instagram comments and get that rush of hehehehe

NO NOT BO DEVELOPING BILLIE EILLISH VOWELS

Also this is exactly what he wanted like,, he just wanted to make his things and not deal with the crowds so..

To think i was like finding scraps of him performing at largo and stuff and now,, so much content

life imitates art

the way he's literally what he wrote hgbkdf

there is no authenticity with cameras

suicide ?

 facetime with my mom tonight

the blue light.. Yeah

o hblue like sad

i don't know how i feel about the electric music but i guess its no different than whatever else i listen to

this is sad wow

still catchy etc

side 2

i wonder if here will be any fart jokes

that is how the world works (songs)

the huge mess and then him in a sweater

this is reminiscent of that walmart muppets

he became tim minchin with a sock puppet

the “yes… yes sir” stoppp 

jkgdsnfijwkensfosnf

qbejfnjne

nerjgnoejns

bo making a political statement and a metaphor for activism and then making it weirdly kinky

brand consultant (bit)

man bun

i have to believe he filmed it with the beard because quarantine vibes and also bc he was tired of being seen as a child

white womans instagram (song)

i did not like that intro

BO AND GLASSES THANK GOD

the daisies wow just wow

underwear

“white womans instagram” or “bo burnham becomes a girlboss”

i like that he didn't lose his cadence like the way the rhymes are you can still tell its him

i don't get the mom part sorry

is it like how people are very superficial but also very personal on their instagrams

this part was legit sad

side 3

i wonder how he felt with cameras constantly on him

Although this is the point hes trying to make

lol seinfeld moment (bit)

unpaid intern (bit and song)

“barely people somehow legal” was so smooth woW

omg he was scatting

he was a man who would scat

oh my god what great news

the react clip omg

i cant believe he did that oh my god

observation/critisism and response to the “can anyone shut the fuck up” 

and as i realized what he was doing he was like “i have this need for everything i make to have a deeper meaning” oh my god

now the question is how long will this go on?

jeffrey bezos (song)

idk its catchy

and then theres him like sleeping and talking which kind of is part of the jeff bezos song

bug eyes salamanders hehe

sexting (song)

i do believe this is just a silly song 

the earrings tho omg

sounds like post malone hbkjdsnfskj

idk its still about like intimacy in quarantine and that stuff..

the knife (bit)

i know hes copying like other youtubers but like,,, what

stuck in a room (song)

the intro is very funny and relatable

classic bo i love it 

i will say this special has been more reflective but i suppose it has to be

“look whos inside again”

i like the end too, this is all a fabrication

this is the clip where hes staring at the projection of himself from his old youtube videos which is sort of more like an ending to the “stuck in my room” song

 sorry (song)

i love the 80’s style music and its like zumba

oh this is like an apology song

“father please forgive me for i did not realise what i did, or that id live to regret it” what a catchy line

i would say this is another more “classic” bo song where its self aware and funny

“my closet it chalk full of stuff that is vaguely shitty” 

camera falling

this deserves its own bullet because its silly

i'm turning 30 (bit and song)

i remember him talking about this on a podcast and like,, damn i didn't know this also happened LOL

i really like how he did the lighting 

“stupid fucking ugly boring children”

suicide talk (1)

this is interesting i like the use of the projection

this is something that could never have happened onstage

just like with the it being projected on him

i guess it could but it would have to be done differently and probably hed have to make it funnier to make it more engaging

intermission

i just checked this is about the halfway point.. Mh

i don't wanna know (song)

“i thought it’d be over by now”

i wish this was longer but i kind of like how its just a little snippet and then the cut

video game (bit)

“i guess i’ll cry again”

“is the dude big or is the room small” lol

hm depression

 feelin like shit (song)

ohh the lighting is fun again

this is the tone shift i suppose

the feels like supalonely and the new kind of music

atl

:(

panic attack 

everything all of the time (song)

feels like brandon rogers 

i enjoy this

this feels like “welcome to youtube” grew up

“a little bit of everything all of the time”

“apathys a tragedy and boredoms a crime”

ok olivia rodrigo

finishing the special (bit)

these feel like diary entries but as standup

interesting choice

jeffery bezos (2)

Why the seaweed suit

Where did he get that

the digital space (bit)

suit up, gather what is needed, and return to the surface

damn

pirate map anfdkjfnskjd

this was so stupid (affectonate)

that funny feeling (song)

the campfire vibes 

kenny loggins

i don't get it..

is it about childhood, is it about the present?

i think its talking about the end of content? 

“the end of culture”, to quote make happy

change and not liking it 

“we were overdue, but it will be over soon”

if the second half of the special is like a panic attack this song is like a momentary pause before it gets worse

“so ive been working on this special”/breakdown 

this was .. uncomfortable and genuine which i'm sure is why he kept it

all eyes on me (song/rant)

another sad thing to watch.. damn

me trying to tell if the audio was from make happy

i think he was trying to make it as if the audio was from make happy 

this feels.. familiar

and obviously that is the point

“come on in the waters fine”

the use of autotune during the talking part... yeah

sad that he was gonna make another special… and it would have been totally different than this

i’ve decided i like the homage to make happy

It feels like hes made peace with it

the montage of him waking up and the “i think i'm done”

and then of course the ending where he's watching it over to remind us that its all fabricated

possible ending song/ “i promise to never go outside again”

ngl he looks good in the shirt with the haircut hehe

which i feel like is what he wants up to notice

and then like not think after we saw all his breakdowns

“i want to hear you tell a joke when no ones laughing in the background”

i really like the medley

Final thoughts

I want a blooper reel, but this doesn't seem like the kind of special

I also wonder if the songs will be on like apple music, but again, doesn't seem like the kind of special

I'm happy for him, he got to be honest and open and show us the sort of panicky stuff

this self aware comedy is exactly the stuff that i think will be making a comeback in the next decade.  John better be pulling up with more deconstructed comedy. 

I hope this has given him peace

[slashersins]

ur a writing machine and an inspiration, seriously! kind of a silly request, but could u do the slashers reactions to their s/o who likes wearing red lipstick leaving kiss marks on their faces (or masks), for brahms, thomas, jesse, and poly ghostface (and michael too if you think he won't just straight up murder us :P)

ooooh nice 

ur a writing machine and an inspiration, seriously! kind of a silly request, but could u do the slashers reactions to their s/o who likes wearing red lipstick leaving kiss marks on their faces (or masks), for brahms, thomas, jesse, and poly ghostface (and michael too if you think he won't just straight up murder us :P)

brahms 

FLUSTERED AS FUCK . NO JOKE . this boy sees you putting on the red lipstick and is just excited . he wants those marks all over his mask . he’ll ask for a kiss , but it won’t be enough . please kiss this boy on his mask , his hands , his shoulders . leave them marks and make him swoon . 

thomas

red painted lips on the mouth of the devil’s spouse . ooooh boy , the sight alone makes him weak . seeing that color on you , making your lips look so kissable . he’s panting and trying to shift his apron . he won’t ask for it , but he wants it . he wants those red lips leaving marks on his mouth , his mask his face his chest . please just one kiss . he’ll even take all of hoyt and monty’s teasing if it means those red lips will touch his skin . 

jason

you look pretty . and he’s flushed . he’s always liked your lips and now they stand out so much . at first he might not realize it’s lipstick and think you got stung by a bee , trying to run his thumb over your lips . but when it sticks to his thumb and smudges on your face he freezes . you could be upset with him , but you aren’t . instead you just press a few kisses to his mask and leave him dazed and happy . if he happens to catch his reflection in the lake , he’s going to be so embarrassed that he stomps home embarrassed . 

jesse

don’t kiss the mask . but kiss him . leave those stained red marks down his neck , down his chest , to his abdomen and to his - he wants to see those lips smudged and stained , making a mess of your mouth . he’s going to buy you so much red lipstick . that pretty painted mouth is all for him . 

billy & stu 

damn , babe , you look hot . it’s hard to intimate people with a red lip kiss smudged mask , but some how they manage . they take a sense of pride in getting those kisses from you . and when the mask if off they wanna make out and have a mess between them . you may have put the lipstick on , but all three of you are wearing it by the end of the day . 

michael 

he will tolerate ONE kiss . don’t push him . 

[phoebehalliwell]

i think one of the other times that charmed (in my opinion) dropped the ball was with christie. making christie half of the big bad they were meant to defeat was a choice and not a good one. the implications of taking a character was abducted as A CHILD and brainwashed into believing the sisters were evil and then instead of oh i don't know redeeming her in the end have her own sister kill her was just fucked up in every way

fr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! fr billie INCINERATED her OWN SISTER!!! they made her do that!!!!!!!!!????????? what the fuck????? they like. like. they like. What were they trying to do there. it's like the same thing with richard like i get it's conflict but like genuinely what is the fucking point. like. like if you want to do shady double agent shure i get that it can be fun n sexy bestie behavior one minute and then evil conniving the next. but like. not with a child soldier??? like christy is constantly manipulated and it's like oh she didn't accept us as her home and safety in one week after being psychologically tortured for two decades. lucy liu screencap tear the bitch apart!!!!!!!!!!! like??? i mean they didn't even bother to make her truly evil she was doing all this to protect billie to protect her little sister AND THEN SHE WAS BURNED ALIVEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK. unbelievable. imo tho. i do think the writers were biting off way more than they could chew with girl who was raised by demons after being kidnapped at age nine and now she's like. twenty three. that is way too complex to like. like if you're really gonna dig into the meat of the matter and flesh out exactly what life was for her than you could literally make her kind of her own little ya protagonist like. i'm spitballing but like. she's kidnapped from a very young age and like i remember being that young i was still kinda a spitfire so she's like no no no i gotta get home idk bc this is the triad's doing but they're trying to stay very severed from the operation so they're having some lame ass demon tribe take care of it but like they're not really. it's very much we have kidnapped you now it's time to learn to use your powers for violence like this kid would Not be game and she'd probably try to escape a whole bunch so the triad are like okay shift gears so they get a figure like cole's mom (or it could straight up be cole's mom if we feel so inclined) with a son born from a human so he looks human so she’s already raising one magical powerful kid (who could also end up later being a love interest for christy) and she like. goes to the demon clan and sees how christy's being treated and is like what the fuck is wrong w u and vanquishes all them and is like hi little christy are you okay like were those guys being evil and mean come w me which would be a move strategically done by the triad to tie up all the loose ends of that fail demon clan and also position our demon mom demom as an ally. so christy goes to live with her in her like little demon manor ideally still in the underworld and demom's like so how did you get here are you alright and christy's like i was kidnapped!! they took me away from my family!! and demom's like okay well let's get u back to ur family and they go but oh what's this?? the jenkins family is actually So Much Better Off!! oh no! they look happier without you :( is it because they were afraid of your powers, afraid of you, afraid of something they couldn't understand? no matter, let's go ring the doorbell. oh what's that? u don't want 2 :( aww that's so sad. well, i guess... no, it's just a silly offer really...... but.... if u want.... u can stay w me in my hella nice rich person house and learn how to hone your powers at your own pace not like the killing machine those demons tried to force you to be but instead lived under my protection someone who is not scared of u and who only has your best intentions at heart..... bonus round if billie has a burn scar from christy accidentally lighting her on fire, some extra trauma. so christy is raised basically as demon royalty idk give her some background relationships oh so bonus points if the charmed ones vanquish demom that gives her motive against but just friends and allies in the underworld and when she finds billie again billie's like. let's say in the demon mansion like rooting around because these people took my sister when christy confronts her like hey bitch better gtfoutta my house and billie's like fight!!! and they go toe to toe for a good scene til something happens and billie's burn scar is revealed and christy realizes it's her baby sister and immediately like. complete shift. vulnerability immediately and billie's like what the fuck until christy says her full name (wilhelmina? do u think? willow? elizabeth? middle name something like. outta left field a maiden name like buchanan or rochester) and it's just like. sisters<3. but then there's conflict because hey you were happier without me and billie's like no?? no we were fucking not omg why would you think that?? and christy's like no i saw you and billie's like no that must have been a lie demons lie that woman who raised you she was evil she was the worst of the worst and christy's like hey like you know wait because she was my family she was all i had and she loved me (& for what it's worth, i think she did) so there's this conflict of the world christy knows which is filled with deception but real emotion versus the world outside which is true but is so empty to her. but this is s8 we're phoning it in we're not doing all that. which, then, of course, leaves you w the other alternative of she escaped from the demons very young and has been living like the early seasons of supernatural constantly on the run outside the law fighting forces she doesn't understand with two fist fire and a kickass attitude and then she reunites with billie and there's like of a more interpersonal conflict because billie's grown into a much more independent individual and she's already hella powerful and honestly seems to know more about the craft than christy but christy's being doing this a lot longer and she's survived a hell of a lot worse so there's no way she's gonna let her little kid sister but herself in harms way and billie's like no stop trying to baby me like i can handle myself and christy's like no not a goddamn chance in hell. the reason they're the "key" to the ultimate power is bc it can only be held by one. the other dies to grant the person that ability. that is why they never bothered to take both sisters. instead they put a marker of death on billie, something they now have to both fight to remove

[claymour]

You don’t have to publish this but I just want you to know that I would support you, I would stand by you as if we were brothers in arms if you decided to make self ship content LOL I love hearing you talk about how much you like your faves it’s so epic and I adore your art and you’re just so sweet, I would hype you UP. I just don’t want you to feel bad for wanting to make that content if that’s what you genuinely want to do ‘cause I think you should be able to make content that makes you happy!! Follow your heart LMAO Also side note: seeing you talk about Billy makes me so happy like I get emotional LMAOODDJ

IM. 66777777777777777777-++++++++ UVYVWHBAHBWHVVHWVHWBHWVHWBWBHWBHVWHWVHWVHVHWVHWVHWVHWHVWVHAAAAAAAGGGGAAAAAA!!!!! IIII II IIM IM ++++ THIS IS . THIS IS SO UNBELIEVABLY KIND IM ATCUALLY MELTING IRL RN HOLD ON I--I I HVQ HBQBHBABH THANK YOU SO MUCH... QHAHQBBHBJABHABJABJABAA ( I DONT LIKE MAKING POSTS TOO LONG SO I'M GONNA PUT THIS UNDER THE CUT VHVUWWUBWBY )

VYVYUBAVYAYVVAYVAVHAHVAYVAVHBYAVHABHAHBAYH I LITERALLY STOOD UP AND DID A BACKFLIP WHEN I READ THIS GAHABHAHB THIS IS SUCH A KIND THING TO SAY !!!!!! GAHAHABHHBA THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TAKING THE TIME TO SEND THIS TO ME.....GQGQHQ

IT MEANS SO MUCH TO ME TO GET A MESSAGE LIKE THIS GEHEH!! TBH IVE ALWAYS LOVED SEEING PEOPLE'S SELF-SHIPS AND STUFF..IT REALLY MAKES ME SUPER HAPPY TOO SEE PEOPLE MAKING CONTENT THAT MAKES THEM SUPER HAPPY! WBHWBH ITS ALWAYS BEEN SOMETHING IVE WANTED TO JOIN IN ON, EVEN IF ITS JUST SILLY DOODLES OF ME LIKE.. SCREAMING WITH A CHARACTER BUT IVE ALWAYS BEEN SO SCARED ABT IT LOL!!...THAT BEING SAID IVE NEVER REALLY BEEN APART OR EVEN POSTED IN ANY ONLINE SETTING UNTILL NOW! GHEHE IT REALLY GIVES ME A BIG CONFIDENCE BOOST TO SEE OTHER REALLY COOL PEOPLE POST ABT THEIR SELF-SHIPS OR DRAW THEIR OCS WITH A CHARACTER OR SMTH GHEHEYG... * BREAKS MY HOUSE DOWN * OKOKOK THATS IT IM GONNA DO IT OMG GAVUVYHYYVH HVVY YV GAGAHAHAHAHA ++

ALSO OBJJ IM GLAD IM NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO GETS EMOTIONAL OVER PEOPLE TALKING ABT THEIR FAVS??????!! LOLLLLLLLLLL HAHA IVE ALWAYS BEEN A REALLY EMOTIONAL PERSON LIKE SEEING PEOPLE GET REALLY EXCITED OR HAPPY LITEARLY HYPES ME UP SO BAD I GOTTA LIKE. KICK MY MATTRESS LOL! I THINK THAT'S APART OF THE REASON I LIKE SELF-SHIPS SM LIKE ITS JUST SO FUN!!!!! GAHA

Omg I'm so sorry this is so long GAHA I think I have a issue with making really long replys to things sometimes LOL!! this was just such a wonderful and kind thing to say to me IT MADE ME EMOTIONAL LIKE HBHHVH 😭😭😭😭 GRRRRR UR SO SWEET FOR SENDING ME THIS GRRRR GVVGVY VYVH THIS MADE ME SMILE SO HARD LOL I LITERALLY LOOKED LIKE THIS READING IT

OKOK ILL STOP NOW VGVVYGVVY BUT THANK U SM!! THIS MADE ME SO HAPPY AND EXCITED I LITERALLY HAD TO WATCH BLACK CHRISTMAS AGAIN TO CALM MYSELF LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL IM NOT JOKING I ATCUALLY DID HAHA HAHAHV

[vampire-himbos-of-santa-perdita]

the only mcr songs i’ve listed to r black parade and na na na na na but u make me wanna listen to them lol do u have any suggestions? what r ur favorite songs of theirs?

Oh boy. Alright. Ok. Everybody sit down, we’re about to have a masterclass in everything MCR.

The thing about My Chemical Romance is they’re a concept album band, which means each of their albums tell a story as a whole. For that reason, I can’t just recommend my personal favourite songs because they’re all part of a big whole. I’ll do my best to break them down in order of personal preference.

TL;DNR: For those of you who don’t have all day to scroll through full album analyses:

My Faves:

(Absolute all time faves are in bold; *** indicate I love these songs too much for my own good and I must be stopped.)

The Black Parade:

***Teenagers***

***Mama***

***Welcome to the Black Parade***

Famous Last Words

Cancer

Disenchanted

The end. / Dead! (you can’t really listen to one without the other)

Kill All Your Friends (TBP B-side)

Heaven Help Us (TBP B-side)

Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge:

***Helena***

***I’m Not Ok (I Promise)***

Ghost of You

***Cemetery Drive***

You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison

Thank You For the Venom

To the End

The Jetset Life is Gonna Kill You

Hang Em High

I Never Told You What I Did for a Living

Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys:

***Planetary [Go!]***

***Na Na Na***

SING

Bulletproof Heart

The Only Hope For Me Is You

Party Poison

Vampire Money

Conventional Weapons:

***Tomorrow’s Money***

Boy Division

AMBULANCE

Kiss the Ring

Make Room!!!

Miscellaneous:

***Desolation Row***

Fake Your Death

Common People (BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge Pulp cover)

***Hazy Shade of Winter***

Happy Together*

*these last two are just Gerard Way covers, but considering they’re featuring Ray Toro, that’s half the band right there…

The Black Parade

Concept: A man known as The Patient dies and accounts his life and death, dealing with his struggles with war and disease, and his fears about where he’s going to go in the afterlife.

Track Listing:

The end.

Dead!

This is How I Disappear

Sharpest Lives

Welcome to the Black Parade

I Don’t Love You

House of Wolves

Cancer

Mama

Sleep

Teenagers

Disenchanted

Famous Last Words

Blood

The whole album is honestly so good. It’s worth a listen from start to finish at least once. I’ve got absolutely no bad things to say about the songs that aren’t my faves, as they’re equally as explosive as everything else. That said…

Personal Faves:

Mama

Teenagers

Cancer

Famous Last Words

Welcome to the Black Parade

Dead!

Disenchanted

If you want the stuff that’ll psych you up/empower you, go for Welcome to the Black Parade, Teenagers, Famous Last Words, Mama, and Dead. If you want some real sad shit, go for Cancer, Disenchanted, and I Don’t Love You. I have yet to find out how to not weep all the way through WttBP, Famous Last Words, or Cancer, so you have been warned.

Dip your Toe in the Water With…

Welcome to the Black Parade

Teenagers

Famous Last Words

Things to Keep in Mind

Mama’s got an extra special guest appearance by one Liza Minnelli, and oh man, is it absolutely worth checking out. Next to Welcome to the Black Parade, this one might just be the most theatrical song in the entire album??? Bold statement, but I like to call it the Bohemian Rhapsody of MCR. It’s SO. GOOD.

Blood is the hidden track at the end of the album. There’s about 2 minutes of silence in the original album before it starts. If you want the version without the false start, nab the version from The Black Parade is Dead live album.

If you’re madly in love with this album, you can find their Black Parade concert live in Mexico, The Black Parade is Dead for free on their youtube channel. Throw it up on your tv screen and it’s like you’re there in person.

B-Sides

Kill All Your Friends

Heaven Help Us

My Way Home is Through You

All the Black Parade B-sides are great, but Kill All Your Friends is the real standout (and has the biggest connection to Umbrella Academy, if that excites you reference-wise).

Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge

Concept: This is a bit of a split narrative, partially a loving tribute following Gerard and Mikey Way’s grandmother’s passing, and partially a revenge plot. The full plot Gee had in mind took a bit of a backseat after they shifted focus on the grief side of things, but the full original concept is worth the price of admission either way. The revenge plot follows a man who makes a deal with the devil to reunite with his lost lover, if he can collect 1,000 evil souls. He sets out on his murder quest and finally reunites with the woman he loves, only to find she never loved him. He vows to take her down with him, but discovers he’s the 1,000th soul.

Track Listing:

Helena

Give ‘Em Hell, Kid

To the End

You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison

I’m Not Okay (I Promise)

The Ghost of You

The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You

Interlude

Thank You for the Venom

Hang 'Em High

It’s Not a Fashion Statement, It’s a Deathwish

Cemetery Drive

I Never Told You What I Do for a Living

This one is loud and dark, and fast as fuck. I use it almost exclusively as workout music because it will make you want to punch everything in the face. You wanna feel like you could take down all your enemies at once? Listen to this album. This one’s a lot easier to break down in terms of listening to songs here and there instead of all at once.

Personal Faves:

Cemetery Drive

You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison

Thank You For the Venom

I’m Not Ok (I Promise)

Helena

Ghost of You

Some Underrated Gems:

The Jetset Life is Gonna Kill You

To the End

Hang Em High

I Never Told You What I Did for a Living

Dip Your Toe in the Water With…

Helena

I’m Not Ok (I Promise)

Ghost of You

Things to Keep in Mind

Helena is essentially what got the band off the ground. The music video is really something and really set the tone for what early 2000s emo culture would become. If I didn’t love The Black Parade as much as I did, I’d recommend starting with Helena above everything else.

The Ghost of You music video is also a masterpiece. Gerard went to his director and asked for Saving Private Ryan, and that’s what he got! This video also happened to come out around the same time Green Day’s Wake Me Up When September Ends video came out and Gee was worried the anti-war rethorics in both would be too similar, but Billie Joe Armstrong sat him down and gave him a pep talk about how even though their concepts are similar, they’re always going to be coming at it in different ways. 

If you want to get a really solid insight into where the band came from, see the boys goofing off, and see how Gerard’s struggles with mental health and addiction drives so much of what he does, check out Life on the Murder Scene, also free on youtube. It also gives a brief sneaky peek about early days concepts for the Umbrella Academy comics!

Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys

Concept: In a post-apocalyptic California in 2019(!!!), four rebels who call themselves the Killjoys (Party Poison, Fun Ghoul, Kobra Kid, and Jet-Star) set out to recover a young girl from the evil corporation, BL/ind. Their progress is narrated by Dr. Death Defy, a radio dj who maintains public morale in an otherwise gloomy new world where electricity is a rare commodity and people worship at the hands of Destroya, a giant dormant robot expected to deliver everyone from evil.

Track Listing:

Look Alive, Sunshine

Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)

Bulletproof Heart

SING

Planetary (GO!)

The Only Hope For Me Is You

Jet-Star And The Kobra Kid/Traffic Report

Party Poison

Save Yourself, I’ll Hold Them Back

S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W

Summertime

DESTROYA

The Kids From Yesterday

Goodnite, Dr. Death

Vampire Money

This album is radically different than the others in that it’s much mellower. The songs are interspersed with narrative interludes by Dr. Death Defy to better explain the storyline. Danger Days came after one scrapped compilation album (which I’ll get to soon enough…) At this point, Gee’s comic career had started to take off with Umbrella Academy, and things had started to naturally wind down with the band. Gee’s mindspace was clearly in comic-mode, and he upcycled a comic book idea he had kicking around with a comic writer friend of his, Shaun Simon for the new album. After the band’s breakup, Gerard took whatever concepts they couldn’t realize through the lyrics and music videos back to Shaun Simon to make a Killjoys comic. Much of the concept backstory explained above is pulled from this.

Personal Faves:

Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)

Bulletproof Heart

SING

Planetary [GO!]

The Only Hope For Me Is You

Party Poison

Vampire Money

This is the album where I tend to get bored halfway through and switch over to The Black Parade (whoops…) But it is 100% worth listening to it from start to finish, again, at least once, if anything, because Destroya and Vampire Money are something else… Bulletproof Heart, SING, and The Only Hope for Me Is You are, at least in my opinion, the standouts of the more mellow songs. S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W, Summertime, and The Kids From Yesterday are also super mellow if you’re into the vibe of the previous three and want more of that. 

Planetary Go! is… possibly one of my favourite MCR songs of all time??? (Considering how much I love The Black Parade, that’s a pretty bold statement). It’s the only dance track they ever made, and is it ever a Bop. This is one of my go-to’s when I just need to take a break from whatever’s stressing me out and have a silly little dance party. 

Dip Your Toe in the Water With:

Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)

SING

Planetary [Go!]

The Only Hope for me is You

Bulletproof Heart

Things to Keep In Mind:

Danger Days is an incredibly visual album! You really need the music videos to get the whole story. Na Na Na and SING tell the whole story pretty succinctly.

If you’re really feeling that cliffhanger from the end of the SING music video, check out the Killjoys comics. It’s a single volume under the same name as the album, following The Girl a few years after the music videos’ timeline.

S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W was inspired by Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds by the Beatles, which really speaks to the overall vibe of the song.

Something I literally just discovered now, looking up the album, there’s an EP of basically fight scene tracks off a special edition of Danger Days called The Mad Gear and Missile Kid. I’ve not listened to them yet, but from the looks of things, it’s got a pure punk rock vibe and they’re apparently what the band imagined the killjoys listened to on the road.

Fun trivia that I personally get a kick out of: Vampire Money was written out of spite after Gerard refused to contribute a song to the New Moon soundtrack for Twilight (Stephenie Meyer was a huge MCR fan and approached them numerous times to get involved in the films). 

Conventional Weapons

Here it is! The scrapped compilation album! These songs were written pre-Danger Days and were presented at a concert in Japan, at which point, Gerard realized it wasn’t the sound they were after and it was promptly nixed. It’s a real shame, because there are some jams up in here, but at least they (or their record label, I can’t remember which at this point) eventually did decide to release the full “album” in 5 two-single EPs at a time.

Number One:

Boy Division

Tomorrow’s Money

Number Two:

AMBULANCE

Gun.

Number Three:

The World is Ugly

The Light Behind Your Eyes

Number Four:

Kiss the Ring

Make Room!!!

Number Five:

Surrender the Night

Burn Bright

Personal Faves:

Tomorrow’s Money

Boy Division

AMBULANCE

Kiss the Ring

Make Room!!!

Things to Keep in Mind:

I often like to give a shout out to AMBULANCE and Kiss the Ring for having opening chords that sound exactly like they’ve come straight off a Queen and Green Day album respectively.

See Tomorrow’s Money for the spectacular way they rhyme “vampire/empire/brush fire/tap wire” all in one verse.

See also Gun. for the far sillier way they rhyme “gun/sun/fun/run”. 

You can tell with some of these songs that there was the stirrings of Danger Days in here. Make Room!!! is the most obvious, with the same mantra of “everybody wants to change the world” from Na Na Na making an appearance toward the end.

I think in some iteration between Conventional Weapons and Danger Days, there were some songs that did make it to the Danger Days album that were called something else. Party Poison, for example, had originally been Death Before Disco.

Covers

My Chemical Romance, in one form or another, have done some spectacular covers over the years. I’m including the Umbrella Academy covers Gerard did with Ray because that’s basically half the band right there.

Desolation Row (Watchmen soundtrack)

Hazy Shade of Winter (Umbrella Academy)

Happy Together (Umbrella Academy)

Common People (BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge)

Under Pressure (ft. The Used)

Those are the ones I’m aware of. If there are more good-quality covers I’m missing, please, send them my way– I would love that!

I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love

Ok, look, I’m gonna upset some people by having this on the bottom of my list. I’m sorry, I feel bad about it, but the fact of the matter is, I’m only now getting into their earliest stuff. Bullets is a bit of an acquired taste because it’s incredibly raw both sound-wise and in terms of content. They recorded it before they had the resources to really put out a crisp sounding album, and they were still learning about how to construct songs, but there’s still a lot of beauty in that that I know plenty people appreciate far more than I do. MCR wouldn’t have gained an underground following without this album, after all!

I have exactly zero stakes in this album, so I’m sure someone else out there has a better grasp of this one than I do.

Concept: I know very little about what’s going on in this album, aside from the fact that Gerard was driven to create the band after being in New York, watching the Twin Towers fall during 9/11. A bunch of his more end of the world storylines from many of his works (including Umbrella Academy) are inspired by 9/11. This is a prevalent thread throughout the album, though I’m not familiar with the how beyond Skylines and Turnstiles.

Track Listing:

Romance

Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough for the Two of Us

Vampires Will Never Hurt You

Drowning Lessons

Our Lady of Sorrows

Headfirst for Halos

Skylines and Turnstiles

Early Sunsets Over Monroeville

This Is the Best Day Ever

Cubicles

Demolition Lovers

Personal Faves:

Headfirst for Halos

Honey, This Mirror isn’t Big Enough for the Two of Us

Vampires Will Never Hurt You

Our Lady of Sorrows

I’m playing fast and loose with my faves here. I’ve only heard these songs a handful of times, but they’re the ones I’m inclined to at least listen to for the guitar work, which at times, is quite fantastic. I will say though, from what I’ve seen of the lyrics, there’s some stellar stuff in here I hope to properly get into some time soon.

All the guys are still plugging away and releasing music either in their own bands (most recently, Frank Iero andthe Patience and Mikey Way’s band, Electric Century) or solo (in the case of Gerard Way and Ray Toro). I wish I was more well-versed in their goings-ons, but I’ve not been following their musical careers beyond Gerard’s (come back and talk to me if you want to get into his Hesitant Alien solo album and his more recent releases).

And that is your crash course in all things MCR.

[imagineaworlds]

Leather Jacket -- Billy Hargrove

Written By: @aliedelanie

Request: “If you’re not too busy- can I request a Billy imagine where he gives the reader either his leather jacket or jean jacket one night, and when she shows up to school the next day everyone just knows it’s his? And it’s a silent statement that the two of them are an official couple-all of Billy’s flirting stops and he’s not as reckless. Thank you, you can add more to this if it’s not enough!” “Hi could you do like suuuuper cute billy fluff? Maybe like nerd and the bad boy or somrthing like that? Love ur work btw”

Warnings: Cursing.

Pairing: Billy Hargrove x Reader

Word Count: 1451

Listen To: More Than You Know by Axwell /\ Ingrosso

A/N: I got this GIF from: @lumifuer

I was tangled underneath the mess of sheets after the night Billy and I just had. Not in the way you would think— no way— I wasn’t ready for that. All night he had endlessly teased me and tickled me until eventually I fell asleep in his arms. Billy hardly ever slept when I was over at his house, even though his dad was never home when I was there. It was like he was just waiting for something bad to happen, and he was preparing himself. I wished that just once he would fall asleep with me, but I understood why he couldn’t.

When I woke up, I noticed that I was no longer laying on Billy’s chest, and he wasn’t even in the bed anymore. The sun was shining through the curtains of his window, and his bedroom door was wide open. I figured that his parents hadn’t come home like he expected, and I was grateful I didn’t have to see him face that again. I rolled out of bed, hugging my sweater close to my body as the cold Hawkins, Indiana air hit my skin. I looked over at the clock on his desk and sighed with relief that I had woken up at a good time before school started. Ever since I started dating, I started to get tardies for school, and now that we were an official thing, I pushed him harder to make sure I was never late.

At my house, my parents could never drive me to and from school, and I didn’t have a license, so Billy was my carpool. That’s how we actually met. My mom and his mom were friends back in the day when they were teenagers, and when they moved from California, our moms were over the moon happy to be reunited. If Billy had never started driving me in the first place— granted, it was against his will— I doubted that he would have ever noticed me. I wasn’t exactly the most popular girl at school… actually, I wasn’t popular at all. And Billy? Billy was the king of Hawkins High School. When he first started driving me around, he didn’t talk or look at me, but soon he grew used to it and made the best of the situation by getting to know me.

I guess I left a good enough impression that once day after school as I was getting out of his car, Billy leaned over and rolled down the passenger seat’s window. He looked over his sunglasses at me, squinting slightly as he asked me out on a date. Well, he more like demanded it. Our first date was at the movies. I never pinned Billy Hargrove as the romantic type, afterall, he was the bad boy of Hawkins. But he surprised me that night when his only intention was to make my first date ever memorable and not a chance to get in my pants. After that, he paraded me around the halls of school, proud that I accepted him asking me to be his girlfriend. And since then, he had been really good about not being as reckless as he was before. He got in less fights and didn’t get blackout drunk. Sure, I didn’t ask him to do it, but he insisted.

As I walked down the hallway to the kitchen, I smelled burnt toast and heard Billy curse out. With a raised brow, I turned the corner and spotted Billy at the toaster, trying to figure it out. I laughed at him quietly, hoping to surprise him, and I did. I snuck up behind him and tried to wrap my arms around his waist from behind him, but he caught me.

“You know I don’t like that…” he whispered. Billy turned to me and kissed me, “Morning.”

I kissed back and sighed. When I pulled away, I went back to hugging my body tightly, “Jesus, Billy, it’s freezing.”

“Sorry about that. My dad broke the heater in a rage the other night. Susan called someone to come fix it this weekend.”  Billy bounced himself off of the kitchen counter and slid off his famous leather jacket and swung it around my shoulders. I smiled at him as I put my arms into the jacket and set it comfortably around my body. “You look hot in my jacket, babes.” We both smiled as he pulled me in for another kiss. “I tried to make breakfast, but I’m shit at it… sorry. But, hey, we don’t want to be late for school, so come on. I’ll buy you lunch to make up for it.”

I laughed, “Don’t be silly. I’m fine.” I kissed his cheek, “I’ll beat you to the car,” I challenged with a grin.

Billy smriked, “No, you won’t.” I spun around and ran for the door, swinging it open and dashed onto the patio. Behind me, Billy was chasing after me with the keys jingling in his hand. I hurried to the car, glancing over my shoulder to find Billy, and he was right on my heels. I ran into the passenger side car door and claimed victory, pressing my hand against the cool glass of the window. Billy sighed heavily and approached me, “What am I going to do with you?”

I bit my lip, “You tell me.” Billy stood in front of me and backed me into the car door until I couldn’t move back any further, and he put his hands on my hips. “I think the real question is, what am I going to do with you, Billy Hargrove?” I leaned forward and kissed him passionately, running my hands up and down his chest until I found his necklace, and wrapped my fingers around it. “Maybe I could borrow your necklace, too, one day.” I twisted the pendant as Billy pecked my lips again.

“Gross,” someone muttered from the patio. We both looked over and saw Max standing there with her skateboard. “If you guys are going to have sex, maybe don’t do it on the car; and maybe don’t do it in front of a thirteen year old.” She neared us and swung her bag over her shoulder.

“Just get in the car, you lil’ shit,” Billy muttered, pulling me away from the car door. I glared at him for his comment and he gave me a fake smile. Max walked behind us, opened the door, and climbed into the back seat. “Come on, we don’t want to be late… again…” he said before giving me one last kiss.

As he went around the front of the car, I got in. “I guess it’s a good thing I left my backpack at school.”

At school, Billy sped into the parking space, and I let Max out of the car. After she raced off on her skateboard, I started to take Billy’s leather jacket off before he stopped me. “Don’t. I like it on you. Besides, it’s freezing out.”

“What about you?” I scoffed. “You’re basically wearing a cloth considering how much skin you’re showing.”

Billy leaned in, “But you love it.”

“Oh, you know I do.” I giggled as he kissed me. Then we stopped when the first bell rang. Hand-in-hand, we walked into Hawkins High School, Tommy H and Carol attaching themselves to us at some point. Billy knew how much I hated them, but no matter how many times we told them, they wouldn’t go away. They used to tease and make fun of me since I was considered a nerd, but now that I was dating Billy, I was suddenly their bestfriend. Billy tried to get me to ignore them as he swung his arm over my shoulder. In the hallways, everyone stopped and looked at us, and I grew nervous that something was wrong. “Billy… I told you, you’re showing too much skin.”

Billy laughed, “They’re not staring at me, babes. It’s official, the whole world agrees that you look smokin’ in that jacket— my jacket.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

“I don’t think I could,” he said, kissing my neck. “I love you.”

I stopped in my tracks and looked over at him. “What?”

“I love you… You know, it’s that thing couples say to each other—”

“I know what it is, Billy,” I said sternly. “And people only say it when they really mean it.”

“And…?” Billy shrugged, “I don’t mean it?”

I stood on my tip toes, with everyone watching, and kissed him roughly. It nearly knocked him over how roughly I kissed him, and when he caught his balance, he wrapped his arms around my waist. “I love you, Billy Hargrove. More than you know.”