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minastras · 2 years ago

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mr. vice president // yeonjun

Choi Yeonjun was an ace, and everyone knew it. He was a star athlete, top student, creative genius, school vice-president, and prom royalty. The only person who even came close to his level was you.

at a glance: gender neutral reader, rivals to lovers, high school au, fluff, angst, ft. soobin, beomgyu, aespa's karina and winter

words: 7.3k

warnings: shit tonnes of swearing, brief mention of sports-enforced dieting (not weight related)

——————————

You liked being the best, and you were good at it.

Your list of titles and achievements was long for your age: President of the student council, most promising player on the basketball team, and top performer in every exam season. In any metric you could name, you were always in either first or second place.

The person you had jockeyed for first with for the last four years was none other than Choi Yeonjun, the golden boy, the unstoppable force to your immovable object.

He was the most promising player on the football team. As your Vice-President, you two were the highest-ranking student leaders in the school. Perfectly and equally matched in academics, you both constantly oscillated between the two top spots on the yearly grade rankings. You could’ve been a high school power couple had it not been for one thing: you hated each other’s guts.

Your rivalry was well known throughout the school, although most people saw it as just a mildly petty competition. No one would ever expect such capable, talented, and hardworking students to indulge in that sort of immature behaviour. The only people who knew the true extent of your animosity were your kids.

You and Yeonjun called the other student council members your kids, and they in turn called you both their parents. On the administrative side Yeonjun had under him Soobin, the general secretary, and Beomgyu, the treasurer. On the operations side you led Jimin, head of logistics, and Minjeong, communications and liaison officer. Of course, you two had also fought over who would take admin and who would take operations (the kids voted in the end). Sometimes when you and Yeonjun were acting up too much, one of them, usually Soobin, would say, “Not in front of the kids!”

But as co-leaders of the student body, your school’s star athletes, and joint cohort-toppers, you had a lot in common with each other. Maybe that’s why you disliked him so much: he reminded you of yourself.

——————————

You and Yeonjun were indeed busy bees. Your school days started earlier than everyone else’s, because you were in charge of the morning announcements and had to get ready before assembly. During breaks when the others got to relax or nap or eat you had disciplinary duties, not that either of you ever actually disciplined anyone (snitches get stitches, even for the golden kids). You also finished school later than most; being in the Excellere class for gifted students meant extra, harder, and longer lessons. After Excellere, you both had sports practice two to three times a week. If it was competition season like it was then, you had practice every day. In between commitments you were always stuck in meetings with him and the rest of the student council, or with him and the school principal.

Since school was just about all you did, that meant you were with Yeonjun for nearly every waking moment of your life, barring weekends. And sometimes not even that. You spent far too many of your precious weekend hours with him, either on Zoom calls or representing your school at external events.

��Good morning, Pres,” Yeonjun greeted that morning, punching your arm as he waltzed into the front office like he did every day. He always called you Pres. Never your name, just Pres. You hated it, and you’d told him as much more than once. That only made him do it more. He pointed at the hot pink post-it note on the announcement book. “What’s this?”

“The Spring Festival ticket sales announcement. Jimin finished setting up the website last night,” you told him. “Minjeong says we can start making the announcement every week, and she’ll put it on the school socials after assembly today.”

“Why can’t you do it?” he asked.

You folded your arms. “Because it’s not my job. She’s our communications officer.”

“What is your job, then? You seem pretty free to me,” he said.

“You’re one to talk. Are you still bitter about losing to me, Mr. Vice President?” you taunted, pointing to his student council badge. It was silver and read ‘student leader’, like all the other members’ badges, while yours was gold and read ‘president’.

“We all know I’m equal in rank to you. The President/Vice President distinction is just a formality,” he retorted, but you knew he had been disproportionately upset by the badge thing when you were both sworn in.

“A formality you gave up being football captain for, and still lost,” you teased. It was childish, but you stuck out your tongue at him anyway. He seemed to bring that out in you.

Student council Presidents were not allowed to hold a second leadership position, so he had turned down the captain role offered to him because he had expected to be appointed President. It was either him or you, that much had never been in question, but he’d gotten cocky. You remembered him being absolutely gutted about losing the presidency to you, not least because he hated the boy who ended up captain. You, however, didn’t really care about your position on your team as long as you got to play. You did, though, care about beating Choi Yeonjun.

“I’m still the best player on my team,” he countered, defensive and equally childish.

“So am I, genius.”

“I am a genius, aren’t I, Pres? That's why I came first in our latest Excellere ranking.”

You were just about to answer when the principal entered the office. It was almost time for assembly to start. As petty as you both were, you knew better than to fight in front of faculty. Yeonjun, having gotten the last laugh, glanced over at you and winked obnoxiously. You’d get a chance to get back at him later.

——————————

Whenever Yeonjun winked or smirked or rolled his eyes at you, you were reminded of the infuriating fact that he was, undoubtedly, extremely good-looking. He was the golden boy, after all, and it was only fitting for that status to extend to his appearance too. Tall and fit, with gorgeous eyes and the stutter-inducing confidence of someone who knew they were attractive. Other students sometimes greeted you both as you walked around the school (neither of you were that popular in the traditional sense of the word, but you were well known to say the least) and he could often make them swoon with just a smile.

But he didn’t date. In fact, as far as you knew, he’d never dated at all, nor even spoke about it. He was too busy for love, something that no doubt caused heartbreak throughout the whole school.

You were the same: you had no shortage of suitors but no interest in frivolous relationships that would only distract you from your duties. Your immature rivalry with each other was just about the only non-important thing either of you allowed yourselves to partake in. You had places to be, battles to win, things to achieve.

That was a mantra you found yourself repeating in your head more and more these days. You were starting to wonder what was even the point of pushing yourself this hard. Maybe you were burnt out.

Yeonjun nudged you with a smirk when he noticed you nodding off. “Tired?”

“I’m fine,” you said, resolute, sitting up straighter and squaring your shoulders. As much as he got on your nerves, he was also the closest thing to a friend you had in Excellere. You sat together in nearly every class.

He snorted, amused. “Are you sure, Pres? Because class is over,” he said, pointing to the clock at the front of the classroom. Sure enough, the teacher and all of the other students were gone. It was just you and him.

You pushed him to hide your embarrassment. “Whatever. Move, I need to get to practice,” you said, grabbing your bag.

He pushed you back, hard enough to knock you back down into your seat so he could get up first. “Me too, sleepyhead. You’re not special,” he mocked, swinging his own bag victoriously over his shoulder with a triumphant smirk.

“I never said I was. Unlike you, I don’t have an inferiority complex,” you retorted, standing back up and rushing out of the classroom. You were not the type of person to fall asleep in class, and you sure as hell weren’t going to stick around to give him the chance to remind you of that.

——————————

By the time practice ended, you could barely keep your eyes open. It was past 10pm now, and you sat at the bus stop in your basketball uniform, knees pressed to your chest. Your teammates had all gone home, but since you always missed physical training due to Excellere, you had to stay behind and complete your three kilometre run after practice.

“Hey.”

You cracked one eye open to see Yeonjun standing in front of you, hands on his hips, peering down at you curiously. You immediately sat up straight, blinking a couple of times as if that would erase your tiredness. “Why are you here?” you asked.

“It’s a public bus stop, and I’m a free man,” he said, pushing you aside so he could sit down next to you.

“Yeah, exactly. It’s a public bus stop, and there’s plenty of room elsewhere,” you scowled, pointing to the abundance of empty space on the bench aside from the spot right beside you. He winked in answer. “I mean why are you getting the bus? I thought your mom usually picks you up.”

He shrugged, balling up his navy blue football jersey and holding it out to you. “She’s busy tonight.” You stared at the jersey in confusion. He scoffed and shoved it into your arms. “Is your brain broken? Put it on.”

“No, gross. It smells like your sweat,” you said.

“Ungrateful bastard. I can see you shivering.”

You shoved it right back to him. “You wear it then, if it’s so cold.”

“Fine.” He yanked it back and put it on, even though you could tell he hadn’t yet cooled down from his practice. His chest was still rising and falling faster than usual, the veins on his arms were still sticking out, and there were still beads of sweat on his forehead plastering his hair to his skin. Idiot. “Do you always take the bus home alone? What about your teammates?” he asked, looking around. It was dark, and he’d never taken the bus at this time of the night.

“They finish before me. I have to make up my PT because of Excellere. Don’t you?” you asked. He nodded. It seemed like you both were always the first students to arrive at school and the last students to leave. You took your phone out to check the bus timings. “Which bus are you waiting for?” you asked. Yours was coming in a minute.

“I don’t know,” he said, stubbornly pretending like he wasn't overheating in his jersey.

“You don’t know? Have you never taken a bus before?” you mocked. “Well, I suppose that’s what happens when you’re chauffeured around everywhere.”

“Fuck off, Pres. Of course I have,” he countered, defensive. “I take 47 home sometimes.”

“47 doesn’t run this late. You’ll have to take mine and get off two stops after me,” you said, not really sure why you were helping him. He had Google Maps and thumbs, after all.

Right as you said that, that very bus arrived. You flagged it down and rushed on board, not bothering to check if he was following you. He was, and he again sat down next to you in the back of the empty bus with a satisfied grin.

You sighed and looked out the window as the bus started to move. “Can’t you sit somewhere else?”

“No, I cannot,” he said, pulling up the sleeves of his jersey instead of just taking it off like he clearly wanted to do.

“You’ll catch a cold if you keep wearing that and sweating in it,” you told him. The bus was freezing.

“That’s not how colds work,” he shot back, immediately pulling his sleeves back down. “For someone who bangs on constantly about how good they are at biology you’d think you’d know that colds are caused by pathogens.”

You took your headphones out of your bag and plugged them in. “Fine, then. Stew in your grubby discomfort.”

He said something else, but you pretended not to hear him, continuing to look out the window. The rest of the bus ride went by in silence, until:

“Hey,” he said again for the second time that night, knocking his knee against yours. You ignored him. He yanked your headphones out of your ears in retaliation.

“Ow!”

“What’s the matter with you today? Why were you falling asleep in class?” he asked, holding your headphones high above his head, out of your reach. During a momentary flash of self-awareness it occurred to you that you were both far too old to be acting like kindergarteners. You couldn’t imagine what the principal would think if she knew this was how her two star students behaved in private.

You narrowed your eyes at him, preparing to be made fun of, and stood up briefly to snatch them back. “Why do you care?”

“I want to know if you’re sick so I can avoid you,” he replied.

“No, I’m on a caffeine ban,” you answered, somewhat reluctantly. He raised a questioning eyebrow. “Our coach puts us on diets before competition season to make sure we don’t get sick. No caffeine, no sweet drinks, no fried food.”

He laughed, completely unsympathetic. “And you still lost last year?”

“We came in second at nationals,” you retorted, “while I seem to recall your team didn’t even make it to regionals.”

“At least we get to eat whatever we want,” he said, knowing it was a weak comeback even before he said it. Last year was a bad season for the football team; they lost to a school they should’ve easily been able to beat and didn’t even get the chance to compete regionally. You had teased him mercilessly for it ever since, just barely stopping short of bringing your national silver trophy to school and putting it on his desk. Or carrying it into a meeting with him and using it as a drinking cup.

You reached over and pushed the stop button on the handrail behind him. “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you over the deafening sound of all of my medals clattering together. Move. It’s my stop.”

Annoyingly, he didn’t move, forcing you to climb over him to get out and off the bus. He flipped you off as the bus drove away, and you flipped him off right back.

——————————

Two days before your basketball championship, you’d finally admitted to yourself that you were not doing well. All the practices, student council meetings, and weekly Excellere rankings were starting to get to you. Your school days were fifteen hours long, your nights and weekends lost to studying or catching up on the meetings you and Yeonjun missed while in class or at practice. Which was frustrating, because it wasn’t like you hadn't gotten through these things before. You didn't know what was wrong with you this time.

“What’s with all that stuff?” Minjeong asked, watching you force a towel and a bag of toiletries into your locker and slam the door closed before they fell out.

“Yeonjun and I are staying late today to go over the work you guys did this week, so I need to shower here after practice,” you said. “We’ve missed way too many meetings.”

“Yeah, because you’re both busy. His championships are tomorrow and yours are the day after. Can’t it wait?” Jimin said.

You shook your head. “No, you guys are already doing work that’s meant to be ours.” You paused for a second for comedic effect. “Besides, I hope he’s tired after tonight so he loses tomorrow.” They both laughed.

“As expected of the golden kids,” Minjeong said, giving you a hi-five. Yeah. As expected of the golden kids.

——————————

It was 11pm, and you and Yeonjun were sitting beside each other in an empty classroom going over the minutes from the last three student council meetings. His hair was wet from his shower and he hadn’t bothered to get dressed fully, with too many buttons undone, an untucked shirt, and his tie nowhere in sight. You stopped taking notes.

“Can you please put your uniform on properly?” you asked.

He snatched your pen and notebook away from you to add in something you’d been fighting over for the last ten minutes. “Why do you have yours on like that, with everything all done up and tucked in? There’s literally no one else here.”

“You look unbecoming,” you said.

“I’m comfortable. You should try it. You can’t convince me you like wearing your tie and buttoning your shirt all the way up like that,” he said, pointing the pen at your collar. When he was done writing, he looked up at you in satisfaction and smirked, arrogant. “Or am I distracting you?”

You would never admit it, but he was right. On both counts. He was distracting you. “Is Soobin okay? He’s been doing a lot lately,” you asked, ignoring him, looking over your notes again. If there was anything that could get you and Yeonjun to stop bickering for even a second, it was talking about the other council members.

“I think he’s a little tired. Once we’re both done with our competitions we can start pulling our weight more,” he said, humming thoughtfully, as if you both weren’t already doing as much as you could. “But you’re right, the kids have been working hard. We’re not being the best leaders right now.”

“Yeah, we’re not,” you sighed, thinking about how you’d seen Jimin online past midnight a few days ago. You should be doing more.

Yeonjun kicked you in the shin under the table, ignoring your hiss of pain. “You know who’s not okay? You. You’re fucking out of it these days.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m fine,” you scowled. “You’re the only person who thinks that.”

He rolled his eyes at your pride. “Yeah, but that’s because I know you better than anyone.” You scoffed at that, but he continued, “Seriously, Pres, who else gets you like I do?”

“Who are you, Sigmund Freud? Stop psychoanalysing me,” you said, glancing over your notes one last time, checking to make sure you had covered every point in the meeting minutes.

“So you think I’m smart?”

“No, I think you want to fuck your mom.”

He relented after that, a type of mercy he didn’t afford you very often. You wondered, then, if you really were as not okay as he was claiming. How had he been the only one to pick up on it? No, you were fine. You were fine. There was nothing to pick up on.

The two of you worked in near-total silence for the next couple of hours. That was a pretty standard affair, once you’d both exhausted your barbs and witty comebacks and didn’t have anything else to say to each other anymore. What wasn’t normal, though, was that you weren’t even being bitchy to each other in the comments of your shared Google Doc as you wrote your emcee script. The thought of Choi Yeonjun, of all people, noticing- you were fine.

“We still need to finalise the event schedule for review by tonight,” he reminded you, breaking the silence. You’d completely forgotten about that, and you never forgot anything.

“I’ll do it. You have your match tomorrow,” you volunteered.

“How charitable of you, Pres,” he said, giving you snark instead of gratitude. You didn’t have it in you to retort, although if the kids were around you probably would have. He raised an eyebrow. “What, no comeback?”

Checking your watch, you mumbled, “It’s past 1am. Let’s just finish this script and go home.”

He looked closely at you. You were being weird, he was sure of it now. He could see the resignation in your eyes, the only sign you’d shown in the four years he’d known you that maybe you weren’t quite as untouchable as you appeared.

“Hey, seriously, what’s wrong with you? I can’t have you breaking now and leaving all the work to me,” he asked, sounding sincerely worried about you for the first time in his life. He had never thought of you as someone who needed to be worried about.

“I’m fine,” you insisted through gritted teeth, “I just-”

You glanced up at him, which was a mistake. The moment you saw concern (of all emotions) on his face, you cracked. You hadn’t cried in front of another person since you were eight years old and broke your leg in a car accident, but now there were tears in your eyes threatening to spill over. Immediately you blinked them away, hoping he would just let it go. Unfortunately for you, however, he had other plans. He laughed and put his arm around your shoulder.

“What are you doing?”

“Comforting you, dumbass.”

You shrugged his arm off of you, clearing your throat in a futile attempt to ease the knot you felt forming at the base of your neck. “I don’t feel comforted.”

He scowled, leaned back in his seat, and crossed his arms. “Well, then, talk to me.” His tone was so solemn and authoritative that it made you comply immediately.

“People keep asking me for things and expecting me to be able to do everything and saying that I’m capable of anything but I’m a fraud. I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m so tired and I just want it to stop.” At some point during your outburst you’d started to cry, though you weren’t sure when, because his arm was back around your shoulder and he was palming away the tears on your face with his free hand. He hooked one foot around the leg of your chair and pulled it closer to him.

“You’re not a fraud,” he said under his breath, his eyes staring straight into yours and his hand warm against your cheek. You didn’t know why he was being so kind to you, and, more confusingly, you didn’t know if you wanted him to be. Which was mortifying.

Through the sheer power of your embarrassment, you willed yourself to stop crying. “I’m fine. You can let go of me now,” you told him, looking away.

“Right.” He seemed to snap back to normalcy at the same time as you, moving back and dropping his hands. You both got back to work like a switch had been flipped, aggressively avoiding each other’s gazes.

——————————

It was nearly 2am by the time the script was finished.

“You shouldn’t stay up to do the event schedule. We’ll just tell the school we need more time,” Yeonjun told you as you both started packing up. His words, for once, were void of arrogance or mockery. It made you anxious in a way that was entirely foreign to you.

“Don’t look at me like that,” you grumbled, turning away. You hated having to ask for more time, to not deliver something you were meant to deliver.

He grinned. “You mean like this?”

Before you’d had the chance to insult him or tell him to knock it off, he took you by the shoulders and stared right at you, his face just inches from yours.

“What the fuck are you doing?” you asked, but your nervousness slipped through in your voice. He smirked, having heard it too.

“Don’t let this go to your head, Pres,” he began, “but I really want to kiss you.”

You rolled your eyes, trying to ignore your quickening heartbeat. “Yeah, whatever. You think I’m hideous. We’re gonna miss the last bus-”

His lips were on yours without your brain having even had the time to process what he’d said. One of his hands shifted down to your waist while the other moved to your jaw, tilting your chin up slightly. Your own hands instinctively came to rest on his chest, and you found yourself kissing him back without thinking. You could feel his heart hammering through his shirt. He was the first to pull away.

Frozen, you could do nothing but stare at him, with your eyes wide and lips still slightly parted. “What-”

“I had to do it. At least once,” Yeonjun whispered, not moving at all either. He was searching your expression for signs of something, you didn’t know what, but when he didn’t find it he let you go. Neither of you said a single word to each other during the entire hour-long bus ride home.

——————————

What a dickhead. How could Yeonjun go from kissing you to ‘idk about pres’ that seamlessly? He had been so kind, so sweet to you that day. You purged that thought from your head as quickly as it had come.

“There’s our president!” Beomgyu cheered as he let you into the meeting room, and the others broke into applause.

“Congrats on winning your finals yesterday!” Jimin added, still clapping.

You closed the door behind you. “Thank you! Sorry for being late,” you said. “I promise I will not miss a single meeting now that my comps are over.”

When Yeojun eventually showed up, he barely looked at you. You didn’t really know why that upset you as much as it did, or what you had been expecting. Once you all started working, however, you quickly fell back into a familiar rhythm along with the other council members.

“Where’s the chit from the popcorn machine vendor?” you asked Beomgyu, sifting through the stack of papers on the desk.

Beomgyu looked up from the printer that he and Jimin were trying (and failing) to get to work right. It was currently spitting out black and white pages that looked like they had been printed in Hell on a Tamagotchi by Satan himself. “What chit?”

“The nacho store we were going to get cancelled on us last weekend, so I asked Yeonjun to get a popcorn guy instead,” you explained. Fucking Yeonjun. You turned to him. “Did you forget to call him back? It’s been four days.”

He thought for a bit then shrugged, relishing your annoyance. “I guess so. Whoops.”

“Call him now, before he backs out,” you instructed, turning your attention back to the papers.

“Haven’t you ever heard of saying ‘please’ and ‘thank you’?”

You didn’t even bother to look up. “Haven’t you ever heard of doing your fucking job?”

He threw the pen he was holding on the floor in response. The other council members exchanged furtive glances.

“Come on, guys. Not in front of the kids,” Soobin sighed, ever the mediator, picking up the pen. You wanted to tell him he didn’t need to clean up after a child, but that would just make things worse. You continued working.

“What’s going on with you two? You’re even worse than usual,” Minjeong said.

At that, you and Yeonjun locked eyes from across the room. He scoffed and looked away immediately. You watched him closely, but you couldn’t read him at all. You were quickly realising that, despite being mirrors of each other and spending almost all of your time together, you barely knew him.

“It seems our Pres is touchy today,” he teased. “They’re a little stressed out.”

You pinned the papers you were holding together with a paperclip and filed them away. “Watch it, Yeonjun,” you warned.

He ignored your glaring at him, your eyes telling him to stop, continuing, “Despite all appearances, they’re not as golden as they so desperately want everyone to think. They even had a little breakdown before their competition.”

Before anyone else could react, you passed the file in your hands over to Beomgyu (what you were doing was technically his job, anyway) and left. The room fell deathly silent.

——————————

Strangely, Yeonjun followed you into the corridor, feeling a weird compulsion to do so. His feet moved under him without him realising. Running after you and shouting your name, he easily caught up with you in just a few long strides. He grabbed your wrist and pulled you back, forcing you to turn around.

“Let me go.” You shook his hand off of you, unable to stop the tears from welling up in your eyes. This was humiliating.

He laughed lightly, unfazed. “What’s your fucking deal? We’ve said way worse things to each other before,” he said. He had a point. And you did have some sort of tacit agreement with him that nothing was off-limits. Maybe you’d been too naive in thinking that that night was different. That it had meant something.

“Fuck off! I need to go fix your fucking mistake,” you shouted, turning back around. Your voice was trembling.

“Pres, relax,” he teased, taking you by the shoulders and spinning you around before you’d even had the chance to take a single step away from him. He leant down to emphasise the height difference between you two, something he did often that infuriated you to no end, pleased by how easily he could rile you up. “Don’t you know throwing tantrums is counter-productive?”

“I hate you, Choi Yeonjun,” you said coldly, biting the inside of your cheek to try and stop your tears. When all he did was laugh, you pushed him away. Against your wishes, a sob broke its way through your pressed lips and you lost it. You balled your hands up into fists and pounded on his chest repeatedly to get him to let go of you; it was like hitting a brick wall and you both knew it. “I hate you! IhateyouIhateyouIhateyou.”

He stopped. “Are you crying?” You crying once the other day was out-of-character enough, let alone twice in such a short span of time. He was pretty sure he’d never even seen you show the smallest sliver of vulnerability before this week.

“Yes, I’m fucking crying, asshole. I’m glad your snail of a brain finally caught up.” You hit his chest again, so weak you barely disturbed a single fibre on his school blazer.

Any sympathies he might have been forming for you earlier dissipated in an instant. He easily grabbed both of your wrists with one hand to stop you, glowering at you, his jaw clenched. “You should’ve known I would tell the kids. Everything between us is fair game, isn’t it, Pres? Why did you even tell me any of that if you wanted it to be a secret?” he snapped.

All the vitriol in your voice evaporated. When you next spoke, you sounded like a child, scared and upset and betrayed. He had never heard you sound anything like that; it was jarring to the both of you. “Because I thought you would understand.”

There it was. The revelation. Perhaps that was what your entire years-long rivalry with this dick of a man boiled down to: a secret hope that he was struggling as much as you, and a frustration that it didn’t seem like he was. You hadn’t even understood that was what it was until you said it.

He sobered in an instant, his eyes softening in the realisation that he’d gone too far. “Pres,” he said quietly, like he was calling a wounded animal. The guilt in his voice was probably as close to an outright admission of wrongdoing as he would ever get with you. “I didn’t know you were-”

“Whatever, dickwad,” you mumbled, deflated, pulling your hands out of his grasp. “I have to call the vendor before he pulls out of this deal. We don’t have a lot of time.”

“Pres, I didn’t know,” he repeated, more urgently this time, still not an apology, following you as you walked away from him.

You stopped in your tracks and turned back around, your voice now calm and measured, holding up a hand to stop him from continuing. “I will be civil to you for the next week so we can see this event through, but I’m done with-” you gestured vaguely between the both of you. “I’m done with whatever this is. Bye, Yeonjun.”

This time, he didn’t chase after you.

——————————

Why was Yeonjun bringing up the day you both stayed until 2am? The day he kissed you? He made it sound like an average day, as if it had meant nothing to him, but something had clearly changed between you two since then.

He was walking on eggshells around you, trying to crack jokes, and engage you in conversations where he didn’t pick on you. You hated it. It made you feel weak. But you were the only one to pick up on it, which was the upside to every single student council member being up to their eyeballs in stress. None of them really noticed his strange behaviour. Or yours.

The festival kicked off smoothly — so smoothly, in fact, that it took Yeonjun and the rest of the council a whole half hour to realise you were missing. After you and Yeonjun finished your joint emcee duties, they hadn’t needed to call you or report to you for anything.

“Hey, have you seen the pres?” Jimin asked, Minjeong following closely behind her. “We’ve been looking for them everywhere.”

“Nope,” Beomgyu said.

Soobin shook his head. “Me neither.”

Everyone turned to Yeonjun in unison. “I’ll go look for them,” he said, already leaning over to grab his jacket hanging off the back of the chair next to him.

“You can’t leave us too! You’re our second-in-command,” Minjeong pointed out.

“Yeah, whatever. You’re in charge now,” he declared absent-mindedly, not really listening to her, one foot already out the door.

——————————

Yeonjun sprinted straight to the bus stop, ignoring the stares of the other students as he ran right through the festival booths. He got there just in time to see your bus pulling away, letting out a long string of curses that made the elderly man sitting on the bench glare at him. He was usually careful about his behaviour in public, especially when he was in uniform like he was then, but he didn’t care anymore.

Your taunts last week were partly true; he didn’t really know how to take buses, and he really was sort of driven everywhere by his parents. So it took him far longer than it should have to figure out how else to get to your house (he stood there staring at the bus chart for long enough that three different people offered to help him). Even the aforementioned elderly man took pity on him, but not before tsking disapprovingly at his student leader badge and calling him foul-mouthed.

He ran ten minutes from the bus stop he ended up alighting at to your house and reached your front porch without even knowing why he was there at all, but he pounded on your door anyway. You came to the window, peeked out from behind the curtain, and left.

“I can see you, Pres. Open the door,” he called out, out of breath. When you complied, he didn’t even give you the chance to speak. “Why are you here?”

You looked him up and down, deciding to be annoying. You usually did when it came to him. “This is my house. Why are you here?”

“You know what I meant, dipshit.” How charming.

You let him in and poured him a glass of ice water. It was weird seeing Yeonjun sitting in your living room, like a forced merger of two spheres of your life that you kept separate as much as you could. His school blazer was hanging off the end of the sofa.

“It’s hot,” he said defensively when he saw you looking at it. It wasn’t; he was just sweating from running from the bus stop to your house. He took the glass from you and set it down on the coffee table without using the coaster you’d so nicely placed right in front of him, making you see red. “Four ice cubes? Are you telling me to die?”

“As if you have a superstitious bone in your body, Choi Yeonjun. Is this how you act as a guest in other people’s houses too?” you asked, sitting down beside him.

He loosened his tie and popped the first two buttons of his dress shirt open. “No, just yours.”

“Sure, please make yourself at home,” you said sarcastically. “What do you want?”

“I came to apologise. You disappeared and we all freaked out. God, I can’t believe I’m worried about you-”

You raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. “Are you sure you know what an apology is?”

“Shut up. I mean-” he groaned in frustration and ran his hands through his hair, something he often did when he got annoyed. “You’re being so difficult!”

“Says the guy complaining about the number of ice cubes I put in his water!”

“For fuck’s sake,” he sighed, putting his head in his hands. “Hang on. Let me start over.”

The living room was completely silent apart from the sound of his heavy breathing. You were about to say something about it — a star athlete being so winded from a short run was pretty entertaining to you — but you decided not to. Your phone dinged. It was Beomgyu telling you the popcorn vendor had shown up late, drunk, and thrown up in the popcorn machine, followed by three increasingly ridiculous reaction images from Megamind. Maybe you shouldn’t have hired a popcorn vendor after all.

“What’s so funny?”

You flashed him your phone screen. “Beomgyu sent me something.”

Yeonjun didn’t even look at it, despite being the one who’d asked in the first place. “I like you,” he declared.

“Are you having a heat stroke?” you asked, disinterested, typing out a quick reply.

He knocked your phone out of your hand in a huff. “Stop fucking texting Beomgyu.”

Your phone clattered to the floor. “Hey!”

“You are such an irritating person.” He dramatically (as always) got up from the sofa to kneel on the floor in front of you, looking up at you with an indecipherable emotion in his eyes. “I like you, Pres. I have for a while now, but I only realised it the other night. I got scared and I lashed out, but that doesn’t make what I said okay. I betrayed your trust and I’m sorry.”

Your head started spinning, and your heart leapt up into your throat. I like you. Your jaw would’ve dropped open had it not been for every muscle in your body going rigid at once. He casually sat back down next to you, picked up his glass, and took a sip. As if he hadn’t just delivered you the single biggest shock of your life. You could barely get his name out of your mouth.

“Yeonjun, I-”

“Look, you don’t have to say anything. I just needed to tell you because it was driving me crazy. You drive me crazy, actually-”

You grabbed his tie, pulled him towards you, and kissed him. If he was surprised by your boldness he didn’t show it, his hands easily finding their way to your waist as he kissed you back. His lips were cold from the ice water.

“Thank you for the apology. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

He broke the kiss, laughing breathily. “I can’t think straight when you’re kissing me. I didn’t hear anything you said.”

You flicked him lightly on the forehead, unable to stop yourself from smiling. “I said thank you for apologising. I appreciate it. But I’m still mad at you.”

“I know,” he said. Right at that moment, both of your phones went off at the same time. “We should get back to school.”

He stood up, casually took your hand, and started walking. You didn’t pull away.

——————————

Although you did it often, being in school this late at night with no one else around never quite stopped feeling other-worldly. Your body was tired, but your mind was still awake and buzzing and alive.

“I’m sorry I made you miss the festival,” you said as you finished making your rounds through the school to check each room one last time, switch off the mains, and lock the doors.

“You didn’t make me do anything.” Yeonjun took your hand in his again and gave it a comforting squeeze, before adding, “Don’t be so full of yourself.”

The words were familiar, but his tone and the warmth in your cheeks were not. Choi Yeonjun of all people was making you act shy and blushy. Revolting.

“The golden boy of the school just confessed to me a few hours ago. How could I not be full of myself?” You stopped walking and turned to face him. “I like you,” you mocked, an over-dramatic caricature of his voice.

Yeonjun groaned and hid his face in his hands. “God, I can’t believe I actually said that. Like a character in a Netflix original.” You laughed, wondering if you’d ever laughed with him, not at him, before.

He’d called his mom earlier and told her not to pick him up — he wanted to take the bus with you, even though it would take him twice as long to get home. Leaving the school, you both turned to look back down the empty corridor.

“I guess this is the end of our late nights,” he mused. Your competitions were both over and there were no more events to organise for the year. All that remained were your final exams.

“Until our Valentine’s Day celebrations,” you reminded him. “Jimin wants to start planning that next week.”

He retorted immediately, “I don’t.” As the lights of the corridor started to turn themselves off (they were on automatic timers, which you found very annoying), he leant down, cupped your face gingerly in his hands, and kissed you twice.

“I want to do this.”

——————————

thanks for reading <3

-minastras

#tomorrow x together #yeonjun #choi yeonjun #yeonjun x reader #yeonjun scenarios #yeonjun soft hours #yeonjun imagines #txt imagines #txt scenarios #txt x reader #txt soft hours

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anewswire · 2 years ago

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Clint Dempsey Net Worth, Biography, Age & More

What is Clint Dempsey's Net Worth and Salary? The former American soccer player Clint Dempsey has a $16 million fortune. Clint Dempsey participated in both the US MLS and the UK Premier League in addition to playing for the US men's national team. He scored 72 goals in seven seasons with Premier League teams Fulham and Tottenham Hotspur, the most of any American in a prominent European league. Dempsey guided the Seattle Sounders to the Supporters' Shield in 2014 when they were back in the US. Contracts, Salary, and Career Earnings During his career, Dempsey was able to earn high salaries. His first significant contract was signed in 2007 with Fulham for a $4 million transfer fee that was then a record for an American player. Dempsey maintained his success at Fulham, and in August 2012, he joined with Tottenham Hotspur for a rumoured $9.6 million cost, which resulted in a significant increase in pay. Clint received an annual salary of $8 million when the English Premier League was at its height. In a European league, he was the highest-paid American football player as a result. Dempsey signed with the Seattle Sounders as a Designated Player when he returned to Major League Soccer (MLS) in 2013, making him one of the highest-paid players in the league with an annual salary of over $4.6 million. Without taking into account money from endorsements and sponsorships, Clint Dempsey's total career earnings from contracts and salary are believed to be in the tens of millions of dollars. Early Life and Playing In Nacogdoches, Texas, on March 9, 1983, Clint Dempsey was born. He and his siblings spent a large portion of his formative years at a caravan park where they played football with the many Hispanic immigrants who lived nearby. Dempsey participated in a local Mexican-dominated league as a teenager. Dempsey accompanied his elder brother Ryan when he went to try out for the Dallas Texans minor football squad. The team took notice of him and recruited him. He immediately rose to prominence with the Texans, eventually becoming the team's captain and leading scorer. He had to leave early nonetheless owing to financial difficulties. Afterwards, Dempsey played football for Furman University. New England Revolution The New England Revolution selected Dempsey eighth overall in the 2004 Major League Soccer SuperDraft. His squad advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals while he scored seven goals in an outstanding debut campaign. Because to his accomplishments, Dempsey was voted MLS Rookie of the Year. The following year, he continued to have success, scoring 10 goals in 26 games, including the game-winning strike in the Eastern Conference Final that helped his team win the MLS Cup. Due to an injury, Dempsey missed a lot of the 2006 season, but he was still able to join the Revolution for their second straight MLS Cup appearance as a replacement. TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images Fulham The most expensive transfer of an MLS player, Dempsey left for Premier League side Fulham in early 2007 in a $4 million deal. In a victory over Liverpool at home in May, he netted his first goal for the team. Dempsey had a strong 2007–2008 campaign, finishing with six goals to lead Fulham in Premier League scoring. He scored his first FA Cup goal in a home victory over Swansea City the following season. Dempsey equaled Andrew Johnson for first place among Fulham's Premier League goal scorers for the second straight season. The club's seventh-place finish in the Premier League was the highest in Fulham's history thanks to those goals. Dempsey became the first American to ever play in a major European final when he and Fulham participated in the newly established UEFA Europa League in the 2009–10 season and advanced to the final. Fulham ultimately fell to Atlético Madrid. In the 2010–11 season, Dempsey accomplished a significant feat: he became the first American player to ever score 10 goals in a Premier League season. The next year, he set a record for the most goals scored by an American in the Premier League and became just the second American to score three goals in the FA Cup. Dempsey also became the first American to ever score a hat-trick in the Premier League. With 33 Premier League goals overall at the end of his time with Fulham, he set a club record for a single player. Tottenham Hotspur In 2012, Dempsey was moved to Tottenham Hotspur. At Old Trafford, in a victory over Manchester United, he scored his first goal for the team. Spurs finally advanced to the second leg of their Europa League quarterfinal match against FC Basel, losing on penalties, and exiting the competition. Seattle Sounders Dempsey came back to the US in 2013 to sign with the Seattle Sounders. He went on loan to Fulham at the start of the following year. Dempsey scored a hat-trick against the Portland Timbers in the MLS season opening in March after making his second trip back to the US. His MLS career highs of 15 goals and 10 assists helped the Seattle Sounders capture the Supporters' Shield as he continued to have a spectacular season. Dempsey performed admirably in the following seasons before being sidelined in 2016 due to an abnormal heartbeat. Dempsey was eventually given the go-ahead and returned in time for the 2017 season, despite some people fearing that this would be the end of his career. He scored 12 goals during his career's final season. International Playing Dempsey began with the US men's national football team at the FIFA World Youth Championship in 2003. Later on, in 2004, he made his debut for the senior squad. The next year, Dempsey participated in his first international competition, the US winning the CONCACAF Gold Cup. The next year, he participated in the 2006 World Cup in Germany, where he became the lone American to score a goal. Dempsey assisted the US squad in winning the Gold Cup once again in 2007 and again in 2017. Dempsey participated in the 2009 Confederations Cup, the 2010 World Cup, and the 2014 Olympics with the US national team, among other significant international competitions. The US advanced to the 2009 Confederations Cup final but fell to Brazil. The 2014 World Cup was where Dempsey put on arguably his best international performance, scoring against Ghana in the opening minute of the game one of the fastest goals in tournament history. After scoring against Portugal in the following game, Dempsey had now scored four goals in three World Cups, which is the second-highest total of any American player. Personal Life With his wife Bethany, Dempsey has five children. The family resides in Pinehurst, North Carolina. Read the full article

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ninadove · 4 months ago

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Time for some French Political Facts! 🇫🇷✨

First of all, a quick reminder: during the législatives, French people vote to elect their representatives at the Assemblée Nationale (our Parliament). There are 577 seats, each representing a small administrative division of the country called a circonscription, and the people who fill those seats get to vote on laws and governmental actions. In fact, the leader of the party with the most votes becomes our Prime Minister, which is the second-highest political rank after President.

Législatives take place over two rounds, and we just had our first on Sunday. A first round of voting can have three different outcomes:

A candidate gets >50% of the votes (more precisely, of the maximum number of votes, taking into consideration abstention and so on) right away: in which case, they are elected auromatically. No need for a second round.

Two candidates, and only two, get less than 50% of the votes, but enough to qualify for a 2nd round. I believe the threshold is 12.5%, but don’t quote me on that.

Three candidates get less than 50% of the votes, but enough to qualify for a 2nd round. This is what is called a triangulaire, and this is the situation that interests us in this case.

Now for our main players. There are many political parties in France, but three are centre-stage in these elections:

Rassemblement National (RN) is a far-right and anti-European party, aka The Bad Guys. RN has been gaining a lot of traction in recent years and notably scored extremely well in the latest European elections, which led to Macron calling snap législatives in the first place.

Ensemble is a coalition of parties supporting our current President Emmanuel Macron. They famously don’t want to be described as pertaining to either side of the political spectrum, but they are very economically liberal, which also sucks for a whole bunch of different reasons. Cannot emphasise enough how much the average French person despises those guys, which obviously contributed to RN’s success.

Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) is a coalition of left-wing parties created especially for this election in an effort to counter both Ensemble and RN. While they also have some unsavoury characters amongst their ranks, they represent a “soul-saving third way” for a great proportion of voters.

All three of these parties hate each other’s guts: for instance, Macron has already claimed he would not govern with Mélenchon, one of the leaders of NFP, if they won the législatives. Which is a bold move, considering that A. he brought this entire debacle on himself and B. this is not optional mah dude. The Constitution says you have to.

Now here’s the kicker: as much as Ensemble and NFP hate each other’s guts, they hate RN even more. After the first round on Sunday, 306 circonscriptions were facing the perspective of a triangulaire: since then, over 200 candidates from either NFP or Ensemble have withdrawn from the race and asked their voters to cast their ballot in favour of the other side. This joined effort basically guarantees that RN candidates won’t get elected in these circonscriptions.

Now before we rejoice, let us remember that this strategy is nothing new: opposing political forces have banded together to block RN from power many, many times over the past few years, yet they’re still gaining ground. For instance, they’re expected to win around 200 seats on Sunday, VS 89 previously, AND THAT WAS ALREADY A RECORD. Paradoxically, this strategy only reinforces the RN scores year after year, because their voters feel like underdogs on a mission to topple the system.

So. Not a win by any means.

Hey, UK! You're next.

Message to JFK Jr and Cornel West. Take a note and think of the country over your ego.

#Sorry for being depressing on main #Now back to your regularly scheduled Sentikids: I love them 💚💜❤️#frenchblr #politics #french politics

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undertale-data · 3 years ago

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[Image Description: an Undertale chat box that says “CANON UNIVERSE” at its center. Surrounding it is radar on its left, and CRIME measurers and a Friendship bar from the Dating Hub on its right. End I.D.]

[Image Description: A bar graph titled “CANON CHARACTER SHIP PREFERENCES”. From left (greatest) to right (least): Alphyne, with 1641 who CONSUME it and 435 who CREATE it; Soriel, with 802 consumers and 188 creators; Papyton, with 725 consumers and 150 creators; Sansby, with 644 consumers and 140 creators; RG01/RG02, 555 consumers and 48 creators; Nicepants, 515 consumers and 61 creators; Kingdings, 445 consumers and 74 creators; Grillster, 438 consumers and 97 creators; Dogamy/Dogaressa, 427 consumers and 38 creators; Frans, 342 consumers and 107 creators; Fontcest, 310 consumers and 136 creators; Charisk, 289 consumers and 77 creators; Sanster, 271 consumers and 85 creators; Chasriel, with 212 consumers and 41 creators; Sansgoriel, 204 consumers and 32 creators; Mettaton/Sans, 127 consumers and 22 creators; Other Ships, 735 consumers and 459 creators; No Ships, 340 consumers and 1581 creators; there were 141 consumers and 117 creators who preferred not to answer. End I.D.]

Alphyne (Alphys/Undyne), as the only major canon ship confirmed in the game, understandably had the highest number of votes in the consumption category, with 61.9% of fans enjoying content about them. They also ranked highest among the specifically stated ships in the creation category, at 16.4%. (As a reminder, ship content created could be in the form of fics, art, comics, videos, or other forms of media.) The “other ships” option, while having only half the votes that Alphyne did in the consumption category, narrowly beat out Alphyne in the creation category (at 17.3%). These two questions in the survey came before the reader insert and AU ships. The “other ships” option in the survey was specifically labeled as “rarepair or ship not listed here,” without clarifying that it still only referred to canon character ships, so it is possible that content creators voted for that option in reference to reader insert or AU ships. Of course, it could also mean that the total of all rarepair ships surpasses the one major ship in the game. It is impossible to tell for sure without gathering more data.

Regardless, Alphyne is still very popular, and deservedly so. Alphyne is unique as one of the first wlw romances in popular media. In the free-response questions about favorite characters and favorite things about the game, many fans brought up the impact that Alphyne had on them. One responder said, “I think Alphys/Undyne helped me accept myself as a lesbian.” The true pacifist ending of the game cannot be reached without Undyne and Alphys confessing their feelings, and the player themself helps them to do so. All of these factors likely contribute to the interest that fans have in their relationship.

Of the ships that are not present in canon, Soriel (Sans/Toriel) ranked the highest in both the consumption and creation categories, followed by Papyton (Papyrus/Mettaton) and Sansby (Sans/Grillby).

[More analysis of these ships under the cut. Also contains mentions of Fontcest.]

Soriel’s popularity is unsurprising given their interactions in canon. Sans’s friendship with Toriel cannot be missed on any route, as he talks about her in the ending phone calls, even choosing to stay with her in the Exiled Queen ending. He also mentions her at the MTT resort if you choose to have dinner with him, which is a scene that many fans of the game love. And, of course, there is the unforgettable pacifist ending, where they meet in person for the first time while Asgore cries in the background. While none of these interactions are inherently romantic, they certainly have a deep friendship that fans can choose to make into something more.

Interestingly, Papyton is the only one of these top four ships that has not had a direct interaction in-game, though Papyrus’s admiration for Mettaton can be inferred from tidbits scattered throughout his battle (MTT brand anime powder, etc.), his date (action figures of various sexy robots), and his phone calls (“HE’S MY FAVORITE SEXY RECTANGLE!”). This ship also may have the appeal of giving both Papyrus and Mettaton a love interest, particularly if fans also ship Alphyne and Soriel at the same time. Papyrus and Mettaton both have bold, flamboyant personalities that have potential to go well together in fanworks where they have the opportunity to interact.

Sansby ranked number four, being the only popular canon ship to include a minor character. Grillby is interesting in that he only says one line in the game (“...good job.”), yet he has a large fan following in his own right. Sans jokes with him, and even if Grillby does not respond verbally, there is room for fans to headcanon a relationship between them.

The fifth ranking ship depends on whether you choose to sort by the ships fans choose to consume, or the ships fans choose to create. Royal Guard 01/Royal Guard 02 is the fifth most popular ship for consuming content, but they only have 48 responders (1.8%) who enjoy creating content about them. They are memorable and enjoyable side characters, but fans have not latched onto them and given them backstories like Grillby. In sorting by ships fans create content for, Fontcest (Sans/Papyrus) was the fifth most popular (at 5.1%). This did not come as a surprise, since discarding reader and AU ships, Fontcest has the second most tagged fics on AO3 (after Alphyne). Since Papyrus and Sans are the two most popular Undertale characters by far, is it inevitable that some fans will ship them regardless of their status as siblings.

The popularity of Sans, Papyrus, and ships involving the two becomes even more apparent in the next section: reader insert ships.

Shipping Analysis Navigation:

1. Introduction, limitations, and methods 2. Canon Character Ships (you are here) 3. Reader Insert Ships 4. AU Character Ships (to be posted) 5. Overall Shipping Comparisons (to be posted)

#shipping #undertale fandom census #undertale #soriel #sansby #papyton #fontcest #alphyne #results #royal guards 01 & 02

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1kook · 4 years ago

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card swiped (2)

→ jeon jungkook x (f) reader

→ How was he, a virgin, supposed to casually take his best friend’s virginity when he was so terribly, irrevocably smitten with said best friend? GENRE eventual smut, minor angst WARNINGS mentions of porn, mentions of sex, mentions of dicks, just jk having dumb thoughts tbh OTHER volleyball player jk, student council pres oc, childhood friends to lovers, besties to lovers, realization of crushes, there is one (1) cheek kiss 😐 RATING m (18+) WC 1.3k

NOTES (!) i did a follow up!!! this is rlly easy bc its like. dumb. the storyline is p simple so its become therapeutic 😐 anywayyy lemme know what u think !!

[ masterlist ]

The first step to initiating sex is a kiss— right?

Jungkook doesn’t even know anymore. All the porns he’s seen start at weird points in the progression, the first kiss somewhere between when the clothing comes off and when the penis holder shoves their cock in. Did he kiss you now, or was he supposed to wait?

That is, can Jungkook even muster the balls to kiss you?

He doesn’t know, and when he sits up in front of you, knees against yours, does he come to a new shocking realization: the two of you have never kissed. For as long as Jungkook has known you, there has never been a kiss shared between you two. Not a single experimental phase, surprise mistletoe, not even a dare. Jungkook and you have never kissed, so it only makes sense that the idea of kissing right now has him pausing before he can even try.

“Uh,” he says, all his years of grammar classes running down the drain when you sit up perkily, a gleam of excitement in your eye. “Tomorrow,” Jungkook chokes out, hurriedly bouncing off your bed before you can even process his words.

By the time you’ve gotten up, he’s standing at the door with his bag slung over one shoulder, foot shoved into his shoe. “You’re leaving?” you ask, and scare the living daylights out of Jungkook when you suddenly reach for the sleeve of his shirt, successfully halting his hasty departure with one gentle tug alone.

Jungkook’s face feels like it’ll burn up at this rate, and his brain screams at him to stop being so weird. You were his best friend, for goodness sake, something like this was bound to happen at some point or another. Right? His heart thunders in his chest, and when your eyes soften for the briefest moment, warm and familiar again, Jungkook relaxes.

“I have practice,” he says casually, tugging the strap of his bag further over his shoulder. Inside, his shoes are shuffled around with his water bottle and practice clothes. “We need more than an hour to do that kind of stuff,” he jokes, but Jungkook isn’t even sure if what he’s saying is true. When that girl had jacked him off at that party—you know, the party—he can’t remember it lasting more than fifteen minutes. To be fair, it had been the first time someone had ever touched him, so maybe it was just because of his inexperience.

And that brings him back to the same dilemma: how on earth is he supposed to rock your world when he’s never even had sex before?

Before Jungkook can dissolve into a self-induced puddle of panic, you’re letting him go. “Okay,” you say, always so sweet and understanding. You had to be if you were the president of the whatever-council (he’s pretty sure it’s the student council). It should be Jungkook who is this composed, not you. It should be Jungkook who leans forward, presses his lips against your cheek— not you!

But as it stands, it is you who leans forward, soft lips pressed flush against his cheek, only an inch away from his lips. Your proximity has the overwhelming scent of, well, you fanning over him; fabric softener, lotion, perfume, all of it. “Oh,” Jungkook says, sounding like a total dweeb. The departure of your lips from his skin produces a soft smooching sound, straight from the movies, and Jungkook’s heart lodges itself into his throat when you meet his gaze with a sweet smile.

And then the door is falling shut and Jungkook is bolting down the hallway, through the campus, and into the gym. He looks and feels insane, the emptiness of the gymnasium a blatant reminder that he was in fact a little too early. Serves him right for chickening out. But a second longer in your presence and he’s almost certain he would have died from heart complications.

It’s only when he stares out over the gymnasium floor, devoid of any human life, that the gravity of his actions truly hit him. And they hit him hard. Like a city bus skidding across an icy road towards an intersection, Jungkook is suddenly hit full force with the stark realization that he has just prepositioned his friend of nearly fifteen years for sex. While being a virgin.

“God,” he groans, throwing his bag against the nearest wall. It hits it with a dull thud, sliding down to the floor sadly. Jungkook follows.

It would be nice to have some common sense every once in a while, to actually use the brain lodged up in his head. Why on earth had he thought offering himself up for sex to you, of all people, would be something easy? Sure, Jungkook as a virgin had some expectations of what sex would be like; deep down inside, he’s always known it won’t be exactly like in porn, there would be some disappointing things and some absolutely amazing things. But those were his own expectations to bear, the end results something that personally wouldn’t weigh down on him too much.

But now… now Jungkook will have to come face to face with your expectations, that of which he absolutely can’t let down. What if you think his dick is small? What if cums too soon? What if you can’t get turned on by him? What if, at the end of it all, you don’t want to be Jungkook’s friend anymore?

The last thought has him sullenly sinking down further against the wall, chin pressed to his chest, as he mulls over any potential options. It would be weird (at least in Jungkook’s mind) to call it off now, especially after seeing how excited you’d gotten. As your best friend, Jungkook lived by an unspoken, strict code of conduct, that of which dictated that promises between best friends were not meant to be broken. It was the highest offense.

But how was Jungkook supposed to rock your virgin world if he was a virgin?

Faintly, he can still feel your puckered lips pressed against his cheek, and he mindlessly raises a hand up to brush his fingers against the skin. It makes him blush, remembering that sweet gaze you’d looked at him with. It’s the same one you used to give him when you were younger, the slightly proud, really content gaze whenever he did his homework before coming over, when he won a game against your rival middle school, when he first walked into a Victoria’s Secret with you when you were both sixteen. “You’re doing amazing, Koo,” you always teased and giggled, the sound gradually mellowing out over the years.

Just a couple weeks ago he remembers hearing the sound from the bottom of a ladder, dragged into decorating the student center with you for the new school year straight out of practice. He had been tired, so absolutely drained from the drills that day, but it was impossible to say no when you had caught him across the student center, eyes lighting up at the mere sight of Jungkook’s sweaty form.

“I’m running for student president this year,” you had told him (so it was the student council), the tall windows that lined the building’s walls allowing a ray of sunlight to settle down over you. It had made Jungkook halt for a second, heartbeat skipping one dangerous beat when you descended down, placed a hand on his shoulder the closer you got. “Vote for me, please?”

“Yeah,” he had breathed, felt like the entire world was too small to fit the growing feeling in his chest.

And it’s with that memory that Jungkook reaches his third and final realization of the afternoon, an accumulation of all the prior ones: how was he, a virgin, supposed to casually take his best friend’s virginity when he was so terribly, irrevocably smitten with said best friend?

“Oh… fuck,” he groans, slumping down until he’s practically sprawled over the floor, startling Namjoon and Jimin as they enter the gymnasium. Jimin scolds him for scaring them, but Jungkook is so deep in his wallowing that he barely hears.

He was in trouble.

#jungkook smut #networkbangtan #bangtanhq #bangtanarmynet #kwritersworldnet #jeon jungkook smut #jjk fic #jungkook fic #jeon jungkook fic #jjk x reader #jeon jungkook x reader #jungkook x reader #jungkook x reader smut #bts fic #bts smut #mine

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byeol-interrupted · 3 years ago

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en- as players in Squid Game, a saga

warnings: cursing, SPOILERS FOR SQUID GAME AHEAD!! Do not read unless you dont mind the series being spoiled to you

important note: I’ve changed the game a bit so that enhypen dont actually die when eliminated, they just get booted out :)

Heeseung

we all know Hee’s an ace at just about everything so he’d most likely be the top pick to survive to finals

in red light green light he’d just lowkey be charging ahead and get there like five minutes before the timer goes off

randomly will throw his shoe at the golden pig to try to get it to break

which it doesnt

when everyone votes on whether or not to stop the game, he votes for STOP

because he’s a precious lil bean who cant bear the thought of ppl fighting

but goes back a week later because MONEY

breezes thru every single damn game until the glass stepping stones

takes forever studying the glass to see if its the right kind

so Jay gets pissed at him and pushes him off

#heesobrocken😖🥀

Jay

a quiet one

the kind that everyone thinks will get eliminated straight up

surprise surprise, Jay Park has more than that to him

during the vote, Jay goes for STOP, bc he’s already rich and he was just bored when he signed up 🙄

picks the umbrella for the dalgona game and finishes first because he had the hindsight to sneak stuff in with him

then sits back laughing at Jake for not being able to carve the circle out

pretty good at all the games but like Hee, gets eliminated at glass stepping stones

gravity was not on Jay’s side that day sadly

but oh well, it was fun while it lasted right?

Jake

climbs the bunk beds like they’re jungle gyms

which is not advisable

“But its good practise!” He insists when the guards tell him to stop for the fifty-seventh time

Jay will feed him stolen dalgona chunks to make him shut up

during the vote, Jake picks STOP bc he misses Layla :(

but comes back because he wants to get Layla some dog stuff

the marble game is his downfall

he challenged Sunghoon to a game of ‘Throw The Marble In The Trench’

and although he has good practice throwing stuff, somehow every shot he makes misses by half a millimetre

“ANDWAEEEEEEEEE” can be heard everywhere when he loses

see you on the other side boys

Sunghoon

pretends to be serious but will laugh at people who get eliminated

some players are scared of him at first but when they see him scaling the bunk beds like a pro they change their minds

only came coz Jake promised to buy him a flat white

and a new jacket

during the vote, Sunghoon picks GO because he really wants that flat white

beats Jake at the marble game and gets a massive ego boost

the glass stepping stones do nothing to help

makes it to the finals and gets eliminated because he tripped over a pebble and fell out of the court

feels ripped off

but gets better after Jake gets him that flat white and a new black jacket <3

Jungwon

Sheep Garden Yang is an expert at all things game related

goes slow and steady for the red light green light game

good strategy but nearly gives Sunoo a heart attack because he gets over the line at the last possible second

uses the blankets as a cape and builds a superhero alter ego for himself to pass time

during the vote Jungwon picks GO, bc he wants to prove he can win the dalgona game

yes he has a bet with Heeseung and he really doesn’t want to lose twenty dollars

manages to carve the shape out PERFECTLY

“OKAY NICE ITS MEEEE MY TIME!”

gets eliminated at Tug Of War

his arms hurt okay? give the poor guy a break >:(

takes a photo of the screen when Heeseung gets pushed off by Jay and frames it in their living room

Sunoo

our resident sunshine!!

strikes the weirdest poses in red light green light and doesn’t get eliminated

he got that spice~

will yell at Jungwon for stealing his blanket to build his alter ego

but will also steal Jungwon’s blanket to build a pillow fort (the password to the fort is Password)

during the vote to end the game or not, he picks STOP

too tired to keep playing any other games because Jungwon and Ni ki kept pestering him for the password to the fort

ultimately comes back though because imagine how much skincare he can buy with 4.56 billion :0

partners with Ni ki for the marble game, which leads to his elimination

either Ni ki is a mind reader or Sunoo is too obvious about how many marbles he has

at least he can go home and make another pillow fort without being disturbed <3

Ni ki

the resident prankster

constantly giving the guards heart attacks

“WHERE DID OUR SHOES GO??”

surprise, they’re hidden under the mattress of the highest bunk bed!

known as the problem child among the players

gets eliminated first round because he tried to do Michael Jackson’s ‘hee-hee’ pose and fell

poor thing ☹️✊

BUT THEN HE COMES BACK AFTER THE VOTE YAYYY

babie wants the money so he can get a plane ticket back home :(

panics during the dalgona game and tries to pull the I’m A Foreigner card

makes it because he picked the triangle to carve out :D

ultimate downfall is the glass stepping stones

because, you guessed it! he called upon Michael Jackson’s spirit to help him through, and fell

sad but instantly cheers up bc his bros got him a plane ticket home <3

89 notes · View notes

ammyamarant · 10 months ago

Text

Alright! Of all those names, the one that is a real name is...

Feist, codename Stainless!

This one I found fascinating because multiple Arknights players said they weren't actually sure which one was the real name! I chose Stainless because he first shows up in chapter 10 using his real name, so you wouldn't have to look at operator files or anything like that.

To the person who said I should have used Weiss instead, it's definitely a tossup between Stainless and Courier. I went with Stainless because "Feist" has the same kind of feeling as Blemishine as in "Feisty," and because Break the Ice is a side story.

I am cackling at the fact Midnight barely got any votes.

Pramanix had the second highest votes. As an Enya Silverash appreciator I have to say this amuses me.

And for comparison:

A few rules I had making this:

We have to already know all these operators' real names.

No operators that use any part of their real name in their codename.

I decided against anyone who (to my knowledge) outright changed their name and uses the new name as a codename.

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aus-wnt · 3 years ago

Note

Great interview!

https://www.fifa.com/tournaments/womens/womensworldcup/australia-new-zealand2023/news/kerr-the-world-cup-buzz-is-already-starting

‘Beyond Greatness’ is the slogan of the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia & New Zealand 2023™ and, for Sam Kerr, it could prove prophetic.

Scoring more goals than any Australian in history and gathering golden boots across the world has long since secured, and cemented, the striker’s status as a national icon.

Yet that World Cup, which kicks off in just 500 days’ time, offers the genuine, tantalising opportunity to trade greatness for immortality.

Kerr, who turns 29 in September, recently finished runner-up in the voting for The Best FIFA Women’s Player and, incredibly, claimed six top-scorer awards across three separate leagues – in three different continents – between 2017 and 2021. She’s also well on course to add a seventh golden boot to that collection in 2022.

But for the defenders in whom the Chelsea and Matildas star already inspires fear and dread, there is bad news. Kerr, it seems, is just getting started.

“There’s definitely more to come from me,” she told FIFA. “Everyone’s trying to say 28 is the peak but people like Megan Rapinoe won [The Best] years after that, as did Carli Lloyd, and I know I still have more to give.

“I’m really excited about where I’m going in my career, where my national team is going and where my club is going. I feel I’m only just starting to play my best football, and doing it at a consistent level. Hopefully people believe I have more to give – because I definitely do.”

Raising her sky-high standards yet further would, given Kerr’s second-place ranking in The Best, all but assure her of edging up that particular podium. But even for a born winner who has become accustomed to finishing first, this was one runner-up prize in which she was able to take genuine pride.

“Some might have seen it as a loss,” she said, “but I felt really honoured to be voted second best in the world, and proud of how far I’ve come in my career. I don’t play for those type of awards – I play for my team and I play to win trophies. But it’s nice to be recognised and I’m not afraid to admit that I was really proud. I also think Alexia [Putellas] thoroughly deserved it, so there’s definitely no shame in coming second to her.”

Barcelona’s brilliant playmaker wasn’t the only award-winner for whom Kerr had nothing but praise. She also identified the winning blend that has enabled the empathetic but fiercely demanding Emma Hayes – her Chelsea manager and The Best FIFA Women’s Coach – to take her game to another level.

She said: “Emma’s an amazing coach but also an amazing person – someone who takes care of us on and off the pitch. She cares a lot about us as people, which I think allows us to perform to our best. She’s tough though, and definitely gets after you if you’re not doing what you should be doing!

“But part of the reason for joining Chelsea was that I knew Emma would challenge me, the club would challenge me, the league would challenge me, and it’s only bettered my game. I’ve had to adapt and I’ve definitely got stronger for it.”

There have been disappointments along the way too, such as Chelsea’s humbling UEFA Champions League final loss to Barcelona and Australia’s shock quarter-final defeat to Korea Republic at the recent AFC Women’s Asian Cup. But even that early exit couldn’t prevent Kerr finishing as the tournament’s top markswoman, and she also left India as her country’s highest scorer of either gender, having surpassed Tim Cahill’s erstwhile record of 50 international goals.

“Me and Timmy have a lot of mutual respect,” said Kerr, reflecting on that latest record. “He’s an idol of mine, so to break his record – and even be in the same sentence as him – I have to pinch myself. But although I enjoyed getting to that record, I’m actually glad it’s done now so I can finally stop talking about it!”

If there is one subject Kerr will never tire of, it’s next year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup. If anything, in fact, her excitement grows with every passing milestone and the steady ticking off of the days until 20 July 2023.

“I’m so proud that Australia is in a position where we’re able to host a World Cup,” she said, beaming. “We deserve it and I think we’re going to show to the world what an amazing country we have, and what a sporting country we have. “I’m just so excited. I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like and now, just over a year out, the buzz is already starting. We can’t wait to welcome everyone to Australia.”

There is also a firm conviction that, on and off the field, impressive new standards will be set in this historic 32-team showpiece.

“Every World Cup improves [on the one before] in the quality on the pitch, the advertising and marketing off the field and in the profile of the players,” she said. “When I went to my first World Cup, I had to explain to people what we were doing there. Now everyone’s excited for it, the girls are getting more and more recognized, and it’s becoming a very important part of the calendar.

“2023 is going to be amazing. I think it’s going to be the best World Cup, not just because Australia is hosting it, but because the quality in women’s football has improved dramatically in the last four years.”

The trajectory of the competition, and of the women’s game as a whole, merely reflects that of Kerr herself. As she continues to rise, setting new benchmarks and smashing existing records, who would dare bet against this Aussie icon moving ‘Beyond Greatness’ when her nation welcomes the world?

#Sam Kerr #Matildas #AUSWNT #Chelsea Women #Chelsea WFC

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onecanonlife · 3 years ago

Text

In which Tommy travels back in time and tries to prevent a nightmare from happening to everyone he knows. Everyone else, meanwhile, is highly concerned.

(fic masterpost w/ ao3 links)

(first part) (previous part) (next part)

(word count: 4,391)

--------------------

Part Eight: Fundy

The easy part is deciding to run.

It’s all a pretty clear-cut process. The rules were stated at the outset, though he’s got no idea what was Wilbur’s idea and what was Tommy’s, considering how much Tommy seems to care about this whole thing. But none of them are unreasonable or anything like that, nothing that he’d find objectionable. He just has to declare his party’s intention before election night, not rig the vote, not join his vote with any other parties, and not seek endorsements from people who are banned from the server. And be a citizen of L’Manberg.

There’s nothing wrong with any of those, or at least, not that Fundy can see. And—he wants to run. He wants to look all the rest of the players on this server in the eyes and make them see him, respect him, listen to him. For himself, because he is awesome and capable, and not because they think he’s an extension of someone else.

So deciding to run is pretty easy. It’s not like he’ll even be the first; Quackity’s already declared his intentions, though he’s running solo, and doesn’t seem to be taking it too seriously. He considered trying to become his running mate, but Niki, when he explained his idea to her, seemed pretty on board to run with him. Niki’s really cool like that, and honestly, he’d rather team with her than with anyone else. So he’s running. He’s going to do it. He’s going to.

The difficult part is going to be telling Wilbur.

So he’s not procrastinating. He’s definitely not procrastinating. It’s just—there’s other people to talk to about it, right? Other people to tell? And it’s not like it matters what order he goes in. So that’s why he’s here, at the base of one of those big towers that Eret is building, hoping to find them here. It’s getting late, but the sun only set a little while ago, so they’re probably still around.

This can be like a practice run. A trial, for telling people about it. And Eret’s always listened to him, and they’re not even running themself, he’s pretty sure, so this will be good, to ease him into it. Not that this is something that needs easing. But it’s good to practice things, even if it’s not something that necessarily requires it. He’s just being responsible, which is a trait that anyone would value in a president.

The tower’s still a work in progress, but it’s pretty easy to get to the highest level. He’s almost certain that Eret is still here, and he’s right about that, but on a second glance, it turns out that Eret is asleep. They’re sitting upright, their back to the most completed section of wall, but their head has lolled to the side, their glasses close to slipping from their nose. He can even see their eyes—closed, of course. They’re definitely asleep. Definitely a little weird, since it’s not even that late, but he has noticed that they’ve been looking a little tired lately. Probably because they’ve sort of been responsible for a lot of L’Manberg’s development, build-wise.

He should come back later, probably. Except, that can’t be comfortable at all, and it’s really not that late, and the tower’s not finished yet, so the whole place is kind of exposed. Not the safest area to be taking a nap in after dark. Mobs might be able to get in, and then where would Eret be?

And also, he’s been psyching himself up this whole time, and if he doesn’t tell Eret here and now, he thinks that he might end up waiting until tomorrow to tell anyone at all. Not because he’s nervous! It’s just—late, and he’s spent time getting up here already, so he wants to do what he came here to do. That’s it.

So he creeps forward, not too loud but not trying to be too quiet, either, and crouches by Eret’s side. As he moves, something glimmers, and he squints, but—no, it’s just Eret’s jewelry reflecting the torchlight. They’ve taken to wearing a good bit of gold, lately.

“Hey, Eret?” he says. “Eret? It’s your pal Fundy. Maybe wake up?”

Eret doesn’t wake up. But their brow has creased, so, encouraged, he continues.

“Not a great place to go to sleep, probably,” he says, and he reaches out to give their shoulder a tap. “I mean, I know you’ve seemed pretty tired lately, but yikes. Maybe not good. C’mon, wake up.”

Eret still doesn’t wake, but they start to breathe quicker, which is probably not because of him at all. Are they having a nightmare? If they’re having a nightmare, he should definitely wake them up, because friends don’t let friends have nightmares.

“Hey,” he says, and shakes their shoulder more vigorously. “C’mon, man, I wanna tell you something.” He glances at the sky; the tower doesn’t have a roof yet. “And it’s getting just a little bit late, so you should probably go sleep in your house and not here, and I still need to go by the office so I can tell Wilbur—”

Eret gasps, lurching forward, jamming their sunglasses back over their eyes in the same motion, and Fundy jerks back a bit on instinct. He has no idea why they wear those all the time. Maybe it’s a light sensitivity thing. Or maybe they just want to look cool. But now’s probably not the time to focus on that, because Eret’s breathing is still way too fast, and they were definitely having a nightmare, from that reaction, so he inches forward again.

“Hey, Eret,” he says. “Sorry about that. Are you good?”

For a moment, Eret doesn’t reply. And when they do, their voice is—kind of weird. He’s not sure how to describe it, except as off.

“He failed,” they say, between gasps. “He tried, and he failed. That has consequences.”

“Uh,” he says. “Who failed?”

“But I wasn’t there,” they say. “I wasn’t there, so how did I—but the universe itself shudders, with a thing like that. What were the consequences? Something like that shouldn’t be interrupted.”

This must have been some dream.

“Something like what?” he asks.

Eret looks directly at him for the first time, though he has the strangest feeling that they’re not seeing him at all. He can’t see directly behind their glasses, but around the edges, there’s something like a pale glow. But he must be seeing things, some kind of weird reflection. Of the moon, maybe, or the stars.

“Dream tried to resurrect him,” they say. “But he couldn’t finish. That’s a dangerous magic to tamper with. You never, ever start a spell that you can’t see through to the end. And it had its blood.”

“Uh,” he says. “Sure thing. What exactly are you talking about?”

Eret falls silent. And then, they say, “Fundy?” Their voice is normal again, though he still can’t quite put his finger on what the difference was.

“Yep, that’s me,” he says. “Seriously, are you okay?”

“I’m—fine,” Eret says, and then again, “I’m fine.” They sound far more confident the second time. “Sorry, I was—dreaming. I’ve been having a lot of strange ones of late. It’s nothing to be concerned about.”

“Dreams can be weird,” he agrees.

Eret laughs. “Quite.” They stretch, tilting their head to side to side, wincing when something cracks. “Thank you for waking me. I’m not quite sure why I decided that was a good position to sleep in.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” he says, and Eret smiles, bringing their knees closer to their chest and laying an arm across them, twisting their torso to turn toward him more. It makes something burn in his chest, a comfortable warmth, at being given their full attention.

“Was there something you’d like to talk about?” they ask, and that warmth grows. “I can’t imagine you came up here just to prevent me from getting a crick in my neck.”

“I mean, that was part of it,” he protests. “I wanted to be a good friend! But um, yeah, actually, there was something I really wanted to tell you.” He hesitates, and Eret nods at him, encouragingly. Now that he’s here, about to say it out loud, he feels like his whole body is buzzing. It is kind of a big deal, actually, doing something like this. But he lets himself blurt it out. “I’m going to run for president!”

There’s a beat, and then, Eret’s face breaks into a wide grin.

“Really?” they say. “That’s awesome! I’m really happy for you, man.”

His tail starts wagging. “Yeah?” he asks.

“Of course!” Eret says. “That’s a big deal. I’m really proud you’re going for it. Do you have a running mate? And a name?”

He grins. “Niki’s running with me,” he says. “We’re going to be Coconut2020.”

Eret laughs again. “Coconut?” they ask. “Any particular reason?”

“Coconuts are good,” he says. “We both like coconut. We’ve bonded over coconuts.” He narrows his eyes. “Don’t mock our coconuts.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Coconuts are good. Fair enough.” Eret tilts their head. “What did Wilbur say, if I might ask?”

And just like that, his euphoria dies down.

“Oh,” he says. “Right, um. Actually, you’re the first person I’ve told! Other than Niki, of course.”

“Oh!” He can hear the surprise in their tone, and he cringes away from it, a bit; he knows very well, of course, that Wilbur probably should’ve been the first to hear it. But it’s not like what he doesn’t know will hurt him, and he—he just wanted to practice. That’s all. “Well, in that case, I’m honored.” A pause, and then, “You’re not worrying about it, are you?”

“What?” He laughs, and he definitely sounds nervous. “No. No, why would I be nervous?”

“I think you don’t need to be,” Eret agrees, leaning toward him a bit. “I know Wilbur’s been busy these days, but he cares for you a lot. I think he’ll be quite proud that you’ve decided to take the initiative.”

“You think so?”

“I do. I wouldn’t say you have anything to worry about.”

“Okay.”

He feels a bit better, hearing that, and he knows that Eret is right. He’s never doubted his dad’s love for him, after all, even if he’s doubted Wilbur’s faith in him in a lot of other respects, and this is exactly the kind of thing he needs to do to make him stop doing that second thing. To make him see that he’s a man now, able to take care of himself, to do great things. If he goes far in this election, if he manages to beat him, even, then he’ll have to acknowledge how grown up he’s become. Will have to look at him with pride in his eyes.

“Okay,” he says again. “Thank you, Eret.”

“Of course,” Eret says. “I wish you the best of luck.”

It’s time for him to go, then. This practice went pretty great, actually. He feels like he can do this now. He feels good. Pumped. Hyped up.

“Thanks,” he says. “Are you gonna go get some actual sleep now?”

“I might stay up a while longer,” Eret says. They stretch, and then rise to their feet, and he follows their example. “I’d like to get a little more done with this tonight. And I’ll admit, my dreams haven’t been very kind to me lately.” They pause, and he’s not sure what to say to them; it always sucks, of course, to have nightmares, but he can’t offer much more than a basic commiseration. “I can’t help but feel like something’s missing.”

“From the tower?” he asks.

Eret smiles. “That too,” they agree. “I like it so far, but it feels a bit plain.”

He considers this for a moment. Eret’s not looking at him, is staring out at the lands beyond, visible past the incomplete wall. They’re absentmindedly twisting one of the bracelets around their wrist, and that gives him an idea.

“If you wanted to spice it up a little, you could always try some gold accents,” he suggests, and Eret jerks, turning their head toward him. “I noticed you’ve been liking gold a lot lately.”

He’s not sure why that makes them go pale.

“Maybe,” they say, softly. “Maybe.” They smile again, but this one’s a bit shaky. “I’ll bid you good night, Fundy. And really, good luck. But don’t get too worked up about it. You’ve got this.”

He nods, grinning. “I’ve got this! Goodnight, Eret!”

He leaves Eret to their tower. It’s to the office from here, and it’s definitely well into the night by now, but he knows his way around this nation like the back of his hand, even in the dark, and there’s plenty of torches to see by anyway. He considers, for a moment, that Wilbur might have already turned in for the night, but he casts that thought aside. Wilbur’s always working, even long past when a reasonable person would have hit the hay.

Tommy accosts him just outside the building that’s been serving for L’Manberg’s headquarters, sliding out of the darkness with a smirk on his face and his hands in his pockets. Fundy regards him warily. Not that he doesn’t like Tommy. He does, even if he’s been a little weird lately. But that’s an expression that screams trouble. And what is he doing out and about at this time of night anyway?

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks, and Tommy raises an eyebrow.

“What, can’t a boy look?” he says. “Do you need me to avert my gaze? Are you perhaps up to some crime and wrongdoing?”

“What? No,” he says. Trying to decipher Tommy is, on occasion, like attempting to navigate a parkour course blindfolded. “I’m just—” He bolsters himself. Stands straighter, puffs his chest out. “I’m running for president. So I’m going to go tell Wilbur.”

He speaks it like the challenge that it is. As much as he likes Tommy, he’s competition in this case, as Wilbur’s running mate. Tommy’s mouth forms an ‘o’, and something flickers in his eyes.

“Really?” he says. “Well, good on you, getting in on it early. Before election night.”

He frowns. “Yeah? Aren’t those the rules?”

Tommy nods, and then doesn’t say anything else, and this, this is why Fundy thinks he’s weird. It’s like sometimes, he just says weird things without elaborating, or even without realizing that it’s something that should require elaboration. Tommy’s just a weird guy overall, really.

“Okay,” he says, more to fill the silence than anything else. “Is there something you wanted to talk to me about? Or can I just go in? And I’m not moving out of my house, before you start that again,” he tacks on.

“I’m telling you, the real estate in that area is not good. Rather not poggers,” Tommy says. “It’s a dodgy part of the SMP, it is.”

“The only one anywhere near there is Punz,” he says, exasperated, and immediately berates himself for letting himself be drawn into this conversation again. That’s another weird thing; apparently, Tommy has recently taken offense to the location of his house, and has made persuading him to move somewhere else a priority. He can’t tell whether he’s serious, or whether it’s a long and involved bit.

Tommy nods sagely. “Dodgy,” he says. “But nah, you go on in. Wilbur’s still there, far as I know. Good luck.” Tommy steps away, and then stops, frowning, and turns back. “But maybe make sure Wilbur knows that you running against him isn’t, like, you disowning him or some shit. He wouldn’t take that well.”

“Why would that mean I was disowning him?” he demands. Wilbur wouldn’t think that, would he? Surely, even he wouldn’t jump to so drastic a conclusion. Unless he would, and him doing this is going to ruin their relationship, and he’s making a terrible mistake. But no, he’s not going to think like that. If Wilbur does have that attitude, that’s on Wilbur. Not him.

“It wouldn’t,” Tommy says seriously. “But, y’know, one thing leads to another.”

“How would that lead to me disowning him?”

“It shouldn’t,” Tommy says, and then grins again. There’s less light in this one, less levity. It’s actually a little unsettling. “Don’t mind me. Go talk to Wil. See you later, Fundy.”

“Okay,” he says. “Bye, Tommy.” He watches as Tommy walks away, and realizes, with some frustration, that he forgot to ask why, exactly, Tommy was hanging around here. Oh, well. He can’t let himself get worried about what Tommy’s doing, even if it’s always best to have half an eye on the guy. Trouble follows him.

But then, trouble kind of follows all of them.

He goes inside, and finds his way to Wilbur’s office. It’s not difficult; he’s been here before, though not often. The door is closed, and he hesitates in front of it, his nerves flagging. But then, he inhales, remembers Eret’s excitement and encouraging words, the way that Tommy didn’t make any disparaging remarks, and—he can’t expect a completely positive reaction, probably. He’s declaring himself as a political rival to his own father.

But he doesn’t need the reaction to be entirely positive. He just wants to look Wilbur in the eyes and see respect there.

He knocks.

Waits a beat.

“Come in,” comes the voice, and he slides the door open.

Wilbur’s at his desk, chin propped up on his hand, glasses slipping down his nose. His eyes are focused on whatever paper’s in front of him, narrow and squinting as they dart across the words, and his other hand grips a pen tightly, though he doesn’t seem to be doing anything with it at the moment. After a second, he glances up, and his gaze locks on Fundy, and Fundy suddenly feels very, very unprepared.

“Hello Fundy,” Wilbur says, and he sounds a little unsure, like he has no idea what he could possibly be doing here. He feels a little bitterness start to well up. “Is something the matter?”

Of course that’s his first instinct. That something has to be wrong. Because he thinks of Fundy as a child, always getting into scrapes, always needing help.

“No,” he says. “Nothing’s wrong. But can I talk to you for a second?”

Wilbur sets the pen down, sits up a little straighter. “Of course,” he says. “I’ve always got time for you.”

Then where have you been? he doesn’t say. Why are you always working? How come you almost never do anything else these days? And even when you’re around, why do you act like I’m still a little kid, like I didn’t fight in your revolution, like I haven’t been here the whole time?

“Great,” he says. “That’s great. Listen, I’ve got something to tell you.”

“Alright,” Wilbur says, slowly. “Go on.”

He takes in a deep breath.

“I’m running for president,” he says.

For a moment, there is silence.

“I see,” Wilbur says, still slowly, like he’s working through it in real time, and he continues, feeling an odd burst of panic, like he needs to get all of it out now, before Wilbur can reply, can say anything, can shut him down or question him or anything like that.

“I haven’t marked my name down yet, but that’s my next stop,” he says. “Me and Niki, we’re going to be Coconut2020.”

“You and Niki,” Wilbur repeats, and he nods.

“Me and Niki,” he says, and then pauses. It’s out there now. He’s said it. And Wilbur’s just staring at him. He’s got no idea what that expression’s supposed to be. It just kind of looks—blank. Which, frankly, is not the reaction he was hoping for, and he shifts uncomfortably. “So, yeah. That’s what I was here to say.”

Wilbur is quiet for a long, long moment.

“Have you thought this through all the way?” he asks, voice quiet.

“What? Yeah, of course I have.” He crosses his arms. “This is what I want to do. You’re not gonna be able to change my mind.”

“But—why, then?” Wilbur asks. The blankness is finally fading, replaced by—Fundy’s not even sure what, but he is sure that it’s not anything good. Which makes anger rise up in him; honestly, who is Wilbur to deny him, at this point? Why does Wilbur think he gets a say in this when he’s barely spoken to him at all, these past weeks? “Why do you feel the need to—do you think I’m not suitable? Is that it?”

“Not everything’s about you, Wil,” he says. Even though this kind of is. But not in the way he’s thinking. “I think I’d be a good president, so I’m running. That’s all it is. It’s not that complicated.”

“I think it is a bit complicated,” Wilbur says, “considering you’re my son. I—I didn’t expect this from you.”

That’s the whole point, he doesn’t say. You never expect anything from me.

“It’s not,” he insists. “It’s not complicated. Don’t make it into something it’s not. I’m running. That’s all. This isn’t—my being your son doesn’t come into it.”

“I disagree,” Wilbur says. “I—you do realize what you’re doing, don’t you? I’ve never wanted us to be enemies, Fundy. But this—we’ll be opponents. I won’t hold back just because you’re my son. An election’s an election. Even if—and that’s a side of me you’ve never had to deal with. That I’ve never wanted you to deal with.”

Despite himself, doubts flit across his mind. Did he think this through? But then, he hardens his resolve. This is what he wants. To challenge Wilbur. To make him back down, if he can manage it. To force him to acknowledge him as someone to be reckoned with. And if that comes in the form of taking his country from him, then all the better, right? Wilbur won’t be able to ignore him then.

“I can hold my own,” he says, and before he can stop himself, he continues, “And why does this even matter so much to you, anyway? Why do you need to be the one in charge?”

If he’s not mistaken, he thinks Wilbur rears back a bit, at that question. But it’s difficult to tell. Wilbur never lets anything show that he doesn’t want to, making him frustratingly difficult to read.

“I founded this country, didn’t I?” Wilbur says. “Didn’t I lead us? I just want to continue to protect this nation. I want to be able to do what’s best for it. I want to see it flourish, and be strong, and—if it’s the people’s will that that happens under someone else’s hand, I’ll accept that. But if I can continue to guide L’Manberg, then I want to do so.”

“I mean,” he says, “it kind of felt like Tommy was the one who won it for us.”

Wilbur stills. And then, inclines his head, lips twitching up. It’s a smile, though for some reason, Fundy has a hard time seeing any joy in it, any happiness at all. But then, he’s probably reading too much into things, putting emotions into an expression that simply aren’t there. Because when Wil’s not being overbearing, he’s being distant. There’s really no inbetween.

“That’s true,” he says. “Tommy did.”

Silence falls again, thick and stifling.

“Um,” he says, after a second, “that was all I had to say. I think I’ll just go, now.”

“Alright,” Wilbur says, and it doesn’t seem like he’s going to say anything else, so Fundy turns to the door, an odd emotion settling into his stomach. It might be disappointment—he’s not sure that he got what he wanted from it, though the fact that he was able to rile Wilbur up at all is an accomplishment. And he managed to hold his ground, and he thinks that says something.

Except then, Wilbur says something else, and it gives him pause.

“I am proud of you, though,” Wilbur tells him, and he stops before his hand closes around the door handle, fireworks going off across his skin.

“Yeah?” he says, and turns around again. Wilbur’s still looking at him, meeting his gaze evenly, though there is something tight about it, something off. But he’s smiling, and Fundy decides not to examine any of it too closely. Because the words rattle around in his brain, in his heart, and then settle.

“Of course,” Wilbur says. “I suppose I don’t say that to you enough, but I always am. And in this—I’d be lying if I said I liked the decision. I don’t want this to—” He stops, and swallows, an oddly audible break in the flow of his words. “But that’s me, isn’t it? Good on you for—for having the balls, I guess. For going after what you want. Just be sure that you can handle it.”

A double-edged sword, then. How many times does he have to say that he can handle something before Wilbur finally believes it? But still, he said he’s proud. That he always is. And that has to mean something. Has to mean everything, in the end.

“I can,” he says. “Thanks, dad.”

Wilbur smiles again. Oddly, it still doesn’t look happy. But it’s very likely that he’s stressed and tired anyway. He didn’t consider that before. Maybe he really should’ve waited for another time to bring this up, another time that wasn’t late at night. But what’s done is done, and he’s said his piece, and Wilbur wasn’t quite enthusiastic but he did say that he was proud of him, which all in all, is much better than it probably could have gone. His chest is buzzing, still.

So he smiles back at Wilbur, and exits his office.

And later, after he’s made everything all official and he’s meeting with Niki in her bakery, going over their plans and forming his own in the back of his mind—a last resort, just in case it looks hopeless—she asks him, “How did it go? Telling him?”

And he considers that for a moment.

“Honestly,” he says, “I think it went pretty well.”

#mcyt #dsmp #dream smp #fundy #eret #tommyinnit #wilbur soot #dsmp fic #/rp #cat writes fic #long post #time travel au #everything's fine :D

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sou-ver-2-0 · 4 years ago

Note

what do you think of anzu? she’s the sixth most likely to win and yet she’s proved completely useless in chapter three so far, which ngl seems kind of sus

The Mystery of Anzu’s High Survival Rate

Aaahh I’m happy to finally get a chance to talk about the mystery of Anzu’s high survival rate!! I have thoughts.

For those who haven’t noticed the mystery, Anzu Kinashi is the sweetheart high-school clown girl dummy who can die in our first battle with an Obstructor. None of her advice during battles is useful. She has the appearance of being extremely helpless. And yet! She is the sixth most likely candidate to win, with an 8.0% survival rate. She is the second-highest place woman candidate in the line-up, behind Sara herself. Only the big, selfish, cowardly men stand between the two girls.

Sara’s absurdly high survival rate of 15.5% has become one of the game’s central mysteries. But what about Anzu’s high rate? Why is Anzu stronger than either of the Yabusames, who become her partners? Why is she stronger than Mai, who is shown to have a ruthless streak? Surely that’s a deliberate choice! Nankidai could have placed Anzu in the third quartile like Ranmaru, another innocent-looking high-schooler, but instead he placed her somewhere odd.

I’ve seen three theories for Anzu’s high rate, and I’ll go over how I feel about each of them. The first theory is that Anzu has a dark side to her personality, a ruthlessness which hasn’t yet revealed itself. The second theory is that Anzu is good at hiding and avoiding conflict, similar to the “Foxface girl” from Hunger Games. My friend came up with a third theory, which is my favorite: that Anzu’s chances of survival skyrocket in routes where Sara Chidouin dies. That Anzu is a back-up high school girl, and Meister will rig the game to favor a high school girl, even one with a more “helpless” personality.

1. Anzu has a dark side to her personality.

A recurring theme with the characters in YTTD is being “two-faced.” Shin/Sou is the most obvious example of this. A vulnerable young man named Shin adopted the more terrifying persona of Sou. He wears a metaphorical mask to cover his weak, kind self. Another example is Reko, a selfless woman who comes face to face with her previous selfish personality when she meets her doll. Keiji is also connected to this theme; he once had an honorable personality, but now he has lost that sense of honor.

Anzu literally wears a scary clown mask! Could that scary mask symbolize a scary persona, similar to Shin’s “Sou” persona? Perhaps all Anzu needs to do is tap into the courage that comes with acting like a scary clown, and then we’d finally see a more intimidating candidate.

I like this theory for how it ties into the “two-faced” theme, and that it suits Anzu’s theatrical inclinations!

2. Anzu is good at hiding.

This theory may sound the least exciting, but I actually like it.

Remember who else was good at hiding? Alice! He was so good at hiding that he even missed the Practice Vote, where Mishima died! The Practice Vote was only based on first impressions. Considering how quick everyone was to judge Alice for being a prisoner, it’s likely that he escaped an early death by missing that vote!

Alice can become Anzu’s partner, which potentially ties them together thematically. What if Anzu throws another curveball into the plot by finding a secret hiding place? I could imagine Nankidai doing this to “reward” the Player for keeping Anzu alive after the First Obstructor Battle. I’m picturing a scenario where Anzu finds a secret room with “hidden lore” for Asu-Naro that helps our understanding of the story, even if we don’t need to know it to win the game. That’s a totally out-there theory that likely won’t happen, but it’s fun to imagine.

I like this theory because it’s fun to remember that the candidates can survive in surprising ways. Sometimes the only way to win is to not play the game. It reminds us to think outside the box.

3. Anzu’s chances of survival skyrocket in routes where Sara Chidouin dies.

I’m so proud of my friend for coming up with this one! I think it’s genius!

This ties into the larger theory that the Mastermind behind the Death Game is the Man from the Memorandum, the winner of the past Death Game. The Man grew attached to a high school girl who died in that game. The common theory is that he intends to mold Sara into that girl by having her pass through the same trials, but this time he hopes that the role of “17-year-old school girl” will win.

I wrote my thoughts about this theory back in October, in which I brought up my friend’s other, parallel theory: that Shin Tsukimi is the “back-up” candidate to replace Sou Hiyori, who was meant to play the important role of “The Man from the Memorandum” himself. The role of “The Man” is our antagonist, whereas the role of the “High School Girl” is our protagonist. If the role of “The Man” was important enough to warrant having a “back-up,” surely the role of the “High School Girl” warrants that too!

What if—to boost the chances of a high school girl surviving—Meister included a “back-up high school girl”? That way, in case our protagonist Sara dies, he still has a second chance with Anzu? If we put Sara and Anzu’s percentages together, a high school girl has a 23.5% chance of winning. That’s almost 1 in 4 games. It’s still a risky gamble, but it’s safer than merely 15.5%.

What if—in routes where Sara died—“The Man Whose Views Most Aligned with Hers” (Keiji) was directed to protect Anzu instead? What if “A Boy Even Younger Than Her” (Gin) was also directed to provide Anzu with emotional comfort? Is that possible? Could those factors help even a girl as seemingly helpless as Anzu win the Death Game?

I love this theory because it ties so well with the other theories about Meister we’ve discussed on here. It would help us understand our “Big Bad” better. It also develops the setting better in showing how Meister could rig the game in a high school girl’s favor. So much is beyond our control!

This theory does the least to characterize Anzu herself, since it’s more focused on the setting. However, it could lead to her being more important to the story than we realize! Maybe the role of “back-up high school girl” would give her a chance to do something of narrative significance.

…

Thank you so much for asking me about Anzu! I’ve wanted to write about her for a while!

#yttd #your turn to die #kimi ga shine #your turn to die spoilers #anzu kinashi #sara chidouin #meister #meta #theories #mine #asks

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yjhariani · 4 years ago

Text

Among Us

The batfam playing Among Us in the manor (+batsibling!reader)

Warnings: Cursing.

± 1300 words.

15-11-2020

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 4

Chapter Three

In order to avoid suspicion, you returned to the M&Ms task. Cassandra also returned to finish the dishes while the rest wandered off to different directions of the manor.

You waited for a while. Worried that people might come back. It wasn't until Cassandra finished the dishes that you were glad you waited to not send her the kill card right away because someone walked back in. It was Duke.

Out of anyone, Duke would be the one whose trust should be kept. So far, not only that he didn't explicitly put you to blame, he seemed to trust you a little bit. However, the certainty whether he would ever participate in voting you out was still questionable.

Eventually, Cassandra left the kitchen and you had to abandon your goal to kill Cassandra.

Duke sort of stayed to see you completing the M&Ms. Once you did, he just stood about six feet away from you, staring. Hesitantly, you stepped aside, meaning to run away. Then, he gestured the next room with his thumb as throwing you a questioning look.

Buddy system? you questioned in your head.

After another second, you gave him a light couple of nods.

The two of you went to the playing room.

Titus happened to be sleeping on his bed, looking very comfortable, but, opened his eyes when you approached him while Duke reached for the great dane's water bowl. Duke refilled the water bowl while you softly scratched Titus's head, putting him back to sleep.

"Good boy, Titus," you hummed. "You're a good boy, huh? Yes, you are. There's no questioning it. You're a badass too, right? Who's my badass little good boy? You are."

Duke chuckle crept into your ears. You turned to him and grinned.

"He's a good boy," you said in a low volume.

"He is," Duke nodded as quietly.

Following after, Duke and you left the playing room. This time, Duke let you decide where to go. For avoiding suspicion reason, you led him to the studio for the guitar task.

Most people in the family didn't use the studio because they barely had enough time for themselves most of the time. However, Bruce taught you how to play the piano and Jason sort of taught you how to play guitar. Both didn't really work out.

Alfred the cat played the piano better than anyone in the house and destroyed guitars better than anyone else. Except for Dick who once managed to make holes out of his buttcheeks on a guitar, which a lot of people still couldn't believe had actually happened. Every time the conversation touched that matter, Dick always brought up how amazing his behind was, which once made Stephanie actually threw up.

You took an acoustic guitar and ran a thumb on the strings. They sounded off, hence the task. So, you walked over to the piano and pressed a key, the last one of the rows with three white teeth and two black teeth. After that, you matched the lowest and the highest strings of the guitar with that note.

While you did so, someone entered the studio. Stephanie. With Dick following behind. Right away, you knew what was coming. A double kill.

So, quickly, you put the guitar down back to its stand, looking cautiously at Dick the whole time. Duke noticed the change of energy and started to back off towards the door, but, looking at you with an encouraging expression, telling you to leave as soon as possible.

Wow, he sused Stephanie, you thought.

Stephanie herself just didn't care about the surrounding. You had a feeling that she still thought that Jason was an impostor and if whichever one of you happened to be an impostor, you wouldn't kill her in front of two other people.

Then, just as you and Duke reached the door, Dick handed Stephanie a kill card, very confidently. Duke honked the airhorn almost immediately. Dick looked very disappointed.

A few minutes later, the remaining players gathered back in the kitchen.

"Yellow has found a body. Your two minutes starts now," Alfred opened.

"Dick killed Stephanie in front of Y/N and I and that's all I have to say," Duke said.

"Ha ha," Jason dryly shot in.

Everyone turned to Jason who rolled his eyes upon getting the attention.

"Fuck you, just say it already," you said.

"I... told you so," Jason proudly said before smiling.

"Alright, then, let's vote Dick out. Any last word, Mr. Cake?" Cass asked.

"Not really, but, I'm reminding you that ghost impostor is allowed to play with the lights," Dick smiled.

You glared at the ceiling on that statement.

"Did we really agree on that rule?" Duke hummed.

Alfred looked at his note.

"Yes, you did," Alfred confirmed. “However, the lights will automatically turned back on after five seconds.”

Perfect, you wanted to say, but, instead scoffed, "Well, shit.”

"At least there's only one impostor left and I only have one task left," Cass said.

"Me, too," Jason said.

"Said the other impostor," you added.

"I... don't think Jason is the other impostor," Cass voiced. "First of all, why would Dick kill in front of two crewmates while there are four people in the room if he's not expecting a double kill?"

"Well, finally someone fucking gets it," Jason said. "And I don't think it's Cass because she doesn't accuse anyone until now. Why would a perfect impostor accuse anyone so far into the game and steal the attention?"

"Unless...," you hummed.

"Cass has a very obvious liar voice," Jason said.

"Good point," Duke said.

"Yeah, you know what that means," Cass concluded.

Duke and you looked at each other.

"I'm not going to accuse anything, but, Duke, you seem pretty spooked when Dick entered," you said.

"Hell, you, too, seem pretty spooked," Duke said.

"Dick?" Cass asked.

"Well, they are both seem pretty spooked because it turned out that one of them didn't want to kill the other," Dick said.

Dick... I owe him a freaking donut now, you noted.

"Well, Cass, it's down to either of them," Jason decided. "We already know how they play. Looks like neither wants to throw the other out the fucking helicopter."

Truth be told, every time you and your siblings played Among Us digitally, Duke and you only had two energy. One, willing to die for each other even if one of you knew the other happened to be an impostor. Two, very politely accusing each other nonstop until either of you got ejected. This time, it looked like the first thing happened.

Cass turned to Duke and you back to back, seriously expecting an explanation.

"How many tasks do you have left?" Cass asked.

"One kind of," you answered.

"Kind of?" Jason asked.

"Yeah," you said.

"Duke?" Cass asked.

"I don't know. I forgot," Duke calmly answered.

"You forgot?" Cass repeated.

"Yeah, I forgot," Duke said.

"Sounds sus to me," Cass scoffed, half amused.

"Duke is so innocent," Jason argued.

"What's your argument?" Cass asked.

"No argument. He just doesn't seem sus," Jason answered.

"Even after what just happened to Stephanie?" Cass questioned.

"Thirty seconds," Alfred announced.

Jason and Cass exchange a glance before looking at Duke and you back to back.

"You know what, we'll let you two figure it out," Duke said.

Duke looked at you with a knowing expression. He handed over his hand. You took it and shook it, smiling.

Cass gasped, offended.

"Dude, it's always like this! How are you surprised?" Jason yelled.

"It feels different in real life!" Cass replied.

"It's just siblings willing to die for each other," Dick commented.

"Shut up, you're technically already dead," Jason pointed at Dick.

"I can still ruin the rest of the game," Dick bragged.

"Fuck, you're right," Jason realized.

"Ten seconds," Alfred said.

"We all vote Dick," Cass stated.

"Very well," Alfred said. "Blue has been ejected. One impostor remains."

#dick grayson #jason todd #duke thomas #cassandra cain #damian wayne #tim drake #stephanie brown #dick grayson x reader #jason todd x reader #cassandra cain x reader #stephanie brown x reader #duke thomas x reader #tim drake x reader #damian wayne x reader #batfam #batfam x reader #among us #mind dump

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xtruss · 2 years ago

Text

Mohamed Salah and Sam Kerr Win PFA Player of the Year Awards

Liverpool’s Salah beats last year’s winner Kevin De Bruyne

Phil Foden and Lauren Hemp retain young player awards

— PA Media | Thursday 9 June 2022 | The Guardian USA

Mohamed Salah and Sam Kerr with their 2022 PFA player of the year awards. Composite: PA

The Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah has been voted the Professional Footballers’ Association’s men’s player of the year, with Chelsea’s Sam Kerr collecting the women’s award.

The Manchester City midfielder Phil Foden retained the PFA young player of the year award, with the club’s forward Lauren Hemp named the women’s best young player for the third consecutive season.

Salah topped the poll, which was voted for by PFA members, ahead of Kevin De Bruyne, who had won for the previous two years and was an integral part of the City team that beat Liverpool to the Premier League title by one point.

The Manchester United forward Cristiano Ronaldo and the Tottenham striker Harry Kane had also made the shortlist, along with Salah’s Liverpool teammates Virgil van Dijk and Sadio Mané.

The 2021-22 PFA Premier League Team of the Year

This is Salah’s second PFA player of the year trophy after he previously won in 2018. This season he helped Jürgen Klopp’s side to win the Carabao and FA Cups, and to reach the Champions League final, where they lost to Real Madrid.

The Egypt international Salah, who finished as the Premier League’s joint top scorer alongside Tottenham’s Son Heung-min with 23 goals, was announced as the PFA men’s player of the year at a virtual ceremony on Thursdayyesterday.

“It’s a great honour to win a trophy, individual or collective, and this one is big, so very happy and very proud of that,” said Salah, who was also voted the men’s footballer of the year by the Footballer Writers’ Association.

“This one is a really good one to win, especially because it’s voted by players. It shows you that you’ve worked really hard and you get what you worked for. I have my room with trophies in a cabinet and I made sure that I had another space for one more. I always keep space and just try to imagine that the trophies are going to come.”

The PFA Young Players of the Year, Phil Foden (Top) and Lauren Hemp, both of Manchester City (Bottom).

Kerr scored 20 goals for Chelsea to be top scorer in the FA Women’s Super League, helping Emma Hayes’s team win the domestic double after beating Manchester City in the FA Cup final. “It’s a massive honour whenever you’re voted by your peers. I think that’s the highest honour as a player, so it’s an amazing feeling,” said Kerr, who was also named the FWA’s women’s footballer of the year.

Arsenal’s Dutch forward Vivianne Miedema and her Gunners teammate Kim Little were also on the PFA shortlist along with Manchester City’s Alex Greenwood and Hemp as well as Chelsea’s Pernille Harder.

Foden, 22, topped an all-England shortlist on the men’s young player award. The Arsenal midfield duo Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith Rowe, Conor Gallagher, who spent the season on loan at Crystal Palace from Chelsea, the Aston Villa midfielder Jacob Ramsey and the Chelsea full-back Reece James were also nominated.

“I’m really honoured, to be honest, especially to win it back-to-back, it shows that I’ve come a long way this year with the consistency of my game,” Foden said. “Hopefully I can win the main award in the future, but it’s all about taking small steps and improving.”

Hemp, meanwhile, is the first person to win the PFA young player of the year award four times. The Chelsea forward Lauren James, Arsenal’s Norwegian star Frida Maanum, the Tottenham striker Jessica Naz, the Manchester United forward Ella Toone and the Brighton defender Maya Le Tissier made up the rest of the shortlist.

The One & Only Mohammad Salah

“It’s an honour to get this again. I think especially for it to be voted for by players that I’ve played against and come up against,” said the 21-year-old Hemp. “I look to many of them as role models as well so it’s an honour to be picked from them. I’m going to keep working hard to make sure that I continue on the right path.”

The 2022 PFA merit award saw two former England managers honoured, with Roy Hodgson and Hope Powell acknowledged for their outstanding contributions to football.

“I never won any trophies as a player unfortunately, so it is nice to be recognised by fellow professionals. It will have pride of place,” said Hodgson, 74, who left his role with Watford at the end of the season having taken over in January.

Powell, who is the Brighton women’s manager, added: “I feel lucky and blessed to be in the game after many years.”

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royalpain16 · 3 years ago

Text

A Brief History of Princess Diana’s Fiery Family

HADLEY HALL MEARES

JUNE 29, 2021 4:04 PM

According to Tina Brown’s The Diana Chronicles. Indeed, the role of the aristocratic family of Diana, Princess of Wales, for centuries has been that of royal disrupter. This legacy stretches to the 14th century, with their disputed ancestor Hugh Despenser’s alleged torrid affair with King Edward II and Despenser’s eventual brutal execution. Clever, charming, and fiery, much like Diana, her ancestors learned how to play the royal game—and then ripped up the rule book.

“Nearly 300 years on, my father would talk about him with an ashamed, resigned chuckle,” Charles, Earl Spencer, writes in The Spencers: A Personal History of an English Family of the mercurial family blackguard Robert Spencer (1641-1702). While the second earl would secure the Spencers’ status as political power players for centuries, he was also “cunning, supple [and] shameless” with “a restless and mischievous temper, a cold heart, and an abject spirt.”

Sunderland’s ascendancy began in the 1670s when he orchestrated King Charles II’s secret pact with England’s traditional enemy, France. Securing large payments from the French king and court for Charles II and himself, Sunderland was rewarded when he was appointed secretary of state.

After double-crossing Charles II’s illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth, Sunderland cleverly insinuated himself with new King James II. He converted to Catholicism to appeal to the very Catholic king, and became one of James II’s closest advisers. But the king, though he valued the brilliant man’s diplomatic skills, was fully aware of Sunderland’s duplicity.

James II finally dismissed Sunderland from service in 1688, and he was later exiled. But in December of that year, James II was deposed by the Glorious Revolution, bringing his daughter Mary and her husband, William, Prince of Orange, (with whom Sunderland had conspired) to the throne.

Again in favor, he was rewarded with the post of Lord Chamberlain before retiring from public life in 1697. “Too much cannot be said of his talents,” one historian noted. “Nor too little of his principles.”

The Boss: Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough

The daughter of Parliamentarian Richard Jennings and his scandalous wife, Frances, the passionate, brilliant Sarah (1660-1744) started out as a maid of honor in the court of James II. She became the most powerful woman in England, through her magnetic control of the future Queen Anne, a comparative dullard who worshipped her and perhaps became her lover. (You may remember their relationship from the 2018 movie The Favourite, in which Rachel Weisz played Sarah.)

For Sarah, her friendship with Anne was a way to advance her family and her liberal Whig politics, which she shared with her equally powerful husband, the military hero the Duke of Marlborough. “I hated tyranny by nature,” she wrote in one version of her memoir, according to Ophelia Field’s The Favourite: The Life of Sarah Churchill. “I thought mankind was born free, & if Princes were ordained to make their subjects happy; so I had always in me an invincible aversion to slavery, & to flattery.”

In 1700, Sarah arranged the marriage of her distant relation Charles Spencer, the future Third Earl of Sunderland, with her favorite daughter, Anne. Over the next 44 years, she would shape the family fortunes—and gift them with their famed auburn-tinted locks.

According to The Favourite: The Life of Sarah Churchill, with Anne’s accession to the throne in 1702 Sarah reached the peak of her power, racking up virtually every important post in Queen Anne’s suite, dictating cabinet appointments, and encouraging the ire of satirists.

But cracks would soon begin to appear. Queen Anne was naturally inclined to support the royalist Tories and was encouraged in these leanings by a new favorite named Abigail. A vindictive Sarah became a master propagandist, leaking insinuations about their relationship to the press, and allegedly threatening to blackmail Anne over the contents of their highly charged correspondence.

Sarah was finally forced to vacate her royal apartments in 1711, but she was not down for the count. A brilliant businesswoman, she became the richest woman in England, according to Field, controlling her Spencer grandchildren with promises of money and power. Centuries before the modern Diana and Prince Charles wed, Sarah even attempted to marry her favorite granddaughter—Lady Diana Spencer—to the broke Frederick, Prince of Wales, with a promise of 100,000-pound dowry. The plan fell through.

But not all her grandchildren were willing to be manipulated by their formidable matriarch. Sarah claimed her equally tough granddaughter Anne “[deserved] to be burnt,” and she disinherited her grandson Charles, Fifth Earl of Sunderland, which prompted him to write her:

As for putting me out of your will…I neither expected or desired to be in it. I…assure Your Grace that this is the last time I shall ever trouble you by letter or conversation. I am Your Grace’s grandson, Sunderland.

Sarah’s letter back was brutal. “You end that you are my grandson. Which is indeed a very melancholy truth…had you not been my grandson, you would have been in as bad a condition as you deserve to be.” Fitting words from a woman immortalized by Alexander Pope thusly:

Sixty years the World has been her Trade, The wisest Fool much Time has ever made. From loveless youth to unrespected age, No Passion gratify’d except her Rage.

The Star: Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire

From the start there was something special about Georgiana (1757-1806), the coddled daughter of John, First Earl Spencer and his wife, Margaret. The captivating teenager married the sophisticated William, Duke of Devonshire, in 1774, and quickly became a sensation in London’s highest circles. “[The Duchess of Devonshire] effaces all,” Horace Walpole wrote, according to The Devonshires: The Story of a Family and a Nation. “Her youth, figure, flowing good nature, sense…and modest familiarity, make her a phenomenon.”

Georgiana soon found her cold, older husband was not nearly as interested in her as everyone else. Luckily, she had many talents with which to amuse herself. She set fashions of the day, developed her own haughty way of speaking, known as the “Cavendish drawl,” and became dear friends with Marie Antoinette, according to Amanda Foreman’s The Duchess. She was also a successful novelist, and an amateur scientist.

But it was Georgiana’s brilliance as a Whig operative that would turn her into a target of the press. Constantly brainstorming with her friend, George, Prince of Wales, and political soulmate Charles James Fox, she hosted countless summits at her home. Georgiana was, she later wrote, “in the midst of the action,” seeing

“partys rise and fall—friends be united and disunited—the ties of love give way to caprice, to interest, and to vanity…”

Georgiana also worked essentially as a campaign manager for Whig candidates. During the 1784 election she bravely canvassed the street for Fox, charming Londoners with her common touch. “During her canvass,” Walpole wrote, “the Duchess made no scruple of visiting some of the humblest of electors, dazzling and enchanting them by the fascination of her manner, the power of her beauty and the influence of her high rank.”

According to Foreman’s The Duchess, there were rumors Georgiana kissed men in exchange for votes, leading to scurrilous cartoons distributed by the Tory opposition. “You have almost unavoidably amassed a great deal of useless trash—gathered weeds instead of flowers,” Lady Spencer wrote Georgiana. “You live so constantly in public you cannot live for your own soul.”

Her mother was worried about more than bad press. The hard-partying Georgiana was one of a long line of Spencer gambling addicts. She also had a laudanum dependency, and a scandalous ménage à trois arrangement with her husband and the disreputable Bess Foster. Calamity struck in 1792, when Georgiana became pregnant by the future Prime Minister Charles Grey and was banished from the country for a while.

Georgiana returned to her husband and children two years later. For the remainder of her life she battled ill health, but continued her role as a political operative, aware of what she could have been. “Would I were a man,” she mused to Sir Philip Francis. “To unite my talents, my hopes, my fortune, with [Charles James Fox’s], to make common cause, and fall or rule.”

From the start, the Spencer legacy laid heavily on John Spencer’s (1924-1992)

shoulders. As a child he was constantly cowed by his genealogically obsessed, brutal father, who considered him an intellectual lightweight. “He used to dread the train journey home [from boarding school],” his son, Diana’s brother Charles, writes. “He would hide in shadows of the train carriage, hoping his father had forgotten to collect him.”

But by the 1940s, John’s heroism as a captain in the Royal Scots Greys during World War II, and his tall, good looks and simple charm made him a most eligible bachelor. According to the documentary When the Spencers Met the Monarchy, he was even once looked at by the palace as a suitor to the future Queen Elizabeth II.

Instead, in 1954, Queen Elizabeth II (whom he served as an equerry) attended his wedding to heiress Frances Roche at Westminster Abbey. The couple had four children—Sarah, Jane, Diana, and Charles (another son, John, died shortly after birth). They were a mismatched pair, he rather dull and she vivacious, but John was reportedly blindsided when he discovered Frances was cheating on him. “How many of those years were happy?” he later said of his marriage. “I thought all of them until the moment that we parted.”

After the dissolution of his marriage, John became Diana and Charles’s primary caregiver and developed what Lord Glenconner once termed “an unfortunate raw sausage look.” Although he was stiff and old-fashioned, he attempted to be an involved father, and Diana was determined to be his “comforting angel,” according to The Diana Chronicles.

In 1975, John’s fortunes turned when his curmudgeonly father died, making him the Eighth Earl Spencer. According to Andrew Morton, he also inherited a 2.25-million-pound bill for death duties as well as 80,000-pounds-a-year running costs for Althorp, the family estate in Northamptonshire. He also found a helpmate to run Althorp in the fascinating Raine, Countess of Dartmouth, whom he married in 1976 without even telling his children. “We weren’t invited. ‘Not grand enough,’” his daughter Sarah quipped to a reporter at the time.

Despite the flippant tone, John’s betrayal would cause a deep rift in the family. A severe stroke in 1978 caused him to become frail and even more distant from his children. “He was one person before and he was certainly a different person after,” Princess Diana said, according to Morton. “He’s remained estranged but adoring since. If he comes and sees me he comes and sees me, if he doesn’t he doesn’t. It’s not my problem anymore. It’s his.”

The Rebel: Frances Shand Kydd

Frances Ruth Roche (1936-2004) wasn’t from as noble stock as the Spencers, but her family was far richer. Her father Maurice, fourth Baron Fermoy, was a conservative politician and a “terrible bottom pincher,” Lady Glenconner says in The Diana Chronicles, while her wealthy mother, Ruth, was a scheming, incurable snob and great friend of Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

It was Ruth who encouraged a teenage Frances to marry the much older John Spencer, despite her tender age. “When you meet someone at the age of 15 and get engaged just five months out of school at 17, you can look back and ask, ‘Was I adult?’” she asked years later. “I sure thought I was at the time.”

The couple cultivated a farm at her family home of Park House in Norfolk, but Frances was quickly disillusioned with life in the country as a young aristocratic mother. “I’m so bloody bored with opening village fetes,” she told a friend. It was no wonder that the fiery Frances wanted more. “She was very attractive and blonde and sexy with such joie de vivre and fun about her,” a friend told Brown, author of The Diana Chronicles.

By the 1960s, Frances escaped to London more and more. She also started having an affair with a married bon vivant named Peter Shand Kydd. In 1967, she separated from John and left her two youngest children with him. “The biggest disruption was when Mummy decided to leg it. That’s the vivid memory we have—the four of us,” Princess Diana later told Andrew Morton.

Frances fought for custody of the children but lost to John, partially due to her own mother, Baroness Fermoy, who testified against her. Social outcasts, the Shand Kydds eventually moved to the coast of Scotland, and their warm household was a refuge for her children when they were allowed to visit. “Diana and I adored it for its wild beauty and the fun we had on the sea, lobster potting and mackerel-fishing,” Charles Spencer recalls.

Frances counseled against her youngest daughter’s marriage to Prince Charles, seeing too many parallels to her own first marriage—including her mother’s encouragement of the match. According to Brown, after voicing her concerns, Diana said, “Mummy, you don’t understand. I love him.” Frances replied, “Love him, or love what he is?” To which Diana asked rhetorically, “What’s the difference?”

The Grande Dames: Barbara Cartland and Raine Spencer

Perhaps no writer influenced generations of British romantics—including Princess Diana—more than Barbara Cartland (1901-2000). The author of 723 books, Cartland had, in the words of Brown, a “penchant for pink, her meringue coiffure and false eyelashes,” which betrayed a steely, snobbish character that was tough as nails.

Cartland would pass both her strength and outrageousness on to her daughter Raine (1929-2016), whom she raised to be, in Brown’s words, a “social monster baby.” Not only did she nab Gerald Legge, Ninth Earl of Dartmouth, but she also forged a career as a conservative politician, becoming the youngest person to ever serve on the Westminster City Council.

“She never took any prisoners, and never took no for an answer,” a friend recalled.

In the early 1970s, Raine set her sights on the divorced John Spencer. “She wanted to marry Daddy; that was her target and that was it,” Princess Diana recalled. According to sources, “Acid Raine” alienated the children and old friends. She also took the reins of Althorp, allegedly selling off family treasures and decorating it in her and her mother’s garish style.

During the lead-up to Diana’s wedding to Prince Charles in 1981, what to do with the clownish Cartlands became a national conversation. According to Brown:

Alexander Chancellor, the editor of The Spectator, wrote an editorial in which he called for a special Act of Parliament to ban Raine and her mother from St. Paul’s Cathedral, adding, “For it would be more than a little unfair on everybody if these two absurdly theatrical ladies were permitted to turn a moving national celebration into a pantomime.” Diana was so afraid the pantomime might indeed take place, she pressed for stratagems to blackball Cartland.

In the end Raine was invited but her mother was not. This would not be the most awkward Spencer wedding—that prize would go to Charles Spencer’s first wedding in 1989, where Diana scolded Raine for her rudeness to their mother. “If only you knew how much we all hated you for what you’ve done, you’ve ruined the house, you spend Daddy’s money and what for?” she hissed.

For her part, Raine would tire of being the scapegoat for the Spencer dysfunction. “I’m absolutely sick of the ‘wicked stepmother’ lark,” she said, according to Kitty Kelley. “You’re never going to make me sound like a human being, because people like to think I’m Dracula’s mother.”

Surprisingly, Diana would come to agree. Toward the end of her life, she grew close to her stepmother, whose no-nonsense advice she came to admire. However, it appears there was no love lost between Diana and her former favorite writer, who would quip of the royal breakup, “Of course, you know where it all went wrong. She wouldn’t do oral sex.”

The Role Model: Lady Sarah McCorquodale

Born in 1955, Sarah Spencer was the oldest, and wildest of John and Frances Spencer’s brood. Reckless and salty from an early age, Brown writes that she was kicked out of boarding school and rode her horse into her grandmother’s living room. “Sarah always had to be the best at everything,” a friend recalled. “The best car, the wittiest put-down, and the best dress.”

She also had a constant shadow in her youngest sister, Diana. “I idolized my eldest sister and I used to do all her washing when she came back from school. I packed her suitcase, ran her bath, made her bed—the whole lot. I did it all and I thought it was wonderful,” Diana told Morton.

In 1977, Sarah, who had suffered from anorexia, according to Brown, met Prince Charles at Ascot. The two began dating, and it was Sarah who introduced Diana to the prince during a shooting party at Althorp (“I’m cupid,” she’d later quip). “I remember,” Diana later said, “feeling desperately sorry for him that my sister was wrapped around his neck because she’s quite a tough old thing.”

But Sarah’s romance with the prince would soon end. She made the mistake of talking to reporters. Not only did she reportedly confess to having “thousands of boyfriends,” she also disparaged Charles as a hopeless romantic. “I wouldn’t marry a man I didn’t love, whether it was a dustman or the King of England,” she said. “If he asked me I would turn him down.”

This cardinal sin would cause Sarah to be promptly frozen out, with Charles reportedly informing her, “You’ve just done something extremely stupid.” And so, only three years later Charles would begin to court the blossoming Diana. Perhaps there was a hint of jealousy in her alleged counsel to a despondent Diana to not pull out of the wedding over his relationship with Camilla: “Bad luck, ‘Duch. Your face is on the tea towels so you’re too late to chicken out.”

#princess diana #lady diana spencer #the spencers #the spencer family #a brief history into princess Diana's fiery family

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curiosi-tea-writes · 4 years ago

Text

Outcasts (One Survivor pt. 1)

Pairing: Din Djarin x Cobb Vanth

Setting: Survivor AU / Modern AU

Summary: Grogu begged his father to spend 39 days stranded on an island with 15 strangers, and who was Din to deny his son such a simple request? What he didn’t anticipate was meeting Cobb Vanth while on the island and developing the largest crush he had ever had on a person. But in the game of Survivor, you can anticipate nothing.

Disclaimer!!! : While you don’t need to have seen Survivor in order to understand this fic, it is based off of 07x07-08 of Survivor. (Also a bit from an episode from Season 6, though I cannot recall the episode.) So if you have not seen those seasons, read at your own risk.

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When Din had signed up for 39 days stranded on an island with 15 complete strangers, he was mostly doing it as a joke. His son was fascinated by the show, insisted that they watch it every week. Din thought he just liked the drama of it. It was Peli who brought up one day that Din should go on it.

“Papa, pleeeeease,” Grogu had begged. And Din would do anything to please his son. So, he agreed to give it a shot.

It was honestly fun, he had to admit. Seeing Jeff Probst in person was honestly one of the coolest moments of his life. And then he saw him.

Silver hair, just a little bit taller than him, gorgeous eyes. But the thing that caught Din’s attention most was his red scarf. Never mind that it was 110* on the island, but man could this guy pull off that scarf.

Din felt it was destiny when he watched the man slide a red buff around his wrist, matching his scarf almost perfectly. However, his heart broke as he pulled a blue one over his head and settled it around his neck.

It slowly started to become an issue. Din would slack in challenges because the guy, Cobb he had learned after a day or two - though most of his tribe called him Cowboy, would show up shirtless. It was distracting to say the least. All of his tribemates were getting increasingly frustrated with him but Din couldn’t care less. His tribe was winning most of the challenges, so what was the big deal if he was like a deer caught in the headlights every time he had to go up against Cobb?

Sometimes Jeff would even call them out. During one challenge where they had to play a matching game, Din kept going to Cobb to ask him for items and Cobb kept going to Din.

“Din,” Cobb called with a smirk and he chuckled as his tribe groaned for the fourth time at him. When he got a hum in response, his smirk turned into a charming smile. “Do you maybe - possibly - have a seashell?”

Jeff laughed and shifted, crossing his arms. “Cobb, why don’t you just ask him what you really want to ask him?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jeff,” Cobb tried hard not to laugh, “Din?”

“Can you see into my box, Cowboy? How do you keep doing this?” Din laughed and walked the shell over to Cobb. He tried not to notice how Cobb’s calloused hand lingered on Din’s for a second longer than necessary - the way their hands had been lingering on each other’s the entire challenge.

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After what felt like far too short a time, Din’s heart shattered.

“Noyapara, getting a look at the new Marseydotes tribe,” Jeff said as the other tribe came onto the beach.

“Oh my god,” Fennec sighed and Din whipped around, his eyes wide.

“Cobb voted off at the last tribal council,” Jeff finished as Din tried not to show too much emotion for a guy he hardly really knew.

Fennec, the only member of Din’s tribe he had told about his little crush - really, she confronted him and he had no choice - took a step closer to him as Jeff continued speaking. “So close to the merge too,” she mumbled.

That’s what Fennec kept telling him. “Just wait until the merge and you’ll be able to get to know him!” and “There’s no way they won’t keep him until the merge at least!” Din sighed sadly. The merge was any day now. They were so close and his tribe just had to vote him off.

“Alright,” Jeff spoke clearly, bringing Din out of his thoughts. “By now, you have collectively voted off six members from this game. And now, that’s gonna come back to haunt you.” The final ten players turned around and looked at each other. “Come on in, guys!”

The six players who had been previously voted off came out on to the beach and Din and Fennec shared a bright smile as Cobb jogged out as the last person. It was impossible not to catch the wink Cobb gave him as he made his way past Din.

“Here’s how it’s gonna work,” Jeff started as Cobb took his spot on the third mat. “There are now three tribes - Marseydotes, Noyapara, and the Outcasts - the six people you have voted out over the last couple of weeks now have a chance to rejoin the game. Today’s challenge is for immunity. Whichever team loses to the Outcast tribe has to go to tribal council. That means, if both tribes lose, two tribal councils. Then, the Outcasts will have their own tribal council to vote in members to fill the slot of the people you just voted off.”

Din looked over to see Cobb and some of the other Outcasts smiling at each other proudly and Din couldn’t help the smile of his own. At this point, he was hardly listening to Jeff.

“Additionally, anybody voted back in from the Outcast tribe will be immune for the first tribal council following their return to provide them time to reintegrate back into the game.”

After explaining what they had to do for the challenge, all the Survivors took their places. Din watched, tied to the wooden gate, as one member from each tribe rushed to begin untying their teammates. Of course, Cobb was one of them. Fennec was flying through the knots for her and Din’s tribe but Din could see that Cobb was far ahead. He wasn’t surprised at all.

Once he was untied, Fennec yelled at him to start helping with finding the key but he hardly heard her. “Djarin!” she scolded harshly, forcing Din’s attention to her. “Stop staring and help us!”

It wasn’t much use at that point. Cobb’s team had already gotten the key and was unlocking the gate. “Outcasts win immunity!” Jeff yelled and there was cheering from the tribe. He opened the other tribes’ gates and addressed them, “Two tribal councils. Two people will be voted out tonight, and two members will rejoin your tribes. You have the rest of the day to decide who’s going home. Head back to camp.”

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Din breathed a sigh of relief as Jeff read the final vote and it was neither him nor Fennec. Both knew that pairs can go far in this game if they play their cards right and Din and Fennec were determined to add their names to the list of pairs that prove that statement. Fennec bumped his shoulder as they carried their torches back to camp.

“Hey,” she whispered, “maybe Cobb will get voted back in and end up on our tribe.”

Din chuckled and shook his head, shifting to rest his torch against his shoulder as he walked. “Don’t you dare get my hopes up.”

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Cobb took his seat next to the other Outcasts. At first, he couldn’t believe he had been voted off and he was furious. He was easily one of the strongest guys out there, definitely the strongest in his tribe. But he knew his tribe was preparing for the merge. Boba had teased him endlessly at camp about his crush on the other tribe. Cobb and Din had hardly spoken, just quick comments to each other during challenges, but he knew there was a connection there- physical if nothing else. It was understandable that his tribe assumed in the case of a merge, he might flip his alliance to be with Din. Cobb knew that wasn’t the case, but his tribe didn’t. And now, after almost his whole tribe voted him off, that was definitely going to happen if he had the chance. Sweet revenge.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” Jeff started once everyone was settled. “You’ll all have the chance to plead your case as to why you should be voted back into the game. Then you’ll vote. Two names, on two different parchments. Two people with the highest number of votes get put back into the game.” Once everyone nodded their understanding Jeff smiled and gave his own nod. “Cobb, let’s start with you.”

Cobb sighed happily and turned to address his tribe of fellow outcasts. “All I can really say is that I know I kick their asses. If you want an Outcast to win the game, I think I’m your best shot. Once the merge hits, I know exactly who I’m going to align with. I beat any of them at any physical challenge and I’m quicker in puzzles than half of them. I think I have one of the best chances out of us to make it to the end of this game if I get back in.”

Everyone nodded and Cobb’s head began to spin. All he could think was, “did they all just agree with me?”

He listened to the other Outcasts plead their cases and then it was time to vote. Cobb casted his votes and dropped them in the urn. His heart was beating impossibly fast as Jeff said the words that are typically so dreaded and now held so much hope, “I’ll go tally the votes.”

Cobb shared a look of hopeful anxiety with his fellow Outcasts as Jeff came back with the urn tucked under his arm. Jeff cleared his throat and smiled and all the Outcasts couldn’t help but chuckle nervously. “Once the votes are read, the decision is final. The two people with the highest number of votes will return to the game.” Cobb attempted not to cringe at the change from the usual dialogue. “I’ll read the votes.”

Cobb held his breath as he name came up first. Then again. The somebody else’s. Then his again. Then again. “Sixth vote- Cobb. That’s five, our first Outcast revived in the game.” Cobb felt someone pat his shoulder and another tell him congratulations but he could hardly process it. *He was back in the game!*

“Alright,” Jeff continued once the second person, Bo Katan, was chosen and everyone had congratulated her as well. “Bo Katan, Cobb, the tribe has spoken. Come on up here, and relight your torches.”

Bo Katan and Cobb shared an eager smile as they steadily dipped their torches into the fire at the center of the counsel area. Cobb felt a wave of pride as he looked back at the other Outcasts, seeing their excited faces. They had all agreed in their time together that whoever was going back into the game, everyone was going to be proud of them. Sure, everyone wished it was them going in, but the fact that any of them had the chance was more than enough for them all.

“Now time to choose what tribe you’ll be going to.” Jeff held out a bag to the two of them. “Who’s going first?” Cobb nodded at Bo Katan with a smile and she nodded back before turning back to Jeff with a smile, stating she would. “Alright. Since you were from opposite tribes to begin with, if Bo Katan pulls a red buff, you’ll be returning to the opposite tribes. If she pulls a blue one, you’ll be returning to the tribes that voted you out.”

He held the bag out to Bo Katan and Cobb held his breath, attempting to will the universe to have her pull a red buff.

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Din and Fennec had stayed up to wait and see who would come to their island. It was getting later and later and eventually, Fennec laid her head on his shoulder.

“When Cobb shows up, don’t throw me off too quickly rushing to him,” she mumbled.

“Why do you keep saying ‘when?’” He questioned back, still fully awake. “What makes you so sure he got voted back in?”

Fennec hummed and smiled. “Because, you two are destined.”

Din rolled his eyes. “You’re ridiculous.” He squinted his eyes a little to see out towards the ocean. He could just barely make out the outline of a boat. “Fennec,” he shifted his shoulder so she’d sit up, “they’re here.”

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Cobb leaned against a pole on the boat, taking in the feeling of the ocean mist on his face. He ran a hand through his hair before dropping it back into his lap. He let out a small chuckle as he rubbed the fabric of the buff on his wrist between his fingers. It had been such a long and taxing day. He could only hope that he would be able to get some rest once he made it back to camp.

He thanked the man driving the small boat as he hopped over the edge. He sighed as he took in the island before him, slowly making his way through the water towards the beach. He saw a familiar figure walking down the beach to meet him and he smiled brightly and honestly.

“I knew you’d get back in, Cowboy!” he heard them call to him with a laugh.

He walked a little quicker to get up the beach before pulling the other man into a tight hug before pulling back and getting a good look at the other man. “Hey, Boba,” he sighed.

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Din’s tribe walked out onto the beach first. Din’s heart raced as he willed himself to turn around to see the other tribe come in.

“Marseydotes and Noyapara, getting a look at each other’s new tribes,” Jeff said as the other tribe entered. “Bo Katan voted into Noyapara and Cobb voted into Marseydotes at the last tribal council.”

Din could hardly contain his smile. Now if both of them could just stick around until the merge.

There was mumbling among the tribes, each talking about who was voted back in for the other tribe. Jeff cleared his throat, drawing the attention back to himself.

“As you have all figured out by now, this game is always changing.” Everyone chuckled and nodded. “It’s about to change again. Everyone drop your buffs,” he tossed a bag to Din who caught it easily, “and put on your new ones- you are merged.”

Some members cheered, some gasped, but everyone had the largest smiles on their faces. Din reached into the bag and began pulling out the fresh purple buffs and handed them to the members of the new tribe. He tried not to care when Cobb took the buff from him the same way he had taken the sea shell just days prior. He also tried not to care that his face was burning, though he attempted to convince himself it was the heat of the sun. His heart jumped as Cobb started to say something but their attention was quickly drawn away from each other and back to Jeff.

Once the matter of which camp was better was sorted, the now merged tribe was sent off for a merge feast and getting to know one another.

---------------------------------------------

When the food was done and everyone was broken off into small groups, Din excused himself from Bo Katan and Fennec to search for firewood. He wasn’t far into the jungle when he heard someone clear their throat behind him. With a jump he turned quickly to see Cobb just a few feet behind him.

“Sorry,” he laughed holding up his hands, “I didn’t want to startle you.”

Din sighed with a smile. “Good to see you back in the game.” He turned his back to Cobb as he picked up a dry branch.

“Yeah, you’re telling me,” Cobb spoke softly, taking a few steps closer to Din. “I had been hoping the whole game to make it to the merge.”

“I think that’s everyone’s goal at the least,” Din tried desperately to sound casual, despite that he could feel Cobb’s eyes on him as he moved to pick up another branch.

Cobb chuckled and finally took the final steps up to Din to pick up a branch of his own, causing them to stand up straight at the same time, their faces just inches apart as they looked at each other. Cobb couldn’t help his smile as he watched Din’s eyes flicker down to his lips before coming back up to meet his gaze.

“I don’t think everyone had the same reasons for wanting to merge as I did,” Cobb whispered, attempting to keep the atmosphere they had created.

Din stuttered for a moment, shifting the branches in his arms nervously. “And- uhm-” he cleared his throat, “what reason would that be?”

“You.”

There was a beat of silence as they stood inches apart. Din’s eyes continued to flicker up and down and Cobb would be lying if he said his weren’t as well. Din’s heart was beating impossibly loud, he was surprised he could hear anything over it, let alone hear Cobb’s breathing. Din took half a step closer and Cobb followed suit. They were impossibly close, both smiling brightly, having waited for this moment since the beginning of the game when-

“Hey, lover-boys! Hurry up with the wood, we need to boil water!” Boba called from around the bend of the path. Before shaking his head and walking away again.

Din and Cobb didn’t pull apart, just started laughing. They could feel each other’s breath and they took a moment to calm down.

“I suppose we should go back,” Din whispered.

“Yes, I suppose we should,” Cobb mumbled back, still allowing his eyes to flicker down and back up.

But neither moved.

Before either of them knew it, Din quickly leaned in and placed a small kiss on Cobb’s lips. It was soft and sweet and Cobb thought he was in Heaven, he almost dropped the branches in his arms. It was over before it really began and Din was walking away with a smile. Cobb held back a frustrated groan because he didn’t get the chance to really kiss back. “Come on, Cowboy. They need to boil water,” Din called over his shoulder.

Cobb stood awestruck for a moment, watching Din walk away. He could still feel Din’s presence on his lips and all he could do was stare and smile.

“You coming?” Din called from up the path with a laugh.

Cobb shook his head clear and grabbed another branch to add to his pile. He cleared his throat as he stood straight again and jogged to catch up to Din.

They were only a couple of steps down the path when Din bumped Cobb’s shoulder with his own. “We should get fire wood together more often,” he spoke with a chuckle which soon turned into a laugh as he saw a light dusting of red spread across Cobb’s cheeks.

Cobb gave his own small laugh. “Maybe next time Boba won’t interrupt us so soon.”

“Let’s hope not,” Din replied as they entered camp and the conversation was quickly dropped.

The next time Fennec made a passing comment about needing more wood, Din tried not to laugh at how quickly Cobb volunteered. Meanwhile, Cobb tried to ignore Boba’s laugh at how quickly Din offered to join him. Both sent Boba a glare that screamed ‘don’t bother us this time,’ and thankfully he got the message.

#marshalorian #dincobb #marshmando #din djarin #cobb vanth #din x cobb #the mandalorian #star wars #survivor #survivor cbs #Han writes

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