#i fucking loved the groovy long legs fight

[approximately-32-leafcutter-ants]

absolutely dying to tell someone my shitty theories on the evolutionary tree of pikmin enemies

[bulletbilltime]

PIKMIN 4 BEATEN, TIME TO GIVE SOME THOUGHTS. SPOILERS ARE A GIVEN

NOTE: I have gotten all areas 100%, but have not finished Olimar's story or finished all the side missions.

Pros:

Honestly, probably 95% of the experience

After each game giving us on average 4ish areas of gameplay per game, Pikmin 4 has SIX whole areas. SIX! And none of them are like... small pseudo areas like Impact Site, Final Trial or Formidable Oak. They're ALL genuine explorable levels!

And good god, it is FUN to just be let loose in a level and get to explore it on our own! Gone is the railroading present in Pikmin 3 (and in small parts in Pikmin 2).

Everyone Is Here! (and they get their own onions too!! Though understandably the purples and white onions are locked behind some bonus content, which I haven't gotten to experience yet)

The amount of Pikmin 1 to 3 fan service is off the charts. For the most part, every single returning boss/enemy was handled in a really cool way, and even for Pikmin 2 veterans, they do manage to make the encounters feel unique.

The caves are a massive step up from 2 IMO. Now that we're no longer forced to bow to the whims of random dungeon generation, the level designs are allowed to stand out a lot more! There's also more of a focus on puzzle solving in a good chunk of the dungeons.

THAT GROOVY LONG LEGS FIGHT FUCKING RULES. I AM PUTTING THAT SONG ON LOOP. EASILY THE HIGHLIGHT IMO (even if the boss was beaten not too long after)

So many neat little quality of life improvements (pellets not switching when pikmin are beating it down, the little pause after you throw the minimum # of pikmin on an object, and honestly so many more I can't name)

I really like the item shop providing a way for ppl who struggle to make their life easier!

I found the game to be pretty decent difficulty wise tbh. Many have said it's easy, but you could absolutely do a minimal Oatchi/no items/no death run to kick it up a notch IMO. And Pikmin as a series thrives on replaying to beat your previous best, so I don't mind the "first playthrough" being a bit on the easier side

The Night missions were really neat! I think Tower Defense style gameplay suits Pikmin very well! Some of those later missions can become pretty rough if you don't have a good plan.

THE PROGG IS BACK, I REPEAT THE PROGG IS BACK. THAT FUCKER WAS HORRIFYING IN THE NIGHT MISSIONS

The final boss was really cool! Though only getting 5 reds and yellows was... weird. And I lost almost all of them in the fight. Still, super cool boss! I liked that it was more of an endurance round!

I really love that Oatchi and the captain have different properties, which means that sometimes you might want to bring one over the other in a given situation! ex: Oatchi can't go underwater, and the captain on their own can't swim

For the most part I think the order the Pikmin are introduced in is very solid! The Pikmin that were considered more game breaking, like Purple and Winged Pikmin, are only found near the end of the game.

Mud was such an unexpected hazard, but it's really cool!!! Water that captains can't traverse, that you need to use Winged or Ice Pikmin to navigate... (and maybe blues but I haven't really tested that one)

I liked the Moss patrolling and hearth gimmicks! They added something fresh and unique! I'm surprised that Primordial Thicket didn't have a noticeable Stage Gimmick but it was definitely still enjoyable!

While the caves do still absolutely have a majority of the treasures you find, I feel like the overworlds this time around give you more than enough content to explore, and don't feel barren in comparison to Pikmin 1 & 3, like 2 did!

Some cons:

Ice Pikmin... they're lil cuties and I love how their ice ability contrasts nicely with Blue Pikmin and Oatchi's swimming... but I actively tried to avoid using them for most battle encounters because they made them so easy. From the moment I saw them in the first trailer, they felt like Bitter Spray Pikmin and that was only confirmed to be true tbh. I kinda wish they would've been nerfed a bit ngl!

Now for one of my Big Two gripes: THE ENGULFED CASTLE IS SUCH A LAZY CAVE. Waterwraith comeback is really hype and all, but why oh WHY did they feel the need to literally port the cave from Pikmin 2, almost one-to-one??? It's such a baffling decision in a game that was otherwise really good about keeping its content fresh even if it was very steeped in Pikmin 2 fan-service. But nope, it had to be a straight-up copy. Why did they do the Waterwraith so dirty 😭 Its return in Cavern for a King was genuinely more interesting than the entirety of Submerged Engulfed Castle. The entire time I was playing through the cave I was just utterly unimpressed. Surprising low point in an otherwise solid set of caves IMO. The irony of my least fave Pikmin 4 cave being a port of the best cave from Pikmin 2 is not lost on me. It has "can I copy your homework?" "sure, just change it enough so ppl don't know it's copied" energy (except they forgot to change it). I didn't even mention how the cave title is just... thesaurus'd. Like bruh. Do better pls

Now for the genuine biggest issue I have with the game: the auto lock-on, which I thought was kinda neat at first. But with each passing day, the lock-on began proving itself to be more and more of a nuisance and a weirdly implemented feature. Trying to switch away from a targeted enemy when fighting a swarm of enemies is such a crapshoot, I can't count the number of times I was trying to throw Pikmin on another enemy, only to have my captain keep throwing on the current target, or just target a treasure nearby?? This is probably not helped by joycon drift issues tbh, and I'll have to try to get a New Controller and see if that helps. But I have an issue with this feature existing to begin with tbh; we already have a lock-on feature that we can toggle at will! Why does the game require Another lock on too?? Could you imagine a Zelda game where Link auto-targets every enemy he gets within range of? It's just annoying, and the lack of a toggle for this feature is genuinely baffling.

On a similar note... why oh WHY do the small mushrooms on mold not have targets?? It's such a weird issue; none of the other hazards have this issue.

Collin honey I love you but if you tell me to whistle a Pikmin back from hazards like a second after I already did, I will lose my shit

I don't really mind the chatty captains as much as many ppl do, but I absolutely do mind them constantly telling me what to do in every single situation ever. Some of the prompts can be helpful like "did a Pikmin die somewhere??", but you don't need to tell me that the weak spot is the tail. I KNOW. I'VE DONE THIS 5 TIMES ALREADY. PLEASE LET ME DO MY JOB

They put in another treasure that takes 1000 pikmin.... It wasn't quite as bad as the Doomsday Apparatus though, since you can go directly to a sublevel with many candypop buds unlike in Pikmin 2, and you CAN get the Purple Onion too (but it's so out of the way that you're better off just grinding tbh).

That Empress Bulblax fight in the last cave genuinely felt like something out of a Kaizo hack. It felt weirdly finicky and I had to restart a bunch of times because I was too slow to get on the geyser and 90% of my pikmin got squished. It's far more difficult than any other encounter in the rest of the cave and felt out of place.

Why they make you fight ouppy :(((((((( Moss bby I'm sorry

Some things I wish had been included (which may or may not exist in the 2% of game I have left to peruse)

After the story made such a big deal of all the captains that got shipwrecked on PNF-404, I am a bit disappointed that there was no meaningful explanation as to what makes shipwrecks so frequent? Or how Olimar got leaf'd to begin with? Or what the fuck Louie was doing to begin with?? Seriously wtf Louie??? (I'm just asking Nintendo to make the Umibozu theory canon /j)

Enemies respawning in the overworld. One of the things I loved doing in Pikmin 2 as a kid was going around after 100%ing the game and clearing the whole areas of all monsters to grow Pikmin, over and over again. It would've been fun to have that again in the game.

The co-op from Pikmin 3 Deluxe, obviously. The game being only 1 captain does make this a bit tricky, but I really thought they'd at least let someone else control Oatchi since he's basically a 2nd captain! I am more lenient on that though because of just how much content we got in Pikmin 4. I certainly won't give the game 1 star over it because that just feels really pointlessly petty??

I will however give the game 1 star for not giving us a level editor of any kind because I am pointlessly petty /j (Ok but seriously Nintendo if you give us a Pikmin 4 cave creator as DLC I will never ask for anything again)

SPOILERS END HERE

tl;dr: The auto lock on is a bit of an annoyance and really detracts from the fun at times, but I think I can safely say that this was my favorite game in the series. This is what Pikmin 2 could have always been, if it had been given better hardware/intentionally designed caves. It's probably the longest game in the series though, which might make repeat playthroughs a bit tougher to go through. But with how much fun I had, I might go for it!

[dandelionstep-moved]

groovy long legs fight in pikmin four is fucking INSANNNEEEEE i love the theme so much holy shit

[thegreatestofheck]

Jump〘 JJ Maybank〙

Request made by @bitterbethany! Hope you enjoy!

Word Count - 2564 Warnings - Light swearing, manipulative relationship Synopsis - You are John B’s sister and you’ve been following him around your whole life. After deciding to make your own path, you find yourself caught up with a boy who is no good and JJ is the only one who can get you out of it. A/N - I hope this is what you were hoping for! I’m sorry if I went a little off-script, I just really ran with what you gave me because I loved it so much! It was supposed to be fluffy, but I made it a little bit angsty, I apologize. Stay safe, stay healthy, stay groovy! 

***

You had been following John B around your entire life. 

After your mother left and your father dove into his obsession with the Royal Merchant, John B was all you had. You looked up to him for everything. You followed him through middle school, through high school, through classes. Everything he did, you wanted to do too. 

His friends were your friends and that especially included JJ Maybank. For most of your life, he was like another brother to you. He protected you from bullies, made you laugh when you felt like crying, taught you how to play hackey sack. But then you grew up and he became something else. 

He taught you how to dance like a Pogue, to fight, and to fish. He gave you your first beer. Still, he made you laugh when you wanted to cry over a failed test and protected you from bullies. And you couldn’t help your feelings that grew for him. What else were you supposed to do? The kid sister always falls in love with her brother’s best friend. Why would you be any different?

But after your father went missing, you felt your brother and his friends start to pull away. He was 16 and young and wanted to live his life. You were 15 and annoying and just wanted to do everything he was doing. You saw him and JJ and Pope and Kie less and less and less until you barely saw them at all. 

You had to learn to live your own life, to be your own person. Eventually, you or John B were going to go away and you had to learn to live with that. 

Nearly three years after your father’s disappearance, you were working with a moving company, which generally meant helping new kooks into their gorgeous houses. Ever since you parted ways with John B and the Pogues, you had yet to find a new group of people to hang out with. It didn’t bother you...much. 

That is until you met the Tilly’s and their 19-year-old son, Benedict. 

You were struggling to carry a rather large table up to the Tilly’s new house. You could never ask for any help because once you did, you knew the other boys you worked with would never let you carry anything over 10 pounds ever again. But you couldn’t see your feet as you started up the stairs. Your toes got caught on the lip of the stair and you stumbled upward.

“Woah there!” 

A pair of steady hands caught you before you fell completely and broke the table.

“I’ve got you,” a voice whispered right behind you. “Just keep walking.” 

The boy was Benedict Tilly, the eldest son of the Tilly household. He was smart, funny, and due to inherit the entire business, and all the money along with it. He smiled at you, despite the sweat and the grease that covered your face. He was responsible and he was two years older than you and damn attractive.

And all of his attention was on you. 

He listened to you rant about work, how the men are constantly trying to tear you down for being a girl, how it took you almost three years for them to help you do more than bring things inside. He listened to you complain about family, how John B had once been your everything, how he had ditched you for his friends. You never mentioned JJ. 

Soon, all the time you didn’t spend at work, you spent with Ben and his friends. You drank and smoked and partied hard when his parents weren’t around. You went cliff diving, water skiing. You drove around in his fancy boat, watching other fish for you instead of fishing yourself.

You taught him to surf, to play hackey sack, to shotgun a beer. 

All the things you used to do that annoyed your brother and JJ, Ben found amazing. He would hook his arm around your waist and laugh, kiss you on the forehead and smile. You meant something to him and it felt like he actually cared. 

But then he started to ask for things that you weren’t sure you wanted to do. 

“Come on, Baby.” His words were drawled. “It’s just one line.” 

You would shove him away with a forced laugh. In the beginning, he would let it go, let you walk away and hide in his sister’s room for a while. That didn’t fly for long. He got more forceful, wanting more, demanding more. 

Until you were vomiting in the bathroom of the Chateau as quietly as you could, as not to wake John B and JJ, who slept on the futon. Unfortunately for you, vomiting wasn’t a quiet activity and JJ was a light sleeper. 

“So, you’ve decided to finally come home,” he said, standing in the doorway of the bathroom. You were so exhausted from the day that he didn’t even startle you. You pressed your cheek against your hand as your elbow rested against the toilet.

“So, you’ve decided that I’m worth your time.” 

“You’ve always been worth my time.” 

You looked up at him, eyebrows raised. 

Even though you wanted to hate him, you couldn’t. Not with his fluffy blond hair and his blue eyes. Not with the concerned look on his face. Not with the way his veins tightened as his arms were crossed over his chest. 

Body trembling, you pushed yourself to your feet. You tried to take a step forward, but your legs disagreed. JJ stepped forward and caught you before your knees hit the ground. 

“I don’t need your help,” you seethed. 

“You’re burning up,” he said, pressing the back of his hand to your forehead. 

“I don’t need your help,” you said again, voice weakening. You tried to push him away, but he held you tight. “Get off of me.” 

“God, what did he do to you?” JJ asked, his voice soft, gentle. 

“Nothing.” You shook your head, feeling the urge to vomit again. “Nothing I didn’t want to do.” 

“Yeah. You really look like it was something you wanted to do.” 

You hated the way he sounded like he cared. 

JJ helped you to the futon and you were helpless to do anything about it. He laid you down on the bed, pulling the blankets up to your shoulders. They were still warm. 

“It’s too hot,” you whined, trying to pull the blankets off. 

“Stop it.” JJ smacked your hand away, making you pout. “Keep those blankets on.” 

You huffed, your eyes starting to shut. 

“If that boy hurt you-” 

“He’s not a boy,” you said with a sigh, a smile on your lips as you curled up in the warm blankets. “He’s a man.” 

JJ scoffed. 

“If you ever need any help,” JJ said. “I’m always here for you.” 

You pulled your arm out of the blanket and flung it in his direction, your brain starting to fade into sleep.

“I know,” you sighed contentedly. JJ tucked your arm back underneath the blankets. 

“Sleep tight.” 

You mumbled, trying to say it back, but your mouth was no longer listening to your brain. JJ sat there beside you as you fell asleep, watching your breathing start to steady, until he was sure that you were no longer conscious. 

***

“Ben, I don’t like this,” you said, clinging to the older boy's arm. The two of you were teetering at the edge of a cliff. You had never passed down the opportunity for cliff diving, but this one was too tall and the possibility of hitting the rocks below was too high. 

“C’mon, babe,” he said, pressing his lips against your forehead. “Be my brave little girl.” 

“Ben!” One of his friends called from behind. “This is dangerous.” 

“I know!” Ben replied, shouting over the wind. “That’s why she’s doing it!” 

You looked over at him, eyebrows pinched together. 

“Ben-” 

“You want to feel alive, right?” He asked you, eyes wide and horrifying. “You want to prove to me that you’re more than those filthy pogues, more than the box your brother’s lifestyle cornered you into? You want to prove yourself to me?” 

You nodded your head vehemently. You wanted that. You wanted the life he could give you, wanted everything he had, everything he touched. 

“Then jump, baby.” 

You sucked in a deep breath, peering down at the ocean below. It was too tall. You had no idea how deep it was here. There was no way you could jump confidently, knowing that you would survive. But that was the fun of it, right? Not knowing whether you were going to swim out alive until you hit the surface?

You turned toward Ben, placing your hands on the side of his face, pulling him toward you. He kissed you hungrily, hands grabbing at your waist, pulling at your shirt and the top of your pants. You pulled yourself back suddenly, making him stumble forward. Stepping forward, you could feel your toes hanging over the cliff. Wind whipped through your hair, dragging across your skin like daggers. 

You didn’t feel alive. You felt like you had just stepped up to your funeral pyre. 

Still, you raised your arms, ready for the jump.

“Hell yeah,” you heard Ben breathe, excitement in his voice.

“No!” You heard someone cry behind you, but the wind drowned out the voice. As if it too wanted you to jump. “Y/N, stop!” 

“Jump, baby!” Ben yelled behind you. “Feel alive.”

Jump. 

You could barely hear the sound of shouting behind you.

Jump. 

It almost sounded like fighting.

Jump!

You lifted your foot, ready to let yourself fall, when someone wrapped their arms around you and pulled you backward. Your eyes snapped open as you hit the grass, the arms still around you. 

The wind died down and you could suddenly hear what was going on. And see it too. 

John B was kneeling over Ben, pounding his face into the dirt. Pope and Kie were doing their absolute best to distract the others and keep them from aiding their friend. 

“Don’t...ever...fucking...touch...my...sister!” You heard John B shout, each word accompanied by a punch to Ben’s face. You wanted to run to him, to pull John B off, but someone was still holding you.

“Get her out of here, JJ!” Kie cried, clinging to the back of one of Ben’s goons. 

“Go!” Pope echoed. 

JJ? 

The someone hoisted you off the ground, pulling you away from Ben.

“No!” You shouted, fighting whoever was holding you. “Get off me!” 

“Stop it, Y/N!” That was JJ’s voice. Tears rolled down your cheeks as you tried to fight to get back to Ben. “Leave him!” 

JJ dragged you back to the van, trying his hardest to get you into the passenger seat while all of your limbs flailed. He started yelling as soon as he was behind the wheel and the two of you were rattling down the road.

“What the hell were you thinking?” He shouted, knuckles white from gripping the wheel. 

“I was cliff diving!” You shouted back, tears still running from your eyes. 

“That wasn’t cliff diving. That was suicide!” 

You scoffed, crossing your arms.

“Stop pretending that you care now, JJ. It’s too little too late.” 

“Why do you keep saying that I don’t care?” 

“Because ever since my dad went missing, you and John B and the Pogues became an exclusive club that I wasn’t invited too. Because you said I was annoying and clingy. Because when I needed you most, you walked out on me!” 

JJ clenched his jaw, shifting his hands on the wheel. 

“I didn’t mean any of that.” 

“You never took it back.”

“Well, I’m taking it back now.” 

“Like I said, too little too late.” 

The rest of the car ride was silent until you made it back to the Chateau. You shoved the car door open and stormed toward the house, hands clenched at your side. 

“Y/N, wait!” JJ stormed after you and grabbed your wrist. You swung around, glaring daggers. 

“What do you want?” You seethed, voice breaking. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Ben never wants to hang out with me again thanks to you.”

“Thanks to me you’re not dead at the bottom of the ocean!” 

“I hate you, JJ Maybank,” you sobbed, stepping away from him. “You broke my heart. You and John B left me alone and now you think you can just come back into my life and tell me what to do.”

JJ let out a deep sigh, the anger in his eyes turning to something else, something you couldn’t read. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Y/N, I’m really sorry.”

You stared at him, trying to keep your sobbing to a minimum. 

“I can’t give you a reason why John B and I pushed you away. You were my best friend’s kid sister. And you were starting to be more than that and I couldn’t....” JJ let out another deep breath. “I couldn’t risk John B hating me because I wanted to be around you all the time. I was thinking about myself. It was selfish.”

You breathed heavier, turning your face away from him. 

“Why do you care all of the sudden?” You asked, looking at a leaf on the ground. You had never been able to resist his eyes when he asked you something. 

“Ben was no good. You weren’t his girlfriend. You were his guinea pig.” You felt your heart squeeze, eyes narrowing as you felt a fresh wave of tears pricked your eyes. “I couldn’t live with myself if I let him hurt you.” 

You finally looked up at him. He was pleading with his eyes, asking you to forgive him. You looked away again. 

When he stepped closer to you, you didn’t back away. You let him get closer to you, closer and closer until he was standing right in front of you. You watched, as he lifted his hand slowly, tentatively, until his fingers were brushing against your elbow. 

Electricity sparked through you, eyes fluttering shut. His touch was gentle and he didn’t leave bruises. 

“Y/N.” He was standing so close, you could feel his breath against your forehead. “Forgive me.”

You lifted your face to meet his. You missed seeing the ocean in his eyes with all the intensity of the sea. It made your breath stop in your throat. 

“Of course,” you whispered, afraid of breaking whatever bubble that was surrounding the two of you. You watched in startling alarm as he started to close what little distance between you. “JJ.” 

With his lips to yours, you felt the world spinning around you. Everything was spinning and spinning and spinning, but you stood on solid ground. A storm crackled around you, lightning dancing across your skin where he touched you; your arms, your neck, your cheek. But it didn’t hurt. Thunder crackled in your ears, thrummed in your heart. Wind swirled around you, threatening to consume you, but JJ kept you steady. 

Jump! The wind howled. Jump! 

But you weren’t leaning over the edge of a cliff. You had already taken the risk, you had already jumped. And you were falling hard. 

You somehow knew that JJ was going to be there to catch you when you hit the ground. 

[seasonofthewicth]

A Groovy Kind of Love - Chapter 7

AN: ty for being so patient with me but here we go! kinda mild swearing if anyone likes to be warned of that.

masterlist - ao3

------

Rowan quickly shut the door behind himself. His heart was racing, a pounding through his chest spreading down to his fingertips where he had braced them against the wooden panel of his bedroom door. He ran his other hand down his face, letting out a strangled groan.

He hadn’t meant to go so far. Hadn’t meant to go anywhere at all really, but he hadn’t been able to pull himself back from the intense look in Aelin’s eyes. Hadn’t been able to draw himself away from the stunned expression on her face, her eyes wide, and her blush, pink lips slightly parted as she gasped at his proximity. He hadn’t been able to pull himself back once he had caught the hint of her perfume, the intoxicating jasmine and lemon verbena scent, so enticing he had wanted to bury himself in her neck and never pull back.

He groaned again. The moment her head had tipped down, pinning him into place in the crook of her neck, had been divine and had sent a jolt of electricity through his body. Her skin had been soft and warm where he had brushed the lightest of kisses down the line of her throat.

He pressed a balled up fist to his forehead as he sent a silent prayer up to the gods.

He pushed himself back from the door, trying to gain some sense of control over his breathing but he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling of Aelin pressed up against him, the brush of her chest against his own, the tickle of her hair against his neck.

He clawed at the tangled strands of thought inside his head, desperately trying to find a semblance of a rational way to look at what he had just done. This was Aelin, his roommate, his friend and Aedion’s cousin. Fuck, Aedion would kill him if he found out.

Aedion played the protective older brother role well when it came to Aelin, and that had extended towards his own friends at times, shooting them harsh looks if they appeared to look at Aelin for longer than necessary or taking the empty seat next to her at the bar before they could get there.

Despite his overprotective nature Rowan knew that if Aedion found out he wanted to pursue something serious with Aelin he would be wary, but ultimately supportive despite the oath they had all sworn. He knew it was mostly in good spirits, with only a sprinkling of genuine threat.

Rowan wasn’t quite sure what he wanted. He knew Aelin well by now, sharing such close quarters would lead to a level of familiarity with anyone, but to take it further? To be able to touch Aelin as he had done, to touch her more than he had, to go further than a light caress of lips against skin.

He knew she owed him nothing, he hadn’t made even a whisper of his thoughts on the topic known to her, hadn’t let any of his fondness shine through their familiar bantering beyond casual friendship. He had messed this up. Aelin probably hadn’t even wanted him to flirt with her, she had been talking with Fenrys about her flirty new co-worker and Fenrys had been encouraging her to go for it. Gods, what had he been thinking?

The thought of Dorian Havilliard flirting with Aelin had got the better of him. The thought that Dorian could flirt with Aelin had clanged through him, hitting every rib as it passed through. Dorian wasn’t her roommate and had nothing holding him back. The thought had struck Rowan with a feeling of longing so strong he hadn’t been able to hold himself back from crowding her against the bench. Making sure her thoughts were of him and not Dorian.

He wasn’t even sure that it was Dorian, he liked the guy, had met him once or twice through Fenrys and while they hadn’t spoken more than a couple of sentences about a sports game that neither of them had been invested in he knew the man was charming.

He needed to see Aelin and apologise to her, explain that he had had a brief lapse in judgement, and that he was very sorry and wanted to move on. She deserved better than him anyway, he knew that. She deserved more than a law school drop-out who worked full time as a bartender, living in a shitty loft with four roommates even though they were all nearing thirty. He didn’t have great ambitions in life, he liked to take it easy and enjoy it one step at a time, he wasn’t a deputy principal with his life all pulled together. Not like Dorian.

He sighed, turning to his bed. His breathing had almost returned to normal in the minutes he had waited, and his body seemed to have calmed itself with the distance now between himself and Aelin. He placed his now-empty beer bottle on the chest of drawers next to his bed and threw himself face first onto the covers. His hips twitched slightly, and he cursed himself again, cursing the visions of fantasies of Aelin in this bed with him.

He could have brushed his lips higher, teasing her behind her ear before coming around to pin her lips beneath his own. He could have lifted his hands from the counter to grasp her hips, pulling her into his body while he pressed her into the counter

This wasn’t him. He let out a growl of frustration as he flipped over, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. He would make this right.

------

Aelin hesitated outside Rowan’s bedroom door before raising a hand to the barrier. She took a deep breath in, preparing herself before knocking gently three times.

She needed to see Rowan after the events that had happened in the kitchen the night before. She had spent all night tossing and turning in her bed, debating over and over what his actions could have meant. He hadn’t made any advances towards her in the past, their relationship had been relatively laid back, roommates who got along well, but even so she knew she had developed a soft spot for him.

She could never fight the soft smile she knew she wore when he was speaking animatedly about something. Whether it was slamming Lorcan’s favourite football team or having economic debates with Aedion she couldn’t help but be absorbed by the passion he would display. Her attention would always be drawn to his broad shoulders and muscular arms as he would gesture while he articulated his point. She fought the places her mind would go at the sight of his large hands and elegant fingers.

She also couldn’t deny the mounting evidence that he had somewhat of a soft spot for her. Rowan wasn’t open about his feelings, but his usually reserved demeanour definitely lightened when they were together. She also couldn’t forget his tenderness towards her, not only putting her to bed drunk but also tucking her toes under a throw on the couch when she’d complain about being cold. Having a cup of coffee ready for her when he made his own, always with a splash of cream and a cube of sugar, despite him drinking his own black.

Aelin wasn’t quite sure what she was hoping to achieve knocking on Rowan’s door, he might not be awake, or even in, but she had laid awake all night unable to lose the sensation of his lips on her neck. She swore the small spot still burned from his feather-light touch.

“Come in.” His voice startled her, pulling her out of the spiral she had entered, and she took a deep breath before pushing the door open.

Rowan was sprawled across his bed, laptop discarded half open next to him on his grey covers, a broad arm braced behind his head where he lay against his mound of pillows. At the sight of her he pushed himself up until he was sitting on the side of his bed, legs thrown over the side as he turned towards her.

“Hey,” His voice was soft as he smiled slightly at her.

“Hey.” Her own voice was just as soft as she shut the door behind herself.

“What’s up?”

“Not much.” She crossed the floor to take a seat next to him on the bed. Crossing her legs she rested her weight on an arm braced behind herself as she turned towards him. “I was just wondering what you were up to.”

He let out a slight gust of a laugh, turning up the corners of his mouth in a small smirk as he met her eyes. His piercing green eyes shining in the soft morning lighting as he looked up at her through his eyelashes.

“Not much.” He parroted back and the teasing lilt to his voice told her he knew exactly why she was in his bedroom. “Is there a reason you’ve barged into my room so early in the morning? On a weekend to boot.”

She refrained from sticking her tongue out at him like a child.

“I’m just scraping the barrel really, having to spend time with you.”

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head at her sad attempt at a joke. She was normally so much better at this. Rowan shifted his weight until he was mirroring her position, resting back on his arms with his long legs stretched out in front of him, ankles crossed.

“Really, none of the others are around? Not a single one?”

“Nope, Fenrys is probably still asleep, Lorcan’s working and Aedion is out.” She curled her tongue around her next words. “He’s stayed out. With a lady friend.”

“Really?” Rowan’s intrigue was clear, eyebrows shooting up on his forehead. “Not like him, normally he just brings them back here and leaves it to me to kick them out.”

Aelin laughed. “I know, and I think it might be the same girl as last time.”

Rowan’s eyebrows crept up. “Damn, he must actually like this girl, or she’s rutting good in bed.”

She felt her face twist in disgust at the mention of Aedion taking part in any bedroom activities.

“Let’s all hope it’s the former, okay.” She rested her hand on his upper arm as she nodded enthusiastically at him.

“Right.” He drew his gaze away from her, staring at the spot where his socked feet fidgeted on the floor.

She looked down, unsure of what to say next. She traced the lines on his sheets with a fingernail, noting the chipped hot pink nail polish she needed to take off.

“Look, Aelin—”

“So—”

They began at the same time. She shook her head, gesturing for him to go first.

Rowan cleared his throat.

“Look Aelin, about last night.” He took a breath in before meeting her gaze. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. That really wasn’t what I wanted to do.”

She slid the hand still resting on his arm up to his shoulder.

“You don’t have to apologise Ro,” Her eyes shot down to her lap quickly before she rallied herself to meet his gaze. “It’s not—I’d really rather you didn’t. It’s okay.”

“Well, I’m sorry anyway.”

“It’s really okay, honestly.” She smiled at him, feeling like a schoolgirl speaking to her playground crush, not knowing how to speak to a boy without turning a hundred shades of red. She normally kept her cool, knew how to flutter her eyelashes and smile up at a guy, leaning into him and talking herself up confidently.

Rowan bypassed all that, made her forget every line she’d ever used on a guy, made her forget to brush her hair back across her shoulder before looking up at him and smiling prettily. So quickly he had her wrapped around his finger and he didn’t even know.

But maybe, after last night, maybe he did know. The way he had got into her space had shown her a confident side to him she hadn’t seen before, a side to him that was smooth and charming and sexy. She brushed her thumb gently against the side of his neck, leaning her weight towards him, the mattress sinking sending her even closer to his warmth than she intended.

A muscle in his jaw worked at the motion and he took a sharp breath in.

“Aelin,” His voice was guttural as his hand came up to wrap around her wrist. “Don’t.”

She recoiled as if his words were a slap. Jerking her hand off his shoulder and into her chest as if the fingers he had curled around her wrist had burned her.

“You don’t have to worry about that, I won’t let it happen again. We can just forget it ever happened.”

Forget it ever happened.

Aelin jerked to her feet, her hands fluttering about her sides as she stood. Rowan followed the motion, his eyes not leaving her face, and she fought the blush she knew was rising.  

Forget it ever happened.

She had put herself forward and Rowan had rejected her. Obviously. He regretted it; had probably spent the hours she had spent writhing in bed thinking about him wondering how to let her down gently.

Gods, she needed to leave. Get out of here and away from Rowan long enough to compose herself.

“Yeah,” She heard herself say weakly. “Of course. Already forgotten.”

She was abstractly aware of the relief flooding Rowan’s features, his expression released from his frown. She crossed the room to his door, trying to purposefully slow her steps to not look as if she was running away.

She had messed things up, misread Rowan completely, and now she needed to leave.

Fuck.

------

“Oh good, you’re here.”

Manon Blackbeak’s tone was bored and dripping with sarcasm as she answered her and Lysandra’s front door. Impeccably styled as always her platinum hair was scraped back into a sleek ponytail, her clothes were relaxed but hung perfectly from her slim figure. Aelin knew she herself looked a mess in comparison, hadn’t managed to change from her baggy sweats and an old t-shirt from her high school sports days before leaving the loft.

“Yes.” Aelin narrowed her eyes when Manon made no move to let her in. “Is Lysandra here?”

Manon only shrugged. Fine then. Aelin took a step forward, crowding herself into Manon’s space until she backed up enough for Aelin to slip in beside her.

“Lys?” She called. “You here?”

A thud sounded from down the short hall before Lysandra appeared, midway through tugging on an oversized sweater.

“I’m here,” Lysandra froze as she took in Aelin’s expression. “Everything okay?”

Her friend’s voice was full of concern.

“Yeah, I just need to talk to you.” She said with a pointed look towards Manon, who remained standing by the front door.

For someone who seemed unable to stand Aelin she wasn’t in any rush to leave. After a beat the model shrugged before slinking off into her room and slamming the door.

Lysandra winced at the sound before turning to her, an open expression on her beautiful face.

“I fucked up,” Aelin told her. “With Rowan.”

“Ah, shit.”

Lysandra grasped her hand to lead her into the small living room. The yellow couch she had spent weeks sleeping on before she moved into the loft remained, taking up most of the space in the small room. She flopped down onto it as Lysandra took the spot next to her, tucking her legs in beneath herself as she leaned towards Aelin.

“What happened?”

What had happened? Looking back now it didn’t seem like much of a big deal. Rowan had very briefly flirted with her and then told her not to worry about it. He couldn’t help the miles her brain had ran with the idea, dreaming up imaginary scenarios she should have known were impossible. Impossible because Rowan didn’t like her in that way, he had just been teasing her in response to Dorian. Nothing more.

Her face must have told half of the story because Lysandra reached out to gently squeeze her hand.

“It’s going to sound stupid.”

“Never.”

She really loved her best friend, Lysandra’s statement was absolutely sincere.

“Last night, me and Rowan, got slightly… flirty. And then I spent all night thinking about him.” Lysandra winced. “I’m not done.”

“Ah.”

“And then this morning I went to see him and got hard-core rejected. That’s pretty much it.” She let out a weak laugh.

Lysandra pressed her lips together, taking a moment before saying, “I need details on the flirting, and the hard-core rejection.”

She pursed her lips.

“The flirting was hot.” Aelin laughed as she buried her face in her hands, blushing again at the memory of Rowan’s body pressed against her own, and the whisper of his lips against her neck. She couldn’t get over that image. “Like, all up in my space, had me feeling some things. He definitely kissed my neck at one point.”

Lysandra’s eyes went wide.

“He kissed you?”

“No,” She moaned. “Well, maybe, but not properly.”

Lysandra only raised one, perfectly shaped eyebrow.

“And then he rejected me. And now I’m freaking out about it. It’s Rowan.”

“I really can’t picture Rowan being flirty.”

“This is serious!”

“I’m being serious!” Lysandra cried, feigning offense. “How did it even start?”

“We were talking about Dorian flirting with me—”

“Dorian?” Lysandra stopped her.

“My co-worker.” She hadn’t had much chance to fill Lysandra in on all the details of her new school. She definitely hadn’t been avoiding telling Lysandra all the details about this one co-worker in particular.

Lysandra was straight to the point, “Is he hot?”

Dorian was hot. In a polished kind of way. The combination of his curly, dark hair and piercing blue eyes was somewhat princely. His tanned skin and blinding smile were a combination that many men and women, Fenrys included, would lap up.

Her silence spoke enough for Lysandra.

“He is! And then it went from there? Rowan flirted with you after hearing about this Dorian guy doing the same?” Aelin nodded. “He was totally jealous.”

Rowan jealous of Dorian? That changed things.

“But he rejected me?”

The look Lysandra gave her was sharp.

“Again, it’s Rowan.” Lysandra said, as if that simple fact would make all of Aelin’s confusion disappear. Aelin frowned at her. “We couldn’t possibly begin to understand the workings of the male brain.”

Aelin barked out a laugh as Lysandra brought a hand up to rest against her chin, tapping a finger against her lips before speaking.

“Okay, right. Real talk. Were you into it? Rowan flirting with you?”

Aelin bit her lip before nodding.

“But he turned you down?”

“He told me we could pretend it never happened.”

Lysandra hummed in response.

“And this Dorian, was he flirting with you?”

“I guess,” She said mildly.

“You know what you need to do right?” Lysandra held her arm out, palm raised as if the answer to her question was clear. “You need to text this Dorian guy. Forget about Rowan, that’s a bad idea anyway.”

Lysandra was at least partially right. She needed to remember that Rowan was her roommate, and if anything went wrong, she may be Aedion’s cousin, but Rowan was his best friend. And he was closer to Lorcan and Fenrys than she was, despite the lengths she thought she had improved her relationship with them in the short time she had lived in the loft.

“Lys, I don’t know.”

“Do you have his number?” Lysandra was taking no prisoners, now excited at the prospect of Aelin speaking to someone new.

Aelin hesitated but confirmed Lysandra’s question. They had all exchanged numbers in the staff room on her first day. She had Chaol, Yrene and Nehemia’s numbers too, not just Dorian’s.

Lysandra held her hand out, waggling her fingers in a gesture that said hand it over. Aelin reluctantly handed over the silver iPhone, bracing herself for the spectacle that was Lysandra’s flirting technique.

Her friend tapped away on the screen, having known Aelin’s password since they were teens. Eventually she held the screen up to Aelin for approval.

Her text was friendly, casual enough that if he responded negatively it wouldn’t be awkward, but open enough that her intentions could be clear. Aelin hesitated.

“What do you have to lose?” Aelin snapped her eyes up to her best friend’s. Lysandra had a stellar track record with her previous romantic relationships, she had called Arobynn an asshole from day one. Aelin just hadn’t listened.

Aelin grabbed the phone from her friend’s hand, pressing the send button and quickly locking her phone again.

She bit her lip as Lysandra squealed, giving her a light shake on the shoulder and Aelin allowed herself a smile. If Rowan wanted to pretend it had never happened she would too.

------

She and Dorian had agreed to meet at a bar. It wasn’t fancy, she was in jeans and flats, but it definitely could be a first date location. She slid her fingertips up and down through the condensation that had built up on the outside of her wine glass as she waited for Dorian to arrive.

She was ready for this, Dorian seemed like a great guy and she was attracted to him. Maybe not in the same way as Rowan, his carefully composed look was a complete contrast to Rowan’s cosy and relaxed vibe.

“Aelin, hey.” She turned at the sound of Dorian’s voice behind her.

“Hi,” She smiled as he pulled her into a brief side hug before sliding into the booth opposite her. He smelled good she noted as he signalled to the bartender for his drink, a hint of citrus and something else she couldn’t place.

He was dressed about as casually as she was, a crisp white polo shirt topped with a navy blue jacked that brought out the colour of his eyes. He looked good.

“I’m glad you texted me,” He told her. “I was planning on asking if you wanted to hang out.”

She smiled; this was a good idea. Dorian’s beer arrived and she toasted to him with her glass, watching him over the rim as she took a sip. He was watching her right back, a slight crinkle around his eyes as he smiled into his drink.

Dorian was easy to get along with, he kept the conversation flowing easily asking her about herself with questions about her job and her hobbies. They both loved reality TV, despite Dorian’s protests that it was a guilty pleasure. She had laughed and assured him there was nothing to feel guilty about.

They both loved teaching too and she had been thrilled to find that Dorian was just as passionate about it as her, if not more so. She had rested her chin on her fist, watching him with rapt attention as he spoke, enthusiastically, about how much he loved his students and how much he wanted to help them succeed.

He had bought the following rounds of drinks, respectfully declining her offers to pay for her own or even his. He had smiled at her, a smile that crept up the left side of his cheek more than his right, crooked in a way that she almost blushed.

She didn’t think much about Rowan throughout the night, her mind focussed on the man opposite her. Focussed on the way he would send her short glances when she tucked her hair behind her ear. The way his toes would accidentally nudge her own below the table.

While her text had been open ended, she knew the way it had been taken. It was definitely a date, and one she was enjoying.

When it came to the end of the night, the time limit imposed on them by the closing of the bar, Dorian laid a gentle hand on her lower back as she led the way out. Aelin paused on the street by the exit as she turned to him. His angular cheekbones highlighted in the shadows from the late night street lighting.

Aelin wasn’t sure how she wanted to play it, she had enjoyed the date and Dorian’s company spectacularly. She bit her lip, wanting Dorian to play his hand first, lest she be in for the second rejection of the day. She wasn’t sure whether he’d want to kiss her, or whether he wanted to take it slowly.

He seemed to pause in the same manner she did. Pursing his lips as he glanced between her face and the rest of the street. His hand was still resting on her lower back, the warmth fighting the chill in the air to spread through her entire body.

“I had a great time tonight,” He began, and she nodded her agreement. He took a short breath, considering his next words carefully. “Do you want to get out of here?”

He rubbed the back of his neck slightly, almost bashful in a stark contrast to how self-assured he had seemed so far.

Her heart seemed to skip a beat; this was the line in the sand. She knew what Lysandra would be screaming in her ear if she was here, do it, forget about Rowan. Forget about him the way he wanted to forget about her, and to move past it to just being friends.

Aelin took a step closer towards Dorian, looking up at him through her lashes as she scraped her teeth across her bottom lip. Dorian’s eyes tracked the motion.

“I’d love to.”

And she pressed her lips to his.

------ 

tags:

@jesstargaryenqueen​

@maybekindasortaace​

@slytheringalathynius​

@http-itsrebecca​

@morganofthewildfire​

@in-love-with-caramel-macchiato​

@fictional-horan​

@tottenhamboys20​

@dressedindustandshadows​

@sleeping-and-books​

@perseusannabeth​

@ireallyshouldsleeprn​

@superspiritfestival​

@aelinfeyreeleven945tbln​

@spyofthenightcourt​

@jlinez​

@queen-of-glass​

@booknerdproblems

@sjmships​

@elriel4life​

@bamchickawowow​

idk why but tag lists confuse me so much so if I’ve missed anyone please let me know

[bamfdaddio]

X-Men Abridged: 1965

The X-Men, those wackadoodle mutants that have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are a cultural juggernaut with a long, tangled history. Want to unravel this tapestry? Then read the Abridged X-Men!

X-Men 9 - 15 - by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Warner Roth

The X-Men’s third year touted one of the most anticipated crisis crossover of the millennium: it’s Avengers vs. X-Men!

fuck you Wasp! You don’t deserve the cover (X-Men 9)

The, eh, the first time around. It’s a little lackluster, but Jean uses her powers to not fall down a hole and the Wasp thinks Angel is just, like, such a babe. The entire fight happens over an entirely avoidable misunderstanding and really serves as window dressing for the actual conflict: Charles Xavier confronting his past. Besides, the kerfuffle with Avengers is easily resolved and does not end with anyone accidentally splitting the Phoenix Force among five hosts or killing Xavier, so that’s a real plus. 

While the superteams face off briefly and ineffectively, Professor X dispatches with some vengeful C-list villain named Lucifer who is such a nobody that I’m still not really sure what his actual deal is (and I know Random’s backstory). Still, he is the reason that Charles is in a wheelchair, though the details remain vague. (I much prefer the version rendered in the First Class-movie where Magneto is the one who paralyses his ex-boyfriend/rival, because it has that big dramatic oomph, but hey.)

i don’t know which one is more unbelievable: Xavier’s dope superchair or the artificial dust devil that, later on, somehow hardens into a prison bubble?! SCIENCE! (X-Men 9)

Speaking of Magneto: he and Toad are abducted by some alien called the Stranger, who is apparently super-duper interested in mutation. (We all know it’s really because he has the hots for our Mags, don’t we?) Magneto disappearing causes the Brotherhood to disband, freeing up Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch to join the Avengers. They do so by mail-in ballot.

i love that sweater on ya, Pietro (Avengers 16)

Magneto’s absence clears the board for some new and exciting villains. One of these is another puzzle piece of Xavier’s past: Cain Marko, the Juggernaut… and Charles’ step brother!

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat (X-Men 12)

Maybe I’m suffering from Stockholm’s, but the two issues introducing the Juggernaut are actually… good? (Despite the unsubtle fact that his first name is Cain.) That first issue establishes the unseen terror of this menace as it approaches the mansion and is barely hindered by the numerous defenses the X-Men have thrown up.

it’s the amazing alliterative angel! (X-Men 12)

Charles, meanwhile, tells the X-Men about his childhood: his mother and father, who both died young, his abusive step-father and his even worse step brother. Xavier was suspicious of his step-father, who might have had a hand in daddy X’s death, and Cain was always envious of Xavier, who did everything better than he did. This comes to a tragic head when a fight between Cain and Charles causes the step-father’s lab to blow up, killing him. Damn. Rough childhood, Charlie.

this player absolutely does not waste any second. get it, you li’l golddiger. (X-Men 12)

Later, during the Korean War, Charles and Cain stumble upon the temple of Cyttorak, a foul demonic deity (also mentioned in Dr. Strange). There, Cain finds this ruby that grants him his unstoppable powers.

Just as Charles is done with expositing his tragic backstory, the Juggernaut arrives at the mansion and a cool fight ensues.,The X-Men, together with the Living Torch, are finally able to stop the Juggernaut by taking off his helmet, the one thing that blocks his psychic powers.

you just had to emphasize that beast worked under your commands, eh? you old glory hog (X-Men 13)

It;s just… really good stuff. Sure, once again, the day is ultimately saved by some mental feat or trick from Xavier, which is getting tiresome. The X-Men themselves always feel like supporting characters to Xavier, rather than main characters on their own. Still, in this fight, they really do feel like a goshdarnit team.

dohohoho antiquated gender roles. (Not pictured: Xavier mindwiping Johnny Storm after he came to the X-Men’s aid.) (X-Men 13)

One more odd thing I noticed is this utter belief that science and machines can really do anything as long as you set your mind to it. It’s very much the Jetsons: sixties sci-fi.

Still, overall, there’s a noticeable uptick in the quality of storytelling: Lee is really finding his groove. Perhaps that’s the reason that in 1965, the X-Men-series goes from bi-monthly to monthly. Clarion call!

hank mccoy introduces: the most verbose way to say “duh” (X-Men 14)

In other news, Jean and Scott still pine for each. It’s absolutely boring.

Oh, Scott, the sheer agony! If only there were practically nothing keeping us apart! (X-Men 9)

oh, Jean, if only my little lieutenant were that gun... (X-Men 10)

Fuck, these two deserve each other. (I promise I’ll like them better later on.) But hey, at least Jean gets an upgrade in terms of power level!

obvi the best use of telekinesis ever (X-Men 9)

much better. attagirl (X-Men 14)

Other new mainstays are 

The Savage Land, where the X-Men meet discount Tarzan, Ka-Zar, and his pet tiger.

Actual continuity! Stories that span multiple issues!

The Trask family, starting with the misguided patriarch Bolivar. .

And… the Sentinels.

The appearance of the Sentinels really ratchets up the anti-mutant hysteria. The only reason Dr. Trask built these things is because he’s deadly afraid of mutants. When he presents them on national television, they immediately kidnap him and Xavier. I love that the Sentinels take about one hot second to turn against their creators, because humans will never cease bringing ruination upon their own heads.

“humans are dumdums” - fuck you too, you brave little toaster ovens (X-Men 15)

About 60 years later, at least that hasn’t changed.

PANIC! this whole page is just a delight. please note the spelling of ‘throughout’ (X-Men 14)

Didn’t you take Art History? Just like Lee, Kirby is really stretching his legs.

life, uh... finds a way (X-Men 10)

Best new character: The Juggernaut. Cain Marko is different kind of villain: for him, this is personal. He poses a legitimate threat and he fleshes out Xavier’s backstory. Perhaps the best villain yet. (I’m sorry, Magneto, but at this point you’re little more than a highly dramatic demagogue. You don’t even have your name or tragic past yet!)

What to read: 12 and 13, the issues introducing Cain Marko. Seriously, they’re good. 

Best unintentional period piece: Let me introduce you to: the sixties.

i don’t know what’s happening, but this is just groovy, baby, yeah (X-Men 14) 

Ugliest Costume: The Sentinels. Jesus Christ.

maybe they just hated Bolivar because he made them look this way (X-Men 14)

[icosmohunters]

chapter one : haunted ship

chapter one of cosmo hunters!

word count : 4.3k words

synopsis : hope is stranded on an ice-covered moon whilst out on the hunt for a particular ship terrorist, fixing her ship whose engine was malfunctioning. in the days that come, she notices that some things have gone missing. that’s when she starts hearing sounds from the basement . . . 

“ day three on europa . . . nothing has run out yet, and i finally realized what the problem is with the engine, it seems like one of the cables burnt out and now i have to replace it. a.j is helping me sort it, but i don’t know whether i’ll make it in time to catch crimson at the j-colony. i’m in deep shit. “

hope held the recording device to her lips, her eyes darting across a star-lit, black vacuum of space. she found that putting and sorting her thoughts into a recording helped her more than typing it out on her monitor. even though she knew a.j was listening, she felt better speaking rather than holding all of the thoughts in her head. going through her problems often helps her understand them. well, some of them.

as of now, she sat with her legs perched on the smooth surface of the control panel, her spine resting against the soft cushion-like material her chair provided her. she’s been stranded, that was obvious. and being stranded, for an introvert, can be quite frankly, the best thing in the world.

because as devoted as she was to her job, hope just didn’t give a fuck sometimes.

three days on the moon europa, one of the four celestial bodies attracted by the dense monster that was the planet jupiter. europa used to be the ice ball that scientists often fantasized about, holding craters within its sea of ice which potentially held the essences for life like on earth; water, lava, magma flowing in the core. 

and after having spent a while on its surface, hope could say that there wasn’t anything on this useless ball of ice! sure, she didn’t like using her weapons on dumb things, she often tried to avoid encounters with monsters and aliens but she had been hoping that there would be a challenge aside from the burnt cable in the ship’s engine.

nothing, nothing at all. not even a single insect.

at this point in her isolation, her fingers were burnt and aching from meddling with cables, her energy drink supply had run out and a.j’s battery was slowly running out. and the only way to charge him was to head down to a ship dock and ask a professional to do. because she didn’t have the clearance to do it herself.

“ i swear, ever since these fuckers left earth, they think that anyone outside of their corporation isn’t capable of handling things themselves “, hope complained, sitting up from her chair and tapping the button on the recording device, turning it off. “ do i need a certificate to charge a damn a.i? “.

a voice broke through the echoing silence, “ it’s the law. you just have to follow it considering you already made them bitter by leaving the corporation. “

“ stop reminding me, you ass “, hope grunted, looking up to the small screen planted on the roof of the navigation cabin. considering she had decided to make a.j a voyage companion, she couldn’t design him a physical appearance like that of other ships she’s seen belonging to the corporation. so she had grown accustomed to his sultry, matter-of-fact tone of voice. always condescending. “ you’re supposed to be on my side. “

“ i was not manufactured to be biased, hope. i was manufactured to have a middle-ground set of morals “.

the bounty hunter rolled her eyes, sighing a small yeah, yeah because she’s heard it all too many times. one could say she had fucked herself over by choosing a.j to be like this, it would mean that he would easily turn her in if she did something wrong. hence why she’s careful with almost anything she does.

having recorded as she does every morning, hope got up from her comfortable seat rather reluctantly, not showing any intention of doing a lot that day but her mission was four days away. and in case you were wondering, a jovian day is roughly nine fours. meaning she had thirty-six hours to get the ship fixed and her ass down to the j-colony.

why didn’t she contact the emergency board? because they’re a bunch of assholes, and they don’t act unless if someone is on the brink of death.

plus, hope has pissed them off all too many times. they don’t like her too much.

so, yeah . . .

“ fuck! “.

it had only sunk on her now just how much trouble she was in, putting her hands over her pallid face and releasing a frustrated sigh that echoed loudly. only now had she realized what the problem with the engine was and how long it would take for her to fix it was unpredictable. her mission was going to be a failure because she didn’t switch a cable. a fucking cable.

oh, how she wished to take the cable and strangle herself with it.

fighting the urge to procrastinate considering her life was on the line, hope approached the elevator and stepped into the booth, over-looking her cabin for a tender moment and then press the button down to the basement where the engine was stored.

the ship she chose was, of course, manufactured by voyage inc, the biggest tech company helping in the colonization process around the solar system as well as advances for galaxy exploration. the ship wasn’t the latest model, it was at least three seasons ago but she loved it nonetheless. besides, the newer models had removed the controls which she liked, now it was all buttons and waiting, no action, nothing, just letting the ship do everything for you. quite frankly, that’s vile. and lazy. 

the walls were a pastel grey, decorated with trails of neon lines in particularly purple colors, especially lilac, hope really liked the color lilac. because it was lilac. and any other color beside it was awful. most of the ship followed this pattern, lilac, and grey, lilac, and white, but never lilac and black. 

in a way, her ship was a masterpiece because she helped piece it together, choosing the elongated shape to allow many rooms and space for the navigation cabin, making the back of the ship slightly wider to allow another two propellers for extra power. the ship was rather large, painted in an ebony black as to blend into the vacuum of space in which it traveled. 

needless to say, the ship was beautiful inside and out, unlike its owner.

“ a.j, turn the lights in the basement. “

when the elevator had reached its destination, the transparent glass doors slid open and hope stepped out into the lower part of the ship. below her would be the storage floor. but she didn’t care for it too much at that moment considering she had an engine to fixed.

gloves on, goggles on, hope whistled and tapped on a button against the elevator panel. a screen appeared, holographic and following the bounty hunter as she walked away towards where work was required. on this screen, she typed something and then sent it flying back to its projector. she was putting on music.

for an introvert like hope, who isolated herself from people and who rode solo, music had become a secondary companion when a.j wasn’t in the mood for a chit-chat. the passion for lyrical masterpieces came mostly from a theatrical mother who studied music in her time at school. her father wasn’t the biggest fan, but hope felt it like it was more than that.

she supposed that maybe music was just always a part of her.

anyway, her song of choice that evening was some mac miller, what’s the use, to be more precise. groovy and smooth, it put her mind at rest and her feet moving even whilst opening up the hatchet for the engine and exposing herself to the possibility of getting burnt.

usually whilst enjoying some tunes, hope doesn’t like to be interrupted, and a.j knew it all too well. but at least half an hour into the mechanical process, hope began to feel a sense of discomfort. she’s not accustomed to being with people, so of course, she didn’t realize that the discomfort came from that feeling of being watched. and it took her a while to detach herself from the focus she was pouring into the work, so when she looked up, she had forgotten about the worry.

a swift lift of the head and a glance over both shoulders. nothing. she knew there was no reason to be paranoid, what kind of life would exist in a deserted place like this? she wasn’t expecting a strange ice octopus to seep out of the craters to smash her ship to pieces, so she assumed it was only the anxiety getting to her. after all, she still had to fix the ship.

“ a.j, could you-- “.

“ on it, hope. “

whilst a.j ran a search through the ship’s mapping and tracking system, checking through surveillance, hope tried to distract herself with the work she was originally completing. of course, she was tense, and with tension comes the unbearable heat. soon, she removed her grey t-shirt and now remained in her leggings and sports bra, both with the grey and lilac design like that of her ship. 

yeah, hope just really likes being shirtless.

after being away from huge crowds and society as a whole, she’s developed a lack of care when it comes to her own comfort and decides that sports attire is the best for her, hence why she wears it on a daily basis unless if she’s leaving the ship.

patting her solid abdomen for a moment, the bounty hunter took a small pause to admire her work. the cable had been replaced with another one she could but now she needed to connect it in and then sync it into the control panel and ugh, just boring technical shit that she wasn’t cut out for. but she had to do it in order to get herself to her scheduled mission.

“ hope, there’s something wrong. “

her expression dropped along with her stomach. gulping, hope fixed her posture and stood with her shoulders wide and chest broad. she wasn’t a coward, that’s for sure, but if there was a problem, she had to deal with it face-on. “ what’s wrong? “, she quickly asked.

“ it appears that the cameras sensed movement moments ago but nothing’s happened. or so it appeared, something seemed to have shifted in your room “, a.j explained in a tone she didn’t recognize. he sounded . . . worried, unlike him. very unlike him.

“ my room, you say? “.

“ correct. “

that sounded incredibly stupid considering she was the only one in the ship, the last time she checked, which was about . . . an hour ago. brows furrowed together, hope bit her lip and threw her gaze towards the engine. maybe the cameras weren’t working properly because she was tempering with the main source of energy.

“ i’ll check it out later, a.j. simmer down for now. “

being an obedient piece of technology, a.j shut up and went idle based off of a jingle that hope heard. the bounty hunter sighed for the hundredth time that afternoon and shook her head, maybe she was starting to go insane because of her worries. she needed to get this engine fixed soon.

time skip  ﹏

around two hours later, the bounty hunter was attempting to get through a full meal without getting distracted by something else. usually, when sat in peace, she’s interrupted. and today wasn’t that different. it was around lunch-time and she was trying to enjoy a microwaved meal and what remained of the energy drinks in the fridge, until a.j tuned in.

“ the cameras have picked up more movement, hope, this time in the basement. “

the girl held her hand over her eyes and tutted, “ maybe they got confused considering i was there two hours ago. nobody would be on this ship, a.j, so stop scaring me as if this ship is haunted or something! “. she didn’t know her a.i was capable of jokes, but it turned out he was.

it wasn’t that hope was scared of ghosts. she’s seen enough to know that there are worse things out there in comparison to spooky beings out of campfire stories. she’s seen giant centipedes over twenty meters long, she’s seen sea octopuses with spikes in the suckers, she’s seen seven feet long cave beasts with enough strength to crush a person to a single atom.

it was that everything pointed to a malfunction in the cameras because of the lack of a properly functioning engine. nothing pointed to the idea of ghosts or someone having invaded her ship, and besides, she had other things to worry about. 

so hope stood up and slammed her plate on the table with a semi-amount of force, not enough to break the plate but enough for the sound of the perasima dinnerware to echo. she went down to the basement, tapping her trainers impatiently against the floor and stepping out when the elevator dinged.

clapping her palms twice, the lights flickered on and hope’s eyes hunted for something out of place. the shirt she had taken off was still by the chair, her toolbox hadn’t moved an inch and the hatchet remained open. nothing seemed out of place and if a.j was a person, hope would have turned to pull at his ear.

“ i need to reboot your system if you keep this up, a.j “, the bounty hunter voiced forcefully, but her statement brought no response. considering her job was done there, hope ultimately turned to come back to her meal but something caused her to stop in the middle of her tracks.

footsteps.

now, that was definitely not right. yet hope remained still, completely still before suddenly turning in hopes of actually finding someone standing there. but instead, she was met with the same room full of the same oxygen as before. nothing out of the ordinary. except for the fact that she heard footsteps when she was supposed to be alone.

“ a.j, has the emergency response team replied to our distress signal? “.

“ nothing from them, i believe. “

hope bit her lip, her eyes darting across the basement before she found herself unable to go upstairs, she had to stay here to ensure that her sanity wasn’t going haywire and that she could fix the engine in time for her mission. it looked as if she wouldn’t be sleeping any time soon, which was fine by her if it meant catching whatever fucker had decided to start messing with her.

so she walked to the toolbox, slipped the gloves and goggles one, and continued to work, attaching cables to more cables, fidgeting with copper and other moldable metals, backing away at certain moments to avoid catching fire. all whilst looking over her shoulder and ensuring that nobody was creeping up behind her.

god, since when was hope, the bounty hunter, afraid of ghosts? “ not ghosts, not ghosts “, the girl repeated to herself underneath her trembling breath, blinking every once in a while to keep herself awake. a.j came online many times to tell her to relax or lay down, but now she was too disturbed to even think about resting. “ you scared me from my sleep, you fucker. how am i going to sleep after hearing footsteps? “.

“ perhaps your lack of sleep and fondness of replacing rest with heaps of energy drinks and caffeine pills is what’s causing you to have hallucinations. rest, hope, please. “

“ no. “

a.j persisted a couple more times until he gave up, hope could just imagine him shrugging before going offline.

she must have been up working for a good hour until her exhaustion got the better of her. hope recalls slowly dozing off and soon, she had passed out against the hatchet, at least she was far enough from it to avoid being burnt. having slept for a small amount of time, hope had regained enough energy and awareness to suddenly hear a.j coming online.

“ hope, wake up. “

rubbing her eyes with her bare hand, the bounty hunter yawned and paid a quick glance around her surroundings, forgetting her fears and worries for a moment. “ for god’s sake if you’re going to tell me you heard more footsteps i might start crying, a.j “, she complained, voice droopy as she tried to rid herself of the last few cobwebs of sleep.

except for this time, a.j most definitely did not have to alert her of anything. if anything, she caught on quite easily when she saw that the toolbox that once had rested beside her was, in fact, gone. hope didn’t react at first, but then she threw herself up and bolted to the elevator, slamming the button until the doors slid. it was like a bomb was about to be set off.

for some reason, she first chose to go to the top floor where the navigation cabin was just to check that nothing had seeped into her lockers or the cabinets, but hope spotted nothing at first. upon taking a level down, she started to rush through the halls, throwing all the doors open. first her bedroom, then the spare bedrooms, then the lounge and even the toilets and the kitchen once again.

she kinda regretted not bringing a weapon now.

a.j had gone absolutely radio silent, which wasn’t comforting for a girl in such a turmoil. it didn’t really dawn on her that perhaps a.j had moved the box via some robot arm that he had access to in the basement, it seemed unlikely that he would scare her that much. or that he held those bad intentions.

so the bounty hunter was left frozen in the grey and lilac halls, in a dying ship on an icy moon with no means of being saved by any space shuttle passing by. with no means of being helped. nothing, she was alone in this instance.

for the first time, the bounty hunter felt fear.

especially when she heard footsteps to her right. they echoed for seeming ages, they weren’t loud, they were gentle like the soles were guilty of causing noises and disrupting the peace, careful and sneaky. like a thief had broken in and that’s when it landed on her for the first time that she had been reading it all around, completely wrong!

no ghost would haunt her, no camera would malfunction like that. nothing like this would be possible unless if the scum of space had somehow found its way into hope’s ship.

pirates.

immediately, hope turned and bolted towards the weapon room, unaware that the footsteps had ceased at the sound of her own rapid ones, weaving through the halls in search of the double doors that were thrown open at her arrival without her having to do much. hope rose her gaze in hopes of finding the weapons as they were, except the shelves were nearly empty, in no way untouched. it looked like someone had clearly broken in and pillaged everything. all of her guns and tools, everything!

all except for a potent little ray gun that would be quite useful considered it fired nothing but sleeping darts. and poison darts. she hadn’t planned on using it before her mission yet here she was, fingers just craving to wrap themselves around the neck of a pirate in hopes of strangling them for all the terror caused.

of course, hope was incredibly nervous as her hands wrapped themselves around the gun, she hadn’t planned on shooting anyone until her mission in the coming hours but now her ship was being invaded and the bastard had to get off whether they liked it or not. 

from what she quickly recalled, she had heard the guilty footsteps on the hallways leading to the lounge. so that’s where she went, her steps just as gentle as feathers touching a body of water. hope had lost the sense of feeling stupid in walking through her very own ship like she was a stranger to it, because she was angry at this point, and blood-thirsty, one could say.

honestly, she would really like that cable now.

upon approaching the lounge area, she suddenly became very still. because never once has she been so willing to be prepared for an attack. wherever this pirate was, she was going to find them and once she does . . .

well, she’s not too certain what she’ll do.

but then the footsteps came, louder this time and from directly behind her. and instead of flinching, hope turned herself around and fired first before they could approach her. and by the grunt she heard, she’d hit her target. the dim lights of the hallway suddenly flickered on properly and what hope was staring at now was a man on the ground, his chest heaving.

“ you didn’t have to shoot. “

hope’s eyes flickered to his hands, where he held her taser gun, probably the one which he had stolen from her very own weapon room.

“ you were gonna tase me, asshole! “.

looking at him now, hope found him to be a rather good-looking man with enough muscle power to be considered as a muscle pig, but through the way his face contorted with pain and the way he winced like a little kid, she was left feeling unimpressed. her left hand dropped to her hip, the ray gun still in her right hand.

this was the pirate on her ship?

“ stand down, guys. “

oh, there’s more. how didn’t she think of that?

hope looked to her sides and saw two figures emerge, both seemingly female from the long hair. one was a brunette, the other a blonde, both seemingly the same age or around the same age. to her left, hope saw two men emerge, both carrying the expression of either distaste or displeasure, she couldn’t decide between the two. 

“ a.j, it seems like you were right about the rodents in the ship. “

the a.i tuned in quickly, activating what seemed to be a shock effect on the ship floors that sent all the pirates to their knees and then to the ground. hope was unaffected, as she was stepping on a structure on the floor which kept her from being affected. had she stepped on the ground, she would have collapsed just like all of them. the shock stuns the nervous system and weakens it. quite a useful trick for intruders. it was also why hope would never upgrade her ship to the newer releases from the corporation.

“ ok, that hurt “, one of the females said, seemingly the short brunette who held a rather sweet and docile voice carrying no danger at all. hope refrained from trusting it. “ c-can you warn us next time? “.

“ there won’t be a next time considering i’m throwing you rats out “, hope decided and the first guy who tried to attack her with the taser gun rose his head and turned his neck to meet her unbothered gaze. “ unless if you can give me a reason to let you stay? “. she was kidding, she wanted them all out.

“ uh . . . we’re stranded and hungry and need to get back to pluto? “.

pluto? is he kidding? 

hope sighed and couldn’t help but chuckle, a coping mechanism for her disbelief in this situation. “ listen, dipshit. i’m not in the mood of being a taxi service. i have places to be. and i’d rather get there than be distracted by shitty space pirates who can’t sneak around to save their lives. seriously, your footsteps were loud enough to be heard in china “, she complained. 

one of the boys, with curled brown locks held back by a black bandanna, stared at her right in the eyes. “ we’re stranded, we need food and weapons and a way back to our base “, he grunted, struggling to move against the small electric shocks that came from the slightest movements. “ have some kindness, rumplestiltskin! “.

hope blinked, she’s going to pretend he didn’t just call her after a fictional villain. she wasn’t that ugly, she believed . . .

“ okay, is it just possible for you to let us explain ourselves? the floor is hurting me and i really just want food, w-we can explain it over dinner . . . “, the blonde woman spoke up, meeting hope’s gaze. the young woman was almost swayed by the proposal.

“ what’s your name, blondie? “.

the woman seemingly hesitated and then replied with a softer tone, “ vivienne. “

hope nodded, a lovely name. “ okay, vivi can definitely talk to me over dinner because she asked politely and has acknowledged the position i hold here. as for the rest of you, i’ll just let you starve until you start acting nice “, she decided, tilting her head to the side.

“ you’re mean “, the buff dude spoke.

“ that’s my middle name “, hope sassed back and sighed. “ i’ll repeat myself. whoever’s in charge between you freaks will have to decide whether you want to have dinner with me and explain just what you’re doing on my ship. either that or i’m throwing you out into the cold. “

the buff guy who had fallen first suddenly grunted, and looked at hope, so she returned the gaze. his eyes suddenly hardened, jaw clenched as if he was contemplating the next move and she hoped it was a smart one.

and thankfully it was.

“ fine, we’ll discuss it over dinner. “

[inxcs]

       kim taehyung  ,  24  ,  he/him   ------   hey  ,  did i just see siwon ryu walking around the block  ?  oh  !  yes  !   the last time i saw him  ,  i heard he wanted to be called siwon  .  people around say they are so endearing  &&  inquisitive sometimes i wonder how they can be selfish  &&  duplicitous  .  (  popped bubblegum  ,  glowing under the sun  ,  purple-pink skylines  ,  patterned blouses   ) 

heyo  !  i’m deni  ,  she/her pronouns in the gmt+9 section of the world  .  i can’t keep an aesthetic and i use too many em dashes  .  below is one of the characters i’m bringing  ,  SIWON  ,  my favorite problem sunflowers  .  i have some info and verse-specific information beneath  ,  but i have a habit of updating  ,  adding and changing as i go  .  apologies in advance for how messy all tis is  .  looking forward to writing with you  <3  !

☀  𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐋 .

➤  full name.  siwon ryu ➤  date of birth.  january 29th ➤  hometown.  toronto  ,  canada ➤  gender.  cis male ➤  sexual attraction.  pansexual ➤  romantic attraction.  pansexual ➤  wants.  family  ,  power ➤  fears.  imprisonment  ,  humiliation

      universal facts.  hustles at arcade halls  ,  scarfs down burritos like they’re gonna disappear  ,  looks as comfortable in a dark  ,  dirty alley as he does standing under all those lights in the neon districts  .  pockets full of candy and a lollipop between his lips  .  likes cheap beer and cigarettes  ,  fast talking and smooth smiles  .  gets up when the sun goes down  .  who knows if he ever gets a full night’s sleep  ,  but you can find him taking a nap just about anywhere  .  seems to live for the dark hours and stays busy as a bee  ,  feels the rain on his skin  ,  plays with matches  .   spray paints boobs on the sides of government buildings and dicks on malls  .  can do crazy math in his head and spot fake bills with incredible accuracy  .  can barely stand to sit still  ,  always moving except when there’s a computer screen or an aquarium in front of him  .  gets addicted to things so easily it’s scary  —  people  ,  food  ,  liquor  ,  feelings  .  craves that intimacy  ,  craves that closeness  .  has a loud as fuck laugh and a love for sneaking into places where he doesn’t belong  .  catches extra cash on the side by fixing up broken-down machines and can figure his way around a motor with a bit of elbow grease  .  fucking loves nature dude  ---  takes care of plants and reptiles in his home  .  would die for snakes and lets them drape over him  ,  claims they give the best hugs  .  vegetarian  .  would be a vegan but too lazy  .

       personality.  loud  ,  noisy  .  could talk to a brick wall  .  holds himself with all the confidence of the sun and his smile burns just as bright  .  there’s this lazy intensity to everything he does  .  like  ,  pretends he super cares but also doesn’t  ?  or pretends he cares so much but in reality couldn’t give a shit  .  affable  ,  easy to get along with on a surface level  ,  and he’s curious enough to keep any conversation going with questions and enthusiastic energy  .  mood changes on a dime  ,  goes from grinning like a maniac to eerily calm in a snap of your fingers  .  intuitive and instinctive  ,  listens to and follows his gut  .  trusts the energy in the air more than anyone’s word  .  comes off as thoughtless but it actually very cautious  .  impulsive doesn’t mean brainless  .  sniffs out bad situation fast and decides on a dime if he needs to run or face it  .  go with the flow kind of attitude  .  doesn’t take things personally  .  nice  but trusting him’s an iffy situation  .  greedy�� ---  wants everything and anything  .

       appearance.   stands around 5′11  .  broad shoulders  ,  slim hips  .  floppy  ,  messy hair and glowing skin  .  half legs and a lot of eyelashes  .  wears no less than five charms on a daily basis and keeps his tarot cards with him at all times  .  rings  ,  bracelets  ,  necklaces  ,  earrings  ,  crystals  ,  talismans .  wears a small lip ring and has several runes tattooed on his body  .  dresses anywhere between a washed up rockstar  ,  your college weed dealer  ,  and your grandpa in the ‘40s  .  his closet’s a chaotic mix of anything he could thrift or patch together  .  most of the time  ,  he’s sporting loose pants  ,  a vintage blouse  ,  a jacket or blazer and comfortable loafers  .  kind of swims in his clothing because most of its’ two or three sizes too big  .  only wears skinny jeans when he wants something  .  unironically wears cargo shorts in the summer  .  keeps all that hair back with a bandana or a headband  ,  hairties on his wrist  .  nothing in his closet’s technically new and he loves looking for a bargain steal ——or simply just a steal  .  sometimes he’s jimi hendrix and other times he’s versace  .    

☀  𝐌𝐔𝐋𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄 .

  ⇀   kim taehyung  ,  24  ,  he/him   ------   hey  ,  did i just see siwon ryu walking around the block  ?  oh !  yes  ! the last time i saw him  ,  i heard he wanted to be called siwon  .  i hear they are a podcast host  ╱  “psychic”  .  people around town say they are so endearing  &&  generous sometimes i wonder how they can be selfish  &&  duplicitous  .  ( beaded curtains  ,  purple skies ,  tousled hair  )  

      about.   wrongly labeled a troublemaker after a little incident with some candles  ,  pentagrams and a slightly burned down warehouse  ,  siwon’s been on the road and seeing te road ever since  .  makes a few quick bucks tapping into that aura of his that somehow magically nudges his brain about who’s got what on their minds and what might happen to those what’s  ,  but no one really seems to believe him when he says it’s all real  .  starting a podcast straight outta the back of a busted-up RV  ,  siwon’s crossed the country and broke down in this little town  .  and  ,  so  . . .  maybe some stuff he was involved with in the past wasn’t totally legal butthat’sokayokayhedoesn’tdothatanymore  .  ANYWAY---  this town  .  figures he’ll call it home  .  it’s groovy enough  ,  he supposes  ,  and after a few attempts to get out of town that just failed  ,  siwon figures this is the universe telling him to settle down for a bit  .  so okay  .  his few listeners don’t mind  ,  siwon still does some readings and random lectures on whatever’s on his brain  .  for extra cash  ,  he does a few side gigs  ---  fixing up websites  ,  selling crystals and rocks he finds  ,  jobs around town that don’t require him to fork over any semi-serious documentation  .  takes scenic pictures for his instagram and documents the road-trip across this Great Wide Country he and his pets are seeing  .  let’s  . . .  let’s just see how this goes  . 

☀  𝐌𝐔𝐋𝐓𝐈𝐂𝐈𝐓𝐘 .

  ⇀   kim taehyung  ,  24  ,  he/him  ,   toxokinesis   ------   hey  ,  did i just see siwon ryu walking around the block  ?  or was it poison  ?  it’s hard to tell  ,  really  ,  all i saw was the commotion  ,  someone being saved  .  you know  ,  i heard siwon is an app developer  .  i also heard they are a saint  ,  really  ,  so affable  &&  generous  ,  none of that mercurial  &&  selfish  nature people talk about  .  (  blackened veins  ,  wild eyes  ,  living for the applause  )

       about.  after his parents volunteered him for  “ quirk ”  studies at a leading research institute  ,  siwon’s been semiworking for the man  .  but it’s fine  .  it’s fine  .  totally fine  .  spending most of his early life in a tank waiting to be let out  ,  siwon kept himself busy with plant pals  ,  reptiles  ,  and of course a computer screen  ---  everyone’s favorite parents  .  he’s developed websites and applications for the hero organization to help them locate and identify trouble around the city  ,  a bridge between 911 services and the heroes themselves  .  at twenty-two  ,  siwon created a popular app cataloging heroes and villains  ,  a place for fans to post their own pictures of fights and fallouts  ,  gossiping about which heroes were secretly in love and speculating about new faces behind the masks  ,  then a megapopular game where people could play as their favorite heroes or villains to save  (  or destroy  )  a city  .  as poison  ,  he wears no cape --- and in fact hasn’t even been seen since the site skyrocketed in popularity years ago  .  instead  ,  siwon helps in the development of weapons using his poison and sends little  ,  touching notes to baddies all over the world when he isn’t shuttling around on mercenary expeditions  .  he’ll ignore the mortal coil for now as long as they fly him first class  ...  he thinks  .  just hopes the organization doesn’t find his stash of supervillain fanfics  .  ikes  .

☀  𝟏𝟖𝟓𝟑 .

  ⇀   kim taehyung  ,  24  ,  he/him   ------   hey  ,  did i just see siwon ryu over there  ?  talk around town is that they are a witch  ,  but i don’t believe any of that  ,  no  .  they are just a con artist  ,  endearing  &&  generous  .  those are all just humors  .  like the people saying they were selfish  &&  duplicitous  .  (  frayed tarot cards  ,  three-piece suits  ,  sticky fingers and a smile  )

      about.  look who got himself invited into a magnate’s manor  :  a nobody who made a pretty penny from the opium trade ----- and who’s definitely not human  .  siwon’s bounced from city to city on his own  ,  brewing and selling antidotes to unfortunate come-downs from the drugs that’s rotting them all from the inside out  ,  but that’s only to sell more of that shit once the high’s gone  .  it’s enough to keep the rich happy enough  .  popular at parties  ,  he performs as a spiritualist and fortune teller  ,  snakes into conversations he shouldn’t be privy to and trades the information later  .  he’s a busy man  ,  what can he say  ?  for someone who wants to be free from all of this  ,  he enjoys parts of the lifestyle far too much  .  but maybe he should start making friends soon  .  attracting a lot of attention lately  ,  and with rumors of animals around  ,  even the “fake” witches like himself might find themselves in more trouble with the law  .  and now there’s the other trouble he’s found himself in  .  unfortunately caught swindling a vampire  ,  siwon was forced into dealing with a group of witches and their opium trade for protection  .  now his clients are their’s  .  his product and profits  ,  partly their’s  .   siwon’s in a whole other side of the criminal underground on the cusp of the victorian age  ---  and he doesn’t know what the fuck’s gonna happen  .

☀  𝟐𝟐𝟖𝟎 .

  ⇀   kim taehyung  ,  24  ,  he/him   ------  hey  ,  did i just see siwon ryu over there  ?  yes  ,  oh my  !  haven’t you heard  ?  it seems they have moved to level seven  .  makes sense  ,  considering they’re a techie  .  rumor has it they are so affable  &&  inquisitive but i know at heart they are just impulsive  &&  mercurial  .  (  busted old radios  ,  buzzing neons  ,  sticky situations  )   

      about.  tba  !

[amyrose13]

What if...

(Bring loads of tissues and ice cream tubs before this could get angsty)

[Ella dies, and Percy still loves her and grieves over her death even when he moves on]

"No..."

Percy couldn't believed it at first. He didn't want to believe it.

But he could only watched with helpless horror as Ella's body dropped to the ground, her face facing the skies and her dirty yet magnificent eyes closes forever. There were splotches of red painting her face—her own blood—that came from the scars across her right cheek and above the bridge of her nose, and in her hand, was her knife, stained with the blood of a Laestrygonian giant.

No.

Nononono.

No. Gods, please no.

He fell to his knees, a wide-eyedblank look that borderlines his growing horror, indescribable grief, and crushing dread as Annabeth cradles close Ella's dead body on her lap as she wailed, tearing streaming down her cheeks.

"ELLA!" Annabeth screamed, her cries reaching to a high and heartbreaking pitch. "WHY?! Why her?! She didn't—She didn't deserved this!"

Even when her anguish screams and sorrow were louder at each words and sobs, Percy felt like everything had went silent.

Nico was on her knees, his sunken eyes staring at the dead child of Aphrodite with wide horror and rapid tears streaming down as he tries to form coherent words. "You promised," Nico sobbed, his voice cracking. "You promised, Ella..."

Piper couldn't bear to see her precious sister's dead body. She sobbed loudly, her own heartbreaking cries for her sister muffled against Jason's chest who wrapped his arms around her in a form of comfort. But even the son of Zeus was hurting. He stared at Ella's dead body with his eyes narrowed with heldback tears but a trail of tear after another slipped from his blue eyes as he viciously bit his lower lip until it bled like he was trying to hold back his own vocal agony.

Leo stared at Ella's corpse with a traumatized face, his eyes shaky with disbelief and grief. He and Ella were the Weepy Bitch Duo, and shared a bond so much like friends and so much like a family. But now? His Weepy Bitch is dead, and it felt like he was experiencing his mother's death all over again. Only so much worse.

Because Marcella Baxter deserves so much more than this... she deserves to live longer and be happy.

But a fucking damn Laestrygonian giant had to also taken that away from her.

Frank and Hazel were closely next to Annabeth, both whimpering in their tears and grief-stricken stifled sobs as they were whispering the dear name of Ella like it was made of glass like a broken record.

"Ella... w-wake up..." Percy croaked, his legs that felt like 200-pound rocks now slowly moving towards his girlfriend. He didn't realized how he fell to his knees as he reached out for Ella, nor acknowledging the flare of pain his knees felt. Nothing mattered.

He just wanted her. His Pretty Girl. His beautiful Dove. His world.

"E-Ella, come on. Wake up." He said, his voice fragile. He was like an innocent child trying to stir awake his mother as he shakily nudged Ella's shoulder. He held her body close to his chest.

He tried to hold her hand, hoping that it would wake her up.

Nothing.

Her hand was... cold. That's not normal. She was always wonderfully warm.

"C-Come on, Pretty Girl." He said, his voice painfully bright despite it trembling. "T-The war's over, see? W-We can go back home now. M-Mom's waiting for you. You didn't finished telling her about o-our trip to Bahamas, remember?"

Silence.

"Ella...?"

Anyone who wanted to tell him the undeniable truth didn't want to say anything to him. But Chiron, despite having such heavy and grieving heart for the girl who died and whom he watched grew up, straightened his shoulder as he walked forward to the son of Poseidon.

"Percy, that's enough." He said, terrifyingly calm and smooth.

"Ella, didn't you say you were going to beat me in Just Dance? We can do that now, y-know? I can let you win just this once, a-and we'll share blue cookies and cuddle all day long while you sing for me—"

"She's gone, Percy." Nico spat, his voice stuttering over his weak sobs.

The atmosphere went sharp and heavy.

Percy laughed. The sound of it was achingly high, and breakable. "No. No, no, come on. Seriously. She's just sleeping, right? She's tired. After all the fighting, looking after the new campers and cheerleadin practices, she just needs some rest. C-Come on, Grace, help me wake Sleeping Beauty up."

"Percy, please—" Annabeth whimpered.

"NO!" Percy shouted, his voice so furious, so sad, and so so grieving, that everyone took a step back. His sea green eyes were wide with fury, like they were all his enemies that he wanted to destroy, but seeing the steady streams of tears that fell on his cheeks reminded them just how much Perseus Jackson is hurting now.

"She's—She's not dead. She'sstillalive!" He panted, breathing heavily as he glared at his friends with a crazy angry look. "Stop looking like that like she's—she's—SHE'S STILL ALIVE, OKAY?!"

"Percy, you have to stop this!" Hazel begged. "Ella's—"

"—NO! SHUT UP!" Percy held Ella's frame close to him, his screams decreasing into broken sobs as he tightly latched onto his Pretty Girl's form like he was afraid of her disappearing into thin air once again. "She's not dead, okay...?! Not—Not Ella—Not my Pretty Girl..." he sobbed, his denial breaking into thousand pieces.

Everybody watched as Percy kissed Ella's forehead gingerly, shaking breathing in the scent of her vanilla hair like it was his air.

"My Pretty Girl..." he sobbed, his tears splattering onto Ella's pale face. "Not my pretty girl..."

Even in death, he marveled at her beauty. No one was just as magnificent, beautiful and unique as Ella Baxter.

.....

"This is Camp Half-Blood?"

Percy nodded, a small smile on his face as he walked next to a 7-year old new camper. "Yeah. What d'you think?"

"Groovy!" They beamed excitedly.

The son of Poseidon laughed as he led the young camper further in the camp grounds. He showed them the archery range, the dining pavilion and the strawberry fields.

"And over there is the lava-climbing wall—" Percy stopped short when someone called out his name from behind, turning around to see Annabeth jogging towards him.

"Hey, Wise Girl. What's up?" He teased.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Haha, very funny. Just checking up on our new camper since you might make something turn out wrong again." She said, crossing her arms.

"Hey, I'm not that bad!"

"Uh-huh." Annabeth nodded, dismissing Percy's indignant pout.

"Hey, whose cabin is that?" The camper asked, pointing at a—Percy's face fell when he saw Cabin 11.

"Oh..."

The camper looked at the cabin with awe. "It's a pretty cabin."

Annabeth looked at Percy worriedly. "Percy—"

"I-I just remember now!" Percy exclaimed, his voice strangely high-pitched. "Forgot to put up some mascara again today! Annabeth, please show around for me, will ya?"

Annabeth nodded, her face understanding and sad as Percy quickly walked past them and briskly walked towards the line of trees behind the cabins.

He dropped to his knees, his face tucked between his legs as he curled up into a ball. Percy slowly let out a small sob as he shook. The royal blue tube of black mascara in his pocket suddenly felt heavy and demanded of his attention, and he pulled it out with a trembling hand.

3 years. After he picked himself up after her death. And it still hurts as much as it always did when it happened.

He moved on. But he couldn't love anyone else. Not when she's always on his mind.

Teary-eyed, he tinkered with the royal blue tube of mascara and brought it close to his lips, kissing the tip with shaky breath. "Ella..." he whispered, his voice broken, sorrowful and longing. "My Pretty Girl..."

[sunflowersandink]

We Often Go Awry

Part 1

Read on AO3

Pairing: Peter Parker/Wade Wilson

Summary: Everyone is born marked, and they live knowing that somewhere out there is their other half, a corresponding soul with the same mark. Thanos wins, and suddenly half the people in the universe are gone, just like that.What happens to the half that’s left?

Words: 2845

For all the chaos in Peter’s life, there was never really a point where it didn’t feel like it made sense. There was an order to it, a pattern. Sometimes a pattern too intricate and grand for him to understand, but he trusted always that there was a pattern nonetheless.

In a snap, the pattern disappears.

- - -

The whole ride back from Titan, his fingers compulsively trace the black fibonacci spiral that has stood in stark contrast to the pale skin of his wrist since the day he was born. It’s hard to tell in the dim light of the ship, but he thinks it looks a little lighter, a little less sharp than it did that morning. He tells himself it’s too early to tell.

He concentrates on it, and does his best to be a middle ground between Tony’s endless pacing of their section of the tiny ship and the blue alien lady’s complete and eerie stillness in the pilot’s seat, staying seated and motionless but for the restless bouncing of one leg and the constant motion of his fingers.

He doesn’t look up until he hears Tony’s small intake of breath. He raises his eyes to see Earth ahead of them, blue and shining in the dark.

It looks so small, he thinks.

- - -

They land way outside the city, deciding there’s no good way to land a spaceship in the middle of Manhattan without causing even more panic.

Tony’s on the phone as soon as they’re through the atmosphere and have a signal. He waits, almost vibrating with tension, as the phone rings.

“Pepper,” he breathes at last, shoulders slumping with relief. “You’re okay.”

Peter is relieved too, though his is slight. He’s glad she’s okay of course, but she’s not one of his biggest concerns. He worries at the skin around his thumbnail, and tries not to think about Aunt May, or Ned, or MJ, or the other Avengers. He doesn’t look at his wrist.

Within minutes, he’s tracing the spiral again anyway, without needing to look.

- - -

It’s been three days since the snap, three days since Titan, three days since theirs and every other little corner of the universe was ripped in two forever. Peter hasn’t left the tower since he got back.

Technically, most of the missing can’t legally be declared dead, not without a body.

So most are just missing, in the eyes of the government and any loved ones who didn’t personally witness them crumble to ash.

Aunt May remains one of the many missing persons on the crowded list.

Mr. Stark didn’t hesitate to give Peter a room in the tower, which he gratefully hides away in. The others, the ones still alive, give him space, busy grieving their own losses.

Everyone on Earth has something to grieve.

Peter wears long sleeves for three days, and keeps the lights off when he showers.

Everyone knows how long it takes for a mark to fade, and he refuses to torture himself in the meantime by obsessively checking it.

On the Third Night, he pulls up his sleeve and looks.

- - -

It’s Bruce he wakes, pounding on his door at just past two in the morning.

Bruce opens the door, blinking bleary-eyed at him, hair rumpled. Faintly, Peter hears Thor in the background, groggily asking what’s happening.

Bruce frowns at him in concern. “Peter, what-?”

Peter doesn’t say anything. He simply holds out his arm, showing the pink spiral that twists like a scar against his wrist.

Bruce’s face twists in understanding and sorrow. He wraps his arms around Peter. “I’m so sorry, Peter,” he murmurs.

Peter just squeezes him tighter. He doesn’t cry. It’s hard to cry for someone you’ve never met.

It’s six a.m. before Ned texts.

my mark didn’t fade!!!! they made it!!!! hbu?

Peter ends up falling asleep, without finding it in him to answer.

- - -

By a week post-snap, some of the missing have officially been declared dead, though the millions without a known (and not-missing) soulmate to prove it remain.

Aunt May remains missing, Uncle Ben having already taken her corresponding soulmark with him.

Peter hopes, wherever she is, she’s found him again.

- - -

On the eighth day, he leaves his room, not because he particularly wants to see anyone else, but because he thinks if he spends anymore time in there he might actually go insane.

He ends up going down to the gym, which he finds to already be occupied. Steve is red-faced and sweating, and judging by the pile of broken punching bags, has been at this for a while. Bucky’s once-red star peeks out from under his t-shirt sleeve like a wound.

He stops the current bag from swinging, turning to look at Peter before he can sneak back out. He shoots him a brittle smile, which drops away immediately. “Hey Peter. I heard about your mark. I’m really sorry.” Peter gives an awkward little half-shrug. “Yeah, me too,” he says, not sure if he’s agreeing or expressing the same sympathy back.

Steve walks over to the small table along the edge of the room, picking up the water bottle that sits there. Peter sees the blood that covers his knuckles, though the wounds are probably already healed.

“You’ll have the gym to yourself, I was just about to go for a run,” he says, then flinches slightly, like he already regrets the words.

Sam flashes through Peter’s mind. “I could go with you,” he blurts out, and immediately regrets it. No, he doesn’t want to see his new half-city, not really. Not yet.

Luckily, Steve either picks up on this or genuinely doesn’t want the company, because he smiles at Peter, a little more warmly and gently than his earlier one. “That’s very kind of you Peter, but no, thank you. Stay here, take advantage of the solitude.” He nods a goodbye, and brushes past him out the door.

Peter relaxes, feeling bad that’s he’s actually grateful Steve is gone. It’s Steve. Steve, his teammate, a man who he’s trained with and fought with and hung out with on movie nights.

But then. It’s not Steve, not really, is it? It’s the remaining half of Steve, and he’s just the remaining half of Peter.

He’s not even sure what complete Peter was like. Would have been like. Was supposed to be like.

How do you get back to normal when everything is this fucked?

- - -

On the tenth day, he goes up to the lab. Tony’s up there, but he knows it, he’s prepared this time.

He’s not prepared to find Tony and Pepper, together. He can sense he’s walked into a fight the moment he steps through the elevator doors, and he’s honestly not sure if that’s better or worse than finding them happy together.

Tony is behind one of the worktables, pointedly not looking up from whatever it is he’s working on. Dark bags hang under his eyes, his face is unshaven. He looks completely exhausted, which, knowing Tony, might actually mean he hasn’t slept since they got home.

Pepper, on the other hand, looks furious, her arms crossed and jaw set in a hard line. She looks back when Peter enters, and immediately relaxes her stance, smiling gently at him. “Hi, Peter, how are you?”

Without the anger masking it, he realizes she looks just as exhausted as her soulmate.

He gives the same half-shrug he’s given everyone who asks him that question. He’s becoming very good at it. “I’m okay.”

She tilts her head, concern shining in her eyes. “I haven’t seen you much this past week.”

“Been busy,” he dodges. “How about you - you guys? Is everything okay?” he asks awkwardly.

The anger comes back, though not directed at him. She opens her mouth, but Tony speaks before she can.

“Oh, yeah, sure, everything’s just groovy. Yeah, almost four billion people are dead, but everything’s working perfectly, why wouldn’t it be?”

Peter flinches slightly, which Pepper doesn’t miss. “Tony,” she says sharply.

Tony looks up, blinking at Peter like he just noticed he was there. He sighs raggedly, scrubbing at his already-bloodshot eyes. “Fuck, I’m sorry, kid. Just ignore me, it’s been a really long day.”

“That’s because it’s been several days, Tony,” Pepper says wearily, reaching up to rub at her own eyes, though much more carefully. “Tony, you can’t fill in for half the planet by yourself, you just can’t, and you’re going to kill yourself trying. You need to take a break,” she pleads.

He flings the screwdriver he was working with to the ground with a clatter that makes Pepper and Peter both flinch back. He braces his hands against the workbench, and looks at the two of them with slightly wild eyes. “You want me to take a break? Okay, sure. Do you want to explain to the doctors and nurses at the five hospitals within a hundred mile radius that don’t have power that, oh, I’m sorry, I’ll get back to fixing that part of the power grid after I have a little nap, that okay? How about the fourteen, fourteen, Pepper, commercial airlines that went down after their pilots dissolved mid-flight that still haven’t seen rescue workers because all the surviving workers are putting out the million other fires that sprang up when half of humanity disappeared at once? And that’s not even touching on all the - the little stuff, if you can call things like millions of car accidents and the kids in foster care that lost their parents, and the fucking nuclear power plants that had to shut down so we wouldn’t have another Chernobyl on top of everything else, and -”

“Tony,” she cuts him off, and her voice is so filled with soft grief that for once he does stop. “I know.”

He chews at his lip, looking down at the pile of circuitry in front of him. “I’ll take a break when I’m done with this,” he says quietly, all the earlier frustration draining out of him, leaving his shoulders slumped.

“Thank you,” she says, her own anger faded as well. She walks over to Peter, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go get something to eat. I don’t think this is the best place for either of us right now,” she says quietly, and he doesn’t resist when she leads him back into the elevator. He looks back over his shoulder, to see his mentor still standing, hands flat against the table and head hanging so Peter can’t see his face.

“So,” Pepper says once the doors close, clearly doing her best to sound cheerful and composed. “I think the tower might be a little low on food at the moment, but I’m sure we can scrounge up something from the communal kitchen. How do scrambled eggs sound? I’m sure we’ve got some eggs -”

“I’m sorry,” Peter blurts out. He didn’t mean to say it, but the words have been at the back of his throat for eight days, and it’s a relief to finally have them free.

Her forehead crinkles in confusion. “What are you sorry for, honey? Tony? No no, sweetie, trust me, that has nothing to do with you. That’s just Tony being, well, Tony.”

“No,” he mumbles, not meeting her eyes. “No, I mean - I’m sorry for all of this. I’m -” he takes a deep breath, and forces himself to look at her. “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him when I had a chance.”

Pepper looks horrified. “Oh, honey,” she breathes shakily. She bites her lip, her eyes glistening, and then she wraps her arms around him, crushing him to her chest.

“Don’t you ever, ever, blame yourself,” she whispers fiercely. “Multiple teams of superheroes tried to stop him, and they couldn’t. There is nothing you could have done that would have kept this from happening. Sometimes...sometimes the universe is just a bad place to be, and we just have to find a way to live with that.”

Against his will, his arms come up to wrap around her as well. He buries his face against her shoulder, squeezing his eyes shut against the tears that threaten to spill out.

“I really miss Aunt May,” he says against her shirt, his voice breaking.

She strokes his hair, the gesture so familiar and affectionate that the tears do start to fall. “I know. I know.”

- - -

He ends up making them both scrambled eggs, while she makes them hot cocoa.

“I should probably make you eat something with vegetables, but I’m not sure we’ve got anything fresh enough,” she jokes, though her eyes are still red-rimmed.

“I’m twenty years old, I don’t need anyone to ‘make’ me eat my vegetables,” he says, pretending to sound offended.

“Oh please, I was a college student once, I know exactly how unhealthy your diet is,” she teases.

He laughs weakly. He wonders how many of his classmates and professors he’s never going to see again. Is the school even going to open again someday? Is there even a point in going back when it does?

He pokes at his eggs with his fork. He glances up at Pepper, and realizes she’s staring out the window at the much darker city with glassy eyes.

“You okay?” he asks tentatively, a stupid question that seems to be all there is to say lately.

She jolts slightly, looking back at him and trying and failing to smile. “I was just thinking about how I should restock the kitchen tomorrow, and I thought, ‘oh, I’ll just send Happy’, and then I remembered -” she breaks off, looking down at her own food. “Anyway.” She takes a bite of the eggs. “These are delicious, Peter, thank you so much for making them.”

“Yeah, of course, anytime,” he says, quickly shoveling eggs into his own mouth. He chews slowly, his mind still elsewhere. He clears his throat, taking a sip of hot cocoa. “Hey Pepper?”

“Yes, Peter?”

He traces the handle of the mug with his fingers. “Do you love Tony?” he winces immediately. “Sorry, that’s a stupid question, that’s not what I - just, are you glad he’s in your life?”

“He is definitely one of the best things in my life,” she answers carefully. She reaches out, and gently takes the hand not fidgeting with his mug. “But Peter, he’s not the only good thing in it.”

“Yeah, but, I mean - if you’d never met him, your life would be worse, wouldn’t it?” he mumbles, accepting her hand without looking at her.

She purses her lips, choosing her words with care. “If I’d never met him, my life would be very different. But I don’t know that it would necessarily be worse. It would be a completely different life, and I would be a different person. There’s no way to really compare two lives and say for sure which one is better. They’re just...different.”

He studies their interlocked fingers, his long and nimble, hers slender and smooth, her clear nail polish chipping off. “Did you feel like you were complete when you met him?”

“I was complete before I met him,” she answers instantly. “People try to frame it as though you’re not a full person until you have your soulmate, but...I never believed that.” Her other hand reaches up, ghosting along her shoulder. He knows their blue heart-shaped mark lies somewhere along her shoulder blade, hidden by her blouse. “Our soulmates aren’t the other half of our souls, we don’t need them to exist. They just compliment us. They bring out the best in us. That’s what our symbols represent: not what we are, but what we could be together.” She squeezes his hand, gently, until he looks up and meets her gaze. “Peter, there’s an infinite number of things you can be. You don’t need anyone else for that.”

He snorts softly. “That’s not what the universe says.”

“Well, the universe can go fuck itself,” she says viciously, and his head whips up, his eyes wide. She smirks slightly at his expression. “The universe isn’t what it used to be, it’s got no place telling us what to do.”

He blinks rapidly, swallowing. “You’ve gotta put a dollar in the swear jar,” he finally whispers.

She laughs, tired but genuine. “As long as you promise not to tell Steve, I think we’ll get away with it.”

He laughs softly with her.

- - -

They don’t stay up much longer. He’s been sleeping more than he should, but she hasn’t, and it shows. They ride up together. His floor is first, but before the door opens, she hugs him again, unexpectedly. “Take as much time as you need, Peter, but be careful. Don’t lock yourself away forever. We all need each other more than ever, okay?” she tells him quietly.

His throat feels tight. “I won’t. I promise,” he manages at last.

“Good.” She kisses the top of his head, and waves goodbye as he steps off.

He curls up in bed, not realizing how exhausted he is until his head hits the pillow. He’s asleep in minutes.

Part 2

[namjoonsteeth]

Back To You- Day 2

Title: Back To You (mini-series) Day 2 of 7 

Word-Count: 5k

Summary: Jay has been Eden’s weakness for far too long. As much as she tells herself she’s over him, all it takes is one call for her to drop everything and fly to Rome for a week to help him out. He wants a second chance, she just wants to stop being so foolish when it comes to him. They both have 7 days in Italy to figure it out.

Genre: Angst

Cover made by @obiwon-shenobi​

“Fuck,” 

Being this close to him has officially ruined me, once again. I wake up with my hands clinging to the sheets and my lip painfully wedged between my teeth. The image of Jay’s hands running across my skin still lingers. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t know just how good he is at what he does. And God do I know. 

I roll my eyes at myself already done with my behavior and it’s not even, I roll over to look at my phone, seven o’clock yet. I have no one to blame. I brought this on myself. All I can do is fucking deal with it. Starting with pretending that I didn’t wake up mid-sex dream about my ex-fling who’s sleeping just a few rooms down from me. 

I have about an hour and a half before eight, when I have to be up and outside so I can shoot with the groovy-room guys, Gyu-Jung and Hwi-min. I remember walking past a gym downstairs. I’m hoping I can at least run my frustration out or this day is headed straight to hell. 

I get up and pull on some leggings and a sports bra before grabbing a towel and heading downstairs quietly. The house is eerie so early in the morning. Each step I make echoes in the big hallways. Thankfully the door to the gym is left wide open and it’s empty. I plug my earphones in and tuck my phone in my pocket. 

For the next hour, I work out the fact that I want to spend the rest of the day in Jay’s bed and recount all the reasons that could absolutely not happen. 

“You look stressed,” 

I turn at the sound of Chase’s voice. 

“Nope, not stressed at all,” I give him a tight-lipped smile. My steps start to feel heavier as I turn up the speed. Totally not stressed. 

“It’s not healthy to avoid your problems, Eden. Especially when he’s Jay Park. The man doesn’t give up,”

“He’s not a problem,” I breathe out. 

You would think the fact that I’m wearing headphones is a clear indicator not to talk to me, but at last, here we are. Running away from my sex dreams only to have his best friend show up. 

“He just needs to learn that not everybody is cool with being walked over just because he’s who he is,” 

“You know him, Eden. He’s not going to give up until he knows a hundred and ten percent that you’re done with him,”

“I’ve said it, Chase. I can say it until I’m fucking blue in the face and he’ll still be like ‘We’re meant to be together. I’m going to be with you whether you like it or not’,” I do a poor imitation of Jay’s voice waving my hands around dramatically like he does. 

“First of all, his voice isn’t even that deep. Secondly, you’re here,” he sighs. I bat his hand away as he leans over to stop my machine but he’s stronger. My legs come to a stop and feel like jelly. I use the handles on the treadmill to hold myself up.  

“You can’t tell me you don’t want him to try. You wouldn’t be here if that was the case. You want him to change your mind,”

Fuck. I hate being transparent. I hate when other people know me better than I know myself. 

“Did he send you here to spy on me?” I frown trying to change the subject.

Chase smiles. “He’s my best friend, Eden. Even if he didn’t beg me to try and pick your brain a bit then I’d still be down here with a PowerPoint on why you should give him another chance,” 

I get off of the treadmill and use a disinfectant wipe to wipe it down before tossing it.

 “I swear you guys are worse than gossiping females,”

“Guys fall in love to, Eden,” he notes tilting his head. 

I scoff. “Love?”

“Yeah. He loves you. He’s probably just admitting to himself now but he does. He wouldn’t have gone through all of that bullshit with Simon,”

“Simon?” I interrupt. “What does he have to do with this?”

Chase sighs. “Simon sees you as a friend. You guys are close. He takes your side no matter what. He just really wanted Jay to leave you alone. And you know Jay. He doesn’t listen to anyone,”

I groan. “Tell me they didn’t fight,”

“No, it was just a little tense for a while. I think he saw how much Jay actually likes you,”

“I gotta go,” I sigh wiping my forehead with my towel. 

Chase shrugs. “Just try not to hold it in and maybe talk to him. Or at least think about it, Eden,”

“I don’t have a choice,” I mutter to myself. 

The shoot with the groovy room boys comes and goes. It’s my first one on one meeting with a h1gher music artist. They’re fun and I’m laughing for most of the shoot. It takes my mind off of their boss for a few hours. After a while, it doesn’t even feel like work.

When we get back to the villa, everybody is busy. Some go out to explore the city, some make use of the makeshift studio set up upstairs in one of the more further rooms. I run into Jay, but even he seems busy, his phone pressed against his ear and sparing me nothing more than a small smile. 

I spend time going through the photos I took. I separate them between solo and group shots and send them to my boss in L.A for editing. This is one of our biggest projects and if it wasn’t for the fact that I had time to dedicate the week to shooting, there would be no way we could get it done by the deadline they’d set. 

I’m looking through my camera at the three guys. It’s not fair that they’re all just so...them. Jay and Chase are silly, playful in front of the camera making every shot I take just seen so light. Then there’s Simon. He laughs and jokes back and forth with the guys but there’s still a quiet presence about him that screams ‘I’m the boss,’. 

It’s weird to see the juxtaposition, but it works. All of it does. The old buildings, the deep colors surrounding us, the ocean in the background. It all works with the three guys. 

They pose without much direction from me and honestly, it makes the shoot fly through. For being only the second group shot, it’s going easier than I had expected. I’ve known for a while their all professionals but I appreciate it even more as we work on my planned shots and trade ideas back and forth. By the end of the three hour time that I blocked off, I’ve gotten hundreds of good pictures to choose from. 

The sun has gone down and none of us have eaten anything other than the cheese and bread we’d stopped for earlier. Chase is complaining about hunger pains while rubbing his flat stomach while Simon rolls his eyes laughing. “Should we find something on the street?” Simon turns to ask me and Jay. At some point, Jay had reached over to grab my camera bag and it’s slung on his back. He also has my camera in his hand, flipping through today’s work like it’s the most normal thing in the world. I narrow my eyes at the back of his head. None of this is normal. But I’m here already. I have no choice but to just deal. 

“These are really good,” he says turning to look at me. He catches me giving him a dirty look. His mouth pulls into a smile as he shakes his head. This must be really hard for him, not getting what he wants.  I’m promising to stick to my guns and give him no more leverage.

“I’m a professional photographer,” I deadpan. 

I don’t know if it’s me who matches my strides with his or if he’s slowed down but we’re walking side by side now. Our shoulders bump against each other with each step but I can’t find it in myself to pull back. 

“I miss your smart ass mouth,” he laughs loudly. 

“I’m just saying,” I say quietly. “I mean, you are paying me to take pictures. That’s like the main reason that I’m here other than a pretty cheap vacation in Rome,”

Jay sighs and reaches over to gently set my camera back around my neck. He pulls my curls out from underneath the cord and pushes stray locks out of my face. 

He’s always been attentive; pushing hair out of my face, holding my hand tightly when I walked in heels that were a bit too high, warming me up when he’d noticed goosebumps. 

“That’s not the only reason you’re here,” he says smugly. 

“Oh yeah?” I roll my eyes but don’t give him the chance to elaborate that he waits for. 

He takes it anyway. 

“You should know that I don’t mess around when it comes to you, Eden,”

“Yeah, except when we say no expectations, right?”

I don’t know where it comes from. He immediately recognizes the stupid promise we made when he first started to mess around. 

No expectations. No pressure.

It didn’t last. Maybe it’s my fault. I had expectations, hope for us that I wanted. And for the majority of the time, I seemed like maybe we were on the same page. It’s amazing what will come out of the dark when it’s time.  

“Careful Eden, you’re about a sentence away from sounding like you care about me again,”

I stop walking. He’s unbelievable. Yeah, it’s my fault that I thought that maybe there was something more than fucking after shows and alcohol infused kisses. I looked too deep. But, I will not be blamed for anything besides my feelings alone. 

“Please, stop talking to me,” I sigh. 

“Why are you being so difficult?”

“Because I’m very uninterested in playing your games, Jay,”

He laughs. “My games? I’ve been nothing but straight up with you. You’re the one who-,”

“God, you are so fucking selfish,” I say. I don’t bother lowering my voice. I don’t even have it in me to glance at Chase and Simon who’ve stopped walking and focused their attention on me. “Don’t you dare blame me for any of your messy shit,”

My skin feels like fire. Like I’m burning up. All of me. And it’s because of him. Because he doesn’t get it. Because for some reason it’s acceptable for him to be a child. It’s not my responsibility to coddle him, to spell out all the ways he hurt me when it’s as clear as water. 

“How am I selfish, Eden. I’m trying so fucking hard with you, and you’re giving me nothing,”

“I don’t want you to. I’m telling you that I want you to just fucking stop. Stop with the sly remarks about how you miss me, stop trying to win me back because I was obviously never yours to begin with,”

He steps closer to me, closing the distance between us. I see Chase shift uncomfortably but I can’t feel bad right now. Not when I feel like he’s cutting my air off. I shouldn’t have come. I can’t keep saying it because it’ll remain the same no matter what, but I shouldn’t be here. 

“You were never mine, Eden?”

I ignore his question and brush past him. He grabs my wrist stopping me. “Tell me what I did,”

A stream of everything I’ve been holding in comes out like a train going full speed right at Jay. I can’t stop it. 

“You’re a liar and you’re a cheater. You needed easy. And fucking twenty one year old naive me was so easy for you,”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Jay exclaims. His voice rises too and I have to resist the urge to shrink back. “I never cheated on you,” 

I scoff, shaking my head at him. “You’re right. We were never together. You can’t cheat on people you’re hooking up with. And technically, I never asked if there was someone else. You’re right,”

I walk past him. 

“The next time you manipulate someone into falling in love with you Jay, make sure your fucking girlfriend doesn’t come visit you on tour,”

I leave them all standing there. 

Maybe blowing up in the middle of Rome wasn’t the ideal situation. Maybe I could’ve handled it better but I’ve been a volcano for years now. It was only a matter of time. 

Ten minutes of walking later, it’s dark and I’m lost. I’ve also been crying like an idiot. I must look like a child. I feel like one too. Nothing looks familiar but I don’t have any particular urge to go back to the villa yet. 

“Hey,” It’s Simon. He’s been walking with me, quietly keeping his distance while I silently curse out his friend. “Why are you guys so dysfunctional,” he sighs jogging to catch up to me. His arm comes around my shoulder pulling me out of the way of a cyclist. 

“Did you know he was dating someone at the same time that we-,”

I don’t know how to finish the sentence. What were we, really? We weren’t together, the mutual promise of no expectations or pressure made sure that we got nowhere near labels. But it was something, right? Shit, I’m a mess. 

“No,” he shakes his head. “He wasn’t with anyone. He doesn’t date on tour. It gets messy,”

“Like this,” I say rolling my eyes. “But she came. I literally laid eyes on her when she came to visit him the last week of the tour and again when she was leaving. I didn’t know who she was until after the fact,”

“Eden, she’s just a girl,” he sighs. “Listen, it’s really none of my business but you’re hurting and that’s my business. He wouldn’t have done that to you,”

“How do you know,” I shoot at him.   

“He’s in love with you, Eden. It’s been two years, and you’re still the one he wants above anybody else,”

I frown, crossing my arms over my chest. “And I’m supposed to just pretend that everything is fine so that he can once again have what he wants,”

“No, you should work it out with him because it’s what you came here to do. Whatever you saw, talk to him about it. Give him a chance to explain himself and then make your decision,”

That’s all either of us say about Jay. We stop at a restaurant and grab a slice of pizza and share a cup of peach gelato, typical touristy things. By the time we get back to the villa is nearing nine and I’m tired and stuffed. I say goodnight to Simon and head upstairs. 

Kicking my shoes off, it’s not long before I’m passed out across my bed. It’s even shorter than that when dream-Jay comes back. This time he’s rough and frustrated. His hand moves too hard against my skin while his mouth bites at my neck. Just when his hips are getting ready to press against mine, my phone rings. 

I blindly reach for it, finding it somewhere near my thigh. 

“Hello,”

“Are you ok?”

I hate that it’s the first thing he asks me. I hate that despite everything, I know he cares. Whether it’s his pride or his heart, there’s a part of him that cares. The fact that it gives my heart a little hope lets me know how stupid I am when it comes to him. 

“I’m fine,”

“Eden,” he starts. He sighs. “I don’t want to have this conversation over the phone. Let me see you,”

I scrub my hands over my face. I’m so tired. I think this trip is about being done with him once and for all. 

“I’m torturing myself,” I say quietly. “I know how stupid it is for me to want to be here with you. Despite everything,”

He’s quiet, listening. 

“I’m making a fool of myself, aren’t I? Pretending that I don’t care, acting like I don’t want this even a little bit,”

I hear him blow a breath out. I’m stressing him out, I guess. 

“Let me take you somewhere. I want to make sure you’re good,”

“I’m fine,” I insist again. “I’m sorry I yelled at you earlier,”

“I don’t care about that. What you said, about you being easy, you know that’s bullshit. I can’t,” he pauses. 

It sounds like he pulls the phone away from his ear as he curses. 

“Let’s not do this tonight, Jay,”

“Then when?”

“Never,” I sigh. “We don’t have to do this. We don’t have to recount all that shit just so I can stop feeling sorry for myself,”

“No, we need to talk about our shit so that we can move forward. I want to be with you, Eden. I can’t spell it out anymore clearer than that. I want to leave here knowing that you’re mine again. Whatever work I have to put in, I’m here. I’m ready,”

I sigh, pulling my blanket over my head and kicking my feet like a toddler. This is frustrating. That he knows all the right things to say is utterly and completely frustrating. That I’m falling for it again is...frustrating. 

“Open the door, Eden,”

“What door?”

I hear him laugh softly. A gentle knock has me rolling my eyes. What he wants..he gets I guess. I pull on a pair of sweats and crack my room door open. 

He changed out of his clothes from earlier into joggers and a hoodie. The hood is pulled up over his head and his hands tuck in his pockets. I want to reach out. He just looks so boyish, charming. Like he’s at my window begging me to sneak out past curfew. 

“I’m taking you to the Trevi Fountain,” he says. 

“It’s like ten o’clock,” I whisper tiredly. If there’s one thing he knows about me, it’s that I don’t do particularly well when people pull me out of bed. As much as I do want to see the fountain, it’s fucking ten o’clock. 

“I know, Baby, but I want to take you to see it,” he insists smiling excitedly at me. 

I freeze at the endearment. I don’t know why he’s doing this to me. I mean, I do but it’s hard to build my walls up at ten o’clock. I can’t be held accountable for any of my actions if I go with him. 

“Jay, I told you we aren’t doing this,”

“And I told you that this is my last chance with you. If you thought this was going to be easy, you don’t know me,”

I sigh and close the door. My head leans against it as I put off making the decision we both know I’m going to make. 

“Bring your camera,” I hear him say through the door. 

I don’t know what pisses me off more; the fact that he just knows that I’ll come out with him or the fact that I immediately turn around and take my camera off of the charger and put an empty SD card in. I pull a hoodie on and a pair of jeans and grab my purse. 

When I open the door, Jay pulls my hand into his and leaned me through the house and through the front door. I’m looking for a car but he just keeps walking until he’s pulling me along on the side of the road. 

“Is this your way of forcing me to talk to you?”

“Mhmm,” he nods. His fingers tighten around mine and I don’t have it in me to pull free. 

“We’ll talk. Not about us. About all the other stuff,”

I need to hear it from him. I don’t even think he knew that I was aware of the existence of the other girl he’d been with until today. 

“We never broke up,” he says quietly. “And that’s my bad. I should’ve sorted out my shit before getting with you. I just didn’t expect to meet someone else. We never ended anything because at the end of tour we always ended up back together,”

He fingers tighten around mine. He lifts my hand to his lips to kiss the back of it. It’s too familiar. It’s the affection I’ve been craving for too long. 

“But trust me, when me and you got together it was never my intention to only have you temporarily. You were it for me,”

“But you did go back to her,” I point out, remembering him in my apartment almost six months after I promised myself I was done. All it took was one drunk call and he’d been at my bed in L.A, kissing me like he’d been starved. I woke up to his phone ringing, and her flashing face probably wondering where he was. 

Needless to say, that visit ended with his phone flying out of my door after him and more than a few choice colorful words. My apartment was a mess by the end of it and my voice had gone hoarse from screaming at him. 

“You weren’t answering my calls, texts, and she was familiar. I was terrible to her from the time you ended things up until the day I showed up at your apartment. I put everything on her. It wasn’t fair to both of you,”

We walk silently, both of us caught in our heads. He’s to blame for all of it. It’s all on him. He didn’t technically cheat on anyone. He didn’t technically lie either. But, unfortunately technicalities don’t matter when it comes to the heart.  

“I want to believe you so bad,” I say honestly. I do. I want to believe that he never wanted to hurt me, but the fact remains that he did. 

“I fucked up so bad, Eden. I’m just asking you to try,” he says almost pleadingly. 

I’m trapped. I can’t give him an answer right now. Not when it feels like I’m slicing open an old wound. 

“Jay, you pulled me out here to see the fountain. Let’s just see the fountain,” I say trying to pull my hand out of his. 

He holds me tighter and stops walking. 

“I need you to know that I never tried to hurt you. I mean I know, I could’ve been less messy but I chose you. It wasn’t even a choice really. The minute I met you, I was done. I’m-,” he stops mid-sentence. His chin drops down to his chest.

I can’t talk about this now. Not when we still have five more days to be in each other’s space. He must sense that we’ll get nowhere on the subject tonight because he starts walking again, my fingers locked tightly in his. We walk in silence for close to fifteen minutes before either of us says anything. He’s somewhere lost in his head. His brows curl together, his mouth twisting to the side. 

“I missed you too,” I whisper suddenly. 

I don’t know why I’m saying it. It just makes all of this even messier. I think when you care about people, truly, you try to keep them from hurting as much as you can help it. I know it’s what he wants to hear, or it’s at least part of it. I can give that to him at least. I want to erase the deep frown from his face. 

Jay stays quiet but he pulls me close, an arm coming around my neck. We probably look like a cute couple strolling down an Italian dirt road. It’s the most intimate we’ve been in more than a year. 

“What if we get robbed,” I blurt out. 

He laughs next to me. “The van’s been trailing us for a while now. You just haven’t noticed,”

I look behind me to see that a white van has indeed been following us. This is why he’s bad for me. He’s got all of my attention. 

“We’re almost there,” he says. 

“What made you want to come here so late?” I ask. 

“It’s romantic,” he says simply. “I’m not playing, Eden. I’m going to be the most romantic mother fucker in the world to get you back,”

“Why,” I roll my eyes pretending not to care. 

But I need this. I need him to describe all the ways I’m still on his mind. I want him to tell me exactly which parts of me still pique his interest two years later. We’d only been fooling around for a couple of weeks, but it was every day. Every day he spent hours telling me how crazy he was about my body, my mouth and everything else. 

The fountain comes into view. It’s too beautiful for words, and with the moonlight bouncing off the water, it truly looks like something from out of mythology books. I feel like a damn water nymph is going to pop out from behind the marble statues. 

I lift my camera and start clicking almost immediately. Jay’s in a majority of them. He’s leaning over the edge of the fountain, looking up at the moon, looking at me, walking toward me, reaching out to grab my hand. “You’re so fucking beautiful,” he says drawing closer. 

“You have a smart mouth that used to piss me off and turn me on at the same time. You’re smart and passionate, and sexy as hell. We match in every way,” His hand settles on my hip as he pulls me close. My chest presses against his, my hand clutches the material of his hoodie for some faux semblance of a bit of control. 

“I need you in my life, Eden. I’ve seen myself without you, I’ve felt it. And I don’t want to do it anymore,”

He smiles suddenly, nearly knocking me on my ass. 

“I’m trapped,”

“And what if I forgive you, that doesn’t mean that we’re automatically in a relationship. 

“Last night, you told me we weren’t friends and at first I thought that I was ok with that because I was never interested in being friends with you,” I feel his breath fan across my mouth. 

He’s too close. I  trust myself less than I trust him. If these dreams keep popping up I think I’ll have to be on the next flight home just to keep myself from touching him. My grip on his jacket tightens as I force myself to keep my distance. 

“But,” He continues. “You don’t trust me. And if it wasn’t for the fact that you’re physically attracted to me, I’d think you didn’t even like me,”

Jay draws in a deep breath. I feel his arms come up to wrap around my waist slowly. I can’t tell him not to. All of my concentration has to be on not touching kissing him. 

“So we’ll just be friends for now. For tonight and maybe a little bit of tomorrow. I only have this week with you so excuse me if it feels like I’m rushing this a bit,” “Friends don’t take their friends out to the trevi fountain in the middle of the night and stand this close, Jay,”

He smiles and I swear my heart drops out of my chest and falls right into the water next to us. I’m doomed. It’s only day two but I’m in for it, I just know. 

“Best friends then, Eden. You’ve officially replaced Chase,”

“So we get to talk about boys and do each other’s nails?”

He lets me go and pulls back. I miss his body pressed against mine. I can admit that. I also miss the feeling of almost kissing him. I tuck my hands in my pockets to keep from pulling him back in my space. 

“You’re really a pain in the ass,” he laughs. 

I watch him push his hand into his pockets. He pulls out a fist full of change and gestures for me to hold my hands out. I take half of the pile. 

“I figured, why make one wish, right? One’s bound to come true,”

I can’t help but smile at him. I close my eyes and wish. I wish for small things like my hair turning out ok tomorrow, and for the lightning to be good for the CEO shots. But I also wish for big things like hoping we all make it home safely after the trip. I also wish for him. I wish that if it’s meant to be him, we can figure it all out. 

When I’m done I look up at him. His eyes are closed tightly while he throws each of the remaining coins in one by one. His pink lips move softly against each other as he speaks each wish into hopeful existence. 

He’s too pretty. Long eyelashes that almost brush his cheeks. Shard cheekbones and a jawline that cuts at a severe angle. I can’t blame myself for being a mess over him. I take a picture of him quickly before the moment passes. 

When his eyes open, he sees me staring up at him. He looks too good for me to look away. I reach out for him first. I wrap my arms around his back. This is what I want. I could lie to myself but it won’t change the fact that at the end of every day for the last two years, this has been what I wanted. 

“I’ll give you until the end of the week,” I tell him. “Convince me or let me go, Jay,”

His arms come up around me too. His chin rests on my shoulder as he pulls me close. His head turns and his lips press softly against my neck. “I told you making a lot of wishes at once would be a good idea. One already came true,” he says against my skin.

“What did you wish for,” I ask scared of what he’ll say. 

His lips press against my skin again and he takes a breath like he’s taking me in. 

“A chance,”

[filmphreak]

Adam & Eve Vs. the Cannibals

So I’m watching ADAM & EVE MEET THE CANNIBALS.

Yep. I’m watching a movie called that. By whichever name you’re calling it (this is a retitling - the original name had no cannibals in it). I like the CANNIBALS title best – obviously. I’m an Italian cannibal movie aficionado, so that makes my preference even stronger. But since I’m only partway through the movie, I cannot attest to the titular accuracy of what is clearly a re-monikering by a distributor for whatever market he was trying to reach. I’m guessing an American distributor redubbed it to make it more sellable to exploitation crowds.

Turns out, though, even though nothing remotely cannibal-y has occurred, it’s a pretty fascinating movie. And a pretty movie.

There is a depiction of Creation during the opening titles. Lots of lava and geological upheaval, plus some nice but probably not overly expensive color FX. It’s a groovy sequence. Following that,  in the fresh, new world, something bursts from the dirt. A membranous cocoon out of which Adam tears himself.

Lonely, he goes on to sculpt the figure of a woman out of beach sand. But the rain comes to wash it away as soon as he’s done. In his despair, he fails to notice that the sand is being rained away from actual flesh. Adam is no longer alone.

And they explore each other and their new life and environment. They watch other animals reproduce (obviously built-in stock nature footage, but it works).

Then there is the serpent. I never realized before this movie how awesome Satan (as per the post-Judaic, Christian re-ordering of the primitive Eden mythos, but that is another chapter in another book entirely) sounds speaking in Italian. With a snake as avatar. Sweet!

Adam keeps trying to keep her from snacking on the forbidden fruit but eventually temptation overtakes and she succumbs. He joins her. Then they REALLY begin to explore each other.

But nature turns on them. A horrible wind blows through. Interestingly, so far God is represented here through manifestation as Nature. I can dig it. Happy God equals serene paradise, a hospitable enviro. Pissed-off God equals storms, volcanos (destructive rather than creative now), even boulders. (This leads to a great Indiana Jones-like scene. The FX are simple but a blast to watch.

Still no gutmunchers, but I’m hooked regardless. I suppose now that they’re booted from Eden and worrying about clothes and such, maybe now their luck will sour and cannibals will pick a fight. Who knows? But I’m on board for the ride.

Now they’re wandering in the desert, an environmental cue for the absence of God. And now the couple is bickering. The honeymoon is over.

NOTE: The loincloth in no way detracts from a strangely blond Eve’s sexiness.

Now, left-turn blinker. The couple discovers that nature is an antagonist to them now (i.e. they are suffering the consequences of God’s displeasure). God’s displeasure here takes the form of a stop-motion animated pterodactyl-ish thing.

At this point, I don’t care if cannibals ever come into the story. Because this movie just gets better and better.

NOTE: The togetherness in facing conflict re-bonds Eve. The archetypal imagery of the Judaic Eden myth is present here, and I even find some progressions of thought from the source. Interesting.

Oh, man. Cavemen. 2001: A Space Odyssey this is not. But exciting it is. Let’s see where this goes. One must wonder if these are the titular cannibals.

Sooooo …  yeah. When you see the tribe of trogs back at their home in the side of a mountain or something, the whole cannibal movie parallels click. This isn’t exactly that, but there this movie (also Italian, fyi) and those cannibal flicks do share a lot of the same touchstones. Even if they are sometimes recontextualized.

And the way they start pawing at the blond Eve strikes a huge cannibal movie chord with me. Think Mountain of the Cannibal God, with Ursula Undress. I mean Andress.

This is just a really groovy primordial lost-in-the-jungle flick. Less violence and more archetypology. Go ask Joseph Campbell.

Anyway. Eventually the war of the sexes re-emerges as a stronger theme. Adam and Eve separate.

Did I mention this is an extremely beautiful movie? Adam may be alone now and left to jacking off and talking to himself, but he gives the film a chance to wander with him through some spectacular scenery. The whole movie has been a thing of beauty so far, and it doesn’t slack off now. Eve goes wandering through some foresty enviros of her own.

This leads her to more primitives. (Like she and Adam have been around for SO long yet.) Not trog, this time, actually more like the spaghetti cannibal movie cannibals, though I don’t know yet if they eat people. I’m starting to suspect not, as I think this title is completely gratuitous, yet oddly not 100% off base. The cavemen weren’t gutmunchers. I’ll have to see if these tribesfolk are or not.

Well, turns out there is a quite a bit of munching – but it all appears to be fruit and vegetables. Unless I missed something vital. Is this a commentary on the Old Testament’s pre-Noahite veggies-only diet as prescribed by Yahweh?

As soon as I say that, I think the captive Eve is being offered an animal to eat …. Oh, yeah, that’s an animal. Still, though, cannibalism this isn’t

And I still have to wonder if this isn’t a deluge-less analogy to the transition of vegetarianism to omnivorism in Genesis.

Uh-oh. Eve is learning to use her female allure, being all sexy and flirty for her tribesman guard. Damn freshy sexually awakened females (in our world, that’s teenage girls), wielding the weapon of their sexuality when they don’t even grok the immense power of those nuclear capabilities.

Still, she’s not without her just motives here. I mean, if somehow I was abducted by a primitive tribe fascinated by my fat (and sexy) ass, I’d flap my balls around if I thought that gave me a chance to manipulate my captors.

Oh, shit, and the cavemen meet the non-trog tribesman. I think some cannibalism just happened, like the cavemen ambushed a non-trog and had a quick pre-battle snack.

What a crazy, wonderful movie.

Yep, the cavemen combine warring with lunching. I mean, eating bits of your enemy is also deadly. Or a freshly killed foe won’t argue if you take a bite. So, yeah.

This actually excels expectations for viewers going in expecting another B-grade gutmuncher. Don’t get me wrong, my love for Italian cannibal flicks is broad and extends beyond the greats .But ADAM & EVE VS THE CANNIBALS solders part of the classic sketti gutmuncher into a wildly different yet markedly analogous piece of cinema. This movie benefits both from its freshness and its familiarity.

The movie is an artistic accomplishment, for sure. And I’m sure it pulled in lots of “exploitation” audiences. All around success? I’d happily grant this simultaneous arthouse/grindhouse status. (It isn’t as if the two didn’t overlap plenty.)

This one’s more of an onion than most Italian gutmunchers. And you never know what’s down in the next layer. I mean, now we’ve got a scenario where the cavemen have captured the non-trogs who captured Blondie Eve.

And, inevitably, Adam shows up pissed and stabbing semi-folks, brandishing his oh so phallic weapon (spear) around. And then we’re on the move, on the river, afloat in a bid for escape and freedom.

Now, I assume you recall that nature is not working synergistically with Adam and Eve, right? Well, let me just say this: Bear. OK, guy in a bear costume, but the scene manages to work anyway. And also to provide one of the scenes neater, if not overly bloody, scenes of violence. In your face, bear. Literally.

Segue. Now the film introduces the concept of pugnacious male rivalry for feminine affections. You could really study this one in a film class. Or psychology class. Awesomeness. They even work in a note of the female civilizing and taming effect on the male.

And then ADAM AND EVE VS THE CANNIBALS features what must be Creation’s first break-up! Or, maybe, just one of its first turn-downs. Still, it’s like high school before high school, right? Sniff!

(You could argue this is a really weird love story.)

Of course, it’s a lot of things. And the remarkable combination works wonders almost as great as Creation itself. (OK, maybe that was a tad hyperbolic. But I think my superpower is hyperbole.)

Awww, love scene. And that anachronistically vocal soft pop is back! Odd upon odd. Nothing if not a singular film.

NOTE: It occurs to me there is remarkably little nudity or violence compared to what you’d expect from such a film. Not that this movie has that big a category, Such A Film. I speak broadly.

NOTE: Adam and Eve stumble onto stock footage of bit cats eating a gazelle or whatever. They gasp. The music sounds oddly like Cannibal Holocaust’s score here. Only a watcher of these movies would notice that, but a watcher of these movies would notice that. A little tingle.

Now there’s snow and she’s in a more robe-y thing but she’s still sexy. Nice high leg slit (note).

I THINK ADAM JUST TOLD EVE “FUCK YOU”!

(*Rewind*)

Nope. Crap, he didn’t. He said “I told you.” As in, “I told you so.” The movie has resurfaced is war of the sexes theme, in a context of Eve feeling like Adam is treating her like a secondary citizen, lacking independence. There is a subtext of his questioning of her creative ability, which points to the patriarchal suppression of the divine feminine. The feminine creative power (womb) was an factor in primitive worship of the goddess. In this scene, Adam is using his creative skill to forge a weapon. She is making a little sculpture of an animal. Adam sees himself as useful and her as needing protection. (Of course, this also alludes to the male war tendency versus the female peace tendency.)

This argument of pragmatism – useful spear versus “useless” cub carving – points to the age-old conflict of what we can call War Vs Art. War can mean here – not necessarily just violent conflict between nations -  any endeavor based on severe pragmatism. The stereotype of the father who sees no practical value in a child’s desire to act rather than, say, join the family business or become a lawyer.  Those who who see creativity for creativity’s sake as without worth since it cannot turn a screw or fire a bullet or only rarely make money (Stephen King versus the world’s unpublished dishwashers who write in their sleep hours and hope – same dynamic as the struggling actor).

I won’t belabor it further. But, like I said, lots of onion layers here. A much better movie than maybe we had a right to expect?

The movie builds toward a tragic mood. Adam and Eve, lost and alone (but for each other, which shouldn’t be forgotten), nigh unto dying on a mountaintop blanketed in snow. Adam is ready to give up. But Eve encourages him. The ultimate transcendence of interdependence is reached. The film and its ideas achieve fruition. Adam and Eve are yin-yang. Only through their tribulations do they gain strength, insight and the ability to prevail.

Wow, an amazing scene of rumbling, cracking ice (more well-placed stock footage – I LOVE creative, mix-and-match filmmaking, sort of blending in found object art with traditional filmmaking). God is farthest from them. His wrath isn’t rage … but absence. The bleak world is breaking apart around them. But, of course, the desert of the soul provides the aridity for new spiritual growth.

Finaly, though, “wrath” recedes and a hospitable world is again alive around them. Life is peaceful. Their relationship with the divine is restored, as well as their relationship with each other. (There is so much subtext here – this film narrative is pregnant with meta like a babies-toting dog mom with a swingin’ ass tummy has puppies inside. I could say so much but it belongs in another essay, which perhaps I’ll get to one day.)

Also noteworthy is the reference to Earth’s cyclical nature, Persephone’s dying and rebirth, the seasons swirl, oroborous. Into this creative cycle is brought the focus point of Eve’s pregnancy. This is the final nearing climax of the film. The movie culminates at the altar of the creative sacred feminine. (NOTE: Again the music has a touch of Cannibal Holocaust melody, but more hopeful in tone.)

ADAM AND EVE VS THE CANNIBALS, neato title aside, is a gorgeous film, substantial. It offers not only grindhouse entertainment but also a heady delve into living mythology and archetypal truth. This movie is a gem and deserves more appreciation, but the nature of its uniqueness would fend off many a mainstream viewer.

I can at least ask you, dear reader (because what kind of egomaniac am I to assume more than one reader?), to go check this movie out. Please. Sincerely.

[vintage-story-time]

Family Games by Ray Todd

Chapter 4

Glynn heard his parents come home, because they were arguing about something the

minute they hit the door. He pushed aside the book he had been reading, slipped

on his robe and went downstairs to raid the fridge. He was hungry, and grinned

at the idea of stoking up his strength again. It had been a long day, and the

most groovy one of his life; too bad it had to end so soon.

There had been the swinging with his sister and Jean, all mixed up as he dipped

his cock into one fine pussy after the other. It had been hot, wild and crazy,

and he popped his nuts so many times that he was weak in the knees. But that

didn't matter; he was young and strong and recovered quickly.

As he went into the kitchen, his father cut short whatever he'd been saying, but

by the look on the old man's face, Glynn knew the argument was just starting.

Why the hell couldn't they stop hacking at each other, he wondered. They must

have dug each other once, and should be able to make it again, if they would

only try.

His mother said, "Want me to fix you a sandwich, dear?"

"He's big enough to take care of himself," his father said.

"Sure," Glynn agreed. "I'll just grab a bite and get out of your way."

"You're not in the way," his mother said.

His father grunted, "Oh for Christ sake," and tilted up a can of beer to drain

it.

Feeling stiff and awkward, Glynn dived into the refrigerator and took a chunk of

cheese and a bottle of milk.

"Sit right there and finish your snack," his mother ordered. "I won't let your

father drive you out of your own kitchen."

Glynn sat down and watched his dad slam out of the room; in a moment, he heard

the tinkle of ice into a glass, and knew his father was at the little bar in the

living room. "Mom," he said, "I wish you guys wouldn't fight over me."

Her smile was soft and a little sad. "It's not exactly over you, dear. It's more

like a habit we've gotten into."

He saw that she had been drinking, too; there was a laxness around her mouth,

and she was just a little careless about how she leaned over. Glynn could see

the rounded top moundings of his mom's big, high tits as she bent to straighten

out her stockings. Damn, he thought; a guy could lose himself between those

fine, firm boobs, and for the first time, let his mind run free with the images

that he'd so often crowded into the far corners of his head.

Man, oh man! A couple of years ago, his mother had brushed those tits against

him, and he'd felt the burning of those heavy nipples right through the thin

robe she had been wearing. He had jacked off in the bathroom, ideas running riot

in his mind about fondling them, maybe even kissing and sucking on them. That

time, his semen had exploded before he could catch the sticky stuff in toilet

paper, and he had to clean it off the floor.

He blushed when his mom straightened up, but couldn't pull his eyes away from

her lifted skirt. She was still fooling around with the stocking on her left

leg, and his eyes followed her hands as she stroked up over the silken knee, up

along the swelling of her sleek, long thigh.

Her legs were so long, tapering just so, and he got one magic, too- quick

glimpse of the edge of her frilly panties before she dropped her skirt and cut

off his view. Glynn shuddered slightly, his head reeling as he contemplated the

juiciness of the forbidden treasure snuggled so enticingly there between the

soft, full thighs of his mother's wonderful legs.

How the hell could his old man pass that up? He knew they hadn't been sleeping

together for months now, ever since his dad moved into the extra bedroom. That

meant that neither of them was getting any fucking, although his dad could very

well be playing around on the side. But his mother was usually home, and Glynn

didn't quite see her as laying anybody in the neighborhood.

It was an idea, though, and he thought more about that as she began to tidy up

the kitchen. His eyes clung to the curves of her delectable ass as she moved,

seeing the way her skirt caressed the molded flanks, how it dipped sometimes

into the hidden crack of her buttocks. Maybe his mom was getting really

frustrated, and she needed a man. With a sexy body like that, and the way she

moved, all sensuous and kind of ready, she had to be a wild, hot piece of cunt.

It was a shame to see it going to waste.

Glynn bit into the cheese and gulped milk, conscious that his well-used cock was

beginning to rise beneath his robe. Did his father have a bigger one? Probably,

he thought, the old man was a big, burly guy, and probably had a prick to match

the rest of him, and although Glynn had sometimes wondered about that big thing

being shoved into his mom's fine pussy, he had always pushed the idea quickly

away in shame.

Now he rolled it around in his head, enjoying the feel of his thoughts, trying

to picture his dad crawling between his mother's long, slim legs, trying to see

what that gorgeous pussy really looked like, all curling hairs deep and rich,

with the wet, pink lips peeping out shyly, eager for the first touch of the

cock-head.

Glynn's prick throbbed painfully, and he crossed his legs to keep it quiet.

Maybe he wouldn't dare think the way he was, if he hadn't already screwed his

sister. But now he wondered if that was any different than fucking his mother.

Lorena was a lovely, hot fuck, and he was glad she had been the one to

technically get his cherry. He was a lucky guy, and loved his sister more,

because they had shared their bodies. Could he love his mom more, the same way,

if he was ever so lucky as to get into that marvelous, deep cunt?

The cheese was gone, and so was the milk, but he didn't want to leave right

away. His mother was sneaking another nip of whiskey from the bottle that was

kept hidden in the cupboard, away from the bar. Glynn ran his eyes over her

back, lingering at the shapeliness of her ass. He'd give anything to snuggle up

to that tempting pair of cheeks, to nudge his hard prick in between them, maybe

bend it down so that it could slide between her thighs, slide wetly along those

tickling pussy hairs, feeling the heat of her cunt lips, feeling the beautiful

enchanted softness there.

She turned around then, and he fumbled with the empty milk carton, blushing

again. When he looked up, she was eyeing him intently. "Anything the matter,

dear?"

"N-no, mom; guess I'd better get up to bed."

"Kiss me goodnight, Glynn."

No matter how he tried, he couldn't keep his hard cock from touching his mom's

belly. She had her arms around him, pulling him close, trying to gain some kind

of comfort from him, and he was embarrassed when his meat thumped against her

body.

But her lips were warm and damp, and she kissed him right on the mouth, holding

the kiss longer than usual. It made him highly uncomfortable, especially since

his own arms had automatically slipped around her lithe, slim waist, and now he

was feeling the tantalizing softness of her tits as they flattened against his

chest.

Glynn managed to break away, flustered and shaken, and caught his mother looking

quizzically at him. He fled when she said something, not catching anything but

the wondering tone of her voice. Oh wow, he thought -- he'd almost blown it that

time. Hurrying up the stairs, he scooted into his sister's room without

knocking, and clicked the latch behind him.

Her bedlamp was on, and her body was outlined by the sheet; light spilled over

her honeyblonde hair and she looked very good. "Something the matter?" she

asked.

"They're fighting again," he said, coming over to sit down on the edge of her

bed. "Both of them are drinking, and when mom made me kiss her goodnight, I got

a hard on. I'm sure she felt it against her belly. Wow, sis -- I damn near

freaked out."

Lorena touched his hand. "After all that good screwing today, you can still get

hard? Does mom turn you on so much?"

He swallowed, and looked down to where the head of his hard cock was working its

way out from the fold of his robe. "Yes."

"The same way I turn you on?"

He nodded. "Maybe even more. I mean, I love you sis, and I dig the fucking you

taught me. I guess I'll always love you more than any other chick I get to

screw, because we're closer. But mom -- well, I've been dreaming about her for

years, only I never came right out and admitted it to myself before."

Lorena nodded and stroked his hand. "I know, Glynn. I always had the same thing

for dad, dreams and wild ideas. But I never thought beyond the dreams -- until

now."

He stared at his sister. "What do you mean?"

Her hand drifted along his arm and dropped down on his cock. Gently, she felt

the head, running her fingers lightly over its throbbing bulb. "I mean, maybe

this is the way we can make them stop working on the divorce, and stay with each

other."

Glynn peeled off his robe and his prick sprang free and stiff into his sister's

softly teasing hand. "I don't understand -- "

She wrapped her fingers tightly around his rod and massaged it tenderly. "If I

can somehow get dad to fuck me -- and oh how I want him to do that! -- then

maybe I can hold him here, in our house. I mean, if he digs fucking me as much

as I know I'll enjoy being screwed by him, then he won't want to leave, even if

he's still mad at mom."

Glynn eased toward his sister, and she pulled him lightly along the way,

flipping back the sheet with her other hand to expose her fine young body with

the dark blonde hair crisp at her mound.

"Yeah," he said, "I see what you mean, but what will hold mom?"

Lorena slipped her hand down his shaft to cup his swollen balls. "You," she

said.

Glynn drew in a deep and noisy breath. "Wow! You mean -- somehow you get dad to

screw you, and I somehow get this into mom's terrific pussy -- and -- but how,

sis? How the hell are we ever going to manage all that? They might slap us

silly, or think we freaked out, or call the cops, even."

She shook her head and lifted her upper body so that her tits almost reached the

head of his cock. "I don't think so. Look -- they're both hitting the bottle

pretty heavy, and I think they're both really frustrated, not screwing each

other any more. If we can get them to loosen up and fuck us, instead, it's only

a logical step from there to having them back together. I mean, they'll both be

a little guilty about what they're doing, and so they'll be nicer to each

other."

"Yeah," he breathed, his heart beating quickly at this new idea, "and if we can

work it right, maybe we can get them in a tangle like you and me had with Jean

today. That way, they'll get so hot they'll have to fuck each other again."

"Great!" Lorena said, and pressed his hard shaft between her tits. "But we can't

screw it up by doing things too fast. Tomorrow night, they have to stay home and

work on the property settlement. I heard dad say so this morning. That means we

can help them get smashed, and -- well, then I'll go crawl into dad's bed, and

you can make out with mom."

Glynn felt the silken smoothness of his sister's tits along his rigid cock, and

lifted his hands to stroke her hair. "So tonight -- "

"So there's still the rest of tonight," Lorena said softly, "and I never did any

of those things I saw in your books -- not yet. I want to do them with you,

Glynn. I want to eat you."

He shuddered when she dipped her face to plant a kiss upon the pulsing head of

his swollen prick. "Are you sure you want to? I mean -- "

"I want to," she insisted. "How else am I ever going to learn?"

Glynn spread his knees and straddled his sister's hips. He caressed her head

gently as she began to lick over his cockhead, as the darting flicks of her hot,

wet tongue sent electric jolts up his backbone. She was going to suck him off;

it was finally going to happen to him, and he welcomed it with all the pent-up

lust he had.

Slowly, she slid her mouth over the end of his prick, taking in the entire head.

His fingers stroked the shaft and cuddled his balls, while her lips worked up

and down. Glynn felt the marvelous suction develop, and knew the fondling of his

glans by her busy tongue. The sensations were terrific, and his thighs stiffened

as he clung to his sister's head for support.

It was like fucking, but different. It was being eaten, being devoured; it was

pumping his cock gently back into her mouth and feeling it slide over her wet

tongue, feeling it touch the roof of her mouth and reach back to the velvet cup

of her throat.

Shivering with rapture, Glynn backed it out a bit, but her hungry mouth followed

his rod, gnawing lightly upon its sensitive skin. He wiggled, and she drew him

deeper, sucked him farther into the tickling heat of her throat. Lapping her

tongue over the aching head, Lorena worked more feverishly upon his prick.

"Oh!" he grunted. "Oh, sis -- wow -- eat me up, baby! Eat my cock, chew it up,

suck it out by the roots. Oh -- ah! Sis, sis -- I'm about to come!"

She didn't try to back off, and made no attempt to dodge the semen he just had

to let go. Instead, she sucked him harder, dipping in her cheeks and gulping

noisily at his shaft as he fed it into her face, as he stroked it into the

hungry cavity of her mouth.

Glynn came then, hunching his back and straining as the mighty rush of semen

came pouring up from his flexing balls to gush like a hot mountain stream from

the jerking head of his prick. Heavy and thick, the juices poured scalding from

his shaft and flooded his sister's throat. She drank it down, pulled more

droplets from his rod, sucked additional moisture into her body.

He dropped slowly over to one side, lifting his knee, and Lorena stayed with

him, making love to his cock with her mouth, clinging to his balls; her hair

spread over his crotch, and his fingers dug deeply into its silken luxury. His

head spun and his breath was ragged in his chest.

At last, she let go, and allowed his still rigid prick to slide gently from the

grasp of her lips. No semen smeared her mouth, he saw through blurred eyes,

because she had swallowed it all. It had been a farout experience, one that had

his belly tied up in little jerking knots.

"Glynn," she murmured, kissing her way up his belly to his chest. "Oh, Glynn --

that was wonderful. So intimate, so very close; it was like doing everything for

you, and for me, too. I loved it."

"I did, too," he sighed. "If you ever get to do that to our dad, he'll climb the

walls, I know."

Now she was at his throat, nibbling there, her tits moving back and forth across

his heaving chest, the hard nipples prodding his flesh. When she moved up to

kiss his mouth, he could smell the scent of his own semen, but he didn't mind.

Lorena kissed him then, running her tongue deeply, giving him the full flavor of

himself.

When she pulled away, she said, "There, darling. I have the best, the sexiest

brother in the whole world, and I'm glad. Now let's talk about the plan."

With the passion dampened within him, at least for a little while, Glynn turned

edgy. "I don't know," he murmured. "It sounds kind of kooky, now."

"Not at all," she said quickly. "Tomorrow night, when you have that great cock

all hard for mom, you'll think differently again. I'm sure going ahead with my

part of it, and if you chicken out -- well, just imagine what you'll be missing.

Think about mom, and her big, groovy tits; remember how good her legs look, and

how her ass wiggles when she walks. Remember how many times you've masturbated

and tried to make believe you were fucking her, instead of your hand. This is

your chance, Glynn -- your big chance. If you blow it now, you may never have

the opportunity again."

"Okay," he said, after awhile. "You're right, I guess. And boy -- you sure must

want to fuck dad, or you wouldn't have come up with the plan in the first

place."

"Women are more logical," she said, kissing him again. "So it's on for tomorrow

night?"

"It's on," he agreed.

[300418]

now you finally made it to the end of all of this! and this is also where you can click on #cool-music but before you do that i had the thought to just, kinda explain why exactly these specific songs, and stuff? OH, and also a background story of that layout which also explains why i'll be sending this to you so late in the day T___T but okay, basically:

at first i was going to upload the playlists on spotify and hide them somewhere in the layout but then yesterday i figured i should find out (in a subtle way) if you even use spotify, nevermind have spotify premium. hence why i brought it up last night like “i forget some ppl don’t have spotify premium” OR WHATEVER I SAID I CAN HARDLY REMEMBER BC I WAS HALF ASLEEP. then you said you had apple music so i was >:0 so i was like. ok. change of plans. instead of linking to spotify i can mimic a spotify playlist?! so i messed around with some codes and TA-DA! but then i got carried away with the colors so now it doesn’t even look like spotify anymore GNJSGNS. LIKE AT FIRST IT WAS GREEN/BLACK LIKE THE OG SPOTIFY COLORS, but then i was like *kanyeshrug* and went nuts, so yeah.. ok anyways, as for the playlists themselvs:

OO1 | groovy??

OH HONESTLY, these are all songs i’ve been listening the f*ck out of lately and they all just, remind me of you in one way or another. hyukoh’s mer especially is just this rly floaty and dreamy song which is the type of stuff i Love but then reading the lyrics.. i Felt that. you know? just, yeah.. god i’m bad at this I SHOULD’VE JUST SENT THE PLAYLISTS AND KEPT MY MOUTH SHUT! SHOULD’VE JUST SAT THERE AND ATE MY FOOD! i’m so bad with words but Basically these are all songs i dedicate to you wholeheartedly. same goes for the 2nd part of the playlist. all of these genres kind of.. don’t really match eachother but there’s still something that makes me think “yeah, this makes sense” when putting them together. probably because they’re all about you, (i mean, in my head. unless u have an affair with giriboy i didn’t know about in that case ill have to literally murder giriboy).

MER: “We met, followed the map. Looked for the gold. I long for you.”

지켜줄게: you know the general song concept behind this is about a girl that sells her body and the guy is basically singing he’ll get her out of there etc, which is obviously not relevant to anything NGJSNG (me, inwardly: why did i include this song again im a fucking clown) BUT DSGNJS i included it because, just the whole sentiment i’ll always be there to take care of you and protect you however i can, no matter what. “I’ll take care of you when no one is around. I’ll always be with you when no one is around.“ (i think including a lyric here for each song rly pushes this to the Epitome of cheese)

Gondry: this song is basically us when we’re snuggled together.. “Laying down and legs crossed. Let's just stay like this, like in a warm blanket.”

Pluhmm: i really love this song so much and not only bc its yeeun but mainly because it just feels like this was written about us and it makes me super sappy.. “The first thing you do when you get up is to respond to the text that came after you fell asleep.”

확신을 줘: hey i love phantom [phantom voice] this is my confession. GNJSDNJ i dislike when they say “pretty young thing” tho but that’s classic korean rap they’re all fuckboys BUT! i wanted to include this cause it’s fun, playful and bright just like you, so. yes. :P “Do me a favour. Could you be mine?”

OO2 | at first witchy 🧙..then romantic

HEY I’M SUCH AN IDIOT. so at first i kind of wanted the concept of this part to be “older” music like the first track, and keep it within that theme but (again) i lost control. i was also kinda worried if that type of music isn’t your thing so hence why i call this MASTERPIECE “at first witchy..then romantic” bc fleetwoodmac/stevie nicks = witchy.. then the playlist gets cheesy? Haha 500IQ honestly. ANYWAYS.

Sara: so this is honestly one of my all time favorite songs and it has always kind of had a special place in my heart just like anything fleetwood mac does, but when i met you and fell for you the song got a whole new meaning for me and got all the more special. so i just had to include it. “Wait a minute, baby. Stay with me awhile. Said you'd give me light, but you never told me about the fire.”

Hiding Tonight: i don’t know if this is the exact and Real meaning behind the song but i always interpreted it as wanting to be stronger and better for someone, so that’s why that’s here. because even though you sometimes say you don’t deserve me (which is FAKE), i want you to know that it’s me who is encouraged by you to be a better person and to work harder. i’m the one that’s trying to live up to YOU, pwease don’t ever think little of yourself okay.. “And win a prize even if it's rigged, I won't know when to stop. And you can leave off my lid and I won't even lose my fizz.“

Loving Is Easy: i feel like the lyrics for this one are rly self explanatory.. YOU GOT ME FUCKED UP... “Yeah, loving is easy when everything's perfect. Please don't change a single little thing for me.”

My Kind of Woman: fun fact; i’d absolutely fist fight mac demarco if i caught him in the streets idk why i just would. that aside he makes the perfect sappy songs that i can dedicate to you so he can stick around even tho he’s on thin fucking ice. “You're making my crazy, really driving me mad. That's all right with me, it's really no fuss. As long as you're next to me, just the two of us.”

I Know You Know I Love You: at least, i Hope you do.. i only tell you every 5 seconds ;P “You know that I love you and that ain't gonna change. And though you're not here with me now, my love for you stays the same.”