#im seeing crosses next month someone will have to physically restrain me

[pigmartyr]

no thoughts just chinos shuddery inhale at the start of be quiet and drive

[jpegjade]

Going Swimming - Spencer

HELLO DOUBLE UPLOAD DAY. so i decided to finish this one while I was on a break to eat lunch. It is a bit shorter compared to my other ones. I think this is fluff. im calling it fluff bc nothing dramatic happens. 

Request: Hey! I thought it would be really cute for a story where Spencer and y/n have been dating for a bit, but he’s never really seen her without makeup before because she’s insecure without it. Maybe he does something to help show her how beautiful she rlly is! I love your writing, thank you so much for being you!

((also: thank you lovely anon. you touched my heart.))

___________________

You and Spencer had been together for 2 blissful months. Even when he was gone, he talked to you as much as he could, calling you each time he was in the hotel room or texting you when he had good news. He always wanted to share what he could with you, even if it was vague without any details. He could never share the details but he loved telling you that he successfully talked someone down. Those were his favorite days. 

Today was an off day so the two of you spent it lounging around at his apartment. You liked his apartment, it was full of so many interesting books and you were on a mission to read them all while you guys were still together. So far, things were going well and you couldn’t imagine any reason that you couldn’t get through all of them. 

“Do you want to go to the pool?” Spencer asked. He was only wearing swim trunks and a towel around his shoulders. Damn he looked good like that. 

“Pool?” You asked, wondering what got into him. It was a nice day to say it was summer but you wondered where he would have access to a pool. 

“The apartment complex built one and it’s finally complete.” He smiled. 

“Oh.” You thought about it, you really did. “No, that’s okay.” You said, going back to some book about mathematics and physics. 

“Are you sure? It will be fun.” Spencer said, getting a little down. 

“Spence, I don’t have a bathing suit.” You said, trying to avoid the idea. 

“You look good in your bra and bottoms, I promise.” He smirked, walking over to you. 

Your body took up the whole couch since you were stretched out with your legs up on the other seats so he sat near you on the floor. 

“I don’t want to swim, baby. But I can sit poolside and watch you swim, if you’re that set on swimming.” You smiled, kissing him on the forehead. 

“It’s not fun without you, y/n.” He said, pouting. 

Spencer tried to come up with an answer to all of your points but he couldn’t come up with anything. He sighed, turning so his back was leaning on the couch. While one hand held the book, the other hand naturally went to play with Spencer's hair. He sighed again, this time a little louder before turning back around. 

“I’ve never seen you without make-up.” Spencer said, studying your face. 

“Okay?” You looked up from the book that was giving you a headache. The concepts were going over your head. 

“Why?” Spencer was just wondering innocently. He was inquisitive so it was natural that he would ask questions he didn’t have the answers to, which was rare. 

“Because?” You said. It wasn’t something you were defensive over because you knew he was only asking since he was curious. 

“Because why?” He said, scrunching his eyebrows a little. 

“Because I just feel more comfortable with it on. If I’m going out in public, I’d prefer to have my best face forward.” You looked back down at the book, satisfied with your answer. 

“Do you feel like you have to put it on for me? Or is it more for yourself?” Spencer turned his body completely to look at you, criss crossing his legs and putting his hands in the gap. You thought he looked like a 5-year-old who was waiting for nap time.  

“No, it’s not you. Well it’s you a little bit but it’s just how I am. I grew up like this and it stuck.” You said, shrugging your shoulders. 

“Oh.” Spencer wasn’t getting it and you could see it on his face. “What do you mean?” 

“When I was growing up, I learned the hard way that people think you’re prettier when you look perfect. While girls were putting on makeup, I liked being natural. For a while, no one cared. Then I started to notice that people only wanted you if you wore make-up, dressed a certain way, acted like you didn’t care about anything. I got bullied into wearing make-up, basically.” You paused to collect your thoughts. 

“When I got older, I noticed that boys only liked me when I had make-up on. Even just a simple look was better than showing my natural face. So I decided that I would just look my best at all times so nobody could catch me on an off-day. Even when I’m lounging at home, I wear something because I don’t like my reflection otherwise. I’d rather be perfect.” You finished. 

Spencer was quiet for a moment. He didn’t want to say the wrong thing. 

“So… Why do you feel the need to wear it around me?” He asked, wondering how he played into everything. 

“Because I just like to look perfect around you. I like knowing that I’m my best for you.” You said, looking at your feet. It came out in such a quiet voice, you weren’t sure he heard you. 

“I know it’s not my place and my opinion doesn’t matter but I think you’re perfect already… There’s very few things that could dissuade me from my opinion about you and whether or not you wear makeup is not one of them. I think that your experiences with selfish, superficial people has given you a tainted view of the world and I understand. Generally speaking, the golden ratio does seem to exist. It’s a very western culture way of thinking but being conventionally attractive is valued greatly and anyone who is not up to that standard isn’t-”

“Spencer, I love hearing you talk but you’re going to stop being helpful if you continue down the path you’re on.” You said, looking over at him. He didn’t even realize he was going off on a tangent. 

“Right. My point is that I appreciate you as you are, with or without makeup. I can only hope that during the course of our relationship, you become comfortable enough to show me another side of you that I haven’t seen because I would like to give that face a multitude of kisses. I always want to kiss you but I’m scared of messing up your hard work so I restrain myself a lot of the time. Garcia has shown me makeup videos on the Tube website about how long it takes and how much the stuff is and all the different designs and stuff and I admire the hard work that goes into the process. But I want you to know that you don’t have to look perfect when you’re perfect as you are to me.” He said, grinning. 

“You promise you won’t judge me?” You said, finally looking up at him. 

“I promise I won’t judge or change my mind about you.” Spencer smiled. 

“Okay. Maybe next time.” You said standing up to grab a different book. 

“I have one more question.” Spencer said, standing up. He lost his balance and fell forward onto the couch. 

“Go ahead, babe.” You grabbed The iliad. 

“Can I try that stuff you put under your eyes to hide dark circles? Mine are getting out of control.” He said standing up and walking over to where you stood, in front of the bookcase. 

“I don’t have your color but we can try it just for fun. But I have to say, you with dark circles is really hot. I’m attracted to guys who look like they haven't slept in a millenia.” You chuckled. 

“Oh really? Well maybe I don’t need it, in that case.” Spencer smirked. “One last question.” 

“Just ask, baby.” You smiled. 

“Can I kiss you? You’re wearing my favorite lip gloss, the minty one, and I’ve been dying to kiss you all day.” Spencer hovered just above your face, your noses barely touching. 

“You don’t have to ask.” 

________________

tag list:

@dr-reid-ismyspiritanimal

[doombox82]

MONSTA X THE CLAN FULL THEORY - ALL 3 VIDEOS.

I’ve been wanting to write this since Beautiful came out. There are a lot of fan theories, but this one is mine! :3 If you’re able to read through it, please feel free to discuss it with me. There are some parts I’m still shaky on. But here we go anyway. 

In a nutshell I feel the three videos are representative of MX coming together, finding their roles, and overcoming their own weaknesses. And here’s why:

All In: The story of 7 kids who want to change their stations in life. I won’t go into who seems like family and what label relationships fall under (but I know I am all for the THE ship *wink*) but I do think the associations are important. In this video we get 2 very solid stories with Shownu and Jooheon, then again with Hyungwon and Minhyuk. 

Shownu - His story seems to be one of loss and failure, well a few of them are to me, but Shownu’s especially. He make’s the choice to gain his money by illegal means and in the end it didn’t even save the elderly man. It was all for nothing. I associate this with Shownu’s trainee days where he took things for granted only to get dropped from his previous company. Mistakes were made, so to speak. 

Jooheon -  Jooheon seems to be the instigator of things happening, The group approaches the men in uniforms and Jooheon immediately jumps in first. Shownu needs money to help a sick family member and Jooheon is the one to give him a weapon to do it. Jooheon seems to be the overseeing shamanistic character while the mysterious blue serum is created. Jooheon’s role through the entire series seems to be this type. I associate this with Jooheon feeling like the master of his own destiny. He doesn’t need those big companies to make him famous, he’s going to do it his own way. 

Hyungwon - We meet Hyungwon as young rebel, harassing the police, afterwards a man who seems like his father punishes him in front of everyone for it. We get the feeling Hyungwon’s father is an unapproving, strict and likely pious man given the imagery of his own crew and their cross/plus sign imagery associated with them. This alone already has a strong imagery for “old regime” that we see get overthrown by the MX gang. Hyungwon’s punishment was getting hit, specifically in the face, which we later see him try to hide from Minhyuk. And while his friends are fighting for him later on in the video we see Hyungwon has given up (looking pretty much dead in the bathtub) once he was left alone. I associate this with Hyungwon feeling he has little value as a team member outside of his face/visuals and relies too much on the rest of the group in other areas. 

Minhyuk - The friend, the protector, the vengeful spirit. Minhyuk is known for being a person who looks after MX, his looking after Hyungwon in this is definitely representative of that to me. He also pushes to storyline farther by burning down cross/plus sign HQ (with possibly Hyungwon’s father and followers inside?) effectively taking down the “old regime” to let MX Clan have their freedom from previous expectations and standards. 

The others - Wonho, Kihyun, and I.M don’t have strong presences in this story arc, but we do see a moment near the end where Kihyun throws down his crutches and begins to run in the same direction as the rest of the boys, late is better than never, right? This may represent Kihyun not having he same closeness as some of the other members in the trainee and early MX days. Wonho and IM could be in the background here for other reasons, if you watched No Mercy you know IM came in late and took a bit of time before he was accepted by the other trainees. Wonho has some confidence issues and he may look at himself as more of a supporting role from this period. With him it’s hard to say. 

WTF IS THE BLUE FLOWER BREW??? It took me a long time to think on this, seriously, months... but I’ve come to the assumption the blue serum is the culmination of Monsta X. It’s X serum! All of the strength and happiness they feel when they are together is what makes this serum. The blue flowers are symbolically Monsta X before Monsta X knew they were Monsta X. Monsta X-ception? Yes. This is why it is only made when they are together, they drink it and start painting Xs all over themselves, they exorcise their inner demons, they are cleansed. This is why when Shownu burns all of his money he only has one thing left, his blue vial, and he drinks it to give himself strength (this makes more sense as we continue on to Fighter). This is also why when Minhyuk doesn’t know what else to do he pours the serum in the water and gets in the tub with almost-dead Hyungwon. And just then, we see Hyungwon flinch in reaction. 

BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE. I haven’t even touched the part where MX are in the white uniforms with white guns! This entire part of the video is their united dream for the future. It’s not reality yet, but the boys picture a world where they are not victims, they are -ta-da~- FIGHTERS. Only in this series of scenes do we see them all together, all marching towards a common direction with a giant BLUE heart at the end of it. The heart of Monsta X. They want to discover it together. This is also why Minhyuk feeds the blue flower to Hyungwon in the beginning, when the team is weak, it’s the power of X (flower) that keeps them going. 

Fighter: One of the main things to remember about these videos is they are all very stylistically different, but they are still the same story. All In showed us the dream of Monsta X, now Fighter shows the hard work it took to get everyone working together smoothly. I’ve seen people think there is a time jump, but I don’t think there is much of one at all actually, because the entire thing is figurative to begin with. 

Shownu - We find Shownu in jail, serving his sentence, and he gets this wonderful dance sequence where the blue (remember blue symbolizes Monsta X) light appears and practices dancing until he dances his way right out of those bars and atone/learn from his mistakes. We’ll just say he got out early for good behavior if that helps at all. As soon as he’s out we see him with his ol’ buddy Jooheon waiting for him, ready to knight him. Bears represent Shownu, we see them come up again repeatedly in this video. Hyungwon and Minhyuk are given gummy bears, I.M jumps to action after seeing the bear “power up” in his game, and there are two bear-headed figures next to Jooheon who I think represent Wonho and Kihyun. The knighthood here represents Shownu accepting his leadership role. He ain’t wearing those gold laurels for nothin’.

Wonho - He finally gets a much stronger presence here. Wonho has accepted his role as the studio engineer! You engineer machines, but you also engineer sounds in a music studio, coincidence? I think not. We now know Wonho works on a lot of music from his time as a trainee until now, but it wasn’t until Monsta X that his confidence has grown. He creates an X machine powered by X serum and controlled by the members themselves. The fact that the machine suspiciously looks like television set is probably also not a coincidence since the group debuted on a television show. 

Kihyun - At first I was really confused by Kihyun dragging a body around in a back alley. I still feel this represents being somewhat lost, alone and angry/violent (this will connect to Beautiful later) until he meets someone who shows him a new direction to take (Jooheon is that you?), and not long after he’s joined I.M and Wonho on their bicycles heading to the X machine. [Note: When I say Kihyun has a “violent” tendency, I don’t mean physically. I think it has to do with him having a sharp tongue and a quick mind that he sometimes uses against other people to get what he wants. But it’s harder to find something that symbolizes that as succinctly, ya know. The body Kihyun is dragging could also be symbolic for him killing/leaving behind his ‘old ways/old self’ before he becomes an MX member too.]

Hyungwon & Minhyuk - Together again. Looking like they are having forced psychiatric treatment for attempting suicide which we know they both looked like they did in the end of the last video. However, straight jackets also have symbolic meaning for simply feeling restrained and wanting to lose your mind over the frustration. Hyungwon and Minhyuk were struggling, not where they wanted to be (remember they were fighting against gaining a better status in life and finding where they belong), so the asylum really fit both of those aspects. and with a blue flash of light at the door we have fabulous, doctor-in-disguise, Jooheon handing out gummy bears before he breaks them out. Again, the bears represent Shownu and by eating them Minhyuk and Hyungwon accept the hierarchy of Monsta X and -poof- they are outta there.

Jooheon - A mysterious hooded figure out to anoint a leader and collect his members. The mastermind overseer is back at it again. Jooheon is the one filling Wonho’s X machine with X serum, since he made it in the previous video that hasn’t changed. He’s still the same man on a mission to show the world Monsta X.

I.M - He’s off on his own, “playing” which I feel represents him working on his craft until he sees Shownu’s bear power up and jumps to action joining the others. As if he was ready and waiting for the signal literally and symbolically. I.M also handles the controller of the X Machine as if it were the game he had been practicing this entire time. We see the screen flicker back and forth until it is blue, X flower blue. This seems to say I.M was born ready to show off his skills, all he wanted was the chance to show itself. 

Blue flower blooms and the ending -  “I need to wait for the right moment... right NOW!” I feel like this part of the video is referencing their debut specifically. The blue flower blooms at the ‘right moment’, the boys break out into a white hallway (blue and white are reoccurring themes), prior to this all of the surroundings had been dark and ominous. Now things are bright, the way is clear and boys are running to freedom. And it’s fleeting, but for a split second we see Jooheon also smiling and running alongside everyone else releasing his overseer position for a moment and joining in the brotherhood of it all. We see a giant blue heart floating again, this time instead of blue dimly showing through blackness, we have blue “blood’ running through a white heart. The power of Monsta X runs through their veins now. 

Beautiful:  We’ve seen the boys meet, work hard, debut, but that’s not all there is to it. The house is built but it needs fortification. Only as a team do you see your own weaknesses magnified. This video is about each member finding what they need to improve for the betterment of the entire group. This video seems to the most straight forward but there’s still a little bit of it I’m not 100% sure on when it comes to Hyungwon but I’m doing my best. ^^; We see each member locked in a room with the exception of Jooheon who has taken back his instigator/overseer role again. We have a white hallway which connects directly with where Fighter left off. Jooheon watches each member and at the right moment gives them a tool they need to overcome a weakness.

Shownu - Shownu’s room is blue (yes -that blue-) full of plants with one special one in a terrarium in the center of the room. We see he’s given his object: a vial of X serum, which could represent either he needs the power of Monsta X to help him grow, or the flower in the terrarium represents Monsta X and he needs to help them continue to grow. Probably a combination of both in more Monsta X-ception. It hurts my head a little bit at this point lol. 

Wonho - It looks like he’s in a room full of post office boxes, he opens one to read a letter and seems to have a wave of emotion. He is given a pen so he can reply to his letter. It seems simple, but I think this has to to with claims that Wonho isn’t good about asking for help, he puts a lot on himself. He’s also known for having a rather emotional personality so I think communication was his obstacle and learning how to reach out to his team when he needs to.

Minhyuk - His is tricky because it seems to be a room with pendulums that don’t move and balls on pedestals. It immediately makes me think that pendulums should be swinging and balls should be rolling (but if someone else has a better interpretation of this or I’m missing something please share!) so Minhyuk’s weakness would be a lack of action (which seems opposite his previous themes, but this is also after debut so possibly now he feels he’s not taking advantage of his situation as much as he could). He is given a pocket watch/clock which I think is to remind him time is limited and precious. 

Kihyun - Back to sharp tongued “pointed” personality Kihyun. His room is basically an armory. He’s surrounded himself with weapons, and is given a hammer to shatter those swords. Again, I read this as Kihyun learning to soften his edges for the sake of getting along with everyone. 

Hyungwon - And the one I’m the most unsure on, but we see Hyungwon in a beautiful room, watching the sand pass through his fingers, then beating at his door in anger. He is given a mirror, but he is the only one who seems like it could have been a trick question? He looks at himself then drops the mirror. He’s also seen looking at himself in the sculpture in his room. It’s the only time a tool given doesn’t seem to have an actual use. And I think this is why, previously I drew some symbolism from All In focusing on Hyungwon’s face and him possibly feeling like that is all he has to offer are his visuals, but with him looking into the mirror and then discarding it it’s like he knows he’s got the face but he has also learned he’s worth more than that. You can see a huge confidence arc with him through all 3 videos and I think it’s intentional. 

Jooheon - Watching. Waiting. Sitting on some rope. What? Jooheon has also been locked away in his little hallway with his own dilemma. There is something he also needs from the members, themselves! Rope would easily symbolize binding, as in Jooheon needs his bond with the members to push him forward. And it’s actually been that way since the beginning of the videos. Only when they are all together are they Monsta X. 

I.M - I.M is in a room full of gold and money. He gets angry and starts throwing gold bars like they were tic tacs (lol) and is given matches.This is the second time we see a member burning money. I think this may be I.M learning money doesn’t solve your problems and possibly to be less materialistic. I don’t have anything to back this particular one up but it just seems like burning money can only have so many meanings. If you have any help on this one I’m all ears.

In the end we see them all leave their rooms when they’ve overcome their issues and join Jooheon before continuing their journey down the white hallway. This is the only video with a dance sequence so one could guess the white hallway leads to the stage they’re dancing on. And that ties things up pretty nicely tbh.