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demonhanabi · 21 days ago

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The Happenstance Reaction - Chapter 1

Originally posted in February 2024

Penny watched as the swim team did their practice laps. She was sitting at the bleachers and there was a smattering of other boys and girls doing the same things as her. That is to say, getting her dose of cute boys in speedos.

Taking a bite of her breakfast burrito Penny idly thinks if this is what College is supposed to be.

After all, Penny is not really sure she wants to stay in college. She’s currently a freshman at UNO, looking to major in fine/studio arts because she thought it would involve acting…which it didn’t do that exactly, they could eventually teach her to teach other people about acting but Penny was finding this whole college thing to be a bit of a bust.

She wanted to act, wanted to be the next Julia Roberts. But she was starting to think that if she stayed here in Omaha it would never happen. It was still her freshman year so Penny was perfectly aware that she was being impatient, but her 18th birthday was coming up in 6 months and it was just too tempting, she might just drop out and go to California in her shitty car.

The only thing that Penny liked about college so far was that she felt like she’d be able to find her true love here.

Tamika had told her that Kurt from the Athletic training program was asking about Penny and that her boyfriend Jack had confirmed he was going to ask Penny out. She couldn’t wait, she had a good feeling about this Kurt…yum yum, those muscles.

"Hey Pen." Penny liked Tamika, the girl was in the Physics department but looked like a damn supermodel. She was being wasted in the sciences building. Penny got lucky to get Tamika as a roommate.

"Hey girl, ready to go out clubbing tonight?"

"Ugh, can’t." Tamika really looked disappointed. "The Physics department is preparing to host a welcome party for the boy genius himself and we all have to be present. Can’t wiggle away."

"Boy genius?"

"Oh yeah, you probably don’t know. There’s this guy in the Physics world that is basically the second coming of Einstein. He got his first PhD at 14, the second at 16 and his name is attached to pretty much every award available, pretty much almost always followed by ‘The youngest ever’-something."

"Oh damn, sounds like a fun guy at parties." Penny laughed.

"You have no idea. He’s also pretty famous, or rather infamous for being a pain in the ass. It doesn’t help that he’s almost always right, I heard he’s caused several researchers to quit after meeting with him for a couple of minutes."

"And he’s coming to UNO, why?" Penny was under no illusions that their little University held any sort of importance.

"He’s actually on loan from Caltech. He’s staying for 3 months to give some lectures and do research using our equipment." Tamika shrugged, her face confused.

"Huh, how old is he?."

"Just turned 18, it’s actually a little creepy at seeing all the older ladies go gaga over him."

"Haha, poor guy then. Anyway, since you can’t come tonight, how about we meet on-" And Penny kept going with her life, this conversation soon forgotten.

***

As Penny worked her shift at The Cheesecake Factory she kept thinking about her future. College so far had made her feel like a failure, she felt stupid for choosing a Major without really understanding what she was signing up for and just because she thought it had something to do with acting. Sure, college life was fantastic, she loved living on campus and not having to worry about the farm anymore. Having clubs, coffee shops, and shoe stores within walking distance was a game changer as well.

And yet…Penny wondered if she should keep going.

Was college really going to get her closer to her dream? For that matter, what was her dream? She enjoyed acting but if she was honest with herself she wanted the fame as well, she didn’t want to be a background character in a sitcom, she wanted to be in movie posters so that the bitches from high school would froth at the mouth when seeing her.

Maybe it was a better idea to drop out and go try her luck in California.

That idea was only reinforced by the book in front of her. It was a slow afternoon and her manager didn’t mind Penny doing homework at an empty table, Penny knew she wasn’t the only waitress that did that. Glaring at the book Penny had to wonder why learning to design clothes required her to know math, and it’s because someone replies to her that she realizes she actually said that outloud. ‘I need to stop that habit.’

"It’s to ensure the piece of clothing you’re designing actually fits correctly. You would also need it to calculate how much to charge for that piece of clothing." A boy her age is standing next to the table she’s using. He’s tall, way too tall and wiry, like one of those swimmers she loved to go and watch practice. And for some reason he’s dressed like one of her professors, a red plaid shirt over a light blue tee, khaki pants, and a tweed jacket. At least he was wearing cool sneakers. For some reason he looked really happy to be answering her question.

"As you’re probably aware, the clothing designing process always starts with a sketch. This sketch will contain shapes, patterns and sizes as well as how they relate to one another in space, in simpler terms, Geometry. Which is one of the fundamental branches of math." Without being invited to, the boy takes a seat in front of her.

"Of course, that is a vital part of the design process," points to his shirt "Squares, triangles, circles and other designs are always present in our clothing and can be easily defined as mathematical in nature, however, even those designs that can be defined as abstract still use geometry to ensure they’re aesthetically pleasing." Penny is not sure that he has taken a breath since he started talking and the way he’s talking to her reinforces the idea of a professor, he’s probably a freshman as well and trying way too hard.

"Math is also used by stores in order to determine stocking rates. And it goes without saying that return on investment is something present at every step of the way to determine that everyone will stand to gain from it. And it’s all thanks to…" He trails off and looks at Penny expectantly.

"…Math?..."

"That’s right! Excellent. And that’s why you need Math in clothing design." He looks so proud of himself that Penny can’t help but laugh.

"Okay, okay, thank you for the explanation. Can you then help explain how this formula becomes a graph? I’m not getting it, how is this a circle according to the book?" Penny shows him her book and the formula (x−h)2+(y��k)2=r2.

"Do you have your graphing calculator?"

"My what now?"

"Oh boy. How did you pass your SATs?"

"Hey! Don’t be mean."

"I’m sorry. Let me show you how to do it without a calculator."

And the boy did just that, Penny realized that all of this was stuff she had seen in High School but this boy took the time to show her how to solve formulas, not only that but also how to graph them on paper. It wasn’t exactly fun but she could tell he had experience tutoring people.

"Oh! That’s awesome, that makes so much more sense now."

"Yes, math is a wonderful thing."

"Thank you so much. Oh, your food must have arrived at your table by now. I’m sorry for taking so much of your time."

"I haven’t ordered yet. I was approaching you for that reason when I heard you pose your question about math."

"Oh gosh, I’m sorry. Thank you again. Let me get you a menu, don’t move from there."

Quickly going through the familiar motions she cleaned his side of the table and got him a menu.

"Don’t order dessert, as thanks for helping me understand this. I'll get you a slice of cheesecake after your meal. My treat."

And for the first time he looks uncomfortable "Oh…is this like a gift?"

"No, it’s just a way to repay the help you already gave me."

His face clears "Ahh, like Quid Pro Quo?"

"Sure, let’s go with that."

"Then, I accept. Thank you." His attention now on the bible of a menu in front of him.

Penny had to smile, this boy was weird but not in a bad way. It was probably his first time away from home, and college had been scarier than he expected, he wasn’t being a creep, he hadn’t even ogled Penny or tried to make a pass at her. In High School she wouldn’t have been friends with him but here it was perfectly normal, maybe they could help each other out with homework. ‘I mean, he can’t be good at every subject.’

After almost ten minutes of him going through the menu Penny is getting a little impatient. "All of it is good."

"Highly unlike. But this is my first time at this establishment so I suppose that asking for recommendations would be the next logical step. Is there anything that you recommend?" His face is open and honest.

"Hmmm, how about a burger? I just had the Smokehouse B.B.Q. Burger a few days ago and it was really good."

"I’ll have that please, and a glass of lemonade."

"Coming right up." Penny moved to the kitchen to set his order. As they waited for his order to be ready, he kept helping her.

Penny kept an eye on the kitchen and as soon as his burger was ready, she went to get it. While he ate, she went right back to work on her assignment, thanks to this boy’s help she was getting it and didn’t want to stop now. If he needed something then he could just ask her.

As Penny worked she took notice of this strange boy, he ate carefully, methodically. Her first thought was that maybe he was feeling awkward eating in front of her but he was ignoring her, completely absorbed in enjoying his burger with no regard for other people.

Maybe this was why people liked study groups so much? It was nice to have someone help you and even though they were not talking, his physical presence brought her a sense of companionship. They were both students and were facing school together.

Penny made good on her promise and got him a slice of cheesecake. Her gut told her that he had a sweet tooth so she made it a slice of the Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cheesecake. She was not disappointed, he basically devoured it.

"Thank you. You were correct on the hamburger and your selection of Cheesecake was equally pleasing. I might make this a weekly visit after today."

"Oh you’re welcome Sweetie. I always work this shift so you can find me here." Penny winced, it sounded too much like a come on. But the boy simply nodded and moved to stand up. And okay, Penny had at least been expecting for the boy to ask for her number but he didn’t seem interested in her. ‘Maybe he’s gay.’

"My name is Penny by the way, just realized we never introduced ourselves." She extended a hand to him.

He looked at her hand for a long moment and when she was about to put it down he reached out and shook it.

“My name is Sheldon. Pleased to meet you.” He gave her a small shy smile and Penny smiled back.

“I like that, Sheldon. It fits you well. I’ll see you around Sheldon.”

“Likewise.” And he’s gone. She smiled at seeing the 20 dollar tip.

Penny likes Sheldon, he’s a little high strung and talks like an old timey professor, but he’s a good boy, maybe he and Tamika can hit it off, talk science at each other while helping Penny with her homework.

The rest of her shift was pretty calm, she only had to stop working 2 times and while none were as generous as Sheldon tip-wise, they still left some. The drive back to the dorm was calm, but Penny refused to listen to any music. The knowledge in her head was fresh and she didn’t want anything to interrupt it. She was going to finish all of her math work that night.

After a couple of hours of work, Penny closed her books and rubbed at her eyes. She was tired but happy. She might like this geometry stuff after all.

Tamika finally entered their dorm and went to slam face first onto her bed. Penny took a look at the clock and saw it was pretty late.

“Not a great party I take it?” Penny asked, seeing the exhausted woman.

“Oh no, fantastic. Simply fantastic.” Tamika’s voice was slightly muffled but the sarcasm still shone strongly. “Boy genius is everything they claim and more. Oh! And he’s an ass, not five minutes into the party and he’s already offended everyone. I don’t know how he plans to lecture with that attitude.” Tamika laughs suddenly “And you know the best part? He left his own welcome party halfway through to go eat lunch! We had to stay back to help clean." Tamika finally sat up to face Penny "Can you believe that?. And his first lecture is in a week."

"Wow, sounds like a fun guy.”

“I think it’ll be an interesting lecture…want to come and see?”

“Me? Why?.”

“C’mon, you owe me one.”

“Nuh uh.” Penny shook her head.

“I’m going to get Jack to organize a double date with Kurt. So you owe me.”

“...Okay.”

Penny really wanted that date, she’ll go and get bored for an hour and maybe even work on her homework. Maybe Sheldon won’t mind helping her again.

***

Penny was kind of getting the hang of this geometry thing. They were teaching them how to sketch correctly and Penny loved it, she could see how it all would come together into a design. She was thrilled at the end result.

It was as if for the first time something clicked about college. She was having fun.

It had been a few days since Sheldon had helped her and she had tried to pay attention around campus to see if she could find him but she hadn’t had any luck so far. Maybe he was too shy and only went to classes and then went back to his dorm. Perhaps he needed a friend and Penny could be that friend.

She didn’t see Sheldon again until her Thursday shift, she was working the dinner shift and this time the restaurant was a little more active. She still had her notebooks on an empty table at the back but she had less chances to work on it. Penny was really liking the design classes and she had been taking them more seriously.

One moment the table with her stuff is empty and the next moment she looks, Sheldon is sitting there reviewing one of her notebooks. A smile comes to her face because he’s once again dressed like a mini-version of a professor…well, not so mini, the boy was tall as heck.

Making her way to him she prepared her notepad, technically this table wasn’t at her section but whatever. “Hey Sheldon!”

“Good evening Penny.” He gave her a small shy smile and Penny had to resist the urge to say ‘Awww’ out loud. “I see that you have made strides in your school work. Excellent job.”

“Aw thanks Sweetie.” Penny blushed a little and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, it felt nice to hear someone complimenting her school progress. “Let me get you a menu.”

“No need, I have already memorized it. Thank you.”

Penny laughed but Sheldon only looked at her confused. “Wait, you’re serious? It’s like a bible sized menu.”

“I possess an eidetic memory. The menu is forever in my mind now.”

“Oh! Wow, that’s really cool. So that’s how you remember all that math stuff!” Penny pointed a finger at him.

“Yes, it’s also fun.” Of course he would find it fun.

“Well then Mr. Photographic memory, what can I get you then?”

“Eidetic, not photographic. I can remember sounds, feelings, smells, etc. not just images.” He corrected her “And can I please get a California Omelette and a glass of Lemonade please.”

“Coming right up.”

Just like last time she took peeks at Sheldon while he ate, he once again ate in a very deliberate and methodical manner, like a machine. The smile he had after tasting the omelette though, was very human.

As her section cleared she went to Sheldon. “Can I get you anything else Sweetie?”

“A slice of…” He trailed off frowning in thought, it was the first time Penny had seen him with this intense look and it was because of Cheesecake. ‘Wackadoodle’ The smile on her face was genuine, Sheldon was really cute. Hopefully no one was bullying him. “A slice of the Fresh Banana Cream Cheesecake please.”

“Be right back.”

After getting Sheldon his slice of Cheesecake, Penny sat in front of him and watched as he once again devoured his dessert. Sheldon could eat like a beast, maybe he was a swimmer after all.

“Is there something on my face Penny?”

“Oh, no. Sorry, I was lost in thought. Hey Sheldon if it’s not much of a bother, can you help me understand this please.” Penny pointed to her open notebook.

Penny liked how Sheldon explained things. She did not like how he assumed things tho. He talked to her like she should know everything, but to be fair, once she explained that she needed a simple explanation he would make sure to adjust his tutoring.

Sheldon could come off as arrogant but Penny thought it was a defense mechanism. He was probably sheltered his whole life and school was the one place he always did well at so he most likely has a pride thing going on.

“Awesome, thank you Sheldon. I get it now.”

“You’re welcome Penny. I shall retire now.”

“Before you go! I wanted to ask you, what building are you in? Arts, Sciences or Sports?”

Sheldon tilted his head, like a puppy trying to understand something. “Sciences of course.”

“Of course, how silly of me.” No reaction at her tone. “Well, you know if you are free, some mornings I go and watch the swimming team practice. So if you wanna hang out or something you can find me there. I’ll be there tomorrow.” Penny was no longer worried about Sheldon getting the wrong idea.

“Hang out?” He said it as if tasting something for the first time. Unsure if he liked it.

“Yeah, we can talk about stuff, school or life, or do homework together.”

He looked confused but then his face cleared in understanding “Do homework togeth-Oh! Missy told me about this, is this an activity to determine if we can become friends?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Missy huh.

“Very well.” Sheldon looked really proud of himself, like he just figured out something super important. “I shall see you tomorrow.”

“Bye Sweetie.” Penny gave him a small waive. He left the same amount for a tip.

***

The next morning she didn’t have to look for Sheldon, he was already sitting in the bleachers, near the bottom and had 2 notebooks on his lap. Apparently he was working on both of them at the same time. ‘Definitely trying too hard.’

Penny doubts that she’ll be able to provide any assistance with his homework but she’ll still try.

“Hey Sweetie, morning.”

“Good morning Penny.” He finally looks up from his notebooks and gives her the now familiar smile. ‘He needs to smile more.’

"I am unsure on what we should do to determine if we can become friends. Missy was unhelpful in this regard as she was not in her dorm room when I called her." Sheldon did look confused but eager. Penny took a seat next to him.

“Okay, that’s a start. Who’s Missy?”

“Missy is my twin sister.”

Penny was relieved. Sheldon was a sweet boy and she knew girls that would take advantage of that.

“Oh! You’re a twin, that’s cool. Where does she go to school?”

“She is currently attending the Nursing program at Galveston College.”

“Cool. Oh wait, why Texas?”

“What do you mean?” Honest confusion on his face. Sheldon didn’t do great with indirect questions Penny noticed.

“As in, why is she in Texas and you’re here in Nebraska?”

“Ah, I see. I’m originally from Galveston, Texas. Missy’s grades limited her scope of options so Galveston College was the best option for her. As for me, well I am-” A shrill whistle and a shout interrupted Sheldon.

“Penny!” Kurt is jogging towards them and he’s smiling. He was not part of the swimming team so seeing him here was a nice surprise for Penny. She could already feel herself blushing, Kurt was wearing a white undershirt that exposed a lot of his muscles, red shorts, and a whistle around his neck that completed the lifeguard look.

Penny was already smiling like a fool, but her smile was ripped out of her face by Kurt’s words. “Beat it creep. If I see you harassing Penny or any of the girls from the swim team I’ll beat your ass.”

‘Oh God no.’ Why did Kurt have to be an idiot and harass Sheldon? Penny had liked Kurt a lot and now she was going to have to beat his ass.

Penny was already turning to apologize to Sheldon, expecting to see him frightened but against her expectations he looked as cool as a cucumber. “Fascinating. You and Jason Davies must share a common ancestor. Though I suppose it stands to reason it was from the Neanderthal branch seeing your protruding forehead.”

Penny gaped at Sheldon, he had just insulted Kurt without any kind of fear. Now she most definitely was going to have to kick Kurt’s ass if he tried to hurt Sheldon. But Kurt only looked confused, she’s not sure if at the words or at the lack of fear from his would-be victim.

“What did you just say to me?” No anger in Kurt’s voice, just honest confusion.

“Language is both a blessing and a curse. I suppose in your case it’s more of the latter than the former. Allow me to try and simplify this so even you can understand-” Sheldon’s words are cut off by Kurt hauling up by the front of his jacket and Penny has seen enough.

“Let. Him. Go. Kurt.” Penny comes between them and she tries to remove Kurt’s hand from Sheldon’s jacket but Kurt is built like a brick house and she's not having much luck.

“Wait, Penny? You’re on this freak’s side?” Kurt can’t understand why she’s getting in the way, he’s supposed to be the hero.

“He’s my friend Kurt, now let him go before I kick your ass.”

Kurt doesn’t get the chance to respond. A heavy hand on his shoulder and a very unamused voice interrupts him. “Young man, let go or I will make you let go.” Two campus security officers are flanking Kurt and one even has a baton out. Kurt is many things but totally stupid is not one, Kurt finally lets go of Sheldon.

Sheldon is not even looking anxious, he is more concerned about his jacket being crumpled than being moments away from being punched.

“Are you okay Sheldon?” It was way too early for this.

“I am. Thank you for your concern Penny. And for defending me.” Shy smile directed her way.

Penny looks back at Kurt and the officers but he’s already being escorted away. ‘Goddammit Kurt’ It seemed that Kurt hadn’t quite figured out that this was no longer High School. Penny made a mental note to let Tamika know that Kurt was no longer an option and she was not interested in that date anymore.

“No worries Sweetie, I got you. Now, how about we go somewhere else? Oh! I know, I’ve been meaning to go to the Aquarium, wanna go?” Penny shakes her car keys at him and mirrors Sheldon’s eager smile.

They spend the first half of the day at the aquarium and Penny has to admit that she had a great time. Sheldon was like her own walking encyclopedia, he had knowledge about seemingly every subject.

She also learned that Sheldon loved fish, but he was particularly fascinated by the glowing jellyfish. He talked her ear off about how very soon in the future people could have fish that acted as night lights and Penny could only shake her head at him. He was really cute in an innocent way.

They had a quick lunch at a McDonald’s and since the Zoo was right there, they might as well spend the rest of the day there. Penny refused to acknowledge the flutter in her at seeing Sheldon smile at the baby koalas. Nope, no flutter there.

“Hey Sheldon, want to go grab dinner before breaking off?”

“Oh my, it’s already this late. Yes please.”

And that’s how they end up at the only Chinese restaurant near the University. Penny thinks this is a great time to continue with some of the conversation from earlier since they mostly talked about fish and animals until now.

“So, Sheldon, since your family is back in Texas, where are you living at right now?" She was curious about this, he seemed like a sheltered boy.

“I have an apartment at the Swivel building.”

“Wait, the one next to the Target? And you live alone?”

“That is correct, on both accounts.”

Sheldon liked to surprise Penny a lot. The Swivel building was a high end apartment building. Penny had gone there once for a party and it was an amazing building…and expensive as heck.

“Wait, who is paying for it?”

“The University.” And he went back to this Orange chicken like it was the most normal thing to do.

“Sheldon…are you smart-smart? Like super smart?”

For the first time since meeting him Penny can see Sheldon blush and look away shily. “...yeah.”

Damn, if she had been a better student she could have gotten a scholarship and an apartment like Sheldon here but no, she had to be dumb.

“That’s awesome Sheldon.” And it really was, he was so sweet but he looked lonely. Well, he now had Penny as a friend and wouldn’t have to be alone anymore. “Hey Sheldon, I was going to invite you to my dorm room tomorrow to ask for your help on some math stuff, but since you live alone can we meet in your apartment? I’ll buy us lunch as thanks.”

“I suppose that is acceptable.” And just like that she had a date with Sheldon. ‘No. Not a date-date. A study-date, as in friends studying together.’

Penny dropped Sheldon off at his building and made plans to meet him the next day. She kept smiling on her way to the dorm. It was fun to simply go out with a boy without him trying to grope her inappropriately or try and convince her that her car is the perfect place to hook up.

She was looking forward to Saturday already.

***

Coming back to her dorm Tamika jumped on her as soon as she crossed the door.

“Have you heard?!” Tamika had her ‘I’ve got good gossip’ face.

“About what?”

“Kurt!”

Penny grimaced “Ugh, no thanks. No longer interested in that double date.” Penny waved her hand and moved out of Tamika’s grasp.

“What? No. Kurt is gone.”

At that Penny stopped and turned to look at the other girl “Gone?”

“He got himself expelled!”

“Holy crap! How?” Kurt must have attacked the officers or something, damn, she dodged a bullet.

“Apparently he attacked a faculty member!” Tamika looked happy to be able to be the one to break the news.

“No way!” Penny was shocked. Kurt really was that dumb, after his confrontation with Sheldon he must have gone berserk and attacked a professor or something.

“Yes way! And Jack says that Kurt was weeping and apologizing.”

“Nuts. I actually saw him this morning. I was with a friend sitting on the bleachers you know?”

“Of course, Swim Team practice.”

“Exactly, so we were there and Kurt comes and pulls my friend from the front of his jacket and next moment I see Campus security dragging Kurt away, he must have been brought in front of the dean or something afterwards for him to get expelled.”

“Holy shit, he caught you ‘macking with someone?”

“Errr, no. We were just talking and I don’t like how that word sounds, don’t use it.”

“Why not? My dad uses it.” Tamika pouted.

Penny shudders “Ew, no, it sounds gross. And not the point. We were just talking and Kurt was trying to, I don’t know, be an Alpha male or something. And my poor sweet friend almost got punched.”

“Oh damn, that’s who you were out with? Your ‘friend’?” Tamika did air quotes and had a shit eating grin on her face.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s not like that. This is a sweet boy from the science courses, if you weren’t dating Jack I would have played matchmaker with you two so you could talk science to each other. Poor guy is all alone.”

“Oh wow, I was joking but it sounds like you’re crushing on this guy.”

“Nah. I could never, he’s too sweet for me.”

“Does this mystery friend have a name?”

“His name is-” A pounding at the door interrupts her.

“Baaaabe, c’mon, let’s go!”

“Coming!” Tamika had a set of pipes. “I had a date with Jack…but do you want to come with us?” Penny really loved her roommate but she couldn’t miss the look of ‘please don’t actually say yes’ on her face. Someone was getting busy tonight and it wasn’t Penny.

“Go, have fun. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yay! You’re the best. Don’t wait up.”

A quick kiss on the cheek and Tamika is gone. That girl was falling in love and didn’t even realize it. Jack was from the Athletic training program as well but unlike Kurt was taking school seriously. He wanted to be a rehab specialist and Tamika was falling head over heels for him.

Why couldn’t Penny find that as well? Was it really so hard?.

Before going to bed Penny made sure to put everything she needed to do work in her bag. Sheldon was already willing to help her so it was better to be prepared. Right before falling asleep Penny realized she never agreed on a time to meet with Sheldon. Good thing she had at least asked for his apartment number.

‘You got lucky Penny. You dodged a bullet with Kurt and made a friend.’ That was Penny’s last thought before falling asleep.

***

Ever since coming to college, Penny would try to sleep in as much as possible. No longer being in the farm meant she no longer had to wake up at ungodly hours to help around with chores. Not having the breakfast shift at the Factory meant Penny slept in until noon. And today was no different, she woke up at 11 with some change and by 11:45 she was ready to start her day.

And yeah, while Sheldon was not interested in her in THAT way, she still has her pride so she’s wearing cute jeans and a blouse with some cleavage because…okay, she was just curious and wanted to see if Sheldon would take a peek. Just healthy curiosity, that’s all.

Penny is debating whether to buy something to eat or not but the grumbling in her tummy makes the decision for her. A short stop for a donut and crappy coffee and she’s ready to finally go to Sheldon's apartment. She’s glad that they never agreed on a time because by the time she arrived at his apartment door, it was closer to 1 than to 12.

*Knock, Knock*

“Good afternoon Penny.” Sheldon was still dressed the same way as the other times she saw him. Penny was hoping that during weekends he would be a jeans and tee kind of guy.

“Hey Sheldon!”

The apartment is immaculate, as in scary clean. Poor guy must be afraid of dirtying the place up. She puts her bag on a chair and looks around for any pictures or posters but there’s nothing like that.

“The walls look a little bare there Sheldon. Not one for decorating?”

“Ah, this is only a temporary residence. I will not be using it after 3 months so I find it unnecessary to decorate.”

Ouch, so he was not here permanently, it made sense, it was the start of the semester so the dorms were full to the brim, Penny had gotten lucky and scored hers pretty early on. And if Sheldon was as smart as she suspected then that meant the school was probably waiting for one of the single dorm rooms to become available for Sheldon to move in. Lucky bastard, those dorms had their own showers. ‘Maybe I can convince him to let me use his shower?’

“I see, too bad, this is a fantastic apartment.”

“It is satisfactory I must admit. Would you like a beverage?”

And that’s how Penny finds herself doing homework and advancing on her sketching class on a Saturday afternoon instead of going to a party or getting drunk. This is the shocking part, Penny is having fun.

Sheldon truly made for a great tutor. Penny was getting the hang of how to ask him questions. He did horribly with indirect questions or requests, but if you told him straight up what you needed, he immediately adjusted. It was a nice change of pace.

She only made him mad once while he helped her and it was for a very unexpected reason.

“I don’t get it. Maybe I am really stupid.”

“Penny.” It’s his serious tone that makes her look up from her notebook “You are not stupid.” Sheldon’s blue eyes are bright and full of something she can’t identify. It makes her laugh nervously, she hadn’t really noticed how blue his eyes were.

“Sorry, bad joke.” Penny mumbles.

Sheldon makes sure she gets it. He is very intense when helping her but Penny likes it, if only her teachers were like this she wouldn’t feel like a failure so often. So what if she needs a little more help than others, it doesn't make her stupid.

And it’s because it’s on her mind that she blurts out the question to Sheldon.

“Sheldon…Do you think there’s a place for me here, in college?”

Sheldon’s face focuses on her fully, he is frowning in confusion. “What do you mean? Everyone has a place in College.”

“No, no. I meant…well, it’s just that, I feel like I struggle more than others at this stuff. Even now I’m asking for your help when I see all my classmates just do this without any difficulty. And, and, and I chose this Major because I thought it would help me become an actress but no, and…I just wonder if I should keep going.”

Penny can’t look at Sheldon directly, she’s doodling nonsense on her notebook. She’s not even sure why she asked him.

“Why wouldn’t it help you become an actress?” She finally looks up and Sheldon is not looking at her funny or giving her pitying looks. Sheldon is giving her his full attention and taking her seriously.

“I mean, it can?”

“Of course it can, a BFA or a MFA can go a long way in helping you, or you can join the drama club and get theater experience which can be invaluable for obtaining future roles. As for options outside of college you can go to acting classes, there’s also summer programs that foster upcoming actors.” Sheldon’s intense look makes it impossible for Penny to look away. “Experience is important, and University can give you that room to obtain it, while also giving you the opportunity to network with people in the acting business. Many actors have been discovered thanks to theater clubs, improv groups or low budget films. You are already on the correct road.”

Penny felt like crying, this is all she wanted to hear. Not her mom calling her stupid for wanting to act, not her dad looking at her in disappointment. Not her high school friends laughing at her dream and not the condescending looks of boys that just wanted to get in her pants.

“Thank you.” Penny’s voice was watery but the smile she gave him was all happiness.

Needing to take a break she offered to go pick up lunch and Sheldon agreed. Since she was buying she told him it would be a surprise but seeing him start to get uncomfortable Penny cracked and told him she was going to get Italian subs which seemed to calm him down.

As she went to pick up lunch Penny had to admit that Sheldon was more mature than what she had given him credit for. He didn’t laugh at her dream and reassured her that she was doing the right thing, maybe she could stick with college for a little longer.

Penny smiled all the way to the restaurant.

Thankfully the place was not busy so she’s back to Sheldon’s place rather quickly. Sheldon liked the sandwich enough to ask her where she got it from, so that’s a win in her book. After lunch Penny is not quite ready to go back to studying.

“Hey Sheldon, don’t you miss your family?” She stretches her legs as she sits on his couch.

“I miss my Meemaw and my mother.”

Penny frowns slightly, “What about your twin sister?”

“Missy and I have drifted apart. Same with my older brother and his wife…and their daughter.” There’s a tone of something in his voice.

“But you miss them.”

“...I find myself thinking about them.” Now Sheldon is the one having difficulty looking at her.

“My mom isn’t a great person. She keeps drinking until she passes out, my dad resents her for it but does nothing. Coming to college was like a breath of fresh air, I was finally free from them. And even with all that, I find myself missing them at times.” Penny usually needs to be drunk to tell someone this. “They were shitty parents, but they still are my parents.”

The silence in the room is heavy.

“Missy and Georgie both resented me from a young age. It was easier to breach that gap when we were younger, however, as we grew older we were unable to do the same. My brother had his own family to worry about of course, but Missy…I miss what we had when we were younger.” Sheldon looks resigned and sad.

“Can you tell me about your Meemaw?”

Sheldon’s face immediately brightens and he tells her about his Meemaw, the woman with the underground casino, about her love for cigarettes and R-rated movies, teaching Sheldon how to shoot, teaching him how to bake cookies and how she tried and failed to teach him how to lie.

Penny can see it, a young Sheldon sticking to his Meemaw’s side in a house full of people that couldn’t understand him.

Penny told him about growing up trying to be the perfect son until her breasts started growing and her dad basically stopped talking to her. About Junior Rodeo and how even to this day she sort of misses it. And how she didn’t miss the farm work but did miss the animals.

Sheldon told her about his father. Sheldon had loved his father, but then he lost his job and that changed him. It made him drink a lot more and it made him cruel, his mother the recipient of most of it. When his dad died it had come as more of a relief for the entire family, but that only fractured it even more.

Penny had been right about Sheldon, he was lonely.

But not anymore, he had Penny. They would kill it at UNO and college life.

Studying and homework goes out the window after that talk.

They simply get to know each other. Penny tries to teach Sheldon the greatness of Rom-coms while Sheldon tries to get her to give Star Trek a chance. They end up watching The Lord of the Rings on Sheldon’s couch and Penny hates to admit that she’s into it.

Sheldon got her good, she loves the friendship between Frodo and Sam, it’s unfair how hot Arwen is and once Aragorn and Legolas come into play that’s all Penny needs to love the movie. She’s heartbroken to find out it’s only the first film of a trilogy that is not even fully out yet.

“Sheldon! We need to go watch that movie when it comes out!”

“Funny that you mention it, it’s slated to premiere next month in cinemas.”

“Yay, then we gotta go.”

“Very well Penny.” Sheldon gave her another shy smile. This boy needed to smile more.

“Thank you very much for today Sheldon, I’ll get out of your hair now.”

“Out of my hair? But you haven’t touched my hair.”

“No, I mean, I’ll go back to my dorm now.”

“Ah, I see. I’ll walk you to the door.” Penny made sure to not forget anything and was soon standing outside of Sheldon’s door. “So, thank you again Sheldon. Goodnight.”

“You’re welcome Penny. Goodnight.” And he closed the door on her face.

Penny pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at the closed door. She wasn’t expecting Sheldon to invite her to spend the night, but he hadn’t even peeked at her cleavage. It didn’t sit right with her, made her feel like she was losing. ‘Okay Penny, kinda messed up thinking there.’

Maybe Sheldon just wasn’t interested. Maybe he was gay. ‘Yeah, it’s probably that.’

***

Penny didn’t see Sheldon again until Tuesday morning. It was another practice day for the Swimming club and when she arrived at the bleachers Sheldon was already there, writing something on a notebook.

“Hey Sheldon, mornin’ “ She tried to not yawn and failed.

“Hello Penny. Good morning.”

Penny smiled at him, she was glad he was coming here so early to meet with her. Maybe Sheldon could be her gay best friend.

They sat side by side, Sheldon working on his notebook while Penny watched the male members of the club practice. As soon as they were done Penny tapped Sheldon’s knee with her own. “Hey Sheldon, let's go get breakfast, my treat. I want a breakfast burrito.”

Sheldon jumped a little at her touch but did not say anything about the tap. At least he finally looked up from his notebook. “A breakfast burrito does sound…” and he just trailed off looking at where the pool was.

Penny turned and the first thing she saw was the women from the club walking towards the other end of the pool. Sheldon was looking at them. Well, to be more exact, he was looking at their asses.

‘Huh, so much for a gay best friend.’

Feeling a bit annoyed, Penny snapped her fingers in front of Sheldon’s face until he looked at her. The blush on his face meant he knew he was caught.

“Enjoying the view?” Penny raised her eyebrows.

Sheldon grimaced, blush still prominently on his face. “I apologize Penny. I got distracted. We were discussing going for breakfast burritos.”

“I mean, I was. You were trying to-” Sheldon yelped.

“A breakfast burrito sounds like an excellent idea. Let��s go.” And he grabbed her by the hand to pull her towards the parking lot, his face red all the way to her car. ‘Wackadoodle.’

The ride to McDonalds was quiet, but once they had their respective breakfast burritos and they were sitting on a bench outside the McDonald’s Penny decided to mess with Sheldon.

“So…you’re an ass man.” Not a question.

Sheldon glared at her but Penny just glared back. “Penny. Liking women with good birthing hips is a biological response and-”

“That’s a yes then.”

Sheldon glared at her and she could see a small twitch on his cheek. He did not reply to her and took another bite of his burrito.

“I mean, that’s perfectly fine. I was just wondering why you weren’t-”

“Penny. I will be more than happy to assist you with your next assignment if you let this matter rest.”

Penny put a finger to her chin, pretending to think it over. Sheldon did look embarrassed and she had gotten her answer about why he didn’t peek at her cleavage, Sheldon was an ass man.

“Okay. Deal.” Penny stood up and dusted off her jean-clad butt more forcefully than it was necessary, but she never took her eyes off from Sheldon and sure enough, his eyes were on her butt as she dusted imaginary dirt from it. ‘Oh yeah, an ass man.’

“Hey buster! My eyes are up here.” Penny couldn’t keep the laughter out of her voice. Sheldon simply glared at her.

***

Penny had dropped off Sheldon at the sciences building, he said that he had a class to prepare for and that was fine, Penny was meeting Tamika at the cafeteria anyway. Even with Kurt gone the other girl had forced Penny to go with her to the ‘Boy Genius’ class.

It was fine, Penny could lose one hour of her life on this. Not to mention that it would make Tamika owe her one.

‘Dammit, I should have brought Sheldon over. The class he was talking about must have been the Boy Genius one.’

Finding Tamika was easy, the girl was a damn supermodel, you only had to follow the drool marks. “Let’s go girl. Boring class time.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me. This most likely will be a disaster. At least it’s only one class, the rest of his lectures will be for undergrads.” They walked together to the sciences building and Penny was not so discreetly looking for Sheldon. “What are you doing Penny?”

“Looking for my friend, he most likely will be attending this class as well and I wanted to see if he would sit with us.”

“Okay, cool. At least with someone else we can gossip.”

No signs of Sheldon on the way to the classroom and neither in the classroom itself. Sheldon was tall and not easy to miss. ‘Huh, maybe Math majors don’t have interest in this class.’

Giving up on finding Sheldon, she and Tamika found a place near the back of the classroom. If this guy was as much of an asshole as Tamika had described him then it was best to stay away.

Little by little the classroom filled until there was no place to sit, but even that didn’t stop people, they were standing up and pressing close to each other like sardines.

“It’s a shame you couldn’t meet Sheldon, he’s crazy for this type of stuff.”

“Yea-wait, you said Sheldon?”

An authoritative voice interrupted further talking. It was rare for the Dean to address them, this only reinforced that this was not a normal situation. “Listen up everyone. I want you all to pay close attention. UNO was very lucky to be able to get Dr. Cooper for these 3 months. Take advantage of it and don’t waste Dr. Cooper’s time.”

‘Huh, Cooper like Sheldon, small world.’

“Dr. Cooper. The floor is yours.”

And there, emerging from the back of the dean Penny saw her new friend, the boy that had helped her with homework, that introduced her to Lord of the Rings and the boy that was checking her ass this morning.

“My name is Dr. Sheldon Cooper and I’m here to try and teach you the wonderful world of physics. I am certain that my lectures will be wasted on you, but alas, I shall still provide them.”

Holy crap on a cracker. Sheldon was an asshole…

#shenny #fanfiction #ao3 #the big bang theory #penny tbbt #sheldon cooper

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stormblessed95 · 3 years ago

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My Thoughts While Watching Memories 2020 Disc 4

Continuing my thoughts as I watch memories 2020 as requested. Again, most of these are just random thoughts, 70% of them started out as texts to @1imstillme3 that I'm copy/pasting over. I'm loving getting to watch all the behind content so far! This again, isn't even close to everything that happened in each of these videos, just some parts that stood out to me and made me smile. If you don't want any memories spoilers or to see what happens in the clips, stop reading now! Lol Disc 4 was long, so it's just the one Disc this time!

Dynamite MV Making Film:

NamGi dancing for their scene together was the cutest thing, their giggles. Yoongi and the basketball. I love him. And then Jungkook just telling us "no matter what you do, you need to have the spirit to challenge yourself" protect him forever please.

Jimin summoning Jungkook for demerits and punishment at the deans office for breaking a light during the Dynamite MV shoot 🤣 the light that only got broken because JinKook were fighting over who gets to sit where apparently 😂 I don't know if I should giggle at Jinkook or side eye Jimins choice of role-play here.

Tae slapping JKs chest multiple times to get JK to focus and pay attention for them all to end day 2 with a fighting to the camera. But it takes multiple hits because JK was watching Jimin laughing and smiling 🥺🥺 None of the members except Tae were really giving the camera any attention here. Lol he just wanted everyone to focus please and thank you 😂

Namjoon saying that you could be reported for acting like he did in the record store in a real store in Korea so don't do it. Lmao no loitering please 😂 He is so precious.

Tae having a crisis over picking sunglasses and JinKook just fighting each other the entire time in the background. And another case of the Tannies giving Tae everything he wants. "If Tae says we go again, we all go again, no worries TaeTae baby" They love him 🥺

They didn't show us any behind clips of jikook after Jimin jumped on his back for the piggy back ride and I'm so sad because I'm sure that was a giggly cute mess of a reaction!

Dynamite Dance Practice Making Film:

Jimin starting off practice by singing Dynamite to Hobi, flirting with JK, vmin hugging as their Dynamite entrance. Hobi helping Yoongi correct a dance move, RM helping Jimin with flowing smoothly over the English lyrics. Jimin rapping Yoongis part. Just so much fun for Day 1.

Day 2 started with chaos. NamKook crawling all over the floor and running into Jimin. Jimin copying JK as he practices his opening dance. Jimin having too much energy and Goofing off. JK just watching him fondly before joining in and doing their weird lift move that even left the editors confused and had Hobi giggling. Ending with Jin hanging off JKs back, with his arm shaking from the effort of keeping himself up there as JK laughs. Lol Vmin warming up by Tae beat boxing and Jimin dancing to it. JK singing while laying face first on the group. Namjoon yelling. Why are they like this??

Final day ends with Anpanman practice too. Tae is wearing his shirt all tucked in so JK can't wave it around like he normally does. So he instead all cutesy plops his head down onto Taes shoulder to get into the selca (video?) that Tae was taking at the start. They were so busy. Doing Dynamite, boy with luv, anpanman, black swan and idol practices! Idol was full of so many giggles and smiles as they practiced. I loved it

Grammy Press Play & 2020 MTV Awards Making Films:

I've yet to see a video from memories so far that hasn't had some type of JinKook sparring moment. Lol JK tapped his butt, Jin responded with a punch, and then off they went as Jimin stood in the middle of them just trying to do some vocal warm ups. Lmao Everyone else: getting ready for the performance. Jungkook: pretending to swim underneath the stage.... whatever makes you happy

Tae, Jungkook and Hobi giggling over Tae's over the top moves in the performance and taekook watching the playback to giggle over it more

Yoongi playing the guitar, JK saying he always hears the guitar at sets now. He says that he will start painting as his new hobby and sell his paintings and donate 50% of the profits. Lmao imagine the killing he would make if he ever decided to do that for real

TaeTae struggling with the spice in their food and the way he side eyes Namjoon for having no problems with it. Lmao we know they normally have similar tastes in food with spice levels. The way Tae doubled down to eat it anyway though. And Joonie playing right along with the CEOs at a bar skit Tae started 🥺

They kill every performance they do. Honest to goodness. Hobi had all of one line in Dynamite and yet Dynamite Hobi was a whole cultural reset. He owned this era and shined!

Today Citi Music Series Making Film:

Namjoon calling Yoongi his Uparupa. STOP 😭 he proceeded to introduce the members by animal (?) Jin as an alpaca, then Jungkook was introduced as our Muscle Man. Hobi as their baby horse dancer, Tae was introduced as "our unscientific, we call him V" I don't know what that means. Lol and then he called Jimin his puppy. He claimed Yoongi and Jimin as his though 😭 even though his puppy was too busy to play. Man. We aren't even 2 minutes into this video and I am SOFT.

Do you remember Tae recommending ARMY jobs on Weverse? Turns out he was roping all the members into helping with that too. Jungkook twice at first, then Hobi, then RM, then Jin 🥺🥺 so funny and so cute. Technically all those ARMYs got noticed by all the members too then

"We are friends who shed hot sweat together" Well alright then. Lmfao okay Jin! Interesting way to say that

JK running around popping all the prop balloons with goofy jumps and punches and jabs with the needle in his hand is the cutest thing. He had such a good time!

2020 iHeartRadio Music Festival Making Film:

Kookie saying he wants the Dynamite lights. JHope replying that "you can hang them up in YOUR home" honestly, anyone who thinks they still live together is simply lying to themselves. Lol I truly hope this isn't something to be debated about anymore. It's increasingly obvious over and over again.

The hand holding of Jimin and Jungkook where they twirled around each other? Lmao the caption was "hand holding and swirling. Jimin and Jungkook's friendly way of warming up" 🤣🤣 Then editors judging Namjoon for doing Burpees before their performance to warm up 🤣🤣 "who does burpees as a warm up??"

V showing off new dance steps to Hobi and looking at him all proud for his reaction 🥺 why are they the cutest

Jikook talking about their old bus routes in Busan and Jin just trying to start shit about being taller than Jimin but getting ignored 😂JK forcing his way onto the hood of the car to sit with Jin and then reviewing the choreo in tiny together 🥺 Followed by 3J cracking themselves up by taking bad and silly photos of RM and Jin through the screen while they shot their extra scenes 😂🤣

Reviewing Spring Day footage, JK starts imitating Tae's singing voice sending maknae line into giggle fits together 🥺 Everyone talked about the moment where Jimin called JK pretty with the petals in his hair (yes, I agree. I melted) but why did I never notice the sweet staff member giving Hobi a shoulder massage right next to them 🥺

Tae once again asking Jiminie to help him with an acrobatic move. Lmao I love them. And in all the bts chaos, the tiny makeup Noona is absolutely in charge. Stopping Jimin from continuing just by standing in front of him with her comb for his hair. 😂

14 hours?! To shoot 4 songs!! Omfg they work so hard 😭

Grammy Museum: The Drop & NPR Tiny Desk Making Film:

Jikook staring at Tae who is singing facing the back wall for some reason during rehearsals 😂Jimin hyping us his bestie with the biggest grin as Tae nails the ending notes for Dynamite 🥺 RM kneeling and holding his hands out as Tae sings it too. They love him!!

Hobi pointing out Halseys LP record while they are getting ready for NPR "saying it's our friend, Halsey" all proud 🥺

HopeKook literally decided to harmonize that part on Save Me on NPR legit right before they recorded the songs. WHY ARE THEY SO TALENTED?!

3J being the first ones to get up and dance during Save Me rehearsals. Jungkook looking right at Jimin before doing exaggerated dance moves with the Save Me choreo and making Jimin giggle was so cute. Then Vmin scooting their chairs back and turning them around the watch the band rehearse their spring day parts too. I love how much they enjoy their band!

I love Yoongi. That's it. That's the note. That's all he needs to do is exist and I'm in total awe of him. Sigh....

AGT Making Film:

Hobi was so worried about Namjoon shooting on the roof for AGT. lol said he was worried because it was Namjoon up there. 😂 Yoongi just standing pretty patiently waiting for his lines on the hood of the car 😍😂

Jimin directing the head bopping from JK, Jin and Hobi that'll be happening behind him for his part when I never even knew they were back there at all during the performance 🙈 I was way too focused on Jiminie the whole time. Honestly though, I also had a very hard time not looking at Hobi through this whole video segment.

Taking a break for food and Jimin just taking like 10 photos of Yoongi eating dying over his cuteness the whole time. Relatable, Jimin. So Relatable. I get it. Lol also JK feeding Jiminie, so cute. JinMin continually photobombing JK is my favorite 😂🤣 They filmed AGT performance in 2.5 hours at 1 in the morning 😭 I'm glad they gave them such yummy snack breaks at least. They work soooo hard.

The Tonight Show BTS WEEK Making Film:

1 minute into the tonight show filming. Home is first. Jimin starts us off. And when it's RMs turn the captions say "RM has appeared in Jimin's dream." At the end, They asked whose home it was, JK asked if it was Hobi hyungs home? RM said no, it's Jimin's home. Jimin said "isn't it my home?" And they ended with "Jimin will clean this up since it's his home" 🤣 Still interesting that while some didn't know, and it was obviously a joke, the producers and editors, RM and Jimin too, all seemed well aware it was being portrayed as Jimins home and his dreams as we went through the house and song. And in Jimins dream and in his home, it was Jikook in bed and house parties/couch cuddles with the members. 🤐🤐

Not them all trying to sneaky stick marshmallows to each other's clothes through the set!

Yoongi saying that he was remembering their early days and now they are performing at Gyeongbokgung palace 🥺😭

Not TaeJin saying RM should change his name to Bathroom Monster or Rap Toilet because he always goes to the bathroom right when they are ready to start shooting 😭😭🤣🤣🤣 and then the way Jin tries to talk to the camera and you just hear No no no no from the back before HopeKook come running into the frame and start trying to take over the camera angle. And while they end up bickering, Tae ends up just walking off with it and talking to us instead 🤣 Why are they like this??

Jungkook playing with skates. "Ah, this should fit Jimin" please they are always on each other's mind! Tae smiling at Jimin as he cleans the floor for his Dynamite intro and Jimin looking so so fond back at him 🥺 Vmin please

The skating chaos ending with everyone is exhausted but Jimin and jungkook are still having fun with the skates. And it cuts to them skating super fast around the rink together with big smiles and giggles. It's always them staying late and continuing the fun things together and just loving life together 🥺🥰😍 Jimin ending with a cool spin. Jungkook copying him. And then Tae praising Jimin and telling him how cool his spin was and asking him to show him again. And Jimin showing him again to more praise before they start getting told that shooting with skates is over. Lol they are so sweet.

They were getting ready for black swan and it was MIDNIGHT. They work so late. Midnight though on Namjoons birthday, so all getting ready progress halted for everyone to tell him happy birthday and sing to him. Hobi gave hugs and vmin gave him kisses 🥺🥺 Jimin reaching around and over and through the 3 makeup noonas surrounding him and trying to continue to get him ready to keep a hand on Namjoon sitting next to him and tell him happy birthday again 🥺🥺🥺 which probably wasn't helpful for them, but it was cute. Lmao

Jin giggling over getting to tell Hobi he saw him make a mistake in the Black Swan choreo instead of it being the other way around. Lmao 2seok is so cute, I cannot.

The jikook black swan back hug gets me everytime 🥰 But the very end of the video is literally BTS dog piling BTS in jumping hugs shouting happy birthday 🥺🥰 I love them!

Radio.com Live Making Film:

Lmao starts right off with preparing for Dynamite and Namjoon randomly yelling at Jimin saying that the High pitch on Dynmaite is his fault and Jimin getting all confused. Yoongi practicing guitar anywhere and everywhere in the middle of Bangtan chaos makes me so soft.

Jimin checking out JK working out, literally leaning all the way around Namjoon to watch him for a second, before joining the NamKook workout regime Jimin cutely tapping JKs chest during their Dynamite part to get his attention and the editors using couple slang as a caption for them (꽁냥 꽁냥 = gong-yang ggong-nnyang) which basically just means when a couple has cute and adorable behaviors towards each other. But then off setting that with the caption at the bottom saying "best friends" lmao

Jimin warming up by doing crawling push ups across the floor as Namjoon shouted encouragements from the side with a giant proud smile on his face 🤣😂 this crawling warm up all over memories is cracking me up

Hobi getting insanely excited and happy while rolling around on a skateboard and picking up his coffee. I love him. He followed that up by going to go bug Jimin. Lol Jimin trying to play games on his phone and Hobi just wants to take a million pictures of him.

The "they look especially close today" caption when Jimin went in for a kiss still gets me 😂 and The clip of the camera going back and forth between jikook and they make silly faces? Hobi was filming that one! And it ended with a zoom in on RM joining in on the camera silliness 🥺 so cute.

Yoongi looked so fond and smiled so cute at Tae as he was talking about the Billboard Music Awards during their ending mentions.

I'm loving memories so far! I've still got discs 5 - 7 to go. This again, is obviously not everything that happens, a lot happens! These are some of my thoughts over the moments that I noticed though. I can keep going as I watch more content with these posts if yall want. Hope you all have a wonderful day/night! 💜

#my Thoughts over bts memories so far #jikook in memories 2020

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justasparkwritings · 3 years ago

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Troll In Luv: Part 2

Previous: Troll in Luv Pt. 1

Pairing: Park Jimin x Reader

Genre: Enemies to Lovers / Exes to Lovers; Non-Idol AU, Angst eventual Fluff

Rating: PG-17

Word Count: 5.3k

Warnings: Swearing, Making Out, Kissing

Summary: Your hand is forced, and the only way to come out on top is to reckon with your ex and apologize for past transgressions... er tweets.

Note: This fic is dedicated to, written for, the incomparable @xjoonchildx, who I have been lucky enough to be paired with. A major fan, this was an intimidating endeavor, and I’m kind of in love with what I’ve created for her. And if she hates it it’s totally trash... jk. mostly.

This piece is for the #thebtswritersclub fic exchange!

Banner by me.

Tag List (is this how you do it no ones ever asked before): @unicornbabylover

Thursday: Jimin’s Apartment

Jimin hadn’t just moved on up, he’s leveled up completely. Gone were the Ikea pieces that he’d spent hours assembling, only to realize they’d given him the wrong part and he’d had to trek back to the store to rectify it. Gone were the plastic plates and cups he’d collected from Penny Pitchers at the bar across campus. Gone were the free t-shirts and dance company sweats he’d torn or cut to make them more comfortable for practice.

In their place, Jimin had picked out custom fabrics to cover his chairs, found small batch glass plates and bowls to line his open kitchen shelves. He’d sourced a Persian rug from a little hole in the wall shop that had been in the neighborhood for seventy years and had runners made from their remnants. He’d curated his space, and his wardrobe, to fit the Jimin he’d always been. Each piece made up for the times that he could only hold onto cheap knock offs, embarrassed when someone noticed a shirt he was wearing from a bag they’d donated to Goodwill.

Stepping into his space, it was hard not to gawk. Every inch of this apartment screamed maturity, knocking you off your feet. Had you been missing out on this for years? This Jimin, adult Jimin, was far more impressive than you’d realized. It was hard not to feel your heart hurting, yearning for the years you had been together, the moments shared, the love that had blossomed in your youth.

This was going to be more devastating than you realized.

“Can I get you something to drink?” Jimin asked. He took your jacket and purse, hanging them on the steampunk inspired coat rack.

“Um, water would be good, thanks,” You said, moving through the entry way to the kitchen. “How long have you lived here?”

“Uh, two years? But I just finished decorating maybe a month ago,”

“It’s incredible,”

“Thanks, how’s the magazine?”

“A fucking shit show,” You took the glass from his hands, careful not to let his fingers brush against yours.

“Hoseok mentioned that things have been getting more, challenging?”

“Yeah, that’s the nice way of putting it.”

“Hm,” Jimin hummed, sipping his own water.

“How’s your job? I don’t, I know Hoseok and Tae and Jungkook have told me about what you do, but, what do you do?” You phrased your question carefully, knowing precisely what he has been up to. You’ve seen his campaigns, his work on water bottles and stickers around the city, not to mention his designs being picked up by Target and thrown onto pillows, blankets and beach towels. He’d won an award last year for his artwork that had been picked up and used as the home screen on the most recent Mac Book, Mac Book Pro and Mac Book Air. He was being considered as a new graphic artist for Penguin Publishing, working on new book jackets as well as negotiating a seven-figure deal with Target, only to be outbid by Costco.

Jimin was everywhere, but he absolutely didn’t need to know that you knew that. He didn’t need to know how angry you were that neither of you actually ‘won’ your breakup.

“Well, I graduated with a degree in graphic design and a minor in dance. After I discovered I didn’t want to dance professionally, I got a job in graphics. I kept working on projects and three years ago started my own company. My work has been in a lot of different places, which, I’m sure you’ve seen,” Jimin sipped his water, pouted lips glistening as the liquid graced over them.

“Awfully cocky,” You smirked, long lasting Charlotte Tilbury, Glastonberry purple lipstick marking the glass.

“Or I know you well enough to know that you’ve been keeping tabs on me,” Jimin had no need to be cocky, he knew he was right. All he had to do was be confident.

“That’s an awfully big assumption for you to make. But it’s cool, it explains why your apartment is Architectural Digest ready. Unless, you have a girlfriend with excellent taste who designed it all,” You were baiting him, and in the internal monologue that never shut the fuck up, you were beating yourself up over the fact that Erin had been correct.

Jimin rolled his eyes, “Why don’t you just ask if I’m seeing someone?”

“Now why would I be that direct?” You questioned.

“You’ve been sitting behind a computer screen, trolling me for years instead of just talking to me. I should’ve expected you to find some roundabout way to ask if I’m single,” Jimin set his glass on the countertop and crossed his arms over his chest, defiance brooding in his dark eyes.

“Look, I know it’s fucked up, that I’m fucked up. It is the sole purpose of me going to therapy,” You explained.

“I would hope so,” Jimin scoffed. He’d never been indifferent to you, but you supposed you couldn’t expect anything less than anger after years of unwarranted harassment. Mentally, you kicked yourself over the fact that Claire had been right.

“Jimin,” You sighed.

“What?” He snapped.

“I’m sorry,” You stared into his softening eyes, the ones you’d spent years trying to replace, burning the memories into your retinas once again.

“Sorry for what?”

“For everything,”

“Care to be more specific?” He moved towards you, gliding from the far side of the kitchen to stand opposite you, elbows leaning against the cool granite of the countertop he custom ordered.

“I have loved you since we were fifteen, okay? When you left, when I left,” You sighed, there was never going to be a poetic or graceful way to lay out your tumultuous feelings, but you owed it to yourself to try. “I never told you how much I loved you, or how much it hurt when you just, you moved on so quickly, and I didn’t know how to tell you that I didn’t want you to. I didn’t want to break up, I didn’t want to fall into another cliché of high school sweethearts preemptively breaking each other into pieces because of college. I wanted us to be the cliché that lasted, that worked. But you just, I’ve been hurting for years and I didn’t think you’d care, because you didn’t back then, so why would you now?”

“So, you harassed me on the internet?” Jimin asked.

You rolled your eyes. “It didn’t start out that way,”

“How did it start?”

“Someone sent me a link to your profile, and I just, retweeted with a stupid comment and you responded. In my gut, I thought, I felt, that you knew it was me. Why else would you engage with it? You didn’t engage with anyone else,” Your rehearsed explanation made perfect sense, you’d spent years crafting it, tweaking the language, ensuring there were no loopholes.

“You checked?” Jimin’s smirk was back. Fuck him, it looked good against his angelic eyes.

“I’m a journalist, Jimin,”

“Still, you checked,”

“The point is, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’ve been needling you for years. I’m sorry I didn’t just tell you how much I loved you, I’m sorry I’ve been a massive bitch, rivaling only Heather Chandler. I’m sorry for not telling you sooner, and I’m sorry Claire wrapped you up in this stupid article that I am no longer participating in. I’m sorry that even after I changed my fucking Twitter handle and you knew it was me, that I kept being a mythic bitch. I’m sorry for being the villain in your life.”

“I’m sorry too,” Jimin rushed to say.

“What do you have to be sorry for?”

“I was a coward back then, too scared by what Yoongi and Namjoon said about dating in college. I should’ve, I should’ve fought for us more than I did.” He admitted.

It hadn’t taken him long to realize the colossal mistake he had made, but by then Yoongi and Joon had planted the seeds in his mind that no one in their right mind makes it with their high school sweetheart. What a naïve notion, to stay with the same person you’ve loved since puberty.

“Remember when you came back for my dad’s wedding?” You asked.

“I regret that,” Jimin told you.

“I cried for two days,”

“I’m sorry,” He couldn’t look at you, his years of unsaid apologies waiting behind his pouting lips.

“It was such a dick move.”

Jimin smiled softly, he had missed the way you over exaggerated your speech, adding emphasis to superlatives, the slight way your eyes rolled when you were trying to make a point. A habit you’d developed in high school, he was glad to see you hadn’t replaced it with a new inane ritual. He still very much liked this one, found it endearing even after years of missing out on it.

“I know,” He conceded.

“I can only assume it was on purpose.”

“It, yeah, yeah, Hoseok said you were getting cozy with Seokjin,” He explained.

“I was,” You nodded.

“Was?”

“He broke my heart, sometime after you showed up to New Years with what’s her name on your arm and proceeded to make the after-hours dance party in Dirty Dancing look like the Russian Ballet. Oh, and can’t forget you nearly fucking her in the kitchen as the ball dropped, which Yoongi made a very dirty joke about it.”

You hadn’t kept a list of all his transgressions… but you had kept a list of all his transgressions, all his missteps, all his calculated moves, only to plan your own counterstrike. Erin had been right, you had started the Twitter battle, but Jimin had poisoned the blood between you long before you tweeted about it.

“I was drunk,” He excused.

“You did it on purpose,” You rolled your eyes, Jimin had forgotten how cute that was too.

“I did,” He conceded.

“I wasn’t fucking Seokjin on the dance floor for everyone to see,” You tossed back the rest of your water, eyes glancing at the living room where a framed photo remained. Prom, you in his arms, Hoseok beside you, Namjoon eyeing Caitlin Anderson, his date that you had made a point to not allow in the photo. She wasn’t sticking around, why ruin your group pic? (Namjoon still was pissed about this, though he hadn’t spoken to her since he left for college.) You were all too preoccupied with rules to drink, do drugs or smoke, so while your classmates were getting wrecked, you went bowling until 2AM. Jimin had climbed into your bedroom, after supposedly dropping you off, and you’d promised each other the world.

It didn’t last through summer.

Jimin sighed, a hand running through his bleached locks, tugging gently at the ends. “You weren’t.”

“You didn’t have anything to prove, Jimin. I had already gotten the message. Too fucking loud and too fucking clear.” Your voice became small, the heart of your hurt, the source of your pain, bubbling up to the surface.

“What was that message?” Jimin noted the change in your dynamic, your hand moving to play with the earring in your top hole, twirling it thoughtlessly as your eyes drug themselves from your prom photo back to him.

“That you didn’t want me,” You whispered.

Jimin let it sit in the air, the real reason you had harassed him, the real reason you were sitting in his kitchen, tears forming, lip trembling. This entire time, you had thought he didn’t want you anymore, didn’t love you, didn’t think you were his sun and moon.

“Is that why Seokjin broke up with you?” He asked.

“That he didn’t want me?” You questioned. He was toeing the line, danger signs would’ve been flashing, horns and sirens wailing telling Jimin to back the fuck off.

“No, that you still wanted me,” He clarified.

“Yeah, something like that,” You mumbled.

“I wanted you too,” Jimin admitted.

“Bullshit,”

“You think I would bring around random girls if I didn’t think you would be there? That I would parade around, embarrassing myself, just to show off whoever was on my arm? Do you really think that little of me?” Jimin demanded, his anger that he’d long thought he’d worked through coming back to the surface. He was no longer calm, no longer sympathetic to your puppy dog eyes.

“Jimin, I don’t know what to think of you! You broke my heart because of something Yoongi said, Yoongi, who doesn’t date let alone love anyone other than Jungkook, and then proceeded to what, listen to Namjoon?” Standing from your seat, you pushed the stool back under the immaculate white countertop. “What the fuck did they know about our relationship that I didn’t? Why were they making decisions about us, us, you and me, Jimin? Why did they have power and I had none?”

“I was, I was scared,” He admitted, his voice meek against your thunderous admissions.

“Bullshit! I was scared, you were cavalier.”

“You don’t meet your person when you’re fifteen!” He yelled, anger coming to a head.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” You’re yelling back, returning decibel for decibel. Stool pushed back, hand through your hair, blazer coming off to reveal the cheetah print blouse underneath. It was too hot in his apartment, too hot to have this conversation sober, too hot to be staring at him, the man who knew everything, everything, about you. It was too much for him to be confessing that he was a pussy.

“No, I’m not,”

“Park Jimin, you fucking asshole.”

“I’m so-

“No, no you’re not. If you were sorry, you wouldn’t be standing in front of me, trying to pawn off your emotions as fodder in some naïve fallacy that says you can’t grow and mature with the person you love at fifteen. You are absolutely fucking unbelievable Jimin.” Untucking your shirt, you moved towards the living room and the open window.

“I’m so-

“Shut up! You don’t get it, do you?” You asked, the tears stinging your eyes begging to be released.

“Get what?” He muttered. You hear him plop down on the couch, and you know he’s slumped back, legs resting against the reclaimed wood coffee table, hands tucked behind his head, watching you.

“You, Jimin! Do you understand who you are?” You turned, the cool air soothing against your shoulders.

“I thought I did but apparently not, so enlighten me,” He requested.

“You love harder than anyone I’ve ever met. You crave love, you seek it out from your friends and family and yes, your girlfriends. You remember every detail, every expression, every glance carries weight in your eyes. You love the hardest, you hurt the deepest, and when you said you didn’t think we’d make it, what else was I supposed to do other than believe you?”

“I was an idiot! I was a child!” Jimin ran an unsteady hand through his locks, again, his nervous habit coming out in full force. “I was 18 and all I wanted was to elope, but I couldn’t because I had to make a name for myself. My parents demanded it from me, what was I to do, get lost in you? I was already drowning Y/N! All I breathed was you and fuck me if I wasn’t ready to commit to you but I knew you didn’t want to be the Topanga to my Cory so what could I do?”

“There are a lot of things you could’ve done! You could’ve said something to me. You could’ve been amicable. You could’ve shared your fears and your hopes with me, Jimin. You didn’t have to parade around with girlfriend after girlfriend and tell me you didn’t want us anymore!”

“I thought you were falling in love with someone else!” Jimin said.

“Why does it matter what I was doing? Whenever you saw me, did you see me flaunting my new relationship in your face? Why did you, why would you think that I was ever over you?”

“You were with Seokjin for two years,” Jimin answered, it wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth either.

“Oh, so I have a stable relationship and you assume it’s okay to be a dick?” You quipped. Sitting on the couch, your body relishes in the ease with which you let off a little tension.

“No, you had someone else,” Jimin turned, arm propped on the back of the couch, body facing yours.

“Doesn’t mean you had the right to treat me the way you did,” You hadn’t been this close to him in years, his breath mingling with yours. You could see the crinkles near his eyes, from moments when his laughter was the only thing on his mind.

“I wanted to marry you,” Jimin reached his hand towards yours, intertwining your fingers, still a perfect fit.

“But you didn’t,” You remind him.

“I haven’t,” Jimin’s eyes were set your hand, your ring finger naked, heated gaze willing a diamond to be made out of the hair around you.

“Jimin,”

“We’ve been here for hours, we’ve rehashed the past, but not once have you said why you kept trolling me,” He turned his eyes back to yours, pleading softly for you to tell him that what he thinks you mean is truth, not willful thinking.

“Because, Jimin. You’re so fucking dense sometimes,” You rolled your eyes, how did he not get it?

“Because isn’t an-

“I love you! You fucking asshole. I love you. I keep tabs on you because I’m still harboring some insanely poetic, pathetic, sociopathic love for you, Jimin. My first love, my only love. I know I’ve been a massive twat, I know it, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry for ruining the last five or so years of your life, I’m sorry for tweeting at you and about you. I’m sorry that I never said anything to you during college. I’m sorry I asked your mom not to tell you that we still talk. I’m sorry that I can’t seem to let you go. I’m sorry that I still love you.”

The tears fell freely, cascading down your cheeks and neck, path only interfered when Jimin brought your face into his hands, thumbs moving meticulously to wipe the falling droplets. He’d always loved cupping your cheeks, holding your face delicately between his hands. He loved the intimacy, the care, the inability to hide anything from each other.

“Marry me,” Jimin said, voice clear over your sobs.

“What?”

“Let’s go to city hall, get a license, let’s just, get married. Now, right now,”

“Jimin, we’ve hardly-

“I know my mom talks to you, she told me. She’s always told me. I still, I still talk to your dad, too. He texts me like once a week,” Jimin confessed.

“You do?” You couldn’t believe it, your parents knew too?

“I’ve always loved you, always. I knew-

“You asshole! You fucking suck! Why did you make me pour out my heart like this only to tell me you fucking knew? Was this a ruse? Oh my god, are you The Duke? Am I Daphne? Quick, make haste to the gallery wall in your hallway so we can stare at the photos of your years without me and pretend that our hands touching isn’t the sexiest thing to happen since Regé Jean Page boxed shirtless,” You rambled in between wiping your dripping nose against your blouse sleeve. Words spilled from you, tumbled out from your lips at a speed you hadn’t reached in years. Jimin always knew how to get you so worked up air seemed like a luxury.

Jimin stood to retrieve a tissue box from the bathroom.

“This wasn’t a ruse; I didn’t know you’d come over to talk about our relationship, our past. I was going to reach out I just, I thought you hated me.”

He sat back down, this time closer, knee bumping against yours, leaning in to speak in docile tones.

“When have I ever hated you?” You questioned.

“I can think of at least one hundred occasions where you’ve said that you have,”

“Such an-

“And you keep calling me names,” Jimin rolled his eyes. You’ve always loved how he rolled his eyes, subtle and gentle, but deadly and effective.

“I love you means you don’t have to say you’re sorry, so I won’t say it again,” You countered. You couldn’t hide the smile on your lips.

“But I’ll say it, because while you’ve been angrily tweeting me, a poor attempt at showing your feelings,” Jimin braced for the contact of your hand against his shoulder, a gentle hit, accompanied by your own eyeroll and scoff. “Listen, I too have been an asshole. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I do accept your apologies, and I do forgive you. I love you, always have,” Jimin had taken both your hands in his, and gently, he placed kisses on each of your knuckles.

“Jimin,” You murmured.

“What Y/N?”

“I accept your apologies. I love you, so much, and I’m sorry I wasted the last few years instead of just saying that I wanted us to try again.” You turned your hands over, mimicking his gesture by placing lingering kisses across the back of his hand.

“I’m sorry I didn’t fight for us during college. I’m sorry I brought girlfriends to family events, I’m sorry my actions made you think I stopped loving you.”

“You didn’t, right?” You peered up at him, lips leaving the palm of his left hand.

“Never,” Jimin held your gaze, watching as you sat up.

“Even when you were dating skanky girl number three, with the nose ring and the summer house in Montauk? That you brought home for spring break and asked if you could bring to Namjoon’s parent’s anniversary?” You questioned.

“You really want to rehash everything, don’t you?” Jimin chuckled, your ridiculousness knew no bounds.

“I mean, we don’t have to right now we-

“Can I kiss you?” Jimin leaned forward, cherry lips finding purchase on the delicate flesh on the inside of your wrists, a sensation that specialized in making your toes curl.

“You think that’s wise?” Your voice, a breathy groan embarrassingly needy, seemed to belong to someone other than you. Someone who needed Jimin to toss them over his shoulder and fuck into his $2,000 sheets.

Jimin laughed, “You were my first kiss, my first time, my first everything. You think now, as adults, kissing is going to ruin us getting back together?”

“I just mean that, do we need to let this simmer before we, you know,” You bobbled your head, hair moving around to match the giddiness bubbling inside of you.

“We don’t have to have sex,”

“Yeah,” You sighed, “but don’t you like, really want to?”

“And you call yourself a journalist!”

“Shut up!”

“You’re being ridiculous! Of course, I want to,” Jimin’s docile laugh sent a shiver down your spine.

“I am being cautious, I need to know that you, that you want this,” You reiterated.

It hurt to have to ask Jimin to give you something he already had, to give you his love again, to give you his trust. But it wasn’t you who ended this relationship, it wasn’t you who thought your relationship wouldn’t last through college. You knew you could work through it all; it was Jimin that walked away shattering your heart and your trust. It was Jimin who was scared of being with you, Jimin who needed to prove he was going to make this work. Jimin who had lost it all and needed to fight for you again.

“You’re asking me if I want to have sex with the love of my life, after years of not being able to touch her, to kiss her, to love her the way she’s earned?” Jimin asked.

“Yes,”

“To borrow a phrase from you, fuck you for thinking either one of us has any self-control. Especially when it comes to each other. How many tweets have we exchanged? How many times have you asked Hoseok about me, or my mother?” Jimin cupped your cheeks again, eyes darting from you slightly parted, purple stained lips to your eyes. “I’m in this, for good, and I will tell you every day until you believe me again.”

“Me too, though you should know I’ve picked up a few new habits I’m sure Taehyung has told you about,” You leaned into his touch, cheek warming at the light callouses that remained from his overeager workouts, and mic twirls he mastered in too many nights singing karaoke with Jungkook.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I’ve started wrapping my hair. And I’m also still allergic to kiwi,” You reminded him.

“Good, who needs a slimy green fruit with too many seeds?”

“Truly no one, except Australians,” You laughed and your pun.

“Remember that day before senior year, when we got smoothies, but they didn’t tell you that they’d put kiwi in it, and you had to go the emergency room?” Jimin’s hands have dropped from your face, instead clapping together, head tossing back as his laughter overtook his body.

“Or the time after watching Friends, Joon decided he wanted to make a kiwi-lime pie despite the fact we told him not to put kiwi, and he did anyway?” You laughed with him, head leaning against the arm that he had extended across the back of the couch.

“You wanted to kill him,” Jimin agreed.

“He forgot he had put it in! Then forced me to try it! I still hear his voice, ‘Y/N, please just a bite. Please, I worked really hard on it, come on, just a taste, please’. I swear to you, Sara Bareilles heard him and saved it for the Waitressmusical,” You laughed.

“I don’t remember who was more pissed, your mom or you,” Jimin added.

“He offered to pay for my hospital visit,”

“He paid it all off, didn’t he?”

“Before the month had ended, he didn’t even work out a payment plan, and bought me a new EpiPen,” You couldn’t stop laughing. Namjoon, the ever-lovable oaf, had never stopped apologizing for badgering you into eating his fucking pie. You couldn’t even tell if it was good, the minute the kiwi hit your tongue, your body reacted.

“He’s always been, responsible,” Jimin was calming down, high pitched squeaks on longer radiating off his vocal cords.

“To a fault,” You sighed. “My mom gave it all back to him, she saved it for the day he graduated college and got into med school.”

“Was he shocked?”

“Pleasantly so,”

Jimin hummed in agreement, his arm moving to drape across your shoulders, your body relaxing back into him. Your head found its way to his shoulder, and slowly you breathed in his scent. He’d changed colognes since the last time you’d been this close, this vulnerable with him. You liked it, fresh and crisp, with undertones of sandalwood and something that smelled like Kimchi, though you knew Jimin enough to know he’d probably eaten some for lunch. You liked it, his warmth pulling you to him, the safety of his embrace reminding you of all the days and nights you’d spent just like this.

“Jimin?”

“Yes?”

“Did you, after we broke up did you ever, fall in love again?” You craned your neck to try and catch his expression.

“No, I got close, but I never did. Did you fall in love with Seokjin?”

“It’s complicated. I loved him, I did, but I wasn’t in love with him,” You moved ever so slowly out of his grasp, trying to gage his expression.

“Did you think you’d get married?” Jimin leaned closer. His movement, calculated and timid, hatched the cocoons in your stomach into full butterflies, beating wings against your insides.

“No, well,” You tilted your head, a habit from Hoseok, and licked your bottom lip. You should’ve remembered to put Aquaphor on your lips before leaving the cab. “One time I thought maybe we might work out, maybe we’d find a way through, well, you. But he never, he always kind of knew that my heart was still tied up with yours.”

Jimin watched as you wet your bottom lip, tongue gracefully moving to swipe across your flesh, hoping to take the place of your tongue with his own.

“Did he, did he bring me up when he-

“Dumped me?”

“Yeah,”

“Kind of,” You blinked quickly, eyes trying to discern if Jimin was in fact moving closer, or if your vision was playing tricks on you and trying to zoom in on him while he moved way.

“I’m sorry that I, that I was used against you. I’m -

“Jimin, as much as I would love to iron out the details of Seokjin dumping me, and I’m sure negotiating the terms of us getting back together, and naturally filling each other in on the last few years we’ve been apart…” You licked your lips again, “Your lips keep getting farther away from mine and I really, really need to kiss you.”

Jimin didn’t need to be told twice, and lunged forward, pinning you beneath him, hips pressing into yours, pressure of his body against you, holding you to him.

“I missed you,” Jimin said before closing the space between you, plump, soft and supple lips pressing aggressively against yours. You knew he’d be stained purple, the thought of him walking into whatever We-Work adjacent workspace his office was in, with purple tinted lips and bruised flesh, thrilled you.

Jimin had always been your favorite person to kiss. Tasting like nostalgia and 7/11 Slurpee’s that you’d split on summer days, half blue raspberry, half cherry, two large straws and a sugar hangover that almost always led to naps on the hammock in your mom’s backyard. Kissing adult Jimin, experienced Jimin, Jimin who had slept with other people besides you, was intoxicating. Skilled in the way he used his tongue against yours, nibbling your bottom lip before diving in, he’d learned a few new tricks that had you moaning underneath him.

“You know,” You started, his lips gnawing at the flesh of your neck, hot kisses and love bites decorating you a shade of purple you wished Charlotte Tilbury sold. “I still haven’t seen your bedroom.”

Jimin laughed, “Oh so now you’re going to be direct?”

“When have I ever been subtle?”

“Clearly not in your Tw-

“Jimin,” You interrupted, index finger silencing his lips. “Just, take me to your bed and make love to me. I promise, I swear, I won’t troll you on the internet ever again, okay?”

“Okay,” Jimin couldn’t stop smiling as he stood, adjusted the waistband of his flat front chinos, and reached for your hand. “Come on, we’ve got five and a half years and a shit ton of tweets to make up for.”

Rolling your eyes, you stood, hand in his and followed him down the hallway, past the gallery wall and into his bedroom, where you clocked another photo from high school, this time just you and Jimin, his parents and brother, smiling at high school graduation. You turned to him, ready to comment but cut off by his lips again, hands pulling you towards him, arms wrapping you in his embrace.

As you drowned in Jimin, in the way his bare skin felt against yours, how his hands moved, tender and lovingly on your skin, relearning routes and maps he’d written many moons ago, it was easy to remember why you’d fallen love with him, and even easier to remember why you’d never gotten the love you shared. Jimin was attentive, passionate, loving, giving… he took his time with you, waited for you to be ready, brought out the best in you in every situation. With his voice in your ear, his sounds overriding the previous iteration you’d had on lock from your teen years, his hips grinding into yours, reclaiming what he had once lost, Jimin rewrote the future you hadn’t been able to imagine since he broke your heart.

In his ministrations on your body, his love personified in how he made your toes curl, your mind blank, your body his, Jimin vowed to love you, to stand by you, to hate who you hate and love who you love. To feed your every obsession and call you on your bullshit. He promised to protect you, to ensure you never eat kiwi, and to tell you he loves you at least three times every day, beyond earning your trust, beyond you believing him, beyond putting a ring on your finger and giving you his last name (if you wanted to take it). He vowed to never leave, not when it gets tough, not when he is scared, not when you spew that you hate him, which you inevitably will. In return, you promised to give him the world, which he admittedly had whenever you were with him.

Love was complicated and messy… and it pissed you off to no end to know that all it took was a few years of dragging Jimin on Twitter to get the love of your life back.

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millenniumfae · 3 years ago

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Video Game Cooking: Sugars (Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice)

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a standalone historical fantasy made by the famous people who also created Dark Souls and Bloodborne. It became an instant hit, and garnered massive critical acclaim. You control the broody shinobi Wolf as he battles entire armies and legendary beasts.

One of the many consumables in-game are the Sugars; Gokan’s Sugar, Ako’s Sugar, Yashariku’s Sugar, Ungo’s Sugar, and Gachiin’s Sugar. These candies are named and colored differently, and each offer a different effect. One raises your attack power, another makes you more stealthy, and so on.

Today, we’re gonna be re-creating these Sugars with our own recipe. And true to my tradition when it comes to Video Game Recipes, we’re gonna be taking our ingredients accurate to the setting. Which in this case is Sengoku period Japan. This recipe meta draws especially true to my own heritage, as a Taiwanese person.

Sekiro Senpou Temple Sugars: Recipe (makes 10-20 individual candies, depending on the size)

Base candy recipe:

3 3/4 cups granulated raw cane sugar

1 1/2 cups golden syrup/brown rice syrup

1 cup water

Corn starch for mold making (optional)

Confectioner’s sugar for dusting

Flavorings:

Fresh ginger slices (Gokan’s Sugar)

Dried lotus seeds (Gokan’s Sugar)

Red cherries (Ako’s Sugar)

Dried Astragalus (Ako’s Sugar)

Ginseng (Ungo’s Sugar)

White peaches (Ungo’s Sugar)

Sake (Yashariku’s Sugar)

Dried Cocklebur fruit (Yashariku’s Sugar)

Dried Orange peel (Gachiin’s Sugar)

Dried Goji berries (Gachiin’s Sugar)

Food coloring

(Sekiro won the 2019 Game Of The Year award, the first FromSoftware game to do so.)

To make our Sugars, we’ll be infusing a traditional candy base with various ingredients, unique for each candy. Every ingredient is based off of TCM, which is an acronym standing for Traditional Chinese Medicine. For those unacquainted with TCM, it can be hard to explain its influence. There’s no true western equivalent because it’s more than just ‘old household remedies’, it’s almost a given that Asian citizens take various TCM practices seriously to a degree. Like westerners do with honey lemon tea, or chicken noodle soup.

It’s also accurate to the game. Sekiro takes its setting very seriously. Everything from weapons, to hairstyles, to interior decor, even down to the kanji on Emma’s note in the beginning of the game is true to the Sengoku period, and some levels even go backwards a bit to the Heinan period, to reflect an ancient atmosphere. You can reasonably minus the historical inaccuracies on your own volition; giant snake gods, lightning powers, and automatic prosthetic grappling hooks weren’t indigenous to Japan.

Except there’s in fact one tiny detail that you might be surprised to learn is actually anachronistic; disk-shaped hard candies. The Sugars.

Hard candies aren’t traditional East-Asian treats. Sugar was always readily available in the form of sugar cane, true, but sweets almost always took the form of fruit, and candy-coated/infused ingredients. This is true worldwide until refining sugar into its white form became common, but East-Asia in particular wasn’t munching on lozenges while Marie Antoinette already had cough drops.

The Sengoku period stretched from the early Renaissance to the Baroque period. While Wolf was parrying his way through the Ashina Outskirts, the first King James Bible was published. There was plate armor and court jesters, but also firearms and photographs. Japan didn’t get access to matchlock firearms until 1542, and since the Sunken Valley clan seems to define themselves by the expert use of these guns, it makes sense that the intro to the game itself dates Sekiro as specifically taking place in the latter years of the Sengoku period.

All throughout this stretch of two centuries, Japan has been under constant war and political strife, lending to the Sengoku period’s alternative name, the ‘Warring States Period’. Japan consisted of separate nations, all led under Daimyo and warlords and various nobles that demanded their armies scramble for more land and resources. Living under this kind of conflict for so long means that innovations and education are rare. There’s no opportunity to invent the telescope when you’re all constantly worried about your lives.

This means that the food of Sekiro would have very much been the same it’s been since centuries beforehand. Even though by this point, the Columbian Exchange has been well underway and Europe was experimenting with tomatoes in their food, Japan wasn’t enjoying this same golden period. Any developments would have been weaponry, not candy making methods.

This means that, for our recipe, we’re not using anything that a Senpou monk wouldn’t have access to. No potatoes, corn, vanilla, etc. No beet sugar, or fruits that aren’t native to Japan. Even the raw cane sugar we’re using is pushing the authenticity envelope, because the ‘raw’ granulated sugar you find in grocery stores aren’t completely raw, they’ve still been refined using lye and carbon to strip much of the molasses. True raw cane sugar, when boiled down from its juice form, makes a traditional Asian ingredient called black sugar, which is very dark in color and not suited for making the brightly-colored candy disks that the Sugars appear to be.

(Shinobi aren’t samurai, but Wolf’s relationship with Kuro is so clearly samurai-ish that we can assume Wolf was being paid buckets as a high-prestige warrior. He also would have access to better food, including white rice; which, while already genetically modified through breeding by the Sengoku period, wouldn’t have looked like modern rice. Or maybe Wolf wasn’t enjoying the high life, because he dresses in rags compared to Genichiro and apparently didn’t know rice was supposed to be cooked.)

Knowing all that history about the Sengoku period, it’s almost silly to see candy consumables in-game, looking like they came right out of a bag of Werther’s Originals. The developers of Sekiro made many lengths to ensure everything was authentic, so why are the candies so modern-looking when they could instead have been a traditional Sengoku period sweet like something mochi-based, or agar (seaweed) jellies?

The lore behind the Sugars are that the evil Senpou monks were mass-producing these candies, and selling them all across Ashina to fund their crooked child experiments. They’re not just (presumably) tasty, they offer benefits to your health. That’s definitely in line with TCM culture, and gives us some inspiration for how to pursue replicating them.

One important note; the Sugars are some of the lesser consumables Wolf can use. Almost all other consumables are better, offering more powerful effects for a longer duration. So what if these candies were true to TCM and were mere treats infused with medicinal ingredients, only capable of giving you a small boost? Especially in comparison to the Divine Child’s rice, which would be like an Epi-Pen in this analogy.

But there’s even more depth to the consumables than that. Kuro gifts Wolf a ‘sweet rice ball’ at some point, which is almost certainly an Ohagi bun; made out of glutinous rice, red beans, and sugar, and its a traditional offering for the Buddhist observance of seasonal equinox. Eating it is sometimes said to bring protection. In order for Kuro to make Wolf this rice ball, you gotta give him some of that special rice from the Divine Child. Wolf offhandedly mentions that her rice is “sweet when you bite into it”, and Kuro realizes that Wolf has been eating these rice grains raw all this time, like the feral 5′5 goblin he is. Kuro vows to give his loyal protector something nice to eat, for once, and makes him three Ohagi dumplings.

The food of Sekiro is symbolic. The Divine Child is able to make rice out of thin air, like a deity of fertility. Kuro takes this divine rice, and his sweet rice ball is more powerful than the magical blessed Sugars because it was made with compassion. And eating Kuro’s lovingly-made rice ball reminds Wolf of once being fed a rice ball when he was young and starving, given to him by his assfuck of a father who’s compassion is heavily in question.

The Sugars are described as giving the eater a ‘benediction’ of power, and who knows what the translators were thinking, but the word choice reminds us of communion, and the flesh and blood of Christ. It’s not a true comparison; communion is about replicating and worshiping the Last Supper, reminding Christians about Jesus willingly dying cause humans are sinful. Consuming the ‘flesh and blood’ of Jesus in the form of bread and wine is very different than eating a candy apparently blessed by an ancient Japanese warrior. It’s not like communion wafers are supposed to empower you, or protect you.

Looking at the in-game image of each Sugar, you can see the likeness of a person behind it, likely the very warrior the Sugar is named after. We don’t know if these people actually had a hand in these Sugars, somehow transplanting their power into each individual candy, or if the monks just named the candies after them. Either way, the process of receiving the benefits of the Sugars isn’t just about crunching it between your teeth, Wolf also takes a moment to strike a‘warrior stances’, which, according to the descriptions, is a required detail to properly absorb the candy’s effects. Each Sugar has their own corresponding ‘stance’ that Wolf performs. It’s a weird detail, and raises even more questions about the Sugars, the monks, and the warriors behind the candy.

(Observant players will note that the five Headless boss enemies drop ‘spiritfalls’, each of which share names with the five Sugars, and offer upgraded versions of their corresponding Sugar; Ako’s Spiritfall is basically a better version of Ako’s Sugar, and so on. We can assume that the Headless are, in fact, the very same legendary warriors that powered the Sugars, especially since the game itself states that the Headless are undead remains of powerful individuals.)

True to FromSoftware tradition, details are included with purpose. And also at the same time, some details are just meant to be taken at face value. The various centipede-themed enemies in Sekiro are associated with kegare - spiritual defilement, death - explaining visually their willing abandonment from Buddhism. But there’s likely no lore explaining why Wolf can automatically hoover up all nearby enemy loot like a vacuum with the press of a button.

The inexplicable details of FromSoftware games are almost certainly because of gameplay convenience. Many characters are 9-10 feet tall for no reason, towering over Wolf, who’s already short to begin with. Lore-wise, it doesn’t make sense for so many completely human characters to be so gratuitously large. Gameplay-wise, it’s a lot easier to observe an enemy’s telegraphed movesets if their model is scaled up. Helpful, in a game like Sekiro.

The ‘stances’ of the Sugars might fall into both these categories. They exist for both gameplay and story reasons. The developers wanted a lag between consuming these powerups and being free to fight, so the player is forced to time these powerups carefully. You need to avoid enemies taking a free hit while Wolf’s animations are occupied. Then they storified this gameplay-based lag into a lore-based reason. Wolf has to take a ‘stance’ when eating these candies to receive its powers. For some reason.

I wasn’t able to further research the ‘stances’ Wolf strikes. Maybe they’re based off of known martial arts. But the description also offers some additional insight; according to the game, these Sugars contain ‘excess karma’ that is apparently the source of their power. Now, Buddhist karma doesn’t run in ‘excess’, a better choice of word would be ‘transfiguration’. One person can experience another’s karma through a variety of means.

“Bite the candy and take the Yashariku stance to impart its inhuman benediction.” In accordance with Buddhist folklore, these warriors are dead and imitating them can impart their previous life’s karma unto you. Our recipe won’t have magical karma powers, but we can certainly infuse our candies with medicinal herbs. You can just imagine the Senpou monks stirring up a big pot of sugar solution, and throwing in handfuls of dried Goji berries.

(This isn’t the first FromSoftware game that draws heavily from Buddhism. Dark Souls’ stagnant world of undeath is a rejection of Buddhist rebirth, clinging onto your legacy in a bid for immortality. Bloodborne decided to further explore the ‘time and madness’ angle of the same concept, while Sekiro went in the opposite direction to expand the ‘death and karma’ side.)

To make our Sugars; begin by first boiling the 1 cup of water with the corresponding flavor ingredients. Essentially, we’re making a batch of 10-20 candies with one flavor at a time, to make things easier on us. Ako’s Sugar requires you boil sliced ginger and dried lotus seeds, and so on.

After the water has been properly infused with the medicinal ingredients, strain the water and add it to another pot with the rest of the candy base ingredients, then boiling it all down until it reaches 300f. It’ll take a while, and you’ll notice that there’s gonna be a point where it seems like the temperature isn’t rising again. But keep at it; all the water needs to be boiled away. But the flavor will remain.

Once it reaches 300f, add the food coloring, and then keep boiling again until it reaches 310f. Then immediately take it off the heat and pour it into molds. Disk-shaped candy molds do exist, but you can easily make your own by pouring a lot of corn starch into a pan, then pressing a disk-shaped object (like another candy) into the starch to make indents. When you pour the candy mixture into a corn starch mold, you can use a spoon to gently and accurately fill each hole without distorting the powder. After perhaps three hours, the candies should be completely set and cool, and you can tumble away the powder and store the candies. Any mold method is gonna give the candies a flat side, but a true disk candy requires factory-standard molds that we don’t have.

We’re not using natural food colorings, ‘cause I tried my best to research natural alternatives that could retain their dye after boilings. And it was super hard, especially blue. Take it from me that Sekiro’s Sugars shouldn’t have been so brightly colored; intensely colored food did exist, but it was with things like powdered dried beets and matcha and pepper powder. Boiling these ingredients (rather than mixing it with dough or jelly) will change the colors drastically, sometimes completely bleaching it, or changing red to purple and so on.

As for the various medicinal ingredients; I took a gander in my mom’s soup-making cabinet and took stock of the medicinal herbs we ourselves use in our lives. The ones included in this recipe are some of the more commonly used ingredients of modern TCM.

Gokan’s Sugar, as a posture-retaining consumable, is described as a popular choice amongst shinobi hunters, a job that requires “a body with an unshakable core”. Ginger and lotus seeds are great for restoring energy through chi, a person’s lifeforce.

Ako’s Sugar raises your attack power. This candy actually proved one of the hardest to find medicines for, since, you know, most medicine is about preserving your health. Astragalus root increases energy and resistance to stress, and red cherries are a warming food according to TCM; warming meaning that its a yang property that further enhances your energy levels. (Keep in mind that food warmness-coolness is more about keeping those two in balance for optical health.)

Ungo’s Sugar reduces the amount of health Wolf loses. Very protection-centric, so we’re using ginseng, for longevity, and white peach slices for their heavy association with divinity. Both of these ingredients have some of the most well-known history in Asian food culture.

Yashariku’s Sugar is a double-edged sword, since it reduces both your health and posture so Wolf can be super powerful for a little bit. So you’re gonna add sake to the candy mixture around the 300f mark, and the dried cocklebur fruit is an immunity-boosting medicine ... but the plant is mildly toxic and can cause diarrhea. You know, Wolf gets super powerful and aggressive when taking this candy cause he needs to shit his brains out. Don’t worry; we’ve got this in our own pantry, and it personally doesn’t make my mom’s stomach upset, but it does me so it must range from person to person.

Gachiin’s Sugar makes you more stealthy, which I took to translate into ‘quieting your thoughts and emotions’. Like when you hold a baby and it can feel your own inner turmoil and starts to cry? Orange peel and goji berries restore your chi, your vision, an irregular heart rate, and stress.

Enjoy your candies! Pop them before tough situations like speaking before a big crowd, or having to wait in line at the DMV, or when you have to fight the Headless Ape for the first time. Tell your friends to stay away from the Senpou brand, so you don’t support their unethical practices.

#sekiro #sekiro: shadows die twice #fromsoftware #fromsoft #video game cooking

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xz1005fanblog · 4 years ago

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2021-02-27 Some things I want to say

WARNING LONG POST

Context first, translation of his post above will follow:

Disclaimer: I have no interest in other artists other than Xiao Zhan, and I am merely explaining the situation of the fandom in China that led us to the fiasco in March 2020. I do not care for bjyx, I ship WangXian but I do not ship real people as a basic principle.

My opinion as an international fan of Xiao Zhan and as an AO3 user (yes, I am not Chinese nor do I live in China, I just happen to be able to read Chinese) is that C-entertainment industry is TOXIC and celebrities are not free targets for you to cyberbully. They are human just like you and me.

Everyone needs to learn a bit more about compassion.

I am sure all of you read about the cyberbullying Xiao Zhan went through last year. There were multiple factors that started all of this, most of which XZ doesn’t talk about in this letter because of how sensitive the topic is in China. I’ve never explained entirely what happened because I personally thought that this is not something overseas fans should worry too much about. Especially since most of you don’t have a wb or db account, there’s nothing you can do about it anyway. But since Xiao Zhan himself decided to post a letter to respond to this subject, I’ll put in my 2 cents just that so everyone is on the same page.

Basically, after The Untamed aired in China, the show fandom split into 3 groups. XZ fans, WYB fans, and CP fans (or bjyx, whatever you wish to call it, those who love shipping these two real people together - not just the characters in the drama). Of course there are still people who would watch the show without becoming a fan of the actors.

At the beginning, most people thought they were good friends with each other, with all the short BTS clips from The Untamed. However, fans slowly discovered that it wasn’t the case. Some unofficial BTS clips emerged where WYB said XZ was shooting multiple dramas at the same time = 轧戏 (which is very frowned upon and a disrespectful thing to say to an actor), whereas in reality, XZ only asked for a couple of days days off during the shooting for The Untamed because his scenes in Joy of Life had to be redone and he was bound by contract. On the contrary, WYB had to ask for most weekends off because he was participating in Produce 101 at the time. Other clips shows them fighting about somethings WYB said about WWX, which made XZ mad. So this broke a lot of CP fans’ image of their relationship, and they either stopped shipping/became XZ or WYB fans only. This angered WYB’s fans, of course, which made them blame XZ for the entire fiasco.

Other incidents continued to happen after the show which increased the friction between these 3 fan groups. XZ fans and WYB fans would fight about various voting charts, and fight with CP fans because they don’t like seeing the two actors together. In the meantime, CP fans continuously feminize and weaken XZ in order to ship the 2 actors together (it’s rather an unhealthy trend in China, I’ve been in multiple other western fandoms before - not real person shipping - but we rarely glorify weakening/feminizing the bottom of a ship, because of the underlying prejudice against real homosexuals, who are not synonymous to transgenders).

Some incidents added oil to the fire afterwards. It’ll take me too long to explain everything, so I’ll just put here the main ones to explain why there’s so much bad blood between these 3 groups of fans.

On XZ’s birthday, some CP fans found XZ’s parents’ apartment building and yelled BJYX is real. This angered a lot of XZ fans, because of how disrespectful it was towards the old couple and the clear breach of privacy. WYB fans and some CP fans were also angry that XZ didn’t reply immediately to the birthday wish on wb that WYB sent at midnight (??? XZ was busy shooting a drama, can you blame him for not being on wb at midnight? Give the guy a break.)

In November 2019, WYB filed a lawsuit against some of XZ’s fans (instead against of his own haters!) for dissing him (although I’ve never seen any proof, and a few of those fans remain active on wb now, one of whom has even defended WYB's portrayal of LWJ before...). This angered a lot of XZ fans and CP fans who didn’t understand how he could have done this to his “friend”, and further proved that their relationship wasn’t that fantastic to begin with. WYB fans felt justified in hating XZ and all XZ fans as a result, and openly bullied XZ fans on the grounds of the Nanking CQL Concert.

In January, The Untamed was named to Beijing Journal Drama award. CP fans and WYB fans were unhappy that XZ was named to the Best Male Lead category and WYB was named to the Best Male 2nd Lead. They attacked the award committee wb by spam commenting all their wb posts and the entire drama was pulled from the nomination afterward. XZ fans were especially angry that they started all this only for the nomination to be pulled out - because the only possibility was one Male Lead per drama, and anyone would agree that if chosen between WWX and LWJ, the character with the most scenes and importance in the story is WWX.

Yadda yadda yadda, fast forward to February 2020, it started with a fanfiction written by a CP fan that depicted XZ as a prostitute transgender woman and WYB as a highschool kid (UNDERAGE) = AKA very sensitive material in China. It was posted on AO3, but the author posted the link of said fic on wb and a lot of CP fans broadcasted it around, so much that XZ fans became aware of it. Due to how sensitive the material is and how badly it would taint XZ’s image for his future roles, some XZ fans started reporting the wb post that contained the link (NOT AO3) and the author’s wb page. This is common practice in fandom on wb, usually done to get the wb posts taken down. This caused panic in the CP fans crowd because they thought XZ fans were reporting AO3 and that they were gonna lose the website (which is impossible, because AO3′s servers are in Sweden and not subject to Chinese laws anyway).

Because of how sensitive AO3 was in China and how haters tried to pull in antigovernmental into their crowds, the subject quickly became too dangerous for XZ fans to get involved in. Official fan groups in China unanimously decided to ask all fans to stop participating in the online debate and stay within the fan group circle only.

Someone on AO3 made a commentary about this incident that you can find here. She dug up a lot of info on the companies feeding money to the trolls online, but as I am an overseas fan and cannot really verify her info, I will not comment on those statements.

Sometime in the middle of this fiasco, someone started spreading the notion that XZ fans hated fanfiction and were trying to report anything that goes against their image of their idol... And subsequently people who were not CP fans or XZ fans became aware of this problem when they couldn’t access AO3 suddenly because too much curious fans where trying to access it and they crashed the servers. However later on, people could access the website without any problems. I am not personally in China right now so I can’t verify these claims of the website being walled or not for real, but I know from various reliable sources that on March 1st it was only an overload of the server, and people could still access afterwards.

With this however, haters (which include previous CP fans, WYB fans, and other idol’s fans) attacked XZ for not telling his fans to stop reporting, for not saying anything. They attacked XZ’s endorsements and spammed hate speech on the products he was promoting. They would rate 1 star in all his dramas and songs on db, and then buy accounts to further rate 1 stars (yes that thing exists in China, everything can be bought in China, don’t ask me why.) The reason why I believe that all this wasn’t coincidental, is that barely the day after the fiasco started, someone posted on db the exact list of all his sponsorships, detailing exactly who to call to protest, what words to spam in the comment sections of various official brands’ wb accounts. This entire thing was too well planned to be just a normal fandom fight.

Whether it was other actors’ fans who organized this to cut down competition, we will probably never know for sure. The following year was laden with fake rumors, hate speech blasting from multiple directions. They attacked his personality, saying that his polite manners are just for show (when the reality is that he has always been a gentleman even when he wasn’t popular). They attacked XZ for faking donations to Wuhan, forcing him to show his donation certificate to prove himself. One of his friends couldn’t stand the cyberbullying anymore and revealed publicly that his grandfather recently passed away (the date on this drawing is 2020.03.03, he couldn’t post this last year).

His friend defending him from the cyberbullies, saying that he had plenty of reasons to stay silent. That his grandfather passed away recently and his family has been planning his funeral.

(Sources also said that his mother was hospitalized a few days afterwards. And that haters went to his mother’s hospital to harass her and her nurses)

Haters saying that XZ is using his grandfather’s death to excuse himself (??? is he not allowed to grieve like a normal person???)

Haters wishing that XZ becomes depressed from the cyberbullying and kills himself, wishing that he was dead, wishing that his fans were dead too. Photoshopping his picture into a funeral portrait to curse him

Haters admitting they are cyberbullying XZ, but rejoicing in the fact that they are so many so XZ can’t sue all of them. They have also reported his upcoming dramas for various reasons just so they cannot be aired.

The airplane incident I’ve already talked about here.

A picture antis made to diss on XZ fans: AO3 can be still accessed even if it’s walled, Lofter can be still access even if it’s taken down from the app store. Your gege’s picture are still accessible even if he died.

I’ve only posted here the tamest screenshots, there are far worst ones that I won’t be posting because the amount of vitriol give me nausea just looking at them.

In all this fiasco, antis gave him the tag of “idol who didn’t manage his fans well”. But Xiao Zhan never thought fans needed to be trained, he thought of them like normal people, and their love, something to be treasured and not used. But some people in China still blamed his fans for starting all this mess, and partly him and his studio for not being able to stop it.

Below is the translation for XZ’s letter, posted on the wb post above

Some Things I Want To Say

Today, I have something to say to everyone. I’ve thought of a lot of ways to do this, but in the end, I chose the simplest way to tell everyone about all my feelings and thoughts in the past year. These opinions, maybe they won’t be able to represent anything, nor won’t they be able to change anything, but I still wish to say this today.

On this day last year, the incident happened very quickly, as if a bomb exploded on my face - endless phone calls, never ending message notifications, everyone’s opinions and questions came in like a tsunami. I wanted to say something back then, but I didn’t know what exactly. I was apprehensive of making a statement, afraid that one wrong word, or one wrong sentence would be taken the wrong way and end up adding oil to the fire. This is why at that time, I chose not to say anything.

I never thought that the online fighting would grow bigger and bigger like an avalanche, getting larger crowds involved, and gradually leaving one person’s control. Even though afterwards I made repeated statements to make amends, it could not develop as I wished it to anymore.

This life filled with broken protests and tumultuous noise continued to this day. And I felt I was going through a very dark and never ending tunnel. Unrest, ruminations, turmoil... I have also asked myself what did I do wrong exactly, why did everything after that day became as if it were an uncontrollable vessel.

I spent a lot of time to digest, and then spent a lot of time to understand, understand everyone’s words and actions. Slowly, I started to understand what everyone was criticizing about me personally. The moment that I chose not to say anything, I lost that window of opportunity to reason with everyone. So I was wrong, from the very beginning.

At that time, I wasn’t yet able to clearly understand the entire incident, to understand everyone’s feelings, nor did I know what kind of responsibility I had to carry as a public figure. Thus, I missed that opportunity to communicate with everyone, and wasn’t able to withstand the responsibility of letting these antagonizing feelings grow. Now, I can clearly recognize that throughout this year, this criticism that everyone had against me of “Idol Who Lost Its Voice”, was correct. During this year I reflected upon this repeatedly, as a public figure, I have to not only improve myself within the boundaries of my profession, but also have to carry the social responsibility that comes with my influence. To influence those who like me, who follow me, towards the right worldviews within my capacity. Even though my studio and I have already expressed some opinions through wb and interviews, but scars that this incident that brought such antagonistic emotions between different circles are still difficult to heal.

No matter how late, my own problem has to be corrected. I would like to express my first comment: Xiao Zhan, would like to apologize for “losing voice” towards those who have been affected by this incident. This is my first responsibility towards the public, face the problem and admit my faults.

Also, I would like to use this opportunity to speak with my fans. This is my second responsibility. In one of my interviews last year, I have said, I do not really agree with “managing” my fans (some celebs in China have hired people to manage fan groups in order for them to behave in certain ways for their purposes. Antis tried to spread the false rumor that XZ also had those people and that they directed their fans to start this mess), because everyone is an individual. No matter my studio nor myself, we do not have the authority to “manage” them like some would manage workers in a company. Afterwards, I reflected many times, maybe I cannot use the word “manage” to define my relationship with my fans, but I do have the responsibility to “correctly influence, and actively advocate”. So today, I would like to tell my fans, everyone has the right to like or hate something, and it should be respected and allowed within their own space. Of course this right should be reasonable, should not hurt anyone else, and remain within the boundaries of the correct values and norms. I hope my fans and friends can understand that no matter which profession, no matter what age, one’s own preferences or actions should not cross the line for one’s professional ethics or disrespect basic principles.

(Here he is referring to reports of teachers using his name in class or asking children to say his name to cheer for him. This is a problem that occurred also with other celebrities in China, and for which he has already expressed himself previously.)

No matter online or in real life, everyone should be responsible for their own words. I also hope that we are not represented tags like “xx’s fans”, that we do not set this as the basis of where we stand on a topic nor do we let this determine what’s right or wrong. Everyone have their own hobbies and interest, respect everyone’s choice and freedom of speech. No matter whether they like me or hate me is their own right. Passion, this should be a source of strength to everyone, I do not wish for it to consume or hurt anyone. Perhaps I cannot change this kind of environment, but at least for you and me, today is a new start point.

At last, I would like to talk a bit about myself. Ever since I came into this field, until today, I have always been defined by some tags. But the reason why I originally stepped into this circle was my passion for performance and music. And this is why, I will keep working on becoming a better actor and singer. The sudden criticism of “having lost voice” made me realize that, other than what I have always focused on professionally, I have to also be able to carry the responsibility of a public figure and an idol. I was born in a normal family in Chong Qing, and have lived a normal life, like many other people, for more than twenty years. Today I will also use this opportunity to apologize for the words I have said before as a normal person (I’ve already talked about it here), for the people I have inadvertently hurt. As I work hard on studying to become a better person, I will try to become a better “public figure”, so that these two Xiao Zhan can blend in together, for a better self.

This past year, no matter big or small, I have to be responsible for the incidents that happened because of me. I can demand this for myself, but I have no right to force it on other people, so I can only hope that those who really like me can really listen to me: please be a bit more reasonable for things outside of personal preferences. Live a healthy life, put more time and energy onto one’s real life, and less on the senseless fighting behind fake IDs and unreliable online world. Only to become a better self.

(Here he’s referring to an online fight that an anti called 晨小晨 started. I’ve already explained a bit here. #微博管理员回应晨小晨事件# )

Sorry for any grammar errors, this post was really long to make and I didn’t proofread. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to translate the entire thing for overseas fans since you don’t understand the entire context, and because I wanted my wb records collection tag to be complete, I felt I had to... and I got carried away trying to explain everything. Tried to summarize it as much as I could.

As a fan of Xiao Zhan and also an AO3 user, I would still like to apologize for how this bullshi*t ended up disrupting respectful and peaceful users of AO3. The Untamed tag did not contain hate fics before all of this happened, it is unfortunate that a place where there used to be only love, ended up being tainted by antis and haters.

To the anonymous person who asked me a few months ago if I supported bjyx, this is my answer: You have the right to like whatever you want within your own corner, as long as it doesn’t bother anyone else and isn’t against basic principles. I ship WangXian as characters from a novel, but I have never liked RPS as a principle.

#肖战 #肖战xiaozhan #xiao zhan #xiaozhan #zhan xiao #sean xiao #wb records collection #bjyx #i hate fandom fighting #in the end he chose to say sorry #for the innocent people dragged into this #and for the innocent fans #he chose to carry all the blame #even when none of it was his fault

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pinkhairedlily · 4 years ago

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Chapter 1 - Student Council President Sakura

SCPS AO3 | PREVIOUS CHAPTER

Sasuke’s first year was rather uneventful. He wasn’t in the same class as Naruto and Sakura, and thank God he wasn’t because from what he heard in the hallway and in the classroom during breaks, they were described as having uncontrollable bursts of energy. The other likable, the other a menace to mankind. He kept to himself most of the time, never went to class late, recited perfectly, ranked first on all tests. When there were group works, he would submit a finished output before they could even hold a meeting. He didn’t bother with his classmates’ workarounds – hanging out in cafes just to discuss menial matters or having sleepovers as an excuse to make a move. He didn’t have the energy to bother. And so from orphan genius, he became the stuck-up genius. That was okay with him. He had been called worse names before.

He didn’t know when it exactly started, but the yard behind the library had turned into his refuge. No one really visited it because of the tall piles of recycled materials, but there was a small clearing hidden by thick vines and untended trees. There, Sasuke found small minutes of peace.

Past the shrubbery and the foliage and the fence, one can see the lake behind the school. It was deep and wide enough that dragonboat teams would practice in it during summer. Couples would frequent it after school hours and think no one can see the kisses, the hand-holding, the hugs. Beyond the lake was a museum he frequented when he was a child, and then the city center wherein all roads connected to the train station. One can get on it, travel for three stations, and disembark on the fourth. It usually took thirty minutes if one strictly walked on the streets, but Sasuke would cut across the mini-bamboo forest in that area, emerge behind the bakery, still have the time to buy his favorite cream puffs, walk past two houses, and arrive at their family house. It was closed since then, the sales proceedings wrapping up after months. It would take another three years for the trust fund to be entirely turned over to him. By that time, he would be safely out of the clutches of his memories.

His exclusive space and time for musings was suddenly cut off in the middle of the school year when Naruto accidentally stumbled upon him eating an egg sandwich for lunch. Sasuke heard distant screams from the usual troublemakers and saw the silent plea on Naruto’s face. It wasn’t hard to know who they were looking for. He angled his head towards the blonde who was sweaty, had cuts on his arms, and twigs on his hair. Naruto flashed him an apologetic grin and crawled to his side.

“They said my laughter was annoying.” Naruto fixed his almost tattered clothes and laid on the grass. “Quite an oasis you have here.”

Sasuke sighed, too defeated right now to muster a retort. He fished another sandwich from his pocket and gave it to Naruto. “Eat.”

“Grumpy! You are a lifesaver!” He grinned sheepishly and ravaged the food in big bites.

“Keep your voice down, will you?” Sasuke snapped. “By the loudness of it, one won’t need a tracker to find you.” He opened his water bottle for a drink but that too was stolen by a choking Naruto.

“Sorry about that. I’ll pay you when my stipend arrives.”

“Never mind that.”

Finally full, Naruto went back to lying on the grass and closed his eyes for a quick nap. Sasuke saw the bruises on his knuckles and smirked. This kid can fight.

So he is on scholarship too.

“Uchiha Sasuke. That’s your name, right?” Naruto still had his eyes closed, enjoying the light breeze, and the silence that ensued when the troublemakers left the area.

“What about it?” He was waiting for the patronizing statements or the pity looks.

“We’re the same,” Naruto muttered, kind of like a matter-of-fact. “You just had the better side of the coin. Wished I had the board scholarship, but I’m bad at studying.”

The board scholarship was inevitable. Albeit being public in a sense, it was awarded to him as some sort of posthumous act because his father was a member. It was an open secret among the school officials, but he wasn’t sure if the students caught up on it yet. He wondered what common denominator tied him to Naruto. “So what do you have then?”

Naruto opened one eye and smirk. “Are you interested in knowing me?”

The school bells rang. Time’s up for lunch break and Sasuke’s impulsive interrogation. Looking back, he felt some kind of humiliation because he was explicitly giving interest in someone else’s life, however minute it was.

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His peaceful abode didn’t revert back to the way it was. Naruto had invaded it as his hiding place from the bullies. He would come sometimes with an onigiri or a sandwich but most of the time, empty-handed. Before Sasuke could pick up on their previous conversation, the blonde would fall asleep, or at least pretend to. Absent parents then, he thought, noting the absence of prepared lunch and frequent convenience store purchases. Like him. He confirmed this the following day when he heard the bullies attacking him on the hallway.

“You should die, orphan kid. No one would miss you anyway.” A bald student aimed to kick him on the stomach, but Naruto blocked this with his arms. There was a reserved glare in his eyes, but before he could return the attack, two other kids forced his arms to open and give access to the target point. Sasuke found his feet walking briskly towards the scene, his hands ready to grab Naruto’s collar to safety.

“Sakura!” Students yelled out in confusion. A pink flash in his periphery.

She kicked the attacking student on the back with such force that reeled him forward to the ground, definitely knocking a tooth out and him unconscious. She planted both of her feet on his prone body and glared at his backup. “Bullying has no space in this school. Let go of him or I’ll tell the faculty to raise your disciplinary actions to suspension.” She was assertive, her every step unwavering in front of crisis.

Sasuke briefly wondered if she wouldn’t get disciplinary action as well for kicking a student. Well, she could frame it as self-defense. As if on cue with his thoughts, several teachers came to the scene and took the bullies to the faculty room, including Sakura.

“It wasn’t her fault,” Naruto yelled. He was supported with muffled agreements from other witnesses.

“Don’t worry about me. What’s important is you’re safe,” she flashed him a wink and waved goodbye. Sasuke can only see Naruto’s back, but he guessed the blonde dude was smiling from ear to ear and probably blushing. He also saw that she limped. Quite devious of her to distract everyone with that smile and that cherry pink hair in a ponytail.

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Naruto was whistling when he joined Sasuke behind the library the next day. He didn’t have a sandwich or onigiri with him, but he had a bento lunch box. He must have seen Sasuke’s slight quick eyebrow raise because he immediately boasted about it.

“Sakura gave this to me!” Naruto showed it around like it was a product advertisement. “She said she made it herself! I feel loved.” He then hugged it like a child would a prized teddy bear.

“Wow, that escalated quickly.” Sasuke was feeling snarky. He continued munching on his sandwich. For today, it was tuna and cheese flavor.

“I might have a crush on her! The way she kicked that bully to the ground was such a sight to see. I think all of us in our class already admire her.” Sasuke didn’t reply. She was the hot topic in his classroom, along the halls, and at the school gates. Everyone was gushing about her bravery and her contrasting personality from her feminine looks, as if strength and beauty was so sparingly exclusive.

“Maybe she felt sorry for you.”

“Would take her kind of pity any other day.” Naruto opened the bento lunch box, the aroma arresting the two boys’ senses. Rice seasoned with shiso, karaage chicken, a small piece of salmon, lettuce wrap, tamagoyaki, and potato salad. How she fit them all inside a small container was a mystery, but it was an amazing food presentation that even Sasuke’s mouth instinctively watered at the sight.

“She wasn’t overbearing at all. She just greeted me this morning while introducing herself, handed me a bento box and left in time for the school bell. As if I didn’t know her already.” Naruto brought the bento box closer to his nose and made a loud sniffing noise. “Maybe she likes me?”

Sasuke grimaced outwardly. “Get lost. She likes everyone.”

Naruto laughed. “That’s true. That’s true. She’s the kind of person that everyone wants and wants everyone. Since you’re letting me share your hideout, want to share this box?”

Sasuke fished out some tamagoyaki slices and karaage and directly placed them in his mouth. He stared at Naruto, expecting him to get angry but the blonde was happily devouring the dishes as well. They both nodded in approval of the taste. For a moment, they tasted again the joy of homemade cooking. Two orphans in a secluded area, hiding from the realities of the world, comforted by the works from the distant hands of a stranger.

That afternoon, Sasuke went back to that hideout, not wanting to go home with his classmate. His attention perked up when he heard some heavy footfalls near the area.

“Kakashi-sensei?” The voice was familiar. He heard it several times already, but he can’t connect a face. “You don’t have to do this really. It’s quite embarrassing.”

“Well, who was stupid enough to physically fight bullies in school and in plain sight? Look at your leg. You cannot even walk.”

It was her and Hatake Kakashi, the handsome Math teacher who loved reading on his free time, the teacher with sleek silver hair, the teacher all female students liked. Of course.

“It’s amazing how you noticed it, Sensei.”

“I’m your homeroom teacher, Sakura. Of course, I’ll notice the welfare of my students. You should have called in sick. Now, will you let me bring you to the school clinic?”

“Sorry about that, Kakashi-sensei.”

It wasn’t the voice of an inconvenienced student. It was the giddy voice of a girl with a budding crush. Their comfort stranger being comforted by another stranger.

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The bullies went back to school after a month of suspension, just in time for the final exams before the winter vacation. Sasuke noticed that the bullies didn’t touch him even though he was an orphan himself. Acting with this knowledge, he started not to mind the greetings of Naruto whenever he would pass by his classroom. He would even sometimes walk with him in the hallways, earning weird looks from his schoolmates, because why would the stuck-up genius hang out with bully-magnet Naruto?

One caught on their weird connection. The two of them were walking towards the cafeteria when they passed by Sakura. Sasuke noticed she was no longer limping. She spent the whole month with a bandage around her ankle, and students would gush in concern over her. He found it comedic that they only showed this empathy when the bandage was visible and not immediately after that encounter when she was obviously in pain. It was brief but their gazes locked with each other, and she flashed him a smile. Naruto was too busy ranting on making up for extra classes so he didn’t notice her. Was the smile intended for him? Sasuke quickly shrugged this off, remembering Naruto’s comment about her being wanted by everyone, and also his incidental eavesdropping on her and Kakashi.

The annual cultural festival soon came around. This was one activity he was actually waiting for – he would skip and spend the whole week holed up in his apartment, but fate apparently wanted a different scenario. Naruto was their year’s head errand boy. Under him were other errand volunteers. When Sasuke saw the head coordinator for their batch, he understood the reason why. Haruno Sakura tied a red ribbon around her forehead and directed instructions to everyone.

He was too late when he realized this. “Uchiha Sasuke!” She knew his name, dammit.

She was dressed down to a white shirt two sizes too big for her with sleeves rolled up and jogging pants under her skirt. She handed him a hammer and pointed to the structure they were building. “Uchiha Sasuke, that’s your name, right? I’m pretty sure you heard me loud and clear.”

He grunted to himself and took the hammer from her hand. “I’m not deaf.”

“You just need to secure those two wood pillars on this scaffolding. More hands, the better, the faster.” He didn’t know if she was talking to him or to her companions. It didn’t actually bother her if there wasn’t any response. She continued pounding on the nail, pausing for a few seconds and looked at him. “You know how to use the hammer, right?”

You’re amazingly burdensome, Sasuke thought. He sighed, dejected at this sudden turn of events, and hammered his frustrations away. They continued to work in silence, well at least he was quiet. Every now and then, she would give instructions from her position, keeping everyone in check and in track of the year’s progress. It was in the middle of this particular moment that she missed and hammered her own finger. Sasuke waited for her to yell in pain, wince, or withdraw her hand from the task, but she continued as if nothing happened.

Sasuke pounded the last nail in its place, finishing his part before anyone else. He turned to Sakura’s side and saw that she was still working, rather slowly, and she was hiding the finger she hit. He pushed her away the second she paused for a break and ignored the hushed protests.

“That’s my part, Sasuke. Why are you working on it?”

He quickly finished attaching the remaining wood pillars, took both of their hammers, and returned them to the toolbox. He was eager to be rid of this task, but there was something tricky he needed to do.

“I guess I should thank you,” Sakura said, shyness somehow showing through her usual energetic demeanor.

He grabbed her hand and placed a few band-aids on her palm. Before she could say anything and demand more work from him, he quickly walked away.

“I’ll beat you in the exam ranking though!” She shouted after Sasuke, a statement which made him smile.

That was how he would describe his first year of high school and the start of his unintended relationships.

AO3 LINK | NEXT CHAPTER | CHAPTER 2

#SCPS #student council president sakura #sasusaku #narusaku #kakasaku #haruno sakura #uchiha sasuke #uzumaki naruto #hatake kakashi #fleshing out friendship plots!#i love introspective sasuke #ball of sunshine naruto #competitive sakura #sakura #sasuke #naruto #kakashi

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keepingupwithfundies · 3 years ago

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BuB Season 10 Episodes 8-10

The Bates have their Noah’s Ark themed “I Love You” Day. It’s really...something. At the party, Travis has a question for Gil...and then a few weeks later, one for Katie. At least in the recaps, T manages not to complain every time they’re out in public (from Feb to Apr. 2021) without masks, but know I was thinking it.

-T

*Episode 8: Two by Two, I Love You

It is time for the first photoshoot in the new Bates Sisters Boutique location, and Esther and Tiffany have joined the party. The sisters are all thrilled to be in their new space with their hopeful future sisters in law. Lawson and Tiffany have been talking for about five months, have a lot of the same life passions, and they are having a good time. Tiffany is finishing her masters degree and Lawson says it is a big deal to bring her into the family, but it is a good time to do it. Esther is nervous about modeling for the first time, and Nathan reassures her. Tiffany jumps right in and she is a natural. Carlin says she never thought she'd see Lawson like this, and she has to do double takes. It is Esther's turn, and Carlin helps coach her. Carlin says she doesn't need coaching. Nathan says Esther is stunning but shy, but once she got in front of the camera her model side came out. Nathan says she did an amazing job. Kelly arrives, and she is impressed with the new space. Kelly goes to talk to her daughters about party plans, and tells them that Nathan and Esther will be cooking the couple's dinner. The sisters are all surprised but supportive of them. Kelly says she still has a whole bunch to do, and Erin hopes they will make a bunch of memories this weekend.

Michael says that she and Brandon went to start decorating for the party after the photo shoot. It is a Noah's Ark theme, and Brandon & Michael have taken on the decorating. They had fun making some decorations and finding some on theme and getting everything set up. Esther and Nathan get cooking, and Esther is used to cooking for a crowd, being some a big family. This dish is one which she made the first time she met Gil and Kelly, and they raved about it. The dinner will be at the church, but they are cooking at the main house since Kelly has two ovens. Nathan says being in the kitchen is outside of his area of expertise. Esther and Nathan have to head over to the church, since they left some stuff there. Esther says they should just stay and get ready there, and asks Katie and Travis to take the chicken out when it's ready and bring it over. Katie, not a chef herself, is nervous about this but Esther reassures her it will be ok. There is also potatoes, but Esther has faith in Katie.

Everyone arrives at the church for the dinner, which is nicely decorated with help with some church friends. Nathan and Esther arrive last, and they are impressed with the dinner. Over the years, Lawson and Nathan have joked about the couples dinner but they are happy to be there with their girlfriends this year. The couples dinner is a hit, and Michael talks about what a special time it is each year. Gil shares a devotional thought with the couples, which is about how love cover up the little annoyances in relationships and how you need more of it as you go. Tori talks about how meaningful that is to her. Everyone then eats, and everyone is very impressed with Esther's cooking. Lawson says he enjoyed his first official couples dinner, and that it is going to get hectic from here.

The next day, the not-yet-engaged couples go to look at some rings. Nathan and Esther are looking pretty seriously. But the other couples are moral support, although Katie says they are taking notes. Nathan is nervous about the ring; he wants Esther to pick the style that she likes so he has a path to follow. Esther tries a princess-cut solitaire and then they look at a three stone look. They try a square halo, and Esther loves it. She lit right up, and Nathan is thrilled. Esther knew right away, and says "if you propose to me with this ring, there's no way I would say no." Nathan likes to see the ring on her finger, and he is so glad he know just the ring she likes. Nathan and Esther are so excited.

Later on, it is time for the "I Love You Day" party. People begin getting their costumes on for the party. Kelly is so excited for the theme. The couples are getting ready, taking photos, when Travis finds Gil alone on the basketball court. Gil knows what's coming. Travis tells Gil he loves Katie, and that he would like to take care of her, be faithful to her, and Gil does he usual joking "no" and then gives his blessing. He then says to make sure to come visit often. Gil says he knew it was coming, and it was an honor to get to someone with his character. Kelly asks if Gil can keep this a secret, and he says that now Kelly knows the secret will get out.

It is party time, and everyone arrives to show off their animal costumes. Zach arrives, and everyone tries to figure out what he is, and Zach jokes that he is a party animal. Jackson says it is his signature move: Zach comes as a cowboy and wins some kinda prize. Zach says they were going to be a dinosaur family, but only one costume came in: Bradley's. So they found what they could for everyone else. The costume contest commences. Kelly has everyone cast a ballot for the dinner. Tiffany's mom handmade Tiffany and Lawson's costumes, and Tiffany brought honey sticks for everyone which definitely helped their case. Counting the ballots is a more of a process then they expected. Kelton, Bobby, Evan and Travis go outside to practice their song, and the guys thought this would be fun to initiated Travis as a hopeful future brother in law. The guys all rave about Travis's voice. Travis asks if they have any advice. They ask if Travis has asked Gil, and Travis says he did. Bobby goes, "Did he say no at first?" and Travis says "he did!" and Bobby says, "did you laugh? you didn't laugh right?" and Travis says he thinks he did. But Bobby says you're still here. Bobby says that's step 1, and Kelton will do step 2. Kelton says step 2 is have a photographer there, and make a plan but be flexible to get it done. Evan says jokingly that from there on everything is perfect and nothing will do wrong. Bobby says he should just ask after their song, while in costume, as that is "every girl's dream." Travis says he will take some of the advice and he will use it. Travis says,"No offense, but Josie, Carlin and Katie talk all the time...", and Kelton jokes "but I'll kill you if you say anything." Bobby says the secret will stay within their marriage, and tells Tori not to tell anyone else.

Back at the parties, the Brothers-in-law get up to sing their song. The guys sing a sweet old love song in crazy costumes, and everyone enjoys it. Then it is time for the Biggest Heart Award, which she gave for the first time to Lawson last year. This year, it goes to Michael, since she drops everything to be there for them. Michael nursed her grandmother through a recent illness. Everyone cheers for Michael, who is overwhelmed and deeply touched by the award. The costume contest begins: Bradley (t-rex) wins for Grandkids, Ellie (an inflatable cow suit) wins singles, and Lawson and Tiffany win for couples. Kelly says there were so many memories, and she is already planning next year's party. Lawson and Nathan say it was particularly special for them, and Katie says every year is better and better- and hopefully next year they'll be back and married.

*Episode 9: The Webster's New Home and Nathan's Next Move

Whitney and Zach invite Bobby and Tori over, since they just moved in down the street. The boutique has left the house, and they joke about being able to see the house again. Zach and Bobby go to cook, and Bobby is excited to learn from Zach. (Oh, it's a Perdue ad! Hi Purdue!) The kids also help cook. Whitney says when Zach has time, he loves to cook really nice meals. When it's busy, she does a lot of casseroles. Tori has boy clothes for Whitney, and Whitney has girl clothes for Tori. The clothes get both families excited about their new additions. Tori says it is cool to see how in sync Whitney and Zach are in the kitchen. The food is done, and everyone is excited about trying the meal. It's good.

John and Alyssa are moving, and Maci is a few weeks old. Ellie and Addee have been enlisted to help Alyssa pack up. Ellie and Addee are good movers. Addee says she usually prefers to watch the kids, so she does that as Ellie and Alyssa pack her house. At the new house, John is working away with some of the brothers to get it ready. The flooring goes in quickly, and John is impressed. Alyssa is excited by the progress. Alyssa says it was wonderful having her siblings come help.

Kelton and Bobby are working at the plumbing company, since they had a lot of businesses in 2020 due to people being home breaking things. Bobby and Kelton are enjoying working together. They now have a warehouse. With work being crazy, they need to figure out how to handle Tori and Josie being due about a week apart. They are looking for another office person to handle the phone while they're away. But growing their families and their businesses will have some growing pains, but will be a memorable year for them.

Callie and Jeb are over at the Paines to meet their new goat. Last year, the Paines got a kitten, two pigs (and piglets on the way) and now a goat. Holland feeds the goat a bottle, and Holland loves the goat. The goat walks on a leash. Everyone agrees it was fun getting to spend some time all together and meeting the goat April!

Nathan goes back to the jewelry store to get the ring which made Esther light up. Lawson has gone for moral support. Lawson is excited for them. Nathan says it is all getting real as he purchases the ring and begins making plans for the proposal. Nathan jokes that he is one step ahead of Lawson, and Lawson says it isn't a race. Josie says Lawson and Tiffany say they aren't in a hurry, but she thinks they will move fast and she is excited. Nathan asks Lawson about rings, and he points out one he saw last time. Nathan gets the ring, and he is ready to ask Esther soon.

*Episode 10: Due Dates & An Engagement Getaway!

A lot is going on for the Bates family: three babies, two new relationships and Travis's upcoming proposal. Kelly sneaks out to a cafe and FaceTimes Travis and his mom. Travis says everything is ready to go in Key West. The plan is to surprise Katie at the weekly Bates Sisters Boutique photoshoot. Travis says he is planning on being outside and coming in to surprise her. The one thing they need to figure out: Travis and Katie share phone location, and if he shuts if off, she'll know. The plan is to tell her Travis broke his phone and then to have him call her from his dad's phone. Kelly says Katie is one who figures out surprises, so hiding this from her has been a challenge, but so far the surprise is safe.

At Zach and Whitney's, Josie arrives and brings Willow over to do a painting activity. Whitney and Josie are excited about Hazel, Jaden and Charlotte will be close in age. Josie says she was mostly pregnant by herself with Willow, and it is way more fun to be pregnant with someone. Whitney and Josie paint signs- Whitney paints "Jayden" (so this is before the spelling change) and Josie paints an H. They talk about nursery plans, and Josie tells Whitney that Willow is into everything. When Josie went to get her from a nap, Willow had stripped down naked, gotten her diaper off, and smeared the contents everywhere. Josie is now worried about them sharing a room in case Willow does something like that again. The kids help decorate, and Zach arrives to deliver chocolates from their husbands. The women are touched, and they appreciate the chance to make memories before their babies arrive.

Nathan is training Lawson to become a commercial pilot, and Nathan wants this wrapped up before his proposal. Nathan is so excited for the next step with Esther, and Nathan is starting to think about finances, where they want to live, and all that. Nathan asks when Lawson is gonna get engaged, and Lawson says he is saving for a ring. Lawson says Tiffany is an amazing person and getting to know her is a joy. But he wants to get Nathan to the altar before making more plans.

In New Jersey, Travis is trying to write a song for Katie for the proposal. His parents and brother come over to help him with the song. His family is very musical, so they can be a tough audience, but they are really supportive. He plans to sing it after proposing, but his mom suggests doing it first. He agrees that makes more sense. Travis says he has some things to figure out, but he is praying it comes out perfectly.

Travis and his parents are heading to Tennessee, and it is crunch time on hiding the surprise from Katie. At the boutique, Whitney, Erin and Carlin are excited for the photoshoot which will feature all the sisters except Alyssa and Michael (who is out of town). Tori arrives first, and then the rest of the sisters arrive and the shoot begins. Travis is hiding outside ready to sneak in and take the camera at some point. Taryn, the photographer, starts the photoshoot off with the sisters, and one photo of all three pregnant sisters together. Finally, Erin asks Katie to change, and it's time for the secret to come out. Up until this point, only Gil and Kelly knew the Clarks were in the parking lot. Erin starts putting people in a line for the big group sister shot. Travis sneaks in, and the sisters are shocked but he shushes them quick. Everyone is shocked and excited to see him. Addee says everyone knew right away this was the engagement. Katie comes out, and Travis, from behind the camera, says "Surprise!" Katie says he said he was getting his phone fixed, and Travis says: "Nope, we're going to the beach!" Katie then sees his parents are there, and she is shocked. Katie didn't think he would surprise her at a Boutique photoshoot, so he has surprised her once again. All the sisters are so excited, and Katie can't wait to see when and where it happens, but she knows it will happen soon. The sisters take a quick pic with Travis, and then it is time for Katie to go quickly pack.

Katie, Travis and their parents arrive in Key West, and they are in awe of their surroundings. They shop, explore and take photos. The Clark parents went to Key West on their honeymoon, and they are excited to be sharing it with Travis and Katie. Everyone does a history train tour first, to get to see what is going on on the island. They take photos at the southernmost point, a classic photo spot. Everyone teases Kelly for her love of vacation photos and counting "one two three" over and over again. Next stop is the Butterfly Conservatory. Everyone loves getting to see all the different types. Everyone is surprised with how many butterflies there are. They see flamingos as well. A butterfly lands on Gil's phone, which he thinks makes him special in some way. Kelly says the odds of a butterfly landing on you in that place with so many butterflies are high. Gil retorts, "So did any land on you?" and Kelly laughs and says no. They rave about the conservatory.

Next up is a sunset cruise, and the views are amazing. Katie thinks this is the time, but it is just a classic tourist sunset cruise. Gil says this is a great tease for when it really will be. Everyone enjoys the sunset, and Katie teases her parents for being on their phones taking pictures instead of "living in the moment." but everyone is laughing and having a good time as the sun goes down.

The next day, it is proposal day (although Katie doesn't know that quite yet.) First stop is to a sand sculptor for a class in sand sculpting. Katie and Travis sculpt a dolphin. The parents go for a turtle. First, the sculptor has them pack the sand in first, and then everyone start chipping away at it. Katie and Travis have their dolphin hold a heart with their initials on it, which makes theirs the favorite. The sculptor asks where they're going next, and so does Katie. Travis says lunch is next. Travis says his nerves are ok right now, but he is worried about his song and wants to practice it before the real thing.

Kelly, Travis's Mom and the photographer go to the location, a pier over the beach, to see how the florists have set it up. It is really beautiful, and everyone is impressed. Kelly says she is nervous enough for the both of them, but it is time. Katie and Travis are all dressed up and ready to go. Gil sends them off on a walk, and Katie thinks this is it. Travis leads Katie away, and she is crying already.

Travis leads Katie down the pier, and they are both super nervous. Travis tells Katie he loves her, and he leads her to the end of the pier. Katie says it looks like a scene from a movie. Travis leads her into a heart made of flowers, and Travis picks up his guitar. Travis sings her his proposal song, and Katie cries as he sings to her. Katie was overwhelmed by the song, saying she tried to focus on it but couldn't stop crying. Travis finishes the song, and then gets down on one knee and proposals. Katie says yes, and Travis puts the ring on her finger. They hug, and then they turn to their parents. Their parents come hug and congratulates them. The Clarks says they are excited to have Katie in their family, and they have a bright photo. Katie is so excited as they take pictures. All the Bates siblings share their well-wishes in talking heads. Gil says there's wedding bells in the future, and three babies on the way- and maybe two more engagements- and, who knows, maybe even two weddings in 2021? Gil says there is a lot to look forward to and be grateful for- it is a dream come true.

#BuB season 10 #bringing up bates #recap

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gayenerd · 4 years ago

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An interview with music journalist Paul Zollo. I believe this is from 2000. I’m a sucker for Billie Joe talking about his songwriting process.

By PAUL ZOLLO

SEVEN STORIES ABOVE THE SUNSET STRIP in Hollywood is the Chateau Marmont, an old hotel rife with the ghosts and scandals of Hollywood’s recent and not-so-recent past. Famous for the elegant, old-world discretion it affords all its guests, for decades it’s been a safe harbor for stars seeking to circumvent the squall of media surveillance. It’s where John Belushi died, sadly, back in bungalow three, and where Jim Morrison wrecked his back by swinging Tarzan-like from the roof, using a drain pipe as a vine. Every star, it seems, from Chaplin and Bogart to Dylan and Lennon have hidden out here while in Hollywood. “If you must get in trouble, do it at the Chateau Marmont,” Harry Cohn, the first boss of Columbia Studios, once told William Holden.

So it’s an appropriate setting for Billie Joe Armstrong, the lead singer, songwriter and guitarist of Green Day, to be holding court. Armstrong and the band are no strangers to scandal – they’re the ones who started a mudfight that bordered on insurrection at Woodstock II; they’ve been outspoken about their fondness for drugs and alcohol; they’ve been especially harsh in their expressions of scorn for many other bands; and they’ve frequently “redecorated” hotel suites, bars and Tower Records stores alike with a flair for creative demolition that brings to mind the heady decadence of the Doors and others.

In fact, parallels between Armstrong and Jim Morrison abound. Like the leader of the Doors, Billie Joe is the creative catalyst of his group, but only writes within the fold of his fellow musicians. Like Morrison, Armstrong has been known to walk on the razor’s edge of life, bringing an authentic, expansive passion to every song he sings. He’s also been known to match his inclination to strip his soul bare in song by taking off his clothes in concert. The difference is that when Jim Morrison did it, all hell broke loose, the country was shocked and the singer was arrested. But when Billie Joe does it, he gets acknowledged on the MTV news, Kurt Loder smirks, and that’s about that. Being shocking these days is just not like it used to be.

‘It’s something unpredictable,

But in the end is right

I hope you had the time of your life.”

From “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)”

By GREEN DAY

Few things seemed more unpredictable than the thought that Green Day would have a Number One hit with a pretty ballad of all things. Even more unlikely would be that the song, officially entitled “Good Riddance” but better known as “Time Of Your Life,” would become as ubiquitous in the American consciousness as the Star Wars theme. Used on “Seinfeld,” two episodes of “E.R.,” and extraneous sporting events (as when Mark MacGuire became the king of baseball’s home-run derby), Green Day’s ballad quickly became more famous than Green Day itself.

“Good Riddance” now stands alongside Springsteen’s “Born In The USA”, Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.” and Sting’s “Every Breath You Take,” as one of the nation’s most misappropriated hit singles. Like all of those songs, which are much darker if you examine their core than the mainstream ever seemed to recognize, “Good Riddance” actually comes closer to condemnation than the kind of nostalgic celebration for which it’s been used:

“Tattoos of memories and dead skin on trial

For what it’s worth, it was worth all the while

I hope you had the time of your life. “

From “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)”

By GREEN DAY

Though Green Day’s presence on the world stage shifted from popular to astronomical because of this song, many of their old fans felt alienated by their secret heroes’ injection into the mainstream. “[`Time of Your Life’] was a drastic change for us to record,” Billie Joe said. “We knew that there were going to be some people that weren’t going to like it because it’s not a 1-2-3-4-Let’s-go-punk-rock tune. Mike [Dirnt] said, `This is a real beautiful song, who cares what people think?’ So we just went for it. Long term thinking, you know. Punk is not just the sound, the music. Punk is a life-style. We’re just as much punk as we used to be.”

Of course, definitions flow fast and fluid, as purveyors of punk, such as Armstrong, play along the borders of pop. “A lot of punk rock bands are always trying to be so hard all of the time,” he said. “Macho brutality doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a good songwriter. I think that some of the Beatles’ songs are way more punk rock than most punk songs written today. Like the song `Yesterday.’ It’s such a bittersweet song. “

Billie Joe was born in 1972 and grew up in Rodeo, a little Californian town just outside of Berkeley. His father and uncle were both jazz drummers. “I was a guitarist in a house of drummers,” he said. His father died when he was ten, the same year he met a neighbor named Mike Pritchard who shared his passion for making music. Together they decided to drop out of high school to start a band, which they called Sweet Children. It was a decision Billie’s mother encouraged. “My mom sort of let me do whatever I wanted,” he said. “When I quit school, she thought that was a good idea because I was really ambitious to play. So I started touring when I was seventeen.”

Pritchard changed his name to Mike Dirnt, Tre Cool replaced Al Sobrante as official drummer, and they called themselves Green Day, a Bay-area euphemism for a day spent smoking pot. Their first release was an indie EP called 1000 Hours, after which they signed with Lookout Records to make 39/Smooth and Kerplunk. In 1994 they ascended to the major leagues, signing with Reprise, and released Dookie. They soon became an MTV mainstay, and their mudstorm performance that year at Woodstock cemented their reputation as a band on the edge. Three more singles followed, as did sales of more than eight million albums worldwide, and a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance.

Insomniac was released in the fall of ’95, but instead of going on a European tour as planned to launch it, they elected instead to stay home and write and record more songs. The result was the most popular, and most critically acclaimed album of their career, Nimrod, which included “Time Of Your Life.”

Warning was the new album at the time of this interview, and the impetus for Billie to talk. Inspired by the rich lyricism of Springsteen’s The River and Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home, Green Day went away for a while to write and play the songs before recording them. It’s their first self-produced and most sonically adventurous album to date, blending layers of acoustic guitars in with the electrics, and with some unexpected detours, such as the German beer-hall stomp of “Misery,” and the Clash-meets-Kinks pop-punk of the title song.

“Caution police sign you’d better not cross

Is the cop or am I the one that’s really dangerous?

Sanitation expiration date question everything

Or shut up and be a victim of authority

Warning, live without warning…”

From “Warning”

By GREEN DAY

Today Billie Joe is ensconced within an overstuffed burgundy couch in his hotel suite. Although he’s drinking coffee from china cups, and eating fresh fruit and croissants from a silver tray, he’s remained loyal to the punk lifestyle, and is wearing a black t-shirt and baggy jeans. Prior to our talk, rather than linger in the luxury of his suite, he ducked down into the hotel’s bleak back stairway for a cigarette. Though he’s undeniably a star of the first degree, he’s uncomfortable with such designations, and shuns all the trappings of stardom. As opposed to the Ferraris and Lamborghinis driven by his peers, an old Ford Fairlane remains his vehicle of choice. He did admit to one extravagance, however, which he revealed somewhat sheepishly. “As soon as I could afford it,” he confessed, “I went out and had it primered.”

BLUERAILROAD: You write all the songs together in the band. Do you start songs on your own and bring them in?

BILLIE JOE ARMSTRONG: Yeah, sometimes. I’ll come up with the song with the chord changes and the lyrics, and then I bring them into practice, and then we sort of restructure them together. I like to come in with a tune. I’ll just play guitar and sing it for them, and then we start to learn it. And as soon as we start to learn it, we can make changes and come up with a different structure. Move the chorus around, make the verse a little longer. That kind of thing. I definitely like to think of it as a collaboration between the three of us.

Do you always change the songs?

Well, we have a lot of songs. There have been some that I have brought in and nothing really needs to be done. Sometimes I’ll suggest a part that needs to be worked with, and we’ll try some different things. And then they’ll write their bass-lines and drum parts around it.

Do you ever have a problem sharing credit on songs you wrote alone?

Well, we’re a band. We’ve been able to stick through a lot of years because the three of us support each other. The songs come from Green Day, and I like to stick by that. We like to just keep things equal in the band, and I think it’s what has made our band healthy over the years. We give each other respect. There is no one who stands out more than the other one in this group. Especially since we’ve known each other for so long.

These days do you write on electric guitar?

No, on acoustic. I have a Silverine Harmony. But it sounds good. I just have it around the house, so I’ve written most of the songs on it.

Do those songs then shift a lot when you bring them to the band, and play them on electric?

No, because I always have it in the back of my head about the dynamics of electric guitar and drums and bass. Between me and Mike and Tre, I always have that dynamic in my head – what am I going to bring to the table that they’re going to be able to play, and which will have our certain energy. I always keep our energy and our music in mind, sort of subconsciously. But I think that’s the beauty of this. That not only can I play these songs with a band at full volume, but also that I can play them on a cheap, acoustic guitar. And it can have the same kind of impact.

“Warning” would work that way.

Yeah, it does. That kind of came all together at the same time. I think lyrics on this record were really important to me, and to have a well-rounded record as far as what kind of topics I wanted to write about, and sing about. That was one of those songs that seemed to just write itself. It just came really naturally.

Is that unusual for you, the feeling that a song writes itself?

Well, I try to go for inspired moments. But if I want to write a song that sounds like it has a pop kind of edge to it, I really want to be able to say something. I have to say something – it’s vital for me. I can’t just write something that would be sugar-coated, and have a pop song with nice lyrics that go along with what everyone is doing on the radio these days. It’s very important for me to have a message that goes along with the writing. So, you know, what comes to mind for me is a song like “The Ballad of John & Yoko,” where [Lennon] had this really nice sounding song. But the lyrics penetrate like a knife. “They’re gonna crucify me…” That’s kind of nice way — nice, I mean, in an oxymoronic sense – to put forward something you want to attack.

You’ve done that in many songs.

Yeah, I think it adds a sort of demented side a little bit, sort of like a clown in a circus. But it also makes the lyrics a lot stronger. If you take a band like Rage Against The Machine, the music is aggressive, and the lyrics are aggressive at the same time. And I love Rage Against The Machine, but sometimes it feels like you getting bombarded by someone’s else’s point of view. The person is not telling you to think, but what to think. And that’s one thing that I really wanted to come across in the music and the lyrics. To think about the world around you, and not what to think, so to speak. And at the same time, to have my opinions coming through at the same time.

Are you always clear about the meaning of a song while writing?

No. That’s hard. I mean, sometimes I’ll have things in the back of my head that I want to write about. But I never want to come across as pretentious or preachy. So I just wait for my thoughts to settle. To a certain extent, you have to be a little self-righteous and I think it’s healthy. Especially when, nowadays, there’s so much stuff that is about decadence. And when it comes to rebellion, a guy who has a Rolex watch and is driving around in a Porsche, talking about that he really wants something to break, I don’t really think of that as rebellion, I think of that just as a decadent rock star.

Do you have any kind of routine for songwriting?

Last record I was just sort of pounding songs. Anytime I had any inkling of an idea of anything at all, I would just grab my guitar and play it and work on it no matter what the song was like. Whether it was inspired or I just got drunk and started playing. But this time I waited for inspired moments. And I think it took me a long time just because of that. I wanted everything to sound refreshing, and something that would make you want to turn it up a little more.

Did you have times when you tried to work and nothing would come?

Oh yeah. You get frustrated. You feel, “Man, I just want to write a fucking song.” And sometimes it’s just not there. And you can’t dwell on that when that happens. You have to just let it go.

I don’t ever want to try to outdo myself. I feel like if you try to outdo yourself from the last thing, instead of just working on your inspiration, I think the music kind of suffers a little bit, sometimes. Sometimes I’ll just get a very general idea about the kind of song I want to write. And I’ll just sort of store it in the back of my mind and see what comes out. It can come out in five minutes, it can come out in five days, five years, five decades.

Are there songs you worked on for years?

Yeah. “Longview” was one that we worked on for years. We knew what we wanted to write about. I told Mike to write a bass line and one day I came home. This is when we lived in the same house. He had just dropped some acid (laughs) and he said, “Listen to this.” And I said, “Okay, I guess it sounds good.” He came up with this bass line that really worked well, so we ended up practicing and came up with the song.

Are there many songs you start that you don’t finish?

Yes. And I’ll just wait for the right time and the right place for it. There are some songs I finish but then I think it’s not right for the record we’re working on. There’s a couple of songs like that off of Nimrod. “Time of My Life” had been written a couple of years before.

That song resounded in enormously with the public. Was it just a fluke, or did you sit down with the intention of writing that kind of song?

Both. I think that anyone can sit down and write a song. Whether or not it’s any good is another thing altogether. You know, there’s no school you can go to that will help you learn how to become a songwriter. But you can sit down and do it. Especially with rock & roll. But to put something down that is actually really great, it does go beyond you a little bit, and sometimes it takes patience.

Do you write all the time?

Yeah. Whether it’s good or bad, I don’t know. Or if it’s appropriate for what kind of idea or sound that we want to get across on the record.

Where do you think the great songs come from?

I don’t know. I really don’t. It comes from somewhere deep down inside of you that you didn’t even know existed. It’s kind of like seeing a shrink or something. (Laughs) There can be a lot of anger, or sadness, or joy, that you had but you didn’t even know you really had – but it can all come out. You feel a connection with it, and so other people can, too. You strike a nerve.

Does songwriting get easier the more you do it?

I think so. I think you definitely learn more as you go. I think you find new ways to motivate yourself. You test yourself a little bit more and see what comes about. And you challenge yourself in new ways to see what comes out. You learn new ways to get the engines going. But whether or not it does get easier, it’s what I do. And I love doing it.

#'I don’t ever want to try to outdo myself'#HE'S SUCH A FUCKING LIAR #at least he knows the music suffers from it #BUT HE'S A GODDAMN LIAR #article #articles #interview #billie joe armstrong

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purplesurveys · 4 years ago

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1183

survey by xflirtykaosx

Alphabetti Spaghetti (1/3)

And we will fall in love with shooting stars. - A

Have you ever seen an Aardvark? I don’t think so.

Were you ever abandoned in a public place as a child? Where? Abandoned is a pretty harsh word lol. My parents did like playing pranks on me and hide whenever I’d get distracted at the grocery or department store. They’d let me get nervous or even tear up for a bit until showing up again.

What accent do you have? I guess just your standard Filipino English accent that’s common among people who were able to take up English studies. I don’t really know how to describe it.

Is there someone in your family addicted to something? What is it? I don’t think so.

Have you ever been under general anaesthetic? What were you having done? I think so? When I had a tooth extraction done on me two years ago I was told I was going to be injected with anaesthesia, but I didn’t feel as if anything changed throughout the procedure. Either my dentist told me fake news lol or he’s just really good at his job for me to not notice anything.

How do you show the ones you love affection? It depends on the person. Around my friends, I know I’ve had taken a liking to them once I start getting especially talkative with them. For people I have even deeper relationships with, I like...buying them gifts, I guess. Getting them things that remind me of them. I would also bend over backwards to do nice deeds for them, like driving them to their destination even if I find it far.

Are you more passive or aggressive? I tend to be very passive aggressive in the way I deal with things.

Do you like the band Aha!? Not in particular.

Do you know anyone called Aidan? What are they like? Nope.

Ever heard of the band Ajax? No but I know that’s a brand of like cleaner or something. That’s close enough to ‘band’ haha.

Do you know anyone called Akash? I don’t either.

Do the sound of fire alarms scare you? They would obviously be scary if it rang for a real reason. Who wouldn’t freak out over a fire?

Do you live in America? If so, which state? If visited, where'd you go? No, and I’ve never visited either. I’d love to take a trip to cities like New York, New Orleans, Portland, and Chicago one of these days.

Have you ever had an ant infestation in your house? Only when there’s food left out accidentally.

Aora - did I spell that correctly? I don’t even know what you’re referring to, so I can’t tell you if you’ve spelled whatever it is right.

Do you have a preference in Apple? What type do you prefer? I don’t quite get this question - like a preference within Apple products? I mean, a phone and a laptop are essentials for me, and generally I do prefer having an iPhone and Macbook over other brands; but I can live without an iPad, an Apple Watch, iMac, Apple Pen, etc...if this is what you mean.

Are you an Aquarian? Is anyone in your family/your partner/best friend? ...You mean Aquarius? No. I don’t believe in astrology nor pay attention to zodiac signs either, so I wouldn’t be able to name Aquariuses that I know right off the bat.

Have you ever worn any type of armor? Which type? I don’t think I’ve ever had to, no.

Do you use the word ass a lot? Kinda, but it’s usually part of a longer word, i.e. asshole, asshat, deadass, etc.

Have you or your family had an attorney? What for? Not to my knowledge.

Is your car/family’s car an automatic gear or manual? Automatic.

Are you interested in aviation, piloting and aircrafts? Just the slightest bit. I would love to learn how to fly a plane, and I would be willing to pay for lessons. It’s just the type of activity that’s super hard to squeeze into an already-hectic schedule of mine.

What was the last award you recieved for? A academic distinction in college.

Axl Rose - like or dislike? Like, but I’m nowhere near a passionate fan. I just don’t have any reasons to actively dislike him.

Do you like air being spelt ayre or ayer in rap or hiphop or is it nasty? I don’t care.

Is the sky outside Azure? If not, what shade is it? No, it’s pitch black.

Belle amour (we've been here before). - B

Do you call anyone baby? Is it sweet or an overrated name for affection? Just my dogs. I find it sweet; it’s my preferred term of endearment if in a relationship.

Bby - does this shortened version bug you? No; my friends and I use this with each other.

Do you know what BC in terms of time stands for? Before Christ, but I prefer using BCE.

BDf - For or against? I don’t know what this is referring to.

Do you prefer beach breaks, city breaks or winter breaks? Why? Beach breaks. Winter break is an immediate cross-out since we don’t even have winter; and I already live and work in an urban area as it is. Beaches are my way to go if I want to escape life for a bit and completely unwind.

Do you spell out boyfriend properly or put bf in texts/online? I can use either depending on what I feel like typing out. It’s not that serious haha.

Do you know what bg is short for? Upon reading this question I immediately thought ‘background,’ but if this question had another meaning in mind I wouldn’t be aware of it.

Do you know anyone with the last name Bhays? No.

Have you ever been bird watching? What did you see? No, doesn’t sound like my kind of hobby.

Do you like Bjork? Not in particular, but just like the Axl Rose question I don’t have anything against her either.

What does this read: bk 2moz miss u lyk fk. Doesn't this text speak annoy? No one types like this anymore at least among people I know, but I imagine it would lowkey bother me a bit.

Do you like BMWs? They’re whatever. I don’t pay attention to cars much.

What is the nearest book to you called? How many times have you read it? There aren’t any books here up on the rooftop.

BnQ - gone there? What did you buy? Idk what that is.

Are you more brainy or brave? I wanna say brainy, if anything? I’m pretty jumpy lol.

Did you like the BSBs (Backstreet Boys) as a kid? How about now? No, I’m a little too young for that generation of artists and groups.

Burgers, Hot Dogs or Salads at a Barbecue? We don’t really practice ~barbecues~ here. But at Filipino parties I would usually flock to lumpia and fried chicken, hehe.

Do you have a Byro? No, because I also don’t know what that is.

Cold eyes and filthy lies all leave me petrified. - C

Do you have a Cactus (Cacti)? No, I don’t like plans.

Do you know what a CCTV is? Yes...?

How many CDs are in the room you are currently in? None where I am right now but I have all of Beyoncé’s albums save for Lemonade in my bedroom. I also have Paramore’s self-titled album and Hayley Williams’ Petals For Armor. My CD collection is about to experience a revival because of BTS, though. My plan to get all versions of all their albums is rock solid, lmao.

What's your favourite cereal brand? Cookie Crisps.

Do you like children's TV shows still? Which one(s)? I’ll revisit an episode or two of shows I watched as a kid at a given time for old times’ sake, but I don’t regularly watch children’s TV shows anymore. I haven’t for a very long time.

Cinnamon - Yum or Yuck? I’m actually kind of in the middle about it. I feel like too many desserts have been banking on cinnamon, so the taste of it can be a little tiring. It’s delicious if I haven’t had it for a while, though.

Do you know anyone with the initials and or name CJ? Quite the opposite; I know PLENTY of JCs, even my sister is one. I know one or two CJs but that’s it.

Have you ever met a self professed clairvoyant? What did they do/say? No.

Do you watch CNN News? What's your prefered news channel/show? I don’t tune into the channel but every once in a while I will encounter a CNN link on social media that I’d actually click on and read through. As for preferred news sources, I don’t have one as there are matters to criticize about 99% of them lol; but I am most likely to trust articles I from AP or Reuters. Just things you pick up as a journalism student.

How many cousins do you have? I have 9 first cousins. I lose count by the time I try to go beyond that since I don’t even know all of my dad’s cousins, which makes it hard to track who my second cousins are.

Do you still draw with crayons? When was the last time you did? Drew what? I don’t remember anymore.

Do you know what a CSS feed is? What is it? I’m familiar with the term but never bothered to learn about what it is.

Do you like cycling/biking? What type of bike do you have? ...I don’t even know how to ride a bike.

Do you really like it, is it is it wicked. - D

What is the most dangerous animal you've petted/held? I can’t decide between snake or crocodile.

Do you like Death Metal? If so, which band(s)? I wouldn’t say I do.

Did you ever keep a diary/journal? I did a million attempts to keep a diary when I was younger, but I was never able to keep up with any of them and I ended up having 4598358395 notebooks with one or two entries each at most. Having a Tumblr page for surveys has so far been my most successful streak at keeping some type of journal.

Do you prefer small, medium, large or no dogs? I prefer all dogs.

Do you know what DP stands for in porn? Yes.

Have you ever dressed up as a celebrity for a party/Halloween? I went as my favorite female wrestler once. I wouldn’t strictly call her a celebrity, but she’s a very well-known personality in the wrestling industry so she’s popular in that right.

DS or Wii? Why? Wii. I was able to make more memories with it.

Does dust make you sneeze or cough? Sneeze, usually.

How many DVDs do you have all together? Idk, I don’t buy DVDs anymore.

Do you dye your hair regularly, sometimes or never? I’ve never done it.

Every love lies sometimes . . . - E

What's something you refuse to eat? Most fruits.

Don't you think the word ebb is so pretty? I’m neutral about it. I don’t use it a lot.

Do you like Chocolate Eclairs? I love eclairs in general haha. Chocolate eclairs in particular sound delicious.

Ever tried edible paper? Yeah, with the White Rabbit candy.

Eevee - pretty name or too Pokemon-y? Definitely very Pokemon-y.

Do you sometimes mix up the spellings/meanings of affection and defection? Erm, no? They have completely different spellings and meanings, so I personally have never switched them up.

Do you have a big ego, low self esteem or somewhere in between? I think I’m somewhere in between. I’m insecure about some things about myself, but I don’t really put myself down 24/7. I feel like that would put such a strain on my mental health, which I certainly would never need.

What Element does your starsign fall under? I think earth? My co-workers were just discussing this last Friday, but I couldn’t really butt in since I can’t bring myself to care about astrology. I know they mentioned Taurus being an earth sign though.

Do you show your emotions easily and freely or hide them? Depends...I can do either depending on the situation.

What is your favourite form of entertainment? Korean reality shows are quickly becoming a favorite of mine at the moment. I also like compilation videos on YouTube.

What will they write on your epitaph? I’ve honestly hadn’t put much thought into this yet, and I don’t plan to anytime soon. It just seems like a super grave thing to think about lol.

Estimate/guess what number we are on now? Maybe 60s or 70s?

Do you know basic social etiquette? I mean etiquette will always differ per country or culture, so what is basic in other countries might not be here, and vice versa. I think it’s hard to measure.

Does your country use the Euro, Great British Pound, Dollar or other? Other.

Do you still get excited on Christmas Eve? Yes. Mostly for the free food and the opportunity to see relatives I really only ever see every December 24.

What animal/creature that is extinct do you wish wasn't? Those that went extinct from human activity.

What colour eyes do your parents have? Black/dark brown.

#survey #surveys

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chimswae · 4 years ago

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BTS Caretaker Ch1

Summary: She may think she has Bangtan Sonyeondan wrapped around her fingers. She may think it is easy to love the members equally without hurting any soul. She may think the boys wont fall head over heels for her. She assumes it is okay to show a little love and affection towards the boys, what if she gets it all wrong? What if it only brings more complication to her already complicated life? Can she survive their charms? Will she be able to resist them? What if they just wont let her go?

- Pairing: BTS x Oc ( Yoongi x OC, Jungkook x OC, Jikook~)

- Genre: Fluff, Slight Angst, Romance, Idol!au

- Word Count: 2,161

-Author Note: I crosspost this story from my Asianfanfic/Wattpadd account. Mind you, clicheness OVERLOADS.

Chapter 1

“Ahjumma’s food. I can smell it from miles away. Yums..” the maknae line hollered excitedly as they made their way inside without even taking off their socks properly. Stood behind them in line were the hyung lines which only shook their head in amusement. They just got back from a 11-hour practice yet those boys still had some energy stored in them.

Age aint just a number for sure.

Taehyung and Jimin voice were so loud which could shake the whole building “AS EXPECTED AHJUMMA COOKED THE BEST FOOD” Jin smacked their back head lightly accompanied with soft grunt.

“Clean yourself first, this food need to be reheat first” as usual Jin would take charge when it came to kitchen issues. Taehyung puckered his lips in protest and shot the older boy a stern look sending there-is-no-way-im-listening-to-you message which only being ignored by him.

Jimin cracked a grin as his eyes sunk into his signature eyes smile “I will be here in 10 minutes” he paraded to his room happily. Jin watched his figure disappeared with a soft sigh “And, how about you?” turning to face hungry Jungkook, the younger guy only rolled his eyes earning a smack on his forearm.

“HYUNG WHAT WAS THAT FOR?” bewildered, he half-yelled.

“Manners Jeon Gukkie” said the leader. Jungkook pursed his lips looking awfully sulky as he made his way to his room to get changed before his hyungs goofed around making fun of him again. Like a routine, every time they reached their place, meals would already lay flat on the table for them to savour. Even though it was weird to eat something without knowing the caretaker lady’s face, they were aware the lady was like a mother to them.

Every single day without failed, the caretaker lady or they preferably called as “Ahjumma” would prepare a simple meal for the seven boys. However, due to the nature of her contract with Bighit the ahjumma is not allowed to perform her task when the boys were around. She would only be there early in the morning daily except in certain occasion whereby the boy had no schedule ahead then she would come as per requested by BTS manager.

Therefore, none of the boys had ever met the caretaker lady face to face. Entering to her third year working with the boys, the caretaker lady knew almost everything about them just by cleaning their dorm. Yes, the dorm would not be in a good shape if it weren’t for the caretaker lady. The place was big enough for everyone to stay in comparison to their old dorm back then.

Make it big or not, they are still guys. Some may take time to clean after their mess but the nature of their career restricts them to perform even a simplest task like doing their own laundry. Now and then Jungkook would be in charge doing their laundry however nowadays they were so cramped with awards shows and tours ahead.

There were lots of things to be prepared at once, and the guys barely got time to even shut their eyes properly in a day. Poor boys.

Like a flash, Jungkook and Jimin came running to the kitchen taking their seat looking all ready to gobble down the food. At time like this, they really missed homecooked food. They are grateful for caretaker Ahjumma’s food that kept them fit and healthy all these years. Unlike before their debut days, the company could only afford them simple snacks which were not enough for grown up boys like them.

“I wonder when will we ever get to meet this caretaker Ahjumma” the youngest one mumbled between his bite.

Jimin shrugged “According to Sejin hyung, she is not allowed to work when we are around. The nature of the contract I guess” he felt someone sank in a seat beside him lazily. Lazy but hungry Min Yoongi.

Yoongi picked up his chopsticks and shoved kimchi in his mouth hastily “The contract is made to protect us”

“The ahjumma is not a sasaeng. It has been 3 years, plus she has been nothing but awfully kind to us. She prepares food for us even though it is not in her job description. Aint that enough to prove she won’t cause any harm?” Jungkook argued with a slight pout.

Sprawled lazily on the couch, Hoseok nodded in agreement as he started to mumble incoherently most likely how it was unfair for not be able to meet the kind lady personally. It was all talk and they couldn’t stop wondering how kind the Ahjumma was in person.

The eldest in the group appeared looking squeaky clean with a gleeful smile plastered on his face “Jungkook, are you falling for this Ahjumma’s charms” he teased. The younger guy flustered in his seat sending a death glare to his hyung’s way.

Jin didn’t stop right there, he heard him continue “Maybe she is not that Ahjumma after all. What if Bang Pd is protecting us from a beautiful caretaker lady?” he hummed as he sat across Jungkook still with that playful smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.

“Mmm.. I don’t think her notes sound so young after all. She used a lot of old words in her writing” Jimin scratched the back of his neck in confusion. How could a person be so clueless and oblivious? It supposed to be a mere tease but he indeed took things quite seriously. Judging by his expression, Jimin was racking his brain to find answer to the relevancy of this matter as per mentioned by Jin.

A soft sigh escaped from Yoongi’s lips in response to his friends’ irrelevant conversation “I am going to sleep. Clean up after eating, don’t put more loads on the ahjumma’s shoulder” he warned before leaving the group.

“Tch, how can he be full by eating kimchi!” Jin cringed in annoyance.

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

Ji Seul, 22 years old, a college dropout.

Alright, cut that college dropout thing. She’s diligently working in a bubble tea shop and sometimes she would work at 7-eleven just to kill time. Another reason was that, to make more money. Due to financial constraints a year ago, she had to give up her college in exchange to her little brother school fees. The fees on the other hand had hiked up crazily leaving her with no choice but to give up her future.

It was not easy for her mother to raise the siblings alone without external support. The condition of the economy nowadays was not favourable to family with low disposable income like them. Ji Seul worked when she was in college however it came to no avail. For some reason, she performed badly in her first semester. To add to that sappy story of hers, she almost got kicked out due to her poor performance.

If she were to work, she would perform so badly in her tests and projects.

However, if she decided to give up on having a part time job, she could not afford the college fees. And vice versa.

Some might think there was another way to resolve her so called issues. Scholarship? She tried it all, guess the competition was surprisingly high lately. Ji Seul had a decent result to apply for one, but there would always be another person who’s above you after all. That’s life.

She spent her youth time working hard like there is no tomorrow for the sake of her family. As much as she wanted to chase her dreams, she would rather work her ass off for her mother at least. The failure of her mother’s marriage literally messed up everything. Let’s not talk about her typical shitty life, Ji Seul preferred to let it buried deep in her brain. It was not worth talking anyways.

All she knew, her father was a real jerk for abandoning them.

Ji Seul loathed her father to the core. She would never forgive him for all misery that he had caused to their life.

Placing the last ingredient in her stew, she smiled to herself feeling a little proud of her little accomplishment. Cooking was not easy, and if it weren’t for her annoying little brother, which was not that little, demanded a decent dinner tonight, she did not need to struggle with the recipe. He was old enough to cook a freaking ramen yet he chose to order her around just to piss her off.

“Where is my food?” Ji Hoon blinked with a sly smirk.

Ji Seul scoffed in disbelief “Here..” she kicked his calf as her eyes rolled in annoyance.

“OWW NUNA! THAT IS RUDE!”

“So, your nuna is being rude now? Don’t call me nuna, I am disowning you Hoon” she snickered. Bantering was a usual thing between the Ji’s, the world would be a better place without their existence for sure. The sound of front door being opened averted Ji Seul attention from her brother.

“Im back kids. No one is losing their teeth today, right? I hope” her mother closed the door behind her with a sarcastic remark. Pursing her lips, she took the bag from the older woman’s hand “Don’t worry, our teeth are still intact. But seems like Hoon will be losing his soon” Hoon puffed his cheeks.

“Can both of you behave for one day” she shook her head utterly speechless of her children’s childish behaviour. She went straight to check the food on the stove “Oh you cooked Seul-ah?” Seul broke a wide grin with a nod.

“If it weren’t for me, nuna would not be cooking that stew right now. Amazing, isn’t it?” Hoon replied chirpily.

Snorting under her breath, Seul retorted “For your information, the world does not revolve around you Ji Hoon. So, mother how’s work?” she watched the older woman taking a seat with a fatigue smile. Over years, she could see how older she got. It must not be easy for her to work as a caretaker lady. Her mother cherished her job as BTS’s caretaker because they paid her handsomely and the company really looked after her like a family.

She grew fond of the boys even though they did not have the chance to meet each other just yet. However, it was satisfying to look after the boys just like her own child. She loved her job. If she were given a chance to meet them in the future, she would shower them with lots of good food.

“The boys really made a huge mess. I think they were pretty busy” she chuckled.

She took a sip of the cold drinks as she continued “Jungkook piled up the laundry in his room again. He must have forgotten it while tending other important works like-“ Seul cut her off with a cringe.

“Like his games?” her mother nodded in response, ‘” Lazy bum” she claimed.

“Jungkook is just a kid Seul, let him be” her mother defended.

Seul crossed her arms disliking the fact that this Jungkook person made her mother worked extremely hard today “He is 20 and a grown-up man. He should have cleaned his own mess” Hoon pretended he did not listen to his sister complaints. It had always been like that. Ji Seul appeared to have a personal vendetta against Bangtan Sonyeondan. She knew they were pretty hot nowadays but sadly BTS did not meet her par.

Now and then, she would listen to their songs. Some of the songs are decent enough which gave colour to her already sorrowful life. Nevertheless, that was it. She had no idea who was who, all she knew there were 7 members.

If Ji Seul were like those fangirls, she would be the happiest human being alive for having a connection with BTS. Too bad, she was not into them. She had something better to do, like making money and keeping their stomach full.

“Do you like Jungkook hyung?” Hoon’s voice brought her out of her trance.

Ji Seul facepalmed upon listening to his absurd questions. She let out a low grunt “Jungkook hyung? Are you that friendly with him? Ew that is gross Hoon” she shot him a judgemental look.

“He is older by a year, and I am being polite. You seem to have lots of shitty complaints in your brain when it comes to BTS members. Especially Jungkook hyung” he purposely pressed the hyung part staring at the small girl in front of him.

“Because for some reason mother only talk about him and that other guy Chin?” she blurted out of annoyance.

“It is Jin..” her mother leaned back in her seat with a teasing smile. Now she’s teaming up with Ji Hoon to bring Seul down for good. She added before Seul could continue “He is a good cook..unlike someone” earning a low scowl from Ji Seul.

She had made up her mind to ignore them both.

Her stew needs her attention.

#bts fic #bts fanfic #bts series #jeon jungkook x reader #Yoongi x reader #bts fluff #Bts x oc #btscaretaker #bts idol au

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blurry-fics · 5 years ago

Text

Chapter Eighteen

Where Did We Go | Series Masterlist

Warnings: None

Word Count: 2102

Author’s Note: I hope you enjoy this chapter! :) (picture credit to jenna on ig)

“Where do we even start?” Y/N asked.

We were standing just inside our shared closet, looking at all the clothes that were hanging up. Today was the day that we had set aside for packing the majority of our things up for tour, which always started with our clothes since they took the most space in our suitcases. It also just so happened to be the most daunting part.

“Well, we have the lists,” I said, holding them up for emphasis. “Should we just find all the stuff we need, pile it up, and then fold?”

“Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. Let’s start with your stuff.”

“Ok.”

Y/N took the lists from me and sat down just outside the closet. I stepped further in and started to look through my clothes, already deciding what I wanted to bring and what I should leave behind. Y/N started to read off items on the list, which I grabbed and then tossed to her.

“Hey, careful!”

I turned to look at her, only to realize the tank top I had just grabbed had ended up hanging off of her head. She was laughing as she pulled it off of her head and added it to the ever growing pile behind her.

“Sorry,” I smiled. “Wasn’t looking.”

“It’s ok.”

This pattern went on until we had finally collected all the things on my list. The pile of clothes behind Y/N went up to my knees, already making me dread having to fold it later. Still, I knew it would be nothing compared to what Y/N ended up bringing since she didn’t have the same habit of wearing clothes for days straight like I did.

“Let’s get this stuff into the bedroom,” Y/N said, starting to get off the ground. I quickly walked over to her and helped her up. “Thanks.”

Together, the two of us began to carry small armfuls of clothes over to my side of the bed. The pile quickly grew again until all of my clothes were sitting on the ground. I immediately collapsed onto the bed after dropping the last few pants off.

“Ty,” Y/N smiled. “What are you doing?”

“Taking a break.”

“We don’t have time for breaks. It’s already noon and we haven’t even picked out my clothes yet. At this rate, we’re not going to be done until midnight.”

“Please,” I said, sticking out my bottom lip. “Can we just relax for five minutes?”

“Fine, but that’s it,” she said, taking a seat on the bed next to me before falling back into my arms.

“I’ll count.”

“No you won’t,” she laughed. “I’m setting a timer, otherwise we’ll be here for hours and you’ll still claim we have a minute left.”

“I will not,” I mumbled into her neck.

“Yes you will.”

“Isn’t this relaxing?”

“Yes, but somebody has another world tour starting in less than a week that we need to get ready for.”

“I’ll postpone it.”

“Ty,” she laughed. “That isn’t an option.”

“Sure it is. I’m famous.”

“I’m not going to let you postpone a world tour just because you want to cuddle with me.”

“Please?”

“No!”

“At least I tried.”

We made quiet conversation for the rest of the five minutes. When the timer finally went off, Y/N practically had to drag me off the bed and back into the closet.

“Come on, Ty, you don’t even have to do the hard stuff right now. All you have to do is sit and read words off a list.”

“That is hard.”

“Why are you so whiny today?” she laughed as she started to look through a drawer. I smiled to myself as I sat down and leaned against the wall.

“Today is the first free day that I’ve had in almost two weeks and we have to spend it packing. That’s why I’m so whiny.”

“Hey, at least we get to spend time together. It’s better than you being out at meetings all day.”

“Ok, point taken.”

“We don’t have any award shows this time around, do we? I want to make sure I pack something nice if we do.”

“I don’t think so. If we do, you can just wear a nice sweatshirt or something.”

“No, you can wear a nice sweatshirt because you’re Tyler Joseph,” she said as she pulled down a couple tops. “I have to wear something nice because I’m just Y/F/N Y/L/N.”

“Just Y/F/N Y/L/N?”

“Yeah?”

“You mean the most stunning, hilarious, loving, supportive, and amazing girl in the entire world?”

“Shut up,” she giggled.

“I mean, look at you! You’re beautiful.”

My compliment was answered with Y/N balling up a t-shirt and tossing it at me. I ducked out of the way, laughing the entire time.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to throw clothing at one another’s heads?”

“There’s an exception when they’re being a dork,” she smiled.

“Oh, of course. How did I never realize before?”

“Can you just tell me what else I need?”

I read off the next few things on the list, which Y/N quickly found and picked out, occasionally asking for my opinion on what she should bring. By the time that we had made it through the entire page, there was a second enormous pile of clothing sitting behind me, just slightly bigger than my pile had been. Once again, we started to carry clothes out to the bedroom, this time putting them on Y/N’s side of the bed.

“Alright, we need to grab our suitcases from downstairs,” Y/N said.

“Race you?” I grinned.

Y/N’s mouth quickly grew into a smile. Before she had a chance to answer, I yelled out “3, 2, 1, go!” and we were both taking off down the stairs, trying to be the first one to make it to the guest bedroom. I jumped over the last couple steps, landing with a thud, which gained me just enough of a lead to slide into the room before her. She immediately collapsed onto the bed, breathing heavily.

“I shouldn’t have agreed to that,” she sighed. “I just can’t seem to win any races against you.”

“It’s alright,” I said, holding a hand out to her to help her up. “I still love you.”

I gave her a quick kiss before opening the closet. All of our suitcases were lined up along the top, each in varying sizes and shapes for the various tours that we went on. Thankfully, this was only a North American leg of the tour, meaning we could afford to pack a little heavy since we wouldn’t be doing any flying. Y/N stood next to me as I pulled down a couple of the bigger suitcases that we had.

“Do you think these will be big enough?” she asked. “We had a lot of clothes.”

“Yeah, they should be fine as long as we pack tight enough. I used this one for Australia and it wasn’t a big deal.”

“That was only a month though.”

“Do you really think we need the huge ones?”

Y/N pursed her lips, thinking it over for a moment.

“I guess not. Worst case scenario, we stick the folded clothes into a new suitcase.”

“Alright, let’s get these upstairs.”

Y/N and I each grabbed our respective suitcases and carefully carried them up the stairs, being sure not to bump them into the walls. There were a couple marks downstairs already from times that one of us had been paying not quite enough attention to where we were going.

Once my suitcase was unzipped and ready to go, I started to sort through my pile of clothes, separating things by tops and bottoms and whether or not I wore it during the show. Y/N, on the other hand, was already starting to fold up her things and put them into her bag as she went.

“Are you going to be able to find anything in your suitcase?” I laughed.

“Probably not, but isn’t that half the fun of getting dressed on tour?”

“Not when you’re frantically trying to find the shirt that you need to wear on stage ten minutes before you’re supposed to be in the right place.”

“Don’t you usually double check all of that stuff way before the show starts?”

“We’re supposed to, but I just forgot that day. Of course that was also the day that my white tank top suddenly went missing.”

“Oh right, I remember you texting me about that,” Y/N smiled. “Carter got mad because my phone wouldn’t stop vibrating while we were trying to play video games.”

“I was panicking!”

“I know you were, love.”

I shook my head as I tossed another shirt into my non-show shirt pile, which was steadily growing.

“Oh! You know what I forgot?” Y/N said.

“What?”

“A sleep shirt. Do you mind if I grab one of the ones you aren’t bringing?”

“Go for it.”

Y/N walked into the bathroom and came back a short time later with a shirt in her hand.

“Which one did you grab?”

She held it up for me to see. On it were the words “Worthington Christian High School Basketball”, printed in bold, colorful lettering across the front. It was a shirt that I hadn’t worn - or even seen - in years.

“Where did you find that?” I laughed.

“It was in your t-shirt drawer! I stumbled across it when I was folding your shirts the other day. Do you not remember wearing it all the time in high school?”

“I guess not.”

“I swear you wore it at least once a week.”

“Of course I did.”

Y/N tossed it onto her pile of clothes and went back to folding. Shortly after, I finished sorting everything and stood up so that I could start to fold and actually put things into my suitcase.

We made conversation as we continued to pack, mostly talking about things we wanted to do on tour and things we wanted to see in various states when we had some free time. It felt weird to think about leaving again so soon, but I was reassured by the fact that Y/N would be right there next to me this time. I didn’t get nearly as homesick when she was with me.

As we started to near the end of our packing, my mind started to bounce around with a question that I had been meaning to ask Y/N for a few days. My original plan had been to ask her last week, but after our argument, it went forgotten for awhile.

“Hey, so I’ve been thinking,” I started, reaching up to rub at my neck, “what if we went out on a nice date after my rehearsal tomorrow? It’s been awhile since we actually went out and did something like that.”

Y/N finished folding the shirt in front of her and paused, her eyebrows every so slightly furrowed. I rocked back and forth on my heels, waiting for an answer.

“I mean, obviously I want to, but aren’t you concerned about fans coming up and interrupting us? I mean, we can’t even go to the grocery store without someone asking for a picture, much less out on the town in the middle of Columbus. I always assumed that’s why we had dates here.”

“We don’t necessarily have to go out in Columbus. I just thought we could go do something fun. Maybe even something we used to do a lot like, you know…” My mind was racing trying to think of a good idea. “Stargazing, or something.”

Genius.

“Stargazing,” Y/N repeated. Her mouth was slowly curling up into a smile. “I think that would be a really good idea. The weather is supposed to be nice tomorrow too, so it will be perfect.”

“Then it’s a date.”

“Do I really have to wear something nice to sit in the back of a car though?”

“No, the most important thing is that I’m spending time with you.”

“Cheesy,” she laughed.

“It’s how I feel.”

“I know.”

I tried to hide the smile on my face as I tucked another pair of pants into my suitcase. My hands were already shaking with excitement at the thought of going stargazing with Y/N. It had been a long time since we had gone up there, mostly because of bad weather or not being home, and I was looking forward to it.

It was going to be perfect.

* * * * *

Taglist

@tylersheavydirtysoul @faceofcontvsions @ohprettyweeper @shaytwentyonep @tyler-josephs-floof @angelicopioid @topownsmyheart @harishaanne @addictwithaheavydirtycheetah @somethingboutyou1 @boiled-onionrings @heythereitm3 @gaysludge @breadbinishigh @5secondsofmoxley @patdsinner33 @littlerachelbee @royal-avengers

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xoruffitup · 5 years ago

Text

Adam Driver on SNL: 1/25 Dress Rehearsal Recap

I’m having dejavu of the best kind. I’m sitting here on the bus on my way back from NYC in hungover euphoria and overjoyed disbelief at everything I just experienced, texting new friends and old, recounting everything in my head and smiling so hard. The September 2018 weekend of Adam’s last SNL show lives in my memory in unmatched infamy, so my excitement was off the charts to do it all again. And because this show was absolutely fucking INCREDIBLE, this weekend delivered in every way all over again!! Seriously, my face aches from how I can’t stop smiling aksnksj HELP :’)

My friends and I were in the Dress Rehearsal, so below the cut are retellings of ALLLL the skits including those cut from the Live show - and no small amount of helpless emotional flailing.

I had an idea of what to expect after attending Adam’s 2018 show, but I nevertheless felt sky-high levels of anxiety when Sarah and we arrived at the NBC shop at 6:30. I knew rationally that our chances of getting into Dress were good with numbers #12 - 14, but every now and then there’s the occasional oddity of only a handful of Standby people getting in. Though even without any uncertainty in the equation, my entire being goes on Hyped/Anxious Overdrive anyway whenever I’m about to be in the same space as Adam sO really there’s nothing for it. :’)

They lined us up by numbers, I did a lot of emotional wobbling like “I can’t believe we’re here again together guys waaaah” (have I mentioned I met these girls at Adam’s last show? Full circle moment of the highest and most beautiful caliber and it had me hella verklempt), and thennnn - drumroll and hushed silence please - the main security guy comes up to the giant line and asks the first 20 people to come with him.

As they constantly remind you throughout this thoroughly nerve-wracking process, there is no guarantee you’ll actually get into the show until you’re physically in the seat. It’s a long, harrowing trip from the NBC store where the line gathers, up stairs, elevators, and through hallways to reach the studio, and you can still be cut even as far as the very last checkpoint if all seats fill up with the people ahead of you. So as you get closer, the excitement spikes higher and higher but so does the worry! We went through security, and then I clung to our new Standby line friend Catherine’s arm as they lined us up two-by-two on the first staircase, with Sarah and @reylonly right behind. I was likely extremely annoying as I couldn’t help being rambly and weird in my nerves and compulsively hugging my girls’ arms. @reylonly did her very best to calm my hot mess down, bless her.

About 45 minutes later (Maybe? I had no idea what time was, lbr) we reached the final point of the elevator and last hallway, and were held just outside the studio. THEN - the woman there instructed the next 4 to follow her in (thank GOD because we were terrified of being split up), WE WENT INTO THE STUDIO WHEW YAYAY OMFG WE WERE THERE!!! - but then oh no it happened so fast that she pointed @reylonly down to a single seat in the center and then the other 3 of us to seats towards the left side of the stage. They were all single seats, but thank GOSH they were all end seats of rows right next to each other. So Sarah was right in front of me and I could grab her shoulder (which I would do a lot in increasingly desperate excitement over the next 2 hours), and Catherine and I could reach across the aisle to cling to each other’s hands! @reylonly was on her own but in an incredible seat, and during commercial breaks we would lean forward to wave and blow kisses to each other and mime flailing or crying as one incredible sketch after another played out in front of us. I made sure to be friendly and talk to the people sitting next to me so they wouldn’t be too annoyed with me and Sarah always grabbing at each other, but LOL they probably thought I was at least a little insane. I mean, maybe for the moment alone when I saw a girl I’d made friends with in line but then lost track of in a seat not too far from me, and we started waving and dabbing at each other. Once we were seated there in the studio, all the anxiety gave way to surging excitement and I was practically bouncing in my seat, so overjoyed to be there and see my dear fandom friends there with me!

Michael Che warmed up the audience with some standup, the House band jammed, and Sarah and I momentarily got Extremely Excited when we saw them setting up the hell backdrop set for the cold open and thought at the time it was supposed to be Tattooine for a Star Wars skit, lolol. But then the actual show started, and with our Adam-eagle eyes Catherine reached out to whisper “there he is! In the blonde wig!” And, heart in my throat no matter how many times I see this man in person, I frantically squinted at all the people waiting just off to the side of the set until I saw that unmistakably Tol Broad back, and then he stepped onto the set and into the lighted camera’s view and I was cheering and clapping so hard for his first appearance that I couldn’t hear who he was supposed to be playing. xD I was just tapping Sarah’s shoulder in front of me, bouncing in my seat a little, and trying not to start levitating with the sheer force of my excitement and joy to be there.

OKAY from here I’ll break this up by skit! Anything that was different or missing from the Live show I put in bold font if you want to skip to that! Starting with...

Intro Monologue

WHAT A GOOD MONOLOGUE, ITS LIKE THEY JUST LET ADAM RUN WITH IT AND WRITE IT HIMSELF IT WAS SO HIM AND HILARIOUS AND WEIRD AND YET CHARMING IDEK I WILL NEVER COMPREHEND THE WONDER OF THIS MAN??

So when he dropped the bomb of “I’m a husband and a FATHER” I clapped Sarah’s shoulder SO HARD, then he made he joke “I’ve made it very clear to my son that he’s second in everything” and I could not bELIEVE the wonder of what I was hearing omfg. I heard the words “my son” come out of his mouth with my own ears WHO COULD HAVE PREDICTED, SURE AS HELL NOT ME????

Then he went into the audience to demonstrate how “approachable” he is and was so awk/weird/hilarious I was just losing it, then took his time meandering around the stage and making weird faces into the camera and I was just LOSING IT. And AKSKSJA after that he wandered over to another camera that was lower and kind of hummed as he lifted his shirt and put it over the camera so we got a full on belly button view for 2 unbelievable glorious seconds!! He looked up at the monitors as he was doing it and went “oh you can’t see anything” so that’s probably why he sadly didn’t flash his belly in the Live show.

“Cheer” with Adam as one of the team coaches

I’m going by the skit order in Dress, and this one was first after the monologue. Best part for me was the accent reminiscent of Clyde Logan. :3 But tbh, of the 6 skits they did for the Live show, I kind of wish this one had been swapped for the one performed last in Dress that was sO Wild and would have made fandom absolutely lose its shit aksnksal more to come on that.

UNDERCOVER BOSS AKA RANDY THE INTERN

THE BEST GIFT WE COULD HAVE RECEIVED!! BLESS YOU SNL AND ADAM FOR GIVING US KYLO CONTENT TO BE HAPPY OVER AND LOVE WHOLE HEARTEDLY. T___T

Honestly, I cannot even properly describe my reaction when the Undercover Boss intro logo appeared on all the monitors oHMYLoRDDD. I nearly leapt out of my seat, like my heart nearly jumped clear out of my chest oh my fuck and I was legit holding onto Sarah so much I almost slid out of my seat - I just couldn’t believe it and I cheered SO LOUD. The entire audience erupted with this “HOLY SHIT” vibe outburst and I was SO happy to be there in that moment - knowing that our entire fandom was only hours away from this!! I honestly didn’t expect it at all - after they didn’t do one of these the second time Adam was on, I thought there was no chance. But IT HAPPENED AND IT WAS SO QUALITY HILARIOUS WE ARE SO BLESSED - THANK YOU TO RANDY’S LIL BEANIE AND VEST AND HIPSTER PANTS.

Pretty sure I like half curled up on myself laughing so hard my feet left the floor at OK BOOMER. And at the part with “will Rey take his hand?” I swear MY SOUL NEAR LEFT MY BODY I MEAN IS THIS THE REAL LIFE IS THIS JUST FANTASYYYY

..... Can someone come promise me we really didn’t just collectively hallucinate that??

SAG Awards Fashion Red Carpet

I’m not too disappointed this one was cut. Of all the amazing skits performed, I would have ranked this one lower. Adam and Kenan Thompson were fashion critics talking about celebs’ looks on the SAG red carpet. A minute in Adam says, “We should be paying more attention to the kids!” Kenan: *nervous laugh* “uh, should we??” Adam starts talking about/admiring the outfits for like Finn Wolfhard etc, with hilarious but bordering creepy descriptions like “masculine but not quite fully grown,” until Kenan is like “umm maybe we shouldn’t be talking about kids this much?”

They interview a girl who’s supposed to be Jojo Siwa and Adam’s like “you should know I think you’re beautiful. Kids need to hear more often that they’re beautiful.” Kenan panics, going “alRIGHT we’re gonna cut back to the studio now!” The skit ended with Adam: “I got a ticket to the Nickelodeon afterparty and I’m gonna swipe one of those kids in my pocket!”

“Slow” Digital Short

HONESTLY, this competes with Undercover Boss for my favorite skit of the night. I can’t even tell you - I had literal tears running down my face I was laughing SO fucking hard during this entire thing. From the first moment we heard Adam’s deep-ass voice I absolutely and entirely lost my shit oh my GOD. We’d been so pumped for Adam in some kind of rap sketch when we saw the photos of him and Kenan filming the day before, but it was SO FUCKING GOOD. I will never ever in all my days not bust out laughing at “Bring that ass here” and “In a 65 hour lane going 2” aksnskns I’m on the bus struggling to fight back laughter just thinking about it SEND HELP!!!

It’s just brilliant. The turtle next to his expensive loafers. His cheesy sunglasses. That shot of his glorious bare arms. His deep voice “Baby” when they’re at the door and “But I brought ice cream” oh my god I love it so much BLESS YOU SNL BLESS YOU. I never in all my days thought I’d get Adam rapping but it’s every single thing I never knew I needed.

Del Taco Commercial / “Aw Man I’m All Outta Cash!”

ADAM’S SLEAZY LOOKING LONG WIG LMAO. This one was a wild and funny time once you got into it and just let it go. Once Kyle, Beck, and Adam were all yelling the line and Adam went “You don’t want to kill yourself, you just want a taco, Jesus” everyone was ROLLING. I think the only difference (is this even worth color coding lol) was that after Kyle took his pants off Adam kept slapping his thigh during Dress bahaha.

“Hot Dad” Adam dealing with a clogged toilet at a teenaged girls’ sleepover

Adam and Kate McKinnon comedy together YES PLEASE. This one was all the same as far as I can remember, but I will say that a woop/cheer rose from the people sitting near the set for this one at the line about Adam being a “hot Dad.” Yep sounds about right.

(Halsey’s first song, Weekend Update)

Medieval Renaissance Fair

You can’t have Adam host SNL without giving him some ridiculous character skit ala Oil Baron Parnassus. I absolutely loved how intense and deep he was for this kind of nonsense xD We can thank this skit for giving us footage of Adam yelling “Whore!” and spitting, lmao. Also.... I’ll just say in that outfit and wig he looked even Extra Big in comparison to everyone around him.

Courtroom Trial / Sinbad on Cameo

I’m also okay with this one being cut, but I was biased to enjoy the hell out of it live because the set was right in front of where I was sitting and I had such a perfect view of him. <3

Adam was supposed to be the defendant in a case where a female coworker claims he harassed her by sending “threatening” videos. Adam goes up on the stand and the prosecutor asks “are you familiar with these videos?” Cut over to Kenan Thompson, who’s pretending to be Sinbad on the app Cameo, making videos for the woman that are like “Hey you better give Mark a chance! Otherwise he might come after you!” Adam responds with disbelief: “I have no idea who this Sinbad person is and frankly, your honor, this is pissing me off.” Kenan acts a few more videos which keep getting funnier because he keeps eating things or being in crowded public places while filming them. But in the final video he references Adam’s character’s name so it’s clear he was the one requesting the videos. Adam gets all sad on the stand: “It doesn’t matter. No one likes me anyway!” It ends with Kenan as Sinbad crashing into the courtroom in person.

This was more Kenan’s skit as he really was hilarious, but someone had to explain to me afterwards who Sinbad is and how the Cameo app works so I didn’t quite ~get it while watching. BUT more importantly - Adam looked great despite the weird brown wig he had on. During the second of Kenan’s videos when the cameras were on Kenan instead, Adam’s face definitely started quivering with suppressed laughter until he visibly locked it down like NO FOCUS ADAM. Most of my attention stayed fixed on the buttons of his shirt because hOOo boy were they straining! Without me even saying anything, Catherine reached across the aisle for me immediately afterwards and whispered, “That shirt did /not/ fit well.” OH YES I NOTICED >:33

PBS Science Show

Another one which was performed right directly in front of us!! I already knew this was going to be a good one because Adam went right over to the skeleton mannequin when he came on set and started playing with it, like making the arm and wrist wiggle around. The biggest dork cutie you’ll ever see.

He was standing right under me, which meant once he started handling the balloon I got mighty distracted watching his MASSIVE hands around that tiny-looking balloon. >:)) Then I cracked up so hard when he got exasperated and threw something back against the window. WE GOT TO SEE HIM SMASH SOMETHING IN PERSON YESSSS

Ketchup bottles

Oh my GOD EVERYTHING WAS AMAZING ABOUT THIS ONE FROM START TO FINISH. The best part though might have been the prep beforehand. Someone carried the giant Ketchup and hot sauce bottles onto the set before the actors came on and we were like wtf? (For a minute I was triggered remembering Kanye coming on in his Perrier bottle during the 2018 show) But THEN Adam and Cecily Strong came on in big red shirts and people started lifting the giant plastic bottles over them and LOL we realized where this was going. They definitely struggled for a minute getting Adam’s bottle up over his head because of his height xD People in the audience were already laughing just watching this costume set up, and once Adam got the bottle on a WOOT cheer rose which I later learned was none other than @reylonly aka my hero. It was followed by someone yelling “THATS HOT”, which akndosjan made Adam laugh and raise his arms with a hilarious little shimmy in the bottle. He really seemed to be enjoying himself during the whole show, but during this ridiculous and incredibly hilarious skit especially so.

Game Night / Movie Quote Competition

OKAY this is the skit it’s a real tragedy didn’t make it on air! There were lines in this I couldn’t beLiEvE my ears were hearing, and if we ever get a recording I’m pretty sure the fandom would basically implode.

Three couples are sitting around a living room having a game night. Adam is sitting with Kate McKinnon with his arm around her. After they finish playing Settlers of Catan, Heidi Gardner suggests they play a movie quote game where one of them says a line from a movie and the rest have to guess the movie. She is clearly very into it, and the others reluctantly agree. It quickly becomes clear that Adam is just as good at the game as she is, and they immediately start becoming competitive. They reach the point where they quote three lines from Captain Phillips in a row, trying to trick each other. As the game gets more heated, they exchange aggressive flirty banter such as:

Heidi: You really know your movie quotes, huh? Adam: Yeah I do. Heidi: And with some BDE over there. Adam: Yeah, I got that too.

AND !!!!!!!!!!

Heidi: You’re quite the movie flick daddy. Adam: I’m the world’s biggest flick daddy.

!!!!!!!!! HE CALLED HIMSELF A DADDY HELP CALL 911 EMERGENCY !!!!!!!!!!

The game keeps escalating until Kate tries to calm Adam down and he brushes her off. Everyone else tries to tell Heidi to relax, and she responds “What?! I’m supposed to lie back and let (Kate’s character’s name)’s hot husband rail me??”

I WAS FLOATING ON THE CEILING BY THIS POINT, I literally couldn’t believe what my ears were hearing alsdfjsldafjlsdkfj!

It gets to the point where they’re both standing, shouting completely vague snippets of lines at each other while the other continues to guess correctly. Until finally Adam exclaims, “I got a good one!” He grabs her and fULL ON kisses her.

(Pictures from The Adam Driver Files twitter.)

Immediately afterwards she goes, “I know! That was the kiss from (Movie X - I can’t remember the exact title).” Adam: “HOW DID YOU KNOW?!” Heidi: “From how you moved your tongue!”

I’m still reeling from this one. Adam calling himself a daddy, talk of “getting railed” by him, and intense kissing?! Oh my lORDDDD. I’m still trying to keep it playing on a loop in my ears. I’m not sure if we as a fandom could collectively survive a full video of this, but GOD I hope we get the chance to test ourselves. RELEASE THE UNAIRED VIDEO, YOU NBC COWARDS!!!

FLICK DADDY INDEED

...Aaaaaaand that was a wrap! After 10 skits and nearly 2.5 hours, it literally felt like I had run a marathon at a full sprint. I was just trying to process everything I’d just witnessed, while trying to focus on committing every single thing to memory. I just couldn’t believe the range of amazing and hilarious things I’d just seen Adam doing: Play a talking ketchup bottle, call himself a daddy, awkwardly talk about feminine products clogging his toilet, yell “WHORE” then spit and swing a medieval mace around, rap hilariously, and yell about umami?? It was all almost TOO MUCH.

For full-circle and emotional fulfillment reasons, I wore my Save Ben Solo shirt to the show just like I did at the 2018 show. I had debated beforehand whether it would be too bittersweet to wear it after TROS, but now I’m so glad I did. All these hilarious and zany skits were just what we all needed to continue the cycle of fandom excitement and positivity despite the last month. I’m so incredibly grateful to SNL for such great material for Adam to work with and us to laugh at, and for giving us the perfect reminder that there’s still so much to whole-heartedly appreciate and love. Most of all, Adam himself. <3

THANK YOU SNL AND ADAM FOR ANOTHER LIFE-HIGHLIGHT WEEKEND! <3

#Adam Driver #Saturday Night Live #SNL #driverdaily

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