#my highlights tho? never been able to found them on the right kind of hair

[yesterdayiwrote]

just saw your tags on the charles pr post and you are so right, george so needs a more competent pr team but i def think there has been a recent change. like the hair (literally might have given him sponserships) and the memes might have genuinely shifted something within the public perception of george, esp since it seems much more natural compared the so called "pr persona" people hated in 2022. all he absolutely needs right now is a good racing season with minimal contact with other cars (this is key i will not lie) and the ingredients are there to work with. like deadass if that happens there is chance to regain his williams era adoration (im not even being delulu bc uni has taught me that rebranding is incredibly effective if done well). tho imo i have no idea how competent mercedes are to utilise and strategise tho (they make too much of a mess every given chance). he needs someone else to correctly handle this.

I know there's been loads said about George's PR strategy going back years. I've always found it interesting because Charles is very 'pr', Lando, Lewis, Carlos... the list is endless, and yet its only ever really been George who seems to have really had their 'pr friendly' vibe viewed in such an overwhelmingly derogatory way. I've never really been able to put my finger on what it is, but that post does highlight how the slightest difference can make the tone change.

I don't think the hair is that powerful, although I think it's kind of... 'softened' his face slightly, given him more of a 'cute' vibe in a kind of foppish disney prince charming way? Then again I think people have always thought George was attractive they've just moved their attention from his body to his face?

I don't think things will ever go back to the days at Williams when everyone loved him. That was in part due to the underdog element and he was a lot more under the radar back then. I don't think he was hated in 2022, it's only really in 2023 that I've seen so much negativity thrown in his direction. We've tried to pick apart what exactly it is that causes people to hate him and honestly, I don't think we'll ever find an answer. It just... is what it is.

I think he could definitely stand to be more relatable though, but then again how relatable can you be when you're a millionaire racing driver? I think he sometimes looks too 'perfect' and I know that's something everyone falls into on sm, but sometimes I just kind of want to see him looking... dumb? He laughs at himself, he embraces the memes, but sometimes his pictures don't embrace his personality if that makes sense and that's a shame.

The Charles post pointed out about the photos of him falling over and if you think about Alex, Lando, even Lewis, they all post stuff that purposely doesn't show them at their best (whilst simultaneously being picture perfect) and I guess that's the reason that social media isn't easy, because you've got to strike that balance between aesthetic and humanity to really strike gold.

Idk, I'm not really in a position to tell him what to do, my IG game is non existent. I know he's said he's not using social media himself anymore, but then that's even more reason to have a great team managing that for him. Idk that Merc actually have much to do with it, but yeah, I feel like he could benefit from mixing it up a few times on there?

[2-cute-4-school]

https://picrew.me/image_maker/296093

closer than last time if u ask me :))))

tagged by: @alicanta77, @honei-n

tagging: @heartyyjeno, @loonacitys, @gardenpebble if y'all wanna do it

[xhisokas-harleyx]

Your Hisoka headcanons were so good😭 and i completely agree with all of them- I wanted request something, u can ignore if u want. 🏃

I am just thinking of a scenario where Hisoka got hurt, by someone who 'cheated' in the fight maybe, and his first instinct was to go to his 'friend's place. And Reader helps him without hesitation, they're even worried and stuff. And he is just like "are they just so naive or dumb? Kind? What do they get from this? And tf is this feeling in my chest? A poison maybe-" Maybe hcs? Or an oneshot? Whatever you like to do. Have a good day or night!:)💛 damn i wrote too much lol sorry

This warms my heart. Thank you SO MUCH for your support!!! And no, you did not write too much! I love having my ego stroked ;) 😂 seriously tho I love hearing from you guys!

I love this prompt. I hope that I was able to bring this to life for you, please feel free to request more!

To be honest, I’m not really happy with how this turned out, but I haven’t written in a long time and feel really rusty. I may rewrite it at some point, because I thought of a different way this could also go! At any rate, I hope you enjoy it.

Word Count: 2880 (yeh, it’s a long one :o)

A little song inspiration I had:

As The World Caves In: Matt Maltese

Hisoka x Reader One-Shot: The Man Beneath the Monster

...

Well... this wasn't supposed to happen.

Currently, the jester of everyone's nightmares lay on the ground, golden eyes staring up at the dull night sky while shrapnel and debris etched patterns into his back, remnants of the attack he'd just barely survived. Hisoka didn't normally have much of a problem mowing through his opponents- but then again, they usually didn't possess the ability to play with their enemy's mind. It was insanely unfair, the way he'd been attacked, and while it had been an interesting battle to say the least, Hisoka had barely pulled through.

Admittedly, he was invigorated by the feeling of almost being beaten- save for the searing pain that inched its way through every nerve in his body. Hisoka wasn't usually so affected by pain in general- in fact, more often than not, it gave him a certain indescribable gratification. He tended to brush off the feeling of most wounds he obtained during battle, distracting himself with shuffling his cards or fantasizing about the next battle he'd be facing. Only this time, if he didn't get help, he wasn’t sure there would BE another battle.

Hisoka strained himself to sit up, and looked down at his body, analyzing just how much damage he'd sustained. A deep gash opened up his chest, revealing glimpses of the muscular content underneath, and it was oozing a lot of blood. His arms and legs were burned, and some of the skin was a little charred, which smelled just lovely against the night breeze.

This is going to be difficult to cover with Texture Surprise... he thought, forcing himself a bit angrily to his feet, when he heard the cracking of the joints in his left ankle, indications of a break. He needed medical attention, badly. His gash wasn't going to heal itself, and he would bleed to death within hours if it didn’t get bandaged.

But where could he go? Hospitals wouldn't dare take him- even though he was a hunter, most people wouldn't be caught within miles of him, let alone would provide him any remedy. In fact, most people thought the world would be better off if he were dead anyway.

Maybe they were right.

He chuckled a little at the thought, but as he tried to brush those creeping inner fears off, he soon realized that his normal detached approach wasn't going to work this time. Already, his legs were getting weaker, and his vision was getting a little darker by the second. In that moment of weakness, when he felt the most vulnerable, the magician was puzzled by the singular thought that came to his mind.

Y/N.

She was a girl he’d encountered more than a few times in his travels; not by accident, but through carefully orchestrated meetings he initiated himself. She was strong in his eyes, which was not a compliment that he offered freely, especially to someone who didn’t regularly seek out altercations to smash their enemies. She was strong in a different way- not because of her nen or battle tactics- but because of her resolve. He found it intriguing that she didn’t run at the sight of him (even when he popped up behind her in the park), and he liked that she wasn't afraid to tell him exactly where he could shove his cards, if warranted. Y/N was appealing to him in an indescribable way that made him continue to think up excuses to meet her ‘randomly’- but he could never put his finger on what it was that made her unique. However, through brief conversations and what he considered to be highlights of his travels, he’d gotten to know her only a little, but he hardly had enough contact with her to call her a ‘friend’.

It wasn't like she had any special sort of healing nen. She probably couldn't help him anyway. But if he did bleed out, and his last thought had to be of something...l it might as well be of her.

The pink-haired clown looked to the city up ahead in the distance- he was close to her house already. It didn't take him long to get there; Y/N lived on the outskirts of town in a small place away from most other homes.

It was a place he knew well, although he'd never been inside. He'd spent more than a few long nights watching the residence from the rooftop of a distant neighboring home as he denied his human emotions. He often watched her pack groceries, or try to figure out why her porch light wasn't working (which he certainly had nothing to do with), or watch TV on the couch all alone.

Hisoka quite liked those stupid romantic comedies that played late at night on the local channel. His only opportunity to watch them was through her window- and in his mind, he was sure that she left the subtitles on because she can somehow sense his presence. She usually fell asleep watching those, and missed the part where the hero gets the girl. He always watched that part with particular interest, but he can't figure out what makes the protagonists so special to each other. If there was a feeling that caused them to sacrifice so much for one another… he sure didn’t know what it could be.

But he's not a hero, so why would he know what that feels like?

As Hisoka reached her door and lifted his hand to the doorknob, not bothering to knock, a pang of what could only be anxiety ripped through him. It was well past 2 AM, and he knew she had things to do early in the morning. Their previous encounters had been abnormal, to say the least, complete with him teasing her and being a douchebag. He's been nothing but an annoyance to Y/N, so why would she help him?

As soon as he was about to pull his hand away, the door swung open, revealing a disheveled looking y/n in its place. Hisoka was bent over in pain, holding his chest, but as she startled him a little, he straightened up and put on his mask, acting complacent and confident. He wanted to say something smart and witty like he always does- that always helped to bat the pain away. But his lips wouldn't move- his tongue wouldn't function as he stared at her, unable to reach out in a way that normal humans seem to find so easy.

He felt frozen in that moment. He was normally so deliberately irreverent, but seeing the look on her face made his blood run cold.

Don’t let her see this weakness. It was a plea to himself.

But Hisoka had no choice. He was broken, and he needed her to fix him. He wasn’t used to depending on someone else to save his life, but now his life rested in the hands of someone who most likely despised him.

"...Hisoka." Y/N breathed, her eyes widening as she placed a hand over her open mouth. Only seconds passed before her delicate hands were pulling him inside the door without hesitation. She didn't bother to ask what happened, what kind of trouble he'd gotten into, or whether she would also be in danger. Instead, she sat him down on the couch, laying a pillow under his head for comfort, which he annoyingly refused to use until he absolutely couldn’t hold his head up any longer.

Hisoka was a bit dazed from the loss of blood, and the crimson river was flowing all over y/n's lightly colored couch. He was puzzled by the swiftness of her reaction, and he watched tepidly as she shuffled frantically through the drawers in the bathroom for something to heal him. Though he was on the brink of death, his default deflection of emotions still shone through, a reflex that he didn’t even mean to activate.

“I don’t need your help, you know.” He said with an impudent grin, watching as she began to work on his wounds. “It’s just a scratch. But I can see how badly you want to touch me…” Why was he like this? Here she was, giving up everything to help him (a criminal and the scum of the Earth),yet he can’t so much as even show her an iota of gratitude. He knows, but will never admit that it comes from his inner vulnerability; that fear of getting hurt by these things called emotions. She could just as easily let him bleed to death in front of her; he knows she has the capability to be stone cold. But she won’t… why?

Why?

Y/N could have easily let Hisoka’s false complacency hurt her. But she knows that what he cannot express in his words, his heart cannot truly hide. It was the way he was built, she told herself, and she pushed on through his antics because she wanted to see him safe again. Through the laceration in his tough exterior, she could not only see the flesh beneath, but a glimpse of the man he tried to hide using the monster that he assumed everyone saw.

But she was different.

The jester was confused by her silence. Normally, she would have retorted at his smugness, but right now, she didn’t even seem concerned with it as she began to fumble with cleaning his wounds. The alcohol seared his flesh just as the emotions boiling within him burned his heart. Why would she ever care to help him when he’s been nothing but rude and degrading to her? Could it be that she really can see through the detached front and overbearing persona? Impossible, he’s spent years building that reputation!

Suddenly, he became enthralled with the way Y/N’s eyes focused on threading the needle to sew up his gash. The way that those fingertips danced over his pale skin made him jolt unexpectedly at her touch, exhibiting a softness that Hisoka has never known before. In fact, he can’t even fathom someone wanting to touch him without the intention to hurt him in some way.

The details slowly became a blur in his depressed mental state- but he still analyzed every motion Y/N made.

Oddly, the promised sting of death had never scared Hisoka before; he did as he pleased, without care for his own life nor anyone else’s. But as his vision faded, and he watched her through the gaze of someone nearing death, he realized that he did not want to leave this world yet. He wanted to live- and maybe he wanted to discover and experience what he’d been missing in those movies he’d watched through her window.

With that, Hisoka’s heart began to beat faster.

Blood loss. That’s what it is… Hisoka thought; but he wasn’t stupid; only unwilling to admit that he was beginning to exhibit the same qualities he saw in the protagonists of those hopeless romantic flicks. He was unable to accept that the tightening in his chest was not just because of her stitches pulling his lacerated skin together.

“Are they dead? Did you kill them?” Her voice brought him out of the trance-like state he was in, and his golden eyes focused on her face. Her hands were covered in his blood (which in itself made him feel delightfully feverish), but his gash had been mended, the bleeding stopped for now. Once again, he didn’t say anything. It was unusual for the smug magician to keep his mouth shut.

“Because if you didn’t kill them, I’m going to.” A protective tone dripped into her voice, bewildering Hisoka again. That quality in her voice was both threatening and comforting, and the duality sent a chill up his spine. It inspired him to use his voice, though it had lost some of its signature modulation.

“You have that little faith in me…” A cough escaped his lips before he could smile as if nothing was bothering him at all. “Of course I killed them, my dear.” Somehow, calling her ‘dear’ no longer felt right; that was typically a placeholder, a default name to use for someone he had no connection with, and she seemed to be worthy of more than that now.

As Y/N suddenly dipped to her knees, Hisoka refrained from any lewd thoughts that he normally might have had in such a situation. That sensation in his chest was too distracting to allow this memory to be defiled with something he often indulged in fantasies of. She began to slide the high-heeled shoe off of his swollen foot to wrap it. She began to struggle with ripping the fabric she’d gathered to act as a cast for the bone.

Surely, she knows who I am. Why would she bother to help someone like me? What is she gaining? She knows that with the flip of a card, I could end her life. She’s not even protecting herself in any way. She’s leaving her guard down right in front of me.

Perhaps it was his dark desire to set fear into everyone he came across, or his distorted need to drive away anyone who might care for him, but his body suddenly acted on its own. By instinct, almost as if it were a test of her intention, a card spawned between his middle and index finger, which was right against her neck. With just a slight movement of his knuckles, he could spill her blood. His golden eyes analyzed the way she froze for a moment, and he believed that to be the end of this fragile trust between them. That was until she lifted the fabric she was holding, sliding it along the edge of the card, and cutting it to the perfect length.

“Thanks.” She spoke, beginning to wrap and set the ankle in place.

At that small motion, Hisoka’s discretionary eyes widened, and his lips fell open in surprise. Rather than interpreting his advance as an attack, she’d innocently taken it as an offer of his help. Was this a joke? Was she stupid enough to trust him, or was she bold enough to outsmart his games? Was Y/N this confident that he wouldn’t just kill her? This naive girl at his feet seemed to be the only person in this convoluted world who didn’t see him as a disgusting, heartless monster… and that warmed his icy heart.

“I’m surprised this hasn’t happened before. I know you’re graceful, but high heels are always a recipe for a broken ankle.” She offset the pain of wrapping those bones by talking to him all through the procedure, and it worked wonders. He scoffed, but by that time, Hisoka’s snide comments and emotion-killing thoughts had been expended. Somehow, she’d broken through the barrier that he’d spent so long building around himself.

Unable to ignore his whims anymore, Hisoka reached out to touch Y/N’s hair, the soft delicate strands pleasing his senses. It’s the only movement he can make now, his body weakened from the loss of blood. His gilded eyes were barely open, but they looked directly into hers with an unfamiliar realization. His hand travelled weakly down her face, caressing her cheek with the most delicate touch he could muster, and held her head in his large hand as she froze there. He wondered for a moment if she was afraid, or if something deeper that he cannot see calms her.

A small, genuine smile is all he could muster for her before his hand dropped to the side of the couch, the same couch he watched her curl up on most nights. For once, it’s not a smirk, and it’s not a smug smile- but something she has never seen before- a true smile with good intention behind it. His eyes closed, with uncertainty that they would open in the morning.

After she’d finished her work, she stood up, and looked down at him. The only remaining light in the room was the silent flicker of the television set in the background, which illuminated both of their faces.

“I need you to be alright, Hisoka,” She cooed, unable to know if he could still hear her. He didn’t know if she even realized how much he wanted to kill her right now, because the way her kindness was attacking his heart while his chest was already sliced open was something he should not excuse.

As Y/N’s final healing gesture, she bent over his body gracefully. He was taken off guard when he felt the feathery soft sensation of her lips on his forehead, the kiss of an angel on his clammy skin. As she went to pull away, however, she was startled by the lunge of Hisoka’s hand initiating a death grip on her wrist. He used the last bit of his strength to pull her lips into his, causing her to lose balance and be forced to brace on either side of the couch cushion below him. His lips were cold, but Y/N graciously returned the sensation, and boldly moved to embrace both sides of his face with her mending hands. Before she pulled away, and he passed out, she felt that same smile against her lips.

And in that moment, before he fades away, Hisoka realizes what he’s been missing.

Y/N.

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

Hmm... part two? I KNOW, it’s super freakin’ sappy. I could have taken a lighthearted approach to this (and maybe I will later), but I wanted to kind of challenge myself to write a more depth-driven version of Hisoka. Maybe I bit off a little more than I can chew :0.

Anyway, let me know what you think, and once again thanks to anon for the request! Hope you all enjoyed!

Mac

[baeklooming-day]

Peach Tea | Baekhyun

Summary: There is this boy who’s occupying the vending machine just when you want to buy your peach tea.

Genre: fluff, basically just the cheeky Baek picking up girls again

Word count: 1.3k

A/N: I know I said I’m quitting but it just happened. Well, let’s see what happens next.

Peaches, peaches, peaches.

White peaches.

The bottled tea.

All that good stuff that could be found in a vending machine, a pretty display with all those fruity teas closed in plastic bottles wrapped in colourful etiquettes calling out to you to try them all, and sometimes small bottles of coffee waiting there for you in the morning to help you start your day on a better note.

Milk tea, grape tea, apple tea, lemon tea, strawberry tea, green tea, white tea, you could see it all at some point sooner or later.

The amazing thing about vending machines was without a doubt that they were available to use literally always, ready to provide you with your favourite drink whenever you wanted.

Well unless the drinks ran out, but that wasn’t that likely to happen, they would be filled out immediately, you usually thought.

Basically, at this point you thought that a vending machine was heaven’s gift, because right now you just couldn’t imagine yourself getting through your day without at least one stop by a vending machine and dropping some coins for a refreshing tasty tea.

Peach tea, that one, she was the queen bee, or more like the queen tea, you loved it completely and never paid attention to other teas ever since you tried this one.

You used to get one every morning before your classes, and every evening after your classes, which was actually really convenient for you seeing that some vending machines that were selling this peach tea were located right at the two train stations, one near to your apartment and one near to your school.

As stupid as it was, your peach tea was practically the highlight of your day. Once when you figured it out, it was actually really simple to make you happy, if you knew how to that is.

And in that case it would be the oh so wonderful peach tea.

You took your peachy coloured wallet out of your big bag, yes you were slowly starting to be all about that peach theme not just with tea, and went for the first vending machine that came into your view.

Surprised, you discovered someone already standing there examining the vivid display, what was a little weird to you at first, knowing that it was very early and you never witnessed anyone so invested with a vending machine that early in the chilly morning before.

You felt too lazy to move over to another machine which was at the other side of the hall, far away, so you decided to just wait there until that person was ready and the machine was finally free for you to use because how long could that take?

Apparently much longer than you originally thought.

In a while, you started to gradually lose your patience. With your wallet still in your hand, you walked up a little closer to supposedly look what was taking them so long to just press a few buttons, insert the money, take the bottle, and go.

As you approached, you quickly took in the apperance of the person. It was a boy, wearing a black t-shirt and a little washed out camel coat. His fluffy hair was tinged in an interesting colour, kind of peachy, kind of milk chocolate brown which, to be honest, you thought looked quite flattering with the whole look that he pulled together.

You were contemplating whether to talk to him first and politely ask if it could go a little quicker, seeing that he’s been looking at the window for what felt like a whole 15 minutes already, or just leave it and hope that he would finally settle down for something.

When another minute passed, you finally lost it.

You tucked your soft hair behind your ear and walked closer, ready to open your mouth and ask him what was so difficult in choosing one damned tea.

“Excuse me, but you’ve been blocking this vending machine for about 15 minutes now, and I-” You couldn’t finish your sentence, when the boy immediately turned around and looked at you, his eyes literally sparkling.

Alright, you thought, that was a little weird. But you decided that you didn’t care, it was just some boy who apparently had too much time to lose.

“And you-” He started, his voice surprisingly soft. “Wanted to grab something and run to your train?”

You gave the boy a questioning look. “What? Well, isn’t it what it is here for?” You said in a somewhat unpleasant tone, which he immediately noticed.

“Woah, did you have an awful morning?” He asked.

“I will have, if I lack my peach tea. So if you could move please” You opened your wallet, wanting to collect the coins but the boy blocked the machine where you needed to insert your money for the tea.

What was he playing right now?

You looked up at him, meeting his chocolate eyes. You put your red lips in a thin line, not knowing why the next question left them. “Did YOU have an awful morning?” You asked through your teeth, trying to be calm, but obviously failing completely.

“Well, my morning has been terrible to be honest, but then I saw you and, wow.” He gently leaned his head on the vending machine, looking at you from underneath his lashes.

What on Earth?

If you had any tea in your mouth right in that moment, you would probably spit it out on him for coming up with a similar line.

It wasn’t new to you, even though you yourself weren’t very aware of the obvious fact that you were extremely pretty, you still asked yourself what made all those boys who talked to you come up with texts like that.

Because on you, not a single one of them has ever worked.

Little did you know.

“I’m Baekhyun.” The boy said. “What’s your name?”

“Will you move if I tell you my name?”

“I might.” He flashed you a honey-dripping smile.

“I’m Y/N.” You replied. “Will you move now?”

Baekhyun slowly moved aside, allowing you to finally buy your oh so longed for peach tea. Just when the machine dropped out the bottle with a thump, you heard his smooth voice again. “Y/N, do you have a boyfriend?”

You quickly rolled your eyes before you turned around to look at him. “This tea is my boyfriend.” You replied, holding up your hand with the bottle.

You didn’t know what to expect, but you didn’t expect him to give you yet another sweet smile. “Do you always get this exact one?” He asked, gesturing to the tea bottle.

“Why, yes” You said. “Peaches are everything. Aristotle once said ‘we are what we repeatedly do’, so I must be a peach by now.” You held the tea close to your cheek, giving him a sweet smile back.

Peach tea really was enough to put you in a great mood alone, wasn’t it.

“What about you?” You asked. “You’ve been standing here for so long, don’t you know what you want?”

Baekhyun shifted in his spot. “Oh, I know what I want and I’m going to get it.” He replied but didn’t move, his eyes not leaving yours.

He was really handsome actually, you finally noticed now that you’ve been looking at him this entire time too.

“Precisely?” You asked again, wondering what he might finally buy after an eternity.

“You.” He simply stated.

You froze, being completely flabbergasted at his bluntness. You heard a lot of crazy pick up lines before, but he just topped every single one that has been ever said to you.

“I don’t freaking know you.” You told him, not even thinking.

“That’s why I really would like to change that.” He said, taking out his own phone, apparently very pleased with his own comebacks. “Can I have your number?”

You really wanted to resist, but something told you that you wouldn’t regret it if you just went with the flow and gave him your number.

And that something was right, because later on when you met again in the evening after messaging each other throughout the day, the smile that appeared on your lips was bigger and brighter than the one which any of your peach teas was able to put on them.

A/N: idk what i was thinking, thank you for reading tho

reblogs are appreciated (if you liked it of course! <3) and thoughts as well

[celtics534]

Hi! I just saw a set of pics of Rosalie Leslie and Kit Harington, him kissing her with his hands cradling her face while they were in a pub, i suppose (idk how to send them to you tho). I was wondering if you like the idea, obviously, could you use those pics as inspiration for a hinny fic? Something about the press finding out that they are, in fact, together after a year or two of speculations, maybe? Thank you either way! Can’t wait for more of your works! Stay safe!

Without Fear

Such a fun prompt! I just couldn’t deny the cuteness of this photo when I Googled it! I hope you like my hinny take on the cuteness :) It’s a Muggle, Actor AU and the title is based on the song Without Fear by Dermot Kennedy 

Also read on: FF.net and AO3

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He hadn't ever considered how easy it would be to fall in love with Ginny Weasley. But of course, Harry was more of a jump in feet first kind of bloke. When he'd seen her at that war memorial, the only thought that went through his head was how gorgeous she was. Then when she had come up to the same placard and started talking to him… well, needless to say, he was enamored by her. Her hair, eyes, voice, the words she said. It was safe to say Ginny Weasley had his heart the minute they met.

At first, she didn't tell him her name (later, she explained it was because she didn't want him to get washed up by the fact that she was the main actress on a sports TV drama). To be fair, Harry hadn't exactly been forthcoming with his name (he hated dealing with the press when they recognized him for his role as the infamous serial killer hunter of the movies). Even without names, they chatted like they'd known each other since birth.

Ginny had explained how her brother had died fighting to save a young boy who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Harry had pointed to the name of the godfather he'd barely gotten the chance to know. He'd comforted her and she had started to soothe a bone-deep pain in him that he hadn't even known was there. Which was why they had decided to go and get coffee. Neither wanted to leave the other.

The little coffee shop had allowed them seclusion and solitude. They'd talked for hours and only separated when the shop was closing. As they were standing up to leave, Harry helped Ginny into her coat, and when she turned around with that adorable smile Harry, couldn't help but press his lips to hers. It wasn't a long kiss, maybe two seconds at most, but the moment their lips touched a buzz spread through Harry's body from the top of his head down to his toes. What made it that much better was when he pulled back, Ginny's fingers slid into his hair and pulled him back to her.

That night started the happiest time of his life. Ginny brought out a side of life that Harry hadn't experienced before. Normally, things were complicated in his life. Between losing his parents and godfather before turning eighteen, dodging the press, fangirls, and family members that never gave a damn about him until he earned some money, Harry had never expected much out of life or people. Then Ginny Weasley changed everything.

She made love seem so… easy. He was able to be himself near her. She laughed at his horrible puns, teased him for his inability to say cinnamon, and held him close every time he needed her. It was simple and it was them. They spent every night they could together. Luckily both their jobs were situated in London so meeting at his or her flat was easy.

The only mark against their relationship was the paparazzi. Early on in their relationship, they'd agreed that they didn't want the whole world to know about their relationship. But of course, it was impossible to completely dodge the leeches that the rest of the world called the press. They were spotted on their way to an England versus Wales rugby match. To be fair, their low riding caps weren't the best disguise, but they'd hoped to at least make it to the field before being noticed. From that day on the Harry and Ginny watch became a crowd favorite. It became nearly impossible for them to go anywhere together without making the news, and that was when the reporters only knew about their platonic relationship! He feared the day they found out the two of them were dating… and now dating for over a year, in fact.

He could remember the way Ginny had laughed the time they had been spotted going to the zoo. While eating breakfast, Ginny had been flicking through her tablet at the different new sites she frequented when she had nearly choked on her toast. Harry had looked up from his bowl of Shreddies instantly concerned, to only be greeted by her laughter "Look at this title!" Ginny had said through her cackles. "Potter Bananas For Weasley."

The accompanying photo of them watching a group of monkeys was expertly taken. Somehow they'd caught Harry watching Ginny as she watched the monkeys. She read the article out loud to him, teasing him for the title the paper had given him, "Heart-eyed Harry is rather adorable."

"There is no way they can see that from that angle." Harry had rolled his eyes, his words coming out in a huff of air. "I mean sure, you and I both know that I'm pathetically... besotted with you, but that interloper can't tell —"

When Ginny's palms came around to cup his cheeks his tangent ended, his words being swallowed by her mouth. Ginny had kissed him like the world was ending, a reckless abandonment that left his kitchen chair on only three legs. When she pulled back, her hands held his face firmly in place. "I'm besotted with you too, you know that right?"

Harry's mind had been wiped clean by her hypnotizing kiss, but he's managed a little nod. "I know, love."

"So don't let this get under your skin." She'd pressed a final kiss to the tip of his nose before going back to her reading.

That had been four months ago and sometimes it still popped into Harry's mind. It had been so easy for her to bring him out of the brooding tyrant. No one else in his life had ever been able to do that. Not his heinous aunt that raised him, not his godfather who was there briefly in his teen years, none of his teachers or friends during his school year. No, it was the one and only Ginny Weasley that was able to pull Harry from one of his moods.

Harry never thought he was capable of love. Between his parents being murdered by a psychopath before his second birthday, an abusive aunt and uncle, losing his godfather to war only three years after meeting him… Harry had always thought he was stunted. His first relationship had ended before it had even started and the next five attempts weren't much better. But with Ginny, his normal anxieties and fears vanished. He became a better man while with her. She was the best part of him and he loved her with every fiber of his being

And because he loved her, Harry was willing to put on this damn monkey suit and go to a blasted party. His reflection in the mirror showed his disdain for the confining suit and dark green noose he tied around his neck. If he had it his way, Harry would never change out of his ratty old jeans and soft t-shirts. But for Ginny, he was willing to sacrifice a night. Tonight was about her and the unforgettable season they had just finished recording.

"Looking rather dashing there, Potter."

Harry used the mirror to look at the doorway where Ginny leaned against the jamb. She had changed into a simple, yet elegant knee-length black dress with a light white jacket covering her freckled shoulders The little make-up she'd used highlighted her natural beauty perfectly. And then there was the wide-brimmed hat she used to complete the ensemble. She was bloody gorgeous.

She was smirking at him as if she knew exactly how just the sight of her made him lose all conscious thought. "Cat got your tongue?"

He shook his head, before doing a one-eighty to see more than just the reflection of her. Somehow she was even more stunning like this. From the high heeled boots she wore to the top of the hat perched on her head… His legs moved on their own accord. Before he even realized it, he was standing in front of her.

"You look… too good for words," Harry murmured into her ear as he leaned down. His fingers slid across the silky material covering her salacious curves as his lips traveled down her jaw line. Before he reached his destination (her mouth), Ginny put a hand on his chest pushing him back.

"Whoa now, partner." She smiled at him, her eyes blazing with the same intensity of a smoldering fire. "No getting distracted. We can't be late. Everyone is expecting me and my best friend there for eight."

Harry let out a long breath through his nose. Best friend. That's what Ginny's co-stars had dubbed him. It irked him that they were right, but yet so far from the truth. Of course, most thought they were best friends with benefits, which again wasn't wrong but he and Ginny were so much more!

Sometimes, Harry wanted to scream how much he loved her from the rooftops. He wanted everyone within the United Kingdom to know how he was in love with the most witty, sexy, creative, intelligent woman in the world. But then he thought of how the press already followed them around everywhere they went. Harry could only imagine how insane they would be if they knew about their relationship, and the idea of people digging into their personal lives… Harry honestly was afraid of it.

He hardly handled the fame he had now, if there was more focus on them… Sure, they already dealt with reporters implying about their relationship, but it was easy to ignore because they were typically outlandish rumors. Like the idea Ginny was sleeping with Harry so she could slyly learn to cover up a murder based on the information he learned in his movies (which was Ginny's favorite scandal theory). But if the paparazzi knew about their love life… if things became real… it was odd to say, but the idea of it weighed heavy on his chest. He feared the loss of privacy. He feared the loss of them.

"Harry?" Ginny was staring at him, her brow scrunched in concern. "Everything alright?"

He nodded, trying to dig his mind out of the what-if chasm. "Yeah. Yeah."

"What were you thinking about?"

"Oh, you know." Harry forced a smile onto his face. "How you're going to be the talk of the party in this outfit."

Ginny snorted, as she gave her hair an exaggerated flip "Please, I'm all these people ever seem to talk about." A sly grin formed on her lips. "Me and who my boo might be."

Harry groaned, letting his head fall onto her shoulder. "It's been three months and they are still on that?"

Ginny chuckled as her hand rubbed soothing circles on his back. "Please, they heard us shagging in a locked closet, they aren't bound to forget it. We're just lucky I didn't say your name while those nosy Nellies were listening in on us." Her hand stopped and Harry looked up to see that mischievous smile that always made his belly flutter. "Really, you only have yourself to blame."

Harry's brow furrowed. "And how exactly is it my fault?"

"Wellllll," Ginny dragged out the last syllable. "If you hadn't come to my set looking so… fit and sexy after that workout, I wouldn't have had to drag you to that closet." She rose to the tips of her toes, placing her lips right outside of her ear. "Remember?"

The shiver that ran down Harry's spine spread a tingling sensation from his toes up to the tips of his fingers. He licked his lips, inhaling her scent with every breath he took. "Hmmm." The words came out as a soft groan. He pressed a kiss to the side of her neck. "Maybe I could use a little refresher. Care to help give me a little reminder?"

Ginny practically purred in his ear. "I think that can be arranged." She ran her tongue lightly along his jaw before placing a kiss just under his ear. Then before Harry knew what happened she was out of his arms, standing just out of his grasp. "After the party."

Harry's jaw fell open as he stared at his girlfriend. "You're sadistic, that's what you are!"

She laughed. "And you adore me for it."

"I never said that." But the smile spreading across his face removed all the bite from his words.

"Your eyes speak volumes."

"Oh, and what are they saying right now?"

Ginny's grin became coquettish. "How you need a little extra time to get ready because something needs tending too." Her eyes raked down his body, lingering around his hips. "Then again it might not be your eyes displaying this information."

Harry made a face at her. "Well really, you only have yourself to blame for this."

She snorted. "Is that so?" She took a step back into his bubble, her hands running along his sides. "Well if that's the case I should give you a hand, shouldn't I?"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry glared from his sentry at the corner of the bar. He'd spent the last fifteen minutes crafting a list on why he hated parties. Currently, he was on number twenty: drunk people were the worst.

Maybe his disapproving opinion was due to the numerous drunk men (and women) who had gone up to his girlfriend to make moves on her. His jaw clenched painfully as he watched yet another co-star approach Ginny. Sure she was denying their advances with ease, but that didn't mean Harry liked it. But they'd agreed a long time ago that when they went to events they would try to mingle with others so as to not raise suspicions about their relationship.

But everytime Harry was faced with watching hoards of people flirt with his girlfriend… Why the fuck did he care if people knew about their relationship? Sure paparazzi would follow them around, but they all ready fucking did that. And they would ask personal questions about their relationship, but half the time they just threw out wild accusations as it was.

Harry took another sip from his whiskey tumblr, the cold liquid going hot down his throat. His foot started tapping to the rhythm of the classic rock song blaring on the radio. As he stood their listening to overplayed tune, sipping his drink, and watching his girlfriend be hit on for the sixth time in twenty minutes, Harry concluded they had been stupid. Their fear of the press was unwarranted. They had feared things that weren't truly scary. They dealt with most of it already (just in rumor format), so what would the truth truly do to them? What had been cons just hours before suddenly took a new light.

As he brooded, Ginny chatted with her co-star. This particular star had been the biggest perpetrator of the flirt with Ginny squad. Every party or gathering he would shoot his shot. Ginny had assured Harry numerous times that Glenn was just a flirty bloke, and there had never been a spark between the two of them. Harry trusted Ginny completely, but Glenn was always on his shit list—and was now currently at the top as he pulled Ginny out into the middle of the pub to start dancing.

Ginny made eye contact with Harry as she followed her friend onto the makeshift dance floor, her smile reassuring and happy as she and Glenn began to dance. The wink she sent him made butterflies erupt in his gut, like it was the first time. Harry couldn't take his eyes of them… off Ginny. She truly was gorgeous when she was having fun. Her bright smile, the gleam in her eyes, and how could he ignore the way her hips moved.

Harry could never remember ever having an urge to dance, but as he saw Ginny and Glenn… It wasn't an urge to dance, he realized. It was the urge to be with her. The desire to have his hands on her waist while she smiled at him.

He let out a long breath, before downing the rest of his drink. He couldn't care anymore. The fears that had held him back for so long became nullified. Now all he cared about was making sure she knew how much he loved her, and that he would be there with her through anything and everything. Harry refused to acknowledge the fear that had formed in the pit of his stomach as he marched up towards his dancing girlfriend and her co-star.

Ginny's eyes met his. When he was about halfway to her, her head quirked to the side and she stopped moving. Glenn spun around, his expression going from confused to annoyed. Harry could muster up a single fuck over Glenn's disappointment.

"What's up, Potter?" Glenn asked, his fake smile sliding to counter his irked tone.

Harry didn't even bother to dignify the actor with a response. Instead all his focus was on Ginny. Her eyebrows were scrunched together as if she were trying to read his mind. He cupped her face, his large hands seeming to swallow her face.

"Harry, what are you doing?" Ginny whispered as she stared up at him. Her hand came up to lift the brim of her hat, giving him full access to study her expression. The light flush that darkened her cheeks in the faint pub light complimented the wide smile that crinkled the corner of her eyes. She looked… overwhelmingly happy.

"I — I just." He leaned down and kissed her, not truly noticing/ caring about the crowds of people around them or flashes of smartphone cameras. All that mattered at that moment was her and the way her arms wrapped around his neck as she leaned into him.

When he pulled away Ginny's mouth remained slightly apart as she slowly opened her eyes. "So." Her voice was deep and husky. "I think you may have just blown our cover."

Harry laughed, leaning down so his forehead rested on hers. "I don't care."

Ginny's fingers caressed his jaw. "And what, pray tell, has made you so without fear? What changed?"

He happily leaned into her touch. "All I care about is being with you. Who cares what all these people think."

A mischievous smirk curled her lips as her eyes twinkled delightfully. "Well then, what would you say about putting on a little show for our first public outing?"

Harry slid his hands up her jaw to twist in her hair, before leaning down. He smiled against her lips. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

[alchemt]

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑  𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐄𝐓   .

repost ,     don’t reblog ,     please    ! 

BASICS.

full name.   varian of old corona   ! nickname.   v ,   goggles ,   hairstripe ,   vari  . gender.   cis male   (  he  /  his  ) height.   5′0″ age.   17 in canon verse ,   varies within others   !   zodiac.   aries sun ,    libra moon ,    pisces rising  . spoken languages.   drums my hands on the table ,   you got a dead language and something translatable and this kid learns it within a few weeks ,    easy ,    so we’re sorting demantius’ dialect in here ,   but i’d say both the dialects of the inner  +  outer parts of the kingdom  !    (    i’ll talk a lil more specifically ab this in accent  !    )    maybe a smattering of words n phrases of languages found in the other kingdoms ,   due to his work that has all kinds of people coming to him for alchemic assistance ,  as well as being an outskirt village  !

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.

hair color.   black w/ brown highlights and a teal stripe  !   eye color.   blue   ! skin tone.   very light and very very fair ,    burns within a few hours of being outside in the summer sun ,    but before that ,    freckles  ! ! ! accent.   the tts  -  english version of what was most likely a version of an early nineteenth century germanic dialect by the coast   !     i would also reach to say that it’s probably audibly different from what is usually spoken within corona’s main city   /   citadel ,    due to the distance between main and old corona ,    there’s probably a different dialect for those living on the far reaches of the kingdom outskirts  !    voice.   usually very pronounced ,   very loud ,   and very fast ,   depending on whether he’s talking ab his work or not .    either way ,    it’s prone to cracking .   his brain tends to work faster than his mouth ,   so there’s a lot of repetition and backtracking as well  !   dominant hand.   ambidextrous  !    he’s confident enough w/ pouring chemicals with both hands ,   and his staff switches between right and left constantly .   it doesn’t look like he prioritizes towards one over another ,   usually using the one that feels right in the moment .   posture.    absolutely  horrendous  !    literally you will always find him slouching over notes and various versions of work ,    falling asleep in bad positions over his workstations ,    and w/ working his way around machinery   ––   hanging over and around gently dangerous and in - progress kinds of equipment and chemical machinery does  not  always equal the best of results for one’s muscles and posture    ––    but   !     ruddiger  is actually a really wonderful addition to the family here w/ this ,    a welcome weight on his shoulders ,   which also serves to remind him to straighten up   (   in more ways than one  🥺   )   ! scars.   lots of chemical burn scarring   !     alchemy is an incredibly dangerous practice ,    and vari is  not  one to stick to a safety protocol on his own volition ,     like  a  whole  entire  fool  ,   so there’s lots of burnt clothes and burn scars    ––   the gloves were most likely a  gift  from his father ,    as soon as there had been a few accidents leading to some permanent markings on his hands ,    the same w/ the apron .    i do like to think he makes his own goggles ,   though ,    i.e.  why he has  so  many  of them to go around   !   tattoos.   n/a in most verses ,    but i love the idea of him getting one to tie back to all the work he’s done w/ the demanitus legend   /   language when he’s older   !  birthmarks.   hmmm .    i may come back to this at a later point ,    but for now let’s say if there are some ,   they’ve been marked over by other scars .  most noticeable feature(s).   teal hair stripe ,    gigantic goggles ,   some article of clothing is always slightly singed   (   or still on fire ,   please let him know asap   !    )  .  

CHILDHOOD.

place of birth.   old corona  ! birth weight.   most likely underweight . birth height.   small ,   tiny ,   it sticks w/ him ,   the poor kid  !   first words.   blue  !     siblings.   none   !    can’t vouch for canon here ,   but i’m going to go with historical accuracy here and say his mother died due to sickness when vari was still a baby . parents.   quirin  ( father ) ,   a woman who wasn’t given a name bc tts is Like That™  ( mother ) parental involvement.   being son to the leader of the village isn’t always .   super  great   !   there’s a lot of interactions between them that lean into the thinking that there’s a .   stilted kind of relationship between them ?    (    think .    that is enough ,     varian     /     yes ,   sir .       think .     not again  ,    varian  .     think .    you are not ready .    )    running a village is a busy enough position to be in ,    let alone one in the middle of a crisis  ,     and it doesn’t feel like there’s much time left ,   or  prioritized ,   in either of those times  ,    to develop a relationship w/ vari  ?     i can’t imagine that the loss of his mother really .    helps  ?    there’s so much  hurt  there ,    you can see it when quirin looks at the portrait in qfad ,    and so they’re very distanced due to just .    not knowing how to reach one another  ?    there’s always something ,   too big to cross ,    too far to reach .    so much of varian’s story is trying to get his father to  see  him ,   to be proud of him ,   and it reflects so much onto .   quirin’s absence  ?    in vari’s work ,    in his interests ,   in  him   ?    and in wanting that ,   needing that emotional relationship more than anything else  ?    feels like enough to drive him to uh     .  .  .     doing A Lot™ to get it .   

ADULT LIFE.

occupation.   " wizard “  of old corona   →    alchemist   →    co-lady-in-waiting   (  The Best Day ,    you will never be able to pry this title away from him   )    →    the gentle villain stint    →    redeemed alchemist     →    most trusted royal engineer of corona   !   current residence.   old corona   !    depending on verse he also travels ,   and lives within the citadel to be close to the official castle lab  !   close friends.   ruddiger ,   rapunz.el ,   cassandra ,   eugene ,   lance  . financial status.   as son as the leader of a village ,   i’d say middle class ,   esp. since they’re living in an outskirt town ,   it isn’t much ?    a lot of varian’s experiments come from deconstructing old ones to reuse and rebuild from scraps .   he def sews their clothes back into working order as well   !    driver’s license.   not exactly modern ,    but he  can  fly a hot air balloon  !    that’s pretty vehicular   !    no license tho bc he’s .   gotta rebel in the ways that he still can  !   criminal record.   pulls out a scroll that rolls down the whole expanse of the throne room    :     “  attacking  “   princess rapunz.el on the night of the snowstorm ,   drugging an entire castle staff w/ laced cookies ,   assisting   +   instigating in the theft of herz der sonne's journal ,   assisting   +   instigating the plan to break into the castle vaults ,   stealing the sundrop flower   (    +   later destroying it    ) ,    endangering the crown princess on multiple accounts ,    multiple accounts of assault   +   endangerment to the people of both main and outer corona    (   birthday automaton ,   enhanced ruddiger ,   army of automatons .    ) ,     kidnapping the queen ,     attempted regicide ,    breaking out of jail ,     aligning himself with the saporians ,    wiping the memories of the king   +   queen ,    allegedly planning on continuing the memory wipe to the whole of kingdom corona ,    endangering the whole of main corona with his chemicals yet  again  . vices.   arrogance ,    doubt ,    recklessness .    love language.    primarily  actions  ! !     you need something done ?   you need someone to do something for you  ?    he’s your boy  !    he also gives gifts ,   as well ,   mostly  practical  ones ,   usually lil machines or things he’ll think that could be of use or necessity  !   

MISCELLANEOUS.

character’s theme song.    oh   i  will  make  you  proud   is too much of a  bop  to be anything but his theme  !   we also see it played throughout the seasons in instrumental swells within gentle or Big Plot™ moments ,   even all the way back in  what  the  hair  !   so much of his character  +  narrative arcs lean on being seen and known and validated  ?   it’s important to him ,    but especially for it to come from his dad ,    or even from those he admires n looks up to  ?     The whole entire Dream  ! hobbies to pass time.    experiments ,    building w/ spare machinery parts ,   playing around w/ ruddiger ,    cooking  ,    gardening  ,    sewing ,    reading ,    etc .     ! mental illnesses.   anxiety ,   depression ,    ptsd . physical illnesses.    he gets sick a lot .   exposure to dangerous chemicals can lead to a weakened immune system ,   so it ends up showing in lots of semi - sick days after all - nighters that he works through until he eventually collapses or gets worse .   it does mean that he eventually develops a good repertoire of being able to recognize various symptoms of sicknesses ,    and with a bit of studying ,    experience on how to treat people within his village   +   even beyond   ! fears.   losing his father ,    being lied to   /   kept in the dark ,   not being enough despite his best efforts  ,    never being fully trusted in the same way again ,   that he won’t be who he could’ve been ,    once ,    bright in the light ,   unhurt and unhistoried ,    and that the darkness is still in him ,   waiting for the day that he snaps again .    self-confidence level.    can i get a big  oof  in the chat bc it’s not .    really exactly super - great  ?    or even super - sturdy ,   for that matter  ?   ambition is one thing ,    but failed experiment and failed invention over and over again can be .   extremely disheartening ,   especially when it comes w/ a verbal disappointment speech ,   as well as side - eyes and general wariness   +   distrust from everyone in his village .   he’s incredibly confident in his knowledge   +   ability ,    and can don the   “  wizard of old corona  “   facade ,    but he’s .    he wants to do something right ,    so  so  badly ,   to prove himself ,    to prove that he can ,    even if he’s not exactly the right person to do it ,   he’s going to try anyways  ,    even if it’s just in case ,    even if it’s the only recourse left   ?    and that can be .    dangerous ,    to say the least ,    as we’ve seen .     but  but  but    !    with the help of raps and cass and eugene and lance ,   and being given the chance(s) to be included in their lil found family ,    in being able to prove himself among them    (    with some bumps along the way ,    a sad kid with no family left can go a lil feral w/ fury and grief as a treat ,    as you do ,    you know how it be sometimes    ) ,    and come into his own  ?    has been .      the  absolute  best   !     everything he’s done for the name of good ,    for the betterment of the lives of others  !    all of the light that it brings into his life ,    into his work  !      love that for him   !  !  !    vulnerabilities.   overactive ,   maybe leaning a lil too close to what’s really an obsessive need for answers ,    how that there are not many lines he’s not willing to cross to do something he deems Right™ or for those that he loves ,    how he’s easily provoked to accept challenges   +   problems to solve .

TAGGED BY.   @irnmaidn​ ! 💕 TAGGING.    so  i  did .   gently  cut  a  lot  out  of  this , so  if  you  are  interested  in  filling  this  out ,   let  me  know  and  i will  happily direct  u  back  to  the  whole  of  it   !

[ra-lek]

could you do an analysis of elliot's dream sequence in 1x4 please? i love reading your thoughts on the show. thx

i sure can try!! this gets lengthy tho so sit back & enjoy while i try my best to write coherent sentences. under the cut we go;

alright so the way i’m going to do this is by dividing the dream sequence into 6 parts, give a quick summary of what’s going on in each of them, and then add my thoughts; sounds good? here we go:

part 1.

summary: mr robot leads elliot to some drug house, elliot gets injected, there’s a shootout, both he & the girl are shot, he glances at the tv to see the weather forecast, followed by an fsociety speech, before he closes his eyes. next, he’s standing next to mr robot who hands him the key and the mask, then the program switches to an ecorp commercial.

first and foremost, i want to point out the symbolism when the shooting begins. the girl who had given elliot the shot was kissing him before she was killed and fell dead next to him. so i think the drug-supplier-girl who he hooks up with & she ends up dying is a reference to shayla? (keep in mind this dream happens before her death); just as how him getting shot and falling on the floor could be seen as foreshadowing.

when it comes to the fsociety speech, mr robot delivers a very unique line in my opinion: “if you have any interest in waking from your slumber, in retrieving lost, damaged, or stolen memory, we are here for you.” how i see this particular quote is tied to my overall opinion on elliot’s coping mechanisms. he suffers from DID- so we know for a fact he has lost & damaged memories. but what about those stolen ones? maybe it goes with the package but maybe it’s something we’ve yet to find out. waking up from his slumber could just be a reference to this being a dream- or in a sense where elliot needs to step up and discover these things for himself.

the key, as you’ll come to realize, is a constant repetition in these scenes. in this first part, mr robot is the one who has it around his neck. once elliot stands next to him, he’s handed the key and the mask. in my head this is a direct symbolism to what we see at the beginning of the show. mr robot introducing elliot to fsociety. so let’s say whoever holds the key, is the one in control of the operation and hold onto that thought for the rest of these, okay?

when elliot asks “what’s it open?” mr robot answers with just “it belongs to you now” followed by saying the mask was made in orient (meaning east, could even be china. dark army.) and just for his head- which i see as a little ‘we’re the same person’ detail- but then adds “now, find your monster, and turn the key.” then the commercial plays. this could be there just to get us to believe e-corp is the monster, turning the key is taking them down. but that’s far too easy.

part 2.

summary: elliot is walking down a neighborhood until he stops in front of the aldersons house. as he turns to look at it, the house is replaced by a pillar with a note spelling out ‘error 404: not found’. next shot is of a little girl on a scooter humming a tune then stopping to look at elliot. they chat a bit, then she picks up the key and hands it to him. once the key’s with him again, he hums along and approaches the house.

the first thing we see, aside from the copy-paste houses, is the mailbox which has the number 404 written on it above the name “the aldersons” so we know that once he turns to look at the house, it’s supposed to be his childhood home. it’s in the shot until he turns only to see the aforementioned error. it’s common knowledge by now but i’m going to add it anyway: “the browser was able to communicate with a given server, but the server could not find what was requested” as a callback to what i mentioned before about lost memories, i’m also going to mention that there is something about this house that he’s forgetting. my guess is the reveal in s3 finale. finding out that he had been the one who jumped.

we know the girl with the scooter is young darlene, humming frère jacques. (brother john/or however your version translated the name) and essentially the lyrics are “brother [name] x2, are you sleeping? x2, ring the morning bells x2, ding ding dong x2.” we can make the connection to the 'slumber’ which mr robot mentioned in part 1- with the same meaning, i’d say. though to continue with my point, elliot greets her with “hello. hello, friend” to what she responds with “but we’re not friends” because she is his sister. again, this dream sequence had been before we knew that obviously, so this is important because in the french version of the song; the brother is the one who is supposed to ring the morning bells- and as elliot hums along and approaches the house, he sings “ding ding dong” out loud as further confirmation he’s, in fact, the brother in question.

i avoided the “first can you tell me, what’s your monster?” part because i don’T KNOW–

now, i mentioned before how whoever holds the key is the one in control of the operation? darlene had been the front face of fsociety while elliot was away during s2; once he’s out of prison, he gets the key back. 

part 3.

summary: the door opens and elliot is standing in his apartment. tyrell is there, holding the key- looking at elliot and not saying anything. instead, qwerty the fish is the one to chat him up as elliot sits on the couch next to him.

at this point we know 'whoever holds the key’ theme i’m going with- and here it’s no different. we know tyrell had been the one who initiated 5/9 with mr robot on that day. though he never gives it back, since he’s technically working with elliot ever since the hack.

now qwerty’s dialogue is so interesting to me because it’s this whole loop thing which i love so much and i’m gonna put the most important quotes here: “time’s money, elliot.” we all know which character is obsessed with time, and keep that in mind cause i’m about to bring it up again later. the rest goes: “when you’re in a fishbowl, ain’t no such thing as change. my entire life has been spent in this thing. my whole world’s on your side table. i look around same shit, different day. the lighting, the furniture. even the sounds always the same. i’m stuck on a loop. and it won’t stop until my life does.” now i think what he’s referring to here- being stuck in a 'fishbowl’ and seeing the same things, being stuck on a loop- could be seen as foreshadowing to elliot’s jail time. however, it’s not the only time elliot has this 'loop’ moment. the one that i think is being predicted here as well is the loop he has while working for e-crop? so the answer to how to ‘help’ his pet is to “move him to a goddamn window” it just screams 'do something.’ or rather- see the bigger picture.

part 4.

summary: they’re in a restaurant, angela is cutting up a big betta fish. elliot is sitting on the other side of the table as he stares in betrayal and informs angela it’s his friend. she tries to feed him a piece but he refuses and looks over to see his younger self being force fed the fish by his mother. then elliot gets served a raspberry pie in which he finds the key upon the first bite. angela misunderstands the gesture and accepts the 'proposal’ which is followed by applause as she takes the key, hugs him, and they leave.

since qwerty had mentioned 'time is money’ as some kind of whiterose symbolism. seeing angela being the one to cut him up and say he’s delicious is, at the same time, betrayal in the sense she’s associated with whiterose; and the fact she has been working with mr robot behind elliot’s back.this further proves the elliot working at e-corp loop i talked about earlier since qwerty is associated with both whiterose and angela at this point. 

when she offers him the food, he refuses and sees his younger self do the same thing- but what’s fun is that the woman sitting behind his mother has a white rose in her hair. so this could be seen as his mother’s general abuse plus both of them trying to get him to work for the dark army. this refusal is further emphasized with a symbolic 'wall’ between himself and angela.

the food in which the key is placed is a raspberry pie- or rather, raspberry pi. the one elliot is supposed to plant in steel mountain in this very episode, if it weren’t for the withdrawal he’s going through. so he’s- once again- holding the key. though not for long, since angela’s the next one to get it. i think her control had been in the episode where she had to help darlene.

bonus: the image taped next to elliot on his table seems to be a guy in a boat?? there’s another one, too- but i never got a good look and have no idea what it means but it’s there.

part 5. 

summary: elliot is entering the arcade in a tuxedo (with the hoodie still over it lmao), slowly approaching angela who is leaning against the wall and wearing a white dress. she approaches him, tells him a couple of things w a cynical attitude, before giving him the key back and saying it doesn’t fit. when he asks why, it cuts to black in the middle of her response.

first of all the song playing in the back is an absolute bop and i suggest listening to it but ok let’s go back to serious stuff: 

angela is dressed in white and standing in front of an illustration of a joker. the one symbolism i know about that in particular is that he’s a symbol of beginning and end- considering you have him at the top and bottom of the deck. so it could be seen as another loop, right? it’s there and i can see it in the scene when angela rewinds the video of the buildings falling- but it might as well have more meaning than that. for instance, it’s important to note that elliot has the same illustration behind himself. when she approaches elliot, there’s a line separating them, suggesting they are opposites. further emphasizing the two sides of the deck reference.

the highlights in her monologue for me are the following: “you’re not gonna do it, are you? change the world. figures, you were only born a month ago.” and this is so, so strange because it’s later followed by “you’re not elliot, you’re the-” and then it cuts off. it’s too obvious to say it might be another personality elliot created. either mr robot, or us- but the last part changes everything because she isn’t asking elliot what his monster is. she’s asking the person she sees in elliot. “you’re afraid. afraid of your monster. do you even know what it is?” and honestly?? i fuckiN DON’T.

part 6.

summary: dark room filled with children’s laughter. elliot’s calling out and saying hello- then he sees the camera and the fsociety mask in front of him. he slowly approaches it, has an inner monologue with us, puts it on and says 'i am here. you are alone.’ which is followed by the arcade lights turning on & beeping as elliot takes the mask off and gasps. then the dream is officially over.

the laughter i associate with forgotten childhood, i think? i’m not too smart on this scene i won’t lie. i think it was supposed to be seen as the “you created all of this” or “i am mr robot” foreshadowing but that seems a bit too simple? though honestly, i can’t see much else here other than the sound of the arcade being the 'alarm’ that wakes him out of his slumber.

another one for this, that’s a bit far fetched but can work goes: the children’s laughter are young darlene & elliot- and the camera elliot is looking at, the one w the mask attached to it could represent the camera he took from his father on that day he jumped out. considering the mask had originally come from a movie darlene & himself used to watch as kids.

the words elliot says when he puts the mask on, when he’s mr robot, are “i am here. you are alone.” which could mean a number of things?? since the moment he says this, the arcade lights up and shows that he is, in fact, alone. once again the symbolism i personally see the most here is 'although nobody else is physically here with you, i’m there inside of you.’ another ‘we’re the same person’ one here, i’m guessing.

so i must admit i ended on quite an anticlimactic note. since it’s the scene that’s the shortest and confuses me a lot- i don’t know how much sense this all made but i tried my best to sum my thoughts up without going all over the place. but!! you can tell me what you think about all this in my inbox and give some of your own input all the time, i’d love to hear it!! same goes for if you want me to analyze any of the other dream sequences elliot has. thanks for reading!!

[phanlight]

The Boy on the Blue Moon Dreams of Sun

prompt: dan is a theatre kid who hasn't had his first kiss but has to kiss someone for a show. he doesn't want his first kiss to be wasted so he tries to get it done properly beforehand & he meets phil and w/e you can take it from there!!!

““Tell you what,” Phil leans into him, and Dan can smell his cologne. “We’re gonna come back up here again, okay? And you’re gonna tell me about yourself. Properly, this time.

Dan frowns. “Isn’t that what we’ve spent the past ten minutes doing?”

“Yeah,” Phil says. “The only difference being next time we do this, I’m going to ban you from saying the word ‘acting’. So I can hear about you, the real you, and not whoever you pretend to be for a living.”

-

GUESS WHICH BITCH IS BACK AND WRITING AGAIN (spoiler: IT ME)

I thought it was about time I branched out a bit and tried my hand at a theatre au. This was so much fun to write (albeit kinda hard as despite being a literature student my Romeo and Juliet knowledge is a little subpar lmao lets hope I at least sort of did it justice tho) and deffo has more than ur daily dosage of angsty teenage actor!dan so look forward to that. thank u to the lovely anon who prompted me with this! (also yes i’m still relying on ptv lyrics for my song titles after 3 years sh)

Also I’m sorry if the writing in this is a lil inconsistent. I started this fic literally over a year ago and abandoned it for ages before finding and continuing it again. The first half was written in literally like mid 2016 (from which point my writing has obv improved a lot) and since then I’ve been working on it sporadically so if it feels like halfway through my writing style suddenly changes then that’s why OOPS soz

This was not supposed to be this long im so sorry wtf 13k ??? fuks sake

It’s the first time Dan’s ever been pissed off with being cast a lead role in a play.

He usually loves it – he loves the attention, loves having a ripped up script full of highlighted lines and more soliloquies to memorise than he can even keep count of. He shines under the warmth of the spotlight, lapping up the attention like a hungry cat, and when the applause ripples throughout the audience at the end, he can’t get enough of the sound.

It’s just- well, there’s one problem with his part.

It’s nothing he has against Romeo, not necessarily, and the piece itself is okay – Dan’s copy of the popular play in question is already crumpled with annotations; small post-it notes spilling fluorescent colours out of every crease (studying English literature alongside Drama always comes in handy as far as Shakespeare is concerned) and Romeo has a decent amount to say.

The problem is, he’s going to have to kiss someone.

Dan Howell, the one who snaps up almost every single role he auditions for, the one with a clay personality that can be moulded perfectly into whatever role he’s going for next, the one who lives the stage and breathes the lights, who was once described as ‘the heart and soul’ of the local theatre, is going to have to kiss someone.

And believe it or not, Dan Howell, the same seventeen-year-old who breezes through auditions leaving a flutter of girls at his feet, the same guy who was once rumoured to have made out with three people at the Les Miserables afterparty and the same guy who once had to reject two people in one night, has never actually kissed anyone before. Not properly, anyway.

Granted, he’s been extremely close to it a fair few times – having been in and out of auditions and callbacks since the age of about five, he’s come into contact with a considerable number of roles that involve love interests; only last month was his character Eddie supposed to kiss the love of his life, Alexandra, in the back of a car at a drive-in cinema. It was a play that one of the drama students had written; set in the fifties, all red-and-white ice cream parlours and hand jives and high school dances and Marilyn Monroe posters. Dan had enjoyed playing his part, and not just because it was the only opportunity he’d get to sport a black leather jacket (though he did decide leather looked really quite hot on him after that play. It’s almost a shame he’s vegetarian), but because the minor obstacle could, like every single other time, be solved with a stage kiss. Just a few seconds of his back to the audience, being agonisingly close to someone else’s lips, before pulling away and raking though his mind to try and remember the next line. It’s always worked for him, every time.

Except for this. Because the director, a Lucy Howcroft with a loud voice and a bossy personality, has only gone and booked them the Round at the Old Vic theatre. Which would be fine, of course it would; it’s one of the most popular theatres in the city and the theatre group is going to get a huge reputation for this afterwards, but it’s not so handy as far as stage-kissing is concerned. When you’re being stared at from every angle three-hundred-and-sixty degrees around, there’s no way you can get away with only partially leaning in to kiss.

“Are you sure there’s no way around this?” Dan had insisted when he’d stolen a moment after rehearsal to talk to Lucy. She’d been clearing her desk – a papery mountain range, and had looked a bit too busy to talk, but Dan would rather discuss this with her one-on-one instead of having to voice his feelings with twenty other pairs of eyes staring at him.

“For someone who just bagged yet another lead role, I would’ve thought you’d be a little more gracious than this,” Lucy had muttered, snapping a file shut. “I didn’t have to cast you, y’know.”

“It’s not- I am grateful, you know I am, it’s just-“

“Is there a problem with the casting of Juliet?” she’d offered, raising an eyebrow.

“No,” Dan had insisted. “She’s fine.”

“The costume, then?” she’d tried. “I’m not a bloody mind reader, Dan. Help me out a bit here.”

Dan had shut his eyes and taken a deep breath, trying to comb the tangle of words in his head into some kind of coherent sentence.

“I mean- I just- the venue,” he gulped. “It’s- there’s a bit of a problem.”

“What about it?” Lucy sighed, irritation tracing the edges of her tone. “I fail to see what’s so problematic about getting a slot at the Old Vic of all places, but if you have any objections, then do enlighten me.”

“It’s not that, it’s just-“ Dan gulped, not really too sure how far he’s going to get with this. The bitterness already in her tone didn’t sound at all promising. “I don’t know. Do we have to perform in the round?”

“Christ, is performing in one of the most popular theatres in London that much of a chore?”

“No, no, I just-“ he gulped, trying to work out how the hell he’d word this without sounding like a twat. “I’ve never really… you know. Performed in an environment like that before.”

“You’ve been acting for twelve years,” she said bluntly. “I’m sure you have enough experience to be able to deal with a round stage instead of a rectangular one.”

“But- like, isn’t the round meant for- like… you know, Greek plays and shit?”

“It used to be,” she’d said, taking care to apply extra emphasis on the past tense. “Since when were you so hung up on the traditions of theatre, anyway?” she’d added after a pause. “Only last week were you totally in favour of the idea of having a rap battle in the middle of Othello.”

Dan had frowned, because that wasn’t really fair – sure, a rap battle isn’t exactly a common feature of Shakespeare’s plays, but no one could deny that Louis, playing Iago, was pretty good at freestyling whenever a mic was thrown in his direction. Despite not adhering to the conventions of traditional English theatre, it certainly made the play more entertaining.

“It’s just gonna be- you know. It’s gonna take some getting used to,” he’d mumbled instead.

“You have three months to get used to it,” she’d pointed out. “I’m sure you and the rest of the cast will have familiarised yourself with it by the time the production comes around.”

“But- the round is traditionally meant for-“

“Look, if you’re going to get so archaic about it, I can always build a time machine, book the open-air Globe for, like, sometime four-hundred years ago, and you can spend the next three days picking rotten tomatoes out of your hair,” she said. “Does that sound better?”

“They only did that to bad actors,” Dan had pointed out. Lucy rolled her eyes.

“And you know what makes a good actor, Dan?” she retorted. “Flexibility. The willingness to branch out of your comfort zone.”

Dan had sighed. He’s not going to get anywhere with this, is he?

“You know what?” he’d finally shaken his head, defeated. “Forget it.”

She watched him turn on his heel with a raised eyebrow. “See you Tuesday, then? First read-through of the script is at eleven in the morning.”

“See you then,” Dan muttered, not even bothering to turn around.

He let the door slam behind him.

It’s not that Dan doesn’t want to kiss anyone – (quite the contrary, really. He loves the idea of it, loves the thought of someone’s lips pressed up against his, the world slowing down around them and his heart feeling like fire. He’s always tried to incorporate that feeling into his acting, letting his passion leak into every character he’s cast, but when the stage lights are off and the curtain is down, his attraction to his colleagues ends there) – it’s just- well, he doesn’t really think he’s found the right person to share the real experience with, yet. His fellow actors and actresses aren’t unattractive by any means, but he doesn’t look at any of them and find himself struck by the desire to taste their lips and whisper incoherence into their ears like Eddie was supposed to do in the back of that car.

Seventeen, and still hasn’t had his first kiss. Still doesn’t want to waste it, at that.

Pathetic.

-

Technicians don’t get paid enough, Phil thinks.

He’s spent the day holed up in the trap room, devouring what was left in the back of the fridge (including a half-opened pack of Doritos that tasted like they expired about five years ago) and puzzling over this fucking broken light board that everyone had very kindly left him to take care of. It had already taken him over half an hour to get one of the chunky old Mac laptops up and running again (seriously, who in this day and age is still using an iBook?) and even then it only really half-functions – a handful of keys are missing, the trackpad only ever seems to work when it feels like it, and there’s a huge hairline crack right across the screen. Phil’s spent so long cursing through gritted teeth and smacking the table in frustration every time the damn thing freezes that it wouldn’t come as a surprise if he ended up contributing to those cracks by the end of the day. Maybe that’s how they ended up there in the first place.

“You alright?” the door suddenly opens and a voice – Nick, Phil presumes, breaks the aching silence that the room has been blanketed in for the past four hours. Finally, Phil sighs, feeling a pinch of anger melt away. Human company.

“Been better,” Phil mumbles, popping a couple of grapes into his mouth. Been better, he scoffs to himself. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t been worse.

“Chuck me a coke, will you?” he pulls up a chair and puts his feet on it, perching on the edge of the table. Phil heaves out a sigh – that involves getting up – but musters up enough energy to lean over and yank the fridge open. He tosses him a can, and Nick catches it expertly.

“Nice of you to show up,” Phil rolls his eyes. “Only four hours late this time. That’s an hour and a half off your personal best.”

“They said they didn’t need me here ‘till three,” he protests, popping the can open and taking a few gulps. “They said you had it all under control.”

His sentence is punctuated by a burp. Phil grimaces.

“Under control,” Phil snorts. That’ll be the fucking day.

“What did they leave you here to do?” he frowns.

“Only fix this entire fucking thing,” Phil nods over to the stupid light board. God, he’s sick of the sight of it. “Beats me what’s wrong with it. I’ve only just managed to get this dinosaur up and running,” he gestures to the corpse of a laptop in front of him, “let alone look at that.”

“Fuck me, man,” Nick sighs out a heavy breath. “If I knew, I could have come in earlier to help you out a bit. You should have texted me.”

“It’s fine,” Phil sighs even though- well, it’s not, really. There’s only so many hours of broken technology and out-of-date food one can take. “It’s not your fault,” he adds truthfully.

“They’re twats sometimes, aren’t they?” Nick lowers his voice, despite the fact they’re literally underground here, beneath the earshot of everyone.

“I’ll say,” Phil widens his eyes, trying to click something and- nope, it’s fucking frozen again. “For fuck’s sake. They’re all bloody loaded, too. You would have thought with the money they have, they could fork out a little for equipment that at least half-functions, right?”

“Yup,” Nick sighs. “Guess bookings for overpriced fancy-ass theatres are higher up on their agenda, though.”

Phil can’t argue with that. Apparently they’re going to have to wire up something in the Old Vic, of all places, next week. Phil dreads to think how much hiring that place out for even a few hours is going to cost, let alone booking it for three nights.

Probably more than enough to buy a better fucking laptop.

-

“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.

Be not her maid since she is envious.

Her vestal livery is but sick and green,

And none but-“

“No- no,” Lucy holds up her hand. “Come on, Dan. More emotion than that. You’re telling the love of your life that even the moon is envious of her beauty. At least pretend to put some passion into it.”

Dan rolls his eyes – only the fourth time he’s had to repeat this fucking soliloquy in the past fifteen minutes. He’s pretty sure he’s only one “no, no, it’s too (insert adjective here)” away from giving up with this whole thing altogether. He’d rather have played Benvolio anyway.

“Come on,” Lucy continues. “We’ll take it from Be not her maid…”

Dan shuts his eyes, scrapes up the remaining traces of his sanity, and takes another breath.

“Be not her maid since she is envious.

Her vestal livery is but sick and green,

And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off!

It is my lady. Oh, it is my love.

Oh, that she knew she were!

She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?

Her eye discourses. I will answer it.—

I am too bold. 'Tis not to me she speaks.

Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,

Having some business, do entreat her eyes

To twinkle in their spheres till they retur-“

“No, no-“ she interrupts him again and for fuck’s sake, at this rate, Dan won’t even need to spend any time in his bedroom going over his lines. He’s pretty sure he’s memorised half of the monologues already just from recapping in rehearsals alone.

“Come on, really feel it,” she pleads. “You can’t say something as romantic as that with a face like yours – you’re literally saying that two stars in the sky have gone away and they’re asking Juliet’s eyes to shine in their place until they return.”

Dan balls his fists, ready to snap back that yes, he’s fully fucking aware of what’s going on in the play thank you very much, in case she hadn’t forgotten he did actually study it for three separate exams and subsequent exposure to the text in question has made him rather familiar with the occurrences currently taking place, but they’re all interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Lucy huffs, mildly irritated.

The door knob jitters, then twists.

“Hiya,” a black-haired boy nods tiredly, pushing through the crack in the door. Dan immediately recognises him – one of the tech guys, he thinks, but he isn’t entirely certain. He’s never really spoken to any of the crew before; they tend to keep well out of the limelight (they’d rather control it instead).

“Everything okay?” Lucy asks, before turning to Dan and Alexandra (his Juliet). “You two, take five. Be ready to take it from the top.”

They both relax and take a seat on one of the upturned wooden boxes. It isn’t until Dan takes the weight off of his legs he realises how much they’ve been aching – fuck, he really needs to get back to that gym.

“Any luck?” she says to Mr. Black-Hair. He’s holding a laptop that looks as if it’s seen better years, never mind days, and a long cord of wire that snakes around his fist.

“Nothing at all,” he sighs, flicking a strand of his fringe out of his eyes. His hair looks as if it hasn’t seen a hairbrush for days, but there’s something about the way it sits shaggily on his head that kind-of suits him (Dan wishes he could pull off messy hair – he only attempted ditching the straighteners once and spent the rest of the day wondering if any birds had mistaken his head for a nest).

He doesn’t realise he’s been staring until he catches the tail end of Alexandra’s sentence and realises he hasn’t actually been listening for the past minute or so.

“What was that, sorry?”

“I asked you how you were finding Romeo so far,” she repeats.

“Hm? Oh yeah, yeah- he’s fine,” Dan says, not taking his eyes off of Mr. Black-Hair. He’s lost the thread of their conversation (he’s no lip reader) but by the looks of it, it seems as if there’s a problem with one of the laptops.

“Are you sure?” Alexandra frowns. Dan looks at her, but his glance is soon pulled back to the technician.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

She shrugs. “You don’t really- I don’t know, you just don’t seem to be… you know. That into it, y’know?”

“Wait-“ Dan shakes his head, trying to focus on their conversation instead of the one a few metres away from. “Hang on- what? What makes you say that?”

She raises her eyebrows, as if to say ‘really?’. Dan’s expression remains carefully blank.

“Come on, Dan. We wouldn’t have had to repeat this stupid scene like, five times if you were actually into it. I’ve seen you do way better than this.”

“Oh, not you as well,” Dan groans, deflating. He’s pretty sure that exact sentence had fallen from Lucy’s lips not so long ago. He’s sick of hearing it, sick of having to sit and listen to people tell him that he ‘can do way better’ and ask ‘is everything all right, Dan? Nothing bothering you, is there?’ because he’s just ‘not himself’ at the moment.

That’s the most ridiculous one, he thinks, because for Christ’s sake, he’s an actor. He’s never himself.

“No, I don’t mean it like that,” Alexandra says, backtracking. “You know I don’t. I just- I think I overheard Lucy say you had a problem with something or other last week?”

“Did you,” Dan mumbles, unable to keep the bitter sarcasm out of his town. Alexandra remains unfazed.

“What was that about, though?” she remains unfazed. “Nothing to do with the casting, is it?”

“You really think it’s to do with the casting?” Dan stares at her in disbelief, before scoffing. “Yeah, like, I’m gutted to have bagged the lead role alongside you at one of the best theatres in the country. How am I going to cope?”

Not entirely truthful, but not a complete lie either.

“Just making sure,” a grin tugs at her lips, and she flicks a curl of red hair behind her shoulders. “I don’t have much of a problem with it myself, to be honest.”

“That’s reassuring,” Dan smirks sarcastically, but his tone is fairly benign. There’s certainly no denying she’s fucking gorgeous and it’s really no wonder she’s Juliet – she has hair the colour of a sunset falling down her back in ruby curls, emerald eyes framed by a curl of long eyelashes and cherry red lips that stretch into a wide smile whenever Dan cracks a joke, giving way to a small dimple on the side of her cheek. Her skin is pale, the colour of moonlight, almost, and he idly thinks, just for a fleeting second, that the moon probably would be jealous of her. She’s beautiful.

“Certainly don’t have a problem with getting to snog you in front of a thousand people, I must be honest,” she adds, and Dan’s stomach drops and his grin vanishes. Shit.

He wrings out a laugh, internally wincing at how false it sounds. “Yeah, I- um-“

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” someone mutters a few footsteps away from them. He snaps his head up, and Lucy plus Mr. Black-Hair are hunched over the desk, clearly getting nowhere with the absolute disaster they call an iBook.

“Wait- what’s the problem?” Dan suddenly gets up. He feels a little bad for leaving Alexandra so abruptly so he throws her a little apologetic ‘be right back’ glance, but he can’t help it – he might actually be able to help, here.

He shoves down the other voice in the back of his mind, the ‘or rather you’re just grabbing at any opportunity to avoid any potential conversation about the kiss you fucking wimp’

“It’s okay, Dan, sit back down. I’ll be with you both in a second,” Lucy calls over her shoulder.

“No, really,” Dan insists. “I know a thing or two about Macs. I have one myself, and-“ he catches Lucy drawing in a breath, ready to protest, and he regrets the spill of words almost as soon as they come out – fuck, why can’t he just keep his mouth shut? – but Mr. Black-Hair turns around, an eyebrow quirked upwards.

“Really?” his stare is the colour of ice, the sky on a December morning, but it’s weirdly warm at the same time.

“I- uh, yeah,” Dan stutters when he remembers how to talk again. “I’ve always had Macs. They’re great when they decide to work, but they can be a bitch when they begin to act up, and-“ he cuts himself off with an awkward shrug, “yeah.”

“Tell me about it,” the technician smirks. “This bastard-” he nods to the chunky white rectangle in his arms, “took me like, half an hour to boot up alone. And now it’s been frozen for like- twice as long as that. I’ve only had chance to type in my password so far.”

Lucy’s still standing in the middle of them and it’s getting a bit difficult to ignore the stony glare burning into Dan’s peripheral vision right now and even harder to avoid eye contact with her, but it doesn’t stop him from offering some help, albeit rather inappropriately timed.

“I- um, have my MacBook with me if that helps?” Dan offers, trying not to feel the heat of his blush when Mr. Black-Hair looks straight at him. “I mean- if you don’t need it that’s fine, but like- it’ll function a bit better than that thing,” he shrugs. “I dunno. It would probably save you a lot of time.”

“Really?” he raises an eyebrow. “Like, with you right now?”

“Yeah,” Dan says. “I mean – I haven’t got my charger on me, but it’s on, like, eighty percent. Should be fine.”

“I mean-“ he throws a permission-seeking glance, towards Lucy, who Dan is pretty sure would be having steam coming out of her ears would it be humanly possible. She fixes Dan with a hard stare, a real ‘go on; be my guest’ look that’s always comes across as more of a dare than permission, a challenge for his conscience, but he can’t help an apologetic smile tugging at his lips.

“It’s cool with you, right?” his lips say before his mind catches up.

Lucy rolls her eyes in defeat. “If you absolutely must. But only- only because I could do with the extra time to independently go over one of Alexandra’s soliloquy.”

His face breaks out into a grin, and he’s not that sure why. “Thanks, Luce. I owe you one.”

“Don’t you make a habit of this, though. Remember; this is your own rehearsal time you’re sacrificing.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dan calls over his shoulder, trailing off. Mr. Black-Hair holds the door open behind him, and suddenly they’re out of the rehearsal studio and walking in a weird mutual silence sitting in a strange middle ground between comfortable and uncomfortable, across the car park and over to the actual theatre.

“Are you alright to do this, yeah?” Mr. Black-Hair (Dan seriously needs to come up with more imaginative mental nicknames for people) breaks the silence on their walk down to the trap room.

“It’s no problem at all,” he smirks as another wooden step groans under his foot. “Anything to get out of rehearsal.”

Dan’s never really been here before, never touched the underground territory where the technicians lurked, but there’s something about the atmosphere of this place that grips him.

-

Half an hour passes, and Dan couldn’t really tell you why he’s still sitting down here, still sitting on a revolving chair with a rip in the upholstery, under half-broken beams, tables that look like they’re seconds away from collapsing, and a lot of weird technology that he’d never even attempt to get his head around (seriously – do they even need this many buttons?). He’d given his laptop to Black Hair to receive a very emphatic ‘thank you, like seriously you’re a fucking lifesaver if I spent a second longer with that piece of shit I really don’t know what I would have done’ and the job had been done in seconds. Since then, a casual conversation had been struck up and Dan finds he doesn’t actually want to go back upstairs just yet.

“You two sounded really good in there,” Black Hair comments. They’d been talking about the play. “From what I heard, anyway.”

“Thanks,” Dan says, trying to ignore the quiet blush that warms his cheeks. There’s nothing quite like someone complimenting his acting. “Clearly not good enough for Lucy, though.”

“Few things are, Dan,” he sighs, and Dan only finds it half-weird that this guy knows his name, but Dan doesn’t actually know his. It’s unnerving, sure, but nothing he’s a stranger to. “She’s been on at you all morning.”

“Yeah,” Dan pauses, before adding an apologetic “sorry, I- um, I don’t think I caught your name?”

“It’s fine. I’m Phil,” he grins, and Dan thanks his lucky stars there’s finally a name to put to the face.

Dan studies him briefly, and frowns. “You do look familiar, actually.”

“Yeah – I do all the donkey work downstairs,” he grins. “You may have seen me emerge from the cave every now and then.”

Dan chuckles, deciding there and then that he likes Phil.

“Doesn’t it get lonely?” Dan asks, studying the square lights looming above them, one of which he notices is stuttering slightly, flickering on and off every now and then.

Phil shrugs, not taking his eyes off of the screen. “Kinda. But I mean – I have my little crew down here, y’know? There’s five of us. We just like- keep each other company. Help each other whenever we need to,” he glances at Dan. “Oh, and sneak up to the theatre and watch you guys every now and then.”

Dan giggles. “Brilliant. Must be a nice little community, though.”

“Yeah, it is,” Phil hesitates. “Or perhaps ‘support group’ might be a more appropriate term. For the poor sods who have to put up with shitty laptops and gross food.”

Dan laughs, and helps himself to another Dorito.

-

“Okay, right- Dan, sorry if this sounds a bit weird because- like, we’ve pretty much only just met, but like- um- I was wondering if you wanted to-“

“Phil,” Dan cuts him off. As an actor, there’s something about hearing people stutter and ramble without really saying anything that tends to grate on him. “I’d love to.”

“Really? Well, I-“ Phil stops and frowns. “Hang on a second. How did you know I was gonna ask you to hang out?”

Dan shrugs like he hasn’t spent the last thirteen years mastering the sciences of body language and speech and how they can be applied to the acting world. “Lucky guess, I suppose.”

Phil smiles. “I mean- would you? Like, really?”

“Of course,” Dan says.

“Well yeah, like- I don’t have to be home for a while yet, and I have a car so we could just like- drive around for a bit? Go to town if you want?”

Dan smiles, and repeats what he said before he even knew what Phil was going to say.

“Yeah. I’d love to.”

-                                          

It’s a bit of a weird result to come out of lending his laptop to a stranger for a while, but it’s how Dan finds himself spending the evening sat in the passenger seat on the top of a car park roof, blasting some weird indie song from the depth of Phil’s Spotify and watching the sun sink further behind the buildings, painting the sky warmer with every slow minute that passes on the dashboard clock.

They’d had a drive around the city together, sometimes talking, sometimes letting lulls in the conversation give way to thoughtful silences, both of them tapping away to Phil’s music taste, but Dan thinks it’s been about fifteen minutes since either of them last said anything.

“So,” Phil is the first to break the silence. He flicks the last of his cigarette out of the window (Dan had insisted on rolling down the windows before he did that – there’s no way he’s going home stinking of an ashtray). “Tell me about yourself.”

Dan looks up from his phone at that, his heart thudding.

“You what?”

“You know,” Phil’s gaze doesn’t move, his eyes fixed on the view in front of the windscreen. They’d picked a spot at the very top of a multi-storey car park overlooking everything, leaving the city a pool of lights and colours and life far beneath them. “I don’t really know you. So tell me about yourself.”

“I- um-“ Dan gulps. This wasn’t really a question he came prepared for. He shrugs. “I don’t really know what there is to tell, if I’m honest.”

“Oh, now come on,” Phil presses. “Just- anything. Your hobbies. Your life. Your dreams. What you want to be when you’re older.”

“I feel like I’m in a bloody job interview,” Dan chuckles. Phil’s lips quirk upwards in response.

“You are. I’m interviewing you to see if you’re fit for the job of being mates with me.”

“The ‘job’?” Dan frowns. “Like it’s a chore?”

“That’s for you to decide,” Phil grins. “Now, come on. I wanna hear about you.”

Dan gulps, silence falling for the first time in a while.

“I- um, well I think my hobby is probably pretty obvious, for a start,” Dan begins. Phil rolls his eyes. “And what I wanna be when I’m older, too. I’m gonna do a degree in Drama, I reckon.”

“What else are you into, then?”

Dan stops for a second. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on,” Phil presses, flicking his lighter and sparking up another cigarette. “You must have other interests besides acting. You got a girlfriend?”

Dan clams up. “Um- no.”

“Oh. Boyfriend, then?” he quirks his eyebrows, and Dan shakes his head miserably.

“Afraid not.”

“Glad we established that,” Phil smirks, but Dan doesn’t really smile back.

He chews on the inside of his lip, having a staring contest with a pair of headlights sliding across one of the roads beneath them.

“What music are you into, then?”

Dan swallows, trying to think. It’s like someone’s scraped over his mind with an eraser, rubbing out his interests and his life and his personality, all pencilled in with weak lines.

“Oh, you know,” he shrugs. “This and that. I like whatever this is,” he nods to the Spotify track on Phil’s phone. “Bit of Indie, it’s good. Oh, and I love- what are they called? Pink Floyd?”

“Floyd’s good,” Phil agrees. “And Nirvana.”

“Yeah,” Dan gulps, feeling another silence probe the conversation.

“You into the Smashing Pumpkins?”

Dan shakes his head.

“Oh, okay. Slaves?”

Dan shakes his head again.

“Genesis?”

“Never even heard of them.”

“Cobalt Night?”

Dan shakes his head again

Phil cackles. “Oh Christ. You do realise I made that last band up?”

“Oh god,” Dan can feel his cheeks burn peony. “I’m not doing myself any favours here, am I?”

“Don’t worry, I’m only messing with you,” Phil says. “I think it would be more embarrassing if you said yes, to be honest.”

“True,” Dan shrugs, feeling Phil’s stare burn into his side profile. He sits back further in his seat, keeping his stare.

“You’re not really into much, are you?

Dan shrugs.

“I’m more into Musical Theatre, really. Ever since we did a production of Hamilton I haven’t really been able to get that rap out of my head,” he chuckles.

“Right,” Phil sits up a little bit and clears his throat. “Well we’ve established your music taste and your hobby. Who are your favourite actors, then?”

It’s like someone’s flicked a switch inside Dan. His eyes light up.

“-and Leonardo DiCaprio, oh my God, don’t even get me started on him. I mean- who wouldn’t fuck young Leo? Have you even seen him in Titanic? And Romeo and Juliet too, Jesus Christ he’s gorgeous. He’s so fucking gorgeous. I’m not gonna do Romeo’s role any justice when he’s my competition, am I?”

Phil just nods and says the odd ‘hm���, listening to Dan’s stream of consciousness.

“-and Helena Bonham-Carter, what a fucking legend, man. She’s just- her character is just so versatile, you know? I mean- there’s a good reason she’s in literally everything, and that’s because she’s fucking amazing- have you seen Fight Club? You must have seen it, it’s incredible. She’s incredible. It’s a bit of a mind fuck if I’m honest, what with the split personality thing and everything, but- oh God, Brad Pitt is so good in it too. And he’s pretty hot, I’m not gonna lie. Well, until he grew out his hair and looked a bit like a farmer. But- where was I? Oh yeah, Helena Bonham Carter-”

“She was good in Sweeney Todd, too,” Phil comments, and he’s off again.

“-like, that was the first time I ever saw Johnny Depp act, and by Christ that film creeped me out. I mean- I was only like, seven when I watched it so of course it was gross, like, what seven year old watches people do- you know, that, to paying customers? I feel sorry for the poor sods who just went in there wanting to give their beards a trim. But- yeah, they were both really good in Sweeney Todd. I had a bit of a crush on Helena- and Johnny too, for that matter, I mean come on, who didn’t? But then I found out Johnny Depp is a bit of a dick in real life so I went off him after that. But Helena’s still cool, obviously.”

“She’s good, yeah,” Phil nibbles at a protruding hangnail on his thumb.

“And- oh god, who’s another good actor? Oh, don’t even get me started on Morgan Freeman. Absolute fucking legend. Like, oh my god. Him and that other one- god, what’s his name? The guy from Donnie Darko?”

Dan’s brain is moving far too quickly for Phil to keep up and he has no idea what the correlation between Morgan Freeman and Donnie Darko is, but he gives it a shot anyway.

“Jake Gyllenhaal?”

“Yes. Yes, oh my god, that’s the one,” Dan’s face breaks out into a grin. “Fuck, Donnie Darko. What a film, man. My friend has a tattoo of it, and-“

It continues like this, Dan chatting nineteen-to-the-dozen and Phil counting the glitters of passion in his eyes, before they’re both interrupted by a buzzing on Dan’s lap.

“Oh shit,” he grabs his phone. “It’s my mum.”

Phil doesn’t know what she’s saying on the other end of the line, but judging by Dan’s apologies it sounds like he’s stayed out here for a little too long.

“Sorry,” Dan mumbles, tugging on his seatbelt. “Lost track of time a bit, there.”

“Clearly,” Phil grins.

“This was good, though,” Dan says. “Like, really good. Thanks for, you know. Suggesting this.”

“Tell you what,” Phil leans into him, and Dan can smell his cologne. “We’re gonna come back up here again soon, okay? And you’re gonna tell me about yourself. Properly, this time.

Dan frowns. “Isn’t that what I’ve spent the past like- hour doing?” he glances at the clock and shit, has it really been that long? It’s pitch black outside, the only light coming from the glitter of the city beneath them (shit, it really is beautiful from up here) and he was supposed to be home forty-five minutes ago.

“Yeah,” Phil says, starting up the engine. “The only difference being next time we do this, I’m going to ban you from saying the word ‘acting’. So I can hear about you, the real you, and not whoever you pretend to be for a living.”

-

The next few days pass in a blur of line-learning, enduring Lucy’s lectures about how he just ‘isn’t putting enough ‘oomph’ into it, come on now, we’ll take it from the top one more time’ and Dan has to act like he actually gives more of a shit about what Romeo’s saying right now than what Phil had said in that car a few days ago. He has to act like it isn’t what he’d been reciting over and over in his mind, the words digging grooves into the back of his mind and making themselves at home.

He has to act like there’s more to his fucking life than acting.

-

The next time Dan sees Phil, they’re both cooped up in a control room eating lunch in a companionable silence; Dan going over his lines and Phil puzzling over these two wires that are, according to him, sly bastards that won’t fucking go in these holes Jesus Christ, to which Dan had shut his eyes and prayed to god no-one outside the room had caught that out of context. There’s a huge control panel, rows and rows of buttons and sound mixers and, as Dan had very accurately christened them, “slidey-things” in front of them. He has no idea what any of this stuff is, no idea what a “cross-fader” is or what the hell a “submaster” is supposed to do, but every now and then Phil will casually lean over and flick a switch or press a button and a stage light beneath them will change.

“What’s up?”

Dan looks up from his script. He’s been poring over his lines for so long he’s pretty sure stripes of yellow highlighter are now permanently inked into the back of his mind, now.

“What? Nothing.”

Phil swings his legs off of the bar they’d been resting against. They’re halfway through sharing a KitKat (Dan had taken a trip down to the Co-op at the beginning of the lunch break and returned with a bag so heavy with food it had left a dent in his hand, insisting Phil can’t be living on stale crisps his entire life) and watching a rehearsal, one Dan doesn’t have to be in for once, through a pane of glass.

“You’re going to have to do better if you want to convince me, Mr. Theatre Kid,” Phil reaches over to the bowl in front of them and plucks a grape from the stem. “I thought you were good at acting.”

“What do you want me to do; leap up and perform a jig?” Dan turns a page, the paper rustling a bit too loudly. “I’m fine, Phil. Stop reading into things too much.”

Phil stares at him. “You’re sat there with a face as long as my leg, and I’m reading into things?” he quirks an eyebrow. “Be careful. If you stare at that page any longer it’ll probably burst into flames.”

“Shut up,” Dan mutters, the edge in his voice a little too sharp for it to slip by as a joke.

Phil does.

Dan sighs. “Sorry, I just-“

“Rehearsals getting to you?” he suggests softly. Dan doesn’t plan on letting the real problem slip; Christ, he can only imagine the havoc that would ensue if it got around that as well as obsessing over acting he’s also never actually kissed anyone, so he quickly takes Phil up on that.

“Yeah,” he sighs. “I mean- Romeo’s a good character to play, I guess, but he does have an awful lot to say.”

“You’ll be okay,” Phil reassures him. “You still have months of time left to memorise your lines. When’s the play?”

“Seventh of February,” Dan says. Two months from now.

“There we go,” Phil says. “You have plenty of time yet.”

“I guess so,” Dan shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“You’ve done this millions of times before,” Phil says. “You’ll be fine; I know you will. You’re a natural.”

Dan wishes he knew the half, he really does, but there’s just something about Phil’s smile that makes him almost want to believe him.

-

Dan manages to tell Phil a little bit more about himself next time they’re on the roof together, and in return, he learns a bit about Phil too.

“Well, when I was acti-“

“Nuh-uh,” Phil interrupts him. “No acting talk, remember?”

Dan rolls his eyes. “It’s relevant to what I was gonna say. It’s an important part of the story.”

“Wherever the hell you can fit acting into a story about you and your friends getting drunk and stealing a supermarket trolley because you couldn’t afford a taxi, I’d be very impressed.”

“You’d be surprised,” Dan grins, and that was the only time acting came into conversation that night.

-

Dan learns Phil is eighteen, that he’d failed his driving test three times before passing because he was driving on the wrong side of the dual carriageway, and swears he’s going to give up smoking next year, he promises. He learns that his favourite colour is blue because he likes the way the colour skates across the ocean water in the summer, and that he used to be scared of dogs before his parents got him a puppy for Christmas, a bouncy Labrador called Daisy with a love for the sun and walks down to the beach.

“I fucking love dogs,” Dan beams.

“So do I, now. Took me long enough,” Phil agrees, taking a drag of his cigarette. “Daisy’s so cute, oh my god. You will love her.”

Dan doesn’t say anything, but there’s something about the definite use of ‘you will’ that he likes.

He, in turn, finds that he does have some thoughts and feelings and dreams hidden away in there, beneath the façade of scripts and stage lights and acting. He finds he does have stuff to say, stuff that isn’t always attached to a web stringing back to the theatre. He tells Phil all about his cat, Ozzy (a little shit who takes great pleasure in knocking all his belongings off of his desk and sleeping on his laptop, but he loves him anyway) his annoying next-door neighbours who don’t seem to see any problem with blasting ABBA at three in the morning, and they manage to find common bands they both like. Oasis is playing when the sun sinks, the sky darkens, and the city lights up beneath them.

“God, I love this one,” Phil mumbles, his speech obscured by the cigarette hanging out of his mouth. “Don’t Look Back In Anger. It’s one of their best.”

“Oh god, yeah,” Dan agrees, tapping along to the chorus. “That and Stand By Me. Oh god, and Champagne Supernova, too.”

Phil grins at that, and leans forward, picking his phone up from the dashboard. Before Dan has a chance to question him, the chorus stops dead in its tracks, and an acoustic softness follows the sudden silence, a series of guitar chords that are just that bit too familiar. He grins.

“I always think the intro sounds a bit like Wonderwall,” Phil comments, putting his phone down and leaning back in the seat.

“Yeah,” Dan sighs, leaning back in his own seat and turning his gaze to the city beneath them, staring at lights and roads and buildings until they pool into a hazy amber blur in his vision.

How many special people change,

How many lives are living strange,

Where were you while we were getting high?

Slowly walking down the hall,

Faster than a cannonball

Where were you while we were getting high?

 Someday you will find me,

Caught beneath the landslide,

In a champagne supernova in the sky.

Someday you will find me,

Caught beneath the landslide,

In a champagne supernova;

A champagne supernova in the sky.

They don’t say anything, instead letting Liam Gallagher do the talking, but sly glances are exchanged from under brown fringes and black eyelashes.

-

“Nice up here, isn’t it?”

It’s only until Phil breaks the silence they’ve lapsed into that Dan realises the song has drawn to a close. He slides his gaze from the city and over to Phil, over to his thoughtful stare skating along the skyline, the ruffled sweep of black hair coating his fringe, and the orange glow of a cigarette tip poking out of the corner of his mouth. His eyes flicker over to Dan’s.

Dan looks back over to the city.

“Yeah.”

“I always come up here.”

“I can see why.”

“Yeah, well. Sometimes a little look over the city is just what you need to clear your head. It just puts everything in perspective, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Dan swallows. “It really does.”

There’s a litter of thoughts and worries in his mind, buried deep and multiplying with every day that drags past, every day that pulls him closer and closer to the production, to the hundreds of burning stares in the audience seats, to his colleague’s lips. He’s been longing for a break from it. Just a few hours of silence, a few quiet moments that don’t have to be spent combing over every single thought in his head, thinking and thinking until it inflates into anxiety, spilling into the pit of his stomach and clawing at the edges as it goes.

And the more he counts the city lights, the more he feels the cold night air stroke his cheeks and the engines reverberating around the car park levels beneath them, the more he reckons a more few nights up here. It’s the remedy he needs; just him, Phil and the lights.

Their eyes meet seconds after, and Dan can feel the question he’s vowed to ask Phil before the end of the night already beginning to rest on his lips, on the cusp of speech.

“When can we do this again?”

-

The late nights begin to pass more frequently in a spinning blur of city nights, passenger seats and conversations, all whispers and cold air and stolen glances. Dan can feel himself unravelling like a threadbare blanket, his carefully constructed personas and characters fraying at the edges with every hour spent up on the top of the city with a boy whose lips spill truths like water, and it isn’t long until Dan finds cracks in his paper personalities and begins to feel more and more honesty begin to seep through. He finds that no, he doesn’t have to spin false anecdotes like cotton and lie about his interests and find a way of linking everything back to acting, hooking every little quirk and element to his personality back to the stage. He doesn’t have to impress Phil with his knowledge of Hollywood throughout the years and he doesn’t have to act like he loves things he’s never actually heard of and he doesn’t have to lock his feelings away and throw away the key.

He doesn’t have to pretend.

-

It’s all okay until they fall onto the topic of previous relationships.

It’s been a good night. They’d visited the car park again, but this time without the car (it was warm enough to leave it in the driveway and make their own way up the concrete staircases, glass bottles in plastic bags clinking around their legs). They’d situated themselves in the very same parking space, the one second to the right and next to a beacon, but they’d traded car seats for a picnic blanket, headlights for phone torches and gear sticks for bottle openers.

“Yeah, like- fuck, she wasn’t a good kisser at all, was Mary. I mean- we were in year nine and she tried, bless her, and God knows so did I. But you know, with that as my first impression of kissing, when it was over I was like ‘what the fuck is all the fuss about?’” Phil chuckles, and Dan pretends to grin.

“Yeah, I mean-“ he shrugs, staring down at his lap. “I’ve had my fair share of bad kisses in my time.”

The ease with which the lie rolls off of his tongue almost takes him by surprise. It’s been a while since he’s lied about himself to Phil, and it feels strange.

“I can imagine,” Phil says, before frowning. “But you’re an actor. So you must be an excellent kisser, right? What with all the practice you guys have.”

Dan frowns, looking up from his bottle. “You what?”

“Oh come on. I saw what went on in the back of that car last term. Eddie and Alexandra. That play involved more lip-on-lip action than the fucking Notebook.”

Dan smiles at that, remembering the play adaptation they actually did of that when he was in year ten. He doesn’t quite know whether to laugh or cry over the sheer amount of starring roles he’s had that are heavily eloped in some kind of romantic storyline.

“Us actors have our techniques,” he says carefully.

Phil’s eyes widen at that. “You do? Like what?”

Dan shrugs, taking another sip of beer. “Oh, you know.”

“No, I don’t know,” Phil shuffles closer, a flicker of eagerness in his cerulean stare and shit, Dan’s beginning to regret opening his mouth now. “Come on. What techniques do you have? I could use a few tips myself.”

Dan raises an eyebrow, his eyes firmly locked onto the spread of amber lights in front of them.

“I doubt you’d ever want to use these kinds of techniques on anyone,” he says, a hint of humour drying his speech. “I imagine stage-kissing on a real date would be quite a deal-breaker.”

“Stage kissing, huh?” Phil widens his eyes. “How does that differentiate from a real kiss, then?”

“Well,” Dan takes another sip of his drink, his vision beginning to slow down. “First of all, it’s not really a kiss at all.”

“Huh?” Phil frowns.

“I mean- not usually. There are different kinds of stage-kisses, but most of them don’t involve, you know,” he smirks, reusing Phil’s rather vulgar term of “lip-on-lip action”.

“So you guys don’t actually kiss?” Phil asks.

Dan shakes his head. “Nope.”

“But-… how does that work?”

Alcoholic courage swims through Dan’s veins at that. He glances at Phil.

The words are a whisper, a dare almost, and it isn’t until Phil nods that Dan realises he’s actually said it out loud.

“Want me to show you?”

“Yeah, go on,” Phil’s tone is casual, soft almost, but his eyes are glittering.

“Okay, well- come over here,” he beckons.

Phil does as he’s told, shuffling up on his knees until he’s facing Dan.

“One of the actors needs to have their back to the audience,” Dan says. “So, let’s say the wall over there is the audience,” he nods over Phil’s shoulder to the stretch of concrete watching them.

“Alright. The wall’s the audience. Now what?”

“Now,” Dan gulps, feeling his heart begin to pick up the pace because shit, this is really happening now. “So, what you do is, like, just lean in normally for a kiss, but stop just as your lips are about to touch.”

Phil scoffs. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Look, do you want me to show you or not?”

“Nah, nah, I’m kidding,” Phil says. “C’mon, then. Show me how it’s done in Hollywood.”

“You dick,” Dan mumbles, but he’s leaning in.

Phil gets closer, his face begins to crawl up to Dan’s until their noses are brushing and his fringe is a tickle on Dan’s cheek and his breath mixes with Dan’s own, warm and languid through parted lips and fuck, Dan’s heart is really thudding now. His legs feel like jelly and his lungs feel like fire and there’s something warm and fiery swirling in the pit of his stomach, something alien, something that he’s certainly never felt before with any other colleague he’s come this agonisingly close to kissing.

They stay there for what feels like minutes, lips hovering, warmth tingling and the city still thundering beneath them, and it’s Phil who pulls away first.

“Impressive,” he smiles, eyes glittering with nonchalance. “Frustrating, but impressive. Is that your go-to one, then?”

It takes three swigs of beer to calm Dan down before he can speak again.

“I mean- um, yeah. Though sometimes if you’re, like, sitting really far over to the side in the audience you might be able to tell that they’re not actually kissing, so,” he shrugs. “It just depends on the stage, I guess.”

“Right,” Phil nods, swigging from his own bottle. “You, er- you mentioned a few other types, right?”

The thought of coming that close to Phil’s lips again sends the strange flame of warmth flooding back into Dan’s stomach. He all but chokes on his mouthful of drink.

“Er- yeah,” he stutters. “There are a few others,” he gulps again and shit, what’s up with him?

Dan doesn’t really know what’s happening, doesn’t know why being within a metre radius of this guy is already making him feel far more than he’d ever felt with any colleague, kissing or not, but it doesn’t stop him from beckoning the older boy over and showing him kiss number two, their lips locked together with nothing except Dan’s thumb in between them. He can feel the warmth of Phil’s mouth against his skin, the hot movement of Phil’s breath through his nose and the tickle of his hair against his cheek again. When he parts his mouth, Dan feels the tiniest touch of lip against his. It’s only the very corner and can’t have lasted for longer than a millisecond, but the feeling comes back like a spark to a flame and he’s beginning to find it difficult to balance and oh, shit.

They break apart, eyes searching each other’s, and it’s the first time Dan’s feeling like this post-‘kiss’ without having to throw on a character like an old shirt. He doesn’t have to follow anything up with someone else’s speech, with a fake accent and a stupid costume and a mannerism that doesn’t quite fit.

For once, he doesn’t feel like he has to act.

Phil narrows his eyes after a few silent seconds, fighting back a smirk.

Dan frowns, the post-stage kiss high beginning to melt away.

“What?”

“Is that seriously it?” Phil says.

“Yeah,” Dan moves away, trying to ignore the surge of electricity he had felt upon edging within a few millimetres of the other boy’s lips, the city a roar beneath them.

“I don’t know why I feel so disappointed,” Phil smirks. “From where I sit, looking at you lot doing all your stuff down on the stage, it looks a whole sight more realistic than that.”

Dan looks back out to the city.

“Yeah, well,” he says, feeling his heart slow down. “Acting isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

-

“So. You and Alexandra, eh?”

Dan glares at him. Dawn is beginning to throw pastel colours into the blackness of the sky. It’s still dark enough to see the stars, fainter twinkles against the sweep of indigo above them, but it’s light enough for them to see each other, to make out feint outlines of faces in the low pre-sunrise light, eyes half-lidded and shadowed from the sleepless hours. It must be pushing four in the morning, and they’ve been here since eleven o’clock, leaving their parents with promises that they’re spending the night round each other’s houses to make a few preparations for the play.

(If reciting Romeo’s Balcony Scene soliloquy through giggles and slightly drunken slurs counts as preparation, then at least half of that promise is true).

“We’re not an item,” Dan mumbles, taking a drag from his cigarette. It tastes strange, kind-of like dirt and ash and tar and he’s not a smoker and probably never will be, but Phil had offered him one and- well, fuck it.

“I know,” Phil says. “But you guys are performing in the round, aren’t you?” Phil narrows his eyes, and Dan swears he leans an inch or two closer before whispering, “your stage kisses won’t work from that angle, I’m telling you.”

“Don’t remind me,” Dan shuts his eyes. So far he’d been doing quite a grand job of pushing that worry to the back of his mind, burying it deep into his consciousness. The whole reason he’s up here altogether is to escape it.

Phil hesitates.

“What?” he asks. “Don’t you want to kiss Alexandra?”

Dan gulps, the taste of alcohol souring on his tongue a little.

“It’s not that,” he says. “I mean- a kiss is a kiss, right? It’s all part of the job, and-“

“But you don’t fancy her,” Phil says.

Dan frowns. “Well- no, of course not. She’s a colleague.”

“I know,” Phil says. “It makes a difference though, doesn’t it?”

“What does?”

“Kissing someone you don’t fancy. It’s weird.”

“Tell me about it,” Dan mumbles. It’s getting harder and harder to maintain this lie. “I- er, yeah. I usually stick to stage-kissing on the job, to be honest,” he shrugs. “It’s just easier than kissing someone you don’t really have feelings for.”

“Have you never, you know, properly kissed anyone before, then?”

Dan takes a deep breath. Lies can flow like water when he wants them to; he’s a master at concealing the truth behind a blanket of fabrication and deception, but there’s something about talking to Phil that makes falsehood sour on his tongue.

He lets it out in a deep sigh, feeling his chest deflate and his heart thud. Fuck it.

“You know what?,” he begins. “No. I haven’t. I don’t know if you can tell, but- yeah. I dunno, I guess that’s why I’m so stressed about this shit with Alexandra. And like- I know that probably makes me a fucking loser for never having kissed anyone at the age I am now, and probably even more of a loser that I want my first one to be with someone special, but- fuck, I don’t know,” he swallows, feeling the knot of anxiety in his chest loosen a little. “No. I haven’t. Okay?”

Phil doesn’t say anything. He bites his lip and averts his eyes down to the neck of his bottle. He fiddles with the loose cap, letting it fall through the spaces between his fingers with a sharp clink.

Dan doesn’t like that, doesn’t like the silence. The knot returns.

“What?”

“I- er- that wasn’t really what I meant,” Phil finally says.

The knot tightens.

“What do you mean it’s not what you meant?”

“I meant have you properly kissed anyone on stage before,” Phil glances up. “Not in general.”

Dan’s stomach drops. Oh fuck.

He open his mouth, but no speech follows. No amount of words can haul himself out of his hole now. Shit.

“I mean-“ he finally speaks again after a silence, and there’s a tremor in his voice that he desperately tries to smooth over. “Oh, shit,” he deflates, feeling the pit of his stomach begin to churn due to the abundance of the night’s alcohol. There’s no point trying to clamber out of the hole he’s just dug himself. He’ll only deepen it.

“Have you really never kissed anyone?” Phil asks in a quieter voice, but he doesn’t sound surprised. Or humoured. Or any other emotion Dan had feared. Just… curious. “Like, at all?”

Dan gulps, the beer a sour swirl in the pit of his stomach. Maybe the sixth bottle was a mistake.

“Well there’s no point denying it now, is there?” Dan finally mumbles, his eyes fixed on a dent in the concrete not far from where they’re sitting. “No. I haven’t.”

The gentle thrum of city engines fills the silence between them, and the three seconds Phil doesn’t say anything for might as well have been days.

“Yep,” Dan breaks the quietness once it borders on unbearable. “There you go. You think I’m a fucking weirdo now, don’t you?”

“Not at all,” Phil replies, and his voice is unusually calm. Dan looks up, his eyes meeting a soft expression, and for some reason he really didn’t expect Phil to react like this.

“So-“ Dan shakes his head. “What? You’re not gonna take the piss? Laugh at me? Say I’m a fucking weirdo that only lied to you to try and look cool?”

The truth scratches his heart, but it needs to be said.

“Why the fuck would I laugh at you?” Phil frowns, and there’s something about the sincerity in his voice that, beneath the turmoil, Dan finds weirdly comforting.

“I mean,” Phil begins. “I’m surprised, don’t get me wrong. Only because you’re an actor and- well, let’s face it, you’re fucking gorgeous too, but-“ he shakes his head. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m the first to say I’d much rather make sure my first kiss means something. If anything, I agree with you on that.”

“You’re not pissed off that I lied to you?” Dan gulps down another mouthful of lukewarm alcohol.

“Of course not, you twat,” Phil says. “I mean, I get why you did, but there was no need to. Really.”

“I know,” Dan sighs, picking at the label on his glass bottle until the paper frays at the edges.

“Wanna know something?” Phil says, his eyes not moving from the soft sweep of stars above them, dimmed by the early morning light.

Dan takes his eyes away from the sky. “What?”

“If you’re a liar, then so am I,” Phil tells the stars.

Dan frowns. “You what?”

Phil’s eyes flick back down to earth, meeting Dan’s gaze. “I lied too.”

Dan gulps, his heart thudding. “About what?”

Phil forces a chuckle, but it’s drained of humour. “Do I have to spell it out to you? I haven’t kissed anyone either.”

The words ring in Dan’s ears moments after, Phil’s voice an echo above the roar of the city below.

“Wait-…” is the only word that passes Dan’s lips in the next passing minute or so. “But-…”

“Yeah,” Phil shrugs. “Turns out you’re not the only one, are you?”

“But-…” Dan shakes his head. “Why did you lie about it too?”

Phil just shrugs and says, “same reasons you did.”

Dan tries, he really tries, to comb through the tangle of confusion in his mind right now, but the best response he can come up with after a moment or two of silence isn’t the most articulate.

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” Phil agrees, and they descend into quietness again.

“Shame, isn’t it?” Phil is the first to break the silence. “That we feel the need to lie about that.”

“It’s society’s fault for making us feel as if being over the age of about fifteen without having shoved a tongue down anyone’s throat is a failure.”

Phil grimaces. “I’ve never understood the attraction of that, you know. Like, I get making out and stuff, but why would you want to literally devour the person next to you? When I saw kissing scenes as a kid I thought they were actually trying to eat each other.”

“I know,” Dan takes a sip of beer, the alcohol slipping down with a little more ease now. “It sounds grim. I don’t know how people do it. At least with acting on stage you don’t have that problem.”

“True,” Phil mirrors his actions, pulling his drink away from his lips and tracing the rim of the bottle with the tip of his thumb, staring down the tube-shaped glass into the remains of the flat beer, swimming lukewarm and flat at the bottom of the bottle. Only when he glances up a few seconds later does Dan realise he’s been staring.

Dan smirks.

“What are you grinning at?”

“Just-…” he shakes his head and shit, he’s definitely had enough to drink tonight. He can feel the alcohol-induced honesty begin leaking through his parted lips and he knows he’ll probably end up saying something he’ll regret tomorrow morning but- oh, fuck it. “The thought of you having never kissed anyone. It just- doesn’t make sense to me like- look at you. How?”

He’s not really sure where the line between a compliment and a very sorry attempt at flirting is drawn but he’s pretty sure he’s fallen somewhere in the middle.

Phil’s gaze lingers a few seconds too long. “I could ask you the same thing. I mean- come on, look at you. A guy like you must have been drowned in opportunities.”

They’re both a bit too drunk, a bit too cold and there’s something about the atmosphere of an empty car park at fuck-knows-o’clock that warps reality just a little. Dan blinks and the city lights don’t unblur and he feels a bit like he’s in a dream.

“Yeah, I-…” he shrugs. “I’ve had my fair share of offers, I won’t lie.”

“I’ll bet,” Phil interjects, and Dan rolls his eyes.

“Oh, don’t act like you haven’t either,” Dan rolls his eyes, but he’s smirking. “I just-… yeah, I dunno. I didn’t really wanna waste it, but I never really found someone I liked enough.”

“That’s nice, that is,” Phil says, and though Dan scours his tone of voice for a trace of sarcasm or mockery, but Phil’s eyes glitter earnestly. “No, like, really. Most teenagers just, you know, dive straight into it. Slam their face against anything with a pulse that crosses their path. But the fact you care enough to wait,” he glances up, eyeing the boy beside him carefully. “That’s rare. Kinda admirable in a way.”

“Were you the same, then?”

Phil nods without any hesitation. “A hundred percent.”

Dan nods understandingly, taking another sip of beer, and the two of them watch the town sleep for a quiet moment before Phil speaks up again.

“Oh, come here,” he stretches out his arms. “You look like you’re seconds away from hypothermia, for Christ’s sake.”

Dan leans into his chest, closing his eyes and snuggling into the Topman denim of Phil’s jacket. “I don’t really think a car park roof is the most suitable drinking spot,” he mumbles, his speech slightly obscured by his rattling jaw.

“Not at five a.m. in December at least,” Phil says. “It’s a lot nicer in summer, I promise.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” Dan says, and the indirect promise that they’ll come out here and do this again makes Phil smile.

It’s quiet, serene and blue, and Dan loses count of the minutes that drip by until he hears Phil’s voice again, shattering his trance dancing on the fragile edge of drunken consciousness.

“Dan?” it’s only a half-whisper, but it still makes him jump.

The younger boy turns his head, his brown hair tousling against Phil’s denim chest until they’re eye-to-eye.

Phil lowers his gaze, but this time his eyes don’t flicker back up to Dan’s. Dan parts his mouth in response, but before he can say anything, there’s a surge forward and a soft pair of lips on his.

A jolt of adrenaline, shock, and a general ‘holy-fucking-shit-this-can’t-be-happening’ feeling shimmers through his body as he kisses back, and despite his embarrassing inexperience when it comes to anything remotely romantic, his lips move perfectly in time with Phil’s, their mouths melting together in flawless harmony.

Phil’s the one to break away, and Dan misses his lips the second the cold morning air touches his mouth. He frowns, studying Phil’s expression half-hidden by his mop of black hair, but the older boy refuses eye contact.

“Shit, I’m sorry, I don’t know what came ov-“

“Don’t apologise,” Dan cuts him off immediately, his hand hovering over Phil’s arm in quiet protest. “Just-…” he gulps. “Do it again,”

Phil’s head snaps up, his eyes boring into the brown stare in mild confusion.

“Please,” Dan mouths, and Phil doesn’t need to be told twice.

They kiss for longer, deeper, slightly parted lips and slow breathing and the teal glow of 5am light and shit, this was certainly worth a seventeen year wait. Phil’s lips feel like warmth and taste like tobacco and he feels a gentle comb of shy fingertips through his hair and yep, he can definitely see what all the fuss is about now.

When they break apart for the second time, all blushes and broken breaths, they’re both grinning. Phil drops his gaze with a bashful chuckle.

“Well,” Dan breathes. He’s still sitting close, their upper arms touching but neither of them really wanting to move away.

“Well,” Phil says, almost in agreement. They’re bathed in silence once again, but this time it’s comfortable.

“I’m not gonna lie,” Dan begins, looking out over the city. “That was definitely worth the wait.”

Phil tilts his head down, their noses almost touching. “Yeah?”

“For sure,” Dan cranes his neck up a little and pecks Phil’s lips again. The other boy grins, pulling his jacket further over Dan’s shoulders.

“We’ll have to do this again sometime then, won’t we?” Phil’s eyes glitter.

Dan grins, glancing at the view spread in front of them. The sun is beginning to awaken and there are fewer streetlights illuminating the land below and it’s cold and wow, they should really think about heading home soon. Dan hasn’t checked his phone in hours and he’s sure it can’t be running on anything much more than a measly four percent.

“Definitely,” he says, then hesitates. “Although, well.”

“Well what?”

Dan flicks his eyes up at the boy above him, tired brown against weary blue.

“Perhaps next time we should choose somewhere a little warmer than a car park,” he says in a soft voice, before adding, “I can barely feel my arse right now.”

Phil bursts out laughing, and then a pair of lips are on his for the third time.

-

The next couple of weeks rush by in a flurry of rehearsals, meetings, crumpled scripts and weird costumes that itch around the collar. Dan and Phil spend most of their time three storeys apart, meaning secret rendezvous up in the control room or down in the trap room are often necessary. The closer the big day creeps, the hotter the atmosphere becomes with stress, so it’s nice to leave the tension with the stage and the equally tense co-workers and escape for a bit.

“For fear of that, I still will stay with thee, and never from this palace of dim night depart aga- oh for fuck’s sake, you’re not even listening.”

Phil looks up from his phone, a giggling smirk still lingering on his face. “Huh?”

“Come on, Phil. You said you’d go through this with me and you’re sat there playing around with bloody Snapchat filters.”

“Sorry, sorry – I am listening, it’s just-“ his eyes flicker back down to the screen in front of him. “That’s hideous. Who even makes these filters? I look like a toe.”

“Can unflattering photos of you not wait five minutes until I’ve finished this? We’re literally nearly done anyway. We only have, like, one more paragraph to g-” Phil interrupts him by flipping the phone around to face the other boy. A bald, rather unsightly version of Phil with weird eyes stares back. Dan’s eyes widen in horror. “Fuck, that really is hideous.”

“I know,” Phil shudders. “I didn’t even know my face could do that,” he glances back at the screen and pulls a couple of experimental faces. “Would you still be with me if I looked like that?”

“Nope,” Dan replies semi-seriously, rolling his eyes when Phil pouts.

“What about if I looked like this?” Phil turns the phone around. He looks a lot better this time, but a little bit too much like an animal. Dan’s never really understood the national attraction towards ‘dog filters’.

“Probably. The ears might get in the way a bit, though,” he chuckles, before urging, “now come on. We haven’t got long left now.”

Phil agrees, albeit reluctantly. He swings his legs off the table, grabs Dan’s battered highlighted mess of a script sitting in front of him and they pick up from where they left off, something about ‘worms that are thy chamber maids’, ‘everlasting rest’ and ‘inauspicious stars’ (whatever the fuck that adjective means). They last a grand total of fifteen seconds before Dan’s voice is interrupted by a shriek of laughter.

“Oh, fucking hell that’s bad!” Phil cackles. Dan groans, wondering for a fleeting second where the best place to launch Phil’s phone might be.

“That’s it,” he loses it, suddenly leaping across the table and swiping the irritating rectangle of interest straight from Phil’s hand. His smile vanishes in seconds.

“Aw, what?!”

“You have five seconds to put this stupid fucking thing away, or else it’s going out there,” he points to the window behind them. Phil follows his gaze, his eyes widening. They can see the majority of the town from up here. That’s a long drop.

He turns his head back around. They’re nose-to-nose, eye-to-eye.

“Fine,” Phil smiles, the tips of their noses brushing together. “But just so you know, seeing you angry just makes me want to kiss you more.”

Dan rolls his eyes, but he can’t hide his smirk. “Are you still gonna want to kiss me when your phone ends up on the ground?”

“What do you mean ‘when’? I’ve put it away now,” he points to the bulge in his back pocket.

Dan fixes him with a glare.

“Come on,” Phil leans forward as Dan leans back. “Just one?” he pleads, his eyes big and blue.

He shakes his head and pulls away, a grin curling at his lips. His eyes flicker back to Phil, a brown gaze that lingers too long.

“Afterwards,” he says in a voice like velvet.

Phil rolls his eyes, flopping back onto the chair. “Fine. Bloody hell, it’s like being back at school.”

Dan pretends not to hear that last comment. “Come on, we’ll take it from “world-wearied flesh…”

Phil’s phone doesn’t move once from his pocket after that. The promise of Dan’s lips after rehearsal is more tempting than any filter some dumb app has to offer.

-

“How do I look?”

Phil eyes him up and down, a smirk playing at his lips. “Hot.”

The comment receives a soft punch to his upper arm.

“Behave,” Dan turns back to the mirror, twining a lock of perfectly sprayed hair that he was specifically instructed not to touch around his fingers. “Are you sure? I feel like I look like a-“

He’s interrupted by a pair of soft lips for a few seconds.

“That’s really not helping the nerves,” Dan breathes once they break away.

Phil grins. “You look fine. You know you do. Now quit playing with your hair before Alexa sees.”

Dan doesn’t think Alexa, the make-up artist, is capable of seeing anything that isn’t within a thirty-centimetre radius of her own face right now. She’s been hurrying around backstage all evening; powdering this, curling that, flitting from actor-to-actor so quickly it makes Dan out of breath to even watch her. She certainly hasn’t done a bad job though, he thinks, as he inspects his reflection. A slightly dishevelled, 15th-century version of himself stares back, all weird leather and burgundy velvet and wow, perhaps he should sport an Elizabethan tunic more often.

“Suits you,” Phil smiles as if he’d read his mind. Dan adjusts the collar accordingly.

“D’you reckon?”  

“Yeah,” Phil eyes him up and down again. “Most people here kinda look like twats in their costume, but you really actually pull that off.”

“Um- thanks? I think?” Dan smirks, frowning at his reflection. He doesn’t mention it has anything to do with his long-standing ability to morph into literally anyone he likes (he’d often been described by many make-up artists as having a “chameleon face” which he hopes is a reference to his adaptability to blend into multiple characters as opposed to resembling a lizard), and instead accepts the ever-so-slightly backhanded compliment.

“What are you doing down here?” someone with an updo the size of Jupiter asks Phil, sauntering past in something that really rather resembles a cupcake. Phil was right, Dan thinks. They do look a bit ridiculous. “They need you upstairs in five minutes.”

“Oh shit,” Phil glances at his watch. “Okay. Gotta go before Nick kills me.”

“Alright,” Dan smiles, pulling him in for a quick hug.

“Good luck,” he whispers into his shoulder. “You’ll fucking kill it.”

Dan tightens his grip around his arms. “Thank you.”

The word has multiple other meanings, and judging by the glitter in Phil’s eye when he pulls away, he thinks he understands every single one.

-

That night, Dan lavishes in warm spotlights and painted wooden sets resembling palaces and balconies, and he feels alive.

That night, the finest Elizabethan literature spills from his lips, flowing as easily as water, his voice shaping every monologue, soliloquy and duologue perfectly.

That night, there are another pair of lips on his; only this time painted red and totally professional. It feels strange, alien, and not a single trace of the spark in his heart that Phil’s lips ignite can be found, but it’s work. It’s courage.

And that night, someone up in the control booth watches through the pane of glass over all the light boards and buttons and wires, and smiles.

As if it’s been almost a year since my last oneshot??? Wtf this must CHANGE I’m getting back into writing (properly this time I swear) so there’s a lot more where this came from. Feedback is always appreciated whether it be good or bad so pls let me know how you found this! Feels so good to be doing this again u have nooo idea holy shit <3

[ahnjaera]

Songs I like and songs I dislike from my favorite K-Pop groups

Only title-tracks, since I don’t know the whole discography from most of these artists. The songs I like are not necessarily my fave songs by these groups, but examples of the kind of music I enjoy the most in contrast to songs I’m not able to get into. That’s why I tried not to put the same songs I shared in previous posts, since there’s several songs I love from the same artist.

PS: My taste is so random sometimes, don’t judge me lol

2NE1

Like: I Love You 

Dislike: Fire (sorry, there’s something about it that really annoys me; iconic tho)

2PM

Like: Come Back When You Hear This Song

Dislike: Hands Up (actually the only part I don’t like is the chorus; the rest is cool)

4MINUTE

Like: Cold Rain

Dislike: Hate (it starts soooo well... but the chorus is too in your face)

AFTER SCHOOL

Like: Shampoo

Dislike: BANG! (I really don’t understand this song... like it doesn’t make sense in my head idk)

AOA

Like: Short Hair

Dislike: Elvis (as much as I love them, for me this is annoying from the start)

AKMU

Like: Melted

Dislike: How People Move (I just don’t like this kind of sound...)

ASTRO

Like: Always You

Dislike: Breathless (I don’t really dislike it, but it’s my least favorite Astro song)

B1A4

Like: Lonely

Dislike: Baby I’m Sorry (THAT AUTOTUNE PLEASE)

B.A.P

Like: Hands Up

Dislike: Hurricane (it was my first BAP comeback and I never got used to it; the loof tho :’D)

BEAST/HIGHLIGHT

Like: 12:30

Dislike: Breath (the problem is the chorus... again)

BIGBANG

Like: Tonight

Dislike: Fantastic Baby (okay you can kill me now. I have to say that there was a time when this song grew on me, but no, it’s not my type of music at all)

BOL4

Like: Travel

Dislike: Tell Me You Love Me (it’s not a bad song... I just find it too cheesy. They don’t really have bad songs, so I had to put the one I like the least xD)

BOYFRIEND

Like: Janus

Dislike: Love Style (this was hard af cause they have BOPS. However, the instrumental is too loud in this one and that throws me off)

BLACKPINK

Like: Playing with Fire

Dislike: Boombayah (this is the epitome of what I like to call YG’s in-your-face style; love the pre-chorus tho)

BLOCK B

Like: Her

Dislike: Shall We Dance (I love them, but this... No. Just... no)

BTOB

Like: Thriller

Dislike: Irresistible Lips (okay let me explain: BTOB has developed a very unique and personal style, so I think this song sounds too generic, although it’s not bad)

BTS

Like: Save Me

Dislike: IDOL (ok,’ i’m not even gonna explain this one, come on, hate me as much as u want ^^)

CN BLUE

Like: I’m Sorry

Dislike: Cinderella (too poppy to be a band that plays actual instruments, sorry)

DBSK/TVXQ

Like: Wrong Number

Dislike: Balloons (catchy af but completely unnecessary lol. Moonbin and Chanwoo rock this shit)  

DAY6

Like: How Can I Say

Dislike: What Can I Do (I don’t dislike any of their songs cause I LOVE their whole f*cking discography, but this one’s my least favorite)

EXID

Like: Up&Down

Dislike: Hot Pink (I never got into it, sorry queens) 

EXO

Like: Love Me Right

Dislike: Call Me Baby (I think it’s been overplayed. That bridge tho)

FTISLAND

Like: Pray

Dislike: I Hope (Not a bad song, but after kick-ass songs like Pray and Take Me Now it feels tasteless)

F(X)

Like: 4 Walls

Dislike: NU ABO (I don’t like the beat)

GIRLS’ GENERATION

Like: Hoot

Dislike: Oh! (I find it kinda annoying, their voices are too high)

GOT7

Like: A

Dislike: Stop stop it (I think it’s too plain...)

iKON

Like: Killing Me

Dislike: Rhythm Ta (the only thing I like about it is Bobby’s rap and the pre-chorus)

INFINITE

Like: Paradise

Dislike: Come Back Again (since I don’t dislike a single song from them, I’ll just put this one here bc it’s my least favourite)

KARA

Like: Pandora

Dislike: Mamma Mia (I don’t like the chorus and I don’t know why)

KARD

Like: Don’t Recall

Dislike: Hola Hola (that instrumental chorus doesn’t convince me)

MAMAMOO

Like: Starry Night

Dislike: 1cm (Taller Than You) (I never took this song seriously tbh)

MBLAQ

Like: Mona Lisa

Dislike: Smokey Girl (I don’t really have a reason... This song’s kinda bland to me)

MISS A

Like: Hush

Dislike: Breathe (Sorry, but I’ve always found it terrible; probably the only song I don’t like by them)

MONSTA X

Like: Beautiful

Dislike: Rush (My least fave, that’s all)

NCT 127 

Like: Limitless

Dislike: Fire Truck (My least fave; the bridge is magnificent tho; and Yuta has a line... the good old days :’-) 

NCT DREAM

Like: We Go Up 

Dislike: Chewing Gum (Too childish but couldn’t stop replaying it when came out lol)

NU’EST

Like: Love Paint

Dislike: Action (it seems too generic to me)

N.FLYING 

Like: Awesome

Dislike: The Real (I don’t dislike it, but I don’t especially like it either. I prefer their other songs)

PENTAGON

Like: Runaway

Dislike: Gorilla (I slept on them bc I didn’t like their debut song... Stupid, I know)

RED VELVET

Like: Red Flavor

Dislike: Rookie (sorry, overall the song is nice, especially the bridge, but the chorus is just annoying xD)

SEVENTEEN 

Like: Oh My!

Dislike: Check In (the MV is gorgeous as the boys, but something’s off with the song to me; the only svt song I don’t like tbh)

SHINee

Like: Hello

Dislike: Ring Ding Dong (see, this is ICONIC, but it’s not the type of song I normally listen to, mostly bc it gets into my brain and makes me crazy)

SISTAR

Like: Alone

Dislike: Cool (the song itself is not my style, but aside from that I think another reason I don’t like it is because I see tha akward booty dance in my head when they say “cool” lol)

SUPER JUNIOR

Like: A-CHA

Dislike: Mr. Simple (the only thing I like about it is the bridge, my favorite in K-Pop <3 the song overall is too much to me)

T-ARA

Like: Number Nine

Dislike: Bo Peep Bo Peep (Not to be mean, but if this is not the MOST annoying kpop song ever I don’t know what is and honestly I don’t want to know)

TEEN TOP

Like: To You

Dislike: Rocking (I find it too noisy; the footwork tho)

TOPP DOGG 

Like: Arario

Dislike: TOPDOG (I cringe to the spelling I guess; still kinda epic)

TWICE

Like: What Is Love?

Dislike: Signal (I just can’t stand it)

U-KISS

Like: Standing Still

Dislike: Bingeul Bingeul (this just bingeuls me up lol)

VIXX

Like: Error

Dislike: Chained Up (It’s not a bad song and I used to like it, but I grew tired of it. They don’t have bad songs that I know of so I had to put something xD)

WINNER

Like: Love Me Love Me

Dislike: Everyday (Too much unnecessary auto-tune, sounds artificial and forced </3)

WONDER GIRLS

Like: Be My Baby

Dislike: Like This (I just don’t like this, never have, and I don’t know why)

[tumblunni]

Ok so.. I feel really ungrateful as fuck saying this.. but it kinda bugs me how much perrin being nonbinary just.. isn’t really shown at all.

At least, in what i’ve seen so far, yknow? I watched the first ep of someone else’s let’s play to see if i was gonna like this game, and i like this game SO MUCH that I stopped right there and am downloading it at the speed of light yo!!! My hype is maximum and I really don’t want this to be seen as a hate message or anything, it's just a mild opinion piece about something that bummed me out a little, as a nonbinary person.

Ok so.. again, this makes me sound like an ASSHOLE but I have to say it.. Perrin looks like a boy. 100% of all LPers I have seen have assumed they were a boy. I, a nonbinary person, assumed they were a boy. (And felt like absolute shit afterwards, man I still have to work on my internalized gender stereotypes!)

Now in real life I absolutely wouldn’t go around being some douchebag who tells other NB folk they aren’t dressing ‘right’, or whatever. In real life people can feel very different ways about being outside of conventional gender norms. Some people feel like “both at once” or “neither” or “something else entirely that doesn’t touch either side of our society’s current binary stereotypes”. And regardless of whether you’re agender/bigender/genderfluid or any other type of genderqueer person, your fashion sense doesn’t have to fit any strict rule to “prove” it to people. Some people try and dress in androgenous stuff, some people try to mix parts of both gendered fashion worlds, some people like to wear very neutral baggy stuff as a different way of being androgenous, some people like to wear wild and fun stuff that never had any gender stereotype in the first place/because it helps them feel confident in themself if they have a big brave kind of fashion, yknow? (that’s why I dyed my hair at least, and why I think a lot of lGBT people do) And of course, some people just prefer ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’ clothes regardless of not being that gender, and if we can accept that cis women can enjoy ‘tomboy’ fashion then we should accept that trans people don’t have to fit into even more rigid fashion rules in order to ‘earn’ their gender.

BUT this isn’t real life, it’s a videogame

We have a lot more context here, with the context that this is a character designed within a fandom whose previous attempts at NB representation have kinda started setting up a trend. In that context, this is a bit worrying that it’s happened again, and maybe future fangame creators are feeling like they have to do it, or something?

Like the NB protagonist Pluto in Pokemon Uranium.

They’re still someone I deeply love, but their design looks incredibly masculine aside from a side ponytail. If anything their design communicates more that they’re a younger option compared to the other two, or something?

And the two NB protagonist options Ari and Decibel in Pokemon Reborn

Their designs look like more traditionally masculine and feminine-leaning ways of being nonbinary, ykno? And that wouldn’t be bad on it’s own, but let me try and explain what I mean...

A similar issue occurs in the unrelated dating sim Hustle Cat:

Which is generally incredibly progressive and actually the first dating sim I’ve ever seen that lets you play a nonbinary protag! But you still get only two character models to choose from.

Like it’s great that they had two options to aknowledge how not all trans people are the same, but it starts to look a bit.. odd, when those two options are ‘feminine and masculine’ and no form of androgenous is ever an option. or even like.. someone with a ‘masculine’ body build but a ‘feminine’ fashion sense. That would be kind of a stereotypical way to depict a trans character but it wouldn’t just be making a random design that could fit amoungst the already existing gendered protags and then just saying they’re trans. And a lot of people found it weird how these ones seem to be drawn as like.. both on the far masculine end, just a cis man and a trans man.

Like.. even as a nonbinary person myself, I wouldn’t have known these characters were nonbinary if you hadn’t told me. And that leaves me feeling horrible about myself that I judged them on first sight, but I mean this is within a genre of entertainment that’s literally never had any Me in it and i’ve got used to being all ‘no you’re just reading too much into it’ whenever i headcanon anyone as genderqueer...

And just.. I feel like if you’re gonna just draw another two masculine and feminine looking characters, or just a second masculine one (or a weird two masculine ones that’re labelled male and female with no option for in-between...) then couldn’t you have saved time by just letting us choose our pronouns for the two you already had? like I already play a lot of games headcanoning the protag as just a masc-fashion version of my enby self, I feel like kinda the point of adding a third design would be to make it something the others aren’t already delivering. Look at it this way, you already HAVE two nonbinary characters who look masculine and feminine, just like the player could also play them as a trans boy and trans girl. Pronoun selector box is the greatest invention of our time! So what I’m really saying is not “don’t have super masc NB protags” but just “can we have another option too?”

Oh, but then that’s also been done not-so-well by certain games too.. Awesome amazing multiplayer party game dating sim Monster Prom let’s you choose your pronouns!

...except these are your only character options! All of these are very clearly intended to be read as masc or femme, you’re probably gonna feel dysphoric as heck if you play them as trans, and none of them work super well as nonbinary either. I think pretty much every NB player has always gone for Oz (yellow one), cos he’s the one that’s most capable of fitting that headcanon just by virtue of being perpetually shadowed. Tho still his default is “he” pronouns, his fashion sense is masc and his voice is masc. Still I’m really fuckin proud of the fandom for collectively latching onto NB Oz and using “they” all the time in fanworks, and then the developers being okay with it, like holy shit man you healed my goddamn heart... <3

Still, it makes me feel a lil like this would have been easy to fix? like I’m not saying redraw everything to have them all change bodies/fashion style depending on your pronoun choice, but like.. maybe just not draw them with such super disparate body styles in the first place? like in this style every girl is hourglass and has weird legs out arms out pose, and every dude is a chunkfest with twice as big hands and feet. Like you could have maybe just made two of the characters be a very curvy girl and a very buff boy, and then the other two be more neutral in appearance but still retaining the same designs. Like I think if you just gave the blue girl a baggier shirt that doesn’t highlight her boobs and hips so much, she could easily be my favourite ‘most NB-able’ design! maybe also tone down the eyelash and lipstick effects?

I think probably a similar thing could have been done with the Reborn protagonists? like there’s nothing inherantly feminine about wearing a tanktop and having a fancy undercut hairstyle and such, its just the way they drew Ari that makes them look feminine. I guess maybe that’s a necessary evil of fangames, since they usually use edits of already existing characters from the games? Then again the games have plenty of androgenous characters already, even if nobody is canonically confirmed as LGBT. *shrug*

Anyway

I absolutely am not trying to nitpick and attack the game for not being perfect in this one aspect. i’m still super excited to even see someone like me in a videogame at all, and I’m definately not one of those people who’s like ‘I’d rather have nothing than have something flawed’. I already admire you greatly for what you’ve done for the inclusivity of this fandom, and I hope that my discussion of this stuff doesn’t discourage you from continuing.

And I guess my point is, in summary

What I mean is not “there are no nonbinary people who prefer to dress masculine instead of androgenous”, but instead that when you’re designing a nonbinary person as the only option a nonbinary player gets or the only nonbinary person in the game, with no playable option, it would probably be a little better to draw them androgenous.

Like, you’ve put that NB character into the role of representing all nonbinary people ever, to the hypothetical audience of people who’ve never heard of the concept before and aren’t super educated about the intricacies of gender presentation. And then also rather than using traditionally gendered outfits to aknowledge that NB people have many ways to present themselves... you’ve given us less ways to present ourselves.

Also it’s a little bit odd that you have an NB rival but said “we’re not ever considering an NB player option in the future”. Sorry but I cannot understand the logic? Like.. you know NB people play your game if you wanted to put NB representation in it, but you didn’t put it as playable because... reasons?? I hope maybe that interview was just taken out of context and you meant something more like “it’s not planned for now because it’s a lot of work and the game is still in its demo stage”, which is absolutely an understandable reason and how Uranium and Reborn did it. But Uranium and Reborn were kinda odd for being a world where literally nobody else aside from you could ever be NB, so I am really grateful that your game did add an NB character. And one in a big role!! This is what i mean about how grateful I am and how I feel awful that my bad internet typing skills are making this post come off as more aggressive than intended.. *sigh*

OH and also maybe a tip for Periin? just.. like.. mention their pronouns. It’s really frustrating to watch everyone doing let’s plays of this thing and constantly assuming Perrin is male because their design is very masculine. Even me! Even me was assume! :( So like... maybe just have Perrin actually tell the audience that they are nonbinary at some point, during this introduction? or have the protagonist’s inner monologue mention it, or another character mention it on the way towards meeting Perrin? like I dunno, maybe a Perrin fan npc?cos it would seem a bit more natural to talk about gender if it’s someone saying “wow I admire Perrin’s androgenous fashion sense” rather than like.. a stranger saying “i can’t tell if you’re a boy or a girl from your face”.

I can understand how it can be tricky to figure out how to introduce a LGBT character’s LGBT-ness without having them go around saying it to every new person they meet, it’s something I’ve had to fix in the editing process even as a trans person writing trans characters. But just having their gender only be mentioned on missable promotional material outside the game means that a lot of players won’t ever hear about it, and it like.. has zero impact of actual inclusivity on the game. It’s why people were angry about DUmbledore only getting revealed as gay after the series already ended. Him being gay missed all of its chances to make gay readers of the series feel welcome, or have any part of his character be informed by his sexuality. like the plot between him and grindlewold could have been way more effective if it was him losing a boyfriend to the dark arts, just sayin...

anyway whatever, bunni is bad at writing coherant posts in summary thanks for perrin and sorry for whining about perrin, aaaaa

[sufferthesea]

Tagged by my sweet @pyroinquisitor​ ! Thank you!!

THE LAST

1. drink: Water! I have 7 water bottles in my room and I try to drink at least 4 of them a day.  2. phone call: AHAHAHA LIKE I TALK ON THE PHONE. (Actually, today I answered a call from my mom and almost ripped my thumb nail off on the chair trying to get to the phone.)  3. text message: I haven’t bought minutes for my phone so my last text was in June, saying “Your service ends soon”.  4. song you listened to: What Kind of Man by Florence + the Machine 5. time you cried: Teary-eyed or tears running down my face? Teary-eyed, today. Actual crying, ??? not sure!  6. dated someone twice: Nope! I’ve never dated!  7. kissed someone and regretted it: Theatre kisses don’t count (and neither do kisses on the cheek??), so I’ve never kissed anyone.  8. been cheated on: No 9. lost someone special: Yes. Many people.  10. been depressed: Yes. Gotta love that Frosty Fresh Depression  11. gotten drunk and thrown up: Never been drunk!  

3 FAVOURITE COLOURS

12. Purple 13. Yellow 14. Soft pastels and earth tones 

IN THE LAST YEAR HAVE YOU

15. made new friends: Yes!! 💖 16. fallen out of love: Yes! Good riddance! 👋 17. laughed until you cried: Yes!  18. found out someone was talking about you: Yep! But the people they were talking to stopped being friends with them and now want to be my friend 😂 19. met someone who changed you: Hmmm, I think so?  20. found out who your friends are: Yes!  21. kissed someone on your facebook list: If stage kisses and kisses on the cheek count, then yes! That’d be like 20 ppl 😂😂 

GENERAL

22. how many of your facebook friends do you know in real life: Almost all of them! Most are family, high school friends, and college friends.  23. do you have any pets: Yes, a dog! He’s old and grumpy but I love him. I used to have a bearded dragon named Sylar and I miss him dearly.  24. do you want to change your name: Sometimes, but I really like it because it’s unique even tho it’s unisex and also a surname... and no one can say it correctly.... and I never see it anywhere....  25. what did you do for your last birthday: I can’t remember? My bday is close to my sister’s and dad’s, and it was close to my graduation so I think we had a combo birthday-grad dinner.  26. what time did you wake up: Alarms at 7.30am and 8am, and I woke up at 9am (-:  27. what were you doing at midnight last night: Showering 28. name something you can’t wait for: To get another first draft of my original story done. Plot revision is a motivation killer.  29. when was the last time you saw your mom: Like 30min ago when I went to the kitchen.   30 has disappeared. RIP.  31. what are you listening to right now: Pity Party by MelMar.  32. have you ever talked to a person named Tom: I knew a kid whose middle name was Tom, so yes!  33. something that is getting on your nerves: My own procrastination.  34. most visited website: YouTube, Tumblr, FB, gmail  35. hair colour: My hair is kinda weird bc of my parents. But it’s really dark brown (from my mom) with gold and red (from my mom’s mom and dad)?? And then I have chunks of blonde from when I bleached it and had purple, pink, and blue highlights.  36. long or short hair: It’s medium but I want to grow it back to how it used to be. I used to have the longest hair at my school (to my waist)! I miss it a lot.  37. do you have a crush on someone: NO!! No one real anyway. Fictional characters? Always. Choose a show or game and I probably have a crush on one of the characters.  38. what do you like about yourself: I like what other people have said about me: I’m the most compassionate person they’ve met; I have good energy; I’m easy to talk to. I also like that I am able to write and draw fairly well. (-:  39. want any piercings: Yes but I haven’t had a good experience with my past piercings. There’s a piercing/tattoo artist I know and trust but he’s sooooo far away ))-:  40. blood type: idek  41. nickname: Immy, Bee, C.B., Hoe, literally sooo many but most are family-only nicknames. Some old nicknames are Sensei and Onee-chan/Ane-chan. I also called myself Obaa because I felt old talking to ppl who just entered the fandom haha. But never I was never called Senpai ))):  42. relationship status: Single Pringle! 43. zodiac: Taurus / Boar  44. pronouns: she/her  45. favourite tv show: idk probably anything with an Asian cast bc I like seeing my people onscreen  46. tattoos: Not yet, but if I ever get one I have a rough design done.  47. right or left handed: Right but I’m teaching myself to become ambidextrous  48. surgery: None that I remember 49. piercing: Ears 50. sport: No! I used to do cross country in elementary school? 51. vacation: Love love love any Lewis & Clark vacations. Lewis is my husband and I would die for him.  52. pair of trainers: My only tennis shoes are faded and worn-out 3 y.o. purple and gray/silver ones I bought in my WTNV phase. I don’t like shoes so I haven’t bought new ones even tho I should. 

MORE GENERAL

53. eating: Nothing 54. drinking: Water 55. im about to: Listen to music and finish Chap 3 of HBAM and maybe do some Kakashi Week prompts 56. waiting for: Myself to stop being lazy  57. want: To lay under my falsa blanket in bed and get some work done 58. get married: Yes!! I’m so excited to get married (-: I know it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, but it’s so awesome to think that I’ll get to spend the rest of my life loving on someone and being comfortably dorky around them  59. career: I want to be an author! Ppl tell me I should go into writing (screenplays or articles), drawing (book illustrations) or counseling, and my older sis wants me to be a teacher with her.  60. hugs or kisses: I’m selective about who gives me affection tbh, and I’m more of a hand-holder so idk 61. lips or eyes: Lips. I have a hard time keeping eye contact and paying attention to what’s being said. I feel like they’re looking into my soul.  62. shorter or taller: I luv being taller than people but I want my hubby to be taller than me!  63. older or younger: I’m both middle and oldest child in my mixed family. I want to marry someone older, but I like being the oldest in my friend group.  64. nice arms or nice stomach: Nice arms make me weak  66. troublemaker or hesitant: I used to be a troublemaker, but now I’m hesitant 

HAVE YOU EVER

67. kissed a stranger: No, but I proposed to one during a scavenger hunt (he said yes).  68. drank hard liquor: How hard is “hard”?  69. lost glasses/contact lenses: Yes. I never wear my glasses so I misplace them a lot.  70. turned someone down: Had to turn someone down for other ppl because they wouldn’t take no for an answer  71. sex on the first date:  No! I’ve never been on a date either ahahah 72. broken someone’s heart: Possibly  73. had your heart broken: Yes! Multiple times! But it heals stronger every time!  74. been arrested: No 75. cried when someone died: Yes 76. fallen for a friend: Yeah /: 

DO YOU BELIEVE IN

77. yourself: Yes but then I feel full of myself  78. miracles: Yes ?? But not like, cosmic miracles? I believe in God, ya know? so His miracles ??  79. love at first sight: Yes! (reminds me of the county bailiff and grilled cheese food car guys I fell in love with when I moved down here lolol)  80. santa claus: SANTA IS THE BEST (but, practically, no)  81. kiss on the first date: On the cheek or back of the hand, sure?? I’ve never been on a date????  82. angels: Yes! 

OTHER

83. current best friends’ names: Goldie 84. eye colour: Hazel (mostly green)  85. favourite movie: Jurassic Park, Across the Universe, The New World, Howl’s Moving Castle, Spirited Away 

Hopefully I filled them all in and didn’t leave Pyro’s answers hahaha

Tagging @thefoxthief @purple-possibilities @thetoxicstrawberry @ninja-crows @iyo-arts But only if you want to do it! 

[hoofbeast]

warning! dream daddy spoilers for damien’s route

first of all, i just want to say that i fucking love this game holy shit. i work full time so i only get enough time to play one route per day, so ill eventually get through all the dads, but i started off with damien. this post is going to be a whole shitload of screencaps and spoilers, so ill put everything under a cut

the theme song is so great XD i actually paused my pandora at work so i could listen to the song a couple times

i wanted to play my first run through of this game as close to me as i could manage. i took extra care to design my character to look like me. i had my husband help and he still cant get over how much this character looks like me. my first choice for hair color was white (like most of my hair is now) but we decided to go with red because no matter what i do to my hair i inevitably circle back to red. i gave him my signature sly smirk and i used my actual name, too :3

right away, this game has me pegged. this is exactly something i would do XD

she’s a real chip off the ol’ block. FUCK THE SYSTEM! *wipes tear*

we ran into brian and daisy in the park, and honestly, brian will probably be one of the last dads i pursue the ending for. few things piss me off more than one-upmanship. im sure theres a lot more to his character and route, but still. 

also, question: is it possible that daisy is on the autism spectrum? theres a lot more to see of her, but what ive seen so far is that she’s exceedingly intelligent, doesnt get along well with kids her age but seems fine around older persons, didnt understand the concept of playing pretend until amanda explained it. i remember being pretty much exactly like that when i was a kid, and ive been thinking of getting evaluated for a while, myself.

the pokemon battle dad brag-off was a nice touch XD is it possible to win? cuz brian kicked my ass like it was his job

seriously, wow. is this game somehow able to evaluate the choices ive made so far and build a personality profile for me or is social awkwardness a way more universal experience than i thought?? because this is exactly #me

so anyway, i met a few more dads before calling it a day. 

i kinda dig mat, he’s as awkward and rambly as i am, and i am always cool with people who are passionate about music and puns and music puns. so far, he was the top contender for my first dad. 

then there’s robert, with his hot, smoldering gaze. hot and smoldering because i can already tell that inside, he’s a blazing tire fire.

i dont hate craig (forgot to get a cap of him, oops) but i do hate everything he stands for. namely, jogging, exercise, waking up before noon, and jogging. fuck an entire pile of that. i totally blew him off when he tried to get me to come to the gym and went back to sleep. like i said, im playing this as though Daddy Felix were the irl me and, honestly, craig would be lucky if he got a text of anything but misspelled swears and knife emojis from me if he woke me up at 6am

i will state right now that i do. not. trust joseph. he’s the only dad ive seen so far that actively flirts right from the beginning which is highly suspect behavior for a youth minister, and once i did the yard party and saw that he was still married, i trusted him even less. what kind of future could my character ever have with some cheatin ass bastard?? if i give you a bad dragon gift card will you back the fuck up off me, joseph >:/

#me

forgot to get a cap of damien in dead, goth, and beyond (i am totally calling it that from now on thats perf omg) 

anyway, i got through the yard party part. i kinda feel bad for craig cuz i stonewalled him pretty hard haha. but mat was there and i wanted to know what he was saying.

about this dadbook thing, tho: its grindr. like, its thinly-veiled grindr. there is exactly 0 reason why a nonsexual social media site should have turn-ons and ideal dates. this is definitely where dads go to hook up and fuck.

i read through the profiles and decided to message damien, literally because his says to send him a letter if i wanna talk about black cats and i VERY MUCH WANT TO TALK ABOUT CATS, YES. i didnt expect it to trigger a date, but this is the opposite of a problem. i figured id just have to court mat on my next playthrough

damiens house is fucking awesome 10/10 would have tea again

hoh! looks like i found your slashfic, damien >:3

wait. the narration said it was a worn leather bound book. did this fucking nerd seriously have his gay naruto fanfic bound in leather and then he keeps it in his swanky library?? i knew there was a reason i liked him XD

i think the first time i saw this reaction was from brian at the park and i was looking at the text so i didn’t see what it actually was. this time i was paying attention and its fucking eggplant and droplet emojis and im fuCKING WHEEZING FUCK XDDDD i know damn well what that means ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

anyway ya boi felix fucking crushed it whoop whoop! i learned to date from the master (the dating master is of course papyrus)

i have actually never played a dating sim before so it never occurred to me that i could go on dates with multiple dads without fucking up my game. i thought i was locked in to damien’s route, which, again, was the opposite of a problem, full speed ahead ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

so damien wrote me a for real letter! what a classy gent. <3 i am always a slut for handwritten letters

so obviously i write him a letter back, and i try to pick the options that are classy and rule out the ones that are trashy or over the top. i remember being a goth teen (and a goth adult ahaha) and how much i hated being condescended to. i want to play along with damien’s shtick, not make fun of him

completely forgot to take any caps of the actual date, but damien is afraid of horror movies and that’s even more adorable than mcree being afraid of horses. also, the running gag of cliche horror movie shit happening when damien shows up (his door creaking open and then slamming closed, spontaneous cracks of thunder) is terrific. my favorite part of vampire chronicles II: evil never dies is during the twist ending where one of the characters fucking looks into the camera and says the full title of the next movie in the series (vampire chronicles III: evil must die again) like its an actual statement a person would say in conversation. that shit had me cracking up

third date i was cockblocked before i could kiss damien by his phone ringing, then we ended up here and omg if this is a blood donation clinic im gonna shit

i see pet carriers. this is a vet’s clinic or smth

*sharp gasp* he’s... a NERD!! not that i didnt know that already by the way he has smutty fanfic in his library lmao

who would i even be trying to kid, of course i am

me: *softly, choking back genuine tears* gaaaaaaaay....

fucking SWOOOOON

(also he reminds me of equius when his hair is tied back like this and just HNNNG!! this was the BEST POSSIBLE OUTCOME)

sorry heteros, mothmans gay and we’re dating

piss off joseph im clearly with damien i know you want your slutty altarboy holes filled but find somebody else to do it fucks sake begone, thot

screeeeee<3<3<3<3<3

THE END!

not sure if ill post about other dads and their routes. probably not like this lol. im no good at this whole commentary thing. maybe ill collect up some highlights and post them or something.

anyway, im going to go through each of the dads while making decisions i would personally make, where possible. once im done with that ill go back and savescum until ive tried out each option so i can try for all the bad endings. my brother’s girlfriend told me theres a secret ending for joseph but i told her not to spoil it for me (maybe a polyamorous relationship with him and mary?? that would be awesome mary is cool), and i saw in the achievements that you can fuck robert on the first night. otherwise im actively trying to go through this blind and im having a blast so far. this is a very fun game

[heckyeahsurveys]

another survey w/ kt

Does anyone know your bank pin number other than you? Who? E: no i don’t have a bank pin number

k: i don’t think so

Have you ever had a boyfriend/girlfriend who was depressed? k: yeh obviously, i feel like everyone’s depressed e: same 

Would you be able to climb out your bedroom window to sneak out? e: yeh probs k: yes

What would you do if you found out the last person you called was pregnant/got someone pregnant? e: i rly don’t know. i’m stressed k: a. be like how? and yeh. just put like how?

Can you taste the difference between brand name food and store brand food? e: depends on the food i gues k: same

Would you be embarrassed to buy pads/tampons/condoms? Which one more? e: no k: same

If a stranger went in your room, would they be able to tell what gender you are from just looking at it? e: i mean yeh k: probs bc my makeups everywhere

Are your parents gullible? e: no k: hahah yeh

Do you still own a VCR? e: no it’s 2017 k: i think somewhere but like i don’t use it 

About how much money have you spent on food in the past two weeks? e: like a fiver probs k: too much

If you were in a car accident would the last person you kissed care? e: yeah  k: idk man

If you were looking for a new pair of shoes where would you go? e: idk doc martens shop probs i guess K: charity shop

How much was the last pair of shoes you bought? e: idk like £30 or smth k: £8

What color is the computer/laptop you’re on? Did you buy it yourself? e: black. no k: silver. no

Do you have a second home? e: yeh, i have like 10 lol k: yeh i’m here rn

Would you be surprised if you saw the last person you texted smoking? e: no k: no

Does the smell of cigarettes, weed and beer repulse you? e: no k: beer does

Was the last person you kissed younger or older than you? e: older k: older

Do you think people have any misconceptions about you? e: idk k: probably 

Have you ever purchased Girl Scout cookies? e: no k: no

Do you like waffles? e: yeh k: yeh

Do you watch birthing videos on a day-to-day basis? e: wtf k: *laughing* u what mate

Do you find piercings/tattoos attractive? e: sometimes k: um yeh

Would you talk to someone you don’t know on the internet? e: yeh i have like 40 internet ‘friends’  k: yeh

How often do you drink Monster? e: very very rarely k: i’ll probably drinking it a lot soon w/ exams 

Have you ever made totally pointless videos with your friends? e: sure k: yes

Do you like to buy those Warped Tour compilations? e: no i’m not an emo k: no tf

Do you like sitting on the inside or outside of a restaurant booth? e: outside bc i need to piss constantly k: um outside bc i have a fear of being trapped 

Do you own a nightgown? e: a dressing gown? yeh k: and then same 

Have you ever made a house out of a giant cardboard box? e: nah k: yeh

Have you ever made a tent out of sheets in your bedroom? e: yeh k: yeh obvs

Do your grandparents know how to operate a cell phone? e: kind of k: slightly

Have you ever had sex or something like it? e: no :(((( k: something like it yeh

Have you ever read a George Orwell book? e: no k: short story no

Have you ever worn fishnets? e: mayb k: yes n i need some new ones

How many piercings and tattoos do you have? e: five piercings, no tattoos yet k: five piercings, three tattoos

Is someone in your family affected by Asperger’s? e: no k: dno

In a hotel do you always nose through all the drawers and cupboards? e: yeah K: mhm. yep

Would you rather go out to eat or be eaten out? e: i wouldn’t know K: eating out. not if it’s actually talking about food tho

Do you always wear your seat belt? e: yes K: no

Have you ever liked someone much older than you? e: no k: define much older

Have you ever been in a play? e: yeh xxx k: yeh

Do you have any secrets that nobody knows about? e: probs k: er many

Is there ice cream in your freezer? e: mayb k: yes

Have you ever started to laugh but played it off as a cough successfully? e: no k: hahhahaah i’ve laughed and then coughed hahahahah

Have you ever liked the lyrics of a band but hated the music? e: idk probs k: yeh probably

Does your bathroom have a window? e: yeh k: yeh

Do you go somewhere to get your eyebrows done?

both: no

When you were younger did you read the A Series Of Unfortunate Events books? e: no k: yeah

Who was the last band you saw live? e: idk whoever was at pride lol k: ummm pride

Do you believe prayer really works? e: no k: no

Are you a fan of the band Gym Class Heroes? e: no k: dno

Frosted flakes or frosted mini wheats? e: neither k: frosted flakes

Have you been on a date in the park? e: no k: maybe

Ever dated someone you were best friends with first? e: nope k: hahahahahahahahaha *dead*

Are there any diseases/health problems that run in your family? e: yeah k: yeh

Do you have asthma? e: yeh lol k: no

Are tongue piercings slutty? e: obviously not k: pfft no

Is there anybody you think is hot over the age of 40? e: probs yeh k: probs yeh

Last person to take off your pants, besides you? e: katie n charley when i was pissed out my head at new year lol k: like fully? tom

Do you remember those cool highlighters that smelled like popcorn? e: no what k: hahaha what

Might you enjoy hanging out in the woods for day or two? e: idk probs k: sure

Have you ever written something on a bathroom stall? e: i don’t think so k: yeah

Least favorite alcoholic drink? e: beer k: same

Have you ever kissed someone named Paul or Luke? e: no k: don’t think so

How did you meet the last male you texted? e: at the hospital when i was born x k: pub 

Have you ever had an embarrassing email address? e: yeh still do k: don’t think so

Do you put shampoo in your left or right hand? e: left k: left i believe

Do you have a bull ring through your nose? e: no k: yes

Do you and your dad get along? e: sometimes k: sometimes

Can you see your purse right now? e: no k: no

Are you wearing any perfume? What kind? e: yeh, ck one k: no

Are there products in your hair? e: nope k: n- no

When you get colds, do you use nasal spray to help get your nose unstuffy? e: no but i use one everyday anyway k: v occasionally

Do you actually like sneezing? e: no k: who likes sneezing?

Have you taken a shower yet today? e: yeah k: yeah

Do you have one best friend who is always there for you? e: i have a couple k: yeh

Do you wear skirts a lot? e: noo k: no

Do you wear sweatpants a lot? e: no k: no

How many pairs of jeans do you think you have? e: between 8-10 i think k: technically 4

Do you like hoodies? e: yes!! k: fucking love them

Big ones or the form fitting kind? e: big ones k: big ones

Do you wear polo shirts a lot? e: never k: i’m not a fuckboy

Did you ever actually have a rubber duck? e: no?? k: yes, for my answer

Are you one of those people who claim to live with no regrets? e: used to be but now i openly regret everything lmao k: yes

Do you love your computer? e: no i hate it k: yeh

Do you drink coffee? e: sometimes k:sometimes

Do you basically like all of your clothes? e: no i hate like 80% of them k: some of them

Do you shop mostly with your parents, your friends, or by yourself? e: idk it’s a mixture. don’t rly shop tbh bc am always broke xxx k: i shop online  e: yeh same actually

[nanalikessurveys]

Does anyone know your bank pin number other than you? Who? No, honestly i don’t trust anyone else with my money lol

Have you ever had a boyfriend/girlfriend who was depressed? No

Would you be able to climb out your bedroom window to sneak out? I live in 5th floor so no. also my bedroom window only leads to my balcony

What would you do if you found out the last person you called was pregnant/got someone pregnant? The last person i called was my dentist so i wouldn’t do anything lol

Can you taste the difference between brand name food and store brand food? Not really, never really even made an effort to try store brand and name brand food together to know if i could taste the difference

Would you be embarrassed to buy pads/tampons/condoms? Which one more? I wouldn’t be embarrassed to buy tampons. and i’ve never bought condoms so idk. i guess i would be more uncomfortable buying condoms tho. maybe because i look pretty young and people would make false assumptions about me? lol

If a stranger went in your room, would they be able to tell what gender you are from just looking at it? I don’t know actually

Are your parents gullible? Not really, my mom isn’t anyway. i’m not sure about my dad

Do you still own a VCR? No, i don’t know what happened to it but we used to have it

About how much money have you spent on food in the past two weeks? Too much i don’t even want to think about it

If you were in a car accident would the last person you kissed care? Well yes

If you were looking for a new pair of shoes where would you go? To the local mall

How much was the last pair of shoes you bought? My new winter boots were around 80euros

What color is the computer/laptop you’re on? Did you buy it yourself? It’s black and yes i bought it myself

Do you have a second home? I guess my mom’s and my sister’s home is my second home since i lived there before i moved to live on my own. and i still have the key to there

Would you be surprised if you saw the last person you texted smoking? I would since she quit smoking years ago

Does the smell of cigarettes, weed and beer repulse you? The smell of cigarettes or beer don’t really repulse me but it’s not something i enjoy either. i don’t know what weed smells like

Was the last person you kissed younger or older than you? Older

Do you think people have any misconceptions about you? I don’t know, i guess

Have you ever purchased Girl Scout cookies? No, i don’t think those are a thing here anyway

Do you like waffles? Yeah they’re okay

Do you watch birthing videos on a day-to-day basis? No haha, who does that actually?

Do you find piercings/tattoos attractive? Piercings are not attractive nor unattractive to me. however i find people with a lot of tattoos usually good looking, idk why tho.

Would you talk to someone you don’t know on the internet? I guess i would in some situations? i would just be careful and not to tell them too much about me

How often do you drink Monster? Never

Have you ever made totally pointless videos with your friends? I've done that

Do you like to buy those Warped Tour compilations? I don’t even know what that is

Do you like sitting on the inside or outside of a restaurant booth? Inside. eating outside is just begging for the bugs and birds to eat your food. and also i would hate the wind, like your hair flying to your mouth and food while you’re eating lol

Do you own a nightgown? No but i would love to

Have you ever made a house out of a giant cardboard box? No

Have you ever made a tent out of sheets in your bedroom? Yes haha

Do your grandparents know how to operate a cell phone? My paternal grandparents do, they’re probably better than me lol. my maternal grandparents not so well

Have you ever had sex or something like it? Yes

Have you ever read a George Orwell book? I’m sure i haven’t

Have you ever worn fishnets? I haven’t

How many piercings and tattoos do you have? Zero tattoos and 9 piercings, 8 on my ears and one on my bellybutton

Is someone in your family affected by Asperger’s? My sister has it

In a hotel do you always nose through all the drawers and cupboards? Yes haha i’m so nosy

Would you rather go out to eat or be eaten out? I don’t have a preference tbh lmaooo

Do you always wear your seat belt? I always do that and so should you

Have you ever liked someone much older than you? Do celebrity crushes count? if not then no, i haven’t

Have you ever been in a play? The school plays that we had to do in elementary school twice every year. they were the worst lol, i’m so bad at acting and also not a very good performer

Do you have any secrets that nobody knows about? Yes, but i don’t know if they’re really called secrets? they’re just some things that’s nobody else’s business

Is there ice cream in your freezer? No, i’m trying to be healthy now lol

Have you ever started to laugh but played it off as a cough successfully? I’m sure

Have you ever liked the lyrics of a band but hated the music? I don’t remember

Does your bathroom have a window? No

Do you go somewhere to get your eyebrows done? I love to get my eyebrows done professionally  but i rarely do it. i love the feeling or plucking and threading eyebrows haha, especially if it’s done by someone else

When you were younger did you read the A Series Of Unfortunate Events books? Nope

Who was the last band you saw live? Nightwish, ages ago

Do you believe prayer really works? I've only prayed once in my life and it was when i was 8 years old. my prayer actually worked but i don’t think it was because of god or anyone else like that, because i don’t really believe in it

Are you a fan of the band Gym Class Heroes? Only know the songs Stereo hearts with Adam Levine and i like it but i wouldn't call msyelf a fan based on one song i’ve heard from them lol

Frosted flakes or frosted mini wheats? I don’t know, i’m not a big fan of cereal

Have you been on a date in the park? Yes

Ever dated someone you were best friends with first? No

Are there any diseases/health problems that run in your family? Hypertension

Do you have asthma? I don’t

Are tongue piercings slutty? Of course not

Is there anybody you think is hot over the age of 40? James McAvoy, he’s 41 and my ultimate celeb crush lol

Last person to take off your pants, besides you? Ehh, i’d rather not think about it

Do you remember those cool highlighters that smelled like popcorn? I've not heard of those

Might you enjoy hanging out in the woods for day or two? Nooo, i would never

Have you ever written something on a bathroom stall? I haven’t

Least favorite alcoholic drink? Just every alcoholic drink there is, i’m not a fan

Have you ever kissed someone named Paul or Luke? No

How did you meet the last male you texted? I met him through my mom actually

Have you ever had an embarrassing email address? Not really but i’ve had an embarrassing email profile picture or whatever it’s called. it was originally meant as my youtube profile picture as a meme or something lol but since google+ happened it became my email picture as well. and it was a really embarrassing one. and i once sent an email to my teacher and just prayed to god that she didn’t notice my fucking icon

Do you put shampoo in your left or right hand? My left hand because i have more power on my right hand to squeeze the bottle lol

Do you have a bull ring through your nose? No

Do you and your dad get along? Yes, we just see eachother like literally once a year or something

Can you see your purse right now? If i turned my head but i’m not going to

Are you wearing any perfume? What kind? No

Are there products in your hair? No

When you get colds, do you use nasal spray to help get your nose unstuffy? No, i’ve tried it once and it felt awful 

Do you actually like sneezing? Yes haha

Have you taken a shower yet today? Yes in the morning

Do you have one best friend who is always there for you? Yes i’d like to think so

Do you wear skirts a lot? I never wear skirts

Do you wear sweatpants a lot? Lately i have

How many pairs of jeans do you think you have? I have two pairs of jeans right now with one of them having a hole on the crotch area so yeah

Do you like hoodies? Not really, they don’t really fit my body type?

Big ones or the form fitting kind? Hoodies? big ones

Do you wear polo shirts a lot? I have one polo shirt and i rarely use it

Did you ever actually have a rubber duck? I don’t think i did

Are you one of those people who claim to live with no regrets? I have regrets but i don’t like to think about them or “regret” them you know? because it’s waste of time in my opinion because you just can't change the past.  Do you love your computer? Yeah sure, like i wouldn’t live without it lol

Do you drink coffee? Sometimes, but i usually prefer coffee from a café and haven’t had a chance to have one lately for reasons

Do you basically like all of your clothes? I do

Do you shop mostly with your parents, your friends, or by yourself? By myself