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emberfrostlovesloki · 4 years

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# 12 Comic Con

Gif credit; @prettyboyspence

Prompt: Comic Con - Spencer and Garcia go to a convention in Pennsylvania so Spencer can see his favorite cosplayer [the reader] again in person.

Couple: Spencer Reid/ Reader (female)

Category: Fluff

Content Warning: None

A/N: I wanted to write something completely fluffy, because I’ve only written angst for either the Reader or Spencer and I thought I should switch it up a little. This one shot is based on the reader being a cosplayer, but as long as you have a basic understanding of conventions this shouldn’t pose a problem. It’s not a super romantic fic, but it leans in that direction. I hope you enjoy! Like/ reblog please.

List with all stories

Word Count: 6K

_y/n_ = your name

_y/i_ = your initials

_h/c_ = hair color

Spencer tried to make himself comfortable in the economy seat of the airplane he was currently on. With his long legs, unfortunately, the task was futile. After he gave up, the lanky man returned to his book. The genius FBI agent was not on the plane for a case, in fact he was on the plane for pleasure, or at least future pleasure. Reid was on his way to Pennsylvania to attend Steel City Comic Con. He had never attended the convention before, what was really drawing him to the state of virtue and independence was the cosplayer FrindlyFighter.

Reid had stumbled across their account a few years ago. They cosplayed from Star Trek, Marvel, and many other fandoms that Spencer enjoyed. He had the opportunity of meeting FriendlyFighter at San Diego Comic Con in 2017. She was hosting a panel about the psychology of the Red Shirt from Star Trek. Although they hadn’t gotten all of the hard science right, Spencer was still enamored at someone being dedicated enough to do the research to pull off the panel. After the discussion was over he had approached the area where the host was chatting with some of the volunteers at the convention. She had noticed him and turned and walked up to him. “Hey, how are you enjoying the convention?” Spencer had stumbled over his words as he replied, “I’m good, I mean the convention has been great. I was really excited to see that you were hosting a panel this year.” The cosplayer smiled at his statement and asked, “So you’re interested in the psychological elements of Star Trek? It’s good to hear because every time I give one of these panel’s I’m not sure why there are so many people in the audience. You might say I’ve got impostor syndrome.” FriendlyFighter laughed at her self-deprecating humor and Spencer quickly replied, “I’m very interested in what you have to say. I actually use psychology a lot where I work, and I don’t think you’re an impostor. Upon hearing that one of her fans was more qualified in the field of psychology than her, she asked, “Where do you work?” She had not expected his response of, “I’m a profiler for the FBI, actually.” Her eyes grew wide at the information and she quickly said, “Wow, that must be a very difficult job. You’re a lot better at the science than I am. How did I do up there? Did I butcher all of the science?” The woman cringed at the idea, but she had asked and wanted to know if she was super off base in her assertions. Thankfully the man said, “You did really good. Not all of your claims are bullet proof, but generally you got it right.” The cosplayer relaxed and the knowledge and said, “Sorry I’m interrogating you over here, I haven’t even asked your name.” Spencer smiled and said, “My name is Spencer Reid, it’s nice to meet you.” She at him and said, “It’s nice to meet you Spencer.” The tall man stood for a second. He hadn’t realized that a short line of FriendlyFighter’s fans had formed behind him. The panelist looked back at him and said, “Would you like a picture.” At this statement Spencer smiled and fumbled for his phone. He positioned himself beside the cosplayer. She lifted her hand in the Vulcan salute and Reid snapped the photo. He said, “Thank you so much.” To which she replied, “Of course. Have a good rest of the con.”

Spencer was brought back into the moment when the wheels of the plane touched the earth with a lurch. After he had grabbed his suitcase from the baggage terminal the agent flagged down a taxi and went straight to his hotel. The hotel was just across the road from the Monroeville convention center where the event was taking place. The hotel was already bustling with guests with large props and costume pieces on their luggage carts. The atmosphere was so different from his normal 24/7 work induced stress. After the lean man made it up to his room on the fourth floor he set his suitcase in the entrance way and he flopped down on the bed. He told himself that after a short nap he would go out on the town to find something to eat, but right now he was content to rest. While Reid was sleeping Garcia was sitting on a train, also headed to Pennsylvania. She was listening to one of her favorite trashy audio books and was thinking, ‘how the hell did Reid rope me into this mess.’ After all it had only been a week ago when she had asked him, “So do you have any plans for the weekend.” The boy genius had casually brought up that he was going to a convention. Garcia wasn’t really paying attention to his rambling conversation and she cut off his stream of conscious monologue by asking, “So who’s going to be at this convention, anyone special?” When she asked this Reid changed gears and started listing off names, saying, “Well I’m really excited to see a cosplayer named FriendlyFighter, she’s part of the opening ceremony and is holding a few panels, also Denis Lawson, Wil Wheaton, Catherine Tate.” The lanky agent continued listing the names. Garcia was about to start tuning out the man, but then he said the magic words, “and some guy named Duke Lancelot of Camelot.” When Spencer said this the technical analyst quickly swung around in her chair, mouth open in surprise. Upon seeing her expression Spencer asked, “Is everything okay?” Garcia closed her mouth and said, “Duke Lancelot of Camelot is one of the most famous players of World of Warcraft. He’s a legend, Reid.” Although Spencer had never heard of this legend he said, “Well you could come with me and meet him. Just get a two day pass or something.” Garcia was so enamored with the idea of meeting one of her video game heroes that she said, “I am absolutely coming with you Spencer.” The male agent hadn’t expected such a fast response and said, “Cool. I’ll catch up with you after work and we can figure out the details.” And that was how Penelope Garcia was convinced to go to a comic con in Pennsylvania.

While Garcia was taking the slower, and safer method of getting up to the convention Spencer was just getting to the front of the registration line. A woman motioned for him to move forward to the window that she was sitting behind. When he got to the window the woman asked, “Do you have your pass pre-printed or do you need to pick it up, or are you going to buy a pass now?” As Spencer rummaged through his bag he said, “I have it pre-printed.” When Reid finally found the badge in his bag he pulled it out and held it up for the woman to see. The convention staff worker took a moment to look at the pass before she turned to the computer in front of her. She input his name and crossed it off the excel spreadsheet. After she finished this she said, “Have a nice convention Mr. Reid.” Spencer said thanks and walked toward the main hall. The opening ceremony of the con was going to start in fifteen minutes, and he wanted to be close to the front. When he had first met FriendlyFighter, or her other name on social media of _y/i_, she was a small cosplayer who had a small following. But after a few months she had grown in size, and started appearing at more and more conventions. Spencer couldn’t tell what had changed, after all she hadn’t changed her content too much. Spencer took a moment to consider that the cultural zeitgeist had changed around popular culture and conventions in general. It was true that attendance at conventions like Blizzcon or Emerald City Comicon had been going up by twenty percent each year. As he was musing over these facts the lights in the ballroom dimmed and a loud male voice came over the hotel sound system. “Friends, fans and people of all sorts, welcome to Steel City Con 2019!” The crowd cheered as the man who was making the announcement came out from behind the red curtain and stood in the center of the stage. The master of ceremony said, “My name is Greg Hicks and I’ll be your master of ceremony for the weekend. But I know you’re not here for me, so let me introduce you to just a few of the very talented people you can meet this weekend.” At this statement the crowd went wild again. Reid had to cover his ears to stop a headache from forming. Greg continued by saying, “First of all we are happy to welcome, Megan Coffee!” Megan came out from the curtain dressed as a Pokemon Go character, she waved at the crowd and said into a microphone attached to her shirt, “Hi everybody! I hope you’re ready for a good weekend.” The woman walked to the other side of the stage. Greg announced a few more people, including Duke Lancelot of Camelot. Finally the MC said, “And last but certainly not least we are happy to announce the charming FriendlyFighter!” The crowd gave less cheers as the young cosplayer came out dressed as Catra from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Spencer clapped quietly and listened as she said, “Good evening fellow fans. I’m so happy to get to see, and meet you all this weekend.” The gathered crowd dispersed after the ceremony. Many of the younger participants would stay up all night to talk or work on last minute costumes, Reid on the other hand headed back to his room at the hotel.

When he walked through the sliding glass doors Garcia was standing at guest services getting the key to her room. The tall agent used his stealth skills to walk right behind Garcia and tapped her shoulder and said, “Hi.” at the same time. The computer genius was so startled that she jumped up, screamed, spun around and hit Spencer in the stomach. The tall agent coughed and grabbed onto his abdomen and wheezed out, “Geez Penelope, I thought you were excited to hangout with me this weekend.” When Garcia realized who it was she said, “Oh my God Spence I’m so sorry.” She wrapped him in a hug and whispered in his ear, “Never sneak up on me again.” Spencer smiled at the pseudo threat and said, “I’ll take that into consideration.” Reid waited for Garcia to get her key and walked her up to her room. The blonde agents room was three doors down from his. After Garcia was settled in her room Spencer said, “I think I’m going to go to my room and do some reading.” When she heard this, the computer analyst said, “Would you wait a minute. There’s a 24 hour gaming room and I’ve heard the servers are really good. I’m going to go over there and play for a few hours. Would you walk me over?” Spencer was already feeling tired, but knew that it was 22% safer for a woman to walk at night with a man, rather than walking alone. So he replied, “Sure thing.” Garcia took off her blazer and put on a more comfortable sweatshirt over the bright pink shirt she wore. Of course Spencer had turned toward the door to not look at Penelope change, even though it was just a piece of outer clothing. As the pair returned to the convention center Garcia was catching Reid up on the interesting passengers on her train ride up to the con. Once inside the main lobby of the building Penelope took in the size of the convention. There were groups of people lounging around at the tables and couches, some in cosplay and some in regular clothes, or the people in their pajamas. Garcia thought, ‘Now those people have the right idea. But if I was in front of Reid in my P.J.’s I’d probably scar him for life.” As her eyes danced around the room they landed on a Catra cosplayer. When she saw her she grabbed Spencer's arm and said, “Oh my God. I have to get a picture with that woman.” Spencer followed the direction of her finger and he saw that it was _y/i_. The male agent could see that the guest attendant was talking to two other cosplayers and said, “That's FriendlyFighter, the person I came here to see. She looks a little busy right now.” Garcia looked up to Spencer and was shocked to see that his cheeks were flushed. With this detail in mind the analyst said, “Come on Reid, you know that guest attendants at cons usually wear a different costume each day. Maybe two costumes a day. This might be my only chance to get a picture with her.” Reid sighed and gave in saying, “Alright.”

The pair of FBI agents approached the group of cosplayers. As the agents approached the She-Ra group, they looked up at the pair. Garcia stepped forward and said, “You all look so amazing! Could I get a picture with your group?” FriendlyFighter smiled and said, “Sure thing.” The group got up and stood beside Penelope. Garcia waited a second and completely forgot that she needed to have a device to take the picture on. She fished around in her pocket and pulled out her phone, saying, “Wow I can be totally brain dead when I’m around talented people.” She found her phone and extended it out to Spencer saying, “Spence can you take the picture please?” Reid took the phone and said, “Of course.” As he swiped to open the camera, Penelope took her place again, and smiled broadly. FriendlyFighter put her arm around Garcia’s shoulder and gave the peace sign, while the Bow cosplayer held his prop bow and arrow, and Glimmer took her classic power stance. Reid held up his hand and signaled three, two, one, while saying, “Three, two one.” The lanky man took a few pictures and then stepped forward to hand Penelope her phone. As the blond woman checked her photos FriendlyFighter smiled at Reid. Once Garcia was satisfied with the quality of her pictures she said, “Thank you all so much. Your costumes are really amazing!” The whole group chorused, “You’re welcome!” and the two agents continued down the hall toward the gaming room.

As they were walking away FriendlyFighter was thinking about the tall man and wondered, ‘have I met him somewhere before.’ She wasn’t sure, but she wanted to find out, so she said to the other members of her group, “I’m going to find something out. I’ll find you in a few minutes.” The cosplayer walked after the pair moved further into the convention building. The cosplayer quickly caught up with Reid and Garcia. When the agents saw her they stopped walking and Penelope said, “Is something wrong?” FriendlyFighter blushed and said, “Um, this is kind of awkward, but have I met you before?” She pointed to Spencer and the agent opened and closed his mouth for a second. He was surprised that she would remember him at all. He considered, ‘Maybe she’s just mistaking me for someone else.’ After a moment of silence the cosplayer said, “I don’t mean to hold you up from something. I know it’s a weird question.” Spencer snapped out of his head as Garcia sharply elbowed him and the male agent replied, “I met you at SDCC in 2017. You gave a panel on the psychology of the Red Shirt in Star Trek. It was really cool.” The cosplayer nodded as she thought back to the convention so long ago. She muttered, “Yeah,” and then more loudly, but still with some hesitation, asked, “You were into psychology weren’t you. You said I didn’t completely fuck up the science?” Spencer smiled and quickly replied, “Yup, that’s me.” FriendlyFighter’s eyes lit up and she said, “Wow, that’s super cool. Sorry I don’t mean to keep you both standing here. Where are you walking, do you mind if I come with?” Spencer looked to Garcia and she smiled and said, “Where'd love for you to walk with us.” The trio continued on their journey to the game room and FriendlyFighter said, “My name is _y/n_, I’ve unfortunately forgotten yours.” The cosplayer extended her hand to Spencer, and he took it and said, “I’s Spencer Reid. Nice to meet you again _y/n_.’ _Y/n_ then looked to Garcia and extended her hand. Garcia shook it enthusiastically and said, “I’m Penelope Garcia.” “It’s nice to meet you Penelope, “ _y/n_ replied. The cosplayer turned back to Spencer and said, “I know this is already weird, but I’m giving a panel on Saturday on Trauma and Grief in the Star Wars squeals and I know that you’re really good at analyzing character traits. Would you be willing to look over my notes and make some corrections? You can totally say no, I get that it’s a big request. It’s just that I haven’t given a big panel over character psychology in a while. And now that I’m more popular I’d like to have my facts as accurate as possible.” The group had arrived at room #115 where the gaming was taking place and they all stopped. Spencer thought about the possibility for helping out one of his favorite creators and said, “I’d be happy to.” The two nerds smiled and Garcia looked at them and rolled her eyes and said, “I hate to break up this moment, but I’m just going to say goodnight to this dork.” _Y/n_ snapped out of her trance at smiling at Spencer and the male agent did the same. Spencer turned to Garcia and said, “Well, have fun in there. If you plan on coming back to the hotel later tonight, or some other ungodly hour just call me.” After _y/n_ had said goodbye to Penelope, her cosplay group found her and she was whisked away to a rave on the third floor. But not before she got Spencer’s email and said, “I’ll send you the document with my notes for Saturday.”

The next morning Spencer woke up to find an email from _y/n_ with a seven page document of well planned notes. At the top of the first page was a thesis statement that Spencer wanted to study right away, but decided to wait until he could procure some coffee. Twenty minutes later the agent was at a coffee shop, a five minute walk away from the hotel with this computer open, coffee in hand, ready to make notes on the document. Garcia had not called him last night and he assumed that she had stayed up all night and was currently sleeping off the late night gaming. After an hour Spencer had gotten his caffeine fix and added some notes to _y/n’s_ panel discussion. Spencer considered email that he had made some changes, but was cut off when he realized that a panel he wanted to see was starting in twenty minutes. He quickly closed his laptop and made a mental note to email _y/n_ by the evening.

Before Reid knew it the day was almost over. Whenever he was at a convention time seemed to slip away from him. He was currently sitting with Garcia, who had woken up at 2:00 P.M., in a panel hosted by Duke Lancelot of Camelot. The older man was giving tips on the best shortcuts to getting a high ranking in World of Warcraft. The panel had started at 8:30 P.M. and had been going on for about ten minutes and people were slowly trickling in. After another ten minutes there was only room to stand and sit at the back of the room. The door opened one more time and Penelope turned and saw _y/n_ walk in and take a seat at the back of the room. She was wearing her Mr. Spock cosplay. She apparently knew a few people already seated and she was quietly talking to them. Garcia looked over to Reid, who was zoning out of the discussion. She elbowed him again and leaned over and whispered. “Hey Spence, you’re favorite cosplayer is here. At least she has good taste.” Spencer looked confused and Garcia jerked her head in _y/n’s_ direction. Spencer turned to see _y/n_. At the same time he did this FriendlyFighter looked up and saw him looking at her. The cosplayer raised her hand slightly and waved at the agents. After the panel was over the duo walked out of the room. _Y/n_ was leaning against the wall and when she saw them she walked toward the pair. She smiled at both of them and said, “Hey, are you having a good time so far?” Garcia quickly replied, “Absolutely. I’ve been so excited for this panel, and it was worth coming up here for it.” _Y/n_ smiled and said, “The Duke is a pretty cool dude. Have you had a good time?” Spencer smiled back and said, “Yes, it’s been very fun. I actually have a few notes for you. I can email them back to you, but it might be easier to explain them if I could do it in person?” _Y/n_ nodded and said, “I think that would be useful. I need to do some last minute costume alterations and ironing, could you possibly come over to my room in an hour? I’ve got a photo shoot in ten minutes, but I’ll be free after then.” Spencer’s cheeks flushed and said he stuttered out, “Uh, yeah of course.” The man was panicking and added on, “Can Penelope come too?” _Y/n_ looked disappointed for a microsecond and then replied, “Sure thing. I’m at the hotel across the street. Room #301. See you two in an hour. Sorry I’ve gotta run, I look forward to it.” With that the cosplayer dashed down the hallway. Once she was out of earshot Garcia grabbed onto his shoulder and almost screamed, “Why would you invite me to the room with you! Reid this was a great chance for you to meet someone new. Someone who seems to be into you, shares the same interests as you.” Spencer was blushing now and said, “Well I realized that and panicked. Sorry I don’t want to make it weird.” Penelope shrugged her shoulders, understanding that Spencer’s social skills were not the greatest. She replied, “Hey I get it Spence. I’ll come with you for a little bit, but I’m going to have to dip after a while. The Duke is going to be playing World of Warcraft live and I’m not missing that for anything.

An hour later the agents walked up to room #301. Spencer knocked on the door and heard the response, “One second.” After five seconds the door swung open and _y/n_ stood in a long sleeved shirt and shorts. Her _h/c_ hair was pulled back with a headband. She stepped beside the door and said, “Please come in and make yourselves comfortable.” Once Spencer and Reid were in the room she closed the door and pulled out the chair from the desk for one of her guests to sit in. She continued saying, “Feel free to sit on the bed, I don’t mind.” At the offer Penelope made a beeline for the bed and sat down falling back and sighing deeply. At seeing this _y/n_ laughed and said, “I feel you Penelope. I love a con, but it’s killer on the feet.” Garcia laughed and replied, “Talk about it, I must have walked ten miles alone today.” While this conversation had been happening Spencer took a seat at the desk and pulled out his computer. He looked over to _y/n_and said, “If you give me a second I can pull up my notes, if that’s cool with you.” _Y/n_ nodded and said, ``That sounds awesome.” As Spencer booted up his computer the cosplayer walked back to the iron draped in a black robe. She picked up the steaming device and looked down pressing the seams of the fabric to create a crisp seam. Garcia was looking around the room and her eye’s caught sight of the three light sabers in the room and had to ask, “Um, _y/n_, I’ve always wanted to get a light saber. Could I test your’s out? I promise I’ll be gentle.” The cosplayer laughed again and looked up to Penelope saying, “Well they're not all mine. It was my job to be the pack horse for my group in terms of the light sabers. The trisaber is mine and you are absolutely free to try it out. Press the top button to turn on the light and the bottom button for sound effects.’ Garcia giddily got up and cautiously held the replica of Kylo Ren’s trisaber. She pressed both buttons. She swung it around carefully. Spencer turned to look at his friend being a child , and then turned to _y/n_ saying, “I’ve got my comments pulled up, if your ready.” _Y/n_ turned from Garcia’s enthusiasm to Spencer's down to earth manner. She turned off the iron and was about to sit down on the ground, but before she could Spencer stood and said, “Please take the chair.” The cosplayer smiled and said, “Thanks.” Penelope quieted down and returned to the bed. She silently watched Reid interact with the other woman. It was so rare to see him with someone else that was not the team. It made Penelope's heart glad.

The two nerds were on paragraph three and _y/n_ was saying, “So do you think that my analogy between Ben and Rey and Romeo and Juliet is too cliche?” Spencer replied, “No not at all. But I do think that you need to specifically pin down how their relationship is considered in the genre of star crossed lovers.” _Y/n_ got up from her seat and reached into a suitcase and pulled out her copy of Romeo and Juliet. As she opened the first page she said, “I need to find a scene that will give supporting evidence to the claim.” Before the girl could even turn to the second page Reid had said, “Act 3 scene one page 6.” Before Reid could quote it to her, the cosplayer said, “Get thee to a nunnery, go. Farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell.” Reid nodded and the woman in shorts said, “That’s perfect, It would totally parallel when Ben and Rey see each other through their dyad bond in The Last Jedi.” Reid agreed with the assertion. Before the pair could spring into the next paragraph Penelope got up from the bed and said, “Alright team. It sounds like you’ve done some good work, but from what I hear from Spencer you have at least another hour of work to do; and I have a panel to get too. So I’m going to boogie out of here and leave you to work.” Spencer and _y/n_ turned, almost forgetting that Garcia was in the room. Spencer took his arm off the back of _y/n’s_ chair and stood up straight. _Y/n_ got out of the chair and held out her arms and said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m a hugger.” Penelope leaned into the woman's arms and said, “I hope you know you’re really cool.” _Y/n_ smiled at the complement and opened the door for Garcia, after the blond agent assured Spencer that she did not need to be walked over to the convention center. Once Penelope had left _y/n_ looked to Spencer and said, “You’re girlfriend, partner, wife, is really cool.” The cosplayer didn’t know Reid’s relationship to the other agent, and she didn’t want to assume anything. She looked up to Spencer who’s cheek’s were redder than before. He said, “Penelope’s just a friend from work. We’re not together.” Now it was _y/n’s_ turn to blush and she cleared her throat before saying, “Oh, um, sorry for assuming. I just thought..” Spencer released a breath and then replied, “So you want to get back to work?” At the last page of notes the panelist put her hands over her eyes and said, “Could I take a quick break. Looking at a screen for so long makes my head hurt.” Spencer replied, “Of course.” The young woman stood up and moved over to the bed and lay back on it, like Garcia had done an hour earlier. Spencer, who thought that being alone in a room with _y/n_ would be very uncomfortable, was finding the sound of her breathing very comforting. The man looked around the room and stared wistfully at the light saber Garcia had banished earlier. _Y/n_ noticed the direction of his glance and said, “You can try it out too if you want.” Spencer got up and inspected the light saber. After examining it closely for a minute the man said, “This is so accurate to the real prop. Did you make it yourself?” The girl on the bed smiled and replied, “I’d give most of the credit to my grandfather. I’m not very good with electronics.” After Reid had swung the object around for a few minutes he set it down. The man looked to the computer and the last page of the document. The cosplayer looked at the screen and blinked a few times before hesitantly asking, “Would you mind if you brought the computer over to the bed, and we finished it here.” The women moved over the bed to make room for Spencer. The blush was back on Reid’s face as the man grabbed the computer and sat down on the bed. It only took five minutes to finish the last page and Reid wasn’t sure how, or what to do next. Thankfully _y/n_ sat up and said, “Thank’s Spencer. I’m sure this job doesn’t seem very important, but my joy comes from talking to people as characters that I like, and I want to make the most of my fans happy as possible. My other job is a dead end, and at least here I can live a little. I owe you for this one.” Reid smiled and said, “I think you make a lot of people happy with this work. You make me happy.” The last sentence came out unintentionally but it made _y/n_ happy to hear. She got up and plugged the iron back in and looked back at Spencer on the bed and said, “You can hang here as long as you want. Just be prepared for me to curse at my inept ability to sew.” Reid ended up staying another thirty minutes helping the woman hold onto loose fabric that couldn’t be reigned in by the iron. When he left her room she had said goodnight, and he was shocked that there was no hint of awkwardness around them. It was a new sensation for him. She had even asked him and Penelope to come backstage before she went to her panel, she offered to get him the best seats in the room if he wanted.

The next day arrived and Spencer accompanied Garcia to her photo op with the Duke and they both watched one of the cosplay competitions that _y/n_ was judging. The award had gone to a younger cosplayer that had accurately recreated a costume from Hamilton. In the next hour Spencer and Garcia were standing at the lobby of the hotel when FriendlyFighter approached them in her Kylo Ren costume, sans mask. She smiled when she saw them and said, “I’m happy you want to come backstage. It’s pretty boring, but something that not every con goer gets to see.” The group crossed the street and the panelist checked her guests backstage. When behind the curtain she pointed to two chairs in front of the room that were marked as ‘reserved.’ When it was ten minutes to the panel _y/n_ turned to Spencer and said, “How would you like me to credit you for your contributions to the panel?” The male agent replied, “You can just say that a friend looked it over.” Reid said this to both conceal his identity, and because he was just happy to help a friend out. The cosplayer was struggling to put her helmet on, plus hold her notes and light saber when Spencer offered to put the helmet on for her. _Y/n_ handed the agent the helmet and Spencer placed it over her head. Just as the FBI duo was about to walk to their reserved seats Penelope’s phone went off. The agent picked up and her appearance suddenly looked very seriously. The other two nerds looked her way when she said, “Yes Sir. We’ll catch a flight right away. Yes of course, I’ll tell Reid.” When Penelope hung up Spencer looked over to her and asked, “New case?” Garcia nodded and said, “In rural Ohio. We need to go right away.” Spencer nodded and turned to _y/n_ who was looking concerned for both of her new friends. Reid said, “I’m sorry, we have to go for work. It was really fun meeting you. Have a great rest of your convention.” Before Reid could walk away the cosplayer grabbed a pen from a nearby table and took Spencer’s arm, scribbling her number on his arm. After doing so she said in a muffled voice, “Text me, stay safe out there.” She then turned and took a couple of deep breaths to calm her nerves. As Spencer and Garcia ran out of the backstage area they could both hear the Imperial March playing over the ballroom speakers, The panel was beginning.

It wasn’t until the con going agents were in the jet with the rest of the team that Penelope asked Spencer the question that had been on her mind for an hour. The team had made an emergency landing to pick up Spencer and Garcia from the Pennsylvania airstrip. Garcia snapped back to the present and asked, “Are you going to text her?” Spencer’s eyes snapped to hers. He bit his lip and said, “We’re going to find a serial killer that targets people _y/n’s_ age. How can I text her when my job is to find monsters lurking among us?” Penelope looked sad and replied, “And what are you going to do when we get him Spence? Who are you going to go home to and relax with, because I sure as hell know you’re not relaxing in your apartment when you come home after cases like these.” Penelope left the question open as she stood up and sat next to J.J. After another ten minutes Spencer pulled out his personal phone typed in _y/n’s_ number. The ink from her writing still faintly showing on his arm. He texted, “Hey, it’s Spencer Reid. Sorry I had to run earlier today. I hope that I can see you again soon under less stressful circumstances for both of us.” After Reid hit send he relaxed back into his chair. It wasn’t until after the panel, that had been a roaring success that _y/n_ saw the text from Spencer. The cosplayer pulled off her right glove so she could text back, “Sounds good. Stay safe and let me know when it’s convenient to plan a get together. I’m giving a panel on The Lord of The Rings and I need my resident expert to give me notes while I plan my speech.”C

_________________________________________

Shakespeare, William, and Anne Collins. Romeo and Juliet. Pearson Education Limited, 2017.

#spencer reid #dr spencer reid #criminal minds #cm #penelope garcia #j.j.#reid x reader #spencer reid x reader #fluff #fanfiction #reader one shot

73 notes · View notes

biasedwriting · 6 years

Text

Expectations [VIXX, Leo] ii

gif credits

Characters : VIXX’s Leo || OC

Genre : Slice of life, romance, college au, jock!taekwoon

This was a writing challenge put forth by @animeotakupooh /@vixxscifiwritings to write a jock!Taekwoon AU. But since I’ve had very different experiences with the so-called “jocks”, it just became this.

Lots of this stuff is based off real-life college experience; I hope that it gives you college going readers some comfort or something that is just relatable.

Thanks @taekcoon and @yixingminseokjongdae and @tomatoholmes for listening to me rant about this. I appreciate you guys being there for me!

This is part two of the whole mess and I’m currently working on part three.

Feedback is always loved.

Updates will be infrequent since I’m travelling.

The incidents of the night had been brushed away as drunken affection. Minah had had such experiences with some of the drunk entrants to her apartment building. While these were mostly female, Minah realized how little physical affection she had been exposed to growing up and that she didn’t know how to react to such situations except to gape into space till her brain switched back from the buzz of white noise to some semblance of normalcy.

Minah’s brain was thrown back to momentary confusion when Taekwoon approached her in class. Haneul looked equally confused when she heard Taekwoon’s soft voice calling Minah’s name and Minah’s entire frame going frigid.

“You dropped your student id in my car.” he said, handing her the small plastic card while Haneul shot her a look. While Minah had briefed her about the happenings from the weekend (and Haneul had successfully strangled Hongbin for abandoning Minah) she wasn’t entirely sure of what to make of the weird atmosphere between the two.

“Oh, uh. Thanks!” Minah replied, feeling some of the stares of her classmates. Something about what Taekwoon had said back on Saturday had deeply unsettled her. Kang was being an absolute prick to Taekwoon for no particular reason except for the fact that she thought him incapable. She reached out to take the card from him beforet taking a deep breath “why don’t you sit here?” she asked, pointing to the empty seat beside her causing several eyebrows to shoot up. Taekwoon regarded her silently before slipping into the seat and opening his laptop.

“Email id?” Minah whispered as Professor Kang made her entry. She eyed Taekwoon’s new position in the second row with suspicion before turning to set up the system. He quickly whispered his email id to Minah whose fingers quickly flew over the keyboard of her laptop. Taekwoon’s email notification alerted him of the arrival of a new email which he tried to hush by initially waving frantically at his laptop and then hitting the mute button.

He clicked open the notification to see Minah’s name on the screen with “Myths and Folklore Notes - Invitation to Edit” written on it. Taekwoon turned to briefly look at Minah who was looking straight ahead at Kang. He clicked open the Doc to see bulleted notes for all the readings, simplified and occasionally humourous. The chat window opened on the doc.

“Today we’re talking about Frazer’s theory of Myth Ritual. Don’t get too daunted, the general premise is that people had certain traditions (magical rituals) which they used to explain nature, this evolved into myths to justify the ritual. He goes on to say that myth then evolves into religion which is then refuted by science which is the evolution of the same.”

“Got it.” Taekwoon typed back “Thanks ^_^.”

Minah held back a giggle. Jung Taekwoon used cute emojis.

“So Taekwoon, what do you understand of what Frazer has to say? ” Kang’s voice was directed at Taekwoon whose eyes widened momentarily before he took a deep breath eyes fixing themselves on the screen in front of him. The little bar flashed next to the words that appeared with Minah’s fingers gliding over the keyboard.

“You’ve got this.”

“Well, he said that myths were used to explain rituals and justify them which in general was in relation to nature. But I was wondering if this could be applicable in a situation not based on this ‘natural law’ he speaks of? Like, what about rituals not based in nature?” Taekwoon processed and thought out loud. Minah could feel a swell of pride surge through her chest.

Kang gaped at the silver-haired man for a few seconds before recovering and clearing her throat “uh, yes, we’ll be covering that in this class.”

Taekwoon glanced at Minah who was beaming. All of the sudden, going to Kang’s class didn’t feel so terrible. He looked back at the screen which was quickly filling up with notes. The little message on the chat made him smile. He was going to be okay.

“I am not okay, what is this paper?!” he groaned as Minah hissed at him to be silent in the library. He had taken to sitting in her vicinity to ensure that he wasn’t entirely screwing up his papers. He waved the reading over his head, leaning closer to her “can you please tell me who this Melonpiss is and why his name is that?”

“I can’t help you with this one! We all had to choose different topics!” Minah groaned “plus we have a general body meeting in like half an hour for the fest, so get as much of it done as possible. Use JSTOR and Google Scholar and put in the bits you DO understand. Kang may be a bitch, but she appreciates effort.” while Taekwoon depended on her to make sense of the readings, she was happy to see that he was an attentive listener and grasped concepts quickly. Given the right push, he could easily tackle one of the readings on his own. She smiled softly to herself, Taekwoon may have been labelled a jock, but he didn’t really fit the trope. He was redefining the term for her.

Taekwoon grunted before turning back to his laptop. This was the second time he had to skip gym in his whole course at the university to finish a paper and both times it was for Kang’s course. With the college fest coming up, there was no way he could keep up with the no gym, no sports regime. Plus with his new position as head of soccer for the fest, he’d have to sit down and make calls to other university representatives to invite them for the fest. He looked at Minah from the corner of his eye, there was no way she was the type to take part in the fest, it involved sports and cultural events neither of which Taekwoon had seen her take part in. But since she had mentioned the general body meeting, maybe she was taking part in some weird event.

He casually switched between tabs to watch the livestream of a regional soccer match. Fuck, he had to go for the basketball team practices as well. He sighed.

“Taekwoon,” he heard Minah’s voice calling and he turned to see her still busily typing away “get away from the soccer tab and finish the paper. You have a weird look in your eye.”

It was funny how they had picked up on each other’s odd habits from just sitting close to each other. Taekwoon found it strange that a few months back, he had no idea who this person was. Minah was decidedly not someone of major consequence so to speak. Not a lot of people knew her except for members of the music club or people who shared courses with her. She was definitely not a part of the crowd he usually hung around with, but he quite enjoyed her company.

Taekwoon blinked, quickly switching tabs, trying to ignore the giggle that left her lips. Minah checked her phone and sighed, stretching out before shutting her laptop and getting up. Haneul and Wonshik joined her from the mezzanine floor with the isolated cubicles with grins on their kiss swollen lips. Clearly movie date night had gone of pretty well. Taekwoon shook his head, shutting his own device down and heading out of the library.

The general body meeting, from all of Taekwoon’s experience was always chaotic as hell. Having so many people crammed in a single room was bound to make it noisy. Sober Taekwoon did not like noisy in any shape or form. He cringed when he entered the hot room, grinning when he saw Joonmyeon and Himchan standing up front. Hakyeon was handling all cultural events and Doojun was handling the sports events. Joonmyeon was the chairman of the fest. Doojun bumped into Taekwoon’s side with a giant grin.

“Yo you fucker, are you ready to trash our rivals this year?”

“Of course.” Taekwoon rolled his eyes as Doojun thumped his back. Joonmyeon blew into the microphone for silence. Taekwoon busied himself with his mobile phone, checking the score for the matches he had been watching before. Minhyuk, who had just appeared, peered into the screen and grunted approvingly.

“Great match man.”

“Yea-”

“Could I please have the head of soccer here! We need the rest of the soccer department to join him!” Joonmyeon called out, causing Taekwoon to hastily shove his phone into his pocket and saunter forwards.

“Each team will be assigned a person from the registrations team who will assist you in your calls to teams outside the uni. Once you’ve noted down the people on your team, head over to Sooyeon who’ll tell you the person who you’ve been assigned.” Hakyeon instructed as Taekwoon blankly stared at the group of admiring eyes that had surrounded him. Pulling his phone out, he grunted to them to give him their names and email ids. The whole process took him about twenty minutes before he told them to disperse and headed over to Sooyeon who was known to be a tough nut on the campus (other than being Lee Jaehwan’s girlfriend). With her strong communication skills, there was no wonder she was heading the registrations department since they would be the point of contact for most of the incoming players and participants.

“Uh, Sooyeon,” he called for her attention as she spun around to look at him “registrations incharge for soccer?”

“Oh! Hold on!” she said, scrolling through her phone “I’ve assigned you Kim Minah, since you have a giant team to help and you have experience, I thought it would be best I assign her. She’ll have enough time to juggle between heading the creative writing event and doing registrations for soccer as well.”

“Sooyeon, so I might go missing from the registrations tent every now and then, I just got selected for the tennis team. Also which department did you pair me with?” Minah piped up from behind Taekwoon.

“That’s fine,” Sooyeon called to Minah before turning back to Taekwoon “Taekwoon, this is the registrations member I’ve assigned you with. Since we already have a database for phone calls and emails, you can start making them as soon as possible. Minah, you’re helping the soccer team out since they need the least manpower.”

“Oh?” Minah turned to Taekwoon and he shrugged.

“Help me with the paper while you help me make calls?”

“Fuck right off.” she grumbled as he grinned.

“I’ll get the team together to make calls on Thursday.”

“Sure, I have tennis practice for an hour from 5. So does 6:30 sound okay?” Minah asked in a business-like tone. Taekwoon looked at her for a moment. He had never really thought about Minah actually playing a sport, let alone tennis. But something about it fit.

“Uh, yeah.” he replied.

“Alright then, I have to talk to my team, so I’ll see you.” she replied, hurrying to the two people standing and waiting for instructions from her. Taekwoon’s gaze followed her before being distracted by Minhyuk asking him for a treat for being made the head of soccer. Shoving him with a grin he asked him to “go eat at the cafeteria.”

Acoustic night was surprisingly a success. Minah smiled to herself as the crowd of college students dispersed slowly leaving behind the dewy lawn with mattresses and bedsheets Minah had borrowed from the staff for this very purpose. Wonshik and Jaehwan were helping return all the sound and light equipment to the facilities manager. Haneul had carried away the fairylights they had had installed for the evening and now Minah was left smiling at the empty lawn, deeply satisfied with her work. The evening was chilly and she had to get to picking up the sheets to return them. Even though there were clouds in the sky, you could see stars and the moon shone on the damp grass. She sighed, leaning down to pick up a colourful sheet, probably from the lost and found donated graciously to her by the facilities staff. She shook it to get the grass off before folding it. It was a slow monotonous process, but she got done with half the sheets before wondering where the fuck the rest of her team was.

“Why didn’t you sing?” a soft voice caused her to jump and nearly drop the folded sheets in her hands. She spun to spot Taekwoon now picking up a sheet hidden somewhere far in the corner before looking up to meet her eyes “you sing, I saw you sing at the freshers talent night, why don’t you sing anymore?”

Minah sighed, dropping a bunch of sheets in a stack “stage fright. Besides, there are way better singers than me, it’s better promoting them.” she hurried over the large expanse of the lawn to find another sheet thrown haphazardly.

“I’m surprised you have stage fright,” Taekwoon said, dumping a set of sheet on the stack Minah had created “I thought you sounded good on talent night.”

“You don’t even remember talent night.” Minah laughed slumping down heavily on the last open sheet beside the pile of sheets, exhausted by all running back and forth. Taekwoon dropped the last sheet on her head making her exclaim as he took a seat beside her.

“You sang a song in both Korean and English, I thought it was pretty impressive.”

“So you do remember,” Minah sighed, face colouring at the memory of her having so many audio issues and spending most of the week beating herself up for sounding terrible “how come you came for acoustic night, thought you had practice.”

“Yeah,” Taekwoon sighed, leaning back “ I did, we broke early so we could come for acoustic night. I hit the gym in the morning since Wonshik said he might need my help with the sound systems in the evening.”

“Thanks,” Minah smiled at the stars, exhaustion getting stronger as she groaned out “last favour, do you mind if I lean against you? I’m so fucking exhausted.”

Taekwoon turned and Minah gaped at his back “rest your back against mine, it’s more comfortable.” Taekwoon said, looking at the sky, hearing her exhale heavily before feeling the warmth of her back resting against his. The crickets were loud as the moonlight shone on the two of them. “So, stage fright.” Taekwoon began making her chuckle, a pleasant sensation rumbling against his back. He decided he quite liked her laugh.

“Long story.”

“I have all night.” he replied picking at the frayed end of the bedsheet.

“Till curfew.” she corrected, twirling the damp grass between her fingers.

“Till curfew.”

Minah glared at Taekwoon as he tried to avoid her gaze. It was 7:30 on Thursday and not one member of his twenty member team had turned up to make phone calls. Now here they were with a giant database to make calls from and little to no help to do it.

“You have a shitty team.” she grumbled, spinning the tiny mobile phone which had been bought for the very purpose of these calls. They had made about forty calls in the last hour and while a few were hits, many were misses. What made it even worse was that both of them hated making phone calls.

“I know, I know. I'll buy you dinner to make it up to you.” Taekwoon offered as she shook her head.

“There's really nothing to make up. I don’t mind.” she shrugged, slumping forward onto her laptop. Taekwoon shook his head before reaching across the table to pat the top of her head.

“Coffee?”

“You spoke the magic words.” her voice was muffled, making him laugh.

“So I can treat you to coffee?” he asked, making Minah look up.

“Oh I thought you were going to be gallant and use your energy to run and get me some coffee,” she chuckled “that sounds great. You can buy me a coffee for every paper of yours I’ve had to go through.”

“They weren’t so many!” he whined, amusing her no end as she stood up.

“Alright alright, I’ll pay for my coffee.”

“That’s not what I meant!” he grumbled, standing up and following her out of the library. Spring was nearly upon campus and the weather was fine. Minah wasn’t entirely sure as to what to make of Taekwoon’s behaviour. This was definitely not expected, especially when she could feel all the eyes on them as they walked across the campus and entered the cafe.

“Yo Taekwoon…” Minhyuk, who had been lounging in the cafe began greeting Taekwoon but paused at Minah’s appearance before raising his eyebrow at Taekwoon.

“Minhyuk, you didn’t turn up for registration calls. We were stuck calling dimwits.” Taekwoon threw a sugar sachet at him, ignoring the look as Minhyuk’s suspicion subsided and he smirked at Minah. “What will you have?” Taekwoon called to Minah as Minhyuk furiously typed away at his mobile phone, Minah peeled her eyes away from the suspicious behaviour.

“Just an espresso.” she mumbled making Taekwoon narrow his eyes.

“Are you really ordering the cheapest drink here because I’m paying?”

“I’m ordering it because I happen to like espressos,” Minah laughed as Taekwoon ordered a latte “unlike weak people who need copious amounts of milk in their coffee.”

“Shut up, this is probably why you’re so short. You don’t drink enough milk.”

“No Taekwoon, this is called genetics.” Minah rolled her eyes, taking the coffee from him before heading to a seat to settle in. Taekwoon knocked Minhyuk on the head before taking the seat beside Minah.

“How many calls left?”

“About forty, after we go through the first round of calls and then some more registrations, you’ll have to make the second round of calls.”

“Fuck.” Taekwoon groaned, considered the fact that his team would not show up.

“Yeah, that. Plus I have to make my own calls for the Writing event, so I’m hoping your team turns up, or I’m going to ask to be reassigned.” she shot him a wicked grin.

“You know I will trouble you in class right? I’ll talk to Sooyeon so you can’t be reassigned,” Taekwoon retorted, taking a deep sip of his coffee before turning to Minhyuk “you heard her, the team needs to assemble tomorrow for calls. No excuses. If people don’t turn up, they’re off the team.” he instructed, taking his phone out and typing out a message on the group. He looked at Minah who gazed out of the window, the heat of the espresso fogged her glasses momentarily.

“Ye ye, we’ll be there.” Minhyuk grinned at Taekwoon who grinned back.

“You’d better be.” he paused turning to Minah “wait, do we have a reading for Kang’s class tomorrow?”

“No, we don’t. Which is why I agreed to making calls today.” she looked at her phone and cursed “fuck, I need to head for my meeting. Thanks for this Taekwoon, I’ll see you tomorrow?” she said, downing her coffee and scalding her tongue in the process.

“Wait, I don’t have your number!” he called her back and she frowned.

“You wanted my number?”

“Yeah, it’s easier to just arrange meetings and stuff. Plus I was told to add the registrations rep to the football team group.” he explained, and Minah nodded holding her hand out for his phone and punching in her digits before calling herself and hanging up.

“There you go, see you around.” she smiled, hurrying out.

Taekwoon grinned at his phone as he leaned back in his seat.

Taekwoon chuckled when the first message came “I swear if you call me in the middle of the night to help you out with Kang’s papers, I will not answer and I will leave you to die in her class..”

“Animal memes?”

“I’m always game for animals and memes.”

Minhyuk did not miss the looks, and couldn’t help but wonder why Taekwoon and Minah seemed closer than people just working together for the fest.

Which was one of the reasons why Minah was a little confused at the curious stares of the rest of the team when she arrived to make calls. All twenty of the members seemed to be analysing her from top to bottom, making her incredibly uncomfortable as she settled down and pulled her laptop out. She looked around to search for Taekwoon who was missing and she sighed. She missed having him around her, a thought which surprised her.

“Right, so I’ve shared the database with you. We need to make calls to the last forty on the list. Those who confirm get highlighted in green, those who don’t in red, and those who are not sure in yellow. If there are people whose names have previously been highlighted in yellow, call them back and re-check. I’ll draft the email you’ll need to send out from your committee to those who have confirmed. So please divide yourselves accordingly.”

There was a silence between the group as they stared at her like she was speaking in a foreign language. Some showed a sense of defiance making Minah sigh and rolled her eyes before getting to her work. She paused when an all too familiar scent hovered behind her, placing a small cup beside her laptop. Minah could feel her cheeks involuntarily heat up and hoped to god that it wasn’t very apparent.

“Espresso.I’m assuming you’re coming from practice.” he said nonchalantly looking over the rest of the group. Minah was hyper aware of how everyone was looking at Taekwoon giving her a cup of coffee “are you guys not working?” he asked the rest who seemed to snap back to reality and quickly get down to making calls.

“Taekwoon,” Doojun began, hovering close to Taekwoon, before exchanging a look with Minhyuk “remember that chick from the party at Jaehyun’s place? Been hounding me for your number after that night.”

“It’s odd when you say hounding. Either way, I’m currently not interested in anything.” Taekwoon replied, looking over the database on one of the laptops.

“What, has Kang’s course killed your libido? Don’t tell me you’re turning into one of them” Doojun pointed his thumb at Minah while gaping at Taekwoon, horrified. Taekwoon frowned.

“If by that you mean that he’s getting academically inclined, then that is definitely the case. Taekwoon is turning into an all-rounder, intelligent on and off the field.” Minah replied, eyes still fixed on the screen as she put the finishing touches on her email.

“I really didn’t ask you…” Doojun began as Taekwoon glared at him, gripping his arm.

“Enough Doojun.”

“See, instead of surreptitiously pointing and assessing whether I’m worthy of being around your captain, you could just tell me to my face that you’d rather have him satisfying his libido with anyone who would have him than simply spending time with me to get through his course. Sorry I don’t meet your beauty standards, unfortunately for you I’m not a dimwit who misses your gorilla signals. Give him a break, let him make decisions about his friends on his own.I think he’s fucking smart enough to do that.” Minah stood up, a little shorter than Doojun as she glared at him and Taekwoon could see Doojun physically shrink as he stepped away from her.

“Minah,” Taekwoon began as she turned to him, slightly red in the face.

“Sorry, I’m just sick of people acting like the only thing you live for is sports and sex. I’m sure there’s more substance to you than that. Anyway, those were my two cents, I’ve shared the doc with the email with you. If you need me to send them out, I can do that as well.”

“Fucking hell she’s scary.” Minhyuk mumbled as Taekwoon placated Minah and sat down beside her to go through the email.

“Is it odd that I find it a wee bit attractive?” Jaemin, a first year student seated beside him asked.

“It just means you’re fucked in the head. Taekwoon needs more...enticement, he’ll nail some chick who comes in during or after the fest, you’ll see. He won't last long on this friendship bullshit. Especially when it looks like that and is boring as hell.”

“Taekwoon, you need to focus. We need to get these presentations done and you need to do your damn part.” Haneul grumbled glared at Minah who sheepishly smiled. Kang’s classes always involved one group presentation and Taekwoon had begged Minah and Haneul to team up with him so he wouldn’t royally be screwed.

Except when they actually got down to working, he seemed terribly distracted, causing a great deal of aggravation for his teammates.

“Sorry, I woke up late and missed breakfast and now the whole day is messed up for me.” he grumbled, truly trying to look back at the points he had come for a comparative analysis of Persian and Greek myths. Minah let out a snort, momentarily distracting him again.

“I’ll wake you up in time for breakfast since your soccer team practices are going on till late night. But you really need to focus right now. Your main task is to summarize and smile. Kang likes your pretty face now that you’re speaking up in class. We’ll use it to our advantage.”

“Are you objectifying me?” Taekwoon narrowed his eyes.

“Yes, for a reasonable group grade. Which you will share. Plus take the compliment, I’m calling you attractive.” Minah smiled so brightly at him that he was momentarily stumped. He sighed turning back to the screen, his stomach rumbling as he scanned the document shared between the three of them. He couldn’t wait for this course to end, but he wasn’t so sure when Minah grinned at him, nudging him as she placed a meme about Zeus in the powerpoint presentation.

The two joined their chairs when they switched to his laptop (clearly the superior one) to finalize the presentation details. She leaned her head against his shoulder comfortably so Haneul could peer at the screen from behind.

“Shift the picture to the left.” Haneul nodded as Taekwoon dutifully moved the image destroying the layout in the process.

“Fuck this.” he grumbled as Minah chuckled and he could feel the movement against him. He tried once again succeeding after several tries. Minah cheered, shifting to stand.

“Finally, I have two shifts at the registrations desk today. I thought I’d never make it.” she said, patting Haneul’s back, looking at Taekwoon. Joonmyeon had come up with the idea of the college holding a concert to draw attention to the university as a means of promoting the college fest. Which meant that there would be a registration desk and the team needed to man it. Sooyeon had broken up the concert hours into shifts so the team could get work done while enjoying the concert as well. Joonmyeon and Hakyeon had gotten a popular indie group to play for a reasonable price and tickets were being circulated around the city as well as within the campus.

“Oh yeah, fuck, I was going to go check out the food stalls too. Heard that Myun managed to get that gourmet pizza dude.” Taekwoon remembered absently as Haneul nodded.

“My shift is first, then I’m going to hit the food stalls. Need to get my face in place. ” she said, stretching as she stood up and headed out of the library.

“I guess we’re mostly done here, I’m going to head to the desk and see if they need any help there. I’ll see you around then?” Minah patted Taekwoon’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I’ll hit the gym, take a shower and head for the concert. Text me when it begins, or if you need pizza during your shift. When do you get done though?” he replied, yawning and shutting his own laptop. Minah smiled, ruffling his hair.

“Thank you, I’d appreciate that, I should be done at around 8 or 8:15.” she smiled, waiting for Taekwoon to pack his stuff up to leave. They parted at the entrance of the library as Minah hurried to the concert location. There wasn’t very much to be done, posters needed to be put up and the team was given a general briefing of what they needed to be selling to the visitors. She ended up being trapped there for the first shift, her loose t-shirt and jeans and haggard face attracting zero registrations.

Minah hurried back to the room noting the open windows of the gym on the way. Minah’s eyes quickly took in the vision of Taekwoon lifting weights, mind focused entirely on his posture, his muscular arms flexing making her her mouth go slightly dry.

Minah realized she was gaping and shook her head and hurried back to the room. On entering, she took a deep breath and sat down on her bed, picking up her phone to take a look at the time. Maybe she could conduct a social experiment, a simple one with very known results. She grinned, standing up whilst stripping her shirt off and stepping into the bathroom.

Minah stood at the registrations desk with a smile, she’d gotten eight registrations so far and she had to marvel at the magic of a little red lipstick and a tight black t-shirt. But she could feel herself getting increasingly uncomfortable when one particular man got increasingly persistent.

“You never told me there was a b-boying event! Why didn’t you tell me?” he rambled on, it was his second time by the desk and Minah was now simply getting creeped out.

“It’ll all on the brochure, I couldn’t explain all forty events to you.” she explained “but if you sign up on the sign up sheet there, you’ll be emailed all the details.”

“Why don’t you give me your number?” he smirked as Minah cringed, but tried to keep a smile on.

“I could give you the registrations number, if you wish.”

“Is that yours?”

“Excuse me,” Taekwoon seemed to loom over the man as he nudged past him, meeting Minah’s eyes to check if she’s alright “ Minah it’s 8:30, let’s get some pizza.” as Minah sighed in relief as she thrust a registrations card into the man’s hands before hurrying to Taekwoon. He squinted at her in the dim light, pausing as he tried to process the image.

“You’re wearing makeup,” Taekwoon said, brushing a stray strand off her forehead making Minah freeze for a second “it’s nice.”

“Y-Yeah?” she stuttered as Taekwoon nodded.

“Yeah, looks nice.”

“Pizza?” she asked quickly trying to divert the topic as Taekwoon nodded.

“Yeah, sounds good. Wanna stay through the rest of the concert?” he asked, placing a hand on the small of her back to lead her away from the crowd and towards the concert area.

“Mhmm, but not to late. Need to wake you up for breakfast.” she grinned as Taekwoon grinned back at her.

Minah discovered that Taekwoon sounded bloody cute when he was half awake, slurring as he picked up her call, mumbling something incoherently. She had to prevent herself from melting to his pleas to let him sleep just a little longer. It was odd to hear someone who had always been an image of macho masculinity be so...adorably whiny. She steeled herself, breathing out.

“Taekwoon, breakfast.”

“Hmmmm.” he mumbled into the phone. Minah could feel the strong urge to coo bubble up her throat.

“Up, now.”

“I’ll see you in ten.” he whined, audibly rolling off the bed and falling with a loud ‘oof’.

“I made coffee for you, come before it gets cold.” she chuckled into the device as he mumbled something about blessing and ending the call. Soon enough Minah saw him dragging his feet into the dining hall, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. For someone who had just woken up, Minah had to admit he looked quite nice (to say the least). He smiled when he spotted her, momentarily causing her brain to shut, picking up a full set breakfast before joining her.

“Hey.” she said, pushing him a mug of coffee whilst chewing on her toast “basketball practice yesterday?”

“Soccer and basketball. Need to hit the gym today too.” Taekwoon replied, taking a sip of his coffee as a comfortable silence took over the largely empty space. Taekwoon gazed at Minah thoughtfully before shedding his hoodie, he had expected the morning to be cooler, but it was warm and sunny. The sunlight seemed to catch the high points of her face just right, falling like drops of light on her eyelashes as she absently looked out of the large window of the dining hall. Probably thinking of how long her day was, or whether her spot in the library had been taken by someone else (probably not, it was too early in the semester). There was something oddly riveting about the view that it baffled Taekwoon. It was odd how the two of them, so different in terms of social circles had become oddly close.

Minah eyed Taekwoon, trying very hard not to think of how attractive she found him. This was definitely not what she was expecting, Taekwoon was a distant dream and finding him attractive was only the beginning of painful trouble because there was no way mutual attraction was even possible. She looked back out of the window, trying to think of something that would get the thoughts out of her mind.

Chewing thoughtfully, he opened his mouth to address something he had been wanting to talk to Minah about for quite a while now. There was something about her presence which made him feel like he could tell her this oddly personal fact.

“Minah,” he had her attention, making her meet his gaze, a warm sensation filling his chest “I have an odd question.”

“Yeah?” she asked, sitting straight, indicating that she was listening and taking him seriously, something that Taekwoon found rather comforting.

“Is it… odd that I’ve never really been attracted to anyone? Does that make me weird?”

Minah frowned, pursing her lips. This wasn’t really something she expected him to say, but she was glad he trusted her enough to tell her about it.

“No… I don’t think it’s odd.” she said, still frowning. With Taekwoon’s reputation of having a strong libido, this wasn’t really what she was expecting him to ask her.

“I mean...I’ve never really thought of relationships beyond...you know, sex. There’s never been emotions involved to the extent that I want to be with someone...this whole crush thing just goes over my head and you know, people just think it’s weird.” he trailed off, trying to collect his thoughts, pausing breifly when Minah placed her hand on his.

“There’s absolutely nothing weird about it. There’s nothing weird about you. Some people just go on in life not being attracted to other people and that’s okay. Life’s not a checklist where you tick these kinds of stuff off. If it’s meant to happen, it will. You have your family and friends who are all great relationships to have if you ask me. Your emotional needs have been fulfilled. Plus you have me, which is pretty awesome in itself.” she grinned, trying to lighten the situation.

“How do you know when you’re attracted to someone?” Taekwoon asked, making Minah’s eye narrow, deep in thought.

“I suppose it's different for everyone...for me...they make me really happy and I feel safe around them, and I just want to be with them, spend time with them. I think they’re adorable with all their quirks and oddities. Occasionally I do want to kiss them.” she chuckled “but, as my mum said, you’ll just know when you find them.”

Taekwoon found himself smiling at her, Minah was endearing. It was always a sense of ease and comfort. He enjoyed that about their dynamic. He loved spending time with Minah, she often knew the right thing to say at the right times. Taekwoon reached across to poke her nose with a soft smile and Minah found herself melting.

Yet Minah found herself crying into her pillow that night. She couldn’t like Taekwoon. It was out of the question. Taekwoon was a good sweet man, but with his reputation and his confession of his inability to find someone attractive - there was no hope. It was against logic. It would only lead to heartbreak.

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#leo #jungleo #jungtaekwoon #taekwoon #jung taekwoon #vixx #vixxfic #vixx fanfic #vixxfanfiction #kpop #kpopfic #kpopfanfiction #vixxleo #slice of life #romance #college au #jock au

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cynicinafishbowl · 7 years

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If you're still taking asks, chapter 8 (the last one posted if I have it right?) of An Evening, with Mary saying yes to Evie and their relationship talk

GET READY FOR ME CRINGING AS I RE-READ MY OWN FLUFF (under the cut)

“And thanks. I know I didn’t exactly give you a legitimate answer yesterday, and I am slightly sorry about that. We do, however, on that, have a lot to discuss.” [no shit, homie]

“I understand that,” Fitzwilliam replied. Mary looked over at him and was distracted by the lines of his arm muscles [Mary likey] as he went along on crutches, noting particularly the fact that his sleeves were rolled up, and his forearms (she definitely had a thing) [oh boy, does she have a thing] were positively rippling in the fading light of a summer evening.

When, after a time, they arrived, Fitzwilliam led her to a surprisingly large backyard with some stone benches overlooking a mossy rockery [atmospheric amirite]. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said, taking a seat and stowing the crutches next to him, [I get weirdly hung up with keeping track where everything is during a scene, i have no idea why] “but the weather seemed so nice.”

“It’s lovely,” Mary said, pausing in her visual exploration of the patch of lawn overlooked by tall shrubs, the small patch of dwarf roses, and the climbing jasmine covering the fences, to sit on the other end of the bench. [the moment I decided that there was a backyard, I knew I needed to set a number of scenes in it. This is the first of a number I have planned]

“So,” Fitzwilliam began, before foundering. [these two awkward idiots struggling to talk about their feelings. Such fun!]

“Yes.” Mary gathered her thoughts. [I want to flag right now that I feel super weird about my fluff scenes. I would write them, and then not even be able to read over them for editing because I’d be like ‘is it too trite? I should just cut all of it] “I’m sorry about how I left things yesterday. I was surprised, and confused, and did what I always do in difficult situations, tried to escape [avoidance is life].” Fitzwilliam was looking out over the garden in a pointed manner, as if steeling himself for bad news [staring off into the distance in a stoic manner. Yes please]. “I like you. A lot. [eloquent] You’re fabulously fun to spend time with, and in the spirit of full disclosure, I’ve had a crush on you for ages. But,” Fitzwilliam’s small and slowly growing smile disappeared [that’s right, boy, don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched], “also in the spirit of full disclosure, I should give you an idea of why I acted the way I did.” Mary was fiddling with a hairband on her wrist and studiously avoiding looking anywhere else [more avoidance! such fun!]. “I was a pretty awkward child, growing up. [understatement. There’s a reason she scrubbed the digital record clean] I didn’t have any real interest in any kind of relationship until quite recently, and I don’t mean ‘it would be inconvenient right now so I’m ok with being single’, I mean ‘honestly thinking that I was aromantic because there wasn’t any other explanation’ [tfw you’re perfectly happy with how things are going and then #surprise, feelings move in and everything you ever knew turns out to be a lie]. There was the usual idiocy in my undergrad [we’ve all done some stupid shit in first year], but my actual relationship experience is pretty thin on the ground.” An understatement. [yet another instance of ‘that’s certainly one interpretation of events’] “So if we decide to go for this, you need to know that I’m likely to be a bit nervous and weird about it, and there are probably going to be things I struggle with.” [like all of human interaction]

Fitzwilliam placed a hand on her wrist, covering the elastic. [I’m a huge fan of Character B putting a hand over Character A’s to stop them fidgeting or similar. I also wanted to show that they’ve got a decent baseline of intimacy going here] Mary stared at his hand, not quite feeling up to eye contact [YES, MARY! AVOID YOUR FEELINGS!]. “Mary, nothing is stopping us from discussing what you want and are comfortable with [isn’t he just the most excellent human in existence?]. All I want is to not have to pretend that I don’t…” he was silent for long enough that Mary glanced up at him to see what was going on, her hair flopping about the place because there was a light breeze and her hair elastic was currently being held hostage [I try to avoid extraneous details. If I mention the hair elastic on Mary’s wrist, you’d better believe that that elastic is going to be a serious supporting player in the scene]. Fitzwilliam brushed her hair out of the way [#CurlyHairProblems] and left his hand there, cupping the side of her face [boy is a smooth operator]. “Mary, I’ve been in love with you from more or less the moment we met [good for you, lad, coming clean on that]. And I’m sorry to be dumping this on you as well [you fucking should be], but at least everything is out in the open now. I don’t care if we need to take things slowly, or whatever you need for this to work. I… I don’t particularly care so long as I’m with you.” [he has torn his heart out of his chest, and is offering it to her. How nice. Aren’t you glad I made you read a 12k porny interlude with a minor character in order to facillitate this?]

Mary was saved from having to formulate a coherent answer by a sudden unforecast and unexpected downpour [you’re welcome, Mary. This is an example of my approach to writing fluff without it getting too much: I call it ‘pile on the feels, slap on the arse’. Things are getting a bit heavy just now, and if the conversation were to continue, it would be way too heavy. So I pop in a comic element which means that when the conversation restarts, it restarts from a much lighter base point]. Despite all deliberate haste [I love using ‘deliberate’ as an adjective], they were both soaked through by the time they made it inside. “That puts a bit of a damper on things,” Mary remarked as they stood there, dripping, and tried not to laugh [bad jokes are the best]. Fitzwilliam just gave her a look which said ‘Mary, how could you?’ [all bad jokes need a commensurate reaction] Mary fought to suppress a shiver, because as balmy as the evening had been, it was no longer once the rain had begun. [and now we have Mary in a slightly vulnerable mode, which is new, and facilitates other things]

Fitzwilliam snapped to [good lad]. “Let me get you some dry stuff to change into, and I’ll put your clothing in the dryer. Leave your shoes there, and I’ll get you a towel.”

Mary left her shoes at the door, and removed her socks, which were also soaked, while Fitzwilliam sat on a handily placed stool and did the same. Mary followed him in and was soon presented with some towels and what looked suspiciously like a pair of pyjama pants and a henley. Fitzwilliam then showed her to a bathroom, and she dried herself as best she could, putting on the clothes she had been given. It was indeed pyjamas [platonic clothes-sharing. Yet another fun trope I am determined to expoit]. Mary then had first-hand confirmation of the fact that men’s shirts weren’t designed to accommodate bosoms. [#AboutTheAuthor] The buttons tended to gape, and when they were undone to relieve the tension on the fabric, they showed a decent amount of cleavage. Mary sighed, thanked the heavens that today was a good boob day [there are days when your breasts are behaving themselves, and looking good, and everything is great. There are days when the fuckers are determined to test you. This is a legitimate concern in life. Or at least it has been in my experience], towelled her hair, did damage control on the makeup she had been wearing (eyeliner and mascara, both waterproof, and eyebrow powder which decidedly wasn’t, but thankfully hadn’t run everywhere) [Mary isn’t much of a makeup person. She’ll apply a full face for events and the like, but unless she’s working (as she was on this day), she doesn’t bother. As such, she’s hyper-aware of the fact that she has stuff applied to her face which could be harmed by her environment. Also, when is waterproof makeup actually waterproof], and emerged, holding a bundle of her soaked clothing. Fitzwilliam had changed into jeans and a similar shirt, showed her to the laundry, and put her clothes to dry. He then handed Mary a pair of socks. “Sorry about the mismatch, I just don’t need to worry about that stuff any more.” He looked down at his foot and back up to Mary. “You know how it is.” [Characters saying ‘you know how it is’ about WILDLY UNRELATEABLE THINGS is another fave trope of mine]

“Not from personal experience,” Mary commented, “but thanks nonetheless.”

Fitzwilliam ushered Mary into the sitting room and let her put on the socks before he started talking [nice of him. It’s hard to carry a conversation while putting on socks]. “I’m happy to discuss logistics right now, although it should probably be mentioned that before the rain kicked off, I was very close to trying to kiss you.” [YES BOY! GET SOME!]

“We should probably discuss first,” Mary agreed. “I don’t even know where to begin, but…” she shrugged [use your words, Mary]. “According to a number of mates [I think you mean literally all of them], our interactions up to this point have essentially constituted what they would describe as dating, so I’m happy to keep going the way we have been.”

“And what sort of…” Fitzwilliam seemed to be struggling to articulate what he wanted to say. “What physical contact is…” [the sweet lad is trying to make sure he’s not doing anything she’s uncomfortable with. What a nugget]

Mary laughed. “I said aromantic. Asexual never entered into it [an important distinction]. If I’m honest, I rather enjoyed your territorial boyfriend act. [oh boy, did she enjoy the territorial boyfriend act]”

“You did?” he said, perking up. [he also enjoyed it, unsurprisingly]

“Very much,” Mary confirmed, moving across so that she was right next to him. “I liked all of the times you just put an arm around me, or pushed my hair off my face when my hands were occupied, or brushed your fingertips over some bruising, asking if I was ok,” Mary broke off with a shiver as his fingertips brushed along the side of her neck. [the ‘rugby bruising’, amirite, readers?]

“You look like you were stepped on by someone wearing cleats,” he commented. [this happened to me once. I had THE MOST QUESTIONABLE looking bruises and scratches on my neck for a couple of weeks]

“It happens,” Mary explained, which wasn’t, strictly speaking a lie [it does happen. Just not in this case].

“Are you ever not battered?” Fitzwilliam asked. [bless him, he worries about her]

“Off-season is pretty calm,” Mary reassured him. “And preseason isn’t too bad.” She took one of his hands, running her fingers over the veins at his wrist [always a fun thing to have your characters do]. “You shouldn’t worry about it. I bruise easily [the eternal struggle of ‘I’m fine, i picked up that bruise a month ago, it’s just taking a while to fade]. I’m invariably fine.”

Fitzwilliam captured her hands in his [is this because Mary started just poking the squishy veins? Probably. It’s the sort of thing she’d do]. “It’s hard not to worry about it when you have a handprint-shaped bruise and you haven’t even noticed it’s there.” [everyone starts getting worried the moment bruises start looking like hands. Bruising everywhere in weird indistinct shapes? No problem! One hand-shaped bruise on your arm, and suddenly everyone’s asking if everything is ok at home]

“Evie, you’re going to have to accept that I’m going to spend the majority of the time covered in fairly suspect bruising.” Mary squeezed his hands reassuringly [I swear I’ve spent way too much of the chapter keeping track of whose hands are where and what they’re doing. Is that weird? I don’t even know any more] and then tied her hair back [the elastic is back], because it was going everywhere, before shifting so that she was facing him directly. “And if you get worried every time I present looking a little bit worse for wear, you’re going to be worried basically all of the time.” Mary adjusted her hair, and as if the universe were personally tormenting her, her hair elastic snapped [There are three characters in this scene: Mary, Fitzminor, and Mary’s hair elastic. Who has just been brutally killed off. This probably constitutes minor character death at this point in the narration]. Mary groaned and flopped her head down, lamenting the passing of an elastic she had rather liked. [there is nothing more upsetting than the death of an elastic which you had broken in]

Fitzwilliam tilted her chin up and brushed back her hair, one thumb trailing along her cheekbone. Mary looked up at him. His eyes were roving over her in a manner which made her blush slightly [Dayummm, Mary, back at it again with the problematically timed blushing]. “You know,” he said, his hand resting at the back of her neck, “the sight of you, here, in my clothing, is horrifically sexy. And honestly, there’s only been one situation where I’ve been more sorely tempted to suggest all manner of impure acts.” [I mean, the whole post-wedding thing was just TEMPTATION EVERYWHERE, and good for him for not going there, even though he REALLY WANTED TO, because he didn’t think she would be receptive]

“After Jane and Charles’ wedding?” Mary asked, doing her best not to lean into his touch as he twined his fingers into her hair. [Her body is telling her yes, but her mind is telling her to try to keep it together at least for now. It’s a struggle]

Fitzwilliam smiled in lieu of an answer and leaned in towards her. “You know the answer to that,” he whispered [I was cackling so hard as I wrote that scene, just pumping it with as much sexual tension as I humanly could], his breath tickling her neck as his hand slid downwards to rest on her lower back. Mary allowed herself to be pulled closer to him. She could feel the warmth of his body, so close were they [radiant heat transfer - something I definitely write about more than the average author], and siezing the moment, she ran her hands through his hair, raising herself up onto her knees, so that they were eye to eye. Slowly she leaned forwards and pressed her lips to his. He stayed still, as if afraid that any movement might startle her off [terrified woodland creatures, anyone?]. After a very brief and very chaste kiss, she sat back down, and with a smile (and a blush), said, “Maybe I wanted you to.” [yes, girl! Embrace your desires!]

The kiss that followed, he initiated. It was neither brief nor chaste, and left Mary short of breath. He was not unmoved either. “I’ve wanted to do that for quite some time,” he admitted with a smile, leaning back down to meet her. [after all the torture I put you guys through, I needed for them to at least make out a little]

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suavvmagazine · 6 years

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Dating in the Age of Reality

E! expands its original nightly programming line-up with a 20-episode order of the new unscripted comedy blind dating series, “Dating #NoFilter,” to air Monday through Thursday starting Monday, January 21st at 10:30 pm EST/PST. From Lime Pictures and All3Media America, “Dating #NoFilter” is a fresh and hilariously honest take on the modern dating scene for the socially savvy, right-swiping generation. In each buzzy half-hour episode, three pairs of outspoken comedians will serve up play-by-play as they follow real singles on the most outrageous, intimate, and surprising first dates. Throughout the blind dates, the comedians will offer their candid and unique point of views as they weigh in on every accidental love story pulling at viewers’ heartstrings and the “OMG-no!” cringe-worthy moments, with real, unfiltered and clever commentary. “Dating in a hashtag world can provide humorous, sometimes outrageous situations, and our comics are ready to bring it,” said Amy Introcaso-Davis, EVP Development and Production, E!. “Armed with wine, popcorn, and astute observations, they will offer hilarious commentary as our daters navigate the thrills and awkward drama in their quest for love.” Meet the comedians: Ben Bizuneh is a writer, actor, and comedian who made his television stand-up debut on Viceland’s “Flophouse” and recently starred opposite Beth Behrs in the Lee Daniels FOX pilot, “Culture Clash.” Bizuneh has created several originals for Comedy Central Digital including Demitrinox’ “Antidepressant for Black Folk” and “How To Be Broke,” which recently wrapped its second season. Ben wrote on staff for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and previously consulted on TruTV’s “Billy on the Street.” Cara Connors is an out and proud stand-up comedian on the rise. She is the creator, writer, and star of two original digital series for CBC Comedy, "Cara Cooks” and “Every BLANK Ever,” and is a graduate of the Second City Conservatory in Toronto. Other credits include JFL42, Hot Tub with Kurt and Kristen, Winnipeg Comedy Festival, Sirius XM Top Comic, CTV, Tim Sim's Encouragement Award, Chicago Funny Women's Festival, She Devil Comedy Contest NYC, Toronto Sketchfest and CBC’s Laugh Out Loud. Rocky Dale Davis is a comedian whose first comedy special debuted this past October on EPIX as part of the new stand-up series, “Unprotected Sets,” produced by Wanda Sykes. Rocky is a 2018 JFL New Face who has appeared on Kevin Hart’s “Hart of the City” comedy series on Comedy Central and on MTV’s “Greatest Party Stories Ever.” In 2017, Rocky was a finalist at the Laughing Skull Festival and a “Comic to Watch” at Conaco’s New York Comedy Festival. Rocky has toured extensively and is a regular at The Comedy Cellar both in New York and in Las Vegas, where he is based. Kelsey Darragh is a YouTuber, actress, and comedian who captured America’s attention as a Buzzfeed fan favorite with her popular segment, “Married vs. Single.” Darragh has appeared in a number of other skits on BuzzFeed's channels including "If Netflix And Chill Were Honest,” "When You're A Girl Who Loves Food,” and "When Drunk Food Is The Best Part of Going Out." Darragh is also the star of the comedy web series, “Harder Than It Looks.” Ben Evans is a comedian and actor currently living in Los Angeles. He has previously appeared on season two of Netflix’ “Queer Eye,” comedy game-show “Funny You Should Ask,” Yahoo Screen’s “Plugged In,” and a series of independent films that you shouldn’t watch if your grandmother is in the room. He spends most of his time hoping to one day be known more for his comedic ability than for what he's told is an uncanny resemblance to the former baseball player, Derek Jeter. Zach Noe Towers is a stand-up comedian, actor, and writer who has opened for “RuPaul's Drag Race” winner Bob the Drag Queen, headlined Pride events all over North America, and was one of the hosts and writers for the popular digital series "The Elite Daily Show" on Verizon's Go90 Network. Nina Parker is the co-host of E!’s “Nightly Pop” and an E! News correspondent who can be seen appearing on E!’s “Daily Pop,” “E! News,” “Live From E!” on Facebook, and “E! Live from the Red Carpet.” Parker began her career working at a local NBC news affiliate in San Francisco before moving to Los Angeles where she assisted with the growth of TMZ, serving as talent, producer, and weekend manager of the website turned television show. Nina has served as an entertainment news correspondent for “The Insider” on CBS, and as the host of the reunion shows for VH1’s top-rated franchise, “Love and Hip Hop.” Parker has made numerous television appearances as a pop culture expert on popular shows such as “The Wendy Williams” show and “The Talk,” and as a contributor and fill-in host for “Access Live” on NBC. “Dating #NoFilter” is produced by Lime Pictures and All3Media America. Kate Little, Claire Poyser, Tim Pastore, Shauna Thomas, Ben Crompton, and Sarah Tyekiff serve as Executive Producers. Join the side-splitting blind date watch party when E!’s newest guilty pleasure “Dating #NoFilter” airs Monday through Thursday for five weeks. Follow along on social using hashtag #DatingNoFilter and handle @e_entertainment across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Read the full article

#AmyIntrocaso-Davis #BenBizuneh #BenEvans #CaraConnors #dating #DatingNoFilter #KelseyDarragh #NinaParker #RockyDaleDavis #ZachNoeTowers

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timsim26 · 7 years

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Hey Tim - Whatcha Playin?

So I am in the middle of a whole bunch of games right now and haven’t had a chance to review them. However, I do want to share a few thoughts on them. Thanks for the title Ash.

Mass Effect Andromeda

No doubt this will be my next full review, as I am well on the way with this game now. It took me a lot to get into the story of Andromeda and I can’t put my finger on why. It may have a lot to do with the huge amount of negative press, middling reviews and heaps of bugs that were reported.

A heads up I am playing with the current 1.06 patch and this has made the game look and run much better apparently.

I am absolutely loving this game. I adore Mass Effect 1-3 and love the story, characters, gameplay and world. So many brilliant moments are highly ranked from the original trilogy and so far Andromeda is delivering this same feel and connection. While Female Ryder is so far pretty blargh, the universe and mystery of the new galaxy are fascinating. Discovering new worlds, new enemies, building weapons and having great freedom in terms of combat choice is really refreshing. So many times in previous games I would hate it, if I had made a poor squad choice due to enemy types and lacking the appropriate abilities to take down shields or armour. Now you are free to enhance whatever ability you like, choose and change classes and take on combat situations.

This game is also huge. My goodness, I thought there was a lot to do on the first main planet (not to mention the beginning hub world that sets the tone of the enemies), but that was nothing after the game opens up. Heaps of sidequests, which so far have been mostly entertaining, but very fetch quest heavy, are keeping me highly engaged with the world and character building and then there is a lot of other great exploration throughout the planets. Each world I have visited so far is unique and makes each journey to a new section of the map feel as if I am the pathfinder that the game continues to tell me I am.

The only thing that has surprised me so far is that some of the writing and character building as been very cringe worthy. Mass Effect 1 and 2 in particular are so well written, that this really stands out. The fact that Ryder reacts so strangely to an early traumatic experience so soon after the event really threw me from the believability of the whole situation. I am really looking forward to exploring more of the world, upgrading my character and developing the promising relationships with my squad. There is a lot to like in Andromeda and I am really keen to dive into the multiplayer if it is as good as people are saying it is.

Zelda: Breath of the Wild

One day I will be ready to say goodbye to this game. But that would mean saying goodbye to potentially the best video game I have played in my life. Zelda: Breath of the Wild surprises me, engages me and challenges me with every new step. The world is gorgeous, the characters are interesting, the combat is rewarding, the level design is fantastic, the secrets are plentiful, but it is the world that continually stops me in my path and makes me reflect on every other open world game.

This is the standard from now on. Nintendo have looked at what other developers are doing well, taken everything and made it better in each and every way. The huge open worlds of Rockstar, the unpredictability and emergent narrative of Ubisoft games like Far Cry and Assassins Creed, the outstanding level design and creature encounters that From Software provide with Dark Souls and Bloodborne, the deep and open environments of Bethesda games, that surprise you with lore or a new quest at every turn, the creativity of a game like Just Cause, encouraging traversal in weird and wonderful ways and add in Cd Projekt’s world design of a deep and dense forest terrain and you have Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

Some big statements, but this game does everything better than those games and adds in its own quirky flavour and of course the deep lore and passion of the Zelda universe. Whether you are a new or old fan this game is a must play. Every opportunity to experiment with the systems to solve a puzzle, take down an enemy of find a new part of the map is an absolute joy. The controls are simple and intuitive and the fact that this level of game can be played on the go, still astonishes me.

This is the future of open world games. Great exploration is encouraged by having the ability to traverse the world in a huge number of ways and this is what so many other games lack.

This is going to be hard to beat as Game of the Year. All eyes are on you Rockstar and Red Dead Redemption 2.

Walking Dead: A New Frontier

Telltale’s latest entry to the Walking Dead episodic series is right there with some of the best work they have ever produced. Once again the future is bleak for all characters involved, Telltale have done another fantastic job of introducing great characters, building them with solid foundations and tearing them away based on the choices that you make, the mistakes that occur and the general terrifying nature of the world. Every episode has ended making me want more. There have been a number of solid twists and turns that have been more predictable than Season 1 and 2, however they are still leaving me, mouth wide open in some form of horror and shock. Clementine makes a return and builds already on her impressive variety and depth as a character. God you feel for this poor girl and now the issues of being a young teenager are mixed well with the Zombie Apocalypse issues that she faces on a day to day bases.

While this is far and away from the level of quality that Season 1 was when it released in 2012, the enhanced performance, quality of visuals and the great integration of new characters in Clementine’s world makes this well worth dipping into if you were a fan of Season 1 and 2. I really hope Telltale stick the landing of episode 5, as they have certainly set up an intriguing series of events.

More Modern Warfare Remastered

It may as well be 2007 again. I cannot stop playing Modern Warfare Remastered. The same gameplay loop has be absolutely and completely hooked and the little tweaks and additions that are being added by Raven Software really have added extra reparability without radically shifting the experience one way or the other.

I haven’t yet purchased the map pack, as I am unsure how this will divide the player base at the moment, but I am really hoping Activision release the game as a standalone and get as many people as possible playing. The same gun on gun gameplay that really made me fall in love with Call of Duty returns and while there is plenty of bullshit remaining in the game, it doesn’t bother me as much as the absolutely ridiculous flying and jet-packing that irks me even more.

This is the definitive multiplayer experience for me and the additions made to new camos, updated visuals and now the new weapons, have been the icing on the cake to making this game just as fun as it was years and years ago. The fact that a 10 year old multiplayer game has its hooks in me again is utterly remarkable.

#video games #gaming #2017 #not enough time too many games #zelda #mass effect #cod

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