#that last one has everyone in a frenzy rn

[blacklit-parad1se]

Take Me Back To Eden Characters Pt. 2

[rebelliousneferut]

love in the spotlight | kylian mbappe x model!reader

summary; you and kylian have been dating for a while and everything is going well until he signs for real madrid and everyone thinks you broke up

genre; fluff, smau

face claim; elisa maino

note; English is not my first language

masterlist!

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ ❀˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ ❀˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ ❀˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

over a year of dating kylian mbappé feels surreal. it all started at a gala – a world you stepped into with your blossoming modeling career. a chance encounter, a meeting of eyes across the room, and suddenly, the world-famous footballer seemed like just another guy, shyly hoping to impress. he knew you were the one that night, and by the end of it, you were on a date with kylian mbappé.

the rollercoaster began. the highs were exhilarating – stolen kisses under the eiffel tower, surprise visits during fashion weeks, the thrill of cheering him on from the vip box at the parc des princes. the lows were like navigating a minefield – prying paparazzi, jealous whispers, fans who seemed to think they owned a piece of his heart. but through it all, you were a team. six months in, you took the plunge, moving to paris to be with him.

keeping your relationship a secret felt strange. but kylian, ever the strategist, knew the media frenzy that would erupt. so, you flew under the radar, your love a secret whispered between stolen moments. until, of course, the bombshell signing with real madrid. the world learned about kylian's move, and then, they learned about you. the spotlight found you, but you weren't afraid. you had him by your side, and together, you were ready to face anything.

everything was out in the open with kylian. from the start, fans adored their union. they were a social media darling couple, constantly cheering each other on and attending events together. kylian's move to real madrid, however, cast an unexpected shadow. public appearances dwindled, and whispers of a breakup swirled through the tabloids.

y/nl/nuser

liked by kendalljenner, wolfiecindy, charles_leclerc and others

y/nl/nuser ✨🌼

username you're the prettiest!!!

username is she in madrid with kylian?

username i don't think so. she was attending an event in milan

username it's been a while since we last saw them together 😢

username where is kylian and why not in the likes?? 😭

username don't overreact. obviously he is busy with his move to madrid

username even so he always has been so supportive with her

username they don't owe us nothing girl. let them be private if they want

charles_leclerc beauty

❤️ liked by the author

username i'm getting crazy rn

you were scrolling through your instagram when a post popped up. it was a hilarious play on the whole "celebrity couple break up" trope, and you found yourself letting out a genuine laugh. a moment later, kylian's face filled your screen on a video call. his brow furrowed in concern.

"there you are," he said, relief washing over his features. "why did you like that post, y/n?"

"oh, kylian" you sighed, a playful smile tugging at your lips. "it was just... funny. sorry, mon amour, i just needed a laugh."

kylian's expression softened. he knew the pressure you were both under. "maybe we should do something to address the rumors," he suggested.

you nodded, a mischievous glint in your eyes. "let's give them something truly unexpected."

footballwags

liked by y/nl/nuser, username, kmbappefans

footballwags possible breakup between the model y/n l/n and the soccer player kylian mbappé? it's been a while since they were last seen together publicly and they currently no longer react to his posts and there doesn't seem to be any contact between them. we assume that y/n is in milan at an event to which she was invited while kylian is in madrid. what do you think about this? we are sad to see one of our favorite couples distance themselves, in any case we wish them both many good things

kmbappefans as any other couple they deserve respect. please give them privacy and don't spread unfunded rumours

username 💀💀💀

username she is in the likes...

username i think that's enough confirmation

username @k.mbappe @y/nl/nuser please tell us something 😭😭

k.mbappe

liked by vinijr, judebellingham, endrick and others

k.mbappe mi nueva casa 🏟️😍 #halamadrid

elisahums hala madrid baby

username and?

username who are you?????

kmbappefans 🤍🤍🤍

username she's not even here 💔

username i'm starting to believe the rumours...

realmadrid 🤍🤍🤍

judebellingham welcome mate 😆🤝

y/nl/nuser uploaded to their story;

k.mbappe mine ❤️

y/nl/nuser

liked by k.mbappe, wolfiecindy, kmbappefans, footballwags and others

y/nl/nuser from paris to madrid and to the end of the world, i love you my big boy ❤️

k.mbappe je t'aime mon amour, thank you for all your support ❤️

❤️ liked by the author

username I LOVE THEM SO MUCH THAT I'M CRYING

username i'm literally crying too 😭

username don't scare me like that again 😡

username you are my favourites

footballwags thanks god our favourite couple is still together and happy ❤️

k.mbappe uploaded to their story;

[caption: my pretty girl]

[sednonamoris]

stormchaser

Pairing: John Marston x gn!reader

Summary: Abigail Roberts joins the gang. Your relationship with John is changed, maybe forever.

Warnings: Pregnancy mention, hunting animals, brief mention of dead animals, canon-typical alcohol use, jealousy

Word count: 1,385

A/N: First of all I need to specify that Ghost is jealous of Abigail and thinks badly of her rn, but this story will not vilify Abigail’s character in any way!!! I love her!!!! Second of all it’s not terribly long but I hope you all find this chapter as juicy as I did bc I’ve been looking forward to this one pretty much from the start. Also this chap is 2/3 in a series, the first being ‘cloudburst’. The last one will be ‘thunderstruck’ - I’ll let you do with that info what you will  👀

Series masterlist • AO3

—

When Abigail Roberts joins up with the gang everyone clamors for her attention. The women help with her chores and mend her dresses and pet her long, dark hair. The men make excuses to come by her tent and help her onto wagons and touch her hand by the campfire. It’s obvious why; she’s a beautiful young woman.

You’re not sure you’ll ever forgive her for that.

Of course, you might not have minded at all if it wasn’t for John. He’s smitten. Every moment he used to spend riding or robbing or roaming with you is now spent at her beck and call. You tell yourself it’s not jealousy that crawls up your throat and colors his name green in your mouth when you call across camp, knowing who he’s with. You tell yourself it’s a coincidence when you wake up next to a pretty, painted whore with dusky blue eyes and brown hair just like hers the next time you’re in town. You even tell yourself that it doesn’t hurt to watch the grey of John’s eyes shine stormcloud bright when they turn toward the object of his affections. When that object isn’t you. 

Like some storybook romance he courts her. It’s clumsy - it’s John - but he brings her half-crushed flowers, and tries to read her some of Dutch’s poetry, and eventually he stops paying for the privilege of a night with her because they cut out the middleman and start sharing a tent. 

Arthur notices your sulkiness. Hosea, too, though neither say anything outright. Instead they break your heart further with sad, understanding smiles and warm hands clasped on your shoulder in passing. Sometimes you wish they’d spill your secrets for the whole camp to see, just to put you out of your misery.

The days you aren’t out hunting you’re fencing horses or robbing farmers - anything to keep far from camp. Once a week you come back with cash to add to the box and a few new stories to trade around the campfire. Dutch is appeased by the money and the odd tip you bring home, and John—

You wait for him to say something about how distant you’ve been.

He doesn’t. 

—

The sky is clear when Abigail announces her pregnancy in front of the whole camp a few months later, but you smell a storm on the horizon. 

She’s so goddamn happy, and everyone cheers and shouts and rushes to hug her, and you think Ms. Grimshaw’s eyes gloss with tears at the promise of new life and young love, but John’s smile catches at the corners. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes. The panic does, and as much as your heart is already broken and you’ve given up hope, there’s some savage satisfaction you get from knowing he might be miserable now, too. 

Dutch calls for a celebration. Everyone clamors to break out cases of beer and Hosea even proffers the good whiskey he’s been saving for a rainy day. Top shelf, according to the man he stole it from. Pearson sweats himself into a frenzy to have a good, hearty meal prepared in time. Ms. Grimshaw has the camp cleared and clean with military precision. Javier settles next to the campfire with a song just waiting to sing off the strings of his guitar with each joyful strum. 

You slink away and pack your gear for a hunting trip.

After a feast like this the camp will need game, and you’ve always found the most success right before weather hits, when the animals are out getting the last bit of sustenance they can before hunkering down in the brush. You clasp Abigail’s hands and congratulate her, trying not to make the words sound like a curse before you fade into firelight shadows. While the others dance and sing, you nurse a bottle that does nothing to dull the ache in your heart.

You’re gone before first light.

—

The grassy plain is wide open and endless before you. Tall grass rises up to the stirrups of your saddle, and thunder rumbles its electric intent in the distance. Overcast clouds promise rain on the breeze as the sky gets darker and darker. It’s a cobalt blue sort of storm, one that paints the grass greyish and strikes your silhouette onto the American frontier for anyone in the distance to see. 

A herd of pronghorn graze the prairie grass. You’ve been tracking them for a few miles now. Downwind. A safe enough distance away that they’re worried more about the oncoming storm than potential predators.

Two does, you think, ought to be enough. 

You’re shit with a bow and arrow, so you rely entirely on being quick on the draw of your hunting rifle. Perks of spending the better part of your life as a gunslinger.

Your horse tenses beneath you as you raise your rifle up, muscles coiled and ready to spring into action. You let out a slow, steady breath. Bang, bang, in quick succession on the trigger has your horse leaping forward. You let his momentum carry you while the rest of the herd scatters in frantic leaps and bounds. 

Two clean shots await your inspection when you crouch to tie the bodies and sling them behind the saddle. Rain begins to fall. The wind carries hoofbeats your way, and you turn with your rifle raised on the off chance some fool hunter is coming to try and steal your quarry. 

 “Ghost, there you are!”

Not a fool hunter, but a fool. 

“John,” you say past the anger and jealousy burrowed deep in your chest. “What are you doing here?”

He shakes his head. “I was gonna ask you the same thing. You left without sayin’ a word.”

“Surprised you noticed,” you scoff. 

“You wanna tell me why you been actin’ so funny lately?”

You fold your arms. “You followed me all the way out here just to tell me I don’t act right?”

“Everyone else is happy,” he says. “Guess I’m just wonderin’ why you ain’t.”

There are a thousand things you could say to that. I’ve been in love with you since before I knew what that warm feeling was in my chest. We were best friends and then you chose a stranger over me, and now that stranger is going to have your baby. Sometimes, when I dream, I dream of us getting old on a farm out West where the law won’t ever touch us. I think of you every time it storms. You say none of it.

The rain falls harder. 

“I know you, John Marston,” is what comes out your mouth instead. “You look more scared than happy to me.”

“I ain’t scared,” he says, snappish and too-fast.

“I am.” The smile on your face is sad, and it stops the defensive snarl trying to form across his face. “Guess that’s why I came out here, away from it all.”

 Lightning strikes in the not-far distance. The flash lights your surroundings in an eerie daytime glow for a heartbeat and a half. The thunder that rolls across the plain not long after makes you feel even smaller than you did already.You pull your coat tighter around your shoulders. 

“I’m camping here tonight. Room in the tent for two if you want.”

It’s even flimsier than your usual peace offerings, but he takes it. On the edge of the prairie you strike the tent while he pickets the horses. The rain is coming down in sheets, now, and you’re both forced to strip to your underthings because your clothes are entirely soaked through. The blankets and bedrolls are damp, but drier than the two of you. As you settle into sleep to the sound of pelting rain against canvass, John’s roll tucked up against yours, you hear a raspy voice speak up.

“You were right,” John says. “I’m scared of— well, all of it. Raisin’ this kid. Disappointing Abigail. But I’m more scared of losing you, Ghost. We’re best friends, ain’t we?”

Your chest constricts. “‘Course we’re best friends. You won’t lose me.”

Then, so quiet you almost miss it, “Haven’t I already?”

The tears that run down your face are silent, and dark as it is you pray he can’t see them. Thunder and rain drown out your shuddering sigh. 

[thewizardprincessau]

because i need to set this in stone once and for all:

how does Eri's vampirism work in this AU? (and some plans i have to be able to showcase it in the story):

Eri is essentially still human, but with a vampire "failsafe" self within them. It's dormant until they need it, but it still needs to be maintained through drinking blood every day. Eri can survive for 5 days from their last drink until they enter a "frenzy" similar to VTM rules.

So Eri has to satisfy both their human and vampire needs; neglecting one will always lead to negative effects, but admittedly it's better to have their human hunger be put aside if you had to choose...

-If you neglect their vampiric side, they enter a frenzy and will not stop until their hunger is sated;

-If you neglect their human side or their human self is put in mortal danger, their vampiric self "emerges" until their human self is brought back to enough health to be conscious.

i want to be able to show what happens when their vampire needs are neglected when dysme kidnaps them.. bc she has no idea eri is a vampire and ignores their unexplained pleas for fresh blood (cant blame her for this HAHAHAH) she gives them food for their human side but not the vampire, so eri enters a hunger frenzy and practically leaves dysme for dead as a result.

as for the neglect of their human side.. i think when they create their homunculus kid, the final spell needed to complete the process involves offering so much blood it would kill someone. giving up a life to create a new one, in a way. so uh. fun! eri dies giving up all that blood for their kid! ..kinda?

they would tell their friends who know their vampire deal to prepare for that moment, i think. since losing that much blood would also trigger a frenzy theyd ask them to prep enough blood to keep their vampire self sated so they dont . FULLY die yk. until their human self can recover. basically everyone has to deal with new royal heir babby and their monarch being fukfjgn. ouppy-coded for a while. fun times for everyone, im sure...

but ya i just thought id make it like that bc i mean. creating a whole ass person shouldnt be so easy. there are drawbacks and consequences. if their friends hadnt pulled off the plan right eri very much wouldve died for realsies (despite them technically dying for like. a lil bit). raising the stakes like that... but who cares I LOVE YOU HOMUNCULUS BABY! I LOVE YOU VAMPIRE PARENT ERI! SAVE ME!!!! ill come back to edit this post later if i think of more things to add AHAHA so scatterbrained rn

[harrysfinelinevol1]

love on tour insta blurb pt.3

harry styles x personal assistant!y/n

summary: y/n is harry's personal assistant and is currently working on his tour

emma chamberlain

part 1! part 2!

enews

liked by harryfan3, fan9 and 47,329 others

enews who is harry styles' new mysterious girlfriend?! none other than his own personal assistant y/n l/n! link in bio to see the steamy photos that sent the internet into a frenzy!!!

view all 2,210 comments

harryfan5 holy shit shes so hot

harryfan2 nah stop she looks insane

fan20 the hottest couple

hater83 im acc so sick of her

↳ harryfan7 literally shes so annoying ffs

harryfan8 why r so many people hating on her, i met her once and shes the sweetest person

yourusername

liked by harrystyles, pillowpersonpp and 210,291 others

yourusername love on tour dump

view all 12,201 comments

harryfan2 ahahaha the second pic lol i just know harry made that

yourbff sleepy y/n

↳ pillowpersonpp no she was just hungover

↳ yourusername omg mom stop embarrassing me

harryfan20 how is it dating harry??

fan2 bitch dont pretend like we dont know ur dating harry

↳ harryfan13 weve all seen the pics ahaha

harryfan7 literally all she does is post on insta, like does she even do any work

harrystydaily

liked by harryfan23, harrysfineline and 2,392 others

harrystydaily tonight is the last night of love on tour!!

view all 328 comments

harryfan2 noo this is so sad

harryfan39 come to the uk pls @harrystyles !!!!!

harryfan1 omg i acc cant believe its over

yourusername posted on their story

harrystyles

liked by yourusername, pillowpersonpp and 4,905,586 others

harrystyles Thank you for 42 special nights. It’s been a privilege to play for you the last few months. To the band, the crew, and everyone working on this tour, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. The energy you brought to this one has left me feeling completely overwhelmed with joy. 

To the fans, and everyone who came to see these shows, I thank you. You made them everything they were, and I’ve never felt so genuinely supported. I can’t say it enough, you’re unbelievable. 

This tour felt like the celebration of coming back together. I won’t ever forget it. Thank you all so much for the love, I’ll see you very soon. Treat people with kindness. Goodbye for now. I love you all. H

view all 293,201 comments

harryfan2 i love u sm

yourusername so proud ❤️

↳ harrystyles ❤️❤️

↳ harryfan12 omg stop theyre so in love

↳ fan29 im screaming rn theyre basically confirming it

↳ harryfan7 all she wants is attention

yourusername

liked by harrystyles, yourbff and 129,302 others

yourusername so glad to be back

yourusername has disabled comments for this post

thehollywoodfix

liked by harryfan21, harryfan1 and 22,203 others

thehollywoodfix rumoured couple harry styles and y/n l/n leaving soulcycle this morning in LA!! (TheHollywoodFix.net For Full Video - Link In Bio)

view all 2,219 comments

harryfan5 nah theyre too cute

harryfan35 does she literally follow him everywhere?! needy

↳ harryfan8 thats literally her job

harryfan7 ew her hair looks grim

fan2 does anyone know why y/n disabled her comments on insta

↳ harryfan4 yea its because shes been getting so much hate since she started dating harry

↳ harryfan29 thats so sad, shes so lovely as well

-

part 4

thank u guys for the love on the last post! hope u enjoyed pt.3. I'm thinking of maybe writing a fic to go along with these blurbs, lmk what u think

sloane xx

[homoo-wan-kenobi]

imagine you're in a relationship with alcina, right? an imagine where I say that can only end on a high note. but not this one, this one's sad.

so like you're always like calling alcina for the smallest of inconveniences while she's away on a business trip. the maid burnt your breakfast?? call alci. you ran into a wall?? call alci. you saw an ant in the castle?? call alci. and then after like one of the calls, she's just like "y/n please don't call me again unless it's an emergency, I'm attending to very important busy and cannot afford any distractions rn." and you're like sad but you say okay. and so like say that night the castle gets attacked and you're like sleeping or whatever but the girls wake you up because someone's attacking attacking castle. and so you're like trying to get to alcina's study to call her but she won't pick up. why won't she pick up?? because you cried wolf one too many times so she... unplugged her phone. and you and the girls have no way of defending the castle, you can't get miranda or heieenberg on the phone. the girls can't go outside to fight cause it's too cold. and you don't even know how to fight. so the best you can do is hope that whoever is attacking leaves. but they don't, they make it into the castle. and of course it's filthy man-things and somehow in a small frenzy you got separated from everybody else. stay with me, I'm getting to my point. so you head to alcina's room and hide from the person who's chasing after you or whatever. and they like enter the room and you're under the bed. I know, I know, very original. and they like pull you from under the bed and you're struggling against them and you manage to get out of their hold and run out of the room towards the library. only you don't quite make it there because you get shot. and it's like a resounding sound so you know the girls heard it. and you like look down and like your shirt just has this jagged and uneven red circle from the bullet. and you turn around to face the person that shot you, trying to say something, but you just end up falling to the ground. and they like walk over to you and they get ready to shoot you again and before they can, they've got like three sickles in them and now you've got even more blood on you. and daniela was the first one to drop to your side and even tho she shouldn't have, she moved your head to be in her lap. and she's just mumbling to you that it's gonna be okay and that mamă's gonna be here soon, and you can hear her crying. and cassandra is just kind of in shock like she's not really sure what happened, but all she knows is that she wants you to be okay because you have to be okay. and bela's pacing, practically beating herself up because she was trying to find you after you all got separated and now she was too late. of course she wanted you to be fine too but she didn't know what to do without her mother's guidance. and you're just breathing slow, hissing a bit cause idk it probably stings. and then you start like choking on blood and coughing which causes daniela to start panicking a bit because she doesn't know what to do and she's crying even harder and you can barely make out her chant of "everything's gonna be okay" and in your mind you know that everything won't be okay. and then you hear her, you hear alcina rushing through the halls to get to you. and you give a little smile because maybe you'd get to see her one last time. but you don't cause your eyes slip close at the thought of alcina coming to save you and your heart has stopped beating. everyone hears it stop. there's a chorus of soft no's and there's a frantic alcina pulling you out of daniela's grasp as she's saying to herself "see?? mamă's gonna fix it. everything's going to be fine." but mamă didn't fix it. and everything wasn't fine because you weren't there with them anymore. the end.

idk why but daniela being the most emotional over your death is just sweet and beautiful.

[samstree]

for the drabble thing: “you weren’t there”

maybe post mountain geraskier? i’m in an angsty mood rn but whatever you wanna write will be good :)

Creatures of the Night (2)

It's the night of Jaskier and Valdo's wedding. Geralt needs to do something.

(endgame geraskier, background valdo/jaskier, angst, infidelity)

Previous | AO3

The Oxenfurt Observatory might just be the grandest building in Redania.

The great hall is decorated with countless flowers and candles, giving the ancient walls a soft glow. Through the tall glass ceiling, stars are shining in the clear night sky, the perfect weather for a wedding.

It must be Jaskier’s idea, to be handfasted at midnight, to have his guests slow-dance under the moon and the stars until dawn breaks. Their new life will begin when the candles burn out and the first ray of light spills into the room.

If only there’s a competition for the biggest romantic on the continent. Jaskier could win without breaking a sweat.

The room is being filled up with guests—mostly bards and professors, old schoolmates of the two grooms. After all, both Valdo and Jaskier are Oxenfurt’s children, which means everyone is dressed in the most colorful clothes one could imagine. In another word, the room is being filled up with Jaskiers, and it’s getting loud.

It’s more difficult to locate the bard himself through the din of the room, but Geralt hears him, unmistakably. Jaskier’s heartbeat approaches the Observatory, thrumming with nervousness.

No more nervous than Geralt.

He breathes in, and exits the room in a few strides. And there Jaskier is, surrounded by pale moonlight, with jasmine flowers braided into his hair and pure joy painted across his cheeks. He seems to be murmuring a private joke to Essi, and they both burst into strings of giggles.

Geralt almost backs out.

“Geralt!” Jaskier notices him. “You came! I was worried for a moment.”

“Of course.” Geralt gestures to the outfit he helped pick out. “You look nice.”

“Thank you. Now, Poppet, can you give us a few moments?” Jaskier sends Essi inside with the sweetest smile. She shoulders past Geralt a little too curtly. There’s always an air of wariness whenever Essi regards Geralt, an untrusting side-eye here and there.

“Don’t mind her.” Jaskier waves when they are left alone. “Little Eye is a tad too protective. She’ll get over it.”

“Hmm.” Geralt swallows hard. “Can we find somewhere more private? I want to talk to you.”

Jaskier blinks, but leads them away anyway until they are by the side of the road, the celebrating crowd and the orange glow of candlelight in the distance.

“Here to make sure I end up someone else’s problem, aren’t you? Don’t worry, in about half an hour, I will be legally required to only bother Valdo for the rest of eternity.” Jaskier nudges Geralt in the shoulder, a jasmine slipping by his ear.

Geralt rights it without thinking, his fingers trembling.

Gods, he can’t say it. He can’t. Jaskier is so happy and Geralt will only ruin their friendship. His second chance is too precious to be risked—

“No, actually,” Geralt heaves out a breath, his heart pounding. “The opposite."

Jaskier snorts, “And, my dear witcher, what is the opposite?”

Here it goes.

“I am in love with you.”

The words sink into the silence. Geralt’s world narrows down to the steady rise and fall of Jaskier’s chest and the little hitch in his breathing. In the darkness of the night, Jaskier’s eyes stay in the shadows, his emotions obscured.

“No, you are not.” When he finally answers, it comes out in a snort. “Ha! A good one, Geralt! And they say witchers don’t have a sense of humor, idiots!”

Jaskier lets out another dry laugh, although the waver in his voice betrays everything.

“I am,” Geralt stresses again, “in love with you, Jaskier.”

Jaskier is staring, the upturn of his lips freezing into shock, the rise and fall of his chest picking up into a frenzy and suddenly he’s breathing too fast. “You can’t. You just can’t…” Air seems to trap in his lungs and a salty tang of tears hits Geralt full-force.

“I wish I couldn’t love, like what they say, but Jaskier, I can and I do—”

“You can’t do this to me!” Jaskier shouts, crying openly. “No, no! You don’t get to tell me this now! We had twenty years…”

Geralt wants more than anything in the world to pull Jaskier into his arms and wipe away the tears, but the space between them is too great. “I didn’t know for twenty years, Jask. Forgive me. It was only after the mountain that I learned how important you were to me. I couldn’t go on like this—”

“The mountain?” Jaskier chokes out a whimper. “You realized after the mountain? You mean when I bared my heart to you and you stomped on it like it was nothing?”

Geralt shakes his head, the guilt constricting his chest. “I’m sorry. For all the pain I caused you.”

“For months I thought I was but a mistake to you, that you hated me for two decades and couldn’t wait to cast me aside like dirt stuck on your shoes. Do you even know… Geralt, do you have an ounce of idea what I went through?”

Jaskier sways and Geralt catches him in his arms, placing his head on his shoulders and feeling the uncontrollable shakes running down Jaskier’s spine. The sight of Jaskier hurt because of him, again, pains Geralt more than any monster’s claws or talons.

“I love you, Jaskier,” he vows. “You were never nothing to me. You are everything. I was an idiot. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Jaskier struggles and swats at his shoulders and Geralt takes it all the while murmuring more sweet nothings into his ear. Finally, when Jaskier calms down, it’s with another whimper. “You are an idiot.”

“I am.” Geralt cradles the nape of Jaskier’s neck, running his thumb in circles, soothing the last of the trembling away. “Just one word from you, Jask, I can take you away. You don’t have to marry him. Just give me the word and I’m yours. Gods, I’ve waited for so long for this day. At last, I’m sure of my heart, just as I’m sure of yours.”

He buries into Jaskier’s hair and inhales the grief and the flowers, and something that is distinctly Jaskier, expecting a whispered plea. Just one word from Jaskier and they can start their new life together.

What he doesn’t expect is the way Jaskier goes stiff in his arms and the hand that pushes him away.

The soft moonlight catches a glint in Jaskier’s eyes, and it speaks of determination. “Valdo,” he says, as if in a dream.

“You don’t have to marry him. We can lea—”

“Valdo will be here soon.” Jaskier sniffles and wipes at his tears frantically. His whole face is puffy from crying and there’s no way he can hide it. “It’s almost midnight.”

Geralt’s world comes to a stop.

“What?”

“Get inside, and don’t say anything about this.”

“I don’t understand. Jask, you don’t need to go through this anymore. I’ll give you anything you ask. Just say the words, please,” he begs for the first time in a century, catching Jaskier’s hand.

“I am saying it. Get inside. Sit in the back row and don’t speak to me. Valdo might be able to tell.” With a few deep breaths, Jaskier school his features back to neutral. “Only the gods know how he can read me like an open book.”

Geralt’s blood runs cold. “Do you love him?”

The anguish by the corner of Jaskier’s lips says everything. It remains as he smiles a crooked smile. “He loves me. Oh, Geralt, he loves me. I can’t hurt him like this.”

“I thought,” Geralt looks down in shame. “I thought I knew your heart.”

“I thought I did too.”

“Then why?”

“You weren’t there,” Jaskier shrugs like it’s the easiest explanation. “He was.”

Despite every cell in Geralt’s body screaming against it, he nods and lets go of Jaskier’s hand, allowing his limp fingers to slip from his grasp at last.

Jaskier has asked it of him after all.

He doesn’t know how he got back into the crowd, the warm light only a blur in his vision. Another group is stopping near the hall, among them is the other groom-to-be. Valdo’s worried voice when he sees Jaskier is another blow to Geralt’s chest.

“Oh, Julian, are you crying?”

“Just…too happy.”

There’s the sound of kissing, and Geralt can’t tune it out. He laughs at himself for the masochistic tendencies, but maybe he deserves the torture.

“No more tears. Let’s get married, my love.”

The guests settle, and the music begins.

The happy couple walks towards the altar in the witness of family and friends, and Geralt watches every moment of it.

If the smile on Jaskier’s face is a bit strained as the priest ties the ribbon, no one seems to notice.

---

A big thanks to anon for the prompt! I asked for some one-word or one-sentence prompts and the next thing I knew they were connecting into a whole story.

Each chapter of this story will be based on a prompt, so send in one if you want to steer it in certain directions ;)

Tagging: @wanderlust-t @rockysstupidity @flowercrown-bard​ @alllthequeenshorses @mothmanismyuncle @percy-jackson-is-sexy- @constantlytiredpigeon @behonesthowsmysinging @kitcatkim3 @endless-whump @rey-a-nonbinary-bisexual @llamasdumpsterfire @dapandapod

Please feel free to tell me if you want to be removed or added to the list <3

[astral-catastrophe]

Ok, I’m not super proud of this rn, but here’s the first part of the modern au

@triforceofchaos @twink-between-worlds

“Has anyone seen my mask?” Sky asks, rushing down the stairs and into the kitchen in a panicked frenzy. His hair was a mess, sticking up in every direction, he had just woken up and didn’t have time to try to take his hair. He was wearing his normal light green hoodie with jeans while he was carrying his sneakers in one hand. He picked his phone up from the kitchen table, checking to make sure he had no messages from Sun as he looked to his oldest brother.

Time didn’t even look up from sending a text to their mother while sitting at the kitchen counter. “Wind has it. He and Twi just got in the car.” He looked up to their brother. “And mom wants to know if we are still picking up Sun.”

“Yeah.” Sky nods, running his free hand through his hair and trying to steal his nerves. “Yeah. Her dad is out of town and her car broke down after practice yesterday.”

Legend entered the kitchen with the traveler. The two had been near the bedrooms in the back of the house. Hyrule was holding the bag with Sky’s other fencing equipment, he must have grabbed it from Sky’s shared room with Twi. “Rule and I are gonna get in the car.” Legend looked around, shoving his hands into the pocket of his hoodie.

“We have all three of your swords, spare buttons, your jacket, and your gloves,” Hyrule adds. “We just checked.” He offered Sky the bag.

“Thanks guys.” Sky breathed a sigh of relief, taking the bag and checking his supplies anyways.

“Well, we are gonna get in the car. Twi and Sailor are already ready to go.” Legend replied, grabbing the traveler’s arm and pulling him toward the door. Hyrule sheepishly waved to his brothers as he and Legend left to get in the car.

Time chuckled. “Put your shoes on Sky.” He grabbed the car keys from the kitchen counter.

“Has everyone else left?” Sky asks, pulling on his sneakers while trying to balance on one foot.

“Mom left with the rest of our siblings. She wanted to get a good seat to watch you and the team.” Time responded, turning to the door. “Come on.”

Sky rubbed the back of his neck, glancing down at the tiled floor. “You don’t really need to be that close to see everything,” he said, knowing that his mother definitely insisted on getting seats as close to the team as possible. He quickly moved after Time.

They walked out the door and Time climbed into the driver's seat, starting the car. Sky shuffled into the back. The seat next to him was open, presumably for Sun, with Wind in the far seat, while Legend and Hyrule had sat in the last row of the car and Twi joined Time up front.

“I dunno, Sky, it is kinda interesting to watch how similar you all fight while still clearly having different fighting styles.” Time pulled out of the driveway.

“True!” Hyrule added from the back. “Like, Sun’s posture is more loose and Pippit holds his free hand in a fist like he’s gonna punch someone, while Groose angles his head weird sometimes.”

“He’s trying to keep his hair from flattening inside the mask.” Legend said, glancing up from texting Ravio. Wind cackled.

“Didn’t you guys see his hair after the last match?” Twilight asks, looking back at his siblings. “It was kinda a disaster.”

That made Wind laugh harder.

Hyrule chuckled and leaned forward to poke the back of Sky’s head. “Is everyone on the team coming today?”

“No. I think Karane is sick today.” Sky turned his head to look at his brothers in the back of the car. “I’ll text her to make sure.”

Sky quickly sent Karane a message to confirm whether or not she was gonna be there and looked back at his siblings again. Hyrule was leaning over Legend’s shoulder to look at something on the Vet’s phone.

“Uh-“ Sky began, only to pause when Time started to talk.

“Aaaand we're here.” Time pulled into the driveway and parked, unlocking the doors. “Go get your girlfriend.”

Sky chuckled. “I’m going, I’m going.” He opened the door, ducking under Wind’s food as he climbed into the back row of the cars so Sun could sit by Sky and not have to be next to the Sailor. Sky got out of the car and looked down at his feet, checking to make sure his shoes were tied so he wouldn’t trip in front of Sun again.

Sun’s house was a large, pale grey building with lots of big windows. Inside everything was so open and clean that Sky couldn’t help but think it was a nice break from his own chaotic home, as much as he loved his siblings.

Sky knocked on the tall white door, nervously shuffling his feet.

Dusk opened the door and faced Sky with one of those infamous, unimpressed glares. “You’re here for Sun?”

Sky quickly nods. “Yes.”

Dusk slammed the door in his face, and about half a second later Sun opened the door, face flushed from having sprinted to the door.

“Hey, Sky,” she breathed. Her hair was loose and hanging around her face, and she was wearing a grey shirt along with some normal jeans. “Come in. I’ve just gotta grab my stuff and put on my shoes.”

Sky stepped inside, following Sun toward the stairs. The entryway led to the large and spacious living room. There was a set of stairs to the right and up those stairs were most of the bedrooms. The walls were painted with a light gray and there were plenty of windows.

“Sky!” A young voice yelled.

Sky turned, seeing Fi upstairs, looking over the banister. Fi rushed toward him, down the stairs and into the living room. Sky crouched down, easily catching the hug from the younger girl.

“Hey, Fi,” he smiled as Sun jogged off to get ready. “How are you doing today?”

“I’m ok. But I can’t watch you and Sun today because I have to work on a project for school.” Fi pulled away from the hug and led Sky to the living room. They both sat down on the couch.

“Aryll told me about that.” Sky nods. “Isn’t it an art project?”

“Yeah!” Fi replied. “Sun is letting me use her paints and it looks cool!”

“Well, you're gonna have to show him later.” Sun walked into the room.

Sky got up and Sun quickly hugged Fi. “I’ll call Dusk to let you all know how we’ve done, alright?” Sun patted her sister on the head. “I won’t be home right away because I think we are gonna go somewhere afterwards.”

“Sounds good!” Fi nodded excitedly, grinning at both of the fencers before rushing off, sprinting past Fable, who was heading to the kitchen.

“Good luck.” Fable said plainly before going to the kitchen. Sky assumed this was the first time she had left her bedroom that day, even though it was around noon, and she was on the hunt for food.

“See ya!” Sky said politely.

Sun chuckled as she took Sky’s hand and pulled him toward the door.

***

It was still mostly warm outside. There were clouds in the sky and it looked like it could rain later that day. Sky would have loved to enjoy a rainy day with his girlfriend, but they had to go stab people. As bad as that sounded without any context.

Sun got into the car, putting her gear next to Sky’s as he got into the car after his girlfriend.

“Hi Sun!” Wind yelled, grinning. “Are ya ready to stab someone?”

“It sounds bad when you phrase it that way.” Hyrule said quickly, turning to lean over Legend to chide his younger brother. Legend just snorted.

“Oh yeah,” Legend started looking to Sky. “Ravio is coming with Malon so they both can watch the match.”

That made Sky feel slightly nervous, but since Sun was still holding his hand he tried to ignore his nerves. “Sounds cool. We haven’t seen Ravio in a while.”

“Because Flora hasn’t helped to break him in recently.” Legend added, looking back to his phone as Time and Twi started to chat with Sun while driving.

“Wait,” Sun turned away from the conversation she was having. “Flora breaks into your house?”

“I normally let her in so she can annoy Wild. So technically, no, technically yes.” Legend nods. “And sometimes she brings Ravio along with her.”

“He closed the window on Ravio yesterday.” Wind said to Sun. “It was pretty funny.”

“Normally Ravio is faster than I am, but I was faster yesterday.” Legend shrugs.

“Ravio twisted his ankle at our last track meet.” Wind turned to look out the window. “That’s why he was slower than he normally would have been.”

“You’re in track together?” Sun blinked.

“I don’t think you’ve actually met Rav,” Legend said after a moment. “I think you’ve only seen him and heard about him.”

“We’re here!” Time said, interrupting the conversations in the back of the car.

The group of kids quickly filed out of the car and rushed toward the large multi-sport building. Grannie Impa had reserved the place for the fencing team today, and this was going to be a larger event than the Skyloft Knights had seen in a while. They were excited, for the most part.

The moment they entered the large doors Mrs Farore had waved at them wildly to get their attention as she started toward them from another set of doors.

“Hey kids!” She said as she ran over to them. “Sun, Sky, your team is in the locker room and I think that it’s almost time to start.”

“I know mom.” Sky tightened his grip on Sun’s hand.

Sun just grinned at Mrs Farore. “We’ll go over to the team then and figure out which events we are doing today.”

“Good luck kids!” Mrs Farore beamed as she led the rest of the Farore kids over to the arena seats she had reversed for the large group. And sure enough, Ravio was sitting next to Malon, but the moment he saw Legend he had gotten up to hug the Vet. The two had fallen over because Legend wasn’t expecting it and Hyrule rushed to help the two up.

Sky and Sun headed toward the locker room with matching smiles at the sight of the Farore family. The moment they entered they were met with a cheer.

“Cap’n Sun is here!” Groose yelled, quickly picking up both Sun and Sky in a tight hug.

“Let them down Groose,” chuckled Fledge as he pulled on his jacket.

Groose set them down and the two looked around. The locker room was open, full of benches and lockers lining the walls. The team had their fencing gear scattered around the benches. Both Pippit and Fledge had already put on their jackets and were holding their masks under their arms.

“Glad you managed to wake up on time, Sky.” Chuckled Pippit as he clapped Sky on the shoulder. “And it’s lovely to see you today, Sun.”

Sun grinned as the two high-fived. “Are Stritch and Crawlin here today?”

“Nope. I think they might be sick too.” Groose answered. “So, counting them we are down three fencers, but that’s alright because I heard that the team we are against only has five people too.”

“That’s good. We won’t be at as much as a disadvantage, taking into account which swords we are best at.” Sun nods.

“True.” Pippit sat down on the bench. “And if push comes to shove we can always throw Sky at ‘em.”

Sky felt his face flush. “I’m not that good, guys-“

“Don’t be humble.” Grannie Impa hummed as she walked into the locker room and smacked the back of Sky’s head. “It’s almost time to start. Are you all ready?”

Sun looked at Sky and smiled. “Yes, yes we are.”

[bangchanswolfpelt]

hello, hi, i’m back and i’m alive (mostly).

a quick explanation: immediately after my last post, life happened, as it does. i won’t go into the details because, frankly, they’re boring—work got insane and still is, my immune system flared up like the mild trashfire it’s always been, and on top of all of that, the roomie and i scheduled a truly stupid amount of traveling for the very end of the year. as a result, a lot of stuff fell by the wayside and this blog was one of them.

then i wrote two thousand words about Yoon Jeonghan in a mad, sleep-deprived frenzy on the way to LA today and remembered that i actually enjoy writing. wild, right?

so i’m back now! i’m not gonna try say how active i’m gonna be, because life is still crazy enough that i genuinely have no idea. but i’m here and i’m writing again, and also reading your messages, and holy shit y’all sent A LOT of them. like seriously, i was not expecting my inbox to look the way it does rn and i’m saying that in the most bewildered and grateful way possible.

im gonna start responding to individual messages this week probably, but i just wanna throw out a blanket ‘thank you, and i love you’ to anyone who’s around to read this because i really did pop my inbox open to nothing but concern and affection and unrelenting thirst and i don’t have the words to express what that means to me. ❤️‍🩹

some housekeeping:

kinktober requests will start going up again at some point in the near-ish future, interspersed with the regular requests that have been chugging along on the back burner and my usual unrequested nonsense. requests will stay closed while i work on what’s already queued up and figure out how i want them to actually work moving forward. my inbox is still open, tho, and will be unless Something Drastic happens; i’ll be plugging away at clearing that out as well💕

my day6🧟 tag is changing to eaj🧑🏼‍🚀 because the writing on the wall has become painfully clear, and as much as i enjoy day6’s music, i was only ever interested in Jae as a person and the odds of me starting to care about the rest of these boys now is lookin real unlikely. 👀

also, i mainlined all of Kingdom in a feverish haze and i’m a motherfukin Melody forreals now, i guess!?!? so talk to me about daddy Eunkwang and slutty mommy Minhyuk to save my roommate 😂

everything i have up on AO3 is now cross-posted to dreamwidth—if you’re there, come say hello! i know absolutely no one there! (also, if you’re reading this and you’re also writing here on tumblr—this is your lovingly aggressive reminder to back! up! your! stuff!! do not trust or rely on tumblr!! AO3 is pretty fuckin great, but dreamwidth is solid too! i love everyone at this party, but we are dancing in a condemned, crumbling building!! do yourself and the people who love your writing a favor and make sure it sticks around!!!!)

i’m in LA literally RIGHT NOW for ptd, so if anyone’s at so-fi on the thirtieth (today) or the first and you see a shortstack with dark blue hair wearing a Yellow Peril/0X1=LOVESONG tee or a Big Tiddy Gang hoodie cut too short to adequately cover tiddies of any size, come yell at me to get back to writing in person💞

[2jaeh]

Bubble ♡︎ | Na Jaemin

Genre : Fluff humor

You’re subscribed to Jaemins bubble, excited just like every other fan to recieve his message for today until his new messages don’t seem like the others.....

-—————————————————————————

“What’s taking so long ?” You stared blankly at the LYSN* app while stretching your legs onto your leather couch.

You switched over to the Twitter app and scrolled through your timeline, briefly reading through whatever was the latest topic on nctzen Twitter. One tweet caught your attention which made you chuckle out loud

Nananotifs: “I’m pretty sure Haechan finally threw Jaemin’s phone out of the dorm window bc.......”

All Nanadoongies gathered on Twitter to complain about the absence of Jaemin especially since he was the only one who hadnt reposted Chenle’s beloved pup Daegal.

You sighed and switched back to the LYSN app and noticed you were able to send one more message to Jaemin before the app blocks you off until he sends a new message.

Y/n: nana I miss you please say something

JAEMIN: y/n did you eat today ? I’ve missed you!

Your eyes widened at the immediate message you received from your ult. Was is coincidental ? Ofcourse it was, they don’t get notifications from fan messages do they ?

You immediately switched over to Twitter already seeing the bubble update account sharing Jaemins new message along with the entire timeline screaming over his activity.

~boominana: “how dare he act so normal I’m gonna cry !!!!”

~jaeminjenos: “post a selfie Jaemin don’t be shy”

~dreamies023: “he’s probably busy guys let him post when he wants to”

The last account was right. Jaemin was probably so busy. It was nice that he still found time out of his schedule to message nctzens and that’s what you loved most about him.

Y/n: Jaemin you’re stressing everyone out on Twitter lol let us know you’re doing ok we love you !

JAEMIN: am I ? :/

Was it a delayed message ? You shook your head and decided it was probably just another glitch on the app.

Y/n: yes stop ghosting us !

JAEMIN: ghosting ? ㅋㅋㅋ so dramatic

You froze. There was absolutely no way that from the tons of messages he would be recieving right now that yours would be the one he read and responded to.

The interaction made your heart race and quickly switch over to Twitter, it was probably chaos right now wondering what Jaemins messages could mean.

Silence.

Everyone on the timeline moved on from Jaemins first message and there were no updates on the messages you had just received from him.

PING!

JAEMIN: y/n ~ are you not going to answer me ? How am I ghosting you :(

This could not be real. You felt a lump in your throat as you checked over your other bubble subscriptions which all seemed fine except for his. You had no idea how to feel or what to do.

Y/N: this is weird. Send me a selfie so I know you’re actually replying to me and not a bot -_-

About 15 minutes went by and you stared at the open chat. He had read your message but there was no reply.

“Humh it was a bot after all” you huffed, about to close the app when your phone pinged and you saw Jaemins name pop up.

A voice note.

“Hey y/n, I hope I’m saying your name correctly hehe So long story short I think the chat glitched and your name and profile pic added itself to my own bubble. Weird right ? Mark Hyung told me I should send a voice note because it will make you believe me a bit more and .....well we would know if you posted on Twitter which CANNOT happen hahaha you understand right ?”

What was happening right now.

You pinched yourself to make sure you didn’t accidentally fall asleep on the couch and start having a very eerie realistic dream.

JAEMIN: I know you’re shocked rn but I really enjoy reading your replies haha it was the best part of my day and well I couldn’t help myself today. I wanted to tease you lol

Y/N: wait so how long has this “glitch” happened for ?

JAEMIN: hmmm....about a month now I think...after you renewed your account I think hehe

Y/N: what ??? Omg I’m so embarrassed......

JAEMIN: there’s nothing to be embarrassed about trust me. I’ve read everything czennies have sent me haha I find it amusing.

You exhaled deeply and scrolled through some of the messages you have sent him during this month and thankfully none of them were cringeworthy.

Y/N: so...now what? Should I speak to app support and fix this....unsubscribe or something....

JAEMIN: LOL youre really funny. Imagine finding out you can speak to someone from your fav idol group and you want to call tech support ...LOL so funny Mark Hyung is laughing

You felt your cheeks heat up at the image of Na Jaemin and Mark Lee laughing at your messages.

JAEMIN: please don’t be embarrassed y/n ! I only did this bc well I have your profile now and you’re really cute.

This was NOT happening.

Y/N: Uh......

JAEMIN: what do you have a boyfriend ? ....

Y/N: no I don’t I’m just....it’s nothing never mind

JAEMIN: LOL so cute! So do you have Kakao ?

Y/N: you want my number ? Why ? .....

JAEMIN: to talk to you obviously! What if they fix the glitch and I’ll never be able to talk to you again..

Jaemin wanted to talk to you. He was trusting you wholeheartedly to add him on his private account. Did he have an idea of the kind of person you were ? How could he possibly risk his career to a nobody ?

Y/N: I do have kakao it’s YN_0023.... Jaemin I won’t say anything but are you sure this is okay ?

JAEMIN: yeah I’ll video call you and we can talk about it ...adding you now. Clear this chat after you get my text!

VIDEOCHAT ?

Is he absolutely insane ? Maybe the voice note was fabricated. Maybe this was some weirdo trying to prey on innocent fangirls. Maybe -

Nana00: heyyyyyyyyy :)

Y/n: hi Uhm is this ...Jaemin ...

Nana00: yup (inserts a pic with your username on a sheet of paper)

Y/n: holy shiiiiit

By now you were already pacing across your entire apartment trying to come to terms with what was going on in your life right now. It became a force of habit to constantly check Twitter and make sure by chance somebody mentioned a glitch of some sort or SM announcing that the app is under construction or SOMETHING.

‘This couldn’t be real’ you thought.

Nana00: lol you’re so funny so are you free to video call ?

Y/n: Uhm......are you sure that’s a good idea ?

Nana00: yeah I mean firstly I would like to know you’re real too lol and also I want to know if I can trust you with this information.....it’ll be quick I promise

Y/n: well....okay give me 10minutes please

Nana00: lol sure :)

After scrambling to your bathroom to make yourself a little presentable as if you just won a video call event for your ult, you finally set on a laidback look so it doesn’t look too obvious that you put a little effort in.

You decided to prop your phone on the mini tripod on your desk so the lighting from your bedroom window in front of you bounced off your skin perfectly.

Y/n: okay I’m ready. I’m a little shy so.....sorry if I can’t talk much...

Nana00: you don’t sound shy when you talk about me on bubble hehe ;)

You buried your face in your hands and groaned. The embarrassment was still eating at you and Jaemin was not letting you live those messages down.

Ring Ring Ring......

You saw your phone light up and Jaemins kakao profile picture fill your screen.

With a shaky finger you press the recieve button and watch as the pixelated video start to clear up, presenting a very smiley Na Jaemin.

“Hi there” he said in his high voice and a bright smile on his face. He seemed to be sitting at his desk as well, hair still wet from either a rainy day or a shower.

“Uhm hi” you replied shyly and waved awkwardly.

“So this is the face behind the bubble profile huh”

“I guess so” you replied. It seemed as though you were calm and collected but on the inside you were screaming. Screaming that you were conversing with one of your favourite people right now.

“Good! Sorry to ask this again but did you clear the chat on bubble ? We have to be careful with that” he said in a concerned voice.

“Yeah I did after you sent the pic I finally realized it was definitely you so I went ahead and did it” you quickly said, kinda embarrassed by how fast your words came out.

Jaemin chuckled.

“You still doubted me after the voice note?”

“Just a little”

“You’re so adorable it’s ridiculous you know that ?” He gleamed and neared the screen, his deep brown eyes focusing on yours “ where are you from y/n?”

“Well I live in a lot of places but my hometown is _______. I learnt most of my korean while studying here in Osaka weird enough” you shrugged.

You moved to Japan for your first year of university since it was where you sort of grew up as a kid and took up extra korean classes once settled in the city.

“Osaka ?? Wow I love Japan I can’t wait to go back! Well now I kinda have an excuse to go” he winked sending your heart into a frenzy.

You giggled shyly “is this the fan service everybody talks about ?

“Fan service is a job....this is different I’m sure you know that y/n haha”

“All of this because of my profile picture ?”

“Well” Jaemin bit down on his lip as his eyebrows turned into a frown

“I obviously saw your pic and thought you were very cute but a big part of it was your messages and how you would always message me when I most needed it.”

“My messages are very random” you chuckled.

“Still made me smile throughout my day and that means a lot” he said and ran his fingers through his hair “so it’s kinda selfish of me to say, but id like for you to update me...personally”

“Na Jaemin are you asking me to be your own personal bubble account ?” You raised your eyebrow.

“Yeah pretty much” he shrugged “I’ll repay the subscription when I see you Osaka.”

[b0rista]

OH MY GOD! ok i’m crying. can i request bertholdt with a female s/o. she’s in the scouts and it’s the shiganshina battle and mikasa + eren pin her down and she has to helplessly watch bertholdt get eaten. OH MY GOD I GOT THE FEELS. tysm if u do this, idk why i’m in the mood for angst rn.

— majority rules.

where even when she pours her soul within her footsteps, she's just not fast enough.

AN: y'all comin for barista's SOUL HUH ✋ also i am SO sorry this took so long! here u go, love! alsonsnd this is unedited forgive me plLsl.

WARNINGS: extreme angst, death, language.

even at your fastest pace imagineable, you weren’t moving fast enough. your calves ached, and your hands were covered finger to finger in blisters and gashes. despite the pain, you moved, and as quickly as humanely possible. hell, at the rate you were going, not even the best of the best could surpass you in speed. it was the adrenaline, the outright fear, and the premeditated heartbreak that urged you to move faster. at this point, you barely had a choice. despite fighting for the opposing side, you knew where your heart stood. with him. 

and by god himself, you were going to save that. 

“y/n!” the screams of your comrades acted as nothing but static within your eardrums, gaining not even a hint of your attention as you plunged forward, venturing above the demolished city as you worked toward your one and only goal— before the present, you had the same goal as your friends, your family. win this battle, and take back wall maria. like the others, you just wanted to take back your land. that was all. that was all you wanted.

not this.

“you’re going to do what?” you asked, looming above the steaming carcass of both your friend and ally, armin arlert. well, what you thought was a carcass. somehow, he was alive. alive, and about to ruin your entire life as you know it. him, and the others; your friends. utterly flabbergasted, your knees would tremble, and your pulse would skyrocket. 

“you couldn’t have expected us to allow him to live, y/n,” hange would say, her single eye shooting toward the rooftop of which she stood on. her tone was cold, and it practically pierced you, “not after all that he’s done. we haven’t any other choice.”

“any other choice?” you spat, earning your commander’s glare. everyone was staring at you, in both uncertainty and pity. they were fully aware of your relations to the enemy, and yet they knew what was right. they knew what they had to do. and, deep down, so did you. you knew, but you denied the reality of the situation with every fiber of your being. because although you were aware of what was unjust and what wasn’t, love trumped whatever moral highground you had left. and dear god, did you love him. you loved him. you loved him, and they wanted to take him away.

“you have plenty of other choices, godammit!” you shouted, eyes widened in fear. your shoulders trembled, and the grip you had on your blades was deadly. as a precaution, you could see mikasa in the corner, her own swords drawn. by whatever means necessary, she was ready to cut you down. even so, you would be heard. “you’re going to kill him? he’s our friend, he’s our comrade, he’s our bertholdt! dammit, he’s-”

your words would only fall from your lips in a hoarse, cracked sob: “he’s my bertholdt!” 

this earned you nothing but silence in return, frightening you further. looking up, you faced the grim sacrifice that either you or the others would have to pay- and unfortunately for you, majority rules. 

“it doesn’t matter.”

the words struck you, sending you into a frenzy. eren stood before you with confidence, his gaze plunging into your chest with the utmost ferocity. 

“whether you’re able to live with the loss or not, we’re feeding bertholdt to armin.” 

now, here you were. with your entire squadron turned against you, you weren’t given any other choice. if anybody was going to save bertholdt, it was going to have to be you. and even if it meant turning against everything you once believed in, you would do it. you had to. 

mercilessly, you ran. with every ounce of energy left inside your being, you ran. unconscious, your love lay on a faraway rooftop, swaiting his very own demise without even being remotely aware of it. from a distance, you could see him. he was vacant of all four limbs, the steam from his regeneration process rising from off of his wounds and into the air. as if he were peacefully asleep, his eyes kept shut. and while his were closed, yours were brimming with tears. oh, bertl. what have you done? 

desperation was the only thing keeping you moving, and it did so with an utter lack of grace. you sprinted sloppily, and you rid yourself of any sort of technique. you couldn’t think, you could only do. unfortunately for you, doing wasn’t enough. just as you neared the still body of your love, you were pulled back by the ends of your hair, slamming you into the ground. as you smashed downward, the terrifingly large footstops of another being arose from a distance. 

“are you in love with me, bertl?” 

the question was abrupt, and it wasted no time in taking your boyfriend utterly aback. “what?” he asked, blinking down at you. as quickly as the single word had left his lips, a drop of sweat threatened to trickle down the side of his face. “what do you mean?”

“what do i mean?” you simply repeated, a teasing smile creeping onto your lips. the two of you were sitting beside one another on the edge of your bed, comfortably dressed for bed. had either one of you thought to look out the window, you would be sure that it was passed the middle of the night. still, it was the lighthearted conversation that urged the both of you to stay awake, basking in the presence of the other. the time you spent together was crucial, and you made sure to savor every single moment. 

“you speak to me as if you’re in love with me,” you said, moving to rest your head against the boy’s shoulder, “and you touch me as if it’ll always be your last. we may be an item, bertholdt. but the label can’t be all that we have.” 

despite how sudden your words may have been, the brunette knew enough to take them into consideration. through the silence that erupted in suite of your mild tangent, he would only contemplate. then, as if he’d finally gathered the courage to let loose, he would sigh. wrapping an arm around you, you would be brought close, where he then buried his nose within the crook of your neck. had you known any better, you would have assumed that he did it to hide his face from your sight. 

“yes,” he would say, much to your surprise. “yes, i am in love with you. i always have been, i think.” 

your jaw agape, you weren’t exactly sure how to react at first. you hadn’t expected his answer to be so simple, to be so confident. feeling his long, strong arms wrap around you as you were pulled into his chest was heavenly, and with his words poured into the mixture, you wanted to melt. however, because you were clueless, all you could think to do was laugh the matter off, earning you quite the stare. 

“now, now, there’s no need to exaggerate. really, you could have just-”

but before you could even finish, a calloused hand would place itself onto the side of your face, moving your gaze so that it would face bertholdt’s gaze. the two of your faces were close, noses nearly touching. with a tender, soulful look, his sage eyes would pour into yours, brows ever so slightly furrowed. 

“i love you, y/n. if anything, that’s an understatement. please, never doubt me in that regard.”

as you were thrown into the rooftop beneath you by the likes of mikasa, it was the past words of your lover that pushed you to fight. even against an ackerman, you would fight. arching your blade behind you, you angled it with the luckiest sort of precision, pressing the very tip of your sword to the clump of hair your comrade had balled up into her hand. with a single slice, you cut it off completely, freeing yourself of her grip as you slipped from in between her legs. in your hindsight, you saw a blonde headed titan— armin. the plan had already been set in motion, and your time was cut short. 

with a shout, you ran. however, before you could get even get more than a single step in, you were pulled back, a pair of arms locking either side of your shoulders into place from behind you. eren’s face loomed beside your own, his eyes closed as he aided mikasa in holding you down. with the two of them combined, you couldn’t move. as you struggled, you were pressed into the crumbled surface of the roof, rendering you defeated. now, all you could do was watch.

“LET ME GO!” you would scream, all to no avail. tears coated the sweat that trickled down both sides of you face, leaving your voice hoarse as you shouted, pleaded, and cried all at once. your vision was blurred, and you couldn’t even clearly see as the titan that was once your dying comrade reached down to grasp the awakening body of your love, plotting to take him away from you for good. it was all happening so quickly, you readied yourself to wake up from the nightmare that was reality. wake up, wake up, wake up. 

nothing could wake you up, except for a single thing. to your absolute horror, just as he was dropped into the clutches of death itself, the last thing bertholdt could bring himself to scream was your name. 

oh, and how it would ring in your ears for the rest of your days.

[freddiekluger]

please drop the essay length analysis Judas and Jesus (extra gay Swedish edition), O great and knowledgeable monarch of our times

alright, you ask i deliver! please excuse any typos, my eyes aren't exactly working rn

welcome to my probably super subjective but correct analysis, aka

Judas Was Right and Jesus Was A Victim (At Least, In Swedish)

Before we get started, a couple points: i’ll try to avoid comparisons to other specific productions, i’ve only seen the other recorded 2012 british version which i didn’t like for reasons including but not limited to the amount of white people with dreadlocks. Also, my understanding of swedish is limited to a couple words and phrases, so most of the lyrics i reference will be english subtitles from Ola Salo’s swedish translation and therefore might not be the most accurate !

There’s so much i could cover in this, but for now i’m going to focus on how jesus and judas are portrayed in the 2014 swedish arena tour of Jesus Christ Superstar (JCS) starring Ola Salo as Jesus and Peter Johansson as Judas, along with how this production more implicitly views god. 

From the opening number, translated into swedish as En Dimmig Himmelsdröm (A Foggy Heaven’s Dream), Peter Johansson’s acting and semantic differences in the lyrics present us with a deeply sympathetic portrayal of Judas. Looking purely at language, the english equivalent Heaven On Their Minds instantly paints Judas as much more of a faithless doubter- lyrics exclusive to the english version like “all your followers have gone blind / too much heaven on their minds” and “they think you’re the new messiah / and they’ll hurt you when they find they’re wrong” strongly enforce Judas’ main motivation for his actions being that he has less belief in Jesus and God’s plan than any of the other disciples with strong statements judging the other disciples for following him and claiming that Jesus ISN’T the messiah. The swedish translation doesn’t paint exactly the same picture- the focus of Judas’ number becomes his fear for Jesus’ wellbeing, not because he isn’t the messiah (the production remains fairly ambiguous on this point), but because Jesus can’t cope. The root of Judas’ concern comes from fear for Jesus’ wellbeing, and the disciples are referenced as regularly misunderstanding and wilfully twisting Jesus’ words. The swedish equivalent lyrics for the above examples are “they say, “jesus is god’s son” / but you know how people can change” (judas isn’t concerned with truth, just the danger that jesus will be in if the tide turns), and “the kingdom of heaven is within us, that’s what you said / bu they sew it, stitch by stich into some kind of foggy heaven’s dream”. Judas is showing that he HAS been listening and cares for Jesus’ teachings, but ‘they’ [his disciples] are turning them into something else entirely, and Judas’ worries that the support of the masses is fragile at best- the lines “and everything you say gets twisted by your lackeys / it will be anything but what you’ve said”  and “you are being used by people who want you in their battle” reinforces this again. When combined with Peter Johansson’s tough but tender performance, in which he dances between disdain for Jesus, the institution, and affection for Jesus, the man (an important distinction), Judas is the harsh realist doing his best to look out for the man he loves. The way he takes Jesus hands and looks at him with love and urgency straight away establishes that his motivations are pure- Judas is doing what he thinks is best, even though it feels like no one will listen to him. 

That was long, but En Dimmig Himmelsdröm is the perfect character introduction for Judas. He’s not totally unrecognisable, still delivering digs about ‘Jesus, the little carpenter’s son’, his manner is still rough and at this point we’re not sure whether or not the claims he makes about the disciples have any truth to them, BUT we can also see how much Jesus means to him, an important point that give context to the intensity of their future arguments and really makes the whole story much more heartbreaking.

This brings me to Ola Salo’s Jesus. Delightfully camp and queercoded, Judas describes him as being caught up in his own magic and mystery and buckling under the pressure, and he’s not entirely wrong. Throughout the first act, Jesus basks in the luxuries that being messiah can give him (the oils Mary paid for using disciple funds that were supposed to go towards helping the poor, him absolutely thriving in the shopping cart in What’s the Buzz?), and is shown actively avoiding any reminders of the seriousness of his position. He’s sick of the disciples asking him for a plan, he chooses the comforting Mary, who’s theme consists of telling Jesus everything is okay and he doesn’t need to think about anything, over Judas, who is less perhaps ‘cosy’ but is actively trying to warn and protect Jesus from an awful fate. During The Temple, he starts to crack as he’s overcome by the followers begging him to make him well, fear in his eyes as he raises his arms while frozen on the spot trying to avoid being devoured by the frenzy in desperate need of a messiah. Judas’ point about Jesus buckling under the pressure is starting to look more and more reasonable, and the dashes of showbiz campness add to the sense that much of Jesus is a persona constructed for the masses to give himself enough distance to prevent him from being crushed by the weight of God entirely. Jesus, the institution, prances around, lays his hands on his followers, and projects an air of easygoing calm. Jesus, the man, is scared and alone, and Jesus, the man, really comes out in Last Supper, but before we get there, I want to circle back to the Jesus/Mary/Judas thing.

Jesus, Mary, and Judas are presented as a love triangle: so much so, that Judas seeing Mary sing of her love for Jesus (I Don’t Know How To Love Him) is actually played as the inciting incident that sends him to the pharisees. Judas, the picture of the jealous lover, storms onto the scene, breaking them up and attempting to kiss Jesus, who instead shoves him to the ground in disdain. Judas, who is perhaps a little controlling, realises that any influence he had over Jesus has gone, and it’s likely a combination of jealousy and the knowledge that Jesus won’t stop that prompts him to head to the pharisees. In his meeting with the pharisees (known in english as Damned For All Time, although that phrase doesn’t appear once in the swedish), Judas’ expresses outright that “I’m the one who sees / Jesus, he can’t handle it anymore” “the truth is that this hysteria is making him lose control”, once he can get past explaining how much this plan of action feels like a last resort. He never even verbally or physically accept the pharisees’ offer of money, he denies it twice before it is eventually thrown over him after he reluctantly gives them the date and time to find Jesus- we never even see him pick it up, unlike other productions which show Judas grabbing for the cash and place a higher emphasis on Judas making sure he ‘won’t be damned for all time’, painting Judas as far more self serving. When it comes to Jesus, Judas is active- he’s running around trying to help, caressing him, embracing him, grabbing his hand, kissing him. They share countless moment of intimacy, especially at the start, establishing the fondness between them instead of instantly jumping to their conflict. When it comes to Mary (and admittedly, this is partially because she’s a secondary character- don’t get me wrong I still love her and Gunilla Backman does a brilliant job), she’s much more passive. Other than the much more gentle kisses in I Don’t Know How To Love Him and her penchant for dabbing Jesus’ forehead, she’s mostly just ‘there’. She cares for Jesus after the fact, and even when performing acts of intimacy like the oil and the kiss, she maintains a lot of physical distance- her songs touch on this as, much like Jesus (admittedly for different reasons), she actively distances herself from feelings to protect herself, so naturally she literally places distance between herself and the object of her love.

This brings me back to Last Supper, Gethsemane ( I Only Want to Say), and the kiss of death that broke all of our hearts. Throughout this segment, this is when Jesus, the man, really comes through, and it’s devastating. In Last Supper, he properly expresses the sheer amount of loneliness he feels, reiterating how he feels everyone will forget about him once he’s gone, and doesn’t really care about him as a man (”for you, my blood is not worth more than wine / for you, my body is not worth more than bread” “you will have forgotten me as soon as i give up my life”). This devolves into the disciples fighting each other and, you guessed it, ignoring him. For the first time, Jesus meaningfully lets out his anger, and as it turns to Judas, Judas does the same. Because of the set up of their complicated romantic relationship and the stakes involved, the amount of personal attacks and anger that comes out of Jesus and Judas’ repeated fights (which get physical) make complete sense- Jesus’ frustrations come from the fact that his entire fate has been predetermined and to him, Judas is just another instrument in the ways he’s been controlled (both with Judas being his betrayer, but also the way that Judas’ constant advice and interference with Jesus’ life (most obviously, the mary thing) are acted by Ola Salo as becoming increasingly frustrating to Jesus)- these frustrations are directed at their real cause, God, in Gethsemane. Judas’ frustrations come from the fact that no matter how hard he tries to help Jesus and keep him safe, Jesus keeps rejecting his efforts resulting in “all that we’ve built up [being] destroyed”- Judas’ heart hasn’t just been broken by Jesus rejecting him romantically, but on every level. Here, he’s actually shown to be the disciple most passionate about helping people practically and long term, being the only one concerned about Mary taking money which was supposed to help people, manipulated by the pharisees with the promise of doing good for the masses, and criticising Jesus for how they could be doing so much for people, ending his part of Last Supper with “every time i look at you i ask myself why you let all your things go so wrong? / all i ever wanted was to help you”. 

This is also the point where Judas’ claims about the disciples are essentially confirmed, and this productions intent to portray Judas as more of a tragic hero become absolutely clear. In the english version, the disciples chorus remains virtually the same each time it appears, generally being far too calm considering their leader is about to die, revealing their aspirations to be apostles, and their intent to write the gospels to be remembered. the swedish translation still achieve this, but with variations from chorus to chorus it becomes much more poignant. i’m just going to stick to ttwo, which are choruses 1 and 3. In chorus 1, lines roughly translate to “i’ve always wanted to be an apostle / life is so nice when you’re saved/ then when we’ve got time we’ll write the gospels / then everything will be the way we want”-  the apostles declaring that life is so good when you’re saved supports Judas’ opening statement that they care more about some idea of heaven than anything else, not to mention ignoring the absolute horrors that Jesus will have to go through to be saved, while the final line about the gospels introduces their intent to change whichever details they need to make ‘everything the way we want’: once again, exactly what Judas warned us of in En Dimmig Himmelsdröm. In chorus 3, taking place after Judas storms out for the last time, these lines change to “never really liked that judas / never saw what jesus saw in him / then, when we’ve got time we’ll write the gospels / and we’ll angle it so he gets all the blame”. Judas as a sympathetic character is confirmed here, as the disciples straight up admit how they don’t like Judas anyways and intend to write him as a villain (also inadvertently admitting that, since they have to write the gospels to make it look like only Judas’ fault, Judas isn’t really the sole one responsible for everything that is to come). It’s deeply unsettling, and for me was the point where I really began to question how good any of these disciples were, and by extension, how good is this production’s God if his truly sanctified followers are acting like this?

Jesus vents out all of his anger and desperation in Gethsemane. He acknowledges his own powerlessness and begs him to change the plan, but with the dark stage and no response (along with Ola Salo’s spectacular acting) it becomes clear that if anyone is there, they’re certainly not listening (”you, who have all the power / can you please change the plan / for i can already feel the pain burning in me”). It’s worth mentioning that a lot of the imagery in this swedish version is much more intense than the english, both in this song and the production as a whole. Jesus plainly calls god “thoughtless”, begging to understand, and it’s that this point we realise that he agrees with much more of what Judas has been saying than he’s been letting on- Jesus’ faith appears to be the only thing keeping him from listening to Judas and running away. Judas’ messages about people misunderstanding Jesus’ words also come out (”you care that everyone sees / but not that anyone understands”), and his eventual agreeing to die is played less as an inspiring act of faith, and more an act of desperation as he realises, he realise has no other choice. In this song, we see just how much of Judas Jesus has valued and taken on board, and that his air of carefree aloofness which frustrated Judas was, as we’ve already touched on, a complete act. The line “might as well finish what i’ve... what YOU’VE started” is absolutely miserable, reinforcing one of the major themes of this production: the idea that Jesus and Judas were both just ordinary men tormented by futures defined by forces out of their control. Just as Jesus has absorbed Judas’ logic, as an audience so we have, and it’s difficult to view the rest of the play’s events as anything other than an immense and unnecessary act of cruelty.

we’re almost done i promise!

Even knowing what Judas has/will do, Jesus still greets him with love. Judas, still under the impression that Jesus will be okay and that he’s doing what’s best, approaches him with the utmost tenderness, and the kiss is a beautiful signifier of two things. For Jesus, the return of his love for Judas shows his realisation in Gethsemane that Judas isn’t the one who’s sealed his fate and has only being trying to help, it’s god himself who has decided Jesus’ future. For Judas, the kiss shows that despite all of the anger and frustration that has been pouring out of him, he truly does love Jesus, and the way he cradles the scared and alone Jesus to his chest afterwards shows just how much he wishes he could be the one to help him and keep him close. Even with all their arguments and dysfunction, here Jesus and Judas find comfort in each other, and it almost seems like everything will end up alright. It’s in this moment that Judas and Jesus are most identifiable not as enemies, or as villain and hero, but as archetypal lovers from a Shakespearean tragedy. Neither of them set out to hurt each other, but through miscommunications, their own flaws, and external forces (both natural and supernatural), their love is simply never to be. Furthermore, in the following torture and spectacle, everything that Judas predicted for Jesus is about to come true. Another detail I find interesting is the way that Jesus and Judas both sport black nail polish, leather pants, and similar length hair: along with just looking cool as hell, the similarities really reinforce how close they are and how much they influence each other- it feels like a contemporary version of carrying a cameo or a lock of your lover's hair with you, a way for 'star crossed lovers' to keep a piece of their beloved no matter what.

The disaffected persona of Jesus, the institution, comes back as he’s taken by the authorities and subsequently insulted, degraded, and whipped. Also the swedish version of The Arrest, when the chorus starts singing questions, contains this dick joke and I think we all deserve it: “why were you dating a whore? / talk about a huge magic wand!”

Skipping forward to Judas’ Death, this is where both his character and the production’s conception of god beautifully (and miserably) align. When Judas runs to the pharisees, minor semantic changes (along with the genuine concern and great acting from Peter Johansson) reinforce that this Judas genuinely didn’t know that Jesus would be beaten and sentenced to death the way he has been, and Judas’ concern regarding how things look is played less as ‘oh no people will hate ME!’, but how having sentenced the man you love to death is one nightmarish thing, but for everyone to think you did it knowingly and willingly and then congratulate you for it is unthinkable. Where the english shows Judas’ attempting to evade responsibility for Jesus death, the swedish is more focused on Judas’ guilt, horror, and regret. The english “I’d save him all the suffering if I could / don’t believe our good / save him if I could” is swapped in swedish for “If anyone should die here I should / don’t say I’m good / better if I died”. While the english statements are somewhat empty (sure, Judas says he’d save Jesus’ suffering if he could, but he can’t so we’ll never truly know) and are still focused on Judas’ attempt to construct himself as a good guy, the swedish translation has Judas admit his guilt (even if it’s not really his fault), and make the promise of “better if i died” which, given the name of this sequence, he later delivers on. When english Judas sings “Christ, I’d sell out the nation / For I have been saddled with the murder of you”, swedish Judas sings “Jesus, I’ve been deceived / because of my act your blood’s now being spilt”, and instead of ending this first section with “I should be dragged through the slime and the mud”, swedish jesus returns to the theme of character assasination with “i will be cursed as the one behind your murder”. 

The swedish translation of the next rework of I Don’t Know How to Love Him also places much more emphasis on Judas’ genuine romantic love for Jesus- we’d be here for hours if i listed everything but here are a few key contrasts. The english has Judas sing “I don’t know how to love him /  I don’t know why he moves me”, whereas the swedish has Judas crying while singing “how do I show my love / all I want is to be close to you”. Along with acknowledging Judas already loves Jesus, the entirety of this segment is shifted from Judas singing about Jesus in the third person ‘he’, to a direct address. Judas isn’t performing his sadness, or venting his emotions, he’s emitting one last desperate cry to the man he loves as he sobs on a stage completely shrouded in darkness, and it’s devastating. Peter Johansson lets his voice run raw as he’s belting, and interrupts lines with sobs, and this Judas answers the question of “do you love me too? do you care for me?” with a quiet “no”- Judas is about to go to his death convinced Jesus must hate him, just as Jesus will face his knowing his love inadvertently put him there.

We finally reach Judas’ actual death, and the production’s far more ambiguous (if not negatively geared) depiction of god comes to a head. Judas’ screaming at god the moment he realises that his god essentially forced Judas to be the one to kill Jesus (an act of ultimate cruelty given their love) comes across as horrifying in it’s validity, unlike in other english language productions where it follows the more common characterisation of Judas being an unbeliever who can’t take responsibility for his own actions. When he spits on the ground, screaming “you have murdered me!”, we can’t help but agree- Judas was trying everything he could to stop Jesus from dying, and yet here he is. Most notably, Judas doesn’t set up his own suicide- a noose literally descends from the heavens, already tied, and Judas is literally trapped between the edge of the stage, and the symbol of death behind him. Much like he didn’t choose to kill Jesus, Judas has no choice in his own suicide- it’s suggested to merely be another part of the plan god has for him, and Judas raising his arms to form a crucifixion pose before he finally turns and jumps, disappearing into the depths of the theatre as the rope trails down (somewhat evocative of a leap to hell), highlight the sick joke. Much like Jesus begging in Gethsemane, a plea with god that in anyway implies fault or cruelty is met with silence followed by a death sentence. 

When Judas reappears to the broken and bloodied Jesus in Superstar, he appears as more of a twisted hallucination than the literal spirit of Judas. He’s the opposite of everything he was in life, draped in colour, surrounded by red lighting instead of the signature blue, his hair quite literally let down, joking and dancing. Despite singing about him, Judas virtually ignores Jesus for the whole song except when he’s taunting him, snatching his hand away after a broken and desperate Jesus reaches out for the image of his beloved (refuting Judas’ belief that Jesus would die hating him), along with the swedish additions of Judas repeatedly addressing him as “little Jesus”. Where the living Judas was serious, sometimes harsh but always well intention, often paying more attention to Jesus than he received, this Judas is the opposite: light hearted but cruel, not caring about Jesus one bit. It’s somewhat an inversion of the beginning of JCS, where the tormented Judas was constantly reaching out to Jesus, and often met with scorn and insult (see: most of their arguments, this line from Everything’s Alright: “the thought is beautiful but quite unrealistic / yes, even quite stupid”). As the song goes on, and even as Jesus is crucified, the victorious scoring of the Superstar theme ends up reinforcing the cruelty and questioning of god distinctive of this production: Ola Salo’s Jesus is one of the bloodiest Jesus’s (Jesii?) I’ve been able to find, with blood covering his torso, his arms, and all over his face, not in passive dribbles, but violent ‘swooshes’ spreading out from his eyes, emphasising the fear and pain contained within them. As the music suggests how great and wonderful Jesus’ death is, the images straight out of a horror movie before us don’t seem to match up: as both Judas and Jesus question, if no one is understanding what Jesus is saying, why kill him? instead of making a point, you’re ensuring that the falsehoods continue to circulate, unless spreading the true message isn’t really the intent at all. or, simply that Jesus was wrong: his interpretation and teachings of god were far too kind and practical, and the true god really is the one that he briefly saw in the garden of Gethsemane, and that Judas saw before his death- a cruel and vindictive god using them for his own sick purposes. If you're a strong Christian, I'm sure you could watch this production and still believe that God was right (although I think Jesus and Judas being in love counts as blasphemy), but I think in doing so you'd lose part of what makes this production so hard hitting and, as i keep saying, devastating.

that’s pretty much it for this one! i feel like jesus and judas as a queer couple is less significant to this production than the fact that it’s specifically jesus and judas that are in love - they don’t face explicit homophobia as such, although i do think the paratextual and historical associations of queerness (both with them each looking visibly queer, and them as a couple) adds a beautiful dimension by subverting the standard christian teaching of Jesus’ sacrifice as “a love that changed the world” and making the love that truly could have been transformative (and was, to a degree) the love between Jesus and another man, not to mention the way in which queerness is often viewed as radical perfectly upholding the ‘radical’ views of god and the story of Jesus shown in the production. Why wouldn’t the love between two men be the love which has us questioning god, faith, and that which many of us have been taught since birth? Ola Salo has talked about how he’s able to be positive and negative towards christianity, along with how he wanted Jesus and Judas to really represent two sides of the same coin (’faith and intelligence’), and being bisexual along with having alluded to being raised christian (not to mention Breaking Up With God, a song by his band The Ark), it’s not surprising he’s managed to present such a nuanced and layered interpretation of Jesus Christ Superstar that even me, a trans exvangelical, can fall in love with.

UPDATE: @bands-and-hobbits has just let me know that Ola's dad was a priest! Apparently he's said that he liked the organs and the music, but that was all when it comes to christianity, which (when combined with Ola stating in interviews that the JCS soundtrack has been one of his favourite albums since he was 14) makes a lot of sense about the level of familiarity he had with the text giving him confidence to go in and make changes to really capitalised off of some of the themes that are hinted at in the english version- you have enough information to understand how everything works together, but aren't so dedicated to preserving belief that you feel you can't improve/change things (and my god are we glad he did)

[cr0wswithknives]

big long rant under the cut, because i’m ill and very tired of being in this fucking room

tw: medical stuff, ableism, just a lot of sick talk

i’m so tired y’all. the last month has just been a whirlwind of terminology and diagnosis and so much shit i can’t wrap my head around. and this literally could’ve been mostly avoided if my mom would have just taken me to see a fucking doctor like i asked her to. but she didn’t, and now i’m dealing with stage 3 hodgkin’s lymphoma.

mask mandates are lifting where i am, and i’m fucking terrified. literally a runny nose and a one-time reading of a 100.5F temp was enough to send my care team into a fucking frenzy. i’ve been sitting in this infusion room since 11am, it is now 5:30pm. i feel ill, my mouth is going to go to shit in the next couple days so eating is gonna be a time, and it’s because nobody thought to be concerned about the growth on my neck bc i was only 19.

my mom keeps making jokes about “at least you have an excuse to be lazy now” as if i haven’t been ill for months. i lost a huge part of my identity because my fucking hair started falling out due to my meds, i haven’t been able to work, and i can’t leave my house without risking getting sick. i feel like a shell of a person.

i spent my 20th birthday feeling sick from chemo and reading fics my wonderful friends gifted me. eating literally anything gives me severe stomach cramps and my bones felt like they were going to explode for a week because of the shot they gave me to get my wbc up.

i think i’ve only cried twice through this whole thing. i haven’t really been able to cry bc my testosterone shots make it hard. i’m literally just riding the waves as they come but i’m wondering how long that’s actually feasible before i literally just. stop. bc i’m so tired.

and there’s literally nothing anybody can do for me, i’m getting treated and i’m gonna live but i have to deal with 5 more months of this and i haven’t been able to be a person and it feels like those first bits of lockdown when we realized things weren’t getting better.

and there’s literally a virus spreading that’s so harmful and people are just ignoring it but it could literally kill me if i catch it. easily. i’m double vaxxed and boosted but it doesn’t matter because i have almost no working immune system rn. i’m still masking and getting looks from people and it makes me want to scream. some dude (purposefully, leaned over to me and everything) coughed on me the other day without a mask and i was fucking baffled. like, what, do i have to rip off my hat in the middle of this cafe and show everyone my bald-ass head and scream “i have fucking cancer” for them to give a shit?

you don’t realize how much people don’t care about immunocompromised people until you live it. you don’t realize how ableist everyone is until you live it. you don’t get it. and my god i almost miss having that ignorance because it fucking sucks. nobody should have to live with this. at least my shit is treatable and i’ll bounce back and be fine, some people won’t.

i’m in bodily hell and i’m going to be fine but i’m so tired and it’s been such a long day and i’m just so. agh. yeah. fuck.

[jiminrings]

cabin pressure

pairing: taehyung x y/n

glimpse: pilot!y/n who accidentally became famous bc of a viral post about her, best friend!jimin!, taehyung having a shy lil crush on you aND ot7 being meanies for a tad bit :((

wordcount: 17k

notes: this is my first bts fic im gonna post and for sentimentality’s sake, im paying homage to the bullet-point format™️ because this is the same thing i use for my reviewers and it’s v effective in making me focus and not lose interest!!! 

╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

jimin really misses you :((

you’re his longtime friend!! someone who’s stuck with him even before he was famous!!

unlike tHose who suddenly appeared claiming that “aHHHHH jimin from bts aha actually we were friends even tho i have never spoke to him once hE’s actually asking me out and-“

and he loves u to death even the both of you fond each other annoying at times

like that one time he pretended he was sick with a bug just to get u out of your very important meeting just bECAUSE he wanted u to cook up a meal he missed

“hey why are u crying and also can you pls still cook why you’re crying”

“jimin i fucking hate you”

:((

and needless to say he really made up for it because he may have screwed up your job bc he wanted you to drop EVERYTHING to cook cheesy tonkatsu for him

so yes he really went up and above just to get you to forgive him

and u know what

jimin misses his best friend so much that he’s thinking of you in the middle of a meeting

and literally at the mention of bon voyage, the gears in his head start spinning!!!!

basically his thought process was:

bon voyage = abroad = y/n = oH DAMN OH RIGHT Y/N’S A PILOT = airplane whoosh = abroad = BON VOYAGE!!!!

“PD-nim!!!!!!”

“what”

and he’s really gonna make a leap for this because it’s given that him and the boys ride in private jets and first-class and all

literally everyone is looking at him now because his previous outburst of a call was surely attention-grabbing and it makes him shrink a bit because aha :D oops lol okay so what i was saying

“i-i was thinking uhm like since, abroad, right?? my friend y/n y/l/n is a pilot!! and the airline she-...”

“you know y/n y/l/n??” bang si-hyuk literally asks with his eyes wide and everyone could tell that it was the positive type of shock

wait

what

everyone in the room is like divided with some nodding and some clapping excitedly and some just with their mouths agape

and that confuses jimin because

“you know y/n??”

bang si-hyuk, ceo of big hit entertainment, his boss,,,, knows you, his childhood best friend-

and it’s not like jimin is territorial when it comes to his best friends and most esp you!!!! but yeah he realizes that he is now, especially because everyone in the room apparently knows you??? and he’s only ever introduced you to the boys???? briefly?? hope and jin have yet to meet you in person???

“how could we not?” jungkook interjects with a bunny smile on his face and everything is seriously confusing jimin rn because honestly

“do you like live under a rock” yoongi has the most confused face ever to jimin’s cluelessness, the situation being ironic because normally the hyung is slower when it comes to these type of things

“y/n went viral all over the news like last week!! up to now even” it’s no joke that namjoon knows everyone that his members know but for jimin to hear joon speak about you in THIS degree offends him

because wait he’s your closest friend he should know these things

he’d like u to know that he isn’t bitter :)

and his eyes go wide at that because oH GOD WHAT DID YOU DO

everyone agrees to what namjoon said, still a bit dumb-founded as taehyung practically yanks jimin’s chair to sit closer near his and almost shoves his phone to his face

it’s you

in your pilot uniform with your luggage at tow

sunglasses at the top of your head and phone on-hand

your id still worn around your neck and

oh

jimin basically deduced all of these things with a couple swipes:

a) ok you look ethereal in those pics

b) it was supposed to be a stolen picture of this dude but you were in the background and you cOMPLETELY stole the show

c) someone zoomed in on you and edited so now basically your ethereal being got even more magnified

d) someone zoomed in on your id (he got a lil bit mad at that)

e) aha the internet loves you

f) edits and i have thirty minutes i am free this saturday retweets and digging into your images in social media EVERYTHING!!! the whole nine yards!!!!

when you woke up to that frenzy though

you literally couldn’t function for five minutes and then you started catching up and digging in on what was happening

“but i don’t look ethereal!! my skin is dry n oily at the SAME time because of cabin air and my eyes are stinging!!! i look ghastly and only a little bit fresh because of the air u get when you’re 50,000 feet up in the air!! but im-...”

oh that’s it you went viral completely on accident

you were just waiting for the free service back home your airline offers it pilots, because you brought your car to work but you were too tired to drive back home

but now you are viral in the worldwide interwebs with articles and twitter threads about you and multiple multiple DMs that make your phone freeze and

wait did your airline just email you about that :D

oh lol did beyoncé just follow you :D

basically jimin got his brothers giving him a three-minute crash course each about what happened with their managers even stepping in to gush

he basically can’t believe that he didn’t know that!! even if you didn’t mention it to him, he should’ve known because it was practically everywhere!!!!

bang si-hyuk is well-pleased and even got jimin to tell how he knew you and what you were like and he was very much :O when he got into the word that aish!!! his employee has really been living under a rock lmao

by then, the conversation about bon voyage has been slightly derailed to talk about you

who knew that jimin simply mentioning your name (lol he didn’t need to because the conversation about you was nearing anyway) would land the meeting to

“oh! actually! the airline y/n works at reached a couple of weeks ago about a proposal to get bts to star in a commercial for them!!”

and now they’re hyped because yes they endorsed clothes and food and malls and establishments but never did they endorse an AIRLINE!!! a damn airline!!!!

okay so now not only did they tackle that you would pilot for them in bon voyage

“ah! you could like also play games on the way there with y/n!!”

“wHO WILL PILOT THE PLANE THEN??? we’re gonna crash!!!”

“you’re thick, jungkook, and not in the way you think so lmao”

“maybe we could extend their vacation! shoot a skit or two with them being flight attendants for run!! one week for shooting, two weeks for resting!! two birds with one stone, really”

an airline commercial

a couple run bts! episodes

a whole season of bon voyage (with a longer production because they have longer vacation days)

more traction for them

more time than he ever wished for to be with you!! :D

soon enough the meeting is finished and it went so good that the boys were gonna be treated to a beef dinner so

everyone’s scattered and dispersed, some making small talk w him about you that makes him smile

taehyung’s lingering behind him with his hands on his back

“what is it, tae?”

the younger boy is just giggling and fiddling with his hands, a careless shrug to his shoulders

“can i have y/n’s number :D”

...

...

“aish!! if jungkook were to ask for her number, you would’ve given it to him in a heartbeat because he’s the youngest!! and-...”

“ya!! thanks for reminding hyung! jimin-hyung may i also pls have y/n’s number :D”

...

...

...

jin had to drag jimin with him bc he wasn’t done shooting the both of them glares and his cheeks were practically pink with how annoyed he was at the younger two

needless to say taehyung and jungkook didn’t have any extra portions of beef from him

he is very protective of you and even if he’s become closer with his brothers more than he’s been close with you he jUST can’t help it!!

not that he doesn’t trust them or anything

not that he doesn’t trust you either

but he doesn’t want figurative blood on his figurative ledger because he feels that it would be his responsibility if ever yOu and someone became a thing and HE was the one who inteoduced you both :(

it’s not just a him thing :( he can’t put it into words but he’s just looking out for both parties!!!

kinda figured out that taehyung may or may not have a shy little crush on you

spoiler alert: it was HUGE

for their entire dinner, every single time your name was brought up, tae instinctively has his ears perk up at the mention

simultaneously he shrinks to his seat and purses his lips and looks around to what’s being said

why are u mentioning y/n’s name?? what is happening??

and taehyung having a serious case of sweater paws doesn’t help him from jimin’s observing gaze

and yes he feels a bit sorry because taehyung kinda looks a bit upset; that little “oh :((“ on his face when jimin snapped at him so quick

he’s not gonna force him to tho,, out of respect since someone else is involved (and in this case it’s you and your number)

jimin nudges him by the shoulder to get his attention

everyone’s passed out at this point because the beef was so damn good

tae kinda looks spaced out so he turns his head immediately and he forgot for a second that he was supposed to be cold with jimin

“what?”

“..... do you still want y/n’s number?”

taehyung almost fALLS out of his chair as he nods eagerly, making jimin shake his head to himself as he hesistantly takes out his phone from his pocket

oh god jimin’s phone is on his hand now oh god that’s your picture oh god that’s your number oH-

“i’m not gonna text her tonight if that’s you’re worried about?? i mean we barely know each other!! consider me asking for her number to be used for future references only :D”

“what does future references even mean?”

...

“... luggage. i want y/n’s luggage bag.”

...

“i also want y/n’s-...”

“BUTT OUT JUNGKOOK!! BUTT !! OUT !!”

when you open up your company’s email to you, you really can’t help but to feel nervous

today was your off-day and they specifically requested that you come to the main office at 10 AM sharp

and in your off-day, you aren’t even awake at that time of the morning!!

it wss both a blessing and a curse that you slept early the night before so your body clock just went “lol u wake up early today get up at 6”

and not to mention the fact that it was the same day you learned that you went viral last night when you were peacefully asleep

so the last few hours have been WILD and it kinda put you into shock

the closest you’ve ever been to fame was having your pictures leaked with jimin when you were still kids!!

if you were lucky enough, your face would be covered by every possible animal emoji that was ever released

apart from that, it was the occassional mention of your name in stan twitter and that was it

but THIS type of fame is on a whole another level!! higher than being tagged as jimin’s best friend outside of bts!! higher than having your face covered with animal emojis

when you thought that you were gonna be fired over being viral for some reason unbeknownst —

even if you know that you haven’t violated anything and if anything, you were the one who got violated because someone uploaded a picture of you without your consent!!!

so when you learn that they aren’t mad at all and ecstatic in fact

because your airline basically got free publicity and promotion just because you looked so good in pictures that weren’t even intentional

and that there is a more than noticeable spike in the bookings of flights

and that people were cALLING to ask if you would be the one to pilot that flight

AND RIVAL AIRLINES WERE CALLING IN TO ASK WHEN YOUR CONTRACT WOULD EXPIRE

and that said rival airlines were pitching in salaries that competed with your paycheck now aND THAT THEY WERE EVEN higher

needless to say that your day was more than eventful

you don’t know how to cope up with it either so while the meeting drags on to talk about your newfound fame you’re just :O the entire time

“i believe that park jimin from bts is a close friend of yours, correct?”

wAIT what

you shouldn’t be shocked by now because practically everyone’s familiar with him and the rest of the boys

but it still takes you off-guard because as much as he is your friend

and as much you admit that you miss jimin :(

or that you haven’t talked to him as much these past few days

you genuinely don’t see the connection of why jimin would be brought up into this conversation that doesn’t involve him in the first place

there’s a self-pitying realization in between that it seems like your only determining factor these days was to be known as a best friend of a kpop idol and nothing else

:(

that’s a sad topic you’d rather not delve in at the moment

:(

“prior to you being catapulted into fame suddenly — we reached out to their company for them to become our endorsers. a commercial and a billboard and some other things.”

“and this is just the pERFECT timing because you’re famous now and people love you!!!”

this was it

the stars were aligning for you

not only do you get to hang out with jimin, but now you’re launched into much more job opportunities!!

when the meeting concluded, you narrow it down to the conclusions that:

a) you’re most likely to film a commercial and some adverts and perhaps be included in a billboard with them (their company has yet to confirm within the week but your ceo ji-eun is damn sure at this point or else she will flip

b) you’re now getting an agent :D because apparently offers have been waiting for you left and right and they already got you one before you even said “yeah sure i guess???”

c) you’re getting a RAISE

d) sooner or later you’re gonna do this photoshoot so your own company could post about you this time

e) interviews. you’re gonna be asked to chat your heart out intentionally. i n t e r v i e w s

and it’s a humbling moment for sure because it’s like 

oh. you didn’t mean for this to happen but it’s here now and you can make the most of this while it’s still here!! you get to do what you love and be with the people you love and basically get paid for it!!

oh is this what jimin feels like all the time then??

maybe you should apply as the 8th member of bts

it’s during an intentionally cold night in your apartment that your phone basically vibrates itself off the table

right when you were still in the bathroom taking your time because you were getting PR!! and the mask you just put on happens to be something you’ve been curious about but it was too expensive for you to be curious about lol

also: curiosity that leads you to buy either new skincare products or makeup are either a godsend or a godforsaken situation because 6 out of 10 times you do that, you breakout!!! 

the sound of something clattering to the ground immediately makes you scramble towards your living room, phone flipped over to see jimin up close, eyes even in a picture enough to intimidate you for not answering immediately

“Y/N!!!”

“JIMIN!!!”

the both of you put each other on speaker mode because while you didn’t want to risk ruining your mask, the rest of the boys wanna listen in

the entire phone call was so intense because even in speaker mode you were still yelling at each other

and it was spent with so much enthusiasm on trying to catch up with the past days and jimin apologizing profusely because he’s been living under a rock

“i can’t believe it!! I CAN FINALLY RIDE IN ON A FLIGHT YOU’RE GONNA PILOT”

what

wait

“... jimin what do you mean”

because as far as you knew, the airline commercial would be done with a green screen to ensure that it’s of the best quality

not a gopro type of thing because ur flight attendants would yell real-time to the camera crew and the boys when they try to do something and the seatbelt sign is still on!!!

“wait jimin i think y/n wasn’t supposed to know that yet”

you hear a voice in the background and it’s very much familiar and it’s now hitting you that there’s an audience for your entire call

“namjoon, is that you???”

“Y/N IT’S ME!!! NAMJOON!! OMG”

and then you hear this scuffle over the line and a very slight commotion

it’s jimin holding his phone away with his arm and the other fending off namjoon while hobi scrambles to steal it back

jin is helplessly saying hello to you in the background while jungkook is hopping around going all “miss y/n i am a fan of you!!!”

taehyung is going all sweater paws again while yoongi is desperately trying to shut them up because he’s still listening into yours and jimin’s conversation and he’s genuinely engrossed ok

and now everyone’s calm and collected especially since jimin gives them a death glare each and nobody admits but angry jimin scares the shit out of them

he’s back to being soft-spoken now because he realizes that he may have slipped in saying information he probably shouldn’t have yet, a sheepish scratch at the back of his head

“uhm well you see you’re gonna fly us over for bon voyage and uhm kinda stick around for some pieces here and there?? uhm that’s from what i know hehe”

right now you’re just blanking out and staring into the distance and you’ve suddenly gone awfully quiet

yoongi’s on the background like “yo i think you just broke her”

“is y/n’s cell broken? i’m gonna get her a new one”

“is she okay?? wHAT IF SOMETHING HAPPENED TO HER???”

“jimin-hyung you said y/n sometimes forgets to lock her door right??”

it’s once again another frenzy and once you realize that you’ve blanked out, you immediately shush them and they miraculously do

it’s a feeling of being overwhelmed and disbelief because this is more than you’ve ever asked for

to think that just last week you were tired and was about to pull off an AWOL because your off-day couldn’t have come nearer

“i certainly didn’t know that”

and there’s a nervous chuckle and a nervous silence that encompasses and for a moment, jimin frowns because he thinks that this is all too much for you and you’re gonna turn down the offer even before it’s gonna be officially pitched to you at a meeting tomorrow (you have yet to know that there’s gonna be another meeting tomorrow)

“oh my god i get to be with the lot of you!!!”

one excited shriek from you and that’s all it takes for hell to break loose

“JIMIN I MISSED YOU SO MUCH I CAN’T WAIT TO WHACK YOUR HEAD AGAIN”

“i can fINALLY meet jin and hope!!”

“where’s namjoon?? this old lady from one of my flights own a stall at the airport and she’s afraid of riding in airplanes! and i was apparently so good and she wasn’t scared and that she waited for me outside the cockpit! she gave me a written note saying that i could come to her stall anytime and the bOOKS I’M GONNA CHOOSE WILL BE FREE OF CHARGE EVERY SINGLE TIME”

“yoongi if you’re hearing this; i heard kyle kuzma’s gonna fly first class next week and i fly that same aircraft do u want me to ask for an autograph”

“we have a boatload of dog treats we give for lil ones we have onboard so they stay behaved!! taehyung can have them for yeontan”

“tell jungkook that he can finally have my walkie-talkie he’s been bugging me about!! i have a new one anyway”

it’s official

they love you

they are practically swooning right now and are mad at jimin because wHY DIDN’T YOU LET US KNOW Y/N SOONER 

they only met you a couple times in the past and hobi and jin are jealous because atleast they got to meet you :((

and all of them are willing to take a splinter for you no doubt 

everyone goes to sleep that night all warm and fuzzy and content

not to mention taehyung being so giddy about what you said

not only did you think of him you also thought about yeontan aNd you haven’t even met the little devil yet!!

and he isn’t the only one who thinks of this but

there’s just something about you that is so warm and so genuine

like you could be as introverted as yoongi and be as much of a team player and and extrovert as taehyung is when needed be

but the point is that there’s always something about you for everyone that makes them gravitated towards you

of course jimin explains this to you and you basically shut him off

“aish don’t put me in a pedestal because i swear that i’m not that special”

“why won’t you believe me??”

“because it isn’t true now eat your cereal jimin i will pinch you thru the screen”

the meeting comes soon enough and you have to pretend that this was your first time hearing this bit of information

the pilot you were helping learn the ropes, hyunjin, will take over your normal workload for the meantime!!

in less than one week’s time, you have to pack your bags for three-ish weeks!! because as from what you can tell, things are gonna be a bit more hectic for you because you’re not only gonna fly planes

for a run episode, the boys are gonna be your flight attendants in a mock flight with the passengers as staff members

but the plane being in the air and them wearing flight attendant uniforms will be very much real

and then another episode to be squeezed in with them trying out flight simulators and quizzed with aviation facts 

and whether u did the best or the worst with the two-part episode

they’re still gonna go skydiving :)

they’re really milking out the sky motif but ok it wasn’t your show anyway and you were just gonna guest so they can go off by all means

after all that work, you’re gonna fly them off again but it’s for bon voyage this time!!

they basically res for two-ish weeks and you can tag along behind the scenes because i mean like you’re flying them home too so might as well

get some clips in between to be used for the commercial

and said commercial would be shot a few days after you all get back from said vacation!!

that’s it narrowed down and as you were taking notes, you can’t help but to feel very excited and nervous at the same time

a few days pass and it’s finally time!! yeah sure run episode but JIMIN AND THE BOYS CAN FINALLY SEE YOU NOW

you were supposed to reunite in the aircraft itself but jimin is an impatient baby which is why he’s called you insistently to say some excuse of “you have to go back to the empty boarding gate u need to meet your camera director”

lol but in truth you really don’t need to and where they are now is what you need to pass to get to said boarding gate

so when jimin sees you by the jet bridge they were all at, he sprints

like actually SPRINTS to get to you 

and he attacks you with a massive bear hug and sprinkles you with noisy cheek kisses

“Y/N *kiss* I *kiss* MISSED *kiss* YOU *kiss* SO *kiss* MUCH *kiss*”

no lie you really did miss him too

and once you get him to calm down because he was crushing your bones and you return his cheek kisses

the boys are all just looking at the scene in front of them with awe

jungkook’s looking at namjoon with his eyes saying “lol imma do that too” and namjoon’s staring back going “NO”

taehyung’s extra pouty right now

he didn’t conisder the fact that maybe you and jimin were an unspoken thing and that his crush on you is now something he shouldn’t hold onto

he got discouraged very quickly

hobi is waddling to you at full-speed and goes for a hug which is wild move for someone who he’s just met (but u don’t mind)

“you’re adorable your uniform is so cute omg”

jin goes in for a hug too and you say something along the lines of “i could see the handsomeness they were talking about” and he goes absolutely rED

he’s laughing uncontrollably like a seal 

namjoon was about to go in for a hug but then he sees your wrist and-

“iS THAT A KAWS WATCH???”

“OH MY GOD YOU NOTICED???”

“HOW COULDN’T I? THAT’S LIKE LIMITED EDITION HOW DID YOU GET IT”

“I HAVE A FRIEND THAT’S A COLLECTOR HE GIFTED IT TO ME I CAN GET YOU CONNECTED TOO”

you are now being wrapped with namjoon’s long arms 

he doesn’t seem to be letting go of you soon

yoongi just has his arms wide and his eyes in a faux irritated manner

“what are you looking at”

and then his gummy smile appears when you just cave into his hug and jin is like??? “aH! y/n’s power is unparalleled”

jungkook immediately goes in for an embrace and even twirls you around

“ooh!! you have more piercings now than the last time i saw you!”

“i can pierce ears now!!”

“jungkook can you really”

“lmao no”

and now that it seems like hugging is the new norm, and taehyung being the last in line for you to greet, that kinda burns your nerves becauseif you were to “admit, you may or may not have a little crush on taehyung ever since the first time jimin introduced the both of you to each other

so you do the sensible thing and don’t think about it

no thoughts head empty head first

“tae!!!”

“aha y/n :D”

you hug him and well

taehyung blanked at that and panicked internally

the stark difference of your enthusiasm and his timid response was cringeworthy and it makes you screw your eyes shut as you hug him

but the moment tae realizes this, he holds on as you were trying to let go of him as qUICK as possible because it was too awkward for you to bear

and a little crushing if you were being honest

taehyung now takes first place for wanting to be reincarnated as a rock in the next life

after yoongi seeing that interaction he was just like ᵒᵒᶠ

before it goes anymore awkward though and tae starts squawking, jimin thankfully whisks you away 

“you look so badass in your uniform will u let me wear it”

“let me wear your hoops and i’ll let u borrow”

“lol forget that i even asked”

no matter what, jimin doesn’t let you borrow his earrings!!

like even if the boys borrow some from him time to time

he absolutely does not let you borrow and when you ask why, he just rolls his eyes and smacks his lips and goes N-O

and then eventually he has to shoo you out because they have to film the intro at the jet bridge and you’re not supposed to be there really

jungkook excitedly squeezes you again and goes “see you later!!”

jeon jungkook knows what he’s doing

so right before the cameras start rolling, he’s just staring at the side of taehyung’s face in close proximity with a teasing smile on his face and then wiggles his eyebrows in the slightest when tae finally returns his stare with a knowing glare

“what was that awhile ago, hyung?”

“one more word out of ur mouth and i’m ratting you out to-...”

“i was just kidding hehe don’t rat me out to namjoon that i accidentally stained his precious table hehe pls”

and he blinks at that and is taken aback

because that was supposed to be an empty threat

and now that jungkook realizes he’s fallen smack-dab into the trap, he now wants to ignite himself

taehyung now has blackmail material :D

jungkook is now held captive by said blackmail material :D

they eventually get done with their intro and into the aircraft itself!! jimin is the one to introduce you and throughout the whole ordeal they’re just hyped-up bc it’s the first time they get to do this type of episode

and they’re doing it with you so that’s a plus

and they get changed into their custom flight attendant attire

snug pink get-up with a silk navy blue scarf tied around as the uniform’s collar 

and golden nameplates engraved with their names on it

and AIR BANGTAN embroidered into the breast pocket!!

they looked absolutely good

your work would be lighter if only they were your actual flight attendants

you’d work every single day

even though they could be tiresome at times bc they could be all over the place

taehyung was admittedly swooning the whole time

the production staff made you alter your speech a bit so you could insert air bangtan and introduce all seven of them individually for the skit

and then everyone’s briefed with what they have to do and how safety should be the no. 1 priority

and then it’s takeoff time!!!!

jimin is really really proud of you

he takes advantage of this as his bragging rights

“aha that’s my best friend who’s flying the plane we are in right now :)”

“lol i love y/n i was best friends with her first :)”

“best take-off ever in your life amirite :)”

“i’m friends with a pilot in case you didn’t know :) no big deal”

“technically that’s captain jimin to you too now :)”

it was a fun and a chaotic episode

a bit unsafe? yes

but then the icing at the top was taehyung swooning at everything you did and cussing at himself every time he remembers how he screwed up earlier

he is the most behaved person in this flight and he wants you to know that :((

yoongi’s mercilessly teasing him

“y/n’s gonna come out to do her landing speech soon; you should pretend reading the safety manual now”

“somebody give taehyung a barf bag and a pen he’s gonna ask for an autograph from y/n”

“ey jimin do they sell y/n’s perfume in this flight?? someone just wants to ask”

the episode wraps soon enough but not without jimin rowding everyone to CLAP FOR THE PILOT WHO ALSO HAPPENS TO BE MY BEST FRIEND AHA EVERYTHING WAS SO SMOOTH SO COMFY QUICK TAKE A PICTURE OF ME N MY PILOT BEST FRIEND :D

and there’s just this innate feeling everyone feels every once in a while

that everything feels so right and so complete

it’s like complete nirvana

and before you know it, bon voyage is already happening

a vacation with seven best friends (jimin insists that he has the superlative best when you’re talking about them as friends) 

(and maybe one of them you don’t see as a best friend and perhaps something more and that person really doesn’t show much enthusiasm for you as you do for him)

(it’s taehyung)

and it’s not like taehyung isn’t fond of you

in fact, he very much is!! believe him!!

it’s just that he’s paralyzed over his crush on you and the fact that he sees you often because of these circumstances and he can’t believe it

too paralyzed over the fact that he might and may have already made a fool out of himself

and that he’s afraid to make moves on you with the boys here because jESUS CHRIST

he knows he would be teased mercilessly or he would be teased mercilessly while they help him out but they would never let him live this down

and jimin

oh god jimin

because as much as jimin loves him, he knows that one wrong move on you and he knows he’s gonna yeet him to the han river

he doesn’t know either what would be jimin’s reaction if he knew of his crush on you!! will he flip? will he be happy? wILL HE FORBID HIM FROM SEEING YOU EVER AGAIN????

at times he could be very overbearing

and he admits that

but all for good cause as he tries to explain

oh and jungkook

damn jungkook

he’s caught on pretty quickly about tae’s crush on you

and kook likes you but not in the way tae likes you

it’s just a fuzzy, warm, and platonic type of like like what the other boys have for you

but with fLIRTINESS

jimin’s the same but it was natural since you’ve been friends for absolutely ages

jungkook’s however was very fresh and very aBRUPT

it’s him trying to get a rise from taehyung and urging him to just make a damn move on you

he hopes that his flirtiness with you would just intimidate his hyung to the point that “open your eyes!!! oh what am i doing?? don’t you feel that i’m trying to steal y/n away from you?? MAKE A MOVE!!” gets across

taehyung has yet to realize that though

bon voyage doesn’t really include you (as you also try to remove yourself out of the picture as much as possible)

the cameras aren’t always turned on and not all hours of the day are spent on filming

so they can still get to do things and activities without staff members flooding the house!!

the house you’re all staying at is a gigantic one

so it got divided into two wings and you can even close it off!!

one wing solely for the boys and the other for you and the production staff

you were at their wing more often than you are in yours though

and during these past few days that turned into weeks, you’ve been closer to them more than you could imagine

they were easy to get around with!! them knowing that jimin knows you is a plus factor if you think about it

and even if not for that fact, they still think not much would’ve changed in your present friendship dynamic right now

it was comforting to be with them, really

the other way around!!

and you could also hang out with them either individually or as a group and it wouldn’t be awkward!!

.. taehyung may or may not be a slight issue though

you honestly think that he hates you :(

and you’re trying to backtrack your actions to see if you may have done something to him

you always try to keep up with his energy

jungkook was fooling around with a drone and trying to experiment flying it

and then he suddenly had this idea of “tae do you think you could outrun my drone”

and kook’s whipping his head around for you as if in a silent question to ask “wait is that possible”

and you’re just over there narrowing your eyes like “jungkook just because i’m a pilot,,,,, it doesn’t mean i know every flying object in the air and how to operate it,,,,,”

...

“but y/n can you outrun my drone tho”

it’s the sudden challenge that takes you aback and makes your eyebrow raise

and then it’s become a cHALLENGE

taehyung’s competitiveness making him forget that you’re even there and that he’s not acting all conscious

so it’s literally all fun and laughter

and the both of you may or may not be so caught up into this stupid challenge you stupidly both participated to

you’re not even sure if there was a rEWARD for this

so stupidly caught up to the point that jungkook’s already led the both of you to the beach that you were overlooking from the house you all stayed at

(jungkook’s running with the drone and that completely destroys the purpose of the drone but he’s having fun too ok)

before you knew it, both you and tae are crashing full-speed into the beach and it takes a collective second for you to realize that you both were indeed wet when you’re hip-deep into the water

and it sends another burst of laughter and you’re just looking at him helplessly and out of breath

“oh my god i didn’t even-...”

it hits taehyung now that he’s having full-on eye contact with you on what the fuck is he doing

he just immediately tenses and all the alarms in his head are going off

‘hahahaha yes :)”

and there it is again

that noticeable shift in the air that makes your mouth dry at what could you have possibly done

he’s quick on walking himself out of the water, quite literally leaving you there

jungkook’s by the shoreline laughing himself to death and sees taehyung waddling himself out

“hYUNG OMG YOU DIDN’T EVEN-...”

ok what was that

what the fuck was that

he only gets a blank laugh in return and it’s a dampener for his mood right now

and it only sinks in now that why is taehyung returning by himself

“y/n did you drown????”

no you didn’t drown

but the idea did seem enticing because you felt so embarrassed and down with what just happened

so right now jungkook just has his arm around your shoulders as he’s trying to figure everything out

“did i -- did i do something wrong?”

and even if the context isn’t clear. he immediately says no

the both of you are just walking back to the house while the sun sets and he still isn’t sure of what happened but he knows that it’s enough to make you sad and most probably has something to do with taehyung

he just wants to cheer you up :(

so mid-way he kinda picks you up wordlessly and you don’t fight him about it

you’re completely drained of your energy both physically and emotionally

you melt into jungkook’s grasp on you as your way of thanks and he acknowledges it with a squeeze on your arm

by the time you get back, everyone’s just doing their own thing because it’s nearing dinner

kook kinda plops you into the couch yoongi’s sitting on

his eyes question that something’s kinda off but he doesn’t question it

and you just crawl the short distance so that you’re laying on his lap and be sad in peace there

all he does it just past your head once and that’s it

and he’s just watching a replay of a basketall game because he hasn’t had time to catch up with those championship games (even if he knows who won and who lost)

and out of the blue yoongi just hears you softly pipe in

“my ex is a professional basketball player”

“wHO’S YOUR EX WHAT KIND OF PROFESSIONAL ARE-...”

and you shush him bc you don’t want anybody else to know

“omg jimin doesn’t know this?? and i’m like the first one to know?”

“yes”

oh and he kinda huddles because after all, this is a secret and it does have something to do with basketball

“professional as in he played in this show you’re watching rn”

“is he in this game????”

“lol no from what i know, he got injured even before championship but yeah his team’s playing right now”

“what’s his name???”

“theo. i call him theo”

and then that name sounds awfully familiar and he’s specifically requesting to see what he looked like and even tries to get hobi to look for your phone

but your pictures with him are all deleted now so you just make yoongi search up his name and he’s like :O

“....... why did you break up then..,,.,”

and then you just gently explain that it was a mutual decision and that both your jobs were demanding

so yeah it was impossible to happen

and yoongi forgot that fifteen minutes ago, jungkook just plopped you here because you wanted to lie down and were too sad to function

and he made you retell what happened to you and your ex that only he knows about

so he feels a little guilty

“you don’t have to speak if you don’t want to :(”

and you just wave him off that catches him off-guard

“nah it’s all okay :)”

man were u selfless

yoongi now loves you more

jin and namjoon finish dinner soon enough and everybody goes down to eat

even taehyung who’s with jimin

and it doesn’t even look like something’s wrong

but jimin’s counting all the heads in the room and was like ‘wAit where’s y/n???”

he sees you getting yourself out from lying in yoongi’s lap and he’s there with you in a heartbeat cooing at you

“y/n baby what happened”

and you’re back to lying down again but this time it’s jimin pushing you to lie on his shoulder as he’s stroking your hair

you said “nothing”, you know...,,., like a liar

jimin throws yoongi a questioning look and the older boy just shrugs his shoulders because he doesn’t know either

taehyung’s abandoned at the edge of the stairs

and you were about to scoff but that obviously doesn’t hurt as much when he abandoned you hip-deep into the water

“mhmmm i see :D”

jimin most definitely knows you’re lying but he doesn’t want to prod into it because it’s obvious that you weren’t in the mood to be questioned

at this point he’s just trying to cheer you up but in the same time give you sustenance

he’s literally feeding you right now

jin cooked up a lot of box mac n’ cheese (he transferred it into actual bowls) from the conveniece store and you know what

he wanted to try it out

it is not the healthiest thing in the world but atleast it’s somehow foreign right???? 

as much as jimin loves you, he does want to eat though

so he asked jungkook to get him a big-ass bowl with a portion big enough for the both of you and he did just that 

but you aren’t that much cooperative because you’re not eating that much and jimin is really really enticed with the smell of the food rn and jungkook senses that

“i’ll feed her, hyung!! go get another spoon for you or something”

he is really thankful for that so he just pushes the bowl to kook and scrambles for a utensil and perhaps even his own bowl

jungkook’s feeding you now and without jimin sending you a questioning glance every two seconds, you’re more cooperative 

taehyung is sitting by the far corner of the couch parallel to yours and he is CLENCHING

and he’s groaning to his mac n’ cheese and namjoon is ??? why are you like this ???

“good. it tastes so good.”

he nods but he’s still sending tae a questioning look

you eventually gained the appetite to eat

but jungkook was in charge of the dishes tonight and he doesn’t want to wash one more spoon so he insisted that you just share one instead

taehyung is gonna COMBUST

he is now practically yelling into his mac n’ cheese

everyone is now ??? at him and he makes a show of just shoving the bits of pasta to his mouth

“jin-hyung :) namhoon-hyung :) this is so delicious :) how did you do this :)”

“...... taehyung that’s instant,,,, boiled water and the cheese powder...,.,”

“aHA so that’s why :)”

his actions are v fishy and v funny 

but deep down he is boiling angry and frustrated both at himself and a jungkook

kook is giggling to the bowl right now that you had to pry it away from him

you’re not even LOOKING at taehyung’s direction

usually you did

but your will to treat him like how he treats you is stronger

that’s it that’s gonna be the rest of the trip

if there’s any personality trait you’re gonna pick up from jimin from having been his friend for so long

it would be the stubbornness

you avoid taehyung like the flu

AND HE NOTICES THAT

AND THE BOYS ARE STARTING TO NOTICE IT TOO

jimin is the one most on-guard about that 

and he is whispering to everyone except taehyung 

“if you see something that relates to y/n and taehyung tell me ok tELL ME!!!”

and even tae feels sad about it to the point that he’s trying to make a conscious effort in making conversation with you

when you’re on the floor with your laptop turned on and they’re surrounding you trying to help you out with your emails

emails that don’t relate to aviation work and more-on to the viral side of things such as designer !!! brands !!! reaching out to you personally instead of your agent!!!

“mhmm they have really good shoes. what’s your favorite color anyway?”

and he says that in the midst of voices overlapping bUt the boys realized that taehyung gave input into the conversation and wAS LIKe wait wait tae’s speaking shut up shut up

but jimin answers for you in a heartbeat and hobi pinches his arm and he was laughing suddenly

he’s looking around trying to say something with eyes

“lol i’m sorry did i ruin his move on y/n”

and his subconscious-

“WAIT WHAT TAEHYUNG IS MAKING MOVES ON Y/N???”

it takes all four of his hyungs to plead him to shut up with their glares and don’t make this anymore awkward as tae wants to be swallowed wholly by the ground

your resolute will doesn’t crumble until jimin makes it his ultimate mission to find a drink that’s gonna sink you

because your alcohol tolerance was brought up again when they were talking about buying drinks

and jimin tells the story of how you outdrank him one night and didn’t wake up with a deadlier hangover than he did aNd he was still curious to how you did it

you don’t know either but you’re as interested as them in finding a drink that’s gonna sink you

hobi’s random pick in the grocery store did JUST that

you finally sunk

you finally got as drunk as jimin’s level

as in a shit-faced type and not just a happy buzz you usually felt

you and jin have been laughing without end for five minutes now

no one even joked

you just made eye contact with each other and you both immediately started to wheeze 

he was starting to get so red he looked borderline pURPLE if you were still seeing clearly

yoongi was laughing by seeing the two of you laugh because it was starting to get contagious at the point 

by now namjoon’s back was being slapped carelessly by yoongi who’s pleased with himself

taehyung has a grin on his face because you were so adorable

as if his cheeks weren’t warm enough just by seeing you so happy and bubbly

and the heat in his chest isn’t just because of the alcohol nor the warmth his sweater provided

maybe this isn’t a little crush anymore :((

while he’s ignoring that possibility, everyone else is considering it

everyone besides you :((

jimin’s on his feet at the moment because oh my god it’s happening!!!

good news because you’re drunk out of your mind

and bad news that you’re drunk out of your mind

so he’s tending to you with a glass of water and you won’t drink it

he’s trying harder this time by putting the glass to your lips but you were flailing around so much by laughing that it spilled some to you and jimin himself

he’s now looking for a straw

this one’s for boba but he has to settle for this now

and he’s trying to coax you into drinking it

hE’S EVEN USING A VOICE HE USES FOR BABIES

“but water tastes like nothing :((”

“which is exactly what you need”

“but i want it to taste like something”

he’s about to groan but then he sees your eyes glossing 

and oh god did he hear a whimper

“y/N BABY DON’T CRY OK OK WHAT DO YOU WANT????”

he’s now looking for an ice cold chocolate drink that isn’t overly sweet

namjoon has made it his personal decision to follow jimin around

and with his twofold clumsiness at this state, yoongi follows him but not without holding on to the back of jooni’s shirt so he could be slid around

jin stands up and follows them but he’s not sure why

“why are you all -- this is NOT a conga line!!!”

hobi’s staring into the distance turned into snoring

taehyung isn’t all that drunk

but you, on the other hand, are very much drunk

tae’s not sure to why you’re approaching him

maybe it’s because the hoodie he’s wearing now is jungkook’s

maybe it’s because jimin’s scent is on his hair from having borrowed his shampoo

maybe it’s because you’re drunk and your first thought is him even if drunk

but all his thoughts fly out the door when you’re squeezing yourself into the couch he’s lying on at the very moment

one that’s too small for the two of you and that he had to grab you split-second because you were about to fall out of the couch so hard if not for his strong grip that holds you

“y/n.”

taehyung’s not sure either to what his tone contained

whether it was for warning or for reprimanding, literally all his thoughts are crushed once again the moment you speak

“you’re voice is very deep.”

he’s not sure if you know this either but you were unconsciously cuddling up to his side, filling in the gap at the couch that just made you barely fit

you’re

cuddling

him

“a-and it’s very calming.”

he’s not sure to why but the moment you put your hand on his chest because you were basically almost lying on top of him

his first instinct was to put his hand on the small of your back

and the moment and the feelings were so warm that fuck this isn’t the alcohol anymore

nor the sweater

so warm to the point that the both of you don’t notice jimin’s :O and everyone else’s :D

because the make-shift conga line has arrived right in front of where you are and hobi just woke up

and right when everything feels surreal 

taehyung watches a split-second decision happen right in your eyes

you just kissed the tip of his nose

:’)

taehyung thinks he’s gonna ascend to heaven

it’s the softest moment ever because you pull away trying to gauge his reaction

he’s all red with his bottom lip in between his teeth and oh my god his eyes are so expressive

jimin steps in tho

and he clears his throat and taehyung iS SUDDENLY BACK TO EARTH

oh my god oh my god that just happened oh my god

this is a bit more scary and intimidating now

because jimin doesn’t look neither thrilled nor angry

he looks neutral

neutral blank-faced on the verge of who knows what jimin is the most frightening jimin

“hey baby here’s your chocolate drink you asked for :)”

and with just a head rub you immediately come to your senses and are already making grabby hands to the cold mug (with a straw!!) and you’re scrambling to stand up and jimin’s helping you to stay stable because you’re attached to him now

taehyung is now looking at his hands as if they were the most entertaining things in the world “wow look at my rings i have never seen them before so shiny so silver”

and he knows jimin can see right through him

jimin has the tiniest hands out of all of them while he has the largest

and u know what

he could be still strangled with those same hands 

and u know what too

maybe he’ll accept that wrath because he kinda deserves it  

he’s sent a brief look that’s enough to let him know that the both of them will talk

that taehyung shouldn’t leave this couch

nor leave this house

nor this country

you know what maybe tae better start timing his record on how long he can go without breathing

he can do that for a minute and a half underwater

soon enough jimin finally tucks you in with not much protest

much force from him tho but much more apologies and coos when he apologizes and you do as asked

got to make u brush your teeth and change into a fresh set of pajamas

he has to trick you into “seokjin would be mad at u when he learns that you went to sleep with dirty clothes on”

and him being the good friend that he is

since he also achieved of getting to sink you with a drink

he’s gonna go the extra mile

went so far as to wipe you with a wet towel and dry you off since you didn’t want to shower and he’s afraid ur probably gonna fall asleep not even midway

he even does your skincare routine for you

you kept giggling when he was patting your face so he did it more but now you were in the verge of tearing because in your drunk state you tHOught he was slapping you over and over again with both palms at the same time

and after all that

jimin finally gets around with taehyung on the couch and the younger boy just immediately straightens his posture

...

“...,.,., so you and y/n.,.”

there are literally no words in his mouth

“aha yes me and y/n :D”

and it’s a habit of tae’s to be incoherent whenever he’s flustered

that kinda doesn’t help his case because jimin needs ALL of his brainpower and coherence

“what are your intentions?”

“uhm i uhm aha :D great pilot. no jet lag.”

he’s nodding even there isn’t something to nod at

god he didn’t even drink much but he feels just as floaty and as spent

“calm down, taehyung.”

he SOBERS at that

jimin even pats at his knee to try and ground him

“y-you’re not mad at me??”

“lol i kinda am to be honest”

:(

“but i’m only mad because you treated her from the start as if you didn’t like her!!”

“but hyung you knOw it’s hard and -- wait was it really obvious??”

“there’s a difference between being shy AND being an insensitive ass that leaves the room whenever she enters!!!”

“but-...”

“and i know that people cope with things differently but your mechanism with your little crush on y/n was just kinda off for her, y’know? like this is the time she genuinely gets to know you and not just a five-second introduction by me!! and it’s just kinda a ballsy move because she just got to know you in this level and you’re acting like an ass and she doesn’t know why!!”

“ok but-...”

“and ok the boys and i aren’t mad that you kept from us because it was pretty obvious but i mEAN like you could have just went to us, ya know?? even if some would give poor advice, it’s the thought that counts!!”

“jimin-...”

“oH also what if y/n fell for jungkook instead of you, huh??? he has balls and he doesn’t even like her in that way!!”

this effectively shuts tae up because he hasn’t really considered that possibility

and it’s a dunk at sobering reality that each one of these days he let pass could have been the moment but it was just him hindering himself

because he is a shy boi for you and the crippling fear of rejection just always paralyzes him

aND NOW THAT TONIGHT HAPPENED!!!

with his nose still tingling and his cheeks still flushed because of that kiss

with somehow permission from jimin

with you in the picture now and everything in place

taehyung really can’t help but pout adorably and cry up tears of happiness a bit

jimin hugs him for that with a pat on his back

they both know though that even without any verbal warning that jimin will give taehyung hell if ever he breaks your heart

tae kinda pales at the realization because it may be a conflict of interest

and jimin would be like

lol :) why would you be afraid of me when you have no intention of hurting her :) 

tae SWEARS he could hear jimin in his head and he was about to reply but he realizes that he’s just a little bit worried and much more overwhelmed

needless to say that things really did do change overnight

you were trashed yet thankful that you remembered most of how the night went including that bit in which you were drunkenly topping and cuddling taehyung then pressing a soft little kiss to the tip of his nose

you could still hear your internal monlogue of “boop :D” when you kissed him

you’re woken up by the boys (yoongi included because it turned out you slept in for much longer) since today was a no-film day and they basically get to do anything in this vacation without it being documented and such

it was just a never-ending warm feeling with tae

throughout the whole day he was just grinning at you and maintaining eye contact and at times when you’re not even doing anything

(he’s glued to your side much to the grumpiness of jimin)

it was a slow burn at most

bumping shoulders and squeezing of wrists 

having his hand casually on the small of your back and around your shoulders

taehyung scrunching his nose SO MUCH

hobi is genuinely concerned

“tae do u have a cold??”

yoongi is fucking relentless

“what? what? what did the good boy smell???”

seokjin keeps pursing his lips intentionally after trying to gain tae’s attention and he = would shrug his shoulders excessively

“i saw that u little punk i SAW that”

namjoon would be on tune with how yoongi just won’t stop

“tie that bandana around your neck instead and sTOP sniffling”

jungkook would roll his eyes and scoff playfully whenever taehyung would glance at him

“do i need to kiss y/n so you’d be jealous enough to do so??”

jimin would be the mediator with all the teases but that doesn’t exactly mean he’s on tae’s side either bc the one time taehyung bragged that jimin was protecting him, he got whacked on the side of the head

“lol no this isn’t for u taehyung,, i’m just doing this because y/n’s cheeks are so hot and they’re burning a hole on my shoulder”

as much as your relationship was slowly but surely blossoming with taehyung

it happened for the boys as well!! even with jimin who you didn’t even think was possible to get closer to

bonding with jin was spontaneity and strict adherance to plans combined

“jin do u know milktpapi on twitter”

“bubble would have been a better name for that puppy”

following twitter recipes that are fast-paced and a little vague became a big hit for the both of you

he went on a watching binge one night and the morning after there were just paper bags on the counter of ingredients upon ingredients that he so sweetly asked the staff to get for him

DC CUPCAKES!!!!!!!

he liked that there has to be some type of drama between those two sisters

jin would just be ranting to you with no end

“they were on CONEy island,,, C O N E ,,,, and she made cupcakes in cONES but they still chose the sister who thought hAMBURGERS,,, in C O N E y island,,,, was a good idea!!!”

another inside game was to guess the personification of inanimate things but to food

“what must sadness taste like”

jin and you and the never-ending bickering between the two of you almost always fills in as white noise

yoongi and you are rather a quite dynamic duo

and as hobi explains that you could just really really catch on with his tempo

like at times they would just catch the two of you lying on the same couch but at the opposite ends with your feet meeting in the middle

awake and in complete silence

jungkook has his eyes squinted

“why are you texting each other????”

and it has him genuinely baffled but he’s just answered with a grumble and he CAN’T tell whether it’s from you or yoongi

just like with jin, there’s also a food approach

“that dumpling kinda looks like namjoon”

“i was JUST about to say that”

it wasn’t a showy type of friendship with yoongi; rather a more silent concern type of thing and the occasional hug

love language with him seems to be the both of you having a drum-off because he has a nervous habit of tapping his fingers

and he’s v thankful because oh :) you’ve just distracted me from that thing i was nervous about :)

also likes snoozing off so whenever you can, you squeeze in a pillow when his neck’s in an awkward position and when he wakes up and realizes he’s just like :) gummy smile :)

hobi is a force to be reckoned with

asking “hey r u ok” out of the blue even if you weren’t particularly sure how the other one felt and sometimes one of your heads would just whip and go “you noticed???? :(”

hanging with him whenever he scrolls at his phone and online shops

the only difference is that he buys what he wants

“you’re telling me that we scrolled for like an hour and you’re not buying any of the things you saw????”

and you just pass it off every time because although a pilot’s wage is above average salary, your future and earning isn’t as sECURED and SOLID as his was

that doesn’t stop him peeking at your cart when you aren’t looking and adding it to his and perhaps checking out :) i mean it’s definitely not from him when you see some parcels in your doorstep by the time you get home :) not from him :)

it’s become a constant thing to link your arms together!!!

even if you’re not necessarily walking, it is essential to link arms with you as he argues

one time jimin tried getting in between your linked arms with hobi bc he wanted to join

hobi IMMEDIATELY glares at him and jimin backed off like sheesh ok but u don’t get to do the things i do with y/n either

writing on each other’s forearms is a thing too

sometimes it’s to conversate when you’re not in the mood to talk verbally

sometimes it’s just about talking shit but don’t tell jin he has his coat on backwards he looks laughable

“can u choreograph something for twinkle twinkle little star”

“y/n i-...”

nAMJOON however feels like he should’ve met you earlier like WAY WAY EARLIER

he gets on with you so well and sometimes he just sulks to jimin

“why didn’t you introduce y/n earlier to me god what was life like before y/n”

brain talk is more prevalent than ever because there are thoughts that delve deep into your mind that sometimes only namjoon could get

noah fence but if you were to rant about this to jimin, he would just drone off and grumble and he’d turn to sleeping because he just can’t help it

movie symbolisms????? count that to him and jungkook

after watching parasite for the nth time, you’re sure all three of you had all bases covered but nO it was somehow bottomless

“isn’t it ironic and somehow oxymoronic that...”

he is eternally grateful for you because one night the boys wanted to have a seafood night and u may or may not have had some recipes sent in your airline gc with how your airplane food was made

(surprisingly it didn’t suck)

and you considered him since he hates it and you know what,, he gets something else cooked for him

god namjoon gets why taehyung is smitten with you

also joonie is a bit oblivious to this fact but the other boys notice that you always bring him back a trinket of some sort

you noticed (and jimin might have pointed out one time) that he tended to fiddle with things and do small tasks whenever he was ticked off or stressed out

you keep note that you should gift him one of those fun kiddie entertainment packs when you’re back to regular programming as a pilot

it’s also a constant thing for you to bury your head to his chest

for no reason at all

it’s really comforting to say the least

he could be preparing breakfast and you’re just trudging down the stairs still not fully awake

“hey. i’m making-...”

boop

“oh ok jus hang there if you want but u might get burnt by the pan but it’s ok it’s ur call”

jimin has become even much more of a precious being

gets in your nerves a bit more often than the last time but it’s normal at this point

head rubs that lull you to sleep are the best :((

taehyung sometimes looks to his hands because jimin got you to sleep instantly and he pouts

“how do you do that?? i wanna do that too pls”

jimin’s voice feels like a warm weighted comforter,, that you gotta admit

“your voice is very velvet-y and it’s unfair because i can’t stay mad at you”

“𝓲 𝓴𝓷𝓸𝔀“

you still make an awed face whenever jimin cracks his bones

you’re in the middle of being fond and being disgusted at the sound so it’s still a 50/50 whether you grimace or gasp at him

“can i pls borrow your hoops”

“you could ask a million times and i would still say no”

playing with his rings whenever you’re sad is a habit you would never grow out of

which is why you were attached to him by the hip,,, or rather hands ,,, when taehyung was in the verge of being an ass to you

jungkook is something ELSE

if you aren’t lingering around jimin or taehyung, you would definitely be around him

taehyung is most jealous with the two of you but no he didn’t say that :)

annoying each other is the no. 1 task 

but lately annoying feels like second nature now so it doesn’t seem like tradition anymore

you would be his audience whenever he’s drawing because you’re genuinely enthrilled with him and his work

“how are you so good at this”

you’re almost always trying to copy what he draws

“what were you attempting with this”

“i was attempting your drawing”

“lmao are you sure with that???”

jungkook likes playing with you by pretending that he’s annoyed

but when he sees that u made his art your lockscreen, he was so awed that he was literally about to BAWL

he pretends not to notice when you push your food to his plate because you either aren’t too keen with the dish or you’re just too full

when jimin calls you out for “y/n why are you putting ur food on jungkook’s plate” and jungkook with “and jungkook why are you accepting it”

kook just shrugs and comes to defend you

“nope i didn’t see anything hyung :D”

if you liked shoving your head to namjoon’s chest, you liked leaning on jungkook’s shoulder

seokjin looks most offended 

“not even half of me y/n not even H A L F of me”

this really warms taehyung’s heart

because not only are you close to him but also with his brothers!!

even if he wants to deck jungkook sometimes

and that he may need to work on his jealousy

but none of those things matter because he’s given the assurance that you’re exclusive

that he may be yours and you may be his 

as cheesy as that sounded

taehyung’s working on a plan to properly ask you out once bon voyage ends and not just steal cheek kisses from time to time

or hold your hand and avoid your gaze because he too will surely combust

or hug you from behind tenderly 

much to the teasing and the hoots of the boys

and jimin’s occasional scowls but that’s ok he’s moving on and slowly starting to accept the fact that he can’t be overbearing this much anymore

bon voyage wraps soon enough

and truth be told you didn’t want it to end because you were in such bliss!!

it was a very memorable trip that you now carry close to your heart

and the fact that they still have a commercial to be filmed with you and some billboards to be shot makes you very :D

since the commercial was to be filmed tomorrow and you lived close to the airport, jimin initiated the idea of “hey what about if we just sleep over at y/n’s place??” which was very applauded

taehyung squeals the loudest when the idea was pitched in

“lol no you don’t get to sleep in the same bed as y/n”

namjoon shoots jimin a look that he was being overbearing again

“or you could just let her decide :)”

it’s only been four days since they last saw you but needless to say that it was borderline chaos when they met you at your apartment that was more on the spacious side

“y/n’s uncle kinda owns the building” jimin explains at first because the building did look more lavish than the average complex

“d-do i get to meet y/n’s uncle??” 

taehyung is a bit nervous because he didn’t know that fact obviously and now he’s meeting the family and he is unprepared jesus christ and-

“no he probably won’t like you”

“jimin sTOP making taehyung nervous because he’s gonna start sniffling again”

the lot of them get to your apartment before you because your flight got delayed and therefore jimin just had to whip out his key you gave him as an extra

he does it fast enough before taehyung takes a deep dive to how he doesn’t have an extra key from you or something like that 

jimin does feel like he’s being a bit hard on tae so he lays off of it for now

taehyung has the ultimate heart eyes for you the moment you come home

“i missed you” in the most adorable and heartwarming tone

and there it was again

a cheek kiss and not just a quick peck!!

a tight hug to your waist and a nuzzle against your hairline!!

MUCH WARMTH AND FUZZINESS

once jimin finally got to pry taehyung off of you because he claims that he’s hogging you all to himself, you’re met with very eager hugs and greetings

seokjin and basically everyone else are still in awe seeing you in your uniform so he squeezes in a quick pic in his phone 

you sent him a look and when you peered in, the picture turned out really cool with the nice lighting your apartment had

AND he’s really pushing it that it was good because of the app he downloaded that made pictures have a vintage film cam aesthetic to it

so you yielded and just told him to send the picture to you later 

aha ego boost :D

they insisted on cooking dinner since you did look a bit exhausted from your round of flights even if it was routine at this point (the highlight was when some people recognized you from the pics that went viral and asked to take a pic with you when you were greeting them out!!)

“are you really sure you’re gonna cook dinner, tae? i could always order-...”

“you don’t need to!! i wanna cook for you anyway!!”

that was heartwarming more than usual

jungkook clears his throat

“....,., and us”

“aha yes of course i meant for you and the boys as well :D”

you go to change clothes more than enthusiastically now

because things just seemed to be good with no complications at all

the idea of domesticity with taehyung makes you iMPLODE just by thinking about it

the thought was too soft and too fuzzy that you’ve become energized

maybe reading a couple of emails before taking a shower and cleaning up and getting yourself to look a bit more presentable isn’t a bad thing

it isn’t anything but sheer giddiness when you check your inbox and see an edited version of a run bts ep from a staff member you befriended during bon voyage!!!

you kinda get now what jimin was saying that you had the ability to have people wrapped around your finger

maybe it’s charisma you picked up from wanting to please people just so you could have extra credit???

anyways

it’s a run bts ep you get one of the first dibs on to watch so that’s always a reward

basically the context for it was that it was a hot tub confessions type of thing!! the twist was that they had to speak their heart out (their dislike is very much encouraged) over a certain someone bUT they had to rely on their ~telepathy because names wouldn’t drop

and it was a random selection to who would start the confession first and the others had to go with the flow and basically hope that they’re talking smack about the same person lol

only the name blank would be used and it for the pronoun!!

you were already making assumptions to who it would be about

it could be about jungkook because throughout the whole trip, he would literally gasp out of the blue and take the others in shock like seagulls going WHAT WHAT WHAT IS IT WHAT WHAT

or maybe jimin because he’s a lil shit and would pull chairs and that hobi fell victim and was so annoyed because he fell on his ass so hard 

last prospect was seokjin simply because,, as jungkook emphasized throughout this whole trip,, “ʲᶦⁿ⁻ʰʸᵘⁿᵍ ᶦˢ ˢᵒ ᵒˡᵈ ᵒʰ ᵐʸ ᵍᵒᵈ” just because he complained about his lower back one time

speaking of jin, he gets chosen to open the game!!

and he buffers for a moment that gets another tease from jungkook 

“ᵒʰ ᵐʸ ᵍᵒᵈ ʲᶦⁿ⁻ʰʸᵘⁿᵍ'ˢ ᵐᵉᵐᵒʳʸ ᶦˢⁿ'ᵗ ᵍᵒᵒᵈ ᵃⁿʸᵐᵒʳᵉ ᵍᶦᵛᵉ ʰᶦᵐ ʰᶦˢ ᵐᶦˡᵏ“

“blank bought me an actual film camera!! bit more complicated than taehyung’s!! keeps telling me every five seconds about my settings and i!! i KNOW HOW TO WORK IT THANK U VERY MUCH!!”

although jin is a bit guilty about that because he admits that he has a more-than-sure feeling that most of his pics may or may not be either over-exposed or too dark

this reminds you of that time you bought a film camera for jin on a whim because it was on sale and you were talking about it the night before

lol what a coincidence

hobi takes second call

he is only about a quarter-percent sure to who jin was pertaining to so he trails around for a bit

“blank is like a broken kitchen timer”

he plays it safe with that one 

although there is some sort of edge with his bluntness because everyone might be a little drunk hehe 

“blank looks at things as if it was born yesterday!! literally goes :O”

even goes so far to imitate said expression and it makes everyone gIGGLE

yoongi snorts with that and now he’s a bit more feisty since he’s tipsy

“it joins me in my silence”

wait

“texts me even if i’m in the same room like wtf i can see you”

wait

hold on

“likes hUGGING ME TOO MUCH”

you really didn’t like making things about you because other people doing that makes you tick

but there’s this unsteady feeling in your gut

something that makes you think deep in thought and in doubt

jimin was next to speak so that calms your nerves

he would never, right??

maybe you’re just taking things to heart!! the boys really aren’t talking smack about you, right??

your breath is just held because jimin was surely taking his time in making a show with inhaling so deeply so he could yell a bit more dramatically

“DOES IT NOT HAVE ITS OWN CLOTHES????”

oh

your eyes flicker for a moment to the sweater that’s by your dresser

something of jimin’s that you forgot to return

oh.

“needier and whinier than jungkook”

it was the youngest’s turn to cackle

and at this point you’re only half-listening

you’re a bit too preoccupied with the hurt blooming in your chest

“i!! am!! not!! a!! baby!!”

jungkook’s meltdown makes everyone else laugh because right now he had his fists clenched and his face looking like a baby’s

“blank always wants to be included it’s not funny anymore”

there was just a little bit more hope lingering that this may no be about you at all

but god it was getting too specific 

too specific when it came to namjoon who was a bit more eloquent in speaking and wanting to get his point across

“.... trying to memorize my rap in UGH! .....”

fuck this really is about you

and it’s not just sadness that’s overtaking you

makes you more than deflated than you thought you could ever be

“at this point i sometimes avoid her”

and god there’s this more than familiar laugh that fills your ears through and through

“lol namjoon where do you hide?? i hide in the pantry”

taehyung even?

at this point you can’t even bear watching the video anymore

willing your laptop closed so forcefully that it bOUNCED back open but you can’t even begin to worry that you might have put a crack on the screen

shoving it to your desk with the screen facing anywehere instead of you being the best option

the hurt is painfully fresh and oddly felt so surreal

god were you really that intolerable?

you didn’t know how to cope with what you’ve just heard nor experienced

but the only thing you were sure about is that your situation has just been too good

perhaps this was the complication you were looking for because you weren’t used to things being so good

and you know for sure that this feeling isn’t good at all

and you hated it

at this point you’re just trying to go about your previous plans of showering and cleaning up but the eagerness isn’t there anymore

nor is the eagerness to see the boys

nor is the eagerness to see taehyung

didn’t even notice that you were taking up much time that jimin was at your door knocking, voice gentle and inquiring

“y/n did you fall asleep??”

you’re very much tempted to not go out at all because you lost your appetite for eating too

very much so that you make no move at all and actually think that jimin’s given up on knocking at your locked door

but then your phone rings and he knows for sure that you haven’t gone to sleep because it would’ve been put on silent

“are you hiding???”

you pretty much are and you don’t wanna go out at all

but you basically had no choice to

it was a pressure to wipe at stray tears and say “i’m coming” in an unwavering voice and even more-so pretend that nothing’s wrong at all

or the fact that everyone’s eyes are on you and jimin’s prodding makes everyone else wonder

“are you crying??”

the question doesn’t faze you but it does take you by surprise now that you aren’t comfortable with the situation nor the new attention

taehyung’s getting worried because now he notices the redness in your eyes and the bit of puffiness in your lips

“just sleepy. my eyes tear up when i’m sleepy, right?” you’re using jimin’s knowledge about you against him and he agrees to that almost instantly

can’t help thinking that something was fishy though

you weren’t telling him off when he was bickering to taehyung that he shouldn’t sit next to you for dinner

didn’t react either when tae let off a little victory giggle and grinned when he sat next to you not one bit of acknowledgement when a replay of cake boss was on your tv with jin’s eyes flickering over to you repeatedly but he doesn’t receive an excited glance back

even yoongi found you oddly too quiet and he was tempted to pull out his phone to text you

it’s weirdly off

there’s something missing

namjoon was starting to get worried because you aren’t really engaged in this conversation with a topic he’s direly interested about

“and something done to that degree would just be far too suspicious, right?”

“mhmm yeah”

:(

even jungkook who’s kinda throwing himself at you and you’re just barely responding

he’s wriggling himself to fit by your side and just curl up and when he looks at you expectantly to do something, he just gets a pat on the head

a pat??????

hobi’s being over the top with his reactions right now to try and gauge a reaction from you but to no avail at all

normally he would’ve made you laugh or atleast smile at this point

but there’s nothing

just nothing

taehyung gets you alone on the couch because everyone else was just dispersed at this point and are bumping into each other asking if they knew what happened to you

jimin himself is pressured because he prides himself in being your closest friend aND HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT’S GOING ON WITH YOU

tae is a lil bit more confident that he could coax out to why you were acting so differently

even gets far as to hold your hand and nuzzle his face to the crook of your neck

“everything okay, baby?”

god and he’s only called you baby only for a handful of times

“yeah”

that didn’t hurt taehyung’s ego

not at all

or make him overthink to why you’re not all that willing to open up to him nor even look interested in this conversation he’s carrying alone on his back

no not at all

not even when jimin has the most balls out of the group and is the testing point to see how the waters would go

while the night’s coming to an end and everyone’s slowly starting to settle in

“aha so where are we gonna crash anyway?”

you know what he’s trying to get at 

but seeing to it that what you just watched prior to this and perhaps for even a longer period besides that particular episode you don’t even wanna watch

you might as well not give anyone the sense of satisfaction nor pride; even if the question took you by surprise with how bluntly he addressed it

“uhm well the guest room now has two beds since some friends come over from time to time”

“but-”

“yeah the huge couch could fold over as a bed”

“but-”

“i could also-...”

“but y/n you have a king-sized bed!!”

jimin blurts out and almost whines out, a frown evident on his face as you keep your will not to break

“oh. just wanna sleep alone, jimin, yeah? kinda tired because of work today.”

he almost always gets what he wants and this blooming feeling inside him isn’t because of the embarrassment that you didn’t grant his wishes of just plopping beside you on your bed 

it’s because he’s thinking of why not

taehyung tries his best to just swallow the lump in his throat because he may or may not have daydreamed that he’d get to share beds with you

nothing but cuddling in his mind and the tiny bit of friskiness but that’s beside the point

he doesn’t wanna think about how there are no goodnight hugs

the closest thing to it was jungkook receiving a pat on the shoulder

because it happened that his arms were outsretched awkwardly

no cheek kiss for taehyung either

yeah it’s perhaps just fatigue as hobi tried to reason

they don’t know if they’re convincing each other or just themselves

maybe tomorrow would be better :D

...

aha no 

in fact at this point of morning when everyone knows that you’d be awake and it happens to be your off-day before the shoot tomorrow

and that whenever they’re around, you’d rather linger around them than to stay cooped in your room because you would be too sluggish then go back to sleep again

“blank always wants to be included it’s not funny anymore”

yeah you’d rather keep your pride at this point

jimin knocks again and you know you have no choice if you wanted this to go as discreet and as smooth as possible without raising suspicions that you knew

jin panicked for a moment because he was making french toast that he saw from damn milktpapi to try and catch your attention so when he hEARD your door click he was rapping litanies faster than the rapline ever could

they unconsciously just gravitate towards the couch and are practically hovering around you

you’re awfully quiet and the only input you give is when you’re asked a direct question

the only noise was coming from them reminiscing about their bv trip 

namjoon keeps bringing you up with “yahhh do u remember when y/n-....”

yoongi makes a point to keep laughing and have his arms protruding and therefore nudging you each time

at one point he almost shoves you but he’s barely met with a reaction

goddamn does he need to throw you off a cliff or something just to get a rise out of you

they really think that there must be something wrong 

so right when they wanted to open it up, they literally get interrupted but this time with a doorbell

you practically leap at that opportunity because quite literally were you saved by the bell

you don’t know who’s ringing your bell and why but you’re willing to take it 

jimin knows that you aren’t expecting anyone besides them as he’s made you promise

he might as well square up right now and be huffy about it

you’re bordering on confusion and curiosity as you open the door and even more-so your audience behind you who may or may not be in the same state

“theo??”

yoongi’s ears immediately perk up at that while his eyes go the widest

he’s toppling over as he scrambles for a vantage point that would get to see theo but without neither you nor theo seeing him

oh my god is this really your prfoessional basketball player for an ex-boyfriend

the boys are panicked to how yoongi’s acting and they even help him adjust his position even if they don’t know what it’s for

“wHAT YOONGI WHAT WHAT WHAT”

“BE QUIET”

he’s racking his brain for the description you gave and the picture you showed him

tall? intimidatingly. shoulders? perhaps even broader than seokjin’s. muscles? even more defined than jungkook when he lived in the gym. fluffy and silky-looking hair? enviously so :((

oh god it is theo

is he supposed to fanboy now

wait 

what was your ex doing here anyway

“i’m just gonna be out for a second, yeah?”

you say aimlessly and yoongi catches your gaze and he pretends to eat french toast while he’s stretched out on the floor to not break his cover

no one even has a chance to question nor respond because you’re already shutting the door

“WHO WAS THAT”

“WHY IS HE HERE”

“i sWEAR i saw him on tv once”

“taehyung are you ok”

yoongi’s bombarded and even if he’s shocked at the the turn of events because one second ur eating french toast with them and the next you’re out the door; he does have a bit more of an idea

“oh that was theo”

...

“are we supposed to automatically know who tHEO is???”

“you gonna add more context to that or????”

“even jimin doesn’t know!!!”

“theo’s a basketball player”

there are a couple of awed reactions

even namjoon’s explosive “aHHHHH so that’s where he’s from”

but there’s this question that’s begging to be asked

jimin taking front line as he asks with so much spite

“why is theo here then??”

this baffles yoongi too

most times he just doesn’t sugarcoat things and his mouth speaks the truth before he could even think of something else

“aish i don’t know i just know that she’s y/n’s ex so stop asking me if-...”

jimin’s in the corner with his mouth dropped, tongue poking at his cheek

“oh uhm i didn’t know that”

taehyung is sat on the floor with his attention not on the french toast anymore

eyes distant and not blinking as he’s nodding

“i see”

both jimin and taehyung clearly need time to process this bit of information

the conversation ends at that and everyone else staggers around

jimin’s in thought because why didn’t he know that??

shouldn’t he know that?

and what’s it with yoongi knowing instead of him?

taehyung, on the other hand, is conflicted with what he should feel

he’s jealous that’s for sure

the both of you covered masses of topics during the outing

but it never came to the topic of past flames

were you meaning not to tell him? or theo wasn’t talked about because the topic never came????

is this insecurity that he’s feeling

jungkook has to hold taehyung’s head still because he’s still nodding while deep in thought

you really weren’t expecting theo to show up at your doorstep

it’s in good intentions and you remained as friends but he was just too unexpected

“didn’t you know?? i’m gonna be one of those extras tomorrow for your airline commercial and it’s just a lil cameo but still!!! i don’t know i just wanted to visit you since i was in the area too :D”

and that’s what ended up with you coming with him to the little cafe at your complex with the promise that it was just gonna be quick and you’ll show him out

and perhaps that you don’t wanna be in the same room as them either

avoiding is good

yeah it would be good

:)

jimin doesn’t know what he’s trying to prove either but there’s this tug on his chest that basically yelled at him that he was a shitty friend

hasn’t been an hour ever since you left but he’s kinda sitting there fazed, whatever the other was saying coming in his ear and going out the other

“i lost my charger :(((”

jimin’s mindlessly answering to a pouty namjoon

“y/n has the same laptop. you could just get the charger by her desk”

he says naturally as if it’s clockwork and only waves him off when namjoon asks if it would be okay with you

he smiles at that and practically bounces to your unlocked room

quickly finds your desk and looks for a familiar charger

oh uhm it’s still connected to your laptop

jimin already said it was no worries so namjoon sleekly takes it out of the port with little hesitation

why did your laptop turn on

wait

is that his face??

is that

is that them in a hot tub

jimin’s wondering why namjoon is taking so long

he himself hasn’t been in your room for a long time and the thought makes him spring up

“hyung??”

fuck

oh god

it feels like freezing cold water was just splashed onto their spines without warning

jimin immediately pales

it’s taehyung who piles in last to your bedroom with all the commotion he could hear

he wants to absolutely deck himself 

everyone’s just speechless when they clicked play on the video even when they had this underlying feel to what it was

there’s a collective intake of sharp inhales because they couldn’t even finish the episode in which they basically talk shit about you for a solid three minutes

jimin has his face on his hands and he’s visibly stressed as everyone else is

couldn’t even tell on which blow was the hardest because they were all so harsh in their own ways

basically hit where it hurts most 

they were drunk beyond their comprehension and weren’t necessarily thinking

the episode was filmed pretty much in the first day of bv 

and whatever circumstance that night was in, it was still no excuse

absolutely no excuse to how they acted

maybe they took joking and overexaggerating too far

but whatever route they took, be it honest or not, no doubt that they were sure it hurt you

god a mental breakdown is already creeping at the back for all seven of them

tAEHYUNG’S SOBBING

jimin’s shaking

jungkook’s rubbing his eyes

jin and namjoon are repeating themselves

hobi’s dead silent

yoongi’s hands are practically trembling

it’s when you go home that you’ve momentarily forgotten that everything was going downwards because you spent the last hour or two being distracted by theo in just your pajamas

but it’s when you know that they know

and some can’t even look you in the eye

jimin’s the first to shoot up from his seat and god he looks somehow wrecked

“y/n i-...”

“m’sorry for being introlerable and all of those things, yeah? won’t happen again.”

everyone tenses at that

you shouldn’t even be apologetic!!

in fact they’re the ones who fucked up and you’re the one who’s acting as if you did

this makes them even more guilty

they all pipe in and try to point that out but you just easily drown them out with a tilt of your head

taehyung who’s standing by your doorframe just buffers as if to reach out for you but he retracts it quickly

they’ve really done it this time huh

it’s all just in characteristically empty spirits

the shooting next day was painful

having to drive together and be squished in between yoongi and jungkook whose mouths were so dry and eyes glossy

“i didn’t mean it”

jungkook first says under his breath and it’s quite a hitch in his throat when he adds on to it

“we weren’t thinking at all”

it’s a quiet show as jungkook and yoongi try to apologize to you and you’re in the middle trying to just sit through it all

it’s a quick nod as you have for a response before you hurriedly go down the van in perfect timing

you did listen and the apologies were sincere and heartfelt

just not too keen on forgiving something of that gravity in an instant

even with their promise that they could work something out to have that bit cut out or even scrap the whole episode if necessary

you just couldn’t wait to get the day over

you’re rigid with them and them trying to get to talk to you in between takes

the skits required more of them than you anyway so you just sat that one out

all while they try to get genuine with the feelings and lines indicated in their script

taehyung was the most distracted

even if people expected more of him given his acting credentials

and when it’s your turn to be filmed at, he can’t help staring

you looked blank

there’s this certain hyunbin (and also to your surprise) that’s gonna act as your co-pilot that got to make you smile a time or two after making a fool out of himself

if only taehyung knew that theo’s gonna be here as an extra

he would flip and THEN bawl

and as if things wouldn’t get even more unfavorable for you, they decide to cram in the photoshoot for the billboard at this very day too

multiple shoots of you being in the middle of them with a commercial-like smile

you having a solo one

them having one too

the boys wearing your airline’s flight attendant uniforms

trying to have a candid shot but all of you should be laughing and smiling as per the director

that was painful

that was really painful for the staff to watch

most painful for the eight of you

they even had to count to three so you could laugh together even if that takes away the essence of a candid shot

jimin wants so badly to hold you and talk to you

taehyung wants to get on his knees desperately if it means earning your forgiveness

the shoot raps and you’re zooming out the set

tae breaks down yet again because they’re gonna be held up by your ceo for awhile

:(

things feel empty and slow

everyone got around to texting you their apologies because as much as they’re desperate to apologize, they’ve done enough damage and respecting your space is the least they could do

that doesn’t stop jimin dropping in from time to time to leave something by your door

nor taehyung who doesn’t give up with all his texting and calling and sometimes waiting on your door

jimin and him coincidentially went at the same time and they just teared up and sulked together

you weren’t even home at that time

of course you’ve read their messages

trying to talk it out too as you’ve refused to succumb into your passive-aggressiveness

admittedly

you don’t wanna lose what you have either

:(

it’s only been two weeks so far

progress as you reply to texts here and there

slowly warming up again!!

namjoon earning back his partner for talking about movie symbolisms and perhaps everything wrong in this barren earth

seokjin getting to send you incorrect quotes from cake boss again left and right

hobi gaining his online shopping partner back 

yoongi making you promise that you’d hug him when he gets to see you again

jungkook vowing to teach you how to draw and makes sure to send daily content so he could make you switch wallpapers

jimin

well jimin

jimin’s going over the top as he has a lot to mend

but forgiveness was clear in the path and when you finally agreed to meet up with him after your shift

(he’s made the effort to wait for you in your lounge hours before as he got to pull some strings)

and then when you have a drink over it and talk about what happened properly, it just ends in a massive hug and some tears shed :((

“i missed u so much”

“i know”

“i could really be a fucking asshole sometimes”

“you are”

“you are none of those things and i don’t ever wanna stop having you as my friend”

“aha yes”

“you love me too much and i love you too much and this is forever now ok pls don’t get mad at me ever again”

basically everything was slowly returning back to normal

taehyung hasn’t texted you for a couple of days

even if you barely responded and miss him as much

it’s something you still have to come to terms with because his blows hit the hardest

you’re losing sleep just by thinking about him :(

you try to get on with your days with the knowledge that you get on with the six of them

things becoming more hectic for you because sometimes you forget that you’re famous now

but sometimes it was just lackluster if you were to admit

you basically sprint at the chance to pick up a normal shift again because you’ve missed flying

you liked being pampered for shoots but being tired from flying is the ache you’ve been craving for :((

it’s when you’re briefed that the plane you’d be flying isn’t your usual aircraft yet you still have the clearance for it

it’s when you just had the kick to be extra punctual and jump at the chance to greet passengers boarding

it’s these little extras in your day that you were so eager for things

that things just seem to be aligning

:)

taehyung’s by the front-most seat

hyunbin by his side as he gets up and goes to the cockpit to do nothing but take your place

it’s oddly warm just by looking at taehyung

no apologies have been said yet and it’s when that hyunbin practically says over the mic that “y/n take a seat and put your seatbelt on jesus christ” you do beside tae

the atmosphere’s just a loving type of warm

you really can’t explain it

it’s the same type of slow burn the both of you felt in the outing

the same anticipation you had for each other even if the other was doing the bare minimum

“hi”

taehyung croaks out after an eternity, a grin he tries to earnestly keep as it breaks out

“let’s talk.”

he’s nervous as he sees you relax to your seat, knowing in routine that the plane was to take off 

taehyung ever-so slightly shifts in his seat, shoulders touching with yours and hand in an armrest as he flexes them so slightly -- only supposed to be an attempt at a loving tease but it’s when you shift towards him and have your hand skim his for the slightest fraction

:)

“let’s talk.”

[admiral-alby]

k y’all I’m rewatching the old guard again and I’m having so many Thougts, esp re: Bookers betrayal. and like I’m barely coherent rn bc I am BUZZING but pLEASE bear with my frenzied thoughts bc y’all??? when nicky and joe are being tested, there’s the scene where Copley asks Merrick how much longer the tests are going to go on. and Copley says “you have blood, bone, tissue samples, etc” to that effect and Merrick says lol we keeping them and Copley seems genuinely surprised that merrick wants to keep them locked up forever and never let them out again. and later on Copley said “this is not what we agreed”. And like, keep in mind from what I understand the biggest reason that the og and joe and Nicky specifically are so deeply hurt is, betrayal aside, bc they think Booker willingly condemned them all to being lab rats forever and knowingly put them in a situation where they would face dying repeatedly and the Big Fear is that they may not wake up, esp in the face of Andy’s sudden mortality. But!!! Considering that Booker worked with Copley to do his big set up, and considering Copley’s surprise at Merricks forever personal lab rat stance, I do believe it is reasonable to say that Booker had NO IDEA what was in store for them. Reasonably, I imagine that he thought they would take the necessary samples from each person, run some tests, and then they would all be let go and contacted with the eventual results. The reason for the secrecy and betrayal was because he knew no one would willingly go and out themselves like that because of the Risks of it becoming widely known that they were essentially immortal. And he likely would have turned himself in only, but with Copley/Merricks insistence to have everyone, it probably made sense to Booker that yeah, okay, maybe there’s something different about the older ones, who knows, and Andy is the OG immortal so, kinda makes sense that some samples should come from her. also he did think that she would have wanted answers as well at least. what I’m TRYING to say is I really don’t think Booker knew that Joe and Nicky would be tortured when they were grabbed and he probably had no idea that the intent was to keep them as eternal lab rats. He just thought that they would finally get some Answers. While his betrayal was still ultimately a betrayal, and he absolutely deserved to face consequences of some kind, I think that his base intentions were genuine and he really didn’t mean for anyone to be so badly hurt (over and over again) and I really think, considering what kind of person Booker seems to be, with the wallowing in grief for CENTURIES and the nihilism and inability to optimistsclly accept his situation and move on, that 100 years in isolation really was not a smart or necessarily fair move by the og. he did not do well on his own/while with the og historically, idk how making him be genuinely and totally alone for another 100 years and taking Andy away from him as she became mortal was wise, especially when he no doubt blames himself for Andy’s mortality even though he was not the direct cause; him shooting her revealed that and was, likely in his mind, the nail in the coffin so to speak (he also straight up said “I killed her”) because he obviously has a Complex and established unhealthy coping mechanisms (PLS drink some water book?? pls??) so what were they thinking?? he genuinely was remorseful and guilty and hated himself and his actions immediately (“just leave me here” u drama queen Booker shut up and get up Jesus) I think they could’ve come up with something that would effectively get the point across while still punishing him. but also I strongly believe the og would not last 100 years and mostly agreed on it because it showed him they were serious. overall for the sequel I’m hoping to high heaven they don’t make him a villain and revengeful for his forced solitude?? and that they welcome him back before the 100 years because he is still family and they love him and what he really needs is love and support and definitely a LOT of therapy.

[powerbottomblake]

The seasons in RWBY, literary archetypes and predictions for the next volumes

As we all know, RWBY is a show that is built around taking in established narrative and character archetypes, layering them, tweaking them and/or ultimately subverting them. One of its core narrative and symbolic elements are the seasons, so it seems only fitting that they’d take inspiration from and implement established overarching seasonal archetypes (in terms of tone and narration) to the plot.

One of the major works in terms of archetypal literary criticism that deals with the seasons has to be Frye’s. Frye proposed that the totality of literary works constitute a “self-contained literary universe”. Since we’re watching a show whose whole premise is having every single myth, legend and fairytale coexist in a single universe, with characters sometimes alluding to multiple myths at once, I’d hope this sounds uncannily familiar.

Frye divided all literary framework into four categories: comedy, romance, tragedy and satire. What sets Frye apart from the other critics is that he linked each category with a season. He posited that literary works were how humanity assimilated the outside world and nature at large, which is how those four types of plot structures correspond to the four seasons in the cycle of the natural world.

What does that mean for RWBY?

If, as I suspect, each narrative arc corresponding to one of the four continents in Remnant - with each continent symbolizing a season - aligns with the genre and plot structure defined by Frye, then we can make more or less accurate predictions as to the direction and themes of the two remaining arcs (as well as some of the plot points).

So, first we’ll see how the first two arcs, Vale and Mistral, hold up to the Frye scheme. 

As I said earlier, Frye aligned each genre with a season:   

-Spring is comedy, with themes of (re)birth and resurrection of the hero. The subordinate characters attached to this genre are the mother and the father.

-Summer is romance, because both are representative of culminations in the human journey, summer being the conclusion of the seasonal calendar, and romance ending with achievement and triumph, usually in the form of a union or marriage. The subordinate characters here are the companion and the bride.

-Fall is tragedy, with themes of demise, dying god, violent death, sacrifice and isolation of the hero. The subordinate characters are the traitor and the siren.

-Winter is irony/satire, with themes of darkness, dissolution, the return of chaos, and the defeat of the heroic figure. The subordinate characters are the giant and the witch.

Going off this, and knowing that each kingdom in Remnant is representative of a season, we can divide the RWBY narrative into 4 respective arcs, each assigned an archetypical narrative structure:

- Vale is Fall, meaning the Vale arc is a tragedy. Now, I know that your knee-jerk response to this would be disbelief especially with the tone set by V1-2, but here’s the thing: team RWBY aren’t the protagonists of the tragedy. Ozpin and Pyrrha are. We’re basically seeing the tragedy unfold from its supporting cast’s POV.

Once you go back through V1-3 and reread the plot through Ozpin’s and Pyrrha’s POVs, linking up the scenes having them as a focal point together (especially Ozpin’s), the tone changes drastically and it aligns perfectly with the beats of a classical tragedy. As early as V2 you get to see Ozpin growing steadily more isolated (isolation of the hero) as he loses the support of Ironwood and the Council, we see him get irreversibly dragged (and dragging our main cast and Pyrrha with him) into an inevitable confrontation, because of his complacency and passivity (fatal flaw) that ends with Pyrrha’s sacrifice, Penny’s violent death and his demise.

Pyrrha being literally based on a tragic hero, her story fills every single beat of a tragedy, V1 establishing her innocence, inexperience and righteousness, V2 being her high point but also pointing out her “fake” invincibility (thus her fatal flaw), V3 having her grow isolated and then sacrifice herself while staying true to herself and what she stood for (completion of ideal).

One thing to clue you in about Ozpin being one of the Vale arc’s tragic heroes is one of the first things Cinder tells him: “Such arrogance.” Ozpin thus dies for said arrogance, which is basically the moment when a tragic hero is punished for their hubris.

- Mistral is Spring, meaning the Mistral arc is a comedy. Don‘t think about the tone, think about the themes. And sure enough, Mistral was all about the resurrection of our heroes, both literally (Ozpin reincarnating) and figuratively (each member of Team RWBY dealing with the aftermath of V3, growing individually and culminating in them getting back together stronger and a lot more anchored in their respective roles, Yang’s resurrection is as unsubtle a callback to the phoenix’s as it gets tbh). The subordinate characters of a comedy are the mother and the father, and this arc’s primary supporting cast and driving narrative force was without a doubt the parental figures: Taiyang, Raven, Jaques, Ghira and Qrow. This arc was about our heroes going from under their guidance to challenging it, thus getting more agency and control over their own destinies. In this aspect, Mistral is both a rebirth and birth for Team RWBY: their rebirth as individuals after the loss they experienced at the end of V3, and their birth as their own people, as full-fledged heroes, going from the supporting cast of the tragedy of Vale to the main cast of this arc.

Now that we have established that there is enough of a basis to assume the RWBY arcs do in fact build up on the Frye scheme, what does it tell us about Atlas and Vacuo?

-Atlas is winter, so Atlas is irony and satire. We can expect this arc to articulate itself heavily on social commentary; I fully expect the faunus cause and the rising military dictatorship to be the focal points of said commentary. The subordinate characters of satire are the giant and the witch. The witch refers to Salem of course, our resident Wicked Witch of the West, but I also doubt team W.T.C.H’s name is coincidental, so it refers to them as a whole as well. I think by the time the Atlas arc is in full swing, all of team W.T.C.H will be there. There is another witch we’ve lost track of for a while now that this could be applied to, and it’s Glynda (though I fail to see a narrative purpose to her appearance as of now, but I feel the need to point it out just in case). 

As for the giant, CRWBY has proved time and again how they’re prone to using the same theme/archetype both literally and figuratively, and this time will be no exception. Figuratively, both Jacques Schnee and James Ironwood could be called giants, Jacques as an industrial tycoon, Ironwood as an increasingly dictatorial military leader. Moreover, Ironwood’s name quite literally refers to a place in Norse Mythology where giants were born. As for Jacques, his myth basis Jack Frost is thought to be based on Norse mythology giants. But Jacques could have links to another myth:“Jack the Giant Killer”. Quite ominous, isn't it? You see, one of the typical examples of irony in archetypal story-telling is actually the tale of Goliath vs David, where the giant is prodded by a cool and observant but almost invisible enemy into a blind, stampeding fury and then pushed to its own demise. Which, incidentally, follows the exact same beats as the “Jack and the Beanstalk” fairy tale, where Jacques Jack, a poor man climbs the social ladder through a loveless marriage a beanstalk to a land high in the sky (Atlas), steals into an enormous castle (the Atlesian academy slash military enrollment grounds), robs special treasures you’d never find anywhere else (the relic) and causes the death of the giant who owns it. What I��m saying is, I expect Jacques Schnee to go full turncloack and align with Salem and W.T.C.H, help them steal the relic and propel Ironwood’s (self-)destruction, in return for them giving the SDC ground to prosper and it being fully sanctioned by the new regime (as in, everything Ironwood is not doing rn), if not putting Jacques himself at the helm of Atlas. Jacques is a ruthless businessman first and foremost afterall. Give him good enough a deal, and he’ll sell all of Atlas over as long as he profits off the trade-off. And well, as far as irony goes, will there be anything more tragically ironic than Ironwood driving himself in a frenzy, growing increasingly more paranoid under both real and imagined threats, needled by the infiltrated team W.T.C.H and Jacques, until he triggers the fall of that which he so desperately was trying to protect all along. I think Ironwood dies here, and Jacques being on team villains means a 3-way Schneebowl is coming, Weiss vs Winter (who’s 100% team Ironwood) vs Jacques, and I think the outcome will be devastating for everyone involved but especially Weiss.

As for the literal part of the giant allusions, well. It has been a while since we’ve last seen these goliaths, and it seems too good an opportunity to pass up for CRWBY:

Or they could hit us with giant mecha structures à la Star Wars, a project G.I.A.N.T that Watts is all too ready to hack into and turn against the Atlesian military. I’d keep my eyes open for any giant allusions in Atlas’ arsenal, chances are they’ll be playing an active role plot-wise.

Which brings us now to the themes. As stated above, the main themes of satire are darkness, dissolution, the return of chaos, and the defeat of the heroic figure. We can surmise that Atlas will be the lowest point in RWBY. Frye goes as far as link winter to “Götterdämmerung myths” aka the fucking Ragnarok. Wiktionary has a second definition for Götterdämmerung which is a “cataclysmic downfall or momentous, apocalyptic event, especially of a regime or an institution”, so yeah we’re going to see the Atlas regime full on collapse as chaos takes over in there. Team RWBY will experience its must crushing defeat. My guess would be that, after Mistral establishing Ruby’s powers and having them bring a note of hope to the narrative and the upcoming battle against Salem, Atlas will be about the limits of those powers. I think Ruby is about to face the reason Summer died and lose to it, aka the Fenrir of this Ragnarok but this is a whole other theory I might delve into in a separate post since this post is already running too long and Atlas and its connection to Norse Mythology deserves to be delved into in detail. But yeah Atlas will be on SOME shit, my dudes.

-Vacuo is summer, so Vacuo is a romance. The subordinate characters here are the companion and the bride, so basically the lovers are at the center of the narrative here. As far as RWBY goes, 3 pairs of lovers have thematic and narrative importance: Salem and Oz, Jaune and Pyrrha and Yang and Blake.

So now that the Adam subplot was carried to an end in Mistral, and after the narrative centers more around Blake, gives the Faunus cause more depth and prepares her for her future role as a leader in Atlas, what does that leave Bumbleby with narratively in Vacuo, especially Yang? The one remaining hanging thread by then will be Yang/Raven, which prompts me to believe the bees will be confronted to their foil as a relationship, a.k.a Taiyang/Raven, making the latter the fourth lovers pair to mark this arc. Taiyang and Raven coming back into the narrative at this point means we’re gonna get insight about another lover of Taiyang’s, Summer. I think Vacuo is where we’ll get all the answers wrt to Team STRQ, and after witnessing for ourselves how she died in the Atlas arc, we’ll get flashbacks of how she lived in the Vacuo one, which will be the thing to propel Ruby again after losing heart in the wake of the absolute apocalypse I expect Atlas to be. I also think CRWBY would get a kick out of having Summer be a major narrative force of the summer arc in the story.

I personally am a believer of the Spring Maiden!Yang theory and I think there’s enough set-up for it, mainly:

The fact that out of all the students at Beacon, the only contenders for the Vytal Festival by the end were Pyrrha and Yang (who only got disqualified because of the Mercury ordeal)

The way Yang is always set up as the strongest out of team RWBY

Raven was established as a foil to Blake but V5 establishes her as a foil to Yang, which culminates in their confrontation at the vault

The part of her confrontation with Raven where she establishes that not only is she stronger than Raven, but readier to face Salem and thus more fit to have the Maiden powers, which is why she’s the one that retrieves the relic from the vault. Raven might be the one to open the vault but she never gets inside. CRWBY could have had the confrontation happen after Raven retrieved the relic from within but they didn’t and I think it’s significant how Yang is the one allowed inside the vault and to handle the relic first, as if it’s always been her rightful place. 

Which means I fully expect Raven to die at this point of the narrative. There’s a part of their confrontation where Yang tells Raven about the version of her Tai told her about and the one she’s always held out for, and she asks her if she killed her, too. It’s the thing that strikes Raven deeply and completely shatters her composure as she finally runs out of excuses and has to face herself and what she’d become. I think it’d be symbolically powerful to have Raven align with and die for the just cause, thus resurrecting that version of her.

For the remaining two pairs of lovers, Salem/Oz getting a conclusion in the last act of this story comes as no surprise, as for Arkos...tbh I don’t really see anything there (yet).

As for the themes, summer is for triumph, the messianic hero defeats the enemy who is associated with winter, darkness and moribund life (if there ever was a way to perfectly describe Salem this is it). Summer ends with an achievement, usually a marriage.

Now, out of the four pairs of lovers precited, I wonder who the ones getting constant and consistent development still and all throughout the story, are both alive by the end and have been shown to get growing awareness of their deepening feelings could be?

I wonder...

;)

P.S: not saying the bees get married married but yeah I expect them not to get their kiss till Vacuo. I think too much will be happening in Atlas (V7-9) for them to actually get together so they’ll be in this...limbo of not-really-lovers but definitely-more-than-friends and we’ll see them getting increasingly closer (they’ll prolly also blueball us big time with grade A pining) but again I did not expect Adam to die as quick as Mistral so who knows