#then everyone wants to rush in and dunk on it and feel superior

[marsixm]

theres a video popping off on twitter rn of a supposed scrapbook from the 1930s and everyone is clowning on it for being obviously fake and i feel dumb bc honestly i didnt immediately clock that but heres the thing, it might not be from the 30s but i do think its at least a little old? its hard to tell from a video but the thing thats making me pause the most is the handwriting. its so specific and it feels like a sort of handwriting style you dont see anymore, and that sort of thing is way harder to fake than aging paper. edit i just watched the video again and the piece of handwriting that i was like 'theres no way a modern person wrote this' was an autograph of one of the 30s stars, so technically i was right lol (i still think its possible the book was made in the 80s OR the actual physical book the items are in is very old bc it looks very old)

[shihalyfie]

@sage-striaton replied to your post:

Idk how people can say Frontier has characters that lack depth. Imo it’s a very psychological season. The whole adventure thing is aimed to making them grown in their behaviours and feelings, it’s a big metaphor of their development

I’m sorry for hijacking your response to my post to segue this into another rant of mine, but I want to emphasize that one of my goals with this blog (if I can be said to have any) is that I really, really, really want people to re-examine whether they actually believe in the rhetoric that’s been dominating this fanbase for two decades, or whether there’s more to it. This is especially in regards to the fact that we’re talking a series deliberately written in such a way that it’ll change meaning and nuance as you get older, so it can “grow up” with you in a sense, and yet it seems like -- especially in regards to Adventure through Frontier, due to their position as the oldest series that the majority of the fanbase was elementary or preteen age during -- people are still regurgitating the same rehashed twenty-year-old ideas like they’re undeniable law. It’s one thing if they’re saying it because the series didn’t sit well with them the first time and they don’t want to watch it again, but we’re reaching a recurring problem where it’s sort of “brainwashing” even people who don’t actually believe it but feel compelled to go along with it, or wouldn’t feel that way if it weren’t for peer pressure. Obviously, there are dissenting opinions, and ones that are even very loud about that, but that pressure remains.

The mainstream opinion in the fanbase is that Adventure is untouchable and impervious to any criticism, 02 is its inferior sequel with half-baked characters, Tamers is an auteur work that’s the “deepest” of the original tetralogy due to being dark, and Frontier is devoid of much substance at all. Even those who don’t really believe in this will still be pressured to go alongside it, those who like 02 or Frontier will be pressured to consider it a “guilty pleasure”, and it’s only very recently when certain events revealed that the idea of 02 actually having quite its own fervent and passionate fanbase that likes it on its own merits became properly recognized. (I have actually noticed a huge uptick in 02 fans, especially casual ones, being more shameless in talking about liking it in the last two years; you’re still going to get the obnoxious person “reminding” you how bad it apparently is if you bring it up, but it’s not nearly as prevalent as it used to be.) I’m not talking about whether something is a “good” or “bad” series -- that concept doesn’t really exist to me as much as whether it’s “to one’s tastes” or not, and I think one of the joys of this franchise is that it has things that cater to people with vastly different preferences -- as much as a lot of potential for analysis and intimate thought about these very fascinating series. Even if 02 and Frontier were as shallow or half-baked as they were accused of, I wouldn’t think it’d be shameful to like them for one’s own reasons anyway, but what frustrates me is that I just don’t think that’s true in the first place!!

Not helping is that there’s still a refusal among the fanbase to admit that there were substantial differences in American English dubbing (especially in regards to Adventure and 02), which I don’t mean as a bad thing in the sense that some people prefer to stick only with that dub and consider that version what they want to work with, but in the sense that the treatment of them as “the same thing” has been horribly detrimental when two people, one coming from that dub and one coming from the Japanese version (or a dub more closely based on it), will end up often having an argument doomed to go nowhere because they were never talking about the same thing to begin with. Recently, a friend admitted to me that although they’d switched to the Japanese version a long time ago, they still couldn’t get the image of Daisuke and Takeru having an inherently hostile relationship (they don’t) out of their head due to the influence of that dub, and although they consciously knew better -- at least enough to admit this to me -- it wasn’t helped by the fact that the fanbase itself continues to reinforce this image because of how normalized it is to treat the dub version and the Japanese version as “virtually the same” and for Western fanbase discourse to assume you should be projecting those takes into the Japanese version. If you’re hanging out in English-speaking circles but are working from the Japanese version or a dub directly based off of it, you do actually have to filter out a lot of takes you’re hearing because they won’t actually apply to the version you’re watching, but not a lot of people realize this.

All four of Adventure through Frontier share tons of key staff, especially Seki, known for her focus on wanting the kids in the audience to be able to empathize with and relate to the characters on screen. All four share some of the best character work I’ve seen not only in this franchise, but also in kids’ media in general, and I also stress that a lot of this has a ton of nuance that isn’t always apparent unless you read between the lines. I do understand that a lot of this probably went over our heads as kids, and I won’t say that the choice to execute it this way should be impervious to criticism, but nevertheless, I think it’s important to call attention to the fact it is there, and much of it becomes recognizable once you see it that way; for instance, so much of "it's contradictory character writing!" comes from the fact that the series tries to represent humans in their inconsistent, messy ways, and while it'll feel "messy" from a writing trope perspective, when you think about it as "since this person has this mentality, does it make sense to approach this with this mindset?", suddenly it becomes very consistent. The supposedly “shallow” 02 and Frontier characters will act in ways that match existing psychological profiles meant for actual humans to terrifying degrees, in ways that you might actually recognize even better once you’ve hit adulthood and start intimately understanding things like depression or anxiety in ways you might not have before. Shockingly, “having heart, important themes, and kindness towards the human condition” are completely valid reasons to uplift a creative work in ways distinct from technical writing or cerebrality or how many tropes they subvert or whatever.

On the flip side, people praise Adventure and Tamers for being the naturally “superior” works with better writing, but when it comes to talking about why the writing is supposedly better, a good chunk of the reasons stated don’t actually explain anything substantial, or go back to actually being passive-aggressive dunks on the other series in some form -- it’s because 02 and Frontier’s character writing sucks that badly, or because Adventure had the “best plot” (which may be true if by “best” you mean “easiest to understand”, but that doesn’t mean much to someone who might not be very happy about how its story progression is just a boss rush), or because Tamers is the “deepest” when by “deep” they actually mean “cerebral, dark, and unsubtle about it” without any further meaning (as if Adventure and 02 were idealistic series that never went into anything nuanced and not, say, the fact they went very viciously deep into societal issues between parents and children, psychological horror, and intimate takes on the human condition). I’m personally saying this as someone who does think Adventure and Tamers have a lot to praise in terms of their approaches to realism and the unique aspects each bring to the table, and I feel that people like this are doing them more of a disservice by not bothering to uplift them for any reason that isn’t actually just inherently condescending. I mean, even taking this outside of the original tetralogy for a bit, when I was plugging Appmon earlier, there’s a reason I focused more on its theme and character writing and the use of “dark” writing to convey its sheer range, rather than trying to boil it down to a shallow “it looks cheery but gets really messed up later!”, which is unfortunately an argument I’ve been seeing about it lately.

In the end, when I write my meta, I write it "making a case" for my point of view, and I welcome others to disagree, but if you disagree, I really hope it'll be because you personally disagree, and not because the entire fanbase has been saying otherwise for twenty years and I sound like a radical. I’m not saying that everyone’s consensus takes are completely unfounded, but frankly speaking, this fanbase has some really bad takes, and in the past few years I’ve found it freeing to not only “say what you feel without worrying what others think”, but actually go out of my way to outright try and purge all the preconceived notions and pick only the ones I agree with because I actually agree with them. I encourage you to do it too! And if you do, you might find things about something you like that you didn’t realize before.

[uwuwriting]

Wearing his jersey w/ Daichi, Kageyama and Osamu

Request: hi!! can i req the ‘wearing their jersey’ with daichi kags and osamu plss! i loved the one u wrote for kuroo akaashi and ushi. -anonymous

Okay I haven’t written for my Haikyuu babies for quite some time and that sucks. Everyday is Haikyuu day and I simp for a different character every hour of the day lmao. Although my new found obsession with Nanami is taking up most of my time. Oh well guess he’ll have to share my spare time with one of the Haikyuu boys every time. Love ya. 💖💖💖

masterlist II rules

warnings: fluff, I don’t think there are any warnings for this one. 

Sawamura Daichi

-Captain Daichi thirst is active 24/7 lmao. 

-He is used to you taking his clothes.

-From hoodies, to t-shirts to his sweatpants, it has become a regular occurrence in your relationship. 

-He loves seeing you in his clothes. 

-They are always too big on your body, his hoodies almost reaching your knees and it makes his heart go doki doki. 

-He just wants to hug you to his chest and never let go. 

-He has given you one of his t-shirts to wear to sleep cuz he loves the idea of you having a little part of him with you even if it's just a shirt.

-You two were having a sleepover before one of his major games and of course you were helping him unwind. 

-You helped him make his duffle bag and double check for his knee pads, gave him a massage for his sore muscles after a long week of non stop practices and finally forced him to take a self care evening after he asked you to help him practice with his receives. 

-While putting on his face mask you were going on about something random when you noticed the furrow of his brows. 

- “Everything is gonna be fine baby, you’ll see. You and the boys have practiced really hard for this match and you;ll make it I know you will.” 

-Smiling up at you he gave you a peck on the lips, careful not to smudge your own face mask in the process. 

- “I know or at least I think I do. I just feel off knowing you won’t be there.” 

-Oh that’s right….You weren’t sure you would make it in time to catch the beginning of the match due to a family obligation but you were certain you would get to see the later half of the game. 

-Though Daichi didn’t have to know that yet. 

-Kissing him again you reassured him that the team didn’t need you to be there to wipe the floor with the other team’s ass, that he didn’t need you there. 

-The pout on his lips said otherwise though but he didn’t push it. 

-When the time came for the match to begin, he kept glancing at the stands mainly out of habit but also because he half expected you to make it on time. 

-No such luck though, you were nowhere to be seen. 

- “Oi Daichi focus!!” 

-Suga nearly karate chopped him in the stomach when he didn’t stop looking for you. 

-Everyone could see that their captain was a little out of it but they chose to keep quiet.

-You on the other hand, were sprinting through the streets of Miyagi to get to your boyfriend’s game as fast as possible, his jersey spurring you forward as you pounded down the school’s courtyard. 

-In a flash you were in your regular seat in the very front of the bleachers, chest rising and falling frantically as you tried to catch your breath. 

-You took off your jacket and rushed to the railing, tracing the ball with your eyes as the opposing team spiked it right into your boyfriend’s arms. 

- “GO DAI!!”

-His eyes found you immediately, quickly shooting down to your chest where the number 1 of his dark jersey rested proudly flushing at the sight. 

-The game was over rather quickly after that. 

-Daichi was in top form, his receives being immaculate while his serves were on point. 

-The first thing he did when he walked out of the lockers was to hug you, hug you so close and tight you could barely breath as he thanked you for coming.

- “You r-really thought I w-would miss this???” 

- “........Baby I can’t b-breath.”

Kageyama Tobio 

-Flustered babyyyy.

-He will never get used to seeing you in his clothes. 

-You have worn his hoodies before and he has had a heart attack every time. 

-It reached a point where you thought that he hated seeing you in them and you stopped asking for his hoodies or jackets even if you were cold. 

-That caused the frown on his face to deepen and a very shy confession that he indeed loved seeing you in his clothes. 

-Ever since that day you always have at least one of his hoodies in your closet. 

-Now your relationship is a secret. 

-Considering who his teammates are, you both agreed that it would be wise to keep your relationship under wraps, neither of you want to go through their reaction in this lifetime at least. 

-Keeping that in mind, you never wore his clothes out in public so you wouldn’t draw unwanted attention to you. 

-You go to all his games of course, being his best friend before becoming his girlfriend does that to a person, plus he had convinced you to become a manager alongside Yachi.

-So even if you wanted to skip a game you couldn’t. 

-Now that you think of it this must have been part of his plan since now he can be near you all the time. 

-You couldn’t bring yourself to be even remotely mad at him, he was just too cute. 

-You were so proud of your boys for making it to nationals that you decided to hype them up a bit. 

-Convincing both Yachi and Kiyoko you stole three jerseys from the team while they were changing before you took your seats in the sidelines. 

-Many would think that you wearing Kageyama’s jersey was a mere coincidence. 

-You chose him because he is your best friend, not because something else was going on. 

-Sugawara and Tsukishima aren’t most people and you soon found yourself in some hot water with those two. 

-Apart from the fact that Kageyama couldn’t look your way without having a stroke, he whipped the floor with the other team, gasps and applause filling the stadium every time he dunked the ball on the other side of the court. 

-It got to the point where the other less observant member of the team started noticing the significant difference in his attitude. 

- “Kageyama why are you playing so aggressively the ball keeps going like WOOSH and BAM without me even hitting it.” 

-Poor boy almost chocked on his water at Hinata’s words and when you went to help him he turned 50 shades of red in a matter of 0.0005 seconds. 

-This whole charade ended with your relationship being exposed after Noya begged you to wear his jersey and Tobio wasn’t having it, three nosebleeds and a whole lot of teasing. 

-He moved to your room that night despite the fact that the third years kept teasing him about being safe and wrapping it before tapping it. 

-Held a small grudge for like five minutes. 

Miya Osamu

-Love of my life number 20.

-The superior twin and this will make it evident. 

-Atsumu is always being a little shit about your relationship and how you don’t look like a couple cuz you don’t make out in the hallways all the time. 

-Em sir excuse you!

-Anyways, you know to ignore him at this point figuring that he’ll get tired and stop but no such luck; he irritates Osamu to no end resulting in one of them needing bandages at the end of practice. 

-PDA is not something you are both comfortable with and you prefer small reassuring touches throughout the day. 

-This has led to many believing that you two aren’t a couple just like Atsumu says and other people have confessed to you or asked you out WHILE Osamu is with you. 

-It doesn’t bother him much since he trusts you but it still tugs at his insecurities. 

-And because of those insecurities you get a new wardrobe. 

-Literally a whole ass new clothing line made by none other than Osamu Miya himself. 

-What is in this new clothing line you ask? 

-Osamu’s hoodies and shirts in general. 

-Every time he stops by your house he brings a new item of clothing with him, something that he has worn recently and others have seen just to get his message across. 

-You aren’t complaining, you love wearing his clothes, they are always so big and they completely swallow you plus they smell like him. 

-It’s like you have him with you. 

-Now Osamu might not show it often but volleyball stresses him out, like a lot. 

-It means the world to his brother and despite their fights and bickering, he loves seeing him happy and if that means he has to play the sport like his life depends on it so be it. 

-Osamu would do anything for Atsumu. 

-So you can understand the pressure he is under as a spiker. 

-His distress is you basically and you give him a small pep talk right before he enters the court. 

-Imagine his surprise and pure childish glee when he saw you making your way to him wearing his jersey. 

-It reached just above your knee and it made you look so cute he wanted to bottle you up and keep you forever. 

-Atsumu and Suna could be heard in the background teasing the living shit out of Osamu who remained frozen in place, the whole stadium turning into white noise as the only thing in his view, the only thing that mattered in that moment, was you. 

-He noticed your glare as you told his brother off, saw the way you played with the hem of his jersey as you walked near him and the furrow of your brows when he didn’t answer your calls. 

-Wordlessly he enveloped you in a tight hug, picking you off your feet and twirling you around a little bit much to the dismay of his fanbase in the stands. 

- “Hi.” “Hey ‘Samu”

- “Whatcha wearin?”

- “Oh this old thing? I figured you might need the motivation.” 

- *cue kissing assault*

TAG TEAM AY:

Arcana-Fan-at The @-FIC @angelwritings @axerrri @reinyrei @dnarez @ storage11037 @ezoyscorner @letscheereachotheron @ wolfkid22 @ Dark-Thoughts-and-Red-Roses @threeamwriting @ysatrap @yashinosakura @yongboxerrr​ @meena-in-a-nutshell​

[moonbelt]

»the moon, the sun

↳ ex-best-friends to lovers au | college athletes au

pairing » jeon jungkook | reader

genre » big angst + fluff + sexual themes

word count » 11.770

» there’s not a single thing you like about jungkook. no. not his jokes or his thinly veiled overwatch obsession or his supreme swimmers body. absolutely nothing. there is, however, a multitude of things you hate. wait, sorry that was rude, vehemently despise is better. 

 » mutual pining that could've been resolved if either of them exercised some basic communication skills lol, mild coarse language, lots of angst, cocky jjk but also crack jjk??, gamer memes, poufy haired jjk, also supposed hate-love relationship. 

YOU ARRIVE AT THE SWIM CENTER WITH A THROB in your knee and a resounding ache in your head. It felt like your brain was about to explode into a thousand gory pieces as you pushed open the wide frost-tinted glass double doors that led to the locker rooms.

Now that would have been a great start to a low-budget horror flick. You could just picture it, a lonesome girl? No… Woman? At twenty, you weren’t sure if you still qualified as a girl but the term woman felt too formal, too stifling, too mature to be attributed to you. But whatever, that was semantics you could spare for another day.

So, there you’d be; creeping into a university swim center at the ass-crack of dawn and then bam! Your brain impedes on itself. Maybe it’s because of some mutant phenomenal viral disease, maybe it’s repercussions from tempering with a portal to the paranormal realm that only exists in semi-open pool arenas. Whatever it was, it would have to be epic and a far cry from the truth. Which was, you were used to indescribable, continuous pain. It came with the territory of being an athlete. If you didn’t wake up in the morning with some part of your body feeling uncomfortably off then that just meant you didn’t try as hard the day before. Or at the very least, that’s what you told yourself to keep going.

Yawning, you punched in your locker code and began the mental and physical process of getting ready for the next three hours of practice before break. You usually where the first one in the building and the last one to leave if you didn’t have classes or work.

Swimming made you feel good, made you feel like there was something special about yourself. It didn’t help that the more you practiced, the more you were able to outpace everyone else. Practice birthed results and your stubbornness, wait no, competitiveness was off the charts. So, of course, you wanted to dominate every single athlete in your division.

Still though, waking up at four in the morning had to be the singular dumbest thought you’d ever conceived.

Once you were suited up, you padded back into the arena that held the huge industrial sized swim pool. The overpowering smell of chlorine and humid air made you feel more at home than the dormitory you’d just left less than thirty minutes ago. You honestly might’ve started crying right then and there at the sight of the crystal clear water and the humongous life-sized painting of an unknown swimmer in the midst of a beautiful breaststroke at the center of it all.

Today was after all the first day of the semester. Your collegiate swimming career was finally back on. Your lips twinged at the sight of the polished, tiled floor and how it felt cool under the soles of your feet.

You’d gone back home for winter break and although you’d kept up with the training regime your coach had persistently emailed out, there was just something fundamentally different about being back on your own turf. In fact, you were fairly sure a few tears slipped past your barriers and hooked at the corners of your eyes at the thought. Only to be blasted into near oblivion by the sound of a phone camera going snap snap.

You whipped your head to the direction of the camera like a person possessed. “What the fuck?”

“Oh, My Zelda. This is glorious.” The goddamn stalker, wait he wasn’t a stalker if he was a member of the swim team. Right, the goddamn fiend had the guts and audacity to say with an open-mouthed grin marring his face. “You’re actually crying. There are literally tears in your eyes. I can see ‘em.”

“Screw off, Jeon.”

Him. The only other person dumb enough to be at the swimming center at five am. A full hour before the scheduled practice time. God, how long had he been watching you? And to think he even had time to whip out his phone and document this moment. You were never gonna live it down, that was for sure. You? Crying? Over – you took a grand look around your surroundings – water?

“It was only three weeks, you know. You wouldn’t die if you didn’t swim for a month or two.” He still found the whole scenario funny, if the laughter in his voice was any indication.

“Coming from someone that I doubt showers even once every three days? Yeah, I’ll pass on that lecture.”

“Ooh, a solid burn from the Ice Queen,” he clutched a hand to his chest like he’d been shot with a bazooka or something. Dramatic. “That one hurts my ego immensely.”

You snorted. It was debatable if anything could seriously damage Jeon Jungkook’s ego. That shit was built with solid uranium. No matter how you tried to smash it. He was his own number one supporter and he’d built himself up in his head that he was the greatest at whatever he laid his hands on. At that moment, however, you wanted to snatch the iPhone out of those deft hands of his and dig a well through his head with it. Couldn’t he go be great somewhere else?

Instead of replying and subsequently dragging out this conversation longer than necessary, you busied yourself with adjusting your swim cap and bringing your goggles to rest on the bridge of your nose.

It didn’t matter that Jungkook was here. It didn’t bother you one bit. It’s not like it was abnormal. You’d known him longer than you’d known anybody so of course you were used to his presence. Although you didn’t particularly like the fact that you’d known him almost your whole life. Or the fact that your body prickled with awareness every time he stepped into the nearest vicinity. You couldn’t control that. What you could control though, was how you felt about it.

And right now, you hated him. Wait, no hate was too strong a word, perhaps vehemently despise was more fitting.

You make your way to lane five, take a deep breath to calm your nerves and then dunk yourself into the ice cold water. Better to get it over with than squirm around the edges with him around. For Zelda’s sake, he has his phone camera on standby!

Yeah okay, you didn’t hate Jeon Jungkook; the son of a family friend that lived on the other side of the cul de sac. Instead, you vehemently despised the boy that was a walking, talking human critic. You bite your lip ferociously in a bid to punish the thought of Jungkook out of your mind. After a second or maybe three, you push into the water.

“Your shoulders look tense from up here... you’re so not gonna perform well if you don’t stretch that baby out.”

That’s the first thing you hear other than the rushing of water leaving your ears as your face breaks out against the surface of the pool. You jerk your goggles off your eyes, look up and scowl at him. Mr. I-Should-Basically-Be-A-Coach-With-All-These-Pointers-I-Give.

“I am not tense.”

“Yeah, no. You don’t have to lie about that. I could legit see your muscles almost cramping up down there.”

“Are you really going to stand up there and pretend we have some kind of mentor-mentee relationship going on? Seriously? It’s five in the morning, Jeon.”

You could clearly see the wheels in his head turning and then zeroing in on the one word you shouldn’t have said. Relationship. Gah, you need a chastity belt for your lips. His eyes basically sparkle with rays of mischief and a dash of mastered superiority. “Well, I am seven months older, so when you think about it that way it’s only natural that I take you under my wing and —”

“I swear to you, I will physically break your knee caps —”

“Wait,” he looks genuinely confused, perfect lips pouting. “What do you mean by physically? Is there any other way to break a knee?”

Ugh! You stare at him and he stares right back, cocking his head to the side like he can do this all day. You want to scream, hell maybe even shapeshift into a fucking banshee and scream the roof off this building.

And then his mouth curves into a roguish smirk. The type he reveals when he manages to squeak by a better time than you or like that one time (okay maybe five?) that he got randomly stopped by some modeling agency recruiter when your parents had forced the two of you to carpool to swim meets back when you were a tad younger and he was the only one with a car. The smirk that just screams ‘I’m getting under your skin, aren’t I? And dude, it feels fan-fucking-tastic.’

“Get a life, Jeon. Or better yet, get in the water. It’s only been three weeks, no way you suck even worse than usual after that. I mean, by fuck, it hasn’t even been a month!” You twist his words back at him and then feel proud about it. So what, you are competitive and you hold grudges. There could be worse things.

His smirk deepened and okay, you won’t lie to yourself. He is attractive. Critically so. It would be hard not to notice that. It’s a continual and conscious effort to even attempt to un-notice it. But still, moments like these when the fluorescent lights beamed on his face at just the right angle and the shadows cut across his features and illuminated his golden skin to the heavens, boosting his overall aura like he was some sort of reincarnated god of beauty. Or worse, a Final Boss that you had to most certainly defeat. It became increasingly hard not to notice how much he affected you and your breathing.

Yeah, it’s in these moments that your better judgement faults and for a split second you are transported to that one November night in the middle of eleventh grade when fuck no! Absolutely not! You refuse to walk that horrendous trip down memory lane and relive one of the most humiliating, and this is coming from a girl that threw up because of nerves in front of judges at a talent show, experiences of your life. This was not the time.

“Your shoulders are still stiff as a board. Tell me, child, have you gotten laid recently?”

You let out the most frustrated sound of agony you could muster. You’re going to murder him. Forget you being the star in some crazy horror film, you were going to be the director. And you were gonna serve up a mean case of Deck Jungkook’s Ass With Supernatural Intervention as the main course. Maybe you’d win an Oscar for it. Heck, maybe you’d get a home run and even win Best Picture.

He chuckles like he’s cracked the greatest joke since Netflix Original Films. You’re too busy orchestrating a slugfest in your head to really pay attention. “I’ll take that as a negative.”

You barely manage to spit out a dignified response. “One of these days I’m going to seriously maim you.”

“Tsk tsk, you and your threatening bodily harm tendencies. I wonder if that’s like a kink thing?” He asks as he taps his chin with his forefinger and squats down to a level that is closer to you. His dark brown hair that looks almost a shade of black sways like a river to his beat. This is much better, it hurt your neck staring up at him like he was some guardian deity.

But the action happens to highlight the ridiculous tightening of his abs. The abs you’ve painstakingly not ogled at because they are sculpted beauties. Hell, you’ve yet to meet a swimmer's body that isn’t the epitome of fitness but Jungkook’s is different. He is carved. Probably why you don’t like looking at it, stare too much and he might notice and of course, you wouldn’t want that happening.

“Jeon?”

“Hmm?” He sounds so innocent. The liar.

“Shut up before I drown you. I don’t care how long you can hold your breath. I will send you down to hell personally.”

He wiggled his eyebrows like the concept of hell was all he’d ever wanted to discuss in life. “Does that mean you’d be coming with? Fascinating. Let’s make a road trip out of it. Maybe you’ll even find some demons down to fuck all that tension out of your body. You know, DDTF. Get your exophilia on, if that’s your thing.”

Exo-what?

Beat. He’s beaten you at your own game. How the heck are you supposed to reply something snarky when all he ever does is blow the thing to epic proportions and have you running in circles. This is why the best strategy was just to simply ignore him.

You shoot him one last look that you hope is as menacing as it ought to be. You yank your goggles from resting on your forehead and dunk them in the water to get the fog out. Placing it back gingerly across your eyes, you let take in a soothing breath.

“I am serene. I am calm. There is nothing around me in existence that bothers me. I am the pinnacle of collected.” You refrain from adding tense-free.

There’s no way you’re tense after running the three and a half miles between your dorm and the swim center. You repeat the words aloud twice before you actually believe them. And then you tear back into the water. You still have roughly thirty minutes before the rest of the team comes in for practice. You’ll be damned spending all your time talking to the fool with shaggy hair and a crooked smile that made you want to burn something.

The only sound other than the whoosh in your ears and the rapid pumping of your heart as you exert yourself is the uncanny, blistering laughter of Jeon Jungkook. At least someone was enjoying your torment.

You swore at that moment that you were going to deck him someday. Even if it was the last thing you ever did. Maybe not even physically, gah, but you were going to get a time so fast, so unbelievably better that Jungkook would be dumbstruck in awe and lagging to catch up. You grin at the thought.

   By the time practice comes to an end, your knee has migrated from a troublesome ache to a colossal titan. Dragging your body out of the water proves to be much a greater task that you previously took for granted. You try and fail to hold back your groans as you attempt to not limp back to the locker rooms and take a shower. Also, you need a painkiller stat.

The coach is too busy being circled by the hyena pack that is freshmen to really pay any attention to you. However, you know better than to think you’ve slipped past his radar. He’s definitely going to catch you sometime later to rim your ass for going too hard the first day of the semester. You guess that makes him a great coach in the grand scheme of things but you’d rather he let you be.

“Your knee acting up again?” Your lane buddy and a veteran senior in the program, Seokjin asks as he saddles up next to you and rips the navy blue swim cap off his head. You fear a little bit for his hair. “I thought doc cleared it?”

You sigh, not really wanting to remember last year when the university-affiliated doctor told you that you needed to take three months off swimming to heal and you’d barely lasted two weeks without going insane. You shiver at the horror of it all as you wrap your Legend of Zelda limited edition Link towel around your dripping body.

“Yeah, he did.” You send him a smile that comes off like a wince and then you give up on trying to downplay the pain altogether. “Guess it’s just not doing so hot today.”

Seokjin nods solemnly like he understands. “Some days are worse than others. I get that.”

“It be like that. I’ll be fine.”

“Do you think you’d be set for March though? Coach’s probably going to start analyzing his final picks for the comp.”

Ugh, Goddess of the Sea take me now! The National Collegiate Swim Competition is an annual event held every March and even though you’d made the cut as a naïve freshman, a knee injury caused you to be sidelined in your second year. But now though, you have to get on the final lineup. An absolute must.

Your cold heart won’t take it to be on the stands watching your teammates accomplish something you dreamed of. Something you’d worked and sacrificed so much for. You won’t stand to watch Jungkook rub it in your face how he’d come in a mere 0.6 seconds away from the first position. And you definitely won’t stand to have another year put on hold when your dream is literally right in front of you.

You bite out a laugh that sounds foreign even to your own ears. God, your knee is killing you. “You know what they say about pain.”

Seokjin gives you a quizzical look. Like he, in fact, has no idea what you mean. And you’re about to launch into a tirade about exercise mottos when you feel a tall presence step up behind you. You don’t even have to turn around to know it’s him. Of course, it’s him. Who else would encroach in on your personal space without a second thought?

“She means she’s gonna push through her limping and her tense as fuck shoulders and pull a win out of her ass. Don’t you,” the way he says your name is so patronizing, so unbelievably condescending that you whip your head up to glare at him.

“That’s impossible. If anyone knows how to take care of their body and not push their limits to insanity it’s Y/N.” Seokjin appears appalled that Jungkook would even think of such a thing. But Jungkook knows you better than anyone, albeit hatefully.

“Mm-hm. You doubt how crazy obsessed she is with winning.”

“Says you,” you spit out but it lacks your usual snark.

In truth, maybe Jungkook was right about your shoulders not being as stretched out as they should’ve been. They feel sore and they almost gave out on you during a lap. You were basically running on guts and mental fortitude for the last four laps. But you’d rather swallow butcher knives than admit that aloud for his ears to hear.

Seokjin is oblivious to the simmering tension between the two of you. Instead, he turns to you with so much concern sweeping through his posture it makes you uncomfortable and yet happy at the same time. “Take care of yourself, Y/N. There’s no point in winning if your body crashes on you, yeah?”

You know he means well and it’s not like you like lying to your senior but you know he just won’t get where you’re coming from. “Yeah,” you stare down at the suddenly interesting aqua-tiled floor.

He pats your shoulder once before he turns down the other way to the male locker rooms leaving you and Jungkook alone. You’re about to go on your own merry way — agonizingly slow of course, when a hand latches to your upper arm and stops you.

You swear you shouldn’t feel anything but your skin almost scorches at the contact. Your brain is divided: a part of you wants him to never let go, while the other half can’t get away from him fast enough. You don’t breathe, heck you don’t even move.

“Winning isn’t everything.”

You don’t mean to — truly, you don’t — but a scoff slips out of your lips before you even register it. “Coming from the golden boy that basically has a clear shot at making the lineup? Yeah, I won’t drink to that anytime soon.”

Jungkook uses his free hand to run through his hair like a maniac. And you entertain the idea that perhaps you really do get under his skin as much as he does you. The thought elates you and dilutes the throbbing in your knee to a lesser degree. He’s your biggest tormentor and you can only dream to be the same thing for him. Equivalent exchange and all that jazz.

He clicks his tongue at you and somehow that infuriates you even more. “You know what? Do whatever you want. Ruin your body for all I care.” He lets go of your arm like it’d be painful to hold it any longer. He pulls at the towel he has around his shoulders so hard that even you feel the burn and then he drapes it over his head, effectively blocking you out.

A forgotten part of you wonders why he’s so concerned about your body anyway. It’s not like he should care at all.

The two of you aren’t friends. Once upon a time that wasn’t the case but you aren’t one to cry over spilled milk much less bemoan over it. But it still rubs you some kind of way that Jungkook thinks it’s normal to voice his concern to you. The two of you are not close like that. At least, not anymore.

You scowl to yourself as you weave your way back to the locker room. You’re not much of a talker but you wave back at a few of the girls that bother to look your way. And spend a good ten minutes talking to a freshman about how she needs to stop holding her breath for long periods because all that does is make you dizzy and liable to pass out. After all that, it’s no wonder that you’re the last one out of the showers.

Tugging your baby blue beanie tight across your forehead, you curse yourself for forgetting to pack your knee brace when you left your dorm this morning. But whatever, you’ll push through it. You always do.

What you’re not expecting is to see a lithe body resting on the bench right outside the swim center.  And it strikes you as odd that you immediately know in your gut that it’s Jungkook. Even though you’re too chicken now to admit it, there was a time when you’d engraved his whole body into your mind like he was a science project you were desperately in need of completing. Although his body has since gained more muscle mass and reduced way more body fat, it’s still him. No matter how hard you try to burn him out of your memory, he never leaves. You fear your only remedy might be self-induced amnesia.

What you’re not expecting is for that body clad snugly in black sweatpants, a really oversized navy sweatshirt that has ‘I AM NOT GONNA BE MERCY’ branded in fine print across his chest, and a beanie that suspiciously matches the one on your own head, to turn up and catch your gaze like he knows you’ve been staring.

You blink once and then twice and then once more just to be sure. Weird. You have no idea why he’s waiting out here and you’re even more confused as to why he owns a beanie that looks way too much like yours to be a coincidence. You shift your gaze to the sidewalk, debating if it’s worth it to strike a conversation with him. All it will do is leave you irritated, so you decide to continue to your dorm instead. Screw him and whatever he’s out in this cold as shit weather for.

“What? You’re just gonna ignore me now?”

Huffing, you pretend he’s not matching his strides to your sluggish pace.

“This is cold, even for you.”

Maybe if you keep quiet he’ll think you’ve gone magically inept in the span of forty minutes?

“You know I thought I was doing a good thing by waiting for you.”

That gets you to break your mental battle. “I didn’t ask you to do that, Jeon.”

“I know that. But what if you slid across the pavement and went straight to the dimension of hell? I have to be there for that.” He sounds genuinely invested in the matter at hand.

“I can still walk perfectly fine, thank you very much.” You almost smack your head dead against the stoned ground when your foot snags a loose edge of the sidewalk. Fuck.

“Pfft.” He’s barely holding in his laughter but you don’t cower. Har-dee-har-har. You don’t need him breathing down your neck thinking he’s doing you a favor or anything.

You don’t need pity parties hosted by Jeon Jungkook. Not again. Not after that one night that you thought was perfect and monumental when in reality all it really was a blip in his radar. You’re nothing special, or at least Jungkook thought so. It’s been years since then but that’s the funny thing about pain. It doesn’t just die down because you refuse to think about it. It simmers, it boils, it festers. Pain is a living, breathing monster and simply because you don’t devote time to it doesn’t mean it’s not taking up space under your bed.

But you are not going to think about it. Because you are definitely over it. Yep. That was it. You are over your ex-best friend and you are happy... Bah, what-fucking-ever.

Maybe he realizes that you’re not in the mood for the snark he would normally throw your way because the walk back to your dorm is relatively quiet after that. This is the most civil the two of you have been in a long while. Most of times the both of you are too busy making jabs at each other. But you’d noticed that ever since your accident last year that busted your knee, he’s been different.

You’ve yet to decide if that difference is for good or bad but it doesn’t matter because you’re back at your dormitory which means you get to sleep the rest of the day before work. Yes, maybe there is a God.

“Look, take care of yourself, okay?”

You stop on the stone steps to take him in. His hands stuffed deep in his pockets, the January chill making the tip of his nose bright red but his eyes don’t hold the same mischievous fight as before. He’s determined. You know him well enough to know that.

“I’m not going to die climbing up some stupid stairs.”

He shakes his head. Guess he’s not up for jokes then. “I mean it,” he breathes your name out with so much seriousness it stuns you. “You can be cruel to me. You can be angry at me. But don’t take it out on your body. Just... don’t.”

What does he know about cruelty? He knows not jack shit about cruelty. Cruelty was a seventeen-year-old girl waxing poetic love to a boy that she thought hung the moon, the stars and the sun only for him to trample over it just because. Maybe it was the hormones, maybe it was the timing, maybe it was every fucking thing in between but that night had been a changing point. Horror movies weren’t half as scary as being rejected by your best friend since before you were five and not know why. Cruelty was not whatever this limbo you and Jungkook had. You’d experienced cruelty and that was far worse.

“You don’t get to tell me what to do. Not then and certainly not now.”

Pushing your body to its limits is something you have to do. Getting better at swimming is something you would die trying to attain. Not because you particularly love swimming all that much but rather because it’s the one thing, the only thing that you really do believe you can beat Jungkook in. The only thing you can compete with him and with hard work win. You have to win. You can’t stand being second place next to him. It makes you want to gag. It makes you revert back to that seventeen-year-old girl you thought you’d killed off in your origin story.

Pathetic, you think to yourself. But you won’t stop because you’ve already come so far.

You rush up the stairs and into the dorm like lightning. You’re so quick that you don’t even feel any twinge of pain ricocheting from your knee or anywhere else to be honest. You’re a running painkiller. You haul ass all the way to your room and it’s only when you’ve locked the door and released the longest sigh of your whole adult life that it hits you.

And here’s another thing about pain: it always comes rushing back.

If it’s even possible, over the next few weeks your knee becomes even worse of a problem. Waking up in the morning becomes more of a drag than usual, you can barely walk to your classes much less the swim center without your brace on and then perform a Mission Impossible skit so that the rest of the team doesn’t see the brace dangling in your locker. You’re seriously considering ripping the whole joint out. For Zelda’s sake, it has to hurt significantly less, right?

To make matters worse you’re basically lying out of your ass to Seokjin and the rest of the team that your knee is not bothering you one bit. You’re such a liar, someone needs to lock you up for it. But it’s already the end of February and you can already taste the end of it all. All you need to do is hold on by the skin of your teeth for the next couple of days and then you’ll be free. Sure, rationally you know you’re not swimming your best right now but that does nothing to deter you from what you’ve set your mind on.

“Hey, Y/N,” the voice of the Student Assistant, Namjoon stops you in your attempt to blend in with the other swim members exiting the building after a rather rough day. “You came in later than usual today. Something up?”

Namjoon is an amazing guy. Attentive but not too overbearing. A great listener but he doesn’t go overboard with trying to get you to confess your deep, darkest fears to him. But even with knowing all of this, you still don’t want to tell him a thing. You know he’ll understand, that’s not the problem. The problem is, he would seriously blow it out of proportion. All you want to do is head home, nap for a good hour or three and then head to your afternoon class and get back to crashing. Was that too much to ask?

“Yeah, I’m great. Just a little tired.”

He raises an eyebrow at you, flipping through the sheet on his clipboard. “Hmm, your times been dropping since last week. You sure everything’s fine?”

Fuck. You fumble thinking of an answer, your eyes skittering around the tiled floor till you look up and lock on Jungkook staring right back. He’s a few feet away near the front door discussing with one of the assistant coaches but for some reason, his big, brown eyes are glued to your frame. An inane section of your brain wants to beg him to come over and rescue you from lying so horribly to Namjoon. While another insane part of you wants to sneer at him and tell him to stop freaking looking at you when you’re at your worst.

“I... uh,” you stutter and return your attention back to the kind senior in front of you. “I’m fine. I promise.”

Namjoon cocks an eyebrow at you, disbelieving. “Is it your knee? We could get the team doctor — ”

Your eyes widen in alarm and you stumble away from him, your thoughts passing the point of loudness and encroaching into deafness. No way. There’s no way you’re going to let him bring up your injury and then take it up with the other coaches because you know — deep in your bones — that if he does that you won’t make the cut for the lineup talk less of being able to just attend practice. You’d be kept on the side like an invalid.

Hate.

You hate it. Your stupid knee, the stupid way you were running late to practice almost a full year ago and then proceeded to fall down a flight of stairs and dislocate your knee so bad that when the seasons shift from sunny to cloudy, your knee throbs like an ingrained weather alert.

You hate how much the pain makes you want to cry. You hate yourself for pushing yourself, even more, when you know you shouldn’t. You hate how everyone is so damn concerned about you like you somehow deserve it. You hate that you don’t deserve their kindness, not when every other athlete next to you is getting better and better by the second and you don’t want to be left behind.

“Bro, she’ll be fine.” You don’t realize your savior and yet tormentor has weaseled his way into the conversation until you you hear the soft timbre of his voice. He stands so close to you that you smell the sweet scent of vanilla from his clothes. “I mean, look at her. Her technique is still kicking ass, no one can touch her when it comes to form.”

Lips wobbling a little under the pressure of your teeth, you peer up at him. Your mind running a mile a minute trying to place what his endgame is. Why is he here? What does he think he’s doing?

Namjoon laughs, his features becoming even more stunning with the action and you glance away from Jungkook. There’s no way he bought that blatant form of flattery. “That is true. Y/N has the best technique in the program right now. Probably best in the state.”

Lies. You know there’s talk about some super senior at a neighboring powerhouse school being the best in your division. But your mind is clogged up with your loud thoughts that you don’t say anything to refute his claim.

“Anyways, let me know if you need anything, ‘Kay?” Namjoon demands your attention. “Take it easy and rest up this weekend.”

You nod profusely and Namjoon smiles at the action like your adorable. You frown at that. And then he’s gone and you’re stuck with Jungkook and the thoughts clamoring around in your head.

“I didn’t need you to save me. Or lie for me.”

“Sure,” he says but his eyes say something different. That maybe if you really didn’t want his help you shouldn’t have looked at him like a deer in headlights practically begging the floor to swallow you up. “And I wasn’t lying. You do have a better technique.”

You roll your shoulders, ignoring the praise. “Seriously. I was fine.”

“Fine my ass,” he mutters, pushing past your body and heading outside the door.

“I didn’t need your help and I don’t owe you —” The frigid air whips across your cheeks so hard that you have to stop and close your eyes for a beat. When you peel them back open you find Jungkook looking down at you without something akin to disappointment swimming in his eyes. “What?”

He stares at you for what seems like an eternity. You try not to break away from his gaze but your eyes skittle across his outfit. The beanie on his head that outrageously still looks similar to the one you have on, his grey padded jacket and a similar shade of sweatpants. And by the time your eyes reach back to his face, his focus has diverted to glaring needles at your knee.

“What?” You repeat, this time though you’re whispering like you might not like what he will say next.

“I don’t get it. You of all people know how horrible last year was. Why are you doing this to yourself?”

You suck in a deep breath, not wanting to relive your sophomore year. “Why do you care?”

“Why?” Jungkook practically stutters at the question, his already big doe eyes transforming into the size of craters. “Are you trying to prove something? To who? Me?”

“I don’t care about you, Jeon. And I don’t need to prove any single thing to you. You’re dead to me.”

“You think that by carrying this invisible burden and pushing yourself to the point of borderline insanity you’re going to get better? That you won’t burnout? That somehow you’re going to get back at me? After you’ve ruined your knee and not only ruined your chances at swimming competitively ever again but just in general? You think you’d finally feel like you’ve served me a hot plate of revenge?”

There’s no reason for him to be able to see right through you so easily. There’s no reason for him to know how stupid this whole thing is and how really the only one suffering is you. Always you. Only you. Alone.

Jungkook’s face twists into a vision of pain and you’re stunned into silence. It’s like you can tell how much your disregard for your own body is affecting him when it shouldn’t. He’s your self-proclaimed enemy that was once your friend. You shouldn’t feel like you’re hurting him more than yourself.

You don’t even feel the lone tear that slips past your walls and slides down your cheek until he moves closer and uses a smooth thumb to wipe it away. Dammit, you’re better than this.

“Not everything is about you, Jungkook.” But right now it is. For you, it is.

He nods his head once. The pain that was painted on his face morphing into something you can’t discern but his thumb doesn’t lift from your face. Instead, the rest of his fingers cradle the side of your face like they’re protecting you. You inflate at the action. After several seconds, they’re gone.

“I should go,” he states matter-of-factly.

Don’t, you want to say but the words live and die in your throat You know if you start you’d say too much. “Yeah.”

Even though you want him to make up some silly excuse as to why he has to walk you home. Like maybe you’d slip and knock yourself into the netherworld. He does nothing of that sort. He puffs out his cheeks; resembling a bunny, and then he sends you a wary smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

For the first time in ages, you don’t like the sight of his retreating back. For the first time in a long time, you don’t even have the energy to pledge eternal damnation to Jeon Jungkook. All you want to do is ask him why. Why were you not enough? Why did he hand you back your heart when all you wanted was for him to keep it. And why did he suddenly do a one-eighty in college, resorting to snide comments and remarks that make you boil but also instill air into your lungs like you are finally breathing again? Why does it seem like he still cares?

You’re on a mission to drown out everything that has to do with Jeon Jungkook. You don’t like that he has created a rupture in your stratosphere. You don’t like that you’re realizing that you’ve been waging a war but not against Jungkook like you’d originally perceived. Now now that you think about it, when has he really been a rival? You’ve really only been fighting yourself.

The two of you aren’t even in the same category. You don’t even specialize in the same swimming techniques. And now that you’re seriously going through it, has he ever really been conceited about getting better times? All he ever did was point out things you were doing off and even though you hated it, it wasn’t like he was lying.

You’re one step away from your dorm when your phone buzzes with a flurry of text messages. It’s from the swim team group chat for juniors and seniors.

Taehyung: It’s the weekend mi amigos *dancing emoji*

Vivian: whatever you’re thinking... it’s gonna be a no! from me! also i thought u were sick?

Taehyung: aw come on i havent even said anything yet

Taehyung: not! sick! it was just the flu

Seokjin: flu is a sickness, no?

Vivian: im so tired dudes,, im not going out with y’all to get smashed

Nathan: im down

Taehyung: yes!!!!

Taehyung: guys i promise! you’ll love me for it. a friend of a friend is hosting a party on Greek row. Let’s GO!!

Vivian: it’s not like we’re the only friends you have. ask someone else dude

Before you even think about it, you’re typing a response.

You: I’ll come. We don’t have training tmr so...

Taehyung: OMFG

Nathan: i had no idea you were in the chat lol

Vivian: rude. if y/n’s going then maybe she’ll keep Tae’s head on straight

Seokjin: don’t know if JK’s down but I’ll drag him out if I have to.

You: don’t do that.

Taehyung: why? don’t you guys have that whole foreplay thing going on or?????

You: WHAT

Vivian: wait i might come after all

Seokjin: Tae, leave it alone.

Taehyung: okay but it’s not my fault they both barely look at anyone other than themselves during practice. i can’t be the only one that noticed them basically eye-fucking each other all day everyday

Nathan: i second that

Vivian: ... sorry, y/n. but i third that

Seokjin: GUYS. if she leaves the chat because y’all can’t keep your mouth shut istg,,

Nathan: wait is jungkook reading this?

God, how you want the whole universe to open up and swallow you whole. Your phone feels like a hot potato in your hands. You throw the wretched thing into the back of your jeans pocket and blink over and over again as you rush into your dorm and up the elevator.

It takes the rest of the day to calm your cheeks from splitting from humiliation or embarrassment, it’s a close tie. You don’t pay attention in class, you can barely nap without the words blinking at the back of your eyelids like neon target signs.

Foreplay? Foreplay?!

You almost spontaneously combust.

You hear the telltale sound of a key unlocking your dorm room door and you hightail out of the ensuite bathroom before you can even think.

“Foreplay?!” You all but scream at your roommate and fellow swim team member, Vivian.

At the very least she looks sheepish, smiling nervously as she pushes a piece of her coiled hair behind her ear. “I thought you knew. I mean, everyone talks about it.”

“What about me wanting to rip his ass from his hole screams foreplay to anyone?!”

She shrugs, her lilac sweater falling down one brown shoulder. “I don’t know, it’s kinda sexy.” She drops her backpack on the only sofa and turns back to you. “He’s the only one you really talk to in the team so, everyone just kinda assumed y’all were either a has-been or a to-be couple.”

Wheezing, you lock your arms defiantly across your chest. “I don’t like him.”

“Yeah, okay.” Vivian laughs, unconvinced for some reason.

“I’m not kidding. He’s annoying. Always breathing down my neck like he’s my personal trainer or something. Any time I do a thing it’s like he has to say something in response, you know. I don’t hate him but I don’t... I don’t like like him.”

“Do you think he’s attractive?”

“Everyone does.”

She smirks at you like she’s caught you dead in a trap. “And you?”

You bite your lip. It’s not worth the hassle to lie. “A little bit. A teeny-tiny bit.”

“What about him do you think is attractive? And don’t mention his thighs because we all know those are in a different league of their own.”

That gets a laugh out of you. Vivian’s mouth widens at the sound. You realize then that maybe, just maybe, you’ve been hoarding things in for too long. And you appreciate Vivian because she’s always been nice and has tolerated your one-worded answers and four am showers like a champ. You want to give her an award or something.

You lean against the wall and think about her question. “Well, in a way his nagging and pushing my buttons can be seen as being attentive? I mean, he notices things about me that I don’t. And I’ve been… thinking that maybe he’s not really all that bad like I conjured up in my head.” More than that, before everything turned to shit, you thought he was the kindest, funniest person in the galaxy.

“Well, I’m no team Jungkook,” she snickers at her own Twilight reference and your lips tilt up as well. “And I won’t pretend to know what’s gone on between you and him. But whatever it is, maybe y’all just need to, like, talk it out.”

“I—”

Vivian shushes you. “You know I’m right.” She sashays to her room door and then turns back to you. “We’re going to go to Taehyung’s friend of a friend’s frat party and you’re gonna get the liquid courage to talk to him. I think everyone on the team would appreciate the whole sexual tension going on between the two of you finally being exiled into the cosmos.”

Cosmos?

You’re not really sure what happens after that. You let Vivian convince you to trade your comfortable sweatpants for an A-line skirt, tights and a stylish sweater that you’d bought on a whim. At least if you’re going to really say screw all and go for this party, you refuse to be a shivering mess.

Even though Greek Row is truly not that far from your dorm, you let Vivian drive the two of you over. She talks about everything and anything and it feels like it’s been forever since you hung out with anyone that wasn’t during scheduled practice and workout sessions.

Hell, what have you been doing for the last four years? Being obsessed with results that apparently your arch-nemesis doesn’t even care about?

Vivian tells you about the dude she’s dating and how he’s on the university’s volleyball team. You’re more surprised than you should be. You can’t believe you’ve been roommates with her for almost two years and you barely know anything about her other than surface-level shit. Oh, Zelda, this is one big bitch of an awakening.

“I’m sorry,” you say sincerely as she puts the car in park aways from the actual fraternity building. The entire street is blocked up with cars so it was hard to find any space. “For being here and yet not really at the same time.”

Thankfully, Vivian doesn’t make you sweat. “S’cool. Everyone’s got their own shit.”

“I’ve been really shitty lately.”

“Hmm, well, we can get drunk off our asses and feel really shitty together?” You decide then and there that she is amazing and only the devil will be able to pry this budding friendship out of your cold hands.

You find out that Vivian is very skilled at mixing drinks. It takes barely half an hour for you to start feeling a buzz and by your third round of whatever she stirs for you, you’ve straight up arrived at the land of Drunkenville: population; one. You’re busy debating with her and her boyfriend about how sports anime is simply the best branch of cinema to have ever been created and the one sub-genre that truly speaks about the resilience of the human spirit when you feel a heavy arm wrap around your shoulders.

“Y/N,” the voice all but screams in your ear. You hazily look up to see Taehyung’s chiseled face smiling down at you. And even your intoxicated self can tell that he’s pregamed the fuck out of this night already. “I brought lil Jungkookie for you. At first, he was all blah blah not going but when I said you were going to be here. Boi jumped like a fish in water.”

Taehyung laughs and you laugh with him, not really sure if you get the joke but happy nonetheless that he’s happy.

“‘Sup Viv and Viv’s boyfriend,” he salutes them and weirdly enough, Vivian’s boyfriend doesn’t take offense. He salutes back.

Vivian rolls her eyes but then she clasps two strong hands across your shoulders, effectively washing away the tipsy gaze from your eyes for a moment. “Now, listen. You’re going to find Jungkook and let him know how you really feel. Use all this liquid courage and let him have it. And you shouldn’t care that we’re at a party because almost everyone is drunk anyway.

And if that goes to shit and you want out of this place, don’t you dare even think of walking home, okay? You look for me. Don’t think I haven’t seen you limping your way across the dorm like a crazy bitch. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t have the right. But so help me, if you so much as think of walking back I will ... I don’t know what I will do but you won’t like it! So go find Jungkook and do us all a favor and end this eternal foreplay.”

Foreplay... that damned word again. It overrides your brain system and makes you think of things you shouldn’t want. But you’re stupidly confident right now. Hell, your knee hasn’t really been bothering you since you woke up from your nap. The alcohol in your blood is dancing to its own beat and it’s lighting your system on fire.

If not now then when?

You have a gazillion and one questions to ask Jungkook. Questions you’ve kept silenced and bottled down in your heart for years. Questions that keep you up at night. And maybe its because the last month and a half has made you question everything about yourself and your ethic and your predicament, you know you have to do this now.

Fuck it. Who cares if you become the source of this boorish party’s entertainment like a walking cliché? It’s not like you’d remember anything that happens here and you only know a handful of people. Embarrassment? You don’t know her. Not today.

You find him in the basement with a cup of something near his booted feet and his gleaming eyes transfixed on the TV in front of him. His tongue poking a hole in cheek. There’s a small crowd of people around him and you take one glance at the screen and see that he’s playing Super Smash. Of course. He looks beautiful like this. Different than the last time you saw him and better because he doesn’t have that look of agony coloring his eyes.

You could probably spend a whole day just looking at him. Taking in the man that’s grown from the boy you once knew and called your own. His body is a work of art and ought to be chiseled and crafted like the sculptures of the Renaissance era. If you were any good a sculptor, you would’ve done just that. Instead, you commit him to memory. Because even though it is possible that neither of you likes each other anymore, you want to remember this.

He looks perfect like this. Happy. Not distressed and sad like when you’d confessed to him. When you had laid your heart bare before him and he didn’t even react. You wish you could say he had pried your heart out of your hands and ripped it to shreds. But that wasn’t the case. Your heart hadn’t shattered by his blatant rejection. It had melted.  

You watch as his character, Link, of course, K.O’s his opponent and Player 2 Victory flashes on the television screen. He wins. Like always. You don’t feel mad like you usually do. Maybe you’ve finally accepted that there are just some things you can’t win no matter how steadfast and committed you are.

Jungkook looks up from his controller, pumping his fist in the air, his long, dark hair flopping around his face like a curtain. Your veins practically burst with electricity when his smiling eyes notice yours in the corner like you knew they would. The smile dims and you expect that. You’re not asking for a love to cure all epidemics or a lie to burn your body to ash. You just want to move on. To finally escape the purgatory you’ve put yourself in.

“We need to talk,” you try to say as loud as you can but the cheers and conversations of the people around you drown you out.

Somehow in someway, he hears you and nods his head. Maybe he’s a glutton for pain like you. He scoots out of the loveseat, standing to his full height and making pleasant excuses to his newly acquired friends that you don’t know. Maybe it’s the fake courage but you don’t take your gaze away from him. You’re going to do this. You have to — you suck in a huge breath — you must.

Once he steps into your bubble of personal space, the rest of the world fizzles out.

“This is a bundle of firsts, Ice Queen. You? At a party and instigating a conversation with me first? Damn, did you get a taste of hell without me videoing?”

“You always joke about everything,” you decide to bite the bullet. “I used to find that really cute.”

Alcohol o’ alcohol, why hath thou forsaken me? You almost look up to the heavens and question what possessed you to drink so much but then you rehear Vivian’s speech in your head and you find your resolve and strangle it.

Jungkook’s eyebrows fly up like he’s not quite prepared for this. “Wait, what are you... Are you drunk right —”

“I’m not good with words. And I’ve always sucked at speaking my mind and being thoughtful and generally being a good person. Like you,” you smile sadly when you remember the first time you ever made a friend; the boy in front of you that had offered you to come over sometime and play his GameCube with him when his older siblings were too busy to hang with him. “I’m passive at best when it comes to anything that’s not swimming. And even that, you got me into it. You were the reason I started it. You know this, I would’ve rather died than engage in anything that made me exert energy. But you made it fun until I genuinely loved it.”

“That’s not,” Jungkook shakes his head adamantly. “That’s—”

You shoot him a look. “Let me finish okay? I have this whole thing in my head and ... please, just let me say it.”

You hadn’t realized the curious looks the people around had been shooting your way until you see Jungkook scowl at any and every one before he intertwines your hands with his and pulls you out of the basement in a swift motion. You don’t mind the giddy feeling enveloping your chest at the sight of your fingers wrapped around each other. A part of you actually loves how cocooned it makes you feel. You want to bottle this feeling up and bathe in it.

He must be overfamiliar with the frat house because he leads you expertly into a room at the end of the hallway on the first floor. He shuts the door and then locks it. For a minute, he stares at your locked hands and you wonder if he feels the same pull you do. If he’s ever felt the same pull you do.

“When I handed you my heart and my everything, why didn’t you want it? Why did you act like I had committed a grievous crime against you and your glorious self?”

There. You’ve gone and said the thing. The biggest question that has plagued your mind for months and years. If your best friend didn’t even find value in you then really, was there any to begin with?

Jungkook lets out a heavy sigh that careens his shoulders down as if he’s carrying the weight of the world. A sigh so deep that it shakes his body from the vibrations visible through his black tee, and crashes into your soul. He closes his eyes for his barely a second but you wish he’d just spit it out. Pour acid on your wounds so you can feel the fire of a thousand suns and finally, fucking finally move on. Baptism by fire they call it but what you want is a goddamn exorcism.

“You thought I shat gold and that I hung the moon and that I was this perfect person when I’m not. I mean, have you listened to yourself? You think you’re a bad person because all you’ve ever done is compare me to you. But it was you and me. Not either or.

You think I really love swimming when you’re not the one egging me on? Pushing me to be better? You think I would’ve let you confess your magnificent love for me and then accept it when every sentence you said contrasted you from me. Pitted you against me? I’m competitive, you’re competitive but I didn’t think you needed competition when it came to that. You’d already won. And then I had this crazy stupid idea that maybe just being friends with you would work. I mean, love isn’t something you need to fight yourself bloody and dead for. Why would I accept this really amazing love from someone that was going to feel less than me and feel like shit for it?”

“So, what were you gonna do? Just wait till I up and decided that I was insecure and didn’t have a major inferiority complex I had no idea about?” Your sober thoughts vomit out of your mouth with impressive speed.

“I was still your friend,” Jungkook almost yells and out of his aggravation, his hands slip out of yours. The loss is staggering. He jabs his index finger into his chest. “I did everything I could do to still be your friend. But you wouldn’t talk to me. And I get that we were sixteen and there were so many ways we could’ve done better but you shut me out.”

“No, I…” You begin to say but the words die in your mouth.

Truth be told, you did shut him out. It wasn’t like you blocked him on every site. But when he tried to talk to you at school, you pretended he wasn’t there. When he stopped over at your place, you told your parents that you were sick and to keep him out. When he sent party invites on the gaming platforms the two of you shared a love for, you ignored them and turned off your console. But it wasn’t like you did all of this out of spite to begin with. It was just easier.

You were hurt. Seeing him brought on multiple feelings of shame, embarrassment, and pain all wrapped snugly like a demonic burrito. And he was your best friend, it wasn’t like you didn’t have other friends you could’ve asked for advice but the one person you wanted to talk to was the one person you couldn’t reach out to. So you didn’t think about it. Instead, you threw yourself headfirst into freezing ass water and worked your butt off with the one thing you had left.

And contrary to what Jungkook believes, he made you feel good about yourself. Like an anchor. You didn’t have to hide your nerdiness between a cold exterior so as to not get teased about it. With him, you were free. Like he was a sun that burned a path that enabled you to breathe easy. To be yourself so that you wouldn’t drown.

“You think I really go around joking with every bum on the swim team about Down To Fuck Demons for hire or that I walk every person with a rubbish knee home in fucking negative degree weather? Or that I worry about everyone that’s throwing their whole future away over a rivalry that doesn’t even exist? You think I’ve been playing the role of a pest around you because I hate you? —”

“Vehemently despise,” you choke on your words but your sense of seriousness causes Jungkook to burst into a staccato of quick muted laughter.

“Y/N,” he whispers your name like it’s a thing of beauty. And maybe it is. Right now you think so. “Firstly, I was dumb and I thought if I left things as they were maybe you’d realize how fucking awesome you were without me. But then all you ever did was practice and practice like you were training for an aquatics mafia or some shit. And then I realized that maybe you’re not the only one that sucks with words and when to say them. I should’ve told you that I did love you. Platonically. Romantically. And you made me feel great and not because you were less than but rather because being with you meant that I was my best self.”

You feel a cascade of water flooding down your cheeks like a waterfall but you don’t release a sound and you don’t really care about it because this moment feels sacred. Because you’re not crying out of pain or agony or longing. Rather it’s because you finally understand.

“You were like the sun and you were so blinding that I thought I would incinerate if I was still next to you like nothing happened.”

“Ha,” Jungkook scoffs, using a palm to run across his face. Then he squints his eyes at you like he’s seeing you anew for the first time. “If I’m the sun then you are —”

“The sun eater.” The words fly out of your mouth with ease. Quoting your fave anime characters was a thing the two of you had done relentlessly for days, heck, years.

Jungkook nods his head, elated that you remember like there was ever a time you’d forget My Hero Academia. “I’m not gonna apologize for not accepting your confession back then. I can’t. Not when I genuinely think neither of us knew what the fuck we were doing back then. Still don’t.”

“And I’m not going to say sorry for pulling away from you. I mean, I’m not a masochist.”

He lets out a throaty laugh that washes your insides clean. And you give a watery smile back, feeling soberer than you did a couple hours ago. You bet you look worse for wear but you don’t care because you’re done not pretending.

“Why did it take four years for me to...” your voice chokes and you almost break down right then and there. But your stubbornness is a thing of pride. “For us to finally talk about it. It would’ve made so much more sense if we had just talked and now I feel like I’ve wasted four years of my life being angry? Feeling discarded? But it’s not like that at all.”

Jungkook’s smooth yet experienced hands cradle the sides of your face and the overflowing tears pool in the flesh that connects his thumbs to your skin. “Friends fight all the time.”

You snort and he grins. “Most friends aren’t half as dumb as us.”

“You got that right. I think dumbness is attractive.” He says with an overflowing aura of achievement. “This just means we’ll just have to spend more time making up for it.” He dips his head down till his lips brush the tip of your ear. “And by the way, I think I’m done being your friend exclusively,” he says.

“Yeah?” You ask and for an inane reason, you smile even harder because the tears on your face feel like rain. And you’re still breathing easier, albeit a tad bit faster. But there’s no crash and burn after you’ve soared too close to the sun. Unlike before your heart feels like it’s glowing instead of charring.

“I think I want to take you out on a date.”

Your eyes widen with faux-horror. “Just one?”

“Oh my Zelda, can I at least finish my grand speech?” He rolls his eyes. “As I was saying, it won’t be one date but you know that kinda depends on if you’re still god at Fortnite. I mean, partying up is basically the same as marriage, you know?”

“Kook?”

“Yeah?”

“Your inner nerd is showing.”

Jungkook sputters loudly, the action making his hair swish across his forehead and his hands drop from your face. “Oh, forgive me. I thought you loved my nerdiness.”

“Love,” you correct him. “Present tense.”

His mouth practically breaks even with the floor with how wide he’s gaping. You haven’t sprouted a second head, have you?

You clear your throat, attempting to be blasé about the whole thing. “Well, if we’re really going to pursue this whole dating thing then I have to be honest, right? I think it’s quite sexy how knowledgeable you are about gaming and stuff even though we’re like hardcore athletes.”

“So I’m like an onion? Three dimensional? The more you get to know me, the more you love how I’m not like Other Guys trademark sign?”

You guffaw so hard you almost start crying all over again. “Oh my Zelda, we were having a moment. Why did you ruin our moment?”

“Think I can make up for it.” He looks at you with something akin to competition and licks his lips.

Your eyes falter at the action, zeroing in on them. Suddenly the distance between yours and his feels like a crime against humanity. It’s comical really, how the temperature of your body can fly from ice cold to a blazing inferno in less than minutes.

“Fuck,” you whisper.

“As you wish.”

Jungkook bends his lips to connect with yours in a swift motion. You’re surprised but a part of you must have anticipated it because you are pushing deeper into him as quickly as humanly possible. His arms snake across your waist, his hands landing squarely on your ass and his groan eliciting a magnitude of butterflies in the pit of your stomach as his tongue danced an infinite tango with yours. Smoothly, he backs you up until you feel your head tap a wall for support.

Holy crap shit. Your mind is a mess. No wait, your mouth is a mess. A warped sense of dizziness floods through your body and it has nothing to do with the alcohol you consumed earlier and everything to do with the sensuous teeth nipping at your bottom lip while his hands deftly squeeze your ass. Fuck, you can’t breathe. You don’t want to breathe. You cling unto his shoulders for stability and revel at how corded they feel under your touch.

He tears his lips away from yours, breathless, resting his forehead against yours. “God, you’re gonna be the death of me.”

“You can’t die until we get to the part where we role-play as demon and a naive spell caster.” You’re out of breath as well because that kiss was something else. Divine, maybe.

“I get to be the demon though, right?”

You grin at that. “Of course. I’m not a heathen.”

This time you kissed him, pushing all thoughts of future escapades further away from your mind and focusing on the beautiful man in front of you. Reaching up, you dig your hands through Jungkook’s abundant hair and moan. You understand then what it must have been like for Icarus to fly off to the sun. It must have scorched his skin to death within seconds, and yet at the same time, it must have been oh so slow. And you doubt he despaired because in the end he was heading home and he was finally not alone. You understand so well because the more the fire in your veins expands, the more you come close to burning up entirely. And you love it. You’re losing all control and you don’t care because he’s losing his alongside you.

Everything turns into a mess of frenzied motions. Him reluctantly removing a hand from your ass to reach up and use his fingers to clasp around your throat and position it just right enough for him to latch his lips there and suck. hard. When he pulls away from you to admire his handiwork, the lopsided grin on his face almost sends you into another need to kiss him.

“I’m not gonna fuck you at a frat party when only Zelda knows how many losers have cummed on a singular bedsheet,” he announces without remorse.

“Fair enough.”

“But I am going to do very wicked things to you that’ll loosen up those shoulders to the point of being supple. And after that, you’re gonna promise me that we’ll go get your knee checked out later.”

A few hours you would’ve kicked and screamed at the idea of anything derailing your plan of getting on the lineup for the competition. You thought that admitting you need help meant that you were quitting. Punishing yourself for something so irrevocably at out of your control. Now though, you nod your head drowsily. You hate the doctors but you hate self-destructing even more. Especially now when you have someone that hurts when you hurt.

He’s unraveling you.

“I’ll go.”

His eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, not believing how easily you’ve conceded to him. “Where has my sweet, stubborn Ice Queen gone? Bring her back to me, please. All this ecstasy must have gone to her head.”

God, whoever said you still won’t want to deck Jungkook even after experiencing something so explosive. But his grin threatens to split your heart two. Like he’s happy to just be with you, adoring you, joking with you. Oh, how your body is singing with praises.

“Yours?” You cock an eyebrow at him.

Jungkook beams. He’s the sun and you’re the moon. Now that you’ve tasted this, you’re never going to let go. You are simply submerged.

“Haven’t you realized? You’re my girl.”

a/n: i know very much that i took a lot of liberty when writing about collegiate swimming/sports in generral (i took an advanced swim class at my uni last semester so thats where all my info comes from) i tweaked it a lil bit to fit my purposes but it was fun to try to write about it hehe. 

i hope you all loved this fic as much as i loved writing it!!!! 

⇢ masterlist

©️ 2020 kai, high-on-food. ✉

[marvels-writings]

I love this blog :) this is a weird idea for a Carol x reader fic, but I wanted to submit it anyway. A reincarnation au where Carol and r: very close before she's back on Earth in 1995. For Carol, r is the one that got away-she died before they could be together. after the snap reunion, Carol meets Avenger!r- r looks dif/acts dif, but both seem to know each other/ r knows things about Carol somehow etc/both feel that the other is extremely important to them=confusing to everyone. Angst/fluff?

(not mine)

Series Masterlist

Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel) Masterlist

Differences (1)

A/N: This has been in my inbox forever, still don’t have much inspiration but here you go

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

(Flashback)

You thought you felt your heart stop when you heard Lawson’s plane got shot down. You and Carol instantly took one of the fighter jets and flew to her last location the fastest you could. 

“Lawson, are you okay?” You shouted, jumping out of the cockpit and running to where Lawson was slumped over in the pilot's seat.

Lawson had blue blood flowing from her forehead, she wasn’t breathing. There was a burn mark on her chest, she was dead. Carol followed after you, she was halfway to you when she saw someone approaching.

“We don’t want to hurt you.” A voice stated, you looked up to see a strange man in a laser tag suit with golden eyes walking towards you, gun pulled out of his holster, trying your hardest to stop trembling.

“Really? The dead body kind of gave me the wrong impression.” You shouted back, lifting your gun to eye level, backing away from him slowly until you reached where Carol was standing, gun aimed at the man. 

Neither of you had any idea what was going on, your superior officer had been shot by someone wearing a rubber bodysuit, the same man was probably going to threaten one of you. Today really couldn’t get much worse.

“Just give us the core, and we’ll be on our way.” He reasoned you frowned. The core was supposed to be for a light-speed engine, Lawson wouldn’t want it in the hands of someone who had just murdered her. 

“You mean that core?” Carol asked, gesturing to the core with her gun, he nodded, slowly pulling his gun out of his holster.

You glanced at Carol, to anyone else she would’ve seemed uncaring but brave, but you saw she was terrified. You were about to pull the trigger on the core when you heard a gunshot, something hit you on your side, burning you as you collapsed onto the ground.

“Y/n!” Carol shouted, moving to catch you as you fell, she went on her knees, one hand holding her gun still with her other hand supporting your head, trying to keep you awake, you gave her the best smile you could, the light slowly leaving your eyes as you did so.

“Give us the core and-” He began, Carol barely cared as she shot the core with her gun, the explosion blowing her back, power pulsing through her as she fell backward, the rocks knocking her unconscious. 

-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

Carol woke up gasping in her bedroom, she sat up instantly, shirt sweaty and heartbeat erratic. The image of you dying ran in her head as she tried to steady her breathing. She knew who you were, but she hadn’t seen you in years, not since you died the day the Kree took her. 

She got off the bed, breathing calmer now as she made her way to the kitchen to find it was already almost 9 am. The memories of last week rushed into her head, the fighting with Thanos, Tony snapping and almost dying, Natasha was still gone. Everything was just getting started, Steve said he was going to find recruits to help. Carol groaned, burying her head in her hands at the thought of needing to train recruits. 

“Danvers, we have a recruit,” Steve stated, walking in with a clipboard in his hands. 

Somehow, he was already dressed for the day, wearing a tight workout t-shirt and Levi jeans, his brown leather jacket on the counter. Carol still wore grey sweatpants and a white tank top. He handed her the clipboard, Carol’s eyes widened a little when she saw your name on the top. You were the person from her dream, but you were dead.

“You know her?” Steve asked when he saw her rapidly flipping through the pages to find out more about you.

“I thought I did,” Carol muttered, running a hand through her short hair. “I knew her before the crash, I thought she died then.”

“Carol, she’s only 27,” Steve stated, Carol looked up at him and frowned, you were almost 6 years younger to her, it didn’t make any sense.

 You had died, yet here you were, you looked different, your skin tone was a little darker, you were a little taller, more muscular, but your eyes still looked the same from her dreams. 

“Recruit is here,” Bruce stated, walking into the kitchen with you behind him. 

You wore a fav/color t-shirt with some patterns, black jeans, black vans with your hair tied up in a high ponytail, a few strands falling out. You looked different from how Carol remembered you, you walked with more confidence than before. You frowned when you noticed Carol staring.

“I’m y/n y/l/n.” You introduced, extending your hand to Steve who shook it, he nudged Carol to do the same after he introduced himself.

“I’m Carol Danvers.” She introduced, shaking your hand. 

Something about her seemed familiar, you couldn’t quite place it, but you felt drawn to talk to her.

“You hungry?” Bruce asked, gesturing to the kitchen which had just been stocked.

“There’s some leftover pasta if you want,” Carol stated, getting herself from coffee.

“How did you know I liked pasta?” You asked curiously, watching her make coffee with a small frown.

“Lucky guess.” She muttered, a memory of you making pasta in her head before she turned back around to see you handing her a carton of cream while telling Bruce and Steve that you’d already eaten.

Carol frowned as she glanced down at the carton of cream, most people assumed she liked her coffee black, but it was the opposite. Half of her coffee was cream, she didn’t understand how you knew that neither did you.

“How did you know I needed cream?” Carol asked, taking the cream and dunking a decent amount in her coffee before handing it back to you. 

You shrugged, as confused as the people around you. 

“Lucky guess.” You joked, waving to Carol as Steve led you to your room.

You were more confused than when you had walked into the compound doors, you had no idea how you knew Carol so well. 

“So why is she here?” Carol asked Bruce once you’d left, he leaned against the counter a little, frowning a little.

“She was a spy for SHIELD who disappeared during the snap, she was supposed to join the Avengers after she somehow got shapeshifting abilities. Steve managed to find files for recruits, she seemed better than the others.” Bruce explained.

Carol frowned, sipping her coffee while she stared outside at the tour Steve was giving you. You were different, the woman Carol remembered was not as confident, you seemed so sure of yourself now, everything had changed, but it was still you.

| Part 2 | 

Tag List: @capcarolsdanver, @versdan, @lesbian-girls-wayhaught, @lovebotlarson, @dhengkt, @5aftermidnight, @hstoria, @natasha-danvers, @veryfunnyal, @xxxtwilightaxelxxx , @ophelias-heart  , @never-didbefore , @justarandomhumanhere, @the-most-unicorn-of-them-all , @thatssocamryn , @lesbian-x-blackwidow , @marvelbbyx , @wlw-imaginesss let me know if you’d like to be in any of my tag lists!

A/N: This is a new series, probably 3-4 parts, thoughts?

[mnemememory]

The Life and Times of the Creature Known As Frumpkin, cat

Of all the Mighty Nein, Frumpkin thinks that Yasha would make the best cat.

fic master post

PART 7: YASHA

The problem with people, Frumpkin has decided, is that they’re not cats.

Frumpkin understands how this can be a bit of a problem. He has spent a lot of time as-a-cat and as-not-a-cat, and he vastly prefers the former to the latter. There’s just something so satisfying about simultaneously being “the cutest thing in the history of ever” (as Jester-blue-healer had once put it) and “that dirty rat-sized snack from the bowels of hell” (as Nott-sharp-teeth had once put it). Being a cat is vastly superior to the alternative.

Caleb-warm-master’s chosen companions all suffer from the same sad affliction of not-being-a-cat, which Frumpkin finds both amusing and frustrating at equal turns. There, there, he finds himself thinking every time something goes wrong. (Things go wrong a lot). Just sleep on it. Everything turns out better after a good nap.

Though, even when they sometimes do decide to take Frumpkin’s advice (Frumpkin must often to go rather…extreme lengths to get his point across, but there are no scars, so he’s probably in the right), they do it wrong. It is infuriating. Caleb-warm-master will go to bed, finally, after hours of prodding and poking and nipping, and then he will not sleep. If Frumpkin had human-eyes, they would be twitching.

He finds support in Yasha-quiet-one. Of all the Mighty Nein, Frumpkin thinks that she would make the best cat. (Though considering what Frumpkin has to work with, that was less of a compliment than he would have liked).

“Caleb, I think you should go to sleep,” Yasha-quiet-one says. They’re standing just outside their campsite, trees bracketing them in at all sides. A small brook is bubbling merrily in the corner. The scene is lit oddly by the dying embers of the campfire, everything muted and grey.

Frumpkin sits next to Yasha-quiet-one’s feet and yowls his vocal agreement.

Caleb-warm-master glares down at him, the bags underneath his eyes dark and pronounced. Over the years, Frumpkin has discovered a correlation to how haggard his face looks and how much sleep he has been pretending to have. Frumpkin is very much Not Amused.

“I am fine,” Caleb-warm-master says. He is clutching at his book with white, stiff fingers. “Just one more chapter, and then I will –”

Yasha-quiet-one lets out a soft, tired sigh. Frumpkin knows just how she feels. “If it were a…spell book, or something,” she says, picking over her words carefully. That is another thing that Frumpkin approves of about Yasha-quiet-one. She never rushes into things, unless she can rush them with a sword. Very cat-like, in Frumpkin’s cat-certified opinion. “But this is. One of Jester’s –”

Frumpkin watches with some interest as a blue slowly begins to stain her cheeks. He looks over to Caleb-warm-master, who is unruffled.

“They are surprisingly good,” Caleb-warm-master says, holding up the book cover to Yasha-quiet-one’s eye-level as a kind of ward against evil. Frumpkin tilts his head to get a closer look – there are two human-shaped people clutching each other in various states of undress. Frumpkin squints. Travelling with Jester-blue-healer has given him some understanding of being-people-appropriate and being not-people appropriate, if only because of how everyone reacts to her. Frumpkin has a sneaky-suspicion that whatever Caleb-warm-master is currently reading is…less-than-people-appropriate.

“We have a long day tomorrow,” Yasha-quiet-one says. She looks deeply uncomfortable. Frumpkin approves – the first time he tried to tell Caleb-warm-master what to do he had spent the entire night wondering if he was overstepping the line between master-and-creature. It had taken him a few months to learn that cats didn’t have masters – at least, not in the traditional sense.

Go to sleep, Frumpkin says. He considers biting Caleb-warm-master, but decides that (being as he was the more experienced cat-creature) he shouldn’t be teaching Yasha-quiet-one any bad habits. I keep telling you to sleep, and you never listen! If you don’t listen to me, listen to the quiet one. You will feel better in the morning, or so help me –

In a swift movement, almost too fast for Frumpkin’s cat-eyes to catch, Yasha-quiet-one lashes out and grabs the book out of Caleb-warm-master’s hands. Caleb-warm-master lets out a “Wait!” of protest, but Yasha-quiet-one is holding the book behind her back. Frumpkin loves Caleb-warm-master with every bit of his cat-body, but Yasha-quiet-one is very tall and Caleb-warm-master is bad at hitting things. Caleb-warm-master will lose.

Yasha-quiet-one looks less mortified and more annoyed, now. “I’ll give it back tomorrow,” she says. “Go to sleep.”

“Yasha,” Caleb-warm-master says warningly. “Give me back that book.”

“Tomorrow,” she says.  

Caleb-warm-master gives her a narrow look. “If you don’t give it back right now,” he says. “I will tell Jester that you stole it from me because you wanted to read it. She has a little library building up in her bag, you know.”

Yasha-quiet-one bares her teeth. Very cat-like. “And I’ll tell her you haven’t been sleeping.”

Frumpkin looks between the two. Yasha-quiet-one has the stubbornness of a cat, but Caleb-warm-master has the stubbornness of a stupid person. They’re fairly evenly matched, as far as he can tell.

Why can’t you just have a nap? Frumpkin thinks irately, getting onto his feet and walking behind Yasha-quiet-one. Twenty minutes. Just have a twenty-minute nap. That’s all I’m asking here. You’re tired. You’re so tired, it can’t be that hard –

Well. I warned you.

Then Frumpkin leaps up and grabs the book out of Yasha’s hands, dashing off to dunk it in the water.

It could be worse, Frumpkin thinks.

He is curled soggily into the crook of Yasha-quiet-one’s arm, fur fluffed up as far as it will go. Yasha-quiet-one is gently stroking her hand up and down his spine.

“He’ll get over it eventually,” she tells him. Frumpkin gives a sniff and hunches back further into his fur. He doesn’t think so. If Caleb-warm-master is good at anything (and Caleb-warm-master is good at a lot of things), then he is good at holding a grudge.

Still. Still, Frumpkin doesn’t really regret it. Caleb-warm-master has better things to do at night than look at not-human-appropriate books.

At least I’ve got someone on my side, Frumpkin thinks. Yasha-quiet-one is a good heater. She is comfortable to lean against, and gentle with her large hands.

“You can stay around me until then, if you like,” Yasha-quiet-one says. Her voice is low, so as not to draw attention from the rest of the party, who had been woken up by the commotion. They’re all scattered around the dying campfire – Caleb-warm-master on the far side. His eyes glint over his sleeping bag, glaring. Jester-blue-healer is sitting cross-legged next to him, waving her arms around and recounting what little she could remember from the book Frumpkin had just destroyed.

Frumpkin glares right back. Go to sleep, you stubborn wizard.

Yasha-quiet-one leans back against a tree and looks up at the stars. With deliberate slowness that has nothing to do with maintaining eye-contact with Caleb-warm-master, Frumpkin moves upwards from her arms to curls across her chest. Yasha-quiet-one closes her eyes and smiles.

At least someone around here listens to me, Frumpkin thinks, and begins to purr.  

[metawitches]

Episode 6 of Stumptown is about ghosts. The characters work through their ghosts while the show tests out new character combinations and expands backstories.

After their falling out in episode 5, Dex and Grey both spend time with new love interests, causing other cast members to feel they’re being left behind. Ansel and Miles take steps to ensure their interests haven’t been forgotten. Dex takes a PI job that has her tracking down the stalker of an old flame.

Meanwhile, Tookie continues to have business issues with his food truck. This time he closes up and goes to visit the highest ranking member of the police force he knows, Lieutenant Cosgrove. This is a friendship I never knew I always wanted. They bond over their love of mole sauce  and experimental cuisine.

Dex gets a female love interest this episode, her former flame and punk rock star client, Fiona X. Meanwhile Detective Kara Lee makes a second appearance and this time she acts more like Miles’ police partner. The women of Portland do exist and it’s good to get to know them. But I’m still waiting for quality friendship time between women that isn’t between Dex and a woman she wants to have sex with or who’s a business associate.

I usually say the Bechdel test is a low bar to jump, but Stumptown is proving me wrong. Maybe the women on the show have technically had conversations about something other than men and relationships, but, for the umpteenth time, there are no female friendships on this show, despite the fact that it’s a show with a female lead.

Why not? Dex doesn’t hate other women. Why wouldn’t she and Ansel have female friends? Why are other women only love interests and business associates, as if Dex is a misogynist “man’s man”? And it’s not like the other women are getting scenes with each other, either.

Are they afraid a group of women will turn into a coven of powerful, scary witches?

In the minds of ABC and the writers, does bisexual, aka a woman willing to have sex with a woman, code as “might as well be a man”?

Recap

Dex and Miles are at the Labyrinth for a punk concert by Fiona X. Dex wanted to thank him for letting Grey go and introduce him to something she likes, while they relaxed after the tension of the last few weeks. Miles figured sex might be on the table, even though punk isn’t really his scene. Dex agrees that they both might get lucky after the show.

Fiona X starts the show with a song dedicated to the one who got away. She specifically namechecks Dex as the one. Awkward. Later, at his place, Miles asks how long Dex and Fiona dated. Dex tells him that they dated for 5 or 6 months, ten years ago, right after Dex got out of the military. Then Fiona got signed, went on tour, picked up the X (real name: Finklebocker), and Dex hasn’t seen her since.

Miles asks Dex out on Friday, but this time he wants to bring her into his world. His world inexplicably involves bowling shoes. Which he owns rather than rents.

I think we need to consider the theory that Miles is a time traveler from the 1950s.

Also, it’s become very clear why this good looking, decent guy, who has a steady income, is so, so single. Ladies, apparently the bowling alley is where you should be trying to meet men on Friday nights. Or maybe he’s just saving himself for Grey. YES, I SAID IT. WHERE IS MY FAN FICTION? Don’t make me write my own.

The next day at the bar, Grey wants to know all about Dex’s night out with Miles, but gets frustrated that she won’t spill all of the juicy details. She tells him that she doesn’t know who he is anymore, so she can’t trust him with the details of her sex life. He’s going to have to get his own sex life now.

At that moment, Fiona X struts into the bar, along with her full entourage, to give everyone’s sex life a little help. Fiona’s in town for three nights and wants Dex to act as PI and security that she can trust. She has a stealthy stalker who hangs on the fringes threateningly, but Fiona has never even gotten a good look at him before he melts back into the shadows. For that reason, her manager doesn’t take him seriously and she hasn’t gone to the police.

The health inspector finds a few violations in Tookie’s food truck and shuts him down until they’re rectified.

Grey talks to Ansel about his hidden past and if it going to come between them. Ansel is here to be an angelic, blonde disabled saint, the Tiny Tim of Portland, so of course he forgives Grey without a second thought. But Ansel, who has already been abandoned by his birth parents, is worried that this argument between Dex and Grey, his replacement mom and dad, is going to cause them to get a divorce and he’ll lose one of them.

Before Grey can reassure Ansel that he’ll always be his dad big brother friend, no matter what happenes with Dex, an intelligent brunette brings in a group of people on a tour of the most haunted bars of Portland. She tells Grey that 50 years ago, when the building was a cannery, a fishmonger named Dunk Henry was tragically killed in a sluicing accident. Grey is skeptical, until the tour guide, Liz Melero, points out how much new business she’s just brought him.

Ansel notices them flirting and isn’t happy about it. Mom and dad Dex and Grey may be platonic right now, but he knows they’re endgame.

At Fiona’s concert that night, Dex spots a man rushing the stage. She follows, while she’s having PTSD flashbacks, worried he’s the stalker, and tackles him before he reaches Fiona. He turns out to be innocent and Dex is blamed for ruining the show, which ends early. Fiona’s manager, Nick Tallarico, tells Dex that the stalker isn’t real, just a product of Fiona’s overactive imagination. He thinks Fiona just needs a friend.

Condescending much?

Det. Kara Lee, the detective who brought the files to Miles at his apartment last week, is back this week to help him with his lady troubles. But first, everyone needs to make sure we understand that he’s the superior detective and she’s a glorified secretary, there to further Miles story and nothing more.

Once she’s been put in her place professionally, Miles gives her the chance to be a good woman and give him advice on his dating life with Dex. She actually is a good detective, because she quickly figures out that one issue is that he and Dex aren’t on the same page as far as agreeing about whether they’re actually dating or just acquaintances who occasionally have sex. She tells him he has to use his words like a grown up when it comes to communicating with women.

I start to think that maybe I should actively be shipping Grey and Miles, rather than just tongue in cheek. These are two grown men who have no idea how to speak to women about what’s important, who had no problem talking about dating each other and communicated just fine when other men needed to be rescued. Maybe Dex isn’t the only bisexual character.

Tookie brings his problems with the health inspector to Lieutenant Cosgrove, hoping that dropping Dex’s name will help him. She supposedly doesn’t like Dex and has nothing to do with the permit offices he needs help with, but decides to talk to him anyway. They discover that she used to love the mole sauce that he made early in his career at Arturo’s Restaurant, until Arturo stole the credit for it and Tookie vowed never to make it again. Cosgrove has such fond memories of that mole sauce from the time when she’d first moved to Portland that she promises to help Tookie.

We’re just going to take this unlikely scenario at face value and move on.

When Dex is done with the manager, they go back to Fiona’s hotel room. Dex is impressed with how much nicer the hotel is than where Fiona used to stay. Dex clarifies that she’s a PI, not a bodyguard, which requires a whole different license. She intends to continue her investigation even if she’s with Fiona most of the time. Fiona clarifies that she wants to resume her relationship with Dex. Dex clarifies that she isn’t clear about what she’s doing with Miles.

Fiona wants 24 hour protection while they’re in town. She’s not sure where the next leg of the tour is going. Her manager keeps track of the logistics for her. Dex calls Grey to arrange for him to watch Ansel while she’s with Fiona. He teases her, but then apologizes.

Liz, the tour guide, comes back to the bar to see Grey again. Grey is happy to see her, but Ansel purposely drops a bottle of wine to show his displeasure.

Fiona and Dex drink and reminisce. Fiona reminds her that she considered getting a degree in psychology, which Dex had forgotten. Fiona remembers every little detail about Dex and their time together. Dex thinks about Fiona, too, whenever she sees her on TV.

A doorman brings an envelope that was dropped off at the hotel which contains a photo of Fiona and Dex in the hotel room. It had to be taken that evening. There’s a message written on the photo saying that Fiona is safe.

The next day, they take the photo to the police. Miles interviews Fiona while some cop-fans take souvenir photos. Fiona notes that the stalker could be a cop. They discuss any suspicious fan interactions Fiona’s had.

Fiona warns Miles that women like her and Dex are too much woman for him. He’d never be able to figure them out or keep up with them. He keeps her phone to look through her social media. She tells him to be careful, because some of her photos aren’t safe for work. Wink.

Lol. It only took her 5 minutes to get his number.

Tookie brings Cosgrove a special delivery of his famous mole recipe that he almost never makes anymore to thank her for her help with his permit extensions. The food takes her right back to the era when she’d just met her husband.

Back at their hotel, Dex suggests they change rooms, but Fiona thinks the stalker will just find her again. She has confidence in Miles’ competence.

After Miles put Kara in her place, I love how down on him Fiona is.

Fiona sings to Dex, then makes a move on her. Dex says that she could lose her license for sleeping with a client, but Fiona doesn’t think anyone will find out. They kiss.

One of the hotel room curtains is still open and they know the stalker was watching through these very windows the night before. This seems like a purposeful set up for blackmail material against Dex, maybe just on the part of the writers, maybe by the stalker or Fiona. We’ll find out in some future episode.

Kara fills Miles in on the stalker she found through her research into Fiona’s social media. Martin Newtlander had created multiple accounts, but analyzing language patterns showed they all belong to the same person. Miles and a uniformed cop visit the hotel room. Newtlander isn’t there, but a scope and a creepy shrine to Fiona are.

As Dex and Fiona lie in bed and enjoy the afterglow, Dex muses that this is what being on tour with Fiona would be like. They’re interrupted by Miles, who calls to fill Dex in on the stalker. She correctly guesses that he’s white, doughy and very alone.

Cosgrove brings one of her own specialties to Tookie’s truck for him to try, a Phillie cheesesteak eggroll with her own special touches. He’s skeptical, but gives it a try. He loves it so much that it inspires him to take the recipe even further. She gives him the go ahead to play with it.

Liz and Grey have spent the entire evening at Bad Alibi. Now that it’s closing time, Grey asks what comes next. Liz suggests some full moon activities, such as vampirism, but settles on radical honesty to jumpstart their relationship.

The women in Portland take no prisoners.

Grey is up for the challenge and reels off his basic history. After his recent past with Dex, he’s throwing a challenge back at Liz to see if she can handle his baggage.

I don’t think that Dex’s problem was his history so much as the fact that he lied about it, and she’s told him that. This time he’s going to be honest and put everything that might drive someone away out in the open right from the start.

Grey: “My Mom left when I was 6 years old.”

Liz: “I’m sorry.”

Grey: “I’m not. She wasn’t strong enough to save herself. And if you ever met my father, you’d understand. Is this too honest?”

Liz: “Actaully, I’ve never done this before.”

Grey: “My father was a crook, but he was low-rent. He was a hell of a teacher, though. By high school, I was making bank, stealing cars. But grand theft is a gateway crime and by 18, I was a boxman. There was not a safe I couldn’t get into. I did a few stints in prison and met some pretty bad dudes. And that’s actually how I got the money for this bar. Tell me what you’re thinking and be radically honest.”

Liz: “My place or yours.”

Grey tells her that he lives upstairs. Ansel drops an entire tray of silverware and walks away. Grey goes to talk to him.

Liz never confesses her radically honest life history.

When Dex and Fiona get to the concert venue they run into the stalker, Newtlander, in a hallway. He has a knife, so Dex sends Fiona to hide safely in an elevator while she subdues him. Newtlander insists that he’s the one protecting Fiona.

Once Miles has Newtlander in an interrogation room, the stalker still insists that he and Fiona are friends and that she asked him to protect her. He tells Miles to look in his hotel room for the letters he’s been exchanging with Fiona.

Miles gives Dex an update and brings up their Friday night date, but then decides that she probably has too much going on to get together.

Grey makes Liz his famous morning after eggs. Ansel catches them kissing at the breakfast table and questions why Liz is still there. He runs out of the room, upset that Grey is replacing Dex.

Dex stops by to see Fiona, who is very grateful that Dex is the one who rescued her. She wants to do drugs together to celebrate their victory, and calls Dex a bore when Dex says she doesn’t do drugs anymore. Dex’s phone rings before the argument can escalate.

It’s Grey, calling Dex to help with Ansel, who’s locked himself in the office. Back at the bar, Grey and Dex quickly fall into aguing over Ansel, Grey’s lies and their respective love lives. Ansel opens the door to make them stop. They all sit in the office for a family meeting.

Ansel wants to know if Grey is leaving the family, now that he and Dex don’t like each other anymore, just like his Mom and Dad left them. Grey is shocked by the question. He and Dex assure Ansel that Grey is part of the family, no matter what. Nothing is going to scare him away, no matter how mad anyone gets at anyone else.

😭😭😭 This right here is why Grey is endgame. He needs Ansel as much as he needs Dex, and Dex needs someone who understands that Ansel is the center of her universe, not them.

Dex gets called to the police station to finish up with the case. Grey tells her and Ansel that he’s still here, and it’s no problem for him to stay with Ansel. But he and Ansel both admit that dropping the tray of silverware was OTT.

Miles found a stack of letters from Fiona in the stalker’s hotel room, encouraging him to follow her. Dex figures out that it was Fiona’s manager who wrote the letters, not the singer herself. The stress of being stalked inspired her to write more intense songs for her album. Miles arrests the manager.

Fiona repeats her request for Dex to go on tour with her, and Dex suggests that Fiona take some time off and stay in Portland. Fiona gets a little insulting about Dex’s life, yet we’ve been shown all episode that Fiona doesn’t know where she is or where she’s going most of the time, she just goes from plane to hotel room to venue and it all looks the same. What would be in that life for Dex? More alcohol and drug abuse, when she’s just gotten her life together?

Tookie serves Cosgrove the new special on his menu: Tacos a la Cosgrove. They’re both married, so they agree this is just a friendly cooking collaboration. Cosgrove gets called back to work before she can eat her tacos, so she asks for them to go. But before she leaves, she tells Tookie that her friends call her Bobby.

Did we even know she has a first name?? I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Grey and Liz have a picnic in a park and take the oportunity to clarify that Dex and Grey are just friends and Grey won’t let Dex or Ansel’s feelings dictate who he dates. Liz tells Grey that she understands why the thought of losing someone like Grey would be unsettling. He says that’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to him in a long time.

I hope she’s for real, but something about that conversation makes me worried that she’s been planted by Kane’s people. She didn’t even blink at Grey’s history and the first thing she did was talk about death. Now I feel like eventually he could be forced to choose between the Parios sibs and her, which would leave him more vulnerable to underworld influence. He was only rescued last week because of Ansel and Dex.

Dex gives bowling a try, even though she’s terrible at it and Miles is a bowling supernerd. He tells her he likes the game because, “No matter how badly you screw up, you always get a second chance.”

Okay, that was really sweet.

Commentary

In two weeks, Ansel has to suffer through the worst Thanksgiving ever. Someone send Mama Cosgrove and Tookie to rescue him.

Since when do rock concerts end because someone fell down or had to be carried out? Especially a punk show? The first clue that the manager is the culprit is the fact that he yells at Dex for doing her job as security.

I believe that tonight was the first time we saw Dex linger in bed after sex.

Fiona really cares about Dex. Dex had a thing for Candace Tapper, who is the same physical type as Fiona. Does Dex have a disappointingly mainstream and patriarchal preference for tall blondes, or did Candace remind her of Fiona?

I could handle Fiona becoming a recurring character and her relationship with Dex continuing. There was a warmth to their chemistry that Dex doesn’t have with Grey or Miles. They just have a lot lot of obstacles to overcome because of their different lifestyles, despite their strong feelings for each other.

Since Kara’s been alone with Miles in all of her scenes so far in this episode and the last, they all could have easily been shot and inserted into the episode after the rest of it was finished and they began to realize how few women there are in this show. (But hopefully I’m just paranoid.) Kara also gives Miles a chance to act superior to a woman at work after spending several episodes under Cosgrove’s thumb, and adds another person of color to the cast. She potentially resolves several notes from the network.

It’s Complicated

Did Kara Lee really have to say that she could set Miles up with someone who could take care of him in every way and wouldn’t play games? Miles might as well hire a hooker who’d wear an apron for him him. But then, Miles decided that Dex is playing games because she’s not all over him, despite her complete openness and honesty about their lack of a relationship.

He’s the one who said he liked complicated women. I don’t think that word means what he thinks it means. He seems to think it means it’ll take a few dates to get her to commit to a relationship and for her to let him save her.

What it really means, in this case, is that she’s in love with both a dead guy (Benny) and a living guy (Grey). And as it turns out, there’s a woman who got away, too. Dex has a big heart.

She doesn’t want to screw things up with the living guy and also mess up Ansel’s life, so she keeps it platonic. She’s bisexual, so when she dates outside her platonic relationship to get her sexual needs met, she dates men and women, but she’s not interested in anything serious.

She and Miles have sexual chemistry, but they don’t gel on a deeper level, the way Dex and Grey immediately did, or have many interests in common. He’s a good choice for a nonserious date.

So while Dex superficially appears messed up and potentially available, in fact, now that she has her PI license, Dex has her life together, knows who she is, and is taking some time to work through her emotional stuff. She does not need a man, or a woman, to save her. She’s busy.

Images courtesy of ABC.

Stumptown Season 1 Episode 6: Dex, Drugs and Rock & Roll Recap-Dex & Grey spend time with new love interests, causing Miles & Ansel to worry they're being left behind. Tookie & Cosgrove strike up a new friendship. #Stumptown Episode 6 of Stumptown is about ghosts. The characters work through their ghosts while the show tests out new character combinations and expands backstories.

[star-trekkin-across-theuniverse]

Word Count: 1190 Author’s Note: @stargirlhorse requested a fic with this awesome prompt: “Jim Kirk, Y/N and The Bikini Malfuncion. Hehehe” I hope you enjoy, Carly!

And finally, after far too long cooped up inside the walls of the Enterprise, you were on shore leave. The fresh air carried an exotic, sweet, floral scent, and the breeze was warm. It was the perfect day to spend on the beach, far, far away from the rest of the crew. Over the past year, the crew had become a second family, but just as you often needed a break from your blood relatives, a break from the family you’d chosen was also needed at time. You stepped off your balcony and back into your room, packing the essentials before you took the elevator down to ground level and walked out into the sand. Before you locked up, you double checked that you had your sunscreen and your water bottle, and pulled your cover up over you.

You bumped into Doctor McCoy in the elevator and he smiled, trying to keep eye contact. Your beach cover was a loose gauzey thing, and didn’t hid your barely-there bikini at all.

“Make sure you get sunscreen on every square millimetre of skin, Y/N. I don’t want to treat a sunburn while we’re on leave.” His words were serious, but he winked and smiled.

“I put it on before I put the bikini on, Doc,” you replied. Unbelievably, he blushed and looked away. He cleared his throat and looked back.

“Well, with your complexion, you should be reapplying it -”

“Every hour. I know, Doc,” you nodded. “There’s never been any shortage of volunteers to help.”

“I can’t imagine why not,” he replied, quirking an eyebrow at you. You couldn’t help but laugh and shrugged a little indifferently. The elevator door opened and McCoy gestured for you to go ahead. You turned to him and winked.

“I won’t be young forever.” You readjusted your bag on your shoulder and headed off the elevator. “I’ll be on the south beach if you want a turn.” You glanced over your shoulder and saw McCoy, slack jawed, stepping off the elevator, and nearly walk into Captain Kirk. You waved one last time, wiggling your fingers as you headed toward the beach. You overheard them talking as you walked away.

“Was that -”

“Y/N?” McCoy interrupted. “Yeah. It was. She just invited me to put sunscreen on her in an hour.”

“And you’re going to because it’s shore leave and you need to relax,” Jim concluded. Jim knew that you lived to torment Bones. You’d admitted once, while drinking, it was your favourite hobby on board because McCoy never quite knew how to respond to your flirtations.

“It’s hardly appropriate, Jim -”

“Then maybe I will,” Jim cut his friend off again. You smiled to yourself and continued down the to beach, knowing he was giving his friend a hard time.

After about an hour, you began to feel the sun’s rays prickling your skin, and you flagged down Uhura from where she was basking with Spock to help you with your sunscreen. She’d sprayed you down thoroughly, and happily accepted your offer to borrow it for her and Spock. You always kept a tube of lotion in your bag too, and mostly for this exact reason. Not everyone roasted in an instant like you did, and they often forgot to bring sunscreen of their own.

You laid back down on your blanket and opened your book. Your brother had shipped you an old, paper copy of your favourite book for your birthday, and you’d been devouring it, drinking in the scent of the old binding, the leather of the cover and the magic of the printed words of the fragile paper. You finished your chapter and felt the prickle of the sun burning through the sunscreen again. You glance around and there was no one nearby.

The ocean had been enticing you all morning, and now, in the heat of the day, it called even louder to you. You walked to the edge of the tide, waiting for the cool water to lap at your feet, and were surprised at how warm it actually was. You walked out until you were up to your knees, the water just cold enough to cool you down, but not enough to chill you. You waded further, until the clear water was past your belly button, and finally dunked yourself under, cooling the tingling skin, and refreshing you completely. You laid back in the water, and allowed yourself to float, eye closed, riding the gentle waves that were slowly washing you to shore.

A shadow fell across you, making the red behind your eyes go dark, and you opened your eyes to see a dark silhouette a few feet from you.

“Y/N! I know you were just teasing Bones about the sunscreen, but you’re looking awfully pink. Maybe I should actually help you out?” Jim’s face slowly became clear as your eyes adjusted. You smiled and held a hand out, letting him pull you up until your feet hit the sand below you.

“Not gonna lie, Jim, I would appreciate it. I was feeling a little roasty but couldn’t actually find anyone to give me a hand,” you admitted. His eyes widened and he looked away, looked back at you and looked away again. And then he started blushing.

“Uh, Y/N,” he started, still looking somewhere over your shoulder toward the shore. You gave him a confused look, and he gestured vaguely toward your chest. “You seem to be having, an, uh, issue.”

You looked down and let out a yelp of surprise, hands flying up to cover your chest. “Was it like that this whole time?” You tried adjusting the skimpy top without further exposing yourself but were mostly unsuccessful. Jim stepped behind you, allowing you to continue to face the ocean instead of the shore.

“Pass me the ties, and fix yourself up,” he ordered. You made quick work of tucking your breasts back into the top. Jim’s fingers felt practices and adept at your back, and you could feel the flush rushing up your neck and cheeks. You turned around to face him, cringing just a little.

“I’m sorry, sir -”

“I feel like there is literally nothing I can say right now that isn’t going to make me sound inappropriate, out of line as your commanding officer or worse,” he laughed, clearly uncomfortable. You broke into a broad grin and rubbed the back of your neck.

“Yeah, I kind of feel like anything I say at this point could be misconstrued as solicitation for the purposes of fraternization with a superior officer,” you laughed, biting your lip. Jim’s smile relaxed a little.

“Well, we are on shore leave,” he raised his eyebrows in thought. “I think it wouldn’t be fraternization on shore leave.”

“Are you asking me out on a technicality?” You laughed.

“Y/N, I just saw most of your breasts. On some planets, that would be marriage, if you look at technicalities. I’d just like to take you to dinner and see how that goes,” he teased. You nodded.

“I suppose I didn’t have any big plans for food tonight,” you agreed.

[junker-town]

Hating on Russell Westbrook's triple-doubles doesn't make you smart

Using analytics to tear down Russell Westbrook’s NBA MVP candidacy is just boring.

One of the best parts of watching Russell Westbrook break Oscar Robertson’s record for the most triple-doubles in a season was the reaction of the fans throughout. When he got to nine assists against the Nuggets, after reaching double digits in points and rebounds, the game became an emotional rollercoaster. He would penetrate and dish the ball out to an open teammate, and the fans would stand and roar in suspense as the shot went up, and then recline in disappointment when the shot bounced off the rim.

It wasn’t a severe disappointment though, the fans were having fun. They desperately wanted Westbrook to break the record, just as they did against the Suns, when Phoenix purposely fouled to stop Westbrook from achieving it.

Another great part of the whole journey was what happened after Westbrook did break the record. Numerous NBA players tweeted and instagrammed their congratulations and surprise at the feat. LeBron James, who is a big fan of Robertson, had a video marveling at Westbrook breaking a record that he thought would stand forever.

“There's certain things you never think you're going to see.” @KingJames sends his praise to @russwest44. #Respect http://pic.twitter.com/38kjGMd6yi

— UNINTERRUPTED (@uninterrupted) April 10, 2017

Then in the Thunder’s last game, during a special presentation held for Westbrook for his feat, Oscar Robertson himself led the crowd in MVP chants for the man who surpassed him.

Thank goodness for fans and players who still think of triple-doubles as impressive feats. At least there are people who can still see the wonder in such an achievement — people who do not mistake their disillusionment and the destruction of great things for intelligence.

Before this season, there were whispers that Westbrook could very well average a triple-double for 82 games. Or at least, there was the belief that if it could be done, Westbrook, with his high motor and a history of racking up numbers when Kevin Durant was injured in 2015, was most likely to do it. This was back when we still thought of triple-doubles as worthwhile — simpler times when a triple-double was a clear indicator that a player had done very well in three of the most important measures that we have for player performance.

Now, points, assists, and rebounds are apparently overrated.

The argument behind this disdain is that there’s nothing magical that happens after the tenth point, rebound, or assist, that the allure of the achievement only exists because human beings are attracted to round numbers. There’s little difference between a performance that ends in 30, 10, 10, and one that ends in 29, 9, 9.

Westbrook supporters can point to him making history with numbers that we have always seen as spectacular, and say that he should win MVP because he idid something that we have always considered good and difficult, and he did it for an entire season. And his team is only eight wins worse than when it had the second best player in the league.

In order for supporters of the other MVP candidates to make a case for their choice, they have to minimize the triple-double. What was once great, no longer is. The Rockets tweeted a subliminal shot at Westbrook, suggesting that triple-doubles don’t matter compared to wins, even though they are the first to celebrate when Harden does get a triple-double.

In this MVP argument, triple-doubles are only cool and great when certain players do it. Otherwise, it’s an arbitrary measurement, unlike factoring in team wins in an individual award.

An #MVP performance by @JHarden13 today. http://pic.twitter.com/208UKAbd6k

— Houston Rockets (@HoustonRockets) March 26, 2017

Then there’s the performative intelligence aspect of the debate, in which people feel as if they have to prove they’re smarter than the “common” fan. These people feel like they shouldn’t be susceptible to emotions and round numbers. They have to dig deeper, and find the most obscure of stats — anything that can strip a wonderful achievement, like a triple-double, of its power — to show that they’re in the know, and everyone else is not.

This is a radical misunderstanding of what intelligence is. Intelligence is not nihilism. It is not Bart Simpson walking around in an “Everything Sucks” shirt. Stats and analytics don’t exist to be used for public posturing of intellectual superiority. They exist to add to the wonder of things, not to tear them down. This new trend of being unmoved by great performances has become almost as bad as dunk truthers, who rush to any video of a great dunk to yell about why people shouldn’t be impressed by it. Nothing about that is interesting, cool, or smart. It’s just boring.

Before the season, the prospect of Westbrook averaging a triple-double was ridiculous in the best sense. Now, after 82 games and constant coverage of it, the feat has become almost distasteful. Just like hipsters when people become enamored with a popular thing, detractors are only now claiming that Westbrook’s feat is lacking in any real substance.

Lastly, there’s an overaccumulation of knowledge, a grand library of information, stats, and article after article on the same subjects that wears out our emotional capacity just a few hours after the event itself. There’s an overabundance of references for every game, play, and in-game situation imaginable, which should enlighten the masses, but has rather worn everyone out.

Fernando Pessoa once wrote on this phenomenon through a character named Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, who became overwhelmed by a thread of silk:

“I’m riding a tram and, as is my habit, slowly absorbing every detail of the people around me. By ‘detail’ I mean things, voices, words. In the dress of the girl directly in front of me, for example, I see the material it’s made of, the work involved in making it – since it’s a dress and not just material – and I see in the delicate embroidery around the neck the silk thread with which it was embroidered and all the work that went into that. And immediately, as if in a primer on political economy, I see before me the factories and all the different jobs: the factory where the material was made; the factory that made the darker coloured thread that ornaments with curlicues the neck of the dress’ and I see the different workshops in the factories, the machines, the workmen, the seamstresses.

‘My eyes’ inward gaze even penetrates into the offices, where I see the managers trying to keep calm and the figures set out in the account books, but that’s not all: beyond that I see into the domestic lives of all those who spend their working hours in these factories and offices...A whole world unfolds before my eyes all because the regularly irregular dark green edging to a pale green dress worn by the girl in front of me of whom I see only her brown neck...I grow dizzy. The seats on the tram, of fine, strong cane, carry me to distant regions, divide into industries, workmen, houses, lives, realities, everything. I leave the tram exhausted, like a sleepwalker, having lived a whole life.”

It’s hard not to fall prey to this age of hyper information, where spectacular things can grow old within a few hours, but I hope that we have not reached the point of great achievements in the NBA being disregarded as monotonous or overrated. Because as a fan, analyst, or writer, the immediate inclination is always to wonder at the sport. The science should elevate that sense. The science is not there to pull out the thread to the point of exhaustion and anxiety.

Westbrook has averaged a triple-double over an 82-game NBA season, in a league of 30 teams. He’s achieved something only done once before, in 1962, when the league only had 9 teams. The numbers are round and simple, but they’re still incredible. A lot of players have come close, but only Westbrook has done what he has done. And if the players themselves, the ones who know firsthand the difficulty of the work, think it’s a commendable feat, I hope we’re not at the point of discounting even their wonder for our own selfish reasons.