#they way someone mashed up an edit for them from two different movies

[homochihuahua]

Wow the devil sure works hard or whatever, but never as hard as the people who make Hannibal video edits

[imjusttpeachy]

bumpy roads & broken promises. (c.h.)

EDIT: Lmaoooo I did not expect this to actually get notes, thanks guys! I already made it onto someone’s fic recs-- I feel special. Actually might end up writing more if this gets more attention. :^)

I wrote this as a vent/comfort fic for myself but figured others might like it. Corpse has been my new safety youtuber ever since the old nosleep reader--deep voice/no face gamer went to shit so... yeah. 

Heavily inspired by @mmonamona ‘s fic “Petty Fights and Lonely Nights” just more angst. 

playlist

feng suave - sink into the floor

current joys - a different age

feng suave - venus flytrap

rei ami - do it right

summary: Corpse gets frustrated with work and snaps at the reader when she tries to ask what’s wrong, triggering a bad memory from a past relationship. 

word count: 2, 932

WARNINGS: she/her pronouns used, coarse language, shouting, panic attacks, reference to past relationship trauma (no retelling, nothing detailed)

(angst, hurt/comfort, crying! lots of it)

>>>

“God would you just fuck off already?!”

Frozen. Your body tensed up as the deep growl echoed through the cramped dark room.

You had been staying at your boyfriend’s apartment for about a week while you were on break from college. Flying out from the UK to California so you could spend as much time as you could with him before ultimately having to return to 5am facetimes while drowning in papers and essays.

Even before you’d booked the tickets, Corpse was already apologizing for everything under the sun. The size of his apartment and its cleanliness, the fact that he couldn’t do much more than order take out for you, his irregular sleeping patterns.. the list could go on and on. And while you assured him every time that you didn’t care, that you were coming to see him— not his apartment, not home cooked meals, and definitely not to scrutinize him for things he couldn’t control due to his mental health. But he wouldn’t buy it.

Not one bit.

He’d offer you a weary half-smile, pulling you into his chest or ruffling your hair before placing a soft kiss on your temple and changing the subject. You didn’t press any further knowing how often he was at war with his own mind and couldn’t help but think the worse of every situation.

As the days carried on, you’d spent most of your time tangled up in each other. Whether it be a movie, or playing some co-op games, or even just laying in his bed with him, you could barely stand to spend any time apart. But, of course, you were adults with responsibilities that would tear you from one another eventually. While you did miss his presence every second he wasn’t around, you couldn’t help but try to make his life even better for when he got back and for when you’d eventually have to leave him once again. Now, a week into your stay, his apartment was a good amount tidier than how it’d been when you arrived. The cupboards and fridge were stocked with groceries that would hopefully last for some time after you left, on top of the home made meals you’d make together or for him everyday. New picture frames were hung up on the wall of the two of you that you’d gifted to him when you arrived; it actually started to feel like home. Well, as much as it could without those familiar strong arms wrapped around you every second of the day.

Unfortunately, this evening was one of those times. Corpse had already been locked up in his office for a few hours now, the sounds of button mashing and frustrated exclamations making its way through the thin walls every so often bringing an amused smile to your face. He’d woken up a bit anxious already knowing he’d have to both leave you alone and put up a brave front for the stream that was planned that evening. You didn’t push him or try to talk about it, knowing that it would just make it worse; so you two had spent the day as it normally would (though he always looked and felt on edge) until he was forced to retreat back into that dreaded workspace.

You occupied yourself on your phone and laptop for a while, checking up on friends, reviewing anything you’d need for the upcoming semester, just scrolling through your socials— y’know, the works. But by the time you’d gotten bored with your scrolling, you’d notice it was a perfect time to start dinner that you’d hopefully be able to eat together with Corpse. You’d gotten to work right away, doing your best to be as quiet as you could to not disturb his work as the different aromas began to spread through the small kitchen in his apartment. Finishing up the dishes after the meal was all cooked, you dished up two servings and set them on the coffee table in front of the couch before you went to retrieve your other half.

Turning the knob of his office door slowly, you peered into the dark room; only the silhouette of the floppy mop of hair you adored so much was able to be seen in the dim light of his computer monitors. Taking a hard look at his right-most monitor you notice an editing software pulled up instead of the usual live chat he had on while streaming, so without any worry of interrupting you opened the door and stepped into the room. It was a cozy room for sure, and it always seemed to smell just like him— which of course is a given but with how much time he spent in this room, it was even more so present. Walking up slowly to his right side so you wouldn’t startle him with just your voice you watched his gaze flick to your form before steadying itself back in the monitor. Furrowing your brows at his strange behaviour but not letting it get to you, you opened your mouth to speak.

“I made dinner!” You smiled down at him, taking a few steps back toward the door so he would be able to get out of his gaming chair without you in his space. However, the hunched form of your focused boyfriend didn’t move an inch. Your heart sunk a little at his attitude but decided to just try again.

“Corpse, baby, dinners ready.”

“I’m not hungry.” The short statement left his mouth in a low grumble, if you hadn’t spent all this time with him studying his voice and begging him to speak more to you, you probably wouldn’t have been able make it out at all. You huffed out a sigh, this was new for him, you really hadn’t seen him as anything other than the cuddly baby you’d grown to know and love. But, you thought to yourself, love would come with days like this and it was bound to happen eventually. Trying your best to not get frustrated or angry with his snappy attitude, you kept your voice light and cheery as you tried again to coax him out to eat.

“Corpse you’ve barely eaten today I-“

“I said I’m not hungry.” Startling at the angry tone you’d never heard from him before, you could feel yourself start to get choked up. Pulling your hands up to hug your arms, trying to sooth yourself, you could feel yourself starting to slowly freeze up. Goosebumps ran over your skin, a chill snaking  it’s way up your spine as you gulped, trying your best to muster up the bravery to speak again. You didn’t know what had gotten into him, he knew how the tone affected you— he was usually even the one to comfort you after an episode triggering something like this. As your mouth began to run dry, you took a deep breath deciding that he would definitely come to his senses in the next moments, you opened your mouth to speak again.

“Is everything alri-“

“I’m FINE! I’m not a FUCKING CHILD I don’t need you constantly checking up on me! God would you just fuck off already!”

You didn’t even notice the tears dripping off your cheeks until they splashed against the bare skin of your hand. Slipping into the defense mode you knew so well, your body switched onto autopilot as you began to backpedal out of the room, almost tripping a few times as you sputtered out a choked “okay, I’m sorry,” before closing his door once again and stumbling messily down the hallway to his room. Your mind was moving a thousand miles a minute yet was completely blank at the same time, and before you knew it you were tucked away inside the dark closet in his room.

This was the routine, this is where you’d be safe.

Trying to slow your erratic breathing you hugged your knees even closer to your chest, praying that in some way it would ease your shaking body. But inevitably, you felt the sobs that you’d kept trapped in your throat since you’d left break through. Your chest heaved with the breaths you took to keep your sobs as silent as possible. You thought you had trained yourself well enough for this, you’d done this a million times before— but in the back of your mind you knew that this time it was different. Shrinking into the corner of the closet, the only thing on your mind was all the broken promises he’d sworn to keep.

>>>

Corpse sighed, his body weighing him down in his chair heavily, head aching with all the work he’d been doing that evening. Pulling his attention back, he stretched his arms as his sore eyes glanced over at the clock in the corner of his screen. 11:34pm. Fuck. That much time had passed already? Raking a hand through his hair he yawned sleepily, he knew he should probably spend more time working before calling it a night but all he wanted to do was curl up in bed with you-

Shit.

Finally snapping out of the heavy trance he’d set himself in every time he sat down to edit, he thought back to the last time he had seen you— calling him for dinner where he snapped at you to leave him alone… almost 3 hours ago. The memories of the past moment flooded into his head and seconds later he was scrambling out of his chair and out into the hallway. It was dead silent, Corpse felt like his heart was practically breaking his ribs with how hard it was pounding in his chest. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Gripping at the right side of his shirt he rushed into the living room, rubbing frantically at his eyes as they darted around the room quickly looking for any sign of you.

“(Y/N), baby?” He rasped out, voice caught in his throat, walking through the living room and spotting the now cold meals she’d prepared waiting uneaten on the coffee table. His heart sunk as he hurried to the kitchen only to see the rest of the meal out on the counter, not doing anything to ease his mind. He called your name again and again; rushing back into the living room his eyes darted to the front door, a tiny bit of relief pricking his system as he saw the door was still locked and latched, as well as seeing your shoes and jacket by the door. Rushing back into the hallway he peeked into the bathroom, flicking on the light switch and with no sign of you, continued down the hallway to his room.

“(Y/N), please baby.” Flicking on the light his eyes scanned the room not catching a single sight of you-- when he heard it. Slowing his breathing down as much as he could in his panicked state he focused in his hearing on the small heaves of air coming from the closet. Stomach dropping, Corpse collapsed onto his knees, legs giving way from underneath him when he realized where you were and what was happening. Crawling his way toward the closet door he stopped right outside of it, he heard your breath hitch and knew you were holding it out of practiced instinct which made him want to vomit. But it wasn’t about him right now, so with a deep breath he finally managed to whisper out.

>>>

“Princess, I’m gonna open the door okay?”

Finally releasing the breath you had been holding, your lungs heaved for air as light flooded into the dark closet. Peeking an eye out from where it was buried in your knees, you blearily made out your boyfriend’s blurry figure kneeling outside the closet. With your body feeling like it was completely out of your control, sobs once again began to rack your huddled form as you shrunk away from him as far as you could into the corner of the closet.

“I’m gonna come in and sit with you okay, I won’t touch you unless you say I can alright?” You could hear some shuffling before hearing the door creak shut again engulfing the both of you in almost complete darkness, save for the few streams of yellow light coming from the cracks of the door. Corpse stared forward in complete silence, long legs bent uncomfortably and body hunched over in the cramped space of the closet trying to give you as much space as possible but knowing that the first step was sitting with you. The man beside you sighed softly, feeling his heart splinter with every heaving sob that raked over you; he could feel his own tears prick at his eyes and a sob starting to well up in his throat but he held them back. Mustering up the courage and will he finally opened his mouth to speak.

“(Y/N) I am so, so fucking sorry,” his voice pitched just above a whisper because he knew if his voice got any deeper that it would startle you and scare you even more than how you were already feeling right now. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. It never should’ve hap-“

“Y- You br- broke your promise.” Your reply came in watery, stuttered breaths; the knot in Corpse’s throat came right back up, tears filling his waterline as much as he tried to keep his composure for your sake.

“I know. I know I did.” The man beside you managed to choke out thinking back to the day where he first lost his temper around you. You’d told him everything about your experience with your past relationships and how you were treated, what you used to cope and what he could do to avoid that in any way possible. He promised that day that he would never again raise his voice, or move too fast even when he was angry or frustrated, and made sure to note down anything that would possibly trigger you to completely avoid altogether. And he kept those promises… until today. Tilting his head to glance over at you, his eyes adjusting to the darkness of the closet to see you staring straight ahead, tears pouring endlessly down your damp face as your body still shook with soft cries.

“I can’t lose you (Y/N)” Corpse’s voice shook as he tried to figure out the right things to say that would keep you from walking right out that door.

“I’ll do anything. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, I don’t know what I’d do without you. I’ll be better, I swear on my life I’ll be better. Anything you need— it’s yours. I just.. I can’t lose you. Not like this.” He hated how much he sounded like he was pleading when he’s the one who fucked up. The last thing he wanted to do was manipulate you into staying with him which was exactly what your ex did when they made the same mistake time and time again; something he swore he’d never even think of doing. But here he was, and here you were glancing up at him with bloodshot eyes, hair sticking to your tear slicked face and body shaking so much you’d think it was below freezing in there.

Tearing your gaze away from his, you heaved a watery, shaky sigh trying your best to get your thoughts in order. While you had your issues, you knew he had his as well; and with as much patience and understanding he gives you with your snappy, frustrated, sad days, you needed to give back that same patience and understanding with his own. You needed to be brave here.

“Baby-“

“C-Can you just hold me? Please?” You sputtered out just above a whisper, and before you could even unwrap your arms from around yourself Corpse was pulling you into his lap; strong arms encasing you as he pushed his face into your hair. That’s when you found out he was shaking just as much as you were, chest rising and falling erratically with contained sobs as he tried to keep his brave demeanour up for you. Tucking your head under his chin he leaned back against the wall as he crushed you to his chest, the droplets hitting the top of your head giving way to the fact that he was crying too. Pulling your arms up from your side, you slowly wrapped them around his shoulder as he pushed his face against the crook of your neck, sobs finally giving way as he cried helplessly into your shoulder; further dampening the already tear-soaked cloth of the hoodie you were wearing.

“I’m sorry,” Corpse sputtered, hooking his chin over your shoulder so he could keep up with the heaving of his chest, pulling an arm up from around your waist to rest on the back of your head. As much as he wanted to run his hands all over your body and bury his fingers in your hair to feel and memorize every inch of you, he kept them still not wanting to overwhelm you more than this kind of touch already did.

“I love you, I love you so much, I love you..“ he whispered over and over into the darkness of the closet as you both began to breath slower as one. Shushing him softly, you repeated the soft words back to him before wrapping your arms tighter around his shoulders, ensuring him that you were going to be alright.

There would be bumps in the road but Corpse was worth it.

__________________________________

[aethelflaedladyofmercia]

Human Affection - Good Omens Fic

One more fic for the @bingokisses prompts - this one from last week - Behind the Knee kisses! Which I found a little odd, so I decided to go silly on this. Should be a good counter for the angst I put out. This will be going on AO3 after some edits, so let me know if you spot anything off.

CW: Silly drunken banter.

“Crowley, that is absolutely absurd. Stop making things up.”

“I’m not!” The demon reached for a bottle of wine, shook it, found it empty, and went hunting for the next. “I know these things. I know humans. Better’n anyone.” He finally found one with at a little red still at the bottom, shrugged, and drank it straight from the bottle.

“Not better than me,” Aziraphale protested, scowling a little as he lifted another nearly-full bottle.

“Much better’n you.” Crowley wasn’t quite drunk enough for this sort of argument, but now his pride was at stake. “Y’don’t even like talkin’ to them!”

“No,” he admitted as he poured another glass, “but I read. A’stensivly.”

“Obstentily?”

“Egstenilly.”

“Abstentally?”

“Exten…I read a great deal!”

“Ha!” Crowley jabbed a finger at Aziraphale, then realized he should make a point. “You don’…don’ read the right sor’ of books. Gotta read th’ naughty ones. Th’ones Heaven don’ like.”

“I read plenty that Heaven disproved of,” Aziraphale objected, taking a long drink of wine and licking his lips happily.

“Ooooh, did you? Do you?” Crowley tried to saunter from the sofa to Aziraphale’s chair, but the table unexpectedly got in the way and he wound up sprawled on the floor instead. “Angel reads some…some…scantilating books?”

“I haven’t the first idea wha’ you mean,” Aziraphale said primly. “But I happen to know that humans do not, in fact, just kiss all over everywhere as you so crudely put it.”

“Do, too. Everywhere. Name a part, lips go there.”

“No, no, no.” Aziraphale waved his hand, sloshing wine that took one look at his perfectly white sleeve and quickly crawled shamefully back into the glass. “They have – certain areas. Erroneous zones.”

“Don’ think that’s right.” Crowley managed to crawl close enough to grab the chair, pulling himself up to rest arms and chin near where Aziraphale’s elbow rested. “Ergonomic zones?”

“Erogenous!” Aziraphale beamed, then turned pink. “Oh. Yes. But they kiss there and it feels, er, stimulating. Everywhere else is…not.”

“S’that so?” With a grin, Crowley grabbed Aziraphale’s hand and kissed it – or rather, the lowest knuckle of his thumb, since his aim seemed slightly off.

“Crowley!” The angel jerked his hand away. “What’s that s’posed to prove?”

“You din’ like it?”

Aziraphale squinted at his thumb. “I don’ think there’s meant to be nearly this much s’liva, my dear fellow.” He wiped his hand on his trousers. “Really!”

“Oh, you thin’ you’re so clever. Clever Angel. Why don’ you try it?”

“I will!” Aziraphale set his glass down and took Crowley’s hand, studying it like an ancient tome. Finally, he turned it over, spreading Crowley’s palm like a map, and lowered his lips until warm breath filled his hand. Then he pulled back. “There.”

“Wha’? Tha’s not – y’didn’ touch me!”

“Did so!”

“Your nose maybe. Gotta be the lips, or s’not a kiss.”

“Snot kiss? Really Crowley—”

“No – no – is not a kiss.” Crowley made a half-hearted attempt to pull his hand back. “Wha’ they teach you in those books?”

“Perfectly acceptable. Kisses on the palm, light as a breath—”

“Light as a breath. Not a breath. It’s a wossname. Same-ilie.”

“Simile?”

“S’what I said. You gotta actually use the lips or it don’ count.”

“Are you certain? I could just…” Again, he bent forward, lips hovering a hairsbreadth above Crowley’s palm, breath caressing the lines of his hand, warm and strangely tingling.

So Crowley pressed his hand into Aziraphale’s face, mashing his lips. “Mwah-mwah. Now it’s kissing!”

Aziraphale batted at his hand, pulling away. “Stop that! You ridiculous serpent!”

“No! Kiss me again!” Crowley tried to push his hand against Aziraphale’s mouth again, but wound up sliding it across his cheek instead.

“Ah!” Aziraphale caught his hand, pressing it there. “See? That – tha’s good. This feels…pleasant.”

“Does?” For some reason, a different sort of smile began to spread across Crowley’s face. He liked how his hand fit perfectly around the curve of that cheek, how he could feel it bend and pull as Aziraphale smiled. He’d need to try this again some time.

“Oh, yes. Because of, er, nerve endings I think. When…when you touch them…”

“Shooosh.” Crowley cupped both Aziraphale’s cheeks in his hands and pressed until the angel couldn’t talk. “Too many words!”

“We are arguing,” Aziraphale pointed out in a muffled voice, though he didn’t try to push Crowely’s hand away this time.

“Fine. ‘Nuff arguin’. Less try an eggsper…exteri…try science.”

“Crowley, if you just slobber on me…”

“Nah, s’fine. Look. Whazz – what’s one of th’places you’re s’posed to kiss? The error zones.”

“Oh. Ah.” Aziraphale looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Let’s…let’s say mouth. Er. Neck. Wrist.”

“Wrist!” Crowley took Aziraphale’s hand and tugged it towards him, pulling the sleeve back a little to reveal the veins of his wrist. “How’s this feel?”

Pausing to make sure his lips were dry this time, Crowley leaned down and pressed them to that last inch of exposed flesh. It was soft, a little salty, and he swore he could feel Aziraphale’s pulse flutter. He tried again, gently exploring the angel’s wrist, feeling the way his fingers flexed and curled in response.

When he was finished, he tilted his head to look up at Aziraphale, whose face was quite pink. “Good?”

“Er. Yes.” Aziraphale pulled his hand back and slid his sleeve into place. “Obviously. It’s – it’s meant to feel good. But it was. Er. Yes.”

“Ha! An’ you said I can’t kiss!”

“Never said that,” he objected.

“Oh.” Crowley scratched his head. “Wha’ were we arguing about?”

“You – you said humans like being kissed anywhere, and that simply isn’t true. Some areas are – are sensitive to that sort of – of touch an’ others…er…look, no human enjoys, ah, being kissed behind the knee, for ‘zample.”

“Don’ they?” Crowley leaned further over the arm of the chair, grinning up at Aziraphale. “You sure ‘bout that?”

“I would think they’d have mentioned it.”

“Maybe they have. Maybe they talk abou’ it all the time an’ you jus’ don’ know.”

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “But they tell you?”

“I mean…” Crowley waved his hand, trying not to look like someone who knew less about kissing than he did marine biology. “S’in the music, innit? Always talkin’ ‘bout kissin’ everywhere. Or – or movies.” He nodded, certain James Bond had once shown something along those lines, and really, he would know, wouldn’t he?

“Oh, really?” Aziraphale surged to his feet, then tottered, nearly losing his balance. “I think you’re lying.”

“Naaaaah, I don’ lie…”

“Oh-ho! Oh-hoho!” He paused, apparently trying to catch his train of thought again. “Ah. Right.” With a wave of his hand, the angel was suddenly wearing a much shorter pair of trousers, in a style that hadn’t been in fashion for over two centuries. “Yes. Now. We shall see.”

“See what?” Crowley was busy mentally reconstructing the rest of the outfit that had nearly gotten Aziraphale executed in 1793. He really hadn’t had time to appreciate it in that dungeon. Maybe he could say something to convince Aziraphale to miracle up those shiny shoes.

“See if kissing back of the knee feels as good as the wrist. For science.”

Crowley nodded, then the words finally clicked in his mind and his head jerked up to meet Aziraphale’s eyes. “Wai’ – wai’ – wai’ jus’ a minnnnit. You wan’ me to kiss…yer leg?”

“I can’t very well kiss it mysel’, see?” Aziraphale stood awkwardly on one leg, bending the other knee as high as he could before losing his balance and falling back in the chair. “S’no good. You have to do it.”

“Nnnnnh.” Crowley squirmed around to sit in front of Aziraphale and lifted his leg as if about to help him into new shoes. “Where…here?” His fingers traced uncertainly along the bare calf.

“No – no, higher. Back of the knee.” But Crowley could feel the way Aziraphale tried not to wiggle as his long fingers ran up the soft curve of flesh.

“Angel…are you…ticklish?”

“Don’ know what you – stop! Stop!” His leg kicked out and Aziraphale slumped further in his chair, struggling to escape Crowley’s fingers. “You – you monster!” But even as he squirmed, he laughed.

“Jus’ admit I’m right an’ I’ll stop.”

“Never!” And with that, Aziraphale launched himself from the chair, pushing Crowley to the ground. “Never surrender, Foul Field! Er, Fiend!” Before Crowley could try and fight back, he tugged up the side of the demon’s black shirt and started running fingers up and down his ribs.

“No!” Crowley laughed, struggling to push him off. “You – you bastard!”

“I know all your weaknesses!” A second hand joined the first and nearly discorporated Crowley on the spot. “Give up!”

“Aaah,” Crowley managed – a rather ineffective battle cry, and completely drowned in their combined laughter – and twisted, pushing at the angel’s shoulders and arms, squirming to get free. He managed to escape and belly-crawled across the floor, ducking behind a shelf.

“Get back here!” Aziraphale shuffled after him as fast as he could.

But though Aziraphale might be strong, Crowley was far more maneuverable. He darted out and grabbed the angel’s leg. A few quick tickles to make sure he was completely off his guard, then Crowley leaned down and pressed his lips to the inside bend of Azirapahle’s knee.

“There! How you like that?”

“Oh.” Aziraphale sat up, blinking eyes watery from tears. “Ah. Yes. I can see that…tha’s not unpleasant after all.”

“It isn’t?”

“No…it was…well, quite intrik…entreeg…int’resting.” He frowned at his leg as if it had betrayed him. “Though why a spot like that there of all places…”

“Human bodies are weird,” Crowley reminded him.

Aziraphale nodded sagely, then let himself fall to the floor. “Yes. S’pose you’re right. I don’t understand humans at all.”

“No one does. They don’ make sense.” Crowley crawled closer, lower body twisting into a snake tail that wrapped around Aziraphale’s legs while his still-humanoid head and arms rested on the angel’s chest. “I mean, why kissss at all? It’ss fun, but isss weird.”

“Very strange,” Aziraphale agreed, shaking out his wings to drape over them both, enveloping Crowley in warm white feathers. “This is much better, you know.”

“Mmmmh,” Crowley nodded as he started to drift off to sleep, lower body constricting tighter. “Sstill, we could try kissssing again. Or tickling. Tha’ssss fun, too.”

“Of course, dear. Anything you like.”

[itmighthavebeenintentional]

Dear Mr. Fantasy

Summary: Sometimes when he sleeps, Dean sees flashes of other Dean Winchesters, in other universes. His dreams lately have been filled with himself in a thousand forms, a thousand different versions of what could have been. Dean likes to think that they’re made of the same star stuff, but whatever the cause, he feels the connection. 

Warnings: SEASON 15 SPOILERS, bit of angst. 

Author’s Note: Inspired by Traffic’s “Dear Mr. Fantasy” and the header image; prompt given by @thoughtslikeaminefield​. Love you. @cabin-fever-bang​ prompt fill. So many thanks to @cracksinthewalls​ and @there-must-be-a-lock​ for exceptional editing and motivation. Also love both of you.

Word Count: 2157

ItMightHaveBeenIntentional’s Masterlist

Dear Mr. Fantasy

Sometimes when he sleeps, Dean sees flashes of other Dean Winchesters, in other universes. His dreams lately have been filled with himself in a thousand forms, a thousand different versions of what could have been. Dean likes to think that they’re made of the same star stuff, but whatever the cause, he feels the connection. 

Some have been vastly different (he spent an entire day lost in thought about a female version of himself who was apparently a rodeo queen by day and monster hunter by night). 

Some are so similar that the lines between his actual self and the other blur to the point of confusion; is he dreaming about himself or a different Dean who made one different choice twenty years ago?

He can always tell the difference, eventually. A scar in the wrong place, an absent friend or loved one still around or maybe someone gone who shouldn’t be. In one universe, someone neglected Baby (couldn’t have been Dean, had to’ve been Sam) to the point where she pulls slightly to the left. 

Dean spends the morning after that dream with a muscle tick in his cheek and a suspicious, side-eyed glare for Sam that he never bothers to explain.

But there’s one particular Other Dean, a favorite one his mind drifts to during rare peaceful moments. Daydreaming when he should be researching, drifting off when a particular song plays on the radio while he’s working on Baby, even washing his hands sometimes will pull him back to those dreams. 

Unsurprisingly, his favorite alternate world has no monsters. It’s not that he isn’t aware of monsters in this dimension, that he doesn’t hunt them. No, in this other world, there’s no magic, no terrifying creatures of the night at all. He can feel the lightness of this world, steadiness that comes with not having to worry about whether a vampire is going to make this evening walk your last or a wendigo is going to join you on your camping trip.

Dean has a theory that this world was a test world, one where Chuck decided to just let things evolve as they would with very little interference. Humanity still has its issues: war, plague, famine, politics, streaming services that have lived long enough to become the villain. 

But no monsters.

Chuck has left this world more or less alone, and Dean is pretty sure he knows why. In God’s eyes, a world without monsters is stale. This alternate world is a world without supernatural conflict, without apocalypse-level struggle, without life and death and good and evil and all that high-stakes, cursed-destiny crap Chuck literally eats for breakfast.

Boring. This world is a snoozefest for Chuck, and Dean’s okay with that.

In fact, he loves it.

He’s been rooting for this world for a while now. He still dreams of it sometimes, so he knows somewhere deep inside that it’s still around. He knows all the worlds will be destroyed eventually, wiped away by Chuck’s callous cruelty. But this one…

Dean’s not the sentimental type, not really, but if he could send it a greeting card, it’d be that cat from years ago on the motivational poster, clawing onto a tree branch.

Hang in there, baby.

He must have done something right for once, because he drifts off and finds himself back there again. He’s a little older in this universe, and he suspects his other self is in denial about beginning to need glasses. A shame, too. A mechanic’s gotta be able to see what he’s doing, and the eyestrain headaches his other self suffers every night would probably clear up completely if he’d just go get his eyes checked.

But they both know he won’t. 

He sees better with his hands than his eyes these days. At forty-eight years old (none of that years young bullshit, either; he’s old, and he’s goddamn earned it), he’s spent his entire life in a garage working on one motor or another, same as his dad before him, and so on. 

It’s honest work, clean despite the grease, and Dean himself has used his own money to help put at least a couple of generations of little Winchesters through college or wherever their hearts took them, starting back with his brother. Dean and his dad both feel pride over Dr. Winchester, the history professor. Might not make as much as a mechanic, but he’s happy and settled, and really, what man could ask for more?

The best part of this Dean’s day, the best part of his whole life, is her. He’s known her for nearly three decades and loved her just as long. 

He was a twenty-year-old punk, learning his way through the art of motorcycles. He’d spent his life so far working on muscle cars, something he would never completely tire of, but now he was in absolute heaven. Dad’s buddy Danny Elkins had agreed to take Dean on, and Dean had taken to bikes like it was meant to be. 

Four months into his new life, Danny’s daughter brought her dad lunch, and, for the first time in his life, Dean wondered whether there might actually be a woman who could pull his attention from an engine for longer than a night or two. 

It was more or less instant attraction for the both of them, kinda like the movies that she loved to watch. Unlike those movies, however, there was no disapproving father to contend with or prove himself to.

“She’s a big girl and can crack your skull just as good as me,” he’d told Dean. “Pretty sure she’s settled on ya, so just make sure you’re worth it.”

So that’s what Dean did. 

Tonight’s dream finds the older Dean alone in the garage, and the sun is at the tail end of setting. Splashes of indigo and orange paint the horizon, framing her approach in a wash of colors blending into shadows that hold no danger.

“Figured you’d forget dinner tonight, what with your new toy. Thought we could share, and you could show me what you’ve been up to.” 

She doesn’t really care about the bikes, the cars, any of it. She only cares that it matters to him, and whatever keeps him running is something she wants to be a part of.

Surrounded by motorcycles in various states of repair and assembly, they speak quietly of their day, sharing the tiny details and separate moments that make up their simple life. She feeds him a bit of meatloaf with her fingers, and he eagerly returns the favor by sucking a smear of mashed potatoes from the corner of her mouth.

She sets the dinner containers aside, twisting to the side to reach for the apple cobbler she made yesterday, when he realizes he can’t stand even that bit of separation between. He’s been without her all day; that’s too much to ask of any man.

“C’mere,” he says.

Dessert forgotten, she settles astride his lap, arms linked around his neck, smiling that serene combination of lips and eyes and cheekbones that makes his heart twist and his groin swell same as the first time she turned them on him thirty-odd years ago. 

They’ve sat like this a thousand times, and he prays silently he’ll get at least a thousand more. When they were kids, crazy and hungry for every experience, she’d come into the garage in her little tank top, her tiny shorts showing off her new ink, heels fit to kill someone (how she never broke an ankle has always been a mystery and a miracle, in both Deans’ opinions).

She scrubs a thumb over his bearded jawline, humming deep in her chest. She’s swapped the tiny skirts for jeans, although he thanks his lucky stars every day that fashions have moved from bootcut back to skinny. Harder to get off quick, but damn does he love the lines of her legs in ���em.

They press foreheads together as an old Traffic song plays over the radio, swaying gently, always in sync. 

“Dear Mr. Fantasy, play us a tune,” he half-whispers, half-sings, breath warm on her cool cheek.

“Something to make us all happy,” she answers in kind, eye closed. She slides her nose alongside his, runs her chin over his wiry beard, smiles into his kiss as it buffs her face red. 

Perhaps in remembrance of their long-past youth, she’s chosen her smallest tank-top, one she’d normally never wear without at least a button-up over it, and he drops his head to rub his cheeks over the bare skin over her collarbone. Her legs link behind his back, anchoring her as she leans back to allow him more access. 

God, what she can still do to him. The salt of her skin, the fragrance of her perfume that he picked out for her on their first anniversary that she’s worn religiously ever since, the silk of her hair that he tangles between fingers that still tremble with eager nerves.

Older Dean and worn-out, monster-plagued Dean sigh together, content down to their bones. This life is it for both of them. She is it. One Dean still can’t believe his amazing luck after all these years, and the other aches at the simple, total happiness he feels honored to witness.

“Dean.”

The older man runs a reverent hand down his wife’s arm, twining his fingers with hers. He kisses her knuckles, a few more crinkles lining his eyes as he smiles.

“Dean, wake up.”

The scene before him begins to fade as she takes his face between her hands, kisses his temples, the spot between his eyes, the corner of his mouth. For just a second, this Dean (the “real” Dean, as Chuck put it) feels those kisses, looks deep into her eyes and feels that warmth and light that she brings to the other man’s life. 

I love you, she whispers, and he allows himself to believe for one moment that she’s talking directly to him.

“Dean, come on, Cas has a lead.” Sam’s voice finally breaks the dream wide open, and Dean reluctantly opens his eyes. “We gotta go check it out. Get dressed.”

“Yeah.”

He sits up slowly, feeling each of his forty-one years with an ache that no longer surprises him. He swings his legs over the side of his bed, rests his elbows on his knees, and drops his face in his hands. If he concentrates hard enough, he can still feel her phantom caress, her thumb against his cheekbone, her lips on the corner of his.

I love you.

Dean scrubs at his face with hands that get a little older and a little more scarred every day. Warrior’s hands, a testament to his hunts and battles. If he squints a little (maybe he needs an eye exam, too) he can imagine they’re different sorts of scars: burns from hot engines, cuts and scrapes from tools and every-day hard work rather than knives and punches. 

He inhales, gathering strength, putting on his mental armor piece by piece. A knight, riding off to save the world from the devouring dragon. He reaches over and grabs his jeans, sliding them on and standing in a smooth motion that is accompanied by only one or two pops and cracks.

I love you.

Dean doesn’t know how this is all going to end. He knows how he won’t let it end: him against Sammy, to the death and all that biblical Cain and Abel crap. But beyond that, he’s going to fight to save his brother, all of his little patchwork family, because they’re all he has in this world. 

He wonders briefly if his other self’s wife exists in this world, or if she’s just an anomaly, a one-time figment of Chuck’s imagination. He’s pretty sure it’s the latter; a man can only get that lucky once in a thousand lifetimes, and that other Dean is that one in a thousand.

This Dean could search a lifetime and never find her. She’s already been found, and maybe, just maybe if he and Sam can get their act together and bring the final beatdown on Chuck in enough time, he can save her. He can’t have her, but he could save her world, leave her safe and happy with his other self.

“Let it be enough,” he says aloud, not sure if he’s coaxing himself or the universe. He says it again, one more time for luck. 

It has to be enough.

…

“Dear Mr. Fantasy” by Traffic

Dear Mister Fantasy, play us a tune,  Something to make us all happy. Do anything, take us out of this gloom.  Sing a song, play guitar,  Make it snappy.  You are the one who can make us all laugh,  But doing that you break out in tears.  Please don't be sad if it was a straight mind you had.  We wouldn't have known you all these years.

[moulinrougefanfanfans]

Moulin Rouge for VOGUE!

(These are the HQ Photo Versions!)

Moulin Rouge!’s Broadway cast, photographed at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn. Sittings Editors: Hamish Bowles, Alexandra Cronan. Produced by 360pm. Set Design: CJ Dockery at Mary Howard Studio; Costume Designer: Catherine Zuber; Choreographer: Sonya Tayeh

Photographed by Baz Luhrmann, Vogue, July 2019

July 2019 Vogue (Online)

BAZ LUHRMANN WAS BORN to reinvent the movie musical for a new generation—which is exactly what he did in 2001 with Moulin Rouge!, his deliriously romantic mash-up, set in 1890s Paris, of La Bohème, La Traviata, and the Orpheus myth, with a soundtrack that exploded with modern-day pop songs, lavish Technicolor sets and costumes (by his wife, Catherine Martin), and a hyperkinetic cinematic style that drew on MGM musicals, MTV videos, and Bollywood spectaculars. The motto of this blatantly artificial world, served with a knowing wink (which nevertheless swept us up in its very real, very breathless emotions), could be borrowed from William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: “Enough! Or too much.”

In his own way, the brilliant theater director Alex Timbers—whose work includes Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Here Lies Love, and, most recently, Beetlejuice—was born to reinvent Moulin Rouge! for the stage, as another generation of New York audiences will discover when his electrifying, eye-popping, and blissfully over-the-top adaptation of Luhrmann’s masterpiece opens on Broadway, after a smash run in Boston, this month.

“I’ve spent my life taking classics and interpreting them in radical ways,” Luhrmann says, “so how could I not applaud someone taking a work of mine and interpreting it in a radical way? You have to interpret things for the time and place you’re in. In the end, it’s still a tragic opera, but Alex applies himself to it in such a dexterous way that there’s irony and fun and music and emotion.”

Luhrmann grew up in Herons Creek, a tiny, remote Australian town with a total of seven houses in it, where, he says, “if you didn’t have a good imagination and an ability to create worlds in your mind, you were lost.” Fortunately his family, which ran a gas station and a pig farm, also ran the local movie theater and had a black-and-white TV set (which showed exactly one channel), and Luhrmann devoured a steady diet of old movies, including musicals, with which he fell in love. His mother was a ballroom-dance instructor who started giving him lessons early, and his father insisted that Luhrmann and his siblings study painting and music. Before long he was staging little shows, performing magic tricks, making films with his father’s 8-millimeter camera, and acting in school plays.

Apparently it was the ideal upbringing to produce an artist of dazzling originality, one with a singular, idiosyncratic vision and an expansive playing field: film, theater, opera, commercials, music videos, pop songs. After the success of his first two films, Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet—both of which had healthy doses of movie-musical DNA encoded into their cinematic language—Luhrmann wanted to take on the genre itself. He and his co-writer, Craig Pearce, set their film in Belle Epoque Paris, in and around the legendary Moulin Rouge nightclub, telling a tragic love story straight out of verismo opera with the Orpheus legend—a young poet and musician travels to the underworld in search of his dead love, Eurydice, and is reunited with her only to lose her again, emerging forever changed—as its mythical underpinning.

But Luhrmann also had what he calls a “preposterous conceit” that allowed his Orpheus—a Bohemian poet named Christian, played by Ewan McGregor—to metaphorically enchant the very rocks and stones to follow him because of his voice: “When our poet opens his mouth, ‘The hills are alive with the sound of music’ comes out of it,” he says. “Whether you like The Sound of Music or not, it’s a giant hit that’s got artistic cred—so it’s a funny, concise way of saying ‘The guy has magic.’” Preposterous or not, the conceit turned the love story between McGregor’s Christian and Nicole Kidman’s doomed Satine, a nightclub star and courtesan, into a pop fantasia, giving the music its audience had grown up with—from “Your Song” to “Lady Marmalade”—an operatic grandeur.

Luhrmann had long wanted to bring Moulin Rouge! to the stage but felt that he wasn’t the right person for the job—he worried that he was too close to the material and might be overprotective of it. Enter Alex Timbers, 40, a downtown wunderkind who has brought the cheeky, postmodern spirit of his theater company Les Freres Corbusier to Broadway and shares with Luhrmann a restlessly playful and inventive mise-en-scène. “When I saw Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, I could tell that his aesthetic and the way he told a story—very high-energy, very theatrical, ironic but also moving—had a certain kinship with mine,” Luhrmann says. “And after I met him, I knew that he would have his own interpretation but also understand the language of the film.”

The biggest challenge Timbers and his team faced was how to bring the film’s hypercinematic exuberance alive on a stage. “We had to create a visceral and kinetic excitement using an entirely theatrical vocabulary,” Timbers says. “We don’t have any of those virtuosic techniques like close-ups and Steadicam and music video–style editing, but you want the show to be able to leap over the footlights—emotionally, but also as a spectacle. So we use a lot of techniques to do that.”

Do they ever. From the moment you enter the theater, it’s clear that Timbers has realized his mandate to make the show—which he’s been working on for the past six years—“360.” It’s as if you’ve walked into the Moulin Rouge itself, courtesy of the gorgeously overwhelming set (by Derek McLane) that greets you: There are hearts within hearts, chandeliers, the stage flanked by a windmill on one side and an elephant on the other. Then out come the corset-clad boys and girls of the night (who come in all colors, shapes, and sizes) and the fashionable members of the Parisian demimonde in Catherine Zuber’s fabulous costumes. The next thing you know, “Four Bad Ass Chicks from the Moulin Rouge,” as the script identifies them—propelled onstage by Sonya Tayeh’s wildly exuberant choreography—are belting “Hey sista, go sista, soul sista, flow sista,” and we’re off to the races. “I wanted to build this exotic, intoxicating world that felt beautiful and dangerous and gritty and sexy,” Timbers says. “It felt really important for the sets and the costumes to use period elements, and for us to be ruthless about that, but to put them in a form that feels contemporary and surprising.”

The seven-time Tony-winning costume designer Zuber (The King and I, My Fair Lady) has done that and then some, tipping her hat to Catherine Martin’s designs for the film without imitating them. She’s even managed to design Belle Epoque finery that allows the dancers the freedom of movement to execute Tayeh’s propulsive choreography. Zuber is also a master of using costumes to reveal character and situation, as with the ornate gown she designed for Satine after she becomes the Duke’s courtesan and enters his glittering world. Inspired by designs from John Galliano’s 2006 couture collection, it features a bodice that looks like a cage and three rows of lacing down the back. “It’s almost like she’s a prisoner,” Zuber says.

Playing Satine this time around is Karen Olivo (West Side Story, Hamilton), who brings very different qualities to the role than Kidman, both physical (Olivo is a woman of color) and temperamental (desperate, determined, and down-to-earth, as opposed to ethereal). Aaron Tveit (Next to Normal, Catch Me if You Can), meanwhile, sings like a dream and brings the requisite dewy idealism to the naive Christian, but with a hint of something edgier.

The story is very much the same as the film’s: Satine is the star attraction at the Moulin Rouge, owned by the rapacious Harold Zidler (Danny Burstein), who is in financial hot water and in danger of losing the club. Christian and Satine meet and fall head over heels, but she has been promised by Zidler to the villainous Duke (Tam Mutu), who can give her the bejeweled life she’s always dreamed of, forcing her to choose between that and true love. Meanwhile, Christian and his pals Santiago and Toulouse-Lautrec (Ricky Rojas and Sahr Ngaujah) are writing a show, bankrolled by the Duke, that is meant to save the Moulin Rouge from going under. Then, of course, Satine has this persistent cough and . . . well, you know.

The big difference in terms of the storytelling is that book writer John Logan (Red) has fleshed out and deepened the characters and the relationships between them. “We looked at the major characters, asked what their backstories were, and tried to figure out how grounded they could possibly be in psychological realism and yet still be heightened in that way that musical theater demands,” Logan says. “How did Satine get to be this sparkling diamond—and what’s the price she’s paid along the way?”

But the boldest change—and in many ways the heart of the show—is in the new songs, which give Moulin Rouge! fresh emotional resonance (and whip the crowd into a frenzy). Along with the familiar Bowie, Madonna, and Elton John tunes, expect to hear from the likes of Outkast, Sia, Beyoncé, Fun, Adele, and Lorde, to name but a few (there are more than 70 songs in the show). To curate Moulin Rouge!’s dizzying playlist, Timbers, Logan, and music director/genius Justin Levine holed up in a Times Square hotel room with a digital keyboard, dredged up their musical memories, and took note of what worked. Their taste is impeccable, whether using a song for its sheer exuberance, as with a rousing version of Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance,” or to reveal a character’s inner desires, as Satine does with Katy Perry’s “Firework.”

Logan has been blown away to see how powerfully audiences have connected with the show—and the songs. “I went to a wedding recently, and when the dancing started, I heard half our score being played, which was wild,” he says. “And when you see audience members respond to the songs—‘They’re using thatsong? Oh, my God! No way!’—you can feel how excited they are. It’s an experience I’ve never had before. It’s magic.”

[josaeul]

Love Confessions PT 1° BTS

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☽: Pairing: BTS (OT7) x Female Reader / First Person

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☽: Au: Momentary High School Au! Yandere !

☽: Word Count: 30K

☽: Chapters Here: 13/(Currently)26

☽: Summary: It didn’t matter that you didn’t know them, it didn’t matter if you had your own plans; it did matter if you didn’t return their love.

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☽: A/N: Hi, I’m Dio/Ado! I used to have another tumblr account where I originally published LC but it soon became more of a “personal” so I took it down, while I didn’t publish chapters here I did publish up to 26 chapters in other platforms, so instead of publishing 26 1k-3k words I meshed them all together into 2 parts, as of now the story is still ongoing so there will be more than 30 chapters (my original estimate). If anyone is wondering, this fic has been ongoing since the 7th of July, 2018 and has been on-and-off in the works, mainly because I’m still in high school and it’s h a r d to have a schedule when you’re swamped with hw. This is edited but there may be spelling errors and bad usage of full-stops and commas where they’re very wrong (I mainly speak, not write in english lol that’s why I’m better verbally speaking than writing) but bare with me; english isn’t my first language!

Because this fic is so damn long, especially here on Tumblr where I decided to mash up some chapters, I’ve added a key for the recommended rest/stop place! It’s this  “____ღ”, this is where the original chapter ends!

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It’s been going on for ages ever since I moved back here strange notes have littered my locker everyday. Love confessions as a matter of fact. They made no sense, the situation made no sense they weren’t written by the same person but they were written by the same group of people. Honestly, at the beginning I found them to be quite cute they were written with such fondness it made my heart flutter. It was clear they were written with care, each word delicately being chosen, that time had been spent crafting each. But as more time went on they became more aggressive, possessive, threatening and even demanding. Still, these people continued to declare their love but showed strong aggression towards my friends and family at the same time. The notes started to include personal information, from where I lived to what underwear I had been using that day. I suddenly felt unsafe like my safety and life was being analyzed and used against me. Suddenly wasn’t just notes soon there were eyes following me too and in those moments where I felt eyes following me as I walked around the schools' hallways, I hid on the rooftop where I knew that this stalker, or stalkers, would leave me alone. Or at least for a moment or at least I thought so, I hoped.

Today I was clutching my bag tightly as I made my way behind the gray wall of the roof, where I’d hide whenever I felt those eyes following me around, one that was meant to keep us away from the storage room, and failed to do so, when suddenly a girl, probably a few years older than me, walked in followed by a fellow student; a boy. And the boy was none other than the one and only Jeon Jeongguk. Seeing his stupidly handsome face made me scowl, I quickly hid behind the wall and listened in to hear what was happening I didn’t want him to think of me as a loner that couldn’t make any friends other than him because I could.

I knew Jeongguk we were actually best friends when I first lived here. We’d go everywhere together, the park, the movies, we’d also go to each other’s house so often we had the others’ clothes and some belongings there, it had gone to such a point where our parents began planning our wedding. At the time the thought of marrying Jeongguk made me cringe because we were best friends but now just the thought of breathing the same air as him made me want to cut off my oxygen intake and just suffocate a slow and painful death. In other words; I, [Whole Name] [Last Name], hated Jeon Jeongguk with my life.

He became the embodiment of what he, we, used to hate. So coming back home to Jeongguk version two felt like I had lost a friend, a part of me and I did. Jeongguk forgot completely about what we had, about me. He became cold and he distanced himself, started hanging out with the ‘cool kids’, or whatever. I don’t care at least not now. I could make new friends, I could act cold, I could ignore him and I did. But did I want to? No, not really. But at the same time, if this was Jeongguk now, I don’t want anything to do with him.

At the beginning when I had just come back I did my best to become friends again but with how he was acting and seeing him act like such a dick made me want to beat him up, he had completely forgotten and ignored me, he didn’t even spare a glance my way. The only time I’d go to his house now was when Mrs. Jeon, his mom, invited me to help her cook and try to bring us together again. But every time I went there he’d either ignore me or throw insults at my face, and after that he’d just stare at me for the rest of my stay there.

The last time I went was over a little over a month ago and it was solely to take the things I’d left there when I was younger. I did my best to go when I knew he had football practice so I didn’t have to meet him. That day I made sure to call his mom to get her to lend me her keys something she happily did at the end of the day I was [Family Nickname] the girl that helped their shy son and became his first friend. I took with me some boxes, I don't remember exactly what or how much I left, but whatever it was I was taking it back. Jeongguk had made it rather clear he didn’t want anything to do with me so I made him a favor taking back my stuff back. The minute I stepped foot inside the house I noticed a pair of my favorite shoes there, I probably left them there when we said goodbye so when I came back I could leave with my special shoes, how cringy. Mrs. Jeon probably left them there they looked so clean as if someone had just bought them, I could imagine her cleaning the shoes everyday. Laughing a bit I took the shoes and placed them in one of the boxes I had brought, maybe Mrs. Jeon would miss them but Jeongguk wouldn’t. As I made my way to the living room, everywhere I went something was there. My old portable game console, a few books I had been looking for, some random hair ties, those looked too childish to be from Mrs. Jeon and I don’t think Jeongguk would use hair ties either, some toys, and like that I found bits and pieces of my childhood everywhere, it felt nostalgic and to some point my heart ached. And it all went into one of my boxes, so by the time I had walked all the first floor all traces of my belongings had left and all that was left was the second floor,  I had filled up the of one of then cardboard boxes I had brought, I still had two left and one that I had brought full of his belongings he’d left when we were young that my mom had kept just in case he’d need them back. I made my way up to where the rooms were I noticed how the only one that had my old stuff was Mrs. and Mr. Jeon’s and Jeongguk’s bedroom, the guest rooms and Junghyun’s room where practically bare with no traces of the family, much less me. His parents' room had a few pictures and a few tacky drawings me and Jeongguk had made, those I didn’t touch, I even noticed how in her dresser Mrs. Jeon still had the bead bracelets I made her. But the room that shocked me the most was Jeongguk’s, his room was filled with my stuff and I didn’t know if two boxes would be enough for all of it. He had stuff from pictures of the two of us to even my old plushie I brought with me when we had sleepovers, just to name a few that stood out. He kept it all and I didn’t really know how to feel. I snapped to my senses and quickly took all I could fit in my boxes and as I did a big part of me felt weirded out. Why did he act like he hated me so much if he kept all of this, it took me over all almost an hour to clear his room but it felt right, no pictures or plushie; no [Name]. He wasn’t going to be reminded I ever existed now. Good, I didn’t want to be remembered by him. I took the box I had brought myself and left it neatly on his bed, quickly wrote a small note explaining what I had done and why. I didn’t apologize, why would I? He erased himself from my life emotionally, and even went as far as avoiding me, so might as well say physically too. I was doing the same thing, but as I took out my boxes and walked back home I couldn’t help but feel guilty and empty. After that I ignored the Jeon’s. I didn’t go to their house, only waving to them when we stumbled on the supermarket, didn’t really pick up their calls leaving my parents to do so, only going over if I knew my parents or someone else I knew was going too. Basically never. I had erased them from my life; but most importantly I erased him.

If only I had seen how Jeongguk reacted to seeing all his collection gone.

So, seeing him now being dragged all the way over here probably for a love confession made me cringe and hard. Seeing your ex-best friend being asked out definitely felt weird. And I felt a strange pang in my chest as I looked at the girl, her name was Sakura and she was cute. The different kind of cute I was, I mean am I even cute to begin with? Maybe that’s what his ideal type is, the opposite of me. Why was I being so damn petty?

As they walked towards the railing of the roof I pressed myself closer to the walls, I didn’t want to get caught somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be, much less by Jeongguk. Plus, as wrong as it was, I wanted to see how it turned out. As much as I say I hate him, he still played a part in my life, a part I wasn’t about to truly forget or replace.

The girl shyly fixed her hair behind her ear as she spoke, she took her time probably nervous, “W-well, Jeongguk... I know you must get this a lot...”

”Oh god, please hurry up!” He exclaimed impatiently. God he was such a dick.

”Ah, ok! I like you, a lot. I know you’ve dated prettier girls and I may not be the best but-“

”Cut it, will you? I don’t know you, what even is your name Sana? Sinb? Sarah? Look, I guess you’re not that bad, but come on, me? Please, don’t waste my time like this, this is unnecessary.”

”Wh-what?” The pretty girl choked out, I wasn’t really looking by now having seen enough but I could tell by her voice that what that dick said hit her hard, sure those are insults someone would have thrown around in second grade but still, pouring your heart out for it to then be rejected in such manner must have hurt. I had never been rejected, but I could only imagine the pain.

“Are you fucking stupid? Look,” he started, “please get lost and refrain from contacting me ever again.” Ya ou could hear the smirk in his voice as he spoke and I bet all my money that as the girl left running she was a crying mess and I couldn’t blame her I was close to crying too, just where did Jeongguk go. I know people change, especially from fourteen to seventeen, hell even from ten to eleven, but the changes he went through shocked me to the core.

I sat waiting to hear the door open and close to indicate he had left too but it never came. It seemed he was staying out there, he didn’t walk either he seemed to be standing in the same place. I thought he had fainted, a pretty good thing if I wanted to run away without confrontation, or something until he burst out laughing. The sound of his laughter was psychotic, it started out quite but it grew to the point I wanted to rip my ears off. No one had told a joke and nothing funny had happened, if anything the scene that just played out was quite sad, especially since I had been in similar shoes. So then, why was he laughing. I pressed my back tightly against the wall and pushed myself further away from the edge. His laughing fit didn’t stop though. It became even louder. He laughed so hard he fell on the floor, the sound of his knees making contact with the ground bounced all over the place accompanied with the sound of him hitting the ground in laughter, he sounded demented.

After a few seconds of this the laughing stopped, but again the sound of the rooftop door opening didn’t come much less the sound of him standing up. Now the only sound other than the wind and soft rain softly passing through tree leaves was the sound of him crying and speaking through broken sobs.

”I didn’t do enough, didn’t I? Of course I didn’t”, he screamed, his voice sounded constricted and forced, “Why won’t she love me! I did everything Namjoon told me to do... everything!” He began shouting towards the end of his mumble. He clearly wasn’t stable, at least not now, and it broke my heart to see him like this. Who was Namjoon? Did he make him act like this? Perhaps, was it student council Namjoon? Was he somehow responsible for the strange change Jeongguk went through? I mean, he holds enormous power considering he’s just the president of the student council, I mean, he’d been in this school for such a long time but no student has that much power. He was to graduate soon, his class was the first to graduate since the extension of high school education from eighteen to nineteen-twenty, he was older than many of us but that was no reason for him to hold that much influence.

Yet the poor boy kept on crying and I couldn’t listen to him anymore. Not even the sound of the rain could really drown his sorrows out. I was disappointed in him, and I had no idea why he was crying, but either way he still had a big spot inside my heart and I felt weak hearted, and I did what I had told myself countless time I wouldn’t do. I stood up, picked up my bag and made my way towards the broken boy.

As I stood a few feet in front of him I could feel my heart break slightly, it looked worse than what it sounded. His shirt was soaked with tears and rain, his nose was runny, I couldn’t see his eyes as he covered them with his hands. I walked slowly towards him and he finally seemed to hear me and the weight in air as he went stiff, losely growling as he spoke, “How long have you been there?”

But unlike his voice, his body shook slightly as tears continued to fall from his eyes and down his cheeks. I felt awful, he still was my Jeonggukie. Scared of what others thought, shy and a cry baby, a dummy, impulsive, and reckless, to name a few. He was still my Jeongguk. That’s what I wanted to believe now, would it stay like that though?

“A-ah, shit,” I froze before blindly speaking whatever came to my mind, “Jeonggukie, please don’t cry, uhh, you’ll make me cry too!” I cringed realizing that I had used the ‘special’ nickname I had with him with the technique I always used on him when we were younger so that he’d stopped crying. The nickname wasn’t special anymore, it seemed like all the girls in this school used it on him, but still I could silently pride myself on being the first one to call him that. And that technique wasn’t going to work, he was older now and he hated me, didn’t he?

“Bunny?” He asked shyly, he slowly let his hands drop from his face as a small blush took over his features. Maybe, just maybe, he still was my Jeonggukie somewhere deep down.

Finishing the few steps I needed to be by his side I crouched down to his level, and brought my hand to caress his hair softly, we were getting soaked so I try and cover us with my school bag. Slightly humming as confirmation that it was indeed me, and after him looking over me fast as if to confirm that it was really me, he threw himself at me and I fell on my butt from the force, we were now in the shade of a roof as I hit my back against the wall. He quickly hugged me and immediately began crying once more.

”[Name]! I’m so so sorry if I made you mad or hurt you, oh god, don’t tell me I hurt you!” He began blabbering as he cried harder. What happened to him? Only a few minutes ago he was being the biggest dick to a sweet girl and now he was crying and apologizing to me?

“Jeongguk, what happened?” I tried to ask but he refused to listen and opted to continue apologizing and not letting go. He wasn’t as scrawny as he was when he was younger, he was actually quite *big in comparison to me so pushing him away was out of the question. So I opted to silently embrace him. We had spent such a long time like this that we both ended falling asleep and missing class. Not that I cared, I was happy being like this. I could never be mad at him forever.

By the time I had woken up, I expected Jeongguk to be gone because it was either A) a dream or B) he regretted what he did and decided to be a dick again if not an even bigger one. But to my surprise I woke up to a big pair of doe like eyes staring up at me from his position on top of my chest.

“Bunn,” he began, his voice husky from just waking up, “I’m sorry if I upset you, I know you went up to my house and took your stuff back, I almost had a panic attack when I noticed your things were gone. I’m so sorry if I was ever a dick to you. I-I just love you so much I’m scared I’ll hurt you.” He whispered softly as he tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, blushing slightly I stare away from him.

”I love you too, Kookie. Don’t worry about anything, ‘kay? You’re always going to be my best friend.”

If only I had noticed how his eyes seemed to have darkened at the mention of best friend.

That day, Jeongguk walked me home. We went up to our lockers, and I was surprised to see one less love note. Today, there were only six. I expected Jeongguk to ask me about it, or ask me if I knew them, but he if anything he seemed more interested in me arriving home safely.

That night was the first night I received a letter inside my house. Freaking out I quickly open the letter only to find out my suspicions were true.

——☽

Our dearest [Name],

We are all very happy to know that you have finally accepted your fate to be with us. It is on our best intentions to tell you that it will not be long until we are reunited again.

In the meantime, we wish you do not engage in any form of relation with any male or female other than the ones you already engage with. If you do happen to break this wish, we are sorry to tell you that we will be forced to deal with the source of the problem very similarly with how a gardener does; take out the malice from the roots. All that we ask of you is to stay put and wait for us as we will come when the time is right.

Meanwhile you wait and we prepare it all, we will be keeping an eye on you at all times. Do not fear anything as we will take care of it for you.

We will meet again but for now,

Goodbye.

-BTS

——

_____________________ღ

——

It had been less than a week since me and Jeongguk had begun hanging out again. And as nice as it felt it also came with this overwhelming feeling whenever he was around, he was too clingy. He’d be there always, and if he wasn’t he’d be calling me or texting me.

He had been doing the latter all day. He said it was his way of saying sorry and that if he could he would’ve come over. And at that, I didn’t know what was worse; him calling me or him being here.

It wasn’t that I wasn’t grateful that we’d finally be able to hang out like we used to, heck yes I was, it’s just not like this. I didn’t like the feeling he brought with him whenever we hung out; it was just like at school. But instead of eyes, it was actions and words.

Who knew words could have such an effect on somebody?

They knew.

The people that have been leaving the notes on my locker knew. I had no idea why, but after a while of this strange occurrence, I started collecting the notes. It became a habit of mine whenever I was bored to try and decipher or try finding patterns in them. And today seemed like a nice day to try, everyday seemed like a nice day to try if it brought me closer to stopping these creeps.

I had turned off my phone. Giving Jeongguk a quick text saying I was going to study so I couldn't have my phone on, liar liar. I had decided to try and analyze the notes, do something with them at least.

And the best way to do so was to go to the beginning.

I decided to paste them to a small notebook I had laying around, so I just had to flip a few pages to find what I was looking for.

The first note, and it happened to be signed by Suga.

It was rather short but heartfelt, and the first time I read it I couldn’t help but blush furiously. It went like this;

”My muse,

I’ve been loving you for a while now, you know? My heart skips a beat every time I see you, and it starts creating a new melody for you, its eternal muse.

All I can do is hope that when our time comes to meet, you help me create the most beautiful symphony for us.

Until tomorrow and forever,

Suga”

Even now, the thought that someone like me was able to inspire someone with such a way for words to create music made my heart skip a beat. But this ‘Suga’ boy wasn’t as sweet as he introduced himself as, slowly I saw his transition from a love struck boy to a sick pervert. Especially on his latest note, which by far has to be one of the creepiest;

”My dearest muse,

What exactly do you think you’re doing? Talking to those no life like that, letting them flirt and touch you. Are you that lonely that you’re willingly letting anybody touch you?

I’m the only one allowed to touch you, perhaps there are few times were I’m allowed to do so but I treasure them intently.

Next time that happens I’ll make sure to cut their dirty hands off and burn them to ashes, so they never bother you again. I promise to send their ashes to you soon.

I  don’t like breaking promises, darling.

Whatever happens remember that I still love you.

With eternal love,

- Your loyal servant, Suga”

Reading the note over and over again I couldn’t help but think that I should go to the police but as quick as the thought formed it had to go away. If it was true that they were watching my every move then I couldn’t risk going to the police because who knew what they’d do, they already knew where I lived and so they must also know my family and friends too. I wasn’t going to go around and risk them unless it got too dangerous.

Time had flown by the window, and by the time I finished reading all of Suga’s letters it had already turned dark.

”Ah, I must’ve skipped lunch and dinner...”, I mutter. I wasn’t surprised, actually, it happened very often where I’d be so caught up I forgot about time. Today was no exception it seems.

Everyone in my house, except for myself, were out for the next week. I wasn’t worried about being by myself, neither about the stalkers since from what I caught on they seem more keen on keeping me out of harm, strangely knowing that they were there and would try and keep harm away from me made me worry less about the dangers of being by myself, though a recurring theme on their letters was taking me away when the right time came that was going to be easy to avoid; I just wasn’t going to give them the right time. I’d make it impossible for them to take me until I could be sure that I and my family could be safe, then I’d go to the police. That’s the plan, the best case scenario.

Deciding that it was enough blabbering to myself, I try to cheer myself up and go make some food. I wasn’t going to make some Gordon Ramsay premium meal, fuck that shit, I’d just go for one of those 5-6 minutes microwave dishes or whatever.

As the dish sat in the microwave I decided to turn on my phone, and not to my surprise Jeongguk had bombarded my phone with texts and calls. Even though I wasn’t surprised, it didn’t mean it didn’t creep or worry me out.

We hadn’t even been around each other for a week and he already was slightly getting on my nerves. I was going to have a talk with him about respecting others privacy.

I open the messenger app to find texts after text from Jeongguk. My chest slightly hurt, since when was he this dependable?

——☽

Jeonggukie

Hey i’m gonna be studying so i’ll have to turn my phone off (>o<) :ME

Jeonggukie: okay (^o^)!

Jeonggukie: it’s fine just text me once you’re done!

Jeonggukie: gtg team needs its’ golden player again

[sent at 1:16pm]

Jeonggukie: YOY O Y OY O!!!!

Jeonggukie: Why haven’t you texted me bakc?

Jeonggukie: *back

Jeonggukie: are u mad @ me??

Jeonggukie: Σ（ﾟдﾟlll）

[sent at 1:23pm]

Jeonggukie: wait.... don’t tell me you’re actually mad?

Jeonggukie: fuck,

Jeonggukie: gtg again for practice but by the time i’m back you better not be studying anymore and be online with me,,,

[sent at 2:34pm]

Jeonggukie: [Name]...

Jeonggukie: Are you ok?

Jeonggukie: You’re not hurt right?!

Jeonggukie: Oh fuck....

Jeonggukie: What if someone took you?!

Jeonggukie: What if someone HURT you?!

Jeonggukie: [Last name] [Name] you better text me right now or else I might do something we both will regret....

[sent at 4:20pm]

Jeonggukie: [Name]...

Jeonggukie: I went over to their house but,

Jeonggukie: They told me you weren’t with them...

Jeonggukie: They also didn’t know where you are...

Jeonggukie: Or if you’re with someone

Jeonggukie: So then the question is...

Jeonggukie: Where are you Bunn?

Jeonggukie: They didn’t tell me :(

Jeonggukie: Will you tell me?

Jeonggukie: :(

[sent at 5:37pm]

Jeonggukie: They told me they didn’t know but I know they’re lying!

Jeonggukie: So I took care of them!!

Jeonggukie: Aren’t you happy?!

Jeonggukie: Awww, but now I’m dirty :((

Jeonggukie: Your prince can’t be dirty can he?

[sent at 7:43pm]

Jeonggukie: i still can’t find u tho...

Jeonggukie: you can’t be still studying... actually you may!

Jeonggukie: idk BunBun, it seems weird to me u never did this before....

[sent at 7:56pm]

Jeonggukie: u know what!

Jeonggukie: I'm going over to your house!

Junggukie: and if you’re not there or with someone else...

Jeonggukie: Kookie is going on a man hunt ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ

[sent at 8:00pm]

——☽

What the hell? What was he going on about? In all honesty I was curious, but I didn’t want to find out. The more I thought about what Jeon had texted me, the more it confused me. Thoughts mixed with illusions, and facts mixed with theories.

What if Jeongguk was one of the note writers?

It seems so far fetched, I mean how did I even come with that conclusion, but it also makes so much sense. If he was one of these creeps then- no, he couldn’t, but then it could explain his weird behavior. My gut feeling was hysterically telling me to block him out of my life but...

Heck, [Name] stop it, you’re mixing up reality with fantasy and making life more difficult than what it should be. I did my best to push the thought away, but it somehow always found a way to linger in my mind. But there’s no way Jeongguk would be stalking me, we had barely even reconciled. I had been so caught up in thoughts that I hadn’t heard the front door opening, and by the time I did the intruder had already made their way to the kitchen. Tensing up at not only the arrival of the intruder but also at the obnoxious sound of the microwave announcing itself ready, I jump slightly when a hand pats my shoulder to then engulf me in a hug.

”Bunny! Oh my god! I thought someone had hurt you!”, Jeongguk pouted, “Why didn’t you answer my texts, [Name]?”

Feeling uncomfortable I slightly push his hands off me but to no avail as he continues holding me tight.

“God! Jeongguk, I told you I was studying! Not everyone can get A’s without working!” I try to sound as true and confident as possible. If my assumptions were true then any false move could mean hell for me.

“Ah, Darling you flatter me!” He joked, “but don’t go around thinking like that, don’t tell me someone told you the opposite?”

Fuck, why is he acting so weird! Who even asks these questions? This wasn’t the Jeongguk I left. He’s meant to get these thoughts away not confirm them!

“Jeez, Jeon, it’s nothing I promise you. This test is very important to me and I can’t risk failing it” I try to reason with him he was acting unreasonably right now.

“Mhm, is that so?” He questions as he lays his head on top of mine, “Then it’s decided. Tomorrow I’ll take you to a friends house so he can teach you, he’s really smart Bunny!” He laughed a bit.

“Haha, really?” I ask slightly disheartened.

”Yeah, his name is Kim Namjoon, do you know him by any chance?”

Hell fucking no, he couldn’t be talking about council president Kim Namjoon, right?

“The-the council president?” I gulped, please no no no no no no no no no no n-

“Yes, you’re not that anti-social, Bunny.”

Fuck.

——————————☽

[Earlier || 3rd p.o.v]

Jeongguk was freaking out. You hadn’t answered his text for a while now. You couldn’t be studying for that long, right? You normally always had your phone with you so then why weren’t you texting him? Had you met someone better? Did you meet someone better? Even after all he did for you? He changed so much because of you and you were paying him like this? It was clear to him that you wouldn't be studying for that long.

No, it wasn’t you, it was probably some pesky friend of yours keeping you away from him, let’s be real you love him so why would you ignore him.

Jeongguk didn’t like that at all.

Maybe what he was going to was harsh, but it wasn’t like it was his first time doing this for you. But he couldn’t do it alone.

He had gotten so anxious and scared something had happened to you he began shaking. With the anxiety eating him away he shakily dialed the number and waited to get his call to get picked up.

”Namjoon, I need help with something”

It had taken Jeongguk and Jimin little to no time finding out where your ‘friends’ were.

”Does she really have to hang out with people like them?” Jimin asked Jeongguk, accentuating them. It was clear that the boy didn’t approve of the people you hung out with, why couldn’t you hang out with him instead? He was clearly better than these Joy and Lisa girls.

”Oi! It’s not my fault none of you had the balls to hang out with her before.” Jeongguk snarled at his older friend, they made you happy, why was Jimin questioning you?

“Well, why don’t you grow a pair and hang out with her then?” Jimin mocked, he knew why, they all knew why.

”Oh shut up you burnt piece of-“

Just as Jeongguk was about to throw a punch, the front door open and out came your best friend, Joy.

Confused she started at the two boys and asked, “Jeon, Park? What are you two doing here?”

Jumping slightly, Jimin offered her a charming smiling as he pushed Jeongguk's’ hand away, “Aw! Joy you caught us! We were just wondering about [Name], and since you two are friends we thought we’d come and ask you!”

It didn't make sense to Joy why they’d come to her house when they could’ve texted he, much less when they could have directly asked [Name]r.

“Why didn’t you call me then? It would’ve been easier...” She trailed off.

“We didn’t have your number!” Jeongguk smiled.

Liars, they did have her number and she knew it, how else would’ve they invited her to those parties. That’s when she noticed why it felt odd.

“Well, how did your know where I live” She questioned further, they weren’t acting like usual. Joy never liked them, to be honest, she always found them weird but this was on another level.

”We checked the school records, silly!” Jimin laughed, he was starting to get annoyed.

”What are talking about? Stop acting so weird!” She shouted, who would go that far to know where someone lived!

Plus, the school records had her dad’s house not this one!

”Atta, girl!”, Jimin smirked walking towards the girl, “You haven’t been answering any of our questions and it’s getting annoying..”

”Where is [Name]?” Jeongguk butted in.

Shaking her head slightly she tried closing the door on them, things were escalating quickly and she didn’t like where this was going.

”Stupid girl, where is she?” Jimin asked harsher, she was taking too long and he wasn’t sure how much longer he was willing to put up with her. Jimin was a patient good boy but when it came to you he couldn’t wait, he wasn’t going to wait.

”I-I don’t know now leave me alone!”

Oh poor Joy!

—☽

It had taken the boys a few hours but eventually she broke, everyone brakes eventually.

But sadly, it was true; she didn’t know where you were.

And now the boys had spilled blood that shouldn’t have been spilled.

”Look what you did Jeongguk!”, Jimin scowled as he dragged what he hoped and looked like the leftovers of a girl's arm, “Now we have to clean this whole shit up by ourselves, you little bitch. ”

The younger boy had been given the task of taking out the heavy load as he had been the one responsible for this kill.

“How many times do I have to tell you she wasn’t, and still isn’t for your fucking information, picking up my calls or responding to my texts!” He shouted from outside, it was true. While Jimin was busy trying to coax out information about your whereabouts, Jeongguk had been repeatedly calling you.

“Be grateful we actually got useful information about [Name] or else I would’ve told Namjoon about your breakdown.” The eldest of the two threatened as he glared at the younger boy.

They had been cleaning for a good hour when they realized they still had a shit more to clean, deciding to call for help, they patiently sat at the dead girls house as they roamed through a box of momentum’s Joy had of her and her friends.

And to their luck, she had a few pictures of you. They had passed the rest of the wait there going through her stuff trying to find anything about or from you, which they did. In their eyes, they hit the mother load.

They had been so caught up by the box and it’s content they hadn’t realized their friends had arrived.

It was like the two boys were there with you! Gushing at the thought they searched further and further in the seemingly never ending box.

“Kook, we need help if you want to burn the evidence, I’m afraid you’ll need to-“, Namjoon started but his voice drifted off as he took a better look at the box in the youngest hands, “What’s that?”

”Ah! Just a box Jiminie and I found at the girls house, if you look closely it has a lot of stuff from [Name]!” Jeongguk exclaimed happily, hell yes he was proud of himself, he means, how many times can the others say they found anything remotely similar to this?

”Are you sure there’s nothing else like that in the house?” Namjoon asked again as he took a look through the box, maybe there’d be something, anything that could help get closer to you, help him get closer to you.

”Don’t know...”, Jimin trailed off, “maybe we can search while we finish the place up.”

And that’s what they did, four boys; Namjoon, Jimin, Jeongguk and Taehyung went through the house searching for anything that could be of use to them. But to much of their dismay, they didn’t find much.

Clearly pissed Namjoon mercilessly threw the lighter at the house setting the building ablaze. Without even looking back, he made his way to the car and patiently waited for his friends as they watched the building burn.

After a while, Jimin and Taehyung suggested Jeongguk to continue searching for you. And so the youngest did, texting you about going to your house he asks his friends to drop him there.

As they watched him leave the car Namjoon calls out to him, “Kook, we helped you with your little stunt but now you have to help us, you’ll set us up with her somehow, ok?”

A little nervous, Jeongguk just nods. How is he supposed to set you and the other three up? Turning around towards your house he sees the lights on, you had to be there. Scolding himself for not checking your house earlier he invites himself in, not really caring if you wanted privacy or not.

Because why would you want to be away from your groom?

———☽

[Present// 1st p.o.v]

After leading Jeongguk out of my house, after agreeing to take his stupid study lessons with that Namjoon man, I can’t wait to go to sleep.

Taking a quick shower, I throw myself at my bed only to be met with the odd feeling of paper against my chest.

Terror courses through my veins as I slowly sit up from a lying position. Oh hell no, please no. Fully sitting up, I stare in front of me to find a pretty, slightly crumbled, white envelope with a pretty heart sticker in the middle.

How did it get here? The only other person who came here was.... Jeongguk. But when did he come inside my room?

——☽

Our Dearest [Name],

We are happy to see that you keep the notes we give you!

It shows how much we mean to you, of course you will never understand the extents we’d go for you. You will soon learn how to truly accept us as your future lovers.

It does sadden most of us to see you only read Suga’s letters, in the other hand he was beaming. Tell us, darling, do you read the rest of our notes like that too?

We hope.

Anyway, we are glad that we will have an opportunity to get closer soon, and we trust your feelings will come to light soon too.

With Love,

-BTS

———☽

_____________ღ

The fated day had arrived, and I was now heading over to Jeongguk’s house for our study session. I was terrified. I didn’t want to meet Jeongguk, not now that this awful theory had planted itself on my brain, and I definitely didn’t want to meet Namjoon.

Kim Namjoon, face of an angel and a personality Satan himself would be jealous of. He was student council president. At the beginning he was a sweetheart, he tricked all of us to believe him to be one. He was despicable, using his powers to his advantage to remain on top of the social hierarchy at school. Even if it was just school to some, he saw it as an opportunity to climb his way up in society now. Hanging out with the kids whose parents were CEO’s, treating them with respect and giving them what they wanted. And excellent grades, working extra credit every day and following the rules like a bible. And just like that he had managed to secure himself job offers from big companies at the age of eighteen and a half, he had enough offers that he could get fired from each one everyday for years and never be jobless. But to keep such a picture perfect image some dirty work needed to be done, of course his hands wouldn’t even budge as he always had someone else do it for him.

He was so wicked and corrupted the Devil himself was afraid.

I was shaking throughout the whole drive, my legs began moving by themselves and it suddenly felt like I wasn’t in my body anymore.

“Gran, are we close?” I asked, my voice breaking at the possibility of only being a few minutes.

”No, baby, the road we normally take closed so it’ll take us a while longer put it half an hour? God, why do things like this happen at the worst times?” Gran commented, she was right. Why do the worst things happen when you least need them to? Was there a need for balance? Did every time something good happens something bad had to contradict the previous events as if to remind you that ‘hey this is real life not a movie, so bad shit happens, deal with it’.

Sighing I tell Gran that I’ll try sleeping the rest of the trip off, maybe it’ll take my mind off things, hopefully I won’t dream surely they’d be nightmares.

But sleep wouldn’t take me, thoughts about what could happen, whether it be due to the nonsense that my brain had come up with or not wasn’t clear to me, the thoughts haunted me and sleep seemed farther and farther away.

So for the rest of the car ride I just stared ahead of me. I counted clouds, the number of red cars that passed, how many people would wave back at me if I waved, how many dogs were on the street, I did everything to not be reminded that I would drown in the five hours without parental supervision next to a former friend and potential stalker and a student council president sociopath.

Closing my eyes I let out a sigh, maybe if I don’t speak about anything personal and just focus on studying it’ll go faster.

——☽

By the time we had arrived at Jeongguk’s house I was almost an hour late. And knowing from experience Namjoon didn’t like it at all. My friend Irene, the head of our club had told us stories about the boys’ ill temper. Approaching the driveway, I fumbled with my book bag and silently prayed that some stupid shit happened to Namjoon and that he wouldn’t be able to come to the tutoring session. But whatever deity is up there seemed to want to fuck me over and went out there and made him wait for me outside. And damn did he look pissed.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck- I pissed Kim Namjoon! I had unwillingly and unknowingly pissed Kim Namjoon, and now here he was death glaring at my car.

I didn’t care that my grandmother was driving me, fuck that, what I did care was what Namjoon could and would say. His presence was enough to invoke fear and terror and plant it in my chest.

Getting out of the car I ask my gran to pick me up earlier, “Grans, I know the session ends at six, and it’s now one but please for all that’s good pick me up at five or maybe even earlier? Make anything up, that you needed me for something! I don’t know like, help with the tv or whatever, please! I’ll do anything!” I begged her.

”Why? Weren’t you and that Jeon boy friends?” She asked me curiously, she didn’t exactly shoot down my offer yet I knew that did I say anything wrong she’d probably pick me up at ten out of spite.

”Used to, we got into a fight and I don’t want to stay with him too long, I-please.”

”Fine, fine. Just text me and I’ll come before but no matter what I’ll pick you up at five okay?”

Nodding viciously, I thank her and bid her goodbye. I had an escape plan now if things went south, and if I grew uncomfortable I could text the girls, now all that’s left is actually going through with the study session.

“Ah! Hello [Name], it seems you finally showed up!” Namjoon says as he stands up to shake my hand, I don't know if he’s being kind or just being a sarcastic prick, but at this point, I don’t care, I needed this to go faster, so fast that it’d seem like a dream, a horrible and awkward dream.

”Oh yes, the street I normally take was closed due to a house fire nearby” I try to excuse myself.

”Oh yes! I heard it was quite brutal, it seems they also found a dead girl there, I think she went to our school, Park Sooyeong or Joy does it ring a bell?” He asks faking concern, why do I think he’s faking concern? Maybe it was due to the way his eyes twinkled with wonder when I asked him what he meant, maybe it was for the joy laced in his tone.

“I’m sorry, what?” I laugh, tears gathered around my eyes as I tried to understand the wicked grin that sat in his face, why couldn’t he have told me differently, not so vaguely and so disinterested probably because he knows she was my best friend, because she’d always cause him trouble, because she was different; why? Joy, the thought of her dead made me start bawling my eyes right there. She couldn’t be.. dead? She had called me yesterday to make plans to hang out next weekend. Her happy voice haunted me, there’s no way.... Why hadn’t anyone told me before? Was she the only one dead? Or did her mother and sister die too? Why wasn’t it on the news? Or had I been so selfish that I didn’t check properly?

”Shhh, [Name], it’s okay! You’re safe,” Namjoon whispers as he pulls me into a hug, from what would I be safe? I didn’t care and my grip on his shirt tightened, I wanted to pull him away, “They won’t hurt you, they’d never hurt you.”

Who?

Who was he talking about and why was he so certain. Suddenly something clicked in my brain, something Jeongguk said the rooftop that day.

”Why won’t she like me! I did everything Namjoon told me to do.... I did everything!”

Namjoon. He had something to do with Jeongguk acting weird, and now here he is not worrying about the death of somebody but me? Jeongguk and Namjoon. They did hang out together, did they not?  Nothing made sense anymore, and I didn’t know what was real or fake. It kept getting mixed up in my head. What if Jeongguk and Namjoon are working together?

“What are you talking about? You make it sound as if it was a serial killer, this town is safe why would a killer be loose?” I ask, I needed to get as much information out of him and Jeongguk as possible. But there is no way he’ll believe-

“Oh, haven’t you heard what I said? They mutilated the girl, it has to be someone experienced with murder and getting away, I mean if you looked at the news you’d see, they found pieces of the dead bodies all around the street, there were footprints of five to four different shoes and sizes, unless the perpetrator had many different sized feet then it’s clear that there were more people, at the very least four. It’s even said that whoever mutilated the body, even if not being a doctor due to the way the bones had been sliced, was someone with experience.” He stated matter of factly, but it just didn’t seem right to me. What news? No news station had reported any of this. My grandma had the news on as I got ready and no news about this had been displayed at all, and how would these things get out to the public? Different shoe sizes, what were they going to do, measure everyones’ feet?

But before I could ask any other question Jeongguk came out rather excited for our study session. I think this is the first time since coming back that I’ve been glad Jeongguk showed up.

In my head this suddenly this wasn’t just a study session, this was my opportunity to figure what the hell was happening, not only to me but to Joy and the town.

——☽

We had spent three hours studying and I still had no progress on my new mission. And it honestly felt like hell. I sighed slightly as Namjoon kept on rambling about Newton’s laws of motion, acceleration and pressure. I knew this stuff, not to a cup of tea but definitely more than what Namjoon seemed to think I knew.

He suddenly stopped though, maybe my sigh wasn’t as discreet as I thought it was and he looked at me straight in the eyes without saying anything. Finding this a bit creepy I look over to Jeongguk, who had been unusually quiet, to find him staring at me with the same intensity, let’s say for lack of better wording.

Feeling utterly uncomfortable, I excuse myself to the bathroom only to be grabbed by not only Namjoon but Jeongguk from both wrists, not letting me stand up properly. It was a horror KDrama scene. I stumbled to the floor and gasped, what the hell?

”Uh,I need to go to the bathroom? Can you, like, let me go?” I question, what the fuck are they doing?

”Don’t-don’t take too long, Bunny!” Jeongguk says blushing as he retrieves his hand waiting for Namjoon to do the same.

”Y-yeah, we-we still have a lot to cover!” Namjoon tried to cover up his embarrassment by bringing up more work, fuck him for that.

”Yeah, I’ll keep it in mind...”

I hurried to the bathroom with my bag in my arms and pull out my phone. I hadn’t used it all day, too scared about seeing my inbox flooded by texts from Jeongguk. As fast as I could I open the messenger app and tap on our friend group.

——☽

NO LIFE’S AND THEIR MOM LOL

Nini♥︎: omfg, did you guys hear?

[Sent at 12:57PM]

Lalalisaaa🤟🏻: yeah, i didn’t believe it

Rosie🌹: my mom sat me down and told me

Rosie🌹: i haven’t cried this much in ages

[Sent at 1:34PM]

Mom-rene💖: who’d do this?

Seulgi bear🐻: I heard they stole the friend box she had

Seulgi bear🐻: like, the one with pics and stuff about us?

Wen-Wen💙: the one she did with us when [name] came???

Seulgi bear🐻: yeah, it’s gone

[Sent at 1:35PM]

Chicken🦆: so you’re saying someone broke into joy's house, burned it, killed her all for a box??

Yerim💜: who the fuck would do that that’s sick as fuck,,,,

[Sent at 1:45PM]

Seulgi Bear🐻: ok so you know how my dad works at the police station???

Nini♥︎: yes

Yerim💜: seulgi......

Seulgi Bear🐻: they found the box

Mom-rene💖: what?!

Lalalisaaa🤟🏻: with all of the stffu

Lalalisaaa🤟🏻: *stuff

Seulgi Bear🐻: now, don’t freak out much but

Seulgi Bear🐻: they found fingerprints, they assume that’s the people that killed Joy AND  burned her house....

Rosie🌹: people???

Chicken🦆: like more than 1?

Seulgi Bear🐻: yes, but here’s where it gets really weird.... all of the stuff about us was there...

Mom-rene💖: tell me how’s that weird?

Seulgi Bear🐻: All but [name]’s

Seulgi Bear🐻: her stuff was gone, all of it.

Nini♥︎: you don’t think....

Wen-Wen💙: seulgi,

Wen-Wen💙: who’s fingerprints did they find??

Seulgi Bear🐻: Park Jimin’s, Jeon Jeongguk’s and Kim Namjoon’s, those were in the box

Seulgi Bear🐻: in the door handle they found Kim Taehyung’s

Mom-rene💖: [name]! weren’t you at Jeongguk’s house with Namjoon?!

Yerim💜: get out of there!

Chicken🦆: now!!

Lalalisaaa🤟🏻: she’s not responding, omg do you think she is dead??

Seulgi Bear🐻: she will be fine, the police are investigating further, don’t worry [name]

Yerim💜: can’t they just arrest them!!

Seulgi Bear🐻: sadly, they need more evidence... they could’ve found the box after  the murder left or maybe even before, joy could have gifted it to them and Taehyung could’ve gone over to her house before, you know how they used to date and all....

Mom-rene💖: but IF they’re the stalkers, does that mean they’re also responsible for the love notes?

Wen-Wen💙: idk probably

Rosie🌹: So they’ll probably not hurt her,,,,

Mom-rene💖: [name], whenever you read this, getting out of there understood?

Nini♥︎: go to seulgi’s house, k?

Seulgi Bear🐻: we will all be there, you’re not alone....

[Sent 3:47PM]

I’m getting out of here now, don’t worry:You

[Sent at 3:53PM]

——☽

“I’m sorry but I need to go now, my grandma just texted me.”

___________

“Wait! What? [Name] don’t go, please!” I heard Jeongguk yell behind me, causing Namjoon to look at him. I ran as I saw Namjoon turn away and Jeongguk run beside him.

I hid behind the wall  of the corridor as Jeongguk scrambled next to Namjoon, asking him what to do. I could hear Namjoon talking over the phone and Jeongguk crying his eyes out whispering soft mantra of “What do we do?”.

“S-shit, Jeongguk stop screaming- [Name] left? N-no Jin don’t hang up, I-I know we’re in deep shit but- yes, we’ll be more careful next time, and we’ll- yes, we are going to call you if we- when we do it again”, Namjoon sighed, “she doesn’t know, she left running I think, she was texting her friends’ silence, “Yeah she’s friends with Seulgi the daughter of the chief detective- Shit!”

He hung up and made his way towards the bathroom door, in other words the other side of the room, the side I wasn’t in. Bolting my way outside I make my way towards Seulgi’s house.

Just who was Jin, why was Jeongguk acting so weird and what dip shit were they in?

——☀︎

“G-god! [Name] you’re alive!” Irene threw herself at me the minute I entered Seulgi’s room.

Irene was never one to cry, but here she was mourning the death of her friend, our friend Joy, she was gone. Seeing all my friends in a room faces red and eyes swollen made me realize that it was true; Joy was dead.

That they killed Joy.

”It has to be them, it just has to be!” The youngest, Yeri, cried, she was a few months older than me yet we always treated her as the baby.

”I-it probably is them, dad said so and he’s good I-I trust he’ll bring justice to Joy.” Seulgi whispered, she seemed to be in disbelief, I remembered how she used to like Jimin only a few weeks ago.

”Cheeky, you were with Jeongguk and Namjoon, two of the suspects weren’t you?” Lisa asked, she was stroking Rosé’s hair as the later filled the room with sobs, I couldn’t bear to watch her.

”Y-yeah, they were acting w-weirder than usual.” I choked out, tears brimmed my eyes and I realized I hadn’t cried much over Joy’s death; why? Because Namjoon freaked me out and Jeongguk is a weirdo, that’s why.

“W-when I left N-Namjoon was t-talking about not getting caught”, I sink into the bed beside Rosé, “T-they talked about the police a-and I-I think they killed Joy”

“But why?”, Jennie asked exasperated, “Why would they kill Joy? What did Joy have that no one else did?”

“Well- I mean, hadn’t we established that they were the love note writers?”, Yeri asked and we all nodded, “So remember how they started getting weirder and weirder as time went on?”

Again, we only nodded.

“So, what if they are the stalkers? I-I mean not like average stalkers I mean full out ‘I-Will-Kill-For-You’ stalkers? Like, Joy was friends with [Name], and both of you hanged out a lot even without us, so what if they wanted to, I don’t know, figure out where you were and they got mad or something and killed her? I mean, it’s not really the first time someone close to us or someone that has shown interest in us, in [Name], has died suddenly, and you’ve all got to admit they’ve always acted weird when [Name] was around. We always played it off as coincidence but, really…? That’s just dumb..” Yeri trailed off, I was left in shock at how much sense it all made; had I been that stupid?

“There we have killers and a motive.” Seulgi said slowly, it made so much sense that another wave of tears came.

“But! They have an alibi, don’t they?” Wendy spoke for the first time with a hoarse voice, she sounded defeated, it hurt seeing somebody as extroverted as her so quite.

”What if it doesn’t coincide with , for example, Jeongguk did though, I mean I was with him that day...”

”What? What do you mean, [Name]?” Rosé asked, probably excited at the possibility of Joy getting justice, but a part of her also seemed confused.

”What was Jeongguk’s alibi, Seulgi?”

”Seokjin said that he, Jeongguk, Namjoon, Taehyung and Jimin had spent the whole evening with him and that they didn’t really leave the house.” Seulgi recalled, yet something felt odd...

”That is just plain wrong, Jeongguk went over to my house, the-the day of the murder he was out! Seokjin is in this, maybe it’s true that he was at home but the rest no, and so is Namjoon, of those two, when I went to Jeongguk’s house I saw a car that was probably Namjoon’s,  so that’s a fact now, though he drives like shit, Jeongguk told me that, and the car that had dropped him off had a very bad driver because my front house neighbors’ complained about a black van that almost ran over their sons in a play date that day, that was Namjoon! S-so it’s possible Jimin and Taehyung were there too!”

“A black van? Dad said that a few witnesses saw a black van!”, Seulgi added in shock, “Kim Yerim you’re a genius!”

“Now we need evidence, to get them in jail where they belong”, Jennie spoke up, “But how do we do that?”

”Easy, we know their weaknesses and we’ll use it against them,'' Irene said determined, she sounded as if she was planning something, “They won’t get away with this.”

”And what is that?” Wendy asked her, she sounded unsure at the idea of interacting with them.

”Their weakness is [Name], she'll need to get close to them, gain their trust and then find clues as to what is going on... that is if she’s up to it.” Irene looked me in the eye.

”We now know they are serious trouble, are you up for it [Name]?”, Jisoo looked up from the window, she had spent the whole conversation so quiet I hadn’t even noticed her, “Do you want to put an end to this?”

“Yes.”

_____________ღ

Year: 20##

Place: Some Dumpster

Point of view: Hoseok Jung

———☀︎

Biting at my bottom lip I try to slow down my pace as to not bring too much attention to me, that’d be bad. Very bad. It’s not like what I was doing was going to not draw attention to myself, everyone stared at me suspiciously as I walked with my big, green bag. I would too, honestly.

The bag itself wasn’t what would draw attention, it was the smell. It smelt fucking awful, and I knew that everywhere I went it left the smell of a corpse around. Sure, if someone used their imagination they could come up with a strange and repulsive accusation, but then again...

What could have I done?

No one would suspect a 15 year old of murder, would they? I could easily say it was my gym clothes, with puberty and all. It wasn’t the whole body, oh no! We left the big stuff to Seokjin and Yoongi, I just had the inside stuff, the organs. But most importantly and my biggest worry was the heart.

A thief’s heart.

The heart that almost stole [Name]’s. His name was Mark Lee, he was around [Name]’s age, maybe younger, they had a few classes together and talked every once in a while when he suddenly decided to confess to her, who was he to do so? But that wasn’t a problem, that wasn’t meant to be a problem. All she had to do was rejected and then we’d all be okay, but no; she gave him a chance.

She gave that little asshole a chance but wouldn’t even spare a glance my way. And for that I was going to make his life a living hell.

They were going on their first date tomorrow, it was meant to be at the movies to watch  a crappy romance movie she’d been gushing about with him about, ha, watching movies at a first date with my [Name]? She deserves the best first date in the world, something only I can give her. She doesn’t deserve that, not from him, she deserves the world.

“And you can’t give that to her, can you Lee?” I mumbled as I made my way to the dumpster.

——☽

By the time I arrived at the dumpster, the sun had set and the whole sky had an orange tint to it, [Name] would be home probably in her room doing whatever her little heart wanted, maybe getting ready for the big day tomorrow and a big day it was.

Opening the bag I gently sit down in the middle of the garbage, I look for the healthiest and best looking organs and store them little containers Seokjin had given me before, he had taken them from one of his father's hospitals, he wouldn’t miss them they had many. The old man had everything, hospitals to hotels. Those organs we’d sell or do whatever Yoongi did with them, we didn't care what he did with them as long as it brought money for the our, my her, plan.  

Humming, I put on the gloves and prepare myself to take out the organs that seemed to have taken the least damage from Jimin’s little fit with the younger boy, poor Mark his handsome face was completely destroyed now. Too bad, [Name] wouldn’t even want to look him in the face now.

“Aish, the kid needs to learn not to break valuable stuff like this...”, I muttered as I try and arrange Mark’s brain nicely in the box, “Why did you have a brain and didn’t use it? It’s making such a mess now, it’s only use is that making messes, look where it led you Mark. Now you’re dead and probably getting sold to some weird Frankenstein scientist or something...”

Looking at the boxes I had arranged, I take out my spare phone and text Yoongi warning him where the boxes where for him to pick tomorrow, if he didn’t we could get into some shitty  trouble. Now I could focus on the main attraction.

The Heart.

Putting on my gloves again I play with the small organ, it fit nicely in my hand.

“What happens if I give you a- haha!”, I squeeze the muscle a bit and see it twitch as it continues palpitating slightly, “Haha, look at this! Useless, you aren’t even attached to someone and yet you try so hard to be useful, pathetic.”

Tossing the heart around for awhile I grew tired, and decided to finish the boy off.

“You’re lucky Namjoon didn’t want me bringing the kit with me or else you would’ve been dissected right here, right now”, I looked at it with pity, “God, you were very naive you know? Thinking someone like [Name] would even be interested in you, ha, please”

I take it and squeeze it tighter, blood gushing from the little arteries.

Quickly getting the butcher knife from the bag, with shaky hands I cut the heart in small pieces trying to make them as symmetrical as possible. Fucking disgusting.

”Now! Don’t you look better?”, I ask to no one as I place the heart pieces with the rest of the organs that Yoongi wouldn’t be able to sell, “Bet you your friends would love to have a taste of you won’t they? Seokjin and Taehyung will have a good meal to prepare for your friends now~”

I laugh a bit as I fish for a bag around the dumpster, finding a broken recycled bag I place the containers filled with the body parts and store them for Yoongi, “You’re lucky we like the same girl or else I would’ve ratted on you ages ago...”I muttered as I place the containers in then old, worn out bag, “This is all for you, [Name]”

Does this mean I’m happy sharing? No, of fucking course I’m not.

But who said I can’t rat them all out later?

Laughing loudly, I take out the gas and lighter as I throw the gasoline around the area making a heart, or at least something similar.

“This is all for you, baby” I repeat as I throw the lighter at the fire. I watch a bit as the fire grew and grew taller and taller, deciding that I should change clothes I strip down from my sweatpants and stay only using my t-shirt, only then I realized how cold it was.

All for [Name].

Sighing a bit, I dirty my spare pants to make it look like I had gotten into a fight or something, even going as far as punching myself to create bruises; who would suspect a boy how had just gotten mugged?

Taking off my shoes and one sock I throw into the fire, watching it burn brighter as I throw stuff into it, filling it, making it go higher and higher and-

“It’s like my love for you”, I giggle, “the love I’ll be able to give to you soon, very soon”

No one would suspect Jung Hoseok for murder; I won’t let them.

_____________ღ

“Geeze, [Name], we didn’t really think this through did we?”, Wendy whispered beside me as we made our way through the school halls, she was right. We, indeed, didn’t think this through.

”I mean, yeah- we didn’t think through it all, but god if we’re right it’d make things so much easier for Seulgi’s dad to catch them!”, I explain as I try and mask the, very obvious, fear, “Plus, I don’t think it’s just Joy they killed, they must’ve done this multiple times, it was all to clean, Namjoon himself said so, plus if they got out of it once who says they couldn’t have done it before?”

“Yeah, plus why would a police station have their data in it if they hadn’t found their dna somewhere else?” Wendy questioned anxiously, I hadn’t noticed it before. But then again, didn’t the police station have the dna of all of those who lived in town? But then, they did seem wary considering the way Seulgi's’ dad spoke of them.

”Mark.” I stop walking as I suddenly stop dead in my tracks.

”Mark Lee? The dude that went missing before your date...” Wendy stared at me as she trailed off.

”You don’t think?”, she asked me shaking slightly, “That they had something to do?”

“I mean-“

”Hello! You’re both Wendy and [Name], right?” A student council member asked us.

Ah yes, the plan.

“Yeah! We wanted to talk to Kim Namjoon about perhaps holding a funeral service for our friend Park Sooyeong, she passed away a few days ago. We are on the list, right?`` I ask trying to make myself sound as sad as possible, Wendy catching on and only responding with a nod and a short sniffle.

“Yes, please, can we speak with Namjoon?”

”Yes. Follow me,” He walks towards the farthest door, us walking closely behind, “So, please don’t take long, Namjoon has been acting really off lately, don’t-don’t tell him I said that! So the council is trying to take as many interviews and meetings ourselves.”

The boy looked at us, concern lacing his eyes as he whispers, “Please, be safe and don’t anger him too much.”

He then motions towards the door and leaves.

”Wendy, leave it to me, stay here, please.”

——☽

I knocked on the door thrice, when I heard a faint “Come in”, followed by some paper shuffling.

I open the door and peek inside, this was unexpected. The room was mainly filled with browns and dark reds, the schools colors, the furniture giving an antique feel to the room. In the middle, the desk of the council president sat, a leather couch by its side and two chairs in front. It looked like the whole schools budget went into the room. No wonder Namjoon blackmailed students.

”State your business an-“, he began monotonously when he looked up at me to meet my eyes, “[N-Name], I didn’t think it-it was you, I- here! Take a seat please!”

He was stuttering and he couldn’t even form a sentence.

“Ah, Namjoon! Please don’t worry, it’s fine”, I smile at him as I sit down, “I came here to talk about the funeral service for Sooyeong, Joy, she-she was really close to me an-and now that she’s gone, I- we felt it would be important to be able to hold something in her memory, you know?”, I feel tears swell in my eyes at the thought of my friend. Maybe acting like it hurt wasn’t going to be as hard as I had thought, fate had laid down the prefect Shakespearean tragedy.

He slightly stiffened at the mention of Joy, or my tears I don’t know at this point. Blushing red he gives me a small pocket handkerchief, and looks at me smiling, how can he smile so freely?

“Would that make you happy?” He looks at me as he grabs my hand, his hand covered all of my hand, his smile was cute; but he may have been the murderer of my best friend and there’s no way I’ll forget that. Until he’s proven innocent, I won’t budge. Too much evidence was piled up against him.

“Yeah, it would, it really would, thank you”, I smile back at him.

“Anything for a friend”, he smiles, “You’re friends with Jeongguk so you’re friends with me too.” He squeezes my hand slightly, and let’s it go hesitantly.

He stands up, walking all the way towards me from behind the desk just to help me stand up. He places his hand around my shoulders, leading me towards the door. Shouldn’t this meeting be longer?

“Namjoon, I shouldn’t be saying this but...”, I suddenly stop at the front of the door, shaking slightly from fear and sadness; real fear and sadness, “Seulgi’s dad, who’s in the case, thinks that maybe they killed Joy because she was my friend, I’m scared Namjoon. He said it was definitely a murderer, and that it was all to similar to other ones he had participated in; he searched for a bit and found that there were at least two cases that were similar Mark Lee and Vernon Choi, and they were close to me, th-then he said that other people close to me kept disappearing even after I left, and even more now that I’m back th-he thinks I’m next and I’m scared Namjoon, I-I don’t know what to do. I don’t want another Joy.” I made it all up, but fear and sadness that if I failed my friends and those I loved would be hurt, was real, my sanity was deteriorating, I can’t lose anyone anymore. Another loss, I couldn’t have that, I wouldn’t be able to handle it..

”[Name], I promise you that me and Jeongguk will always be there for you, if it makes you feel better I have some friends you could meet, they’re all rather athletic and are really nice, we aren’t the police persee but maybe we can help you feel safe. Maybe I could present you all at lunch today?”

”Ah, yes please, if it’s not too much!” I ask, was he going to let me meet...

“They’re Kim Seokjin, Min Yoongi, Jung Hoseok, Kim Taehyung and Park Jimin, Jeongguk will be joining us but you already know him very well, don’t you?”

”Yes! We are really close, is it that obvious?” I lied through my teeth, my heartbeat was off the charts as my hands grew sweaty.

”Haha, kind off,” he chuckled, “he never shut ups about you.”

“Really?” I turn red a bit, that jerk, he probably told them all my personal info, god that little son of bitch!

“I look forward to lunch with you, I hope we can become close friends.” He smiles at me as I walk out of the door. Wendy is there waiting for me, we both wave goodbye and leave hurriedly as I begin to tell her about it all.

“Wendy, I think he knows something, he wants me to go eat with the other six.”

“Are you sure about that?” Wendy asked, “They won’t hurt you will they?”

“I don’t know. Have you heard about Irene?” I ask her, we both knew that we didn’t have the answer to her question but maybe Irene did.

“She’s with Park Ji-” My eyes widen, nervously I look at Wendy, she understood.

Her phone rang with a text she looked worried as she stared down at it, I bit my lip.

“I gotta go, go hide in a bathroom so the teachers don’t see you.”

——☽

”Guys we have a special lunch today...”

——☽

“[Name]?”

”Yeah, I got her to come have lunch with us and to speak about a memorial for Sooyeong, but that’s more on me”, Namjoon sighed, “She thinks we’re out to get her, what do we do?”

”Out to get her?”, Seokjin asked eyes bulging, how could she ever think that? Where they too obvious? Had they gone too far?

“Is it because of Sooyeong and ya know?”, Yoongi asked, “I told you, don’t kill unless they impose a threat, what type of threat was her family and her? Wearing the wrong colored shoes?”

“Jimin and Tae said she had caught them before that and that she was already on to something...” Jeongguk trailed off, it wasn’t the first Sooyeong had caught the duo spying on [Name], and it wasn’t the first time she caught any of the seven.

“They had reasons, okay?” Namjoon sighed irritated, what do they win now arguing, it already happened.

”Of course you’d say so, you helped them too!” Hoseok snarled at Namjoon, how could Namjoon be so fucking dumb.

”Well, who was clumsy enough to get her to remember Mark Lee, huh? Didn’t you say you were going to make her forget Mark was even a name yet you couldn’t even talk to her!” Namjoon harshly whispered to the boy next to him, Hoseok’s eyes widen as he looks around the empty classroom in embarrassment.

”She-she what?”, Jeongguk asked, “She remembers Mark?”

”Yeah, she even talked about him to me you fucking idiots, by the way she spoke she seems to remember every single one, even after she left”, Namjoon sighed, “We can’t do much now, or act by the plan, we-we gotta wait longer and not act-“

”Wait longer?”, Yoongi laughed incredulously, “I waited for years, years, Kim, she fucking left and I had to wait longer and now you come up with this bullshit? What about all that, we gotta go fast before she’s tainted and all that bullshit Tae and you blaber on about?”

”If [Name] was able to catch onto something than most possibly the police too, Min, Officer Kang already did for the fucking record, meaning that if the only person alive were to suddenly disappear she would become the prime suspect, and even if they end up cleaning her name, her life would be ruined because that’d mean they’d need to find us and a) she’d be unprotected, b) or they’ll see her like an accomplice, she’d go to jail because of some shit she didn’t do. That’d be fucking it, it’s better to get close to her and wait for a while or convince her to come with us willingly.”

Yoongi stayed silent as thoughts raced around his head. Who did they think they were to tell him what to do?

“Namjoon’s right...”, Jimin sighed, everyone sighed, “It hurts, but we can wait, right? It’ll be nicer to have her now, but don’t you think it’s better to be cautious?”

”Jimin is right, let’s-let’s leave this for later guys”, Taehyung suggested, “[Name] will be having lunch with us won’t she? So, let’s get ready for now, ok?”

He only received a crowd of unmotivated grunts, as they stood up and made their way out of the classroom.

——☽

”Taehyung, do you think she really remembers Mark?” Jeongguk asked his older friend as they made their way towards their lesson.

”Probably, she cared about him a lot, she almost stopped hanging out with you ‘cause of him, remember?” He answered nonchalantly, he knew that was a sensitive spot for Jeongguk.

“Mark Lee”, Jeongguk test out his name, “Mark fucking Lee, I hope you’re burning in hell.”

”I-I can’t believe it, even after everything we did, she still remembers him? Yet she wouldn’t talk to me? If I could, I would bring him back to life over and over again, and kill him every fucking time. I’d make sure to make him suffer, to let him know that he isn’t worthy of thinking of [Name], that I won her heart the minute she won mine, that she’s mine. Mine! Not his, mine! He probably threatened her to go out with her; asshole. Fucking asshole! It’s his fault! I’m meant to win, not him! Haha, I’m happy we got rid of Mark Lee that summer.”

The oldest of the two seemed unfazed at the youngest fit, rather opting to continue walking in silence. He had to agree, though, he also was happy they got rid of Mark Lee and he would do it again if it meant being with [Name].  

Suddenly, a pair of footsteps made themselves clearer behind them. Stopping half way both males stiffened as a voice made itself heard through the empty hallway.

“Y-You killed Mark?”

ღ__________________ღ

“I did it.”

Irene watched in shock as the younger boy confessed to the death of her younger friend.

“But J-“ The oldest began, but was soon cut off as the male before her began speaking.

”Don’t, I don’t know why I’m telling you of all people, after school I-“

”No, J- I’m... we’re talking here now, you killed someone! And n-now you’re after [Name]?” She shouted as anger began numbing her rationality, she knew what was happening, she had told her and now he came here lying to her?!

”[Name]? I could never! I swear, I-It was only Mark I was after!”

”Only Mark? Only Mark?”, the brunette raised her voice, “What about Sooyeong? Or Nayeon? Or maybe even Jae? Or Yugyeom? Or-“

”Or who? I didn’t kill them!” He shouted, he was getting angrier by the minute, mimicking the eldest girl.

”But you killed Mark, huh?”

”Y-yes.” He answered back, but they both knew that the uncertainty in his voice was clear.

“You didn’t, both you and I know-”

”Stop acting like you know what you’re talking about, Joohyun- !”

”Stop lying! You’re too young, Ji-“

”I’m too young? You’re talking as if I didn’t kill Mar-“

”I know he threatened you, Ji-“

”He who?”

”Namjoon!”

”N-Namjoon had nothing to do with tha-“

”I know you didn’t kill him, Jisung, it was Hoseok wasn’t it?”

———☽

The younger boy looked in horror at the older girl.

”N-no, I s-swear it was m-me!” Jisung stuttered.

”No, I know it wasn’t you. Seulgi’s dad, he told me about how the prime suspect for the Mark Lee case suspect were Jung Hoseok and a man named Son Saeyoung; they closed the case with it being Saeyoung fault, both the murder and death, but it wasn’t like that, right? Hoseok murdered Mark and then someone sold the body parts to Saeyoung, incriminating him. They paid you to tell me this right?”

Silence, only a confirmation to Joohyun. Poor Jisung, he probably only found out by accident and now he was probably going to jail for something he didn’t do.

”It’s okay, tell them I believed you; that I’ll tell Seulgi’s dad, ‘kay? Don’t go to the police just yet though,” Irene stayed silent for a while, “would you follow me? It’s something I need you to do before you go.”

Only nodding in agreement the younger boy walked behind his friend, thankful for her brain, thankful of her for being able to pick up what was wrong.

”Thank you, Joohyun”

”No problem, if we die we die together, ‘kay?”

———☽

Biting her nails anxiously was a wrecked Wendy, she needed to call [Name], fast.

”F-fuck, Joohyun, why did you do this....”

The older girl just cracked a broken smile, her cheek cracked awkwardly as more blood came out from the cut that was plastered on it.

”Ji-Jisung, I-I couldn’t blame him, Mark-k wouldn’t have wanted that...”

She was greeted with silence from her younger friend as she tried calling [Name], again.

”Gosh, [Na-! God, finally! [Name], call Seulgi and her dad, now! Irene is hurt, I need you to come to the rooftop as fast as possible! W-what? What do you mean you’re actually going to have lunch with them? Leave the fucking plan!”, she screamed angrily at the phone, “Irene is dying, and you’re worried about that?”, silence, “You’re gonna call Seulgi, now.”

Wendy cut the phone call before [Name] could protest further, she didn’t want to hear her.

”She’ll call the ambulance and Seulgi’s dad, don’t worry too much, you’ll be fine.”

”G-good, I need to te-tell [Name] something.” Irene muttered.

“I-I just can’t believe Jisung did that, he could’ve killed you...”, Wendy felt tears form at the corner of her eyes, “Joohyun, you could’ve died, we really don’t know what we got ourselves into....”

The older girl pushed herself from the floor, immediately worrying her friend but she was quick to brush her off.

”T-the thing is, Seungwan, [Name], she won’t make it, no matter how hard we try and shake them off; they’ll always find her somehow....”

———☽

”Seulgi! It’s Joohyun she-she’s gotten beaten up, she’s with Wendy now but please come, with your dad and an ambulances too! God, f-fast! Please! It-It was Jisung, it seems like it, but I-I don’t know, okay? I wasn’t there, I’m sorry, please focus on the task at hand.” And with that the girl hung up the phone and rested her head against the bathroom door.

”I should get going now.” She pushed herself and readied herself for the dreaded lunch.

I don’t want to do this.

She thought to herself bitterly, she sighed and pressed a cold hand to her forehead.

“Have I gotten a fever? My cheeks are red...” She felt her cheeks too. They were blazing. She was worried sick about her friends, what was going on?

Silence. The only sound was that of a girl exiting the bathroom.

She walked through the empty halls, her light footsteps barely echoing through the hallway.

She looked through the window, she saw the younger kids during their PE class, she saw a few girls during their free period walking through the quad.

She suddenly stopped dead in her tracks as she heard the words. She didn’t know what had happened before but she blindly spoke in response.

“Haha, I’m happy we got rid of Mark Lee that summer.”

“Jeongguk? Y-You killed Mark Lee?”

The boy in question and his companion stopped and turned around. Their faces paled, their eyes widened and their mouths turned agape.

”[Name]?”

———☽

“They don’t want to kill her, they want to keep her....”

———☽

“Jeongguk, what do you mean?” I asked as I backed away slightly.

He said nothing, he stared directly at me as his friend looked at me wide eyed.

I couldn’t place my finger on how, but I felt like I knew the boy beside Jeongguk; the boy who laughed at the mention of Mark’s death.

”Kim Taehyung?” I whisper softly to myself, I ruffled my hair slightly and let my hand fall on chest. No...

”Kim Taehyung and Jeon Jeongguk, you both killed Lee Mark?” I ask, as I looked at them both in the eye.

Mistake number 1.

Taehyung’s eyes widened further, if possible, as he began to shake and fiddled with his finger. His mouth parted open, and even from where I stood I could hear his jagged breathing.

“Y-you know m-my name?” He asked as a bright blush took over his cheeks, “You know my name, haha, you know me!”

He looked over at Jeongguk, giggling as he grabbed the younger boy by his shoulders,

“She knows me! M-my baby knows me, Jeongguk, oh my-!”

”Taehyung...” Jeongguk grabbed his friend trying to stop him, but he shook him off as he began chanting repeatedly the words “She knows me!”

”Taehyung, she heard us!” Jeongguk whispered harshly, tugging at the oldest sleeve.

”She knows...”

At those words, the blushing male seemed to have been hit with the truth. His smile shut down, and his body took a more menacing, yet lazy, stance.

”My baby knows me, she know us and what we do, because she isn’t stupid, right baby?” He asked me as he began walking towards me, slow steps echoing through the hallways.

”What?” I ask him as I began walking back with every step he took at my direction.

”Taehyung, could that be why she agreed to eat lunch with us?” Jeongguk asked as a dull look came over his eyes, his posture mimicked Tae’s.

”Probably, but don’t worry Kookie! She will spend the rest of the week eating lunch with us, won’t she?” He asked as he backed me against a door.

When did he arrive here?

“N-no! Stop, I’ll tell the police!” I tried pushing him off, but Jeongguk came and took one side of me as Taehyung took the other. I was trapped.

Mistake number 2.

”But, Darling, you wouldn’t want Taehyungie to tell Namjoon would you? That you were toying with us?”

”Are we toys to you?”, Taehyung asked against the crook of my neck, “Do you want to use us? Are we nothing more?”

Excitement took over his voice as he spoke, he began kissing my neck.

”Stop it now! Seulgi’s dad is coming over any second now!”

”Are we toys to you? I don’t mind being your toy, do you Jeonggukie?” Taehyung repeated and asked Jeongguk, ignoring my previous threat.

”No, if it means she’ll only pay attention to me!” He giggled and kissed my cheek.

”Me neither, but just for today; I want to play with her instead, so let’s go!”

He gave me one last kiss, and looked me in the eye, a look that made me shiver; suddenly running away wasn’t an option that didn’t include anyone not getting hurt. I didn’t know what to do, they just confessed to murder damn it! Why can’t I be smarter like Yeri, or athletic like Lisa or cunning like Irene? Why did I have to be me?

”But first, we gotta establish some rules!”, Taehyung continued after he took my bag from my shoulder rather harshly, I grunted in pain as the material brushed aggressively against my neck.

”Number one, you tell no one about what you just heard! That means no Irene, no Seulgi or her dad, no Wendy, or Lisa, or Jennie; we don’t want another Joy, do we?

Second, you’ll only look at us and talk to us, your family’s okay, but only direct family; boys and girls alike will be taken care of accordingly.

Third, you’re doing this out of your free will, if anybody asks; even the other guys!

You have to say yes to us! M’kay? So if I were to ask if you love us you gotta say yes, ha!

Hmm, that’s all I can think about now, we’ll add more as we go, now let’s go skip class! Let’s go to that ice cream place, maybe the others will be there, or maybe just Yoongi!” Taehyung giggled once more and led the way for me and Jeongguk as they both took my hands. We don’t want another Joy? Huh?

I don’t know what’s worse; what they’re doing or that I can’t find the strength to fight.

——☽

By the time we reached the ice cream shop, I had received a text message from Wendy thanking me about calling Seulgi and her dad, she also asked me where I was.

It was the first time I lied to her, it wasn’t a complete lie though, right?

Mistake number 3.

I had to hide to be able to text her as I was being watched at all times by Jeongguk and Taehyung; I felt weak. Why did this happen to me?

”So, [Name]? I went and ordered your favorite ice cream, we also took the liberty to call Yoongi and Jimin so they’re gonna arrive at around 1:40? So while we wait, do you have any questions?” Taehyung asked.

I looked around me, trying to find a possible exit but Jeongguk who sat over at my right, was clutching my hand tightly and Taehyung was blocking the pathway towards the door.

He looked at me curiously, as did Jeongguk, the later being way more quiet but more touchy. He now had a hand on my cheek as he caressed it softly while Taehyung played with my hand.

“Yes, I-I have been receiving letters by a group called Bts; Jin, RM, Hope, Chimmy, V, Suga and Cooky, are they you by any chance?” I did my best to not stutter, to sound confident, to be like Irene.

He stopped playing with my fingers, as he took my hand to his lips and began kissing it.

“My baby is so smart! Yes, I was V while Jeonggukie was Cooky, pretty names right?” He accentuated each word with a kiss.

Suddenly, similar to falling into cold water, I remembered something Lisa told me a few months ago that made me shiver.

“Did any of you ever call a friend of mine?” I asked nervously.

“What? No, why?” Jeongguk asked me, he had stopped playing with my hair, something he did when nervous.

”S-so you don’t know anybody called Seungkwan?”

”Baby?” Taehyung asked growling, he took both of my hands and pressed them against each other and pressed them against his cheeks; pulling me slightly over the table.

“Ah-it’s just a boy that had called a friend of mine as-asking for me, and I thought that maybe that was one of you...” I stuttered, trying to take my hands away.

”That wasn’t us....” Taehyung growled lower, he let go of one hand and continued playing with the other.

“Did he call your friend on her cell phone?” Jeongguk asked as he resumed playing with my hair.

“Yeah... I think she still has the phone on her record....”

”Tell her to give us her phone please, Bunny!” Jeongguk pouted.

“Yeah! But it’s fine though, he won’t bother you, not while we’re with you!” Taehyung smiled at me, but in his eyes I couldn’t ignore the clear look of anger in them.

Just then as Tae finished his threat, the door to the shop opened rather obnoxiously and in came two overly contrasting boys.

Min Yoongi and Park Jimin.

Park Jimin; the schools sweetheart, wearing his ever iconic oversized sweater and charming smile, his school uniform perfectly clean, and stunning hair, which was dyed a pretty dirty blonde, and skin well kept.

Min Yoongi; the schools bad boy, wearing his iconic, and rather cliche, black leather jacket and bored face and look, his uniform messy and dark hair fell over his eyes as he looked around almost as if intimidating everyone who looked his way was his goal.

They seemed to be having a friendly conversation, with Jimin doing most of the talking, when suddenly Yoongi looked over and made eye contact with me, fuck. His eyes widen as he lightly hits Jimin causing the younger boy to look over and a bigger smile to break through.

Just as the two boys made their way over to the table, the waitress came with our orders. Her forearm balancing all of the ice cream’s was suddenly knocked over by Jimin’s overly excited steps and were sent flying onto my school blouse.

Yelping from the coldness seeping into the thin fabric I stand up, harshly setting aside Jeongguk, and try dabbing the icy liquid out of my shirt to no use. I was scared and cold as fuck.

”Oh- [Name]!”, Jimin exclaimed pushing the poor waitress and knocking her over, making her fall to her butt. God no, what is wrong with these people?!

”I-I-“ She tried speaking but was soon cut off by Yoongi.

”What’s your name?” His eyes seemed to widen with anger and his pupils dilated and widened threateningly. He looked like a street cat, I couldn’t help but feel sorry and scared for the young woman.

”Gretel Zacharias...”

Yoongi then looked over at me and my shirt and crouched down next to the woman, whispering something into her ear that caused her to look at him in horror and scramble to her feet quickly and storm off, screaming apologies with tears streaming down her face.

”Sweetheart, please use my sweater!” Jimin began taking off his sweater and handed it to me, blushing furiously. Sweetheart?

He handed me the dark red fabric and smiled sweetly down at me.

Nodding silently, I began to make my way to the bathroom when suddenly Yoongi asked.

”Where are you going, my mus- [Name]?”

Blushing, I boldly walk up to him and tiptoe to the significantly taller male, trying to find the words to make him blush, I’d try a Jennie approach.

”The ice cream got into certain places, it kinda fell into the space between my chest, and I think it’s kinda deep in there too and I don’t want to get a cold...”

Turning away I march into the bathroom stall to take out my shirt and bra. What was I thinking?!

Thank god I hadn’t taken out my other bra from PE the day before...

Why had I done that?

Unfortunately, I didn't think I’d need more shirts and so I had to put on the sweater.

Wetting a bit of paper towel to clean off my chest and hair, and spray some perfume.

“Hopefully Jimin won’t mind the smell...” I snort a bit as I imagine how uncomfortable Jimin would get thanks to my perfume. Hopefully he won’t mind me not using a shirt. Thinking of facing Yoongi again after what I had done made me cringe.

——☽

By the time I got out of the bathroom stall, I got gently grabbed by the arm by Min Yoongi as he gently led me to the table.

”You’re only wearing a bra?” He tried to ask quietly as we sat down.

Blushing at how loudly he said that I look over at him at a loss for words.

”Sweetheart is using my sweater without a shirt?” Jimin squeaked, while Jeongguk muttered  something that sounded like the words; “Lucky bastard”.

”Don’t worry, [Name], no one is allowed to look at you dirtily, only us!” Taehyung giggled as he took my hand and resumed playing with it.

Suddenly Jeongguk grabbed a strand of hair and began braiding it as he had done earlier, when I felt Jimin take my other hand and play with it too; giving it kisses while Yoongi leaned against me and began leaving kisses wherever he could find bare skin.

I couldn’t stop them.

Mistake number 4.

———☽

”Wendy, they want to make her their doll.”

_______________

“I can’t find her!” Seulgi looked over at her dad distraughtly, where was [Name]? She wasn’t in danger, right?

“Bear, are you sure it was her who called you?”

”Yes? I mean, it says on my phone it was her and Irene and Wendy told us about her.... maybe someone kidnapped her!”

”Why would you think someone kiddna-”

”Where’s Irene?” Seulgi looked over at her dad, the poor man didn’t understand his daughters fast words and seemingly nonsensical actions.

“In the ambulance getting treated, she’s fine but will be take-”

He never finished the sentence as his daughter ran out of the room and out into the parking lot screaming for her friends.

Running until her lungs felt like they would collapse Seulgi pushed past the paramedics until she saw her two friends talking in whispers to one another.

”Wendy!” The black haired girl shouted as she made her way to the girl.

”Seulgi! What happe-“

”Do you know with who [Name] was with?” Seulgi said breathless, her heart was beating in her ears, she felt all of her senses alert. Suddenly she was in survival mode.

”The boys, she-“ Wendy tried to explain, but Seulgi’s nervousness began affecting her too.

”No, she wasn’t with them, she wasn’t the bathroom, right Wendy?” Irene cut off the younger girl.

”What- no! She-“

”She wasn’t with them, I saw them whilst Jisung asked me to follow him.”

”Ah, really? But she told me-“ Wendy tried to debate with the eldest but was cut off again as Seulgi began speaking.

”I think- I think we should talk to [Name], or at least me, I’m the one who knows the most and they’d kinda figure out if all of us suddenly-“

”Irene! The doctors couldn’t find any broken bones, just a lot of internal and external bleeding but it has stopped, you were lucky this time as it was quite a superficial case so you’ll be able to go home just fine! I’ll take you-“

The female in question, much to everyone’s amazement, stood up by herself; not resembling the girl who had just been lying there before.

“Go look for her outside, she might be with an angel and ice.” Irene spoke, she didn’t look back as she began running away ignoring the younger girls calls and making her way to the ice cream shop.

Just like they’d planned.

———☽

”Seulgi, I-I think I know where [Name] is but we shouldn’t go there now, let’s send your dad.”

”Why?”

”I think Irene....”

The older girls eyes widen as she stared at her friend.

“N-no.... but that’d mean that Joy-“

”Shh!” She was hushed by her friend.

”We need to tell [Name] and the other girls! I’ll call the others you go tell your dad [Name]’s at ‘Angela’s Cream’! Go with your dad, we’ll meet over at your house!”

”Ok!” Seulgi began running next to Wendy when suddenly they were stopped by the scream of a teacher.

”Oh my god! There’s a dead boy in the basket ball court- it’s Park Jisung!”

They both froze in place, looking each other in the eye; an albeit silent, but mutual agreement of what was happening and what must be done was shared and they both parted ways.

Another life could be taken any minute now, they couldn’t risk it because the next victim could be [Name] or maybe even themselves.

____________ღ

As the four boys talked around me, I couldn’t shake off the feeling of questioning if I had done the right thing. If my assumptions were correct the girls would show up any minute now, or at least Seulgi’s dad.

Please, Wendy, you’re smart!

I prayed silently, looking out the window I noticed how the former quiet road was now taken into blue and red; a police car. I was about to cry out of joy.

The black car pulled over at the street and out came the familiar looking officer; Police Chief Officer Kang. Also known as Seulgi’s dad.

He marched into the ice cream shop until he made eye contact with me. Relaxing my previously tense stance I gently nudge Jeongguk and point over to where Mr Kang was standing as he spoke with the shop owner.

”What...” He whispered shocked as he took my hand forcibly.

”Taehyung, the police...” Jimin trailed off, he began sweating anxiously as the officer made his way towards our seats.

”Hello, are you students from-“

”Yes we are, we are out here with permission sir.” Yoongi cut off rather rudely.

”Well, good for you! Now, I need to know if Miss [Last Name] is he-! There you are, you’re needed in the police station now, please come with me.” He answered back rudely back, he never did enjoy taken bullshit from other people, I felt tears pool in my eyes in relief.

”What- why?” I asked faking shock.

”For the murder of your friend Sooyeong and the recent murder of a boy named Park Jisung”, he answered, “We were told you were close to both of them and you might be the clue to finding the murder of these two.”

”J-Jisung?”

“Yes please, follow me now” He took my hand from Jeongguk and pulled me out of the cage he and Yoongi had made and led me to the exit.

The words of protest were blocked from my ears as they seemed to be filled with blood, the thick liquid blocking all sound except the words forming in my head.

It’s your fault he’s dead.

The words kept repeating themselves as I boarded the car and I sat next to my friend Seulgi.

I stared at her through as tears kept falling and the imaginary blood in my ears kept rushing.

She said nothing as she too cried and held me in her arms tightly. Probably afraid of what was going on.

If only I knew it was because of the sick betrayal of our close friend.

”[Name] , I’ll be taking you to my house, Seulgi told me that the other girls were going to be there by the time we arrive; so please don’t worry...” Officer Kang spoke softly to us as he drove the black police car to his home.

——☽

As we drove through the town, I couldn’t shake the bitter feeling of regret of ever coming back here.

The pretty colors of the sunset that painted the windows and our sling in the car only added to the bitter feeling of helplessness and nostalgia that ate me away.

Seulgi, who was exhausted, had fallen asleep beside me and was now resting herself in my shoulder as I stared out the window.

Watching the commercial buildings turn into the neighborhoods, and the businessmen and women turn into gangs of kids playing games out with their families and pets, I couldn’t stop the hopeless wish that settled in of wanting to stop it all.

As we pulled into the driveway of Seulgi’s family home, I nudged her slightly for her to wake up.

“You need to explain everything, please.”

———☽

The dyed red-head made her way to the ice cream shop, only to find the people she had wished to find gone, sighing she fixed herself through the reflection of herself in the mirror; she didn’t look that bad for what she was about to do and had done.

She didn’t even feel guilty, she tricked her friends and? That didn’t mean she regretted her actions it was her survival over theirs. It was a selfish world they lived in.

”Irene! You’re here?” The red-headed laughed bitterly.

”Please, stop it... I can’t keep it up like this! They’re gonna end up dead!” Irene cried, tears falling.

“Tell me Irene, does it look like I care? I’m dead for all they know, and a dead girl can’t cause chaos.” Sooyoung asked.

”No, Joy, you aren’t dead but I sure wish you were....”

_____________ღ

“What?” Chaeyoung exclaimed, no one was ready for what Wendy and Seulgi had just said.

”Joy is alive?” Jennie asked confused as she leaned against the wall.

“Yeah, she’s probably working with the guys after [Name] too...” Wendy finished, she sighed.

”We should tell Seulgi’s dad...” Chaeyoung suggested, despite her shock she still was more useful than I could ever be.

”Yeah, then that’d rid Sooyeong and Irene, and with our witnesses they’ll at least put Sooyeong in jail” Seulgi agreed, I knew by the way she spoke that the idea pained her, it pained all of us. Irene and Joy, who would have thought?

”But then that leaves the boys....” Lisa brought up a very big point, the main point.

”I’ll deal with them”, I speak up suddenly, “It’s my fault, not yours, I-I know what I have to do just give me some time and things will go back to normal.”

”No”, Jennie sighed, “You won’t, that’s just fucking stu-“

”Let her”, Jisoo spoke up, “She’s- [Name], [Name] are you sure about this?”

Nodding I look at her as determinedly as I could, I could fix this.

“You won’t changer your mind will you?” Yeri laughed bitterly, I wouldn’t betray them.

I nodded again.

”It’s for the best” I said quietly, even if I was unsure I had put people in danger, I have been useless and I have only been an inconvenience, I wanted to do something, I needed to do something.

”But these boys, that we don’t even know, can do anything! What if you end up hurt? The what if’s are endless!” Jennie argued, she was blushing with anger, “We can’t just send you like that?”

“Jennie”, Jisoo hugged her tightly, “It’s our [Name], she won’t go down without a fight. I trust her and should you, all of us.”

”I can’t believe we’re agreeing to this...” Wendy said exasperated, tears bubbling under her eyes, I felt tears bubble in mine too as I looked at my friends.

“What are you going to do?” Yeri asked again, “Maybe we can come up with a middle ground.”

”I’ll give them what they want” I stated without budging.

”What?” Wendy shouted, jumping from the bed and slamming her hands on the bedside table.

”What’s so bad about that?” Chaeyoung asked, suddenly her eyes widened.

”She’s gonna give herself! That’s what she’s gonna give!”, Wendy raised her voice.

”What?” Jisoo exclaimed, eyes widening.

”You can’t do that!” Turning around, Lisa began hyperventilating.

”You-“

The girls began acting up, begging me to change my mind, but I wouldn’t. All of this was happening because of me, and if I could stop it then I fucking would.

”You’re gonna do wha-?”

“You stupid bi- you’re gonna give yourself like that?”

”Gosh, you-you’re really stupid aren’t you? How are you even going to do that?”

“By walking out the door, duh?”

———☽

They locked me in the bathroom.

I was locked in the bathroom, sitting in the bathtub and silently singing nursery rhymes as I waited until they finished telling Mr Kang the truth.

I was indeed very stupid.

Silently running the plan through my head, I lean against my knees and pray that their intentions aren’t bad. That if I do end up going with them that I won’t end up dead in a ditch. But it was indeed better than having my friends dead.

Leaning against the bathtub, I close my eyes and let myself sleep for a while. Numbing myself to the surrounding world. I hadn’t been able to really have a peaceful time since coming back to this damned town.

As I stay there, nightmares and never ending thoughts began plaguing my mind.

What if I jump out of the window, make my way to Kook’s house and let him kidnap me. No one will miss me anyway, plus I’m the reason why all of this is happening. The reason Sooyeong faked her death, killed her sister and mother and betrayed us. I’m the reason Mark’s dead, Nayeon, the rest. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t deserve to be here. I don’t deserve to be alive now.

Tears began slipping out of my eyes, as the thoughts began multiplying and breathing became hard. Shaking harshly from the mere memory of the news articles declaring my friends deaths; knowing that somehow I had caused them.

I lost track of time. I couldn’t stop shaking and crying as blame and guilt began consuming me.

All my senses began failing me.

I couldn’t hear, I couldn’t see, I couldn’t touch and I couldn’t speak.

A feeling of numbness began biting at my ribs, leaving trails of pain as it made its way up my head until I was left with a pounding headache. My cheeks felt cold as the tears ran across them, broken sobs that overtook the sound of footsteps and bodies falling.

I couldn’t think, I couldn’t hear, I couldn’t understand and I couldn’t feel.

”Please, anyone, save me”

The door burst open, and I let out a scream.

———☽

[3rd Point of View]

The blood from the bunch of young women laid over the house as Sooyeong stood panting.

“I-I did it....” She whispered softly.

Laying down, she waited for her captors to come over and finish the job. Laughing lightly she looked over to her presumably dead, older friend, Irene.

”Onnie, we’ll meet in hell, haha, just like Jennie said!” She laughed full of delusions.

As she rested on her back, she tilted her head to see all her friends, gone.

“If only...”, she whispered, “If only I was allowed to kill her too, then we’d be together forever...”

Smiling, she let bitter tears run down her cheek.

“I can’t believe I’m fucking dying full of regrets, haha, fantastic!” She turned around in the bloodied floor, she noticed her sides were all red and sticky.

”Ugh, didn’t Officer Kang keep cigars?” She muttered, as she pulled herself upwards.

Stumbling into her dead friend’s father office, she made her way to the ‘empty’ liquor cabinet, the one Seulgi so many times defended and said was filled with juice and snacks. There sat stacks of Marlboro and heavy liquor. Opening a random packet she took a cigarette and slowly lit it, placing it between her lips. Taking a heavy breath she let out a dull huff.

Laying against the table, she counted the minutes until her death.

Still with her cigarette, she made her way to the bathroom, sitting against the door she knocked softly.

”Guys?”, she heard her friends voice, ex-friend, she reminded herself bitterly, I sold them away.

With a clear idea of who was in the bathroom, Joy began to speak.

”You know, I always told myself that if any of my family members or friends were to get in a life or death I would put myself after them and take the bullet. But, ha, now that it really happened, I killed my fucking parents and sister, sold you lot to them and signed my own fucking death note and now, they’re gonna take you away! Priceless!”, she laughed, “Fucking priceless, I promised myself that I wouldn’t die full of sin or regret but look at me now, keeping you busy while they kill your family! They’ll come by any minute and kill me, bet you they’ll do it quick. That way they’ll take you away faster, you’ll live like a princess [Name], ahhh, how much I wished I was you right now. Seven hot dudes killing for me, I’d die for that...”

A muffled voice could be heard, and loud banging against the door.

“Joy?”

She ignored her.

“Tell me, [Name], should I let myself be killed or should I kill myself?”

”Where are the others? Joy!”

”Oh, the girls?”, Sooyeong asked as she took another swing, “They’re dead. I killed them, anyway, what should I do?”

The girl inside the bathroom finally was able to hear it all, all at once it hit her, her senses overwhelmed her, and so she cried, punched and kicked, she let the inner turmoil inside of her manifest itself into the surface.

”Let me out you psycho!” Never once did [name] question if that was Joy.

”Sweetie”, Joy laughed, “I’m not half as bad as them!”

”Who? Who dammit?” The younger girl cried in frustration.

”BTS”, Sooyeong accentuated every letter, “Your secret lovers!”

”Wha-“

A loud bang into the door and several footsteps were heard from the floor below the two females.

“They’re here, fuck them, I’ll do it myself” Sooyeong muttered to herself.

Standing up, she opened the lock to the bathroom door, however she didn’t open the door; yet.

Heart racing, she took the gun that was situated next to Jennie’s body, they were getting close. She could tell due to the increasing volume of the chatter, the sound of footsteps and the smell of rotten seven little pigs who will all burn in hell.

Hastily she made her way to the bathroom and opened the door to revel a petrified [Name], tears streaming down her face as she looked at her demented friend.

They were now outside the door.

“Bye bye, bitch. Remember that I love you and I will save you”

Joy leaned the gun against her chest and shot her herself.

Blood spilled everywhere as her falling body made way to the most agonizing and traumatic sight.

Seulgi’s room was littered with her friends dead bodies, including Seulgi’s parents. The walls showed claw marks, blood splattered against the walls and organs spilled on the floor.

Gagging, [Name] cried louder than before, sobs echoing on the almost empty house.

A rush of footsteps and angry mutters made their way outside the bathroom door before five male figures appeared on the doorway.

“[Name]!”

____________ღ

With wide eyes I look up and find Jeongguk and his ‘gang’, people I know now to refer to as Bts.

After hearing what Joy had said before shooting herself, I couldn’t help the fear that ran through my veins as I saw five of the seven males, where were the other two? What had happened?

”Get away from me!” I shouted at them and pressed myself into the wall, Jimins’ sweater and my skirt were now soaking wet from the leftover water, my socks were drenched, but I didn’t care, I needed distance right now.

“What?” Jeongguk asked flabbergasted, he stepped forward but I let out a scream to show I was not having it.

”I said what I said! Get away from me, you freaks!” I screamed, now with anger replacing the fear. These men ruined my life in just a few days, in just a few hours they took almost everything I had away from me, I only had my family left now and even then I wasn’t sure about that.

”I- we’re here to rescue you!”, Taehyung said as he approached me slowly, he pushed Jeongguk slightly to the side as he opened his arms.

”No! Joy told me everything, she said that you made her kill the girls and that this bullshit, yeah this fucking bullshit, that it’s all your fault!” I screamed at them, I motioned to the room as tears hot ran down my face.

”She did what?” Namjoon asked as he pushed Taehyung and Jeongguk away and walked over to me.

Peering over the bathtub, he gently took my hand.

”Baby, how do you know she wasn’t lying? Huh, she faked her death, killed her friends and family, how do you know she wasn’t lying to you again?” He whispered softly, he took my hand and rubbed circles against my palm.

”Because I know her-” I tried arguing with him but my mind was shutting itself off.

”Mhm?” He asked softly as he helped me stand up and exit the tub, I began shivering as I looked over to see the body of my friends, the people who had only tried to help me, looking so damn dead.

”She said you killed my family and that you were going to come over and take me away, I trust her more than I’d ever trust you.” I trailed off, my feet wobbled as my legs gave out due to the sight in front of me, I was about to puke.

”Really now?” He questioned as he took my legs and carried me bridal style, he took me and the four other boys away from the bathroom, he looked down at said girls body and silently motioned Yoongi, “Do you think we killed your family? That Kookie did?”

At the mention of his name, Jeongguk came over and kissed my cheek as Namjoon held onto my now shaking body.

“No, Kookie wouldn’t... right?” I questioned myself softly as I began questioning myself.

”No, bunny!” He lied, he was lying! Joy would never lie.

”See?”, Namjoon asked, “he wouldn’t lie to you, we wouldn’t lie to you, on the other hand your friends over there did. Irene knew about Joy, she even helped her. So how do you know the others weren’t in on it?”

”How do you kn-“

”Irene came to me about it, after she got injured, she told me she knew all about Joy and her plan, that’s why we went over to your house to be sure you were okay, thank god you weren’t there because a fire started all over the neighborhood, seven or so houses caught on fire,” Namjoon continued on speaking.

”Sweetheart, I’m sorry but we weren’t able to get your family out on time at all.” Jimin added on as he opened the front door.

”What-?” My family… was gone?

Why did it make sense?

”Mhm, we think it was Joy who did it too, I mean she already killed at least twelve people, what are three more?” Namjoon continued on talking, I shook at what he said.

“Hey, Namjoon help me ove-“ I heard a voice speak, but I couldn’t pinpoint whose voice it was, being too concerned about what Namjoon was talking about, he did sound familiar though.

“Jin, say hi to [Name] over here, she’s currently very scared,  but we’ll fix that, won’t we?” Jimin told the owner of the unknown voice, he sounded happy.

“Aww, is she? Are you sad? Don’t worry, we’ll be taking you to a beautiful vacation in a few hours so don’t worry, you’ll be safe soon.” Jin awed, he pinched my cheek it hurt but I couldn’t bring myself to show any sort of reaction .

Too tired to question what was really happening, I let them take me to the black van parked outside of Seulgi’s family home. I didn’t have it in me to fight, I wasn’t like my friends; I was alive and they were dead now, there was no use comparing us. As we walked, I couldn’t help but notice the strong smell that began floating in the air, were they pouring gas all over the house?

Why wasn’t I fighting? Was I that weak?

As Jeongguk opened the door to the van, I couldn’t help but notice how a few of my bags from back home littered the van.

”Why do you have my bags?” I asked with a monotone, soft voice I could barely talk.

”Ah, that was me, your parents had been noticing how you had been feeling off, so I had taken out your bags to go over to my house earlier that day,” Jeongguk explained, he talked too fast though, maybe he was lying but I couldn’t find it in me to care..

“Ah, okay.” I truly didn’t understand the logic behind that explanation but I was too tired to try to question them further, I was too numb.

Letting them pile inside the car, I lean against Jeongguk and slowly let myself succumb to sleep.

“Ah, Jin we didn’t need ropes or drug, I told you so.” Namjoon whispered.

”Hey, Namjoon, where are we going at the end?” Taehyung asked as he caressed my face.

”Far away, Tae, really far away”, Namjoon responded mindlessly, “So far away that people will forget we even existed here...”

————☽

Waking up by suddenly being picked up by someone, I peel my eyes open.

“What the-” I was about to complain when I began panicking.

”Oh! You’re awake?” I heard a voice I didn’t recognize ask, who was he?!

Looking up, I see a rather attractive male with noticeable folded ears smile down at me.

“Who are you?”, I whisper-shout at the unknown male, “And where the- where are you taking me! Put me down, sir! This is borderline kidnapping, that’s what this is! Let me down or I am calling the police, I am going to shout, I swear it! My best friend’s father is a police officer damn you!”

All the unknown boy do was smile down at me and hugged me tighter to his chest.

“Stop it this instant! Do not cuddle me! Who do you think you are?” I continue to toss and shriek.

“Haha, cute.” Was his only answer, this fucking bastard!

“I am not cute-“ Stopping suddenly as I feel the man going up stairs, I panic, “Where are we going?”, I ask less loudly, I then realized I had let the boy take me to who knows where, “You haven’t answered me yet.”

”Oh, we’re boarding a plane.” He smiled and continued walking forward.

”What the- No we are not! You are boarding a plane, and you are forcing me to board it with you! Who- I am so telling on you to the police!” I shout at him.

Suddenly arriving at the top of the airplane stairs, the man carrying me puts me down and opened the entrance to the plane.

Pushing me slightly inside, I meet with the gaze with five familiar males. Memories of earlier this day rushed into my brain.

“Y-you!”, I look at Namjoon, “You sweet talking mother fucker! Let me go, now!”

As if he’d gotten hit, he flinched and looked at me hurt.

“What are you talking about? I didn’t do any-“

”My ass! Go suck my spiritual dick you little fucker! You fucking drove Sooyeong insane, you killed my family with a fucking house fire you little dick!“

”We did not kill your family it was a house fire-“ Namjoon tried to explain to me as he stood up.

”God you must really like my ass, it’s impossible! We had the wires in the whole mother fucking neighborhood checked less than two weeks ago, so unless someone like you fucking tampered with the wire there is no reason for that fire! Do you really think I wouldn’t know my best friend? Sooyeong couldn’t even get the goddamn wifi working without five fucking youtube videos and her dad!”

”You do have a good ass.” I heard Yoongi remark, I flipped him off as I continue screaming at Namjoon.

“And we didn’t do it why would you think-“

”Because everytime you kill you make a fire to burn all the evidence, you dumbass! At least get creative and do something new! Don’t serial killers enjoy being different and unique and quirky or some shit?”

”How do you know?” Jimin asked slightly alarmed, the tension went from me being a little bitch to them all being in high alert.

“Do you think I’m that dumb to not notice how every boy and girl I’ve ever gotten close with dies? Look, I didn’t go around announcing it like-like it was something I was proud of it, but does that mean I wasn’t slightly suspicious? Like, dude, any boy I went three meters next to dropped dead, man. Like, that shit ain’t normal.” I asked dumbfounded, sure I wasn’t smart like Yeri or Seulgi but I wasn’t dumb either.

”Shit, if you realized than-“

”Ha, but don’t worry because you murdered the head officer in your case! He was going to announce it in a meeting in a few days or whatever but oh so lucky you! He’s fucking dead and in ashes because you idiots couldn’t think of anything better!” Maybe I’m being unreasonable, I’m fucking fighting with the murderers of my friends and family but I’m not afraid not anymore at least.

”You don’t understand! We did because-“ Jimin began trying to explain.

”We love you!”, Taehyung finished, “We love you so much-“

”Well, I hate you!”, I shouted at him, “You lot ruined so many lives, including mine! How the bloody hell am I meant to return feelings for su-“

”Wowowow, sweetie hate is a strong word, maybe you could say slightly displeased.” Namjoon remarked calmly as he walked over to Jeongguk and Jimin who were now in border line tears.

“Well, I have a strong hatred towards you!”

”Hmm? What’s with all the noise-! Hey, princess, you’re awake! Good, come on, sit over here.” A handsome male came over to me, taking my hand and leading me to a plush chair.

”Awww, you’re crying? Come here”, he took my head into his chest, “Don’t worry, I’m here, shhh, what did these awful, dirty, stupid, morons do? Come on tell Jinnie.”

I hadn’t realized I had been crying until he had remarked it, man, I really did cry a lot.

”T-they hurt me and my-“, I choked out.

”They what?” He spat as he slowly and gently sat me in his lap, re-taking my head into his chest not allowing me to look.

”N-no, they- they, I’m scared,” I cried into his shirt, “Please help, Jinnie”

I had no idea what his name was, was this that Jin dude, I could only blindly guide myself from what he had called himself.

”Y-you’re scared of what?” I heard him ask flustered, flustered by what? I had no idea who this man was or his name and he really isn’t leaving me with the best impression.

Pushing my head off his shirt I met his familiar looking eyes.

“T-them....”

”Awww, princess, don’t worry! They won’t hurt you, they’re with me. We’re trying to protect you, baby.” He smiled.

“F-from what? You’re the ones hurting people. I asked, all the changes in my mood began making me tired. I couldn’t think properly anymore.

”Shhh, babe, have we hurt you?”

”N-no?”

”Then, are we really the bad people?”

”I-I don’t know? Yes?” I answered as my voice broke in confusion, they were bad people. Why couldn’t I say so? Why were they so kind? Weren’t they the ones that were trying to hurt me? They killed everyone, right? But then, they seem kind so how would they do it? Maybe, it wasn’t them?

”Namjoonie, come here, tell our princess here that we aren’t trying to hurt her.” Jinnie motioned Namjoonie to come. No, Namjoon, he doesn’t deserve an affectionate nickname.

”Hey, babe, look up at me. We won’t hurt you, we’re saving you from the bad people like Sooyeong. You know, the girl who killed your friends and her family?” Namjoonie said.

No he isn’t Namjoonie.

”Why would I lie to you, hmm? Jinnie, Kookie, Jiminie, Yoongs, Taehyungie, Hoseokie and me wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Y-you wouldn’t?” I asked, suddenly everything was getting number and number.

The air smelled sweeter, my vision was hazy, I couldn’t think properly. I felt giggly. Suddenly, Jinnie seemed like the comfiest surface in the world so I threw myself into his chest, giggling.

”Ahh, p-princess, you’re making me blush!”, Jinnie laughed.

“I’ll tell the pilots to start since someone is too busy.” I heard Kookie say.

Hearing him stand up and leave the room, I lean against Jinnie further.

————☽

By the time I as suddenly woken up, I still felt slightly giggly from whatever had happened earlier. A sudden weight had been added into my chest and stomach making me open my eyes and look down at the male on top of me.

”Hi, umm, who are you?” I asked him.

“Your Jinnie,”

“No, I mean who are you?”

”Hey, babe. I- do you really not remember me?”, ‘Jinnie’ asked suddenly.

Looking down at him in sudden confusion I shake my head no.

”Ahh, such a pity.... I do, you know, remember you.” He said as he leaned further against my chest, “I remember meeting you the first time like it was yesterday, it’s engraved into my mind. Sometimes, I have dreams about the day I met you, about how I could have acted to make you mine. Yet I didn’t do that. Those dreams made me act like this, those dreams helped make my mind clear; that I needed to protect you from the bad people. Not like I don’t always dream of you. Every dream I’ve had since I met you is about you. Innocent and not. Dreams about what I could do to you, how I could claim you as mine and lock you up in a castle and protect you from there. God, the thought that you don’t remember me makes me so fucking sad you have no idea yet knowing that I can restart with you is almost like a blessing.”

He looked out the window as did I. As I looked out I noticed how dark it was, and how the stars seemed to make the sea shine brighter.

“I’m- I’m Kim Seokjin, I’m currently twenty-two and I’m taking you, [Last Name] [Full Name] being now seventeen years of age, to the farthest place I can find. It’s a pretty island that I bought a few years ago, in that little big island I made a whole village for you and the rest of the guys. There we’ll have everything, and when we run out; I can always buy more. I can run my business from there, that way we won’t ever run out of money and if you ever want to leave I’ll be able to take you away to anywhere...” He introduced himself smiling softly.

”Seokjin... like the Kim Seokjin from camp?” I asked suddenly.

”Wait you remembered?” He asked in shock, his eyes sparkled with hope.

”W-well not one hundred percent but I think I do?”, I answer in quite a bit of a shock myself, “You bought an island and built a village for me? You have to be kidding, there is no way you-“

”Well, my family owned it anyway but I bought it from my parents; it was practically a gift from them.” He answered.

”But still! You’re insane, who the hell spends that much money on a crush?”

”You are not a crush, [Name].” He laughed, “I love you! For god’s sake I made a whole little village for you!”

”G-god, you’re insane!” I freaked out, the effects of earlier gone.

A dulling look came over his eyes suddenly when I spoke those words.

”Princess, look, I have done way worse shit than buying and building a goddamn village for you. If you needed I’d start a war for you. So do what you do best, and be a good girl for Jinnie, okay? No cussing, no acting out of line, drinking all of the juice and no calling me a freak.” He whispered against my ear.

”What’s wrong with you!” I shouted at him.

Suddenly I heard shuffling from the seat behind me, and the boy that had carried me earlier popped up.

“Good night, what happened darling? Did the serum ware off?” He asked, he seemed tired yet he still smiled, he was wearing a beanie that made his ears pop out even more.

”Yes, it did, Hoseok could you please bring in some more.” Jin asked Hoseok.

“Jung Hoseok? Like star dancer Jung Hoseok?”

He didn’t respond as he fiddled with a bottle until he sat down at the seat next to mine with a little silk piece.

“The one and only, pumpkin, now close your eyes and you’ll feel happy again! You want that right? When you start behaving nicely as you do with this we’ll stop dozing you! Okay? So be good for me, please?”

He gently brought the silk next to my nose and I felt myself go into complete darkness, the same sweet air in my lungs again without me wanting it to.

____________ღ

A string of light coming from the barley opened curtains, followed by the sound of waves crashing against the sand happened to be the reason I woke up today.

Opening my eyes slightly thinking, hoping, that I’d wake up to find myself in my room. But I wasn’t. This wasn’t my room and most definitely not my house.

With fully open eyes, sit up in the comfy bed I happened to be laying in. White, silky sheets with beautiful lace designs, and pillows that smelled wonderful. The bed wasn’t the only dead giveaway that I wasn’t home, other than the rather obnoxious sound of tropical birds and the sea, the room was too.

The spacious room was adorned with clean, grey, stone walls. Walls that were gracefully decorated with minimalist paintings and photos of me and seven men I didn’t know, upon further inspection I saw a picture of what’s supposed to be the night sky the day I was born. A white desk sat in the corner of the wall in front of me, a desk filled with gifts.

At both sides of the bed, there were bedside tables made of glass and black wood. On top of them, each had a lamp and a picture frame of what appeared to be the sea, in one sat a remote control, a small white box and a ring box. In the other, sat a bunch of my trinkets from back home.

The room had a black, clean and shining marble floor, and in some areas had fluffy rugs like beneath the desk and a round glass table, with a rather beautiful flower arrangement, that was placed in the corner, next to the window, it seemed to take a good fourth of the wall.

Looking around once more I saw what I assumed was a closet and bathroom. Both of which, by the looks of it, seemed to be overly spacious.

Standing up from the bed, I looked down to find myself in a white, silk nightgown, quite similar to the fabric of the sheets.

Expecting cold from the marble floor, I was astonished to find that the floor was actually rather warm.

Now as I stood in the middle of the room, I realized how big it really was.

“God, it’s like, three times my old bedroom...” I trailed off.

Remembering the box that lies next to my bed, I rushed over to the bedside and rushed to open the package. Inside was a brand new phone, black and cold to the touch.

”What the-“ Turning around I run to the desk only to find it full of designer branded bags and boxes.

From Gucci to Louis Vuitton, my mouth fell agape at how much all of this must’ve cost. Not only the gifts, but the television, phone, computer and this very same room must have cost a fortune.

“Who the heck has that much money?” I ask myself quietly as I sit down on the desk chair.

A sudden curiosity came over me as I stood up and made my way to what I assumed must have been the closet. Pushing the black door I’m met with a closet as big as my room back home, filled with expensive looking clothes and shoes. Jewelry was stored in glass cases, the light casted a glittering shine to the diamonds and pearls, and a vanity sat in the far back, also filled with makeup. The walls were of black marble, they seemed to hold a certain shine to them that was only noticeable thanks to the beautiful and large glass chandelier that laid on top of the jewelry case.

As I walk inside what’s basically Narnia, I hear the door to the room open as a pretty looking girl looks at me and squeaks.

”Oh! Miss Kim, I thought you wouldn’t wake up ‘till later! Well then, I guess I’ll help you earlier than I thought!” She exclaimed happily, her smile was wide as she spoke.

“Miss Kim?” I asked her as she gently pushed me inside and sat me down in the black velvet chair.

”Yes! I’m one of the maids that are meant to help you when you’re with Mr Kim, other times I guess you’ll get called depending on which Mr your with! Honestly, I think you look cuter with Mr Seokjin!” She giggled as she began combing my hair, she was soft and careful as she brushed my hair

”Hmm, ah! I know, how about a dress? Yes! They said that they would appreciate if you could wear a dress today! It’s hot, so how about a sundress? A strapless one could do, you do have a pretty skin color so I guess a black one could work!” She chanted to herself.

”Okay, go take a long, nice shower and I’ll help you once you get out. Now go, go, trust good ol’ Chuu!” She laughed.

Standing up, she led me to the bathroom and directed me where everything was. She then left me do wash myself.

“Love, take as long as you want but do keep in mind Misters have been waiting for you since you’ve arrived!”

And so I washed myself. I tried to use the best smelling soap and shampoo I could find, to then using the best smelling perfume once I was done. Sighing at how good it felt to be clean, especially after all the mess from earlier, I take a look at the redness of my eyes and puffiness of my cheeks.

I hadn’t realized how long I had taken, but it seems that long enough for Chuu, or Jiwoo as she had also introduced herself as, to pick a black summer dress, shoes and beautiful makeup.

Giving me the dress, I change as fast as I could to let Jiwoo do her magic, maybe she’d take long enough to take my mind off things.

By the time I was ready, I still remembered all that had happened and Jiwoo had left me in the room, telling me another girl would come and pick me up to take me to eat.

So now, I was sitting in this foreign room waiting for god knows what.

———☽

”Hey, [Name]?” I heard Taehyung ask me as he gently nudged me.

”N-no...” I groaned as I covered my face with the silk.

“Yes, princess, c’mon, if you don’t want to walk I’ll take you by force!” He laughs as he lifts me up.

”No.” I groan as I turn around, causing him to almost drop me.

”Shit! [Name], we’re leaving to eat, now.” He scolds as he looks at his watch, he then takes my hand and exits the room.

I get dragged in silence through the modern and yet old looking house until we exit the building and enter the garden.

“Do you like it?” Taehyung asked suddenly.

”Like what?”

”The island?”

”I haven’t seen it much, but it doesn’t seem bad. But I’d rather be home with my family, not, you know, being kidnapped and living with a bunch of stalkers, it’d also be nice to you know, know whats happening? And like, be home and safe?“

”We aren’t stalkers, [Name], we’re just doing something important; taking care of you, plus, your family is dead.”

Staying in silence, I keep trying to ignore the fact my family was fucking dead and that maybe two of my friends turned out to be murderers.

Was Jiwoo into this too? She seemed to be so kind but then again, Joy did too...

Suddenly being pulled down, Taehyung took my hand and led me into a fancy looking greenhouse in the middle of the garden.

“Why are we here?” I asked him as he hummed a melody as we walked through arrangements of different flowers and exotic looking plants.

”To eat, silly!” He laughed, he squeezed my hand as he led me faster.

Once we reached the section filled with my favorite flowers, I began hearing chatter and the sound of plates being served. The voices grew louder the deeper we walked into the [Favorite Flower] filled space.

“Hey, princess, did Jiwoo give you you’re medicine?” Taehyung asked as we made our way.

“N-no?”

”Ahhh, we’ll need to talk to her then, but don’t worry! I’ll give it to you here!” Taehyung smiles down at me.

Even though there was nothing scary about Taehyung, his way bigger frame than mine and the smile that was etched into his face whenever he saw me definitely began creeping me out enough, as if he being my stalker and killing my family wasn’t enough reasons to be wary of him.

He stopped when we were met with a glass room that was seemingly placed in the middle of the greenhouse, he knocked on the door and let go of my hand, placing me in front of him.

The chatter died down as a maid opened the door and we were revealed six males and a few maids, who were standing to the sides. The men were sitting around an organized and pretty wooden table that was filled with delicious looking foods.

”[Name]!” I heard Jeongguk exclaimed as he stood up and made his way to us.

”God...”, I heard Jimin sigh, “Pretty....”

”Please sit down, over here.” Yoongi motioned to the end seat next to him and Seokjin in the head of the table in their end.

Jeongguk took my hand and led me to the seat as Seokjin took out the chair for me to sit. By the time I was sat down, the majority of the boys had already engaged themselves into conversation leaving me to myself when suddenly Yoongi began talking to me and Seokjin.

”So, kitten, how much do you really know about us?” Yoongi asked me, I suddenly remember his comment about my ass and blush slightly as he smirked.

Blushing even more at the nickname, I look back at him and shrugged slightly.

”Gosh, you’re so cute!” Seokjin gushed as he squished my cheek.

”I-I guess, not much... I mean, what I knew were only theories made by my friends...” I spoke quietly as I swatted Seokjin’s hand.

”And what did they come up with?” Yoongi asked, as he took my hand and gently caressed it.

”That you were the ones that wrote the letters....” I spoke in whispers through gritted teeth, I try and pry my hands away.

“Ah, so smart!”, Seokjin laughed, “Who was who?”

Both of them looked at me filled with curiosity.

“I think that you”, I pointed at Yoongi and Seokjin, “are Suga and Jin, and that him and him”, I pointed at Jeongguk and Jimin,” Are Cocky and Chimmy respectively”

I looked at the rest of the boys quickly. Out of the seven, I properly had interacted with all but Hoseok and knew little to nothing about Taehyung, Jimin, Yoongi and Namjoon

“You’re right!”, Seokjin laughed along with Yoongi, “Who else?”

”Ahhh, Hoseok he’s hope? And that Taehyung is V? And so that leaves Namjoon as RM...”, I trailed as a girl with a name tag that read ‘Heejin’ served my food.

”Ah, thank you! Miss... Heejin!” I thanked her brightly, or as brightly as I could.

“Hey, princess, look at us....” Yoongi pouted at me.

Blushing even more, I nod quietly, not wanting to anger any of them.

”You haven’t taken your medicine, have you?” Seokjin asked, causing Taehyung to look up from his conversation with Jimin.

”Yeah, she hasn’t taken it yet!”, Taehyung exclaimed.

”But she’s behaving so well!” Hoseok gushed.

”Yeah, but we don’t want that to changes do we?” Namjoon laughed as he took a little flask from his suit.

They passed it down until it reached Seokjin, who took the baby blue flask and looked me in the eye.

”Princess, how do you want to take it? From the bottle or with your juice?” He asked me.

”I-I don’t know-“ I stuttered as I blushed from the attention, was I child to them? Was this a game? I was a year from being a legal adult!

And how could I be so fucking weak?

”She doesn’t know, our baby doesn’t know!” Jimin awed as he sighed into his chair.

”So cute!” Taehyung agreed with his older friend.

”For fucks sake, I love her...” Jeongguk mutters with wide eyes.

What the hell is wrong with them?

”Want to take it from the bottle for us?” Namjoon asked as he fiddled with his tie, a pink blush taking over his cheeks.

”I-I guess?” I answered confused.

I took the bottle out of Seokjin’s hand a quickly chugged it down.

Tastes like the alcohol we’d sneak out of Jeongguk’s dad’s alcohol stash.

”Princess took it so well!” Taehyung clapped.

”Yes she did!” Jimin cheered as he leaned against his palm creepily.

As the other boys began talking with each other again and their attention drifted off of me I waited until only Seokjin and Yoongi were still quiet.

”Hey, what is it that you made me drink?” I asked Seokjin, I picked at his ring hoping to catch his attention.

”Ahh, just a little something to make you behave properly.” Seokjin assured me, he took my hand and kissed before setting it down next to the plate

”How?” I pressed him slightly.

”This makes you behave better, it makes you more well behaved for us, it’ll help you learn how to behave.” Seokjin tried to clear it out for me.

“Bu-“

”Look, darling, you’re done! You ate so well! Hmm, how about you leave with me now!” Jimin suddenly spoke up.

”Wh-” I had barely eaten, I hadn’t even touched the soup and I was starving.

”It’s my day today and tomorrow! Then again, I don’t remember anymore but dates aren’t important. So, let’s go!” Jimin pressed on as he helped me stand up and began dragging me out of the room against the judgment of the other boys. He quickly ran out and picked me up, now I truly couldn’t leave. I was getting tired and giddy by the minute.

“Let’s change clothes together!” Jimin suggested as he ran with me into the house.

———☽

Jimin took changing together quite literally. He brought his clothes to the closet, but instead of using my brain I let him.

The weird liquid they constantly fed me seemed to take effect quickly as I began giggling at every action Jimin did.

By the time we were done changing, we were both wearing matching outfits consisting of orange and navy blues striped oversized sweaters and light blue shorts, with white sneakers and socks.

”You look so cute!” Jimin squealed as he hugged me tight.

”Ha! Thanks Jiminie!” I laughed.

”Where do you want to go?” Jimin asked me as he took my hand and led me outside the other side of the house.

“I don’t know... let’s see a movie!” I suggested, not remembering that we were in the middle of an island the possibility of actually there being a cinema were scarce.

”Yeah, let’s go! In the village there is a movie place-“

”How?” I asked him as he took me down a path as we seemed to be walking down a hill.

”Jin’s family built a village here for their special workers, originally that is, so they could come over to have vacations and not risk having anything happen to them, they still sometimes come but not as often as a bunch of those special workers got ‘scared off by the bad vibes’ over here, as if....”

”So it’s haunted?”

”Nah, it was us trying to get them to leave so we could get this island for you! It was around the time you left, so we had a ton of time to make this place special!” Jimin recalled.

”Ahh, but how did you know I’d come back?” My eyes were dropping slightly, I was beginning to feel number and number.

”You’re very special to us, darling, there is no way in hell we’d let you leave us.” Jimin spoke seriously.

”Really?” I asked him in slight shock.

”Mhm, I mean, at least I do. I dunno about the others but I’m pretty sure I love you!” He spoke softly as we arrived at a town-ish little place.

There were a few people, people that looked very important and rich walking around. People that didn’t seem to like us, why?

”Let’s go, it’s over there!”, Jimin seemed to read my mind when he pulled me toward the cinema, “Let’s watch your favorite one!”

What Jimin had led me wasn’t exactly what you would’ve imagined. But it certainly was a cinema, black background and red velvet, cushioned seats. It was extremely modern in comparison to what I had childishly imagined.

As the movie played on, I couldn’t concentrate on it. Maybe it was because I had seen it over ten times or maybe it was because of Jimin sitting on my lap and cuddling me. No, it was because the drug was warring off, maybe they underestimated my tolerance to the drug. The more minutes passed the more conscious I was about the whole ordeal that had happened in the last forty hours. The death of my whole family, the death of my friends and their families, my kidnapping; everything.

Suddenly I began hearing the soft snores Jimin made while he slept. I looked down at him. One of my tormentors. One of the reasons everything I loved was gone. The more I looked at him, the more I wanted him dead. Frustration that had been built since I moved back into that god damned town was falling over me.

I was crying, I realized when a few tears had fallen into Jimin’s face. I watched as he moved a bit in his sleep as he smiled, muttering my name sometimes or even laughing.

Bastard.

In that moment I realized that if someone didn’t enter that cinema in the next few minutes I would murder that man. I would choke him to death. Scream at him how much I hated him.

It seems someone heard me as two males, followed by two females, came into the cinema.

“[Name]! Are you crying? Are you okay?” I heard Jeongguk exclaim as he ran towards me.

He growled at Jimin as he woke up from his nap in my lap.

”Wh-“

”Why is [Name] crying, Jimin?” Taehyung asked him seriously.

”Wh-“ I pushed Jimin off me, cutting him before he could even start.

I brushed my clothes off, in hopes of brushing him off me too.

“Because I fucking hate you lot, that’s why. What is wrong with you? You keep drugging me all the damn time and expect me to be cool with it? You fucking ruin my life in a few hours and think I’m going to be all lovey-dovey with you? You little fuckers, you all ruined my life!”

I straightened my posture and walked out of the building. I ignored as Jimin and Jeongguk broke down crying, I ignored Taehyung as he screamed at me to come back.

”What? Ha, as if I cared!” Taehyung shouted at me before he quickly realized what he had said, “Dammit!” He cried again.

”Bunny, come back!”, Jeongguk cried softly as he tried chasing me slowly.

”Fuck off.” I responded tired, “You really think that some random ass drug is going to make me be okay with you lot taking me for hostage or some shit?”

We walked out of the cinema.

”It’s not like that!” Jeongguk exclaimed, he was getting more and more frustrated as I spoke. “They love you, we love you! I love you dammit!”

”Love? You sickos call this bullshit love? You need medical help, Jeongguk. Cut it with your bullshit, are you really that desperate that you’re gonna up front kidnap me? And on top of that fuckery, you expect me to be in love with you? Like hell I will! I despise you, Jeongguk, I have despised you since I came back home. You were nothing but the biggest dick ever to me and then you pull up this bullshit? ‘I love you’ you say, bull-fucking-shit I say.” Pushing him as I walk towards the house, I look back at him. “You are so full of yourself it’s disgusting.”

Looking at me in shock, Jeongguk then straightened himself up and began making his way faster towards me. I couldn’t see his eyes as he walked with his head bowed down, yet I didn’t want to see his eyes.

”Look, bunny, I wanted to behave. I really fucking did, but this behavior of yours it’s not up to my standards,” he gripped my wrist suddenly, “and I call bullshit to it. You see, bunny, I behaved like a good little bunny boy because you liked me like that didn’t you? You wanted me to be your Jeongguk, and so I did because that way you’d be mine, right?  But it seems like you think you’re in control, that you don’t belong to me, and let me tell you sweetheart, I don’t like it when people take control. You promised me we would get married, you promised me you’d love me, that we’d be together forever, all if I was your little good bunny. And I did. But you, you didn’t keep your part of the promise, you weren’t a good owner. No, no, you went out there and caught others hearts and then moved out of town, you left your bunny alone with these impostors. I didn’t like it, I did not like it at all, and I’m making sure no one takes my owner away now, even if I have to make you my bunny.”

”What?” I asked in a whisper, yet he ignored me and continued on rambling.

”I’ll put a pretty little collar on your neck if you even think of running away, but you won’t, right bunny? You’ll be here with me, and you’ll help me kill them off. All of them.” He laughed as he began leading me inside the house, to his room.

“Ki-kill them?”

”Yeah, they’ve made your life a hell, Hoseok killed Mark, Namjoon spread rumors of you, Seokjin has poisoned you before, Jimin broke into your house a bunch of time with Tae, Tae stalked you and taken suggestive pictures of you and Yoongi, he started the fire.” He smiled evilly as he caresses my cheeks.

”B-but...”

”See bunny? You can’t trust anyone here, not even me, but unlike them I’m willing to do anything, within reason, to redeem myself to you, but no letting you leave, sadly.” Jeongguk then began kissing my hand and talking, “So, will you let me be your bunny? I’ll do anything you ask of me, I’ll be your servant. I promise you that you won’t regret it, just let me be your bunny again.” He pouted as he looked up and left one last kiss on me knuckles.

He then threw me on the bed and rested himself on my chest as he looked up.

”I’ll do anything for you, kill, cook, torture, plant flowers, anything, you can tell me what to dress, how to act, how you want my hair. I’ll be your doll, bunny, just say yes. I’ll protect you from them.”

Blushing, my mind began to race as my blood began pumping faster. My mind became hazy as I spoke words that I didn’t know if I regretted.

“O-okay, I-I mean, yes?”

Suddenly it was his turn to become excited, as adrenaline seemed to pump through his veins, his eyes got wider as he caged me in his arms.

”Really? Oh my- finally! God, I love you, I love you, I love you!” He cried as he cupped my face in his hands, tears began to stream violently down his face, ”I’ll be the best bunny!” He laughed as he kissed me in the lips, it wasn’t like he left me much choice.

You never truly learn how to stop making mistakes, do you?

________________ღ

When: Back then.

Why: Because she didn’t want to.

Where: Home?

—————— b e t r a y a l ————————

Blood. Everywhere. The room was drenched in the red liquid, the smell of iron attached itself in every surface the liquid was attached to, the sticky substance was dripping from its source to the floor and the surrounding areas. Patterns of blood everywhere, ceilings, walls, floor.

Mutilated. The corpses let out their rotting smell, it seemed to reach every corner and stay there, the smell didn’t fade, even if they had been laying there for years and years.

Standing in the middle was the son of a loving family, as he breathed heavily, as he stared at someone he never thought he’d hurt.

“Why? What did that poor woman do to you?” She asked him while tears pooled in her eyes, his eyes.

”Mom, you don’t understand!” He shouted at her, of course she didn’t; she didn’t know [Name] like he did.

”No I do not, you- look what you did! All for this girl who doesn’t even know you! I should call the police, Taehyung, what you’re doing isn’t normal! You’re going to hurt her aren’t you?” She yelled at him.

“Hurt her? We are talking about [Name] you know!” He yelled back.

He yelled at his mother.

”Yes I do, and I also know that this isn’t okay! Taehyung, do you think this is okay? Killing people?”

”Scumbags.” He muttered as his chest rose up and down at a dangerous pace.

”What did you say?” She asked, this boy, no this man wasn’t her son.This thing wasn’t human.

“They were scumbags, they weren’t people! They contaminated her, mom, they tried to dirty her! Why don’t you understand? I love her and she loves me back! I’ve seen it, I’ve fucking seen it!” He shouted at her as he took slow steps towards her.

”Wait until your father hears about this, I might not call the police but he sure will, he will not tolerate this!” The mother shouted at her son, her husband was a good man, he’d teach their son.

”Dad? He’s been gone for almost a year! What? Don’t tell me you thought he was gonna return now?” He asked her as he laughed, tears falling from his cheeks.

”Y-yes, he will and he will not tolerate this behavior of yours!” She tried to stand her ground against her own blood. This thing was not her son.

”He was with another woman, mother, he came back months ago, do you want to hear what happened with dad and her?”

He began laughing louder as he saw the look in his mother’s eyes.

”The secretary, mom, it was her; Heejae. You weren’t home when they arrived, I was though, I was here all along and I heard it all, do you want to hear it, momma? Hear how father cheated on you with that slut?” He walked to a small computer in the back of the room, he passed through corpses as if they were nothing.

The mother followed the son, almost like a robot, as he pressed play on a video. A video showcasing the most intimate act between two people; between her husband and his secretary.

“It was upstairs, momma, until they saw your car, they ran down here, my mistake was I didn’t lock the door, so they saw it all. He acted just like you said he would, but their phones were on their pants, they always are, but the problem is they didn’t have theirs on. And guess what I did Momma?” He looked as the tears streamed down her face as she looked at him.

”What did you do, Taehyung?”

”I killed them. Now tell me, mom, do you think that my relationship with [Name] is a bad one?” He asked as his mother threw herself at him as she cried.

”I-I-“

”It’s not, is it? What I’m doing is preventing her from doing things like this, now tell me, mom, am I bad?”

”N-no?” She croaked, her own sanity was falling down like sand castle, a human being can only take so much at a time before they fall into insanity. This boy was her son.

“See mom? Now, I don’t want you to end up like dad, so, will you help me keep my [Name] save?”

The son asked his mother for help. And just like any good mother, she accepted it.

“Thank you, momma, I promise you your daughter in law will be better than this dumbass of a father.”

———— m o m m a ————

And just like that the son’s mother set out to help him and his friends with all of their deeds. Of course, she didn’t cheer for all seven kids, that at this point she considered her own, she always hoped that her son would win the girl’s heart.

“Taehyungie, make sure you dress nicely today, you have biology with her, don’t you?” She reminded him every Wednesday and Thursday.

”Oh, yeah! Thank you, momma!” He’d always let her help him get dressed and fix his hair for her.

And just like that, a bond that should have broken only strengthened itself.

———— m o m m a ————

One day, the son burst out crying as he came in the house he and his mother lived in.

The woman didn’t work, as her husband had left them a great deed of money and her friend Miss Kim helped her, she was also in their sons secrets.

”Taehyung! Oh god, what happened?” She cried, the last time he had reacted this way was when his lover had left him to go elsewhere, since then all his friends and the families that knew had been trying to locate her and bring her back to them.

”Momma, Jin said- he said that baby bear was going to come back next week! She’s coming back, Momma!” He cried harder as he hugged his mother.

“She is?” She exclaimed she was ecstatic, finally her son was going to be happy again.

”Yes! I-I gotta make myself handsome for her shouldn’t I? Ohh, it’s been so long, what if she’s changed her taste? What if she doesn’t hang out Jeongguk anymore? What if she- she had a boyfriend?” He muttered the last part darkly to himself.

The mother chuckled to herself as she hugged her son, he looked older but he still acted like a little kid. This boy was her son.

”Don’t worry, Taehyungie, she won’t have a boyfriend, she isn’t like your bastard of a father, she wouldn’t cheat on you, and if she does, has that ever stopped you? You’re the best looking boy in your school, baby, she’ll realize her mistake in an instant! Then you’ll take her to the island and be happy there forever!” She hugged her son closely as he cried out his love’s name.

”Come on, tomorrow you won’t go to school, you know what? You won’t go to school at all this week, we’re gonna get you ready for [Name], how does that sound?” She decided as she looked down her son who was snuggled into her chest.

”N-nice.” He stuttered as he smiled softly.

That week, the son and mother spent a ridiculous amount of money to make the already handsome boy look even better. This woman was his mom.

———— m o m m a ————

And so it went, the boy updated his mother on his delusional relationship and the mother believed it and loved the thought of her boy with such an amazing woman as [Name].

Until the one day.

“Momma! Jeongguk said that [Name] is gonna hang out with him and Namjoon and that she might hang out with us too soon!” The boy ran to his mother shouting in joy.

The news caused her to jump in joy with her son.

”Oh! Baby, that’s amazing!” She hugged him as she smiled up at him.

”It is, isn’t it?” He laughed.

”Of course! Oh, by the way, the boy that tried to flirt with [Name] last week is in the basement, he’s sedated, so you can do whatever you want with him after you do your homework and remember that dinner is at seven!” She laughed as her son nodded happily and skipped up the stairs in joy. These two things are human.

——— m o m m a ———

“Momma, Momma! You won’t believe what happened!” He shouted as he sat down at the table with his mom and younger sister.

They weren’t siblings by blood, him and his mother decided to adopt her one day due to the similarities she had to his lover. The day they adopted the girl, they swore to protect her from harm. The son ended up as a father figure to the young girl and the mother watched almost as a grandmother. He liked to believe that she was his daughter with his lover.

“Huh? What happened, Hyungie?” The younger sister asked.

”Ahh, Jieun, we made a friend with the boys, her name is Sooyeong and she will help to bring my wife, [Name], to us!” The son smiled at the five year old.

”Really?” She asked happily.

”Oh, wasn’t she a friend of [Name]’s?” The mother asked, “Won’t she snitch?”

”Nah, she even killed her family! She’ll also kill [Name]’s friends so that she’ll only have us!” The son smiled proudly.

”Amazing!” Mother looked at both her children.

”See Jieun, you gotta protect [Name] just like Taehyung-ie when we leave to the island, okay?”

”Yes, momma.”

”So what will you do, Jieunie?”

”If [Name] does anything suspicious with one of the boys other than Hyungie I’ll tell Hyungie and momma about it so that they can purify her, then I’ll take her to drink tea and make her sad so she doesn’t do it again!” The girl recited by heart as she smiled, the two other people clapped and congratulated her.

”Yes!” Her brother smiled.

“Aren’t you an amazing little girl?”

——— m o m m a ———

“Momma?” She heard her son’s voice from the phone, she held her daughter tightly.

”Yes?”

”Are you on the plane with Jieun?” He asked worriedly, he needs his mom to be there with him.

”Yes, is [Name] with you?” She asked as the plane began preparing to take off.

”Yes, she’s sound asleep now. It’s so weird, it really is happening, momma. Ah, we’re landing soon, I’ll call you when we’re home, love you momma! Tell Jieun that she’ll meet my wife soon!” He made a kissing sound before cutting off the phone call.

”Momma, is it normal to do what we’re doing? Taking a girl to a place far away without her family, what if she gets lonely?” The daughter asked.

”It’s normal, Jieunie, we’re protecting her from those beasts that will make her cheat on Taehyung, not that she would, but it’s best to be sure. Plus, we’re gonna be her new family, so she isn’t going to be lonely.” Mother smiled at the girl as she curled into her chest.

”Are you sure, momma?”

”Momma always knows best, baby.”

______________ღ

——— m o n e y , m o n e y ———

“Hey, Seokjin, how was summer camp?” Seokjin’s older brother asked him excitedly, he hadn’t been able to go due to his parents forcing him to stay home and study but he was alright with it, he knew it was for his and his brother’s future.

”Ahh, Seokjung, it was something.” Seokjin commented tiredly, he was exhausted by how idiotic the kids in that camp were.

”Really? Huh, but what’s something, Jin? It can’t be nothing.” Seokjung pouted as he sat down on the couch next to Jin, couldn’t Seokjin see how lucky he was?

”Ah, it was okay, I guess, I was the second oldest though, so they put me in charge of my cabin, so I had to work with this girl, I think her name was Joohyun?” Seokjin told his brother.

”Ahh, Joohyun? Like Bae Joohyun?” He asked, now this was important, Seokjung smiled.

”Yeah, I think, why?” Jin mused, now this was interesting, was this the girl his brother had a crush on? No, it couldn’t Joohyun was fifteen, the same age as Jin, and Seokjung had said she was younger than him. Seokjung being only fourteen years old.

”Ah, was [Last Name] [Full Name] there?” Seokjung asked blushing.

”I think so?” Seokjin answered amused.

”W-well, you see, she’s the girl I have a crush on.” Seokjin confessed blushing red.

”Really? She’s like twelve dude, what? That’s creepy dude, what the hell?” Seokjin snorted, Seokjung pushed Seokjin laughing embarrassed.

”H-hey! I know, and that’s why I’m not going to act on my feelings okay? Anyway, she’s cute and all but she’s in what, fifth grade and I’m in eighth and the fact that she’s friends with Jeongguk, Jeon Junghyung’s little brother, isn’t going to help much.” Seokjung laughed.

”Wow, tragic, anyway, where’s mom and dad?” Seokjin laughed.

”Oh, yeah, they went out to dinner with this weird ass old man, dunno why, probably business.” Seokjung casually mentioned, “Anyway, Jin are you going to go to camp next year?”

”Hmm, do you want to?” Jin asked.

”Huh? Do I want to go? Hell yes I do, it seems fun as hell!”

“Then I’ll go, Jung, don’t worry, I’ll have fun for you.” Jin smiled.

If Seokjin could have something his brother didn’t and wanted, he was going to have it no matter what.

————— m u s t  b e  f u n n y ————

Fuck Seokjung, fuck mom and dad, fuck that damned company, fuck it all.

Seokjin, grumbled as he threw himself into his bed, why did Seokjung have everything?

“He inherited the company, the smarts, the good looks, every-fucking-thing, he has a crush, he is a crush, the money, the girls, he gets it all, he’s fucking younger than me by two fucking years and what did I get? Summer camp, summer fucking camp.” Seokjin whispered harshly.

He turned around in his bed and looked at the window.

”I could steal his crush.” Seokjin told himself matter of factly.

It was true, he got confessed everyday by some girl, even if he didn’t try so maybe if he tried he could steal [Name] from Seokjung.

”Yeah, that isn’t too hard, is it?” Seokjin mused. “But, what does [Name] like?”

Who was [Name] in the first place, was she mature? What did she like? Was what he was doing perhaps too petty? No, it was a dose of Seokjung’s own medicine.

That night, Seokjin spent it all looking around his brothers room while the latter slept. He found both something horrifying and absolutely amazing.

”He fucking stalks her.” He mused.

And like that he spent countless nights throughout the rest of the summer, rummaging through his brothers stuff, and during the day he’d stalk her to gather all he could to win her over. So someone would choose him over his brother.

———— i n  a  r i c h  m a n ‘ s ———

“Seokjin, oh god!” His mother cried in the couch, she bawled her eyes out in her own hands. Her son, her favorite son, had died.

”Your brother, Jin, he killed himself.” His father finished as he also cried, Seokjin knew that if it had been him they’d only shed a few tears, but with Seokjung? They’d cry a river for that bastard.

He knew.

”What?” Seokjin asked with, fake, sadness.

”Yes, we don’t know why, b-but me and your mother needs a break so we’ll be going on vacation for awhile, at that island we bought a while ago, anyway this isn’t what we need to tell you is that- you’ll be taking over the company.” His father smiled through tears. “Make us proud son.”

That was what his parents told him before they sent him to summer camp again, yet he didn’t want to go. Nothing else was said between him and his parents not that he cared, he had something more important at hand. He didn’t cry, why would he? He had killed Seokjung anyway, with the help of his friends that is.

His princess wasn't there anymore.

———— w o r l d ———

“I-I like you and I know I’m three years older than you, [Name], but you’re very nice and next year I’m leaving so I won’t be here anymore, really and I heard you’d move soon in like a month or more and I was like, wondering if you’d like to go out, not like a date, that’s like, weird but-“ Seokjung confessed to the blushing fourteen year old.

”Ah, you’re , but I like you anyway!” She smiled, she was not expecting that nor was he.

”You do?” He asked in shock.

”Yeah! And, yes I know I’m fourteen and that this is weird and all, you’re like what seventeen, but let’s give it a go while you’re illegal, ‘kay? After you turn eighteen it’s all gone! And if it doesn’t work you can forget me and if it does you can, like, totally wait!” She fingered gunned the boy as he laughed.

”O-okay?” He asked laughing harder at her antics.

”Totally tubular!” She joked as she grabbed his hand and interlocked their fingers and pulled him to an ice cream shop as they both chatted happily.

They were too happy to notice the group of four males glaring their way.

”Your brother confessed to her,” Namjoon gaped at the scene, he couldn’t believe what he had just seen.

”And she accepted him!” Hoseok cried, tears streamed down his face.

”And she’s leaving, leaving while dating your idiot brother?” Yoongi growled. “That’s fucking illegal!”

”He’s still underage though...” Seokjin commented numbly. He had finally realized after two years of stalking her, he had realized he had fallen in love with her too. But it was too late, and the fates hated him, and his princess was about to leave the kingdom without him. And she was now with that pig of a brother.

”Kill him.” Seokjin said suddenly as they stood up, he didn’t even think twice before saying it.

”What?” Hoseok asked scared, kill someone? Him? No way, he couldn’t even kill an ant!

”Kill him, let’s kill my brother.” Seokjin laughed.

”What the fuck, dude? You okay?” Yoongi asked worried, that wasn’t like Seokjin at all.

”Hell yes, I’m so okay that my brother stole the love of my fucking life!” He answered sarcastically, as he glared at the ice cream shop.

“Hey, guys, you said you’d do anything for [Name], right?” Namjoon asked suddenly.

”What are you talking about now?” Hoseok asked even more scared, if that was even possible.

”I say, we do it, murder Seokjung, he’s in the way.” Seokjin repeated.

”Me too.” Namjoon agreed.

”Okay, fine, it’s for [Name], right?” Yoongi asked, it didn’t take much convincing for him anyway. It’s not like he hadn’t considered murder before, he just never had the resources to actually do it.

”Yeah.” Seokjin answered him, obviously, who else would it be for.

”Hoseok?” Namjoon asked.

”F-fine, but let’s not get caught, ‘kay?”

“That’s the fucking plan you idiot.” Yoongi laughed.

”Anyway, how do we do it?” Seokjin asked seriously, not an ounce of hesitation or doubt laid in his voice.

”Fake a suicide?” Namjoon suggested, he couldn’t believe they were actually going to do this.

”Hmm, yeah, whatever. Should we call the younger kids though?” Yoongi asked as they walked the basically dead streets.

”Nah, they’ll probably snitch, plus Jeongguk isn’t in the best place with [Name] leaving and all that shit, he’ll need Jimin and Tae.”

”Yeah, so how do we do it? The fake suicide? What’s the story behind it, do we forge a letter?”

”We can make him choke in the new car dad gave him, we can lock him in the garage and turn the engine on, no one can survive that, he won’t be able to breath in a few minutes but just in case, we can leave him there for an hour or so.” Seokjin told them his plan.

And they all agreed.

And that’s how they killed their first victim. But it was too late, [Name] had already left town, without knowledge of what happened to Seokjung until years later, yet by that time she had bigger problems than that.

——— m o n e y  , m o n e y———

“Seokjin, aren’t you happy?” His driver asked him, he probably had no idea his brother died or that he really didn’t want to leave his home, he wanted to work, he needed to work.

”Not really.” Seokjin sighed as he leaned against the glass.

”Why is that?”

“Because the girl I love left.” Seokjin told him dramatically, he was the only adult he felt comfortable enough joking with.

”Ahh, how special is that girl?” The old man laughed, his voice was filled with joy and curiosity.

”Special enough I’d kill for her.” Seokjin smirked behind the old man’s back.

———— w a s  r e a l l y  f u n n y ———

If Seokjung had it, Seokjin needed it. That’s how you fell in the devil's hands. By mere bad luck and a one sided rivalry, quite a drama, right? At the beginning, he only wanted you for the sake of having something his brother wanted. But slowly, it became more about himself, and his needs. He needed you now, not his brother, not the company, you. And not even that overachieving idiot was going to keep you two apart.

Luckily for Seokjin, it seems like you didn’t remember either him or his brother. He now was the only heir of the Kim company in your mind and memory. He now had something his brother didn’t. He has you.

That doesn’t mean he doesn’t regret killing his brother, he would’ve enjoyed seeing his face as he won you over.

But one can’t have it all, can they?

———— i n  a  d e a d  m a n ‘s  w o r l d —

————         

@nojamsnoham @camiliasmencles @yandere-hobi @spaceunicorn293  @prinnytaylor @mo-la @ggukkimari @ilovesomuchstuff @strawberry-leche

————

[msawesomegeek]

Avengers Infinity war/end game review

A/N: So quarantine happened, and I finally got around to watching movies again, now including giving the MCU one last chance. And spoiler alert... It didn’t truly deserve it. Also spoiler alert, and also this is two three hour reviews crammed into one, so it is gonna be a little while.

Also also, while I have seen most of the movies in the marvel cinematic universe, I have not seen Dr. strange, guardians 2, into dark world and Captain marvel. 

So let’s start off with Infinity war, it had some genuinely good moments. The only plot and character arc that was outright annoying was Bruce’s. It was good it had real character developments, and a lot of relationships that were great. I thought it was funny to the right extent, and serious when it needed to be. Honestly I could have done without a lot of scenes but I understood the fact that all characters needed some screen time to be fully developed. But like, did we honestly care that much about the romance with Vision and Wanda to need the scene before them being attacked more than just a quick establishment of them kissing?  I enjoyed the emotional scene genuinely, the Peter and Gamora scene was heart wrenching, and showed Thanos devotion to his goal. I had a little hard time believing he loved her enough to it being enough of a sacrifice, but it still worked. 

The big scale battle was kind of annoying but I will get into that later. 

The cinematography was fine, I enjoyed how colourful they allowed space to be, and that the lighting for the most part was not grey and gritty. 

There were a lot of plot holes in this movie, like why did Thanos forget all the crazy powers he had in the Gamora Peter scene and not use it in the battle later?  The problem with this is also that power differences is so weird, and non consistent. Like in the battle with Thanos, strange, Spidey and Tony, how do any of the three heroes have a chance against someone who can manipulate the rules of reality? Like Strange, maybe, but the two others? Not a chance! 

The stones themselves raise a lot of questions. Like if he can control time and space, why not bring Gamora back the second the gets the soul stone? Or go back to a time when the rule that you have to do that does not apply. And in End Game, why not just kill baby Thanos? Why doesn't he go back in time to make sure the avengers do not get in his way in the first place? 

The Loke death in the beginning felt so... Pointless? Seriously? Why has Loke been apart of anything in the MCU up until now? His arc has been pointless, and when he dies it is within the first 10 minutes, so it’s like: Oh, Loke is in this. And he is dead again. But because he has been “Dead” before, it does not resonate!  And that is a general annoyance I have with these two movies, the stakes are non-existent. We know which characters have movies coming up, so we know who is going to survive in the end and who doesn't. So when they die, it doesn't have any impact! 

So the movie is pretty good, it has some real emotional hits and some genuinely funny scenes, but it also leave you confused during some scenes. The thing I enjoyed the most about this movie, is the fact that Thanos won. The fact that the good guys lost, is amazing! Because after seeing them win challenge after challenge over 20 films, it was great to actually see our heroes lose, actually lose. 

Onto End Game, to say that this is the worse of the two is correct. The movie for a two parter movie does hold up as movies on their own, which is great considering how all other movies split into two parts are as stand alone movies.

The colour grading in this movie is just weird, and a lot of times, it is weird looking at and clear that it was shot on a green screen, and usually an unnecessary green screen, for my taste. This combined with lack of playing with colour in this movie, everything just visually seemed gray and boring. No shots were interesting, they never played with the pacing of anything, it was all just regular film making, which is okay, but honestly bland. Even the composition of the everyone avengers assemble shot is so messy it does not evoke the amazing comic book front page style it could have been.

End game has a lot of big problems, and I might go into more of a ranting terrortory than actual reviewing, and for that I am sorry. But it has a lot of problems. The character arcs are so rushed and you never get time to absorb anything emotionally or care about anything that is going on, because then we immediately cut to another character, and we have to be completely invested in them.  Thanos role in this movie was weird, while the first half of it was earned the rest of his part in the movie seemed forced. But what I think both movies got wrong about Thanos, is that they cut out death. Which is a shame, because a big part of his character and motivation is his love affair with mistress death. Hell they even put it in as an easter egg the first time we ever see Thanos! And his philosophy combined with his love and romance with death, would make sense, but they completely missed that opportunity. Which would also give more impact to him killing people more than just morals, and make him a more dimensional character. 

The three biggest problems this movie has is pacing, tone and character arcs. Along the same lines of infinity war, the pacing is a little better in the first movie, but all over the place in End game. And the problem is because the pacing is so quick and everything needs to progress so quickly, everything just seems so rushed, and everything that was supposed to be an obstacle was basically solved in a super easy barely an inconvenience kind of way. The problem with the pacing is also that it rushes the characters. Meaning every time something happens to any character, any tension and character development, hell even emotional impact that could have had is cut short to cut to another characters arc. And even if it is not like that, the harsh editing in the movie ensures that any emotion any scenes hold is immediately undercut by something. Like, wow Hawkeye has lost all sense of morals and Natascha can't talk sense into him, but his surface is beginning to crack, that is interesting, let’s immediately cut from that to Thor opening a beer! 

The only things that were actually given any kind of consideration to the pacing in this movie was when Scott came back, and the funeral scene, and maybe the fight scene in the end. Every thing else in this entire movie is so weirdly paced! Like, oh boy the stakes are high, I wonder if we will ever be able to figure out this time travel thing. 5 minutes later, Iron man comes out of a car and deus ex machina’s the entire thing. Like why? This should be a bigger issue?  Oh no, we lost the one infinity stone, but we don’t have enough Pim particles to travel back anymore times. Simple just travel back to world war two, steal them as you conveniently get into a heavily guarded area while remembering that the love of your life exists while also without much trouble steals and have a cathartic moment with your father who dont know its you, so you can conveniently get back. That whole sequence is pretty cool, but is undermined so many times by being resolved too quickly, making you wonder what the point of it being a conflict at all was?

Which brings me to its second biggest problem, tone. This movie unlike the first one that balanced things pretty amazingly, cannot decide whether it wants to be dramatic action or a comedy, and it ends up being neither. I cannot stress enough how much I hate the jokes in this movie! The jokes are good, hell they are funny (though the Thor got fat jokes needs to leave and never come back. (although that big Labowski reference can stay, but it is on thin f*cking ice.) The other movies had fun moments, this genuinely felt like I was watching a parody movie half of the time. Yes the jokes are funny, I laughed out loud at the america’s ass jokes, but that joke felt like a meme that was somehow left in the final cut.  The problem is, whereas the other movies, usually only used the comedy as a relief in certain scenes, it allowed other scenes to be genuinely emotional. It knew when it was appropriate to joke around. It did actually get it right a few times, the whole “hi peter” introduction between cap marvel and Spidey, was in character and genuinely appropriate to the situation, and funny, that scene worked. Where it did not work, was when Tony got back from space, part of that scene was amazing! It was a broken Tony confronting people he did not agree with about the fact that they lost and that he was traumatised and that he told them something like this could happen but they did not listen to him! And it just cuts in-between him being mad as hell and sad as he should be, to be cracking jokes two seconds later. And I hate that scene! Because it did not understand that it was not the time that it needed to break the tension it could have been an amazing and heartwrenching scene that eventually led to Tony giving up his super hero career and setting Tony and Steve on the path to forgiving each other. But no, it was constantly undercut by comedy. It was like they forgot that scenes were allowed to be emotional and not have any quick wit in it and still be good. The tone was just messy all the way through and seemed like I was watching two movies that had been mashed together into one. 

The last problem this movie has is character arcs. Besides the undercutting of the emotions of its character in order to make jokes. This movie also seemed to forget who these characters were. It has a problem that many films like it has had, which is too many characters in one film. Every character is never given proper time, we like them because we know them, but this movie does nothing to further their relationships or own growth. The time jump, screws a lot of things up. Like I did not mind but why give Hulk the power to control Hulk then? (His arc through the entire MCU) and not right as he grabbed the stones, him through them being given the knowledge that Hulk isn’t the disease but the cure. Why not make his arc matter to the plot?! (like it did in the first avengers which was though a pretty deus ex machina, solution still a development that coincided with the plot!) The whole Natascha, Hawkeye fight was good, it meant something and it reminded me of their fight in the first Avengers that showed how good friends they were. But the quick editing ruins Nats death so much. This plays into pacing as well, but we are never given any kind of time to be sad about Nats death. Yes she was a minor character, but she was a character we cared about. If they could only have spent a few more seconds at Hawkeye realising what is happening, and being sad about Nats sacrifice in the soul world, and then picking up the stone and being like, I will finish this for you Natascha. That was all the writers needed to do, it would take two minutes more, but it would have allowed her death to mean something more. Hell Coulsons death was given more screen time in the first avengers than someone we have spent so many movies seeing and caring about! 

I honestly wished that they had followed the comics version more, and in infinity wars, introduced Thanos, then wrapped up all the original avengers character arcs in that film. Let the snap happen and let Thanos also kill the original Avengers. Then let End Game be about the devastating loss, and the second squad (Black Panther, Scarlett, vision, Captain Marvel, Peter, Strange and part of Guardians & Ant-man) Struggle with their personal grief about losing their friends and mentors, finding the courage to band together and fight to go and defeat Thanos. I would have loved that so much more, mostly because it would give them a chance to lose and have these newer avengers actually mourn them all properly, while also being able to properly process it, and then decide to pick up their torch and finish what the original avengers started. But sadly we got this mess.

Also, I really need to rant about one particular thing in both movies, and honestly it has been a long time coming, but if I have to look at one more giant CGI henceman battle, I will walk out of the movie theatre! This is in both infinity war and End game! I do not care! I hate those big CGI lord of the ring type battles. Why? Because, yes it makes it all look grand, but it also make it look pointless. I don’t care about any of the people they are fighting I care about the villains and the heroes, characters I have spent time with. Why does Thanos send, wizard what's his face and other CGI dude in the first place? I do not care about his henchmen! I do not care about their meaningless fights with their meaningless goons. Why not instead of this giant battle in Wakanda and on the planet in End game ending battle, have all of our previously established villains, such as Loke, Hella, Thanos, that dude from guardians, whoever is the villain in captain marvel and doctor strange. Be the people they fight? Why not make it a few villains that we actually care about be the villains they are fighting, and instead of them punching random fools they could actually fight people who pose an actual challenge to them. Giving everything more meaning and not just, look how many CGI extras we can afford. It is not fun anymore! I have had it! Fight fewer but harder bad guys! That way the fight has some actual stakes and meaning! 

If you have made it this far, wow, impressive. I also imagine that it is very clear that I thought there was a lot of problems with these two movies. I will not say I hated them. They were not flaming piles of garbage like suicide squad, but they are also not anywhere near as good as the first guardians movie.  In the end, they were entertaining. Were they, I am willing to sit through these six hours ever again entertaining? Abso-f*cking-lutely not. 

I have before given up on the cinematic univers and come back to it and this was me actually hoping it would be great movies that everyone said they were, so I could get back into Marvel super hero movies, but sadly, they were visually pretty stale, tonally, pacing and characterly a mess, and not the finale to 22 films I had hoped for.

I give infinity war 8/10 stars

And End game 3/10 stars.

Send me a message if you agree, disagree or just wanna talk about movies (or have any recs for what I should see next) Until then

- Geek out.

[jkottke]

My Recent Media Diet, The "It's Not Life or Death, It's Just Tacos" Edition

I keep track of every media thing I "consume", so here are quick reviews of some things I've read, seen, heard, and experienced in the past two months. I never wrote a proper report on my trip to Mexico City, so I put some of the highlights in here. I'm in the middle of several things right now. On TV, I'm watching Our Planet, In Search of Greatness, Street Food, Chernobyl, The Clinton Affair, Reconstruction: America After the Civil War, and This Giant Beast That is the Global Economy. I don't normally watch 19 different things at one time, but life's felt a little scattered lately. For books, I'm listening to Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond on audiobook and I'm making good progress on Robert Caro's Working (highly recommended).

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Peter Frankopan. Hard to summarize but there's certainly something interesting on almost every page. (A-)

Fleabag. Bitingly funny and poignant, a real gem. (A+)

Skyscraper. Die Hard + the Sherlock Holmes story A Scandal in Bohemia + #sponcon for Big Duct Tape. I love a good disaster movie. (B+)

Mexico City. Great food, vegetation everywhere, beautiful architecture, culturally fascinating, super walkable/bikeable/scooterable. I am definitely visiting here again as soon as I can. (A)

Puyol Taco Omakase. Delicious & fun & a great experience, but I'm not sure the food was obviously so much better than some of the best street food I had in Mexico City. I had this same experience in Bangkok years ago...street food is tough to beat when there's a thriving culture of markets, carts, and stalls. (B+)

The National Museum of Anthropology. One of my new favorite museums in the world. The only thing possibly more impressive than the collection is the architecture of the building. (A+)

Teotihuacán. I had high hopes for this archeological site and I was still blown away by it. (A+)

AirPods. This is my favorite gadget in years, the first real VR/AR device that feels seamless (and not like a Segway for your face). The freedom of wireless headphones feels similar to when I first used a laptop, wifi, and dockless bike share. (A+)

Homecoming. So many things to love about this, but one of my favorites is the shots of the audience watching Beyoncé and the rare moments when she watches them back: "I see you." And also the way they put a cohesive show together while showcasing individual talents and styles. (A-)

Homecoming: The Live Album. Come on, a marching band playing Beyoncé hits? That this works so well is a small miracle. (A-)

Avengers: Endgame. I liked but didn't love it. It was like the ST:TNG finale and the Six Feet Under finale mashed together and not done as well. It also seemed too predictable. (B)

Avengers: Age of Ultron. Now that the Thanos narrative arc is complete, this is an underrated installment. (B+)

Casa Luis Barragán. This was like being in someone's creative mind. The layering of the garden reminded me of Disney's use of the multiplane camera in the forest scene in Bambi. (B+)

Gelatin Sincronizada Gelitin (NSFW). I was skeptical of this art performance at first -- a bunch of half-naked people painting on a moving canvas using paintbrushes coming out of their butts -- but it ended up being a really cool thing to experience. (B+)

Game of Thrones. I'm not quite as critical of the final season as everyone else seems to be. Still, it seems like since the show left the cozy confines of George RR Martin's books, it has struggled at times. (B+)

Wandering Earth. Based on the short story by Liu Cixin (author of the Three Body Problem trilogy), this disaster movie is a little uneven at the start but finishes strong. (B)

Halt and Catch Fire Vol 2. The music was one of the many great things about this show. (A-)

Running from COPS. A podcast about how media and law enforcement in America intersect to great and terrible effect. (B+)

Eating bugs. I tasted crickets, grasshoppers, and grubs at the market: mostly just salty. I had beef tartare and guacamole with grasshoppers on it. They added a nice crunch to the guac. Wouldn't exactly go out of the way for them, but they weren't bad. (B)

Panaderia Rosetta. Did I have one of the best pain au chocolat I've ever had here? Yes. Yes, I did. Also extremely delicious: everything else I tried. (A-)

Against the Rules. A podcast from Michael Lewis about what's happening to the concept of fairness in America. The episode about Salvator Mundi, the supposed Leonardo masterpiece, is particularly interesting. (A-)

Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth. I have a new appreciation of how much Tolkien did in creating his books: writing, map making, world building, art, constructing languages. (B+)

Frida Kahlo's Blue House. A striking house with a lush courtyard, but the highlight was seeing Kahlo's work area much the way she left it when she died. (B+)

Street Food Essentials by Club Tengo Hambre. Mexico City is a huge place with so much to do that I wanted to hit the ground running right away, so I booked this street food tour. Definitely a good idea. We sampled so many different kinds of tacos & gorditas & quesadillas that I lost count. Highlights: huitlacoche quesadillas, al pastor tacos, fresh Oaxaca cheese at the Mercado de San Juan, and the blue corn masa used to make tlacoyos at one of our last stops -- probably the best tortilla I've ever eaten. (A-)

The Matrix. This came out 20 years ago. I watched it with my 11-yo son the other day and he thought the special effects "held up pretty well". (A)

Electric scooters. I used the Lime dockless electric scooters for the first time when I was in Mexico City and I loved experience. Easier than a bike and a fun & fast way to get around the city. Cons: the combo of the speed & small wheels can be dangerous and cities generally don't have the infrastructure to accommodate them yet. (B+)

Paprika. Inventive and visually dazzling. Purportedly an influence on Christopher Nolan's Inception. (B+)

Oh and just because, here's a photo I took recently in my backyard that makes it seem like I live in Narnia or The Shire:

Past installments of my media diet are available here.

[drnucleus]

I don’t know what to expect from IX. I’m really hoping it is endgame and they don’t just drop the romance angle, but it’s also kind of what I’m expecting? Like I don’t expect follow-through from it, even though I would love it if it happened

Hi Nonnie, 

I totally get it. I understand that completely. Do I think it’s endgame? Yes. 

However am I going into IX with any expectations? NOPE. I’m a fandom granny. No seriously I have lived through so many fandoms that I simply go in with no expectations. That way if what I think might happen if even in some small way happens then I will be super happy and overjoyed and if it doesn’t I am usually able to divorce myself from my disappointment and respect the creator’s vision.

As a writer and someone who was professionally trained to do so, I know that creators have a vision. They have an endgame in mind. And they drop breadcrumbs about it from the beginning and if you’re clever enough to see them you usually can figure out any story. 

This is why I ruin police procedurals for my mom. My dad and I made a game of it watching Law and Order as a kid growing up (and I mean OG Law and Order with Det. Lenny Briscoe). Whomever could figure out who committed the murder first won. We used to keep a running tally. My dad was really good at it, but when I got really into reading and started reading mystery novels and horror novels and other stories that rely heavily on mystery boxes I started getting better at it. We also watched Law and Order because my two actor 2nd cousins have been guest stars as defense lawyers idk how many times but that’s neither here nor there.

And tbh ESB’s twist of Vader as Luke’s father came as such a shock because IDK if even Lucas really knew he was going to do it until he did it. Luckily the story was vague enough in ANH that a throw away line about certain points of view was enough to close what could have been a crippling plot hole. 

My mom is an OG Star wars fan. Mostly bc she loves the pew pew and the lightsaber battles, and secondly because Harrison Ford is a very handsome and talented man (tbh my first crush was Han Solo and second was Indy).

My mom was there when everyone was UP IN ARMS about Leia and Luke kissing. And how that was SOOOOOO going to be endgame. Which originally Lucas had intended that Leia would be a love interest for Luke and that the twin sister would be revealed in 7, 8 and 9 someday. However during writing ROTJ and filming ESB he decided to really hone in on Leia and Han’s chemistry (granted Irving was directing then) but he made the narrative choice to make Leia the sister and Han her love interest. It simultaneously elevated Leia’s narrative importance and made her the leading lady of her own story on equal footing to her equally powerful twin brother instead of just being Luke’s sidekick love interest.

Even when I was a KID and I saw ESB it always kind of made me laugh that Leia’s response to Han goading her about liking him was to smack lips with the only other humanoid male in the room just to prove how NOT smitten she was with Han. (AND if that doesn’t make her simultaneously Padme and Anakin’s child I don’t know what will convince you otherwise).

TPM came out when was was 13 and a half which will be 20 yrs ago next May - HOLY FUCK. And I’ve been an avid reader since I could read so I had gobbled up countless numbers of books by then. I was in the theater with my parents and legit held my hand up over Ian’s eyes and gasped and tugged on my mom’s sleeve. 

“Mom that’s THE EMPEROR” and she was like “No honey he’s just a senator who’s now chancellor of the republic”

And this was still in the age of Dial-up internet and no IMDB. So I did my own digging and found our VHS copies of the OT and looked at the cast listing at the end of the movie. And saw the same name playing the Emperor as the man playing Senator-Chancellor Sheev Palpatine. Now the movies in the OT never actually say the Emperor’s real name. He’s just the shadowy, scary Emperor with lightning bolts shooting out of his hands. So like we knew in TPM that Palpy was going to become the emperor. Now say what you will about the Prequels but Lucas did do a fair bit of narrative arc planning with it than what he threw together with the OT. 

He knew we had to meet Anakin as a boy, see him as a caring and compassionate individual who is uniquely gifted in the Force. And that had circumstances been different he would have probably been the paragon force sensitive and balanced the force. However due to realistic flaws of all characters, good and bad alike, including flaws within Anakin’s character himself he falls prey to the darkside and it’s temptations and then becomes the very thing he feared.

Tbh next to TLJ, ROTS is right up there with ESB as my favorite in the saga. Sure the dialogue is wooden and clunky. Lucas is not a dialogue director. He’s a vision director. He has a scene in his mind, and he wants it played like that. Which is fine. He also came from a school of thought in the 1970s where sci-fi was pure camp and overdramatic. His style never really changed. The OT is so lauded because he didn’t direct all of them. He had other people come in and he had script doctoring and his first wife in the editing room taking his vision and turning it into a cohesive narrative. We seem to forget that Lucas was a young dude right out of film school when he made ANH. He barely knew how to string a narrative together and the early cuts of ANH were terrible and nowhere near what people saw in the theater. Don’t believe me? Google “how star wars was saved in the editing room” it’s a remarkable story about how Lucas’s first wife and principal editor basically made ANH into an actual story instead of a mish mash of ideas that it was before. The prequels had Lucas at the helm for all three. Yes by then he had gotten a hold of narratively what he wanted to convey, but he still didn’t always convey it in the most efficient ways.

But there are moments in the prequels that I’m stunned by their perfection. “This is how liberty dies? With thunderous applause.” as Padme watches in horror as the Republic becomes an empire before her eyes. It’s perfect to convey the horror she feels and her disgust at what the thing she’s fought for so long to just crumble and slip away. 

Or the entirety of the Anakin v. Obi Wan Mustafar battle. Visually STUNNING, and heartbreaking. You can feel how much neither of them want to fight the other but how they both are so entrenched in their now opposite ideologies that they know they have to fight. 

I’ve also been a fan of JJ’s for a long time. 

Sure he loves mystery boxes but he usually makes the answer SO obvious that most people ignore it. 

Like on Lost which I never actually watched save for maybe a few episodes, it’s pretty clear that something metaphysical is going on in that island with the crash. And there are clues dating back to the pilot as to what happened in the finale. 

In TFA we’re introduced to Rey. We’re given a mystery box of who is Rey and why is she important and who is her family. But we’re also given the answer. She’s no one. And that’s why she’s important. She is no one. She doesn’t need to have this huge galactic sized legacy on her shoulders to be important, to be special. SHE IS NO ONE. And that’s why the Force chose her as its vessel. 

Reason why is that she’s narratively the perfect foil for her counterpart Ben Solo/Kylo Ren. He has all that legacy and weight on his shoulders. They’re equals in power in strength, in light and darkness. They are complete equals. And TFA was all about establishing that fact. Now TLJ was all about deepening that initial connection. To get them both to scratch beneath the surface of one another, and get under one another’s skin. In doing so Ben learned that Rey just wants to belong, to be loved and have a place in the galaxy. And Rey, she learned that Ben is just as lonely, but has rejected his birthright because he felt rejected and abandoned by those who should have unconditionally loved and protected him from Snoke (which granted OT Trio tried but they def didn’t have great parenting examples either sooooo).

Now as an adult Ben is bitter, full of resentment and rage because the people he should have been able to count on fucked up royally. And I love that. I resonate with it because of my own experiences as an abuse survivor too. But even more so because it makes Han, Leia and Luke less perfect legends and more human. It makes them real and relatable that they tried to do everything right by their kiddo but ended up fucking him up.  Luke’s betrayal itself was the least shocking part of TLJ tbh. Like does no one remember him going ABSOLUTELY banana balls insane when Vader threatened Leia in ROTJ?

That kind of Skywalker level extra doesn’t just go away with age. 

And yeah Ben needed someone in the fam to be like “so kid, um, lets talk about this.” No one in the OT Trio is good at talking about their feelings. Luke tries to control his by just not dealing with it - the kind of thing you’d expect from a “pray the depression away” type. Leia ignores it and bottles that shit until it comes out as thinly veiled anger. And Han is the most ridiculous of the three with his constant hot and cold routine throughout ESB.

The ST is yes about the failures of the OT trio, the failures of the Jedi and the Sith. But it’s also a story about the force and it’s two chosen vessels. A girl from nowhere and the last scion of the Skywalker line. The fact that their connections in TLJ are coded as sexual awakenings is very indicative of where I think this is all going to go. The Force is basically the Skywalker Patriarch if we’re going on the whole immaculate conception with Shmi. And Ben fell from his path for years now thanks to the other Skywalkers falling from the path and inadvertently pushing him down the rabbit hole with Snoke, manipulating everything like a master of puppets. 

JJ himself even said he was upset that he didn’t get to direct TLJ because he loved Rian’s script so much. 

I have faith we’re going to get a hell of a finish to the 9 film Skywalker saga. With Reylo as endgame or not I think we’re going to get something truly satisfying that links all 9 movies together in a way that will have meta writers writing for years to come about all the parallels and thematic Leitmotifs within the narrative as a whole that encompasses technically 4 generations of Skywalkers (Shmi, Anakin, Luke/Leia, and Ben).

When Ben killed Han in TFA and you get that focused in shot of Adam’s face as the weight of what he just did HITS him and his eyes widen and his lips part, you see the exact moment he shatters his soul realizing that he just seriously fucked up. I leaned over to my best friend that night in the midnight showing and said “do you smell redemption arc?” and I’ve been on that train from day one. 

If he were truly irredeemable he wouldn’t have split his spirit to the bone by killing his father. He wouldn’t have cared to try to convince Rey to be her teacher in the middle of their battle. He wouldn’t care that Rey stares at him like she did that night and call him a monster. A real monster wouldn’t care at being called one. And is so very shook and pained by that moniker with his lower lip quiver and his eyes red rimmed. If he were truly irredeemable he wouldn’t have killed his master just to save the girl, he’d have just usurped power and shrugged her off instead of trying to convince her to stay with him. He wouldn’t have addressed her fear and insecurity of being nothing and no one while shaking his head and saying “but not to me”. If he were truly a monster he would have pulled the damn trigger when his had the bridge of the Raddus in his sights but couldn’t because he felt his mother’s love for him even after everything he’s done.

Has he done terrible things? YES. He definitely has. But he has the equal potential for amazing things as much as he has for the terrible things he’s done. And I for one will be happy to see him begin to even slightly embrace that potential by the end of ep 9. Reylo or no Reylo I’m sure I’m going to be happy with ep 9. There’s no way Adam and so many other brilliant actors would have signed on without at least knowing where this is all gonna go. Adam himself was hesitant to take on the burden of SW but was convinced to do so because of the complexity of Ben’s character. That to me says we’re getting something amazing in ep9. And I can’t wait.

[kiribaku-some-cute-stuff]

Sero Week Day 1

@sero-week

Older Sero / Embarrassed

The Legend of DKFSTA

(posted on WST cuz I couldn’t wait on mine)

Disclaimer: 

This Fic is trash—beautiful trash which I adore and would die for—but trash nonetheless. This fic has not been beta’d in any way, shape or form. Expect type-os, punctuation abnormalities, continuity issues and possible/probable OOC issues. At the end of this fic I will give you the template in order to play this dumb game. (it’s the same one I posted last night.)

Also, I was going to add reaction images but they were breaking up the story so I left ‘em out, if you want the reaction image version hit me up and I shall post it. 

Anyway you guys have been warned lol rated T Word Count: 4.4k    

Read it on Ao3

“I’m sorry this game is called what now?” Sero asked incredulously as he joined Mina, Momo, Jirou, Tooru, Uraraka and Tsu in common room. He agreed to join in on their collective sleepover for no other reason than to make sure certain “individuals” (one individual if we’re being honest) wouldn’t mess with them. However, the girls decided to sweeten the deal by promising to watch one of Sero’s favorite movies. It was kind of a guilty pleasure movie, so the offer was pretty appealing. And well  look it may seem like a small thing but… the kid was a little lonely lately, and he was sure that this would be the one thing to cheer him up! Right?

Wrong.  

What he would soon discover, was that there was a catch. Of course there was. Poor Sero… This is the tale of how he got dragged into playing the insidious game he would ever be cursed to participate in.  

“I told you it’s called D-K-F-S-T-A.” Mina rolled her eyes

“That is not the name you used at all.” Sero said pointedly

“Well, whatever. Look it’s fun I promise.” Mina’s demonic like grin suggested that this game in particular was anything but fun.

“Mina, I love you, but your definition of “fun” is far different from others’.”

“He’s got a point.” Jirou said in a bored tone, “Although, I gotta admit the game is kind of fun. In a very dumb way. Unless you’re too chicken.”

“Are you trying to pull a me right now?” Ser asked, “I’ve done this enough times to Bakugou to know what you’re doing. But hell I don’t see the harm if you it’s alright...”

“SERIOUSLY?!” Mina screeched, “I’ve been your bestie since year one and you trust Jirou’s opinion over mine?!?!???”

“Mina.” Sero eyes locked onto hers, “Do me a favor and, think back to last week when you and Kaminari thought it would be fun to—

Mina put her hand over Sero’s mouth,“Ok-OK! Fair point! We don’t need to talk about that.”

Momo, Jirou, Uraraka, Tsu and Tooru all gave the two of them the most terrified glance. They sort of  wanted to know what Sero was going to say but at the same time… they didn’t want to know. So they just left it at that, and hopefully the actual event was not as insane as what they were imaging, but knowing the meme queens...

“Alright fine, whatever so like how to I play this? Is it like MKF?” Sero’s eyes widened when all of the girls groaned at the same time.

“Why the hell didn’t we just play it like that!?” Tooru yelled

Uraraka face palmed, “That would have saved so much time.”

“Because it’s not as scientific that way!” exclaimed Mina

“Oh yes, because the ancient method of Mash is much more “scientifically accurate.” Jirou said complete with air quotes as Momo chuckled beside her.

“Scientifically accurate?” Sero asked.

“It determines your soulmate DUH, same as MASH, but you know better.” said Mina.

“Right…”

“This is too silly I’m going to bed, night guys.” Tsu said going to sleep for the night. Everyone wished her a good night and Sero wanting this to be over so they could just watch the dang movie already. He again picked his favorite guilty pleasure movie—a romantic comedy—what? He’s allowed to like ‘em jeez! Half the damned reason he agreed to this was because a) he knew he wouldn’t be judged and b) he wanted someone to watch it with him and this was the perfect place! Oh well, this game can’t take that long right?

“Okay, guys seriously? Just tell me how to play.”

“You got it my Office Supply Guy!” Mina beamed as Sero shook his head, “So here is how you play. You give me a list of 10 people you like as platonically ONLY. Then you give me a list of another 10 people but this time it’s people you find hot—or well: attractive, aesthetically pleasing and/or who you would hypothetically/potentially would want to date. Then, you give me 2 sets of numbers 1-10, then a set of 6 numbers in random order from 1-10.”

Sero was trying very, very hard not to laugh, this sounded fucking ridiculous, “Oh, is that all?”

Jirou smirked as Tooru, Uraraka and Momo stifled their giggles

“You guys—just come on okay? I’ve been trying to get the guys to play this but Kirishima knows better, Bakugou would never and Kaminari doesn’t have the attention span for it.”

“Mina. I barely have the attention span for this, so what am I supposed to do again? List 10 friends or whatever? Also wait what do you mean Kirishima knows better, cuz I’m not gonna lie that is more than mildly concerning.”

“Duh, Kirishima and I went to the same middle school, remember?! We all got bored and played it there all the time.” said Mina “But to answer your other question yeah, give me 10 people you aren’t attracted to.”

“Okay easy: You, Kaminari, Bakugou, Kirishima—

“Noooo you can’t put Bakugou and Kirishima on the same list.”

“What? Why?”

“Because they’re dating! You match up people in the first set you name with the second—trust me it’ll all be clear when we start.”

“Mina, none of this is clear, you do realize that, right??” Sero said feeling like his eyes were ready to roll out of their sockets

“In Mina’s defense it does make more sense as you play.” Uraraka smirked. See that should have been the first sign that something was wrong with this game. Uraraka never smirked, and if he were being honest… it was the most terrifying thing he’d ever seen.

Sero sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, “okay fine, so leave them off?”

“Or you put one on this list and the other one on the, people you wouldn’t mind dating list.”

“Or the ‘hotties list’ as she called it when we she made me play it.” Jirou rolled her eyes.

“Right, okay so my list of friends who I do not want to date take two: You, Kaminari, Jirou—”

“Ouch, me I get but you’re putting Jirou on the platonic list?”

Sero went red, “I—I don’t mean I don’t think Jirou’s unattractive I just—Jirou and I fist bump, I feel like once you’re in the fist bump zone that means you’re buddies for life and that’s kind of it and I—”

“Mina, can you stop torturing him?” Momo asked.

“Yeah, otherwise we’ll never get to the actual game and then no movie.” Jirou yelled in Sero’s defense, “No worries Sero, I feel exactly the same way.” Jirou fist bumped him in solidarity, besides she’s ashamed to admit it but she was pretty excited to see who Sero would be matched up with in the end.

“Okay. Fiiiiiiiine. So Sero on your first list you have: me, Kaminari, Jirou and you need 7 more people.

“Seven… right, uh…Tokoyami, Tetsutetsu… um… shit this is hard!”

“Right?!” Tooru squeaked, “It’s actually really hard to list all of these people! Oh but yeah you can totally list us under the friends list.”

Sero blushed, “Well… like what if I dunno I’ve had a crush or two on some of you—from like first year.”

“Oooooh who?!”

“Uraraka and Momo…”

Momo and Uraraka blushed, “Aw Sero!” Mina squealed.

Sero, realized he should have trusted his instincts. This insidious “game” was a trap. “H-heh, so okay how many more people do you need?” look into editing

“Well, let’s see, we have you—

“What? I didn’t list myself.”

“Yeah, I listed you—MASH rules the host can add one person to each list—now shush. You have listed: You, Me, Kaminari, Jirou, Tokoyami, Tetsutetsu. Great! Four more to go!”

“Tooru, Uhhhh… Oh! Camie, Inasa, and Shinsou! Done.”

“With the first list you are, and aww I’m glad you and Shinsou are friends! I feel badly that he didn’t get moved up to the Hero class sooner.”

“Yeah me too he’s a really great guy, and wait I gotta do the same thing in the other list?”

“Yep! So if you would please list of the people you could potentially see yourself being with, and/or you find cute.”

“Aw Jeez, what is this the most complicated game known to man?” Sero said exasperated AF, “Fine. But Mina? I’m giving you this list once and only once and if you miss somebody then that’s your fault and you have to fill in the damn gap.”

“Ok, ok, I got it… go!”

“Uhhhhh, ok, Momo, Kendou, Uraraka, Iida, Shouji, Ojiro, Awase, Shindou, and um… um. N-Natsuo?”

“Natsuo… as in Todoroki’s older brother?”

“Yeah, I mean, I guess? I mean he’s pretty cute, and I’m running out of people to name.”

“He’s four years older!”

“Again, you said people I thought were cute! He’s cute it totally counts! I’m not saying I’m gonna jump his bones or anything! Anyway, that’s ten right?”

“Nope that’s nine but since you choose a slightly older Todoroki, I am putting our Todoroki.”

“Y-You can’t do that.”

“Oooooh yes I can and I am.”

“Fine, I change those last two, to um—um…”

“Nope, no take backs and you took way too long on the friends list, this is the list of hotties you are stuck with.” Mina gave a mock innocent smile

“You’re only freaking out about it because you have to deal with Todoroki being on the list.” said Jirou struggling to hold back a laugh

“And the only reason he only put Natsuo on because it’s safer option.” Momo said coyly, “ You chose him because it means you wouldn’t have to say Shouto.”

Sero went red, “What does that have to do with anything?”

“That you like him… a lot” Uraraka chirped

“I do not. I mean yeah we’re friends, just friends.”

“Mhmm… sure.” Tooru laughed

“You guuuuuys!”

“Seroooo!”

“Ugh, sure whatever you say can we just finish the stupid game? Random numbers?”

“Yep 10 random numbers 1-10 2x plus 6 random numbers 1-10” Mina clicked her pen a couple of times and Sero rolled his eyes for probably the umpteenth million time during this dumb game and spouted out numbers. What the actual fuck had he been thinking when he agreed to this shit?

“Alright! Now we can start!” Mina squealed with glee, “So here’s what’s going on, the first two number sequences you gave me? Well, they match up to names on either of the two lists. So I’m going to give you two names aaaaaand you’re going to tell me if you’d think they’d be a good couple or not.”

Sero blinked, “What?”

“Sero, you’re not a dumb guy, stop acting like it. Okay, you for example got paired up with oooooh Shouji.”

“I’m going to say this again. What?”

“So your name was first on the friends list, and when you gave me the list of 10 numbers you said the number 2 first. That effectively gave you the number 2 and on the other list, you named Shouji fifth but in the number sequence you said the number 2 fifth. Hence you getting paired with Shouji. So now I’m going to give you couples based on number matches and lol you’re going to tell me if you think they’d be a cute couple or not, and I record your answer as yes or no.”

“Okay, I suppose that makes sense… so what the fuck does D-K-F-S-T-A stand for.” Sero filled with dread the likes of which he had never felt before, When Mina answered. “Oh that, heh you’ll see.”

Sero swallowed hard, “O-Okay?”

“Great, so do you see you and Shouji together?”

Sero did not miss the fact that they were all silently laughing at his misery, he also didn’t miss that he was going to have a fun time explaining all of his answers, “Yes…”

“Oh my god I knew it.” Tooru squealed

Sero groaned, “He’s a nice guy okay?!”

“Right and kissing him during truth or dare last month has nothing to do with it?” Jirou playfully punched his arm.

“Sh-Shut up Jirou! Unless you want me to pull out some receipts on all of you.”

“Fair enough.”

“Ok, ok next, oh oh wow lol nope,” Mina laughed.

“What?”

“Me and Ojiro.”

“Oh, definitely not, Ojiro deserves better.”

“HEY!”

The room burst out in fits of giggles.

“Kaminari and Iida.”

“Huh, yeah kinda—wait actually nope, def not. They get along super well and I love both of them a lot but I feel like they’d be missing chemistry?”

“Oh same,” said Ochako.

“Right?” said Sero

Mina wanted to get to the “good” part of the game so she interrupted, “Jirou and HA! Natsuo.”

Before Jirou could even open her mouth Sero said “No. I didn’t realize it was gonna be like this, you guys were right he’s way too old.”

“Not old enough for you to have a semi crush on him.” Jirou smirked

“No, that’s Todoroki Shouto you’re thinking of.” Momo giggled

“Would you guys shut up about that? Look okay yes, I’ve stayed over at his house a couple of times and yes—”

Mina’s widened in shock “He let you stay at his house?!”

“Well uh—yeah when his dad’s not home. Listen remember during our last break? My parents got the dates all mixed up, and they were out of the country. I was just gonna stay at the UA dorms but Endeavor was on a mission in Osaka and Todoroki insisted I come home with him. Natsuo and Fuyumi are really nice, I actually owe them my weight’s worth in grocery money for sure but they wouldn’t let me pay for anything. So—why are you all looking at me like that?”

“Oh nothing” Momo smiled oh-not-so-innocently

“Absolutely Nothing.” Jirou shrugged her shoulders

“Not a thing.” Uraraka said her hand propping up her chin in mock contemplation.

“Nothing at all.” Tooru hummed

Mina didn’t care about subtlety and just plunged in, “So... you’re like sure there’s nothing going on with you and Todoroki?”

“Is this seriously what we’re going to be talking about the whole night?” Sero said desperately trying to calm himself down to rid his cheeks of the epic blush that was currently decorating his face.

“Depends, when you uh stayed over at his place… did you guys sleep in his room?”

Sero opened his mouth to offer some sort of a response but his words died before they could reach his lips. He instantly made a tight lipped smile and refused to look at any of them.

“OH MY GOD!”

“It wasn’t like that!”

“Honestly Sero, you are hopeless.” Mina shook her head, “Okay, Tooru and Kendou.”

“No, not really, you guys don’t talk enough.”

“Yeah that’s fair.” Tooru yawned in agreement, “Aw man... guys I hate to tap out early but I’m exhausted, pleeeeease you have to tell me how this ends.”

“Oh you know it girl, sweet dreams!”

They all wished Tooru good night which luckily let Sero have enough time to collect himself for the next onslaught of questions. He thought he was prepared, he thought it must be close to finishing right? He could do this… well that’s what he thought before he heard Mina cackle.

“Oh god who with who” Sero dreaded asking.

“Tokoyami and Uraraka.”

Everyone cracked up at that because well no matter who Uraraka ended up with, unless it was with Midoriya it was gonna be a no (and the boy wasn’t even listed).

“Lol nope, she has eyes for only one person on this earth.”

“Sh-Shut up!”

“Oooooh ok, I see, so it’s okay to humiliate me, but not you.”

“Well duh I’m not the one playing the game.”

“Yeah well—

“Sero stop arguing with Uraraka, the faster we get through this the faster we can—Oh My God,” Mina struggled to keep a straight face, “Shinsou and Shindou.”

Everyone cackled, and admitted to himself internally that maybe this game wasn’t that bad.

“You know what? Weirdly enough, I kinda see it. If only for the reason that Shinsou wouldn’t let that smug good looking asshole get away with shit.”

“You do realize you and Shindou kinda look alike,”  Momo offered.

“No we don’t?”

“You kinda do though,” said Jirou.

“We do not, what drugs are you all taking?”

“We aren’t on drugs, you guys do look a little alike and It’s not a bad thing.” Ochako chimed in.

“I’m aware, he’s nice looking, but I mean we don’t.”

“Sero…” Mina for the first time that night gave him a soft look.

“What?”

“We know why you’re saying that, you’re good looking!”

“I’m fine looking.”

“Sero.”

“Moving on please.”

“Ugh fine, oh! Camie and Momo!”

“Awwww, that would be kind of adorable.”

“She is pretty…” Momo sighed wistfully

“You know I could set something up, right?” said Sero

“No no! That’s okay!”

“You sure?”

“I could set you up with Todoroki,” Momo countered.

“We room next to each other so like lol if that were ever to become a thing, which it won’t. I swear I’m a big boy, I’m more than capable to do it on my own.”

“Yes, because you’re so good at telling someone you like them,” said Jirou.

“You know what Jirou? Those who live in glass houses…” He gave her a pointed look causing her to mutter some choice insult phrases Sero’s way.

“Moving on,” Mina hastily smoothed over, “Oh! Inasa and Todoroki.”

“Yeah I can see it heh,” Sero shrugged, “considering they dated for a bit this summer.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, they like had a lot of fun and like I-I dunno they kept trying to make it work and it was really hard though... because of the distance. But yeah like yeah they were a thing, I think they ended it for good but I don't know...” Sero shrugged, "I'm pretty sure Todoroki, Bakugou, and Kirishima were supposed to meet up with Inasa tonight, maybe Camie too. They might get back together, and like that would be nice..."

“Oh Sero…”

“Why are you “Oh Sero-ing” me? They make each other happy, plus it’s not like I have a stake in this.”

“Sero, it’s okay you can admit you like him, who are we going to tell?” Momo asked gently placing her hand on his back. Sero couldn’t look at her so he just responded with, “He’s my friend. How many times do I have to say that? Of course I like him, but like just as a friend. I didn’t put him on the other list you guys did, anyway...” The girls gave him a look but Sero gave them his winning smile, “who is next in this crazy game or is that it?”

“Alright…” Mina hesitated, wanting so very desperately to make sure Sero was okay. Yeah they messed with each other a lot but Sero was family to her… but the boy was stubborn as hell so she just moved forward. “Okay! Oh god! Satou and Awase!”

“LOL nope. They’d like run out of things to talk about in 5 minutes or less, so is that it?”

“No! Now, we get to the really fun part.”

“The really fun part? Oh hell, the fuck is “the fun part.””

“Yup give me 6 random numbers 1-10.”

“Mina, you totally made this game up.”

“I DID NOT! You can ask Kirishima!! I swear! We played this in middle school all the time!!!”

“What hell dimension did you guys go to middle school???”

“Oh just come on!!! You’re taking forever!”

“Because you keep talking!”

“This is ridiculous,” said Momo, “Give me the notebook Mina I’ll do it from here.”

“Oh good idea he’ll answer you without a fuss.”

“I’m not making a fuss!”

“Kinda are.”

Sero rolled his eyes and gave the random numbers to Momo, “Ok what do I need to do now?”

“Answers these honestly AND you have to explain your answer.”

“O-Okay?”

“Would you date Ojiro?”

“No, I mean he’s awesome but… it’s just… I know he has a crush on someone else and it would feel really weird if I went in there and asked him out. Like it just seems very inconsiderate and like… you know why bother asking a friend you know isn’t into you out? It will just wreck the friendship, and yeah, like who wants that, you know?”

There was a collective aw from all of the girls and Ochako reached out for Sero’s hand, “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about feelings you may or may not have for someone?”

Sero sighed, “I appreciate your attempt at ambiguity Uraraka, but um, lol yeah we’re not going there, because there are only so many times I can tell you all he’s just a friend without taping you all to the ceiling.”

“Okay would you kiss...” Momo blinked before continuing. “Oh me!”

“I would.” Sero smiled and kissed Momo on the cheek.

Momo giggled, “Aw shucks Sero.”

He snorted, “Never say that again.”

“Yeah I regretted it the instant I said it, thank you for the kiss.” She playfully shoved his shoulder with his.

“Oh anytime lol.”

“Okay would you go to First Base with Natsuo.”

Sero’s eyes bugged out of his skull, “Nooooo. DEAR GOD NO! Like you guys said he’s like 4 years older! AND I DIDN’T  REALIZE IT WAS GONNA BE LIKE THIS!!!”

“Right well, now you know for next time.”

“What makes you think I’m ever playing this stupid game ever again?”

“Because it’s ridiculous, it’s fun, and again it will determine your soulmate!" Mina said in a sing-songy tone, "Now. Would you go to second base with Awase.”

Sero went pale as a sheet, looked away and mumbled out his answer.

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“I said… w-well, since it’s already happened I guess I gotta say yes.” Sero rubbed the back of his neck

“I’m so sorry, what?!?!!!?” They collectively screeched

“Uh. Details. Now. When the heck did this happen?!?!?!!!” Jirou demanded

"Ugh, ok... so... remember that time we had training with 2-b last trimester? The one off campus? We had that party? Awase and I got matched up for seven minutes in heaven and like neither of us had really kissed someone with tongue before… So like yeah we um started kissing and um then… u-um well... like we progressed to um making out and it was n-nice.” Sero swallowed hard, “And OK SURE maybe we got a little carried away in the moment—but like!!! IT WAS ONLY THAT LIKE ONE TIME AND NOTHING HAPPENED WE JUST MADE OUT and had somewanderinghands BUT NOTHING BELOW THE BELT!!!”

“OH MY GOD HOW HAVE YOU NEVER TOLD US THIS BEFORE?!”

“WELL YOU WERE AT THE PARTY!!!”

“Oh my god this makes so much sense now, you looked like a rumpled mess. Did you guys ever try dating after?” Momo pressed.

“W-we might have made out a couple more times, but that was it. There was kind of no romantic feels there, as much as I wanted there to be then I could have just moved on from–”

“From?” asked Jirou.

“Nothing, no one, it doesn’t matter. Next question?”

“Would you go to Third with HA omfg Shindou.”

“Well for one, ew no. You guys said he looks like me and I can’t ever unsee that and it’s so weird to think about now. And two, he is much of an asshole as he is amazing to look at, absolutely not. Can you imagine? He’d allude it to everyone anyway. Not say it outright because you know “his image™.”

“Oh god what a nightmare yeah, besides he doesn’t deserve you.”

“Awwwwwww Mina, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“IT IS NOT I’VE SAID PLENTY OF NICE THINGS TO YOU IN THE PAST.”

“Uh-huh after you’re done torturing me that is.”

Mina gaped at him like he’d just slapped her, “RUDE.”

“Okay Sero, last one.” Momo laughed and then her eyes widened, “Oh my god. Okay just know that I did not do this on purpose. This is actually just who you got.”

“O...kay?”

“Would you go all the way with Todoroki?”

“Wh-what?”

“Would you–

Sero blinked, and interrupted, “No, I’m not answering that. There is no right answer for that. If I say no, you’re going to say I’m in denial or some bullshit.”

“You are totally in denial,” said Mina.

Sero glared, at Mina before sighing, “And if I give you my logical answer, you’re gonna make a big deal out of it and I’d rather not do this. It’s–look can we just pretend that like I said whatever you want me to say and we can move onto the movie or something?”

“But after you finish this one then we calculate your “soulmate”, with you know science.” Jirou smiled

“Right. Science. Weren’t you the one to point out how BS this concept of “MASH science” is?”

“Well yeah but this is the last one and like we don’t mean to actually bother you about this.”

“Aw yeah, come on Sero, we promise we won’t make this into a big deal. Besides it’s not fun to poke fun if you’re not actually having fun ya know?” Mina gave a very OVER enthusiastic grin, which melted Sero’s misgivings

“Oh alright.” He took in a deep breath, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Hypothetically? I would–hypothetically–b-because we’re friends and I know he wouldn’t laugh at me, or make me feel more self conscious than I already am. And that yeah, it would be awkward as hell, and sure it would be ridiculous, but it would be like nice? I don’t know, I just trust him, and I think if hypothetically we would do that… then like it would maybe even be fun? Or… I don’t know I just can’t really see even saying yes to anyone but him...” When he looked up he saw the girls’ mouths gaping, and he instantly looked away completely missing the girls’ waving and signaling for him to STOP.

“I-It like wouldn’t be weird I guess? Again, like I trust him and I-I dunno. I just think going all the way with Todoroki would feel natural instead of… terrifying ya know? And--”

Finally Mina screeched, “HI TODOROKI HOW’RE YOU DOING?!”

Everyone went completely still as Sero turned around with a breakneck speed only to see that Todoroki was not in fact out with Kirishima, Bakugou, Camie and Inasa. He was instead, standing right behind him looking pretty bewildered slapped across his face. All that could be heard next was Sero softly uttering, “o-oh fuck.”

[kitwilsonsass]

Since I’ve been putting it off due to lingering sicky feels, etc.

Here’s the far too long and far too unedited and written at 4am vacation rundown NO ONE ASKED FOR! (huzzah!)

So, yeah. I arrived at the new Amtrak station in the city which is a major upgrade from the trailer park reject of station the old one was. Way roomier. Could use a coffee stand or something but yeah. Improvement. Had to go underground under the tracks and back up to get to the very cold surface, it must suck in the winter.

About an hour, hour and a half into the trip I quickly realized that a.) all I wanted to do was sleep, and b.) that my throat was burning. I assumed this was due to the absurdly cold, non-stop dry ass air conditioning, but no. This bitch got sick for her entire trip. On the plus side I had the seats to myself for the majority of the trip, but still. I barely watched any CR or anything because I was miserable the entire time. Ya don’t wanna be miserable for 10+ hours on a train.

Got to Boston, to @conniecorleone‘s frightening apartment stairs. My bag was way too heavy and she troopered through taking it up them for me without dying. So if you ever need a tank in battle, call Rachel.

Hung out a little. Ordered some Five Guys. Watched a couple episodes of the first season of American Horror Story. I get the appeal but also never needed to see Dermot Mulroney’s ass.

Rach was busy with work stuff a lot early in the week, not helped by some dumbass school shooting threat the week before and kept apologizing while still going above and beyond as a hostess while I just felt guilty for getting snot on her sheets.

Day two I colored a bit. I can do a wicked water gradient with erasable colored pencils, for the record. Hung out. Relaxed. Used a lot of Zicam and Advil. Then we were on way to The Middle East for her conehead space boyfriend.

We waited like, an hour? In the chilly mist outside? The show started like AN HOUR LATE after that. The venue was nice but man, the mood was getting close to dead at points, especially since, again, FUCKIN SICK. But Planet Booty came on and while, a little on the bordering too raunchy side, put on a fucking amazing live show. Dylan has an absurd amount of energy that should be bottled and sold, but if it were it might result in the orgypocalypse. I saw a youtube comment that said he’s ‘very touchy lol’ and truer words never spoken. That man will grind on you and sing directly in your earlobe with his tongue if you are front row and happily, I was not. Yet somehow I still ended up with his sweat on my sweater sleeve thanks to someone being a dumbass and high fiving him after their set and not being able to handle the consequences. Ahem.

THEN TWRP TOOK LIKE ANOTHER GODDAMN HALF HOUR???

But I FORGIVE THEM because they were GREAT and played Daft Punk’s Celebrate in honor of motherfuckin Canadian Thanksgiving so... fine... I guess. My only complaint is they didn’t do The Perfect Product even though I get that’s probably a weird thing to do live. Also minimal keytar and Sung almost decapitated himself but you know... it happens. They DID do Tactile Sensation though which is a fucking jam. And Atomic Karate, ofc. And Meouch broke his fucking bass string which is like? Fucking hardcore? He came down like a foot away from us at one point. It was dope. They’re amazing live and have no right to be for dudes in ridiculous robot costumes playing synth in the year 2018 and rolling around stage on a hoverboard. Sadly I brought minimal memory cardage this year and didn’t get a lot of good video of them.

Afterwards, despite *someone* almost passing out, we hung out in the merch lines and did NOT accidentally cut ahead this time. I got a free signed poster because it was my birthday vacation ayyyyy and bought a couple EPs and the Together Through Time album. Then hopped over the PB’s line and got two hugs from Dylan who hung out and talked to/hugged/got selfies with every single person who got into line there and just? Good dude. Pure dude. Awful stache but... thumbs up human being. I got their Naked album and we headed out back to the apartment and some delivered Dominos (which was the only good Dominos I’ve ever had in my life.)

Day three I accidentally slept until like 4pm. Literally what else did we do that day? I cannot remember for the life of me. We might have went to Dunkin at like 9pm and she showed me a weird omnipotent plastic ear hanging on an electric wire? Was that this day? I have no fucking idea. Her Netflix and supply of Puffs tissues were my best friends this trip okay.

Day four she went to class and I relaxed and intended to walk to the mall. Unfortunately, my sick bleh hit and I didn’t feel up to going until about ten minutes before she got back. So we ended up heading over there together. I made her try Baja Blast, as is customary in my nation, and got her to try some green matte lipstick. Success. I was highkey hoping they would have a Build-A-Bear in the joint but they didn’t. They did have a Newbury though, that had the six-inch Roadhog pop which I’ve had a hard time finding locally, so I said fuck it and bought it.

That night was MST3k live! The theater was old as dirt. The kind of old as dirt where the flooring is bowing in. They had real strict rules on cameras and shit, which I get for the sake of spoilers but c’mon.... c’mon. Their merch sucked unfortunately though, so I didn’t waste any money on anything (for some reason they had 2017 tour stuff? It’s... not 2017?). The show itself was good, though I was wondering before it started how sick they must get of doing the same movie in different towns almost every other night. Pretty quickly realized oh, yeah, a lot of this show was likely pre-riffed. They did pull a kid from the stage at one point so he could guest riff off a script from Joel, which I’m thinking was a clever little insert fraction of the riff they did live between segments. I could be wrong, but on that front, it felt a little cheap. But it was still fun to see the boys and the bots live and have jokes cracked about not being able to afford the villains for the tour. And The Brain itself was........ I don’t know what I was expecting but..... it sure was.... something. The novelty was worth it and I will still gladly marry Crow T. Robot.

We went across the street to a little pub stop that was I think called Rock Bottom after that and got some much needed late night food. For some reason my brain was like “man, I could go for chicken fried steak right now” and don’t you know IT WAS ON THE FUCKIN MENU? WITH GARLIC CHEDDER MASHED POTATOES? Boston, much like with wings, does not know what country gravy is, but it was still everything I fucking wanted and did not expect to find, so A+. Also I was wearing a dress with shorts underneath it and stuck to the goddamn stool. Such is life.

Day five was rainy and miserable. I tagged along to university with Rach and it sucked, honestly. Being on a campus makes me feel awkward and the whole still being sick thing didn’t help. I ended up taking a walk way around the block to a Starbucks and getting the worst fucking frap I’ve ever paid too much money for. Went back around. Sat in the library. Felt even shittier. Started googling food places. Yard House wasn’t far but I didn’t want to deal with crossing a lot of traffic, especially if the rain started back up (it did, with a vengeance). So I ended up back around the block at some Olive Garden-esque fake Italian place with not an Italian in sight called Bertucci’s for some bland chicken-less fettuchini alfredo (because, as I’d reasoned with myself, I had chicken three times the day before). It was dimly lit, I had a booth to myself, and the water had the sweet skullet and braided beard combo I had liveblogged. People kept complimenting my tattoo. It was nice and no one seemed overly bothered that I was clearly killing time until I spent probably way too long in the restroom after trying to look alive. I tipped the dude ten bucks and left in the pouring rain with my umbrella.

From her school we took the world’s longest Uber to Parts Fucking Unknown in awful traffic and rain to find a Double Tree where @freakishlytallaustralian‘s parents were staying for a hot minute during their brief little US tour on their way to Europe. I’ve never met Mandi in person, but I’ve now met her parents who say she’s gotten to know a good bloke. She looks exactly like her mom. They were sweet. Anxious but sweet. And I am a freak who doesn’t talk and was sick trying to seem presentable at the bare minimum capacity.

Back ~home~ we ordered some JP Licks ice cream (BROWNIE BROWNIE BATTER!!! BROWNIE. BROWNIE. BATTER.), I watched CR and some stupid videos on the internet with her. Got some sleep. Sort of. Barely.

Despite Matt Mercer nearly succeeding at lulling me to sleep and eating my dreams, it didn’t happen, and I could not get comfortable for the life of me. The “coughing every five seconds in bed” started this night and was not having mercy. So I opted out of another day of hanging around campus to try and get some more rest. It didn’t really work, but I did eventually get a solid three hours or so, so it was something.

As the day progressed it was onward to the Science Museum to meet Ron the T-Rex. There was a wedding happening. How appropriate, for Bravier funko pops to have come along on the day of a blessed union. Coincidence? I think not. A turtle kept falling off a branch when he was trying to nap. There was some space stuff. It wasn’t great. But I got a little stuffed dinosaur and that’s Important.

From there we hit up the same movie theater we went to the year before and saw Bad Times At The El Royale. Do recommend. Chris Hemsworth as a Charles Manson was not something I ever thought I’d see, and I still don’t understand it, but it rather predictably works for me, so we’ll leave it at that. Good movie, good performances, good pacing and editing that could have easily not been. See it, it’s fun. Not perfect, but fun.

It was COLD AS BALLS after the movie and neither of us brought jackets or sweaters, so the walk to the train station and back ~home~ was a chilly one. We stopped in, got some warmth, and headed down the road past her old place to a bar. If we didn’t appreciate TWRP and PB enough already, the band she had to pay cover for us to get in for just to pick up food were about 8 upper middle aged men playing every instrument in the book. Afropunk, they said. No, we said. Offkey, we said. This place was dark as shit and loud as shit but you know what? They KNEW WHAT REAL, HOT CHICKEN WINGS WERE and for that, I am appreciative dammit.

Went back, got some more Dominos, and was finally introduced to John Mulaney’s (or two of) comedy specials. He’s genius and I *understand* it now, tumblr. I get it. We ate way too much and did my laundry.

The week had come and gone way too soon and I felt robbed of my good time by how shitty I felt. Hopping on the train the next day (after a godawful uber ride) was just as depressing as the time before. And even though I didn’t feel as miserable as the trip there, and once again had a window seat to myself, I found myself curled up against my hoodie crying trying to fall asleep again knowing I was already headed back home.

Once the initial depression passed, the trip wasn’t bad. The iced latte was good. The Albany stop not as confusing the second time around. The WiFi kept me company. Eventually my aunt texted me asking if I wanted to hit up Stevie T’s on the way home because they were 24hr and neither of us had eaten all night. It was a plan. Get off, get food, come home, faceplant on my own big comfy bed, vow to deal with my dad’s drama in the morning and call it a night.

Then *that* happened. Yeah. Last year? Every stop, regardless of time of night, they made announcements. They came by, checked the marker above your seat, and if you were due off at the next stop told you it was coming up, would help with luggage if needed, and directed you to the correct door to exit the train. This year? Nothing. They decided to stop making announcements right before the Rochester stop, and no one came by in our car to tell us where to get off. Stopped, myself and the other person due off at that stop, a late-teens girl, went to the door at the front of our car where every other stop had gotten off before us. We assumed since no one said differently, and no attendants were around, that must be it. We were idiots. Because by the time we realized hey, they’re not going to open this door and we should go to the far other end of the train, it was already moving again en route to Buffalo.

We found ourselves in the dining booths by the cafe car while the staff made vague remarks and the conductor acted like it wasn’t his problem. My aunt on the phone talked to the Rochester station, we tried to claim I didn’t even have a reservation until about two other people looked up my ticket. They said it was up to the conductor to get us a cab home, he laughed at us, claimed to know nothing about any of that, and asked if were were going to buy the bus tickets the other girl was looking up. The bus for 3am, in downtown Buffalo, nowhere near the station. When we got off the staff at the Depew station was a lot more sympathetic, and said since nothing else was being offered he would put us on the next train back home, but since it was a Sunday morning there was no train to Rochester until roughly 7:45am. It was about 1:30 at this point. I felt awful for encouraging the other girl not to pay for two ubers and a bus ticket with the only alternative being offered to sit alone in an empty, unstaffed station in the middle of the night for hours. And between the situation, being tired and still sick, and dealing with my aunt calling hotels only to get put on hold and lose the room she was trying to reserve - I put my bags in a corner, found the restroom, and had a panic attack. I don’t know why, but those tend to be stupid like that. It’s not even like I was scared, or confused, or that worried myself. I started out very ‘whatever, I’ll just get a room or stay in the station, I’m pissed but whatever’. But something about the constant calls and texts and my battery nearing 0 had me stressed and I was crying like a bitch. I just wanted to fucking sleep, and I knew that wouldn’t happen in a train station with nothing but some benches, a restroom, and a vending machine.

Rach suggested an alternative I felt guilty about taking but ended up going for: Get to her parents house just outside Buffalo, get their spare key, and sleep on their couch while they’re out of town with their blessing. So I called an Uber, and the first one passed me by, with the gps fucking up and saying I should be picked up ON THE TRAIN TRACKS. The second guy was smart enough to come to the cab pickup out front and was really cool. He said he was just thankful I wasn’t a fucked up drunk college party kid and the first all night. He didn’t comment on how I probably definitely looked like I’d just been broken up with in the world’s worst romcom. It was over 20 bucks and I tipped him the max. Found my way inside, set up the couch, and continued my momentarily on hold panic until I eventually passed out. My Aunt came to pick me up in the morning, I got carsick, we had mediocre diner breakfast and what’s after that isn’t news worth talking about. Isn’t it bad enough the tail end of the trip took up like a third of this post?

All in all... it felt like a disaster. I’m not gonna lie. In weird ways the stars aligned that TWRP would end up on Conan the night of their show and have to reschedule to the day I came to town, but I paid for it with otherwise bad timing and my body deciding against me having a good time. Fun was had, don’t get me wrong. The good was good and any chance to get away from... this, is appreciated, but it just seemed like everything went awry. 

Mucho thanks to @conniecorleone again, for letting me crash on the futon and be my usual bland self, even blander while ill, and also buying me expensive cold syrup and a-many ubers.

We’ll see if Massachusetts and I ever cross paths again.

[allthefilmsiveseenforfree]

Night School

Comedies are tricky things. You take funny people, a silly premise, some ridiculous sight gags and boom, laughter happens, right? As someone who saw Fist Fight in theaters last year, I can tell you that this formula is not always enough, y’all. So with Night School, we’ve got two of the brightest stars in the 2018 comedy universe, Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish, facing off against each other as GED student and teacher. So, does this combo go to the head of the class or is this a school you’re better off dropping out of? Well...

I went in with low expectations. I’m talking llllooooowwwwwww expectations. So maybe this is just a case of a lot of benefit going to the doubt, but...I kinda liked it. I really did. The plot is pretty basic and predictable. Teddy (Kevin Hart) is a high school dropout who’s doing pretty ok for himself. He’s poised to take over the store he works at as a salesman, and he’s just gotten engaged to Lisa, a woman who is WAY out of his league (Megalyn Echikunwoke, aka Cassie from that one episode of Supernatural) - but his proposal backfired - literally - and his store burned down, so he’s out of a job and needs to get his GED. Now he’s matriculating at his old high school, currently run by his high school rival (Taran Killam) and is trying to survive a night school class of lovable misfits taught by the no-nonsense Carrie (Tiffany Haddish).

Some thoughts:

Surprise lesbian! Sure would be nice if they had actually showed her character expressing any sort of desire towards another woman. Even a subtle up-and-down of Cassie’s super hot assistant would have been nice. Like, yay for inclusion to where it isn’t a big deal, but also like...let lesbians act like lesbians? Otherwise that’s some bullshit “oh yeah and Dumbledore was gay the whole time!” erasure.

Kevin Hart has a problem with self-editing. This movie is about 20 minutes too long. 

I’m no special education expert...but I feel like yelling “CONCENTRATE” is not the key to solving learning disabilities. Also where are his accommodations?? This movie is an ADA and Accessibility nightmare. 

Keith David, here playing Teddy’s father, is just such a treasure of a character actor. That voice, man. Gosh I love him.

I appreciate that the movie as a whole is a lot more cohesive than the trailers make it out to be. In the context of these rag-tag losers coming together as a found family, all the hijinks and shenanigans make a lot more sense.

Rob Riggle, you sweet little ray of sunshine. Every time you’re onscreen is like a big hug.

I love that this movie actually passes the Bechdel test, which is a (sad) rarity in comedies like these.

The funniest bit in the whole movie, hands down, is everything involving the fast food restaurant Teddy has to work at to make ends meet. It’s called Christian Chicken. Y’all. I cannot overemphasize how incredible Christian Chicken is. The set designers and props department had a field day. There are posters for The Holy Trinity - a combo featuring chicken strips, mashed potatoes, and green beans. Posters for Beezlebub’s BBQ Wings. The soda machine contains beverages like Ruth beer, Psalms soda, Christ’s coconut water, and Lazarus lemonade. 

I appreciate that the ending doesn’t feel like a cheap movie cop out. Like, I’m 99% sure that’s not how the GED works - you definitely have to wait a certain period of time before you can retake any major test like that - but the message is clear that you have to work hard for things you really want, and sometimes that means failing along the way. People who have the deck stacked against them might fail a lot. This movie doesn’t shame those who take a different path, and that’s a message more people need to hear, I think.

Overall, this is a silly, sweet, ridiculous little movie that has some pretty important things to say about belonging, self-worth, and the value of education in all forms. The movie shines the most when it’s not struggling to make Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish face off against each other, but when it allows the entire ensemble to showcase meaningful connections and relationships. And TBH it’s all worth it just for the Christian Chicken bits.

[medusasterling]

Avengers: Infinity War Headcanon

(This kinda got long and kinda rant-y)

So... call me crazy if you want (believe me, I've been called worse) but ever since watching Infinity War 1 there's this headcanon for IW2 I just can't get out of my mind.

So, imagine when Thanos is vanquished and the good guys reverse the snap thingy? Wanda's gonna come back. It won't bring back Vision, since he didn't die because of the snap thingy. The problem? We saw Wanda look happy/relieved when she turned into dust. Remember what happened when Pietro died? Her powers went ballistic. Now imagine what happens when someone with that kind if power is left losing her boyfriend lover true love? whatever (who I don't doubt is her biggest anchor to sanity). I don't think we want that (unless that's the plot for Avengers 6 5 [edit: whoops, Civil War is Captain America, not Avengers...] then I'm gonna laugh my fucking ass off).

Now how to bring Vision back? ... we can't.

Mind Stone? Sure as hell won't work. I'm not a computer expert but I really doubt ripping out the processor and then stuffing it back in is gonna make the computer work again... at the very least not the way it used to...

Soul Stone (because what else should the hardest to obtain stone do, be like the cloak of invisibility in Harry Potter? Just for completion?)? Vision is technically still an AI in a robotic body and therefore has a conciousness but no real soul

Timestone? Could work but I doubt it would. It's not like Vision's body was alive in the first place. He's a robot. His "hardware" suffered only minor damage from basically ripping out an integral part. Turning back time might repair the hardware but I don't think it's gonna bring back his mind. And even if it would work in some way, I think it would be more like resetting a computer to factory settings. Fresh Start. It wouldn't be the same Vision anymore. (Maybe he'd just reboot if you're lucky but this is the MCU, when was the last time someone had this much luck?)

Reality Stone? Biggest chance so far, but we haven't seen it do more than create illusions and turn Quill's weapon into a soap bubble gun, so it can form reality but I doubt it can bring back Vision (at least as he was)

Space Stone? Zapping a computer with energy doesn't sound like it's gonna work the way we intend... then again, "Forget what you saw in movies, that's not how defibrillators work" was like the first thing I learned in First Aid class so maybe this is one of those "technically that's not how this shit works but we go with it anyway" cases.

Power Stone? Same as Space Stone

Good ol' computer science? We get outright told that extracting the Mind Stone is gonna kill Vision as we know him because of the way the Mind Stone is woven into his programming. Anything salvagable (because I bet they made at least a partial copy while working on him in Wakanda) would probably turn out totally different (again with the luck)

So what do we do then? Combining them still leaves problems. All conceivable possibilities still run an immense probability that whatever comes out of it is not going to be Vision in the sense that it may be all the parts of Vision but with a new personality and maybe without or with damaged memories because in the end, there is no soul to balance out any discrepancies between what was and what is left.

And this is where my headcanon turns to weird conclusions. Prepare your tinfoils everyone!

We do a two-for-one kinda deal and bring back not only Vision but also Pietro. Well kinda. We get Pietro's body from wherever it's peacefully rotting away and turn back the time for that so it's young and fresh and not-rotten. Then we hook the body up to those fancy computer-surgery thingies they have in Wakanda and kinda download what's left of Vision's mind into him and use the Soul Stone to bring back Pietro's soul (if the Time Stone doesn't include that) to anchor/balance the conciousness. So we have at the very least better chances that when he wakes up differently - which he still will - he's unlikely to turn into a homicidal/genocidal Ultron2.0 (or if he does, Wanda should be able to at least somewhat rein him in). And there you got it. A Pietro-Vision-fusion with two sets of memories which only minimally overlap and a shitload of love and care for Wanda that might just be enough to make this shit work. Once everyone gets over the initial weirdness of mashing up her twin brother and her lover that is, but hey, apparently there are continuities were Pietro and Wanda are a thing so... whatever. And hey at least Wanda gets to be happy(ish).

Or Wanda just uses the Infinity Gauntlet to will Vision back into existence. And hopefully Pietro while she's at it.

And there you have it. My own convoluted headcanon on how to bring back Pietro and Vision. (Maybe it'll let me sleep now)

Is this highly unlikely? Yes.

Do I love it anyway? Absoluetly.

Do I believe this is going to happen? No.

Will that stop me from enjoying this idea? No way.

So... this got long. And it's late. I got little to zero knowledge of computers (or the infinity stones) and did all of five minutes research on this. If I got anything fundamentally wrong, feel free to tell me (but please do stay polite, yes?) as long as it's not comic based (I'm doing this solely based on what I saw in the movies)

[sufferthesea]

Hi sweetie I have one more ask.. Could you do another one with Genma with a shy reader that's not a ninja that's turning 21 maybe the reader knows one of ninjas from the leaf and they decide to ask their fellow shinobi friends to help celebrate reader Birthday but it's the readers first time meeting everyone else?

So after the disaster that involved me permanently deleting my 1st draft of this story on accident (*sobs*), I wrote this all yesterday, edited it today and now I’m posting it way earlier than I thought! I was going to wait until December since that’s your b-day month, but I didn’t want to keep you waiting! And you’ll notice I made this a prequel to one of your other requests! I hope you like it! 

The Best Birthday Gifts Are A Surprise (aka how many names can I make up for Genma before it’s not funny anymore?) 

Words: 2.542 Pairings: Genma x Reader Also on AO3 Prequel to TheBest First Date Ever - Considering It’s Flu Season (Tumblr) (AO3)

If there was ever atime when you wished to disappear, it was now.

Kurenai,one of your friends, had spent all day with you for your 21stbirthday. She picked you up at your apartment early in the morning(too early for you, but you managed to get enough caffeine in youbefore she arrived so you didn’t look toodead), took you out to breakfast, and then walked you through thevillage to do some window shopping. A little before noon, Kurenaiexcused herself to run into a shop to “pick up a few items” sheneeded. You waited outside for a while before she reappeared with tworather high-end shopping bags on her arms and a happy smile on herface.

“Do you want toget lunch?” she suggested.

“Sure! Where didyou have in mind?”

Kurenai guided youdown the street, the bags swinging on her arms as she took the lead.“There’s a nice little place just up here. I think you’d reallylike it.” Kurenai walked you towards a small building and steeredyou into a casual-looking cafe. The walls were full of large, clearwindows without curtains or blinds, letting in the afternoon sun; thecafe was filled with sleek wooden tables and bright yellowupholstered chairs. It was surprisingly busy and there was already alarge group of people in the cafe, sitting at a row of tables in themiddle of the room that they had pushed together. The tables werelittered with cups and sake bottles, but no food. You tried to edgeaway from the loud group and towards a window seat but Kurenai seemedoddly drawn to the people and she grabbed your shoulder, smiling assweetly as ever.

“Where are yougoing?” she asked.

“O-Over here? Ithought we could sit … uhm, no?”

Kurenai shook herhead and pushed you forward towards the large group. “I think weshould sit over here.”

“But why?”

A few of the peopleat the tables looked over and perked up, waving at Kurenai.

“Oh,”you said, voice thick with dread, “you knowthem.”

“Yes, I do. And Ithink it’s about time I introduced them to you. Don’t you want tomeet my friends?”

“Not really … Imean, no offense!”

Kurenailaughed softly and nudged you forward. “This’ll be good for you.They all want to meet you. And I’m pretty sure there may be one ortwo you’d love tomeet.”

“Right …”

Kurenaistood before the tables and proudly announced your presence to thegroup. Then she went about introducing them all to you - handfuls ofdifferent names you barely had time to remember, one thrown at youright after the other. You realized they were all ninja, and it putyou on edge a little bit; you were the only non-shinobi in the cafeat the moment. Would you even have anything to talk about with them?You knew nothing about weapons or fighting or the politics of keepingthe village safe. Would they like you? Would you even be able tospeak to them? Therewere so many of them … and they were all total strangers. All theireyes on you, watching you, taking you in.

Suddenly in a chorusof a dozen voices, there was a loud cheer (some more enthusiasticthan others, you were pretty sure some only grunted) of, “Happybirthday!”

Yeah, you definitelywanted to disappear.

Turning to Kurenaiin horror, you muttered, “You planned this!”

“Ofcourse I did,” she said, still smiling as she guided you to yourseat between herself and the silver-haired ninja she called Kakashi.“It’s your 21st birthday and I wanted to do something special foryou. Now sit down! We’re going to order you lunch and then we canall get to know each other. I mean, youwill be getting to know them.”

With as muchbetrayal on your face as you could manage, you sat down reluctantlybetween the two ninja and folded your hands in your lap.

“So … what doyou like to do?”

You looked up to seea ninja with shoulder-length hair and a bandanna on his head staringat you. What was his name? Genna? Gamma? He chewed on a long needleand narrowed his eyes at you. Your face flushed red at the attentionand you stammered.

“Uh, th-things.”

“Things?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay. What kindof things?”

You shruggeduncomfortably and pressed into the back of the chair, wishing youcould escape. “Just … things.” Quickly you looked away, afraidof what kind of judgmental gaze he was giving you. Instead you metthe sparkling eyes of the ninja dressed in a green jumpsuit; youremembered his name - Gai. Not like you could ever forget someonelike him. He gave you the brightest smile you’d ever seen in yourlife and a big thumbs up.

“Happy birthday!”he bellowed, but his cry didn’t bring any attention which surprisedyou. He must’ve done stuff like that quite often. “I hope youhave a truly joyous and youthful day! You deserve only the best! Weappreciate you spending this most special time with us! You have awonderful friend in Kurenai!”

“Yeah …” youmuttered, momentarily reconsidering your friendship with thekunoichi.

“How’d you meetKurenai?”

Youturned back to see the same needle-chewing ninja as before, staringat you intently. He leaned his elbows on the table and folded hishands together. Drat, what washis name? Gebbo. Ginkgo.

“Oh! Uh …w-well, I actually hold private dance sessions. She asked if I’d doa few lessons with her students to teach them different moves andstretches that could help them with their, er, ninja training. Youknow, m-many athletes take dance classes!”

“Is that so?”

“Y-Yes.”

He nodded as ifthinking it over and rolled the needle to the other side of hismouth. “So you dance? You any good?”

“I-I think I’mfair. I … make a living teaching other people how to do it. So …yes?”

He nodded again.“Okay, so you dance. That’s something you like to do. Right?We’re making progress. What else do you like to do?”

You looked toKurenai like a child seeking its mother for help but she was busytalking with Asuma - the only other person who you knew at thisparty. Admitting to yourself that you weren’t going to get anyhelp, you turned back to Grab Bag or whatever his name was and rackedyour mind for what you liked to do. “I … like movies.”

“Yeah? Whatmovies?”

Crap. “Uhm … youknow, like … the ones they show in the movie theater here.”

“Huh. Descriptive.Do you read?”

“Mhm.”

He pointed beyondyou, “You read that?”

You looked over toKakashi who was holding a bright orange book and seemed unperturbedat being a reference point. You tried to glance over his arm at thecontent but he seemed to sense you and shifted away. “I … don’tthink so.”

A waiter appearedand you realized you hadn’t even given the slightest glance to themenu. Scrambling to look it over, you frantically tried to choosesomething inexpensive and easy to make.

“It’s yourbirthday,” Kurenai said gently, touching your shoulder, “don’tworry about it, okay? I’m paying for you.”

“You can’t -”

“I can and I willand I’m going to. Just choose what you want. You only turn 21 once.You should enjoy it.”

Through your guilt,you decided on a menu item and ordered alongside the other ninja atyour table. The conversation shifted among the small groups aroundyou, but Goku (Gazebo? Godzilla?) continued to try to get answers outof you. How long have you taught dance? Did you like this cafe? Howoften do you hang out with Kurenai? Do you know any other ninja? Thequestions weren’t too invasive but they came at such a rapid speedyou were having a hard time processing what was happening, but youmanaged to reply nearly as quickly - though you couldn’t quiterecall what you’d said. It was almost like he was trying to sizeyou up to see if you were a suitable addition to their friend group.

Halfway throughlunch, a ninja with a burned face - you remembered him to be Raidou -turned to the ninja with the bandanna and said, “Are you up fortraining later, Genma?”

Youslammed your hand down and shouted, “Genma!” Thatwas his name.

Five people turnedto look at you, including Genma. He quirked one eyebrow and rolledthe needle over his tongue.

“Yeah? What do youneed?”

Was it possible tohave this much blood rushing to your face? You shrunk away and lookedat your plate. “N-Nothing! S-Sorry, I just wanted to say I - I alsolike … music.”

A playful smirkcrossed his face and he looked at Raidou. “Yeah, that’d be fine.”

Feeling foolish, youstuck your fork into your food and mashed it until it wasunrecognizable. Lunch ended, most of the people paid and left with afew parting words of “happy birthday” or “happy 21st” andscattered into the village. Soon it was just you, Raidou, Genma,Kurenai, and Asuma. The atmosphere of the cafe seemed to changeimmediately and Kurenai stood, placing the two bags on the table.

“Here you go,”she said.

“What’s this?”

“It’s yourbirthday present, of course. You didn’t really think I wouldn’tget you one, did you?”

Stuttering out athanks once you realized it was useless to refuse it, you tried tobow but hit your elbow on the table and the dishes clattered againstthe wooden top. Genma and Asuma laughed not unkindly and you coveredyour face in shame. At least you hadn’t faceplanted into yourplate.

“Asuma and I aregoing now. Will you be alright …?” Kurenai’s eyes shifted tothe two men sitting across from you and a knowing look settled on herface.

“I think so …thank you, really! For breakfast and - and lunch … and my gifts! Ireally don’t deserve so much kindness!”

“Youdo,” Asuma said quickly, “and now if youwould be so kind, we have our own date.” He ushered Kurenai out ofthe cafe, leaving you alone with Genma and Raidou.

Raidou cleared histhroat and stood from the table. “I should be going too. I’llmeet you at the training grounds?”

“Mhm,” Genmareplied.

Raidou gave you aquick nod and a soft “happy birthday” before leaving as well. Youclutched your gift bags to your chest and rose suddenly, bumping intothe table again.

“Well I better begoi -”

“Why are you insuch a hurry?” Genma reclined in the chair, arms behind his head,smirk on his lips. “Do you not like me?”

“H-Huh? N-No -”

“No?”

“I mean - no, I …I … d-do?” You weren’t really sure what you were saying anymoreand you weren’t sure if it mattered.

Genma sprang forwardand jumped to his feet, nodding towards the door. “You want to go?”

“Are … Are you …telling me to leave?”

“No, I mean didyou want to take a walk with me?”

“Aren’t youmeeting your friend?”

Genma chewed on theneedle some more and shook his head, walking around the table. “I’llmeet up with him in a bit. But I want to talk to you first.”

“Why?”

“Jeez, you’redifficult aren’t you?”

“I - I don’tmean to be! I’m sorry!”

Genma eyed you for abit and when you decided to look away he pulled the needle out of hismouth and said, “How about dinner?”

“What?” youmumbled, unsure if you heard him clearly.

“Dinner? You andme?”

“R-Right now …?We just had lunch.”

“No - what? Notnow.”

“Later? Today?That’s n-nice of you but I don’t think I can accept anything morefor my birthday.”

Genma’seyebrows pulled together and he stared at you with a serious look ofconfusion. “Not today.”He took a deep breath and said slowly, “I want to take you out todinner - like, a date. How about in two weeks? I’m pretty busyuntil then.”

Youreyes widened in shock and you stared at him in silence, hands shakingand bags trembling against your chest. Was this really happening? Youhad barely said three words to the guy (okay, more than that butrepeating “Mhm” and “Yeah” didn’t really count), and now hewas asking you out? This didn’t seem right. What was his deal? Youweren’t even a ninja, so why would he bother? It’s not like you’dengaged in a rousing conversation during lunch; you merely spat outsingle-word answers to his version of 20 Questions. HadKurenai set this up? You made amental note to passive-aggressively get back at her for this.

Genma must have readthe confusion and apprehension on your face because he quickly said,“You know, you’re really cute when you act shy. And I figured ifI didn’t ask you out, we’d never get anywhere.”

You? Cute? Were youhearing things? The cafe suddenly felt warmer than a sauna and youwere sure you looked like a tomato. You forced yourself to speak, aspainful as it was.

“Y-You want to goon - on a date? With - with me?”

“Yeah. Is thatalright?”

You nodded, movingto cover your face with your hands but hitting yourself in the chinwith your bags instead. “Ow! Uh … y-yeah, that’s f-fine! I mean… it - it’s great.”

“Good. How aboutthis curry shop outside of the village? It’s kind of small andpretty far removed, so there shouldn’t be a lot of people there.You … don’t strike me as the social type.”

You would have beenembarrassed if it wasn’t so true. You bit your lip and slowlylowered your arms to your sides. “That … That sounds w-wonderful.I … I’d r-really l-lo-love to … to do that.”

“Alright.” Genmapopped the needle back into his mouth and smiled. “Two weeks fromtoday. Meet me at the village gates and we’ll walk together to theshop. Does that work?”

“Mhm.”

Genma huffed throughhis nose in a sort of laugh, “It’s a date then. I’ll see you intwo weeks.”

Totallyflabbergasted that you’d been able to make such plans with such acute guy with such few words, you merely nodded and watched him headtowards the cafe exit. When he reached the doors, he turned aroundand gave you another smile. “By the way - happy birthday.” Thenhe left the cafe and strolled down the street.

You collapsed backinto your chair and squeezed the bags in your hands. Had that reallyjust happened? You pinched yourself to make sure - yep, it had. Youcouldn’t believe it, but it was real.

Barelycontaining a squeal, you hurried out of the cafe and back to yourapartment. Your date wasn’t for another two weeks but you had toget home and scour your closet immediately.It’d take you at least fourteen days to decide on the perfectoutfit - and maybe go over a few imaginary conversations in yourhead. Maybe Kurenai making you meet all her friends wasn’t such abad thing after all.

Maybe,just maybe, when you saw her again, you’d thank her.  

[0poole]

Edge of Tomorrow VS Groundhog Day VS Undertale

So me and my family just recently rewatched Edge of Tomorrow, which naturally led us to rewatching Groundhog Day (Except it was my first viewing, apparently it’s one of my parent’s all-time favorite movies) and while doing that I realized Undertale deals with a similar concept to the two films. And, since I’m so in love with basic concepts taken to their natural extremes in stories, I really feel like talking about it. I don’t really know what there is to get out of me talking about it but hey I feel like doing it anyway.

So yeah, I love stories that revolve around one simple, basic concept. You don’t need any interstellar wars with deep political intrigue or complex interpersonal relations to hold up a story if you just say “hey, here’s a weird thing that’s going on and here’s what happens because of it.” From there, you could basically do anything and keep me interested. 

Obviously all the stories are good ones, but I definitely think there’s a hierarchy in how the idea is dealt with. 

Edge of Tomorrow is probably the worst of the bunch, mainly because it feels like the “Time Travel” aspect of the movie is just a sort of tool inside of a normal alien-action movie with the shitty alien hive mind plot device that I actually can’t stand at all anymore but that’s a rant for another day. I still like the movie, obviously, because I like the concept and the aliens at least look really cool, but after watching Groundhog Day I’m realizing there’s some iffy-er feelings about it. First of all, the thing I realized without even having to watch GHD is that they really try to explain too much. The whole problem behind that is that, even with the explanation, it still makes no sense what so ever. Apart from the hive mind device, I also hate it when alien species are presented with “biological superpowers” like they just naturally evolved to control time somehow. Obviously until we actually meet any aliens all bets are off, but as far as we know that is completely ludicrous. The whole “Time Travel” ability is so supernatural that, even when they say “That’s just how the aliens are and getting dissolved by their blood gives you the same power too but only while you still have their blood” is so contrived that you just think “Okay. Sure.” 

I feel like, if you’re to explain anything like this, you really have to make it realistically work or just forego it all together. If you try to give rules to something, all you’re doing is giving Youtube movie reviewers the ammunition to dismiss your whole movies because of plot holes. For example, the plot hole of the main girl character somehow knowing that getting your blood replaced removes your power even though she would have to die to truly be sure. When you try to explain everything, the viewer expects you to explain that too, and as far as I remember it was just a “It felt like it was gone.” Also, spoilers, at the end of the movie when Cruz woke up in the helicopter after destroying the center of the hive mind, it sort of confused you because you weren’t really sure where the starting point for the “Time Travel” starts. If he just woke up on the ground like he did before, you’d just accept it, but changing the location and time makes you think there’s something else at work, and therefore we should at least have some idea of what it is. That one’s kinda just a side affect of the quirkiness of time travel though, especially because he went back in time to right about when the aliens died as a whole even though he technically did that in the future, and yet his current time is seemingly drastically affected by it because he somehow got a higher rank after destroying them... It’s just a mess, and it feels like a mess because we expect an explanation, even though it would just be arbitrary anyways. Again, since something like this just can’t be explained well, trying to explain it just doesn’t feel satisfying.

But to be fair, the one thing I loved about both of the films is the editing as the main character gets into a routine with his infinite day. The way they shrink everything down in time slowly but surely, and then when emotions strike high they show us most of the generic events again. Really, it’s one of the few times you can confidently say that the editing was the best part of the movie. Usually it’s just the acting, plot, characters, etc, but you rarely get something where the editing is in the forefront.

Also the glowy spaghetti aliens looked cool.

But for Undertale, I really only realized it sort of used the same idea as I watched Bill Murray kill himself a dozen times. Unlike the films, Undertale of course could be more meta about it and say the “Time Travel” is just video game logic applied to the canon story itself. Also, the events are being experienced by multiple characters, including the player. It was basically one of the selling points of the game, because the idea of video game logic as a plot device wasn’t really as well known as it is now (thanks to it itself for popularizing it). It didn’t really have to explain much because it was sort of built upon what we already know, i.e. that we die in the game and reset time to our last save point. All they had to do is just say “Hey, that’s called ‘Determination’” and that’s it. When you have Determination, you come back from the dead and keep going. Considering they didn’t try so hard to explain that in detail, you can somewhat pass off the little things, like why the stars specifically are the points at which you come back, etc. When you don’t try to explain things so hard, “plot holes” just become irrelevant details.

But the bigger selling point for Undertale is the characters, and Sans especially is the one made the most interesting out of the concept. Flowey did have the power, and he just went full psychopath on everyone just to see what happened, which naturally is another key point of the game. Him being completely devoid of emotion and sympathy also made him relatively interesting, but Sans being completely unable to control any of it was basically why I like him as a character. Naturally a lot of these characters are sort of one-off personalities, which is definitely fine because of how fun and well written they are. So, you see Sans and you’re like “Okay yeah, he’s lazy and makes jokes. That’s him.” But then you fight him, and say he’s so lazy because he can’t muster up the courage to do anything because he knows that when the player resets the game he’ll just go back in time like he never did it. That’s basically the next ideal step in exploring the concept. GHD is the most basic version of the idea, where the guy that time’s focused around just does whatever he feels like, EoT is when the guy uses the power to save humanity, and UT (or just Sans’ character) is about how a person without this power would react to someone else using the power. It’s actually seriously interesting, and a perfect way to explain a character’s personality. Also, you can’t disrespect an amazing battle theme. 

But, as you’d expect from the order, Groundhog Day is the king of them all, because it is just pure concept. Literally nothing supernatural happens to Murray (and yes I refer to characters by their actors sometimes sue, me) to cause the “Time Travel,” and literally nothing supernatural happens to him to stop it. All the movie is is just “This is happening and this is how he reacts.” Frankly, for something like this, that’s the ideal. You go to the movie in order to see what happens when a guy has to relive one single day no matter what, and that’s it. No extra bells or whistles. You get exactly what you came for, and you get it in such high quality it’s perfect. No one has to care why it’s happening.

First of all, I love how it’s focused around Groundhog Day and the weather as a whole. Weather is so unpredictable that even the professionals have to assign a percentage to it. It’s one of the least predictable things we know of, and that’s exactly why it’s perfect here, because it shows for absolute sure what’s going on. Murray can predict everything, so he could even predict the most unpredictable thing in these circumstances.

Second, it’s a great mish-mash of two key elements of the concepts from both EoT and UT. From EoT, he used his knowledge of the day to his advantage, like anyone would, but using the knowledge differently at different times (i.e. knowing he’ll meet an old friend, to remembering his name, then to punching him in the face, then to buying out his insurance, etc). From UT, he feels like it is happening out of his control, so you get the middle-late section of the movie where he spirals into a deep depression, and throughout just changing his personality. It all feels so natural. At first, you’d totally say “Yeah, I’d do that if I were in his shoes” and towards the end you’d say “Yeah, that’s probably how I would end up if I were actually in his shoes...” I mean, personally I’d go the skill-learning route first but that’s besides the point. You come in wondering what would happen to the guy, and you get exactly that. It just feels right.

Plus, it was just written extremely well, both in the natural progression of his character and in the humor. I’ll always die on the hill of movies having to make you laugh before they can make you truly cry. It lets your guard down. I swear, the day where Murray realizes his actions have no consequences is one of the best parts of any movie I’ve seen. It was so hilarious and fun, even though internally you’re a bit like “What an asshole.” Then you get to the montage of him nonchalantly killing himself, and you really just feel bad for him. Considering humans, as you’d guess, experience a full range of emotions, showing his full range makes him feel so much more human, making him easy to sympathize with. Then, with the cathartic solution at the very end (which is where I usually cry to be honest, not sure why), it feels so good to see him break out of the giant loop of emotions he went through, especially since he seemingly got the best possible ending out of all of them, where he didn’t brute force his way into his love’s heart, and found the goodness inside of him by ignoring his personal interests and consistently doing things to the benefit of others, even though he knows he’ll just have to do it again tomorrow. I’m not sure where to fit it in cleanly but the turning point of him realizing he can’t do a single thing to save that homeless man’s life was seriously heartbreaking, because he felt even more out of control than he already did. 

But yeah, this post was pretty much just a stealth way of me saying how much I like Undertale and Groundhog Day and also mentioning how much I hate the hive mind alien plot devices.

Seriously. What kind of alien species would evolve to be that dependent on a single being? Surely one wrong move means their extinction, right? How could an entire species exist that long under that principle? I would kill for a movie that makes it seem like their aliens are a hive mind, but then once they kill the “queen” the drones all turn on the heroes and wail on them, and after they’re done they just biologically convert one of them into a new queen. You know, like how it actually happens in nature. Every cliche needs exactly and only one instance where another form of media points at it explicitly and laughs, and I’ve yet to see that for this damn hive mind cliche. At least go the Alien route and make the enemy a single organism, so there’s no funny business. I mean I’d also kill for more movies like Valerian where there are so many normal, human-tier aliens that just exist together in a society like actual sentient (sapient) beings. Baby steps, though. I just want good aliens.

[angeltriestoblog]

I watched a couple of movies! (Part 2)

Back again with the second bunch of my latest quarantine companions! My last post wasn't that long ago, but I’ve already gone through an additional 21 and thanks to the extension of the lockdown and the abrupt cancellation of the rest of my sophomore year in college, I predict that this number will only increase exponentially. I obviously have to start looking for a sustainable way of reviewing the media I consume (probably will try dumping mini-reviews on Letterboxd instead), but until then, here is today’s little catalog: divided into four neat categories so there’s a little bit of everything for everyone.

Dead Poets Society (1989, dir. Peter Weir) ★★★★½

John Keating is the teacher we secretly deserved yet never had, which is probably what's behind the fervent loyalty audiences have had for this movie since its release around three decades ago. His methods of teaching are admittedly unorthodox, but they effectively instill in fictional students and real-life audiences the core message: to seize the day and be extraordinary. I definitely would have appreciated more of Williams, though: I noticed later on that he was used mostly as a plot device, as the focus started to shift to the impact his words had on the group of young boys under his tutelage. But, thankfully they are endearing and lovable in their own little ways (special mention goes to ambitious Neil, played by Robert Sean Leonard; and Ethan Hawke as timid Todd), which is why the last half-hour remains one of the heaviest in recent memory.

Mrs. Doubtfire (1993, dir. Chris Columbus) ★★★★

When Daniel Hillard’s (Robin Williams) wife splits up with him and takes their kids, he disguises himself as an English nanny called Mrs. Doubtfire and applies as their housekeeper to be with them. Not exactly the most realistic and practical approach to an issue as serious as divorce, but it succeeds by banking on heartfelt humor to strike a chord in products of broken families. When you take his several antics, punchlines, and vocal impersonations aside, he is simply a father willing to do anything for his children. Williams was destined to be the lead for this: his comedic timing, sheer versatility, and natural ability to bring joy remain unparalleled. Such a shame I didn't get to grow up with this guy, but maybe this saved me a lot of heartbreak.

Catch Me If You Can (2002, dir. Steven Spielberg) ★★★★★

A con man successfully cashes in millions of dollars worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and lawyer, whilst evading the FBI agent who’s hot on his heels. And this is all before he turns 19 years old--what a total underachiever. The best part? It’s a true story. I find it hard to believe that this clever cat-and-mouse story lasted more than two hours: it's easy to lose track of time thanks to its dynamic and snappy screenplay, coupled with the chemistry of its brilliant lead actors (no less than Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks). But beneath the complex and technical aspects of his scams that have high entertainment and educational value lie touching moments that may be admittedly easy to miss. At the end of the day, these escapades were nothing but some twisted coping mechanism of Frank Abagnale, Jr.’s to deal with the divorce of his parents. *blows nose into handkerchief* Wow, I seriously didn't think something could be so fast and fun, yet so depressing either!

Good Will Hunting (1997, dir. Gus Van Sant) ★★★★★

Academy Award-winning writers Matt Damon and Ben Affleck may look like they share a solitary brain cell in total (a prime example would be this footage of their acceptance speech), but it was the power that radiated from that which brought us this instant favorite of mine. This engrossing story revolves around a janitor at MIT, with a genius-level IQ but a troubled and traumatic past. A scuffle with a police officer leads him to Sean, his therapist (and platonic soulmate) who breaks down his dangerous defense mechanisms and self-destructive patterns, helps him tackle his inner demons, and ultimately transforms his life. There is a lot to adore about this film that’s equal parts wit and heart, but my favorite has to be the razor-sharp and realistic dialogue between Damon and Williams. Smoothly transitioning from topic to topic—genuine friendship, abusive relationships, and everything in between—it gives us the opportunity to monitor Will’s growth while carefully examining these aspects of our own lives. With every word said, the audience is reminded once again of any person's innate capacity to change for the better as long as someone else believes in them.

Lost in Translation (2003, dir. Sofia Coppola) ★★★

Film Twitter and the Letterboxd community both made this out to be an outstanding piece of modern cinema, so I went in with very high expectations only to be sorely disappointed and unable to understand the hype behind it. This revolves around two lonely people who find solace in each other and the unfamiliar and unpredictable territory they're in, a storyline brimming with potential that just fell flat to me. I normally appreciate the beauty in silent and ambient scenes, but the ones that made up a huge bulk of this feature didn’t have substance—it was similar to watching mashed-up clips from some random travel vlog. I did find the choice of location fitting though, I am now a hundred percent convinced I should travel to Japan once this pandemic is over. And Scarlett Johansson is incredibly talented for her age: her ability to channel and characterize emotions that a 17-year-old may not even be able to comprehend is above par, which is the main reason why this gets a passing rating from me.

Forrest Gump (1994, dir. Robert Zemeckis) ★★★★★

What I would give to run into a chocolate-eating, Nike Cortez-wearing Forrest Gump at a bus stop, and hear him tell me these fantastic stories himself! This heartwarming tale shows the manner in which he weaved himself into significant historical narratives (literally and figuratively, thanks to the power of deepfake) and injects timeless lessons along the way. Tom Hanks is undoubtedly brilliant as the titular role, and as we see the world according to this feeble-minded and well-meaning man, we come to admire his values, appreciate his efforts, and forgive his occasional shortcomings. In this fast-paced and overly complicated world that we struggle to navigate, this can serve as a necessary breather, a reminder of the simple joys that the world has to offer.

Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012, dir. Lee Toland Krieger) ★★★★

I think this is the first time I’ve witnessed a breakup end rather amicably on the big screen: there's no screamfest that concludes with a cold slap to the face and a dramatic walkout, or a courtroom confrontation that unearths past transgressions, et cetera. Instead, the leads are forced to confront the fact that the friendship they have forged years before that eventually blossomed into something more will never be the same again. Even if they want to so, so bad. I guess that’s why this is so heartbreaking, and thus the perfect companion for any person in the process of finding themselves after the demise of a long-term relationship. Celeste (Rashida Jones) meanders through the process with an extreme lack of finesse—which is the most realistic way to do so—that heavily accentuates her several fatal flaws. But, she manages to finish strong, emerging as a self-reflective and action-driven version of who she was in the beginning. I definitely wanted additional exposure for Jesse (Andy Samberg), though, who was not only surprisingly tender and sensitive in contrast to the Jake Peralta we know and love (and want to pick on), but also an unexpected perfect onscreen match for Jones.

A Star is Born (2018, dir. Bradley Cooper) ★★★★

The third remake of the 1937 movie starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March, this edition of A Star is Born strays far from the paths traversed by its predecessors (and this I am aware of, from that film analysis video binge I did recently). It’s the first to give Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper), the has-been with a raging alcohol and drug problem, extensive back story that draws audiences closer to him. But, this character arc comes at the expense of Ally's, the talented singer that he propels to fame, played by Lady Gaga. It was a shame she wasn’t fleshed out as much as she should have been, given that Gaga was a natural, her vulnerability a far cry from her outrageous onstage persona. But, then again, expectations must be kept realistic: it would’ve been impossible to cram that into the specified duration. Nevertheless, I thoroughly appreciated it: though rehashed several times, a romance done this way keeps its key components while catering to the preferences of this generation. The soundtrack is outstanding, and the climax—though somewhat expected—finds new ways to reduce us to a puddle of tears, particularly as the last song number start to roll.

Fall in Love At First Kiss (2019, dir. Frankie Chen) ★★½

Our Times has been a favorite of mine for years, so I couldn't believe that I missed this work from the same director which starred the same male lead during its initial release. Turns out it didn’t make much of a difference whether I watched it or not. The storyline was silly, but forgivably so: in a school where students are segregated based on intelligence, a stupid girl is smitten by the smartest boy in school and gets rejected as soon as she confesses. Consequently, hell breaks loose after they are forced to live together for reasons you have to see to believe. I remember enjoying the first half, squirming in my seat because of Jiang Zhishu (Darren Wang) every chance I'd get. I can’t pinpoint where exactly it started going wrong, but I remember realizing that it is possible for something to drag along, yet also move so fast: to bore me with excessive detail in a single scene, then cut to the next so fast it loses a sense of continuity. In addition to that, the female lead (Jelly Lin) was so unbearable in terms of her acting style and character development (or lack thereof). She seemed to think that constantly complaining in her shrill voice and thrashing her limbs was a fitting substitute for dialogue, thus making it difficult to want her to get her happily ever after. Also, I’ve had pretty intense crushes in the past few years but what she has for Zhishu is bordering more on an unhealthy obsession—I have trouble believing he reacted so calmly to the shrine that she built for him (which included life-size pillows with his face on it).

The Object of My Affection (1998, dir. Nicolas Hytner) ★★½

I was very confused as to why I had never heard of a chick flick that starred two of my favorite actors from the 90s, but now I understand why it didn't take off. (Phoebe would probably share my sentiments. What's her best friend doing with her husband anyway? And why is he attracted to men?) Nina (Jennifer Aniston) is hopelessly in love with her gay best friend George (Paul Rudd), so much so that she decides she wants to raise her unborn child with him instead of with her overbearing and borderline manipulative boyfriend (John Pankow). Though it wasn't a complete disaster given that she didn't successfully convert him, Nina was far too demanding, constantly overstepping her boundaries, and feeding her delusions. Maybe it could afford a modern retelling since I know our generation could tackle the concepts of platonic soulmates and LGBTQ+ relationships in a way that is simultaneously vibrant and sensitive.

How to Lose A Guy in 10 Days (2003, dir. Donald Petrie) ★★★★★

Once I had tried my luck in a number of different genres, I decided to reward myself with a return to the cheesy, corny, and conventional chick flicks I am familiar with—and I’m glad that I picked this one! Andie Anderson (Kate Hudson) is a magazine columnist with her biggest scoop yet: an article on how to lose a guy in 10 days. To test this idea out, she tries it out on Ben Barry (Matthew McConaughey), who’s on a mission to make a girl fall for him within that duration as well. Their conflicting agendas lead to disastrously hilarious results as they realize that they’re both *gasp* catching feelings for each other! I enjoyed this very much despite the predictability, although I’m honestly unable to judge it based on any criteria other than what I felt which was pure and utter, slamming-the-table, throwing-my-stuffed-toy-across-the-room “kilig”.

Just My Luck (2006, dir. Donald Petrie) ★½

I didn’t expect this to be on the forgettable side of the romcom spectrum, when it had Chris Pine as the leading man and Brit-pop band McFly lending their music to most of the scenes (the sole redeeming factor I found). But, I guess it’s Lindsay Lohan’s character and her surprising lack of chemistry with the equally attractive and talented person opposite her that killed it for me. Here, she plays Ashley, the luckiest girl in the world who gets everything her way and is thus as snobbish and stuck-up as you’d expect her to be. A chance encounter brings her to Jake, who is the human equivalent of a black cat standing in front of a broken mirror, and swaps their fate. She is then left to deal with poorly contrived misfortunes with effects that are bordering on slapstick comedy: she gets doused in mud, mildly electrocuted, and soaked in bubbles shortly after blowing up a washing machine and I get that they’re probably supposed to be funny, but all I’m seeing is a live-action version of the Looney Tunes show.

Eighth Grade (2018, dir. Bo Burnham) ★★★★★

Entering our awkward preteen years has always come with a certain and specific kind of mortification, but I reckon it’s become increasingly difficult in the age of the Internet. It’s become easier to find fault in oneself for the pettiest of reasons: why isn’t my crush accepting my friend request? Why do I look like a monster in my #wokeuplikethis selfies? Why is no one viewing my YouTube videos even if I work hard on them? Eighth Grade encapsulates this difficult period in the lives of Gen Z kids with the use of experiences and references which are so specific to this generation: I may have gotten whiplash more times than I would care to admit. Elsie Fisher shines in her painfully relatable performance as Kayla: you can sense her desperation for social acceptance. She just wants to be worth noticing and remembering, is that so bad! Although his role is often overshadowed, I also felt for her dad (Josh Hamilton), who tries to hide the struggle of looking out for a daughter who's growing in ways he simply can't understand.

Boyhood (2014, dir. Richard Linklater) ★★★

This ambitious effort by the director of my favorite film trilogy observes the growth and development of a typical American boy named Mason. No fancy plot devices or major conflicts are in sight, but by using the keeping the cast members fixed during the 12 years it took to put this project together instead of swapping them out for older counterparts, audiences are expected to form an emotional connection with them because they were given an intimate and prolonged look into their lives. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case for me. Yes, I did watch him grow up before my eyes, but I barely know who he is. These mundane snippets of his life haphazardly stitched together, without any indication of how much time has elapsed since the previous scene, made it hard to keep up with the pace and look at the viewing experience as anything but a chore. I honestly am puzzled as to why I endured 165 minutes (I’m kidding, it was for Ethan Hawke) worth of footage, and sadly it wasn’t even worth it.

Brooklyn (2015, dir. John Crowley) ★★★★

This drama about the migration of an Irish girl to New York to seek better opportunities delves into the concept of what home truly is, as Eilis is left to choose between two men from two different countries. Divided into three segments revolving around pivotal events in the protagonist’s life, it sensitively tackles the experiences and issues familiar to any immigrant, remains true to the period it is set in, and engaging to audience members of all ages. Most in the historical genre are incapable of doing all three, so that's definitely no mean feat! And I’m not biased because Saoirse Ronan plays the starring role, although her compelling performance renders it impossible for anyone who claims to have a beating heart to finish this without puffy eyes and a heavy chest.

Happy Old Year (2019, dir. Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit) ★★★★

I thought Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying couldn’t top her role in Bad Genius, but she just had to come along and star in this personal take on new beginnings. Here, she plays Jean, a girl in the process of decluttering her house so she can transform it into an office space. While sifting through her possessions, she finds certain things belonging to people from her past, that remind her of broken relationships and question her philosophies on forgiveness and letting go. Her performance may be understated compared to the cunning and reckless Lynn she has become popular for, but I see this mastery of restraint as indication of her growth as an actress. The film is relatively simple in its execution, staying true to its central theme of minimalism. By stripping the structure down to the bare essentials of actor and dialogue, the audience can focus on the poignancy ingrained in the most mundane part of our everyday routines.

The Edge of Seventeen (2016, dir. Kelly Fremon Craig) ★★★★

It's actually true that a coming-of-age movie has been written based on every definitive moment a teenage girl experiences, they weren’t lying. The Edge of Seventeen could serve as part of Eighth Grade's cinematic universe, but instead we’re dealing with another reflection of who we were (or maybe still are). Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld) is a teen constantly teetering between arrogant self-assurance and sheer hopelessness. When she loses her best friend to her worst nemesis, she suddenly has to learn to navigate the ups and downs of adolescence and deal with her mental illness on her own. Besides focusing on the several firsts that we often encounter during this stage in our lives, the film accurately portrays our angsty and self-deprecating nature without resorting to mockery, therefore calling us out on this reflex we have of beating ourselves up and giving those around us permission to do so during such a critical part of our lives. I swore I was actually going to try not to cry here, but I guess Nadine's tearful monologue left me with no choice. (I'll leave it below so you can suffer with me.)

You know, ever since we were little, I would get this feeling like, like I’m floating outside of my body, looking down at myself… and I hate what I see: how I’m acting, the way I sound, and I don’t know how to change it. And I’m so scared that the feeling is never gonna go away.

The Kingmaker (2019, dir. Lauren Greenfield) ★★★★

This documentary is a fitting introduction for anyone who isn't familiar with the ill-gotten wealth and abuses the Marcoses have lying underneath their glossy veneer of opulence as well as the consequences of their actions that we suffer from to this day. Greenfield’s juxtaposition of this family’s fabricated stories and the testimonies of victims and first-hand witnesses was a smart move, as we observe the lengths they often go to, to revise the course of history. By spotting the parallels in their narrative and that of Rodrigo Duterte, the next strongman the voting population would unfortunately elect as their leader, we are also given a glimpse into the selective amnesia of the Filipino people that keeps these people in power. The danger lies in the fact that being an outsider herself, Greenfield leaves plenty of room for interpretation: there is no clear-cut statement of what was right and wrong among the several interweaving statements we heard. I was able to determine which was which is due to the fact that I already had prior knowledge, but where does that leave those who don't?

By the way, if you’re wondering why this has been grouped under this category, it’s because I remembered from Grade 6 science class that anger is one way to trigger adrenaline in the body.

Inception (2010, dir. Christopher Nolan) ★★★★★

Perfect always felt like a lazy way to describe what is supposed to be of superior quality. If you want to sing praises about anything that good, you're gonna have to do a better job than that to convince anyone that it's worth their time: was it inventive and bold or cerebral or emotional? Well, I'm afraid I have to bend this rule for Inception for the sake of brevity, because if I leave myself to ramble on about everything this did right, I would surely run out of adjectives. This sci-fi-heist-psychological thriller is in a league of its own, with its intricate plot and layered method of storytelling further amplified by stellar cast performances, masterful editing and special effects, and a thundering musical score that keeps audiences on edge for the entirety of its run. These elements come together to create a production that resonates and lingers with viewers long after the credits have rolled, partly thanks to that highly disputed final scene. (If my opinion is worth anything here, I believed that it stopped. Iykyk.)

The Lobster (2015, dir. Yorgos Lanthimos) ★★★★½

In this dystopian society, single people are required to check into a hotel in the hopes of finding a suitable partner within 45 days. If they fail to do so, they are sentenced to live the rest of their lives as an animal of their choice. It’s an absurd plot, far removed from reality, executed in a bleak and dry fashion. Yet, it manages to mirror and even satirize the world of modern relationships rather profoundly, particularly the societal pressure to couple up and find our ideal match instantly, or face harsh judgment. I doubt I've watched anything this dark in my life, but I found the unpredictable twists and turns, the deadpan humor, the sheer strangeness of it all very amusing and recommend it to anybody who wants to learn a thing or two about how blind love can be.

Ocean’s Eleven (2001, dir. Steven Soderbergh) ★★★★

I admit I was as pissed as Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) following his discovery that the reason why Danny Ocean (George Clooney) was keen on carrying out an elaborate heist of the three biggest casinos in Las Vegas was to win his wife (Julia Roberts) back. But, along the way, I was reeled in by the airtight pacing of the multiple scams that were a part of the scheme and the natural banter that takes place among the members of the ensemble. Also, it’s quite impossible to be annoyed at something that starred so many big names during the peak of their careers. (I have a soft spot for Matt Damon, thanks a lot Good Will Hunting.) Although I already knew what was going to happen, it was a joyride to see everything unfold. Based on the ending (and the copies of Ocean’s Twelve and Thirteen that my dad owned as a kid), I can tell that it’s far from over and I’m surely looking forward to what happens next.

So, that’s it for today’s round-up! Hope something caught your interest: I’d be happy to send 123m*vies links for any of those that aren’t available on Netflix. Feel free to hit me up too: I'm honestly up for thought-provoking discussions and straight-up keyboard smashing. Wishing you love and light always, and don’t forget to wash your hands, check your privilege and pray for our frontliners!