#ballrooms

An Arcane Bridgerton AU fic!

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: X-Men - All Media Types, Bridgerton (TV) Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Logan | Wolverine/Ororo Munroe, Jean Grey/Scott Summers Characters: Ororo Munroe, Logan | Wolverine (X-Men), Jean Grey, Scott Summers, Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr, Bobby Drake, Lady Danbury, Carol Danvers Additional Tags: Tumblr Prompt, request fic, Bridgerton AU, this has vague whiffs of Pride and Prejudice, Jean is the diamond of the season, but Ororo is the talk of the tonne, Lady Whistledown is going to have a field day with these two, Gossip, Scandal, Courtship, Ballroom drama Summary:

Ororo Munroe was a woman of a certain age. Stubborn. Infuriatingly opinionated. Well-read. And she absolutely refused to be drawn in by James Howlett's charms and considerable wealth.

And for a brief moment I saw a light and an entire Backrooms parody was born in my head.

"Those Backrooms are more or less like our fantasy of being a true cosmic horror. You know, like the Apocalypse, or whatever, or being at the court of Azathoth. You know, a lot of those kids that are in the Backs - and they're kids, they barely saw three sentient lifeforms get extinct - they don't have nothing. No cults, no realms, they don't even get sacrifices. They come to the Backrooms starving. They don't have a sunken city to sleep in, they don't have a pantheon to go back to, so they'll go out and they'll steal some things - bits and pieces of childhood memories and uncanny dreams and buildings about to be destroyed and those corners nobody looks at in cities - and they'll come with it to the Backrooms, to live the fantasy of being their own eldritch abomination. They'll prove to the world they can be your soul-tearing deity, your mind-breaking god. In the Backrooms you have a chance to display your Biblical arrogance, your devilish seductivness, your fae beauty, your forbidden knowledge, your sorcerous charms, your alien wit. You can become anything and do anything, right here, right now, outside of space and outside of time, and it won't be questioned by any racist author or religious apocrypha. You come, you terrify them, you kill them."

"Cthulhu is famous, and in a sense so am I, but in a much different quantity. No Necronomicon is going to be written by a mad man if I ever rise out of the waters. But it is still fame. It is a small fame, but you take it and you absorb it. And you like it. You like the screams, the running away, the people begging at you to spare them. And the children now, most of them wouldn't know what liquid pain was if it was poured all over their organs. I come from the old school of creepy smiles, and disembodied voices, and wire-bodies, and skin-stealing, but they don't have this anymore. Now it's all about Partygoers. And it's not about what you create, it's about what you transform. If you have a human origin, it means you're disturbing - but not really, because any possessing spirit can just snatch a body."

"A lot of them have jobs now, in the world. Little jobs, they work as folk-saints, haunted hotels, urban legend, exotic Christmas helpers, because if you don't have a job you cease to exist. In the Backrooms, you can be anything you want. You're not really a Dreamtime but you can make it look like you're one, and therefore you're showing the occult world I can be a Dreamtime - if I had the opportunity, I could be one."

Trust me | Three |

Jareth/Goblin King x F! Reader

Summary : As Sarah's next door neighbour, you're often Mrs Williams' last resort as a babysitter. Sarah had never liked this, but she can be extremely unreliable at times. One stormy night, Sarah grows frustrated with her baby brother and babysitter, resulting in saying a phrase that she later wants to take back. Now, you are stuck in The Goblin Kings realm with little hope to returning home again, unless Sarah can reach the castle and defeat Jareth in time.

The smell of flowers and greenery happened to be thick in the air. The scent wafted towards you from the only open doorway, enticing you forwards and into the unknown.

You were aware that everything was some sort of trick set up by Jareth, so you reminded yourself to remain cautious while heading forwards.

Inside the room lay a lot of flowers. You were fascinated to see that the ceiling was made entirely of glass, and that this room appeared to be a greenhouse. You wandered further in, sticking to the main path and refusing to stray, but you allowed yourself the opportunity to gaze at the gorgeous bundles and bunches in the room. Flowers of all sorts, roses, daisies, hydrangeas, peony's... thousands of flowers and all a rainbow of colours.

You paused in delight when you came across a patch of sunflowers. Sunflowers happened to be your favourite flower, and just the very sight of them brought comfort and joy. Your parents had planted them in the garden a few years ago to bring some colour to the house. In your eyes, it did more than just being colour to the house—it brought bee's, sunshine, happiness and an overall warmth that made you skip everywhere.

You reached your hand out the touch the sunflower, to assure it was real and not another trick that Jareth was playing on you. Sure enough, as the tips of your fingers brushed against the petals, you smiled truthfully at its realness.

But you couldn't linger over flowers for too long.

You pulled your hand back and turned on your heel, continuing onwards to the other side of the room, where you were starting to see the entrance to another room. You willed yourself to pick up the pace, wanting to find Tobey and leave as quickly as you could.

Your thoughts drifted to Sarah. Had she noticed yours and Tobey's absence at all? It seemed as though The Goblin King had made it so that she couldn't hear your yelling through the door. You didn't want to think of the possibility that Sarah had simply gone back to sleep, enjoying the quietness of the house.

What would happen when Mr and Mrs Williams returned home to find you and Tobey missing? Would Sarah explain that she had wished you both away? Would she feel even an ounce of guilt that she had condemned you to The Goblin Kings twisted games?

You didn't want to doubt that Sarah would have a change of heart. You wanted to believe that she'd make a wish for you and Tobey to come back. But that seemed extremely far fetched and unlikely as you navigated the castle deeper and deeper, finding yourself no closer to Tobey or an exit.

A stray sunflower caused you to stop before reaching the doorway. It lay on the ground, completely out of place. You stepped up to it, reaching down to pick it up by the stem, but something in your mind suddenly warned you against it.

You retracted your arm immediately and stood up straight, frowning down at the lonesome sunflower. As much as you desired to hold it and twirl it between your fingers, you felt as though something might befall you by doing so. It was obvious that Jareth had placed this for you to pick up; but why had he done so? It must be another trick.

You inhaled deeply and stepped over the flower before continuing through the doorway. If you had looked back, you would have seen the way the petals withered and curled into themselves.

You don't know what trick could have come from picking up the flower, but you didn't want to find out. For all you knew, another trap door was underneath it, and picking it up would only trigger the trap. You didn't want to risk being stuck in a hole again, where you might have no other choice but to ask for Jareth's help.

You decided that if you could withhold from asking for his help for as long as possible, then your chances of escaping would be much greater. You didn't trust Jareth, and asking for his help meant that you did.

Coming into an empty room, you paused directly in the centre. You looked at all four corners, your heart sinking into your stomach when you realised the doorway you had come from had now disappeared. But there was nothing inside the room. However, looking up, you saw a doorway higher than you could reach on your own.

Your brows furrowed together in focus, a frown deep on your face as you scanned the room again. And again. But nothing was there that could possibly help you. How were you supposed to reach the top?

Your answer came in the form of rumbling. The ground shook for a moment as stairs started to rise from the floor. You blinked rapidly at the appearance,  and immediately you made a start for the stairs.

Just as you reached the top, where the doorway was, it suddenly closed off and reappeared in the ceiling above you. You gaped at the trickery, feeling betrayed at your hope being snatched so fast from you. Is this The Goblin King's game? To dangle hope in front of you and then snatch it away last second?

You steadied yourself against the wall and stretched your hand upwards, trying to touch the doorway. You were too short. So you jumped to try and grab the side, so you could attempt at pulling yourself up, but again that was a futile attempt.

Jareth then appeared standing normally in the doorway. You squinted as he came into view, wondering how he had somehow altered gravity in a way that made it possible for him to stand like that. He crouched down and leaned his hand through, offering for you to take it.

You stared at his hand for a beat, your own hand beginning to rise to take it. Just as your own fingers brushed against his, rumbling caught your attention as several more staircases started to rise from the floor, the walls and the ceiling. None of them directed to where you wanted to go, which was up, so you ignored them and continued to stand on tip-toes to grab Jareth's hand.

Then, like the doorway had done, at the last second, the stair case underneath you turned into a slope. You immediately lost your footing. A gasp left your throat as you felt yourself falling, then sliding down to the bottom of the staircase.

You rolled across the floor. Sitting up, you hissed at the throbbing in your bottom and your hands, which had taken the brunt of the fall. Then, you accusingly looked back to Jareth, who remained crouched in the doorway, his smirk wider than ever and a devious glint in his eyes.

You pushed yourself to stand and clenched your fists by your sides. "What was that for? I was accepting your help!" You whined, feeling deeply betrayed that he had, again, snatched away your hope at the very last second.

"You rejected my gift," Jareth pointed out smoothly.

His gift? Did he mean the sunflower?

Your bottom lip trembled slightly. "I thought it was another one of your tricks, so I ignored it," you explained, now feeling rather silly for thinking that a flower could set you back. But you couldn't cross it off as a possibility when everything was so incredibly odd.

Jareth shrugged. "And I decided to not help you here."

You couldn't believe how sensitive The Goblin King was. He was seriously offended that you'd ignored his flower, and because of that he was punishing you for it. It was clear that Jareth did not take being rejected very well.

You tried not to stamp your foot out of throwing a temper tantrum. This entire situation was incredibly against you. It was like Jareth was deliberately keeping you away from Tobey.

"Maybe if you had given me the sunflower yourself, I might have actually accepted it," you quipped back, growing frustrated with this entire conversation.

"Maybe if you trusted me, you wouldn't be stuck all the way down there," Jareth countered in a teasing voice.

Trust him? You felt like screaming at the implications. How could you possibly trust him when all he had done was tease and trick you? He had stolen you from your world and forced you into some sort of game, which you didn't want to play, and was now keeping Tobey away from you. You wanted to blame Sarah for all of this, but how could she have possibly known her wish would come true?

Jareth stood up, tapping his cane against the doorframe, a sinister smile playing his lips. "Oh, [Name]. My dear, we could be so great together, if only you'd open your heart and trust me."

Then, he swished his cloak and disappeared, leaving you to stew in your emotions. You wanted to scream loudly in frustration, but that would do no good and would probably give Jareth the amusement he wanted.

Instead, you huffed and tried to reassess the situation. Lots of stairs leading to nowhere, some of them upside down, others protruding from the walls... how would you even begin to go about climbing the staircases on the ceiling?

Then, as if answering your question, new doorways appeared at the top of each staircase. You gasped and made your way to the nearest one, peering in and being confused when it only lead back to the same room. However, you noticed that you were now standing on the staircase that came from the wall.

You didn't feel unsafe. It was like gravity had shifted and made it so you could stand there. If it weren't for the actual situation, you would have found it to be extremely cool, and you would have complimented The Goblin King for his creativity.

So you began rushing up the steps and entered another doorway, now finding yourself on the opposite side of the room, across from the actual doorway you wanted to be in. You frowned and stepped to the side, eyeing the staircase that had attached to this one. It would mean you'd have to somehow be upside down, and you couldn't see how you could make that happen.

Trust me.

Isn't that what Jareth had said?

Sure, he played lots of tricks on you to throw you off your course, but he'd never actually put you in danger. When you fell through that trap door, you had landed so softly that you wouldn't have even believed that you'd actually fallen. And when the staircase turned into a slope, the fall down hadn't hurt as much as it should have done, considering it was made of stone.

You peered over the side, eyeing the upside down staircase with great skeptism. You decided to sit down and dangle your legs over the sides, and you took a deep breath in, squeezing your eyes shut as you pushed yourself off the edge.

You expected a falling sensation to take over, but instead your feet came into immediate contact with something firm. You gulped, opening your eyes, now aware that you were standing upside down on the staircase.

So, if you now flipped the room, you could get to the bottom of the staircase and run to the other side, and all you'd have to do is slip into the doorway that was now on the floor.

You took cautious steps down, but once you assured yourself that you wouldn't suddenly fall up, you darted to the other side. You reached the doorway and stepped inside, watching as the walls shifted and altered to match your gravity.

You breathed a sigh of relief. You had taken a chance and decided to trust The Goblin King, which is exactly what he said you should do. In a way, didn't that mean he had helped you? Would that mean that you had accepted his help, or had you just taken his advice?

Either way, you had escaped that room at last, and now you could move on to the next, to face whatever the next obstacle may be.

starfluid moodboard for anon!

- minsung -

Minho offered his hand once more. “May I have this dance?”

Jisung’s breath hitched. Itching to hold that hand again, he fit his fingers between Minho’s, but stayed wordless in his acceptance. For a moment, Jisung simply existed with Minho’s hand in his.

He was content to be a spectator, just a pair of eyes watching from afar, but, as he tightened his grip on Minho, it all fell into place.

Jisung suddenly wants to waltz. Wants, not a subjection, for the first time in his life.

He looked into Minho’s eyes as if for confirmation, and God are they sparkling. Like a pair of fallen stars.

“You may.”