writing [love]; dream, a writer.
Dream: I like writing. I like writing poems; I like writing songs; I like writing everything. I like storytelling—I just like storytelling. Storytelling in general is fun. I do a lot of storytelling through, like, my videos, through my video editing ... that's my favourite part of writing.
Dream: So, it's [love is] special, you know? You can't really explain it. Um, you know, with your mum, your dad, your—your sisters, your brothers, your cousins, your—your friends that you've known since you were a kid. Your friends that you just met a year ago that you are absolutely in love with as a person.
Dream: 'Have you written stories as well as songs lately?' Yeah—I mean, well ... I feel like songwriting is very—it's like, you just take stories—like 'Roadtrip' was, like, essentially a poem, and a story, that was turned into a song. And I feel like that's with a lot of stuff. 'Mask' is the same; 'Mask' was a poem turned into a song.
Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott | Dream Subscriber Twitter Space April 30th, @/dreamwastaken | It's Been A Long Day, Spacey Jane | Dream's Tiktok 'love is scary', @/dreamwastakenwastaken | Photograph in the studio from Dream's Instagram post, @/dreamwastaken | The Story of Mary MacLane, Mary MacLane | Our Beautiful Life When It's Filled With Shrieks, Christopher Citro | Johnny Cash’s handwritten to-do list, 1969 | Tweeted screenshot from Dream's notes app, @/dreamwastaken | Anne Carson interview, 2016 | Dream and George on the Dream Panel at TwitchCon Las Vegas 2023, TwitchCon VOD | Tweeted screenshot from Dream's notes app, @/dreamwastaken | On Writing, Stephen King | A fan's Tiktok of Dream and George at emo nite, @/angstboycam | Dream explaining 'Spotlight' in the 'to whoever wants to hear' lyric booklet, Dream | Your Song, Elton John | Fan photos of Dream and George at Dream's tour
Dream's 'Kind Of Love' speech LA concert night two, @/milktea_grn | The Power Of Love, Frankie Goes To Hollywood | Fan photos of Dream and George at Dream's tour | You Are In Love (Taylor's Version), Taylor Swift | Dream explaining 'Paranoid' in the 'to whoever wants to hear' lyric booklet, Dream | Dream and George on the Dream Panel at TwitchCon Las Vegas 2023, TwitchCon VOD | Words, Gregory Alan Isakov | Dead Poets Society, dir. | Dream Subscriber Twitter Space April 30th, @/dreamwastaken | Sweet Nothing, Taylor Swift
Fan photo of George recording Dream at his concert | Addressable Thou, Chase Berggrun | Bright Star, dir. Jane Campion | George smiling at Dream in IRL DREAM TEAM IN MADRID, Sapnap VOD | Endymion, John Keats | Dream and George on set: Everest – Dream & Yung Gravy BEHIND THE SCENES, Dream Music | [brIght], E. E. Cummings | George and Dream in IRL DREAM TEAM IN MADRID, Sapnap VOD | Sand and Foam, Kahlil Gibran
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I'm so sorry, I'm kinda drunk and dropping another idea, do with it whatever ye will.
Yknow how in the beginning of the game, Sojiro tells Ren he won't take care of him when he gets sick?
Consider: he's not used to city germs/being that closely shoved against other people on the train. He DOES start to get sick around Kamoshida's Palace, powers through it, and then is SUPER sick just after it's over.
He plans on sucking it up and hiding it, but Futaba hears his hacking coughs over her bug even when he's upstairs, followed by wheezing, maybe even a little weeping. He's constantly in and out of the bathroom, and he's starting to run out of tissues.
Futaba nervously texts Sojiro that the kid they took in sounds awful. Sojiro is gruff at first and says he's not a baby, he can take care of himself. She responds by sending him the audio and suddenly Dad Instincts kick in
y/n
obviously it's a YES, our brainrots continue because early-game ren and sojiro dynamics break my heart every time
how dare you get me so invested in this idea, this post got too long so it's going under a read more
listen listen look i love sojiro and the coffee family okay, but early-game?? sojiro could catch these hands
ren has already been though so much by the time he arrives in tokyo, to then be put into a dusty old attic like a spare part would absolutely fit in with ren's own perception of himself at that stage. it would be almost too easy for him to put his own health on the backburner kinda like he's already used to it
very used to not taking up space, 'not being a bother', and then sojiro really reinforces this message when ren first gets to leblanc- so when ren inevitably gets ill a month into his probation, it's already doomed for maladaption
tokyo would be such a breeding ground for sickness compared to the countryside, and ren just doesn't have the consitution to deal with it. the dusty attic and poor eating habits don't help matters, and then we have the stress of kamoshida and the metaverse?? ren is not having a Good Time™
at first it's something he thinks he can shrug off, and is adamant that ignoring it is the way to go. a cold, it's nothing, he can handle this alone, no need to bother anyone else with it.
inevitably, he gets worse, because that's what happens when you don't rest and let yourself recover. a tickly cough becomes a tightness in his chest, mild congestion shifts into an attack on his senses and blurriness- but maybe that's the dizziness. he's not really sleeping, either.
it's something that's becoming increasingly difficult to brush off and hide, he even relented to finally getting some medicine (nothing as strong as he needs by this point, that would eat too much into his limited funds, but some painkillers to take the edge off). once or twice he's tempted to stay off school, at morgana's insistence, or a too close call where he definitely blacked out for a minute, but then sojiro's voice will ring in his head 'i won't be the one looking after you if you get sick', 'your parents got rid of you for being a pain in the ass', and all his worst insecurities come rushing back and he's resolved to deal with it on his own
meanwhile, futaba's been making use of her hidden audio bugs- normally they're a comfort for her in the daytime, but since the new kid- ren- has been staying at the cafe (part-timer her ass, how gullible does sojiro think she is?!), she's been listening more frequently. when ren gets sick, she figures it out quickly.
time goes on, he's not getting better- he's actually getting worse- and futaba starts to wonder if she's the only one who knows
(there's something in his sharp contrasts- the quiet kid who shuffles through the cafe and takes sojiro's scolding, to the coughing kid who cries into the silence of night when he thinks there's nobody there to see it- that stabs through her numbness. it feels like a companion to her own ghost)
one night she swears the kid gets up to be sick, and there's hardly any sound heard from the attic all night. if nobody's gonna help ren, then she will (futaba used to like helping, once upon a time).
she texts sojiro the next day, when ren doesn't say anything again, and goes off to school with what she bets is a fake assurance on his face
and you're so right, sojiro dismisses her concern really easily, claims the kid can 'take care of himself' and he won't 'baby' the part-timer. insists ren needs to learn some disipline, then maybe he'll stay out of trouble
frustration wells in futaba- if she was less fixated on what was going on with ren, she'd register it's one of the first changes of mood she's had for months- and she responds with nothing but an audio clip, an attached explanation that this is just from the past few days- it's been going on for weeks, then she waits, and hears the distant sound of her compilation through one of the bugs, a hitched breath from sojiro, curse words under his breath-
for all his earlier postulating about not helping ren if he gets sick, sojiro is immeditely struck with a pang of concern- it sounded bad, and if futaba's words were anything to go by, this had been going on for a while.
the kid's at school now (at school, being as ill as that and he was still going to class-), so sojiro will talk to him when he gets back. there's a chance he goes a bit too over the top, between the variation of medicines he purchases, supplies he grabbed from home- if you accused him for over-compensating after maybe being too harsh on the kid in the beginning, you'd be right
and you just know ren would be so resistent at first to help, or even just the offer of staying off school. in his sickness-induced fugue, ren's filter-less in rattling off how he can't stay off, what will the students and teachers think, and he has work that afternoon, and a test soon, and he doesn't want to get in the way-
sojiro's heart just shatters
this kid, whose been silently carring the weight of the world and has apparently been falling to pieces for weeks now and sojiro didn't even notice?
(a part of it reminds him too much of the other kid he's got at home, the countless ways he's already failed futaba, and now ren too? he feels useless)
sojiro focuses on what he can do, and that's making the kid rest. work will understand, school can wait, ren isn't an inconvenience, he guides the kid to bed, calls takemi immediately (who rushes over, despite the fact she's technically closed at this hour, and refuses to take any payment),
even still, there's this stilted awkwardness between them when the quiet pushes on too long- they hardly know each other, afterall. sojiro is still figuring out the 'caring for kids' thing, and ren isn't familiar with any kind of parental affection, so some of sojiro's care veers a bit too close to clinical or mechanic, and ren still struggles to communicate what kind of help he needs, but it's enough for now.
for now, sojiro is there. he's trying, and at least ren's getting some colour back on his skin.
for now, ren's willing to take a few days off and have some medicine, but he's over-apologetic and definitely tries to make up for his sickness once he's healed.
it's gonna take them both a while yet, but luckily there's always their guardian hacker, ready and able to call them out when needed (and maybe some day she'll be able to keep an eye on ren and sojiro in person)
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