#Please stop telling me I'm wrong when I explain to you well known concepts

[roundedloaf]

God give me strength to not punch my coworker today

[thejustmaiden]

So out of nowhere I was tagged and quoted by a SR shipper for a blog of mine posted in August of last year. Talk about throwback but, hey, gotta appreciate that level of snooping. 😉

Back in the day I actually used to encourage discourse amongst Inuyasha fans- both shippers and antis alike- but I've since realized that it's a lost cause. But for you, @feministmetalgreymon , I'll grant this exception. Just 'cause it's been a while so why the hell not. haha

I want to assure you, however, that nothing you say will ever convince me that Sesshomaru and Rin are meant to be together romantically or that the story intended it so. Nor will you find any validation here. You can ship them for all I care, but please for all that is good and holy while I have your attention try- I mean really try- to understand why it is so many of us Inuyasha fans are so against this pairing in the first place (newsflash: it's not about ship wars), and why we believe a romance between the two of them is completely and utterly out of character.

For those of you interested in reading this, the blog of mine in question that the above shipper mentions in their counter-argument is here for reference. It's titled "Jaken = Rin's Dad?" I'm going to try and keep this short, but I'm also making no such promises. After all, I'm not exactly known for my brevity. haha Now let's get crackin'!

Like you, feministmetalgreymon, did for your recent blog here where you took screenshots of mine to address certain parts, I will be doing the same and dissecting yours accordingly.

[Snippet 1]

I worked with kids for many years as a teacher, and many people in my family have too or still do. Two of them happen to be just over 5 feet which is quite short for the average adult woman living here. I've also worked alongside many a women of short stature, and never did I hear any of them complaining of issues with their students having difficulty differentiating them from their own peers just because they were short as well. I'm sorry but that's just ridiculous. Kids are quite smart and pick up on a lot more than you seem to give them credit for. Height is not the only characteristic they look at to determine who's an adult and who's not, and it's foolish to suggest otherwise. So unless you're a babysitter who's still in their teens and/or who has very childlike features or behavior then I'm afraid what you're getting at is total hogwash. This is just another example of how you shippers offer nothing of real substance to your reasoning, it's only ever cherry-picking or strawmanning from you guys. Stop deflecting from the real issues please, because this certainly isn't one and only winds up being a complete waste of time for all parties involved.

[Snippet 2]

Okay, calm down now. I wasn't insinuating that relationships between parents and children can't change over time in terms of how they get along. Of course that's possible, as all families experience their fair share of estrangement and abuse. What I was speaking about was in reference to the overall dynamic between the two. Because a bad mother or father can still be viewed as a parental figure to their child even if say they're not in said child's life anymore. Since Sesshomaru and Rin share a healthy bond- and just a friendly reminder that in my blog I even said that he doesn't have to necessarily be labeled her father but that a romantic relationship later would still be inappropriate- I didn't deem it necessary to address what you brought up. Plus, it kinda, umm, misses the point?? Please, let's stay on topic. And it's not captured in the screenshot, but stop acting like there isn't a small part of them that idolizes their parents at some point during childhood. Just like you mention later on how it's normal for kids to have innocent crushes on adults that they eventually grow out of? Well, guess what, the same concept applies here. Kids eventually learn that their parents are far from perfect and make mistakes too. Rin is so damn young in the OG series though that we never even get to see her reach that maturity level.

[Snippet 3]

LOL! Alright, okay, so the "unbreakable bond" bit you're mentioning was actually me quoting you sessrinners. Did you not catch that? I literally spelled it out. *sigh* The whole point I was making is that shippers like yourself make hypocritical and contradictory statements all.the.goddamn.time. One moment you guys claim that Sesshomaru and Rin were essentially strangers and meant very little to each other, only to say in the same breath a few seconds later that they were destined to be together and their bond is like no other. I agree, their bond is special, but why must that mean they're going to fall in love?

That is the root of the matter here. Too many animes/mangas have romanticized this older adult man & young girl growing up falling in love trope that it's become way too normalized and widely accepted across the world- and yes, in some cultures more than others. Sadly, you lack the awareness to recognize how this all works. You know how we know that? When we see that you shippers are so desensitized to sexualized images of girls in the media that you share posts like this one below which *subtly* imply a future romance although one half of that pairing is still just a child in the pic and then try and pass it off as cute. That's like super fucking problematic and it scares me that you can't see that (or deny you do). 🤢

After all that's said and done, Sesshomaru leaving Rin in the village with Kaede is to me the strongest indicator more than pretty much anything else he's done for Rin that proves he is her adoptive father. It's so funny to me how you somehow see the exact opposite though. 🤔 What I think is happening is that you got yourself on some squeaky clean ass shipper goggles fresh out of your little echo chamber. Because I hate to tell you, but what you're fantasizing is what you want to see and not what's actually there on screen or was written into the story. I'm strictly talking about Inuyasha and the manga of course. [For the TL; DR version skip to the last paragraph.]

Parents looking after their kids is what parents are supposed to do. A good parent will do anything to keep their child safe and ensure they are cared for, so what he did for her by leaving her there was in her best interests clearly. Besides, as a babysitter, you more than most people should understand that parents aren't always able to be there for their kids so sometimes others gotta step in to help. Haven't you heard of the saying, "it takes a village to raise a child?" Which in Rin's case is literally true! 😂 Sometimes kids are even sent off to stay with grandparents and that's who raises them instead. Or maybe they have to temporarily live with an aunt or uncle because their single parent's job requires they work out of town 4-5 days of the week so they're hardly home. But that doesn't mean that the parents care or love their kids any less, and it's foolish to assume that Sesshomaru must have thought very little of Rin simply due to the fact that he made the decision to leave her in the village. Come on, y'all are acting like he abandoned her there!!

It's just given the circumstances Sesshomaru finally came to learn that Rin traveling with him was no longer safe. I also like to think it's because he wished for her to live a more normal life and to learn how to fully trust humans again. Plus, continuing to travel with him as young as she was would have proven dangerous and unwise. Now for you to know all this and still manage to turn his past actions towards her while she was just a child into a romantic gesture is what boggles my mind. Regardless of how you look at it, from my perspective or your own, Sesshomaru is in the wrong. Either he's a father figure who impregnates his daughter at the young age of approximately 14. OR he's this man she used to travel with who maybe isn't a father to her but who nonetheless basically rapes her since kids her age can't consent to sex with an adult. Idk about you but it sounds to me like nobody here wins with either scenario we're given. In other words, you should be just as mad as we are. If only one side didn't choose to forsake their morals they know we both have in common for the sake of a ship. Welp. 🤷‍♀️

I agree, incest is disgusting but that's not the only problem we have with this pairing. A romantic bond forming between Sesshomaru and Rin would also constitute as grooming.

You realize that over the years he visited her in the village that he brought her gifts too and essentially watched her grow up right before his very eyes, right? I mean, I know you do, but I really shouldn't have to explain further why pursuing a romantic/sexual relationship with each other is plain and simple wrong. And before you say it's not because he didn't have any malintent, please understand that considering their history and power dynamic up to then that yes this is still considered grooming even if Rin supposedly "wanted it" or "made the first move." Whether you consider him her father or not, as the adult who took on a role resembling that of a caretaker in her early life- a critical developmental time for a child- Sesshomaru is obligated to turn down any advances by Rin and most definitely should not initiate any himself. As the first close adult figure she's had in her life since her parents died, it's unfathomable to imagine how Sesshomaru could go through with taking advantage of this young girl who was under his care and supervision since they met. To think he could be capable of betraying that trust sickens me to the core.

This. Now THIS is how a parent/guardian or a similar adult caretaker (babysitter, teacher, etc.) talks to a child. And, in turn, this is how some young children talk to adults. You'd be insane and delusional to deny it! We see it in our everyday lives, do we not? From where else do you think our stories draw most of their inspiration? Yes, obviously these fictional universes have aspects of fantasy that don't exist in the real world, but so how then do you suppose we're able to relate to them? The reason for that being is because these stories are written by people for people, so naturally there are going to be real life aspects embedded throughout. Sure, a little escapism doesn't hurt as we don't need to take everything so seriously, but ultimately we all need to recognize that the messages in the stories we tell matter. Most stories possess a combination of both light and dark themes, but when it specifically comes to the latter we gotta be careful with how we tackle this in children's media since kids are far more impressionable.

So if at the center of a story we have two of the main protagonists whose mom is basically their same age and to top it off she knew their dad when she was just a girl and who just so happened to help raise her, wouldn't you say that's beyond fucked up or at the very least so fucking weird? Like why would we think it's even remotely okay for our children to watch this garbage?? Really think about it. Try and be objective for once and think about how it would sound explaining this storyline to an outsider who's never watched IY or HNY. Well, antis have tried this before many times and we always get the same reaction: Ewww!

Like I said earlier, if you wanna ship it then fine, but 1) please stop seeking our approval or trying to change our minds - your ship wish came true didn't it, so why do you need us to validate it? 2) even though it's not canon, respect that we don't support this sequel portraying pedophilia in a positive light. It's harmful af to not only allow but glorify the continuation of sexualized images of young girls everywhere. And I shouldn't have to say this, but just because this trope is popular as you say does not make it right. Lolicon themes in the media have been an issue forever and it needs to stop. Yes, even some people in Japan or "the East" would agree. Shocker!

We're pissed off and rightfully so because Yashahime's TV rating is 14, not to mention it airs at the prime time kids in Japan watch TV after getting home from school. That's Towa and Setsuna's age, true, but if Rin being the mom when she's like only a year older than them (please don't argue w/ me about the math- antis have so far been right every time with it) is straight-up disgusting and not something we should be supporting or endorsing. Rin's a whole ass child!! Please don't start with the "but times were different then so her having kids at 15 is acceptable" argument either, because we've already debunked that and every other single excuse you guys throw at us. Besides, how or why would you expect young viewers to know these historical "facts" anyway, especially if as you suggest fiction doesn't affect reality so what does it matter? Yet here we are, arguing over a fictional show in real life almost a year and a half into the "Sesshomaru fucks?" sequel being announced. My ass, your ass, hell all our asses fiction doesn't affect reality!

Look, I do apologize if the tone of this blog came off as snippy or condescending at times. I do not wish you any ill will, it's just I'm not really sure what you expected to get out of all this besides maybe getting on my nerves perhaps. haha A lot of you shippers have been desperately scrambling to interact with us, lurking in our tags, jumping onto our posts screaming canon and getting so defensive even though you sought us out first. We've been sticking to our tags, so how about you stay in your lane too. By the way since we're on the topic, have you seen Twitter or Reddit?! SR shippers there are the actual worst and many Inuyasha fans (not just antis) have complained of not feeling welcomed to engage in fandom spaces anymore. Shippers swarm them and scare them off simply because fans don't like your ship and refuse to accept it. It's pathetic, really. No one should ever be bullied or harassed just because they don't like something you might. We're all fans of Inuyasha, aren't we? So let's act like it. Yashahime on the other hand, you guys are welcome to that pungent heap of trash. Fans have a right to criticize it too, but if you like it then good for you, so keep on liking it and don't mind us.

I'm almost done, but real quick back to Jaken! Let's not forget about how the official Yashahime website- which came out after my blog, mind you- described Jaken. This translation isn't the best one available but it's the only version a fellow anti friend could track down. They do recall a better one done by a native Japanese speaker who was also an anti, and that member confirmed that Jaken is indeed called Rin's babysitter. So you see, I was right in my interpretation. In the original post I did compare Jaken to a brother, but after talking to others (some comments can be found under said post) I did acknowledge that he's more of a reluctant babysitter who's not related. And if he's not at least a brother to Rin, then he's definitely not her father.

At the end of the day, the creator Rumiko Takahashi has the final word. Which is guess what? Hogosha. 💖 Probably should've just started out with that and saved us all the trouble, huh? Good day/night to you.

Papamaru bids you adieu now. 🤞

[fydream]

Almost an entire week of school goes by without any form of communication Hyuck. You didn't really expect to see him in the morning before school started so you planned on talking to him during lunch, the day after Chenle texted you. But when you saw Chenle and Renjun sitting together, without the missing boy you knew something was up.

The start of your day was a little awkward. You expected Jeno to actually have a conversation with you during history but he was too caught up doing god knows what on his phone to even realize you were trying to talk to him. "So the boy does have his priorities then.." You thought to yourself. "I wonder if he knows anything I should know."

At the end of the class you decided against asking Jeno, because maybe, just maybe it was a little too early to be asking such questions that would possibly just make things worser than they needed to be. Instead you decided to go on your day in hopes that Donghyuck would contact you in any form.

It was only until your last class of the day when you finally got something. An email, from no one but Lee Donghyuck himself. Confused, on why he would send you something so late in the day you decide to open it. Upon opening the email you read:

Welcome!

Club representative Lee Donghyuck here!

Are you tired of the heartbreak, lies, and untrustworthy relationships in your life? Have you been cheated on one too many times? Then this is the place for you! Welcome to the DNYL Club here at NCT High! Where the heartbreakers become the heartbreakees!

Interested in joining us? Great! You’ll just have to follow a few rules.

rule #1: you’ve got to have fun.

rule #2: always look your best, we don’t want anyone to catch you slipping now, do we?

and lastly, rule #3: don’t wear your heart on your sleeve, unless you want to end up like one of them.

so, will you join us?

Rereading the email over you notice the same four letters on your notebook being mentioned once again, even more confused you check to see who it was sent to, turns out it was sent to just you.

"What the fuck?" You thought to yourself. "All of a sudden Chenle tells me things are going on and Hyuck thinks that instead of explaining things he should send a cryptic email instead.."

The bell rings, snapping you out of your thoughts. You blink twice before looking back at the email that you had opened on on your phone, then back up at your classroom where your classmate seemed to be leaving.

"What the fuck happened?"

Walking out of the now empty classroom to the student parking lot you find yourself in the backseat of Renjun's car. You asked him for a ride to Hyuck's house because you didn't feel like walking all the way over there, plus you decided that the company would be nice. He accepted your request as you told him you were going to check up on Donghyuck and that he and Chenle should come as well

The car ride from school to the Donghyuck's place is mostly quiet with the background noise of the car’s fan and Chenle’s giggles due to him watching some sort of video on his phone. It stays like this for a few minutes before you decide to break it.

"Renjun?" You ask, looking at him through his rear view mirror.

"Yeah?"

"Uh- Hyuck um, sent me this email last period.." You start, and Rejun suddenly hits the breaks in his car, giving both you and Chenle a scare. "I- Sorry." He apologizes. "You can conintinue."

"Um.. Okay.. Well it was about how DNYL was a club at our school?? I recognized the letters from the journal you guys gave me, oh and um- why is it about heartbreakers?? Is this something related to Jeno?" You ask quickly, now getting Chenle's attention as well.

"You'll find out soon enough, y/n." Renjun sighs, parking his car along the sidewalk. "We're here anyways, Hyuck might as well do the explaining himself." He mumbles.

With the three of you exiting Renjun's car, Chenle runs up to the front door to ring the doorbell. Upon ringing the doorbell, no one but Donghyuck himself opens the door, clearly surprised to see the three of you here. "What are you doing here?" He asks as if he were confused on what he did to get all of you to show up at his house.

"You've got a lot of explaining to do." You say pushing past the two boys once you see the door open to reveal your best friend. "What the fuck was that email about? Also who the fuck still emails people?"

"What email?" Donghyuck asks, taken back at the sudden aggressiveness.

"This one?" You say, shoving your phone towards him.

"Oh.. That one." He sighs. "I didn't expect you to ask so soon."

“Why?”

“I thought you might wanted to think about it before asking.”

“Well, clearly I’m here now. Along with your other two friends, and I suggest you tell me if you’re going to explain anything or not so I can leave if you aren’t.” You scoff harshly, getting ready to leave if he did happen to say no.

Donghyuck sighs.

"Come in then, all of you."

"I guess I should just start from the top then, huh?" Donghyuck starts, laughing nervously, earning a glare from you. "So, if you didn't already know.. Lee Jeno, the boy in your history class? Well, He and I dated, for a while in fact.. and well.. it didn't end well." He pauses for a second, and before he can speak again you cut him off.

"Is that it?" You ask a little too harshly, "You see me and your ex, who I didn't even know you dated hang out, and then all of a sudden you don't show up to school, ignore my texts, and just send me a cryptic email? Really?"

"No.. That's not all."

"The reason why we broke up was because I found out one of his friends, who I'm assuming you already met, Park Jisung, dared him to ask me out." He says quietly. "And I guess they found me acting like a fool in love was entertaining.." "Oh." You whisper, feeling guilty that you just snapped at him. "I'm sorry... I didn't know and I shouldn't have assumed.."

"No it's fine. We broke up last June after school ended, so, almost three months ago." He sighs. "I should've known too.. I was warned. One of my upperclassman friends, Mark Lee, warned me about them and I still went on and dated Jeno.. I guess love really is blind then, huh?" He jokes.

"Well.. anyways, Mark was part of the DNYL club also known as the 'Don't Need Your Love' club and when he graduated he made me president. He told me the same stories that his older friends experienced and he saw the difference between the two groups grow. They would continue breaking hearts, and we'd continue trying to get back at them.. but as the years went on we started losing more people."

"So many people quit after all the upperclassmen graduated.. I still don't understand why.." Renjun explained. "The whole concept of the club was just to get back at those who hurt us, in a way that they would understand."

"People have said it's just because the three of them would make you feel so special, when in reality you were just a pawn in their games." Chenle added. "And I guess Hyuck getting his heart broken by Jeno was enough for everyone to quit."

"So.. Who's in the club now?" You ask, trying to keep up with all the information being given to you. Honestly, you didn't expect to learn everything all at once, all you wanted to know was what that email was about, you never expected it to be because of your new so called "friends."

"You're looking at them." Chenle jokes.

"You're fucking kidding."

"There's nothing to kid about y/n."

"Why'd they quit?" You ask.

"Like I said. I guess Hyuck's downfall was just too much." Chenle shrugs. "To be fair, we haven't done anything either. The most we've done so far is cut off ties with Jeno, Jisung, and their friend Jaemin. We're not taking any chances."

"I see.." You sigh. "Okay but what does any of this have to do with me?" You ask.

"Well.. You see.." Donghyuck starts. "We were wondering if you would like to help us out." He says an innocent smile suddenly appearing.

"What?!" You exclaim. "You want me to do what now?!"

"Help us out." Renjun adds with a nod. "You don't have to do anything extreme, we just want them to go through the same pain we did." "Isn't that um.. morally wrong?"

"What? Leading them on just to crush their hearts afterwards?" Donghyuck asks in that playful voice he always uses.

"Uh, yeah?"

"Only if you're looking at it that way." He says smiling. "We're just teaching them a lesson."

"So are you in?" Renjun asks.

Trying to process all the information that had just been given to you, you decide to think about what to do. "So basically. You want me to help you get back at your ex and his friends because they're assholes to not only you, but other people as well. And you think the most sane way to do that is to do the same thing they did to you, to them."

"Yeah pretty much."

"No!"

"C'monn!!!" Chenle whines. "It'll be fun!!"

"Yeah for you! Not me!" You exclaim. "What happens if I end up getting played then, hm?"

"You won't." Renjun defends. "We'll be here for you, plus, considering all that time Hyuck and Jeno spent together we could probably tell you what to do."

"That still doesn't make up for the fact that you're doing the same thing they did." You argue back.

"Well what I've learned is, is that they won't stop until one of them experiences it." Donghyuck retorts. "I know I haven't told you everything but you just need to trust me on this one. They don't care about anyone but themselves." Donghyuck says sincerely, thinking about what Jeno had told him the other night. "Please."

This is the most vulnerable you've seen Donghyuck in a while, and part of you can't tell if this is genuine or if this is just a way for him to get what he wants.

"Okay." You sigh, while the three boys cheer. "But on one condition."

"Of course there's a catch." Donghyuck jokes, rolling his eyes.

"You have to at least talk to Jeno again." "Are you fucking insane?!" Donghyuck asks. "There's no way in hell I'm talking to that bastard, you do not know the hell he put me through."

"And he doesn't know the hell you're about to put him through." You defend. "I never said you had to like him, I just said you have to talk."

"So do we have a deal?"

He sighs.

"We have a deal."

A few days later you were meeting up with Donghyuck at his house where he would be telling you what to do. Currently you were laying on the floor, staring at the ceiling in Donghyuck's bedroom.

"Am I really going to do this?" You think to yourself.

"This is your target." Donghyuck says, handing you his phone with a certain someone's instagram pulled up.

"Target?"

"That's just what we would call them." Donghyuck shrugs. "This is Park Jisung. I'm sure you've already met him."

"I thought you were mad at Jeno." You say scrolling through the boy's feed. "Why am I going after Jisung?"

"He's the one who asked the dare."

"And I guess I was thinking about what you said. As much as I hate Jeno, I don't think I could do that to him.." He adds quietly.

To his luck, you weren't listening. You were too caught up in stalking Jisung's instagram to even notice that Hyuck was still talking to you. "Sorry, what? Did you say something?" You ask, handing his phone back to him.

"Hmm? Oh, it was nothing."

"So why Jisung?" You ask again.

"You're perfect for him." Donghyuck bluntly states. "The new girl who just moved to town, who also happens to be a sweetheart and a smartass? I don't know about you, but if I were in his position I'd definitely try to shoot my shot, especially if no one knew anything about me." He shrugs.

"He's always goes for the 'soft-innocent' types. The ones that would pretty much never expect it." He adds. "Like I said, he's an asshole."

"So what do you want me to do?"

"I dunno. Break his heart? Crush his hopes and dreams?"

"Donghyuck, seriously." You scold.

"You're no fun." He pouts. "All you have to do is get the boy to fall for you, then break his heart before he can break yours."

"Y'know that sounds a lot easier said than done.." You mumble. "How do you even know that I'll be able to do it?"

"You're the new girl, right? He barely knows anything about you, he can only assume based off of your social media and how you act in class."

"Okay and? What is that supposed to mean?" "It means he wouldn't know if you were putting up an act or not. You'll be fine, you just need to watch out for yourself."

"Okay now what is that supposed to mean?" You ask, wondering if it's too late to back out now.

"Don't catch feelings." He shrugs. "If you find yourself catching feelings for Park Jisung then you need to tell one of us right away. I'm sorry y/n, but as much as I love you I can't put you through that hell."

"So are you up for the challenge?" He asks.

You sigh before sitting up to look at him. "Let's do it."

19 | previous | next | m.list | main m.list | 

✰ how to be a heartbreaker

↳ so what happens when park jisung, the school’s infamous fuckboy runs into the new girl at school? out of boredom he decides it’ll be fun to have someone new to play with, but little does he know, she’s learning how to be a heartbreaker. 

[goldenwilliamson]

Okay so I'm obsessed with beatle!reader concept. So I was wondering if maybe you could write something to do with beatle!reader and george having heaps of chemistry and all the others think they should be together and all the media also questions them about being together then maybe George says 23A “I think I love you.”?? thanks love! Love your writing :)

pairing: george harrison x reader

summary: everyone thinks beatle!reader and george should be together but they’re in a bit of denial

warnings: mentions of sex that happened in the past and allusion to it 

word count: 1804

“Friends or Flame: George Harrison and Y/N Y/L/N,” John reads the recent headline of the magazine. The headline is paired with a photograph of you and George sat in a restaurant together last week enjoying a meal after a day in the studio. 

‘Spotted in London restaurant: George and Y/n of The Beatles enjoying a romantic dinner together. The prevailing question is are they friends or lovers? They confidently tell the media that they are not romantically involved, but the chemistry seems strong. In the photograph the two are pictured leaving the restaurant together, George with his arm held strongly around Y/N before hopping into his famous mini cooper adorned with psychedelic paint. 

What do you think of the couple? Let us know by writing in...’

The story reads and John says it out loud for the five of you to hear, each of you laughing at it.

“Why must they always insist that we are a couple?” You say.

“Well you two do act quite romantic sometimes,” Ringo says, and you and George make eye contact with one another, laughing again.

“How so?” You ask.

“Well for starters, you two out for dinner together, George with his arms held firmly around your waist. If I didn’t know any better, I’d probably agree with the bloody magazine,” Paul explains and you shake your head.

“Do they not understand that females and males can share platonic dinners together?” You say.

“You two just act like a couple but, it’s not their fault that you two have chemistry.” John says and Ringo and Paul nod.

“It’s just cause we’ve known each other for so long,” you say, looking to George to back you up, but he is looking away just drinking his tea in silence. 

“It’s probably because you two fucked that time in Germany,” John says and George nearly spits out his tea. You push John on the shoulder, scoffing. 

“Oh shush! That was when we were children and it was a mistake that we don’t speak of, John,” you tell him defensively. Yes, you and George had slept together when you were both 17, but you were kids with raging hormones sharing a bed together both drunk in Germany what did they expect to happen?

“Yes John, stop being jealous,” George says jokingly, speaking up finally. 

“Oh I’m not, we were all in the room and basically experience the whole bloody thing with you,” John says, never letting the two of you live that moment down.

“Let’s just forget it ever happened alright, that didn’t mean anything and doesn’t effect this so called ‘chemistry’ you believe George and I have,” you tell them.

“Sure it doesn’t,” Paul says, nodding and the others laugh with him. Including George, the cheeky thing. 

“I guarantee if you and Paul slept together you would have the same type of chemistry that you and George do. It can only come from sex and the media knows that. You’ve done it to yourself,” he says.

“Alright, let’s just drop this please. I don’t really care for this conversation or what the media wants to believe anymore,” you say, standing to head back into the studio. But it’s a lie, you did care, just as you cared for George. It’s not as though you’ve been pining after him since you were 17, sure you fancied him for a bit when you were kids but that went away. It’s recently come back in the last 6 months though and you don’t know how to make it go away. 

You walk back down and work on some stuff in the studio by yourself while the other four hang around upstairs for at least another ten minutes. You take the time to have chat with Brian who too brings up the magazine.

“You two do look quite cute together,” he tells you and you roll your eyes, Brian always tries to play matchmaker for you, sending you on dates and that doesn’t stop when it comes to you and George.

“Oh not you too Brian,” you say to him.

“What? I think you would be lovely together. I think you know that too, and I think he does as well. I see the way you two look at each other, you can’t deny it,” he says, making you smile. But you shake your head and look to the floor. 

“Wouldn’t it just ruin the dynamic but? I try to push the feelings away because I don’t want it to interfere with the band,” You tell him being honest now, as you know you trust him to keep it a secret.

“Darling, I don’t think it would ruin anything. The two of you already act like a couple and everyone here can see it, you two getting together certainly wouldn’t make a difference,” he says.

“Plus he is the most handsome out of the lot,” Brian adds with a wink which makes you laugh.

“You’re not wrong there,” you tell him, and soon the four boys come waltzing in ready to begin recording again. 

“What were you and Brian talking about?” George says quietly, coming over to stand near you and plugging his guitar into the amp by your side. For a moment you’re worried he overheard you, but you can tell he’s just being curious.

“Oh was just talking about business stuff, it’s boring,” you lie, shrugging your shoulders.

“Right,” George nods, looking away to the other boys. 

The session goes by quicker than normal tonight for some reason, maybe it’s because you have so much running around your mind. Most of the thoughts revolve around George. You think of about 50 different ways you could tell him how you feel, but not one of them seemed correct. You conclude that you should just leave it and let it fade away naturally until you no longer have feelings. Maybe if you wait for him to get another girlfriend, that seemed to help you get over him last time. 

“Did you lot want to come over for some drinks?” George asks you all and even though you expect everyone to say no and that they just want to go home, all the boys agree as do you. 

You all drive your cars in almost single file the whole way to George’s house in Esher. You arrive last of all of you seeing as you don’t speed like the rest of them. You try to mother them often about how unsafe speeding is, but they never listen. 

The five of you sit spread around in George’s living room couches sipping on wine and beer for a couple of hours. You don’t often do this, but you all spent the time reminiscing on your childhoods together. Little stories and moments you guys could remember. It made all of you laugh your assess off thinking about the stupid things you all used to get up to. 

Everyone begins to peel off slowly, Ringo heading home first, then Paul and John getting up to leave around the same time. You decide you should probably head home too, but you were dreading the drive back into London. 

You and George walk out of his house, trailing a little behind Paul and John. You turn to look at him.

“It’s really annoying that you live in Esher because I really do not wanted to be driving into London right now. I’m so tired I may fall asleep at the wheel,” you tell him. 

“Stay if you want,” he tells you and you raise an eyebrow.

“Would that be alright?” You question.

“Of course, don’t be silly. I like the company,” he tells you, nudging you softly with his arm.

“Alright,” you smile, “Thanks Geo.”

You two see John and Paul off.

“Aren’t you leaving as well,” Paul asks before hopping into his car.

“She’s gonna stay the night,” George explains for you and Paul raises his eyebrows.

“Once again, the two of you confuse us as to why you aren’t in a relationship already,” John says, sliding into his car and closing his door. 

“Ah don’t mind John. Have a good night you two,” Paul says with a wink getting into his car as well and driving off with a wave, trailing behind John who you see starts quickly down the long road into George’s property.

The two of you make your way back into his house side by side and decide to go to bed. You head towards the spare bedroom while George walks around the house turning off the lights and lowering blinds before coming to the spare room too, resting on the door frame and watching you pull the sheets back on the bed.

“Why don’t you just sleep with me tonight? It’s cold and I like someone by my side,” he says and you obviously don’t decline.

“Sure,” you say and he smiles, turning to walk down the hall towards his room and you follow him. 

“Here,” George says passing you a shirt, “For you to sleep in,” he says.

“Thanks,” you tell him before turning around to get changed. You weren’t afraid to change in front of George, he’d seen everything before. 

He turns the light out and the two of you climb into bed together, George wraps his arms around you and pulls you into the warmth of his body, a feeling you love.

“You know the boys may be right about that stuff today,” he says into your ear, and although you can’t see him, you roll around to make the two of you face to face.

“About the magazine things?” You ask.

“About us, seeming like a couple you know,” he says and you nod for a moment.

“I mean I can see where they might get it from,” you laugh a little bit trying to ease the tension. 

“Can I tell you something? Just to be completely honest here,” George asks.

“Of course, you can tell me anything,” you tell him, awaiting his response eagerly.

“Well I think I love you, y/n,” he says hesitantly and you feel a wave of joy roll over your entire body. 

“Really?” You grin. 

“Yeah,” he almost whispers.

“I love you too,” you mutter back to him. 

“Really?” he says mimicking you as he laughs a little bit.

“Really,” you tell him.

“Well where do we go from now?” He asks, holding you a little bit tighter.

“I don’t know,” you laugh, “I feel like nothing has changed except we’ve spoken a few words to each other,” you tell him.

“I feel the same way,” he says laughing.

“I guess the boys were right then,” you tell him.

“I guess they were,” he agrees.

“Shall we have a do over of that night in Germany then? Without the other three in the room,” you offer in a whisper.

“I think that’s a marvellous idea.” 

[xxisxxisxxis]

Gateway Drug | Part Forty-Nine

Table of Content or Part Forty-Eight

Wattpad

Word count: 3.9K

Warning(s): Explicit language, mentions of Drug abuse

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Vanity: something that is vain, empty, or valueless.

I watch with my water in hand as Vanity and Tansy dance like wasted strippers on the bar...granted they are wasted.

Sparkie and Nikki are in the bathroom, Vince is occupied with a bundle of groupies who waved him over, we're still waiting for Tommy to get here since it was date night with Heather but he still wanted to come out, so I'm sitting in silence with Mick and giving glances at anyone that looks like they may be interested in approaching me because I don't necessarily want to speak to anyone right now.

"So..."   I start, finishing me water. "...How've you been?"

Mick takes a sip of his drink and nods a little bit.

"Not too bad." He tells me. "What about you? Did you and asshole work your shit out?" He asks and I scoff.

"Yeah." I tell him, smiling a little. "We're good."

I honestly believed we were at that moment. Stupid of me.

"Good." He replies.

Nikki, Tommy and Sparkie all show up simultaneously, Nikki and Sparkie heavily under the influence of more tha just alcohol.

"Hey, man." Nikki smiles to Tommy, patting him on the back. "Haven't seen you since the wedding...over two months ago." His dimpled smile is a nice cover up to to underlying anger and bitterness woven into his words.

Tommy has been nearly disconnected from everyone since Heather and he got married.

I'm glad they're getting along that well, but life doesn't revolve around one person.

Even my codependent ass can leave Nikki to spend time with my other friends, and vice versa.

"Oh, yeah, dude, we've been really busy." Tommy tells him as they sit by Mick and I. "We just bought a new house and she's had some time off so we've been just enjoying it before she starts on a new project and the album gets going for us." He explains.

"Nah, I get it." Nikki scoffs, glancing at me. "Being married changes shit around."

"That's why I'm not marrying Tansy." Sparkie says out of nowhere, looking at the blonde as she and Vanity are a compiled of booze and giggles, nearly tripping and falling off the bar in their heels.

"Just depends on the person, I guess. I like being married." Tommy shrugs. "I'm about to grab a drink. Mick, you want another?" He gets up from his seat, motioning to the empty glass of vodka Mick's finished.

"Sure." Mick tells him.

"Get Saint Vivian another water while you're at it." Sparkie tells him, his tone a degrading scrape at me for not drinking, and the look he gives me stamps the confirmation of his aggravating attempt to rile me up some.

Nikki shoots him an unamused glare and I can practically see him cowering back into his shell out of fear of pissing Nikki off.

My ego gets a pat on the head.

He might have worn more makeup than me at times, been spazzing on coke one minute and nodding off on smack the next, but he could still kick ass up one end and down the other over me.

Tommy comes back with drinks for him and Mick, bringing Vanity and Tansy back with him.

The two girls sit down, hand in hand, whispering and laughing among themselves as they try to catch their breath.

"Where'd Vince go?" Tansy asks us, running a hand through her platinum hair and Vanity looks around.

"Oh, he's socializing." Vanity lets out and Tansy glances over in her line of sight to see Vince making out with a tan blonde in a mini skirt.

Before Tansy can say anything else, Vanity's reaching across the little cocktail table with a beaming smile directed at Tommy.

"Hi, I'm Vanity." She pipes and Tommy looks as if he knows who she is, but is still confused as to why she's hanging out with us. 

"Tommy." He replies, shaking her hand. 

"I'm Tansalyn's and Nikki's friend." She adds for explanation and he raises his brows a little, quickly shifting his eyes to Nikki, whose expression I can't quiet read...he looks kind of nervous.

"Yeah, I've seen you on T.V. some." Tommy strikes up conversation with her and she just glows at the fact she's well-known. "And a few magazines." He adds.

"I've done several differing magazine issues." She informs in, nodding. 

"Everything from fashion to Playboy." Tansy cuts in, grinning a little.

"So, that's how you two met?" I ask.

"Well, not exactly." Vanity explains. "We knew some people, who knew some people, who knew some people, who thought we'd be great friends and got us together and..." Her beautiful brown eyes catch on Nikki, who's nervousness seems more apparent, despite his neutral expression as he watches her. "...we just clicked from the beginning." She says softly, blinking at him before she quickly averts her attention back at Tansy, her hand squeezing at her's affectionately. "And have been great ever since." She adds.

"Agreed." Tansy nods, smiling at her.

"I need another drink." Nikki mumbles standing up. 

"Can you get me some more water, please?" I ask him and he nods, stepping to the bar.

"Why's he so tense?" Tommy asks once he's out of earshot.

"Must be the blow." Sparkie suggests with a shrug. "He spent good money on it and it wasn't worth a damn." 

I take it without question.

Vince is stepping to us before long, lip stick smudged on his lips as he tries to wipe it off before going home to his wife and child. 

I just give him a ball busting look and he raises his brows.

"Go ahead and say it, Viv." He tells me, sighing.

"Swine." He and I say at the same time, except he's being a smart ass and I'm being serious.

"So, how did you and Nikki meet, exactly?" Vanity asks me out of nowhere and my water glass is merely slammed down in front of me, causing the liquid to slosh out a little, and causing me to jump out of my skin, as Nikki sits back down beside me with an entire bottle of Jack.

He's giving Vanity a surly look and she doesn't even flinch, her curious expression focused on me.

"Tommy introduced us." Nikki shortly states before I can explain it myself.

"Well, that's not just what happened, Nikki, I mean, you two are married aren't you?" She argues politely to him. "I want the whole story."

"Tommy introduced us, dated a couple years, engaged, married, here we are." Nikki, again, interrupts me.

"Baby, it's not that big of a deal." I mumble to him, wondering why he's being rude to her.

"Yeah, baby, it's not that big of a deal." She repeats me, and I can't tell if she's mocking me or just being flirtatious with the way she says "baby."

He rolls his eyes, irritated.

Vince seems to be studying Nikki as Vanity and Tansy change the subject to the album.

I don't listen very much, neither does Nikki, apparently, because it takes Tommy repeating his name three times, and me nudging his leg with mine to get his attention.

"Yeah?" He asks Tommy and Tansy and Vanity let out some more cocktail induced laughter as his lack of enthusiasm.

"Tansy was just talkin' to you." He tells him.

"Oh, what Tans?" Nikki asks, sighing out a little.

"I was just wondering if you've gotten any songs up yet for the album?"

"No? Why would I? There's not even a concept." He states, borderline abrasive.

"You had some songs for 'Theater of Pain' written before the concept was decided on." I remind him and he just let's out a breath.

"Well, there goes that conversation." Tansy exhales, playing it off like Nikki didn't hurt her feelings.

Vince is now giving the slightest hint of a smirk to Nikki before it suddenly disappears from his lips and he's excusing himself to go get a beer.

Game recognizes game. And Vince--being the cheating bastard he was--had sat there and put together what he needed to in order to figure out Nikki either fucked Vanity, was fucking her, or planned on fucking her until further notice. The answer was all three. And he made no attempt to tell me...not even when Nikki later told him and confirmed it.

"We're still working on figuring everything out, Tans." Tommy tells her in a more polite way than Nikki.

"Like you would know what's going on since you've been up Heather's ass all this time. Literally." Nikki stifles out and I look at him.

"What is wrong, Nikki?" I snap.

He just lets out an exaggerated breath before getting up and heading outside.

"He's always moody." Vanity cuts in, rolling her eyes, lighting a cigarette.

I ignore her and follow after him.

"Nikki." I say, my heels clicking against the wet pavement as fine rain sprinkles down on us.

"What?" He asks, going to where we parked.

"What's wrong with you?" I gently pull at his hand, stopping him.

"Nothing."

"Nikki, c'mon, now, I'm not stupid." I argue, crossing my arms. "You're an asshole but I know when you're an out of character asshole."

He just unlocks his Corvette and slides into the driver seat, shutting the door.

Before he can crank it and get his window rolled up, I'm 'Dukes of Hazzard'-ing his shit and putting my legs through the window, scooting into his lap, my feet in the passenger seat, and he leans his head back and let's out a loud groan of irritation.

I just crank the car for him and roll the window up to avoid getting rained on, before turning the car off and waiting patiently for him to start talking, blinking up at him.

"Alright..." he gives up, rubbing his face before resting his arm behind me on the sill of the window. "...fine." he sighs. "I shoulda gone to the funeral, I guess. And I thought I was ready to go out and see everybody but it just--Vince is being Vince. And Tommy hasn't even acknowledged anybody since he got married. Good for him he's so fucking happy in his relationship he can't even call his best friend every once in a while but whatever. And Vanity--Jesus Christ--Vanity." He grumbles. "Like dragging my balls against shards of fucking glass anytime she opens her mouth."

"Then why're you friends with her?" I ask him, chuckling, and he rubs his lips together, looking at me.

"We're into the same thing." He tells me and I don't have to ask what he means.

"So, she's a drug buddy." I say as his fingers trace along my kneecap.

"Yeah." He replies quietly.

"Well, I think she's nice." I admit and he looks at me crookedly.

"No. You can't be friends with her, Viv." He chuckles with obvious distaste of the idea, and I raise a brow.

"Why not? She seems like a sweet girl."

"As much as I'm a sweet guy." He scoffs out. "People like her aren't good friends to keep."

"Tansy's like her." I argue. "You're like her and we're married."

"I never claimed that Tansy's a good friend or that I'm a good husband, did I?" He asks me in a stern tone, avoiding my gaze.

"Why do you think you're such a bad husband, Nikki?" I furrow my brows.

"I'm not getting in to--"

"'--No, baby, I'm serious. It's like your default when you're high is apologizing to me for being a shitty husband." I point out and he shakes his head a little.

"I just feel like I let you down a lot." He shrugs.

"I'm not perfect, Nikki, I let you down more than you do me." I assure him.

"No..." he looks as if he's thinking about something for a moment. "...you don't. I promise."

I was too caught up in Nikki's mood to notice the hole in the story Tansy had told me of Tommy taking Nikki out for our anniversary. But it was the first red flag that popped up in hindsight while assessing the situation after I found out he was having an affair.

Tansy had told me Tommy was taking Nikki out for our anniversary that year, that was the night me and the guys got locked up for a little bit.

That first night back out with Mötley and Vanity Nikki mentioned not seeing or talking to Tommy since his wedding...over two months prior.

What really happened on our anniversary: Vanity came to our house and was still there when Nikki came to pick me up from jail. Which is why he wasn't too eager for me to go back home with him.

My finger tips lightly brush over the scratch of his unshaven cheek and I give him my best smile, hoping it will cheer him up.

He just keeps his near frown and I decide to do to him what he does to me when he's trying to cheer me up.

My lips press to his cheek softly, then pepper random kisses all over his face until he's smiling, finishing off with one, long, passionate kiss to his lips.

"Okay." I breathe out, about to find a way to get out of his lap so we can go back inside.

He puts his arm across my legs, though and stops me, giving me a devious grin.

"We don't have time." I giggle, squealing a little as his fingers trail up the inside of my leg, going up my skirt as he says:

"There's always time."

Just before he can breach the fabric of my panties, a loud knock on our window has us both jolting.

It's Tommy.

Nikki sighs out cranking the car and rolling the window down.

"The girls are hungry." He explains to us.

"And?" Nikki asks.

"They want food, dude, c'mon." Tommy chuckles, nudging his arm.

"What're you kids up to?" I hear Vince next, and I lean my head back to lay on the open window frame so I can look up to see him and Tommy.

"Guys, let's go!" I hear Sparkie shout from the entrance of the club we were in and me, Vince, Nikki, and even Tommy, all share a collective eyeroll.

I think it's safe to say we simply tolerate the greasy bastard at this point.

"Ignore it, it'll go away." Nikki says, rubbing his eye.

"Guys!" Vanity calls next, the bubbliness of her personality in her tone.

"Why the hell is she so perky?" Vince asks next.

"She's been on a three day bender of base. That's why." Nikki replies flatly, rolling his eyes at the sound of heels coming towards us and my ears perk up, deciding to put the question on the tip of my tongue away for now.

He opens his door and Tommy helps me out of the car, Tansy and Vanity hand in hand.

"We're starving." Tansy tells us.

"The Rainbows's our best bet." Tommy suggests.

"Okay, let's go." Tansy shrugs, pulling gently at Vanity's hand, and Vanity's hand grasps at mine and pulls me along with them as we head to the Rainbow.

I wasn't good at making girl friends. Tansy came into my life before I adapted to mainly being around guys, so it was never hard to form a close friendship with her, but I got along better with men because Tansy, Tommy and Vince were the only people I really ever had relationship with before meeting Nikki, and Mick and my other friends I gained through them.

To this day, my list of close girl friends consists of Tansy, Susan--who I was motivated to get to be friends with because she's the step mother of Monroe, Brittany--who's married to Tommy...and is young enough to be one of mine and Nikki's miscarried children so I view her more like a daughter than a friend--and Sharise and I are still very close, despite her being divorced from Vince for 27 years.

Of course, over the years, I've had to adapt at being friends with everyone's girlfriends and wives until they split.

And most of them were sweet girls, so after a while it got annoying because I'd get attached to them and really like them, and then BAM! Divorce or sudden break up.

I learned not to get too attached to new lovers of any of my male friends. They wouldn't be around for long.

That being said, one of my girl friends, believe it or not, was actually my husband's mistress, for an entire year.

She just had a...er...learning curve, if you will.

I watch as Nikki goes back and forth from our bedroom, to the front door, going outside, coming back inside, and repeating.

"Uh...babe?" I call, raising a brow and he stops by the living room where I'm sitting on the couch in my pajamas, reading "The Art of War" and eating a granola bar.

"Yeah?" He raises his brows.

"Whatcha doin'?" I ask curiously.

"It's been over a month since Tansy was asking about the album concept and I realized I needed to start writing for the album, like, a month ago, so I'm cleaning up my shit in our closet and bedroom and kicking drugs so I can focus." He explains, walking back to our bedroom and I raise my brows, a little surprised.

"Do you wanna read my book?!" I offer.

"Nope, got my own strategy!" He replies.

"But is it on Sun Tsu's level?!"

"I'm getting a dog!" He explains and I furrow my brows, putting my book down and walking to meet him in the bedroom.

"A what?" I cross my arms as he's putting needles and trash into a garbage bag.

"It'll be like having a kid around, so I'll have more incentive--aside from you, and working on the album--not to shoot smack and keep away from blow." He goes on.

"A dog?" I repeat.

"Yep."

"You know if you're serious about kicking it this time, you're gonna have to distance yourself from some of your friends." I remind him. "No more Jason or any other dealers, no more Izzy--"

"--You're friends with Izzy, too." He argues.

"I'm not trying to get off drugs." I tell him. "And Tansy and Vanity."

"Okay, you three have sleepovers like fucking high school girls. How the hell am I suppose to avoid them when they're at my house all the time?"

"Well...Tansy doesn't have a house here in L.A. and Vanity's apartment gives me a God-awful feeling everytime I step foot in there." I inform him.

"Right, and I'm the paranoid one." He mumbles.

"Babe. When you're lying in bed and feel someone get into bed with you and start breathing down your neck, and nobody's freaking in bed with you when you turn to see who it is, you kinda never want to even think about going into the apartment it took place in ever again." I state and he chuckles.

"I would've asked it for a blow job." He comments.

"Nikki, I'm serious."

"I am, too." He defends himself and I give him an unamused look. "Alright, fine, for entertainment sake, let's say she has monsters under her bed. What sense would that make? She's up Jesus' ass as far as you are and I highly doubt dark shit stays around God fanatics." He brushes me off.

"Um, hard, mind altering drugs are a pretty good invitation for quote unquote 'dark shit' to hang around people. It makes it easier to get in their heads, break them down, and try to kill them."

"Kill them?" He tries not to laugh. "Are you on drugs?"

"Nikki, I'm being serious. I'm worried about our friend."

"Which friend? We've got, like, all of them on the highway to hell right now." He scoffs, tying off the full garbage bag.

"She's got a lot of shit she's carrying on her, Nikki, and I'm scared for her. And Tansy can say 'everything's fine' but I know she's got a lot of shit happening behind closed doors that she won't open up about, too."

"Everyone has shit going on behind closed doors, babe. That's life in this business. Smiles and good times out on the town, and demon filled bedrooms when we get back home." He shrugs.

"Is that not sad to you?" I ask and he sighs, stepping to me.

"Just pray about it. Like everything else you worry with." He wraps his arms around me and I roll my eyes, taking it as sarcasm. "Get all quiet and soft sounding so you don't wake me up, and start talking to the ceiling about bullshit that won't matter a month from now..." He grins, pressing a kiss to my neck and I refuse the urge to push him away from me because he's making fun of me. "...and after an hour of wasting your breath, you end it in 'in Jesus' name I pray, amen'. And then I think, 'wow, she's really has me fooled to believe she isn't on something, too'." He laughs out.

"Find it funny all you want. My prayers for your's and everyone else's bullshit doesn't fall on deaf ears or one of you would be dead by now." I state.

He smirks, before a lightbulb goes off in his eyes before walking to the closet.

"I'm glad we're on this topic of conversation because it's great foreplay for this." He pulls out a raunchy mockery of a catholic school girl uniform I completely forgot we had and I cross my arms.

"You don't get to insult my religious beliefs and then turn around and fantasize about a concept attached to a denomination of said religion."

"You can put it on and talk to me about getting on your knees all you want." He keeps his smirk and I grab the uniform off the bed, about to go hide it somewhere else in the house.

"We have plenty of film of me with this on to choose from. There's no need for a live show." I peck him on the lips and walk out of our bedroom with the skimpy clothing.

"I meant getting on your knees to pray!" He tries to tell me to get me to bring the outfit back and I laugh.

He was serious about quitting...but once he started getting dope sick, he got desperate enough to go out in the middle of the night, get the garbage bags full of used cottons and needles, and use the rinses of cotton to ring the smallest fix out of them before getting Jason back over as soon as possible.

And I knew he got back on crack when I came home from seeing Sharise and Skylar, to him and Vanity locked in our bedroom.

When I finally picked the lock, Vanity was having a base fueled arts and crafts session on the bed--wearing my clothes that I'd left in the floor--trying to explain the inspiration of her art was Jesus coming back for the rapture, while Nikki was screaming about his late grandmother, in the closet.

And that's typically what I would walk in on if they were at our house. It always appeared like they were way too far gone in their minds to even think about sex. So I honestly never thought anything about it.

But if there's a will, there's a way, and in the midst of Nikki waving a gun around, screaming, and Vanity laughing like a maniac while plastering glitter, styrofoam peanuts and Nikki's used cottons on a piece of construction paper, the two of them had the will and found a way to kickstart the demise of my already fragile marriage.

They truly were functioning addicts.

[mbti-notes]

Would you mind explaining why you see Rey as ESFJ and Kylo Ren as INTP from the new Star Wars? I've always seen Rey as a stereotypical ISFP action hero (quick to adapt to new situations, hands on, a fierce sense of 'moral right' borne of self), and I'm undecided on Kylo, but thought he exhibited FP tendencies -- a struggle between self-identity and rationality, that indicates a F/T imbalance.

[con’t: In reading Leonore Thomson’s book on personalities, the Fi-dom section brought Kylo to mind – unless prone to developing Se/Ne, the IFP fiercely guards their sense of ‘identity’ / self against outside influences and becomes rigid. Isn’t that what he’s doing, in differentiating himself from his parents and refusing to see reality any other way than what he has decided it is, based on his feelings / experiences?]

Judging by the debates I saw online, there doesn’t seem to be any general consensus on either character, which is interesting. It’s a trilogy and the character development beats are scattered and difficult to piece together. And there were several blanks that I had to fill with my own speculation. I didn’t really enjoy the process of typing these characters, but I did it because I kept on receiving requests week after week ever since the first movie came out. I found the character development arcs shallow and poorly paced, and the resolutions were too pat to be very interesting. I reviewed the Kylo and Rey scenes several times, with different personality types in focus each time, in order to ensure that the function pieces fit together to my satisfaction.

      ***** Major spoilers ahead! ******

Kylo

Although I think there are weak points in her book, I don’t take issue with Thomson’s description of Fi doms. I mainly disagree with the motive that you ascribe to Kylo. I don’t think he’s being protective of his identity, I don’t think he cares about identity, in the way that Fi doms do. I will concede that he gives the impression of being a rebellious teenager in defying his parents/mentor/birthright, but defiance alone does not make him Fi dom. Pretty much everyone (even some animal species) goes through a stupid teenage phase of rebellion at some point in their life, and some people never properly get past it. To me, he looks like a stuck-in-adolescence INTP: entirely too full of himself and blind to everything else.

One little point made it difficult for me to settle on a type. Leia was absolutely convinced that Kylo was “manipulated” by Snoke/Palpatine to join the dark side, but there was little indication from Kylo, Luke, and Han that this was actually the case. Should we trust Leia, since the movie portrayed her as being much more powerful than meets the eye, or should we trust Kylo’s subjective experience of himself as being fully and completely the master of his own fate? I go for the latter. If anyone’s going to be prone to blind belief, it’s a mom who doesn’t want to admit that she’s lost her son to her enemies. And I see no compelling evidence that he is a person who’s easily manipulated, emotionally or otherwise, which is a big strike against F. If you see such evidence, please present it.

The most revealing aspect of Kylo’s development was found in the conflicting and exaggerated accounts about what happened with Luke that led to the destruction of the Jedi academy. If you grow up being fed a constant diet of legends about galactic warfare from the Alliance, you’re naturally going to think of the Jedi as the good guys and the Empire as the bad guys (as we, the audience, are supposed to). However, if you’re Ben Solo, you don’t experience the Jedi as good guys, at all. He was “abandoned” by parents who were too busy/neglectful/high-minded to properly care for him and he was “abandoned” by a supposedly saintly mentor/uncle who wanted to kill him (even if the urge was fleeting). Additionally, Jedi training is essentially martial arts training in that you’re not supposed to use it violently unless you absolutely have to, which leaves the Jedi looking like total wusses much of the time, politically, always leading from behind and allowing evil to get a foothold over and over again.

Therefore, my theory is that Kylo turned, completely willingly, because he saw nothing but pathetic posturing and hypocrisy around him. It was an extremely deep cynicism (the belief that “good”, “love”, “happiness”, or anything that makes humans noble, don’t really exist) that allowed him to fully embrace his own darkness to very powerful effect - no manipulation necessary. This wouldn’t work with Fi-Te but fits with Ti-Fe. I postulate that his conception of morality was extremely reductive and childish. Essentially, “good guys should be totally free of bad”, so any whiff of anyone feeling conflicted or making dumb choices and they no longer get the privilege of being labeled as a “good” person. Accordingly, any hint of conflict in himself cements the fact that he is bad, irredeemably bad, because he’s full of conflict. 

But I argue that the reason he’s full of conflict is not because he’s bad or a Feeler, it’s because the way he was being taught was not well-suited to his personality at all, in fact, it was quite damaging to him, which pushed him into skepticism and alienation. Here’s the blank I’m filling in: Luke is Fi dom. Fi and Ti do not communicate easily. Being forced or shamed into being good with no proper reasoning process by Fs tends to really aggravate inferior Fe grip problems in young Ti doms (it’s a common relationship dynamic). Fi doms construct beliefs from their feelings and it’s easy for them to expect that everyone should feel-believe the same. How is a person supposed to react when you keep telling them to Fi everything but they simply can’t or have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about? External manipulation or not, I speculate that Kylo was already in a deep state of doubt about whether he was in the right place. Luke’s intense fear and disgust in that fateful moment only confirmed Kylo’s suspicions that he didn’t belong there, and that Luke was no “good” guy. 

Seeing oneself as irredeemably bad is a big blow to the ego, so one must engage in self-defense. The fact that turning dark allowed him to realize the full potential of his force capabilities, to him, meant that the Jedi were completely wrong in their conception of what is “good”. Therefore, he doesn’t consider himself to be bad per se, rather, he believes that he has discovered the truth about what it means to be great - being great via T is better than being good via F. He was trying to discover his true self through dominant Ti, perfectly normal part of development, but he chose the wrong path, because it was a reactionary decision that was merely rebelling against all the people who were trying to force him into being F. This poor choice meant that he had to keep trying to sever his connection to everything good in himself = disowning F. In his mind, the Jedi were stupid, weak, and deluding themselves all along, but he knows what’s up, and that granted him a high degree of confidence in his decisions. He saw himself as the real deal because he was smart enough and strong enough to be brutally honest about what he is. In essence, he’s no faker, and that makes him superior. These mental gymnastics happen with Ti, not Fi. 

When Fi doms (even just start to) see themselves as bad, it ruins them and renders them impotent and dysfunctional (see previous post about Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender as a great example). Yet I see no compelling evidence that Kylo’s identity, feelings, or conflicts held him back, rather, they only served to fuel his rise. Despite appearances, he didn’t lust for power and validation like Te loop/grip, rather, he was only interested in self-mastery, and was willing to do whatever it took to achieve it, because he had no other ideal outside of himself to believe in. Nothing could really stop him unless he decided to stop. When he was frustrated, he would let it out in a quick burst, and then continued on as though it never happened (Fe). He was actually very disciplined in growing his abilities by setting consistent and logical challenges for himself to overcome (Ti), and he always succeeded in achieving his goals and reaching whatever potential he had envisioned for himself (Ne). Furthermore, someone who is very “defensive of their identity” wouldn’t be able to change themselves on a dime, as he did at the end. When faced with the right counter-evidence, he did a whiplash 180 without hemming or hawing or performative self-flagellation or whining about “losing myself”, etc. Would that be possible for Fi-Te?

Rey

Is she introverted? She is unapologetically assertive, she gets involved even when it doesn’t/shouldn’t involve her, she never balks at interacting with people/objects, she always faces situations immediately, she has trouble holding her tongue, she has difficulty introspecting (as evidenced from Luke’s training sessions), and most importantly, she exhibits no sign of needing a lot of down time to recharge. I’ve never known an introvert like that, let alone an ISFP, as they often dwell in their feelings away from the world and dislike taking on too much responsibility due to inferior Te. If she’s introverted, provide me with evidence, since I seem to have missed it.

I don’t think that there’s any evidence of N. She’s resourceful to a certain extent, but she seems to rely very heavily on other people to generate positive ideas and possibilities for reassurance, because she starts to panic when thinking on her own about “what could happen” (low Ne). She doesn’t easily come to intuitive insights about anything, let alone the future (no Ni). One scene in particular made me LOL. Luke was training her and asked her to close her eyes to meditate. He instructed her to “reach out” (to feel the energy of the force), and she extended her hand out physically into the air. That is the exemplar of being too literal. Furthermore, she spent how many freakin’ years following the same set routine day after day, in the same crap dump of a town, waiting obediently for her parents to pick her up? That’s the exemplar of Si discipline. Would SPs be capable of that patience or living in the dreary past for so long? 

I agree that she is primarily motivated by her feelings when making judgments and decisions, which means F. She had to fend for herself since childhood, so her skills are unsurprising. Yet she irrationally lacks self-confidence despite the fact that she’s proven over and over again to be quite scrappy and capable, and people even tell her as much all the time - this is likely to indicate an inferior T insecurity. She has great difficulty (i.e. is unconsciously resistant to) probing around within herself, which is common for inferior Ti in not wanting to feel one’s own darkness. The fact that introspection results in her discovering that her deepest, darkest fear is being completely and utterly “alone” as a “nothing” in “nothingness” is very compelling evidence for inferior Ti.

If inferior Ti, then dominant Fe is a must. I see lots of evidence. She is inexplicably able to communicate with anyone, of any species of bot or animal, with effortless empathic understanding? Her first stance is to give people the benefit of the doubt, no matter how strange or wayward they seem. She has a very naive trust in the goodness of people despite dealing with crooks all the time. She takes it upon herself to bring out the good in people whenever she is in a position to. I don’t think she’s always sure of her feelings (Fi-Ni), rather, she’s always sure that there is goodness to be found if one only looks hard enough (Fe-Ne). A lot of people have strong moral feelings and values, so I’m a bit tired of the lazy stereotype that Fi doms have the monopoly on morality. If you’re going to reference a person’s morality, go deeper to see what exactly it is they believe, how they came to those beliefs, and how they express those beliefs in detail, as that would be more revealing of their functions.

For such a goody-goody-two-shoes, her response to Kylo wasn’t the judgmental disgust that Luke barfed up (Fi-Te) but rather a scary desire to figure him out (Fe-Ti). She seemed quite UNcertain about her personal feelings about him (not Fi), which made their relationship one-sided for quite some time, as she struggled with the push-pull dynamic. ESFJs are often attracted to “dark and mysterious” people due to the unconscious yearnings of inferior Ti, even when Si-Ne warns them that these people are bad news. And it doesn’t get more mysterious than some powerful dude dressed in black donning a mask that shows up in random visions. When avoiding him was no longer possible, she made an admirable effort to dive deeper into his perspective, even when she rightfully feared losing herself in the process. She felt compelled to “get both sides of the story” in typical diplomat fashion before deciding what to do, in hopes of “fixing” Kylo through repairing his relationship with Luke.

Although there seemed to be constant teasing about the possibility of Rey turning dark, I never really saw any possibility. She gave no major indication of being afraid of turning, and it seemed that she never lost touch with her strong desire to be good. She only ever indicated a fear of failing to perform her duty capably (Si) and of failing all the people who were relying upon her powers to succeed (Fe). Discovering her true lineage didn’t really shake her because her parents were good in spite of their bloodline, so there was already an “exception to the rule” for her to follow and emulate. Turning dark would sever and betray her emotional connection to her parents - totally out of the question.

As far as I can tell, the only reason she survived her horrible childhood relatively unscathed was because she held on to the belief that her parents loved her enough to come back, i.e., emotional connection to others is her lifeline. I don’t think it’s an accident that, in her moment of greatest need, it was the connection to past Jedi and their encouragement that saved her butt. She was existentially SHOOK when Kylo claimed that her parents were horrible and abandoned her. And she was only able to find her footing again by inserting herself (i.e. “belonging” to) the Skywalker clan, essentially by being the model of a kid that Ben should’ve been. What self-respecting ISFP would be happy latching on to someone else’s mom, riding someone else’s coattails, and literally defining their identity through someone else’s name and legacy? 

I’ve heard some people critique Rey as a flat mary sue character, and I see where they’re coming from. But which type is most likely to resemble a mary sue at first glance? She is supposed to be the hero in a fairy tale after all, so one would expect her flawedness to be minimized.

Relationship Dynamics

In the final movie, the audience is bludgeoned over and over again with the claim that Kylo and Rey are meant to be a dyad. This all but guarantees that they will be exact functional opposites, otherwise, there would be no strong sense of complementary forces pulling them together into one perfectly harmonized and united front. Although the chemistry between them wasn’t properly developed IMO, I think I saw on paper what was meant to be happening in terms of the writer’s intentions.

Luke was unsuited to helping either of them with questions of identity and morality because, being Fi dom, he took these things for granted, presumptive, already settled non-issues, which amounts to him being closed to any real questioning and discussion. As a result of lacking good guidance, what drew Kylo and Rey together was an underlying need to help each other make sense of themselves, with the unconscious suspicion that the other person held the missing piece of the puzzle. 

Rey was only able to reach her potential by confronting the full extent of her own darkness within (inferior Ti), which was what Kylo forced her to do in incremental steps, as he kept nudging her to question her fundamental beliefs about who she is and what she stands for, presumably in the same way that he had done for himself. But it’s not as easy to twist someone’s sense of morality when F is at the top and healthy versus the bottom of the stack. By making it through his gauntlet of tests and critiques and facing down her fears, she was able to develop into a stronger and more self-assured person to eventually achieve inferior Ti closure. Don’t forget how her eyes would light up when hearing stories of Jedi masters and their achievements. It is mainly EJs who run headfirst toward responsibility rather than away from it. We see, in the end, a picture of Rey as a beaming, confident, and self-possessed person who feels like the world is her oyster, fully inhabiting her role in the hero story that she had always wished to be a part of. The audience is meant to believe that she’s the rightful heir when she finally believes in herself.

By questioning Rey’s identity, Kylo eventually had to question his own as well, since he was the one who wanted to believe that they shared a similar path to feeling lost. Kylo is stuck in adolescent cynicism as explained above, with Si loop resentment from the past preventing him from seeing other, better possibilities for himself. Late in the trilogy, I see in his face that he’s probably suffering from the sunk cost fallacy of thinking that he is past the point of no return. Perhaps he believes that he has no choice but to resign himself to the fate he has chosen (parallel to Vader) since Ti doms strongly believe in personal responsibility. He’s not wrong. If he wasn’t irredeemable at first, he certainly was after the profound destruction he had wrought. Ti doms are rarely wrong as their logic is usually impeccable, but they tend to lack perspective. E.g. He’s not wrong in believing that people are hypocritical because they really are (Ti factual judgment is spot on), but then he defines his terms too narrowly in dismissing all people as unworthy of being called “good” (Fe value judgment is very immature).

What finally broke the mental confinement of Si loop? IMO, three contributing factors: 1) He started to suffer the same skepticism about the dark side as he had with the Jedi, since Ti promotes impartial judgment, which opened him up somewhat to questioning his choices. INTPs deeply dislike sheep mentality and blind ideology, so being constantly asked to prove his “allegiance” and quietly “submit” all the time by his superiors only served to reveal their flawed mentality in the same vein as Luke, which gave him the logical justification he needed for eliminating one boss after another. 2) He was drawn deeper and deeper into Rey’s psychology, which backfired on him, because it proved to him, again and again, every which way, that goodness is indeed possible, as Rey easily aced every temptation and challenge that he was able to fling at her. For NPs(Ne), believing in possibility can’t help but create a strong desire to actualize it. 3) Leia intervened with what I’m assuming was one last-ditch attempt to communicate how much she truly loves him despite what he’s become, which perhaps served to expand his thinking about what it means to love. 

In the end, he redeemed himself on his own terms (even if he was not fully redeemed for the audience). As a result, he discovered something resembling happiness in his last moments of connection with Rey. You can’t tell a Ti dom to be good “just because”, or take goodness as default without question, or present a fake and idealized image of goodness for them to live up to, because that will never satisfy Ti. At the same time, morality cannot remain an abstract concept or else it is very easy to twist upside down. Goodness must be deeply FELT in order to be a motivating force, and he, at long last, felt goodness in his bones, through his decision to place the greater good above himself - inferior F often means arriving very late to the feeling party. He finally caught a glimpse of what he could be and should be through Rey’s, and possibly his mother’s, eyes, which allowed for inferior Fe closure. He had always gotten by okay without love and only believing and trusting in himself, but he realized that he was far better off for opening himself up to something more. 

That’s my take anyway. Or perhaps that’s what I needed to see to make the story more interesting for myself, lol.

[poseidonwife]

-GROUPIES and GRETA VAN FLEET and PEOPLE WHO JUST DON’T RESPECT MUSIC- [my own opinion]

So, these days I've been reading a lot of things about Greta Van Fleet and what the fans are doing at their concerts. Apparently some girls flashed the boys and some of them threw their bras on stage. I’d like to point out that I think there’s nothing wrong with this, things like that have always happened at concerts and it’s certainly not a matter of different "eras" or “times”. But some other fans expressed their dissent over those behaviors stating that such ways of doing do nothing but change the attitude of the members of the band towards their audience, distancing them more and more from the fans. Some of them claimed not to endure this kind of behavior and they immediately labeled those girls as "groupies" underlining that those girls are just seeking for attention, at the expense of those fans who really love the band and support it.

Faced with this kind of statements I felt involved because I’ve always defined myself as a "groupie" and I’ve always been proud of it. I struggled and I'm still struggling to make people understand the REAL meaning of the word "groupie" making clear that it’s just a cliché that groupies are nothing more than "girls seeking for fame" or even worse "backstage whores".

I read someone saying that groupies “are usually known as women who follow bands they want to sleep with and that’s exactly what groupies were known for back in the days”. This thing really made me super mad. So now I’d like to explain some concepts and reflections on this.

I want to start saying that it is true, the component of sex and physical attraction was a very strong thing "back in the days" especially in the 60s and 70s (remember that at the time there were the so-called "sexual revolution" and the "free love”, very important elements in what is known to all as counterculture of the 1960s). Many girls enjoyed going to bed with the band members and there’s nothing wrong with that, there’s nothing wrong with free sex, even if it’s a woman who practices it. In support of this I’d like to ask somthing to you: which of you isn’t somehow physically or emotionally attracted by one/or more of the Greta Van Fleet boys? Which of you wouldn’t be happy to date one of them and maybe become their girlfriend? Probably none;

another thing is about fame. Just like it happens nowadays some people just wanted to take advantage of the fame of famous people in order to shine with reflected light and become important. Therefore some girls did nothing but date the band to get in some pictures or some scoops of magazines. But THOSE WERE NOT GROUPIES.

Summarizing these points, it is a common opinion that groupies are nothing more than women seeking for fame and party time with musicians. Even Wikipedia says “The term is almost universally used to describe young women who follow these individuals [musicians] in hopes of establishing a sexual relationship with them or offering themselves for sex”. THIS IS THE POPULAR OPINION, A COMMON PLACE and nothing else. Just a cliché.

Now I’d like to discuss what it really means to be a groupie and what I do and believe as a groupie.

being a groupie goes beyond sex, goes beyond fame and goes beyond the thirst of attention. Being a groupie means, and I quote, “to truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts”. Groupies are there for the MUSIC, they’re there for LOVE and GRATITUDE towards music and those who create it and groupies don’t care about becoming famous or going backstage and get noticed. As a groupie I go to concerts and I show respect to the band and musician’s work and support them every day and I love them for the emotions they make me feel. That's it. Of course, it would be amazing to be the girlfriend of one of them and to go on tour with them and live a life like that but THAT’S NOT THE PURPOSE OF A GROUPIE. The purpose of a groupie is to SUPPORT the band, IDOLATE the band, and NOT to go to bed with them;

being a groupie means RESPECTING the band and its members and their choices. This is a very important point especially for all the stuffs going on here on Tumblr over Greta Van Fleet. There are bands that love crazy and promiscuous fans willing to go backstage and "having fun" but NOT GRETA VAN FLEET. The Greta Van Fleet boys have specifically stated that they don’t want to get into that kind of things. Josh said to Rolling Stone: “All of those wild, absurd things that you would like to romanticize about are very honest truth. The amount of excess always around. The amount of women that always want to hang out. It really is all there. It’s tempting, and crazy stuff. But we don’t seem to have too much interest”. And he is not only talking about sex but also about everything else: wild parties, drugs, alcohol... everything. That said, a true fan and consequently a real groupie RESPECTS the decisions of the band and doesn’t try to behave exactly the opposite of what the band wants. Do you understand what I’m trying to explain here? RESPECT is the first important thing. This is what a groupie does: SHE RESPECTS THE BAND.

I summarize these points too: being a groupie means respecting the band in all its decisions, it means to love music and those who create it, it means to support them for what they do and above all it means to go to a concert and enjoy the show because that feeling of being there in the front row is indescribable and it’s the best thing ever. This is what it means to be a groupie.

I want to close this thing saying that as a groupie and proud to call me one I think: those girls who know the intentions of the band [in this specific case Greta Van Fleet] but continue to behave in such a rude way, stripping in front of the band and throwing underwear on stage, THEY’RE NOT GROUPIES but they’re just trying to get visibility from the band without respecting the band itself. They’re not “bad girls” but if they really love and respect Greta Van Fleet and if they really are fans then they should avoid certain behaviors, trying to respect the artists and their work.

Now I ask you, please stop to juxtapose groupies to girls who are just seeking for attention but please know that you too can be a groupie. If you respect the band, if you love musician’s work, if you want to support them in every choice and if you are polite when you approach them, both at concerts and when you ask for an autograph or a photo, then you are also groupies and there’s nothing wrong with feeling that way. Being a groupie is beautiful, it means to love music with all your being and with all your soul.

🌻 Thank you 🌻

[Of course the discussion is open for those who want to express their opinion and same will be my asks. Feel free to say what you think about the subject]

[Down here I’ll leave some interesting links for those who want to deepen the  "groupies" topic or those who are simply curious and interested]:

“Almost Famous” dir. Cameron Crowe, is a beautiful movie about groupies and it depicts very well all the things I just said in this post. I recommend the vision;

“I’m with the band” a book from the most famous groupie Pamela Des Barres. She asserts that a groupie is to a rock band as Mary Magdalene was to Jesus and that’s a strong statement but if you know the real story of Mary Magdalene [this is a very good movie about her] then you’ll understand the meaning of Pamela’s sentence;

Some quotes about groupies: “The altar was rock n’ roll, the guys were the gods, and the women were the high priestesses.“ (Gail Zappa) // “Girls get their hearts broken all the time. I figured, if I was going to get my heart broken, I’d rather it be broken by someone like Mick Jagger or Keith Moon.” (Pamela Des Barres) // "Sexual? Sometimes yes, but also friends, helpers, assistants, guides…we wanted to uplift and enhance these people who moved us so much. That’s all a groupie is. They are music-loving muses." (Pamela Des Barres) // “The sex angle is important. But not more important than girls who are also good friends and make you feel like family.” (Jimmy Page) // “You do actually fall in love with them because that’s the only love you can have. It’s not always the physical thing. They actually tell you something.They release different things inside themselves.” (Jimi Hendrix) // “They’re like our alter egos. They’re doing the same thing we are.” (Steven Tyler) // “Being a groupie doesn’t mean you’re backstage doing something sleazy. Being a groupie is like worshipping at the church of rock and roll—and you’re the high priestess." (Pleasant Gehman) // "Real groupies are people who love the music, want to be with people who make it, and that’s it." (Pamela Des Barres) // “We wanted to be a part of this incredible musical brilliance that was lighting up the world. It’s really all about love, you know. People would say, ‘Why did you want to meet these guys?’ Why not? Why not? Why not want to be a part of something so important?" (Pamela Des Barres) // “I dig musicians, I feel they have the most to offer me mentally and emotionally because they think basically along the same lines that I do; extremely creative people. Music is Life.” (Pamela Des Barres) // "For me, it was always the music. I wanted to be in on the cosmic secret. I wanted to get so close to the music I could taste it- and nothing was going to stop me." (Pamela Des Barres) // “They were devotees of the band and would literally service those bands. It was a religious experience for most of those girls.” (Gail Zappa) // “Freedom fighters at the avant garde of the sexual revolution.” (Frank Zappa) // “Most of the girls who come backstage simply want to say ‘thank you’ to us for giving a good concert. Outsiders who think that all sorts of other stuff is going on just don’t know us.” (Robert Plant);

and of course my personal link about groupies

[michin--yeoja]

Hi again ^^ Sorry I'm still anon and haven't been responding. I got hit with a huge wave of work and have barely slept the last few days. But it's all over now and I'll get your gift to you soon!! Biotech is essentially trying to make a biological product! It's a huge field so there's a lot of things from like pharmaceuticals, cell therapy, to things like bio-remediation and environmental stuff. Your genetics teacher might be thinking about bioinformatics which is biotech and a lot of coding XD

But good luck with applying to med school! If that’s your dream there are always ways to make it work! I believe in you ^^ Oh I’m from around the New England area. I did my undergrad in New Jersey and now I’m doing my master’s in Rhode Island. Yes I studied in Stockholm! I traveled to the more touristy areas of Europe because I’ve never been to Europe, but I really wanna just take a backpacking trip around one day. There’s so many different places to go TT And so much foooooood      

I have been to Taiwan a few times! It’s been a while though. Most of my mom’s side of the family is back there, but my dad’s side of the family is in the US. I have a younger sister! Haha I know what you mean about being asked where you’re from though. When I was abroad I’d get asked where I’m from and I’d say the US, but then one person was like “but where are you REALLY from”. Honestly I also feel pretty out of touch with Taiwanese culture even though I have some habits. I really feel American       

I saw True Love but I haven’t had time to hear the whole thing! That’s my weekend goal. But I believe City of Angels (lol laser) was the one he sang at the fanmeet so I’m already in love with that one. So good TT And he wrote that one himself

It was only Myung in the Winter Olympics one! It’s understandable though, there were so many groups in the summer competition one and Infinite was a little neglected imo. But they still managed to get me with hamster gyu and like 5 seconds of Destiny lol. Actually MBLAQ was in this ep too! Lee Joon and Kwangsoo make the most amazing combo ever omg. I def miss the name tag eliminations though. They hardly do them anymore. I really liked the time period when they did creative versions of the game.   

Ohhhh I think I’ve heard of MBLAQ Goes to School. I should look into it haha. I’m always up for a laugh. Sesame player was amazing. Lol and those pranks XD I remember (I think it was Dongwoo) was like “when did this become a prank house” after that salt prank and I’m like lol only infinite. Can’t even safely eat food in their own home. These dorks.       

Ahhh tell me was so good. I like Infinie’s old style of music but I like this kind of softer edm music too. It’s like the stuff I usually like to listen to lol. Idk if that was a good description of the song but that’s kinda how I see it lol. And Sunggyu and Dongwoo were so good that comeback. Like that second verse was a Donggyu attack. I don’t know if I have a favorite concept from them really? They kind of have everything for every mood. But I have a running play list of their upbeat music.     

The stuff like Julia, Amazing, Lately, etc. I keep that playlist around when I’m having a hard time studying and stuff. It brightens my mood. As for english songs I kinda just….turn on the radio and find something I like haha. I don’t really have a preference with those. Ahhh I feel like I did a really bad job of getting to know you, I always just talk about myself haha. Tell me 5 random things that make you like or make you happy that you haven’t talked about!

Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry for taking forever and an age to reply back to you!!! I’m so sorry, and I don’t even have a good excuse like being busy with work, it’s just honest to goodness pure laziness on my part and not going on my laptop for forever. I hope you haven’t forgotten me and that you’ll reveal yourself!!

I hope you haven’t gotten busy again (you’re graduating this year right?). What are you focusing on in biotech? And I think you may be right about my professor meaning bioinformatics… I vaguely remember that term ^^;

You’ve certainly hopped around during your university years ^^ What countries did you visit in Europe? My parents surprised me by sending me to the UK for 2 weeks after my exams to join my sister there… It was amazing and I’ve always wanted to go there, but we ran out of time to hit everything we wanted to do. We couldn’t go to Ireland, which was my biggest disappointment. What is your most favourite memory from exchange? And what place did you like best?

I actually feel like a complete stranger… I don’t feel Canadian, Singaporean or Indian. I don’t really fit in any place completely, I’m a bit too traditional in Canada, too modern in India and Singapore… Well, I’m not exposed to the culture at all really. Funny thing… Singapore used to be not as well known when I was younger and I remember a kid trying to convince me it was part of the US. Even now, some people think it’s in India. The funniest is actually when I met Chinese international students, so many think that Singapore has only people of Chinese descent. When I explained that my dad’s family is from there and my mother from India, they thought my dad was Chinese.

What’s this whole City of Angels/Laser thing? I’ve seen mention of it, but I don’t get it… Did Sunggyu think the song was called Laser? (This shows up much I keep up with them, except for their music ^^;). You must have heard the album by now… So what’s your favourite? (Also, I didn’t know Sunggyu wrote that… Good to know and it makes me love it even more!)

Um… I think I started giffing around 2013 ish? Then I stopped while in uni, in fact my blog was basically inactive, and only just recently started fooling around on Photoshop again. I was quite atrocious in the beginning and am much fonder of my new stuff. But… I’m also quite lazy so I tend to not gif as much as I want to.

I 100% recommend MBLAQ goes to school. Joon and Mir are such jokesters. Sesame Player is still my favourite variety show to watch, all that screaming and backstabbing… And Sungyeol? He’s just too awesome. I would never have thought of injecting vinegar into bananas the way he did, that was a true genius move. Myungsoo’s, that was predictable, but that banana prank was just first class.

Do you prefer their upbeat songs more or is that just better to run to? My favourite upbeat song is Cover Girl… Have you heard the concert version where Sungyeol raps? I wish he would get a chance to do that in their songs, I think he raps pretty well.

I think we got to know each other pretty well? In fact, I too often think I wrote too much about myself.

5 things I like/make me happy… Hmm…

1. Being with my family - yes, we fight a lot, but we’re also really close and really stupid… My mother is crazy, my father is bullied… They’re what I missed most in uni.

2. I love airports/airplanes! As a child, I used to wish I could live in one ^^

3. Good books and movies… I love reading, but it’s so rare for me to find writing and plot that suits my taste. When I do, I devour the author’s entire works.

4. This is dorky… But I love learning ^^ Maybe it has to do with feeling smart? I love watching Jeopardy, especially if I get the answers right, but also to learn new facts.

5. I love puns… I quite literally cry with laughing over some of them.

Also, last post, but I saw your rant and I hope you’re feeling better :( I get the being introverted thing too. I’m pretty reserved and I like my alone time–there’s nothing wrong with it! I’m sorry you had to listen to all of it TT Please be happy!

Thank you for this! Ahh… Tumblr is my place to rant, but I tend to get over my anger quickly.                 

[lunuanaki]

Your favorite ship. I'm talking about the one that gives you the butterflies and happy feel good feelings. Talk to me about that. I wanna know what your brain words say about it. :)

THANK YOU, SYN, FOR SENDING ME THIS MESSAGE WHEN NO ONE ELSE WOULD because probably they know what’s going to happen and they don’t want any part of it---  *glares at entire dash like that one picture of the assmad cartoon pig*

I’m going to cut this because it’ll definitely get long, but... if you wanna know what kind of ships I would throw myself in front of a ruby dragon for, you’re boutta find out... I’m gonna explain it for the unfamiliar as well, though. So I get to talk more. I don’t know how anyone on this website could dislike this ship. Fight me. Anyone who reads this and agrees gets the warm fuzzy feeling of my everlasting favour. 

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

It’s Velka and Gwyndolin, is anyone surprised?! Nahhh... BUT LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THEM BC I BET YOU DONT KNOW EM?!For those unfamiliar with Dark S//ouls, Gwyndolin is the youngest child of the Great Lord Gwyn, God of War/Sun/Lightning, all that big noisy man stuff. Gwyndolin was born weak and fragile and corpse-white, so, realising he wasn’t much of a trophy child, Gwyn raised him as a girl. Gwyn’s rejection never quite sat well with him, though - he’s always been insecure about his appearance and how others interpret it. He hates being stared at, and has been known to kill servants who aren’t careful where they look. Actually, he’s not fussy about murder in general, but he does have a strong sense of who deserves it and who doesn’t.Gwyndolin’s talents lie in moon-related magic and archery. As an adult, he still presents as female, he’s still horribly weak in a physical sense, paper-white, and for unspecified-in-canon reasons, has six or eight snakes where his legs should be (he still has legs, but the snakes tend to boost him off the floor). I’m not going to link any images. Picture white silk, gold, delicate, intricately made bows and faintly glowing arrows, and a gold mask he hides his face behind that mimics the shape of the sun his dad is so obsessed with.His canon personality is cold and apathetic; this is no tragic princess to be rescued. Suggest as much, or try to cross him, and he will kill you where you stand, with a shot so fast you’d never see him draw the arrow, or raise his staff. He leads a covenant of followers who hunt down sinners. As proof that they killed for their master, these followers tear off their victim’s ear and bring it to his doorstep for his approval. He’s pure grace and moonlight, and the definition of the phrase “glass cannon”. He knows his place, and even though he will never be a true part of Gwyn’s family, at least to his father, he works to support them. You can kill him in-game; if you do, the sun will go out. It was an illusion. The sun went out in Anor Londo centuries ago; Gwyndolin has been maintaining the false image of its better days, as a comfort to visiting Undead, even though it must grate at his soul to do it. His title is Dark Sun. This is not his natural habitat. 

Velka. Velka is a name, and a concept. That’s all we get in-game. She appeared in the third game as a statue (that confirmed my headcanon appearance for her to be spot on). Her title is Goddess of Sin. She’s known for being sneaky, “eccentric witch”, difficult, changeable. Gwyn’s friendship with her was always rocky; she could see his pride and his self interest, and he knew she waited for the day he met her judgement. Flames help him; after the massacre of the dragons, if he ever knelt at her feet, it would be the last thing he did. If Gwyn is the sun, she is the darkness waiting for him to sink below the horizon. Her covenant are absolvers of sin, for a price, their faces covered to separate them from the material world. She has no concept of the Christian idea of sin, because that just doesn’t exist in Lordran. Sin is decided based on her moral compass - conflicting philosophies, like the Way of White, might claim she has none, because she sees no inherent sin in drinking, or sex, or gambling, as long as no ill intent or effect is there. She only wears black, silver, and that one splash of red, the wedding ring from the husband she outlived. She was human once; not a born Lord like Gwyndolin. That mortal vitality is still about her; she never had the luxury of living without the concept of death. Picture extremely long, thick black hair (that she’s famous for in game), crystal-clear lavender eyes, blood red lips, porcelain-coloured skin and purple dark circles, lace and velvet. Her mother taught her to scheme and spy her way up. Gwyndolin was naturally suspicious of her at first, as he should have been. But their covenants had a mutual interest, and she began to supply her list of unrepentant sinners for his covenant to hunt down. It became a bonding ritual, I think both of them enjoyed it more than they’d admit. 

Gwyndolin to begin to get. Jealous. Velka was known for spending nights with anyone she pleased, servant to knight, never getting attached to any of them. There were rumours that the crown prince of sunlight himself was on that list. Gwyndolin seemed to be the only one she wouldn’t look at in that way. Was that because of the way he looked? Did she pity or avoid him the way everyone else did, even after all this time? Every hour she spent with one of them was one she wasn’t with him. His own anger at her is confusing to him, because he’s never had any interest in anyone, male or female, not like this. It was, she said, because she valued him more than one of her throwaways. She paid close attention to him, enough to know he didn’t like to be approached like that, or looked at. Whenever people had shown interest in him before, he’d assumed they were mocking him. She didn’t want to make him feel the way they did, so she was content with the distance she stayed at, as long as she could pride herself on being the one he was most comfortable with. It was selfish, really, but she liked being his favourite, so she’d do anything to stay that way. Velka does not recognise the word love, because she’s never experienced it before, so she doesn’t use it, not yet.

When they finally stopped dancing around each other, her reputation for impropriety died, along with anyone who spoke about her like that in front of Gwyndolin. Gwyndolin is extremely possessive, and Velka, for once, finds she wants to be possessed. There’s still no power imbalance, though. With her support, Gwyndolin’s confidence can develop (she’s so proud of everything he does). With his favour, she can’t be sidelined as badly as before. They have to be careful as a couple, because it’s dangerous to be seen that way. Not because “Gwyn won’t approve of her”, but because between them, with their combined covenants, Gwyn’s distrust of her, and the growing unrest among Gwyn’s human subjects, they present a very real threat to the throne, and as if to prove their point, Gwyn will soon exile his own son and heir for less.

They’re like Morticia and Gomez, if all that overly romantic stuff were silent. Because they don’t need to say anything. Like the time he panicked over an instinctive murder of a wayward servant, and she helped him clean the blood off his hands and let him calm down alone when she wanted to kiss him until he remembered how much more important he was than such a silly mistake as that - to her, and who else matters? Or the time someone made an untoward comment about her at the dinner table and no one saw Gwyndolin draw the arrow, just the sight of it hit the speaker and kill them instantly. She only laughed as politely as she could, because he already knows how much she adores his overprotective homicidal tendencies, and he thrives off it. Her sense of justice has a blind spot that exists just for him, and she can forgive him anything.

There’s a little piece of lore in the game that says Velka sided against the gods in a war, and lost. The AU that could happen if they won gives me life. If they won, she wouldn’t have taken Gwyn’s place herself, she would have given it to Gwyndolin. They would make a terrifying but brilliant leader between them. The sun would set in Anor Londo for good, and Gwyndolin’s intelligence and clarity would get a chance to prove itself more useful than Gwyn’s brute force and genocide tactics. Gwyndolin isn’t much for titles, but you can be damn sure Velka would take it. If it made Gwyn turn in his grave to hear her called Queen, she’d insist on it, after the way she watched him treat Gwyndolin. As if he weren’t worthy of Gwyn’s pathetic legacy. 

Of course, as the series goes, in the third game, Gwyndolin is gone. Reportedly cannibalised by a cult leader and his apprentice while he was weak and sick. Velka’s verse for that revolves around her finding and saving him - whatever that means. 

If anyone stuck with me this long, please offer me emotional support, because I am compromised. I haven’t run out of words or feelings, I’ve run out of energy to convey them. These two are precious to me. Not only is there all this intensity and unrelenting devotion behind them, they take the usual framework for a hetero relationship, shatter it and piece it back together in completely the “wrong” order. Velka has some of the masculine traits, the forcefulness of her mannerisms, the proactively destructive one, however undercover it might be. Gwyndolin is the formal, delicate, princessly one, and has to be pushed to react badly. Both of them are beautiful, in totally opposing ways. You would usually expect the  female to be the sexually inexperienced one and the male to be the opposite, but that’s flipped on its head as well. And yet, the hyper-feminine one is Velka. Gwyndolin is androgynous, even in feminine clothing. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a pairing where each one adds to the others’ existence to such a degree as they do. I reject the events of the second and third games and substitute my own, because anything else is a waste of one of the best pairs I’ve seen in anything, ever. I don’t think I’ll ever top some of the threads I did with enasaliin with these two, honestly, I might as well log out and never come back. I have to go do some starters now. My heart hurts. ;-;