#Sorry to everyone that I've been so depressing on your timelines ^^'

[azi-muthal]

I'm so sorry AI "art" idiots are giving you grief. They think they are on the side of progress, but they are not. Please don't take that anon to heart.

Hey, thank you so much for this ask! Yesterday was tough but this kind message honestly helped a lot 💚 💚 ^_^

[tojjist]

“At Least” S. Gojo

☆ genre: angst to fluff (kinda)

☆ pairings: Gojo Satoru x f! reader

☆ summary: After Geto left, nothing has been the same. Especially not your relationship with Gojo Satoru. Once you decide to move to Kyoto for good, Gojo is less than pleased. But fate does not seem to want to let you go.

☆ cw: mentions of sex, depressed gojo, not spoiler free, hopping between timelines but like i added non-canon events, smoking, drinking, getting drunk, high school Gojo being a high school boy, cussing, mentions of drunk sex but it doesn’t happen, mentions character death (from the anime), gojo satoru (yes that's a trigger warning).

☆ wc : 5.6k

☆ a/n: this has been in the doing for so long? I've been waiting to have the chance to upload it for maybe a year now smh. Also was originally written for an irl of mine lmao

“Oh my god,” you emphasize each word, pushing the wooden chair away with your knee. “Satoru, is it yours?”

His black pupils, lined with iris the color of morning skies, study your figure from behind the shaded glasses, pink lips quirking slightly upwards in approval of your attention.

“Nah, it's only staying with me for a week,” he stated, watching nervously as you strode over to him. “His owner is away for some business.”

Your attention remained fixed on the pet in Satoru's long, long arms. Your face lit up when a bark escaped the infant animal. “Can I hold it?”

Satoru watched over you carefully, pleading eyes coming in line with his blues. You make it hard to say anything other than an immediate yes, but he tries to stretch out the conversation to his best ability.

“It's 400 yen for 10 minutes,” he muttered, sarcasm dripping from his words. He earned a look of amusement from you; a small victory. He then braced himself for the next part. Satoru bent down, meeting you eye-to-eye, and noticed your breath catching in anticipation. “Or... you can shorten your skirt.”

Your face took no time to grow hot, not giving any verbal answer besides the blank expression you stare at him with. For a second, Gojo let himself think he's the victor of this little challenge he started in his head. But he soon came to realize how grave of a mistake he's made.

You're not flustered, you're angry.

“You're such a fucking pervert,” you fume, eyes glaring daggers. He dares not move, noticing the way your eyes flutter over his face.

“You're truly unbelievable,” the shorter male chuckled, making sure he didn't bump into Satoru's now-bruised arm. “What were you even thinking?”

“I thought it was funny, y'know?” He huffed in response. Gojo's fingers ran through his own bright locks as he took a seat on the wood hung up by metal chains. "Besides, has she always been this strong? Physically, I mean."

Geto stared into the reddish sky of dusk, placing himself into a swing in turn and kicking the air so the swing would start moving. "I don't know. Girls are really full of surprises.”

He never thought, not in a million years, things would come to this. Ever since Gojo's last encounter with Geto after he, well, changed... Gojo became unable to face anyone quite the same way he did before.

How did he get here? How did things escalate to this? Thinking about it, Geto had shown signs of a change in his heart and mind. It was Satoru's fault, was it not? He should have done better. He should have noticed. How could he not have? wasn't he the strongest? Wasn't that his job? How could he be so bad at everything?

How could he fail everyone like this?

“Gojo-San?”

Your feminine voice cut his train of thought. He almost forgot the situation he is now stuck in. He's been doing that a lot: losing himself in thought, mind almost immune to the outer world until he temporarily lost his sense of self. Nothing felt quite the same any more. It was like the world had lost its color.

“Sorry- What's up?” He turned to you. Gojo-san, you called him. When did you stop using his given name? What's with the '-san'? Gojo hadn't realized that losing one person was the first step, and now he found himself deep in the road of losing everyone.

And now he's stuck in the elevator with the girl he had liked for so long. He couldn't find it in himself to say anything to you, to push your buttons like he always did or joke around. When did the world become so heavy? He does not know.

“Are you okay? You seemed off.”

Your face is devoid of any genuine emotion, seemingly expressionless. But your voice is laced with concern. Gojo could only guess you didn't want him thinking you pity him or anything of such. But if that isn't the case, he wouldn't know. He's too tired to bother thinking about it.

“Yeah, yeah. I'm fine,” he smiled in assurance, “Just bothered by, well, this-” he threw his hand in the way of the control panel. The elevator doors have been stuck for almost twenty minutes now. How pleasant.

“uh huh,” you sigh, turning back around. How did you turn so cold?

When the silence stretches, you start a conversation, hesitant at first. “By the way, I got accepted as a helper in a nursery in Kyoto,” you mutter, gaze avoiding his own. “they're expecting me to start work right after spring break.”

Spring break?

Holy shit. It hit him like a truck. That’s barely a week and a half from now.

“Spring break? Why so soon?”

“That’s when the students file back in,” you mumble, fiddling with the watch placed around your wrist. You pause to read the time, then turn to meet his eyes. “I’m leaving in four days to get settled.”

“Oh…” His breath caught, “Train?”

What a stupid question. He knows. Satoru has never been unintelligent, especially in conversing. But now his unintelligence shines through as if it’s his only trait. He’s glad you don’t question it.

“Yeah, I have no other form of transport really.”

“Well, uh…” He hates himself. He hates himself for not doing anything. He hates himself for being so weak and  cowardly, for being unable to keep his friends around him, for shutting everyone he holds close out. But now, he especially hates himself for being unable to feel happy for you, or to congratulate you on the opportunity, “come visit us every once in a while, yeah?”

Your mouth remains shut, only staring at the tall man before your eyes. The silence stretches between the two of you once again, and you don’t find it in you to speak of how you feel.

“You.. you know you could have died, right? We all could have b-but you…” You trail off, thoughts splattered like a spilled pot of ink. Although you seemed unfazed, in your mind you were anything but. Haibara, Riko, and all the losses that trailed and every event that followed has been stressful and nerve-wrecking. And even in the quietness and silence of the general atmosphere, it has been nearly impossible to find peace within yourself.

“Well, I didn’t. What happened had passed. Can you change that? I doubt so. No point in ‘if’ and ‘could’ve’.”

Before you could respond,the lights flickered back on. You grow unsure if you’ve struck a nerve, but that wasn’t what you meant. Gojo’s response had nothing to do with what you said, you were sure he knew exactly what your words were meant for. Why is he so scared of confronting it?

You don’t know. You could never hope to know because you and Gojo Satoru live in different worlds, the man who was only Satoru some time ago. You were worlds apart, yet  Satoru loved to play pretend that he lived in the same world as you, even when he stuck out like a sore thumb. But he was no longer. Ever since Geto left… it’s safe to say everyone has been changing slowly, deforming from their previous lives and personalities. But Satoru flipped, like the head and tail of a coin, he got himself a new face. He turned into Gojo Satoru; the strongest. A soul unalive. A broken boy in an ever growing body. A stranger.

Two days later you find yourself still roaming the campus , searching so desperately for something. Anything. A reason to stay, perhaps? You don’t find it anyway. You have no attachment as this place holds nothing but misery. Or that’s what you told yourself over and over as you packed your things.

Your steps were graceful, walking so cautiously as if careful to not wake someone up. Your fingers find rest on the old, dusty door frame, pushing yourself into the room that hadn’t been used for a good month or so. The classroom looked the same as it always did. Except for the shadow that loomed over it; a gray shade that sent chills down your spine. Or maybe it’s just your imagination. 

Then you spot something rather out of place. You’re sure you’ve never seen it before and although you know it’s none of your business, the way it tugs at the strings of your curiosity is undeniable.

It’s red, poking out of what you’re sure is Gojo’s desk. The gloomy classroom was no fit for paper with a color so vibrant. 

Your heart skips a beat when you glimpse the seat next to Satoru’s. You do your best to avoid looking at Geto’s desk any further. You busy yourself with the task at hand, reaching out for the mysterious paper hidden in the wooden desk. Shivers run up your arm at the texture of the scrunched paper.

You attempt to straighten it to your best ability, strained by his hard work of crumbling it with obvious frustration. you can barely make out the letters of your name in the middle of the paper, outlined by a messy circle. How Gojo of him. A few lines stick out of the ‘circle’, one of them has the name of a steakhouse somewhere in Tokyo. Another has a date, reading somewhere along February. It’s near impossible to make out what the small combination of letters say, especially when Satoru’s handwriting is closer to symbols than a comprehensible language.

The thought of it was so funny it didn’t feel like him at all. Satoru never planned anything. Every breath he took was based on pure impulse. Never would it have occurred to you that he thinks through things, let alone brainstorm.

The thought makes you smile. But the realization that he never asked you out because he changed his mind or everything that happened getting in his way makes your stomach churn unpleasantly. 

You decide it’s probably for the best to never bring it up. It would only make matters worse for both of you. Life ran its course; who are you to try and change it?

“I apologize, but my answer remains. I refuse to take part in this,” you spoke in an even tone. “I have a job and a life away from jujutsu. I’ve made it clear sorcery is not a part of my life anymore.”

"That’s completely understandable,” the old man argued, his voice hoarse with age. You’re pretty sure you hear anger further straining his voice, “but your technique is quite strong. That strength could be of great assistance if put to use.”

“Thank you, sir,” you dip your head, maintaining eye contact with the decaying man. “But I truly apologize. The decision is final.”

“If you ever do change your mind, please let us know. We’d be more than happy to hear it.”

You almost let a sigh of relief escape. Finally he gave up. You end up only nodding your head in response gratefully, retreating from the old man. As soon as you're safe and out of sight, you let your posture drop, eyes rolling back in annoyance. These guys are truly as relentless as ever.

You stopped upon a familiar scent catching in your nostrils. Lifting your head up, your eyes roam around, scanning the room for your friend.

“You look troubled,” Shoko approaches you, taking the cigarette out from between her teeth. “What’s with the face?”

“How is that man even alive,” you look at her, “he’s ancient.”

Your comment earns a light chuckle from the brunette. “I’m glad I never have to get caught up in this bullshit.”

“Blissed aren’t you,” you roll your eyes as you speak. “I shouldn’t have come in the first place, I knew they were going to do this.”

“It’s alright, you’re all done now. Here-” Your friend then lifts the cigarette up, putting it near your mouth. When you don’t show any resistance she, being the bad influence she has always been, proceeds to place it between your lips. You waste no time, making quick work of the drag you inhale, bringing the familiar cloud of toxic chemicals and tobacco into your lungs. Your expression relaxes, shifting into one of relief. Shoko scoffs playfully, muttering that you’re dramatic under her breath before she pulls her cigarette from you, taking in a drag.

“Satoru’s here, by the way,” Shoko didn’t need to look at you to guess the way your eyes snap towards her. She bites back a smile. “He’s calmed down. He’d even seem the same as long as you don’t squint too hard.”

“Good for him,” you mutter, trying to seem as unbothered and nonchalant as your accelerating heart rate would allow. You avoid looking at Shoko, trying to seem disinterested. You know she’d pretend you weren’t gawking at her the second she said his name.

“He’s trying, you know. He’s just as nervous as you are.”

“‘M not nervous,” you scoff, “For god’s sake. It’s been ten years already.”

Satoru is stressed. He's nervous, as Shoko put it. He’d spent so long trying to ignore the past, pretend the past wasn’t at all. He couldn’t confront it. He didn’t want to. Satoru knows what he’s done, he's aware that he hurt you the last time you two had interacted. And that was ten years ago. He even let you leave without so much as a goodbye. How could he look you in the eye and pretend nothing has ever happened?

Gojo didn’t want to face the consequences of what he’s done. More so what he hasn’t. So many things were left unsaid in the elevator that day. They’ve been hanging over Satoru ever since, weighing his heart down and wearing it out.

What if he’s met by another woman? Ten years change a lot as is. What if the eyes that meet his aren’t yours? What if he finds himself talking to a stranger that carries around your name and features? Of all the horrors Gojo Satoru had faced in his life, nothing caused dread to pool in the pit of his stomach like this thought does.

Shoko seems to find something beyond you interesting. You don’t bother to turn to see as the brunette has always been a little in her own head. She’s probably just dozed off.

“Hey, think you can hold this for me?” Shoko muttered once Gojo crossed her sight. She stands facing you, averting his gaze. “I’ll be right back, nature’s calling.”

From his distance, Gojo couldn’t make out what the two of you were saying. He watched as your shoulders shook, presumably in laughter. Shoko then made her away from you, barely sparing Satoru a glance.

Every step he took felt heavy, weights landing on his shoulders as he moved towards you. He watched smoke emerge from over your head. He didn’t know you smoked. And even though he’s not completely sure what you do for a living now, he’s not expecting any nursery to accept a smoker in their team.

His long strides finally arrived, opting to remain a step behind you. Close enough to make his presence known.

The aura was unmistakable, almost as if it could be physically sensed. You freeze in place, the cigarette remaining a few inches from your lips. Even after he changed his perfume to one a lot more manly and appealing, and clearly grew taller judging by the shadow he cast over you, his presence still had the same strength as it did before. If not stronger. Anyone else would say it’s intimidating. But you find surprising comfort in it.

“That’s going to kill you,” his hand  reached from over your head, making sure to not cause any unnecessary physical contact. His fingers slip the burning cigarette  from your grip. You find yourself unable to make a single move in response, only watching his actions unfold.

He took a step, moving closer, dimming the light from the roll by rubbing it against the metal bars, then throwing it off the balcony. “You’re too young to kill yourself like that.”

“That bitch Shoko set me up,” You hiss, regaining your composure. “Will you look who showed up. You’re killing the ecosystem by throwing waste like this, Gojo.”

Although you haven’t glanced his way yet, You were every bit sure his mouth was quirked in the same smug smirk he wore so much when you were younger. You could even hear it in his voice as he spoke, “You haven’t grown at all, have you?”

“Oh shut it,” you chuckle. “You’re still as immature as ever. How you could be a manchild at 27 is a wonder to me.”

27… It felt so weird to say it out loud. Weren’t you just 17 a few days ago?

“Oh, how you hurt me,” he says in exaggeration, his voice conveying anything but the hurt he claims to feel. “That isn’t very nice of you.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” You say. He laughs a little, you do too. But the silence that follows is not that of a joke. He knew what you’re referring to. Maybe he underestimated your last encounter’s effect on you.

The silence speaks for itself. It’s louder than any conversation you’ve had before. What now? What have we become? Is it of any use to try anymore? Neither of you had an answer to the question that began to surface with this interaction.

The questions remain hung in the air, dimming the atmosphere around you. Was this fate’s doing? Or his karma? Gojo has always been told he’s a god, but how could he be a higher form of life when he struggled so much to hold a conversation?

He’s about to speak again when you cut him off, muttering “here-” as you push your hand down the coat you wore. Your tongue pokes at the inside of your cheek as you search for the anonymous object.

You pull out a worn out paper, grown from what could have been a bright red to an orangish shade. His eyes study as you shove the paper in his  direction, eyes avoiding his gaze at all costs.

Seeing your bashful expression made him rather curious, the contents of the wrinkled paper piquing his interest. He hesitates before he pulls the paper from your hand, half-expecting you to bite him.

The letters were scribbles, almost like they’re straight out of some cult’s ritual,  that with the wrinkles of the worn out paper making reading it next to impossible. Still, he could make out just enough to realize what this paper is. His eyes widened behind the blindfold. It didn’t take much to remember this paper, trivial as it may be.

“You found this- how did you even…?” he trails off, confused.

“I guess I did,” You confirm. He’s unsure if you’re proud of yourself for your rather… interesting discovery. It’s bold of you to pull this out ten whole years later. But he can’t deny the relief he feels that at least this means you don’t completely hate him. For once, he’s truly at loss for words. 

But he wouldn’t let a perfect opportunity like this slide.

“Oh, so you’re in love with me? You’re so obsessed with me that you kept this for so many years, what a loyal fangirl.”

Before he knew it, a weight so crushing landed on his foot. He turned off his infinity around you as a sign of trust. But he soon came to regret his rather unsmart decision. Your foot stomped and crushed his toes. It makes him groan in pain, bending slightly forward.

“Tomorrow, at Narisawa in Minato city, 5:30. I’m leaving for Kyoto in 3 days. Don’t waste your chance again, Gojo Satoru. You’re not getting another one.”

“I take it you’ve been in love with me ever since?” He leans forward, elbows on the table. “Say, did you fascinate about me?”

“Hmm..” you hum softly at his childish question, “only a little.” You show no signs of interest in his tactics as you sipped the wine in your hand. Undeniably, Gojo is taken aback by your lack of reaction. He hasn’t known you to be so reserved and smart at keeping him on edge. He couldn’t help finding your new behavior enticing.

Is there anything else you’d like to have?” You nodded your head towards the plates sitting on the table, some empty and some half-full. “Or do you wanna do something else before I go back to the hotel?”

“Hmm? Maybe I could join you at the hotel, actually. Surely it’ll be a lot less lonely with me around?”

You’re tempted by his offer, feeling the heat pooling in your stomach. He looked strikingly handsome today. Maybe you were just really lonely and touch starved, or maybe it’s the way his lips quirk as he teases you that makes your brain a little hazy, inappropriate thoughts floating through it and send jolts to your core. Yet, you set your mind on refusing his advances. You haven’t had a decent conversation since high school, for god's sake.

He keeps his eyes set on you, shining before him. You looked glamorous. He’d lie if he said there wasn’t a certain allure to  your matured looks. The years that flew by changed a lot of things about you two, but his breath still catches in his throat when your eyes meet his dreamy blues. The feelings rush back, memories clouding his train of thought. 

He’s sure he’s going to pay. He didn’t mind it at all, what a small price for getting to spend an evening with you. But you surprise him when you bring up that you had already put your card down, courtesy of having been the one to ask him out. Or maybe this was your way of telling him that you are in pretty good condition, living perfectly well without needing sorcery.

“How’s working as a jujutsu teacher?” you quip, smiling softly. “Utahime says you’ve got some interesting kids in your pack? Two special grades, too. You’re sure a favorite attraction for wonders.”

“You’re still in contact with her too?” he dodges talking about his students, not meeting your gaze. “That’s ironic. Weren’t we friends too?”

A hoarse chuckle emerges from him. But nothing about it leads back to amusement, as it was a joyless sound devoid of life. Almost as if he were mocking you. The dark lenses of the shades sitting on the bridge of his nose served as a shield. He curses himself for being so weak. He's almost thirty but somehow you’ve got him acting like he did when he was 17. 

“You didn’t try to contact me either,” you shrug, not willing to take the blame for your lack of contact. 

“You could have visited then. Even Yaga talked about you every once in a while,” he isn’t too happy and it’s showing.

“All good things, I hope-“

“Don’t change the subject,” he frowns, an uneasy edge outlining his words. “He was enough. You didn’t have to go ahead and leave too.”

“I had to move on, Gojo,” the name felt like a jab every time you used it. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything about it. This is how you drew your boundaries. Calling them by their last names gives you a false sense of satisfaction, convincing yourself that your sorcerer friends are past figures now. Mere acquaintances. 

“-I couldn’t remain hung there forever, I valued my mental health. You grew distant, the atmosphere was growing uneasy every day. I had to cut ties with Jujutsu before I couldn’t recognize myself anymore.”

“Yet you’re here now. Back to square one,” his playful tone was long gone, now replaced by an even, stern one. “Whether you moved away or called us by our last names. It’s a curse you can’t escape. you’ll always end up back in the palms or jujutsu.”

His words held some truth. You know that. But just as he refused to confront this past, you repulsed the idea of your reality. You truly want to believe that you could escape this part of yourself and live a normal life. You couldn’t come to terms with your inability. You held onto your hopes as if your sanity completely depended on it. Another thing that won’t change no matter how much you grew.

“I'll be okay as long as I refuse to interact with this world.”

Once you leave the restaurant, you find yourself wandering through the rich streets of Minato city. It felt as though the night was pulling you further into its welcoming embrace, with nothing rushing you.

“He was only thirteen,” you chuckle, arm linked in his. “It’s unbelievable how bold kids nowadays are.”

“I would’ve done the same thing, honestly,” he smirks, his gaze fixed on the stores around.

“Of course. You’ve got the brains of a thirteen year old.”

Satoru grins at your remark, pulling you into a clothes store. 

“What’s this?” you look around in confusion, noting a woman in a suit welcoming you. The place looked a little too fancy, judging by the display of the items and the lighting of the place.

“It’s a western brand,” Satoru answers. Looking over at him, you can’t help but smile a little. He looks good tonight. His fancy outfit gave the impression that he’s a model to strangers. “Louis Vuitton, I think,” He furrows his brows, trying to remember the name of the brand stores he’s been to with Nobara and Shoko.

“Prada, sir,” The lady in a suit corrected him. “Can I help you?”

“We’re just browsing, thank you.” It’s a phrase he heard from Kugisaki countless times whenever they wandered into a store. His response makes you chuckle, watching as the lady takes a few steps backwards politely.

You’re soon comfortable, searching through the expensive coats and bags. Satoru watched tenderly. Even though the ten years that passed with no contact whatsoever definitely propose a wall between you, he's glad you're able to feel free. You might nit on the same page, but you two can work with what you have.

You stride back to the “S” shaped velvet couch sat in the middle of the checker-carpet store, where Satoru sat. But he was nowhere to be seen.

You walk around in hesitance and confusion, completely aware of the lady walking always a few feet behind you. Surveillance, you guess.

You find him standing in front of the white counter, taking a black bag with the brand’s name printed onto it in golden letters from the man standing behind the counter in a white shirt with the brand's logo on it.

“Gojo,” you call him, confusion fused into your expression.

He extends his arm to you, trying to suppress any sourness at you calling him Gojo. “Let’s go?”

You nod, eyeing him suspiciously before you link your arm in his. You make sure to flash a grateful smile at the woman by the door as you walk past the reflective glass door.

You almost forgot how busy the world outside is. It felt as though the glass building of the store was sound proof. Now you have to adjust to the noise of the full streets again.

Satoru remains silent for the most part. It’s not awkward, rather just neither of you knew what to say. He expected you to ask about what he bought, which you have considered. You decide against it though as you feel it’s none of your business. You’re not too surprised anyway as Gojo has always been a wealthy man. He could buy the entire Prada chain with half of his monthly spending.

“What do you wanna do now?” He asks. “Wanna go somewhere else?”

You think about going to the club to give the night the best closure. But neither of you were dressed for it anyway. You contemplate your choices. Then you grin at him, and Satoru knows it’s best to fear what comes after

You’re well aware that he has a high alcohol tolerance. While you would be wasted a few shots in. Yet you consumed so many drinks recklessly, thinking that maybe you could beat him in a drinking game.

That’s why he’s stuck to your side now, helping your sleeping body out of his car. Satoru is glad your hotel card was so easy to find in your purse, taking it out as he gets into the lobby.

A few people eye the man, glaring at him and at the way he held you in his arms. But he couldn’t bring himself to think too much about it. His mission is to get you to bed now.

“Satoruuu~” You whine, rubbing your face into the pillow once he sat you on the white bedding. “Stay with meeee”

And Satoru is nothing if not human. Despite what everyone else says. It’s proven now that he had come to face a human flaw like this. He is weak, and you are all but practically seducing him.

“Stop crying,” He mutters. He finds himself smiling sheepishly at the unlikely scenario he found himself in. Tucking you in bed, your face hot due to the drinks you had. He really should have stopped you. “I’ll stay the night, so sleep already.”

He convinced himself it’s for the best. He should watch over you for tonight. No funny business. Deep inside he knew he was just finding a reason— any reason to stay around you for a little longer, heart yearning for the lost years. But he ignored the pathetic feeling, convincing himself it’s for your sake instead.

“But I’m uncomfortableee,” you whine again, hands running down your body. “The dress...”

Did you have to make it so hard on him? Satoru is tempted to kiss you, eyebrows knitted in the space between, eyes looking around the room for any sort of aid.

This is probably a form of invading your privacy, but he sees no other choice. He’ll have to hold it together for tonight.

“nngh..”

Your groan came with an impending headache. Your body moves against the rich covers of the bed, sunlight illuminating your physique.

He stopped in his tracks, feet bare against the gray carpet.

Your form is beautiful, one to compete with statues of goddesses. The rays of light complimented every inch of skin in all the right ways. Satoru had to physically shake his head to stop the flowing perverted thoughts in his head.

Your flinch when you catch him standing near the door, heart beating slightly faster. You thought that you’re alone. You don’t think much of it anyway, muttering a “holy shit” under your breath.

“Good morning,” he casually greets, brushing off the mutual shock, albeit for different reasons. “I made coffee, if you wanted some.”

“Oh... thank you,” you mutter, rubbing your eyes as you sit up straight. “Did you eat anything yet?”

“Not yet, no,”  he says, holding his overly sweet coffee in both palms. “Thought I’d wait until you woke up.”

“You’re a real sweetheart, Satoru,” you yawn. His name slipped past your lips before you could stop it. You busy yourself with stretching your arms. “What a doting housewife God has blessed me with”

His response is only a chuckle, rolling his eyes as he sighs on the edge of the bed. “Well, at least I wasn’t begging a man to spend the night with me”

“Huh?”

You couldn’t remember anything of the prior night. Nothing that occurred after you sat at the bar, specifically. But then you begin to realize, eyes widening at the revelation. You feel dreadfulness landing in the pit of your stomach a little too late. 

He’s shirtless, wearing only his suit pants. And even though you wouldn’t mind the sight any other day, the fact that you are in your pajamas isn’t helping at all.

“Did we...” You trail off, expression darkening. Your eyes meet his own, fear implanted in your pupils. You watch as his expression drifts from confusion to an awkward hesitance. Unsure how to break the news to you.

You don’t know what to expect, not realizing you’re holding your breath. 

“I-I’m sorry,” He sighs, gaze faltering as his eyes look away from you. Your eyes widen further, oxygen becoming hard to consume.

What have you done?

“But- don’t worry. You know I’m not some asshole...” if anything, he sounded chivalrous. “I-I’ll be accountable for my mistake. When do you want to hold the wedding?”

You gasp, face feeling hot. “You piece of shit-“ You groan as your foot reaches him, forcefully pushing him off the bed. “As if!”

He breaks into a fit of laughter, the sound full of genuine delight. “I can’t believe you fell for it,” He manages between the laughter.

“Fuck you, Satoru,” you mutter, a smile of relief breaking across your face. “I can’t believe you pulled something so childish.”

“Why are you so down?” He climbed back onto the bed, reclaiming his spot on the edge. “Are you disappointed? You know it’s never too late to just as-“

“Fuck off,” Your heart is pounding as you send him another kick, less forceful this time. “Say one more word about it and I’ll make sure you don’t make it out of this room in one piece.”

He laughs, asking you to pass his coffee. You reach for his coffee from the bedside table. Your fingers lift the glass mug to your lips, sipping at the hot beverage before handing it to him.

Your face scrunches up at the horrible taste. Too much sugar. Too much milk. It’s a lot worse than you might think.

“Your coffee should be criminal,” you push the mug his way, frowning. Satoru hums in response. 

There’s no awkwardness between the two of you, and he can’t help but cherish it. He feels content, enough to sit a little closer, at least.

Enough to lean in towards you, mouth closing over yours in an ever awaited kiss, at least.

[mulletmitsuya]

Tokyo Revengers Groupchat (Final Timeline)

Warnings: suggestive (i might have to change this warning to "mentions of sexual content" bcs it's too tame of a warning for the stuff that's actually in here), swearing, the word "pedophile" is mentioned, mentions of substance abuse

Desc: Everyone finds out Takemitchy and Mikey are time leapers, which leads to some...interesting questions

Mitsuya: so let me get this straight

Mitsuya: you're a time traveler, and you've lived dozens of timelines to prevent Hina from dying but she kept dying anyway but then when you got to one where she didn't die, Mikey was some deranged criminal lord and was miserable and depressed and tried to kill himself so you had to go back in time again to make sure everything was fixed but ended up dying while fighting Mikey but then somehow you both went back in time and rewrote all of our entire lives??

Takemitchy: yeah...

Baji: cap

Mikey: it's not

Mitsuya: so Mikey's a time traveler too?

Mikey: yeah it's crazy i know

Draken: do you guys have any way to prove this?

Chifuyu: this explains why i keep getting random visions of me in alternate universes. holy shit

Haruchiyo: weird ass prank

Takemitchy: i think it happened since you're close to me and we basically did everything together. i'm not sure

Inupi: we're just gonna believe this?

Koko: wait, i kind of do

Kisaki: this...defies all logic of anything ever.

Mikey: shut up Kisaki

Mikey: i'm sorry it's just that in ever other timeline you've ruined my life so it's difficult to be nice to you sometimes

Kisaki: so you don't like me because of something i did in another universe?

Takemitchy: *timeline

Mikey: yeah. my bad

Baji: i'm gonna entertain this cause i'm bored but what was i like in other timelines

Mikey: dead

Baji: ...all of em?

Mikey: yeah, it kinda drove me to insanity

Baji: damn

Baji: why?

Mikey: you killed yourself to save Kazutora

Baji: what was the context

Mikey: long story

Baji: there wasn't any other way?

Mikey: you're kinda pissing me off cause that's what i was wondering, actually

Baji: damn

Kazutora: thanks man. appreciate it🙏

Kazutora: i'll slobber on your meat later, as a proper thank you

Baji: i'd appreciate that. thanks homie🙌

Koko: what about me?

Baji: you wanna slobber on my meat? i mean i won't stop you. as long as i can call you kitten.

Koko: ...i was talking about me in alternate universe's😐

Takemitchy: i don't think we should go there guys. there's too many timelines, and not everything was exactly the same. and also in general it was a really traumatizing experience for me and i kind of want to end my life every time i think about it

Hanma: womp womp. what about me???

Mikey: murderer

Hanma: YESSSSS 😭😭😭😭😭

Hanma: THANK GOD, I KNEW IF I COULDN'T DO IT HERE, MULTIVERSE ME WOULD HAVE LIVED THE DREAM

Hanma: are me and Tetta-san together in every universe

Mikey: surprisingly, yes

Hanma: and he denies we're soulmates😔

Kisaki: i will not hesitate to get another restraining order

Hanma: a piece of paper won't stand in my way. let's get married

Kisaki: i will call the police

Draken: guys are we really entertaining this?

Mikey: you went to jail in one of the timelines and you were bald LMAO

Draken: sure

Baji: why'd he go to jail?

Mikey: these guys killed Emma and Ken-chin took revenge

Baji: respectable

Mikey: he was given a death sentence

Baji: that's tough fr

Ran: i'm kinda curious

Ran: humour me, what was i like?? was i famous?

Mikey: you were a criminal. killed people

Ran: sounds about right if i'm being honest

Ran: and Haruchiyo and Rindou?

Haruchiyo: leave me out of Takemitchy's psychotic episodes

Haruchiyo: i think you have a hallucination/delusion disorder or something

Mikey: but don't you believe me?

Haruchiyo: ...

Haruchiyo: Mikey, you're also pretty mentally ill

Mikey: says you???

Haruchiyo: i just have substance abuse problems and i'm getting clean so...

Mikey: GUYS I'M TELLING THE TRUTH I SWEAR

Mikey: I'VE BEEN GOING CRAZY KEEPING THIS A SECRET

Draken: when was the last time you slept?

Mikey: ☹️

Baji: guys just play pretend.

Rindou: what about me?

Mikey: same as your brother just uh, less gay and slutty?

Rindou: story of my life

Inupi: you didn't do Koko

Mikey: criminal

Koko: the whole time?

Mikey: yeah

Mikey: Inupi got normal at some point because he and Ken-chin got close and they fixed bikes together and had sex

Inupi: Draken????

Draken: you're really starting to piss me off.

Mikey: Akane died in the fire though like she was BURNT

Takemitchy: uh Mikey-kun...

Mikey: she was a crisp i'm telling you

Mikey: Inupi you had an ugly red scar on your face and no one wanted you

Mikey: Izana i know you're reading this, you were fucking insane dude like you killed Emma for some fucking reason then Kisaki shot you 3 times in the chest and you died while having a really bad mental breakdown. it was a major L on your part

Chifuyu: Mikey why are you leaving out the fact that the common denominator in every single timeline was that you killed every single one of your friends in the most brutal ways possible🤨?

Mikey: no comment

Smiley: how'd he kill me?

Chifuyu: uhhh

Chifuyu: Takemitchy help me out here

Takemitchy: i don't want to talk about it😐

Chifuyu: I REMEMBER

Chifuyu: backshot

Smiley: ...

Smiley: he killed me by giving me backshots..?

Smiley: i would NEVER take it from behind

Smiley: especially from MIKEY

Smiley: small dick having ass

Smiley: my bootyhole is not to be messed with

Smiley: i'm so pissed off right now holy shit

Smiley: how did i even die???? dick so good it killed me?

Smiley: i'm so angry

Angry: and i'm Smiley😂

Baji: 3/10 joke 👎, poor delivery, fell flat

Smiley: i hope you kill yourself, Mikey

Mikey: trust me, i've tried

Chifuyu: ???

Chifuyu: he shot you in the back with a gun?

Chifuyu: what's wrong with you

Smiley: oh my bad i though you meant like, he was taking me doggy style

Smiley: i'm no bottom

Ran: what is happening

Chifuyu: i'm moving on😐

Chifuyu: Hakkai was tied to a chair and burnt to death

Hakkai: wha-

Hakkai: WHAT DID I DO??

Hakkai: jesus 😟

Chifuyu: why am i getting all these memories, i'm freaking out

Hakkai: Mikey please tell me what i did to deserve that ☹️

Mikey: idk Hakkai i was going through a lot

Draken: have you been diagnosed with anything?

Mikey: i don't need a diagnosis bcs i'm fine now, you're all alive and i don't have any murderous intent!!! yippee🤗

Mikey: isn't this great Takemitchy??

Takemitchy: well, yeah no ones dead so that's great

Izana: this is obviously completely fabricated

Izana: are you guys that bored?

Senju: man for all that time traveling you sure are a shit boyfriend😭

Takemitchy: how????

Takemitchy: did Hina say that☹️??

Senju: it's an observation

Senju: you've had way too many coincidental close calls with other woman💀

Draken: yeah you pissed me off when you thought i was gifting you a prostitute. you had a whole ass girlfriend. shame on you

Senju: and you also almost slept with Emma and you "don't remember"

Smiley: Mitchy's low-key funny as hell because what do you mean you stripped yourself and another girl down to your underwear by accident

Baji: wouldn't Takemitchy be a pedophile then?? Emma was 13 dawg🤨

Mikey: he was 14 though😭

Baji: you're gonna ride Takemitchy's dick to defend him from trying to sleep with your 13 year old sister??? crazy

Baji: wasn't be mentally 26🤨?

Baji: bro i'm gonna beat your ass actually

Mikey: hmm

Mikey: you know what Mitchy, why did you do that 🤨?

Smiley: LMFAOO

Mitsuya: why did i come back to Takemitchy facing pedophile allegations, like what's going on right now

Kazutora: is it not enough that he changed the space and time continuum just to be with his girl?

Kazutora: cheating this cheating that, my boy deserves all the pussy he wants

Kazutora: he's been beaten, shot, stabbed AND killed

Kazutora: i personally believe he's the goat

Baji: ?

Chifuyu: goat is an acronym for "greatest of all time", Baji-san

Baji: what's an acronym

Chifuyu: i'll dm

Kazutora: bro you're so fucking stupid😭

Draken: i don't care if he was skinned alive by an orangutan, there's no excuse to cheat on someone

Rindou: i think being skinned alive by an orangutang warrants having more than one girl. idk that's just me tho

Ran: not the point that's being made rn

Rindou: what exactly is the point that's being made

Rindou: is this real. are we being serious.

Rindou: i don't think i get the joke

Haruchiyo: i think we should all stop talking now

Mikey: Mitchy we need to talk a bit

Takemitchy: i told you this was a bad idea

[bl4cktourmaline]

Furina meeting someone in fontaine who somehow doesn't know them... Sounds refreshing and fluffy!

꒰⌗´͈ ᵕ ॣ`͈⌗꒱৩ — furina

✿ — ♬ ⌨️ᶻᶻᶻ : x/modmafuyu is typing... ✉!

✿ — ↻ SYNOPSIS : Furina meeting a fontainian(reader) who doesn't know her.

✿ — ♯ GENRE : Fluff(mostly), bittersweet

✿ — ⊜ CW : Nil

✿ — ↠ NOTE : Hi hi Anon~ Thank you for requesting~ I had a lot of fun making this fic and I hope you'll enjoy reading it ! I know you wanted fluff but I accidentally made a bittersweet ending. Hope that's alright!<3

Timeline would be Furina still acting out her role. So that this fic would not go too far out of character.

Just a warning, 4.2 spoilers.

[h/c] - hair color

[e/c] - eye color

✿ — ♪ REMINDER : reblogs & likes are appreciated, in doing so will motivate us to continue delivering stories to you, thank you for all of your supports ~ !

Extra: if you would like to request, click here and read the writing rules for each writer !

✿ — ♭ ⁿᵒʷ ᶜᵃˡˡⁱⁿᵍ... : ...No one

✿ — ► ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : Furina

CLICK CLACK CLICK!

A petite girl was seen running out of the Palais Mermonia in the Court of Fontaine. As she took off running as far as her legs could take her.

-----------------FLASHBACK-----------------

"...Miss Furina, I do hope you know the prophecy will come sooner or later. Even if Fontaine hasn't experience any deleterious flooding.. yet.. We must act fast to ensure all our citizen are safe and won't live in fear. Who knows how long till they believe in those 'rumors'"

"I do know that! ...I promise I'm doing something useful to help everyone."

"I can clearly sense that you are hiding something from me. Please, just tell me what is it that you are covering up."

"I-I'm telling you! I'm not hiding anything. I am your archon, could you PLEASE stop doubting me?!"

...

-------------------------------------------------

'How much longer..'

pant pant pant

'So lonely..'

pant pant pant

'Please let this show end..'

THUD

The petite girl collided with the ground due to exhaustion. She began looking around, upon seeing no one, she felt a little relieved to see that no one had spotted her being in a mess from earlier.

..Well probably except for the Chief of Justice.

'..Way to go Furina, if he wasn't already suspicious of me, he definitely is now..'

As the girl slowly picked herself up from the ground and continued to wandered mindlessly, wanting to get her mind off things for a bit.

Furina strolled leisurely while admiring the scenery upon her. She usually doesn't have time to be curious and as carefree while playing the role of the archon.

'Where am I anyways? I've.. Never been out of the city before'

As Furina came across a sunny and bright view. Where the sun is beaming while waves crash into one another, accompanied by golden rocks.

Although it is an unfamiliar surrounding, Furina only felt comfort feeling the breeze of the atmosphere as she slowly trotted over to the sea.

'What is this place? I've never been here but it feels really easy to relax..'

As Furina slowly took in the sunlight and windy zephyr and sighed. If only she could adventure and explore the world even more..

Being lost in thought, the petite girl did not notice someone in the distance sneaking up behind her.

'..It's really hard being an ar-'

"BOO!"

"AHHH?!"

Furina out of instinct, quickly lifted her arms into a defensive pose to shield her from whatever is coming after her.

"Ahaha! You should've seen the look on your face."

As Furina slowly opened her eyes, she saw a unfamiliar [h/c] person with [e/c] eyes. Realising they were a fontainian, she immediately cleared her throat.

"What look? I was preparing to attack you, you're lucky I took the flight response or else I would've seriously injured you!"

Furina folded her arms looking really displeased with whoever scared her.

"Ahaha.. Sorry, you just looked a little bit depressed. Anyways, I'm [name], nice to meet you. Now, may I ask why such a beautiful lady was looking quite down?"

"B-beautiful?!"

"Mhm! I've heard my friends say that the hydro archon was really pretty. At this rate I might mistake you as them!"

[Name] looking quite content with their response, giving a close-eyed smile.

"Ahem! A-Anyways, to answer your question. I was simply dreading about my workload. I'm fine, don't worry about it."

"Oh really? Guess it isn't a big issue. I'm glad."

'They're glad? I'm just some stranger though, I'm not sure why they're that relieved..'

"So, how's the beach? Pretty relaxing huh? I usually come here after I run my errands."

"Oh.. So this is called a beach, I've never seen one my whole life until today. It really isn't that bad at all to spend a day off here."

Furina then turned her view back to the waves, wanting to treasure this moment before returning to her dull stage.

Suddenly Furina felt something. Only to turn to see [name] placing a rainbow flower in her hair.

"Eh?! What's up with the sudden flowers?! Forget that, how did you even get them?!"

"I did mention I run errands, and that is when I go flower hunting to find beautiful flowers to add to my garden. I decided to give this rainbow flower to you as a gift. It's fitting for a beauty like you~!"

"W-wha-"

"Also, just want to ask, do you work for the hydro archon? You called me a mortal, surely the hydro archon must've have cute colleauges!"

"..."

[Even-More-Fluff Ending] - Optional to read

"Do you not know who the hydro archon is?"

"..Not really, I live on the country side, but I do hear adventurers say that she is dazzling and charismatic. Although it fits into your description.. Surely I'm not talking to the hydro archon."

"...Yeah you're right, I'm not the hydro archon ahahaha! I-I'm her coworker. Yep, pleasure serving under her!"

'God damnit Furina! What are you doing?!'

'...'

'Maybe they are the person I can confide in.. However I know that's impossible, but it does feel nice to not need to put my guard up as high..'

[Bittersweet Ending: continuation of Even-More-Fluff Ending] - Optional to read

When Furina returned to her office in Palais Mermonia. She sat in her chair recounting her recent encounter with [name]. Hoping to see her again.

So she began having meetups with [name] more frequently. Of course, this caught onto Neuvilette's attention since Furina never leaves the city much. So he decided to follow her on one eventful day.

Only to see the archon with a mortal. He didn't know much about this other person that was with Furina so he decided to interrupt their conversation.

"Miss Furina?"

"Huh?! Neuvilette?! W-What are you doing here?"

"Well the hydro archon has been frequently leaving the city for quite a while so I wanted to check it out. Whose this other person you're with?"

"W-wait.. Furina?! You're the hydro archon?!"

[Name] stared in disbelief, immediately apologising for their rude behaviour towards her.

'Well there goes my identity.. Oh well it was pretty fun while it lasted."

[bright-and-burning]

thank you k @mecachrome i LOVE to yap and i love to see other ppl yapping!!! f1 tag game time!!!

Who is your favorite driver?: lando's grip on my brain should be studied in a lab tbh

Do you have other favorite drivers?: i am fond of many many drivers... oscar obviously is #2 to me. just the tiniest bit below lando, sorry oscar <3 and then there's a medium sized gap to anyone else but i am extremely fond of the williams guys. and i am studying alpine and aston martin like bugs. and i have a lot of blorbo-in-laws that i feel very fond of...

Who is your least favorite driver?: it depends on the day whether i even dislike anyone or not. today i feel neutral and up about everyone!! sometimes i distinctly do Not feel neutral... (usually during races)

Do you pull for drivers or do you like teams as well?: i am very driver oriented but obviously my like . internal ideas about drivers are heavily influenced by who their teammate is/what team they're on. and since i've been into f1 the driver lineups have. not changed. so in my head the teams n the driver pairings are pretty immutable (obviously that will Change djfldsakjfa)

If you like teams, what team do you pull for?: i am so deeply attached to the orange bitches 😔 i just watched the season 6 mclaren dts episode and when claire williams went “the likelihood of a team being able to turn around their performance to any kind of significant degree during a season? i can’t tell you how difficult it is. it’s pretty much unheard of” i just smiled SOOOO evil. sooooo evil. i believe in andrea stella's hot nerd vibes bless that man

How long have you been into F1?: since uhhhh approximately one week after qatar 2023. made this account right around cota 2023

What got you into F1?: twitter algorithm put some tweets about the shitshow that was qatar on my timeline (literally one of them was just. a little of names and like . blank threw up. blank was hospitalized. blank couldnt get off the ground.) and i was like:

(why is that picture SOOO large) and also i had been admiring the f1 web weaves for a while bc i would look at the 'web weave' tag and half of them would be f1 and i was like wow. these guys have a collective shit ton of daddy issues. fascinating... tbf!!! i have always been sports brain lol. just never quite rpf sports brained? so the stars aligned for this fr (recommended tweets, f1 web weaves, and me being unemployed, geographically isolated from all my friends, and severely depressed)

Do you enjoy Fanfic/RPF?: yes . i am constantly cooking . everyone here is soooo smart and cool and the writing is genuinely so incredible. and 8104 specifically has just like. a really dope bunch of ppl ive become friends with that i am constantly like. wow i cant believe these ppl want to talk to me!!! (k you are included in that <3)

How do you view new fans?: by looking in the mirror... djfladsj jk. i am a new fan! i am not a ""dts fan"" (have literally watched two episodes Ever and one of them was today) but none of it matters and i don't really find those kind of lines to be helpful. i have disagreed with ""dts fans"" and i have disagreed w ppl who started watching before i was born and i'd do it all again (this probably says more abt how opinionated i am than anything else)

If you could take over as team principal for any team, who would it be and why?: personally i am delusionally confident enough to believe i could run that bitch like the MARINES. at the very least i would not be running my mouth like toto lol. vibes wise idk if i could do it at Any Team (like. imagine mercedes being run by a punchy american woman. LMFAO. imagine FERRARI) (i'd say mclaren for papaya reasons but a) andrea stella i could never replace you and b) i think i would set zak brown's fuckin sports car on fire day 1.) but based on location only alpine!!

Are your friends and family into F1 as well?: uhhhh no. my dad went to exactly one motorsports event when he was like my age maybe a year or two younger and saw a really horrific deadly crash so that ended any family interest. my friends are mega sports ppl but they're into like. american popular sports. and running. i do have a tifosi coworker and a couple friends from high school who are into it but that's it

Are you open to talking to other fans/making friends?: yes!!!!! i am so horrifically extroverted i love to chat i love to make friends!!! i am in so many ppl's dms on the Daily just sayin shit to the point where im like maybe i should cool it. lol.

tagginggggg @monacotrophywife @freeuselandonorris @liamlawsonlesbian andddd @red-flagging if you want !!!! this was fun n i love hearing how ppl got into f1 bc i feel like i might've taken an odd route

[karamazovposting]

On Ivan and bipolar disorder (part four)

Since this is (finally) the last part of this essay and I've already previously mentioned what it will be about, I don't have an introduction to make, but I do think I need to give a couple disclaimers before getting right into this mess. First one: I have a lot of explaining to do because this gets medical again and I can't just assume you all know exactly what I'm talking about and/or to what extent; I hope I won't overexplain or sound condescending. On this same note, I forgot to open part one by explaining that bipolar disorder is a chronic mental illness that is treatable through lifelong medication and not necessarily lifelong therapy but not curable because to me that's a given, so sorry if you didn't have much knowledge on the topic and had to read my yapping with little or even no context. Second one: I will be using some words (such as "delusional") that are to be taken literally, in the medical sense. I'm not saying this because I think you are all stupid of course, but to highlight the seriousness of what I've been talking about these past months; it seems to me that lately medical terminology regarding mental health has been watered down a lot by Internet culture to the point of it losing its meaning, with memes about being "delulu 🤪" or reducing mania to dyeing your hair by yourself at 2 AM leading people to not take these things seriously. I don't mean to be a spoilsport or anything, I like and share those memes too but I've actually been (hypo)manic and delusional in the past so I guess I have the right to joke about it at least. Maybe it's not that serious but I want it to be serious at least here, which is also why I've never referred to episodes as "mood swings". I don't do that in real life either, even when talking to people who don't know much about bipolar disorder, because I've always found the term reductive and misleading: everyone has mood swings, it came free with being a human being. In my opinion it contributes to the misunderstanding of this disorder and the people who have it; no, we are not moody by default and no, we don't change our minds every five minutes or are happy one moment and then suddenly sad the next (seriously, who came up with these stereotypes and how?), but I digress.

This said, let's get down to business. I want to start with one detail that is either one of the most absurd coincidences in the entire history of literature or proof that Dostoevsky was somewhat somehow familiar with bipolar disorder and decided to integrate some things he witnessed in Ivan's character (I guess without knowing, as at the time there was very little understanding of it to the point it wasn't really considered an illness and was referred to as circular insanity and later as manic-depression, which are both cooler names than bipolar disorder but again I digress) because I swear I can't find any other explanation for it: the timeline of The Brothers Karamazov. It might seem like a very small detail, but as soon as I figured out the timeline I thought of fucking course. Now, we all know the timeline of this novel is a little confusing at first as there are almost no indicators of how much time has passed between Alyosha running from one house to another first and shit going down second, but in the first half of the novel we know it all starts in late August and honestly I didn't make anything of it, but then the timeline becomes clearer after Dmitri's arrest and we end up in early November for the trial and I mean, nothing particularly interesting or peculiar about a book covering the events of a (little over) two-month timespan, right? Technically yes, because it's not the amount of time that has passed that matters, but the time of the year: if it all had, for example, taken place from late June to early August or from late December to early February I wouldn't even be talking about it, because there's no seasonal change taking place in those months. August to November, however, is another story. I also find it interesting that it's the change from warm to cold weather, as it's the one that's the hardest for most people (for me personally it's the opposite, the shift from Winter to Spring is a nightmare, but I'm a rare case when it comes to that); I don't really know why, but the seasonal changes are always delicate periods for people with bipolar disorder as they can trigger episodes, I guess it's pretty much the same mechanism that occurs in seasonal depression. So, let me lay the timeline out for you: the Karamazovs reunite in late August, Ivan leaves a few days after, Fyodor is murdered shortly after, so probably in early September and Dmitri is arrested the same night, then Ivan comes back five days later, the trial takes place in early November the day after Pavel hangs himself, and Dmitri is sentenced five days before the story ends with Ilyusha's funeral. This timeline detail seriously drives me insane because all the other puzzle pieces I've been putting together for a while could be related to other disorders/conditions as well, such as schizophrenia (schizoaffective bipolar disorder is a thing too but I don't have it so I can't really say anything about it) and autism (autism and bipolar disorder have a lot in common), or even to just personality, but this? It's a little too oddly specific in my opinion, but I'll just keep assuming it's a coincidence for the sake of my own mental health.

Anyway, this means the story starts when a seasonal change is approaching, which is already a delicate time on its own, and Ivan has to put himself in an unpleasant situation that has a high chance of turning into a shitshow (and it does): going somewhere he wants to leave as soon as possible to discuss things he doesn't want to discuss surrounded by people he doesn't want to deal with. That's not a good start at all and it would be enough to put me, someone who has been medicated for seven years, on edge (and it has in the past); no wonder he's pissed off all the time. And it's only the start since, as we all know, the worst is yet to come. I love that the reader only gets bits and pieces of the build-up of Ivan's episode through the other characters' points of view and I particularly love how said build-up reaches its climax; it doesn't happen when Ivan hallucinates the devil (as it's mentioned he's seen him before and has also had other similar experiences in the past, I'll get into that later), but exactly a moment before that. But first, let's focus on the main build-up moments we see bits and pieces of before that. I was impressed by how realistically the whole thing was portrayed, especially considering that at the time almost everyting about this disorder was unknown; still to this day, in 2024, many people think bipolar disorder is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation, with the person being "normal" one day and waking up "crazy" the next like some sort of magic happening overnight, but that's straight up not true, it doesn't happen. Bipolar disorder is way more rational than one would think (very fitting for Ivan, isn't it?) and at times you do have an awful amount of self-awareness but can do nothing with it, it's kind of like being stuck in the passenger seat of a car with a broken steering wheel and broken breaks that's speeding straight against a wall; you know what's happening but can do nothing but watch and hope the crash won't be that painful. And that's how I felt reading too, every time I saw those bits and pieces of Ivan's story I thought oh no it's happening. And Ivan knows it's happening too, as we see in Book Eleven.

I've focused on The brothers get acquainted, Rebellion and The Grand Inquisitor already, but I have to mention them again because as I've already explained they're such a pivotal point; before that we don't really know what Ivan's deal is, but as soon as we get acquainted (sorry, I had to) with him we start to notice that something's definitely up, and there is one seemingly small detail that I just can't get out of my head: when Ivan gets up and starts walking after his talk with his brother, Aleksej points out to himself that he's swaying a little. Considering it's implied that Ivan has a problem with alcohol (it runs in the family after all) in other occasions too, that's probably an indicator that Ivan had been drinking during his stay. Not only is there a strong link between bipolar disorder and substance abuse (how could there not be? Shit's tough and sometimes you have to self medicate, especially in the 1800s), but alcohol and drugs can trigger episodes or make them worse; Ivan is also once again dealing with everything alone and trust me, that's recipe for disaster. And of course after that the aforementioned metaphorical car does nothing but gain speed and Ivan increasingly becomes angrier, restless and frantic: he has trouble sleeping, he starts isolating himself even more, he talks faster, his thoughts start racing, his speech pattern becomes more and more incoherent and he can't stay still as he's mentioned walking back and forth for seemingly no reason in different occasions; all textbook symptoms. He visibly looks sick too and bipolar episodes are known to take a toll on your physical appearance (I looked like a walking corpse for years) as well as having physical symptoms manifest along the psychological/psychiatric ones, such as headaches caused by stress, which Ivan frequently has, because stress is a major trigger for bipolar disorder (and Ivan is undeniably quite stressed). Sleep also plays a huge role when it comes to bipolar disorder as it can quite literally determine your faith: the the very first sign to watch out for if you feel something might be wrong is a change in sleeping habits; if they start changing significantly it means something's definitely up and you need to intervene as soon as possible (I have prevented episodes from either spiraling or happening at all like that but it takes years of practice). Ivan's sleep schedule, if we can even call it that, during his episode reminds me of my own during an insane (no pun intended?) mixed episode I've had and it makes sense since after every manic episode comes a "crash", and during mixed episodes you can crash back and forth for days; it happened to me. But what is a manic crash? It can be summed up with a simple phrase: what comes up must come down. It's like throwing a ball in the air, it reaches its peak up there and after that it's all downhill until it crashes down on the ground and the higher it goes, harder the crash: if you stay up all night while manic, you'll sleep all day while depressed, the more euphoric you are, the more dysphoric you'll be; so it makes sense for Ivan to sleep more and more as he "comes down". As for the fever, stress can do that. Brain fever is nothing but a 19th century literature thing because it's not a real diagnosis and at the time severe emotional and psychological upset was classified as either that or hysteria, which isn't a real diagnosis either.

Another puzzle piece that fits way too well is that little mention of him tidying his room himself despite having someone to do it for him; I know it's probably thrown in there to highlight his self-isolating independence, but cleaning and tidying are very common (to the point it's almost a cliché) activities to do when you're having a (hypo)manic or mixed episode because they help getting rid of all the extra energy and give you a sense of control over your life; for me it's almost compulsive (compulsions and obsessive thoughts are common in bipolar disorder because bipolar disorder is like three different conditions in a trenchcoat), I've found myself obsessively cleaning my bathroom every day for months and fighting the compulsion to do the dishes even when it wasn't necessary. It's mentioned that Ivan feels the increasing loss of control and is ashamed of it, which brings us to the very important topics, when it comes to him, of self-awareness and control.

I already mentioned it in part one but I want to say it again: control is crucial when it comes to bipolar disorder; something out of your control happening in your life or not having enough control over your symptoms and emotions is enough to send you down (or up) a dangerous path (sounds familiar?). It takes years of treatment to be able to deal with the unexpected and to let go of this control freak attitude, but Ivan is riding this rollercoaster with no seat belt so here we are. I think this reflects best in his attitude when visiting Pavel in the hospital after Dmitri's arrest, when Ivan says he came back from Moscow as soon as possible to fix the mess they all made in his absence. He's particularly keen on letting Pavel know he has no intention of playing games and it's clear he has a no bullshit allowed policy when it comes to his family, which checks out with what I went over in part three: Ivan's presence in the Karamazov household means quiet and order. Ivan definitely has a strong personality and to me it feels like that kind of strong personality one has to develop to stay afloat, and considering Ivan is not comfortable with showing "weakness"...well; I'll get to that later. I don't know if it's a middle child thing because I'm not a middle child but I'm the only diagnosed and medicated person in a family that feels more like an emotional minefield and let me tell you, I've been running that shit like it's the Navy for years and I'm pretty sure I'm the only case of a youngest son with eldest daughter syndrome in human history and yes, it's a bipolar thing. The need for control is so strong that it extends to your surroundings and therefore the people around you; I don't know how to explain it because it's not a manipulation thing, it's an I can't deal with my own emotions so having someone express theirs in an extreme way makes me uncomfortable and I also need a stable environment to not lose my mind so I need to de-escalate any situation that might trigger me thing; it's cleaning up after other people's mess for your own sake. And maybe a little savior complex, at least in my case. Anyway, if Ivan keeps his family stable he keeps himself stable as well, so he has to take matters into his own hands even when it's too late. Damage control is a very important skill if you have bipolar disorder.

I've already been over Ivan's visceral anger so I won't go over it again, but I want to spend a few words for that one part where he punches Pavel: been there done that, and normally I'm not even a violent person. It was a pretty similar situation too: someone had been tormenting me for months while I already wasn't doing good at all, took it too far one day and I just snapped; I didn't even mean to hit that person but it's not something you can gain control over when it gets to that point, so I get where Ivan was coming from and I'll defend him until the day I die.

Since I'm going in chronological order, as you might have already noticed, this means I've finally reached the fun part. Brace yourselves, this is going to be long. I don't have much to say about the whole devil ordeal that hasn't already been said, after all it's the most blatant manifestation of Ivan's mental health status, and I think it's more important to focus on what's around the hallucination rather than the hallucination itself. The first and most important thing I noticed is that Ivan is not scared, and it makes sense for him to not be because the narrator says that situation feels familiar to Ivan, making this the second time it's mentioned by the narrator that Ivan has a past history of both depressive and dysphoric manic (usually referred to as mixed) episodes, which alone qualifies for a formal bipolar disorder diagnosis; now that I think about it I could have just said this instead of making four posts about it, but where's the fun in that? Also I don't have enough information to armchair diagnose this 19th century fictional character with a specific type of bipolar disorder, so I laid out all the relevant information for you to interpet it however you want, if you're familiar with this stuff. I think he could be either bipolar I or bipolar II as there aren't many differences between those two types. For reference, I'm bipolar II (electric boogalo), which is usually mainly depressive and has less intense "ups" (mania when it's bipolar I and hypomania when it's bipolar II, but mania and manic are often used as umbrella terms and I've used them as such in this). Ivan's episode seems more mixed (having both manic and depressive symptoms at the same time, I should've explained it earlier, sorry) than purely manic and mixed episodes are more likely to happen in bipolar II and/or to those who start having symptoms in adolescence regardless of type and I think that checks out (go to part two for that). However, hallucinating a whole person and having conversations with them is a pretty big deal and my own hallucinations are nothing like that, usually hearing noises such as knocks on my door or seeing shadows or bugs at the corner of my eye and things looking slightly off and changing in shape and size; nothing big that I can interact with and I can easily ignore that the rare times it happens. Wikipedia says that any kind of hallucination classifies as mania, but my psychiatrists obviously know I've hallucinated in the past and still haven't changed my diagnosis so don't trust Wikipedia I guess, probably because my hypomanic episodes have never significantly impaired my ability to function (like they haven't significantly impaired Ivan's; trust me, he could be doing much worse). There is a lot of nuance that Internet articles lack in my opinion.

Anyway, let's go back to focusing on how Ivan feels: he's not scared, but he is exhausted and desperate. And it's heartbreaking. Not the hardest part of The Brothers Karamazov for me to read, not at all actually, but way too familiar. Ivan, who has a strong personality and a no bullshit allowed policy, who usually speaks in a firm voice and who refused to get help even if he knew his mental state was getting worse, breaks down (in private, of course) and begs and pleads; please leave me alone, shut up. He goes back and forth between desperation and rage (very mixed episode of him) and what struck me the most is how harsh his words are: almost every time the devil says something, Ivan replies with an insult or even more in a row. Yes, it's not that atypical of him considering how he talks and refers to Pavel or Dmitri, but it's, again, heartbreaking because he's never acted like that with them (or even with his father) and he knows the devil is actually himself. He's reserving his worst words, his worst attitude, his most burning and consuming rage and hatred, for himself. And he knows that. Worst thing of all to me is that at some point he covers his ears to not hear the devil, his own thoughts, and I've done that. Sometimes those thoughts are so loud that they seem to come from an outside source and covering your ears comes naturally. It obviously doesn't work. I have many other thoughts about Ivan's devil but they don't have much to do with bipolar disorder so maybe I'll write another post in the future if I feel like it. Also honorable mention to the thrown glass because apparently I've done something similar once even if I genuinely don't remember it at all (bipolar disorder also causes memory loss so you barely rememeber your episodes, it's kind of like trying to recall the events of a party you got drunk at, we're not getting into that though).

Maybe I see Ivan's story and character as less dark and tragic than the average reader does, because to most people constantly walking up and down restless with racing, out of control, incoherent thoughts and experiencing delusions and hallucinations is understandably a terrifying experience, but for me up until a couple years ago that was just a random Tuesday. I mean it is terrifying but you get used to it, after a while you understand the twisted logic bipolar disorder operates under and it becomes less scary (still is at times) and more annoying, you try to keep up with your meds and manage your symptoms as best as you can and just go on with your life while still trying to fight it when/if you can (it's less depressing than how I'm describing it I swear, I really don't know how to convey that feeling). I don't see myself as a walking tragedy or as doomed (anymore), mental illness is just mundane to me and so is to Ivan; I think Dostoevsky did a marvelous job at portraying just how uneventful it can feel from the inside and we see it the contrast between what's happening to Ivan and his reaction to it and also between the other characters' perception of him and his own perception of himself. There is nothing other than concern coming from his loved ones, no judgment, they acknowledge that he's unwell and they usually refer to him as such; Ivan on the other hand refuses to and therefore refuses to take care of himself or, God forbid, let others take care of him. He knew an episode was approaching, but as long as he was physically okay his mental state didn't matter to him. Ivan's biggest flaw is that he's independent and self-absorbed (for lack of a better word) in an unhealthy, negative, bipolar way and it only fuels his anger: the only valid judgment and opinion of himself is his own and he doesn't have a positive view of himself. The devil tells him the people at the trial will pity him and Ivan snaps; he doesn't want to be pitied, he doesn't want to be seen as "weak" because he has internalized refusal for "weakness" and "cowardice" (he asks himself if he's a coward in different occasions, sometimes straight up calling himself that). How could he not have internalized it? He was neglected growing up and as an adult he always seems to be held at an impossible standard due to the way his personality was forced to develop, from being expected to keep the peace between the Karamazovs to even after his father is brutally murdered; at the trial Ippolit Kirillovič says that if Ivan was so sure of his brother's innocence, why didn't go to the police after Smerdyakov's confession? To them that must mean said confession never happened and that Dmitri is the murderer, but in reality Ivan (poor thing) didn't go because he was delusional and thought the two of them were going to confess together the following day. People expect him to be able to think straight and fix his family's mess even when he can't. And still, he doesn't break down even at the trial: he's firm even in his delirium, he never falters, his voice never breaks, he's determined and strong like he's expected to be, even if the others can't see it. He does the right thing for himself, not caring about anyone else's opinion, and in a sense he's some sort of modern Cassandra, cursed to tell the truth without being believed by those who can save his family (and in some versions of Cassandra's myth she goes mad due to witnessing the fall of Troy). He never cries; there's only one mention of him crying in the whole novel and contrary to other characters crying, it's not something we are told by the narrator himself but it's thrown in a conversation between Katya and Alyosha by Katya. Ivan only cried in private, in front of the person who insisted to take care of him. This talk about his relationship with "weakness" and the (partial) act he puts up definitely makes more sense in relation to part three and I hope you get what I'm trying to say.

Speaking of the trial, I was struck by the attention brought to the Karamazovs', as a whole, ability to see and navigate through two opposite abysses. Dostoevsky, what the hell? Does it mean what I think it means? I don't know, but it sure is a familiar image to me and Dmitri does seem to walk the fine line between regular human behaviour and diagnostic criteria, but I don't have many thoughts about that, it could be anything really, mostly because none of them are actual real people. My own interpretation of those characters is more "literal" even if I know they're just tools to convey certain topics and messages and if you want to get more symbolic with them please do, I'd love to read it. Honestly I like the idea of a character with a heavily emotion-driven arc such as Ivan having a disorder that fucks with one's emotions so much; also seeing someone behaving like me being treated with tact and a particular kind of sensitivity by the other characters and the author himself is so special to me (at least considering the historical context, I mean they could've just thrown him in a madhouse and called it a day but nobody even thought about doing that) because uhm...I didn't receive such kindness growing up.

There are many characters from other books, movies, and shows that I love and relate to but have never seen as bipolar coded in any way, they were just relatable, but Ivan hits different as he's the first character I've seen that is so unapologetically bipolar. I've watched shows and movies with characters that canonically have bipolar disorder and even they can't hold a candle to him (let bipolar people or at least people who are familiar with them write bipolar characters I'm begging you). There isn't a single character from The Brothers Karamazov that I hate or even dislike (yes, not even Fyodor, he's not a good person but he's a good character) and all the brothers are special to me, but I just can't help having this soft spot for Ivan, I want to give him a hug and my meds.

I'm not really going to talk about Ivan's ending because while I do obviously have things to say, they don't belong here. I just want to say that him having an open and uncertain ending (I love open and uncertain endings) even more than the other characters do is very fitting.

And that's a wrap! Thanks for sticking with me and I hope this was an interesting and maybe even educational (there's a lot of ignorance regarding bipolar disorder and I try to raise awareness every time I can) read, but most of all I hope I managed to make sense. I like this part more than part three because I wrote it after surviving the seasonal change while during part three I was in the trenches but oh well, the past is past. No notes on part one and two, those are good I guess. Also I've said variations of been there done that a ridiculous amount of times in this whole thing but my Twitter display name is Ivan Karamazov kinnie for a reason. And I won't apologize for the shitty jokes by the way.

See you soon* with other literary analysis!

*= don't rely on my words too much, it could be tomorrow like it could be in ten years

[4-as-in-a-trenchcoat]

MY AUS✨

Here's a list of all my aus + tiny explanations about them! Might make separate posts for all of them someday idk

1. Dad!Rex au

-Of course, the only au I've been public about so far. If you've seen my other posts about it, you already know what this is about, but if not, it's basically just a child (Theodore) crashing in Undar while Emmet/Rex's still there. Theo helps with trauma, Rex realizes he doesn't want anyone to go through what he went through and as a result, Rex adopts more children. Basically just wholesomeness yesyes

2. Dualistic Sides au (idk)

-In an alternate timeline, Emmet gets saved a year before he becomes Rex. He's still traumatized though, so he's basically just Emmet with PTSD and trust issues. After like, maybe a few months, this version of Emmet, who let's call.. Evan, starts to get really depressed and misses being his past self, so he decided the only logical thing to do is to travel back in time to before he crashed in Undar. But of course, our Rex also still has that idea, so now it's basically just an 'angel and devil on your shoulder' situation as both Rex and Evan try to guide Emmet in their own plans respectively. Evan genuinely wants to help, but Rex just wants to manipulate Emmet. (Edit: I just realized that this au is REALLY similar to @thinknamewhat 's Time Rivals au so credits to them! shddhhsh I did not mean to practically copy paste it with just a few tweaks sorry 😭)

3. Undar Explorer au

-Instead of being paralyzed, Emmet can still move in Undar. But with his ship still destroyed, he's forced to survive in Undar all on his own. And instead of Undar being a barren planet, there are just enough life forces that it becomes a challenge. Oh also, his friends eventually crash in Undar as well a few years later, for drama✨ (this au is basically just a copy paste of Della's situation in DuckTales and. yeah 🙂)

4. Switched Situations au (Idk either 😭)

-Instead of Emmet crashing in Undar, this time it's Mayhem, Lucy, Unikitty, Benny, Metalbeard and Batman who crashes. Emmet's the one who manages to get through the Stairgate, but when he doesn't find his friends in the Systar System, he accuses Watevra of kidnapping them, and in turn, Watevra accuses Emmet and the other Apocalypseburgers of kidnapping Mayhem. Angry and devastated, they end up starting a deadly war against each other. And the ones who got stuck in Undar time travel to the past to: stop themselves from crashing, stop Emmet from confronting Watevra, and most importantly, stop the war.

5. Criminal au

-Self explanatory, instead of being masterbuilders who fight for a righteous cause, the masterbuilders are actual criminals who do crime and end up accidentally dragging Emmet into everything (happens during the first movie).

6. Ghost!Emmet au

-After Emmet sacrifices himself in TLM, he doesn't come back to life. He does come back as a ghost though. ..Yeah that's all there is to it, really.

7. The Worst Timeline/Replacement au

-Basically another dead!Emmet but so much worse! So here, Lucy doesn't arrive on time and Rex ends up killing Emmet. Everybody (as in, even the citizens of Apocalypseburg and the Systar System) eventually arrives to see Emmet dead and Lucy in complete despair. Rex explains everything and then just.. fades away because. Emmet's fucking dead. And now everyone's in even more despair. A year passes, and nobody has fully moved on yet, until eventually, it all becomes too much and Lucy and her friends all agree to time travel to the past to kidnap past Emmet, from wayyyyy back before the Duplos invaded, but still after TLM. They essentially gaslight and manipulate Emmet into thinking this was his original timeline. And.. yeah.

8. Lost Memories au

-Emmet just loses his memories after crashing in Undar. ..Actually I'm pretty sure someone already made an au about this, but I'm not sure?? If someone knows if anyone made this au yet, please tell me and I'll remove it here.

9. Mother Knows Best au

-Doris, Emmet's mom, got worried over Emmet's lack of contact, since he always contacts her, even after moving away. She decides to visit Apocalypseburg, only to find Syspocalypstar, and a memorial statue of Emmet, much to her surprise. After she finds Lucy and the others and gets them to explain, she begs them to help her find him. So feeling guilty, they all agree. And.. they do end up finding Emmet. Doris gets angry at Emmet's friends, thinking that if they've just searched more and put more effort in trying to find him, then he wouldn't have to have been so traumatized. She prevents Emmet from seeing them and becomes really overprotective. E.

10. Kids au

-Again, self-explanatory, it's basically just a prequel to TLM and it's the main cast (except Watevra and Mayhem of course) as children. It's literally just an excuse to write fluffy and angsty backstories about them, actually :b

11. Keeper Of The Timelines au

-After Rex back-to-the-future's in the 2nd movie, he becomes some sort of keeper of timelines, having access to the past, present, and future, he kinda subtly tries to keep everything going smoothly. From Emmet meeting Lucy, to him becoming the Special, to him meeting Rex, etc. And even though he knows not to interfere with already existing timelines, he still ensures that no more Emmets get stuck in Undar, or have to go through the same fate as him. Not if he can help it.

Yeah, that's all of them so far! Feel free to ask me questions if you're curious about any of them :)

[istopaskingmemate]

Hello! How are you doing? Hope you're doing well this month. What so you think s5 of Monkie Kid will be like? Some say it'll be a tragedy, others are hoping for a breather arc. Which camp are you on? How long do you think until MK confronts SWK about his issues with him? I dread it yet really want them to get it done with. What do you think happened to make Wukong surrender to the Jade Emperor, as well as him fighting against the Camel Ridge trio before killing Azure and sealing the other two? When do you think the furnace burning happened in the timeline? What is your opinion on the relationship between Azure and Wukong? Drink water and sleep early! Have a great month.

Sorry this is late I've been busy! I'm doing well thank you!!! How are you?

Season 5

I'm more for a tense breather. I'm hoping it's more personable. A greater look into the character, their motives, past, mental health, and interactions (all of this applies double to wukong) but we need to start slowly building with drama happening in the background (like in season 2).

I want to see more interactions but not just common pairs like Tang and Pigsy or mk and Mei (I want that too but other dynamics need focus) but Mei and Mr tang or Sandy and Pigsy (actually anyone with sandy would be awesome thank you) or sun wukong and everyone (minus mk and maybe macaque) or even common pairing that hasn't had the focus recently like demon bull family. Characters are lmk strong suit and they are not using it to their full advantage in later seasons. one of the problems with S4 is that the crew had no reason to really care that much about wukong other than the surface level 'someone being in danger'. The plot demanded so this season should hopefully fix that. best case scenario would be having Wukong and Sandy interact since Sandy would be good for wukong. Still, it would also bring Sandy more into the focus.

but I also want there to be rising political tensions in the background between Heaven, the underworld, and maybe the dragons too over who will lead Heaven, and maybe Wukong is stuck in between as a representative for the mortal realm. Wukong knows that stuff is going to hit the fan and is trying his darndest to keep things civil for the sake of the mortal realm but also just so mk can catch a goddam break (he needs it). it's not a repeat of season two, wukong stays mostly in the mortal realm, flying off to meetings occasionally after training mk but is back by the next ep and mk knows about the raising tensions but just doesn't have to deal with it directly. it's the added stress of trying to prevent multiple wars between the realm that starts pushing wukong over the edge, not that he'll tell anyone because he is totally fine. Whether or not the breakdown is in this season or save for a special/season 6 doesn't matter too much but by the end, things are getting worse(not by wukong's fault!!!).

I want to find out so much about wukong. we are missing a very key component of his character ie his reasoning/ thinking behind every action. everything we do know about him has to be taken with a grain of salt because it's from a Bisa source. the only non-bisa source we have for wukong is memory scroll. we can understand certain things about his character like him being lonely/depressed but it's not really put at the for front and you have to look for it which most people aren't willing to do for him. This all needs to go and soon but personally, I don't think we should get it until he has more connection with Mei, Pigsy, Sandy, and Mr Tang. this will add more weight to the scene. I also think Mk will need to try and fail to confront Wukong many times but it's not until something really bad happens that he'll actually get through to wukong and get an answer.

Wukong surrenders to Jade Emperor

my personal headcanon is that Wukong saw a vision of the world ending or something bad happening if they continue their mission (maybe the burning of FFM?) so he surrendered to the Jade Emperor. maybe made an oath with the Jade emperor not to harm his family if he didn't fight. I believe he made the decision believing that the Brotherhood would save him and that as long as he didn't fight heaven wouldn't be able to do anything. only issue is the Brotherhood never came and of cause after the furnace Wukong did fight back with the havoc in heaven hence allowing heaven to burn down the mountain.

fighting against the Camel Ridge trio

I don't think Wukong had much of a choice in the matter. I do think he was mad at being abandoned and left for dead but also disgusted by what they had done t the surrounding the around. Camel Ridge trio were celestial beings and didn't quite understand the devastation they were causing since Azure at least only seemed interested in the humans while wukong who grow up as a normal wild monkey has a better understanding of how interconnected it all is and is horrified that his once brothers could do this. (also Azure died? I thought he was just sealed in the scroll like the others?!)

furnace burning

We know that it occurred from the spider queen special hence I don't see why there would be much change so it would've happened similarly to jttw aka after wukong was captured but before being thrown under the mountain. I think Wukong was captured and tortured for a couple of days for information or just to make him suffer and then sent to execution bloke where they failed to execute him three times in front of the whole of heaven(hc he has stage fright because it reminds him of this). Wukong taunted them the whole time (hc because he thought they were just torturing him since 'there is no way heaven is actually struggling to kill me') as a last resort they attempted to burn him to death in the furnace. I think he did develop red eyes from this but just covered them as soon as he saw them hence why he doesn't have them under the mountain with Macaque.

relationship between Azure and Wukong

Wukong definitely saw Azure as a big brother figure and certainly looked up to him a great deal. Azure opinion of Wukong was more complicated. at first, wukong was simply an asset to Azure but as time grow he grow to respect and love Wukong (both the romance and brotherly angles are interesting and I have no preference). I believe once that respect and love were formed but before the takeover heaven plan was made the relationship was positive and would have had a good influence on wukong but... after the takeover heaven plan Wukong was made an asset again, an asset and then a scapegoat twice over. it's a shame tbh Azure could have been the positive older figure wukong needed. I'm thinking about talking about them since I want to highlight something.

[keagan-ashleigh]

✨HIIIIIII newcomers from Twitter✨

So, on Twitter I've seen a screenshot of a tumblr post with a whole list of rules that are - I'm sorry for using crude words but - bullshit, for the most part. So I was thinking, hey. Why not make a "how does tumblr works" with actually useful stuff in it. A non exhaustive list though, cause I haven't all night.

Introducing myself quickly first: I'm Keagan, I'm on Tumblr since 2012 (Twitter user since 2013), I have seen the best and the worst, I've been there for the first mishapocalypse, the great Sherlock s4 depression, and I was here when dicks and boobs where roaming the website freely and when the anti-boobs bot flagged everyone randomly. I took a sort of sabbatical after 2017 bc of the Sherlock depression, and the fandom kinda falling apart, and also bc I have a irl life that started to get interesting around that time, but I still came back regularly from time to time until now.

I know how this goddamn website works and I know why we call it the blue hellsite. I've been here since the dawn of ti- no, lol, i'm joking. :')

I started off as an aesthetic blog, then it quickly turned into a social justice/aesthetic/spn fandom blog, and this blog you see this post in is my fandom side blog, the one that saw the birth of my Sherlock obsession and the beginning of my fanartist/fanfic writer carreer. This hellsite saw my queer awakening. It saw me bloom and gain in confidence and self love. It taught me love, patience, pain, and the absurd.

So. Now that's done, let's go. Those are random things in no particular order.

In case you worry about Tumblr being very different than Twitter: yes it is different but surprisingly it's actually not that different.

Any of the following points, you will figure out easily anyway by yourself, Tumblr is actually pretty simple to understand and use, and you'll catch on quickly on the little things that makes it Tumblr, the "etiquette" and all.

For the most part: you can do whatever the fuck you want, no one cares (except dumb people I guess). But do we truly need to remind people not to be assholes with others ? Don't be rude. Duh

- One thing that Tumblr post I was talking about got right is: likes don't matter in terms of visibility, reblogs are more important. Likes are a comment more than a booster. So if you want to boost a posts' visibility, esp art and fics : reblog it.

- On the other hand you won't gain much visibility if you don't get people to reblog you, and honestly while existing here is pretty easy, you'll still have better chances at being visible if you reach people. I'm on a lot of SM and here is still the easiest though so don't worry.

- You can definitely scream into the void, like, it was made for it, this is shitpost paradise

- You can add dumb & insignificant comments to posts like "omg same" or "this is so true" - literally no one cares.

- And no one cares how you call your mutuals, moots, oomfies, pals, friendz, besties, mutts, - no one.

- We do use tone indicators here too. And there's plenty room to write the full words so it's not an obligation but a suggestion from me: sometimes it's less confusing to just say "i'm half joking" than /hs.

- But you can shorten words as you like, it doesn't matter. If twitter got you used to shorten words do shorten words, no worries.

- Your Tumblr experience is closely tied to who you choose to follow or block - you can curate your dashboard/timeline just like you do on Twitter, this is pretty similar. You can and should protect yourself from unsafe people anywhere. That's basic internet safety. Don't overthink this please, if someone is making you feel unsafe and bad, it is your place: block people.

The moderation here is not that bad but not ideal. So please use all the ways you need to make this place safe for you, and don't hesitate to call for people's help. This is a social media based on community. Don't let people trick you into thinking you are wrong for blocking people - or for calling unsafe people out. We have always done that here. We protect and support each other, ok? Good.

- You can follow hashtags, pretty much like on Instagram. In my opinion it's not always working well but you can.

- You can't bookmark posts, you'll have to put in your drafts the stuff you want to check later. And you'll likely forget them there so tell them goodbye as you go.

Eheh 🥲 (good thing i don't know how many tweets i have saved for later 😂)

You can make yourself a "read later" tag too. A tag that you're likely never gonna check either 🥹 Not so different than the Twitter bookmarks, you see.

- When you sign in, you create your main blog. The main blog - consider it like your account if you like - is linked to your profile, if you delete the main blog you delete your profile. You can create as many side blogs (side accounts) as you like (without using another email) and you can delete them without deleting your main account.

Sadly you still can't switch main blog and side blog to link your profile to a side blog, which I have been screaming for since this side blog became my main blog years ago 🥲🤌 this is my own "make tweets editable" cry

- If you're not familiar with blogs and how to personalise them, don't worry, there's a lot of themes you can choose that are simple to use, and the hardest thing you'll have to do is choose colors you like. If it looks hard, there is a ton of resources to help you, and most people will help you if you ask them (I will, honestly don't hesitate to hit the ask button).

Note that you do not have to touch it actually, it's just like your living room, some like it carefully decorated, others leave it at its most basic form, still usable. There is no obligation whatsoever. It's fun though.

If you like coding, you can edit the blog's code or make your own theme, which is pretty cool, I've learned some html modifying mine.

- You can ask stuff, anonymously or not, hitting the ask button on people's blogs. They will answer by a post, they can make it public. There is also a private direct messaging thingy.

- Tags work similarly than Twitter, meaning if you click on "#spn" you will see all things tagged spn - simple. There is some sorts of trends though it's not exactly the same as Twitter obviously.

But they are different in the sense that they serve also for organisational purpose: they are used to identify what's in the post, so that you can navigate blogs more easily. It's more like labelling your Tupperwares so you find them easily in your kitchen, you know what I mean ? The tags are also labels. The tagging system is also important when you set your blog up. You can put tags in the post but that's useless, the tag section is there for it.

- You can check on my blog (on web not app) to visualise it: you can add tabs and pages to your blogs: for example, let's say you want people to find your fanfics easy: you tag all your fanfic posts "fanfic"; on web, when you click then on the tag from your blog, you will have an url with "tagged/fanfic" at the end, you take that and when you create a new page on your blog (it's well explained how to do that in the settings), you use that url to create your tab. Sounds a bit complicated, just said like that, maybe but I promise it's simple. So you see the tagging system is useful to organise your blog.

You can also make pages to add information, like you would do with a carrd or a pinned tweet, you see. (You can pin a post here too). You can make it an "about me" page, or a list of your main tags, etc, whatever you like.

- Side note about tags: if you click a tag from your dashboard, you'll see all posts linked to this tag. If you click the tag from your blog, you will see all the posts you have reblogged or written - the ones that are present on your blog.

- You can communicate stuff in the tags, it's a whole extra expression space. Typically people use it to add comments they don't want people to reblog, personnal additions, remarks, rants, jokes, etc... There is no rule about not commenting whatever you like on posts but that extra space is often used for all kind of reasons.

The only thing is that back then the op wasn't notified for tags, it was pretty much a silent thing betweet you and your followers, now you can see all of them in the post's notes and notifications. So beware what you say, obviously don't be rude, and don't be alarmed if people answer to your tags, it's not so silent and discreet anymore. I kinda like reading people's tags on my posts but I prefered when mine weren't visible by everyone, to be honest lol

There is a character limit on tags, you can't actually add essays but you can write a lot (trust me). And as the comma and quotation marks "activates" the tag and separates them you can't write commas and quotation marks in the tags - I personally replace them with - or ; and ' when needed. It's something to get used to.

- Again on tags: typically, you put trigger warnings in the tags (though you'll see often posts starting with the tw, you can add both, just add them I guess), you can specify "personal" and "don't reblog" to warn people you'd like a cup of tea /i . And, not everyone does it but personally I appreciate when people tag the spoilers and specific themes, shows, characters or ships, so I can hide the posts marked with that tag.

- When tags are blocked you can still see the masked post show up in your dash, with its tags visible, which honestly is perfect bc you often get context in case you want to block words in certain contexts and not others, and if you block stuff momentarily (like spoilers) - you can still save the post to read it later without having to do it with your eyes closed.

- About discourse : of course there's discourse here, there's call out posts too, there's shit and obnoxious people just like everywhere else, don't come here with the idea that it's a heavenly place where everything is pretty and safe from all things annoying. There's discourse here too. There's bullying here too. About all sorts of subjects. (I've seen the queer slur discourse here like DAYS ago). There's shitty people here too. That's internet, contrary to what a certain post said, that's unescapable. And sure that's annoying but that's a fact of life - now you can shield yourself as much as possible by blocking people but honestly don't expect your experience to be way way different than Twitter in that aspect. Maybe less right wing old dudes bc Tumblr doesn't host the same démographic, though there was a nazi problem for a while, I don't know if they're still here tbqh, but that's overall not much much better, let's be honest.

- On your left, old time resident mr Neil Gaiman - but he answers "wait and see" to everything. /j

- Speaking of celebs, there isn't as many on Tumblr (it's said some have secret blogs but shhh 🤫), but there is often ask & answer events that are announced at the top of the dash.

- You won't be penalised for using certain words (even die or dead, the "unalive" wave doesn't crash on this shore), and you can put links if you like, even cashapp, kofi, paypal, etc, there's virtually nothing that will make you invisible in people's dashboards.

The only way you'll get shadowbanned here is if the Tumblr bots think you're a bot or a porn blog. Learn more here.

- But until recently, sorry there's a but, since the great "no tits" debacle, there's a bot that flagged your nuddity posts and it was so hilariously flawed omg (it flagged fucking DUNES I will never forget ahah) - anyway when they flag your post they hide it and you can make an appeal if needed, but honestly I don't think as much problem occured with it since a long while, that thing improved with time and the good thing is you can post artistic tits again! o/ yay

- There's virtually no character limit - there is one, but you'll need to write a long time until you hit it lol (I did once).

- Therefore : threads don't mean the same here. Here threads are successions of multiple people's comments. It makes for some interesting (and often hilarious) participative posts. Because there is no need here to cut your text into small posts, unless you are writing your memoirs or some shit. Look how much I've written already. 🫲Twitter could never. And if posts are long, you can add a "read more" button so it doesn't mean you have to scroll through gigantic blocs of text in your dash. and in the settings you can make long posts look shorter in your dash automatically.

- Related: threads aren't the same, you can't reblog/retweet a post that's in the middle of a thread. I mean, on Twitter you can RT the 1st tweet of the thread, or the 3rd, RT a reply easily - and in your TL only this one tweet appears - you can't really do that here. First of all here there is comments (or captions) and replies, those are not the same. If you want to reblog someone's comment to a post, you'll have to reblog it from their blogs - doable but honestly a bit tedious. And you will always reblog the last answer and all the ones that comes before. You reblog whole conversations, see.

So when you scroll through dash, you WILL experience mini heart attacks when seeing the 1st lines of some posts until you see the arguments that are closer to your moral standards - meaning you'll often see posts that are "shitty comment" then ten replies until you see the ones that says "wtf, it's shitty" - you need to endure the whole thing until you see stuff you agree with ahah, trust me this is FUN

- Here you don't livetweet, you liveblog. Otherwise it's the same. I'm sad I can't do both at the same time but it's equally fun on twitter and tumblr, especially for ESC.

- Like Tumblr said on Twitter: if you scroll your dash long enough you will have seen all of your friends posts. Yes.

- You can make your experience a lot better with the New XKit extension. Explaining it would take a whole ass post of its own so I'm not going to do that here but they have an account here where they explain everything, give updates and answer questions. I can only suggest to give it a look once you're familiar with how Tumblr works without it and with what doesn't work well.

- You can edit posts. You can schedule posts. Take it in 😌

You can edit them and actually - WOW - civilisation hasn't collapsed and bad people still can be held accountable for their shitty comments! Like on Facebook and Instagram too. Let it happen on Twitter, let it be the one good thing that'll happen amidst that awful chaos.

There's a twist though: you can edit your post, sure, but if someone reblogged the post before you could edit it, there will be two versions of your post in the wild. It can be a little bit frustrating. One way to avoid that: let your big and important posts sit in the drafts for a while so you can fix it before publishing it. An advice I never seem to follow.😬

- You can also change text size, font, put it in bold, italic, colour, you can make it gradiant like in Skyblog's most glorious hours, etc, and yes you can put alt text on pictures. You can add links or pictures in the middle of a post - I mean those are blog posts, so 🤷‍♀️

- The app is shit though ☆(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ* (to be fair not as much as a few years back, honestly, but still, not ideal)(I'm using the app 🥲)

- And you can't translate posts easily, which tbh I think is a big flaw

- Tumblr is flawed but fun and it can be better, the updates are always shit, but it has well intentions and a nice staff.

I guess there's a lot of other stuff to say but honestly we've covered the main things to know and more. All the "rules" and "etiquette" you will learn as you go, Tumblr is no rocket science, it's simple and fun, it's a meme goldmine, great community experience. There's not real rules, you can use that site however you want, no one cares, nothing is serious, have fun, don't let people gatekeep this place with bs rules, build your space as you like, make it look like you. Welcome 👋

Edit: here is a post giving a tour of the settings + some reco about Xkit

[moon-on-a-golden-thread]

hey so this will probably be really really long because idk i feel like you're one of the very few people who will approach this with kindness if you choose to answer (you don't have to tho cause it's gonna be long and probably a lot to process lol). i just want to get your opinion on it cause i feel so misunderstood by everyone i bring this up to.

so i'm pretty sure i'm bisexual, but i was raised extremely christian, like, very very strictly christian. none of my family members know about me identifying as lgbtq because i know it would cause chaos in the family. i would be seen as evil and disgusting and a mistake. my mum has said before that she would make sure an exorcism is performed on her child if she found out they're lgbtq. she's said she believes gay people are: "a sign of the apocalypse", "disgusting and creepy", "puppets of satan" etc. and that all they do is "fxck in the bushes", push their agenda on others, and are pedophiles.

on the other hand all my friends are atheists and lgbtq / supportive of lgbtq people. i don't really seek them out as friends, it just so happens that all my life i've attended schools with such virtues, so naturally those are the types of people i meet there. they know about me being bi and i've told them about this internal conflict between me being bi and my religion. none of them understand me and basically insult the church to make me feel better about my identity, which obviously doesn't work. they say things about christians that they're just heartless, dumb, etc etc. and that i shouldn't even think about it.

around 4 years ago i started developing an eating disorder and really intense depression. up until then i attended church every sunday and on holidays, and prayed every evening. when i felt the loneliness and pain of these illnesses i prayed and prayed for help and any kind of comfort, but it just kept getting worse and worse until i felt like i was dying every single day, and god was simply watching me suffer. so eventually i stopped attending church and praying altogether, and i hate to admit but i was angry at god for seemingly just leaving me to my suffering. anyway so that's where i am now. my ed and depression are a little better, but at this point i haven't been to church in a few years. last time i prayed was when my mom was seconds away from death. then i felt like i was coming back to my faith and that god was there with me. that feeling went away when my mom made a miraculous recovery. i tried praying again but the connection was gone. for context later: during that time when my mom was finally sent to hospital she texted me about a vision (?) she had and told me that prayer always works. this is roughly what she messaged me (translated):

"the door to my room opened and i felt that someone was standing in the hallway but i couldn't see anyone. after about 30 minutes, i heard a deep sigh, like i sometimes do when i pray, and i felt that this very good presence was leaving my room. then i felt in my heart that all would be well. it was such a beautiful feeling, i think it could have been the virgin mary."

this was after around 2.5 weeks of me praying basically nonstop after like 2 years of no prayer at all. i feel like it could have been because of how much faith i had that god would help my mom, but she was also unconscious 90% of the time and was having really intense symptoms so i also feel like she could have imagined it? i honestly have no idea.

(i hope ur still with me and this isn't confusing, i'm so sorry lol). anyway somewhere along this timeline between me developing an ed and depression, and when i stopped practicing religion, i decided i wanted to have my first communion. it was like my last straw of trying to hold onto my relationship with god. for context, i was 13 then and the reason i didn't receive my first communion at around 8 when most children do is because my dad doesn't practice religion and he wanted me to be sure of my decision. i begged and cried and begged even more to have it, but he decided that i shouldn't, and my mom went with his decision. i then begged my mom to let me do it in secret, but she said that it was my father's decision and she doesn't want to disobey him. if you're wondering why my mom, as a strict christian, married a man who doesn't practice religion: long story short he kinda lied to her that he's christian so she'd marry him. and obviously they're never going to divorce because they had the whole church wedding thing etc.

later on my mum tried to backtrack and tell me i was right and we should do the communion, but at that point i had already given up on christianity so i said no. to this day she says it's her life's greatest mistake and she would give everything to turn back time and admit that i was right, and that nothing on earth matters more than raising me as a christian, and she failed.

so here's the deal: there's still a part of me that believes in god and christianity, but i feel unwanted by religion and by him. i don't understand how my mom's holy goal in life is to raise me christian so i can have a good afterlife, but she doesn't want to tangibly explain to me why being lgbtq is bad. she always claims that she loves everyone and accepts them, but then goes on saying these hurtful things about people, who in my opinion, aren't hurting anybody. she says that as a christian she hates nobody, but the way she speaks about lgbtq people says otherwise. she's denying hating them simply because she will say it in so many ways except "i hate them". she doesn't want to create a safe space for me to at least talk about myself so we can solve the "problem" of me being bi. i know that even if i told her with the intention of getting closer to god, all hell would break loose and she'd resent me. why does she want to raise me christian so bad but she puts in so much effort to make sure i know god sees me as disgusting? and no effort for me to understand why or to even talk to me about it?

also she keeps talking about how god speaks to her (the hospital incident, but she also claims there have been other times), but i feel so left out if he's supposed to be my father and love me so much but he will only talk to the "perfect" child (my mom). or like idk my mom will say that it's because i'm not listening, but parents don't just give up on raising their child when they lock themselves in their room, right? i know it's not the "right christian way" to think, but like maybe if he does exist i want to be shown that he cares even if i push him away. if she claims he speaks to her then why won't he speak to me? if he can see i'm in pain and i don't understand and he's supposed to be a parent...

like i know technically i'm supposed to believe in him no matter what and i'm the one who's supposed to like "follow his path", but like a parent doesn't just leave their child in the dark when they stop listening. a parent is supposed to do anything for their child and if he's capable of everything imaginable and more then i'm sure he can just idk show me that he's still there in a way i can understand. and that's kind of why i feel guilty because i know i'm supposed to believe in him no matter what, but if he's been made out to be my parent all my life and i feel like he's just watching me want to hurt and kill myself he's either evil or doesn't exist because what parent does that?

i'm really sorry cause i know this concept is probably just dumb, it's just really lonely when you have nobody to talk to about this because one side will think you're dumb or insane and the other side will think you're evil. and the person who's supposed to know all the answers won't even show you they exist. also if my mom's ultimate goal is to raise me christian i don't understand why she won't calmly speak to me about this and try to understand me. she just gets really angry and says i'm indoctrinated when i even suggest that lgbtq isn't evil.

i'd pray even just for the comfort it used to give me but if i've been lead to believe that god thinks i'm disgusting and he's ignoring me then why should i even try? or i'd actually talk to some kind of christian scholar or something to see if it gave me any peace of mind but i hate the way the best answer i'll get from someone catholic in my country when i ask about lgbtq is "god loves them because they're human". i don't want to talk to someone who believes the highest acknowledgement i'll ever deserve is that i'm human. i want to believe and come back to my faith but i feel unwanted and ridiculed.

i'm sorry this is literally the length of a whole book, but i feel like i have nobody to talk to about this cause none of my friends were raised extremely strictly and none of my family believes lgbt is okay, so i just feel really lonely in the middle and i sound insane to both sides. i know this literally isn't your issue to deal with and it's probably a lot to read this whole thing, so if you even finished it i'm so thankful anyway. i'd love to hear what you think because you just seem so compassionate but please don't feel pressured to answer. it's not your issue to deal with lol. i just want to thank you that you deal with such difficult issues with compassion, regardless of if you agree with the person on the other side. i wish you all the best :)

Sorry I didn’t reply for so long! I just moved out on my own for the first time, and I was working full time (at a new job) on top of finishing college all at once! It was a whirlwind, these past few weeks. But I finished school on Monday, and have begun to settle in and enjoy this new freedom. Anyway, enough about me. Let’s get to it. To make sure that I give thoughtful comments (answers?) to your thoughts, I’m responding with bullet points for each paragraph. It might take me an evening or two because I want to give good responses are currently it’s 11:27pm and I am not a night owl by any stretch. (But it’s Friday, so who cares? Haha). (Spoiler: it took me all weekend to write this lol)

I am so honoured that you chose me to respond to this, seriously. I feel like I’m barely active on here, and I rarely get kind, thoughtful asks, so it can be discouraging at times. The fact that you’ve noticed my (good) behaviour online, and it made you think of me in this distressing time is so humbling. It’s corny but, Praise the Lord!  

About what your mom said to you, that is not ok. Firstly, it isn’t true Biblically. Second, it isn’t helpful. Homosexuality isn’t a sign of the apocalypse. It is a sexual sin that is mentioned in Genesis (Sodom and Gomorrah, classic), Leviticus, and in the New Testament (I’ll get to that at the end). Sin will increase towards the End Times, but all sin, as I understand it (and every Christian I know) will increase (Matthew 24:37-39). I don’t know what to say about that next comment, it’s so subjective. If you know me, you know that I believe homosexuality is a sin. But to say an entire group (is it a group?) is disgusting and creepy is not helpful. Some people are creepy, yes. Drag queens, for example, make me uncomfortable, but blasting this opinion isn’t helpful. It strikes me as an immature argument, to be honest. Puppets of satan? Well, I think that there are demonic links (1 Corinthians 10:21, I can explain more in a future post) But puppets? No…. That’s not it. I am a hardcore, reformed Christian, and even I disagree with that phrasing. It’s too much of a blanket statement. As to that last comment, it feels immature and odd. Scripture plainly explains this subject, with harsh enough phrasing that we don’t need to resort to worldly insults.  

Hmmm. That’s a really, really difficult place to dwell in. I pray that you will find God-fearing friends. I know that sounds like a lazy answer, but I will pray, I promise. The world (that is, atheists) seeks after temporary pleasures. Things that make them happy in the moment. “Do what makes you happy,” “It’s true for me,” “It makes me feel good,” etc. As a devout Christian, I give up my will to God daily. I have my own struggles in this area that may be comforting to you, (maybe), but I don’t have the space to share them at this time. Basically, I have this aching longing in my heart for something, but God has not given it to me. I’ve been seriously struggling with it for the past five years. Each day, I must hand my will for my life over to God. It’s hard. It goes against the world. And it makes me feel like a stranger, because my beliefs are so different. It is so, so easy to get wrapped up in the world and ‘give in’ to your desires. I can’t imagine how hard that must be, especially in this season of life where you are distant from God (or at least feeling that way). I pray that you will meet people who will be positive influences for you.  

I was stuck in toxic and abusive friendships (can friendships be abusive? Idk, but that’s the easiest way to describe it) for all of middle school. As a result, I developed depression, anxiety, and insomnia that lasted from grade five till now. (It has been so much better, praise the Lord! But it’s a daily battle, and it’s hard, I won’t lie). During that time, I was so alone, and cried all the time. I prayed for a friend, and I prayed for an escape from school (I ended up being homeschooled for high school, and could talk your ear off about how much that changed me). Guess what? I never got this feeling of supernatural peace, or got a miracle. I prayed, and (seemingly) nothing happened. I don’t want to dishearten you, but something I have had to impress upon myself is that “His ways are higher than mine.” My heart absolutely breaks for what you went through, it really does. I don’t want to sound careless, because I’m not, but one thing I’ve done that has changed me is spending time in the Scriptures. I believe God speaks to us through His Word (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Just the other day, I was reciting the Psalms (I love the Psalms, man), and I noticed the last section of the verse I was memorizing “The Lord will fulfill His purpose in me.” (Psalm 137:8a). It spoke exactly to what I was (and am) struggling with, and I had never noticed it until at that moment. I don’t know. It’s just something I think about. This whole topic could take hours to write on, and I really want to stay on topic.  

The devil doesn’t want you drawing near to God, and will do anything he can to distract you and try to get you to turn away from Him. “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” (1 Peter 5:8). 

I don’t know what to say about the ‘vision.’ I haven't decided what my beliefs are on this type of thing, I really don’t know. I don’t know if anything I say on the subject would be relevant or helpful, so I’ll move on.  

It isn’t okay, that your parents prevented you from taking communion. For a lovely passage about communion, read 2 Corinthians 11. I don’t think I would advise taking communion for the reasons you described. As much as I resonate and sympathize with you and your struggles, it isn’t what communion would fix. If your earnest desire is to have a relationship with God, pray. Read His word. Pour out your heart to him. Recite the psalms. (Many of David’s psalms are him crying out to God in anguish, and they are so beautiful). This is what I do to grow closer, and I earnestly encourage you to try it.  

Okay, this response is getting super long and I don’t want to bore you or anything so I’m going to respond to everything else at once: 

I care about you too much to sugar coat this or twist Scripture. What I care about is you and your place with God, so I’m going to step back and let Scripture do the talking: “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). 

There are other passages I could list, too. But just listen to how beautiful this is! “And such were some of you.” AND SUCH WERE SOME OF YOU. There were people in the time of the apostles struggling with the same thing you are going through. None of the sins Paul addresses are sins you can just ‘turn off.’ It’s a daily battle. To be at war with your fleshly desires, taking up your cross and following Christ. That’s what people have done for thousands of years, and will continue to do until Christ’s return. For now, God calls all of us to turn from our sin and come to Him. Listen to what comes next: after these people turned from their sin, they were JUSTIFIED IN THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. They were sanctified. Someone in that crowd of people, listening to this letter being read out loud 2,000 years ago, was struggling with the same thing you were. He/she rejected the world and submitted to God, and the Lord justified them, and they were sanctified. That opportunity is before you, right now. Wherever you are, reading this obnoxiously long blog post. You can repent and submit to Christ, lay this heavy burden at His feet and lean on Him. It won’t go away easily, the desires and temptations, and satan will do anything he can to prevent you from trusting in God. But you aren’t alone. “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2). Please, come to Christ. He is waiting.  

If you ever want to (and absolutely no pressure whatsoever). You can message me, and I’ll give you my email if you want to chat further. I’d love that, but the last thing I want to do is make you creeped out, lol. I honestly want to walk alongside you in this time, and offer what advice I can. I’m praying for you, babe.  

[hazyaltcare]

Hello! I'm not sure if this counts as a request, but if it does, please disregard this ask as I know you're Requests are currently closed (and I'll send it in at another time)

But I was wondering how do you cope(?) With things that you did in your kin life? I was a pretty shitty person (I would say who I am but I think one of the mods either is an alter of/kins someone that I hurt in that source [even if from a different cannon] so I don't want to trigger anyone/g) and I've just been remembering a lot of things that I did and hurt people with recently and it's making me depressed ;; ik it doesn't affect my life now but I still feel terrible. And I don't really have anyone from my cannon to talk to about it and my head mates are a little tentative on me talking about it (esp bc my inner world form is of said kin so if it makes them uncomfortable?) But I understand bc I know a lot of what I did is also topics that are really triggering to them in this life, and the bodies partner/s is super triggered by a lot of topics so I can't talk to them either.. I'm not super sure what to do bc I feel really alone when it comes to my cannon ;;

Anyway I'm really sorry for the rambles and even if this counts as a req and I don't get an answer atm, I really just needed to vent it out I guess.

Sincerely, a really distressed and depressed boiyo (Signoff -V)

Now, this may be an understatement, but everyone has done things they aren't proud of. I personally don't think its healthy to try to hold yourself accountable for crimes committed in another timeline. If its someone in our system who was in some form harmed by your actions in another timeline, I can almost guarantee that while some here certainly have their trauma, nobody would hold it against you. Some of us have done terrible, unexcusable things in other timelines.

Its okay to let go of the guilt you feel about it. If you needed permission or a sign to let go of it, consider this it. If you need somewhere to vent, well, we're here for that too.

Stay strong anon,

Mod Haze (🥧Fiona)

[bloody-wonder]

Hi...first if all I want to thank you for your blog....you are one of the only one on tumblr (that I know of) that focus on books and I love it....I learn so much from your blog....Because you already answer your top favorite books, can I ask the worst books that you ever finished (and why do you dislike them)? Also, do you have any favorite for the classical books group (usually that we have to read in school)? Sorry for the long ask.....

i gotta say i like to pick up trashy books on purpose sometimes so that's not the book's fault bc that's what it says on the tin lol but if we're talking about legit acclaimed books some of the worst ones i've read would be american gods by neil gaiman (i just dislike everything about how he writes), vicious by ve schwab (she couldn't write a character if her life depended on it, i was recommended this book for three different reasons and it managed to disappoint on all accounts, also short pov change timeline change chapters should burn in hell this is not a fucking movie this is a book), the historian by elizabeth kostova (one of if not the longest and most boring book i've ever read, vampire books are not allowed to be this dull it's against the law), look back in anger by john osborne (men derogatory), stranger in a strange land by robert heinlein (tbh i only vaguely remember the plot but i have a distinct memory of being weirded out and grossed out by everything), find me by andre aciman (a perfect example of a sequel that shouldn't have ever been written) and finally if we were villains by ml rio (the fact that this bland and shallow secret history ripoff is more popular bc it's more "accessible" or whatever infuriates me, this is my book nemesis, i want to fight it)

i used to read almost exclusively classics in childhood and in my teens, not so much anymore, but i do still have lots of favorites from this category. in my all time faves post i already mentioned eugene onegin, confusion by stefan zweig, the three musketeers, the hunchback of notre dame, wuthering heights and crime and punishment. i can add many more but for that i need the ask to be more specific. for now let's just do one for each language i can read in :)

martin eden by jack london - a robust sailor discovers knowledge and literature, becomes depressed. very dark academia

dangerous liaisons by choderlos de laclos - two morally corrupt people manipulate, gaslight and lovebomb for fun and profit. hadn't known you could just publish a novel about fucking back in the 18th century before i read this

the forest song by lesia ukrainka - a forest nymph falls in love with a mortal man, as you do. tragedy ensues

their pavel by marie von ebner-eschenbach - a peasant boy gets screwed by life over and over and over again but rises from the ashes each time. very inspirational (the english title is weird, in german it's called the community child)

fathers and sons by ivan turgenev - a young man thinks he's smarter than everyone else bc he discovered marxism and atheism. would be a shame if he fell in love like all those fools who believe in feelings or smth

[swansong-of-occhiolism-blog]

So it seems I actually used you, once. Although it's been a minute. Life update for this decade:

Diagnosed with bipolar ii, gen+soc anxiety, ADD

Soon to be 6 years clean! One small slip off the wagon, half a bean (that's speed or amphetamine for you future web archaeologists) and then I reached out to A (7 year anniversary tomorrow!) I flushed the rest (I'm so sorry for the pollution but it was the right thing for me in that moment to reduce harm ♡)

Yeah, I still get regular cravings. At least bi-weekly, still daily when I'm stressed.

I know I'm full-blown looneypants from crazy town, but I'm also starting to wonder if these disorders, more and more of which are appearing in our youth post-covid, are merely symptoms of a woefully broken social structure rather than 'disorders,' and as a "trauma survivor" (I still loathe that label. It reduces me to only what I've overcome, ignoring any outgrew aspect of what makes me, me!) or something I would have experienced in any timeline and regardless of nepotism.

Regardless which is true, our system is broken. If I couldn't consistently beg+borrow, I would still be homeless, now with 2 children and a spouse. Average rent in my area is nearly $2k/mo for a 2-bedroom attached. ODSP (Ontario disability support program) ensures that my household has 1900/mo for the 4 of us, so that basically covers necessary travel and groceries (milk is up to $12 for 4L!?), along with utilities, and leaves a few hundred for rent. I can sometimes find and do odd jobs, but generally I'm doing, how do you say.. ah -- FUCKING TERRIBLY

I'm still struggling with my depression and anxiety, and I'm worse off financially, socially, by just about any other useful and real metric since becoming sober.

That means the bad guys are winning. And the winners write the history, and apparently rewrite it a century or more later to allow and even positively frame their bigotry and hatred. Will my death even be recorded when it finally comes? Or will I be a rounded-down, modal average, "miscellaneous civilian loss by township," (or some other overly watered down by semantics, or even outright fabricated and 'verified' statistic) during what I'm terrified is becoming a more and more certain class war between the ultra wealthy 700 people who effectively control EVERY RESOURCE AND LAW ON OUR PLANET OF 8+ BILLION.

I want better than this for my children, and I feel guilt daily for forcing them to experience this world that I still don't feel like I belong in. My utopia is so far past socialism that it makes communism look like gluttony. I'll take a moment to ramble about that, even:

Imagine, if you will, a world where the only thing "yours" are internal. Your love, your relationships, your soul/energy/what-have-you, while material things from here belong to everyone living here. You step outside the group or individual residence you choose to spend last night in.

At least one person truly fucking LOVES this area, maybe it's the flora and fauna, maybe it's geophysical, maybe it's tied to something intrinsic to them, like a cherished memory. But that person will voluntarily make every effort to keep that place safe and awesome for everyone 20 of 30 days of the month, and love that they're doing that. You love symbiotic landscaping, so you take a moment to appreciate your recently planted garden before going to the first vehicle that looks like you want it for this ride. You hop in, choose between manual or automatic road+mode, and push the button ignition. Thank God (the charging station installation specialist) because everywhere you can reasonably park will charge any parked vehicle! You head to the food library and check to see who and what is available. SCORE!! There's a griller here today! Let's grab some <full of nutrients, lacking in junk, GMO BBQ> on a fresh baked bun. Even though it's the 20th time they've made this exact same sandwich today, the griller is pumped to hand you your steaming bamboo plate and a smile splits their face as you smile at just the scent of your meal. And now, you're ready to go plant some more gardens and forests!

Obviously, I could live forever further inventing this fantasy world of mine, and is got some obvious kinks and necessary disclaimers (like disability devices/vehicles, needing a quiet night while buddy in the next room needs a CPAP, etc) but if I don't come back to reality now I'm afraid I'll leave it too far behind for a bit too long and have a complete rainbow-pill meal for a while, so I'm going to instead read on someone else's fantastic creations.

Sorry this was so jumbled and semi-dissociated, I'm having a (not completely terrible, but) bad day.

On that note, 0-5 ascending scale::

Irritability: 2

Anxiety: 5

Mood: 1

Ability to direct focus: 2

Short-term to long-term memory exchange: 1

Highlights of the day:

Very nearly shed my first tear since my "i lost my daddy-father" day, december 23, 2022. I sobbed as if I would soon be dehydrated, I moaned and wailed into a pillow in the cellar (we're chez Mami aujourd'hui) and my eyes welled enough that squeezing them tightly (enough to cause shaking throughout my head+neck muscles) let one wet the pillow. It was a pink butterfly pillow, with pink and purple sequins, and a blue carapace (or the papillion equivalent)

Until/Unless I write again, goodbye.

[maplecornia]

chapter 9

𝔴𝔬𝔯𝔡 𝔠𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔱: 2.61K

𝔤𝔢𝔫𝔯𝔢: romance | slice of life | fluff | angst | bts x female!reader | ot7

𝔰𝔲𝔪𝔪𝔞𝔯𝔶: You watched them from the sidelines ever since you were a young teenage girl. Now you’re grown up, they’ve returned after 2 long years and everything has changed. What happens when you pull back the mask and find the darkness within? What happens when you see that they’re broken?

𝔞/𝔫: this chapter makes me laugh, especially the scene with Jojo and Namjoon.

𝔴𝔞𝔯𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤𝔰: cliffhangers | angst | fluff | slight mentions of self hatred | depression | mental health illness | self harm | occurs in the year 2024 | set in a timeline where BTS went to the military together | slight language

tags:@kookaine |@fangirl125reader |@kookiebbyxx |@taradevonne

You’ve been waiting for an hour.

Tilting your head back, you sigh, extremely bored.

You've tried everything you could think of to bypass the time. Reading, writing, watching YouTube, then switching over to Netflix, even attempting to doze in the slightly uncomfortable waiting room chair.

None of them have worked.

Currently, you're doodling in your sketchbook, but no concrete idea comes to mind for the sketch. Leaving you with tiny flowers, faces, and body parts on the page as though it were a practice sheet.

Peering over the sketchbook, you scan the room for any sign of life, but as the day has dragged on, so has the crowd.

You don't see any sign of Kim Namjoon anywhere, and the receptionist hasn't called you over ever since you turned in the forms she gave you. Uninterested, your eyes glazing over, you pull out your phone, peering at the time.

12:30 pm.

Heaving a sigh, you tilt your head back, the music playing through your GalaxyBuds. Yet it does no good to lift your spirits.

You suppose it's only fair, you made him wait, now it's his turn.

Setting your phone down once more, you purse your lips, as your gaze falls on a flower swaying in the wind outside.

It's the only flower you can see amongst the bush. It stands almost forlornly in the midst of multiple of its fellow brethren withered around it. Still, it stands strong, unwilling to fall victim to the harsh weather outside.

A thought crossing your mind, you turn to your sketchbook, quickly turning the page and beginning a vigorous sketch before you lose your idea.

Unbeknownst to you, as you progress halfway through the sketch, Kim Namjoon bursts into the lobby, looking out of breath and flustered.

He wears a bright white T-shirt, one with a small black Nike emblem across his left pectoral muscle. It hangs sort of loose around his neck, his collarbone visible as cooling sweat causes him to glisten like a bright star.

It's not as noticeable, considering that he wears a thick black sweatshirt zipped down around his shoulders. It's simple, with thin white stripes running down the sleeves and white soft underlining to it.

The black sweats he wears seem to fit with the outfit, the same white stripes running down each pant leg. Each piece of clothing has a Nike emblem on it and pairs well with the white Nike AirForces he wears on his feet.

They’re simple but rich clothes and bring to mind the same clothes Jungkook was wearing before.

The cooling sweat on his skin and the way his hair falls a bit messily underneath his cap could lead to the presumption that they were doing a major dance practice before all of this.

No matter the case, he didn't expect the meeting to take this long, and he feels terrible for making you wait, despite everything. As he looks for any sign of you, he doesn't find any.

Worried that you have already left, he knocks on the front desk, gathering the attention of the receptionist that helped you earlier. Kim Jojo raises her head, and as she catches sight of RM, her eyes widen just the slightest bit, but not enough for him to notice.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Namjoon, what can I--”

“Yes, yes hello.” Namjoon interrupts her, too panicked to care about formalities.

He wants to catch you before you get tired of waiting and leave. First impressions are everything to him, and if he has a bad one…Shaking the worry away, he leans forward over the counter separating the receptionist from him and she flinches away at the sudden closeness.

RM either doesn't notice or doesn't care, but either way, he meets her with an intent stare, every word uttered from his lips urgent and careful.

“Has anyone by the name of Lin Yen come in?” The receptionist opens her mouth to respond but before she can say anything, he holds up a finger.

A thought having crossed his mind, he reaches into his back pocket, bringing out his phone. He tries to bring up the picture of you while Jojo stands there, half in shock, half in annoyance. As soon as he finds it, he lets out a little victory shout, one that startles her.

Grinning, he presents it to her, and she peers at a strange picture of you. After she looks at it, Jojo pulls back, her brows crinkling in confusion.

“She looks like this. If she came in, could you please tell me? I've been waiting since 8:00 this morning to meet her.” Jojo sighs, trying to gain her composure before responding.

“Mr. Namjoon--” she begins, but Namjoon interrupts once more.

“She’s my new assistant, you see, and I need to begin her training today. She needs to know the ropes before our busy season comes back around.” He explains, pulling the phone back and trying to pocket it once more.

Instead, he ends up knocking over a container filled with an assortment of pens and pencils. Surprised, he fumbles to pick it up but ends up spilling it all over the floor. Cursing under his breath, he reaches down to pick up some pencils that have fallen.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, Jojo picks up the container, righting it on the counter with a loud thud. Startled, RM glances up at her eyes wide, and she smiles sweetly.

“Please, just leave it.” She says between her teeth. He shrugs, almost reluctantly standing. She sighs in relief, carefully putting the pens and pencils back in their place.

“Now...Mr. Namjoon, please listen--” once more, she cannot finish, Namjoon unable to shut up to save his life.

“I’m sorry, but if you need any more information on her I could--”

“Kim Namjoon!” This time it's Jojo's turn to interrupt him, her patience finally wearing thin.

RM instantly falls silent, a bit surprised at the outburst.

Jojo takes a steadying breath before continuing.

“Now, the person you are talking about has already come in. I told her you were in a meeting and had her wait in the waiting room for you to return.” At the information, RM turns to the waiting room where he catches sight of you for the first time in real life.

He notices you vigorously sketching out your idea. Smiling, he can't help but smile at the familiarities he finds in you. You look exactly like the picture Jaejin sent, despite how weird it was.

“I had expected to receive a notice of your return, so I could send her to you, but now that you're here….” Namjoon turns away from you and flashes his contagious smile at Jojo who is once more taken aback.

“Thank you,” Namjoon says with gratitude, reaching across the desk and holding her hand as he bows before turning away.

Jojo, watching him go, turns beet red before collapsing behind the desk in exhaustion. Another fellow receptionist cries out with alarm before tending to her in concern.

You, once more, having no awareness of the events happening around you, continue to sketch. Having finished the rough sketch you begin to define every line, detail, and curve. As you work, you bite the inside of your cheek, sometimes licking your lips in your trance of concentration.

When you're lost in your mind of imagination and creativity, nothing from the outside world can distract you.

And yes, that also includes a very tall, very real version of Kim Namjoon striding towards you.

You don't look up as he comes within a few feet in front of you. You don't even notice as he bends to your eye level, trying to catch your attention. It doesn't break your concentration, even as you reach for an eraser, lightly humming to the music playing in your ears. He smiles, almost laughing at your concentration before he covers his mouth, trying to be quiet so that you don't notice he’s there.

Trying to tease you, he carefully (as much as he’s able) sits down next to you. He was planning on pulling out one of your GalaxyBuds and surprising you, but as he catches a glimpse of your work, he’s stopped cold.

It's breathtaking.

You have created an awestruck image of a woman, on her knees. She wails out in agony as she sits amongst a pile of ash, flecks of it falling around her as though there's a fire burning nearby.

However, that’s not what catches Namjoon’s eye.

Amongst the ash, if anyone looks closely, they'll be able to see that there are small, scattered remains of bones hidden.

She sits amongst them, wailing, the look on her face one of pure anguish and sorrow as the ash from the fading bones stains her skin and her dress.

As though she has lost everyone she’s held, dear.

RM can't seem to look away, entranced by the grotesque beauty of the image and the talent of the artist.

He admires the way you set it up, the way you created the girl imperfectly, but still real. Because after all, who in real life is perfect? As he watches your pencil move expertly across the page, he can't help but think that with each stroke, the creation grows more and more lifelike.

As though she were truly crying out in the pain her heart brings. As though she were alive and breathing.

Almost against his wishes, his hand reaches out to touch the paper, if only to make sure that the actual sketch is truly a mere fabrication of pencil and paper.

As his fingers graze the parchment, that is when you snap out of your concentration.

Eyes widening, you jolt up straight, immediately turning to look at your side.

As soon as your eyes meet Namjoon’s, his hand flinches off the paper. He lets out a soft gasp as he flinches away, surprised by your sudden attention.

Just like with Jungkook, you're frozen in place.

Unable to move.

Unable to function.

Unable to speak.

And just like Jungkook, Namjoon is the same way.

But for a different reason.

He was caught in the act, and he doesn't know what to do.

Your eyes hold him in a sort of bind.

For a moment he forgets what he was doing there, he forgets what his purpose is, for a moment he even forgets why you are there.

For a split second, it's just you and him in a pocket in space.

Your eyes holding his, his eyes holding yours.

Kim Namjoon.

The leader of BTS. The first member of the group you have grown to love. Talented, handsome, a practical genius, he is just as mature and intimidating as you expected him to be.

Despite how close the two of you are sitting, he still seems larger than life, and for a moment, you wonder if he’s even real.

He doesn't seem like it after all.

His skin seems too real, too perfect. His hair is too soft, too smooth. His eyes are too warm and too brown.

Almost exactly like the milky chocolate brown you’ve seen so often in so many photos, except for one thing.

As you stare into them, you can see life so clearly alight in them. How they reveal so many emotions at the same time. There are so many that it's almost impossible to read them at all. Serene and peaceful, they are poets' eyes.

So emotional, yet so mysterious and secretive at the same time.

Dreamboat eyes.

“Kim Namjoon?” you whisper, almost unsure if it's him or not.

As you do, his face makes that mixed expression between confusion and amusement as he chuckles softly, looking away and breaking the connection. Holding his hand up to his mouth, he nods, clearing his throat, but not saying anything for a moment.

“Yes, that's who I am, and you must be...Lin Yen?” your heart jumps at the fact that he knows your name.

Speechless, all you can do is nod mutely as he utters another adorable chuckle, one that always seems to remind you of Goofy.

“Jaejin didn't tell me you were an artist.” As soon as he says that, you notice that your sketchbook is still open, and showcasing your imperfect, unready sketch.

Panicking, you fumble to get it closed. Blushing, you hug it tightly to your chest, as though it could erase the fact that he just got a sneak peek into your very soul.

“What's wrong? It was good!” RM asks, worried.

Biting your bottom lip in trepidation, you shake your head, hiding your face.

“Don't lie….” you mumble.

You know it wasn't close to being done, and it wasn't nearly as perfect as it could have been. You're quite disappointed in it at the moment. You feel as though it was too rushed due to the many ideas pouring out from your brain at the exact moment.

As you take an ashamed peek at Namjoon, you find him staring at you, a slight smile playing on his lips.

“What's wrong, are you okay?” he asks, tilting his head as though you were a shy child. You smirk, playing along and nodding very slowly before he continues.

“I see. You should know, however, that you are very talented.” At the compliment, you snort in disbelief, shoving the sketchbook and pencils back safely in your satchel.

“Please.” You sigh. “I know I'm no Picasso, and certainly not talented.”

Finished with packing your art supplies, you are reminded of the reason you are here. A blush of shame appearing on your cheeks, you turn to Namjoon, a bit guiltily.

“And I’m also not known as the bird to rise before the worm.” RM seems a bit confused before you stand and bow to him in apology.

“I am so sorry for being late today. You see I….”

Remembering the receptionist's words from before, you decide to keep the reason to yourself.

“....I have nothing to say for myself. I'm sincerely sorry.”

“Please, there’s no need for that,” Namjoon responds, standing himself and tapping you on the shoulder.

At the touch, you stand straight, only to find an extremely tall man standing before you, looking more intimidating than before. Heart beating fast you gulp, stepping back a bit.

Luckily, he doesn't notice your act of distance and just smiles at you before continuing.

“After all, I was late as well, so let's call it even, huh?”

You smirk and nod, thankful that he’s not too angry about it, but it doesn't completely erase your guilt.

“But now that you mention it….” Namjoon starts and intrigued, you glance up to see him back up a bit as well.

Confused, you raise an eyebrow before he holds out his hand to you.

“My name is Kim Namjoon, I’ll be your boss during your time here. First and foremost, welcome to BigHit entertainment, I hope you enjoy your time working here with us.” He introduces himself, warmly.

Catching on, you take his hand, shaking it gently, and trying to ignore the fact that yours is much more like a child's compared to his.

“Hello, Mr. Namjoon! It's a pleasure to finally meet you, my name is Lin Yen and I look forward to working with you!” you respond, returning his grin with one of your own.

After you're finished introducing yourself, he releases your hand and steps back, taking your satchel in his hands and handing it to you.

“Well, Ms. Lin, are you ready to begin?” He asks, and you accept the offer, hiking the satchel on your shoulder before looking up at him in expectation.

“Where do we start?”

𝔫𝔬𝔱𝔢: first day at work is finally starting, yall excited? eheheehehe get ready for some namjooon and yen moments to come

chapter 10 here

check the Infinite Stars masterlist for more chapters

check my BTS masterlist for other BTS content

check out my masterlist for other kpop fanfics

[imaginationintowords]

Folklore [song series]

this is me trying

Modern Day AU! Steve Rogers x OC!Reader; Bucky Barnes x Natasha Romanoff

Plot: Inspired by Taylor Swift’s new album folklore. The story follows the timeline of Bucky and Elizabeth’s life throughout the years.

word count: 3592

[a/n: I’m so sorry that it’s taken me so long to update this and my other story. i’ve been busy with school and work. thank you for your continued patience and support]

previous part

Series Masterlist

Age: 20 Year: Dec. 2014 Location: Brooklyn, NY

"How have you been James?”

Bucky looks out the window to his right. Hands grasped together in his lap as he sits on the dark green sofa across from the woman he's been seeing for the last 5 months.

He ponders the question, making sure to answer it honestly. He looks back at her giving her his full attention again.

"Good," he answers truthfully, a small smile planted on his face. Life has been good. School is going incredibly well. My job is going better than I could've imagined. Really learning a lot."

"How are things going with Natasha?" The older lady asks.

“Great. Really great," Bucky says with a slightly bigger smile.

"Good. I'm glad to hear that," she smiles back, proud to the see progress James has made since his first visit moths ago.

After the blow up he and Steve had, Bucky fell into a depressive state. He refused to talk to anyone about what had happened. It wasn't until his younger sister Rebecca came to talk to him:

"I get you don't want to talk to any of us about what happened last week," she said as Bucky laid in bed looking out the window, his back facing her, "But you can't just stay in bed, hiding for the world. Starving yourself isn't going to solve anything.

"Sulking is only going to make you worse. It's not healthy, Buck. We're all worried. Ma is incredibly worried. She's barely been eating. I hear her wandering the house at all hours, because she can't sleep."

"You don't want to talk to us, fine. But you need to talk to someone. If not for yourself, but for Ma. Please," she begs, before leaving Bucky alone to ponder what she said.

He knew he wasn't coping the healthy way. He hadn't realized how much he was affecting his family by shutting down. The last thing he wanted to do was worry his mother. So he got himself up, took a shower, ate breakfast with his family. They were surprised to see him come down, but tried not to draw any extra attention to it. Rebecca gave him an understanding nod, which he reciprocated. After breakfast, he began his research. He decided to listen to Rebecca's advice and find someone to talk to someone to help him make sense of what is going on in his mind.

And that's how he ended up in Dr. Abraham's office.

"Have you contacted Steve yet?" She asks.

"No," he answered fiddling with his fingers, "I feel embarrassed about the way I reacted."

"That's normal, James," she assured him, "But in order to repair any damage that's been cost, you need to talk to Steve. To move forward. From what you've told me he's a very understanding person. I'm sure once you've apologized and explain to him the steps you've taken to help your mental health, I'm sure he'd be willing to accept you back into his life."

"I'm not so sure," he looked down at his hands.

"You won't know until you've tried. Listen, I'm not here to tell you what to do or what not to do. I'm just here to help you navigate your thoughts a little better. In a more healthy way. If you're really serious about living a more healthier mental life, I think you should talk to him. You don't want to really throw this lifelong friendship away, do you?"

"No, I don't," he shakes his head.

"Good. Remember to be honest," she tells him, "Vulnerability isn't a bad thing. Your feelings aren't a nuisance. it's how you handle them is what matters. I'm not saying you have to talk to him as soon as you walkout of here. I just want you to start making the notion of doing so. Our time is just about up, how about we do this. Some homework for the week.

"I want you to write a letter to Steve. Bring it in next week, you don't have to read it. But I would like to discuss it. What do you say?"

"Okay, I could do that," he agreed.

Christmas week

Steve and Elizabeth flew back home a few days before Christmas. They put their bags in the trunk of their rental car.

The car ride was silent for awhile, both tired after a long flight, now sitting in traffic on their way back to their parents' place. This would be their first time back to Brooklyn since the whole Bucky situation. The road trip back to California was fun, but there was a looming sadness over Steve. It's not like he regrets standing up to Bucky he doesn't. He just wishes thing would've played out differently. He really wished Bucky would've talked to him before he left back to California.

"How are you feeling about being back?" Elizabeth asks, while they sat in traffic.

"I don't know," Steve sighs, "Feels weird going back home and not talking to Bucky."

"Maybe you should try calling him. It's been a few months. I'm sure he'd be willing to hear you out," she said, rubbing his right arm.

"I don't want to push him," Steve said through gritted teeth, his grip on the steering wheel getting tighter.

Bucky had been a touchy subject the last few months. During the first month Elizabeth would ask Steve if he'd heard from him, the answer always being no, followed by Steve shutting down. After that Elizabeth stopped asking, noticing how much it was affecting Steve, but the constant reminder of it wasn't helping. She knew that if Bucky ever did call, Steve would tell her. The only thing she could do was be patient and be there for Steve whenever he needed her.

The holidays kept everyone busy. On Christmas Eve. Steve spent it with Elizabeth's family at her grandma's house. Elizabeth found herself watching Steve play with her younger cousins, she couldn't help but giggle when they roped him into a tea party. She found herself imagining a future where Steve would do the same with their own children. She quickly shook the daydream away. Reprimanding herself a little for even thinking about kids at their young age.

On Christmas morning Elizabeth and Steve spent it with his parents. It was a nice peaceful day just lounging around in their pajamas. For dinner, Elizabeth's parents went over to have dinner at the Rogers' house. It was a nice little send off dinner for their parents who were leaving for Mexico to spend the New Years for a couples' getaway.

Elizabeth and Steve were heading to the Hamptons to spent NYE with Wanda, Thor, Loki, and Scott. They had planned to have a nice, peaceful trip.

While Steve and Elizabeth were at the Hamptons, Bucky and Natasha were spending their NYE at his family's beach cottage in Port Washington.

They were cuddled on the couch surrounded by take out containers, watching the New Years Eve special waiting for midnight to happen.

Bucky got up about 15 minutes to midnight to grab something from the kitchen. He walked back into the room with a new bottle of champagne and two champagne flutes.

"Got some champagne," he said holding it up for Natasha to see.

"Um," Natasha awkwardly shifted in her seat, "Actually about that."

Bucky looked at Nat confused, putting the bottle and flutes down on the coffee table before sitting back down next to her.

"What's wrong" he asked, grabbing the tv remote to mute the tv, and give Natasha his full undivided attention.

"So there's something I haven't told you," she says looking down at her fidgeting fingers.

"You're worrying me Nat," Bucky said, grabbing her hands to help ease her nerves

She looked up to meet his worry filled eyes.

"I'm pregnant," she announced.

Bucky eyes widen at her announcement, instantly dropping her hands. The look on her face showing she was telling the truth.

"How is that possible?" He asks in disbelief, "We've been so careful. We use double the protection. Condoms and you're on the pill."

"Actually about that," she nervously shifted under his intense gaze, "I haven't been on birth control in a little over two months."

"What?" Bucky yelled, quickly rising from his seat, "What do you mean you haven't been on birth control in a little over two months?"

"I got off of it," she shrugged trying to play it off, "It's my body and I can do what I want with it. And I just wanted to give my body a break, I've been on the pill since I was 15."

"I get it's your body, Natasha, I'm all for you doing whatever you want," he stresses, "but you should've told me. I'm your boyfriend, we have sex frequently. You should've at least had the respect of your sexual partner, letting him know that you were no longer on birth control. So in that case I could've been a tad more careful."

"We were using condoms," she half heartedly defended herself.

"They aren't 100% effective Natasha," he gripped his hair, in complete disbelief over this entire conversation, "You even know that. That also doesn't defend yourself for not telling me. You should've told me."

"I'm sorry. It's not like I was planning for this to happen," she yelled.

Bucky just stared at her like she just grew two heads. How is she not freaking out, he thought. They were clearly way too young for this. Which is why they took precautionary measures.

After a few moments of silence Natasha spoke up, "I'm keeping the baby."

Bucky didn't know what to say. He felt the room closing in on him. He started having a hard time catching his breath.

"James," Natasha quietly said, getting up to check on him. He raised his hand, silently telling her to stay where she's at.

He headed for the back door, the house felt too suffocating for him. He walked through the the small yard to the gate that led to the beach. Stumbling around.

To a stranger they would just think he's drunk. In reality he was just having a panic attack.

It was all too much. His mind was racing.

She's pregnant. With a baby. My baby. I'm going to have a kid. I'm going to be a dad. I'm not ready to be a dad. My dad was shit. God I can't be like my dad. I'm not ready for all of this.

He put his hands on his knees, hunched over trying to catch his breath. But he just couldn't. He did the only thing he could think of. He pulled out his phone and dialed the only person he knew would help.

Steve and Elizabeth were laughing with their friends, waiting for the countdown to begin. Steve felt his phone vibrating in his pocket. He moved his shoulder off of the back of the couch, where Elizabeth was cuddled up against.

He pulled his phone out and his heart dropped at the name that appeared. He quickly got up and walked out of the living room and upstairs to the room where he was staying in for the week.

Wanda raised her eyebrow at Elizabeth, who just shrugged her shoulders, equally as confused.

"Bucky?" Steve answered the phone, closing the door behind him. He could hear Bucky hyperventilating on the other side.

"Steve," he tried to get out.

"Buck, what's wrong?" Steve asked, pressing the phone even closer to his ear the sound of everyone downstairs counting down to midnight.

"Steve, I-," Bucky was struggling to get out.

"Buck, please try to calm down," Steve stressed, "Inhale, hold it for a few seconds and then exhale. You need to calm down. I can't help you, if I can't understand you."

Bucky tried his best to calm himself down, with Steve talking him through it.

"Now, can you explain to me what's wrong?" Steve asked, hearing Bucky's breathing leveling out more.

"I-I'm not re-ready Steve," Bucky stutters, sniffling his nose.

"It's okay take your time, I'm here whenever you're ready."

"No, it's Natasha.”

"What's Natasha? Is she okay?" Steve questioned, getting more concerned.

"Yes, she's fi-ine," he stuttered again, trying to say the words.

"Where are you Buck?" Steve asked, looking around for his shoes and keys.

"I'm at the beach cottage."

"I'm in the Hamptons. Is there any way you can meet me back at my place?"

"Yeah, I think I can," Bucky said a bit more calmer now.

"Okay, I'll see you soon."

When midnight struck Elizabeth went upstairs to check on Steve, making sure everything was okay. She could hear him on the phone talking to Bucky, trying to calm him down. She waited outside of the door to give them some privacy.

Twenty minutes later Wanda went to go check on them, to find Elizabeth sitting on the floor.

"Is everything okay?" She whispered.

"I don't know," she answered, "I'm waiting for Steve. You can head back down, I'll be down shortly."

"Okay. We're here if you guys need anything," Wanda said before walking back down.

After another 25 minutes Elizabeth heard Steve hang up the phone. She softly knocked on the door, and let herself in. She walked in to see Steve frantically going around the room collecting his things.

"Steve is everything okay?"

"It's Buck. He called me while he was having a panic attack. Something about Natasha," he tells her.

"Is she okay?"

"I think so. I was able to calm him down. I need to get back home," he said putting his things in his suitcase.

"Okay. I completely understand. Do you want me to go with you for the drive?" She asked.

"I don't want you to have to cut your time here short," he says, feeling guilty for bringing this on her.

"Steve, something is clearly going on with Bucky. I want you to go to him, but maybe it's best if I drove. I haven't had a drink in hours, and you seem too frantic. Please let me help," she pleaded, placing her hand on his stopping him.

Steve looked up and noticed the worry on Elizabeth's face.

"Okay," he gave in, "We'll need to leave as soon as we can."

Elizabeth nodded, quickly grabbing her weekender bag and start shoving things in. If they forgot anything's he knew Wanda would bring it back.

They said their quick goodbyes and were on the road within 5 minutes, with Elizabeth behind the wheel and Steve fidgeting in the passenger seat.

Bucky took a few minutes to himself on the beach, trying to make sure his anxiety was at rest before he headed back inside. When he entered the house, Natasha shot up from her seat.

"Happy New Years," she awkwardly said, trying to cut the obvious tension.

"Umm," Bucky scratched his head looking everywhere but at Natasha, "We need to leave."

"What?"

"I mean, you can stay if you want and I'll pick you up tomorrow," he rephrased, "But I can't stay here. I need to go. Steve is meeting me at his house."

"Steve?" She was taken back by that mention, not expecting to hear Bucky say his name. He hasn't mentioned Steve in months.

"Yeah, I called him," Bucky says rubbing the back of his neck.

"Well that's good right?"

"Yeah, listen. I really need to go, so are you going to stay or come with me?"

"To see Steve?"

"No. I would drop you off at your place," he tells her, "I'm seeing Steve alone."

"Will she be there?"

Natasha didn't really know exactly why Steve and Bucky weren't talking, at first. Then she heard that Steve and Elizabeth were dating, and it all made sense. The only person that could tear Bucky and Steve apart. She never told Bucky that she knew. Figured it wasn't worth the fight. Especially not now when she was carrying his child.

To an outsider it might seem like she got pregnant on purpose, but that wasn't the case. She knew they were too young for this, at least that's what she thought when she first found out about the pregnancy a week ago. But now that she's sat with it she's taking it as a sign that this is meant to happen. She's just really hoping that Bucky would see it, if not now but eventually.

"Listen, Natasha, I don't have time for this," he looks her in the eyes, "Are you coming or not?"

"I'll get my bag," she remarked with a snark tone, walking passed him to their shared room.

A couple of hours later Bucky was pulling up in front of the Rogers' house. 2:15 am read the clock in his car. He looked to his right, out the passenger side window to see a dark figure sat on the front steps of the house.

Bucky took one last breath before exiting the vehicle.

As soon as he opened the front gate Steve stood up from where he was sat on the stairs.

Once Bucky approached him both young men threw their arms around each other. Gripping each other tightly, fighting back the tears that threatened to fall. They stayed like that for awhile. Relishing in the comfort of being back in each other's arms. Their silent fight no longer important. All they knew in that moment was everything was going to be okay, because no matter what they'll always have each other.

Steve walked into his parents' living room holding two mugs of coffee. As he rounded the couch, he handed one to Bucky.

"Sorry, if I ruined any of your plans," Bucky apologized, "Tell Elizabeth I'm sorry for taking you away."

'Buck, don't worry about it," Steve waved him off, "She completely understands. And truth be told, I wasn't necessarily feeling in the New Year's mood."

"Yeah," Bucky sighs.

"Do you want to talk about what happened tonight?" Bucky nods his head, placing the coffee mug on the coffee table in front of him. He shifted his body to the left to face Steve.

"She's pregnant," he announces.

"What?" Steve asked, not expecting that to be the reason, he quickly placed his mug next to Bucky's.

"Yeah, my reaction exactly," Bucky said.

"What? How?"

"Apparently Natasha hasn't been on the pill in a couple of months," Bucky explains, "And even though we always used condoms, they aren't exactly 100% effective."

"Did you know she wasn't on the pill?"

"Nope," Bucky tells him, "If I knew I wouldn't been a bit more cautious."

"So she told you she was pregnant?" Steve said getting back to it.

"Yeah. She was so nonchalant about it. Like it was no big deal," Bucky stressed,

"How is she just so calm. We're not prepared for this. I'm not ready for this Steve. I can't be a dad. I don't even know how to be a decent human being."

"That's not true Buck," Steve disagreed.

"Come on Steve, we haven't talked in months, and we both know it's not because you didn't try," Bucky says, "I was so caught up in my own jealousy. And selfishness, that I never even considered your feelings or Elizabeth's. And I don't think I can ever make it up to you for treating you like you're nothing to me."

"You were hurt," Steve tried to excuse.

"Doesn't excuse the way I behaved," Bucky says, "I know that now."

"I've been seeing a therapist," Bucky informs him, "I never realized how much my mental health was taking a toll on those around me. So after our fight, I found someone to talk to. To work through the shit that's going on in my mind."

"How's that been going?" Steve asked.

"Good," Bucky gives a half smile, "Really good. She's good. I've realized a lot about myself that I didn't know. Working through all the issues I've had with my father leaving."

"That's good Buck. I'm proud of you, truly," Steve beamed, patting Bucky on the shoulder.

"I really am sorry for the way I behaved," Bucky repeated again.

"Buck, you really don't have to apologize again," Steve told him.

"I need to Steve," he said, "I can't believe I acted that way. I should've been happy for you and Elizabeth. I'm glad you two have each other. Seriously. I couldn't imagine her with anyone better, same goes for you. I won't cause any more issues for you two. It's not worth not having you in my life. You're my brother Steve, and I don't want to miss anything."

"Thanks, Buck. It really means a lot to me to hear that," Steve smiles, "Because I don't want to miss anything in your life also."

"Yeah, especially now," he says, the reality of why they're there dawning back.

"How are you feeling now about the baby?"

"I don't know, man," Bucky shakes his head, "I'm afraid I'm going to screw this up, like everything else."

"But now you're working on that," Steve reminds him, "And you're not going to be doing this alone. You have people who are always going to be there. I may be in California now, but I'm just a phone call away. You're not alone. But you do have to try Buck. That's all that you can ever do. Try your best, no one's asking you to be perfect, but as long as you're trying your best, that's what's important."

Age: 21 Year: 2015

The sounds of a baby crying woke Bucky up from his sleep in the early depths of the morning. He quietly and quickly got out of bed, making his way to the small New York kitchen to make a bottle.

He walked into the small nursery where the two-month-old baby wailed from hunger.

"It's okay," Bucky shushed gently, picking up the small baby, "Daddy's here."

He adjusted the small baby in his arms before placing the bottle in the baby's mouth.

"There you go," he encouraged the small one, as soon as he heard the sounds of the baby drinking.

Bucky sat down on the chair in the corner of the room, opposite of the crib. He just stared as the newborn drank their bottle, while simultaneously falling asleep. Even though he was completely exhausted, he had never felt more happier. More at peace with where his life was at.

As long as he kept trying his best, he knows he can do this for the rest of his life.

[figues]

Hi Hannah! It's thesis anon again, it's been awhile. I've been doing fine and then I'm not again so I'm here for advice. I pass the final manuscript of my thesis in 7 weeks and I have not started with doing my data gathering and I missed a deadline for another class. I feel guilty and ashamed about it but can't make myself start doing the work. I am feeling depressed and can barely make myself get out of bed and I'm scared that I won't be able to pull myself together before it's too late. [1/2]

I can't really talk to anyone about it family or friends. I always feel like crying but I can't. I've just lost the little motivation, discipline, and confidence that I have. Do you think finishing the manuscript is possible even with that timeline? Thank you for your time and for listening, I hope you don't feel pressured to answer this. I feel embarrassed to even be having this problem but I don't know anyone else to ask. Thank you, and I will be grateful for any advice that you can give me.

hi! i’m so sorry you’re going through this. i will keep this answer short, but i mean all this in the most encouraging way. also everyone reading this please keep in mind that this is my personal opinion:

there's literally no reason to feel guilty or ashamed! 

i think that writing your thesis in 7 weeks is quite… normal. i don’t know a single person in real life who consistently spent more time on their thesis than that lol. if you start doing this, i definitely think that you can do it

what you need to do is shift your focus from feeling guilty about what you “should” have done (there’s literally nothing helpful in that) and from being anxious about not being able to finish to figuring out what it is you can do and doing it 

I’d encourage you to make a game plan: spend x number of weeks on collecting data, x number on processing it, and x number on actually doing the writing. schedule some time for tomorrow to sit down and do that. Do it on a piece of paper with your hands and tape it above your desk if you can 

set aside a number of hours (even if it’s like 2) to work on your thesis every day. When you do these sessions, focus on NOTHING but working on your thesis. Once you get in the flow, you will see that it’s coming together 

reward yourself often! Talk to yourself in a kind and encouraging way 

again, feeling depressed and anxious can be really isolating, but what you’re going through is really quite a normal student experience. So nothing to be ashamed about! Don’t feel pressured to talk about it with friends and family, but they might be more understanding than you think 

Best of luck and take care x