#and like before these attacks we had some conversations about social issues and etc that we don't agree with each other

[heavenknowsffs]

Wtf bro

[transmogrified-in-the-void]

Hey 18-20 year olds? You’ve only just started the hardest part of growing up: learning how the hell to do that and how to be an adult. And yeah, I’m in the same boat, here’s some things that have helped me so far

- a friend who is older than you

My best friend is 7 years older than me, and he’s been able to give me so much advice on personal philosophy, how to work on personal issues, etc.

- a friend who holds you accountable/is very honest with you

having a friend who will take you aside and tell you “x thing you’re doing is actually making y hard/unfun/stressful/etc.” is more valuable than yes men friends. These are the friends who will question life decisions if they seem to make you unhappy, in the pursuit of making sure you’re exactly where you need to be.

- learning how to make accountable apologies

Here’s how I structure my apologies now, and I’ve had not only good reactions and conversations afterwards, but I’ve had to use them in various ways. “I’m sorry about x. Y was happening, and instead of doing x thing I should have done z thing. Again, I’m sorry.” It not only has removed the loathed “but”, but it also allows for explanation and a plan on how to avoid it. I will also sometimes add “I’ll try my best to do z thing” if I know I’m going to need some time to fully erase the mistake if it was a habit, but in general that helps a lot.

- start trying to find who is a small dose person and who’s a large dose person

What is a small dose person? For example: I know someone who I can only be around for maybe an hour when with other people before I become irritated by their presence. Is it their fault I’m irritated by them? No, and they’ll never know I am. Because I’m only around them for around an hour once every few months. That’s small dose. It’s the “you’re not a bad person I just cannot be around you for long periods of time”.

- if things you read on social media/the internet make you emotional, restructure how you spend your time

Here’s a really hot take. For those who were tuned in for the dungeons and dragons drama, I’m about to tell you guys something crazy. The draft that was leaked was actually incredibly lenient (I can’t remember what it was called haha). How do I know this? I could tell I was getting a little heated and sent it to a friend who knows way more about that sort of stuff and asked for his opinion, and he told me about other examples of it that were more harsh but not lambasted. If you read a headline or a post or tweet and get up in arms, take a step back and take a breath. You don’t have the time to get emotional about every little thing, you’re too busy growing up.

- make friends or acquaintances who don’t believe the same thing as you

My best friend is a centrist who leans more right than left. I am more left leaning than he is by a good amount. We both have very enlightening conversations because of that. Here’s the funny thing, I do hold some right leaning beliefs anyways because that better supports the area I live in. I don’t want the government grabbing the land around me because they’ve proven to be incompetent. I’m fine with looser gun control because there have been times where mountain lions just. Appear in my city. We have an overpopulation of wolves right now. A few other ones I don’t feel like sharing. My friend has changed how he views certain issues and so I have I because we talk about what we disagree about. If they respect you, they’ll debate but not argue

- not everything is about you

Building off that last point, not every counterpoint is an attack on you. It can feel like it, because you’re still expanding the telescope you see out of into two working eyes (I’m still getting there too), so being able to say to yourself that this is either a) bigger than you or b) not about you at all can help you get through more conversations more levelheaded

- you’re in puberty

Final thing: your body is still a hormonal war zone. Emotions are heightened, thought processes are everywhere, you are still growing up. Give yourself time. And grace. And kindness.

[itsbinghebitch]

ok so here’s the tea

this is gonna be about build and the whole shitshow of last week. consider it more of a public diary entry on my part.

i want to preface this with saying i really regret my anger outburst. i think it’s a really complicated situation and it lacked a lot of tact on my part to insult other fans no matter how angry i was feeling in that moment. i consider myself a thoughtful person but idk sometimes i deal with severe mood swings that i can’t control which. yeah, that doesn’t excuse attacking other people. and yeah even if i perceived homophobia/bigoted attitudes in the fandom, i recognize that i there are fans who are really going through a hard time right now and painting their moral dilemma as ‘excusing homophobia’ is not helpful. 

i totally get that. i believe there can be productive conversations in this fandom. on the other hand, i don’t believe it was right for people to outright block me and alienate me when i expressed that, as a queer person, i cannot tolerate emerging attitudes in the fandom that excuse what build has said as simply manipulation on poi’s part. it’s a very difficult issue, because on the one hand you have the toxic/abusive relationship he clearly was in, and on the other you have an individual that has an enormous amount of growth to do, and an individual we all don’t know personally at that. it is, at the end of the day, a projection. who you think build is depends on your own experiences and philosophy on abuse, rehabilitation, nature vs nurture... so on and so forth.

it’s really heartbreaking to say, i’ve had so much trouble writing any vegaspete fic for a while now because however much i want to stick to the characters and not the actors, a little voice in my brain always reminds me of the whole build dilemma. and while before there might have been plausible deniability, that build had been wronged on so many fronts, now i can’t help but think of the comments he made on bible’s appearance. like did he think bible was ugly when filming with him. did he have bigoted/homophobic views as he was making vegaspete a reality, etc. 

so that’s where i’m at folks. i might be able to dispassionately discuss this issue, still engage with kpts for its narrative merits, love vegaspete for what it has meant to me for over a year. but at a gut level, i can’t help it. i am an INFJ cancer moon bitch which means i make judgments with my third eye or pussy or something and i believe that’s a feature rather than a moral flaw.

i will always find sympathy for other marginalized people in fandom. i really hope your time here has been a respite, however brief, from the general shittiness of everything (at least that’s what kpts fandom has been for me). but i think the moment fandom subsumes your identity in any way, the moment you start judging emerging fandom topics as ‘us vs. them,’ you really have to take a step back and ask yourself what the real issue is.

is the real underlying issue the fandom or is it the overall lack of transparency from the person we’re debating? is it some rando on the other side of the world in a forum of 200 people or is it celebrity culture, which is opaque by design? is it social media, meant to maintain your interest, endlessly tweet, endlessly consume, keep the money making machine going with just one small nudge? with just a few well-placed hashtags? with its slot game mechanism and gambling level addictiveness and constant abstraction of real people? what is that is *really* making me angry? 

because i don’t believe it’s another fan who, just like me, is trying to make it through today. that’s what i think. and that’s why i choose to step back and redirect my anger to the people with real power in this world. and that’s what i urge everyone to do when the going gets too crazy. 

[wri227philomena]

Google+, and Other Dead Websites | Class 2

Today I Learned:

The Limits of Social Media: What Social Media Can Be, and What We Should Hope They Never Become by Sam Srauy

One of the most surprising things to come out of this reading was the revelation that Myspace grew less popular in White markets as the website gained Black users. Srauy cites Danah Boyd's work here, published in 2012, which alleges that Myspace became a "virtual ghetto" (Boyd, by way of Srauy) during this time period. Contemporary to being assigned this reading, I also came across a brief video essay about the downfall of Myspace, detailing a more recent issue with the site's infrastructure, being that almost all content posted to the cite before 2015 has been lost due to server failure. While this statement may seem like a reach, I think it is important to acknowledge that there could be a racial element to Myspace's current hardware failures, as social websites which primarily cater to white users, ie. Facebook or X, continue to see longterm support by their developers, even as the websites grow less popular in the expanding market of social media. While I feel as though it is obvious that Facebook and X court a white userbase, I do feel compelled to cite the fact that X does not moderate literal Nazis unless compelled by law in any given nation, and Facebook exports its moderation labour to subaltern nations so as to avoid paying domestic labourers. In doing so, they compel subaltern employees to sift through hate speech, gore, illegal sex acts, etc, and pay them pennies in comparison to the wage they would be compelled to pay American employees. This is all to say, I can see what Boyd is talking about with regards to the 'ghetto-izing' effects of social media, and I appreciate Srauy's furthering of the conversation on the subject.

2. Social Media: A Phenomenon to be Analyzed by Danah Boyd

Speaking of Boyd! Boyd's admiration for the social internet is clear in their writing. I especially enjoyed their utopian vision of a "chance to start anew" (Boyd, 1) with regards to the transition between the early social internet and the Web 2.0 era. In my childhood, my mother was an early adopter of remote work, and our apartment in Toronto had Internet access that was a bit more beefy than that required for casual browsing. Because of this, both myself and my sibling were acquainted with the Internet rather younger than may have been entirely appropriate, both having personal laptops in grade school (c. 2007) before that became the norm. In addition, we moved from Toronto to a more rural town in Ontario, where some of our classmates didn't have Internet at home, and whose homes were legitimately not hooked up to the appropriate hardware to be serviced by major ISPs. The birth of the social internet as a utopian project does sort of harmonize with my nostalgia for early web hubs. With that said, I feel as though Boyd neglects to predict the fall of the Web 2.0 Epoch. In seeing Web 2.0 as a golden age for social media, our current peri-Web 3.0 webspace is completely unimaginable.

3. Five Reasons Why Google+ Died by Steve Denning

This article details five missteps in Google+'s operation as a social medium. "Spamming Grandma for Cash", "Believing it's own mission statement", "Listening to it's employees, not it's customers", "A Frontal Attack on an Established Network", and "Failure to Offer Something Genuinely New". As mentioned above, I was one of very few students in my elementary school to have home internet access, alongside a personal computer. Because of this, I was one of very few people in my IRL social circle to adopt Google+, though I had been using YouTube on my home computer frequently. I think that this is most of what led to my personal dissatisfaction with the platform: there was simply nobody on there. Denning says it best, "Libraries are wonderful things. But libraries have never been popular or profitable." Google+ lacked cool-factor. Something I learned from this article was that Google had attempted to get into the social media game before Google+, through services such as Orkut, established in 2004, Google Wave in 2009, and Google Buzz in 2010. The fact that I had been entirely blind to these platforms until reading Denning's article speaks both to the service's profound failure, but also Google's ability as a corporate power to clean up their mistakes and launder their image through the control of information in all other aspects of the social internet.

4. Lecture - Part 1, Feeling Outdated

I didn't realize that four years could cause such a rift in experience between my classmates and I. During these first two classes, as students were polled on their internet use, I realized just how behind the times I am, but also how behind the times I was during the same years they were discovering new social networks. For me, I adopted Facebook as soon as I could make an account--much to the chagrin of my mother, who had forbidden me from using FB until I was of the appropriate age as per Facebook's use guidelines at the time 😬. Even during the contemporary years, I never adopted Kik, and as such, can only know about how horrible that app was second-hand, from both the stories of my underclassmen as it happened in high school, and now, from students in this lecture who were able to back up those old stories. In this class, it surprised me how much of a market share Snapchat and WhatsApp still have! I always put Snapchat in the same boat as YikYak--a proximity-based social media that had chat rooms you could only access if your phone's telemetry detected you were in a specific location, which, looking back, was an insane premise for an app. All to say, I am glad that this class has broadened my horizons in terms of a more rounded view of tastes on the social internet.

5. Lecture - Part 2, Apple's 1984 Commercial

This commercial is absolutely insane. Like, the textual anti-facism, the sub-textual feminist messaging, given that the revolution is embodied by a woman. We discussed in this lecture, about the rise of different political movements in the age of computing, but this is such a particular and textural experience. It's the aping of anti-corporate politics in the pursuit of capital. It's the horrid mutation of Apple's brand identity away from a praxis of individuality, and toward a Big Brother, deep-state control over all of their customer's biometric data. It's the censorship of the word 'fuck' in all Apple product's autocorrect to 'duck'. I have never read Orwell's novel in full, but I have been compelled to study fragments of the work during lectures, and I feel as though this use of Orwell's text as inspiration for marketing material is just mind-boggling. Apple's product freeing the corporate slaves--reminding one of Engel's "you have nothing to lose but your chains"--and yet simultaneously, the knowledge of Apple's supply chain, and how we later studied in this lecture the modern production chain surrounding the iPad, where women who were producing the components had never seen the finished product, and had certainly never used one. It's all very fucking fraught, is what I'm getting at.

Anyway, that's that on that!

TLDR: White racists actively destroy platforms rather than integrate them, Web 2.0 was beautiful while it lasted, and Google has a history of creating--and then rapidly erasing--their failed social experiments. Corporate greed will never allow revolution to come from the mouth of capital.

[kitsuna-ri]

So I lost my job yesterday and while I know it’s for the best (because ooh boy constant anxiety and stress) things were kinda fucked how it went down and I just want to make sure I’m not crazy. Here’s the rundown (it’s long, sorry):

Accepted SM assistant role last August. Was upfront about having limited experience, mostly either with accounts that had no budget or having long steps to go through to get a post approved. Said I was primarily a social WRITER but could make simple graphics and what not because I can use Photoshop and Canva. Basically hit the ground running, had virtually no real training and vague instructions. I was also suddenly in charge of way more categories, some of which had their own separate pages on social platforms and I would have to be responsible for all of them. I started with 5 categories, three of which consistently had multiple weekly or monthly events that needed posts. I also had to help boost, do mild comment and message moderation, and live tweet well into late hours or over the weekend. After getting settled I took on more work because we were a small team and I wanted to be as helpful as possible. I ended up taking on a weekly filming task that meant filming and editing the video in less than a day’s time. It took time because I had mentioned I don’t have strong video editing skills but I was willing to learn and try my best.

In late January, I was hit with a surprise move. I was told I had to be out by March and it was a few days from February. I was scrambled. But I still continued to take on what I could while panicking about my living situation. I get the move scheduled to not cost me too much missed time in the office. I asked my manager if I could WFH the day before my move just to wrap things up and was told to come in. I complied.

All this time, I have never once been approached about my quality of work from my clients or my boss. In fact, I even received a glowing yearly review and told I’m doing wonderful and I work great with my clients. We did have one of my categories break off and essentially took over their own social media with an influencer. It came as a big shock but I tried to roll with the punches and keep working hard for my other clients.

Then we had a HUGE event, like all hands on deck kind of thing. Still not given a ton of direction just “make as much content for this event as possible.” So I did. Now, around the end, I was having some trouble in my life (worries about my health, parents, etc) so I was admittedly burned out. I dropped a few balls. Nothing bad happened, no social catastrophe or anything, just didn’t pay attention when reposting a post and didn’t realize it was a carousel and not just one photo. I used a photo by prof photographer from a preview party and my manager felt the angle wasn’t good and took it down. Then, after she talked to me and was wanting to offer to show me some tips and tricks which I was eager for. Then there was an issue with a department she had basically dumped on me with little explanation and told me to use artist bios and I used one from the artist’s site and apparently that wasn’t ok. I told her I’d definitely be much more careful.

Then, I asked our intern to post a video on TT to continue a series we had started. Our intern was out but told me she could post things no problem even when I voiced concerns. She posted the video and apparently there was a typo. My manager completely loses it in in Teams but worse yet, in a group chat with one of my coworkers. I had a panic attack and was trying to explain what happened, apologizing and taking the Ls and offering solutions. She demands a conversation the next day so I agree.

She realizes like late morning that she had berated me in front of our coworker and apologized. But we were still having our convo. In this talk she’s telling me suddenly that my work has only ever just been “ok” which is the first time I’m ever hearing this feedback. We had monthly one on ones and she Never. Said. Anything. But now suddenly I was a problem and I needed to reconsider things, see if this is the right position, and she said she’d work with me and I was like “ok. I’m going to improve, I’m not going to screw up like this again.”

So the process was I sent her the design and proposed copy of what I wanted to post and she’d give me feedback. She NEVER came to shoot with me or show me tricks or tips except like once near the end. Instead she started “not giving a fuck” Because she was getting demoted from director to manager and was mad about it. She started half assing things and even being really curt and rude to clients. Meanwhile, I’m busting my ass to create only the best with minimal to no direction or real advice but I was noticing improvement. Plus, my clients were so happy with the work I was creating and how I was working with them.

I had another one on one and she tells me I’m doing great, she’s happy to see me taking everything to heart, etc etc.

This continues and other than one misunderstanding, I thought everything was great! I was doing more with video editing and really trying to make dynamic designs.

This month comes around and we’re suddenly hit with three BIG events in one of my categories, all happening at the same time, two events in one of my other categories, and I had also agreed to take one one other category which had weekly events as well. That meant for this month I ended up having 10 events to promote. We also lost our ability to boost ads so everything was relying on purely organic engagement. I made assets, I tried to balance posting with the three big events because they all had to post on the same IG/FB page. I didn’t want any one to be out shined and wanted to make sure the page didn’t seem spammy with so many posts each day because my other coworker also had two categories that shared the same page. So A LOT was being posted.

We have a meeting and someone asked if we were posting about a specific collection on social. We said yes, for sure. Because I had been posting. Then he continued on to say that he knew the lack of bids was just because this collection had way too high prices. Didn’t say anything else about social or our posts.

But my manager messages me basically berating me for not posting enough and why the fuck wasn’t I working hard. I was like ???? And explained my reasoning and immediately got told I was wrong and I had ten days to get posts up to three per event per day. So I proceeded to bust my ass.

Now, here’s the thing, I couldn’t post if she didn’t review my stuff. So I sent her all these posts to hit this new goal annnnnnnnnnnnd I got nothing back. For a day and a half. I had to ask for them three times before finally getting the feedback. But I still kept working. Then I unfortunately got food poisoning.

BUT because we had our new director starting, I took pepto and sipped on ginger ale so I could make it into the office. And I did. I did wind up leaving early but I had still been creating work and sending it.

However, because I suppressed my food poisoning the next day I was MISERABLE. So I finally decided to take the day. I sent my manager a message and hear nothing back so I make sure all my shit is handled and ended up having to do a whole video while feeling like death. But I did it.

I still had things ready and scheduled so I at least would be good to go. Now, in the afternoon my manager finally messaged me only to try and yell at me about a post my other coworker had done. She did say “apologies” and then asked if I’d be in the next day. I said I was going to do everything I could do I wouldn’t fall behind.

The next day, I did go in. A few hours later she suddenly showed up (she doesn’t work in office on Fridays). I’m working on some stuff, I had already sent her some things to approve, and she suddenly messaged me asking if I had a sec.

And that’s when she walked me to a conference room that HR was in. I even asked her if everything was ok while we were walking and she was like “mmhmm”

They didn’t let me pack my stuff, I had to ask my friend to get my things. They tried to be like “this isn’t a firing for anything bad…you just weren’t the right fit.” And my manager kept saying “we had all those discussions” but I’m over here like ?????? We’ve had maybe TWO and one was THIS WEEK!!! And it takes more than a day, hell a week, for HR to process a firing. I had formal write ups and yet I was done.

I’m so mad and also scared and just ugh. Fuck Capitalism, fuck that lying bitch, and just…fuck my life.

[jimines]

Whats actually happened between you and taemaknae? I read about it on the tea blog and still confused

This is an insanely long story so I'm going to put it below the cut so for anyone interested in this absolute shit show, continue on.

Essentially, I posted these headers about a month ago:

It was a set of like 8 colours and it was the first time I had ever posted any headers or anything. The issue nic had with these, was the ripped paper bottom. Because apparently you can trademark that. I had asked a (now ex) “friend” of mine if she knew where I could find the ripped paper effect because I had seen the effect on the header of her network blog and I had been trying to find a similar thing for months and google images never gave me anything good. She ended up referring me to google images anyways and after like an hour of dedicated searching, I found this ripped paper effect and used it. This ex “friend” went on to tell another friend of mine that I had "asked where nicole gets her resources for her headers" and then screenshotted my dm as "proof", which still confuses me because I never mentioned nicole there lmao. I've seen the screenshot.

Tell me where I said nicole. It was literally just a question born from seeing the header they had on their network lmao. I feel it’s important to mention I didn’t know this person ran said network at that time, which is why i said “these people”.

This other friend then came to me and just said my headers "may be seen as similar to nic's” and said she noticed it on her own and never mentioned my other “friend” approaching her. I was confused because other than that ripped paper effect that I know many people on tumblr use, I saw no similarities. Nic's headers are usually more complex and more than just a coloured background with a little effect in it. I just wanted to make some simple headers for fun because I was bored. But, regardless, I messaged nic about it to make sure she didn't feel the same way. I told her a friend of mine was worried nic might think my headers are similar to her's and I assured her that if she found them similar I would take them down, no questions asked. Nic told me she was surprised this friend brought it up and told me that it was entirely up to me if I found the headers similar. She never once told me she felt they were the same, never mentioned anything about them, she insisted it was up to me to do as I pleased. So, since I genuinely found no similarities, I left them up.

About a week went by and things between nic and I were fine, or so I thought, based off the fact that she was interacting with my posts, sending me cute asks and replying to a lot of my comments and stuff being kind and whatnot. Then, I decided to post a small list of my creations and the series I had running at the time. 

After that, all of a sudden I got an influx of rude hate anons:

To anyone I mentioned the anons to, they agreed with me, you cannot trademark circular icons. This anon also accused me saying “just the fact that you had an anxiety attack about it proves you copied them” Like no sweetie, it’s called three strangers walked into my house and I got anxious.

Despite me not seeing the issue, I messaged nic, assuming she wouldn't care about the icons (it wasn't like I was taking her exact work and copying and pasting them as my own) and that made her very upset. When she responded to me, she was incredibly heated and gave off the vibe she was waiting for me to message her about it. 

She said things like "this has actually been bothering me for a while", "i expected you to be able to read between the lines and delete the headers", "i don't know who that anon was but clearly they recognize my style". For starters, she never told me that she was annoyed with me, she was being very kind to me publicly. And I have no idea how I was meant to “read between the lines” of what she said especially considering how kind she was to me the following days. I also never accused her of knowing this anon, she just insisted it wasn't her and she didn't know them right off the bat. She also insinuated that I copied my gifs from others as well, which ticked me off because I made my 100+ layer psd myself thank you very much. But I kept my cool, and I told her I had no idea she felt the way she did, and I told her I would delete the headers (which i did as the conversation was going on), and that I would stop posting my icons and bringing attention to them because no one ever paid it any mind before that point. And I asked her “please tell me straight up the next time you have an issue with me because I am generally pretty dumb with social cues”, I have my adhd to thank for that. And instead of replying, she just blocked me. And conveniently, the hate anons stopped dead right after we blocked each other and I haven't received any since.

Also, these are the kinds of icons I posted:

Looks pretty generic and idk, universal, right?

Then, as I've recently found out today, she was in an "anti-loverjimin" groupchat with at least 2 other bloggers. 

Which explains why this all went and fell into place. I know who the two other bloggers are because of what happened two days later but I won't name them just yet, but these two people had been "friends" with me for several months. So, a day or two after nic blocked me, all of a sudden some good friends of mine were blocking me and not talking to me when I asked what was going on. I found out soon after it was because nicole and those two now ex “friends” of mine had taken old dms I sent them and were showing them to people. And I will go into detail about them but I won't name the people they are about for privacy reasons.

Before I move on, to clarify some lies nic has been spreading about me, I never once shit talked nicole to my friends. One of these ex friends also said I was trying to get people on my side. I would have reacted to this all very very differently if that were the case. I would be dragging everyone through the fucking dirt but I don't get off on drama or micromanaging what my mutuals do. My issues are with these people, if you're still friends with them that's your decision i could not care less. So, back to it, the only thing I said about nic was that she and I had a stupid small fight over icons and that she was spreading lies about me, based off of what nic said to jordan.

That exact message, or slight variations of it, was sent to anyone I interacted with because I didn't know if nic was going to stop at jordan or try and get to everyone I fucking knew lmao. Some of the people I messaged this to told ME nic had done this kind of thing before, that she has sent hate anons, launched hate campaigns, cancelled people, etc. Over stupid shit like icons lmao.

Here are some responses I received after I mentioned nicole:

And nic or one of her friends also took it upon themselves to send anons to that tea blog to blow shit up and named everyone and made it an even bigger mess when they saw no one was actively trying to fight me after the dms got out. 

I also love that in this following ask, they named my two “friends” that were behind the whole dm drama and backstabbed me, as well as two other people I never badmouthed, that story was twisted. But we’ll get into those details shortly.

And she also told people I clout chased big blogs and only cared about notes. At one point, yes, I did care a lot about my statistics. However, never once did I think clout chasing was worth my fucking time or energy, Nic is the biggest clout chaser on this damn site and there are receipts of that, ask jordan lmao. And I couldn’t give two shits about my statistics anymore lmao, much less anxiety that way. Do I still crave validation sometimes? Sure. But it's not a driving force of my tumblr experience like it used to be.

But, moving on to the dms, the first one was sent when I first came back to tumblr full-time and didn't understand why people self reblogged things, I found the pretence of self reblogging annoying and greedy and I complained about it and it was a comment fuelled by two bloggers that i would see sr a lot on my dash. But I never thought THEY were annoying, as these people are saying I did, it was self reblogging I found annoying and as you can see I have come to understand why people sr and I do it myself too. I didn't even know these two bloggers at this time either. That dm was cropped to hide the fact that this "friend" agreed with me and hid the date as well so it seemed recent, and was sent to one of the bloggers I mentioned as an example, someone I had since become good friends with. 

I didn’t befriend one of the people I mentioned there until mid to late June. That friendship is now over thanks to this drama and all the lies. The second friend of mine they went after was never spoken about in dms, they went and turned her against me through lies and manipulation so that friendship has ended too. And while those two were doing that, nic went off to try and turn jordan against me.

There was a particular user on here that I did say some nasty things about but we weren't friends, as many people have been made to believe. I was particularly mad at this person in those dms and was hurtful, I admit, and I have since apologized and owned up to all of it to these people. I did call them fake and/or two-faced. 

And what in the gassing me up bullshit was their response though lmao. I also sent this following dm before I even talked about the issue with this person. They urged me to continue and to name drop the person, and I stupidly thought they were trustworthy.

My reasoning for what I said wasn't unwarranted though, I don't make a habit of going around shit-talking people, unless they do something to me first. I vent when I am upset and this person had sent me a passive aggressive ask and then denied sending it when I asked and I thought that was just very fake, especially since she was so kind to me in dms before the ask came in. But all of these dms were cropped too to hide timestamps and responses, and in most cases, like those screenshots prove, these "friends" either gassed me up or egged me on to continue ranting or to name the people i was mad at and they had agreed with me on several, several occasions. Turns out they were trying to get dirt on me to use in their cancel campaign. But the point is, nic has made me out to be this horrible person that befriends "big blogs" (an overrated statement) and then shit talks them behind their back without remorse. Yet it was one person I said rude things about and I, again, owned up to it all and apologized to them the first day. I would've done it sooner had I a) remembered feeling the way I did all those months ago or remembered the dms themselves or b) felt that way still after meeting them. But neither is the case.

I find it really amusing though that these people wanted things to be kept quiet and didn’t want anyone they spoke to to talk to me about it because I was going to “out them on my blog” and “make a big scene”, then they three went and made it a big fucking scene and ruined my friendships. I’m familiar with this pattern of manipulation as it has happened to me in real life before and it’s the most childish bullshit to witness.

Before this callout day for nic, I had never once been directly rude to or about her, same goes for those ex “friends” that betrayed my trust and friendship. The fact that they plotted against me in a group chat while still actively talking to me and being all buddy buddy is just disgusting. Both of them were talking to me that day at the same time they were sharing the dms and shit-talking me to my friends. But yeah, that's my side, the untwisted side, of the whole story. I tried to be mature and talk to nic and when I didn't do what she wanted me to do, she blocked me and launched the hate campaign with dms and the power of photoshop. I’ve been hesitant to make any of this public because it was meant to be a silent ordeal but I’ve grown tired of her constantly publicizing everything without consequence while I remain silent like I promised.

[jamilelucato]

The Duff  || Fred Weasley

pairing: Fred Weasley x reader (any house)

summary: your life became too stressing lately, and Fred Weasley, although generally very annoying, manages to distract you just enough when he stops talking.

A/N: completely based on the book The Duff. Like completely. So reader may have some issues with her appearance. Sorry about my other fics! It’s just that, when an idea pops, I have to write. It’s a big fic. (feel like it’s one of my brightest works)

words: + 11k

warnings: insinuations and mentions of sex; body insecurities; sick father, etc

Harry Potter Masterlist ||  Musical Hogwarts Series

You couldn't understand what could be the fun in going to Three Broomsticks to party. The place is one of the oldest bars in Hogwarts, but not long ago, Madam Rosmerta decided to add a dance floor in one of the darkest sides of the pub, and she got one of those muggle music machines. It was very nice if your thing was dancing in sweat and rubbing your body in people.

Easy to say it was most definitely not your thing.

"Okay, that's it for you," said Madam Rosmerta, taking your mug away. It once was filled with butterbeer, but the barmaid seemed to think you had gotten it filled way too many times for a night.

"Oh, come on," you complained, "there's no alcohol on those."

"I know. But it has sugar, and you had one too many," Rosmerta said, ignoring your pout and walking away from your side of the counter so she could serve other costumers.

Your brain fought a battle to decide if it was worth contesting and explaining that not offering you more butterbeer was causing the barmaid to lose money when the stool next to you cried with the weight that was jumping on it.

"Good evening, y/n," said the boy who now sat next to you.

It was inevitable when your eyes rolled just by smelling his cologne. There was no need for you even to turn to know who it was. Only one boy in the whole Hogwarts was confident enough to wear such cheap cologne as if it was holy water.

"Get the hell away, Weasley," you cried, wishing, profoundly, to have another butterbeer with you.

Madam Rosmerta noticed the new client sitting close to the counter, and she quickly came back to serve him.

"Fred Weasley," she greeted him with her playful smile. She knew the Hogwarts teenage boys only flirted with her in hopes of a discount, but she enjoyed it, considering it rather fun. "What can I get you?"

"My usual butterbeer, Ro," he said, charming her with his smirk. She chuckled, while he passed her a coin.

"If you're getting him one, you're getting me one too," you warned the barmaid, raising a brow. Your serious approach worked because, with a sigh, she walked back with two drinks.

You tossed her your coin.

"That is officially your last one, young lady, so you better enjoy it," she threatened before leaving and playing with her hair solemnly for Fred to see.

He was still smiling when you decided to look at him. He was a bastard, but, boy, was he handsome.

"You have five seconds to disappear from in front of me now that you have your drink," you warned. Even though Fred's eyes followed the back of Rosmerta, yours was still staring at him. Maybe the amount of disgust you felt for him could pass on with a look.

"Chill, would you?" Fred took a sip from his mug, supporting his arms on the counter, finally looking at you. "If you're so bothered, the dance floor awaits."

You chuckled, frowning right after. "Look, Weasley, don't you have any other girl to fuss around?"

He smirked, thinking you were falling for his game. "Do you have friends you'd like to suggest?" he played, raising his brows. "Is Jess still single?"

"I'd be dead if I let you stay even one meter close to my friends, do you hear me? I don't want them catching any diseases," you shivered just with the thought of how many girls (and STDs) this boy before you might have encountered.

"So they are here," his eyes narrowed as if he was scanning the dance floor, searching for your girls.

"Go away, Fred," you sighed, tired of that conversation. You took one sip of your mug, but the butterbeer was no longer enough to keep your mind away from Fred Weasley's affairs. "And stay away from Jess and Casey."

"Oh, y/n, just put a good word for me, please. I mean, it is your job," Fred leaned in, closer to you and his scent attacked your nostrils again, making you lean back.

"It's not my job to help you, Weasley."

"Well, as their duff, I think it is," he drank from his mug, ignoring your confused look.

"Duff?"

Asking him what the word meant called his attention back to you, but he seemed surprised you hadn't heard about it yet. "You know, designated ugly fat friend," he replied, making a peculiar gesture with his neck as he spoke the last term.

You couldn't possibly have heard him right. "Excuse me??"

"Look, I don't mean to offend," he shrugged his broad shoulders, a gift from all his years playing Quidditch.

He noticed how fast your expression was changing.

"It's not like you're an ogre or anything, but in comparison…" his eyes wandered back to the dance floor, this time yours followed, seeing Jess and Casey — your longest-time best friends — dancing with some other students. "Think about it. Why do they bring you here if you don't dance?"

"Shut it, Weasley. They bring me here because I'm their friend; stop with your nonsense," your mind was working incredibly hard to stop you from believing that you were the ugly friend. Because that could not be the truth. Especially if everyone already knew and the one to tell you about it had to be the most annoying Gryffindor.

Fred had the nerve to reach over and pat your knee, but you jerked away from him. "Look," he said, "you have hot friends… really hot friends."

All the butterbeer you had drunk was starting to make you sick. Perhaps Rosmerta had been right, but if you had to bet in a guilt part, you'd bet on the ginger.

"The point is, in a group of friends, there's always a weak link, a Duff. And girls respond well to guys who associate with their Duffs."

"Where are you getting this info? The Quibbler?" you never meant to offend the Lovegoods, but Fred Weasley was speaking rubbish at this point.

"Don't be bitter," Fred pressed his lips together, pausing. "What I'm saying is girls find it sexy when lads show some sensitivity and socialize with the Duff. So, please, help me here, and just pretend to enjoy our talk."

There it was, in front of you, the living, redheaded proof that stupidity is capable of making people persevere for years. You already knew that Fred was a womanizing asshole, but it was unexpected to find out how worthless as a human being he is, too. Pretty faces definitely aren't everything.

With one swift motion, you jumped to your feet and flung the contents of your mug in Fred's direction.

The remaining butterbeer flew all over him, splattering his striped polo collar shirt. The liquid got his ginger hair wet entirely, which surprised you because, usually, you wouldn't have such great aim.

His face burned with anger, and his chiselled mandible clenched angrily. "What was that for?" he snapped, wiping his face with the back of his hand.

"What do you think it was for?" you snapped.

"I have no possible idea."

Madam Rosmerta appeared again, giving Fred a white cloth to dry himself, but it wasn't enough. Part of you wanted to be mad at the waitress for helping Fred, but you knew she just didn't want him to ask her to take you out.

"If you think I'm letting one of my friends leave this place with you, Weasley, you're very, very wrong, " you spluttered, staring at him with fire in your eyes. "You're a shallow jackass, and I hope that we never cross paths again."

The stupid muggle music played so loud that no one but Rosmerta overheard you, and she probably found you awsome. She loved some teenage drama.

You grabbed your friends as quickly as you could. They were about protest all the way to the secret passageway back to Hogwarts, so you decided it was best to explain what was happening.

"What's wrong?" Casey asked. Her once perfect dark hair was now wet — part of you wondered if the sweat even belonged to her. For such a smart Ravenclaw, you expected more of her.

"Let's get back to school; I just can't stand to be in this hellhole for one more second, " you said, dragging their reluctant bodies along behind you.

"Why are we leaving so early? It's only, like, nine-fifteen," Jess asked, frowning a bit, looking at you with her sad big blue eyes. Her Hufflepuff charm was about to work on you when you remembered why you were living.

"I got into an argument with someone, " you said, and Jess puppy eyes quickly disappeared, opening the place for her angry face to emerge. "I threw my Coke on him, and I didn't want to stick around for his response."

"Who?" Casey asked. You'd been dreading that question because you knew the reaction you'd get.

"Fred Weasley." two girly sighs followed your answer. "The guy is a man-whore. I can't stand him. He sleeps with everything that moves, and his brain is located in his pants—which means it's microscopic."

"I doubt that, " Casey said with another sigh.

"He's a jerk," you said, hoping your voice sounded like it was final. The tunnel back to Hogwarts seemed endless.

"That's not true," Jessica inserted. "Katie Bell told me he talked to her when she was alone at the Yule Ball. She was with Angelina and Alicia, and she said he just came up and made conversation, really friendly."

That made sense. Katie was definitely the Duff if she was out with Angelina and Alicia. And you knew for a fact that Angelina left with Fred that night.

"He's charming, " Casey said. "Give him some credit." Her smile slowly faded when she remembered that you threw at him your beer. "But what the hell did he do to you tonight, huh?" Now she sounded concerned. Took her long enough.

You sighed, noticing that saying something would only make their worry and you really wanted to avoid their pity. "Nothing, " you lied, "Fred just pisses me off."

Duff. The word bounced around in your mind as you three reached Hogwarts. When you took a last look at your friends before each parted to your houses, Fred's statement that you were the unattractive, undesirable tagalong seemed to be confirmed.

Jessica's perfect hourglass body and big brown eyes. Casey's athlete's features and impeccable skin. You definitely weren't like them.

"Well, see you tomorrow for the feast?" Jess asked the two of you.

You and Casey shared tired smiles. Although Casey would've like to stay a little longer at the Three Broomsticks, she welcomed extra sleeping hours. Her Quidditch player schedule didn't leave her much time to rest.

"See you," you stated, walking away slowly, letting your feet lead the way to your dorm where you'd try extra hard to forget the whole Duff thing.

 -

You picked your blanket up to your chin, not wanting to get out of bed so soon, even though you could very much get late for Snape's class.

Fred Weasley words were hunting you like a ghost. They shouldn't be, because you sure didn't care about his opinion. But the courage he had called you that disgusting abbreviation and how you seemed to find the one out from every single group of friends you walked past.

It had been a week and a half, so why did his words bother you? You were brilliant and a good witch, always there for your friends. Thus, who cared if you were the Duff?

If you were charming, you'd have to deal with lads like Weasley hitting on you. Ugh! That could be a Duff benefit, right? Being unattractive didn't have to suck.

Damn Fred Weasley! You couldn't believe he managed to pack your head with such superficial bullshit. Getting out of bed with a jump, you were committed.

You wouldn't think about Duffs ever again.

-

Thursdays were homework day, at least for you and your best friends.

When classes were over, the three of you would meet at the library for a long late afternoon, reading through books and doing assignments. And, of course, spilling some tea with whispers.

That afternoon was being way bored than you expected. It was like Jess and Casey interrupted your reading all the time to tell you something new, but that day they seemed to have nothing to say.

And when I say nothing, I mean nothing.

Suspicious.

You stared at them, who pretended they hadn't been facing you all along and turned back to their essays.

"Okay, what is it? You two are awfully quiet," you whispered, leaning closer to them, scared the librarian could hear you.

They exchanged looks before, sighing, Jess gave up on her silent treatment.

"Remember when we planned on going to Three Broomsticks tomorrow?" she pouted, trying to work her big eyes on you.

"You two planned, you mean. I never agreed on it."

"We kinda find dates to go with us," said Casey, ignoring your comment on the matter.

You stared at your two best friends, holding yourself to not laugh.

"Thankfully. I never said I wanted to go," you pointed out with a smile, turning back to your book.

Jessica didn't seem satisfied with you looking away just yet.

"We can find you a date," Jess suggested.

You chuckled. "Alright," you spat — the possibility sounded ridiculous; principally when Fred's words still echoed in the corner of your mind.

"y/n, you have to come," Casey's tone was more serious. "You never go out unless we force you. So, if you don't want a date for yourself, you are thrid-wheeling."

"Not in Askaban, I am not!" you protested, raising your voice way too much but thankfully nobody was around.

Jess tried to work her puppy eyes again. "Please," she sobbed. "If you don't come, I'll feel guilty. Do you want me to ditch Cormac?"

"You are going with Cormac??" you asked, genuinely concerned because he was younger than you, but then you recalled he wasn't younger than her.

"Just show up," said Casey, not really allowing you to object. "I'll pay you a butterbeer."

Her offer was very, very tempting. You had no idea if one could become addicted to butterbeer since yours never had alcohol, but you're getting closer to that.

"But I'll only stay 'till nine," you informed.

The two girls smiled, and Jess had to hold herself from clapping in excitement.

"That'll be enough," said Casey.

 -

"Is your father okay?" Casey asked you as soon as Jess left, and she had the open opportunity to corner you.

She was the only one in the school that you were brave enough to confess what was happening to your father. He had been recently attacked by some Death Eaters, and the Cruciatus curse left him with severe brain damaged.

It happened during the summer, before the start of your seventh year, so you had a couple of weeks to recover from that news before going back to school.

But when your mom's first letter arrived, saying your father was getting more insane with time, no amount of preparation was enough to hold back your tears as you ran out of the Great Hall.

You were able to lie to Jess, but with Casey, you weren't so lucky. Besides, her mom worked at St. Mungo's, so she already knew about your dad way before you told her.

It had been two months since you've been ignoring your mom's letters, all of them. You are too scared to read what they've got to say, and she doesn't let you go back home anyways.

You wanted to be with him, your father, hold his hand, make him better. But your mom was firm on her decision about you graduating Hogwarts.

So, when you stared at Casey's beautiful face, you had no idea what to answer.

"He can't get better," you said, in tone way harsher than you were planning. Who knew that not speaking about a matter would make you feel more painful towards it?

Casey gulped — she was always like that: she would touch the wound, but she had no idea what to do about it later.

"Do you want me to write to my m..."

"No," you quickly answered, not even letting her finish. "I just need to graduate — then I'll deal with my dad."

"It will take longer while 'till graduation, y/n," Casey pointed out. She knew you were convincing yourself it was just a couple more months, but that was a terrible lie you no longer could satisfy yourself with.

Casey wanted to do something, but taking you out was all you allowed the girls to do to you. You hated the new club atmosphere of Three Broomsticks, but you had to admit, it was pretty distracting.

"Promise I'll see you tomorrow night?"

"Promise," you said, before leaving your best friend alone in the hallway.

 -

Snape's latest assignment stood before you, with a lot of notes from the Professor, pointing out all of your mistakes.

And there were a lot of them.

When class ended, you walked up to the Professor, gulping and shaking. You knew he didn't dislike you, but you were never too careful with Severus Snape.

"Professor, can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Yes?" he turned to face you; his black robe swirled with his movement.

"I just want to know if this essay was, hm, a big part of this year's grade?" you asked, avoiding looking in his dark eyes. "If so, can I do something else to improve my grade?"

He swallowed before answering, his serious tone implicating he didn't want to be having this conversation.

"You used to be my best student, Miss y/l/n, but this year you turned into the worse," he said, pausing in that terrible way only he knew. If your last year's grade hadn't been an Outstanding, I would have written you off my class by now."

You stared at Snape, unsure of what to do next and terrified of the man before you. He never treated you that way.

"Sorry to bother, Professor," you said, leaving right away, knowing very well that he had just ruined your rest of the day, including the night with your girls.

But what would you tell them? They would say that Snape was always like that. And even Casey, who was bloody smart, didn't have classes with Snape anymore. She would say for you to drop it too.

Your mind led your feet to the Moaning Myrtle's abandoned bathroom. There, your cry could be confused with hers by those who passed by. Thus, no one would disturb you.

The ghost wasn't even startled when she heard you come in, crying, and throw yourself on the floor near the sinks. Myrtle has seen you there since the school year started when you read your mother's first letter.

You usually went there at night, when you were sure you wouldn't see anyone. But after years of trusting Professor Snape — and believing that he would never mistreat you — what you heard today was the culmination.

When you decided you had cried enough, you headed out of the bathroom, holding your Potions (terrible) essay closer to your chest. You walked around the castle, but, perhaps, your eyes lost contact with your brain — the next thing you knew, you ran smack into Fred Weasley.

As if I needed more reasons for wanting to die.

You stumbled backwards, and your essay slipped from your arms, heading straight to the floor.

The ginger boy grasped you by both shoulders, his big hands catching you before you had the chance to slip over your own feet.

"Watch it," he said, steadying you.

You two were standing way too close to each other, and once again, you could smell his cheap cologne, this time it seemed to spread all over your body. Bloody hell, am I gonna smell like Weasley now? You shivered with disgust, but he misread it.

"Trouble standing up?" he joked, looking down at you with a cocky smirk.

He was really tall — you'd forgotten that, sitting next to him at the Three Broomsticks that night.

"Do I make you weak in the knees?"

Ignoring his stupid question, you knelt down to get the essay, and he did the same, grabbing it first. You forgot how to breathe for a second, hoping he wouldn't try to read it — and notice all the corrections Snape had made with permanent ink.

However, as soon as he grabbed it, he was handing it over to you.

You took it and brought it back closer to your chest, stepping away from him and his stupid perfume and stupid touch that sent weird and uncomfortable chills through your spine.

You were starting to walk away, leaving him behind when you heard:

"Thank you, Weasley," he attempted to copy your accent. "See you around, Weasley."

But you rolled your eyes and didn't even venture to look at him again.

-

How you managed to get out of your dorm and show up was all Jess and Casey's fault. If they hadn't been talking about you going out all week, and then Jess almost crying for you to appear, you would've rather very much stayed in bed.

You drummed your fingers on the wooden surface of the bar, your mind far away from the muggle music and your very dance-pants friends.

Your mind was tricking you in remembering about your father, something you were really trying to push away. Why hadn't you insisted on staying with Dad? Why hadn't you read mom's letters?

You kept imagining your dad, wallowing in his misery… alone. You wondered if at least your mom would visit him at St. Mungos. They were never the clingy type of couple, but maybe now she could be more sentimental.

But neither you were sentimental. So why now? Why care so much for your dad when he was never that much of an extraordinary parent?

"Evenin', Duffy."

Why did that nitwit have to sit next to you?

"Go away, Fred," you scolded, looking down at your fingers, playing with your empty mug.

"I can't, " he said. "First of all, the only reason you're here's that I taught you and your friends how to scape Hogwarts," you rolled your eyes while he continued, "besides, I'm not one to give up easily. I am set to snog one of your friends," he shrugged as if he was the biggest gentleman on Earth.

"Then go talk to the one," you suggested, not even turning to see his face.

"I would, but Fred Weasley doesn't chase girls. They chase him."

His sentence stayed in the air around as for a second before you burst in laughter. He couldn't be sober to say something like that. You faced him, finally, and confirmed — he very much had just arrived, so he wasn't drunk. He was just stupid.

Handsome, but stupid.

"Til they come to me, you get the honour of my company," he said, and then he took your mug away from your restless fingers. "Lucky for me, it doesn't look like you're armed with a beverage tonight."

You awaited for his laugh, but it never came.

"What is it with you today?"

"Already told you I'm not in the mood, Weasley," you reminded him.

"What's wrong?"

"Go...away," you warned, slowly.

You no longer good handle the tension burning inside you, it had to be released in some way, and it needed to be right then. But you didn't want to cry, not in front of a bunch of students partying, and there was no way you were going to vent with the dimwitted next to you, and punching someone would just get Rosmerta disappointed.

"Are you okay, y/n?" Fred asked, touching your shoulders carefully. He was forcing you to face him, even though he was being too gentle for his usual. "y/n?" 

Then it was like your systems had stopped working — like a magic spell went wrong. Your only excuse is that you were under an unbelievable amount of stress, and you detected an exit.

You needed a distraction, and your chance was staring at you with sparkly eyes. Regret was the last thing you were thinking about.

An opportunity sat on the barstool beside you, and you lunged at it, literally.

You kissed Fred Weasley.

You grabbed him by polo neck of his red t-shirt, pulling him closer and locking your lips on his. He froze at first, but it didn't take him more than three seconds to understand what was happening, and the hand once on your shoulder was now on you cheeks.

Fred returned your urge, biting your lower lip, making his way inside your mouth with his tongue. Your hands left his neck and went to his hair, surprised to find soft hair.

His hands flew to your sides and pulled you toward him as if his hair was the secret to his horniness. As you wrapped your fingers in the strands of red hair, his fingertips dug into your waist.

It worked better than punching someone would have. Not only did it help you release the tension, but it distracted you. It's hard to think about your dad when you're making out with somebody.

He leaned into me, and I hauled at him so hard that Fred nearly fell off his bar stool. At that moment, both just couldn't get close enough to each other. Your separate seats seemed like they were miles apart.

Nothing existed, but the physical connection — there were no emotions in the way. It was amazing not to think. Nothing! Nothing… until he screwed it up.

His hand slid up from your waist, lingering along your back, and came to a stop around your boobs. Everything flooded back, and you suddenly remembered who had his lips on yours.

As fast as you jumped on him, you leaned away, taking your hands from his hair and shoving him away.

His hands dropped, one landing on your knee, as he pulled away. He looked astonished but weirdly pleased.

"Wow, Duff, that was—", but he never finished. You were already gone, running out of the bar and rushing to get to the secret passageway.

You didn't look back. If Fred followed, once you got to Hogwarts, he turned around.

When you reached your dorm and jumped on the bed, your heartbeat was impossible to keep track. You told yourself it was because of the run back to the school, but your mind was still playing flashes of the snogging session that had just happened.

It wasn't fair to remember his touch and how out of limits he was —good kisser, but still a jerk.

You didn't want to admit it, but you were madder at yourself than at him.

 -

Two days.

That was the amount of time you managed to stay away from Fred Weasley since the little "incident".

One thing was for sure: it had numbed completely any stress your father situation was afflicting him. It had even made you forget about your recent bad grades.

Now, every time you got distracted, the only thought that filled your mind was a non-stop replay of the kiss you and Fred shared. It made you feel weirdly sick in the stomach, and you swore you could feel his disgusting touch as if it dirtied your body forever.

Jess and Casey didn't even bother arguing with you about leaving early that night — they felt guilty because they left you alone at the counter. Of course, you didn't tell them about the whole Weasley situation, but, even though Jess seemed clueless, Casey noticed your change in action.

How defensive you were towards their questions, more than usual. How you avoided spending too much time at the Great Hall.

So, when she purposely asked you to watch her Quidditch practice, you knew she was testing you. Perhaps Casey thought something worse was happening to your dad and if that was her bet, you wouldn't be the one to make her see the other side of the coin.

"Came to watch me play?" an annoying voice asked, calling your attention to your left where Fred Weasley stood flying up in his broom. His torso was tilted towards you, who was sitting in the stands.

One look was all you took for your mind to fill with disgusting memories, and your stomach was killing you once again. You faced back the field, where Casey was supposed to be practising, but, apparently, the thing was over because she and her teammates were nowhere to be found.

That explains the Gryffindor in his robes, you thought, sighing and gathering your things before getting up.

Fred was still staring at you, analyzing, expecting.

"I'm not here for you, Weasley," you spat.

Your temper surprised him, but he managed to recover before you could notice.

"What a pity," he sighed, letting the corner of his lips turn up. "I thought you wanted a second dose of fun."

You stared at him, with your angry issues burning up. If before kissing him he already had his ways of pissing you off, now it was like he was power was ten times stronger.

Your first thought was to hex him right there and then, but he wasn't worth that much worry.

"That wasn't fun, Weasley," you decided to state the obvious; something Fred seemed to have been having trouble understanding.

"You seemed very entertained twirling your fingers in my hair," he smirked, holding a chuckle while your eyes widened and you closed your fists.

"That was a mistake; I wasn't in my right mind," you said, clenching your teeth in rage. That boy was driving you crazy.

From behind him, you recognized Casey, walking on the field, already out of her Quidditch robes and holding her broom with just one hand. You knew that was your way out.

"Fine, blame it on the butterbeer," he sighed, "if it's what makes you sleep at night."

"What makes you think, Weasley," you paused, stepping closer to the end of the stands and closer to the ginger, "that I think about you at night?" you raised your tone involuntarily, letting your emotions get the best of you.

"Your body language, for one, Duff," Fred smirked again, feeling his win just because you were getting out of control.

Last time you were raged like that you had kissed him, so perhaps it could happen again.

But the nickname set you back. You were still bitter, but now you remembered why — it was because of that shallow nickname and that stupid boy.

You turned around and stepped away, to the end of the stands. You needed to get out of there as fast as you could.

"See you around too, Duff," you heard Fred shouted, but you didn't dare look back.

Casey met you at the end of the stairs, where a bunch of Gryffindors were crossing paths with the Ravenclaws leaving.

"Was that Fred Weasley? Talking to you?" was the first thing Casey asked when you were close to her enough to hear.

"Yep," you sighed, still tense because of your conversation.

"Godric! Is he hot in his Quidditch uniform!" she gasped, but different from you, she had that romantic, girly look on her face again. It made you wanna vomit.

"Please, Cass, you can find someone hotter than him," you protested, frowning.

"Someone hotter doesn't take Fred's hotness away," she argued, raising a brow towards you. She was messing with you, of course, but knowing it didn't make it easier. She didn't know about the kiss, so for all purposes' sake, she still thought you would never even touch him.

"Can't you just pine over — hmm, I don't — George Weasley, his twin?" you said, sarcastically. "If you think Fred's hot, George is too, and I'm pretty sure he's a better person."

"Too vanilla," she replied as if it proved her point.

"How would you know?" you asked, but couldn't help but burst in laughter with her, both very sure this conversation wasn't going anywhere.

Casey was right again. Not about George being vanilla — that you couldn't be sure, being that you had never talked to the chap. You couldn't manage to say more than three words to George, his presence always made you kinda weak in the knees.

But George didn't know about it, and neither did your best friends, and you intend in leaving thing at that. George was kind of your platonic crush, it was healthy to have one (probably), and he was never cross that line.

Funny, huh, how George made you feel starstruck, and Fred made you wanna kill yourself.

The thing Casey was right was about Fred being hot and charming. He was appearing more times than often in your mind, and for the rest of the week, he no longer popped as a replay of a kiss. Fred was appearing in your mind as new sexy scenarios, things a deep part of you wanted to experiment. And apparently, with him. Yikes.

You tried to convince yourself that those scenarios were with George (had happened before) but, at this point, you knew how to differentiate the two very well. And, deep down, you knew who was the ginger biting your neck and intertwining his legs in yours.

And that infuriated your guts.

 -

"You did that for what?"

Your question echoed to the Great Hall, with a dozen of heads turning to what the little show you were putting on.

It was not your intention to make a scene, but, at that moment, you were more enraged than you'd ever been your whole life. Casey was your best friend, and you knew sometimes she was bold for the greater good, but you doubted that doing what she did was for the greater good.

Because you were feeling like shit.

She had intercepted your owl with your mom's letter about your father's condition. Casey had observed that you were ignoring your mom's messages — last night she went to your dorm room with Jess for a girls night, and ended up finding accidentally a box packed with the parchments unopen.

So she planned on getting your owl before it dropped its letter over you and she managed to sit next to you and starting reading it aloud, without telling you what she was reading.

It was only when she got to the second line of the thing — "they say they are doing everything they can and they don't want to raise our hopes, because his chance of recovery is almost none"— that you realized that it was your mom's words.

You got so angry as never before, shouting at Casey to shut up, and without overthinking, you cast a fire spell on the thing. Thankfully she dropped the parchment before it burned her hands, but that doesn't mean that she didn't get angry at you too.

Jess watched and came closer, trying to find words to say, but she didn't know what was happening and she didn't want to side with anyone.

You felt the urge to cry, but, not in hell, you were doing it in front of the whole school. You gathered your bag and ran out of that place, not looking back — even though Casey was screaming "I'm sorry", and Jessica was asking you to wait.

"Hey, wait up," a voice called, this time it didn't belong to a girl.

You froze at your spot, your feet slowly turning to face the boy following you in the empty hallway. Traitors, you wanted to say to your feet.

"Not now, Weasley," you said, trying hard to look away, but once his dark eyes met yours, you just couldn't bring yourself to walk away.

"Then, when? You need to talk," he pointed out, taking his hands out of his pockets, not yet breaking the eye contact. It was like he knew that he looking at you was the only thing keeping you there.

"You heard the show, huh."

"Just saw you, angrily walking away," he said while you nervously grabbed your bag's handle. "Thankfully, there was no butterbeer in your hands."

His attempt to joke went not as smoothly as he expected. You faced your shoes, biting your lip with the stupid idea that popped in your mind. You knew what you planned wasn't right.

But when he stepped towards you, it felt natural.

"Just shut up, Weasley," you said, before getting on your tiptoes and leaning in to kiss him.

He was surprised, again, but this time he was quick to respond and somehow smarter — he grabbed your waist and guided you to a door that only he knew existed in that hallway.

It was a broom closet, probably the brooms first-years use to train flying.

This time there was no inhibition. Fred's mouth in yours was not going to be enough to forget you fighting with Casey and your mom's words about your dad. You needed more. Thankfully, Fred Weasley was more than pleased to serve, fastly taking your white shirt off while you unbuttoned his pants.

"Are you sure of this, Duff?" he asked before pulling your black skirt up.

"I said shut up, Weasley," you reminded him, in a bossy tone. And in case he tried to open his mouth again, you locked it with yours.

 -

Things were worse than ever before.

After Casey's episode, you hadn't talked to her ever since. She tried, the first few days, but she saw you were ignoring her and with time, she gave up. Jess attempted to convince you to talk to Casey, and for that, you started ignoring Jess too.

Your grades weren't getting better any time soon — Professor Snape was now no longer the only one complaining to you about it. Thankfully, the other Professors were more understanding about it than Severus — the school knew about your father situation.

Oh, yeah. About your parents: since Casey attempt to read you a letter, you haven't touched one yet. And you weren't going to do it anytime soon.

The only person you were hanging out with — by Merlin, you never thought that would happen — was Fred Weasley.

It was easygoing with him because there wasn't much talking to do. He knew better than to ask you anything related to your personal life — even though he tried, a lot.

You two would meet primarily at the Room of Requirement — it usually provided a bed for you, so that was more comfortable than any broom closet. If he ever attempted to make conversation, you'd shut him up with your lips and locking your fingers in his hair — that was his soft spot for sure.

You noticed he was trying to be your friend, more than just a hookup because he was lately scheduling your meetings in places where more people were around — therefore you couldn't just kiss him.

Today, you two were meeting after his Quidditch practice. In his defence, you had indeed mentioned how hot after-trainings sex could be, and that was, probably, where he got the idea.

You were waiting for him in the ground leaned in the entrance to the stairs to the stands, laughing with yourself, because, not long ago, when he mentioned you waiting for him at the Quidditch field, you thought the idea was absurd.

"There he is," you said, placing your hands in the back pockets of your jeans, walking side by side with a just showered Fred Weasley.

"You came."

"You said for me to come," you replied, tilting your head towards him and chuckling. It wasn't like you and any other places to be, but he didn't need to know.

"Hey, Fred, what are we..." started George, rushing to Fred's side and gasping at the notice of you. "Oh, hey, y/n."

So nice to have a Weasley calling you by your name instead of the stupid "duff" thing Fred seemed to love.

But that was George — the George Weasley — and all you managed to do was blush and nervously say hello back.

"Well, brother, got do something with y/n first, but, later, we can..."

"— don't bother with me! I'm sure we can hang out the three of us," you interrupted Fred, glad this time you didn't stutter.

Fred practically spat out a laugh, looking at you like you were crazy. "We? With my own twin?"

You pushed Fred by the shoulder, disgusted by the bullshit he had suggested.

"We can change our plans," you elaborated. "That's what I meant, Fred."

George's eyes went from you to Fred, not sure of what to say next. He didn't know what was going on between the two of you — you'd threatened Fred that you'd kill the whole Weasley family if he decided to say something.

"Are you sure? Fred and I can do the prank later."

"It's a prank? Then count me in!" you smiled, pushing Fred's shoulder again. "Why didn't you tell me?"

There was one exact reason why Fred didn't tell you — it's because you weren't interested, especially in personal stuff and principally in pranks.

"Wow, y/n, I reckon I've never seen you so excited," George commented, smiling.

The three of you started walking away from the Quidditch field while Fred mumbled something about him being the reason for your excitement — for that you replied with pinching his left arm.

-

You had never laughed so hard in your life. Fred, George and you were sitting on the floor of the empty library, leaning your backs against a dusty shelf in the dark corner of the room.

"Did you see his face?" George giggled, placing a hand over his chest where his heart was beating extra fast.

All of the hearts there were beating fast.

It was almost midnight, and by the school rules, you three should be in bed, but the amount of enthusiasm you were feeling was convincing you being a reckless student wasn't so bad.

You were sitting in the middle of the twins, your hands tossed on the floor — the left one just a couple of centimetres away from Fred's. He was watching you, paying very close attention at how the red slowly painted your face back, since it had been white because of all the running from Filch to not get caught.

"Thanks for tagging me along," you said, with a small smile, looking at George.

"Anytime," George said, thinking it was the right thing to do. "You're fun to be around. I see why you wanted to hang out with her, Freddie."

You would've teased Fred about the silly nickname if it wasn't gonna ruin the beautiful moment you and George were having.

Fred watched his twin and you, giggling with each other, talking about random funny stuff related to Argo Filch, but he couldn't hear the conversation quite well. He could only focus on how you were leaning towards George, and how, involuntarily, your hand ran away from his.

"Well, chaps, I've gotta keep going," George announced, getting up and shaking the dust out of his clothes. You pouted, saddened by the departure of your favourite twin.

Fred didn't even breathe, scared that would make his brother want to stay. It wasn't like he was addicted to you — Godric, no! — but he was really looking forward to spending some time with you. Just with you.

"So soon?" you replied, noticing that one prank and you now could speak perfectly well with George. You had no idea why it became uncomplicated, but spending time with him only made you notice what you already knew — he's very different from Fred. "See you later, then."

"See ya," George then turned around and walked out of the library, making sure he wasn't being heard.

As soon as George was away, Fred turned to you, using his hand to bring you face towards him. You allowed it, not really having much choice when he touched you like that.

"Why did want to prank with us?" he asked, looking straight into your eyes.

You shrugged, saying nothing. But something in your expression — maybe the quick thought of George — gave you away.

"George," Fred sighed, surprisingly angry, but not enough for you to notice. His hand fell from your face to his side. "You like him."

"Puff! What? No. What?"

Yeah, your reaction wasn't the best. But Fred shrugged, letting his jealous side hide and acting like a jerk because it was so much easier than caring.

"Are you only with me because I look like him?" he asked, making sure his tone sounded like he was playing with you instead of really curious.

"No!" you replied, faster than you expected. "First of all, I'm not with you. Secondly, no, Freddie," — you used the nickname to mess with him — "I didn't pick you because of George. I picked you because you were there."

Fred stayed in silence, absorbing your answer.

You were suddenly lost in your thoughts, remembering that first kiss not so long ago. And then you remembered all of those lonely nights at the Three Broomsticks, where your only companies were Rosmerta and... Fred.

"You are always there."

"Yeah," Fred sighed, not sure of what you meant with that. However, he was still in jerk mode, and for that, his hand flew back to touch you, this time choosing more sensitive regions, like your belly, particularly, above the waistband of your jeans, a place that Fred had already learned to be one of your weak spots. "So, is now when you're doing what we had scheduled to do?"

You turned to face him, making it easier for him to reach your abdomen.

"Do you only think about that?"

He pretended to be thoughtful.

"Yes."

 -

It came as a hell of a surprise when you were called to the Headmaster's office. You had been doing nothing — aside from escapades with Fred, and trying to get back to your studies, you haven't been doing much — so you didn't stall to see why they needed you.

You were even more surprised when the person awaiting fro you in the office was your mom.

"Hi, sweetie," she tried to smile but failed.

You didn't move since you opened the door and saw her, because her visit probably meant something you didn't want to be true.

"Is he dead?"

"What, sweetie? What did you say?" she asked.

"Dad. Is he...?" you whispered again, not brave enough to say it too loud.

"Oh, Merlin, no! That's why I'm here, actually. He called for you yesterday," she explained, stepping closer to you since you haven't been moving. "I sent you a letter, but you didn't reply, and I was so anxious..."

"Father called me? He said my name?" you were shocked because last time you saw him, he had no idea who you were.

"Yes, sweetie. I guess he remembers you," she smiled. "And me," she added.

"Can I see him?" you were fighting tears at this point.

"Of course, sweetie! That's why I'm here," she smiled, and opened her arms, knowing very well that all you wanted to do was bury your face on her chest, just like when you were little and scared. But this time, all you felt was happiness.

 -

Returning to Hogwarts was hard. Not because you were sad — Merlin, that had been your best weekend ever! You father was almost completely recovered, although now and then he was saying some gibberish.

It was hard to come back because you wished you'd stayed longer with your dad, but your mom knew you needed to finish your school year before anything else.

A conversation that you had with your father kept replaying in your mind since you walked in the school. It was before you left when he encouraged you to enjoy your life because he wished he had enjoyed his more — especially when he thought he was dying, having Death Eaters play with his mind.

So when you saw George in the hallway, you knew you had to do something about your whole starstruck situation.

"Hey!" you called him.

"Hi, y/n," he faced you, a smile appearing in his lips. "Haven't seen you all weekend."

"I had to be away. Dad's stuff," you really didn't want to tell him about it right there. "Anyway... I don't know how to say this, but I've been feeling incredibly confident lately, so here it goes... Would you like to go on a date with me?"

You had no idea how you manage to say it. Perhaps pranking someone together does change a person, but while you waited for his reply, George didn't seem so hard to talk to.

"You want to go out... with me?" he played with his hair while saying it.

"Yep," you gulped, suddenly regretting you recently discovered confidence.

"Okay," he frowned for a second before smiling lightly. "Three Broomsticks, Wednesday?"

"Perfect. See you there?"

He shook his head in response, then turned and walked away. You stayed there, expecting a wave of happiness to come, but it never did. That's odd, you thought, before heading to your dorm, which, weirdly enough, you had missed.

When you pushed the door open, you saw the two figures sitting on your bed, as if they had been waiting for you for a long time. Jess and Casey looked at you as you walked n, with sympathetic smiles on their faces.

"What are you two doing here?" you asked, but you weren't mad. Just curious.

You had missed them too.

"I'm here to apologize. Should've done it sooner, but you didn't allow me," said Casey, getting up and stepping closer to you. "I now know your father is better, but you were right, that letter could have something horrible written on it and had no right reading it."

You stared at her, unconsciously reaching for her hand, anxious to meet her hot touch again. You were still happy, of course, but that talk made you bit sentimental.

"I'm sorry, y/n," she said, allowing you to hug her and hugging you back in the way only she knew how. Jess jumped out of bed and embraced the two of you; although you couldn't see her face, you'd bet she was smiling and crying at the same time.

The three of you stayed like that for a while.

"But, thank Merlin, he's okay now," Casey continued, slowly pulling away from the group hug.

"How do you..."

"Fred told us," said Jess, sitting back on your bed and suggesting you two did the same.

"Fred? Fred Weasley? How did he know?" you were completely startled.

"He asked about you. The three of us were confused because, well, he was right, nobody had seen you," Jess explained. "Long story short, McGonagall told him about your dad, and he told us."

You gulped, taking in that new information. Fred worried about you, that was new. Well, you did leave with no warning, but for a not-a-friend with benefits, you never consider he would care if you disappeared.

"Did he say anything else?" you rounded, suddenly worried he could have told them about your little escapades.

"Should him? Your father is okay, right?" Casey entered a worried-mom mood, and Jess seemed to be concerned too.

"My father is getting better, yes," you replied, but now it was too late. They were curious, you sighed, knowing very well that, as your best friends, they had all the right to know what was going on. "I may — or may not — have started a no-strings-attached relationship with Fred Weasley."

"You did what??" Casey widened her eyes towards you.

You spend half an hour explaining to the girls what was going on in your sex life, and they were good listeners, never interrupting unless you paused. You missed those girly talks so much that you wondered how you managed to spend weeks not talking to them.

"Wait. But your date for Wednesday is George?" asked Jess, clearly confused with the end of your story.

"I never had the guts before," you said, remembering how only the idea of asking George out would've made you weak in the knees a year ago.

"But you like Fred," she stated, convinced she was correct.

"What? No. Why did you...? Merlin, no," you rambled. You thought you had made it clear that being around Fred longer than necessary made your stomach sick and everything.

Jess and Casey exchanged looks as if they knew something you didn't.

"Fred's repugnant. He still calls me Duff, can you believe it? I mean, 'hello, honey, if I'm such the disgusting, ugly friend, why do you sleep with me?' " you said, laughing with yourself, imagining you facing Fred and telling him that. But the girls kept with their suspicious stares. "I did explain what is Duff, right?"

"You did," said Casey.

"Still not convinced you don't like Fred, though," added Jess, raising a brow towards you.

"I don't! Besides, now, I don't need him. I'm going on a date with his brother, and my father is fine. I have no worries," you reminded them, getting up from your bed. "Well, maybe one problem. I still need better grades."

"That I can help," said Casey, allowing her nerdy Ravenclaw shine.

 -

You tried to corner Fred the whole Tuesday, but he seemed to be nowhere to be found, until after dinner, when you approached him when he was leaving. Thankfully, he was alone.

"So you are back," he said, looking you up and down in that way that only he knew. You looked around the hallway, scared that students leaving the Great Hall could hear you two talking, so you gesticulated for him to follow you to the broom closet — coincidently, where it all started was going to be its end too.

"Fred, we need to talk," you said, closing the door behind you and trying to find the light switch.

"You finally realized?" he sounded hopeful, with a playful smile on his lips.

"Realized what?"

He was set back with your response. Fred was thinking of something else when he asked you that, but he wasn't going to let you win. Although you really didn't have any idea what he was talking about.

"Realized you can't live without me."

"HA! Very funny, Weasley," you said, rolling your eyes.

He stepped closer to you, expecting you to do what you generally did in that closet, and, even though, his perfume made you lose your senses for a second (that didn't use to happen before, did it?).

"Well, I brought you here because... You see, we aren't doing this anymore," you swallowed after saying it — it was as if a knife was held in your neck.

He leaned in, looking down at you. His playful smile was long gone.

"You want to do it the right way. I get it," he said, pressing his lips together for a pause. "We could just jump to the fun part."

"Fun part? There isn't a...", but you weren't able to finish. His lips met yours mid-phrase, and as usual, you couldn't care about anything else but his lips.

What was the thing I need to tell him? Never mind now.

Your hands were playing with his hair, but something was different this time. There was still an urge — one that shouldn't be there, giving that you had no problems to forget right now — but you two were acting slowly, appreciating every touch.

When with Fred, you never felt ashamed of your body, but somehow this time you were very self-conscious, afraid that he wouldn't like you. Which was stupid — he had been... with you for too long to now started caring about your form.

What you didn't know what was that, if anything, he was finding you even more beautiful tonight, with the weak light of the closet highlighting every gorgeous curve of your body.

While you two undressed (with his lips away from yours), you were able to remember you shouldn't be there, snogging him and well, about to do other things with him. You had gone there to end this thing.

You sighed, too perplexed at the view of the ginger boy's body. The light was also highlighting his best spots.

A good-bye, you concluded with yourself. You were allowing yourself one last night, before staying away from Fred.

And if it was going to be a good-bye, you were sure you wanted to make it the best yet.

 -

When you asked George out, he had been puzzled, and really scared of what to do next.

You had never jumbled him with Fred before — and after spending so much time with his twin doing Merlin knows what he expected you to never do it.

He thought it was rather cute that you took the first step and asked Fred out. Well, you did confuse the twin, but George assumed you probably were too nervous with your own feelings.

So using his best "hey, brother, this is gonna sound funny" voice, he went to find Fred to tell him that he had a date with the girl he had pining over for the last month.

George had never seen Fred say no to other girls, neither had George seen Fred stay in the castle for a Friday night, then a skip a Hogsmeade trip. You had changed Fred, even though George was sure Fred had not noticed it yet.

"What is it, George?" Fred asked, anxious to leave and meet you, no matter where you could be. He had heard that you had just got back in the castle and he just... he wanted to make sure you were alright.

"y/n, she... well," George nervously giggled. "She mixed us. She thought I was you."

"Really?" Fred was not expecting at this stage for you to mix him with his brother.

"Yeah, and hm, this is funny," George gulped before continuing. "I think she asked you out. On a date."

"She what??"

"Yeah, I guess she was on a rush, because of her father, and she said something about feeling confident," George went on. "Anyway, I said yes because I knew you'd have said yes. It's Wednesday. At the Three Broomsticks."

Fred stared at his brother as if he had solved all the problems in the world.

"She really did that?"

George shook his head yes and pointed out: "Don't mention she mixed us. It will probably make her feel worse."

"Are you sure she thought you were me?" Fred asked, overthinking it.

"Well, of course. Why else would y/n ask me out?"

-

You had to borrow a foundation from Jess (your skin tones were not so similar, but it was enough) because on the last night, Fred had exaggerated a little.

He never left a mark on his body, but yesterday he had overcome himself. As the brush rubbed the foundation on your neck, you remembered the night before.

 "You are mine, Duff," he said, between one hickey and another. "Just mine."

 Unintentionally, you lost yourself in thought, your mind continuing its replay from the night before, as you brushed your sensitive skin.

 "Only I can make you feel this way; only my touch makes you shiver," whispered Fred, and incredibly, it was true. But he was Fred, and it couldn't go on.

So when it was over, and you both were too tired, you got dressed and stared at him, knowing what was coming next.

"Thank you, Fred, seriously. For everything," he watched you as you gulped nervously. "But this really can't go on. I have a date tomorrow."

"I know."

You were about to leave, but you immediately turned, facing him with wide eyes.

"You asked George out. I know," he seemed sad. And you have never seen Fred sad before. You wanted to do something, but what could you do really?

"Fred, I..."

"Look, you had your good-bye, y/n. You can get out now," Fred said. "Go hide. It's what you do, right?"

"Hey, don't turn this on me!"

"Somehow, this is my fault?" Fred asked while putting on his pants. Although angry, he didn't seem scary. "What you want me to do, y/n? I'm the jackass womanizer, aren't I? Go get the better twin."

"Fred Weasley!" you shouted his name, trying to shut him up. "We were never a couple; don't act as if you care now! Don't act like you're jealous!"

"Why? Because I can't be jealous of you? I can't care about you?" he shouted back.

"Care about me? You call me Duff, Weasley. All the damn time! How am I supposed to know you care about me if you keep reminding me how ugly, fat and disgusting I am?"

Silence fell upon the two of you.

That was the knife in your neck all along. The stupid nickname, it all came back to it. Fred had no idea how much power that nickname had over you.

"I never meant it that way, y/n," he said, gulping slowly.

"No?" you asked sarcastically. "Really? I remember you telling me I have hotter friends."

"But that was before!" he protested.

"Before what?" you asked, but his reply never came. The words he couldn't say died in his chest — buried forever. "See you around, Weasley, " you said, before opening the door and leaving, without looking back.

 You shook your head, slowly coming back to reality. The hickeys were enough hidden. It didn't look perfect, but the Three Broomsticks had terrible lighting, so it would be okay.

You wanted to stay in, curled up in bed, playing in repeat your good-bye, and blame yourself for that sadness in your chest, but you were too embarrassed to dump George.

The place was crowded — Hogwarts older students were practically all there, having the time of their lives on the dance floor. You wished George could never find you, so you went to the counter to hide behind a mug of butterbeer.

"Hey there, pretty," said Madam Rosmerta, who have missed you all those nights without you. "Butterbeer?"

"You know it," you said, about to throw her a coin when someone pressed a hand on your shoulder.

"Make it two," he said, and he didn't even need to speak to you know who it was. That cheap perfume was going to be the death of you. "It's on me," he told you, tossing his own coin to Rosmerta who disappeared to get the mugs.

"He's not coming," he added a second later, hating the silence around you two.

"I figured it. When I saw you," you explained, gulping.

Rosmerta brought two mugs back, and both of you took a sip from it, unsure of what to say next.

It wasn't like you two fought last night because you hated each other. In fact, it was probably the complete opposite, but both looked like stupid cowards, afraid of your own feelings.

"Look, I..." he started, but you interrupted him, placing your hand on his arm over the counter.

"Let me say this first," you said, locking your eyes on his. "I shouldn't have asked your twin out. Even if we were just friends; what I did was a jerk move."

"You liked him first," Fred pointed out, trying to defend you from yourself.

You chuckled. "Oh, Merlin, no. I thought he had a pretty face," you explained, tilting your head towards him, and he understood your joke right away, joining in the laughter. "And he seemed like a nice guy. Like, huh, I thought he could treat me nicely," you looked away from his big eyes, facing the shelves with liquor.

"But?"

"What?" you asked him, turning to face him once again.

"I feel like there was a 'but'."

You smiled.

"But you also have a pretty face, and recently, you've come to treat me nice too," you said, and he pressed his lips together while slowly shaking his head up and down. "Well, actually, if it's just between you and me, your face is prettier."

He raised his brows. "Is it?"

"And your body too," you added, just to make him smile.

"Is mine bigger?" he asked, back to his normal joker self.

You pushed him lightly by the shoulder, not hard enough for him to fall off the stool.

"Never saw his, sorry," you decided to tease, and you both giggled.

"I'm sorry. About the Duff thing and all," he said, swallowing. "I kept the nickname because I thought it was cute. If I knew it bothered you so much, I'd have stopped. And I wouldn't have used it during sex."

"I'm okay with it now, I guess," you said. "It wasn't that bad hearing it during sex if I'm honest."

You tilted your head to the left, biting your tongue to not laugh because it was not funny. But Fred just had a way to ease your mood.

You thought silence was going to hunt you two again when Fred spoke.

"Is this the part where you admit you have feelings for me?" he smirked, placing his hands on your knees, relaxing you even more.

"Maybe," you chuckled. "Is this the part where you admit you have feelings for me?"

"Yes," he said, surprising you. "I have feelings for you."

"Well, I have feelings for you too, Freddie," you smiled, passing your fingers through his strong arms.

"You're not gonna forget that nickname, are you?" he faced away while asking.

"Nope."

"Fine by me, Duff," he replied, messing with you too. He then leaned closer, pressing his lips on yours, and it didn't take long for his hands to find your waist and bring you as closer to him as the stools allowed.

"But we are going slower this time, Weasley," you warned, parting your lips for just a second.

He smiled in the kiss.

"It's always better that way," he replied, probably remembering the soft, slow sex from last night because you were sure remembering that too.

You slapped his arm just strong enough for him to pout, but you kept kissing him anyway. When you two kissed, nothing else mattered— it was only the two of you in the world.

[incarnateirony]

Someone dropped this in my submission box instead of ask box, “So I’m trying to genuinely understand what you’re saying is you understand corporate execs at the CW had a hand in the ending of supernatural? I’m not judging not attacking I swear I’m just trying to make sense of it because I had no idea about any of this up till now because I had stayed out of online fandom because well for years it felt big but anyways am I getting this right?”

---

The CW has a hand in everything. Here’s how this generally works.

The authors have ~relative~ freedom on a show. That is to say, the execs really don’t sit there splitting the nuances of the storytelling the fandom is receiving. They generally don’t even identify major markers that any of us would know (see: not even recognizing what the Roadhouse is.) -- we all knew the original ending had TFW at the Roadhouse as framed and spoiled by 15.04 among other details, and the whole “heaven/mental bar” theme from DSOTM, Nihilism, and Last Call all amplified this as an inevitability--but when you ask about “hey, is there a bar in heaven?” and get a “no?” that tells you they don’t even understand *ancient* plot beats like the Roadhouse, much less the ramifications of what it’s supposed to entail. Oh look at that, the roadhouse was just in fucking heaven like we said, but you identified it as a “cabin” because of filming locations and your basic notes.

Corporate has very basic compliance demands. They expect X, Y, and Z. What X Y and Z are across different shows vary depending on their markets. As long as the authors operate within X Y and Z, the corporate face essentially works off of synopsis of pitches and ideas.

This is also why I’ve talked about queer writing history and people being careful what they call queerbait: you don’t know what their X Y and Z are. The WB for example does not really CARE about representation. I’ve blogged about this often. We’re dollar signs. If they can package a new product to market it explicitly as LGBTQ fare, then they’ll turn you into a revenue machine by feeding you that particular fodder. When it comes to legacy shows--which is funny, because when the suit went off in my DM about this, they used the exact same phrasing as me--they’re going to play it safe, especially if they don’t truly understand the returns from the demographics they’re observing.

The space between X Y and Z is where the authors have liberty to push and, the longer and harder they push, the louder the content is allowed to get.

Here! I’ll even quote them directly, somewhat truncated because they ranted for fucking PARAGRAPHS.

“In reference to the media landscape, on a corporate level we do not distinguish fandoms. [...] That said, legacy shows such at Arrow, Supernatural, and even Flash are relics and we never really endeavored to reinvent the wheel on a corporate level, we are more focused on shows that are newer and still in our pipeline to premiere. [...] As for social media like all businesses and brands the engagement itself is key, but the content of the engagement is mostly irrelevant, though every show does have certain keywords that are often used in conjunction with harsher interactions blacklisted.”

The funny part is, they thought they were preaching to me like this was new information, but those of you that have been around my blog will PROBABLY RECOGNIZE this is almost VERBATIM exactly what I have told everybody over the years. Enough I half-suspect some trolls out there will think i wrote it myself and made it up and lob that accusation around. But there’s about 50 people that watched this conversation as it unfolded.

If you guys get mad? You’re still giving them PR. If you engage the content? You’re giving them PR. If you guys get bitchy ENOUGH? They completely blacklist a certain kind of engagement. I have literally been telling you all of this for years.

They don’t care who you are or what you want, just if you’re watching and what they at-best roughly estimate your demographic as desiring. So for example, Supernatural reading as a largely non-urban white demographic in its viewership, especially with a heavier lean in red states than most shows on the network, they presume to cater to what they perceive that demographic wants, rather than individualizing the understanding of the content, because they do not distinguish the shows or fandoms. “Oh, heavier republican white non-urban demographic” is where their understanding ends at, which is why they’re going to be utterly mystified why even my trump-voting republican neighbor from rural Alabama looked at the end result and went “what the fuck?” -- they weren’t expecting a big gay confession, but they were expecting a different sort of final tone.

Of course they’re never going to take that on for themselves and go “wow, we’re giant blazing dumbasses that understand nothing about the show!” -- they’ll, for example, claim they don’t leave network notes, when they’re still the ones passing material along about demographics and expectations etc etc. Their notes are *basic*. They do not leave *extensive* notes. Because extensive notes require extensive understanding of the content.

So for example: Berens spent since S9 slowly gaying up our show. Since they do not pay attention to the fine details of the story contents (lol no bar in heaven lolololol just a cabin lololol), he never got a note to *stop*. But it was not within the original structure plans and didn’t technically fit the demographic notes. The show continued to get aggressively gayed up, and Berens never really signed a note like “hey, I’m gaying it the fuck up” so even fandom reporters were going “THERE’S NO INTENT THERE!!!!!” -- berens operated in his very basic X, Y, Z landmarks to expand content within a story the suits literally do not pay the fuck attention to.

Corporate’s understanding is basic: dudes stabbing monsters and brothers against the world. Play in that box and keep these demographic notes in mind. You’re good.

They’ll NEVER mention blacklisting issues directly beyond what they admitted in the above quote but I DO remind you I have ranted ON AND ON AND ON how much Destiel fandom shot themselves in the goddamn foot with a fucking bazooka with the Chad Kennedy incident years ago. Others like Emily handled it intelligently to inform the *authors*. No, the network will never tell you if they blacklisted Destiel, but I informed you pretty heavily years ago that odds are, yeah, they probably fucking blacklisted Destiel.

Add in paying attention to the things Berens himself liked (if you don’t believe, scroll to Nov 5 on his tl)

Like, listen. berens knows exactly what he did and did the best he could do in the situations that were set up for him. And, frankly, I had been talking about this season as a writer room rebellion all year--just like corporate DID leave them a note in S11 that they couldn’t kill god. But if they couldn’t kill him or cage him, they would find another way. In 17 we said goodbye to Meredith and, in a way, to a MAJOR portion of Dean’s substantial story. In 18, we said goodbye to Bobo, and frankly all the parts that grew into queer Castiel that came with it. 19 and 20 became residual notes of hitting expected plot beats on the head on a rhythm, tying off godforces, and then just sliding into the Dabb subversion of them having learned to grieve, let go, and process emotions-- just the surrounding delivery left the feeling of more ~wanting~ on that front which is understandable.

But these are the kind of things people don’t even ~think~ about. This is WHY I’ve turned myself into a bulletshield protecting Berens’ work for YEARS while people yelled about queerbait not understanding the years of process he used in his unbabysat space to make something unable to dodge.

More posts he liked:

This isn’t a solo story. At the same SDCC he leaned over to my friend and grinned, whispering, “I hope you like what I did this year.” -- he knew. He knew and he fought his ass off but there was an end of the line.

That end of the line having an extra note or two to drop in the finale--never a big gay confirmation, just a “everyone’s there together, assume what you want” --is its own thing. As it is, Jensen even remarked how much of his dialogue got cut in final draft out of 18, and if the brazil dubbing footage leak tells me anything, they got the raw version before it was cut. And before they ADR’ed Dean’s sniffling collapsed against the wall. They had everything right, beyond the fact that there was supposed to be more dialogue from Dean along the lines of, “You can’t go”, or “you can’t leave” (difficult to determine what a ESL person seeing an english draft then yelling in portuguese then translated back to english meant, specifically, but something in that ballpark -- just like “don’t do this” came as “no it’s not” through the translation pipeline), and other similar minor bartering about this. And we’re not even gonna get into Dean’s hilariously loudly ADRed sniffling on the wall. Here, Jensen, breathe IMMEDIATELY into this microphone.

But they’re never going to tell you this. Of course they’re not. 

Summarily, corporate had half a year of having to re-manage scheduling everybody’s flights and planners during covid rewrites to stare directly into the huge gay abyss and fuck things up. 

It’s all about the unmonitored space vs the monitored space. Of COURSE they’re never going to fucking tell you these things. 

FRANKLY I am DYING to see the Portuguese dub of the show to see what the fuck they do with it, all things considered. I’m pretty sure the suit in my inbox that’s trying to vagueblog around things sideways now never accounted for the fact that there’s copies of the raw available in some parts of the world. I’m... pretty sure they thought they were my only leak source in fact. 

Either way--it’s not that corporate micromanages and passes constant notes. It’s that they gloss over vague summaries and plans, drop a few base expectations and performance boxes. It’s up to the authors how to kick up dust inside those boxes. 

[forgiveness-in-the-misery]

Toki’s Psychological State Through the Seasons

Toki is by far for me personally the most interesting member of Dethklok; I know to some degree he’s deemed as a potentially over hyped character by fans and even the show itself, but there’s countless reasons why people cling onto that character, and they’re good reasons. Even if said reasons just come down to “I think he’s neat.” that’s valid.

For me I am so fascinated with his character development, personality, and the varied chunks of background information we get about him throughout the series. A big part of this character is that when you look at him in season one compared to season four he is very different or at least he appears to be much different. Season one does establish that Toki does have a childish personality, his bedroom looks more like a room for a kid than one for a guy in his 20s. Season one establishes those basic facts about him that do heavily carry out through the show, but also increase as the show goes on.

Toki goes from immature but not overly immature to....a complete fucking wreck by the finale of season four (before Doomstar) and the reason for it is simple; it’s trauma.

Toki starts to act differently in season one after the Dethfamily episode; he spends practically that entire episode in a catatonic state, his parents always looming nearby like figures of danger and doom. After this we do get to him being bitter about being seen as immature and seen as the kid of the band (despite the fact he was barely 16 when he joined Dethklok) and when a charity informs him that a dying girl wants to meet him he turns into a complete prick. He finally comes out of that when he sees a video the kid made of herself singing a song about death and hatred, with that scene we see a small flashback of Toki’s childhood; him about the little girl’s age standing out in the snow staring up at his parents looking confused and a moment later he’s being smacked across the face. 

We could already gather beforehand when we found out he came from a very devout religious sect outside of Lillehammer that his childhood was sketchy, plus how he locked up when around his parents, but seeing the flashback of him being hit as a little boy.....Answers the obvious question of “did they beat him?”

Season one is the least eventful of the seasons. Season two is when shit begins changing drastically.

Season two Toki receives a call to inform him that his father has cancer and is on his death bed, the family and the church wants him to return to Norway to see his father. He acts completely fine about this initially, the phone conversation and the way he announces his father’s terminal illness to the band is as if somebody just asked to borrow his car. When it gets close to time to actually go and when they are in Norway it’s different though; he becomes anxious and clearly uncomfortable, in Norway he stays in town mostly, stalling around places he went to as a kid and a teenager before he ran off to America. 

He does handle his father’s dying well once he finally convinces himself to go inside his house and see him then follow through with his father’s dying request to carry him up to his old childhood home (which goes wrong because his friend’s are dicks.) 

I am not going to go into personal detail at all and my situation was nothing like Toki’s (it’s incredibly rare to hear situations like that anymore), but Toki handling his father’s passing freakishly well kind of was a red flag for me, because I know from my own experiences that when you find out something complicated like a terminal illness or the death of your abusive parent theres’ a chance you may respond way too calmly to it, and then later down the line days or months or years later something will trigger a big reaction to it. Which is what happens.

After handling his dad’s death well we get the most iconic scene involving Toki at that point and honestly still the most iconic; he beats a man to death with his bare hands. The thing that triggers this is a hallucinated image of a rabbit, an animal he associates both with his father and his childhood, the image of it triggers him to fly into an insanely feral blind rage taking it out on a guy who had been annoying him all night. Toki has always throughout the entire series shown signs of being a tad violent, but never THAT bad. Sure he shot down a plane and had accidentally caused a death or twenty (the whole band is, it’s part of the sacrifices to the Gods deal) but we had never seen him before or after that moment beat somebody to death. That is new and it came from a place of pent up....shit. Shit he never worked through and even after that continued to not work through.

Because after this we lead into him worsening further; he begins drinking. A lot. The band consist of dudes with addiction issues, mainly alcohol, but Toki never seemed to drink quite as much as them until after he went feral on that straight edge guy. 

Toki deals with his childhood trauma in several ways:

He drinks. A lot.

He focuses on fantasy and daydreams to keep himself from focusing on his past.

He spends a lot of time with Dr. Rockso who takes advantage of his kindness often, he also spends gross amounts of money bailing his clown buddy out of jail. Constantly.

He occasionally gets violent, but never to the point of manslaughter.

Seasons three and four are when we get fully introduced to Toki acting like a kid more than a guy in his 20s and it makes sense. Toki didn’t have a childhood; we learn that his parents essentially made him into a slave at a young age having him do pointless “chores” like sweeping snow during a storm, carrying stacks of wood much too heavy for a small child, etc. and when he failed to work quickly enough or failed a task they punished him. They punished him by locking him in a shed, they punished him by chaining him up like an animal, they punished him by smacking him, by beating him with a bull whip, and worst of all (who knew it could get worse) they would force him to stay for long periods of times in a deep hole dug into the ground. A hole where he hid a clown doll made of twigs and straw, the only friend he had as a little kid.

From all that we can gather through the show he didn’t exactly have a social life of any kind until his teens, the older he became the braver I think he became, and that was responded to with worse violence from his parents. I think the statement in season one about a vision of father killing son wasn’t totally off, I think if Toki had never run away from Norway that his father would have murdered him. I think his parents knew somehow that he isn’t entirely human, they knew he was something else, and I do think his parents had plans to kill him before he could become “too powerful”. 

That aside though.....Once we the audience as well as his friends find out far more details about his horrifying childhood Toki changes. A lot. He’d already been immature and a tad bit off but he regresses further after that, more prone to depression and outbursts, clinginess, and a need to feel like he’s loved by pretty much anybody.

This is a dude who is about my age that came to the horrid realization that any person or animal he loves will die because that’s his “gift”, the gift of death. He works his ass off to repress and rationalize a brutally nightmarish childhood, and the guys he’s in a band with who he loves and sees as his family....are dicks. We know that when he joined Dethklok before they got famous that they were all close, but when they began becoming popular and became immensely wealthy the others became more focused on self indulgence and power, less focused on this still a child who desperately just wanted a family.

I think a key factor with Toki being the way he is comes down to the band’s “no caring” rule. A rule that only existed because of Magnus. Toki is the baby in a group of people who have known each other for a good while, people who came to an agreement to not give a shit about each other for a reason they never explained to him because it’s too painful for them to think about. I think he always tried to live by that rule of not caring, he tried to bury all the shit wrong with himself the best that he could but he was never good at it. It’s also clear they all care about each other and they definitely care about Toki; Nathan and Skwisgaar often being the most protective of him. 

In season four aka the season where the show becomes less of a comedy and more of a drama with stunning animation. Toki is immensely more immature and awkward, he’s clingy with the band especially where Skwisgaar is regarded. Near the end of season four he’s completely fucked up; he splits his time between Rockso (his comfort object) and Magnus (a father figure to replace Nathan) in the dinner episode which has so much going on in it. So much. Toki is at his lowest point in the series; he shows up late, drunk as fucking hell, shirtless, and covered in bruises and cuts. Rockso is with him and when Charles tries to tell him Rockso shouldn’t be there Toki goes into a full fucking anxiety attack until Charles tells him it’s fine to have the clown there. Toki’s heavily dependent on Rockso by that point; his found family is quickly falling to shit. God knows what kind of shit Magnus might have been feeding him about the band at that point. 

Toki’s entire thing from day one/the pilot of the series is that he just wants a family. When he feels like he doesn’t belong in the one that he found and was taken in by he searches for family in other places, when he can’t handle the memories of his childhood he spirals hard. I understand that the guys didn’t really know how to handle it after they heard about Toki’s childhood so I can’t fault them completely for just.....shoving him off onto Rockso after that, but I still think they should have tried to be there for him more so, more directly. I think an outlet that isn’t a drug addled clown might have helped him in some way, I think if when he’d been a teenager if one of them had found out about his upbringing and just pointed out “that isn’t okay, at all.” then things might have panned out differently. 

Mental regression isn’t uncommon when it comes down to victims of trauma caused by extreme abuse. Especially considering his trauma all occurred basically from the get go; he was a child slave, the closest I would guess he ever got to having a childhood when he was a kid was seeing other kids childhoods. Going into town and seeing kids playing, sneaking into birthday parties just to be around other kids his age, etc. and he definitely was childish as a teenager, but I think he tried to bury that side of himself when his bandmates started teasing him or pointing out how unmetal it all is.....But then a douche bag journalist brought his parents to America, a little girl died, his abusive father died horribly (as he should) in front of him, he beat a man to death (allegedly), etc. 

He spent a lot of years away from all the trauma and the death and the bull shit then suddenly it started piling on top of him again and his escapism was fantasy, clinging onto a junkie clown, partaking in childish hobbies.....because why not? 

Each member of the band suffered some messed up shit when they were kids and it shows in different ways, this is Toki’s way of dealing with it....or not. I’m not entirely sure what his psychological state would be post Doomstar; the way he bounces back from immense trauma makes me think that he would be okay given some time and that’s a safe assumption to make, especially now that his bandmates/family will be there for him the way he needs them to be.

I want to tag @theidiotwiththepaintedface who hopefully will enjoy this painfully long deep dive into a character’s psychology lol.

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hi. I hope you had/are having a great summer break. I (INTP) am hoping for some perspective about an issue. Recently, my mother, whom I hadn’t seen in a while, became incredibly frustrated that I corrected her with an alleged “I know everything” attitude.

It’s an issue of concern because she revealed that I always do this. I guess this was the straw that broke it, especially given that what we were discussing was very trivial. (Maybe the frivolousness of the subject is precisely what made my correction seem more pedantic, unnecessary, arrogant.) She says that my attitude disregards her long life experience, and that if she were a stranger, she would think of me as a “snot-nosed brat who knows nothing about life” instead of as a “wise young person”, which is the viable alternative. She said that I am closed-minded and that I shoot everything down. (The problem of small-mindedness is what you addressed the only other time I wrote to you.)

I don’t know why I come off as arrogant. I’m sure that I’m not. I asked my mother what it was that made her think that, which she thought was a silly question because what she sensed was a general demeanor rather than specific behaviors. In the end we were only able to establish that my lack of eye contact was one of those factors. I can work on that, but surely that’s not determinant. What makes people think of others as arrogant? Should I stop correcting people? I don’t correct others in order to feel superior to them. I do it because I like to debate, in order to keep my thinking sharp, and because there is something painful about friends/family having false notions. I think it’s fair to say that my intention isn’t rooted in arrogant soils.

Granted, my suggestion of stopping correcting people is black-and-white, given that there is the grey option of changing the *way* I correct people. I’m just wondering if it’s an unhealthy habit in the first place. But given how prevalent a thought process it is (i.e. questioning people’s statements and finding faults), the process of getting rid of it may be akin to self-directed psychological violence. I mean, this is the same mode of being that makes me good at what I’m good at. (There’s also the option of keeping the thought process, but not correcting people aloud, but I don’t know what else there is to talk about other than analyzing ideas and their faults. Maybe I should analyze ideas for their strengths too, and express that side more than the faults.)

So anyway, let’s go with grey: So far I’ve tried thinking of an arrogant person that I know in order to understand my behavior, but I can’t think of anyone. Also, no matter how hard I try to put myself in someone else’s shoes in order to simulate an interaction with myself, it doesn’t really work, and I can’t see the arrogance, except if I were to just tell someone “that’s wrong” without any explanation. (I wonder if that’s what went wrong in the conversation with my mother.) Either way, this whole issue boils down to the fact that I’m not arrogant by any reasonable criteria that I found online, but that I come off as such. This was longer than intended. Thanks for your kindness and help.

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

Here are some questions for you to reflect on. They are meant to increase awareness of your underlying assumptions, beliefs, and values. Answer honestly:

Do you care about your mom? Do you care about how she's faring, what she's experiencing, what she's thinking or feeling, what she needs and desires, what she hopes for or aspires to, etc?

If you care, how do you SHOW your care to her?

If you don't care, how does that affect your behavior toward her?

Do you believe that the mother-child relationship only goes one-way? (Is it the mom's job to do for you but you owe her nothing?)

You say you like to debate to sharpen your mind. Innocent enough. I like to roller skate to keep myself physically fit. In an ideal world, I would never take my skates off. Does my enthusiasm for roller skating mean that I slap my skates on anywhere, any time? No. Surely it is inappropriate to skate around a hospital or the supermarket. Not only could I seriously harm myself, I would also be exhibiting flagrant disregard for the safety and well-being of others.

What you like to do for yourself sometimes comes into conflict with other people. If you care about people and hope to have healthy and happy relationships with them, you have to take their needs and wants into consideration in every interaction. You have to abide by ethical rules and principles that allow your needs to be met without neglecting the needs of others or interfering with their ability to get their needs met. Without ethics, society wouldn't be able to function, because it would just be a free-for-all.

You mention small-mindedness. It is quite small-minded to walk around the world only thinking about what you need/want. In the best case scenario, you are completely oblivious to others, and they will perceive you as clueless or self-absorbed. In the worst case scenario, you only interact with people for your own personal gain, and that would make you an exploitative or even abusive person. Is that the kind of person you want to be?

Do you basically treat people as though their sole purpose on earth is to debate you and help you sharpen your mind - to serve you? Do you launch into debates with people without asking for consent or checking to see if they want to be corrected? If you do, they will call you arrogant, not because you've put yourself on a pedestal and call yourself superior like an evil cartoon character, but because you are communicating to them that your needs/wants are most important AND you don't give a damn about theirs.

Webster's definition of arrogance: "an insulting way of thinking or behaving that comes from believing that you are better, smarter, or more important than other people". You believe that you know better, otherwise, you wouldn't grant yourself the social authority to intrude on people's boundaries, invalidate their experience, and correct them uninvited. You believe that you are smarter, otherwise, you wouldn't automatically assume the dominant social role of corrector. You behave as though you are the more important member of the relationship because your main priority is YOUR need to feel better (about your skills or about what others believe) while overlooking the other person's needs. Seems like you fit the definition quite well.

Despite that, I wouldn't call you arrogant because I understand that small-mindedness is a difficult problem to overcome. I see the effort that you're putting in to understand it. I'm charitable because I'm not the one who was hurt by your behavior. When people feel hurt, they often have difficulty expressing it. Maybe it comes out clumsily or they aren't able to explain their hurt without hurting you in return. Expressing one's true feelings is to make oneself vulnerable. If someone doesn't trust you to understand and validate their feelings or, worse, they believe that you will attack them for their feelings, they will not be completely honest with you. Your mom is trying her best to give you the benefit of the doubt by saying "if you were a stranger...", but she doesn't feel comfortable enough with you to express her hurt fully and explicitly as it happens. Why? Because the very reason she is hurt in the first place is that you have shown very little regard for her feelings. Following from the previous post of yours, the root of the problem is that you have such a poor understanding of feelings to begin with that you view them as inconsequential in yourself and others (very immature Fe).

I believe you have no ill-intent. I have said before that the typical Ti dom never sets out to hurt people on purpose. Rather, they hurt people unintentionally because their perspective is too small: 1) they don't grasp that other people's needs may be very different from their own and thereby fail to consider them, 2) they don't know how to empathize with different perspectives and validate them, and/or 3) they don't understand that SHOWING love and care is necessary for people to justify continued investment in the relationship.

In other words, Ti doms tend to hurt people out of negligence or acts of omission. Some of them get frustrated at not being able to solve their relationship problems. They might try to convince themselves that doing nothing means that no harm can be done, so they adopt a passive stance in the relationship and perhaps even train themselves to keep their mouth shut (self-violence). They fail to understand that there's more than one way to cause hurt. Instead of learning better relationship skills, they check out mentally and emotionally. Being checked out only makes it worse because you hurt yourself and you keep hurting others by being even less attentive to their needs.

The foundation of meaningful relationships is showing care. In a healthy relationship, people trust you to care for their emotional needs and not violate their personal boundaries. If you only attend to your own needs/wants in social interaction, you are signalling that you don't really care about the other person. This problem with your mom shows that you give little to no consideration for emotional needs and personal boundaries. If you don't want friends, it's entirely your choice to be alone for the rest of your life, pretending that you never leave any footprints behind you. If you want friends, you'll have to put out more effort to be a better friend, by paying more attention to the consequences of your behavior.

Doing things that violate trust and boundaries, even if unintentional, causes hurt. When people feel hurt and don't feel safe to express the hurt, they are liable to say/do negative things. To have good emotional intelligence is to see past the surface of their negative words/behavior and grasp the underlying emotional needs that were unmet and/or the personal boundaries that were violated. Only then can you be a morally responsible member of a relationship, in terms of owning all the ways that you impact people, both positively and negatively.

Arrogant people don't care about the social impact they produce. As long as they get what they want and don't lose anything, the existence of others is of little importance to them. If your mom is important to you, then learn how to show it better by listening to her when she tells you about her needs/wants. You hyperfocus on the literal meaning of the word "arrogant" and whether it is true/false of you, as though proving it false means that there's nothing wrong. You need to listen to the people you have hurt, if you want to understand why your behavior is hurtful. Alternatively, you need to educate yourself about emotional needs, interpersonal boundaries, and what constitutes un/ethical behavior and why.

[theshedding]

Lil Nas X: Country Music, Christianity & Reclaiming HELL

I don’t typically bother myself to follow what Lil Nas X is doing from day to day, or even month to month but I do know that his “Old Town Road” hit became one of the biggest selling/streamed records in Country Music Business history (by a Black Country & Queer artist). “Black” is key because for 75+ years Country music has unsuspiciously evolved into a solidly White-identified genre (despite mixed and Indian & Black roots). Regrettably, Country music is also widely known for anti-black, misogynoir, reliably homophobic (Trans isn’t really a conversation yet), Christian and Hard Right sentiments on the political spectrum. Some other day I will venture into more; there is a whole analysis dying to be done on this exclusive practice in the music industry with its implications on ‘access’ to equity and opportunity for both Black/POC’s and Whites artists/songwriters alike. More commentary on this rigid homogeneous field is needed and how it prohibits certain talent(s) for the sake of perpetuating homogeneity (e.g. “social determinants” of diversity & viable artistic careers). I’ll refrain from discussing that fully here, though suffice it to say that for those reasons X’s “Old Town Road” was monumental and vindicating. 

As for Lil Nas X, I’m not particularly a big fan of his music; but I see him, what he’s doing, his impact on music + culture and I celebrate him using these moments to affirm his Black, Queer self, and lifting up others. Believe it or not, even in the 2020′s, being “out” in the music business is still a costly choice. As an artist it remains much easier to just “play straight”. And despite appearances, the business (particularly Country) has been dragged kicking and screaming into developing, promoting and advancing openly-affirming LGBTQ 🏳️‍🌈 artists in the board room or on-stage. Though things are ‘better’ we have not yet arrived at a place of equity or opportunity for queer artists; for the road of music biz history is littered with stunted careers, bodies and limitations on artists who had no option but to follow conventional ways, fail or never be heard of in the first place. With few exceptions, record labels, radio and press/media have successfully used fear, intimidation, innuendo and coercion to dilute, downplay or erase any hint of queer identity from its performers. This was true even for obvious talents like Little Richard.

(Note: I’m particularly speaking of artists in this regard, not so much the hairstylists, make-up artists, PA’s, etc.)

_____

Which is why...in regard to Lil Nas X, whether you like, hate or love his music, the young brother is a trailblazer. His very existence protests (at least) decades of inequity, oppression and erasure. X aptly critiques a Neo-Christian Fascist Heteropatriarchy; not just in American society but throughout the Music Business and with Black people. That is no small deal. His unapologetic outness holds a mirror up to Christianity at-large, as an institution, theology and practice. The problem is they just don’t like what they see in that mirror.

In actuality, “Call Me By Your Name”, Lil Nas X’s new video, is a twist on classic mythology and religious memes that are less reprehensible or vulgar than the Biblical narratives most of us grew up on vís-a-vís indoctrinating smiles of Sunday school teachers and family prior to the “age of reason”. Think about the narratives blithely describing Satan’s friendly wager with God regarding Job (42:1-6); the horrific “prophecies” in St. John’s Book of Revelation (i.e. skies will rain fire, angels will spit swords, mankind will be forced to retreat into caves for shelter, and we will be harassed by at least three terrifying dragons and beasts. Angels will sound seven trumpets of warning, and later on, seven plagues will be dumped on the world), or Jesus’s own clarifying words of violent intent in Matthew (re: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” 10:34). Whether literal or metaphor, these age old stories pale in comparison to a three minute allegorical rap video. Conservatives: say what you will, I’m pretty confident X doesn’t take himself as seriously as “The true and living God” from the book of Job.

A little known fact as it is, people have debunked the story and evolution of Satan and already offered compelling research showing [he] is more of a literary device than an actual entity or “spirit” (Spoiler: In the Bible, Satan does not take shape as an actual “bad” person until the New Testament). In fact, modern Christianity’s impression of the “Devil” is shaped by conflating Hellenized mythology with a literary tradition rooted in Dante’s Inferno and accompanying spooks and superstitions going back thousands of years. Whether Catholic, Protestant, Mormon, Scientologist, Atheist or Agnostic, we’ve spent a lifetime with these predominant icons and clichés. (Resource: Prof. Bart D. Erhman, “Heaven & Hell”).

So Here’s THE PROBLEM: The current level of fear and outrage is: 

(1) Unjust, imposing and irrational. 

(2) Disproportionate when taken into account a lifetime of harmful Christian propaganda, anti-gay preaching and political advocacy.

(3) Historically inaccurate concerning the existence of “Hell” and who should be scared of going there. 

Think I’m overreacting? 

Examples: 

Institutionalized Homophobia (rhetoric + policy)

Anti-Gay Ministers In Life And Death: Bishop Eddie Long And Rev. Bernice King

Black, gay and Christian, Marylanders struggle with Conflicts

Harlem pastor: 'Obama has released the homo demons on the black man'

Joel Olsteen: Homosexuality is “Not God’s Best”

Bishop Brandon Porter: Gays “Perverted & Lost...The Church of God in Christ Convocation appears like a ‘coming out party’ for members of the gay community.”

Kim Burrell: “That perverted homosexual spirit is a spirit of delusion & confusion and has deceived many men & women, and it has caused a strain on the body of Christ”

Falwell Suggests Gays to Blame for 9-11 Attacks

Pope Francis Blames The Devil For Sexual Abuse By Catholic Church

Pope Francis: Gay People Not Welcome in Clergy

Pope Francis Blames The Devil For Sexual Abuse By Catholic Church

The Pope and Gay People: Nothing’s Changed

The Catholic church silently lobbied against a suicide prevention hotline in the US because it included LGBT resources

Mormon church prohibits Children of LGBT parents to be baptized

Catholic Charity Ends Adoptions Rather Than Place Kid With Same-Sex Couple

I Was a Religious Zealot That Hurt People-Coming Out as Gay: A Former Conversion Therapy Leader Is Apologizing to the LGBTQ Community

The above short list chronicles a consistent, literal, demonization of LGBTQ people, contempt for their gender presentation, objectification of their bodies/sexuality and a coordinated pollution of media and culture over the last 50+ years by clergy since integration and Civil Rights legislation. Basically terrorism. Popes, Bishops, Pastors, Evangelists, Politicians, Television hosts, US Presidents, Camp Leaders, Teachers, Singers & Entertainers, Coaches, Athletes and Christians of all types all around the world have confused and confounded these issues, suppressed dissent, and confidently lied about LGBT people-including fellow Queer Christians with impunity for generations (i.e. “thou shall not bear false witness against they neighbor” Ex. 23:1-3). Christian majority viewpoints about “laws” and “nature” have run the table in discussions about LGBTQ people in society-so much that we collectively must first consider their religious views in all discussions and the specter of Christian approval -at best or Christian condescension -at worst. That is Christian (and straight) privilege. People are tired of this undue deference to religious opinions. 

That is what is so deliciously bothersome about Lil Nas X being loud, proud and “in your face” about his sexuality. If for just a moment, he not only disrupts the American hetero-patriarchy but specifically the Black hetero-patriarchy, the so-called “Black Church Industrial Complex”, Neo-Christian Fascism and a mostly uneducated (and/or miseducated) public concerning Ancient Near East and European history, superstitions-and (by extension) White Supremacy. To round up: people are losing their minds because the victim decided to speak out against his victimizer. 

Additionally, on some level I believe people are mad at him being just twenty years old, out and FREE as a self-assured, affirming & affirmed QUEER Black male entertainer with money and fame in the PRIME of his life. We’ve never, or rarely, seen that before in a Black man in the music business and popular culture. But that’s just too bad for them. With my own eyes I’ve watched straight people, friends, Christians, enjoy their sexuality from their elementary youth to adolescence, up and through college and later marriages, often times independently of their spouses (repeatedly). Meanwhile Queer/Gay/SGL/LGBTQ people are expected to put their lives on hold while the ‘blessed’ straight people run around exploring premarital/post-marital/extra-marital sex, love and affection, unbound & un-convicted by their “sin” or God...only to proudly rebrand themselves later in life as a good, moral “wholesome Christian” via the ‘sacred’ institution of marriage with no questions asked. 

Inequality defined.

For Lil Nas X, everything about the society we've created for him in the last 100+ years (re: links above) has explicitly been designed for his life not to be his own. According to these and other Christians (see above), his identity is essentially supposed to be an endless rat fuck of internal confusion, suicide-ideation, depression, long-suffering, faux masculinity, heterosexism, groveling towards heaven, respectability politics, failed prayer and supplication to a heteronormative earthly and celestial hierarchy unbothered in affording LGBT people like him a healthy, sane human development. It’s almost as if the Conservative establishment (Black included) needs Lil Nas X to be like others before him: “private”, mysteriously single, suicidal, suspiciously straight or worse, dead of HIV/AIDS ...anything but driving down the street enjoying his youth as a Black Queer artist and man. So they mad about that?

Well those days are over.  

-Rogiérs is a writer, international recording artist, performer and indie label manager with 25+ years in the music industry. He also directs Black Nonbelievers of DC, a non-profit org affiliated with the AHA supporting Black skeptics, Atheists, Agnostics & Humanists. He holds a B.A. in Music Business & Mgmt and a M.A. in Global Entertainment & Music Business from Berklee College of Music and Berklee Valencia, Spain. www.FibbyMusic.net Twitter/IG: @Rogiers1

[swamp-spirit]

Am I Depressed or Just Lazy?

It’s the question that haunts most disabled people, whether the disability is physical or mental. Is it my fault? Am I just not trying hard enough? How do I know? 

It doesn’t help that everyone has their own opinion, opinions your accommodations and aid depend on. Do you need help, or do you just need to try harder?

Well, here’s my answer for you, an answer that has been very important for me: The question is wrong.

To get into why, let’s discuss different kinds of limits. (note, many disabled people have more than one, if not all of these. this is not an attempt to ‘rank’ disabilities, and all come with their own unique range of issues)

OBJECTIVE HARD LINE

This is something you can prove. You can go into the doctor, do a test, and have them clarify that this is a fixed, provable limit. For example, if you are paralyzed from the waist down, that’s a hard line. No amount of luck or willpower will let you walk that day. You might have a form of aphasia that makes you incapable of forming coherent sentences. If you allergic to gluten, you’re allergic to gluten.

SUBJECTIVE HARD LINE

This is a consistent, predictable limit that you know, but is not an exact, easily proven fact. For example, ‘if I hear about a car accident, I have a panic attack’. It’s more difficult to prove to external sources, but fairly easy to recognize internally.

UNPREDICTABLE HARD LINE

You know your disability has a clear, observable consequence, but you can’t say exactly how much you can handle before it hits. For example, if you walk to much, your hip freezes up, but you don’t know how much walking will cause it. You may know going to crowded events give you sensory meltdowns, but not know how much you can handle. There is no “I can go to your party for exactly eleven minutes”. 

SOFT LINE

These revolve around energy. Maybe your executive function issues make it hard for you to do homework. Maybe your chronic pain means going shopping leaves you tired. This is where spoon theory becomes popular. Everyone has physical and mental struggles and limits.

-----

The problem is, everybody has soft lines. Everybody gets tired if they push their bodies. Everybody gets stressed or sad or overwhelmed. There’s no exact measurement. 

It makes a lot of us push ourselves towards our hard lines. For example, I struggle with chronic pain and exhaustion, and, at a certain point, faint. After years of being told I was faking it, being dramatic, just needed to push through, starting to actually collapse was the first time people began to realize there was something wrong. I still don’t know how to believe my own body, I don’t know how to forgive myself for not pushing, so I push for the limits. Once I faint, then I’ve finally proved I’m trying, that I’m not just being dramatic or lazy. Mental illness is particularly hard to quantify, and many people are driven to self harm trying to create some proof that their pain is real.

Disabled or lazy? 

What do we do if the answer is lazy? We don’t want to be one of those bad disables who uses our health as an excuse and doesn’t make changes.. Maybe you can just push through it. Maybe if you just HATE yourself enough, you’ll be the person you want to be.

On the flipside, maybe it’s your disability. Not your fault. Out of your hands. No point in trying to fix it.

Obviously, neither of these are healthy places to stay, but if the two options are ‘it’s my disability and I have no control’ or ‘it’s my fault and I could fix it if I cared’, what else can you do? It also makes us lash out at hope. After all, if you can get better, isn’t it... kinda your fault that you aren’t? Aren’t you choosing to stay sick?

Because here’s the core problem: You are like this for a reason.

What is lazy? There’s this attempt to boil ourselves down to what’s ‘us’, the core traits open for moral judgement, and what’s ‘not our fault’, experiences outside us that shape our actions. It’s particularly obvious in the way we discuss criminals.

But we’re all the way we are for a reason. Every asshole has mental and social reasons to be an asshole. Nature and nurture, baby.

So what? None of it’s our fault and we should do what we want and blame other factors?

Of course not, but the reverse isn’t any better! Let’s look at a common issue:

I don’t clean as much as I want. Is it my disability, or am I lazy?

If you’re lazy, what do you actually do? Well, you stop being lazy! You buck up and Do The Dang Thing!

But if wanting to do it was enough, you wouldn’t be worrying about it in the first place. Maybe you’ll force yourself to clean for ten minutes, but the real thing you ingrain is self loathing. Stop being lazy. Stop being lazy. Stop being lazy. Hate yourself healthy.

That’s not constructive because you’re fixing the wrong problem. So what do you do? How do you give yourself agency without basing it around guilt? How do you change without shame?

. Instead of asking if your problems are ‘real’, here’s what I recommend:

1. Why am I not acting the way I want to act?

Don’t accept any answer that has moral judgement. Cut the word lazy. It’s useless. Don’t ask if it’s ‘your fault’ you have Type II diabetes, if you ‘should be able to’ pay attention in class. Cut moral judgement from the process.

Actually understanding why you act the way you do might take time, research, and thought, but changing behavior does!

Example: Why am I eating so much junk food when I know it’s making me feel worse?

Bad answer - I’m depressed

Worse answer - Because I’m a glutton with no self control

Good answer - My depression makes me seek out temporary highs from food because long term highs aren’t working, and I have self control issues that mean I often don’t act in my own best interests.

2. What are my barriers?

Once you’ve identified what’s stopping you, get into more details. If you find doing dishes overwhelming, why? What parts of the process do you find overwhelming or uncomfortable?

For the more general answers (motivation, energy, etc), what are your barriers to the solutions? What steps might help with your depression and what’s stopping you from taking those? Why don’t you do your physical therapy?

3. Is this something I can change? Is this something I can change now?

Earlier we talked about hard lines. Those come back in here. Some things, even with unlimited time and resources, remain fact. It’s not ‘giving up’ to accept a hard ‘cannot’. That said, be careful not to listen to mental illness ‘cannots’ in this situation. For example, I have been told by professionals I will probably always need psyciatric medication to be functional, no matter how good my self talk and lifestyle is. Accepting that, I think, is healthy. It would not be healthy, however, to decide that I ‘cannot’ have a good life.

But you do not have unlimited time and resources. When I said ‘what are your barriers’, plenty of you probably went “MONEY! IT’S MONEY, YOU ASSHOLE” Sometimes it means knowing an issue can’t be addressed until you have money/time/surgery. 

It’s okay to put things on the backburner. If you’re trying to figure out ‘how do I keep from being homeless next week’, you might decide ‘how do I eat more vegetables’ is not your most pressing issue.

You can also decide a fix isn’t worth the cost. Maybe you could afford knee surgery, but you don’t think the amount it would improve your life would be worth the expense or risk. Maybe you could take the stairs to class, but it would leave you too exhausted to pay attention.

Sometimes you realize ‘I want something more than I want to fix this’, and... that’s okay. Sometimes you aren’t ready for a change. Sometimes you don’t need to change. But if the change really is something you want:

4. Make a plan that directly confronts your barriers?

You’ve already broken your barriers into small, objective issues. Now you can start working on those issues. 

If you know you need to eat better, and your main barrier is impulse control, don’t plan to ‘stop eating junk food’. Figure out healthy, easy snacks you like and leave them in plain view.

Find ways to make chores easier. Learn to cook while seated, try playing music while you clean, find what works for you. If it doesn’t work, try something else.

Talk frankly with the people in your  life. Try to help them understand what your barriers are and make them allies in overcoming them. “I know it’s important I do this, and I am trying. Here is the specific element I am struggling with. Do you have advice for that?”

I particularly love this conversational tactic with doctors. Here is a conversation I had with a lot of doctors:

Doctor: You need to fix this habit. Me: I know. I’m sorry. Doctor: It’s really important. Here’s why it’s important.

I would get upset and defensive that the doctor seemed to think I didn’t care, and that the solution was just shaming me into caring more. The doctor would probably see me as unwilling to change.

Here is the conversation we have now:

Doctor:  You need to fix this habit. Me: That’s a priority for me too, but I’m really struggling with x and y hasn’t helped. Do you have any advice that helps people with x?

This either gets me advice on my actual problem instead of just being shamed for not fixing it, or it forces the doctor to change the topic and perhaps redirect me to somebody with more experience.

Write down lists of issues you want to address with your doctor. Focus on concrete steps and goals, and celebrate every win. People might not see how hard your fight is, but if getting out of bed in the morning is a fight, you have every reason to celebrate it.

But your barrier is NOT that you are lazy. It is not that you are bad or stupid or worthless. You cannot hate yourself healthy.

Your struggles are real, and the steps to overcome them are based in understanding, agency, and support, not self loathing.

[petri808]

@ktdkvalentines​ for Syd on Ig Valentines Exchange

Bakudeku College Au. TW: panic attack, anxiety, some angst w/happy ending based on the request.

Izuku Midoriya was in a great mood that Fall morning as he arrived at the college campus. His first day of his first year away from home, ready to start the next leg of his journey. He’d chosen this university for its good reviews and psychology program. He wanted to do something good in his life and what better way then helping others who’d suffered like he had. Not that he’d had a horrible life but growing up in a single parent household created some attachment issues and bullying when he was younger left him with anxieties. All through high school he’d worked extra hard to get to a point where he could function most of the time, and he was proud of how far he’d come. That growth is what led him to pursue a career in psychology, to take his negative experiences and turn them into a positive one.

So, he wasn’t ready when he walked into the dorm room and saw the familiar blonde hair and red eyes of his nightmares looking back at him. 

Oh, this couldn’t be happening! Izuku swallowed hard, a mantra of calming statements flooding his brain as a silent staring content ensued. Neither man said a word, but the longer this went on for, the voices in his mind slowed and were replaced with questions. He was starting to realize... did the blonde even remember him?! He couldn’t tell if it was confusion, or maybe pain on the man’s twisted features, but it certainly wasn’t the angry boy he’d grown up with.

“Wow, Izuku is that you?” The man spoke with no malice in his tone, even rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Been a long time, huh?”

“Yeah... about 7 years I think.”

“H-How you been?”

“Okay, I guess. A bit surprised to see a familiar face.”

The blonde’s shoulders dropped slightly, and he averted his eyes to the ground, “probably not who you’d hoped to see again...”

“I didn’t say...”

“No, no, it’s okay.” The man waved his hands to stop him. “I— I owe you an apology Zuku. And I’m not looking for forgiveness cause I don’t deserve it, but I hope we can, I don’t know like start off fresh, I guess, since we’re stuck in this room together.”

Izuku blinked in confusion, what had happened to Katsuki Bakugou in these past 7 years?! He was certain it wasn’t all arouse, or that the man was trying to bring his guard down, because Katsuki sounded genuine. Until the age of 2 or 3 they were actually really close, but for some reason by the end of their first year of primary school, he’d started picking on Izuku, or taking out his anger on the smaller boy. He had no idea what triggered it, but in the end, he was left emotionally scarred. Now, the man standing before him exuded a broken version of that 3-year-old child he once knew.

“You’re right. I lost count of how many times I ran home in tears because of you. We were best friends and it really hurt when you started picking on me and being mean to me.” The pain evident in his voice rang out into the small, shared room. “I don’t care why you did it. But,” Izuku continued with a sigh, “you’re right, I don’t wanna rehash the past either, so if we can just start over and put up with being roommates, we’ll see how it goes.”

“I’d like that. A-and I know it might not mean much but am sorry Zuku— about how I’d treated you. I promise, I’m not that guy anymore.”

“I believe you.” And he did, for now. Deep down, Izuku always tried to stay positive because if he didn’t, and allowed the irrational thoughts to fester, it could pull him right back into an episode. He didn’t fully trust Katsuki yet, but if was serious about going into the counseling field, he also knew it was important to continue moving forward. That didn’t mean divulging all of his secrets, or telling Katsuki about his own struggles, but he’ll stay alert to make sure that at any sign the man was slipping, he’d get out of there.

As the first two months crept along, the roommates went about their own business with very little interactions at first. It was a bit weird to Izuku, to be in a shared room where their beds were literally just a few feet from one another’s, yet they were lucky to go beyond a good morning or hello. In comfortable situations, he was a bubbly person who genuinely enjoyed talking to people, so the stillness of their room was unnerving. Of course, this was better than feeling fearful around Katsuki, but how are they to move forward and maybe become friends again, if they weren’t interacting?

So, because they weren’t talking, Izuku did the next best thing and observed. One thing that had not changed about Katsuki, was being meticulous. The blondes side of the room was always neat and tidy, books or stationery on the desk stacked perfectly, clothes in the closet organized by color and type, even the bed was always made with crisp corners. Early to bed and early to rise, the man had a ritual of sorts. If he wasn’t studying at his desk, he’d be on his bed reading or listening to music. Even the way Katsuki ate was curious to Izuku, constantly wiping his hands or face of any residue. There were a few things the blonde requested of him, no scented candles or strong, smelling fish type meals, and to leave his side of the curtains closed, something about the sunlight bothering him. They were simple enough requests to acquiesce to.

The man rarely left the room except to go to class and as far as he could tell, Katsuki had only one other friend on the campus who’d occasionally drop by. A nice guy, very friendly named Eijiro Kirishima. Well, he assumed they were friends because most of the time, his roommate stayed quiet while Eijiro did the talking. Izuku was pretty sure he spoke to the man more then Katsuki during these visits. They seemed unlikely friends really, one happy-go-lucky, and one anti-social... kind of reminded him of their once friendship now that he thought about it.

Izuku could appreciate the idea of sticking to familiar surroundings. Their dorm room was a sanctuary for him as well. He avoided large, crowded areas as much as possible, and if he didn’t know anyone, did his best to be inconspicuous. But within their room, with just the two of them, it should be a comfortable experience. Before coming to the school, he’d wondered what his roommate would be like or imagined making friends, so it was a little disappointing. By the third month it was a close friend of Izuku’s that suggested he make the first move to engage Katsuki in conversations. Start out simple, maybe learn any hobbies, what music he listened to, his major, etc. Forget the fact he knew the man and pretend as if he’s trying to make a new friend. Ugh, he hated making the first move. Izuku preferred being engaged not initiating it because it drove his anxieties up. But they were right. ‘Think of it like practice,’ Izuku reasoned with himself, ‘pulling a difficult client out of their shell.’

It was a lazy Sunday around midterms when Izuku decided to make a move. As he sat rested on his bed similarly to Katsuki, with his back against the wall and a textbook propped on his legs. Every few seconds, he glanced over the book’s edge, side-eyeing the blonde who was also nose deep into a chemistry textbook. Should he say something? But the man looked preoccupied, and Chemistry is a difficult subject. Maybe he shouldn’t bother Katsuki? He didn’t want to be annoying or anything and it wasn’t important really. Then again, the guy was always preoccupied with something or other and if he waited for a perfect moment, what if it never came? Would he wait forever? No, this was as good a time as ever.

Izuku lowered his book. “H-How’s the studying going Kacchan?”

The blonde turned to look at him briefly. “Fine.” Then returned to his reading.

“Oh, that’s good.”

Ugh! It was always so hard to get a read on Katsuki! His affect and tone were flat, no anger, amusement, nothing, just his common one worded response. It was rare for the blonde to give or maintain eye contact, so at least the man looked at him this time.

He tried another question. “I noticed your chemistry book, is that your major?”

“Yup.”

“Um, what do you do with a chemistry degree?” Izuku asked genuinely.

This time Katsuki surprised Izuku when he stopped and put his book down before engaging. “I’m fascinated by the chemical reactions of fire and combustion. How it works, why it occurs, how it can be manipulated, stuff like that. And I don’t know, I could be a scientist, or maybe do pyrotechnics, just work somewhere I don’t have to talk to too many people.”

“Wow! I mean I was never good at math and stuff to understand, but it sounds pretty interesting.”

“I guess so. What’s with the questions all of a sudden?”

“W-Well,” Izuku shifted his body to face the man completely, “we’re roommates. I don’t expect us to be full-on friends, but I figured it would be nice to talk sometimes.” Katsuki’s silent reply of nothing forced him to make a decision to continue talking, because he assumed if the man wasn’t interested, he would have turned away. Silence wasn’t exactly a normal response, but maybe the blonde really wasn’t sure what to say next. “I don’t expect you tell me super personal stuff— just small talk. Like, um, what kind of music do you like?”

“Alternative.”

Izuku’s eyes flashed with surprise at such a quick response. Okay, so Katsuki was fine with answering. “I like that too! Well, some,” he giggled. “Though I mostly listen to pop now. What about movies?”

“Horror films.”

“Oof,” Izuku cringed. “I can’t handle those they scare me too much!”

“I remember. It gave you nightmares.”

Bouncing on the bed, Izuku’s legs moved to hang over the edge in his excitement. He was really surprised in a good way that Katsuki remembered something so mundane about him. “Wow! You still remember that?! Yeah,” he laughed, “I’ll stick to sci-fi or action. Plus, I’m not fond of theaters anyways so, I just watch stuff on my laptop.”

“Why not? You used to be the outgoing one.”

That made Izuku flinch because he wasn’t ready to tread into that territory with his former bully. “Oh, you know, it’s always crowded, and you have to deal with parent-less kids causing a racket in the place. I rather just enjoy my movie without all that.”

“Makes sense. I don’t care to go to places like that either.”

“Yeah, I noticed that— is there anything you do like or hobbies maybe?”

“Just exercising in the early morning, by myself, except since Eijiro inserted himself, I tolerate him.”

So, that confirmed what he’d already suspected. Katsuki kept his body in really great shape and that hadn’t gone unnoticed by Izuku. But since he wasn’t much of a morning person, he didn’t notice what time Katsuki left the dorm, only the man’s return, showered and refreshed. Needless to say, the blonde male with wet hair was nice to look at and smelled good too. “Oh,” his face heated up at the thought of it, but he needed to play dumb. “So, that’s what you do in the mornings. I wondered about that.”

Things between the roommates settle into a comfortable routine. As another month passes by, Izuku still needed to start the conversation, but at least Katsuki would respond amicably or engaged with him, and to his delight with the help of Eijiro, they’d even managed to get the man to go out to dinner once. Those years of dread and angst were melting away, and soon enough Izuku looked forward to spending time with his old friend.

He still couldn’t get a full read on Katsuki’s demeanor. The man’s emotionless responses made it difficult to tell whether or not he was even enjoying anything. So, Izuku could only assume that by participating, he didn’t mind. The old Katsuki would say whatever he was thinking, good or bad, and while he got the sense that he would do so as needed, such as letting him know about the scent issue, it would be really nice if it didn’t feel like a guessing game all the time. Regardless, the progress they were making to rekindle any sort of relationship was a win in Izuku’s mind.

“Here.”

Izuku looked up from his desk to see a plastic shopping bag held in Katsuki’s hand. “What’s this?” He took it tentatively.

“I saw it at the store. You still into this stuff?”

He opened the bag and pulled out the latest action figure of his favorite comic book character. It was a figurine he’d been saving up his spare money to buy. “Kacchan,” Izuku looked back up curiously at the man. “Is this for me? How’d you know?”

Katsuki just shrugged. “Just remembered you were obsessed with the guy.”

“Thank you, really, but I can’t except this gift, it’s not even my birthday.”

“Just take it. Think of it as an I’m sorry gift if it makes you feel better.”

As Izuku sat there stunned, the blonde simply went back to his bed without another word and picked up a book as if nothing significant had just occurred.

“T-Thank you, Kacchan.”

“Yeah, no prob.”

His face heated up and a smile took over as he stared at the action figure for a few seconds before staging it prominently on his bedside table. Izuku had left all of his collectibles at home, so it was nice to have something in their room. But even more important, was again, Katsuki remembered something about Izuku from their childhood and took the time to get this gift. Despite their long rocky history, this small act meant the world to him. It was the first true moment to make Izuku think, maybe they really could be like they once were.

Finals were approaching in barely two more weeks, and some students were already stressing out. The anxiety in the air felt palpable to Izuku. He could feel it practically oozing off the other students. Of course, everyone dealt with stress in different ways. Some went inwards, the pressure fueling them to work harder while other’s went the completely opposite route of goofing off and procrastinating. Other’s might stress eat, binge caffeine drinks, and friends banded together in study groups. But then there are the ones who took out their frustrations and stress on others.

Bullies. The bane of Izuku’s existence.

Most of the time, he could easily avoid their type around campus. He’d developed a sixth sense for such individuals which his therapist explained as a heightened sense of energy levels. It’s really not as mystical as it sounds, rather that, those like him that suffer from a high level of anxiety, are sensitive to other people’s emotional outputs. Being bullied or harassed himself certainly sent his anxiety’s skyrocketing but seeing it could also trigger a problem depending on the severity.

Hence his current predicament...

It was the end of the day for Izuku and he was ready to just get back to his dorm, eat something, and dive into his studies. One of his teachers had released the finals study guide early, so he thought it best to get a head start. But as he made his way past the row of dorm buildings, Izuku spotted something that sent a cold chill down his spine. Three men cornering a fourth. They were at least 50 yards away and he couldn’t hear everything they were yelling. Something about a group project, pulling weight— One man had grabbed the victims shirt and was semi-lifting him up while the other two men just watched and egged him on.

Oh, this was not good! Izuku’s memories started to replay and his experiences were brought back to the forefront. The men’s faces were so close... he could almost feel the hot breath wafting over, spit hitting his face, or the smell of the bullies breath. It made him sick to his stomach. Izuku’s heart raced, his throat began to close up, and breathing grew erratic. He needed to get out of there! The red piercing eyes of his nightmares took center stage in his mind’s eye... all those times he was harassed and battered by Katsuki rushing back like a wave to toss him against a wall of sandy hair.

‘Deep breaths, deep breaths, deep breaths!’ Izuku screamed in his head, ‘calm down, calm down, get back to my room! It’s not you, it’s not you... it’s not him! It’s not him!!’

Izuku picked up the pace, a fast walk over a running sprint to avoid being noticed. The last thing he needed was to draw attention to himself and risk becoming the new target. He dug his nails hard into his arm to force his mind towards a physical distraction, but it wasn’t working.

A deep voice screamed, cursing at the top of its lungs, and filling Izuku’s mind, just like that long ago day. The worst attack, the one that finally pushed his mother to move him to a different school. All the fear coursing through his veins rush back, heart pounding against his rib cage. Katsuki had grabbed him, hand fisted into his shirt as he pushed Izuku up a wall and off his feet. He could still feel the cold stone wall behind him juxtaposed to the pain from his hot throbbing lip and swollen cheek where he’d been struck.

He burst through the dorm room door, stumbling, spilling his bag onto the floor as he fell to his knees, gasping for air because his jaw felt locked up and he couldn’t get enough air. All of his muscles were tensing up, imagined or not, it felt like he was suffocating. His body was shaking, sweating— he wanted to puke.

“Whoa, Zuku, what’s wrong?!”

Katsuki had rushed over and dropped to the floor, grabbing Izuku by the shoulders to hold him up and steady. But he couldn’t answer the man in words. Tears were streaming down his face as he did his best to focus and answer the man, but it was tough, fighting against the rapid assault of images in his mind and cursing blaring in his eardrums.

“Fuck, um, allergic reaction?!”

Izuku shook his head violently, no.

“Choking?!”

Again, Izuku shook his head violently, no.

“Panic attack?!”

Izuku now adamantly shook his head, yes!

“Okay, okay, shit, panic attacks, um, it’s been awhile, what do I— oh, right, okay, okay, d-don’t move!” Katsuki stumbled back to his feet and ran out of the room, coming back within a minute with a cup of ice cubes from the common kitchen. He takes one, two, three, shoving it into Izuku’s mouth. It took a bit of effort to get the man’s jaw to open wide enough to shove it in. “Close your mouth all the way, try to get the ice to touch the roof of your mouth.”

Seconds after the ice touched, it sent a brain freeze from hell shooting through Izuku’s pain receptors. “Ahhh!” He spat out all the melting cubes as his hands fly up to his head, cradling, squeezing to counter against the physical pain, “cold! Cold! Cold!”

At that statement, Katsuki slumped back onto his haunches in relief. “Oh good, it worked.” He then took Izuku’s hands with an even soft tone. “Look at me.” Once the man complied, he continued. “Focus on your breathing, inhale when I say to, exhale when I say to.”

Izuku struggled against the embers of irrational thoughts coupled with the brain freeze coming down. His breathing stayed haggard, jagged as he fought his own mind to follow Katsuki’s instructions. But every time he’d start to struggle, the man would refocus him back to the breathing by pressing his thumb nail into the webbing of Izuku’s hand. Not very hard, but enough of a sting to bring back his focus on the physical. It took about 15 minutes until he could breathe in time with Katsuki’s words.

Be it the overwhelming sense of release or sheer exhaustion, Izuku collapsed on to Katsuki’s chest. His panicked breathing whittled down to silent sobbing. The blonde didn’t move or flinch and held the man up, simply keeping his arms around his back without a word. Minutes dragged by as the tears finally slowed.

“Thank you, Kacchan,” Izuku breathed out. “How’d you know what to do?”

“Let’s just say, I’ve had my share.”

Izuku sat back, rubbing away the moisture drying on his cheeks as he looked at his roommate with new eyes. “You? W-When? I-I mean if you don’t wanna say, it’s fine, I’ll understand. We probably both have a lot a secrets.”

Katsuki thought for a moment. “If I tell you what happened, you gotta come clean too.”

He hadn’t expected that, but after what had just occurred, perhaps it was time. “Okay,” Izuku nods.

“In middle school I was sent to a therapist because of my anger issues and diagnosed as a high functioning autistic. Frankly, I don’t know how much to believe in that, but in the end, the therapist was a good thing.” Katsuki leaned back against a desk leg. “The short answer, I learned the reason I’d started bullying you was because I was getting frustrated with myself which lead to anger, and I wrongly took it out on the closest person to me.”

“Why were you frustrated? I thought we were fine...”

“It had nothing to do with you. It was me and I don’t know, I just started feeling different, I didn’t like being around people, didn’t understand or even care about anyone because I couldn’t figure out how to fit in. Yet I’d watch you make friends so effortlessly and I got mad. There’s a lot more to it, even blamed my mom for some of it, but I just didn’t know how else to get it out except through anger. It took a few years to learn to control myself. That’s one of the reasons I got into exercising. If I start feeling frustrated, I can take it out that way now, burn off the excess energy I guess.”

Izuku was a little taken aback at the idea Katsuki’s been diagnosed on the autism spectrum. The man didn’t seem like he had a mental disorder, but the clues were there. The aversion to certain stimulus, social apathy, his fixations on certain elements. “Wow... I had no idea. It doesn’t excuse what you did, but I’m glad you’ve come this far.”

“So, what about you?”

“I don’t think it was just the bullying that started it all. After my dad left us, I was already vulnerable, it’s why I latched onto you so quickly. So, when you started— I-I felt extremely hurt. You were my first friend, my best friend Kacchan and when you started hurting me... I don’t know what was worse, the physical pain or the mental ones. By the time I moved schools, I’d developed anxiety and depression, and it got so bad my mom finally took me to a therapist where I worked all through high school to get it under control. I do really good now, but sometimes things trigger me.” More tears resurface to cloud Izuku’s eyes, but he kept them from spilling. “Today, on my way here, I-I saw a guy being harassed and it brought it all back again. Nothing was working, so I just thought if I could just get to safety, a-and I don’t know, I figured I could get it under control once I was alone. But I’m glad you were here, because I don’t think I could have. You really, saved me today Kacchan.”

“It doesn’t make up for anything. I’m the asshole who made you like this.”

He snorted a laugh, “that’s for sure, but the cause became the cure.”

“What?”

“You caused this, but today you cured it. That means a lot to me because I do want to forgive you.”

“No. I don’t deserve a second chance. I’m content that we’re at least on speaking terms again and I could make amends somehow.”

“Kacchan, everyone deserves a second chance.” Izuku’s smile returned. “We were kids. You didn’t know better. And you’ve changed, that’s the important thing. I think we’ve both changed.”

“How?”

“Well, it’s those experiences that helped me to find a new passion in life to help others— people like us who are struggling with something. Turn a negative into a positive.”

“How the hell do you do that? You just had a panic attack and you’re already sunny smiles again. I mean you were always like this, and it’s me, I just don’t get emotions, but if you wanna forgive me, I guess I can’t stop you.”

Izuku shrugged. “Nope you, can’t,” he smiled wider. “Right now, this is probably the happiest I’ve felt in a very long time.” He stood up and extended a hand, helping Katsuki to his feet. “Dinner, my treat.”

“I don’t feel like going out.”

“I know,” Izuku smiled. “I’ll order in.”

[freddieofhearts]

Bye bye, dears (for now!)

I know there have been a lot of rumours and some posts about me leaving, so here I am to set the record straight and say a quick ‘au revoir’. This post is long, and I don’t expect everyone to read the whole thing—if you just want information on how to keep in touch, or about access to my removed fics, scroll to the bottom. ⬇️

*

Why are you leaving?

Firstly, of course I’m not leaving Freddie. This is just an ongoing hiatus from the social side of fandom, because while I have some incredible friends here, who have done all they can to support me and have made this experience wonderful in lots of ways—it’s also true that the social space has become more and more toxic for me.

I get a wild amount of hate. Despite never having my ask box enabled on here, people create new accounts just to message me and tell me all the problems in this fandom are my fault, that I’m faking being sick, that I should kill myself, that I’m fat, etc. I also very regularly get hateful comments on AO3.

Obviously I realise that I’m not the only one who receives these cruel attacks, but it’s become increasingly hard to handle them—especially as some people (‘real’ accounts, not faceless anons) do continue to blame me for wider problems in the fandom. It makes me feel consistently sad, anxious, and paranoid, so that I can’t focus on anything Queen-related that I enjoy.

More pressingly, it’s affected my mental health, which is—imperfect at the best of times. As I’ve occasionally alluded to in older posts on this blog, I have a history of anorexia, OCD, PTSD, and some other overlapping issues. Most people who know me in the fandom are also aware that I’m ‘clinically extremely vulnerable’ to Covid-19, significantly immunocompromised, and have been isolating at home for eleven months.

The combination of all of these things + the constant toxic messages has really been triggering me, and leading to an uptick in disordered behaviours, which my body cannot sustain. Every new instance of hate from an anon—every time there’s another indication of groups in the fandom wanting to ostracise me further—my reaction is deeply self-punitive and unhealthy. Ultimately I need to be out of this environment for, at least, a protracted period. My therapist, my partner and my close friends in the fandom support this decision.

*

So, what went wrong?

In 2019, I expected to be an absolutely tiny blog in the Queen Tumblr landscape. The fandom was already well-established, and I have never worked to ‘build a following’ on here—I think I’ve linked my own fic a maximum of three or four times!—in fact, more or less the opposite. As I mentioned above: ya girl is nutty as a fruitcake. As a result, I often avoid extremely niche things in daily life which cause severe anxiety for me, Relevant examples here: I never look at my timeline. I never intentionally look at my follower number. Yup, it’s strange, I fully admit it, but it’s best for me to go with these things—usually. In Queen fandom, however, this avoidance both of analytic stats and of most direct engagement led to some problems... My followers grew without me realising, and way more people were reading my blog than I was aware of. I was still in a—“Wow, this fandom is very frustrating, and rife with ableism, racism, etc., so how do we fix this???”—mindset, and I wanted to share my opinions, sure! but I also thought I was sharing them with 15-20 like-minded people.

Now, intent is not impact, and I recognise that I was brusque, didn’t phrase things particularly sensitively, and absolutely did hurt some people by criticising the fandom so freely. I still regret this—and I regret just as much the fact that some assholes have used my criticising the fandom on my own blog as implicit justification for attacking authors. I have said on here many times that I don’t condone that behaviour—but I also think there’s some truth in the presumption that these anonymous malcontents felt my critiques somehow ‘permitted’ them to engage in abuse. For the first few months, though, I genuinely had no idea there was a link at all—and so I was initially slow to condemn this abusive behaviour in public, because I was taking it for granted all authors agreed it was shitty. It took someone directly telling me (shoutout to @a-froger-epic) that people had identified a connection between my posts and the anons, before everything fell into place.

I would like to offer my apologies to the fandom at large for not being more quick on the uptake about this, because I feel that had I realised sooner that these people were taking ‘inspiration’ in some way from me, it might have been easier to put a stop to it. It does seem that there is still a lot of confusion about whether I support them and which of their views I agree with. Let’s be 100% clear on this: I do not support the anonymous commenters on AO3. At times there is some, limited overlap between parts of their views and parts of mine, but even that is less than you may think—I often see anonymous comments from so-called ‘Freddie fans’ that I substantially disagree with.

Perhaps even more importantly: I do not support anyone who sends anonymous hate on Tumblr.

*

What’s all this about ‘overlap’ with the anons?

Let’s do a mini-summary of the myths vs. the truth. There are views I hold which are genuinely unpopular in the fandom—but which I own up to completely, and have never tried to hide in any way. I’ve never needed to use anonymous to share my opinions because I’m completely open about them! What people who don’t know me tend to have ‘heard’ about me, though, is usually a drastic distortion of my real opinions.

What people think I think:

- Freddie should never top.

- It’s okay to send anon hate if someone writes Freddie ‘wrong’.

- It’s more important to correct ‘wrong’ portrayals than to respect other writers.

- It’s inherently wrong to be more interested in band pairings than canon pairings.

- Freddie should be overtly written as a r*pe survivor/victim (and not doing this is wrong).

- Freddie should be overtly written as having an eating disorder (and not doing this is wrong).

- Kink fics are wrong.

What I actually think:

- I believe Freddie did have a strongly defined sexual identity with marked preferences, but I don’t think Jim Hutton lied when he said that Freddie topped. I believe Freddie did top, but this isn’t the time or place to get into my thoughts on why/when/how much. I do believe that my analysis of the sources relevant to this subject is as historically accurate as one can reasonably be in matters of sex (where historical accuracy will always be particularly limited and imperfect)—but I don’t think it’s morally wrong to write Freddie as topping more than he probably did.

- I don’t believe there’s only one ‘right’ version of Freddie (all others being ‘wrong’). I do believe it is possible to be more right or less right—but I’m also conscious of the fact that this scale of value is not one by which everyone measures fanfiction. As a result, then, I don’t think that any perceptions surrounding ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ justify sending anonymous, non-constructive criticism, or outright hate.

- I do believe constructive criticism is a good thing. I welcome and appreciate it myself; I have received it on my fics in Queen fandom, and it has made them better. I have been in writing workshops which included very forceful criticisms, and the value of such feedback has been intimately and immediately part of my life as a writer for years. However: in this case, I have accepted that my opinion differs from the general community preference, and so I no longer offer any constructive criticism (outside private beta-reading). I haven’t changed my view, but I’ve changed my practice to align with community norms.

- I do not think any single, individual writer has a personal responsibility to write about Freddie Mercury in any given way. That ranges from including the more distressing topics to which I’ve devoted attention (such as trauma)—to concentrating on ‘canon’ pairings like Jimercury—to, even, focusing on Freddie at all.

“Now, that doesn’t sound like you, @freddieofhearts,” you might be thinking. And I know it doesn’t; I think something I’ve done a poor job of articulating is the difference between how I view each individual fan—namely, as free to shape their creative experience at will, even in ways that I might find distressing or offensive; even in ways that you might find distressing or offensive—and the way I view the Collective. I think people have interpreted some of my critiques of ‘Queen Fandom’ as meaning something like: “You-in-particular, a specific Queen fan, are doing it wrong and should change everything about how you do it; also you don’t really care about Freddie.”

And—that’s not it. What any given fan, as an individual, does, isn’t a problem. And that can be true alongside—concurrently with—a multivalent critique of how the fandom is lacking in representation of Freddie’s life, with all that that (wonderful, deservedly celebrated, but also profoundly traumatic) life entailed. I still hold that view; I still have myriad problems with ‘the fandom’ (structurally, collectively, historically and presently—from the 1990s to the 2020s). Some of what I want to work on (away from the social life of fandom) is expressing those critiques with greater nuance, in ways that can’t be misinterpreted as shading any particular fanfiction author or subgenre of story.

In brief: I haven’t changed my mind, but I think Tumblr is an untenable environment in which to discuss the things I want to analyse, especially as there is an ever-present danger of hurting someone.

*

Can we keep in touch? Where is the fic?

I will drop by this account periodically to check out posts that friends have sent me, so you can always sent me a private message to ask for my contact details on the other app that I’m using now for fandom friends. Multiple Freddie conversations and projects are going on over there, off-Tumblr, with a much ‘gentler’ environment and no bad actors—I personally love it!

All my fic has been downloaded and saved. I don’t want to deal with constant harassment on AO3, but I’m happy to share a copy with anyone who missed it and wants to read/re-read something. I also saved everyone’s lovely comments and thoughtful con-crit, so none of that has been lost or erased.

Thank you to everyone who welcomed me to the fandom, made me think, taught me, shared with me, sent me into fits of the giggles, collaborated with me creatively, and otherwise made this one hell of a ride! Love you all. ❤️

[argumentl]

The Freedom of Expression Ep 1 - Haruna Fuuka files lawsuit against internet slanderers

*with Kaoru (K), Joe (J), Tasai (T) , who is a journalist writing for the newspaper Tokyo Sports, and Kami/god.*

Kaoru: Hi, this is Dir en grey's Kaoru. Have you heard of 'The Freedom of Expression' somewhere before?

Joe, Tasai : *noding*

K: I've a feeling we've done this before...

J: Thats right, yes...Its not a feeling, we actually did.

K: We are reviving the show we did on the radio station InterFM from 2015-16, on youtube this time.

J: Awesome

*applause*

J: I was really happy when I was first told about the revival.

K: I was also surprised *laughs*

J: Its not that you were made to revive the show though, right Kaoru?

K: The suggestion just came at me.

J: Oh really, like 'How about it?'

K: Like, 'Wanna tryy?' 1*

J: Ah, in a Kansai accent?

K:Yes yes

J: Like, 'Lets tryyy'..kind of thing...it started like that *laughs*

K: Yep

J: We did quite a lot (on InterFM). We even did a special edition

K, T : Yes, we did

J: We even made stickers

K: Brazil!

J:Yes

T: Ah, the live broadcast..at the Olympics

J: It was Dobashi san...Bishbash Dobashi san.

T: It would be good if we could do another live broadcast at this year's Tokyo Olympics.

J: On this You tube channel?

T: Yes *laughs*

J: A live broadcast might be a bit difficult legally, as for the Olymipcs *T laughs*

K: Um, thats *shhh*

J: Oh, its a secret!' *K laughing*  Maybe if were are asked by Tokyo Sports..?

K: Yes yes...So, as to the freedom of expression... 

Kami/god: Wait, wait, wait..I've come down too.

J: Oh, Kami?

K: He's saying it from himself *laughs*..I thought he would come if we beckoned him though.

J: Thats what usually happened. He was the kind of god that would come down after we called him, but now a god that comes down on his own accord.

K: Wasn't he like that before too? Should we keep him in reseve a bit more?

J: He'll want to appear, we can't help it?

Kami: You were forgetting about me!

K: We are not forgetting you!

Kami: You musn't forget your god!

*laughing*

T: We are not forgetting you!

Kami: Its not good!

J: You are always in our hearts.

T: Yes, he is.

Kami: Yes, thats it..you have to think like that.

J: But, you are not in the studio today, kami?

Kami: Oh..um, im just getting off a night shift..

J: A night shift?!

K: Ah, but it was like that before..

Kami: Right.

J: You are doing night shift work again? *Tasai laughs*

Kami: yes, thats right.

K: That was a while ago wasn't it, how many years ago?

J: Oh, is this the night shift season?

Kami: No, its..

T: You worked for ￥1000 per hour right?

Kami: Yes, yes...my hourly rate has risen a bit though. They were telling me 'Take a rest, take a rest', so my income dropped.

J: Ahh, its what they called a 'reformed working style', right?

Kami: Right

J: Its tough for you too, Kami.

Kami: *laughs* Yes it is.

K: He's the same as ever...  so lets get started.

J, T: Please

K: Ah, by the way, Tasai san, as well as Bishbashi Dohashi san, wasn't there another person before (at InterFM)?

T: Yes..a beastly guy *K laughs* An old aquaintance of the listeners', a guy called Monster Hiranabe.

J: Its a strange story, but once when a certain celebrity died, Hiranabe-san called me up, and asked me if I had known the deceased guy...as soon as I said that I hadn't known him very well, he hung up on me straight away!

T: Thats awful!

J: He is awful

T: This very guy, Hiranabe, even got a promotion from the manager.

J: Eh? Promoted to what?!

T: To Director

J:Eh?! Really?

K: Is that okay??

J: No, it'll be terrible!

K: Right, lets move onto the main news...I'd like to get deeper into the concept of 'The Freedom of Expression'.

J: Right, so Haruna Fuuka has filed a lawsuit againts those who engage in 'internet slander'.

A tweet stated 'Both her parents created a failure'.

On Jan 14th, 18 year old Haruna and her mother filed a lawsuit at Yokohama district court demanding ￥2,654,000 in damages from a person engaged in spreading falsehoods which have damaged her dignity.

On the acknowledgement that these tweets went beyond what was deemed acceptable by society at large, on Nov 1st the internet provider was ordered to make public the persons name and address etc.

Haruna has been tweeting since the age of 9, giving her opinion at random about society's problems, and creating a stir. She now has over 200,000 followers and is fighting 10 years of slander. Kaoru, what do you think about this?

K: Well..I mean, naturally, you'd feel like that..

J: Hmm, but I don't know the details but..the name of the defendant has been withheld...well, its a common problem that as a person speaking in the public eye, you are going to get criticism along with praise...like a 'fame tax'.  That said, how far do you go before honour is damaged? On SNS, you are of course free to express yourself, you can write what you want, but the issue is what constitutes damage to honour. This might be a very difficult area in which to draw a legal line, but on the other hand, if you don't draw a legal line, things may escalate out of control...Kaoru, what do you think?

K: Well for example, if banter between friends is written down...controlling that...Its best not to look at whats written in the first place.

J: Ah, the person in question right? By the way Kaoru, its a strange question, but do you search for yourself online?

K: No, not really. I hear things, the office staff will tell me.

J: Oh, if anything is being said?

T: In the world of fame its quite true, that even if 98 or 99 opinions out of 100 are good, the one negative thing will stand out.

K: Well, yes, its the bad things that..

J: On the other hand, from the writers'  perspective at Tokyo Sports, how far are you willing to slander someone? You could write an article in a good or bad way..

T: Of course balance is important, but of course, if the courts want to complain to us, they can call us, and start an exchange, but in the case of slanders on the internet, its like, who do you complain to? So, if you ask celebrities, they will say Tokyo Sports slander is better than anonymous online slander because at least they can complain to our face.

J: Mm, absolutely. Just how far do we protect these tweets, these freedoms of expression? Its difficult.

K: Are these really 'expressions'?

J: Well, esentially, yes. When you say 'tweets' you think of nonsense, but really its media expressing things, or artists expressing things..

K: Yes, yes, you can get a sense of individual expression.

J: And this especially has the power to influence...

K: Yes, and people get swept up in it.

J: I think this is universal, but at the moment I think Japan is bit like a geyser, people will rush towards any incident and some will start complaining, I mean, I think its important to say what you feel, but its complaining without trying to solve anything, only satisfying yourself.

K: Thats it

J: Its sounds strange to say, but it ends like masturbation. If it turns into something towards a soloution its ok, but just creating thoughtless slander to satisfy yourself is questionable.

K: So its often said, if you continue the conversation only looking at the bad things, it can't be helped. There are also good people out there..you know, put more importance on those people. How to put it...its like we said before, if you focus too much on that one out of a hundred, its kind of rude to the other 99.

J: I see. Still this person has over 200,000 followers and its said she has been fighting slander for ten years.

T: She's always been a bit of a talking point online. I'll just search for her.

J: I also have Instagram, I do stuff to do with societal problems on The Dave Fromm show's youtube channel, and whenever I upload about it (on IG), my followers decrease!  *everyone laughs* Outrageously decrease! Im serious, despite getting so far, that channel updates every week, and with every update my followers decrease. Maybe people hate reading about societal problems..*to Tasai* What did you find?

T: So for example there was that thing recently about regulating gamers to 60mins per session, she had quite a few things to say about that, playing vs learning etc.

J: I see..Young people do complain, well you can't really tell here, but on the other hand, young people these days, i know they would hate us old guys talking about this, but young people apparently have three main taboos. The first is talking about sex, they dont follow this, the second is politics, they don't follow this either, and the other one is, they don't like being made to talk about the kind of things that they really need to be talking about...there seems to be this kind of trend. So i think in this way...theres a chance Haruna is getting right to the point of this. But certainly, applying the law in a way that recognises infringement/damage to honour by way of personal utterances has the potential to lead to restrictions on the freedom of expression. Its a difficult play off, isnt it?

T: Yes, it really is

J: Obviously, when it comes to race, or racial discrimination, there has come to be rules concerning hate speech and so on, but how far can you regulate one-to-one slandering, or..how far can you protect the person being attacked? Should the country or the judiciary decide this? Its difficult.

K: Kami, what do you think? Are you there?

Kami: Well, I hear slanders towards me all the time *everyone laughs* Like, god tells lies, god is useless, or even that there is no such thing as god!

J: Ahh, i see. They deny you!

Kami: Yes, thats it. If I care about those things, I lose!

J: Do you search for yourself online?

Kami: I do. *everyone laughs* ..and whenever I do its only ever those things that come up.

J: Ah of course...Kami, you have an exceptionally good handle on social media  dont you?

T: He's great

Kami: Ive got a good handle on it.

J: Do you use an iphone?

Kami: I have two.

J: God has two iphones! Thats brilliant.

Kami: Yep, I have two...im not allowed to use them while im working.

T: Does he have a contract? With his address and such?

J: I can't tell whether he's great, or whether he's not so great...

Kami: If i care, I lose...I prefer them to hate me, rather than to be indifferent to me.

K: Kami, what do you think about playing computer games for one hour?

Kami: If the kid is good at it, they should keep doing it.

T: I see, i see.

J: Ohh not sure about that. That seems a bit out.

Kami: No, i really think so. Skilled kids can carry on playing.

K: Should unskilled ones give up?

Kami: Yes, they shouldn't do it...When they play all day, and they just can't clear the level..that kind of kid.

K: Its a waste of time right?

Kami: Exactly, its a waste.

J: They should do something else?

Kami: Yes

K: You should quit if you have no talent for it?

Kami: Yes, yes, its talent.

J: Well, just getting off a nightshift must be tiring.

K: For us too, you know, we should try not to say 'stop it' too quickly...we have to keep it interesting.

Kami: It was interesting though, I was listening.

T: Oh thank you.

Kami: But don't tell lies about me.

T: If you thought it was interesting, you should write about it on your social media.

Kami: Yeh, everyone pretends on social media anyway, they won't know its me.

K: Well, that was the first episode of 'The Freedom of Expression' but, should I ask how it was..? *laughs*

J: But, being together again after a while was refreshing..

K,T: Yes, thats right

T: Im happy.

J: So am I.

K: Well, so we started in this vein....Tune in next time to see how it goes.  So this time, only this camera, theres nothing here *gestures behind*, but if lots of people watch, we could go different places, increase our cameras. I still don't know about your fee, Joe.

J: Eh?! What do you mean? It says here my fee will stay the same!

K: I might have to lower it *laughs*

J: *coughs* You're only lowering mine?...But everyone please subscribe.

K: Yes please. Please look forward to next time. Thank you very much.

1* They are saying 'How about this?' in a Kansai accent, how to translate that??

[cloveroctobers]

(A/n: this might be a little biased since I’m in love with this man & I’m basing the relationship parts of this on my mc/myself so hope y’all don’t mind 😬)

IG info/bio: @/lucas.koh | 93.1k followers | for business inquires please visit: kohptr.com

LUCAS KOH —

27 (28) years old

From Oxford, England

Father is Korean & a car salesman at a Nissan dealership, he’s a strict/serious man who has high morals but beyond that he can actually be a softie in rare moments (+ that’s who Lucas gets his height from 🤤)

Mother is actually Chinese but lived in Korea studying abroad and eventually became a successful chiropractor (s/o to doctor mondragon on YouTube who I watch to help me sleep some nights and wish I could see! Lol) with her own practice. She’s a firecracker, intelligent, and quick to say what’s on her mind and doesn’t care if you like what she’s got to say. Most patients like that about her, she’s honest and her family is used to her ways but in the same way it’s more loving than offensive? (Smol woman but will remind you when she’s cracking your body she’s got enough power in her)

Either he’s a only child or he comes from a family of all boys with two younger brothers (they’re all in their 20’s) or he has one younger brother and one younger sister idk you decide

I’m feeling like he’s a Sagittarius? Carefree in the terms of he wasn’t viewing finally getting with MC when she’s dating someone else as cheating. Mans was READY to risk it all for me okay and I was down for it but ofc I had to react realistically and NOT “cheat.” *sigh* one part of me was debating ‘are we really dating tho bobby? We’re on reality tv. We’re not gonna die without each other if we hang out in seperate rooms’ *cough* Nope. but I’m a woman about her loyalty

He’s definitely adventurous. I don’t see him as the type to want to stay home all the time even tho his work definitely keeps him busy/exhausted. He’s down for road trips 💯

Occupation? Physicotherapist. His mother inspired him to get into the field and watching sports + the way players got their injuries always intrigued him? So to provide the best plan to have someone heal was something he loved to do plus being hands on while teaching/helping was a passion for him + I feel like he would also use a massaging technique instead of the usual exercise part of it

Now as someone who suffered a ACL & Mensicus tear & is STILL dealing with this BS pain years later, I would be so thankful to have him around! I feel like he’d have a optimistic attitude towards his patients and that’s what people need not someone that’s insensitive (like my surgeon/PT’s I had)

He models from time to time, when he was first approached about it he was upfront about not wanting to do it. It was much different than getting your picture taken for the office. That’s usually quick, the whole modeling process felt longer but somehow he was talked into it by his brother who’s a photographer and his mother. “Do you think you’re ugly? ‘Cause I’m not and you’re a part of me, so therefore there’s no such thing. Just look at your cheekbones, your jawline! I gave you those. The only good thing your father gave you was height.” Which filled the house with snickers while Lucas’ father just rolled his eyes and continued reading his newspaper for breakfast

Has a motorcycle and some luxurious car—not a Tesla those are basic now 🤷🏽‍♀️

Loves his motorcycle so much he’s got a tat of it on his right bicep

He has two available parking spaces in his parking garage at his penthouse but keeps his bike away in a storage unit due to a neighbor scratching it after his girlfriend broke up with him? Saying she was off to date Lucas? But that wasn’t true at all. He barely knew the girl, they didn’t live on the same floor. People were crazy but if you push him his temper might come out

Owns a leather jacket that he paid a lot for

Believes in “treat yo self” if it means in quality when shopping and has no issue being a big spender but he knows how to manage it well (his father told him all about how his own father dealt with bankruptcy)

Since he’s often at the office the whole day, he’s usually a night owl. He loves night drives and night dining. That’s usually when he finds the best places to eat

There’s this one pho spot that he loves and it’s his go to spot when he wants something quick on the way home

Cannot sleep with his entire body covered in covers, either his arms/shoulders have to be out or his legs, which would be a issue for me/mc since I sleep with the covers over my entire body...yes even in hot weather with the AC cranked up😂

He also makes great kimchi fried rice & loves Italian food

Will wine and dine. I believe it. I envision it! He loves going out on dates with his significant other (If he’s single and not with me, I think he’d try out speed dating)

Will dress to impress, will buy you a new fit he wants to see you/us/mc in especially if it’s your anniversary

Loves taking bubble bath’s with infused oils or flower petals with significant other

He’s the type that takes long showers & it brings him a true sense of freedom. He’s never able to take a quick shower, he gets lost in his ideas of what to do next in this world & it’s limitless

If he’s in for the day, which usually doesn’t last long—he’s either in sweats or in a robe all day

Only drives his bike on the weekend or if he’s going out of town but if he’s going on a trip for a couple of days with MC & if she’s got a bit of anxiety like me? He’ll stick to his car to make them comfortable

I feel like he enjoys the winter season. Maybe if it’s a slushy rainy winter more than a blizzards/snowy season. He loves bundling up, much to people’s surprise. He’s more than just his good looks and body love island fans!!!

Doesn’t post much on his socials. If you need to see what he’s about then you should do so in person or already know who he is. The internet can’t tell you much, in his opinion

Keeps himself in good health, I mean duh what kind of PT would he be 😉 goes on night jogs with reflector clothes on & occasionally morning jogs & at home workouts

Probably will date someone younger than him. Not by much, I don’t think he can take immaturity well. (That maybe how he views it) The most is 4 years younger than him

Henrik is his best bud from the show. They hang out all the time, crash at each other’s places, and vacation together all the time. They will be each other’s future best men forsure

Doesn’t go out of his way to talk to the rest of the guys from the show but if he happens to browse his feed and sees something he wants to comment on then he’ll carry a conversation of course

Far as the girls? He talks to Hannah & Priya from time to time. He also follows Hope and they like each other’s posts but not much communication is there either?

Either has a mint or black phone case, probably a Samsung galaxy user

Likes pistachio frozen yogurt but he’s lactose & doesn’t want to believe it :(

Smokes cigars when he’s out with his boys

Has a tight knit group of friends, majority of them are from the medical field since they all went to uni together + most of them are also married so the pressure is so on

*He’s the oldest out of his sibs so according to his parents he’s expected to be married first yet his baby sis is engaged and she’s 23*

wants a family...eventually. Probably will happen in his early thirties? The max for children is 2 for him. He knows they can be a HANDFUL due to his own friends who have kids + he’s a godfather and he’s babysat before so he knows how it goes!

enjoys his freedom as stated which further proves he’s a sag lol

Enjoys going to saunas to cleanse his pores/ get rid of toxins. It’s the easiest way for him to do so even tho his brother clowns him for it

His love language is deff physical touch. He loves hugs and resting his chin on top of your head, forehead to forehead, his nose pressed in between the space of your neck and shoulder, gentle squeezes, sitting next to each other with your legs touching, cuddling, sleeping on top of you or you on him, etc

He loves kissing. It’s automatic for him and it can also easily rile him up

Has strong opinions & will show them but will feel like he’s being attacked if it brings on a confrontation/argument

Will forgive and forget

Plays strategy board games

Makes his own natural healing creams & gives samples to his patients depending on their needs

His fav colors are: blue, white, & grey

Will grow a bit of facial hair in the cooler months if it’ll make mc happy (I’m a sucker for facial hair but hate it on myself lmao) but if he dislikes the feeling on his face he will shave and finds he likes a shaven face better, the facial hair makes him look a bit older—which is okay but that’s just his preference

When he stops putting gel in his hair/styling his hair in a quiff hairstyle it shocks fans with mc commenting on one of his pics, “you’re welcome x”

Likes going to the Hard Rock Cafe on causal weekends

also likes getting freaky in public, down for whatever 🤪

He’s a traveler so if he leaves the UK, I’m seeing him land in Toronto, Canada first and falling in love with it. I feel he would vibe well with the culture there, might even consider getting a vacation home in that location

Celeb crushes? Anne Hathaway, Beyoncé, Lupita Nyong'o, Anna Diop, Imaan Hammam, Jodie Comer, Megan Fox, Shay Mitchell, & Cassie Ventura Fine

Oh Lucas. I feel like we have similar tastes? Somewhat. He probably listens to more rock than I do? Maybe 80s rock moreso? & He listens to: WALK THE MOON, Allen Stone (his fav) , Emily king, Gavin Turek, Melanie Fiona, THEY., DPR live, & Sik-k

Anthem = Young the Giant, “Something to believe in”