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loftylockjaw · 2 months

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TIMING: Shortly after Anita’s birthday party LOCATION: Mansión Mexicana PARTIES: Wyatt (@loftylockjaw) & Anita (@gossipsnake) SUMMARY: While sitting and chatting about their lives, Wyatt opens up to his friend about his nightmare problems, and Anita supports his decision to handle it with violence. CONTENT WARNINGS: very very brief drug mention

—

There were a lot of little ways that Anita had made Wicked’s Rest feel comfortable to her, made it feel as close to home as it could. Her house was the most significant part of that. Isolated from a lot of the town and out of place in terms of its Spanish architectural style, it was truly her sanctuary. Much to her dismay, the house did little in the way of giving her any sense of real community. That wasn’t to say she hadn’t built meaningful connections over the years in town but Anita missed the comfort of being surrounded by lamia. Practically she understood why her fellow reptilian beings didn’t seem to flock to the cold shores of Maine which only increased her desire to seek out the others who braved the colder weather.

It had been no surprise that, eventually, a lamia had found their way into the Grit Pit. Anita could still recall the first time she saw Wyatt rip the limbs from his opponent in a fight - a beautifully bloody work of art. It didn’t take long for the pair to realize they had a lot more in common than just stunning scales and exceptional bone structure. They also shared a love for the miscellaneous excitements that life had to offer, which allowed for a budding friendship to take root. Anita not only enjoyed the evenings they would spend together but found herself actively looking forward to them.

“No, no, no,” Anita corrected with a soft laugh, “I meant, like, what’s the weirdest thing that’s happened in town to you that ended up being just … normal run of the mill stupid human shit? For me, it was probably when I thought that the professor I shared an office with during my first year at the University had become some kind of undead being. I mean, the man looked and smelled like death. He kept complaining about losing time and one time I came in early and there was a strange blood trail throughout the office.” She paused, partially for dramatic effect and partially to take another swig of tequila. “Turns out his wife caught him cheating, kicked him out, and he was sleeping in the office. I guess a science lab and sleepwalking can make for a dangerous combination.”

—

Laughing at her story, Wyatt shrugged his shoulders. “Well damn, woman, I don’t know! There’s so much weird shit that happens around here on the daily, I can’t keep track! Sucks big time for that guy, though. You know, that’s probably as good an incentive against marriage as I’ve ever heard.” He chuckled again, trying to think of something specific. Odds were he was too ignorant of the supernatural beyond some shifters and some undead to ever peg anyone as supernatural for their weird habits, but… “I mean every really intense horror fan I meet I assume, at least at first, is a bugbear. They’re kinda hard to suss out anyway, you know? But I guess usually they’re just… weird.” He snorted, shaking his head and lapsing into silence as he sipped on the tequila they were sharing. A thought struck him then and he straightened up in his seat a bit, cocking his head at Anita.

“Oh, by the by… I met this girl recently, another lamia. But like… freshly a lamia, you know? First one in her family. She seemed… less than happy about it.” He scoffed. “Go figure. Anyway, was thinkin’ you might have better luck talkin’ to her… I know I ain’t the most, ahh, what’s the word…” Sensitive. Tactful. Compassionate. “... well, I’m not good at talkin’, is what I’m sayin’. Anyway, sounds like she’s hopin’ for a way to reverse it, which’ll likely just get her killed.”

—

“Oh, don’t you know? All the weird shit is just part of the local, coastal charm! That’s how everyone around here seems to wanna justify it all, anyway.” As much as Anita thought people were foolish to write off the strange happenings that happened in this town, ultimately their foolishness only benefited her. They were so willing to accept banal explanations for almost anything, so willing to justify an alarming amount of unusual deaths. “You know, now that you mention it, I haven’t come across a bugbear in town since I’ve been here. Not knowingly, anyway. I’ve had a few students who were just weird enough that I wouldn’t have been surprised though…”

Anita smirked when Wyatt had mentioned meeting a girl, not sure of where this next story was going. And unsure she certainly was. Her left eyebrow raised at the mention of another lamia and she reached for the chilled bottle of tequila out on the table to refill her glass. “First one? That’s…well, I’ve never actually met the first in a lineage before.” The idea of meeting this woman flushed her with excitement and an odd sense of duty. The lamia before her had taught her all she knew about survival but there would be nobody around to teach the first of a bloodline. “Reverse it?” Anita scoffed, shaking her head. “No, no, she just needs someone to talk to, I’m sure. And unlike you I am very good at talking. How did you meet her?”

The next thought made her smirk softly, always hopeful for more serpentine companions, “What kind of lamia was she?”

—

“Yeah… that clawed foot that sprang up outta the ground like an eager tulip is real fuckin’ charming,” Wyatt argued under his breath, rolling his eyes. “I guess,” he added in a louder voice for Anita to hear, letting out a huff of breath. “Whatever keeps ‘em from askin’ questions…”

Anita’s curiosity was good, because that meant that the responsibility of guiding this young lamia was slowly slipping from his shoulders like water off a duck’s back. “Out in the woods, huntin’. We was after the same buck, go figure.” And he’d ripped it in half to share with her, like the gentleman that he was… despite what others might say. There was the question of her reptilian form, to which Wyatt laughed softly and rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh… y’know… snake-y…” he answered dumbly, offering an apologetic shrug a few beats after. “Sorry, can’t say I’m real familiar with snake types. Didn’t know none growin’ up, was never really taught about ‘em. But. She was… pretty.” He coughed. That said literally nothing about her type. Stupid. Shut up.

Silencing himself with a sip of tequila, the shifter pulled out his phone and started tapping through some menus before pulling up a phone number. He set the device on the table and pushed it closer to Anita, nodding at it at the same time. “That’s her number. I told her I had another lamia friend in town, so you reachin’ out won’t be totally unexpected.” The man sighed and sat back again, dragging a hand across his face. The uninterrupted hours of wakefulness were catching up with him again, and the tequila wasn’t making it any easier to not sink into his seat and have a little siesta…

—

The fact that it was another snake that Wyatt had encountered made Anita grin. Anyone who got her talking about shifters of any kind for more than a couple of minutes were bound to hear her thoughts on the hierarchy of the species. While she hadn’t (knowingly, soberly, seriously) said so to Wyatt, Anita undoubtedly considered snake lamia to be the superior among the lamia subtypes. “Oh, come on, mi caimán. Just because you may not have known any snake lamia doesn’t mean you don’t know snakes, no? Down that way, I bet you grew up near king snakes, cottonmouths, racers,” Anita paused for a moment, the tequila straining her geographical knowledge ever so slightly, “and a bunch more, I’m sure.”

Pulling out her own phone, Anita copied the number into her contacts, “What? You didn’t get a name?” As she put her phone away, Anita noticed that Wyatt seemed more muted than usual. Nudging him playfully as he leaned back in the chair, she quickly sought to fill the silence. “Ay, someone special been keeping you up late? Making you too tired to enjoy this incredible tequila and even more fantastic company?” It wasn’t that Anita couldn’t handle a lul in the conversation, or silence, for that matter. It was just that it made her uncomfortable. Especially lately, she didn’t want to be left in a circumstance where she wasn’t distracted from her own thoughts. “Spill.” She prompted with a smirk.

—

Sometimes he forgot how smart Anita was, by no fault of her own. He’d just grown up around rather…. uneducated types, so he wasn’t exactly used to the effortless way she rattled off different snake species that he had undoubtedly encountered down in the bayou, but never knew the names of. It did manage to make him feel stupid at times, which he couldn’t really hold against her. It was good that she was intelligent, imagine if all lamia were brutes like him? They’d probably go extinct within a decade, if no new ones were made. Sighing, Wyatt shrugged his shoulders. “Sure, Anita, sure I did. But I was more interested in eatin’ ‘em than I was studyin’ ‘em,” he explained, exasperated. “Anyway, she didn’t look like any I’d seen before. Kinda had a… a curved snout. Y’know, like a… um…” He had to think hard about it for a moment before the name came to him, “Like a hognose. But the colors were darker.” Wyatt then gave a mock-offended huff. “Course I did. Isa. Isa Caceres. Good snake name, eh? You know, what with all the hissin’. Weird she wasn’t born into it.”

He felt Anita nudge him and couldn’t help the smile that slipped across his face, closing his eyes for a moment. “Someone special? Don’t think that’s the right word.” No one had ever been special to him like that, at least not as far as he’d let himself explore the feeling. His mind did wander to a few people, but of course they were not the cause of his exhaustion. Not… directly, anyway. “No, it’s just…” He debated how much he wanted to say to her. They were friends, and they were bonded by something different than he had with anyone else… but god, was it weak of him to admit that he was afraid of sleeping? I’ve been having these nightmares the last few months. Real bad ones. I wake up in a panic, and I’ve been waking up shifted. And it wasn’t just that. I’m having a harder and harder time telling what’s real. The birds are everywhere, and that leg in the woods… that can’t be real, right? But I see it on the horizon all the time. I don’t even know if I’m awake right now.

“... trouble sleepin’, I guess.”

—

Anita was never the type to let people make her feel bad for who she was, and she was a lot. She didn’t know exactly what the source of the apparent exasperation that came from Wyatt’s response was, but she took no offense. “I get it. A regular snake is fair game, I suppose. Certainly below lamia on the food chain.” She knew that her curiosity, her constant desire to learn about the things she saw in the world was not something that everyone shared. After all it was the thing that drove such a wedge between herself and the rest of her family, it was something they never could understand. “Isa Caceres,” Anita responded, drawing out all of the s sounds dramatically. “I like it. She may not have been born with it, but seems as though she was destined for it.”

The smile that came after her question was so intriguing. The question had mostly been in jest considering how the pair had often bonded over their lack of any singular special someone, and a bit of a lack of desire to be tied down to one person. Or at least that was how Anita had perceived it. For a moment it seemed as though he was going to give her some sort of real response, and Anita refilled both of their glasses with more tequila in anticipation. But instead, she got a rather lame generic answer.

“Oh,” she nodded, lifting up her glass to take a sip. “Yeah, that happens sometimes I suppose.” Anita tried to figure out why she felt a bit strange. Sometimes she wondered if she spent so much time studying the behavior of insects and of others that she saw things that weren’t really there. Was his extended pause because he was tired? Or had he considered telling her more before deciding not to? If it had been the latter, she couldn’t help but wonder what it was about her that made him hold back. “Sometimes when I need a good night's sleep, I go to sleep without being shifted out of the mojave. I have a room with several industrial heat lamps. It reminds me of sleeping out in the desert. If you want, you could borrow the room for a night sometime.”

—

He could sense the shift in her demeanor. His answer, vague as it was, hadn’t been what she wanted to hear. Even her generous offer, one that he was very inclined to take her up on, didn’t hide her disappointment. There he went again, disappointing the people he cared about.

“Ahh, it’s just… it’s more than that. Obviously.” He sighed, rubbing his neck with his free hand. “Sorry. I’m… my shit has been… pretty fucked, lately.” He laughed. “Your party was a bright spot, actually.” Sucking in a long breath, Wyatt started to list things aloud. “Let’s see… I fucked up one of my friend’s lives more than it was already fucked up because I was trying to help them and I’m shit at that… I got a boyfriend, found out someone I was messing around with stabbed said boyfriend, then got dumped two days later for someone else… I accidentally killed a friend of mine during a fight because hey! Turns out I’m actually losing my mind! Which is just the cherry on top of all of this. I can’t sleep because when I sleep I have these awful fucking nightmares, so bad that I sometimes shift without meaning to. And now I’m starting to lose it even when I’m awake, or when I think I’m awake, because honestly, girl? I can’t fuckin’ tell anymore.” He huffed out another breath and gave Anita a shrug. “So… that’s the short of it. I’m probably forgetting some other terrible thing that happened, but it’s all startin’ to run together now anyway.” He raised his brows, looking at her like is that truthful enough? as he knocked back the tequila she’d poured him.

—

Despite her disappointment in Wyatt’s very non-response response, Anita didn’t really expect that her subtly was going to push him to open up. So when it did she almost didn’t know how to respond. Almost, until he complimented the elaborate surprise party she had thrown herself. “Ay, si, the party was a bright spot for a lot of people I think. We all need a release sometimes.” But she could only beam with pride for a few short moments, as the floodgates had seemed to open and his pause wasn’t the end of his comments but merely the preamble.

Several times, Anita opened her mouth to say something, to comment - at the mention of a boyfriend, someone getting stabbed, getting dumped, an accidental death - but the hits kept coming. For a split second, when he mentioned killing someone in a fight, there was a flash of panic in her eyes as she thought of Felix. But she had just spoken to them that morning, there wouldn’t have been any fights since that conversation, and she’d like to think Wyatt would know better than to bury the lead with that. “Mierda, that honestly sounds like someone trying to summarize a bad arc of a telenovela.” She poured herself another shot, then slid the bottle across the bar towards him.

“Sorry, amor, I didn’t mean that in any kind of way. Just… fuck, I had no idea.” Anita was never very good at catastrophic problem solving. None of these things really seemed fixable by offering to kill someone. “Any of these friends the one you hooked up with in my guest room at the party?” That wasn’t the right thing to say and she knew it, but it was what came out.

—

“It’s fine. It is a bad arc. It’s the shittiest arc! I’d really like to have a fuckin’ word with my writer,” Wyatt complained, smirking in spite of the shithole that was his life at present. At least someone in his life knew how to make it less grave. Maybe he’d look back on this some day and laugh. Maybe. He reached for the bottle, pouring himself some more while she asked a follow up question. One that had his brows raising and a grin appearing on his face, an actual grin, not one that felt forced.

“Oh, that?” He clicked his tongue, deciding in that moment that he wasn’t going to be a sad piece of shit for one night, regardless of whatever waited for him outside the safety and comfort of Anita’s home. “No, no… that’s a new friend. Totally detached from all of that other shit, thank god. I don’t, ah… damn, I don’t even remember how we met.” He was really digging for it, but coming up short. “All I remember is him showin’ up at my place in a cab, givin’ me a pill, takin’ me to a club, and fuckin’ me in… a coat closet? Hell if I can recall.” The man laughed, giving Anita a shrug. “I guess he and I kinda have a pattern that we follow. Sorry to your guest room specifically.”

—

Anita tilted her head slightly, but smiled and laughed along with her friend. For all of their distinct differences and obvious similarities, one thing that was more subtle she had noticed was that they both seemed to resort to humor and distraction when things were complicated. In a way it was nice to have someone who she could reasonably rely on to “yes, and” her delusions but she also couldn’t help but wonder if this was the kind of support that he needed. Was she being a good friend or a bad influence?

But the story of this new ‘friend,’ was far too intriguing, pulling her mind out of more philosophical questions and back down into the reality of the evening. Her grin grew wider as he kept adding onto the story, to a more level headed person there may have been some red flags picked up upon, but Anita didn’t see any. “Now that sounds like one hell of a friend.” Having some easy, light, exceptionally enjoyable fun seemed like a good thing. How could it be anything else? “My guest room has seen far worse, it’s alright.”

Anita pulled the bottle back across the table, not bothering with a glass and taking a shot out of it directly before pushing it back towards Wyatt. She scratched her head slightly, sighing softly as a few thoughts began to settle into place in the midst of the tequila haze. She’d been around a few mares long enough to wonder if someone might be targeting her friend. “These nightmares. When’d they start?”

—

See? He knew she'd forgive him. Not that that had needed proving, but it felt nice to be right about something regardless. He'd been wrong about a lot of things lately.

Then she was asking about the nightmares. “Funny story, that,” Wyatt began, scoffing to himself. It didn't matter that he now had a lead on why they were happening, it didn't immediately fix his insomnia or deeply rooted fear of birds, of all fucking things. “A few months ago. Came out of nowhere, really. Just started having freaky dreams that were all bird-themed, you know. And they just kept escalating. Then I started seeing someone in my dreams a lot.” He paused. “Saw her when I was awake too, I think.” He threw Anita a knowing glance. “Turns out, she might be real. Might be the one giving me nightmares.” He shook his head, reaching for the bottle and taking a pull directly from it like Anita had. “Gonna try and get that sorted, yanno, quick as I can. Still don't mean I'm gettin’ restful sleep though.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. “Might… take you up on those heating lamps. Can't remember the last time I was able to get a proper sunnin’ nap in. Bet that's not helping.” He'd been running cold for months now.

—

Anita frowned as Wyatt talked about these nightmares being what she felt fairly certain to be the description of a mare targeting him, feeding from him. “Poor, sweet, baby boy. Yes. It sounds like you have a silly witch giving you nightmares. Not a real witch,” she clarified, “but you should find this woman and you should eat her. That will stop the bird dreams.” There was part of her that wondered whether or not one of the mares she knew was the one feeding from her friend. It would not have changed her advice, though. That was survival of the fittest. If you disturb a species higher up than you, you can’t be surprised when you find your neck crushed between the teeth of a lamia.

“It’s almost impossible in this town. Set aside the fact that it’s not even warm enough outside for more than half the year to get a good sun nap, all the good secluded spots in the forest have too much shade and the spots with nice sunlight feel… too exposed sometimes.” Anita thought about how easy it was back home, when the temperatures spiked so high that most humans stayed indoors, to head out into the desert and bask in the sun. “You can stay here tonight, if you want, and enjoy the heat. I don’t mind.”

—

Wyatt smiled. They really were of similar minds, and while it hardly came as a surprise, it was always a comforting thing to experience. It made him feel just a little bit less alone. Anita understood him, and she didn’t judge him, far as he could tell. She was perhaps the closest thing he had to actual family around here, which meant she was filling in a rather sizable hole in Wyatt’s heart. He was glad to have found her, and glad that they’d become such fast, fierce friends. The man nodded in agreement, shaking a finger at her. “My thoughts exactly,” he answered with a grin.

“Yeah… it’s tragic, is what it is. Came too damn far north.” Sometimes he had half a mind to go back to the swamps, but now he couldn’t, could he? He was trapped here. In that context, her offer was even more welcome than it would’ve been otherwise, and his situation left very little room for pride. Well, at least when it came to Anita. He’d bury his problems with most other people, just like he’d tried to bury them here, with her, just before opening up. It was his default setting, and he had to actively fight against it to accept charity. “That’d be amazing, actually. Thanks, my little Mojave aster,” he chuckled, knowing the exasperated glare that might be coming his way for that one. “I owe you.”

#. thread ;#. with ; anita nieves #drug tw #. southern comforts ;

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blahberry-pancake · 3 years

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So, I guess this is goodbye.

I've decided that the best thing for me to do right now will be to quit cc making. And before you all freak out, no I will not be deleting any of my cc. It's all gonna be available for you on Simsdom and my Tumblr page with everything on it.

My Patreon page will be hidden though and all exclusive content from there will be made public like right before this post so look below. There wasn't much exclusives there anyway.

First off, I really want to thank all of you for all the love and support you've given me throughout these... almost 5 years? Wow it's been that long? Anyway, thank you. If not for you, I'd probably never get to start my journey with 3D design and discover a passion for it.

And this is where I'll explain why I'm leaving for the curious ones.

So, I'm not gonna lie and sugarcoat anything. One part of cc making for me was the money, the other part was of course my passion for creating and seeing people enjoy what I make.

I had hoped I could make it my job and be able to support myself. Like I mentioned in a few posts before, I suffer with a lot of mental illnesses that prevent me from normal work and as you know, other people in the community have been able to make cc their jobs. So this is why I opened my Patreon. But it's been over a year and it didn't really kick off and things started falling apart. I stopped posting as much as I used to due to health and family issues. So not providing enough and not being good enough for people to support me on there was constantly on my mind, ironically preventing me even more from being creative. Plus disappointing the rest of you guys on here too.

But enough of that. Thanks to the support of my family through my recent mental breakdowns and everything, I've decided it's time to look for a job that could give me what I need. Money to support myself, medical insurance and finally, stability and routine. I'm a person who really needs routine in my life. And I'm getting way too old not to have stability either.

I want a job with a set amount of hours a day to work and then when that's done, I can do what I want. CC making couldn't give me that. I was constantly working. I never really had actual free time. When I did try to have a break, I'd feel bad for "procrastinating". I need time for my brain to unwind. To have that set time for relaxation and for work-time clearly divided.

So the only jobs I could do and qualify for are remote jobs. I found a whole lot of job offers for people with my skills to work for actual game studios! Mobile games, PC, whatever. What counts is that I might have a chance to actually do this and work in the gaming industry.

And even if that doesn't work out, there are other remote jobs I could try. Before shit hit the fan in the world, almost nobody offered remote work. And now it's almost in every offer so people like me can finally work too. I really need to try my luck with this. I'm sick of surviving instead of living. I haven't been able to look at my Facebook page in years because it constantly reminded me that people I went to school with are now either successful or just have stability in their lives and don't struggle this much. So that's the reason(s) I'm leaving.

Right now I need to focus on my mental health, polishing my resume and my portfolio. It really feels bittersweet because I really did enjoy giving you guys new content and being creative but it's time to spread my wings, try new things and maybe finally become a responsible adult. Once again, thank you all so, so much for the love and support you've given me. It was an incredible journey. I'll still be looking at my Tumblr from time to time so I won't be completely gone, just not making anything new. You might see some occasional likes on your posts here and there. And I might do an update after some time if things do work out for me. But... Goodbye for now! ❤️❤️❤️

#what a way to be dramatic lol #thank you for the memories

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sunflowerdaisybee · 2 years

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I didn’t see anywhere that you requests were closed, so could we get a part 2 of the zombie apocalypse au? Maybe like a few years later

-fruity anon

Ok uh two things, one requests actually are closed and if it’s not findable in my bio usually my most recent post will tell you but it’s ok, I actually really enjoyed writing this anyways :]

Number two, would you guys like to see more of this? Is there any characters you’d like to see? Would you prefer if reader ended up with someone or if they stayed single forever? Just a few questions about where you guys would like to see this go as I have a lot of fun writing for it but have no idea where to take the story myself so :]

Summary: You’re first meeting with your new family had been rough, but you find that things are much nicer a few years in the future

Pairing: P!SBI & P!Benchtrio X Reader

Pronouns: None used/gender neutral

[A/n]: This is a part two of Zombies so if you haven’t read that, I recommend reading it first

It had been a few years since you had joined the small, found family that you now belonged to. The zombies hadn’t completely disappeared, but the numbers had dwindled significantly. Resources that were previously low in number or unavailable had become accessible again.

A few things had changed in the small community your family had built for itself. Techno had started keeping dogs and training them to attack and hunt, Wilbur had nearly mastered explosives, Tommy had started leaving more on expeditions, flying out on his own in search of people or supplies. Tubbo started to build new homes, making room for any new survivors that Tommy comes across, Ranboo had started farming, growing crops as long as possible to ensure that there would be food for everyone, Michael had grown into a fine young man and had taken up treating the injured, his quiet nature limiting him to certain tasks, Phil had taken up teaching the new members how to fight properly and had become the leader of sorts, and you, well you often worked as the community blacksmith. You would fix, clean, sharpen, or even make weapons and tools for your family and the growing number of people in your community. There weren’t many jobs available at the time and despite not knowing much when you started, you had plenty of time to learn.

“Hey (Y/n), are you busy right now?” Your thoughts were quickly shoved to the back of your head as you looked at the person before you. He was a younger man, around the age of Tubbo and Tommy, though he never seemed to hang around them much.

“Ah, Purpled! What can I do for ya?” You set down the ax you had been cleaning and walked towards the front of your area, greeting Purpled with a friendly smile.

“Oh uhm, my ax broke when I was out chopping trees earlier.” He placed said ax onto the small table you had set up, and the damage was clear.

“Hm, I don’t know if I’ll be able to fix it, but I can certainly try. Worst case, I have to make you a new one. How soon will you need it?” Examining the tool, you considered the possibilities, debating what would be easiest and what would be quickest.

“I’ve finished my lot for the day, so tomorrow morning by the latest. Does that work for you?” With your nod of confirmation, Purpled left with a thank you, ensuring he’d be back tomorrow to collect his tool.

The boy had always been a mystery to you. He was roughly the same age as Tommy and Tubbo, yet kept more so to himself. His strength was clear, hence his task of chopping wood, and yet he preferred to not fight. Purpled had also run into a group of other community members prior to them all living here, but had a splitting off with them. There were also very few people he talked to and the only one he seemed to spend any real time with was a man named Ponk.

“You really shouldn’t think so much when you’re working, you’ll lose a finger or two that way.” The words, followed by a light chuckle, had you turning away from your work, mentally cursing yourself for being caught in your thoughts again.

“I’m plenty careful with my work, trust me. Plus aren't explosives just as dangerous?” You poked back at Wilbur, a smile and light laugh echoing back in a manner similar to his.

“They’re only dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.” Wilbur gave a pointed look before setting a few things down on your table, the same one Purpled had placed the ax on just moments prior. It was two plates of food and two glasses of water, lunch for you and him.

“You’re eating with me today?”

“Yeah, Techno and Phil are busy, Tubbo and Ranboo are eating together and Tommy’s run off again.” Wilbur pulled out two chairs as you set down the tools you were holding and wiped any remaining dirt off your hands.

“He’s not really running off, he’s just out on expeditions. If it weren’t for him we wouldn’t have nearly as many people living around here as we do now. Plus I think he likes to get out, get away from everyone and forget what kind of crazy world we live in for a while, ya know?” Wilbur only hummed, having already stuffed his mouth full of food.

“All these years and you still eat like Tommy’s trying to steal from you.” Shaking your head and sitting down, you took a moment to drink from your water before eating. The chat between you two was minimal and nothing of importance, mostly talk about new arrivals and how your respective works had been going.

“So, anyone catch your eye lately?” You looked at Wilbur with a suspicious but confused look.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh c’mon, we aren’t five, you know what I mean. Is there anyone you like?” Wilbur watched as you took a moment to think, actually considering the question before answering.

“I’m actually not sure, I haven’t had much of an opportunity to interact with a lot of people, I’m typically tied down with my work I suppose. What about you?” You watched Wilbur sit back defeated, clearly having expected your answer.

“There’s someone but I’m not sure if it’s worth pursuing ya know?” You just nodded, finishing off the last bits of food on your plate before setting it aside. The two of you continued to chat for a few minutes before Wilbur had to leave, taking the dishes with him as he left to his explosives, leaving you alone with your tools and thoughts once more.

Was there anyone who had caught your eye? You had given Wilbur an honest answer but something still bothered you. How could you have let yourself become so buried in your work? Perhaps a day off wouldn’t hurt, it would give you time to really meet people and take in all that your community had become. After all, most of your information and social interaction had come from what Wilbur tells you during lunch, or from people coming by in regards to their tools.

“I have to have this ax done for tomorrow, but other than that I don’t think I’ve got anything to do. Maybe I’ll take tomorrow off, even if it’s only a few hours.”

Taglist: (if you want to be tagged on posts just let me know which posts, you can reach out via message or ask! :])

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stopeatingwhales · 3 years

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second chance x damon albarn

i'm surprised i haven't written anything about dilf damon yet bc i've been so obsessed with him recently wtf. anyways enjoy x

i might do a second part to this, idk yet tho

Pairing: dilf damon x reader

Warnings: none :)

Word count: 2.786

Requested by anon <3

༉‧₊˚✧

“Do you want to come over?” I abruptly asked, the silence pouring through the line deafening my ears as my fingers toyed with the hem of my shirt. The desperation and moment that led to me ringing my ex-boyfriend at what was nearing eight in the evening seemed as though it was a fever dream, the words rolling off my tongue so delicately out of apprehension only a fragment of that trance. In all honesty, I had no idea as to why I rang Damon, or to what extent the string of thoughts guided me towards the action of calling - we had been broken up for around a year, and it came as a much larger shock that I was able to muster the amount of courage to tap his contact on my phone and attentively listen to the thunderous rings as the landlines attempted to connect, instead of quickly shutting the phone off before he was able to receive a missed call alert.

“Uh, um - are you sure?” he questioned, the stutter escaping his mouth insinuated that he was just as dazed at my sudden offer as me, the demeanour of his voice accentuating the idea that he was entirely finished with the ephemeral chapter of his life which had me intertwined inside as his partner; that he had gotten over me quicker than the momentary period our relationship lasted. My heart sank, realising how indigent I sounded, as if I had never gotten over him throughout our time apart - which I did, learning to live with myself was easier than I had thought it was going to be; the weeks leading up to the breakup stemming from the distance we shared apart due to Damon consistently being on tour and never providing enough time for me, for us, to consider one another as more than romantically acquainted, though that didn’t mean the gap in my heart had been sealed shut, it was simply brimmed with other, unspecial fragments of things which could only distract the thought of him for so long, until I’d discover myself adventuring for something else to hyperfixate my thoughts upon, though he always returned.

“Yeah…” My voice trailed off, so quiet that I struggled to sustain the volume. Though we had only just spoken, the trance that he had obtained over me for all those months we were with one accord, returned in an instant, having the same rush that a recollection of memories, pastimes that were once forgotten, crumbled to dust, had been reborn; ignited into a new bloom in the height of a harvest, resulting in the scolding of yourself upon how you granted the ability to forget such a thing. It seemed as if all those thoughts, ideations convinced to the point that I had gotten over him, were myriads of masks attempting to say it enough to believe it. Without a doubt, I had never overcome the strains of the acquaintance we shared - and I could only hope he felt the same way.

I heard his throat clear itself before his voice echoed through the telephone speakers once again. “Alright… I’ll be there in a bit.” he mumbled, those words bringing a soft, yet apprehensive grin to my lips. I had no idea what I was doing, or why, but it felt right.

It felt as if only the sum of a few minutes passed when I heard a distinguishable knock on the door; one that had not rang through my ears for an interminable amount of time, one that was able to send me months back in time to a period where he had significantly been a figurehead dictating the story. As I jolted up to answer the door, it felt as if things were normal again, back to how they used to be so many nights previous; me waiting for him to come home after he spent a long day at the recording studio, crafting what could only be assumed was the pure essence of talent, unlocking the door to allow my arms to envelop into an embrace cherished with affection and warmth, proving he longed to have my presence just as much as I craved his. Once my eyes met the sight of him, my heart dropped at the overwhelming feeling of my reminiscing about what once was, the nostalgia for a moment so authentically shaped with what could only be described as true love, my body yearning to relish in the sensation of his arms protectively wrapped around my body, a feeling which could only fulfill one’s heart with all that it desires. "Hi..." I trailed off, stunned by how similar, yet different his appearance was from when we last saw one another. His hair had the same shape, though it seemed a little shorter, his eyebags still prominent on his features, though it seemed as if they had sagged down slightly, posing the idea of whether he had been sleeping alright. His torso still adorned shirts with dark colours, amplified with one of his leather jackets which only made me more attracted to him. Widening the door, he set foot into the apartment, nodding his head lightly as a greeting. Although I was very elated to the fact that he was in my apartment, it felt eerie having him back here after so long, stepping foot into the space that was once served merely as a homely and secure space where we both could simply live and enjoy our time together, no distractions included.

Once I had followed him into the living space, he took a seat onto the couch facing the television. I attempted to make my footsteps omit as little noise as possible, as if to avoid damaging the awkward silence that had been shared between the pair of us. It went without saying that neither of us knew how to break the ice, or where this was going to head. One could only hope that the outcome of this meeting was positive. “Do you want something to drink?” I asked, ushering over to the cabinet adjacent to the television, supplied with all sorts of alcoholic beverages in which I had not touched, simply there as a point of manners to offer when somebody had come over. “White?” I offered, pulling out an almost-full bottle of white wine. I knew he hated it.

"You know I’ve always hated white." he mumbled, a small smile playing upon his lips. Something about that little grin plastered on his lips made my stomach flip and turn, welcoming a swarm of butterflies to accentuate the nervous pit that had formed within myself. The intense feelings reminded me of the same bewilderment your body undergoes during the first date; there is such a raw attraction to somebody that you know far too little about, but you are so hypnotised by their presence it is as if they’re the only thing in the world that matters, to the point that they obnoxiously overtake your mind, every little thought occupied with their name, wondering whether they may like such and such, like an infection spreading without you knowing such cure for it. The atmosphere was intense, carrying the same ambience of two strangers meeting for the first time in an isolated space, though there was also a refreshing element of familiarity that neither of us wanted to admit that we appreciated so deeply.

"Red?" I asked, snatching the half empty bottle as I placed the other wine bottle back in its designated place, turning my head back to fix my gaze onto Damon, raising my eyebrows as a form of derise for the drink. Nodding his head in response, I quickly took two glasses from the cabinet, brimming them both with the alcoholic liquid before slowly making my way to sit next to him on the sofa, handing him one of the glasses as he thanked me in response. The same devilish silence echoed in the room once again as we granted the situation to truly sink in - thankfully alcohol was present. As I took a sip of the beverage, I tried to gulp down as much liquid as possible before I spoke once again. "So... how have you been?"

"Good... Just came off tour actually. Was a really successful one." he replied, his voice laced with a slight tone of doubt, edging the regret of so eagerly returning back into a place that was once so attached to his occupancy. He carried on talking about how the tour had been, my head subconsciously nodding, attentive to what he was talking about. Each time he had told me about something new they had added, or something they had changed surrounding the live performance set-up, it never failed to blow me away. Him and Jamie together, working on such a creative idea and putting it to life on stage was truly something out of rare virtuosity, disregarding the lengthy old ramblings from Damon almost every night he had returned home about how much Jamie had pissed him off, having a petty argument as if it was a be or end all in their friendship. It was actually a good form of entertainment, seeing how riled up Damon had gotten simply because of something that Jamie joked in an interview.

Once he had finished talking, our eyes connected, uncertainty clouded in his eyes as he searched for the reason behind him needing to come over. "Y/N, why did you ask me to come over?" He said, abrupt, almost as if those words had been lingering at the back of his mind the entire time we had been in one another’s acquaintance; the ease of the sting of words rolling off his tongue softly implied that, perhaps a try to prevent the harshness of the asking from offending me in the slightest. "We haven't seen each other for a year, why now?"

Both gazes never dared to break contact as if we had attempted to communicate telepathically - the ideation of instigating a conversation as awkward as how this had become, the two of us simply wanting the ground to swallow us whole. His gaze had the ability to put me into a trance upon which I wouldn’t be able to think of anything else except for the utter magnificence that was birthed into his loving eyes. Inhaling sharply, I tried to collect the thoughts in my brain that had been travelling in all directions, searching for all sorts of different possibilities that the conversation could reach. "Can we give it a second chance?" I asked absentmindedly, the realisation of what had just rolled off my tongue not settling in my mind until his eyes widened, speechless and shocked at my sudden questioning.

Sighing, he cocked his head to the side. “Love, we didn't work out the first time..." he began, my heart dropping to my stomach as the thought of him breaking my heart again entered my mind. His expression quickly softened once he saw my face drain colour, explaining all that he needed to know about how I had coped since he had left the picture. "I don't want to hurt you again."

Breaking away from the stare, I gawked at the dark shades of red that had adorned the transparent glass clasped in my palm. Holding in my emotions wasn’t going to do me any justice, and since he was here, it would not make sense for me to stupidly avoid the whole reasoning behind me needing him inside my apartment after so long. “It’s been so hard trying to get over you,” I mumbled, my voice almost inaudible out of embarrassment, though I knew he could hear me. “I need you.”

What I didn’t see from my shameful gaze at the ground, was the miniscule beam that broke out across Damon’s features. What I was unaware of, my body encompassed in such a impotent state of pure isolation, was that Damon had been as dependent on hearing those words escaping my mouth before he could admit the same to himself. Though it had all been answered to me as he softly brought his arm to caress my arm, gently squeezing the skin as a form of reassurance, implying the notion that he understood, that he felt the same way, after all this time. We broke up not because we lost feelings, but because the emotions we carried for one another were too strong to handle, too intense to progress with, that when he was gone for those long hours it had left me in such a stupor of helplessness and melancholy that it was unbearable to handle without it tarnishing my health. Unsurprisingly, at this point we knew where the conversation was headed; my desires to be swathed in his arms once again that I had tried so hard to banish to the back of my mind, to the depths of my distant memories in which by reliving such a hug came flooding back, my body leaned into his touch almost instantaneously, a subconscious reflex that I had craved, such an embrace that no other person could give, the mere side hug from him was able to banish all the pain that I had tried so diligently to mask away for the past few months.

We sat there for a short while, taking in the moment as it had played throughout, our breathing syncing together as comfort relished in the atmosphere, our minds now finally at peace while all the conflict that had battled our minds over the time we weren’t together. "Let me come on tour with you." I said, my head resting against his shoulder.

A chuckle erupted out of his throat. “It’s not that easy love.”

"Why can't it be? You're literally the frontman!" I exclaimed, lifting my head off his shoulder to connect eyes with him. "Damon, it would be so fun!" I exclaimed, attempting to encourage him.

It was as if things had mended back together, all the cracks in the pavements had been glued together to mend the time lost, as if it had never occurred. Through all the hardship I had faced trying to find the remedy to my heartache, I was dumbfounded to realise that it had been sitting in front of me, at the top of my phone’s contact list, right in front of my eyes this entire time. His eyes were calling out to me, enveloping my heart in comfort and warmth, the hunger radiating out eager to the ideation of starting anew and preserving the time in which we had lost, building new memories, unfastening the lock on the clock dictating the length of the relationship, allowing it to elongate, carry on as long as we could. My heart brimmed with homeliness - the house I was inside finally feeling normal to me once again.

"I'll see what I can do," he grins, the beautiful sight causing a small smile to erupt on my face as my body melted back into his arms once again. "No promises though."

It felt nice to wake up next to someone again the next morning, on the mattress that once was a carcass of many tears of sadness and melancholy, authentically conveyed by the essence of nihilism embodied from isolation, the kind of philosophical beliefs one could only develop an understanding towards subsequent to irrational thinking as the hours fell still, leaving you sat there, reliving the last moments from your memory bank with the significant other you had soiled ends with, a person who had supported you from the very beginning, even when things formed a bitter congestion to the relationship devoured by both participants, perhaps from the acceleration of argumentation shared, or the distance that had started to weave its way between, leaving you both stranded to conclude, as if you were both on separate, desolate islands fighting against the starvation of progressing through your lives and starting anew, departing from the old knots and attachments formed once epitomising pure adoration and love, though over time spawning to be the offspring of the devil. A person whom you knew would make your bed every morning, cradle you in his arms at the darkest hours to baptise the negativity coiled in your brain, whispering what seems like sweet nothings, merely sounding like soft raspy groans due to them being exhausted out of their mind, but you knew they were saying something to you, you could hear it, acknowledge it in a language that nobody else was able to understand. I relished in concession that he who lay beside me was the one that bestowed and epitomised all the things that I once lacked a night before. A lover.

#want 2 marry dilf damon ngl #he's literally perfect #damon albarn x reader #gorillaz #britpop #90s #nineties #damon albarn #band imagines #fluff #my writing

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djadins · 3 years

Text

aurora glow | thrawn x f!reader — part two

warnings: if you squint there is fluff

rating: T

word count: 2.8k

Thrawn requested your company through the rest of the day in order to have you available for any questions he might have. You trailed behind him as he ordered his men around effortlessly. Some were scrounging in the woods around you, some were working on repairs. Others were guarding the perimeter that had been set up. The plan was to shut the backup power on the ship off at night when work had ceased and only to turn it on when work began again at daybreak.

You warned Thrawn that it got dangerously cold at night in the fall in this part of the country, especially now after the flare.

He did not seemed too concerned at this, as his men would return to their bunks at night unless they were on perimeter patrol. He mentioned that there was a place for you, too, to sleep on the ship and refused when you offered to sleep in the warehouse instead.

“Absolutely not. You may not be one of my men, but you are under my protection now and I will not have you sleeping out here alone.”

You wanted to mention that there in fact would be troops outside and that you may feel slightly more comfortable in semi-familiar territory (as you had been used to sleeping in whatever abandoned buildings or caves you could find) but you decided not to say anything. You had a feeling if you said what you were thinking, he would insist that you sleep in the ship anyways.

The sun was soon setting and your stomach groaned. You only had a breakfast of some foraged berries this morning and although you were used to eating light, it had been at least 12 hours since your last meal. Thrawn turned around to face you, chuckling slightly. The man he had been speaking to looked like you, but was not from Earth. He was in a greenish gray uniform, one of the men who had been working on repairs inside of the ship. “This is Ensign Eli Vanto, my translator and friend.” Thrawn gave Eli your name and he bowed slightly.

When Eli excused himself, you looked up curiously at Thrawn. “Translator?”

He hummed in response. “Yes, in the part of space I am from, we speak a language far removed from the common tongue. Although I was vaguely familiar with Galatic Basic, Eli was from a planet near to mine and we both could speak a different, common language. He then was assigned as my translator.”

You assumed Galatic Basic was like English, because you had been communicating with Thrawn this whole time without Eli.

“Once the ship is repaired and we are back on mission, I will do my best to tell you all about the galaxy. Eli will be able to fill in whatever I cannot.”

You murmured a thanks. “I would like to learn about your planet,” you said softly.

Thrawn seemed surprised at your statement. “I’d be happy to share it with you.”

You both walked in silence the rest of the way to where some men where preparing dinner. There were at least 10 fires going with large cauldron-like pots balanced on top of them. A thick, delicious smelling soup was inside, although you already knew that you would be unfamiliar with the ingredients. Thrawn had ordered all perishables to be used for dinner.

You were impressed by the efficiency of the men. They were clearly used to feeding a ship full of people, but still. Multiple tables had been moved outside of the ship to hold trays, plates, bowls, silverware as well as foods you did not recognize. What you assumed was fruits, vegetables and other side dishes.

Thrawn must have noticed how wide your eyes had become because he gently put a reassuring hand on your shoulder. You hadn’t realized how cold the end of the day was becoming until you felt the heat radiating from him. “Don’t worry if there is something you try and do not like. It took me a while to become familiar with my food preferences.”

You realized based on his last comment and this one that his part of space must really be separate from the Empire that he talked about. You had seen other men in his crew that did not look human-like, and more of what you had imagined aliens might look like, but there was nobody else so far of those you had seen that had looked like him.

At one point, he had gone through the same thing you were going through now.

Thrawn led the way, being the Captain allowed him the first meal. You being an honored guest meant you got to follow behind him. He passed you a tray with an empty bowl, plate and silverware on it. “If I may make a suggestion?”

You nodded in response. He hummed approvingly. “I’ll pick out your food based on my own personal preferences. If you see something you take interest in that I’ve missed, please add it to your tray.”

You nodded again and Thrawn’s lips curled upward. You followed close to him as he loaded both of your trays up with the same exact meal. You saw something that looked like raspberries that you added to you plate. At the end of the lineup, one of the workers filled both of your bowls with the chowder.

You followed Thrawn to a log not far away and were surprised when he sat on the ground, his back against the log. You both ate in silence next to each other, apart from the inquiries he had about the food’s taste. You were surprised at how much you liked everything on your tray, trying a bit of it all.

You became full rather quickly and knew that you should stop eating. This was entirely way more food than you had been used to in years.

“Everything alright?” he asked between bites.

“Very good, thank you. I’m just not.. not used to eating this much. I don’t want to get sick.”

Eli joined the both of you in that moment. He slid down on the other side of you against the log.

You listened as the men talked while eating about the state of the ships repairs so far. It sounded optimistic to you, but you knew that in reality you had absolutely no idea what most of it meant.

One of the soldiers started a fire in front of the three of you after the sun went down. Another man took your, Thrawn’s and Eli’s tray.

You looked across the encampment at your fellow Earthlings. They had been given a small tray filled with food to share amongst themselves, eating with hands bound in front of them.

Thrawn grabbed your attention when he noticed you observing them. “Do you have any suggestions on what we should do with them?”

You shook your head no. The laws of men no longer existed. “What would happen if they did this in the Empire?” you asked.

“They would be.. executed.”

You shivered, even with the heat of the fire and Thrawn’s body heat at your side. Though you weren’t touching each other, it was radiating off of him in a blaze against you.

“What would happen to them if your planet wasn’t in ruin?” came a voice from the other side of you.

Thrawn tsked at Eli’s carelessness even though he himself had admitted to you that your planet was dying just after meeting you. Thrawn noticed when you tensed up.

“They would probably be jailed,” you thought aloud.

The three of you looked over at your fellow humans. “We do have a brig, though I do not want them on the ship,” Thrawn admitted.

“We will watch them, for now. Depending on their behavior, we will let them go when the time comes for us to leave.”

You weren’t sure if he was saying that for you or Eli.

You watched the flames of the fire while Eli and Thrawn resumed talking about the plan for leaving. At one point you shivered and Thrawn immediately stretched his arm out behind you on the log. He was barely brushing against your back, but it was enough to warm you a little more.

Eventually Eli left to get some shut eye, leaving just you and Thrawn. You both sat in a comfortable silence, enjoying the night. If it weren’t for the bustling of his men around the various scattered fires or the patrols off in the distance, you might have fallen asleep out here next to him.

“Why don’t I show you to your room?”

You looked up at his eyes, shining and reflecting the fire. You nodded and he stood gracefully in one movement. He held his hand out towards you and easily picked you up on your feet when you gave him yours.

This time you walked just past what you remembered to be Thrawn’s office door. As the backup power was now off, he had to use one of those suction cup thingies to open your door. He waved you inside and you walked into the room in front of him.

The room was lovely and big. “Meant for any visiting dignitaries,” he explained, as if reading your mind. “I’m right next door if you need anything.”

Thrawn explained how to use the lantern and then left you to settle in. You unpacked what little you had in your bag — a few snacks (apples, nuts), a tattered, thin blanket, along with your rotating small pile of clothes. You had recently washed them all in a stream and folded them neatly to place into the dresser. You put your 9mm in between the stack.

Thrawn had noticed it earlier in the day and said that you wouldn’t need it while here, but if it made you feel safe, then you were welcome to keep it on your person.

You slipped out of your boots, putting the knife you carried inside under the fluffy pillow on the bed at the end of the room.

You pulled out your toothbrush and the plastic water bottle that you had filled yesterday and poured a little water on it. You swished the brush around your mouth for about two minutes and then put it on the sink top. You flicked your tongue over your teeth to make sure they felt smooth.

You refrained from looking at yourself in the mirror of the bathroom, instead opting to change into the clothing you usually slept in — a light pair of joggers and a baggy t-shirt.

You settled into the bed — it was surprisingly comfortable. Even with your blanket on top of you, however, the bedding provided little warmth. Now that you weren’t moving, you were starting to get very cold. You quickly slipped out of bed to put two pairs of socks on your bare feet.

It didn’t seem to help you much. Just as you couldn’t take it anymore and were about to put on every piece of clothing you owned, there was a soft knock at the door. Thrawn called out your name. “May I come in?”

You told him to come in and slipped out of bed to meet him at the door. Your teeth were nearly chattering but you closed your jaw tightly.

“I wanted to make sure you were getting settled.. are you alright?!?” Thrawn’s tone went from calmed to what you imagined was worried soon after he walked inside. You hadn’t seen this much emotion on his face since you had met this morning. He walked up to you and you resisted the urge to bury your face into the heat you knew his body would be giving off. “Your temperature has dropped drastically since I left.”

You couldn’t stop your teeth from chattering when you talked. “I.. its.. c.. c.. cold.. in h.. here.” An uncontrollable shiver ripped through your body.

Thrawn immediately enveloped you in his arms. Your tense body loosened in the warmth of his grip. He had changed out of his uniform and was wearing a tight black shirt and black pants similar to yours. You could see that his body was rather defined now that he wasn’t hidden under all that armor.

“This won’t do,” he said under his breath. You shivered again, but no longer because you were cold. You let out a small yelp when he picked you up bridal style. With one hand, he closed the door to your room and opened the door to his, the other supporting your weight.

After closing his door behind him, he carried you through his quarters. Past his desk in the door you had seen earlier, was a short hallway. Connected was a training room, bathroom and bedroom that you could see in your quick pass through.

He sat in his bed against the headboard, with you still in his arms. He positioned you in his lap and then brought his blankets up and around the both of you.

“Apologies, I did not realize. You warned me it would be cold for you tonight and I didn’t know the extent of it.”

You shook your head. “I mean it as a warning for everyone, but.. thank you.”

“I hope this doesn’t bother you, but it was my.. instinctual response.”

You didn’t want to admit how nice it felt to be touched by another person again after so long so instead you told him that it was okay with you.

He had one arm wrapped around you, supporting your back and reached onto his bedside table for a small looking tablet. When you peered at the screen, there was a bunch of letters arranged in words you did not recognize.

“I usually update my daily log at the end of the night. If it aggravates you, please let me know.”

You were surprised at the events that had transpired in the last few minutes. Not that he had been rude to you at all today, quite the opposite, but his attitude and demeanor were entirely different than they had been all day. Although you had seen a little bit more of his softer side when you had been alone with him, he had remained fairly impassive all day. He was commanding when talking to his men (well, except for Eli).

Now here he was, hoping not to disturb you after carrying you into his quarters. Keeping you warm, in his lap, in his bed. It was unexpected to say the least.

“I don’t mind,” you told him.

He began softly speaking in another language and as he did so, writing filled his tablet. You were mesmerized by it even if you had absolutely no idea what he was saying. He would pause every once in a while, or erase a few lines and change something.

His voice startled you out of your stupor. “Feel free to ask me anything, if you have questions.”

You hummed. “What are your people called?”

“Chiss. I’m from a planet called Rentor, in the Unknown Regions.”

You nodded at his pad. “And is this your native tongue?”

“Yes, its called Cheunh.”

You settled against his a little more. “It’s very pretty.”

He turned to face you a little more. “Really? Most other species I’ve encountered think it is harsh to the ears.”

You shook your head. “I don’t think so.”

He paused for a moment. “Are you warm enough?”

You nodded against his chest. After a few moments of silence, he continued his entry. When you heard your name, you looked up at him.

“Just recording everything that happened today,” he explained.

You listened to him for a bit longer, watched the letters appear on the screen, before the drowsiness pulled your eyes closed.

“Thrawn?”

“Mmm?”

You paused as you thought how to phrase your question. “Are you the only one of your kind in the Empire? Chiss, I mean.”

“..Yes.”

You understood it a little better now. You were both alone in your own ways and he recognized that piece of himself in you.

You were curious as to what he was saying every time you heard your name brought up, but were too tired to ask. You weren’t sure if that would be pushing it either, however you had a feeling that he was willing to answer most of your questions.

Your breathing was starting to slow down, you mouth slightly agape. You hadn’t opened your eyes since you initially shut them. You heard a light clank as Thrawn reached over and set his tablet back down on the table beside his bed. He shifted you off his lap and over to the side of the bed that you both weren’t currently occupying. You were hardly aware of what was happening, as sleep overcame you.

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nightswithkookmin · 4 years

Note

Hii, me again. 😅

Jungkook made a three syllable poem with "min yoongi" name. At the last name of "Gi" He made yoonmin. Is he try to expose that yoonmin is a thing/ or real??

Ahjumma.... why are you being like this?

What did I do to deserve this ghettory?😟 It's too early in the year to be this ghetto uno.

Don't be like that😒

You are asking me, Goldy- GOLDY of all shippers, if I think JEON JUNGKOOK is confirming his boyfriend of seven years and counting is in a relationship with another member within the same group...

Doing what exactly in that relationship??

Is JK cockholding? What's going on.

KWENCHANAYO?!

You think BTS will survive two members dating the same guy in the same group???

Never mind that it's Jeon Jungkook and Park freaking Jimin- Mr I'm greedy and Mr I don't share my friends.

Like make it make sense to me please😭

After everything we've been said on my blogs for months now, you still asking me this??

You are bold, I'll give you that.

Now tell me slowly and in coherent words why I shouldn't pull your hair and give you three quick punches to your throat- ninja style👀

Someone get her before I snap their neck💀

For the last time-

NEITHER 🤺OF🤺JIKOOK🤺 IS 🤺 WAS🤺 HAS🤺 HAD🤺 PURPORTS TO HAVE🤺 WOULD HAVE HAD🤺 COULD HAD HAD🤺 HAD HAD HAD🤺IS HAVING 🤺 ANY 🤺ROMANTIC🤺 FEELINGS🤺WHATSOEVER 🤺 DESIRE🤺CRAVING🤺 WET DREAMS🤺 YEARNING🤺 PASSION🤺ATTRACTION🤺 AMOROUS 🤺INTENT🤺TOWARDS🤺 ANY🤺🤺MEMBER🤺 IN🤺 BTS🤺BESIDES🤺 EACH🤺 OTHER🤺

GET🤺 OUT 🤺OF🤺 YOUR🤺 IMAGINATION🤺

If you are new to the shipping community I suggest you familiarize yourself with every ships dynamics or at least Jikooks- if multishipping isn't exactly your thing.

Jikook's entire dynamics is founded on JK teasing JM to death. It's their thing.

He's said he enjoys teasing Jimin because he loves Jimin's reaction to when he's being teased. In fact, the entire group have said same about Jimin.

Did you see JM's reaction to when JK called out the Yoonmin comment in the dynamite reaction VLive?

Did you see RMs reaction too?

He is trying Jimin with these Yoonmin jokes. He's gonna get stabbed. Lmho.

Jimin reacts strongly to when JK in particular teases him with ships, Yoonmin more recently. Yet he didn't seem to mind when V did it.

V used to be the biggest Yoonminer on the planet rooting for and encouraging certain interactions between Yoonmin. Lmho.

Jimin himself perpetuates Yoonmin as a ship.

It would be an insult on his intelligence for anyone to assume he didn't know exactly why people ship two people together or what interactions and moments is considered a moment in shipping sphere.

Statements like, why can't Suga hyung look me in the eye, why does he say I'm irreplaceable to him, insinuates something and he knows this.

Once upon a time, JK couldn't look you in the eyes too. Still can't sometimes.

Jimin has a presence and he has a hold on these men and he knows it.

He goes out of his way to create the impression he and Suga have a very close bond and dynamic- I'm sold on it. Lol.

'5 Jms? As expected. You'll fall in love with them' not sure if JM said the last bit in the BE.TS Vlive, yall check for me.

It's crazy then that he turns around to react the way he does when JK teases him with his ship with Suga.

It seems to me, Jimin knows the intent and energy behind such seemingly harmless jokes- JK can be petty and passive aggressive with these things. You'd think he is joking but deep down he would be pouting and throwing tantrums behind cams🤧

It's Jimin apologizing and looking like his spirit left his body as he sat on the edge of JK's bed in the new Jersey VLive for me.

He needs to free Jimin.

Talk of things I'm getting too old for- Let's talk about why he posted his version of the bridge in disease online🤧

Not to say he shouldn't have posted it. I support that he did wholeheartedly. Deadass found his groove since he started unbuttoning the front of his shirts in 2020.

He's reclaiming the spotlight, putting himself at the forefront unlike before where he'd resigned himself to a supportive role watching his hyungs be at the center of things.

Now he's been talking about that he wants have sexy dance performances like Jimin, write rap melodies for RM, share his own music, try on a solo career one day- we get it. You found yourself Mr I'm independent asserting myself yall better fuxk off but chilee not at the expense of Jimin! 🤺

I mean it's a broad spotlight and they both can share it but damn is someone changing drastically. Not sure if I should be proud or terrified.

It's great and amazing and I'm really truly happy with where he's at mentally and physically since 2020- it's a great sign, don't get me wrong. Significant improvement. His becoming is long over due but he didn't have to grab the spotlight from Jimin like that.

Jk vs JM isn't something I'm a fan of.

It's a shame it didn't work out? What do you mean JK. I'm sorry but Jimin's version is amazing too!😟

What the actual hell JK😭

Back it up. This is not how to Jikook🤺

On guard sir🤺 on guard🤺

Dude did Jimin dirty🤧🤧🤧🤧🤧

I need a refund😭😭😭😭

Here I was waiting for y'all to get on your Jikook agenda and post that first Jikook selca of the year and you are there shipping Jimin with your bandmate and thiefing his shine. Who taught you that?!😥

Y'all are competitive but y'all don't compete with eachother's shine! JIKOOK 101😭😭😭

You share it😥

Show me where in the books this new development falls under. Show me

You winging it and it's unconstitutional😟

I rebuke it in Jesus name!

Someone beam me up.

You got these 13 year olds coming in my DMs telling me you are not supportive of your man's career.

I don't have time for this shit.

SOMEONE BEAM ME UP! Kirk!

If you've watched their Be behind video, and you've seen Jin talk about how RM complained to him when Tae chose Suga's version over his version you'd know where JK is coming from or where I think he is coming from having JMs version chosen over his.

Watch their Be self interview on yt too.

He said there's a melody he worked on for RM and when Jhope thought he got snubbed he recommended he release it instead- to quench his artistic drive perhaps.

That is why he released this song. He did it for himself. Like he said, he won't put out a song unless he was confident about it.

Suga have said time and again how the music and melodies they create never go to waste because they can repurpose it like he did with Telepathy I think.

Even JK explained he was reserving the melody he made for RM for a future group song.

He could have repurposed this or something.

When Jin talked about V vs JM's Christmas song and kept repeating how much he preferred Jimin's song to Tae's because Jimin"s was bright and upbeat, he made sure to clarify he wasn't implying Tae's song was bad. He was just indicating preference.

I won't lie, I was happy he preferred my bias's song but it made my VMin heart ache a little.

V and JM made very different songs, they shouldn't be compared to eachother in that way.

I don't like competitions. And I don't like when two artists are pit against eachother- which is exactly what these two versions of the bridge is doing out here.

I will literally die if in an interview JM is asked about his part and JK isn't. I can't do this😭

Those saying JM's is better make me sick, and those saying JK's is better make me nauseous. They both great. Point blank purr.

What's even more heartbreaking is hearing how excited he really was to share that bit with Army. Dude's eyes was glistening and everything. His bunny smile! 😥

Thats what makes this very hard for me.

The JJK in me is overjoyed and excited that he is doing things that make him really happy. I'm proud of him.

But the PJM in me just😕

I even feel more guilty that I prefer JM's version this time around😭😭😭😭

I feel like I'm betraying JK🤧

I was so happy seeing JM recieve all the love and attention I know he deserves.

Then here comes his boyfriend

'Hold up what about me!' Lol.

Imagine if RM releases the version of Blue and grey he made for Tae and it turns out we prefer that to the version Tae chose💀

Imagine that.

This has been a recurring theme throughout late 2020 to date. Jk's been choosing authenticity and self interests and passions over anything else and I couldn't be more happy for him.

Like we discussed, he's been learning to compromise too lately, which is great.

But honey this is a red flag. Deadass.

To me anyways😏

I've been a strong advocate for a certain level of independence and detachment in Jikook's dynamics because they lowkey exhibited codependency tendencies in their dynamics which is great for us shippers but not so great in the long run for their relationship or them as individuals .

Maybe I'm thinking out loud and prematurely here. I mean we are only beginning to have intimate access to their raw unscripted selves.

I don't think it's not that much of a big deal. RM and JM have equally shared their own versions of fake love on the internet but it is an interesting development in their dynamic to me.

I remember how happy JM was about his version of fake love, and it remains to date one of my favorite beats even though he was just spewing nonsense on that track. Lol.

He was so excited when he shared it with JK and Jin. He said when he showed it to JK the first time, JK said he loved it very much- how loving and supportive is that!

More of this please. Thank you.

PMS is a bitch y'all🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Has me in my feels about this.

I'm pretty sure JM is the one that even encouraged him to share his part in the first place. Won't put it past him.

'Ya Jungkook, release your version too'

'Army will love it'

'Right but I don't want it to seem like- Goldy is crazy you know'

'Goldy who now?'

'What about the thirteen year old fans-'

'Aht aht aht Who cares about them.'

Lmho.

I mentioned a few times on here how I felt JM seemed to have been demanding 'space' and a little bit of breathing room in their dynamic which was causing a little bit of tension here and there middle 2019 through to March last year and it all sounds like drama and speculation but...

May be if I told y'all I am a witch and my analysis of their relationship is based on mediums, phantom whisperers, empathetic readings or tarot cards y'all will leave me alone?🤥

Y'all don't seem to have a problem with the witches and empaths who be doing the same shit I do out here😒

Like we are all 'reading' these mens!

There's nothing wrong with 'psychoanalytically' evaluating a ship you know? Chilee.

Imma call myself a witch if it will get y'all off my back😹😹😹😹

I mentioned JK equally embarking on his own journey to assert himself within the group and within the relationship due to this?

But damn I did not see this one coming.

This is a red flag for me. And no, it doesn't mean they are broken up or having issues in their relationship.

Jk's TMI indicates they still been spending a lot of time together.

This is just a sign there's too much independence in their dynamic now- if you know what I mean.

Relationships flourish based on how attached we are to people- too much attachment is a problem, too little attachment is equally bad.

Jikook have always had a problem with over attachment in their dynamics in my opinion, to the point it was lowkey unhealthy- the jealousy, not being able to 'act professionally' within a group and work environment, having problems with being separated however briefly, constantly wanting to be where the other is etc.

Less attachment isnt necessarily a bad thing either. It means less of all the 'toxic' aspects of their relationship that over attachment brings but too much of that too can trigger anxiousness and insecurity and resentment.

Especially if one of them hates change. Cough Jimin.

With that comes all the wild aspects of love such as possessiveness, jealousy and I know JM doesn't do too well in that department...

In my opinion, I see JM as having a problem when JK breathes down his neck emotionally speaking, and at the same time he has a problem when he is too emotionally distant.

All this is interesting to me.

Who do I need to talk to to give me more of Jikook interactions individually or jointly?

I want to see more of their interactions beyond the overly staged, dramatized fanservice and official content.

Spending a lot of time around eachother and eating each other's ramen- pun intended, does not reflect on how intimate you are.

Intimacy requires depth and depth requires attachment.

How you treat eachother's needs and goals, dreams and desires is equally indicative of the intimacy in your relationship.

That has always been one distinctive quality of Jikook's ship.

And so I wonder the thought process that went into this decision. I know JM wouldn't object to JK sharing things like these or doing things that make him happy even if it has the potential to impact his own shine in any way.

Jikook don't compete against eachother.

I keep saying this.

Remember when I said I found it sus that JK was lying there staring at JM with his hands in between his legs?

Did yall see what the run editors said when JM and JK went up against each in the pool?

'Jikook don't play by the rules'

Jimin had to push JK in the water to end whatever ancient sex ritual foreplay rooted in kamasutra they had going on. Bless him.

And in so doing, he lost to JK.

Whenever they go up against eachother, one of them intentionally lose even though they are both very competitive.

Isn't that why JK said he'd rather 5 Jms so he can watch them compete against eachother?

When JK first made that post, I felt it was out of pettiness or a move to 'humble' JM.

I thought of when he'd posted that photo of himself with a hickey after JM had 'dated' him during the JinMinKook live.

I rolled my eyes and asked, 'what yall gays up to this time?' Why you out here humbling your man?

Anywho chilee we will never know.

At ease.

Signed,

GOLDY

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loreweaver-universe · 3 years

Photo

And that’s...the show.

Man. What a show. That kept me guessing all the way through. The core mystery of is-it-magic-is-it-not really kept me going for a while there. A compelling cast of characters, too--even the one I utterly fucking despised.

Tsukiko and Ikari’s parallel stories converging as each of them hits the breaking point and finds it within themselves to accept the way things truly are was masterfully done. And that’s all it took, in the end--looking within oneself and no longer denying the truth defeated both of their inner demons and in the process saved countless lives. We could all do with a bit more introspection from time to time.

“My place disappeared from this world a long time ago. The reality is that there is no place for me anymore. But that’s the reality I have to face!”

The world changes, the world moves on. It’s up to us to decide if we want to join the new world or whether we want to wallow in our self-pity over being left behind. That is definitely a lesson a lot of people in the modern day need to learn, and the source of no small amount of societal ills befalling us. Words of wisdom.

As for the individual victims of Li’l Slugger...I wish we got resolutions for some of them. Taeko in particular being amnesiac and back in the grip of her pedophile father seems a rather horrific end. Harumi also makes me wish we’d gotten a resolution to her issues; I’ll forever wonder if she got treatment, if she resolved her DID or if it consumed her and destroyed her marriage.

Hopefully Maniwa’s getting the help he needs. He’s in the care of a mental hospital, at least, though I don’t know how well he’s being treated. What would you call his deal, anyways? A psychotic break? Paranoid schizophrenia where the paranoia part happens to be about something that actually happened? Or is it just “Mental IllnessTM” and leaving it at that?

And...Tsukiko. Tsukiko, who appears to have moved on with her life to some degree. (How she managed that swim back home is beyond me.) It’s not like anyone would...actually, hrm. The destruction happened after all the Maromi merch in the country spontaneously vanished. I’ll bet at the very minimum Tsukiko is the subject of some very dedicated conspiracy theory communities, even if the larger society doesn’t have enough information to put together her involvement. Still, she’s moved on, past the disaster she was responsible for; I’m not sure what sort of consequences she should have actually seen, in a Watsonian sense, but approaching it with Doylist intent, the message of finding peace and moving on after accepting the truth trumps that.

This is the first of Satoshi Kon’s works I’ve seen, though I’d seen a copy of Tokyo Godfathers on my local library’s shelves years ago--I meant to borrow it, but never did. Maybe I should change that; this was certainly an excellent work, one I’d happily seek out more of.

Rest in peace, Satoshi Kon. You’ve touched the world, by all accounts, and you especially touched the patron who chose this show.

Thank you, by the way. This was an excellent show, and your support over the past two years has helped me immensely. I’m glad we’re friends.

Well! That’s Paranoia Agent. That’s the end of this particular Patron Pick; the patron opened up their spot and another took their place immediately, so in the next cycle of liveblogs you’ll be seeing something new! It’ll be a surprise, though, since I’m sure a bunch of you are excited to see me do it. That’ll be it for tonight; up next is going to be Baccano, which we’ll continue Wednesday. Also, tomorrow, I’ll be completing my playthrough of Resident Evil Village on the hardest difficulty, so tune in at my Twitch channel or catch old streams on my Youtube if you’d like!

As always, thank you for tuning in, and thank you to my 62 patrons who make it so I can do this for a living! And especially thank you to the people who have been so kind as to donate over the past few months of mental health issues I’ve been having, you’ve been lifesavers. I’ll see you guys next time!

IN OTHER NEWS:

I recently completed my blind playthrough of Resident Evil Village! You can see the full playlist of those streams by clicking here!

If you’d like to help me pay my rent, buy me some food, or help with my bills and medicine, please use my direct donation link! If you’d like to support me per liveblog completed every month, please pledge to my Patreon! Becoming a patron not only allows you to vote on what shows I do whenever I choose a new one, but also grants access to the community Minecraft server to $5 patrons or higher!

You should also go pledge to Gio’s Patreon, or his Sponsus–our Discord server maintenance tech, creator of Rubybot, and community Minecraft server overlord deserves far more than I can afford to pledge to him by myself.

If you’d like more of me and my content:

My Episode Lists master page, where you can find every show and liveblog I’ve done!

My Discord server, where you can come hang out with me and other fans, check out member liveblogs, and join community gaming guilds!

My Twitch channel, where I stream variety games every so often!

My Youtube channel, where you can check out past streams!

My ask blog, where you can send me questions and comments!

My Twitter, where I make announcements about liveblogs and streams!

It’s your kindness and support that lets me do this stuff, and I wouldn’t be where I am without all of you to do it for. Thank you all so much for your support, and for tuning in every episode!

OTHER PEOPLE YOU MAY ENJOY:

I may have been one of the earlier Steven Universe liveblogs, but a whole community of livebloggers has sprung up over the last five years! I linked to a bunch individually for a few wrap-ups, but honestly, this end-slate is already eight billion miles long, so I’m just gonna link to my links page. Click here if you want recommendations of other livebloggers, or other neat people, or webcomics and podcasts that I recommend.

#paranoia agent #noiabloggin #bloggin #noia26 #paranoia agent episode 13 #episode wrap up #this is screenshot #noia2171

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makeste · 4 years

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I was originally going to send this message declaring my undying love for your metas and chapter reviews aND THEN - AND THEN MAKESTE - I READ THE ANSWER WHERE YOU SAID YOU WERE ARO AND THAT MAKES ME SOOOOO HAPPY. I'm aroace and it is SO FRUSTRATING to want to consume platonic or familial interaction between people and CONSTANTLY only get romantic or sexual. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR EVERYTHING YOU CONTRIBUTE

woooo up top! solidarity lol.

for me it’s like... I don’t know if “frustrating” is the word I would use, but I do wish there was more gen out there. and that’s also something I’ve felt awkward about wanting in the past, because my early fandom years took place in a time where slash was much less of an everyday commonplace thing than it is now, and liking it was still a fairly controversial thing. the internet was a much more openly homophobic place than it is now. like, picture the purity police of modern day tumblr, but if they attacked any kind of non-heterosexual relationship as being sick and perverted and wrong. that was pretty much the general vibe. this was before AO3, and people who wrote slash often didn’t post it on ff.net and only posted it to their own private blogs and/or locked and moderated communities instead just so they wouldn’t be harassed. and there was absolutely no canon representation out there at all, or next to none. it was very much a “[rolls eyes] oh the yaoi fangirls are at it again” sort of thing where non-cishet relationships in fiction and fanfiction were at best not taken seriously at all, and at worst were treated with outright scorn and disgust.

and so like, with this being a common attitude at the time, I felt guilty for not always wanting to read slash myself. like, I don’t mind reading about romantic relationships at all, but for me there also has to be some other kind of element in play as well, or else it’s just not going to click for me. if a fic is just romance, just a lot of pining and slow burn stuff without anything else really going on in the plot, I just get bored and disinterested. I almost want to use the word tired, even though I’m not sure that makes much sense. I just can’t connect to the emotions, and so I disengage pretty quickly. and so I tend to steer clear of time-honored fandom staples like coffee shop AUs or And They Were Roommates, just because for me there’s rarely anything there for me to latch onto. I like angst, but I can’t relate to “so and so doesn’t feel the same way about me”, or “I want to be with them so bad but I don’t know how to confess”, or “they’re with someone else and it hurts like crazy every time I see them and know we can’t be together”, because none of those are emotions that I have ever personally felt, and I just can’t make myself feel them. what I can relate to are things like “this person makes me feel safe”, or “I feel a strong connection to this person”, or “I trust this person more than anyone else” because those feelings aren’t exclusively romantic in nature. I can relate to closeness and caring and love and affection and trust, but what I can’t relate to is the feeling of having a single person occupy all of your thoughts all the time, and very badly wanting to be the most important thing in their life as well, and feeling incomplete otherwise.

but anyway I spiraled away from the point I was trying to get to, which is that for a long time I actually felt guilty about feeling this way. because even though it’s rare to find fanworks where gen/platonic relationships are at the center, actual canon is chock full of said relationships. and so it’s like, what right do I even have to complain when I get to read all the time about so and so being friends, but the people who actually want them to be in a relationship in the actual canon so rarely get to see that actually happen. because that much has not changed in the past 20 years, even though society has become far more accepting of LGBTQ+ relationships. most canons are still far more likely to tease a non-hetero ship -- on purpose, even, hence why queerbaiting is a thing -- than actually commit to it. and so I often feel like I have no right to voice my desire for more genfic, because genfic has never faced the same kind of scrutiny as slashfic. gen has always been acceptable, and there is plenty of canon representation of platonic and non-romantic relationships, and so it’s not something I have any business whining about.

and even now I feel fairly uncomfortable voicing this lol. I write almost exclusively genfic myself, and up until very recently, I’ve always defined gen in my head as being just a lack of romantic or sexual content, rather than being its own distinct category. I think that’s one of the reasons it took me so long to realize I was aro (that, and I’d honestly never even come across the term until just a few years ago). for me, my lack of interest in romantic affection always felt more like a lack of identity rather than an identity in and of itself. I always felt like I was missing something. and for a very long time it never occurred to me that this might be a permanent thing; I just figured, okay, I just haven’t had this feeling yet. it just hasn’t happened for me yet. but eventually it would, and I just hadn’t met the right person, or whatever. but it was never anything I particularly wanted, and I never felt like I was missing out on anything by not having it. I never felt any kind of longing for it or felt incomplete without it. I was actually perfectly content!

but because society treats romantic orientation as the norm and places such a huge emphasis on it, I still had the uncomfortable feeling in the back of my head that if I never fell in love with someone and never wound up having a relationship with someone, my life would somehow be less meaningful and whole. like, we’re raised to think that romantic love is basically the pinnacle of the human experience, the purest and truest emotion that anyone can feel. and at the same time, there’s this idea that a life without that kind of love is just sad and unfulfilling and tragic. and so for a very long time my experience with my own aromanticism was characterized by me thinking of it as a lack of something that everyone else said was very important. and it took a long time to realize that that wasn’t the case, and that it was a valid orientation all its own and not just a matter of me being deficient in some way. and that was actually such a relief to finally come to terms with. I can be whole and complete on my own and still have a rich and fulfilling human experience even if I never experience romantic love, and that’s fine. I’m not missing anything. I’m not wrong for feeling like I’m not missing anything. it’s fine to be content with just me as I am. like, holy shit. and that was such a weight off my shoulders to finally get that.

I once wrote a fic which I was and still am very proud of. it was a genfic, and it had a really intricate plot with a big twist at the very end. and there was a ton of emotion in it, and it got very intense at times, because these were two characters who cared a lot about each other and would literally die for each other if they had to, and I’d put them in a situation where that possibility was very much looming over their heads at every turn. and I really put everything I had into trying to convey that kind of bond as strongly as possible. like I poured a ton of my heart and soul into that fic. and the responses were almost universally positive and kind and made me really happy.

there was one response though, that still sticks with me to this day. it was by and large very positive, just like the others. but it ended with a single sentence that, at the time, kind of just lowkey gutted me. Not gonna lie though, would have loved some slash in there.

like, that just cut me. way more than this person actually intended, I think. I’m pretty sure they just meant it as an offhanded comment, not even a concrit or anything. just “haha would have loved it if they’d kissed though lol.” but it stung. because this was something I’d put every ounce of emotion that I could conjure up into. and even though it wasn’t mean to be hurtful in any way, to me that comment read as “this is still missing something.” because there was no romance, the fic was incomplete. the characters’ feelings were incomplete. even though I’d struggled so much to convey all of these complex emotions which to me were so real and powerful, and even though the comment even acknowledged that I had by and large done so effectively, to me the single takeaway that stuck was that the feelings were less meaningful because there was no romance.

and that felt like a failing on my part. I even apologized for it. and here we are, ten years later, and that comment still pops up in my head any time I feel the urge to talk about a popular ship which I support but which I also enjoy as just a friendship. “just” a friendship. I still feel guilt over that. I still feel this urge to overexplain that I’m not trying to invalidate the actual romantic ship. I worry that I’d be perceived as ungrateful and/or a bad ally if I ever just came out and said “I wish there was more gen” like you were able to say so freely, anon. I worry about people getting offended if I were to say “I headcanon so and so as being aroace” because it might be viewed as an attack on their ships, or as latent homophobia, or something. like I have this paranoid fear that people might take it as me being puritanical and all “oh no, icky sex” or whatever, and so I end up just never bringing it up at all.

and that’s the thing about aromanticism, though; it’s so easy to just never talk about it at all, because for so many people it is just defined as a lack of something, rather than a something all on its own. it’s so easy for it to be something you just never bring up, and which just kind of quietly exists as the boring, bland, inoffensive yet uninteresting lack of a relationship; the default blank slate that most everyone is dying to fill in as soon as possible, except for you. and I’ve gone on thinking about it that way myself for so long that I’m still struggling now to sort out how to embrace it as an actual identity. it’s something I still have a lot of work to do on I guess.

anyway! so that all got very long and rambling and personal, far more so than I intended; clearly I have a lot of pent up thoughts and feelings about this lol. I guess I probably could stand to talk about it more, since the evidence would indicate that I clearly want to. but eh, baby steps. but anyways you are super valid anon and thank you so much for the love and comments. <3

#aromanticism #meta #aromanticism in fandom #personal #long post #ask #anon ask #hey um just an addendum this is a pro aroace post NOT an anti-shipping post #just to make that clear #like you can be for one thing without bashing the other #so if you want to reblog this that is awesome and I'm grateful #but please don't use it as a launching pad for any weird toxic 'shipping is bad' takes please and thanks

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goblinconceivable · 4 years

Text

All The Feels

Random bulletpoints of Annie/Jeff analysis because I am overcome with shippiness. :D Also more like bullet-lengthy-paragraphs. You tried, self, you tried.

Pascal’s Triangle (PT) is not a love triangle.

Sure, look at the top two rows and you’ve got a binary split, ie, choice between two women. But PT is row based, your current row based on the one above. It’s complex. Look below the binary surface of choice to row 3, where it actually becomes PT, where the complexity begins (and Community is about complexity.) 1, 2, 1, a total of 4. The 2 is the merging of the two 1s from row two - Ie, two women who get lumped together. And beyond them is a 1 that springs out of nowhere - Annie. Surprise!

Kiss at the end of S1

Jeff’s major deal is being afraid of expressing caring/vulnerability, while desperately craving/needing it. Britta and Slater were both saying they loved him, and he does want to take that, but runs scared because they are challenging him to admit his feelings in public, which no one who really knows and cares about him would do. His scene with Annie is private. And she isn’t asking him FOR anything, she’s just asking what’s up, because she cares about the answer. He feels safe, he opens up, it’s intimacy, which is both giving and taking. Notably he admits he’s glad she’s staying after his share, this is him saying he cares about her too.

His explanation of the situation is a perceived choice between being the New Year’s guy (who he wants to be) and the Three Weeks Later guy (who he is.) But the thing about New Year’s is the initial momentum always fades, and you have to put in the work, which Slater doesn’t help him with. And he WON’T be able to sustain it on is own. The guy he IS isn’t who he wants to be, it’s just giving up, rather than striving, even if imperfectly, to reach those goals. Annie falls into the sweet spot: she understands what his default is, but shows him that he CAN be the man he wants to be, shows him what those steps ARE, encourages him to take the steps to be that person, and rewards him when he succeeds. Which he does, with her behind him.

And she kisses him first. Which is an offering similar to Britta and Slater’s public announcements, but through action, not words. Jeff uses words as shield and weapon, as did the other two. Bypassing this essentially shortcircuits his brain. His brain will warp and analyze and question, but she kisses him gently, an invitation not a demand. He’s already put aside his sword and shield during their talk, and doesn’t feel the need to pick them up because he feels safe and cared for and is okay accepting and reciprocating that.

Play

Jeff is all adult and aloof and beyond such petty childish pursuits such as play, which is the scoffed at domain of Annie/Troy/Abed. But he actually really wants it. It likely stems in part from his loss of a proper childhood, but it’s also just who he is. Imagination isn’t just for the young, the loss of the ability to play is an oft-bemoaned feature of adulthood, one the learned remind us we ought recapture. (And a joy of parenthood is getting to do that through your children.) But look, he literally was playacting being a lawyer. It’s how he engages with the world. He just justified that as a means to an end and did it for power and profit, rather than for enjoyment.

We see this, I argue, when responding to Annie’s playacting they were married. Annie anticipates a bad reaction, but he doesn’t give one. No judgment. He then establishes it’s not a deeper issue (”do I have to worry about this” ie, is this real/insanity). When he says “I can tell you one thing your fantasy got wrong...” he’s not challenging her, or even taking offense, and while he’s not entering into her fantasy world (which is over anyway), he’s offering fodder. He’s involving himself in the narrative process for her benefit. And in the couched language of daydream he’s reassuring her -if- it was true, he would be devoted. IF is a super important word in play, because you don’t have to believe, for example, you ARE a pirate. You just need to act as IF you were a pirate.

Also cute, I take as justified fanon the deleted scene where he orders her appletini. He was whining to her about it but it was relaxed because they both know he’d do it anyway. And when the bartender turns out to be a believer in Annie’s created fantasy world, Jeff stops himself from correcting him and destroying the world. Instead, he lets it persist just far enough to let himself glance at Annie as if it was true, and in that moment he sees her through the eyes of fantasy, and sees a beautiful woman, rather than all the complexity of their relationship.

Then there’s basically all the giant Greendale instances of play. Which one way or the other, he gets roped into and ends up jumping into with abandon. (Paintball, lava etc.) And they’re often paired, because he enjoys playing with her, and the “if this” acts as license for them to explore their compatibility. And their capers, when they pair up in the “real world”, is really just a sophisticated form of play. As brought up pointedly when they were searching for the ASB, there’s a dual nature here. They aren’t just buddies, like Troy and Abed, who are also very fantasy oriented (cardboard submarine!). There’s a level of daydream beneath the fantasy world where they can set aside the complexities of their relationship, and say “if we’re solving this crime, then we can live in this bubble and just be together.”

I also really love the whole Professor Professorson episode because of course the layers are just so intricate and delightful when they unfold. He tackles her which was total overreaction, he’s in a heightened world and committed to it. They plot out this crazy intricate play to teach the Dean a lesson together, where they involve real emotions. Many of which are Annie’s, but that means they’re creating a world in which it is safe to amplify her feelings which they are both aware of but are usually repressed, especially by Jeff. And he praises her for that later (she went off book and deceived like a master) rather than being uncomfortable. They exit play safely because they trust each other while playing and can leave that permissive world as an if. And it ends with the blanket fort collapsing and cocooning them. It is a play space literally being broken, begging the question of how much impact our play can have on our real selves.

Season 6

So basically I think I missed fandom the first time around and just binged on meta and there’s (fanon?) that Jeff spent the season looking for her attention, but Annie had pulled back? I zipped through a bunch of scenes they were in together, and heartily agree. Also I think I went a little nutty but What I see:

Annie doesn’t ignore him or anything, but where she might have previously inserted herself in his life, she starts to let him fend for himself while she diverts her attention to other relationships, and treats him more like she does the others. I don’t think she really does anything like taking his class so she can evaluate his teaching and bludgeon him into being better? But when they’re in a situation, like City College’s ad, she stands up to him as normal, challenging him to be better and do the right thing, as she always has. Rewards him with approval when he does, and his whispered “thank you” is the cutest thing ever because it’s an intimate choice in a rather boisterous exchange.

Meanwhile Jeff does seem to spend a lot of time and energy trying to get back to a place where he’s first in her eyes. There are a lot of shots in S6 a the Table and group scenes that involve him looking at her disproportionately, first, last, or only when speaking, esp when they’re all at the table. When I went back and tried to do the same to S5 those scenes are set up a bit differently and I saw less of it but I think there’s just fewer group scenes in general though?. In S6, he often ends a comment directed at the group (non table) by looking at Annie, indicating he wants her response, and thus her attention and engagement. And often, she is the next person to speak. Which is her personality as a leader, which supports the idea that while he’s seeking her out, she isn’t necessarily responding to that but just being her.

Finale

I’ve sort of run myself dry thinking through other things. And great analysis is plentiful and most recent. So not even bullet points just ramble But:

Oh3, so when Garrett proposed and Abed noted Jeff had a funny look, he’s been daydreaming marrying Annie for that lone plus longer? That took me a long time to put together as an actual literal thing.

Oh2, it’s all canon that he has issues with prolonged eye contact because he doesn’t want people to see him broken and he doesn’t break eye contact through any of this. He knows she knows he’s broken already and is quietly fine with her seeing everything and this is a moment for *sobs*

Oh wait hey, so callback to that bit where she’s like “your words don’t mean anything” and he’s like “That’s what conversation is, people saying things to get stuff.” Because he’s 100% not trying to get anything by telling her he’s let her go. And he means a lot by saying it. And if he said “I love you” there’s an implied sense of obligation to say it back and since he means romantically he can’t do that. So this is just him letting her know, no pressure, no expectation, that he loves her and has loved her but it’s okay because she’s free and he wants her to be free because he loves her. And he means it so hard when she says “kiss me goodbye” he’s all “you don’t owe me anything.”

But she does love him too, except she knows she’s in a different place emotionally and professionally. And it’s sweet and a gift because she doesn’t make this about her but about him and his feelings. So she preempts his regrets because she knows he WON’T kiss her goodbye unless she invites him to. There’s something I’m reaching for and can’t find here. She doesn’t admit to anything because there’s no point? It would just hurt him either way? Sharing her feelings through action rather than words?

And so much squee thinking how far everyone’s come for this scene to be a thing which could happen.

Callback to Annie’s marriage fantasy when Jeff has his own. Hers was external, by her personality (esp at the time of her maturation) and thus public and psychologically working out a reasonable feeling of abandonment as she gave their fictional selves marital difficulties. His is very internal, and occurs after Abed, always so reliable as a gateway to fantasy, turns the tables on him. He’s experiencing reasonable feelings of abandonment, and while he runs, it’s to a safe space of “what if,” a coping mechanism he has learned, and which allows for working out of psychological issues.

It’s dual: in that the larger issue is his need for a sense of stability. Though he’s staring at the table the scene doesn’t involve Greendale at all, he already had that fantasy. This is about wanting a life outside of the safe zone of the college. And while he suggests a dog as an option he imagined a kid because having one represents stability for him - it was his father who left, and he won’t leave. If there’s a kid, this is a life, Annie can’t leave. But he offers her imaginary self complete editing powers, because all he really wants is to be able to love and be loved. It’s indulgence, a desperate grasp at balm because while he let her go, he can’t let her -go.- He was okay with being close friends, they do love each other as friends. See his pitch. But faced with losing that, he’s stripped bare. He indulges in his supressed hearts desire and is faced with the reality of what he already knows: it’s not in the cards.

And he’s stripped down to insecurities that aren’t limited to Annie. It’s cute how they jive over Marvel, though it’s weird to me and takes up more time and weird dramatic looking around that doesn’t feel playful enough to be justified. The tone of their voices is too serious, it’s a mismatch. I like how he admits the huge thing that he let her go as far as he has control, and suddenly a time pressure is on their alone time. Everything is immediate right now, everything happening fast. I wonder what Annie would have said if not for the text. But that’s the thing, it’s the wrong time for them and this is a goodbye. It’s too late but just under the wire all at once.

In this chapter at least. In the safety of the group Annie brings up a season 7, which we all know could happen years down the line. Would have been more fitting if she said movie though. Still, he takes that as the comfort in which it was intended.

WTF with his all coed season 7? Yes, we cut to it so it totally isn’t happening, but has he put his issues to rest and is just fantasizing crap or what? It makes no sense to me.

I love that he not only puts her first after she invites him to kiss her goodbye by asking “what about you,” but is -asking for consent.- He doesn’t even move towards her until he gets it, he’s literally just standing back. What’s up with the penis thing? Meta reference to shortcut arguments that it’s not true love but lust? Is it Jeff acknowledging his own cynicism and how he’s dropped it? Since he’s so clearly not in a lust mode here. Is he adding a tiny bit of his usual pointed add ins to his speeches?

I guess it’s like... this is one of his speeches, but it feels out of place because of his delivery? Which is beautifully subdued and resigned and honest and just defeated, but defeated in the sense that he defeated all the barriers he still keeps around himself.

and goodbye hug and kiss at the airport.

#community #jeff x annie #meta

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maemi324 · 4 years

Text

Burned With Flowers

Hey friends guess Who’s back on their bullshit? It’s me. This is an Alternate ending from my recent fic Burned, which you can read here! (I’ve beat my previous record of 14 pages with...19 pages) This takes place towards the end of Burned, rather than the beginning.

So this has the same disclaimer as last time. “So this involves witches, as you might have guessed. I did do some research on this, referencing a few holidays. With that being said, this is not the fic to go to looking for accurate information about Pagan Holidays, their differences, similarities and all the right customs. This is all mixed in with some fictional things that I felt helped the story flow. If you want an accurate description of their holidays, practices, beliefs, please go do your own research, or ask someone that knows about them, as that person is not me.”

Warnings: Character Deaths (kind of) vague descriptions of death, witch hunt, stakes, fire. If there’s anymore you can think of, please tell me and I’ll happily edit and add to it here.

Thank you so much! Enjoy!

X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.X.

It had been four years since that Solstice, the two of you now adults. A year or two after becoming lovers, Izuku had finally found someone to train him into becoming a knight, a real hero. It meant that you would see him less, but he would always write to you when he could.

You were saddened at the news, but also so proud. Finally after all these years, his dream was coming true. He promised you that he would always come back to you, that once he had become a knight, able to help you build your own healing stand in the main city, he’d properly ask you to marry him. You knew he always kept his promises, one way or another.

How could you deny him his dream? You couldn’t truthfully.

That brought you here, scratching out another day along the talley you made. Only a few more days until Izuku came back. You helped your father run the shop now, almost fully taking over as the village healer. You braced the day with a smile as the regulars came in, such as the usual ointments for Mrs.Tachibana. Some medicine to a mother of some poor twins who had caught some sickness during the season's change to spring. Their medicine was a wooden spoon covered in semi-crystalized honey for the wailing babe, their teeth slowly but surely coming in.

The morning rush could hardly be considered as such, your doors opening right at the first peak of dawn. You waved off the last of the morning patrons in no time at all. You bend down to grab a few herbs, mixing something to help soothe Mr.Yamada’s vocal chords. You hear the door push open, pulling you from your line of thought, your eyes meeting bright green.

“Izuku!” you cry, rushing over to him, arms wrapped around his shoulders in the tightest hug you could manage. He’d grown so much taller than you last remembered- well just bigger in general! He’d bulked up considerably- he joked he wanted to get better at giving hugs along with being a Knight- and was now a full two heads taller than you. You only pull back to place your hands on his jaw, pulling him down to kiss you properly.

“Did I surprise you?” he laughed, pressing another kiss to your forehead. “Yes! You weren’t due back for a few more days! Oh I’m so happy your home!” You stood back up on your toes to press more kisses to his face. “Tell me everything!”

He told you all about the training he went through- hell as he called it, eyes looking back with a slight fondness that only nostalgia could bring- the antics he and some other knights in training had gotten into. His teacher, Aizawa, was a hard man, but ultimately soft hearted in his own way. He couldn’t wait for you to meet the friends he had made, and you were excited to see them.

“I have heard some...other things though” he hesitated, leaning against the counter as you finished Mr.Yamada’s medicine, the yellow glow from your hands dimming until it was no more. “In the city they’re telling stories of witches...and not good ones either.” you hummed in agreement, concern laced into your features.

You’d heard of rumors of witches in nearby towns and villages. At first, nothing was seemingly worrisome about it. So some covens had decided to announce their place in the world, big deal.

Until the rumors had become something dark. Stories of sacrifices, hexes and curses upon innocent bystanders, children. Soon there were rumors of witches in every town, every village.

“Even the people here have started to become...nervous” beforehand, the villagers not a part of your coven had nothing to fear from you, you’d never given them any reason to. But these new witches, witches that were said to be everywhere, brought fear into your community.

“I’m worried Izuku, they’ve started burning people in the next few towns...I’m not sure what we could do, a show of our magic could scare them into a frenzy, but not doing anything could be just as bad. They even have a witch hunter!” you set down the pestle gently, Izuku taking your hand in his.

“I’m worried too. But for right now, the best we can do is wait and see how things go. No matter what, I’ll always be here, you won't go through this alone.” your heart fluttered warmly at his words, pressing a kiss to his hand.

The next few days did little to raise or diminish your worries. You walked about the village, showing him what all had changed in his absence, ignoring the stares of the same village girls that had teased your dress all those years ago.

It didn’t take until the end of the week to see the tensions were rising, but he waited anyway.

Where once the baker had a loaf for everyone and a smile on his face, now only held suspicion in his face, fear slowly absorbing its way into the bread's now slightly bitter taste.

You held onto Izuku’s arm, hand gripping just a little bit tighter as the village boys, the ones who had always teased you, passed by, eyes cold and a whittling knife sitting aimlessly in one's hand. Izuku placed his arm around you, handing you the bread as your hand let go of his shirt.

Normally, you’d hardly pay those boys any mind, they were your age looking forward to life just as you were. But fear could lead to even the wisest man to make a fatal mistake. Your mother taught you that fear was not a one-way street, your own actions in fear of the other could lead to the same road as the wise man.

You didn’t utter a word to one another as you made your way back home, cold spring wind almost pushing you to go faster as morning dew soaked your shoes. It wasn’t safe to speak the words you needed to, not with the village's eyes and ears hanging onto your every word.

Your cheeks burned as you closed the door behind you, the warmth from the fire a stark contrast to the chill in the air. Izuku took the bread from you as you slipped out of your damp shoes, setting it on the table, sending a polite smile your mother's way.

“Oh, thank you Izuku” She smiled, exhaustion tugging at the corners of her lips. She flipped through the letters in her hand, offering him two.

“You’re quite popular with letters today,” she joked, holding a separate letter up to the morning light to see it better.

“Oh, thank you (Y/M/N)” he said, taking a seat across from her as he opened the first of the two, a frown settling on his face.

You walk over towards him, bare feet padding against the floor, hands rubbing against stiff shoulders. You press your cheek against his temple, offering comfort to him without reading the letter yourself. “What is it darling?” you ask softly.

Dread pooled in your stomach, weighing heavily as you recognized the insignia placed on the stamp, the Knights. Your hands dug into his shoulders, but he hardly seemed to mind. He carefully broke the seal, careful not to rip the parchment. He was quiet as he read the note, his shoulders becoming more tense as he did.

“I’m being called back; It seems as though these witch trials are becoming more serious, and we’ve been asked to root them out to end all of this” His voice sounds far away, you could practically feel his mind whirling at all the letters' information. “ I’m to leave at dawn to meet with the rest of them, when we’re together, we’ll ride out to the town they were last in, these troublemakers, which happens to also be where these witch trials are at their worst.” he glances up at you, placing a hand over yours. You’re not sure what expression you're making currently, but it obviously shows the weight of the news, of him having to leave.

You didn’t want him to go, as selfish as that was. You knew it was for the better but... you were scared to just get bread by yourself not too long ago! Would the village boys have harassed you if you were alone? Would the baker have refused to give the bread to you? What if these ‘witches’ came to your town just as he left, what would you do then? Your mother cleared her throat, snapping you from your panic induced daze, your grip on his shoulders relaxing, she returned to her letters.

You shook your head, your free hand picking up the next letter, ignoring his questioning glance, “Here, read this one before we talk about anything else. It could be important too.”

He doesn’t press you just yet, complying and opening the letter, his concern morphing into a frown. You don’t verbally ask, your eyes looking to his for an answer.

“It’s my mom, she says that she’s coming here…” he murmured as viridian eyes scanned the rest of the page. His mother was coming over? You didn’t see why that was an issue in itself, aside from the fact that he was leaving tomorrow morning, she was probably coming to see him after all. Though she still visited even when he wasn’t there, taking the time to enjoy long chats with your parents.

“Really? Oh I’ll have to get out her favorite tea,” She glanced up from her own letters, concerned gaze matching Izuku’s, “Though, your expression says that her reason for coming is not a good one?”

“The town has started to become...nervous of her, claiming that she could possibly be a witch by association,” he frowned, his other hand crumpling up the string that the letter had come with, “They haven’t done anything to her, but she isn’t going to wait for them to.”

You gently take the letter from his hand, his hands allowing it to slip from his grasp, reading over it yourself, rereading the text, “She should be here by sundown. She didn’t want to arrive unannounced.”

Your mother laughed softly as she set down her letters and stood, “Ah, just like Inko, not wanting to inconvenience anyone even in times like these” irritation flashed in Izuku’s system-this wasn’t exactly a laughing matter- but calmed as your mother ran a hand through his curls, just like she used to when the two of you were young.

“Don’t you worry, She’ll be alright, and has always been welcome here. We’ll just have to clean out my old sewing room, your old room Izuku” he smiled softly as she rested her hand on his shoulder, his own squeezing it softly in thanks.

When the two of you had gotten to a certain age, though still short amongst the boys, he’d grown out of sharing your small bed with you, as well as your room. It was relatively small, and with the two of you growing it had become a bit...cramped. Thus your mother's sewing room had become his. He’d insisted on helping your father make him his new bed for when he visited.

“Why don’t the two of you come help me? I’m not as young as I used to be,” she mused, walking over to the door and opening it. You stepped in first, sneezing upon entry as the dust was disturbed. “Oh dear, I hadn’t thought it’d become this dusty! I knew I was forgetting something”

There were fabrics neatly folded into a cabinet that sat against the wall with a desk, the window letting morning light stream onto the desk. To the right was a spinning wheel, as well as a loom. To the left was a bed big enough for one person, a few fabrics draped over the bed spread, as well as a small box of sewing needles.

In the end, it had only taken you and Izuku a few hours to dust the room, mainly going outside to beat the dust off of the fabrics and various blankets that were now too thick for spring warmth, trying not to sneeze too much in the process. The other half was sweeping and scrubbing all the dust out. Izuku did have to save you from some abnormally normally large spiders in the corner- but you would never admit it.

While it was for Izuku’s mother, you knew this was one of your mother's ways in helping the pair of you get your mind off things. If you were too busy playfully hitting Izuku with the stick you were using on the blankets, then you were also too busy to think too hard about the unease settling over the once welcoming village, too busy to think about the fact that he was leaving at dawn.

As the sun was setting, the two of you being done with your work, decided to sit out front and wait for Inko. A small carriage pulled by one horse came into view; the half of the people were startled to attention whilst the other half recognized the carriage and went on with their lives.

Inko pulled the carriage to a stop towards the side of your home, hardly wanting to make a fuss by setting it right in front and in the way of others. Izuku immediately went to her side, the relief clear in his body language, head held high but his shoulders were relaxed, his hands no longer clenched to the point of his knuckles turning white.

Before helping her down, eyes watering, he held her tightly to him, her arms going around his neck.

“Oh baby, don’t start crying, then I’ll start crying!” She huffed, her eyes already watering up, but she didn’t let go of him until he was ready to.

“ I’m sorry mom, I was just...worried about you,” He glanced at the wagon, then did a double take, “Did you pack the entire house?!” he helped her down, getting onto it to see for himself.

Sure enough, it was packed to the brim-blankets, favored pots and pans, some of Izuku’s old clothes and his newer ones, old toys, pillows, and lots of books. An embarrassed flush crept up Inko’s neck, though her expression held a serious note.

“Well, yes. I didn’t feel safe there and, well, I’d heard that in some of the cities- the towns even- were burning up the homes of the accused, or those they were suspicious of. They only just started to notice me, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. I thought it would be safer here”

You placed a hand gently on her shoulder, a soft, startled, yelp leaving her lips as you did, “We’re happy to have you Mrs.Midoriya, you’re family.” you were met with a pinch to your side. “Honestly dear, just call me Inko, or mom even, I’ve known you long enough,” she teased, wrapping her arms around you in greeting. You swore this is where Izuku got his hugging style from. She gave the warmest hugs, full of unrestrained kindness and comfort.

“Inko!” you heard your mother call from the doorway. You let Inko go in favor of going to put the horse in the stable with the others, letting Izuku deal with moving things inside, for now.

Once sure the horses were cared for, you walked back to help Izuku, only to find him sitting there instead.

You hopped up next to him, your hip touching his. “Izuku?” he looked over at you, placing your hand in his. “Why aren’t you unloading? I wasn’t going to make you do it all by yourself, I promise” you tease. The smile reaches his eyes but fades quickly.

“I was just thinking about...well everything” He sighs, squeezing your hand softly. “Hmm, that’s a pretty broad topic-”

“You are truly hilarious, darling,” It got another smile out of him, but you didn’t interrupt him again, urging him to speak his mind, “ I was thinking about how things would die out with this ‘evil witches’ hunt. That it was just some rumors spread around that caused this and that the people would use evidence and logic to come to reason”

“Izuku, since when has the public ever come eye to eye with logic and evidence?” you laugh, a bittersweet note.

“Since never, but I thought-Well it doesn’t matter what I thought actually. These evil witches are running around and hurting people, even in the villages and towns they haven’t been in,” He runs a hand over his face, “I’m just worried about you, and our families, the coven. I know i can’t take these ‘witches’ out myself, but I feel better being here. But I also know that I need to be out there to help bring them down. But I want you all to be safe, I’m not sure that this village is it, not right now”

“I don’t want you to go either,” your thumb rubs comforting circles onto the back of his hand, “But I agree with you, you have to go out there and help take them down. I think we should talk about this with everyone inside. I’m sure we’ll come up with something”

His lips are pulled into a thin line as he thinks, but he nods. You gently tug on his hand, pleased to find there is no resistance as you lead him inside.

Your mother and father are sitting next to one another, annoyance clear on his face as he looks at the letter your mother is holding, Inko sitting on her other side. Your mother glances up from it and waves you over.

“I was just about to call you two in, we need to have a chat,” you both take the only other seats at the table, your hand still in Izuku’s. Your mother hands you the letter, placing it between yourself and Izuku to glance over. “The elders have decided that it would be best for the coven to...leave as it were”

Ah, that explained the look on your father's face. He would never part with his healing shop, not when so many people counted on his healing magic, as well as yours. You skim over the letter quickly, finding her words to be true. Mrs.Tachibana had left a note, she had a feeling that this was something Izuku needed to hear; she had a feeling he was going off somewhere and that this would be vital for his peace of mind.

It was always a little unnerving how accurate she was.

“Where would we be leaving to?” you ask, your eyes meeting your mother’s. What town could better protect them than the one they knew like the back of their hands. You didn’t like the idea of going to an entirely unknown place, but if it was for the better…

“To the ritual circle actually,” she put up a hand at the sound of your objections, “I know, it sounds like a bad plan. Normally, if this were anywhere else, I would agree. We’d be sitting ducks. However, the ritual circle is a place of power. We can set up our wards to keep evil spirits from finding us, as well as illusions to confuse our enemies. Whatever these ‘witches’ are up to, they’re looking for the villagers.”

“But what if they are looking for you?” Izuku asked, “What if your wards aren’t enough?” he could feel marks clawing at his throat, anxieties bubbling at his tongue. He urged them to be quiet, biting his lip as if to lock the box.

“We’ve been here for generations. We know this land, which has given to us and we give back to. We’ve plenty of magic to protect ourselves. Our magic is to help and heal, but that does not mean we are not able to defend ourselves with magic if need be. If we are out of the way, protected, then the villagers will be safe from us in the event that, if we’d been there, we would have to use magic to protect ourselves from them.”

He still felt anxious, heart thudding heavily against his chest. He doubted he would ever really be unafraid for them. But, this was still better than the alternative of them doing nothing at all.

“Alright then?” you nodded, pressing a kiss to Izuku’s hand, who let out a heavy sigh. Taking that as affirmation, your mother continued. “Good. We need to start packing, we are to leave when the moon is high, while the village is asleep.”

The five of you set to work in the house, your mother and father packing the shop, while Inko was left to gather any and all books and parchment scrolls into a boxed crate. Any time she was positive she filled it to the top, she turned to tell your mother, only to look back and find she could fit one more row.

That left you and Izuku in charge of gathering other materials, blankets, pillows, clothing, clothing from each season, just in case the worst should happen.

In total, the five of you filled five boxed crates, which should have been impossibly heavy, but were only moderately so.

Once everything had been loaded up, your parents took to their carriage, while you rode with Izuku and his mother.

The air was cool and damp, the wind bringing an unnecessary bite to it in your opinion, as you and Inko cuddled up on either side of Izuku, who had the reins. The short ride there was quiet somehow, even as the carriages managed to get over the roots, thanks to all the various wagons and caravans over the years leaving their marks. Not a word was spoken as you approached, the warm fire from the ritual circle; it was stark against the dark hues of the night.

It was as if it had appeared suddenly, rather than being seen from the halfway point. Elders stood at the ritual areas most outer circle, with a wave of their hands, sigils and wards were placed. They paid you no mind as you crossed, wagons and caravans galore, as well as a few tents pitched with runes around them as well.

All in all, it felt familiar and warm, much warmer than a spring night should allow. Your family tucked themselves against the trees, closer to the river. There were elders on the other side of the river, finishing up their wards, an almost filmy bubble over the area, though the smoke didn’t fill the area up like you had expected.

Izuku glanced around with the same awe that must have been in your eyes, but you couldn’t stop to chat. You each get out of your respective carriages, your mother pulling out a large piece of, what looked like, dull red cloth, much like the tents the others had pitched up. You’d never seen it before, it must have come from the pits of whatever crate your father had made.

Izuku and your father put up the tent, which was actually quite large, it would fit all of you for certain, whilst you and your mother drew the sigils and wards around the tent. As you and Izuku carried one of the crates into the tent, you swore the tent itself was a bit...bigger on the inside.

As the process of setting up continued, more people began to appear, all from your coven. Some of them you hadn’t seen in years! All to flee to relative safety. When you couldn’t bear to watch any longer, you pulled your hand from the tent flap, the sigils inside the tent glowing a soft blue. You made your way over to the crates where the amenities from the shop had been packed.

You made sure to keep quiet as you pulled out a smooth green stone that shimmered in accents of emerald and malachite in color, and a soft piece of cloth, long in nature. Your parents had long pulled out the bedrolls, the four of them calling it a night and quickly falling into dreamland. You began to braid and weave the cloth around the stone, rolling it into something cord like. As you do this, you let feelings of safety, home, and love permeate the stone, the tips of your fingers glowing that soft yellow. Next came strength, good fortune and aim that was swift and true. The last thing you placed into this stone was a small part of you, tethered to your heart, so he could always find home.

With the last knot tied, you held up your creation, the light from the sigils glinting off of it.

You’d never made something like this before, but you had seen your mother do so when someone from the next village over came to ask for protection, be it for themselves or for their loved ones heading off to war.

You closed the crate, walking past Inko’s space she’d made for herself, and into your own bedroll, pocketing the necklace for the morning, which was right next to Izuku’s. Your curled close to him, your nose almost touching his back. He huffed softly, turning over to face you in his sleep. You turned your back to him, letting his arms sleepily reach out for you and pull you close, loving how the butterflies in your stomach turned a sweet pink at the action.

Your eyes slowly close, lulled to sleep in the arms of your promised.

You are woken up all too soon, the shifting of people moving inside the tent, and outside the tent. You suppress the urge to groan in discomfort, sleeps claws scratching and pulling at your eyes to come back. You glanced over next to you, seeing that Izuku was no longer sleeping beside you, had you shooting up and out of your roll.

Izuku was just outside the tent, dressed in his leather armor, your parents were still asleep, but Inko was here, wide awake. You could just barely see the first light of dawn, the dark blue sky slowly turning lighter. You reach into your pocket, a sigh of relief leaving you as the necklace you made was still there.

His mother handed him a pack, which he slung over his horse. He leaned down so she could press a kiss to his cheek. He gave her a smile, something soft and reassuring. She turned to leave, to watch him from the tent, walking past you with a slight wave.

Izuku heard you just before you approached behind him. He turned around, expression soft as he took in your features. Your hair was a little messy, clothes a bit rumbled, but all in all, you were beautiful. He hated leaving, he’d only just gotten to be with you again, to hold you close, to enjoy your company, your presence. He would steel himself once he took off. For now, he allowed his heart to be soft.

“Leaving without saying goodbye?” You tease, your voice rough with sleep. He chuckles softly, taking your hand in his.

“Never, Just getting everything ready to go”

“Good.” You pressed a kiss to his cheek, then reached into your pocket, “I made you something. Promise me you’ll wear it?” you placed the necklace in his hand, the green really starting to stand out now that it was out in light.

“You made this for me darling?” you nodded, placing the necklace over his head for him, the stone sitting right on his chest. It would be easy to conceal, but you wanted to see it on him.

“It’s….A little piece to help keep you safe,” your fingers touched the stone, “ so you feel safe on your journeys, so you will feel just a piece of home while away, that you will be warm and filled with my love always. When you wear this, good fortune will smile on you, your aim will be swift and true, and my strength, my courage will be yours. And when all is said and done, You’ll be able to find your way home to me, no matter where you are” you pressed a kiss over the stone, over his heart, to seal in the energy that you put forth.

You wiped the tears that had just started to fall from your eyes, only to fail when you saw his own tears. He placed his gloved hands on either side of your jaw, kissing you softly, reverently. Despite its chaste nature, you felt every bit of warmth and passion, a love that threatened to make your heart burst.

He pulled away from you, placing his forehead to yours, your eyes staring into one another's.

“I will always find my way back to you.” his voice was low, a whisper only you hear. You knew that he was no witch, but in that moment, you felt a magic not your own shoot up your spine in the most pleasant way. It was as if his words had their own magic to them.

He pressed one last kiss to your lips, tucking the stone under his shirt, to keep it safe. You watched as he got onto his horse, riding off towards the sunrise.

From there, you tried to keep yourself as busy as possible. Whether that be gathering the river water, a few of the wild flowers that grew in the trees, or even just tending to the circle fire.

You found yourself bored and worried in a matter of hours. Everything was fine, everything would be fine. He would come back to you, he would be safe and sound, and you could move on from this dark period.

You practiced your sigils and wards, magic at the ready to replace one if need be. You even started reading the rolled parchments your mother kept. One week passed, then two, and then three.

Your worry reached an all-time high, for a split second, just a split second, your heart dropped to your feet, a shock sent through your nerves. You had no idea what caused this sudden feeling except-!

You were about to run to your mother, to ask her, if she could tell you anything, what that feeling meant. But something halted you, mainly the feeling of your heart slowly moving its way back to its respectful place, the shock left a warm feeling in your nerves that left your hands shaking.

But the sensation had gone, it felt alright, just like when you gave him the stone, just as it had felt the rest of the weeks passed.

As far as you knew, the village folk had stayed, despite your disappearance. From whatever scout was sent out, they gave no word of the people searching for you or even questioning your leaving. It was hardly peaceful from what you were told.

The people were even colder towards one another, children no longer running around the village, to keep them safe from whatever witch may target them. Any hustle and bustle was left solely for necessities, the genuine care for the others day long gone as they rushed back home.

With tensions rising higher, the elders thought it best to pull back the scouts, just to be safe.

You scratched out the tally you had made in the dirt. If he didn’t return this coming week, he will have been gone for four months. This should have been nothing, He’d left you for two years before, you survived.

So why was it so hard now?

You knew why, you knew exactly why it was so much harder, you just didn’t like knowing why. It didn’t make the problem any better or worse. You’d heard nothing from other towns, not even your own, Izuku would not have the time, or perhaps even the safety, of writing to you.

A large warm hand was placed on top of your head, petting your hair, startling you from your turmoil. Glancing up, you saw your father, looking down at you with kind eyes.

“I need you to gather some lavender, I’m afraid in these...stressful times, lavender has become quite sought after here.” He gave you an apologetic smile, “I’d go myself if I didn't have other salves and ointments to make.”

The lavender fields were so large, spanning from the village and even over the worn roads. If you stuck to the fields closer to the now makeshift camp, You wouldn’t be bothered by any passerby, and more importantly, the villagers.

You stood up, dusting your skirts off. It was probably better that you went anyhow, if anything to see a little change in scenery. “That’s alright papa, I wasn’t doing anything anyway.” you take the basket from him. You stepped carefully over the protection sigils, making sure not to smudge any of them.

The slight change in scenery did help to improve your mood. The morning sun still painting everything in a cool glow, the matching breeze swept away your clouded thoughts.The fields were always quite a sight in the morning, you mused as you sat your basket down once you had found a nice little spot, the flowers hues bouncing off the light.

You took your time, cutting at an angle, the stalks going into a pile that your arms would carry, the flowers themselves going into the basket. It was...alarmingly easy to just forget everything that was happening with how gentle the air was, birds singing their tunes and bees buzzing about.

Before you knew it, you had filled up your basket to the brim, lost in thoughts so vague they were better off as clouds. Glancing up you also realized it was well into the afternoon, almost sunset! You carefully stood up, your legs a bit stiff from sitting for so long.

The sound of a horse’s whicker turned your gaze towards the road. It was a smaller sized group, their shields glinting in the light. Towards the back, one man was carrying a flag held high above them. Your vision blurred as the flag came into view.

He’s Home

They’ve won

You raced across the fields, your basket long forgotten, running for the quickest path towards the road. Your heart pounded heavily in your chest, zings of excitement running through your veins.

As soon as you were close enough to see the details of their faces, you saw Izuku. He urged the group to stop; sitting in front of him was a man with the brightest red hair you’d ever seen. Izuku clumsily got down from the Horse, using this man in front of him to steady himself enough to hit the ground running.

You met in the middle, him wrapping his arms around your waist as your arms were thrown over his neck for an embrace. You were crying in relief, joy, the heavy weight that rested on your shoulders long gone. You pulled back and pressed kisses all over his face, his eyes, though watery, lit up in happiness to see you.

“That’s so manly!” You heard the red haired one cry out, a waiver in his own voice, pulling you out of the soft moment. You slowly pulled back, your hand dragging down his chest idly as it went back to your side, a sharp hitch of breath getting your attention back immediately.

He’s been injured

“Izuku what-” he cut you off with a gentle hand taking yours. It was only now that you realize that he was not in the leather armor his companions were- a loose fitted shirt, some trousers, and the same boots he left in.

“I’ll explain when we get home, It’s been...quite the journey home” he smiled at you, turning back to his companions. Now that your focus was not completely on Izuku, you noticed that he was travelling with, at least currently, four others.

The first, of course, was the red haired man, a big smile laced onto his face with bright matching eyes. The second was a blond haired man, a scowl etched on his face, deep red eyes watching. For whatever reason, you could tell that this scowl wasn’t as deep as it usually would have been. Next to the blond one’s Horse was Izuku’s.

Behind him was a young man with the most curiously colored hair you’d ever seen, white on his right with a brown eye, while his left side was red, a scar wrapped around his vibrant blue eye. The last one however, was a thin man, not much older than your father you assumed, blond hair tied back, his blue eyes bright with a kindness you had not expected from someone his size. He was so much taller than the others, his horse alone was taller than the others, just to fit this man it seemed.

“O-of course, yes,” you babbled elegantly, hardly wanting to take your hand away from Izuku’s.

You led them back to the makeshift camp, your announcement of the arrival of these heroes sent the crowd into a joyous cheer, as the rest came to see what the commotion was all about.

They stopped at the center fire, Izuku-this time much more gracefully- stepped down from the horse and Inko rushed to hug her baby just like you had. The rest of his companions follow suit, though their hands remained tight on the reins.

“Oh thank goodness your safe, my baby!” she wailed, her smile only brightening as her son laughed, an attempt to keep from totally wailing like his mother.

Mrs.Tachibana shuffled through the crowd, the elders all following suit. Inko stood aside, though you kept your hand linked with Izuku’s.

“Thank you, all of you,” she motioned to his companions, “We owe you a debt that we will never truly be able to repay, for avenging those who were wrongfully taken from us, and to those we may have lost.” She was silent for a moment, to let those now dead have a moment of peace before continuing, “However, for now, please allow us to repay you in the ways that we can, a celebration! You are far more than welcome to rest and resupply, to enjoy the night!”

The tallest man bowed to Mrs.Tachibana, a smile on his face as he addressed her on the Knights behalf. “We were just doing our duty to the people of this land. Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Before we prepare for your celebration, may we know the names of our heroes?” Mrs.Tachibana asked.

“Of course!” the tall man laughed, gesturing to each as he said their name, “These are my knights: Katsuki Bakugou,” the younger blond didn’t do much more than give an uninterested scowl, choosing to keep quiet, “ Eijirou Kirishima,” the red haired man gave a bright smile and a wave, “Shouto Todoroki” the dual haired man bowed silently, though his name did bring recognition into some of the covens eyes.

His father was a well-known Knight, brutal but effective on the battlefield, Endeavor. He was not a well-liked man, but he was respected in his duty.

Finally gesturing to himself, “I am All Might, but please, call me Toshinori”

The people slowly dispersed, excitedly working as the bees of early spring. Your mother and father walk over to give their thanks and greetings to the heroes. Your father manages to convince their tight hold on their reins to slacken, so that they may freely wander while their horses feed on the long grass.

Mrs.Tachibana wandered over to the young men, a couple of witches your mother's age following behind her. “Are any of you in need of healing? We have wonderful healers who will gladly treat you”

“Tch-the only one that needs healing is that da-”

“-No, we’re all alright!” The red head-Kirishima cuts off Bakugou, the latter incredibly annoyed at the interruption, “We just had some minor bumps and scratches, really, it’s mainly Midoriya who took the worst of it”

Izuku winced at the mention of his name, a sheepish blush forming on his cheeks. Your mother studied over Izuku’s form, a frown on her face, though she quickly replaced it with a smile.

“Let’s get that taken care of shall we?”

That’s how you found yourself down by the river, You and Izuku sitting on the rocks, carefully taking off the bandages to his wounds, the stone you had given him resting on his back, a fresh set of bandages laced with spider webs. While softer than the bandages he had, this one was bound stronger, and would keep out any unwanted grime and dirt from infecting the wound. Beside you was a basket of soft cloths and a bigger bowl of water, for cleaning.

Your mother was sitting beside the river with a mixture of various things, bowl filled with river water. As the bandage slips off, your eyes widen as a soft gasp leaves your lips.

“Oh Izuku, what on earth happened?” You’d never seen a wound of this kind before, a burn or a cut of some kind, a deep shade of red in the center, slowly turning at most a light pink on the outside, with what looked to be bubbles that had exploded, leaving a splatter mark.

“This was from one of the witches. The way they wielded their magic was terrifying, as well as impressive.” You frowned, hands digging out a cloth and dunking it in the water, wringing out your anger for this witch, returning gentle hands to his chest as you cleaned off the blood.

“The one who gave you this wound, what was his power exactly?” you take not of the hiss of pain, despite your gentle touch. You remembered your father telling you to talk to your patient, to help distract them from the pain, even if partially.

“Ah, he was a man with the most bizarre burns and dark hair. He wielded a dagger of some sort,” he moved to grab onto a stick to draw the image in the dirt, though you gently press your hand to his uninjured shoulder to push him back into place.

“You can show me later, it’ll be harder to clean this if you keep moving” you gently scold, dunking the cloth back into the water.

“Right, anyhow, he would strike at his enemies with just the blade. At first I thought he was just someone who supported them. But once he was close, his arms would suddenly be coated in blue flame! I’d never seen anything like it! It burned hotter than any fire I’ve been near. He went by the name of..Dabi I think it was.”

Blue flame that burned hotter than any other fire? How could he withstand the heat at all? A pained hiss pulls your attention back, your fingers pressing a bit too hard on the wound. You muttered a quick apology with a swift kiss to his cheek. You returned to your task with far more care.

“Tell me more about them, how many others were there?”

“Including Dabi? Four of them. There was a girl around our age by the name of Toga, she could turn into anyone she pleased. Terribly good strategy, you wouldn’t want to strike for the enemy, and find your allies face there instead. The third was a person by the name of Kurogiri. I never actually saw this person, but when they called for them, they responded. A portal would appear, whisking them away to...who knows where. It was...incredibly annoying as it was their favored escape route, no tracks to go after, no trail” He huffed softly in irritation at the memory.

“The fourth was a man they called Twice, he could make copies of himself or other people, who had the same skill set as who he copied. Out of all of them, he seemed to be having a hard time, or what I thought was one. He would say one thing, then immediately counter it with an opposite. The last was their leader, Shigaraki. Anyone he touched turned into ash, they...decayed,” He frowned at the thought, as if remembering something he’d rather not say out loud.

“I never saw it, but I heard from other villagers that he could control how fast or slow something or someone decayed. I can’t imagine what it was like for those people who had to watch...only to be tried as witches themselves…” his lower lip wobbled, a tear or two streaming down his cheeks. You drop the cloth in favor of tipping his eyes to meet yours.

“You avenged them. While that won't bring them back, just know that their souls can rest easy now, knowing that the evil that caused all of this fear is gone.” You pressed a soft kiss to his lips, Izuku letting out a shaky sigh.

He remained fairly quiet after that, and you didn’t push him to talk, the worst of the cleaning now done with. Your mother came up to the both of you, the bowl in her hand no longer filled with water, but a sweet smelling salve.

“Before we put this salve on, we need to banish the evil intent behind this wound. So that infection will not come from the inside either.” She instructed, placing a hand over his chest but not touching the wound. As her hand glowed you could practically see the flames that had burned him, dancing across the wound with wild and fluid movements. You could feel the intent behind the magic, dark and foreboding, leaving a bitter taste in your mouth.

The purple glow of your mother's magic descended upon the intent, the flames hissing like snakes as they were overtaken. As the last spark of flame died, Izuku let out a relieved sigh, the area around you brightening again, as if a tree had been blocking the sun.

“Oh...I feel so much lighter now,” He looked up to your mother with a smile, “Thank you” She returned his smile, her nails scratching lightly at his scalp. “Of course. I’ll leave the rest to (Y/N)” She said, taking the bloodied water and cloth to be cleaned.

As the sun set, the stars blinking into the sky, the ritual fire burned brighter than ever, the music playing no longer held notes tinged with worry and resentment, the drum beat heavy in your chest as you and Izuku sat on the sidelines.

Kirishima was having a wonderful time, between dancing with some of the coven members to stuff his face with the delicious food. Occasionally, one of the children would wander up to him and ask him to dance. Rather than politely declining, he’d lift up the child and dance with exaggerated movements that made them squeal and giggle.

Bakugou was far too content to sip on his drink and watch the festivities, though he bobbed his head to the beat of the drums, his scowl replaced with something more neutral. Todoroki was talking with your mother, about magic it seemed as she created soft purple lights to dance around in her palm. To your surprise he did the same, though they were smaller and a pale blue color.

Toshinori seemed to be talking idly with Inko, the two of them occasionally having to stop as a few children came up and began to ask questions you assumed, as he would then launch into a tale, probably an encounter he had at some point. They were all enchanted with the way he told the story, Inko watching with great attention, a smile on her face.

Izuku’s hand rested in yours, his thumb rubbing aimless patterns into your skin when you suddenly gasped

“I forgot the lavender basket in the fields!”

It had been a year since that day. The day after the celebration was spent packing things up and back into your homes. Fear would not so easily be defeated, with that looming threat, why would they want to return to a possibly dangerous place? At the elders’ request, The knights had gone to check over the town, to be sure that everything was safe, as well as making sure it was all standing.

The town had been abandoned, the buildings remaining empty. It was a bit saddening, to see the town so quiet. All the life, the people you had always known just...gone. However, with so many of the coven either unwilling to go back to their homes, or unable to, they simply took over the abandoned homes.

Life slowly went back to normal, though a different kind of normal. It was...nice to have your coven around, to no longer have judgmental, but harmless, stares sent your way. It was a lot of hard work, but the town grew to be just as lively as it had been once before, if not more so.

The Knights were always welcome to your little village, surprisingly they came to visit quite often, especially for the holidays. Just like today, a brilliant and warm summer morning, though today was a special day.

The coven was centered around the ritual fire, a woven arch placed before it, filled with various wildflowers and brilliant stones. You stood there before your soon to be husband hands clasped together as Mr.Yamada recited an old spell, one of weaving, to bind your souls together.

You could hardly focus on his words, your own watery eyes meeting green ones. He smiled so brightly at you, you have to mirror it back, the overflowing joy in the both of you was entirely contagious. The dusting of pink over your cheeks matched the hue of the flower crowns placed on your heads.

A couple of wails sounded from the crowd, Inko crying her own river of tears; Toshinori sat beside her and offered a clean handkerchief, to which she gratefully took. The other wail came from behind Izuku, Kirisima’s lower lip wobbling as Bakugou smacked the back of his head, growling out a low “Control yourself!”

You laughed at the two as Mr.Yamada hesitantly started reading again, if only to make sure the two could handle it without any more interruptions.

He placed his hand over yours and Izuku’s, a warm glow emitting from it. “To bind yourselves to one another, you must make a promise to your other half. Starting with Izuku” He took his hand off of yours, the glow around your connected hands maintaining, shining brightly like water as the sun hits the cool waves.

He nodded, taking a deep breath to calm himself, a rush of excitement flooding his veins.

He held onto your hand tighter, a firmer grip, priding himself that his voice didn’t crack as he started to speak. “I promise to you, (Y/N), that I will love you and care for you for all my days, my nights, and even in death. I promise my soul to you, tied to yours. I will always find my way to you and I will never falter”

On his hand, the golden glow turned green until all the way down to the tips of your fingers. You let out a happy sob, your heart unable to contain it. Still you wiped it off with your free hand.

“I promise to you, Izuku, that I will love and care for you for all of my days, my nights and even in death. I promise my soul to you, tied to yours. I will always find my way to you and I will never falter”

The glow from Izuku’s finger tips to yours spread up to your hand, fading into your skin. Yamada raised your connected hands in the air, “I now pronounce your souls to be bound together! You may now kiss your beloved”

As he let go, Izuku pulled you close to him, one hand capturing your jaw gently as he pulled you into a sweet kiss. You mirrored his hand, thumb stroking his cheek as the world around you ceased to exist for just that moment.

The party itself lasted well into the night, the two of you hand your arms intertwined, drinking the sweet red liquid that was specially prepared for the evening, the rest of the coven now able to eat and drink to their heart's content. You absently remembered, as Izuku fed you a piece of savory bread, your mother telling you the symbolism in the red drink; strength, courage, and fertility.

The music that played was loud and joyful, laughter floating like the hum of a choir, a pleasant cord. As the moon reached its highest point, the two of you tossed the blue and orange flower crowns atop your heads into the fire. It was an old tradition, even to the standards of your coven.

The flowers placed on your head had meaning to them, just like the sweet drink you had earlier. The orange stood for encouragement, attraction and kindness. The blue on the other hand stood for patience, understanding, and loyalty. Once burned, the energy from those flowers would bring out those attributes in your marriage. Or that’s what the old saying was.

The coven raised the woods with their cheers, sparks of blues and orange dancing in the air.

As the two of you watched the flowers burn, Izuku’s arm around your waist, you leaned into him, a smile on your face.

Though you had been with each other for nearly your whole lives, this was the beginning of something new.

X. X. X. X. X.

You blinked, your eyes wet with unshed happy tears as you glanced around the room, your friends, Ochaco, Iida, and Todoroki were all behind you, looking at you with wide eyes. Next to you sat your boyfriend of two years, now in your third year at UA. His eyes were also wet, slowly turning to gaze towards you.

You had all decided to go to the fair that had opened up. Towards the end of your merriment, you spotted a fortune teller of a sort, and decided to go inside. Everything had been fairly light hearted and fun,though yours had been quite intense, but nonetheless happy. The fortune teller was shocked, the past had something important for you to see, and by all that was good you were going to see it.

You looked down at the promise ring Izuku bought you. It burned with the same cool sensation as you remembered...saw past you. It felt like..a small part of you had been unlocked, as if some part of you had been missing for all of these years.

He gave you a gentle smile, one you returned.

“I guess our souls are bonded together”

#my hero academia #mha x reader #bnha #bnha x reader #bnha bakugou #bnha kirishima #bnha ochaco uraraka #bnha izuku midoriya #bnha izuku x reader #bnha todoroki #bnha all might #bnha dabi #bnha toga #bnha twice #bnha kurogiri #bnha shigaraki #bnha iida

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paullicino · 3 years

Text

On the Internet

Taken from, and thus generously funded by, my Patreon. The above image via ExtraFabulousComics.

Do you have a flashlight nearby? A lamp, or other light source? Keep it to hand, it might become relevant for something, something I’d like to demonstrate later. The demonstration is simple and entirely voluntary, the flashlight is not essential. It works just as well as a thought experiment in your head.

Meanwhile, I’m going to write about the internet on the internet. Because that’s what we all do these days, isn’t it?

---

I still remember the excitement of our first explorations online. It was a kind of hidden, secret space of unknown dimensions when we found it as young adults. A weird sort of Narnia. A modem meant you could open this door to an entirely different place full of entirely different people obeying entirely different rules. You had to find ways of telling one another about what you’d found this week, either the next time you were together in person, via an email or, God forbid, by printing out a webpage. Twenty-five years ago, the internet was a collection of imperfect search engines (crawlers) taking you to out-of-the-way websites that were as likely to have been made by someone just like you as they were to belong to some major company or organisation. Its mess was egalitarian. It was a decentralised place full of curious corners and sudden surprises. It wasn’t somewhere we logged on to with an expectation of finding the familiar. It was a place of discovery.

It wasn’t simply that the tech wasn’t as good as it is nowadays. That much is obvious. It was the fumbling newness of the place. It was a primordial soup, we were all blobs and we blobbed around together, testing out the water.

It was a tremendously international space. It was easy to stumble across websites in other languages, to find places that weren’t for you, that were never created with you in mind, and at the very edges of these places their owners and their users might just blend together. Spill over, even. Everyone was from everywhere and they were all mingling, uncontrolled. It was liberating. It was mind-expanding.

The internet was exciting, it was new, it was unfamiliar. It was a place to learn. It was a place without an agenda.

It was also a place to be different. Niche interests found their audiences and young people could be united by what they enjoyed, not marginalised. There was no need to fit in when the place didn’t even fit together properly. For those of us bullied, bored, or worse in tiny homogenous hometowns, isolated or upset by the toxic social dynamics and popularity contests that school can create, it offered little judgement about what you should want or who you should be. It was a place to be genuine.

I still remember the end of the 1990s, too. It was a decade of growth and change not just for a young generation, but for the wider world we were learning about. There was a peace deal in Northern Ireland, there was optimism in the media and there was a coming millennium that was supposed to be defined by technology and communication, the internet at its forefront. I was not a young man who could identify with very much of this optimism, but I was at least a young man looking forward to change, who could be accepted as who I was on the internet and who could be excited about what it represented. I’d never tried to be anyone else, even though being different rarely works out when you’re young, but now I knew for sure that I didn’t need to.

As my friends and I grew, so did the internet, and it became a place where we could share more about ourselves, where we could play together and where we found a bunch of ways of keeping in touch whenever we were apart. It became a tool to help me work, that kickstarted my career as a writer, as well as an ever-widening window on the world. It wasn’t yet too corporate, its websites and its tools not yet too monolithic.

I remember some of that early sharing. I remember talking to total strangers, a world away, about some part of my life or theirs. I remember talking to one internet friend of many years, who I never met, about British and American spelling. And about spelling in general. I remember they told me they weren’t sure how to spell a particular word and I said they could look it up in but a moment, since they were online there and then. “I can’t be bothered,” they replied, and that frustrated me so much.

The 90s passed and on September 11th 2001 whatever vision there was for the coming century was erased. The course of world events shifted immediately and dramatically. Never before had mass murder been so visible and so immediate. I remember talking not about how different the world was going to be, but that we had no idea how big a difference this would even make. In a very short space of time, it felt as if the world became not only so much more cruel and so much more cynical, but also so much more divided. I remember the weeks and months after those terror attacks as being my first experience of seeing people sharply divided in their politics, divided enough to be extremely angry, extremely offended, by the many suggestions of what should be done next. It set the scene.

As the decade continued, technology and communication certainly did change us. More of us were using the internet not only to talk, but for more and more of our everyday tasks. We were also sharing ourselves, too, in ways more personal and profound, and there was so much to know. I read a blog post by a Black woman from the American South describing the ways she had to bring up her son to interact with the wider world, how angry he was about it, how unfair it all was. I read updates from those caught in the civil war in Myanmar, talking about what they claimed the news didn’t show. I read about the realities of the rapid growth in Dubai, the working conditions and pollution. I read diary entries by people surviving the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, weeks without power and wondering when help would come. I read about the world in a way I’d never been able to before.

More than ever, the internet was a library of lives.

The first trip overseas I took by myself was all planned, booked and executed with the help of the internet. I flew to Chicago, in the United States, and I stayed in the most average hotel in the most average neighbourhood and it was wonderful. I heard real cicadas for the first time and walked through concrete valleys between towering skyscrapers that my tiny mind couldn’t process. In the evenings, I watched a plethora of American news, which was only ever about America, and that frustrated me so much.

The first interview I ever conducted with someone who wasn’t making a video game was with the writer Mil Millington. The interviews I really wanted to do were about people, their experiences, what they liked and why they do the things they do. Mil Millington was the perfect subject because we had both written about games, we both understood the reach of the internet and we were both interested in what the future of this medium would be. He had recently scored a book deal and written his first novel, Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About, based on his semi-autobiographical, tongue-in-cheek blog of the same name, listing comic domestic disagreements. I asked him what it was like to share all of his personal life online and he told me that, actually, he didn’t:

“I'm, honestly, almost obsessively private. It's just the way I write that, for some reason, if I say, 'Margret won't let me watch a film in peace,' causes people to think, 'My God! Mil's laying his whole life bare!'”

And then I realised that he had, of course, chosen to share all the things that he had. And carefully. It didn’t mean that those things were less honest, less real or less interesting, but he had been doing what all of us writers do: picking his words and his moments. We should all get to share on our own terms.

I liked his honesty. He wasn’t trying to prop up any persona.

---

A little after this time, I was asked on a date by a conservative American woman who I met in my first year at university in London. We saw each other a few times and stayed in touch when she returned to California. A couple of years later, the American Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin spoke about “death panels” run by Britain’s National Health Service. Online, I expressed my annoyance and anger both at Palin just making things up, as well as at the volume of people who seemed to simply accept her words. My former date said that Palin was allowed to “express her opinion” and I didn’t know how to begin to explain, to an adult in her mid 20s, the difference between fact and opinion, or that she could check such things in a moment, since she was online. That frustrated me so much.

This discussion played out over a relatively new website called Facebook, which had become an invaluable way to connect with my fellow students. I had feared being alone at university, lost in a big city, but the opposite had happened. As soon as we all finished our first year of studies and were hurried out of our student residences, we scattered across the capital and the closeness I had taken for granted was suddenly lost. But Facebook became a directory of friendship, another library of lives. In its early days, I made jokes about people oversharing, or using the site to attract attention, but this wasn’t any different to how some of us might behave anywhere else. It wasn’t such a big deal. That’s just humans.

And anyway, I like to share. My whole life, I’ve enjoyed sharing things I think are important because I feel like it helps me make genuine connections, express myself and feel useful. I saw the internet becoming another way of doing this, another way to be genuine. The younger me had played in bands and held dreams of reaching other people through music, in awe of those moments when an audience sings an artist’s lyrics back to them. I still wanted that, that connection, or some version of it.

On the ever-growing internet, we could all share ourselves more. It could become a new medium for acceptance and understanding. What a glorious future it promised.

---

In time, I adopted all of the social media platforms that I use because I enjoy human connection and I think one of the fundamental traits of people is that they can be so interesting. They do stuff, they make things, they go places, they inspire and they pull humour out of the most difficult of situations like a conjurer tugging an elephant from a beanie. I’d like to be able to do those things. Some days I can barely make a pancake.

Social media allowed me to make and share even more, and now I was sharing things with two people at dinner, ten people at a party or a hundred people online. The number mattered less than the creation’s ability to connect, because it all helped me figure people out and it helped me figure myself out. It helped me figure everything out so that, perhaps one day, I might also learn the trick that lets you tug an elephant out of a beanie. I would be able to say to people “Ah yes, you start with the trunk,” or “Surprisingly, you pull from the tail.” Then they could pass that on. Social media seemed particularly good for this, a way for us to all enrich one another.

In 2008, a series of devastating terrorist attacks erupted across Mumbai. Many of the events were documented in real-time by both journalists and locals using Twitter, which made the site seem to me to be an invaluable new perspective on current events. By the start of the next decade, the Arab Spring saw a broad uprising across North Africa, with thousands of people united in protest by the unifying power of social media. It felt like these tools could change our world forever.

Some other things happened as that decade wound down.

A woman on Twitter made a poor joke about AIDS and Africa before boarding a flight, only to find that, by the time she had landed, her words had been shared around the world many millions of times. A woman in England was caught on camera putting a cat in a bin, the footage of which went viral and received such an overwhelmingly furious reaction that one national newspaper asked, only half-joking, if she was the most evil woman in Britain. These events were shared, discussed and dissected with a comparable passion and level of investment as the terrorist attacks and the Arab Spring. On the internet, a cat in a bin was becoming as important as terrorists in a hotel.

I flexed some cynical opinions. We all had opinions by then (though still not the same as facts), because it was increasingly difficult not to get swept up in things like these as and when they happened. They were everywhere, echoed and repeated, with a kind of mentality of momentum. Countless people changed their profile pictures to something green in support of protesters in Iran, or added a flag to support victims of terror in France. They signed internet petitions demanding Something Be Done, though it wasn’t always clear where these petitions would be delivered or how they would compel someone to act. None of these protesters or victims were in any way saved, protected or enabled by a person on the other side of the planet clicking their mouse like this, but if a million other people did it, those metrics created a validity of their own.

I think I remember the late 2000s as the time that I really began to feel different about these things. But by then, I was too bought in. It had already gone from a habit to a dependency.

Year by year, the internet had become less egalitarian. Monolithic sites and spaces were increasingly the center of the experience, whether hubs like MSN and Yahoo, social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, or popular news outlets. We found ourselves in the same places, over and over, and we relied on these for our new discoveries. While social media in particular pitched itself as something that put us all on the same level, behind the scenes levers were already being pulled to shape and to manipulate what was shown and shared.

(That’s okay, people told me. Turn on this feature, or adjust these options, and you get to pull your own levers. That’ll undo everything. You still get to share on your own terms.)

These sites had swelled to envelop us, going from making themselves exciting to making themselves essential. We no longer went online, we were online, always, and we left more and more of ourselves there even when we were away from our screens. Social media allowed you to collect everything together, becoming a place where you could simultaneously read updates from your friends, your parents, Leonardo Di Caprio, the Prime Minister, your favourite newspaper and your favourite sports team. All in a moment and all competing for your attention. Sites like Google and YouTube started to track and understand the preferences of their users, delivering to them more of what they wanted, working hard to grab and to keep their attention. You liked that dog, that topic, that politician? Here’s another.

Here’s another, again.

I was pulling levers all the time, frantically now, like someone operating locks and gates to try and dam an ever more overwhelming flow. My social media sites had changed from something that I used to something I had to manage. Not only were we all carefully curating who we broadcast to and when, lest we offend an employer or shock a relative, we also found ourselves trying to coordinate and customise them, because if we didn’t they would do this for us. They began to choose what to show us, based on what they believed we cared about, they began to offer us things, based on who they believed we were. They even began to mess with time, giving us information and updates out of chronological order. All of these were changes we often had to undo or at least be mindful of, if we even knew about them. If we wanted to. And if we knew how.

If we didn’t, our reality might shift.

---

I still remember the excitement of our first explorations online. My first favourite website was Snopes, which was then a collection of myths and urban legends, most of them debunked. In the late 90s, bullshit chainletter emails would bounce around the internet with stories about how some Russian scientists had drilled their way to hell, or how a new computer virus had come out, or how Coca Cola dissolved human teeth. Sometimes, the strangest of stories really were true, or at least partially so, but most of them were trash. Thanks to Snopes, you could check such things in a moment. I loved that about the internet.

On September 11th 2001, almost twenty years ago now, it was difficult to disagree about what we saw happening right in front of our eyes. Nevertheless, there were a few people afterward who insisted that a plane had not hit the Pentagon, that the towers had been deliberately demolished, that some more mysterious sequence of events had transpired. They lurked in the darkest corners of the internet, much as they had always existed on any other margins in any other mediums. The rest of us could get on with our lives.

I grew up playing games and then, later, I became someone who analysed, critiqued and even designed them. One of the most powerful and important things I learned through games is that so much in life is based around systems and the longer a system is around for, the better we become at manipulating it. When a game has been around for a long time, we find many different ways to play it and sometimes we have to adjust the rules of the game to account for this. The rules for chess that we have today have seen many adjustments and revisions. The same is true for football. It is also true for our laws and for our systems of government. We have to modify these things in part because times change, but also in part because they are being abused and exploited, subverted in ways their designers never imagined.

Or simply used as optimally as possible.

It’s 2021 and the internet monoliths that we have begun to take for granted, that have surged like the rising oceans to engulf our lives and to carry us along their currents, are constantly being used in ways their designers never imagined. Two years ago, we thought the biggest problem we had with social media and internet monoliths was their subversion to manipulate elections, with great armies of bots and fake profiles being created and directed faster than the people who owned social media sites being able to prevent this. This presence could bring amplification and validity to anyone or to anything. “Learn the algorithm,” was the key to success online. Use a site or social media platform in a particular way and it will elevate you further. Elevate your work. Or your truth. Or just you.

Now, more than a year and a half into a pandemic that defines our generation, the areas of the internet with which we’ve become most familiar and most comfortable, those which we began to pour our lives and identity into, are not only places where elections were subverted, they’re places where the difference between life and death are considered a matter of opinion, where science and fact can be openly ridiculed, where conspiracies about September 11th are tiny in comparison. For some time now they’ve already been well-worn battlefields, public arenas within which opinion and force of will often carry more weight than evidence and reason, but now the consequences of doubling down on a belief are undeniably the difference between living and dying.

More important, for some people, is the difference between right and wrong. Not so much being right, but being seen being right, can give you validity, clout, value. I think we’ve reached the point where dying while being seen as right can matter more than living and admitting a mistake.

The flow of the internet, all those locks and gates opened by algorithms or AI or other people’s decisions that may simply have been motivated by a desire to give us what we like, have made it more difficult than ever to find things that go against the current, or to grasp something we can be sure is objective or straightforward.

One part of me believes that we can no longer look things up in a moment any more, because we have to second-guess every other thing we find. As a journalist and researcher, I never feel secure with what I find on the internet now and I dig, I verify and I compare, still coming away unsure, often worried I will publish something glaringly incorrect. A different part of me, a more dramatic part, sometimes wonders which things are even real.

I suppose anything is real if you can get away with it. If nobody ever notices.

---

There’s another aspect to all this, the aspect that makes me the most uncomfortable. The aspect I least enjoy discussing, but which I have to if I can fully explain myself.

Living alongside the internet, I’ve watched as some of us pull all those levers simply to control the flow as best we can, to keep ourselves afloat, but others have viewed this experience differently. They’ve seen it as a challenge, as another system they can manipulate. It’s an opportunity for them to choose how they present themselves. The more levers they pull, the greater their ability to do so. The more time they invest, the greater the result.

If you take your flashlight, lamp or light source and point it toward an object, you can easily affect the size and the shape of the shadows it will cast. Under your control, those shadows can lengthen or deepen, they can sweep and distort. A light up close can cast a gigantic shadow across a far wall, perhaps a sharp one or perhaps one fuzzy and undefined. Try it. See what you can make. The more you do it, the more tricks you can learn.

All of us try to present our best selves and all of us have our different selves, too. Forty years before I ever went online, the sociologist Erving Goffman published The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, a book about how we behave differently in different contexts. It’s natural for us to speak to our family in a different way to how we speak to our best friend, or to our colleagues, or to a crowd we might be addressing in a speech. It’s not necessarily disingenuous, it’s merely a part of the human experience. But impression management, as Goffman called it, is also a matter of degrees. Some people are more invested than others. If given the tools to perform more effective impression management, more levers they can pull, they will engage even further.

I have flexed a few cynical opinions in my life (at least as many as three, the stats suggest) but, at the same time, I think I have to admit that I have also been very naïve about people. I tend to take many of them on face value and assume they are genuine. Many of us are, perhaps even most of us. But I’ve come to know both that this isn’t always the case and that, given the opportunity, some people will use every tool at their disposal to shape a false version of themselves. We’ve found ourselves in an era where this is more possible than ever. It’s no longer simply within the purview of politicians and PR firms, it’s within reach of every one of us and all we need to do is put in the time and energy. The reward can be ever greater popularity, ever more validation

And I’m so tired of seeing this.

Over the past half decade or so, I have seen the internet and its many systems gamed more than ever. Gamed for political gain, gamed for personal gain and gamed to create images, personalities and that god-awful golem of hollow and lifeless artifice that is brand. Now a person can be a product, a new kind of commodity in this ever more opaque ecosystem.

The nausea and unhappiness I feel from all this is more than the simple declaration that I’m not a brand, I’m a person. It’s the discovery that other people, sometimes people I’ve known, really are a brand now. Their time, their energy, their life is now invested in shaping and maintaining that image, that brand, perhaps even at the expense of other pursuits. And with the right manipulations, the right tugging of the correct levers, they can perpetuate that, build that and further gain the affirmations and validations they need to prove to themselves that what they have created is as solid and as true and as real as anything else. And how would we know any different?

The ocean is not so far from my home. It’s not unusual to walk the beach or the seawall and see people engaged in impromptu photoshoots, dressed in their very best, expertly presented and shot with long lenses. A friend told me that most of these shoots are for the purpose of enriching dating profiles, that there’s an increasing feeling of expectation, a sense that everyone must present their very best selves, simply because everyone else now does so. To be on a dating site is to feel engaged in an ever-escalating competition for time and attention, to need to package oneself as the best possible product.

I don’t at all object to the idea of dating sites, but I could never get comfortable with them and I used to feel like I was browsing a human meat market, that it was all too easy for me to make judgements about people I didn’t know and then cast them aside. I felt, again, like people had become products and this was a system and a process I did not want to be part of. You can game it, people tried to tell me. There are ways to make it work better for you, it just takes a little time. I didn’t want to know.

The more time you spend trying to engage with things that aren’t genuine, the less you have for what is real.

When I use the internet these days it’s with an increasing sense of discomfort and disquiet. I find myself already on the lookout for the artificial. I second-guess people as much as I do information. I’m all too aware of the constructed persona and the deliberate framing, of that angling of a light to cast a particular shadow. In a few cases, this isn’t an abstract concern and social media in particular can be a place where I watch people I know are starkly different to the image they project be celebrated for the false façade they maintain, a façade that can be further reinforced by popularity and prominence. I see harmful and unhealthy people championed even in spite of their actions, because they have managed to engineer support and validation, or using the popularity and affirmation they have gained to push opinion over fact. The disingenuous and the distorted tie together like a greasy braid, each one reinforcing the other, and it’s no wonder falsehoods can spread so far, whether false representations or false information. I would say that sometimes I almost feel like I’m back at school, amongst the same gossip and garbage, but this is far worse than any of the toxic social dynamics and popularity contests that school ever created, and now it comes with measurable metrics in the form of likes, follows, retweets or subscriptions.

I’m sure, at this point, this is a common experience and common concern for most of us, and we are each finding our own ways to handle it.

Or not. For me, the experience is deeply unpleasant.

While drafting this I idly wondered if we could somehow develop a new version of Snopes for human beings. A demystifier of people, something that reveals each person’s private Picture of Dorian Gray, which grows ever more warped as they reinforce their persona ever more. But I’m sure even that would be gamed and subverted before too long.

I'm so, so tired of trying to work out who is real.

---

The internet monoliths I move between in my daily life all have one thing in common. Google, Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, Facebook, Patreon and so many others are all based in the same place: the United States. They are towering. They overwhelm the rest of the internet. The levers that many of these pull, controlling currents and flow, are being operated in the United States. The politics, existential crises and cultural interests of that country are disproportionately represented and, while I care very much about the United States, I also want to hear about the rest of the world. I want to hear about where I live, and yet even that feels like it comes second. Yes, I am pulling all the levers that are supposed to make this happen. No, it isn’t entirely successful. I am using a paddle against a tsunami.

Once the bias is there, the snowball effect perpetuates. So often, whether I choose to or not, I am in that motel room watching a plethora of American news again, or its modern equivalent. It frustrates me so much. Most of us Westerners essentially live in America some of the time now, if we spend any period online. That’s where our presence and our attention are pointed.

Before publishing this essay, I changed every mention of “torch” to “flashlight” because I felt I had to cater to an internet that sees the first word only as a burning chunk of wood, not as a British battery-powered light source.

The internet doesn’t feel like the world any more. It hasn’t for a long time.

---

I can’t abandon the internet of today. I need it for work. I need it to promote the things I create. I need it to keep in touch with people. I’m not different or special, only someone too bought in as well, my use also going from a habit to a dependency. But it has almost entirely stopped being a place of delight and discovery. It has lost any sense of being egalitarian. So much less is new, so much less is unfamiliar. So much more has an agenda.

Algorithms, metrics and social media have quantified and gamified everything, encouraging competitiveness and narcissism. Public spaces have become arenas and arenas encourage performance. In an attention economy, the outrageous and the overblown mean a cat in a bin can have the same profile and presence as terrorists in a hotel. In spaces that now mix our friends, our parents, Leonardo Di Caprio, the Prime Minister, our favourite newspapers and our favourite sports teams, people we know and love are elevated or relegated according to how interesting an algorithm has decided they are, pushing them to the fore or pulling them from your view. “People on Twitter are the first to know,” says the social network that prides itself on immediacy more than integrity or fact-checking. Misinformation abounds. As the line between person and brand has smudged between all recognition, corporations insert themselves into and between everything else we try to examine. Surrounded by banner ads, the conflicts of polarised culture generate enormous revenue for monolithic American tech companies. As we fight, push our narratives, construct our personas or compete in the race to prove we are the most woke, we all make @Jack richer, or provide Zuck with more of our personal data.

I also find myself reminded of what Octavia Butler called “simple peck-order bullying,” the hierarchical behaviour where people want to, and now can, elevate themselves above others, according to identities they've built for themselves, to push their ideas, push their image, push their sense of superiority or push their opinions so hard that they can reshape them into facts. Anything is possible with enough pulling of enough levers. And now more people have more of those levers. And some of them love to pull and then push, pull and then push.

I don’t like what the internet has turned into, nor what it has turned people into.

So what now?

---

This was an essay inspired by an essay, inspired by an essay, which is always how it goes. Creativity is theft and anyone who says otherwise is only trying to distract you as they secretly shake you down. The eternal question that writers (or anyone creative) is supposed to dread is “Where do you get your ideas?” Because we aren’t supposed to know. But we do know. We get them from everyone else. We thieve them.

Ideas are pickpocketed from the people we pass in twisting evening alleyways, during the briefest moments of darkness and distraction. They’re caught with nets as they flutter with all the freedom of sweet springtime naivete. They’re spied upon from tremendous distances through the jealous lenses of sparkling telescopes. Nothing is truly ours and anyone wringing their words into a desperate defence of some unique capacity for originality ex nihilo is either deceptive or deluded.

(Avoid them. You’re likely their next target.)

This essay was heavily inspired by Lucy Bellwood reflecting on Nicole Brinkley. Both have written nuanced examinations of social media (focusing on Twitter) that I think you should make the time to read, but I’ll try and sum up the main thing I have taken from their writing in one line:

Social media is extremely bad, in a multitude of ways and for many complex reasons, and it is okay to leave it.

This is in so small part my interpretation, coloured by a particular belief I hold, that being that social media is extremely bad, in a multitude of ways and for many complex reasons, and it is okay to leave it. You can probably see why I approve.

There’s more to it than that. Brinkley talks about Twitter essentially breaking the way the Young Adult literature scene works, which to me is one facet of a dangerously seductive diamond that repeats many different stories of damage done by how we’ve used and gamed the internet. Her wonderful conclusion is that “These days it’s okay to not be sure what Twitter is for. We can stop going there until we figure it out.” And I so desperately wish I could stop going on the internet until I could figure out what it is for now, too. I wish it wasn’t essential. But it is, broken as it may be, breaking things as it may be.

While I don’t think leaving it is an option for me, I am using so much of it less. I have to. Social media, a place where I am shown arguments and controversy over the lives of people I care about, has become somewhere for me to hurriedly hurl out a quick update or two before I flee, escaping before I come across something, or even someone, that will make me sad. Any search box is a cause for scepticism, prompting me to analyse the results it gives and try a dozen different ways to find the same thing, just in case. Even Snopes is now a running commentary on the (American) news cycle. The best I can do whenever I think something fundamental to our society is unhealthy is to participate in that thing as little as possible. I know this limits my reach, limits my relevance and limits my success, but I also know that this makes me less unhappy and allows me to continue to feel genuine. Like I am still myself. Like I am still real. It may be apparent that my mental health has taken a few hits over the last couple of years. It doesn’t need to take any more.

I am not only unsure what Twitter is for, I am unsure what the whole internet is for.

---

There is no conclusion to this essay. It is supposed to be six thousand words of open-ended reflection. The past year or so has sometimes been a huge struggle for me and it really is true that some days I can barely make a pancake. Work has been difficult, writing has been difficult and maintaining regular Patreon updates has been difficult, with this piece being a huge challenge to finish. I think I’ve tried to make the best of things, as well as present an honest but still positive face to the world. I have piles of tasks to get through and I tackle what I can, with what feels like so much competing for my attention. At the same time, I can’t opt out of the systems I live and work inside of, much as I can’t stop paying rent or putting food in my mouth, because individuals can't kick a habit society has become dependent upon. I think the best thing I can do right now is be truthful about all that, try to remain as genuine as I can and continue to step away from what makes me uncomfortable, giving myself some distance from the things that make me unhappy.

That doesn’t mean I’m disappearing (I’m still checking in on social media, streaming on Twitch and so on), nor does it mean this change or this philosophy is forever, nor does it mean that things can’t improve. But it does mean I’m changing a few things about myself, my habits and my preferences. And it does mean I have a working, temporary, if unsatisfactory answer to the question “So what now?”

It is: “We’ll see.”

---

A big thanks to my Patreon community for the links I’m adding here, post-publication.

The first is How sex censorship killed the internet we love, on Endgadget, about controlling the internet in all sorts of ways and about what might be considered explicit (apparently a condom might be explicit).

Then there’s The internet Is Rotting, from the Atlantic, about bits of the internet that are disappearing and the loss of information that comes with it, as well as information that is overwritten and altered. We are keeping less than you might think.

Finally, The web began dying in 2014, here’s how, by André Staltz, talks about the growing prominence of big corporations (all American), what their priorities are, and what online things (services) they may bring to you.

#Patreon #America #Erving Goffman #September 11th #persona #social media #the internet #writing

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gaiapaia · 3 years

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Kermit and Friends: God Bless America

Kermit and Friends was all over the news cycle last week.

From Elisa Jordana being interviewed in US Weekly Magazine, to Wendy Williams addressing Elisa and Andy Dick on her show, to even Fox News covering the story.... everyone wanted to discuss the bombshell Elisa dropped last week on Kermit and Friends regarding Andy Dick's most recent arrest.

All of this began on Tuesday evening. Elisa's birthday was on Wednesday and she remained relatively quiet on her social media and in the Kermit and Friends Discord. So what happened at her birthday party?

Andy forgot about Elisa's birthday. No shocker there. Still, Elisa managed to get Andy on the phone and paid to have a car go pick him up. To Andy’s credit, he got in the car. Unfortunately, that’s the only credit he will receive from this point forward.

When Andy arrived, the first thing Elisa did was introduce him to her lovely mother. Instead of small talking and exchanging pleasantries, Andy immediately asked Elisa’s mom if she had any pills she could give him. Yikes!

Andy would only stay at the party for a short while. He showed more attention to Lisa Vanderpump than he did to Elisa, and then he would run off to go hang out with the guy who allegedly broke his ankle, Lucas.

So Andy pretty much ruined Elisa’s birthday. Does he care? Of course not. Andy wouldn’t talk to Elisa again until Saturday night when he called Elisa to ask her to pay for his hotel bill. After Elisa declined, Andy hung up on her and blocked Elisa on Instagram. This is really sad, pathetic behavior.

Elisa is claiming she’s officially done with Andy. The thing is, Elisa has one of the most forgiving souls on the planet. All Andy would have to do is have one nice conversation with Elisa and she’ll most likely then treat him (and his friends) to dinner. Who knows if Andy will even do that though. I personally hope not, and if he does... maybe Elisa will keep her foot down this time and refuse to allow Andy to keep hurting her like this.

I’ve been friends with Elisa since 2015. I could do a run down right now of the guys Elisa has dated since I’ve been blessed to know her, and I wouldn’t have anything good to say about any of them except maybe Gonzo, which honestly was just a fling.

Elisa deserves better than this. I desperately hope throughout our friendship that I set some kind of precedent to show Elisa how she should be treated by anyone who claims to love her. If I can get one thing out of my efforts these last 5 years, it’s that. It’s fine that Elisa doesn’t love me back... but it’s my main wish that she someday understands how I treat her is how the real man in her life should treat her. And hopefully that guy has many other amazing qualities to offer too, because Elisa deserves that as well if she’s going to give her heart to someone.

For all my bickering and griping about the men in Elisa’s life this last decade, we met a lovely young woman yesterday by the name of Mel who’s had it even worse than Elisa!

Mel is Jesse G-Rider’s ex-girlfriend. She was a part of the infamous trap house gang right before Elisa became emerged in it. Mel’s relationship with Jesse was extremely abusive, to say the least. There were cases of petty jealousy, beatings, drugs... you name it, it most likely happened.

Jesse called in highly upset with Elisa for having Mel on the show. Jesse claims he has a restraining order against Mel despite the fact that Mel moved all the way to Detroit, Michigan to escape Jesse.

Jesse then threatened Elisa with legal action, claiming it’s illegal to help a person contact another person who has a restraining order against them. Newsflash to Jesse: first of all, that’s not illegal, dumb dumb. Secondly, YOU called into the show. Elisa didn’t call you with Mel on the line. So even if in some ass backwards World where you could press charges against Elisa, they would be dropped immediately because JESSE initiated the contact by his own free will, and it’s all on recorded video.

Anyway, Mel was fantastic on the show. She had cute little elf ears, top notch internet and audio, a nice gaming chair... Elisa was impressed by all of this, as I was I. Mel looked like a professional streamer and she was a good storyteller that was also very vulnerable and honest. She’s everything Elisa looks for in a Kermit and Friends star. Hopefully Mel will become a regular in our community.

During Mel’s interview, Sharmin Smith went in head first about the horrors of abuse and what America needs to do to help women like Mel out. As a survivor of abuse, Sharmin has some strong feelings on the matter and she was not shy to share them. Even though her Presidential bid for 2020 was unsuccessful, I hear by declare Sharmin Smith President of Kermit and Friends. In my book, that’s why better than being President of the United States of America!

We love America on Kermit and Friends though. Yesterday was July the 4th and Elisa invited Tony Alexander on to discuss his career in the American military and what he’s heroically done to help fellow veterans who have had a rough time adjusting to normal life once they returned home from the war. Tony was a class act through and through, and it was great to see Kermit make a new friend like him on Independence Day.

Another US veteran joined the show, Kermit’s old pal Chris Christine. She said a lovely prayer and then randomly flip opened the Bible so that God could choose a special passage to share with all of Kermit’s beautiful friends. She landed on 1 Kings 6, which is about Solomon building a temple of the Lord, much like Elisa has built the Kermitarian Church!

Claire from New Jersey called at the beginning of the show to ask Elisa her thoughts on Wendy Williams’ segment about Elisa and Andy. Wendy wasn’t very kind - she made light of Andy’s addiction despite being an addict herself, she told a very distasteful joke about Bill Cosby getting hired before Andy ever would, she mispronounced Elisa’s name on purpose, and she claimed that Elisa was trying to use Andy for success. So funny how the ignorant morons who say stuff like that don’t realize it’s been Andy using Elisa this entire time... it’s honestly sexism. Wendy as a woman herself should know better, but I guess her IQ just isn’t at a place where she could ever grasp that.

Sigmond returned to Kermit and Friends this week. Elisa kindly invited Sigmond to her birthday party on Wednesday and by all accounts, he was a superb guest. He even bought Elisa a present! Yep, Sigmond Twayne's Mental Cookbook was his gift and Elisa seemed to love it. This led to Gonzo calling in to ask why the book is so cheap on Amazon. Sigmond, remembering that it was Gonzo who called him a serial killer last week, said Gonzo is a liar and that the book cost $37 on Amazon. Well, Gonzo was actually being truthful because at the time of this blog entry, the book is on sale for just $8.76 from it’s listed price of $37.00. Do NOT miss out on this AMAZING deal and buy your copy today by clicking here!

Of course, Kermit and Friends isn’t Kermit and Friends without some spectacular musical performances. Boy, were we blessed with some good ones for the 4th of July. Elisa’s dad Craig returned to the show to beautifully perform a patriotic song from the 1700′s in which I sadly can’t find the title of. Sigmond’s partner Wappy performed an incredible original song and covered Pool Shark by Sublime. Elisa would also play one of Sugar’s awesome music videos for everyone to enjoy. Good stuff all around from Kermit’s unbelievably talented friends.

All in all, it was a very eventual Kermit and Friends, one absolutely fitting for Independence Day. The future seems more uncertain than ever, but as long as Kermit has all her friends to enjoy, everything will be A-okay. Can’t wait to see what next week’s show will bring :)

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nightswithkookmin · 4 years

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Hye Goldy, I love your blog. I'm happy to find a jikooker who isn't afraid to address real and non-idealistic aspects of jikook relationship. My question has to do with Jungkook's reactions to jimin initiating any contact with him, be it physical or emotional. Jk reactions go between nervousness, annoyance, embarrassment, uncomfortableness and withdrawals in on himself.

Like when Jimin gets playful and he gets close or touchy, or when JK has a hard time and Jimin shows his worry for him and tries to comfort him, tries to reach out for him. For example during run 100 or 101 episode when JK got hit by ball and jimin went to check on him and kept insisting asking him if he was ok, jk kind of ignored him. Or during the voice acting run episode when he said he was cold and Jimin hugged him and his eyes bugged out of his head ans his body went all tense. There are so many instances like this.

Jk on the other hand is sometimes bold, setting course for some of the most questionable jikook moments. But often he's subdued and laid back. Again, another example, would be when Yoongi hit the ball directly at jimin. Compare to Jimin over worried self he just went over and looked at him once and when he saw Jimin was laughing he went back.

What do you think about this? How do you explain it?

How do I explain what?👀

Are his reactions a problem?👀

Do you want to free Jimin?👀

Chilee Anon, you are bold. Don't let JK hear you say these things. Lmho.

I think for the most part, you are just pointing out the differences in their personalities and their unique ways of expressing themselves in general not just towards eachother.

Jikook are two very distinct individuals and they express themselves differently. I feel a lot of people forget that sometimes but it's actually not that deep.

Jk is naturally reserved, introverted and not overly nurturing or affectionate. He has said this himself and Jimin has described him as not very good at expressing his emotions or communicating his feelings as well.

You can't expect him to express himself or his affections the same way an extroverted honorary hufflepuff and natural nurturer with no shame like Jimin would. That's asking for too much, I think. Lol.

I don't think there is anything wrong with JK or the way he expresses himself towards Jimin to be honest. As I keep saying, Jikook negotiate their needs most times to make for the differences in their personalities. Their relationship is not one sided. If there are aspects of JK's personality that impedes on the quality of love Jimin requires to feel satisfied in their dynamics Jimin would say so and I believe JK would work on it and vice versa. I mean we've seen them do that repeatedly over the years.

Jimin loves to be loved and he's said so himself and I believe he knows exactly what makes him feel loved and what doesn't. In the Grammy reaction video, he literally hopped over his soul mate and best friend to get a hug from JK bumping his head in the process. He was seeking emotional warmth from him. I don't think if JK's touches were cold he would keep turning to him for it.

At fan signs when Jk isn't next to him, he grabs the mic and tells Jungkook his place is beside him.

At awards when JK is having fun with his friends, he hugs his hyungs for comfort till JK comes running to him. When Hobi and JK are off in the corner playing kids, he glares at them till JK comes to stand behind him and blows on the back of his head to placate him.

On red carpets from the Grammys to Jingle bell when he can't stand next to JK because they have to stand in their official positions he literally breaks down- well almost breaks down.

There is something warm about JK that doesn't translate to the screens.

Jk does the same thing. When he needs Jimin's presence he grabs him by the neck and pulls him to himself. When he is feeling anxious and needs to calm down he rubs on Jimin's arms to soothe himself.

During performances when he's waited for JM to interact with him and JM isn't doing that, he walks to him to wrap his hands around him or sing with him. He cheats his way through games to be on the same team with JM, he literally teleports his ass to be next to JM. He throws tantrums when he can't be next to him.

Jimin didn't wake him up once and he whined about it in interviews. Jimin left him out of a VLive and he started a revolution on VLive.

There is something they both need from eachother's presence and they take it from eachother when they need it- as far as their need for affections and intimacy go. In my opinion.

They take up a lot of space in eachother's lives, riding together, spending time together outside of work, getting in eachother's personal space and groping eachother excessively- not that I'm complaining. I mean, I wanna see it all. Lol. But it would be counterintuitive for either of them, especially JK to do all of these things, be an accomplice of, participate in and initiate certain intimate moments with JM himself if Jimin made him in anyway uncomfortable, annoyed or embarrassed.

It also says a lot about BTS and BigHit if it is true, that JK is uncomfortable being intimate with Jimin, for having sat and watched this sordidity go on between Jikook for years without intervening, or standing up for JK, to protect him against Jimin imposing himself on jK in that way, by calling JM out for making the youngest among them feel uncomfortable with his skinship and gestures towards him. It would be a failure on their part not to uphold their common duty to protect and act in the interests of JK as the hyungs, agent and guardians of JK.

It would be a failure and a huge betrayal on JM's part too. Jimin is and portrays himself as a very considerate person with a high emotional intelligence quotient who cares about and loves JK. It would be insensitive and not so loving or intelligent of him to not know his actions, skinship and affections make another person uncomfortable or annoyed.

And for him to persist in these endeavors throughout the years knowing full well they are not welcomed, reciprocated or enjoyed by JK would not just be unconscionable on his part but would make him dumb, abusive and vile- a rhetoric anti Jimin, anti Jikook and most Tuktukkers peddle on these streets and I don't blame them. Ignorance and hatred will do that to a person.

This rhetoric implicates not just JM but JK himself, BTS and the company as they all have stock and owe a duty of care towards eachother and JK as the youngest amongst them, to create and foster a work environment where everyone's bodily integrity, mind and spirit is respected and upheld. One in which they all feel safe within.

Let's talk ships for a second. You think Tae or Suga will let Jimin make JK uncomfortable in that way and not stand up for JK or call JM out for that? Tae? Taehyung? Sis, there's a reason Yeontan doesn't like him. He is over protective. Lol. That dog just wanna walk down the streets with Min Holly on his arm.

Let me paint you a picture. When JK got injured on stage and he went to JM and JM comforted him but his part was coming up so he left to go sing, Taehyung stood by JK and followed him around the stage never taking his eyes off him- even though JK was just gravitating towards JM because he was feeling vulnerable and JM had no idea what was happening behind him.

In Run 116, another recent instance of JK's vulnerable moments, because to me he was dealing with a broken heart- because Jikook had broken up around that period in my opinion, JK was leaning into Tae for that comfort.

Feel free to disagree anyone but I'm afraid I have to stand by my opinion and observations and understanding of their dynamics. Lol.

Notice how the one time JM initiated skinship with JK in that episode, because JK had spent the entire episode closed off to him, Jimin kept stealing glances at the members? His eyes kept shifting and he looked almost nervous? Now why do you think that is?

The members will not allow Jimin to impose himself on JK like that.

It's the second time in years I've seen Jimin act like he needed permission to interact with JK. Did you see the blackswan shoot interview around that period? Tae and Kook around early January through to the On period?

Tae would not stand and watch Jimin play JK's feelings like that, take advantage of him or make him uncomfortable. Neither would Suga quite frankly. RM wouldn't stand for it nor will Jin or Hobi.

If you noticed any thing off with Jikook around the period you mentioned, it's probably because they were getting back together after a breakup and their interactions were in the aftermath of a hiccup in their relationship. Again, my opinion.

Compare that Run moment you mentioned where JM was hit in the eye to the recent Grammy reaction behind scenes when JM hit his head and was hurting or even to all the events post October... same vibe as On Era, different intensities. We will talk about the October timeline again soon. I think I've seen enough to form an opinion. Lol.

My point is, Jikook have unique love needs and love languages. Jimin speaks JK's love language even if that language is not JK's own way of expression.

When asked what JK liked about Jimin, JK said it was his shamelessness. Deep it. We find attractive in others qualities we admire or lack in ourselves.

JK harbors a lot of shame over a lot of things. He is not Jimin. He may panic when JM suddenly pounces on him because he knows JM is wild, shameless and reckless but that doesn't mean he doesn't enjoy it.

That compliment he gave Jimin about his shameless to me was also a confession of his own shame and reservations around his expressions of self- something I feel he has been working to overcome through out the years. It's only in recent times that the members have said he's become a bit shameless himself.

JK describes Jimin's self expressions as sexy and shameless. He's said he's wanted to look sexy too and perform a sexy dance too. He may not have openly admitted this but I believe shamelessness is a quality he wants in himself.

To be shameless implies, on a certain level, JM lacks guilt, is impervious to judgment and doesn't give regard to his environment when he expresses himself.

Jimin may not have a lot of guilt about his sexuality but he has a lot of fear and JK may not have a lot of fear in him but he has a lot of guilt about his sexuality and both are not less gay.

All these beautiful moments of expressions from Jimin you seemly applaud were at one point viewed as disgraceful acts or acts of shame and worthy of condemnation that in JK's view perhaps shouldn't have been expressed so openly by Jimin or any gay man for that matter- the emphasis is mine.

I'm going off on a tangent but stick with me.

That shame he associates with JM's self expressions on the surface may just be as a result of his shyness and introvertedness but I also think his internalized homophobia brought on by his own past repressed homosexuality could be an underlying factor. In my opinion.

It's very unsettling, as a closeted person, to watch other queer people in close proximity to you perform sexuality and queerness so openly without fear or shame and be met with the level of ridicule JM was met with in those early days parading himself as the queer jest of the group. It was cringe merely watching those moments from the screen.

If he viewed his queerness as wrong in any way on a fundamental level, then we cannot reasonably expect him to suddenly have a complete 360 turn around or a hundred percent shift from this mentality. It doesn't work like. Being closeted can have lasting effects on a person even long after they have come out of the closet.

I believe JK is aware of this. Do I think he is happy with it? No. But I believe he is working on it. Like the members said, he has changed alot this past year and has a lot of self awareness now. In his Weverse interview, they pointed out how he is constantly working to improve himself.

It is why I think often when he panics and pulls away in such moments he tries to reestablish contact with Jimin to reassure him he is not rejecting him. I think I pointed it out in my video analysis on YT. He knows he has a lot to work through and I know JM is patient with him when it comes to that. I see them as working through a lot of baggage as queer men honestly. They're undoing the toxic narratives of queerness and masculinity, learning not to be afraid of being themselves openly etc. They are gonna get there- eventually.

JM talks about their relationship and uses the word love to describe it and JK shifts uncomfortably. An interviewer playfully asks if JM is not his style and he panics and stutters, causing JM to butt in and save his ass with 'don't answer that.' Jimin talks about JK hugging him to sleep at a fan sign and JK shuts it down telling JM he doesn't like such things said about him because to him it was weird for JM to say stuff like that.

And you'd often hear JM asking JK if it was ok for him to say certain things or do certain things in regards to him immediately after he'd said or done them- is it ok to say I like you? Is it ok to say you cuddle me to sleep. You don't like this? You don't like that?

Clearly, JM felt the need to ask these and had to ask because perhaps JK had expressed concerns about certain things JM said and did openly in regards to him that he didn't feel comfortable with.

Jimin over expresses himself which is equally problematic if we are being honest. And JK under expresses himself, we been knew.

Over the years, he's learned to be more brazen and less reserved but he still is the same person at his core: an introvert. His introvertedness doesn't answer for his actions and choices but it answers for his mannerisms and the things you've pointed out is one of them.

I have said I don't buy into this whole JM fell first, JK fell harder narrative. For Jimin to have fallen first he would have had to be queer in those early days but I argue he wasn't ergo that entire conjecture is bogus to me. Lol.

JM over expresses himself and part of those expressions to me are mere performances divorced from his sexuality. Most of JK's expressions flow from his sexuality and I feel he is not very good at compartmentalizing. But that's not his fault. That's the consequences of being queer in a space where performative queerness is applauded but actual gayness is frowned upon and Jikook are a reflection of this.

People are ok with Jimin being gay as long as he is not gay. They are ok making gay jokes about him untill we tell them he is actually gay in a gay relationship with another gay member- then it's don't assume his sexuality and project and heteronormativity. Smh.

And the more these upcoming Idols use Jikook as the blueprint to their success by imitating and performing the queerness of Jikook for entertainment purposes the more the lines blur on what is acceptable queerness and what is political queerness.

He's built a persona and a facade for himself over the years and this persona incorporates to some degree, what you can call queer aesthetics, just a dash of gayness to keep things interesting. But it's a facade nevertheless.

Jimin is not more gay than JK because he over expresses and JK is not less gay because he under expresses and one is not better than the other.

Jimin doesn't love JK more just because he over expresses and JK doesn't love JM less just because he under expresses- if that's what you were implying by your Ask.

I read a comment from months ago under a BinJin couple video analysis where people were saying the Lady was too stiff around the Man at awards hence she was uncomfortable being around him therefore they were not real- HUH!!! Jokes on them.

I think people need to expand their vocabulary beyond he is uncomfortable ergo he doesn't like Jimin. If anything being nervous around someone you like is the first indication you like them. Lmho.

Jikook make eachother nervous. Jimin had to drag JK out of the Kitchen when he was cooking because he didn't want JK to watch him cook. Lol.

In the New Jersey VLive, Jimin gulped looking at the screen trying to keep his cool but JK clocked it and that's why he looked up at him- omg these two. Jk got them in some deep shit that day. Lmho.

Sometimes Jimin intentionally puts JK on the spot, like he did in the Japan self interviews when he blurted out the best part of his day is waking up to see JK's face. JK was shooketh. Lmho.

Did you see JK's face when JM blew him an air kiss at the award? JK could never. Lmho.

In spite of all these reactions, JK keeps going back for more. In spite of his own reactions to these moments, JK keeps praising JM for it. Does he want Jimin to stop doing those. I wish I could say yes- but I'm scared of his frying pans. Lol.

Hope this helps.

Signed,

GOLDY

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