#because me being myself is quite likely being misunderstood in a way that ruins everything

[marimayscarlett]

Obviously, I'm just speculating, but taking from what Schneider said last year - I don't think the rest of the guys were ever jealous of Till's solo work. Why would they be? Especially after Emigrate. Richard and Till clearly need a bigger let out than Rammstein can provide, and if it doesn't interfere with Rammstein, then why not? But unlike Emigrate, Lindemann went on tour. Garnered negativity that reflected onto the band. And most importantly, unlike Richard, Till got further away from them. He didn't want to and couldn't spend more time with them as individuals and as a band member. He got a new friend group, new entourage, which integrated into Rammstein and put an even bigger wedge between them. Till even stopped flying with them! And that what might've caused resentment caused by fear. Is Till quitting Rammstein? Is he even still our friend?

And Richard had a fight with Zoran before the backstage bj video which btw was tasteless and lowkey offensive to the band and the crew. Mein Teil is a great video but they've made some masterpieces since then. None of which had to involve sado masochism veiling itself as "being misunderstood".

I've nothing against Till doing what he's doing, he has every right to it but I also believe that last years incident should've been a massive eye opener (not the fucking young women part. He made it very clear with his poem that he doesn't care what we think about that) but that if he wants Rammstein to continue, he cannot lead a double life. Richard managed to separate Rammstein-self and Emigrate-self whilst still maintaining both full time. Till completely failed that, clearly deeply hurting 5 other individuals in the process. It was easier for him to do what he wants and ice everyone out. It's better if they took a long, long break than ruin 30+ year relationship with silence.

As for Zoran. He's just bitter. If post Zoran Rammstein videos are Ali Express, then wtf does that make him? Because no one even knew of him before the band and certainly he's not making any headlines post band. His only saving grace was Till but even then, his Lindemann videos aren't even the best ones..

Hi and thank you for the time and effort you put into writing this out 👋

I will work my way through this message and will add some of my own thoughts to it - this will be subjectiv and not everyone has to agree with everything.

It is true that Till and Richard both needed an additional outlet for their creative processes - the difference is that Till treats his solo project like a normal band and likes to go on tour (Richard mentioned this in one interview once that touring is a vital part for Till's creative life), while Richard treats his more like a studio project. Going out, touring with a stage show like his, putting out videos in this very style which is seen as 'typical Till' by now I might say - all this can serve as a target for misunderstanding, resentment, problems in general.

I do sometimes wonder why he takes these risks (after last summer more than ever). I know he as an artist has his own visions and wants them to come to life, which is his right - but I sometimes ask myself if it's worth it. If it's worth it that others have to deal with the problems his work/behavious has caused. But then again: it's none of my business and he has the freedom to do as he pleases.

I used this ask as an impetus to read Schneider's statement again (something which still triggers me a bit and which i haven't done in over half a year), and Schneider writes this: "Till has distanced himself from us in recent years and created his own bubble. With his own people, his own parties, his own projects. That made me sad, definitely." While I never understood this as being criticism towards Till having his musical side project, I do see it as criticism on how he treats it and how he handles things around it - between the lines there is (at least from my point of view) definitely discontent and concern. So I do believe the band doesn't see anything wrong with having side projects (in Richard's case they were even happy and relieved about it), but maybe in the trend of side projects demanding too much attention or developping possible unpleasant characteristics/outgrowths.

One can only hope that the last year really served Till as a wake up call to overthink some structures which gained influence around him.

"It's better if they took a long, long break than ruin 30+ year relationship with silence." I'm honestly not sure about this and I don't know what good a break would do in this case - since seemingly nothing incriminating had happend, there's no reason for a break in this regard, and maybe, just maybe, it's good for the band to work together this year, in their anniversary year, to actually feel close to each other, to reminisce together, something in this regard.

Regarding Zoran: Like I said in the post I reblogged, I find it highly conceited of him to quite literally say that every thing that came after him music video-wise, every art work from another director is inferior to his work in its quality (hence the 'AliExpress' metaphor). If he really means it that way, it's quite laughable to be honest. In my opinion, he is resting too much on his laurels he garnered from 'Mein Teil' - which admittedly had an immense effect and gave us Frau Schneider, and from "saving" 'Mein Herz brennt', but to say that the music videos of 'Deutschland', 'Adieu' or 'Zeit' are below his standards is mind-boggling to me (if I understand his allusion correctly).

Zoran's Lindemann videos are not my taste, and saying he wanted to express lonliness and insatiableness with a porn-video seems hypocritical and sends out 'oh I'm an artist, of course nobody understands me correctly'-pick me vibes. I'm not surprised that a lot of people who respects their own work didn't want to work with someone anymore who made a project like 'Till the end'.

[veritas-wish]

That time I manifested a crush from nothing (but went wrong).

Disclaimer: I didn’t know the law of assumption at that time, but what I did was indeed proof that the law of assumption works.

Long short story:

I had this assumption that I would meet a boy that would change me, don’t even ask me why I had this assumption, I just had… so time to go to high school, you know new people, new experiences, etc.

so the interesting part was me imagining meeting this boy that has blonde and blue eyes, extroverted and kind. And guess what? I indeed manifested someone similar to the person in my mind: blonde hair, extroverted, the one that can make the party feel more fun, but the thing is… he was immature, toxic and had no balls to tell what was going on.

The scene played a little bit similar, he got interested in me and had a crush on me. But the way he changed me was in a negative way.

He gave me like hundreds of signs that he was interested on me. He even got the audacity to be jealous because I was baiting him to see his reaction when I mentioned my “secret crush” that wasn’t from our school. Because, I wasn’t show any signs that I was interested on him (but I wasss!! I just hid it so good..) he treated me like a crap and then apologise when he made me cry.

I got more anxious, I cried like thousands of times because of him hurting my feelings and overstepping my boundaries. He didn’t respect me at all, and he was quite similar but opposite at the same time from what I had imagined and assumed. Why though?

If I could go back I should just slap my past self and remind her that she FORGOT to add that she DESERVES respect and love.

Here are the reasons why everything just went wrong with that situation:

: ̗̀➛ my self concept was the most shitty at that time. I treated myself as a crap human being that doesn’t deserve anything in the world. So the eypo (everyone is you pushed out) would reflect how disrespected and awful people can be with me because how I myself projected my idea about me in my inner conversations as well.

: ̗̀➛ I was not specific with the list at that time. Please, PLEASE be specific with your list, as much as you can. You can literally manifest anyone and everyone that you desire with your desired traits. Please remember that those people have to respect you and love you unconditionally and in a healthy way, instead of creating pointless misunderstandings.

: ̗̀➛ my core belief, where all my assumptions are coming from, were all around my past traumas. Trust issues, people are crap in general, the world is shit, I am forever doomed to be misunderstood, etc ruined everything as well.

Then how did I manifest someone that wasn’t part of my life, especially the time that I wasn’t aware of the law of assumption?

: ̗̀➛ believing in my assumption, just like a prediction reading or “I got this feeling and intuition that…” those will help you a lot to feed in your mind that your assumption will become true.

: ̗̀➛ keep repeating the feeling or a specific scene where I just meet this person. Live in the end process.

: ̗̀➛ let go and have this strong feeling that I will meet this person soon. Sort of “creation is done” process. The feeling of how you know that you will receive your package because you just order the stuff that you want and you just know that it will arrive eventually.

This is one of my experiences where it confirms that yes, you can manifest anyone specifically with specific traits. I was unaware and so not surprising I wasn’t specific enough and I messed up a lot as well. Why was I successful in manifesting though? Because at that time I was into spirituality and psychics, I was believing in my “psychic abilities” so of course I would believe in my “predictions”.

He entered my life, changed my perspective and learned quite a lot of lessons, especially knowing what type of man I want in my life. Pretty intense, but he was useful for me to be part of my growth process.

Could things have gone better if I was a pro on knowing Neville’s stuff and manifesting? Yes, absolutely. The ending could easily be much better than what I got.

Can I revise? Yes, I absolutely can, but is it worth it? I don’t think so. I moved on and I have other stuff to focus on.

My purpose was to tell you that you can manifest literally any type of sp that you desire. I even manifested specific traits that I wanted in my friends and boom, I got it.

I can do it again but that is not on my main goal list right now.

My fellow loa believers, this little story is a reminder that we are absolutely god of our reality and the knowledge that we have right now is a fucking cheat code to have a better life and make our life easier than society taught to us.

If you have any questions feel free to drop on my ask box♥️🫶🏻

[stardustizuku]

So I read the second part of your ml analysis which is very good btw, but I have two questions: 1. you say something about how Adrien would never give up being Chat bc of freedom and stuff, but he does so in syren (kind of) and in kuro neko. I mean, it would make sense that he wouldn‘t bc of the reasons you stated, I‘m there with you, but… that‘s not canon? There are instances where he gives up his hero life bc he‘s insecure of what LB thinks of him (which tbf seems ooc but still). And second, Luka didn’t know about Mari‘s secret identity at the time when they were together, and I wouldn‘t necessarily blame him for being upset at her for not being very present during their relationship. Idk maybe I misunderstood (in which case I‘m sorry) but he only learned about that later. (Or do you mean that if he was the main love interest, he would‘ve forgiven her for acting the way she did?)

I don‘t disagree with you at all, I was just confused about those two parts

I'll be honest, the original draft has been in the work for well over a few years now. So, it was initially written before season 4. Much of my information on the episodes moving forward is either clips or second-hand information.

(Being honest though, I don't feel like I miss much doing this. A lot, and I mean ALOT of MLB is padded fluff and not even good kind. I did keep up with recaps until season 4. Season 5 to me is a complete mystery. And I don't wanna find out. What little I have seen or been told, makes me question...so much).

That said.

You do have a point.

Adrien gives up "Chat Noir" on two occasions. 1) Despereada 2) Kuro-Neko.

(I'm not counting Syren because that was a threat, not really him giving it up, or following through.)

But here's the thing. We're both in the correct here. Because while Adrien "gives up" the Alter Ego of Chat Noir - in Desperada he does not give up being a Superhero.

He is just trying on a new mask. He still wants what he's always wanted "a home" and his "home" is Ladybug. He tries to please her, by being Aspik. His "wish" hasn't changed, he's figuring out if a new mask will be able to grant it.

And in the case of Kuro-Neko, I would liken it to a corrupted soul gem. Realising that the "wish" he made when he became Chat Noir is fruitless.

I said "[Ladybug] offers him [a place to belong], while Chat Noir lends him the means to show that “true self” he can’t allow to others. He would never give up his miraculous because it would mean losing all that."

But what happens if the first statement is false? What if Ladybug no longer represents a place where he belongs? What if he no longer feels like Chat Noir is his true self? If either of those fail, then what's the point of having an Alter Ego? That's when he gives it up.

The moment his wish is proven NOT to be granted by the Magical Power Up, he gives up his Alter Ego.

OOC, yes. But it has some (?) sort of internal logic.

However, the point of that specific part was simply to say that Chat Noir is a (slightly) better-constructed protagonist. Through seasons 1-3, he remains with this internal logic. Something that Marinette does not have, even at the very beginning.

Again, I do believe Kuro Neko could have worked - but giving it the 1 episode treatment ruined any shot at redemption it could have.

As for the Luka situation

I really was trying not to go into a tangent, within a tangent about how badly they handled Luka. So I sorta jumbled a lot of stuff together and mistyped a lot. It's actually quite understandable that I didn't make myself clear, I wasn't trying to.

I was vaguely gesturing at the problem. But, if you insist:

My main point is: I don't think he should feel entitled to information about his (relatively new) girlfriend.

That entire thing was, politely said, a dick move.

With my comparison to Tokyo Mew Mew, I was trying to prove that Luka did the one thing that no Magical Girl Male Lead should EVER do. It's antithetical to everything the genre stands for.

Marinette wasn't in the wrong for keeping ANY sort of secret from him that didn't relate to their relationship. Point blank. But, he feels so justified in this, that when he becomes an Akuma, he outrights forces everyone to give up Marinette's secret.

One that I would argue IS a huge deal in regards to their relationship. She still likes Adrien. But he says he already knows that.

And, apparently, does not care for it.

Okay then, why did he care for her other secret? What could have possibly been worse in his head to get into such a huge fight over?

And in the end, it doesn't even matter cause he does find out she's Ladybug afterwards!

He broke this girl's heart just bcs he couldn't handle she wasn't being 100% honest in a, what? 2-month-old relationship?

The entire thing is messy and weird, and meanspirited. I'm not a fan.

And that should be obvious. I compared Aoyama and Ichigo in a positive light to them.

I do not ship them. I don't even think they should have been endgame. I know that's an essay/rant for another day - but to somehow be worse than the most VANILLA of Magica Girl ships, the one ship anyone will tell you isn't the one they wanted. The one that everyone in the REMAKE is begging to be changed...

You fucked up.

[trikruismybitch]

Angst Prompts

* “Imagine the worst things you think about yourself. Now how would you feel when the one person you trusted most in the world, not only thinks them too, but actually used them as reasons not to be with you.”

* “I know I’ve hurt you, but I still love you” “Well, excuse me if I don’t fall for that or you ever again.”

* "well at least she treats me like im somebody!" "Yeah will she love you if you were nobody!?" "Nobody loved me when i was nobody!" "i did"

* “Does she make you laugh?” “She doesn’t make me cry”

* “I feel like I’m in the wrong world. ‘Cause I don’t belong in a world where we don’t end up together. I don’t..there are parallel universes out there where this didn’t happen. Where I was with you, and you were with me. And whatever universe that is, that’s the one my heart lives in.”

* “You took a piece of me, and I let you. And that will never happen again.”

* “The worst thing I ever did. The darkest thought I ever had. You said you would stand by me through anything. This Y/n is anything” “I never thought that the worst thing you’d ever do, would be to me.”

* “You and I loved each other. And then you broke me heart.”

* “I can’t keep being your second choice. Not when your my first.”

* “Oh this is nothing” “You’ve had worse” “Have you ever loved someone that didn’t love you back?”

* “All I’ve ever wanted to be is loved.”

* “My mother thought I was a monster, she was right, of course, but it still hurt.”

* “I love you” “then prove it”

* “She’s not worth it” “yeah she is”

* “I wish I had done everything on earth with you.”

* “I wish I knew how to quit you.”

* “But the hearts not like a box that gets filled up, it expands the more you love.”

* “I would rather die tomorrow, then live a hundred years without you.”

* “Your so stupid (name)! Why did you do that! Why?” “You jump I jump right?”

* “Can’t you see? Every step I have taken, since I was that child on a bridge, has been to bring myself a step closer to you.”

* “I’m also just a girl standing in-front of (gender), asking (gender) to love her.”

* “You were my new dream” “And you were mine”

* “This, this part of you, don’t destroy it.”

* “I don’t want to be worshipped I want to be loved.”

* “And the last thing you will ever see will be me because I love you.”

* “You stole what was left of my heart and now I have lost you forever. I swear, no harm will come to you as long as I live. And not a day shall past, that I don’t miss your smile.”

* “Because I want you! All of you. forever.”

* “You can rest now.”

* “You have your mothers eyes.”

* “I waited for you for seven years, and now it’s too late.”

* “All of you, liars. You’re only happy when you can see something die.”

* “But I am, so lonely.”

* “(Name)? (Name) come on, you got to get up.”

* “I will never let go, I promise.”

* “Take her to the moon for me.”

* “Don’t put me in the dark. I’m afraid of the dark.”

* “Stop crying.”

* “Loneliness has followed me my whole life, everywhere.”

* “You still go to bed every night, going over every detail, and wonder what you did wrong or how you could have misunderstood.”

* “Well I am fine, I will be fine, really.”

* “You are the saddest girl I’ve ever met” “your the first person who has ever said that. I am usually told how happy I am.”

* “I want to be great or nothing.”

* “And all the while, I feel I am, standing in a crowded room screaming at the top of my lungs and no one even looks up.”

* “I don’t know that I find myself anywhere.”

* “Trust is for fool. Fear is the only reliable way.”

* “Most of the time, most days I feel nothing. I don’t feel anything. It is so boring, I wake up and I think, again? Really? I have to do this again?”

* “If your going to let one stupid prick ruin your life.”

* “Now you respect me because I’m a threat.”

* “Because that’s what you are, that’s what you’ll always be.”

* “Why do we fall in love with the wrong people?” “We accept the love we think we deserve.”

* “You have to let me go, you have to let me let you go. I need you to do that for me.”

* “You know, ever since we were little I would get this feeling like, like I’m floating outside of my body looking down on myself and I hate what I see, how I’m acting, the way I sound, and I don’t know how to change it and I’m so scared that, that feeling is never going to go away.

* “I know a lot of you probably hate me right now and I get it. If I could be a different person, I promise you I would. Not because I want it, but because they do.”

* “There’s all of this pressure to be all of these things to be fucking perfect but I’m not. I’m not fucking perfect.”

* “I’m fine, yeah besides from the not sleeping, the jumpiness, the constant overwhelming crushing fear that something terrible’s about to happen.”

* “I’ll always love you cus’ we grew up together and you helped make me who I am. I just wanted you to know there will be a piece of you in me always and I’m grateful for that.”

* “I will not be the person you settle for just because you can’t have her.”

* “I used to think you were the best thing that happened, but now I think you might maybe be the worst thing.”

* “I told my story and you judged me?”

* “You are afraid to be alive. You're afraid to live. You're a conformist. You're a liar. I opened up to you and you judged me. You're an asshole. You're an asshole!”

* “I don’t want to survive. I want to live.”

* “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way.”

* “Love cannot be found where it doesn’t exist, nor can it be hidden where it truly does.”

* “Only if you find peace within yourself will you find true connection with others.”

* “I wanted it to be you, I wanted it to be you so badly."

* “I love her. She breaks my heart again and again, but I love her.”

* “I love every broken bone in your body.”

* “I miss you. I miss not touching each other. Not seeing each other, not breathing in each other. I want you all the time—no one else.”

* "I want to tell you with my remaining strength that I love you. I always have. I'll drift next to you every day as a ghost just to be with you. Even if I was banished to the darkest place, my love will keep me from being a lonely spirit."

* “To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves."

* "You are the love that came without warning; you had my heart before I could say no."

* You never loved me. You just loved how much I loved you.”

* “You always have a choice.”

* “You don't have any idea what I have or haven't done to get to where I am.”

* “I keep thinking about all the things I never said because I was so sure, there would be other days to say them.”

* “The greatest gift, what truly sets people apart. Is the ability to feel.”

* “I never wanted you to come back to (place), I always knew there was nothing here for you but pain and tragedy and I wanted something more for you then that.”

* “What happened to us?”

* “You abandoned me” “I needed you”

* “Why didn’t you just tell me that?” “Right, because when things go wrong you do the horrible thing, you do the ugly thing.”

* “So that’s it then? Your writing me off?”

* “I can’t wait around every time to pick up the pieces, every time you freak out!”

* “Don’t this, ok? Don’t leave me again.”

* “We are done, ok? No more surprises. No more excuses. No more chances, we’re done.”

* “They’re never going to understand me they would’ve even try.” What’s the point? I haven’t got anything” “everybody I love I lose.”

* “I am a crap person. I’m damaged, it’s no wonder everyone wants to leave me. I destroy everybody I love.”

* “I think you should go. You see I love you so much I just want you to be happy, even if that happiness no longer includes me.”

* “I don’t love you anymore.” “Since when?” “Now. Just now. Now please go.” “Don’t do this. Talk to me.”

* “Life is pain! I wake up every morning I’m in pain. I go to work in pain. You know how many times I wanted to just give up? How many times I’ve thought about ending it?”

* “The worst day of loving someone is losing them.”

* “What difference does it make? Because in the end, when you lose somebody, every candle, every prayer is not going to make up for the fact that the only thing you have left is a hole in your life where that somebody that you cared about used to be.”

* “What happens when the one who broke your heart is the only one who can fix it?” 

* “One day you’re going to have to stop pretending everything’s okay.”

* “You don’t know what it’s like being in love with you. You know, when you and I were together, every single atom in my body told me that it was the right thing, that we were a perfect fit. And that kind of love, it can change your whole life.”

* “I don’t want to face my future without you.”

* “All I needed was for you to tell me you felt something…and you didn’t.”

* “You don’t know what I look like, when I’m not in love with you.”

* “When you lose someone, it stays with you forever. Always reminding you of how easy it is to get hurt.”

* “I’m scared that if I let myself be happy for just one moment, the world’s just gonna come crashing down. And I don’t know if I can survive.”

* “My nightmares are usually about losing you.”

* “I don’t wanna hate you. Because if I hate you, then I have nothing left.”

* “The truth is you’re better of without me.”

* “I wake up everyday and I feel okay, but there’s something missing. Like a hole. Some people they fit in life, or whatever. I don’t.”

* “You know you’re making the wrong choice, yet you make it anyways.”

* “Truth is I’ve tried to stop thinking about you. But I can’t.”

* "Just say that you missed me as much as I missed you."

* “I need to say it once. You need to hear it. I love you, (name).”

* “Despite all that we've done, all those we've lost, we're still here. You're not alone.”

* “If you lay even a finger on her I swear I will make you suffer in ways even your evil mind can't imagine.”

* “No, you don't get to ignore me for days and then suddenly act like you're concerned, (name). Just for once, would you please trust me that when I say I will do something and it’ll get done?”

* “You came back” “I always come back”

* “Why are you trying to put together your family when it's so clear that one part of it is broken?” “The definition of the word broken suggests that something can be fixed.”

* “If I’m gonna die might as well make it epic.”

* “(Name), you may think that I don't care about you, but you're wrong. I know what it's like to have your life stripped away from you because of other people's bad decisions. How do you think I became a vampire?”

* “I...let this person in. I let her in. I don't let people in. You knew this, and you've taken her from me. I needed her and you've broken me.”

* “You're scared. Because the people you love are angry with you.”

* “Deal with your jealousy. Deal with your shortcomings. Don’t put your crap on me.”

* “You never think that the last time is the last time. You think there will be more. You think you have forever but you don’t.”

* “Maybe we like the pain. Maybe we’re wired that way. Because without it, I don’t know; maybe we just wouldn’t feel real. What that saying? Why do I keep hitting himself with a hammer.”

* “I’m not in love with you, I’m in love with not being alone.”

* “I want so much for you. For both of us. So much more than this. More then being stuck with someone who feels stuck. I want you to feel free.”

* “Don’t look at me like that. Like I’m damaged goods. I’m still me. I’m still here.”

* “Don’t let what (gender) wants eclipse what you need. (Gender) is very dreamy, but he’s not the sun. You are.”

* “It’ll hurt every time you think of her. But over time, it will hurt less and less. And eventually you’ll remember her and it will only hurt a little.”

* “Grief may be a thing we all have in common but it looks different on everyone. It isn’t just death we have to grieve. It’s life, it’s loss, it’s change. And when we wonder why it has to suck so much sometimes, it has to hurt bad.”

* “If you love two people at the same time, choose the second one. Because if you truly loved the first one, you wouldn’t have fallen for the second.”

* “I want you, I choose you!” “If you truly loved me you would have never fallen in love with someone else. I shouldn’t be a choose, I have enough respect for myself to not get back with you no matter how much you mean to me.”

* “Isn’t it frustrating. Wanting someone who doesn’t want you back.”

* “I want you to be happy even though we’re not together. Though I’m no longer part of that happiness, I’m so happy that you were part of my life.”

* “It's okay. We met and we talked and it was epic, but then the sun came up and reality set in.”

* “Tell me it isn’t true. Please. Tell me I heard wrong.”

* “Please tell me your joking.”

* “What did I do?” “Doesn’t matter it’s done, we’re done.” “Wait, what are you talking about?” “Did you feel sorry for me? Was I your charity case is that why you asked me out?” “What does that even mean” “You figured you could toy with me until someone better came along and I wouldn’t mind.” “You know what sucks about falling for a (gender) you know you're not right for? You fall anyway 'cause you think (gender) might turn out to be different”

* “I could’ve held you in my arms forever, still wouldn’t have been enough.”

* “Don’t do that, please don’t do that! You do not know how I feel!”

* “You gotta let go of that stuff from the past because it just doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is what you choose to be now.” “You’re right.”

* “Some days I can’t stop thinking about you and other days I wonder why I’m wasting my time.”

👇 optional

* “Then leave! I don’t care if you leave, I was doing fine without you once. I can do it again.”

* “Love is just not enough. You need space so that you can be fully you.”

* “You are my first love And I want-more than anything, for you to be my last..But I can’t do this anymore.”

* “I want you to hear you say you don’t love me. Because if you say that-Than I won’t call you and I won’t be in your life.” “I don’t love you.”

* “Act normal, mom (or other). I wanna be normal!”

* “You still go to bed every night going over every detail and wonder what you did wrong or how....you could have misunderstood

* “But mostly i hate the way, I don’t hate you, not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.”

* “You know ever since we were little, I would get this feeling like, like I’m floating outside of my body looking down on myself, and I have what I see, how I’m acting, the way I sound and I don’t know how to change it, and I’m scared that feeling is never going to go away.”

* “Words cut deeper then any blade.”

* “The longer you love the more you realize that reality is just made of pain, suffering and emptiness.” “What about love?” “Love brings pain and suffering and you left with emptiness.” “But the memories of those you love. Aren’t they better then never loving?”

* “Do you regret what you did?” “Yes of course-!” “Then learn from it and move on. There’s no point of looking back.”

* “Be strong and move on! It’s for you you to be happy again!”

* “If you push me away I promise you, you won’t find me where you left me. My hearts big but not big enough to deal with people, who only decide to love me when it’s convenient.”

* “Things end. People change. And you know what? Life moves on.”

* “My heart shattered in pieces when I see the way you look at him-the way you used to look at me.”

* “You won’t know real pain until you watch the person you love most in this world slowly give up on you...and all you can do is watch as they leave you stranded to deal with all the pain on your own while they already found someone to replace you with (or they’ve already moved on).”

* “Shhh it’s okay.” “Crying is how your heart speaks, when you lips can’t explain the pain you feel.”

* “You didn’t lie to me because you didn’t want to hurt my feelings, you lied because you knew I would’ve never stood for it!” (Implied cheatin)

* “This can’t be happening, this can’t be it.” “Then how come it is.”

* “A relationship that starts with a breakup ends is doomed to end with a breakup.”

* “Your back” “Yeah, I just got back. You’ve changed.” “A lot can change in a year.” “What can change in a year?” “Everything.” “Even the people you love?” “Especially the people you love.”

* "Hurts, Doesn't It? Being Lied To. Being Told You're One Thing And Then Learning It's All A Fiction."

* “I am not the villain in this story, I do what I do because there is no choice.”

* "Sometimes the person you'd take a bullet for is behind the gun."

[ineedtoprovethatiexist]

being in korea for the first time in weeks and stuff

a week ago i broke up with my boyfriend and came to korea.

i should probably process the whole boyfriend thing but i feel kinda disconnected from it when it's happening on the other side of the world and the only aftereffects that i can see are social media posts. kinda odd how he's blocked me from one account and been posting more than he ever has on the other.

anyways, the korea thing.

i've thought a lot about family in the past week, although i've felt like i was viewing mine from an eagle's eye the whole time. after all, any pair of sperm from my dad and egg from my mom could have created a member of my family, yet it's my state of being that has somehow been the one to be blessed with consciousness on this wretched earth. maybe without the acne my grandmother so gracefully pointed out this afternoon, but a granddaughter and a daughter nonetheless. of course, it's not really worth complaining about when everyone here has been subjected to it.

there's nothing quite human as seeing someone living with their parents. when i met james' parents, i couldn't help falling a little bit in love with him. i know everyone is actually human, but proof of it just makes my heart beam in a special way. it's the thing about knowing versus understanding probably. anyways, i'm living with my dad and his parents right now, and it's probably the best thing that has happened to me and my dad's relationship. my dad has a really good relationship with his mother, which is honestly surprising considering the red flag he is. it's just nice to hear the way their conversations bounce off of each others', even after so many years apart. and nothing about my dad has ever really been just nice.

speaking of mothers, i really miss mine. my grandfather (on my dad's side) has always been sort of quiet and not a part of conversations, and my mom always makes sure to relate it to him even though he doesn't even have any blood relation to her. i feel bad that i can't do the same when she's gone.

sometimes when i'm doing something i find myself imagining james being in my shoes, experiencing what it's like to be me and feel what i feel and do what i do. i've been doing it a lot more here just because everything seems to be more related to my origins and how i came to be and we've always had this whole thing about how i feel misunderstood (or rather me getting upset that he couldn't relate to a feeling i made for myself because you know me, i just have to be special somehow). i think, maybe if he could see everything i've been through, he would just get it. not even get it in the sense that we would still be together, but we would leave our shared journey with a mutual understanding and respect for each other. people say la la land is a sad ending, but it's honestly the second best ending you could get. at least they got some sort of self realization out of it. so many other relationships end with only the realization of their own delusions and wasted time.

when i first came to america, i had to explain where it was when i told people i was korean. and then gradually, i saw the associations people made when we talked about my origins, from gangnam style to north korea to kpop and bts. and now, being a korean girl is like, a thing, like i wasn't the only korean girl in my classes for all of my elementary and middle school.

i wish james could read this. of course i could make it easier and send it to him but that ruins the fun of it and i already know i would despise his reaction. a part of me still thinks he's hurt me more than i've hurt him, just that mine has been dulled by time. i was just so much younger, and the hole he was filling was one that had been in me since i gained consciousness, wheras the one i was filling for him was only a couple years old. i don't like this whole metaphor. he probably will get over it, but a narcissistic part of me hopes he doesn't think it. god, all those years running around trying not to do to people what he did to me only to do it to him. it's kinda poetic if you squint really hard.

[connordavidscamera]

A Jealous Household | Connor Brashier

A/n: listen, I know it says y/n, but we all know it’s written about me, right? Okay, just wanna put that out there lol

Summary: Shawn and Brian want to have a party, but this party causes a few problems for Connor and y/n

Warnings: angst, underage drinking (for US standards, at least), pining

Word count: 7.5k, she’s a long one

***

“You want to have a party? When?” Y/n asks, closing her book and setting it in her lap.

“This weekend,” Shawn nods. “And it won’t be a big thing, I promise. Maybe fifteen, twenty people.”

“Thirty or forty, max,” Brian interjects.

I can’t help but laugh at that, neither can she as she says. “You know we can’t even fit thirty or forty people in the condo, right?”

“I know that, but that’s why we’ll have some of them in the backyard too.”

“So what’s the party even for?” She asks, leaning into my side. On instinct, I wrap my arm around her shoulders. 

They both shrug, “A house warming party? Does that still count if we’ve lived here for almost two months?” Shawn questions. 

She shrugs, “I don’t know. I mean, I don’t see why we couldn’t have one. We just have to be considerate of our neighbors. And nobody’s allowed in my room. If there’s alcohol, I’m not chancing anyone going into my room for a sloppy fuck.”

Shawn laughs, “So your sloppy fuck is gonna be in Connor’s room then?”

I roll my eyes at the comment. Shawn and Brian love to tease me about my crush on y/n. They have since the beginning. Shawn’s taunts are light hearted, but they’re plentiful now that we all live together. Brian’s at times feel almost malicious. But Brian also isn’t aware that I still have a crush on her, he thinks the feeling has passed. It definitely hasn’t. If anything, being in such tight quarters with her at all times has made me like her even more. Watching her move so effortlessly around our home - seeing her do her nightly routine, watching her polish her nails every Sunday like clockwork. I have undeniably fallen even deeper in love with her in just these few short weeks we’ve lived together and it’s killing me.

It’s killing me because we still haven’t talked about what she said to me a couple weeks ago when we were falling asleep together. I don’t even know if she remembers saying what she did. And I could have misinterpreted her words, I mean, she was falling asleep, her words were slurring. I could have misunderstood. At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself every time the memory pops into my head. Which is about six times a day for the past three weeks.

Y/n gasps and tosses her book at him, "Asshole!"

He laughs, picking the book up off the floor from where it ricocheted off his chest. "I'm kidding. Kidding. But it's cool?"

She shrugs, "Yeah, whatever. Go nuts."

"Yes!" Shawn pumps his fist in the air before high fiving Brian. 

"We gotta get alcohol."

"Ah, wait. Before you two go broke buying drinks for the party, remember that we have bills to pay. So save us all a headache and make it BYOB."

Brian snaps and points at her with a click of his tongue. "This is why we keep you around."

She laughs, "Oh is that why?"

"Indeed," he nods.

"Okay, well can I have my book back, please?"

"Yeah, here," Shawn leans over the coffee table to hand it to her before disappearing to his room, Brian heading to the kitchen.

"What's wrong?" I ask, not looking up from my phone. I can sense that the wheels are turning in her head and she sighs dramatically.

"I don't remember which page I was on."

I force myself not to laugh. "243."

“Hmm?” She flips to that page and looks up at my side profile. “How’d you know that?”

I shrug, “I always memorize the page you’re on before you close the book, just in case.”

She smiles sheepishly and presses a kiss to my shoulder. “You’re cute,” she whispers before turning her attention back to the page in front of her and resting her head in the crook of my neck.

I squeeze her shoulder hoping she doesn’t look up and notice the growing blush on my cheeks, “You’re cuter.”

---

“Do you have any idea who’s coming to this?” Y/n asks as we move a cooler out to the backyard.

I shake my head, “Not really. I think Matt and his girlfriend, honestly, I have no idea. It’s Shawn, so there’s bound to be more people than we’re anticipating.”

“Lots of girls then.”

“Why do you say that?” I ask, setting the cooler down, providing her with my undivided attention (which she has always had). 

“He’s making a name for himself out here. Playing a few more gigs than at home. I noticed at the last one, he’s got a few groupies.”

I chuckle, “Oh really?”

She nods, “There were like five girls there just holding onto his every word. It was actually pretty cool to watch. But he got nervous. Started fidgeting with his necklace, so I had to get him out of there, which of course resulted in death glares from his adoring fans.”

“What? What do you mean? Death glares towards you?”

Y/n laughs, fixing the collar of her shirt that’s falling off her shoulder. “Yeah. I think they thought there was more there than there is,” she shrugs, “And if looks could kill, I would be dead five times over.”

I shake my head, I don’t like that thought, and I say as much. “I don’t like that thought.”

“What? Shawn having groupies?”

“No, girls staring daggers at you because you’re friends with him.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

I know it’s not, but the thought of someone not liking her is appalling to me. “I still don’t like it.”

“Is it because if something happened to me you’d be left to live alone with Shawn and Brian? Because that would make me sad too.”

I force a laugh, “That, and I’d be bored without you.”

She nods understandingly, “I get it. I am the light of your life,” she teases.

You are, I think to myself. “Yeah, yeah,” I say instead, stepping forward, wrapping my arm around her waist. “Let’s get inside, it’s hot as hell out here.”

Shawn and Brian are sitting on the floor in front of the TV, trying to get the wifi hooked up to it. We barely got wifi installed at the beginning of the week, but we’ve all been so busy, we haven’t had the chance to get everything hooked up to it. 

“It’s not working!” Brian complains, throwing his hands up in frustration.

“Well try again! That’s what the router says.” Shawn counters back.

“Let me see that,” Brian snatches the router out of his hands. “Dumbass! You’re reading me the product number! Not the fucking password!”

Y/n and I hide our faces to keep from bursting into a fit of laughter, but we both break when Shawn pouts when Brian puts the router back in his hands after successfully connecting the TV.

“Oh, what’s with the pouty face, rockstar?” y/n asks.

“Brian’s a dick,” he mutters, which causes Brian to punch his shoulder.

“Ow!” Shawn exclaims, reaching to hold his arm. “That hurt!”

“It was supposed to. Want me to do it again?”

“Craigen,” y/n shakes her head and before I can protest, she’s out of my grasp and I suddenly feel lonely without her body next to mine. “No more fighting.”

“Just one time in the face,” he tries to reason. “Just once. Come on, it’s a long time coming. I’ve wanted to punch him in the face since we were kids.”

“No,” she squats down behind Shawn, wrapping her arms around his shoulders, leaning her head against his. I watch Shawn fall into her touch and I’m envious of him. Even though she holds onto me in the exact same way, almost daily, she isn’t right now and it makes me long for it. Especially when I watch her start to massage his scalp and he hums because her head scratches feel like you’re in heaven. “You can’t punch him in the face. That’s the money maker,” she squishes his cheeks with her free hand and speaks in a mock baby voice, “And if he’s got a black eye how will he charm girls with his pretty face tonight?”

Shawn laughs and pushes her hand away, but he reaches back and pats her calf. “Sit down,” he says and she obliges, her legs spreading and bracketing Shawn’s. He falls back into her and takes her hand that was just squeezing him and brings it to his lips to kiss her knuckles before bringing it to his hair as well. “More head scratches.”

She rolls her eyes, but continues anyway. “So fucking needy.”

He hums, “Could fall asleep like this.”

She hums too and looks up at me with a smile that melts my heart, “Connor does all the time.”

I nod, “I do. Feels good. Your hands are magic.”

“How magic? Like you could get me off in three seconds?”

“Brian!” I growl. Yep, we can always count on him to ruin the mood.

But y/n’s laughing, “I’m sure I could, I mean, if you ask your first girlfriend, you only last five so I don’t think it’ll be difficult,” she answers.

Shawn’s hysterical in y/n’s arms, as am I as I fall to the floor, clutching my stomach. But Brian? Brian is livid.

“I can’t believe she told you that! She said she wouldn’t tell anyone!”

This only makes Shawn and I laugh harder. “Wait, did that actually happen?” I ask between fits. “Craigen, come on,” I groan when he’s silent. “Five seconds?”

“It was our first time!”

“And last, apparently,” y/n comments.

“Shut up!” he groans. “Fuck, I can’t stand you.”

She nods, “I know.”

“No, but seriously, when did she tell you that?”

Y/n breaks out into a wide grin. “She didn’t. But you just did. Thanks for that.”

He’s speechless. Absolutely speechless. And his face is so red; I don’t know if it’s in anger or embarrassment, but either way, Shawn pipes up. “Hey, if it makes you feel any better, my first time I only lasted like twenty seconds.”

“I lasted fifteen,” I confirm, but I immediately regret it when y/n’s face morphs into one of confusion. 

Oh, oh fuck. I never told her that I-

“Wait, you’ve had sex?”

“You didn’t know?” Shawn questions, looking back at her.

She shakes her head, “I guess not.”

I sigh and scratch the back of my head, “Yeah. It was… during that time where we weren’t really talking,” I mumble.

She nods slowly, scoffing, and I can’t quite pin her emotion, but it’s definitely a cross between anger and… is that jealousy? “Ah, good ol’ McKenzie,” she mutters under her breath. She exhales deeply out her nose and focuses her attention back to playing with Shawn’s hair. 

“I would have told-”

“We weren’t talking. I know,” she cuts me off. “And it’s none of my business. It wasn’t then, and it’s not now either.”

“Oh, right. Okay,” I nod once. “New subject.”

---

We’re tiptoeing around each other the rest of the day. Or more so, I’m tiptoeing around her. She somehow is coming off as completely unbothered, but at the same time completely bothered. I don’t know what to make of this situation. I don’t know if I should apologize for not telling her, or if she even wants me to apologize. I don’t know and it’s killing me not knowing what I can do to make this better for us tonight.

I’m helping Brian pour more ice into the cooler we have in the kitchen when she walks out of her room. “Where’s Shawn?” she asks.

I look up at her and my heart stops for a moment. She’s wearing red, my heart never knows what to do when she wears that color. Does it stop? Does it speed up? Yes. 

“He went to his car to get the beer we got this afternoon,” Brian answers, closing the lid. 

SHe nods, “I’ll go help him.”

I watch as she leaves, not taking a full breath until the door shuts behind her. 

“She still mad at you?” 

I shake my head, “I don’t know. I don’t even know if she is mad at me.”

“Well, it’s y/n. You kept something from her for almost three years. I’m willing to bet she’s a little upset.”

I sigh, “Yeah, I know. But I mean, how was I supposed to tell her. She would barely even look at me during that time, so -”

“Yeah, because McKenzie was a bitch to her. How was she supposed to look at you when she was practically threatened or called out or god know what when you weren’t listening. I’d hate to know what she actually said when none of us were there to listen.”

I exhale deeply. I know my ex was the worst to her - she’s the entire reason y/n and I weren’t talking. She told me not to hang out with her as much, so I didn’t (also because I was trying to prove to Brian that I didn’t have feelings for y/n anymore. That was a mistake.) “So, I should apologize.”

Brian shrugs, “We all know you’re gonna apologize. You can’t stand it when she’s mad at you. Honestly, we can’t either. We have no idea what to do when you two aren’t talking. And since we all live together now, it’ll be even more awkward for you two to not talk.”

I nod, “Yeah. I know. I’ll apologize later. You should go get ready. I can finish up out here.”

Brian claps my shoulder, “Thanks, man. I’ll be quick.” He disappears at the same time Shawn and y/n walk in the front door with the drinks. I make my way over to them.

“Here, let me get that for you,” I tell her, reaching to take the cases from her hands.

“Oh, it’s okay. I got it. You want these inside or out, rockstar?”

“In the fridge, in the back. Gotta keep the good stuff for us.” Shawn hands me a pottle of vodka, “Put this in the freezer? I got it for y/n, I’m gonna make her a new drink.”

“You’re gonna risk giving her alcohol poisoning?” I question, raising one eyebrow at him.

He rolls his eyes, “I’ve gotten better at making drinks, dickhead.”

I laugh and hold my hands up in surrender, “Alright, sure.”

“I’m gonna put these in my room for now, and then I’m gonna get ready.”

“Brian’s in the shower, you can use my bathroom,” I say as y/n moves past us to the kitchen. 

“Good looking out, thanks.”

And now it’s just me and her. It’s like any normal day. So why is my heart beating so quickly?

I watch her move some things around in the fridge to make room for the drinks, and I can’t help but smile. “You look pretty tonight,” I tell her, leaning against the counter.

She looks over at me and smiles softly, “Thanks.”

I clear my throat, “Hey, y/n?”

“Hmm?” she turns her attention back to her task at hand.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” she asks, closing the fridge.

“For not telling you that I slept with her.”

“Oh,” she nods. “It’s fine. It really is not any of my business who you have and haven’t slept with.”

“Well maybe not, but you are my best friend, and we tell each other everything. I know if we were on better terms when you were dating Noah, you would have told me that you-”

“I didn’t tell you because we didn’t sleep together.”

“What?” I stare at her with wide eyes. 

“Noah and I didn’t sleep together.”

“But I thought-”

“You assumed. But no, it didn’t happen. I wasn’t ready. I mean, I barely let him kiss me, so how the hell was I gonna sleep with him?”

I nod because I don’t know what else to do or even say. She’s right, I just assumed that they had sex because he always had his hands all over her. I almost scoff at the thought. I hated watching him hold her in the hallway, his hands in her back pockets as he pulled her closer to him. Seeing them together everyday made my heart clench every time because it should have been me. I wonder if that’s how she felt when I had a girlfriend. 

“Look, it doesn’t matter, okay? So, let’s just drop it. It’s not like I’m mad you had sex, I was just surprised to find out this way, that’s all.”

“Yeah, I get it. And I would have told you sooner, but there really was never a time, you know? And it was just with her a couple times, nothing since.”

“Connor, you really don’t need to explain it to me. Actually, if we could just stop talking about her all together, that’d be great.”

“No, yeah. Of course. It’s dropped.”

She nods, “Okay, good. So, you should go get dressed.”

“What do you mean? I’m wearing this,”  I gesture to my torn t-shirt and my sweatpants with paint stains up and down the legs from when we painted the living room a few weeks ago. I’m totally joking, but I want to see her reaction anyway.

She looks me up and down and scoffs, “Yeah, no. Go change. You’re not wearing that.”

I pout dramatically, “Why not?”

“One, those pants are a mess. Two, you know you run hot when you drink, so why would you wear sweatpants? And three, that shirt is literally falling apart. You are not wearing that, go change.”

I can’t fight the smile that tugs at my lips because just like that we’re back to normal. “Okay, I’m going. Do you have something you’d like for me to wear?”

“Yes, your black pants with the white tank top and your peachy cream shirt. The one you wore for our graduation party.”

I nod, “Yes, ma’am. You wanna do my hair?”

“Come find me when you’re done, and I’ll see what I can do.”

---

I’m talking to my friend Will out in the backyard as the party becomes bigger than anticipated. Yeah, definitely called that situation. 

“Bro, I wish I would have saved up more so I could have gotten a place like you guys did. I emailed my roommate last week to see what he wanted to get for the dorm and he straight up said, ‘I don’t plan to be roommates long, so nothing.’”

I can’t help but laugh, “Hey, we’d take you in over Brian, but he’d throw a bitch fit.”

He laughs too, twisting the cap off his beer. “So what’s it like living with y/n? Everything good?”

“Yeah, everything’s great. She knows how to run a household. She made a chore chart that goes on the fridge. Shawn had to beg her to take it down for the party because he was embarrassed.”

“Sounds like y/n. But that’s not what I meant.”

I take a swig of my beer and shrug, “There’s nothing else to say really. She’s nice to live with.”

“No progression between you two.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Right, right. Because you’re not in love with her, right.”

“Will, come on. Not tonight.”

“Okay, okay. I get it. We’re not in a teasing mood tonight.”

Or ever. Will is a great friend of mine, and I would take a bullet for him, but he asks me for y/n updates every time we’re together, and I never have any for him. When I told him we were moving in together, he was stoked, but less so when I told him we were moving with Shawn and Brian too. 

He - like Shawn - is an avid supporter of us getting together. Will found out about my so-called crush one night in high school, actually a couple weeks after my breakup with McKenzie. Y/n and I still weren’t talking. I was trying to mend things and  she was trying to push me further away. I don’t remember much of the night he found out because I got shit faced drunk, but I somehow admitted to him that I had feelings for her and he’s convinced himself that he knows the biggest secret in the world. He treats it like he holds the key to the universe. If anyone wants us together more than I do, it’s him.

“Just don’t want to risk her hearing anything,” I tell him. “I already made things awkward earlier.”

“What? How?”

I shake my head, “Let it slip that Kenz and I slept together.”

He blanches. “She didn’t know?!”

I shake my head, “No. I never found the right time to tell her. But she keeps saying it isn’t her business, so I don’t know if that means she’s hurt by it or if I’m imagining it because right now it seems like she doesn’t really care. But - I don’t know, I want her to, I guess.” 

He smirks, “She cares.”

“I don’t know,” I mutter, looking inside, lifting my bottle up to my lips, but halting when I see her standing near the sliding glass door with - “Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“What?” Will asks, turning toward the door. “What hap - is that? Wait, is that Noah? What is he doing here?”

My jaw clenches, just like the grip around the bottle in my hand. “Better question, why the hell is he so close to her?”

Will sucks in a breath, “Are they still friends?”

I don’t answer him because I don’t know. I’m 99% sure they aren’t, but that 1% that says yes is simply because I’m watching them right now and she’s hugging him and letting him kiss her cheek before he pulls away. “I didn’t think they were. She hasn’t brought him up since the breakup.”

I don’t take my eyes off them as I start chugging the rest of my beer. It was still pretty full, but at this moment, I need to finish it because I need something stronger. 

“I’m gonna go get a drink,” I mutter, tossing my bottle in the trashcan near the cooler. I walk inside, but neither of them notice me. I shake my head and walk to Shawn’s room where he hid most of the hard stuff. I find the bottle of tequila that he stashed because he knew if he put it out, it’d go fast. I twist the top off and take, maybe a little more than a shot. I cough into my elbow when I pull the bottle back because wow he got the strong stuff.

Shaking my head, I close the bottle back up and sneak out of Shawn’s room. When I enter the living room, they’re still standing there talking. Or, he’s talking, she’s nodding at something he’s saying. I click my tongue and walk into the kitchen to grab another beer. SHould I be mixing my alcohol? No, I should not. Is that going to stop me? No, it is not. 

My girl’s ex-boyfriend is over there talking to her and touching her like they’re best buds and I can’t stand it. I can’t stand him. 

I still remember the day she told us that she was going on a date with him. 

All four of us are sitting in our usual booth at the diner, everything seems to be going like it always has. Just us four, laughing and making our weekend plans. The difference though is that y/n and I aren’t sitting shoulder to shoulder right now. She’s pushed against the window, and I’m toward about as far left as I can get without it being noticeable, or falling. 

“So, we’re aiming for Saturday afternoon, right? Y/n, you’ll ride with me?” Shawn asks.

“Oh,” she sits up straight, “um, could we maybe do it on Sunday instead? I kind of already have plans on Saturday.”

“What?” Brian furrows his brows, “Without us?”

She nods, “Yeah,” she takes in a sharp breath beside me. “I um… I kinda, I have a date.”

At that exact moment, our heads whip in her direction - I’m pretty sure if I turned any faster I would have given myself whiplash.

“A date?” I ask as calmly as I can.

“With who?” Shawn questions.

She shrugs, “You know that guy Noah? I have him in like all of my AP classes? He asked me out after class this morning.”

I don’t think I can clench my jaw any harder. Noah. I hate him. I’ve never personally met him, but I hate him. “Cool,” I mutter, turning my head back to the table to reach for my drink. 

“Well?” Shawn prompts. “What are you gonna do? Where is he taking you?”

She clasps her hands in her lap and shrugs again. “I don’t know. He hasn’t told me. Said he wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Ooh, romantic,” Brian teases.

“You hate surprises,” I mumble into my cup.

Y/n clears her throat and shifts uncomfortably in her seat. “It’s just one date. Not a big deal.”

“Okay, sure,” Brian says. “So Sunday then?”

“And you’ll tell us all about it?”

“Sure.”

There are very few times that I wish I was deaf, but that day was one of them. I didn’t sleep that whole night. I couldn’t. And the night of her date? Forget it. I was up all night wondering what was happening. Did he hold her hand? Did he hug her? Did that bastard take her first kiss? The first kiss that was supposed to belong to me? 

And right now, as I watch him reach for her elbow again, I decide, fuck it. I don’t care if I look like a jealous asshole, I’m taking my girl away from him. I stride over to them and place my hand on her hip, “Hey, baby. Can you help me find the bottle opener? I can’t remember what drawer you put it in the other day, and I think my eyes are failing me.”

She shakes her head, “Um, yeah. It should be in the drawer closest  to the fridge.”

“I checked there, please, come help me look.”

She rolls her eyes and turns back to Noah who is staring daggers at my hand on her hip. I smirk. “Noah, it was good catching up with you. I’ll find you later. I’m gonna help him out.”

He looks back up at her and forces a smile, “Sure. Sounds good. Save me dance?”

Over my dead body. “Come on, baby,” I say, guiding her toward the kitchen.

She steps in front of me, mumbling a couple excuse me’s to the people blocking the kitchen. Then she b-line’s to the drawer closer to the fridge, which I definitely did not check because I wasn’t really looking for the bottle opener. I just needed an excuse to get her away from Noah.

“Here,” she holds it out to me. “Wait, I thought Shawn got twist tops.” She takes the bottle from my hand and laughs, “Bub, it twists off.” She says, taking the cap off the bottle. 

“Oh,” I chuckle. I knew it was a twist top, again, I just needed an excuse to get her away. “Whoopsies?” 

She puts the bottle opener back in the drawer and leans against the counter. “You having fun?”

I shrug, “I’m alright. So um… Noah’s here.”

Y/n nods slowly, “Yeah, he is.”

“Kinda weird that he showed up after we just talked about him,” I mutter.

“Yeah, I guess. He just tagged along with one of his friends.”

I nod, “Mhm. You two looked pretty cozy.”

“Excuse me?” 

“Nothing. Just, I mean, I haven’t heard you talk about him since the breakup,” I take a sip of the beer in my hand. “I didn’t realize you two were still so close.”

She tilts her head at me, “We’re not. We were just catching up. He didn’t know that I lived here too.”

“Uh-huh, so you haven’t talked to him recently?”

She scoffs, crossing her arms over her chest. “What’s with the third degree, huh?”

“You didn’t answer my question,” I mutter.

“No, Connor. I haven’t talked to him recently. In fact, I haven’t talked to him since the breakup. But what does that matter? Why does it matter who I do and do not talk to?”

“I just think it’s a little strange that he came here tonight.”

“Well, I didn’t invite him, if that’s what you’re insinuating. He came with a friend. He didn’t even know it was our party, or our house. He just showed up.”

“So he crashed it. Classy.”

“What is your deal?” She pushes herself off the counter and stands face to face with me, her forehead creasing as she glares at me. I want to smooth the crease and tell her not to do that because she’ll get a headache, but I refrain. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Please,” she scoffs, “you’re acting like a jealous boyfriend! Newsflash, Connor, you’re not my boyfriend.”

I recoil, because sure I know I’m not, but the words spew from her lips like venom. “I know that.”

“Do you? Because right now it doesn’t seem like you do. Now unless I completely missed the part where you asked me to be your girlfriend, you have no right to be upset over me talking to my ex-boyfriend.”

“He was an ass to you then.”

“How would you know?! We weren’t even talking then.”

“Because you didn’t want to! I was still trying to fix things with us but you were pushing me away.”

“No, I wasn’t pushing you away. I was protecting myself from getting hurt again.”

“But it wasn’t me, that was Kenzie, and -”

She groans in frustration, “Why are we talking about her again? Why? I can’t do this.”

“Do what?”

Y/n pinches the bridge of her nose. “Look, you’re my best friend, and I love you. But you have no right to be upset about Noah. You are not my boyfriend -”

“Why do you keep saying that?”

“Because you aren’t! You like to act like you are sometimes, but you’re not.”

“Do you want me to be?!” I exclaim, setting my bottle down.

She scoffs, shaking her head. “Not like this,” she says quietly, pushing past me.

“Y/n!” I call after her, but she ignores me. I, however, can’t ignore the eyes that are on me.

---

“He’s jealous?” Alessia asks, leaning back on her hands. We’re sitting on the grass in the backyard. It’s quieter out here, and far less crowded. “Does he even have a right to be?”

“That’s what I’m saying! He’s my best friend, but sometimes he acts like he’s my boyfriend and I just - I’m over it.”

She sighs, “You’re over him acting like your boyfriend.”

“Yes,” I say.

“Because you want him to actually be your boyfriend.”

“What? No! No,” I shake my head, “that’s not it.”

Les smiles, “Honey, it’s obvious the way you two look at each other. And you can deny it because you’re best friends, you live together. You don’t want to risk the integrity of the friendship that you have. And that is totally reasonable, but you two need to discuss what you are to each other. Because it’s clear that in his mind, you’re a little bit more than just ‘best friends.’ And well, you’ve always wanted to be more, so what’s so wrong with him being that?”

I sigh and pick at the grass beside me, “I don’t know if he feels this way genuinely or if it’s because I’m closer now. We live together, it seems almost easy or convenient for him to develop some tiny crush because of the proximity.”

At this she laughs, “Oh, honey. That is definitely not it.”

“How do you know?”

“Because that boy has been in love with you since before I even met you guys. It’s written all over his face and if you took a second to just stop and -”

“Hey, sorry to interrupt, guys,” Shawn says, breathlessly, pushing his curls out of his face. “Y/n, Connor’s drunk off his ass, and I need your help”

I sit up, “Okay, How much did he drink?”

“Like, the entire bottle of tequila I had in my room, plus however many beers he had.”

I stand up, swatting at the backs of my legs to get off any dirt, “Is he throwing up?”

“No, he’s just asking for you.”

I nod and look back to Alessia, “We’ll talk later, Les?”

“Mhm, go take care of your boy.”

“Why did he drink so much?” I ask Shawn, following him toward the sliding glass door. 

He shrugs, “I asked him. He said you were mad at him.”

I roll my eyes, “Well yeah, he was being an ass. But it still doesn’t make sense.If he drinks every time I get upset with him, he’d be an alcoholic ”

“All I know is that he was asking for you,” Shawn says just as we find Connor sitting outside my bedroom door, nursing another beer bottle. 

I shake my head, “God, he knows not to be switching between alcohol.”

“Connor, buddy?” Shawn says, squatting down next to him. “I got her. Why don’t you give me that beer, eh?” He goes to take it from his hands, but Connor’s quick to move it, spilling a bit of it on his shirt in the process.

“No, this is mine. Get your own,” he slurs

I sigh and squat down next to him, too. “I think you’ve had enough, bub. Come on, let me have it.”

He looks at me with heavy eyes and he pouts, dramatically. “Y/n… you’re so pretty.”

“Connor,” I shake my head. 

“I love you in red. God, you look so good. Could never get,” he hiccups, “tired of looking at you.”

I blush, looking over at Shawn who’s still sitting with us. “Okay, come on. Let’s get up. We need to get you to bed.”

He nods slowly, “Whatever you want, baby.”

I take the drink out of his hand and set on the floor beside us. “Shawn, help me get him up.”

Shawn nods, “You got it.” He does most of the heavy lifting, but when Connor’s on his feet, he leans into me, hugging my waist, burying his head in my neck. 

“I’m so sorry, y/n. So sorry.”

“I know, come on now. We’re going to your room.”

He groans into my skin, but helps me and Shawn take him to his room as best as he can, only stumbling once when we round the corner. We push his bedroom door open and walk further into the room, plopping him down on the bed. 

“Thanks, Shawn. I got it from here.”

“You sure?” 

I nod, moving to grab his trash can from next to his desk. “Yeah, we’re good. Thanks for coming to get me.”

He nods, “Of course. Come get me if you need anything else.”

Connor groans as Shawn slams the door shut behind him. I sigh and move around the room, turning on his bedside lamp and going to his desk chair where his outfit from earlier is laid out. “Okay, bub, I’m gonna need you to help me out, alright? I need you to get out of your clothes, I’m gonna put you in pajamas, okay?”

He shakes his head, his pout even heavier than usual, eyes struggling to stay open. “Too tired. You do it.”

I close my eyes, taking in a deep breath. Of course he’s gonna be difficult right now. I shake my head, throwing his clothes beside him, “Can you stand up?”

He mumbles something incoherent, but I’m pretty sure it’s somewhere along the lines of “The room is spinning.”

“Fuck, Connor, why did you drink so much?” I grumble, moving to the floor to take his shoes off.

“You’re mad at me,” he whines.

“Yes, I am. You know your limits. What were you gonna do if this didn’t happen at the house, hmm?”

“M’sorry.”

I roll my eyes, “Okay, sit up,” I reach for his hands to help pull him to a sitting position. 

He makes an unnecessary amount of groaning sounds as he moves around to accommodate me.

I push his shirt off his shoulders, it’s almost damp, he’s sweating so much. I throw it to the side, I’ll put it in the laundry room when I go get him some pain meds in a little bit. I take hold of the hem of his tank top, “Arms up,” I pat his side and he obliges, looking up at me with a sad smile on his lips. “What’s wrong?” I ask him, tossing his tank top off to the side too.

“I’m sorry I got mad earlier. About Noah.”

I shake my head, “It’s fine. Lay back, lift your hips for me.”

He lays back, but his pout still remains on his face as I lean forward to unbutton his pants.

“What now?” I question softly, pulling down his zipper, “Hips up.”

He’s looking at me with such sad eyes and it’s killing me. “This isn’t how I wanted you to undress me for the first time.”

My breath hitches, “What?”

“Wanna make love to you,” he slurs. 

I almost choke on his words, “Connor, you’re drunk,” I shake my head, pulling his pants off him and grabbing his sweats to pull up his legs instead. I decide to forgo the shirt because he’s already sweating a lot, I don't want to make him even hotter. “You don’t know what you’re saying. I’m gonna go get you some water and pain meds. Stay here.” I move the trash can closer to him, “The trash is right next to you if you feel like you’re gonna get sick.

I pick up his discarded clothes from the floor and walk to the door and out the room before he can say anything else he doesn’t mean. After tossing them in the hamper in the laundry room, I squeeze past the group of people still congregating in the hallway. I slip into my room and grab some of my pain meds from my book bag and quickly slip out again to head to the kitchen which is also crowded. I mumble out a general excuse me, and go to the fridge to grab Connor a bottle of water. 

On my way back, I stop and go to his bathroom which is thankfully empty, and grab a hand towel and wet it under the faucet to hopefully cool him down a bit. When I’m back in his room, he’s laying face down on his bed and I stop for a minute, admiring his smooth skin, and the way the muscles in his shoulders tense up when he moves his arm above his head. It’s not fair. No one man should look this good. 

I shake my head, focusing back on the task at hand. I close the door behind me gently. “Okay, Connor. I need you to sit up just one more time to take these pills and then you can go to bed, yeah?”

He groans, “I think I drank too much, baby,” he mumbles, pushing himself up and I'm once again in awe of how his muscles move with him. 

I scratch at my scalp and nod, holding out the pills for him. “Yeah, I think you did, too.” He takes them in his hand and I sit next to him, uncapping the water bottle before handing it to him as well.

“Thank you,” he hiccups.

“You’re welcome.” I look down at my hands as he takes the pills. He goes to hand me the water bottle back but I shake my head, “You need to drink it all. We’re trying to avoid a hangover.”

He just holds the bottle in his lap, not moving to drink anymore of it, so I look back up at him only to find him already staring at me. 

“You okay?” I ask.

He hums and reaches forward. He runs his thumb under my eye, “You got an eyelash. I got it,” he mumbles, but he keeps his hand cradling the side of my face. 

My eyes search his tired ones, they’re glossed over, but they always get that way when he drinks, making his eyes seem just a little more blue than green. 

“Have I told you tonight that you look pretty?” he asks quietly. 

“Multiple times,” I confirm. 

“Good, because you are… so, so pretty.”

I lick my lips and watch his eyes move from my eyes to my lips and back. I take in a shallow breath as he starts to lean closer. His eyes closed as his face inches toward mine. I push him back gently just before his lips have the chance to connect with mine, and I mean just before because I could feel his breath against my mouth. “What are you doing?” I question.

“I was… I was trying to kiss you. Did you, I thought you wanted to - when we were laying in bed a couple weeks ago, you said you wanted me to kiss you.”

“Well, I… Connor,” I shake my head. I didn’t think he heard me when I said that. “Not like this. Not tonight. Not when you’re drunk and not thinking clearly.” I stand up, pacing slowly in front of him. “If you’re gonna kiss me, I want you to be sober, and to actually want to do it. Not just because we got in a fight earlier. I don’t want this to be something you do now and then completely forget about or ignore, or fuck, even worse, regret in the morning. I don’t want that. I don’t deserve that. I don’t deserve to be led on by you again.”

“Again?” He asks, tilting his head at me. 

“Nevermind. I should go back out there, start cleaning up so it’s not so much tomorrow.”

“Wait, y/n, please. Stay here, please. Stay with me tonight.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I won’t try anything, I promise. Please, just stay?”

I sigh, “Just until you fall asleep.”

---

It’s nearing eleven in the morning when Shawn finally retreats from his room. He’s not nearly as hungover as I bet the other boys are going to be. If he’s even hungover at all, he doesn’t seem to be. 

He leans against the counter, watching me pull my second batch of cookies from the oven. “You’re stress baking,” he observes.

I scoff, “I made muffins too,” I nod in the direction of the counter in front of him where a plate of blueberry muffins sits. 

“Ooh,” he reaches forward and takes one, “Not that I like when you’re stressed, but this my favorite of your coping mechanisms.”

“For purely selfish, I presume.”

“Of course,” he says around a mouthful of muffin. “So,” he says after he swallows. “Does this sudden urge to bake have anything to do with what happened last night with Connor?”

I tense up at the memory of Connor leaning in to kiss me. Me pushing him away. “Maybe.”

“So what did happen after I left you two?”

“Nothing,” I shake my head.

“Well, the glorious smell of our kitchen and the spotless living room say otherwise.”

I close my eyes and rub my hands over my face. “He, god, he tried to kiss me.”

“What?” Shawn chokes. 

“Shh! You’ll wake them.”

“Oh please, Brain will be asleep until five. Nothing will wake him. He kissed you?! Well, how was it?”

“I said he tried. As in, I didn’t let him. I pushed him away before he could.”

“Why? Don’t you want him to?”

“Of course! But not like that! Not when he’s drunk and not himself. WHen he’s saying stupid things like he wants to make love to me, and that he wishes I was undressing him for the first time under different circumstances.”

“What? He said all of that?! Oh my god! Go, Connor!”

“No, not go Connor. Because he’s not going to remember any of this when he wakes up and I’m going to remember everything and have to pretend that he didn’t say anything or try to kiss me. And I’m stuck being led on once again, except this time he lives just down the hall and I have to see him everyday.”

Shawn sighs, “Okay, you’re right. So, what are you going to do?”

“Same thing I always do.”

He nods, “I’ll get my guitar.”

***

Permanent tag: @soyalimoncada-blog @magcon7280 @fallinallincurls @goldenflickerx  @myyohmyuohmyy @harry-hollands @enchantingbrowneyedgirl @baroness-alison @lostinmendess @linanilssonfurberg @luvluvxx @mariamuses @shawnieeboyy @divinginfearlessly @mendesficsxbombay @shawnsthighs @zaahidahhh @lordescomeback @shawnandconnor @shawnsblue @turtoix @honestlyimstilllivinginthe90s @gangofhoes @verlaneswiftie13

[a-dragons-journal]

i dont "kin for fun" but through tiktok i found out about the whole kin for fun vs actual otherkin... situation ig? im having a really hard time taking it seriously... maybe im just burnt out and bitter from dealing with the worlds current events, and maybe its because on tiktok the only people i saw mad about it were white people, but you're the most reasonable person ive seen talking about it (a lot of other posts have this odd tone that 12 year olds on tiktok saying kin is the worlds greatest opression and it weirds me out) so ig my question is just... why exactly does this matter? why does it matter enough to post about and care about and not just ignore? /gen

Hey! I don’t blame you for being a bit weirded out by it, we’re a weird subculture and we’re well aware of it! xD I appreciate you taking the time to actually look into it past your first knee-jerk reaction, especially considering burnout and the state of things.

I’m not totally sure if you’re asking why otherkinity matters or why the “kin for fun” being wrong matters, so I’ll answer both - they’re pretty well tied together anyway.

The short version:

Otherkinity is an identity. It’s who we are, we can’t choose to pick it up or put it down, and it comes with struggles - though no, ‘kin are not systematically oppressed (though we are pretty badly bullied and, at this point, pushed out of our own words and spaces).

What people calling roleplay/relating to/projecting onto characters “kinning for fun” does is steal our words, make them meaningless, and in doing so, make it difficult or impossible for us to find each other. If someone says “I kin [x],” I no longer know whether they mean “I am [x] on an intrinsic level” or “haha I relate to this character a lot”. I no longer know whether they actually share my experiences or if they’re going to turn on me and call me “crazy” as soon as they realize I’m not exaggerating or joking or roleplaying. It’s done massive harm to the community as a whole because it’s become difficult to tell whether someone is actually ‘kin or if they’ve misunderstood the whole thing - and because antikin rhetoric, which I’m seeing more and more in KFF spaces, hurts far more when it’s coming from inside what you thought was a community space than when it’s coming from self-labeled “antikin.”

There are other words for roleplaying and relating to and projecting onto characters. Hell, there are words for strongly identifying with-but-not-as characters/things, though usually KFF people don’t even seem serious enough for those to fit in my experience. I’m really not sure why these people are so determined to steal and misuse our words, words that were specifically created to mean something else, when they already have their own and are just refusing to use them. (Or, hell, if you don’t feel like those fit, make your own. We did. It’s your turn to put in the work. (General you, not you-the-anon, of course.))

An analogy, if that still doesn’t quite land for you:

Consider, for a moment, the transgender community. I am aware this is a dangerous thing to say, but bear with me. Obvious CW for hypothetical transphobia up ahead is obvious.

Consider if you were part of the trans community (I don’t know if you are or not), having finally found a word to explain why you feel the way you do about yourself, why your experiences don’t seem to match up with those of everyone else around you. Having found a community, a home, full of other people like you, people you never would have met if not for words like “transgender” and “gender dysphoria/euphoria” that were created specifically to describe your experiences.

Now consider if people suddenly stumbled across your community for the first time who were not trans themselves. They see community jokes and lighthearted posts out of context, because Tumblr and Twitter aren’t exactly conducive to making sure people find the Transgender 101 information posts first. They don’t bother to do further research, assuming they understand: ah, these people like to crossdress! They like to pretend they’re a different gender! This seems like a fun hobby, I want in!

They begin to post things like this. They post photos of them crossdressing and caption them “hi, I’m [name], and I trans men!” and things of the like. Suddenly the concept of “transing for fun” seems to be everywhere - and it’s not at all what being trans actually is, but these people either don’t know or don’t care. When actual trans people try to politely correct them, they’re accused of “gatekeeping” - and to be clear, this is not “nonbinary people aren’t real,” it’s “transgender means you identify as a gender other than the one you were assigned at birth, and you’re self-identifying as the gender you were assigned at birth 100% and telling us this is just a fun hobby for you, therefore you’re not trans, you’re crossdressing or doing drag or being GNC. That’s fine, but it’s not being trans - you have other words to describe that, use those.”

(Yes, I am aware these things have a history with the trans community - please just ignore that for the sake of the analogy and bear with me on the slightly simplified version of this. “Kinning for fun” does not have that same history with the otherkin community.)

...And then the response to those attempted corrections, in some corners, turns into “wait, you ACTUALLY think you’re another gender? idk that sounds pretty unhealthy, maybe you should see a psychologist or something :\” and “you’re taking this too seriously.”

I imagine, in this hypothetical scenario, you’d also be pretty fuckin peeved.

(Obviously, in this hypothetical scenario, systematic transphobia would be an issue as well, which isn’t the case for otherkin - again, you’re gonna have to bear with me on the simplification for sake of analogy there.)

(EDIT: this is not an anti-MOGAI/exclusionist argument, this is “you’re literally telling me you don’t fit the definition,” explanation on that here)

The long version, which is probably still worth reading if you have the time and energy:

Otherkinity is... pretty core to who I am, who we as a group of individuals are. We live with being otherkin on a daily basis. Many of us spent a long time feeling different and disconnected and not understanding why until we found the otherkin community. Even people like me, who don’t share that experience and still had social connection - I’ve still had to live with weird differences that I had to learn to mask when necessary; instincts that don’t line up with human society well, feeling body parts that weren’t there and that no one else ever seemed to have, things that other kids grew out of because it was just make-believe for them and I... didn’t, because it was never make-believe for me to begin with. Oh, sure, I played make-believe too - I played warrior cats and house and all those things with the other kids, but there were things that weren’t play-pretend for me too. I didn’t have an explanation for it for a long time - it was just how I was, I was weird, and fortunately for me personally I was okay with that (many of those with species dysphoria or more trouble connecting with humans have more problems from that than I did).

And then I found the word “otherkin.” And suddenly everything fell into place, and I had an explanation for the things I’d been experiencing, and there were other people like me. Something I’d assumed didn’t exist. I found others who shared my unique experiences, who were talking about how to cope with the instinct to growl or snap jaws at people instead of expressing annoyance in a human way instead of just saying “that’s weird, don’t do that”, who were talking about dealing with phantom wings and tails, who understood me. I wasn’t weird, I wasn’t broken, I was exactly what one would expect from a dragon living in human skin. I found an explanation for myself. I found a home.

That is why otherkinity matters - it is who we are, it’s not something we can walk away from (certainly not most of us, anyway), and it’s something many of us need the support of the community to help deal with on a daily basis. Being a nonhuman in human society isn’t always easy, but it’s not something we can just magically stop being - it’s core to who we are, we (generally) didn’t choose to be this way, and we (generally) can’t choose to stop. Which is fine - the vast majority of us can cope with it just fine, with a little advice and help and space to be our authentic selves in. We found each other, we built this community from the ground up to make a space and words to make finding each other easier - or possible at all.

Thus we come to the second half of our story.

It was only a couple of years ago that the “kin for fun” trend started getting big. It had existed before that, of course, but it only started going mainstream two, maybe three years ago, from what I can tell. Suddenly people were treating “kin” like it meant relating to, projecting onto, roleplaying as, or just really really liking a character or thing - not being that thing, which is what it actually means. Not long after that, it became hard to tell whether someone saying “I kin this” meant they were that thing, that they were actually part of our community - or that they really really liked that thing and either didn’t know or couldn’t be bothered to learn that that wasn’t the case for us.

Not long after that, it became relatively commonplace to hear phrases like “otherkin are ruining kinning!!” and “you’re taking this too seriously” and “idk, if it’s that serious for you that sounds unhealthy. maybe you should get some help :\” (all directly quoted, or as exactly quoted as I can remember, from things KFF people have said to me or people I know).

It is a special kind of hell, I think, to be told “you’re taking this too seriously, that’s unhealthy” by people who are taking words created to describe your experiences, not theirs, and misusing them to mean something that you do for fun on a weekend instead of something that’s intrinsic to your being.

Perhaps more importantly, like I’ve said, it’s making it almost impossible to know whether someone who says “I kin [x]” is actually ‘kin or if they’re misusing our words to mean something else entirely. The entire point of words is to communicate ideas, and once you start misusing words to mean something totally different than what they actually mean, that communication falls apart and suddenly we might as well not have those words at all. Especially when the community is small enough and obscure enough that we’re starting to be outnumbered by the misinformation. We’re being run out of our own words, words we created to describe our experiences specifically - because we’re a small community that the wider internet can easily drown out by sheer numbers of people who either don’t know any better or don’t care to learn.

That’s the harm it does - the harm it is doing, right now. That’s why it’s important enough to post about. That’s why it matters - because we’re fighting desperately to hang onto our own words so that others like us can actually find us. Because we’re seeing young nonhumans go “this isn’t a kin, I actually am this” and screaming “No, I’m so sorry that this is what the misinformation has done to you, that’s exactly what otherkin means, you have a place here, please don’t let these non-’kin misusing our words drive you away from the very community you’re looking for and that you belong in.” Because we can’t even communicate effectively about our own experiences anymore except in semi-closed spaces like Discord servers and forums (and the number of Discord servers overrun with KFF people is absurd).

......This got very long. Hopefully it at least explained why it matters so much to me and others a bit better ^^; Thanks for hearing me out, and thank you again for looking into this beyond your initial knee-jerk reaction - I really do appreciate it.

(For further reading, if that text wall didn’t blow you out of the water completely, I recommend my “kin for fun” tag, which has more posts like this in both short and long form.)

[georgiaswarr]

made a coraline playlist. rundown under the cut.

papaoutai - stromae

ah sacré papa / dis-moi où es-tu caché ? / ça doit, faire au moins mille fois que j'ai / compté mes doigts (oh beloved dad / tell me where you’re hiding / i must’ve counted my fingers / at least a thousand times)

at its core, this is a song about screaming, pleading to know where your absent father is, which i think fits coraline quite well; in the beginning she feels neglected by her parents and later on in the movie her real parents literally disappear

love me wrong - allie x, troye sivan

oh, you love me / you put me to bed / yeah, you love me / dress me to the nines / yeah, you love me / you tell me i'm special, so special / but you love me wrong

“you know i love you” - “you have a very funny way of showing it”

other father song - they might be giants

she’s as cute as a button in the eyes of everyone who ever laid their eyes on coraline

buttons, eyes, gaslighting parents - this is pretty self-explanatory

bury a friend - billie eilish

cannibal class, killing the son

this is definitely a song about the other mother and her victims

the debt i owe, gotta sell my soul / 'cause i can't say no, no, i can't say no / then my limbs all froze and my eyes won't close / and i can't say no, i can't say no

eyes !!!! children selling their souls for something they’re unable to refuse !!!!

hide & seek

the other mother can’t refuse a good game

oily marks appear on walls / where pleasure moments hung before / the takeover, the sweeping insensitivity of this still life

i’m thinking about the part of the movie where the walls inside the other house start crumbling

the other side of hollywood - julie and the phantoms cast

let me introduce myself / we got some time to kill / consider me the pearly gates to your new favorite thrills

when coraline first enters into the other world everything seems very shiny and thrilling

so welcome to the brotherhood / where you won’t be misunderstood

coraline feels misunderstood by her real parents so naturally she’d be seduced by a place where “life is good”

house of the rising sun - the animals

there is a house in new orleans / they call the rising sun / and it's been the ruin of many a poor boy / and god, i know i'm one

the house coraline and her family move into appears to be the main place where the other mother finds her victims

now the only thing a gambler needs / is a suitcase and a trunk

once again, the other mother loves a good game

make pretend - juice

i've been hiding under covers from my nightmares / is she holding to her pillow like i'm right there? / is she ever coming home again?

i associate this song with the scene where coraline goes back to the real world just to find her family missing

it's nothing more than make-pretend

in my opinion, coraline is a movie that manages to realistically portray childhood, which is something that’s reflected in this lyric, what with make-pretend being a common childhood game. in this scene especially we see just how young and vulnerable coraline really is and how all she really needs is comfort from her parents

paradise - coldplay

when she was just a girl / she expected the world / but it flew away from her reach / so she ran away in her sleep / and dreamed of para-para-paradise / para-para-paradise / para-para-paradise / every time she closed her eyes

the plot of the story is literally set into motion because coraline wants her situation to be better. because of that, as soon as she goes to bed the first time she’s sent into a dream-like place

secret of life - lord huron

pretty sure almost every lyric in this song is rife with coraline-ism so let me just go through it step-by-step

i sit alone in the dark, and i try to remember / the words you spoke when you summoned the ender / you chained my life to an ancient master / will the curse be reversed if i say it backwards?

this line already reeks of horror. it’s coraline during her worst moments, alone and in the dark, trying to figure out how to stop the other mother. i’m also thinking about the theory that the other mother serves a much higher, more ancient power which is based on lines from the book such as “whatever that corridor was was older by far than the other mother. it was deep, and slow, and it knew that she was there...”

what you crossed was a line at the edge of the void / and you can’t crawl back without making a choice / but then something escaped when you opened the gate / you cheated death and sealed your fate

coraline’s fate was sealed as soon as she decided to crawl through that door

put on your new dress tonight / have a look to the west, the moon’s in the sky

it’s always night in the other world. also, the other mother keeps giving coraline clothes

you told me you’re never gonna die / how am i supposed to sleep through the night? / you showed me the secret of life / i can’t forget that look in your eye

the other mother seems all-powerful and stops at nothing, which is terrifying. also, eyes !!

it’s a long way back from the edge of the cosmos

this just evokes images of the other mother’s world and how it starts deteriorating as soon as you step away too far from the house

everything i wanted

i had a dream / i got everything i wanted / not what you'd think / and if i’m bein' honest / it might've been a nightmare

“coraline sighed. ‘you really don’t understand, do you?’ she said. ‘i don’t want whatever i want. nobody does. not really. what kind of fun would it be if i just got everything i ever wanted? just like that, and it didn‘t mean anything. what then?’“

sommeil - stromae

j'suis pas tes potes / ni ton boss ou tes collègues moi / mais tu m'prends vraiment pour un con / tu crois qu'tu m'endors / mais même derrière ton masque / tes cernes en parlent encore / tu n'as pas sommeil / le froid, la soif, la dalle, t'as tout / mais tu n'as pas sommeil (i’m not one of your friends / nor your boss, nor your colleagues / but you really take me for an fool / you think you put me to sleep / but even behind your mask / the bags under your eyes speak for themselves / you are not tired / the cold, thirst, hunger, you have everything / but you don’t get sleep

another song about the other mother and her lies, schemes and deception

[fallenhero-rebirth]

Brain update

First, let me say that this isn't about what anybody has done. My reactions are not in proportion to anything that has happened, and might be considered odd, weird and sensitive to people involved.

So let me explain.

I'm an Aspie (what we call ourselves in Sweden), on the autism spectrum. Yeah, might have guessed that from the story I'm writing, Sidestep is not the only one trying to figure out how people work.

Over the years I have built up an arsenal of knowledge and analysis to be able to pretend to be neurotypical, something that I can manage alright most days, but which breaks down once you get to know me better. I'm open with this at my current job, and luckily both my bosses seem to be okay dealing with open communication and just telling me what I need to do.

It was not always like this, and that is one of the reasons why I had a breakdown and needed to get off discord/tumblr.

Back in the late nineties, I had finally got my dream job. I was a product developer in the food industry, part of a rather small department of middle-class academics. I was the new hire, everyone else had worked there for years, and things were going well. Or so I assumed. I got cool projects, got along well with one of the sales people, and well, my boss was weird but bosses always are.

Three years later. Our parent company wanted to sell us off, everyone was starting to get worried about their job. We tried to expand into things were weren't equipped to do (you don't bring spices into a fruit jam line, will be hell to clean) and while I did the projects, I also raised an (in retrospect) too big stink about the fact that we were wasting time developing things we couldn't produce without expanding. My boss (who I had learned was a devout christian) started to get really weird, I got called in and he wondered if I was a member of a cult (I was often wearing a headscarf at the time because pressure on my head is good for stress relief). I also got told off for wearing army boots to work (we had lab shoes in the lab), because (I kid you not) if we had danish visitors to the lab (we didn't have visitors) they could be offended since they had once been occupied by Nazis. Yes, at the time I was an Antifa metalhead/satanist, it was a very volatile time in sweden and nazis were everywhere. Now they're a political party, go figure.

It all came to a head when I was confronted with a folder one of the secretaries of the department had where she had written down every odd and strange thing that I did, and there were a lot of accusations of things I quite frankly blocked out. Around this time I was suffering from bad burnout, had memory loss, my hair was falling out and I lost two bikes because I forgot where I parked them. All because of workplace hostility.

So for the first time ever, I went to the company doctor, who immediately sent me on a one month sick leave, and gave a reference to a therapist. When I went and told my boss, his reaction was "It can't be anything at work," in a dismissive tone. I wrote my resignation right then and there, left the building, snuck back a Saturday to clean out my stuff so I didn't have to meet anyone. Luckily I was backed up by my union, so I got unemployment despite quitting, and the therapist helped me get back on my feet and hook me up with some antidepressants.

Still, I was a wreck for years.

At the time, I had NO idea I was an Aspie. It weren't talked about, the only thing I knew about Autism, was from the various portrayals in movies, and well, in the nineties you can guess. Rainman pretty much was it.

What destroyed me the most was not that people disliked me, I didn't like them either, we didn't have anything in common, and middle-class people always scared me. No, what broke me was the fact that my system failed.

See, I had built up myself over ten years into someone I wanted to be. Smart. Capable. Metalhead. Researcher. Activist. I thought I knew the rules. How to interact.

It turned out I knew nothing. People had been talking behind my back for years, and I didn't know. Getting annoyed by my ticks, and I had no idea. Nobody ever brought anything up to my face until it exploded one day out of the blue. This is why I have ranted about anons on this tumblr. This is why I have been so openly against passive aggressive posts and bullying, especially the anonymous kind, because it destroys people and I don't think the people who does it knows the impact they can have. I hope they don't.

I have never gone back to the lab. I can't. I'm having heart palpitations just thinking about it when I'm writing this. I retrained. Became a machinist. Back to the working class I came from. Eventually started writing.

And this is exactly what these last months have felt like.

I thought I understood things. I was pretty open with being old, an Aspie, not understanding memes, or humor, or tik tok, or certain aspects of people's behavior like jealousy, but the problem with joking about this is that it's so easy to take as just a joke. That I'm just making fun of myself (oh it's that too). I got advice from some of you, which I ignored, because I thought that I could be different. That there was no danger in getting close. That I could be just another voice in the crowd. An occasionally evil avocado. That this couldn't blow up in my face, that everything was cool.

And then it did. And I was wrong. And the talking started, and things were coming out that I had no idea that was going on. That I was being held responsible for. Opinions that were spoken in my name. Events I was supposed to have been aware of and supported. All of a sudden I was omniscient, aware of the true passive aggressive meaning of every reblog, aware of every post in every room in the discord I wasn't even running. Wasn't even a mod on. All of a sudden I had power, and I had used it to hurt people. The people I cared about. Everything I wrote was taken in the worst possible way, twisted into things I never meant, and the more I tried to talk to people, the worse it went.

Look. I know this was at heart a war between people that just doesn't like each other and the things they do/the ways they behave. I'm still not entirely sure who's been involved, and I'm not interested in finding out. I tried to build a supportive space, reblog everyone's art and fics, encourage people to make their own things, get a kofi, get some money, make some friends.

And herein lies my problem.

I thought I understood how to be, and now I don't. I have no idea who hates my guts and who doesn't (well, except some who has very vocally let me know). I can't trust anything. I can't trust anyone. And it sucks. Someone I trusted stabbed be in the back because they were convinced I stabbed them in the back and that sucks more than I can describe. Every time I make a comment on AO3 or twitter it's after psyching myself up for half an hour, and I'm usually a wreck afterwards, because my brain doesn't know if they hate me too, and if I am imposing on them and making their day bad.

So yeah. I need to figure out how to be. How not to have a nausea attack every time I accidentally click open tumblr from pure reflex, looking away from the screen just not to see how may messages I have.

I never wanted to be the aloof author, but maybe I have to be. The question is if I can. I have been told I can't comment on pics or fics, because then I have favorites. And that makes people jealous. And it makes people think I take sides. I have been told I can't be on the discord, because then I will be held responsible for what the mods do there, and everything that's said even when I'm not around. I should apparently have someone manage the tumblr, it's not something that I, an author should do.

I now understand the authors who just stay away and remain distant, because people give themselves the power to write the narrative for you.

Part of me wants to tell people what I've told my current bosses, don't assume, just talk to me. I don't pick up/do passive aggression, I don't understand hints, I have trouble with nuance, I don't listen to gossip, I don't interact enough to know anything that's going on. Just ask before assuming.

Except that right now I can't. I can't talk about any of this. It's too close. It sets me off. It's getting better, sure, I'm on medication again, but the smallest thing still can ruin my entire day. I have no idea how long it will take me to recover and come back to some semblance of normality. I'm not posting this myself (my partner does). Writing is going well, because it lets me not be myself. I need those walls again. The therapy of writing about pain.

I'll rebuild them. I'm not entirely sure who I'll be on the other end of it. We'll see.

I have consciously not spoken about any details because those could be misunderstood, this is not a passive aggressive callout to anybody. I have no hard feelings towards anyone, I am not angry or upset, just confused and sad. I am truly so very, very, very sorry that I've hurt people, both by action and inaction. It was never my intention. I will do my best to do better in the future.

Still working on how to do that.

[thehollowprince]

I love Legacies, but to be honest, Hope is so annoying but most of all when it comes to her family. Her family caused untold mayhem for centuries and Klaus was the worst. Her grandfather burnt towns and cities down, and worst of all her grandmother unleashed a curse that would never stop. Hope's selfness led to Hayley's,Poppy's, and Henry's death.

Her family has caused death and destruction wherever they went. Klaus definitely deserves the title of the great evil and she should stop acting her family especially Klaus never did anything to deserve the ire of everyone hell, even dead witches hated him!

I still haven't seen any of Legacies and I don't plan on it. There was a moment there during quarantine where I considered it, but I stopped myself. And there are a number of reasons I haven't watched. The first obviously being that I never finished The Originals and the second being the character of Hope herself.

I never liked Hope, even long before she was born, I never liked her. Way back when the backdoor pilot aired during season four of The Vampire Diaries, I was just happy to finally have the Mikaelson Family gone from Mystic Falls so we could get back to the Mystic Falls Gang. That being said, when I watched it and they revealed that Hayley was pregnant with Klaus' child, I remember very vividly shouting at the screen.

Really? We were going the Twilight route with a magical, miracle baby?

But, aside from the Mikaelson Melodrama, I was intrigued by the other aspects of the show. The war between the witches and the vampires piqued my interest, especially with Jane-Anne's use of ancestral magic, which was very clearly influenced by Louisiana Voodoo. Also, Marcel was really hot, and I'm not above admitting that I'm shallow.

Sadly, the aspects of the show that I liked dwindled fast. The magic was now just the same as TVD but with a blurry special effect. Marcel was usurped so that Klaus could reclaim the throne that he abandoned and they ruined everything I liked about characters like Elijah and Rebekah. Also, the creepy, pseudo-incestual relationship between Marcel and Rebekah 🤢. When they finally got to the birth of the baby (longest pregnancy ever) and they named her Hope, I actually booed.

What is it with these shows and movies always naming their daughters Hope? Can people really not think of any other name than the one that puts pressure on a child's shoulders to make the adults' lives better?

But I stuck around, because as much as I disliked the Mikaelsons, I liked the other aspects of the show. The supernatural gang war between the different covens and packs and factions was interesting, and almost enough to ignore the racism and the misogyny and how the writing treated New Orleans and how they completely rewrote the Mikaelsons' backstories. But the longer I stuck around the worse it got. Suddenly Hope was the most powerful witch to ever witch even though she was just an infant. And now she's a tribrid mix of werewolf, witch and vampire and blah blah blah. By the time they introduced her as a toddler, I was just waiting for the inevitable "my daddy was nice" bullshit, indicating that Hayley told her kid how Klaus was just misunderstood or whatever fantasy lived in Plec's head to justify her fixation on such abusive characters.

There's also the fact that they really double-down on the "family only means blood related" thing, which infuriated me to no end.

Halfway through season four I rage quit and so thankfully I was gone before teenage Hope was introduced. I couldn't stand to watch as the narrative went out of its way to forgive and erase the horrible deeds the Mikaelson Family, Klaus in particular, committed. For what reason, I don't know, but I couldn't sit through it. I was sicked by TVD using Bonnie and Caroline and Matt to forgive Damon in the final season of that shit show.

The only way I'd ever watch Legacies is if I knew they actually acknowledged Klaus and Damon and Elijah as the horrible people they were, and that's something Plec is never going to do.

There's also the whole format of now there are phoenixes and dragons and trolls? Really?

The sad thing is, they could have done so much just by exploring the wider world of the supernatural as opposed to following a few families between a small town in Virginia and the Crescent City. Show me what the vampires of New York City are like. Are the witches in Sedona New Age hippies? South America, Africa, Asia... so many places to explore and yet nothing!

[shadow--writer]

If I Catch Fire Then I Change my Aim

HA I DID IT (hm de dum . song lyric titles will die with me and holy fuck I should make a master list of this bsery). Finals kicked my ass and I, of course, bit back but I am back on the writing bullshit of everyone’s nightmares.

Maeve x Lucas. Amani slaps some sense into one of the two dumbasses. 3.9k (how am I still surprised by this? I have learned time and time again I cannot stfu)

TW: mention of past abuse 

@dela-png

The day was warm. She had her door open as she finished organizing her herbs. It did absolutely nothing to help the deep pit in her stomach.

Her bangs kept falling into her face, she had tucked the handkerchief away again. Every time she looked at it she saw the raw hurt on his face. 

And that was a distraction. 

In her line of work she couldn’t afford distractions. 

Even so she was distracted. By the pit in her stomach even though it had been...weeks. Again. He misunderstood what she said and didn’t come back. 

She rubbed her temples with a low groan.  

They were both idiots. 

Morons. If there was another word for it, that could be applied. 

She did regret cutting him off, but judging by his reaction to her little nickname, it was for the better. She was fine without him. Yeah. She was fine without…the nice feelings he brought. The flowers. The food. 

Mmhmm yeah she could go on just fine. He was just one person in a large world of many. 

Ugh but someone tell her heart that. 

She groaned, laying out on the counter, the worn surface cool against her cheek. Pining was the worst. Especially when it was unrequited pining. Well sure it wasn’t unrequited before but now it for sure was. 

Even if he did prop her tables up again and bring her lunch one last time. 

After taking her words in the totally wrong way. 

She huffed. 

Why did this have to be so complicated? It wasn’t fair.

She really had to go and fall for the guy who was like a dense hyperactive puppy (a very cute one but this wasn’t the time). Oh and then she had to let her trauma string her along like a little puppet. 

Ugh he was right. Of course he was. Three years and she still wasn’t over anything. 

She stretched out her arms, now resting her chin on the counter. She really should be over him. Over the words he used against her still ingrained in her very being. Gods she was just an idiot. 

He was right about one thing. She did muck up every relationship she’d ever had. 

She hated admitting he was right. But of course he was right, he was always right. He always had to be right. He got angry when he was wrong. 

She pushed herself to stand, pressing the heel of her palm to her eye. Always right. 

She chuckled without humour. Yeah right. 

She moved away from the counter, staring at the chipped blue paint she couldn’t scrub away. The pain was still a little raw. She knew it was an accident and he just took her words the wrong way. But it still hurt to see him look at her that way. Such unabashed hurt and anger. 

Almost worse then when she rejected his kiss. 

She turned away from the pain, chewing on the inside of her cheek. She was never going to get over Lucas if she kept thinking about him and dragging the pain out. She just needed to bury her feelings. Bury the hurt. 

This was all fine. 

Maybe once things calmed she’d go home. Lucas didn’t want to see her again anyways.

She would just be a hazy memory in a few months time anyways. His first heartbreak. 

She bit her lip. Ouch that hurt to think about. She knew she was someone's bad memory. But she didn’t want to be his.

Maybe if she were different it would be okay. 

Who was she kidding? She couldn’t turn back time anymore than she could fly. 

It was her biggest self indulgent dream. To be able to fly. Sometimes when she was standing alone with the breeze, she felt like she could take off and never land. 

Great. She was starting to sound like her Mhamó. Always had her head in the clouds. 

The door slammed open, yanking her from her musings. 

In the doorway was a fully healed, and very angry looking Amani. 

Oh great it was ‘piss-everyone-off-o’clock’. 

She shifted a bored look at the angry lady in her doorway. “Oh and how may I help you this fine afternoon?” Her voice was dry and filled with sarcasm. Was it so much to hope that she’d be left alone just once in her life?

She was still recovering from her clinic being raided. 

“I can’t believe you’d not only have the audacity to dump him like that but insult him in another language.”

Ah. So this was how today was going to pan out. 

Lovely. 

She crossed her arms. “Audacity? What I do and chose to do are none of your business nor your concern. I did it to protect him.”

“From what?!”

“Me.”

“Oh boo hoo.” She chucked a nearby pot at Maeve. She dodged, the glass shattering. Great more for her to clean up. “Protect him from yourself?! What a load of bullshit!”

“You are a spitfire,” Maeve replied, dodging the box of masks that were thrown at her next. “But I’d appreciate it if you stopped throwing my things. Most of them are new.”

Amani snarled. “I hear you’re a spitfire as well. I wonder what I’d have to do to get you to insult me in another language.”

Her gaze at Amani turned icy. “It takes quite a bit to push me over that edge.”

“Liar. You did it to Lucas.”

“I did no such thing. He took a detour off a cliff to get to that conclusion. You do know languages are used for things other than insults right?” She dodged a stool. Amani was getting increasingly more pissed off. 

Just-fucking-wonderful. This is what she gets for helping Will at the dock. This is what she gets for being nice. For catching feelings. And then trying to break things off knowing she was going to muck things up. 

Hateful stars above. 

“That’s-” Amani let out another frustrated growl. “True I guess.”

“...you two really like jumping off cliffs to conclusions. Astounding.”

Amani’s eyes were narrowed into slits. The gold paint on her lips shone in the afternoon sun streaming through the windows. Maeve could admit she was almost pretty. 

You know, if she wasn’t currently trying to kill her with her own stool. 

“I thought you liked him.”

“I did.”

“Past tense?”

Maeve kept her gaze, hands trembling at her sides. She hated Amani’s tone. “And what of it?”

Amani searched for something on her face, a smug grin creeping across her face. “Ooh you like him. You still fucking like him.” The expression darkened again. “So how could you?!”

“My reasoning is my own.”

“I am his best fucking friend, you think he doesn’t tell me this stuff?!”

“He can tell you his side of things. But that is only half of the picture,” she said, keeping her tone level and cold. She could feel her anger bubbling in her gut. Amani was right to be mad. She and Lucas were both right to be mad. “What happened on my side of things with me is with me only.”

“Don’t you have friends to talk to?”

“No. Not here I don’t. I didn’t see the need for them.”

Not after what happened the first time. 

Amani froze. “That...is a terrible way to live.”

“Oh great a lecture. And I thought you were pissed at me. Come on now, lay it on me. Let’s see what you can do.”

“Oh don’t get me wrong I’m fucking pissed. But holy fuck do I feel bad for you. Cutting off people who want to be your friends?”

“You included in that?”

She shrugged. “Uh yeah. We were on the same wavelength. I liked you. Well, when you weren’t being a bitch.” Alright, she did deserve that one. “And then you fucking went and ruined everything with him.”

“If ruining it is how he stays away from me, fine.”

“What’s got you so fucking scared?!”

She flinched, nails making little crescents in her palms. She was easy to read when you looked for the signs. She was scared. She was terrified. 

“He does,” she whispered, letting go of everything. If Amani wanted to know, fine. 

She didn’t...she didn’t want to hold onto it by herself anymore. 

And fuck she knew her sisters would beat her over the head with the dumbassery she pulled to spare her own feelings. 

“Why?! Did he do something to you?”

Her head snapped up. The words made her remember the faces at the market. “What? He’s never done anything to me. He’s only been...a sweetheart.”

Amani’s shoulders drooped a bit. “So then why did you leave? Why are you so scared of him? He’s not...that way anymore.”

She pursed her lips. That way anymore? The fuck was going on? 

“If you want to know, fine. Fine! Throw my own shit at me, berate me and then have the audacity to ask questions now but fine. I did like him. But I don’t want him getting close to me.”

“Why not?!”

She fought back angry tears. Ugh she hated being pushed to this point. Hated it! “Because I am a fucking selfish person.”

“This is being selfish? This is the OPPOSITE of selfish!”

“Maybe me wanting him to be around was selfish and too much for me to ask for!”

“For what?!”

“Myself! I don’t deserve anything he’s given me. I don’t deserve his affections. I don’t deserve anything like this!”

“And why the fuck not? Why do you think you don’t deserve any of this? Because I can tell you for a fact that’s not just you speaking there.”

She froze. “I- It’s just-”

“You fucking like him! Still! Don’t past tense me,” Amani said with a low exasperated sigh. “And holy fuck you two need to learn to talk to one another.”

“Like...his palm said,” she whispered to herself. 

“Huh?”

“Nothing.”

“Even if you still like him...why did you just...leave him like that? Say those things? Push him away? ‘For his own good’, bull-fucking-shit.”

It was her turn to growl. “I said this! But I’ll say it again to get it through your thick skull. I’m pushing him away because I’m fucking selfish okay?!” Her voice was starting to crack. She was starting to crack. Under the scrutiny. 

Under the fact someone was willing to listen to her.

“I’m not some perfect thing. I don’t know what he’s told you or what he’s made up about me but that’s not me.”

Amani’s eyes widened. “Hold on...Maeve?”

She threw her hands in the air, blinking back tears. Cracking and shattering. She hit her breaking point. 

Weeks now. Since she first told him to leave. 

Another few after he took her words in the wrong way. 

She...fucking gods, she missed him.

“I’m just...I’m selfish, okay?! I don’t want him falling in love with an idea he’s made up. I don’t want him falling for me and then realizing he doesn’t really like me. I don’t want him falling in love with me, period.”

She shocked the other woman into a jaw slack expression. 

She scrubbed her eyes, she didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want to cry. But now that she was, the tears just wouldn’t stop. 

“I’m tired. I’m tired of love. I’m tired of romanticizing everything. I’m tired of loving, giving and then being broken. I’m tired of people loving me and then deciding that they need to change me. Because they don’t really like me.” Tears were freely streaming down her face now. “I’m not perfect.” Her voice cracked over the words.

They were true. 

The rung true.

She was a broken mess. Fuck, she hated love for the longest time. It only got worse. 

A festering wound.

“I’m tired of being changed like I’m not a fucking person. People will always find something wrong with me. People don’t like how...weird I look to them. And it’s not even weird!” She was yelling, her voice breaking. “So what if I glow? So what if my hair has some weird silver metallic looking streak in it. My tattoos aren’t even that odd. So then why?”

She sniffed. “Why is it that I’m always the issue? My personality is too much. I talk too loud. I’m too crass. I argue too much. I’m not quiet enough. I am not good enough for anyone.”

There was a pause. 

She was really letting this all spill out of her. The dam had been broken.

“Holy shit, what the fuck happened to you?”

“Eloquently said,” she replied with an eye roll, staring up at the ceiling. She willed the tears to stop. “Love fucking happened. And I hate it. I hate having to...second guess everything so he likes me.” 

She wasn’t talking about Lucas. She wasn’t...really talking about Lucas. She never had to second guess herself around him. 

And that was refreshing. It was so refreshing that it scared her. 

“Because I...” She let out a low whine, an embarrassed heat rising to her cheeks. “Because I like him. And I don’t...I don’t want to like him like…” she waved her hands around. “This.”

“But you do.”

She lowered her gaze to meet Amani’s again. “What if he doesn’t?”

The look Amani shot her was both exasperated and withering. “...he tried to fucking kiss you. He gave you his copy of Thumbelina.” She flinched at the mention. That wound was still fairly fresh as well. 

She had...read it so many times. She didn’t know why she read it so many times. It was nothing special. Fluff with a happy ending. But...maybe it was the thought of being a little closer to him through the words on the paper that brought her pause. 

Amani continued on her tangent, ignoring Maeve’s reaction. “He brings you things to eat. Holy shit he talks about you all the fucking time. He gifts you flowers. What more evidence do you need!?”

“Gifts are not evidence.”

“Flowers, Maeve. He brings you flowers. Why can’t...why are you still doubting it? Why not like him openly? Why?”

She finally let the truth out. The doors opened and her chest was cut open again. Heart on display again. She hated being this vulnerable. Hated it.

But it was...nice having someone to talk to. Even if she tried to kill her with her own stool.

“Amani, I am not perfect. He might make me out to be. He might see me as such. I don’t know. But I am awful, Amani. I’m an awful awful girl.” Amani’s brows furrowed at her word choice. Every time she said it she thought of sugary sweet words. A beautiful lie. 

A hand around her throat. 

“I’m a terrible person.” She sniffed, holding her arms. She was spiraling. Always spiraling. “I’m selfish. I push people away when they need me. I’m mean. I’m flighty. I’m stubborn…too stubborn. My temper gets the better of me. I’m an awful person.”

“Having a temper doesn’t make you a bad person,” Amani said, her voice now softer. It was different from how angry her tone was. “None of those things make you a bad person.”

Eyes glittering with unshed tears, her head snapped up with her tone. “Then what am I?!”

“Human.”

Maeve froze at the rawness of Amani’s voice. “You’re human just like the lot of us. You’re no angel, believe me. Neither is he. Neither am I. We all have done things we regret. That’s what makes us fucking human. You put him on this pedestal like he’s innocent in all this. He’s not. I know better than anyone.”

She swiped at her eyes, sniffling loudly. Amani slowly shuffled closer. “But how we love makes us human. It doesn’t even have to be romantic but, you don’t just like him. You love him, don’t you?”

“I...I don’t know,” Maeve admitted. Her tone was deathly soft, soft enough that she could only feel the way her mouth moved around the words. It was the first time she’d said it out loud. “I don’t know and that’s what scares me. What if I do? What do I do then?”

“You tell him.”

She felt her whole body flinch, tear streaked cheeks tacky. “What?”

“You heard me. Tell him. If you love him don’t keep it to yourself. Dumbass is dense as a brick but I’m sure he loves you too. It’s not...this doesn’t feel like a ‘like you’ situation. I dunno it’s just…I see it in his eyes. The way he looks at you, how he talks about you. Lord you should hear the way he talks about you. I haven’t seen anything like it.”

“He doesn’t really love me,” she said bitterly. Always in denial. 

Amani smiled, it looked a little tense with her frustration. Her eye twitched. “Yes, he does. I know my best friend. He’s head over heels and you hurt him.”

“Because that’s who I am. I hurt people.” She clutched her stomach. “I hurt him because I’m selfish.”

“Why?”

She wanted to stop running. 

From everything.

And just let the floor swallow her whole.

“I don’t want him getting close to me,” she whispered to the floor. “I don’t want him to see the mess that I am. I don’t want him to see all my broken pieces. I...I don’t want him to leave.”

Years. It had taken her years to open herself up again. So then, why him? Was there even a reason? 

Amani moved to gently reach out to clean her tears away. “He’s broken too, you know. He’s been broken down and pieced back together many times. Sometimes pieces get left behind. Sometimes they go missing. But I have never seen him light up the way he does when he talks about you.”

“I don’t deserve him.”

“Gods Maeve, it's not about deserving him. The world doesn’t deserve him. Fucking hell if we’re talking about it, I don’t deserve him. But it isn’t about that. It’s about want.” Amani huffed softly. “So tell me, do you want him?”

The word was choked around her lips, threatening to drown her. It sounded cheesy to her own ears but it just...felt true. “Desperately.”

Amani smiled, it was softer now, tilting her head up with a hand. “Then go for him. Show him how you feel. Sounds sappy as all hells but love him without holding back. If you really think you’re the only one who has reservations about this, then you’re wrong. He was a mess when you first told him to leave.”

“A...mess?”

“An angry sad mess to be sure. Oh and don’t forget how embarrassed he was. And then the self depreciation. He’s gonna give me grey hair.”

Maeve snorted. “You and me both.”

“Well you already have some.”

“It’s silver thank you.”

“Silver shmilver. Back to my original point before you distracted me.” Amani booped her nose. She wrinkled it at the touch. “Show him what good can be in the world if you look for it.”

“I’m...not good.”

Amani let out another huff, grasping Maeve by the shoulders and staring dead into her eyes. Normally she was fine with intense eye contact. 

This was a little too intense. 

“Yes, you are.”

Maeve’s hands shook. Those evil vile hands. The hands that failed to save so many people. 

The ones that burned.

“How good can I possibly be?” she spat out. “How much good can someone see in me? I’m just me.”

Amani sighed. “First of all, you’re going to give me a headache. Second of all, I have never seen him so...different. Almost...happier? Whenever you’re mentioned he lights and perks up and I’m embarrassed for him.” Maeve felt her ears redden. Amani looked at her, unimpressed. “I see the feeling is mutual. Goddess you two are going to make me sick. But, I think that’s good.”

“Is...is it?”

“Yes dumbass. Did you not hear my spiel? I am not going through it again. If Lucas ever found out I’d be this sappy singing his praises to the girl he has affections for he’d never let me live it down.”

Maeve chuckled, rubbing at her eyes. 

“Oh I mean that. Don’t you dare laugh, he remembers the weirdest shit. And if you think you can get away with all your problems and then having them rise to the point of cutting him off, think again. He will lord it over your head. ‘Remember the time you tried to cut me off?’ and shit. That is, after you two fucking apologize to one another. Lord one bad thing and he jumps to a conclusion and you close yourself off.”

“...you jumped to the same conclusion.”

“That’s the past! It’s behind me now.”

“...it was literally twenty minutes ago.”

“I’m a different person now.” Maeve sighed, making Amani crack a grin. “Glad you’re not crying anymore.”

She bristled. “Me crying a bad thing?”

“No but now I’ve seen both you and Lucas really cry for the first time and let me tell you, that was an experience.”

“I...made him cry?” Awful. Vile. Evil. 

“Uh yeah. He kinda broke down. Not a pretty sight. Didn’t get up for a while. Then the miscommunication about the whole ‘nickname insult’ thing was just salt to the wound.”

“Why was he crying over me?”

“Well he’s in love for one thing.”

“...is he though?”

“I am three seconds away from smacking you. But yes, congratulations you were the first person he cried over. A feat in itself but why’d you think I was so pissed?”

“Maybe...I am terrible.”

Amani’s glare was once again, disapproving. “But, holy fucking god, I see it’s had a similar effect on you. Shit, you two are just so fucking dumb it’s unbelievable. You don’t get love like this every day and you just push it away. Why?”

“It’s…” Her eyes darted around to rest anywhere but on Amani. “...not love.”

“Mmm sure, that’s not what I see but you do you I guess.”

“Even...if it was love...why? Why him? And why...me? Why now?”

“You think I know? Sometimes it just happens. It’s not some dumb fuckin ‘fate’ thing. It just happens. I’d say it’s part of being human. It’s part of our connections. Sometimes you love romantically, other times not.”

“How do we know it’s...not something...else?”

“You really like making this harder for me. God damn. Because of the way he looks at you. The change in him. Bitch the way you look at him. Holy fuck. The way he looks and talks about me is different from the way he looks and talks about you. And that’s fine. I’m his best friend, and you’re...you’re…”

“...me?”

“Something new. Something exciting. Something terrifying. He’s lived here his whole life, you and I are something new to this place. But...even then, you’re different, the feelings he has for you are different. He asked me how to go about kissing you. Bitch what other fucking evidence do you fucking need?”

“He asked...how to kiss me?”

“Yes! He was scared to. Then of course you rejected it, which, nice fucking going.” She winced. Okay she deserved that one as well. “But what more do you need? I’ll ask again, what more fucking evidence do you need me to provide? At the very least he likes you a lot.”

She chewed on her lower lip, reopening the small cut she had worried into it days prior. “And...if he does...what do I do then?”

Amani looked ready to strangle her. “Uh duh. You go for it. All love is is a leap of faith. Why not jump?”

“And if I fall?”

Amani sighed, but the grin creeping onto her face was crooked and her eyes filled with a strong light. “Well, he’ll be there to catch you.”

[funkymbtifiction]

Sorry for bothering, but I was wondering what the differences would be between a 6 and a 4? (Sorry in advance for this being long)

For a while now I’ve been having trouble with finding out my enneagram type. About a year ago I would constantly take tests and over-analyze everything I did to the point where I was be too afraid to do anything because it would be more like one type than another. For a good chunk of the year it’d be on my mind, I was constantly reevaluating myself because I was afraid of being the wrong type, I wanted to know myself better but was afraid that everything I had known had been wrong all along.  

I only recently found out that enneagram tests aren’t that reliable, but for a while I would get 4, 6, and 9. In real life I have really bad anxiety I take medicine for, so I always dismissed 6 being a possibility since I thought it didn’t mean literal anxiety. I wasn’t 100% on being a 4, I always felt out of place growing up but I never had the strong need for wanting to find my identity (until my big identity crisis about a year ago). I really only considered being a 6 after reading a post not that long ago. It talking about the healthy/unhealthy versions of the head triad. Reading the unhealthy 6 description felt like a punch to the gut, I realized that year long period of me being anxious sounded a lot similar to a unhealthy 6. But after reading about the healthy 6, I wasn’t sure if I related as much as before. A lot of stuff I find makes it sound like 6s are rigid think of nothing but security and are always panicking, which didn’t feel quite right. The doubt grew more when I’d read infp 6 descriptions, I’d find parts I could identify with but would feel unsure about. 

In one of the infp 6 descriptions, it said that they often have rigid morals that they are very strict about. There are a things I do care extremely care about, but a lot of the time I find myself questioning the things around me. One day I might feeling strongly about something only to find myself hesitant and unconfident the next. Sometimes my family will think something is/isn’t safe/a good idea, only for me to butt in and say why it might not be. My family calls me a real downer and will get onto me for not having fun, even though I’m just saying that something might not be a good idea or that something isn’t a big of a deal everyone is making it out to be. Which I feel like could be a 6 thing, but there are times where I will overlook things or dismiss something because I don’t see it as a real threat…

——————————-

You are a sp/so 6w7 (694? sounds like the rabbit hole of self-doubt, re-analyzing, and swirling around the bowl second-guessing decisions of the 694). Over-analyzing, approaching figuring out your type from a “head” space (thinking, rethinking, analyzing, doubting, distrusting), being inconsistent in your views and changing, waking up and seeing the other side the next day, etc, are all correlated with the “busy brain” of the 6w7, which experiences self-doubt at trusting its own instincts and is looking for a truth to hold onto.

sp/so 6w5 SJ 6s think a lot about security, but an NFP 6w7 would not, since there’s always that element of “it might go wrong…” from 6 followed by Ne + 7 “eh, it’ll be fine, I’ll worry about that later” distracted-ness (poor Si planning skills means leaving dealing with stuff you don’t want to think about, especially boring stuff like insurance or buying enough noodles to last through the zombie apocalypse, for later).

As a core 6w7, I can confirm that your uncertain thought process is pure 6 – I deal with this sort of thing (being super sure, then doubting it and thinking up alternatives due to the 7 influence/lack of a self-anchor) on a daily basis … and the reason I suggest 9 fixed is because there’s no sense of 1ish “gut instinct of what’s right” to calm any of that down, you are just … swaying in the breeze and not sure where to turn. And I know too well that uncertainty and angst tied to possibly being the wrong type, misrepresenting yourself, being wrong about yourself, and not being able to tackle “who I am” from a place of instinct.

6s are not balls of anxiety all the time, just cautious, inconsistent, contrarian, argumentative, have a trust/distrust push and pull with anxiety, and security-seeking. Most of the time, I’m good-natured and of the “eh, who cares? it’ll be fine” mindset. I bounce back and forth between irrational idealistic optimism (Ne + wing 7/9 fix) and pessimistic predictions.

In a nutshell, a core 4 isn’t over-analyzing. At all. It’s all about reacting to the world on an emotional/identity level and screaming to the rooftops that whatever the world is selling, or you are trying to bring to them, is “not me” – so the problem the core 4 falls into is rejecting everything outside it, and trying to construct an image for other people to respect based on the broken pieces of themselves. They broadcast an aesthetic of brokenness and being misunderstood and envy for the beautiful life others have, that they cannot seem to find, due to their chronic dissatisfaction with life and their refusal to allow themselves to accept simple joys. Think Anne Shirley, who cannot quite find total happiness at Green Gables because she sees herself as “ugly and freckled” and she has red hair, which she hates. She has love and a home and a family, but dammit, her life is still ruined because of her red hair. She is doing that 4ish envy of wanting what others have (dark hair, beauty) and allowing that to define her, while at the same time being arrogant about her intelligence, and escalating into loud emotional displays tied to her identity. The 4 copes with their sense of feeling like an alien born to the wrong family (therefore a burden to everyone) by trying to transform it into an image of elitism, to make themselves feel better (”I may not be wanted or understood or needed, but at least I don’t have plebeian interests like the rest of you!”).

4 fixes, as I have witnessed them so far, can either fall into stubborn displays of “that is not me, and I will not conform to what you want, and you are not more broken and therefore unique than I am” (with a reactive core), or softer, quieter sense of internal brokenness that cannot be fixed, which makes them someone no one can love (with a quieter core – 9w1 for instance, or a higher 9w1 fix). But they will always manifest as some sort of turning to others and showing them your brokenness, that piece of yourself that you are sure nobody can love, and half-expecting rejection for it. It can also fall into criticism of the people you love for no real reason other than “disdain” and the 4ish tendency to long for things you cannot/do not have (and if you got them, you might not want them and/or find them tarnished in some way).

The good thing about being a 6 is now you KNOW what you are doing (over-analyzing needlessly) you can start catching yourself doing it, and remind yourself that you think too much and should just “act” more. You can learn to breathe and center yourself in your body and ask yourself what YOU think and feel and want about a situation rather than seeking external input. You have to work at stopping the cycle of over-think and don’t have to face the unenviable 4 task of realizing you do not have to construct an identity out of an un-fixable sense of brokenness and chronic dissatisfaction.

[writingwithcolor]

I'm a POC who writes mainly white characters but after seeing all the "diversity" posts on this site I'm wondering if I may be subconsciously prejudiced and now I don't know what to do. I feel like I've been doing everything wrong and yet I don't want to change my stories/characters to suit everyone else while not liking them myself.

To Write (or not write) with Diversity

No one can force you to write inclusive stories. Inclusive meaning media that consists of marginalized people, because that is what diversity really is - including people who have always been right there, but have been purposefully left out and erased from the pages of books and scripts. Those who are, when finally represented, are overwhelmingly assigned small, unflattering, and / or stereotypical roles.

Pages like Writing With Color are an offering. Our presence here is for those who choose to write with diversity. We aim to make being inclusive easier because we all believe in the importance of it. But as much as we know how enriching diversity can be, we cannot convince you to do something you don’t necessarily believe in.

Don’t do it because you feel forced

As you mentioned, you’ve read the posts. You know the facts. The decision cannot be forced upon you.  If anything, including diversity out of obligation alone could lead to bad representation. Forcing people to do things without motivation usually means it’ll lack effort, or be done with spite. Trust me when I say marginalized people don’t usually want to see themselves represented by someone who does not want them there. That unwelcome feeling shows. In short: Lack of representation hurts. Bad representation hurts worse.

I only ask that you have accountability.  

Now that you’re aware that your works default to white, you have a choice to make. I think a lot of us grew up reading and writing very white stories - both as PoC and white people - but once you possess the knowledge that things can be different, your next step is a conscious one. You’re not on auto-pilot anymore when you make everyone white (and/or straight, able-bodied, etc). You know better now. Own up to your choices.

So ask yourself: why have I chosen to write without diversity?

I’m afraid to write People of Color. 

Being uncomfortable writing People of Color is a big reason why people stick to writing white people, and only garnish their stories with PoC, if that. White people have long been the default, the everyman. White perspectives are “neutral” to approach. It’s daunting to go from feeling you can portray characters in whatever way you wish to suddenly having the weight of good versus harmful representation on your shoulders.

You don’t want backlash from getting it wrong. You also don’t want to be insensitive to groups. It’s easy to avoid writing them altogether, right? Sure. 

Be aware, though:

You’re making a choice to exclude people out of fear.

Of course, new things are scary. But that’s okay! Courage is the ability to do things that frighten you. Face your fears. Will you shrink away from the challenge, or use it to your advantage?

Let the fear fuel you to do better and to know better. Your concerns about writing PoC can drive you to get the research right in order to best represent people. If your fear is leading to more effort into thoughtful creation, you’re putting it to good use.

Let me tell you right now - you will mess up.

Maybe in small ways, perhaps in a big way. But mistakes will not kick start the apocalypse. Ideally:

Do your research to avoid the most obvious and devastating mistakes from the jump.

Equip yourself with the right beta-reader and sensitivity readers to catch those things. 

Even with errors, your story can be quite enjoyable for people who hardly see themselves represented. Yes, mistakes and all.

As a Black woman bookworm, if you write an exciting story about a Black girl on adventures and falling in love but mention a few questionable things about how she takes care of her hair…I will wince, but it won’t ruin the book for me. I’m willing to overlook some things, for the sake of my enjoyment, and let the author know how I felt about those parts in hopes they can improve.

Say you get something real important wrong. People call you out for it. I suggest you apologize, listen to their critiques, and do better. If possible, pull back the story and re-release when you’ve improved the piece. If that’s not an option, fix it in future works. Getting a finger wagged at you doesn’t mean lock up in fear and never write with diversity again. It means you improve.

Research PoC like you would on any topic:

For comparison’s sake, consider writing People of Color (or any group different from you) like writing other topics you’re unfamiliar with in-depth. 

For example: You may know the basics on Medieval England. The knights, royalty, and so on. But i’m sure there’s a lot of misconceptions mixed in there from television or unreliable sources. 

To write people from this perspective, you would do lots of additional research… right?  

If someone mentioned how you messed up on some of the facts, you would take note and dig into it more for the future…right? 

You might even have more experienced persons check your facts for accuracy beforehand to do the best job possible.

Approach researching PoC in the same way as other topics. There may not be hard facts on how to write an X character, but there are portrayals to avoid with explanations why, and roles people want to see themselves in.

I don’t like to be told what to write.

There’s this misconception that writing with diversity restricts creativity. I get it - there are things you’re being told not to do when writing certain groups. The lists of No’s can get dense. This reflects how poor representation has been for People of Color as there are a number of stereotypical portrayals folks are tired of seeing and has been detrimental to them.

Fiction simply reflects real life: People of Color being viewed through the lens of preconceived notions means being written on with those stereotypes in mind. It is a vicious cycle. Stereotypes are more than an annoyance - they can and do lead to real life consequences.

Being treated like a stereotype lowers our quality of life. Experiencing racism and daily microaggressions has a psychological effect - from insecurity, depression and PTSD - it is serious. (X)

Viewing People of Color by their stereotypes is what makes, say, a Black person who speaks with passion no matter what it’s about (and even if they’ve been wronged) too hostile and “Angry” to take seriously. If anything, they’re now a serious threat. And that’s dangerous for them.

Put yourself in the shoes of the overly typecast.

Think of a time someone misunderstood you. You had a bad day and acted grumpy. Well, being a grump defines who you are now. When asked, people describe you as crabby and humorless. Every new person you meet sees your every action through that lens.

Strangers tiptoe around you, as they can just tell you’re ill-tempered. Peers choose their words carefully, afraid of what might spark your wrath. Your children even inherit the title; teachers discipline them more and take other students’ word over theirs- your kids are snappy, difficult, and known to not play well with others, after all.

Wouldn’t that get old? Wouldn’t you feel it was unfair to be reduced to a label, and that you’re sick of being defined by it? Wouldn’t you have the desire to be seen for who you truly are, and can be? Perhaps you do get grumpy sometimes, which is just being human. You’re so much more than a grouch.

Stereotypes are not creative.

Writing outside of stereotypes open up so many more possibilities. How many times have we seen the Black Best Friend play out in media? You’re not being silenced when readers criticize your sassy sidekick. Your message has been heard, loud and clear - again and again and again. People are upset because it’s not anything new - in fact, it is quite old.  We want multiple portrayals. Why not create something new before you decide to write so closely to how we are always written?

OP said: I don’t want to change my stories/characters to suit everyone else while not liking them myself.

This should not be the case. Avoiding stereotypes has nothing to do with making unlikeable or even perfect characters. Simply make Characters of Color who go beyond stereotypes! Characters who are best friends without being arc-less doormats. Characters who are fierce and emotional and stand for something without being simplified to irrational, hostile, and angry. 

Knowing the difference between stereotype and culture is important, too. Don’t let anyone tell you you’re doing something wrong when their bias means they perceive your character as being stereotypical, or problematic, when they’re not. (See: Stereotyped vs Nuanced Characters and Audience Perception.)  

If anything, writing beyond hard labels leads to complex characters. Writing about new cultures is interesting and can be exciting. 

If you only like your East Asian characters when they’re geniuses or your Black girls when they’re angry without a cause…do some self-reflection. Why do your Characters of Color only seem “right” to you when they are flat, or confined to stereotypes? Why not allow them to be complex humans?

I’m not convinced that representation matters.

Well, representation does matter. A lot. While it has been written on so much, and there being countless studies, statistics, and personal accounts to support this, I would like to mention…

Representation (or lack thereof) lowers self-worth.

Studies show TV boosts the self-esteem of white boys. The confidence of People of Color and girls of all races, on the other hand, decreases when watching TV (X X). 

“If you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves.” -Junot Diaz

The Racial Empathy Gap.

I want to be brief (too late, right?) so let me just mention another point of research for you: the racial empathy gap. Stereotyped depictions and the limited roles for People of Color are internalized by society, leading to lack of empathy towards People of Color and the enforcement of stereotypes in real time. Lack of empathy actively affects how PoC are treated, such as the belief that Black people experience less pain than others and therefore are misdiagnosed (their illnesses and pain are downplayed) and under treated (X X X). 

Fiction Increases Empathy.

In addition to the racial empathy gap, look into the studies on how fiction improves empathy. For example: reading about vampires increases empathy towards vampires. Imagine what non-stereotyped, marginalized depictions in fiction can do for empathy.  (X, X)

The strength in which people are against representation speaks volumes. 

If representation does not matter, then why are some people so angry when it’s there? Let’s take book to movie depictions: 

A Character of Color depicted as white simply means they were the best actor for the job, according to a vocal presence in social media. 

However, even a verified Character of Color being depicted as such leads to boycotting, accusations of being “Politically-correct”, and wide complaints that they can’t relate to the characters and they are poor actors. Never mind that so many Actors of Color attend prestigious schools only to get so far.

The hypocrisy speaks to a need for more representation, and a prevalent lack of empathy. 

The People Want Diversity!

On a positive note: shows that reflect the real world, aka include diversity, continue to get high ratings despite many obstacles: those who don’t want them there, lack of advertising or inconvenient airtime for shows with diverse leads, the ole bait-and-switch method, and hasty cancellations. Not to mention media simply refusing to be inclusive even when they know “diversity sells” (X X). Gee, I wonder why….

Audiences are more drawn to projects that feature a diverse cast, a new study finds, though mirroring the population in the United States remains a problem.

“Less-diverse product underperforms in the marketplace, and yet it still dominates,” said Ana-Christina Ramón, the report’s co-author and assistant director of the Bunche Center. “This makes no financial sense.” 

-Diversity in Hollywood Pays Off in Ratings and Box Office, New Study Finds

Diversity simply reflects the real world accurately. 

There is nothing forced about diversity. People of Color exist in the real world, go out and about, and have lives. Creators including marginalized people only seems strange because media actively scratches them out as much as possible, pulling the marginalized out of focus to zoom in on white characters. That is what’s unrealistic. 

Ultimately, you, the writer, will write what you want. Just ask yourself why you have decided this is what you want to write. Are you okay with that reason? Despite all the progress that is being made, you’ll blend in just fine with all of the other mostly white books and movies out there. And as people become more conscious and bored with the same stories, we can and will choose to ignore whitewashed media.

The good thing is that there’s so much awareness and activism going on with representation; the path has been paved for you and it is not lonely! 

There are resources out there, and WWC continues to be one of them.

More Reading - Diversity:

Braving Diversity: How to Write Yourself (and others) out of your Story  (An early WWC post quite relevant to you, OP)

Diversity exists in the real world 

The Key to Moving Beyond checklisting is not LESS diversity 

Bad Representation vs Tokenism vs Diversity: just existing without justification like in the real world

How to research your racially/ethnically diverse characters 

–Colette

[desktopdust]

Phantom Network: Malware Uninstall

A common question bandied about in regards to the Phantom Network is how a bunch of (insert adjectives like “lowlife” or “no good dirty”, etc) thieves manage to work together without constantly stabbing each other in the back. Yes, I’ll admit, even I didn’t quite understand it back when I was but a wee passive civilian living a mundane life, but I now realize this was only because I grossly misunderstood what a Phantom Thief is.

Most often, you hear “thief” and you picture someone taking something for themselves--a selfish hoarder who collects by any means necessary.  A Phantom Thief, however, has more noble goals in mind...and a flair for the dramatic. Bit of a tangent, but important to note. You see, Phantom Thieves don’t steal for themselves: they steal for others.  We take from the rich and give to the poor and all that jazz, because even if it’s only a drop in the ocean of wealth the elites have built up, the act of stealing from them proves that they aren’t invincible.  It’s all too easy to feel powerless in this world.  But when those with power aren’t able to stop regular people from knocking them down a peg, you get a tiny bit of hope, and more often than you might expect, that tiny bit of hope can make all the difference. Those dedicated to making that happen join the Phantom Network with a simple vow: “honor among thieves”.

Usually, that’s enough.  But no organization is inherently pure, and no matter what your goals are (especially when you’re working outside the law), it’s only natural you’ll attract some folks who are in it for the wrong reasons.  And that’s what we have the FW Protocol for!  If a thief is found to have no honor, the Protocol strips them of their privileges and finds the safest way to expunge them from the organization.  We don’t go as far as to execute somebody, but with how difficult memory deletion is to pull off, lifetime imprisonment is a fairly common result.  The system works...most of the time.  The Protocol can’t be too aggressive, so it usually waits for someone else to file a complaint.  But, with the whole “honor” thing, a lot of good Phantom Thieves won’t feel right ratting on their colleagues unless they go way over the line, at which point they’ve probably already caused an incident and have the Protocol on their tail.  Plenty of thieves manage to operate in that gray area, serving themselves without pissing anyone off too much...and I’ve all too frequently had the pleasure of dealing with one such individual.

Kari always pushed the limits even of that gray area.  But it’s rare to find someone who can competently manipulate time, so she wasn’t entirely wrong in thinking that the Network needed her.  Even after being betrayed over and over, I still haven’t filed a complaint, because she hasn’t outright ruined any job she’s been on and I don’t want to resort to drastic measures just for being personally wronged.  Like I said, honor among thieves.  I had decided to just put the whole thing behind me, not work with or even think about her ever again, but...things took a bit of a turn.

The “courtroom” we have at HQ is rarely used, so it’s a bit cramped.  I practically had to wedge myself into the corner as I took my seat and waited for things to kick off.  Opposite the door, the Phantom Network Admin sat at a blocky steel desk: a broad-shouldered, dark-skinned individual with a cyan bionic eye and metal down one half of their face, the other partly obscured by their many red curls.  Between us were four lightly-armored folks who each wore solid red shades, and in the midst of them, Kari, with a jamming bolt stuck to her alchemar between her shoulder blades and shackles on her wrists.

“Phantom Thief Kari, the Epoch Swindler,” the Admin said.  “Following the recent incident at Navy Canyon, the FW Protocol has conducted an investigation and found you in violation of your vow as a Phantom Thief.  What do you have to say in your own defense?”

Kari adjusted her bangs with a puff of air.  “Listen boss, I know I’m not exactly a paragon of virtue--honor isn’t something that comes all that easily to me.  But have I really done anything that awful?  I’m still serving the essential functions of a Phantom Thief, and none of my transgressions have impeded operations in any meaningful way.”  Under her breath, she added, “Until Navy Canyon, at least...but that was an accident.”

“It is worth noting there have been no formal complaints filed against her,” said one of the FWs surrounding her.  “However, when we interviewed those who have worked with her in the past, we noticed a running theme of dishonorable conduct.  Several such thieves have been brought in today to share their accounts on-record.”

The various assembled thieves were called up one by one, each sharing a lovely little tale about some time Kari shafted them.  Honestly it was hard not to laugh: I felt their pain.  Through it all, Kari just stood there, completely silent as her misdeeds were laid out before her.  Part of me couldn’t help but take satisfaction in the sight.  But, another part...

“Lastly, we would like to hear from Phantom Thief Roche.”

I pushed my way to the front of the room, avoiding eye contact with Kari for as long as I could.  When I faced the FWs, though, I could see her out of the corner of my eye, staring dag...huh. Well, she was staring, but not as maliciously as I was expecting.

“Roche.  On how many occasions have you worked with Kari?”

“Ah, nearly a dozen, I guess,” I said.

“And during these occasions, did Kari conduct herself in a manner you found questionable?”

“Every time.”  I saw Kari look to the floor.  That’s the most remorse I’ve ever seen her show.

“In particular, please share your recollection of the Cosmic Sapphire heist.”

“Right.”  I shifted my weight a little.  “A certain Mr. Snyder had the national museum display a set of fine jewels he had collected over the years, so the two of us set out to steal the exhibit.  Breaking in was easy, and then I went to the display room while Kari disabled the security.  As soon as I had an opening, I snatched the jewels, but as I was headed out I was jumped by a mercenary using a sound alchemar.  Turns out Snyder had shelled out quite a sum bringing in extra help once we warned him we were coming.  I’m sure I don’t need to go into detail about why fighting sound-users is tricky--suffice to say I was on the back foot, with things only evening out once Kari showed up.  We were doing okay, so I made a plan to end it.  I got in close as a distraction...next thing I knew, my bag felt a good bit lighter, and I was eating concrete.  Took me a minute to piece everything together, but basically: Kari stopped time, took the jewels off my hand, and then bolted back here on her own.  Not to be dramatic, but I almost died there.  That’s the only time since joining the Network I’ve had to make an emergency call. In the end, Kari got full payment, I looked like an amateur, and…”

Hesitation struck.  See, I haven’t taken a look at the Cosmic Sapphire Collection--it was turned over to the Admin and stored in the Network’s cache--but I’ve always had a strong suspicion that a few of the jewels didn’t make it back to HQ.  I wanted to bring it up, but...it’s not like I had any proof.  It was baseless, and I’d just be slandering Kari and making her (already very bad-looking) case look a lot worse.  She was still looking at the floor, and it was still weirding me out.

Nodding, one of the FWs asked, “And?”

Mmm, I might hate her, but I gotta be fair.  I sighed, continuing, “And, I’m just mad about it.  Being left to die and all.  But, there you have it.”

I went back to my seat.  The Admin folded their hands before their face, staring at Kari as they sifted through the information they had just absorbed.  “Well.  It sounds to me as though you’ve been awfully consistent, and all that’s saved you from comeuppance is the reluctance of more honorable thieves.  Do you have anything to add, Kari?”

She shook her head.  “...No.”

Yikes.  I’d never seen her like this, and it was really starting to get to me.

“This selfish streak casts itself upon your current claims.  Having previously been so willing to let your colleagues come to harm, it becomes more difficult to believe that the losses suffered at Navy Canyon were simply an accident.  Especially considering how flippant you were in the wake of the incident.”

“Makes sense.”

The Admin paused, and boy did it drag on.  Eventually, they said, “Have any come to speak in defense of Kari?”

“None,” answered an FW.

“So we truly have only your word to go on that this was an accident?”

“Come on, I--” Kari snapped, but cut herself off with a huff.  “Alright.  I’m an asshole, no two ways about it--it’s not like I don’t know.  Maybe I didn’t react right to what was going on, but at this point, what do I have to gain by lying about it?  It was an accident.  I didn’t want those thieves to die.  Believe me, don’t believe me, whatever.  Are we gonna keep running in circles, or can we just get this over with?”

Damn, okay. Something got to her.

The Admin said, “You must have an idea of what my decision would have to be if we leave things here.  Are you alright with that?”

“I just want it over with,” Kari mumbled.  “If there’s no changing it, then this is just torture.”

So...she’d already accepted being banned from the Network?  And was still insisting it was an accident?  Why?  What did she benefit from being honest at that point?

The Admin sat up straight.  “Very well.”

Hold on.

“Kari, you are hereby--”

“Wait!” I said.  All eyes turned to me.  “...Boss. To be fair...I think she’s telling the truth about Navy Canyon being an accident.”

The Admin raised an eyebrow.  “You do? Even though she’s put your life in jeopardy before?”

“I mean I’m still mad about that, don’t get me wrong.  But it’s not like she let the others die and then got out of there: she stayed and finished the mission, and even saved the lives of the right flank later on.  Why would she do that if she had killed the vanguard on purpose?”

After another all-too-long pause, the Admin said, “You make a fine point. But even if that was simply an accident, the trend in her conduct still stands.”

I glanced at Kari.  She was staring at me, eyes wide with confusion.  Don’t ask me, I didn’t get it either.  “Of course.  But, we don’t need to overreact, right?  I think the fact that she stayed after that accident shows she’s not a completely lost cause--maybe we can help her to be a little more honorable, given enough time and incentive.”

The Admin considered this, leading to yet another long silence during which I could feel myself growing old.

“Plus, where are we going to find another time-user on her level?  Not to sound like a business bastard, but you can look at it as an investment.”

The Admin chuckled.  “Practical. I suppose if we lock her for a while, we can take the time to educate her on proper Phantom Thief conduct. Mandatory, of course, and she’ll be confined to quarters otherwise.  Reparations will also need to be arranged, but that’s something we can work out at a later date.  Does this sound acceptable to you, Kari?”

She turned back to face the Admin.  “...Well, doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time, but...I suppose it’s better than my other option.”

“This will only work if you are truly willing to learn.  If you remain obstinate, this verdict can and will be amended.”

“Okay, I get it.  I’ll take it seriously.”

“Good.  Does anyone else have anything to add?”  No one did. “Then we’re done.  Please escort Kari back to her quarters and confiscate her alchemar.  Once you are satisfied the conditions are secure, please inform me, and then we can proceed.”

The FWs ushered Kari out of the room.  As she passed, she stared at me, but I kept my eyes forward.  The other thieves filed out, and I stayed where I was until finally the Admin walked up to me.

“I have to admit, Roche: I wasn’t expecting that from you.”

With a shrug, I got to my feet.  “Yeah, me neither.  Couldn’t tell you why that happened.”

The Admin smiled.  “I see. You know, if we’re going to instill a sense of honor in Kari, there’s quite a bit she could learn from you.”

Every muscle in my body went stiff as I began to question recent decisions.

“Don’t worry, I won’t put you through that.”

The tension drained out of me all at once.  You’d think it’d be cathartic, but it was more like the experience of finally vomiting after hours of nausea.

“Thank you for speaking up, Roche.  Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Kari was locked for a good few months after that.  She wasn’t entirely responding well to her training, but she did make an effort, and eventually we got somewhere.  After doing a handful of supervised jobs pro bono, she was allowed to leave her quarters, and no one at HQ saw her for another couple months after that.  But, she did come back eventually and resumed duties as normal.  I haven’t interacted with her since the investigation, and I don’t really feel an urge to change that.  I’d like to think she’s made some real progress, but...it’s hard to give someone the benefit of the doubt after repeated betrayal.  I’m gonna keep my distance.  With any luck, she’s at least got some sense of honor now, and she won’t be my problem ever again.

[okimargarvez]

FIRST DATE

Original title: First date.

Prompt: Luke asks Pen a date in a particular way.

Warning: none.

Genre: romantic, fluff.

Characters: Penelope Garcia, Luke Alvez, Phil Brooks, Roxy.

Pairing: Garvez.

Note: oneshot 70 in Garvez collection.

Legend: 🐶.

Song mentioned: Persone silenziose, Luca Carboni feat Tiziano Ferro.

GARVEZ STORIES

Note: this is not about episode 15x10. I written it weeks before seeing that moment. It was just a dream (one of the little about garvez) I made.

FIRST DATE

 There are some silent people, there are timid presences hidden among people... but silence makes noise, the eyes have an amplifier... those eyes that have always been used to listening...

Hearing his cell phone vibrate, for a moment Luke fears that they have a new case. He looks at the display and smiles. -Alvez.- he gasps, trying to catch his breath. Roxy runs around him, agitated by the unexpected break.

The friend on the other end of the line chuckles. -Hey, brother, how are you?- he caresses the dog, calming him down. -Am I bother you?- he sighs.

-Never! I was running with Rox!- she barks, greeting Phil in her own way.

-You really have to find a girl, Luke.- he lovingly scolds him. Latin smiles inside himself. I'm just working on it. -About this... Did I mention my physiotherapist, Lisa? She's very pretty. I was wondering... would you like to have a double date? She, Penelope, you and I.- Luke's brain freezes on hearing that name. The heart starts pumping blood again at a speed not recommended. -What do you say? Hey, man, are you still there?- he blinks several times to recover.

-Yes, yes, I’m, but... What does your proposal mean? Do you know? Is it so obvious?- he blushes, but at the same time he is unable to get that grimace of absolute joy out of his face that appears every time he accidentally thinks of her.

-I understand what? Oh, wait. I hoped I saw wrong... You like her, don't you?- Luke runs his tongue over his lips, sighs in a teenage way.

-Yeah, huh, in fact... I asked her out. Or...- he scratches his head, nervous. -Technically I wrote her a letter. So, I don't know if you can consider it…- he recognizes Phil's exclamation.

-A letter? You mean paper letter? Only you can do such an old-fashioned thing!- he struggles to stop laughing. -Let me know how it goes, heartbreaker!- he is about to hang up, but he understands that he still has a joke in store. -If it goes bad, remember that there is someone else interested, not too far away...- Luke shakes his head. He doesn’t have time to put the phone in the pocket, that it starts ringing again.

He answers without looking. -Any other ridiculous joke, Brooks?- but he soon realizes it's not Phil.

-Alvez, we have a case and it's pretty bad. How long does it take you to get here?-

People who can't speak, who put their thoughts in order, people full of fear that someone might know their little and big... contradictory thoughts!

 Although not many are convinced of this, Penelope is capable of being a professional person. That's why she notices the envelope just beyond her office door. But she decides not to consider it until the case is resolved. And so, she does.

Leaning against the backrest, she yawns. Her eyes fall on that envelope, still sealed, intact. She looks more carefully at the only writing. Her name. Penelope. She recognizes the handwriting before opening it. She closes her eyes, thinking that when she opens them again, she will understand that it was a hallucination.

Instead it is always there. She starts reading.

Penelope,

I can't imagine what you're thinking right now. In fact, she has no idea what she should expect from the continuation. For this reason, she decides to go ahead. Maybe I should have started by calling you Garcia, like the rest of the team. But you are not only Garcia, for me, and especially when I think of you outside of work.

Here, now her head is definitely confused. She has to read the sentence a second time. It's the same. It is always there. She's not just Garcia for him. What else, then? I hope you are still reading it. I wrote you this letter instead of an email or a message, because I had too many things to say and I hope that a little of what I feel has been transmitted to the sheet and that you can believe me. He managed to snatch a laugh from her and he is not even physically here. She finds herself stroking those sentences with her fingers. He is really so sweet... And suited to his style. A cold email could never give her heart pounding. I'd like to go out to dinner one evening with you. She jumps, risking falling off the chair. Luke's next sentence scares her even more. He seems to read her mind. Yes, I don't mean as colleagues or friends at O'Keefe. I mean a real full-blown appointment. Considering how they have always been going around the issue, without ever taking an effective step that leaves no room for doubt... well, yes, it is quite strange. Romantic. Intimate. Just the two of us. He continues to puzzled her, every word he adds.

In case you haven't died from a giggle attack now, I'd like to try to show you that it's all true. For once he hasn't guessed her reaction at all, quite the opposite. Laugh? She is not thinking about it at all. No, rather, should this irregularity in her heart beat worry her? Is she by chance having a heart attack? Should she call someone? I have been imagining that moment for far too long (more than I would admit). Oh shit, if he goes on this log, she'll really have to call an ambulance. I see you as if you were now in front of me. I see your extraordinary beauty in every nuance. Holy crap, holy crap. Her extraordinary beauty? Was he by chance drugged when he started writing this letter? Does he really think this of her? So, this is the reason why he stares at her for so long even in the least indicated moments. And I see myself, awkwardly, with my heart rumbling in my ears and sweaty hands, forcing me to ring the bell. And listening with tension to every noise coming from beyond the door. And your steps. He is a cursed poet, a director, an artist, because he has managed to show what he has described as almost real, a film, an anticipation... a spoiler aimed at the future. And then I imagine your smile a little uncertain, as if you had feared that in the end it would turn out to be a joke. Damn profilers; how can you play with them equally? I would make a compliment, you would thank me by touching my arm, I would reach to heaven. In Heaven just for a light touch on the arm? She doesn’t dare, really, Penelope doesn’t dare to imagine what effect it would then have if she accidentally came into contact with a slightly more pushed area... like the chest. I don't want to irk you; I'll spare you the rest of the evening. Irk you; here's the mystery solved, it's a Reid joke! But she doesn't believe it, never for a second. I will just tell you that I am sure I would have a fantastic time. Just because it would be with you. Damn bastard, what creature, no matter the gender, could decline an offer presented in this way? Without feeling like an idiot.

Because you are this. When I am close to you, it is as if the words no longer want to collaborate with me and form sentences of complete meaning... She knows the feeling perfectly, bro. But at the same time, I'm fine, you make me feel good, otherwise I wouldn't want to spend so much time with you. Well, it has its own logic. When love is logical? And why she thought that damn word?

I don't want to tell you what I feel for you loud and clear. I'd rather do it face to face; however cowardly I may be. And you're smart enough (actually a genius) to read between the lines. Smart enough, he says. And she knows it's true, but she doesn't dare to make assumptions. Lie, she already did. She did so whenever their eyes chained themselves for more than four seconds. But does anyone know this rule? Luke definitely doesn’t. Over four seconds means that the person who is looking at you wants to do something more with you, besides staring at you. No, not just a kiss. Of course.

I look forward to your reply, with trepidation and I hope I haven't ruined everything. For me, even just your friendship is important, but I could no longer live without knowing the truth, without getting involved. In her heart she wasn’t convinced that he would ever be able to take the first step.

Wherever and wherever you are, I wish you a wonderful day,

Luke

She emits so many sighs that she looks like a teapot about to explode, or a steam train. Has she really read those beautiful (wonderful, other than beautiful) words addressed to her by the Newbie (which for some time now can no longer be considered such)? No, she must have misunderstood, misinterpreted something. Instead it's all there, black on white: Luke Alvez wants to go out with her, a real date, romantic, intimate. He has swept away all doubts and loopholes. And now it's up to her, to answer him.

When was the last time she picked up one of her colorful and oddly shaped pens to do anything other than close a call with the team?

Okay, come on, it can't be that hard. He exposed his soul with her. The least she can do is try to return the favor.

 Luke didn’t expect an answer so soon, on the contrary, it would be more legitimate that he had not imagined to get a real reaction from his blonde colleague, only... he needed to get rid of that weight. He still felt good. He regretted to not meeting her before returning home after the case was over. It was strange, but it had already happened that she wasn't there waiting for them.

He would lie if he denied he has thinking about it until his brain went out. Or that it wasn’t his first thought when he woke up, while shaving with a little more attention than usual.

Yet he can't help but feel some fibrillation down the path to his desk. And when he sees that envelope on the smooth surface, he reacts more or less like Garcia. At first, he believes it is a projection of his mind. He must touch it to accept that it is a concrete object belonging to this dimension. Penelope imitated him in a sublime way. His name, only four letters, seems almost a drawing, traced by her fantastic hands. He tries very hard to hold back the cry of joy that has gone up to his throat. It may also contain a negative response; but he doesn’t even consider this possibility. Usually he is not a positive person, but this time... He looks around. There is practically nobody, here there are the positive sides of get there early. So how long has that envelope been there? Did she leave it here the night before? Or is Penelope already hidden in her office?

A lot of unnecessary questions. He opens it and instantly his nostrils are struck by a heavenly perfume. Gingerly, he brings it close to his nose. Yes, it is hers. Oh jeez, will he come out alive in the end? He takes a quick look. The first thing he notices is that it's much shorter than his. But didn't someone say that the synthesis is the maximum understanding of the text? Maybe he's confusing the areas.

He starts reading, calmly.

Luke,

but he bursts already after the first word, which is none other than his name again. He must close his eyes and press his fingers on his temple, to achieve a mental balance stable enough to be able to continue. wow, a letter, what... Anachronistic thing. And somehow, I must admit, fascinating. Never as much as she is, but the bottom line is that... she liked it! A good start. It is useless to dance around it: you completely puzzled me. I confess that I find it hard to believe that you want to go out with me as... As an interested man. Why does it have to be so complicated to accept? She thinks she is not live up to him? What nonsense! If anything, the exact opposite! She could have any one man, doesn't she know? But he hopes she wants only him. He wants to be the lucky chosen one, more than anything else in the world. But I decided to get involved, as you did. It seems to me a story a bit too elaborate to be a joke. Yeah, elaborate… why does he fall even deeper for her every word? And I suspected that there was a romantic under the beard and the hunter's skin. Caught, Alvez. Never been so happy to be discovered by a girl, since elementary school, when he played hide and seek. Are you glad I used your same method? And also one of my favorite pens; enjoy the perfume, and consider it an appetizer for that day... He doesn't resist, he tastes the aroma a second time, letting his lungs fill themselves with it, closing his eyes like a moron, hearing Garcia's voice in his head that repeats the last sentence. An appetizer. It is so erotic that... he is happy to sitting with the lower half of the body under the desk. And by the way: you didn't indicate a date. Oh shit, she's right! How could he have been so stupid? He blushes, cursing himself. Out of the corner of his eye he sees that Matt and Tara are entering. He must hurry to finish the reading.

I wish you and Roxy a good evening, and I apologize you for forgetting Sergio 😉 And, here is a second unforgivable omission. But no, she said the exact opposite. She's giving him a chance. For real.

Your fantastic Penny

Penny. He savors that name on his lips, slowly. Fantastic, she certainly is. He puts the letter in a drawer at random, he doesn't need to see it again, he has already learned it by heart, even if he doesn't have Reid's skills.

Luke proves even bolder than she thought. Taking advantage of the fact that no new cases have arrived, he manages to find a way to send the letter to her the same day. Now that he has received a first green light it is really difficult to refrain.

She could access the video of the camera placed outside her office to watch him put it under her door. But it would be a slightly maniac thing. So, she just picks it up from the floor and opens it with little grace. She reads all in one breath.

Penelope,

I thank you for your magnanimity. Yes, you cannot imagine what pleasure it is for me to can hold a handwritten script by your hands. Do you understand now how hopeless I am? She's starting to get an idea. They are on the same boat. Do you think that a joke would be worth this self-denunciation and humiliation? You're right, for the emotion (and stupidity) I forgot to indicate a date, or maybe I was afraid that you might be scared of it, as if I had already decided everything. Yes, it is a far from remote hypothesis. Unless we will get a case, what you think about tomorrow night? Tomorrow. Tomorrow night. Just over 24 hours from now. She strives to breathe normally. And forgive me if I haven't been able to rely on post delivery times,

your Luke

Hers! Hers! Will he ever really be hers? Her boyfriend. Luke Alvez her boyfriend. It looks like a joke. It seems too real. And it frightens her.

She spends most of the day wondering what is the best way to answer him. She discards another letter because someone would surely notice it as she leaves it on Agent Alvez's desk. A message is too little and an email... Too detached. She wastes time so long that it is the moment to go home.

 She is waiting for the elevator, always swimming in indecision. And it is at that moment that fate sets in motion. Luke appears from around the corner. At first, he seems almost frightened to find her there. Then his face melts into a smile. -Hey..- he is unexpectedly shy.

-Hey.- she replies with the same intonation. They look at each other for a few minutes. Weirdly, no one, stranger or part of the team, arrives to interrupt that moment. -Okay.- says Penelope after a century. Luke's eyes widen. She approaches him slowly, and puts her hand on his shoulder. -Okay, Luke, tomorrow is fine.- she whispers, making him shiver. -But you still forgot to indicate a time.- she smiles, going away.

Luke blushes. -Oh, you're right... it’s good 8.00 p.m.? Then you should have enough time to... You know.- she nods.

-It's perfect.- the elevator arrives, he lets her go up first. They are silent throughout the journey. Just before arriving, she approaches him again and places a kiss on his cheek. -Good night, Luke. See you tomorrow.-

 The next evening

And suddenly you run away... without saying goodbye. Your eyes go down the stairs... I don't know what they are going to do, if to be moved or to dream... to get angry or to meditate...

Luke manages to hold back anxiety for the first twenty minutes. After another ten he goes into paranoia. Half an hour late seems to him a socially acceptable time to lose his head and call her. The phone rings empty. He waits a few more minutes and tries again. Ring endlessly, until the voice mail goes. Damn, why the hell isn't she picking up? It is on the third call that he completely loses his mind. He presses the repeat button practically without even realizing it. He takes strangely little time to reach thirty; thirty calls.

He doesn't even think for a moment if he should call the police. If something bad happened to her, what could a policeman do more than a federal agent (not on duty)? He drives like a madman to her house; he only went once but he has already memorized the route. Like whatever concerns her. He forces himself to park in a decent way and also to close the car; if someone would steal it, he would certainly be not be very clever, in case he had to take her somewhere, like a hospital... He climbs the stairs three steps at a time. He is already ready to knock down the door, he is mentally preparing himself for the act, when it opens wide and behind it there is her, perfectly healthy, intact, except that she seems very shaken.

He can finally start breathing again. Oxygen enters his lungs violently. -Penelope.- he coughs, as an inevitable consequence.

She just stares at him with terrified eyes. -You gave me... you gave a heart attack!- she puts one of her hands on her chest. Luke notices that she is wearing an open dressing gown that reveals a pajama. Did she prepare for their date or did she never give him a real chance? Did he just delude himself? He intends to get all the answers right now.

After the relief a little anger takes over, transmitted through a pungent irony. -Why, you thought you got rid of me forever?- but he doesn't last long, because she seems really too lost and fragile to be really angry. He already knows the reason for her behavior. He just needs to hear her say it.

-What?- Penelope asks, even more confused. Luke shakes his head.

-Forget it.- but he has a spasmodic need to touch her, any part of the body will be fine. -Why did you ditch me?- he caresses her arm, that thin layer of skin exposed to the outside world, and, surprisingly, she doesn't jump, she doesn't chase him away. -I waited until eleven o'clock.- is a reproach, but he has said it in the lowest and sweetest tone that is available in his vocal range. Penelope looks at him in passing. She doesn’t let her eyes fall into male ones. They are too magnetic. And she is in pajamas. And that's enough to embarrass her. Why does he persist in staying on her doorstep? She sighs, recalling the spirit of the Garcia of the past. The queen of ice. Anything just to get rid of him.

-You and the team wanted to play a trick on me and I ruined your party... I can't say I'm really sorry.- she is an excellent actress, even though she has never been able to exploit these qualities in real, private life... only on a stage. Luke seems to have taken really bad. As if... nope. It doesn't really care. -It's life, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose...- and instead, she seems to be rotten wrong. The man grabs her wrist that a second ago he was gently stroking and drags her dangerously towards him. Now she just can't avoid eye contact. And maybe it's better to not focus on his beautiful mouth.

That is now ranting at her. -What are you talking about?- the tone seems desperate, pained. -I will have called you thirty times and surely your voice mail will be clogged.- in fact it was really so. She didn't believe he would be able to go that far and listen to him beg her to tell him if she was okay, that the rest didn't matter, that he just needed to know that everything was ok... of course he shook her. But not enough to give her the strength to answer and reassure him. Why the hell was she so stupid?

Luke doesn't seem to think this of her, but the blonde continues straight on the road that will lead her to crash and collect the pieces of her heart. -I thought you would get there alone.- the voice, however, is already trembling, and she is wavering and seeking support in the door, rather than in him.

She reads sincerity in his face, yet she is unable to do anything other than boycott her own happiness. -Penelope, let's face it: did you think it was just a joke?- she doesn't nod, nor does she deny. Her eyes speak, confess. -Really? After everything we've written to each other?- a vein in his neck throbs, his face is red and his eyes are shiny. It's the first time she's seen him so furious. And to know that she is the reason... no, it is not at all good.

Even if she tells him exactly the opposite. -You're not cute when you're angry.- she shoots before she can stop it. This is not a thought that first formed in her mind and then was came out from the mouth. No, it born of nowhere.

Luke frowns. He is so puzzled that he lets her go. -What?- and she can no longer deny. She would like to have his arms around her back and his lips on hers. By this time, she could have already gotten it, if she wasn't an idiot and a coward. Never again, she promises. Never repeat the same mistake again.

-I won't take it back.- from now on she will be 100% sincere, even if it means having to suffer. She was never able to protect herself from the feelings that people cause her before Luke Alvez appeared on her radar. Why was everything different with him right away? She already knows the answer to this question too. She looks him straight in the eye. She could so easily fall in love with him... and it probably has already happened. -I said you're not cute when you're angry.- she tries to use a firm, stable tone of voice, even if a samba contest is taking place inside her.

Luke's face darkens. -But I'm not mad at you. I'm... just sad.- he has found a way to make her feel guilty, and almost certainly he is not aware of it. Both his attitude and tone are killing her. -It was so difficult to find the courage to ask you out and...- she interrupts him, practically caught by an electrocution. For a moment she sees him kneeling at his feet. No less insecure than now, despite they having been together for years. Willing to stay with her, even if she were to say no. And she can no longer really continue to doubt.

-Oh God. You really wanted to go out with me.- she starts shaking her head and at the same time her legs melt. Luke promptly holds her up, making her rest on his chest. He sticks his fingers in her blonde strands. Just to get this, the evening cannot be considered a fiasco, for him.

-I still want it.- he whispers. Then he sees her closing her eyes and trying to reach his lips. He barely rejects her, practicing violence against himself. -No, no kisses- Penelope teases him with a lost puppy look, abandoned in a cardboard while it's about to rain  -don't look at me like that, don't tempt me, it wouldn't be fair.- he feels a jerk, but he has already waited so long that twenty-four more hours won't make much difference. Quite right? He could convince himself. -I want to do things right, with you.- because she deserves it, that's what he doesn't add. Because he doesn't want too much frenzy to extinguish their flame, even if he doesn't really believe it's possible.

She tickles him on the chest through the layers of cloth. -But between us has there ever been anything normal and ordinary?- she replies promptly. And she's right. Fucking right. Her scent, the same of the letter, clouds his brain. But he holds on.

-But I'd still like to try.- Penelope nods, giving up and contenting herself with embracing him and trying to merge with the male body. -Then, will you blow me off a second time?- it had to be a joke, but she catches the few shades of seriousness in it.

She sighs, touching his neck and catching his eyes. -I can't promise you that I will. I wish I could, but my... fears, sometimes... win and...- Luke nods too, because this is a fight he has often faced, since he met a certain Penelope Garcia, BAU’ computer technician.

He takes her face in his hands. -I hope you just know that on the other side there is a man waiting anxiously and with heavy heart.- the phrase seems too retro and artificial to remain serious. Straight output directly from a nineteenth-century comedy. -Look, I made you laugh, it's already something.- he rests his lips on her forehead. -It's all real, Penelope, you don't have to be afraid you can suffer. Do you believe me?- he feels her nod.

But she understands alone that he also needs to hear it from her voice. -Yes.- even if it's a murmur, just whispered.

Luke smiles. -Well.- he's going to do something again that is against what he really wants. Kissing her, entering her apartment, closing the door with his foot, as they do in the movies and scandalizing Sergio. What would be wrong with that? -Now I go home, I have to force myself, otherwise I would stay here with you forever.- her eyes are exactly asking him why he shouldn’t. -I put almost all the cards on the table, I think I can't do more.- he comes off with difficulty, it's really a painful action.

For her too. -See you tomorrow, Luke.- she greets him only. But then the man turns, before turning to take the stairs, and then she adds a simple, very small sentence. That changes everything. -I'll miss you!-

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