#but i didnt get into it for the entirely separate reason that the previous two games needed to be played once more with feeling before i

[vigilskeep]

Would love to hear your early draft dorianmance oc thoughts. Intrigued by the vint violence post....

the thoughts r not super complex

mostly i don’t think i’ll be continuing nina cadash at all especially now i have a different seramancer. but there were a lot of elements of her character i really loved—a slightly haphazard approach to decision-making, a very kind character who also just thinks murder is basically okay, and a cadash who truly believes they’re andraste’s herald, first and foremost—so i was considering scrapping those elements for parts for maybe a male cadash and i believe in cadash/dorian supremacy. also i think a tempest rogue dwarf would be fun maybe?

idk i’m not rushing to play inquisition a bunch of times and to be honest i don’t really see myself playing it for more than helena and juno’s playthroughs. but you all know me, i love to be throwing concepts together

[orlamccools]

vent post under the cut- if youve got advice id love to hear it

so. ive been talking to this guy for a long ass while, you can scroll thru the last tag on this post to see what its all about, but long story short is this: i asked him out two saturdays agoto my friends going away party (which was held this past friday). hes met this friend once before, and we planned to meet at her place and then maybe go out to the bars after

entire week he is super into it, texts me more often than normal, creates a spotify blend for the two of us (w that feature that lets you combine your tastes into a single playlist) like im getting VIBES. and he asks abt our plans!!!! we make a solid schedule!!!

night of the party he texts me at 8:45 checking in to see if its all happening and i say yeah. i get home from work, change, then get to my friends house and text him that im here. he doesnt respond for an hour and finally says something abt how he has to charge his phone before coming out. im like ok man whatever i just want to hang so do what you gotta do. another half hour passes and then he hits me with the "hey idk if im gonna make it out". im disappointed by this, so i respond with like a "damn that kinda sucks :/" message. at this point i expect him to stop messaging me, but then he texts me quite literally for the rest of the night. like he literally doesnt stop until i text him that im walking home.

saturday i see him in person for a short period when he does the close out but another driver fucking also comes to sweep the store and just. will not stop talking to the dude in question. he like tries to get away twice but between customers and this other guy we dont talk like at all. after the other driver leaves and the store is closed he comes back in to use the bathroom and like stands by the door for a moment so i like look over but all he does is smile and wave then leave.

SATURDAY NIGHT. he texts me at like 8 responding to a text i had sent the previous night asking if im going out again tonight. i said yeah (bc a separate friend had a party) and he was like bet lemme know where youre at i might stop by and see you. i send him the address of the restaurant and proceed to hang w my friends until midnight. hes again texting me all night abt getting ready to head out but when we finally leave he hits me with the "finally leaving now where should i meet you". at this point i am exhausted, as ive just finished my first week of classes, had drunk heavily over the past 48 hours, and had worked a 13 hr workday that day. i text him and say im like too tired im going home and hes like damn :////

yesterday night. i do an eras movie night w my friends and i send a picture of the opening sequence to the ppl i have snapchat streaks with. he snaps me the rest of the night and is like "ohhhh you should have invited me" and stuff like that and its like. i didnt invite you for a multitude of reasons but like you ditched plans once this weekend and kept pushing back the other time i tried to invite you out, so why do you think i would ask you a third time???????

and now im just confused bc like. he seemed sooooooooo into it all week and then as soon as it was time for things to happen he just didnt show and kept stringing me along. im also lowkey pissed bc i wanted to hang with him and i was SO anxious abt asking him out (like i literally threw up twice friday morning bc i was so anxious abt how the day was gonna go). im just frustrated and like i had thought he had gotten the vibe that i was into him romantically bc it sure as shit seemed like he was reciprocating, and now im not even sure what to do anymore.

[mbat]

!! these were made using bases !! the bases will be linked below the cut!!

the cut is so the post isnt too long to scroll past, but also i will be talking about the au in it!!

decided to draw my own take on adult flurry heart, mostly so i could draw my own take on opaline in the au where opaline is like a nightmare moon of flurry heart. if youre wondering who the third pony is, its chrysalis' disguise for the au, named gentle heart.

flurry hearts base:

opalines bases (one for the body, the other was only for one of the wings):

gentle heart/chrysalis' base:

i had to use bases because ive been in such a weird art block lately, i just couldnt draw bodies right, but i was having this idea and i just had to get it out of me lol. i drew everything else just fine, idk why i couldnt draw bodies. shout out to elementbases on deviantart for having a lot of good mlp bases! and organized into categories no less!

btw for reference for adult flurry heart i mainly used images of her only adult appearance which was in some mobile game ?? i never played it but its real and its the only time we see her as an adult, though i dont think we get any details about her aside from how she looks. i just wanted to say that cause idk how many people know about it.

also yes her cutie mark is different between versions of her

so this is an au ive been tossing around for a while, especially since it started out as a half-theory i had about g5 before it truly did set in that they were just fucking up the entire thing (no hate to g5 or anyone who likes it but im personally just. disappointed), namely when they were like 'oh yeah opaline is just some alicorn that celestia and luna knew as kids and when they didnt want to play with her she held onto that for thousands of years and became evil over it'

also apparently the reason equestria is separated is because she just. idk whispered mean things in everyones ears? idk man i dont read the mlp comics, i plan to read g4s comics but not g5s. i didnt even know g5 had comics until i looked up why the pony kinds were separate.

anyway the idea was a theory because before all that we had no idea who opaline was, why there was some random alicorn, i mean, weve seen so few throughout g4! she was so mysterious for that, and i feel like the most popular idea was that she was flurry heart, since that was one of the few alicorns we knew of, and flurry is such a blank slate, especially since we dont technically ever see her adult form (with one exception)

i still personally think they shouldve gone that route but i know now that they wouldnt have, they probably wouldnt have wanted to give one of their previous characters, especially one like flurry, any bad traits or make her a villain, even though it would be such a cool idea. not to mention, they couldve redeemed her? idk man. worse villains have been redeemed lol

on to my au though. i wanted to keep it feeling like it couldve been canon but also stretching it just a little bit to make maybe more sense and also be more my creation, yknow?

we see at the end of g4 that chrysalis is trapped in stone alongside the other two villains she was working with, but we also know that these stone prisons can still be escaped, as we saw in discords introduction. my idea is that the stone is kept locked up, but unattended to, and she escapes, though her fellow villains dont. the specific details will be saved for if i go more in depth on all of this somewhere else lol

she develops a plan, that being to disguise herself as a normal pony, and to become staff at the crystal empire castle. that disguise is gentle heart, a name she literally made up because she was mocking the 'stupid' (from her perspective) names that ponies have, and she just kept it. while she works at the castle, she gets close to a young flurry heart.

she acts very extremely sickeningly nice and sweet in this disguise, but theres an uncanniness to it, a disingenuine undertone that is only noticeable when youre looking for it, really. flurry heart comes to love and trust her as a friend, and gentle heart isnt seen as suspicious to really anyone in the castle. people still think chrysalis is trapped in stone, after all.

her next step in the plan, however, is that when no one else is around, she shapeshifts herself into cadence or shining armor, and acts like a horrible parent to flurry heart. this creates a deep disconnect for flurry, as one moment her parents are the best ever, and the next they arent. if flurry tries to bring this up to them, they have no idea what shes talking about.

flurry begins to confide in gentle heart about this, and gentle heart begins to plant the idea in flurrys head that she should run away, and that gentle could run away with her. after a while of this, flurry finally decides to do this.

they run far, far away together, flurry being a child/young teenager, and they hide where no one else really goes, far from towns and pretty much any ponies. (this location hasnt been chosen yet but its not the mooost relevant? the basic point is that theyre hidden away) and they set up a home here.

soon in, gentle heart makes a decision. she shows her true form to flurry heart, a flurry heart who was never taught about how changelings used to be before their reformation, as her parents thought it was a conversation for when she was older. they didnt want her to feel paranoid, or scared. the changelings she knows are bright, and covered in generally round shapes. theyre not like the jagged and dark chrysalis.

gentle heart tells flurry that she was cursed. that her pony form is her true form, but she was cursed by the princesses to be in this form. being in her pony form drains her of energy, her changeling form recharges that energy. really, its just her excuse to not need to be in that pony form anymore. she tells flurry that she was cursed falsely, accused of a crime she did not commit. that she was made to work at the crystal castle so an eye could be kept on her. she asks to be called chrysalis, as being called gentle heart in this form feels wrong.

chrysalis right now is the only person in the world that flurry heart trusts, so she accepts this as truth.

as flurry heart grows up, chrysalis begins to plant ideas in her head that the other ponies are awful and horrible, just like her parents seemingly were. that flurry heart is better than all of them because shes not horrible, and on top of that, shes a natural alicorn. there hasnt been a natural born alicorn in thousands of years before her. flurry heart begins to believe all of this too. she doesnt have anyone or anything else to tell or show her otherwise.

these dark beliefs warp her appearance overtime, making her go from her parents daughter, into what we know as opaline, akin to princess luna turning into nightmare moon. she becomes annoyed with, averse to her cutesy name she was given by her family, and adopts the name opaline, both because of her crystal cutie mark, and because part of her still thinks of the crystal empire as her home, though now more like its hers to own someday.

speaking of, into her adulthood, opaline and chrysalis form a plan. a plan to take over equestria. the idea of being the ruler of all of pony kind was a natural conclusion that chrysalis wanted opaline to make, and so she did. their first step was to invade the crystal castle and take it over.

chrysalis tells her that cadence was never a fighter, so she shouldnt be an issue, but shining armor would be. if both chrysalis and opaline combined their power, they would easily overpower him and anyone else daring to fight them. the thing is... this works.

for a few reasons, actually. people were shocked at the return of chrysalis, and on top of that, despite her warped appearance, opaline was recognized as flurry heart. there isnt exactly many alicorns, and especially none that look similar to her. there was a fight put up, but not at full power. no one wanted to hurt the lost princess.

she takes over the empire, trapping any who oppose her, especially her parents. she doesnt even give them the option to talk to her. she plunges the empire back in dark days, not in the way that sombra did entirely, but still. shes strict on her subjects, and begins to make them like a military, planning to use them to invade canterlot. anyone who would dare come to attack the empire would be held off.

after she knows her subjects are loyal (terrified), and properly molded into an army, she storms canterlot, chrysalis by her side. its a hard fight, but they do it. they trap the other princesses, and they take over.

opalines first rule of business is to make the crystal empire the new capital, the new seat of power. for a while, this is the most drastic thing she does, otherwise going slow with her horrid ideas and changes.

the worse comes when shes already caused distrust and discomfort among ponykind, pitting ponies against eachother. she begins to decree that ponykind must be separated by type, designating towns to each, forcing ponies apart by law. she made sure it was enforced. she didnt need ponies coming together to rise against her, so she forced them apart. the damage is done.

this of course doesnt last forever. twilight is free and gathers the elements, and they take opaline by surprise, ending her reign. they empty the empire and trap her alone in her castle. thing is, she also trapped them in a limbo-like state, along with the other princesses (and her father), as they had also tried to join the fight. and a final blow to her, chrysalis got caught in crossfire, and was seemingly killed. no one intended it, but it happened. opaline is devastated.

and now, shes stuck. trapped alone in a castle in the middle of a city. she has the whole city alone to herself, and all she has now is the items left behind by her people, and mostly books. she only ever sees them as fiction or propaganda though, refusing to take them to heart and accept them as truth. alongside reading and re-reading the books around the city, she schemes of a way out. she is not very successful in this for a long time.

the closest she gets to getting out is when she opens the barrier just long enough to see, and kidnap, a young unicorn. a one misty brightdawn. she forces misty to be her only companion in a long time, and raises her like a daughter, but not lovingly.

some stuff continues on similar to canon, like misty befriending the mane 5 and leaving opaline behind, but i wont say more because i can keep some secrets for myself :] i do have an ending to her story planned though!

also pls ignore timeline and other canon contradictions pls pls pls pls pls lol

[megabuild]

this was like a five minute doodle just to get the concept down but ive been thinkin about greggory..

obvious full disclaimer him being more human shaped is inspired by qsmp fanarts ofc. pushes that out of the way

ive talked a little about nl!olipix here and here but tldr oli ""dies"" at the end of empires and runs away and leaves olipelago to greggory. pixelle gets nothing in his will btw which he doesnt really care about on like a physical level because hes more upset about his boyfriend fucking dying but there is a part that stings that hes not even mentioned in the will despite them being so close he feels a little like oh so did that not mean anything to you.. but thags his issue.

the most immediate problem is that greggory is like not competent enough to live alone or maintain the olipelago. sorry. he's still in his shell at this point and like six months old tops he's baby. pixelle was already lowkey his parent because he babysat and hung out with oli a lot so it sort of happens naturally.. plus as a dragon its honestly a bit more like a slightly higher maintenance cat. who can breathe fire once hes out of the shell a couple months down the line. thats scary.

pix wraps up work on the ancient capital and moves back to the city to continue his previous job but things don't work out for .. various reasons. he's literally still like part ghost. but when he moves he takes greggory with him ofc because like he can't leave him alone... pix doesn't actually like children he was really bad with hermes but gregg grows on him. maybe in part because he's not really a child he's a dragon like i said. until. har har.

at about a year old greggory starts mimicking the humans around him a lot better than he was before. like. he starts walking on two legs. and at first pixelle is like lol how cute and then he seriouses because oh shit what the fuck raising dragons is sort of not really that common especially not in this sort of environment. on the rare occasions they've been tamed before they've been wiled beasts and this is an ender dragon which is nigh unheard of. (Violet from arc 1 still exists but is a very difficult and separate case that doesn't apply.) so suddenly instead of a little kittycat this thang is trying to walk and grab things with his little claw hands and vocalising (he doesn't have vocal chords capable of human speech but he does little grunts and stuff it's cute.) pixelle is equal parts fascinated from a scholarly pov but also like oh my god i am not qualified at all for this what the fuuuck

this is the point that makes pixelle sit up and go ok i need to unghost myself because i cant. raise my weird son like this. (his entire ghost thing is a weird metaphor for depression and trauma and grief because all the ghosts in aoyuer are about that. so yea) and then him and greggory go do that and its a whole thing i wont get into but it leads into him entering the land that new life is set in and meeting oli again who he had kind of figured out was alive and was trying to track down but didnt expect it to happen here. and so begins their divorce arc

fun notes though: pixelle calls greggory omelette sometimes as a cute nickname! he suggested that as a name when he was still in his egg. sort of mean. also since gregg can't speak english pix learns and then teaches him sign language ^_^ at the start of new life / arc 3 he's only a basic communicator but can get his point across usually.

oli is by no means a bad dad he's just not a great one either. it's clear he tries very hard and he does love gregg. part of the reason he leaves him is BECAUSE he loves him and he recognises he's not really able to raise him and it would be unfair to drag him along wherever he plans on going post empires... but that doesn't make it right etc etc. Hes aware of that too and feels generally awful about the whole thing... His and greggorys relationship is weird and strained at the start but he tries by god does he try. And they make it work eventually. They have to get through the horrors first though.

[sombreboy]

Love Maze »2

Previous  »  Next Series Masterlist  ▎ 18+ ▎ pairing: Taehyung x Jungkook ▎ genre: School AU, crack humor, smut, angst, ETL, slow burn, fluff ▎ word count: 11k  ▎ ch.warnings: cursing, use of homophobic slurs (censored), internalized homophobia?, mxm smut, fingering, anal, some fluff, some angst, they’re dumb because they're still figuring everything out, mentions of alcoholic father & verbally abusive parents. Do not read this if you’re sensitive to any of these warnings!

When the morning came, Taehyung had to physically force himself out of the comfort of his bed, still not fully awake as he sluggishly dressed himself for practice.

This time around, instead of losing sleep from playing video games all night long, Tae’s racing thoughts were the culprit.

After somehow managing to leave some extra time to spare, Taehyung figured it couldn’t hurt to pack his breakfast— a chocolate chip granola bar, before rushing out of the house and driving off to school. He greeted a couple of his teammates once he got there, exchanging handshakes and friendly pats on the back. Then, when Taehyung was about to pull his sweatshirt over his head, he felt the presence of someone’s stare on his back. He turned around to see who it could be, when— “Namjoon?” “Oh—hey! Uh.. hey.” The latter looked like he’d just shit his pants, eyes set on the ground whilst rubbing his nape. “Hey.” Taehyung’s brows furrowed, “what’s up..?” “Nothing.” The older quickly blurted out, “Just wanted to say hey.” Tae simply blinked once, twice, and three times before slowly nodding his head, utterly confused. Without exchanging another word, Joon got out of there, not baring the awkwardness any longer. However, just as he was making his way towards the door, in came Jungkook. “Kook, hey.” His dimpled smile showed, trying to be subtle when eyeing the boy’s limp. Fuck, Namjoon just wanted to be upfront with it, but he didn’t want to scare either of them away. So, he opted for keeping his mouth shut. It was a challenge, to say the less, “Are you hurting?” Damn, Tae. How rough can you be? Meanwhile, Taehyung was discretely looking at the two of them, wondering what they were talking about.

Jungkook awkwardly smiled at Namjoon, the backpack strap tightly clenched on his shoulder, ''Hey, yeah, uh.. No, I'm fine.''

It was hardly believeable, but Namjoon nodded, eyebrows drawn together in concern still. A few seconds of silence followed before Namjoon spoke once more, ''Are you sure you can play? You say you're fine, but-'', he didnt finish his sentence before Jungkook interrupted him, ''I'm fine, I'm playing.'' He was extremely stubborn, Namjoon knew this. ''You're of no use if you get hurt, Kook, you could just sit on the bench today.'' He was pushing it. ''No.'' Jungkook was determined, now walking past Namjoon instead to get to his locker, throwing his bag on the bench to get changed. His locker was placed just a few steps away from Taehyung's, but he didn't dare to say anything, giving quick glances as he's changing, pressing his lips together in a straight line. He hated that his heart fluttered from the close proximity, and being in this room once more made the memories play back in his head.

Taehyung’s sharp eyes seemed to have a mind of their own, he would steal a quick glance towards Jungkook’s direction when he was sure Kook wasn’t looking, shaking his head when he’d caught himself. A small part of Taehyung wanted to ask Jungkook about how he felt regarding all of.. this. But, that would be extremely unlike him. He’d already done something out of the unexpected, he really didn’t feel like adding another to the list. Even when practice began, Tae would be looking at him, like an idiot deep in thought. Namjoon didn’t fail to catch this. His eyes seemed to always be trained on the two of them. Tae managed to catch him a few times, but Joon would always divert his gaze somewhere else, hoping he didn’t make it too obvious. If there was one thing to know about their captain, is that he was extremely sneaky. So, when he decided they’d be practicing their defense in matches, he knew just who to group together, “Jimin and Hoseok, Daejung and Jin, and..” Joon pondered, “Jungkook and Taehyung!” Hit. Him. On. His. Head. With. A. Bat. Namjoon had to be kidding, why would he place him with Kook out of all people?!

Jungkook's eyes widened, why would Namjoon group them together?! It made no sense. Normally, Joon would do everything in his power to keep them separated to keep the peace. But he couldn't act up on it, he couldn't really complain, because part of him wanted to be close to Tae, but another was so embarrassed, the memories still too fresh in his mind, his body still more sore than he'd like to admit. He ran his hands through his hair, sweat glistening on his forehead as he's catching his breath, glancing over at Taehyung, hesitating as if he's not sure if he's allowed to approach him for this practice. But he had to, it would be weird if he didn't, so he mustered all his courage to walk up to him, still quiet. He was thankful that they were sweaty and hot from the practice, masking the blush creeping on his cheeks.

Well, this was awkward. “You coming, or what?” Taehyung’s deep voice laced with annoyance as he waited for Jungkook to approach him, suddenly wanting to get out of there before the obvious tension engulfed him whole. He didn’t need any futuristic powers to know this was going to be.. something. Even he, himself, was struggling not to bring up the past. Whether it would be pleasing to Jungkook’s ears or not, he didn’t care. He felt like he had to say something. “You look dorky as hell limping around the school, y’know.” Taehyung extended out his arms to make a basket, his voice close to a murmur, not wishing for anyone else to hear, “Uh, um.. did you try the panthenol cream?” Okay, he wouldn’t say anything else. Tae already took it too far trying to intervene in Kook’s personal life.

Jungkook's frown from the limp insult disappeared quickly when Tae murmured his next words. It wasn't surprising, he had to keep the image up, he hated JK. Bullying JK was his thing. But the quiet question was unexpected. Jungkook glanced over with his big doe eyes for a mere second before staring straight at the floor, his bangs bouncing over his eyes, nodding as they walk, his small limp evident, even if he's trying so hard not to. He wanted to speak with him, but now that he could, he was speechless. He had nothing, he wasn't even in the mood to argue, grabbing the basketball to get into position, ''I'll defend, you attack.'' As it should've been, always been. The double meaning behind his subtle words was only readable by the two of them.

Namjoon almost had a tunnel vision on the two of them, barely noticing the other guys practicing. His chin jutted, rubbing it slowly as he was in thought. He wonders what Tae was whispering to the younger.

Although Taehyung could be a bit of an asshole at times; he wasn’t entirely soulless. He had feelings, just like any other human. But, unlike most, Tae would never show it on his face. Maybe the reason he liked ticking Jungkook off so much was because he didn’t know of any other way to garner his undivided attention.. Of course, that could never be it. But even he wasn’t so sure of that. Fuck, why was everything so confusing? With a soft nod of his head, Taehyung kept quiet, doing as Jungkook told without a second thought. By the time they were done, sweat dripped from Tae’s body, gluing some of his fringe onto his forehead. Even though him and Kook barely shared any words, Taehyung found himself missing the silence.. After all, it was better than talking about what took place before, it would’ve just made him feel uneasy and more prone to getting angry. What was even more surprising was that they didn’t even bicker once, that didn’t go unnoticed by anyone. “Good job everyone. See you tomorrow!” Namjoon waved his team off, screwing the cap back on his water bottle before setting it down on the floor, “Are you guys okay? You broke your tradition.” He teased, referring to their usual arguments.

Jungkook tilted his head back, chugging down the entire waterbottle, the muscles on his neck dancing beneath his sweaty skin. He grits his teeth when he swallows, the aching pain in his body even worse now after practice, but trying his best to not show it. His eyes flickered over to Namjoon, an awkward smile pulling on his lips, ''I'm good.''

Namjoon didn't believe it, waiting for the other players to start to leave the practice room before he decides to ask, his eyes scanning the two men with a slight squint, ''Did something happen yesterday?''

Taehyung’s mouth went dry, eyes wide as he looked at Namjoon, “No, why?” The taller shifted on his feet, trying to not let his tone waver as he lied to Joon’s face, “What do you mean? Why are you asking us?” Tae got defensive, crossing his toned arms over his chest, eyes lowered in questioning. He had to remind himself to calm the fuck down. Why was Namjoon interrogating them so much? They didn’t get caught.

Namjoon crossed his arms over his own chest, mirroring Taehyung's stance, ''I can tell when something's up,'' He said, eyes moving over to Jungkook, ''You two were the only ones here last night, and after you left,'' He directed his words back at Tae, ''Jungkook came shortly after, obviously hurt.''

Jungkook was getting anxious, he didn't like this. why did it matter? Sure, maybe Namjoon was worried about them fighting, but today they didnt, and now that was also an issue... ''I already told you, we fought.''

Namjoon clacked his tongue, directing his attention to Taehyung again, ''If that is so, why didn't you today? This is unlike you both. It's been too quiet... You guys can talk to me about anything?''

Taehyung clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, having trouble making sense of the situation, “So.. it’s an issue that we didn’t fight?”, A disbelieving scoff followed soon after, “Joon, you’re making no fucking sense.” Tae was about to walk past Namjoon when the latter opened his mouth, knowing it would make him stop in his tracks, “I found cum on the-!” He lowered his voice, looking around to see if anyone else was left lingering. “I found cum on the ground, okay?” Taehyung swore he felt the previous vigorous beating of his heart stop for a second. “Look, I’m not saying it was you guys,” Joon breathed out, choosing his words carefully, “But if it was.. I’d support you! I’m not against the gays, or anything.”

Jungkooks heart was pounding so hard that it felt like it was about to burst out of his rib cage. How could he have been so fucking dumb? He should’ve cleaned it up. Internally he scolded himself, and his face was completely frozen. He couldn’t even look surprised. His eyes were dead staring at the floor, not even able to look at either of them, and the urge to just run away was rising. Should he? He felt like he was gonna faint any second, he hadn’t eaten, his body was exhausted and aching, and slowly he started to softly rock back and forth as he felt dizzy.

“What the hell?” Taehyung’s face twisted up, internally freaking the fuck out but he hid it well, “Namjoon, it wasn’t us.” He let out a defeated sigh, “It was Seulgi.” Namjoon’s brows pinched together, even more confused than before, “What?” Taehyung was sure that by the time they were excused from their “private” meeting, Joon’s face would be covered with wrinkles from how much he’s frowned in the span of a few minutes. It was amazing, really. “I mean.. I had sex with her.” That wasn’t necessarily a lie. Never in a million years did he think he would be talking about his sex life with Jungkook and Joon present, but here he was. In the midst of it all, Taehyung’s eyes kept on lingering back to Jungkook, noticing how awfully pale he looked. The younger looked like he was about to fall at any minute. “Taehyung, why was there so much cum then?! Did you seriously have sex without protection?” The Captain’s lips parted in surprise, mind wandering to the horrible possibilities of what could happen. Oh yeah, Tae forgot about that minor detail.. “No—I used protection.” He reassured him, “It just.. all fell from the condom.” Can they go now? “Uh, can I go?” Taehyung settled for asking, leaving Namjoon wide eyed before going downstairs to get changed.

Jungkook watched Taehyung leave, this entire conversation was like as if from a terrible teenage movie, and he wishes with his entire being that the world would just open up and swallow him whole. Namjoon's attention shifted to Jungkook, whom looked like he wasn't doing well at all, ''Hey, hey, are you alright?''

Jungkook snapped out of his thoughts, looking Namjoon straight in the eye as if he's seen a ghost, ''Y-yeah, hm, I gotta go,'' He croaked out before hurrying to the lcoker room as well, almost stumbling on the way down

By the time Taehyung wandered into the locker room, almost everyone else had already evacuated. Thankfully. He was way too out of it to partake in a normal conversation, even less force himself to do small talk with a few guys he only interacted with during practice. He took off his Jersey, sweat stains running along the light fabric. Taehyung didn’t know if that was cold sweat, or sweat from the physical exercise.. Either way, it was disgusting. Suddenly, the sound of the door opening caught his attention. In stumbled Jungkook, looking even more out of it than he did.. Shit, he looked horrible. It was concerning.. “Kook,” Tae hesitantly called out his name, rushing over to the younger to take a hold of his forearm, helping him regain his balance so he doesn’t drop to the floor. “Here.” He slowly led him to a nearby bench, “Jungkook, just take a deep breath.” Taehyung sat down next to him, making sure to leave some space between their bodies.

''Thanks..'' Jungkook's voice was breathy, his hands trembling in his lap. He really shouldn't have skipped breakfast, and he definitely shouldn't have participated in practice today. But that's how he is, he focuses on one thing with tunnel vision to occupy his busy mind, and this focus turned out to be working out, as it always is. Jungkook's chest heaved up and down slowly as he took deep breaths, feeling that it does help him gather himself enough to feel grounded. He glances over at Taehyung's feet, not sure if he wants to meet his eyes, still feeling embarrassed and guilty for the big fuck up, he really should've cleared any traces of last night. ''I'm sorry..''

Guessing that Jungkook might’ve been walking around on an empty stomach, Taehyung stood up from his spot on the bench before scavenging around in his backpack, searching for that granola bar he packed this morning, “Here, eat this.” He sat it down on the other’s lap, pushing aside his own hunger. At this moment, Jungkook needed it more than him. They sat together in silence, Taehyung absentmindedly staring down at the ground while listening to the heavy breathing at his side. “It’s whatever.” His voice was nonchalant, though.. was it really? The taller’s jaw tensed, wanting to free the words that hung at the tip of his tongue. He knew he might regret this, but during yesterday’s sleepless night, he thought hard about it, “Next time we’ll just be more careful.” Taehyung’s voice was close to a whisper, feeling tingly from the nerves. Was he really going to do this..? “I just.. I’m not gay, alright? It’s just sex. So, don’t think of it as anything more than that.” There was no sign of emotion on his face, though deep inside, he was a nervous wreck.

Jungkook didn't open the granola bar provided, but simply kept it in his hands as he fiddled with the plastic. He felt so confused right now, being thrown subtle words that could be interpreted as concern and care, to be thrown off a cliff the next as soon as he feels any hope for... whatever the fuck this is. But he gets it, of course Tae wasn't gay. Of course this was just another fuck. But why did feel like it wasn’t? Was it really just him that felt this way? He said the one thing he thought would be appropriate in this situation to save his own skin, to not be left as the one who got made a fool out of for having feelings, ''I'm not.. either.. It's just sex.'' JK wasn't as good of an actor as Taehyung, the expression on his face more sombre than anything. And what if it was just sex, would it still be good enough? He'd still be able to feel him, even if the elder didn't.. feel. Jungkook stood up, hissing at the way his overworked muscles protested, but he forced himself to stand straight. He didn't want to stay around for now, he wanted to leave, have some space to think. He didn't even want to bother changing back to his regular clothing, and slung his backpack over his shoulder.

Taehyung debated on whether he should even bother uttering another word. He said what he had to say, nothing else was itching to be heard. So, with one last look at Jungkook’s direction, Tae’s eyes followed his figure until he was out of sight. Taehyung stayed sitting there, replaying what happened in his head, feeling like he was on the edge of his seat at the cinema, just dying to know what was going to happen next. It’s already been established that they’d be having casual sex. When? Tae didn’t know. Probably whenever they both felt like it, obviously. He’s had sex many times before, just not with a guy. As of yesterday, that statement was no longer true. And shit did that scare him.. Taehyung didn’t really know how to approach it. Smoothly, that is. “Was this a mistake?” He asked himself, leaning down to hide his face in his hands. However the hell this was supposed to work out, Taehyung only hoped he would get a firm grasp of the concept. Soon.

When the last bell of the day rang, Tae was one of the first people to get out of there. With his hands tucked deep into the warmth of his pockets, Taehyung casually squeezed past the crowds of students in the common area, wanting nothing more than to get out of there. After he was in the clear, and had a better view of the outside through the glass, his shoulders slumped in defeat. It was pouring. Or like his mom used to tell him, ‘confetti was falling from the sky.’ Bringing his hood up to his head, Taehyung took it upon him to brace himself when he noticed a familiar person standing by the doors. It was Jungkook. He didn’t look too pleased, and if the older remembered correctly, he didn’t have a car, “Kook.” The taller snuck up behind him, “You planning on walking?”

Jungkook jumped where he was standing when Tae called his name by surprise, turning his body to face his, ''Ah, yeah...'' He turned to look outside once more, a sigh pressing through his lips. How is it that every single time he's daydreaming of Taehyung, he seems to show up one way or the other, ''Also, hm.. thank you for the granola bar.'' He internally scolded himself once more, not sure why he even had to mention that.Taehyung probably didn't even remember giving it to him, however, it did help. Jungkook doesn't have a lot of money, and living by himself was expensive. Food was a necessity, but he'd only eat when deemed entirely necessary, or leech off of the school lunches.

“You’re welcome,” Taehyung let out an airy chuckle, still not fully over the way Jungkook jumped in his spot. So he was easily scared. Noted. “Hey, uh..” He nervously scratched at his nape, “I can give you a ride home, don’t want you slipping on a puddle and falling on your ass..” He smirked at the surprisingly vivid image, part of him finding it amusing. Tae would never admit to that, though; he was afraid of the reaction he might get. He would also never admit to the fact that Jungkook could get scary when angry. “Come on, we gotta hurry.” Taehyung effortlessly pulled off his sweatshirt over his head, wavy hair a mess as some strands effortlessly fell down to his eyes. Holding the gray fabric over the both of them, Tae spared Jungkook a knowing glance before he began making a run for it, making sure the younger could still keep up with him. “Shit!” His voice was nearly muffled by the sound of the heavy rain hitting against the concrete ground, his sweatshirt barely of any use. Without even knowing it, Taehyung had a big grin on his face. Walking as fast as he could, he nearly slipped on the wet grass, catching himself just moments before disaster. The sound of his laughter echoed in the misty air, “Meant to do that.” By now the fabric above their heads was completely damp, but that didn’t seem to faze him.

Jungkook couldn’t help but let a laugh slip out of him as well, Taehyungs laugh was infectious, “Yeah, sure.” As the damp sweatshirt was basically useless, however a comforting feeling swirling within Jungkook as this was giving him this close proximity to the man he’s grown to like even more now, the smile he didn’t know could be so pretty when it was out of genuinely rather than in a mocking sense. As they finally arrived by the car, which by no means was fancy, but functional, Jungkook went to the passenger side after taehyung  unlocked it and got into the drivers seat. The mere seconds he was exposed to the rain was enough for his hair to be soaked, stringy curls dangling around the frame of his face. “Fuck, that rain came out of nowhere.” Jungkook breathes out as soon as he slumps down in the passenger seat, shutting the door closed. The sounds of the heavy rain clattering against the car surface was almost soothing to the ears.

“And you were planning on walking,” Taehyung reminded him as he threw his head back against the headrest, not caring that his hair was wet from the rain. “You owe me, you know.” He turned his head to meet Jungkook’s doe eyes, a lazy smile dancing on his lips. He didn’t actually expect anything in return, simply teasing the other like he always did. Not even a second later, Taehyung pulled on the gear shift, looking over his shoulder while using one hand to back out of his parking space. Paying close attention to the directions Jungkook had given him, knowing he tended to get lost a lot of the times, Taehyung drove off. Comfortable silence soon took over them a few moments later, until Taehyung broke it, “How come you don’t have a car?”

Jungkooks eyes continously ended up on Tae's hand gripping onto the steering wheel. It was so close, but so far away, "Huh? Well.. money's been tight." He shrugged, hoping it was enough of an answer. Just like tae, he wasnt the most keen of talking about hardships. He didnt want to come off as weak, showing struggles, especially not in front of Taehyung. Or maybe, he was exactly the one he wanted to open up to. Jungkook smiled vaguely, "I could use the exercise anyway." Not to mention, most of his money goes towards being able to stay in school, with the help of the scholarship hes been working his ass off to keep.

The last thing Taehyung wanted was to come across as noisy, or too invested in Jungkook’s personal life, so a light nod on his end was enough of a response for him. But even so; he was intrigued. The younger was struggling financially..? Tae had a lot of misconceptions about JK, but he would’ve never thought that was one of them. After a few minutes of driving down a route that was foreign to him, listening to the rain hitting down on them harder than ever; Taehyung finally pulled up to a small apartment complex. From the outside, it looked cozy. “We’re here,” His deep voice disrupted the comfortable silence, waiting for Jungkook to get out of the car as he tapped his slender fingers against the steering wheel.

Jungkook was hyper aware of the tapping noise tae was making against the steering wheel, the tapping almost echoing in his head, "Thanks for the ride." He spoke softly, and as soon as he was about to get out of the car, a loud spark of thunder flashed in the sky, the noise startling poor jungkook, he cried out an almost embarrassing sound as he flinched, his hand gripping the door handle hard. How embarrassing... he was terrified of the thunder.

How embarrassing indeed.. If Tae had not seen the raw look of fear in Jungkook’s big eyes, he would’ve hopped on the chance to make fun of him for it. Eyes drawn to the way Kook’s hand desperately gripped onto the door handle, it was made clear it wasn’t as amusing to the latter as it was to him, “Jeon, you need me to protect you from the thunder?” He raised a brow, and even though his tone was teasing, a pinch of seriousness lingered within the small cracks. A tired sigh escaped past his lips before he turning off his car, “So childish..” Taehyung mumbled under his breath, acting like it was a big pain in his ass to even consider spending more time with Jungkook. He would never admit to feeling the complete opposite of that, maybe not while sober. “Come on, don’t just stand there.” Taehyung made his way over to the other’s side, urging him to straighten up before wrapping an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close to his chest.

"Ah, I'm not scared... " his voice came out weak, so he didnt even bother arguing further. His chest felt like it was about to explode with the close proximity of Taehyung pulling him closer.. it was comforting and incredibly impactful, his heart pounding so hard he could hear his heartbeat in his ears. He guided the two of them to the front door, fumbling to fish out the keys from his pocket and unlocking the door. "Uh, it's not much but, welcome." Jungkook gestured in a general manner followed by a shrug as he stepped inside, closing the door behind them. It wasnt big, but it wasnt terribly small either. He had gotten this place after being kicked out by his parents. They had found out about his preferences with males, and his parents were terribly against this.

Taehyung stayed behind Jungkook as he took a look around his place, noticing how he didn’t have much furniture apart from a couch set up against one of the walls in the room. “Nice place.” He exclaimed, leaving his shoes by the entrance and plopping down on the cushions, extending his arms out along the back. It was just as comfortable as it looked. Apart from the lack of decorating, at least in the living room, Taehyung didn’t seem to mind. He wasn’t an interior designer or some shit like that, Kook didn’t need to worry. As far as he knew, it was better of a home than some. After having finishing exploring the unfamiliar room with his eyes, Taehyung looked up at Jungkook, “Are we the only ones here?” He didn’t see another car in the driveway, but Tae figured his parents were off at work.

Jungkook kicked off his shoes and threw his bag on the floor, not really bothered with unpacking it for the moment. He steps into the living room and his eyes fall on how comfortable taehyung already seemed to be. It was odd, really, seeing Tae in his home, in this setting. It felt different than being around him in school, now without the eyes of other people, he seemed more relaxed. The question caught him off guard, but he wasn’t surprised. Not many their age live alone, “Yeah, just us.” He tried to be casual about it, “You want anything to drink?” He wasn’t sure what he had at home, but something should still be in the fridge. He mostly kept various drinks or instant noodles around, “I was gonna grab something anyway..”

“Sure. What do you have?” Taehyung sat up a little straighter, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of Jungkook in the kitchen. This felt.. different, to say the least. Definitely a lot different compared to the atmosphere back home, Tae could never seem to catch a break. Even sitting on the couch like this, so relaxed and at peace— It wasn’t something he did, or felt on a regular basis. Come to think of it.. when was the last time he sat on his own furniture? He was mostly up in his room, not interested in listening to his father’s drunken rambles about how much of a shitty day he had at work. Where was the corny, “How was your day, son?” Or, “What did you learn at school?” Taehyung undoubtedly knew that he would get tired of those questions as time went on, but he would just like to answer once. Was that too much to ask? Pulling him out of his thoughts was the sound of the heavy thunder, and almost instinctively Taehyung’s eyes went to Jungkook. The older had never been frightened by the sound, so it would be rude of him if he didn’t comfort Kook.. Patting the empty spot next to him, Tae reached for the drink in Jungkook’s hand. “Uh, you can sit with me. If you want.” Of course he could, it was his goddamn couch for fucks sake.. “I mean—so you’re less scared, that is..”

Jungkook's heart pounded in his chest, he really fucking hated the thunder. Something about the loud, rumbling noise was triggering to him. It reminded him of the night he was kicked out of home, a terrible thunderstorm screamed in his ears along with his parents, his father screaming at him to 'get the fuck out of here, I have no son!', and 'I dont want a fucking f*g living under my roof!'

Jungkook took a deep breath as he sat down next to Taehyung, handing him the drink. It wasn't anything special, just a juicebox, but it was the tastiest thing he had around, and it was his last one. He settled for a water, since..well, it's free. He was thankful for owning a TV, and it was fairly nice, he'd gotten it for free from a friend that had gotten a new one. Underneath the tv table was a playstation, probably the one thing he owned that was the most valuable to him, the one thing had kept him sane throughout the past year, ''Do you like videogame-es?'' Jungkook looked over at Tae, flinching once more when a spark of thunder flashes outside.

Seeing the way Jungkook’s body trembled in fear at the booming noise, Tae hesitated whether or not to go through with what he had in mind. Biting down on the straw of his Mixed Berry juicebox, anxious for the reaction that was to come, Taehyung scooted closer to Jungkook. “Just lean against me, Kook.” He reassured, making himself more comfortable so the younger could take shelter against his chest. This was nothing. He was just being friendly.. “Video games?” Taehyung’s head perked up at the question, he was a /sucker/ for video games. Spending so much time secluded in his room allowed him to advance in his skills, and it paid off whenever he played against other people. “Whatever game you’re thinking of, I bet I could beat your ass.”, The taller challenged, the corner of his lip inching upwards.

Jungkook quickly grabbed the two controllers that was laying on the floor by their feet, handing one over to Tae, ''You bet, huh?'', He scoffed playfully, the bratty kook that Tae was used to shining through. If there was anything Jungkook was confident in, it was his skills in gaming. Without thinking, he turned on the Playstation remotely with his controller as he leaned onto Taehyung for the comfort he offered, watching the game load. It was a mortal combat type of game, his favourite to play to get any frustrations out. And to beat somebodys spirit down with his combos.    Having Tae's comfort and the excitement between them for a simple videogame, almost occupied his mind from any worries. The thunder was there, but it was momentarily forgotten.

Taehyung rolled his eyes at Kook’s scoff, part of him glad that the other had visibly loosened up at the idea of gaming, despite him acting like the brat he knew so well. The older just had to show him who’s boss, that’s all. “You doubting me, Jeon?” He shook his head, taking the familiar controller in his hands and looking down at him, “Let’s make a deal.” Taehyung shifted a little bit on his spot, “If I win, you have to do what I say. And if you win—which, not gonna happen, I have to do whatever you want.” He playfully nudged the other, “Sounds good?”

Jungkook couldn’t help but let his mind wander at the thought, however the result may be, a tight swallow following along with the way he subtly licked his lower lip without knowing, “Deal.” As mentioned, he was confident in his skills, but a part of him kind of wondered what taehyung would make him do if he lost. However, he was way too competitive to not try his best to win. As the match begins, Jungkook starts off well, his combos unmatched, a smile curling on his lips as his eyes as completely fixed on the screen.

Truth be told, Taehyung didn’t know what he’d make Jungkook do once he lost.. It was not up for bargain that Tae would win, his mind just couldn’t grasp on the idea of losing. After all, the term was foreign to him. Taehyung’s fingers pressed repeatedly on the buttons of his controller, the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration. “Fuck.” He cursed out loud, having had underestimated Jungkook’s moves. Tae wouldn’t give up just yet, though. He still had time to redeem himself. “Take that!” Without him even being fully aware of it, a series of profanities escaped past his lips, which were a hue of red from him biting down on them often. “Goddamn it..!” He wasn’t doing as good as he hoped. “Shit shit shit-“ There was no trace of a smile on Taehyung’s face, sharp eyes glued onto the screen that would sometimes get painted on with blood after their characters’ hits. Sucking in a sharp breath, his fingers moved faster than ever, trying to hang on to the last bit of hope Tae had for himself. And that didn’t do shit. After it was clear that he’d lost the match, Taehyung slumped in the couch with a frown. “That’s never happened before..” He muttered sourly, not believing that Jungkook beat him. Jungkook! “You were just lucky.” God, was he a sore loser when it came to video games. “Whatever,” Tae faced him once again, arms crossed over his chest. “What do you want?”

Jungkook scrunched his nose in a smile as he won, the corners of his eyes creating small wrinkles, a dorky, teethy shit eating grin on his face. It almost reminded you that of a bunny. “Sure, this was pure luck.” He couldn’t get the smile off his face, putting the controller away. Now that it came down to the question, his smile faltered, eyes moving to Taehyungs face. What did he want? Actually, he knew exactly what he wanted, he just wasn’t sure if he dared to ask. “Well...” he hesitated, turning his body to face him. While seeing Taehyung so up close, in this setting, he looked even more gorgeous than ever, and it fucked with every fiber of his being. It wasn’t fair, the way this man had been holding his heart and mind in a vice grip for so long. Tae’s lips were reddened and plump from all the lip biting, and they looked more and more inviting with every passing second, “A kiss.” His voice was quiet, “I mean, a real kiss..” sure, he fucking loved the dirty kisses he’d received from him in the locker room, but it was in the heat of the moment. This one, he wanted to be.... different. Did it make sense? Maybe not. But he wanted it. So he leaned a little closer, his doe eyes still staring at Tae’s lips, “Please..just... once.” Or twice. Or, forever.

Taehyung’s eyebrow twitched, “A kiss?” He repeated, wondering if he heard right the first time. “I..uh,” The taller gulped, rubbing at his nape. It was just a kiss.. What was Tae so afraid of? Hell— he stuck his dick inside of Jungkook before, but somehow this felt more intimate. His dimmed eyes fell on the younger’s soft lips, absentmindedly licking over his own at the enticing sight. Yeah, maybe he wanted this. Breaking the distance between their bodies, Taehyung’s face slowly inched closer to Jungkook’s, teasing him. He stared into his doe eyes, mirroring the look of longing that swirled within them. With one last look at the other’s face, Taehyung’s lips clashed against the younger’s in a sweet kiss, momentarily forgetting about all of his previous doubts. Time seemed to stop when their lips met, but the fluttering only intensified as Tae’s hand snuck down to Jungkook’s thigh, merely resting it there. “Hmm..” The older hummed, his thumb now rubbing invisible circles on the warmth of his skin. When he did pull away to catch his breath, Tae snuck a guilty peak at Jungkook, making sure this wasn’t just a product of his imagination. Then, like he’d never broken the contact in the first place, Taehyung leaned in for another.. and another, and so on until he lost count. The sound of their kissing echoed throughout the empty house, the older’s heavy breathing hitting against Jungkook’s skin. Not being able to stand the extra space between them, Tae’s hands gripped at Jungkook’s small waist, pulling him down on his lap as he man spread.

Jungkook sighed into the kiss, daring his hands to delicately hold Taehyungs face. If he thought his feelings were strong from the locker room scene, he was so wrong. This kiss was it, the last drop. He was hopelessly, head over heels in love with this man. “Tae...” He whispered his name, as if it was the most beautiful word he knew, letting the elder pull him into his lap, his entire body screaming for Taehyungs attention. “More..” He whined, the kisses growing heavier as he melts into Tae’s touch, his hands moving to wrap behind his neck. He wasn’t sure what he wanted more of. Everything. All he knew was, he needed more.

Taehyung was glad to know he wasn’t the only one who craved more. How could he not? Jungkook’s lips felt like heaven.. Before he found himself in this situation, Tae had never poured his heart out during a kiss before, and that fucked with his head. Maybe he just wanted to show off, nothing more. But the growing tent in his pants proved he was subconsciously aware of what he wanted, of how he felt. “Fuck,” He bit down on his lip, tightening his hold on Jungkook’s waist. His boner was becoming more noticeable by the second, and having the younger’s body on top of him wasn’t exactly helping..

Jungkook positioned himself more comfortably, straddled over Taehyungs lap, pressing himself down on his growing erection. “I haven’t been able to fucking think because of you.” Jk breathes out his words like a low, frustrated growl. Completely in a haze of pure, heavy need and lust for the man beneath him. He gazes into those intense, piercing eyes of his. Fuck, he was whipped. Jungkook wraps his arms around the elders neck, pulling him in for another kiss, this one hungrier, greedy for the taste of his lips within his feverish high. He grinds down on Taehyungs cock, still clothed. JK surely found out he likes to tease, knowing Tae’s temper might be good for one thing, their carnal desires.

“Is that so-?” He broke out into a low moan, eyes glued on the way Jungkook’s hips moved so wonderfully against him, giving his erection the attention it so desperately needed. “Fuck..” Taehyung threw his head back against the couch, his Adam’s apple bobbing with every strong gulp. He didn’t know just how much more teasing he could handle before fucking Jungkook right then and there— the cushions splattered with their cum. Shit, Taehyung was getting harder just thinking about it.. He bucks up his hips into Kook, veiny hands now placed on his plump ass, where they squeezed until his knuckles turned white, “Baby, shit..!” The pet name slipped out, and Taehyung was too clouded with lust to notice, or care. Growing bored of their position, Tae hastily flipped Jungkook over, throwing him down onto the couch and began unbuckling his pants, overgrown fringe falling down to his eyes. After discarding the rest of his clothing, only Taehyung’s boxers stayed on. The shape of his cock was evident through the fabric, and his chest softly heaved from adrenaline as he stared down at him. “My turn, princess.” Taehyung leaned down to whisper in Jungkook’s ear, letting his breath linger on his skin for more than a second. Tackling the younger’s shorts, the boy pulled them down along with his underwear, leaving Tae breathless at the sight. Fuck.. when he saw Jungkook’s entrance, he wanted to leave it gaping and puckered just like the first time. It was cute. Deciding he’d be a tease, the older trailed his kisses along his toned inner thighs, close enough where his hole was.

Taehyungs usage of petnames made Jungkook instantly feel smaller, the small amount of brattiness he had washed away. He was so, so easily subdued by this man. In reality, all needed is a simple stare and his legs are weak. So this, is so overwhelmingly amazing... “Ah-!” Jungkook gasps when he’s flipped over so easily, heat spreading like a wildfire underneath his skin. Being exposed like this once more, but this time it was less rushed.. taehyung took a moment to tease, to indulge in the sight of his body. Jungkook exhales a low, breathy sigh at the feeling of Tae’s lips, a small, needy cry caught in his throat, hips wiggling softly to wordlessly ask for more

From his spot in between Jungkook’s legs, Taehyung stared up at him through his eyelashes, his piercing eyes peeking from behind his messy fringe. A hint of a smile crept onto his rosy lips when seeing how the other’s hips called out to him, so needy. The younger was a sucker for his touch, and Tae knew that. “You’re a desperate little baby, aren’t you?” He cooed, chuckling to himself. Fuck, he just wanted to drive Jungkook crazy. Taehyung left yet another trail of wet kisses along the other leg, his hand softly caressing Jungkook’s thigh. When he pulled away, that’s when he brought his attention to Kook’s pink entrance. His fingers were just itching to get a feel. Seeing Jungkook like this.. spread out and a whiny mess, Taehyung couldn’t stop himself from following through with that urge and inserting his middle finger into him, gradually pushing it deeper. “So fuckin’ tight.” He bit down on his lip, noticing the way Kook took his finger in so well.

Another pathetic cry rolls off the youngers lips, nodding desperately, "Fuck-k.. yes, please please--!" He was already beginning to squirm underneath taehyungs ministrations, embarrassment slowly washing away; the need for the elder was too strong, he didnt give a fuck how much of a little bitch he sounded like. "Taehyung--" another whine, this one higher pitched when he feels taes long finger pressing deeper, his ass clenching around him in desperate anticipation; he took a few heavy breaths, doing to relax his tight hole, sweat already forming on his brow. Jungkooks cock pathetically remained untouched, growing harder by every millisecond, small clear beads of precum forming on his swollen, pretty mushroom tip. Fuck, Taehyung was driving him insane so easily, the bet long forgotten, he was all under the elders complete control.

Even if Taehyung hadn’t won the bet, damn was it worth it. Every single second of it. He curled his finger inside of Jungkook, feeling the warmth of the younger’s walls spread all throughout his body. There was not a single inch of him that wasn’t aroused, and hearing Kook’s high-pitched whines only made it worse. Taehyung’s finger now moved in and out of him, taking it out until only his nail was left engulfed, a thin layer of Jungkook’s juices adorning the skin. “So wet already, huh?” The older raised a brow, eyeing the other’s facial expressions before his gaze fell on Jungkook’s cock. It looked like it was about to combust.. Tae couldn’t let that happen. With his other hand, Taehyung’s fingers wrapped around the shaft, tugging at it slightly whilst rubbing the slit with his thumb. “Baby boy..” He smirked, maintaining a steady pace in both of his hands. “You like it when I tease you?” Tae leaned down to get a better view of Jungkook’s face, jerking him off faster than before as his warm breath fanned against his lips, feeling Kook’s chest heave up and down from under him.

Jungkooks breath hitched with a choked sob, his sensitive length finally getting the much needed attention it's been aching for, "I love it-- ah! Oh my fucking goood..." his jaw is slack, hanging open in pleasure, his breath so heavy and loud youd think hes having trouble breathing.. He was so vocal, shameless wanton moans continously pushing through his lips with every thrust of taehyungs finger, his hips starting to twitch and bucking his hips to try to fuck into taes hand, "It feels so good.." he whines, hands reaching to brush taehyungs fringe out of his eyes to look at him, try to show him how fucking much he loves him with his eyes. If only telepathy was a power of his.

Taehyung stared into Kook’s doe eyes, the wet noises of his finger now working even faster than before arose to his ears. The hand that was tightly wrapped around Jungkook’s cock began jerking him off to the beating of his heart; merciless and brisk. A few minutes later, Taehyung put a stop to his hands’ movements all of the sudden, knowing it was bound to earn himself a squeaky whine from the other male underneath him. He couldn’t take it anymore, the erection that was held back in his boxers grew harder to ignore by the second.. In a blink of an eye, Taehyung’s throbbing cock sprung up from its previous hiding spot, some of his own precum visible at the head. Tae forcefully opened Jungkook’s legs even further, wanting to make sure that he had enough room to fuck him good.    He was glad that this couch was big enough for the both of them, they would’ve had to take it to the ground if it hadn’t been. Tae would be much too impatient to go to Jungkook’s room, even if it wasn’t that far away. Before having covered his cock with a layer of his saliva to act as a lube, Tae playfully pushed the tip against Jungkook’s hole, rubbing it against the sensitive skin.

Jungkook spread his legs as far as he possibly could to accomodate for Taehyung, his eyes swirling with want. His arms uselessly above his head, a vulnerable position for him, but he didn't feel uncomfortable. He trusted Tae with his body, desperate for him to fuck him dumb. ''S-shit, Tae... please-'' He rested his head against the couch, his sweaty neckmuscles dancing beneath his skin as he tightly swallows, screwing his eyes shut. He was almost brought to the edge before Tae had stopped jerking him off, and slowly it had gone backwards, the need to cum so intensely pulsating in his lower abdomen, ''Fuck me already, I can't stand it..'' His cock was throbbing, the red tip dribbling clear liquid down his length, veins prominent.

If Taehyung wasn’t so eager to hear Jungkook moan out his name, he would’ve taken his time to tease him even further, but even he was growing bored of that. He made himself more comfortable on the couch, manhandling Kook’s body as he pleased, effortlessly pulling him down for his benefit. Taehyung shifted the younger’s leg up a bit for better access and pushed himself in, feeling his thick girth slowly begin to stretch Jungkook out. A low growl escaped past the older’s lips, hands placed on either side of Kook’s head as he hovered over him, inserting himself in his tight ass until he was balls in deep, “Fuck..” The boy hissed, hips beginning to move in a circular motion, toned cheeks clenched every time he would aim deeper inside of Jungkook.

Jungkook's legs were already vibrating, falling apart under Tae's ministrations, a wanton moan escaping his lips as he slowly slipped into bliss. Oh, my /god), he was breaking so easily for this man. His eyes screwed shut, lower lip clamped between his teeth as he muffles a pathetic whine, his hands snaking around Taehyung's torso to touch his back, running his palms over the muscles flexing with every movement

Taehyung’s face falls down to the crook of Jungkook’s neck, sucking on the skin until it was clear that he’d left a mark, proceeding to leave a bundle of hickeys that proved Kook was in /his/ control. In this specific moment, Jungkook belonged to him. Gaining more confidence in himself, Taehyung’s thrusts became more evident, his pace gradually increasing in speed as his heavy balls clashed against Jungkook’s skin repeatedly. “Hm..!” His upper body fell onto the younger, trailing a series of wet kisses from Jungkook’s jaw down to his prominent collarbones, all the while his cock was snapping deeper into him. He didn’t know just how much longer he could last, Kook felt fucking wonderful.. Taehyung’s lips traveled down to Jungkook’s perky nipples, opting for wrapping his toned arms around the younger’s small waist before he engulfed the pink bud into his mouth, his tongue slowly swirling around it. The older’s hips never once faltered in speed, his movements steady all throughout.

Jungkook knew those marks would be something he'd have to worry about tomorrow, but right this second, it didn't fucking matter. He wanted to be marked, claimed as Taehyung's little bitch, he wanted everyone to know he was his. He felt the pooling warmth build in his lower abdomen, his cock leaking juices profusely until it soaked the skin of his lower stomach, the small friction of Taehyung's body against it as he thrusted into him unbearable, ''G-gonna..cum...gonna cum, fuck, harder, please--'' He begged, voice high pitched, tears forming in the corners of his eyes at the intensity of the buildup. The coil inside of him was wound so tight, it felt like it was about to burst at any given second.

Taehyung began pounding into him at an animalistic rhythm, grunts easily leaving past his agape lips as he looked down at his cock sliding in and out of Jungkook, the veiny skin covered in the latter’s juices. The muscles in Taehyung’s arms flexed as he gripped down onto the cushion by Jungkook’s head, keeping himself grounded as his thrusting faltered in roughness, pounding into him lazily. “Fuck! A-ah..” The older broke loose inside of Kook, feeling his cum slush around from within the younger. He pulled out, his glistening mushroom tip coming out with a pop. Taehyung watched his cum drip from out of Jungkook’s puckered entrance onto the cushion, not caring as he worked on regaining his lost breaths, “That was fucking amazing..” A sly smile tugged at the older’s lips, eyes closed as he tilted his head back. Looking back down at Jungkook, Tae leaned into the male’s touch, nuzzling his face against his neck, “I fucked you good, didn’t I?” He breathed into his skin, eyes lightly dimmed.

The very moment he felt Taehyungs cock desperately throb inside of him, his own orgasm hit him like a fucking truck. He whined loudly as he came untouched, soiling the skin of his stomach with a large puddle of cum dribbling down his swollen length. As Tae pulled himself out, his body trembled with sensitivity, satiated at last. As the high of lust slowly ceased, Jungkook was able to catch his breath, instead overwhelmed by other feelings than just pure need. Love? He fucking loves him. He loves the way his sly smile appeared, the way his strained voice still manages to be confident and cocky. Loves the way his body feels against his afterwards, like a warm blanket of security.    “Yes,” Jungkook chuckles breathlessly, his hand reaching up to run his fingers through the elders hair. He didn’t want this to ever end. He didn’t want him to leave.

Taehyung’s muscles loosened up at the gentle combing of Jungkook’s fingers through his sweaty hair, sinking deeper into the younger’s warmth, enjoying his touch more than he would’ve liked to admit. “Knew it.” He cockily hummed, his mumbled words muffled by Jungkook’s skin. God, he felt like such a big baby. . Laying limp over Kook’s body, face nuzzled in his neck; it was fucking embarrassing. “Hey, uh..” Taehyung treaded carefully with his words, looking at Jungkook for any sign of emotion in his face. “Will you be fine? ‘Cause of the thundering, I mean..” The older sat up, searching for his discarded clothing on the floor and slipping on his boxers. It was getting late, he should really be heading home..

Jungkook internally protested against the loss of Taehyungs warmth, sitting up straight as he watched him get dressed. No, of course he wouldn’t be fine, but could he even say that? Would he ruin everything? Jungkook winced at the soreness of his body, carefully leaning back against the couch again. “Um... yeah, but..” he struggled to find his words, “Could you help me first? I really... need to clean up.. and my body is... sore.” He cringed at it words, but it’s all he got. An excuse, he technically could do it himself, but if this stalled the fact that taehyung would leave him alone, he was willing to risk the awkward question. Maybe, if he stalled long enough, he’d stay the night..

“Um..” Taehyung scratched at his head, “I mean—yeah, sure. What do you need me to do so you’re less sore..?” A massage? Witch craft? He had no fucking clue. Tae’s never taken time out of his day to care for someone after sex, so, this was a bit new to him. At least the mess on the couch was something he knew how to do.. kind of. Using the fabric of his now somewhat dry sweatshirt, Taehyung wiped at the puddle of cum by Jungkook’s legs, acting like he knew what he was doing when in reality he didn’t know shit about cleaning. “There.” He proudly looked down at the familiar spot, seeming pleased with himself. It was still wet, but at least there was no trace of whitish liquid..

Jungkook presses his lips together in a tight line to prevent himself from smiling so hard, but to no avail as his grin went from ear to ear, “Your shirt is dirty now!” He slowly sat back up again, an attempt to stand up on his wobbly legs. His muscles felt like noodles, but he needed a fucking shower. But he was too exhausted. He was about to bend down to grab his shirt when he hissed in uncomfortable pain, his ass surely not happy with a second stretch within this short timeframe, especially when it’s such a new thing for his body to endure, “Ah fuck...could you hand me my clothes.”

Taehyung didn’t hesitate on reaching for Jungkook’s clothes, handing them over to the younger before eyeing his weak stance worriedly. Shit, was he too harsh? He should really learn to control himself at times.. “So..” Tae awkwardly looked around the place, rocking on his feet. What else should he say? They were done. Wasn’t he supposed to get the hell out of there as soon as it was over? He didn’t want to make Jungkook uncomfortable by lingering around in his house any longer, “Is there anything else you want me to do..?” Tae threw on his shirt and pants, his ‘cum and rain’ sweatshirt hanging by one of his hands.

Jungkook put his clothes back, combing his fingers through his hair to fix the mess. Well, attempt to fix. Fuck, theres so much he wished taehyung would do. Cuddle up in his bed, kiss, absentmindedly rub circles on his back until he fell asleep... But that's was relationship things, and he knew for a fact taehyung did /not/ do relationships. Especially not with a guy. With him. "Hm..." Jungkook seemed to linger longer than he thought on answering this question, feeling anxious. He didnt want to tell him to leave, and he was scared to ask him to stay... "If you're tired, you could stay.." he tried to seem neutral about this, but he was a terrible actor

“What about your parents, though?” Taehyung questioned, unaware of Jungkook’s situation as he spoke. “Are they fine with me staying over..?” The invitation was tempting, Tae couldn’t lie, but something within him told him it wasn’t a good idea. Then again, there was nothing for him to do at his house.. It was basically an abandoned city. He’d most likely spend the rest of the night hidden away in his room, blasting some music whilst listening to the rain tap against his window. Taehyung didn’t want Jungkook to get too comfortable around him, but he guessed one night couldn’t hurt. It wasn’t like he had any other plans. “Yeah. I’ll stay..” Tae nodded his head with a shrug of his shoulders, smiling at Jungkook.

"Just us." Jungkook shrugged back, mirroring the smile, however his smile was quickly turning into a grin, his body seemed to relax after hearing tae say hed stay, as if he didnt know he was so tensed up to begin with. In the midst of his sudden spark of joy, he didn't even consider whether he should've asked if taehyung wanted to use the couch or come to bed with him, just grabbing him by the hand to guide him to his bedroom. He had a big bed, big enough for two people as he loved to be able to spread his body out at night. Part of him kind of wishes it was smaller in a way, giving him another excuse to be closer to the elder. The rain was still pouring down, calming in a sense since the thunder had calmed itself. Jungkook got undressed again, this time keeping his boxers on as he crawled under his blanket, making space for taehyung to join him, "Come here?"

Even though Taehyung’s questions stayed unanswered, the elder didn’t try to fight it. Maybe Jungkook’s parents worked late into the night, that’s all. Either way, it wasn’t his place to be so curious. “Just us.” The taller playfully mimicked Kook, shrugging his shoulders once more. Just them.. there was nothing to be worried about. All they were going to do was sleep together, literally. Before Tae was given the chance to fully register what he had caved in to, he followed after Jungkook without a doubt, staring down at their hands with big eyes. He couldn’t help but notice the difference in size, feeling the tip of his ears warm up, now overruled by an adorable shade of red. As Jungkook got undressed in front of him, Tae’s eyes raked down the younger’s figure, admiring his curves and edges. There was no feeling of lust in his mind, only.. ‘Damn, he’s pretty.’ Taehyung didn’t know how to conclude all of that into a single word. He quickly looked away when Jungkook caught his wandering eyes, bringing a hand up to his nape out of embarrassment. “Hm?” The taller’s head snapped up at the younger’s voice and made his way over to the bed, slipping his shirt over his head, unbuttoning his jeans. Taehyung crawled under the blanket next to him, immediately engulfed by not only the warmth of the thick fabric, but Jungkook’s skin. If he could see himself, Tae would probably bust a laugh. He laid with his hands by his side, body stiff as a board as he stared up at the ceiling, looking like he’d just seen a ghost.

Exhaustion hit jungkook like a crashing tide wave as soon as he laid down, yawning and absentmindedly turning his body to the side, facing taehyung. He pressed his cheek against the elders arm, snaking his arm across his chest in a gentle hold, "Hm,,," he hummed content, already drifting into the limbo between being awake and asleep, unaware of the words slipping past his lips in a quiet, mumbled whisper, "I like this....you.." he nuzzled his cheek closer, his eyebrows drawn together as if hes drifting into a bad dream. "Don't leave..."

The touch of the other boy’s cheek against his skin was enough for Taehyung to melt deeper into his spot, looking at the way Jungkook’s arm was placed across his chest. Why did this feel so.. natural? Kook laid against him like they’ve been doing this for years. Yeah, Taehyung might’ve initially been shitting his pants, but now that he was actually experiencing it, it was nowhere near as bad as his mind made it out to be. Actually, it was quite nice. His body visibly relaxed under the covers, muscles not so stiff. “Hm?” Taehyung furrowed his brows, gazing at a sleepy Jungkook. He couldn’t hear him properly, probably because he was nearly slurring over his words. The sight brought a little smile to Tae’s face. “I won’t leave, Kook.” Taehyung whispered just as quietly, moving his arm to snake them around the younger’s shoulders before pulling him closer, wanting to feel more of his warmth. Tae’s other arm fell on top of Jungkook’s, resting it there while rubbing soothing circles onto his skin.

‘I won’t leave, Kook.’ It was four in the morning, and Taehyung had never been good at keeping his word. At exactly 3:36, he’d woken up in a cold sweat, eyes wide and alert as he tried to make out the details of the unfamiliar room, needless to say it was a challenge in the dark. Then, an incoherent mumble approaching from his side garnered his attention, causing Tae’s shoulders to gradually drop down in relief. He was met by the peaceful expression on Jungkook’s face, deep into his slumber. Fuck, how could’ve he forgotten? Taehyung felt like a fucking idiot. The clock set up on the bedside table now read, 3:39. It was at this time when he’d tried to fall back asleep, forcing his eyes shut no matter how many times they objected. But, they’d find themselves wide open a second later. He let out a sigh, resting a hand over his head as he took another look at the time. 3:45. “Great.” Taehyung let out a quiet curse, knowing not much time had passed by since he’d woken up, but part of him felt like he’s been laying awake for /hours/. Taking another look towards the younger’s direction, Tae’s heart began to recklessly pulsate against his chest. If it was one octave higher, it might’ve actually been enough of a nuisance to wake Jungkook up. Just looking at Kook laying next to him.. this wasn’t part of the plan, it just wasn’t. Last time he remembered, they didn’t agree to sleeping on each other’s bed, or— or holding the other close enough to where you could feel their breath against your skin, or fucking kiss for that matter. They agreed to have sex. That’s it. It was now 3:51. Taehyung was thinking hard about.. everything. Maybe it was a mistake; sleeping over at Jungkook’s. For a straight man, this didn’t feel very heterosexual. 3:53. Taehyung sneakily tried to break free from the other’s hold, gently moving his arm off of his chest. Quietly pulling the blanket off to the side, Tae sat on the edge of the bed, reaching down for his loose clothing. He glanced over at the clock, it was 3:56. After he finished getting dressed, Tae looked down at Jungkook’s sleeping form once more. If he stayed any longer, guilt would’ve eaten up at him. So, after pulling the covers up to Kook’s neck, afraid he might get cold, Taehyung tiptoed his way out of the room. 4:00, He looked down at the screen of his phone, throwing on his shoes. Taehyung would be lying if he said he didn’t hesitate on grasping on the doorknob, but he pushed past that. Without another look, he closed the door from behind him, forgetting about his sweatshirt on the ground. Stepping out into the chilly morning, Tae got into his car before driving home.

Co-writer & creator of header is my lovely @velvetwicebang​ <3 © sombreboy 2020. Do not repost, edit or translate.

[spacefaegoddess]

The Lightning Thief - Cut Tracks

Listen up.

Camp Half Blood

- okay let me preface this by saying that for some reason this song won’t download so I’m going off the itunes preview

- but wow this song screams Camp Half Blood

- starts with something about how you know you’re at camp if there’s fire or a flood like big mood guys

- “Camp Half-Blood, where only half of us survive! Camp Half-Blood, be glad you’re still alive!” GUYS THIS IS TOO REAL

- it reminds me of that one post comparing CHB and CJ like “yeah you can go to college and live in New Rome at Camp Jupiter so its pretty nice” “WELCOME TO CAMP HALF BLOOD, YOULL DIE WITHIN THE MONTH”

- “this is why no one watches the orientation film” Mr. D never change please, also if that’s a new kid’s orientation to CHB then maybe Mr. D is saving them from intense trauma

Pick a Side 

- I think there was a video of this somewhere, maybe from that live concert where they performed all the song from the show, but man I’m so happy they put this into a final form

- Luke: “we don’t know who stole the bolt” oh sweet baby liar

- Clarisse being ready to fight everyone is fantastic

- “Percy couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag” man I love it when they put book references in there, and even though I’m pretty sure Reyna says it I still love that it’s Clarisse’s line

-”Can’t we just pick flowers and make friendship bracelets” oh Silena no

- Silena: “My mom doesn’t believe in war” Clarisse: “oh yeah? then why does she keep texting my dad?” Luke: “WHOA” this is the content I signed up for

- Luke saying that he hopes Percy completes his quest so that the demigods don’t have to fight a war like.... idk how to feel about this. Is he lying? Does he actually hope that his friends won’t have to fight? Man

- Also Luke telling Silena that they don’t have to fight the gods’ battles like that’s Luke’s entire motivation in one line

- Clarisse and Silena belting “we gotta know just where your loyalties lie” while Luke sings “we don’t have to choose”. I know that the girls are singing it at each other but the fact that Luke is between them and he’s the one who isn’t loyal to the gods or to camp is magnificent. And again Luke saying they don’t have to choose the gods because he’s already chosen against them

- “prissy Percy’s gonna lost his Poseidon adventure!” CLARISSE GIRL

- “well whoever says love is worthless, I’ll pulverize them!” wow Clarisse is already rubbing off on Silena

-I want to know what Luke sings after “It’s their fight” while Clarisse and Silena sing “We’ll make our parents proud, make our voices loud” cause this is a really great moment for Luke’s motives to shine through

- Luke silently singing “I would never help my father” in the background

- All three singing “We’ve got a choice to make, can’t run and hide - you better pick a side” at the same time yet it means something different for all of them. Also it’s Luke finally choosing his side cause I think that’s the first time he sings “pick a side” in the song

- And that harmony at the end? DAM

Try

- okay so like way before the musical was even a thing, there was a video of this song being sung by three people who aren’t in the show, but god it was heartrenching. It’s a little different from the finished product but like Pick a Side, I’m so glad they included this song because it’s so powerful

- the song beginning and ending the same way UGH I LOVE CALLBACKS

- Percy and Annabeth both singing “I already know it, I’ll probably blow it, but I’m going there anyway” THESE KIDS ARE SO STRONG

- this song is so great because as a whole, the musical is kinda upbeat and generally happy except for like Tree on the Hill and kinda Good Kid, but this one shows the main three’s insecurities about the whole adventure. It throws your mind in a whole different direction

- “I may fail you, but it doesn’t mean that I won’t try” I mean come on

- They’re kids. They’re lost and scared and don’t really know what they’re doing, yet they keep pressing on because of each other. They feel like they will fail, but they can all look each other in the eye and say “you know what? at least we have each other and that’s worth it enough for me”

- that small part in the beginning with Percy and Annabeth singing together makes me want a Percabeth duet so bad

- Grover singing “wash my hands of past mistakes” this boy just wants to prove himself so much and Tree on the Hill give me so many feels and just UGH GROVER I LOVE YOU

- Annabeth going from “prove to the gods that I belong” to “I won’t be rejected” is freaking GROWTH

- “He must be protected” GROVER PLEASE

- That three part harmony tho

- “Fight til we’re all in the clear, look my fear in the eye!” do I need to repeat that these kids are so amazingly strong? Because they are

- “The weight of the world’s on my shoulders, like Atlas it’s crushing me down” sick Greek mythology reference bro

- Also during that live concert video I mentioned earlier, they play a cut Annabeth song (which is sadly not here) but it had the Atlas motif too and ugh it gives me all the feels

- okay so the line “we’re not brave, we’re not strong, we’re not soldiers” is a whole thing in itself but it goes so well with the next line

- I wish they had kept the next line the same as the original because it was “but my heart is a drum, and damn does it pound” but now its “my heart’s just a drum and damn does it pound”. I feel like the first one just has something more. Like I might not be brave or strong but I have the heart to get through this

- also in that original video, after the previous thing, Percy sings “I may fail you, I may fail you. If I fail, this will be our last goodbye.” WHY DIDNT THEY KEEP THAT

- “I’m not leaving your side til we find what matters” Annabeth MY GIRL

- “I’m not leaving your side til we’re back home” GROVER

- “I’m not leaving your side til you’re remembered” PERCABETH SHIPPERS HOW WE FEELING TONIGHT

- This trio man. Nothing will ever compare to them

- The fact that the lyrics change from “I may fail you” to “I can’t fail you”

- That last line where they all sing part of the number because they’re in this together now and you literally cannot separate them

- this song is the best and you can fight me on that

In the Same Boat

- or as I like to call it “Grover deals with Percabeth fighting like second graders for five minutes and forty nine seconds”

- this entire song is just a roast fest and Grover suffering

- “wow maybe your mom should’ve totally chilled instead of making monsters that get us all killed” Percy you savage

- Grover’s happy little “ask meeee” he’s so cute

- “I’d like to wrap my hands around that half-blood’s throat” wow guys

- “I don’t need to heed a talking goat” WOW GUYS

- Grover’s goat noises throughout the song

- “why run from monsters when we can rideeee” Grover baby I love you

- the lyrics change depending on what vehicle they’re in

- “with Anna-BLEH” “and Seaweed Brain” guys just kiss already

- Annabeth insulting Percy about his Rocky Mountains comment and Grover just going “wow that is soooo beautiful” 

- this song is just the original “Drive” and I’m not complaining

- Percy and Grover both yelling “SWEET” while Annabeth suffers

- Percy telling Annabeth she can hike instead of ride the motorcycle

- Percy’s sass when he says “oh, I’m sure that’s irrelevant” gods Chris McCarrell is the Percy we always wanted

- “Athena give me strength so I don’t kill him” Annabeth honey, if anything your mom is gonna strike him down for you

- ANNABETH HAVING HER OWN “DREAM”

- “it’s messed up, but he’s kinda cute” Annabeth you have no idea how relatable you truly are

- “And my head is always stronger than my heart” awwwwwww

- “If only he would say something that was remotely smart” when I tell you I cackled for like five mintues its the truth

- Followed immediately by Percy saying “I got it! The map was upside down” and Annabeth just screaming IS A WHOLE BIG MOOD

- When did Charon turn from a disco diva into a 60 year old smoker

- Annabeth calling Percy sexist like yeah girl call him out

- “They’ll kill each other, or they’ll kiss” likely both, Grover

- “If we’re lucky they’ll end up in an abyss” GROVER NO

- that Mark of Athena reference caught me so off guard, my jaw hit the floor

- Grover happily singing over a Percabeth shouting match

- also I wish I could clearly hear what those two are saying

- idk what’s so funny about Percy saying “perspective” in a awe-filled voice but it killed me

- Grover yelling at them to sing the song because reconciliation

- uhhh Jorrel’s voice??? he makes such a great Grover let me tell you

The Wittlest Minotaur

- this was also in that concert they did

- Kristin Stokes is a gift to this world, that is all

[syekick-powers]

rambling about emotions and self-control

i think one of the things that pisses me off the most when family members criticize me is when they say that i’m “bad at controlling my emotions”. first of all, I have ADHD and bipolar simultaneously, my emotions are a hundred times fucking stronger than yours. secondly, i am actually excellent at controlling my emotions. i am the kind of person where if i am having a panic attack, you might not have any fucking clue that i’m even having anxiety unless i state directly that im having a panic attack. ive had PAs so bad where i legit thought i was about to die and not a single shred of that world-ending panic touched my external affect for a second. part of my fucking trauma revolves around having to hide my distress to avoid freaking out other people, which means that i learned to develop a diamond fucking grip on my external signs of distress. it’s deeply maladaptive in some situations, but in other situations it’s equally as useful. and yet because i am very animated and exaggerated in my persona, people assume that i just let my emotions fountain everywhere uncontrollably and that i’m just a waterfall of feelings.

incorrect. every bit of exaggeration in my affect is deliberate. i am not acting like a clown because i can’t control myself, i am purposefully choosing to exaggerate to convey my feelings more effectively. if i don’t want you to know what i’m feeling, you will never ever ever find out. there are some people i interact with on a regular basis whomst i fucking loathe deeply, and yet any time i interact with them i am completely personable and friendly. when im streaming video games on a high difficulty and get frustrated from having to do the same part over and over and over again, i never get tilted on stream. i dont yell or rage, and in fact the more frustrated i become the more blank and expressionless my affect turns. when i was playing dead space 2 on zealot difficulty on stream recently, all of my viewers were complimenting the fact that i spent at least two collective hours on trying to beat the final boss and yet still did not get visibly upset or pissed off once.

yes, my emotions are strong. i have two separate disorders that both have “emotional dysregulation” as some of their biggest negative side effects. my bad moods feel like a fucking firestorm most of the time and strong emotions are very difficult to handle and control. sometimes, my emotions get the better of me and i snap or get irritable. but the only time i’m irritable is when i feel physically and emotionally like utter dogshit and the bad mood impacts my ability to hold back my emotions. the truth is that in my day to day life there are dozens of fucking things that irritate the living hell out of me and i choose to discard my frustration rather than stay mad about something trivial--either that, or i feel the frustration intensely, but bite it back and don’t say anything because i’m not in the mood to pick a fight. if i’m being pissy with you, it’s because i’m completely fuck-out of all mental and physical energy that i would otherwise use to hold back my irritation. there is nothing left to burn. there aren’t even fumes in the tank. this bitch empty, so prepare for the yeet.

the problem that i run into with my family members is that this internal struggle to contain my emotions is completely invisible to any external viewers. they’re not me, of course they can’t see what’s going on in my head. what makes that an issue is that they don’t see the twenty fucking times i got irritated and managed to control my temper through the frustration, they only see the five or so times i lose control. my efforts are invisible to everyone around me, so when i finally do get fed up and make a snippy comment or complain, it seems like i just let my emotions get the better of me all the time.

to be fuckening honest, if the people who criticized me lived one fucking day in my shoes, the extremity of my emotions would exhaust them within hours. the thing is, i’m 25 fucking years old, which means i’ve lived with this shit for over two fucking decades. i have learned to control myself to an extent, and, being honest with yall? it fucking exhausts the living shit out of me all the goddamn time. it’s like my brain expends all my mental fuel reserves on overclocking my emotions as hard as possible while leaving no fuel left over for activities in the day that i actually need to do. it’s part of the reason i’m so fuckdamn tired all the fuckdamn time. but i’m not bad at controlling my emotions when i actually have the energy to do so. in fact, i’m so good at suppressing them that half the time, people don’t know i’m upset at all. to a certain extent, i’ve gotten used to how extreme my emotions are, and have started learning to predict what sets me off so i can make an effort to avoid the negative stimulus and save myself the frustration. i’m just really fucking tired of people accusing me of not controlling my emotions well enough when god fucking damnit you have no idea how hard i’m actually fucking trying!!! it feels like i’ve gotten so good at hiding my distress in my day-to-day life that now people have no fucking idea how shitty i actually feel until they poke me one too many times and i fucking bite their finger off, and then assume that i just randomly blew up on them with no reason or justification. that i’m just behaving like this to spite them personally.

i promise you im not fucking behaving randomly. in fact, my frustration triggers are actually pretty fucking consistent. the same bullshit behaviors will always piss me off; what changes on a day-to-day basis is how well i control the extremity of my reaction. if i’m having a good day, i have enough fuel stores to go “meh, whatever” and brush it off without being too bothered for very long. if i feel like shit, my ability to control my response is hampered and it becomes much harder to bite back a snippy comment. i’m not lashing out to be malicious or spiteful. i’m lashing out because you’ve been doing this shit every day for the past two fucking weeks and today i’m just too tired to deal with this fucking bullshit anymore. my reaction is not a sudden unprovoked blowing up of a bomb. it’s “you poked the caged animal one too many times and now it’s going to fucking bite you to make you stop because it has no other way to express its frustration”.

i try to be clear and concise with my boundaries, and frankly i don’t think they’re all that unreasonable. i like to be able to decide when and how i do a task on my own time rather than being pushed and pulled and jabbed and pressured every step of the way. i like to be able to have my own space where people have to get my permission before entering suddenly so that i feel like i have a safe place to hide when i’m overstimulated. i like to decide when and where i want to engage in socialization, and for how long. i like being able to decide when i’m ready to do a task, rather than having a task suddenly shoved on me with no warning or being pressured to do it before i’m ready. i do not like being gifted objects i did not request (and often actively requested not to get) and then being expected to be grateful for something i didnt even want in the first place. i don’t like gifts coming with invisible price tags and obligations that can change whenever the gifter decides they want more out of me. and i absolutely cannot. fucking. stand. passive aggression. all of these things do not really seem all that unreasonable to me, yet time and time again people treat me like i’m just asking for so much more than they can possibly give. and you know what? 75% of the fucking time when someone crosses one of these boundaries all i do is Make A Note Of It and go along with the boundary violator’s wishes anyway, because i actively decided that making a big deal out of them crossing my boundaries is not worth the effort of asking them to change their behavior, because throughout my entire fucking life i’ve been constantly treated as the irrational, unrealistic, crazy bitch for trying to set those boundaries. i’ve been taught time and time and fucking time again that defining my boundaries is too much to fucking ask. so when someone does violate my boundaries, there’s a little “Sye will remember that“ popup and absolutely zero expression or reaction. which means that yes. when i finally get tired and can’t bite back my frustration any longer, it’s because you’ve done the exact same thing to me two hundred fucking times previous and i don’t have the fucking patience to suck it up and deal with it anymore. im done with your shit.

so yeah. i’m a little bit fucking sick of people telling me that i have poor self-control. the fact that you think i have no self-control is an indicator of how good it actually is, because i’m so fucking good at hiding my distress that you don’t even have any idea how absolutely like a fetid mound of horse shit i feel like until my fuse finally burns all the way up. i can contain a 10-out-of-10 ‘i’m imminently about to die’ panic attack so well that not a scrap of that panic shows up in my external affect for even a second. i can suppress my pain on stream when it’s at a 7 out of 10 intensity or higher and be fucking on stream playing video games and commentating and show almost no sign of discomfort except for an intense concentrating face. don’t you fucking ever tell me that i’m bad at controlling myself. i’m a goddamn adult. i’ve learned how to control 90% of my fucking emotions so well that i could be holding a conversation with you imagining myself breaking your fucking nose and show absolutely zero sign of external hostility. i am good at controlling my fucking emotions. the problem is that my emotions are so world-endingly, apocalyptically intense that sometimes i just get too fucking tired to hold back, and then that’s when i bite. i’ m not just lashing out randomly with no provocation. i’ve been tread on a million fucking times and took it with a smile and you had no fucking idea. just because i bit you doesn’t mean i did it because i have no self-control. self-control? self-control???? don’t you fucking talk to me about self-control you headass bitch. i have a fucking supernova coming out of my brain and you’re telling me im weak for not being able to bite it back when your emotions have about as much intensity as a bowl of lukewarm porridge. don’t ever fucking criticize me for not being able to control myself when you’re playing life on easy mode and i’ve been stuck on expert all my fucking life. self-control. don’t you fucking talk to me about self-control ever again. you have no idea what the fuck you’re even talking about. fuck off.

[emmerrr]

heyyyy if you wanna write a pynch vday fic, how about one where they're like... both trying to be sneaky about planning sth for valentines day and so both think the other has forgotten about it and they're both like ://// but it all uhh works out in the end?? x

what a top notch suggestion, absoLUTELY i can write that 💕💕 (uhh heads up this got kinda long, i’ll put it on ao3 too and reblog with a link later)

-

Adam sat alone in a corner booth of Nino’s, History notes open on the table before him. He’d written VALENTINE’S DAY?? in the margin, underlined three times. He frowned at the words, wondering why he was fixating on them, and turned his head to stare listlessly out of the window instead.

Blue was there working, but she’d been too busy to come and say hello so far, simply offering him a harried wave when she spotted him walk in, pointing him towards the table he was now seated at. The other staff at Nino’s never bothered them anymore, knowing Blue would cover their table. Adam had heard them being referred to as “Blue’s Boys” on more than one occasion.

He was currently the only one there, having beaten Henry and Gansey out of the school gates. He assumed they’d got held up by a traffic light or two, and Ronan had further to drive than the rest of them so would likely arrive last anyway.

Thinking of Ronan immediately returned Adam’s thoughts to the words written in his notes and he scowled at the parking lot. On the surface, Valentine’s Day didn’t seem like it would be Ronan’s thing. Adam wasn’t even particularly sure it was his thing. But the fact remained that Valentine’s Day was a week away, and Adam didn’t know what, if anything, he was expected to do for it.

He tried to think back to previous years and remembered receiving an anonymous card from someone back in the seventh grade; a generic heart-shaped thing that simply said ‘Will you be my Valentine? x’ inside. He was fairly certain the sender was a girl in his English class who had never said a word to him but blushed every time she caught his eye. Adam didn’t see how he was supposed to answer whether or not he’d be her Valentine if she never told him she had sent it. And of course, she never owned up, and he didn’t want to suggest it was her in case he was wrong, and he didn’t actually want to be her Valentine anyway. So it was never mentioned again.

The difference here was that Ronan was his actual boyfriend. Didn’t that mean that they were each other’s Valentines by default, then?

Adam didn’t know. He’d never navigated Valentine’s Day before. Not like this.

He was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t hear Henry and Gansey approach until they were right there.

“Oh, History notes,” Henry exclaimed. “Can I borrow them?”

Adam turned his head to see Henry already sliding the notebook towards him. “Your notes are always make more sense than mi—” Henry cut himself off, eyes widening at something on the page. Too late Adam remembered the VALENTINE’S DAY?? in the margin and slapped his hand over it, snatching back his notebook.

Henry was grinning at him. “Big plans?”

“No,” Adam muttered. “No plans at all.” He stuffed the notebook into his messenger bag.

Gansey had slid into the booth opposite Adam and watched the exchange with raised eyebrows. “What have I missed?”

“Nothing, apparently,” Henry said easily. Adam was grateful that Henry clearly wasn’t going to push it (at least not with an audience), but reasoned he could perhaps use some advice.

“So,” he started. “Valentine’s Day. Thoughts?”

“I’m glad you asked, Parrish,” Gansey said. “It was originally a Western Christian feast day honouring a couple of early saints called Valentinius—”

“Yes, thank you, Captain Wikipedia,” Henry cut in. “I’m not entirely sure that’s what he meant.”

A jug of Iced Tea was plonked onto the table without ceremony and they all looked up to Blue Sargent as she handed out glasses.

“It’s a dumb holiday invented by Hallmark to sell more cards,” she said, obviously having heard the tail-end of the conversation.

“Well, obviously there’s that too,” Gansey said, beaming at her. 

Adam sighed. They were all monumentally unhelpful. 

“Why the interest, Adam?” Blue asked, a knowing glint in her eye.

“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I’m just…okay, with Ronan, do I just treat it like any other day? Do I get him a card? Will he think it’s stupid? Do I think it’s stupid?”

There was a short silence as the three of them blinked back at him, and then Blue carefully said, “Do you think it’s stupid?” 

Adam wasn’t sure how to answer that. The truth was that he sort of did think it was stupid, but he also thought he wanted to acknowledge it anyway. He thought doing nothing at all kind of made him look like an asshole.

In the end, it all circled back to Ronan, and whether he would care. Did he have anything planned? Was he having an internal crisis over it as well?

In lieu of an answer, Adam shrugged again.

“Speak of the devil,” Henry said, and nodded towards the entrance.

Ronan, dressed all in black (of course), had just stepped inside. He scanned the restaurant without turning his head but when he spotted Adam, his shoulders relaxed, and he smiled just a little.

Adam didn’t think he’d ever get tired of seeing that.

“Oh god, you two are the worst,” Blue scoffed as Ronan started to make his way over.

“What?” Adam said without looking at her.

“You know exactly what, Adam Parrish. You and Ronan with the googly eyes. Jesus Christ, you’re in public. Tone it down.”

“You tone it down,” Ronan said jovially, hip-checking Blue as he drew level. “What are we talking about?”

“The origins of Valentine’s Day,” Gansey said delicately.

Ronan snorted derisively. “Valentine’s Day,” he said with as much scorn as he could muster, “is capitalistic bullshit invented to sell cards and flowers and chocolate.”

“Hey man, that’s exactly what I said,” Blue said, sounding pleased, and she and Ronan fist-bumped. Adam rolled his eyes. They really were two sides of the same coin.

“You’re in my seat, Cheng,” Ronan said.

“Sit by Gansey, I was here first.”

Ronan shrugged. “Fair’s fair.” He stepped up onto the seat and over Henry and squeezed into the spot between him and Adam.

“Ronan Lynch,” Gansey hissed. “You’ll get us kicked out!”

“Calm down, Dick, no one noticed,” Ronan said. He had both arms stretched out across the back of the booth, and Adam and Henry were both leaning into him a little thanks to the lack of space.

“This is cozy,” Henry said cheerfully.

It was Blue’s turn to roll her eyes and she pulled her little notepad out of her apron pocket. “Alright, I have to actually do my job now, what do you want? Gansey, I’m assuming you want your usual half-avocado monstrosity?”

“You’re a millennial, Blue, you’re supposed to like avocados.”

Her disgusted expression was answer enough. The rest of them rattled off their food order and then Blue went off to put it through.

“Doesn’t anyone want to come and sit by me?” Gansey asked. “It’s lonely over here.”

“Oh, don’t pull that face, Gansey, you’re making me sad,” Henry said, swapping sides. He scooched right the way over to Gansey and draped an arm around his shoulder before sighing loftily. “It’s hard being this popular.”

“But someone has to do it,” Adam said drily, earning him a quicksilver smile.

“And I do it so well.”

Ronan was stopping at Adam’s for the night, but they had each come to Nino’s in their own cars so separated in the parking lot to drive over to St Agnes in a convoy.

Ronan was already peeling out of the lot by the time Adam reached his shitbox, and he was held up further by Henry calling his name. He turned and Henry jogged over, Gansey nowhere to be seen and most likely still inside saying goodbye to Blue.

“Oh, sorry,” Adam said. “You wanted my History notes, right?”

“No, that’s not — well, yeah, actually, thank you,” he said, taking them when Adam handed them over. “I actually came over here to give you some unsolicited advice.”

“About the Valentine’s Day thing?”

“That’s the one.”

Adam shrugged. “It’s not entirely unsolicited. But anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore. You heard him.”

“Yeah, I heard him. Sounds like posturing to me.”

Adam tilted his head to the side. “You think?” Ronan certainly was prone to posturing.

“Sure. I mean, I have no doubt that he really does think Valentine’s Day is what he said in there, but I wouldn’t let that put you off doing something, if you wanted to.” Henry waited for a response, and when Adam didn’t offer one, he prompted, “You do want to, don’t you?”

Adam smiled wryly. “Is it that obvious?”

“Only if you know what to look for,” Henry said, but before Adam could think on that too much, he continued. “Look, I don’t know Ronan as well as you do, but even from the outside, it’s clear how he feels about you.”

Feeling himself blush, Adam immediately looked down at the ground. He did know how Ronan felt about him. It was often whispered to him in the middle of the night when it felt like they were the only two people in the world. It just took him off guard to hear it so plainly from someone else.

“Think about it, Adam. Regardless of how Ronan personally feels about what Valentine’s Day stands for, do you really think he’s going to let a day when he’s practically green-lit to be as obnoxious as possible about you just pass him by?” Henry shook his head. “Not the Ronan Lynch I know.”

Well, when it was put that way. “Did he say something to you? Do you know something?”

“Not a thing,” Henry said, and Adam believed him. “It’s just an observation and an educated guess.”

“Huh,” Adam said thoughtfully. He pulled his car keys out of his pocket and tossed them in the air, catching them again, ideas already forming in his head. If Ronan was going to be obnoxious, Adam could be obnoxious too. “Thanks, Henry. I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t lose my notes.”

“I will try my level best.”

Adam gave himself three rules for Ronan’s Valentine’s gift:

1) It had to be heartfelt.

2) It also had to be in good humour and not take itself too seriously.

3) It had to be cheap.

He was too sensible to spend money he didn’t have on some arbitrary gift Ronan wouldn’t appreciate. Not to mention that Ronan was impossible enough to buy for as it was; firstly he was rich enough to buy himself pretty much anything he might want, and secondly he could literally manifest his dreams. It was going to make future birthdays and Christmas’s an absolute nightmare.

(But what a wonderful problem to have.)

What it all basically meant was that Adam had to go homemade, and given that he had school and work (and Ronan) to work around, he didn’t have a whole lot of time to do it.

He borrowed Gansey’s laptop during lunch-break on Monday at Aglionby and made Ronan a mix-CD of the cheesiest love songs he could think of. It featured such classics as You Make My Dreams by Hall & Oates, Heaven by Bryan Adams, True by Spandau Ballet, and many, many more. It wasn’t even remotely Ronan’s kind of music which made it funny, but as embarrassing as some of the songs might have been, they did actually somewhat echo Adam’s own feelings. He got to be a sap in the guise of it being a joke, and Ronan would get a kick out of it.

Obviously, he also added the Murder Squash Song for good measure.

Next up was a card. He could have bought one — his budget would have allowed it — but all the store ones were godawful and Adam couldn’t even imagine giving one of them to Ronan ironically.

Luckily he had an ace up his sleeve.

The first time that Ronan had stayed over at Adam’s after they were together in the very early days of their relationship, Adam had woken up to a frozen Ronan with a handful of strangely lovely flowers, the exact shade of blue as Adam’s eyes.

Adam had kept them in a cheap vase on the windowsill until they died, but unbeknownst to Ronan, he’d also taken one and pressed it to make a little print; his own private memento.

He was obviously keeping the original for himself, but he took it into the school library a couple of days before Valentine’s Day and scanned it, printing it out on some high quality photo card he’d ‘acquired’ from one of the Art rooms.

Once the ink was dry, he folded it down the middle as carefully as possible and put it inside his heaviest textbook to keep it folded and flat until he got it home.

He spent longer than probably necessary trying to decide what to write, but in the end, he went with:

Ronan,

I think maybe it was always you. I think it always will be. Happy Valentine’s Day (gross).

Love, Adam x

He didn’t have a nice envelope to put it in, so it had to go in a bigger manila one that Adam still had lying around. He slipped both the card and the CD inside, and wrote Ronan’s name in capitals on the outside.

He looked at his offering. It somehow didn’t seem enough.

Valentine’s Day was on Thursday, so on Wednesday— after school but before a shift at Boyd’s— Adam found himself in the kitchen of 300 Fox Way. He’d bought everything he needed to make chocolate brownies before he’d realised he didn’t have a tin in which to cook them in. He was also severely lacking in several other kitchen utensils, to be honest. One panicked phone-call to Blue later, and he had everything he needed and a helping hand.

Well, ‘helping’ was a strong word.

“Why brownies?” Blue asked from where she sat perched on the kitchen table.

“Because brownies are the best,” Adam said, frowning at the recipe he had printed out.

“Alright, can’t argue with that,” Blue said reasonably.

Adam was aware of her watching him while he slowly got out everything he needed and started weighing out ingredients. He felt unreasonably nervous about it, even though he knew that provided he followed the recipe, everything would be fine. Baking was a science, after all, and Adam was good at science.

But looking at it all now with Blue scrutinising his every move, he felt flustered and unmoored.

“I thought you were going to help,” he said pointedly.

“I am helping. I’m supervising,” Blue said.

Adam smiled at that. “I see. Are you the kind of supervisor who can grease this tin for me?”

“I suppose so,” Blue said loftily as she launched herself off the table.

Blue started chattering away after that which helped Adam calm down and focus on what he was doing, and it didn’t take long to make the mixture after that. Adam tilted the pan while Blue used a wooden spoon to scrape the mixture out and into the brownie tin.

After that, they just had to put it in the oven and wait.

Blue brewed up some of Maura’s least offensive tea as they sat and waited, and Adam finally asked what he’d been dying to all week.

“Do you know if Ronan has anything planned?”

Blue smiled and shook her head. “Honestly, Adam, I have absolutely no idea. He hasn’t said a word. I’ve barely seen him though, and never really without you there.” She shrugged. “If he’s got a plan he’s keeping it close to his chest.”

Adam nodded; he’d assumed as much. “I just want to know if I’m doing too much, or not doing enough? I dunno, it’s stupid. It’s only Valentine’s Day.”

“Yeah, but it’s your first Valentine’s Day together,” Blue said, not unkindly. “I get it.”

“What are you and Gansey doing?” 

“I made him a card and found him a couple of ‘slovenly’ t-shirts at the thrift store. I’m gonna hazard a guess that he’s getting me flowers, and he told me to keep the evening free so he’s probably taking me somewhere. Wherever it is, it better not be expensive.”

Adam grinned. “Maybe it’s Nino’s.”

“God, don’t even joke, I’d murder him. Again.”

He started to laugh, and after a couple of seconds Blue joined in. When it died down, Blue put her hand on his arm.

“Don’t overthink it, Adam. Ronan will love whatever you give him, because you’re the one it’s coming from. It’s not about the gifts you get or the meal you have or how much money you spend. I think it’s more about the gesture. That’s what’ll mean the most to Ronan.”

Adam managed a small smile. “I hope you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right.” Blue opened a drawer and gasped, then pulled out a heart-shaped cookie cutter. “Oh my God, Adam, you have to.”

She held out the cookie-cutter towards him and he took it, sighing. “Really?”

“Yes! This way, they’ll all be exactly the same size and I get to eat all the cut-offs. Y’know, as my fee for helping.”

And that’s how Adam ended up with nine perfect little heart-shaped brownies.

Adam didn’t see Ronan that night, thanks to finishing late at Boyd’s and then having homework after. 

When he woke up in the morning, he was hit by the realisation that he and Ronan hadn’t even arranged to see each other that day at all.

He half expected Ronan to show up at St Agnes unannounced with a bouquet of dream flowers and some donuts or something. But that didn’t happen, and Adam slowly packed his messenger bag for school, remembering to include the Tupperware of Valentine’s brownies and the envelope with its enclosed card and CD.

He wasn’t sure when he’d be able to give them to Ronan, but it was better to be prepared.

Adam walked down to his car, scanning the parking lot and the street to see if there was any sign of a shark-nosed BMW. But there was nothing, and there was nothing on the way to school, and Adam made it all the way through to lunch without seeing or hearing from Ronan.

Obviously, he had no phone, and Ronan hated his own phone. But Gansey had a phone, and Ronan could have got in touch that way if he had felt so inclined.

Adam didn’t know what he’d been expecting; that Ronan would show up at the Aglionby gates with a boombox over his head blasting out Lionel Richie songs? That he’d get back to his car after school and find out his favourite hooligan had broken in and left him a giant teddy bear and a box of chocolates?

It all seemed stupid now, and Valentine’s Day was stupid, and Adam was irritated that he’d let the pressures of the day get to him. It didn’t matter. It was a meaningless day.

So why did he feel so deflated?

At the end of the day, he caved and asked to borrow Gansey’s phone.

First, he sent a text that said: it’s adam, i’m about to call you so answer the phone

He gave it a minute until he’d seen that Ronan had read the message, and then pressed the call button.

“Parrish,” Ronan said in lieu of a hello.

All at once, like always, Adam was happy to hear Ronan’s voice. And yet he still couldn’t quite shake his irritation, even though the one who’d got his hopes up was himself.

“Hey,” he replied. “Listen, were you planning on coming over tonight?”

“Nope.” It was a little difficult to tell, but Adam thought Ronan’s tone was just a little off. “You come here.”

Adam sighed. “Ronan, I have school tomorrow so I wouldn’t even be able to stay that late. Can’t you just come here?”

There was a long pause. “Opal wants to see you.”

“So bring her with you.”

“Are you kidding, Parrish, she’s filthy. She’ll mess up the interior.”

The BMW wasn’t exactly spotless inside so this seemed a flimsy excuse. Adam started to wonder whether Ronan even wanted to see him at all.

“If you don’t want to see me today that’s fine,” he said, tone clipped.

“I didn’t say that,” Ronan said, tone just as clipped.

It felt like they were heading for a fight. Adam didn’t want to fight. He wanted to give Ronan the stupid sentimental CD he’d made. He wanted Ronan to make fun of him for the brownies. He wanted a hug.

Adam was abruptly exhausted, and it didn’t matter that he’d gone to the effort and Ronan hadn’t. He just wanted to see him.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m gonna go home and shower but then I’ll head over to you.”

“Okay, good. See you in a bit,” Ronan said, and hung up.

The sun was down by the time Adam pulled up at the Barns. The heating in Adam’s car was dodgy enough on a good today, and today wasn’t a good day. It had barely come on, so his hands were like ice as he got out of the car.

He walked straight in when he got there and made his way to the kitchen. He hovered in the doorway; Ronan’s back was to him, a tea towel strewn over one shoulder, straining pasta over the sink.

Adam rapped his knuckles against the door-frame and Ronan turned around.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Adam replied. “You cooked?”

Ronan shrugged. “It’s just spaghetti.” He gestured to Adam’s messenger bag. “You brought homework with you?”

All that was in the bag was the Valentine’s gifts for Ronan, and he shook his head. “Nope.”

“Okay,” Ronan said with another shrug. “Sit. Let’s eat, I’m starving.”

Adam pulled himself a chair out, and it scraped against the floor noisily in the otherwise quiet. He waited for Ronan to finish serving up and then asked, “Where’s Opal?”

“No idea. Haven’t seen her since this afternoon.”

Adam took a bite of his food. It was good. “I thought you said she wanted to see me.”

“She always wants to see you,” Ronan said smoothly. “I’m sure she’ll turn up when she spots your car.”

They finished eating in near silence, Adam waiting for Ronan to say something— anything— to acknowledge the day. But he didn’t, and the longer the silence dragged, the harder it seemed to break it.

Adam started towards the sink to do the washing up afterwards, but Ronan stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Just leave it, Parrish.”

“But—”

“Leave them. I’ll do them in the morning.” 

Adam sighed, uncomfortable in the tension. He didn’t know what to do now. Did Ronan just want him to leave? And if so, why had he told him to come in the first place?

“Look, do you know what day it is?” Adam asked, unable to take it any longer.

“It’s Thursday,” Ronan said, chin jutted out, arms crossed. Adam glared; Ronan clearly knew exactly what day it was.

“Okay, great,” Adam said tiredly. He opened his bag and pulled out the Tupperware and the envelope. “Happy Valentine’s Day, I guess.”

He put them on the table and stepped away, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. He watched Ronan’s face, the expression on which had softened immediately. He looked to Adam, stricken.

“Parrish, I—”

“It’s fine, Ronan, just open them.”

Ronan snapped his mouth shut, and pulled the envelope over to him. Adam immediately felt self-conscious about his meagre homemade gifts.

“It’s not much,” he said quickly.

Ronan’s only response to this was a slight furrow in his brow. Then he took the CD out, quirking a smile at Adam’s inscription: LYNCH’S CHEESY LOVE SONG SINGALONG. It was surrounded by lots of hand drawn love-hearts that Adam now thought seemed excessive.

Ronan looked up and raised an eyebrow at Adam, a half-smirk on his face. “No track-list, Parrish?”

“It’s a surprise,” Adam said, smiling weakly, but relieved. “You’ll have to play it to find out.”

“I’ll do that,” he said with a sage nod. He put the CD down and reached for the Tupperware, pulling the lid off and tossing it aside. He looked inside and snorted. “You’ve really stuck with a theme here, huh, Parrish?”

“Hey, Valentine’s Day is all about the hearts, apparently. And to be fair, the heart-shaped brownies are Blue’s fault. She found a cookie-cutter and insisted.”

“She knew about this?” Ronan said.

“Yeah, she helped me make them.”

“That little sneak...” Ronan trailed off and let out a sharp laugh. “I asked her if she knew whether or not you were doing something, and she swore blind she had no idea.”

Adam thought about asking why Ronan had even wanted to know, but instead he pointed at the envelope. “There’s a card in there, as well.”

“In here?” Ronan turned the envelope upside down and the card slipped out into his hand. Adam watched as he took in the flower on the front, smiled a little, then did a double-take, glancing at Adam. “Hold on. Is this what I think it is?”

Adam rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. I, uh, I pressed one, before they all died. I wanted to keep it, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Ronan said, something akin to awe in his voice. “I dream about them all the time.” He opened the card and read what Adam had written there, then dropped his face into his hands. 

“Parrish...” he mumbled. “I feel like a fucking asshole.”

Adam went over and gently pulled the card out of Ronan’s hand, sitting down on Ronan’s lap. Ronan’s arms circled his waist automatically and he tucked his face into Adam’s neck.

“You are a fucking asshole, Lynch. I love you anyway.”

Ronan grumbled something incoherently against Adam’s skin, and Adam smiled. “What was that?”

Ronan lifted his head so he could be heard. “I said I love you right back.”

“Good,” Adam said.

“I thought you’d forgotten. And I didn’t...I didn’t want a big deal, and this day is a fucking joke or whatever, but you didn’t mention anything. And I even thought you might borrow Gansey’s phone and like, text me or something this morning? But then you didn’t and when you finally called me you sounded annoyed and I didn’t know why, and I didn’t even think you wanted to come over. So then you finally got here and you seemed mad, and so I was mad and...I’m sorry. I was here thinking you didn’t give a shit and you made stuff for me?” He hung his head, penitent. “I love my gifts. These lame brownies smell great. I’m fucking sorry, Parrish.”

“Hey.” Adam cupped Ronan’s head in his hands. “It’s fine that you didn’t get me anything. Honestly I think I just let this whole day get into my head as having to mean something when it doesn’t. I don’t need a special day to let you know how I feel. And I’m sorry if I seemed mad. I just didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t mean to make it weird.”

He leaned in and kissed Ronan briefly. “And Lynch, you cooked for me. You made me a whole meal. I’m pretty sure we’re even.” He kissed him again, until Ronan pulled back and covered Adam’s hands with his own.

“Um...you should come with me,” Ronan said, and he almost sounded sheepish.

They stood up and Ronan swiped the mix CD off the table and shoved it in the pocket of his hoodie, before taking Adam’s hand and leading him out the back door.

Confused but intrigued, Adam followed closely behind, clutching tight to Ronan’s fingers. It was cold outside and neither of them had their coats on, which Adam was about to point out when they walked around the corner of the nearest barn and he was rendered speechless by the sight before him.

In the middle of the grass was a small gazebo tent, the base of which was covered in luxurious looking blankets. There was a laptop in the middle of the floor, hooked up to a projector which was pointing at the outer-wall of the barn. A precarious tower of DVDs was piled up next to the laptop; Adam couldn’t see the titles from here but imagined Ronan had assembled a variety of choices. There was a big thermos, contents unknown (coffee? Hot chocolate?), and various other treats; big bags of marshmallows and Hershey’s Kisses and Reese’s Mini Peanut-Butter Cups.

And everywhere, there was light. Ronan’s twinkling little dream lights, some in jars under the gazebo, others hanging in the air, changing colour, like little fireflies.

“Ronan,” Adam finally managed hoarsely. “What the fuck?”

Ronan smirked. “You thought I hadn’t done anything.”

“Uh, yeah, because you let me think that!” Adam said. He was struggling to process how cosy and romantic it all looked. Let it never be said that Ronan Lynch wasn’t an absolute sap.

“I didn’t let you think anything, you jumped to that conclusion all on your own.”

Adam scowled. “Now I feel like a fucking asshole.”

“Don’t,” Ronan said, pressing a kiss to Adam’s temple. “Anyway, this is nothing.”

“It is so far from nothing,” Adam said. He stepped forward and took a turn around, taking everything in as he walked in a slow circle, stopping when he was facing Ronan again. “I thought Valentine’s Day was capitalistic bullshit?”

“Oh, it is,” Ronan said happily. “But for one, I didn’t spend a penny. And two, a whole day where I can spoil you as much as I want to and you don’t get to complain about it? Sign me the fuck up for that.”

Adam burst out laughing. “You’ve just reminded me of something Henry said.”

“What did he say?”

“I told him that I wasn’t sure whether or not you’d do anything because we hadn’t talked about it, and he said, and I quote: ‘do you really think he’s going to let a day when he’s practically green-lit to be as obnoxious as possible about you just pass him by?’”

Ronan was grinning now. “Cheng’s pretty smart.” 

“Yeah,” Adam said. He caught one of the floating lights in his hand and then let it go again. “Just for the record, I think your dreaming abilities give you an unfair advantage when it comes to stuff like this.”

“Excuse you, Parrish, the only thing I dreamt up was the blankets because they’re heated. Oh, and the projector. And the gazebo. But that’s it.”

“‘That’s it’, he says.” Adam rolled his eyes, then accusingly added, “You dreamt up the lights.”

“Well, yeah, but not for this. I already had those. And the food was stuff I already had in the house, and the DVDs are ones I already own. I didn’t want to go overboard.”

Adam stared. “You are ridiculous,” he said, shaking his head. “Come here.”

Ronan went, without question or hesitation, and Adam wrapped his arms around his neck.

“This is the sweetest thing anybody’s ever done for me,” he said softly. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Ronan whispered, kissing a line up Adam’s neck and across his face, the tip of his nose, his forehead, “for the brownies, for what you wrote in the card...Jesus, Adam. It’s the same for me. You know that, right? It’s always you.”  

Adam squeezed tighter, feeling dangerously overcome. He breathed in the familiar, comforting smell of Ronan, and then released his grip. “And for the CD, obviously,” he said.

“Of course,” Ronan said, and smiled sharply. “Speaking of...” He pulled it out of his pocket and walked over to his laptop. “I’ll let you pick a movie in a bit, but first, I wanna listen to my present.”

He popped the CD into the drive and pressed a couple of buttons on the mouse, and a moment later the opening track started to play: I Wanna Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston.

Ronan laughed, once, soundlessly, then came back over to Adam and held his hand out. 

“Well?” he said when Adam didn’t move. “Are you dancing?”

Adam grinned. “Are you asking?”

“I’m asking.”

“Then I’m dancing.” He took Ronan’s hand and together they swayed, far too slowly for a song this upbeat, but Ronan didn’t seem to mind, and Adam certainly didn’t.

They didn’t speak while they were dancing, both perhaps a little shaken at the near-miss of an argument, both relieved they hadn’t let it get that far. Both content to be in each other’s company, away from prying eyes and expectations.

It was still early days. They were still learning how to do this, navigating firsts and futures and each other, but they were both quick studies, and Adam couldn’t think of anything more worthwhile than building a foundation— and a life— with Ronan.

There were trickier days to come, but for now, they’d survived their first Valentine’s Day as a couple. As they lay curled together in a blanket watching The Princess Bride projected onto the side of a barn, Adam thought he’d have to mark this one down as a win.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Parrish,” Ronan whispered into Adam’s hair.

“Ugh,” Adam said, and kissed him. “Happy Thursday.”

[no1trash2003]

GCSE is an absolute, inarguable joke.

Recently, contravercy has sprung up about the usefulness of the new spec GCSE. As of June of this year, 2019, I completed my allotted gcse's. I can say with absolute certainty that the exams I partook in were a joke.

Last year, I completed 3 GCSE courses early, English lit, Physics and Biology. My school made a complete mess of this. We learned all of my two science courses within the year, with 3 different qualified teachers (all separately after they fled the school) and 5 supply teachers, none of whom knew anything about the subject. I can say without a doubt that my year was unprepared and suffered the consequences. This, along with how hard the gcse was supposed to be now, resulted in many of my peers not even showing up on the exam day after collapsing under the pressure of preconceived failure. Many of those who tried in the gcse, learning the entirety of the course in their own time in other words, did well.

In other words, it was easy. Well, at least, answering the questions was. After getting their results back many were shocked at their low grade, but as it turns out (and as many of them knew) Mark's were not given on how correct an answer was or how thought out it was. No, Mark's were given entirely based off how many key words you could shove into your 6 marker, or how much flowery bullshit you could beat your english answer with.

Just to put this into context, I didn't try in my y10 GCSE's. I knew for my science GCSE, it was entirely based off memorisation. I knew for my English GCSE I had to spell out the obvious with some pretty words sprinkled on top. I slept in class, I drew for my art GCSE, I did maths- all in my english lessons, and my science lessons which early into the year virtually became free periods.

I went into the exam apathetic. In the holidays that followed, I lost no sleep.

We didn't have a results day, so I called up the school when the y11's got their results. In English lit, I was a few Mark's off a 9, A*. In biology, a 6, B. In physics, 7, A. To put this even more into perspective, I have dyslexia, a learning disability affecting language with which I received no accommodation for in or outside of my exams. I also suffer from auditory memory gaps.

Without a doubt I can say my exams were a joke, simply because of how well I did. My friends, who studied for hours and stressed to the point of it being labelled a disorder, came back with lower grades than me.

They knew the content better than me, without a doubt. Their understanding was deep where mine was shallow. They could recite key words off by heart. They did everything they could to do well in these exams, and were evidently lied to when they were told their efforts would be rewarded.

So, if not depth of understanding or key words separated a 9 from a 6, what does? What reason am I granted the ability of easily sliding by my gcse's when they struggled?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

In the being of the year, I'd taken one look at the mark scheme and known. My results would be completely meaningless. All it took in english, was saying the book or poem i was writing about was shit, fluffing it up with worthless words, and the mark scheme shat out an 8, A*. In my Physics GCSE, all it took was maths to get that 7. I didnt know shit about anything else. In biology, much the same.

I did well because I knew how to bullshit my way through. I knew where to slap a pretty word to seem smart and I knew how to use a calculator to its fullest potential. These skills, unfortunately, have nothing to do with the supposed gcse topic and are not in the spec.

I did better because I could lie better- and no, I didnt bother cheating

How is that not a joke? HOW can something so fickle and abstract decide my future, and the future of my friends? Why does it condemn those that seek knowledge for knowledges sake, and reward those like me, who know well enough that the whole thing was a sham?

This idea was strongly reinforced when I went onto Y11.

It was filled to the brim with more of the same. Shove in some flowery words, say something is a bit shit, do some maths. This time, however, I wanted to test a theory.

What difference would trying make?

There were exams I'd have to try in, like Fine Art and maths, but the rest were just as bullshit as the last year. For example, in chemistry, we had an actual teacher for a grand total of 3 weeks, and the course spec was so basic and boring that a 3 year old could understand it- if, you know, it wasnt overloaded with pointless bullshit to the point of looking to be gibberish. It was like asking someone to memorize a dictionary, and testing them on a small specific section of it that is to be randomly selected. The results would obviously be completely random.

Its easily understood that people are simply better at some things and worse at others. Someone who is good at this randomly selected section of the spec will do better in the exam than someone with a more rounded understanding of the spec as a whole. The exam is completely and utterly the bitch of this concept.

I find nanotubes (and related fullerines) as well as maths easy. I did well in the chemistry paper. I'm good at testing for things, I did well. My friend knew everything there was to know about atoms, radiation and reactions. This was not heavily featured in the exam, so they are marked lesser. My other friend had a good understanding of the spec as a whole, but due to this couldn't answer the highest level questions with the most Mark's as their understanding was left shallow. They are marked lesser. Trying didnt make a difference, and I see that now more than ever, at least for chemistry.

In geography, I tried my best. I know that, unfortunately, my memory issues dragged me down. As sad as it is to say, my learning disability and memory issues, both diagnosed officially, held me back in the memory based exams. Fortunately, I had my understanding of the subject as a small consolation. It was secondary to the memory aspect unfortunately, and mostly answered low mark questions. How sick is it, that understanding is secondary in the face of memory. Truly, a these exams were built around memorizing a textbook. Trying didnt make a difference. In the end, I failed to memories much of anything. The things based off understanding were obvious and required little to no effort to grasp. I know I could slept those classes away, and the only difference would be a slight increase in my health. The exam, evidently, was a joke.

Now, to the main reason I wrote this long winded and obvious rant.

The English Language GCSE.

Of course I tried my hardest. In every mock bar one I got high 9's. I helped my classmates. I participated and revised and stressed. I turned up to the exams, feverish with tonsillitis. I tried my best, both for the exam and to not throw up. I littered my words with as many false pleasantries and flowery bulshit as I could. I called the basic and dull literature what it was, basic and dull, a thing discouraged by teachers despite earning me my 9s. I wrote some depressing drivel in the final question 5, making sure to put mild, professional and somewhat abstract opinions into it (again, something that gave me 9's)

I left the exam without pride. I was sure I'd done well, but the success I was meant to feel was only grief for the years I'd lost in a classroom, miserable.

Later, I would feel proud. Maybe I'd see. Maybe, hopefully, my theory was wrong- at least in regards to English language.

Then, article after article poured into my feed. One particular article on Mumsnet called the marking scheme ' a shitshow'.

So I sat down, weeks after the official end of Y11, and reviewed the markshemes we'd based the entire course on at my school.

The articles were right. It was vague jargon, and completely subjective. It called for judicious quotes, with nothing to specify what should be considered such. It called for a high and sophisticated vocabulary, and again, completely contradicted this when looking at exams from the previous year which were marked as such. It was without a doubt the most completely ambiguous thing I'd ever read, and the people marking my exam seemed to agree. Sleep deprived and stressed to fuck, the reality of it has passed my by but was now clear as day.

In the end, my hard work didnt pay off. It doesn't matter now if I get a 9 or a 3. I know theres little chance it will be a reflection of my exam. For better or worse.

My classmates seem to understand this as well as me. So, what did the GCSE's actually manage to teach us?

It taught us to accept failure. Success is a bold faced lie entirely based off luck.

Those bold enough to say hard work is rewarded have their heads shoved in the sand.

Trying made no difference.

I see, now, what was going through those peoples heads last year, when they didnt show up for the exams or classes. Hard work is not rewarded and they were going to fail from the start.

They were too honest, and clearly, the only thing valued in GCSE's is the ability to lie so well that the exam marker is also tricked. Trying at this point would be a hopeless, draining task.

All that the GCSE's gave me was problems. Now, getting up in the morning is harder than my exams ever were. I abandoned everything for those exams, like many others. I lost my health, physical and mental. I lost my personality and sense of self. I lost years of my life, that should be cherished, to dispare. These gcse's are a tortuous joke and I wish more than anything that I'd never bothered in the first place because in the end, it wouldn't have made a difference.

Now, I'm moving on to collage to do much of the same. All I see ahead of me is misery, but unfortunately, this apearese to be an unchangeable reality placed upon us as a sick twisted joke. I've accepted this, as sad as it is, but I cant stand by as people lie to themselves and others, saying GCSE's are in any way worth it outside of a number on some paper.

Education is long dead. That's what GCSE's taught me.

Update- results: english lan, 7 (gonna get remarked), lit, 8. Maths-8. Bio-6. Chem-7. Physics-7. Art-9. Computer science-7. Geo-7

[avatarofthelonely]

anyway if s5 tma isnt a “everyone just fucking dies” ending and only a handful of the characters die my bets are on...

1. jonah

(i could write a whole dissertation on why jonah is like 99.9% going to die but the lowdown is that hes a terrible cocky bastard and knowing jonnys past projects hes gonna get exactly whats coming for him)

2. daisy. i love her and how far shes come but i think how far shes come is exactly why shes most likely to die. all the characters to have big in audio deaths (not counting sasha obviously may she rest in peace) had character arcs that were fulfilled/didnt need to be branched out anymore, and out of the main 6 characters were probably going to be getting next season i think that daisy has the least character development left that Needs to happen. shes learned from her mistakes and tried to better herself, and had made a pretty big sacrifice last time we saw her, all that paired with the fact that basira is most likely going to have to face her again and possibly “put her down”, it just seems very likely that daisys probablyyyy gonna die/just not come back. if theres multiple deaths she would probably be the first to die

3. jon and martin. these two are kinda weird because i feel like if anyones gonna have to die its gonna be one or both of them, but since theyre the main protagonists im guessing it wont be until the very end of the season probably in some self sacrificial way, either separately or together preferably loki and sigyn from tbi style but yknow. romantics aside i think my reasons why they could possibly individually die are

- jons the main character of a horror tragedy written by jonny sims, has a penchant for self sacrifice, and knowing him is going to be very down on himself for being a pawn in starting the eyepocalypse and will probably try to “fix” that with the previously stated fact....yeah this bitch is probably gonna die 

- martin dying is mostly a part of my dumbass theory ive had since like september that theres a pattern to the main end of season deaths in the show where assistants die in odd seasons (and annoying old men die on the even seasons but we aint talking about that (i was right about that though (just saying))) along with the fact that all three of gertrudes own assistants “met an untimely end”, just kinda getting the vibe that martin.....will not be okay (also side note i love to rib jon for being so self sacrificial but do you think martin would also not be completely willing to die for the world and his loved ones??? i have to laugh. this bitch is also gonna probably die)

what about those other people though!? why wont they die!?!? well....

basira: while daisy feels like she has the most complete character arc basira does not. a lot of her current problems are similar to early jon where she feels like she cant trust anyone and has to take on everything herself, and i feel like thats something shes really gonna have to work through in this upcoming season where its literally the apocalypse and shes gonna have to trust others if she wants to get through it. i dont think itd be entirely impossible for her to die later in the season but i entirely disagree with theories that she may have gotten jonah’d or taken by the not them because it just seems like a half assed way to end her character arc, so i highly doubt that shes already dead (putting her on the “wont die” side though just because im a lot less sure she will than the previous characters)

georgie and melanie: Jonny. I Am Speaking To You Directly. I Will Literally Break Into Your House If Either Of These Two Die Specifically. They Have Been Through Enough. Let Them Rest Easy With The Admiral. Also Georgie And Jon Should Be Friends Again.That Is All.

[sol1056]

EPs: "we chose Netflix to explore things like sexuality" (nothing was explored or was explicit for even 2 seconds) "when they told us u cant kill Shiro, we knew we could push the reveal 4 later" (so nice of them to admit they stopped our rep just to be able to kill him) "when we found out about byg we knew we coulnt kill Shiro & we thought we'll find rep w another character. Then we learned we could go on w/ Shiro as the rep" (theres ANOTHER REP WE DIDNT GET?? Was it vague then erased? Whatt??)

I think these are two separate issues. One is related to who made VLD, and the other is related to the EPs’ ignorance of characterization. The second overlaps with a bunch of asks I’ve recently gotten about race and representation, so here I’m just keeping it to a general discussion of characterization, with Lance as example. And then about Shiro in particular, how the EPs’ statements reveal their lack of thought.

Behind the cut. 

remember where these people came from

The team behind VLD is almost entirely formerly Nickelodeon. DreamWorks wanted to break into television on a much larger scale, and since they almost always promote from outside the company, they lured over Margie Cohn from her position as a Nick VP. As VP/exec levels tend to do, Cohn brought a bunch of people with her.

One of those was Mark Taylor, who’d been involved in both AtLA and LoK. Taylor, in turn, brought JDS, LM, and I think one or two of the other producers. Taylor also probably brought over Hamilton, Chan, and Hedrick, as known entities with proven track records. 

These are people who — for for the last ten or more years — have swum in Nickelodeon’s considerably more conservative fishbowl. It’s entirely possible (given what people tell me about storylines in HTTYD, and DW’s open support of She-Ra) the former Nickelodeon team automatically downgraded DW’s “go ahead and explore these heavier/darker topics” to mean “maybe kinda mention in passing but don’t be too obvious about it.”  

Now, to be fair, the EPs may have pushed for more LGBT+ rep, and their obstacle might not have been DW, but Taylor. It’d explain how the EPs could praise everyone (read: DreamWorks staff) as supportive, yet allso complain about pushback (read: Taylor’s Nickelodeon-influenced sensibilities). Two different parties were calling the shots. 

It’s also possible what the EPs saw as ‘rep’ was still considerably toned-down from what DW execs (and the VAs) may’ve expected. After all, that one-minute scene in VLD might’ve required an act of god at Nickelodeon. VLD’s staff may have genuinely considered this scene landmark because even that tiny bit was far more than their previous employer would’ve allowed. 

Cue the victory lap and excited chatter, and seeming blindness to Korra being long since surpassed by Steven Universe, Young Justice, Bob’s Burgers, Adventure Time, Gravity Falls, RWBY, Rick and Morty, Clarence, BoJack Horseman, Danger & Eggs, Big Mouth, and Summer Camp Island. Remember, it wasn’t until 2016 that Nickelodeon would have a married gay couple (in The Loud House), and they’re not even central characters. The VLD staff may’ve thought itself bold, and unprepared for the reality of modern (non-Nickelodeon) audience expectations. 

No, I don’t think that absolves them. It just seems the most reasonable explanation. That is, short of seeing the EPs as so utterly cynical they’d pump up the audience for what amounted to a nothingburger in light of what else popular media now delivers. 

and then there’s representation

VLD’s troubles can all be traced to one crucial detail: the EPs don’t understand that characters are the bedrock of stories. And as such, there are no shortcuts.

Ever had the misfortune to catch a home decorating show? Here we have a windowless basement: mock up a mantle from polystyrene, paint the walls gray, put up sconces with flickering lightbulbs… it’s still a basement. It’s just now desperately pretending to be something it isn’t. The bones of the structure are undeniably American Suburbia, not generic castle keep, and those bones are integral to how we experience the space.

The average person isn’t trained to be aware of those bones — the underlying architecture — and its subtle impact on our experience, just as most non-storytellers aren’t trained to see how and where and why characters create plot. I guarantee you, though, you will never mistake a late-century Kmart for the Centre Pompidou or the Forbidden City or Mount Vernon. Just as you would never mistake a beginner’s first novel for Lord of the Rings or Left Hand of Darkness. 

That is, the dressed stone isn’t paint and plaster; it’s a core element informing (even dictating) height, width, and depth of a space. Characterization is the same: it must be structural. In turn, characters inform the breadth and depth of the story. If your characterization is shallow, wild swerves and dramatic reveals can make the story fun, but they will never make it deep. 

I empathize with the (hopefully genuine) intent to avoid making Shiro’s sexuality a ‘reveal.’ The unfortunate truth is: waiting 60+ episodes to even mention in passing makes it a reveal. It wasn’t structural, or viewers would’ve been sensing it from the very beginning. 

This isn’t a haircut or a pair of jeans. It’s a person’s identity, and that has crucial impact on hopes, fears, desires, and needs. It doesn’t start only once the audience is let in on the secret; it was always there. It should’ve informed the character’s actions and reactions all along. 

If Lance is Cuban, and the story takes place in a quasi-future America, then to understand Lance’s perspective, we need to ask questions like: is Cuba still under embargo? Is it a free democracy now, or did Lance’s family flee at some point? Is he part of an exchange program, or is there a lottery that let him come to the US for his education? Did he leave his family behind? How young was he, when he left? What was his childhood like, and how does that differ from what he found in America? What was his parents’ relationship like, and how does that influence his expectations for friends and lovers? 

Was he fluent in English when he arrived, or did he only become fluent later? Does his Spanish have a noticeable accent, and if so, has he felt isolated from other Latinx at school? Or is he the only Latino at the Garrison? Is he proud of his heritage, or ashamed of it? Did he get bullied for being foreign, and how did that change what he says/does? Even if America is joyfully multi-cultural, he’d still be an immigrant or foreigner, and that’s a different experience from a non-white community that’s multi-generation American. What was his impression of his new life? What compared favorably (or not) to his childhood? 

It’s not just, “He’s a boy from Cuba.” You have to think about what it means to be ‘from Cuba’ and how this is different from, say, growing up next door to the Garrison (like Pidge probably did). If you put that much thought into it, if you talk to people who’ve lived that experience, if you push yourself to imagine as deeply as you can how Lance’s life would have shaped him? 

By the time you’re done, Lance would never need to say a word. 

His reactions, his assumptions, maybe a few mannerisms, his humor, a few throwaway comments about his family or things he did as a kid — and there would be Cubans in the audience going, “hey, wait a minute, he’s just like my cousin.” Or brother or uncle or friend. By the time someone asks at a panel? Half the audience would be saying, yeah, we were right, Lance is totally Cuban. 

Or you don’t think about it, and you use stereotypes in hopes that’ll do the work for you. As @sjwwerewolf commented:

Man, I’m ready to rant about Voltron. I’m Cuban. Lance, oh boy, Lance. From season 1 on, he has been written as a huge stereotype. The flirtatious, passionate comic relief character who’s dumb. Like. He’s literally Antman’s sidekick. That character. All you need to make him a full caricature is like, “I have a gangster brother.“ 

The stereotype is a shortcut. It’s slapping on behaviors without thought for a real person’s experiences or perspectives. VLD is, sadly, full of them: the Latino (wannabe) lover, the big guy who likes food (with only the slightest twist to have him actually good at cooking), the boyish-girl who’s a brain and likes computers more than people, etc. 

just pull shiro out of a hat

At some point early on, the EPs said (once again in an interview, not in the story) that VLD is a world without homophobia. The story itself contradicts that ideal, or at least, it emphasizes a certain level of heternormativity over an open embrace of diverse relationships. What’s in our face for six seasons is Lance’s lover-boy stereotype, Allura’s attraction to Lotor, Lotor’s attraction to Allura, Matt’s attraction to Allura, and so on… and the closest we get to anything resembling an alternate attraction is one blush from a servant in a flashback, and Kuron’s startled reaction to Keith’s return. 

All VLD had to do was have Hunk mention his moms. Or Coran mention his late husband. Or Lance mention his sister’s wife. Something explicit to offset the heterosexual attractions going on. Frankly, for six seasons it was an open question whether homosexuality even existed in VLD: the absence of a negative is not proof of the presence of a positive. 

That absence means we really have no idea how being queer in VLD’s world would affect a character — and it would, have no doubt. Our sexuality affects every single one of us; it’s just that straight people have the benefit of seeing the roadmap of their sexuality played out in a million books, movies, and television shows. If you haven’t given thought to whether this is also true in your world, then you don’t really know how a character could discover, define, and map their sexuality, or how they’d quantify or qualify relationships that overlap their sexual preferences. You don’t understand the structure. 

That lack of thought means, nine times out of ten, the creator has said to themselves, “it’s easier to just say this character’s experience of their sexuality is exactly like the one I, as a straight person, vaguely recall having (that I never actually had to question because it was already mapped out for me, everywhere I looked).” That’s not a queer character. That’s a character with a label slapped on their forehead that says here be a queer character. It’s paint, because the structure underneath is straight person. 

Which means that of course the EPs could consider making someone else “the rep,” because they really seem to believe this is as easy as removing the label from Shiro’s forehead and sticking it on someone else. And it’s not. People don’t work like that. Sexuality is no more a simple paint-job than race, gender, culture, or dis/ability. Each of these things is etched on our bones, literally or metaphorically, and that changes us all the way through. 

The short version, then, is: no, we wouldn’t have gotten any other rep, just as we haven’t truly gotten any rep as VLD was delivered. Shiro has a label on his forehead, but unless and until the canonical story demonstrates this goes all the way down to his bones… he’s just a straight suburban basement with a mediocre paint job and some fake queer columns.

[j-ni733]

Break time...

Teleporting to another timeline was… disorientating at most. While everything looked familiar where Aaron’s feet took her, it just felt weird. Teleporting past guards. Seeing the sky. This place just felt so wrong. But she told herself that it’s fine. She made it to the princess’ room and stood in front of it feeling some type of dread heavy in her chest. Rubbing her face and covering her eyes, she was about to knock. Fate opened the door waving bye to the princess. He stop and sees Aaron. Aaron peaked through her fingers and waved sheepishly. Fate narrowed his eyes but greeted her friendly with his goofy-skeleton grin. Aaron just nodded and looked over at Frisk who was already looking her way. A silence fell before Fate coughed and said he’ll wait outside for Frisk.

Aaron stepped in and closed the door behind Fate, just looking at Frisk. It was odd. Aaron bowed out of habit, greeting the princess formally. Frisk got up, ran over to her, and hugged her tightly greeting her with a wavering voice. Aaron took the embrace and smiles slightly. The two pull apart, find smiles making their way into the ladies faces but that sinking feeling was starting to happen. Frisk gestured to her bed and Aaron shook her head on her bum too much, even she’s kinda sick in staying in one place. Frisk sat down on the bed toying with the blanket that was nicely covering the bed. She expected for Aaron to tell her what’s on her mind. She had all the lies and half truths to tell the female soldier but just had to wait it out.

The girl in green walked outside to the balcony and stared outside for a moment sighing softly not sure how to phrase all the questions in her head. “What did you do?” The female soldier said slowly, testing the words. Of course, Frisk knew a thing or two about Aaron when it comes to RESET. She would’ve known Aaron would remember, otherwise why would she come to her room or her timeline in the first place? Frisk stayed still and answered calmly. “I’m not sure what you mean,” Frisk said softly trying to get the soldier to avoid telling her. She looking at her hands as she was twiddling with her thumbs.

Aaron turned around looking away from the forest view and looked at the Frisk as her smile disappeared. “You didn’t tell me this would happen. You said it would be alright,” The princess felt a sharp guilt as Aaron made that statement. She did tell her everything will be alright. She did tell her everything will be fine. Nothing wrong is going to happen. She lied… everything is not going to be fine. But Reset was the only way to fix things… It’s something that can do something that no human nor monster can do. It was no use telling Aaron more lies. Frisk swallowed quietly and took a deep breath. “Sacrifices have to happen, you wanted your brother back and it you looked as if you were about to bury yourself under all the guilt”

“Did you reset here? Where’s Cyrus?” Aaron shot back, her hand balling into a fist. Frisk didn’t respond. She can’t let her know Cyrus ran away. After reading his letter, explaining how a coward he was and that he was scared to keep up his task, it broken Frisk’s heart hearing how hurt her dear brother is dealing.

“Tell me what did you do?” she took a step forward almost threateningly, “Tell me why you had to do it” Why? Why did she kill blank!Frisk? Why did she have their world start everything over? Will Aaron understand?

“No one’s happy when our timelines are involved together, Aaron. I think it’s best we keep separate,” Frisk said slowly and steadily. “You were happy with Asriel. Why didn’t you come back?” Aaron was starting to get irritated. The vague wording isn’t helping.

“Sacri-”

“Stop!” Aaron snapped, “Where is Cyrus?” Aaron was standing in front of Frisk. Frisk kept her head down staring at her own hands. “Please.” she said softly, “Tell me where he is… I have to know” her voice was pleading worried. To Aaron, Cyrus was like another little brother, another person she considers as a family. A silence hung over the two for a few moments. “Frisk tell me where he is!” Aaron snapped.

“I DON’T KNOW!” Frisk stood with a mix of anger and sadness expression. Her gaze was leveled with Aaron’s but she could not stand stone faced like the one before her, “I didn’t reset! I don’t know where my brother is! But I will not stay guilt knowing you are suffering the same as I,”

Aaron just stared at Frisk, “Why didn’t you reset?”. Frisk turned away from Aaron and faced the wall instead. “Because Cyrus might die if I do. I don’t know if you remember this, but his soul changes every time I reset...and he’s personality is changing along with it. His soul is complex like yours, Aaron, and I’m afraid this reset will do more harm than good to him. I don’t want to be the reason what’s changing him...”

Aaron gripped her own arm tightly. She felt her anger was building up but she kept herself calm. She counted in her head and sighed softly, “Have you at least been trying to search for him while I’ve been gone?” Frisk glanced to the side, “I’ve tried Aaron, really I have…. But Sans believes I shouldn’t personally seek him out”

“I’ll go look for him then. The skeleton won’t stop me from doing anything,” Aaron argued. Frisk looked at Aaron. She’s going to go find Cyrus? With who? Herself? She can’t...“You shouldn’t! You might get injured out there Aaron! There are things out there you don’t know. This is different from your place. This isn’t your problem, it is mine! Your life doesn’t belong in this timeline. You’re free at home, isn't that what you wanted? To see the real stars with your brother?”

“....He wanted to see it with his best friend also…” Aaron said quietly and narrowed her eyes sighing. “I don’t want to lie to Adrian anymore.... He remembers Cyrus, kinda, and it’s really sad watching him struggle,”

Frisk opened her eyes in surprise, ”Adrian remembers... Cyrus?” Aaron just nodded and rubs her face. Frisk gripped her hands to her chest. “Are you going to tell him...?”. There was silence, all Aaron could respond was cover her face with her hand. ”What am I going to do…” She was already tired. How did this all go this way…? Frisk hugged Aaron tightly, ”We’ll find him… I want to find him so badly as well, Aaron...” Aaron glanced at Frisk before wrapping her arms around her gently and pets her head like she would do to comfort Adrian.

“I promise, I’ll find him for you, Frisk. Even if I have to search this entire planet for him…”

Frisk’s eyes was shaking trying not cry. She hid her face on her shoulder hugging her tighter. She didn’t want Aaron to sacrifice her life to find Cyrus. What if she never came back? It was dangerous out there as Sans mentioned. We don’t know what’s out there. Although, she could always kill her other self again to reset...however, to be honest, she rather not. Killing Blank!Frisk had her sick to her stomach. It was like killing herself, yet she was the one to judge her own wrong actions. She really does want her brother back home safely, so she can have the courage to face him again, but she doesn’t want to let go of Aaron. To her, Aaron was like a mother. Frisk knows about her parents death and she misses her parents very much. Aaron was the only person she felt close to, like she could tell everything. Frisk closed her eyes and in her thought, the only word she could think of while holding onto the light of hope in her soul, wishing everything would be alright, was:  

“please…”  

written by @dragonlover1128 

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TBC: Where is he?

[mirror-hero-mira-blog]

My Story

This will be mildly depressing but its my story and why i am how i am and all ive gone through it twenty short years

So I will be twenty soon and people keep wondering and asking or praising me for surviving trauma. I’ve decided to explain in full and un censored detail my process, what i went through, my thoughts during it, the effects and how it left me. There are mentions of abuse, sexual assault, depression, domestic violence, suicide, and very dark thoughts so be warned. My memory is also unreliable as i am never sure what is real and what is not before the age of thirteen so im doing my best to recall everything in order, ages wont be exact as i try to repress and just out right can recall them.

My trauma started roughly when i was 7-9. I recall laying in bed and hearing my parents violently shout at one another, about what i cant recall, and crying because i was afraid of an unknown danger. I remember a rift being made in my house, me being lashed out at, and my mother rarely being around the house. Now before i go further i was a shy child who had little friends, i have one younger brother who is two years younger than I, most of my days, or what i can recall, was in my room reading and later playing on my ds once i got one while rarely going outside to play aka catching frogs and bugs. i dont recall much from when it started, i was a smart kid so i think i knew something was wrong but wasnt emotionally or mentally ready to deal with it. 

Now, i was a big daddys girl but i also loved my mom dearly because well shes my mom. One of my clearest memories from this when i realized it wasnt right was my mom showing up to the house and me being so excited since i hadnt seen her in so long i let her in, she hugged me and my father instantly yelled at me and scolded me. i think the next thing was me being sent to my room but thats where it ends. i remember feeling so confused because shes my mom why cant she be home? why shouldnt she be allowed inside? why cant i be happy to see her? thats the last clear memory besides us getting kicked out of that house due to rent not getting paid.

I remember my mom trying to keep calm and smile and she told me “we have to keep stuff packed because we will be moving soon and need to be organized”. Looking back im really happy she tried to keep little me happy and from knowing.She may not have been the best mom but she certainly loved me then as well as my brother. When we were kicked out i recall my dad not being as in a rush as my mom, he seemed tired and to say flat out like he couldnt care less. I was packed up with a few of my things, the rest in a storage unit including my entire child hood, and moved to a different state. 

Me, my family and our dog were moved in with my mothers mom who was by far not the best but i couldnt do much as i was maybe 11-13? I remember her blaming my father for things he didnt do, i remember yelling and violent arguing between my father and my moms boyfriend (my mother and father had separated if you couldnt guess), my mom in the middle yelling at them to not do it infront of the kids. Eventually we moved from there after my grandmother had called the police on them for some reason (i recall it just being a warning or something nothing serious). My mom had broken up with her boyfriend and moved with us, i shared a room with her and my brother shared a room with my father, at this point we had our original dog and 3 dog sisters who we loved dearly (we being me, my mom, and brother). i remember starting to feel what i would come to realize was the beginning of my depression as well as my anxiety, that i had since i was little, beginning to get much worse. I was bullied harshly during this time and barely got by in most of my glasses because of what happened in that house.

i dont know how long i lived in that house but it wasnt incredibly long, 2 years maybe? i know it was half of middle school there with a year or so at my grandmothers. The first little while was calm, i hardly remember much from when we moved in so im assuming it was. I recall playing wii with my mom and watching tv siting of the floor eating pizza, followed by me and my brother playing the wii version of sims ( i recall him learning how to beat the rng and us never playing again). My next clearest memory is more yelling and banging. Violence. Now i wasnt a stupid kid and was much more brazen than i am now, i was a child genius who could quickly deduce what was wrong. I would get into the arguments, stand between my mom and dad to keep him from hitting her, yell that i wouldnt move or let him touch her. yell at him so much my throat hurt. One of my most clear memories is my mom yelling at me to call the police and as i dialed she came in and locked the door telling me to just not. i checked if she was okay and recall hugging her and just siting there afraid not fully being able to understand.

At some point my dad had enough of me and my mom and threw us out of the house, throwing our things as we sat on the bed of her truck, even throwing our two of the 3 dog sisters at us while we waited for the police, now what happened after this makes me realize just how manipulated and emotionally abused i was. My dad convinced me to come home, leaving my mom at my grandmothers. he convinced me my mom was evil and manipulated me using the state i was in to take me from my mom. he talked badly about my mom constantly and eventually his girlfriend moved in. his girlfriend was as bad as him and i recall feeling unwanted. i have a scar on my arm that makes me recall how brazen and unafraid i was at times. The scar was breaking up a fight her dog had started, it attacked my dog sister and she told me to stay out of it as my dog probably started it, i got in the middle picked up her dog, it scratching me deeply across my upper arm and shoved it into her chest. i picked up my dog and took her to my room. i was still bullied during this time, faced the manipulation at home, and started becoming suicidal.

Now this next part is something im not proud of but shows just how far i was into this manipulation and how far i came. My father kid napped me. Him and his girlfriend decided they wanted to move back to her two daughters and away from my mom. my brother was apprehensive but i was a mindless puppet so i did as told as thats what i was raised to do. we packed up in a 48 hour period, me not sleeping for that entire period and were getting ready to leave. i had this large white monkey i had since i was little, it towered over me and i loved it, his name was marvin. i mentioned why we werent bringing him and that we had to because he was our family and even got a bit teary eyed over it my dad said “if you want it that bad we can leave you and dakota (my dog sister) and you can sit on your ass until your mom swings her ass around to get you”, that terrified me so i reluctantly agreed and was taken to a completely different state yet again with the question of “why would he leave me”. i recall not enjoying my time there and my father limiting my mom talking to me so much i dont really recall much more that a phone call, i was kept out of school for a while until one day police came and told them my mom was taking us back. i left with barely any of my childhood possessions yet again with my dad treating it as her taking us by force, i said goodbye to my dogs and promised i would see them again, i never did and never will.

the trip back i screamed, argued and fought my mom and not yet step father. my dad manipulated me well i guess. i calmed down when we got back to my now home state and got the last dog sister ginny, my mom asked my grandmother to watch her, and headed to my moms home. i had trouble suddenly adapting to a some what better environment where i wasnt treated like a mindless child. i was so damaged and i dont think they knew to the extent. 

In these years i was verbally abused by my mom, step father, and brother but they were so much better than my dad despite it. i was reaching my peak depression and had attempted to commit suicide by this point but had failed. at some point i recall them “cleaning” my room, as due to losing nearly everything i owned i clung to things, and burning what they deemed trash it made me have a break down because well just look at what had happened previously to things i owned. in that period i was locked out in the cold, verbally and emotionally abused, treated like i was a piece of shit and that i was worthless and i believed that for so long. my brother had hit me a few times and even started encouraging my suicidal mind set, my parents (which will not be my mother and step father) said it was just him being my brother. Due to my previous trauma i was desperate for friends and to be liked and it have social interactions it led me into some very very toxic friendships and relationships. i had someone who stole my phone and said she just wanted to see what my number was, but had texted my mother iw as stay for a study session when i wasnt. i got home and was brutally yelled at for lying and they yelled the entire time while forcing me to give them all my passwords then calling me out for lying when i gave them the wrong email password by mistake. in the following time period they would check everything i owned, i had to privacy or sense of self. even to this day i hate people touching and looking at my stuff, im still so paranoid ill get in trouble for something. during this time is also when i was first sexually assaulted.

Yes that said first as it happened twice. they both abused my prior trauma that made me a selective mute that disassociates when in stressful situations. i wont go in depth but even years later i couldnt be in the same room with the first without being sick to my stomach. the second was into my junior year of highschool. between that time and the first i was emotionally manipulated, attempted suicide again and failed, became even more depressed and suicidal, and developed more toxic friendships that i now realize only hurt me as they playfully bullied me and only one of that group, who never did, remains my friend or well my best friend as she stayed by me despite not knowing any of my past. i was manipulated into entering a long distance fwb relationship that ruined a good friendship but also helped make me more stubborn towards people who tried to do that. the verbal abuse still happened during this time and my brother got to the point of doing it the worse. my junior sexual assault ended with us breaking up mutually but him getting such a hate towards me that he tried to ruin my life by turning any “friend” against me and brutally harassing me until a girl i respect so much stood up for me, shes getting married and im excited for her and happy i met her despite us not talking. half way through my junior year i began to realize how bad the people i was around most of the time were for me, so i stopped hangin out with them and started selectively being around people who engaged me in conversation and who actually included me. i was still struggling through the tail end of my suicidal spell and my awful depression as well as  ptsd, having nightly flashbacks that often left my crying and having break downs where i just hated myself so much and hated that i couldnt be normal and happy and not annoy my friends with this shit, it caused me to never talk about it and it made it so worse going through it all alone with only my fucked mental state.

my senior year i gained some self confidence and started accepting myself. midway through i had a bad relapse and nearly succeed in killing myself but managed to yell at myself to not as i was holding a handful of pills to my mouth, not even an inch from it. that was my last attempt. 

i struggled still, had relapses, fought with my own head without anyone knowing as it told me they didnt care and i was a burden so i should deal with it by myself as no one deserved that. i hated when who i told felt so bad for me and wished it hadnt happened because it happened and i cant change that no one can and i dont like being seen as sorry and weak. 

over the years until now i tried endlessly and hard to build my self back up and gain some sense of self and try to begin my recovery.

i still relapse, i still think about killing myself, i still have massive anxiety and panic attacks. but im alive and i survived. 

I count the days between relapses, it happens left often. Im covered in scars but no one can see the ones i purposefully caused anymore. I hurt and ach and want to be cared for and want to be loved and have people around me who care for me and who value me. Im working on building myself a supportive circle of friends and trying to become as stable as i can be with what i have.

My family says i dont need therapy and refuse to try to help me get it so when i move out its my first priority, i have ever lasting mental scars from my trauma that wont ever go away but im slowly learning to live with it and becoming proud of who i am.

something i forgot to mention is yes i was hit as a child. to this day i freak out and panic and will throw myself to the ground if it appears someone is about to hit me. i cant hand yelling or loud noises, im afraid of people and crowds, i have trust issues, i speech impediment, things i cant do because of the scars of my trauma.

now you may be asking how im alive? why i still keep living? how i got through this alone? honestly i cant answer the last one because i dont even know, but the first two i can roughly explain.

i didnt ever kill my self because right before i would i developed a concept of proving people wrong, that i belonged in this world as i had already survived nearly dying at 5 due to an allergic reaction. then as i got older i made the deal that if i made it to 18 that would be enough, im turning 20 soon. Now a days i have people and things to live for. When i think of killing my self i think of my friends L and M (not real names of course), i think of my dogs, my guinea pigs, my dreams, my goals, all the things i want to do. Ive become a role model to others now so i cant just die on them and give up on them. I cant help people and help others going through what i did, i cant be there for the people i care about to ensure they live and make it too, i cant be there to give them what i didnt have; someone who cared and loves them.

ive felt unloved my entire life and it hurts knowing the people who are supposed to love you apparently dont if they do what they do. it hurts seeing people going through what i went through because i know how much that hurts and how over bearing it can be. My trauma made me not want to make the same choices and hurt others in the way they ones who hurt me did. It made me not want to bring life into this world unless i was sure i wouldnt make the same mistakes. It made me crave to be loved and have people by my side and it gave me a weird but reasonable goal: Live a life i can be truly happy and safe in, a life without fear. 

i still struggle daily but im getting by and im getting there, im trying to become someone who i can be proud of, someone who can and will make a difference even if its saving one person.

i fight every day to live and have been for a while, hell i cried on my 18th birthday because well i didnt think i would last that long or be alive to see it.

Im alive, and i will continue to be to show others facing and feeling what i have felt that you can do it. you can live and thrive and fight for your life and end up better than you are or were and better than those who hurt you. Ill stay alive to act as a pair of open arms to those who are in my place, to give them someone who cares, to teach them they dont have to do it alone or hate themselves for wanting to depend on others. 

Im here because i feel i need to be to break the cycle and prove i deserve to live as do they and as do you.

[marypoppinswasmyfatherbitches]

Oh my goodness, I didnt see the link to your fanfic account! I am dumb. So ignore my previous ask and instead answer this one for the meme. 13, 3, 14, 1 and 2 for Happiness goes on? (I shall leave reviews on your beautiful fanfic soon I promise, they are good.)

(Hiii, sooo…this whole reply is late because I actually typed up ALL OF THIS last night, and then accidentally “x”-ed out of my browser and lost it all, because I am very very stupid. And then was too tired to retype it up before going to sleep. I hope I remember roughly everything, and apologies for that mistake.)

Oh! Haha! Alright then! Thank you! Don’t feel dumb at all for not realizing which AO3 account is mine or for your previous ask(which for others who are curious, said: “1 - 5 for all your fics! Just talk about your favs!”). I was prepared to choose 3 fics (including “Happiness Goes On” since that’s definitely the one I’m most proud of, so I guess that’s closest to a “favorite” right?), and go through the first 5 questions for each, though I won’t lie and say it wouldn’t have taken some time to answer.

BUUUT…since you said to scrap that first ask, I’ll answer these individual ones for “Happiness Goes On.” And your compliment and promise for a future review means SO goddamn much, thank you sincerely.

(WARNING / REMINDER: This is about my fic that deals with the subject of child molestation, and I do reference that a little bit in this reply. Don’t read further if it makes you uncomfortable, which I entirely understand and respect.)

**********

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

HA! Well, American Pie obviously, for a majority of it. While brainstorming / writing / editing the epilogue? A lotta Billy Joel. ;)

The idea to use American Pie bounced into my brain when it came on the radio at the thrift shop where I volunteer, one of the rare times my own music speaker battery died. Usually a disaster, because our store radio is pretty crappy, but the sound quality wasn’t too bad that day, and I rediscovered how much I love that song and ‘Why isn’t this on my ipod again?’. Listening to the lyrics, I realized how much some of them fit the Guardians in general, and this story specifically, which I have Gamora mentally note in the fic. I was sitting and casually chatting with the manager while also thinking, ‘Google what year this came out when you get home, but I’m sure it’s the 70′s. Peter would know it, and it could be the Zune. I think it could work.’ I’m proud that I was able to reference the song so many times without actually naming it by title, but I assume most readers knew what it was, it’s just that famous. (I also couldn’t resist the light-hearted joke, later when things calmed down, of Gamora saying “This…is the longest song…I have ever heard.” and Peter smiling without even looking at her and giving a cheeky “I know.”)

In terms of using Billy Joel for the epilogue, I’m just a Billy Joel fanatic. The use of him for this story began just from the We Didn’t Start the Fire joke toward Rocket at the bar (I thought it was clever, Peter!), and later on I saw how The Longest Time fit romantically for Starmora, and some of the lyrics matched the healing themes of the overall story, and I thought ‘Maybe they’ve been playing BIlly Joel since that night; maybe that can be the joke.’ Why shouldn’t his Greatest Hits albums (at least) be on the Zune? I struggled a lot over what song should be the final one Gamora comments on before they switch artists to appease the group. I never specify which romantic Billy Joel song Peter and Gamora slow danced to during their “date night” in that six-week summary, but I like to imagine it was Just the Way You Are. I considered Keeping the Faith or Vienna for the final one, but I thought they deserved something more fun and naughty to analyze this time, so Only the Good Die Young it is. :D

In conclusion, I listened to The Longest Time, and the entire An Innocent Man studio album, a lot (as if I needed an excuse).3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

The portion in italics is my favorite line, but I’m including the entire sentence for context purposes: “She would need to grow used to him viewing Yondu as a caring parent who was extraordinarily protective of his boy, and would have hunted down this pervert to whistle a glowing arrow through her skull.”14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

Ohh geez, wow, that one is tough. I don’t know if it’s accurate to say this story was intended to educate, but just to explore the idea with fictional characters. I have no expertise on the subject, and would never claim such, or talk down to those who do. I didn’t intend to create a PSA. I suppose all of the “lessons” for Peter (if they can be called that) I hope all readers already know and agree on (basically a collection of “it wasn’t your fault” and “this doesn’t define you” and “trauma isn’t a competition, someone else suffering worse doesn’t invalidate your experience” and “you should feel comfortable talking about anything without judgement or shame” etc.).

Slightly lesser scale messages, there’s also reminders about the importance of communication, trusting each other, letting the other person speak in an argument, not letting one’s jealousy/instincts/bad mood interfere with fairness, not running away from a fight or staying angry, respecting boundaries and privacy, all that healthy relationship jazz that these two are still figuring out. 1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

This post is already very long, and I could probably talk for hours about the decision-making process for many scenes (of my GotG fics, this took the longest to write and publish, over 2 months), so I’ll try to condense this to a few bullet points that probably don’t fit the “inspired” criteria.

- It was originally going to be in two parts, 4 scenes each, when I thought the epilogue would be much shorter. But as the lil’ wrap-up got longer (because we needed a fluffy conclusion, dammit!), I decided to make it a separate “chapter.”

- I think the concept probably started as one of those strange, angsty “what if?” scenarios I make up in my head at night that I still can’t believe I created into a full-fledged work. I liked the idea of Peter and Gamora having this conversation and her comforting him, but I knew if I was really going to throw it out there for other fans, it had be more balanced with happier moments, too. I just know I was always going to make the offender a woman - both because it would lead to the misunderstanding that she was a past consensual hook-up when Peter was an adult to spark some irritation and jealousy in Gamora, and because it’s realistically different from other sexual assault stories, since women can be pedophiles and child predators too, and they’re just as horrible. :(

- The fanfic idea of “Gamora accidentally starts a fire while trying to cook, and Peter falsely accuses and lashes out at Rocket” was in my head before, but there were two key differences. 1) It was the entire plot, not a light-hearted subplot in the shadows of something bigger, 2) Meredith’s letter was either fully or partially burnt as a result of the fire. By the end Gamora was going to confess it was her fault, that she was trying to surprise Peter by cooking spaghetti, and he would apologize both to her and to Rocket for losing his temper and getting so angry. I hated that idea later and found it too sad (he’s already lost the Walkman and second cassette tape, why would I want him to lose even more from his mother?), and in “Spark My Memory” (the Christmas fic I wrote for “12 Days of Starmora”) the Guardians put his mother’s letter in the photo album gift for Peter, completely safe and unharmed. I like to keep all my fanfics canon-compliant and non-contradictory from each other, so the letter is fine, no burning it.

Yet “Gamora started a fire cooking” still seemed fun to me, as I like the idea that she’s so badass and skilled and intelligent, but failed at something so domestic and simple. Kinda cute. I was so excited to insert it into this, because I think it worked on multiple levels. It’s a driving force for the plot (the reason the team go to the restaurant and they stumble upon that particular waitress), the reason Gamora was already in a bad mood during her fight with Peter, it could be used as a metaphor/comparison for Peter’s anxiety and Gamora’s guilt, it was something for the Guardians to put at a higher priority to tease and mock Gamora for while oblivious to the main story, something for Peter to just break down into giggles over once they changed the subject (because he earned a good laugh after that heartbreaking and vulnerable childhood trauma story), an excuse to give Rocket so many funny lines, an overall silly and sitcommy-style subplot to fall back on, and a sweet “victory!” for Gamora to have (sort of?) conquered by the epilogue. ^_^2: What scene did you first put down?

This is easy. I’ve written all but one (8 out of 9) of my fanfics in order, except for “Just Like Everybody Else.” So ya, I wrote the opening scene first, Baby Groot’s magic trick lesson and Peter’s oh-so-cruel “can only be seen once” deception. I needed to ease readers (and myself) into the angst and heavy shit to follow, and that cute idea had also been in the back of my mind for a while. ^_^

**********

PHEW, OKAY, ALL RE-TYPED! Thank you again SO MUCH for the lovely ask and wonderful questions, your actual interest and curiosity thrilled me! You see I wasn’t kidding about the incessant babbling. :P

Thank you also for the kudos you left on AO3, and take care!~

[flowercuco]

fellowship Ep 2

we didnt do a lot because doing a lot of scenes is hard but i think it was fine enough given that we delayed it for Reasons LMAO

Anyway our fellowship arrives at the Vesthal Biohazard Laboratory, a fucked up and abandoned facility! 

We started off discussing like, to what capacity the fellowship was official and known and shit, and then we immediately threw that away.

After leaving Aeoly and their very illegal airship behind, the party goes into the front desk of the facility to scope things out and figure out how to, in the context of their characters, get the stuff that they know they can get outside of the context of their characters, which is the fact that Arturia’s weakness is the emperor’s remains from the end of the Follow game!

They meet  Jeb “Jeab” Jeabsun, official Front Deskman, who initially is suspect of the group because Vapor hands him a piece of paper that says “Classified” instead of letting the Heir, Theo, who has been shown hospitality by the human governments, take things from here. This leads to Armistice asking to see his manager, as Jeb, an official Front Deskman, has never ever been in charge of anything in his entire life.

Carter “Blossom” Summersong, the head of the facility, is more than happy to guide the party, as they are all very large or imposing or fancy looking. While guiding the group around the facility, she lets slip her worries and concerns about two Dwarves who she suspects managed to come into the facility after getting kicked out. They apparently wished to “wrestle chimeras”, the creatures who were made and escaped from the facility, many of them left unaccounted for, and to generally splunk inside the extremely dangerous facility as dwarves are wont to do.

Armistice calls upon the knowledge and wisdom of her previous self to get a better sense of the facility, learning that the ground is Basically Cursed, forever changed by the events that transpired in it, and also that she really should go underground. When pressed on the topic of underground, Carter gets nervous, and has to be persuaded by Aisa into telling the group whats what.

Apparently, the reactor core that powered the facility (among other things) sunk into the ground 100 years ago, and it, along with many other things, proved somewhat unrecoverable. Carter feels that the underground bits are far too dangerous, even for them, taking Theo’s comment on being unafraid of death as an opportunity to comment on her distaste for dwarves and other stunt loving thrill seekers.

Choosing to keep Carters blood pressure at least somewhat in check, the group goes to see some parts of the Biolizard!Emperor’s corpse, going into an open air labish bit with tubes and stuff, finding that the emperor’s remains have fused with the facility in some sort of resin goopish material. Having never seen anything like it before, Vapor cuts off a slice, which earns her a trip into a hole below, into the underground ruinous part of the facility.

Theo speaks with the earth under the party to make a path downward, which the party uses to follow Vapor before Theo ungracefully falls on top of Vapor, causing her to drop a bottle of her moonshine. When she goes into the darkness to reach it, after being goaded by Theo into waiting for the rest of the party, she finds another, thin, wiry hand grabbing for it, which she slaps away, bringing her face to face with a beady eye in the darkness.

The group susses out that these are the chimeras who escaped, and Aisa attempts to speak with it, to which it answers that the party is surrounded, and that they know the place better than they do. Armistice meanwhile, lights herself on fire at the sign of the other chimeras, revealing that this underground area has many, smaller corridors in addition to the larger and extremely tall ones. The group also learns that the chimeras wish to avoid the light for some reason or another.

Having retrieved her moonshine, Vapor is satisfied with retreating, and finding another, more stable way underground, but any such plans are interrupted by the cursing of one who could only be a dwarf, given the intense phrasing used. Aisa absolutely decides to go to save the dwarf, followed by Vapor, then Theo, then Armistice, bringing up the rear and still on fire. They find the dwarf, who introduces herself as Fa Fyliesity, and who says that she and her travelling companion Do, did find some chimeras, but tried to wrestle them in the dark, and failed miserably. Fa got separated from her body, bit the chimera that took her, and then was left as a head until the party found her.

She’s going to lead them to her body, which is tied up, and hopefully her friend? And who knows, what else, will be there...

[survivorgalaxysedge]

Episode 6 | Your Social Game Is On 0! - MJ

WHOOPS I KINDA DID THAT, SORRY KEEGAN, YOU DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG I JUST NEED EVERYONE ON THIS TEAM TO BE BFFS WITH ME

also just realized that at final 13 i know well over half of the people in the game..... love that for me!! -close with ali, jonathan, and zoe over here both separately & together -mj obvs -cindi and jay are known quantities -jules is great too -so only ones i don’t know.... silver, zach, asya, nathan & jessie i know i can work with at least half of the ones i know, probably more - only real question mark is cindi cuz she was a little sus originally, and jay i hope is still good but i think he and keegan were close so might have to work on explaining that one. but overall, i feel pretty well set for merge whenever it gets here, and hopefully the next couple votes can get rid of some of those ones i don’t know. onward and upward! we’ll see!!!

I don't really do much text confessionals but I just ranted in my host chat so I'm sending it here. ~~This Round~~ this round is gonna be fun, so much fun, and I won't have to do like any gameplay because I think regardless the trian tribe is going to tribal and I wanna see how that plays out, and then if my tribe goes to tribal I'm gonna dip out using my safety without power and let silver kill an og circi since he's gonna pull out that extra vote however, if asya or jules have an advantage / if mj flips that's fine with me too. I'm still debating playing the solar eclipse. I want to cause chaos, and for what? For no reason. *Moments Later* I spun a wheel to determine what I will do this round, and it landed on not playing the solar eclipse and noping out. that's what I'm doing. now you may ask for the strategic value of letting a circi die? Well, if a Circi goes (or two circis go if it's an andro/circi tribal), I'm suddenly 1/2 of my OG tribe left. People may want to pick me up and use me as a number since I will have no allegiance to anyone. This puts me in a lowkey kind of decent position if I lie and say I was gonna be voted out if I didn't safety w/o power. Also playing a safety without power and claiming the magnet would statistically mean I am less likely to have other advantages since other people had searches stockpiled for the swap I'll probably test the waters for a bit after immunity results and then play the magnet to make it look like it wasn't planned and I just got a bad feeling. In other words: I'm turning the crackhead dial-up, it's time for fun! I swear to god if we don't merge after this round I will scream. ~~Planning for the Future~~ oh my god it could be a 10 person merge. because the merge episode is usually episode 8. we're on 6 but that wouldn't make sense to prevent a 5 > 1 person tribe from occurring and 5 votes in a swap seems like a bit much. I feel like at this point I know I probably won't win this game but I'm gonna give them hell while I'm here playing well is boring People on this cast that will probably try to kill me: Cindi, Jay, Nathan, Maybe Jesse? I haven't really spoken much to MJ or Silver, chances are my closest ally is going home this round, Zoe Jonathan and Ari may pick me up if I'm from a minority tribe but dump me very quickly. From my POV the cards are not in my favor, all I have are my advantages so the path of chaos is more beneficial plus I'm sure it's spread I'm pretty good at immunities in merge so they're gonna try to take me out early on like round 1 or 2, So if I want any chance I need to play the following way Since I cannot depend on social connections as much as I normally would 1. Make sure my existing social connections are voted out so that I am not in the group where I don't have the best social connections but I have enough that it is worrisome 2. Play my advantages early in merge if I don't win immunity, cementing myself as a big target 3. Convince people that nobody will take me deep into the game because I have placed myself in the position of a big target 4. Try to get the people that would be 100% against me voted out, while also watching Andro tribe majority. Basically making Andro and Trian fight each other 5. Win immunities near the end and somehow make it deep??? That's my best case scenario at this point in my opinion.

So like we won immunity . Wow see what happens when we actually try? Isn’t that nice . Idc who goes really I can make new bonds or whatever with people if silver goes but in the ideal scenario he will stay. But tbh I have no power over what happens tonight so I don’t care. Hoping merge happens next 

ok so i have a little cute vote chat for me jules and mj. mj is spilling EVERYTHING abt his OG tribe including how they blindsided my wife pippa... rude. also abt his idol searches. he's a smart cookie and one to watch for but i also like him and need friends so<3

THIS SUCKS SO MUCHHHHHH ALI I AM SO SORRY

Having to remind myself that is entirely okay to be vengeful and even be blinded by revenge in these games. I've become way too soft for these things in the past couple of years. As of right now, tonight's tribal council should be 2-1-1, since Zach is skipping -- 2 votes for Silver (Asya, Jules), 1 vote Jules (Silver), and 1 vote Asya (me). If Silver's 50/50 coin lands on SAFE, the it’ll tie between Aysa and Jules and I think I’ll get auto-eliminated if it’s rocks instead of a 1v1 tiebreaker, and I’m OK with that I think! If it lands on NOT SAFE then Silver is leaving, period! And Silver deserves to leave, and I shouldn't feel nervous about taking this shot, no matter if it backfires or not. It makes me feel icky to think that Nathan, Jessie, and Silver were in cahoots from the very start and I didn't care enough to control my own game because I've become too accustomed to jellyfishing my way through ORGs to avoid being pinpointed as a leader or strategist. I'm putting my foot down tonight. I'm taking this shot and if it works, then it's merely the beginning of the end for half of the remaining cast as far as I'm concerned. If it backfires, then oh well, at least I tried something here. NO REGRETS! Anyway, just had the first alliance call with Aysa and Jules and it was great! Good vibes! We just chit-chatted and discussed strategy and previous dynamics. It will be a shame if we don’t get to push forward together after tonight. I’m also telling Silver right now not to play the 50/50 befcause if it doesn’t land on safe then the vote will be 3-2 if Aysa is lying; and if Aysa is telling the truth then he’s wasting a power that he could have later on. It kinda makes no sense for him to use the 50/50 considering the information he’s being told. I’m fine with pitching this to him because he said he was 100% gonna use it anyway, so me telling him not to will either leave things the same or result in him not using it at all. There’s no losing there. The only way to lose is if it lands on safe. The savage in me is saying, no MJ don’t let yourself get auto-eliminated if things go south, CUT JULES! And I realize that that’s exactly how I should be thinking given the first two lines of this confessional!!! But I wanna be a risk taker. I’m fine with this blowing up because the potential reward is greater than me being auto-eliminated. + Jack was rocked out last season so it would be cute to match that if it comes down to it! I hope it doesn’t, but it’s fine either way. I feel like this game owes me. Silver's 50/50 will not land on safe.

ALSO on this alliance call, I was informed that the adventure reset?!?!?!?! AND I HAVEN'T DONE THEM IN A WEEK???? LMFAOOOOO anyway.

AHHHH why did I volunteer to go first in the challenge ugh I remembered the wrong shit lol. But this tribal I dont think I have to use my 50/50 since asya doesn't wanna go to rock so she'll vote Jules with us. So yeah I think I'll be ok. Asya told me Jules is voting MJ. I'm just hoping this isnt gonna be a big blindside towards me but yeah wish me luck 

okay, here's the plan. silver has the glowing orb 50/50 coin thing. i expect him to play it. silver's voting me. im voting silver and so is asya. mj is king of the key here. if mj votes silver and the orb makes him safe, then im gone. if mj votes asya (hang on, ive just had a realization and just had to sit in silence for a while whilst i process it.) okay. if mj votes asya and the coin makes silver safe, it'll be 2-1-1, with a tie between me and asya. which im just now realizing could send it to rocks where mj would be the one leaving............. boy howdy, sure wish i knew how to count. okay, yeah. we'll just hope that the coin lands on NOT SAFE -or- he doesnt play it at all. mj and asya are telling him that they're voting me out, so maybe he'll feel comfy enough not to use it. i dont WANT asya to be voted out, but it's better than me or mj being the vote. if mj gets rocked out by default because i didnt realize how to count....... oops!!! but silver has a bunch of advantages, so him getting voted out would flush those out. asya has an immunity shard and id like to think that she'd will it to me if she gets voted out, but eye dee kay!

AHHH sorry this is coming so late but I've had a busy busy few days, and luckily I've avoided tribal during this time lol So before I was feeling a bit shaky on this tribe, I felt like everyone was more connected to each other than to me. But as it turns out, that's completely untrue and I feel very at the center of this tribe. Nathan and I have had multiple long talks recently where we've decided that we want to stick together deep into this game, and he's given me some info about how he and Silver gave up their immunity shards to Jessie, so she has an idol now. Cindi and I have a connection from our original tribe too and I've been keeping up on that relationship too. I gave her a clue I found during an expedition but nothing really came of it since it's, as far as I can tell, impossible to decipher. If we did end up going to tribal, I would have made a push to take out Jessie TBH, even though she has the idol. I feel like even if Nathan wasn't for it, they'd go for Cindi and not me. But luckily that doesn't matter because we're immune and likely heading for a merge in the next 30 minutes. And if not a merge, than another swap bc I think y'all hosts anticipated that one tribe could have lost all of the last 3 immunities and I don't think you want a 2 person tribe at the f11. But yeah I feel really good about my place in the game, I want Nathan to be my shield for the time being bc he's so vocal and strategic that he will always be a target ahead of me.

I have put so much work in to stay

I BETTER STAY

All this fighting for nothing smh <3 it is not looking good