#but i've been wanting to post for SO LONG and now it's a huge relief to do it

[f1rodrigo]

the mclaren boy mystery | part two

l. norris / o. piastri

summary: in which your boyfriend is a formula one driver for team mclaren and when you finally decide it's time to start hinting to the world, the internet is confused on exactly which driver is your boyfriend. pairing: social media au || lando norris / oscar piastri x reader fc: jazmyn makenna a/n: sorry this took a little longer than i expected! it was so fun to make though. i didn't want to say who she's actually with because i feel like it's fun for the readers to have to figure that out too! so please share any guesses you have lol i'm interested to see what people think the outcome will be. hope you enjoy and thank you sm for reading<3

part one | sweet relief series | valentine's day drabble

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liked by yourbrother, maxverstappen1, and 101,225 others

yourusername happy birthday to my favorite brother, i love you and am so grateful to know i have someone in my life who looks after me like you do<3 here's my fav pics of us of course they're all racing related lol, our first love

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yourbrother "my favorite brother"... As far as I know I am your only brother 😐

⤷ yourusername 🥱🥱🥱🥱 technicalities

yourbrother Thank you least favorite sister, miss those days. Have to get back out on the karting track, been too long since I've beaten you

⤷ yourusername been too long since you've been beaten, you mean?

⤷ yourbrother Yeah, yeah we'll let the track times speak for themselves

⤷ user1 ok but we have to admit the brother sister banter is kind of adorable

⤷ user2 no bc she seems so sweet 😭

user3 nah because what is max verstappen doing in this girls likes now????

⤷ user4 and the plot thickens 😯

user5 she saw everyone calling her a fake f1 fan and said take a look at this

user6 yn hater club how you guys feeling right about now

⤷ user7 🤡🤡🤡🤡

user8 honestly kind of hope she's dating one of them

⤷ user9 yall switch up so fast please 😭😭

user10 seriously..... you HAD to only post f1 related photos lmfao so totally pandering to the landoscar fans

user11 f1 school of wags next graduate

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liked by mclaren, yourusername, and 1,891,218 others

landonorris DOUBLE PODIUM!!!!!!!! couldn't have asked for a better race, congrats @/oscarpiastri and a huge thanks as always to @/mclaren 🧡

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user1 I SAY THATS MY BABY AND IM SO PROUD 😭

user2 mclaren double podium... oh i used to pray for times like these

user3 oscar piastri you are insane omfg

user4 MY POOKIES LOOK AT THEM !!!!!!!!! 🫂

user5 save me landoscar SAVE ME

yourusername jumping up and down screaming and crying losing my mind

⤷ landonorris you should probably get that checked out....

⤷ user6 THATS IT, ITS YN AND LANDO IM CALLING IT

⤷ user7 nah nah nah this is so giving gf of the bestie banter

⤷ user8 agreed hopping on the oscaryn train 💪🏻

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yourusername added to their story

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oscarpiastri added to their story

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liked by kellypiquet, oscarpiastri, and 789,012 others

yourusername qatar gp smiles <3 practice timeeee

📸 @/kellypiquet

view all 1,281 comments

kellypiquet so beautiful

⤷ yourusername all you

landonorris eye spy a mclaren car down there?

⤷ yourusername ? i just see a tractor

⤷ landonorris not funny. 😐

⤷ yourusername i certainly laughed

⤷ oscarpiastri same actually

⤷ user1 i dont know how much longer i can take this

⤷ user2 GUYSSSS i am telling you its so oscaryn

⤷ user3 WHAT literally look at the Proof its so landoyn 🥱

⤷ user4 i am giggling we're literally in a shipwar

user5 she's so pretty i'm sorry guys i love her 😵‍💫

⤷ user6 well yes!

user7 patiently waiting for one of the mcl boys to main feed post her then we know for sure ‼️

⤷ user8 at this rate it still won't clear anything up

lilymhe miss u beautiful

⤷ yourusername omg i miss u more ms lily

⤷ user9 she has The wag stamp of approval WE MOVE!

user10 theres four e's at the end of 'time'....... landos number is 4 i've got it guys 😃😃

⤷ user11 seek medical attention STAT

⤷ user12 bro thinks this is a taylor swift album release

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liked by mclaren, landonorris, and 789,012 others

yourusername oscar piastri sprint race winner AND mclaren double podium, better start calling me the good luck charm

view all 1,281 comments

user1 nah bc you're onto something.....

user2 she can't be serious 😐

⤷ user3 well no shit it's just an instagram caption

user4 i cannot be the only one who finds the caption extremely weird

⤷ user5 nah i'm with you i've never liked her 🙄

⤷ user6 its just so odd like forcing yourself into the mclaren narrative completely taking away from the boys achievements writing it off as your own doing...

⤷ user7 omfg yall are so dramatic just say you're jealous they're not dating you lmfao

⤷ user8 no fr because it is not that serious it's clearly a joke like she loves them cmon now

mclaren BRB getting your paddock passes for the duration of the season

⤷ yourusername i'm giggling, i love you guys 😙

⤷ user9 see mclaren is fine with it so yall should be too

⤷ user10 now i'm going to need all the haters to sit DOWN and shut the fuck UP

oscarpiastri wait can you send me that picture

⤷ yourusername i literally did already but okay

⤷ oscarpiastri ok could do with less attitude

⤷ yourusername you have not seen real attitude piastri

⤷ oscarpiastri 😧

⤷ user11 i think this just converted me to team oscar

⤷ user12 nah this is literally landoyn confirmation

landonorris 🍀

⤷ user13 i am picking up what he's putting down

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part one | sweet relief series | valentine's day drabble

taglist:

@landoscar-f1 , @urfavnoirette , @imsiriuslyreal

[nouearth]

servicing justice: superman [1]

pairing ; kal-el / clark kent / superman x m!reader. fandom: ; dc, superman. word count ; 2144. series ; servicing justice. genre ; smut. rating ; m. warnings ; bigdick!superman. blowjob. gloryhole. handjob. mouth-fucking. oral (reader giving). sexworker!reader. note ; yeah, okay. maybe i've been watching too much of a certain video genre, ahem. but i hope you guys enjoy my first smut! it's been a WHILE since i've written one, so i know it's rusty, HAHA. looks-wise, i mostly had maws's superman in mind (because the art style is so good and so himbo), but feel free to imagine it with any superman!

it isn’t the most comfortable position to be in. you’ve been kneeling on the floor for quite some time now, waiting for your assigned client. your palms begin to sweat to a minimal but uncomfortable degree. did i fuck up already? you ask yourself as your mind clouds with questions, doubts, and even judgement regarding this new job.

“jesus, what did i get myself into…” you recall the long process it took for you to end up here. the intensive (and ridiculously long) process of reading and signing multiple forms and documents almost had you backing out of this opportunity. though looking back at it, it was understandable since it’s quite unheard of to be… a sex worker for superheroes.

for an incredible pay, your privacy will essentially be stripped away starting from today. all phone messages, calls, and social media activities will be monitored during your venture as a sex worker, and that post-graduate life was not going to pay itself. for the most part, so far everything seemed… great? being driven to work by a chauffeur, having your own personal room and health coverage provided, and most importantly… eating free lunch was not bad at all.

or maybe you’re just naïve.

all you had to do was kneel and suck a few superhumans off. as the newbie, you were told that you’ll be starting on gloryhole duty due to privacy reasons; at least until you built enough camaraderie. though, you didn’t even mind since there would certainly be less strain on your body.

you couldn’t help but snicker at the mere thought of an entire league of superheroes holding a meeting regarding this subject matter. especially since almost everyone in the world, including you, holds these superheroes in such high regard.

“meeting is adjourned until 9 am tomorrow! until then, please help yourself to some delicious food trucks from outer spac-“ your humorous imitation of a noble superhero is silenced when you hear the door opening. within your private booth, all that blocks you from meeting your approaching client is another door with a hole cut through.

your curiosity is piqued when you catch a sight of the man’s physique through the hole. plaid shirt and jeans aside, and assuming he had to underdress, he’s huge. maybe because you’re kneeling right now, or maybe it’s the fact that you’ve never been near a superhero before, but you couldn’t help but be in awe at the size of the man. your eyes complete a full body scan by the time he approaches the door and before you could say something, he does.

“sorry i was late-“ a gentle voice echoes behind the door. contrary to his soft voice, the man’s large hands work aggressively at his belt, unlooping the leather with impatience yet eagerness as he anticipates the mouth that’s been waiting for his arrival. “there was this whole thing with this cat in this tree and then this school bus got hijacked- not my best day, unfortunately.”

“i’m sorry to hear that. sounds like a stressful day, yeah?” your voice is compassionate. you felt bad for the unnamed superhero and a part of you wanted to continue the conversation further, but your job isn’t to listen to their feelings. it’s to pleasure.

“yeah…” a huge sigh of relief expels from the man’s dry throat when he pulls his pants down. frustration stains another one of your client’s sigh, clearly troubled by the restrictive fabric guarding his erection. you watch with parted lips as he couldn’t help but give himself a needy stroke through his tight briefs, fondling his balls then beelining his palm to the very plump tip of his cock. your own cock hardens at this scene, and you find yourself doing the very same. mimicking his impatient hand to tend to the sensitive pressure below, you tiptoe the fine line between frustration and pleasure as your tightening pants and briefs define what it means to be an absolute nuisance. “very stressful.”

it doesn’t take much time before you’re faceful of cock and somehow, you manage to salivate more than you did a minute ago. the man’s throbbing erection is brimmed with thick pre-cum, stress practically leaving his body with every drip. it’s a heavenly sight that’s enough to make you stick your tongue out just in time to catch the substance into your mouth, not wanting to waste a single drop. the salty taste always catches you off-guard yet at the same time, it puts you under a spell. a tantalizing spell that commands you to drag your warm tongue over and back the underside of his thick shaft, completely avoiding the plump glans to have his cock leak even more… stress.

the taste of his musk drives your palm further into your erection, palming at whatever you could as you preoccupy yourself with teasing the man. you almost felt bad for him. contrary to his build, his whimpers are… so small, so weak. you notice his hands grip over the top of the barrier, and it turns you on upon realizing how this supposed hero could become so fragile at the simple taunt of your tongue.

“please…” the superhero whimpers out, needlessly fucking the air in hopes of granting his cock some type of friction. you’re amazed, and a little proud, by how much pre-cum he’s been leaking by now, and it all goes right onto your tongue. the wet muscle follows the natural curve of his cock to meet up with the wet and plump head. his hips buckle into the barrier and feeling it shake, you keep him steady by wrapping your hand around his shaft. you’re addicted at this point. addicted to the salty taste of his pre-cum as your tongue licks and explores into the slit of his cock, while at the same time, your hand works at his large cock in slow, but steady strokes.

“oh christ-“ he breathes out, repeating the same two words under his shaky breath as you continue to pleasure him with your tongue and hand. after a few licks, you pull away to give your tongue a break. in doing so, your grip tightens around his shaft to pace your strokes quicker. when you find a moment where your wrist needs a break, you let your client catch his breath. his cock throbbing more and more with every passing second when your tongue and hand aren’t exploring him, and you bask in the sight of it. you believe you deserve a medal at this point. not for doing a great job (though, it doesn’t seem too far-fetched), but for having control. you haven’t even sucked him off yet, but you’re content on remaining just like this for a while longer. though, that wouldn’t be fair for the superhero.

before he could whimper out another plea, your warm mouth finally wraps around the head of his cock and your ears perk at the sound of his low moan almost instantly. your hand returns to its rightful position around the lower base of his penis as you cycle your tongue over the glans, satisfying your need to taste his musk once more. seconds later, your hand lets go when you push your head farther, taking in an inch more of the hero’s cock. your knees dig into the floor as you push your head more and more, stretching your mouth with his cock until you feel yourself gagging.

“fuck.” you sniffle out when you pull back. perhaps you were challenging yourself too hard. you think to yourself as you catch your breath, using the remaining moment to sloppily jerk him off with your saliva. part of you wanted to challenge yourself to deepthroat him, impress your client on the first day. but you already know you wouldn’t be able to take it… at least, for now.

“you could hurt someone with this, y’know?” for some reason, you thought you needed to crack a joke as if there was an awkward silence that needed to be filled. maybe you just wanted to hear him talk again. his voice is warm and inviting, somewhat fitting for a superhero or even a television host as the moment you hear his voice again, you felt safe.

“i have before- oh god.” you lube up his cock with your spit as you continue to jerk him off, refraining yourself from fucking his slit with your tongue again to concentrate on his words. “which is why i don’t do this much- sex and stuff… it’s all troublesome, really.”

“yeah?” and just when you talked yourself out of challenging yourself, you feel the competitive spark ignite inside of you again. “well, i guess you just have to find the right one. could be anyone, even people you just met.” you try to play it nonchalantly, hoping that double-handing his wet cock would distract him.

he was beyond speechless at this point, moans drawn out by means of your sloppy strokes. you swear you can hear his heartbeat behind the barrier when you lean your head closer to suck him off again. you moan along with him, drawing out every breath of yours as you bob your head up and down, taking more of his cock every time you come down. your hand twists and strokes the remaining few inches that isn’t violated by your tongue and mouth, following your mouth like a reel as your intent to make him cum is fervent more than ever.

it hurts. your mouth hurts by how large your client is and tears brim in your eyes as you hold yourself back from gagging. but you don’t stop yourself because you’ll know it’ll be worth it. your endeavor to please him to the fullest has you drowning out his groans into white noise and you can barely register the fact that you’ve been on paused for a while now. you find yourself in a closer position than before, where your mouth is open, lips fully pressed around the carved hole as the superhero fucks into your mouth, fucks into your gags like you’re his personal flesh light. you didn’t care how dirty you looked, how you had saliva and spittle dripping out from the corners of your mouth and onto the floor. who would see? and you didn’t care that you were too preoccupied to touch your dick right now, because you know you’ll be thinking about this very moment for the rest of your life. and right now, you didn’t know if you wanted to be covered in his cum or to have your mouth be filled with it.

remaining in this position, you glance your teary eyes up at his grip over the barrier again. the strength in his grasp forms small cracks in the material of the barrier and that was the sign you knew you fulfilled your sense of purpose.

“christ, i’m going to come-“ your eyes shut again and you breathe through your noise, bracing for impact. he pushes his cock down your throat and hits that sore spot one last time before unloading his cum into your mouth with a stifled groan. warm, hot seed quickly fills you up and you pull your head back an inch to fully enclose your lips around his cock, ensuring none escape your lips.

in a heartbeat, you swallowed it all. his warm cum coats the back of your throat like medicine and you moan around his cock at the taste, intoxicated. you made sure to lick every inch of his cock clean, calmly slurping any saliva and cum that threatens to leave your mouth as you pull back up with a soft pop, swallowing the remaining remnants of his stress away.

“t-thank you. i needed that…” he pulls his softening cock out, careful in avoiding the hole as he was still sensitive. “did you need a tissue or anything? i think i have one somewhere…” you can hear him rummage through what you can only assume would be his bag and you find it charming, a quiet laugh leaving your swollen lips as you lean back onto your elbows to take a breather and stretch your legs out.

“no, no. i’m okay. i, uh, don’t think i wasted a drop.” you proudly brag, only for him to respond with a shy chuckle. you watch him tidy himself through the hole from a leaned back view, occasionally tilting your head in various angles to see if you could catch a glimpse on who the mysterious superhero is, but the barrier remains an obstruction to your view.

“well then, i… uh… thank you for your service.” he covers up the silence with another laugh and you join in, re-adjusting his pants and belt before turning his back towards you and heading out the booth. “i’ll try not to be late next time.”

© nouearth. please do not repost, plagiarize, or translate my works. and if you like this story, please reblog and leave a like!

[poeticpascal]

Trouble (Pedro Pascal x Rockstar!Reader)

Masterlist | Request here!

Summary: Pedro had never heard of (Y/N) (L/N) before his latest appearance on The Graham Norton Show. By the end, his assistant wishes it had stayed that way, and he wonders how it took him so long to find her.

Word count: 4.8k

Warnings: mentions of drug abuse (now recovered), allusions to but no specific mention of an overdose.

A/n: I am very nervous to post this! I've never written a fic about an actor like this before, so depending on how this one does lol, you may be able to expect more from me like this. Please let me know what you think, and don't forget my requests are open!

“And he used red this time! We were getting so worried that he wasn’t interested in all 3 primary colours-”

Pedro sighs, glancing towards the door to see if his assistant was coming back yet. No sign.

He turns back to the old lady who’s been talking now for what - 4 hours? 5? It felt like it. She was sweet, and he didn’t want to be rude, but god if he had to spend one more minute hearing about her grandson’s latest finger painting-

“So sorry I took so long! We’ll have to get going Pedro - your next interview is in 10.”

His assistant - Alicia - burst back into the room and Pedro was sure he could feel his eyes well in relief. He takes the lady’s hand, shaking it and giving her a warm smile. “Mrs Alderman, I’d love to hear all about Harvey, but I’ve gotta go. It was lovely to meet you!”

She smiles in understanding and clasps her own hand on top of his. “It was lovely to meet you too, Peter!”

Alicia snorts behind him, and Pedro gives up with a final, defeated smile before heading out of the cafe and back towards his car. He’d only wanted to nip in for a second, to grab coffee and a pastry, but then Alicia got a phone call, and Mrs Alderman started talking to him in the queue, and by the time they left his goddamn coffee had gone cold.

They clamber inside, Alicia pushing a few files onto the backseat as Pedro stares. “I almost died, you know,” he quips, half muffled as he takes a bite of his croissant. He hums at the taste, light and buttery; maybe it had been worth it.

Alicia rolls her eyes, used to his antics by now. “I was on the phone to the BBC. They’ve confirmed who you’ll be on The Graham Norton Show with.”

“They have? Who?” 

He generally felt nervous going on the big chat shows, especially with how in demand he'd been recently. But Graham had been so warm, especially for his first time on the show, that when they asked him to come back he'd accepted without hesitation.

And really, he was quite looking forward to it.

Alicia doesn't seem quite as excited though. She flips open her notepad, littered with delicate but hasty scribbles of various projects and dates, and begins to read out the names.

“Robert Downey Jr, he’s promoting Oppenheimer.”

“I'm gonna meet Iron Man?” Now he was nervous.

“Kate McKinnon. She's in the Barbie movie, I think.”

“Amazing.” He'd always wanted to meet her.

“And…” she sighs. “(Y/N) (L/N).”

“Who?” No seriously, who?

Alicia snaps her head up to look at him. Surely he didn’t not know who she was? “(Y/N) (L/N)? The singer?”

Pedro just shakes his head, unbothered. “Nah, never heard of her. She any good?”

“No, Pedro, that’s the point.” He cocks an eyebrow, gesturing for her to continue as she looks back and forth between him and her notes. “She’s a publicist’s worst nightmare. She’s the lead singer of this band, The Heartbreakers, they’re huge. Like, Taylor Swift-huge. But if Taylor Swift did heavy metal.”

“And why don't we like her?” he asks.

“Because she’s trouble. She’s had big drug problems, she argues with everyone, she goes on stage and pulls all these crazy stunts. She’s always in the news, Pedro.”

He can’t help but think she sounds like fun.

“Can’t be that bad, right? If she’s that famous?”

Alicia shakes her head, “she's famous, but that doesn’t mean she’s not dangerous. People love you right now, Pedro. I’m just concerned that if you’re seen to be… friendly with her, people will raise their eyebrows. It won’t look good.

He thinks for a second. It really wasn’t in his nature, this whole PR thing. He liked meeting new people, and listening to them, and connecting. Maybe not Mrs Alderman - and now he's thinking about that nightmare again - but, for the most part, yes; Pedro liked people.

And not giving someone a chance because of his public image didn’t feel right.

Alicia sees the cogs turning in his brain, so she flips the pad closed, giving him her full attention now. “I know it’s strange, but I mean it. It’s not a hole you want to get dragged into. Her fandom is huge, the media's obsessed with her, parents hate that their kids listen to her and kids love to piss off their parents by listening to her. I’m going to speak to them about getting you sat on the opposite end of the couch... I just want to make sure you’re not linked with her. Trust me.”

With that, he nods his head. He does trust her - at the end of the day, he didn’t even know who this (Y/N) person was. So what if he didn’t speak to her much on the show?

—------

“WHAT?!”

He had to pull the phone away as Bella’s near-screech pierced his ears. They yell again, something along the lines of “are you serious? Pedro, are you serious?!”

“Yes I’m serious, what’s the big-”

“Oh my god I can’t believe it! You’re going to meet (Y/N) (L/N)! Will you mention her to me? I saw her tweet once that she watched the show and oh my god I need her to follow me on Instagram-”

“Wait, Bella, wait,” Pedro rubs his thumb and forefinger between his brows, not exactly thrilled that what was supposed to be a call to calm his nerves the night before the show was now filled with so much rowdiness. “I don’t even know who she is! You listen to her?”

They gasp, and he just knew they were pulling a dramatic, jaw-dropped face on the other end of the line. “Come on man, I know you’re not the hippest guy around but you have to know who she is!”

He giggles, throwing his hands in the air. “‘Fraid not, Bella. I’ve no clue. I do know i’m not supposed to talk to her though.”

Now there was a real gasp, not the purposefully dramatic kind. “What? Pedro, you can’t not talk to her. You have to. She’s the coolest person, like, ever.”

Pedro scoffs, “what about me?”

“When you get sleeve tattoos and banned from performing at the VMAs, you might get considered dude.”

“She was banned from the VMAs?”

You know that feeling, when someone tells you not to do something, and you don’t want to do anything else?

Yeah, that.

“I’ll send you the link, it was so cool. She said she’ll be allowed back next year anyway 'cos they need her to stay relevant.” He giggles again at that, and yeah, he couldn’t deny his intrigue.

“So that’s why you like her? She's all rebellious and stuff?” Pedro chews on his thumb as he asks, the anxiety of tomorrow not quite forgotten, but listening intently as Bella rants on.

“Nah, I mean she is controversial, but I just think she’s amazing. She acts all tough and rock 'n' roll, but she's really great deep down. I went to see her band once a couple of years ago, and this girl fainted so she stopped the whole show to make sure she got water and was okay. She’s just misunderstood, man.”

“Is it true she’s a drug addict?” He's not sure why he felt the need to ask. Why he cared. Maybe it was just to build a better picture, or maybe because Bella loves her so much, and he cares about their interests. Maybe, he had a sort of… concern, for her. For this enigma.

They knew each other well, and Bella could sense Pedro’s interest. More than anything, they were just excited to tell him about their favourite singer. “She used to be, it was crazy. She’d go on stage high and everything, people really hated her then. But she’s been sober now for, like, a year? She talks about it a lot. This is what I mean dude - everyone remembers all those shitty things but I think she’s so strong.”

He hums in agreement, thinking back to Alicia’s warning a few days earlier.

“Do you think it’d be bad? If I talked to her?”

It was Bella taking a moment’s pause, now. “I mean… Alicia’s not wrong. She’s not exactly got the cleanest image a celebrity’s ever had. I guess it’s up to you to decide what matters most.”

It was quite profound really, and Pedro was reminded of just how mature they were for their age.

“The most important thing is that you give her my instagram handle.”

And just like that, the moment’s gone. He laughs, shaking his head and muttering “you’re a dick”, before falling into conversation about other things. He fully intended to look up (Y/N) (L/N) before he fell asleep, but the hours went by quick and soon enough he'd drifted off, phone in hand and tomorrow's nerves dispelled for now.

—------

Maybe this whole Graham Norton thing was a bad idea.

Pedro was tired.

It had been a long flight to London, a long drive from the airport to his hotel. And a long, long wait at the studio before they even thought about getting filming started.

He’d been in hair and makeup for a good while, and according to Alicia, it would still be another two hour’s wait until they got him sat on the big red couch.

Yeah, he was tired.

He steps out, the muddied skies of London painting a grey-cast shadow on his face, the frosty winds hitting his skin. It was nice. Different. Much harsher than the LA sun he was used to.

He looks around; it’s just him there in the car park, leant against the windowsill and letting his eyes drift shut. It’s peaceful, and if it weren’t for the rushing of the motorway that ran just beside him, he’d almost feel alone.

“Mind if I join?”

He jolts awake, startled out of his near-tranquility, facing the woman who’d crept outside through the same doors he did. She was casually dressed, far more so than the BBC staff he’d seen today; she must be a temp, or an intern or something. A heavy black hoodie swallows her frame, and he wished he had a similar one as his ice-cold breath fell into the air. His eyes draw upwards, and he thinks to himself just how pretty she is. (Y/H/C) hair is bundled in her hood, loose strands blowing messily in the wind. She has no makeup on, so he can see greyish bags hung under her eyes, her lips stained pink, a soft blush blooming over her cheeks from the frosty air. There’s a roughness to her, something harsh, and it makes her so utterly alluring.

“Yeah- yes, of course. Of course.” He offers a smile, and she smiles back, and his heart races.

He shuffles to the left, unsure of why he’s making room for her on the windowsill; they’re outside, he’s a stranger. There’s a bench not far from the door, perfectly fit for her to sit on. And yet she follows his movements, and leans against the porcelain outline of the large window, searching for something in her pockets.

“D'you smoke?” She produces a pack of cigarettes, and digs out a lighter from her back jean pocket. Pedro watches as she slips one of them between her lips, covering the end with delicate hands as she lights it, revelling in the taste and taking a long drag. He notices then her long black nails, perfectly painted and delicately holding the cigarette in place, elegant and weapon-like at the same time.

There’s a nonchalance to everything she does, and it’s enticing. She doesn’t look at him when she asks, or when she expels the smoke from her lungs, keeping her eyes set forward and undoubtedly feeling the weight of Pedro’s on her face.

He forgets he’s supposed to answer.

“Er, no, thank you. I’m being good.” He offers her a smile, forced as he tries to remember his own whereabouts, too entranced by the beauty and the charisma that fell from this woman in droves.

The two are silent for a little while, he can’t be too sure how long. He smells the smoke from beside him, sees the wisps drawl from her tongue and into the cool air, and for someone who considered himself rather charming, he couldn’t for the life of him think of something to say.

He doesn’t have to.

“What're you doing out here, then?”

And this time she is looking at him. They’re sat close, and his eyes meet hers with ease, warm and welcoming. He feels a little more comfortable now, like she’s a friend; her warmness makes it hard to feel anything other than at peace.

He smiles, bashful. “I’m working.”

“Working?”

He looks down at his shoes, rubbing them against one another. It was always a strange conversation to have, explaining who he was to people who didn’t know. It felt like showing off a little; more than anything, he didn’t want to make a big deal of it.

“Yeah, I, uh… on the show.”

She giggles, and it sounds so sweet that his tummy heats up. “I’m only kidding. I know who you are. The Last Of Us, right?”

There’s a sincerity to her tone, nothing like this thick, false charm people try to use when they know he’s famous. It didn’t feel like she wanted anything from him in that moment. He nods, looking back up at her and his breath hitches when they immediately lock eyes again. Her lips are turned into a sly smile, cheeky almost, and he can’t help but grin back.

“I liked that show,” she says before taking another long drag.

“Thank you. That means a lot to me. Makes this fuckin’ huge press tour worth it.”

She laughs. Not the quiet giggle she gave him before, but a proper laugh, one that makes her eyes brighter and her nose scrunch up. Pedro laughs too, caught up in her, and when their chuckles die down they relax into a comfortable silence for a few moments before he turns to her again and asks, “how about you? Are you on the production team?”

She ponders her answer. It’s the first time - in the 10 minutes since they’d met - that she’d seemed to falter. Like she was unsure. “Yeah, you could say that.”

He didn’t push it. Maybe his fame was a problem. Did she feel overwhelmed? Or judged? He didn’t know - but a twang of sadness settled in his gut, and he wondered what to say next.

She recovers quickly, though. Stands back up a little straighter, puts the butt of her cigarette out against the wall, and faces him once again. “You seem nervous."

Pedro chuckles, nervously. “Am I that obvious?”

“Only when you scuff your shoes within an inch of their life and readjust your glasses every 10 seconds.”

“And here I thought I hid it well.” Cocking an eyebrow, the woman looks at him knowingly and tilts her head, encouraging him to go on.

“I always get nervous before these things... it feels worse this time, though. I just know Robert Downey Jr is gonna think I’m so weird, and then there’s this other lady I gotta avoid-”

“Who?”

She was abrupt, quickly apologising for interrupting him. He didn’t mind. “She’s like this... musician? I think. I’m sure you’ll know who she is. I’m awful at keeping up with whatever the kids are doing now. (Y/N)- (Y/N) something.”

There was a pause, awkwardly long. “My assistant says I gotta stay away from her” her continues, feeling a need to fill the gap. “Just doesn’t feel right to me, you know? To judge someone like that before you’ve even met them?”

He watches as she nods her head, deep in thought. She meets his eyes and nods again, faster, showing to him now that she agrees. She understands. He’s not quite sure how she understands, but he believes her; she didn’t strike him as the dishonest sort.

Pedro’s phone vibrates in his pocket, startling them both and they share another soft laugh. He grabs it, seeing Alicia's text flash on the screen - You’ve got a meeting with the producers to go over filming. 10 minutes. Ah shit.

“Everything okay?” There’s concern in her voice, and Pedro wonders if she knows he has to go. If she’s just as disappointed as he is.

“Yeah, yeah. I just - I gotta go.”

She’s definitely disappointed. He knows because her bright eyes fall the same way his did.

He’d never quite felt like this; like a magnet was drawing him to someone and like it would hurt in his soul to let her go. It occurred to him then, he didn’t even know her name, and he’d be damned if he was going to crawl back into the world of PR and publicity stunts and rehearsed answers without finding it out.

“It was nice to meet you. I don’t know if you- you want to get a coffee? Or something? After filming?”

The same harsh edge she had when they met, the one that had slipped and softened as they talked, seemed to have crept back as a once-sweet smile became that sly, cautious smirk. He couldn’t quite understand what she was thinking, what the cogs that so clearly turned in her mind were churning up, but he knew he didn’t care as long as he got to see her again.

“I’d like that.” Pedro sighs in relief, smiling again and sticking out an ice-bitten hand. “I’m Pedro.”

She giggles, offering her own hand and he stalled at the feeling of her fingers wrapped around his own. “I know.” She retorts, and he laughs, and just when she opens her mouth to tell him her own name-

“Pedro! We gotta go!”

Alicia shoves the door open, not even looking up from her phone which was presumably inundated with countless emails and phone calls, and Pedro sighs before looking desperately into the still nameless women’s eyes. She just smiles, dropping his hand and digging hers into her pockets. “Go on. I'll catch you later.”

He nods, swallowing and offering a small, regretful smile before pushing himself off the wall and following Alicia back inside. She huffs at him, speeding back off down the corridor and muttering something along the lines of “these goddamn producers”. He looks back a final time, to where the woman still sits in the windowsill. She waves, and he grins, unable to hide the childlike excitement her little gesture gave him before waving back and letting the door shut behind him.

—------

“We’ve got a fantastic show for you tonight, ladies and gentlemen. Let’s get some guests on!”

Pedro hears the roar of the audience, only a single wall between them and him as he waits to hear his name. He looks around the room; Robert and Kate are stood with him, chatting away at something he’d stopped listening to a little while ago. He felt better now he’d met them - they were lovely, so down to earth and genuinely happy to chat to him and hear what he had to say. It made him less nervous, and you might even say he was looking forward to this now.

There was no sign of her though. The singer - (Y/N). Alicia had scoffed, “typical,” just 10 minutes earlier, when there had been no sign. And she still wasn’t here.

“We’ve got the newly Emmy-nominated actor, best known for his amazing roles in The Mandalorian and HBO’s The Last Of us,” the audience’s roars got louder, “Mr. Pedro Pascal!”

It’s time.

He pulls his suit jacket a little tighter around himself, laying his palm flat against the bottom of his chest. With the other hand, he waves, smiling brightly at the crowd who cheered him on. Graham greets him, pulling him in for a hug and welcoming him back, before pointing him towards the end of the couch. Pedro gives the audience a final wave, mouthing ‘thank you’s and trying to express his gratitude for the love that filled the room.

Kate and Robert came next, shaking his hand and ‘introducing’ themselves again, despite the fact he’d already met them an hour earlier. A producer runs up to Graham, whispering something in his ear before darting off in the other direction. Graham rolls his eyes playfully, turning towards the audience and announcing, “we’ve got a late one!” The audience laugh, and Graham just organises his cue cards as producers usedthe extra time to prepare the camera angles and get the lighting right.

Graham looks at the couch, smiling with a wink. “Don’t worry - she’ll be here in a minute.”

“Is this (Y/N) again?” Robert asks, grinning.

“You’ve met her?” Pedro jumps in, falling into small talk among the four of them.

“A couple of times now yeah,” Robert replies. “I think she’s great, really funny. She's just… not the most put together person.”

They laugh, and Kate recounts her own story of having to wait on some celebrity or another, entertaining the crowd.

Graham parts from the conversation after around 10 minutes, holding a finger to his ear piece and nodding at whatever he was being told from the other end of the line. He stands up, smiling wide and turning to the audience, “she’s here! We have our rockstar ready.”

Cheers immediately erupt, and Graham turns to the guests to check they’re all ready to carry on with the show. Pedro nods, anticipation building as he spots Alicia from the corner of his eye, keeping watch.

“And don’t worry everyone, we’ll cut that little intermission out!” The room laughs. “Now I’m very glad introduce our last, but certainly not least, guest of the night. She’s the lead singer of Grammy-nominated band The Heartbreakers, she’s one of the most famous women in the world right now, and she’s only a tad terrifying. Ladies and gentleman, please welcome - (Y/N) (L/N)!

The audience becomes the loudest they’ve been all night, standing and yelling as the final guest takes the stage, and -

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

It’s her. The woman from outside, the one he’d been thinking about all afternoon. The one whose name he never learned. 

She looks different; she looks like the woman he’d been warned about. She looks dangerous. Where a black hoodie had hung from her shoulders, a black lace dress now clung to her figure and he could see the tattoos that littered her sleeveless arms. The bags under her eyes were gone, as was the pink on her cheeks; her skin was painted, perfected, sculpted with darker shades and glowing radiantly. Her lips were black and glossy, so neatly done that she almost looked like a doll. Thick eyeliner carried a smoky shadow across her eyelid and beyond, drowning the same (Y/E/C) eyes he’d memorised in black.

She was ethereal.

And she was his one, single instruction for the night. Don’t get involved in her.

She waves at the audience, smirking in the same sly way she’d done to him earlier; he saw more clearly that they were the same now. She has the same charm, same charisma, same allure and yet she seems all the more potent now as she strides across the stage in 6 inch heels and pulls Graham into a tight hug, like old friends. She whispers something in his ear, and he throws his head back with a laugh before she saunters to the couch, where the three guests stand up to greet her. She and Kate introduce one another with a kiss on the cheek and a warm smile, before she gives Robert another tight hug and they share a word that Pedro can hear now. “I have to stay here an extra 10 minutes ‘cos of you” Robert quips, causing (Y/N) to pull back and look at him with a cocked brow.

“You know I’m worth it, Downey.”

With that, she turns to face Pedro, and his breath hitches the same way it did when they’d first met. Her grin falters slightly, and there it is again; that honesty. She almost seemed like she was putting on a show, with her slow saunter and cheeky remarks, but there was nothing false about the way she wrapped her arms around him and looked into his eyes.

“My name’s (Y/N).”

He just laughs. He can’t help it. She makes him feel giddy. “I know.”

The audience’s applause dies down, and (Y/N) takes her spot as the star guest, and the first on the couch closest the Graham. He talks between them and the crowd, commenting on what a great line up they had today, despite certain delays, which has the audience howling again. (Y/N) laughs with them, shaking her head and pretending to cover her face with her hand, before looking up at Graham and saying, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, okay? I got held up!”

“Well you have to tell us what happened,” Graham retorts, and they banter as (Y/N) recounts getting stuck in the backstage toilets. She has everyone wrapped around her finger, listening to everything she says and laughing at her jokes, and Pedro can’t find himself believing the warnings Alicia had given him. 

He remembers Bella, and how much praise they had for her, and he gets it. He sees what they see.

“Well you’re here now, that’s all that matters. We actually haven’t seen you for a while!” 

(Y/N) nods, her demeanour becoming slightly more serious. “No, it’s been a strange few months.” 

Graham continues, “the last time you were on the show was 2021. And obviously as most of us here know, you've had quite a difficult time since then, right? Tell me how you’ve been.”

She takes a sharp breath, and Pedro could’ve sworn she glanced up at him before she answers. “Well, yeah. I’m sure it’s no surprise to anyone that I was struggling with addiction for… most of my career, really.”

“‘No surprise’?” - Graham interjects - “you used to get high on stage!” It seemed judgemental, but it quickly became clear that he and (Y/N) had that sort of friendship, the kind where you can talk to one another so blatantly. She purses her lips at him, and he giggles, which makes her break the feigned offence and giggle too. 

“Look, man, that’s rock and roll.” The room laughs again. “No but seriously, yeah, it just got worse and worse until… well, you know what happened. it was hard. But I’ve gotten clean, I haven’t touched that shit in what, 8 months?” The crowd launch into cheers and applause, echoed by Graham and the other guests. Pedro could see how much it meant to her, how she tried to keep a stoic appearance despite the tears beginning to glisten in her eyes. She mouths a thank you, and he longs to skip right past Robert and Kate to be by her side, to hold her. She recovers quickly, something Pedro notes she seems to do a lot; cover her moments of weakness as soon as they start. Instead she sits up straighter and jokes, “I think everyone’s worried I’m gonna be boring now, without the drugs.”

Graham laughs, “I mean, you are known for being one of the more controversial artists out there.”

“If anything, I think being high slowed me down. I’m just gonna get worse, now.”

“Oh god, don’t say that,” Graham jokes, “you’re going on tour again soon, I’m not sure we can handle it.”

The audience cheer even louder at the mention of the tour, making (Y/N)’s smile grow wider. “Yep, new album, new tour. It’s all happening.”

Graham turns to Pedro suddenly, as if remembering he had three other guests to rope into the conversation. “Do you listen to this sort of music, Pedro? The Heartbreakers?”

And, shit. Pedro can feel Alicia’s eyes burning into him from off-stage, and he recalls her warnings about this very situation.

Don’t make friends with her

Don’t give the media something to talk about

Don’t ruin your reputation

And yet, her voice got quieter and quieter in his head, as the sound of (Y/N)’s laugh and the pierce of her eyes became all he could think about. The decision was pretty easy to make, really.

“I actually hadn’t heard of them, until today.” Graham chuckles at his reply. “But I think I’ll have to start listening.”

The crowd cheer, and the pair lock eyes for what could’ve only been a few seconds, but felt like so much longer. She tries to fight the way the corners of her mouth pull upwards, white teeth poking through painted black lips, but when she sees him smiling back at her she lets them go and drowns in the butterflies she’s so unused to feeling.

God, he was in so much trouble.

[dizzyjelly]

Stress Relief(18+)

Word Count: 2.1k

Summary: You're busy studying for college, but your gf Ellie insists you come spend some time with her. She noticed you're growing frustrated with your studies, so she provides you with some stress relief.

A/n: alr you guys this won my poll, I will be posting those other stories in order of which got the most to least votes !!

Cw: smoking 🍃, r!first time smoking, shotgunning, needy reader, smut, oral r!receiving, fingerings e!receiving, boob play, boob sucking

You stood at Ellies door, kicking it with your foot instead of knocking because your hands were full. She'd been begging you to come hang out at her dorm but you had to study. So she told you to just bring your books and that's what you did. She insisted it'd been too long since she last saw you and and she just needed to spend some quality time with her girl.

When she got all sweet and sappy like that, you just couldn't refuse. She was at the door almost immediately with a huge smile. First she'd grab your books for you and bring them inside, setting them on her bed. Then she turned around and pulled you into a hug. Her arms would wrap around your back tightly and your own came around her shoulders.

"Hi." You giggle, resting your head on her shoulder.

"Hey." She kisses you on the cheek before pulling away and walking over to her bedside table.

You noticed she was rolling a joint and you chuckled, sitting on her bed and opening your books. Ellie smoked around you often and you didn't mind. But you never tried it yourself, you didn't really want to. She'd try and convince you, but wouldn't push too hard.

Ellie joined you quickly, resting so her back was against the headboard as she took a hit. She watches you as you flip through your books and jot down occasional notes, and she notices you seem to get stuck on a certain page for a while. Eventually, you let out a frustrated groan and shut the book aggressively, dropping your head into your hands with a sigh. Ellie chuckles at this and gives you a sympathetic look.

"Hey, c'mere baby." She motions for you to come sit with her.

You don't say anything, just make your way between her legs and rest your back against her chest. She wraps one arm around you as the other one is still used to hold her joint. She blows her smoke into your face, which you scrunch your nose at as you use your hand to swat it away. She chuckle, placing light kisses on your neck.

"You feeling stressed?" Her breath is hot against your skin as her lips are still at your neck as she asks the question.

You nod, leaning your head back onto her shoulder to give her better access. She waits for you to say something else as she continues kissing at your neck, occasionally your jaw too.

"Yeah.." You let out a low whine, "i just don't understand this one chapter and i-its really frustrating.." You stutter as her teeth grazed your neck every so slightly.

"Maybe you should try a little stress relief? What d'you think hm.." Ellie gestures her joint towards you.

You considered it, but you were still really nervous. You bit down on your bottom lip before answering.

"I don't know Els, I've never even smoked before.." You were hesitant.

"What if I told you I know a little trick, it'll make it easier since it's your first time." She spoke softly, her chin rested on your shoulder now and her words whispered directly into your ear.

"Mm I guess.." You hum, nodding as Ellie turns you around so you're facing her.

Your sat on your knees between her legs, her arm rests lazily at your lower back. She tell you to open your mouth and you do so, watching her with an innocent expression as she takes another hit. Instead of blowing it out in your face, like you'd expected, she leans forward and presses her lips to yours.

She blows the smoke directly into your mouth and then kisses you lightly before pulling away and using her fingers to close your lips. She bites her lip as she watches you hold it in for as long as she makes you. Finally she removes her fingers from your lips and you open your mouth, the smoke goes out into the air between your faces.

Ellie chuckles lowly at you as you let out a tiny cough. With a smirk, she brings her finger to boop your nose.

"You're... cute.." She whispers, but you were so close that you heard her anyways.

"Thanks.." You whisper back with a giggle.

Ellie looks at you as she gestures for you to actually take the joint, eyebrows raised. With a sigh you take it between your thumb and index finger then bring it to you lips. She gazes at you as you breathe it in then cough it out, another laugh falling past her lips. She's surprised when you take two more hits rather than handing it back to her. On your third hit you don't cough at all and she smiles as she takes the join from you.

"Wow baby.. I'm impressed." Her voice is low, and you smile and blush a little at her comment.

Feeling flustered, you don't say anything. Instead you adjust your seating position so your straddling her lap, you thighs resting at her hips. Ellie smirks at this as she pulls you close using her arm wrapped around your back. Your arms rest lazily at her shoulders, your hands holding one another behind her head.

"What, no thank you? Has someone forgotten her manners..?" She whispers into your ear before kissing and nibbling ar your earlobe a bit.

"N-no, I just-" you decide not to explain yourself and instead just give her what she wants "thank you Ellie.." your voice is quiet, and she can tell you're feeling needy too.

"'S what I thought.. good girl." Her breath is hot against your ear.

Ellie knew that name, praise, whatever, drove you insane. You let out a deep, slow exhale at the name. She chuckles, feeling you squirm uncomfortably in her lap. A moment later, you lean back and hold her face in your hands before leaning in to kiss her.

Your lips slot against her own perfectly and it's not long before she's prodding her tongue at your bottom lip. Excitedly, you open your mouth and let her slip her tongue inside. You can't help but moan into the kiss as she explores every crevice of your mouth, as well as swirls her tongue around your own.

Ellie puts the joint out since its already nearly done. Then she proceeds to move and lie down on her back, her hands roaming to your ass. You pull back from the kiss to moan as she gropes you, your body weight resting on top of her. She smiles at you, biting her lip as she gives your ass a little spank. You put your hands at either side of her head, staring into her eyes.

"Ellie I... I need you.." You whine.

"Fuckkk baby... you need me?" She asks, her voice is low and rough.

"Mhmm... so so bad.." You were full on whimpering now, but Ellie loved every second of it.

Ellie didn't say another word, her hands held your upper thighs and her thumbs rubbed lazy circles onto the bare skin. You'd worn a skirt today, which she loved. Within seconds she had you on your back, her hands running up and down your sides as she made her way between your legs.

After the first or second kiss she'd place to your inner thigh, Ellie pulled at the hem of your shirt. Immediately you understood and took it off. She smiled, admiring your tits for a while before she finally leaned forward and placed an open-mouthed kiss at the top of each of them. Then she removed your bra, it was pretty which made her let out a small laugh as she discarded it onto the floor.

Once your tits were fully exposed, Ellie instantly latched onto one while her hand groped at the other. Her tongue flicked over one nipple and she'd nibble at it lightly every couple seconds. And her hand held the other one, her fingers pinching your hardened nipple. Not too hard, nor too soft, but just right. Ellie always knew how to do it just right.

After she was satisfied with herself, having switched her lips and hand between your tits for a good while, she slowly started to kiss down your body. First, between your boobs, then down to your belly. And finally, she way eye level with your cunt. It really was a sight to see, her lust filled eyed staring into your own as you could feel her hot breath between your lips.

When she finally did press her tongue to your folds, it was pure bliss. First she'd slowly lick up from you hole all the way to your clit. And when she got there, she wrapped her lips around it and flicked her tongue over it quickly. One of your hands tangled in her hair, gripping and pulling it in all the right places. Your other hand gripped the sheets.

"Oh my God ellie..." You moaned and whined, unintentionally bucking your hips against her face.

She smirked against your wet pussy as she felt you trying to push yourself against her more. You threw your head back into her pillows with a deep sigh, moaning and whining as Ellie continued to go down on you. One of her hands held and caressed your right thigh, the other one rested lazily by her side.

A few minutes later and she was bringing her free hand between your legs. As she continued to suck on your swollen clit, she pressed her middle and ring fingertips to your aching entrance. When she finally buried them inside you, she groaned at the wall your gummy walls clenched down instantly.

The feeling was almost too much. Being so full while Ellie also stimulated your clit, you knew you wouldn't last long. Before you knew it, both your hands were tangled in her hair. You gripped and pulled at it roughly as loud moans spewed from your mouth relentlessly.

"E-El-lie.. 'm gonna cuum.." You whined, your eyes squeezed shut with blinding pleasure.

"Come on. Give it to me. Be a good girl and cum for me." Her voice was all you needed to reach your high, and her lips returned to your puffy clit as soon as she finished talking.

You couldn't help yourself. As you gushed all over your face, you bucked your hips up into her aggressively. Once you came down from your high your legs trembled slightly. You laid there, your chest rising and falling rapidly. Ellie chuckled as she moved to lay beside you, your head resting on her shoulder as she did.

"Damn babe.. gonna get a noise complaint. Again." She laughed.

You let out a small whine at her teasing, pressing your face into the side of her neck without a word. She wrapped an arm around your shoulders and rubbed your arm softly. Your own arm laid across her stomach, holding her waist gently.

"Stop.." You mumbled against her, she felt your hot breath against her neck.

"Sorry, I'm kidding, im kidding baby.." She kissed your forehead with a smile.

"Uh, what about you? You didn't get to.. finish." You were offering to get her off, indirectly.

Indirectly because even after she made you see stars and left your legs shaking, you were still shy. Your cheeks still flushed red as you offered. Ellie chuckled softly.

"Go ahead baby." She nodded down towards herself.

You bit your lip as you moved to kiss her cheek softly. Then your kisses grew sloppily and more aggresive as you moved them to her jaw and neck. She let out quiet, soft grunts as you did this. Her breath hitched as she felt you trail your hand down her chest, to her belly, then all the way down to her cunt.

You smiled against her neck when you slipped your hand in her boxers and felt how wet she was. You'd known she got turned on by eating you out, but damn. You watched with a smile as her breath hitched when you rubbed small, slow, circles on her clit. You'd quicken your pace just to watch her stutter incoherently, then slow down all again.

You'd continue this until she came, which caused her to close her eyes and bite her lip while groaning softly. You loved to watch her face as she came. She was so beautiful. After you both got cleaned up, you rested in her bed spooning.

"I love you baby.." She whispers, kissing your cheek softly.

"I love you." You whispered back, smiling at her kisses and affection.

[wyldblunt]

Hi, it is 6 AM here and I have to sleep but I'm writing to you to let you know that I'm very concerned about what I've been reading in the past day.

I heard of the gwg/Logan incident on the day of it happening, but that's not really what I'm worried about. What concerns me is what seems like a consistent & long term systematic marginalization of POC in GW2 fan spaces. To be honest I'm not that surprised, I've had my suspicions since 2020.

I'm not active on GW2 tumblr or any social media at all, other than posting the Tyria Pride announcements once a year, so I don't have much impact outside of the Tyria Pride discord, but I still want to do something. I have some ideas, and am also always open to suggestions.

I would love to chat at some point (it doesn't have to be now, and I totally get it if you're not interested). The Tyria Pride discord isn't huge but it isn't small either, and maybe I have some influence that I can use for good.

Lelling

Tyria Pride Lead

P.S.: I know this can be a source of exhaustion so please do not worry about tone policing yourself or rewording your reply for ages to be "just right", if you do reply to me. (I just spent an hour doing that so I get it, it is now 7 AM). I'm on your side. I'll meet you where you're at.

hey — i hope you don't mind that i'm posting this publicly, but i want to because waking up to this message was a huge relief to me. and as i've tried to explain in other conversations about this, i KNOW there are LOTS of people who have been really uncomfortable through this entire convo but have not felt willing or able to speak up publicly (bc of open threats of ostracization for "being mean" AND observed behavior towards those of us who have said anything) and i hope that reading this will be a relief to them too.

thank you not only for reaching out but also for GETTING what our actual concerns are, bc one of my biggest frustrations through all of this has been people repeatedly twisting the issue so they can dismiss it as squabbling about fiction and then they don't actually have to address the broader patterns we're talking about here; thank you for the assurance that i won't be tone policed, because that's been repeatedly used against us as well ("okay i guess you guys are making some good points but you're being so ANGRY"); and thank you for acknowledging how tiring this is, because i've been made to feel like if i don't keep showing up and being vocal about this, leaving behind mostly the white allies who have been sticking up for us and using their privilege to make corrections and take some of the brunt of the ridicule and backlash, the whole thing will be dismissed as a non-issue anyway. and frankly i don't fucking want to anymore! i'm tired lol!

but i also wanted to springboard off this really kind and reassuring message from you to say it isn't the only one i've received, and that as angry and exhausted as i am, i want to highlight and acknowledge that i have NOT been alone in this. people have been checking in on me, listening to what i and others have to say about it and boosting our statements, changing their minds if they jumped to conclusions earlier, and offering private support and conversation among those of us who still don't feel comfortable braving the environment out here on tumblr — obviously the bad experiences i've had through this are sticking in my head and are really demoralizing, but honestly in terms of quantity and quality i have had MORE experiences of people supporting me and making sure i'm okay. this fandom has massive problems but it also has more of a solid, positive core than i was willing to hope for in the beginning.

i spoke up initially because it was horrible how isolated i felt when this all kicked off; the wider problem is absolutely not fixed, but i can confidently say i don't feel alone or abandoned anymore, and that gives me a ton of hope for figuring this out.

[avatar-anna]

Grief Fic, Part 2

this is a continuation of the fic i posted a few weeks ago where reader helps harry with his grief. you can read the first part here!

tw: themes/mentions of abuse/domestic violence.

as always, i try to be as sensitive as possible, and i never want to offend anyone or make them uncomfortable. there's nothing in this fic that's overly explicit, but there are mentions and allusions to dv.

Harry looked down at his phone and wondered if he was crazy for thinking it was strange that Y/n hadn't so much as emailed him in weeks.

Perhaps he was crazy. Perhaps he was putting too much thought into a situation that didn't actually exist. Perhaps he was reading a little too much into the fact that Y/n's new boyfriend was a raging asshole who was slowly but surely isolating her from all her friends and family.

Perhaps he wasn't crazy.

It wasn't like it was unusual for Y/n not to talk to Harry consistently. Both of them were plenty busy. He was a full time dad and simultaneously juggled a pretty successful music career—if he did say so himself—and she was the head nurse in the Labor and Delivery wing of a huge hospital. They went days without talking. It happened.

But this silence felt different.

It started with Y/n declining invitations. Sometimes Harry would invite her to a show if he was performing in town, or out for drinks when he needed a break from helping Harper with schoolwork and dance classes and Girl Scout troop meetings. Harry had plenty of friends he could go to and hang out with, but Y/n understood him in a way no one else did. She was Harper's godmother, had been his late wife's best friend. There were just some things that Harry felt comfortable talking to and confiding in with Y/n that he didn't with anyone else.

So when she started declining invitations to go out and stopped dropping by the house, Harry felt her absence. When she stopped coming over to see Harper, he'd became annoyed. And when she arrived late to their monthly family dinner looking like she hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in weeks, he became worried.

"I've been picking up extra shifts at the hospital," she'd said, trying to wave off her fatigue. But Harry knew better. He'd known Y/n long enough to tell the difference between exhaustion from work and...whatever she was now.

And now she wasn't speaking to him at all. Harry called, texted, left messages at the hospital, and she didn't respond to a anything. As days went by, Harry couldn't shake the sinking feeling in his stomach that something was seriously wrong with his friend.

His last effort was going to see her in person. Harry had managed to find out from one of Y/n's coworkers that she was off today, so he drove to her house, only when he knocked on the door, his friend wasn't the one who answered.

"What do you want?"

Harry had had the pleasure of meeting Y/n's boyfriend once, and for him, once was enough. He wasn't overtly rude—though now Harry would say otherwise—he just didn't really acknowledge his or Harper's presence the whole afternoon they were together. And while Harry realized that not everyone was a fan of kids, he couldn't help but think Y/n's boyfriend's icy demeanor toward his daughter was very telling.

Doing his best to swallow his negative thoughts and feelings, Harry mustered a smile. "I'm here to see Y/n. Is she here?"

"No."

"Okay...Do you know when she'll be back?" Harry asked, getting the feeling that extracting information from the man in front of him was probably going to be similar to pulling teeth.

"That's none of your concern."

Y/n's boyfriend tried to close the door in Harry's face, but Harry was having none of that. Putting his hand on the door, he said, "You know what? I think I'll just wait inside for her. It's pretty urgent."

"Back the fuck up—"

"Excuse me? You back the fuck—"

"Harry? What are you doing here?"

For a moment, relief washed over Harry. Y/n was alive, which Harry seriously started to doubt for a second there. Then, as his eyes did a quick scan of Y/n, some of that dread started to creep back in.

"Are you okay? What happened to you?"

She had fading bruises on one wrist, and harsh red marks on the other. Hand prints, Harry realized as he narrowed his eyes. He looked over at Y/n's boyfriend furiously. "What the fuck did you do to her?"

"None of your fucking business, popstar. Now get the fuck off my property."

Civility had flown out the window. Harry wasn't about to let this prick get in his face or treat Y/n like that. He didn't care who saw or if he was about to come to blows with this guy. All Harry knew was that the bastard had hurt his best friend, and Harry couldn't let him get away with that. "Get out of my face, of I swear I'll—"

"You'll what? What? What are you gonna—"

"Enough! Harry, please. I'm fine. Now's really not a good time. Please, just—please go."

Y/n had frantically put herself between Harry and her boyfriend, and now that they were so close, he could see just how dark the rings around her eyes were, just how hollow her cheeks had become. The shirt she was wearing was too loose on her. What the hell was going on here?

"Harry, please. Go."

Y/n sounded scared as she pleaded with him, and that told him everything he needed to know. "Promise you'll call me," he said, taking her hand in his. "Promise, Y/n."

Nodding quickly, she squeezed his hand feebly. "I promise."

Harry went reluctantly, nearly stormed over to her boyfriend and beat the shit out of him when he saw the smug smile on the bastard's face. But he swallowed his anger and frustration, not wanting Y/n to get caught in the crossfire.

When he got home, Harry was a nervous wreck. He was distracted as he made dinner and cleaned up around the house. Part of him was glad Harper was spending the weekend with Soph's parents so she wouldn't see him like this, but he could've used their nighttime routine to take his mind off things.

He waited. And waited. Nearly stayed up all night in the hopes that she would call him. He must've fallen asleep at some point, though, as he woke up with a start on his couch. When he turned his phone on, there was nothing from Y/n.

*.*

"You were there for me, Y/n. What makes you think I wouldn't do the same for you."

"I don't want your help—I don't need your help, so just—just let it go, Harry!"

"He's trying to isolate you, Y/n," Harry said gently. "He's creating a wall between you and everyone who loves you and knows you and wants what's best for you. Can't you see that?"

Harry looked at Y/n sadly, which only seemed to piss her off even more than she already was. She'd been defensive, tried to convince him that she didn't need his pity or his help. This wasn't the same scenario, she insisted. She wasn't a danger to herself the way he had been two years ago. She was fine. Why couldn't he just leave her alone?

It was all spilling out of her, yet it only made it more clear to Harry that she needed him.

"That's not what's happening. He's my boyfriend. Why wouldn't we spend time alone together?"

"Harper misses you," he said, going for a different angle. "She keeps asking when she'll get to see you, and I can't give her a straight answer. We're your family, Y/n, and he won't let you see us."

"That's not—That's not fair," Y/n said, not wanting to believe the truth, which was that Harry might be right.

"What's going on out here?"

"You're right. It isn't. It isn't fair that you call me crying three times a week because your boyfriend is out and you can't reach him. It isn't fair that he expects you to cook and clean for him when he's a grown man and you have a full time job. It isn't fair that he belittles you and—" Harry paused, the emotion he felt catching in his voice as he thought about the state of her wrists the last time he saw her.

He hadn't seen Y/n in weeks, but a few days after he went to her house, she called Harry absolutely beside herself at the situation she was in. He talked to her for hours, calming her down and reassuring her that he was there and so was his home if she needed somewhere to get away. And for the first time, Harry was convinced that Y/n was seeing reason.

Until days passed and she never left him, which led to a weeks-long cycle of her calling him crying, him comforting her over the phone while she convinced him she was done, and somehow never ended up leaving him. Harry finally couldn't take it any longer and drove to her place again. Seeing her slowly whither away, seeing her less and less physically because her boyfriend wouldn't let her hang out with him or Harper, it killed him. "It isn't fair that he's turned you into this—this shell of the person you once were. It's not right, Y/n—"

Harry didn't miss the way Y/n jumped at the sound of his voice, or the way she subconsciously curled in on herself. It was like she wilted every time he walked into a room, or tried to be as small as possible so he wouldn't notice her. How could she not realize it?

"Nothing, baby. Go back inside," Y/n, her hand shaking as she rested it on his arm.

"Is he giving you trouble? I thought I told you I didn't like you hanging out with him. What's he doing here?" he said, sending a withering glare Harry's way.

Harry stared right back, unwilling to let the piece of shit unnerve him. He had half a mind to say something when Y/n spoke up first.

"He was just going, I promise," she said, turning her eyes on Harry pleadingly.

Harry wanted to say something so badly. He wanted to shake his best friend by the shoulders and make her see reason. This man she called a boyfriend wasn't a man at all, but a monster, and he hated how much Y/n had changed because of him.

But Y/n still couldn't see what he saw, and starting a fight when he knew she would side with her boyfriend wouldn't do any good. It would probably just isolate her even more than she already was, which said something. It had been hard for Harry to tell when he was on the road, but now that he was back for a few months, his stomach was constantly in knots.

It made him miss his wife sometimes. Harry knew that Sophia would know exactly what to say to Y/n, to Harry. She would've been the voice of reason in all of this mess; she would've stopped this mess before it even started. And Harry couldn't help but feel partly to blame for not being around for Y/n when it was so clear she needed someone to look out for her. She'd always been so good at helping others, but it was as if she gave all her kindness and compassion to her patients and friends and family and saved none of it for herself.

"Go, Harry. Please."

Harry could see it, then. The terror. The fear that something might escalate if he stayed, which meant that at least on some level, Y/n knew that her boyfriend was bad news. So why put up with him?

He didn't want to go, but he didn't see any alternatives. Promising himself that he'd call first thing tomorrow morning, Harry nodded and backed down the walkway that led to Y/n's home.

*.*

It was a few weeks later when Harry spoke to Y/n again. He texted her constantly, and sometimes he would get a response. Then all of a sudden, nothing. It was like she'd gone radio silent again. Harry never liked involving Harper in all this, but just once he had her try to call Y/n, but there was still no answer, which was when he really started to worry. Y/n might have cut him off, but he never thought she would do the same to his daughter.

So now he was driving to the hospital. As far as he knew, Y/n was still working in L&D, and even if she wasn't working today, he hoped to get some answers from her coworkers.

"Hey, Harry!"

Harry mustered a small smile for Miranda, Y/n's friend at work. He saw her often when he and Harper visited Y/n at the hospital, and she would always give Harper sweets from behind the counter. "My secret stash," Miranda would say with a wink. Harry never really considered the Labor and Delivery wing of a hospital somewhere where his daughter enjoyed spending her time, but they went often enough that he was pretty sure she liked it more than going to the park.

"Miranda. Hey. Is Y/n in today?"

The cheery look on Miranda's face faltered, which told Harry everything he needed to know. "She, um, she called out today. Said it was the flu."

"Do we really believe that?" Harry said.

Miranda's expression looked strained. "I—I don't know, Harry. I don't like to talk about it."

"I know, I'm sorry," he said. It was awkward to talk about Y/n when she wasn't here. Miranda was just a work friend, but Harry could tell that she knew more about Y/n's situation than she let on. But even so, it would be uncomfortable to talk about. "I'm—I'm just worried, that's all. "

"I know you are, Harry. I, um, I can spare a few minutes in just a bit if you want to wait over there," she said, nodding her head toward the waiting room where families and future fathers were anxiously awaiting good news.

Desperate, Harry nodded and found a seat in the waiting room. The minute he sat down, his leg bounced anxiously while his fingers toyed with his bottom lip. He just couldn't help but feel like something bad was going to happen. His stomach twisted itself into knots to the point where he had to bend over and wait for the stress to pass, but every time one of his texts or calls went unanswered, it just got worse.

"Is this your first?"

Startled, Harry looked to his left to find a man about his age sitting two seats away from him. He also looked nervous, but in an excited sort of way. Harry's brows furrowed for a moment before remembering where he was sitting. "Oh, um no. My friend works here. I'm just waiting for her."

Seeing this man did distract Harry in a way. He remembered his own experience as an expectant father. Sophia had gone into labor a few weeks early, and Harry was on the other side of town buying some last minute things for the baby when he got the call. He'd missed nearly all of it, but Y/n had been there. She'd always been there for his family .

"Oh, sorry," the man said, and Harry noticed his fidgeting hands and nervous looks toward the entrance of the delivery room. "My girlfriend wanted me to wait out here. She claimed I shouldn't have to see her in such a compromised position. I disagreed, but she insisted."

Harry smiled, some of the tension in his shoulders easing slightly. "It's..." He didn't even know how to describe it, but he wouldn't have exchanged sharing that experience with Soph for the world. Eventually, he said, "Good on you for respecting her wishes."

"Thanks. I mean, we weren't exactly dating when she got pregnant and we haven't known each other all that long, so it makes sense, but I love her, you know? I want to be there for her."

"I know the feeling."

For a moment, Harry thought of his wife. When she got sick, Harry had been there for her for every doctor's visit, every scan, every appointment, every symptom. He never let Soph feel like she was facing her illness alone. Because he loved her, and he promised to take care of her and be there for her when they got married.

Then, flashes of Y/n appeared in Harry's mind. He thought about how important she was to him, to Harper. She was there to pick up the pieces that Soph had left when she died. When no one else knew how to reach him, she did, and he never imagined there would be a way to repay her kindness. And now that there was, he couldn't just let her keep fading the way he had been two years ago. The situations weren't the same, but it was dire enough to keep him up most nights as he waited for the call to take her away from her awful excuse of a boyfriend.

Before the man could say anything else, a nurse appeared in front of him with a large smile on her face. Harry was left to stew in his anxiety-riddled mind once again. He tried not to look at his phone too much, but he still checked every few minutes, even though his ringer was on high and he wouldn't have missed a single text. He wanted to call until she picked up, but he also worried that her boyfriend would see and get suspicious or delete his number, so he settled on waiting for Y/n to do the right thing.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Miranda appeared at his side. She nodded at Harry to follow her, and he hastily stood up while they left L&D behind.

"You know, we deal with psycho ex boyfriends, husbands, what have you, all the time who try to force their way into the Delivery Room," she said as she walked, shaking her head sadly. "And she—she doesn't take shit from any of them, doesn't even flinch, and yet—"

Miranda's voice hitched as it trailed off, but Harry knew what she meant. Y/n was strong, didn't take shit from anyone. When he was lost in the darkest moments of his life, she was there to give him the tough love he needed to survive. She pushed him around, held him up in the shower, practically forced him to get better. And still—

"I don't know what to do."

Y/n had seemed to know exactly what Harry needed without him having to tell her, without him even knowing what he needed. What kind of friend was he if he couldn't do the same?

Miranda gave his arm a sympathetic squeeze. "You just have to be there for her when she realizes who he is."

"I can't wait that long! He's a monster—"

"You have to, or you'll just push her further away from you," Miranda said. "I know it's hard, believe me, we've fought about it at work, but she's not listening to reason right now. Saying the wrong thing will isolate her even more."

"I would never abandon her," Harry insisted.

"I know, and deep down she knows that too," Miranda said gently. "But if you push her the wrong way, she might think she's burned a bridge with you and not reach out when she's ready."

Harry understood what Miranda was getting at, he really did. He was currently walking on a tightrope, and one wrong move, one wrong comment could send him careening to the ground and Y/n would be left standing alone. He just wished he knew what to say to make her see what he did.

Harry shook his head. "I can't wait for him to do something to seriously hurt her. I would never forgive myself if—"

Harry didn't even want to finish that sentence, but luckily he was saved by his phone's ringer. Relief filled his gut for a moment, then dissipated when he saw it was an unknown number. Still, taking a chance, he answered.

"Hi, is this Harry Styles?"

Not a question he received often, but the person on the other line sounded official, so he said, "Yes, this is he."

"This is Lisa from the ER at Dayton Health Medical Center. We have you listed here as Y/n L/n's emergency contact."

"Yes, that's me. Is everything okay? Is Y/n hurt? What happened—"

"Everything is just fine, Mr. Styles. Y/n just took a tumble down some stairs and is in need of a lift home. Are you able to come get her, or is there someone else I can call?"

"No!" Harry said, perhaps a little too intensely. Quieting his voice, he said, "No, I can—I can be there in twenty minutes."

"Great. Be sure to bring your parking ticket. We validate at the front desk."

Harry all but scrambled to his car, sending a hasty text to his mum asking her to pick Harper from school. He told the woman on the phone that he would be there in twenty minutes, but damn it if he didn't make it in fifteen.

*.*

"Your wife is just behind this curtain, Mr. Styles."

Harry didn't even have time to correct the nurse, to register the ache in his chest at the word "wife." All he cared about was making sure Y/n was okay. He did, however, take a moment to steady his breathing before pushing back the curtain, praying for calm thoughts as he set his eyes on his friend.

Truth be told, Harry didn't know where to look first.

On the phone, he was told Y/n had fallen down the stairs and that she was fine, but she definitely didn't look it. Her cheek was bruised a greenish-yellow, and bled across the bridge of her nose. A cut marred her bottom lip, making one side look puffy and beyond painful. Her right arm was in a sling too, and each injury that Harry spotted filled him with more and more anger.

"What are you doing here?"

Y/n's voice was slightly distorted by her swollen lip, but he could tell she wasn't exactly happy to see him.

"I'm your emergency contact," Harry said simply, trying not to linger on any of her injuries for too long. He figured Y/n went to a different hospital to avoid being seen by anyone she knew, but she obviously forgot about him being her emergency contact. "What are you doing here?"

"I fell."

He'd hoped Y/n would give up the charade, but he wasn't surprised that she hadn't, either. "I heard. How did that happen?"

That question seemed to splinter the damn surrounding Y/n's heart. With a shaking hand, she covered her face and began to cry.

Harry was surprised by the tears, expecting his friend to deflect and lie the way she had been the last couple months. But with the first tremble of her shoulders, he was there, sliding into the cot beside her. He was gentle as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and brought her to his chest. He didn't like how frail Y/n felt, or how she flinched at first before settling against him.

"I don't know how this happened," she sobbed. "I never—I love him, and he—How can I love someone who did this to me?"

Not having the answer, Harry just continued to hold her, letting her get out everything she needed to. She didn't say much after that, and while he was desperate to know how she'd sustained so many injuries, he stayed quiet.

He expected to feel angry at Y/n's boyfriend, or perhaps angrier. But all he felt as she cried in his arms was despair, and perhaps a small seed of relief that she finally seemed to understand the danger she was in. And maybe guilt too, that he couldn't protect her the way she needed him to.

Harry kept it all to himself, rubbing his thumb across her shoulder and squeezing her gently. "You're gonna be okay."

"I don't know what I'm gonna do."

It was all he could think of to say. He didn't know how to answer her question, and he knew she wouldn't be okay for a while, but she would be. Harry would make sure of it.

"I'm sorry," Y/n said quietly. "You've been trying to get me to see the truth for weeks, for months, and I didn't listen. I didn't—"

"Hey, none of that."

Harry continued to hold Y/n and stroked her hair gently until her breathing evened out and she was fast asleep. Relief washed over him like a bucket of ice water down his back. He could physically feel some of the tension leave his shoulders. Now that Y/n was asleep, Harry allowed himself to really feel everything he put a lid on since the curtains were pulled back on her section of the Emergency Room. He was scared, anxious, mad, but mostly just relieved she was safe. His heart was hammering in his chest, but the familiar smell of her shampoo eased his mind, and the way she curled into his side while she slept helped him feel like he was keeping her safe.

"I'm so happy you're safe," he whispered into the crowd of Y/n's head. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost you too."

*.*

A few weeks later, and Y/n and Harry were lounging on the couch together after dinner. Harper was asleep in her room after Y/n read her a bedtime story. His daughter had been ecstatic when Harry told her Y/n would be staying with them for a while, and even though she was recovering from her injuries, she still played dress up and tea time and built forts and made cookies and basically anything Harper wanted to do. Y/n was quieter and more subdued than usual, but her smile continued to grow as each day went by. It was just a little, just not by bit, but it was progress.

Now they were both lounging after dinner—one that Y/n insisted she make for Harry and Harper. They were talking about the album he was slowly but steadily working on. Well, Harry was talking, Y/n was listening quietly with one hand holding the stem of her wine glass.

When a lull in the conversation settled them in comfortable silence, Harry found himself looking at Y/n. He hated seeing her beautiful face so marred, and not just physically. The usual playful glint in her eye was gone, and she didn't smile as much anymore, and when she did, it didn't reach her eyes. He missed seeing her smile, seeing the light fill her eyes when she laughed at one of his lame jokes.

But in the last few days, Y/n's bruises started to heal, she was getting her sling off at the end of the week, and she didn't flinch when he helped her change her bandages or at casual touches from him. Things weren't totally back to normal, seeing as she still didn't feel comfortable staying alone at her place, but Harry was confident that they would be.

Harry blinked, his face flushing when he realized he'd been caught staring. Shaking his head, he looked at Y/n funny. "You'll stay with me obviously. I'll send someone to get you some extra clothes and stuff and you can stay with me and Harper while we work on getting your locks changed. Or longer. Whatever you need."

He sounded so matter of fact, so sure. It made Y/n want to cry. "I meant, like, far into the future," she said, running a tired hand through her hair. "I've always been able to trust my judgement, but now? I'll never look at a guy the same again."

"Rude," Harry joked. A desperate attempt to lighten the mood, but you appreciated it.

"You don't count. You're..."

"I'm...What?"

Hers. Y/n couldn't bring herself to say it, though, even if it was true. Sophia was Harry's great love, the mother of his child. Y/n would never even consider him as someone to date, which was a shame because he was quite possibly the perfect man in every other respect.

"My friend. I think you've held my hair back one too many times as I puked my guts up."

Harry nodded and laughed, but he didn't say anything after that. He looked contemplative, as if a million thoughts were swirling around in his head. Y/n was curious to know what he was thinking so hard about, but wasn't at the same time. Maybe some of their thoughts were best left unsaid.

"Well, I have an early shift tomorrow. I should probably get to bed," Y/n said eventually, standing up from her spot on Harry's sofa.

Harry nodded and mumbled something about having to take Harper to school early too, and she couldn't help but feel like there was this tension between them. Maybe not tension, but something. Something was off-kilter between them, and she couldn't put her finger on it.

As she went up the stairs to the guest bedroom, the same one she stayed in for as long as she'd been Harry's friend, he called her name. She turned to find him at the base of the stairs looking up at her with a fond little smile on his face.

"I meant what I said earlier. Stay as long as you need to. You'll always have a home here."

The words filled Y/n with warmth, making her feel safer and more settled than she had in months. In that moment, there was so much gratitude in her heart that she couldn't even begin to vocalize, but even with the distance between them, she could read the look in Harry's eyes and knew she didn't have to say a thing.

[samfosho]

I hate to do this, but not asking for help is how I ended up with tens of thousands in medical debt to begin with and I'm getting desperate.

So, hi. I'm Sam. I'm a queer, autistic & ADHD living with mountains of medical debt that has accrued after working a decade at a job I believed in for just pennies, with nothing to show for it but burnout and depression. (Yes, I know there are charities that buy medical debt. I did not know about them before I took advice from An Adult That I Trusted and Thought Was Smart years ago now, who said just put it on a credit card. I have learned and suffered for that mistake)

Fortunately, I've got a good job now. Unfortunately, that doesn't solve all my problems overnight. Currently, I have about $36 to my name, which isn't even mine if you think about it (see: debt), and I don't get paid for a week. I'm working on the Big Shit, but there are two things I really need help with:

Immediate: I have a car payment coming out today for $156 that I can't cover

Less Immediate, but still looming: I NEED to have my wisdom teeth out. I've put them off for a long time, and I'm currently dealing with a lot of pain as I wait for the appointment next month. Insurance came back with them covering half, but that still leaves $1400 out of pocket.

I thought I had everything budgeted a little better this month, and all I had to worry about was the upcoming wisdom teeth appointment. I had a small car issue (tires needed replaced) and I forgot my rent went up this month and not next.

This is a huge ask, and I know we're all struggling, so I'm not asking for that full amount.

That dental appointment is the soonest I can get in, at the least expensive office that takes my insurance, so moving to a different doc isn't an option. They DO offer payment plans, however they only offer 6 months, and the full amount is too much of a monthly payment for me to make and still pay rent/make car payments/feed my cats.

If I can make that first payment on the day as big as I can, and cut the monthly payments, that would be an immense relief.

SO, my goal is $600, if at all possible, in the long run, so I don't lose everything

But my immediate, PLEASE if you can, so I don't lose my car or miss rent or get hit with overdraft fees that will just hit me even harder goal is:

$200

This would get my car payment and a little extra to get as many cheap, non perishable groceries as I can so I don't have to worry about what I'll eating the next few months.

If possible, literally anything is a huge help and amazing. If not possible, a little boost would be amazing.

If you would like to receive an actual, physical thing—like, say, a cussy piece of embroidery—you can go buy something from my Etsy store. Stock is limited, cuz I have been working enough that I haven't had time to make a lot of things or get new supplies, but I have some stupid mushroom earrings I can add to the shop, too, when I get a moment, and some stone jewelry that I made and have been meaning to sell for YEARS.

I also have a comic that I haven't updated in forever, because of the aforementioned busyness, burnout and stress. So I will draw you a little robot or something if you donate if you want

Here is a pic of my cats, they would also appreciate eating

Thanks for taking the time to read, I greatly appreciate that, too 💚

I put my links under the cut, so they're not just out there in case this post travels past my need of it

Venmo @ SamFoShoBro

cashapp $SamFoShoBro

Message for paypal. I have it, I just don't like using it.

[blacknwhitemood]

Depeche Mode - Condemnation / finding video's location "near God"

It was only 3 days after the Memento Mori concert in March, when I learned that Condemnation video was made in Hungary, not far from Budapest, near Göd, in a small village's border, Göd-Újtelep. When I wrote about it to @mijamija1234, she suggested that what if I visited its location? I liked the idea, I've started to make a research. Later I found some colored photos on Göd-Újtelep's website (under this text) and I posted them with words "Condemnation’s video was made near Göd". @mftm1987's reblog tag was hilarious: #well sure it was made near god. I felt love with the concept, so this is my "project's" name: Near God.

The only screenshot from the video (1st pic above) that I can use for finding the location is not very helpful, considering that it happened more than 30 years ago. 31 exactly. In 28th of July, 1993 the band and Corbijn went "into the f---ing woods" early in the morning after the day of they Devotional Tour concert in Budapest. Dave talked about it the gig's night in NME, while Gavin Martin was making his long interview:

I won’t even sleep tonight. I’ve got to get up and go and do some… I’ve got to go off with (Anton) Corbijn into the f---ing woods and do the ‘Condemnation’ bit. But, really, I have fun with doing that. It’s just the eight o’clock morning, you gotta get over it.

I quoted from this article first time here, my updated daves-first-tattoo post (scroll to the middle). Another source, Daryl Bamonte, Devotional Tour Diary, Bong magazine, 1994:

It was a long trek from Belgium yesterday, and we had to drive out into the Hungarian countryside today for Anton to shoot the “CONDEMNATION” video. Dave seemed to spend most of the day being dragged around by Sam and Hildia. He wasn’t complaining though. It could have been the other way round…

Near God

It's not easy to find a DM video's location (except Strangelove), Corbijn preferred countryside for his videos and the nature mostly in different countries in Europe (e.g. Belgium, France, Switzerland, Portugal, Scotland) or in the U.S. Hungary is famous for its "puszta", which is similar to prairie. Before the single's releasing he could shoot the clip during the tour. They stayed 3 days in Hungary, I read somewhere that Corbijn choosed Göd's area for the reason being very close to the capital. On imdb.com it is simply Göd.

I was searching for those dirt roads from the screenshot with the Google relief map, impossible task. 31 years. I googled many times a day if I got some new inspiration, suddenly I found a person on facebook who commented Göd's page' photo of the day: she was there in her 14 years, "half of Göd was there". I wrote to her, 3 days later she answered that she would help. Wow.

We met today and spent only 40 minutes together. She and her husband took me from the railwaystation on a truck to the location that she remembered - and of course that become famous in the village. She told me the short story: "My friend's sister was a big fan. We didn't have phones that time, someone brought the news by bike, no one believed that. Later many cars went to the place with 50-80 fans. We were hanging on the fence, like the children in the video. There were huge reflectors, the shooting took until the evening. Now there is a big battery factory in the fields."

When we arrived, we walked to a small road but it didn't resemble to the video's for the first sight. In fact it is a huge field with woods around, at the end of the road there was the factory, "It was built on that hill on the picture" she told. She was sure, so we took some funny photos with the printed screenshot (at the background with their truck), I wanted to walk more to find a better view but it was a very hot Summar day and my guide didn't have much time. To the right on this map I marked the point where we took the photos:

I think the trip was worth it. All this area from the village to the woods down was the location of the video making. 31 years later the fence with the small cabin and the sunflower field disappeared but there still have straw bales, dirt roads and habitants who remember.

The single released 6 weeks later, on 13 September 2013. Although MTV played the clip on time, its DVD version released much later in 2002 on Depeche Mode - Videos 86>98+ (I ordered the very last piece of it from Antal). This DVD originally released in 1999 but without the clip, you can find a live version instead of (I have the 2000 edition), because - it is said - Corbijn wasn't quite satisfied with the final result, the band seemed too tired in the video, especially Dave.

I love this song. Not my favourite, but it's in my DM top 20. One of its reasons that the video was shooted in Hungary and Dave loves it. He has frequently mentioned Condemnation as one of his favourite songs. In this interview from 2006 you can hear directly from him at 00:37. As fandom.com wrote, Dave still gets goosebumps when he recalls recording the song:

I immediately knew the song. It wasn't necessarily completely accurate to the way Martin wrote the melody line or the phrasing or the timing. I just sang it, and [after] I sang it, the tape stopped rolling and it went on quiet. I've got my headphones on and I hear [producer] Flood's voice go, 'Yeah, I mean, you could do another one. But I think we got it.' / 2021, Exclaim!

Well, at Memento Mori Tour they sang to us twice in Budapest, in 28 July, 2023 (yes, this day <3) together with 50000 people and in 26 March, 2024 to 16000 happy fans. Honestly, I like Waiting For The Night much better, I really wanted to hear it live, I hoped that they don't sing the same song at the same city as first encore duett, Condemnation is difficult to sing, they've sung Waiting For much often at this tour... but I was wrong. I was confused with my feelings, I was disappointed. I was looking for the answers of they decision, and later I understood that somehow Hungary might mean Condemnation to them. They gifted us with Dave's favourite song. Twice.

[causeitsagame]

UNTITLED ANGSTPROMPT THE FOURTH (OF FOUR)

(At some point, I will find a real title and put it up on AO3. Watch this space!)

My thought when posting the previous chapter: "I don't want to draw out a resolution too far, so I'll promise that there is only one more chapter to go." Me, finishing this chapter while upholding that intention and seeing it brush the 9k word mark: "Well,"

-----

Hajime didn't know what to do.

That wasn't supposed to be possible. He'd been warped and molded and repurposed into the world's Ultimate Goddamn Hope, and that Hope was supposed to have all the answers. But he didn't. He hadn't been able to stop the assault on Jabberwock, and the desperate sacrifice play there had been made by someone else.

Plus, he hadn't even known that particular sacrifice could happen. Talents could only be studied if they were demonstrated, and this wasn't the sort of thing that got shown off to Hope's Peak. And so now, Fuyuhiko was bruised and beaten and hollowed out, and Peko didn't know anything more about how those memories were lost, and Hajime didn't know what to do.

He leaned against the ship's railing and studied the water, unsure of what he was looking for.

Eventually, a voice spoke up. "Hajime?"

He glanced over his shoulder at Ryota. "Yeah?"

Ryota pointed to an insulated travel mug. "It's time for this, again. Do you want to…?" He was the one on the ship who wasn't taken much aback by Fuyuhiko not recognizing him, and he'd made fully half of the infirmary visits so far.

Hajime shook his head. Inside that mug was broth from a pot that Teruteru kept simmering. The calories were important; the warmth, more so. Due to injuries, malnutrition, and low weight, Mikan had diagnosed poikilothermia, or an inability to regulate body temperature. She planned to be in the infirmary constantly until it resolved, and that was a good enough excuse not to be there himself. "No. Thanks."

It probably made him a despicable coward, but he couldn't see Fuyuhiko's condition and know that he was responsible for it. He couldn't watch Fuyuhiko look at him like a total stranger and know that it was because Fuyuhiko had cared more about Hajime than about himself. If Hajime had an idea of what to do next, he'd face down all of that in service of getting it fixed… but he didn't know what to do.

Hajime shook his head again, and Ryota silently walked away.

Memories had been burnt away in torture's incinerator and he was the motivation behind it all. How was he supposed to handle that? Seriously, how in the hell was he supposed to manage his thoughts, his emotions? The gutpunch of nausea that gripped him every time his imagination wandered to the infirmary?

Memory loss aside, this wasn't like Izuru. Fuyuhiko hadn't been scoured away and turned into someone else. Logically, that was a huge relief; emotionally, it somehow made it worse. He was still totally him, voice and expressions and powerful personality. There wasn't anyone to identify and retrieve. He was Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu, the same as ever… but he just had absolutely no idea who Hajime was.

There were always more tasks to handle on the ship, but no one bothered Hajime as he looked over the edge. He stayed there staring over the water as the sun's reflections moved overhead, and then toward the west.

"Hajime?"

The voice behind him sent a spike of adrenaline rushing. "Is everything okay?"

Mikan nodded, seemingly without any emergency coming along with her. "He's doing better today, I think. But I just… I'm sorry, but I've been with him for twenty-two hours, now. Could you maybe—"

"Oh, God, sorry," Hajime interrupted as he caught up. Now that he bothered to pay attention to anything besides his own misery, he could notice the dark circles under Mikan's eyes and the way her fingertips trembled from exhaustion. He hadn't set foot in the infirmary since the last time she'd taken a sleeping break, and so he hadn't realized how long that'd been.

"No, I'm sorry!" she instantly countered, and held up one of her shaking hands. "I shouldn't need to sleep, but I just nearly dropped a—"

"I've got him," Hajime promised Mikan, and clutched that hand. "Go rest."

She nodded. "I'm only doing a few hours at a time, so I'll be back soon!"

"That's…" Sighing, Hajime let her go. It was probably no use ordering her to look after herself with more than a nap here and there. Well. Time to check on Fuyuhiko.

Peko was waiting outside the infirmary door, and looked as tired as Mikan but far more composed. "You did come," she said with mild surprise.

That hadn't been judgment, but it sure felt like it. "Yeah. Sorry." Hajime ran a hand across his face. "It's just been hard."

"I can only imagine," Peko agreed, with what sounded like real sympathy.

"You look like you could use some sleep, too. I'll be here, if you want to go."

Peko hesitated, but nodded gratefully and stepped away. She turned to look over her shoulder as she left, like she was verifying that Hajime would actually manage to set foot inside the infirmary.

He did so before he could lose his nerve, and was relieved to see Fuyuhiko sleeping. Good. No conversation, no lack of recognition.

First, Hajime reached for a thermometer and aimed it at Fuyuhiko's forehead. Cooler than he should be, so it was no wonder his fists were clenched around a blanket that couldn't keep him warm enough. Hajime reached over and tapped a message window, calling for more hot broth from the galley.

Fuyuhiko was watching him when he turned back.

Hajime jolted, and took a step away before he could help himself.

"So," Fuyuhiko said wryly, and tilted his head toward where his chart hung on the wall. "The guy responsible for all of that." To Mikan's dismay, she'd run out of room when she started listing his injuries. She'd needed to add multiple pages.

Swallowing, Hajime said in a thick, heavy voice, "Yeah. Guess so."

"You never told me why I apparently gave so much of a shit about you. And neither will anyone else." What good humor was in Fuyuhiko's expression flattened into nothing. "You'd think I could get a simple question answered, after everything."

"We…" Hajime looked away. "I'm your best friend." That was the simplest answer.

"Bullshit. I don't have friends."

"Yeah. That's what you told me." It was easier to talk if he didn't meet Fuyuhiko's gaze, and so Hajime kept his attention on the wild landscape beyond the portholes. "But after everything, we were friends. And you realized Peko was actually your friend, too, outside of the clan. And there are other friends here, too. We all care about you."

"'After everything?' After what 'everything?'" Annoyed, Fuyuhiko snapped, "Mind looking at me when I'm talking to you?"

Miserable, Hajime turned back toward Fuyuhiko and the nearly countless injuries he'd taken for Hajime's sake. "After getting away from the… the bad things that you remember. We're all together after that, and we're your friends."

"And you're my 'best friend.'"

"Yeah."

"Who I did this for." Fuyuhiko lifted a forearm, showing off what remained of intricate tattoos. They were marred by a twisted burn scar and jagged, mismatched lines where some deep cuts hadn't healed together in proper alignment.

Hajime closed his eyes and inhaled a shaky breath. "I tried to stop you. You wouldn't listen to me."

"Must've been a reason for it, beyond you being my 'best friend.'" The words came out twisted, mocking. "Why'd I do it?"

"You shouldn't have," Hajime said morosely. "I'm not worth what you went through."

"Not worth it? What, I acted like an idiot when I signed up for this? You're saying that I fucked up?"

Hajime clenched his jaw and didn't respond. He didn't know what to say and every word was just making things worse. The two of them had talked so easily to each other that he didn't know how to handle this reset.

"So," Fuyuhiko said, still with the mocking tone he'd used on Hajime. He looked expectantly toward the new arrival waiting with his latest broth delivery. "Are you one of my best friends, too?"

Hajime turned to the door and winced. Of all people to have gotten that message he'd sent.

Mahiru paused, then said in measured tones, "I wouldn't use that term, no." She stepped into the infirmary and presented Fuyuhiko with his latest meal.

He didn't take the offered mug. "Huh. You're the first person who's had any sort of problem with me," Fuyuhiko noted with genuine curiosity. "Everyone's just been shoveling bullshit to keep me happy. So, what's your deal? What'd you do?"

"What did I do?" Mahiru repeated, uncertain.

"When we were all… y'know."

"Ah. Right." Mahiru set the mug down next to him when he refused to take it. "Propaganda, basically."

"Makes sense. You're…" Fuyuhiko squinted at her, then looked abruptly pleased as his scrambled mind put something into order. "Photography, right? Koizumi?"

She brightened. "Oh! You do remember things. It sounded like you'd forgotten everything, but I guess not. That's great!"

Hajime looked miserably at the floor and said nothing.

"Great?" Fuyuhiko echoed. "I thought you didn't give a shit."

Mahiru perched on the edge of a nearby counter. "We… didn't get along for a long time, but by now, we do. We'll never be each other's first choice to spend time with, but we're honestly fine."

"Fair enough." Fuyuhiko considered her, then asked with a wicked grin, "What happened? You sound like you're dancing around land mines."

Uneasy, Mahiru darted her gaze toward Hajime. "Does he know?" she asked in a strained whisper.

"No, I don't think so," Hajime whispered back. "Probably needed to forget about the whole process."

"What are you two whispering about?" Fuyuhiko demanded.

Mahiru inhaled. "Okay. You're going to find this out, so let me just tell you. To stop being those awful people, we went through a virtual reality simulation. But it went wrong and people started killing each other."

"Virtual," Fuyuhiko repeated without any gravity, clearly picturing some sort of small-scale experience. "So, what, you killed me?"

Mahiru blinked at him hard, then scowled.

Unconcerned, Fuyuhiko corrected to, "Or I killed you?"

"You were going to," Mahiru admitted. "But Peko stepped in."

"Well. Makes sense." Fuyuhiko grinned more broadly and honestly than a face that injured should be able to. "Guess that explains why we're not each other's favorite people, huh?"

Mahiru couldn't help but laugh a bit. "Well, obviously. Anyway, drink your broth. You're supposed to have it while it's hot."

Still smirking at her, Fuyuhiko reached for the insulated mug and lifted it like he was making a toast, then took a drink. She apparently took that as both thanks and farewell, and left the infirmary with light steps.

Hajime stared after her. Fuyuhiko was getting along better with Mahiru than him? Mahiru?! What the hell was going on?

"I'll get some more sleep," Fuyuhiko announced when he'd finished. "So you can stop looking ready to shit yourself."

Hajime could argue with that assessment, but he wouldn't make a very good job of it. With fresh sighs, he stared out the porthole until Fuyuhiko had fallen asleep, then waited aimlessly for Mikan's return.

Days passed like that.

Fuyuhiko's purple bruises faded to green and yellow. Thinner cuts disappeared into barely-there scars, while deeper gouges healed under Mikan's stitches. The hollows under his eyes and cheekbones didn't look quite as cavernous, and he finally managed to sleep through the night without waking up shivering. But he never recognized Hajime.

Hajime Hinata did have a talent that Hope's Peak had never cared about, and that was caring about people. But he wasn't allowed to use it, now. Izuru Kamukura had every talent on the planet. But none of them were any good, here.

He couldn't take this any more, Hajime told himself as he stared at nothing. Fuyuhiko had graduated to actual food, but with the scope of his lingering injuries, he still stayed in the infirmary. That meant that he yet needed to be brought his meals, and once Mahiru had held a successful conversation with him, everyone else was willing to try.

"You lied to me!" Kazuichi insisted. He was next to Fuyuhiko while Hajime stood just outside the door, but voices carried.

Fuyuhiko shrugged and slid a spoon into the thick, hearty stew he'd been handed. "Probably, yeah."

Kazuichi gasped, betrayed.

"You're easy to fool and you panic in a crisis," Fuyuhiko continued. "I remember that much. And you want to believe in people."

Though Kazuichi's offense deepened with the first two additions, the last one softened his outrage. "Well, yeah. I didn't know how you were going to get out of it, but when you said you had a plan to save everyone, I believed you. One hundred percent."

Fuyuhiko smirked. "As expected."

"Jerk," Kazuichi snorted, but the easy back-and-forth had him happier than he'd been ever since they saw the invading forces on the radar. "Hey, so, what else do you remember about me?"

Fuyuhiko made Kazuichi wait until he'd chewed and swallowed a mouthful. "That's a pretty damn big ask. Narrow the scope a little."

"Okay." Kazuichi screwed up his face in thought. "What's the first thing you remember about me after we woke up?"

"Woke up?" Fuyuhiko echoed.

"On the island."

He shrugged. "I got rid of all of that. People have told me there was a program, but I must've thought it was too risky to know about."

"Oh." Dismayed, Kazuichi considered, then tried again. "Uh, okay… what about when I showed up to class in a suit?"

Staring at him for a long, considering moment, Fuyuhiko abruptly laughed. "Fuck, you looked ridiculous. To 'impress Miss Sonia,' right?"

Kazuichi grinned, delighted. "I saw you go off to handle some family business, and you looked a lot cooler than in your uniform. I thought maybe it'd work for me, too."

"It didn't," Fuyuhiko said, then rolled his gaze thoughtfully upward. "Heh. Guess there's more in there than I thought. Even if it's nothing that really matters."

"No, this matters. It matters like you wouldn't believe!" Cheerfully, Kazuichi clapped him on the shoulder. "I'll let you eat, all right?"

"Finally," Fuyuhiko agreed, but with no real rancor.

Still in bright spirits, Kazuichi moved for the door, only to process that Hajime had been listening in with an increasingly gutted expression. "Uh. Sorry, man," he whispered, and hurried down the corridor.

Well. The good news was that Fuyuhiko was feeling better. His pain tolerance was beyond description, but that didn't mean he enjoyed it. Now that he was on the mend, and his pain steadily ebbed and his body again functioned like it should, his overall mood had followed suit. That'd opened him up to bits of nostalgic connection with the people brave enough to try it.

The bad news, Hajime thought as stepped away to let Fuyuhiko eat in privacy, was exactly the same as ever. To Fuyuhiko, Hajime was still as much of a blank void as what he'd been turned into during the Kamukura Project.

Had Mahiru really been the one to set this off? She'd practically skipped into the mess hall and announced that Fuyuhiko had remembered specifics about her, and that sent a jolt of optimism across the entire group. Which made sense. It was logical. But it still just seemed so odd that she—of all people—had been the first ray of real hope for Fuyuhiko.

Of course, Fuyuhiko had clearly appreciated that Mahiru had been the first 'stranger' to be honest with him about any darker topics. Maybe there was a lesson in that. Hajime waited, and considered, and eventually decided. He steeled his nerves and walked into the infirmary. Without preamble, he asked, "So. You really want to know why you did this for me?"

Fuyuhiko blinked. "Obviously," he said and set aside his empty bowl. Finally, he looked interested in something that Hajime had to say.

How to approach this? "When we were at Hope's Peak," Hajime slowly began, and took a chair near Fuyuhiko, "I got experimented on."

"Experimented?" Fuyuhiko repeated. His brow furrowed. "How?"

"They wanted me to be able to do more things," Hajime summarized, neither wanting to get bogged down in the details nor to relive his own horrors by doing so. "It involved a lot of surgery and some… other stuff."

Fuyuhiko's gaze grew increasingly curious as he studied the scars running across Hajime's forehead. "'Do more things?' What can you do, then?"

"Anything." Fuyuhiko's curiosity and good mood vanished at the seemingly flippant reply, and Hajime insisted, "Seriously, anything. That was the point of the project. Medicine, combat, languages… anything. And they did some physical development work to support all of those talents, too."

Fuyuhiko waited with obvious incredulity, but did look impressed when Hajime reached for a small dentist's mirror and bent its metal handle as easily as if it'd been a plastic straw. "Well, shit. Looks handy."

"Yeah. In theory, I could even try to fix your memories." Fuyuhiko also looked interested in that, but Hajime shook his head. He'd seen an answer to that question very quickly, but it had come with the simultaneous, gutting realization that there was no possible way to get access to what he'd need. And so, it hadn't really been an answer at all. "I can't actually do that," he clarified. "Ten different navies would be on us before we docked the ship."

Disappointed, but not surprised, Fuyuhiko shrugged. I knew what I was in for, the gesture seemed to say.

Hajime hesitated before continuing, trying to straighten out the mirror's handle as he did. His voice was quiet when he did speak. "There were side effects, too. Some… some really bad ones. But the school didn't care what happened. I was just their lab rat."

Silence answered him, hanging painfully heavy. A good ten seconds ticked by on the infirmary's clock. After that pause, Fuyuhiko concluded, "And they probably want their lab rat back."

Hajime looked at the floor and nodded.

"So… this isn't a one-time thing, then," Fuyuhiko slowly continued. "They'll always want to get ahold of you."

Hajime hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah."

"Then I'm going to have to do this again."

The words stabbed terror through his heart. "Never," Hajime instantly spat. After a deep breath, he strove for humor, but only sounded agonized as he forced words through his tight throat. "I mean, you don't care about me, right? No need to do anything for me again."

Fuyuhiko's gaze darkened. "If I think something's worth doing, I stick to it. Even if I don't remember why now, I must have had my reasons then."

Fuck it all, why was he so kneejerk stubborn? "They are never, ever getting their hands on you again. I won't let it happen."

"You won't let? I don't take orders from you." Dark memory filled Fuyuhiko's gaze, and he muttered, "I remember being in charge. I was giving the orders. If this is what I decided I need to do…"

The thought of Fuyuhiko getting captured again filled Hajime with panic; the thought of him willingly walking back into hell had him practically delirious with it. "Well, you're not getting past every single person on this ship. We're not letting you throw yourself away again!" By the end, Hajime stood and was nearly shouting.

Instantly obstinate, Fuyuhiko leaned forward, uncaring of the fragile figure he still struck in the hospital bed. "I'd like to see them try and stop me."

A disbelieving laugh broke free. "Oh yeah? Look at you!" Hajime cried before he could help it, and gestured to the mess two months of torture had made of Fuyuhiko. "Say you could actually get past us. You think you could really head back for more?" Even as he said the words, he knew they were a critically wrong move.

Fury sparked behind Fuyuhiko's eye. "What, you think I can't take it?"

"Will you just—"

"Fuck off! From what I've heard from everyone, I'm who saved their asses last time, not you! Me, not some superpowered lab rat!"

Electricity seemed to run down his spine, and words poured out of Hajime before he could stop them. "You know what, Fuyuhiko? No. No, you can't take another round of this. You barely survived this one."

"Don't tell me what I can't do."

"Lose even another couple of kilos again, and you will fall back into poikilothermia and die in a torture chamber. It's not a question." Hajime leaned forward and propped his weight on the side of Fuyuhiko's bed. "You are not taking the bullet for me again. Because—listen carefully—you. Can't. Do. This."

As expected, nothing filled Fuyuhiko with fury like the implication of weakness. This was far from weakness, but was the simple limit of how much any human could take. Even so, it landed as terribly as he knew it would, but Hajime just hadn't been able to stop the words from pouring out. Spending this long mired in misery and guilt had worn away his defenses; hearing that Fuyuhiko was already planning for more torture and certain death lit a fuse.

"Get out," Fuyuhiko spat, looking ready to lunge out of his hospital bed with his hands aimed for Hajime's throat. "And don't let me see your face again."

"Heard that one before," Hajime said tiredly, and walked for the door. Once there, he turned. "You're not going to throw your life away for someone you clearly don't give one single shit about."

"This has nothing to do with you. This is about me and what I decided to do. Now: get out."

Hajime managed to round two corners before the first ragged sob ripped free. He leaned against a wall and wiped away hot, angry tears with a rough swipe of his wrist. Shit. Goddammit.

Trying to be honest with Fuyuhiko had been one bad fucking move.

Soon, he found himself doing engine repairs three months ahead of schedule, just so he'd have something to focus on. His hands stayed busy, his mind stayed quiet, and his heart hid in a corner and didn't dare to speak up. It worked for hours of distraction, but eventually, the dinner chime sounded. He didn't want people to come looking for him, and so Hajime tiredly headed to the mess hall. He'd sit by himself.

Everyone was there, save Fuyuhiko. Nearly all of the people who made up Hajime's world were right here in this one room. It was a dozen different shades of 'loud,' from laughter to arguments to excitement. Looking at them, no one would think the group had been chased from their home mere months earlier.

They probably want their lab rat back.

But they had been chased off Jabberwock, and they'd barely made it out alive. Because Hajime hadn't kept any of these people safe, despite being the military's biggest target.

They probably want their lab rat back.

He'd let that happen to Fuyuhiko.

They probably want their lab rat back.

The soldiers were going to keep coming.

Through dull eyes, Hajime looked around the room and imagined bullets ripping through skulls. The men targeting them planned to kill everyone besides himself, Sonia, and Fuyuhiko, right? And the other two would face torture until their knowledge was wrung dry. (…More torture.)

And what did they have to face those entire military fleets when they did inevitably come? Not a full island chain with its own defensive capabilities, like they'd used last time. No: now they had a ship, singular, and one helicopter. They'd failed before, and now their situation was even worse.

Hajime was pretty sure that he could single-handedly take over another vessel, if it came to that. But he'd need the opportunity to do so. If a battleship or submarine sent a torpedo at them from a kilometer away, he'd never get that chance.

If soldiers came for him again, all of these people would die or end up in torture chambers. Hajime wouldn't be able to stop it. And so, once again, he didn't know what to do.

At the end of his fatalistic survey across the room, Hajime's attention lingered on someone. Memories whispered, almost too softly to hear at first, until he really listened to what they said. His expression shifted slowly, from misery to uncertainty to realization.

Oh. Oh. Of course. He should have seen this sooner.

Nagito only looked up after the lightbulb had gone off. He blinked in confusion over Hajime blatantly staring at him, and gestured to himself like he expected a question to be asked. Hajime shook his head once. No need to ask a question; Nagito had already given him an answer.

Yes. Right.

That had been the answer, all along.

He just hadn't wanted to admit what was being asked of him.

At the end of his brief dinner, Hajime stood and walked over to another table. "I'm taking the chopper," he whispered to the Imposter. "I'll be back later."

That earned a confused blink. "What's happening? Do you need a co-pilot?"

"No. It'll be quick, I'll be back by morning. I just didn't want you to wonder where it was."

"All right." The answer was uncertain, but Hajime didn't bother offering reassurance or clarification as he walked off. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nagito hurry over to talk to the Imposter. "The helicopter?" Nagito repeated with surprise, and Hajime sped his pace. He didn't want to deal with any sort of explanation.

Soon, the helicopter lifted smoothly off its landing pad under his controls. He tilted it toward the southeast, and as he circled around, noticed that he was being observed by a white head of hair dyed the colors of sunset. Hajime returned his attention to the sky and flew onward.

Two hours later, he descended toward a pitch-black expanse carved out of another forest. There were many such abandoned military bases around the world, and with a global power shortage, they weren't bothering to keep the lights on. Many of the supplies here had been carried off, but not all; they'd gotten the helicopter he was flying from this same base, along with enough replacement parts to last them a decade.

Using only moonlight and starlight, Hajime located a runway and used it as a landing pad. As he hopped out of the craft and to the ground, he hoped that the Canadian forces hadn't carried off what he needed as they pulled back to defend Vancouver.

Cracks ran across the tarmac, and weeds pushed through. Once, this had been a world-class facility for world-class soldiers, but so much had been abandoned when half the world fell. Those soldiers were now after him, Hajime reminded himself. They were after his friends. And they had hurt one friend in ways that he couldn't even describe.

Steeling his resolve, Hajime hurried through the crisp, chill darkness in search of a way to stop all of those soldiers from ever getting a second chance. His light, precise footsteps echoed across the sprawling pavement and between the concrete buildings. Only the soft cries of nearby owls interrupted him. This once-bustling base was silent, now, and the natural world was beginning to reclaim what humanity had abandoned.

Aha, Hajime saw as he trailed heavy cables across the ground and found the control box that collected them. It was attached to a concrete block of a building, unlabeled and unremarkable. Here it was. Not bothering with niceties, he kicked at the door like he was trying to drive in someone's chest, and proceeded inside when it wrenched off its hinges.

Relief soon swept him. Yes. They'd left behind exactly what he needed.

With the assistance of a few spare duffel bags, Hajime began scooping up every piece of abandoned telecommunications equipment left in this control room. Their group had been using that slow, secretive frequency, but it was time to take a different approach. Trying to duck down and hide in the shadows, as they'd been doing, could only protect them for so long. Hajime refused to be the prey again, left to be tracked and discovered.

As he exited the building, a gust of wind whipped past and caught a tattered flag left on its pole. Red and white. For a moment, Hajime was back walking through the ruins of military bases with a red sun flying over them, rather than a maple leaf. Those were the soldiers most desperate to find him. Although they had allies around the world who also sought the Remnants, it was Japanese forces who'd led the assault on Jabberwock and captured Fuyuhiko.

They'd regret that.

Confident that he'd found all that he needed, Hajime loaded the duffel bags into the helicopter, refueled, and set back off for their hiding place near the Alaskan Panhandle. There were still hours of darkness left when he landed. He should sleep, first, to make sure he had a clear head. He was trying to change the world, after all.

Well into morning, his efforts were going well. Hajime had taken over the control cabin of the ship, as he needed access to some of its systems. His in-progress work with the military electronics he'd raided already covered half the room.

"Hajime?" Nagito asked as he stepped into the control room.

He didn't look up from his work. "Yeah?"

"What are you doing?"

Still studying the electronics in front of him, Hajime smiled. It might be a dark, unbalanced expression. Nagito's behavior inside the simulation had served as his inspiration, after all. "You'd probably say something about 'creating hope.'"

Silence. Then, "Whose hope?"

That earned another smile. "Good question." Nagito didn't say anything else, but neither did he leave. Eventually, Hajime continued, "Nagito. I want to ask you something. About the Funhouse. When you learned the truth about us, what ran through your head?"

Those soldiers on Jabberwock had come hunting for Hajime, and they didn't care who they'd hurt in the process. No, that wasn't right: they'd come hunting for Hajime, and they would gleefully slaughter most of his friends if they got the chance. Those who they didn't slaughter, they'd torture.

And not just torture, Hajime knew as he thought about what was left of Fuyuhiko, but destroy. Utterly. The so-called good guys would rip out everything that made up the people he cared about. Those men who'd come for Hajime and the men who'd done this to Fuyuhiko could make zero claim at being on the side of good, despite all claims to the contrary.

Nagito's concern deepened at the seeming non sequitur, but he still didn't try to pull Hajime away from whatever he was working on. After that long pause, he answered, "I had to stop everyone. Before you hurt anyone else."

"Right. Exactly." Hajime reached for a wire and stripped its coating. "You asked whose hope I'm creating, so: our hope. I apparently have to pick, and so I pick our hope." He'd might have been created as the world's hope, but his world had been reduced to the people on this ship.

There was another long pause from the man at the door. Hajime wondered if Nagito would demand to know exactly what he was planning, or would spout off more speeches about how the entire world's hope rested in his hands. But no. After that aching pause, Nagito simply murmured, "I understand" and turned, closing the door behind him.

Hajime nodded and leaned back in to his work.

It took him eight days, and he barely left the room until he was done. Fuyuhiko was probably relieved about that.

At the end of those eight days, when Hajime was sure that his plan would work, he walked to the infirmary and was surprised to find it empty. A quick check of the roster told him that Fuyuhiko had moved to a normal room, right next to Peko's, and Hajime headed there with purpose. Even if Fuyuhiko connected with every other person on this ship better than with Hajime, it was doubtful he'd willingly spend much time socializing.

As expected, the door opened, and the face behind it wasn't happy. "Well," Fuyuhiko said shortly, and studied him. He looked much healthier than before; once he'd made it through the worst stretch, he'd apparently improved rapidly. A thick sweater appeared to be enough to keep him warm. "You listened to me for a week, at least."

Right. Fuyuhiko didn't want to see his face again. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm doing something for you on deck as soon as it gets dark," Hajime levelly said. "You don't have to come. But if you look through the porthole and wonder what you're seeing, you'll know what's up."

Fuyuhiko blinked. "Huh? The hell's that supposed to mean?"

"Don't worry about it."

"If you're doing something for me," Fuyuhiko snapped, "without my permission, then I'm gonna fuckin' worry!"

"So, we're talking about asking the other person's permission, now?" Hajime said, and didn't try to soften how pointed the words were. "Anyway. You can come if you want, or not." He turned and left without further explanation, leaving Fuyuhiko blinking behind him.

Even if Fuyuhiko hated him, and even if he never wanted to see Hajime again, Hajime was his best friend. He was going to take care of Fuyuhiko and stop what had happened from ever, ever repeating.

Whether Fuyuhiko wanted him to or not.

And he was going to protect everyone else, too, Hajime calmly told himself as they joined him on the deck. Those soldiers never should have been able to sneak up on them, and the local radar never should had been the first warning sign they had. If he'd protected his friends to begin with, none of this would have happened.

Confusion ran wild. All everyone knew was that Hajime was working on something supposedly important, with components taken from a military base, but there were no weapons to be seen. He didn't look aggressive, either; if anything, he looked eerily calm as he stared up at the sky.

"Mind clueing us in?" Akane demanded, hugging herself tightly. She treated the cold as an opponent, and she always hated to admit defeat. At least she'd relented into putting on a pair of sweatpants, but she still refused to wear a coat.

Hajime smiled slightly at the sight, and of everything he knew of her. He'd protect her, too, like he'd failed to do on Jabberwock.

"Seriously," Hiyoko complained. She too had resisted dressing for the increasingly cold weather, but she'd finally given in at the first dusting of snow. As Mahiru leaned over to pull her in to a warmth-sharing hug, Hiyoko wondered, "What have you even been doing, anyway? Did your big fight with Fuyuhiko make you turn tail and hide for that long?"

It probably wasn't a surprise that secrets spread quickly within tight quarters. "Simple," Hajime said, and looked back up at the night sky. "I'm doing what I should have done before all of this happened in the first place: protecting everyone."

"How?" Kazuichi asked, audibly nervous. "Didn't you go to, uh…"

"A military base?" Nagito concluded. He wasn't outright nervous like Kazuichi, of course, but even he sounded at least apprehensive about Hajime's uncharacteristic behavior and whatever he'd left him to do in that room. Nagito sounding even mildly concerned about something managed to unnerve Ryota and Teruteru, too.

"Yes."

Hajime's blunt answer did nothing to soothe their nerves, and the group looked between themselves.

Sonia gathered her courage and stepped forward. "Hajime, when the five of us chose to shut down the program, we did so for the safety of the world. You musn't—" Her voice faltered when his attention turned toward her.

Hajime could only imagine what his expression looked like, right now. Those soldiers had come in search of Izuru Kamukura. After what they'd done to the people he cared about, they'd found him.

She collected her courage and tried again. "You mustn't hurt anyone, Hajime."

"I'm not going to hurt anyone," he said like it was self-evident. That lack of trust should have hurt, but he distantly realized that his voice had indeed gone flat, all its emotional affectation falling away. It had been a very, very long stretch of months. Feelings had failed him over and over again as they went on, and now, he just needed to fix these problems before they could happen again.

"Then what the hell are you doing?"

The voice sliced through Hajime's disaffected thoughts, and he blinked with surprise. Fuyuhiko stood near the stairs, ready to return below deck in an instant, but he was there.

"Sorry, Fuyuhiko," Hajime said as all of those squelched emotions rushed back into him like surging floodwaters, and he flexed his hand around the small controller it held. "I know you said you didn't want me making this decision for you. Well. I'm gonna."

"Huh?" Fuyuhiko asked, too confused to be angry.

Turning back to the sky, Hajime inhaled.

He was about to end the world.

Again.

Before he could talk himself out of this, his thumb clicked the button to confirm the algorithm he'd spent a week building. Humanity's greatest genius had used a modified satellite phone taken from the Canadian base to hack into every government and military system left in this broken world, and slithered into their cracks and shadows. After that, he'd started calculating angles and vectors and control mechanisms. And now, he'd just put all of those controls into effect.

There was a full minute of wary silence as they waited for anything to happen, finally broken by Nagito wondering, "Hajime… what did you do?"

"I'm not hurting anyone," he calmly repeated. "I'm just going to stop them before they hurt anyone else."

Nagito still looked unsettled, especially at the echo of his own words, but said nothing more.

As Hajime looked up at the sky and waited, his breath suddenly caught as he realized Fuyuhiko had walked up next to him. Though his tight expression demanded answers, Hajime could only say, "I owe you this."

"Owe me what, exact… ly…" Fuyuhiko's question trailed off into nothing as a spectacular streak of light burned across the sky.

A few people gasped. Realizing what they must be thinking, Hajime said, "It's not a missile. Don't worry. But keep watching."

Another streak of light blazed overhead, then a third. And then, suddenly, it became a waterfall of shining, gleaming color tearing apart the night sky. A meteor shower like the Perseids might see a hundred so-called falling stars in an hour. This was thousands of points of light, in minutes.

It was beautiful. Even though he'd known what was about to happen, Hajime couldn't help but stare up in awe at the choir of light singing an intricate melody overhead. Runs, chords, arpeggios; the glimmering lines wrote out a song that had never been seen in the history of the world, and would never be seen again.

"What did you do?" Fuyuhiko asked in an amazed whisper as he stared up at the glorious show above.

"I owe you this," Hajime repeated, also in a whisper, then stayed silent until calm, dark night finally returned.

A few final streaks of light followed their brethren down to earth. Only when they were sure that no more would follow did everyone turn to Hajime. Every last face demanded answers.

For it, he held up his hand to show off the small controller held in his palm.

"They had… that at the military base?" Kazuichi asked weakly.

"No." Hajime smiled as genuine relief swept him, like he hadn't felt for a very long time. "It just set off my algorithm."

"Which did what?" Peko prompted.

"Directed ninety-three percent of all functioning satellites out of orbit. And I now control the other seven percent."

That took a moment to sink in, then earned a collective gasp. "Those were satellites?" Mahiru demanded. "Like, television and internet and phone satellites?"

Hajime looked back up at a now-empty sky. "Like spy satellites. Like military targeting and attack satellites. They're never going to find any of you again. And with the ones I kept, I'll know if they even make an attempt. It'll be impossible to take us by surprise, ever again."

Overwhelmed, Sonia clutched her forehead. "Every telecommunications network around the world just collapsed." Gundham stared at Hajime like he'd wielded some dark magical powers to put on that spectacular display.

"Not every one," Hajime calmly countered. "Land-based towers will still work fine, and there are plenty of those. And I spent the last four days making sure that no satellites would angle toward populated areas, just in case they didn't burn up. No one was hurt. Which is a lot more than those soldiers can say.

"I didn't hurt anyone," he repeated in the silence. "But… I realized that I had to decide who I'm protecting, actively. And I picked you."

Aware of the stunned figure still standing at his side, Hajime quietly repeated, "I picked you. You won't have to do it again. And I'll stop talking to you, now."

Fuyuhiko's eye opened as wide as Hajime had ever seen it, and he looked up to stare again at the heavens that had been ripped down to keep him safe.

"All right. That's it." Hajime smiled. "Show's over. If we want, we could set sail tomorrow. They're never going to find us again."

He didn't know whether to expect it or not, but a knock came on his cabin door an hour later. When Hajime opened it, Fuyuhiko met his gaze for only a couple of seconds before studying the floor between them. "What in the hell was… I didn't ask for that."

"I know. But I owed you that much, Fuyuhiko. If I had done what I was capable of early enough, then you wouldn't have been forced into doing what you were capable of. I screwed up, so now I fixed it."

"When they figure out what happened, you're just going to be even more of a target," Fuyuhiko muttered. "Biggest bad guy on the planet."

He shrugged, smiling lopsidedly. "Already am, right?"

Fuyuhiko snorted slightly, but admitted, "Who… made his project take twice as long, so that he wouldn't hurt people. I would've just figured that everything would burn up."

"None of us want to hurt people," Hajime agreed, and instinctively raised his hand toward the fresh, deeper scar that had been carved across Fuyuhiko's bad eye. He caught himself halfway there and lowered his hand. "But the 'good guys' apparently can't say the same. So I picked us. And I don't regret it. They won't be able to see or hear us well enough to find us, any more, and so you'll never have to do that again."

For once, the silence between them seemed comfortable, like it had been before, when they could sit in each other's presence and not feel the immediate need to fill the quiet. In that quiet, Hajime was finally able to think of the right thing to say. "Don't think of this as coming from a friend. We apparently can't be that, any more. But I owed you a debt, and I needed to repay it."

Fuyuhiko studied him, clearly aware that Hajime had deliberately chosen language from Fuyuhiko's world, and seemed to consider him anew. Maybe, just maybe, they did understand each other, despite all this time seeming to say otherwise. "Hey. Lab rat."

"Don't call me that," Hajime instantly countered.

Not bothering to apologize, Fuyuhiko continued, "So, you just took out every way for militaries to track us, right? Plan offensive maneuvers? Organize their fleets?" After getting a nod at each question, he slowly finished, "Then… didn't you say you'd thought of something that might fix my memories, if only you could get past the military?"

Everything went still, and Hajime's eyes opened wide as he realized what he'd accidentally done as part of his plan.

"I just…" Troubled, Fuyuhiko tried a few times to finish his thoughts. "What you did up there tonight, I…" He shifted his weight. "I guess you finally made me curious about caring that damn much."

Hajime gripped his hand before he could help it. "Okay. Before we sail back there, I need to know if they would have gone back to look inside a specific building. I don't think you do, but do you know anything about something called the Neo World Program? Anything at all?"

Fuyuhiko blinked back at him with a total lack of recognition. "That's a dumbass name."

With a crow of delighted laughter over the confirmation that Fuyuhiko had never told them a thing, Hajime unthinkingly drew him into a hug.

"Get off me!" Fuyuhiko spat, his good mood gone.

"Sorry," Hajime chuckled, and stepped away. "Sorry. Force of habit."

"If you try to act like a friend who hugs me," Fuyuhiko muttered, "I'm gonna change my mind about this."

Hajime held up his hands. "Right. No hugs. Sorry."

"Okay. Glad we've gotten that straightened out." Fuyuhiko cleared his throat. "We're not friends. You've just got me curious. That's it."

"Absolutely," Hajime agreed. "That's it."

"Well. Okay. Right." Fuyuhiko hesitated a moment longer, then turned and walked off without a good-bye.

Hajime watched him leave, then turned and flat-out ran the other direction, toward the stairs. It was time to weigh anchor, and he'd figure out the safest path back toward Jabberwock once they were in motion. That would be easy enough; they still had access to all remaining navigational and spy satellites, after all, while every single one of their enemies had just been thrown back into navigating by compass and map.

Eighteen days later, they were back.

Everyone looked wistfully at the familiar beaches and palm trees. Even if they'd blinded the world's militaries, it was too dangerous to stay permanently in this known location. They could make return trips to strip the islands of what supplies they had to offer, but this wasn't home, any more.

"Come on," Hajime said, and gestured to the dock. "In there."

Fuyuhiko looked warily toward the central administration building; familiar to Hajime, but an unknown location to him. "What are we doing, exactly? You said this is where that virtual game thing happened, but I'm not doing that again, am I?"

He shook his head as they set into motion. "No. In a worst-case scenario, I can look for the same memory files that were generated when the simulation ran before. That wouldn't be… ideal, since it'd have some holes and nothing past when we woke up, but it'd be better than now." And Fuyuhiko would be balanced on the edge of Ultimate Despair, again, but they could all pull him off the ledge in the right direction.

"Okay," Fuyuhiko said, clearly troubled, but making the active decision to trust Hajime. "What's the best-case scenario, then? How would you get the memories back, otherwise?"

"I don't think they're actually gone," Hajime theorized.

That earned a dark look. "I'm pretty damn sure I knew what I was doing, there."

"You absolutely cannot reach those memories," Hajime quickly agreed. "Which kept those guys from being able to, either. But, it's like… imagine two buildings with a road between them. When you told me about what you did, I realized that I don't think you blew up the buildings. They're still there. I think you just blew up the road, so there's no way to access them."

"Okay," Fuyuhiko said uncertainly. "What's the difference, then, in fixing them?"

"Cognitive psychology studies retrieval methods for information that has been stored in long-term memory." The formal explanation quickly earned annoyance, and Hajime changed to, "You changed your associations with them, so you can't pull your memories out. You blew up the road, in other words. But there are pods—" Please, let the pods still be there. "That are specifically designed to deal with memories. I'm positive I can tweak them to zero in on fixing your retrieval processes. I won't need to actually rebuild any memories. I'll just need to fix the roads."

"Makes sense," Fuyuhiko said, but sounded even more uncertain as the details poured in. "So, I'm going to get into a weird memory pod that was used to lock me into a killing game, and you're gonna fuck with my brain. Like the pod already did, once."

"That's." Hajime paused, then held back a grimace. "Yeah. I wouldn't use those words, but… that's technically accurate, yeah."

Fuyuhiko looked to the side, and Hajime realized someone had followed them to the building. "What do you think?"

"It's as I've been telling you, all this time." Peko nodded. "You can trust Hajime."

Fuyuhiko stared at the building looming overhead, then sighed. "Fuck it." He pushed his way inside, not waiting for them to follow.

When Hajime moved to do so, a hand caught his wrist. "Thank you," Peko whispered, with a rare smile.

He smiled, too. "You got him out."

"And you'll get him back." She stepped back, releasing his wrist. "I won't keep you. But truly: thank you."

Nodding, Hajime reached over and squeezed her wrist before he followed Fuyuhiko inside. He found Fuyuhiko in the lobby, looking critically at the looming statue representing the five islands; he hadn't known which hallway to use after entering. Hajime led him down a path that they'd walked countless times while working on their sleeping friends, and kept glancing at him to see if any recognition flickered.

None did, but that might also have been because of how focused he was on assessing the space around them. "No signs of forced entry anywhere," Fuyuhiko mused. "And there's dust."

"It doesn't look like anyone's been down here," Hajime agreed, but his pulse sped as they approached the final corridor. He took and held a deep breath as he pushed open the door in question.

The pods were still there.

His lungs emptied, and Hajime's heart lurched back into regular motion. "Okay," he said, and tried to not let on how worried he'd been that they might come all this way only to find that the military had carried off the island's heart. "Pick a pod."

Fuyuhiko eyed him oddly—Hajime's nerves had clearly come through—but he shrugged and walked over to the pod nearest to the main control panel. "So, I just…?"

"You just get in," Hajime confirmed, and tapped the pod's panel to open it.

Needing another few contemplative moments, Fuyuhiko let out a whooshing breath, nodded, and climbed into the empty pod. "Don't fuck up, lab rat."

"Don't call me that," Hajime reminded him, hopefully for the last time, and tapped the controls to close the pod. Inside, Fuyuhiko watched him through its fogged glass, then abruptly dropped into unconsciousness as its effects took hold.

Okay. Time to be someone's Ultimate Hope, again.

Hajime's fingers flew across the controls as he worked on repurposing the intricate code of the Neo World Program. Software code and neurological structures both reshaped under his expert hands, but it wasn't a quick process. He'd reprogrammed the world's satellites, but reprogramming Fuyuhiko's brain felt infinitely more consequential.

Eventually, he had to activate the program and turn it over to the machine. It was out of his hands, now, and he could only wait, watch, and hope. Eighty-seven anxious minutes later, a light turned from green to white. The program had ended.

Fear and anticipation filled him in equal measure. He was almost sure this would work, but if it didn't, Hajime didn't have another plan. It would work, right? It would work. It would work. It had to work, he told himself as he reached for the pod's controls and tapped OPEN. It had to work.

The pod door slowly opened, and Fuyuhiko's eyelid followed.

Hajime leaned over him, realizing his own hands were shaking. "H-hey." He swallowed, feeling suddenly weighed down by the gravity of this moment. Either he was about to get Fuyuhiko back, or it would prove impossible. "How'd it go?"

Fuyuhiko blinked at him once. Twice.

Hajime looked down, and again swallowed hard.

Abruptly, Fuyuhiko lunged halfway out of the pod and grabbed Hajime by his shirt collar. "You asshole! I told you not to bother!"

"You told me?" Hajime repeated with a tremulous, hopeful voice.

"All of those fucking satellites? They're gonna know it was you!"

He swallowed. "And who am I?"

Fuyuhiko's lower lip quivered. "Hajime Hinata. The world's biggest idiot."

Delirious joy overtook Hajime, and he leaned in for a hug that lifted Fuyuhiko the rest of the way out of his pod. One arm wrapped around the other man's back, holding him close, while his other hand rested along the curve of Fuyuhiko's head. "You're the idiot," Hajime laughed, and rested his face against Fuyuhiko's.

"Fuck you," Fuyuhiko snorted, and wrapped his arms around Hajime in return, allowing himself to be held like he seldom did. "My plan worked great."

"Well, so did mine." Hajime's grip tightened, though he remembered in time that Fuyuhiko still had deep injuries lurking inside. "I picked you. Just like you picked me."

Fuyuhiko tried to say something, but failed.

"Thank you," Hajime whispered. Now that sun had returned to his world, he could admit to what fate Fuyuhiko had saved him from. "God, thank you. Never do that again. Never."

"That's the plan," Fuyuhiko whispered, and laughed once. It faded into a soft, twisted noise. "I thought I'd never see you again."

"And you do. You see me. Right?"

"Yeah." Fuyuhiko nodded against him. "I do."

Ultimate Hope felt like a worthwhile title, suddenly. "Come on," Hajime eventually said. He didn't let go of Fuyuhiko, though, and Fuyuhiko didn't step away. "Let's figure out what home's going to be, now."

[talanashta]

There's Too Many People On This Bed!

For @polyamships September prompt "bedroom" and this prompt for the Four or More Fic-a-thon @fourormore

Rating: T | No CWs | Word Count: 707 | Pairings: Steve/Eddie/Chrissy/Robin (obviously QPR Robin/the guys), blink and you'll miss it background Argyle/Jonathan/Nancy (all seven are in a polycule) | Steve's POV

This is the 1st part in what is going to be a post-S4 series about all of them; I've still got to think of a name for it [edit: the title is "my lonely days are gone". The rest of the series will be tagged with this too]

Once everyone started moving into the house, Steve had done a huge overhaul of most of the living spaces. Max needed a ground-floor, wheelchair-accessible bedroom; the young adults needed enough space to spread out when they didn’t want to be all over each other; and Steve needed a bigger bed in his room.

Well, his room needed a lot of things. The first thing Robin made him do was get rid of the plaid-on-plaid aesthetic he’d had since childhood.

“I picked it out when I was seven, Robs. Seven! Please stop getting on my case about it,” Steve pleaded.

“That means you’ve had thirteen years to change it since, and clearly, you haven’t,” she told him.

So, the wallpaper got torn down and replaced with a nice, neutral, striped wallpaper that promptly got covered in four people’s worth of wall decor. Chrissy and Robin put polaroids and mementos up, Eddie put up a few band posters and hung his guitars, and Steve just put up a mirror. What could he say, he was a simple guy.

The bed got swapped for a king-sized now that they were trying to sleep four people in there. Most days (especially when Eddie was being a bed hog), it was still a tight squeeze, but Steve wouldn’t have it any other way.

He’d spent most of his childhood and teen years in this house feeling lonely, but now it was so full of life, he didn’t get a moment’s peace. The kids were in and out at all hours of the day, all the young adults of the Party lived here, and the older adults would come over every once in a while for barbecues and family dinners and parties.

He’d never felt so loved and cared about. Most nights in their new bed, all four of them would cram in like sardines, protecting each other from the nightmares that came from everything they’d been through.

The bed sharing had started a long time ago as just him and Robin having sleepovers when they could get away with it. They couldn’t bear to be parted for too long. After spring break and Vecna, slowly Eddie and (occasionally, when she could get away from her mother) Chrissy would join them, until, after graduation, both decided to move in full time.

However, sometimes there were snags in the bed sharing. Like tonight, when Steve woke up to the sound of someone trying to open the bedroom door quietly. He blearily opened his eyes and looked to see Argyle standing in the doorway.

“Hey, brochacho,” he whispered to Steve. “Can I join you guys? I’m having a hard time sleeping with Jon and Nancy out of town.”

Steve just nodded at him, pulled Eddie closer to free up the edge of the bed, and went back to sleep.

Only to wake up just a short while later to an elbow in the ribs.

After he rearranged Robin’s limbs to be less jabby, he dozed off again.

Only to wake up again, this time with Eddie half on top of him, and not in a nice snuggly way, in a trying-to-smother-him way.

Okay, so he got Eddie readjusted and fell asleep again.

He gave up after he woke up a third time with Argyle’s hair in his mouth. Wasn’t Eddie between them? He looked for Eddie, only to find him wiggled about halfway down the bed with his face buried in Argyle’s stomach.

Steve let out a deep sigh and slowly maneuvered himself out of bed. He tip-toed across the hall to what Eddie called the Sex Dungeon, but was really just a spare bedroom that they would use to not sexile anyone from their actual bedroom.

There, Steve sprawled out on the bed, limbs askew. He sighed again, this time in relief, and dozed off, enjoying having this much bed space to himself.

And woke up again when Robin flopped herself on top of him.

“Missed you, dingus,” he heard her mutter, already most of the way back to sleep.

Steve just stared at the ceiling for far too long, before giving up on sleep for the night and holding Robin for the last hour or so until it was time to get up.

[windchimesgames]

End of Year Recap + Plans for 2024

Hey everyone!

Belated Happy New Year to everyone! I know this is a very late end of year recap 😂Unfortunately, the past week ended up much busier for me than expected, so I could only get around to doing this now that things have calmed down a little.

This is a crosspost of a public post I made on Patreon a few days ago, so if you prefer the formatting there, you can read the post at this link:

PS: I do free monthly devlogs / posts there on Patreon, so consider joining the free tier of the Patreon even if you aren't interested in the paid tiers!

For those who'd rather read the post here, I'll leave the extraordinarily long ramble in a Read More cut below!

Let's start with a quick recap of the highlights / achievements accomplished in 2023!

Okay, this one may be slightly cheating. While Emberfate only launched on Steam in Jan 2023 so the 92 positive reviews came in in the year of 2023, it was up on Itch.io since mid 2022, so not all 383 Itch.io ratings came in in 2023.

Still, I'm pretty proud of these stats! Perhaps the numbers are nothing compared to some other amazing games' out there, but it's still something I'm proud of. It makes me happy that my silly experimental nostalgic little game struck a chord in so many players — much more than I expected given how niche the topic was!

Now, unfortunately, I could not get Emberfate's DLC for Potato's route out by end of 2023 like I had hoped. Porting the game to mobile also ended up much more difficult than I expected because of just how much of the UI I'm going to have to redesign — and hence, programming to be redone — if I wanted to make the game fit a small mobile screen. So both plans are going to have to be postponed to 2024.

The other notable highlight of 2023 is that both Lyrissa's and Kierdan's routes for Reanimation Scheme were released for beta access! That put the game at 3/5 routes complete, with a total of 431,786 words for the script.

I recruited a handful of beta testers to test the three completed routes a few months ago, and so far, the feedback has been positive overall. That's been a huge relief and lifted a massive weight off my chest — due to the controversial reception of the demo, I've been extremely anxious that the game would be hated by the players, and I've done so many rounds of editing and honestly perhaps somewhat unnecessary and obsessive rewriting of the script, but none of it felt good enough 😂 So hearing the positive comments has been a huge motivation / morale booster. Perhaps I should have done beta testing sooner… LOL

There are two more achievements unrelated to a specific game project that I'd like to mention:

2023 is the year that I became more interested in and better at Ren'Py programming! Most of it is thanks to my amazing programmer friend and Ren'Py wizard, Feniks (whom you may know as the programmer for Our Life series), who sparked my interest in programming and helped teach me a LOT. While I'm by no means a professional now at coding, I feel much more comfortable navigating around Ren'Py code and setting up what I need to in the backend of the games I'm developing, which opens up new doors for me for future projects in terms of what kind of features (big or small) that I may be able to include! Though the side effect of that is I looked back at the code I did for Reanimation Scheme from previous years and was immediately horrified by how ugly and inefficient it was. 😂I did redo the backend code of the Gallery and Achievements system a bit, but the rest will just have to stay for now.

I made quite a few new connections within the indie VN dev sphere in 2023! I made a shocking discovery that there's enough number of indie VN developers from Hong Kong to fill half a minibus, and I was lucky enough to connect with them and share our experiences and learn from each other! Due to new project commissions I took on for $$$ (real life financial needs suck), as well as a couple of small game jam projects I joined as programmer to buff up my programming portfolio, I also made some new VN dev friends unexpectedly. It's been really nice, because honestly, solo dev can be a really lonely and isolating endeavor sometimes. I'm super grateful for the new connections I found myself making in 2023!

Looking Ahead: 2024

Okay, that was a lot of rambling for the recap. More than I thought I would write. Now let's move forward to what the future will look like for this studio in 2024 and what goals I'm setting for myself this year!

Priority #1: Finishing Reanimation Scheme

Of course it's Reanimation Scheme. As mentioned above, we're currently at 3 out of 5 routes completed (sans partial voice acting). So the biggest goal for 2024 will be to get the game done. and out. Finally.

I won't be giving a concrete release date until we're like, literally in beta phase for all 5 routes, just so I won't have to announce a delay and let people down. But given the current progress and pace of work, I'd say probably around mid-year — maybe Q3 latest.

I'll be keeping up with the episodic updates of Reanimation Scheme's beta build on Patreon (and Kickstarter) from this month onwards, beginning with Jori's route and then followed by Sebastien's.

The remaining Kickstarter rewards may take a little longer — but ideally, all of them (artbook / lorebook / short stories collections, etc.) will be done by end of the year as well.

Priority #2: Potato's Route DLC for Emberfate

Potato, poor Potato. His DLC had to be put on the sidelines until Reanimation Scheme is done.

Half of the art has already been commissioned and completed by the amazing Remnantation — we're just missing his selfie CG & his MMO character sprite! So the next step would be the script and then the voice acting for the calls part. I won't be able to start on the script until mid-2024 earliest, but given the fact that his route won't be that long if it's parallel in length compared to the existing three routes, it probably won't take too long to do. Perhaps 2-3 months for the development process of the DLC?

I'll likely be releasing his DLC early on Patreon, potentially also episodically as it's completed, like I did with Emberfate. So if you're interested, keep an eye out for it when the time comes!

Something Secretly Brewing in the Shadows?

If you're pledged to this Patreon on $10 tier or above, you'll probably already know what I'm alluding to.

I won't be announcing or talking much about this for now, since I don't know when I'll be able to start working on this project properly (i.e. I need to meet my above two goals first). For all I know, it might end up being not a 2024 thing but a 2025 thing. So I'll only tease it slightly for now here.

Bonus Goal: Market, for the Love of God

If you follow Wind Chimes Games on either Twitter or Tumblr, you'll probably have noticed the sorry state of my social media. I… really do not like marketing or posting on social media. I never know what to post or say. I'm too unfunny and uncreative to meme or write humorous captions that get engagement. 😂It kind of feels like I'm shouting into the void, and nobody really cares about what I have to say on my projects when there's so many cooler and more interesting things out there. So I always try for a brief period of time, and then I give up 😭

This year though, I really really need to take marketing more seriously. With two releases planned for 2024, marketing is going to be important if I want the games to sell more than like 20 copies LOL

So I guess, uh, hold me to it and call me out if I don't start posting regularly after all 🥹

Conclusion

If you've made it this far on this post, thank you so much for listening to me ramble. 🥹 2024 is going to be a very busy year, but hopefully, a productive one that will end with me meeting all of the above listed goals.

Thank you so much for joining me on the wild and bumpy journey that was 2023, and I hope you'll stick around for the exciting things to come this year too! Here's to a great year ahead of all of us!

[kangamommynow]

Marriage advice from an old happily married lady.

Long post with some huge generalizations but I still have been thinking about it so I'm writing it anyway. It should be noted that I'm referring to male-female relationships, but the dynamic can also come up in other forms. It's the dynamic that matters, not the gender.

I was randomly scrolling videos yesterday and one made me stop and think. It was a woman posting that she used to look forward to when her husband came home from work, but now she dreads hearing him arrive. Not because she's abused, but because she's more lonely when he's there than when it's just her and the kids. The comments were ... Alarming. One woman after another saying the same thing. Either they were ready to leave and waiting for a specific time, usually having to do with the kids, or saying they were checked out of the marriage but couldn't leave, usually for financial reasons.

This isn't new. It's not surprising. And I also know a shit ton of people in exactly the same position.

She feels lonely, disconnected, unheard, unloved. When she's asked for help, repeatedly, specifically, in the past, her needs have been dismissed. She's asked her partner to step up as a co-manager of the household, as a co-parent of the kids, as a co-partner in the relationship, she's been accused of nagging, and her responses have been called emotional. She's stopped asking for help and has lost respect for the person she married. When he comes home, it's not a relief, it's another demand on her time, attention, and mental load. Another person she's responsible for taking care of. Her desire for connection has been met by requests, or demands, for sex and she feels he only wants to use her body, not the intimacy she craves. Every time she reached out for affection it's turned into another task to fulfill someone else's needs rather than honor her own. So she stopped seeking it and pulls away when he offers it, and her refusal to use sex to try to get what she needs is met with hostility, coldness, and greater distance. She's stopped asking for anything from him. She's stopped expecting anything. They are, at best, roommates with kids and some shared expenses.

AND

I have had conversations with a lot of men, on Tumblr and elsewhere, where I've heard the other side of the story.

He's feeling lonely and disconnected and unloved. The woman he married who was fun and sexy and made him feel good is gone. Now when he comes home, stressed from work and wanting to relax, it's to coldness and more demands. Nothing seems to be enough and he doesn't know what to do. When he tries to connect she pulls away. He can't make her laugh anymore. She used to put effort into looking nice, doing things that brought comfort to him and now she doesn't. He spends more time seeking enjoyment from his hobbies or interests because there isn't the connection he craves in the marriage. Sex is non-existent or he feels like he has to beg for it, and sex is one of the ways he feels most connected to her. Maybe he's filling that craving in affairs, or porn, or flirting online, because he certainly doesn't feel desirable to her anymore. Resentment is growing.

YEAH.

Every relationship is different, of course, and I'm excluding any abusive and deliberately manipulative behavior here - that's a separate issue. I'm talking about relationships that started with best intentions, with affection. In my opinion, the issue comes down to communication and the difficulty we often have with expressing our needs and desires with compassion and a desire to connect, listening with a desire to understand and avoiding a response that is defensive. Most people I know need a lot of practice and often some professional help to do it. Our society generally still convinces men they aren't supposed to have needs other than sex, much less talk about them. And women are still considered, like it or not, as unnecessarily emotional, irrational and petty. Often we fall into those communication traps and suffer for it.

What I'm hearing is some big red flags.

- does one person in the partnership do all the managing? That person is responsible for remembering birthdays, doctor's appointments, grocery shopping, school communication, making sure dinner is made and the toilet is cleaned? Is the other person expecting a list of delegated tasks? If only one partner knows where the scissors are and when parent teacher conferences are and who the kid’s teachers are, Then it's not an equal partnership in parenting and household management. It's a marriage killer, unless you have both explicitly arranged things this way and you come back to discuss that agreement regularly. 🚩

- almost everyone craves affection, intimacy, connection. What that looks like to each person is unique and unless you are explicitly expressing what makes you feel loved and asking what makes your partner feel loved, you are in trouble. For many women, sexual desire is responsive. Intimacy comes first, then desire. If she doesn't receive non-sexual affection and emotional intimacy, then sexual intimacy will start to feel like another task to be completed. For many men, sex is a primary way of achieving intimate connection. It's a recipe for disaster unless you are communicating about it. 🚩

- Stress is a desire killer for many people (men and women). For others sexual connection is a stress reducer, so they seek it when stressed. Again, miscommunication is very bad, incredibly common, and a couple's sexual connection can quickly go wrong, leaving both parties feeling unfulfilled, disconnected, lonely. 🚩

I admit it’s hard for me to communicate, too. I’m incredibly happily married to someone who has difficulty communicating as well. But we try! Compassion for those struggles and love each other the way we need love, a desire to serve each other and make our partner feel comforted and adored helps even when we have trouble putting our needs into words.

[momotonescreaming]

Your posts and fics about Steve not being a pushover are some of my favorite in this fandom! I was wondering if you had any thoughts or headcanons about how Steve would deal with other members of the older party, instead of the younger party? This is more so in fanon than canon, but people mocking his intelligence or being surprised he's not a douche? Thanks!

Oh!! Thank you so much!!! That really means a lot! I'm always a little nervous when I make another post about Steve's boundaries and how fanon sometimes treats him, so it's a relief to hear people like them haha. 

You raise an interesting question! And one I will admit I haven't thought about too much, actually. Most of my posts have been about Steve and Dustin, as that's what I've been thinking about lately, but you're so right that the older teens do it too. LOTS to think about. So fair disclaimer that I'm thinking and writing by the seat of my pants here. 

I do just want to start off by saying that fanon is fun! Taking canon apart and disecting it, taking out its parts and figuring out how it works is fun! Diving deep and analysing and comparing what the writers intended vs what they ended up portraying vs what the fans thought. Media analysis baby! But fanon (like canon), can't cater to everyone. I'm just a Steve girlie with a lot of feelings. Not to say canon's exempt, of course. These ideas had to have come from somewhere. And I swear that each season gets a little bit worse at turning Steve into a verbal punching bag. A joke. He was supposed to be Nancy's jerk boyfriend who died, but everyone loved Joe Keery so much they kept him alive. And now they thank him by boiling his character down to a dumb jock who was an asshole. It's tiring. 

I remember ages ago there was a post (that I cannot find for the life of me) that pointed out that in season 1 Steve says the word connoisseurs (in the scene with the camera smashing) but if they made him say that in season 4 they would have made Dustin make a comment how he didn't know Steve knew a word with that many syllables or something.

All this insulting Steve, all the canon jokes and fanon characterisation shitting on his interests and his personality and the fact that he decided to be a better person 3 years ago by the time S4 rolls around? Just feels like an excuse to shit on the jock. Revenge of the nerds. But it just makes the nerds look like bullies. Like the Duffers got bullied by jocks when they were kids and now they're making it everyone else's problem.

But to the actual point of this ask! The older party! Below the cut because this got long.

First up is Eddie! With canon Eddie a part of me doesn't think he would make fun of Steve's intelligence or call him a douche post season 4. A big part of Eddie's journey was him getting his whole world turned upside down (pun not intended). With the whole monsters thing, but also with his worldview! He thought he was confident and tough, but realised that he panicked when things got real (which I mean, fair, but that's not what we're talking about). And that he was making assumptions about people based on his own unfair biases! He canonically admits to Steve that he couldn't accept the fact that Steve is a Good Dude and the only reasons he thought he was a douche was that he has rich parents, was popular, and chicks love him. Nothing based on Steve's actions. Him turning around after all that to comment about Steve's intelligence, or bringing up his non existent assholery again just feels like a huge backslide. Doing both their characters a real disservice.

But you mentioned fanon more than canon, and there are absolutely fanon Eddie's out there who would insult Steve like that. And I gotta be honest - I don't think that Steve would take that lying down. Steve absolutely has an angry knee jerk reaction to things during this show. Back in S1, but also in S4 - when he says to Dustin that he was going to punch him so hard his teeth would fall back out. If Eddie, the new dude, decided he was going to be a jerk and insult Steve's intelligence? Steve would absolutely retort that it was fucking rich coming from the guy who failed senior year twice. Which is harsh, but I'd be angry too if I saved this guy's life and he turns around and calls me stupid for it. He'd call Eddie a hypocrite.

One thing I like about Steddie (both platonically, and romantically) is how they're on equal footing. The get along. They respect each other. Stop making Eddie a jerk to Steve for no good reason.

Eddie bringing up he thought Steve was a douche feels better than the other instances because he admits he was wrong!! Willingly! To Steve's face! But any times after? Steve would drop Eddie like a hot potato. He's not going to hang around with someone who's a dick to him for no reason. The fact that they went through the Upside Down together isn't going to make him suffer through it. Like, there's no way Steve hung out with Nancy and Jon after the breakup. No Upside Down monsters could make that less awkward.

Speaking of other instances - Robin. Stobin, my beloved. Sometimes I wonder if people actually like Steve, or if they just put up with him because him and Robin are a special deal. My thoughts on her are a little more all over the place, so bare with.

Is she a jerk to him in Season 3? Yes. But she's also a lonely, angry, teen, holding a grudge against him for no good reason. The only 2 things she says she hated him for were - he ate bagels messily in class, and that he didn't pay attention to the girl she had a crush on. Once again, nothing substantial.

But then they get tortured together, they become best friends. They get a job together again and he drives her to school. Robin canonically is the one to bring up what if they could combine into one person. She cares about Steve! She loves him so much she wants to merge with him!! And yet so much fanon has her acting like Steve is a bad rash she can't get rid of. Insulting him at every chance she gets. I get that friendships have gentle ribbing, teasing and jokes, because you know them and you know where their line in the sand is. But a lot of fanon feels like Robin rubbing salt into the wound. Taking it too far.

How many times does Steve have to apologise for being an asshole when he really wasn't that bad in the first place?

Steve reinforcing his boundaries with aggressive fanon Robin would be more chill than Eddie, I think. More like a conversation. Like, hey, you're my best friend and what you're saying is actually really hurting me? Could you please stop because it really doesn't feel like you want to be my friend since you won't stop insulting my intelligence? Robin isn't just an angry teen on her own anymore, she has a friend and the things she says has an effect. I can see him being more conservative with it than him telling Tommy & Carol that they're assholes. If he loses Robin, he goes back to his only friend being Dustin. But he'd still bring it up. He wouldn't just roll over and take it.

If she didn't listen when he talked to her like an adult? That's when he'd call her out like he did Tommy and Carol. If he can call out his best friends before, he'd do it again. It'd suck, but he needs to put himself first.

Nancy and Jon I'm still thinking about.

Jon doesn't like Steve, doesn't respect him, and canonically says mean things about Steve still, after Steve's done so much to atone, to save and help everyone. That mean joke he makes at the end of S4 about Steve being in charge? Oof.

A part of me can see Steve being like 'who cares what that guy thinks, I know myself'. But I'm afraid I just don't have a lot more on Jon. He's just not a character I'm a big fan of so I'm not as confident with his characterisation.

Nancy however? Nancy would hurt. Steve loved her, cared for her, she was there when he was trying to be better, when he was atoning. (I know that Steve says that Nancy was the bump on the head he needed, but he's wrong. He did it himself. But that's besides the point.). He went with her to the Hollands, he saved her little brother's life, him and all the party. With Billy and then in the tunnels. He opened up to her, she helped him with his college essays. She broke his heart and for her to turn around and comment on his intelligence? to call him a douche? would fucking hurt. Not at the same level as the S2 drunk bathroom bullshit convo, but it would hurt.

A part of me can see Steve doing the whole - pinch the bridge of your nose to hold back the tears and leave - thing like in S2 after the party. But a part of me could see Steve having had the time away from her to say something. But IDK. I'm not too sure on this. If she wasn't going to be mature about their breakup, about the things he told her, wasn't going to respect him and not insult him after all the things she's done? I'd say leave her behind, but I don't know if Steve would. He has a big heart. It might just be easier to take the bittersweet option and quietly let her go. Don't interact.

ANYWAY. OOF. Sorry this got so long, I was thinking and then my brain kind of ran away with me. Hopefully this was the sort of thing you were thinking? It was a fun thought experiment either way!!

[jimiminily]

Jin is officially discharged from the military! 🥳🎊

Welcome back Jin 🫶💜

It has been 548 days/18 months/1.5 years

(enlisted: Dec 13, 2022

Discharged: June 12 2024, today!)

Welcome back Jin 😊🥳🎊💜🫶

Firstly it feels so unreal TT im so happy Jin is back, I am really really proud of him. He did so good in his military journey, I'm actually really stunned

Oh I love him so much I can't describe the feeling

He's the first member that got enlisted, now he's the first one to be released/discharged from the military 💜

Now nothing can take him away and that's a relief ☺️💕 finally his military is over

Let's stay forever and together 💜

Welcome back loml 🩷

Today he got discharged and behind the gates you could see him bidding farewell to his military friends, they were all hugging and shedding some tears 🥹

and the members greeted him in front of the military gate, and Yoongi was at HYBE waiting (for reasons, iykyk), and it was such a beautiful moment 🥰 haha Namjoon came with a saxaphone playing dynamite, everyone was hugging each other ☺️ but Taehyung became really buff, in such short time?? They all became a little bigger/buff, and Jimin hugging Tae and Jin looked so wholesome and cute especially with tae 🥹 precious Jiminie🩷

It was great to see hobi and jungkook again 😌💕 I miss them all

Jin arrived at HYBE and started live, I missed him so much omg 😭🫶 it sounds super unreal to watch him start live, he was still in his uniform and shared stories from the military, showed his awards/certificates etc.

I noticed his voice became a bit deeper and he talks a little bit differently yknow like a soldier but that's obvious because he spent a really LONG time in the military, and that is SO adoring 🥹💕💕 the way he talks, the voice I don't know why it is so adoring to me I missed him so so so much.

he's so adorable I'm starting to tear up again Hhahahaha it's been such a long long time🫠 welcome back Jin 😌❤️

Remaining members left to be discharged:

• Hoseok: 127 days left (17 oct, 2024)

• Namjoon and Taehyung: 363 days left (10 june, 2025)

• Jungkook and Jimin: 364 days left (11 june, 2025)

• Yoongi: 374 days left (21 June, 2025)

And these are the links to the weverse posts and live from Jin ♡ (added translations), also a link to BTS long awaited ot7 picture on twitter

@BTS_twt todays tweet on twitter

[Translation] 'I (went) and come back'

______

[240612 Jin 🔴 Weverse Live: D-day]

🐹 hello everyone, its been such a long time. bangtan! hello its bts' jin. its been a year and a half. its been so long since being in front of a camera and im not too sure what to say but ill try my best. ah whys the screen turning back in my day it worked so well

normally im much better looking but at my discharge ceremony earlier i cried a bit so im a bit swollen. and i came back to the company and the staff greeted me with posters and everything and this flower *brings out huge flower* oh okay go away now *tosses flowers*

🐹 I came into the building and all the staff were there with a huge bouquet and telling me welcome back! I was so happy and the tears came. I cried twice.

As a soldier, I was telling the soldiers that they shouldn't cry, but they were crying and they were soldiers I spent a year and a half with and I cried.

🐹 Everyone, I've been discharged. It's been a year and a half and I wanted to look good for you but. *shows certificate* It's official. I got a lot of awards. I think I recieved 7-8 awards.

🐹 There was another soldier named Kim Seokjin in our unit so they called my name out twice and I got confused.

my friends also made and wrote me this poster. ah im embarrassed to say this but i was really popular in the military so the posters written with tons of words. they said to read it at home so im going to read a bit here

🐹 This guy wrote me asking to greet a girl group on his behalf

🐹 You dude, see I have only 3 celebrity friends

LMAO THIS ONE GUY WROTE A MESSAGE WHERE HE WANTS JIN TO PASS HIS GREETINGS ONTO SOME GIRL GROUP AND JIN'S LIKE I TOLD Y'ALL I ONLY HAVE LIKE 3 CELEBRITY FRIENDS?

🐹 "Seokjinnie-Hyung, thanks to you I had so many experiences I will never forget. Thank you. I'm glad we were able to have such good food and good memories. To get to chat with, get scolded along with, live with the world star I was fan of since middle school, it was an honor.

I wasn't scolded though. Cuz I was an ace.

🐹 now! i need to talk about festa. i gave some good ideas but it was criticized! i proposed something for festa since ill have to do it alone, so i talked to the director in charge of festa around oct/nov? but they said theyve already said theyve planned most already. so i suggested a free hug, and they said no. so i pitched my idea of doing a free hug at an outdoor location where we do festa. but they said people could get hurt. but i kept saying i wanted to do it for a month or so because i wanted to hug those who have waited for me. so the company was in discussions, and they proposed that instead of a free hug, how about indoors where one person at a time is let in, and i tried to argue against saying i wanted an outdoor one. and they also said i should only do 50 since its the day after my discharge but i said no, 3,000 people and they finally agreed to 300, and i said no as much people as possible, and they said 500 and i said no, more and we finally agreed on 1,000 people

and this is something i personally wanted to do, so im not sure if the other members will do it. i dont really want this to be pushed to the other members as well. this is purely my interest although i was proposed other events such as fan signs. but i really wanted to do hugs

🐹 i discharged today right? so i havent had much to prepare, but i will do something, but i havent had much to practice and i havent sung in around a year and a half, and i rode in the car with jimin today and we've both talked about how we both are out of practice

now that im a free civilian, i will come to see you often!

i will express my heart to all of you tomorrow!

and i asked cameras to be allowed (t/n: to the festa event) so i hope everyone takes lots of pictures

🐹 our ARMYs who waited for me, thank you the most and love you

🐹 on June 13th, I will— AH IT'S TOMORROW*LONG GASP*

🐹 TOMORROW ! I'll express my feelings/thoughts to you

🐹 ill see you tomorrow! i love you army! thank you! 🫶 bye~ bye~ bye~~ 👋

______________________________

💬 BTS WEVERSE POST JIN/SEOKJIN 240612 (1)

'The company has prepared for festa hard, the free hug idea that I talked about was just something I said, everyone ㅠㅠ what I said about coming up with the idea together it seems the context was delivered with the wrong meaning ㅠㅠ

And since there's a lot of people for hugging tomorrow, I request you to pass by quickly ㅠㅠ it will be hard to have a conversation and it's expected go as planned smoothly if you pass by quickly after a quick hug.. looking forward to your cooperation [cutely] ♡'

-------

💬 BTS WEVERSE POST JIN/SEOKJIN 240612 (2)

'Thank you so much to the people and reporters that came and took pretty discharge pictures, and thank you so much to ARMYs that came in front of the company and gave me love because of my discharge

i couldn't give my proper greetings in case it would get too chaotic but i'm so so thankful ~♡

our ARMY are the best'

______________________________

💜 TOMORROW BTS 11th YEAR ANNIVERSARY! 13th JUNE! 💜

Jin will be there tomorrow with ARMY's (big events) Like hugging 1000 ARMY's 🥹

See you tomorrow again Jin 💕🙈

[you-fuckin-judas]

Young Royals : The importance of physical touch [P2]

The first part of this was very well received, and for that thank you!

I've been reading everyone's responses and the tags and I'm very happy that so many people enjoyed what I had to say? You're all very kind and for that I thank you 💜

If you want to read that first part you can find it here

OKAY I couldn't fit all my favorite moments in the last post, so let's continue on!

Consensual physical touch [continued]

What are we going to do? [ Season 1 Episode 6 ]

They have just been HIT by a HUGE amount of stress and trauma, and the first thing they do when they are alone is break the barrier of space. They are both more at ease and willing to figure things out if they can have the comfort of touch from the other.

This season they had been lit with a lot of soft golden ambient light, and this is one of the scenes when shit gets real and scary. To have the lighting change also, really sets the mood for what is going on.

But we never lose the feeling of the touch we got when we did have the golden light, even though things are getting intense their love is still the same.

are you..are you okay? [ Season 1 Episode 2 ]

OKAY there's a lot to discuss here because it's a back and forth test between the two of them.

We have first, the jump scare which walks us RIGHT into the first touch of their hands. Which Simon is leading, and really trying to figure out if things are going the way he thinks they are.

Which starts well, until they get spotted by Sara, causing Wille to straight up panic and run, which causes Simon to also panic and follow.

I've heard quite a few people say the first kiss was awkward and uncomfortable to watch, and I'll tell you what if you've never tried to kiss someone when you aren't sure? It's terrifying. and awkward.

You're jumping into the ocean and it's pitch black and you aren't sure if the other person is gonna help you swim or if they are gonna drown you.

In this case Wille takes a little too long to respond and Simon tries one more time, really REALLY trying to see if he's right or not.

Once Simon realizes, hey this doesn't feel like a two way road, he panics and tries to leave. He doesn't push Wille, he understands that he isn't responding so he immediately tries to fix it. But Wille grabs him and begs him to stay, realizing finally at that point what is happening.

Again, breaking the separation of space between them trying to communicate that he essentially messed up.

He brings Simon closer, not immediately, but slowly to show him that he does understand now and that he is willing to see where it goes. He doesn't say it. He's showing it.

This is where our beautiful unspoken language of consensual physical touch is at, they have broken the barrier of space and stay in this INTIMATE tight space for a decent amount of time to get their bearings.

To understand that yes this is something both of them want, even if it took Wille just a bit longer to figure out.

AGAIN shout out the intimacy coordinator because I could feel the heat of embarrassment and anxiety off this scene and it was so real it made me need to take a lap around my house.

Simon let's Wille initiate the kiss, he's already tried initiating twice and failed he's not about to push it. He stays exactly where he's at, he wants Wille to communicate physically that it is in fact actually a two way road.

jag älskar dig [ Season 2 Episode 6 ]

This scene is so INTIMATE and personal again, I feel like we shouldn't be allowed in the hall with them. Simon is finally telling Wille he wants to be with him, regardless of if he's a secret or not at this point.

That he loves Wille. AND HE SAYS IT. This is a rare occurrence where Wille has felt Simon love him but for once he actually needed to hear it.

This is also a rare occurrence where we get a very physical emotional reaction out of Wille : the breath of relief, the glossy eyes, the clinging to Simon.

We still have people who can see them from the hall, so we aren't going to get what we assume would be the most wholesome kiss we would ever see.

But the build up to it is there, it's very similar to the scene in season 1 episode 5 when they are in Simon's room. They aren't ever breaking physical contact, regardless of who's watching because that is how special this moment is to them. They are communicating without speaking.

That this is all they want, bringing themselves back in again to this really tight intimate space.

Sharing breath.

Faces mere inches apart.

Just for the sake of being together. It's beautiful. And I absolutely wept watching it.

Thank you for not leaving me alone with this. [ Season 1 Episode 6 ]

This is their first real intense test of their relationship and they know it, and it's scary.

The scarier part being they each have to go fight their part of it on their own, but we get this really beautiful scene between them before they part.

Simon is there trying to keep Wille calm and under control, and tells him that he's brave for doing what he needs to for the sake of their relationship.

Again, Simon is really good with words of affirmation but he knows sometimes Wille won't respond to hearing something like that as much as a physical touch.

So it's important he uses not only his love language but Wille's in this instance as well, so he breaks the space and gives a kiss of reassurance, while resting his head against Wille's. Once again bringing us back to that tight intimate space, which has become a safe space for them.

Which Wille immediately responds to pulling him in for a TIGHT embrace, his arms wrapped fully around Simon. I mean he's scared there might be a chance he could lose Simon, and he's literally clinging to the hope that doesn't happen.

This is also different then the hugs we've seen before from them. Usually Simon wraps his arms around Wille's neck, and Wille will wrap his around Simon's waist.

However we have what I like to call an X hug here, which is exactly what it sounds like. We have one arm over one shoulder and the other around the waist and the other person does the same just mirrored.

I personally usually associate this type of embrace with really intense emotions, like wanting to be as close to the other person as humanely possible and TIGHT, and this embrace is a good way for that to be possible.

[for instance if you see someone you haven't seen for a really long time, or if something really horrible has just happened and someone is consoling you]

The stroke of his thumb on Simon's shoulder is also something very tender in this moment I want to point out.

Thank you again for all the kind words on my analysis! I'm really enjoying making them! 😁

[blackbird-brewster]

Three years ago this week, I had a hysterectomy as part of a surgery to remove stage IV endometriosis that had taken over my body. The endo was so bad, my uterus, ovaries, and bowel were all adhered together in one large mass. My surgeon removed a large number of endo adhesions, cysts, and fibroids as well as removing my uterus, tubes, cervix, and one ovary.

It was unreal how even the immediate post-surgical pain was noticeably less than what my pain levels were beforehand. There's no cure for endometriosis, but the hysterectomy at least meant I would no longer have periods that caused me to black out from pain.

That alone was a huge bump to my quality of life. Unfortunately, endo is a relentless disease and within nine months of surgery, I started experiencing that well-known pain again.

I ignored it for as long as I could, not wanting to admit that it was back already, not wanting to go back to the non-stop appointments and scans, where my body belonged to the medical system.

Subconsciously, it was like if I didn't say it out loud, if I didn't seek treatment, it meant it wasn't real. I played wilful ignorance for nearly a year, but of course, while I was ignoring the endo, it was busy spreading.

The thing about endometriosis is, the only way to fully identify how bad it is, is to have surgery. Ultrasounds and MRIs can give an idea of what's going on, but surgery is the only way to medically dx it with certainty.

Surgeons can remove the adhesions, but that causes scar tissue and unfortunately, the more scare tissue you have, the more endo grows back. Even the most skilled surgeons can't remove every cell of endo in a patient.

How long it takes to come back varies by person, so I guess I just drew the short straw with only getting nine months of relief.

Luckily, there are some ways to manage the pain. I've been doing a chemical menopause treatment for about 18 months now. I get a monthly implant that stops my one ovary from producing hormones (which can make endo worse). And it's been LIFE CHANGING, to say the least.

This treatment has been SO effective on the pain, I mostly forget that I have endo at all. I rarely feel the pain, usually it's in the week leading up to my next injection when my implant is wearing off -- I feel it and the pain stops me in my tracks.

Lately, that pain comes earlier and earlier each month, and every month, the pain is worsening. I am terrified about what this all means. Usually, the treatment I'm on is only used for 6-9 months at a time. I'm already at 18 months, which I am grateful for. But even this isn't a long-term solution.

I'm so scared. I'm so scared of going back to the life I had before surgery. The life where I was in debilitating pain every day, the life where I was bed bound for weeks and months at a time, the life where my body belonged to the medical system, the life where I was always being poked, prodded, and scanned. The life where I made such regular visits to the emergency department, we had to keep a hospital go-bag at the ready.

I don't know what comes next. I don't see my gynae again until April and I desperately hope she says I can keep doing this treatment, because at least it manages the pain 80% of the time. But if I can't, if the long-term risks are too high and I have to come off this treatment, I don't know what I'm going to do.

I guess I'm posting about this to not only get this off my chest, but also so other people with endo might see it and know that you're not alone. This disease destroys lives and is a constant battle, but you're never alone. I see you. I'm so proud of you. All we can do is keep fighting. <3